But i heard you're a supporter! How will you receive your prize then. :haha:

well I guess they could stick it:o

Yeah I figured as much. I think every country's news sources are biased one way or another. Countries aside, id guess nearly anything that is pro-gun, will be biased to the right. Lately one of my past times has been comparing CNN to Foxnews, just to see for myself how bad the bias really is, and it is really bad. Disgustingly so. Politics is todays "masterpiece theater" .

There's a ton of civil war talk going around, and I think most of it is paranoia or just political posturing in the form of chest beating. That said, if worst fears were to be realized (an Orwellian styled tyrannical government), I would not be idle, and I'll just leave it at that.

Even between States, within the United States we have big cultural differences.

Nobody's as bad as Glen Beck. At least, nobody I ever bothered to listen to. Yeah he has a biased to the right. That much is obvious, but I don't see him frothing at the mouth sputtering a bunch of conspiracy theory garbage. Hmm, maybe i"m thinking of Alex Jones. Meh. Either way, this guy doesn't appear to be as irrational as our own talking heads.

Former Secret Service Agent on the 2nd Amendment

I'm gonna have to get my ass to the voting booth this year. :shifty: I doubt it will do much good, but my conscience will be clear for having done everything I can possibly do as a law abiding citizen. I wonder what the voter turnout will be the next presidential election. My hope is the progressive's have slit their own throats, and election results swing congress and the white house more to the right. I hope this, because I think it would send a resounding message to ALL politicians - do not screw with constitutional rights.

Insurrection talk tends to make people uncomfortable, as it is an uncomfortable thought, and certainly one that is at an extreme. Just so my position is clear, though i won't dismiss them outright, I do view such discussion with skepticism, because i think it on the extreme end of the political posturing scale. I have to add though, I think the reason insurrection talk isn't a welcome discussion (even on gun forums), is because everyone's afraid of becoming a blip on the Government's radar. (insert dramatic pause here) There's a word here that is applicable because of this, but I can't quite place it. Irony maybe? I'm not sure.


Well, I think that's because Canuk's don't have certain things that we do.

- Do they have the history and level of violence in their inner cities that the US does? (Gang violence being one example, While i'm sure they have some, I doubt it's to the extend of ours.)
- Mohammad didn't park a couple of airliners into any of their skyscrapers. So began our current era of "politics of fear" in earnest here in the US.
- I think, generally speaking, most American's tend to be a bit more paranoid of an over reaching government to begin with.

Comparing gun statistics across countries is an unfair comparison. There are too many confounding variables there.

From an Australian point of view, I prefer Democrats, seeing as Australians don't really have a good history with Republicans. We lost two men in Iraq, and 39 dead and 242 wounded in Afghanistan. And, while I think that the Taliban and al Qaeda should be crushed, I'm rather doubtful if they can be.

I just don't like to see either party hold too much power, or at the very least, hold power for very long. I think either condition opens the door to the "good idea fairy" and causes long term damage to our country as a whole as asinine legislation is made.

Now, I don't know what political parties are called in Australia, so I'm assuming you mean the US political parties since we have a bad habit of dragging our friends into a fight they probably didn't want to be involved in, particualy when the Republicans are in control. On that view, i tend of have isolationist tendencies in my beliefs. I could care less if afganistan, or Iraq, or any other country, implodes upon itself in the bloodiest of affairs. I think we are far better off taking care of our own, and staying out of the affairs of other nations.

Funny, as much as a "gun nut" i appear to be, I think i'm still quite centrist in my views. I'm sure that is shocking to some.

Good post!

So you don't know what our political parties are? We've got:

The Greens

Labour (In power)

Liberal (Australian Tories)

The Shooting party

The Sex party (:o)

Some new party that blames abortion laws for bushfires

Hundreds of independents


At least you Americans only have to choose between two!

Not shocking at all. I think, by and large, the 'right winger' and the 'left winger' are stereotypes and nothing more. Most Americans balance out as being right-leaning on some issues and left-leaning on others, which tends to even out as having a large number of centrists in the country. I, for example, am right-leaning a number of fiscal issues but left-leaning on a number of social issues. I am left of you on the gun issue, but right of Dianne Feinstein. All in all, I am probably something of a centrist as well.

Well I must admit, I am definitely leaning far to the right when it comes to gun issues. If i was to rank myself on a number scale of how far to the right in a 1 through 10 value system, i'd place myself somewhere around 8. I dock myself -2 points or so because I don't see the practical value (in the lawful defense of self and others) with things like Beta mags. If those got banned, it wouldn't get my undies in a bunch. (going after standard 30 round mags though, does, lol )

I was thinking about the much lauded speech that Bill Clinton gave to a democratic dinner some weeks ago. I think his message to them was that the democrats have the opportunity to accomplish much on their agenda, but if they go after guns, they'll put what could be possible in jeopardy, and maybe not accomplish much at all as a result.

Now, this gun control issue has revealed something to me. I cannot deny that I am a "one issue voter". Never in my entire life have I been more politically active then I have in the last few months; and while I still think "we have the best government money can buy", ( and voting mostly a symbolic gesture) I will vote this next election so that I can truly say I did everything i could on this issue, and I won't be voting democratic.

I will vote republican, out of spite, and out of principle. While I could care less about many social issues (gay marriage, abortion, etc), I do care about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I don't know how many people like myself are out there, but I hope there are enough to send the democrats a clear message come next election - don't screw with our inalienable rights.

(edit: as an aside, and more to the topic title, this issue got a two year membership to the NRA out of me. The longer it continues, the longer my membership is liable to be. )

@ Ducimus

Do you get a lot of junk mail from them? They seem like they would be the junkmail list from hell. But, I'd imagine it's pretty cool junkmail though.:hmm2: :ping:

Depends on what you consider junk. They do keep you advised on pretty much everything on the political front, so yeah i get a lot of email from them. But not anything like product advertisement, penis enlargement pills, date russian girl, get rich quick money making schemes, and other assorted spam. (I get all that in my company email lol ).

I would definitely agree with those points.

Most Canadians are connected to the US in some way. I have relatives in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Most of us have been there at least once. Some of us actually like American culture. In my case it's music. All the good music started in America.

I've always felt that Canada has a big brother who has our back. No one is going to mess with us. Uncle Sam just wouldn't stand for it. That might be for his benefit more than ours but the result is the same.

Thanks. Oh and it's spelt 'Canuck'. :O:

I think you are more of Libertarian or Constitutionalist which I am.

I guess, Hell i don't even know what I am polticially speaking. I grew up in a republican family, but my views shifted after my stint in active duty. I don't really identify with either party.


Anywho, I found a video that nails this gun control issue perfectly in my opinion. I wish this was what our current president was saying. Hell, it probably deserves it's own thread.

GUNS (Virtual State of the Union 2013)

I don't know who this "Mr virtual President" guy is, but id vote for the guy giving that speech in a heartbeat. Hell, i'd be camping out at the voting booth the night before like some black friday shopper.

I agree, I don't think the divide in Canadian news sources is quite as big though. I really miss the days where you could watch news without the newscaster telling me how I must think about the news being reported. I can for my self thank you, and generally far better then the pablum you are trying to feed me


Yep I know, been to several different states, even lived short term in a few. Same goes for Canada, heck if you want gigantic cultural differences, look at Quebec. I was looking more at the broader cultural flavor so to speak.

I don't know, from the Canadian perspective (or at least what I would consider it to be) I think most people would find him rather irrational. It is why I could not finish watching, because it was full of so much utter nonsense in my opinion. Maybe not as bad, which is why I used the term the Canadian version ;)

Well lets see, we had 2 biker gang wars in Montreal where they were using car bombs and trying to blow up buildings (I was living in Montreal during a lot of it... fun times), we are having gang problems in all of our major cities (many of these being import gangs like the bloods, crips, etc.). Only reason why the bloodshed is so much lower, is due to how hard it is to get guns in the Canadian black market. Not many criminals can afford it or have the connections to get guns or ammo (ammo is a bit easier though). Most use knives and other melee weapons instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Biker_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_Canada

Maybe not to the same extent as the US, but I think the bigger question is why is there so much of a difference in crime rate? Personally I think the biggest reason is poverty and lack of opportunity.

The terrorist action against the US freaked us out too, and made us far more paranoid than we use to be as well. There were Canadians in the tower too (along with other foreign nationals).

Yes, that is pretty different from Canada. I always find it interesting that government is feared so much, but not business entities, which I think is a much larger threat to the the pursuit of life, liberty, and all of that. Government is one of the few things that protects its citizens from the unrestrained greed of buisness (and I do not believe greed is a good thing).