waitforufo

Not in this case no. All human beings have natural human rights. Countries that to not recognize this fact are evil. Not mistaken but evil. That is why we condemn them. That is why we condemn ourselves when we also fall short. Do you not agree with this? Do you think human rights movements are misguided. It seems you must because you think human rights are simply the whim of government.

To my "This shows that my rights do not come from government, but nature." Dimreepr replied The reason people condemn North Korea is that their government does not respect natural human rights. Do you disagree with this?

That is not what I suggested. I suggested that training be provided to all in K through 12 education. Requiring training as a precondition to purchasing a gun would be an infringement on the right to bear arms.

Is this true for all the amendments including those in the bill of rights. Where does this logic of your stop. Does it apply to the first amendment? Is the right to free speech and a free press covered? What about a state religion? Can that be imposed? What about self incrimination. Can the bill of rights be changed so that those accused of committing crimes must give testimony against themselves? Just laws written by men? As overtone points out below, we are not just talking about general amendments. We are talking about the bill of rights. You see Americans with knowledge of our history understand that the bill of rights merely recognizes or natural human rights. It does not create or bestow them. All one needs to do to prove that is look at the ninth amendment. The above protects my other rights not enumerated. This shows that my rights do not come from government, but nature. The ones in the bill of rights were specifically enumerated to stop people like you from even trying to deny those specific rights. Agreed. The bill of rights are not ordinary amendments. Any change to them will cause political upheaval in the US.

Wasn't required that they served in the military to receive the GI Bill? That seems like way more than nothing to me. And yet the government keeps sending me this form telling me how much I have paid in and based on how much I have paid in how much I will receive. You see, there is another thing that people deserve. They deserve what they have paid for. Once paid for, it belongs to them. It is part of an individuals right to property. Too bad the government doesn't respect the natural rights of human beings. Finally, I don't ever recall saying I was against affirmative action. I'm not. You should remember that I was the one that pointed out the Philadelphia plan and who was responsible for the plan. If you don't remember, here is a good read on it. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/philadelphia-plan-1967

Thank you for admitting that the GI Bill was a quid pro quo. I think your other example was Social Security. But wait. Don't people pay for their Social Security. I know I do. 12.4% of my annual income up to the cap. So isn't this program also a quid pro quo? By the way I would have no problem with a program similar to the GI Bill for black Americans. I think it would be appropriate to based on the tragic treatment of black Americans predominately by the Democratic Party. First slavery, then jim crow, and now welfare. When will the Democrats stop? No, I believe that people deserve what the earn. It belongs to them. That is a natural human right recognized by our constitution. Also, most people work hard in their lives to provide for their children. For most, it takes many generations of hard work to produce what you call the lottery of birth. All my grandparents lived in poverty. My parents were started in poverty and through hard work moved up to the middle class. Based on their hard work I have moved a little higher then them. I work hard so my children can make it a bit further. There is nothing shameful in this. My children weren't smart enough to be born into a wealthy family. Their grandparents and parents worked hard to provide them with advantages. I don't look at those that have more than me with envy like some. I look at them with admiration and teach my children that our family is climbing that ladder too. I don't look at anyone as lesser then myself. I see them as equals working toward there own personal happiness. Those others, like me, deserve what they earn. Working produces ability. The work ethic performs just fine. Most don't accomplish all there goals, but most accomplish much and their children accomplish further. Those that work for the assistance of others only accomplish dependency. So you are saying that people who work hard, accomplish things in there lives, provide for there children, and encourage others to do the same, have there heads up their asses. Interesting perspective.

As you are reading this reply, legally at this moment, why are Americans legally permitted to own firearms? What has the supreme court said on the subject? Come on, you know. Many pages in this topic have been devoted to it. I appreciate that you may not agree with this legally binding reason, but why act obtuse?

You are claiming it was a free gift, but it was not. It was a benefit provided for military service. Quid pro quo. Even a bonus is something for something. You are associating prosperity following the WWII with the GI Bill and suggesting that prosperity ended as the benefit diminished. Perhaps prosperity occurred in the US because the rest of the industrial world was bombed to rubble. Perhaps that prosperity ended when rest of the industrial world rebuilt their manufacturing capacity. You know, Korea, Japan, Germany, China, etc. It's easy to have prosperity when you have no competition and a bombed out world begging for products. Also during the war years there was almost no domestic consumer production. After the war, automobile plants went back to making cars instead of tanks. Sewing machine manufacturers stopped making machine guns and started making sewing machines again. Manufacturers had years worth of pent up demand to satisfy. So what happened? Competition happened driving down profits, and moving jobs to low cost labor areas. Is this so hard to understand?

John commented that the point of guns was to kill people. I replied that the purpose of guns is self defense. To that John replied. I own guns. Many people I know own guns. None of them have killed anyone.

But those that did not serve did not receive the GI Bill correct?

Did it provide a benefit for those that did not serve?

The point of guns is self defense.

Serve in the military and you get the GI Bill. Quid pro quo. The GI Bill has never provided a free ride.

Tar, While I agree completely with the above, I'm not sure why your protagonists didn't point to the above two statements as the source of your elitism. When Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence he borrowed from John Locke and included as mankind's inalienable rights life, liberty, and property. Ben Franklin was astute enough to edit those rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. After doing so he was quoted to say something like you have the right to pursue happiness, but it is up to you to catch it. Ben wanted to make sure that no one misconstrued the rights of man to include the need for government to provide property to the people. Republicans and conservatives believe there are two kinds of money and property. Mine, and not mine. Democrats and liberals think there is just "the money and the property", and that the government should be in charge of the fair distribution of both. In their eyes, thinking otherwise makes you elitist. Thinking that someone has to do there fair share in pursuit of their own happiness is simply nonsense held by elitists and completely overridden by need. To them, it shouldn't be the more you do, the more you get. Instead it should be the more you need the more you get. Then they wonder why their policies always produce an abundance of needy people. Interesting that you mention the GI Bill. The GI Bill was not free. The country felt that GIs were owed a debt for there service, low pay during service, and time taken from their lives. Not free. Second, from your Wiki link on the GI Bill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill I was a junior in high school when the GI bill was switch to VEAP. The VEAP program was a sorry substitute for what it replaced. In fact, the military allowed high school students to join the military at the end of there junior year, go to boot camp, return and complete high school, and then serve there voluntary enlistment and by so doing be eligible for the pre VEAP GI Bill. The college benefits were much better pre VEAP, but the pay during service was worse. The explanation we were given from the military recruiters that came to our high school for the change to VEAP was that some felt that the current system was unfair to racial minorities because they did not take advantage of the pre VEAP GI Bill. So by white people electing to receive the benefit and minorities electing not to, the program was deemed to be discriminatory. If I recall correctly, after the VEAP change overall there was poor participation in VEAP, but racial minorities had the lowest participation rate. Another great stride in reducing minority discrimination in the US. I'm not sure how much MGIB corrected VEAP.

Overtone is just obsessed with the "Southern Strategy." He thinks the "Southern Strategy" somehow absolves the Democratic party of 200 years of active promotion of racism. It does not. Both the civil rights act and the voting rights act were approved by bipartisan votes. A significant majority of Democratic party members in both the house and the senate voted in favor of both acts. So did Republicans. In fact, in keeping with the Republican founding principals on civil rights, Republicans did so with larger majorities than Democrats within there voting members. Both of these bills and many other similar bills since the end of the Civil War had always been supported if not initiated by Republicans. As a reward to Republicans for finally getting these bills passed in congress, 90% of black Americans registered as Democrats. So long time Democratic voters, racists, felt betrayed by the majority vote of their own Democratic party members in congress. This feeling of betrayal was supported by the 90% black registration as Democrats. In an act of revenge, Democratic voters, racists, then voted for Republicans. Somehow, in overtone's eyes, this makes Republicans evil. Would this have happened if black Americans had registered as Republicans? I doubt it.

John Browning designed many firearms. He didn't use any modern CAD equipment or tools. His designs are with us to this day. Katyusha rockets are nothing more than large pop bottle rockets. Anyone could build one. Their accuracy is very low, but if your range is short and your target is very large you might get lucky.

Here is the data from the FBI. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1 Crime, including homicides, are declining in the US. During this time, gun control has also been declining. More states permit concealed carry. Also gun sales have been consistently going up. Just facts.

Well, unlike you, I can't simply dismiss supreme court rulings that I don't like, so that will make this discussion difficult. I have made one suggestion, which was to provide firearm safety training K through 12. This suggestion is generally panned or ignored, but it would likely do more for your side than you think. Imagine 5 and 6 year old's kids coming home to talk to there mom's about guns. Also, who is going to be doing the training. NEA members? I'm sure they will present an neutral view on guns. Other than that I really can't think of much. People have the right to keep loaded unsecured guns in their homes. My guess however is that most gun accidents, including involving children, are not the result of careless gun storage. I believe it is more likely the result of careless gun handling by adults or juveniles with permission to handle. So even if the guns are safely stored almost all the time, when they are loaded for use, gun accidents occur due to unsafe handling. Safety training would help in such circumstances. Then there are those with psychiatric issues. In every state I have lived, individuals can be easily committed for 72 hour psychiatric observation. This is particularly true if the person is believed to be a danger to themselves or others. There is, unfortunately, social stigma regarding mental health issues. This prevents even doctors and mental health professionals from having patients committed for short term observation or even longer when necessary. Finally, perhaps we should encourage the media to show the actual results of firearms injuries. How many TV shows have you seen where someone gets shot in the shoulder in a gun fight and the next day they are wearing a sling while joking with there friends. Not true. There are federal laws restricting the resident of one state purchasing a firearm in another state. The purchase of a handgun can take place in any state, but laws require the seller to ship the firearm to an FFL dealer in the purchasers home state. If a state has passed a law to allow residents to purchase out of state and take possession out of state, it is limited to rifles and shotguns and both states must have an agreement. Such laws were enacted as gun control measures. You are suggesting that gun control laws don't work. I agree. So why have them?

As I have said many times in this topic, the NRA is good at what it does. It will fight gun control every step of the way. It has broad support from it's membership. While it gets money from corporate interests, much of that money comes from price round ups where purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar with the change going to the NRA. I would expect the money to keep pouring in. The more gun control is pushed, the more the NRA gets. The more talk of gun control, the more people buy guns. http://freebeacon.com/issues/september-sees-record-gun-sales/ As the number of guns increase, crime goes down. Go figure. http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/reasons-decline-support-gun-control-n440101 Do states with higher gun control have lower homicide rates? No. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws/

You gun control advocates act like the pro gun rights people have something to worry about. Check out this article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/05/guns-in-the-united-states-one-for-every-man-woman-and-child-and-then-some/ It includes two charts. The first one shows that there are more guns than people in the US. Sure there are people that own several guns. Bit there are many who own one or two. These people vote. The second one shows that gun sales are robust. In fact, gun manufactures are likely building a statue to honor our current president due to the increase in gun sales under his two terms. So go ahead and talk up your polls about how people want more gun control. The chart in the article show that the people want firearms, spend money on them. My guess is that they will spend money to keep them as well. They have so far.

First, you're welcome. Second, I'm all for reducing gun death and violence. You just can't take my rights from me. You think America is awash in guns. I agree. I just don't have a problem with it. It wouldn't be so if it wasn't the will of the people. We should therefore also be awash in gun safety training too. It would be irresponsible not to do that. Also, those that choose not to take the training, well I'm okay with that as well. They cant say they didn't have the opportunity. See, everybody is free. Shall not be infringed. Besides, I have faith in my fellow Americans. Come on John, women have the right to abortion. It doesn't mater that many people think they are murders and child killers. They have the right. That's how it works in America. The strange thing is that liberals can't see that gun control is their abortion issue. They are not going to win it any more than the conservatives are going to put regulations and restrictions on abortion. They know that, but they need a side show to win favor from a voting block. Welcome to our democratic republic.

Just before Obama's challenge to compare death from gun violence to death by terrorism he praises countries with responsible gun laws. You can hear it just after time marker 5:40. "Friends of ours, allies of ours, Great Britain, Australia." How did those countries control guns? They confiscated them. I encourage all Democratic party candidates to make gun control the central talking point of there political agenda. It should be at the top of the Democratic Party political platform. According to the President it should be a political winner.

So should we simply ignore all SCOTUS decisions in the past three decades or just the ones you don't like? Thank you for admitting that you are on the losing side of the argument. Thank you for admitting that your goal is to diminish the rights of the people. Today it is gun rights. Do you think that will be enough to achieve utopia? What's next? Perhaps you should consider these shootings as alarm bells declaring that there is something seriously wrong with our current societal direction. You have mentioned the increasing frequency of these shootings. Why were they less in the past when firearms in the US have always been prolific? Perhaps some are pushing the wrong cultural agenda and these shootings are the result. I know, it would be easier to simply remove the alarm bells then to admit we have taken a wrong turn.

That is not what I was asking and you know that. We have been at this for a long time now. There have been pages and pages about what the constitutional rights of US citizens are with respect to firearms. So humor me. Give me a straight forward answer. Here is my question again. Perhaps you should publicly state were you think we stand with regard to our guaranteed constitutional rights based on our founding documents, the second amendment, impacting supreme court rulings, and the debate we have had to this point. Perhaps that would move things along. You want more gun control. Your hero in the white house, the cowardly professor, does too. You will be limited by the guaranteed rights of the people. So please answer my question. Include what you have learned from the debate so far.

Hey, you're back. Still waiting for your answer to my question below. While you are formulating your reply to the above, perhaps you can also answer this. Why is it that liberals always suggest the mental illness is the cause of mass shootings. Why can't it just be deliberate conscious decisions instead of a "sickness of the mind." It seems to me that Chris Mercer was just a loser who wanted to be famous during his final act. Someone unwilling to improve his own life, so he decides to take it out on those striving to improve theirs. Maybe we should be focused on why our culture produces such losers with such frequency instead of working to deny good, honest, hard working people their rights. Perhaps we should focus on his motive. His goal was to kill Christians. Dylann Roof was killing Christians too. What do Christians have that drive losers like Chris Mercer and Dylann Roof to murder them? Finally, this topic is about Children being shot. I have yet to here that any of the victims in Oregon were children. How is Oregon shooting pertinent to this topic?