Sadly no one shot FDR and his entire cabinet so NO.

It's a "living" constitution, so if we want him to be president, we'll just ignore that part.

I too am an atheist and believe stronlgy and passionately that there must be a 'seperation between church and state' as did Jefferson. I live in a country where the head of church is also head of state and armed services. I hope it doesn't make me a "lefty ideological fool" for being concerned with this.

No you are not. And I for one do my best in my daily life to reduce the influence of religion on myself and others. I am a proud and moral atheist.

BUT I also recognize that the second half of the establishment clause is as important as the first. The "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" clause prohibits government from intervening in the beliefs of its citizens be they Baptist, Muslim, Atheist or Pastafarian.

Lets assume the assasin had not missed FDR, what do you think would have happened?

Blissful thoughts ............ but most likely Cactus Jack or Al smith would have gotten the nod after FDR was killed and composed a similar cabinet.

Zangara would have likely needed to kill at least, Moley, Hull & Woodin along with FDR to keep the new deal plague off of us.

No need for the "BUT" distiction; we agree on both counts.

Would you be willing to actually ask them? I'm very curious to find out if your assumptions are true. (I have a feeling that many more people own than you think.) I understand if not, but figured I'd ask

Stats that I have read say that if you attempt to defend your home from a burglar, you are more likely to be killed/injured. In my opinion, this is because of a couple of reasons. First, not enough training. In a situation like this, you NEED to be able to keep your wits and rely on training in order to effectively defend yourself. (Muscle Memory FTW) Second, timing. People in the middle of the night typcially don't have as good reaction time. Sleep fog, etc. I would go so far as to say that IF I owned a handgun and was home in the middle of the night when an intruder came in, I wouldn't use it. I'm much more comfortable with my trusty Mikken. (Brand of bat) I'm 100% positive that any intruder would be disabled with one swing, and I'd be much more accurate.

In my opinion, owning a gun isn't to protect your home in the middle of the night against an intruder. It may be of assistance, which is an added bonus. During a crisis situation (food shortages?), it is used to protect your family and your property from those desperate enough to resort to stealing. Mostly in this case as a deterrant. (Stay away from my property, I have weapons)

But, the intent of the 2nd amendment (and the reason that you SHOULD be allowed to own more than one gun and semi-automatic weapons) is to ensure that the people can protect themselves from the tyranny of a government. The fact that most of us cannot fathom needing them for that purpose does not matter. Our government is not immune to the fate of countless governments who have attempted to oppress the people.

Of course, if somebody commits a CRIME with those guns, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. But possession of these weapons is not a crime.

Hope that made sense.

Obviously you're already liable for crimes you commit with your gun and damages you accidentally cause with it.

There also is already an application and background check required by the federal government (so in all states). I bought a new handgun (my second one) last week in Florida which is one of the most lenient gun states. I walked in the store, picked out the gun I wanted, filled out an application for a background check and showed ID, paid for the gun, came back 3 days later and showed ID again and left with the gun. I don't have to have a license to own the gun. If I wanted to I could get a permit to carry it concealed - pretty much any non-felon can get one. If I had a CC permit I would not have had to wait 3 days, I could have walked out the same day with my gun. I don't know about any other states but that's an easy one example.

1. The government having them is irrelevant anyways since our military would not slaughter a few million Americans for the sake of tyranny.This fact alone illustrates how the 2nd amendment protects us from our own government. Its unlikely that we would ever have to do battle against our own military, the reason why its unlikely is the 2nd amendment.

2. Why should we have the right to do anything that is not necessary? I don't understand why some people have a 56 inch TV. I could say "eh I am fine with people having TVs as long as they are under 27 inches since I don't understand why you would need a 56 inch. Also, I am fine with you having a TV as long as you don't own more than one".....

I own more than one firearm and most are semiautomatics. Why? Because I enjoy collecting and shooting them, which is a good enough reason. Other people shouldn't be able to tell you that you can't have a particular hobby because they themselves don't share the same hobby as you.

Rock collecting is pretty boring imo, I don't see a reason to own more than one. But I think rock collectors should have every right in the world to collect as many as they want (even though rocks are potentially deadly).

QFTx1000. My favorite Ben Franklin quote.

Many have thrown this statement out there and I agree with it. Curious how many of you that believe this voted republican last election after they took so many rights in the name os 9/11


as for Tomveils question would I ask them. seem strange to go knock on there door and ask if they own a rifle. Many on my block are new Canadians that have trouble with the language. I would have gladly done it on my old block 10 residences and would have bet it would have been 1 for ten at most

Did I miss something? I seem to remember democrats voting for the exact same stuff as eagerly as the republicans.

Thats not my question. If you believe so strongly in the statement than your vote should not have been for someone that would trash a right you so strongly believe in.



Democrats were scared babies with no backbone to stand up to it. There were only a few that had the guts to say no. Even Now they must be the dumbest party out there fighting amongst themselves. I never thought they could screw up this election too but who knows.

In regards to that Benjamin Franklin quote, I went to look it up, because the version being cited in here is not the version I'd heard before. Curiously, BF denied having written that, although some scholars still believe he did. From WikiQuote:

I agree. But why single out republicans?

You could say the same about republicans. It's not like there is some hive mind, all republicans collectively thought up this idea and then democrats just said "OK".

I didn't vote Republican last election. (Although to be fair, the Democrats aren't any better. If they were in charge on 9/11, they would have done the same.) The problem is GOVERNMENT ITSELF, not one of the parties. Government thinks that government is the answer to everything. They try to convince US that it's "for our own good" with propoganda and misleading statistics. The fact that we're so terrified of a small group of extremists on the other side of the world that we'd spend trillions of dollars and lose thousands of soldiers is SO RIDICULOUS IT BOGGLES THE MIND. But people go along with it because they believe that the government wouldn't lie to them.

(A side note. I see you saying that the reason I argue we should have higher quality weapons is because the government has them. This isn't what I said. I said that the reason we should have things like armor piercing bullets is because government has the armor. If your weapons are inneffective, the ability of the citizentry to defend itself is removed.)

lozen, it was not the republicans that took rights away, both sides did it, and to say one side did it more than the other is silly. There were a small number of people on both sides of the aisle that voted against the patriot act. edit: just looked it up, apparently only one person in the senate voted Nay, and in the House there were 357 yeas, about 70 nays.

With that said, I was not of voting age last election, but I was a supporter of John Kerry. With THAT said, I'll also add that this was before I cared at all about politics/knew anything about anything, though, even with my current political opinions I may have supported him over Bush, maybe.


Edit2: By the way, a friend here went to a Clinton rally at Drexel (he's a Paul supporter but went for the experience) and she said (proudly) that she was one of the people who helped push the PATRIOT act through Congress, and the crowd went wild cheering for her. Idiots.

Now that's some scary ****

yeah, she also did a wonderful job of insulting some Chinese students that were in attendance. She said something about restricting trade with China if China wouldn't inspect their products closer, and the Chinese students booed and she goes "Okay, well, in THIS country we have freedom of speech." And again, the crowd went wild.

Playing devils advocate here... but might come across as scary to some people seeing a Ron Paul crowd cheering at him saying he opposed the Civil Rights Act.

But yeah, I'd vote for McCain over Clinton. She sucks pretty hard (oh wait, maybe not )

*insert lewinsky joke here*

Correct me if I am wrong but did not the Republicans have the majority in the House? So it really didnt matter.

I blame the republicans as they were the party in power. If the democrats get in and do not quash the Patriot Act they are no better than the Republicans.


Also if the Democrats were in Power I dont think they would have done the same thing. Also I do realize some republicans actually read the patriot act and voted against it. Thats the guy I vote for

A few more responses than I expected and the road's the post has taken

If any of you are curious Canada's Constitution

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/const/index.html

This is an overly simplistic way of viewing things because "the republicans" (or whoever the majority is) don't just get to automatically pass whatever "they" want.

Each individual congressman votes on his own.

Note that right now the democrats have control, and there hasn't even been an effort at repealing USA PATRIOT.