Botellines

It is. However, if you are going to aply it you should do it regardless of the nationality of the victims. Or is the 14 years old iraqui girl any less innocent or any less worthy than the american counterpart?

US Soldiers who rape and murder have zero support from any quarter. However had the victims been american civilians that soldier would be condemned to death penalty or a life sentence without parole, no less. I very much doubt this will be the case. Without the apropiate penalty for the misdeeds you may not be actively encouraging it, but you are not doing much to deter it. Pretty equal in my book.

You are right, the poll options are just a copy of John Rich´s. However so far more people has voted that the rapist are courageous american heroes than evil scum. That doesn´t put in a very good place the real heroes that there may be. Edited to add the word "gun" and "England" so John Rich will notice the thread...

You do know this is about a two years old? Is there a reason for re-surfacing this? Yep, although recently there was a movie made by Brian de Palma about the whole issue. It just shows that there is evil scum in both sides. Besides, two years down the road will not make strapping retarded people with bombs to inmolate any better than it is today.

News CNN) -- Four U.S. soldiers in Iraq are charged with participation in the "rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and three members of her family," the U.S. military said Sunday. Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/09/soldiers.charged/index.html Discuss...

I am sure that we can both agree on what reasonable is, however, as it has been stated "reasonable" would likely render the guns unusable for home defense. I would say that at the very minimum a good safe, keeping the gun unloaded at all times and a sound education for your kids. Also, having only one gun ando a handful of bullets could help. Enough for home defence, but not that much to shoot at the mall. To me it is too much hustle to own a gun, i couldn´t commit myself to that much responsability, so i don´t have one. Sadly too many people find out that it is too much responsability too late. And many more don´t know yet how big responsability it is. Rehmwa: I stand corrected about spiderman, you are right, it was his uncle.

If AQ managed to steal one of those russians nuclear suitcases and blow it in NY, many people would be screaming about owner responsability. Even if Russia really did all they could to prevent it. Spiderman said that with great power comes great responsability, so i think it is not crazy to somehow link gun ownership with crimes commited with said gun independently of precautions taken. Maybe a middle point would be that economical penalties (fines, compensations, etc) goes to the gun owner, as well as the one pulling the trigger, and criminal penalties (jail, etc) if the owner cannot prove that he did everything reasonable to avoid the outcome...

A shark will not pretend to be your friend if he is hungry. And if he is not hungry or does not feel threaten, he will pretty much ignore you. I don´t think mankind is inherently evil, just inherently selfish.

I am with Richards, sometimes the little guy picked on has no chance against the bully. Actually that is why they are called bullies because they pick on phisically weaker kids. When i was a kid one of the school bullies was silver medal in the spanish junior taekwondo championships. Go figure, if he decided to pick on you you better be good in athletism. It seems that now there is more bulling than before, but i think that kids now are reporting it more and more. A good thing would be to make easier for the kids to report bulling cases anonimously so the teachers would now where to look at. Sort of a blog or a web page. In Spain we have a telephone number where kids can call to report school abuses. It has been necesary to take this measures after a couple of students have commit suicide in the past years and there has been many video feeds on internet with bullies beating up kids recorded with mobiles.

And what is the problem with socialism? it seems that to many people here helping out unlucky childs would not be a bad thing if it wasn´t called socialism. Leave aside the national pride that everything american is the best and get the better of any system you find. Socialism has a few good things, even comunism has things to offer. Just for the record, i have top notch insurance that will cover virtually everything for me and my family, (bloody expensive as well), however we still usually go the public system because it has things that insurance does not offer. Like treatments not based on economical expenses. They are not interested in profit. good when it is my health what it is at stake.

Good question. Part of me certainly wants to hurt the guy. I have a granddaughter that is 6 years old too. Perhaps I'm too close to be rational. If he did it, and DNA says he did, then there is NOTHING too strong of a sentence for what he did. Imagine your 6 year old being raped by someone, then strung up like side of beef. Would anything make you feel better? I doubt it. However, that being said, if it were my granddaughter that he did that to ... well. let me say I think my Christian convictions of justice would be put to the ulitmate test. Justice is not suppose to be emotional. If we think of it as in terms of "had it happen to my granddaughter", then we will soon begin to cut hands for robbery, legs for running away, and tongues for verbal offenses. A fit punishment would be a life in prison (without parole and doing hard labour) and if the close family of the victim wants a bit extra punishment (and who can blame them) the can always go to the prison to visit a random inmate whith a pack of cigarretes and tell them what the guy did.

If it doesn´t matter, then i don´t know what this war on terror thing is. I mean, if the only problem was the economical status of AQ, then i am sure something could have been done about it without killing innocent civilians.

Do you have any experience in Spain´s Helth System?

That is dumb, who can think that 4000 bullets are too many? After all, it will be slightly over 4 bullets per gun!! Now wether 900 firearms is too many or not is still something undebated.

Those rare cases seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Just in case you have forgotten i will give you some more rare cases with chritianity Pedophilia inside the church War justification (WW2) Torture and murder in the crusades and the inquisition etc, etc, We are talking about same shit here

OK, so you are advocating to sabotage industries in a sovereign country just because they don´t comply with U.S designs. Are you one of those who say that thing of "they hate us because we are free"?

After seeing what a bunch of nuts with cutters can do, do you really think that a multibillion missile defense system will make you any safer?

Well actually it was South america who gave shelter to the Nazi thugs. The U.S.A got to keep the nazi scientist.

LOL, As far as i know i am not yet a parent, thinking about it, though.

I see a diference beetwen how to safely handle something and how to use it. Besides unlike sex there is no hurry in teaching how to shoot. That is why even being outraged i wasn´t going to initially respond to this post, because it is not my problem how other people raises their kids. However teenagers are not considered responsible enough to do a whole lot of things, like driving, drinking, having consensual sex, signing contracts, etc. I don´t see handling guns as something less serious than the other things they are not allowed to do. If i was going to teach my kids to shoot i would wait until their hormons settle down and i can easily assess how well prepared they are to handle that responsability. In the meantime an "If you see a gun do not touch it and call an adult" should be enough.

I am outraged but unlike some republicans I will try neither to tell others how to live nor how to educate their offspring. Leaving aside the fact that i am against gun proliferation i see a great risk in teaching a kid how to shoot. Kids make mistakes, and more often that not very stupid things. Parents have to make sure that those bad decisions will not haunt the kid for the rest of his life. If Tonto, John Rich or you think that your kids will not make a bad decision regarding your weapons, then good for you. Either you are 100% sure of your kid´s good decisions or you are taking a risk. I personally wouldn´t do it, even if it is only because my kids would have my genes and i know how prone i was to do stupid things.

well said, i would like to add a couple of points... First of all since the idiot who goes into rampage is not expecting to make it out alive, the deterrent factor of an armed campus is zero. An armed campus means unlimited ammo for the bad guy who only has to pick weapons up from the dead bodies like a videogame. Or the nuttie can just shoot a couple of people with a stolen gun, hide and watch the fun unfold when a lot of armed youngster start shooting eachother.

But maybe you were behaving like a bitch, and your mother was right telling you so. This thing that parents can educate a kid just by treating them as a rational adults is an uthopia. Kids will always try to find out how far they can go with the authority, and when the adult snaps, the kid will know where the limit is. An abusive over reaction is not good, however a weak response will send the wrong message across. As usual the virtue is somewhere in between. IMO Baldwins reaction was not something too terrible, considering how little info we have.

So you actually do think that you having weapons is any sort of deterrent for the government? Priceless. First of all, if that was any threat to the government, guns would be outlawed right away since you have given the power to the government to legislate as they see fit. Second, they don´t need to take away your guns because not only they have bigger and better guns but also because they have a much better weapon. The media. And lastly, the media is such a wonderful weapon because although the U.S brags so much about "free speech" the media will not use it, and thru partisanship has you all controlled and disinformed. Enjoy your guns...

Yes, of course, because it was from Iran. I am glad that those sailors and marines are home safe. I completely understand their reasoning in not fighting back, and am glad that diplomacy had a chance to work. I don't hold my breath, however, that when this happens again, it will be resolved quite as readily. Ciels- Michele I think that Darius states very clearly that there is no way to know for certain what side they were on, but english is not my first language so you probably know better. You are a bit biased. I am pretty sure that while in Iran they would say they were in Iranian waters and when in Britain they would say they were somewhere else. Regarding the truth, who knows, but if they were not in Iranian waters they were probably very close...