Guns at Townhall Meetings

[Epitome]

Because the same people who glibly swallowed the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and all manner of lying, obfuscation, and criminality under the Bush administration are suddenly up in arms to fight government oppression because the new administration is "socialist" and wants to reform health care.

I was gonna say something, then realised i couldnt put it ay better than that

War on Iraq..Welll Okay if its for the greater good, Government Surveillence...meh I suppose its for my own good,torture camps well i suppose that kinda keeps me safe in an ingendering resentment with teh rest of teh world sorta way so.. okay,......... FREE HEALTHCARE!!!You must be out of your mind how does that help me!! NEVER!!! /SARCASM (it needed to be in caps)

 

[John Smyth]

But just because you don't intend to doesn't mean you won't.

I've got to agree with this, hauling guns around is never a way to calm a situation just exasperate it. The right to bear arms is in place for defence not to threaten

 

[Limerickx]

Because the same people who glibly swallowed the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and all manner of lying, obfuscation, and criminality under the Bush administration are suddenly up in arms to fight government oppression because the new administration is "socialist" and wants to reform health care.

Did you ever consider that one can be for health care reform and against Obama's health care reform plan at the same time? Maybe you were too busy making sweeping generalizations to consider it.....

 

[Jman1236]

I guess with polticans no longer listen to the people and telling us what we want, the public have desided to ramp things up.

 

[oneniesteledain]

To me it's just further proof that most of the people who go to these townhall meetings are just backwards people who hate the government and the president so much I'm pretty sure if they could they'd take a shot at him. God I hate those stupid ass backwards bumpkins...

Somebody who's going to shoot the president isn't going to be openly carrying on the street.

 

[Bob the Average]

the legality of openly carrying weapons in public varies from state to state. the reason for carrying is most of the politicians pimping the health care bill are anti-gun so it's an added fuck you. Personally I really don't care if they do carry so long as their civil it shouldn't matter although the guy with the hip holster and the sign about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants should have thought a little harder about his choice of sign.

 

[Duskwaith]

The bill of rights was ratidfied when? like 1787 or some such back when firearms werent a big deal and people tended to use them more in day to day life.

Thats why i prefer the british system where rules can be changed like when a school shooting happened up in scotland guns,specificly hand guns, became even more strenuously regulated.

Yeah sure allow them there guns, just make laws where they cant carry loaded weapons in public and have to have a justification to apply for one though saying its for self defense would balls that up.

 

[thedailylunatic]

It's legal and, as long as they're responsible about it, then it's their constitutional right. You'd have to own a gun yourself to know how kafkaesque gun laws are; besides the laws, even in open carry states cops will fuck with you endlessly if you have a gun because they don't know their own laws: carrying one on camera is a powerful statement. I guess it's a tad inappropriate for the issue at hand, but I understand the sentiment.

 

[Zac_Dai]

I've always thought people who carry guns around must be very scared and paranoid people or over compensating for some feelings of inadequacy.

But having said that if its in their rights they can do what they want.

 

[fix-the-spade]

snip

I've got to agree with this, hauling guns around is never a way to calm a situation just exasperate it. The right to bear arms is in place for defence not to threaten

That's a fair point.

But I was thinking about accidental discharge more than anything. The numbers say that if an American's going to shoot you, they'll probably do it entirely by accident rather than in defence or criminally.

There's no predicting accidental knocks, bad maintanence, design flaws, poor discipline or cheap ammunition.

 

[thedailylunatic]

The bill of rights was ratidfied when? like 1787 or some such back when firearms werent a big deal and people tended to use them more in day to day life.

Thats why i prefer the british system where rules can be changed like when a school shooting happened up in scotland guns,specificly hand guns, became even more strenuously regulated.

Yeah sure allow them there guns, just make laws where they cant carry loaded weapons in public and have to have a justification to apply for one though saying its for self defense would balls that up.

It's actually kind of funny... most gun laws in this country are based in old Jim Crow legislation. Saturday Night Special laws against cheap handguns were a reference to Saturday Night Special laws which were special curfews to limit black people going out to town on Saturday nights. Fear of gun ownership is very closely related to fear of armed minorities; it's really funny listening to clueless lib friends ignorant of this who say that gun control is important because they want guns to be out of the hands of "stupid and crazy people."

Statistically, it's pretty clear that gun control laws increase violent crime. They create a situation where the only people who have guns are cops and criminals. When the latter come a knockin', the former will be glad to peel your corpse off the floor after they're gone. I live on the fringe of a ghetto in the DC area and I can tell you personally that there is no better security system than an unloaded pump-action. My best friend, who grew up in the ghetto, had his house broken into a half a dozen times growing up: then his did would rack his empty shotgun and the would-be thief would disappear like a ghost. Nobody hears about all the crimes that guns prevent.

Regardless, the point of having it as a constitutional right is so that legislators can't fuck with it on a whim. I mean... they do anyway, but I guess that's America these days.

 

[jthm]

Because sometimes a discussion gets heated and the only way to properly express your argument is to shoot someone. Duh.

 

[FallenRainbows]

Reminds me of that Simpsons episode...

Cure you ninja man!

 

[thedailylunatic]

snip

I've got to agree with this, hauling guns around is never a way to calm a situation just exasperate it. The right to bear arms is in place for defence not to threaten

That's a fair point.

But I was thinking about accidental discharge more than anything. The numbers say that if an American's going to shoot you, they'll probably do it entirely by accident rather than in defence or criminally.

There's no predicting accidental knocks, bad maintanence, design flaws, poor discipline or cheap ammunition.

I'm a big fan of gun safety and, if you follow the rules, it's damn near impossible to have an accident. The guns at the place may have been loaded, but I'll bet you ANYTHING that they never pointed their guns at anyone and nobody had a round in the chamber. If there's nothing in the chamber, it's physically impossible for it to go off; the worst thing that can happen is the ammo can cook off in the magazine. Saying just carrying a gun around is dangerous is like saying that driving a car is dangerous. Sure it is, if you're driving like a jackass. Otherwise, not so much.

EDIT:
BTW, as I said earlier... the point of having a gun for self-defense is not to shoot people. The point is to point it at them and watch them run the fuck off.

 

[Oolinthu]

Because the same people who glibly swallowed the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and all manner of lying, obfuscation, and criminality under the Bush administration are suddenly up in arms to fight government oppression because the new administration is "socialist" and wants to reform health care.

Did you ever consider that one can be for health care reform and against Obama's health care reform plan at the same time? Maybe you were too busy making sweeping generalizations to consider it.....

Your first post is a response to little old me? I'm honored. Now do me a favor and read what I said again. Upon doing this, and taking into account the context of the thread topic, you should realize that my previous post was not an indictment against anyone who's against Obama's proposed health care reform. (I'm not sure if I'm for or against it myself.)

Rather, it was directed at people who are up in arms about the issue (sometimes literally, as we've seen). These people who've let themselves be whipped up into a frenzy by what to any rational human being should be an obvious attempt at fear-mongering and disinformation by certain unscrupulous elements on the right (e.g. Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Rick Scott, etc). These people who are desperately, pathetically trying to channel the "don't tread on me" spirit of the American Revolution. These people who tromp around demanding their country back, convinced that they're freedom fighters resisting some new, unique phenomenon of government oppression perpetrated by socialist usurpers (who, incidentally, are also Nazis and communists). These people who stage protests while conspicuously armed as political gesture, as if to imply that they can and will resort to armed resistance if necessary. And over what, exactly?

Where were these cretins with their vaunted outrage when a false justification for an illegal war was being concocted and spoon fed to the American public? Where were they when all the illegal wiretapping and such, along with the Patriot Act designed to legalize as much of it as possible, was going down? Where were they when it was discovered that you could be held incommunicado in a prison camp somewhere and denied due process because the President declared you an "enemy combatant"?

Ah, that's right. They were sitting at home, going about their lives, blithely confident that the administration responsible for these flagrant abuses of power was just doing what was necessary to keep the country safe.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Because the same people who glibly swallowed the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and all manner of lying, obfuscation, and criminality under the Bush administration are suddenly up in arms to fight government oppression because the new administration is "socialist" and wants to reform health care.

I agree with this a thousand times, but precisely because I oppose both foreign aggression etc. and coerced state monopolization of industries.

 

[Goldbling]

Because it gets them publicity. It's actually a well organized group that's attempting to present the impression that America in general is against health care reforms. To do that, they need attention.

Or in other words, you've just been successfully trolled.

Like when the news interviewed a guy with a AR-17 then the same news people interviewed him again and he said he was a different guy. Whats the possibility of two guys who look the same with AR-17's being at the same town hall? All they want is attention like "Joe the Plumber" and we're giving it to them.

Because the same people who glibly swallowed the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and all manner of lying, obfuscation, and criminality under the Bush administration are suddenly up in arms to fight government oppression because the new administration is "socialist" and wants to reform health care.

Did you ever consider that one can be for health care reform and against Obama's health care reform plan at the same time? Maybe you were too busy making sweeping generalizations to consider it.....

Your first post is a response to little old me? I'm honored. Now do me a favor and read what I said again. Upon doing this, and taking into account the context of the thread topic, you should realize that my previous post was not an indictment against anyone who's against Obama's proposed health care reform. (I'm not sure if I'm for or against it myself.)

Rather, it was directed at people who are up in arms about the issue (sometimes literally, as we've seen). These people who've let themselves be whipped up into a frenzy by what to any rational human being should be an obvious attempt at fear-mongering and disinformation by certain unscrupulous elements on the right (e.g. Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, etc). These people who are desperately, pathetically trying to channel the "don't tread on me" spirit of the American Revolution. These people who tromp around demanding their country back, convinced that they're freedom fighters resisting some new, unique phenomenon of government oppression perpetrated by socialist usurpers (who, incidentally, are also Nazis and communists). These people who stage protests while conspicuously armed as political gesture, as if to imply that they can and will resort to armed resistance if necessary. And over what, exactly?

Where were these cretins with their vaunted outrage when a false justification for an illegal war was being concocted and spoon fed to the American public? Where were they when all the illegal wiretapping and such, along with the Patriot Act designed to legalize as much of it as possible, was going down? Where were they when it was discovered that you could be held incommunicado in a prison camp somewhere and denied due process because the President declared you an "enemy combatant"?

Ah, that's right. They were sitting at home, going about their lives, blithely confident that the administration responsible for these flagrant abuses of power was just doing what was necessary to keep the country safe.

Yeah, like the whole "DEATH PANELS ARE GOING TO FUCKING KILL GRANDMA!!!" thing that Fox news and republicans where blabbing about on the news

You don't carry a gun if you are anywhere near the president. There is no discussion, there is no argument. If you have a gun in the same building as the president, you will be assumed to use it, whether you do or not. Why does this have to be explained?

Also, about gun safety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARMoJ-9G68k

Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj4yUpR1PB0

don't be an idiot when you carry a gun, or have a big ego

 

[Bocaj2000]

You don't carry a gun if you are anywhere near the president. There is no discussion, there is no argument. If you have a gun in the same building as the president, you will be assumed to use it, whether you do or not. Why does this have to be explained?

Also, about gun safety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARMoJ-9G68k