I saw this cartoon circulating amongst my fellow American ex-pats on facebook. I like Steve Clinton's comment and definitely agree! A good stinky cheese shot at an American who is only accustomed to tasteless Velveeta would absolutely be lethal! ;) But on a more serious note, I hope Glen Allsopp is American because calling us all "weirdos with guns" is a sweeping generalization, far from the truth and is a statement I find out of line and angers me.
Yes, I grew up in the state of Nebraska (don't know where it is? Google map it!) where yes, there are a bunch of rednecks who proudly show off their guns in their pick-up trucks. Although I should probably be a little bit fearful having Obama stickers all over the bumper of my car when I go back to visit my mom ( a retired French professor who tried to bring "culture" to a small state college in northeast Nebraska). However, I quickly left this backwards state and the US is filled with people who are against guns and realize that the "right to bear arms" is an outdated statement and needs to be dealt with to apply to the current society. The problem is you have gun lovers like Charleton Hesston who are part of the NRA and a big lobbyist in government. So, the debate remains heated and as Carol Norwell stated, both sides have been unmoveable in what they believe in....
Cars kill a lot of people....I belong to debating societies...one of them is debating the gun laws in the US...one of my old school friends moved to the US and is a lawyer and insisting guns are essential for self protection... citing Switzerland as an example of a place where all citizens are given a gun by the government....having debated this subject for years...have given up trying to change anyones mind.....appears those who believe in guns are entrenched in that belief and those like myself, who believe a lot fewer people would die if guns were illegal...are also quite unmoveable in our beliefs!
And anyways alcohol and cigarettes kill the most people world wide by far…do we see them being banned,
I want a gun that fires French cheese, how’s that for illegal …
Apparently there are huge amounts of old guns in France, left over from WWI and WWII, forgotten and hidden away in cellars and attics. There just isn't the ammunition to use them.
Don't forget the Toulouse and Montauban killings. USA style slaughters can happen here. There are frequent instances of someone going berserk and killing his family and then himself.
A Kalashnikov costs about €400 on the streets of Marseille - if you know the right contact of course!
Shelby: of course re Norway, but it happened just the once (probably?) there, whereas you can almost set your watch by the frequency of such events in the States. That's the difference. And can you believe that the right now wants more guns for everybody to avoid gun violence like this?!
The idea of the militias was also to avoid having to put up a standing army, which would be a danger to 'democracy'. The whole idea behind the amendment is therefore totally moot, in the present day (Can't see the citizens control the army, navy and air force, can you?). Plus the fact that 'arms' as James says, were muskets, and where do you now draw the line? Does everyone have the right to have their own nukes?! Ridiculous.
BTW, I just checked our Yellow Pages for gun stores and found nine in the area of Orléans, one of which advertises sales of miltary weapons. Why would France allow military weapons to be sold to civilians?
Speaking as an American who hates guns and thinks they should be banned, here are some of the issues to consider. The American constitution was written right after the Revolutionary War when the founding fathers still feared the reappearance of English troops and the Indians who were still hostile in many places so they made it part of the constitution that all citizens should have the right to "bear arms". They were thinking of muskets, not assault weapons of today. The law is vague and therefore does not restrict anything relative to "arms". The Supreme Court tries not to add detail to the Constitution and thus has allowed this vague statement to give frreedom to the gun loving red neck macho jerks in the US to buy any weapon they want. Another factor is that gun laws are state and local laws. Therefore, like all the laws in the US, there's a patchwork of laws which in some states are absolutely ridicules such as in at least one state people can walk around with guns in holsters anywhere they want including into colleges. The lunacy of the gun laws is one of the reasons I live in France. God bless France.
It's funny how the laws of the US are ridiculed when tragedy happens. What about Norway? Remember the shooting there? What were their gun laws like? I do not know personally so I can't say. Deranged/bitter/angry/dangerous people will find a way to hurt others no matter what the gun laws are in their respective countries.
which is why I am here in France!