BTW, one little thing...

If you have a sticker on your windows and doors saying you're a member of the NRA, you're just about guarenteed not to get broken in on.

Well, a couple months ago I noticed a stat for England, over 40% of housebreakings occur in daylight while someone is home. I doubt that would be true if the thieves were worried about the house occupants being armed.

You say you would prefer to get robbed 50 times? Where do you live? I wanna take my pick

Jobeleca...no, I'm not against countries having military.....with guns....I'm one of those who [rightly] interpret the meaning of that Constitution about just that.....the inalienable right to defend one's sovereign country from attack/invasion.
I'll be damned if I see how that trickles down to the right to remain a gun-slinger....

The US would be better served by getting a better class of Police force.
Get rid of parochial 'local' laws and hick law officers.
Don't spend so much time teaching your rug-rats howto shoot efficiently, teach them instead to respect your laws and the officers entrusted with their protection.

Maybe I'm an idealist....but just maybe the US gun culture is just plain crap...

Jobeleca, what can I say? British robbers are weird. Canadian thieves make a little more sense. But indeed, most often they break in during the daytime, when the occupants are at work.

So Jobeleca, you'd rather get killed than robbed? Well, not me. But then again, I'm weird, I already said it.

The US definitely needs a better trained police force, and one that will respond while the crime is still in progress (instead of showing up more than half an hour after the fact).

Quite frankly, if the police did a better job protecting us gun ownership would likely plummet.

This the exact same conversation we had a week ago. Why not just post a link?

I'm not gonna bother... but I *would* like to remind all our doves to re-read their national gun laws and statistics before they say "This is what we do in our country". It would be more accurate to say "This is what I do in my country".

There are no vocal members of this debate that live in nations with an outright firearms ban, and those most vocal live in countries where you can own almost any sort of firearm if you can fill out a form and afford the license.

Regardless, you can whittle it all down to 'Ha Ha, you have guns. People are gonna shoot you and "Y'all have to live with it, hear?"' Never let it be said that what appears to be progressive has to be intelligent or constructive. The whole 'more civilized and evolved' thing kinda flies out the window...

If I got uppity on the last string it was because of non-Americans sitting back and smugly bloviating about what's wrong with my country, as though they don't have gun-wielding maniacs in theirs. I think the time would be better spent lobbying in their own nations for the gun laws they *imagine* they already have, or supplimenting their zinc intake, or maybe even quieting their internal narration with a bit of fresh air...

Baker...I'm no 'dove'....I'd get erotic satisfaction in blowing the brains out of anyone who thoroughly deserved it.
I believe in capital punishment, AND Corporal punishment.
I was slapped with a 3-foot ruler in primary school, caned in secondary school, almost arrested for protesting a person's 'right' to burn his draft card....[a court sit-in].
Generally, however, as an adult, a responsible adult, in certain circles entrusted with quite a bit of responsibility, I'm a well-adjusted person.....with an opinion.
Sorry if it doesn't sit well with others, but per capita, I'd say murder and death by gunshot would be 'somewhat' less prominent in many countries outside the US.
Many do not embrace the 'culture'.

I have had ONE gun drawn on me....by a policeman, late at night, behind a bank....I think he thought the desks I was moving in with was the safe on its way out....
Police in Victoria 'have' been accused of being gun-happy....but I'm still happy they are the only guns you're ever likely to see on the street.
Yes, farmers have them....but like 4-wheel drives and bull-bars, they 'need' them.
Oz has examples of the deadliest creatures that 'can' kill on this planet.....snakes, Crocs, etc.
In Oz, an American tourist is more likely to die being taken by a Croc in Queensland/NT than being shot in some back street.

Heck....my class of '71....only one has died....taken by a Croc in Queensland...silly girl must have been pretending to be a Yank...

Essentially, what's wrong with 'your' country is what is wrong with 'my' country, except we seem to be able to 'see' what is wrong and are willing to do something about it.....maybe it's just too 'big' and too 'late' for the US to do like-wise...

Jafo, the reason 'their' country won't do anything about it is because they believe they are right. Once you attain that level of arrogance there's no going back

Copycat thread. Same subject as last week. Same people get wound up as last week. Look forward to next week's...

Somebody delete this thread before it becomes too much fun

I think there's an underlying assumption built into your thinking, Jafo: that if a given program works well and produces the desired results in one country/culture, then it rationally and absolutely will duplicate all of those same good results when transplanted into another country/culture. It's a persuasive assumption because it just seems so logical. Like most assumptions, it's sometimes very wrong. Human behavior, single and in groups, does not bow to the dictates of "logical" paradigms because what appears so inherently logical to you for one set of reasons ( which hold no priority with me) may appear foolish to me for a completely different set of reasons (which hold no priority with you). I suspect that if you look at the per capita mortality statistics from many countries on all forms of death (getting shot with a gun is just one of very many), you would find that the US is definitely not the worst at keeping its citizens alive. ( I also think the stats would show that we massacre so many of ourselves with automobiles, tobacco, alcohol, and fat-laden foods, that gunshots are a small contributor. All those forms of death are avoidable. Ban beer in Oz, then come tell us to ban guns in the US.
( I smoke and drink so don't jump on me about that, my fellow citizens )

Fuzzy L - Your certainty of being right in the matter is just prudence, while our certainty in the opposite view is blatant arrogance? Physician heal thyself!

Jafo: You're a pal, I'm not gonna get up-in-arms about your beliefs. Your personal feelings about gun control aren't the point of my post, though. What *did* give me a bit of pause was the fact that you evacuate said feelings like a week-old burrito. If someone gets killed in my country, screw the criminal, let's whoop up on the gun lobby. Oddly enough, I don't see Americans offering unsolicted derision of Australia's or Canada's gun laws when their own flavors of nut pop a gasket and kills his friends and neighbors.

I really don't care anymore what people outside the US think about our 'gun culture'. I have to say though, when you see the death of several innocent people as a good excuse to make some sort of useless social commentary, it bothers me a bit. Not useless in terms of quality, or rational acceptability, but useless in terms of making a shit's worth of difference in the topic at hand, or to the people who are upset about it. From my perspective it would be akin to me responding to a post about today's Vietnamese office fire with a rant about that nation's building codes and inspection habits.

Again, you guys beat the hell out of each other if you like, but it's off-topic as far as I am concerned. The string was about something that happens everywhere, regardless of gun laws.

I'm a dove and proud of it. Anybody knows what Pax means?

truce, I think.

'pax' means 'peace', WOM.

Baker, the fear everyone in 'Western culture' outside of the US has is that they are hell-bent on imitating US Culture and absorbing/embracing it, good or bad....and quite probably to our detriment.
I can endure 'baseball caps on backwards', even Capitalistic megalomania like Macca's and Coke, but I'll draw the line at infatuation with guns....

As for being 'on topic', I think the early comment about 'copy cat' was to do with the Shooting at Monash Uni in Melbourne, but perhaps the parochial US citizen is oblivious to what happens outside the US.

BTW.....Bali [the bomb], in equivalent population terms killed 1500 Australians.....in scale, not a hell of a lot different to 9/11....but then maybe we just don't warrant International compassion, after all, it was our fault for helping East Timor to Independence...

It's hard enough convincing kids in Oz NOT to dial '911' to get the Police....but they are swamped/inundated with Yankee Kulcha...to their own peril...[it's '000' here]...

'pax' means 'peace', WOM.

Baker, the fear everyone in 'Western culture' outside of the US has is that they are hell-bent on imitating US Culture and absorbing/embracing it, good or bad....and quite probably to our detriment.
I can endure 'baseball caps on backwards', even Capitalistic megalomania like Macca's and Coke, but I'll draw the line at infatuation with guns....

As for being 'on topic', I think the early comment about 'copy cat' was to do with the Shooting at Monash Uni in Melbourne, but perhaps the parochial US citizen is oblivious to what happens outside the US.

BTW.....Bali [the bomb], in equivalent population terms killed 1500 Australians.....in scale, not a hell of a lot different to 9/11....but then maybe we just don't warrant International compassion, after all, it was our fault for helping East Timor to Independence...

It's hard enough convincing kids in Oz NOT to dial '911' to get the Police....but they are swamped/inundated with Yankee Kulcha...to their own peril...[it's '000' here]...

There...I said it twice...like wearing 2 condoms...'to be sure, to be sure'....

Jafo! tsk! You double posted

I'll agree to a peace on the gun issue within this thread.

and no, I won't start a new thread just to bash your opinion either (today at least )

You know my position, I know yours... until next time

Bored now...

OK for peace on this topic, but that's not what I meant.

My name here: Pax (well with an extra X but that's becasue there was already a Pax when I registered at Skinzdotorg.)
It means peace, confirming to Bakerstreet that I'm a dove.

Doves.....hmmmmm yummy...you have to be a good shot, though

Hmmm, there are still places where doves are (literally) sacrifices.

I've wanted to strangle a dove or two myself, especially the one that starts cooing right outside my window before the alarm clock goes off

I promise I won't wake you up in the morning.

paxx, you have mail