GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, OR DO THEY?

[Cutz]

So those ranchers want free land, free grazing rights, total freedom to do what they please with federal (which means the national public's) lands for their own profit.

Of course they do, because people are selfish. Maybe we can just tell them it's for the good of the masses and they'll calm down. Then the fishing industry will stop overfishing public oceans, almond farmers in California will stop drying out aquifers, and people who don't pay their taxes will stop enjoying national defense.

no consequences, thus far, for Cliven Bundy showed these guys and every armed extremist that they can disobey the law, threaten law enforcement with loaded weapons, steal other people's property, infringe upon the lives of others, get special treatment, and just carry on doing more of the same in attempt to get what they want. They're the oppressors, not the government, regardless of how one feels about the merits of their cause. The citizens of Burns taking up arms and driving the Bundy interlopers off by force in order to defend/regain their freedoms would be be a better example of why the Second Amendment matters today than what the self-proclaimed "patriot militia' is doing. In my opinion.

I wasn't supporting their cause, honestly I don't know enough about it. But I love that it's an example of what can happen. I don't recommend lawbreaking, but rights and freedom are a reciprocal relationship. It's not always about following every legal avenue to "stick it to the man."

I've seen enough to think currently it's a couple nut balls who have no backing from the general population. Give them a just cause, mix in some inappropriate gov't behavior, and throw a dash of public opinion behind them, and you have the recipe for the perfect example of freedom defining rights, not rights defining freedom. The gov't would be doing more than not punishing them. So do we own guns because we're allowed, or are we allowed because we choose to live that way? Raising arms against the government is a last resort, outside of law, but having the ability to do so is what keeps law from running unabated.

I don't limit my "power to the people" to firearms. Knowledge and reason are important attributes of a powerful populace. The fact that militia men don't have public opinion backing shows the intelligence of a discerning public. We know what happened and why it happened. That information itself is a powerful freedom that keeps checks on balances. I'd be up in arms (pun intended) if the gov't ever tried to censor the internet.