I always thought is was the first amendent that is the core. You know, it being first and all...

eventually we'll have to admit we lost, and we lost back in 2003 when we de-baathified & disbanded the iraqi army.

its over. partition is the only remotely humane way out of the mess, and it won't be our broke asses that do it. leave it to the asshole syrians & iranians.

Know what else is unique in the world? Our levels of violence as a developed nation.

Why don't any of the Dem candidates attend these NRA functions? Like it or not, the law of the land is that we all have the right to bear arms (ok not necessarily machine guns and grenades but that's not the point, is it?). I'm sure there are plenty of Democrat-voting NRA members who would appreciate hearing someone who represents their political views speak at these functions instead of two faced jingoistic elephant party old farts who normally do.

Granted, it is true they would run the risk of being heckled by conservatives. and hated by party line Dems. But the gun thing is something that even drives undecideds and wanna-be Libertarians to vote for the Repubs from time to time. Wouldn't it be nice to steal the Republican's thunder on an issue instead of things always being the other way around? Of course it means we would need to create some kind of compromise policy that was palatable to both sides but I don't see why that isn't possible... aside from the sad fact most Dems are too, well, genteel to actually protect themselves if faced with a physical threat (yes I vote Democrat but I still think too many are just flat out wimps who would rather run from a physical fight than protect themselves).

Instead of trying to eliminate the tools used to commit violent acts we would be better served by addressing the motivating factors. How about closing the gap between the haves and have-nots? Or maybe helping men cope with our anger or innate need for aggression better (because gun crimes are most a guy thing)? Or maybe enforcing policies that actually say medically diagnosed violently crazy people shouldn't be allowed to pack heat? Or maybe intervening when we see kids being bullied at school so they won't get crazy ideas like "if I bring a gun with me that other kid will stop stealing my shoes / lunch money / self respect"? The list could go on and on...

We don't do those things because it is much easier to pretend guns are responsible for people being angry or desperate enough to hurt someone when actually either we are too apathetic to fix the screwed up stuff about our society or too apathetic to deal with dangerous screwed up individuals or too apathetic to do the jobs we are all paid to do (like enforcing the laws we have in a non-arbitrary way). Why work hard to solve a problem when we can just appear to deal with a problem instead and get back to drinking, watching TV, and doing bong hits for Jesus? Kinda like thinking voting Democrats into Congress somehow gets rid of corrupt politicians at the federal level. Or that having "Diversity Training" magically mitigates the racist and sexist nature of the American workplace. Or that "No Child Left Behind" will suddenly make an underfunded public school system produce the next generation's high quality doctors and engineers. Or, my favorite, pretending that making DayQuil harder to buy will prevent anyone from manufacturing meth on a large scale and selling it to a very willing to use US population. Much like violence in society, it will take more than shortcuts and easy way outs to make these things go away and nobody around here is that interested in working hard when they can get all the credit for none of the results.

Sadly, either side having a gun handy probably would've made too much trouble. Would've made for a good headline though...