Support for Gun Control in US at its Lowest Level in More than 50 Years

[Husar]

Understand something, and understand it well: At the end of WWII, your nation was shattered, beaten, and still considered incredibly dangerous. For decades following the war, the UN would argue over whether or not Germany could ever be trusted again. There was little to no idealism involved on our part--just practical necessity.

Also, I was talking about the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Unless I'm mistaken that's how Germany came to be, and it came to be through war. But any other way you want to define it still works. Is Germany the result of Roman intervention? Bloody and warlike. The result of hundreds of years of being involved in the Holy Roman Empire? No less bloody and warlike. The result of WWII? So bloody and warlike, it defies any other description. I understand where your argument is coming from, and honestly this is a tangent anyway, but your country was forged in violence whether you want to admit it or not.

No, it wasn't. If we see West Germany as the precursor to the nation we have now, it was forged in 1949, WW2 ended in 1945. While the war was what destroyed the Reich and ultimately lead to the forging of the nation, it wasn't forged in a violence but in a post-war climate of never wanting to go to war again and certainly as you say, the Americans not wanting us to go to war again.
It was forged as a most peaceful nation and not as one that uses war and violence as a means to achieve it's goals, which is what your nation thrives on since it had to wage and win a big war in order to come to existance. The idea of what war and violence achieve is a completely different one in our two nations.

While it seems over the top to you, I find your inability to understand where I'm coming from to be just as irritating. If not more. We're quickly approaching a day and age where people may need to actively stand up for their freedoms. If that scares people, or if that makes them uncomfortable, good. Nothing is worth it that's not earned.

I understand where you're coming from, I just wish you came from somewhere else.

As I always understood it, our forefathers fought and died so we would never have to fight and die again and can solve our issues at the ballot box.
If you say we will definitely have to rise again and die and fight to resolve our issues then that means our forefathers have failed and died in vain.
It also means that our entire systems and democracies are not working, which I think is not the case, at least over here. It's not perfect but not beyond repair either.
If the USA are a nation built upon the idea of recurring civil war and bloodshed, that's okay if you like it but please keep me out of it because that's not the kind of nation I want to hand over to my children.

Also China would intervene and conquer you while you're busy.

This is integral to our being. This is the concept of ultimate and unblemished freedom, and the idea that death is preferable to being chained. And before you say it: I know that's unrealistic and idealistic, but that's the point.

It's just silly and I would also divide it by religion.
As a Christian, the argument works because heaven is great, then again as a Christian you believe that you will worship god all the time in heaven and not run around toting guns, you also believe that killing is a sin and violence shouldn't be used to get anywhere. And that doesn't fit with the second amendment at all.
Now that we have established that all Americans (except the Amish and so on of course) are actually atheists, why is *the end*/*nothing*/*blackout*, the ceasing of neurochemical activity or what you want to call it preferable to watching the nice blue skies and lush green grass with a chain on your hands and a chance to become free without actually dieing?
And why do people in prison not kill themselves?

Oh yes I do. The Bill of Rights (of which the 2nd Amendment is part) is the perfect example of appropriate revision. It was specifically added so that people would not have to fear their own government. Every amendment in there is for the same larger purpose: to protect the citizens from a government that might eventually not care all that much for what they think. Rather than disproving my point, all that does is re-enforce it.

Don't get me wrong, though: there are countless examples of our idealogies and freedoms being betrayed by our own government and our own people. The only thing I can really say about it is that we're a free country, for now at least, and it is up to the people as a whole to regulate their government in the end. Many Americans simply can't be bothered.

That's because the two-party system seems to be unable to achieve the regulation they want at the ballot box. Some people in Germany thought that about our two major parties and so they made a new party which is actually taking votes away from what were our previous major parties, similar to how our smaller parties grow stronger at times where people grow tired of the major ones.
This is a system where you can actually achieve some political change and get a say in government without having to despair because the system is pretty much locked between two parties that no other party can compete with.

Your people fear the government quite a bit and even you think it's ultimately out to get you and you will have to fight it any maybe die fighting it. If the second amendment reduces fear of the government, then it seems like you'd all be terrified of your government without it. Time to rethink the system perhaps?

I find your version of history intrigueing. Let's twist it for my point of view, for a moment, okay? Let's say Germany had never made those entangling treaties with Austria. Would they have been dragged into WWI? Would WWI have ever started? Would Hitler have ever come to pass, then?

Hahahahaha.
Seriously? You think I meant Kaiser Wilhelm II. when I said non-interventionist leader?
He sent gun boats around, insulted other nations' leaders and wanted to get colonies.
The person I meant was Bismarck and he didn't use treaties to entangle us, he used them to prevent war.

And I was joking anyway, using a terribly simplified version of history.

I know what-if scenarios are dumb, but come on.

They're fun.
And a requirement for proper risk-assessment.

There are very, very few examples of interventionism ever being a good thing for the little people--and the little people are the only ones that should matter in America (Actually, I phrased this poorly. The poor and weak are the responsibility of the rich and powerful. The American Dream, and the riches and wealth associated with it, come with a responsibility to the people under you that should not have to be regulated--it should be understood as basic decency).

There's trickle down so that's not an issue at all.

If the poor and the weak can't be treated properly, then the rich and powerful are directly to blame. That's my personal belief, and something that even a lot of Americans would scoff at. Even other people of a Libertarian bent.

The lazy leeches are being treated properly!

Kind of. Close enough, really. In the Army, you see exactly what you're talking about, but you also see the positive side of risking your life and facing danger. There are emotional and psychological benefits to be reaped from risking your life, just like there are incredible pitfalls and disasters.

Yes, but that depends a lot on strength of character and not all people assess that and the risks associated with it properly before going to risk their lives. Which also means that having to risk your life in order to be free is a pitfall some people cannot avoid and an inherently dangerous idea that doesn't take into account the weak which is a requirement that should be met by the powerful as you just said.
As such any political system that works on the premise of requiring people to risk their lives in order to restore it after unevitably getting corrupted as per it's design, is rotten and badly designed.

In my town, at least, the cops like to troll the streets at night looking for homeless people to beat up--which says to me that they're cowardly people who joined the police just to exert power over people better than themselves.

I'm not sure whether these lazy commie leeches are better than hard-working police officers but they should be fired for beating up people without a reason and never get a job again so I can call them lazy commie leeches when they inevitably end up homeless.

Burn baby burn...