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Didn't think I would ever get to see that in my life time, lol. Oh well, live and learn.

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Aye, the majority knows what's best.

I suggest you keep thinking hard. :D

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Its not about whats best, its about what the majority wants, period. Whats best has nothing to do with it.

There are few N. Americans demanding gun banning over this.. And those that are, are the same ones who've been demanding them for years. On this forum its been mostly Europeans going on about bans.

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This was done by a South Korean Immigrant, I sure hope this doesn't raise any racial hatred views. It just shows anyone can be a murderer. Every American high schools/colleges/universites should now have armed protection staff 24/7 as the matter can always come crawling at anytime.

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It should be all about what is best, though.

It's because we know firsthand how well total control works, it is short sighted to think it can work over there though, due to the many guns already around and constitutional fanatics around it will not work in the foreseeable future, it is however equally short sighted to think that total gun control is a negative factor in every society.
The US got off to a bad start, “we” however have not. :)

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Its coming out now that he was picked on badly for being different during his early school life. Language barrier and so on contributed to this, but you know how cruel kids can be. It also looks like he may have targeted 2 girls from his high school, although they dont know for sure.

It this kind of stuff that needs to be dealt with, the conditions that created this killer. There isnt near enough monitoring of kids behaviour in elementary and high school, especially outside the classroom. The singling out and picking on of certain kids has to be stopped. And this crap happens in every school. I saw it in every school i ever went to.. And i went to alot of different schools.

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People keep saying this, but it never happens.. and untill the next shooting no-one will mention it after the first few weeks of hype. It'll happen, and it will continue to happen. It wouldnt be too much of a tragedy if the killers focussed on just the bullies.

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aha, but whos to say what is best. You only say that because, you've decided you know whats best.

No one is saying gun bans wouldnt work, were saying we dont want to lose our rights and freedoms to achieve total safetyness from psycho killers, although it opens us up to unsafetyness from malicious goverments. And if it means the odd civilians get killed, oh well thats the price of freedom.

Ill put it to you this way.. If we were attacked, and someone was here to take our rights and freedoms.. We would have put uniforms on those students and sent them to die if necassary, to defend those rights.

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I don’t understand why you speak of the right to bear arms as if it resembles all your rights and freedoms. I know a lot of NRA types are all paranoid about the government planning to steal their few acres of derelict land and whatnot, but I figured you were more intelligent than that. If the right to bear arms was taken away, or nerfed, it would mean just that, you can’t carry, you still have everything else.


If this is about “slippery slope” situations.. and the government then being free to then take all the other rights[/tinfoilhat], think about how the unarmed people of the world are still free.

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You would have presumably given them guns, rather than expect them to bring their own, right?

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So true. Just like I said at the very beginning it has so little to do with gun control when it comes down to the actual incident, he could have gone all medieval with knifes or gotten some sort of improvised bomb, and it's too bad that all these people got in his way while he tried to find the bullies. I guess he thought that they were just as bad as the bully since they didn't stop them. Like I said when you're that low it won't matter at all who's in your way and some people need to help especially when it was so fucking blatant but alas no one helped him apparently they probably kept calling him a g**k or ch*nk.

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Agreed, but what actually happens is they single out and punish (strongly, wrongly, sometimes preemptively!) kids who are seen as "risks".

It's the same basic problem as airport security in fact: they're so obsessed with not being blamed when something goes wrong (whether it's a bomb disguised as hair gel or a kid who gets ill and finds no way out but mass murder) that they slap more and more checks and restraints without either considering the basic problems, or alternate avenues of "attack".

I imagine the only thing to come out of this will be full metal detectors and searches for all campus buildings. Which also fails to address the problem but crucially takes any blame away from the administration if the next student, say, bombs his school.

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We've (Americans) been instilled from the begining that our rights are "inaliable" Which means, not granted by other men, but by their creator. This is not to say that God says you can have a gun, but moreso, a man will not tell you that you cannot have one. Now obviously this is not 100% across the board correct or otherwise in our government, We just dont want the government to stick their rotten noses in our buisness. And being that I have too much government in my country as it is... I beleive in my countrymens right to bear arms. My next question is not meant to irritate anyone, Im just curious about what you think.

Would the dirtbags of this world have been able to get on with their exterminations, Hitler/Stalin etc... if their targets had a way to fight back?

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Yes.

They have trained bodies to throw against untrained ones, the end result is pretty easy to guess. Of course, you are free to believe your 9mm or m14 is going to stop the government when they come to take your land, but think what SWAT people do for a job, and what kind of people they face on a daily basis.

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Id agree with you that things are different today then in the 30's and 40's, in terms of equipment, kevlar and well, SWAT teams werent around back then. And of course if 10 people show up at my door today with guns I would lose. But it might only be 8 that walk out. And then they would have another few million people to do that to. Our country was built by people that knew what tyranny was. Genocide or just plain having to pay taxes to England with nothing in return. And while they had no idea what an automatic was or would be. I still think they were correct. No way the common man can beat a SWAT, scratch that, they sure could, but by Friday they'd be burned to death re: Waco TX. Aside from all the other reasons to own a gun, it'd be alot harder to get that done here then in a country with gun bans.

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Spot on. Yes, the majority has occasionally ( a libertarian-cum-paleo-conservative-cum-contrarian like me tends to think "usually" is more accurate) been wrong. But as RBS cogently recognizes, inasmuch as the US is a nation governed by formal laws and not feelings, someone's idea of "best" has nothing at all to do with the question except insofar as it relates to a debate about policy.

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(Sorry about back-to-back posts, but I was called away earlier.)
I'm amazed that none of my European friends, who feel so free to comment on and provide guidance to the American polity, have been interested in pursuing the question of what would have been the one, most easily accomplished action which would have had the greatest likelihood of preventing this crime. Any guesses? Student "privacy rights" policy (Federal law comes into this too) which prevented Va. Tech from even informing Cho's parents that he was exhibiting dangerous and threatening behavior.

It's all coming out now how more than one of Cho's professors saw and were frightened by his threatening demeanor and attitude. Over 90% of the students in one of Cho's classes refused to come to class if he was allowed to be in it because of how dangerous he looked and sounded. One professor expelled him for his threats, and Cho included violent fantasies in some of his writing assignments. It was all there.

But the one thing that would almost certainly have thwarted this (calling Mom and Dad to come get their bad crazy son), the school didn't dare do, because Cho had a right to privacy don't you know. How foolish and short-sighted. Based on the mass of evidence of the danger he posed, his parents could have had him immediately hospitalized, even against his will. But privacy and the fear of lawyers slavering to get a piece of Va. Tech's deep pockets for violating Cho's precious privacy, no doubt stopped the administration from protecting the student body form a homicidal lunatic.

Looks like Va. Tech is going to get the chance to see what dozens and dozens of slavering lawyers really look like now.

And I'll be interested to see how "Ismail Ax" fits into Cho's butchery.

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Yeah Jum-Jum, the more and more I hear, it seems like all the signs were all there in front of everybody.

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Teasing is unfortunately a problem that is very hard to deal with, especially when it involves young children who have problems understanding that their actions can have a negative effect for the victem in the future.
Most of the time, you will see young childeren forming groups all over a class, with the groups generally targeting a weaker individual or group most of the time.

Animals tend to kill of the weak ( or different ) in nature, fortunately we humans don't go to such extreme lengths but the outcome isn't far from different either. People who tend to get teased a lot will get depresive very quickly; they can't tell anyone about it in fear for getting into more trouble by their bullies or simply because the schools don't believe the problems are that big.

Eventually every person gets stressed and stressed until he or she reaching the breaking point at which the outcome is different for every person, some people completely break down and lose all wil to have any further social contact with other people, while others will enrage and decide to let of their years build-up steam on others.

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Good point Polska, and dead on jumjum. No one could have predicted this. I think (not directly because of this, but it is building) we are going to see better laws/procedures out of this. We have watched things get a little better in terms of child sexual pedators. Due to things like Megan's Law I can pinpoint the people (That are known) on a mapquest type map and how close I may live to them. It may be a widdling away type thing regarding rights, but if a guy is sick enough to view a child like that... Im not caring.

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Changes definately need to be made, and this incident im sure will move us closer to preventing this kind of thing.

I do think public safety should supercede a persons privacy rights, but only supercede them enough to inform family and health professionals when someone is exhibiting such behaviors. Its rediculous a Institution should have to worry about lawsuits in a situation like this, when peoples safety is concerned. This guy was clearly a cause for concern.

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-There is no "Free Buffet" in a lot of states that have nearly sensible gun control laws. Virginia's very liberal laws (easy to get, easy to carry) are not representative. People need to learn that there is a middle ground between parking a gun-filled trailer on the street and yelling "COME 'N GET 'EM" and banning them or doing DNA fingerprinting on them.

-GUN CONTROL DOES NOT MEAN BANNING GUNS. Gun control means a reasonable (important word there for you absolutists) policy on who gets what kind of guns. I'll say it again: not everyone should have a gun. It's not a question of "who needs a gun", but "who is fit to have a gun." I don't care if it's a .22 pistol or a heavy machine gun. We do this with cars, planes, medical licenses, why not with guns?

-I drive an Audi TT. I use it to get to work. It's not a completely sensible car, but it does the trick, is easy to park, doesn't use a ton of gas, lets me move stuff, and is FUN. I own guns because I enjoy shooting them AND because I believe that they help safe-guard my essential liberties against thieves, tyrants and other evil-doers. To use another example, I also own a hammer; I like fixing things with it but I know that some day I will have to work on a toilet.

I don't see any need to justify my choice of car to anyone, but if some of my green friends had their way, I'd earn a living weaving eco-friendly baskets in my back yard, not polluting at all on my way to work. Fun is not a bad thing, and does not have to be explained or excused. If you have a problem with my way of having fun, if that way of having fun does not hurt you or others in any way (I have yet to see an argument how my gun ownership and target shooting hurts anyone) then, too bad.

I don't exactly realize the issue with "having fun" with a gun. I also don't see why I am being pushed into a corner to justify this. I go to a shooting range, I lock the guns up when at home, etc. I also enjoy Kendo and Iaido, and occasionally, bow and arrow shooting. My dad also enjoys gardening, which uses fertilizer. Pointless, but fun. I don't go out stabbing or shooting people on the street. Just because some asshat does, or because some asshat runs over people with a car in a psychotic episode, or builds a fertilizer bomb that kills 100 people doesn't mean you should ban swords, bows, fertilizer or cars. It means you should deal with psychotic asshats better.

And as stylie says, an armed citizenry might (probably would) lose against a determined, armed and oppressive government, but they'd make it a much greater investment for a government to get to that point anyway, if they know that out of n trained, armored thugs, n-x wouldn't walk out. Note that, after Ruby Ridge and Waco, the ATF became a whole lot more careful about deciding to throw their weight around. Furthermore, if I ever ended up under a fascist or communist dictatorship determined to wipe me out for some reason, it'd be my particular kind of vanity to be remembered in history like the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 rather than the citizens of Phnom Penh in 1975.

Tas, nice straw man (seems to be a favored tactic these days) about the "barren land." It appears to me that you think anyone who believes that it is possible for even the most stable civil society to degenerate into tyranny if not sufficiently watched is a paranoid lunatic who deserves to be locked up. That's not a solid foundation to have a debate on gun control.

Oh and Tas, no, the majority does not always know what is best. That is why the US (and most countries) have a constitution, a basic outline of rights, and separation of powers. These serve exactly to keep the majority from doing the frequently stupid things it tends to do, like electing nasty little men with mustaches to office without reading their book first.

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You my beloved gringos must be kidding us.

You live in one of the longest and best democracies of world, with tons of fantastic systems to avoid and control the abuses of power (even if in the last times the bloody neocons are trying to limit that with all the War on Terror bullshit) and you still use this crazy argument you need guns to avoid a "future" tyrany of your gobernment.

I think this is a joke, a fancy excuse to keep your toys don't caring about the consecuencies of these toys in the wrong hands...and there will be always wrong hands, no matter the thousand systems you invent. Today I was speaking with a friend about this issue and he told me he heard in the radio about a stadistic about teenagers killed by firearms by country and year, I don't know if the stadistic was acurate or what: Japon 0 (total ban of weapons), USA 5000 aprox...now please, don't talk about the Yakuza killings and finger cuttings, I beg, it's apples and oranges.

Whatever, on a side note Fuzzy, I am very fan of America with all its incomprehensible contradictions, and my favourite photographer of all times is a swiss, Robert Frank and his way to see America with his curious eyes. And the next ones, maybe Lee Friedlander and William Klein, America also as main theme

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Of those 5000 an extremely small precentage is from whackos, the rest are gang related or accidental.

Edit: There's no question that some areas are behind in their gun laws compared to others, but it constantly improving. And i do agree that proper gun handling guidelines need to be inforced better. And more responsibility for gun storage. I just dont think an outright ban is necassary. Theres still room for proper, legal, gun ownership.

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And?

1: gangs get weapons easily, they use them. Accidental, more weapons more accidents

2. Japon 0

In Europe guns are not totally banned, but they are not so easy to get, and some kind of weapons are banned because those weapons have absolutely no legitime use in the hands of a civilian

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Gangs mostly get weapons from the black market, from mexico, canada, where ever.

No ones argueing that illegal gun trafficing needs to be cracked down on.

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I am always amazed when, otherwise completely rational Americans, tote out that, "we need guns to preserve our democracy" argument. Fuzzy, I am saddened to see that you too seem to somewhat subscribe to it.

I know it probably useless to point this out but:

1) No other democracy in the world has needed to arm its citizens to protect it from tyranny.
2) You have one of the best systems of checks and balances in the world to prevent tyranny.
3) There are nations, in East Africa for example, with high gun-citizen ratios and it has not protected them from dictatorship.

Democracy is preserved by the will of the citizens to see it survive, not by the threat of armed insurection.

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Tsk, tsk. Such condescenscion. Some of our Euro brethren have unfortunately taken quite a patronizing stance in their lectures to their dullard American cousins about guns and violence. Before they mount that high horse once again, they might do well to consider the following by the eminent James Q. Wilson:

AS FOR THE European disdain for our criminal culture, many of those countries should not spend too much time congratulating themselves. In 2000, the rate at which people were robbed or assaulted was higher in England, Scotland, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Sweden than it was in the United States. The assault rate in England was twice that in the United States. In the decade since England banned all private possession of handguns, the BBC reported that the number of gun crimes has gone up sharply.

Some of the worst examples of mass gun violence have also occurred in Europe. In recent years, 17 students and teachers were killed by a shooter in one incident ata German public school;14 legislators were shot to death in Switzerland,and eight city council members were shot to death near Paris.

Sound familiar? And for our Aussie lecturers let's not forget the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, in which 35 persons were gunned down. (Leave it to good ol' Prime Minister John Howard to try to blame even that on the US.)

From the lectures we've received one would think that the answer to murder and violent crime is a simple firearms ban, or at least strict gun control. Isn't it? But it seems that in places where firearms are not just strictly controlled, but banned entirely, deadly violece still occurs regularly. How do we account for gun murders (mayor of Nagasaki shot to death this week), or the risning rate of murder by knife in Scotland? (I'm particulalry fond of the deadly danger presented by those jackknives in Scotland, "where authorities are enacting knifecontrol laws because violent crime has continued to climb (with knives as a weapon of choice) in the wake of the nation's gun bans." Wait, I thought the violence was supposed to stop once the guns were locked up and in prison..???

Perhaps one of the reasons Europeans have a difficult time understanding American reluctance to ban firearms (hell, firearms are in our Constituion, guys), is due to the fact that central to the governments of almost all Western Europe is a high degree of direct governmental control and/or involvement (not just taxes and laws, but even names of children fer chrissakes) in their citizens' daily lives ...such a high degree that it would shock most Americans were they to actually live under such systems. Yes, the US is apparently hellbent for leather to catch up with Europe in having a nanny instead of a representative government, but the tradition is still "don't tread on me" throughout the vast majority of the country. We're just not as used to asking, "Mother, may I?" as our more civilized cousins.

Besides, once any country in Europe gets a population which is as heterogenous as that of the US, and then mixes as 10% of its population the descendants of an incompletely assimilated former slave class....then its citizens can come preach to us about how to handle social tensions. Oh, wait...you've got Muslims from all over the East moving in to your countries and establishing entire populations; you'll have plenty of opportunity in the next generation to experiecne it yourself. The only difference is that population trends show that what are today the hereditary inhabitants of (and the majority in) Europe, will be the minority within fifty years. So let us know how that turns out for you. I'm sure you'll be completely safe even though the only thing you'll have to defend yourself or your family is a tree limb. Good luck with that.

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let's see if i'm right :

Freedom of speech :
- in usa you have the freedom of speech, you have the right to be racist, anti-semist, islamophob , preaching hatred etc ... but on the other side if you have some good feeling with alquaida or you are suspected to be a terrorist, you won't have the same treatment in front of law.

Privacy:
- not talking about patriot act or other law some US industry want to apply to the world (like the non-reproduction) , my main trouble is quite simple :
marijuana :
in usa you haven't got the right to smoke marijuana , or even plant marijuana for your own ... isn't supposed to be a violation of privacy ?
For drugs like heroin or cocaine i can understand why they ban - because they finance illegal activity - but they coud also be count as being you privacy if you only bought them ...

- about porn, until 2003 the supreme court doesn't tolerate the sodomie ( anal penetration) even in a woman-man relation ...

- the lack of laicity in the american institution : religion is supposed to be part of your privacy , so you can't be judge because of your religion , right ?
What's going to happen when a muslim(or an other religion or a laic) is going to be president , you're all going to turn the writting into "allah bless usa" and the president is going to do his serment on the coran ?
I mean normaly because of the human right and the privacy law, you can't force someone to recognize something...



human right:
- let's return to the guns law:
you are allow to have a weapons which has been created and is used to kill an other people.
This mean that you decide who must live and who doesn't.
If you own a weapons for your protection/defense, since you are in a democraty and so you're supposed to be respectfull of human right , you would buy rather a non-lethal weapons which doesn't endangered the life of everyone else.
If the weapons is considered as an antiquity, since you are in a democraty and take care about human right, you wouldn't be worried to registred the weapons and get a licence via a shooting club ...


Of course they are some more points but it's enough and those can also be applied to the other "liberal" state.

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freedom of speech:
-We''ll, yes, it are some faults in the fact that you can be racist, anti-preacher, preacher, islamic-hater, so on. But then again thats the great thing about the system. If you have something to say, you can say it. But if it is going against another religion or something, everyone is also created equal. SO though you can say all you want, its not like you can still say it. Ex. I'm sure if you are walking down the street yelling you hate black people and say there reason of all problems, everyones also equal, so you can still get cracked down on. Sometimes it varies, where the freedon of speech gets out of hand or people use the equality thing to their advantage.

privacy:
-Our system allows us privacy true, in fact, we highly respect that. The cops can't bust a house reported to have marijuana in it. There are other laws in the factor, such as they need to lay a case, investatgate, get evidence, search warrant, and then the person may even be able to get out of it in a court case, which does happen. But, especially with drugs, it balnces out. They have the right to privacy, but there are also laws that need to be made against stuff like that to balance the system. I mean, we know these drugs can cause deaths or be the reaason for death, like dirving high and causing a accident. So privacy does need a balance.
-for the anal penetration, thats when religion or someones own ethics get thrown in. When politicians start think about their religion and stuff, they go to far. Thats why that law was passed in 2003, cuz think about it. Lot more tolerance than like im sure the chirstian, jewish, ethic government officials who made the system and that law were.
- for the Islim thing, it happens, it happens. Its aloud to happen, our system, we deal with it.(and i dont think majority would aqllow it becuz they wouldnt want him, cuz they profile, as theyre aloud)

What weapons nonlethal again?

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Man! If we suck so bad, why do people clamor to get here?

FYI though, Marijuana is not illegal everywhere in USA, unfortunately! I can never understand why people can drink themselves to death or get so drunk they pull out their guns! Still waiting for that Marijuana poisoning death. We are not perfect, no, but still I cant go 5 minutes from my house without seeing some form of immigrant or immigrant business, funny I just looked out my window and saw 10 Indian women in saris licking ice cream with children walking away from a local ice cream shop. I said hello and they all waved back.

About porn, there a many many old laws dating way back that no one addressed. Some industrious young journalists love to go through that stuff for a story. I guess that got all the way to France. Because they know you will love to laugh about it and point fingers at one great motherfucking country.

One other point. Guess what! A muslim CAN become president in our country. Guns are not banned in our country still though, murder is. After lobo went on about Japan the other day I went on a little fact finding mission. US was somewhere around 7th in homocide. Behind Brazil, Mexico and Estonia and Russia. And guess what else. In Japan, The police visit your home twice a year to collect details. To that we say collectively Domo arigato but no domo arigato.

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seth, as gently as I can, wtf man? Where did that come from? When someone posts something like that, it's as if they've said, "Oh yeah? Well, I can't come up with a response, but you're fat and ugly and disgusting, and all the cool kids think so too. So there."

stylie:But we do suck: just no more than anywhere else on earth, and less than just about any place I can think of. As if that has anything to do with the thread, but you knew that.

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Its unfair to compare Japan to America....there on a COMPLETELY opposite spectrum here....

If you were to compare a country similar to America in both laws and culture, THEN I might take those statistics with a little more concern.

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Seth I know it's not your primary concern but can you spell check your posts at all?
Well some people need a thread to push their fuck all Americans(Canadians we're sort of in the same boat, eh? I think there's no doot aboot it.) agenda... FEED THE FLAME WAR WITH MORE BRAINDEDNESS!


Gun laws need to be revised with mountanous amounts of common sence and facts. So do the laws regarding searching out and finding those illegal weapons so we can find those little pricks, and by pricks, I do mean the guns but it might as well include the people selling and using them. Also, the campuses and job sites everywhere need to give way more psychiatric help, when and if needed, with the people they're sending into their system; I mean, people don't go on shooting sprees for no reason and work/school problems are the hot ticket this "season"(this list of places who should provide such help needs to be revised when and if needed). I mean you don't see dropouts killing each other because their drop-out buddayy didn't return his bong but I shouln't stereotype, bad bad me. This is all just common sense but leave it to people who haven't received treatment in the for of a headoutofassotomy to fuck it all up.

If you don't think I'm right well what do you know hein? I am french, fuck you Americans I don't care...oh shit the germans are here! WE LOVE YOU AMERICANS!! bad bad me...

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all i see is that many political system are based on a archaic system and have been unable to evolved in the modern society.
If it still work for some people it show its limits with the rest of people.

I've shown to you irrational fact, that's all.

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Not really, I think we could compare anything to Japan and all other countries, there is something to be learned everywhere. America is not 100% across the board "better" then every country in the world. The people that created America, did so by avoiding what they didnt like about their European counterparts. But we could learn plenty in Japan.

I envy the crime rates of countries like Japan or Spain, And in every aspect of government there may be a better way then what we are doing, who knows? But that works both ways. What we try NOT to do is, chop up the rights of an otherwise perfect individual, for the actions of a flawed one. Maybe right maybe wrong, but we leave it to the individual to act otherwise.

English is obviously not the first language for everyone here, so lets not get on them about spell checking and grammar! :lol: I can understand Seth's writings, and disagree. I wouldnt call France or USA "archaic" political systems, but France has many many problems as well. Riots, in France happen for a reason.

Also, Seth? Did you get a post deleted?

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Did I miss something? I was looking at giant statues on Easter Island.

Oh yeah. Defend your right to arm bears.

http://www.zayatz.com/images/other/256/bearWithGun.jpg

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Way to revive the thread fuzzy.

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LMAO, I was just about to post something to that avail... Bear arms anyone?

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LOL!!!

Fuzzy? Did you shoot you up some a those rapa nui?

I need a breakdown of this jaunt, Easter Island floors me. I really would like to go there, but anyways.... save Easter Is. for another thread!!!

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What's that, some kind of Pig Bear Man?:D

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The right to..."Bear Arms"


I dont know why I find this so funny lol, seems a little out of plae though

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It's man bear pig/kerry; it's all a big conspiracy... I think?

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I must be bored to enter into this fray...

zuiquan is right by what he is saying.

I am somewhat amused by people who are born into a different culture/country/continent that assume they have answers for someone else's problems.

It is quite presumptous to raise yourselves into the position of a social pariah for the ills of the world and a particular country when the mocassins ( a little American Indian lingo) of which you have never put on.

Unless you are a world citizen such as Fuzzy (I think his credentials to be so are as good as anyone's) most of what you learn about the US is through some artificially produced mass communication medium (networks, movies, magazines) of which all have agenda despite some actaully being in it to make a profit as well.

If you think Wikipedia is bad for good information try Hollywood.

I think it safe to say that most Canadians and Americans have the most common frame of reference and after that the Brits and the ANZAC folks.

To be born in a free society with multitudes of free choices is an awesome experience. And as was told to Spiderman, comes great responsbility.

Most of our lives nowadays seem to be on the cusp on testing our freedoms against the societal good, of which the multitude has spoken.

Drugs are bad but necessary as prescriptions, drunken drivers are bad but both drinking and driving (separately) are necessary, sex with minors is taboo but otherwise hummah hummah, human sacrifices are out but otherwise enjoy religion, and lastly, killing with guns are bad/intolerably but they are used for fun & defense.

All this is part of our culture and we seem to have done rather well if you ask me.

The old argument is not more guns laws but ENFORCEMENT of the exisiting ones in a sober and well-meaning manner.

I am not looking forward towards a squeeky clean society such as the one in Sly Stone's Demolition Man but when I hear about we need to control guns, fast food, tobacco, hydrogenated fats, carbon foot print, genetically modified foods (GMOs) I can't help that a lot of anal retentive scarety cats are just afraid of freedom.

I think immigrants into this country feel this but it is truly their kids that are born into it and understand (like me :naughty: ).

Of the fact that a voting republic of people are smart enough to think for themselves and don't need warning stickers on clothes irons that tell you to beware of becoming burned.

It took me a long time to wear a seat belt just because the law told me too but I acquiesed a decade or so (you young pups) because its a good idea.

That REALLY is the spirit behind the right to bear guns IMHO to be allowed the freedom of choice.

On original topic, someone in the medical world dropped the ball and I'm not really certain how a non-US citizen could buy a gun in this country.

As much as I luv Fuzzy, my web browser at home and work opens on the Drudge Report. :)