Reread your last sentence. You called bans silly and then the very next thing was to agree with a ban. Very kindly, you can't have it both ways. Please choose one. :-)

I agree that bans on inanimate objects are silly. Why? Because in banning some thing or other you are declaring that the thing is the problem. The thing is not the problem. The people abusing that thing is the problem. Fully automatic weapons are not wrong in and of themselves, they can't be, they are objects, just sitting there, doing nothing on their own. It is the people who use them for evil that is the problem.

As long as we insist on labeling things as the problem we aren't going to solve the real issue, bad people.

:-)
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Great Point!
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coffeemoney is + 1


Nicely put. :-)
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Yep. Nicely said coffeemoney! :-)
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I am from the south, North Carolina to be exact. Yamamoto's point was about the amount of opposition that they would have faced in an invasion. He was trying to get the Tojo, and the other Imperial Army commanders to see reason when they were planning an attack on the US. The Navy knew that they would lose a protracted war with the US, the main reason being that they were running out of oil and scrap metal (which they had previously gotten from the US). The Army was for a war with the US because they wanted to try to break the US's support of China in the Second Sino-Japanese War (this is why the US had a trade embargo with Japan in the first place). The Army had cultivated a culture of believing that the Japanese infantry was superior to all and would be able to defeat anything because they had superior will and spirit. They would not have cared about the number of guns in the US.
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Another interesting fact.... 2 out of 3 Americans represent more than 66% of the total. :-) Times change. What was important in one era becomes irrelevant in another. Americans having or not having guns in todays world has little impact on national security. Having guns and the types of guns do however have an impact on personal security and safety. Being safer by having a gun and less safe through the ability of the few to harm in greater numbers with "military gear" being the opposite ends of the discussion. I believe assault rifles, automatic weapons etc. fall in the category of WMPD and should not be in private hands. Like nuclear weapons, fighter aircraft, tanks, etc. One on one guns are fine. One to many, too quickly do not serve the public interest and I believe were never envisioned by our founding fathers. Unfortunately, they are not here to ask, just their work product based upon their frame of reference a couple hundred years ago. Slavery is an interesting frame of reference when citing the sanctity of the words written by our founding fathers. Last time I checked women and minorities can vote now. Those words were written on parchment, not engraved in stone. The principles they represented were, by design, adaptable to the evolving nature of the nation. Liberty must always be balanced by justice.
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My thoughts on "assault weapons":

1. Just because a firearm looks scary, doesn't make it so. "Assault rifles" aren't automatic weapons--they just look like 'em.

2. A bolt action rifle with a scope in the hands of anyone who's a halfway decent shot is far more deadly than a AR15 with a full magazine.

3. And at close range, give me a pump-action shotgun full of 00 Buck over my MAC-91.

I see as much utility in an "assault weapons" ban as I do in taking my shoes off to get on an airplane. I think prohibitions like that basically come down to making folks feel more safe and secure--even though that feeling is merely illusory. I haven't read about any proposed new legislation or initiatives and hope that they don't appear because, ultimately, I believe that they're pointless.
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The items in the Bill of Rights were written as a protection for the people from the Gov't. The Bill of Rights limits the gov't and what it can do to the individual citizen and that's why each one is so important. If those who support gun control viewed the 2nd amendment as they do the 1st, guns wouldn't be banned, there ownership would be mandatory. Thomas Jefferson is quoted ad infinitum by those on the left side of the political spectrum, yet even Jefferson viewed the gov't as a necessary evil, i.e. something that should be limited in scope and power and subordinate to the rights of the individual.
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VirtualSmitty can have it both ways :-)
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Agreed on all accounts. Very nicely put!
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:-):-):-)
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First, I'm sorry that I obviously touched a sore spot with some people on this thread and I won't be addressing the insults that were hurled my way. However, as already noted I am entitled to have an opinion. My statement was only meant to infer that the second ammendment is antiquated and written during a time when there were no assault rifles or machine guns. Plus, at the time people mostly lived on isolated farms and there was no police force. Firearms were much less powerful and the world was on the whole a more dangerous place.

Also, Al has nothing to do with this post. :-)

I'm not saying no one should be allowed to own a gun and I would never say guns in general should be illegal. As Scott points out, there are people who have a definite need for a gun. I just feel there needs to be further legislation on top of the 2nd ammendment limiting the types of firearm available to the public and limiting who in the public gets their hands on them. Guns are a powerful tool and in the end the tool does what the user makes it do, but often tools end up in the wrong hands. Sometimes those hands have bad intentions and sometimes they are just inexperienced hands and an accident happens. So, why not limit the amount of damage that can be done with a gun. Does anyone really need a gattling gun?

In the end this is just my opinion and people can take it or leave it.
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Well, that clears that up!
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It is my opinion that this is the key fault in the thinking of the anti-gunners. A law that says it's illegal to own a machine gun has no effect on one who ignores the law. The same goes for illegal drugs and.. heh... cuban cigars. :-)
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Well yeah. There will always be law breakers. Otherwise we wouldn't need a police force right? :-)

However, I think everyone can agree that if drugs, machine guns, or even Cuban cigars were legal they would be more prevalent and easier to obtain.
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I'm staying out of this thread
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Think of how I feel! :-)
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Mikey, at a time, I was opposed to automatic weapons.
Then, for a lot of years, I watched how the government that is supposed to "protect and serve" me did what they do.
The protect me by taking away my rights and everyone else's.
If they get the gatling guns, then they go after the automatic weapons, then the semi-auto's, then the handguns, and keep on going until kids can't carry a cap gun.
I didn't pull that out of my butt. Take a look at how it's happened in England. Our ideas were born there, and you can see a never-ending string of parallels between their lawmaking and ours. They're just way ahead of us because their population density is far ahead of ours and they've had lots more time to do themselves in.

That wasn't my point at all.
My greatest fear is that some disconnected knucklehead who works in Washington and has never seen an ounce of what it's like in the "real world" will be the guy to decide if Scott Shilala has the need of a gun.
Scares me to death.

While I agree on many "guns are bad, mmkay?" points, most are based on real good guesses as to what might happen.
In all my life I have never heard or seen an assault rifle used in a crime. That's not to say it doesn't happen, but I've only ever seen it in the movies.
I've seen many handguns and shotguns used right here where I live.
So why are they going after the assault weapons instead of the handguns and shotguns?
It's because they know they can't get them. They have to whittle away at it. It's going to take time, and they have to get a foot in the door first.

I'm a firm believer that superior firepower is a deterrent.
If the bad guys have uzi's and I have an uzi, odds are the bad guys might get dead. End of problem.
If the bad guys never come up against equal force, where's it end?
If I have to fight off junkies crawling through my window with a rubber hose (because that's all Mr. Government decides I need) and the junkie is carrying a handgun, odds are that I'm gonna be dead and the junkie is going to crawl through my neighbor's window tomorrow because he has no reason to be afraid.
I don't want to have those odds stacked against me, and I don't want them stacked against you.
That'd suck.
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How do you folks feel about the progressive tax system? :-)
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Cram it hippie! :-)
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