Third party candidates don’t get invited because most events are sponsored by PACs or supporters of one or the other major party. As to Perot being the last to get any respect, you forgot Ralph Nader who became the only third party candidate in history to make a proven difference in the outcome of a very close election.

It’s sort of like the extremist Apple fans (disclosure: I’m an AVID Apple product user, but not a rabid “Bill Gates must suffer to his last breath” extremist) making the rest of us look like lunatics anytime someone, through ignorance or malice, says something bad about Apple, Steve Jobs, or Apple products, and these people absolutely FLY OFF THE FREAKING HANDLE, and start hurling insults and loudly questioning the parentage of the person saying these things.

I know that doesn’t have much to do with the discussion at hand, but I was just pointing out the similarities. Most Apple fans (myself included) are not nut jobs who scream and yell every time someone says they like something else, and neither are Ron Paul supporters (again, like me).

You just owned, man. The part I MOST agreed with (I agreed with all of it, no offense,
Maxwell, your points were taken, but Eric’s were better, even if I didn’t agree with them) was the part about the Constitution, et al, not GRANTING rights but PROTECTING them. Important distinction indeed, semantics notwithstanding.

All told, a great post, and one that makes me glad that I read this far down. And btw, I’m STILL upset over Ron Paul not getting the nomination, and/or the win. That’s a man that could have done something for us. All of us.

America WAS the greatest social experiment of all mankind. It’s founding fathers and brothers were careful enough to craft our constitution so that it COULD be amended if and when needed, and trusted our futures to the same kind of good judgment they had. How misplaced that trust has been.

Ron Paul, and those REAL Republicans who agree with his positions, those who embody the TRUE meaning of the term and not what it has been bastardized to be known as in the last several decades, is as close to the founding fathers were in his philosophies as any politician in modern times. Even through ALL of the misinformation, ignorance, bias, avoidance, and LIES purpetrated by the media and populous throughout his run for the presidency, I never heard ANYONE say his alliance with those ideals as a bad thing.

Voting for the lesser of two evils is farce. Evil is still evil. By doing so you’re really voting for the evil of two lessers. My write-in absentee ballot has already been cast for Dr. Paul.

- a Ron Paul supporter

“Give me a good reason to bring a weapon onto school grounds.”

I’ll give you a few – Columbine, Pearl High, Red Lake Sr. High, Virginia Tech… the list goes on and on. The bad guys are ALREADY violating multiple existing laws in their murder sprees – all the victim-disarmament-zone signs do is keep the good guys from being able to STOP them before they’ve killed pretty much everyone they want to.

Heck – in Pearl, if the assistant principal hadn’t had to run a quarter-mile each way to retrieve his 1911 pistol from his car’s truck off-campus (complying with
the requirement to keep firearms offsite), he might have been able to stop the shooter at his school even faster, and saved MORE lives than he did.

Add to that the fact that virtually everyone carrying a firearm is NOT a psycho killer (those who go to the time and trouble of qualifying for and obtaining a Concealed Weapon Permit in particular are SAFER AND MORE LAW-ABIDING than the rest of the general public) – so why do you CARE whether or not they’re carrying?

“Give me a good reason why your hypothetical neighbor who’s a borderline sociopath, with violent dendancies and a previous record of violence needs to own a weapon without being properly screened first.”

Under current law, such a person would already be legally disqualified from possession – not just OWNERSHIP, but mere POSSESSION – of so much as a single round of .22LR ammo. Has been for DECADES.

But then, I don’t generally get hysterically paranoid about the possibility that my neighbors MIGHT be psychos. Restricting people’s rights without valid cause – due process and/or proper adjudication as either mentally-defective or a danger to self or others – is *WRONG*. Why do you seek to violate MY rights (or don’t care if they are violated), out of the patently-unreasonable fear of what someone ELSE *MIGHT* do?

“Explain to me what you need an assault weapon”

No such animal. Oh, there are a wide variety of firearms which have had that nonsensical label APPLIED to them by politicians seeking to outlaw them, but it doesn’t MEAN anything – any time you want to outlaw firearms based on COSMETIC criteria, to borrow a phrase from ICHC, you’re doin’ it wrong. Now assault RIFLES – and every other weapon subject to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (any full-auto or select-fire weapon, any rifle with a barrel less than 16″ or shotgun with a barrel under 18″ (or either one less than 26″ overall, IIRC), and any suppressor – what most people erroneously call a “silencer”) are subject to a host of varied and arcane rules for possession and use by civilians, which I won’t go further into here, except to note that they are NOT what is covered by the 1994 so-called “Assault Weapons Ban.” THAT actually restricted weapons which are generally LESS powerful and deadly than, and identical in general function to, the average hunting rifle.

“rifle, or whatever other than a rifle to hunt with? ”

Actually, I personally don’t hunt. However, the Second Amendment isn’t ABOUT hunting, despite various politicians’ efforts to claim such. It’s about me, and your neighbors, and tens of millions of other harmless, peaceable citizens having the RIGHT to own firearms for any lawful purpose whatsoever.

“Why would you need to buy more than one gun a month? ”

Because I have enough money to do so this month? Because I want to give one as a gift and get one for myself? Because I CAN? “Need” doesn’t apply. It’s my RIGHT.

“To match your shoes? Your bright orange vest? Why?”

Well, for me at least, firearms aren’t accessories – if anything, I’d consider clothing to be the accessory in that particular case. But me, I buy firearms for FUNCTION, not because they’d go nicely with my watch.

I’m sure there are those who do, however – and that’s their right, too.

“Im not bringing The Founders into this cause I was born about 200 years after they all died. I cant speak for them, so Im not going to.”

Too bad – because between the Constitution and all the supporting writings of theirs which are readily available online, it’s really quite easy to see that the Founders were ARDENT fans of civilian firearms ownership – as long as you aren’t deliberately trying to misinterpret what any 8 year old could understand, at least.

“What I can speak for, is the living document they left behind. They left it living because they knew, times would change, and that document would have to be augmented and updated.”

Yup – and there’s a PROCESS for that, which is being IGNORED by those attempting to violate the Second Amendment. Presumably because they know they could never push an actual Amendment through to undo the Second, so they hope no one will notice that everything they suggest is in fact ILLEGAL ON IT’S FACE.

“But the REAL point of everything Ive stated went right over your head: The
president cant just take your guns away.”

No, that did NOT go over my head, actually – I simply took issue with a number of your other (wildly-incorrect) talking points, and did not address that part. Seemed to me as though it fell under the “damning with faint praise” header anyways…

“The supreme court can.”

Debatable. They can undo (or, perhaps now, COULD HAVE UNDONE – it would be more difficult now, after ‘Heller’, I think) the official governmental recognition of our right to have firearms – they could NOT change what our rights actually ARE, because the Constitution and Bill Of Rights don’t GRANT rights, they PROTECT them. Semantics? Perhaps to some. Me, I think it’s an important difference.

“And from what Ive read, heard, and witnessed, no one is trying to take your guns away.”

Ah, not familiar with Barack Obama’s actual record on the issue, I see – nor with the history of the Democratic Party, either. Not what he, and they, CLAIM their record and position are, mind you – what their actual ACTIONS are, how they’ve voted over the years, the people they’ve associated with and taken money from.

Not that the Republicans are enormously better on that score; they’re a LITTLE better, though not much.

I think that, at the present moment, both parties see the victim-disarmament issue as an issue that can only hurt them, so they downplay and gloss over and try to deny what they’ve actually done in favor of what they think will garner them a few more votes. Given past efforts, though, I am not convinced that the grabbers have truly changed their ways, and there is a lot of truth to the old saying, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Part of that is speaking up when people say things that are either incorrect or are outright lies to try and help keep things from getting worse, which is what I’m doing here. Funny, really, because I don’t usually read this far into the Comments sections of the pics – just happened to catch your comment, and could not let it go unanswered.

I could probably go on (and on, and on, and on…) further, but I think I’ll wrap up here, if you don’t mind.

Otherwise, I can just play with my guns and swords in my backyard and not bother anybody.

If you’re psychotic, obviously you don’t need a weapon. We saw what happened when the system failed to stop the Virginia shooting cuz of faulty background checks.

As for the zombie apocalypse, an assault rifle won’t do you that much good anyway. Spray and pray is for amateurs. Learn how to conserve ammo and make intelligent shots.

“Zed? Zed’s dead honey….”

>_>

<_<

in bed.

I recently discovered the truth about ex-felons (yes, there is such a thing). Once a someone convicted of a felony has discharged his entire sentence–imprisonment and/or parole and/or probation–his felony status is discharged and he is again allowed to vote.

Give me a good reason why your hypothetical neighbor who’s a borderline sociopath, with
violent dendancies and a previous record of violence needs to own a weapon without being properly screened first.
-To shoot at the little voices who plague him nightly
Explain to me what you need an assault weapon, rifle, or whatever other than a rifle to hunt with?
-Carnivorous zombie deer
Why would you need
to buy more than one gun a month? To match your shoes? Your bright orange vest? Why?
-Cause I keep breaking them

Ive stated my opinion and brought forth situations, circumstantial though
they may be, that do support my opinion.
-And I’ve made a few comments that I find ammusing because it’s 1 am here and I have an odd sense of humour.

Im not bringing The Founders into this cause I was born about 200 years after they all died. I cant speak for them, so Im not going to.
-I can’t speak for them either….yet. Give it time though, I just bought a George Washington puppet and a copy of “Ventriloquism for dummies”

What I can speak for, is the living document
they left behind. They left it living because they knew, times would change,
and that document would have to be augmented and updated.
-I can’t think of anything funny to say about this part, though it could be argued that I haven’t really said anything funny so far.

But the REAL point of everything Ive stated went right over your head: The
president cant just take your guns away. The supreme court can. And from what Ive read, heard, and witnessed, no one is trying to take your guns away.
-You know what makes it really really difficult to take away peoples guns? The fact that those people have guns.

But on a more serious note…. Until the supreme court overturns the Right to Bear arms, you’ll always have your guns. From what I have read on the policies, Dems want to take away the right to buy ASSAULT rifles. As far as I can tell the zombie apocalypse hasnt happened, and deer havent grown fangs and become carnivores. Anything else you hunt can be brought down with a single shot, bolt or semi auto weapon. So there’s no need to own a rifle that can mow down multiple humanoids, with few uses otherwise.
Also from what I have read, Dems propose to limit the amount of guns able to be bought to 1 within a month. Moderation is the key, especially when dealing with lethal weapons. The liscense issue is a non issue. No one else who’s in a line of work that involves a gun, gets to own a gun without being liscenced, civillians should be no different.
My thoughts on gun control are rather moderate. The right to bear arms is undeniable. The right to horde weapons, buying weapons made specifically for killing people not animals, and owning a weapon whenever you’re not mentally and physcially fit, is deniable.
I defeats common sense to say that someone is trying to “take away your guns”. And its even more ridiculous that the federal government would try to enforce a nationwide martial law. There are lessons to fighting rebels on their own ground. We taught an entire empire that some 200 odd years ago. And the same holds true today….

Aw hell you know what… screw it, where’s my list? Your post fails…