Note that the only reason to include the "motivation" at all is for it to be used to interpret the "rule".

"to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions (read evaluations), as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia"

So even those dissenting were fairly clear that to be "well regulated" in the popular parlance of the day requires training and at least twice yearly evaluations....and for that, regulations governing and delineating that training and evaluating.
Hamilton was dissenting, saying 1) that in his opinion EVERY citizen would be in the militia 2) that making that militia 'well regulated' was too much of a burden if it fell on every citizen and 3) that he thinks gun owners should have to assemble twice a year (at least) to prove that they are properly armed and equipped (and tested for basic proficiency), NOT be forced to be "well regulated" which would mean MORE training and testing than only twice a year. SO, if you used his more lax criteria (and we don't) there would be bi-yearly proficiency testing and firearm inspections for EVERY gun owner. I think people would LOVE that to be the case, but his idea didn't rule the day, so it's not law.

It seems really strange from an outside perspective. It isn't all that long ago - at least in my memory - when certain types of American were almost celebrating that they were willing to torture and maim people if they 'got their answers'. Even if some of those people were innocent, it was an acceptable price to pay.

When Ed Snowden came out and told us that our governments were spying on us, trawling through our data and tracking our entire history online and in reality through surveillance cameras. The majority of America was against Snowden (in all the polls I've seen) - in any other day he would have been given the Nobel peace prize and celebrated as an all-time hero that stood up to impossible odds just to give the human race full disclosure on their 'freedom'. That's the stuff of legend, the stuff that people should be talking about in 1000 years time like we talk about Genghis Khan or something. Instead he was treated like a traitor and forced to live in exile in Russia because it was the only country that wouldn't hand him over to the torturing, controlling, law-breaking bastards he'd just made to look very stupid..... Gee, I wonder why he didn't want to face "criminal proceedings"? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear - except if you cross the wrong people?

Not too long ago freedom WAS an acceptable sacrifice for security.

When a lunatic got hold of an automatic rifle, killed 50 people and injured another 50, the prevailing argument seems to be "Hey, hey, let's not over react here, we can't sacrifice our freedom because of one terrorist act."

The only difference in this situation is that it isn't about "other people's" freedom and "my security" any more. It is about "my" freedom and "other people's" security.

You probably weren't one of those people, but I think it's fair to preface my comment with that contradiction.

I accept you have a decent point in this case; people shouldn't lose their freedom because the FBI made a mistake. But that's not the question being asked, let's talk about the general case rather than this specific one. The question is does legislation exist that will make mass shootings less common in the US? And I think the answer is yes, but I also think that culture is the biggest factor, not just access to guns.

As an example of what I mean - what if there were legislation that limited his ability to get hold of the weapon, registered that he had expressed an interest with the FBI who could then investigate based on his history? And maybe some other legislation could make it harder in general for him to just go and borrow one of his friends', or steal one from a local lax firing range, or whatever other illegal means exist to get hold of one.... perhaps because there were less in circulation, or those that were in circulation were more stringently secured?

At the end of the day it might not stop him getting hold of one, but it might make it harder and he might have second thoughts or make a mistake and be caught if it were harder. Hell, at least then the families of the dead would be able to say that a CRIME was committed when this fucking lunatic who had been under investigation was allowed to get access to a weapon that could so easily kill or maim a hundred people.

I knew it, South Africa is way more Mad Max than everybody suspects. Ha!
Pretty lax gun safety standards down there, it seems.

My views are heavily biased as well, just from a different point of view. Most of the discussion over here is fueled by misinformation and emotion.

And yes, some people outright refuse to put the blame on the individual. Can't have a proper discussion about anything with those folks. In any case, the laws DO apply to everyone equally, but enforcement has been just as lax in Cologne as it was regarding the hundreds of cases of arson I mentioned. Cost-cutting measures everywhere.

Additionally, what most people outside this country seem unable to understand is our problem with hate speech. It's not "just words" if you have a history where these words quickly turned into blood on the streets. Right-wing extremists and even outright Nazis still are a problem over here. People should keep that in mind before they parade their First Amendment before us -- different culture. Though discussion in general is somewhat lackluster over here, no matter the topic. Used to be better, but people try to avoid confrontation whenever possible...

Anyway, I'd say leave the video as it is. It might be interesting to see how folks react to it.

We're really going to have a hard time explaining this one away. We knew full well this was a hospital, and inexplicably we bombed it anyway. Even if the claim that someone was shooting from the hospital were true (and it seems it's not) there's absolutely no excuse for bombing it. None.
30 minutes of bombing?!? While being begged to stop bombing a hospital?!? In self defense (I note there's been absolutely zero evidence that there was a single insurgent there, no bodies, no guns)?!? And it went through the 'vetting' process and they still said, 'yep, go ahead and bomb a hospital into dust'?!?
Sweet Zombie Jesus! I actually DO hope everyone involved, from the guy on the ground (if they actually exist) to the general that gave the go ahead, is indicted for war crimes and convicted. If that doesn't happen, we can definitely expect this to happen again, and we can expect repercussions....we won't be so lax and relaxed about things if a major hospital in America blows up, will we?

EDIT: Also consider, this hospital was in what's now Taliban held territory, so we WON'T be rebuilding this, the only hospital in the area.

Oh yeah, LAX is a special kind of hell.

I'm pretty sure it's the reason that terrorists hate america.

You're quite correct, sorry that was badly worded. I shouldn't have added "non-US", should have just described the simpler process.

I think I'm just extra bitter about the hell LAX puts me through every time I have to travel there

it is interesting. There is a (non caffeine) biological active substance in coffee which is rapidly absorbed by the stomach and in some individuals increases rectosigmoid motor activity... it seems that the effects is similar to that of 1000 kcalories worth of food. While most laxatives work on the gut surface - either osmotically drawing water into the colon or increasing secretion, a coffee derivative could finally yield dumb and dumber grade laxative!

http://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.php

You are correct, they do not break down suicide by method, so some portion of that 20k could be guns. There are also 34 mass shooting deaths this year and 726 people shot by police. Then again they didn't add together some of the other items, like all vehicular deaths.

In any case, I was not fudging numbers, I picked the most obvious option and listed it.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not that the deaths from guns don't count, it is that the level of attention paid to them is far and above that paid to other forms of death. It's the same thing with people getting bit by sharks. The total number is incredibly low compared to other deaths or injuries from being in the ocean, but whenever it happens, you will see nothing but that in the headlines. That is what I was trying to say. It sucks that people have died from guns, but if we are going to sensationalize those deaths over others, it is nothing more than an agenda to demonize them.

I am all for implementing more restrictions on guns or other weapons, especially in ways that will make it more difficult for mentally ill people to get their hands on them and also methods that will help police identify guns that have been used in crimes. In many cases, the problem is not totally with the restrictions, but with how lax the enforcement is of the ones that are in place. We need to look at this as well. But the video is not about that, it is about making guns the villain. It is the same thing with semi automatic rifles, people with an agenda will call them things like "Military weaponry", "Assault Rifles", and "Automatic Machine Guns". They use buzz words to make them seem more than they are and yet you have clueless people like Joe Biden who says things like "get a shotgun", not realizing that a shotgun can easily wound and kill people faster than a semi auto rifle.

As far as the 'helpful' gun statistics, I would consider them to be subjective based on the situation. I found this site: http://gunssavelives.net/incident-map/, which might or might not be accurate. I wouldn't rely on it, because I don't know what they use for verification.

In any case, as I stated before, I don't mind regulations. I would mind bans and it is clear that many of the more hardcore anti gun people want that to be the end game.

Yes, that's one of my problems with police, lax recruitment. They should do a better job screening applicants, far too many bullies make it through the process. The image they present only attracts the wrong kind of people, and even screens out better applicants (allegedly for anyone over 110 IQ for instance). The right kind of person wouldn't be accepted in the current cop culture (as this story illustrates clearly), and the right kind of people also wouldn't want to associate with them.

I think some officers do make that much on salary, but quite true it's not many. When you count the benefits they get though, they are not under paid in most cases. Most get free medical, life insurance, retirement, many other 'freebies', and incredible overtime, so looking at only base salary is not an honest assessment.
Where I live, $200000 is probably more than 5 times the average pay rate...in some areas it may be the average pay rate. In high cost of living areas, I agree, it would be right to pay them better, (but conversely, that means those in Detroit should be paid less for a more dangerous job...how to reconcile that?) but we should DEMAND better performance everywhere, with zero tolerance for abuse.

EDIT: It seems we could retrain ex-military for the job. They've proven they are willing to take MORE dangerous jobs for far less money ($20-30K last I heard). That's a possible win win, vets get a good job program, we get an improving police force...as long as the retraining and testing is thorough.

True, but on subs they are kept to strict standards with military precision, while many land based ones have issues stemming from being stationary (they heat the water in one spot, and that must be dealt with, etc) and more importantly, they constantly experiment to try to get more out of them...which caused Chernobyl and 3 mile island. The lax standards have caused more, but less damaging issues.
All that said, I agree a fresh design could likely benefit both land and sea based reactors. I recall a Canadian design that was a 'warm' reactor that never made steam, so was incredibly safer to run constantly, from at least 15 years back. Not sure what happened with that.

Where are the statistics that prove that gun control makes you safer? D.C. has very strict gun control and it has the highest crime rate in the country. Conversely, Vermont has very lax gun control and it has the lowest crime rate in the country. What this proves (at least in the U.S.) is that gun laws don't necessarily make any meaningful impact on crime rates. Even if guns were outright banned in every state, guns wouldn't magically disappear. Most gun-related crimes involve illegally-obtained guns anyway. If criminals can't obtain guns legally (which is already statistically unlikely), they'll just obtain them illegally.

In order for gun control to be effective, it would need to be rigidly enforced. The government would need to actively search for and confiscate/destroy every gun it could find and make sure that guns aren't smuggled into the country. The war on drugs has shown that such tactics are costly and ineffective.

If you want to reduce crime, reduce poverty. Unlike guns, poverty has a direct and irrefutable correlation with crime. A reduction in poverty is GUARANTEED to result in a reduction of crime.

Unfortunately, because of the lax way the 'law enforcement lobby' wrote these laws, many people can't go to court to get their money back, either because they can't prove where it came from (instead of the American way, where the cops have to prove it came from illegal business) or because it's designed to be more expensive to 'fight' in court than the money is worth (and apparently that legal fee isn't reimbursed when the cops are proven to be thieves).
My suggestion to solve the issue would be to re-write the law so, if the citizen wins in court and gets their money back (because the officer either lied or made a mistaken assumption to take the cash in the first place), the officer that made the decision to take the cash should have to pay the citizens legal fees out of their paycheck. That would make them be CERTAIN they would win in court before stealing innocent people's money. Unfortunately, I'm all but certain that won't happen.

Yikes, too much text to respond to specifically so here's an overall rebuttal to modulus:

Guns already exist. There are millions of guns out there. Guns last a long time and can be used repeatedly by many different people. Guns can easily be smuggled and distributed illegally. There will always be a demand for guns (for legal and illegal purposes) because they are very effective at what they do. The person holding the gun will always have power over the person holding nothing. Even if the U.S. banned all guns and the production of guns, gun makers would just continue manufacturing guns in other countries and guns would be smuggled into the country, just like narcotics.

Just as the ban on drugs has proven woefully ineffective, a ban on guns wouldn't accomplish anything either. D.C. has very strict gun laws and the lowest gun ownership (legal ownership, at least) in the country and yet their gun-related crime rate is by far the highest. I'm talking more than double the rate of the next highest state. Conversely, Vermont has very lax gun laws and more than ten times the gun ownership of D.C. yet it has the lowest gun crime rate in the country. Wyoming has the highest gun ownership in the country and extremely lax gun laws yet it has among the lowest gun crime rates. In fact, if you look at the states with the lowest crime rates, you'll notice that the vast majority of them have minimal gun control laws.

Finally, you say you've been robbed, mugged and assaulted on numerous occasions. Do you think that would have happened if you were clearly armed? When given a choice between robbing someone who's armed and someone who isn't, do you honestly think criminals would ever choose the armed candidate? When you ban guns, you're just letting criminals know that they can do what they want with minimal risk. Your personal experiences only convince me that guns are a more effective deterrent than being unarmed.

There are many parts of the U.S. that essentially are the wild west. Head out to Compton, Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Baltimore or any other number of cities with high poverty rates and you'd be crazy not to carry a gun with you.

As for New Zealand gun crime rates, sure, they are lower than U.S. gun crime rates. But then, New Zealand's overall crime rate is five times lower to begin with. The disparity isn't limited to just gun crimes.

Like I said before, there's no clear correlation between gun control and crime rates. For every area that has strict gun laws and low crime, there's another area that has stricter gun laws and more crime. Conversely, there are areas with lax gun laws and lower crime rates than areas with strict gun laws. The data simply doesn't show any consistent trends other than the fact that poor areas have higher crime rates than prosperous areas.