How do they know if she's from out of state if they don't see her ID?

I wish all you Americans could see this from our point of view in the UK. I'm not looking for a fight here, I'm just explaining why all this seems so fucked up to me/ most other people from the UK.

In the UK we don't have guns. Or at least very, very few people do. They aren't an everyday item. Our police don't carry guns as a matter of course. Going to an airport is strange because the police there do carry guns. In the UK a gun in public will belong to a criminal. Simple as that. They're something that is to be feared in public.

Most Americans imagine that a person with a gun in the UK could walk around like a god, the boss of everyone. But this doesn't happen, because we have armed response police units and they deal with the situation. But as a rule criminals don't carry guns. Obviously if you try hard enough it's possible to get hold of one, but it's not easy or cheap, and you don't need them. You're not going to immediately go up against people with guns here, so no need to carry one yourself.

I can't imagine living somewhere where guns are commonplace. It straight up scares the shit out of me. I understand that carrying a gun could make you feel safer, but I'd be far happier without a gun in a place where no-one else has a gun. I don't know why so many Americans are so happy having guns everywhere. I'll never understand it and I never will.

Can't you see that guns are killing your people?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2013/mar/25/guns-protection-national-rifle-association

A deep constitutional scholar such as yourself probably already knows this:

"For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “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.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.

Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”"

source: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html

*promote *money
I wrote a tongue-in-cheek column about corporate personhood earlier this year.

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/opinion/hale-let-the-corporations-have-their-rights-role-in-government-1.2531819

It would be interesting if corporations weren't people. But they are.

The aftermath of a few slapdash U.S. Supreme Court decisions means that today's companies resemble citizens more and more. And, much like the pigs and men sitting at the table in "Animal Farm," it is already impossible to determine which is which.

A few key court decisions sowed the seeds for corporate personhood. In Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), it was ruled that a private business was exempt from state laws seeking to interfere with established contracts. In other words, the court ruled, states can't pass laws that impair business contracts.

In 1886, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision — and its implications were huge — granted corporations the rights of citizenship.

Just last year the Supreme Court ruled, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that First Amendment rights should be extended to corporations. The floodgate of contributions — mostly anonymous — helped sweep the Tea Party to power and shake up the status quo in Washington, D.C.

It won't be long until corporations are extended Constitutional protections enjoyed by U.S. citizens. Rather than stall sharing our rights with big business, perhaps we should endorse it.

Surely, the National Rifle Association would have no qualm extending Second Amendment rights to big businesses. They may argue corporations should enjoy the same protections our forefathers had. After all, they'll say, why should corporations have to only rely on banks and lobbyists to protect their interests? They're guaranteed to blanket their members with pro-corporate paraphernalia backing whichever businesses packs the most heat. And nothing short of San Francisco can stop the NRA.

As soon as Constitutional rights are extended to corporations, they should be able to run for president. Foreign companies — much like Arnold Schwarzenegger — need not apply.

Rather than spending money for voters to elect whichever presidential candidates get the most campaign contributions and airtimes, corporations could cut out the middle man and invest in their own campaigns.

Congress is guaranteed to be friendly to a corporation in the Oval Office. Two corporations — a president and a vice president — could help put an end to wasteful government spending by working closely with legislation. Most legislators already nip at the bit for corporate donations; it's essential to winning. Corporations would bridge the aisle between Democrats and Republicans better than George Washington.

Boeing Co., the world's largest plane manufacturer, would never land billions of dollars' worth of imprudent government contracts to build impractical engines if the money were coming out of their own pockets, so to speak. And Congress would never again have to pursue worthless pet projects to keep jobs in their state, because worthless pet projects would cost corporate White House money.

Every "bridge to nowhere" must have a strip mall at the end.

As is, a majority of the Supreme Court already defers status to big business over citizens, and it wouldn't take too long until the minority could be replaced. The awesome powers of a corporate-backed executive branch, marching in lockstep with the legislative and judicial, would outrival any nation. Even China would eventually owe us money.

Of course, a business oligarchy is probably not what the framers of the U.S. Constitution originally intended for us. But lesser nations have endured far more with far less. And who among us doesn't want what's best for us?

Critics of corporate personhood want to amend the U.S Constitution to limit the rights of corporations. They argue that corporations, because their sole purpose is to make a profit, shouldn't have the same rights as you or I.

These critics are especially alarmed that corporations can make significantly larger political contributions than individual citizens. Some critics say that this is just one example where the rights of corporations actually exceed the rights of citizens. It does seem lopsided. But with such a global competitive market, how else can we compete with other countries?

Maybe corporate personhood isn't such a bad idea after all. What else could unite Americans more than having Coke and Pepsi run on the same ticket?

If a corporation were president it just might invest more time and more money at home. Then, maybe, we could all sit at the table.

@DerHasisttot

In response to your final question (about the education of firearm owners), it varies depending on the state. Some states require training in firearms safety when you make a legal purchase (of course, some people choose to buy illegally or through unlicensed vendors, but that's a different issue). Other states require a child-lock on the gun at all times when you're not using it. The NRA (National Rifle Association) in the US, which obviously is pretty pro-gun, are huge advocates of training all kids (whether their families are gun owners or not) about how to safely handle firearms. My family never owned a gun, but our neighbors did and they showed me how to treat a rifle with respect.

I've seen in the U.S. hidden camera video of kindergartners playing with an (unloaded) firearm that was left unsecured in a room with them and clearly they didn't understand the danger it presented--they aimed at other children in the room and pulled the trigger laughing. But I'm guessing this is because they assumed it wouldn't fire.

When interviewed afterwards, they all looked horrified and uncomfortable when the reporter doing the hidden camera story asked them what they would have done if the gun had accidentally gone off for real. They clearly understood it could seriously hurt another child. They just didn't think the gun they had found would actually go off. That's why I'm a bit suspicious when you say it takes from 8-10 years of age to understand the concept of death. Those kids were kindergartners (around 6 years old) and they clearly got the idea, although they hadn't thought far enough ahead to realize that would be the consequences of their actions at the time.

I agree with you partially about the glorification of violence in society--particularly U.S. society. I feel that all too often violence is portrayed in the media as an acceptable solution to problems that really could have been solved non-violently. In the U.S. we seem to take perverse pride in people who are behaving badly "getting what's coming to them" (i.e. violence). But I don't think this particular video glorifies that aspect of violence.

On the other hand, violence is a part of life. Violence and the threat of violence is necessary to maintain a stable society. For example, police need to be able to use violence to stop criminals who are actively attempting to hurt others and/or the officers. There are certainly times (self-defense) where individual violence is necessary. I don't think it does anyone--particularly children--any good to stick our heads in the sand and hide from that fact that violence is a part of human nature. As long as we are educating children about the moral and ethical implications of violence, I have no trouble with them viewing it.

And that includes videos like this which include imaginary violence. Let's face it, imaginary violence is fun! The reason is that it is free from the horrible consequences that accompany real violence. When we play cops 'n robbers as kids, we pretend to shoot each other. But part of the fun is that when everyone is "dead" we can all get back up and play again. And most kids (unless they've had some kind of psychotic break with reality) "get" the fact that this is because there is a difference between imaginary violence (the kind they see on TV or in video games) and real violence.

Like I said before, that's why I find this video to be one of the most artful music videos I've ever seen. It gets us to look at that imaginary violence of play in a new way. It is much more "realistic" than we expect. At the same time we realize it is still imaginary violence. Yet, though we realize it is imaginary it still makes us feel uncomfortable! Artistic brilliance, in my opinion.

To be honest, I'd love to see one of those "Kids watch..." videos that have been floating around the Sift tackle this video and get real children's ideas about the violence portrayed in this vid. I think it would be really illuminating.

"Chuck Cunningham and his employer, the heartless, brainless National Rifle Association have chosen as their mission not guaranteeing the right to bear arms, because the Constitution already guarantees that, but the right to bear sorrow. Indeed they guarantee us the right to bear sorrow so enormous after events like the Tucson massacre... that the blood-soaked lobbyists refuse to allow us."

"Christina Taylor Green is not the last 9 year old girl who will give her life thanks to the work of Chuck Cunningham and NRA lobbyists."

@NetRunner, these quotes aren't dishonest *fear-based politicking? He's leveling blame that's circumstantial not evidential.

I like the idea of advertising and fundraising for causes a lot. Though I think if you want it to be non-partisan you're going to have to limit it to fund raising for charities. If it's a "cause" like the American Civil Liberties Union, National Rifle Association, Organizing for America, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Greenpeace, or Focus on the Family that does political work, it's going to be "partisan" to somebody. I'd wager even EFF and Amnesty International will seem partisan to somebody.

Maybe just make a clear separation between charities, and non-profit political organizations, and let them coexist in separate areas, so people can be clear about what they're signing on for.

I'd also like a form of "news article sift", to try and get some crowd sourcing at work on elevating reports and opinion pieces with some quality.