If you outlaw guns, then only....

I can make a large bomb in a half a day from things you can get the day before, logistically you can get the info you need for a decent strategic strike in less than a week.

Most military bases have isolated water sources.

Who needs guns?

Again...

“God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed... what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.”
-- Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith on Nov. 13, 1787. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by BigV

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.

Not so much that, as that he's overreacting so as to embarrass himself with the memory. The boy has failed to distinguish frustration from hatred -- all I ever did to him was tell him that I was satisfied the evidence was that tw is a communist, that evidence being found in tw's writing and point of view. Such proof was not sufficient for the lad, and he seems to have gotten very excited when I told him in the course of the discussion that if he indeed did know all about communist propaganda he'd've spotted tw as a communist before I did.

Next thing I heard, he spent two entire posts trying to make Urbane Guerrilla feel bad. I should smile! I'm certainly not complaining.

And this is the sort of thing you'd ally with, V? Pretty silly of you. I still like you anyway -- a chips-are-down thing.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Where urb errs here is that he thinks he knows what Spexx thinks.

Are you about to tell me you've been lying the whole time? I read your posts, Spexx. They are quite clear.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by marichiko

No, Maggie, you just have paranoid fantasies from reading too much Ayn Rand. Liberal does NOT = collectivist.

It shouldn't, but the socialists have contaminated a previously honorable philosophy. At one time, liberals were about all the civil liberties. Now to their shame they cherrypick, and the cherries they select are overripe.

I do NOT advocate turning the US into a socialist nation, only the Republic it was once intended to be.

I wish your arguments would actually show that that's what you're doing -- a summary or even better some links would be okay.

You're the one who is advocating the destruction of our personal liberties by saying torture, breaking the Geneva Convention, and throwing out the 6th Amendment is a wonderful thing. You reveal too much of yourself, also, Maggie. and your problem is that you're dead serious when you do it.

But its not worth arguing with you. You're a fundamentalist Neocon who worships Jr. as your savior.

This is how Marichiko admits her arguments aren't as good as yours. And how, in the typical left-idiotic mode, she tries childishly to make you feel bad for winning out over her.

The anti-Republicans and anti-patriots have raised loud and unbecoming objections to EVERY SINGLE TACTIC AND STRATEGY THAT HAS HAD ANY LIKELIHOOD OF WINNING THE WAR FOR US and I am sick unto projective vomiting of it. Please consider the nature of our enemies.

Mari is, on legs, a reason why I am no sort of leftist.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Ok, gun control aside, would there be fewer deaths in America if there were no handguns? Simple question: only Yes or No answers accepted.

My answer: Yes.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Where Spexx errs here is that he thinks all deaths are equivalent: he is setting an Amish junior high schooler's death at the same value as Charles Carl Robert's death. He forgets: one was innocent. It is moral to value innocent life over that of the perp.

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Where urb errs here is that he thinks he knows what Spexx thinks.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Are you about to tell me you've been lying the whole time? I read your posts, Spexx. They are quite clear.

Their clarity is lost on you, then. I am actually pro-death penalty. I am NOT pro-vigilante-ism. If everyone were to pack a gun, there would be many more innocent deaths. Read RK's posts. To paraphrase, he says "shoot, if there is any question. If you wait until the question is answered, it may be too late - you'll already be dead". How many others have that same perspective, and would shoot people who intend them no harm? These would be innocent people (hint, hint). I do value all life - it's rare that a death is better than most alternatives, preventing other/more deaths being the best reason for someone to die. You've read my posts? read more carefully, laddie.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

... The anti-Republicans and anti-patriots have raised loud and unbecoming objections to EVERY SINGLE TACTIC AND STRATEGY THAT HAS HAD ANY LIKELIHOOD OF WINNING THE WAR FOR US and I am sick unto projective vomiting of it. Please consider the nature of our enemies.
...

Sometimes, being anti-repubican is being patriotic.
Sometimes, being patriotic means not going to war without good reason, or getting out of a war that has no upside for us, is exceptionally expensive, is decreasing our standing in the world community, is doing more harm than good, is causing the deaths of American troops, on and on and on.

[Hippikos]

The anti-Republicans and anti-patriots have raised loud and unbecoming objections to EVERY SINGLE TACTIC AND STRATEGY THAT HAS HAD ANY LIKELIHOOD OF WINNING THE WAR FOR US and I am sick unto projective vomiting of it. Please consider the nature of our enemies.

UG still believes Bush went to war for patriotic reasons. God bless him.

[Flint]

Despite all these freedom-hating objections, the War For Terror has gone smashingly...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Spexx, darling... it's always good to replace a dictatorship with a democracy, and that very seldom happens by election, dictatorships being what they are. That seems to this democracy-lover to be quite a good and sufficient reason.

This has been understood in Christendom since the concept of 'just war' was floated in the fourth century by St. Augustine. And you were -- where? I perceive some lacunae in your education.

So, no: in this case, being anti-Republican is in no wise being patriotic, and you cannot show it so. Come on, you don't love democracy enough to want it to spread even into those places which most lack it? They'd benefit most from getting it, you know.

[JayMcGee]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Spexx, darling... it's always good to replace a dictatorship with a democracy, and that very seldom happens by election, dictatorships being what they are. That seems to this democracy-lover to be quite a good and sufficient reason......

.

..... and who said the yanks don't understand irony...

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Their clarity is lost on you, then. I am actually pro-death penalty. I am NOT pro-vigilante-ism. If everyone were to pack a gun, there would be many more innocent deaths. Read RK's posts. To paraphrase, he says "shoot, if there is any question. If you wait until the question is answered, it may be too late - you'll already be dead". How many others have that same perspective, and would shoot people who intend them no harm? These would be innocent people (hint, hint). I do value all life - it's rare that a death is better than most alternatives, preventing other/more deaths being the best reason for someone to die. You've read my posts? read more carefully, laddie.

You definitely need to rephrase that to state "read into RK's posts".
I pointed out specific situations.
I was in security for three years, had knives, broken bottles and suspected people of having guns more than once, pulled on me... I have yet to shoot someone in that situation.
The times I did shoot at people the threat was clear or the interpretation had to be made in favor of deciding to assume that they were more than likely to use their weapons as not to, or I was being shot at.

Again, however, if someone is in my home uninvited & unannounced I am not going to ask to see their weapon... as a good father and the protector of my family I have NO CHOICE but to assume they are armed and their to kill us.
There is no time for anything else. That is a fact.
Giving them the opportunity to kill me makes me a bad father, husband and person.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by JayMcGee

..... and who said the yanks don't understand irony...

Anti-democrats would like to pretend this is irony. The rest of us know better.

[footfootfoot]

I have no defined, resolved opinion on this matter. I'd love to own a gun, they appeal to me on many levels,I may in fact buy one at some point. More of a rifleman than a handgunner, though there is a lot of fun in shooting handguns.

Most of the reasons people post about protection, revolution, etc. don't really sway my opinions.

I did see a funny bumper sticker the other day: If guns are outlawed only outlaws will accidentally shoot their children. But that is the problem with the whole debate. almost instant recourse to wild, emotionally freighted arguments and very little objective fact. A lot of unlikely "what if..." scenarios used as reasons to be armed.

I know a lot of gun owners and out of the group I'd say only about three of them are truly safe and responsible about their firearms.

I, personally, would like the right to buy pistols and rifles, and I'd also like the right to vet who else gets to buy them.

As for the old intruder in the house scenario I wouldn't need a gun. I'd be perfectly capable of beating the pulp out of someone with a lamp or chair or handful of quarters in a sock.

I can improvise.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I know a lot of gun owners and out of the group I'd say only about three of them are truly safe and responsible about their firearms.

I know a lot of unsafe gunners. To me you can make all the pragmatic arguments you want, but gun ownership is a political decision that says the individual's rights outweigh the State's. Of course I'm into the scotch...

[xoxoxoBruce]

As for the old intruder in the house scenario I wouldn't need a gun. I'd be perfectly capable of beating the pulp out of someone with a lamp or chair or handful of quarters in a sock.

Even if it was Chuck Norris?