Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Japanese General) – WW2 era quotes
“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.”

Probably most well known for the following quote:
“I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” (Post Pearl Harbor)

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#42 still
“In the case of our own army turning against the population, again, your personal firarms would be useless.”

Afghanistan, and Iraq are a perfect current example of a relatively small group of people wreaking havoc on a modern, sophisticated army. All done with nothing more than small arms and “Improvised Explosive Devices”. If you figure that roughly half of Americans (or more) live in a home which has firearms, if things become too broken, the people have the ultimate power to correct the problem.

The problem with people is sin. Something you’ll never get away from, a perfect Utopia will never exist. In my opinion an armed population is another of the checks and balances the founding fathers intended our country to have. It’s sad that thing have to be that way, but you can’t eliminate sin.

The church advises you to have a years worth of food stores… A persons fear and paranoia should not exceed the level of disaster requiring a person to feed themselves from shelf stock for a full year.

#41 & #42 James and Imperfection-

The 2nd Ammendement was to protect against our own government turning on us, not as a defense against foreign invaders.

Nukes, Stealth aircraft, and Subs won’t make any difference. They can’t use those against Kansas City, Los Angeles, Dallas, or Atlanta. They would need a ground force. Look at what the rebels in Iraq have been able to do for five years. Now imagine the governement trying to do the same thing against Arizona, Colorado, Utah, or Texas.

I’ve only got:

Two Glock 23′s .40 S&W
New England BA 20 Guage
Remington Urban Pump Semi Auto 12 Guage
Remington 700 .308 w/ Zeis

Why do I have them? Hunting for sport. Hunting for food (food storage). Family protection. Inflationary hedge. Trading materials in emergency times. (along with my gold and silver)

I got one of the Browning 9mm. I like to pepper them damn raccoons that keep gettin in my trash. Hey, if you ever down in Texas, we should go shootin.

James- you need to take of them girl pants and put on some camo and go shootin with us. You ain’t a man until you shot an animal bigger than you. Now that’s what I call American!

GeorgeGT My wife bought a Desert Eagle .50 because she saw it in two Glock because it was used in the X Files. Sometimes that girl scares me.

So…. No… I see nothing wrong with owning guns. I’m not going to out and get an assault rifle. This type of weapon is more for an all out battle type of thing that I tend to do with paint-balls. For the life of me, I can’t imagine the situation that would find myself out on the street repelling a bunch of invading hordes.
What I’ve been taught on is travel and home defense. If I find someone being attacked, if I witness something happening on a roadway, or if I find my home occupied when I return, or during the night. I feel that I could and would defend my turf.

Justified by scripture??? What difference will that make if someone is attacking my family and I have the ability to stop them? I’ll make a difference. Some may argue that it may be negative, but at least I’ll make a difference. And I PRAY that I’ll never ever be put in the position of using any weapon against another person.

Hope you get some rest over this Thanksgiving (Thanks, that is, to guns) holiday. BTW, don’t shoot the turkey, it’s already dead.

Neither I, nor from what I have read, James, is advocating taking away your guns. What I would like to see is more sanity and less fear mongering.

But hey, fear sells guns.

In the case of a foriegn invasion that had the ability to overwhelm our own defenses your personal firearms would be useless.

In the case of our own army turning against the population, again, your personal firarms would be useless.

The idea that should be challenged *by the gun rights folks* is that you need a personal firearm for safety. In our society it is a dangerous myth.

I think we as a nation have lost sight why we have the right to bare arms it was to protect us originally from the British it was never intended at least in my view to be a weapon to protect us from each other and as 38 observer has pointed out a way for 50% to take their lives.

The constitution is so sacred to the members of the church that they can’t see arms now are Stealth fighters, nuclear subs, heat seeking missiles and that if the forefathers were alive today they would tell us these are the arms to protect us now and we don’t need the others which are killing us from within.

The incidence of a life threatening home invasion, which seems to be what most fear, is much less likely to be the cause of a gun death. There were fewer that 154 reported cases, in the country, of justifiable homicide in 2006. These are the hard cold facts. Check the Centers For Disease Control national statistics! But, most would rather be lured into this sense of paralyzing fear to justify their actions.

These are the facts:
1) You have a consitutionally protected right to own a gun ( Heller VS District of Columbia). Noone is coming for your guns!

2) The risk of suicide is five times greater in households with guns. Accounting for over 50% of gun deaths.

3)When medical costs, loss of productivity, mental health treatment, rehabilitation, legal and judicial costs are figured in, gun violence costs the US over $100 billion annually.

4) We are losing close to 30,000 people a year to firearm related injury, 30,000! This is more than 5 industrialized foriegn nations COMBINED. Enough is enough!

If tainted lettuce were the cause of this many deaths, we as a country would be outraged! And would have pulled every head of lettuce off of every produce shelf in the country in a matter of days.

This is not a question of imminent safety in our homes. This is a question of what kind of society we are willing to live in, to raise our children in? At some point we have to choose between living in a gun slinging, shoot to kill, fearful wild,wild west. Or CHOOSE to build a vision of the “Divine Kingdom” a safe community were everyone can operate with a sense of safety and well being. Which would God Choose for us? Which would you choose for yourself and the ones you love?

“I anticipate no such extreme, but caution is the parent of safety.”

On a more philosophical point, a gun is a weapon that benefits the physically weak. An armed citizenry is, in my opinion, more likely to generate restraint and encourage peaceful resolutions to disagreements. A disarmed population presents a far greater temptation for those who have strength and power to impose their will as the likelihood of effective opposition is much lower.

A total ban of guns also shows a worrisome loss of community trust. A community based on trust views armed members of your community as a comfort, because you trust these members of your community to use their weapons justly, and usually in a manner benefiting the community. (Defending against enemies foreign and domestic). In such a community you would expect criminals to banned from owning weapons, but not law abiding citizens.

Most of the arguments in favor of gun control are based on the idea that you should not trust your neighbor. (Instead you should trust your government). This is probably why gun owners can become so emotional over the issue, as nobody likes it when someone informs them that they are considered untrustworthy- especially when they have taken no action to deserve such mistrust.

I don’t think that you can legitimately claim to live a faithful life and walk a “God like” path and believe that taking a life is a right. Shooting someone is a heinous act no matter how justified you feel in the commission of the act. It is an ugly, horrible,traumatizing act for everyone involved.

Shouldn’t we all be working toward creating a society where no one should ever feel it necessary to pump someone full of bullet? Shouldn’t we be working to address the fear, racism and propensity for violence that is compelling people to purchase guns at such alarming rates?

Well I think your #1 will have trouble with the Book of Mormon where there were quite a few prophets set forth as types to emulate who engaged in violence. (Mormon and Moroni being pretty good examples not to mention Ammon)

As for your latter point I do think we ought make a peaceful land. However acting as if utopia is here when it isn’t is quite silly. Also realize that there are large swaths of America where the police are very, very far away. It’s not like you are in downtown SLC and a cop car is at best 5 minutes away. In some places you have a few cops covering a very large county.

if these folks had the slightest understanding of how our government works, they would know the president can’t unilaterally ban handguns no matter how much he might want to.

I think these guys have a very good understanding of how government works and recognize that a sitting President with large majorities in both the Senate and House of the same party can get gun laws passed. When you combine this with the “leak” of a policy platform on his website last month and past stated desire to seriously restrict guns I think some concerns are pretty valid.

That said I’m not sure Obama would do this. I think he remembers that one of the main driving factors of Republican gains in the 90′s was the gun right issue. There were a lot of people upset who weren’t even gun owners.

While I think the reaction is an overreaction I think there are rational reasons to worry that at a minimum more gun control is likely. So get them now before the regulations come into effect.

That said I’ve also seen statistics that the claim there is this run on guns is pretty exaggerated and that current gun sales are within normal statistical variation.

I don’t think that you can legitimately claim to live a faithful life and walk a “God like” path and believe that taking a life is a right. Shooting someone is a heinous act no matter how justified you feel in the commission of the act. It is an ugly, horrible,traumatizing act for everyone involved.

Shouldn’t we all be working toward creating a society where no one should ever feel it necessary to pump someone full of bullet? Shouldn’t we be working to address the fear, racism and propensity for violence that is compelling people to purchase guns at such alarming rates?

#22 you are right the Supreme Court just handed down a ruling in April 08 (Heller vs District of Columbia)that supports an individuals right to own a gun. Only reasonable restrictions can be imposed. It seems that people don’t really want to know the truth. They just want to know that which supports their fears and often stunted viewpoints.

I know that God wants better for us than living in such a state of fear and paranoia that taking a life is our best and only solution.