BS: Anyone defend US gun law?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 06:56 PM

Jesus How many British does it take to win a war none the US has to do it for them get a firearm and grow some balls or you could blow your little police whistle when you are being killed

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 05:42 PM

Three dictionaries (including the Oxford English Dictionary, published in the very heart of Limeyland) agree with my own experience that "insure" and "ensure" in this sense have long been interchangeable.

Don't bother to apologize.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 05:10 PM

♫"Do your balls hang low.
Do they swing to & fro?"♫

Nope... not yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 04:13 PM

They say the older you get the bigger your balls get.

From an anatomical perspective they just get lower.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 03:26 PM

I was responding to rahere's post, but I see you're still wriggling eh?

You fucked up and tried to make it my fault for not successfully interpreting what you didn't say. That's dishonesty, wriggler, and beneath contempt.

Grow a pair of balls and admit it.

What a pity you don't employ that obstinacy in your 'lobbying for saner gun laws in the US', instead of wringing your hands and whining that 'it's too difficult'.

And yes, it's 'ensure'.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 02:35 PM

Oh, I DO worry about that! (Except the part about "insuring" failure. *giggle*. MY proofreading past wants to warn you that other proofreaders may be after you for not using "ensure")

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 02:21 PM

> I still am lobbying for saner gun laws in the US.

Yeah, but aren't you afraid your unfortunate "bad parenting" and unconscious brutal machismo virtually insure failure?

Rather a shame, rilly. Er. Hmph!

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 01:52 PM

"The End."

apparently not.

".. energetic belly-dance that Bill performed to try to wriggle out of it."

A background in proof reading can help one find all sorts of things that might not have been there.
I repeat... for the last time... I mis-PHRASED my comment, I did NOT mistakenly assert the UK was currently ruled by a monarchy. I knew better than that. (I suppose my mea culpa should have been in a larger font and red text.)

like this THE END



I still am lobbying for saner gun laws in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 08:10 AM

It's not my IQ (some would say the lack of it!) that's at issue here, it's that I called someone out on an inaccurate statement about the UK being 'governed' by the monarch, and they tried to make it my fault because I took their words at face value whereas I should have realised that what they said wasn't what they actually meant!

A simple "You're right, I fucked up" would have commanded far more respect from me than the energetic belly-dance that Bill performed to try to wriggle out of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 06:48 AM

Leave the question of monarchy alone, Musket, it's a red herring allowing him to slide out the side door.

I suspect Backwoodsman's a bit like me, rather too high an IQ to be allowed to argue on sites like this: he's taken something of Bill's which is patently ridiculous rather literally. But then again, most of what Bill writes on this meme can't be taken seriously by anyone with either head or heart. OK, Bill has a decent heart on other things, but none of us is perfect, and I think this is an area where he's been brought up in a macho image he's going to find hard to leave behind. We can't help our parenting, but we can leave it behind: my old man was psoitively Edwardian, I left the world's mores go their own way in the late 70s (I have no detailed knowledge of anything in popular music since 1977, for example, as I got reet pissed off with the presumption I'd like hip-hop: I understand it, I just think it and virtually everything since excessively simple, rhythmn alone doesn't make music).

And in any case we're more likely to replace a monarch with a politician. A President should be a statesman - and I don't think we have any in the UK at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 04:35 AM

Equating monarch with president? Your point?

If you lose the monarchy you replace them with a president. See Ireland for details.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 03:28 AM

Bill, I didn't read it with any 'attitude', I was a proof-reader in a former life and I'm used to reading and understanding what is before me without bias or personal interpretation. I read your post literally, no 'attitude'. You wrote something that was factually incorrect and then got pissed off when I corrected you.

Your 'disclaimer' was simply wriggling to try to avoid admitting you were wrong. It doesn't wash. You fucked up and now you're trying to lay the blame on my 'attitude', and my 'failure' to 'interpret' and 'understand' something that you didn't actually say - more wriggling.

I prefer to admit my own errors. You should try it, honesty is very liberating.

The End.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 11:44 PM

" But I think Australia said it best when they last looked at dropping the monarchy. The argument that won was "yes, but the alternative is someone who actually wants to be a president...." musket 8 Sept. 12:38

Now, just who is equating the monarch with a president? lol

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 08:57 PM

Fine.. I did not take the time to phrase my comment in such a way that it was totally impossible to mistake my intent. mea culpa...

If you read it with a certain attitude, it may indeed 'suggest' that I was mistaking a clear fact about UK history. I am not an expert on it all, but I have known for 50 years that you have a bicameral legislature (different from many others, but still governed by debate & vote.

I just don't understand why my explanation of what I did mean and my disclaimer did not suffice.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 05:49 PM

BillD, I quoted your exact words, cut and pasted from your post of 8 Sep 14 - 12:27 PM. In case you've forgotten what you said, here it is again, cut and pasted:-

"I just looked up the stats on UK monarchy, and there seems to be a disconnect between how many do not wish to be governed by a monarchy and how many want the entire system

Those words suggest that the writer believes that the UK is governed by a monarchy. I pointed out that the UK is not governed by a monarchy, and there is no system to disband.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 04:41 PM

Musket... you simply do not wish to comprehend the situation.

"Just ban them. It's easy."

You have had my explanation of the issue a dozen times. You either didn't read it or are just willfully ignoring it in order to perpetuate a view of the US similar to the way you remark on football games/clubs.

" So why not ask them to do their job come election time?"

Because at election time, there are more than that one issue in play! The &$@##**^% conservatives have also **Gerrymandered** the voting districts so that more & more semi-sane candidates are herded into small pens. Those sane ones are elected, but are in the minority! (I have a quite sane, competent Democrat as my Representative- and 2 decent Senators)... and even they are subjected to unfair pressures when votes on any controversial topic are laden with amendments which muddy the issue!

It's easy... bah....

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 04:01 PM

Let's open Musket's 09 Sep 14 - 05:10 AM door a bit wider: does anyone else see a strange parity between the NRA fabulism and Putin's in Ukraine? Both have to paint a world image demonstrably different from reality to maintain their positions. It's called insanity, in passing.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 01:44 PM

They are not in for letting semi domesticated rednecks carry guns for starters. Scotland may have interesting times ahead but you'll not see a gun battle between Akenaton and his gay neighbours.

Just ban them. It's easy. You are banning all sorts of things on ecology tickets, and at long last, this includes high emission engines in cars.

So why not guns? Politicians wring their hands in the prescribed manner every time a number of funerals of children from the same school take place. So why not ask them to do their job come election time?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 12:49 PM

Just to clarify....

I did not claim, assert or believe that the UK is "governed by a monarchy" these days. Nor do any significant numbers of Americans believe "The idea that the monarch is the equivalent to your president ....
My point was simply that approval of continuation of the trappings of monarchy does not constitute approval of being governed by such a system.
The relevance of my attempt to draw parallels is that even in the US, disapproval of one or more aspects of OUR system does not and should not imply condemnation of the entire system as it seems to be in several posts by Brits.
We have one political group which is using the system in ways and to degrees seldom seen in our history. It IS possible for a situation to be exploited by lies, distortions and political maneuvers that were never imagined by the framers of the Constitution.
In a certain way, the process of the UK moving from a monarchy to a democracy allowed establishing specific safeguards against that older form of central power.
We began with one early attempt at a Democratic Republic that seemed at the time...(and for many years after)... a good way to provide fairness to all. This, of course, required several adjustments in the form of granting voting rights, abolishing slavery...etc. Now the very language that seemed so reasonable at the time is being twisted to the detriment of many.
Yet, I see post after post here that say: "Well, just go pass new laws & stop the stupidity!" and no explanations of the problems of that seem to get through.

I wonder if Scotland has any idea what THEY are in for?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 12:16 PM

Thanks Ebbie! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 12:03 PM

OK, BackWOODSman.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 08:49 AM

Just to make my position clear:

Ideally, no one would have a gun. Ideally, everyone would have wings.

But these ideals have nothing to do with the real world.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 08:46 AM

> That you can do.

Explain how. Bullets are naturally covered by the "right to bear arms," which would otherwise be an empty phrase.

> no claim to any any moral authority over the rest of the world.

No one here has made that claim.

> You made a big thing of the Twin Towers bombing, starting a war

Yes, I must acknowledged that we responded when attacked by a foreign foe that had already blown a hole in a US Navy vessel and had officially declared war on us in a 1998 statement by bin Laden, for which we'd also shown forbearance. Britain subjugated India and repeatedly appeased Hitler. That led to war and no end of other stuff, but likewise has nothing to do with strict or lax gun laws, or civilian homicides committed by (according to the cited figure) 1/10,000 of the otherwise very law-abiding US population?

What's more, according to the link there were 551 homicides of all kinds in England and Wales alone (never mind Scotland and Northern Ireland) in 2013 - a dozen times the gun homicides your post chooses to focus on. Still a very low rate, but showing once again that many murderers don't even need guns.

Gun homicides in the US are actually in decline. Nobody is sure why. And as Ebbie cogently notes, few Americans (the people affected) even want to "ban all guns." As posts on this thread show, the claim that we "don't even twitch" is laughably false.

Some countries need no more than a "twitch" to pass legislation that is far more dangerous than the laws of a slow-moving republican democracy. Fortunately I don't live in one of those places.

I notice too that the US doesn't even make the top-twenty list of nations with the highest murder *rates* per 100,000 population (2010-2011). Most of these nations are Third World countries inhabited by the peaceful "earth people" of New Age song and story.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/262963/ranking-the-20-countries-with-the-most-murders-per-100-000-inhabitants/

Just FYI.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 05:10 AM

PDQ has neatly yet inadvertently given us a way of ending this thread.

By saying that 77% of American household contain guns, we see a leap into fantasy and make believe.

As you can't argue against lies, and whilst accepting there are a hell if a lot of them out there, it's pushing it a bit to say that only 23% of Americans see themselves as normal people, even if you add a few for pure hunting and sports...

I'm sure PDQ accidentally pushed the wrong keys. It is 47% to include hunting rifles and registered sport firearms.

Still worrying considering the average IQ of your typical redneck.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 04:57 AM

What makes me say stop this gun mania? The lastest figures for the US for 2011 are 32351 dead. You made a big thing of the Twin Towers bombing, starting a war and no end of other stuff. Yet this amounts to TEN 9/11s - every year - and you don't twitch. In the UK, we had just 44. The UK has a population about 5 times the size of the UK's: that means the mortality rate because of this 2nd Amendment is 150 times as high, grosso-modo. It means 30000 families have been mourning someone gone before their time, and all the consequences.
So, if you can't control the guns, control the bullets. That you can do. And unless you do so, you have no claim to any any moral authority over the rest of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 03:56 AM

OK Ebbie, we've both had our say. End of?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 03:54 AM

"Backwardman". Hmmmm, I've always regarded you as one of the classier acts around here, Ebbie, certainly one who wouldn't lower herself to personal insults and name-calling, so I'll just assume that was an unfortunate typo. :-)

Now, back to the subject of stupid gun-obsession and bad gun-control laws in the US.......................

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 03:36 AM

BMan, I don't mind disagreement or scolding, for that matter- but I seriously despise blanket condemnations.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 02:14 AM

Ebbie, I doubt that the anti-gun lobby here are demanding a total, 100% ban on all guns. I'm certainly not, but the US needs to get guns under proper and effective control.

Even in the UK, certain types of gun are permitted, shotguns, target-shooting rifles et al, but possession of these weapons is very, very stringently regulated and controlled. The individual applying for a gun-licence has to show very good reason indeed for his having a gun - and 'self-defence' or 'to restrain our government' are not acceptable reasons. The effect is that very few Brits have, or ever come into contact with, any kind of firearm. Those who do are mostly farmers or sport-shooters.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 02:04 AM

Backwardman, your last sentence there - well, let me just assert that we Americans are MUCH too polite to list all the daftness of people like you.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 01:45 AM

"I just looked up the stats on UK monarchy, and there seems to be a disconnect between how many do not wish to be governed by a monarchy and how many want the entire system disbanded.

Bill, the UK is NOT 'governed' by a monarchy - it is governed by the Government (the clue's in the name!) sitting in The Houses of Parliament. The monarch has no executive powers whatsoever, she merely acts as an 'advisor', a sounding-board, to the Prime Minister, and rubber-stamps the decisions made by Parliament.

The monarchy was stripped of its powers of government three hundred-or-so years ago (when the USA was still peopled mostly by Aboriginal Americans rather than a bunch of immigrants), signified by the King losing his head (literally).

The idea that the monarch is the equivalent to your president seems to be another American stupidity, pretty much on the same level of daftness as the standard American's conception that the whole of the British Isles is 'England'.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 12:34 AM

And the majority of Americans favors "banning" guns? I doubt that very much. Most of us advocate the regulation of them, strongly favor strict background checks, strongly disagree with certain guns being available, strongly disagree with carrying guns inside many of the institutions currently allowed, strongly lament the gun-happy mindsets of so many Americans.

But banning? No. I live in Alaska. We have wild predators here. And besides that, a great many other potential situations where a firearm is needed. I remember an incident some years ago when a moose (large member of the elk family) on the rampage killed four dogs harnessed into a dog team.

I don't have a gun in my house. But then, I live in a town, not out in the bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 07:20 PM

Perhaps the word "prudent", which I associate with "common sense", is conditional.

If I thought a pollster would report his contacts back to activist groups, I would deny owning a gun. More than 30% of those polled must feel the same way.

Question really is (suggested by my post) is how can "the majority of Americans (be in) favor of banning guns" (as stated by the Mudcat Brits) while perhaps 77% of us live in households where a legal gun also resides.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 06:50 PM

As per PDQ's post--it strikes me that if a stranger called and asked if there were guns in the house, the prudent answer, regardless of fact, would be "Yes".

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 04:35 PM

The amendment covers, in recentish history, the right to draft young men to die or be terminally affected by serving in Vietnam.

Err. That's it

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:43 PM

> stop selling ammunition and explosive powders, which are NOT covered by any Amendment.

What makes you say that?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:32 PM

there is an awful sense of helplessness over here, also. That doesn't mean no one is trying.

I was not 'sneering'... I was disagreeing with the basic premise.
"Looks a bit dysfunctional & anarchic and unfit for purpose from where I am standing..."

I stand about 17 miles from The White House and 20 from Congress and I listen to & watch 10-12 forms of local media trying to assess it all.

The percentage I found was 70-80% in favor of continuity

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:19 PM

My point, as you should be able to guess, is that everyone's sacred cow is sacred only to themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 01:06 PM

After that little monarchic red-herring, nobody has yet answered my point that the easiest way is to alloww the rednecks to keep their guns - but stop selling ammunition and explosive powders, which are NOT covered by any Amendment. OK, sell some to residents of Badlands areas, but beyond that, nix. At that point, the guns become glorified clubs.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 01:02 PM

I greatly fear that you have utterly missed my point. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:58 PM

Well, "a good share" is hardly an overwhelming majority in any one's terms, is it, Ebbie? Do you really think it worth abolishing an ancient and revered institution, obliterating it from the face of the earth, because maybe 40% (quite a 'good share' I should say) of some sample of people might have vaguely said they don't like it much.

I haven't the least idea what you mean by citing your authority as "The UK. In Mudcat". I remember citing some survey-based statistics in one of the threads on the monarchy which appear to give an impression quite other than your none too specifically asserted "good share of HM's subjects" wishing her away. Were these, I wonder, included in your "survey" -- such as it may have been? They were on Mudcat.

I fear I think you are being uncharacteristically vague in the matter. And how you purport to observe any analogy to any anti-gun lobby as might exist in the US I cannot for the life of me see.

All v well sneering at my questions, Bill; but there is an awful sense of helplessness coming over from all these despairing posts about how the bloody guns are there and there is sod-all on earth that anybody in your Great Nation can do about it. Looks a bit dysfunctional & anarchic and unfit for purpose from where I am standing.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:38 PM

A vocal minority are anti anything you like. But I think Australia said it best when they last looked at dropping the monarchy. The argument that won was "yes, but the alternative is someone who actually wants to be a president...."

The monarchy is a constitutional one, so "getting rid" happened when Charles I was beheaded. When his son was eventually put back on the throne, it was quite clear that parliament was in charge.

We don't have a monarchy to get rid of. We have a titular head of state. She has no power, and when Prince Charles's letters to ministers stating his views became public there was an outcry because they shouldn't interfere.

That said, if a party on a republican ticket came to power offering a republican referendum, it would happen and we could end up with a republic. Unlikely, but being a democracy, the ultimate will of the people happens.

Polls suggest a majority of people in The USA want guns banning. If that is difficult, ask yourselves how can call yourselves a democracy, let alone a safe place to live.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:32 PM

"Give us your statistics, and their source[s], to justify that assertion," M

Good gracious. "statistics"? I said "a good share".

My source? The UK. In Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:27 PM

Ebbie.. I just looked up the stats on UK monarchy, and there seems to be a disconnect between how many do not wish to be governed by a monarchy and how many want the entire system disbanded. Many enjoy the show & the history and the tradition.

------------------------
≈M≈

"If not, then what, precisely, are you telling us?"

Well I for one am telling you that your black & white, either/or division is simply not credible. Noting troubling aspects of the current status is not the same as trashing the whole concept. You know I can type long paragraphs dissecting various issues, but how to break down an accusation such as yours in a reasonable amount of time is just not possible.... and at the end, I'd just get a bunch of sarcastic remarks saying "So, you admit it's a mess, right?"

How long would it take to carefully explain the UK monarchy, it's history and the current attitude toward keeping it, tossing it or revising the details?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:11 PM

Give us your statistics, and their source[s], to justify that assertion, please Ebbie.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:55 AM

A good share of the citizens - subjects?- in the UK is anti-monarchist. That being so, I cannot understand why they have not made their will known and abolished the system. Long since, even, because they have felt that way for a l o n g time. Their country knows that the whole concept, not to mention the actual reality, is class-ist, demeaning and archaic.

Instead they just keep banging those rocks. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:54 AM

> a vague, antique formulation which made a certain sense for 150 years or so

It is conceivable - barely - that some future Supreme Court might somehow modify the current interpretation of the Second Amendment.   But then you'd "have millions of angry gun nuts who have been stockpiling guns for years, and who have vowed to resist any such attack on their 'rights'."

It was widely claimed in 2008 that Obama would come with jackbooted thugs to confiscate licensed guns. Six years later no thugs, but folks is still a-watchin' an' a-waitin'.

(Maybe I should have said "the folk." You'll remember them from other threads.)

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:50 AM

Are you people telling us that the United States of America, far from being the world's leading nation, is in fact a dysfunctional anarchy, whose legislative, executive, and judicial institutions are unfit for purpose?

If not, then what, precisely, are you telling us?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:50 AM

The estimates of gun ownership in the US are usually low because about one third of all gun owners answer "no" instead of saying "it's none of your business".


How Many Americans Own Guns?

Posted on December 21, 2012

That depends a bit on how you look at it. The narrowest definition of a gun owner is a person who has put money on the counter, fulfilled all legal requirements and taken a gun home. The broadest definition is someone who lives in a home with a gun. The most direct way of determining either number is to call up two thousand or so homes and ask.

Gallup has been doing something like that, with much the same result seen in the graphic on the left. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that. Gun "control," actually gun confiscation, drives have so many gun owners frightened to the point they will deny they own a gun. So other than the fact that a lot of Americans own a gun, polls like the Gallup poll are not very informative.

Since the main road is blocked, let's take a detour and see what the scenic route will turn up. Starting with the number of occupied dwellings.

The National Association of Homebuilders says there are 105,480,101 currently occupied dwellings in the United States. The 2010 Census found 111,800,000. Given the number of foreclosures and abandonment's, the NAH may be correct – but for appearances sake it will probably be better to use the official Census number.

Next, a private telephone poll that contacted 1,200 individuals found 58% of respondents indicated a gun in the home. This is slightly higher than the highest percentage from the Gallup poll, 54%, but the Gallup poll numbers are pulled down by fear engendered by active gun control campaigns in the Northeast and West.

A poll of individuals known to be gun owners contacted 758 individuals and found a 29% denial rate. When all the variables, including the geographic ones, are factored in, and with a three percent margin of error, 77.5 percent of American homes have at least one gun.

So we come back to the number of occupied dwellings. Using the Census number of 111,800,000 there are at least 86,650,000 Americans who own a gun.

On the other hand, if we allow that everyone who lives in a home with a gun has some ownership claim, the census says that each occupied dwelling in the United States houses 2.72 people. Which totals 235,675,000 Americans have some claim to gun ownership.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:32 AM

"There's nothing in any constitution about it. The nearest is something about the right to be drafted into an army or militia to defend The USA. I believe it is called the right to bear arms"

That part of the constitution is a vague, antique formulation which made a certain sense for 150 years or so. It became obsolete as the world changed. The vagueness allows the idiots to hang on to it.

"...the democratic majority of your decent citizens want this criminal activity stopped. Take lessons from democracies and work as they do."

Do you really understand the procedures necessary to do this? The 'democratic majority' does not get to vote on such things in one National ballot! A few states have passed some laws that look like progress, but that 2nd amendment needs Congress to take the vagueness out of it. Congress has too many Republicans to pass any meaningful revision. If they were to magically pass a revision, **it would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states**!! Half of the states would likely defeat it. If 3/4 did magically pass it, what would you have? You'd have millions of angry gun nuts who have been stockpiling guns for years, and who have vowed to resist any such attack on their 'rights'.

Now, if that the democratic majority would rise up and overwhelm the crazies by.... lessee....hmmmm.. forming posses and knocking on doors and demanding everyone turn in their guns... sure.. that would work.....................bang, bang, bang.

What we need is Peter Sellers to bring the nation of Grand Fenwick over on a little ship and ......