General Chat

I'm not American :-)

but gun control, especially international efforts to limit the trade in small arms (which is the big contributing factor to so many civil wars and genocides), is a special interest of mine

so I am very familiar with the 'gun culture' of the USA having toyed with its members on the internet for years

I'm sorry, Rollo, but the idea that Clinton is aiming to amend the US Constitution is pie in the sky :-D

It would spell the end of her presidency and the death of the Democratic Party and put Repubicans in the White House for a generation. Not to mention that constitutional amendment there is simply so complex a process that it has seldom been attempted.

A rumour that Clinton is aiming to abolish the second amendment is the sort of thing that would put the NRA, oops I mean the Republican Party, in power overnight.

Attempts to close the gun show loophole (really, it is the loophole that allows people to buy firearms privately without having to pass any kind of background check, and of course there are no such things as licences there) and more sound and fury about mental illness and guns is probably about all that we will see.

He has a French wife.

Just saying.....

:-)

Bob made a joke :-D :-D :-D

Is Rollo Amercian? just curious.

:-D :-D :-D :-D

That was a joke, by the way.

It is only because of a spelling mistake that US citizens are allowed to have guns. The 2nd amendment actually says "bare arms" in other words, the right to roll up their sleeves!

It appears to me that Trump is the type who slings mud to see whether and where it sticks. Unsurprisingly, it looks as though Clinton and her friends are giving him just enough rope to hang himself.

Strangely, he appears to have fallen for it lately but as he is continuing in the same vein, has his desire to be President waned somewhat? Perhaps there's not as much money in it as he thought there would be and power does not always bring the money that he's used to.

He seems to appeal to people who still take that amendment literally and who believe that militia means (as it originally did) an armed civilian security force as opposed to a professional military force.

Finally, as we know, he is not so much of a self-made man as he would have us think he is.

The Clinton family has been picked over plenty. Dig deeper Hil. ;-)

"The right to bear arms" was put in place primarily 'cos of ongoing hostility to the House of Hanover. George III sent over divisions of German troops and Irish mercaneries (aka the 7th div of Foot) who both aquitted themselves badly with what today would be called war crimes.

Moving on I cannot think of another democratic state which permits the citizenry to own weapons of war i.e. heavy duty hand guns and light machine guns so long as they are "semi-automatuic". That these weapons are regarded as opportunities for sport and entertainment is extraordinary.

France is fairly easy going allowing 9mm semi-autmatics and high powered hunting rifles but it is very tough on use, storage and deployment. You cannot go walking down the Champs Elysees with a Glock shoved into yr waist band! The guns used in the recent massacres were smuggled in from Brussels.

As you say attempts by previous administrations at gun control have run into a wall of opposition led by the NRA to any attempt to change the laws (assuming a Democratic admin. )

The problem is that the proliferation of weapons, lack of control and embedded "them and us" / disaster scenarios are leading to serious problems with law enforcement, massacres and heavy financial cost for the govt which now has to shell out for gun victims. Such a scenario threatening anarchy is not long going to be tolerated.

Clinton will not be looking to fight some kind of watered down gun laws through Congress only to see them up rooted / sunsetted a few years later. She will be going for the nub of the matter and a revision to the constitution itself. In order to succeed the Democrats will need control of both Houses of Congress and thanks to Trump might just pull it off.

More than anything what is needed is a ban on concealed weapons. A good part of the Saturday night death toll is from short barrel .38s.

fwiw a decent hunting rifle is of very little use for armed robbery or mass murder. A .38 is of little use in halting felons ( short range, in accurate) while concealing a 9mm automatic or magnum is tricky for the average build. As you say no US admin would ever end gun ownership altogether British style. I exclude shot guns.

It is so much more relaxing to know that you stand a significantly real chance of being shot and killed on the streets of the USA compared to the insignificant chance of being knifed in most of the UK.

Rollo -- Obama does not nominate a judge because the Republicans in Congress have stated, bluntly and clearly, that they will not schedule hearings on his nomination, no matter what. Not that they would not pass his nominee, but that they would not consider her or him at all.

Of course he could go ahead and nominate. It would be a pointless battle to engage.

The present court has interpreted that amendment as prohibiting measures that the court simply did not have to interpret it as prohibiting. That is how changes to gun regulation in the US can be accomplished: by the court finding that restrictions are permissible under the constitution. The Democrats would hope that any legislation sent to the court would pass constitutional muster when examined other than from a doctrinaire right-wing perspective.

The problem is ... so many Democratic members of the House and Senate cannot afford to alienate their own deluded gun-owning constituents. And in fact, actively pander to them in elections. So Clinton would have no guarantee of such legislation even passing.

For those not familiar with the second amendment, but with a rudimentary grasp of grammar, it makes entertaining reading.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It's like saying: A well-stocked larder, being necessary to the feeding of a family, the right of the people to keep and bear grocery bags shall not be infringed.

What if you want your bags to carry shoes in? That is the argument of the right wing, that the 'militia' part of the sentence simply doesn't mean anything.

and of course, people in the US have long lost all knowledge of what "free state" means. It isn't a state in which people are gloriously free. It is a state free of rule by a foreign power. As in Orange Free State.

And obviously that is what the second amendment really was all about: freedom from the tyranny of King George. (They actually think that the king had something to do with the colonists' grievances, just as they actually think the present queen plays an operative role in government, the entire history of parliamentary government having sadly passed them by, in their self-satisfied delusion of their exceptionalism.)

They also conveniently forget what their hero Thomas Jefferson said:

"Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right."

"As we are not to live for ever ourselves, and other generations are to follow us, we have neither the power nor the right to govern them, or to say how they shall govern themselves. . . . [It is] the summit of human vanity . . . to be dictating to the world to come."

But the right wing of the court insists still on literal adherence to the constitution that is now in its third century.

For those of us who have no idea what is meant by GOP - from Wiki
The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the **GOP** (abbreviation for Grand Old Party),.....

yes, the split is 4-4 not 2-2 but the result is the same.

Of course Obama has the right to nominate a new judge to the Supreme Court -whatever the GOP may claim. Obama does not do so because the Democrats are in a minority both in the House and the Senate so it would be pointless.

Yes, the appointment will be crucial for the next administration.Assuming Clinton wins then she won't hang about getting a liberal candidate appointed - but not too liberal. Clinton is a long way from Sander's thinking.

In the past the Democrats have succeeded in some measure of gun control on a national basis notably a ban on semi-automatic machine guns which ended 'cos of sunset terms. This time the Democrats are aiming for something tough and very difficult to reverse i.e. a root and branch revision of the 2nd amendment back to what the founding father's intended. The British are hardly a military threat to the White House these days. There are too many Americans who think that "The Stand" and "Mad Max" are for real.

I share a ski house in the Rockies with a leading USA Republican who despairs of Trump. He says that right now most of the Republicans and House Reps. are focussed on saving their seats not the Trump campaign which they have written off. The Democrats will prob. win in the House but the Senate is still up for grabs. Many Rep. Senators have a tough call between placating Trump supporters and not alienating trad. Republicans.

It is too easily forgotten in Europe that POTUS does not run the country in the same way as T May does in the UK, Merkel in Berlin or Holland in Paris. POTUS leads rather than rules through a myriad conduits of politics. Europe also tends to forget that US presidents will always put US interests ahead of even their closest allies.

Most US presidents have been pretty good at this the most notable exception being Nixon. Trump is the ultimate outsider such that even if he won the election his administration would quickly collapse into chaos.

Brexit is not remotely in US interests so T May & BoJo won't get much moe than tea and sympathy plus a much bigger bill for military goodies as the £ sinks beneath the waves.

In the past the GOP has always pulled itself together and got back into power. Right now a party run by a mixed bag of fanatics - NRA, Tea Shop, Trumpeters, Birthers, WASP supremacists has no chance whatsoever. They are the mirror image of the UK labour Party which also has forgotten that in order to rule you first need to be elected.

Your entertaining URL also informs just how empty of talent the GOP barrel is.

The first step in the road for the Republicans will be to stop demonising Hispanics and support the residence regularisation of millions of long term residents. They are a milluion miles from that right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNmn7jdbQwA

I <3Monterey

Just a couple of points Rollo.

The US Supreme Court is split 4-4, and the reason Obama has declined to nominate a replacement is that the Republicans in Congress announced that he had no legitimate right to do so within the last year of his presidency, and they would outright refuse to hold hearings on any nomination he made.

For general info, the Supreme Court appointments are of particular significance when it comes to gun control, since the court has recently made a number of decisions striking down rational gun control measures, and particularly the ability of cities like Chicago and Washington to make rules about guns kept in homes. A Clinton appointment to the court would undoubtedly take a much narrower view of the 'right' to possess guns, and a much broader view of the government's authority to limit it in the public interest.

The other significance is of course 'Roe v. Wade' and how easy it would be for a new court to approve draconian restrictions on women's reproductive rights.

These are the two issues on which the right wing in the US rallies its base ... even though there is no threat to any normal person's guns, and no Republican president or Congress has ever seriously interfered in abortion.

Trump himself historically supported gun control and abortion rights and most other 'liberal' causes. Then when he went for the Republican nomination, he started saying things like women who have abortions should be punished by law. He exposed the ugly right-wing underbelly they don't like to talk about.

AnnCardiff you are exactly right that he sounds like Hitler. Not that he is saying the same things, but that he is appealing to the same public and same sentiments ... encouraging supporters to beat up protesters, scapegoating minorities, inflaming grievances, playing on supporters' feelings of being victims of nefarious forces ... it's all right there in the speech he gave in New Hampshire that set his tone, I heard it then and said 'Hitler' before he was finished.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/09/the-anatomy-of-a-donald-trump-victory-speech/

As far as silly subterfuges ... he was a long-time enthusiast of the 'birther' camp, the ones who claim that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore not eligible to be the president.

And his business acumen ... he has bankrupted more small businesses and ripped off more workers, and of course students at his 'Trump university', than any decent person can think decent. It beggars belief that ordinary people can think that someone born a multi-millionnaire who has made more millions by doing nothing productive ever, not even creating jobs (well except for the illegal immigrant workers he employed), has their interests at heart.

It speaks so badly of people in the US that so many of them even approve of him. Yes I feel strongly :-D

This is an entertaining piece about all the candidates they could have chosen who were not Trump. It hardly mattered ...

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n15/eliot-weinberger/they-could-have-picked

as nuts as each other the whole lot of them.

He's a bored egomaniac who's playing the electorate. If the people are as dumb as Trump has claimed, they will get the boss they deserve. Unfortunately, this affects the rest of the world.

he's beginning to make George W Bush look intelligent ;-) ;-) ;-)

John Crace's piece is good creative writing, methinks.

I'd like to think I was wrong about that but, unless his mind is going, I believe Trump is too much of a big 'I-am' to be involved in such 'silly' subterfuge.

I am still waiting for Trump to fail which may then encourage everyone to creep out of the floorboards with secrets still unearthed by the Clinton camp and others.

Duck if that happens as lawsuits and dollar signs will be flying for we don't know who is paying whom to keep quiet.

Well, Rollo hopefully they find it before he gets elected or we are all in trouble. before he starts running America as a business and runs it straight into the ground or a nuclear war whichever comes first AND before he stirs up to many weird people. :-|

"It’s looking increasingly possible that we may have missed the point of Donald Trump.

Trying to keep count of all his insults, contradictions and factual errors is a category error. In the past 24 hours alone, he has declared President Obama to be founder of Isis – he repeated this assertion on radio when the presenter tried to give him some wriggle room to back down, before saying he was being sarcastic – and twice insisted that Thursday was in fact Friday, neither of which are in the typical presidential candidate playbook.

So maybe we should start looking at Trump as he must unconsciously, if not consciously, be seeing himself: as a performance artist. Imagine you are a four-times bankrupted billionaire with time on your hands. What better way to fill the day than seeing just how many people you can upset and still stay in the game?

And if you think you’re frightened of him being president, just think how terrified he must be by now?

He had imagined a bit of Dadaist nonsense about building a 2,000-mile brick wall along the Mexican border would be enough to sink him. But no. Every time he ups the ante and says something more bizarre, his support grows. While he’s only playing at being psychotic, real psychosis of the American dream takes shape.

There must be a tipping point, but he hasn’t found it yet."

John Crace

You guys do know that, although he said it jokingly hmmm ok,, that the best vote for him to get elected was for Hilary to get shot.
maybe I heard him wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

Yes, their government is very complicated.

I did actually.

You didn't bother to read all that did you?!