I wanna be an American

PS, I assumed they're all law makers, I recognize only Boebert.

Also, don't get too drunk at your local nightclub, you might get picked up by Marjorie Taylor Greene

Yeah, why be armed when you be powerless against the state instead.

Never found this a remotely compelling argument. Guns or no guns, the US civilian population could not stop the state if it deployed its military against the civilian population. What good are assault rifles going to be when several M1 Abrams rolls down the street. They going be able to shot down a missile launched from an aircraft with assault rifles?

I mean, it’s not like government are censoring free speech, promoting false science, in cahoots with big media and playing the populace against each other. 

I think the 2nd  suggestion is far more likely to come from the side that supports gun ownership in the US and the 4th suggestion is something that side just as guilty of if not more than the other. With 1 and 3 there is genuine discussion to be had on those topics but that's a far cry from the government is coming to get you.

I always found the idea of needing a gun to feel safe as strange. I can't imagine living in a society where I would feel the need to have a gun to either protect me from the government or so I could  feel safe just going about my day to day business. Its not like my country is free from crime, in fact drug use might be worse here than in the US and there is a degree of gun crime here in Ireland, though its pretty much exclusively the reserve of gangland crime, with the occasional innocent bystander getting targeted by mistake. Armed criminals would never shoot a cop here though. Its like an unwritten rule, you don't kill police here that would just bring down way too much heat on a criminal organization. There was one case where unarmed police (regular police are unarmed here ) raided a property. The criminals inside had AK47's or the like, but when the police kicked in the door the criminals all jumped out the window and just left the weapons.

I was recently speaking with a few American's here in my home town. Ireland's awash with American tourists at the moment due to the strength of the dollar and my home town has a rather famous pub that's frequented by many of them. They where strongly pro-gun ownership and one of them was a retired sheriff. I didn't start the conversion but the topic of gun ownership came up and I was pointing out to him that in the history of the Irish state outside of the troubles there hasn't been a mass shooting, and that in the history of the state only about 80 police officers died in the line of duty (again quite a number of those who where killed where during the troubles) and he said to me that's because your country did it right and never had guns in the first place. I was like pardon, that sounds like your where criticizing the founding fathers of America?

At this point, i’d prefer if each household had a tank and an attack helicopter.

Every child should have his own tactical nuke!

Totally agree Stav.

Wish I could take this opportunity to do a bit of chest-beating with Connacht vs Sharks coming up but I suspect you'll crush the B team we're sending out.

"the US civilian population could not stop the state if it deployed its military against the civilian population"

Doesn't need to stop them. Just weaken them enough t make them vulnerable...which ends up being the same as stopping them.

"...come from the side that supports gun ownership in the US and the 4th suggestion is something that side just as guilty of if not more than the other"

Have you not been living in the world over the last few years? The vaccines have serious medical conditions appearing in 1/800 patients...it's promoted while others that see serious adverse events in 1/100000 are shelved. And the point is not whether it's a left or right government, the population should have the means to fight tyranny. Imagine if all the peasants had weapons during the dark ages? Perhaps it wouldn't have lasted for 700 years. I can think of a good few more occasions where an armed populace may have averted disaster.

Giving up your arms is giving up your freedom. It's that simple but "frog in hot water" syndrome prevents most from realizing it.

Doesn't need to stop them. Just weaken them enough t make them vulnerable...which ends up being the same as stopping them.

What double speak is this?...you are basically saying it doesn't stop them but that it almost stops them which does stop them?

Yes have you?

The vaccines have serious medical conditions appearing in 1/800 patients...it's promoted while others that see serious adverse events in 1/100000 are shelved.

Giving up your arms is giving up your freedom. It's that simple but "frog in hot water" syndrome prevents most from realizing it.

Nope. I live in a a free society which does haven't guns. Ireland outranks the US in terms of freedoms actually. The people scared of all these threats they need guns to protect themselves from are the ones who are not free, they are controlled by fear, which mostly isn't real and even if it was real guns wouldn't save them from it.

"What double speak is this?...you are basically saying it doesn't stop them but that it almost stops them which does stop them?"

Think harder...see if you can understand it.

• China
• North Korea
• Syria
• Myanmar (Burma)
• Russia
• Zimbabwe
• Nazi Germany
• Soviet Union
• Apartheid South Africa
• Ottoman Empire
• Ancient Rome
• Ancient Egypt
• Venezuela
• Saudi Arabia
• Iran
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• Turkey
• Egypt
• Pakistan
• Somalia
• Sudan
• Eritrea
• North Sudan
• South Sudan
• Yemen
• Libya
• Cuba

I would always support the freedom to have the option to have a firearm in your home, to protect your loved ones, should any threat enter your domain, or to even carry it on you at any time.

I would also fully respect someone's opinion who thought that having a firearm in a home is not warranted in any circumstances

I see the negatives and positives on both sides....

Each to their own....

Nothing wrong with responsible gun ownership. It's tools like axes and knives...screwdrivers and hammers...cars? Banning them because some people are irresponsible is just plain daft. What's next, banning alcohol , cigarettes,  headache pills..etc? The government has no business parenting it's citizens. 

When seconds count the police are only minutes away.

Having lived in a country that bans guns and even knives, I have gotten used to it- and am fine with no weapons.

I am prepared to sacrifice my freedom to have a gun for the freedom to li ve in a society with little to no people having guns. 

When I read about violence and guns in the newspaper in the UK, it is often in poor places with lots of young black men. (Not being racist, but that seems to be the trend). Clearly, people can still create guns, or get them illegally - but that seems to be a minimum. 

If guns are legal 10% of people will buy guns. 
That will cause another 20% of people to get guns to protect themselves from the people with guns. 
And so, it perpetuates. 

How about this one DA,  my mom phones the police because two poc have jumped the wall into the back yard in the evening. Her house is in a cul-de-sac where she is the house at the very top. Bottom of the road is the police station around the corner and one property over. 

The charge office there told her they didn't have any vehicles!!!!!

Literally less than 100 meters away. We used to take shortcuts through their holding cell area on the way home when I was a lighting.

Lightie*

"people can still create guns, or get them illegally - but that seems to be a minimum"

This seems to be on the increase ... people 3D printing guns parts and assembling their own firearm. ..

Literally less than 100 meters away

Sadly, I am not surprised..... it is absolutely shocking what our police force has become.... and our army.

Shark, you are a fool for trusting the system...I know you mean well, but try living here for a decade before judging me...and remember, things change swiftly...

Think harder...see if you can understand it.

Let me guess, your thinking is probably along the lines that some of the US military would side with the armed civilians and in this conflict between the evil US military controlled by the tyrannical government and the good US military defending the persecuted civilian population, the armed civilians population will give the good guys the edge they need to prevail á la Red Dawn.

Now there is a couple of flaws with that idea that if you think harder about you might understand as well.

If that's not what you where thinking, then what you wrote was just a contradiction.

Don't be skeptical, go and look it up for yourself. But since that i know you won't...here.

Alright I read that and its interesting read. Firstly I would agree with the position of several of the people quoted who are talking in their field of expertise and are critical of the slowness in conducting follow up research when there is indicators of a considerably greater risk with the vaccines than previously believed and the withholding of available research from the public that denies people the ability to make an informed choice and creates suspicion and mistrust among the general population.

Of course there is a but. You said The vaccines have serious medical conditions appearing in 1/800 patients.

You wrote that like if its been definitively proven. It has not. To quote a section of that article.

"We don’t want to create a lot of unnecessary anxiety and we can’t say there is now proof that the vaccines cause these events because the data are of poor quality"

Your own post is a textbook example of the reason cited in that article why some medical authorities withhold or delay the release of certain data, because some people will incorrectly interpret the data and present it in a worse light than it really is.

So yes their is indicators of additional risk but not definitive proof and further research is needed.

But lets say after further research that we get confirmation that serious side effects affects occur in 1 in 800 who take the vaccine. I'm absolutely for telling people who are getting the vaccine there is that risk.

I'd also tell them that for every 800 people who get Covid and are not vaccinated, 5-6 of them will die. That's just people who will die, not the number of people who will suffer serious illness which will be a much a higher percentage. Where am I'm getting these numbers from?. Why the same source you linked to the BMJ who give a death rate for Covid of 0.66% link In fairness that article is from April 2020 and the death and illness rate may have come down with different variants and of course the death rate is affected by age but I've no doubt age also effects the chances of having a serious side effect from a vaccine.

So yes by all means give people the full picture, but please don't misinterpret the data to conform to your preconceived views and present it as fact.

Sure:

I was actually hoping you could give me example of where an armed civilian population actually did fight off a tyrannical government.

Well, you bought all the Covid nonsense, have been skeptical about government censorship of free speech, and wholeheartedly buy the climate change narrative...shall I go on? I mean, what else would you say, really?

I didn't bring Covid up, you did. I just said I was skeptical of your claims about the Covid vaccine.

As for government censorship, well I'm against the forms practiced by say China and Russia (and before Mike wonders in and starts fucking shiteing on about Ukraine and censorship, I'm not in favor of everything Ukraine has done in this area, TV Rain for being an example, but some degree of censorship can be tolerated in the case of war). However often times when people cite examples of censorship in the west its just them being angry at not being able to make post content that can have serious potentially deadly real world consequences. Be with this topic there is room for debate.

As for climate change, its not a narrative, its back by an overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence. A narrative is that its all a great conspiracy.

As for a final thing to say, well I would say your a dyed in the wool conspiracy theorist and see a conspiracy behind every significant event going on in the world frequently ignoring Occam's Razor. You cry wolf so much that even when you do stumble on to something worth investigating your credibility is gone.

"You wrote that like if its been definitively proven. It has not. To quote a section of that article."

You will never get to the truth if you ignore what you don't like.

If you want to be an American Shark, you are part of vast number of people. We struggle to find kind ways to keep them out.

Here’s the PubMed link

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36055877/

Well I guess you don't read your own articles because that link has an article that refers to one of same studies that was already referred to in the article you first linked too.

I asked for new research that backed up what you claimed, not the same evidence and from an older source.

Why always these half-arsed neither here nor there arguments with you?

LOL well I would say you arguments did even constitute a quarter of an arse, but we be pulling hairs at this point.

I don’t care about “often” or “x doesn’t mean y”…that stuff doesn’t work on me.

Then come up with better arguments because that's often what your argument that you and people of your ilk amount too. "Dur... its been hotter in the earths past, therefore the planet will be fine" "Dur... the planets temperature has risen naturally before, therefore the warming is natural" "Dur... people can make money out of global warming, therefore global warming is a scam" "Dur...its usually cold at X location today, therefore global warming can't be occurring" etc etc

Have you not been seeing the Twitter files?

Oh god...why have I feeling I about to hear another conspiracy...do I want to know? Go on enlighten us so, is it something to do with Elon Musk spazzing out on his keyboard when posting on twitter.

Is like we have to drag you to the truth, then cut off your eyelids and force you to see it.

Mate you haven't the slightest clue what truth is. You operate in a reality where the truth is exactly what you want it to be.

Almost every agency in the US are now being shown, in black and white, to have partaken in illegal censorship through social media.

Hmm...you know I could look this up. But I've this feeling it would be a complete waste of time.

Texas is the closest to my Boland without the FCN ANfcnC...Still not the same, not even clo se!

lolz…so you haven’t been seeing or keeping up with the Twitter file dump.

Why am i not surprised?

Not really. Once I saw that all round bellend Elon Musk was involved I tuned out.

Better not look it up now, i don’t know if you’ll be able to stand the embarrassment.

You seem to live with embarrassment just fine. I'm sure I'll survive.

Here is Matt Taibbi’s Twitter Page…he’s been covering it as the files have been dropped. Now do some honest research and fact check him.

I just typed Matt Taibbi into DuckDuckGo (its a search engine that doesn't track your searches in case you are wondering) and the first thing that comes up is an image of him being interviewed on Fox News...that's all the research I need to do on the clown to know I'm not interested in what he has has to say.

Then come back here and say “Sorry, uncle Plum.”

That sounds like a disturbing fantasy you have there.

California, New York and "some" parts of Florida would be to my liking. 
The Mexicans seem to find it relatively easy to get into the US. 

Although I can't say the same for inland places like Kansas, Alabama, Georgia etc.
Places that are too far North like Chicago and inland are ok, but not where I would want to live.

Canada seems like a good place, but too cold for my liking. I actually prefer Canadians to Americans, although having said that the people I have met from California have been cool people. I would not like to live in any of the red states.

Australia would be another good place. However, where I live in Cornwall is nice. Much better than many places in the UK. A bit cold in winter, but I am about to go on a 2-month working holiday. 
1 month in the Canary Islands, and then 1 month in Portugal - Peniche). 2 of the better surfing places in the world. Nice and warm as well.
I often leave the UK for a surf trip to warmer places. 

I’m now a Florida resident Plum. But I do still spend the summers up  north where I have most of my friends. I actually found Florida too monotonous until I discovered Sarasota. It reminds me of the Lake District with it’s huge lagoon. I can walk to the Opera in 10 minutes. There are scores of great restaurants, superb boating and fishing on the ocean and the estuary. I have seen most of Florida, once had a place in Palm Beach  and this is by far my favorite option.

Lol, i’m never knew that appearing on Fox news invalidated one’s work.

Hmmm am i sensing a pattern of illogical bias here? 

No your sensing a person who doesn't want his time wasted.

So you have no interest in the opposite perspective….typical Woke one way street thinking.