Quote:
Originally Posted by OM603
Having served in the Armed Forces of the US I have no objection to woman as "camp followers" but my own experiences force me to conclude that enlisting women in organizations meant to project force of arms is an abysmal failure and has had extremely deleterious effect on the capacity to impose our national will upon the our foes.
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Wow! How long ago were you in? And have you ever heard of Lyudmila Pavlichenko? Or Boadicea? Joan of Arc maybe?
Back to the original subject, I rather like my firearms and would like to continue to own and use them. I think the overwhelming majority of people should enjoy the same freedom, as guaranteed in the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In addition to the fact that firearms are fun, allowing people the means to defend themselves and their property tends to decrease crime. See John Lott for specifics.
There are certain people who shouldn't have firearms. Most of them have demonstrated their unfitness for being armed by getting themselves convicted of a felony. We do suffer from nutters doing bad stuff with weapons (Columbine, VA Tech, theater in Colorado, Carson City IHOP shooter, skinny BMW dude, etc). At present, there isn't much of a legal way of identifying those people and keeping them away from weapons. It might be a good idea to make some changes there, but we must be very careful to keep that from becoming a means for the authorities to disarm sane people because of unpopular political opinions and such.
Obligatory inflammatory rhetoric:
You will get my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Molon labe!
/Obligatory inflammatory rhetoric
Ever wonder why the NRA is so much more powerful than the National Motorists Association? Probably two hundred million people drive in America on any given day. I doubt even a tenth of that number go shooting.