Those in the gun culture tend to be indoctrinated to be extra safe with guns and that mindset takes some time to build up. But I've never suggested we should be encouraging every citizen to go rush out to buy a gun and slap it on their hip the same day. When I talk about arming more citizens I'm including the training and indoctrination aspect and I've made that clear repeatedly. Get them as kids and it works best, as with most things, and I've also always phrased it as voluntary. I've certainly never said or implied we should just start arming people anymore then we should just hand 16 year olds keys and a license on their birthday.

Mostly true, a baseball bat or knife might do in a pinch, also a bad guy or a so-so guy with a gun can stop a bad guy too. I really have no idea what you disagree with about this statement, cops have guns, we don't send them in to shootings armed with scolding expressions.

Sandy was handled poorly, the 3rd and 4th sentences are totally true, the first sentence is reasonable hyperbole, thicken up your skin libs do the same to us, and I'm not sure how much looting there was in Brooklyn.

As a nation we will surely have more hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorists, gangs, and lone criminals. Individual citizens have a decent chance of encountering one or more of those in their lifetime, I've never personally been near a hurricane but I have the others and it's not like I've ever gone looking for trouble. Given that most people exaggerate the number and severity of their own involvement with such things I assume I'm fairly par for the course. It isn't paranoia to buy a gun, I agree and I can see how you might not but I don't see why you think that's a crazy wild comment. It is responsible behavior, I've said repeatedly now I think we should encourage more gun ownership, yes I do happen to think its a civic duty to know how to use a gun but I also consider it a civic duty to vote, and to know first aid and to keep some canned food and water and the like in your home for emergencies.

Predictions of the future have to be assessed after they occur. Other than debt riots it is the same as above.

True, we don't know if a collapse will happen let alone when, that's a simple statement of fact any sane person would agree with. We also know that police budgets have been cut in many places and that if more cuts are necessary they may not be immune.

True enough, the Nazis weren't stopped with lectures, this whole list has been to me a recitation of wise remarks to me, and I'd assume you'd know that so I'm confused why you try to argue with them. I feel like an atheist just came up and tried to convert me by reciting the Golden Rule as an example of the evils of Christianity. I'm not trying to mock or provoke you but I really can't see how you can view those as outrageous remarks by him or even how you can disagree with most of them, just his conclusion that guns are part of the solution, not the problem, in his eyes and mine.

I think that's a bit of hyperbole, I've frequent dealings with the NRA in official capacity and there's never been a flavor of Ubermensch about owning a gun. Frankly its not even as bad as a lot of greens can get about their gardening, recycling, etc and that's coming form someone who gardens a lot and recycles everything.

Part of the problem here is that you and I disagree fundamentally on this 'should not have' thing. Criminals with guns is not something I can entirely except as ground for major change, because until someone is convicted of a felony we've got no grounds to take their guns, and then their as is in prison, usually for a pretty long time if they used a gun as part of it. Once a felon gets out of lock up I don't care if he has a gun unless I think he's very likely compared to most people to use it for a crime, and that's going to depend a lot on what crime he committed. If it was premeditated murder, then he never gets out of prison except in a box in my world, preferably sooner then later, and I couldn't care less if a crooked accountant gets a gun five minutes after he leaves prison. So then one amends the remark to 'violent criminals' the only problem is that I don't want a violent criminal released until they are statistically not much more likely to commit a violent crime again then most folk, at which pint their owning a gun is kind of a non-issue to me.

Keeping guns from criminals is, therefore, an inaccurate statement because what it really means is specifically and only keeping guns out of the hands of people who have already been to prison and been released, which as I've said I've no real problem with but as i've also said I consider essentially unenforceable and only effective at keeping guns out of the hands of ex-criminals who are inclined not to break the law anymore.

But we've been around this again and again and again and again. I don't know why you try to sway me on the matter, thus far you've mostly succeeded at getting me to rethink some of the concessions I would have been okay with and decide that conceding those would be a bad idea.