Summations Only

huh? A go ahead to assassinate nearly random people?Do you have any support for that assertion?

No, but when Obama shares his secret criteria used for selecting his targets of assassination, I'll make sure I share it with you.Until then, we'll need to adopt Britney Spears' mindset:

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Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.

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Edited by dronester, : completed Britney's incomplete quote

I think you're overestimating how much training we're talking about. Believe it or not, police and military officers in training aren't studying gunplay 24-7. It's not actually that hard to use a firearm and the principles of its safe operation are not complicated. My wife holds the rank of Captain in the US Army, and her firearm training was two days out of two and a half months.We're actually thinking of getting a gun, just so she can practice - she's got zero gun background, so qualifying has been an issue for her. She needs a lot more practice than the Army is able to afford her. Well, that's good.I'd rather promote norms of proper gun ownership, than have weapons be viewed as something that it is inherently illegitimate to own and therefore, like the UK, have their possession relegated only to criminals. Particularly since we can't have gun bans here due to the Second Amendment.You'll get no argument from me that owning a gun should come with a requirement that one be trained with it. I've already put forward a proposal for a magazine ban, which I believe doesn't infringe on Second Amendment rights. I think there's very reasonable gun control steps that could be, and need to be, taken. And I certainly find much fault with organizations like the NRA that do much to feed "gun-nut" paranoia and obstruct reasonable efforts to regulate gun ownership. I'm sorry if it feels like I've taken their side - that's unintentional, it's just nobody's staked out the NRA's position in these threads for me to argue with. I'm sure from where you are on the spectrum, it looks like I'm over on the NRA's side. But I'm not. As I said I don't even own a gun. Oni, there's no "training" for that. The training that police and military personnel get is how to shoot what you're aiming at, how to keep the gun clean, under what circumstances you can be armed etc. That's all the training my wife received that had to do with firearms. There's no point in the training where they say "ok, these are the guys you need to shoot; these are the guys who look like they need to be shot but shouldn't be." There's no training for that - you have to use your own inherent judgement. There's no training in the world that will tell you whether the unfamiliar shadow in your living room is your son or an armed robber - that's something you have to determine yourself in that situation.

Okay, so once again it is just you making unsupported and by your own admission false, assertions.Got it.

Of course not. But I think you've apologized a bit too much.My experience is that gun advocates and gun control advocates as a group don't listen too each other very well, which results in each side coming of as entirely condescending and unreasonable to the other side. And their are nuts on each side.Yes it is true that the US constitution strongly protects gun ownership, but it is also the case that none of the rights in the constitution are absolute, and under a strict scrutiny review, guns can be controlled at some level given a "compelling" state purpose. It is certainly the case that some of the controls I'd favor, namely the DC laws that were overturned, are clearly beyond the pale, but I doubt that NYs relatively tough laws are going down. Sometimes, gun advocates, in celebrating DC v Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.It is also the case that prior to DC v. Heller, the SC had not previously recognized a strong personal right that is currently the result of a 5-4 decision. While I don't believe that the SC would be likely to overturn that decision any time soon, regardless of how the make up changes, the make up of the court will make a huge difference in what constitutes a "compelling case" and what types of controls are allowable.As a last point, I think that people in and outside of the US who find the armed rebellion motivation for the second amendment alarming aren't just softies who don't understand America. We've already had an armed rebellion against the US that began chiefly because one side did not like the outcome of the election in 1860.Yesterday I listened to an advocate from GRNC which calls itself "North Carolina's Only 'No Compromise' Gun Rights Organization" explain that the real tragedy in Aurora Colorado was that the movie theatre was a gun free zone so that nobody in the smoke and dark could return fire. There is a group of people to whom that reasoning make sense, and a separate group of people who are utterly appalled. There is no shame in being in the latter group.

Jar . . . gonzo journalism has its own value. See Hunter S. Thompson's body of work.The Dronester was in good form there.

As I understand it, political dissatisfaction became a CIvil War because of state-controlled militias seizing arms from Federal arsenals; it had little to do with privately owned weapons.

Let's be fair to Briterican; he's also against gun ownership because it makes him 'sick'. (Message 21)All valid reasons, of course...

And hunters and farmers and recreational shooters and groundskeepers and pest exterminators and collectors...Of course, since basically nobody carries firearms around with them, almost all criminals don't either as they are usually unnecessary and there is a high risk if caught with one. Of course, there are still plenty of guns in criminal use here in Britain but

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In the United Kingdom in 2009 there were 0.07 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants

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Guns simply aren't the weapon of choice for murder here, so there's less incentive to arm one's self with one. In the US, for comparison, the value was 3.0 per 100,000.

To be quite honest, yes, I am. There seems to be something in the American culture that makes them more violent than other cultures. For again, I'd like to point to Switzerland, where there are estimates of 1.2 million to 3 million guns being in circulation on a populace of 8 million people. Yet somehow, the Swiss don't have incidents like this. There must be an explanation for this, yet I can't think of any.Now, one could ask: for such a violent nation, should guns be so readily available? Sadly, the answer eludes me at the time. Tell that to the Swiss. It's even easier in Switzerland. You're given a gun upon completion of your mandatory training in the militia.

Well that's why I said I don't want an armed police force either, except for special units like SWAT or DEA.Military officers in training is not what I think you meant to write. Some college graduate in Officer training school is NOT someone I trust with a weapon either.But having myself served in the Marine's Corp, I can tell you we get extensive training in boot camp with the M-16 in a variety of combat situations, and once you're in the fleet you get as much training as you want with other weapons. ANd even then, the experience to remain calm and fully control a situation comes through years of training and applying what is learned in combat.I'd say a soldier serving in the militaryis pretty well versed in marksmanship, both with small arms and larger weapons, and is trained and has (these days) experienced high pressured situations. Them I trust. You, your wife or the avergae civilian I do not. I do not support an armed police force either. You're talking without knowledge again, crash. I've been in boot camp, a freshly graduated Marine recruit knows more about weapons and is well trained in combat situations, more so than you or your wife will ever be. And that's just a graduate. Of course not, but the training and experience are what keeps you calm and in control during these situations. Something you or your wife will not be able to do. Sorry, neither of you is trained for hostile situations.It's that very ignorance and arrogance that makes you think you can do it, untill you fuck up and shoot the wrong/innocent person. There are too many cases like this, from not only civilians but by police officers.There simply is no need for an armed civilian population.- Oni

Compare: The violent Middle East; an area of the world rife with ideological and cultural extremism, mass ignorance, and serious racial/ethnic inequalities.And the U.S.; a country rife with religious and ideological extremism, mass ignorance, and serious racial/ethnic inequalities.I, personally, don't think the explanations could be anymore obvious.

Very well put.It's no wonder that our country, where 85% believe in the return of Jesus, a majority are homophobic, more than half believe Obama is a secret Muslim, more than half don't accept evolution, with failing schools and racist politicians, that we suffer the same violent trends that the Middle East does too.- Oni

So it's not just an armed citizenry you oppose, it's an armed police and an armed military.Except Marines. Those guys can have guns, but only while they're at work, I guess.I don't understand how that's supposed to work, Oni. There aren't enough Marines to go around to keep civil order. If a guy breaks into my house to rob and maybe kill me, and my only option is to wait for the Marines to show up (how do they even know to come?) in what possible sense am I "in control"? Even if I called the police, what use would that be except to put more unarmed people into harm's way? But Marines kill innocent people all the time. There goes your "training", I guess. Who cares? My rights under the Second Amendment aren't subject to your "trust". I appreciate that you have a radically different vision for our society, but as I said, the Second Amendment is a pretty serious obstacle to you being able to disarm the civilian population.

So why the differentiation between automatic machine guns and semi-automatic machine guns. According to your reasoning everyone citizen in the country should be able to strap on an uzi or carry around an M-16, just in case they need it to protect themselves from our tyranical government. And a fully automatic machine gun or sawed off shotguns is even one step better. Why restrict one and not the other. Your reasoning for discreminating between the two does not make any sense. There are already restrictions on the 2nd ammendment which do not allow the average citizen to own military or military-like weaponry. The question is what do we consider 'arms' protected by the 2nd ammendment, not should firearms be regulated at all.