Re: OT - Is it really worth saving any more?

[Nova]

Can you still legally purchase fully automatic weapons in Texas??? ;-)

[J. Clarke]

The states that I'm aware of with full-auto bans are California, Connecticut, and maybe New York (I'm not clear on whether the Sullivan Act applies to the whole state or just NYC). However the Feds have outlawed sales to citizens of any made or imported after 1986, and between that and the transfer tax the prices have gone through the roof.

[Lew Hodgett]

To put the Mexican drug wars in perspective, last week it was reported that there were more fatalities in Mexico than in the total MidEast theater.

37 in TJ alone which included at least 4 decapitations.

Nobody goes to TJ for the weekend these days.

Lew

[Mike Marlow]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008 17:36:53 -0600, Swingman cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

Point taken, but again - it's a point about a criminal elelment - not a point about either the right to bear arms, or law abiding citizens. That criminal element is not going to be affected by any of Lew's proposed legislation. In fact the only element that is going to be effected, is the legal element.

[Mike Marlow]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008 20:30:09 -0500, J. Clarke cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

Full auto ban is a federal thing, not a state thing. I think you need to research your data further. I'd like to offer a specific correction to your understanding, but to be honest, I don't know it myself. The Feds banned full auto (except for certain license holders) decades ago. Maybe back in the 30's or so?

[J. Clarke]

Except Nancy Botwin .

[Swingman]

"Lew Hodgett" wrote

Certainly not the Mexican's fault ... just that the media has yet to contrive a way to blame it on Bush. Stay tuned ...

[Upscale]

What exactly do you call "commonplace"? In Canada, Britain, Australia, Japan, China, The Netherlands, guns ARE NOT commonplace. Just because the US has guns enshrined in its constitution doesn't automatically include the rest of the civilized countries around the world.

Guess that rocks your "The USA is the centre of the universe" theory eh?

[Robatoy]

Of course it does. EVERYbody knows that it is The Netherlands which is at the centre of the universe.

[Tom Bunetta]

Subject: Obama style gun control is coming!

You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door.

Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows.

One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside. As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.

In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few That are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter.

"What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask.

"Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."

The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper.

Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times.

But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.

Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time.

The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.

The judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire?

It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of

1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.

Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed Man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.

The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)

Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland , Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.

For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearms still owned by private citizens.

During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.

Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.

When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kind of like cars.

Sound familiar?

WAKE UP AMERICA , THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.

"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."

--Samuel Adams

If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you know.

[Mike Marlow]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 11:35:56 -0500, Upscale cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

WTF??? Where does that crap come from? You made a blatently stupid statement, and I called you on it by demonstrating that in the US and other parts of the world guns are commonplace. Yet - there is not a warring citizenry as you so foolishly claimed. Then... you come back with this??? Just what in the hell does this response have to do with anything? Oh - I know - it's just a dig at the US and the second ammendment, right? Making foolish digs like this does nothing more than expose your jealousy for what you don't have.

Who cares that some countries do not allow guns to be commonplace. That has nothing at all to do with the point - which... now read really slowly... guns in the hands of law abiding citizens does not create a warring society.

Think you can get your head around that?

[Mike Marlow]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 08:54:17 -0800 (PST), Robatoy cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

And foolish me - I had overlooked the fact that those 6 countries constituted the civilized world.

[DiggerOp]

Perhaps not .....

It seems his sentence was reduced to manslaughter on appeal and that he served two thirds of a five year term before being released on July 28th 2003.

[Upscale]

Then why did you say it when you were trying to make a point?

I can get my head around the fact that you seem to be a highly stressed person. I certainly wouldn't want to be a warring citizen with *you*.

Which brings me to my point. I like being able to go out whenever I want and generally not have to fear that some unfortunate argument with another citizen didn't result in my being blown away because he lost his temper and happened to be carrying a gun. If however, I knew that most of my neighbours packed a gun, then I'd do it too as a means of self preservation. All that does is result in an escalation of armament and is not conducive to a generally well balanced society.

As humans, we all lose our temper from time to time, it's the nature of the beast. It happens to everybody. Why would I want to have most of the general populace carrying a gun when they lose their temper? It doesn't make sense.

I live in Toronto Canada. Much of the "gun news" lately has revolved around people getting shot just because they were standing in wrong place at the wrong time. While gangs and criminals have certainly been involved in a number of these shootings, a fair amount of those shootings were done by ordinary law abiding citizens who decided to carry a gun that day. There's really only one way to deal with that.

And you know what? I like to think about winning the lottery and likely relocating to the US somewhere. Somewhere they don't get snow or our frequent frigid winter temperatures. But you know what else? If I did move down to the US, sad to say that one of the first things I'd do was look into getting licensed and buying myself a gun for protection.

I think that's a sad state of affairs and a poor reflection of the little knowledge I do have about living in US society.

[todd]

The fact is that there is very little of the kind of gun violence you seem to be concerned about. I'd wager a dollar that there are more people killed by moose in Canada each year than innocent people killed by people with concealed carry permits in the US.

todd

[Upscale]

You could very well be right and I hope that's so. But, consider that I live in Canada, I've only been down to the US twice and a number of years ago at that. All I have to go on is what I read and what I hear, much of it might be the same as heard and read elsewhere around the world. If I'm as wary as I am and I live in a society so closely similar to that of the US, then what fears are surfacing (real or imagened) in other parts of the world, especially where society is so much different?

Yeah, those damned ornery moose carry pretty big guns. :)

[Han]

Mike Marlow wrote in news: [e-mail]:

There is indeed a line of thought that in the late 1500s early 1600s the modern concepts of trade, economics, science and arts were fleshed out in the Low Countries. Helped of course by the expulsion of Jews from Spain, and the better location for worldwide trade than the seat of the Renaissance.

Disclaimer: I'm Dutch by birth, and now US citizen.

Headline in today's NY Times: From Hoof to Dinner Table, a new bid to cut emissions. Methane from cattle and pigs are big contributors to greenhouse gases. Eat less meat!

[Robatoy]

Then, for an alternate source of protein, I like to eat romano- or kidney beans. Eat enough of those, and there won't be a pane of glass left in your greenhouse.

*smirk* r

[jo4hn]

Han wrote: [snip]

Ummmm... They don't call us old FARTS for no reason. j4

[Tom Bunetta]

So my sister informed me AFTER I posted. Tom