Continuing to reply to Ken Davis:

" why would a gun owner need a license in the same capacity as a driver needing a driver's license?"

Because a firearm, like a running automobile, creates particular and especial fatal risk to everyone in its path (as well as the owner/operator).

"While driving is a privilage, gun ownership is a right as defined by the Bill of Rights."

I would that a right and a privilege are not (entirely, at least) mutually exclusive.

And that driving actually _is_ a right.

Would you argue that listening to the radio, for example, isn't a right because it isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution or Bill of Rights?

Seems to me that most activities that would not be considered to pose a direct, clearly defined threat to others would be included in the right to, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

"Is there a license needed to speak freely or worship? I really don't understand the logic."

Well, in at least certain cases, there is.

A license is required to broadcast over the public airwaves, since they are a finite resource.

There are a number of limitations and restrictions on free speech.

Ken Davis (10:57 a.m.) asserted that the second amendment is, "about defending oneself from a tyrannical government."

I ask:

1.) What about the _context_: "a well regulated militia"?

How do you understand that?

2.) Of what use is even an arsenal of firearms against a nuclear-armed government with a military the size of ours?

When you advertise the so-called “Barclays” arena (remember it is named to promote a disreputable bank) without an reference to the tremendous cost to the public and the surrounding communities, you promote more land grabs like it, more selling off of the public realm and public assets like the closing and sale of Long Island College Hospital to strip out the real estate assets, the sale of schools and shrinkage and defunding of the library system to do the same thing.

The glitz of the Ratner/Prokhorov arena, the heaped pile of pirate plunder that represents what has been stolen from the community and the deep subsidies diverting public resources from everywhere else they are needed is a very sad thing.

Regarding Bill Bradley's comments on gun control...

I don't understand how the gun control zealots of the left consistently try to make the argument that the 2nd Ammendment pertains to hunting. I've never seen any references to hunting in the Bill of Rights, nor in the Constitution. It's about defending oneself from a tyrannical government.

Also, why would a gun owner need a license in the same capacity as a driver needing a driver's license? While driving is a privilage, gun ownership is a right as defined by the Bill of Rights. Is there a license needed to speak freely or worship? I really don't understand the logic.

Very few of the races in which a further right "Tea Party"-infused candidate wins the general election. (cf. McCaskill vs. Akins)

The senator is right, private money in our elections is the root of the problem in our politics. More time and energy in Washington, DC is spent on tooling the IRS code (or lobbying to change it)than on actual substantive legislation on energy, ecology or equitable treatment.

How do we convince politicians whose existence is based on the system as it is, that the system should change to public finance?

[BTW, I am an NRA member - 4 more years and I can vote for the board. Care to join me?]

...colored folks with GUNS!!

Nothin' SCARIER!!

Fk'n HYPOCRITES!!

I love Bill Bradley!!

Oh, dear. Another investment banker, lecturing the nation on extremism -- as if the Democrats were a leftist party and routinely proposed socialism, because they live in 60-40 districts or are afraid of primary challenges from Marxists.

The money Bradley laments comes, overwhelmingly, from big business. And yet Mr. B. is so wedded to conventional wisdom, he can't concede that the all the extremism is on the right, thanks to that money and the interests of corporate America.