bill2

"I think it is okay for people to own guns *responsibly*, but many people don't care at all about either their own safety or of those around them. If it takes some laws (existing, new, revised, whatever) to steer people onto the path of responsibility, then I'm fine with that. No system can ever be perfect, but it could be a lot better than it is." _____________________ I do also, but many of the anti gun groups want to ban all guns, one step at a time. There have been numerous quotes from various gun control people/organizations (Rosie Odonnel, VPC - Violency Prevention Center who used to call themselves Handgun control by the way). If gun owners weren't fighting against gun ban efforts, they might be more amenable to some gun control efforts. However, due to the statements of many gun control backers that the best way to get rid of guns is to tighten up restrictions one step at a time, you probably will not see much compromise on this issue. -------------- "When I wanted a drivers license, I had to go to drivers ed. I had to know some basics and watch the gory "idiot drivers getting hit by trains" videos. I also had to physically demonstrate my aptitude before getting the license. It ought to be at least as hard to buy a handgun as to get a drivers license." ________________ Imagine if getting a car and license was as hard as getting a permit to own or carry. Imagine if you had to go to the police (auto accidents after all do kill tens of thousands of people every year), and explain why you wanted a car, and then have the police deny you the right to own a car by saying there doesn't appear to be a valid reason for you to have a car. Then imagine going outside and seeing some of the sheriff's buddys driving by and finding out that they had donated significant amounts of money to the sherriff's reelection campaign. Of course when you questioned the sherriff on this, you were told that this is nothing but a coincidence This happened in Santa Clara county in CA a couple of years ago. Or imaging seeing someone like Sean Penn driving by and he had a license to drive because he is, well, Sean Penn, and you - well you are no one important. Sean Penn lives in Marin county here in the bay area (it's almost impossible to get a concealed carry permit in the bay area), and does have a permit to carry a concealed weapon. He also has a felony conviction for beating one of his ex-wives and a several other criminal convictions. he obtained an exception from the CA dept of Justice and the FBI. Do you think that an ordinary citizen could do that? Permits to carry are (in states that don't have "shall issue" laws where adults can request one and be given one if they don't have felony convictions) grossly unfairly administered. You'd be surprised at the celebrities that have them - Steaven Seagal, Buddy Hackett. Even Sen Diane Feinstein of CA has had a CCW permit for 30 years now. ------------------------------ "If inadvertent child gun deaths are down, as Mike's link says, that's great. But it doesn't change the fact that the number should be zero. It doesn't change the fact that guns are used overwhelmingly to murder. The self-defense role is valid, but miniscule in comparison to the offensive criminal one in which innocent people die." ___________________ Actually the number of offensive criminal uses is small in comparison to the number of self -defense uses. By self defense uses, I also include instances where the person defending themselves just showed the gun to make the criminal leave. I read in the San Jose Mercury news back when Janet Reno was running the Justice Dept under Clinton, that the actual self defense use of guns was somewhere between 0.75 and 1.5 million times per year. The vast majority of times no shots are fired. Prof Gary Kleck of the Univ of Fl, or Florida state, estimates the number to be even higher - 2 - 4 million times per year. Also, when anti gun folks start quoting gun deaths for children, or people overall, they never break down the numbers. Over half of all gun deaths are from suicide, and of the rest many are from criminal shooting each other or being shot by police. When anti gun people quote numbers for children dying by gunshot, they include "children" up to the age of 23, including those shot by police in the commission of a crime. I do agree with Bill Von about both left and right being rather inflexible on various issues: abortion rights activists (just like gun control people!) refuse to consider any restriction on abortion, such as late term abortion and if you heard a description of one you might be against it too.

In Reply To it's the whole lack of O2 thing, i just cant remember.... o2 who needs o2!!!! _____________________________ Actually, what causes you to want to breathe is the buildup of CO2 (carbon dioxide), not the lack of O2. This is why free divers try to hyper ventilate before holding their breath and diving. That can be dangerous though because not having the desire to surface and breathe can result in your blacking out. Go rent The Deep Blue for Hollywood's version of free diving contests - it came out in the late '80's, not a bad movie. I read in Outside magazine a couple of years ago about a Cuban guy who could hold his breath for almost 8 minutes and was planning to break the 500 foot level for free diving competition (competitors grab a concrete weight attached to a cable and shoot down as far as they can go before letting go). Pretty wild.

Let's get back to Andy2's student dilemma. Advice about watching videos is good. Malfunction videos are good rainy day homework. He might try to borrow AFF instructional videos, but remember that there is little point in studying more than one or two dives ahead of his progression. Another good video is Pack Like a Pro. Packing lessons should parrallel skydiving lessons, but who knows, if he gets too far ahead on learning how to pack, his instructors may end up paying him so they can skydive with him. ____________________________________ Does that Pack like a pro video really help? I thought I read, on this forum, that some people thought it was not worth the money. The reason I ask is that I haven't jumped in over a year, due to back problems awhile ago and now I'm unemployed. I've passed the jumping your own pack job but still had a hell of a time trying to pack - it was always a frustrating experience and will be when I start jumping again. Why, I don't know - it seems simple enough. I need to do only 2 more things to get my A license - hop /n pop & catch an instructor who jumps out ahead of me. I'm assuming that I'll have to do some sort of refresher course also.

Below is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about an tandem jump gone bad. I'm curious as to how often reserve chutes don't work. In this case, it didn't fail, but it didn't work completely either. _________________________________________ They were plunging to earth at 180 mph over Monterey County, the main chute useless, when skydiving instructor Stephen Rafferty pulled the reserve chute. But instead of the normal braking jolt, the canopy above Rafferty and tandem-parachute client Cathy Smith began spinning wildly. The San Jose instructor looked up to see "several little tears and several broken lines" in the sky-blue back-up chute. "That's a pretty sinking feeling, because you don't have a third chance. You only have two parachutes," Rafferty, 56, said Monday after he battled to control the spinning canopy during a heart-pumping, 8,000-foot drop until the pair crash-landed in a field. Smith, 41, wound up with two broken legs. Rafferty walked away with a stiff neck and back and a wonderful sense of relief. "I knew we were in trouble," Smith said by phone from San Jose Medical Center after undergoing surgery to have steel rods implanted in her broken thighbones. "It hurts like hell." The $190 daredevil ride of a lifetime was a "golden" birthday present for Smith's 20-year-old daughter, Christina, who jumped ahead of her mother Sunday. Cathy Smith, an Oshkosh, Wisc., hospital lab technician, had taken a couple of jumps with a skydiving club 20 years ago while serving in the Army in South Korea. Christina is also in the Army, attending the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. It began routinely. Cathy Smith -- with "tandem master" Rafferty strapped to her back -- leaped from a twin-engine Skydive Monterey Bay airplane at 15,000 feet just before 2: 30 p.m. But the normal 60-second free fall stretched on when a four-foot wide "drogue" chute -- which is supposed to deploy first to prevent the combined weight of the two skydivers from zooming faster than 120 mph -- broke loose from its Kevlar cord. Without the drogue, the main chute couldn't deploy. Rafferty said he quickly recognized the main chute's "total failure" as the duo began "picking up speed dramatically" to about 180 mph, but he wasn't alarmed. A seasoned 16-year veteran with 8,500 jumps, he's had to pull his reserve chute about two dozen times -- and it routinely "lands like a feather." However, possibly because of their faster speed, the backup chute opened with tremendous force, tearing five attachment cords free from the canopy and ripping four dinner plate-sized holes in it. Instead of a gliding, rectangular, wing-like canopy, Rafferty looked up to see a spinning "misshapen" chute as the pair swung around at about 30 revolutions per minute. Normally the chute can be steered with toggles, Rafferty said, but this time it was uncontrollable. They were falling at about 30 mph -- 10 mph faster than normal descent. The damage also prevented the instructor from pulling toggles that "flare" the canopy at the last second to cushion the touchdown. "This was anything but routine," Rafferty said. He reached up to grab the remaining cords in a struggle to slow the spinning. Smith was flying blind, the failed main chute pressed against her face and wrapped around her body. But she could hear Rafferty, speaking into her ear. He urged her to gather up the flapping nylon as best she could and raise her legs -- so he'd bear the brunt of impact. They were falling so fast, Smith said, "I didn't realize the reserve was already open." Throughout the twisting, two-minute drop, Rafferty said, Smith "was phenomenally controlled. She was unbelievably composed." Smith said she never thought of death. "I was just concentrating on bringing the (main) chute in, doing what I could do," she said. Smith's daughter, who jumped first, later recounted to her mother how she had watched in fear as they spun to the ground -- a mile from the landing zone. "About 40 or 50 feet from the ground," Rafferty said, "I stopped working (to slow the spinning) and just wrapped my arms around the woman's head and chest." "All of a sudden -- boom! -- we hit the ground," Smith recalled. Swung sideways by the spinning, they landed on their sides in a planted field. The soft field "absolutely helped us," Rafferty said. "It could have been power lines or a road." "I'm just grateful it wasn't worse and grateful that she will fully recover, " he said. Asked whether she'd ever skydive again, Smith -- groggy from painkillers -- summoned the moxie to reply: "Who knows?" "If we're going to die, we're going to die, and if we're not, we're not." E-mail Alan Gathright at agathright@sfchronicle.com.

There could be lots of reasons. You said they were no longer interested/interesting. I'm assuming that one person is no longer interested in you, and you are no longer interested in the other one. Lots of times, as has been mentioned, you build up expectations of how someone looks based on their online comments or their voices, or even what they've said about themselves. I remember when I was answering personal ads ( I met my future wife when I answered hers), how many women said that they were models or ex-models; upon meeting them I was so tempted to ask what the hell were they modelling. Maybe they or you were dissapointed by the actual meeting, comparing it to what they thought it would be like. I've seen your photo, and like everyone else here, would say that you're way too good looking for anyone to be dissapointed in your looks so I'm assuming that didn't happen, but perhaps they're intimidated by your looks. It could be that now they've satisfied their curiosity, and maybe you've done the same, and no longer are interersted in keeping things going.

Women Suck yes...and men EAT!!! __________________________________ and really nice women swallow!

Y'know this is kinda like whats happening around the world right now. Everyone has the right to free speech (ok huge generalisaton there deliberately) as long as it agrees with America. When they dont they're pussies, users, cowards etc.. its a pity that the right to free speech doesnt include a right to have people actually listen to what you say and evaluate it in a reasonable fashion. ________________________ I respect her right to say those things, but I'd respect her more if she had the guts to say it here in America, not sucking up to the crowd in London. If she really believes that then should not apologize for it, if she doesn't believe it then she should have never said it in the first place.

Below is an article from the Telegraph(online)out of UK. It mentiones British paratroops assulting the Baghdad airport, and jumping from 250 ft. Is this possible? I would have thought that is way too low to jump from. The article also left me wondering why this is being published at all (unless it's some sort of disinformation plan). ******************************* Paras will make lightning assault on Baghdad airport By Sean Rayment and Julian Coman in New York (Filed: 09/03/2003) British paratroopers are preparing to seize Baghdad's Saddam International Airport in a bold and high-risk air assault. The operation is part of a "blitzkrieg" offensive being planned by Allied commanders in which they hope to overrun the Iraqi capital within 72 hours of the outbreak of war. British troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade will support American soldiers from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. The raid - of a kind unseen since the Second World War - will be launched within hours of President Bush giving his military commanders orders to invade Iraq, perhaps as early as this week. Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade and 3 Commando Brigade have reached full operational capability and are ready for war. The 7th Armoured Brigade, the other part of the British contingent, will be ready shortly. The war will begin with waves of cruise missiles, followed by bomber and ground attack aircraft striking Iraqi command and control centres. It is understood that the main Allied thrust, comprising two 25,000-strong US infantry divisions, will head into Iraq from Kuwait, while 3 Commando Brigade links up with elements of America's 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to carry out an assault on Basra, Iraq's second city. The Americans remain hopeful that the Turkish parliament will allow the 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions into their country to open a northern front against Saddam. In the hours after the launch of war, the airborne assault on Saddam International Airport will begin. Air defence sites and troops guarding the airfield will be destroyed by combat jets armed with satellite-guided bombs before the first British and American troops arrive. Paratroopers or heliborne troops will then assault the airfield, jumping from just 250 ft. The potential threat to Allied troops increased yesterday when it was revealed that Iraq has secretly built a new and potentially lethal unmanned drone that could rain down chemical and biological weapons on advancing forces. The revelation was buried deep in the latest 173-page report from United Nations weapons inspectors, declassified only late on Friday.

There's even one here: "France dumps on the US simply because it cannot compete with the US on any other level - cultureal, political, military." Therefore, do not be suprised when you see other people in France (or the UK, or wherever) slam the US. They are doing to us what we are doing to them. _____________________________ As I stated in my post, the French have been dumping on the US longer than we have been dumping on them. check my 2nd post (this is my third) to go to a blog where the host brings up all the anti_american things said in French newspapers and on French TV, and believe me some of the things said will really piss you off - worse than anything here said about the French. I see some people don't like my statement about the French not resenting us becasuse they can't compete culturally, politically, and militarily. I'm assuming I don't have to explain the military part to anyone (if the Eiffel tower had gone down on 9/11 the French would have come to us for help in counterattacking). The cultural - well like it or not (and I'm not saying that all of American culture exported to the world is good) but we do have a huge influence around the world - far greater than the French do). Politically - the only way they can compete is in the UN or NATO by vetoing any US resolutions which they love to do (while claiming moral superiority and love of peace as their only motivation- and if you believe that I've got some bridges to sell you). France and Germany are the ones splitting apart Europe, not the US as some media outlets have done. Look at the recent letter to the Wall Street Journal online from 8 European countries siding with the US and thanking the US for their past contributions to their freedom. They appreciate what the US has done for them, as well the follow up letter signed by 10 Eastern European countries who enjoy being out from Russian domination.

for more on the French, here's a blog from an American living in Paris for awhile: http://merdeinfrance.blogspot.com/

The anti American comments were coming from the French a long time before the anti French comments started up. Besides it's France that is criticizing the US for unilaterlism at the same time it goes into the Ivory coast to protect its interests. France dumps on the US simply because it cannot compete with the US on any other level - cultureal, political, military. And besides, the French only like the American Army when the German army is in Paris. France owes the US far more than we owe them.

I have to confess I let some "fear farts' go while in the plane going through AFF. Consider it the anti-whoopee cushion. It's the GasBGon flatulence filter, and it's helping provide relief for thousands of gas passers who have cleared rooms or blamed the dog for far too long. "People tell us, 'Thank you for giving my life back. Now I can go out in public again,'" Sharron Huza, the cushion's creator, said in an interview. "They'll bring it with them to the movie theatre, to work, in the car or on the airplane." Huza said more than 1,000 cushions have been sold in just over a year on the market. The company has been approached by people interested in taking GasBGon products into Belgium, Britain, Asia and Canada, according to James Huza, the company president. "Second-hand flatulence knows no borders," he said. The Huzas, a husband-and-wife team, say the cushion uses charcoal liner technology to filter out both malodorous smells and head-turning noises. The fabric is washable, and a removable foam filter muffles sounds while the activated carbon absorbs odors. "I'm sure everyone knows someone that could use one of these," said Eric Curran, of Staten Island, N.Y., who doesn't own a GasBGon but finds the idea both practical and humorous. "We have a whole culture of gas ... kids joke about it. You teach them it's funny and then it's funny for the rest of their lives." But the Huzas, who said they came upon the idea after a dinner of beans and wieners, didn't invent the product just for laughs. "There are a lot of people with serious medical issues like diabetes and irritable bowel syndrome," said Sharron Huza. "People are really suffering, and this number is increasing as years go on due to diet and lack of exercise." While flatulence isn't always a laughing matter, the Huzas liken themselves to Shakespeare. "Where there's a serious side, there's also a comedic side," Mr. Huza said. Richard Cowles, a maintenance engineer in South Carolina, said he bought his GasBGon as a joke, but became a believer and now keeps one at his office and at home. Cowles said his co-workers laughed when they first heard about the cushion, but "now about five guys here have their own." Several members of Cowles' extended family have placed orders. Even his 5-year-old son has one, and has written a testimonial about the cushion on the company's Web site. "I travel in the car with Mom and Dad a lot. I have my own [cushion] with the checkered flag," the son wrote. Cushions can take about 450 toots before they need a filter change, and come in several fashion patterns with names like "The Musical Solo" and "Silent But Deadly." While some companies hope their success isn't all just hot air, the Huzas are building on it, and have more products in the works. They're currently testing an idea for gas-filtering underpants. "It's worn between undergarments and the outer layer of clothing," James said. "We're designing this as a result of some of the requests we've had … for those who 'walk and talk' at the same time.'" While the Huzas say laughter is the best medicine, they also haven't lost their original focus. "Our goal is to help people with medical issues," said Sharron. "I have a nursing background and got to see patients firsthand, and what they go through." But it's not just for those with medical conditions — it goes a long way to help their loved ones too. "Thank you for sending me the cushion," Rodolfo L., from Costa Rica, wrote on www.gasbgon.com. "My wife is very happy."

As they have sporadically over the past 50 years....ever hear the story of the US soldiers being hacked to death with machetes and axes in the DMZ? I think that was during the 80's. Maybe 70's....my memory is hazy on the history. I just remember that they were cutting down a tree that was blocking their view of a NK guard tower. We basically did nothing other than a lot of saber rattling in response. I think that sucks...and it made me ashamed. _________________ it was the 1970's, I was in the Army then and remember that incident. You're right, we didn't do anything over it.

This is a long one, but well written. I'm sure some of you will agree and some will disagree. As for me - I like it. It's from http://www.rachellucas.com/archives/000218.html#000218. Guns and Freedom Read this. Read all of it. Last week, I posted a query to my readers: How would you argue with someone who advocates gun control (not registration and trigger locks, but the illegalization of guns)? There are now 240 comments to that post, many of which are excellent and thoughtful and helpful. Some are downright fantastic and address the core issue, which is freedom. And of all of those excellent comments, one person's just really jumped out at me, and I decided his needed to be posted up front here. They were written by a gentleman named Bill Whittle, and edited by me (with his permission) for relevance. Read every word. This is far better than anything I've ever written or ever will write. I now offer you Bill's words, with honor and gratitude: When I was a little kid, I asked my dad (who had served in the latter days of WW2 in Europe as a U.S. Army intelligence officer) about images I had seen of really huge numbers of prisoners being marched to their execution, guarded by perhaps five or ten men with rifles. I wanted to know why they didn't just rush the guards? I mean, it's one thing if they were heading to another crappy day at work camp, but these people were being marched off to be killed. I mean, for God's sake, what did they have to lose? I was six. My dad looked at me. He'd been to the camps, seen some horrible things. When I asked him why they didn't fight back or run for the woods, he said, without any arrogance or pride or jingoism, "I don't know Billy, I can't figure that one out myself." Then there was a long moment. "But I can't imagine Americans just walking off like that, either." Now before the combined military might of the European Union unites against me with a very harshly worded letter, let me clarify something: When he said he couldn't imagine Americans marching off to their deaths, he meant, obviously, Americans like the ones he knew. Kids who grew up hunting, kids who got a BB gun for their fifth birthday (never Christmas though --- you could shoot your eye out!). Likewise, it's impossible to imagine thousands of Brits (circa 1944) or Norwegians. Freedom is preserved by free people. Free people know in their heart that they are free. Back to the idea of an unarmed, culturally rich, bathed in literature and opera, non-simplisme culture like 1940s Germany: I also asked my father what would happen if the Gestapo came for us one night. He said he couldn't stop them from taking us, but he could damn sure take a few of those bastards with them, and I decided right there that I'd do the same thing. In the Warsaw Ghetto, in Solzhenitsyn's Gulags, in countless other miserable terrifying pits of murder, some people woke up to the idea that resistance is NOT futile. Addison and David Gulliver have it exactly right. Which is why that old saw, which in my terribly, tragically misspent liberal youth I used to sneer at as the mark of a real idiot - "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers" - suddenly makes a new kind of sense to me. That is not the statement of someone who doesn't want to give up a snowmobile or a Beemer. That is a statement that draws a line in the sand for the government, or any other oppressor, to plainly see. You want to take this freedom away from me? COME AND GET IT. Because gun ownership is the truest form of freedom, and here's why: It says you are your own person, responsible for your own actions. You are not willing to be collectively punished for the misdeeds of others. In fact, those that abuse this freedom by committing crimes are thought of and dealt with much more harshly by gun owners, as a rule, than by Hollywood celebrities, precisely becuase a free person understands the responsibility that comes with freedom. I truthfully can say I can't remember hearing of a registered gun owner committing a crime against strangers. Not to say that doesn't happen, but look at the behavior of the average NRA member and I'll bet you there are fewer criminals then there are in, say, the Screen Actors Guild. To Phillipe and other genuinely interested and open-minded Europeans, let me simply refer you to that great unbiased, uncorruptible teacher: History. Ask yourselves why intellectual elites so love totalitarian states where people are unarmed sheep. Look at the examples of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and Saddam. If you hate America so much, then ask yourself why no one fucks with Switzerland. And when contemplating your ever-so-sophisticated foreign policy, ask yourselves what real options you are left with when facing a determined, heartless bastard like Hitler, Napoleon, Ghengis Khan or Attila. Maybe the time for real evil like that has finally gone. I hope you are right, I really do. I don't want to go fight those bastards; I'd rather barbeque and watch the Gators. I'm sure the Jews in 1930 Germany thought such things could never happen again, not in a place as "civilized" as Germany. I'm sure every bound and beaten musician, surgeon, philosopher and painter being lined up at the side of a ditch thought exactly that. Try and understand this about Americans like Rachel and me and most of the rest here: We are not going out like that. Get it? We'll put up with handgun murders if we have to, but we are not going down that road. As a general rule, we are quiet, peaceful, decent people with better things to do than referee endless bloodbaths abroad. But it is possible to get our attention. And believe me, you have it now, and I believe the time will come when you will regret calling us cowboys and Nazis and idiots, not when it comes time to fight us, because that day will not come, but rather when you once again need the help of people like Rachel and me and my late father, fighting forces you ignore not from superior sophistication but from sheer moral cowardice. One last thing, regarding David Gulliver's excellent post: "The issuing officer was surprised to see that most of his men would not follow an order to disarm the populace by force." This, to my mind, is the fundamental difference between the Europeans and the U.S.: We trust the people. We fought wars and lost untold husbands and brothers and sons because of this single most basic belief: Trust the people. Trust them with freedom. Trust them to spend their own money. Trust them to do the right thing. Trust them to defend themselves. To the degree that government can help, great - but TRUST THE PEOPLE. Gun control activists don't think they can be trusted, with their guns or their money. They know better. They'll tell us what to do. Well, as far as the U.S. government trying to disarm America, it won't happen. Not only because the people will resist. Not only because it is in the fabric of the document that limits and legitimizes government. The single main reason why you won't see a police state here, ever, is because American police think it's a crock of shit, too. Who will do the dirty work? Volunteer citizen soldiers, that's who - and the first guns they'd have to turn in would be their own. We don't have shock troops here, boyo. No Republican Guards, special or otherwise; no Hussars, no Cossacks, no SS; we lack Preatorian guards, elite Napoleonic bodyguard units - any of that poison. Just kids serving their country, making some money for college. You think those people would fire on a crowd of American citizens? Think again. These trust the people freedoms are so deeply engrained in the fabric of America as to be genetic, I think. I used to worry that we'd bred that out of us, and then along comes Todd Beamer and company on United Flight 93, who, first among us that day, realized he was being marched to his death and decided to do something about it. We are a nation of immigrants, the descendents of people who had had quite enough of being told what to do by inbred aristocratic idiots and unelected intellectual effete sadists. When Europeans call us idiots, they simply show themselves incapable of recognizing the difference between intelligence, of which we are amply endowed, and intellectualism, that circle-jerk of coffee table discussion and basement politburo planning that we have never had much patience with. Our grandparents walked on the moon, man! And why is it that of all we produce and all we exult, the only things that seem to have caught on in Europe are McDonald's and Baywatch? That says much more about you than it does about us, and none of it good, I'm afraid. All I can say is, bravo, Mr. Whittle. Bravo. In response to first part of that comment, another reader posted, "The individuals who were massively machine gunned did not believe they were digging their own graves. They were always told they were digging foxholes, and other fortifications. They often did run for it when the machine gun arrived, but by then it was far too late." This reader has some noble ancestors who did participate in the resistance. If you wish to follow this line of debate, check out the comments. In response to part of that, Mr. Whittle posted the following: While you may have inferred I thought that 'victims of the Holocaust were cowards or idiots' I can assure you I do not see them as such. Let me clarify for you: I imply that they were in a deep state of denial, that denial began many, many years before they found themselves in that horrible situation. I argue that they saw an increasingly brutal and clear set of warning signs and that a large number of them - not all - convinced themselves that things would not get worse. I come to this conclusion by studying the words and memoirs of the victims themselves, and much of my admiration and respect for the state of Israel is based on their open-eyed assessment that they will not allow this to happen to their people again. They know what they are up against. I have just deleted many paragraphs of response to life inside the camps since it is irrelevant to my argument. The photograph that starting my questioning was taken during the early years of the war. There were no camps. There were just large numbers of people standing around, digging mass graves for themselves in a clearing in a forest, and a few Nazi bastards with single-shot rifles and pistols. I drew a boy's conclusion: Why not run for it? Furthermore, the real issue, as you may recall, was whether or not gun ownership deterred or defeated attempts to haul your family off in the first place. I maintain it does, and I maintain that soldiers are incapable of pulling American children out of their beds at night because unlike the those poor unarmed, psychologically battered Jews of the 1940s who came to believe they were guests in their own country, NO ONE is pulling ANY kids out of this crowd's house at night and going home fully staffed, ready to try again tomorrow. Understand? THAT is the point. [In regard to the Yale Milgram experiment], here's one that would be closer to the point of the argument: Kick down 100 doors of self-proclaimed French pacifists, grab the women and kids, and haul them away. Then try again in Texas, with 100 NRA members. Collate, or rather, have a surviving relative collate the results. Extrapolate the abductors' rates of casualties to determine the total number of abductors needed. See what percentage of jackbooted thugs have a suicide wish and then determine if you have a statistically significant deviation between the armed and unarmed groups. Yes I know this is getting long but I want to put all of this out there because I think it's really the best summation of this issue I've heard in a long while. In discussion with a very gentlemanly Canadian, Mr. Whittle posted the following: It is a common argument that bans on travel - cars, airplanes, etc. - are a false analogy compared to banning guns because cars have a clear benefit while guns don't do anything other than kill people. While that is exactly true, I think it misses the point, which to me is simply this: We'd never ban car travel to avoid thousands of highway deaths. It's clearly not worth it in both economic and personal freedom terms. The point I am trying to make is that banning guns is taking away the property of a person who has broken no laws by a government whose legitimacy is determined by a document that specifically allows that property, namely guns. Destroy that trust by punishing the innocent, by pulling a plank from the Bill of Rights, and the contract between the government and the people falls apart. Once the Second Amendment goes, the First will soon follow, because if some elite determines that the people can't be trusted with dangerous guns then it's just a matter of time until they decide they can't be trusted with dangerous ideas, either. Dangerous ideas have killed many millions more people than dangerous handguns - listen to the voices from the Gulag, the death camps, and all the blood-soaked killing fields through history. The framers, in their wisdom, put the 2nd Amendment there to give teeth to the revolutionary, unheard-of idea that the power rests with We The People. They did not depend on good will or promises. They made sure that when push came to shove we'd be the ones doing the pushing and shoving, not the folks in Washington. And by the way, gun rights supporters are frequently mocked when they say it deters foreign invasion - after all, come on, grow up, be realistic: Who's nuts enough to invade America? EXACTLY. It's unthinkable. GOOD. 2nd Amendment Mission 1 accomplished. Now for the domestic cost: Assume for a moment you could vaporize every gun on the planet. Would crime go away? Or would ruthless, physically strong gangs of young men be essentially able to roam free and predate at will? The history of civilization shows time and time again how decent, sophisticated city dwellers amass wealth through cooperation and the division of labor - only to be victimized by ruthless gangs of raping, looting cutthroats who couldn't make a fruit basket, sweeping down on them, murdering them and carting away the loot, to return a few years later, forever, ad infinitum. Vikings, Mongols, desperadoes of every stripe - they are a cancer on humanity but there they are and there they have always been. If civilization is worth having (and I believe it is) then it has to be defended, because the restraining virtues of justice, compassion and respect for laws are products of that civilizing force and completely unknown to those who would do it harm. Therefore, since I believe in this civilization, in its laws, science, art and medicine, I believe we must be prepared to defend it against what I feel no embarrassment for calling the Forces of Darkness. Now those forces could be raiders on horseback, jackbooted Nazi murders, or some kid blowing away a shopkeeper. For your argument to convince me, you'd have to show me a time before shopkeepers were blown away, hacked away, pelted away or whatever the case may be. Show me a time in history before the invention of the firearm, when crime and raiding and looting did not exist, when murders and rapes did not exist. We may lose 11,000 people to handguns a year. How many would we lose without any handguns, if killers and murderers and rapists roamed free of reprisal from citizens or police? I don't know. You don't know either. Maybe it's a lot fewer people, and maybe, in a world where strength and riuthlessness trump all, it would be a far higher one. And I can't see any moral distinction between a policeman and a law-abiding citizen. Policemen are drawn from the ranks of law-abiding citizens. They are not bred in hydroponic tanks. They are expected to show restraint and use their weapon as a last resort. Millions upon millions of citizens, a crowd more vast than entire armies of police, do exacly this every day. If all of these horrors had sprung up as as result of the invention of the handgun I'd be right there beside you calling for their destruction. But clearly, this is not the case. In our cowboy past we used to say that "God created Man, but Sam Colt made them equal." This is simple enough to understand. It means that a villager, let's say a schoolteacher, can defeat a human predator who may have spent his entire life practicing the art of war. Firearms are what tipped the balance toward civilization by eliminating a lifetime spent studying swordplay or spear play or pointed-stick play. The bad guys have always used weapons and they always will. The simple truth about guns is that they are damn effective and even easier to operate. They level the playing field to the point where a woman has a chance against a gang of thugs or a police officer can control a brawl. I don't see how vaporizing all the guns in the world would remove crime or violence - history shows these have always been with us and show no signs of responding favorably to well-reasoned arguments or harsh language. I wish it were not true. I wish the IRS did not exist either, but there it is. Criminals, and criminal regimes ranging from The Brow-Ridged Hairy People That Live Among the Distant Mountains all the way through history to the Nazis and the Soviets, have and will conspire to take by force what they cannot produce on their own. These people must be stopped. The genius of the 2nd Amendment is that it realizes that these people could be anybody - including the U.S. army. That is why this power, like the other powers, is vested in the people. Nowhere else in the world is this the case. You can make a solid argument that the United States is, by almost any measure, the most prosperous, successful nation in history. I'm not claiming this is because every American sleeps with a gun under the pillow - the vast majority do not. I do claim it is the result of a document that puts faith and trust in the people - trusts them with government, with freedom, and with the means of self-defense. You cannot remove that lynchpin of trust without collapsing the entire structure. Many observers of America never fully understand what we believe in our bones, namely, that the government doesn't tell us what we can do - WE tell THOSE bastards just how far they can go. Of course, all of this is completely whimsical, because, like nuclear weapons, guns are HERE and they are not going to go away. You cannot just vaoprize them. Honest people might be compelled to turn in their weapons; criminals clearly will not. So what do you propose? Forget the moral high ground of gun ownership. Again a simple truth, often maligned but demonstrably dead-on accurate: When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Here is my dry-eyed, cold-hearted, sad conclusion: I believe that the freedom, convenience and economic viability provided by the automobile is worth the 26,000 lives we lose to automotive deaths each year. I've lost loved ones in auto accidents and I still keep driving nevertheless. By the same calculation, I accept that the freedoms entrusted to the people of the United States is worth the 11,000 lives we lose to gun violence each year. I wish I could make both those numbers go away. I will support any reasonable campaign to make them as low as possible. But understand this: 11,000 handgun deaths a year, over four years is very roughly 50,000 killed. In Nazi Germany, an unarmed population was unable to resist the abduction and murder of 6,000,000 people in a similar period: a number 120 times higher. Throw in the midnight murders of the Soviets, the Chinese, the various and sundry African and South American genocides and purges and political assassinations and that number grows to many hundreds, if not several thousand times more killings in unarmed populations. Visualize this to fully appreciate the point. Imagine the Superbowl. Every player on the field is a handgun victim. All the people in the stands are the victims who were unable to resist with handguns. Those are historical facts. I, as one person, am willing to pay that price as a society. I wish it was lower. Any rational look into the world shows us numbers among unarmed nations that are far, far higher. Of course, many societies have far lower numbers. Japan is a fine example. I'm sure if the United States had 2000 years of racial homogeneity and a culture whose prize assets are conformity and submission then our numbers would be a lot lower. Alas, we are not that society. Huzzah, we are not that society! Canadian handgun murder rates are very similar to U.S. rates for the non-black, non-Hispanic population (I must stress here that I have read this from several reliable sources but HAVE NOT verified their methodology, nor am I qualified to do so). Would I deport American blacks and Hispanics to get a lower murder rate? I most emphatically would not. This country would fall to pieces without them, and again, the enormous, huge majority are completely innocent and I'd rather punish the guilty. I WOULD like to change the urban culture that glorifies gun violence. I think that is one all-American, homegrown, 100% pure evil, but there it is. If these statistics are true - and I really must emphasize again that I do not know that they are - then the U.S. and Canada would have pretty much complete murder parity - if only we'd commit the heinous moral crime of deporting millions of blacks and Hispanics in order to remove the vanishingly small percentage that commit a disproportionately high number of handgun murders; these being American citizens with as much right to be here as I have. In case anyone thinks they may have heard something I did not mean to say, let me state unequivocally that if the race-based statistics I mention do turn out to be true, then I attribute this solely to the fact that disproportionately large numbers of blacks and Hispanics live under circumstances that would make criminals of anyone. As a random viewing of "COPS" clearly shows, the bad guys, and the good guys, come in all colors, and the satisfaction and gratitude that I feel seeing a black policeman take down a white criminal is no greater or less than I do when the situation is reversed. I've done you the courtesy, for the sake of the argument, to grant all your statistics, so if only for the sake of the argument, grant me this one: If the white murder rate is the same in Canada as in the U.S., what advantage can you gain by trashing the Constitution here in the U.S.? Isn't there something deeper at work here? Could it, perhaps, come back to my core argument that the problem is not with the number of guns in this country but rather in the hearts of those who we allow to wield them, repeatedly? Could it really be as simple as apprehending, and punishing, those that would do harm to civilization? Rather than banning guns, should we not attack the moral rot that infests small, violent populations who put such horrible numbers at our feet? And then Mr. Whittle wrote the words that really grabbed me and brought it all around to a beautiful, powerful conclusion: The American Revolution surely is unique in the sense that the ringleaders - Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine, Hamilton, etc - were men of property, wealth and prestige; in other words, men with something to lose. Compare this to any other revolution in history, where the ringleaders were poor, dispossessed, powerless. The Russian Revolution, French Revolution, etc - these were joined by desperate people fighting mind-numbing poverty and political repression. And yet the Founding Fathers were men who were as well-off as any men on earth at the time, and furthermore, any of them could have been (and were) political leaders under His Majesty's government. For all practical intents and purposes, they had absolutely nothing to gain, and everything in the world to lose, by taking on the greatest military force the world had ever known. Why would they do this? What possible motivation could such rich, well-off, powerful men have? Militarily, they seemed certain to lose, and they knew before they started - and Patrick Henry made the point crystal clear - that they would be hanged as common criminals if they failed. Of course, the answer is, they did it to be free. And they did it to make the rest of their nation - the poor, disenfranchised - free as well. And it is clear as crystal from their collective writings that they took that risk to make Bill Whittle and Rachel Lucas and the rest of us free, too. They knew that God, (or for me, chance perhaps) had put them together in a time and place where a bold, courageous action followed by much suffering, doubt, blood and fear could, perhaps, unleash in mankind an energy source the likes of which they could not imagine. So for me, a child of that bet - that guess, that committment, that roll of the dice - for ME, I owe them that defense of freedom, and I will do my poor mite to pass it on as best I can. These men pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred Honor. They pledged that to ME. I owe them. I do not have the RIGHT to take away someone else's freedom and property - it is offensive to me to even contemplate it. Of course, if someone breaks the freedom/responsibility covenant by committing a crime, then all bets are off. To that extent, I view handgun murderers not just as criminals but as traitors as well. I hate seeing our kids get shot on the street, I hate it, I fucking hate it. But that is the cost of freedom. People get horribly killed on road trips to Florida at age 18. They're driving drunk. We could ban them. We would save lives. Enron and MCI steal like the worst characters from Dickens, taking people's Christmas dinners so they can have gold plated faucets. We could regulate more. The day may come when someone flies a Cessna into a stadium. We can ban the airplanes. Ditto for pleasure boats. We can ban and confiscate and regulate to our hearts content, and we will save many, many innocent lives by doing so. All for the price of a little freedom. I believe we should punish the perpetrators. I will not agree to restrict the freedoms of the vast numbers of people who abide by the concomitant responsibility and live lives of honesty and decency. And there is more than the physical restriction of freedoms: There is the slow erosion of self-reliance, self-confidence and self-determination among a nation. The more your government restricts your options, the more you psychologically look to government to keep you safe, fed, clothed, housed and sustained. There is a word for people who are fed, clothed, housed and sustained fully by others, and that word is SLAVES. If Congress was occupied by angels and Michael sat in a throne of glory in the Oval Office, I would listen to what they said for my own greater good. But no government is made of angels, not even the Canadian government in all its decency and compassion. So who determines how much freedom we trade for how much security? People do. People are not unknown to place their own interests above those of others. There is even a vanishing remote chance that Jean Cretien has at some point perhaps put personal interest above your needs. The real genius of the Founding Fathers was that these great and good men had the foresight and the courage to look into their own darker motives, and construct a system that prevents the accumulation of power. That Constitution could be torn up by force of arms. And that is why the Founders left that power in the hands of the people, who together can never be cowed by vanishingly small numbers of thugs holding the only guns. As PJ O'Rourke points out, the U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner's manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world's most unruly, passionate people safe, prosperous and free. Smarter people than me may disagree with that document - I'm for not touching a comma. So as a proud son of those brave men, I'll take freedom - all of it - and because I accept the benefits of those freedoms, I'll solemnly take the responsibilities as well. I may someday lose a child on a trip to spring break, but I'll never lock them in the basement to keep them safe. And I'll accept the fact that living in Los Angeles puts me at risk for being shot to death because I feel the freedom is worth it. I breathe that freedom every day, and hey, we all gotta go sometime. I'll continue to fly experimental airplanes because I am careful, meticulous, precise and responsible, and yet the day may come when I am out of altitude, out of airspeed and out of ideas all at the same time. Oh well. I have seen and done things up there that you cannot imagine and I cannot describe. Freedom. I respect and admire Canada and Canadians. We have been, and always will be, the best of friends despite these differences. And while Canadians frequently point out that they are free of our vices, I perceive that they are free of our greatness as well. You can't have it both ways. Me, personally, I'll take an American flag on the moon over free health care. I can buy health care. I wish to hell I could go to the moon. (Some of us in the Mojave desert may still have few tricks up our sleeve on this one. We're still free to build airplanes and spacecraft and fly the goddamn things. From our garages. Try and keep up with a nation that builds working spacecraft in the garage. As a hobby. For FUN.) And everyone who has taken America's disdain for intellectualism as a lack of intelligence has woken up looking at our dust trail as we speed ever faster beyond them. We're not just a smart country - we're THE smart country. Behold the list of inventions and Nobel Prize winning scientists. Einstein was an American. Germany threw him away - he's ours now, by his choice, not ours. Ditto Von Braun and numerous others, not to mention homegrown geniuses like the Wright Brothers and Robert Goddard, just to draw two names from the narrow field I know best. Staggeringly brilliant men and women, the best, most active minds on the planet pulling for the same team. So take your pick: Freedom or security? Greatness or goodness? Passion or decency? Our respective ancestors made their choice and here we are. I respect your right to chose differently. I only speak up to defend the choice we made as a deeply spiritual one, borne of reflection and danger and a spectacular triumph against all odds. I cannot stand idly by to hear people denounce our freedoms as the dimwitted macho posturing of a mob of illiterate uncultured idiots who are so vulgar and uncouth as to still believe in Hollywood myths manufactured for our simple complacent unsophisticated nature. From the Revolution until today, the choice for full freedom with all its accompanying excesses and failures is a profoundly well-reasoned, moral and ethical choice, and the result has been national and personal success unparalled in the history of this world. I am proud to be a member of such a magnificent group of people. I hope to God I can give back as much as I owe. So there you have the words of a true patriot and a great man. I wish I had written it myself. Thank you, Bill, for letting me post your words here. It's a genuine honor. P.S. Bill does not and never has owned a gun.

if you pull a gun on your assialant your chances of not living through the expierence more than double. ____________________________ Where did you hear this one? The justice department (under Janet Reno no less!!) estimated that guns are used 750,00 - 1,500,000 times a year to prevent crime. 99 % of the time the gun is not used, only displayed. Read "More guns, less crime" by John Lott who goes into great depth in this issue. Even people who are for strong gun control (read banning guns) such as CA Sen Diane Feinstine have a concealed carry permit to protect themselves. And here in the Bay area in CA that is almost impossible to get. Unless you're very well connected and rich.

Some of us do, although they get people just as riled up. Look at Julia Butterfly, Anne Coulter, Dan Perkins and Noam Chomsky. ___________________________ they've become celebreties too. Fortunately, those people can ignore the ignorant hollywood types if they so choose. Personally, I'm amazed that people actually get riled by entertainers who spout nonsense. These same entertainers make their _careers_ on fantasy, or on the controversies they create. People who get mad at Rush Limbaugh for saying outlandish things? That's how he makes a living! He's too smart to stop being contentious. __________________________________ it's not so much the hollywood types that rile as the seriousness that the media gives their comments. I'd like to see reporters go after them when they make outlandish statements and really push them for an explanation instead of just taking it at face value.

Take it from a conservative who would like to see Babs and Alec Baldwin follow through on their promises and move out of the country, I do NOT support your petition. I may not agree with their point of view, but I certainly agree with their right to express it. Let them talk, let the public decide! ___________________________________ I agree with you, everyone should have the right to speak out. But I think most people are tired of ignorant hollywood types spouting out on any subject they feel like, and the media treating them like they really know what they're talking about. No one calls them on what they say (at least not right when they're talking). Why not give as much attention to non celebrity types and their views?

You know that in respect for what you are going through and what Bitch is going through, we have all been holding back on the "pussy" jokes. So, that kitty better get better so we can let loose! _____________________________________ I tried to stop but my hands just typed this of their own accord: Johnny Carson was supposed to have Zha Zha (spelling?) Gabor on the Tonight Show. She brought her cat out with her, and when she asked Johnny if he wanted to pet her pussy, he is supposed to have replied "Sure, take the damn cat off of your lap!". I'm really sorry, I just couldn't help myself from posting this.

I'd go for that, as long as you also require such a test for politicians. It would prevent embarassing gaffes from our politicians, like our president asking the president of Brazil if "you have blacks, too?" or claiming that Mexican was a language. Of course, the danger there is that someday such a test might be applied to people who post on the net . . _________________________________ Hell if we did that we probably wouldn't have very many people who would qualify for office. Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad thing.

The HUSH Petition (Help Us Silence Hollywood, or, more informally, Up Babs') We, the undersigned, being of sound mind and strong viewership, would like to petition both Hollywood and the news media in order to restrain celebrities (movie & TV stars, pop & rock stars, producers, directors, etc.) from capitalizing on their celebritihood to sound off on whatever issue-du-jour comes rolling along to which they must bear witness. It is our deeply held belief that, on an extremely sunny day, only 1/2 of one percent of these stars could pass an entry-level college final relating to the political event for which their feet are oft found wedged deeply in their mouths (see B. Streisand, A. Baldwin, M. Moore, H. Belafonte, S. Penn, J. Fonda, W. Harrelson, M. Sheen, E. Asner, J. Lange, et al, etc., ad nauseam) and thereby merit no ink nor air time. It is ruinous enough for the civic culture to hear TV anchors who wouldn't know a "demand curve" from their elbow yammer on and on about the economy, but the glitterati sermonizing to us about America!? It's clearly time to demand some evidence of educated brain waves prior to handing the public megaphone to celebrities. It is also our belief that if not for showing off their silicon, facelifts, and/or hairplugs on the silver screen, most of these knuckleheads would be modeling underwear at Wal-Mart, working third tier escort services in Jersey, or removing asbestos from tire factories in Detroit. And, as such, the news industry must restrain from entering these vacuous remarks into the public domain until said celeb has passed the appropriate college-level test corresponding to their tirade at hand. Say, for instance, a Cher belches out that Bush is poisoning our drinking water. Prior to this being placed into the public domain for mass digestion by the news media, it is essential that Cher immediately take, and receive a passing grade on, a college-level Chemistry final. Or the next time a Madonna flatulates that the Republicans are Nazis, Madonna must promptly pass an upper-level history exam on the National Socialist Party's rise to power in 1920's Germany. Or when a Babs bladders poetically about the Hollywood Blacklist, she must drop everything and write a 1,000-word essay (using Spellcheck, of course) on The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and also get 80 percent or above on a pop quiz regarding Stalin’s pact with Hitler, just for good measure. In essence, the protocol defined in this petition places the burden on celebrities to first prove that their IQs are deeper than their makeup before their opinions, and other like tantrums, see the light of day. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Fly-Over Country (7,000 Signatures)

and of course somebody is protesting this. ________________________________ VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Animal lovers are howling over a skydiving Florida dog. The parachuting Dachshund — known as Brutus the Skydiving Dog — is to perform at this weekend's Air and Space Show at Vandenberg Air Force Base. "What we feel is this is cruelty to animals," said Shirley Cram, shelter director and treasurer for the Volunteers for Inter-valley Animals. "It's exploiting the dog. It certainly isn't fun for that dog to jump out of that plane." Brutus' skydiving partner disagrees. "He gets all excited when I'm getting my gear ready," said Ron Sirull of Delray Beach, Fla., contending Brutus enjoys his aerial activities. He added, "He's totally up for it." Sirull said his dog's veterinarian has signed off the activity being safe for Brutus. "There's always a misconception that Brutus jumps by himself," said Sirull, adding the dog is tucked into a special pouch affixed to his owner's chest. Brutus also dons custom-made goggles for what Sirull calls his "fleafall." While Sirull has 1,000 jumps, Brutus has logged 100. "That's equal to 700 jumps in dog years," said Sirull.

Quote -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah- Like Rosie ODonnel- Spouting off for heavy gun control- Then word gets out she carries- But SHE"S important, so she gets too carry a gun- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ditto for Dianne Feinstein...CA senator. Heavy heavy anti-gun lobbyist. _______________________ yeah it's funny how so many anti gun types actually have guns for themselves but they don't want the unwashed masses to have them because they're so dangerous.

I've got an HK USP 45, S & W .357 mag, and S& W .22 revolver. Armalite .223, Benelli 12 ga. I shoot in a pistol league every Monday night, and have been to Front Sight (outside of Las Vegas) for a couple of classes. CCW should be allowed in every state for any non felony adult who asks for one. When it's restricted, only the "connected" get them, which is wrong.

Somehow, New Yorkers with "juice" mange to get CCW good everywhere in the state except NYC. Donald Trump's got one. Willim F Buckley's got one. Ditto Laurence Rockefeller. Same for Howard Stern. _________________ and don't forget Buddy Hackett

Yeah, retired cop. The Chief of Rio Vista was giving them out to just about anybody, but Sheriff Rupf in Contra Costa, and Plummer in Alameda, fuggedaboutit. _____________________________________ you're right it's impossible to get a ccw here, unless you're an important politician like Sen Diane Feinstein or state Sen Perata who are very much in favor of gun control.