Another stupid comment by one who is obviously ignorant. TERRY-B, there are adequate laws against having bombs and or machine guns. Grow up! If I'm ignorant about any specific subject, which all of us are, I try to not make a fool of myself and write ignorant comments about it. It's alright for me to ask questions about thngs I don't know about, but that's me. Suit yourself if you wish to look foolish.

Should be 0 percent, but we can work on that.

Welcome to thunderdome.

There may come a day when they are needed, desperately.

Goat, you are so dumb.

Unfortunately, while the USA has the most number of guns per person, they also have the least number of brains per person. This is what makes them truly dangerous.

All the corporate media has to do to get them to use their guns on each other is to "catapult the propoganda", get some hysteria going, and presto...that annoying demographic is gone..Are the old ruining your Med Insurance company's bottom line? No problem..Rush Limppaunch will go on a rampage about the eldrly and presto..no more old sickos around to screw up your profits.

Kids gettign to uppity and protesting? blamo, gone

Dear Mr Bush and company,

Please take note of this article should you and your Blackwater buddies decide to impose your image of Dumbocracy on US citizens.

Sincerely,

Rebel, with a cause

That's nuts,

Why would normal people need guns?

I have perfectly good life without having any.

I am concerned that the world has added 235 million firearms in the last 5 years.

I have never owned a firearm, never will, but the Constitution grants our citizens the right to bear arms.
So, I will stand with my fellow citizen to fight to ensure that right is not taken away.
Remember that we now have an administration that is trying to take away some of our other Constitutional rights and we are outraged and fighting back. The right to bear arms is no different.
I know it is a tired statement, but it is true. "Guns don't kill people, people do"
When it comes to gun laws, they need to start enforcing the laws we have. The only thing that I would add is that if a gun is used in crime that there is ten years that must automatically added to the sentence, if the gun is fired, 25 years.

Jaded Parole: Not Yet, anyway....

I for one am a liberal and progressive with a few assault rifles and some boxes of ammo stashed away. It's very important that people like us don't bury our heads in the sand, and that we are ready, if need be to stand our ground and protect our communities from whatever the burgeoning fascist regime has planned. I hope I never have to use them, but it Is my responsibility to care for them and maintain proficiency.

I consider myself to be normal Vets, but if I didn't have a gun and was well trained on how and when to use it, on two seperate occasions when I owned a service station, I would have been a dead normal.___ I fired first and I won.

Don't ever get lost in traffic at night in Newark, Philadelphia, Trenton, Houston, San Francisco, Detropit, Chicago and many many other American cities, and not have a weapon. It is a 'damn shame' but that's how we have evolved and that is reality.

I sincerely wish some of the school's administrators at Columbine for just ONE example, had been WELL trained in the use of firearms and had them available. I'm certain many of the parents of those slaughtered innocent children wish the same. I realilze guns are a highly debatable issue, but until our society grows up and joins the human race, I will have a gun in my home,___ several weapons.

All those guns _might_ be an asset if they were in the hands of people comitted to building community and class solidarity and making sure the capitalist bosses know who is really boss.

But unfortunately, they are largely in the hands of racist, neo-confascist NRA'ers or the sociopathically greedy "libertarians".

Really PJD, have you conducted a scientific study on the gun issue, or are you just writing an opinion?

I personaly know many decent people who own guns and none fit the description you just cited. Blahhhhhh, blahh.__ Rave on and show all how ignorant you are on the subject.

ug another article about gun ownership.

i'm a gun owner and i take offense to "normal people shouldn't have any" or "we will make it zero"...no you WON'T! there's lots of legal gun owners here in the US. sorry it's a right we have or least we still have it. the existing gun laws need to be enforced.

time and again i mentioned the violent shows and movies - i even wrote to a journalist who had written an antigun article about it. she said "shows don't kill". always the same stupid articles about the number of guns, how about the root of the violence instead?

seems to me that the right wingers want to hit the 1st amendment and the progressives, the 2nd. the gun crime here is NOT commited by the legal gun owners. Tell me, people who want to take the guns away, are you going to protect us then? or just go "aww that's too bad" when someone gets killed?

Lots of guns but no revolutionary class consciousness . . .

"But unfortunately, they are largely in the hands of racist, neo-confascist NRA'ers or the sociopathically greedy "libertarians"."

more bullshit. i don't see such opinions any better than the dumbed down right wingers. no proof or evidence just personal opinion based on prejudice.

so the public has a right to bear arms. i guess a personal nuke must be included in this right. after all it does not stipulate the size or power. after all a militia should be able to fight on an equal basis against the government.

My question, regarding the world wide distribution of small arms, would be this: Who kills the most people with firearms, governments or civilians?

Follow up questions might be: When was the last time you 'trusted' your government to do anything based on the common good?

When was the last time you thought your government was interested in protecting you, from any catastrophe, be it the result of military action, environmental degradation, recovery from a natural disaster, or medical condition?

Gun violence is a major burden on the state, with all its attendant health and criminal justice problems.

The interesting dimension of this for me is that the argument in favor of guns is that people have the right to defend their personal freedom. If your freedom is under attack, you are prepared. The train of logic then goes that the existence of these guns should act as not only a deterrent, but also as a sort of antidote to anxiety.

In fact, it's the opposite. More guns means more violence, not less. The US is a violent and fearful nation compared with all other industrialized countries. So, the stated objectives of gun ownership have not come to pass.

It seems the stated reasons for the epidemic of gun ownership are not the real reasons, and that gun ownership is no longer beneficial here.

The upside of gun ownership for hobbyists is massively outbalanced by the downside costs to our society.

That our gun laws are as they are is just a sore reminder of the insanity that is allowed to persist when there is a power imbalance tilted to a special interest.

terryb--good observation. It's a reason I kept my Anti-Armor field manual. PJD--I was once an NRA member; do I conform to your stereotype?

IMO, the militia of today would need to look like Hezbollah in many respects, not just weaponry.

Esarge--I trust you're working on training a militia "fire team" that would be far more effective than just your holding-out as an individual "partisan."

i thought the original amendment was for a militia to protect themselves against the government. if that is no longer a problem, then why have guns at all? is there a stipulation in the amendment?

"All those guns _might_ be an asset if they were in the hands of people comitted to building community and class solidarity and making sure the capitalist bosses know who is really boss."

That speaks volumes about what your methodology is, for building 'community' and 'class solidarity'. You use guns to threaten people into it. Either yours or the ones you want the State to use on your behalf to do so.

Thanks for proving libertarian critiques of what you rest your ideas upon...threats and violence. We offer you real cooperation and an open hand, you offer everyone else threats and jails unless they act to satisfy your ideas.

"Don't ever get lost in traffic at night in Newark, Philadelphia, Trenton, Houston, San Francisco and many many other American cities and not have a weapon..."

So you are saying your are even afraid to DRIVE in a city without a gun? That is paranoid, and may I humbly suggest, maybe a bit racist, nonsense. Have you ever even actually lived in a city? I walk, and ride the bus, quite unarmed through the poor neighborhoods here in Pittsburgh all the time without any problem.

I even has some white suburbanite once tell me to stay out of the Capitol hill/Eastern Market area of DC - a tony neighborhood of congressional aides and lobbyists. Apprently, this person only feels safe in their big SUV going to a shopping mall or a wal-mart.

There are shootings of course, but they are almost always associated with gang members settling scores. Strangers, especially white ones, minding their own business are safe.

And statistics have shown that the homicide rates in rural counties the south plus Wyoming and Nevada are often higher than the distressed city neighborhoods.

Also I've found that ther are many urban neighborhoods where people look out after their neighbors to a greater degree than the suburbs - where you could die and rot in your house for a year before your neighbors, absorbed with their lawns, neighbors checked up on you.

"seems to me that the right wingers want to hit the 1st amendment and the progressives, the 2nd"

To be fair, some on both sides are working against both. McCain comes to mind on the right, attempting to place caveats on free speech when it comes to campaigns, and also supporting gun limitations and even registration if I remember correctly.

I just read the article and my first thought was, "Thank GOD!!!" We're protected!!!

I was a little concerned about the sanctity of the Constitution, of all of us losing our rights...now, I'm like, YEAH!!!! Let's get out there and hit the streets! We have back up!!!

i think you are all missing the point.

quoting the article:
"Weapons ownership may be correlated with rising levels of wealth..."

that says it all right there. it's no coincidence that the nation w/the most small arms has the most nukes, subs, planes, bombs, bullets, spies/spyware, prisons, prisoners, cops, crime, illegal wars, etc. obviously as individuals & as a society, we spend way way more than anybody else on guns. note the connection b/n wealth and wasting money on this crap. you get it? who has the wealth in this country?

and we are more insecure, unhappy, and unhealthy than other countries w/comparable national wealth. and far more violent.

but we got our guns. idiots. do you ever stop to think that rich people want you poor schlubs to have guns? i know you think you are gonna take out blackwater when they come for you (what a laugh), but you got no education, no health care, no prospects, are always fighting about gay marriage and abortion and WHAT ELSE? gun rights. the guvmint can't build levees or any of that crap, but let's make damn sure they don't get our guns!

so you got your guns. and no solidarity. think there's any connection b/n the way you finger your gun as you look at your neighbor and the way the US pushes the button when it looks at the middle east?

"That speaks volumes about what your methodology is, for building 'community' and 'class solidarity'. You use guns to threaten people into it. Either yours or the ones you want the State to use on your behalf to do so.'

Surely, you can't be so ignorant of the history of class conflict - where until "socialistic" measures like the New Deal and the Wagner Act, the bosses had everything and the workers were slaves. This is a history we will soon be repeating.

Recall, from history, the the rail yards of 1877, Haymarket, Homestead in 1892, Matewan, Ludlow, Sacco, Vanzetti, Joe Hill, Frank Little, Fannie Sellins, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs, the Palmer raids, Harlan, etc, etc...

Didn't think you did...

"so you got your guns. and no solidarity. think there's any connection between the way you finger your gun as you look at your neighbor and the way the US pushes the button when it looks at the middle east?"

Well said!

canuckchuck, LOL, I have to agree.

What a scary country.

What are Americans so afraid of? Or is it just part of bullying? I have never owned a gun because I don't want to kill anyone. I might get one for defense, however, with all these sociopaths running around ready to kill someone. I'd aim to disable them and not to kill them, if they were threatening me with a gun.

I guess I was born in the wrong country........(sigh)

PJD. I didn't write what you implied. I wrote, don't get lost in any large city at night and not have a weapon. I don't do that.
However, I grew up in Philadelphia, 54th and Walnut after moving from an address near Schoolcraft and Grand River in Detroit.

Seven years ago a good friend of ours, who drove tour buses For STARR Tours out of Trenton NJ, took a party to downtown Philly to a restaurant and his bus was shot full of holes. Luckily, no one on his bus was hit. I will stand by my statement, getting lost in many neighborhods at night in most large American cities is taking your life in your hands. Racism? Why did you bring that up PJD, I didn't.

Then you blithly state: Strangers, especially whites minding their own business are safe. UMmmm,any racist undertones in that comment PJD? With your racist opinion, I guess those three African American kids who were lined up against a wall and executed in Newark last week in broad daylight, wished they were white. I bet they also wished they had been packing a gun.

Those types of crimes are daily occurances in our large cities PJD. Haven't you heard of the numerous daily gun killing in New Orleans, Houston, Philly, Chicago, LA, Pheonix, etc. in the past few years? Talk to some good city cops and get yourself educated. Well PJD, you often have your head stuck up in the wrong place of course, hard for you to read the newspapers I suppose.

funny how some of you read an article about "gun culture" and said: here they again, trying to take away MY gun.

I pity those who are so insecure that they can't sleep without having a gun within reach. The USA is an extremely immature and wild nation, let by a bunch of ignorant, arrogant and dishonest bastards.

The guns in the USA are symbols of the fear and ignorance of it's citizens. Guns are relics of the past and will soon be relegated to history.

A couple of points.

Any study is only as good as the data. So, in determining number of guns in a country per person, how good was their data in say Colombia? Or in Iraq? I had to laugh when the spokesperson said that we think some areas are awash in guns but this story shows its maybe not true. Maybe its just that there aren't good records of how many guns there are in Colombia?

Second, I happen to have a great deal of respect for the Second Amendment. We've thrown out some key pieces of it, but I like the general idea. The general idea was that the power of force stayed in the hands of the people. Remember, this was written by radicals who truly believed in democracy. And also remember this was written when there was no standing army. So the entire concept of this admendment was that guns stayed in the hands of the citizens. When the citizens felt they needed defending, they took their guns and formed a militia to do the job.

The key concept is that the power of force stayed in the hands of the people. There might be one sherriff. But most of the time he needed deputies from the community or a posse formed to use force. So, if the community didn't like the way he was using his office, they could vote with their feet and not supply him with the force he needed to do what we was trying to do.

Also, I grew up in an area and a time that was awash with guns. East Tennessee in the late 60's / early 70's. Pretty much everyone hunted and almost everyone had guns. The violence rate between citizens in this area was almost zero. At the high school I went to, I'd say a huge percentage of the male students had access to guns at home. But during my four years there, no one ever resolved a fight by going home and getting a gun and coming back shooting.

Its not the gun that kills. Its the person behind the gun. Someone has to pick up the gun and aim it and pull the trigger. If all you do is try to make the gun illegal, someone who still wants to kill someone will either get an illegal gun or find some other tool to kill with. The key is that you have to somehow do something about the fact that there are so many people in America these days who are perfectly willing to pick up that gun, aim it and kill someone.

To go back to the article, I'd bet in East Tennessee when I lived there it was actually more than one gun per person in the society. Given the number of hunting weapons I saw in most houses, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 3 or 4 or more per person. But it was also a very safe place to live.

Shooting at each other with the weapons of today is just a technologically sophisticated way of throwing rocks at each other, just like the cavemen did.
Our technological abilities have far surpassed the evolution of our brutish natures, and we may yet end up back to throwing rocks at each other.

Power actuated fasteners are useful in construction. A big industry wants to continue to sell arms and whether the argument for or against guns leads directly to qualities within ourselves that are in need of disarmament, gun fans on the left and right should note the carnage of recent history is surrounded by a whole load of guns. First person shooters can keep the alleged entertainment value of shooting safely in fantasy land, or conversely, add to more real world gun violence.

Making a statement like that. Goat must be a Republican. Keep the weapons out of the civilian homes then they will come in at will.Then Mr. Goat what will you do?

the only person I ever knew got their door kicked open by thugs, the intruders were a DEA swat-type team with all the latest toys, s.a.w.'s levelled, screaming Get On the Floor! how much trouble would the residents (a mild-mannered christian couple and their adopted kid) have been in if the hair-trigger cops had even SEEN a gun anywhere near someone's hand? heck, US cops will shoot you if you have a cell phone or a wallet in your hand -- if they are scared enough or pumped-up enough. think you can outshoot a terror squad that crashes into your house fully armed and prepared at 11pm when you're just having a normal evening and about to head off to bed after the late movie? yeah right.

the coppers in this incident were called in by a bogus "suspicion of drug activity" anonymous tip -- probably placed by a vindictive boozy neighbour after a dispute over vehicle parking on a narrow street. it was all resolved, no one got hurt, the cops never apologised, my friends moved to another town. but it just kind of illustrates for me that this whole Rambo fantasy about using your gun collection to defend yourself against door-kicking invasions is just that -- a fantasy. armed resistance happens collectively, commensally, by partisan/guerrilla struggle, not by individual home owners defending their mcmansions (or cult encampments -- remember Waco anyone?) like microwarlords.

Almost nobody I know has a gun. I'm sure that my friends are not a representative sample, but if there are 9 guns for every 10 people and I know hardly anyone with a gun, then someone must own more than one. I guess once you own a gun, you need a second one to protect the first one or something like that.

I would ask someone I know why people have multiple guns, but since I don't have any friends with guns, I'm not sure who to ask. I guess I must be weird. Oh well, it could be worse. I could be a normal American and then I'd have to buy a gun.

"I really like all these "tolerant" people informing us as to how rednecky and racist NRA members are. It kind of reminds me of certain ignorant people who I have heard explain how ALL blacks are lazy or how ALL Mexicans steal. Real intelligent…"

Not too bright yourself, Seventh Son, when you try to draw an analogy like that. Doesn't it occur to you that there is a fundamental difference between ones racial group and an organization one belongs to voluntarily? Would you, for example, say it's unfair to call Republicans pro-war, anti-choice and homophobic? Personally I think characterizing NRA members as only rednecky and racist is quite generous.

Thank You COMarc . . . .
Sorry Folks but this "Liberal" will stay armed and will protect myself and my family as needed. The rest of you can dial 911 and wait 20 to 30 minutes for help to get to you.
Any police officer will tell you that they do not prevent crime . . . They investigate crime. Even TV shows illustrate that the police come after the crime has been commited. There are plenty of nut cases out there running around, so when one knocks down your door you tell him how you know the problems that he has faced and understand him. Meanwhile if someone like me lives near by, you might get to know them just in case that 911 call really does take 30 minutes.

Kem,

it is not racism to understand that race is a factor in things. Racism-denial IS a form or racism, as sean Gonsalves wrote on this site a couple weeks back, as the behavior of the Jena high School administrators in Louisiana demonstrate.

You should consider that maybe you had some pretty unlucky bad experiences, and it might be coloring your views. I lived in a number of years near rough neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, spent a lot of time in a lot of other rrough areas, and never had a single problem.

Also, you need to put the the sensationalist newspaper and TV stories in perspective. That same day that someone gets shot, several died in car, motorcycle and pedestrian accidents, dozen's had heart attacks, many others succumbed to cancer, etc... And that people who get shot was likely involved in criminal gang activity. So, for law abiding citizens, who would have no interest spending any time in the roughhest areas anyway, the risk is prety damn small.

Dear Mendo,

And, you have actually had your door knocked down a couple time already, right?

Turn off you goddam paranoia inducing TV's!

KEM PATRICK says" Don't ever get lost in traffic at night in Newark, Philadelphia, Trenton, Houston, San Francisco, Detropit, Chicago and many many other American cities, and not have a weapon."

Well I'm not sure about Detropit, but I did live in San Francisco for 20 years and I don't recall anyone getting killed because they were lost in traffic without a gun. There were alot of people who got killed lost in traffic with out a car (we call them pedestrians or bikers) but I believe that if you are lost in traffic and you shoot one of the other drivers it just makes the traffic worse. So in San Francisco we generally thought that was a bad idea. However, as I said I'm not sure about some of those other places especially Detropit.

My son and his girlfriend took a road trip across the United States in her day glow green VW van about 5 years ago or so.

They were in Florida and got lost in Miami looking for a restaurant. While stopping to check their directions a policeman pulled over and approached their van.

He noticed the out of state plates and wondered about why they had stopped. They explained they were lost. Then he said, "Do you have a gun in your vehicle?" And my son exclaimed, truthfully, "No!" The policeman said, "Well, you should!"

As a Libertarian, I have this to say, "Guns don't kill people, Republicans do.".

http://www.libertystickers.com/guns_dont_kill_people_republicans_do.htm

As stated above--people should be able to have access to tanks, nukes, bio weapons-microwave weapons-anything that the government has.

The Nra is against trigger locks,
its against gun registration

it is against banning canned hunts(where domesticated or old circus and zoo animals are let loose and shot at close range)

they are complete aholes--in the 60s their president even said that it was ok that innocent civilians died to protect the right.

Until humans can manufacture bullets from their rear ends, gun possession isnt a right.

"Do you have a gun in your vehicle?" And my son exclaimed, truthfully, "No!" The policeman said, "Well, you should!"

I assume they were white. They would have recieved a completely different treatment at the hands of the cop (especially if they did have a gun) if they were black.

A gun is a gun, but I wonder how many of the 38 out of a 100
Iraqis have an AK-47 vs. the 90 out of 100 Americans. Don't
know if Finland has a citizen army, but otherwise I would bet
most of their guns are for hunting. Doesn't mean anything to
me when US citizens have 3 times as many guns as the police
and military - I'm sure the "killing power" of police and
military is substantially more. I am not discounting the
amount of gun violence that takes place in the US.

Bottom line, not good, but the statistics really don't
explain what's what. It's easier to assess what maybe
should be done with better information.

The luggage of this US Army Major affirms the point of this article.

Bullets in US major's baggage in Chennai, India

By Our Correspondent
Chennai, Aug. 28: A US Army major on his way to Paris was briefly detained at Chennai airport when 20 rounds of ammunition was discovered in his baggage. The CISF in charge of airport security seized the bullets, but later allowed the American officer to continue on his journey to Paris.

Major M. Richard, 50, of the US Army arrived at the airport early Tuesday morning to board an Air France flight to Paris from Chennai. The security personnel attached to the Central Industrial Security Force, who carried out a routine baggage check, found that he was carrying 20 bullets in his luggage. "There were 15 .22 calibre bullets and five 9 mm bullets. When questioned, the US officer pleaded ignorance, saying he had no idea how the bullets happened to be in his luggage. He later claimed that he had a valid gun licence and had carried the bullets accidentally," airport sources said.

The CISF seized the ammunition from the major and detained him briefly for questioning. "He claimed that he had come to the US consulate in Chennai in connection with some work and gave an apology letter saying that he had carried the bullets by mistake," the sources added.

The security officials decided to let him fly to Paris, but without the bullets. "Usually we allow people to fly even if they are found carrying bullets after verifying the details furnished," an airport official said. Maj. Richard left for Paris by a 1.30 am flight.
"It is not clear how he managed to land in Chennai with bullets in his bag," the official added.
The seized bullets were later handed over to the airport police by the CISF.