Robert F. Smith

Yes, and you just repeated your false assertion. Great. Machiavelli actually rules, and a very naive Ukrainian govt lost out for its people. The lying press actually claims 214 mass shootings in 2022. School shootings are actually quite rare, and police generally respond to them too late and then stand around while everyone bleeds out. You enjoy rewriting history. Both in 1689, and 1789, the right to keep and bear arms was considered an individual right, and the definition of militia at that time included all able bodied males 16 years and up. An entire town would march as a militia unit under command of the town captain. A sense of community actually existed in those times. Burger and those attorneys general likewise rewrote history. The corrupt and venal NRA is built on a foundation of yokels and lies having nothing to do with our Constitution. Their policy, like that of their opponents, is not built on jurisprudence but on money-grubbing Machiavellianism. The will to power -- so you are not far wrong in use of the term "secret combination." Too bad you can't get your facts straight.

The words "celestial" and "exaltation" do not occur in the Book of Mormon, so are there any synonyms for such? In Hebrew, the name Jesus means "Salvation," and that is what Simeon says at the temple when he sees Jesus in Luke 2:30, "mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Matthew 1:21, "thou shalt call his. name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." Luke 1:69, "Blessed be [Benedictus] the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us" If Jesus redeemed us from sin and consequent temporal death, what does it mean to have eternal life? John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." His atonement saved us all from temporal death. How does that give us exaltation? Living forever is not the same as exaltation. All of us will live forever, no matter what, even those who are consigned to Outer Darkness.

Like many Americans, you seem to have little understanding of our Constitution, how we got it, and why we need to follow it -- aside from rejection by you of the rule of law, which requires an actual legal process to change our Constitution (something the Brits don't even bother with, as they take away many of their citizens rights to free speech, etc.). The Ukrainians could have kept the nukes, but they naively believed all the promises of territorial sovereignty, never imagining that the Russians thirsted for a restored empire at their expense. Everyone reassured them. There are very few real mass shootings. Most deaths by gunshot in America are suicides and gangland shootings (gang members shooting each other). The lying press includes gangland shootings in so-called "mass shootings." As I said before, the stats clearly show that the murder rate was going way down all while the rate of gun-buying was increasing. How is that possible? The lying response is always to blame the guns, instead of blaming those who use the guns. Holding the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment (and other amendments) in contempt is quite common among a certain class of people -- who reject the rule of law and who refuse to seek common sense safety measures. Our Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee political parties make no effort to solve these problems, which might actually require some compromise. Your own and others intransigence does not bode well for the future. Our one time sense of community and mutual respect has largely disappeared.

False. In 1689, the British Parliament passed an extensive bill of rights, including the right to keep and bear arms (the people had just had to fight a real civil war). One hundred years later, our own Founding Fathers recognized the need for that and the other rights in that legislation in our own Constitution. The Brits have since thrown out many of those rights (they don't have a real Constitution). Ukraine also disarmed its populace and gave up all their nuclear weapons -- with a guarantee that their security would be held sacrosanct. Putin has always relished that weakness -- and has been taking full advantage of it. As I have already shown in this thread, the rise in gun sales in the recent past shows no correlation with the murder rate -- which has been going down since 1990. Nearly all gun murders are committed by gang members -- criminal on criminal violence, primarily in the inner city -- with handguns, not rifles. The stats are very clear that the problem is not ready availability of guns to law-abiding citizens, who have them for self-protection. Yes, Americans are very stupid. However, America is also very heterogeneous, a true melting pot of diverse cultures, with a powerful strain of libertarianism and anarchy. There are a number of heavily armed nations (like Switzerland) which don't have mass shootings. Banning guns is like banning automobiles in order to stop the carnage on the highways.

There was a time when we did not have search screens at airports. People simply boarded planes with a plane ticket. One could also enter a courthouse without a search. There was no bunker mentality. Then planes began to be commandeered by people for ransom or for terror. In the real world we had to make adjustments. It is annoying, but a reality. There are trade-offs which absolute security requires. We could take the Stalinist and Maoist approach, which is to disarm the populace and regiment them (re-education camps for those who refuse). We have seen recently what that means in Shanghai, which has now become a prison for the millions who live there. The CCP tackles crime and COVID the same way. We can just ignore the Constitution and rule of law, as we have been doing lately, and which is really the source of our problem. Turns out, however, that when law-abiding citizens don't have guns, then only the criminals have them. Great, because nearly all shootings in America fall into two large groups: (1) suicides, and (2) gangland shootings. And nearly all of those are with pistols. Also turns out that law-abiding citizens who own guns rarely shoot someone who threatens them: Instead, they merely brandish the firearm, which dissuades the perpetrator, who then leaves. Actual stats show a very different America from that of fable and fantasy. There is no correlation between vastly increased gun sales and murder, unless it has caused a decrease in murder: https://infogram.com/overall-homicide-1979-2020-1h7z2l81pk37x6o

Yes, a mass shooting at school is quite rare, like winning the lottery. So, don't worry, be happy. Many will just pretend, as they have been doing. The harsh reality of frequent youth suicide should have told us that the fantasy was gone. Exactly. There was a time in America in which this was not necessary. I can still remember it well. Then bad things began to happen, and terror became almost normal -- or at least seemed so.

So our populace would prefer these mass shootings to having the kind of adequate security we have in our courthouses? Really. So, you would prefer no TSA at airports? Even with TSA we still have plenty of unarmed donnybrooks in planes and airports. At least they are unarmed encounters. So we are going to continue to pretend that things will get better by not doing anything? Govt by fantasy.

Correct. Mutual trust in America is at an all time low. Our courts do not have shootings inside for a simple reason: They have adequate security. Judges just don't like their courtrooms filled with armed citizens. Why is the concept so hard to deal with? Uvalde Elementary had an open door (easy access), and the police who responded did what they usually do (they waited around for an hour while children and teachers were bleeding to death), and that has all happened before. This problem is not new. Criminals and crazy people love gun-free zones.

Those who have been in the military and in law enforcement know just the opposite: We need disciplined and trained gun-owners, not lackadaisical libertarians who have no sense of responsibility. Rights = responsibility.

We have also made schools with small children gun-free zones with little to no security. Same for our churches. Govt bldgs, on the other hand, generally have strict search-screens to prevent entry of people who are armed. Why is it that we do not value the children enough to make their learning experience secure? Why is that crazy people choose to go to gun-free zones, such as schools and churches? Seems like a no-brainer. Why are our teachers and school administrators so uninterested in doing something intelligent for a change?

Yes, Mormons have been creating their own midrash.

I'm not sure that reason and logic are the only qualities needed in making those extrapolations. We earthbound humans are so limited in purview that our imagination is truly challenged. Brother Brigham took a similarly down-to-earth approach, but I'm not sure that the details are really within our grasp.

Another radical take on this whole matter includes the bull or calf images installed in North Israelite temples visited by the 10 northern tribes. Some scholars believe that they were modeled on the bulls ridden by Canaanite El, except that Israelite El was invisible when he rode them.[1] In fact, Gen 49:24 refers to El as the Bull of Jacob -- in an astrological sequence which makes this Taurus the Bull. Moreover, the name Lehi "Jawbone" may represent the Jawbone of the Bull of Heaven, the Hyades: The god Marduk even uses the Hyades as a boomerang-like weapon, just as Samson uses a jawbone to slaughter Philistines. [1] See G. N. Knoppers, "Aaron's Calf and Jeroboam's Calves," in A. Beck, A. Bartelt, P. Raabe, and C. Franke, eds., Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 92-104; Amihai Mazar, “The ‘Bull Site’ – An Iron Age I Open Cult Place,” BASOR, 247 (Summer 1982):27-42, online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/1356477?seq=1 .

Excellent point. Restraint is certainly called for.