Excuse me? Jindal worked as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies for a couple of years before he went into cabinet-level state public service in Louisiana. He wasn’t *near *community organizing. Jindal doesn’t have a law degree, either… his graduate work is in biology and public policy. He’s no Obama by a long shot.
Bob, I think that you wrong here a bit.
There are some who have similar gun related beliefs as Argent does who will be voting for Obama. They are, as is Argent, attracted to his POV on other issues and concerned that McCain and the Republican party have attacked privacy rights, for example. The difference is that Argent seems to hold these beliefs as the key issue, the litmus test issue upon which everything else is secondary, and many others hold these gun rights issues as just one of many issues that they consider important.
In short Obama may very well get votes from many who belong to the NRA despite the fact that he is against conceraled carry. I again just hope that Argent can recognize that disagreeing about this one issue need not mean moral or intellectual inadequacy by either side of the debate.
If the government wants to murder you and your whole town, your personal ownership of a handgun or fifty isn’t going to make a difference against an organized and trained military force with access to much more advanced equipment and weaponry.
Depends on whom is doing the weapon owning and what kind of weapons they own. I’m sure the British felt the same way about the Colonials, although to be fair, the weapons technology was a far more level playing field then.
I know a couple ex-military guys that have veritable arsenals and have what are literally reinforced, stocked bunkers on their property. Enough like-minded people equipped like that could make a stand. For a while, anyway.
Do they have anti-aircraft capabilities? Are their bunkers deep enough to withstand bunker busters?
What protects people more than guns is the ability for the police to stop and arrest people with concealed guns. The 80’s were a huge police failure. Since then the NYPD has targeted small offenses and were able to greatly reduce crime because they found and confiscated a lot more weapons from the small offenders. If they couldn’t take the guns away crime would not have went down as much as it did during the 90’s.
In more rural areas you have a lot of law abiding citizens with guns and less gangs. It’s a different environment. You just can’t ignore the cultural differences and say everyone across America should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon.
As an ex-military man myself, I understand what you are saying and I realize the breadth and scope of US military weaponry. However, if insurgents in Iraq can effectively strike at the US military, so can well-armed people of this nation if the government decides to get “uppity”.
I also realize that the chances for success are quite marginal. I was half-joking, but also insinuating that it isn’t impossible. Most guys I know that are stockpiling for Armageddon have 4 wheel drives, stocks of MRE’s, weapons and a plan for “when the shit hits the fan” to scoot into the wilderness.
Its kinda funny, I knew people like that too, back in the Dark Ages. Big admirers of the Weather Underground, Mao, Lumumba, people like that. Stockpile weapons and safe houses, places to hide in the boondocks when the facists came for them, or when the FBI started its program of assassinating political radicals, or when the Revolution comes. Some of them were ex-military, too, Viet Nam mostly. In fact, thats how they come to be so radical.
Funny, huh? How very different, how very much alike…
I would love to see a bunch of those paranoid, gun fetish jack-offs try to fight a guerilla war against the US military.
You know, most of those people are probably still around . . .
I’d like to add to this because I agree with you. I don’t mind if you guys out in the country have guns, but here I think most New Yorkers prefer not to have guns. Do you really think for one second, that if I wanted a pistol that I couldn’t get one? Everyone in New York who wanted a gun could certainly get one somehow. As far as concealed carry? When was the last time you were stopped by a cop walking down the street? Never. The only possible time would be when they stop you for searching bags in the subway, but you can refuse that and leave.
New Yorkers don’t carry guns because, as holmes said, there simply isn’t a need to. When am I going to need a gun? In a stickup? Seriously? Those people just want your money. The minute you pull out a gun there’s an actual confrontation with way too many variables that I would rather not get into. And if it is some lunatic that wants to kill, are you better off returning fire or running? I’d go with option two, becuase it’s not the wild west. I’m not very confident in my quick draw abilities.
The point of all that is that Obama realizes that guns mean different things to different people. To the vast majority of people in the larger cities of the US they mean fear. In the rurual areas they mean freedom. You know, only 23 percent of Americans even own guns. I don’t think that we in the cities are being unreasonable to want stricter laws. I like our gun laws, and I’d bet a large percent of New Yorkers do too.
Obama’s race is what’s going to cause him to lose.
If I’m not mistaken Diogenes, I thought you’re very left-wing and therefore I imagine you’d be very unhappy with our current government and its numerous gross violations of our civil liberties and its quasi-fascist practices. I don’t get why so many liberals are against guns - these same people justifiably become outraged when the government infringes on all of our other civil liberties, but it’s OK with them that this same government has the monopoly on weapons? What the hell?
It was the “paranoid, gun fetish jack-offs” who founded this damn country in the first place by rebelling against the British. Why such contempt for the spirit of revolution?
I think a guerrilla insurgency against the U.S. government on its home turf would absolutely have a chance of winning. And once the government started using bunker busters and other stuff people have mentioned (if they did that at all) then huge segments of the military would be joining the insurgency because they don’t want to see their families get killed by the government.
And even if I couldn’t ever beat an oppressive regime, I’d rather die fighting.
Argent you see it is exactly that capacity for individuals upset over their perceptions of governmental misuse of power to use military type of action against “government” targets that scares so many of us, across the political spectrum.
Whether the quasi-military action is by Left wing or Right wing groups the result has been attacks on people, not just some nebulous neferious “government”. And people working for the government have died as a result in the past.
I would disagree with you that such was the original intent of an individual right to bear arms even accounting for that militia clause. And I would strongly disagree that such a capacity of individuals to mount a strenuous and significant attack on people who work for our government serves to discourage tyranny. I prefer the ballot box as a less ineffectual weapon. It is also a far from perfect tool but less imperfect than military force against those who work for us.
Is it possible for you to acknowledge that individuals can conclude differently than you on this subject without their being ignorant or ethically bankrupt?
We’re about to fix that, but regardless, I’m not insane or deluded enough to think a few whackjobs with hunting rifles and stockpiles of canned food are going to fight off the US Military.
I’m not against guns, I just don’t have much use for anti-government paranoia.
It was pointy-headed, elitist intellectuals who founded this country and the might of the US Military is just a tiny bit more advanced than the Red Coats and the Hessian mercenaries of old.
Spirit schmirit. Spirit means nothing against a fleet of Apache gunships. The way to properly express your spirit of revolution is through the Democratic process. Seriously, what are you going to replace America with that’s better than America?
This sounds like Tim McVeigh levels of fantasy and delusion. Maybe you didn’t learn this in school, but we ARE the US government. It is not some occupying army of stormtroopers. The Government is American citizens, 99.99% of which are honest, hard working cubicle drones like everybody else.
The idea that “The Government” is going to start mowing down American citizens is ridiculous. Anyone who gets a Bunker Buster dropped on their ass will have to have earned it.
I’ll tell you something else, I would take up arms in a heartbeat to defend the US against any bunch of deluded, militaristic whackjobs who want to attack it.
Out of curiosity, how is this guerilla war supposedly going to start? Who’s going to fire the first shot? Do you think there’s going to be a groundswell of support among the masses for revolution because they’re so incenced about concealed carry laws?
You know, the reason those kinds of laws get passed isn’t because the Man is trying to oppress you but because poliitcians in urban areas are responding to their constituents. People in a lot of cities are tired of rampant gun violence. The desire for gun control comes from the people, not from the government.
In error. Someone’s a recent New Yorker, or just not very aware of the world around them. Ol’ Mayor Rudy had a fun little roadblock program.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/crime/20020301/4/218
Stopped everyone, walkers and drivers alike. I know, my commute to work went through one that showed up every four-six months or so. And that’s just the citable version. Trust me, people get stopped and searched for no reason. Welcome to Rudy’s America. Heck, I bet you don’t even remember the recent Republican Convention where the cops busted demonstrators and people just walking by, threw 'em in jail, and then let 'em out.
You really think New Yorkers don’t carry guns? You don’t get to the bodegas much, do you? The cash businesses, where they have to walk cash to the bank at the end of the night, a couple grand a day or week? Sure, if it’s just your walking around cash, that’s one thing. But if it’s the receipts for a week for the store? Not so much.
So, one out of four people own guns. That’ll admit to it. I reckon a fair lot of them are in the city. With you. Next door. Down the hall. Down the block.
One out of four people near you may have a gun. Think about it.
Smile!
Argent, rather than continue the hijack about the Second Amendment, I’d like to suggest that as you decide which Presidential candidate to support, please consider what single-issue voting has done to the USA. I would contend it’s not good - regardless of which single issue is of concern.
For the OP - I saw Obama speak, and he is AMAZING. I agree with him on many policy issues. I read The Audacity of Hope and I thought it was well-written, extremely thoughtful, and downright kind to people and positions that Obama opposes. That is precisely the attitude we need in our elected officials if we are going to move past the attack-machine and 50-percent-plus-one-vote politics of the last several presidential terms. I get the feeling that Obama wrote his books largely on his own - which puts him far above JFK in that regard.
Voting for Obama is taking a chance - he’s relatively inexperienced. He could fall flat on his face, which is the polar opposite of what the USA needs right now. But he represents a break with politics as usual which is IMNSHO precisely what the USA needs right now.
On May 18th, the NYTimes published The Long Run – The Story of Obama, Written by Obama (free registration required), which I found very interesting. It says this about his first book:
The more I find out about him, the more I look forward to him being elected. 
No, that figure is 70 million AMERICANS own guns or 23 percent. I’m positive that in New York the numbers are lower. I haven’t lived here all my life that’s true, but you’re exaggerating things. BTW, this isn’t Rudy’s New York anymore either.
How do bodegas even figure into it? That makes no sense at all. I was talking about people who would potentially rob you, not those who use one to protect their business. I’m not going to rob someone trying to take money to the bank, so again, like 99 percent of New Yorkers, I don’t need a gun.
You make some points here, but it doesn’t do anything to prove that the average New Yorker wants handguns but can’t get them or carry them.
Finally, why are these bodega owners even going to the bank at night? You’ve never worked in a cash business, or at least you’ve never made deposits. If you’re going to wait all week to make the deposit, you sure as hell don’t go at night. There’s no need to. Do it in the daytime. If it’s safe enough to keep the money there all week, why not wait until the next day? Why hold the money all week and decide it has to be done after you close up on the last shift of the week? Makes no sense at all to me. I have made deposits for a bar I used to work for and we did it during the daytime. Kept the money in the safe all week.
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.