"Right To Bear Arms"

[quantum]

The primary legitimate substantive argument cited to oppose further gun regulations is that such regulations will only make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain weapons, especially for purposes of self-defense, whereas criminals will continue to gain access to weapons regardless of the law... This assertion contains within it one fallacy -- that one can readily differentiate between "good guys" and "bad guys"; stated differently, the assumption is that guns in the hands of good guys are good, whereas guns in the hands of bad guys are bad...

Yet statistics on gun-related deaths show that this Hollywood-cultivated dichotomy bears little relation to reality for most gun-related homicides, in that many homicides are the result of impulsive actions taken by individuals who have little or no criminal background and who are known to the victims. Almost half of all murders (two-thirds of which were committed with guns) are committed by an acquaintance or relative of the victim. More than a quarter of all women murdered were killed by boyfriends or husbands. Arguments precipitate 32% of all murders. Only 21% of murders result from the commission fo felonies such as arson, robbery, and the like... The good guy/bad guy myth evaporates when most murders are examined. 

[one shoe]

Wow, interesting username, ad astra, what does it mean?

to the stars on the wings of a pig.  it has something to do with Steinbeck.  It might be in the Grapes of Wrath.

A lumbering soul but trying to fly.

[c a u s u a l]

Interesting avatar, one shoe, is it dunes in Death Valley?

[Elaine Cho]

Reverends Michael Fleger (left) and Jesse Jackson march Monday with supporters to the Markham courthouse. The ministers attended a hearing on charges of trespassing in a June protest at Chuck's Gun Shop in Riverdale.

Surrounded by ministers, anti-gun activists and two mothers who recently lost a child to gun violence, Reverends Jesse Jackson and Michael Pfleger said Monday they will keep the pressure on a Riverdale gun shop, even as they head to trial on trespassing charges. The ministers spoke outside the Markham courthouse, where they appeared on charges of trespassing stemming from a June protest at Chuck's Gun Shop and a confrontation with owner John Riggio. At Monday's hearing, which lasted just a few minutes, attorneys for Jackson and Pfleger asked for a jury trial, and a date was set for Nov. 26.

We were not guilty of trespassing," Jackson said to several dozen demonstrators Monday. "We're guilty of trying to stop the gun flow." During the confrontation, Riggio complained to police about the ministers, and they were taken into custody. Jackson and Pfleger continued to criticize gun laws as lax and gun manufacturers and sellers, whom they blame for violence in Chicago. "We want sensible gun laws," Jackson said. "You don't hunt with M-16s. You blow holes in tanks with those weapons. They were built just to kill people." In recent months, Jackson and Pfleger, who have called for a statewide ban on assault weapons, have been holding rallies and demonstrations to highlight the toll gun violence has taken on Chicago youths. Assault weapons are banned in Chicago, but the ministers say the law is useless because people buy them at shops, like Chuck's, in the inner-ring suburbs, then bring them into the city. "They don't manufacture guns in the ghetto," Jackson said. "They make the guns, they grow the drugs ... We go to jail and get killed from them."

Pfleger said the arrest was an attempt to intimidate them. "We're not going anywhere. We're going to step it up," he told supporters. Riggio appeared at the hearing but did not speak. He declined to comment afterward. Also present was Clara Allen, mother of a 21-year-old Northern Illinois University student who was fatally shot July 20 on the South Side. Allen said the death of her daughter, Dominique Willis, while she was home on summer break, has spurred her to get involved. "I will not quit," she said. "I lost my child. When will it end?" Annette Nance-Holt, the mother of Blair Holt, spoke to the same issue about her 16-year-old son, who was gunned down on a CTA bus in May while trying to save a friend. His murder, which occurred in the early afternoon, caused hundreds of leaders and residents to rally for solutions. "We shouldn't have to live with gun violence," Nance-Holt said. "No one should have to be in and out of court because their child was killed. I'm here to keep that from happening, if I can."

[gainsay]

LOL Jaime!

[recriminate]

Interesting avatar, gainsay, what is it?

[galleon]

Interesting avatar, gainsay, what is it?

I think it's the Ouroboros, the snake or dragon devouring its own tail -- the alchemical symbol par excellence of eternal recurrence.

[largess]

"Real men" carry "big sticks"

"That's not the Indian way. That's not the way of a man." A man is a warrior and a warrior is someone with a gun.

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/students/index.php/topic,4745.msg63590.html#msg63590

[one hot summer night]

I think it's the Ouroboros, the snake or dragon devouring its own tail -- the alchemical symbol par excellence of eternal recurrence.

Indeed. Jung saw the ouroboros as an archetype and the basic mandala of alchemy. He believed that alchemists, who in their own way know more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. In the age old image of the ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the most astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow self. This feedback process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life again, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. This is much like the cycle of the Phoenix, the feminine archetype. Ouroboros symbolizes The One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man's unconsciousness.

[bro in law]

Indeed. Jung saw the ouroboros as an archetype and the basic mandala of alchemy. He believed that alchemists, who in their own way know more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. In the age old image of the ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the most astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow self. This feedback process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life again, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. This is much like the cycle of the Phoenix, the feminine archetype. Ouroboros symbolizes The One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man s unconsciousness.

Alchemically, the ouroboros is also used as a purifying glyph. Ouroboros was and is the name for the Great World Serpent, encircling the Earth. The word Ouroboros is really a term that describes a similar symbol which has been cross-pollinated from many different cultures. Its symbolic connotation from this owes to the returning cyclical nature of the seasons; the oscillations of the night sky; self-fecundation; disintegration and re-integration; truth and cognition complete; the Androgyny; the primeval waters; the potential before the spark of creation; the undifferentiated; the Totality; primordial unity; self-sufficiency, and the idea of the beginning and the end as being a continuous unending principle.

Ouroboros represents the conflict of life as well in that life comes out of life and death. My end is my beginning. In a sense life feeds off itself, thus there are good and bad connotations which can be drawn. It is a single image with the entire actions of a life cycle -- it begets, weds, impregnates, and slays itself, but in a cyclical sense, rather than linear. Thus, it fashions our lives to a totality more towards what it may really be -- a series of movements which repeat. As Above, So Below -- we are born from nature, and we mirror it, because it is what man wholly is a part of. It is this symbolic rendition of the eternal principles that are presented in the Emerald Tablets of Thoth.


The Ouroboros connects the Above and Below

Born from this symbolic notion, there are many different cultures which share this great dragon-serpent symbol (the serpent Jormungandr, from the myth of Yggdrasil, is just one). There are some cultures that see the image as not being beneficial, but evil -- like Satan. It is of interest to mention that a symbol such as that of the Ouroboros is something which Carl Jung refers to as an archetype; it seems to makes its way into our conscious mind time and time again in varying forms. The 19th century German chemist named Kekule dreamed of a snake with its tail in its mouth one day after dosing off. He had been researching the molecular structure of benzene, and was at a stop point in his work until after waking up he interpreted the dream to mean that the structure was a closed carbon ring. This was the breakthrough he needed.

There is another mention of the Ouroboros laying at the edge of the sea which surrounds the world, called Pontus. The Ouroboros encircles the Universe; everything known and unknown is encompassed in its embracing coils, supporting and maintaining the earthly balance. It injects life into death and death into budding life. Its form suggests immobility with its locked jaws upon itself, yet at the same time it pushes the insistent message of perpetual movement through its twined coils. The first clues to this symbol go back as far as 1600-1700 BC in Egypt. Through the years the serpent moved on to the Phoenicians and the Greeks-who were what gave it the name Ouroboros. The Greek translation means, tail eater.

It has a strong relation to what is known as the Androgyny. The androgyny is the united male and female principles together. This is the prime primordial end to human endeavor, the reunion which births totality and creation. It is not unlike the idea of androgyny, which is a duality complete. A return to wholeness.