Demo candidates may have interesting debate coming up

The problem is that they'll both take the easy way out and simply say that gun ownership is an individual right subject to reasonable restrictions.

I doubt they'll be asked harder questions: What is reasonable? Is an outright handgun ban constitutional? Are DC's laws (or Philly's for that matter) "reasonable"? After all, the press doesn't want to help McCain.

Good. I think that their discussion of the gun issue is a good thing. Whether they will context it in gun rights or gun violence, the truth will be a little closer to the surface.

As an aside, and from the linked article:

Philadelphia has experienced an epidemic of gun killings: 331 people were shot to death last year, 321 with handguns.

Well then, we should push to ban those semiautomatic military-style "assault weapons"...not because they are used in Phily murders...but because we think we can.

It does my heart good to see ARs going mainstream...now being marketed by Remington, of all companies.

http://fieldandstream.blogs.com/gunnut/2007/10/meet-the-r-15.html

The idea of banning handguns is going nowhere, so let the cries for reasonable regulations intensify.

With the lefties its all about control: The criminal element is well armed so we honest productive citizens must be disarmed. Its a racist thought-crime to suggest we're anything more than exactly equal to and worth the same as the worthless and stupidest among us. At this point its open a vein, vote for McCain!

Gun control, believe it or not, is not really a Left/Right issue. George Orwell, a well known Leftist, was in favor of civilian firearms ownership and argued strongly (and unsuccessfully) for the retention of Britain's Home Guard at the end of WWII. He wrote passionately about the rifle above the door of the worker's cottage being a very effective protection against tyranny.

http://www.orwelltoday.com/orwellguns.shtml

The "left/right" vernacular has become increasingly obtuse to understand. The 'liberal' left is hard set against change; in Russia, the liberals are all more recognizable as Republicans to us.

Setting up a contrast between "soc!al!sts/authoritarians" and "individual righists/libertarians" is too big a mouthful to make it through the tv.

Welcome to '1984'!

(LOL! Your spam filter blocks 'soc!al!sts' because it contains 'c!al!s'. Mr. Hardy, whose side are you on, comrade?)

"Demo candidates" That means they are not the real model? Or does it mean that the sale price has been reduced becuase they are now used?

Mark

"(LOL! Your spam filter blocks 'soc!al!sts' because it contains 'c!al!s'. Mr. Hardy, whose side are you on, comrade?)"

Letalis-- I almost pee'd my pants laughing...

Thank you for that

Jim D, it is not obtuse if one understands that the reason liberal here means the opposite of what is done in the rest of the world is due to the direction of the flow of power.

In America the power is supposed to flow from the people to the state in as small a measure as possible for the state to perform its tasks. Therefore a conservative reading of the constitution means believing what it says is what it means. A liberal view of the constitution undermines its meaning and always results in more power to the state than it should have or than is justified under the constitution. This is done by many mechanisms such as claims of differing culture now as opposed to then, claims of what the founders said they didn't literally mean, and a redefining of the terms to unrecognizable interpretations that would have left the founders aghast.

In every other country in the world the power flows from the state to the people as privileges. Hence any looseining of state control is a liberalization of conditions under which the populace lives. Therefore what is called liberal there is the exact opposite of what is called liberal here.

It has to do with the direction of the flow of power.