Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the Senate's most conservative Democrat, is perhaps best known for the campaign commercials that helped get him elected. In 2010, about a month before the election, Manchin aired a spot featuring him carrying a rifle and literally shooting a hole through a cap-and-trade bill. The ad touts Manchin's endorsement from the NRA, which has given him an "A" rating.
With this background in mind, the senator's comments on MSNBC this morning were unexpected. "[I]t's time to move beyond rhetoric" on gun policy, Manchin said. "[T]his has changed the dialogue, and it should move beyond dialogue. We need action."
For those who can't watch clips online, Manchin, quite unexpectedly, said, "Anyone saying they don't want to talk and sit down and have that type of discussion is wrong," adding that he thinks NRA officials would be willing to "sit down and move in a responsible manner."
"Seeing the massacre of so many innocent children has changed everything," he said. "Everything has to be on the table." [...]
"I'm a proud outdoors-man and huntsman, like many Americans, and I like shooting, but this doesn't make sense," Manchin said. "I don't know anyone in the sporting and hunting arena who goes out with an assault rifle; I don't know anyone who needs 30 rounds in the clip to go hunting."
Did Friday's massacre change the nature of the public debate? Manchin's comments offer compelling evidence that it did. It's one thing for a center-left senator from a "blue" state to talk like this in the wake of a tragedy; it's something else altogether when an NRA ally from West Virginia echoes the sentiments.
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THE KEY
Introduction
Straight is the gate and difficult is the road that leads to life and only a few will find it. Matt 7:14 that doesn't mean that someone who does find the gate, can't point it out to everyone else. I believe I've found the gate and the key to opening it. I feel an obligation to pass this information on, to that end I'm writing this guide.
Because I have a lot of ground to cover and because of length, I can't give extensive examples. In order to appreciate this you're going to need to suspend disbelief and use your imagination.
First a few key elements that I'll be using throughout this guide;
Evil is the denial of love, Love is our true desire, the base motive is to stimulate the pleasure center of our brains, Love is infinite and that your mental state can only be directly experienced by you.
Dylan wrote "Good and bad I define these terms quite clear no doubt somehow", My Back Pages. I define evil as the denial of love, good by the way is the admittance of love but because we find ourselves in more of a negative state the definition of evil is the more useful tool.
How is evil the denial of love? Lets look at something we all have in common the need to make ourselves feel good. The basic motive for us to do anything is to stimulate the pleasure center of our brains. Now pleasure or for that matter pain in and of themselves are neither good nor evil they're neutral, they're just your body's way of getting you to do things that you need to do like eat or tend a wound. The sins of the flash angle comes in when you're engaging in pleasure just for the sake of pleasure. Why is this bad? Because it masks what we really want. I've asked this of many people what is it that people really want and the answer is always this, to love and be loved. So anything that takes us further away from our true desires we could say is evil or to use a less dramatic term counter productive.
Therefore because the pleasures of the flesh are short lived we need to keep repeating them and they become addictive. They stimulate the pleasure center the same way Love does, mimicking Love but Love is harder to come by and things tend to take the path of least resistance. A joint and a bag of Fritos is easier to come by than the love of your life so its very easy for those things to become substitutes for Love and replace Love and thus deny Love.
Here's a twist like I said before pleasure is neutral, its your motive that makes it good or bad. Are you creating a bond with or a wall between others? Does their happiness create joy in you or do you only care for your own happiness? All those things we were using as substitutes sex, drugs, food, money and so forth are only bad when used as substitutes. They were supposed to have been helps "let us make of their table a trap and what was for their welfare a snare", psalm 69:22. When affection and joy become what we seek first, then what were substitutes for Love will become adjuncts to Love.
I mention this last bit only because I know people won't readily give up what makes them feel good. I only seek to put them in their proper place, in service to Love instead of Love pushed to the side in favor of them.
There are two types of reality, the objective and the subjective, a single thing exists within each. In the objective reality that thing is easy to discern, its all around us, its matter. In the subjective reality the only thing that exists is Love. I say this based on the question asked above and my own desire to love and be loved. In fact our entire subjective reality is based on our positive and negative reactions to love.
The problems this world faces aren't really of an objective nature they're of a psychological nature. You see we've created a perfect negative reality. In this reality everything is bounded, limited, finite and because of that its every man for himself.
Greed is good here which would be ok if it were equally applied. You're all smiles when you take from me but when its your turn that smiles turned upside down. Stimulating the pleasure center of the brain using material wealth is also known as the profit motive here. This is where greed comes from, essentially its just people wanting to get high, using money to stimulate the pleasure centers of their brains. Its the same situation as above with the pleasure for pleasures sake, you have more than you need to survive while others have much less. Greed is not good because it creates an inequality.
A word on free enterprise. Free enterprise is desirable because it allows the individual to realize their dreams. If you have a good or service you wish to share with the rest of us you're free to do so. While with a centrally planned economy you're not so free to do so. The creation of wealth is not the primary reason for free enterprise, the creation of goods and services is, the creation of wealth is a side effect. This is analogous to the high marijuana gives because of the high it completely overwhelms the benefits of the plant itself. The same for capitalism the benefits are many but all we concentrated on was the creation of wealth to the exclusion of all else. Look at the blight its caused; global warming, habitats destroyed, wars, famine, poverty and the list goes on.
There are two biological imperatives the male and the female. The male imperative is to spread his DNA around as much as possible this is seen in many species including our own. The female imperative is to secure a mate to father and help raise her child again this is seen in many species including our own. In our species the male will subsume its imperative into the females as it makes more sense to put your energy into raising a child that you know exists rather than hoping you father a child.
These biological imperatives have led us to believe, what has become a bedrock, ingrained, been this way for thousands of years, core belief that we can only Love one person at a time. This isn't true. We have the capacity to Love many but our need to obey our biology holds us back.
A few things about Love; Love is a concept and is therefore infinite. Love is not an emotion, it causes emotions both good and bad. Love has no opposite. People will say hate but hate is just a combination of anger and frustration.
The aspect of Love we're concerned with is the idea that it is infinite. Let me ask you this; do you love your Dad 33%, your Mom 33%, your Brother/Sister 33% and the pet 1%? No you Love them all there's no amount to it, you may place more importance on one relationship over another but you love all the same.
We have believed that love is finite, that we could only Love one person and that we needed another person for us to be able to love in the first place. We have always been looking for proof that another loves us so that we can feel safe giving our love in return. We did all this because we were afraid of rejection and the pain it brings but it turns out we made a big deal out of nothing.
If you made it this far, here's where you need to pay attention, where you need to use your imagination. I need to ask you something, this is going to seem like a non-sequitur; can you read someone's mind? Can you directly experience their thoughts and emotions? We all know the answer to thin. No, no you can't. So if this is true and it is. Then who's thoughts and emotions can you directly experience, that's yours and only yours. So this being the case the only way you can ever feel any emotion, is when You feel them. So here's what I'm getting at, the only way you can feel the joy of Love is when You love. It doesn't matter if someone else loves you that has nothing to do with whether or not you feel love. All that's really happening when someone else expresses their love to you is that they're creating an environment in which you can chose to love. What I mean to say is Love comes from within and flows out, it doesn't come from the outside, the whole world could love you and you wouldn't feel it.
Ok we've touched on what takes us further from Love and some of the results of that. We've also described our present state and made an argument that we are the author of our happiness not others. That was the Key that opens the Gate now we just have to push it open but that's harder for some than others. The goal of all this is to achieve universal unconditional Love. At this point you're thinking well that's saptacular. I know that Love makes you feel weak and vulnerable, well it takes a certain strength to Love anyway.
Ask not what others can do to Love you but rather ask what you can do to Love others, ironically its letting others love you. Let me explain, you know how people say they like pets so much because pets give them unconditional love. It isn't because pets give us unconditional love, they do, its because they allow Us to give Them unconditional Love.
Unlike people, you can't just walk up to someone, put your hand out, let them sniff it, then pet them. They'll probably say something like, "What the Hell are you doing?" Then You say, "Giving you unconditional Love." and they all move away from you on the bench there.
As we can see from that example people aren't too forthcoming with their affection and that's the problem. To enter the gate we have to achieve universal unconditional love and to do that we have to figure out a way to be able to love everyone. The problem is we have coupled together our biological imperatives and love so closely we've been unable to separate them.
Our biological imperatives dictate that we choose our mates according to the most advantageous DNA combination, in other words what looks best. Combine this with needing to secure a mate to help raise the children. Thus you need to chose the best and because of this you get winners and losers and the positive and negative emotions I mentioned earlier. So those emotions are actually the result of our biological imperatives and not necessarily Love at all.
In fact Love transcends our biological imperatives in the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ugly is also in the eye of the beholder and that's the one we need to deal with. The Greeks said you couldn't Love an ugly person. I think the problem here is that beauty has positive feelings associated with it of a biological nature so its hard to tell which is which, if its Love or just sex. While ugly has negative feelings associated with it so its that much harder from a biological standpoint. Love transcends by ignoring what excites us biologically and instead concentrates on generating feelings of affection which override biological considerations. Consider how you Love your family or how that lady in that commercial Loves her pets its pure affection and nothing else.
Here's the critical thing we need to recognize that there are two separate areas of the body where the sexual feelings manifest and where the feelings of affection manifest. We say Love is in the heart because that's where the feeling of affection manifest. We need to recognize that the two are independent of each other. I don't need to feel Love in my heart to have sex and I don't need to be horny to have feelings of joyous affection for someone. Granted one can and often does lead to the other but it doesn't have to. In fact you can base your relationship on affection and you can indeed base passion off that affection and that's how you can Love an ugly person. So there Greeks.
So what this section boils down to is to transcend our biological nature and achieve universal unconditional Love we need to teach ourselves to seek joy and affection first, we need to ignore appearances and we need to create environments in which we and others can choose to love.
To build that environment the biggest thing we need to do is to over come fear. We fear what we can't control. In an attempt to allay our fear we try to control what we fear. The problem with this is when what we fear returns we're still afraid. The key to overcoming fear is to build trust to believe the thing we fear can't or won't hurt us.
A good example of something a lot of people are afraid of are bats. People think they swoop in get caught in your hair and lay eggs, they're mammals so they don't lay eggs but that's the popular notion. Once I learned that they're only looking for mosquitoes when they fly over your head I was never bothered again, in fact I thought it was pretty cool. I overcame the fear by trusting in their echo location skills.
I think our biggest fear and the biggest barrier to achieving universal Love is that we might lose our current source of love wife/husband boyfriend/girlfriend if we extend our Love to others. Won't they get jealous? Well the only reason you get jealous is because of the idea that we can only love one person at a time so if you love someone else then you must not love me anymore. I've made the argument before I'll make it again; Love is an idea and like any other idea its infinite. If I give Love to you I don't have less and you have more we both have Love.
To overcome jealousy we need to trust that those we love will continue to love us even as they branch out and include others in their Love as well. We have to be free to Love who we will not everyone completely completes everyone else. In other words as long as I know you will continue to love me as well, I can feel joy in your other relationships rather than pain and sorrow.
What do I see happening from all this? Where before Love was just between two people now I can see it creating a web of relationships. Where before there was drama, tears, bitterness and rage now laughter, joy, affection and elation.
I can see us enjoying being responsible and helpful. Because Love comes from within and is therefore infinite it is far superior at stimulating the pleasure center I.e. our motive for doing anything. It is because of this reason we have a reason to exhibit altruistic behavior. In other words an act of Love will cause joy in you because you know it could bring joy to others. Even if what you do is in secret and no one but you knows you did anything, you still get the reward of joy in your heart. I call this the self centered path to altruism.
An act of Love doesn't have to be a big gesture it can be as simple as a wave or a smile or going over and visiting with a neighbor and helping them out if they're doing something. Knowing that the only way to feel the joy of love is when you Love gives you reason to do Loving things.
Ok one more thing I see changing from all this is our basic motive for working. Right now it's the profit motive. This motive is basically to secure your basic survival needs then past that things to make you happy. In other words things to stimulate the pleasure center of your brain. As we all know there's only so many of these things to go around and there's never enough and there can never be enough and there never will be.
I can see a new basic motive to work I'll call it the Love motive. Our motive is to do our best because we wish to share our best with our fellow man. In other words you work out of the goodness of your heart and not because you have to but because you want to. Or you may want to work just because that's where the people are. Before people would do the bare minimum, cut corners, not clean up after themselves all in the name of profit. In the world with Love as the motive people don't worry about what they get to get, they worry about what they get to give.
In conclusion during the 60's when all the talk of Peace and Love first showed up in force we thought it was going to change the world but that didn't quite happen. The reason was that while the ideas where there, the execution wasn't. Sex and drugs overwhelmed the ideals, unfortunately you can't do what's right until you can fix what's wrong. The Woodstock generation has been wandering the wilderness for over 40 years now its time to enter the promised land.
To paraphrase a lyric from "Saturday in the Park" "Will you help me change the world, can you dig it, well if you can."
If you decide to go for it and to hell if the world thinks we're nuts then help me spread this around.
Here's a few ideas:
Start an e-mail chain that promises that if you send this to 3 other people plus the ass that sent it to you in the first place. your local grocery store will start selling those cheap lemon sandwich cookies again sometime in the foreseeable furture.
Post this on all your favorite websites under an assumed name.
Trick your fiends into reading this by telling them look at the crap this crazy bastard wrote.
Evil is the Denial of Love makes a nice slogan. Its use on mugs. Hats, banners, tattoos on various parts of the body, cocktail napkins is strictly endorsed as long as I get my cut.
Alert the media wake the neighbors call your friends do something this is importantish.
And if you only do one thing make sure to change your mind because that's all you have to do.
Scott B. Kerrick
Do you write for Dr. Bronners?
People who paste to comment boards are not real. This is not your avenue, it belongs to people who have something to say, not something to sell. We will wait for your heartfelt apology for trying to use this venue for your own agenda...
Try the WSJ or the Post
This is not a one-size-fits-all comment area. You aren't contributing to the actual conversation; go away.
tl:dr
You fit the profile.....
I'm sorry for posting this here I thought this was a liberal community and that equaled opened minded. Apparently if it isn't words you want to see they are words without merit. I await your apology for your smug self righteousness try reading my words before you assume they have nothing to say. as for selling something do you see a price tag? I am giving away something of great value free of charge all you have to do is stop being an asshat and read it. Good day sir and good reading I hope you have the imagination and the brain cells to rub together to understand what you've read.
The tragic deaths of 20 children and 6 adults in the deadly shootings Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Ct. have once again brought politicians out of the woodwork to argue the issue of gun control. This issues like many others has been debated forever without either side being able to come up with a solution that would satisfy most Americans. With that being said I think there is another issue that needs to be addressed and that is the amount of children we put on Anti depressants and other medications because they happen to be a little more hyper or not as well behaved as other children. We live in a society now that chooses to medicate these kids rather them deal with them. Most of these tragic events were committed by people who were on Anti depressant medications. We have to questions the pharmaceutical companies who constantly push these medications and the doctors they pay to prescribe them to our children.
I grew up in an apartment with 8 brothers and 2 sisters and by today's standard we would have all been diagnosed with ADHD. My parents would never think we had a mental condition when we were horsing around, they knew we were kids doing what kids like to do, have fun. If we would go to far my mom and dad would not give me a pill to calm me down but the might give me one for the pain in my head after they slapped me upside it. That normally worked, Today a lot parents are afraid to discipline their children thinking if they do someone will call the cops and they will end up in jail and their kids removed from the household. There are also some parents who think medicating there kids is easier than dealing them, these parents owe it to their kids to work with them.
We always talk about the war on drugs in this country and it is always focused on drugs such as Cocaine, Heroin and Marijuana. I propose we declare a war on prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical companies who do whatever they can to get them prescribed and the doctors who give them out like lollipops rather then spending the time to figure out if there really is a problem. There is no profit in a cure but there is significant profit in continued treatment .
The sad thing is that the politicians these days can't solve the simplest of issues and when all the outcry for change subsides they will go back to doing nothing. We will not here from them again until another tragedy occurs and they come out of the woodwork acting shocked and surprised that it happened again.
I am as big a cannabis activist as there is, but I would be dead without my blood pressure medication, literally dead. It gets tiresome hearing people paint entire swaths of America into neat little packages. So I give thanks to the folks who invented a way to get my blood pressure under control, those pharma folks you loathe...
Mr. Holohan, with all due respect, that it a bunch of baloney. I'll bet any money that you do not have a child who needs those medications. I do.
I am not an irresponsible parent attempting to drug my child into a zombie. I maintain good discipline with my kids, but I have a teenager with ADD and depression who has been through therapy of various sorts since he was 7. I did careful research, resisting the meds for a very long time, until it became clear that they were the only good option left. And you know what? They work. My son would be unable to function in a classroom without them, and I am thankful they are available. I assure you that they are in no way an "easy" way out. He wishes every day that he didn't have to take them, but he also recognizes that without them, he is unable to be a productive member of society.
I suggest you stick to whatever disciplines you may have some expertise in, because adolescent medication assuredly is not one of them.
You are an idiot. Had my brother been forced to take his medications, he wouldn't have gone out driving with a .22 blood alcohol and maxed out on cocaine (his self-medication for dealing with the voices in his head) and gone up on the off-ramp to meet an 18-wheeler head-on. The only good thing to be said was it was instantaneous according to the coroner.
But the testimony of his family members about his crazy behavior was "non-expert anecdotal hearsay" according to several mental health "professionals" and a judge, so there was no way anyone could make him take the medication that would have stopped the voices and kept him alive.
You don't just suffer from ADHD. You are a fooking drooling moron.
It’s easy to bemoan what looks like overdiagnosis of ADD, but speaking as someone who has it, and has had it for all of my 40 years, I can tell you it’s a big deal. I have the inattentive kind, and my whole life I grew up believing I was just a lazy bum. I was lazy. I was careless. I was irresponsible. I just didn’t care. I was flaky. I was spacey. I was an airhead. That sticks with you.
Nobody diagnosed me until two years ago, and I’m still trying to learn how my own brain works, and how I can use it in a way that doesn’t undermine me. I take medicine for it now, but the wounds from all those years before my diagnosis have made it hard to overcome this even with the medicine. I still can’t do many things most people never give a thought to. I wonder how much more functional I would be today if people had known more about this when I was little, and if I’d gotten some kind of medicine when I was in grade school. For all I know, there are some children taking ADD medicine who don’t really need it. But for the ones like me, who do need it, it may well head off a life of frustration, self-doubt and depression. Hallelujah!
The tragic deaths of 20 children and 6 adults in the deadly shootings Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Ct. have once again brought politicians out of the woodwork to argue the issue of gun control. This issues like many others has been debated forever without either side being able to come up with a solution that would satisfy most Americans. With that being said I think there is
another issue that needs to be addressed and that is the amount of children we put on Anti depressants and other medications because they happen to be a little more hyper or not as well behaved as other children. We live in a society now that chooses to medicate these kids rather them deal with them. Most of these tragic events were committed by people who were on Anti depressant medications. We have to questions the pharmaceutical companies who constantly push these medications and the doctors they pay to prescribe them to our children.
I grew up in an apartment with 8 brothers and 2 sisters and by today's standard we would have all been diagnosed with ADHD. My parents would never think we had a mental condition when we were horsing around, they knew we were kids doing what kids like to do, have fun. If we would go to far my mom and dad would not give me a pill to calm me down but the might give me one for the pain in my head after they slapped me upside it. That normally worked, Today a lot parents are afraid to discipline their children thinking if they do someone will call the cops and they will end up in jail and their kids removed from the household. There are also some parents who think medicating there kids is easier than dealing them, these parents owe it to their kids to work with them.
We always talk about the war on drugs in this country and it is always focused on drugs such as Cocaine, Heroin and Marijuana. I propose we declare a war on prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical companies who do whatever they can to get them prescribed and the doctors who give them out like lollipops rather then spending the time to figure out if there really is a problem. There is no profit in a cure but there is significant profit in continued treatment .
The sad thing is that the politicians these days can't solve the simplest of issues and when all the outcry for change subsides they will go back to doing nothing. We will not here from them again until another tragedy occurs and they come out of the woodwork acting shocked and surprised that it happened again
One of the problems with "disciplining our children" is that we have associated discipline with spanking or scolding. The word "discipline" means: "training that is expected to produce a specified character or pattern of behavior" from the American Heritage Dictionary. Real discipline is positive and not negative. Too many parents do not teach their children positive behaviors; they only correct negative behavior. The child, who wants and needs attention, soon learns that the only way to get attention is to mis-behave.
Our whole culture has become too negative. We have just been through a political campaign during which candidates at all levels and in both parties attacked one another, sometimes in vicious and personal ways. Our entertainments are based on killing and violence.
We must demand that not just our laws but our whole culture guides us all toward love and peace instead of toward hate and war.
Mr. Kerrick -- Sorry. Yours is just another sermon we don't need. And this is not the community that needs to hear it.
Do something, don't just stand there!
I saw some notes this weekend that were recorded as "comment collapsed by the community". I can see how we can vote to recommend a comment, but not one to mark it as spam/ off topic/ offensive.
How do we vote for collapsing a comment? Or is this done by moderators?
John -- By clicking on the exclamation mark on the bottom right of the comment's rectangle. I don't know what number of such actions lead to a "collapse by the community" -- some sum of "inflammatory" and/or "no value", probably -- but one can always choose "ignore" as a measure to retain one's individual sanity, if not that of the community.
But I'd guess I'm saying something you already knew! You're a long-term voice of sanity here.
Oh thanks helena. My eyesight is giving out. I thought I saw it before, but thought maybe the feature had been removed, or I was imagining things again.
"Sorry. Yours is just another sermon we don't need. And this is not the community that needs to hear it.
Do something, don't just stand there"
I'm sorry that my post seems out of place. I guess my post would seem like a sermon to someone who thinks the way this world is, is just fine. Everything is going great no one is starving, innocent children aren't being gunned down everything's just fine there's no need for sermons. Maybe for the hard hearted there aren't but for the rest of us we could use a good sermon.
this is a liberal community isn't it? Isn't the basic liberal philosophy we're all in this toghether that's what love is about isn't it? My post is about Love not religeon even though I did start it with a bibile verse is that what put you off? well don't throw out the baby with the bath water. I posted this here because i thought I'd give this community the first crack at this.
this time read the thing I need some real feed back like did I fail to make a link did I fail to make an argument where do you need it fleshed out.
you can uncolapse it by clicking on colapsed by the community. I'll thank for your feedback
" I don't know anyone who needs 30 rounds in the clip to go hunting."
"With all due respect" Senator, THAT depends upon what you are hunting.
How many single shot rifles are featured in the video games that have become training aids for the psychotic among us?
Few or none. But at least one popular one starts you out with a bolt-action rifle and 5-round clips. Of course as you "win" you are "rewarded" with higher-capacity, more lethal hardware.
This has got me re-thinking everything I've let my kids play with, including Nerf dart guns and BB guns.
Well, they would say they are entitled to big clips for target practice. Manchin seems to be expressing a rural view of guns that many liberals do not seem to understand. That is perhaps why Manchin's sentiments may seem to come out of the blue.
About 15 years ago, my home in a rural area of Washington state was hit by semi automatic weapons fire. Some yahoos from the city went out to an apparently deserted logging area and started shooting some semi automatics like nuts- steady shooting- like pop pop pop pop- on and on and on. I was thinking they'd tire of it or go broke from ammo costs, but this seemed like a bi weekly ritual for a while. What they didn't know was that my house was nestled in some dense woods downrange from them. So the Sheriff showed up looking at me in my hippie appearance of that period- marking me for a city moron getting overexcited about a little gunfire and was extremely reluctant to do anything about it until he saw the slug embedded in the wood under my bedroom window. They went out to the field and talked to them. I heard later from the deputies that the guys were extremely intoxicated, but were happy to point their weapons in a different direction. If the guys were driving cars, they'd be arrested. Although the deputy and I were divided when he first showed up at my house, I said some things my grandfather would say about such irresponsible handling of weapons and the deputy and I was nodding grimly. Part of it was I was memeing washington rural upbringing themes, but it is a zone that where there is strong intolerance of certain kinds of gun behavior. I have no idea if this has anything to do with West Virginia thinking, but Manchin's sentiments seem very familiar.
I am fifth generation Washingtonian who grew up in the woods and the way guns are generally regarded out in the country is how one would regard something like a chain saw. This is why most NRA members think registration is a good idea, and maybe it is the sort of mindset that Manchin is expressing. Maybe those who haven't been around guns in rural areas don't get this but the perspective is different than the one about gun as protection from bad guys or gun as a political liberty emblem. It's just gun as tool to get meat, or as part of the nature bonding mental discipline of tracking and hunting prey. It's not about proving manliness against defenseless Bambis- really I personally don't advocate hunting at all, but there is a great deal of misunderstanding about Point of View of what I would call true hunters. Anyway, regardless- it is Gun as tool- like how a craftsman regards someone who uses a a perfectly good chisel to pry open paint cans. It is cringe inducing. But more, there is this idea about responsibility and respect for the tool- a level of disgust for yahoos who think of weapons as a cheap way of buying your way into manhood, or as some sort of toy, or something that can be used without much respect for the carnage it can wield.
That's where a lot of support for registration comes from- the sort of disgust in rural areas for behavior like with the drunks out there at the start of deer season who are as much menace to themselves as they are to others.
I have a couple of 5 shot capacity Winchester pump action shotguns. There is a wooden plug in the magazine, limiting them to three shells. Been in there since the 1930's. Because of federal waterfowl hunting laws.
Many (Most?) states limit hunting rifles to 5 cartridges in the magazine.
AND AIN'T NOBODY WANTING/PLANNING TO TAKE THOSE GUNS AWAY!
Who was that VP who shot his companion in the face with his shotgun... What was that guy's name. I think someone wanted to take the shotgun out of his hands after that.
Lawrence O'Donnell at the time made the case that the VP refused to talk to any authorities for 16 hours because he was drunk.
Fricking idiot.
VP was Dick Chaney.
Exactly! I remember when the first "first person shooter" game came out and people were shocked. Now they are 60% of video games. The Army uses them to desensitize soldiers to the idea of shooting at human targets, and to increase their accuracy. Does this not also work with civilians? I for one think there is a definite connection between these games, the general desensitization of the society to violence, and the increase in these kinds of incidents.
Lol yes, let's not let our kids play video games, they might become psychotic killers. Or even worse, a politician! You know I've never met someone who played fps and wound up buying a gun because "oh kewl I can kill now." I'll keep playing my CoD, my BF, my WoT, and working on my physics studys. Danke.
In fact the only people like that I have met, are the people already with them, particularly rednecks,(and I dont mean that derogatorily, I just live in Florida)
Ding-ding-ding-ding!! Correct. I've been to a couple of gunshows here in Montana. It's not my thing, but I tagged along with a friend. While there were a few collectible type guns on display, the majority of the people there were survivalist types and the guns they were buying were "people-killers."
If you don't like what's happening in the government, we have a remedy called elections. And if you don't like those, either, move somewhere else. This is not an "every-man-for-hisself" country, so don't make it into one.
It would seem that Adam Lanza's mother was a survivalist. Her guns do not seem to have made her safe; they were used to kill her. The owner of the guns used in this terrible crime was the first to die, by her own gun.
That is a great counterpoint bflynch, thanks. This woman bought into the irrational fear (stoked by those who would profit of course) of the survivalist mentality; one has to arm themselves to the teeth to protect against any number of boogeymen - home invasion, Armageddon, tyrannical government, etc.
The cold hard truth is that she was murdered with the very guns that were to theoretically protect her. This is the most likely result of people owning such weaponry in the home. More often than not, they are victims of violence by their own guns.
Murder is already illegal. More gun laws only protect criminals. Let's not forget that 20 children in a school in China were murdered by one man with a knife this very week.
None of the children in China died. Countries with strong gun laws have fewer gun deaths. This is a FACT!
The 22 children in China were not murdered. And that is a sufficient rebuttal to the endlessly repeated and demonstrably false claim that "more gun laws only protect criminals."
Get your facts right. Not one of those kids in China died, probably because the guy did not have access to a gun. All he could use was a knife. Some kids were hurt, but no fatalities.
None of the children in the Chinese attack died.
None of the children who were stabbed in China died.
Let's not forget to check your facts before posting. 22 children were hurt, some seriously, in China, but the biggest difference is all of them survived the knife attack.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/12/22-kids-slashed-in-china-elementary-school-knife-attack/
You got it wrong. 20 children were stabbed, but they did not die. It is easier to protect yourself from fatal wounds from a knife than a gun. Only 3 of the children needed hospitalization. Neither is acceptable, but at least those Chinese children are alive.
Not going to bother countering the first part because I don't have any statistics or figures on hand to say otherwise, but if you're going to use the China example at least get the facts right. No children died from the knife attack, which would make it a poor example to back up your claim.
Countries with less food have fewer deaths from obesity. Is that a rational statement?
IS it OK that the children in China were only wounded? How about box cutters? Seems to be that several thousand Americans lost their lives in a single day because of box cutters.
IS murder illegal? Is that law being sufficiently enforced?
Is the speed limit 70mph? Do we sell cars that travel faster than that?
Does drunk driving cause deaths? Do we sell alcohol to people with drivers licenses?
Do we need prescription pain killers? Don't people use them illegally to their own detrement and the detrement of all around them?
All of these things are illegal. Laws don't prevent crime.
At the base, Morality prevents crime.
u are incorrect sir, .. 22 children were "wounded" NOT 1 of them has died....!!!
Do strawmen like straw?
Do strawmen use straw?
Do alfalfa farmers encourage strawman arguments because of the use of straw?
Does the price of straw rise after gun massacres?
So silly, RationalFather. So many things wrong with your statement it's not worth responding to. Just one thing to remember: the Mosaic tradition's Ten Commandments are a set of prohibitory laws.
look how many people concentrate on none of the Chinese kids dying in their attack, missing the whole point that if all the guns int he world are gone a mad man will use what weapon is available to kill next, crazy people are crazy! American's having guns have kept a lot of unscrupulous countries and Senators from taking all our rights and freedom away and this will NEVER change.
This is the lesson you take from the most clear-cut comparison you can get in the real world? Where in one case a mentally unstable person attacked children with a knife and none of them died and in the other case a mentally unstable person attacked children with semiautomatic guns and all of them died? Honest to God? Wow.
Dave: Your "freedom" trumps kids getting killed? Good luck explaining that to people outside your box...
In 2011, 11 Amish were killed in a single accident by a Semi-Truck in Mumfordville KY.
Let's ban those too.
The trucks or the Amish...whichever you prefer.
Mmmm, some of those things should be looked at. Just like gun control.
Rational father you seem to becoming a bit irrational. You're statements at first were incorrect, everyone is incorrect. Your second statements are false in these areas. Obesity doesn't kill, complications from obesity do, and children die from starvation everyday in countries without as much food, hell they die from starvation here as well. Yes, speed limits are not strongly enforced, until someone dies, and often laws are changed to prevent it from happening again. The boxcutters killed many, but laws were changed and tighter security was put into place. We register our cars and have limits on what they are capable of. Americans are coming together and saying some new limits need to be put on guns, why do we need automatic weapons with thirty or more rounds in them? We need limits on what guns are capable of, we need everyone of them registered, checked, and inspected every few years. If one is missing we will then know about it, if the gun is faulty, we will about it. Just like automobiles, guns need to be insured by the owners for any "accident" that occurs with it. If you cannot afford insurance then you cannot afford the gun.
so the Chinese man should have taken a tip from OJ and plunge the knife or slash the juggler? weak at best.
I don't know where to start debunking IrrationalFather. Frankly I don't have it in me anymore. You can't fix stupid, and you can't reason with this type of person.
He's a walking, talking, and in this case typing, poster boy for the gun lobby. It's time we marginalized people like him.
We as a country are better than this and we should not allow a minority of mind-numbingly stupid, irrational, paranoid, and cowardly people who haven't outgrown their pubescent GI JOE fantasies to dictate the gun policy that effects hundreds of millions of people.
I can't wait for the day when people like him are finally made obsolete by the evolution of humanity. I won't be around, but one can hope.
Citizen, I feel your pain. You're right that the essential issue has to do with reason. The type of "arguments" (scare quotes required) that are put forth show every logical fallacy you care to name, but all he and his kind do is double down. Which means this isn't about reasonable discourse. It's about a fetish. It'd be much better if their fetish wasn't so lethal, and if a powerful lobby didn't exist to normalize the fetish, but that's where we are. We have to just go over their heads.
Well, lets see...... I'm "silly", "irrational", "stupid", "paranoid","cowardly" "pubescent"and I should be "marginalized and made obsolete".
BTW: "paranoid " doesn't really hold up as an accusation when you publicly state that I should be "marginalized and made obsolete".
You should probably go get a rope and lynch me.
Your name calling has been very effective, I bow to your obviously superior intellect.
Conservative troll resorts to victomhood angle, fillm at 11...
The dude does not abide. I'll pass on the 11 o'clock show.
The meaning of this for the individual US citizen is: It's time to buy a gun if you don't have one.
What???!!!
No amount of insanity on the part of my fellow citizens will force me to become a gun-toter, complicit in every such gun-enabled, criminal act of violence.
I can only hope your comment was a <snark>.
If you want to protect your home from criminals, get a large dog. Preferably black, for they look more threatening. Loud, territorial dogs are a far more effective deterrent against intruders. Criminal do not break into houses to steal dogs for use in crimes elsewhere, but they do target homes with guns.
If you think any guns you can buy will allow you to lead an insurrection against your local, state, or the federal government, save your money for mental health treatment. You and your buddies cannot compete with the manpower, training, and firepower available to even the smallest state police force.
If you want to hunt or target shoot, get a gun appropriate for the task. No one needs more than 6 rounds a clip to hunt or target shoot (in fact, needing 6 rounds to hit your target is pathetic), and one would be hard pressed to justify anything beyond a single action weapon.
idiot! for being enlightened you're pretty stupid.
And you're pretty illiterate!
At least my remark is accurate!
Thanks Dave for demonstrating that if you people had to pass an IQ test to own a gun, none of you would be buying any.
was I talking to you? no! so mind your own business.
Dave or Doug,
Please cite an instance of someone breaking into a house and stealing a dog from that house in order to use that dog in another crime.
Guns are stolen from homes in this country every year, and many of them are later used in the commission of crimes.
Once you have addressed the above, we can move on to the probability of either of you surviving a confrontation with a SWAT team or National Guard rifle company.
Also, Dave should look up the word "seeking" in any English language dictionary.
John seeking Enlightenment, I think you are asking too much of Dave. I appreciate the civility of the effort, however.
The murdered mother of Adam Lanza had plenty of weapons to protect her. She was murdered with them. This is the cold hard fact of the matter. More guns in the home only increase the chances of gun violence.
If you want to be thoroughly disgusted, take a look at the Bushmaster ad; wherein they say "Consider Your Man Card Reissued."
http://www.bushmaster.broco.com/mancard/
Apparently manhood is about killing.
Note that the Bushmaster claims to be the world's best "commercial AR-platform rifle."
AR stands for Assault Rifle. And there's the basic truth right there. An ASSAULT RIFLE is not for hunting. It's for ASSAULT.
There is no Constitutional right for us to ASSAULT each other.
----------------
As for "Manhood." Pfffft. I know a lot of hunters, but I don't know one who would take a 30-round magazine out deerhunting. The "real" men use a bow, or a muzzleloader, because it takes more skill.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Where in there does it say anything about hunting? The purpose of the second amendment was to protect the individual right to bear arms; in no way does it define what arms are. It's implied (and logic and common sense dictates) that those who would exercise this right would need to be able to do so with like tools that an opposing force would have. I get sick and tired of people trying suggest otherwise. Such people have no sense of history, national or otherwise as to why this BASIC right had better not be infringed upon.
Like tools that an opposing force would use: If the opposing force has scud missiles, should we all have the right to own a few scuds? Part of the problem with the second amendment is that when it was written the most lethal weapon was a single shot muzzle-loader or a single shot cannon.
SpinFree - the Second Amendment was added was to protect against the risk that the federal government would use its army to overpower the states. Each state wanted to be sure it could defend itself against that. That has nothing to do with each citizen being free to terrorize others
It's high time we had a rational discussion about the context of the 2nd amendment.
When it was written, most Americans hunted for food. We had to protect ourselves from native attacks. Europe had been at war for centuries, and the founders understood the need for citizens to be able to defend themselves against armies that may come to occupy the new world. We at the time were occupied by an army, and they had no idea of knowing what may happen if the Germans, or French, or whoever, decided to invade North America. Also, they had no way of knowing how stable our new government would be so they felt the need to provide for well armed militias.
Times have changed. We have to talk about how we are going to handle our gun problem in the 2st century, in a 21st century context.
I don't think we're going to have that conversation, because the most rational response both to that history and to the plain text of the amendment would be a call for its supercession by a new amendment. Everything about the amendment is rooted in an 18th-century America (we don't have well-regulated citizen militias, and therefore have long since ceased to believe they are necessary for a free state). We are by no means ready for that acknowledgement. Maybe when the hot item on the gun show circuit is a hand-held phaser that can vaporize whole blocks.
http://signon.org/sign/this-is-no-longer-an?source=c.url&r_by=461303
Manchin thinks NRA officials would be willing to "sit down and move in a responsible manner."
With thinking often goes delusions and false optimism grounded not in reality.
It is encouraging that someone like Senator Manchin is now supporting having the gun control dialog. I heard that even Rupert Murdoch spoke out for gun control. Too bad he can't speak out for Faux News control.
Never seen innocent children massacred? Did you forget Waco? I don't blame you.
And they have changed the way they handle these things because of it. If you don't learn from your mistakes, you are destined to repeat them
Apples and oranges. And the actual reason those poor children in Waco died? Guns. Illegal guns. Guns that a gun nut was willing to kill ATF agents over rather than explain in court the cults possesion of. I would say nice try, if it was...
Waco was a total @!$%#up,....they should have NEVER tried to take him by force at what they KNEW was a heavily fortified compound,...howeasy would it have been to catch him in town,..then take him out to compound to search ?....a total cluster@!$%# that cost needless lives of law enforcement as well as u s citizens..
Consider, if you will, the United States as a living organism with a variety of issues that contribute to these horrible incidents and can lead to its self-destruction. Part of any conversation and ultimate well being needs to focus on recognizing, acknowledging and changing the violent and divisive cultural and societal issues that feed it, and strengthen and empower the political will and spiritual energies that protect and heal. Hopefully, Senator Manchin's comments will inspire others of his political views to do that.
No, nothing has changed. Shut up.
The kid's mother was psychotic and regularly posted about killing her son; no one in the school had a gun to shoot the criminal; and numerous studies show that restricting gun ownership leads to more violence.
Sit down and shut up.
So you feel you must resort to lying and intimidation? Wow. Shed a tear for a gun nut, it must suck when you know you are both wrong and unhinged...
Thanks for the further demonstration of the fact that if the law required you idiots to pass an IQ test to own your penis replacements, we wouldn't have a gun problem in this country.
What studies are you talking about Evan? Let's see them
Never in my wildest dreams did I think it could happen here.
I said those words on Hallowe’en, 1993. While my daughter was Trick or Treating in our lovely, middle class neighborhood, one of her middle school classmates shot and killed another amidst the hobos and superheroes and fairies walking door to door. It happened on Cherry Street. Never in our wildest dreams did we think it could happen there.
My wise teaching partner scolded me. “Who do you think you are?” he asked. Kids are killed on the streets every day. How dare you feel indignant?
He was right. My ability to afford a home in a picturesque neighborhood didn’t entitle me to immunity from the violent world of youth and gangs.
I was angry with him. “If we don’t stand up and say ‘No, not here” why should we expect it to stop?” I argued
I was right.
But we didn’t stand up.
And since then there have been many. many, major and minor Cherry Streets in this country.
Is it time to stand up now?
It is disgusting that the slaughter of sweet looking white first graders is causing public figures and media to stand up and say “No, not here” when they have been silent, or worse, in the face of the slaughter of high school students, mall shoppers, theater goers and kids on urban streets.
In 1999 we said, “We are ALL Columbine”. Are we? Show me. Stand up.
STANDUPSTANDUPSTANDUPSTANDUPSTANDUPSTANDUPSTANDUPSTANDUP
If anything good can come of the senseless deaths of 20 children, maybe it will be this; the hold of the NRA over Washington has been forever broken, never to be the same again.
Actually a true "assault weapon" is an automatic, not semi-automatic and they are illegal to possess other than by police etc. But when they say AR "platform" I am assuming they mean the LOOK of an assault rifle and therein is the real issue i think. The rifle used was, in design, no different than a semi automatic deer rifle. It was actually of smaller calibre I think. But my point is, these deranged shooters have a purpose but they have a fantasy or a style too. noone uses a deer rifle with a wood butt, which would have been more dangerous than what he used. He used that rifle because it was convenient , but more so, because it looked like a soliders gun. It's the same reason he wore black fatiques. why the hell would you need black fatiques? It is all part of the acted out fantasy. So there is a relatively simple approach to these gun bans. You can keep your right to own a semi-automatic for protection but outlaw that Assault Rifle "platform" or "look" that these guys seem to insist on.
Gee, does the 30 round magazine have anything to do with this... Thats nonsense to try and compare a deer hunting rifle with an AR, just as it is nonsense to claim you need an assault rifle to "protect yourself". The only "fantasy" left is you gun nuts thinking you are going to get through this unscathed...
careful you're about to start drooling... I know you are salivating at the thought of taking the "evil" guns away but calm down.....
I do not know of any deer rifle that takes a 30-round clip. And you are right, that nobody uses a .22 rifle for deer hunting, which is essentially the same calibre as the .223 used in the Bushmaster and the AR-15.
However, it's all in the ammunition--how many grains, full-metal jacket, etc, which determine the lethality (and legality) of the ammunition. And more to the point, really, is that it is more effective when trying to kill mass numbers of people (rather than one deer) to have more rounds than to have bigger rounds.
I do agree that the "style" or "look" of the Bushmaster is a factor in it's appeal to a certain segment of the population. However in this case form follows function in that it is very lethal for it's size and weight. Wooden stocks are heavy.
My point is , if the argument is the right to bear arms, I believe you can, for your home, have as lethal a gun to protect yourself without having one that looks like it came out of a Stallone movie. and it is that look, along with the fatiques etc that is part of the fantasy these people are living out. It's sort of like making a squirt gun that looks just like a real one. Just do away with that assault rifle look and I think you would reduce alot of this. Would it still happen? yes but they would have stood a better chance I think , agaisnt those 2 hand guns than with the rifle and the 600 rounds.
To Lebowski, A deer rifle is a semi automatic just like that Bushmaster is. Other than the magazine, the internals work just the same. You could actually interchange parts and turn it into something that looks alot like that Bushmaster and perform exactly like it. So no it isnt stupid to comapre the two.
Second, I am not a gun nut, I dont own one and I am for reform. But you will not get rid of all those semi automatics. What you can do is ban that Sly Stallone Rambo gun LOOK that these guys look for. they arent walking on campus in fatiques by accident. This is a fantasy of theirs and they are more likely, I would bet, to actually use a bolt action rifle that looked like a bushmaster than a semi automatic that looked like a hunting gun.
you will not solve this by banning ALL guns but if you can at least get rid of the ones that these guys want, then their selection might be more easily reduced to hand guns etc.
Of course we can't and won't ban all semiautomatics, I own a 45 myself. I have shot AR's extensively, as I have other rifles including what you call "deer rifles". Anti-recoil seperates an assult rifle from a hunting one, for starters.
an assault rifle is an automatic weapon not a semi automatic hunting rifle. stop calling AR's semi automatics .Totally different thing
Michael: Any deer rifles have anti-recoil devices designed to allow you to continue firing on the same visual plane? Of course not, only assault rifles designed for military use have such parts.
Arguing about whether or not a semi-automatic rifle should be termed an 'assault' rifle is ridiculous.
With a semi-automatic machine gun, one can fire off 30 rounds in 30 seconds. When you factor in the easily obtained information one can get at any gun show anywhere that enable someone to turn a semi into an auto, the point is moot - they ARE assault weapons. There is only 1 reason for weapons like this, and it is to kill human beings.
Michael,
The AR-15 was originally designed by the ArmaLite company for military use, with the intended customer being the US military. The design was sold to Colt, who then sold the weapons to the US military as the M-16 and kept the AR-15 label for the civilian market.
The AR-15 was designed for the military -- it is a military grade weapon. Most people use 'assault rifle' to mean any military grade rifle capable of rapid fire, not just those able to operate as a full automatic. In fact, I think full automatic weapons are not assault rifles either, for a true assault rifle can be fired in automatic or semi-automatic burst mode.
In any case, there is no legitimate reason for a small group of civilians to have access to arms with combined firepower greater than existed at the Battle of Yorktown. Anyone incapable of dropping a deer or intruder by the second or third shot should not handle firearms.
i would think having less rounds in a firearm would make a hunter feel more accomplished when they do make a kill. like you didn't rely on so much ammo to be the best.
A greater sense of accomplishment would be to hunt with just your own person, like the rest of the wildlife do. Run it down, take it by the neck and tear its throat out. Of course it will probably kill you instead so I am not sure really how much feeling of accomplishment goes into that. I really dont get how special it is to hide up in a tree, make some deer call and snipe the first animal that walks close enough.
Support your right to arm bears!
Micheael-
From your post your either a vegan or a hypocrite and a coward. If you are a vegan, than you have every write to say that killing and eating wild game is bad, but if you do eat meat, you are a hypocrite. I would say that hunting is more special than you buying beef/chicken/turkey etc that was born in captivity so it could be hauled into a slaughterhouse and killed by SOMEONE ELSE to end its very pathetic existance just so you can buy it packaged in a pleasing way that doesnt offend you sensabilities. This makes you a hypocrite and a coward. Responsible hunting is much more humane than that, not to mention the health benifits of wild game vs store bought, "organic" or otherwise.
"Changed everything"? Why this incident? Why not the Aurora theatre shooting? Why not Columbine?
Twenty dead 5 and 6 year old kids changed it, idiot.
Senator Manchin keeps saying that never in our history have children's lives been taken in this way. "Babies." He is right and it is tragic. However, age should never determine the action that needs to be taken. The students at VCU and Columbine were also somone's babies. If we could see the dignity and innocence and childness of every human being, then maybe we will do everything in our power to protect and defend everyone by taking action toward a more safe and nonviolent society.
Our leaders are the ones who got hired to come up with solutions to this horse-shet. Time to put on your thinking caps ladies and gentlemen, and do your fecking jobs.
And don't even think of taking away my zombie shooter game.
Really speaking by only banning guns, we are not going to resolve the issue when our own government and senators like John McCain and Graham are advocating day and nights about WAR, WAR and Wars everywhere in the world. The best way should be to stop such war mongers to be our leaders and change our culture of violence, gun diplomacy, war mongering and trigger hunger. It surely pain to see our own kids die in our schools, but still we are not getting any pain when our guns, missiles and bombs kill hundreds and thousands of kids around the globe.
Senator Manchin, the debate hasn't changed. It's just that up until now you haven't been listening. How opportunistic of you to turn your NRA hearing aid on now that children are involved. Fact is, children have been involved in every single one of these tragedies. Someone's children. Quit pandering and do something.
so this 6 y/o doesn't count? and if not why not?
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-18/news/ct-met-girl-shot-dead-0318-20120318_1_drive-by-shooting-chicago-police-police-officer
That single 6-year-old DOES count, along with all the other children killed "accidentally" -- but I no longer see them as accidents: they are simply costs we ignore when we grant unchecked freedom to any and all to have unaccountable access to instruments of carnage.
A single child is no less innocent than the 20 who died in Newtown; a 15-year-old in a gang-qua-family is no less deserving of life than that 6-year-old, or a 90-year-old great-great-grandmother.
Some of us are stirred by anecdotes ("Twenty children victims in single mass murder!), a few by statistics ("Hundreds of gunshot victims in Chicago each year"). We need to see both ways. Bifocals are very useful things.
That child and those 20 children and those hundreds in Chicago (and NOLA and StL and...) are the "externalities" -- the unmentioned and too often unaknowledged costs of the freedoms so many demand.
When your casually demanded freedoms put all the rest of us in mortal danger, perhaps society should pause and re-think the bargain. Because it isn't turning out as well as you'd hoped.