Thanks for the lesson. I am by no means a biblical scholar, so I looked things up. It appears that the numbering system as well as wording (t***slation) is not consistent.

I do not own a gun and have no desire to. My father, my father-in-law, and many of my friends own hunting rifles. I even went deer hunting with them, although my weapon of choice was a camera and a zoom lens. So I am not against people owning firearms. What I can’t get my head around is how many Americans truly believe they NEED a weapon for protection. I was at a US Walmart some time ago and saw two guys enter the store with holsters and handguns in clear view. I guess they wanted be sure they got the last roll of toilet paper that was on sale.

My real point is that fewer firearms issued under stricter and more sensible laws is the right direction. Does it not tell you something when you are the only country in the free world that still thinks like the cowboys of 150 years ago?

You guys and your second amendment are a joke.

First of all, to believe it is your god-given right to bear arms (something many gunslingers like to claim) is foolhardy; the right is given by the second amendment, and God had nothing to do with it... other than to say in #5, "Thou shalt not k**l."

Second, it is an "amendment"... get it? An "Amendment" to the Constitution. That means it is not carved in stone and can be amended yet again... to something sensible.

Third, sometimes one has to take options to extremes to understand the impact of a decision. Pro-NRA folks like to argue that more guns make things safer because they allow you to defend yourself against an armed i***t. In other words, if everyone packed a sidearm (like in the wild wild west) there would be fewer "gun fights" and k*****gs (like in the wild wild west). Yeah, right!!! Anti-gun folks would argue that if ALL guns were illegal then there would not be weapons available to k**l people (and my point is on guns, not knives or baseball bats or cars, or wh**ever else... guns). This is also not realistically achievable, but to me it seems to be more in the right direction.

Now, the bad bozos will always have access to guns, but if there were fewer of them produced and if it were harder to get them, then there would be fewer weapons in the hands of thieves, maniacs, etc.

So other than creating the situation of a standoff where EVERYONE pulls out their weapon and aims it at EVERYONE else (y'know, like in the good guys/bad guys movies), please explain how more guns make your country safer.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/the_seven_selfserving_stratagems_of_the_despotic_left.html

The United States, along with its allies, invaded continental Europe seventy-five years ago on June 6, 1944, thus ensuring the defeat of the worst tyranny in human history. But is this magnificent nation capable of mustering the same effort and resources if Donald Trump is defeated and the current iteration of the Democratic Party ever assumes power in perpetuity?

Today America is in a state of confusion and uncertainty as a vast swath of the American e*****rate is deluged with inscrutable conversations by the body politic meant only to obfuscate and deceive. Among these are the fictitious wonders of socialism, the necessity of an across-the-board t***sformation of a supposed flawed culture, and the invented character failings and policy shortcomings of a faux tyrant, Donald Trump.

Lost amid all the storm and fury of accusations, fabrications, fealty to failed ideology and childish name-calling is the reality that the threat to this nation is not any failed philosophical belief or the duped throughout society espousing them, but the increasing number of zealots manipulating the masses to v**e for them through utopian promises and empty rhetoric.

As an orphaned casualty of the Second World War, I realized a few years after the fact that the man who shot me when I was a young child so many years ago did so not because of ideology or fealty to N**ism but because he was an evil and heartless human being. That socialism, F*****m, N**ism and C*******m are the philosophical façades of utopian bribery employed to permanently entrench in power those with megalomaniacal and ruthless inclinations.

I have lived in the United States for the past sixty-seven years and over that period I have observed those determined to dominate in perpetuity their perceived inferior countrymen by infiltrating the nation’s cultural and educational institutions, various government bureaucracies and the media and entertainment establishments. Unfortunately, far too many of my fellow Americans have been oblivious to this stealth invasion, as they were unable to identify these potential autocrats amid clouds of obfuscation and falsehoods.

The citizenry can ascertain who among the populace are prospective despots by disregarding any utopian promises and empty rhetoric and instead focusing on their seven self-revealing strategies. None of which, it will be noted, describe the tactics and mindset of Donald Trump and rank and file conservatives. These seven stratagems are:

1) Keep the public in a state of constant turmoil. Pre-identify groups by race, g****r, economic status or religion and through constant repetition by their allies in the media and entertainment cabal establish that any perceived disadvantage within one group is the fault of another pre-identified and isolated group.

2)Never concede that there may be some good in your political enemy. State loudly and often that they are a permanent adversary because they are determined to oppress the favored groups identified in 1) above as well as being r****t, avaricious, misogynistic etc. (i.e. the worst people on earth).

3)Never miss the opportunity to repeatedly and loudly blame one’s political enemy for anything that goes wrong regardless of how inane or unreasonable. Thus, any natural disaster or a mass k*****g must be blamed, however tenuously, on the other side.

4)Never acknowledge or concede that your side is at fault or wrong regardless of the situation or issue.

5)Always maintain the assertion as being irrefutable that government, in the hands of the enlightened, can resolve any issue and make life better and, above all, never upon any circumstances leave room for alternatives.

6)Never fail to utilize the ultimate tactic in promoting dogma or denigrating one’s opponent: The Big Lie. People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if it is repeated frequently enough, people will sooner or later accept it as the t***h. Whether it is the fabricated dire consequences of so-called c*****e c****e; Donald Trump colluding with Russia; the myth of rampant white nationalism and that this is a virulently r****t nation; the examples over the years are legion.

7)Underlying all these tactics is a profound disrespect for the dignity of human life which is a necessity in order to view all citizens as pawns of the state. This mindset, over time, inevitably and rapidly descends into the abyss of malevolence and the indiscriminate taking of the life of anyone deemed an enemy of the state. Unfettered a******n at any stage of gestation or immediately upon birth as well as the acceptance of unrestrained euthanasia are the first steps in the evolution of this mindset.

Based on their tactics and mindset, the American Left and the Democratic Party of today is the ideological offspring of the callous authoritarians that ran roughshod over the twentieth century. Once they are in full and permanent control of the levers of power, this nation will never again be able to muster the national will and wherewithal to launch an operation as complex and challenging as the D-Day invasion.

On the other hand, during the more than two years of his presidency, Donald Trump, despite his personal flaws and unique and unorthodox approach to governing, has not employed any of the self-serving tactics of the left or adopted the mindset of a potential tyrant. As such he represents, in many ways, the last best opportunity of making certain that this nation can, if necessary, marshal the will and resources equivalent to another D-Day landing.

As the nations of Europe and the United States memorialize, the sacrifices of so many on D-Day 1944, those of us who were liberated owe a debt of gratitude that can never be properly expressed. Yet, observing Donald Trump’s unrestrained and unorthodox determination to persevere when so many forces are arrayed against him combined with a genuine love of his country and fellow man, one cannot help but wonder if someone such as he and Winston Churchill were in power in Europe in the early 1930’s how much different the lives of untold millions of dead and wounded might have been.