The problem with threads like this is that they degenerate very quickly into claims, counterclaims and name calling. It's much like a thread debating abortion, as guns in this country are a hot button issue that quickly polarizes people. Frankly, in trying to read the many letters here one almost forgets what the hell the point is in the first place.

I wonder if it is even possible to have any sort of reasoned discussion about guns. I previously opined that anyone who believes we will ever in any way successfully rid America of guns, or even successfully control them, is living in Fantasyland. Ain't gonna happen. That has to be abundantly clear by now. America, for better or worse, is a gun culture. We are a sometimes violent, sometimes dangerous, and always very complex, society.

Perhaps I can focus a few thoughts:

Should people be allowed to have guns?

That horse is way out of the barn, never to return. Forget arguing the Constitution. De facto, people have a right to bear arms, because half the people already own a gun and those guns cannot be now taken away from them.

Do gun control laws have the desired effect?

Read my link to the NYT article. It is not clear cut that they do; indeed, in some studies it's clear that they do not.

Do I personally have a problem with law-abiding citizens owning or carrying guns?

Nope.

Should people be allowed to carry and brandish firearms at political rallies?

As long as the law allows it, the question is irrelevant. One can certainly work to change the law, but arguing about it with those who are operating within the bounds of the law as it stands is pointless.

Your thoughts, old friend?

From The New York Times:

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Gun Laws and Crime: A Complex Relationship

Do gun control laws reduce crime? Do they save lives? Is it possible they even cost lives?

http://tinyurl.com/l7v29d

SEE ALSO:

http://tinyurl.com/kpxpol

From The New York Times:

-

Gun Laws and Crime: A Complex Relationship

Do gun control laws reduce crime? Do they save lives? Is it possible they even cost lives?

http://tinyurl.com/l7v29d

Guns are as American as (insert item of Americana here). Anyone who thinks that this society will ever give up guns is living in Fantasyland. We are a nation born of armed revolution and a frontier mentality.

That's just the way it is, folks, and all of the hand wringing in the world won't ever change it.

re: Expect the US to be in Iraq and Afghanistan until China refuses to pay for it anymore.

From Karl Denniger:

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...foreigners are rejecting virtually all forms of US debt, most specifically corporate and agency (mortgages.)

The only place foreigners are "still buying" is in the Treasury market, and one wonders: for how much longer, and how much of that is really foreign buying?

Not that it matters. This debt is being rejected because foreigners have no faith in the future of its value. It is not just the risk of default any more - it is also the risk of currency translation going "the wrong way" to an extreme degree, potentially destroying the buyer's purchasing power even if a formal default does not occur.

...we could easily see a technically-driven disorderly collapse in the dollar's value along with mass-selling of dollar-denominated securities.

If that occurs last fall will look like a Girl Scout picnic.

http://tinyurl.com/nswarr

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Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast

Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.

But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.

In a stark warning to Britain and the other Western powers, Dr Birol said that the market power of the very few oil-producing countries that hold substantial reserves of oil – mostly in the Middle East – would increase rapidly as the oil crisis begins to grip after 2010.

"It will be especially important because the global economy will still be very fragile, very vulnerable. Many people think there will be a recovery in a few years' time but it will be a slow recovery and a fragile recovery and we will have the risk that the recovery will be strangled with higher oil prices," he told The Independent. (MORE)

http://tinyurl.com/nmemcg