you know, I wont disagree that Urban areas are probably not the best place for guns, but the biggest problem with THAT, is that most of your gun toting criminals are in urban areas, not rural.

Rural areas have a much higher concentration of guns per capita (much hihger) but the gun crimes (or anyu violent crime) is generally much lower per capita.

So, you know, if I live in DC or Detroit or Chicago, where there is strict gun laws, but also HIGh violent crime rates, am I suppose to be a sheep for the wolves?

However, obi, I do understand that urban areas are not the best places for guns, but, they are probably the area where people need them most to protect themselves.

Putin, you know, if you dont like it, you can 1) try to change it or 2) go back to Serbia.

@Obi,

Remember the prophetic words of Benjamin Franklin, "Any one who will trade freedom for security deserves neither..."

Your entire argument is based upon the presumption that a gun law is going to deter someone that is determined to commit a violent act. You bring up laws prohibiting murder, rape, and even speeding. Do those laws stop people from committing murder? What about speeding? Do the laws deter people from speeding? Hardly. There are literally BILLIONS of dollars collected in traffic fines every year around the nation.

You're advocating restricting the rights of people who follow the laws in their purchase, and are responsible in ownership simply because a few people, who DO NOT follow the law in their purchase, and are irresponsible in ownership. Such an action is unacceptable in a Republic.

I am trying to change it. But you all dont believe change is possible. Professional disaffected.

They can get guns. Nobody is restricted. Teddy bears are more regulated than guns. You want criminals to have easy accessp to kevlar and automatics.

Putin, really. I have been shotting gunssince I was 6. Beenhunting alone since I was 8 (part of the culture where I grew up) Guns are REALLY not a big deal, if someone is responsbile with them. They are like a knife, or car, or axe. Capable of terrible things, but have useful needs also.

I am not going to give up MY guns, or rights (If I did not own one) just to please your selfish desires.

I own quite a few guns. I enjoy taking them out and just blowing off some steam. lol

Name one law that has successfully restricted the activity it seeks to prohibit.

MM, most people dont understand, we can legislate ourselves out of this. It is a cultural problem.

We have always had LOTS of guns in this country, but the culture was less violent.
Justlook at movies, and music, and entertainment (video games) , and you get an idea on this stuff.

Also, teh political divide makes people do some crazzzzzy shit now.

I think you mean, "cannot" legislate ourselves out of this. To which I wholeheartedly agree. We didn't legislate away drinking during Prohibition. In fact, the legislation had the opposite effect -- MORE people drank excessively, and the alcohol industry was driven into the hands of organized crime. This is basically EXACTLY the same scenario that is playing out today with the "War on Drugs." Further, like Prohibition, the the resulting violence between criminal gangs vying for control of the lucrative trade, has spilled out into "innocent" society.

sorry, yes, 'can not' lol

the thing that I find very interesting is that people in here think it is totally irrational for people to fear the government. They mock and disparage those who share the same views on governmental tyranny as those of the Founding Fathers.

One only has to do a cursory look into historical statistics to see that GOVERNMENTS kill more innocent people than all other causes of death combined.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM

Ironic that those who trust the government mock those that don't.

Prohibition worked. Consumption down. Saloons shut down. Domestic violence down. Liver dis ease down. Look it up. You want dangerous toys unrestricted so you can blow off steam

Ironic that youre so paranoid but think millions of armed people is reassuring. Pretty optimistic view of human nature for a paranoid.

Look at third world countries. Lack of government and armed gangsters roaming around kill plenty.

Prohibition most decidedly DID NOT WORK, that is why they repealed it within a few years of it being implemented.

I am not paranoid, I am a student of history. You cannot deny the fact that DEMOCIDE has been the cause of BILLIONS of deaths. Governments are far more dangerous than armed gangsters.

Because governments put them down. How many people might be saved if countries actually had infrastructure. How many disease outbreaks might be prevented. We luve longer now because of government

Look at the stats. Prohibition worked despite not being enforced resolutely.

You're dodging my point, as usual. The point is that for all of human history, it is an organized government that has been the most dangerous to lives of the People. The reason that the Founding Fathers wanted to ensure the right of the People keep and bear arms was to protect them from what they believed was inevitable, TYRANNY. The stats don't lie, tyranny rises in nearly every government, and when it does, the People are slaughtered en mass.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Gee, I'm glad you trust the word of slaveowners on what it means to live under tyranny. Funny that you people who pine for the days of the past neglect the issue of a whole race of people living in chains (which was done by private landowners, not the government), their families separated, treated like chattle. As if anything our modern government does compares to that.

"The reason that the Founding Fathers wanted to ensure the right of the People keep and bear arms was to protect them from what they believed was inevitable, TYRANNY."

Our greatest founding father was Hamilton, and thought the whole idea of 'militias' was a joke. Washington thought militias were useless also. The Bill of Rights were an afterthought, to get paranoids like to you to accept the Constitution, which you never fully accepted anyway. Nobody took the bill of rights seriously among the founding fathers, which is clear by the fact that the Alien & Sedition Acts were passed within years of their passing.

I don't "pine for the days of the past," I respect the words of a genius like Jefferson. You throw out the baby with the bath water because Jefferson, et. al., were slaveowners. In typical bleeding heart deflection style, you act as if because a man was flawed that EVERYTHING he said is therefore moot. TJ struggled intensely with slavery and freedom but was a victim of the time in which he lived.

You have a very naive and uninformed view of our "modern government."

You whine about tyranny but laud the words of slaveowners hypocritically preaching about tyranny as if they were holy scripture. You want to talk about throwing the baby out with bathroom, you condemn all governments throughout history despite the progress they have produced.

If it makes me a bleeding heart to oppose slavery, so be it. If it makes you a hypocrite to whine constantly about government while trying to trivialize and minimize the actions of slaveowners, so be it.

"Nobody took the bill of rights seriously among the founding fathers..."

You really are irrational and naive. I am sorry I got back into a discussion with you. You're insufferable, and I envy those that surely beat the shit of you in your childhood.

Typical rightwinger, always hoping for violence while prattling about 'irrationality'. Go back to your bunker, thug.

LOL @ calling me naive while basking in the glow of the founding fathers cult.

I am not whining Putin. I am sick of you acting as if anyone that disagrees with you is somehow beneath you. I dislike you intensely -- and emotion that I don't like to experience. Everyone opposes slavery, but to say that everything that an 18th century slaveowner did or said is irrelevant because they owned slaves is naive. I do not condemn all governments throughout history, I say that they are dangerous to the People. A government is an institution -- it cannot produce anything with the PEOPLE.

Putin, you're naive. Don't know how else to say it. You're going to want to be in my bunker one day, trust me. But nobody is going to let you in. You're going to take your family to the FEMA Camp, you're going to turn to your beloved government to protect you and your loved ones. Tyrants throughout history feed on the naive like you who think, "it cannot happen here..." You're pathetic.

Unlike you and your militia pals, my friends have had their doors beaten down by the FBI and brought up on bogus charges. You know nothing about repression, because the government thinks you're a joke, or an ally. Probably the first person to snitch on your neighbor if they get involved with any revolutionary causes.

So dont talk to me about being naive, sir. You dont know anything about me.

"Everyone opposes slavery, but to say that everything that an 18th century slaveowner did or said is irrelevant"

Tell me why I should give two shits about what slaveowners say about 'tyranny' or what they 'intended' with the constitution that empowered them to own slaves? They're a bunch of dead white men with no relevance, and lived in a far more terrible time to be alive than today.

I am not a "militia" guy dude, which shows how much you know about me. Bogus charges huh? What were the charges? I know all I need to know about you -- you're a bleeding heart liberal out to save the world from itself.

Don't care what they said, I don't really care. But they were prophetic.

Too bad you and your friends weren't taken to Gitmo.