Does the Second Amendment cover Drones too? 'Cause we've killed 168 innocent kids in past years.

[jtuck004]

Well, anyone who paid federal taxes has.

And I do not wish to become a barrier to the anti-gun folks. I agree, safety is important, and stupid should be discouraged.

But it occurs to me that the first mass killing I remember, aside from bombings before that, was the Texas Tower shooter around the time LBJ was working through his escalation in Vietnam. I don't remember any more until the 80's, and now I can recall several with ease. Since Carter left, it seems we have been on a continual path of militarizing the entire world for profit, for oil, for trade, for damn near anything except more freedom for everyone. Well, that's my estimation of our return on investment.

R. Maddow showed a chart of Obama's surge in Afghanistan, supposed to help control things. Instead deaths of US personnel and others tracked right along up with the surge, and only dropped with the withdrawal.

I am only drawing this in my mind, but if I made a similar chart of wars I think mass shootings would track pretty close.

Americans profess overwhelming support for drones being used overseas. 1/3 of report fearing drones overhead.

Our own fears are killing us and I am not sure taking away just the guns is gonna get it done.

I hope all the victims rest in peace.

[BlueStreak]

1. If a drone is arms, and if you are a "militia", then yes.

And by that argument, clearly a hydrogen bomb is "arms", so the second amendment literally would permit a militia to keep and bear an H-bomb.

This is the problem. In law, few things are absolutes. Clearly the state has an interest in not having its citizens, well-regulated militias or otherwise, to have H-bombs. Clearly the state is able to prohibit that, and nobody serious questions that right. So there must be some balance between this right and the risk to the general welfare. Surely any reasonable person would agree what we are seeing today is not in the general welfare of the nation.

[jtuck004]

2. If they lived, I bet there's a bunch of Pakistani parents that would agree with your points.

FDR said people want peace of mind.

Guns are an inanimate object. They cannot be a cause, but can certainly be a symptom of a larger problem. Unless one wants to pronounce the country incurable, if you just attack the symptom the disease ravages you.

The post was not meant to justify drones with the Second (like they need more reasons), but a comparison.

We are nearly ALL complicit in child murder, (speaking of clothing from Walmart) via the Drone program, with all the excuses in the world, but not much in the way of more freedom or security or riches to show for it, if the reports are to be believed.

So why do we keep depending on so many guns, and drones, and bombs when they aren't doing the job?

Perhaps addressing that will do as much to continue to decrease gun ownership as time, demographics, and laws have and will.

[BlueStreak]

3. I'm not sure that any American politician has argues that the drone strikes are

in Pakistan's best interests. Which only makes it worse, of course.

[TPaine7]

4. Interesting nt

[quaker bill]

5. A vast understatement

Why do only the ones killed by drones count? Why not include those killed by tanks and bombs from manned aircraft?

[jtuck004]

6. You're correct, but I am trying REALLY hard not to get too wordy.

I was reading a report from Pakistan, and they said most adult associate the words United States with Drones.

Not great technological achievements, or bringers of democracy and human rights, not educational improvements, but machines piloted by distant Americans killing their neighbors, both bad and innocent, adults and children together.

It wasn't too long ago our President ordered our army to attack a fleeing Iraqi Guard, so they began to methodically shoot them as they were retreating and surrendering, even driving tanks over hundreds, burying them alive. And people in this country cheered. I saw that and wondered about what they were learning at the time.

If this is what the Pakistani's learn about what we stand for, how can we not see that this is what we are teaching our own people about how to resolve problems, about the value of human life?

Maybe this is why I hear people speak so easily about gutting Medicare or SS, taking away the only thing keeping thousands of people from dying cold, alone, and hungry.

It's getting easier to kill, not harder.

[TPaine7]

7. I don't remember that, when was it?

It wasn't too long ago our President ordered our army to attack a fleeing Iraqi Guard, so they began to methodically shoot them as they were retreating and surrendering, even driving tanks over hundreds, burying them alive. And people in this country cheered. I saw that and wondered about what they were learning at the time.

[jtuck004]

8. Part of it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19910912&slug=1305069

Rereading my post I didn't mean to say the ones who were buried were all surrendering. But it was a bad war, bad reasons, no good outcome. And we keep doing it even though by any measure I can find it isn't successful, it is getting innocent people and people who are doing their duty killed for what I am really not sure any longer (to maintain a presence to get what's his name? - but he's gone, and when you kill 49 civilians to every bad guy as one survey said you are bound to create more enemies than you started with, it seems).

There's worse when you talk to folk. And there has been too much of not taking care of veterans already.

I was going to work, just North of there, the day the guy blew up the Federal Building in OKC. We trained him over in that same desert.

I'm glad there are no more killings here than there are. I wish instead of paying people and showing them how, for free, we could start charging and hiking tuition on learning to kill like we have math and engineering. Might slow it down a little...

[Fumesucker]

9. That's the prime problem with Americans, they don't remember shit

Gulf War I, the highway from Kuwait to Baghdad was jammed with fleeing Iraqi troops going back to Iraq, the US forces blew up both ends of the column which effectively made all the Iraqi troops sitting ducks which the Americans then proceeded to slaughter.

[TPaine7]

10. I'm pretty sure I never knew that; I would have remembered it. Thanks for the details. nt

[quaker bill]

11. I sm pretty sure that there was a big photoessay in "Time" mag

but it may have been in another publication. Very gruesome stuff.

[jtuck004]

14. You are welcome. n/t

[jtuck004]

13. I think the macabre aspect of it is that there is so much, just like tv commercials, it has

to be worse than the last one to get attention, unless one is following details particularly.

I know media architect's their stuff based on what they think the crowd thinks, and there was so much flag-waving going on about the whole thing I wouldn't be surprised if 70-80% of the people would simply say it never happened. And they never make the connection between later violence and previous actions. Especially with a pres that told them to go on about their shopping...

[quaker bill]

12. Easy to miss the substance

The larger point is that they have learned that we will come over kill them. The number of their dead do not count. (Remember in Iraq and Afghanistan it was official policy to not count them.) Short of nukes, there is no aspect of deployable US military power that has not been used. Drones are a very light touch by comparison to the carpet bombing done with B-52s in Afghanistan, or "shock and awe" in Baghdad. This lesson was taught long ago, and drones add very little to the narritive. They are slower and more manuverable than cruise missles, but neither require a pilot in the cockpit.

We have not had any significant difficulty with mass killing since WWII.

[jtuck004]

15. "The number of their dead do not count."

Exactly. Maybe if we ever decide that is important, we might address what is troubling us...

Thank you.