Arizona legalizes carrying concealed gun without a permit

[Beowulf]

Why the fuck does anyone need a 17-round magazine?

It's not a Bill of Needs, it's a Bill of Rights. Also, training.

My what a pithy remark, you don't perhaps have it in bumper sticker form, do you?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Please point to the part about training, or competitive shooting, or magazines even. The 2nd amendment was written by people who had no standing army, no national guard, no navy, and no concept of a multi-round weapon.

And notice the “well-regulated” part. That means Congress should, and ought to be, passing laws that ensure every gun owner is a member of a local militia dedicated to the security and safety of their state, and in accordance with Article II, Sec. II under the command of the President of the United States. “So you want to own a firearm? Congratulations that comes with complimentary enlistment in the National Guard Reserves. Report to this address for your range training.”

Hey fucktard! SCOTUS ruled that you're wrong in DC vs Heller. Ownership of guns was ruled to be an individual right.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Do you realize you can change a magazine in under two seconds with practice right? So swapping twenty magazines wouldn’t even give the police ONE extra minute to respond. You think that’s going to fucking matter? At best it provides opportunities for armed citizens to return fire, since you’d be damn lucky if the cops show up in even five minutes, and the first cops to arrive aren’t going to rush head first into a shooting situation until they have significant numbers. But hey, you just limited those law abiding gun owners to 5 rounds, while the murder criminal has zero fucking reason to give a shit and will easily be able to find preban high capacity magazines because fucking tens of millions of them already exist.

I agree with mostly everything you've said. I think banning high capacity magazines is mostly a PR stunt that doesn't address the problem or make any sort of measurable impact.

However, you have some misconceptions about modern police response to active scenarios. The modern response to active scenarios is to move in immediately to stop the active shooting...even if you are alone. You do not wait unless you know another officer is arriving at the same time you are then you just declare an entry point (example "east door"). After Columbine the response procedure was changed significantly, and other following events showed that an immediately response by even one officer will save lives. There are many examples of this in the media where single officers have engaged active shooters. There was one a year or so ago where the lone officer managed to injure the gunman and stop him at the expense of his own life. Another example is Trolley Square in SLC where off duty officer Ken Hammond met up with the lone arriving SLCPD officer Andy Oblad. Those two got into a gun fight with the shooter and distracted him long enough for SWAT team members to sneak up behind the shooter and kill him. That entire engagement lasted six minutes and eleven seconds from the time it was first dispatched to when the shooter was killed.

[Sea Skimmer]

However, you have some misconceptions about modern police response to active scenarios. The modern response to active scenarios is to move in immediately to stop the active shooting...even if you are alone. You do not wait unless you know another officer is arriving at the same time you are then you just declare an entry point (example "east door").

Last I heard most departments had a four man rule in effect to avoid feeding kills to the shooter. Glad to hear that has changed. But the law does say the police don't have to risk themselves to save people.... with that in mind I much prefer arming everyone vs. disarming everyone who follows the law as a ultimate countermeasure to the issue.

[Kamakazie Sith]

However, you have some misconceptions about modern police response to active scenarios. The modern response to active scenarios is to move in immediately to stop the active shooting...even if you are alone. You do not wait unless you know another officer is arriving at the same time you are then you just declare an entry point (example "east door").

Last I heard most departments had a four man rule in effect to avoid feeding kills to the shooter. Glad to hear that has changed. But the law does say the police don't have to risk themselves to save people.... with that in mind I much prefer arming everyone vs. disarming everyone who follows the law as a ultimate countermeasure to the issue.

Well, I can't speak for all departments. Each has their own set of procedure. I consider the method I just outlined as modern because it has yielded the best results and is employed by all the departments in Utah. I think Virginia Tech would have been approached this way had Cho not chained the doors...

I think the four man rule is the min number for a contact team, but that doesn't mean you can't go in by yourself.

[JointStrikeFighter]

... with that in mind I much prefer arming everyone vs. disarming everyone who follows the law as a ultimate countermeasure to the issue.

Because only countries where everyone is disarmed are safe. The completely degunned Australia is obviously a Somalian hellhole.

Simple point of fact Americans; just because it's in your constitution doesn't mean its right.

[eion]

Well you must be in the third group, 12 year old boys That definition was too broad, it is retracted.

Hey, I topped out at 16, I swear. Heh.

I hate when people get all reasonable, turns me soft.

the amendment also requires the militia to be well-regulated, which even if we interpret "regulated" to mean "disciplined and trained" rather than "appropriately restricted" (as SCOTUS has done recently) the Arizona law, and most gun laws, clearly fail that definition.

I agree with that-- there need to be some standards of training.[/quote]

I think that's an easily agreeable point that gets lost in the invective battle over guns. Certain vocal groups assume that any regulation amounts to a limiting of the right to bear arms. I admit a bias against "military" looking firearms. I just view anyone who owns one as probably a little two "gun-ho" as it were. That is a poor basis for legislation and makes my arguments no better than the people who view my idea of lovemaking as "eww, gross! Ban it, I don't like it!" If memory serves the initial response to "ban high-cap mags" included "It'll force extra training time at the range because people will have to reload," which just seemed downright silly to me, and of course once I got talking my rhetoric outpaced my knowledge...

I'm learning. If all my opinions were set in stone I'd be a pretty boring person.

But in all the big-name spree killings the last 20 years, none of them would have been mitigated by magazine capacity limits. Spree killers from the 80's postal workers to Columbine, VTech, etc have reloaded many times, and some of them even died (typically by their own hands) with leftover ammunition in their pockets when the police closed in several minutes after firing stopped.

Part of the problem is that spree-killers have typically had all the time in the world they wanted to carry out their work. Police always responded with the principles of "cordon the area off, seal it away from the public, and wait for negotiations"-- ie, a hostage scenario with demands. That works for some things, but spree-killers typically don't make demands, aren't interested in hostages, and have no intention of walking out alive. The cops are beginning to realize this, and that the old way of "sealing an area off and waiting" means caging the victims in with the psycho so he can complete his task uninterrupted. The cops, basically, enable them.

Now, the problem with that is not hi-cap magazines, but inadequate Police response and training. Once Police realize they have a spree-killer situation, they need to storm the place immediately and stop the guy.

Agreed, we can add Ft. Hood to the list of spree-killings that did not involve high-capacity (30+ rounds) magazines. In fact the last one I can remember off the top of my head besides Hollywood is Columbine where they used the Tec-9.

But the Cuban cigar ban is a poor analogy, because we all know that the ban on Cuban cigars is part of a failed political policy. Arbitrary magazine bans would also be a reflection of a political policy born of failure and the need to "pass something, even if it is only feel-good" legislation.

Agreed, but from a legal standpoint a judge would not look kindly on someone who said, "Your Honor, I know what I did was against the law, but it was a stupid and ineffective law, based on a failed political motive."

How many crimes are committed using “destructive devices” like grenade launchers? You think criminals are deterred from acquiring those out of some sense of honor? The reason is that legal acquisition of grenade launchers by civilians, while possible, is heavily regulated and taxed enough to discourage it.

That seems like an odd cause-and-effect. You're saying that crimes are not committed with grenade launchers because grenade launchers are regulated and taxed? You're ignoring the fact that grenade launchers are also very impractical for crime (you risk destroying the thing you're trying to steal or wounding yourself if using it in close quarters) and hard to conceal. These would be more practical reasons to avoid using grenade launchers in crime.

You're right, they are highly impractical, but the practically of criminals is quite variable, and few people argue with a man with a grenade launcher. Still, conceded.

One of the easiest routes for arms trafficking is for an individual to purchase a firearm and sell it to someone who cannot purchase the firearm. Since there is no law requiring “lost” firearms to be reported, most are not, and so many end up in the hands of criminals either because they were stolen and the owner didn’t report it, or the owner sold it, and later claimed it was stolen. Rights carry responsibilities as well, and if it is indeed the intrinsic right of Americans to own any firearm of their choosing, it should carry responsibilities at least as heavy as owning a car, and in any rational world many more than that.

In principle I don't have a problem with this, and it could be discussed more, but look up at what you wrote. Notice anything? Magazine capacity has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation.[/quote]Darn, reasonable again.

Look at it this way; "Doom" is a game with, what, 20 levels in it? And some people say "Doom" has promoted violence in teens. So a law comes out that says that violent video games must never have more than 10 levels in them. It's random and arbitrary and has no basis in sense, but you know folks like Tipper Gore would be all over that idea like Genghis Khan on a Swedish princess.

Well done. Perfect analogy. If nothing else convinced me, this would have.

Again, the 2nd amendment is about national defense; it does not exist to protect ones hobby. Any argument from a sporting/hunting perspective is specious.

If it is indeed about national defense, then you're best not limiting potential troops to 5 or 10 round magazines. The M-16 started with 20-round magazines as standard issue and it was found to be inadequate so they started issuing 30-rounders...

There's an argument to be made that if we did have to fall back on neighborhood militias our ammo supplies would be pretty low by that point, and so there would be an emphasis on controlled fire, but that's getting very hypothetical.

And the laws regarding expression have, and are developing to this day. But mention firearms and everyone goes 18th century, “The founders this…” and assumes ANY gun control is somehow a categorical infringement of their right to shoot tin cans and find new and creative ways to make bacon, which again is not why the 2nd amendment exists.

Part of the Heller case, some of the discussion and opinion commentary IIRC, did state that the establishment of the 2nd as an individual right (rather than a collective right) did not preclude some restrictions and controls. But establishing what those controls and restrictions could be was yet to be established. And another early case, US vs. Miller, expressly stated that a sawed-off shotgun was not protected by the 2nd Amendment because it was not a "proper militia weapon" that was covered. So individuals have a right to own weapons, and those weapons must be militia-service compatible. Military style rifles, restricted to semi-automatic fire (as stipulated in the 1934 gun control act), would be protected. The issue of magazine capacity would seem to be part and parcel with this, since current military-defense doctrine involves routinely issuing 30-round magazines to troops.

That argument would seem support an outright ban or severe curtailing of hand-gun ownership, since some militaries no longer use them as "proper militia weapons" then again SCOTUS probably has as much experience deciding what weapons would be useful to a militia as I would. So I think we're steering towards a Swiss model, conscription and an assault rifle in every home with two sealed boxes of ammunition, and I don't really have a problem with that surprisingly.

Oh, a .50 type heavy rifle. The type of which has never been used in any crime. And those .50-cal heavy anti-materiel rifles also have very low magazine capacity already. if you applied your own logic evenly, such rifles would be "okay". It seems to me that you ar ebasing your argument son what seems unreasonable to you based on what you think should and should not be.

Want to know a secret? If I had my way, I'd ban sports cars. Those $40,000.00 plastic two-seaters with no trunk and more horsepower, speed, and handling that no civilian would ever need or could ever really handle? Damn, ambulances and police cars don't handle like that, and if anyone had a need to, it'd be them! But that's because I personally find sports cars to be foolish, selfish indulgences with no practical value. My desire to be rid of them is based on just that-- my personal desire. (The damn things are even advertised on their basis for speed and handling-- practically begging people to buy one and go all Le Mans on some backcountry road somewhere).

Mine's not plast-I mean my what a carefully thought out and piercinganalogy.

McVeigh is a perfect example of why we need strict gun-control, especially with permits. He was caught 75 minutes after the bombing for two reasons, 1) He was driving without tags on his car, and 2) He had an unlicensed firearm. Had he been in a state that did not require a permit to carry a handgun he probably would have been released sooner, and then who knows what the hell would have happened.

So you'd re-write the basis for all law based on a one-off situation that fell together by chance and stupidity? It's a good thing you weren't there for the very first drunk driving incident; we'd have Prohibition and horse-buggies to this day! Really, it was more because of the car driven without tags-- were it not for that, he would not have been stopped at all. So the hero that day was car registration, not weapons permits.

What, you don't think people groged and galloped? That was what Paul Revere was really up to The point was that if Oklahoma was like Arizona, no permit required to carry a handgun, and McVeigh was taken in on only the lack of tags, he probably would have been released earlier than the 2 days it took. He's really not a good example for either of us. You used him as an example of the damage one can inflict without every pulling a trigger, and I used him as an example of gun control even though he actually admitted to carrying a gun to the officer who pulled him over; he basically turned himself in to see if the Feds could figure it out with all the breadcrumbs he left behind.

Although again, I do agree that permits to carry concealed is a good idea. But basing an entire body of law on one incident.... not so.

Actually if I have it right, in order to walk around with a firearm(unless traveling to or from a range, safety class, hunting, historical reenactment, etc.)

I trap shoot a bit when I’m on vacation, and I have a nice .22 target rifle from my father that he used as a kid, so please don’t lump all us gun-control activists as against guns in principle. I like my hobby, but I recognize there is no constitutional protection to be found for it in the 2nd amendment.

Why do you not see it that way? If you are responsible and safe and follow gun regulations, you are indeed "well-regulated". As an able-bodied person between 18 and 45, you are automatically part of the "militia", potentially able to be called up in case of something horrific happening. And you already "keep and bear arms" even if not 24 hours a day (hell, neither do I).

I guess because I have had absolutely no training in how to operate in a military manner, all my skills are individual rather than team oriented; I don't even hunt. Unless the enemy was sending up small orange recon discs two at a time or staying perfectly still at the end of a long hallway my skills would be quite useless. As for the able-bodied: I'm cross-eye dominant and I still can't squint my left eye closed very well, so I shoot with a patch. It's a pretty sad sight in my opinion.

[Kamakazie Sith]

... with that in mind I much prefer arming everyone vs. disarming everyone who follows the law as a ultimate countermeasure to the issue.

Because only countries where everyone is disarmed are safe. The completely degunned Australia is obviously a Somalian hellhole.

Simple point of fact Americans; just because it's in your constitution doesn't mean its right.

Simple point of fact to non-Americans; just because it works in your country doesn't mean it will work here. The people in the US are very much use to the freedom of firearm ownership. It isn't as simple as you pretend it to be.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Simple point of fact to non-Americans; just because it works in your country doesn't mean it will work here. The people in the US are very much use to the freedom of firearm ownership. It isn't as simple as you pretend it to be.

Is that the sound of American exceptionalism I here? Sorry buddy the fact that it works in EVERY OTHER WESTERN COUNTRY shows it would work in America. Or are Americans too RUGGEDLY INDIVIDUAL!?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Simple point of fact to non-Americans; just because it works in your country doesn't mean it will work here. The people in the US are very much use to the freedom of firearm ownership. It isn't as simple as you pretend it to be.

Is that the sound of American exceptionalism I here? Sorry buddy the fact that it works in EVERY OTHER WESTERN COUNTRY shows it would work in America. Or are Americans too RUGGEDLY INDIVIDUAL!?

Could you provide a relevant example? Here are your requirements. Cite a country which changed from having millions of firearms in circulation and has firearm ownership listed as one of its highest laws.

[eion]

Hey fucktard! SCOTUS ruled that you're wrong in DC vs Heller. Ownership of guns was ruled to be an individual right.

What SCOTUS rules the law is, and my interpretation of the law are two very different things. Most notably one carries great weight, while the other matters only to me. The current SCOTUS also shall not be the last SCOTUS, and their rulings have not been without controversy. They have set a precedent for the sweeping away of large amounts of stare decisis to suit the preformed ideological opinions of the justices with little regard for the history of such rulings, a precedent I expect future courts to follow for both good and bad, mostly bad.

The court found that the right was intrinsically bound with a "defense against tyranny". Unless we've broadened the definition of tyranny to include personal defense against crime, we have a problem. In addition, quoting from the decision, "Like most rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

I ask again where you find a protection for your hobby in the second amendment. Does competitive shooting get one’s name out and protect you from criminals? Does hunting make it less likely you’ll get mugged? If your defense is training there are other means to satisfy it. Find another shelter for your hobby, for I do not believe the second amendment will cover it.

[Mr. Coffee]

That argument would seem support an outright ban or severe curtailing of hand-gun ownership, since some militaries no longer use them as "proper militia weapons" then again SCOTUS probably has as much experience deciding what weapons would be useful to a militia as I would.

Um, you do know that in 2009, the US Military gave Beretta a $260mil contract for 450,000 M9 handguns to be delivered over a five year period, right? Yes, handguns are still very much viable military weapons, hence they'd be covered under the whole "proper militia weapon" thing. Now, if you said "restrict all civilian handguns to 9x19mm or .45ACP" since those are the cartridges most used by our military for pistols, then you might have something.

[Questor]

Simple point of fact to non-Americans; just because it works in your country doesn't mean it will work here. The people in the US are very much use to the freedom of firearm ownership. It isn't as simple as you pretend it to be.

Is that the sound of American exceptionalism I here? Sorry buddy the fact that it works in EVERY OTHER WESTERN COUNTRY shows it would work in America. Or are Americans too RUGGEDLY INDIVIDUAL!?

I would suspect it would be massively harder to enforce in America AT THIS MOMENT, simply because of cultural inertia.

People do not like to change, and unfortunately Americans have become used to the idea of guns. They have become normal. Whether immediate gun control is desirable or not in a perfect world, I have a great number of doubts as to whether it would be possible to craft a law that would do anything over the short run. And if it does not achieve anything in the short run, people are far more likely to repeal it as "too much big government."

I actually don't know a ton about the history of gun control outside the United States. How were the bans implemented and what were the gun ownership rates before the ban?

[Mr. Coffee]

I would suspect it would be massively harder to enforce in America AT THIS MOMENT, simply because of cultural inertia.

Well, cultural inertia and the several tens of millions of firearms in circulation in the US (and that's just the legal ones, mind you).Yeah, good luck enforcing that ban... There's more gun owners than government employees, much less law enforcement personnel, so trying to enforce a weapons ban right now is pretty much impossible.

[eion]

That argument would seem support an outright ban or severe curtailing of hand-gun ownership, since some militaries no longer use them as "proper militia weapons" then again SCOTUS probably has as much experience deciding what weapons would be useful to a militia as I would.

Um, you do know that in 2009, the US Military gave Beretta a $260mil contract for 450,000 M9 handguns to be delivered over a five year period, right? Yes, handguns are still very much viable military weapons, hence they'd be covered under the whole "proper militia weapon" thing. Now, if you said "restrict all civilian handguns to 9x19mm or .45ACP" since those are the cartridges most used by our military for pistols, then you might have something.

Aren't the Marines slowly moving all their personel to rifles? That's probably what I was thinking of. Your idea works too. That would get those .38s off the street that Sea Skimmer finds so dangerous too

[JointStrikeFighter]

Could you provide a relevant example? Here are your requirements. Cite a country which changed from having millions of firearms in circulation and has firearm ownership listed as one of its highest laws.

It wasn't a high law but Australia had plenty of guns and got rid of almost every gun in private hands without massive drama.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/ ... 06612.html

Oh look; major decreases in the longarm death toll.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I would suspect it would be massively harder to enforce in America AT THIS MOMENT, simply because of cultural inertia.

People do not like to change, and unfortunately Americans have become used to the idea of guns. They have become normal. Whether immediate gun control is desirable or not in a perfect world, I have a great number of doubts as to whether it would be possible to craft a law that would do anything over the short run. And if it does not achieve anything in the short run, people are far more likely to repeal it as "too much big government."

I actually don't know a ton about the history of gun control outside the United States. How were the bans implemented and what were the gun ownership rates before the ban?

Ban importation and sale of guns. The govt isn't taking anyones guns away, and the pool of guns will naturally [albeit slowly given the huge size] reduce itself.

[eion]

There's more gun owners than government employees, much less law enforcement personnel, so trying to enforce a weapons ban right now is pretty much impossible.

$200 tax credit for all guns turned into the U.S. Government plus an outright moratorium on non-military firearms manufacture for five years. That's only a trillion dollars for 5 million guns, great deal.

Just spitballing, totally unworkable and more than likely unconstitutional.

[eion]

Ban importation and sale of guns. The govt isn't taking anyones guns away, and the pool of guns will naturally [albeit slowly given the huge size] reduce itself.

Wouldn't hold up to strict scrutiny as it is not narrowly focused nor the least measure required. Neither is mine of course.

[Mr. Coffee]

JSF, the situations aren't even remotely similar. For a start you're talking about disarming a country that has around three times as many registered gun owners as your country has citizens period. Then you're dealing with a country that was essentially founded on the gun, they're right up there with apple pie, fucking baseball, and shitty hollywood movies as pillars of our culture. Your country the gun doesn't figure as high in its formation, in ours it pretty much defined our formation. So no, it's not a simple matter of saying "right, everyone turn in your guns". If anything you'd have to deal with a few ten thousand militia nuts going apeshit about "tyranny" right off the bat.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I fail to see how saying "no more guns will be made" is the same as IMA TERKIN YUR GERRRNZ. If your national psyche cant deal with loosing its precious guns then perhaps it needs to harden the fuck up.

[Questor]

Ban importation and sale of guns. The govt isn't taking anyones guns away, and the pool of guns will naturally [albeit slowly given the huge size] reduce itself.

That would be... impolitic - in the US - to say the least. We can't even manage to ban cigarettes. I do wonder how it achieved such drastic results in Australia (but then I would also like to see some more detailed results on the spread of homicides.) I would also be interested in the size of the initial pool.

I would also be curious as to what the firearms ownership rate was. LA County in 2000 had more gun deaths than you quote in all of Australia BEFORE the ban.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/sciprc/pdf/FIREARMS.pdf

I haven't found what proportions those were, though.

[His Divine Shadow]

Simple point of fact to non-Americans; just because it works in your country doesn't mean it will work here. The people in the US are very much use to the freedom of firearm ownership. It isn't as simple as you pretend it to be.

Is that the sound of American exceptionalism I here? Sorry buddy the fact that it works in EVERY OTHER WESTERN COUNTRY shows it would work in America. Or are Americans too RUGGEDLY INDIVIDUAL!?

Could you provide a relevant example? Here are your requirements. Cite a country which changed from having millions of firearms in circulation and has firearm ownership listed as one of its highest laws.

Well I suppose he could point to the Australian gun buy back which had reductions in crime after they bought back 700,000 guns. But ofcourse the truth is not that clear cut since australian crime was decreasing before and after and studies afterwards by several groups have not been detect any statistically significant impact from the gun buyback, except that one sponsored by the gun control organisation, what a surprise... Though it's finding where later thrawled through by an independant organisation.

Also the total number of gun owners didn't really change since they just took the money and replaced their semi autos with manual repeaters, which are plenty dangerous enough to comitt a school massacre with anyway. I know that sales records where broken for guns in 2006-2007, many hundreds of thousands of guns where sold in Queensland, so degunned, hardly.


Also aside from britain which had pretty much no guns before the event, no european country has gone and banned guns yet. We're quite gun happy over here too on the continent and scandinavia, handguns and rifles and all!

[Phantasee]

How has the firearms defined the formation of the US, beyond the obvious War of American Independence? I mean, it's not like being born in a public washroom stall is a defining event, unless you are raised in one as well.

[Mr. Coffee]

Aren't the Marines slowly moving all their personel to rifles?

Uh, they're the United States marine Corps, man. They've always been a pack of riflemen. Thing is, there's a lot of situations where having a rifle isn't the best weapon to use, or you aren't able to use it immediately (like, say, you ran out of ammo for it). So the pistol as a sidearm still makes sense to this day.

$200 tax credit for all guns turned into the U.S. Government plus an outright moratorium on non-military firearms manufacture for five years. That's only a trillion dollars for 5 million guns, great deal.

1. If you offered me $200 for one of my handguns I'd laugh at you and tell you to go to hell. I think the least expensive handgun I won cost around $450.

2. There are a lot more than just 5,000,000 guns in the US. In fact, you're off by an order of magnitude there. So unless you're suggesting that the US Government switch over it's entire budget for the next decade over to handing out $200 a pop for firearms it collect, that simply won't work.

I fail to see how saying "no more guns will be made" is the same as IMA TERKIN YUR GERRRNZ. If your national psyche cant deal with loosing its precious guns then perhaps it needs to harden the fuck up.

Might have something to do with putting several tens of thousands of people out of a job as well. Then there's the retardation of "no more guns made means, eventually no more guns". Sure, in 50 or 60 years that might work depending on every gun owner's level of competence with maintenance. Fuck, I've got a few weapons that are older than I am, and a few more still that are older than my Pop was. B

asically you're talking about trying to disarm a society that from it's start has held gun ownership as a god given right of all its citizens, and then trying to say "Oh, it's easy, look, we did it, a society that didn't have many guns in the first place and has less people then one of your states". Not the same thing, JSF.

Now quit stealing Stark schtick and get your own gimmick, dickhead.

[His Divine Shadow]

How has the firearms defined the formation of the US, beyond the obvious War of American Independence? I mean, it's not like being born in a public washroom stall is a defining event, unless you are raised in one as well.

You consider owning / being around guns similar to being raised in a public washroom stall?