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Open discussion about the world we live in today. Topics in here can get heated, but please keep it civil.

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schuette
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Post by schuette »

this is something I read in my national (Scottish) paper from one of the columnists.....I know what you lot are gonna say but I believe in what this woman wrote..
THERE is no word, no adjective that adequately describes the massacre in that bare, simple, single-room school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Five little girls brutally, deliberately executed.

But let us not forget that on that very same day as Roberts carried out his murderous mission, in the US another five children were also shot, also died.

Because in each four and a half hours in the States, a child is killed by a gun.

Another three young Americans also shoot themselves every single day of every single year.

But out of the 50 states in the Union a mere 19 have made it a crime to leave weapons within easy reach of kids. Meanwhile, 15,000 other of their I adult fellow citizens will be gunned I down in an average year.

The annual equivalent of five 9/11s. America have killed more of their own, especially their young, than have ever died in foreign wars. They've even shot their presidents But still, still they cling to their accursed second amendment, the right to bear arms, the right of any American citizen to go buy himself his or her very own arsenal.

Then the next time the boss irritates them, they have a row with the wife, the neighbour, their teacher or schoolmate . . . bang, bang.

Should they not like Mondays or Tuesdays or any days, why, they get out that little ol' machine gun they bought by mail order or at the county fair, and blast them all to kingdom come.

Any politician who looks at the death toll and dares to suggest that perhaps there should be some restrictions on the more lethal weapons is verbally shot down.

The National Rifle Association, the most powerful and wealthiest lobby in the States, bar none, guarantees it.

You advocate gun control and you don't get elected. Full stop and period.

So it's curtains, or rather coffins, for thousands of innocent voters ... but, hey, it's the American way.

Praise God and pass the muskets.

But what's it to do with us?

It's their country and their constitution and we had and have our own problems. Dunblane. Hitmen. Knife crime.

So let's deal with that before we take pot shots at the Yanks.

Fine. However, it seems to me that this frontier attitude that permeates the US, this belief that everything can be settled so long as you fire a bullet at it, also increasingly infects their foreign policy.

Remember Dubya and his cohorts among the neo-cons are the NRA's favourite politicians.

So, you don't negotiate with your enemies. You don't attempt to find a peaceful way to resolve disputes.

You don't try for any kind of compromise whatsoever. No jaw, jaw in place of wah, wah, as the half-American Churchill said.

Just stick a gun at their heads. And, if that doesn't work, then you bomb them back to the Stone Age, as they threatened to do with Pakistan if they didn't co-operate with the US.

Might is right.

And the result is not only five dead children but untold thousands in the killing fields of Iraq, Afghanistan and in America's own graveyards.

God bless America.

You advocate gun control and you don't get elected. That's curtains, or rather coffins, for thousands of innocent voters... but, hey, it's the American way'
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CygnusX1
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Post by CygnusX1 »

oooooooobaby....I smell a debate with HER!!!

I'm gonna start by saying I respect her noting the Scotland has their share of violence as well. Good for her for being fair about that.

Owning firearms is an American tradition that goes back to the Colonists.

She failed to mention --and lets be fair here--how many firearms STOPPED VIOLENCE and STOPPED CRIME in American homes and cities every year. That number will ASTOUND you.

Machine guns are NOT bought at the county fair either. LOL (She's seen too much Michael Moore propaganda.)

Yeah, there ARE losers here that manage to get their hands on guns and that hurts us ALL. No argument there. Those tragedies she mentions are indeed a national disgrace. I agree.

She shouldn't label ALL Americans as such though. That's just biased and stereotypical. I'm a gun owner, and I can assure you that I'M not going on a rampage anytime soon, nor have any desire to. :roll:

With due respect, she needs to tell the WHOLE story and let her readers judge the FACTS.

There's an old saying here that goes:

"Outlaw guns.....And ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS"
Don't start none...won't be none.
Soup4Rush
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Post by Soup4Rush »

kind of like me saying all Muslims are terrorists. Everyone is entitled to their opinion (ain't democracy great) I think hers is bullshit. I say that because someone with a gun gave her freedom of speech.
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CygnusX1
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Post by CygnusX1 »

Soup4Rush wrote:kind of like me saying all Muslims are terrorists. Everyone is entitled to their opinion (ain't democracy great) I think hers is bullshit. I say that because someone with a gun gave her freedom of speech.
good point Soups.
Don't start none...won't be none.
CygnusX1
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Post by CygnusX1 »

I recently saw a e-mail of how Iraqis deal with young shoplifters....They run a car over their arm. Nice. :roll:
Don't start none...won't be none.
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ElfDude
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Post by ElfDude »

Can somebody please tell me... what the crap is a neo-con? If I look at it, it means new-conservative, but what does that mean exactly? I've never gotten a straight answer to this question.

Generally, when you hear someone use it, they're merely spewing partisan hatred and I tune them out. Just like I tune out business people who start using words like "proactive" and "paradigm shift". I know they're fulla crap and just using buzzwords to try to sound intelligent.

Anyway...
God bless the constitution and the men who wrote it.
God bless the 2nd amendment.
God bless the NRA for fighting for the 2nd amendment.
Praise God and pass the muskets!
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ElfDude
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Post by ElfDude »

I guess I really didn't address the real issue in that last post. So let's find out if the author of that article knows what she's talking about. I propose a grand experiment. Let's take a big city in the U.S. and issue a complete ban on firearms in the city (except for police, I don't want to disarm the police in this experiment). But except for the police let's completely ban guns. If the writer of this article is correct in the assumption that guns cause murder, then the city should become a peaceful utopia, right? Well, except for maybe some rogue police going on killing sprees, but we'll be able to see that for what it is, since only the police will be armed.

Do we have any cities that will volunteer for this experiment?

Oh yeah, we already have one. Except for police, all firearms are banned in Washington DC. It's been that way for a long time. So, we should have a utopia of peace in Washington DC, right? Well... it's the murder capitol of the country. And it's not the police doing the murdering. It's murderers.

No more theories needed. Experiment has been conducted and the results are in. Blaming guns for killings makes no sense. Blaming my fat stomach on spoons doesn't work either.
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awip2062
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Post by awip2062 »

"However, it seems to me that this frontier attitude that permeates the US, this belief that everything can be settled so long as you fire a bullet at it, also increasingly infects their foreign policy."

The view from over here looks more like this: everything can be fixed if you throw money at it. Whenever there is a problem here in the states, whether it be kids who can't read, people coming down with horrid diseases, natural disaster, whatever, our typical response it to throw money at it. I think you might find it very interesting to see how many nations we throw money at to try and help them fix their problems.

According to Foreign Aid: An Introductory Overview of U.S. Programs and Policy, April of 2004, "In 2004, the United States is providing some form of foreign assistance to about 150 countries...Iraq, receiving over $20 billion for reconstruction activities since mid-2003, is the biggest recipient in FY2004..."

Countries receiving aid from the US other than Iraq include: Israel, Egypt, Afganistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Liberia, Turkey,... So we are sending more than guns to middle eastern nations. A whole lot more.



"So, you don't negotiate with your enemies. You don't attempt to find a peaceful way to resolve disputes."

How can you negotiate with a terrorist? When the terrorists blew things up and killed our people in the past, did talking help? Or did things only get worse?
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ElfDude
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Post by ElfDude »

I got problems! Throw money at me, please! :)

A bit more analysis. In the US, there's a LOT of violent crime in the inner cities, the majority of it is black on black violence (read gangs). When you get out into the rest of the country, the murder rate is lower than Great Britian's... even in the west where practically everyone owns guns.

Why would this be?

One thing I have learned in business here is that to get to the root cause of a problem you usually have to ask "why" more than once. If they ask a production guy, "Why didn't you ship your product on time?" and he answers, "I ran out of parts to build it" then it's easy to go and yell at the purchasers. However, you've probably not gotten to the root cause. Ask "why" some more times...
To the purchaser ask, "Why did he run out of parts?"
"Because he didn't tell me he needed more." Suddenly there's a new angle to look at. Keep asking why and eventually you'll get to the root problem.

Now let's ask, why are so many of America's inner-city youths killing each other? To simply answer with, "Because they have access to guns" is very short-sighted. The availability of guns caused the desire to kill? I grew up in a house full of guns and have never pointed one at another human being. So that answer doesn't really work for me and causes me to continue to search for the truth.

Ask "why" a few more times and you might get something closer to the truth. Perhaps something like, "The illegitimacy rate in those areas has risen to over 66%. Young men are being raised with no fathers. Fatherhood has been replaced with a welfare check. Without a strong male role-model the young men of these areas are easily enticed into gangs because of the 'family' aspect they offer." Something along those lines. You'll find a problem with the culture. Then you can throw money at it! ;)
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awip2062
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Post by awip2062 »

I think that often we try to deal with symptoms instead of the disease that is the real problem.

Murder, with guns or any other weapon, is a symptom of underlying problems in our nation.

Families with fathers who don't care about their children are another symptom.

Welfare being seen as an acceptable and even desireable way of life is yet another.

These are all symptoms of the decay of our civilization -- clues to the changes in worldview that have occured in our country, of the values that are now being touted.
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Me
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Post by Me »

awip2062 wrote:I think that often we try to deal with symptoms instead of the disease that is the real problem.

Murder, with guns or any other weapon, is a symptom of underlying problems in our nation.

Families with fathers who don't care about their children are another symptom.

Welfare being seen as an acceptable and even desireable way of life is yet another.

These are all symptoms of the decay of our civilization -- clues to the changes in worldview that have occured in our country, of the values that are now being touted.
Cheers T,
anyone got any suggestions towards solutions?
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awip2062
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Post by awip2062 »

Raise our kids to take responsibility for themselves and to treat others well.

Help our friends to do the same.

Strive ourselves to live that way and to be continually growing.
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Xanadu
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Post by Xanadu »

Because in each four and a half hours in the States, a child is killed by a gun.[/quote]

LOL somebody had to pull the trigger :lol: nobody has ever to my knowledge been killed BY A GUN...people have been killed by idoits using a gun but never by a gun itself :roll:
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Post by ElfDude »

Guns don't kill people, the government does!
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