Federal ban on assault weapons ended yesterday.

[Poop Man Bob]

I'll bet good money KaBar has had pointy pants ever since. Gross, but probably true.



Article. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040913/ap_on_go_co/assault_weapons&cid=512&ncid=716)
Federal Ban on Assault Weapons Ends

CHICAGO - The decade-long U.S. ban on assault weapons expired Monday. The measure, signed by President Clinton, had outlawed 19 types of military-style assault weapons, banned certain features on firearms such as bayonet mounts, and limited ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. But gun sellers and manufacturers say they do not expect to see any immediate surge in orders for the weapons.

"The thought that people are lined up around the block or that guns are going to flood the streets, that's nonsense," said Mark Westrom, owner of firearms manufacturer ArmaLite Inc.

For one thing, the gun industry says, weapons very similar to those banned have been legally available over the past decade. Also, because of a grandfather clause in the 1994 law, assault weapons or ammunition clips that were manufactured before the ban took effect could still be legally sold over the past 10 years.

Gregory Tropino, president of G.A.T. Guns in Dundee, said his store has fielded several calls about the ban's end, but none from people clamoring for the new guns. Joe McBride, president of McBride's Guns in Austin, Texas, said he expects interest in the new ammunition magazines, but he has not noticed any increase in traffic at his store over news of the ban's end. McBride said some gun dealers also might be leery of stocking up too much on post-ban firearms.

"I think there's some wariness about what might be reinstated after the election," McBride said. A clause in the 1994 ban said it would expire unless Congress specifically reauthorized it. President Bush did not lobby the Republican-controlled Congress to renew the ban, and the deadline passed without a vote.

The expiration of the ban means firearms like TEC-9s can now be legally bought. But some of the 19 weapons — foreign-made guns like the Russian- or Chinese-made AK-47 and the Israeli-manufactured Uzi — are still banned under a 1989 law prohibiting imports of specific automatic weapons.

At ArmaLite, based in Geneseo, Westrom said it will take some time for the company to produce and ship rifles that contain features the act banned. Even so, he said, the rifles will appeal mainly to collectors, not the hunters and target shooters who account for a good portion of ArmaLite's business.

[img]http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040913/capt.nyet25109131410.assault_weapons_nyet251.jpg'>

[img]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040913/i/r14723300.jpg'>

[img]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040913/i/r2799876352.jpg'>




C'mon, KaBar. Tell us why it's a great thing that TEC-9s can now legally be purchased by Joe and Jane Schmo.

[omar]

hahah welcome to america

holy shit this news blew my fuckin mind, ak's only have one specific purpouse, and thats killing other human beings. jesus christ.

[alure]

*sigh*

[imported_Tesseract]

jesus christ....

[KRONOLOGIK]

I still have my M-16 :o

[seeking]

what you guys arent realizing, is that the 'ban' was bullshit, composed to appease the media and the masses. you could still legally purchase any of those weapons from any gun dealer. i bought an AK and 30 round clips in '97, well after the ban took place. when it says

"The measure, signed by President Clinton, had outlawed 19 types of military-style assault weapons, banned certain features on firearms such as bayonet mounts, and limited ammunition magazines to 10 rounds"

all it really means is that it outlawed the import of 19 types of military style weapons, so those made (or even assembled) in america were still perfectly legal. bayonet mounts, folding stocks and pistol grips on rifles were still legal as long as 10 pieces of a rifle were produced in the united states. which means if you had a bulgarian made ak, imported before the ban, all you had to do was replace 10 parts, and all the 'banned' stuff was now legal. replace the sight, the sling, the butt plate, the 4 hand grips, the trigger and a spring, and you could now legally put a bayonette on it. the weapons were never illegal to have. clips larger than 10 rounds were never illegal to have. last month, you could still buy them on the internet for about 8 dollars a piece.

basically, the ban never did anything, and lifting the ban does just as little. it was a media ploy to begin with, and it's a media ploy now.

[imported_Tesseract]

haha, thats some fuckin irony

[2 blaazed]

i dont understand sometimes......

[THEMISHE]

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!! The "ban" was bullshit!

If someone wants to harm or kill you, they are going to do it! It doesn't matter if they have a fucking AK or a glock! You thinkg Mr. Terrorist is going to cancel his shooting spree because he couldn't get that AK-47 he wanted so bad at WalMart? NO! He'll get the shit off the streets or overseas.

If you're shaking in your boots that assault rifles are legal now you should go jump off an overpass.

[THEMISHE]

Originally posted by omar
hahah welcome to america

holy shit this news blew my fuckin mind, ak's only have one specific purpouse, and thats killing other human beings. jesus christ.

Glocks and Rugers are legal too? Is that blowing your mind? GUNS ARE GUNS. THE SHOOT BULLETS. BULLETS KILL. And it really doesn't matter wheter the bullet came from a "banned: AK 47 or the 44 from the Sports Authority.

[StarzAbove]

Welcome to crazyworld

[Pfffffffffft]

YES DAD, I WANT A TEC9 FOR CHRISTMAS!!!..




[img]http://www.project-x.org.uk/images/picgltec91.jpg'>



I KNEW THIS THREAD WOULD COME...
talking about homeland security???

now its easier for your local 15 yr. old thug to get one of these in their hands..


what a shame

[seeking]

let 'em have tec 9's. those things suck ass. they're so notorious for jamming, that they're almost obsolete. they're total 'rap' guns.

i am kind of stoked about this though, now i can cut down my barrel and add a flash supressor. dope.

[Pfffffffffft]

seeking youre funny as hell, im glad i could get a good laugh on these threads...makes up for that drab class i just got out of..

so i guess a country music gun would be a shotgun?:confused:

[perhap]

ill stick with my deer hunting guns.

[Swiffer Jet]

When my friend told me about this, all I saw was red.

[S@T@N]

But take it as a chance to prepare in case of re - e - lection.

[seeking]

Originally posted by Pfffffffffft
seeking youre funny as hell, im glad i could get a good laugh on these threads...makes up for that drab class i just got out of..

so i guess a country music gun would be a shotgun?:confused:

sort of. i dont know much about country music, but i know that there are alot of anecdotal references to beer, cheating women, shotguns and dogs in country music, so i'd say that shotguns sound about right. i think more specifically, it should be a shotgun handed down from your father, but one you bought at walmart could work too.

[imported_dowmagik]

i was under the impression that a non military/law enforcement individual could get a fully auto weapon as long as they had a class III license. the above article contradicts that...?

[Hank Parker]

Assault weapons are getting alot of bad talk these days, but really they're for hunting todays modern super-animal, such as the flying squirle , or the electric eel.

[Hank Parker]

Originally posted by seeking
it should be a shotgun handed down from your father, but one you bought at walmart could work too.


hahahahaha, a breech loadin one.
with some sort of gold plated stock w/pictues of famous civil war generals on it. one that you might have bought from the pages of an Field & Stream or Hand Gun in the midst of commemorative dishes.


[img]http://www.carroll.k12.ia.us/adams/civilwar/civilpics/MVC-012F.JPG'>
"and that's how the south won the war kids."


:lol:

[omar]

Originally posted by Hank Parker
Assault weapons are getting alot of bad talk these days, but really they're for hunting todays modern super-animal, such as the flying squirle , or the electric eel.


i saw that episode today


"Timmy, do you ever get lonely?"

"Yes"

"Well, if you squeeze me, I make bad people go away."

[omar]

Originally posted by IMFINETHANKYOU
GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!! The "ban" was bullshit!

If someone wants to harm or kill you, they are going to do it! It doesn't matter if they have a fucking AK or a glock! You thinkg Mr. Terrorist is going to cancel his shooting spree because he couldn't get that AK-47 he wanted so bad at WalMart? NO! He'll get the shit off the streets or overseas.

If you're shaking in your boots that assault rifles are legal now you should go jump off an overpass.



i dont htink terrorists are the only ones that use aks, or will use aks in the states...check compton

[seeking]

Originally posted by dowmagik
i was under the impression that a non military/law enforcement individual could get a fully auto weapon as long as they had a class III license. the above article contradicts that...?

the above article is an incredible over simplification of things.

fully auto weapons are legal, as long as they were imported into the states before the ban on them (1986 i think, but i could be wrong). they are much more heavily regulated than semi-auto weapons, but they are not illegal to own (given that the weapons themselves are legal). weapons that were semi-auto, but were converted to fully, are always illegal.

[imported_Europe]

Man oh man... No matter how hard I try I still dont get it...

[seeking]

i fucking hate gun arguments. i posted extensively on this in one of kabars threads.
everyone, on both sides of the debate, completely misses the point. either they're gun nuts, or anti-gun zealots, they never look at things from a sociological perspective. it's like people that think putting condom machines in high school bathrooms 'promotes' sex. no, you fucking retard, it doesnt. pull your head out of your ass. people shoot up school yards full of kids because they are seriously fucked in the head, not because they simply had a gun. someone that deranged will find a way to do whatever they set out to. gary ridgway killed 48 women in washington and never used a gun once.
honestly, im glad this bill was not renewed because it tears down the bullshit 'false sense of security' it gave and forces the issue to come up again. hopefully one of these days people will realize that social reform is the only thing thats going to stop murders, not outlawing guns.

[mr.yuck]

Hopefully all of the 15 year old wiggers will destroy each other.

this is truely good news.

[heavyLox]

i always took the right to bare arms as an invitation for the ladies. Once arms are bare then its just a hop skip and a jump till we see titties and such.

[KaBar2]

When George H.W. Bush signed that "assault weapons ban" he sealed his political fate. Just about everybody I know voted either for the Libertarian candidate or Perot, as a protest.

The assault weapons ban was bullshit from the very start. It was an effort by the anti-gun crowd to spoil the party. There is absolutely nothing any more dangerous about a so-called "assault rifle" than there is about any other semi-automatic rifle with a detachable box magazine. The ban on flash suppressors is bullshit, outside of a military environment, it's meaningless. The only reason most assault weapons owners want the banned features (flash suppressors, bayonet lugs, etc.) is purely cosmetic and style, because they look cool.

So far as I am aware, there have been no "drive-by bayonettings" so the ban on bayonet lugs is bullshit too.

The real target of the assault weapons ban was the militia groups. The militia guys want assault-style weapons for that military look, but any idiot can see from the war in Iraq that the weapon of choice would be car bombs and roadside "improvised explosive devices" set off by remote control. What are they going to do, ban cell phones? Ban pagers? Ban radio controlled airplane transmitters? Ban nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel? Ban telephone wire and flashlight batteries? It's completely stupid.

There is absolutely no way to prevent criminals from wanting to do criminal acts. In Japan, where possession of guns and even swords is almost unknown, they still have tons of crime. The thugs use knives and American aluminum baseball bats to murder their victims.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE GUNS. THE PROBLEM IS THE THUGS.

The U.S. crime rate is way down, the lowest in thirty years. And why? Because we have locked up hundreds of thousands of idiots who cannot obey the law, and who think they can do whatever they please, regardless of what the law says. They have no respect for society, no reluctance to harm others, and virtually no inhibitions about robbing, raping, carjacking, taking narcotics and so on. These guys are a danger to the rest of us---they see themselves as predators and the rest of the world as prey. They belong in jail, and as long as they are in prison, they are not out on the street fucking with everybody else.

The only thing better than locking them up would be forcing them to do hard labor that would benefit society while they are locked up. But realistically, that's not going to happen. Basically, as bad as prison is, it's a big BABY-SITTING SERVICE for big babies who can't follow the rules of life.

Owning firearms, for those of us who obey they law, is 100% legal. Owning so-called "assault weapons" that meet the provisions of the law, is 100% legal. Owning fully-automatic machine guns, in states where the law permits it, and when all provisions of the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Law of 1968, is 100% legal. You must be an adult, and you must pay the Class III transfer tax ($200) and you must register the machinegun by completing all the ATFE forms, but owning a fully-automatic machinegun is completely legal.

Do you realize that the very people who are trying to pass all these restrictive gun laws have a large contingent of armed bodyguards, who are often armed with fully-automatic weapons? Diane Feinstein travels around with almost as many bodyguards as the President. Chuck Schumer too. Teddy Kernnedy's bodyguards once left a briefcase containing a fully loaded 9mm UZI machinegun IN THE SENATE CHAMBERS. Of course, they don't see any reason for the little people to need any firearms. Why should they? They have their own little private armies, who are armed MORE HEAVILY THAN THE POLICE.

If you guys don't want to own firearms, or assault weapons, that's your choice. It's a RIGHT guaranteed by the Constitution, like voting, or like having a free press, or like freedom of assembly or religion, or freedom from unreasonable searches, or self-incrimination.

Nobody can make you vote. But you cannot stop someone else from voting for whomever they please, even if their choice is one that you hate and despise. The same thing is true of owning firearms. I have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and I intend to exercise it. If you choose not to do so, that is totally your business.

I am not free to do whatever I please with my firearm, of course. I cannot unlawfully shoot people, or animals, or property, or anything else. I may only use my firearm within the confines of the law. I am 100% within my rights to defend my life, and my property, and the lives and property of others, however. I may use my firearm to defend my life, and the State. SPORT DOES NOT ENTER INTO IT. The Second Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting or target shooting, or skeet. There IS no right to sport shooting. The right to keep and bear arms is about counterbalancing the power of a standing army, and defending the nation against invasion, rebellion and insurrection. It's in the Constitution, read it for yourself.

The main reason I favor assault rifles is that they place a power in the hands of the People that is very nearly equal to that placed in the hands of the State. There will be no tyranny here, ever.

[seeking]

i'm telling you, kabar, you need to learn to conedense your ideas. that whole page could have been squished into two paragraphs.
im not trying to stop you from having your say, i'm just trying to help you get across better to the audience you're dealing with.

[Hank Parker]

When ever I'd pass the NRA headquarters in my car, i would always render a salute.

and i would play retreat every day there at 5:30pm to fuck with their minds.



:crazy:

[SteveAustin]

There are already more than enough guns on the streets to fuel crime for years. Being able to legally buy a new assault weapon isn't going to make a difference. The majority of weapons being used for crime are hot. I can't tell you just how easy it is to acquire an assault rifle. Someone tried to sell me one in high school. Like someone already said...if someone wants to do some evil shit...they'll find a way.

[fatalist]

someone should assasinate BUSH with a newly purchased TEC-9, the fuckin irony :mad2:

[KaBar2]

Okay. Point taken. How about this?

"I like assault rifles. They are legal. If somebody else doesn't like it, tough shit."

Better?

[fatalist]

Originally posted by KaBar2
Okay. Point taken. How about this?

"I like assault rifles. They are legal. If somebody else doesn't like it, tough shit."

Better?

i enjoyed the more detailed one;)
and may i also add im in luv with your brain

[villain]

Haha.... I like assault weapons too.
My main reason for wanting the ban to end was so I could get an Uzi. But now I find out I can't get one. Guess I'll have to settle for a tec-9.
I too bought an ak and plenty of 30 round clips during the ban... hell i think i have an ammunition drum too somewhere.

[seeking]

ha, not that simple kabar. im just saying, much of what you post is just backing for your central argument, which is good, most people dont give enough backing, but there such a thing as too much. when you have 9 paragraphs on a topic that can be summed up in 2, the other 7 generally prove to be too daunting for most people to tackle, which turns them off.
im not telling you how to handle your e-business, im just giving my oppinion, based on years of 'experience' on message boards.

[Gunm]

Originally posted by seeking
the other 7 generally prove to be too daunting for most people to tackle, which turns them off.


translation: most people around here are dumbasses that can't follow a detailed arguement.

I dunno, I liked KaBars lengthly post.

The pot is calling the kettle black.

[boogie hands]

we can all argue that the ban was or was not bullshit. i dont think thats really the point because A) if you want an assault weapon that bad you could probably round one up with a little effort and B) if someone is going to kill or maim another human being they could do it just as easily with a shotgun bought from walmart....in most cases a gun is a fucking gun.

what bothers me is that george, by strategic procrastination, just won the back woods retard vote.....for some reason these people cant seem to even master the english language or grasp the basic concepts of life but they can make it to the polls (as is evident in the repeated elections of people like jesse helms).....go figure.

[mental invalid]

yeah but you cant blame bush...i mean he said he would sign it...how can you expect a strong leader to push something through congress when his party is the majority of both houses...


(do you hear the drip drip drip of sarcasm)

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by seeking
honestly, im glad this bill was not renewed because it tears down the bullshit 'false sense of security' it gave and forces the issue to come up again. hopefully one of these days people will realize that social reform is the only thing thats going to stop murders, not outlawing guns.

Good point.

Thanks everyone for adding to this thread. There was a lot I didn't know and took on simple face value.

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by mental invalid
yeah but you cant blame bush...i mean he said he would sign it...how can you expect a strong leader to push something through congress when his party is the majority of both houses...


(do you hear the drip drip drip of sarcasm)

Daily Show: after four years of Republican control of all three branches, they're mad and they're not going to take it anymore!

[!!! SUB DUDE]

FINALLY. UGH.

[mental invalid]

it is such a fucking joke, i mean i cant believe people buy that ponchus pilate bullshit excuse...

i cant believe that im shocked that people are buying it...


yo bobbo:

"robert novak, duche bag of liberty"

[Gunm]

[img]http://www.4ranters.com/potd/AK47-2_s.jpg'>

[crave]

[img]http://www.freephotohost.com/67/DSC01657_editedx2.jpg'>

cuz we gets down like dat.

[GnomeToys]

I WISH all the criminals had Tec-9s, those things are so inaccurate and fucking jam prone that I wouldn't mind being on the receiving end of one at all.

[Nekro]

Fuck the assault weapons ban, that's not the way to control guns. If someone wants an assault weapon, they're going to get one.

Here's my feelings on gun control. You have a right to own whatever guns you want. You forefit that right when you get charged with or convicted of a violent crime or have a restraining order brought against you.

Gun ownership should be licensed like driving. It is not unreasonable to expect gun owners to take a course in gun safety.

We should crack the fuck down on illegal firearms ownership and uniform the gun-control laws from state to state. That's the way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

People are always going to find ways to kill each other. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop them.

[imported_dowmagik]

Originally posted by KaBar2


Owning fully-automatic machine guns, in states where the law permits it, and when all provisions of the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Law of 1968, is 100% legal. You must be an adult, and you must pay the Class III transfer tax ($200) and you must register the machinegun by completing all the ATFE forms, but owning a fully-automatic machinegun is completely legal.


word, thats what i thought. that article is whack as fuck.

[serum]

Originally posted by KaBar2
There is absolutely no way to prevent criminals from wanting to do criminal acts. In Japan, where possession of guns and even swords is almost unknown, they still have tons of crime. The thugs use knives and American aluminum baseball bats to murder their victims.


in japan just having a gun could put you in prison for a few years. swords however are legal to own. i don't think you can sport it as you walk down the street but you can own them, take them with you in a case of some sort. i believe that they can never be drawn out of the sheath against someone. so if a crook breaks into your house you could try and subdue him but can't kill him no matter what, even if he was killing your family, because you don't have the authority. you could only have your sword in hand, sheathed, and hold him up until the police came but if he decided to try and kill you then and only then could you try and protect yourself but you would have ALOT of explaining to do. the laws aren't very clear and most citizens don't know the japanese constitution, the laws or their rights, but then again their rights aren't very often trampled on so there isn't a real desire to find them out either.

i wouldn't say japan has tons of crime though. the statistics that the japanese authoritites show are very very false. a 0-1% crime rate is impossible. more often than not people aren't arrested or charged rather the police talk with the parents and settle things outside of the law. and especially in terms of rape, which is very very high here, it is almost never reported because of the embarassment to the family name, and because the police will often always blame the victim, or even just respond 'boys will be boys.' in the event that n.korea or china invades japan we'd be screwed. in the event that a natural disaster happens and there is public panic, foreignors are screwed.

[SeYnO9]

Originally posted by mr.yuck
Hopefully all of the 15 year old wiggers will destroy each other.

this is truely good news.


awesome news... get him billie

[pixie]

what i don't understand is why people feel they need automatic or semi-automatic whatever (i'm sorry, i don't know too much about guns)
won't a basic gun do the job? why do people need so many options and crap? i mean, if all you're trying to do is protect your home and family or hunt, does an automatic weapon really make it any easier?

[Nekro]

Nobody needs an automatic weapon, the militia set just wants to look cool.

[seeking]

hiding guns under tree stumps in the forest?! are you a fucking ewok? hopefully it it will put a hole through you.

[meatlocker]

Originally posted by pixie
what i don't understand is why people feel they need automatic or semi-automatic whatever (i'm sorry, i don't know too much about guns)
won't a basic gun do the job? why do people need so many options and crap? i mean, if all you're trying to do is protect your home and family or hunt, does an automatic weapon really make it any easier?

for many people, building guns is a hobby just like modifying cars. fully automatic weapons have always been legal, all you need is the right paperwork and a load of cash.

[Hank Parker]

all this tec-9 talk is retarted..."ohh man, a tec is so gangster. i wish i could get one. my buddy has one"

wow, your buddy just bought him self a worthless sense of gangsterism that he probably paid too much for. and primarily why your guns suck is cause you don't take care of them. a little CLP will help you out with those carbon deposits after those long days of firing it al "the olde gunnin tree"
don't do your gun research based on rap lyrics.

all in all, you better believe the newest Colt M4 is where it's at...
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/zo66/commando/images/members/zo%20pose3.JPG'>
DEATH ON CALL

[random]

there is no reason for people to own assault weapons. the second ammendment is somewhat vague in the context of current society, and thus people interpret it differently. i understand and respect the rights of citizens to own guns, however, no one is going to present a convincing argument that it is absolutely necessary for any citizen to own an ak, m4 or anything else along those lines.

the people who will try to are either a) excessively paranoid and caught up in an outdated argument (i.e., to prevent tyranny... situation isn't going to happen in this country in this day and age, sorry) or B) the little boys who liked to play war who just never grew up.

[meatlocker]

the same could be said about graffiti.

[Gunm]

Originally posted by random
there is no reason for people to own assault weapons. the second ammendment is somewhat vague in the context of current society, and thus people interpret it differently. i understand and respect the rights of citizens to own guns, however, no one is going to present a convincing argument that it is absolutely necessary for any citizen to own an ak, m4 or anything else along those lines.

the people who will try to are either a) excessively paranoid and caught up in an outdated argument (i.e., to prevent tyranny... situation isn't going to happen in this country in this day and age, sorry) or B) the little boys who liked to play war who just never grew up.

SHUT UP HIPPIE

[random]

Originally posted by LENS
SHUT UP HIPPIE

:krunk:

[porque]

...we have the right to bear arms in order to keep and maintain a well regulated militia...don't you guys know that the redcoats are set to invade anyday now?...


...and i have to completely disagree with kabar's "lock up all the bad guys" theory of crime prevention...for starters it's only a temporary fix...people get out of prison and they just go back to the same life as before, now with more criminal connections due to a life in the system...violent crime is only one part of a much larger socio-economic issue that has be addressed...sadly the best ways to address these things are usually costly and don't ever show immediate results, so they get hardly any backing...but this is a completely different argument...

[WhiteOx]

INFUCKINGSANE

[WhiteOx]

after some dude shot 35 people dead in australia back in '96 semi autos are banned...

i own guns but i think bans on semi autos, pump actions shotguns and pistols are good

[KaBar2]

The people in his constituency HATE the assault weapons ban. If he signs ANY sort of anti-gun legislation, even the most insignificant law, I will vote Libertarian, and so will just about everybody I know.

We have over 20,000 gun laws on the books right now. They do absolutely nothing to stop firearms-related crime because the only people who obey gun laws are LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. Criminals don't give a flying fuck about the law. Hell, if they are willing to commit murder why would they be concerned about breaking some law about flash suppressors, or pistol-grip stocks?

The anti-gun crowd is worried sick about assault rifles, mainly because most of them know virtually nothing about firearms, have very little experience with violence and do not understand the mindset that creates killers.

The Marines taught me a very valuable lesson:

"You kill the enemy with a HARD HEART. Your rifle is just a tool."

If someone wants to kill another person, they can certainly find a way to do so. One does not need an assault rifle to commit street crimes, in fact, they are almost never used for that, in much less than 1% of the murders and armed robberies, and statistically "never" in rapes and suicides. They are used in drive-by shootings and bank robberies and armored-car robberies, but these crimes are very few compared with the garden-variety convenience store stick-ups and one-on-one armed robberies.

So, what, if anything, are assault rifles good for?

They are SERVICE RIFLES, suitable for service in the MILITIA. Especially the AR-15 style rifles, which accept the same magazines and ammunition (.223 Remington/ 5.56mm) as the M16A2 and M4. This means that if millions of Americans own rifles that are very similar to the standard service rifle of the U.S. armed forces (the M16A2 and M4), that those millions of service rifle owners can be supported by the U.S. military logistics supply train, and in an emergency, can shoulder those rifles in support of the U.S. armed forces. The AR-15 shoots the exact same cartridge (the .223 Remington/ 5.56mm) that the M16A2/ M4 shoots, so U.S. military ammunition will fit those AR-15s. The same thing is true of the M1A rifles (which are civilian copies of the U.S. M14 rifle) which shoot the 7.62mm NATO cartridge. And all other .308 Winchester caliber rifles, because .308 Winchester is the exact same cartridge as 7.62mm NATO.

Even assault rifles, such as the MAK-90, NHM-91 style rifles which do not shoot U.S. military cartridges can be used as service rifles, just not as effectively.

Opponents complain "Assault rifles are made for 'only one thing'---killing people!" Well, DUH. And since there are literally millions of them in the country, why aren't their owners out slaughtering people? Because they have NO DESIRE TO HARM INNOCENT PEOPLE, unlike all the criminals, who make a lifestyle out of harming innocent people.

Again, "The guns aren't the problem. THUGS are the problem."

[SteveAustin]

Originally posted by seeking
i'm telling you, kabar, you need to learn to conedense your ideas. that whole page could have been squished into two paragraphs.
im not trying to stop you from having your say, i'm just trying to help you get across better to the audience you're dealing with.

:lol:
sorry mang...I had to.

I agree though. Legal guns aren't the problem and most anti-gun law people aren't very informed.

[seeking]

Originally posted by KaBar2
.308 Winchester is the exact same cartridge as 7.62mm NATO.
Again, "The guns aren't the problem. THUGS are the problem."

no shit? so i can run .308 rounds through my ak?


and again 'thugs' are not the problem, society is the problem. 'thugery' is the biproduct of a sick society. why is it that no matter how many times i point that out, you will never, ever even aknowledge it?


seeks/thugery...HA!

[KaBar2]

The reason that gun owners are adamantly against some sort of licensure scheme is because the anti-gun crowd has publicly bragged that they view it simply as a stepping stone to disarming everybody. That's the real problem, the completely arrogant attitude of the liberals--"We know what is best for you, so you are just going to have to do what we say."

Bill Clinton and Janet Reno sold more assault rifles by their behavior than any two people EVER IN HISTORY. When Clinton took office I knew only a small handfull of men who owned assault rifles. After Ruby Ridge and Waco, the market for assault rifle went absolutely crazy. Rifles that were selling for less than $500 a few months before Waco went up to $900 and more. I know people who never fired anything but a shotgun during bird season who now own substantial arsenals of AR-15's, Ruger Mini-14's, MAK-90's, etc. The feeling was "If the government wants a fight, then by God, we'll give them one." I attended gun shows in Houston where entire truckloads of ammunition sold over a weekend, literally, millions of rounds, case after case after case of .223, 7.62x39mm, .308 Winchester, pistol ammo, 00 buckshot 12 ga. shells and every other cartridge you can think of. People were bringing hand carts to the gun show to cart away cases of ammunition.

Leaders of the Texas Constitutional Militia went and talked to the Houston FBI. The FBI guys were like "Look, if we thought for one second that the government was going to try and abrogate the Constitution, WE would join YOU. You don't need to fear the FBI. We're just doing our job." And the TCM commander said, "Well, the same thing is true of us, sir. If the government is not trying to abrogate the Constitution, it needs to stop acting like it is. And WE, sir, are just doing OUR job, as citizens of this country. We obey the law, but WE WILL NOT BE DISARMED. So if anybody has that in mind, they damned well better think twice about what they are doing."

If the liberals think that they will ever successfully disarm the American people, they are completely crazy. All they will succed in doing is causing a civil war, because the decent, law-abiding, freedom-loving men and women that I know are not going to tolerate it, any more than they would tolerate someone telling them that they cannot vote, or that they have no recourse in the courts. Freedom is not negotiable. And when nobody has any guns except the military and the police, freedom does not exist.

[seeking]

Originally posted by KaBar2
If the liberals think that they will ever successfully disarm the American people, they are completely crazy. All they will succed in doing is causing a civil war, because the decent, law-abiding, freedom-loving men and women that I know are not going to tolerate it, any more than they would tolerate someone telling them that they cannot vote, or that they have no recourse in the courts. Freedom is not negotiable. And when nobody has any guns except the military and the police, freedom does not exist.

why aren't they standing up to bush and the patriot act? why dont you see that as a threat?
and at some point you need to recognize that the 'freedom loving men and women that you know' are a perportionally MINISCULE number of people, all things considered? you are greatly over estimating the american people. the same americans that are allowing bush to trample all over their civil rights, are the same ones that will rise up against the liberals?
maybe it's just me, but now is as good a time as any for a revolution.

[KaBar2]

Look, thuggery is not some automatic response that occurs whenever the situation gets difficult. It's a CHOICE. Predation on others, trafficking in narcotics, intimidating the neighborhood one lives in is a CHOICE. And people who choose to do that are harming everybody around them, they are creating an atmosphere of threat and violence. If thuggery was just a matter of someone's choice in clothing or music, that would be different, but we're talking about people who create an illegal organized crime organization that murders people, that conducts narcotics trafficking, that conducts organized robbery and burglary, carjacking, etc., etc. No society can tolerate that for very long.

Choosing to waste one's life in crime is nobody's fault but the person who makes the choice. It is NOT INEVITABLE. It's a choice. And worse, the choice to do that harms other people who are trying to become educated and get a career, and make something of their lives. Frankly, I do not see the attraction of a criminal lifestyle. It only leads one of two places, either a prison cell, or the cemetary. What a waste.

As far as "revolution" goes, been there, done that. The American people will never support it, especially not a "revolution" based on any sort of economic redistribution scheme.

YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. Don't expect anybody else to take care of you, because that is not going to happen. The American people have the right to vote. If they want to vote out Bush & Co., they certainly have the right to do so.

[KaBar2]

But I've got to go to work. See y'all later.

[seeking]

so in your oppinion society plays no part in peoples decision to take part in crime? education plays no part? opportunities for advancement play no part? our legal system plays no part? advertising and marketing plays no part? cultural biases play no part? prejudice plays no part? nepotism plays no part? it's all solely just the choice of a few individuals, correct?

[seeking]

Originally posted by KaBar2
As far as "revolution" goes, been there, done that. The American people will never support it, especially not a "revolution" based on any sort of economic redistribution scheme.


the american people will not go for the revolution that you absolutely NEED your guns to take part in?! the same revolution that will happen as soon as our 'liberal' government tries to strip the american people of their right to bear them? huh?! i'm very confused here cause i know a minute ago you gave some epic 'cold, dead, hand' speech, now you're saying it will never happen. which is it? are your people going to come to the aid of our country or not? wtf?

and answer the question: how are the 'liberal' attempts to strip you of your guns more of a threat than the patriot act, which in no uncertain terms makes being part of a militia an offense punishable with the stripping of citizenship, undisclosed, indefinit imprisonment without council, without being charged, and without any legal recourse? what kind of a fucked up, blind-to-reality double standard are you people working with? as long as you have your guns, it doesnt matter what laws our government passes? are you guys really that fucking simple minded?! you're like crack heads that are willing to trade away everything just for a rock, cause you falsly believe that as long as it gets you through the night, then maybe tomorrow will be better. i dont get it, and i'd love for you to actually tackle the questions instead waffling or giving me some long winded answer that cites irrelivent examples or relies on some ficticious state of affairs to be credible.

you know...whenever you get around to it.

[random]

Originally posted by seeking
so in your oppinion society plays no part in peoples decision to take part in crime? education plays no part? opportunities for advancement play no part? our legal system plays no part? advertising and marketing plays no part? cultural biases play no part? prejudice plays no part? nepotism plays no part? it's all solely just the choice of a few individuals, correct?

well if you're an isolationist and you believe everyone is on their own, you don't have to worry about accountability and can just blame all these societal problems on the individual. which is pretty much copping out of actually analyzing and answering the question.

[sneak]

Originally posted by KaBar2

Americans own rifles that are very similar to the standard service rifle of the U.S. armed forces (the M16A2 and M4), that those millions of service rifle owners can be supported by the U.S. military logistics supply train, and in an emergency, can shoulder those rifles in support of the U.S. armed forces.

but, come one. how likely is it EVER that your average, everyday Joe in America is going to face the possibilty of having America invaded by a foreign country? Actually invaded? In this day, none whatsoever. You would have nuked anyone before they got half way across the Atlantic or Pacific.

So given that America is never going to fight a war on its own turf, why would the millions need to be able to armed by the Army supply train? They dont.

Guns are stupid.

[effyoo]

Sneak, it's for protection against their own government.

[KaBar2]

There is, in my opinion, a big difference between advocating revolution and seeking to counter-balance the armed force of the U.S. armed forces. Obviously, one of the best things about a draft is that the armed forces is made up largely of people who do not wish to be there. Think about this for a minute. If you were forced into the Army by the law, is there any chance you'd be willing to pull the trigger on a bunch of pissed-off student protesters or striking widget makers? I thought not.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that the ultra-conservative right wing agrees with the Patriot Act. They do not, and neither do I, and I have said so on 12 oz. before. The whole schtick of the right wing is that BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES are part of the SAME ESTABLISHMENT CONSPIRACY, which has it's roots in the banking houses of Europe (especially the Rothschild Bank) and, here in the U.S., in the establishment of the PRIVATELY-OWNED Federal Reserve System and the illegal and unconstitutional passing of the Income Tax in 1913. In my opinion, the up-Eastern Establishment was just waiting for something like 9-11 to occur, to give them a credible reason to pass changes to Federal law substantially erroding the Bill of Rights, which the Patriot Act definately does do.

However, as important as laws are, look at the aforementioned 20,000 gun laws which are NOT BEING ENFORCED. If they were, every time a felon attempted to purchase a handgun from a licensed FFL dealer, he would go straight to Federal prison. Why is this law not being enforced? Because the Supreme Court, in it's infinite wisdom, has ruled that filling out a Form 4477 (which has a series of questions on it, including "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?") constitutes self-incrimination IF YOU ARE ACTUALLY A FELON. Now, how stupid is this? We ask felons if they are a felon, and if they say "yes," we can't sell them a gun (good!) but if they lie, and say "no," we can sell them the gun, but then later when they get caught, it's "Kings-X" because forcing them to lie violates their constitutional right to not incriminate oneself.
And there are about 19,999 other laws on the books about this same degree of stupid. No wonder we have a thug problem.

The American people are more-or-less satisfied with things just the way they are. If they were not, they would demand change, and the government would respond. With over 270 million firearms in the country, I'm not too concerned that the anti-gun people will ever be actually able to disarm us, but it's sort of like the abortion issue. Abortion existed and was readily available even when it was outlawed, but it was a hassle to obtain one, and expensive. Now that abortion "on demand" exists (women are not required to justify getting one--they are less than a trimester pregnant and don't want to be---that's reason enough, according to current law) it's a lot less hassle, and much less expensive. But--is it really a good idea? Firearms are readily available, and reletively cheap. But is buying one really a good idea? It depends on who's buying it, why, how old he is, etc. Not everyone should own a firearm, but like abortion, IT'S AN INDIVIDUAL CHOICE, and not something the Government has any business controlling. If a woman chooses to abort her fetus, it's tough shit for the kid, but it's not murder. But if she decides to choke her one-day-old infant in the back yard, she's a baby killer and will get life in prison.

The idea that "the Militia" is an outdated idea whose time is past is incorrect. Read what FEDERAL LAW says about being a member of THE MILITIA (not A "militia group".) United States Code, Title 10, Section 311. Weapons "suitable for service in THE MILITIA" are protected not only by the Bill of Rights, but also by case law. And a "pre-ban" AR-15 with all the banned features is just about the PERFECT example of a weapon so protected. I know it's difficult for you to understand, but you have a RIGHT to DEFEND THE STATE. The government is OURS. It BELONGS TO US. The bastards may not always do what we expect them to do, but THEY WORK FOR US, not the other way around.

The current state of affairs was not what the Founding Fathers intended. For one, Senators were NEVER supposed to have been elected by the public at large. They were supposed to be elected BY THE STATE LEGISLATURE, which gave the State legislatures a great degree of control over the Federal government. Once this was changed, it effectively freed the Senators from State obligation, and allowed them to start thinking that the "little people" have no say over what the Senators do and do not do. Instead of our representatives in Congress, they think of themselves as our masters. WRONG.

I'm sorry if you think I never answer the question asked. I do my best, but I think that you and I see these questions in a completely different context. It is crystal clear, to me, that one is "on one's own." It is nobody's responsibility but yours to see that you prepare yourself for life, get an education, establish a career, parent your children, etc., etc. Your children's education, for instance, is YOUR responsibility, not the Government's. Do not expect loans and grants. They are nice to have, but they are not entitlements, and could be taken away at any time. Do not expect Social Security, either. You'd best save your money, because by the time it's your turn to retire, the Social Security system will have long since gone belly up. And if it turns out that you do get all these perks, well great. You were prepared, but the worst-case scenario didn't occur.

The same is true of self-defense. Do not expect the cops to protect you. They will be the first to tell you "that's not our job." YOU must protect YOURSELF. The cops just show up to fill out reports and enforce the law.

[WhiteOx]

kabar, have you ever had to use a gun to defend your self or other innocents?

[angelofdeath]

kabar= dead on post.

and its dudes own opinion if "guns are stupid" but i love them.

[WhiteOx]

Originally posted by angelofdeath
^^^^ dead on post.

and its dudes own opinion if "guns are stupid" but i for one love them.

I own guns but theyre bolt action for hunting not for self defense, thats not to say that i wouldnt blaze on a burgalar if he came at me

Anyone who thinks they need an assault rifle really needs wake up

[sneak]

i can never tell if Kabar answered my points.
i can agree with seekings points about paragraph lenght!

[angelofdeath]

i think personally like kabar said before, people want "assault weapons" either because they were in the military, or want to be in the military. how is an "assault rifle" any different than a semi-auto sayyyy..... ruger mini 30 aside from "cosmetics."? i know plenty of people who varmint hunt with .223 ar 15 colts. how many crimes are commited with "assault weapons" each year?
now i am like you white ox, i dont own an "assault rifle" i do have a remington m700 pss with a leupold m3, .308/7.62mm, basically an M24 with out pull adjusted stock. should this gun be outlawed because it has a military counterpart? i hope the fuck not.

[seeking]

Originally posted by seeking
and answer the question: how are the 'liberal' attempts to strip you of your guns more of a threat than the patriot act, which in no uncertain terms makes being part of a militia an offense punishable with the stripping of citizenship, undisclosed, indefinit imprisonment without council, without being charged, and without any legal recourse? what kind of a fucked up, blind-to-reality double standard are you people working with? as long as you have your guns, it doesnt matter what laws our government passes? are you guys really that fucking simple minded?! you're like crack heads that are willing to trade away everything just for a rock, cause you falsly believe that as long as it gets you through the night, then maybe tomorrow will be better. i dont get it, and i'd love for you to actually tackle the questions instead waffling or giving me some long winded answer that cites irrelivent examples or relies on some ficticious state of affairs to be credible.

you know...whenever you get around to it.

ooooook, lets try this again. you just did exactly what i asked you not to! i asked you to explain how the phantom threat of 'liberals' stripping you of your guns was more of a threat than the 'legally enacted' measures of the present 'conservative' governemnt, and you give me one setence about how it doesnt matter because there are 20,000 laws on the books dealing with guns that arent enforced?! do you honestly think what you gave even encroached on possibly resembling anything that i might drunkenly mistake to be an answer?! even if there are a million laws on the books that deal with the weight of carrots, sodomy, cock fighting, the sex toy market, mattress tags and felon self incrimination, not a single one of those laws states that you can be wire tapped, searched and seized without a warrant or that you can be held without trial, without council, without being charged, without a reason, and without the government ever needing to admit that they even have you?!?! those laws are aimed DIRECTLY at people like your militia men. people who are unhappy with our government and its policies. no one, foreign or domestic, poses more of a threat to our government than the militias. all the anarchy patches and india-ink tattoos on all the punk rock kids in the universe will never threaten our governments control, but the militias (or a misguided militia man) has already killed 200 some people and blown up a building. do you honestly think that our govt gives a shit whether you have guns or not? do you think thats why they raided waco? cause they were worried that koresh might try and succeed from fucking texas? koresh was a nobody and his 'arsenal' was nothing. look at the way they spin stories. they'll turn the entire country against you, claiming you're raping goats or something. they're masters at that shit. all the guns in your compound will mean nothing if they fly overhead with a single blackhawk. so please, don't give me some shit about what our forefathers wanted, or some non-sequitor comparison to abortion, or a rant against the english banking system and 'illegal' IRS, i dont care about that. i want to know one thing; how is the 'phantom' threat of taking away your guns worse than the enacted threat of the patriot act, and a government who's every domestic policy is aimed at stripping of us our constitutional rights? how the fuck can your 'freedom loving men and women' care about having guns, when the same officials who allow their ownership, have passed laws that allow them to lock you up for life simply for doing so? of course they'll let you have them, it gives them all the more reason to strip more freedoms away, and since you only give a damn about one thing, you'll gladly allow it to happen.

which is more of a 'domestic terrorist' threat:
a bunch of people protesting a war they feel is unjust, so they sing koom-bai-yah and beg for regime change, or a bunch of people openly stockpiling weapons and supplies in secret bunkers all across america, in the event that they have to defend themselves from the government.

use your fucking brain kabar, how do you not see the complete lunacy of your equation? do you honestly think the government would ever allow you to become a viable threat to them?! do you think the republicans are scared of your guns?! for someone so hell bent on paranoid conspiracy theories, you're walking right past the biggest conspiracy of them all, simply because you're blinded by your unfaltering love for a piece of fucking metal and the 'security' that you equate with it.

why do i even fucking bother?

[porque]

...i have to agree with seeks...your guns are absolutely futile to defending this nation against an invading army or rising up aginst a government that you feel no longer reflects democracy as you see it...
...just take iraq for example...there are over 1000 american military dead...compare that to 20,000 iraqi military and civillians...why?...because an assault weaopn is no match for a dive bombing b-41...just this morning there was an air strike in fallujah that killed tons of iraqis...
...the government doesn't care how many guns you have...becasue they no that it has no affect on violent crime...and they also know that it keeps you guys happy and voting for them...

[KaBar2]

. . .then I guess it shouldn't be any big problem for the American people to be armed with them, eh?

The number of insurgents in Iraq is miniscule compared to even the number of members of the NRA. According to the opponents of the war in Iraq, we can't win, the number of casualties is too high, we might as well give up, blah, blah, blah.

A casualty rate of 1,000 men, or even 10,000 men, or more is peanuts compared to other wars. The invasion of Iraq is a fairly large-scale endeavor, the largest since WWII. Of course, it is a tragedy for those individuals wounded or killed, but soldiers get killed in EVERY war. Are the lives of these soldiers any more valuable than the lives of soldiers who died in WWII, or Korea, or Vietnam? I'd go, if they'd let me. I tried to get back into the Marine Corps in 1986, and again in 1991. Both times, they said "no." Too old.

The Patriot Act is an offensive law, I grant you. I've ALREADY SAID that I do not support it, so what is the problem? It's not any more offensive to me than the assault weapons ban, which I really think was originally intended as a camel's-nose-under-the-edge-of-the-tent deal. They start by banning a class of weapon a large number of people find scarey, and then keep expanding the class, bigger and bigger until we have an Australian-type gun ban. NO THANKS.

As long as the American people continue to accept laws like the so-called Patriot Act, the legislature will continue to write them. I agree with you that it is a law designed to be used against anybody who presents a threat to the Government. There is plenty of pissed-off rhetoric among the ultra-conservative right wing about the Patriot Act, but so far, it has not been used against them. Could it be? Sure. But how come you weren't all upset about this sort of shit when they were setting up Randy Weaver and trying to force him to become an informer against the white supremacists in Idaho? How come you didn't raise hell when the ATF attacked the Branch Davidians without any warning and WITHOUT A VALID WARRANT for search, seizure or arrest? Why didn't 51 days of a Government FBI seige with National Guard tanks, snipers, CS and CN gas send you into the streets with a picket sign? It seems like to me that the left only gets upset when it's their ox that's getting gored. Fuck the civil rights of conservatives.

The ability to resist the Government, if necessary, is IMPORTANT. Don't tell me it's not, because I don't believe it, and neither do you. The resistance being mounted by the Iraqi extremists proves very well what small arms and a determined attitude can do. They have killed 1,000 American soldiers, wounded thousands more, and probably killed 5,000 Iraqis that opposed them. The newspapers back here in the States are acting like it's a nation-threatening conflict. I don't think that's true, but you can bet the farm that the Government would not want to be fighting this fight in the streets of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. For one thing, the casualty rate would be fifty times higher, at least. For another thing, the resources available to a determined resistance here in the States are a million times greater than those available to the Iraqis. In the late 1990's the membership of the militia movement was (conservatively) estimated at around 90,000 members. That is a shitload of riflemen, and that is why there were no more Waco Massacres. A huge number of people still hold a grudge against Bill Clinton and Janet Reno for Waco, and they despise Hillary Clinton. Hopefully, the Democrats will wake up before it's too late.

The bomb at Oklahoma City was very likely a set up against a small white supremacist sect in Elohim City, a racist compound in Oklahoma. There is a great deal of controversy about it. Frankly, I do not believe that a ANFO bomb, even one that weighed 4,000 or 5,000 pounds, is capable of doing the damage documented in the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I do not believe Tim McViegh and Terry Nichols worked alone. I do not believe that the Government didn't know about it beforehand--I think they were INVOLVED in the plot, through a German national living at Elohim City, named Andreas Strassmier. Strassmier was a CIA plant, he is the son of a prominent German legislator and a former member of the German anti-terrorist force, the German equivalent of the Delta Force. I think he engineered the whole thing.

You could spend your life researching it online, like the Kennedy assassination. Do an on-line search for Carol Howe. She was the ATF informant inside Elohim City, and knew Tim McVeigh.

[dr.testical]

how much do these tec 9;s go for or anmy other assault weapons

[angelofdeath]

just from walking around gun shows and such, i havent seen a ar15 or a civilian equivalent of the m4 for under a grand.

[KaBar2]

They cost WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR, and that's because of a demand that is out the roof. Even post-ban rifles were selling for like $800.

[seeking]

you're entire universe depends on the notion that the bogey-man liberals want to take away your guns, when in reality, i dont personally know a single person that thinks all guns should be outlawed. not one, and i know some pretty 'liberal' people. i think you're greatly over estimating things in an effort to have a shield to hide behind. as long as you can continue screaming down the tyrany of the 'liberals', then you can avoid dealing with the reality of the situation. you have been incredibly warped by your surroundings. you live in this secular little reality where the 'facts' exist in whatever form you chose to see them, and everything else is discarded. your 'militias' are a (largely) bunch of backwoods rednecks who could be tricked into shooting themselves in the mouth given enough slick advertising campains. you're stuck back in some neolithic fantasy world where we trade grains for salts, so we can preserve our meats for the winter. just look at this election. look at the last 'election'. look how bush was brought into power. do you honestly think you can stand up to that? that you and your 90,000 'militia' members can make a play against the government?! you're setting yourself up to fail by going so far right that you become nothing but a walking target to painted anyway the government sees fit. they involved the entire WORLD in an unjust war that 80% of the worlds population opposed, but they did it anyway. thats 5+ BILLION people saying they were wrong, yet they did it anyway. and you and your 100,000 are going to stand up to them? with your cache of rifles and your 50gallon drums of rice?! how long can you survive like that? how long will they let you survive like that? you're entire argument centers around the paranoia of a phantom threat that does not exist, and a revolt that will never happen. why don't you give up your bullshit for a minute and join us in reality? please, i asked you to do this before, but you never replied. explain how your rifles are going to be used to fend off our government. paint a scenario where your 'freedom loving' brothers and sisters effectively stand up to the man with your rifles (assault or otherwise). it is not going to happen, ever.

what if bush had not been put into presidency, and gore had allowed the ban to run out, or if kerry had openly said that he would not support the banning of assault rifles, would you vote for him?

**on second thought, don't answer any of that. this conversation is not worth my time. i have far better things to do than keep going in circles like this. my point has been more than proven.

[Drunk Sober]

I'm happy the ban ended. I'm sad it became another shit post on 12oz. Most people on here are either too young to buy a gun, or we would never pass a background check anyway!

[porque]

...back in the 1700's a country full of rifle tote'n farmers was enough to keep the country secured and represented a strong citizen militia...but unless you guys have a bunch of ant-aircraft guns and tanks as your trump card, i don't think it matters how many assualt rifles or militia members you have...you can not stop a modern army...anti gun laws are a joke, you've pointed that out nicely, and while you can see that they're a joke on regular non gun carrying liberals, you fail to realize that they are just as big of a joke on right wing militiamen...just think about it...if the 'liberals' suddenly stopped trying to keep you away from guns, what would you do?...you'd have no one to hate...no rights to stand up for...no reason to fight to keep your guns...they allow these simple laws to be passed and then rebuked inorder to feed the fire that keeps you in line and a voting block that they can chalk up every year...

...if you want to own assualt rifles...fine...but realize that you're just collecting things...you're not protecting america...

[KaBar2]

I think that many conservatives and ultra-conservatives strongly suspected what the government was doing in the '60s, '70s and '80s, but nobody could prove it absolutely. Mostly it was circumstantial evidence. But their attempt to force Randy Weaver into becoming an informer for the ATF, and their campaign against the Branch Davidians were both seen, by the right, as the "test case" to see what would happen if the ATF just rolled into one of these compounds with all guns blazing. They picked the Branch Davidians not because they were the most dangerous (they weren't--there were many groups far more dangerous than the Davidians) but because the ATF thought they were politically vulnerable. Their religious ideas were wacky and unpopular, they were isolated way out in the country, David Koresh was engaging in a bunch of wierd-ass polygamous sexual shit with his female followers, and had "married" several underage girls. Mind you, the fact that NONE of this fell under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms slowed them down one bit.
The ATF suspected that the Davidians were manufacturing full-auto machineguns out of AR-15's and MAK-90's. They had no proof, but a UPS driver who delivered some empty cast-iron grenade casings (like you can buy at any gun show for $5) made a big complaint to the ATF that he thought something was up. I believe that his real bitch was that Koresh was fucking underage girls, but he couldn't get anybody to act on his complaint. In Texas, that would have been handled by the local Sheriff's office and Child Protective Services. CPS had been out there several times and could find no evidence of abuse. Koresh and several of his followers had surrendered peaceably to the local Sheriff and one deputy some years before on a murder charge stemming from a fight between different factions of Davidians. They did not give the Sheriff one bit of trouble, they all went as quietly as lambs, but the Sheriff had a VALID, SIGNED WARRANT.

The ATF did not want a peaceful arrest. They wanted a big ass shoot out on the TV evening news, so they rolled up there shooting with news cameras rolling. This tape is a substantial part of the movie "WACO: The Rules of Engagement."

The Davidians shot back, as is their right. They had a right to defend themselves in Texas, even against law enforcement, if the cops are breaking the law and trying to kill them. The ATF was armed with 9mm pistols and 9mm HK MP5's. The Davidians were shooting back with AR-15's, MAK-90's and other "full battle rifles." The ATF RAN OUT OF AMMUNITION, and had to retreat with their hands in the air, begging the Davidians to not shoot them, dragging their wounded and dead agents with them.

This situation is EXACTLY why people should have the right to keep and bear arms, and why we have the right to own service rifles. The ATF was DEAD WRONG.

When it was all over, the FBI recovered numerous burned remains of assault rifles, supposedly the evidence of the alleged "illegal machine guns" that the Davidians were allegedly building. They had all of the rifles x-rayed using a government contractor, so they could prove that they were right. THEY NEVER RELEASED THE RESULTS OF THE X-RAYS. And why? Because the Branch Davidians WERE INNOCENT. They had NOT been building illegal machine guns. And even if they had been, it would not have required a war to arrest them. The local Sheriff could have gone down there with a search warrant any day of the week and taken the entire group into custody any time he needed to do so.

This situation pissed off just about everybody I know. They were fucking furious, especially about the deaths of the children. David Koresh was an asshole, and his followers were idiots, but nothing that they did deserved what the Government did to them. And if they could do it to Koresh and the Branch Davidians, the sonsofbitches can do it to you or me.
Sure, he should have surrendered. But the FBI attacked them on Day 51 because the Davidians refusing to surrender made the FBI look like a bunch of dumb asses. They did it because they were arrogant. They did it because of pride, as you will see, if you go watch "WACO: the Rules of Engagement." And they came very close to touching off a serious-ass civil war.

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by seeking
please, i asked you to do this before, but you never replied. explain how your rifles are going to be used to fend off our government. paint a scenario where your 'freedom loving' brothers and sisters effectively stand up to the man with your rifles (assault or otherwise). it is not going to happen, ever.

Kabar, I've asked you the same question previously, and you never provided a response.

You're incapable of answering this question.

[KaBar2]

I concede the point. I'm incapable of answering the question to your satisfaction. Sorry.

[bodice_ripper]

I'd definitely think of myself as a liberal, and I'm totally pro people's right to bear arms.



I've every fucking right to defend myself against right wing loonies :rolleyes:

[Nekro]

Originally posted by KaBar2
The whole schtick of the right wing is that BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES are part of the SAME ESTABLISHMENT CONSPIRACY, which has it's roots in the banking houses of Europe (especially the Rothschild Bank) and, here in the U.S., in the establishment of the PRIVATELY-OWNED Federal Reserve System and the illegal and unconstitutional passing of the Income Tax in 1913. Oh, OK. So the Jews are behind this; the jews are the ones who want to come in and take all your rights away.
The current state of affairs was not what the Founding Fathers intended. For one, Senators were NEVER supposed to have been elected by the public at large. They were supposed to be elected BY THE STATE LEGISLATURE, which gave the State legislatures a great degree of control over the Federal government. Once this was changed, it effectively freed the Senators from State obligation, and allowed them to start thinking that the "little people" have no say over what the Senators do and do not do. Instead of our representatives in Congress, they think of themselves as our masters. WRONG. The founding fathers intended the indirect election of senators to be a check and balance to prevent the people from gaining too much power. They wanted to create a house of lords to counter the house of commons. If anything, the direct election of senators has increased their obligations to the states they represent, as they actually have to answer to the people now.

[seeking]

thank god we have kabar to give a long winded explanation about some shit that no one fucking cares about, since he can not answer the questions that we do.

it's not that you cant answer them to our 'satisfaction', you can't answer them AT ALL. you're fantastic at giving trumped up glorified revisionist essays on the past, but you fail completely when it comes to putting your paranoid dellusions to the test of reality. you dont even try because you know damn well that you cant do it to anyones satisfaction, not even your own. you cant even pretend. id love to hear you try, just once, to even humor us. dozens of times you've been asked this question, and every time, you blow it off. you've got a million words from history to recite, but none that are your own. or even your contemporaries. no one is expecting you to have all the answers, but you have NO answers. you have tired rhetoric and distorted facts.

[villain]

Guerilla warfare is very effective even against a better equipped enemy. We lost in Vietnam. We are losing in Iraq. In fact we have lost every major, sustained campaign since and including the Korean war. Conventional armies are not as effective in guerilla warfare, as I've said time and time again. That is why the major strategems rely on having the support of the people of the host country you are occupying. When I see mobs of people exalting dead insurgents and Iraqi children playfully chasing after insurgents rushing into combat, I already know that we have lost this war. I hope people understand that the only reason we are taking less casualties than in vietnam is because of our body armor. We have more injuries to extremities and less KIAs. 11,000 wounded in 1 year is no joke. That is about 10% of troop strength in Iraq. 1 in 10 odds of getting fucked up in Iraq is not good.

The Waco thing is very strange. I don't know a whole lot about it but I don't really understand why the ATF wouldn't just wait it out. It's not like they were killing hostages in there. I think there was less protest among the left on this issue because it is convoluted. Kabar brought up many points that I wasn't aware of that give me an idea as to why right wing militias were incensed about this. However I do not understand as well why they aren't up in arms about what Bush has been doing to our rights. Perhaps there is an undercurrent of racism here? Perhaps it is viewed that these laws Bush enacted target arab men?

The ultraconservatives, religious right, and neoconservatives are different. Neocons like Bush are in power because they have more financial and political clout. Bush throws out lines like his procrastination on the assault weapons ban and that keeps him more closely allied to his base than Kerry. Even though they don't completely agree with everything.

Ugh. Well I agree that there are snakes of all stripes in government, but I hope Kabar and his militiamen will see that Bush is far more corrupt than Kerry.

[Jimmy Jump]

Heres how you deal with assault weapons..
"We don't need gun control. You know what we need? Bullet control. I think all bullets should cost $5,000. 'Cuz if a bullet cost $5,000, there would be no more innocent bystanders.
"Every time somebody gets shot, it'd be like, 'Dang, he must've done something. They put $50,000 worth of bullets in his head.' And people would think before they kill somebody: 'Man, I would blow your head off if I could afford it. I'm gonna get me a job, start saving, and you're a dead man.' " (Chris Rock)..

[seeking]

Originally posted by villain
Guerilla warfare is very effective even against a better equipped enemy. We lost in Vietnam. We are losing in Iraq.

we 'lost' in vietnam, but we also killed or wounded an estimated 3,000,000 vietnamese. there are not 3,000,000 americans willing to die for ANYTHING. also, there would not be a 'gurilla war' that involved our government and us citizens. there might be 'stand offs' like waco, but there will never be an outright war, like in columbia, iraq or vietnam. it simply wont happen. our govt would not allow it. in order to have a 'gurilla war' you need the support of laymen, whichh the militia men would never have. people are too easily occupied and appeased by their tv's and cars. they are much more likely to view militia men as 'crazed rednecks' than freedom loving men and women.

but again, thats all reality, and it has no place in this discussion.

seeks/militias are for guys who are too cool for majic cards and D&D.

[villain]

Originally posted by seeking
we 'lost' in vietnam, but we also killed or wounded an estimated 3,000,000 vietnamese. there are not 3,000,000 americans willing to die for ANYTHING. also, there would not be a 'gurilla war' that involved our government and us citizens. there might be 'stand offs' like waco, but there will never be an outright war, like in columbia, iraq or vietnam. it simply wont happen. our govt would not allow it. in order to have a 'gurilla war' you need the support of laymen, whichh the militia men would never have. people are too easily occupied and appeased by their tv's and cars. they are much more likely to view militia men as 'crazed rednecks' than freedom loving men and women.

but again, thats all reality, and it has no place in this discussion.

seeks/militias are for guys who are too cool for majic cards and D&D.

Yeah carpet bombing has never been an effective counter-insurgency tactic. In the end both sides are fucked up and noone really wins. Even our precision bombing is heinous to me. The press will say "US warplanes targeted a house believed to be harboring terrorists. 10 insurgents were killed as well as 4 civilians." Then Rumsfeld or somebody will say something like "Well at least you know we were targeting insurgents." Wrong answer. As if this justifies it. As if to say they would target civilians if they wanted to. As if to say they don't really care but only do it cause the press is watching.

I don't remember saying anything about the viability of revolution in the united states. But imagine for a minute if there was revolution here. Would US warplanes be targeting houses where they believed insurgent activity was happening? Wouldn't the innocent survivors be more convinced of the corruption of the government and it's lack of concern for it's people?

But about the viability of revolution in the US, I agree with you. Most people here are too wrapped up in themselves. There would have to be a serious disruption in our way of life for the average person to even begin to consider things along these lines. Didn't the Romans say that give the people bread and circus and they will be yours? Well something like that. Give people a means of survival, why would they jeapordize that? Since our lives are not in jeapordy we need entertainment to keep us occupied. And there you have it... a cacoon of comfort. Ensconced in the shroud of our fantastical illusions.
However that's not to say that a small cell would not be able to shatter the illusion. Especially in this age of interdependency. As masses, we are weak, pliable, and docile. As individuals, we are more powerful than ever. If we realize this. Let's just hope that our channels are open within the system, so that no individual feels marginalized to the point of some irrational resolution to a seemingly insoluable problem (For the individual not heard amongst the droning of the masses. Drowned out and forgotten. The problem not being addressed in social, governmental channels, is internalized by the individual(s) where it smolders and festers until the individual is no longer able to bear it and it comes bursting out onto those who repressed (or ignored) it.).

I hope that makes sense. I tend to get a little abstract and poetic sometimes.

[porque]

Originally posted by villain
As masses, we are weak, pliable, and docile. As individuals, we are more powerful than ever.

...you apparently haven't met many of the same individuals as i have...

[KaBar2]

I never said anything about the problem being created by Jews, so please don't put words in my mouth. The undeniable fact that the Rothschild family created an international banking cartel that seeks to dominate world finance and to influence governments is not some figment of my imagination. Of the men present at the secret 1911 meeting on Jeykll Island, GA that set the stage for both the Federal Reserve System and the Federal income tax, two were related to the Rothschilds by either blood or marriage, and several had business dealings with them that pretty much precluded any independent action. If you study the "Robber Barons" in high school in any depth, you will eventually realize you are studying about the agents of the Rothschild Bank in London.

There is definately some revisionist history afoot, but it's not anything I'm inventing. It's the glossing over of the influence of the Rockefellers, the Mellons, the Du Ponts, the Warburgs and so on and so forth. These people, these families, constitute a dynasty, and a sort of economic aristocracy. You cannot look at their individual accomplishments without looking at with whom they intermarried, with whom they do business and whom are their economic "rivals," both here in the U.S. and abroad, especially in Europe.

Rothschild sent either sons or sons-in-law to the European capitals and, later, to the U.S., to establish banking houses. They loaned vast sums of money to BOTH SIDES of several wars, including WWI and WWII, guaranteeing that they would make a profit. The central, overall goal was to eventually create a Central Bank in every world power which owed both money and loyalty to the Rothschild Bank. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve System is that bank, and it is NOT owned by the Federal government. Organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are essentially extensions of those creations.

Lenin was sent to Russia from Germany courtesy of these people. I have no doubt that Hitler, or the people that supported Hitler, were probably entwined with them as well, but I never tried to study that. Their classic political/economic ploy was to play "both ends against the middle." They would loan money to France and encourage the French to begin military build-up, which alarmed Germany, and then loaned money to Germany to so that the Germans could begin military build-up to counter the French.

These people go to great lengths to hide their true intentions, their true identities (they work through agents and intermediaries) and the true beneficiaries of their actions. Trying to figure out the puzzle of interlocking corporations, etc. is more work than most people (including myself) are willing to do. There are people who are more-or-less obsessed with it, and who have spent a lifetime, essentially, tracking down relationships, marriages, business deals, secret arrangements and so on. To me, it constitutes a genuine conspiracy, albeit, a very long-lived one, but if you start investigating the Rothschilds and all their descendants, agents, employees and minons you are going to be surprised and the degree to which they influence MODERN LIFE.

Read "The Creature from Jeykll Island," for starters. It will challenge your comfortable world view.
They are a lot better at covering their tracks than they once were, but nevertheless, the relationship very probably still exists today.

[KaBar2]

YES, you do. Roll your eyes if you want, but that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You most certainly DO have the right to keep and bear arms to protect yourself, not only from right-wing loonies, but from ANYBODY from whom you need to defend yourself.

I'm glad you understand my point, even if you are being sarcastic.

[porque]

...kabar...do you think the waco incident would have been any better if it happened now, under this administration?...because i certainly don't...

[Nekro]

So fucking what, corporations and moneyed interests have always had way too much influence in government. Neopotism has always existed. What you're saying is that the Jews are responsible for all the world's wars and genocides. Sorry pal, that shit was discredited ages ago.

[seeking]

yet another fantastic reiteration of someone elses legwork, and yet another post by kabar that completely avoids the fucking topic. this is seriously becoming comical. do you actually think your proving anything by reciting a bunch of irrelivent 'facts' about topics that no one but you is discussing? how much control jews weild over the worlds financial institutes, has absolutely ZEROOOO to do with how you will react to a government attack on your 'freedom loving men and women'. i mean, certainly while buying thousands of rounds of ammo, building bomb shelters and storing enough food and water to last for 6 months, certainly in the middle of all of that, one of you visionaries must have jotted down a plan of action as well. some sort of 'duck and cover' for the 21st century. quit with the lollygagging kabar, fill us in. inquiring minds want to know.

[WhiteOx]

kabar2 i've always wondered whether you wrote grafftiti or did at one stage?

[dosoner]

time to start up and outifit my local milita with sniper rifles. does this mean that we can setup a perimiter around lake tahoe and take out the tourists as they make the drive in?

[bodice_ripper]

Originally posted by KaBar2
YES, you do. Roll your eyes if you want, but that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You most certainly DO have the right to keep and bear arms to protect yourself, not only from right-wing loonies, but from ANYBODY from whom you need to defend yourself.

I'm glad you understand my point, even if you are being sarcastic.


no no. you missed the point. I wasn't being even a bit sarcastic. I do have a right to defend myself from right wing loonies. the rolling eyes were to indicate the sort of right wing loonie I meant (ie you).

the secondary point being made was that I'm one of those boogy-man liberals you're talking about. Only I don't want your guns. so perhaps you SHOULD be more concerned about the Patriot Act.....

[random]

not that this hasn't been covered before but...seems kinda appropriate

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...zzling_america/ (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/20/a_puzzling_america/)

A puzzling America
By Roland Merullo | September 20, 2004

FOR A LONG time now I've been pondering the reasons why conservatives decide to be conservative and liberals to be liberal. Part of the motivation for this pondering is rooted in the fact that I'm a left-leaning independent with a number of conservative friends. Some of these right-wing friends are close relatives, people I love dearly, people who still forward me nasty Internet jokes about Hillary and Bill with a certain kind of triumphant glee.

It is a source of continual surprise to me that these friends and I can look at the same person -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson -- and form diametrically opposed opinions.

My pondering along these lines always carries me back to the 1996 presidential campaign, during which I wrote a 20-part series for the op-ed pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The series started with the New Hampshire primary and ended on Election Day in Washington, D.C. For two installments, I drove from Bob Dole's birthplace (Russell, Kansas) to Bill Clinton's (Hope, Ark.) via Ross Perot's (Texarkana, Texas). I traveled back roads through small towns, stopping occasionally to ask people what word first came to mind when they heard the name "Clinton," "Dole," or "Perot."

Not surprisingly, the responses to "Dole" were more positive in Kansas than in Democratic eastern Oklahoma, and Clinton was better liked in Hope than in Russell. What did surprise me, though, were the kinds of things conservatives said about Clinton and the obvious hatred with which they said them: "Monster." "Nonhuman." "Worm." "Antichrist." "Devil."

That was the Bible Belt, where one might be more likely to hear the term "Antichrist," but the general pattern of vitriol held true in other parts of the country. I began to form the impression then that the conservative mindset springs from what, for lack of a better term, might best be described as an Old Testament world view: Life is harsh, God is angry, enemies ought to be treated without mercy. An eye for an eye. There is good and there is evil, and the distinction between them is as clear as the line between sin and righteousness. These days, the words of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, or George W. Bush only reinforce that impression.

Most liberals, on the other hand, appreciate life's gray areas, which is perhaps why left-wing radio has never been very entertaining. The strength of this embrace of ambiguity is that liberals see the world in all its complexity. The weakness is that evil, real evil, can sometimes become so abstract and multifaceted that it is not quite real.

Life, liberals believe, is meant to be pleasurable, God is forgiving if He exists at all, and it's important to think about others' feelings and motivations as well as your own. You might not like the idea of abortion, but it is important to allow people who believe differently to make their own choice.

What liberals consider open-mindedness can seem wishy-washy when held up against the certainty of a right-wing opponent. At the same time, the right-wing opponent's views can appear simplistic. In this year's presidential campaign, the two sides have been trying to spin things accordingly: Kerry too thoughtful, Bush not thoughtful enough.

Strains from earlier campaigns can be heard here, too. The elder Bush's Willie Horton ads had a racial undercurrent, of course, but they were also intended to point up the idea that Dukakis, like all liberals, was soft on crime, weak on defense, living in a dream world in which the evil ones could be furloughed, rehabilitated, or ignored.

The two Americas, conservative and liberal, worship two very different gods. It's as if the fibers that make up the human psyche are spun around opposite psychological poles. But what is the essence and origin of that fundamental difference? Why is gay marriage anathema to one group and an obvious human right to the other? Why does almost exactly half the country beam with pride when George W. speaks, and the other half cringe? Why did my liberal friends talk about the Abu Ghraib scandal while my conservative friends were focusing on mutilation of hostages in Fallujah? Why do the delegates to the Republican convention have neater haircuts and less interesting clothes?

I ponder these questions when I drive past the home of one of my neighbors, a man with very strong opinions. I don't know the man, but I know about his opinions because he paints them on slabs of wood and nails the slabs up on tree trunks in his front yard. He is in favor of Supporting Our Troops. And vehemently opposed to a new addition that was built onto the 100-year-old public library, at least judging by one of his more interesting signs: "LIBRARY OFFICIALS EATING STEAK WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS."

Coming from a certain direction I drive by this man's yard, and a few times I've seen him sitting out there in a lawn chair, glaring at passersby as if to say: "What are you looking at? You want to start something?" He doesn't have a rifle across his knees, but I almost remember him that way. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but then again, a sign tacked onto one tree reads: "KILL THY ENEMY."

And then, sometimes on the same drive, I'll pull up at a traffic light beside a smiling, shaggy-headed soul at the wheel of a foreign-made car festooned with bumper stickers like: "Magic Happens." "Free Leonard Peltier." "I Brake for Animals." "War is Not the Answer."

At their essence, conservatives are on guard, bristling, armed with a righteous anger, prone to mockery of their enemies, sure of themselves, unwilling to criticize America, especially by comparing it to anyplace else. The attacks of Sept. 11 only confirmed their world view: We are constantly at risk.

Liberals are mannered, sensitive, armed with intellectual cynicism, self-critical, eager to learn from other cultures, wanting there to be no pain in the world. The attacks made them sad and angry, too, but their reflex was more pensive than vengeful.

And so we lurch toward what promises to be another close election, two Americas enduring a war that seems designed to highlight our differences. Two Americas, standing side by side, and -- for reasons that remain a mystery -- viewing the same landscape through very different filters.

[KaBar2]

Too late, there is already an extensive survivalist organization in the Lake Tahoe area, and they are quite wealthy and well equipped, but they are not very open to recruiting from the outside, LOL. Like I've said before, the rich folks often have their own little private armies of security people, especially the really rich ones. They fully intend to survive and let the great unwashed masses starve, you can be sure. Since I consider myself to be one of those masses, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't do a little preparing to survive myself.

Does anybody here remember when the musician John Denver's 25,000 gallon underground diesel storage tank started leaking and polluting the groundwater in Colorado? He is only one example, but he had several very well developed, and very well concealed survival shelters, similar to a bomb shelter. It sort of made sense at the time--the U.S. and the USSR were at daggers drawn back then, and SAC headquarters is in Colorado, which made Colorado a primary nuclear target. Probably still is. Denver was probably hoping to survive any nuclear attack on SAC. I don't know exactly where his property was, but depending on location, it might have worked. The environmentalist movement got very upset when they found out Denver's diesel fuel was trickling into Colorado's ground water, and I can't blame them. I think he eventually had to transfer the fuel and have the tank dug up.

[KaBar2]

I have actually only used a firearm once to defend against criminals. I had a neighbor down the block who had a dispute with a contractor who did some work on her house. A friend of mine lived across the street. He was watching when two guys drove up to her house, broke a window, and went inside. So he came down and got me. He was pretty stoned on weed, and asked me to get my shotgun and go find out what these guys were doing. So, we went down there with my shotgun, and surprised them in the act of stealing a double stainless steel sink and a new garbage disposal (stupid, but true---they committed felony burglary over less than $300 worth of construction bullshit.) I never actually pointed the shotgun at them, I just said, "You guys are under arrest, and we are calling the cops. Sit down right there." They did. When the cops arrived, they tried to make out like they had every right to be there and said I threw down on them, which was not true. The cops arrested them both, because my friend saw them break the window. The D.A. gave them immunity from prosecution for testimony against their boss. The boss got convicted.

My wife has used her pistol three separate times since 1989 to defend herself against people who were trying to either rob her or abduct her. So far, she hasn't had to shoot anybody, because as soon as they realized she was armed, they ran like the sorry fucking cowards they were. She was more than willing to shoot them, though.

My late ex-wife was murdered by her landlady's ex-convict son in 1989. We had been divorced a long time (13 years) but it was still devastating. He stabbed her to death with one of her own kitchen knives, after attacking her from ambush. He got into her garage apartment with a spare key, and was hiding in her closet. She came home from work, and was undressing. When she opened the closet door, he jumped out and attacked her. She fought him (she had defensive cuts all on her arms and hands) but when she turned to run, he stabbed her five times from the back with a butcher knife. He raped her as she bled to death in her hallway. I doubt that having a gun would have helped her any, because he surprised her totally and his attack was extremely aggressive and violent, but I think if she had had time to arm herself with a pistol, she definately would have defended herself. She was an extremely liberal, left-wing Democrat, a life-long feminist, a union organizer for the SEIU and a leader in the local Congress of Labor Union Women. She lived in a poor, minority neighborhood because she felt comfortable and safe there. Apparently she was wrong about it.

When she and I were anarchists and members of the IWW, we owned several guns and practiced shooting pretty frequently. She was a good shot with both the M-1 carbine and the revolver I bought her. I wish she had had it that day.

Owning a gun is not going to save one from every situation, obviously. But there are situations where it might make the difference. Perhaps her attacker had a bad childhood, maybe he was mentally ill, maybe he was high on drugs, I don't know, and I don't care. She was a good, decent person who tried her whole life to help people, and he was a sorry-ass predator, rapist career criminal and murderer, who targeted and attacked women. I sincerely wish she had killed him, instead.

After her funeral, I applied for and received my Federal Firearms License (gun dealer's license.) I made it my personal crusade to provide .38 caliber pistols at a rock-bottom, wholesale price to every woman who would accept one. I trained numerous women in how to shoot. I did that for several years until the government raised the price of an FFL from $30 to $90 and then to $300. When they began to demand that FFL holders install security bars, burglar alarm systems and all that, I said "Okay, enough is enough." I was tired of them coming around to inspect my records all the time, too. So I turned in my license and got out of the business. I still know several FFL holders, though. If I wanted to buy a gun from a wholesale house, I can still do so, through a couple of friends who still have an FFL.

Maybe I'm a bad guy in the eyes of some of the people on this board. But I can't see it. I've never harmed anyone, with a firearm or without. All I've ever done is try to protect myself, my family and my friends. I've done so legally. I was (still am) very careful not to violate the law--with the exception of trainhopping once in a while.

I see a world that is definately not a safe place to be unarmed. If you can't see that, well, all I can say is "good luck." I wish you well, truthfully.