Grumpy old Man

I prefer to consider April 19, 1775 as the defining day of American Defiance to the throne.

19th April 1775 was the date the revolution war began! It was actually a battle in Lexington! A year later, the amendment of Declaring Independence was handled in 4th July 1776. Which in my terms means,

4th July 1776 is the date of Americans becoming free!

Technically sdkidx said defiance, not independence, and is more or less correct.

I suppose I could "correct" you and point out the document was dated the 4th but actually signed on the second, but the world needs less pedantry, not more.

One could say July 4 is meaningless in the context you stated--- the date of Independence is September 3, 1783-- when we WON the war of Independence from the British Crown.

are you f**king kidding me? The independence day is 4th of july you fools! If it was September 3! Then they would change the calendar for USA and make Independence day 3rd September!
Now start believing its 4th July! This is just f**king absurd! I mean it!

LOL.... the outrage!! LOL....
it's just a conversation... settle down Francis

EVERYONE finds our lackadaisical approach to firearms bewildering. Not just the British. Everyone.

This is a natural right and who cares what others think.

NATURAL right? What is that stupidity even supposed to mean?

You don't even have a 'natural right' to piss or breath.

They used to feel that way about democracy, too.

Hahahahahahahahahaha OK, I'll bite: what are you referring to?

When the US became a country, most world governments were still monarchies.

Everybody knew that democracy needed fine-tuning which is why Voltaire and Locke and so on were putting a lot of thought into it - but make no mistake, democracies were very common in the Mediterranean and in the native nations of America. In fact, even in Britain, the democratically elected wing of Parliament had already been established in 1706, although it wouldn't be as powerful as it is today for quite a while.

So if you want to compare it to the near universal sneering of America's lax gun laws today, no, not at all. We're well within our rights to be proud of being the first modern Constitutional Democracy, but was not an alien concept.

Of course, democracy wasn't unheard of. But in the 1770's, monarchies were rule. Even Britain' nascent constitutional monarchy wasn't anything like what it is today.

But don't get lost in the example. The real point is that the US has cherry-picked European thought to create something of it's own without giving a damn what Europe thought about it. The US doesn't require the approval of the rest of the world to run it's country. We're not a bunch of teen-agers, vulnerable to peer pressure. And you can't lead by trying to fit in. Other countries can't think what they want - we've all got a few thoughts about them, too - but what they think isn't relevant to our gun laws.

The problem with that is that the rest of the world holds over two hundred years of data on what works and what doesn't that we are fully capable of learning from.

For example, the rest of the world has found ways of changing governments, of overthrowing dictatorships, of resisting tyrannical power grabs without having particularly high levels of peacetime civilian gun ownership, while the United States is literally the only country to experience random mass shootings in the way that it does. That suggests to me that we're missing something important by ignoring what the rest of the world has experienced.

Oh, you mean like Israel? ( ;) I'll bet you thought I was going to say Venezuela)

The rest of the world had more experience and data on all kinds of things in the 1700s as well. And their data is what works for them in their system. Not what works in ours.

US gun violence isn't a single factor problem, and will not be solved by a single unilateral move. A portion of the disunity in the US has been created by the use of such measures, failing to recognize that we aren't all living the same life and that local conditions vary - and that those conditions matter.

We won't find a solution by looking to other countries. It will only happen - if it happens at all - by looking at ourselves.

We Americans believe dead kids on a regular basis in our schools from mass shootings is an acceptable loss for any loony to buy a gun. God Bless America! (and the dead kids)

What do the acts of mentally ill/unstable people have to do with the rights of people to defend themselves?

Well they didn't kill those kids with loaves of bread, it was powerful guns, but like I said. Americans are happy to live with dead kids for their right to own guns for 'self defence'. In the civilised world that is unacceptable but America is a violent society, born out of violence, it seems it is in their culture.

When the world stops being a violent place to live, I'll give up mymeans of defending myself. 'Til then...

Plenty of places that don't have mass gun violence like America, you could try Japan for instance or Switzerland or Qatar. So what you mean, why America continues to be a violent gun crazed culture, I'll keep my guns to perpetuate that violent gun crazed culture. Good luck with that!

LOL.... I see you are a media lemming. You Don't seem to realize that there is an inverse relationship between number of guns owned and gun murder.... but keep telling yourself it's those evil inanimate objects that are the problem. Meanwhile in the UK, knives are the problem.... LOL

If you have zero guns, you will have zero gun murders...... statistics I see is not your strong point...... the UK and especially London has a huge problem with knife crime, but guess what they are doing something about it. They are not suggesting all citizens start arming themselves with knives....

thankfully we have this awesome thing called the 2nd amendment that restricts Government from infringing on our RIGHT to own firearms. I bet you think passing laws that criminalize drug use will mean nobody will use drugs again. Common sense, I see, is not your strong suit.

But I see dead kids is your strong suit and you're willing to defend that to the limit.

yet another mass shooting at a school in the US, not Japan, not UK, not even Iran or Iraq, only in America. So what is your solution? Armed teachers? Armed janitors? Armed students? Armed guard dogs?

Again, only in American where they have violent and psychopathic addiction to guns does this happen and Americans like you are happy to sacrifice the lives of children on a point of principal. Go America! Make dead kids great again!

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/08/us/denver-stem-school-shooting-wednesday/index.html

I see dead kids is your strong suit, refusing to support Volunteer teachers who would be armed and could STOP a shooting in its earliest stages. Why do you hate kids so much?? Am I playing this right??
As for our gun ownership...

Criminals will always have access to guns, because they don't obey gun laws. "Zero guns" just isn't possible, nor really desirable. Maybe where you live guns aren't necessary, but there are still plenty of places where there is a need. I'm not a fan of handguns. At the same time, long guns can be misused just like any other. There is no single solution because gun violence isn't a single factor problem. Yet it seems that people on both sides still want to make laws for *other* people and force everyone to live the way they do.

Who's "we?"

Obviously 3rd4thT and the voices in his head. :-{P