You were wrong you fat fuck Michael Moore

[Epinephrine]

Moore isn't all wrong. Gun deaths per capita are the highest in America in all of the developed world.

As for the old argument about 'making guns illegal won't stop criminals from getting guns', I'd have to disagree with that.

Sure it won't magically make guns disappear, BUT if people weren't allowed to buy guns, then gun factories would close down. They wouldn't be making millions of new guns a year! They wouldn't be making all those spare bullets either! I remember watching 60 Minutes (or was it Dateline) a while back where the reporter managed to buy a 0.50 caliber sniper rifle and bought armor piercing bullets that could shoot down a helicopter from a mile away... Isn't it a bit scary that you can actually do that quite easily?

If guns were hard to come by because manufacturers were only making them for the military because no one could own a gun, the blackmarket value of guns would skyrocket. Normal criminals wouldn't be able to have guns anymore because they couldn't afford them. Police action and rusting/misplacing of guns would eventually place older guns out of service. Eventually there would be few guns in society.

Then you'd be like other countries where guns are rare, and gun violence very rare (i.e. Asian countries). As someone else said, the idea that I can carry a gun so that every time I see a robber (who likely has a gun because they are so cheap in America) I have a 1% chance of pulling out my gun and shooting him first as he's pointing his gun directly at me doesn't make me feel safe at all.

The idea that citizens having guns to stop their government from doing bad things is also a bit outdated. If you lived in a democratic country where things went so unbelievably bad that you had to have the citizenry take up arms to fight back against the military (trained professionals), gun or no gun I think it's almost pointless then. There are countless peaceful actions that could be taken before the guns would ever be needed. To allow everyone to own guns so that everywhere you went everyone (criminals and stupid people alike) have guns just for the very remote possibility of stopping something something that has never happened in modern history (a collaspe of a modern democracy that requires a full on revolution by gun-toting citizens) is pretty silly to me.

But what do I know, I'm a communist socialist pinko weirdo because I live in Canada eh?

[Mantra-Slider]

face: its not easy for humans to give compliments

[Vykromond]

There actually is a rating done on each country's freedom every year. The US is pretty far from the top. Canada is falling behind also.

Edit: I think the major factors in the report are based on freedom of the press, multiple outlets of information, spying on citizens, illegal detention ect...

Want to cite this report, or just make unsourced, unverified appeals to evidence from it?

The best-trusted and best-known analyses of countries' freedoms are the report are those published by Freedom House, which give both the US and Canada ratings of "1" (best) in the Political Rights and Civil Liberties categories.

[Galleleo]

Chris Rock had it right after all. Just make every single bullet cost 5000 dollar.

[Vihta]

The gun in your pocket/trunk/home/etc won't do you any good when the neighborhood ni**a already holds his gun against your head.

The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter. -Winston Churchill

I don't think the average voter should have easy access to guns either.

[Mantra-Slider]

well I think there are many different reports about that vyk. I did a search in google on "most democratic country" and found this link at the top:
http://www.thelocal.se/5578/20061122/

as you can see its a swedish site so its obviously the main reason why they deicded to use that source because the result is favouring Sweden. my point, however, is that even tho "most free" and most democratic is not the real same thing it obviously goes hand in hand and there are several different reports from different sources.

I remember when I studdied international politics at the university and the books we used there all had countries like Sweden,Norway,Finland and Canada (it was a compilation of british and american writers but it was not some investigation they had done for themselves but more serious stuff.) etc in the top and I like to believe that they know what they were ralking about. Sure it was a couple of years ago but If I remember correctly I think Finland was probably the "best" if you try to count out some average. which also is confirmed by this site: http://www.worldaudit.org/democracy.htm

I think you need to find some sort of average and count in stuff like press freedome:
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554
development index: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/rep...006_Tables.pdf
corruption: http://www.transparency.org/news_roo...press_releases
economic freedom: http://www.heritage.org/research/fea.../countries.cfm
globalization index: http://www.atkearney.com/main.taf

etc. etc. etc...

Now to be honest I havent heard about freedomehouse before and it looks like a serious and good site but so are the ones I posted..

[Nickname]

I've actually come fully around on gun control. I'm one of those "die-hard liberal socialist bastards" but I think the Second Amendment is extremely important. I think allowing any citizen to possess a gun breaks up the state's monopoly on violence (I know I'm corrupting Weber's term beyond belief here but the words themselves are the best ones available & it should still be clear what I mean), which is A Good Thing should the state need to be overthrown. The possibility of effective mass violent revolution as a counterbalance to supreme power concentrated in the state or the military is an important social tension IMHO and implementing extremely strict, government-controlled anti-gun possession measures disrupts that balance.

That was kind of vague and heady, did it make sense? It's something I'm still parsing since until recently I was for stringent gun control without really pondering it too much.

so uh, when did you plan to riseup through force of arms? Because you've got the worst president in office since uh...well, far enough back thats it's a president I can't even think of.

[Zerzera]

In Europe we should pass a law that bans online games where our youth mingles with the American youth, and this is a clear example why.
There is no need for our children to be influenced by such a violent society where status is based on weapons, violence and uniforms.

[genocidal]

We're going to kill your country.

[Vykromond]

so uh, when did you plan to riseup through force of arms? Because you've got the worst president in office since uh...well, far enough back thats it's a president I can't even think of.

Not nearly one bad enough worth having a revolution over tbh

[Liquid Blue]

can I get a revolution because of how our society's ended up rather than just the president. He's done alot of idiotic stuff but how people act and hold themselves accountable in our country is alot more distressing.

[Vykromond]

Clarify

[Liquid Blue]

degredation of american culture into a swirling pile of consumerism, selfishness and avoiding responsibility.

parents don't want to blame themselves when they don't provide a stable/supportive home life and their kids go off and shoot up a school or get hooked on drugs

people are always thinking about themselves and trying to take shortcuts whenever possible- they want their food now, their service top-notch and are too lazy/uninspired to go do what they love for a living, opting for the stable paycheck and cubicle.

That sort of thing.