[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by GundamFan0083

I suppose it has been nearly a decade since Tony Blair was in office.
I read his book "The Third Way" which was published by the Fabian Society.
The way he writes it, you'd think that the Fabians rule Europe.

Well he would say that. As far as I know, the British labour party is to the right of most European labour parties. A lot of hardliners in Britain considered Blair& Brown sellouts. There's a lot of socialist traditions in Europe. Also, the Labour Party prior to Blair & Brown was a very different beast, less 3rd way more "fight for the workers". Arguably achieved a lot of good (NHS, public housing, education for all) and a lot of bad (overpowered unions, dysfunctional state industries). I can say my dad wouldn't have gotten an education (and later become a university proffessor) without the 11+ and free access to high quality secondary schools it allowed, he grew up in Northern Ireland.

We agree here. NATO has to be cut back.
It's not fair to Europe, nor the US to continue to have US bases on European soil.
We're not your babysitters and I'm quite sure you don't want us to be.

I think the NATO relationship is fair enough, and there are far less bases then their used to be. The EU is the second biggest spender (collectively) on military worldwide, I'd say we pull our weight, though I think European governments are less interested in interfering outside our immediate geographic area then the US. I think the EU in itself is a good lesson in achieving our goals without weapons. Remember that we're on the same team here.

No, I didn't equate them.
I said I despise collectivism, and socialism is just one form.
Theocracy is another, as it Fascism, etc.
I understand that Stalin took the leap from socialism into despotism and I said so in my previous posts.

Socialism has collectivist strains, but in a sense it's also quite individualist. The idea is to render unto the worker control over his labour and the products of it, and to prevent them from being controlled by capitalist masters. The unfortunate thing is that in socialist states they just replaced capitalist masters with politburo ones. Either way the worker gets screwed.

Perhaps we Americans are just a more violent lot than the rest of the world?
We do like to fight, and we do like to kill.
We immerse ourselves in sex, and violence in our entertainment and in our literature.
So is it really that odd that the USA should have more school shootings, murders, or gangs then other Western countries?
Take away the guns and you'll have the same rates of murder, gang violence, etc. only with different means.
I don't mean that as a boast or brag, it's actually kinda sad.

Nonsense, surely you can see from the events in London that Britain has just as much latent violence waiting to bubble up. The difference is that we manage to keep the average low life thug because the legal market is too small to resell to them, also I have my suspicions that the big crime bosses keep a monopoly on arms. And with the extremely large alcohol problem Britain &Ireland has, that the US does not, I think there would be even more problems if Guns were on the street. As it is our A&E departments are filled with alcohol related injuries every Friday and Saturday. Imagine how much worse it would be if these guys had guns and not just broken bottles and knives? Too many violent idiots to allow them to get guns.

I will admit that America seems to produce more violent psychopaths who want to attack schools. Don't know how to explain that, and I doubt tighter gun controls would prevent that, as those types are determined. But it would prevent most of the gang violence.

You forgot about Israel.

It's not in Europe

Glad to hear gun control works for you over there.
Over here that wouldn't work due to the weapons smuggled in from South America, and the sheer number that are already here.
Not too mention weapons that get sold on the black market.
It's simply a matter of society and mindset, and that's what I've been saying from the begining.

While you have South America, we have Africa, same difference. The mediterranean isn't much of a barrier. As for the US already having a lot of guns in circulation, that's an issue, but not an insurmountable one. You just need a gradual draw down of guns. You also don't need to eliminate all guns. For instance most farmers in Europe are allowed to own and keep guns, but usually only rifles/shotguns. I've also been in America a fair amount, obviously there are differences, but I don't think there's any huge differences. Frankly, my Irish compatriots and I have more in common with Americans then Germans.

Gun control will not stop a determined individual from committing crime, nor will it deter criminals who have no respect for law to begin with.

It will mean that guys probably only going to be using a knife. It can still kill you, but well...

I understand what you're saying, but my point is still that European style Social Democracy wouldn't work in the USA.
The corruption in such a system applied to the USA the way it is now would shock you.

Corruption isn't a uniquelly American phenomena. We have pretty corrupt politicans too. Again, it's not an insurmountable problem. At least the US doesn't have all the petty corruption a lot of other countries have, you never hear about people needing to give out bribes to be seen by the Police etc. The problem in the US is pretty restricted to the highest levels, so I don't think the problems are so insurmountable. If you compare that to Italy, there's corruption at every level, much harder to weed out.

Only because the black market is full of stolen, and illegally imported weapons.
The UK has the benefit of being surrounded by water on all sides, I doubt it's easy for criminals to smuggle weapons into your country.

The sea helps, but the sea doesn't stop loads of cocaine and heroin getting in. My theory is that the big drug cartels try and keep the small thugs from getting weapons and muscling in.

Not even the US armed forces recruits could have guns on campus?
No wonder these shooters choose them.
They're easy pickings.
How many "gun-show" shootings do you read about?

I don't know the specifics, but I don't think ROTC cadets are recruits in the sense you're thinking. They do drills, but I don't think they've gone through basic training or anything. Obviously, due to the university education they're receiving BEFORE entering the army, they're probably pegged for NCO, Engineer and Naval roles, so it's probably not as important they be able to use a gun early on. I don't really know the specifics. They'd probably do better in a fight then the average student (group cohesion, general fitness), but I doubt they'd be mentally prepared for a firefight, nor would they have the training required to do it safely in an environment with a lot of panicking civilians.

On a side note, the ROTC guys were very nice. I had classes with a few. In fact, they were probably one of the least jingoistic groups on that campus, which is interesting. V tech is a really nice place generally, actually.

EDIT: just to sum up my view on guns, in principle I see little wrong with allowing law abiding citizens access to guns, I think doing so opens a floodgates that means it's extremely easy for low level street thugs to get their hands on them. You just need one or two bad eggs with gun licenses. Obviously guns are still out there, and you can't stop the worst crimes, but I think it stops more "casual" gun crime.