Thank you, so very much, for saying much and still not addressing the issue.

First, it's impossible to conclude what someone's education is based on postings here, aside from what someone says their education is.

Second, you've got to be frighteningly myopic if you think the beratement is as one-way as you think it is...

It's impossible to conclude what someone's education is from their writing?? If you mean formal education entirely I guess you're right, but you didn't say that.

I'm just stating my experience both on boards and in real life as to conservatives. A lot of them want to play the curmudgeon role but don't seem to realize how difficult that is to do without becoming just a mean asshole who's proud of it.

I cant remember where I got it from, but it was apparently based on average education length or study time.

It is at least safe to conclude that real many of the right wingers indeed are simple minded country folks.

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Jesus was a communist!

I agree, and I find the left wingers (socialists) in my country to be far more sympathetic and interested in human values than the right wingers. This is also the reason why I vote for them, because I would never vote for people who I dont like!

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Jesus was a communist!

Have you ever heard of "college-educated fools"? I know quite a few of them and most of them are young liberals. They're often lacking in common sense and can't find their asses with both hands. Yet, I know plenty of older college educated people who are conservatives though in their younger days, they could have been called liberals. By far, some of the most educated people I know never stepped foot in a university, getting their education instead at the "school of hard knocks" which goes to show that one doesn't have to have the alphabet behind one's name to be intelligent. The tragic thing about "intellectual snobs" is that they look down their noses at those without degrees and yet it's those without degrees that get the job done making them just as important as anyone else. Think of it this way, an engineer may come up with a plan but it's the plant workers that make it work. What do you think would happen if everyone was an engineer? Everyone would sit around planning and there would be no one to do the work (or to tell them why it wouldn't work in reality). I look at it this way, everyone is ignorant about something and a college education doesn't mean you'll know everything. A person can have a Master's or a Ph.D. and still not know how the hydrogen works in getting the shuttle off the ground but doesn't mean their stupid. My late husband never attended college but could tell you how because he processed the hydrogen for the shuttle at Air Products and Chemicals. One of his best friends has a IQ in the 180's, graduated from LSU and Michigan State and yet there's things he's ignorant about. I went to a vocational-technical school for nursing (a one year course at the time) making me far more educated in that field than he is even with his eight years at universities. By the way, he worked his way through LSU because his family was living in poverty and he is now a multimillionaire AND a conservative!

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chardonnay in one hand, chocolate in the other, body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming 'WOO HOO, what a ride!'"

You can tell a lot by how someone writes and you can also tell very little by what someone writes. Some people choose to hide behind their computers and use obfuscation, diversion, and attacks, while creating personaes on forums such as these. What are they hiding from? Who knows. The truth maybe.

There are smart people in all ideologies. Intelligence is not restricted to one specific political ideology. And like the Divine Mrs.M said, some intelligence isn't born solely out of colleges and universities. Life experience counts, too.

In my travels across America and Canada, "simple folks" who carry the burden of practically running our societies are not seen as intellectually smart, while the humanities and general arts people are categorized as such. They're both smart in their own ways, and there of course those who straddle both fences.

In America however, there is a special kind of far right-winger that uses faith and patriotism as a wedge issue, and this is dangerous and rather unpatriotic. I have no way of telling if those folks are edumucated or not, but it doesn't matter. One's intellect can be worked on, like any other muscle. You're not born with an intellect; it's developed. You can detect a strong intellect when someone is able to comprehend two opposing things in their mind at once and then expressing a thought or an idea that reveals this understanding.

Therefore, if I say guns don't kill people; People kill people; but then add that the AWB from 1994 should not have been sunsetted, a reasonable person might be able to understand this or at least ask for a little more clarification, while a partisan will take part of the statement and run away with it.

For whatever reason, Americans kill each other with guns oodles more than any other free people in the world. That's the big problem, and there seem to be more questions in my head about it than there are answers. So I'm for a sensible policy where people get to have their firearms. Open or concealed? I have no idea about that. I don't know if one is safer or not. And if it's concealed, and that were to be illegal, how do you enforce that law?

The reason I think it was a mistake not to keep the AWB in place is that law enforcement officials claim that in the year following it's demise, 44% more cops were killed by guns. They don't say how many of those deaths were from automatic weapons. But that jump in one year(and then it jumped again the year later in '06) is also attributed to the fact that hiring grants from the feds were discontinued by the current administration. Law enforcement officials also claim that they've had a tougher time since the ban expired because an influx of some of these guns have been coming into the country.

The second amendment ought to be protected, but using ignorance and a loophole the size of Asia to defend a position that people ought to own AK-47's or something is strange to me.

My question for gun enthusiasts is why does anybody need a gun that's fit for a gangsta or Rambo?

The issue here is that, in the other thread, you have admitted that you don't really know what the AWB covered, and you cannot articulate any reasonable argument as to why it should be renewed.

So how can you call it "partisan" to question your position on the AWB?

Which firearms do you consider "fit for a gangsta or Rambo?"

It is impossible to answer your question when you pose it in such ambiguous terms.

Matt

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I know people who have their Doctorates and, beyond their particular field of study, they're complete idiots...

I think a more important question is why would anyone need a baseball bat that's fit for Derek Jeter?

Baseball Bat Beating Death

LMFAO!

You keep missing my point. There are ambigious and non-existant stats regarding the use of these weapons, so who can say?

But law enforcement was getting additional resources to fight the problem for 10 years, and since then, more cops are getting killed.

I'm not saying.....I'm just saying! Isn't there a co-relation there?

Or is it that crazy Americans are just crazy Americans? Why would you want to kill a cop anyway?

At what point does a society have to lose a certain right because it can't function peacefully? Does such a question need to be asked? Is it fair to ask it?

Isn't this like toys from China?

I want to be able to enjoy the taste of my toys from China.

But you can't, America banned them.

But that's not fair, I have a constitutional right to eat my toys, no matter where they're from!

Bad analogy, I know. Maybe nothing can be done and that's the price Americans have to pay for putting the second amendment right after the first. But was the second amendment intended to cover any and all weapons? Or just the kinds of weapons that are necessary enough to protect one's property and not go into a crowded mall and kill a dozen people or a school and kill 30 some odd people?

Laugh all you want, but the point is clear: A perfectly legal object can be used in a completely illegal manner. That fact should not dictate that the object be outlawed...

You keep moving your point.

IIRC, the AWB did not provide the increased law enforcement funding - that was a separate law. If you're advocating bringing that back, I have no issue there.

It's the gun ban you say you want renewed, based on "alarm bells".

Where did I say I wanted to kill a cop? Or that I wanted anyone else to kill a cop?

Again, what kinds of guns do you advocate banning? (see, we're off more cops and back to the ban thing).

And what guns are "fit for a gangsta or Rambo?"

You keep making these vague, emotional statements. Let's give reason a shot, shall we?

Matt

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1) Do you even know what guns and type of weapons were involved in the AWB? I'm guessing not. They were semi-auto weapons that were banned for looking like military weapons and full auto weapons.

Banned by liberals based on feelings and emotions not facts. The weapons banned were in the smallest percentile of the kinds of weapons used in crimes. I'll bet money your figure of 44% increase is wrong and that less than 1% were killed by any weapon involved in the AWB.

2) Here's proof you don't know what you're talking about. Automatic weapons were and are still restricted and are not any part of the weapons included in the AWB. You should really know more about a subject before you inject your ignorance into a debate.

3) What's so horrible about an AK-47? This emotional need to ascribe evil to an inanimate object is strange to me.

4) What makes a firearm fit for a gangsta or a rambo? What people in hollywood show you? I have weapons used in various wars from over the last 200 years - I've found them to be interesting, fun to shoot, collectable and tradeable - but, I haven't found any of them to be intrinsically evil. I don't need them, but I have the legal right to own them and enjoy them.

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"Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves." ~ Lord Byron

I live in one of the only two states that do not allow concealed carry for private citizens, Wisconsin and Illinois. All 48 other states allow some form of concealed carry.

In my city, Milwaukee Wisconsin, on July 4th 2008, 8 people were shot, 6 of them died. The gunfire from THIS SHOOTING woke me up. It happened at the end of my block. This brought our murder rate up to 41 people so far this year. I haven't added this weekends murders yet.

Wether you agree with it or not, our Founding Fathers included in the Bill of Rights my right to keep and bear arms. You may argue that it was meant for militas. I point you to two of our Founding Fathers statements that address this concern.

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
-James Madison

"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
-Patrick Henry

These men clearly belived so stongly that I should have the right to keep and bear arms that they affirmed it along with 9 other rights that cannot be abolished or modified by creating the Bill of Rights.

On January 26th of this year Lodewikus Milford was fatally shot after he and three female co-workers were stopped by assailants in Milwaukee's Third Ward during a robbery. SOURCE The assailants shot him in the head after the victims had given them their money. I live in the Third Ward.

For most of you who argue this issue, it's a matter of political debate. For me it's an issue of life or death. The only people who have weapons in their pockets on my streets are criminals. My State laws bar lawfull citizens from defending ourselfs outside our homes. I love my city. It is my home. But with our per capita murder rate one of the highest in the nation SOURCE, taking away my right to bear arms in public denies me my right to life and the pursuit of happiness.