record sales figures from the past year or so disagree with your decline idea

No, it just means that the people who own guns are buying a lot more guns.

If you check for yourself, you'll find that the percentage of Americans who have guns has dropped precipitously.

That doesn't mean there are fewer guns sold, just that the guns are in fewer hands. But let's face it: if owning one gun hasn't made you feel safe, and owning three guns hasn't made you feel safe, it's doubtful that owning 10 guns will make you feel safe.

But the correct response to fear is to strengthen one's self.

That reminds me: did all of you know that gun ownership in the US is on the decline?

The percentage of Americans who own one or more guns is going down.

Interesting that crime rates across the US are in decline as gun ownership goes down,

If there was merely one armed and trained teacher or guard on site, the story might have ended differently.

And if the shooter didn't have a gun, it certainly would have ended differently, no?

I don't want a safe hammer that doesn't kill people, I just want a smart hammer that won't crush my fingers.

If you can't use a hammer without crushing your fingers, you're better off calling someone to come and drive that nail for you.

The problem with the gun/hammer metaphor is that your average gun owner is a lot more likely to crush his fingers (or the fingers of his wife or his 5 year-old) than he is driving a nail.

All I need are
Glock 17 9mm Ammo is plentiful plus a
Browning Maxus 12 gauge and
And of course a Colt LE6920MP-FDE

That is all I need.

Do you use those all at once or one at a time?

How about they make a safe "Hammer" or "club" since these kill more people than all rifles every year?

Oh, now you just gotta come up with some citation that shows how there are more deaths by clubbing than by semi-automatic assault-style rifles.

  You're usually full of shit, but this is a new low for you.

The purpose of the Constitution (and the Articles of Confederation before it) is to minimize the power of the Federal government, this is both the explicit goal and end effect.

And it's clearly done a bang-up job.

I would recommend differentiating a little more between the Constitution and the Articles of Confederacy. The latter was a revolutionary document, the former is not.

Major Citation Needed on how this is somehow "elitist". Again, the sole purpose of the Constitution is to limit power.

Limit power by taking it out of the hands of the people? If they really wanted to "limit power" there would never have been a US Senate or a Supreme Court appointed for life.

I believe all the talk of "limiting power" was just lip service by a group of wine snobs who didn't like having a king above them but loved having serfs beneath them. They got rid of their king and kept their aristocracy.

Democracy is a two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Remember that the smallest, and most oppressed minority, is the individual.

Only if it's done poorly. When the Founders decided on the "representative republic" they were basically saying, "Let the wolves rule". All of the problems we're having today could have been foreseen by them, but I'm convinced that's the way they wanted it.

If the individual is important, than it's important that the individual at least have some say, which democracy affords. As an individual, would you rather have some say or no say?

The founders wanted an aristocracy, so they took a corrupt and incomplete document, the Articles of Confederacy, and turned it into an aristocracy without a king. They got what they wanted and were able to convince everyone else it's what they wanted too.

It's the same thing that's happening today. When the elite use corporations to seize control and wealth, they do it in the name of "Free Market" and everybody wants freedom, right? Except the "Free Market" is simply a mechanism for siphoning the wealth of the masses to the elite. Even Milton Friedman realized that, eventually.

but by no means were they statists!

They were elitist.

The purpose of the Constitution was to dilute the influence of individuals and increase the influence of the elite. It was an exercise in anti-democracy.

The people who founded the country and the vast majority of other Enlightenment figures?

The people who founded this country were only libertarian in a fashion. They spoke the language of the philosophy of the day, but hardly lived as libertarians. They were elitist slaveholders.

As another Slashdot commenter has said, the US Constitution was a counter-revolutionary document, not a revolutionary one. Its purpose was to roll back the American Revolution.

I'm sorry, have you been to a college campus recently? It's almost the exclusive domain of anarcho-communists and such.

I never said that aren't intelligent students on college campuses, I only said that libertarianism is almost exclusively the philosophy of undergrads.

By the time they get to grad school, a healthy measure of them have sufficient information to start making informed decisions about political philosophies.

Your vauge, broad strokes, ad hominem attacks on libertarians could easily apply to nearly any political persuasion followed by college students

That's what I said..."libertarian". The political philosophy of undergrads.

To me, free speech and free press are human rights, not to be abridged for profit or for the purpose of controlling what is said,

I'm sure the guy could have said anything he wanted while he was up on top of that mountain. The right to say anything is not the right to come into your house and take pictures and broadcast them to the world without your permission, even if you have invited me to dinner. His "human right to free speech and free press" were not abridged by the fee to broadcast from Everest. He was still free to go home and say anything he wanted about anything. He could have turned to the Sherpa standing next to him and said whatever he wanted. He could have taken photographs, written a story or poem or essay.

Many libertarians (I'm not saying this is you, drinky), go off the rails on this issue. It ends up with "speech = money, money = speech" which dead ends at "paying people to vote". It is a sentiment that comes from believing that the people with the most money have your best interest at heart, which comes from missing Daddy.

I don't blame Nepal for being very stingy with their heritage sites. The West believes about every place on earth, about every culture, "Fuck them, I do what I want because I've this big bag of money hanging between my legs" and yet when the people whose home they are in want to charge for the goodies it's all, "FREE SPEECH!! FREE SPEECH!! HUMAN RIGHTS!!". This ends in the "human right of white people to exploit the Third World".

Let's not bullshit. The libertarians who make the most noise (and I'm not saying this is you, drink) don't give one flip about human rights. They're children of privilege who are trying to press their advantage, nothing more.

Xbox One: Cloud Will Quadruple the Power, Says Microsoft

Yes, the Cloud will quadruple Microsoft's power.

Power in their hands is power that's not in your hands.

Do you remember when Sony sneaked rootkits on their CD's and USB-memories and got away with a slap on the wrist.
It won't happen again, the wristslapping that is.

Right. Next time, their stock price will go up and the CEO's will get a bonus.

Those poor corporate elite won't have to bear the excruciating and embarrassing agony of a "wristslapping". They have very tender wrists, you know. Limp, in fact, which is why they need government's protection of their massive profits.