twizzops
Lifetimer
Anybody who thinks that the lesson to be taken from Bosnia and Rwanda and the Armenian genocide (I happen to be of Armenian heritage) is that governments can't be trusted to protect their people is really, really understudied on those issues. Rwanda occurred after the president's plane was shot down and anarchy ensued. It was the FAILURE of first-world governments to intervene which allowed it. Hence Bill Clinton's tearful (and disingenuous, in my opinion) apology after the fact. And Rwanda is the strongest example of what happens when people of different nations and ethnicities do not feel responsible toward one another. Life went on as usual in the US while 800,000 people died. If those 800,000 people had been American (or Canadian, or French, or British) the killing would have been stopped very early on by an international intervention.
And the same issues persist in Darfur today. You don't have to be a genius to know that a close look at Africa reveals a lot of tough truths about how willfully ignorant we choose to remain about much of the world's condition. Whether you get to own a gun or not seems very petty indeed in the face of wholesale slaughter in the Congo or mass starvation in North Korea.
Only quoting the parts that are in response to my statements:
Not sure where you are getting your facts on Rwanda, but it started off as a civil war and then became genocide after the president's death. The genocide was supported and coordinated by the national government as well as by local military and civil officials and mass media. Alongside the military, primary responsibility for the killings themselves rests with two Hutu militias that had been organized for this purpose by political parties.
It's not the US's responsibility to police the world. You could argue that's the whole reason the UN even exists. The problem with the UN is they are a limp noddle when it comes to using any kind of force. The UN tried to assist and stop the genocide, but was deemed too risky. The UNs only existence is to drain the US coffers for personal gain.
You didn't explain your stance on Bosnia.
My whole reasoning for wanting Americans to continue to own weapons (if they choose) is to prevent anything like this from ever happening in the US. These actions have happened in China, Russia and Germany, they could one day happen here if there's no checks and balances. A well armed civilian population is one hell of a check. Not sure if you are kept up on current events, but the US is as divided as ever.
There's many other reasons as to why assault weapons are necessary which were all listed on the first page.