Colorado passes Gun Control Laws

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Yes, rock beats scissors, but to pretend that the US government could withstand even 5 million militants, some with college degrees or heavy technical knowledge, with the nominal support of half the population is a bit foolish on it's own.

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If it has the US army on it's side, then yes it most certainly can. 5 million men with small arms could do jack squat against anything heavier than a humvee, assuming they even get anywhere near the army and arent just bombed and shelled from the next state over. The deciding point in this scenario would be if the army supports the government. If yes, the 5 million would be so outclassed they'd be dead in hours, if not, the government will be defeated in seconds. If there is division the war would be primarily fought by the two sides of the army, those 5 million would just get in the way.

Best thing those 5 million could do is do what the iraqi's and afghans are doing right now: guerilla warfare. And guerilla warfare is less about guns than explosives which, if I remember correctly, arent covered under the 2nd amendment.
Edit: I would like to note that the above was written before I saw the rest of ICSD's edit.

Most runners I know refer to it as 5k not 5 kilometer or 5km.

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The highest court has essentially made its ruling. Case closed.

POTUS itself can't really change the situation.

Waiting for all the Judges to pass away and a less conservative bench to be selected is putting outcome to chance. It isn't the 5k or 42k or ultra marathon option. These are all choices you can make to do if you put in the personal effort. Stacking in your favour is winning the lottery. It is putting it down to chance and whimsy.

That leaves the only option, which is a very long shot, to get an amendment ratified. So it's swapping waiting to get rich by lottery to run the 42k in a bucket list.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Not really. Just because you do not register as a Republican does not hurt the Republican Party. You can still donate to them and vote for them in every election. What you can't do is choose who the Republican candidate will be, but what you can do is actually have a meaningful conversation with someone who would otherwise just write you off for being on the other team.

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You're right, my fault.
The system is still horribly bad though.

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

Not even my point. Your making me wish we had a downvote button. :wall:

But how about this: Our nation is bigger and has a lot more people, guns, and idealogical barriers involved than any nation which has attempted to disarm itself in the past.

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The people and guns are not the issue, no matter how numerous they are, they can all turn all their guns in and they can all be destroyed. It may take a month longer than elsewhere to collect them all but don't tell me it can't be done, there are huge trucks which can carry a lot of guns, and there are many trucks in America. And many people to drive many trucks with many guns, so that's really no problem. The ideological barriers are exactly why we keep discussing this and they're the real issue. And when we Europeans stop discussing this, they will be gone or we'll keep discussing this. If you want to make me stop discussing it, that can't be done, there's an ideological barrier. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

if you suggested that we have freedom of assembly, but not to groups larger than 3. Freedom of Religion, but not to irreligion. Freedom of speech, but not that which is deemed controversial.

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As I already demonsrtated a page or two ago, all of our first amendment rights have boundaries. Making up absurd examples to somehow demonstrate that they don't ... I'm not even sure what your'e doing.

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

It is odd and unsettling that you would suggest this as though all arguments were created equal.

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Please show me where I have said that. Man, I wish I said half of the illogical provocative stuff you put in my mouth. I'd be a firebrand!

This all started with another Orgah talking about how the court had "shown" the meaning of an amendment, which rubbed me the wrong way. Courts do not reveal a holy truth; they decide on an interpretation. Is that a controversial position? Human language is vague, imprecise, and can be read in many ways. Is that a controversial position? I demonstrated that even a simple one-sentence amendment can be read a couple of ways. Is that a controversial position? And then I said that we, as a nation, have settled on a particular interpretation. Is that a controversial position?

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

My ideology isn't brittle on this issue.

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If you have sacred cows that Others Must Not Question, then your ideology is brittle. Fear and outrage at having an assumption examined isn't exactly the sign of a well-tempered belief system.

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

You have a fluid passivity on this issue. It is squishy.

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Correct, I'm not much of a footsoldier for anybody. Which always seems to enrage the loyal footsoldiers, who cannot imagine that anyone out there is not in some way a loyal footsoldier. If not a footsoldier then ... COWARD!

I'm a footsoldier sometimes. Occasionally you get things done by forging your own path, other times people need to band together. You do recognize the value of a divide and conquer strategy. Surely, the inverse strategy would be stand together and repel the conquerers.

No man is an island. What would you fight for? What do you believe in? Is family the only thing g worth getting pumped up about and defending, or are there other principles in play?

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

What would you fight for? What do you believe in?

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Dude, based on your habit of ignoring what I actually write in favor of made-up squishy things, am I obligated to respond? Do I gotta?

It's amazing that the rage and energy spent on this question can not be directed to sorting out something that is both obvious, and might make a real difference to individuals-perhaps even the nation:P

http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08...lling-secrecy/

No, you don't have to. BTW, you accused me in around 20 posts of being unethical and against Manchin-Toomey, in spite of 20 posts pointing out my squishy support for it. Maybe both of our instances were wrong, but not far off the mark. I was barely for Toomey Manchin, you are barely for the Second Amendment.

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

you are barely for the Second Amendment.

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Please feel free to show me where I have said that. Sigh. You seem to believe that not embracing the NRA = not really supporting the right to keep and bear arms. Obviously, this is false.

And yeah, your triumphalism over the defeat of a bill that would have probably strengthened the Second Amendment struck me as utterly amoral and self-defeating. And your whole glib "criminals will get guns anyway" line of rhetoric is so vacuous that it's almost impossible to take seriously. Criminals will just get into your car, so don't lock it. Making life harder for criminals is a worthy goal, a moral goal. Dismissing common-sense measures to limit the damage they do is ... well, it appears to be ethically challenged.

Shouldn't the right to bear arms include the ability to make your own for personal use?

After all women bear children...

The NRA is a powerhouse in the battle to retain the right to keep and bear arms. You don't support the NRA, you don't own firearms, you reject the notion that small arms would be effective against government, you most likely have a very low crime rate where you live, you take potshots at every pro2a argument there is. I don't see you as someone who defends it.

I believe in trade unions when the going gets rough. Solidarity is important in harnessing power for little nobodies like you and I. You reject common cause and think that your agenda will go places. I don't think so. Like 2a, don't like current NRA positions on every issue, join it, explain a better way.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Shouldn't the right to bear arms include the ability to make your own for personal use?

After all women bear children...

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Yes to making your own

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

The part you didn't quote is the rebuttle to what you said.

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Not really, it was just more about the ideological barriers which I mentioned in my reply. Their existence is not a counterpoint to what I say because my point is that they need to go. I'm discussing this with you to remove your ideological barriers to gun control by telling you that opposing or not promoting gun control based on the notion that it wouldn't work anyway is an ideological barrier in itself. ~;)

You personally wouldn't mind gun control but you keep telling people it wouldn't work and shouldn't happen because of A, B, and C, that's an ideological barrier of sorts. I'm aware of the gun nuts, I saw some hilarious videos on youtube. They shouldn't be an issue, if you clearly decide as a majority that you want to reduce the amount of guns floating around, then you can do it without taking their guns away or starting a huge civil war. On the other hand, HopAlongBunny is right in that energy should be spent elsewhere first. The current system you have is so inefficient that even if the majority of Americans want something, like the 90% who want background checks, it still won't happen if certain minorities do not want it. Quite frankly, that's crazy.

You can't get anything done like this, you have to get politically active as a population and campaign for fundamental changes that result in a voting system where every part of the population gets a representation in politics. In other words you need more than two parties and coalition governments built on compromise. However, for some reason people do get politically active only by plastering their front yards with posters of the two candidates every four years, which just supports the current mess. Hoping for independents to gain traction won't work because they won't, that's a mathematical barrier of the FPTP voting system.

The topic would be much more interesting if it didn't boil down to a two-positions system where one side wants all guns for everyone and the other no guns for noone, there are systems in between after all that are still better than gundorado.

I'm frantically trying to get a job out of state at this point. Maybe I wouldn't be as politically rabid if I just got out of here. I love the people, I just utterly despise their politics and the way that they operate like a herd of sheep on the issues of the day. I am ALWAYS outside of that herd. Even when there is common ground it evaporates pretty quickly. North Carolina is my dream State.

Cost of living? Unbelievable. Unemployment rate/hiring prospects? Nonexistant. Taxes? You couldn't take it for a minute. My parents are paying 13k a year for 2500 sqft and 1/3 acre. Buddy just bought his first home for 450k. Unreal.

NO PAY DIFFERENTIAL

I guess I could always live in Germany and hate it even more.

The bigger the move the bigger the culture shock. Be it countryside to townies to city to moving an entire country.

Most people react to the change by latching on to their prior cultural identity. Kids tend to get even stronger traits brought out. Parents will talk about their bad day at work in the new environment and how good it was in the previous. We tend not to state why we've moved or the good things either about the new environment. Kids views become more strongly effected and they tend to polarize quite strongly against their new surroundings.

I expect that you came from a more strong gun culture community. I wonder if that same community is as pro guns as it used to be or has changed in either direction.

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As for the cost of living... I spend about as much in mortgage for a place a third the size which is 20 miles from the CBD... NY is cheaper then Sydney.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

The bigger the move the bigger the culture shock. Be it countryside to townies to city to moving an entire country.

Most people react to the change by latching on to their prior cultural identity. Kids tend to get even stronger traits brought out. Parents will talk about their bad day at work in the new environment and how good it was in the previous. We tend not to state why we've moved or the good things either about the new environment. Kids views become more strongly effected and they tend to polarize quite strongly against their new surroundings.

I expect that you came from a more strong gun culture community. I wonder if that same community is as pro guns as it used to be or has changed in either direction.

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As for the cost of living... I spend about as much in mortgage for a place a third the size which is 20 miles from the CBD... NY is cheaper then Sydney.

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My mom & Dad moved from Tx because of the Reptiles and the heat. I go places because of that. No one in my culture has ever owned or been concerned with gun culture. I'm building it one person at a time. We came from a place in Tx called "Kingwood" - it's where northerners lived. People from Michigan, Illinois, NY, NJ. We knew very few texans, except for the ones with the blowout hairdo's. I was a little guy.

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

I guess I could always live in Germany and hate it even more.

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How do you know? Have you been here? Do I need to be worried?

Hahaha. Only as a baby.

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

It's full of more liberals and weather like Long Island, without the beautiful coast.

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Never understood why people are so afraid of other who think differently than them. So small minded.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Never understood why people are so afraid of other who think differently than them. So small minded.

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I'm pretty open minded, but at some point, after you've developed your opinion and it is well outside of the prevailing opinion, it becomes very taxing to re-litigate for years. You only live once, why argue with people forever?

Has it resulted in some different opinions? Yes, that is generally what constant exposure does. In fact, I seek out cultural differences on a regular basis. The flip side is, I will occasionally find cultures that I love and cultures that irritate me.

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

I'm pretty open minded, but at some point, after you've developed your opinion and it is well outside of the prevailing opinion, it becomes very taxing to re-litigate for years. You only live once, why argue with people forever?

Has it resulted in some different opinions? Yes, that is generally what constant exposure does. In fact, I seek out cultural differences on a regular basis. The flip side is, I will occasionally find cultures that I love and cultures that irritate me.

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So you are tired of feeling as if you may be wrong, thus you want to YOLO and stick to whatever half cocked ideas you currently hold. If you are a day over 38 I will kick myself in the butt but if not than you are the pathetic man I imagine you to be.

I know Kingwood.

It's your run of the mill upper middle class white neighborhood in the middle of the Houston metro.

Those people are right up your alley Tuff, and you know it. I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with being those things but the prevailing culture there is certainly one that distrusts governments and propagates American myths, no matter what state they are from.

I don't mean to badmouth you or attack you personally but don't play Kingwood off like some bastion of Northern Liberalism, that would be a lie.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

I know Kingwood.

It's your run of the mill upper middle class white neighborhood in the middle of the Houston metro.

Those people are right up your alley Tuff, and you know it. I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with being those things but the prevailing culture there is certainly one that distrusts governments and propagates American myths, no matter what state they are from.

I don't mean to badmouth you or attack you personally but don't play Kingwood off like some bastion of Northern Liberalism, that would be a lie.

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The street I lived on was all Airline Executives from the Northeast. I was 10 years old, I didn't get out of that Cul-de-sac much. Half of my friends are Irish, the other half were born all over the world - Afghanistan, Ecuador, Poland, Greece, Mexico, China. Kingwood with a bit more selection is right up my alley. The only people I don't get along with, long term, are American White Liberals. I like everyone else and get along with everyone else.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

So you are tired of feeling as if you may be wrong, thus you want to YOLO and stick to whatever half cocked ideas you currently hold. If you are a day over 38 I will kick myself in the butt but if not than you are the pathetic man I imagine you to be.

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At some point you need to make a decision. Either change ideals or change locales. I've had enough years here to realize that I'd rather change locales.

"if not, then you..."

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

At some point you need to make a decision.

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No, you don't.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

No, you don't.

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Of course you do. This is how the migration of peoples has traditionally worked. People have some stress at point a, which leads them to develop the requesit amount of impetus in order to move somewhere else. Fortunately, my stressors are political and income related and not caused by famine, brutal government repression or a westward expanding Hun.

You must make the choice to stay or go. Fight, flight, or go weak in the knees and be overcome by an external pressure. Sometimes this pressure is a good thing, other times it is not so good. Many people were content with government repression of faith and thought in England during the 16th century. They stayed in England in large number. Those who left, ostracized, came to the New World in large number. The ideologies of the new world have largely eaten the lunch of the old world. That's not implied, but to break the hold of a poisonous culture you can leave it and start the multi-generational process.

So you're in favor of Mexicans who don't want to stay in the oppressive, adverse environment that is their current home and decide to move to the USA due to stressors that are political and income related? If everybody agreed to that, you wouldn't even need border controls, think of the money that would save. Do you applaud all Mexican immigrants for breaking the hold of their poisonous culture?

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Originally Posted by Husar

So you're in favor of Mexicans who don't want to stay in the oppressive, adverse environment that is their current home and decide to move to the USA due to stressors that are political and income related? If everybody agreed to that, you wouldn't even need border controls, think of the money that would save. Do you applaud all Mexican immigrants for breaking the hold of their poisonous culture?

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In a way, yes. I understand and empathize with people who cross the border illegally. In order to prevent bloodshed between citizens and immigrants, we have orderly
transitions and immigration policy. I am in favor of relaxing the restrictions of who and how many can come here, somewhat.

The USA restrictions are pretty tough. I have a Brazilian friend (female) who is engaged to an American (white) and they visit each other often and regularly. He works as a Firefighter and she is a talented Artist who earns 52,000+ easily per year (52k was based on side projects I know prices of..). So she has a big bunch of savings built up and her art is international, and always in supply (and got demand), the reason is her fiancée, and if she got her Green Card they were moving in together.

So job, house, money, everything is all in working order with a good logical reason to move there. They first met as he is interested in art and a novice artist himself, he came to view some work which she did, they exchanged emails, got talking, ended up falling for eachother and all that lot. Spent long periods of time together, still madly in love and stuff...

and yup, the Border Control rejected her application.

Seemed so illogical.