Look at the end of my previous post I provided direct links. All the stats are available from the FBI for crime and from the CDC for hospital visits. 

Exactly, and if your locale happens to be Canada vs. USA you are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. Of course, in both countries you have a wide disparity in crime rates depending on locations, which is why I suggested that the decision of whether or not a person feels a need to purchase a firearm for personal protection should be an individual decision based on various risk factors, not a decision made by the government. 

Your just having a gun increases the risk factors for everyone else, which makes it the governments business. Your rights end when they interfere with mine.

You just existing increases risk factors for everyone around you, life is risky and justifying government action solely on the basis of risk leads to an excuse for government to control absolutely anything it wants. Exactly which "right" of yours am I interfering with by owning guns? Where does that right come from?

Yes, you are. How many times have you spoken to your representative? How many times have you canvassed the streets for petitions and the like? I bet you've never done anything more than vote. You have full access to your government. Ignoring that access and crying about your leaders and denying your responsibility is literally childish. The people getting killed in Iraq can't speak to your government. They certainly can't run for office like you can.

Every American is responsible for the actions or inactions of the American government. That's the way democracy works.

In 10th grade, I mailed to my representative an essay I wrote about immigration reform. I've also signed about a dozen online petitions that were sent to governors and representatives asking them to veto/vote against certain pieces of legislation. When my dad typed up a letter proposing (what he thought to be) effective and reasonable gun control laws, I edited it for him before he sent it to the representative of the district I live in.

I spent several dozen hours working for the Obama campaign in 2008. I was a somewhat active member of the libertarian group Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) for the past two years. Several times, I signed the petition put out by the group 'Students for Concealed Carry on Campus'.

Maybe I will type up some letters detailing my thoughts and email them to various people in the United States government. While the chances of me being listened to are probably miniscule, it just might be worth it.

I have often been told I act like a child.

I don't apply for jobs I lack the skills to effectively perform.

Only if all Americans are capable of significantly influencing their government...

Maybe I'm just mentally handicapped, but...some of what you're saying just doesn't make any sense to me, Vastet. Other people in the thread, may I have your comments/opinions on this? I'd really, really appreciate it...

The people your government ignores are those who are mentally disabled and/or prisoners. You may have an illness, but I don't think you are disabled to the point you'd be ignored.

You've participated more than many do. But the whole point of a democracy is that the people have the power. The people elect the officials. The people are responsible for those officials. The people become those officials.

Only in a dictatorship can you point at the leaders and say its completely their fault. In a democracy, the people share the blame, and hopefully seek to rectify the situation via impeachment or through new elections or if all else fails, civil war.

Democracy is a government responsible to & for the people, who are responsible to & for the government.

That is nice, you can keep that right over there. Here in the US our Constitution promises the right to keep and bear arms. I really don't give a fuck what laws you have in Canada.

What a quaint and idealistic view of democracy, also leads one to believe that you have never been active in politics because that is not at all how democracy works. I spent a rather significant portion of my life deeply entrenched playing political hardball. I worked as a fundraiser where I raised millions of dollars in campaign contributions, I have worked as treasurer for several candidates and even worked as a campaign manager. Yes, I have done the canvassing, the petitions, collecting signatures, the dinners, the speeches etc.

Even to this day, while I will not vote for any incumbent I still remain in contact with them and still make appearances because in the real world, a politician that hates you can make it very difficult to get permits (personal experience talking) so I go around and kiss the asses of those scumbags and stroke their egos. 

I left politics precisely because the people I helped get elected turned out to be the same type of scumbags I worked to throw out and I felt that I was responsible since without my help they may not have won election. It is absurd to claim that someone is responsible for the actions of someone else that they opposed. One can only be responsible for their own actions and responsibility can only be made accountable on the individual level- it is not shared. Many people can be at fault, for example, everyone who voted for Obama is at fault for voting for Obama if he does anything they do not like, but they are not "sharing" blame they are to blame for their vote and their vote alone.

And simply run for office yourself? Lmao. You are the one who argues with me about simply creating your own job. As someone who is very familiar with doing both, it is MUCH easier to create a job than it is to successfully run for political office. Very rarely can some random person just run for an office and have any chance of winning. If you have significant amounts of money it improves your odds, but more than one millionaire has pissed away a bunch of money trying to buy a political office.

The reality is that to have a decent chance you have to be well connected in the party apparatus and have the support of the people who take the volunteer positions in campaigns like treasurer, managers, fundraisers etc. With few exceptions those people will pick out their candidates a couple years before the election and unless there is some infighting going on between them, whoever they pick will become the nominee. The establishment does lose on occasion, but it is very rare- they hold an immense amount of power and most importantly have the ability to provide a lot of help in the general election or to provide no help.

So suppose you buck the odds and manage to get elected into office, are you going to make some huge change? Not a chance. If the party didn't support you going in, they are not going to support you after you win. You will find yourself shuffled to insignificant committees, legislation you try to introduce won't be brought to the floor- at least not in any kind of recognizable form and you will be thrown under the bus at the first opportunity. The parties have a lot of control over the legislative process and unless you are supporting the leadership of whatever party you belong to, your power as a legislator is non-existent outside of maybe voting against your party from time to time. If you vote against your party without their permission (yes, congressmen actually make deals with leadership on when they can or can't go against the party, the position of Whip was made for this very purpose to make sure that enough votes exist for the majority to win the vote and will allow certain members who might have a strong political reason why they should vote against the party, if there are enough votes permission will be granted in exchange for some favor.) Someone who votes against the party without permission will find themselves with a strong opponent in the primary who is backed by a lot of resources from the national party. 

Sure, you get a few people who manage to beat the trend and consistently get reelected despite being hated inside the party, like Ron Paul for example. They generally have extremely solid political connections in their local district and enough personal money to finance their campaigns themselves. However, these exceptions are generally easily dealt with by painting them as "crazy" and ignoring them. Really, how effective has Ron Paul been at getting anything done...? Not at all. 

Democracy provides the illusion that people have this great control, but since few people care enough to be intelligently informed and voting is based more on splashy advertising than serious discussion of any issues being supported by the inside club is far more important than having good ideas. Our politicians cycle in and out with different party names and changes to their rhetoric but at the end of the day, the system inherently encourages them to seize more power for themselves, rewards corruption and punishes honesty. 

Since those "deluded and blatantly wrong" ideas are pretty much perfectly accurate, I think you'll be the only one laughing...

Have you considered being less harsh, Vastet?

The United States is hardly a perfect example of democracy...  It's technically a 'democratic republic', anyway...

I have an oz if you want to take a Canadian vacation. But sadly it probably isn't strong enough to open your eyes.

Like I said, no one ever claimed a gun would help in every situation. Just because a gun failed to help here (we still don't know he was armed but for the sake of argument we can pretend he was) does not mean that a gun is never useful. In a specific situation, a gun is nothing but some pretty metal, in other specific situations it will save your life. 

You don't even know what you support. Are you ready to tell us exactly what kind of gun laws you support? So far, the only new law I have seen you take a stand on is supporting banning large magazines- still completely at a loss on how that is supposed to save a single life. So do you support banning the gun that killed Chris Kyle? Or not?