hummm i dont think the terrrorists have won not unless we cave into to them and give up ,the USA isnt going to let that happen not unless some of the liberals have there way and BTW were off subject and we know where this will head as it has before and i dont want to go there
@pulsar...I agree with aabbccdd on that (or for the most part). Terrorist haven't won by a long shot; not here in the US or in the UK either. I certainly agree with you on the impact on rights though. Neph was referring to this earlier with the US system of checks and balances. I watched with some facination as your political system fought back and forth between a 60 - 90 day detainment without charges; at least you're not locking people up and throwing away the key! @aabbccdd: I'm not faulting the attenpts at making airlines safer, the ports & cargo problems that exists etc. but neither liberal nor consevative will be able to keep terrorists from coming in if they wish. Never. You've seen all the mayhem over the mexican US border lately ...mostly an immigration issue with a little terrorism security thrown into the mix (I side with the arch-conservatives on that one but for economic, not sercurity reasons). We can't control the US mexican border which is nothing compared to the north. The US Canadian border is the largest undefended border in the world and is thousands of miles long and much of it forestry. Putting higher security at entry points on highways is nothing but "theater". With nooks and crannies, it's over 5,000 miles long. The mexican border pales in that comparison and we can't even control that. If they can make their way to mexico and particularly Canada, there isn't a damn thing thing we can do short of building a new 5000 mile long wall of china and post the entire US military on the top to guard it. Anybody can cross the US Canadian border and not get caught...hell, nobody's even looking...but they can't look; it isn't possible. I guess my point is that, however great their efforts, there are some things which neither liberal or conservative can do anything about and they readily admit it ... though they try not to talk about it much. You're also right about this being the wrong subject for the thread but, albeit obstinently, I wanted to get my two cents in.
O.K. guys, I've made a firm decision on this subject. I just discovered I have a basement full of friggin alley cats! Don't suppose you have a hand grenade somewhere you can spare LOL!
gerry1 pull pin with teeth and hold in right hand,and think should i throw it,if i do,can i get it back?????????????
Gerry, Cats love 12 gauge shotguns. #6 shot, 1-1/2 oz loads, cylinder bore choke should do fine. remember to wear eye and ear protection though, shooting in confined spaces is not a good idea. An Air Force buddy of mine had to get rid of 45 cats from his Dad's ranch in Az a few years back. He says that cats get really smart when they start dying.
@Blivet...I'll have to get one! These are no domesticated kitties but combat hardened vetrans! Along with the shotgun, I'll try to find a medieval suit of armour!
@ireland What would we do without your pix. 1.5 sec delay on grenade. That's a short fuse.Keep em coming. LMAO
I am always puzzled by the American attitude that they are the 'centre of the universe' evident in posts from gerry1 and aabbccdd - no offense, you probably don't even realize, LoL I very much agree with Pulsar, and feel you are not getting the gist of his suggestions... The 'victories' he speaks of are subtle, and have to do with crippling the carefree freedoms we have traditionally assumed were our birthrights in the Western world. The terrorists have crippled airports, international borders and travel, and set suspicion and mistrust into everyone's minds... Even if nothing more occurs, the CDN/US border ($1 billion/day) is heavily messed-up, and all flights and airports everywhere are a nightmare. So when you say 'they have not won' you're taking it too literally - the small victories and defeats are ongoing and insidious, and have changed one of the great countries in the world for the worse. Clinton and Jimmy Carter say they are almost 'ashamed to be Americans' these days, and they are not alone... What about the voices of these people and others who agree (although we know you do not like to listen aabbccdd) The defeat of the West will not come at the point of a gun...
Thanks OGS, the changes we are seeing are very subtle, oppressive & devisive. Our freedoms are slowly being eroded. We have recently had legislation for ID cards in this country. There is an immensely peurile arguement which goes "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear", this is beyond contempt & is way too simplistic. I have nothing to hide, but I have nothing to show either. For too long now the British public has been made fools of by successive governments, we are told all these things are for our own good, we now live in a nanny state which is obsessed with knowing our every move, telephone call, E-mail etc. We have 25% of all the CCTV cameras in Europe. They now want us to carry ID cards, facial recognition only works 40% of the time, the technology is not living up to expectation. I feel that we are just following Americas' lead, this galls me, why can we not think for ourselves? (I do not wish to create an arguement over this either!) They want all our details kept on computers. Who has access? Year by year different agencies will gain access to our personal info, until nearly anyone will have access. Our government has an appalling record in computer projects, the costs will spiral out of control (but we will be told it is for the greater good), then there will always be the risk of information manipulation, how will you prove what is right or wrong? What about hacking? There are way too many potential disasters waiting to happen, but the government will not listen, they never do or will............ I wish I could defend myself, my family, my friends & my property without fear of prosecution, preferably with a large f**k off gun. Like Neph says, why should I not be able to defend myself? The terrorists have won, because we now do as our respective governments tell us to, we live in a climate of fear & paranoia. Our laws are being changed, but the only ones affected are the honest people.
@pulsar...you would get no arguement from me over what you said. The more the UK follows our lead...the greater your peril. But, like the pope said (the one and only time I've agreed with the pope), 9/11 was just totally wrong but it won't stop if the foreign policy since 1945 doesn't stop. So what do we do....we increase the same foreign policy. Even without following the US lead, the Brits are not in the best of graces either because Palestine, which started all this, was part of the empire before removing its inhabitants to create another state. "Won" has a sense of finality...things are going to get worse as we've intensified intrusive polices. We've got no business where we're not wanted....who better than the Brits would know the inevitable consequence of that? It's like we never learn anything but keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
Our founding fathers summed up the way I feel about gun control and giving up our rights for protection against terror, so called Un-Patriot act. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Ben Franklin. "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. -- in "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, Thomas Jefferson quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764 God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure., November 13, 1787, letter to William Stephens Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy
Like I said before, some of the most brilliant and forward thinking men to ever walk the planet. Ben Franklin's quote seems like he saw the UnPatriot Act coming 200 some odd years later and was talking about it specifically.
That quote is uncannily eerie to say the least. I guess he knew the minds of people better than most.
The_OGS , if you actually think i give a damn what a POS like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clition have to say with there liberal slanted point of view and them trying to undermine EVERYTHING then your dead wrong. if its so bad they can move to F@#K#@$ iraq i will pay there way. and as said this wont turn into a politcs thread , its a gun thread for or against.
In this argument, (and day and age) basic freedoms seem to holding hands with the right to bear arms. Our forefathers knew of oppression and tyranny oh too well. They also knew the greatest threat to freedom is not some overseas power, but rather the general apathy of the people themselves. As Americans we always respond quickly and forcefully to outside threats and aggression, but something which happens in another person's backyard, we really couldn't give a damm. Modern society is filled with cute catch phrases such as "not in my backyard" and "what's in it for me", cute statements which really serve as a barometer of the general apathy we call suburban life nowdays. Our ancestors would be appalled to survey the current political landscape, to really see what "progress has been made" towards the creation of a more perfect union. A little off track, but one of the most enlightening displays I ever saw in the Smithsonian Institute was a series of cartoons drawn during the Clinton years by an Native American artist whose name I forget now, basically asking the question how is it right that so many Vietnam era vets are living in cardboard boxes while a draft dodger is living in the white house? Sorry to digress but this country was founded by strong people who understood the need to live free, and the right to bear arms was one of the cornerstones of their dream to be free, 2nd only to the right of free speech. Keep that in mind next time you hear "NIMBY".
@jacsac... I want to say thanks for posting what you did; that was remarkably eloquent stuff. I'll have to remember the Franklin quote as he's Philly's favorite of the founding fathers...lived, died and buried here. I can't help but smile at the paradox...Franklin really despised the bald eagle as the american symbol because of the aggression it implies...he wanted the Turkey LOL! @blivitNC...as a social worker in the proverbial big city; I see some of the worst apathy anyone can imagine for the wealthiest country in the world which cares for it's citizens worse that any other of the big 8. We're dead last. I joined the Navy, got training as a surgical corpsman then they gave me new uniforms and threw me in the marine corps as a combat medic during and immdeiately after the vietnam war. I know a lot of vets disagree with me but I don't hold any hard feelings against Clinton or Cheney for their draft dodging or against Bush for using daddy to get cushy assignments. I'm not sure how old you are but those were very turbulent times; it wasn't like WWII where people knew what was going on. Guys were dying right and left and nobody had a clue why ... and people will resent it and revolt when they see no direct and immenent threat for which their kids are dying. I was not in combat (thank God) but given the nature of my job, I saw quite a lot that I wouldn't wish on anyone and now, thirty some years later, I still don't know why....heros all, in my book, but I don't know what their ultimate sacrifice was for. No one did. Many refused to put themselves in harm's way for nothing. Dying for one's country is patriotic...dying for nothing is nuts. I saw many die and didn't know why....still don't. If there's no reason, self preservation will take over in many. I don't fault any of them; hell, I often think they had more sense than me. @aabbccdd...you would get no arguement from me that Jimmy Carter was a lousy president but you're being unfair; outside the political arena, if any every person (let alone former presidents) had the compassion that man has, the world would be a much better place. His is not lip service like all the other; there is much tangible evidence of his influence and efforts. Despite his crappy politics, he cares about fellow americans more than most. INTERESTING ARTICLE ABOUT BEARING ARMS in one of today's Philadelphia papers. Center City Philadelphia has the third or fourth largest gay concentrations in the country; they gay neighborhoods in downtown Philly span for a couple of miles in all directions. Anyway, there has been a wave of gay bashing from rednecks in the outside farmlands, for lord knows what instigating reason, and they have decended on the big city. The consequence: Gay Gun Clubs and ranges, apparantly many of them, and because of the bashings and the hate crimes, they're easily getting licenses for "concealed" weapons. The paper has this large picture of a rainbow gay flag and the headline "Bash Me and You're Dead" and lower "Residents of gay district handle hate crimes by packing heat." I mention this merely because of recent discussions; I don't mean it as any sort of social commentary.
I don't disagree with the American contitutional rights, the logic of which jacsac and blivetNC and others have pointed out with eloquence. It is difficult to disagree with The Bill of Rights Amendment II! The whole argument has great merit. The system works - but it contains some inherent disadvantages, which it is important to discuss. Now, far be it for me to hold up Clinton as a paragon of virtue ;^) but Mr. Carter is a great man. Many good Americans (NRA members, probably many) agree with them too. It it not useful to insult these people aabbccdd, and you insult me too. My own politics are somewhat centre-right, that makes me a Conservative is Canada, but I like to hold up the argument for The Left (I am married to one, and have many friends). I feel we who uphold the right to bear arms are important to them because in The Great Battle they will be hopelessly slaughtered like sheep, more like lambs actually (they are mostly young) and will all perish if unarmed. Yes unarmed Canadians are being killed by criminals in robberies or whatever, but not much - it's mostly kids with attitudes and guns shooting each other up, usually both sides armed LoL (as it should be). So on the one hand I find myself worried about the intrusive role of The Crown in my life and friend Pulsar's, it's bullshit and this disarmament thing's a plot. I find myself allied with aabbccdd, and we worry about The Left (though possibly for different reasons). On the other hand it's thought in Canada to be kind of scary going to the states for visit or whatever (we've all heard about the Japanese tourist who, being lost, knocked for assistance and got blasted) and scary to think about moving there. We live (Pulsar, Lethal_B, aussies and I) under the protection of The Crown, and so it has been for centuries. Police in England are unarmed, for gawds sake. American guys have to remember, their culture in unique in the world. Regards
When discussing self defence, gun laws etc, it is inevitable that politics & poilicies will enter the fray. It's a shame that the mere mention of a couple of Presidents will cause uproar & consternation. I object when one persons' opinion is lambasted, and shouted down, purely as one member disagrees. The whole point here is to have [bold]REASONED[/bold] debate, with arguements put in a lucid manner. To shout someone down because you may disagree with them is unfair, unwarranted & goes against the principals of free speech. I am also sick to death of anyone who dares to argue to the contrary been labelled as a wishy washy Liberal, name calling is for the playground & 5 year old children. It has no place in a forum such as this that has many extremely learned & intelligent people as members. I am extremely proud of being British, but if someone has a fair viewpoint against our way of life/government policies, then I will listen & if I have a decent arguement to the contrary, I will put it so in a polite manner. If you wish to make a point, make it in a fair & respectful way. If you treat people like children or idiots, then expect to be treated the same way.
