MonteZuma

Jails are full of people that commited crimes with guns. It happens. By the same token, I'm a bit older than you and I've never felt that my freedom has been abused by a military - or the government for that matter. I guess it is a matter of perspective.

Life, maybe, but you only said freedom/civil liberty (before). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That too. I think we are much more likely to suffer any sort of deprivation at the hands of some random idiot with a gun than an army.

Maybe even less. I'm not convinced, especially for western countries with well-resourced militaries and allegiances with powerful allies. It is too hard to organise a rag-tag group of individuals into a fighting force. I suspect that if the invader can get past the military in the first place, you're screwed. Would they be waiting like that? And if they were, wouldn't the soldiers have a huge advantage, with things like rpgs and tanks. I can't think of any examples of a civilian militia being so effective. Can you think of any?

You and I are more likely to be deprived of life and liberty by a nutcase with a gun than an army. Which army do you feel threatened by? If Aileron was an Iraqi I might agree with you.

I don't think the media is doing that in relation to Zimbabwe. The media seem to be portraying Mugabe as a slighly deranged despot turning his nation into a banana republic. Beyond that, I don't think the media is analysing the events in Zimbabwe at all. I think the media would not take the 'imperialist' view if intervention was part of a transparent and international campaign to set things right.

A nutcase with an assault weapon (or any weapon for that matter) is a more dangerous and real threat to your freedom and your civil liberty than any military or militia.

I don't think the civilian population of any country could deter a determined invasion by an army stong enough to overcome the state military. The best that a civilian population could do is act as some kind of guerilla insurgency after an invasion, like in Iraq. There might be some use for that kind of deterrent in eastern Europe, but not in most western countries.

Why isn't more being done about it?

It has been proved that guards splashed urine on the koran. Other incidents of koran abuse were also proved. Whether the koran was flushed down the toilet or not is now inconsequential. If it were not for Newsweek, these abuses would still be covered up. You want Newsweek to be punished for lifting the lid on a coverup by your government? If it wasn't for an anonymous inside source Watergate would still be a fanciful anti-government conspiracy theory. I bet you consider Mark Felt to be a traitor too. Actually there are about 3,000 cases languishing in Guantanamo(sp?) Bay. A government commited to justice and human rights does not keep people imprisoned for an indefinite period of years without allowing them to have their day in court.. And they do not send prisoners to third countries to be tortured. What the US government is doing is outrageous and counterproductive.

Yes. Those figures are incidents per 1,000 people. How many people put a sign on their door saying that the resident has a gun? In any case, most firearms that are stolen are taken during small scale burglaries from private homes and most weapons that are used to commit crimes in the US are stolen weapons. Owning a firearm does not make you immune to burglaries. It can make you a target. From the US Dept of Justice: It happens in every country, but in some more than others. Looking at history is fine, but we can't change our past Presidents and Prime Ministers. We can do something about the present though.

Do you really think that US government is gonna suddenly decide to throw away the cons!@#$%^&*ution and oppress the masses? If by some weird turn of events, this actually did happen, a motley crew of ordinary Joes with guns and SUVs (even if the dealer did throw in the driving lights, sunroof and nudgebar package) is not going to stop them. There are better ways to make sure your government remains civil.... One way is to make sure you have a free press that is not railroaded into towing the government line. Another way is to make sure that your government never gets away with abusing human rights. Never, ever. Another way is to turn up and vote and not be swayed by jingoistic, war-mongering politicians that think the only way to solve difficult problems is using overwhelming firepower and screw what anybody else thinks. ....Erm....Maybe Americans should be worried.

Your link is more than 2 weeks old. Here's the latestnews: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American jailers at the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects splashed a Koran with urine, kicked and stepped on the Islamic holy book and soaked it with water, the U.S. military said on Friday. ...and they're just the cases that were proved. If some soldier pisses on the koran what makes you think that they wouldn't flush it down the toilet? If you switch on the TV or read a newspaper, you'll find heaps of discussion on this issue. Thanks, but I can't take all the credit for making this a huge issue. I think other western nations are streets ahead of the US in the treatment of detainees. I'm not aware of any other western nation that keeps 3,000 prisoners in detention for 3 years without laying charges. I'm also not aware of any other nation that sends detainees off to third countries for interrogation by torture. The US does not have a good record for the treatment of detainees at all. This is the Internet. This is not the US. To half of the people that post here, you are the foreigner. And fwiw, I don't have a political agenda. I have a political viewpoint. Feel free to start a thread on the EU. I'll make a point of contributing.

Double post

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There were no WMDs. As I said, either they exaggerated the threat or they made a momentous stuff-up. Either way, that should make any thinking person question the government's honesty or competence.

You wouldn't come to my place looking for a gun, because you'd know that chances are I won't have one. You probably wouldn't have a gun either, because it would be much harder for you to buy or steal one. In any case, the burglary/break and enter rate is higher in the US (8.3) than it is in Australia (6. and the UK (4.. The stats seem to suggest that gun ownership doesn't prevent break and enters. A clean gun is needed to make sure that the criminal can't be connected to earlier crimes. I reckon it would be much easier to get a clean gun in the US than in Australia or the UK. I only know one person that owns a gun - a dis!@#$%^&*embled WW2 rifle hidden in a garage that hasn't been fired for decades. And yet nobody I know feels unsafe at home or hurt by gun regulations.

I'm in favour of strict gun regulation. To me, that means that most people should not have a gun in their home. There are always exceptions, particularly for farmers. Hunting is also popular in parts of Europe and Australia. Hunting can coexist with strict gun control. I don't think it's that hard to break into most gun cabinets. In my community, I feel safer because I know that very few people own a gun. Not rambling at all. I can totally understand your pov. I agree that responsible gun use needs to be encouraged and education is important.

Should a lung cancer awareness charity accept donations from a cigarette manufacturer that is trying to improve its public image? Should Greenpeace accept donations from a company that has a very bad environmental record? Maybe? Maybe not? Sometimes it probably is better not to take 'tainted' money. These organisations need to appear impartial and unbiased if they are going to sway public opinion to their cause and change society. Fwiw though, I agree that these seem to be whacky religious groups that are a waste of space.

I know people that live in areas much more remote than you who do not own a gun and have never felt the need to own a gun. Either you live in a horrible society or you're paranoid. Most people don't think a ban is necessary. Most people talk about control and regulation. You don't need to remove guns from your society altogether to see a drop in gun related death and crime. If I was a criminal in the US and wanted a 'clean' gun to go out and knock someone off, I'd head over to a place like yours and take it while the owner was out feeding the chickens or whatever. I might even blow the owner's head off with it on the way out. You'd be safer without a gun.

You mean like the lies about WMDs?

This link is outdated (15 May). New information has come to light supprting the newsweek article. The difference between your goat story and the Newsweek article is that the Newsweek article has been proven factual. The reputation of a upstanding publication would be shot if they published hogwash. This link is outdated (20 May). New information has come to light supprting the newsweek article. Yeah thats cool. But when some dude flushes one down a toilet or kicks it about the cell all of that good work can be easily undone. A better response by the US government would have been to point out what has been done to investigate the allegations of abuse rather than attack the magazine for blowing the whistle. Don't shoot the messenger. Every country that abides by the Geneva Convention. The US isn't that special. Wrong. Both the UK and Australia had very different rules of engagement during the invasion of Iraq that were designed to safeguard civilians. I won't bother mentioning Vietnam - the haunting image of the kid that was napalmed tells the story there. That was then and this is now. In any case, I believe we did that in an earlier post. Justifying US breaches of international law and human rights by saying 'well at least it isn't as bad as what the nazis did to the jews, so nya nya' doesn't really help your argument. If the US wants to be a champion of freedom and democracy then your government sure as !@#$%^&* ought to practice what it preaches.

I suspect that the average newspaper reporter is no more or less selfish than the average politician. In any case, the facts of this matter still stand. He has lied dozens of times. His lies are well-do!@#$%^&*ented. What crime have the thousands that have not been charged committed? That does not make it ok to violate human rights. If the same treatment was dished out to American prisoners there would be outrage.

I'm pro gun control. The need for a 'right to bear arms' died out with the wild west. It would be impossible to have an international rule affecting civilians, but I guess there could be a uniform rule amongst countries with common goals, such as the EU...or Australia and New Zealand, etc. Australia had a gun buy-back. I don't think it was all that expensive, but gun ownership is probably significantly lower. The gun buy-back obviously won't fix the problem. People will still hide guns under their beds or bury them in a box in the garden, but it will make it harder to find one in future. It must be much easier for a criminal in the US to get hold of a gun (especially a hand gun) than it is for a crimiinal in Australia or the UK. I imagine that in the US you'd need to phase in new regulations over a period of many years. The culture is too entrenched. I don't think the idea of owning a gun for personal protection is sensible. It probably results in more innocent gun-related deaths that it does prevent them.

'Baseless' accusations of koran and prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay turn out to be not so baseless afterall.

I think that everyone is glad that there was a lack of WMDs. That attack on Saddam was justified by GWB et al because it was said to be an important part of the war on terror. But the fact is, Saddam could not have terrorised the west even if he wanted to. In any case, I would hardly call the regime change in Iraq a great success story. Tens of thousands of dead civilians and thousands of dead allied soldiers later and there is still no sign of an end to violence and death in Iraq. Mission accomplished? http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.gif Rubbish. Newsweek said that the claims about the koran being flushed down the toilet still stand. The anonymous source simply said that he may have been mistaken as to which communique the story was reported in. Conservatives have leapt on the relatively insignificant error in the story and I suspect the US government has its spin doctors working on this full-time to help silence future critics. That is why Newsweek buckled under pressure and retracted the story - as well as out of conscience - to help stop the violence that followed the publication of the story. But the core problem here is torture and abuse, not minor errors in a magazine article or the use of anonymous sources.

Awww....