Wow, that's a lovely increase over the past 5 months. Thanks a lot crazy right wing conspiracy people.

I'll have to say not so much. The head of the NRA just 4 years ago said he thought everyone who purchased a gun or rifle in the US should have a complete and thorough background check and was on board for gun reform. He sat in from of congress and gave a testimony on such and for no reason explained, completely disagrees with this policy change now. He's causing an unnecessary commotion amongst people right now. Why did he want one then but not now? Hmmmm. Can you say gun lobbyists.

And this whole notion that Americans need to arm themselves against the government if they should ever need to overthrow it? Are you f%#$ing kidding me? These people live in such a delusion that if the government ever wanted to take over, Americans armed with guns and rifles couldn't do shit. That train of thought is hundreds of years old and such a mute point today. The government could just make you disappear on paper and in the banking system and millions of of us would be screwed.

And remember, this is coming from a guy that spent 8 years in the US Army Airborne and I loved blowing shit up but I also don't live in a world of delusion like I might even say 75% of the US population does.

good point

@vicharris for once I think you and I agree on something.

"Are you f%#$ing kidding me? These people live in such a delusion that if the government ever wanted to take over, Americans armed with guns and rifles couldn't do shit."

Absolutely right. Why do you think the government wants firearms banned? With less than 1% of all firearm deaths due to large caliber "assault" rifles, why is it 99% of the rhetoric? Because those firearms are the only ones that even come close to matching military firearms in tactical ability. Keep those you rule from matching your military ability and you'll always have the advantage. You say you were Airborne, then you understand completely.

Why is it that the government is expanding healthcare and food assistance and spending huge amounts of money while racking up the largest debt/deficit in history? To make folks become more and more dependent on the government so that in the future those same folks won't have any other choice but obey their Washington overlords for their food and care.

It's a slow process but all of our rights are going away and all sides of the government are to blame.

Even if they had assault riffles, normal citizens couldn't do shit. It's a joke they think that an AK47 or M4 will help them over throw the government.

I doubt that someone will want to "over throw the government". But they can use this rifles to say firm no to army who'll gently ask them to go to work for free. Or of goverment try to stop national strike by force as they do in Greece.

And the chances are that the bulk of normal military personnel would revolt against their commanders as they see that they are being ordered to hurt the citizens of their country.

The government may not want to "destroy" infrastructure, but that's why they have built huge systems of military infrastructure. Don't think for a minute that there aren't special military systems that are independent of citizen infrastructure. I worked for the phone company way back in the day and there were completely separate systems built into the networks for military/government. We couldn't touch them. They had their own folks for that. Now, it's all satellites and server farms built inside mountains. If the citizen infrastructure were to perish, the government systems wouldn't even blink.

And this whole notion that Americans need to arm themselves against the government if they should ever need to overthrow it? Are you f%#$ing kidding me? These people live in such a delusion that if the government ever wanted to take over, Americans armed with guns and rifles couldn't do shit. That train of thought is hundreds of years old and such a mute point today. The government could just make you disappear on paper and in the banking system and millions of of us would be screwed.

Actually, no. Armed with conviction and will an overwhelmingly superior armed force cannot put down an insurgent force. Just look at the last thirty plus years of history, a lot of it with the might of America's armed forces and political agenda making no difference, no headway, no dent in their conflicts in SE Asia. Well armed but just-doing-their-job military up against primitives convinced they follow a righteous cause is not a foregone conclusion against the weaker defending force.

Over in the Middle East, our only victories are against other organized but unconvinced government forces. That's not who the real threat are. Those aren't the people that are going pledge to take themselves out too if it means defeating their enemy. Those are the kinds of opponent that surrender to CNN news crews.

Now, take that history and now add the conflict of an American soldier being ordered to fire on or bomb their own people, maybe their own town, or unload into a crowd to quell a riot. These men and women aren't robots and, odds are, they don't believe in the policy themselves. That doesn't make for any kind of decisive victory.

This was one of my primary reasons for disliking the very premise of The Hunger Games. No way. This country has no significant history as an occupied, defeated people. Getting our asses kicked in places we don't really want to be or need to be in the first place, sure. But there's simply zero evidence that anything like a forced gun ban could be pulled off.

I don't know anyone officially a part of the Occupy movement but just imagining even that small of a group armed, marching on a government building...sorry, but they're gonna "occupy" it. The first Predator strike to take out a group of 2nd Amendment protesters will galvanize these people and instantly create a larger paramilitary force than the US Government has at its disposal to defend against. What, the N.Koreans have something like a million strong standing army...we have several times over this number in registered gun owners in Texas who aren't going to play these reindeer games, and they'll (like a few other states) will have their local governments behind them.

Any federal officer trying to enforce a federal gun ban in this state will be immediately arrested. We're not the only one that's already made this decree.

@sicovdplas you're only tried for treason if the regime still exists when the dust settles. This country exists because "treason" ceases to be a meaningful concept when doing the right thing means disobeying orders.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. It's also a tool to manipulate expendable people into doing bad things because they've been lead to believe not doing them was somehow worse. Patriotism, religion, hopefully more people wake up and realize there's no such thing as magick.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

It is famous citation wrongly used.

First, patriotism is just essential quality of human. By appempting to destroy patriotism, you are destroying people.
Same stands for nationalism turned by corporate owned media now to something near terrorism.

It's also a tool to manipulate expendable people into doing bad things because they've been lead to believe not doing them was somehow worse. Patriotism, religion, hopefully more people wake up and realize there's no such thing as magick.

I see whole part as intention to mix different things and make them feel dirty.

Sorry, but no, patriotism, as it exists in practice, is a means to manipulate. It's a stupid concept, different from a feeling of social responsibility to one's community. Responsibility or devotion to an idea is just stupid and ultimately means someone has convinced that individual that their life and their well being is less important than someone else's agenda

You sound now as Ayn Rand. Practice of social and biological systems show that patriotism is natural quality.

I think you made up some interesting model understanding under patriotism mass propaganda and manipulation.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev please produce references to the discovery of the "patriotism gene". I'd really be interested in reading that. Somehow I'm betting there are villages and communities all over the world, in remote areas governments don't much care about, where people go their whole lives without ever feeling like something is missing from their life by not having some greater idea to serve than to just live.

This is the kind of crap we come up with thanks to having brains big enough to be bored with all the downtime between being used for what it was meant to be used for: survival. Sometimes that need to fill in the spaces gives us a symphony, sometimes it gives us concepts completely counter to the rest of our, now less used, genetic programming.

Those early humans you are referring to are still of a sufficiently advanced culture (primitive compared to others in some parts of the world) but that's still a very artificial creation as a result of culture created by groups of people who had already created the notion of a "nation". Still very much a learned behavior and concept that truly primitive peoples, meaning people more in touch with their natural state, have little use for. It's an artificial concept imposed on the individual by an established culture. The individual has no need of it. It is merely one of many means to control them.

Perhaps there is a miscommunication concerning what is meant here by patriotism? I agree with Vitaliy that patriotism as a concept/general mindset is a natural human behavior.

However . . . in the USA, (and I assume some other places as well), the concept of "patriotism" is used as a manipulating tool. Because people generally feel that they ought to be reasonably patriotic, the government, media, etc. propagandize certain viewpoints by labeling non-supporters as "unpatriotic", therefore implying that if you're a good, upstanding 'Murican citizen, you ought to support a certain cause or think/act a certain way. To most people in the United States, "patriotism", or being "patriotic" means ascribing to the causes and beliefs put forth by the media as "patriotic", and has little to do with the more general meaning of the word.

The specific word/concept of patriotism is very unique in the USA, and it causes a lot of problems, IMO. For example, the Christian church that I attend fears being labeled as "un-patriotic", so on the Sunday nearest veteran's day, they have what I can in good conscience only call a service worshipping United States armed forces members. If I were ever to express my discomfort with this service, I would deeply offend many people, who would certainly at the very least think me utterly incapable of being patriotic, let alone pro-USA. And I wouldn't blame them. The government has done a darn good job of making sure that everyone has friends and family in the armed forces. And if you know someone in the forces, of course you should support them, right? What kind of friend would you be if you didn't?

Also, I should mention, three of my best friends are in the US military, and two of them are these same folks that are snatching up automatic weapons. Of course, the joking rationale for this is the hullabaloo about "the gov't will outlaw them so get 'em now", but this isn't really a serious reason (at least not any more serious than their zombie apocalypse survival plan).

I for one would estimate that a gun restriction is on the less likely of things to have happen, but not a complete impossibility. one thing is for sure, if a strict gun regulation is successfully put in place, in my mind it proves a lot of very bad things. First off, it would prove that the Constitution means squat. Second, that the media/corporations have almost complete control of the government (although IMO this is already a reality). Third, that the government is neither by nor for the people any longer.

I am currently considering very seriously wether or not I am a pacifist (a luxury I am thankful to have), but I certainly doubt that I will ever own a gun. That being said, I strongly believe that others have the right to own guns if they so choose. I realize the main argument for this has been used to death, but it just makes sense: the criminals will have whatever weapons they want, and gun regulation will take guns mainly from law-abiding citizens.