I was looking for a new car for Elizabeth, when I came across this for sale. It is a fully transferable M2HB mounted on a M998. It's over priced, but also awesome.

I have no doubt the girl could probably handle the recoil of one shot. The Uzi is not a featherweight piece after all, it weighs more than a lot of rifles. But she probably could not handle the climbing muzzle, characteristic of full-auto usage.

I understood the earlier stories to say that the instructor was standing behind, and, somewhat over the girl. That makes sense if you're showing someone how to shoot an unfamiliar weapon.

I wonder if they'll have counselors for kids who have to go to school with the girl who killed someone; or, if the kids will just chalk it up to her instructor.

She goes to Dick Cheney Elementary. They're prepared for these kinds of things.

Also: :headshake

My niece is 9. ffs she's just now growing tall and she's skinny as a rail. She might blow away in a strong wind. I don't care how we have to tiptoe around gun rights...there are guns that a 9 year old could reasonably be taught to shoot. This whole idea was for the bragging rights of the parents.

There I said it. It needed to be said.

I feel really badly for the kid. And the family of the instructor.

Well, they were taking a video of it. I'd say it's fairly likely they planned to post the video to FB. That's what parents do. So yeah.

Well, DanaC, the politics of guns in America springs entirely from America being organized as a Republic, never a Kingdom -- and in 1775 and 1812 there were a couple of rather intense discussions on the topic between the two. Artillery arguments, it's fair to say.

The fundamental idea of a republic is that every scrap of political power is ultimately sourced from the electorate -- and a bit from those associating with the electorate but not in it. Of late that is a vanishingly small population segment, but at one time it was half the adult population of the United States. Until the 19th Amendment finished that up.

To function as an electorate in a Republic, the electorate must be powerful, not emasculated. The power of life and death is about as direct as power can get. Power of life and death over the apparatus of the Government keeps the government as the people's servant, right where it belongs. The power to kill is a crude power, yes. But crude power converts readily into refined power, such as that of the ballot.

This was one of the first reasons guns should be kept. Citizen police powers, which is the rubric under which lawful use of force defending self and property and the life and property of others, is another of the first ones -- the invention of modern police departments was still some fifty or sixty years in the future, and the establishment of police departments does not supplant self defense by force. It is instead at bottom an aid to it -- professional, dedicated service to be an adjunct to the completely inalienable right of self defense.

Latterly, another compelling reason arose from these: that We the People have a right not to suffer genocide. Like police powers, this too is rooted in forcible self defense -- calm suasion is not how genocide gets done; it's always deadly force of course. Genocide was not something the Founding Fathers had any experience of, or they might have inserted something in the Second Amendment about it. But it's still true that armed populations do not suffer genocides, and genocides happen in places where the populations are not armed. There are a couple other precursors of genocides too, but the critical one is that the population not have arms. But a population with a lot of arms the Einsatzkommandos cannot tackle -- they are invariably outnumbered; they can only make up the difference in numbers if they are the only ones possessing killing tools.

If they are not, genocides do not happen. Genocides are very very bad things, as all agree: they're nasty enough that it's worth paying a pretty hefty price to escape. Hefty prices may be accounted in treasure or in lives. But having a genocide condemns at least the character of whole peoples. That stain is not a pretty one either.

A thoughtful answer, thankyou.

I understand, I think, the historical roots of guns in America. It's really their place in modern American culture that occasionally baffles me *smiles*. Not the owning of them - I can see lots of very good and compelling reasons why someone might own a gun. Not least the practical applications in terms of hunting and home defence. Open carry though I find difficult to get my head around. Though some in this thread have offered some good reasons for why it is apprpriate in some instances.

It's the emotional place of guns I think I have the most difficulty with.

A few minor points from your resopnse:

Genocide was not something the Founding Fathers had any experience of

I suspect the Native peoples of America might argue with that one *smiles*. And given that the Founding Fathers were drawn primarily from European cultures, they were no doubt already aware of the genocides committed by their forefathers in places like South America. There's also an argument to be made that the slave labour which they and most of their peers made use of was itself the result of a form of genocide.

But no: they had no experience of being the victims of genocide.

That, I'm afraid, is not true. The genocide in Rwanda was the result of an armed population turning on itself. The power of one group lay in its semi-organised and rallied nature, not that it was armed and its victims unarmed. Most people on both sides had similar access to the kinds of weapons used in that genocide (mainly machetes).

Genocide by the state against a subject group within that state may usually have the features you describe, but even then it is far from absolute. And genocide by one nation's forces against another may be made possible by a disparity in the kinds of weapons available to the victim population as opposed to the invaders (as was the case for the Incas).

Unless your population is not just armed, but armed to the teeth with the most powerful weaponry available being armed is not a protection against genocide.

It may - may - be some protection against a state power that turns against its own people. But even then: it is more likely that state has the more powerful weapons and the more organised force. What is more likely to save a population from internal conflict in that scenario is not the presence of weapons in the general population, but the lack of appetite amongst the state's forces for use of deadly force agains their kith and kin (as in the early stages of the Russian Revolution).

An interesting rebuttal to the 'Guns prevent genocie' / 'gun control allows genocide' argument.

http://robertnielsen21.wordpress.com...-control-myth/

The state's forces don't typically turn on its entire population, it turns on one segment of the population at a time until enough of them fall that even family loyalties are corrupted when it comes to their survival.

When this happens, as it has before and as it will again, the people become the insurgency. The presence of weapons in the general population enables them to do what ISIS is doing in Iraq and Syria, what the Taliban and Al Qaeda are doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It enables the people to take back their country from the state unless the state gets external support and even then they may just stalemate. That's a much more reliable recourse than depending on the lack of appetite amongst the state's forces for use of deadly force against their kith and kin. Too many such loyalties have fallen by the wayside under a state's gun to consider that alone a rational strategy. Guerrilla warfare has come a long way baby. You're livin' in the past as is the author of the article you posted.; but, even then there were people of vision - Foco theory:

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight?
We must come to the inevitable conclusion
that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer,
that he takes up arms responding to the angry
protest of the people against their oppressors,
and that he fights in order to change the social system
that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

— Che Guevara

The presence of heavy weaponry. Not rifles. hence my point that if your population is armed to the teeth with the best weaponry - that can act as a deterrant to genocide. It is not an argument for everybody to have their own gun. It is an argument for everyone to have their own rocket launcher.

One of the problems, for me, with the 'gun ownership prevents genocide' argument is that it gives a false sense of security against potential state violence. The reason there has been no genocide ofthe American population is not because the population is armed. Nor would the population being routinely armed prevent a genocide if the state turned against them, or if one part ofthe population turned against another part.

The only defence against genocide or tyranny is political - the USA is a democratic republic. That is its defence against genocide. You're right that an armed population can launch an insurrection in the face of tyranny - but that could only ever be a stop gap measure whilst better weaponry and external support were sought to assist that insurrection. The big question is how likely are you to ever face such a threat? the answer to that is not very likely at all. The threat of an armed populace dissolving into a brutal and bloody civil war is far more of a threat, but only where the political status quo has collapsed - the defence against that is to strenthen political systems and ties, not to make sure that everybody has a gun for when the shit hits the fan.

The reality is that if you don't have the rifles, you don't get the rocket launchers. No one wants to give them to you if you haven't already demonstrated a willingness to use weapons and you won't be able to capture them.

It can help discourage the attempt and prevent the completion of it. That's why there are still warring factions in so many countries. They haven't been able to complete it.

You're a self described political animal. That's just self serving.

It's worked before, that's how we kicked your asses.

I've never had an automobile accident and probably never will; yet, I carry car insurance. In fact, it's the law. Sensible people don't rely on the odds when it comes to what they can't afford to loose. We don't want to end up like you again. Color us fussy.

The defense is all of the above. That's why it's still in our Constitution and hasn't been repealed. You're not allowed to have them because your government considers you inferior. Can't you just be happy for us that we're doing better?

That point I agree on.


It can - but it can also enable the completion of it. Some of thw worst genocides in history wewre facilitated by a well armed populace.


That's just silly. I just mean I am interested in politics. I am not a part of the political machine beyond having access to a ballot paper.

The British were not attempting to commit genocide against the colonists. And, frankly that was a wholly different situation to the possibility of the US government attempting to impose tyranny on the modern USA, or parts of it.

Kicked our asses *rolls eyes*. In the same way as the Viet Cong kicked your asses? Of course they didn't. The American War of Independence was an extremely complex beast, as indeed was the War of 1812. One of the key deciding factors for the former was that Britain had very little appetite for that war. The Government was split almost fifty-fifty between Tories and Whigs, and was changing political hands with almost dizzying regularity. We effectively sabotaged our own war effort (quite a few whig sympathetic military commanders in America were implicated in that btw). Parliament's support for and supply of troops for America was tenuous at best and attempts to drive home advantages after some of the individual victories were prevented by a number of factors including that political ill-will.

Britain's prime concern at that time was not keeping hold of the American colonies. We were far too wrapped up in our ever lasting and ongoing conflict with France and Spain, and the newly emerging fields of the British East India company.

The early patriots set the stage for that conflict, but it was primarily the American army that was formed, along with the French that won the war. There were many stages of that conflict at which the victory could have gone either way - a very complex series of factors combined to give that victory to the Americans and it was a fragile one. At the end of the day, probably the biggest factor, along with French support, was the homeground advantage that allowed the the continental army to outlast and survive past the point that Britain could continue to prosecute a war thousands of miles away, with very little support for it at home. It was absolutely a victory. But it was not a comprehensive 'asskicking'. that kind of assessment just doesn't work for most conflicts. It is rarely that simple and certainly wasn't in that conflict.

And America did not 'win' the war of 1812. Nor did they lose.


The thing about insurers is they do consider the likelihood of events. You have never had an autombile accident, but the odds of you doing so at some point in your life are very high. The odds of you being swallowed up by a sinkhole whilst walking your dog are much smaller. Most people do not take out sinkhole insurance for walking their dogs.

And - I'm not sure what you mean by 'end up like us again'.

It has nothing to do with inferiority. The laws on weapon ownership were devised and voted on by parliament - a parliament made up of representatives of their constituents. Whilst that does not (clearly:p) guarantee that it will always act according to the will ofthe people, the laws on firearms were broadly popular. People in this country want guns not to be a day to day part of life. Anybody who is not mentally ill and can adhere to the rules of safe keeping can apply for a licence to keep firearms. In general, we prefer to keep firearms ownership to a minimum - held by people trained in their use. Even our police are not routinely armed.

Which may be why so few of us get killed or injured by guns .

You are doing better in many respects. And I am happy for you. But you seem to be labouring under the impression that the British state has not changed since the days of King George III and a parliament made up entirely of aristocrats, placemen and rotten boroughs imposing their will on a subject people with no input in how they should be governed. We are a parliamentary democracy - the government hasn't imposed disarmament upon us. We have elected not to be an armed populace as an acceptable price to pay for not having thousands of gun deaths per annum.

Incidentally: I'm at a loss as to why you feel the need to turn this into an America-v-Britain thing. I wasn't insulting to America or Americans in the discussion about guns. I was interested in a seemingly distinct cultural difference. One that is apparently distinct between different parts of America as much as it is distinct between our two nations.

It also baffles me how often people (and you especially) throw out insults based on something that happened two and a half centuries ago. I can see how your victory in the revolution had and has a profound impact on your sense of self as a nation. I'm not sure you understand how little impact our loss had and has on ours. The idea that we lost the American war of Independence is not something I find humiliating and references to it do not insult me. Though how that loss gets characterised (as with the 'you'd all be speaking German if we hadn't saved your asses in ww2' line) irritates me from a historical perspective. That's more about disliking overly simplistic narratives about highly complex and historically specific events.

But as your intent was clearly to insult, I'll take it as one. And again ask the question: why be insulting?

People are products of their environments and their history. Part of our history is sending over thousands of basic firearms, rifles and handguns, for Britain's Home Guard defense against potential invasion by Germany during WWII. The Home Guard was forced to drill with canes, umbrellas, spears, pikes, and clubs. When citizens could find a gun, it was generally a sporting shotgun ... ill suited for military use because of its short range and bulky ammunition. Britain had virtually disarmed itself with a series of gun control laws enacted between World War I and World War II.

I've met British and French military personnel, those who've seen how fragile social stability can be up close and personal, who were embarrassed by their civilian populations' apathy in this regard today and how they had resigned themselves to it. I felt sorry for them. That's what I think of when someone espouses political action as the only proper course; so, they themselves will never be considered responsible for countering violence with return violence, not on their own streets, not even in their own homes. That's someone else's job. Unfortunately, the divisions here are the result of too many people, well kept insulated by politicians in government, heading them in that direction too.

I find that aspect of you (collectively*) loathsome. Many in your own military find you* loathsome. Many in our military find people like you* here, loathsome. More and more civilians here now are finding people like you* loathsome; because, more of them are veterans now ... people who have seen first hand that price of freedom is not only eternal vigilance; but, that this price can't always be met by contributing to political action alone.

To hold the position that a civilian population shouldn't be armed; because, they can't win is to hold the position that they shouldn't even try after all hope is lost politically. We don't ascribe to that. That's why our culture's declaration of independence from your culture's includes within its specified inalienable rights the "pursuit" of happiness. To hold the position that the odds against all hope being lost politically is so great the civilian population shouldn't be armed is to hold the position that the government won't impose martial law on the citizenry. The government just did that in Ferguson, Missouri. As part of the front end analysis, we'll do our own threat analysis for both internal and external threats (we saw how you got caught with your pants down during WWII and we learned, thank you).

I was going to do a Jeff Foxworthy parody on You might be a redneck if , something like the one Grav posted, titled You might be loathsome if; but I didn't want to hurt your feelings. No insult intended. Your welcome.