Simply put I see the right to bear arms being one of the cornerstones of America. The idea is that we are not entirely at the mercy of our goverment as long as we have the abillity to arm ourselves. The police and such can deal with armed individuals or even a group of armed individuals, but not a general uprising. This means that the goverment has to toe a finer line than those in the rest of the world.
Now some people might say "But Therumancer, if the goverment was to actually try and oppress the people, how would having personal arms make a differance if they sent in the military or national guard". The answer to this is simply that we ALSO maintain a military of volunteers, that in theory any citizen can join, as opposed to a "caste" type military system which effectively seperates itself from the general populance. If The President/Congress was to tell the military to start oppressing the people, it isn't likely to work.
This is one of the reasons why I am against some of the increasingly strict requirements for the military (it can be far more selective than it used to be), and also in favor of gun control.
Gun control does not ensure our freedom entirely in of itself, but it helps a whole lot. Even if the goverment had control of the military and turned it on the people during a popular uprising, by the time the smoke cleared there wouldn't be much of America left for them to rule (they wouldn't get what they want out of it).
The occasional shootings, dead cops, psycho-shooter kids, and similar things are part of the price we pay, and in the scheme of things it's a small one.
It should be also noted that the guys who are most in favor of gun control are also the ones who are in favor of a powerful federal goverment with the right to increasingly stick it's nose up your business. There is a reason for this that goes beyond the specific issues in the media. Democrats do not like the idea that a small town could basically tell them to go pound sand in an extreme situation and be a real pain in the rear with firearms. Of course this isn't a big deal by the Republican view of things where the central power is supposed to be state and local anyway with the federal goverment being pretty weak overall.
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When it comes to other nations like Canada and even the UK consider that the grass is always greener on the other side of the pasture. We look at some of the problems in the US and think it MUST be better, but those countries have their own problems (albeit ones that aren't broadcast globally through things like CNN anywhere near as often). Those nations also have SUBSTANTIALLY less freedom than the US even if they do not admit it.
For example when I was doing my Criminal Justice studies we were talking about alternative legal systems. One point that was made that in Canada the police have what amounts to a "blank warrent" they can use to effectively suspend someone's rights and do whatever they want to, albeit with the need to justify it later. I don't remember the exact terminology, and this is a very basic description, but that is the general idea.
Now I'll be the first to tell you that we put too many limitations on the police in the US which is responsible for a lot of our problems, but something like that really wouldn't fly.
In nations like France, they don't really have freedom of the press. Back when we first invaded Iraq we had France telling us they didn't want to back us because they were "peace loving". In reality we found out that they were making a ton of money by secretly violating the embargos on Iraq through the "Oil For Food" program. What's more one of France's first concerns was to ensure that the debt incurred to them by Iraq would be continued to be acknowledged by any new goverment after the replacement of Saddam. Needless to say when this was actually going down what the French papers/news sources said, and what a true free press said, were very differant. This kind of thing is one of the reasons why France is on something of a differant wavelength from the US.
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Also keep in mind that being armed is one of the reasons why I would be willing to let like CIA counter espionage forces/Homeland security have such a free hand. If they ever decided to abuse their power on any kind of a large scale, they just don't have the manpower to deal with an angry populance even if the goverment supported them. You will never see sizable numbers of people being "disappeared" in the US for this reason.
What's more it also keeps things fairly honest on some levels, because if someone messes with you too badly, you always have the option to go down shooting. This is why things like home foreclosures go through such a lengthy process. Nobody is going to go and throw a bunch of people onto the street lightly when those people could very well hole themselves up in the property and start shooting (things like that have happened before).
If anything, I actually feel we need more shootings to sort of set society straight. For example if more justified, disgruntled employees were to shoot their former employers you might see some of the more ridiculous profit based layoffs stopping. Although in the end this rarely happens because most people figure they can find something else and don't want to be killed or thrown in jail to make a symbolic point which probably won't be portrayed properly in the media anyway (ie "another psycho").
Well enough rambling, but basically I'm extremely pro-gun for a lot of reasons. I'm warped enough where on a certain level I kind of hope some liberal does try and ban guns all at once. When the smoke clears and the bodies are dragged away I think a lot of problems will have been solved, Wal*Mart will have a gun counter, and there will be a national holiday in which reloads are %50 off.
... hey I think it was funny (or at least darkly amusing)
>>>----Therumancer--->
