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We live in a matrix

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[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, of the 12,664 murders last year, only 323 were killed by rifles.

So before we get our knickers in a twist over assault rifles, maybe we should look at the actual stats concerning gun deaths in this country and what ACTUAL weapons are used.

Now back to your regularly scheduled hysteria.[/quote]

323 lives per year is not insignificant – especially if the only cost involved is loss of thrill for some and some vague notional loss of “freedom” for others.

Consider this, from 2001-2012 probably 3100 lives were lost on the US soil to terrorism – which is 250/year on average. Yet we went to 2 wars, occupied two countries, have drones flying in 6, spent $1T or more, have our civil liberties curtailed with TSA and patriot act…. Why should we dismiss lives of these 323 so lightly?

Ultimately even 1 life is too high a price to pay if the only cost to pay is discrediting of some dogma!

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[quote=squat300][quote=paramount]Mrs. Lanza was preparing for some fantasy doomsday collapse, but the doom was in her own house.[/quote]

that sounds about right.[/quote]

She was a true patriot worried about an oppressive government.

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[quote=ucodegen][quote=enron_by_the_sea]My conclusion: Liberty comes from culture, not from the barrel of a gun![/quote]History disagrees with you.. as well as Mao Zedong..

political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Mao Zedong

That is in part why they are banned from the public in China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_ownership_law_in_China

The Nazi(s) in Germany instituted strict gun control before they started to purge the Jews. When the populace found out what was happening, they could no longer oppose Hitler. Beside, initially everything was “good” for the Germans under Hitler.. except for the Jews which were completely banned from owning firearms.

There are several more examples of where strict gun control was instituted.. and short, within 10 to 20 years, a despot gains power and the people are not able to stop them.

History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall. – Adolf Hitler

Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn’t matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed. – Sarah Brady

Note: On this last one, there are claims that the statement is not true.. but remember that Sarah Brady is associated with the Brady Center, and has taken no effort to refute it. There are other quotes from her along the same lines.[/quote]

So are you trying to say that Chinese people before Mao or Jewish-German people before the time of Hitler were the societies where semi-automatic guns were freely available and universally owned?

If not, how should I then conclude that loss of semi-automatic weapons leads to loss of liberty? In reality there are 100 other things that could have gone on too.

Just because Mao and Hitler said something, should it make it true?

Sarah Brady might have agenda to ban all guns, but I am not Sarah Brady! If you read what I said before, I am not talking about that. I am asking why this NRA’s love with semi-automatic weapons & high capacity magazines, allergy to registry or any notion of liability for anyone?

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[quote=no_such_reality]

It’s a very slippery slope to base what the general population can or cannot do on what an obviously mentally deranged person might did do.[/quote]

We do this all the time.

For example,
An idiot drank alcohol and caused a crash at 0.08 BAC level.Most people can drive just fine at that level. The idiot causing the accident should certainly have known that he was not in a state to drive in the first place…

But here we are controlling what a general population can or cannot do based on what that idiot did.

I went to CVS yesterday and bought Sudafed. The cashier took down my name ID because some idiot somewhere cooks meth with Sudafed.

Am I happy that govt. is keeping track of how much Sudafed I buy? Absolutely not! But that’s how the system works. Why should guns be special?

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[quote=no_such_reality]

And history shows an unarmed populace is the next chump.[/quote]

We are not talking disarmament here. Just about whether AK47 style weapons, unregistered, freely sold over internet and high capacity magazines etc. are truly contributing to our liberty.

There is no example in history of mass population brandishing AK47s – other than perhaps Afghanistan.
I won’t Say Afghanistan is much to aspire for in terms of liberty …

On the other hand many examples exist of free countries with lightly armed populace.

My conclusion: Liberty comes from culture, not from the barrel of a gun!

[quote=no_such_reality]
Or we can just get really draconian and realize the masses are incapable of properly using their car and cell phone so one or the other must go.
[/quote]

You brought this up.

Do you realize that if we were as strict about guns as we are currently about cars we would ask all aspiring gun owners to
1) take a physical & mental test for the privilage
2) Everyone would need to get a license that says “gun ownership is a privilage not a right.
3) All gun owners will have to register their guns
4) All guns owners will have to carry liability insurance

So not a good idea to compare cars and guns

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[quote=no_such_reality]Basic common sense says a kid(sic) doesn’t kill his mom, take the guns and go slaughter an elementary school.

Okay, let’s quite saying kid, he’s no kid, he was 20.

Sadly, Morgan is right.[/quote]

Basic common sense also says that if you make a weapon capable of mass killings, which has no other realistic use, widely available to masses; only because you believe in a dogma; – bad outcomes will result!

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[quote=desmond]oc,

I see you have passion but you just do not understand guns, your questions lack sense. Not your fault, you probably have not been around guns (?). Read my post again for clarification. It really does not matter whether it is a rifle or a pistol, (the V. Tech guy used pistols) either gun can fire hi powered rounds so fast you would think it was an automatic. Small 10-15 round clips can be discharged and loaded that the shooting never stops. You are probably thinking about the Bolt-Action gun that requires repeated motions to shoot one bullet, they still make those for target shooting and hunting but the popularity for the Military type gun has skyrocketed. Banning certain guns will do nothing, there are just to many other type of guns with the same shooting power.[/quote]

I am sure there are ways to accomplish this. You don’t need to be around guns to understand it in the same way as you don’t need to be a doctor to figure out that you are ill -or you don’t need to be a Ph.D. mechanical engineering to change oil in your car

Basic common sense should tell you what should be banned and it is law-makers job to put that common sense in a legislation. If you don’t like what is currently defined as assault weapon, I am sure someone can modify the definition.

To me all this seems like whining to not address the issue.

besides there are other issues to address too.

1) Why should things be freely sold on the internet?
2) Why does NRA oppose electronic database of guns?
3) Why should NRA oppose liability for gun manufacturers and owners?
4) Why should there not be a cooling off period for buying guns?
5) What is the need for high capacity magazines?

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[quote=meadandale]

The point, which is a valid one, is that making something illegal and hard to get doesn’t eliminate it from society, which seems to be the utopian goal here.

In fact, it will almost certainly cause an underground market to emerge and make criminals of many law abiding citizens. Hell, there already is a black market in guns for criminals. It will become quite a bit larger when that’s the only way to get a gun in the US.[/quote]

Just look at the facts of this case: Did the killer’s mom obtained the guns illegaly? NO.

Would she have obtained so many paramilitary grade weapons and high capacity magazines if they were banned? Probably NOT.

Would gun manufacturers sell these things on the internet if it was illegal? NO.

And even if criminals keep breaking the law and getting AK47s, there is no justification to allow everyone to buy AK47. It is still safer for the society to only have few % criminals keeping AK47s than the system we have now where every nutcase can get AK47 too!

One can not defend themselves with an AK47 from either the Gubbmmintt or another criminal who also also owns AK47. You can not hunt with AK47. AK47 is only good to kill innocent people in large numbers.

Why do these “innocent law abiding citizens” want to own AK47s?

P.S.: I am an “innocent law abiding citizen” too and I want to “responsibly own” a RPG launcher and a tank. Would you support my right to legally own it?

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[quote=no_such_reality]

How’s that war on drugs been working out for the last thirty years?[/quote]

???

Looks like some lame attempt to steer the discussion somewhere else because you don’t like to hear bad things about NRA but unfortunately can not say anything positive in support of NRA either. Hoping that things will quiet down after a few days?

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[quote=paramount]
You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.”[/quote]

I would rather remember who the real killers are.

The real killer of these innocent children is not the person who killed them.

The real killer of these children is an organization who goes by the name NRA which has blocked any sensible common sense gun control in this country. If we had it, I have no doubt that many of these lives would have been saved.

The real killer of these children are people who were serving in congress in 2004 and white house who killed the renewal of assault weapons ban because they were too afraid of the backlash or playing petty politics.

The real killer of these children are gun manufacturers in this country who keep behaving irresponsibly to protect their profits.

The real killers are internet trolls who keep on glorifying gun ownership, keep on coming up with nonsense scenarios to justify owning AK47s.

They all can sleep happily knowing that their worldview has won and they have succeeded in creating this society where anyone can buy pretty much any firearm they want and shoot at anyone. Hope they all are happy now.

They can argue all they want, but in my mind they are they real killers.

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I read this article before and it seemed like an article written by someone who has a grudge against Buffett.

Basically the author is trying to suggest that Buffett somehow benefits on taxes because we don’t tax an activity that he does not do. ( i.e. paying a dividend or selling a stock)

Even if an activity that is NOT done should be taxed, it is no way comparable to tax an activity that is clearly done more favorably to another activity that is also done. It is like me saying that let’s tax flu because his house appreciated 10K last year even if flu has not sold his house ..

So Buffett not selling a stock or not paying dividend is not even close in the “tax sin” list to Mitt Romney paying 15% on his income or benefiting from “carried interest”. if one would start equating an activity that is not done to an activity that is done then I am thinking that they really do not have any other argument to support their point!

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[quote=UCGal]

Isn’t that AMT on steroids? The GOP claims to hate the AMT…

[/quote]

GOP never hated AMT.

AMT is GOP’s preferred way to take money from near rich to subsidize tax cuts for super rich.

That’s how GWB’s tax-cuts were designed. On the face of it everyone seemed to get a tax cut, but his moderately rich supporters missed the fine-print on AMT! GWB cleverly designed that tax cut such that capital gains are not subject to AMT.

Next time anyone gives you a tax cut, first look under the hood!

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[quote=flu]Prop 30 retroactively applies back to beginning of 2012.

There’s no indication that the federal tax cuts will retroactively apply back to 2012 (yet).
[/quote]

I heard that there is some sort of Federal law/constitutional provision wherein federal tax increases can not be retroactive.

Apparently there is so such thing at state level.

(Third party info. Correct me if I am wrong…)

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[quote=flu]
It doesn’t quite work that way enron…When you rent out a house to someone else, you can deduct the mortgage as an expense but you also have to report the rental income.

However, if you rent someone else’s house, you can’t deduct your rental cost (unless your poor..And in that case, you probably can’t qualify to buy a home)…

So I’m not sure how this would be beneficial for you…Seems like a lot of paperwork to report a $0 gain.[/quote]

Oops. That is probably why this does not work. Nevermind.

[Author]

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