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Post by richard on Jul 15, 2024 17:17:35 GMT -5
Thomas Crooks, Trump's attempted assassin, had the guns and the power. But, unfortunately for him, not the aim. You support the right of individuals to have guns and power. But, for some inexplicable reason, you seemed unhappy when Crooks exercised his right to use that power. When I was younger, I was in favor of the government seizing all weapons from the population because of the number of cases where people died as a result of the existence of guns. All of those cases were so sad. I then looked into this issue and learned that my position was completely naive. The reason the US founders made sure that the 2nd amendment was included in the bill of rights is because they had studied history and knew that guns left only in the hands in the government had resulted in the largest incidents of democide (genocide by governments). Governments are the biggest murderers in the history of the world. Monarchies in Europe were the greatest perpetrators of democide, so the founders made sure that the people had at least as much power as the government in case would-be dictators came on the scene. In the 20th century alone, we saw that the first policies that dictators put in place were gun control polices. Castro in Cuba, Mao in China, Hitler in Germany (took guns from Jews), Stalin in Russia, Chavez in Venezuela all took the guns from their populations and the result was democide on a massive scale. The communist government in Cambodia, headed by Pol Pot, seized guns as soon as it gained power. The movie, the Killing Fields, showed the result in all of its gory details. The US, under Ronald Reagan, sent massive amounts of weapons to Somalia's dictator, Siad Barre, and the result was the Isaaq genocide. Somalia is currently one of the top 10 countries subject to the highest risk of genocide. In North Korea, where guns are allowed only by government officials, civilians are trapped in slavery because they have no tools to overthrow their government. The country is in a complete blackout and the people there are mostly starving. There is no perfect policy that is going to work 100% of the time. The downside for 2nd amendment rights is that guns will find their way into the hands of crazies including people like Crooks. Yes, people are going to die because of those crazies, however they are going to die on massively smaller scale than when guns are concentrated in the hands of the crazies in the government. It's better to have the people owning guns that kill a handful of individuals instead of having a government that murders in the millions. It takes only one lunatic leader for democide. Having paid attention to the behavior of the US government over time, that is the last organization I would trust with sole ownership of firearms. Would you trust Trump if he was in charge of the only organization that could possess guns? In the big picture, the reason that our government has guns is for defending the US from foreign countries. Similarly, individuals in the population need guns not only for self-defense from other civilians, but also for self-defense from its own government. This should be mandatory to be in all history classes.
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Post by donkey on Jul 15, 2024 17:19:53 GMT -5
But cars have many functions aside from running someone over. Guns, on the other hand, exist only to shoot someone. They have no other function. What good is it to give people the right to own guns but forbid people from using those guns? They are used in hunting, self defense and sports. All legal uses for guns not only that but they are the one things you can buy and probably sell 50 years later for more than you paid for it. Ammunition is the same way I bought several boxes of ammunition 20 years ago that sold for $100 for 1000 rnds you can sell it now for over $400 for 1000 rnds. Guns are a great thing to hand down for generations even if you don't shoot them. In addition to the 2nd amendment, there are more guns than people in the U.S. You aren't going to get rid of guns in America. Anyone who wants a gun, will get a gun. And nobody is going to go door to door to take anyone's gun if a new gun law were passed. All such a law would do is prevent those who follow the law and who want a get a gun to defend themselves from get a gun in the future. The biggest problem is gun access for who those have clear mental illness, and when countless red flags are ignored. While I dont know the solutiion, that does need to be addressed.
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Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist
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Post by Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist on Jul 15, 2024 17:27:24 GMT -5
They are used in hunting, self defense and sports. All legal uses for guns not only that but they are the one things you can buy and probably sell 50 years later for more than you paid for it. Ammunition is the same way I bought several boxes of ammunition 20 years ago that sold for $100 for 1000 rnds you can sell it now for over $400 for 1000 rnds. Guns are a great thing to hand down for generations even if you don't shoot them. In addition to the 2nd amendment, there are more guns than people in the U.S. You aren't going to get rid of guns in America. Anyone who wants a gun, will get a gun. And nobody is going to go door to door to take anyone's gun if a new gun law were passed. All such a law would do is prevent those who follow the law and who want a get a gun to defend themselves from get a gun in the future. The biggest problem is gun access for who those have clear mental illness, and when countless red flags are ignored. While I dont know the solutiion, that does need to be addressed. A great many deaths from school shootings were instigated by individuals taking psychotropic drugs. The list is long. In many of those cases, the FBI and local law enforcement were notified of the potential dangers of those individuals ahead of time. www.cga.ct.gov/asaferconnecticut/tmy/0129/Sheila%20Matthews%20-%20Cofounder%20of%20Ablechild.pdf
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Post by Socal Fan on Jul 15, 2024 17:29:52 GMT -5
When I was younger, I was in favor of the government seizing all weapons from the population ... Thank you for your well reasoned arguments. Let me argue the other side. All the examples you give of democide were in dictatorships with no checks and balances. But America has checks and balances and we have had these checks and balances for almost 2-1/2 centuries. The power of the president is moderated and controlled by Congress and the judiciary. And if we don't like our government, we can always vote it out. Unlike the countries you referred to, Americans don't need an armed revolt to change their government. And the federal government isn't the only government with guns. All states have national guards, local police and state law enforcement agencies. Power in America is greatly decentralized. The people of America simply don't need guns to protect ourselves from our government, and we haven't needed that in 2-1/2 centuries. As you point out, the downside of firearm proliferation is shootings by crazies, criminals, and people overcome by rage. And things keep getting worse. In 2021 alone, there were 21K gun murders and 26K gun suicides: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/The founding fathers did write the 2nd amendment but they specifically mentioned gun ownership in the context of a "well regulated militia". I would be perfectly happy with guns owned by a well regulated militia. My objection is gun ownership by all the crazies, criminals and out of control people.
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Post by 1 Guest on Jul 15, 2024 17:35:47 GMT -5
Tyrants/Dictators that want to destroy "democracy" would not try to protect gun rights, but rather, they would attempt to confiscate guns or implement extreme policies against them. Whoever has the guns, has the power Thomas Crooks, Trump's attempted assassin, had the guns and the power. But, unfortunately for him, not the aim. You support the right of individuals to have guns and power. But, for some inexplicable reason, you seemed unhappy when Crooks exercised his right to use that power.Come on, man, you're better than that. He murdered someone and had he not been blown away, with a gun, he would have murdered a lot more. The gun used to blow him away SAVED many lives. You know that he didn't have the right to murder with a gun, a knife, poison, a car, or any other means. The only murder that's legal in the US is full-term babies.
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Post by colt46 on Jul 15, 2024 17:44:04 GMT -5
Liberals love abortion up to 9 months that’s the worst murder of all, babies didn’t stand a chance ! They were not asked if they wanted to be aborted or not!
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Post by 1 Guest on Jul 15, 2024 17:45:48 GMT -5
They are used in hunting, self defense and sports. All legal uses for guns not only that but they are the one things you can buy and probably sell 50 years later for more than you paid for it. Ammunition is the same way I bought several boxes of ammunition 20 years ago that sold for $100 for 1000 rnds you can sell it now for over $400 for 1000 rnds. Guns are a great thing to hand down for generations even if you don't shoot them. In addition to the 2nd amendment, there are more guns than people in the U.S. You aren't going to get rid of guns in America. Anyone who wants a gun, will get a gun. And nobody is going to go door to door to take anyone's gun if a new gun law were passed. All such a law would do is prevent those who follow the law and who want a get a gun to defend themselves from get a gun in the future. The biggest problem is gun access for who those have clear mental illness, and when countless red flags are ignored. While I dont know the solutiion, that does need to be addressed. Don't count on them going door to door to confiscate guns. But the real problems is they'll only get the guns that were bought legally, they can't very well find guns that aren't registered. It's true that people with previous arrests, known mental illness, severe drug addictions, etc., getting guns is a problem, but if there aren't any red flags, they don't have a record and they lie when, they're given the gun. Example: Hunter Biden. And that gun ended up in a dumpster near a school.
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Post by 1 Guest on Jul 15, 2024 17:50:07 GMT -5
But cars have many functions aside from running someone over. Guns, on the other hand, exist only to shoot someone. They have no other function. What good is it to give people the right to own guns but forbid people from using those guns? The 2nd amendment exists to protect the right of self-defense. It is not intended to be a license to shoot up the neighborhood. Guess you are not better than that. Self defense is probably the main reason that people buy guns. That's why gun sales went through the roof during the BLM riots. In fact it was difficult to even buy ammunition because there wasn't enough to be found.
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Post by Disappointed on Jul 15, 2024 17:51:31 GMT -5
I don't really get involved in Political discussions, but I will state that I would be in favor of giving the dinosaurs another crack at running the planet.
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Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist
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Post by Rightwing Conspiracy Theorist on Jul 15, 2024 17:54:13 GMT -5
When I was younger, I was in favor of the government seizing all weapons from the population ... Thank you for your well reasoned arguments. Let me argue the other side. All the examples you give of democide were in dictatorships with no checks and balances. But America has checks and balances and we have had these checks and balances for almost 2-1/2 centuries. The power of the president is moderated and controlled by Congress and the judiciary. And if we don't like our government, we can always vote it out. Unlike the countries you referred to, Americans don't need an armed revolt to change their government. And the federal government isn't the only government with guns. All states have national guards, local police and state law enforcement agencies. Power in America is greatly decentralized. The people of America simply don't need guns to protect ourselves from our government, and we haven't needed that in 2-1/2 centuries. As you point out, the downside of firearm proliferation is shootings by crazies, criminals, and people overcome by rage. And things keep getting worse. In 2021 alone, there were 21K gun murders and 26K gun suicides: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/The founding fathers did write the 2nd amendment but they specifically mentioned gun ownership in the context of a "well regulated militia". I would be perfectly happy with guns owned by a well regulated militia. My objection is gun ownership by all the crazies, criminals and out of control people. The constitution provides checks and balances among the 3 branches of government - they are used to keep one of the branches from gaining too much power. However, those self-imposed checks are not powerful enough to contain the entirety of government itself. Hence the need for the 1st and 2nd amendments which provides power in the hands of the media and the people as checks and balances on the activities on government. The media and the people are the necessary 4th and 5th checks on tyranny. As you know there are many competing arguments regarding the idea of the well-organized militia. It is important for the people to be educated about who is leading those organizations because if they are in cahoots with a tyranny style government, they are screwed. In my opinion, if the government wants all guns to be removed from the society, the government needs to set an example. I would not agree to gun confiscation unless the government gave up their weapons first. Guns concentrated only in the hands of government is dangerous .
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Post by 1 Guest on Jul 15, 2024 17:59:08 GMT -5
in the end..it is all about a total corrupt judge..hoping to get some…you asked me yesterday why Trump etc. are a thread for US democracy…here you see it… Lying on a gun application and not paying taxes for YEARS, on millions of dollars are also crimes punishable by law. Let's see what happens to a certain President's son. We'll see if the US is really a democracy.
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Post by Socal Fan on Jul 15, 2024 18:15:51 GMT -5
I don't really get involved in Political discussions, but I will state that I would be in favor of giving the dinosaurs another crack at running the planet. The dinosaurs are already running the planet. We have a choice of Trump or Biden. Whoever wins will be the oldest president in history.
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Post by Lizards on Jul 15, 2024 18:22:49 GMT -5
As you can see here, the lizard brains are well represented.
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Post by BOGC on Jul 15, 2024 18:49:56 GMT -5
JD VANCE WILL DESTROY HARRIS IN A DEBATE! A whoopee cushion could defeat Harris.
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Post by Socal Fan on Jul 15, 2024 18:55:39 GMT -5
JD VANCE WILL DESTROY HARRIS IN A DEBATE! A whoopee cushion could defeat Harris. No question. But is Vance as good as a whoopee cushion?
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