And light a new one.

I may be a sport, but I haven't spoiled just yet.

*sniff*

American G-men are trying to take away Guns because of an Arizona Incident! Don't back down and reload!

I believe full well in the right to bear arms. Yes, it will have those that take advantage of it, but the majority of gun fatalities in America take place in self defense situations. Besides, Kim Jong-Il, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Mao Tse-tung, and Joseph Stalin have amply demonstrated the benefits of gun control policies.

In Mexico, guns are ilegal. Anyone found carrying a gun gets an automatic 10yr sentence. Before the Bush Administration...Mexico's gun fatality was 3%. During the Bush administration (and the removal of assault rifle regulations). Mexico's gun fatalities jumped to 34%. Is there any correlation there?

Obama is struggling with more important things than assault rifle control.

I don't understand why people are so afraid that they need guns to protect themselves. Is the US that dangerous?

Here in Mexico I don't even lock my doors...mostly beacuse of my dogs. Although, on friday they killed a Judicial (like FBI agent) a block away from my home. They took him to the Hostpital and gunmen went there to finish him off. And still I'm not affraid of my life...because this is a turf war between cartels they rarely kill civs. As long as, I don't catch a stray slug...hehehe

The concept of the 2nd Amendment was to make the nation as a whole armed so that none dare invade. See the movie Red Dawn for an example.

1787 was when the current system was set up, but without the British gone, that could not happen. When has it changed the government? Civil War. Assassination of Lincoln. Assassination of Kennedy. Just off the top of my head.

Okay, so let's accept that America has asked something of Mexico on drug trade. Mexico asked that we treat illegal immigrants well. Presidente Fox? This in spite of our continuing issues, which range from economic to criminally violent. Do also keep in mind the consideration we take concerning the death penalty and extradition.

And guns have worked for protection of the nation. For example, the KGB did a survey of gun ownership in the US and found that an invasion through the Gulf of Mexico would suffer far more resistance than an invasion of the Pacific Northwest. We acquired these documents shortly after. That means our ownership of guns in the South would force the enemy to invade one particular area and, knowing that, allow us to concentrate military forces for maximum affect.

Oh, and America is not alone in this idea. Look at the history of Finland, especially the War of Continuity. Although the US has not been given the chance to fully demonstrate many of these ideas, they have against the Russians and did so amply. Although the Russians technically won, it is said that they earned just enough land to bury their dead.

Look, I'm not trying to jump on you with 'we're right and you're wrong' although I'm sure it feels that way. But only about half of Mexicans vote, not making either country look great compared to a lot of other democracies. America chose its set of values and Mexico chose its. Both have their problems and both suffer some bleeding effect. The bulk of a country's problems are its own and should be treated as such. Can we work things out? Sure, but it's not going to come without a large degree of compromise on both sides. Nothing will work out perfectly. In the meantime, the politicians (and do we really think they do a great job of representing you or I?) tend to ask the stupidest things of the other and focus on largely meaningless matters.

I think we need to realize that we're spewing coffee house bullshit and become comfortable with the world. or go and do something.

What are Americans afraid of?

Losing what they gained.

Americans was built and populated in the early years by people tired of the old systems and risked everything to win a better life. Some failed, some died, some won. Americans get very protective of the right to be able to risk everything so they risk such things as what happened about 100 miles from my house for the right protect themselves.

As for Mexico being impeded, remember, the 13 colonies were being impeded and exploited by the British Empire. They got sick of it. Results are as they stand today, and Americans are willing to risk a lot to avoid being exploited again.

April 12, 1861.  The official first day of the American Civil War.

Just because you think you're up on US history let me correct you on a few errors my friend...

The Revolutionary War does count because the colonies governed themselves at the time.  They acted as 13 individual nations.  King George raised taxes repeatedly which pissed the colonists off, the First Continental Congress was created in 1774 to state their case collectively to the crown.  They got ignored.  In 1775 the Second Continental Congress was formed to which King George declared them all traitors and the colonies as rebel states.  The important thing to note there is the fact that the British Crown officially recognized the colonies as sovereign governments by calling them rebel states.  In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed and clearly stated that the colonies were now an independent nation from the British Empire to be known as the United States of America.  Hence the reason why we celebrated our bicentennial in 1976, not 1987.  The Constitution was ratified and made law in 1787, however that in and of itself was just a revision of the Articles of Confederation which were created in...  Wait for it...  1776.  Created by a special committee by order of the very same Second Continental Congress who had the pleasure of hearing King George call us all traitors belonging to rebel states.  Imagine that.

Now about gun control...  As was pointed out, laws in this country are created by Congress, not the President.  G.W. spent most of his time in office dealing with a Democrat Congress, a collection of people who openly opposed him most of the time.  You can't blame a president for laws expiring.  The President only get's to approve of the laws once they're created and adopted by first the House of Representatives, and then the Senate.  Then from the President's desk, they go to the Supreme Court to be reviewed as to their fairness and how they fit in with all of the current laws.  If, and only if, all three branches agree, then we get a new law.

The Second Amendment was created in a time where the United States didn't have an official standing army or navy, just volunteers and militias funded by each colonial government, and much of the nation was frontier country with a lot of pissed off natives losing their lands, and weapons at the time were muskets and cannons.  Allowing citizens to arm themselves solved the problems of not having a standing army, allowed the new states to continue having their militias, discouraged invasion by foreign powers, as well as allowed those pushing deeper into the frontier to fend for themselves, and you really only got one shot off before another person had a chance to react...  A shot which didn't go very far and had very little accuracy.  Is that law necessary today?  Absolutely not.  We have a free standing volunteer military.  There are no more frontiers (except for in Alaska, but no sane person wants to make a go of that).  Native Americans are slowly buying their land back by building casinos and taking the white man's money and car.    Gun and bullet technology has made it so even someone who has never even seen one before can pick it up and use it to wound or kill another person firing repeatedly before having to reload and hitting accurately hundreds of feet to thousands of yards away.  Are US citizens going to give up their right to have a gun?  Hell, fucking, no.

Most kids growing up here have this sense of entitlement of being given a car when they turn 16, being given the latest and greatest of games and gaming systems, and being allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want to...  I grew up in a poor household.  I didn't have any of that.  I've worked my ass off for everything I own.  I built up respect within my peers to be able to say the things I do without worry.  The only thing I ever felt entitled to while growing up was the rights given to me by the Constitution.  The only guns I own are my grandparents hand guns given to me after each one died.  Do I need to have a gun to get on with my life?  Nope.  Am I going to give those up just because some ass hat in DC says I should, or because some numbnuts has decided that all guns need to be registered and mine aren't?  Fuck no.  The Second Amendment gives me the right to own them.

Don't dismiss Ideology.  Religion has more then played it's part in changing the world several times over.  Early humans fought each other all of the time over beliefs...  Modern day man had the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, and even today we're under constant threat of a radical cleric sending one of his extremist lackeys to blow something up.  Catholicism alone is the biggest reason why Mexico will not turn over any person wanted for a crime punishable by death.

You're absolutely right about everyone fucking everyone else over though.  That's human nature.  When we moved away from a village based society to a more individualistic one, the needs of the neighbor became less important then who could have more stuff.  If you go into areas of this world today where the village is still the social structure, things are completely different then life as we're used to it.

It's not about guns. The reason the Second Amendment was decided for depends on the person. You would have to read a lot of personal papers to get it all. Some wanted to protect the nation. Some wanted to make sure the nation itself never became tyrannical. Some just liked guns. The point is not that guns were used in casting off British powers. Americans were attempting to work with the British or break off peacefully for decades before it came to a fire fight. If Mexico wants to tackle a problem they feel another country is making, they can try their best to work it out with that country. If that fails, then they should pass legislation and enforce laws in a way which suits their needs, regardless of what others say. Arizona did not just suddenly decide to go after ilegal immigrants. The US and Mexico have tried to work out a mutual border control plan for some time. Some states got tired of it faster than others and did things like add fencing. Other states held out a little longer before running credentials of illegal immigrants. Some states are still holding out before they finally put their foot down.

If Mexico is tired of guns coming over the border, tighten up the border, weed out politicians who have anything to do with such business, and even restrict imports from America if need be. America has taken such actions against itself. .38 specials use to be common as dirt on the black market because parts were taken from the factories with little oversight. Many companies went out of business when the government decided to crack down on the problem at the source rather than in the streets. .38 specials still appear on teh streets, but far less often and by other origins.

Besides, people are people. In Britain, they made a mandatory collection of firearms. Stabbings were on the rise. In France, guns have been illegal for a long time. Subsequently, the most common means of killing someone in a domestic dispute is pushing them out of a window, since most people there live on a second story or higher. It happens so often, they have a word for it, defenetre.

It's all about drawing a line. Both sides ask things that the other doesn't want and both sides are fucking pansies about saying no on one thing or another.

Hell yeah. Our government only gets away with so much cause everyone assumes we're all badass. People say they want a politician who is honest and has balls, but when one comes along, it scares the crap out of voters. I want to see Americans put their money where their mouths are and vote in a guy who's willing to tell corporations to go fuck themselves and tell powers abroad how they really feel. I know they say we do it for this and that reason, but it's bullshit and we know it. Why do you think we sent Nixon to China? He was the only fucker salty enough where the Chinese took his ass seriously and we knew he wouldn't candy coat shit.