LoveUni
I appreciate you putting things in context: right-wing terrorism is a risk. Unfortunately, as it is a risk typically targetting minorities, even though it's rising and a far higher risk in recent years in the US (for example) than left-wing or Islamic terrorism, it's not considered by some to be the risk it statistically is.
WingCommander
You seem to have missed I covered what you are reacting to; that an army asked to target a majority population would likely refuse. But the fantastic thinking persists; you seem to think that before a town was targetted like that, that all retail outlets would not have been shut down.
Also, I know a shit tonne of Americans and neither view them as you think people do nor see their thinking reflected in yours. You are not a spokesperson for all of America.
Simon
Strange how a politician widely seen as being an example of how to react in a situation such as that after the Christchurch shootings can be spun as "petty token gimmicks to look good". I object to the actions of the right-wing Israeli government, but would never be negligent in showing respect for the victims of a shooting in a synagogue. I don't blame the religion for the politics, and Islamic terrorism is political as Da'esh shows.
Islam is practised in dreadfully culturally backwards ways, for example in the major Western ally Saudi Arabia that we buy oil from and sell arms to. But just as secularisation defanged Christianity from the racist, homophobic, sexist, religiously totalitarian entity it became in Western culture, so too Muslims in other countries are going through the painful process of defanging their religion.
I'll take your views about headscarves in mosques seriously when I see you pulling hats off old ladies in Roman Catholic churches in Northern Ireland where terrorism and sexism are facts of life.
Until then, take it from me; telling a woman what to wear is not making them freer. Voting for political parties that will not support states that oppress women is making them freer. In fact, even if a woman's choice of headgear is constrained by their father/husband/mosque, forcing her not to wear it is not making her freer. Acting against the men constraining her free choice is making her freer.
I, personally, am very curious about how you came to your current political opinions. Or maybe back in this board's heyday when I was a regular poster (almost twenty years ago) you had the same opinions but didn't discuss them. Obviously, the change in the willingness of people to express reactionary opinions is linked to their perception of the consequences of doing it. Were you always this, for want of a better word, 'conservative'? If not, what made you shift to a more conservative and reactionary political opinion. I'm asking not to start a fight but because I am interested. It's far more productive understanding people's reasons for belief than simply disagreeing with them.
As I say to WingCommander above, I already said that "... most modern armies would not engage in mass killings of people like them. But the later is true whether the people have guns or not".
To make this explicit; Britsih Army are no more likely to serve a tyrannical government than the US Army, despite the lack of weapons in British civilian's hands. Do you agree?
If you do agree, then guns actually have no role in protecting us against tyranny. They're just a tool in making people feel free, buying votes, and getting political contributions, but are also actually a major public health issue.
For example, we would have to import terrorists into each European country (right-wing, left-wing, Islamists, doesn't matter what sort of deranged killer), arm them, train them, and then let them kill hundreds of people in each European country to match the firearm homicide rate in the United States
