Three reasons:

- Our politics is boring ;) - we don't have an election for ages
- Our laws are pretty conventional, and I have no-one to debate them with
- Your government affects my life, despite the fact that I have my own govt and live in the middle of nowhere

see my edit to my previous post....

Lots of rich liberals hire armed guards to protect themselves from criminals while they advocate depriving the common man the right to defend himself similarly.

Yeah, got it:


"Right to Keep and Bear Arms. A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

As I said in my earlier post, I think that your second amendment is indefensible and could probably consider being repealed. I think this for two reasons:

- what use is there having a built in "treason" clause? If a militia succeeds, it's ok, if not, it's treason.
- no militia would ever defeat your army - 50 million pissed off Iraqis with an abundance of weapons are unable to do much, if any, damage to it.

Finally, you can interpret the amendment's words differently (a militia being a sort of National Guard).

Or, it does say "well regulated" - yet pro-gun wants as little regulation on the TYPE of weapon possible.

It's not exactly black and white. However, my main two reasons are the two bullet points - it's a silly concept in the first place and naive to think it works now.

Yes, "lots" :rolleyes: Tens, maybe even twenties of rich liberals out of 280 million people :rolleyes:

Actually - you know the goal isn't to "deprive" any person of anything in particular, other than people shooting other people.

It is an immutable fact that if two people don't have guns, they can't shoot each other.

You wouldn't mean sweet Rosie here, would you? Oh, Bill Gates as well...I was BSing with a contract crew in front of my place today...they dig & lay phone company lines. Told me of working on Bill Gate's "home" in Washington state...armed men and techno geeks watched everything they did. I can understand why...corporate as well as personal security reasons. Rosie? She's just a rich female dog who likes to consider herself important enough to have armed body guards. I mean, would you want her body???? ;)

And if they don't have knives, ropes, clubs, rocks, bricks, poisons, spears, or fists...they can't...er...
Cam, did you read my edit? That's part of the USA constitution...the supreme law of our land! Don't ignore it, don't try to stomp on it...every member of our military takes an oath to defend it. Pretty serious stuff in this part of the world...

It is also immutable that if a person is attempting to rape or kill you and they have a gun and you do not.....you are screwed.

I suspect it is more likely that hundreds or even thousands have armed guards, security systems, and highly fenced compounds that are beyond the reach of common folks..

I'm going skiing again (making the most of winter), so I'm going to wrap up by actually laying all my cards on the table. Besides, I've stirred up enough trouble.

1) The second amendment itself doesn't really bother me - but I think that the authors would intend that, despite the use of "shall not be infringed", that gun ownership and access would be restricted to those sufficiently responsible.
2) The definition of "sufficiently responsible" is open to interpretation as well. IMHO it is very important that this is strongly and carefully regulated.
3) Most importantly, your culture around guns sucks. They are too easy to get (illegally and legally), people are too inclined to use them, and the over-riding purpose for acquisition is often "defense", despite the fact that the US is not less safe than many other countries in the world where people don't feel the need to have guns for "defence".

Many of the problems (my word, maybe not yours) with guns can be addressed through getting them out of the hands of criminals (hard) and encouraging gun safety and an appropriate attitude to go with it.

I added the attitude part because, by and large, the NRA (for instance) gives a lot of lip service to gun safety - and the mantra "guns don't kill people, people kill people" - but falls down miserably with respect to the appropriate attitude. You may disagree, but the primary impression I get from the NRA and a lot of gun owners is that they are an exciting toy which gives the owner a lot of power.

This does not create a good gun culture. Couple that with the fact that guns are inherently dangerous and not everyone is good at sticking to the rules (a bit like car driving) and you gete crap outcomes.

[/diatribe]

Answering quickly now, 'cause I have work to do before the end of the day so I can go skiing....

Fine - it is the Constitution (albeit an amendment - I guess they forgot how important this bit was when they wrote it originally) so it can't be changed and must stand as it is.

Oh wait, it gets added to and subtracted from:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxxi.html

Come on, the Constitution as it stands RIGHT NOW, is not necessarily the be all and end all. It changes to reflect society, and I've suggested that society no longer requires the second amendment.

Other weapons? Valid point, but I disagree. Let's say we start an impromptu gun fight - chances are, one of us dies.

If it is an impromptu knife fight, chances are sanity will prevail before either of us has life threatening injuries, and knives are the next most deadly of those options.

(edited to be a bit more polite - I was pretty aggressive :()

Fair enough. Pretty rare in this country though - you have the gun problem (see my original catch 22 statement) not us. If there are no handguns, for instance, it is hard for someone to conceal a hunting rifle or shotgun.

Let's call it 14,000 liberals out of 140m (half your population could be considered liberal). That's 0.01% of all liberals, which meets my definition of statistically insignificant.

How the USA should operate...as told by a NZ socialist...and I'm bothering to answer? Shame on me! Now, lemme tell ya what they should do down there in NZ...first we kick out their politicians...

I'm not a socialist (I'm maybe a wee bit left of centre), and gun control is a liberal concept (although liberal is a misnomer in this instance ;)) as distinct from a socialist one.

Besides, don't disagree with me based on my overall ideology, disagree about the points I'm making!

The bill of rights was added because it was the only way the states would ratify the constution..their experiece with a central government made them leary or trusting one completely...with good cause I would say. So it is basically part of the original, ratified constitution.

You're telling me...I would consider 100% of liberals to be insignificant. Does half-witted times 140 million equal 70 million or zero?

Looks like JFK is still having trouble understanding the 2nd Ammendment. From a recent speech:

<i>"I've handled all different kinds of guns and I've gone out and I've shot - I've shot birds and deer and you name it," Kerry said Friday night during a rally in Allentown, Pa. "And I believe in the Second Amendment. But I'll tell you this - I have never thought about going hunting with an assault weapon, with a weapon of war."</i>

What in the world does hunting have to do with the 2nd Ammendment? :eek:

I saw an interesting argument about this a few years ago, involving the useage of the phrase "well regulated" at the time the Constitution was written. According to the article, "regulated" meaning subject to regulations wasn't a common useage back then. The article asserted that the intended meaning, based on common useage (and other period documents) was closer to "properly functioning", as in a "well regulated timepiece".

RE: Pistol grips,

The existing (until Monday anyway) AWB would not ban the Remington 11-87 Kerry recieved as a gift. The old law reads:

The new bill Kerry is sponsoring states: The way I read this, any of the 4 features on a self-loading shotgun would be banned. It further defines "pistol grip" as: The protrudes conspicuously beneath the action blurb is no longer there, and as previous people have noted, a Monte Carlo stock does clearly have a "pistol grip". The fact that it does not protrude below the action like the one on the Klashnikov is not relevant. The assumption that they didn't intend to ban that particular type of shotgun is also not relevant. The wording of Kerry's bill as written would make that an "assault weapon" and ban it.

The question I have is what did Kerry do with the Shotgun? He was given the gift in West Virginia. He is a Resident of Massachusets. By law he would be required to ship the gun to a licensed dealer in his home state. I assume that there would be hoops to jump through in MA as well.

Tom

Tom, Tom, Tom ...... these laws aren't written for people of JFK's royal stature ...... only you, I and the rest of the unwashed masses have to comply with Federal firearm laws and go thru the hassle of obtaiing permits, background checks, etc. Can you imagine being at, say, a large family picnic in the park - little kids playing on the swings, young mom's pushing their babies in strollers, etc - when one of your relatives decides to present you with a "semi-automatic weapon with a pistol grip". You accept the weapon and hold it up to the crowd with a convoluted smirk on your face - maybe even fire off a few rounds into the air the way Saddam used to do ...... How long ya think before the ATF would arrive enmass to cuff you and escort you to the local jail? Well, unless your initials are JFK. Then, of course, the law doesn't apply ...... :rolleyes:


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