Brewmeister

EXACTLY!!!! Who knows what kind of "arms" will be available tomorrow? When the bill of rights was written, citizens used many of the same arms that soldiers used. Today it should be the same, for the same reason. Just as the first amendment should not be limited to the types of "press" common in the 1700s. SHALL NOT. It is really not that difficult, folks.

There are two main causes. First the Internet as has been mentioned. It is simply that much easier for people with stupid ideas to find like minded folks than it ever has been. As it relates to Sandy Hook, this "conspiracy" is also a coping mechanism, in my non-scientific opinion. It is simply too difficult for some people to envision, or admit, to the evil that has to exist for something like this to happen. It's comforting to them to concoct an alternate reality where the tragedy did not occur.

In the modern vernacular, "assault rifle" means "scary looking gun" to gun control advocates, and "modern sport rifle" to second amendment advocates. It's all a matter of perspective. If we consider that the characteristics of an assault rifle are to put a lot of potentially fatal projectiles in the air in a very short period of time, as it turns out, the common hunting shotgun is perhaps a more effective assault rifle than the maligned AR-15: After all, who really needs to fire a whopping 45, 1/4 inch lead balls within mere seconds? Undoubtedly we need some sort of restriction on high-capacity shells.

And no doubt a lot of those gun owners were Obama voters. Oh, I'm sure there are a few, but I don't know about "a lot." We're consistently being told how old, racist, insecure white guys are the problem behind all this gun violence in our country, and that doesn't exactly describe the Obama demographic.

I admit I was pretty worried about what O-B would do but I had to snicker at a number of the proposals...Let's launch a national dialog! Because we're not having one now! Anyhoo, the facts are there are 80 million gun owners and 60 million Obama voters...not to mention 300 million guns in the US (and growing). Politicians can still count. Guns are not going away any time soon, even the scary looking ones. That's not to say that a one-party rule in Washington coupled with a "progressive" Supreme Court that decides to ignore the constitution and judicial precedent couldn't try a grab, but at least for the moment we have them outnumbered. Research is fine and you can't hide the numbers that people see before their very eyes. If states and localities may pass more onerous restrictions on self defense and those same areas become cesspools of violence as a result, it will get noticed and the truism of more guns, less crime will be proven again.

Yeah, Eagle, the problem of course is that we have become indoctrinated otherwise, which is why we have endless discussions about "militias" and other preambles and prepositions, ignoring the fact that the second amendment states what the government SHALL NOT do. But I digress...we've been down this road before and it will change the opinion of no one who erroneously believes otherwise.

New Orleans is a great example of govenment confiscating firearms just when citizens needed them the most....

Why not just repeal the 2nd and then the government can do what it wants? Because the second amendment does not grant gun rights.

"Back in the day," boys ran around with toy six shooters and tommy guns and created lots of violent scenarios...

Fools, tools, and useful idiots ignorant of history abound. Give away your right to defend yourself if you wish. I'll keep mine. Molon labe.

"Propellant smoke?" Oh good grief. If a doctor asked me if we had a gun in our house I would tell him/her to go pound sand.

I don't see how changing the verbiage on this form impacts program standards.

Dynamite is not very useful in an application to defend myself, family, or property from most types of threats. However, your average "assault weapon," even the maligned Bushmaster, is.

1. Fine, though the challenge is what happens to truly private transactions...me selling a gun to a family member, for instance. Do I need to run a background check? The so-called "gun show loophole" is based on private transactions; dealers at gun shows still have to run checks. 2. High capacity magazine bans are useless as columbine proves. 3. This is a new one on me! It is stupid to restrict research and I am not a fan of regulation in general.

http://nation.foxnews.com/crime/2013/01/10/15-year-old-defends-home-against-burglars-shoots-one-them-fathers-ar-15

From where is this quoted?

The security of myself, my family, and my property rely on my freedom to be as well as, or better, armed than those who would threaten it. If someone comes at me with a knife, I want a gun. If someone comes at me with a gun, I want an equal or bigger gun. Gun laws will be ignored by criminals, just like asinine "gun free" zones. Really, is this so hard to understand? Unless you have a solution to fix human nature than I am entitled the freedom to defend myself and accept my responsibility as a member of the well regulated (I.e., properly functioning) citizen militia.

I think rather than by starting from the premise of, what legislation can we write that only law abiding people will follow, let's look at the deterrent end. Kohlberg's stages of moral development start with "fear of punishment." So let's start there with, say, nonappealable death penalty for murder or attempted murder. Mandatory life sentences for those who commit assault with a weapon. Don't have to worry about recidivism any more... Now for those who aren't motivated by punishment and don't have the little voices in their heads telling them that lighting up a classroom is bad, let's look at de-mainstreaming, and also admitting finally that psychotropic drugs are a common denominator in a lot of mass killings. Well I by now I have a lot of fingers already typing on the keyboard! Yeah, some of that is going to fly in the face of the current constitution, but one thing this debate has taught us is that certain parts of it are no longer relevant in a modern society and when innocents are at stake, eh?

I think kudu was advocating for this but I could be wrong.

Neither did an "assault weapons ban" in place at the time which included a ban on "high capacity magazines," which didn't stop the shooters from having over a dozen 10-round magazines in a carbine rifle at Columbine.

In our council, test-out is at the discretion of the discretion of the course director and I know it is done. That seems like too obvious of an answer for you not to have tried already, but just in case you hadn't.... It's a shame your district's training is so weak. In our council's cold-weather camping training (Okpik), the topic of heaters never comes up...then again I suppose they would melt a quinzee .

Same reason that people ignore the original meaning of "well regulated" and instead choose to define it to suit their modern purposes.

Why is "shall not" such a difficult concept for some people to understand?

Yup, and still nobody will touch the fact about how minority conservatives are lampooned. Just keep parsing and rewriting history and ignoring the present. Whatever helps you sleep at night.