See if you can pick out the contradiction here.....

[Drizzt]

Despite killings, Americans grin and bear arms

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2002 01:21:33 AM ]

ONLY IN AMERICA / CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
When the Founding Fathers of the Indian Republic looked to the United States Constitution, among others, for inspiration and guidance, they could not have failed to notice its Second Amendment. It reads, "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."

Mercifully for us, the authors of the Indian Constitution did not consider "the right to bear arms" germane to our conditions. But for the people of the United States, it has remained a cornerstone of individual liberty. Although there have been frequent debates about whether it applied to individuals or just militias, the Amendment has survived in its basic form.

But as it has often happened, the Amendment becomes a hot button issue when the country is put through one of its periodic killing spree. The issue was drummed up in the aftermath of the Columbine and other school shooting incidents, but it subsided. Now it is back on the table following the sniper killing spree in the Washington area that has claimed eight lives and put the capital region on edge.

The reasons for the power and influence of the gun lobby may be difficult to comprehend from India, but it is a fairly black and white issue if you happen to live in Middle America. For decades, outside the big cities of the East Coast, the only law that worked what was the rule of the gun and the hangman’s noose.

The legacy of that law remains very much intact in many of the mid-western and mountain states, where distrust of the government runs high. There are also states and areas in the US not fully overtaken by the industrial and technological age where hunting remains a favorite sport. Just how popular became rather edgily apparent to this correspondent on a recent hiking trip in Maine when he was advised to wear a bright flouroscent jacket in the woods just in case...

Americans can today go into any supermarket store like Wal-Mart and buy rifles and guns with the minimum of fuss. In American cities, a father and son might go to a bowling alley or ballpark on weekends. In the American boonies, they would go to the woods to shoot rabbit and deer.

The US has an estimated 200 million privately held guns, but most of them are in states such as Colorodo and Texas where it is not unusual for a family to own a while arsenal. The National Rifle Association (NRA), the pressure group that fights to protect the Second Amendment, derives most of its three million members from these states.

So powerful is the NRA that political forces, including the Democrats, have often baulked at taking it head on. In fact, some political pundits believe the Democrat (relatively) hardline on guns, cost the party (and Al Gore) the states of Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia in the last election.

There is talk now of enforcing some new gun control laws, including uniform registration and licensing (some rural states are more liberal than coastal states) and ballistic fingerprinting, which would require records of unique features of each gun. But the NRA, which has a big treasure chest, is certain to oppose it in the name of protecting the Second Amendment.

In defending the Amendment, the American gun lobby often invokes its founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, who in a latter to his teenage nephew suggested using the gun as an exercise because "it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind." It also cites, James Madison, who once said Americans have the right and advantage of being armed –- "unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

But one person it cites to buttress its case will surely be turning in his grave. "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India," it quotes Mahatma Gandhi as saying, "history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." There can’t be a better definition of chutzpah than making the apostle of non-violence (and the man assassinated by a gun) the spokesman for the gun lobby, but then that’s NRA for you.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...artid=25006326

versus this....

Villagers exchange fire with police over irrigation water

GAYA (BIHAR), OCT 13 (PTI)

Gun-toting residents of a number of villages in Gaya district fired at each other over rights to irrigation water and also at the police when they intervened.

The villagers of Bhawanpur, Harna and Musi were resisted by residents of Jahirbigha and other nearby hamlets when they removed a temporary dam blocking the flow of waters in the Jahirbigha canal leading to trading of fire yesterday, Gaya district magistrate Brajesh Mehrotra told PTI.

When the Belagunj police intervened and fired in the air to disperse the armed villagers, they fired back, Mehrotra said.

None, however, was injured in the two hour firefight with the police that followed, he said.

Mehrotra said the situation was tense, but under control.

Additional police forces posted in the area were maintaining a strict vigil, he added.

http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?gid=&id=90512


You see, here in India, we are too peaceful and concerned about fellow mankind to ever wish to use a firearm against another person.....

[Rovert]

There can’t be a better definition of chutzpah than making the apostle of non-violence (and the man assassinated by a gun) the spokesman for the gun lobby, but then that’s NRA for you.

Perhaps the author of this article has a better explanation for the statement, or evidence it was taken out of context? Just because subjects of other nations don't understand our 2nd amendment, and the underlying mechanics of its purpose, doesn't invalidate the usefulness of it for the citizens of our nation.

If we, as a Nation, are ever disarmed, the bloodbath that will no doubt ensue, in the wake of another systematic extermination led by some power crazy madman bent on global domination, will make us wish for the 'good old days' of random violence like is happening in DC, with longing and nostalgia.

[Blackhawk]

Gandhi's espousal of non-violence had a very good foundation. It was far more effective to bring about political change than violence, and that was his objective.

[Jim V]

I believe he also said that non-violence would work with the English but he would never suggest it with the Germans.

[Malone LaVeigh]

I don't know how accurate this is, but in the movie, he answers the question of whether nonviolence would work against the Germans by saying, "There would probably be losses, but are there not losses now?" I thought it was a pretty good answer. Not sure if I would have been willing to give it a try, but it is thought-provoking in the context of modern conflicts in which there is a lot less at stake than world dominance, as there was in WWII.

[Tamara]

There are also states and areas in the US not fully overtaken by the industrial and technological age, yet even there the streets are remarkably free of cow dung and dead beggars of the untouchable caste.

(Addition in italics mine. )

[Hkmp5sd]

Without the media exposure, I doubt Ghandi's non-violence campaign would have been effective. The same with MLK's civil rights fight. The vision of the powerful beating the poor, unarmed peasant is very powerful. Even in Vietnam, the media showed the poor population, the small, skinny, young looking VC with SKS's and portrayed the US as the agressive heavily armed invader. And that is one of the main reasons for the loss in Vietnam, the military won in the field but lost on the homefront.


Who is to say Ghandi chose non-violence because he simply had no other option?

(What'sa matter Tamara? Your street sweepers don't get the cow poo off the streets in your neighborhood?)

[Selfdfenz]

"There are also states and areas in the US not fully overtaken by the industrial and technological age where hunting remains a favorite sport."

So if you own weapons and hunt with them you are an unwashed, de-evolved hick.
Ditto if you live in TX or Colorado.
Ditto if you hunt, rather than bowl.

Finally, I know all the things I need to start working on at a personal level to move myself into the modern age of illuminated thought and ideas. I guess being a molecular biologist must not be enough.



Tamara,
X ring.

S-

[MuzzleBlast]

You see, here in India, we are too peaceful and concerned about fellow mankind to ever wish to use a firearm against another person.....

...but setting a train full of people on fire is OK if they are of a different religion than you.

[Number 6]

bombing Christian charities or Sikh temples, raping their women, or torching their homes.

These people also worship rats and monkeys - both are known for violent behavior and each is a vector of contagion. I'll take such enlightenment with a grain of salt.

Sea-salt, of course, just as Gandhi made it in defiance of British law.

[Fred Hansen]

I needed a good laugh! Some **** world goof criticizing me? Hah!

I think Tamara got it right with her italics. India still suffers from Bubonic plague for God's sake! If I lived there I would probably be exchanging gunfire with my neighbors too. And praying that I would get hit.

[rolf]

I wonder how many Americans emigrate to India to get a degree and be a doctor or just run a small business or ANYTHING.

[DaiBando]

With apologies to Apu:

"Thank you, come again".

[0007]

IIRC the main reason Gandhi had to go with the non-violance method was because - say it with me now - THE BRITS DIDN'T ALLOW MOST INDIANS TO HAVE MODERN FIREARMS AT THAT TIME. In fact Gandhi is supposed to have said much the same himself when asked once. And as far as his trying that approach with the Germans a little earlier, the Jews didn't get much farther than the ovens with that approach. And Stalin would have laughed as he lit the fire... Sorry for the little bit of sarcasm, but for anyone from India to gabble about problems here...let's start with the 1947 war over there between the Hindus and the muslims and work forward.

[C.R.Sam]

Looks like the author is paid by the column inch, thinking not required.

Sam

[desert maus]

Hmmm, I live in Colorado, and Denver has some pretty jackass gun laws. We can't own AR's in Denver city and county, not even clones. They also list BY NAME the guns we can't own, anything with AK, AR, or TEC in the name, no HandK semi's, blah blah blah. But I can go across the street to a different county and own an AK perfectly legally (sidenote, every gun store OUTSIDE of the city and county of Denver has a rather large selection of AR's and Heckler and Koch semi's.) About the only semi-auto rifle I can technically own in Denver is a Mini, but I've got no idea why this was omitted and the others weren't.
Colorado also has an extremely expensive CCW license, costing something like $300 for two years, as opposed to Nevada's $60 for five years. Plus, you HAVE to attend a CCW training course provided by a POLICE OFFICER and undergo additional criminal and security checks that simple firearms purchases don't use. The only issue with our background check is that it isn't always "instant." The first rifle I ever bought, I had to wait three days because the CBI computers were down. This has happened to several friends of mine on various occassions. Apparently our city has never heard of UPS's or data backup.

[Don Gwinn]

They probably modeled the law after the Federal assault weapons ban. It also exempts the Mini-14 for no apparent reason. Of course, the Mini-14 is made by Ruger, and Bill Ruger helped create the bill along with the ten-round magazine limit, but I'm sure that's a coincidence.