In one sense, they're a case study for gun rights. The most powerful army on the face of the earth has not been able to subjegate one of the most backwater shitholes in existence, because the occupants of that shithole have guns and a desire to keep us out.

If they had any sense to go along with their guns, they'd have some electricity and running water by now.

I'd say that culture has more to do with maintaining freedom and liberty, something we tried to tell George before he went in there. That said, I can't imagine giving up my weapon in a place like Iraq. I'd say the gun supports the culture but when the culture slips and the necessity for the gun appears I'd rather more stable folks were armed. The anthropomorphizing of these tools by the left is leading to a shift in the gun culture where only truly passionate right wingers will be armed. I'd rather the less politicized took it upon themselves.

It *is* the culture that keeps us free. So, by the time you feel the need to be armed, being armed won't protect you. When the culture slips you are doomed.

An armed society may well be the most impolite society you can possibly imagine.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard various L types say it was getting close to time to fight the system and taking up a gun is step one. Yes, there is a potential problem if you have a government armed and a population not armed. But as long as government is representational, there is a bigger problem with citizens armed and demanding to install the type of government THEY feel is best.

When anyone disagrees with you, your response is, to paraphrase, "you're not smart enough to understand". Sometimes, you don't express yourself well, sometimes there is just plain, old disagreement of opinion, and sometimes you're just downright wrong. But to you it's alway "the other guy is dumb". That's the attitude that is pervasive in conservative circles, and why I view most of them as assholes. But I guess you're just not smart enough to understand that...

Who is you white man? ;)

I'm conservative enough to want to maintain the culture we have. My anarchist streak gives me an intellectual urge to know, what would happen if?

Uppity citizens

What would happen if? Is that the national scale of, "hold my beer and watch this"? :haha:

Ibby is under eighteen, AFAIK. I'm fifty. I remember being seventeen, vividly I think. I remember being a boy before I was a man, and I remember how I thought as a boy, and how differently I thought as a man.

He's going to have to make the discovery that I'm the good guy for himself. Since he's not warped, merely not yet mature enough to impress a grizzled oldster with his maturity [edit: especially not just now -- I posted this before I read his two mini-rants, and I'm laughing as I type], and not unintelligent either, I think it is within his capacity to make the aforesaid discovery. I'm patient.

And I'm minded of what Mr. Dubois said of Johnny Rico in the Heinlein novel Starship Troopers.

So, Ibram's not old enough to think you're an asshole? I'm an adult--I'll co-sign for him: You're an asshole.

Those citizens would have to deploy some pretty heavy armament before that notion became a serious consideration. The government generally isn't worried about a citizenry with small arms overthrowing it. The city isn't worried about even it's armed police force overthrowing it; because, it can go to the State for National Guard support. The State isn't worried about it's armed National Guard overthrowing it; because, it can go to the Federal Government for Armed Forces support. The Federal Government isn't worried about the Armed Forces overthrowing it; because, there is a citizenry with small arms that could deny a total victory to the Armed Forces as it's experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Subversive citizens would need to use much more force to install a different government than the general population would need to prevent the government, if the government slips, from installing all different citizens.

Additionally, subversive citizens can pose as much danger (via domestic terrorism) to non-government personnel as to government personnel. Would you take away the non-subversive general population's ability to defend themselves with small arms? The subversives are going to acquire small arms whether they can be legally owned or not. The government can't even keep illegal drugs or illegal aliens out of this country let alone firearms. :confused:

Government does not deserve nor is it entitled to exist and operate with the comfort that the threat or possibility of revolution is pre-foreclosed. The point at which revolution is no longer possible is the moment at which government transitions from serving the people to ruling the people.

I want a gun for the simple reason that they don't want me to have one. Making government feel safer is not my job - making me feel safer is their job and I don't feel safer when they ask me to lay down my weapon while pointing theirs at my forehead.

While I respect that opinions differ, it still surprises me that people are willing to give up a right. And not just any right but the right to defend one's self. Ban guns all you want. Put me down for civil disobedience. And I'm past the point of parsing the 2nd Amendment. If the government doesn't care what it says then hey, neither do I.

Why does it surprise you? What percentage of citizens with the right to vote abdicate that right every election?

And harm millions with that decision.

WTF are you talking about? The government put the drugs on the street and hires the illegal aliens. :confused:

Many of you really don't look at things from other's perspectives, gays in fear of being bashed, those who carry large sums of cash for their work or just personal lifestyle, the disabled who are targeted for violence (yes we are) and cannot fight back, single women in areas of high crime.
& there has not been a non-lethal form of self defense that can drop a 300 lb man on steroids/drug or both like a .45 hollow-point can. Spray or electricity just pisses him off.
Until they invent it, Guns... and that is it.

The question is not whether or not it's logistically possible to overthrow a government with small arms, whether or not you are able to always avoid being victimized if you are armed, or whether the physical removal of all guns will somehow make us safer.

We are human beings, and as such we come out of the chute with two (among other) inborn traits: we're prone to violence, and we have the right to defend ourselves from attack. It's OEM. Society, upbringing, and circumstance exacerbates the violence, but that only reinforces the importance of our right to self-defence.

The Constitution reaffirms that right, but it does not grant it. What it amounts to is this: the government can't eliminate violence, so it has no right to deny us any means of defense we can conjure up, as long as exercising that defense doesn't harm innocents.

I didn't mean to spell defense with a C, but I think it makes me look Euro, and therefore liberals should automatically believe me.