You've covered a ot there, friend. I hope you don't mind me taking some of your comments a little further.
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
{snip} all too often in any society do the loudest groups make the case that in order to stop the smallest minority that caused the most damage, everyone has to pay. {snip}
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Yep - that what I like about society. We all pay for hospitals/schools/prisons/courts/the military/air traffic control/etc., even though only some of us use them. That's civilisation.
I like the fact that society as a whole can get it's shit srted to ban dangerous things (like unsafe cars, crashing aircraft, madmed with guns, etc). This is the point - my personal "freedom" to market a deadly car is curtailed by law - and so is my "freedom" to own my own weight in lethal armaments - it's one of the tings I love about my country.
We clearly have very differnt world views - I accept that your's has merit, but it's far from mine. It seems that many pro-gun people do not acept my right to have the opinion I hold - I am not accusing you, I do not know what you think of my ideas.
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
{snip} That any 'militia' that IS formed is soundly and immediately cast in to suspicion as being 'anti-government' with allegations of intent to take down and destroy the federal government. {snip}
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As a foreigner, this one looks to me like the more sensible gun owners (and I accept that there are some) being painted with the brush that the worst type of gun fan made and gave to the media - there are certainly people that are so paranoid about federal govt. that they do think of the federales as "the enemy" in some way.
It's sad but true. If you want the decent gun ownrs to be treated fairly in the media, get your friends together and stop the extremists on the fringes of your own camp.
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
{snip} My george washington quote says it all. "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." {snip}
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I asked about the use of discipline in the quote. Any thoughts?
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
{snip} the british army {snip}
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Got no knowlege to answer this section - but do my county the honour of giving us a capital letter.
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
{snip} 'Arms', as would be defined then and now, would be that any personal firearms that the individual can carry and use, same as our government. That means all pistols and all rifles (including automatics or 'machine guns'). {snip}
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OK - didn't understand this one previously. Did the founders make that clear? What was there position on individuals or townships owning cannon or mortars and other "heavy" weaponry of the day?
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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
There will be no way to stop 'nuts' from getting a gun. It's impossible as long as the 'nut' still has freedom. The ONLY way to stop the nut from being able to commit the murder and mayhem that some have, is to stop infringing on the peoples right to bear arms. Once 'nuts' (the milder ones at least) see that there are other people out there ready to kill them if they try to commit violent crimes, they will not be as 'nutty'. There will always be the psychos, but fewer of them and after time, it will be handled. They will eventually die out from attrition.
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See - this is where you and I fundementally differ. I feel that if there were hardly any guns, then nutters would have great trouble getting them.
I see the arguments used in this thread about the 85,000,000 gun owners (or whatever the stat. was) and the arguments about not banning them because you'd never collect them all.
Private guns were legal and indeed cmmon in the UK in the first decades of the 20th C, but were banned for reasns of public safety. At the time people made the same arguments that have been common in the US lately. Over the rest of the century the number of guns in society fell dramatically, and nowadays most illegal firearms in the UK come from legal sales in other "civilised" countries diverted to illegal imports, rather than from 3rd world countries (I was told this by a friend in the Home Office some time ago, but I have not researched the actual data, sorry).
All in all if NEW guns were banned now in the US, how long would it be before the number of gun deaths fell? And would it be worth it?