Gun con-troll

“The NRA will further it's cause through whatever means necessary, including pandering to militia-types. Remember the Jack-booted thugs comment a few years back? It's all about where they get the funding.

I hate the fact that they have such a strong lobby. If there were another gun lobby that seemingly had some moral character as an orgaization, maybe I'd support em, but not the NRA.”

“--"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."
— George Washington”

“--"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." ~~ George Washington”

“--The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
    H.L. Mencken”

“You realize that people will have stopped reading these quotes by now, right?”

“--"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
— Senator Hubert H. Humprey (D-Minnesota)”

“--The usual road to slavery is that first they take away your guns, then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it.
    James A. Donald”

“Guess not.”

“--The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. – James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union”

“-- "It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny."
-- James Fenimore Cooper - "The American Democrat" (1838)”

“-- "The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea."
-- John Adams - Constitution of Massachusetts: Declaration of Rights (1780)”

“-- "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."
-- John Stuart Mill - "On Liberty" (1859)”

“"You realize that people will have stopped reading these quotes by now, right?"
Phaedrus
07:45:02 PM
05/10/02

This is what usually happens when I get into a gun control rant on this board... Just happy to do my bit for our freedoms..”

“"The NRA will further it's cause through whatever means necessary, including pandering to militia-types. Remember the Jack-booted thugs comment a few years back? It's all about where they get the funding.

I hate the fact that they have such a strong lobby. If there were another gun lobby that seemingly had some moral character as an orgaization, maybe I'd support em, but not the NRA."
Phaedrus
07:41:38 PM
05/10/02

--I didn't see any NRA officials killing babies in Waco.
    P.J. O'Rourke”

“--I didn't see any NRA officials killing babies in Waco.
    P.J. O'Rourke"”

“The BATF erred in cornering the rat. The rat lit the fires.

Are you a Timothy McVeigh Fan? What's in your basement, Tommy? Are you a terrorist? Would you commit mass murder? How far are you really willing to go?

By all means, stand up for your rights! Don't cower! Speak out!”

“my two least favorite things are;guns and cars.Years of Lobbyist have made both necessities.The moderation of the laws covering their ownership and use,has been an embarassment to what we call a civilization.Sure the right to own either is ,as it should be,a natural right.however,when huge groups like car co's,oil co's, NRA and gun co's control the rules that apply to them ,we have lost a right as individuals which must be replaced.
Think want you like,but the future may hold events not to different from those of the fall of the USSR.Huge things like the USSR,NY'S twin towers,Enron and many large ,'anythings' will have to have that fate.The reasons are too many and much for now ,but don't forget,when you look in the mirror,ask yourself,"AM I TOO BIG?"”

“So Tommy Gun: Why do those crypto-liberal NRA pacifist wimps fail to stand up for the people's right to keep and bear missles, rocket launchers, nuclear and unconventional arms? Why does the NRA only support the individuals right to keep and bear certain kinds of arms and not others.”

“Duuuhh pedxing - its the National Rifle(and pistol)Association. If ya want missles and nukes ya gotta sign up with the NNMA - much higher membership dues. And if ya don't pay yer dues ya get groken up into many smaller quazi-independent republics”

“My point exactly Garf: they don't really stand up for the second amendment, just the rifle and handgun business. We need the National Arms Bearers Association or something like it!”

“If it's a non-lethal weapon ,that is better protection than a gun ,they'll stand against it.”

“--Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.
    V.I. Lenin”

“--"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free."
-- Clarence Darrow (1920)”

“-- Governments should not possess instruments of coercion and violence denied to their citizens.
    Edgar A. Suter, MD
    Assault Weapons in the Medical Literature: The Missing Pieces, 1992”

“--"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." ~~ George Washington”

“"The ability to quote is a servicable substitute for wit."

- Maugham”

“--"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, onany pretense, raised in the United States."
— Noah Webster, "An Examination into the leading Principles of the Federal Constitution." in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States , at 56 (New York, 1888).”

“--"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every responsible opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government."
— SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.”

“""The ability to quote is a servicable substitute for wit."

- Maugham"
Tilt
-------------------
I do not want to make fun, my purpose is to educate and defend our 2A rights.”

“It is a great freedom to be able to own a rifle or shotgun and use it wisely. I don't know why anyone would want a handgun or automatic weapon in their house, but the mere fact that some people have them doesn't bother me too much.
However, if you think your little pea-shooter is protecting your liberty against an organized attempt at taking it away from you, you are living in an illusion.
I don't care if you have five million rounds of ammo in your closet. You could easily be wiped out by one round, if you know what I mean.”

“-- The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it. – Thomas Edison”

“--"There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people had not been ‘brainwashed’ about gun ownership and they had been well armed. Hitler's thugs and goons were not very brave when confronted by a gun. Gun haters always want to forget the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is a perfect example of how a ragtag, half starved group of Jews took up 10 handguns and made asses out of the Nazi's." ~~ Theodore Haas, former prisoner of the infamous Dachau prisoner concentration camp”

“--"How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every police operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? If during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever was at hand? The organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt."
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize winner and author of The Gulag Archipelago, who spent 11 years in Soviet concentration camps.”

“--"... if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?"
— Delegate Sedgewick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail ... Johnathon Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. 2 at 97 (2d ed., 1888).”

“-- "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic." --Ted Nugent     ”

“You didn't answer any of my questions.

5th Amendment maybe?”

“What's the saying Dunadan? Better to go out with a bang than a whimper.”

“--"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." ~~ Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788”

“--Live free or die. – New Hampshire State Motto”

“Does Tommy backpack at all? Has he ever? Why is he here except to troll?”

“Tommy Gun: You rock! I'am a NRA member too. Some people want to bury their heads in the sand about the second amendment. The second amendment is the only amendment that guarantees the rest. Without the second amendment I very much doubt the first amendment would last much longer nor the rest.

I dislike the people who say the 2nd amendment was just for the police and the military/national guard. The founding fathers of the constitution just forgot to say that when they worded the 2nd Amendment. They also forgot to say that when they wrote the 1st amendment!

If you look at the bill of rights they are all about individual rights. Why would the founding fathers put into such a document about individual rights the need of the country to defend itself against outside threats? Wouldn't this be obvious? I mean the bill of rights doesn't say the government should tax the hell out of the people does it? No, because being taxed is not an individual right.”

“He never has anything to say about anything else, Ruger. He's a one-trick pony.

He has demonstrated No Interest Whatsoever in the subject at hand. People post all kinds of weirdness on this board, but we do return to the subject EVENTUALLY.

Tommy does not. TheBackpacker does not. George Dubya Evildoer does not. They're trolls.

Now I'm beginning to think Tommy is actually twisted. Is he a McVeigh Groupie? I asked him 'point blank' and he did not deny it. People like that do great harm to the cause they 'say' they support.”

“Opening SOON at your local theater;
'Drug crazed anti-semetic pilots with guns',DON"T MISS IT!!”

“Tommy Gun, just checking in here. Right or wrong, by quoting others and not offering much in the way of personal observation or original thought, you are portraying yourself as a person who will jump on a bandwagon. You know that kind of person, one who doesn't really believe it for himself, but just wants to align himself with people who are passionate about a cause.

So who are YOU? Some one who hopped on a bandwagon for some "notoriety" or do YOU really believe all the rhetoric you have been posting?

If it sounds like I am challenging you, I am. Seems I've heard all this rhetoric before. I would really like to hear YOUR thoughts on the issue.

Just so you know, I am not sure what my opinion of responsible gun ownership is. Maybe it's a work in progress. I do not own one, but have shot in the past, it's a blast. (I do own a potato gun, and laugh like crazy when I shoot it!!!) Used to own a bb/pellet gun, til my kids ruined it (Ex-wife allowed them access to it...). Didn't feel the need to replace it.

I do have a pretty strong opinion about the gun lobby however. It seems to me that they will do all they can to allow gun ownership to all, regardless of anything. Any kind of regulation that comes up, they immediately shoot it down some how, anyhow. It would only make sense to me that if they truly wanted to protect America's freedoms and what have you, they could do something - anything, to help limit access of guns to the nutcases.

I was once accosted by one such nutcase. This guy really neede to have his gun taken away. And how many times do we hear of some nut shooting up a bunch of people.

All we ever hear from the NRA types is "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". By now, I'm sure you have heard the retort: Sure, but guns provide a pretty good method for them to do the killing.

One other thing, on this subject, when these nuts are shooting up a place, where is the gun toting, gun owning, NRA type, with his weapon, protecting America and sending the nut-case shooter on to his reward? Why do I not ever hear the NRA trumpeting their own horn and pointing how they are protecting America in these cases? They claim to have, how many million members??? Seems to me that I have heard incredible numbers, something like a third or fourth of America????

If I were present at such a nut-case shooting, and an NRA type actually "took care" of the nut case shooter, I would go up to him and shake his hand, and thank him for all to see. I might even consider taking a trip to see him, and proclaim him a hero, were I not present. Why do I not hear of such events in the news media??? I have asked for links to NRA sites proclaiming such events, and I have not received any such links. (I am now asking, and BTW, have only been told there are such links, but none have been provided).

Just an observation, on my part, but it seems that vocalizing the right to own guns, and waiving them around are pretty easy. But it really takes courage to do so when one is at a place where the nut-case is shooting every one who moves. I am certain that there must have been an NRA type at some of these. Why did he not use use the weapon he is so vocal about owning, before the police got there???? I have read several stories about the UNARMED bystanders bullrushing a nut with a gun and taking them out. It takes real courage to shoot it out with a nut case, and the police, who end up having to do it have my utmost respect for it.

Tis is getting kind of long, but anyways, I would like to read YOUR thoughts on this subject. And if you would, please answer my questions....”

“What violin said. Also, what the mujahidin (sp?) said.”

“Even though an,'UPHILL BATTLE",I thank you for your post.It is so refreshing to hear from Planet Earth' on this subject matter.”

“OK, uphill, I'll take you to task , point by point. Responsible gun ownership is a constitutionally guaranteed, INDIVIDUAL right. Even consitutional scholars who don't like the second amendment agree on this point. As that is well documented,I will not debate it further here. Responsible gun ownership is just that, knowing when, how and why to use a firearm.
The gun lobby (aka NRA), as you choose to call us, is just a group of regular joes like you and I, who choose to exercise our second amendment rights and support the organization that best represents us. There are around 4 million of us, not including the peripheral organizations. It is estimated that about 64 million Americans own firearms. Yeah, we're pretty adamant (Adam Ant?) about the right to keep and bear arms because there are so many who are working so hard to deprive us of that right. History is replete with examples of what happens when a government disarms its citizens. This too, is well documented and I will not go into it further here.
Limiting access of guns to nut cases is about as sensible as limiting cars to nut cases. It sounds good, but is damn nigh impossible. Yes, I wish something could be done about it that would not abridge the rights of responsible people.
Yes, guns kill people. Baseball bats kill people. Cars kill people. Bicycles kill people. Swimming pools kill people. Assault bricks kill people (re:Damian Williams).
What're you gonna do, ban 'em all?It is an unfortunate fact that, in a free society, irresponsible individuals are allowed to commit irresponsible acts. It is senseless to punish all for the acts of a few. It is even more senseless to blame an inanimate piece of hardware for our societal ills.
Susanna Gratia Hupp was a gun-toting NRA menber when her parents were shot dead in front of her in a restaurant in Killeen Tx. Why didn't she fight back? Because she was obeying THE LAW, which said, at that time, that she had to leave her gun in the trunk of her car. She lives today with the knowledge that if she had practiced civil disobedience (not a new American concept), her parents and 19 others might still be alive.
Yours was a long post, and if I missed answering any of your points, I'd be glad to address them later. I'd also like to thank you for the thoughtful and non-hysterical anti-NRA post. If the Bradys, Schumers and Clintons of the world were as reasonable as you seem to be, the second amendment debate would be moot, I think.
Yes, I would defend your life with my firearm if the need arose...
I too, have a tater gun. It's a hoot!”

“For me, the question of gun control is not the question of firearm abolition. It is the control and regulation of who is allowed to own a gun, carry a gun or carry a weapon concealed. How does a nation regulate this for the best of the majority?

Surely even the NRA wants to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the insane, and children (or so they claim), but still, they almost blindly rail against any new handgun legislation requiring registration of firearms.

So what do we do? When you have a well-funded organization like the NRA on one side fighting against a number of things that make good sense to me, I have to lean toward the other side.

I own a handgun. I also registered it as is required, when I moved to California. It wasn't a big deal, and I haven't had anyone show up on my doorstep to take it away from me. The second amendment was written in another time, friends, and it may very well be time to better define what it means. I sincerely doubt that our forfathers intended each of us to have the right to carry stinger missiles and hand grenades, yet in today's world these things are "arms".

In defending ourselves against tyrany in the U.S. today, a vote in an election is worth 200 firearms.

Also, my spud gun is the coolest thing in this hemisphere!”