second_amendment dafremen This entire debate boils down to two camps mostly: 1. The people who emotionally present data, generally using percentages when it suits them and figures when that strengthens their case. Mostly they talk about the poor dead, the loss of precious lives and gawd bless their hearts..they always bring up the children. The #s don't usually support these people. That's why they resort to an emotional smoke and mirrors approach. 2. The "their team right or wrong" folks. These people spew factoids that sound real smart. But you'd be just as likely to pull a bear's tooth with your bare hands as convince them to actually research the facts they are spewing. All they know is that they aren't backing down, period. And anyone that doesn't agree with them ENTIRELY is the enemy, a liberal and foolish. Then there are those of us who don't feel that regulating the daily lives of 320 million people should be something our leaders go into emotionally. We feel that social problems need to be examined and prioritized rationally and that our personal beliefs should be subject to change as the facts present themselves. For the most part, since we choose to decide on each subject independently based on our best (and hopefully fairly balanced) research, we're generally seen as conservatives by liberals and as liberals by conservatives..when we disagree with their party line mantras. A few thoughts: First off, the 2nd Amendment was added due to a severe distrust of governments and governing authorities. That is, according to all of my research, the main thrust of the Amendment: to allow the citizenry to mount a military offensive or defense should the government become corrupt, abusive and ultimately unresponsive. With that in mind. It becomes necessary to determine if the preservation of this very important right is outweighed by the harm caused by keeping it and firearms relatively unregulated. Well how big is the problem? According to the Center For Disease Control, more people die in automobile accidents(33,804) than in firearm related deaths(33,636) More than twice as many die of diabetes(75,578.) Ii would seem that our country has more pressing problems we should be addressing that don't require us fucking with our Constitution at all. The Constitution wasn't just written for US. It was written for all Americans for all time, which is why it's guarantees to the citizenry shouldn't be messed with lightly. You see, it's not ours to take away from anyone. Especially not some future American who might need the right to armed revolt in some far off dystopian future which I personally hope we never see. We talk about the number of dead, but in our country, 1 million more people are being born than are dying every year. Unemployment rises with the population, along with crime rates and suicides. We are a nation of 320 MILLION people + or minus. How many people die of firearm related injuries every year? 33,636..and 21,000 of those were self inflicted. You gotta wonder what we're doing to our people to make them so fucking depressed. In fact, shouldn't that be our number one regulating and spending priority? Not banning guns, fixing broken people. And it doesn't end there. We ask the USDA to help us become healthier, so they remove the fat from dairy and then market the cheese made with that fat. End result? Heart disease is STILL the number one cause of death among Americans because no one is REALLY addressing the issue. Go fix the food industry and save over a million lives instead of the paltry 9,000 or so victims of guns. Hey, I'd love to see the 1st Amendment put a gag on marketers wouldn't you? (Me either. Because then it's only a matter of time before the gag is on us.) Number of homeless? About 3.5 Million. (1.5 million children) Most of this because of poor leadership on the part of our politicos. Let's give these AWESOME, RESPONSIVE, RESPONSIBLE AND CONCERNED LEADERS an unarmed citizenry to exploit. That should slow down the rate of exploitation. It should also curb the homeless problem that our leaders have only exacerbated..by..well I'm not sure exactly what it's going to do for our 3.5 million homeless, or how. It's seems like regulating firearms is going to do next to nothing compared to some other things we could be discussing and putting our energy toward solving. There are more traffic deaths, lets ban automobiles. (Oh wait, Exxon and big business wouldn't like that..so we won't.) There are more diabetes deaths, let's ban processed foods and sugary shit marketed to children.(Oh wait, Conagra and Monsanto wouldn't like that..so we won't.) So that's the way a guy like me sees it. It's a bunch of stupid partisan bickering that has no basis in anything but hysteria and the same reactionary emotional blindness that's been fucking us in Washington for decades if not longer. And that's all I've got to say about that for now. 151213 ... dafremen Yea. Let's give up the guns. Good idea guys.Timing's everything. Grow tf up. 201228 ... unhinged automatic assault weapons should not be in civilian hands that doesn't mean all guns should be illegal it's not an all or nothing proposition and anyone that says it is is the one that needs to grow the fuck up. 201228 ... unhinged and you do know that the 'well-organized militias' mentioned in the second amendment were originally formed to help the rich landowners keep track of their slaves right? the history of the second amendment is just as much about slavery as it is about 'government tyranny' as soon as black people start taking the second amendment cto heart gun laws are changed in a snap of some fingers but the white guys always cry about government tyranny and erase the slave patrols from the picture. the constitution made slavery legal too. we have the most guns in circulation of any country on earth and we have the most mass shootings of anywhere on earth. but let's pretend those two things aren't related cause 'government tyranny' funny how it's not government officials being killed 201228 ... dafremen No, my friend. We must raise better people, stop the zombie hoardes of researchers, who want jobs sitting around being curious with their big minds, just to create more efficient and powerful technologies that we don't have the maturity to use ehtically..or we need to shut the fuck up and take the consequences of our arrogant negligence. I find one reasonable exception to citizen armament: Nuclear weapons. But note, every nation with those weapons, is finally getting listened to by the caveman state. (Interesting, huh? Especially to a citizenry that isn't getting heard worth af.) How does that not ALSO apply at the citizen-state level with automatic or any other weapons? If the state would like its people to get rid of those weapons, it should get rid its own in an act of leadership..instead of parenting. If its feels that foreign nations are a threat which require it to have better armaments than its citizens, then how can it not also respect and feel the concern of its citizens as the balance of power is tilted in favor of their rulers? Only an unresponsive, patronizing leadership behaves and legislates that way. Only a dictatorship, engaged in pushing rules in that direction does that, when we're obviously nowhere near swords-to-plowshares ready. Disarmament of the citizenry at this point in history is suicide. First the citizens are to be outgunned, then directed..then subjugated. It's happened a thousand times before. And the so called educated, keep dividing against the "less educated" to agree with our psychopathic masters. Why can't those who "wsalked those hallowed halls" acknowledge that they're spoiled "housies" who are too accustomed to comfort, to return to the fields and fight with us? ("Homelessness!!! AGGGHHHHHHHH!" The working class goes homeless, accidentally defunds these rent-sucking parasites..but they live on. Not sure who that leaves to fund them. Oh yea. Comfort addicted sell outs.) Look man, I get it. You just play a sell out, because that's what you learned to habituate yourself to during the course of your "higher education" and because who tf else gives a shit about the violin but the rich, anymore? (May we all give humble acknowledgement to the rise of the "fiddle"..) Birds of a feather..even if you flock out of desperation. History is what it is. It doesn't need our opinions to prove it. I told you what was coming a decade or two ago. see also: eagles_and_wolves You're right. We're fucked. We all know whose to blame, but blame games get us nowhere. Now go get solid in your spiritual practice or go get a gun. Or maybe make one, like I am. You know, I have access to dozens of broken violins and other orchestral instruments through a Charity I work with.. Maybe a violin crossbow? Also got a cello available if you'd prefer a ballista. 201229 ... miraculux Uniquely Qualified…? Once hung my hat on an argument — WAY back in a high school debate class in ’83 — that when dystopian society came to full fruit in the “first world” it would actually be a more effective and less obvious hybrid of the various social models described by Zamyatin, Blair, Huxley, et al. Sadly, much like the rest of my precocious ideas about the nature of society and humanity of the time nearly forty years ago, they keep turning out to be accurate. I’ve never wanted to be wrong MORE than I am today, and WE have collectively never been in a position to do less about what’s unfolding rapidly before our eyes — much less gradually than I honestly expected. Started life as a “gifted” child, inside and outside of mainstream curriculum environs, due to a steady string of 99’s during all the various standardized testing, with spatial relationships, language and linguistics as strengths. From the get-go, something always felt “off” about the orthodox versions of history and the humanities I was ingesting. Once I’d punched holes in the officially sanctioned accounts offered in my 7th grade social studies text a few times (each begrudgingly acknowledged by Mr. Gordon — outside of class) a hazy outline inferring the actual nature of our world began to form. Growing up in a small, entrepreneurial engineering household during the rise of the computer in the 70’s, the loose religious component in our family life hit the sidelines soon after I began arguing about free will with the youth pastor — and he discovered that I was only attending the summer retreats to hang out with girls. Also arrived with a powerful urge to help the underdog as original equipment, despite a “laissez faire” attitude toward life and living developing thanks to parents possessing little to no internal prejudice. This combination of inputs led to meeting many quality friends from the “wrong side of the tracks” over the years, for which I remain eternally grateful. Found just enough trouble along the way see the inside of the criminal justice system early, the fly-by offering both an un-romanticized glimpse inside the systems of justice and law enforcement AND the lesson that personal freedom was not something to be taken lightly. By the time university was an option, early common sense suggested that butting heads with the orthodoxies of academia would likely be even more unpleasant than it was in HS, so I took the easy way out and joined the Marines. While this not being a long-term “career” choice was clear going in, it did get me out into the world and help me observe institutional power and collective conditioning up close d in a whole new light — from the inside out. There are rules to be followed — until there aren’t. Moving into the technology sector, I leveraged my early life skills (elec. theory, soldering, artistic skills, 99’s, etc.) for a few years of concentrated earning, before flipping to the editorial world to write about tech, eventually accepting an “offer I couldn’t refuse” from the corporate world to join the “dark side” (marketing & PR). Invested several years, wielding a substantial subset of the propagandist’s toolbox, before the tank I’d been shunting the frequent complaints of my conscience into for nearly a decade to keep the checks rolling in finally began to overflow. In 2002, I leveraged my situation — bolting for the security of a rural redoubt where the wife’s family has kept a garden for centuries. This flight path to the present provided a strangely practical preparation to comment on the nature of institutions, power, the vagaries of order, the value of service, as well as the hubris of wealth and the historical relationships between master and servant. In many ways, I was born to serve technocratic role, to become a handmaiden of power. Lord knows the “system” gave me plenty of opportunities. Truth is, keeping the little “elitist” in the back of my mind at arm’s length all these years has not been always been easy, along with choosing NOT a one-way ticket for the primrose path when offered. In the present, what little collective faith I ever did have in humanity writ large has largely flown the coop, never to return. Not out of cynicism or for any misanthropic reasons, but simply because after forty years astride the planet — and wading through professional situations with much to teach about our world, a few basic facts have become readily obvious to this kid : 1) Faith is best invested in individuals who have earned it, not institutions (of any stripe). The misuse of faith is a subject FAR larger than this essay, so suffice it to say that the mechanics of the process — via media, authority, etc. — are often revelatory. 2) The vast majority of the world’s population can’t be chuffed to understand (or therefore admit) that the world we live in is not as it seems at the surface. This state of affairs has everything to do with indoctrination (and repetition) of every flavor, from the old-school ways of tribalism to the new-school media mindf**k. 3) History is NOT linear and “gradualism” is not a good thing. Make of this what you will, but it appears that we’re currently moving BACKWARDS historically speaking. Do yourself a favor and talk to anyone you know who experienced life in the Soviet bloc (or similar) firsthand. I know quite a few here in Europe, and they ALL recognize what’s happening to our world at the moment. 4) This time, it probably IS different. Unfortunately, based on my technical background and training in the military (ENTNAC/TS), I’m also hip to the sheer scale and capabilities of the physical Panopticon our gracious financial overlords have been building up around us these last few decades. No theories required. CONCLUSION : Trying to explain the arch-generalist ideas underpinning the nature of our world, the fallacy of the L/R paradigm, or help motivated individuals transcend the prefab cognitive frames installed in their heads since birth, is mostly a fool’s errand. Battling the pervasive nature of systemic control and the voices of the technocrats who facilitate for the ownership CLASS is a fool’s errand at best. Truth be told, based on the “gradualist” nature of the Fabians and their progeny in the present, I’ve been quietly hoping I’d shuffle the coil before history went all recursive again and society slid backwards into the global digital feudalism now being unveiled with plenty of fanfare. 201231 ... dafremen With some minor differences, your story sounds eerily familiar. 201231 what's it to you? who go blather from