Comments on: Proud to be an American

By: joated

joated — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:32:00 +0000

Since most of the firearms owners I know have multiply guns, I’d be much more interested in the % of the population that owns a weapon than the shear number of weapons for the entire population.

By: markm

markm — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:27:48 +0000

“Weapons ownership may be correlated with rising levels of wealth”

Certainly. Burundi was so poor even the army couldn’t afford a full kit of guns and ammo, so they had to commit genocide with machetes while a few armed troops kept the next victims covered… If you can’t afford a knife, you can always break a sapling off and use it as a club.

By: blackfork

blackfork — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:59:47 +0000

I have some of the Japanese firearms, the Swedes, the Swiss, the Argentines, the Germans, the Belguimics and probably a couple for some headhunters and eskimos. Somewhere I have them. Not here. I don’t think. Let me look around and get back to you.

I’ve got Jesse Jacksons Garand, but he doesn’t know it. Shoots left.

By: bob r

bob r — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:13:51 +0000

�Firearms are very unevenly distributed around the world. The image we have of certain regions such as Africa or Latin America being awash with weapons � these images are certainly misleading,� Small Arms Survey director Keith Krause said.

Serious logic disconnect here: having a _weapon_ does NOT equal having a _firearm_. The converse is true though (well, usually). I have no doubt that “certain regions such as Africa or Latin America” are “awash with weapons” — the weapons just don’t happen to be firearms. Rwanda ring a bell?

By: HardCorps

HardCorps — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:10:14 +0000

My poli-science major friend would always say the reason there are genocides is due to the lack of a “monopoly of violence” by a political entity. I would respond pointing out that the soviet union had a complete monopoly of violence, which he replied was was a rare occurance, but then I began to list all the atrocities committed in the 20th century by governments with monopolies of violence and he began to understand what that term really meant. It is precisely the lack of a monopoly of violence that some of our natural rights are respected in this country – not because of some piece of paper no one has ever read or cares about.

By: Standard Mischief

Standard Mischief — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:09:22 +0000

[but the anti-gunners tell us that gun ownership is at historic lows - ed]

More than likely, honesty in answering polls from random people about one’s ownership of an item that some people want banned is what is actually declining. And if I’m right about that, then that’s an excellent sign.