[sunniefaith]

Originally Posted by Choccywoccydoodah

Thanks - now that's a statement I can agree with (and would even go as far to say that, in my opinion, those kind of people need a swift kick to the head to knock some sense into them - but as that would be a violent reaction to an already violent problem I will refriain).

Welcome...what gets to me is this...The people that normally disagree with the gun laws are some times the ones that are killed by some mad gun man! And I really feel sorry for them.

[freeier]

Originally Posted by sylvesterjay

Ummmmm Freeier, last time I checked some guy doing roundhouse kicks is not able to take out 100 people/second from a distance. let's try to keep the discussion rational, shall we, thanks

there are tonnes of ways one can kill in school.
poisoning the water/food supply, driving a large truck into a group of kids, etc.etc
even creating a bomb homemade is not difficult. jsut do a goggle search i think most can come up with some form of killer weapon. makovia cocktail ? etc...

[Sleuth]

Originally Posted by Mat

You can say about at least 50%

Sorry, according to that article about homicide rates and guns, only 39% of the US population owns guns (in 1999). 50% of that figure, maybe, but not 50% of the US population.
And this fact will astound some of you: I was in the Army, my father in the Air Force, and both grandfathers in the Army. No guns in any of those households.

[Mr.Bing]

Originally Posted by Sleuth

Greenietea--George W. Bush is still alive because it would be illegal to kill a President and he wl be gone in 2008. If you can't wait until 2008 and think the best course of acton in the US is either assination or rebellion, feel free to go purchase guns in the US and perform either action.
Sunniefaith--No, this is not worse than terrorism, it is the same. All homicide is equal.
Bli--Or should I call you "John Kerry"? The US military is not a small, disadvantaged minority. And the rest of the US is not iving it up. Several million people are agonized over this war and are trying to bring the troops home.

whoa whoa whoa, i think somebody needs more fiber in their diet, geez louise....taking what everyone writes so literally, man oh man...

the US military machine is not disadvantaged, but where do you think they recruit all the kids who go off to the front lines? a Connecticut elite private boarding school for Harvard bound trust fund kids? of course not. the kids and their familes who are bearing the burden of this war are disadvantaged rural or inner city kids who have no other alternative but to go to the army because it's their best shot out of gangs/poverty/both...it's right there- look at the statistics on where the majority of the kids are coming from...and when they come back, who's taking care of them besides their immediate family, if they have any at all? definitely not walter reed, that's for sure...

enough and now back to the topic at hand.
i guess it's hard for non-americans to understand how much the sense of "right to bear arms" is imbedded in the american psyche (going back to all the previous posts (like my first post) on the historical reasonings behind the need to feel capable of defending one's own home). americans have a natural need to feel more free than everyone else...
and it's the whole "why should i change, i'm not the one who sucks" mentality...why should my right to bear arms infringed due to someone's wrongdoing?
and please be reminded that many many americans are not zealous 2nd amendments nuts and are in favor of gun control. it's just the people who get on TV that ruin it for the rest of us in terms of our image in other parts of the world.
the question becomes how do you do it (if you even can with the NRA as a favorite political bedfellow)- what do you regulate- what kinds of weapons, who can have them, significant public policy questions in a longstanding debate that will probably never abate as long as there are self righteous people on both sides of the issue...

very sincerely yours,
John "why the long face" Kerry

[zane]

Originally Posted by freeier

there are tonnes of ways one can kill in school.
poisoning the water/food supply, driving a large truck into a group of kids, etc.etc
even creating a bomb homemade is not difficult. jsut do a goggle search i think most can come up with some form of killer weapon. makovia cocktail ? etc...

Yeah, there are thousand of ways to do something if your intention is bad. However, I do feel that regulation is necessary when it comes to certain things.
Imagine if there's no law against killing, robbing, or taking drugs,etc assumming that people know better.

To me guns are deadly either in the right or wrong hands. The less on the street, the better.

Just my 2 cents...

[KnowItAll]

Can I ask one question ..

Do more americans intentionally kill each other than the "Al Queda" which is public enemy #1?

(Drunk driving is perhaps technically not intentional)

[freeier]

Originally Posted by zane

Yeah, there are thousand of ways to do something if your intention is bad. However, I do feel that regulation is necessary when it comes to certain things.
Imagine if there's no law against killing, robbing, or taking drugs,etc assumming that people know better.

To me guns are deadly either in the right or wrong hands. The less on the street, the better.

Just my 2 cents...

i am not against regulations.
i just feel there are more than just regulations that should be done, and that just regulation now is too late with the guns floating in the street.

yet. in switzerland i think owning a gun is not illegal. why are there no such killings ?

and similarly in israel.. (of cos i am not referring to the internal war, just regular petty crime killings)

[Sleuth]

Originally Posted by bli

whoa whoa whoa, i think somebody needs more fiber in their diet, geez louise....taking what everyone writes so literally, man oh man...

Okay, maybe too literally. And everyone could use more fiber, according to the docs.
But one person took the VA Tech shootings to the 2nd Amendment (makes sense to me), to rebelling against/assasinating the Prez (does not make sense to me; he gets blamed for everything, which is what is annoying; sort of like the everything America does/has done/will do is evil line of thought).
And I disagree with your portrayal of the military. I just read an article refuting that portrayal, let me see if I can find it. If I can find it, I believe it will state that you are correct in saying the military isn't full of CT preps, but isn't as poor and uneducated as you might think (when compared to natonal averages).

[KnowItAll]

Also -- would appreciate it if this did not turn into an anti-dubya thread. God knows I don't need any problems while cross borders.

[Mr.Bing]

Originally Posted by freeier

i am not against regulations.
i just feel there are more than just regulations that should be done, and that just regulation now is too late with the guns floating in the street.

yet. in switzerland i think owning a gun is not illegal. why are there no such killings ?

and similarly in israel.. (of cos i am not referring to the internal war, just regular petty crime killings)

and canada...there's actually a significant gun ownership per capita there and there aren't killings like this there...