This state several years ago voted in for legal Marijuana for medicinal purposes only. There's a catch 22, voting this in didn't do a bit of good because it's still on the books with Federal Law, it's illegal to grow, sell or use Marijuana, even though the Doctors are the ones who would like to be able to prescribe the drug to patients. My understanding is that President Obama would like to change the law across the board, all states, and legalize Marijuana for medical reason only.

I am going to take this a step farther, and this is my own personal opinion, just legalize the drug and forget the medicinal part. I am not a drug user and never have been. My reasoning on this is Prohibition in the 1930's, no alcohol, how ridiculous and look at the crime and violence that went on with this. So legalize Marijuana, control it like alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult pornography, etc. This is what the people want, it isn't necessarily what I want but I am not the majority. This would destroy the drug trafficking, the drug lords, with the Prohibition it was the Mafia that had the stronghold and they gave the people what they wanted.

It is a great country Ed, apparently the UK has almost the same problems as the US with drugs and overcrowded prisons, looks like perhaps the two countries were talking together about legalizing Marijuana/Cannibis, because it seems to me that was about the time, 2001, when there was some real serious talk about it.

I have a question for you Ed, the settlers came over here to settle this country, predominately the English, Spanish and the French in the beginning, with them came the pistols and rifles. Was the UK always gun free with their citizens? If not, then what period of time did the UK ban guns from the Citizens?

We have plenty of Chavs and Chavettes in this country, we could send you some! Would you really want the greedy lawyers? You might want to rethink that one, look at how bizarre this has become here in the US.

I've long been an advocate of the legalisation of all drugs. The current policies aren't working, they're simply making it worse. The drugs trade in the UK is estimated to be worth over 10 billion GBP, all untaxed and unregulated. And furthermore, it's all in the hands of criminals. Legalisation would collapse criminal empires, increase the safety for users, reduce drug-related theft, and bring in much needed tax revenue to the state as well as making it a less taboo subject, meaning addicts could be helped rather than marginalised. There are precedents for this: for example, up until the 60s, most drugs were legal in Britain and we had a very progressive way of handling things like heroin addiction. Addicts were registered and given pure heroin on the NHS. This reduced death by overdose and kept addicts from commiting crimes to feed their habit. The NHS is said to be able to purchase medical grade heroin at little more than 1GBP per gram. On the street, this is more than 100GBP for stuff that's no more than 10% pure. The system worked, we had very few addicts adn those we had had little impact on society and were treated correctly - addiction, afterall, is an illness.

If nothing else it's worth a try, the war on drugs is nothing but political posturing and isn't working in the slightest.

As to your question, it's an interesting history. Guns haven't always been illegal, infact it wasn't until 1997 that there was a blanket ban on all guns, following from the horrendous Dunblane Massacre of 1995. After this massacre (of 16 young children and their teacher), there was an amnesty where all weapons could be handed in with no repercussions. After the new law was passed, all arms were illegal, with harsh prison sentences for anyone who was in possession of them.

Legislation about gun ownership started in the early 20th Century, prior to that, any weapon could be owned with the proper license, which could simply be purchased from a Post Office for a few shillings. The first gun legislation required special licenses for pistols. Then, after World War 1, stricter control was brought in due to the increase in guns and gun-related crime that the war had brought. Shortly before WW2 it was deemed that buying a firearm for protection was no longer a valid reason to own one, it was agreed that firearm ownership had too much of a negative impact on society and so in 1937 law was passed essentially outlawing personal ownership of firearms except for farmers, hunters, marksmen - people with a non-violent reason for owning one.

Since then, the law has steadiliy gotten stricter until the 1997 carpet ban on all firearms.

As for the chav situation - they're currently destroying our country by championing ignorance, lazyness, racism, bigotry, shallowness and pretty much every negative character trait you could possibly think of. I'd be happy to see the back of them and let the lawyers come in. We've got pretty tight controls on lawyers so maybe the impact on society would be less than the violence, crime, vandalism and general dumbing-down caused by the chav menace!

I am completely speechless Ed, don't think this would ever happen in this country where the citizens would lay down there weaponry. Ok, this is a fairly new law that has been passed in your country, time will only tell if this is going to work for you people. If not, then this law can be changed again. The question here suppose you are invaded by another country like Germany did in the second world war? And let's face it, in this day and age with the new technology they could be there at your front door in minutes without any kind of warnings. You would have no backup through citizens, and would have to depend totally on your military/law enforcement which could be caught off guard too. Might mention, we were caught off guard with 9/11.

In this country hunting and shooting competition is a big sport, I do neither, just happen to like hand guns. This has gone a little farther now, protecting oneself. The beauty to this, we have the support of law enforcement, that's very apparent, we are the backup for them in case something really big happens. I had a nice conversation yesterday with the Washington State Police Lady, we talked about the state of Montana and Colorado where crime rate is way way down compared to other states. I had the distinct impression from this lady she was wishing across all the states had the "Make My Day Law" that Colorado has. I feel Colorado is a test run and it's working.

I totally agree with you on this drug issue, it's not working here either, just keeps going on and on, which brings in the crime and violence. There is something else I would like to mention that has been going on for many many years now, no matter what Medical you go to, whether it's a Medical Specialist, Dentist, General Practitioner, or Clinic, on the Medical Record information they want you to fill out, one of the questions they will ask you, do you use social drugs, if so, what kind and how much. Now I can understand this so when they prescribe something for medical purposes there are no adverse side effects. Seeing as we have this question on the medical information paper, social drugs must be the normal now and a high percentage of drug users.

The first time I went to the doctor in April with an ear infection, the lady doctor was questioning me on the social drugs, my reply was I haven't even tried a Marijuana Cigarette much less engage in the hard stuff, her reply was maybe for your next birthday you could try one and she was laughing but serious, actually we were all laughing but I got the picture too. I am sure Ed you are getting the picture too. So I am going to go back to what I said, the people want the drugs, legalize the drugs and control it like alcohol, tobacco, etc.

The Dunblane Massacre, which I should point out was only a few years after another brutal massacre in Britain, the Hungerford Massacre, was conducted with fully licensed firearms. It touched the country so deeply that 16 infants could be murdered in cold blood that there was very little resistance to the new legislation, even from gun enthusiasts. It just seemed the lesser of two evils I guess to give up personal protection for the sake of future children.

As for being invaded, firstly we have a lot of faith in our military. Much like the US, our armed forces are primed and ready as we're active constantly in conflicts all over the world on Peace keeping missions, most recently in Sierra Leone, as well as, of course, the Persian Gulf. In spite of the fact our country is very small, we have the second largest military budget in the world after the US. Secondly, Britain is a notoriously difficult island to invade. Bad weather, coupled with high coastlines, not to mention the strong defences still standing from WW2 mean that it's well protected. The Germans outnumbered us significantly in the Battle of Britain but still didn't succeed in their goals. We also run the US's early warning systems from various sites around the UK so we're pretty well informed. Plus a strong alliance with both the US and Russia (though less so recently with a stupid political blunder by our secret services...) as well as France, we feel quite safe against potential threats. The biggest concern of course is terrorism, but we're no stranger to that and have lived with bombings from the IRA for decades now.

I think the legalisation of drugs would be great simply to get it out of the hands of criminals, who are no doubt into all sorts of horrible things as well as the drugs trade. Human trafficking and illegal prositution for example go hand in hand with drugs smuggling these days. It would be great to hit the mobsters right in their pockets and remove one of their main incomes. Not to mention reducing the number of ordinary citizens punished because they like to dabble at weekends.

I don't know what it would be like in the US, but a decision like that on drugs would essentially be political suicide for the MP who suggests it. "Middle England" (the voting majority) wouldn't tolerate the notion and would use the vote to remove them from office, even if the benefits to society were blantantly apparent. Such is the stigma of drug use in our country. Hell, I've even met drug users who wouldn't support any kind of legalisation on the issue. We're quite progressive in some areas, and HIGHLY conservative in others! What's odd is that it's fine to drink yourself stupid and get into a fight and end up in hospital every weekend, which is how much of the country likes to enjoy itself. Truly bizarre!

I think it's good that you have the full support of your law enforcement agencies when it comes to self-defence. We simply don't have that - as they say, it's our responsibility as citizens to do everything we can to avoid crime, and leave the rest to the police. We do have far more police per-capita than the US, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I know how horrific these massacres are, we have had quite a few of these massacres ourselves. This will be breaking news throughout all the television channels, the country I feel at first is in a state of shock, then the country goes into a mourning period, this will be televised for quite a few days and then the country feels some kind of anger along with a very deep sadness. As time progresses the questions will come up as to the why, how, who, the motivation and everyone is talking about what happened. The talk shows will be discussing this, the political talk shows, the different government agencies as well and lastly this will be dissected in every which way to come up with some solutions, to find out where the loop holes and cracks were. Tighten up security, perhaps put into place new laws, anything imaginable to protect the children. After the massacre at Virginia Tech College they are talking about allowing guns on the college campus, I am not sure how far this talk will go but they felt at the time if one college student had a gun and killed the perpetrator, there wouldn't have been so many deaths.

It's a little bit different here, the topic of legalizing drugs was discussed a few years back by our law enforcement and judges, they explained their reasoning on this issue, nobody will be voted out or fired for bringing up and discussing an issue. Most of the time it's up to the citizens to vote on the issue, apparently at this particular time it wasn't favorable amongst the citizens because it was dropped. Also as citizens, each state has their own Senators and Congress people which you can write to them or call their toll free telephone number and voice your opinions and concerns. Now if the Senators or Congress people are not listening to what the citizens want in their state, they could be voted out in the next election. Normally these people will listen to what the citizens want, and are in office for quite a few years within our own state because they know they won't be reelected. I do understand the majority vote, it sometimes happens right here in Washington state. Seattle area has more citizens, so they over rule us through their votes, there has been talk about splitting the state in half, Eastern Washington state and Western Washington state, I just sit back and laugh, this will never happen, but it does become interesting.

Yes the support from law enforcement is tremendous, but as taxpayers they work for us also, they are here for us, to protect us. Like I said law enforcement is spread very thinly and the crime is right in front of us every single day, there is no avoiding the crime.

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

The Constitution doesn't seem to be clearly worded to me whatsoever. After all, if you listen to gun advocacy groups such as the NRA, who clearly believe that the Constitution specifically allows individual citizens to carry arms, they think that anyone should be allowed to carry any firearm that he or she chooses to, including fully automatic weapons.

Every Supreme Court case that has challenged this has ended up deciding that the Constitution in fact only permits a militia, which is why firearms can be and are regulated. Hence, citizens can't carry MP5s unless they are a part of a militia (police, miltary, etc). So we have a gun-toting culture because of the old West, but it's not a constitutionally protected one IMO, no matter all the political posturing.

Well first off, all males between the age of 17 and 45 and not serving in the Armed Forces or National Guard, is currently a member of the Reserve Militia, aka the Unorganized Militia....at least according to the Militia Act of 1903.

Second, the militia at the time of our founding was the People. There is no way under any circumstance that the right to bear arms (no matter what any appointed Justices feel) was limited to the government. Anyone outside of a lawyer who has read the Constitution would notice right off the bat one clear and present fact....Every article in the US Constitution is constructed to outline what powers we have given to the Federal Government, and exactly how they are to be used.

Which leads us to the first 10 amendments.....The funny thing about them, is that a good portion of the Founding Fathers did not want them.
Why? Because...the argument was along the lines of, why do we need to single out the freedom of religion, or the freedom of speech? The Constitution gives the Government no authority to regulate those, and by singling them out, we leave all other unmentioned rights open for attack, as somehow less of a right.

The only rights we do not have are those that we have given away by empowering the government to manage via the Constitution, or those that infringe upon someone else's rights.

And so it has been written. Lawyers go to court arguing that the First, Second, or Fourth Amendments do not say this or that, so the government must have the authority to commit whatever atrocity upon the Constitution they wish, and a group of judicial appointees go right along with it.

It is too dangerous letting people to bear guns , then what ? they will shoot at anyone they disagree with ... People are not responsible no more theses days , and i am not sure they have ever been , so what's the point in giving people the right to keep a gun. you can so easily buy guns with internet , on such site removed , So i can't imagine if people are entitled to do it , that would be the awakening of every little gangs and trust me every army will have a lot to do in its own country..
In france lately the government just abided a law which say that u can loose your french nationality if you attack a government representatives such as policemen and so on .. so you better think twice before buying a gun , you never know how it can ends ...

I can understand your feelings Jouly, guns are not for everyone. However, I am licensed to carry a concealed weapon, know all the rules and what is expected of me.

Here in this state, you can buy a gun online, but the gun has to be delivered to a federal gun licensed dealer in this state. I bought another hand gun in Idaho which borders this state, even though I am licensed to carry a gun in Idaho, I didn't go home with the gun, the gun had to be delivered to a federal licensed gun dealer in this state. There are very stringent gun rules, plus your background has to be very clean along with fingerprinting which is all checked by the FBI. Some people before purchasing a gun have to go through a gun training course, which I think is an excellent idea, although I have never been required to take a gun course.

One has to remember, the perpetrators (terrorists/ criminals) will always have guns through black market globally. That's why a lot of good citizens in this country carry guns legally so they aren't a victim.

Hi Giselle.

Agree with everything you said here.

Keep our gun rights, and legalize marijuana.

Most of my friends support either one or the other. But none support both. They listen to the politicians too much. I'm a big Ron Paul supporter.

If you support the right to own an AK 47 with a 75 round drum magazine. Why not support the rite to own a harmless plant substance. Take the profits away from the cartels.

I also own a couple domains that would be very valueble with legal California Pot.

My gun collection is small (mossberg 12 gauge, hi-point .380) But I take my boy shooting every year and he loves it.

Happy New Year Everybody!

Happy New Year Michael! Looking at the time you already are into the new year.

I think I would have to buy a bigger purse in order to carry a AK 47, or how about a Violin case like the Mafia used to carry their machine guns in.

I support both, but I have always been way of ahead the times......