Columbine questions we still don't ponder

Who actually belongs to the NRA? Who are these supposed men? Why do they require guns? Is it a symbol of something they are lacking? Do they feel strong and potent when they hold a gun? Take my meaning? Did you know that one of the worst serial killers in history (some forty or more female victims) used a gun as a dildo and fired it while doing so? Doesn't that give you a clue to the perversity of gun lovers? I don't mean that all gun lovers would use their guns in such a fashion but the underlying desire to have a gun makes these guys feel like powerful men.

by Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2180 comments [203 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 2:06:28 PM

The shrinks tell us that when someone makes off-the-wall statement about other people, they are often telling us about themselves. Maybe you would do this sort of thing with a firearm and figure everybody else must be the same. You are correct, people like you should not own firearms....

by sesquiculus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 187 comments [64 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 5:05:52 PM

Say Archie, this sounds a bit like projection to me. Your graphic description was really unnecissary beyond shock value and emotional manipulation.
Be careful of what you say, so much of yourself is revealed by it.

It may be beyond your comprehension to grasp, but this issue has to do with inalianable rights. Do you happen to know what that phrase means? Do you have any appreciation at all of freedom? Or does priviledge and comfort and lazy thinking satisfy you?

Even your phraseology is so typical and redundant, which shows a lack of any real knowledge-but rather purely emotional outrage at something you don't even understand.

"Gun lovers" "gunlovers" "gun as dildo" "pervercity of gun lovers" "these guys"...the language of rant.

For actual information on why a free people are armed for their own self defense, see my post below.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1711 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Saturday, Apr 18, 2009 at 11:41:20 PM

Are you not doing the same finger pointing?  I agree with the self-reflection, and that we, as Americans, are more likely to point the finger at others that use any self reflection.

I would contend that our morals and self-values have gone the way of the dodo.  It is up to us to "be the change we want to see in the world," it is up to us to make a difference, it is up to us to change the economy.

Every one of our choices is just that, a choice.  And it reflects on all of us.  We complain about our economy/our future, but we created it.  Now, it is our turn to make the future, because in the end, it will be the reflection of us.

by Lee Schwalenberg (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 2:42:53 PM

I don't personally want a gun, and don't want one or more.  But as a young child, on a 20 acres of remote land, I did own a 22 and a twelve gage.  I used them responsibly, not because anyone taught me, but because I knew what they could do.  I did meet people, from the city, that were careless with their weapons when they ventured to my neck of the woods.  I think that that is the problem.  What does a person from inside any city limits need a weapon of that sort?  We have cops, and many of them lack good scense as well.  I think that where I now live inside a city, there should be no guns at all.  It is easy to make pepper spray or other less deadly defense one could use if challanged or frighted, that can stop any personal attack just as well as any gun.  I think private guns are unnecesary and even dangerous inside of any populated area, as there are too many accidental targets abound as well.

 

 

by Philip Dennany (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 182 comments [83 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 2:59:28 PM

No wonder we of the lock and load persuasion think you gun banners are a bunch of clueless idiots.    Look,  if you are going to urge some political move,  you at least ought to know what you are talking about.   

The so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" merely prohibited manufacture of new semiautomatic weapons bearing certain cosmetic features such as bayonet lugs,  pistol grips,  etc.    These have nothing to do with the function of such firearms,  which are merely semiautomatic replicas of fully-automatic military weapons.    

"Assault rifles" are no different functionally from any semiautomatic hunting rifle,  except that the round they fire is so weak that is is prohibited for deer hunting in many states.   Fully-automatic firearms ( which is apparently what you are refering to ) are strictly-regulated by other laws.    As a practical matter,  these are essentially prohibited already.        

by sesquiculus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 187 comments [64 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 4:59:20 PM

The real question is not about gun control or trying to identify supposed angry kids for re-education and medication ... The real question is what did Dwayne Fuselier and his son Brian engage in leading up to the Columbine shootings ?

Fuselier was appointed head investigator even though his son Brian was involved in the founding of the "Trench coat Mafia" at Columbine High. Fuselier's also produced a film more than a year prior that depicted just such a scenario as mass murder at the same school !

The question not being pondered is:  did Fuselier encourage or manipulate these kids ?

by arthur adze (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 7:25:52 PM

"The question not being pondered is: did Fuselier encourage or manipulate these kids ?"--Adze

From my research on this 'event', it is very much the case that there are many clues that this was a PsyOp by the Intelligence Community.

There was so much more to this story than reached the mainstream "news". My files on this are in a totally different computer, so I can't bring up any of the specifics at this point.

But I am familiar with where you are going with your information, that is indeed fact.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1711 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 19, 2009 at 3:11:11 AM

 

Much has been said by all sides in favor of the the ancient writ of Habeas Corpus. From many quarters this right is understood and embraced almost instinctively.

 

What I find remarkable is that this concept of liberty and its rights are so clear on this aspect, and yet many of those who laud its necessity for a free people miss a very corollary right that made it possible to achieve this great writ. That is the right of self defense. Many seem to have lost sight of the fact that this writ was demanded of authority at sword point. It was not given willingly by the states power.

 

So it is without conceptual stretching to assert that the rights maintained in the 2^nd Amendment to the Constitution are those which snatched the rights affirmed in Habeas Corpus from tyranny.

 

These two rights have a very special relationship to one another, and it is not mere coincidence that the right to bear arms comes as the second most sacred right after that of free speech in the oder of listing of the Bill of rights.

**

 

“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.”

 

--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms, 6 July 1775

 

Did you ever read of any revolution in any nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?...Will your Mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?...Will the oppressor ever let go of the oppressed? Was there ever an instance? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single example, where rulers, overcharged with power, willingly let go of the oppressed?

Patrick Henry

William Blackstone, the revered 18th century defender of liberty whose Commentaries on the Laws of England was a bestseller in colonial America, wrote that "the last auxiliary right" of free men is "having arms for their defense." Blackstone, England's greatest jurist, said that the right to bear arms enables the "natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1711 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Saturday, Apr 18, 2009 at 11:16:13 PM

As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people.
Jeff Snyder

When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state".
Claire Wolfe, "101 Things To Do Until The Revolution"

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. James Madison, The Federalist Papers

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms." Constitutional scholar and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, 1840

"As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives [only] moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion to your walks." Thomas Jefferson, writing to his teenaged nephew.

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court.

Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. Senator Richard Henry Lee, 1788, on "militia" in the 2nd Amendment

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Cesare Beccaria, as quoted by Thomas Jefferson's Commonplace book.

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract of 1774-1775.

Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...Samuel Adams, in "Phila. Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789

The disarming of citizens has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. Adolph Hitler, April 11 1942.

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. [...] the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960

Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government -- and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.
Edward Abbey, "Abbey's Road", 1979

If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms..
U.S. Representative John Dingell, 1980

The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner. Report of the Subcommittee On The Constitution of the Committee On The Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, second session (February, 1982)

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis. Stephen P. Halbrook, "That Every Man Be Armed", 1984

by Sharlene Z. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 86 comments [107 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:57:43 AM

I really know only one thing and that is American culture is violent and brutish and I personally believe it's because of your so called inalienable rights. As far as my example is concerned it was also very brutish but it is true and it is a consequence obviously of a pyschotic or sociopathic disease on the part of the perpetrator that mirrors the desire to use guns by the brutish and violent amongst you. Just please keep your guns within your own borders, kill your own people, fight amongst yourselves and leave the rest of the world alone. Is that too much to ask?

by Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2180 comments [203 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Apr 20, 2009 at 10:26:52 PM

Over half of all murders in the US are committed by black males, about 6.5% of the population. Usually, these are committed against other black males. A startling figure, quoted by Jesse Jackson and others, is that in one year, black males kill more black males than were murderd in the entire history of Lynchings.

Of the rest, disproportionate numbers are committed by hispanics and traditional white southerners ("Don't mess with 'em" ).

The unifying characteristic seems to be an "honor" culture, where a social stimuli may be met with disproportionate force. Once you remove these culprits from the statistics, The US firearms violence rate is not far out of line with Europe's.

by sesquiculus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 187 comments [64 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Thursday, Apr 23, 2009 at 2:57:06 PM