Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech

I've heard that before Gunga but it's not right. I know that there are some fairly specious bits of so-called "information" about crime and firearms control in Australia zipping around the net but it's not accurate.
It's not a paradise of peace here by any means but with only 20 million people here you can see that crime (although the crime "problem" is always relative) isn't the biggest social problem we have.

But the two "gun buyback" schemes that we had were simply political stunts that had no real point to them (and I am pro-firearms control).

Old saying, " Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.."
I'm not sure if it means that words are not as harmful(physically) or If I just have a really thick skull...

Anyways, equating guns to freedom of expression seems rather a stretch to me. Plus as far as I can understand nobody is seriously questioning the first amendment and how does questioning the second amendment imply any lack of faith in the first. The framers never said that if you reject one notion you reject every notion. If that happens then you kind of defeat any amendment whatsover and your census procedure would still read

Article I section 2
" ..shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons."

this was modified by section 2 of the fourteenth amendment.

The point being that sometimes one needs change. Don't get me wrong Im not equating guns to discrimination, just pointing out that rejecting ideas and arguments just because they involve change is not necessarily always correct.

I'm pretty conservative on most issues, but guns are a sore point. When someone uses a gun to kill, he is using it for the purpose it is made for. Its not like a driving accident. Cars kill people when misused, guns kill when used as intended ..(for the sceptic..one doesn't hunt game with an automatic)..

Random and unorganized thoughts:
To test the equality factor between the First and Second Amendment, every Senator and Representative in the US Congress will be issued a 9mm automatic pistol. Anyone rising to speak in either chamber will hold his or her pistol in their hand. The effect should be clear.

I do not doubt for a moment the need for Condi's father and friends to arm themselves against the criminals in the Klu Klux Klan. It is an example of what the Constitution refers to as a militia. Of course, I'll bet the members of the Klan thought they were rising as a militia too, albeit one which rose to oppose freedom rather than to support it, but from the Klan's point of view they had a right to protect what they considered their rights. Dopes, dumb asses and creeps, they were pathetically wrong but still covered by the 2nd amendment which leads to the thought that maybe there needs to be a rationality test for gun ownership. Most Americans would fail such a test.

We're nuts when it comes to guns.


We are, Americans, the most trigger happy people on the face of the planet. Americans kill each other with guns at a rate greater than any other country. Why is that? Canada has as many guns per person, yet they do not shoot each other half as often as we do. Are we just that more efficient? Shooting someone is a terrifically efficient way of killing them, but still... .

And it's not just a drug problem that drives the GSW rate skyhigh. American shoot each other for all kinds of reasons or no reason at all. The kid in the Bronx the other day, shot dead by another kid, because he looked at someone the wrong way. There are any number of dead spouses today and yesterday and everyday in America. What? Are there no places to go to work things out?

Does anyone go postal anywhere else in the world or are we the only ones who shoot up our places of work? Girlfriend left you? Shoot her. And shoot the guy she's seeing now too. Got a beef with the local bar over the nightnoise? Shoot up the place, that'll quiet things down. Trying to promote your new CD? Take a crack at a couple of the guys standing around with your musical competition.

(Do musicians elsewhere kill each other as much as ours do?)

Are you trying to get to work and some jerk cuts you off AND then changes lanes again anyway? Well, roll up beside him or her and jack a pack through their side window. There will be peace in the valley afterall.

I don't we are mature enough to have the 2nd Amendment. I think the country needs to attend anger management classes for about fifty years and then we'll see about handing out the shotguns.

Oh and the age of ownership should be raised to fifty as well. Imagine if you could not have a gun till you were fifty, would you want one then?

Joe(If you say anything bad about me...I'll ...well, you know. )Nation

You know... there are nine other Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

The fact is that you all not only raise a questionable interpretation of the second Amendment to the level of Biblical truth, but you forget the other Amendments (with the possible exception of the tenth).

I would gladly accept the conservative interpretation of the second amendment if we could only be assured of the rights promised by the other nine.

P.S.

Condi Rice is an idiot.

Lol. Only evidence would be if our crime rate wer a lot higher, without these stupid guns. It isn't.

And we KILL far fewer of each other per capita - which is the major point.

So - we get no increase in crime and less people dead.

No brainer?
Of course - except to American gun nuts.

Rice rong.

Good luck arguing, Goodfielder - it is like attempting metaphysics with a crocodile with this lot when it comes to their precious guns.

Happiness is a warm gun....

God, ya gotta love that bunny!

Or shoot the damn thing.

Or both, it seems, if you're a Georgia farmboy - according to the anti-abortion redneck fella BVT was quoting somewhere.....


I do not so much mind when your gun folk keep their thoughts about the USA - but when they start telling other countries to start blasting the **** out of each other on a daily basis.....

I just got off the phone with Steve Irwin...he wants me to fly up and to bring a half a dozen Aristotles of Grange Hermitage...at least I think that's what he said

You doing it?

I'll spring for some James Hyland but I'm stuffed if I'll buy Grange Hermitage :wink:

Over-rated, in my view.

Oh - I have had it twice, so I am an ECXPERT!!! Lol!

Don't know what sort of propaganda you've been reading, but that isn't the way I read it at all:

http://www.guncontrolaustralia.org/
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=8073
http://home.pacbell.net/dragon13/aussies.html
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/NationalPost61504.html








etc. etc. etc.

Lol - look at your sources sweetie. Gun nut propaganda sites.

Oh - another interesting fact your sources will never point out.

We didn't use the damn things to defend ourselves with before the changes.

I have had Grange once (a colleague interstate was kind enough to order it at a dinner when I was in Canberra once). I've only had the Hyland twice but I prefer the latter. I know, at heart I'm a prole :wink:

Gunga try this one:

http://www.aic.gov.au

It's very good - impartial too, no sugar coating there and they do point out some troubling aspects of crime in Australia but I'd give those other sources a miss especially if they are quoting that "Australian Police officer" Ed Chenel. For a start I know all the cops in Australia and none of them are called Ed Chenel.

Okay I'm kidding about knowing all the cops in Australia but Ed Chenel is fictitious and so is the rubbish presented in his name.

Everything I've ever read everywhere indicates that crime has risen dramatically in England, and Australia since the imposition of gun control.. Do your own google searches and look at the first fifty items that turn up.

Gunga - it hasn't, in Australia at least. What you've read is either mistaken or propaganda.

In my jurisdiction we've had gun control for as long as I can remember and I've been a cop here for 35 years. I can tell you that we have had strong firearms control for all that time and more before I joined.

The average Australia doesn't give a rat's arse about guns. We don't carry them to go to the shops. We don't feel threatened without them. We go to the pub, to the cinema, get on the train or bus and come home and don't freak if we are not packing heat. Because no-one else is.

I don't carry a weapon off duty. The only time I ever did was when I was working in a particular outback station and several of us had a price on our heads. But that was only for a short while. Guns just don't figure here. Sure we have crime but as far as weapons are concerned they just do not appear in the thinking of Australians on an everyday basis.

Does anyone think that handgun ownership is covered by the 2nd Amendment? Not much militia work for the .22 .

Joe(or do just ignore the militia part?)Nation