Rachel Maddow made one of the best anti-gun arguments I have ever heard and I am not anti-guns. Worth watching. [video]http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-more-guns-does-not-equal-les[/video]
I put very, very little faith in Rachel Maddow's opinions. Yes, there was indeed a citizen at the scene who was carrying a firearm legally. But, Maddow makes the case that the citizen might possibly have stopped the shooter. She doesn't take into account that the citizen happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong moment to actually effect a change. Maddow is making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. She wasn't at the scene and didn't experience the chaos. The citizen could have been standing right next to Rep. Giffords and STILL might not have been able to keep her from being shot.
You'll have to excuse me for not looking at the link- Maddow is about as credible a source as, say, a tomc.
But she did make one other point that was fairly compelling. In the words of the armed man himself, "I almost shot him" meaning the guy who had just disarmed the shooter. I think that Maddow highlights what could have been an even further tragedy if this guy had come running up and shot another innocent person by mistake because he thought he was the shooter. It didn't happen fortunately, but it seriously could have gone either way in the heat of the moment. What I think Maddow fails to mention is that Loughner went to two different Wal-Marts to buy ammunition and that is relevant because once someone like this guys goes over the edge, we make it so easy for him to stroll down to the corner store and buy everything he needs to carry out his carnage. The lack of an assault weapons ban allowed him to by and extended clip which directed added to the number of people shot. And finally, Arizona's conceal carry laws made it his right to walk right up to the congresswoman legally with a weapon on his person and only after he started using the gun did he enter into the criminal realm. With that much help, any lunatic can hold society hostage and inflict carnage at will and simply kill themselves to avoid having to atone for their crime.
Now I have nothing against gun ownership and use to enjoy hunting but I keep saying this you need more education as to what a gun/rifle actualy is rather than simply checking to see if the person wanting a license has a criminal record you should be proven not only to be profficent in the handling/storage of a wepon but also deemed mentaly fit to own one Someone mentioned some time back that some police forces actualy do run such training courses well I think they should be mandetory
I am not a gun owner, but I am absolutely for freedom of ownership and maybe even carry. However, what I fail to see is the reason for people to have 30 round clips, armor piercing ammo, assault weapons, ied's and the like.
It's like Maddow says, if you really want the right to bear arms in the event that our government becomes tyrannical, you need to be at least as armed as the U.S. Military or your chances of defeating them in an armed struggle are nil. If the justification for gun ownership is to take down a tyrannical government, then they had better start issuing small tactical nukes to the general population.
Well, it seems as though armed folks - without nukes, mind you - in a couple of countries have been keeping the world's super power (and other lesser powers too) busy for the last 8 years or so.
The argument really only pertains to the gun crowds position that we must maintain small arms to defeat a tyrannical government. We already draw the line at or restrict more deadly weapons that would actually give we citizens a fighting chance so what is the difference if we restrict assault weapons that have proven again and again that they work on unarmed crowds of people but have yet to take down a tyrannical government. I just think that issuing small tactical nukes to the general population is at least as good or bad of an argument as the argument the gun crowd makes that owning small arms will prevent a tyrannical government from seizing this country. If one argument is ridicules, so is the other.
Yes, by living in remote areas and only popping up to blow up themselves and some innocent crowd of people. I seriously doubt that tactic will work in just about any part of this country.
Not talking about blowing up people. Talking about guns. Afghanistan is more about the guns. (An aside...watch Restrepo...good documentary...and we abandoned that valley altogether.) But, yeah, not in the big cities. Those folks would have to have someone help them in any situation. Guns or not, they aren't going to be able to resist the military much. That is the way in any resistance movement, probably. But, you should come to the boondocks. And I don't mean the suburbs. I don't think the US military, even if it was all in on it, would be able to subdue this entire country. Afghanistan is hardly the size of Texas. Iraq is even smaller.
