Gun control

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne

On the same hand, because the area isn't as expansive, I'd think that an entire population belonging to the butterknife Brigade could really push the government into rethinking stupidity if you all decided to put your foot down, do you think?

If we put our foot down, we can remove our government quite easily. We've done it before in the 70s when we voted a guy in and didn't like his style.
We bought Thatcher down when we decided that she had gotten too powerful in the early 90s. And Blair has to act quickly or we will do the same to him.
Our politicians can't hold onto power without our support.

But I don't see us rising up at the moment. We're watching and waiting to see what happens over the next 10 or so years. Our society doesn't seem bad enough to wage a war against our government or system at this time.

Most of us don't see a need to go for such a massive reform quite yet. Our system of democracy still works quite well, as there are safeguards in place that stop one man from gaining too much power.

The fact is that British politics seems to change very quickly, and add the multitude of small political parties who have the beginnings of a credible opposition to our three main parties and things don't really look so bad at all. Sure, sometimes we suffer for a couple of years, but it's easy to vote them out of power here if they mess with us.

Our system is decentralised to a certain degree and this is a major factor. This means that though the guys sitting in Downing Street makes a lot of decisions that affect my money, the day to day running of my town and my life is affected by people who live right next to me. Town councils are still of major importance and if I don't like something, I go down there and tell them. They're normally made up of councillers (politicians) from lots of partys and it's not unusual to see 6 different partys holding control of your town or city. Most of the time they will listen because they want to keep your vote away from the other guy.

Town councils in turn answer to County Councils. If my town council does something I don't like, I can always turn to them. Although they tend to be run more by one single party, they're normally the party in opposition to the main government. Because of their position against the governemtn they are a good way to use political power to your benefit.

Then you have Westminister itself. Blair is the main man here, but even so, he answers to select committees made up of different political parties. If he messes up they pull him back down to earth.
The good thing about our main parties is that they are always divided in themselves. People think that unity in a party is healthy. I see it the other way - if they're arguing with each other at least it means that they're thinking about the decisions that they are taking which affect the people.

Then to cap that, we have the Lords. The ultimate lawmakers. But they cannot pass a law unless it has been given to them by the government and the government cannot pass it in turn unless they accept it. They are our second to last line of defence against a dictatorship.

Finally we have the throne. The British crown controls the army. No prime-minister has ever physically rode into battle at the head of our army. Many of our Kings and Queens have. The Crown is the establishment. It is our history and our heritage. It also has the ability to block anything that it sees as being detrimental to the people of the UK. It's like the final safety net.


So you see, I reckon that we in the UK have a system in place, that although it can be abused for a short time, can never be abused for too long.

I don't yet need to pick up a gun to defend myself from my government. A pen that makes a cross in a box still holds enough power here.

The elections still sate the public here as well, and as long as the public ignores all the clear evidence of the truth, the power will continue to play by the rules.

If enough people were to wake up and learn what Jag knows, and then acts upon that knowledge, I really don't think the election booth will be enough. I think they'd have to make it clear to the citizen that they will answer for their straw men or else, as the ones in the ultimate positions of power will not tolerate the loss of money.

In the discussions in this thread, everyone has ignored my statement - gun registration and license laws do not apply to criminals - it is "self incrimination". You will be hard put to find any one charged with a violent crime to be also charged with violation of registration of license laws. Registration and licensing laws only apply to citizens not charged with any other crime. (If you rob a bank, you will not be charged with any gun registration law violation.) The problem with gun control, is the that liberals advocate this as a means of controlling violence in the USA rather than addressing the real problem - the decay of morality in the USA. If everybody in the USA believed in ethical moral behavor, you could have everyone walking around carrying .50 cal machine guns and it would be ok. I grew up an atheist, but never did ever question the validity of Christian ethics. I could make some snide remark and say there might be a correlation between the rise of violence in the USA and the decline of true believers in Christ.

don't restrict us. we won't stand for it. we can and will have our arms. tanks howitzers? maybe not, but why can't i go rabbit hunting with an AK? it's all good.

Guns are a way of personal soverignty. To trust the state with all the weaponry has kept people enslaved for millinea. In the old days, only nobles had weapons, thus, any pwoer to revolt by the peasants and serfs was pretty much non existant.

Im very pro gun. Gun control has done nothing to curb crime. Gun control is like taking the tigers claws from him so he cant hunt and fight and survive. A really totalitatiran idea.

Again, gun control was used by Hitler to keep rebbelions down to a minimum. Only people who rebbeled were the ones with guns.

In other words, people who support gun control support Hitler and Nazism.