jhetley

I am very uncomfortable with the kind of gun-nut extremism which claims that any regulation on gun purchase and/or use constitutes "infringement". We have laws requiring a demonstrated minimal level of competence (and it's pretty damn minimal) before you can drive a car, and a gun is every bit as dangerous, especially in urban areas. This is perhaps less obvious to you, living out in the wilds of Maine -- but think about living in Atlanta, and it might become clearer.

From:

The other side of that metaphor is that even a criminal record (one not related to driving, of course) doesn't bar you from owning a car and having a driver's license. And I don't care for national laws that require the wilds of Maine to live by Atlanta (or Chicago, or D.C.) standards. You got a problem in Chicago, make a law in Chicago.

However, I'm more worried about the habitual Democratic administration's problem with my right to keep and bear money.

From:

wolfette

what would you use an AK47 for in the wilds of Maine?

From:

cymrullewes.livejournal.com

Rutting moose.

From:

Our recent problems have involved black bears going after livestock. Two or three shot in the space of a week, down-east.

I think I'd prefer something a bit more potent, for either moose or bear.

From:

wolfette

goodness! no need to be rude ;-)

From:

Some people actually use them for hunting. With a 5-round magazine, of course, because that's the legal limit.

Myself, I prefer something more accurate. However, definitions get slippery. The US Army used to issue the M1903-A3 rifle to troops, better known as the .30-06 Springfield. That _is_ the type of rifle and cartridge I used to use for deer hunting.

Several of the proposed bans have included "military-issue weapons" without further definition.

From:

trilca.livejournal.com

Well, as was just adjucated this past summer or fall, our 2nd Amendment rights shall NOT be infringed, especially when it concerns any sort of total ban such as Washington D.C. has to now fix. As the daughter of a legally registered law-abiding firearms dealer, I grew up with firearms in my life from before I can remember. My sons have both grown up with guns in their lives, and my husband owns several of those "military issue weapons" such as his treasured M1 Garand. I think if there were any attempt to blanket-ban military issue weapons, the outcry and uproar would be beyond belief. It's bad enough they ban other stupid stuff "For Our Safety (and Their Control of Us)", but there is a limit and I'm pretty sure they're at or close to at our limits as it is.

Ugh *steps off her soapbox* sorry for the lecture!

From:

Barack Obama has already shown his "respect" (and I use the word loosely) for not just the Second Amendment, but the Constitution as a whole. He is on record recently as apparently lamenting that the Constitution does not give the government the power to do things like enforced redistribution of wealth.

From:

johnpalmer.livejournal.com

Yeah, his students of Constitutional Law all agree... no, wait, they don't. (Steerike three! Yer out!)

From:

John, WTF are you babbling about this time?

(Aside: I wonder what he taught his students that the Second Amendment means....)

From:

johnpalmer.livejournal.com

Hint: he taught Constitutional law, and none of his students think the word "respect" needs to be scare quoted nor used loosely.

From:

7.62x39 is a dandy little cartridge for coyote and small deer (whitetails, say).

From:

In the interests of international clarity here, I have to add that we are not discussing true AK47 "assault rifles", just as the weapons in that newspaper photo are not true M-16s. The discussion centers on "civilian" versions, capable of semi-automatic fire only.

Full-auto weapons require a special Federal license, expensive and difficult to get. The same applies to various other non-sport weapons.

From:

I assume you've seen the various reports that the Democrats plan to seize private 401(k) accounts and and IRAs, and turn them into mandatory Guaranteed Retirement Accounts making "guaranteed" interest rates that won't keep pace with inflation?

From:

Well, see, I'm old enough to withdraw my money from our IRA without penalty . . .

(According to current rules, yes.)

From:

I know my parents have moved most of their retirement savings and investments (all but short-term spending money, actually) overseas and out of the US banking system altogether.

From:

Ah yes, "tax and spend". Well, y'know something -- I'm a helluva lot more comfortable with people who understand that the money has to come from somewhere than I am with the Republican "borrow and spend and cut taxes for the top 2%" pattern. Your great-grandchildren are still going to be paying off the debt this Administration has run up... and that was after Clinton left us with a budget SURPLUS. I don't have a lot of patience with "tax and spend" whining right now.

From:

If you think I'm defending the current administration's fiscal shenanigans, you're dead wrong.

But, we're over 60. We've saved and lived within our means, as have our parents and grandparents, both sides. And I greatly suspect that we will be targets for "means tests" on both Social Security and Medicare, for increased "Fat Cat" capital-gains taxation on non-existent* gains, negative real interest rates on savings, and other measures to punish us for being frugal when half this country was borrowing money to buy big-screen TVs and new cars. And buying houses they couldn't afford.

*One classic -- we own some non-residential property, purchased 30 years ago, which is probably worth three to four times what we paid for it -- in current dollars. In purchasing power, inflation has eaten that difference. Yet we would be paying capital "gains" tax on the whole increase.

From:

trilca.livejournal.com

I'm jumping in on this one because it *always* gripes me. Mr Clinton did NOT leave us with a massive windfall. Reaganomics did, and Mr Clinton reaped the rewards from that hugely unpopular budget plan. Just as President Bush 'benefitted' from Mr Clinton's budget plan, as Barack Obama will 'benefit' from President Bush's and on down the line. The budget plans which a sitting President put into place are generally felt a couple of terms later.

From:

I am very uncomfortable with the kind of gun-nut extremism which claims that any regulation on gun purchase and/or use constitutes "infringement".

The problem here is that we "gun nut extremists" have learned that if you give the gun control lobby and the Democratic Party an inch, they will take a mile. In their minds, a "reasonable compromise" is one in which, instead of taking away all of our Second Amendment rights today, they take half today and let us keep the other half until tomorrow. Dianne Feinstein has gone on record as saying — and I quote, verbatim — "If I had the votes there in Congress, it'd be 'Turn them in, Mr. and Mrs. America, every last one.'" Barack Obama, when asked if he planned to confiscate firearms from law-abiding Americans, did not say "No"; he said, "The votes aren't there."
I'll leave it to you to figure out what that answer most likely means if he thought the votes were there — which he may well now think, after this election. But I'll point out that in the Illinois legislature he voted in favor of a bill to totally ban all handguns in the State of Illinois; that before being elected to the Illinois legislature, he stated on a poll that he was in favor of confiscating firearms from Illinois citizens; and that since he reached the US Senate, out of eight bills impacting firearms law, he voted for more gun control seven times.
(The eighth was a vote on gun confiscation in the immediate aftermath of the huge public outcry over the City of New Orleans illegally seizing firearms after Hurricane Katrina, and a vote in favor of confiscation would have been political suicide as far as future Presidential candidacy was concerned. So in that one case, he was willing to put his own personal political career goals ahead of his established principles. And we elected this guy?)

From:

And we elected this guy?

Yes, dammit, we did, by a wider margin than Bush ever got. And I'm going to shoot right back at you what the Republicans were saying to us after 2004: if you don't like it, you can find somewhere else to live.

From:

Yes, dammit, we did, by a wider margin than Bush ever got.

If I were inclined to do so, I might take that as uncomfortably close to damning Obama by faint praise.

And I'm going to shoot right back at you what the Republicans were saying to us after 2004: if you don't like it, you can find somewhere else to live.

Some Republicans. Some Democrats are saying the same now. There will always be asshats.

From:

Sorry. I really shouldn't post to LJ when I'm that hungry.

A more reasoned response: Yes, we did elect him, despite the steady drumbeat of Republican scare-talking-points, of which "OMG he'll take all your guns away!" was only the first of many. And I seriously doubt that all the votes cast against Obama were made on the basis of his (real or perceived) position on guns.

This suggests to me rather strongly that there are a LOT of people who are more concerned about issues like being able to keep a roof over their heads for the rest of their lives than about hypothetical gun-ban scares -- and probably also a number who were willing to think, "Deal with the major issues now, and with that one if and when it happens." Just because that issue is the most important one in the universe to you personally doesn't mean that it is to everyone... nor that it should be.

From:

cymrullewes.livejournal.com

And I seriously doubt that all the votes cast against Obama

See, that bothers me. If one didn't vote for Obama it is automatically a vote against him?

I voted for Ron Paul. I did NOT vote against Obama nor McCain. (I'd be willing to consider that it was 15% a vote against Biden and Palin, however. Those two scare me.)

From:

This strikes me as hair-splitting. When you cast your vote in favor of one person, you are automatically casting it against anyone else running, simply because you didn't like them enough to vote for them. This is another concept which has been severely tainted by the Republican regime; too many people now equate "voting against X" with "anyone but X", and it's not necessarily that strong.

From:

I'm not sure she is splitting hairs. Or hares . . .

It's been a long time since I saw a candidate that I could vote _for_. This time around, I was most assuredly voting _against_ Gov. Palin. That "one heartbeat" thing.

From:

cymrullewes.livejournal.com

No, I'm not splitting hairs.

You make my brain hurt. I don't see voting as being against the other candidates. That's a fallacy the Demolicans/Republicrats have pushed on the voters.

It's the "Vote for the lesser of two evils" concept. As Alaric says, "That's still voting for evil."

You like two candidates equally so you flip a coin to decide who you are voting for. Does that mean you don't like the person who lost your coin toss anymore or not as much as you did before you flipped the coin?

From:

"Vote Cthulu. Why settle for the lesser evil?"

From: