Beavah

Yah, da lengths we go to try to justify da unjustifiable are a bit hysterical, eh? Wouldn't it be easier to just admit that da NRA advertisement was over the top? I would think that would be preferable to tryin' to justify putting armed federal agents in everyone's home at taxpayer expense. It's just like in Scouting. We put a trained lifeguard in the canoe of a non-swimmer, because da non-swimmer is at higher risk. We don't put a trained lifeguard in every boy's canoe. That's not because we don't believe that every boy should be equally valued. It's because not e

LOL. Gotta love Hollywood! I'll note that da arms used by da veterans came from the national guard armory, eh? They were not personal arms. I'll note that da victory of the "good guys" apparently was da result of having a substantial supply of dynamite with which to dynamite the building. Havin' individuals with guns wasn't enough. So I'm back to "Does the right to bear arms include da same right to easy, untraceable access to high explosives as we currently have for guns?" I get that there's a lobbying group that's well-funded by da firearms manufacturers. What I don't

I believe that "NO" one person is more Important than anyone else in this world..person gets armed escorts at tax payer expense we all get it. Yah, so President Obama's kids get armed federal agents stationed in their home. What you're sayin' is that yeh want armed federal agents stationed in everyone's home? At your own expense? Really? Beavah

Beavah, the 23,800 schools that currently supply armed guards today do not do so with federal funds. False. Many if not most of 'em are supported through federal grants through da Community-oriented policing and drug-free-schools federal funding. That's how those resource officers first started to get hired for most schools, eh? If it weren't for federal funding, there would be very few. My son's security is just as important to me as the president children are to him, regardless of the threat level they each live with. Then why aren't yeh payin' for an armed security detail

One of the issues I have with any new regulations on gun ownership is that Hitler was the first government to have all guns registered in Germany. That way when it came time to confiscate them, they knew where they all were. Wow, jblake47 triggers Godwin's Law and loses da argument in less than a page! Not to rain on your fear of a future imaginary Hitler, but this little factoid is completely false. Don't let historical truth get in da way of convenient fiction, though. It would be so disappointin'. B

Sorry Beavah, but you are dead wrong. I hope as a scouter, you've never told a parent that their child won't be treated with the same care and respect because they aren't as important as another child in the troop. Nope, I haven't, but then that's not what we're talking about here. What I have done is told a parent that if their kid is a weak swimmer, we'll put him in a canoe with a trained lifeguard, as per Safety Afloat. We don't do that for every scout, eh? Only for a scout who is at higher risk. I have told parents whose kid has a bee sting allergy that I will pay for addi

Hmmm, that kinda runs counter to Obama's claim that all children's lives are important. No, not at all. All children's lives are important, but not all children experience da same risks. Some children with certain medical conditions (like being cancer survivors) receive regular MRI scans because they are at high risk for recurrence. That doesn't mean that taxpayers and insurers should spend the money required to regularly MRI scan every child, even though such a regular scan may catch a rare condition earlier. So we tailor our response to da level of risk. Kids' lives are impor

Should our children receive a lesser amount of protection simply because they are the general public? ABSOLUTELY YES. Absolutely my kids should receive a lesser amount of protection because they are the general public. For one thing, havin' an armed security detail is an enormous inconvenience and burden to the President's kids, eh? It's not somethin' most of us would wish upon our children. I really feel for 'em. Those kids and Barack and Michelle Obama put up with it because they know that the kids are a high-value target for bad guys and enemies of da country.

Yah, Tawhawk, first aiders are medical pros and da definitive treatment for most injuries that occur in da field. We treat cuts, scrapes, burns, dehydration, hypothermia, illness, stings, bites, blisters, minor dislocations, insulin shock, on and on... in the field, to final resolution or to the point where it's stable and we can have the lad "see your doctor this week." And then a few other things, like simple fractures, we manage da supportive care and transport ourselves. Only a few rare things that are truly threatening to life and limb do we call in da cavalry for.

Yah, please, please, please can we have a ban on rap music? I reckon that's an option which would gain bipartisan support in a heartbeat. Beavah

Yah, RememberSchiff, I agree with yeh on da 7-round clip bit. I couldn't figure out what NY was thinkin'. This is where the liberal democrat approach starts to run off da rails, because yeh can't write this stuff into laws successfully. Even done as regulation, where at least yeh would have some experts involved and some public comment, it gets really too complex. Da thing of it is, yeh get that sort of stuff when da rest of us become "the party of NO" instead of workin' with people to come up with better approaches. I note the moderate Republicans in NY state all defected, because

Council should have access to trained professionals, as would Child Protection Services. Yah, I always get a chuckle out of this. Childrens' Services agencies in most states are charged with dealin' with child abuse and neglect situations. They tend to be overworked, understaffed, relatively bureaucratic agencies. They are not there to support you in dealin' with an ordinary youth program issue of a lad misbehaving. When yeh call CPS for stuff outside their mandate like this which falls in da realm of "just do your job" as a parent or youth leader, it means they have less tim

And no doubt a lot of those gun owners were Obama voters, Brewmeister. So I'm a gun owner. Always have been, always will be. I believe that in da hands of a responsible citizen, guns are safe tools. I'm also, I hope, smart enough to recognize that gun manufacturers make a profit off of guns used by criminals. In fact, they make more profit from criminals, because criminals tend to get access to more guns, and those guns tend to be captured and taken off da street, resulting in da need to manufacture more guns. The more criminal gun use is reported in da media, the more ordinary

There's nuthin' at all here about government acquiring a monopoly on any type of research. I think one of da things that's necessary to stay mentally wake is to do your own research and become familiar with a topic before forming a hard-and-fast opinion about it. If yeh do that, yeh realize that: Government FUNDS research. Research is actually performed by regular citizens at universities, research corporations, and other places. That's da opposite of a monopoly. Government collects data through data clearinghouses and reporting requirements tied to receiving government funds. U

Yah, Eagle732, but if we're actually honest we'd admit that sadly da Senate no longer functions accordin' to the Constitution, and uses rules games and anonymous holds so as to require a supermajority of 60 to pass anything. If there's a serious problem with a nominee, have a vote and vote not to confirm. Do it publicly in full view of da nation like an honorable man, and accept the verdict of the majority as per the Constitution. Having nobody in da position for 6 years without da Senate ever voting is not conscionable. Absent genuine cause, the President gets to run the Executive Bra

Yah, Callooh! Callay!, yeh do realize that that $10M to find root causes is in response to da NRA's request that we look into the violence in society, particularly video games and Hollywood movies, right? I'll grant that from a national research perspective it's not a very big amount of money, and I think pursuin' some of that is unlikely to yield any results, but it was da NRA who asked for it. And I'm in favor of research, eh? Maybe we learn that Hollywood is a bigger problem than we thought, and that will be somethin' that's actually helpful. At least it might give us some guide as

Practically speakin', with restrictions on medical and law enforcement records, a lot of data can't be legally gathered by private researchers. Without someone mandating common reporting standards across states, yeh wouldn't get usable comparisons between states or districts with different approaches. So yah, in some ways, this does severely handicap research in this area, and does prohibit certain kinds of studies. It's funny how we extol da private sector for its virtues, but what major private sector corporation doesn't do research before it takes major action in some way or another?

Yah, thanks RememberSchiff. Here's da full list, split by congressional action and executive action: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/16/us/obama-gun-control-proposal.html (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Well as I read it, it's giving more control of our lives to Obamacare. Yah, hmmm.... I confess I read this and had to re-check da title of the thread. I thought I had entered the twilight zone. I'm almost scared to ask... How do things like universal background checks for gun purchases or nominating an ATF director give more control of our lives to a law which allows us to choose from any number of private insurance providers / plans without worrying about being denied for preexisting conditions? Beavah

Yah, I confess I'm a bit frustrated by da news organizations. You would think somebody would put together a detailed list of the proposals. Here's what I think I've been able to figure out so far: ACTION FOR CONGRESS 1. Universal background checks / eliminate the gun show loophole. 2. Ban on sale of clips with more than 10 rounds. 3. Ban on sale of "assault weapons." 4. Ban on possession or transfer of armor-piercing bullets. 5. Federal gun trafficking law with stiff penalties (presumably targeted in part at straw purchases). 6. Request for $10M to study root causes of gun v

Let me ask a different question Beavah. Is there any legitimate reason to exercise budgetary control over public money? Of course it is. It's also justified to criticize allocations as pork barrel for special interests, or as special privileges for special interests. Especially when da congress critters pushing it are themselves da beneficiaries of special interest funding. That is what we are talking about here. It's really hard to comment on da fear stuff, eh? Folks don't want to fund research out of fear that da research may be "biased" (which in this case seems to mean "the

Other than health and safety of the subjects? One of da most fascinating issues to me is that da lobbyists have succeeded in getting Congress to outlaw both data collection and research on gun safety. As a result, there's no real way to tell if more guns make for less crime, if CCW carriers are safe and help save lives, if "assault weapons" are really a problem. We are left relying on news reports from what many consider a liberally-biased media. JMHawkins in da previous thread complains that it's just because the funding would run through the Center for Disease Control or the NIH.

Registration has been a precusor to confiscation often enough to warrant concerns about a slippery slope, Yah, hmmm... JMHawkins, I'm a pretty decent student of history. Can yeh name even one example where registration has been a precursor to confiscation in the United States? Or anywhere? We do licensing, background checks and registration for other dangerous things, eh? Stuff like explosives. That has proven quite effective. Registration is probably necessary to make theft for profit, straw sales, illegal trafficking and such more difficult. We register cars because it

LOL. Yah, OK Eagle732, point taken. It seems to me that what would be a good idea here would be to take this opportunity to streamline and clean up some of this stuff, eh? I am in full agreement that for easily transportable items like cars and guns, some sort of uniformity is in order rather than a lot of patchwork stuff. I'm also in complete agreement that relatively simple, well-thought-out mechanisms are preferable to many pages of picky regulations. So what might that look like? It's not goin' to look completely like cars, because we do allow convicted felons to drive and

Yah, sure, but da Continental Army would have really loved dynamite, RPGs, and attack helicopters too, eh? Are yeh sayin' those things are also covered by the 2nd Amendment? Beavah