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I am a Liberal Democrat except for my position on firearm ownership and use. On that I am much closer to Ivan Bloodax than Hillary. I believe I have an unlimited right to defend myself, my family and my friends from violent assault. I don't much care what anyone else thinks about this. I will be glad to discuss right after I survive a violent confrontation.
What tools I use to do this is my choice and not the rest of the community as represented by the government. I would revise our laws to eliminate any Federal Laws on the subject as well as stop worrying about trying to prevent criminals from buying guns. Criminals will always be able to buy guns. Anti gun laws only support the criminal suppliers prices.
I believe the gun grabbers are acting out of fear. Not only the fear of being harmed by a gun toting criminal but by the possibility of having to actually shoot and maybe kill someone. They are afraid of the guilt this would create. This fear eliminates their ability to THINK that believing it is better to be alive to feel guilty is preferable to being free of sin and quite dead.
I expect that, as Europe is being invaded by a really violent culture, their attitude toward arming all of their citizens will be changing to one more like ours.
GUN CONTROL = ABILITY TO SELECT A LEGITIMATE TARGET AND HIT IT WITH YOUR FIRST SHOT.
Europe is no different than the US their power also comes from the people, we have already seen that in Brexit. Aside from kings and queens we both vote and have a say in our government The problem with many people in the US is that they still think it is 1776, this is a democracy. We are not different except for the irrational that in the US we feel we need to have guns to protect us from the government that we elect.
This Democrat owns a gun.....and it isn't to protect myself from the government.
Gun policies are an ever-recurring theme, and I've thought about it why the Americans have such a different view.
My points are:
The gun culture in the US is romantic. Guns represent individualism, freedom and self-sufficiency; the frontier mentality. In Europe guns represent oppression, dictatorship and misery. Americans have a love of guns, while Europeans fear guns, because they represent the opposites.
In the US guns are looked as a tool, a thing which represent your independence. A common argument is that an armed populace ensures democracy. But come on, the US military is by far the strongest in the world. If a corrupt president would seize power he/she could do it in no time. It's not like armed civilians would make much of an resistance. Meanwhile, in Europe this ethos never got ground, as the populace were never armed. The UK has always had very strict gun laws, and how many coups have there been? Zero.
This policy is also evident in legislation. The "Stand Your Ground" laws in the US are much more lax than over here. If a burglar armed with a knife comes into your house, you shoot him in the head and so you stood your ground. In Europe you will be charged with murder, because you used unnecessary violence.
That brings us to the next point: the concept of honour. In this aspect much of the US has this macho attitude left. Having a gun protects you and your family, it's a sign of the same things I mentioned before: individualism, freedom and self-sufficiency. Duels were a big thing in Europe just 150 years ago, but somehow we started to think that the whole concept is stupid and obsolete. Look at American and European football. In American football brute force is the main deal, in European football sneakiness.
History. Europe is a continent which has suffered so much in internal fighting that it's almost in our genes by now, while the US got some only once in the Civil War, and the rest was Manifest Destiny. Again, romantic John Wayne views versus Erich Maria Remarque's "All quiet on the Western Front".
What some pro gun owners claim is that con gun people don't know how guns work or understand guns. That might be, but that is/was not the case in Europe. Until the end of the Cold War most European countries had conscription, meaning that every able-bodied got to fire lethal hi-power assault rifles. Europeans including me, fired assault rifles, pistols, 50 cal AAMG:s, a LAW72 and threw hand grenades. I believe that this was an incentive to make Europeans having a respectful dislike for guns.
The circle of guns. Americans have gotten used to that everyone can be armed. In Europe the mentality is that nobody is armed. It affects you. You have a sarcastic joke that if someone gets fired you say "well, he's probably coming back to shoot us". Europeans don't get that joke. It's utopistic.
What do you think? Agree or disagree?
Fascinating. Comparing our country who's rights are God-given and guaranteed by our Constitution, to countries whose rights are granted and are as fragile as their current government.
The big difference is the European culture is based on hereditary political and economic domination. hereditary leaders never want the peasants to have their own arms but are dependent on the same peasants carry arms for the princes when another set of princes want to make violent changes.
We are rapidly heading for the same to my great distress. Multi generational dominance of Wall Street and politics are just the start.
I am a Liberal Democrat except for my position on firearm ownership and use. On that I am much closer to Ivan Bloodax than Hillary. I believe I have an unlimited right to defend myself, my family and my friends from violent assault. I don't much care what anyone else thinks about this. I will be glad to discuss right after I survive a violent confrontation.
What tools I use to do this is my choice and not the rest of the community as represented by the government. I would revise our laws to eliminate any Federal Laws on the subject as well as stop worrying about trying to prevent criminals from buying guns. Criminals will always be able to buy guns. Anti gun laws only support the criminal suppliers prices.
I believe the gun grabbers are acting out of fear. Not only the fear of being harmed by a gun toting criminal but by the possibility of having to actually shoot and maybe kill someone. They are afraid of the guilt this would create. This fear eliminates their ability to THINK that believing it is better to be alive to feel guilty is preferable to being free of sin and quite dead.
I expect that, as Europe is being invaded by a really violent culture, their attitude toward arming all of their citizens will be changing to one more like ours.
GUN CONTROL = ABILITY TO SELECT A LEGITIMATE TARGET AND HIT IT WITH YOUR FIRST SHOT.
You are not a liberal or a Democrat. Who are you trying to BS here?
I did not realize it was so offensive to remind voluntary serfs of their options.
Perhaps misery does love company.
However, American law is still in harmony with the republican form and the sovereignty of the American people.
The people of the state, as the successors of its former sovereign, are entitled to all the rights which formerly belonged to the king by his own prerogative.
Lansing v. Smith, (1829) 4 Wendell 9, (NY)
At the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people and they are truly the sovereigns of the country.
Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 440, 463
It will be admitted on all hands that with the exception of the powers granted to the states and the federal government, through the Constitutions, the people of the several states are unconditionally sovereign within their respective states.
Ohio L. Ins. & T. Co. v. Debolt 16 How. 416, 14 L.Ed. 997
In America, however, the case is widely different. Our government is founded upon compact. Sovereignty was, and is, in the people.
[ Glass vs The Sloop Betsey, 3 Dall 6 (1794)]
Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts.
[Yick Wo vs Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886)]
Need you be reminded how effective that constitutional thingy was as it applied to providing all their stipulated protections and supposed freedoms to your most identifiable minority? I should hope not! Ask them about that "misery loving company" nonsense you spout on about.
"Serf"........ this from a person lauding the moral superiority of a country that still segregated large portions of it's population along racial lines well into the twentieth century. It defies reason.
Words are fine; actually living by them is quite another thing entirely however.
The quick answer is that the U.S. was founded on skepticism toward state power, where the intent was to give citizens as much freedom from and control over the government as possible. This was what made the U.S. unique compared to the rest of the world. Not so much anymore, but that skepticism of those ruling over society still exists here.
From the perspective of someone who doesn't trust that the government will always have our best interests in mind (massive understatement), it's crazy to support anything that reduces the power citizens have and gives the state even greater power to control the population by force - which is the entire purpose of a government.
Gun policies are an ever-recurring theme, and I've thought about it why the Americans have such a different view.
My points are:
The gun culture in the US is romantic. Guns represent individualism, freedom and self-sufficiency; the frontier mentality. In Europe guns represent oppression, dictatorship and misery. Americans have a love of guns, while Europeans fear guns, because they represent the opposites.
In the US guns are looked as a tool, a thing which represent your independence. A common argument is that an armed populace ensures democracy. But come on, the US military is by far the strongest in the world. If a corrupt president would seize power he/she could do it in no time. It's not like armed civilians would make much of an resistance. Meanwhile, in Europe this ethos never got ground, as the populace were never armed. The UK has always had very strict gun laws, and how many coups have there been? Zero.
This policy is also evident in legislation. The "Stand Your Ground" laws in the US are much more lax than over here. If a burglar armed with a knife comes into your house, you shoot him in the head and so you stood your ground. In Europe you will be charged with murder, because you used unnecessary violence.
That brings us to the next point: the concept of honour. In this aspect much of the US has this macho attitude left. Having a gun protects you and your family, it's a sign of the same things I mentioned before: individualism, freedom and self-sufficiency. Duels were a big thing in Europe just 150 years ago, but somehow we started to think that the whole concept is stupid and obsolete. Look at American and European football. In American football brute force is the main deal, in European football sneakiness.
History. Europe is a continent which has suffered so much in internal fighting that it's almost in our genes by now, while the US got some only once in the Civil War, and the rest was Manifest Destiny. Again, romantic John Wayne views versus Erich Maria Remarque's "All quiet on the Western Front".
What some pro gun owners claim is that con gun people don't know how guns work or understand guns. That might be, but that is/was not the case in Europe. Until the end of the Cold War most European countries had conscription, meaning that every able-bodied got to fire lethal hi-power assault rifles. Europeans including me, fired assault rifles, pistols, 50 cal AAMG:s, a LAW72 and threw hand grenades. I believe that this was an incentive to make Europeans having a respectful dislike for guns.
The circle of guns. Americans have gotten used to that everyone can be armed. In Europe the mentality is that nobody is armed. It affects you. You have a sarcastic joke that if someone gets fired you say "well, he's probably coming back to shoot us". Europeans don't get that joke. It's utopistic.
What do you think? Agree or disagree?
I think that you've never been to Europe outside of a major metro area LOL
The principle is that we derive our rights from God and the freedoms we reluctantly give to the state are very limited and we need to be armed in case the state tries to take our freedom's from us unlawfully. American was formed with a huge distrust of government....most Europeans accept the power of government but that thinking has led to communism and millions killed, nazism (a different form of Socialism) resulting in 60 million killed.
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