On 11/25/2013 5:37 PM, LizR wrote:
On 26 November 2013 14:19, Jason Resch <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
It's not the lobby that is powerful or wealthy, (the NRA has only 4 million
members), it's that there are a large number of gun owners in america and
many of
them are willing to vote to maintain their right to continue to own one.
Over 50%
of adult males and over 50% of households in the US own a gun. It isn't
the lobby
that keeps the politicians from passing anti-gun legislation, it is the
voters.
(e.g., We wouldn't say there is a rich and powerful reproductive rights
lobby (it's
that it is an important issue to a large segment of the population)).
Guns aren't in the same league as "reproductive rights" (which were of course
successfully legislated for decades in China). A lot of people want to reproduce, but
most people don't want to own guns.
That's why we have votes. It turn out that most people don't want the government
intruding a lot on gun ownership.
You don't hear people in countries other than the US objecting because they don't have a
gun in every household, or (hehe) banging on about how everyone should have some
God-given right to be able to shoot other people whenever they feel like it .
What American ever claimed that? We used to shoot redcoats whenever we felt like it - but
that was a long time ago in a war.
Who taught Americans that they needed so many more guns than anyone in any other country
wants to own?
Their success in defeating the English Army in the revolutionary war and their conclusion
that the way to insure against an oppressive central government was an armed citizenry.
It's probably not a good idea anymore - but it once was.
Most people in most countries hardly ever /see/ a gun (except on TV shows imported from
the US).
Everybody between 18 and 30 in Switzerland is issued a gun - a real, fully automatic
assault rifle. Which they can keep if they want to buy it after leaving the militia.
I don't feel that I'm being deprived because I don't own a gun, and I suspect the same
is true of about 95% of the world's population.
1) I don't think you've surveyed the world's population.
2) What difference does it make what people in some other country think about
what they want?
Brent
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