Our murder rate was declining before the gun laws (yes, even including the mass shootings that prompted them). NZ doesn't ban semi-auto's or require registration of most firearms and hasn't had a mass shooting for a similar length of time as us, so it would seem that our gun laws haven't prevented any mass shootings either. While people proclaim our current lack of mass shootings as a success of gun laws they ignore that we still have mass killings such as the Childers Palace fire and the Quakers Hill Nursing Home fire. Apparently murder doesn't matter so much if you burn them to death instead of shooting them.

Our gun laws didn't make the place safer they just made people who don't understand the issue feel better. There was not such fear of bikie gangs when guns could be bought by everyone, I don't even remember it being an issue, and "glassing" was something that happened at bikie bars and dive bars frequented by criminals, NOT your average bar or nightclub. Not that glassing would be affected directly by gun laws but I don't think your idea that gun laws made us safer stands up to scrutiny.

No his argument boils down to that it is not rightfully their property. Resolving property disputes is a function of courts universally accepted by libertarians. The reality is that pretty near all the traffic to that site would be made up of people who were duped into thinking it was a site by Ron Paul. The only reason the cyber squatters aren't being condemned on this site is so that people can have a cheap shot at Ron Paul.

Really?

The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a 1759 book by Adam Smith. It provided the ethical, philosophical, psychological, and methodological underpinnings to Smith's later works, including The Wealth of Nations...

Sounds like you must be talking about the other free market, not the Adam Smith thing.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

I'm not American but I do believe in the right to revolt against despotic government. I know about various abuses and wars of the US government which are common knowledge. There are at least a couple of reasons why Americans have not risen up against their government:
1. The conditions of life for the vast majority of Americans is far better than would be had in a civil war.
2. If you had enough people to win a revolution you could just win an election instead. You can complain about a rigged election system all you like but what proportion of the population do you need to win a civil war? If you had that many people turn up to vote instead of fight you could get your changes without getting killed.

Believe it or not, not all people who believe in the right to revolution are some sort of trigger happy crazies just looking for an excuse.

I'm an Australian and don't like our gun laws much but it is a myth that we have almost total confiscation. We didn't have right to carry previously anyway, most semi-auto's are gone but they've been replaced with other firearms. We have just as many as before but not the same type and not the free access we used to. Nevertheless, despite my dislike for our laws I will say this: they were brought in legally and do not violate our constitution. If I were an American I would find many US gun laws intolerable because of the constitutional violation. If we had the 2nd amendment I would have hidden my guns.

The fact that not everyone resists government oppression successfully is no reason to disarm people and make sure no one can. Perhaps the Libyan resistance wouldn't have survived until NATO stepped in if they were unarmed. They could have been quietly killed at Qaddafi's leisure. Instead of arguing with me though, why don't you make contact with some Libyan resistance and ask them if they would have been better off disarmed. Be sure to get back to me with their answer.

It indicates that the 1940's military did not believe that populations with inferior small arms are incapable of resistance. This is not changed because of new weapons technology since civilians also have newer tech than they did in the 1940's.

In the case of resisting police and the military it is not a game where you win by scoring more points (kills) than the opposition. Politics comes into play. Any government has the potential to be oppressive but western democratic governments are not going to wholesale slaughter their populations with everybody looking. The population outnumbers the military by far and asymmetry in civilian and military deaths is a given in a civil war but not necessarily the deciding factor.

What about them? Nobody is saying small arms defend against nuclear weapons. Do you seriously believe the US government would nuke a US city if the citizens took up arms? Nonsense. Check out the Eureka Stockade as an Australian example of when poorly armed citizens fought the government, lost the battle but won the political point.

Apparently the US military and CIA disagree with you:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_gun

And I'm pretty sure a whole bunch of Iraqis and Afghans disagree with you too. Don't let facts get in the way of your opinion though, carry on.

If that's the issue it's like saying it's legal until (too many of) you start doing it. Can a right only be allowed until people start exercising it?

Yet who supports small business owners? I often see a false dichotomy that power must go either to big business or big government, not many want to empower the individual. I'd relax taxation and record keeping on non-incorporated individuals. I'd like it to be a lot easier for an employee to make the transition to self-employment.

The obvious reason being that you are ashamed of such stupidity. It is obvious to most people that the world isn't divided into soldiers, cops and psychotic fantasists, nor is there any reason to think that anyone who is interested in firearms is psychotic. Firearms are many times been used for self defense, you are quite right to acknowledge that classifying such people as psychotic fantasists is an emotional response because it certainly isn't a logical one. Perhaps you should consider counseling.

Your previous post is still nonsense. If it had been deliberate nonsense, we might have called it humor. There is probably a word to describe nonsense that was intended to serious.

Yeah, I noticed that after I posted. Water was boiling for my first cup of coffee, I should have waited.

Hence the statement that such behaviour gives fuel to the anti-gun crowd.

No, he doesn't, that's the point, the MTBF of a spring and lever is far higher than normal use making failure very unlikely which is not the case with consumer grade electronic components. They say there are no stupid questions but I think you've come pretty close. Do you have an emotional response to firearms that makes thinking difficult for you?