To which the only response is a link to this site:

http://gayhomophobe.com/

>> ^alien_concept:

Typical YouTubing genius:
"FUCK HOMOS!!!! they cant fire a gun right.. theyre too feminine and social fuck them and gay people america is turning gay???? why is this happening?.... lady gaga and all the faggots in our military.. thats why we cant win a fucking war.. to busy fucking sucking dick to shoot a terrorist fuck FAGGOTS!!!"

Typical YouTubing genius:

"FUCK HOMOS!!!! they cant fire a gun right.. theyre too feminine and social fuck them and gay people america is turning gay???? why is this happening?.... lady gaga and all the faggots in our military.. thats why we cant win a fucking war.. to busy fucking sucking dick to shoot a terrorist fuck FAGGOTS!!!"

@PalmliX

What I was arguing is that I believe I'm safer in a system where no civilians are allowed to carry guns

I generally agree, hence my statement above about rights and safety being opposite ends of the spectrum. It's just that I'd rather have rights than safety.

I find it kind of sad that you think the US 'beats' Canada on some rights

We have a right to arms. Canada does also but it's infeasible to actually practice it, according to you. So yeah, we have that right and you don't.

Sorry I think I'll give up that particular right in exchange for...

I won't give up my rights in exchange for anything. That's insane.

Look, I know we've got a violence problem here, but it's not because we have guns. Vermont, for example, allows people to carry, open or concealed, without need for a permit (according to opencarry.org) and yet in 2009 they had zero murders via firearm and are 4th in the lowest firearm assault rate at 10.2 per 100,000 (from http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state).

DC on the other hand, which is (in)famous for it's highly restrictive gun regulations, has the highest rate of firearm murders (18.84 per 100,000) and the 3rd highest rate of firearm assaults (121.4 per 100,000).

Since I just saw this article this morning, I'll throw it in there too: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-naw-norway-gun-policy-20110724,0,7974761.story

Basically it's pointing out that while Norway has a high rate of gun ownership by European standards, they've also got one of the lowest rates of violence in Europe.

My position is not that we'd be safer if everyone had guns. My position is that the availability of guns is not the problem; something else is (or a combination of things); and so there's no reason to support curtailing gun rights.

I will also say again that I am not a gun nut. I do not own a gun. I do not wish to own a gun. The only guns I've ever fired were water guns, cap guns, BB guns and potato guns. I support certain levels of regulation and I absolutely support taking an individual's gun rights away if they've abused them. I just don't think we ought to have our collective gun rights taken away in the name of safety. More importantly, I really don't think we ought to give up our rights in the name of safety.

You'll be hard pressed to find a guy more supportive of gun-rights than myself. However, Jeremy is an idiot. Walking around with a weapon openly displayed on a public easement is just poor gun ownership. Yes, you have the right to do it. However, with that right comes the responsibility to be a wise, cautious, courteous citizen. Openly carrying around a gun is not wise, cautious, or courteous.

When in a public area, keep the weapon concealed for both your own safety and the safety of others. There are plenty of holsters that can carry a weapon in a concealed manner. Use them. My favorite is the classic boot holster. I like Tony Llamas, and cowboy boots are plenty roomy to hold a small firearm. Takes all of 1 second to draw, and when it is in the holster it is completely undetectable. I'm armed, and I'm not freaking people out by publicly brandishing a weapon. Duh.

Nowadays with the advent of Ipads and other tablet computers, the "murse" is making a dreadful comeback. Women can keep a gun in a purse easily. Men - if you don't like cowboy boots then get a murse and keep the gun in there. It's just common sense guys.

This is a good reason to not let the government take away gun rights. The same government will threaten to take away the police force if we dont come up with more money. Leave it to New Jersey to be so open about their protection racket. Where is Johns fake criminal new jersey crime accent now? Nice "Fear" graphics" and "Fear" sound effects. The people are making less money, therfore the government is making less money, Dont raise the rates and threaten consequences for non payment you thugs!

@quantumushroom

Really? Reagan? I see you've bought into an incorrect historical narrative, a.k.a myth, that paints Reagan as some sort of conservative/libertarian god. Allow me to type some stuff that you won't believe because you're clearly in some sort of fantasy land, but is true anyway.

The economic model put into place during the Reagan years (supply-side economics) was, to put it bluntly, a one-hit wonder. It worked in that situation, in that time, and it has "worked" pretty well until recently, though its collapse has been fairly inevitable.

Our legal tender law forces everyone to use our governmentt-issued fiat currency. This combined with our fractional reserve banking system is what allows Reaganomics to seem like a good idea. All of our money is debt. If everyone (including the government) paid back all their debt there would be no money. So, when you vastly increase the national debt (defense spending in Reagan's case), there is more money(debt) created. Banks create money(debt) from nothing when someone signs a piece of paper promising to pay the money back with interest. When there's more money(debt) in the system, it's a lot easier to get credit and therefore easier to start businesses, etc. Combine this with low taxes and corporations will invest in factories and such and create jobs.

That's the logic, anyway.

Problem is, the reality of what has actually occurred as a result of supply-side policy is vastly different. The frustrations expressed in this video are a direct result of that. Really, since legal tender law was passed under Nixon, we've had a series of boom/bust failures in our economic system that everyone's pissed about in one way or another. This includes all subsequent administrations regardless of political affiliation.

We can go through all the stuff...the 1987 stock market meltdown, the S&L crisis, the creation of complex speculative financial instruments, the Financial Services Modernization Act...the list goes on. This stuff occurred under Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush again. It's not a Democrat vs. Republican thing. It's not a Right/Left thing. Until you open your mind to realizing that, you're going to be effectively asleep.

Most people don't even know how to express their problem with what's going on economically in our country, and so you have this sort of general anger that's let out in various ways. Tea party, Obama haters, Bush haters, etc. None of that matters, though...none of these (important) social issues like abortion, gun rights, gay rights, etc, really matter until our money system is reconstructed in a way that jives with reality and sustainability.

I'd like to see gun rights repealed (only temporarily) so I can see all the Neocons act like this.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'gun, rights, assault, rifle, obama, protest' to 'gun, rights, assault, rifle, obama, protest, AR15, legal' - edited by EndAll

Sorry, but I just can't agree with what's demonstrated here. Letting someone that young handle a live firearm is just plain irresponsible. This has nothing to do with gun control, gun rights, gun whatever. It has everything to do with letting someone who has no concept of their potential actions be put in charge of something that could kill someone. Would you let someone that young drive, even under supervision? Or operate heavy machinery? Again, fucking irresponsible.

I only hope he (or someone else) doesn't meet with a horrible accident like that one kid who got a head full of uzi a few months ago.

>> ^curiousity:

You argue possibilities while I argue historical facts.

More accurately, I was talking about the nature of government, while you're arguing about what government did. As if that matters, and as if I didn't know. I think that's the root of our disagreement.

Point 1: The technology used

So, progress would have been much slower, but somehow they would never end up creating the first backbone, because an endeavor of that magnitude is just unfeasible, really. No private investor/company can think that far ahead, advancements in technology wouldn't provide any kind of cost reductions that would, eventually, allow a backbone to be established.

Point 2: The infrastructure needed for the internet

Tell me, what essential part of the internet's infrastructure requires legislation to work? You know those lazy routers must be coerced at the point of a gun, right? How about the police that we need to control all that network traffic?

Is it possible? Sure, anything's possible, but is it likely? I don't think so. The government provided the funding and direction. Look at technology today. Do you know how many advances actually came from military research?

I completely agree that technologies that are related to the use of force are only possible because of military research.

The nuclear bomb for instance. Seriously, I have a lot of trouble imagining how the private sector could come up with that. A government would hardly ever allow a corporation to own such destructive technology.

Now, about the internet. It was initially funded by military research for a specific purpose, related to intelligence, not use of force.

Today it serves many other unrelated purposes. So, by its very nature, there's nothing about the internet that would make it impossible for the private sector to develop it on its own.

It obvious that we can't have a rational discussion about this.

Maybe I unintentionally made it too hard for you to agree with me by being so confrontational, so I'll just have to enjoy watching you paint yourself into a corner.

>> ^ponceleon:
In all fairness, she kind of set the stage for a humorous response from the senator by making a very silly remark about shooting someone being perhaps illegal.

This was part of a longer conversation about gun rights, and in particular, he was asking her whether she believed that people have a right to self-defense. The immediate preamble to this clip was something like "It depends on state law, and in New York the threat needs to be immediate and proximate..."

But you're right, the example was delivered with mirth, and I did laugh at Coburn's response, and didn't even think of it in a racial context.

However, Republicans are very sensitive to racially charged speech -- have you heard that once Sotomayor said something about Wise Latinas with experience being able to better judge a case than a white man without those same experiences, and that makes her essentially the same as a hood-wearing KKK member?

I fully expect them to call for Coburn's resignation, since this was far more offensive (in that it might've actually offended one or two actual people).

I feel I'm being baited into some kind of trap here. Is this a race issue? Or a gun rights issue?
Or "our society is bad" issue? Are these videos being posted to start some shit? The scared white newsreporter being eyeballed by the blackman at :35 sec is sure to be cause for some shit talking.
Armed Koreans defending themselves from a rampaging black community.....guns or race, Pick your poison.

>> ^Morganth:
"Dead-on" would be the opposite of what this clip is. The top 10 best U.S. states as ranked by the so-called
"Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence" have a 40% higher rate of
violent crime, including murder, than the 10 worst states by the same
ranking


One thing I've noticed about statistics being used by pro-gun activists in the US, is it's always looking at either the difference in violent crime in between states, and the immediately 1-5 year effects of enacting harsher gun restrictions in other countries such as Britain.

For the first point, do you really think that in a US state which completely outlawed gun ownership it would really be that hard to smuggle weapons across the border from a neighbouring state which happens to have very lax gun ownership laws? Is the widespread evidence that guns are being bought in the US and used in Mexico for crime ring related violence not proof enough for you of the futility of such a narrow analysis?

For the second point, it's pretty clear that after purely enacting harsher gun laws there isn't going to be an immediate sudden dip in either gun ownership levels or as a result violent crime. In comparison a policy a while back in Australia encouraged a voluntary no questions asked hand over of guns. That alternatively, would have an immediate impact.

Given what I've said, consider the following statistic. Now I'm completely aware of the limitations, particular the issue of firearms being moved across borders, and the fact that it is likely living standards and poverty levels among other factors would have the overarching impact.

National Master ranking of murders with firearms (per capita) by country

Do you see a highly developed country above the US, 8th highest on the list? Yes, I'm sure despotic countries with a lack of data were neglected here, but that is of no real significance. How far do you have to go down before you see a developed country? How many times lower is the rate of murders with firearms for that country?

And it's no wonder. The US has the highest level of gun rate ownership in the world. 90 guns per 100 residents.

In the face of that, can you really tell me with all due certainty that gun ownership makes people safer and doesn't empower the criminal who is almost guaranteed to catch the victim without a gun just conveniently in reach? Can you really tell me without a shadow of a doubt that the whole notion that guns make people safer, a very parochially American view is not manufactured propaganda by the US gun industry to serve their own financial interests with a complete indifference to the death of their own countrymen?

Unfortunately, Dana is mostly right. The populace is often too stupid to follow the logic here, but the most stringent gun rights promoters have ignored the loss of other rights (which they often claimed their guns would protect)so long as their gun rights were (for the most part) left alone. Of course, requiring registration and/or (expensive) classes to own a gun do fit the definition of "infringed" :
" ...This means that the gun rights activists have already lost their most important fight and are being pushed down the slippery slope towards the loss of all gun ownership rights.
Regulation is encroachment and weakening of any right, so is registration.
I, for one, can't understand how any federal law restricting any gun ownership right in any way can be legal, since they all, by definition, would violate the second amendment. Somehow, it seems, the courts have changed the definition of "infringed" from "weakened/encroached" to "removed completely".
The founding fathers knew the definition of the words they put in the constitution, the bill of rights, and the amendments. It is disgusting that they are so often ignored or twisted, even by the courts but more often by the legislative and executive branches without meaningful opposition. Instead of poorly thought out (and logically unconstitutional) laws, they should be pushing for a constitutional amendment to "regulate" guns.
Even if you disagree with the gun rights activists, you should be enraged that our constitution and bill of rights are regularly being ignored. The next right they ignore/dilute/regulate may be YOUR favorite.

"Dead-on" would be the opposite of what this clip is. The top 10 best U.S. states as ranked by the so-called
"Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence" have a 40% higher rate of
violent crime, including murder, than the 10 worst states by the same
ranking