Newtown - Is it Really Time for a Change?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by TheBare

None of the issues did he kept his promises. Hot air wins elections. As shown in his current approval ratings. A lame duck president to say the least.

He campaigned on the issues and he won on the issues. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. And incidentally, if he's so shit (and he's no poster child of mine) what does it say about the Republican Party that they couldn't beat him, and that they also lost two senate seats and nine seats in the House of Representatives?

I presume it doesn't say that people who voted Democrat should be denied the right to vote?

You need to remember that your single strongest card in the gun rights hand is the US constitution and the 2nd amendment. Once you start dissing the constitution and the right to vote, just because you don't like what the voice of the people is saying, your stand on the 2nd amendment is exposed as a mere sham. Against my own interest and my own side of the argument, I respectfully advise you (and Rodak) to think hard about that.

[smartz69]

Originally Posted by rodak

You wanna talk standards?
Perhaps we should look into voter standards.

Given the recent spate of stricter voter i.d. laws coupled with all of the Congressional redistricting rules, it would appear you'll get your wish.

[dethtongue]

Originally Posted by smartz69

Given the recent spate of stricter voter i.d. laws coupled with all of the Congressional redistricting rules, it would appear you'll get your wish.

That's not going far enough though. Only the real Americans should be allowed to vote. None of these liberals- unless were talking about liberal use of capital punishment, or gays - unless its two hot girls who enjoy webcams, or foreigners- regardless of how long their families have been here, women - unless they vote lockstep with their men folk, religious fanatics- unless their Christian religious fanatics because then there just doing Gods will, terrorists - unless they belong to NRA, because fomenting fear and rage and talking about overthrowing the government is just something terrorists in other countries do. and different political parties, because everyone knows in a real democracy only the conservative viewpoint is right.

I'm all for it. It will be kind of funny when even North Korea can laugh at how backwards we are.

[mooney]

Perhaps all Liberals should leave the US to let the Neocons have their way. It didn't turn out so bad for the Germans in 1848. I mean less than 100 years later they were so Right Wing heavy the country turned into a Utopia. Oh wait...

The largest problem facing us is the extremist voice that can't be drowned out with reason. Lame duck? Perhaps look to a Congress full of pandering zealots unwilling to discuss anything that would make them seem weak. Instead of talking to constituents they talk at them. Agree with the lobbyists or you somehow fit the 'no true Scotsman' definition. Pathetic. People say you can't fix education, etc. by throwing money at it, so where does that leave politics? Is it the exception? I somehow doubt it.

[scoundrel]

The darkest hour comes just before the dawn. The issue of gun control is no longer a taboo subject in political discussion and, no matter how they try to deny it, the gun rights side carries the responsibility for a disaster, the chronic failure of public safety in a society where anyone with a grudge or simply with some wires down inside their heads can start shooting at random. When millions upon millions of people live in close proximity to one another, there have to be rules; anarchy is not possible. Everyone must drive on the same side of the road, stop when the light is red and so on. I have seen a recurring theme in which the gun rights defenders tend to feel that what they want is more important than any duty they owe to the rest of the millions of people who have to live in the same space with them. They want to go when the light is red, and they want to drive on either side of the road as the whim takes them, and everybody else has got to lump it.

Even though I foresee decades of dispute before the plague of unrestricted assault rifles is brought under control, I think the Newtown shootings were a Rosa Parks moment. They mark a moment where the mass of public opinion shifted, and millions of Americans realised that they had run of patience and were tired of this shit. Untrained and unpaid volunteers wandering around elementary schools carrying guns...that is meant to be the solution. That is the new paradigm of what a civilised country is supposed to look like. Will the parents of 6 year old children all over America sit still for this; or will millions of them start to say:

Hey! Wouldn't it make more sense to ban AR-15s and ban 30 and 100 round magazines instead, and try to make this whole f***ing country safer, instead of turning a school for 6 year olds into a military installation?

I think now that the NRA and its acolytes are counting on weariness, despair, depression and loss of will in the gun control side, faced with such imbecile intransigence, such fanatical determination to make the USA into a giant arms fair. But it is a society of 330 million people who have no choice but to inhabit the same space. It has reached the stage where 6 year old kids can be slaughtered in their classrooms and gun rights defenders can tell the rest of the community that this is a necessary price to pay in exchange for the uninfringed right to keep and bear any arms whatsoever. Ultimately, in mere self defence, the rest of society will be forced to refuse to accept this. The worse the situation becomes, the closer America will be to the moment when all the millions of people who don't want their 6 year old kids to be dodging assault rifle fire in a classroom will mutiny and will demand that gun controls are imposed, and by force too.

[richardoe]

Im watching a programme on PBS America at the moment about the gun culture in the USA.

[rodak]

Originally Posted by richardoe

Im watching a programme on PBS America at the moment about the gun culture in the USA.

PBS eh?
I'm sure that will be fair program that in no way is hostile to either side of this argument.

[mooney]

Originally Posted by richardoe

Im watching a programme on PBS America at the moment about the gun culture in the USA.

Just look to the board of the NRA. Panic and fear mean sales, both private and international. They give a rat's piss about common gun owners.

http://www.meetthenra.org/board-list

[richardoe]

It was unbised IMHO!! I find it shocking that an American citizen must take a driving test but has to have no training in using firearms.

[2cheap]

When British photojournalist Charles Ommanney traveled through six states to photograph American gun owners, he found something he did not expect: they don't fit the stereotypes.
According to PolicyMic.com, Ommanney was sent to photograph American gun owners for the German magazine Stern. In so doing, he discovered "people who are often far from the stereotypical vision of the American 'gun-nut.'"
He found a teenager named Elizabeth, who posed with a Walther handgun "in front of a floral wallpaper backdrop." He found entire families--mother, father, daughter, son--who posed with their firearms of choice.
Ommanney also found one woman with a pump shotgun for home and personal defense and another with a handgun. One father had an AR-15, and another dad had a pistol holstered on his hip as he carried his son in a papoose.
Ommanney said he came away from the project understanding there are a variety of reasons Americans own guns, but it all ultimately comes back to one thing: they own firearms because they refuse "to be a victim."

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...he-Stereotypes