Just under 4.5 hours to go!

[skippythwndrdog]

Does anyone else have their champagne ready?

Remember. If the champagne is open, the safe is locked.

[UpsideDownFlag]

1. i don't suppose this is about the AWB, is it?

what is this, the 9th post solely devoted to announcing its demise?

geez:eyes:

[Fescue4u]

2. Its unusual to get freedom back after losing it.

And when it happens, its a reason to celebrate.

[skippythwndrdog]

3. Amen to that!

[UpsideDownFlag]

11. and it would have been impossible to just have one "AWB sunset" thread

right? i bet it woulda had a nice, hi post count too.

[skippythwndrdog]

17. O.K.

So we'll only have one New Year's Eve party - at your house. You buy the beer.

[ogradda]

4. this is what i get for working today

what's awb?

[skippythwndrdog]

5. The 'Assault Weapons Ban'

It (go figure this one out) sunsets at midnight tonight.

In short, a useless law that banned not one single assault weapon dies its predetermined death.

edited to add: Sunsetting at midnight makes about as much sense as the ban did in the first place.

[FeebMaster]

16. lol wtf do you think it's about?

I'd expect a 10th devoted to announcing its demise. Possibly also an 11th if two people post at the same time. That wouldn't include any that get moved from the GDs or LBN.

[Maple]

6. Americans are very strange people

Only they would celebrate such a thing.

Elsewhere in the world, people would celebrate fewer guns, and fewer deaths.

Only in America would they celebrate more.

[skippythwndrdog]

7. It's not the guns that are being celebrated.

It's the restoration of a freedom that was removed and will soon be restored.

[UpsideDownFlag]

8. let's see if the murder rate, crime rate, etc. go up as well...

[jack99]

19. It didn't go up in the last 10 years why should anything change?

Oh I forgot we are going to be hearing about mass bayoneting's tomorrow morning.

Or better yet someone is going to be beat to death with a folding stock.

OK I'm better. not trying to be too sarcastic, but I'm going to celebrate the freedom thats been robbed from me for the past 10 years.

CHEERS!!!!
Jack

[Maple]

9. It's the ability to kill

that is being celebrated...and only in America would that happen

[ROC]

10. The AWB didn't stop murder.

We don't celebrate murder. Most gun owners want stricter enforcement of the present gun laws. That would help.

[UpsideDownFlag]

12. yes it did. murder rates went down.

nt

[Maple]

13. Only Americans fool themselves

into believing an armed society is a polite one.

Anyone in the world could tell them differently.

It's a culture of DEATH

[slackmaster]

15. Cite please

Show evidence that the AWB caused the overall murder rate to decline.

[skippythwndrdog]

20. You speak with self-appointed authority about U.S. mores.

Thankfully, your vote doesn't count here.

Either you're telepathically linked to the moority opinion group concerning the AWB here inthe U.S. or living a dream. Either way, it's terribly presumptious to assume that the ability to kill is what many of us are looking forward to at midnight.

In all honesty, the person who wants to commit a murder or assination with a firearm and get away with it will do it from VERY LONG range. Very few of the firearms affected by the AWB can fill that need. If you don't mind getting caught, use any old gun you can get your hands on.

[Maple]

14. The rest of the world....vs America...by a surprising source

"And as I thought about all this on the tarmac of Kigali Airport, I said to myself, "Well, my freshmen Republican friends, come to Africa...it's a freshmen Republican's paradise." Yes sir, nobody in Liberia pays taxes. There's no gun control in Angola. There's no welfare as we know it in Burundi and no big government to interfere in the market in Rwanda. But a lot of their people sure wish there were. Take, for instance, the clerk in Luanda, Angola, who looked at me as if I were nuts when I asked her if it was safe for me to take a walk three blocks from the hotel, down the main street of the Angolan capital in the middle of the day.

"No, no, no," ...she shook her head..."not safe." I'll bet she wouldn't mind paying some taxes to put more police on the street. And then there was the Liberian radio reporter who approached me in Monrovia and demanded to know why the US Marines came to Liberia after the civil war broke out in 1989, evacuated only the US citizens, and then left the Liberians to fight it out alone. "We all thought, the Marines are coming, we will be saved," the Liberian reporter remarked, " but then they left. How could they leave?" Poor guy, his country has no Marines to rescue him. I'll bet he wouldn't mind paying some taxes for a few good men.

They don't worry about 'big government' in Liberia. They don't worry about government at all...thanks to the gangs and warlords who have dominated that land for the past decade. No, Liberians may never again have to worry about government red tape. In fact, the only regulation I saw at the Executive Mansion in Liberia was a sign taped to a bullet-shattered window at the front door. It said : "Deposit Your Weapons Here."

Employers don't have to fret at all about pesky worker-safety rules in Angola, let alone services for the handicapped. The 70,000 Angolans who have had limbs blown off by land mines planted during the last 25 years of civil war seem to make do just fine on their own. You can see them limping around the streets of Luanda, in Felliniesque contortions, hustling for food nd using tree limbs as a substitute for the human variety. And in Rwanda and Burundi no one was asked to pay for Head Start, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, national service or student loan programs. Instead they just have brutal competition for scarce land, energy and water, with Tutsi and Hutu tribesmen taking turns down-sizing each other to grab more resources for themselves.

They said at the time that the freshmen Republicans almost never went on congressional junkets. They thought it would look bad to their constituents back home. Most of them didn't even have passports. Too bad. They wanted all the respect and benefits that come with being the Michael Jordans of geopolitics, with being an American in today's globalization system, but without any of the sacrifices and obligations...at home or abroad...that go with it.

They should come to war-torn Africa and get a real taste of what happens to countries where there is no sense of community, no sense that people owe their government anything, no sense that anyone is responsible for anyone else, and where the rich have to live behind high walls and tinted windows, while the poor are left to the tender mercies of the marketplace."

Thomas L. Friedman. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 2000.

[CO Liberal]

18. Dubya Still Has Time to Sign That Executive Order....

...in an attempt to secure the law enforcement vote.

[skippythwndrdog]

21. WB, CO

Haven't seen you around much lately.

[CO Liberal]

23. I Was On Vacation

A ten-day trip to the belly of the beast - the Hill Country of Texas. I even went to Crawford, but couldn't find the pig farm.

[TX-RAT]

24. couldn't find the pig farm?

Just follow your nose.

[CO Liberal]

25. Actually, We Think WE Were Being Followed

A white sedan followed us in to town.... :scared:

[TX-RAT]

26. Well, you are a pretty dubious looking character.

Where did y'all go?
Did you go into Waco?
Wasn't everything green? They've had record rainfall this year. I was in Waco 2 weeks ago playing in a golf tournament.

[slackmaster]

22. WB+1, CO

I hope you aren't holding your breath waiting for George W. Bush to extend the AWB.

I'm heading out for a nice seafood dinner. By the time I get home there will still be a couple of hours left to clean the cosmoline off of the pre-ban AR-15/M16 upper receiver assembly that I'm going to pin onto my present "pre-ban" rifle at 12:01 AM.