Free Republic

no

...and then I read, some of the other replies and thought better of attempting a clever insult. Wow, good job guys (esp. fiddlstix, in terms of enormity of undertaking).

I actually suspect that matos was a troll-bot from the start, but either way, I don't think we'll be hearing any more from them (I apologize for the third-person plural pronoun in place of an awkwardly hyphenated or unestablished/personal non-gender-specific third-person singular pronoun) any time soon.

"(((((world wide I.Q. is 92.)))))"

just for the record, average IQ is by definition 100.

While I'm at it I must add that this post is actually unbelievable. This can't be the sincere offering of a fully functional adult human being. I know, I shouldn't be taking this post seriously, but I have to publicly condemn this unmitigated torrent of refuse.

by the way, If I was intending to imply that GOPCapitalist was hiding behind a plain and simple truism, I just did that, and didn't bring anything else of relevance to the discussion.

TWICE now!

"c'mon baby the laugh's on me" - Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen

"(a) prior to Islam, what is now Turkey was NOT Islamic"

if abyone cares, I find this to be an adequate example of a tautology.

Case in point about how people make mistakes. In the third paragraph of my post I refer to "topic" in the singular and later (correctly) pluralize it. This despite careful typing and a full proofreading!

("c'mon baby the laugh's on me" -Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen)

I tried pretty hard on this stuff, I hope it means something to someone.

I only want to state a counterpoint. Actually, I don't think I exactly disagree with you guys on anything, I just have a different slant. Here are some points that occur to me as eminently reasonable and I'd like to share them.

The situations that call for the use of firearms in everyday life and thereby justify carrying a concealed weapon are statistically and according to common sense extremely unlikely to arise, even in the scope of a given person's lifetime. On the other hand, the possibility that a person would make a mistake in general is hovering around 100% for a given day. The possibility that a mistake would be life-threatening is unacceptably high when it involves a gun. That is just my personal assessment of the pro-gun argument via self-defense. I really can't imagine any argument against recreational gun use. Though it just isn't very sporting to use a gun to kill something as stupid and defenseless as a wild animal.

Please understand that because of circumstances in my life beyond my control, I've never had the opportunity to understand hunting or concealed weapons as self-defense directly. I am experientially ignorant on the topic and don't mean to offend those of you who are more experienced regarding these topics.

I have a closing thought. Despite that it's a declaration, I mean it only as an expression of my personal belief and not as fact.

"Guns don't kill people...but they make the relative position of a person's index finger way too ****ing important"