[MaggieL]

Originally posted by jaguar
Why did you jsut say 'deer hunting' and got the hell over it? What does my view on gun rights have to do with asking you why you want an assult rifle?

Because (1) it's not the entire story (go back and read what I wrote again) and (2) your campaign for many postings has been "prove that you need to have a gun", along with a lot of blather about how I don't really. My reasons aren't subject to your review...which is apparently OK because even when I do lay them out you don't hear all of what I say anyhow.

Firstly when i said armed citizens i didn't mena gun owners.

A distinction without a difference.. Gun owners are armed citizens, and vice versa. By "gun owners" I mean legal gun owners...they're citizens, and they are armed.

I was evaluating the role of his thinking of an armed insurrection taking ot the streets, not the NRA throwing money at lobbyists.

What I said had <b>nothing</b> at all to do with lobbyists, (although it's always fun to drag that perjorative into the discussion, just like "eating wildlife" when you mean "hunting").

I was referring the people who elected him President. They're not lobbyists. And fortunately we're not yet at the point where our President needs to be in fear of an armed insurrection before he listens to the people he's supposed to be working for.

I've done enough martial arts, knife fighting and disarmament training to feel confident about taking on an attacker with a knife, unarmed.

Really? I've had martial arts training too, and what I was taught (along with the appropriate techniques) was that if you take on an assailant who has a knife and knows how to use it, with you empty-handed, you *will* get cut, perhaps fatally, unless you are very skillful, recently practiced, *and* very lucky. I respect that sensei very much.

It sounds to me like you've been taught a few techniques and fed some false confidence, which can be very dangerous.

I'm glad you finally came out and said that, youv'e been hinting at it all the time

No, I've said it on several occasions before, you must have missed it. I still think it's true, especially after your account of how you considered arming yourself once you got out of AU but got talked out of it. I sure hope that wasn't on the strength of what a bad-ass martial artist you think you are...in SE Asia, of all places.

I don't doubt you <i>believe</i> what you say, of course, it wouldn't be a good rationalization if you didn't.