6th paragraph:

However, here we're seeing the consequences of a politician banning
handguns. Whether he started out meaning well or was always a megalomaniac
is moot, the point is *we* need weapons to protect against tyrannical
government! Our freedoms are being removed piece by piece, relentlessly, and
a police state being established. Someone wrote a letter (to the
Independent?) recently asking (something like) if when Blair is no longer
PM, will he continue to work for the Republican Party? That is not really a
joke.




Shane wrote:
Hmm again. Not only has every thing but the first paragraph got
through so far, I just e-mailed the post to myself, so it wouldn't
have got through if it was, say, the British Government doing the
censoring.
Next paragraph:

Yes, the psychopaths and organised crime have so many guns that it
makes sense for anyone who doesn't think there'll always be a
policeman to protect you to have one to, but mostly they'll only
shoot you if you interfere with business. The crazies are, imo, a
better argument for having a gun yourself (if you're in the US. That
isn't really an issue here, nor presumably in Canada?).




Shane wrote:
4th paragraph:

Meanwhile the US of course has the right to bear arms in the
constitution, a fact that has frequently been cited as the reason
they must be allowed to do so - to defend against tyranny from their
own government. Unfortunately the only ones who use that argument I
ever saw who would bear arms against the government - as opposed to
just letting freedom be encroached on out of existence - are the
crazies who do basically want to shoot the weak and anyone who tries
to protect them. The rest are just like the British citizens, who
can't help defining what is right as whatever the government of the
day tells them it is.

Shane wrote:
Hmm. 3rd paragraph:

Anyway, I say yes to gun control. Because we're not living on the
frontier - or most of us aren't anyway. Maybe those in the rural
mid-west should just lobby to leave the Union - or stop pretending
to care about Americans rather than just America. However, handguns
are a fact of life. I say better to live with it, responsibly, than
to pretend they don't exist. They're like the atomic bomb, it would
be nicer if the technology had never been dreamt of, but it was and
they're here to stay.


Shane wrote:
2nd paragraph:

But the world over, people are lazy thinkers and don't look beyond
the first conclusion. So its like we're living in a world ruled by
children. And the politicians pander to them, of course.

There are Pro-gun lobbyists who deny irrefutable fact the way some
deny the Holocaust (another parallel!). Now, say they were at a
dance - and the polite thing to do was hand your firearm in at the
cloakroom. Handing it back at the end of the evening would be akin,
responsibility-wise, to giving back a drunk their car keys (I'm
drowning in parallels here!). There are certain rights that
conflict with other people's rights, aren't there. But those
Pro-gun supporters think theirs always comes first. Maybe that
comes in growing up in the mid-West, miles from anyone else and
they do still think they're on their own on the frontier.

Shane wrote:
I'll send paragraph by paragraph and see which do and don't get
through.


Shane wrote:
I've sent three posts this morning - a response to Job, an
inserted oar to Patc, and the response I promised Figgs (in which
I now see I repeat quite a lot and its not quite as incisive as I
originally meant). The first two got through, the last hasn't
(I've reset the group twice). The last one gives my reasons for
no longer believing in a law passed here some years ago now,
allusions to which I've made before. The question is: who would
censor it? Because these days it wouldn't necessarily be MS and
such is precisely why I justified my current position on the
emotive subject. If this gets through and *it* hasn't I'll repost
it in various forms.