TGLS wrote:I'll freely admit that I don't have any desire to own or shoot a gun. Perhaps because of this, I don't understand why anyone needs/wants a rifle that can fire as fast as an AR-15 (A quick google indicates it's something like 45 rounds a minute). Given that there are pro-gun people on this board, maybe they can explain why regular people want these kind of weapons?
Because they want one and enjoy possessing and firing one due to their interest in firearms.
I don't understand why anyone would want to own a sports car as my main interests in a vehicle are fuel efficiency, easy, cheap maintenance and good carrying capacity, but I can understand why someone would like to own something I see no appeal in, since we all own such things that interest us.
The issue between firearms and automobiles is a good place to start. Automobiles come with an obligation of good conduct and responsibility for what is done with ones vehicle that goes beyond the legal and government mandated and I feel such sentiment should be taken up by firearms owners, many of whom I know do take gun ownership seriously, but still there is room for improvement. Adam Lanza's mother is a good example of that and how it seems she never factored in the potential danger of people around her to steal her firearms.
excalibur wrote:Well, that didn't stop Iraq from using them or how ISIS has gotten their hands on that shit.
Both Canada and Australia aren't the United States because they don't have a constitution that guarantee the right to bear arms. To have weapons. The very basis of why America has so many guns started with its founding. It fought against the crown to become a country and that act of defiance has defined what America is. That's why the US had to draft a constitution that recognizes the rights of the people. You tell me does Canada or Australia have a government that actually guarantee the rights of its citizens.
It goes beyond that to the cultural roots of Anglo-Saxons. Like much of American English, a lot of American culture is that of their ancestors going back over a thousand years to the origins of the English people. You take an American back to Anglo-Saxon England, dress him like they dressed back then and change his love of firearms for spears and swords and you're not going to find much different.
It's why I chuckle when I see people amazed at the idea of giving kids firearms to use, like that one US ad, when it ties not only ties into the casual use of firearms by everyone in American society but also how boys were given spears and shields to stand in the local shield wall when they came of age around 13.
That also ties into another relic of their cultural past, Americans are very combative in their own, unique ways (many of which are unhealth or have become unhealthy overtime, mostly in step with their polarization) while the English and British as a whole have always had that as a part of themselves right down little things like the way Parliament seating is structured and the antagonistic way MPs behave that would be looked on as mind boggling reduce and unprofessional by Americans.
There comes with it, however, the clear message of what kind of citizens are those that own firearms. I find most of that kind of talk silly myself, but I appreciate the fundamental sentiment which is at it's heart
Si vis pacem, para bellum despite America's historical fear of a standing army.
Permanently radiating areas is a bad idea for the side who has those weapons.
Yes, yes, permanently irradiating areas, just as we all know that Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain uninhabitable to this day - oh wait.