Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: texshooter on April 02, 2018, 07:01:42 pm
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Judges are now confiscating guns from people who "act strange." Good idea or slippery slope?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/02/police-legally-seizing-guns-under-red-flag-laws.html (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/02/police-legally-seizing-guns-under-red-flag-laws.html)
(http://kris.images.worldnow.com/images/16414757_G.jpg?auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=800&lastEditedDate=20180328105925)
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I'm a very "pro gun" person, but think these laws are a good thing. As is, we have to wait until someone does something before any action can be taken. I serve on my state's grand jury and we had a case where a nutty woman fortified her house into a bunker and bought about $30,000 worth of guns and gear. I think she even had a couple of full automatic (completely legal in many Midwestern & Western states) plus a .50 Barrett, along with bullet resistant clothing etc. She had a teen age son whom she home schooled. There was no dad in the home or in the kid's life at all. The woman was a total nut case (I suspect schizophrenic) but had no medical record. They attended a small church in Iowa, and the people there were so afraid of her they had an armed guard at the services! She & son hadn't broken any laws, so nothing could be done. Finally the son went mildly nuts and shot at the (empty) church a few times with a wimpy little pistol, and that was enough to arrest him and then his mother for child endangerment. A major problem was probably prevented. Woman is now judged mentally ill and all guns removed. Son is in protective custody and being "reprogrammed" back to reality. A "red flag" law would have been a good thing here, but hell if I'd be the one to go to her house and ask for the guns! :o
Closer to home, I have (had) two teenage sons who went through a brief but dark & moody stretch. I got them counseling, and in the meantime I locked up all guns, removed a key part from each (e.g. trigger or bolt) and hid them in the attic, and kept all ammo locked in my car (over 50 pounds!) Also kept track of the kitchen knives etc. daily. There were no problems and everything has since worked out OK. The big difference was there was an involved dad in the home--me! NO WAY my wife could have handled those boys on her own. Few women can, and THAT is the problem in a nutshell. American media does not want to talk about that.
Kent in SD
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https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/04/01/florida-chinese-student-deported-guns-ucf-orig-cws.cnn
Student deported for visa violation
Wenliang Sun, a 26-year-old Chinese University of Central Florida student who made no threats but had alarmed a roommate with his behavior and bought two semiautomatic rifles, will be deported for an unrelated visa issue.Source: CNN
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People have to prove minimum competence before they're allowed to drive a car. Why should gun ownership not be subject to some scrutiny? It is the case in much of the rest of the world, and they (we) seem to get along just fine. Here in Canada, anyone who wants to hunt can arrange to purchase a weapon after a process that's akin to passing a driver's test. Any farmer who needs a varmint rifle can get one (in fact, most of them already do).
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Red Flag laws may be just the thing that saves the Second Amendment.
(https://sharemylesson.com/sites/default/files/lesson_image/171017-waldman-2nd-amendment-tease_yyhvy6_2.jpeg)
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In spite of hysterical left-wing fake news, the second amendment isn't in any danger. These people make it sound as if shouting at your congressman or senator can induce him to change the Constitution. What actually happens is that people rush out and buy guns and join the NRA. But these people aren't bright enough to understand that their screaming is backfiring on them.
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"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered,
but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered" -- Lyndon B. Johnson.
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...people rush out and buy guns and join the NRA...
Two things happened after the recent high school shooting in Florida:
1. Contributions to NRA doubled
2. The shooter has been receiving tons of fan email, from all over the world (!?)
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Why should gun ownership not be subject to some scrutiny? It is the case in much of the rest of the world, and they (we) seem to get along just fine.
Yes. Until they're attacked and US gunslingers have to come to their rescue.
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(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/91/2f/e3/912fe3022d8339bd5da842506319a794.jpg)
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In spite of hysterical left-wing fake news, the second amendment isn't in any danger. These people make it sound as if shouting at your congressman or senator can induce him to change the Constitution. What actually happens is that people rush out and buy guns and join the NRA. But these people aren't bright enough to understand that their screaming is backfiring on them.
I'm a liberal and believe the Second Amendment should not be amended. And you are correct, with just the slightest news of gun control, people line up to buy guns. And, every time there is a mass murder, again people line up to buy guns. Of course it is the same impulse in both instances that make people into gun hoarders, fear that their right to gun ownership will be nullified. And again you are correct, the Second Amendment will never go away.
But it is the gun industry that is really benefiting from school shootings. Lets just say that on the face of it, that is bizarre. As for gun owners, I would say 90% are responsible. But here's the thing; what happens to all those guns that are being bought? I mean, millions upon millions of guns are going into our society and, correct me if I'm wrong, very few are actually being used for anything. So where do those guns go when their owners decide they don't want them, say because they want a new model? It would be interesting to track a few thousand guns just to see where they go.
Yeah, I'm for gun control, and while I understand that it seems like a Sisyphean effort, I do believe that gun control awareness in of itself has an educational effect on gun owners. Unfortunately, the sheer quantity of guns in circulation may haunt us for many decades. How much does a bullet proof vest cost, anyway?
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A new victory for gender equality!!!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/04/03/active-shooter-youtube-headquarters-california-police-say/483333002/
Female suspect dead, 4 injured after shooting at YouTube headquarters in California
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And now something completely different, California is about to create an open season on its police force:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-police-force-legislation_us_5ac3c013e4b00fa46f872c28
California Considering Unprecedented Law Restricting Police Firearm Use
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Here are a few red flags from the past 30 mass shooters.
https://www.metro.us/news/map-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-2000/tmWmll---14WH11UWCww (https://www.metro.us/news/map-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-2000/tmWmll---14WH11UWCww)
1. Jeffrey Weise killed 10
--multiple suicide attempts
2. Michael McDermott killed 7
--slashed coworker's leg with a knife, rage disorder
3. San Marco killed 7
--talked to herself and walked naked in public
4. Charles Roberts killed 5
--pedophile
5. Sulejman Talovic killed 5
--juvenile delinquent
6. Seung-hi Sho killed 32
--hospitalized for suicidal ideation
7. Tyler Peterson killed 6
--no red flags
8. Robert Hawkins killed 8
--multiple psychiatric hospitalizations
9. Charles Thorton killed 5
--prior assault convictions
10. Steven Kazmierczak killed 5
--schizophrenia, suicide attempt
11. Wesley Hinson killed 5
--history of death threats
12. Jiverly Antares killed 14
--criminal record
13. Oman Thorton killed 8
--no red flags
14. Eduardo Sencion killed 4
--paranoid schizophrenia
15. James Holmes killed 12
--dysphoric mania, homicidal ideation
16. Wade Michael killed 4
--white supremacist militia, reckless alcoholic
17. Adam Lanza killed 27
--Asperger's syndrome, prior death threats
18. Kurt Meyers killed 4
--drunk driver
19. Aaron Alexis killed 12
--history of malicious mischief and disorderly conduct
20. John Zawahri killed 5
--death threats and bomb building
21. Pedro Vargas killed 6
--abused steroids
22. Don Spirit killed 7
--wife beater
23. Dylan Roof killed 9
--drug addict
24. Christopher Mercer killed 9
--asperger's syndrome, stockpiled weapons, suicide attempt
25. Robert Dear killed 3
--weapons violations
26. Syed Farook killed 14
Islamic Jihadist migrant
27. Oman Mateen killed 49
--placed on terrorist watch list for bragging about links to al-Qaeda
28. Stephen Paddock killed 50
--mystery
29. Devin Kelly killed 26
--animal cruelty
30. Nicolas Cruz killed 17
--expelled from school for fighting and online threats
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If you don't want police to shoot you, don't resist arrest.
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/scratchpad/images/8/80/Garfield-well-duh.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140323152804)
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Yes. Until they're attacked and US gunslingers have to come to their rescue.
Military responses have nothing to do with the rates of armed citizenry.
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Military responses have nothing to do with the rates of armed citizenry.
You can't have a pussyfied nation suddenly turning into a fierce army.
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When I was a kid, living rural, every kid I knew had a rifle of some sort, and most had hand guns. Every pick up truck in town had a rifle rack in the back window, usually parked in town, unlocked.
Yet, there wasn’t the problem(s) we see today.
Makes me wonder what else has changed to produce our current culture.
Maybe something like this becoming the consensus view, whether explicitly, or implicitly through the school system. A quote by the notable, widely accepted (author of The God Delusion) Oxford scholar Dr. Richard Dawkins:
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”
Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
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The power to defend oneself from assault, rape, and robbery is worth the small added risk of getting shot by psychopaths.
Dawkins may be right about the law of the jungle, but he doesn't see the value in this gun culture trade-off. Americans still do, however. Thank God (oops, I mean my lucky stars).
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/2/richard-dawkins-infuriates-with-great-shootin-twee/ (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/2/richard-dawkins-infuriates-with-great-shootin-twee/)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSf7ulbX4AAkUmr.jpg)
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17. Adam Lanza killed 27
--Asperger's syndrome, prior death threats
Asperbergers condition is not associated with violence or aggression. (I have a degree in medical science and studied this in school, and worked for awhile as an occupational therapist in Lincoln Regional Center (LRC, Lincoln, NE), which is the state mental hospital for the criminally insane. The death threats are an entirely different matter, of course.
Kent in SD
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When I was a kid, living rural, every kid I knew had a rifle of some sort, and most had hand guns. Every pick up truck in town had a rifle rack in the back window, usually parked in town, unlocked.
Yet, there wasn’t the problem(s) we see today.
Makes me wonder what else has changed to produce our current culture.
Very clearly the difference is now there too often is no dad in the home, and a single woman is trying to control an out of control/troubled teenage boy. Doesn't work out well.
Kent in SD
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Single mothers can be tough too.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/2dma92r.jpg)
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Very clearly the difference is now there too often is no dad in the home, and a single woman is trying to control an out of control/troubled teenage boy. Doesn't work out well.
Kent in SD
I sense that is “too easy” a response. It is a symptom, not a root cause. And it is only one of many societal symptoms of a root cause.
More than that, if Richard Dawkins statement in his quote above is actually true, then it really doesn’t matter, does it? Just the DNA dance.
Rand
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I sense that is “too easy” a response. It is a symptom, not a root cause. And it is only one of many societal symptoms of a root cause.
There may be overall greater factors, but those are in turn making it acceptable for men to not take responsibility for raising children. The statistics are pretty clear.
Kent in SD
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This is an interesting topic.
From the OP's link Mckenzie was glad they took his guns away after acting weird in a restaurant. I didn't realize those who exhibit any symptom of PTSD aren't aware at the time they're exhibiting this behavior. That's the scary part IMO mainly because he had his firearm on him at time.
I do have to wonder if this type of behavioral analysis and/or reporting will be applied to one's web activity. Maybe someone has their guns taken away for stalking another person online. But that does get into a slippery slope of free speech rights.
How is strange behavior defined online to the extent one's guns are taken away?
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People have to prove minimum competence before they're allowed to drive a car.
just a small nit to pick, but no one has to prove any competence before being allowed to drive a car in the US. It is only if one wishes to drive a car on a public road where you need a license and the resulting knowledge and skill test. If you have a big farm and you want your 5 year old to drive on the farm, there is nothing intrinsically illegal about that.
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It is only if one wishes to drive a car on a public road where you need a license and the resulting knowledge and skill test. If you have a big farm and you want your 5 year old to drive on the farm, there is nothing intrinsically illegal about that.
I could live with the same exception for guns (assuming the bullets stay within the perimeter of your own premises as well).
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Very clearly the difference is now there too often is no dad in the home, and a single woman is trying to control an out of control/troubled teenage boy. Doesn't work out well.
Do you believe it is more important that a teenage boy follows the rules, or follows his own conscience? Do you believe it is more important that a teenage boy should respect his elders, or think for himself? Are obedience and respect for authority are the most important values boys should learn from their parents?
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Do no harm to others is a starting point. Comprehending the potential consequences of actions before undertaking is a step to mature, responsible, behavior.
The dialectics listed are normal tensions growing up. They have to be managed with a set of rules as a start and then "shades of grey" can be navigated over time and with demonstrated growth.
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Do you believe it is more important that a teenage boy follows the rules, or follows his own conscience? Do you believe it is more important that a teenage boy should respect his elders, or think for himself? Are obedience and respect for authority are the most important values boys should learn from their parents?
What "following own conscience" and "thinking for himself" can lead to, we've already seen in many school shootings.
The area of brain responsible for risk analysis does not fully develop until early 20s (or so I was told by medical professionals), so there is certainly a role for parental and paternal guidance.
I don't think that anyone is claiming that "obedience and respect for authority" is the most important value, but important it is. As anything else in life, it is always a matter of balance.
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I don't think that anyone is claiming that "obedience and respect for authority" is the most important value, but important it is. As anything else in life, it is always a matter of balance.
For many decades, social psychology has empirically demonstrated that a statistically significant percentage of the American population argue that it is the most important child rearing value. Questions like this (there are several) reveal this value: "Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: obedience or self-reliance?"
Attitudes toward child rearing say a lot about individual differences in social attitudes and perspectives of how society should operate, totally irrespective whether the adult being asked is a parent or not.
Given that 'Kent in SD' has repeatedly referred to his idea about child rearing and its effect on society, it seems to be very important value to him. Hence my question.
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For many decades, social psychology has empirically demonstrated that a statistically significant percentage of the American population argue that it is the most important child rearing value. Questions like this (there are several) reveal this value: "Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: obedience or self-reliance?"
Attitudes toward child rearing say a lot about individual differences in social attitudes and perspectives of how society should operate, totally irrespective whether the adult being asked is a parent or not.
Given that 'Kent in SD' has repeatedly referred to his idea about child rearing and its effect on society, it seems to be very important value to him. Hence my question.
I will take issue with almost every aspect of what you said above.
- What is "a statistically significant percentage"? 10%? 25%? 33%? 51%?
- Binary questions like that force a black or white answer that in reality would be much more nuanced, as both are important and can co-exist simultaneously
- child age plays a role in answering such a question: the older a child gets, the balance between obedience and self-reliance would change toward self-reliance
"Kent is SD" referred to paternal presence in the life of a child, boys in particular, not directly to "obedience" or "authority." I hope that you are not arguing that paternal presence is not important in growing up?
What type of "authority" you are referring to? Biological (i.e., by the virtue of being a father) or earned authority? By earned authority, I mean child's respect for his/her father for what he is doing for them, sacrifices he has made, ethical examples he represents, being a positive role model, etc. Having a relationship with such an authority is a completely different case than authority based on "I am your father, you must obey!"
You seem to want to degrade and reduce the concept of authority to "authoritarian" sociological and theoretical concepts.
I believe "Kent is SD," as well as myself, represent dads with earned authority. My daughter listens to me not because I raised her to be obedient, but because she trusts my advice and experience, or, in other words, my "authority."
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Slobodan, if you're really interested I can refer you to some of the relevant social psychology literature. Given research findings are the result of many decades of academic research (going back to the 1950s), it's extensive.
You are correct to argue that reducing complex social phenomena to one personality construct is dangerous. I'm not arguing that, and the literature I draw on does not do that either. In fact the literature these days does exactly the opposite: it looks at the interplay of several constructs in a variety of contexts. Moreover, studies take a variety of forms, including "yes/no", and scales, such as from 1 to 7 (strongly disagree to strongly agree).
And FWIW, I see no evidence that leads me assume that "Kent in SD" has the same child raising values as you. I think it quite possible that with respect to child raising values, you and he may have different values. Whatever they are, chances are "Kent in SD" feels strongly about them, as do you it seems. That much you have in common at least.
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What type of "authority" you are referring to? Biological (i.e., by the virtue of being a father) or earned authority?
When my youngest son (the quiet type!) went into a moody period when he was 14, he began to get rebellious & aggressive. My wife was unable to deal with it and delegated that to me. One afternoon my kid defiantly asked, "What would you do if I hit you?" That would be unwise of him, of course, but rather than say/do something that would escalate tension, I quickly crafted a reply to diffuse it. After thinking for a moment or two, I calmly replied, "I'd eat you." The kid was somewhat sure I was joking, but at the same time he'd grown up seeing countless large animals (deer, antelope, elk) dead in the back of my pickup truck. The animals, which were the same size as him, were indeed eaten. He wasn't completely sure it was an idle threat. ;D Deciding to not chance it, he quickly calmed down.
Kent in SD
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Slobodan, if you're really interested I can refer you to some of the relevant social psychology literature...
I spent 2-3 years in my high school having 5 (!) classes in sociology a week (my choice, not forced), something equivalent to AP classes in America. I think I had enough sociology for the rest of my life :)
But I appreciate the offer.
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I spent 2-3 years in my high school having 5 (!) classes in sociology a week (my choice, not forced), something equivalent to AP classes in America. I think I had enough sociology for the rest of my life :)
But I appreciate the offer.
Social psychology and sociology are like two totally different worlds in most academic communities in the U.S, unfortunately. Social psychology and anthropology have some overlap in the sense that some scholars read each other's work in sufficient volume to generate something called psychological anthropology. And sometimes scholars such as those that specialize in race do cross back and forth quite freely between social psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology, and even biological anthropology, but it's not that common. The prof I studied social psychology under at the University of Minnesota is unusual in that he is in both social psychology and political science. Again, not that common.
That's the sad reality of contemporary academic life. Generally way too compartmentalized. Individual scholars can do their best to do interdisciplinary work, but the institutional structures can make it very difficult for them to do so.
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People have to prove minimum competence before they're allowed to drive a car. Why should gun ownership not be subject to some scrutiny? It is the case in much of the rest of the world, and they (we) seem to get along just fine. Here in Canada, anyone who wants to hunt can arrange to purchase a weapon after a process that's akin to passing a driver's test. Any farmer who needs a varmint rifle can get one (in fact, most of them already do).
Bearing arms is protected by the American Constitution. There is no Constitutional protection to drive a car or hunt. Each State makes up its hunting and driving license rules as it sees fit. Often, the anti-gun argument is that many weapon types are not useful for hunting. But that argument is a non-sequitur because the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. It gives you the right to be armed to defend yourself personally and to use your arms against a tyrannical government. When dictators take over their countries, they don't confiscate guns to prevent people from hunting. They do it to protect themselves from their own people. That's what the 2nd Amendment is all about.
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The breakdown of the family structure do to divorce and out-of-wedlock births have contributed to more violence, drugs, and failure in school education. The loss of the values we place on religious and moral comportment has made it OK to do things that in the past we thought twice before doing. Humans have never been perfect. They are only less so now as we are losing our way.
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It's interesting that murders by knife in London now exceed murders by gun in New York. Maybe England needs to confiscate all knives. You'll be able simply to chew what you want off the leg of lamb. Nasty how those knives go out on the street and stab people.
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It's interesting that murders by knife in London now exceed murders by gun in New York. Maybe England needs to confiscate all knives. You'll be able simply to chew what you want off the leg of lamb. Nasty how those knives go out on the street and stab people.
one month one city... compare London for many month and with say 3 times less populated Chicago ?
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It's interesting that murders by knife in London now exceed murders by gun in New York. Maybe England needs to confiscate all knives. You'll be able simply to chew what you want off the leg of lamb. Nasty how those knives go out on the street and stab people.
Most definitely, when you look at the last two months.
However, the year to date numbers show 50 killings in New York, and 47 in London. In 2017, New York had more than twice as many murders (290) than London (116).
So either London is getting worse by the day, or the last two months were an exception. There is also a possibility that the bad apples from the Big Apple are moving to UK.
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It's interesting that murders by knife in London now exceed murders by gun in New York. Maybe England needs to confiscate all knives. You'll be able simply to chew what you want off the leg of lamb. Nasty how those knives go out on the street and stab people.
Interesting - why?
Disingenuous at best : that was for February 2018
Your premise seems to be:
knives can kill, guns can kill - knives are prevalent..
so there’s no reason to limit guns and even less reason to do anything about it.
Profound thinking.
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Bearing arms is protected by the American Constitution. There is no Constitutional protection to drive a car or hunt. Each State makes up its hunting and driving license rules as it sees fit. Often, the anti-gun argument is that many weapon types are not useful for hunting. But that argument is a non-sequitur because the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. It gives you the right to be armed to defend yourself personally and to use your arms against a tyrannical government. When dictators take over their countries, they don't confiscate guns to prevent people from hunting. They do it to protect themselves from their own people. That's what the 2nd Amendment is all about.
I don't see why a consitutional right to bear firearms is in contradiction with demonstrating competence in bearing/using these firearms.
I'm sure the lawmakers at the time didn't intend this right to be misused by some lunatics against a perfectly competent and non-tyrannical government or their other law abiding citizens.
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I don't see why a consitutional right to bear firearms is in contradiction with demonstrating competence in bearing/using these firearms...
Every one of those "lunatics" would have passed any firearms competence test with flying colors. Your point?
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Every one of those "lunatics" would have passed any firearms competence test with flying colors. Your point?
Improve the test
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I'm sure the lawmakers at the time didn't intend this right to be misused by some lunatics against a perfectly competent and non-tyrannical government or their other law abiding citizens.
I am sure founding father didn't mean for colored people and women to have a say in anything and yet...
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I am sure founding father didn't mean for colored people and women to have a say in anything and yet...
That's why there were some subsequent amendments to cover that, no reason that new developments can't be included in new amendments.
So even if they were OK for lunatics to have firearms (which I believe to be a stretch) the real question is if we are OK with that today?
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I don't see why a consitutional right to bear firearms is in contradiction with demonstrating competence in bearing/using these firearms.
I'm sure the lawmakers at the time didn't intend this right to be misused by some lunatics against a perfectly competent and non-tyrannical government or their other law abiding citizens.
There already are laws preventing lunatics getting weapons. The problem is identifying who's a lunatic and who isn't. Usually they have to shoot up a bunch of people before we realize that they are crazy.
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There already are laws preventing lunatics getting weapons. The problem is identifying who's a lunatic and who isn't. Usually they have to shoot up a bunch of people before we realize that they are crazy.
So wouldn't it be a good idea to enforce the laws and improve the tests beforehand? I understand you can still walk into a gun show and buy guns without any checks whatsoever. So the law you are referring to seems teethless.
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So wouldn't it be a good idea to enforce the laws and improve the tests beforehand? I understand you can still walk into a gun show and buy guns without any checks whatsoever. So the law you are referring to seems teethless.
Most of the people who used guns illegally in mass shootings got them legally. They didn't buy them in a gun show. The issue is how do you declare a person insane who is insane without making it prohibitively difficult for a sane person to buy a gun without violating his constitutional rights?
Criminals, who use guns to commit crimes like holdups, but aren't mass murderers, get their guns illegally. No law is going to stop that. It's the 99.9% of gun owners who use their guns responsibility that the laws restrict. The concern of these people is that the truth is that people who want to "protect" the public by imposing seemingly reasonable restrictions have more harsh, but unstated objectives. That's to take away guns entirely from the public. That's their real aim. So guns owners fight any restrictions knowing that any restrictions will lead to a slippery slope of total gun confiscation. They're right of course.
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Most of the people who used guns illegally in mass shootings got them legally. They didn't buy them in a gun show.
Really? Got any credible data on that?
The issue is how do you declare a person insane who is insane without making it prohibitively difficult for a sane person to buy a gun without violating his constitutional rights?
Just try harder to get some system in place, a teethless law doesn't do anybody any good.
Criminals, who use guns to commit crimes like holdups, but aren't mass murderers, get their guns illegally. No law is going to stop that. It's the 99.9% of gun owners who use their guns responsibility that the laws restrict. The concern of these people is that the truth is that people who want to "protect" the public by imposing seemingly reasonable restrictions have more harsh, but unstated objectives. That's to take away guns entirely from the public. That's their real aim. So guns owners fight any restrictions knowing that any restrictions will lead to a slippery slope of total gun confiscation. They're right of course.
Agree, getting guns out of the hands of US citizens is far beyond the point of no return and if that's what you want I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that it seems there's always an excuse to do nothing about improving the controls to make sure the guns get used properly by "good" people who know what they are doing.
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one month one city... compare London for many month and with say 3 times less populated Chicago ?
And why, exactly, should I do that. The population of London is roughly the same as the population of New York. Guns keep going out on the street in New York and shooting people. Knives keep going out on the street in London and stabbing people. More knives go out in London and stab people than guns go out in New York and shoot people. Sure I could compare London with Chicago, but why? Why not compare London with Podunk? It would be just as logical.
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Anybody reading about the boost the gun panic is giving gun sales and NRA memberships? Both are beating earlier records during earlier gun panics. ROTFL
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Every one of those "lunatics" would have passed any firearms competence test with flying colors. Your point?
Improve the test
This looks like an improvement... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN952f_jn8E
Love the movie.
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A 78-year-old pensioner in England has been arrested under suspicion of murder for stabbing a much younger man who, with a companion who apparently fled, broke into the pensioner's house to rob. One of the wannabe thieves was armed with a screwdriver...
Seems to me that the house should be considered sacred, that anyone breaking in deserves anything they get thrown back at them for their efforts. It's the one place where I believe guns shoud be allowed, and allowed to be used. No need for war weapons there; all close-range stuff and a pistol perfectly good and more easy to deploy that a rifle that could more easily be wrestled away from the user.
Rob
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Anybody reading about the boost the gun panic is giving gun sales and NRA memberships? Both are beating earlier records during earlier gun panics. ROTFL
As a victim of knife crime I perhaps have an increased awareness of the impact of such crimes on both the victims and their families. I have no answer to the spiralling gun and knife attacks and certainly wouldn't pretend otherwise. The more people who own and carry weapons the more people who feel the need to own and carry weapons: and so it goes on.
Rolling on the floor laughing about increased gun ownership seems a tad perverse.
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Guns keep going out on the street in New York and shooting people. Knives keep going out on the street in London and stabbing people.
Let's not leave out London's epidemic of acid attacks. I hope that brand of cultural enrichment does not catch on in the States.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4016850/acid-attacks-uk-treatment-victims-burns-sufferers/ (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4016850/acid-attacks-uk-treatment-victims-burns-sufferers/)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYUZHqrU8AE72pH.jpg)
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Guns, knives, and vehicles.
In Germany, the gun laws are very strict, so most mass attacks are committed by cars or trucks.
The latest this morning - 4 dead, many injured (at this time, the reported number of the injured persons fluctuates between 20 and 50). Motive still unknown, but today it was the 1 year anniversary of the Stockholm terror attack in Sweden in which a truck was used to plow down people. Although this driver killed with the truck, he managed to acquire a handgun which he used to kill himself.
Several people were killed and more than 30 wounded after a man drove a small truck into a group of people in the center of the western German city of Münster on Saturday.
The driver, who hasn’t been identified, shot himself after ramming the vehicle into a huddle of people in front of the Grosser Kiepenkerl restaurant in the historic center of the city, a police spokesman said.
https://twitter.com/ExperienceGER/status/982639434549157888/photo/1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-police-say-people-killed-wounded-in-incident-in-central-munster-1523114122
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Pieter: Regarding Les's post, why do they allow insane people to drive in Germany? They should have better licensing criteria. :)
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Pieter: Regarding Les's post, why do they allow insane people to drive in Germany? They should have better licensing criteria. :)
Actually, to make such a run, the driver makes it without a proper driver's licence. Also, in the 2016 Berlin truck killing, Anis Amri the Tunesian, who by the way used 14 different identities and collected multiple welfare claims, didn't bother to get a truck driving licence. Similarly, in 2001, four men flew Boeing 767's without pilot licences. They were not even insane.
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Pieter: Regarding Les's post, why do they allow insane people to drive in Germany? They should have better licensing criteria. :)
They have the best licensing criteria, believe me, they're so good nobody else has any better, they're the best from the moment the German's started to drive. You're from German ancestry, you should know, I'm even surprized you dare to bring it up, your great grandfather will probably turn over in his grave from utter shame ;)
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My grandparents were from Poland and Russia. They never own a car. :)
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My grandparents were from Poland and Russia. They never own a car. :)
Close enough :)
Also Klein is neither a Polish nor a Russian name, so I suspect they were Germans when they lived there. Germany used to be a lot bigger in the old days ::)
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Alan is also correct in saying that the driver, a 48 year old German graphics designer, had psychological problems.
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They have the best licensing criteria, believe me, they're so good nobody else has any better, they're the best from the moment the German's started to drive. You're from German ancestry, you should know, I'm even surprized you dare to bring it up, your great grandfather will probably turn over in his grave from utter shame ;)
Which seems to me to make the point quite well. You can have the best licensing requirements for "anything" and it will be ineffective in preventing someone from doing evil if they are intent on doing so. My view is that it isn't politics, or laws, or anything else that is the root problem. People are the root problem. The only way to be "perfectly safe" is to lock down society in a totalitarian regime of some sort where the regime becomes the supreme evil that all others are afraid to run afoul of for fear of summary elimination.
Absent an appeal to something transcendent, societies, political perspectives, etc. will never agree and continue to parse, fuss, debate, etc., over "the best/right" way to address these issues - all of which are tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Rand
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Close enough :)
Also Klein is neither a Polish nor a Russian name, so I suspect they were Germans when they lived there. Germany used to be a lot bigger in the old days ::)
It's hard to tell what their real names were. Many names of immigrants were shortened or changed when they entered the country at Ellis Island. Especially if they came from Eastern Europe. The immigration officers couldn't understand what the "poor and tired" were saying or just couldn't spell their names in any case. So they were changed and shortened. Interestingly, my wife's grandfather and his brother have different last names. Not even close. (Cecil and Josephson). They came here at different times and the immigration officers gave them names they thought fit. Weird.
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Which seems to me to make the point quite well. You can have the best licensing requirements for "anything" and it will be ineffective in preventing someone from doing evil if they are intent on doing so. My view is that it isn't politics, or laws, or anything else that is the root problem. People are the root problem. The only way to be "perfectly safe" is to lock down society in a totalitarian regime of some sort where the regime becomes the supreme evil that all others are afraid to run afoul of for fear of summary elimination.
Absent an appeal to something transcendent, societies, political perspectives, etc. will never agree and continue to parse, fuss, debate, etc., over "the best/right" way to address these issues - all of which are tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Rand
Fully agree Rand, but there is also something else. As you say perfect licensing requirements don't exist and good licensing requirements are never a guarantee to avoid mishaps, not in traffic and not with guns. But I think they still improve safety in general, but apparently it's a too big threat for the gun lobby that the most silly arguments get used to try and avoid them for guns.
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Fully agree Rand, but there is also something else. As you say perfect licensing requirements don't exist and good licensing requirements are never a guarantee to avoid mishaps, not in traffic and not with guns. But I think they still improve safety in general, but apparently it's a too big threat for the gun lobby that the most silly arguments get used to try and avoid them for guns.
I don't understand your point. Are you saying that mass killers who use guns would not do mass killings if we had better licensing? Or that they would kill more people since they would become better shooters? It seems to me that the last problem the mass shooters have had to date is hitting their targets. They really seem to know how to use guns.
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Well, cars are as dangerous as anything else when handled badly or intentionally used as weapons, but they also have a good, fundamental purpose.
I don't really see that guns can be sheltered under that umbrella; after all, their sole design purpose is to kill. There is no other legitimate function for them, unless as threat in a defensive sense, which is but one step removed from killing or at least seriously injuring in a defensive move. In short, they serve only to cause damage, either terminal or serious enough to incapacitate.
All of which seems to me to indicate that their use outwith home protection or policing should be banned. Period.
Hunting is a whole other topic, of course, and even there, that folks can drive around with rifles on racks in their vehicles, whether they are really about to go out and catch something for dinner or not, strikes me as bizarre. Just imagine: some guys stop for a beer or three, get into an argument or just feel macho, go out to the vehicle and take one of those killing machines down off the rack... How do you reason with any guy with a head of beer, his manhood under imaginary threat, and a huge gun in his hands? And all in front of his equally nutty peers? His mother later telling the local press that her son is really a good boy won't help you and your widow one goddam bit, will it?
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Fully agree Rand, but there is also something else. As you say perfect licensing requirements don't exist and good licensing requirements are never a guarantee to avoid mishaps, not in traffic and not with guns. But I think they still improve safety in general, but apparently it's a too big threat for the gun lobby that the most silly arguments get used to try and avoid them for guns.
I don't disagree. I'm fully supportive of sane regulations, but only if there is a commitment to enforcement. Far too often today legislators think they have fixed something by passing a law. Which in my view is either disingenuous (way too often), or terribly naïve. Working close to governments I've see a lot of both. But even good regulation is subject to the 90-10 rule where you'll get 90% effectiveness pretty easily (assuming the creators/implementers are serious about wanting change) - but that last 10% will take exponential effort beyond the original work that got you to 90% - and very often no matter how much effort and resources you put in, you never reach 100%. In part, that's the reality that some refuse to acknowledge - taking us back to my argument about totalitarian rule being the only way to get there, the price of which brings its own "rewards."
Rand
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... cars... also have a good, fundamental purpose.
I don't really see that guns can be sheltered under that umbrella; after all, their sole design purpose is to kill...
Guns/killing can have "a good, fundamental" purpose as well. Defeating the Nazis, for instance.
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Guns/killing can have "a good, fundamental" purpose as well. Defeating the Nazis, for instance.
In the hands of trained soldiers yes, but untrained civilians are pretty useless in trying to achieve this "good, fundamental" purpose
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In the hands of trained soldiers yes, but untrained civilians are pretty useless in trying to achieve this "good, fundamental" purpose
American patriots who fought under Washington were not trained soldiers for the most part, just average guys who had guns. Castro and his cohorts were not soldiers either. Of course Castro was a lawyer and much more dangerous.
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In the hands of trained soldiers yes, but untrained civilians are pretty useless in trying to achieve this "good, fundamental" purpose
I think you are underestimating skills of the "untrained civilians." Especially those, like Americans, who are accustomed to guns. Snowflakes, who faint at the mere sight of a gun, however...
Many social and historical changes were achieved not by trained soldiers, but armed population.
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@ Slobodan and Alan: I thought it was obvious I meant people untrained in the use of guns. Both your examples talk about different folks.
But it's a diversion from the main question: Why does the NRA not support basic competency testing before people can buy a gun and do they think there is nothing wrong with gun show sales without any background checks or training. Changing this won't solve all the problems, I know that, but it still is wacky at best.
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@ Slobodan and Alan: I thought it was obvious I meant people untrained in the use of guns. Both your examples talk about different folks.
But it's a diversion from the main question: Why does the NRA not support basic competency testing before people can buy a gun and do they think there is nothing wrong with gun show sales without any background checks or training. Changing this won't solve all the problems, I know that, but it still is wacky at best.
The American Constitution prevents the government from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. There's no requirement to be trained. If you want to store a gun on your mantle waiting for the next revolution, the government can't take it away saying you're not qualified to use it. Or insisting that you take semi-annual exams to prove you know how to use it. It's obvious that the government would come up with some bureaucratic reason to require training and then use that requirement to seize your guns. The NRA isn't stupid. They understand the slippery slope.
However, every State requires hunting licenses to hunt. So if you're going to use your gun in the field, you have to pass a hunting qualification course that requires basic hunting and gun use competency. Even NRA members don't want to get shot in the back by some stupid, nincompoop hunter who climbs over fences with his gun cocked and his finger on the trigger. Which reminds me. Did VP Dick Cheney have a license to hunt? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney_hunting_incident
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Guns/killing can have "a good, fundamental" purpose as well. Defeating the Nazis, for instance.
That doesn't mean guns in civilian hands, does it? I have no beef about police or military having all the stuff they need to do the jobs we need them to do for us.
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Gun licensing or registration don't prevent mass shootings. Armed deputies don't seem to help either. And it is very questionable that the clear backpacks in the schools will achieve anything.
However, what seems to propagate these shootings in USA is the prevailing gun culture and the wide availability of all kinds of guns and ammunition.
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There already are laws preventing lunatics getting weapons.
The American Constitution prevents the government from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms.
Make up your mind Alan, too many contradictions in what you're posting here on page 3 vs. page 4.
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American patriots who fought under Washington were not trained soldiers for the most part, just average guys who had guns. Castro and his cohorts were not soldiers either. Of course Castro was a lawyer and much more dangerous.
Heysoos, Alan, the Middle East is falling apart because of nutter civilians with guns fed them by opposing parties fighting proxy wars! You can hardly extol private gun ownership as some saviour of national stability, not even in the USA. If you do try to do so, you have left reason behind and are voicing cant. All you can claim for private ownership of death machines is that they may save your ass if somebody tries to invade your home for some reason. Which is why I think they should be kept there, for use there if required.
References to constitutions draw up in ancient days are not much cock when the nature of the items covered then and now are so vastly different! As I have previously pointed out, a muzzleloader is not a contemporary firearm with a multi-shot capability that can clear a room in seconds! To imagine there is some logic in applying the same type of legal position to both is daft. Your constitution needs rewriting, urgently.
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Gun licensing or registration don't prevent mass shootings. Armed deputies don't seem to help either. And it is very questionable that the clear backpacks in the schools will achieve anything.
However, what seems to propagate these shootings in USA is the prevailing gun culture and the wide availability of all kinds of guns and ammunition.
+ 100%!
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I don't understand your point.
Sorry this was over your head, but my point wasn't about mass killings/shootings (this thread is about Red Flag laws, not about mass shootings/killings). My point was that with better training and some form of competency testing (how to use and store guns safely) less gun related accidents would happen and less guns would be accessible to underage kids.
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It's obvious that the government would come up with some bureaucratic reason to require training and then use that requirement to seize your guns. The NRA isn't stupid.
If the majority doesn't want that they will be voted out soon enough, isn't that how democracy should work?
I never said the NRA was stupid, they're only too rich, powerful and wicked at the same time.
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If you don't want police to shoot you, don't resist arrest.
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/scratchpad/images/8/80/Garfield-well-duh.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140323152804)
But many of the unarmed people who were killed by police were not resisting arrest.
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But many of the unarmed people who were killed by police were not resisting arrest.
In which case it was an unfortunate accident, where it was determined only after the fact that they were unarmed.
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... Your constitution needs rewriting, urgently.
So, why hasn't that been done the last 200+ years? Corrupt politicians? Evil NRA? Or the majority of people simply do not want guns taken?
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... what seems to propagate these shootings in USA is the prevailing gun culture and the wide availability of all kinds of guns and ammunition.
Or knife culture in the UK? Or truck culture in Germany?
What propagate those shootings or other mass murders are sick individuals (apart from those with clear political/terrorist motives) and celebrity culture.
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In which case it was an unfortunate accident, where it was determined only after the fact that they were unarmed.
Oh. Oops. Yep, that's too bad. Kind of like this morning when the guy at the grocery store forgot to bag the chicken I bought. Oh well.
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Oh. Oops. Yep, that's too bad. Kind of like this morning when the guy at the grocery store forgot to bag the chicken I bought. Oh well.
Stuff happens.
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The American Constitution prevents the government from infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. There's no requirement to be trained. If you want to store a gun on your mantle waiting for the next revolution, the government can't take it away saying you're not qualified to use it. Or insisting that you take semi-annual exams to prove you know how to use it. It's obvious that the government would come up with some bureaucratic reason to require training and then use that requirement to seize your guns.
This isn't quite right, Alan. Even in Heller, Scalia specifically wrote that the majority ruling should NOT be construed to be interpreted as an absolute unfettered right to gun ownership.
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This isn't quite right, Alan. Even in Heller, Scalia specifically wrote that the majority ruling should NOT be construed to be interpreted as an absolute unfettered right to gun ownership.
I never said it was. If you're nuts as determined by a court or a convicted felon, then you can legally be prevented from buying a gun. What I said isn't Constitutionally required is training in the use, storage or maintenance of a gun before you can buy one.
Of course, most gun owners do train and practice using their weapons and handle and store them safely. Do some gun owners still handle their guns recklessly? Of course. Just like some car owners drive recklessly and kill people even though they've been taught to drive in a safe manner. Did you ever speed?
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If you're nuts as determined by a court or a convicted felon, then you can legally be prevented from buying a gun.
Or if you don't like that you go to a gun show where you can still buy a gun without any checks whatsoever.
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Or knife culture in the UK? Or truck culture in Germany?
What propagate those shootings or other mass murders are sick individuals (apart from those with clear political/terrorist motives) and celebrity culture.
I mentioned it myself about the choice of weapons in different countries in post #57. However, when it comes to total murders in UK and Germany, both countries combined (and also per capita) don't come even close to the USA numbers. Even more alarming is the fact (but that's another subject) that worldwide many more people die from obesity than from violent crimes.
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So, why hasn't that been done the last 200+ years? Corrupt politicians? Evil NRA? Or the majority of people simply do not want guns taken?
Inertia.
It is one of the most powerful non-forces in the world.
Combined with rich business interests, the average, sane guy has no chance. When your only reprentatives are already bought by those powers, what are you gonna do? Maybe blow up gun shops?
Just like the drug problem: why isn't it fixed? Because too many people enjoy the drugs, depend on them, make a lot of money by selling them and preventing their supply from getting stopped.
Just this week, here in Mallorca, a 28-year-old woman already with record of using and dealing, stoned, drove her car into a group of cyclists putting one into a coffin and several others on critical lists. This out in the sticks in Capdepera, near Arta and Cala Ratjada. Ask yourself: how come she was still free, able to drive her wheels instead of being in some prison or mental hospital?
Regarding the knife and acid attacks: yes, there are crazies out there, congenital idiots who must never be called idiots, but simply "disadvantaged young people" with no blame or responsibility for themselves and their actions at all. It's obviously the fault of the "government" for failing to give them a free pass to a great life.
Instead of bulding new highways in the north, to service non-extant industries, they should save a lot of money and time by building new jails.
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Or if you don't like that you go to a gun show where you can still buy a gun without any checks whatsoever.
Only six states (California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island) require universal background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows, including sales by unlicensed dealers (private individuals). Three more states (Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania) require background checks on all handgun sales made at gun shows. So 41 States have no requirements at gun shows that they could easily enact if they desired to do so. The Constitution is not stopping checks in these other states.
In any case, all Federally licensed gun dealers must do background checks. Most of the guns sold at gun shows are by these licensed dealers. So background checks are done at gun shows most of the time as well. The issue is that private individuals sometimes sell their guns at gun shows. Private sellers don't have to do background checks at gun shows. That goes for just selling hand to hand. If you want to sell your gun to neighbor Sven, no checks have to be done. But States can implement checks even with private individuals at gun shows as the 6 mentioned above. So most states have chosen not too because of political pressure not too.
Finally, why not implement a Federal regulation for background checks at gun shows? I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but I think such a law might be in conflict with the Constitution since a rule like that has to be implemented in each State since the guns don't cross from State to State. The Federal government has no jurisdiction. Only individual States do. For the same reason that some states have anti-carry laws and other states let you carry your weapons. These are individual State decisions on how the people in their state want to live. It's called Democracy and Freedom.
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Or if you don't like that you go to a gun show where you can still buy a gun without any checks whatsoever.
You can get a gun without background checks, and legally so, in many other ways. A study by the Justice Department found that only 2% of guns used in crime were obtained at gun shows.
Clinton’s claim about “gun show loophole” received three Pinocchios from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/10/16/clintons-claim-that-40-percent-of-guns-are-sold-at-gun-shows-and-over-the-internet/?utm_term=.6a5138df181b
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You can get a gun without background checks, and legally so, in many other ways. A study by the Justice Department found that only 2% of guns used in crime were obtained at gun shows.
Still 2% too many and why these other ways to get guns without a background check?
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These are individual State decisions on how the people in their state want to live. It's called Democracy and Freedom.
Are you sure it's not the NRA lining the pockets of weak politicians for their reelection slush fund?
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Most definitely, when you look at the last two months.
However, the year to date numbers show 50 killings in New York, and 47 in London. In 2017, New York had more than twice as many murders (290) than London (116).
So either London is getting worse by the day, or the last two months were an exception. There is also a possibility that the bad apples from the Big Apple are moving to UK.
Now, this is VERY interesting (sorry, Manoli) as it compares apples to apples (or is it Big Apple to Big Curry?). At the same time, it debunks the often-used statistical trick of comparing the US murders by gun to murders by gun in other counties. Well, as I already said: duh! If a country’s main mode of transportation is, say, ox and cart, it will definitely have less deaths with cars involved than, say, the US. By the same token, in countries where guns are banned, they will obviously have less murders by gun.
But what the above example shows is that the human urge to commit a crime and kill is the same in similar environments (and even if only for two months). If not guns, then knives or whatever. It is us, humans, not guns or knives, to blame.
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Still 2% too many and why these other ways to get guns without a background check?
Because the starting point is “without a background check.” The Constitution does not say “The right of people with background checks to bear arms...” It has later been modified, but with reasonable exceptions. When a father gifts his gun to his son, for instance.
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Because the starting point is “without a background check.” The Constitution does not say “The right of people with background checks to bear arms...” It has later been modified, but with reasonable exceptions. When a father gifts his gun to his son, for instance.
But when there are many ways to get a gun without a background check (gun shows and other) there is no way to check if the reasonable exception applies. These loopholes will for sure be used by people who otherwise will not be able to get a gun so the "reasonable exception" remains a teethless law/rule because it can easily be circumvented.
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Are you sure it's not the NRA lining the pockets of weak politicians for their reelection slush fund?
There are many Democrats with C and D ratings from NRA. People would just need to vote for them, no? Why don’t they? Maybe because the majority of voters still believe in the second amendment?
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Are you sure it's not the NRA lining the pockets of weak politicians for their reelection slush fund?
It's only a slush fund if the money is given to politicians whose views you don't agree with. The NRA is like any other organization in America that provides campaign funding to politicians who support their views. There are those, like former NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who spend millions supporting anti-gun politicians. That's how things work in a democracy.
The fact is (82%) 41 of the 50 States have no additional requirements for background checks at guns show beyond what is required by the Federal government. Most news you read come from liberal media that are centered in liberal anti-gun states. But the majority of states are pro gun. Even in Vermont, liberal politician Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders supports gun rights. Even he won;t try to take away weapons from his fellow Green Mountain state brethren.
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There are many Democrats with C and D ratings from NRA. People would just need to vote for them, no? Why don’t they? Maybe because the majority of voters still believe in the second amendment?
Since when did anyone believe in the wisdom of the majority?
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Since when did anyone believe in the wisdom of the majority?
What do you suggest? We shoot it out to determine who's in charge? :)
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But when there are many ways to get a gun without a background check (gun shows and other) there is no way to check if the reasonable exception applies. These loopholes will for sure be used by people who otherwise will not be able to get a gun so the "reasonable exception" remains a teethless law/rule because it can easily be circumvented.
The fact is that the laws do protect us. The problem is most criminals buy guns on the street where no law applies. Even with mass shooters, they got their guns legally and passed background checks. Just like you can't check that some driver is going to drive drunk and kill a bunch of people by passing more stringent driving licensing laws, they same is true with gun checks. Legislation only goes so far. More legislation only makes it more difficult for the average person who complies with the law and just wants to go about his business without constant government interference in their lives. Nut jobs and abusers will always slip through the system whether they use guns, knives or trucks.
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There are many Democrats with C and D ratings from NRA. People would just need to vote for them, no? Why don’t they? Maybe because the majority of voters still believe in the second amendment?
You're using a typical populist attack style, push your opponent in the extreme corner and then attack his so-called extreme viewpoint, but my views are not that extreme:
You seem to paint me in an "anti-gun" camp and trying to away with the 2nd amendment, but I'm not. There's just too many guns going around for that ever to happen. I just think there needs to be more checks and balances before people can buy one and it should be easier to take one away from the wrong people.
Btw, Alan K is doing exactly the same.
Are you guys really so scared of a single European viewpoint that this is the only way you can have a discussion on better rules to deal with the massive amount of guns going around in the US?
The fact is that the laws do protect us. The problem is most criminals buy guns on the street where no law applies. Even with mass shooters, they got their guns legally and passed background checks. Just like you can't check that some driver is going to drive drunk and kill a bunch of people by passing more stringent driving licensing laws, they same is true with gun checks. Legislation only goes so far. More legislation only makes it more difficult for the average person who complies with the law and just wants to go about his business without constant government interference in their lives. Nut jobs and abusers will always slip through the system whether they use guns, knives or trucks.
And the above is in my mind a pretty lame excuse to not try to do better, if the same amount of effort (of the NRA and others) went into more responsible gun use and better checks/balances as currently goes into protecting the 2nd amendment we would be a whole lot better off.
But since we're mostly talking past each other I'm going to leave it at this. I don't even live in the US and hardly visit these days, as you say the majority can rule as they please, however foolish and however vulnerable to lobbying and bribary (of which all sides are usually equally guilty, only one side might have more money to spend than another)
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Since when did anyone believe in the wisdom of the majority?
Not in the wisdom, but in the right to live however they please, including foolishly.
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Not in the wisdom, but in the right to live however they please, including foolishly.
That, Slobodan, has ever been the thin end of the very slippery wedge!
I suspect it accounts for a lot of the shit we see today across the world. There really has to be a better, more efficient way to run things.
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You're using a typical populist attack style, push your opponent in the extreme corner and then attack his so-called extreme viewpoint, but my views are not that extreme:
You seem to paint me in an "anti-gun" camp and trying to away with the 2nd amendment, but I'm not. There's just too many guns going around for that ever to happen. I just think there needs to be more checks and balances before people can buy one and it should be easier to take one away from the wrong people.
Btw, Alan K is doing exactly the same.
Are you guys really so scared of a single European viewpoint that this is the only way you can have a discussion on better rules to deal with the massive amount of guns going around in the US?
That’s funny.
Where on earth did you detect an “attack.” Where did I address you directly, let alone attack you? Where did I say that you are anti-gun, anti-2A, or extreme?
Both Alan and I responded with logical, factual counter-arguments to your posts, providing stats and sources along the way.
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..l There really has to be a better, more efficient way to run things.
Enlightened dictatorship? It has been known to work occasionally (and even that depends on who you ask), but never permanently.
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Where on earth did you detect an “attack.”
Ever so subtly, when I say we need better rules to control guns all you talk about is people want to hang on to the 2nd amendment in a way that suggests that I'm trying to do away with it. It's not a direct ad-hominem attack, but I see it as a deliberate attempt to not have a discussion on better checks and balances by pushing me in the anti-gun/anti 2nd amendment corner. Maybe intended, maybe not intended but enough reason for me to stop here.
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Ever so subtly, when I say we need better rules to control guns all you talk about is people want to hang on to the 2nd amendment...
I am sorry, but that is just not true. You are making a conjecture combining my comments on two different posts: my "talk about is people want to hang on to the 2nd amendment" was in response to your post on "evil" NRA and corrupt politicians, not as a response about "better rules to control guns."
My, and Alan's, response to the latter is that the rules already exist, loopholes are not that big or relevant as most people think. Closing those loopholes would not have prevented a single mass shooting so far (no mass shooter bought their arms at gun shows, for instance, or as a gift from their father, etc.) Most of them passed their background checks.
Could those existing rules be tweaked into "better"? Perhaps. Or new rules introduced? Again, perhaps. It is easy to clamor for "better laws." But once we get to the minutia of what should constitute "better," we will realize we will be talking about the balance between too much government intrusion and public safety. How much we will be willing to sacrifice of the former for the benefit of the latter? Should we penalize 99% of citizens for what 1% might (or not) do? This is where people start to differ. Not in lofty goals, but how to achieve them.
Speaking about Red Flags... the latest incident, with the YouTube shooter: neither mass, nor terrorist, not even a workplace violence, and yet... there were some Red Flags. Family reported her missing and maybe "about to do something." Police found her, stopped her, talked to her 20 minutes, and concluded that she is calm, composed, rational, and no danger to herself and others. She bought a gun, legally, in January, and went to a target practice. And yet, just hours after talking to the police, she walked into YouTube headquarters and shot three people, unrelated to her, and then herself. What kind of law would have prevented all that?
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Ever so subtly, when I say we need better rules to control guns all you talk about is people want to hang on to the 2nd amendment in a way that suggests that I'm trying to do away with it. It's not a direct ad-hominem attack, but I see it as a deliberate attempt to not have a discussion on better checks and balances by pushing me in the anti-gun/anti 2nd amendment corner. Maybe intended, maybe not intended but enough reason for me to stop here.
Many gun owners in America feel that those suggesting tighter rules and regulations under the guise of caring about those being harmed by guns are really after the complete confiscation of guns for political reasons. That these people are truly against the 2nd Amendment but realize only a salami approach of constantly limited escalation will work politically. So gun owners are opposed to any thing that smells like regulation.
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Many gun owners in America feel that those suggesting tighter rules and regulations under the guise of caring about those being harmed by guns are really after the complete confiscation of guns for political reasons. That these people are truly against the 2nd Amendment but realize only a salami approach of constantly limited escalation will work politically. So gun owners are opposed to any thing that smells like regulation.
For instance, a former Supreme Court justice:
John Paul Stevens:
Repeal the Second Amendment
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html
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He's not the only one, Slobodan. A bunch of left-wingers flat admit that they want to confiscate all guns in the hands of civilians. That's one of the things that drives gun sales and NRA contributions out of sight. Frankly, I don't understand why these anti-gun morons don't see that. I guess it's because they're morons. Obama was the most effective gun salesman in the history of the country.
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Well, I'm far from being any kind of leftie, yet I certainly do believe that guns, outwith the home, are a menace to any society.
Nobody ever seems to offer a sound reason why confining the use of anything not a sporting rifle to the home is not a sensible idea. A sporting rifle or shotgun has some legitimacy out in the sticks, but not that I can see, in the city.
If it's supposed to offer the possibility of defence against somebody already with a gun in his hand, then you would need to be a Hollywood hero to get your own weapon out quicker than he can pull the trigger. Yes, I do have a trace of a memory of somebody going back to get a weapon from his car and shooting some dickhead who had attacked a church or some other building.
However, if the fuzz arrives as you are standing there, gun in hand, it's just as likely that you will end up in a drawer in the morgue too, don't you think? As for the scenario that would play where several "good guys" are armed and on the scene, unless they know one another, the situation would become an even more interesting one very quickly.
Neither do I agree with the poster who wrote that some simply want to end gun ownership for "political reasons"; no, I believe the desire is for survival reasons, and has zero to do with politics. Oh yeah, politicos latch onto it and the money rolls in, but that's not to say that the civilians all see it as politics at all. A friggin' gun kills without political discrimination, the perfectly impartial executioner, you might say.
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Well, I'm far from being any kind of leftie, yet I certainly do believe that guns, outwith the home, are a menace to any society.
You're right, Rob. When those guns go out and kill people it's a very bad thing. Same thing when those knives in London go out and murder people.
Actually, it's not the guns or the knives that are at fault. It's the people. When I was a kid there were guns all all around, yet murders were very rare. It's a behavior problem, not a gun problem.
In any case, people who think there's a chance Americans are going to give up their guns are whistling Dixie. Ain't gonna happen. Which is why this thread is so silly.
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You're right, Rob. When those guns go out and kill people it's a very bad thing. Same thing when those knives in London go out and murder people.
Actually, it's not the guns or the knives that are at fault. It's the people. When I was a kid there were guns all all around, yet murders were very rare. It's a behavior problem, not a gun problem.
In any case, people who think there's a chance Americans are going to give up their guns are whistling Dixie. Ain't gonna happen. Which is why this thread is so silly.
I agree with your conclusion, unfortunate as it is.
Knives were ever with us, and in Glasgow the two weapons of choice were, reportedly, the open razor and the bicycle chain. Flick knives came from Italy, and were probably better in visual design than functionality - I think that the chances of the blade becoming detached from the somewhat flimsy pin that held it in place and attached to the grip, might have been high. But as an audiovisual treat, the snick as the thing swung into battle mode was effective. Not that I was ever one for battle modes of any sort, you understand!
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Same thing when those knives in London go out and murder people.
Bear in mind, Russ, that it's a criminal offence to carry a knife in public, concealed or otherwise. I remember seeing people carrying guns and being shocked, as I wasn't used to it. And the first chap I saw was obese, with what I presume to have been his family, and in Arches National Park.
Jeremy
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Unfortunately, the fact that it's a criminal offense to carry a knife doesn't seem to be preventing stabbings, any more than the fact it's a criminal offense to carry a gun in Chicago is preventing shootings.
Let's face it, Jeremy, it's a social problem we're seeing, not an equipment problem.
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.
Speaking about Red Flags... the latest incident, with the YouTube shooter: neither mass, nor terrorist, not even a workplace violence, and yet... there were some Red Flags. Family reported her missing and maybe "about to do something." Police found her, stopped her, talked to her 20 minutes, and concluded that she is calm, composed, rational, and no danger to herself and others. She bought a gun, legally, in January, and went to a target practice. And yet, just hours after talking to the police, she walked into YouTube headquarters and shot three people, unrelated to her, and then herself. What kind of law would have prevented all that?
This is a very good real-world example. I can't think of any kind of law that could have prevented this act. Well, maybe employing smarter cops.
But I would speculate that if that woman didn't have access to a revolver, but only to a knife, she might have found using the knife too messy to express her rage.
Also not as suitable for killing multiple people, and most definitely very appalling for stabbing herself.
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This is a very good real-world example. I can't think of any kind of law that could have prevented this act. Well, maybe employing smarter cops.
But I would speculate that if that woman didn't have access to a revolver, but only to a knife, she might have found using the knife too messy to express her rage.
Also not as suitable for killing multiple people, and most definitely very appalling for stabbing herself.
Agreed, but there's always the impossibilty of getting people to admit that they see the difference in damage that a single, gun-toting nutcase can do, that no single knife maniac or acid thrower can match.
They do, of course, get it, but admitting to that defeats their argument which, of course, just won't do!
It's the basic flaw illustrating the futility of all such threads.
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Agreed, but there's always the impossibilty of getting people to admit that they see the difference in damage that a single, gun-toting nutcase can do, that no single knife maniac or acid thrower can match.
They do, of corse, get it, but admitting to that defeats their argument which, of course, just won't do!
It's the basic flaw illustrating the futility of all such threads.
Spot on. Attempting to draw some kind of equivalence between the very numerous gun deaths and those caused by knives or rental vans is comical.
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Agreed, but there's always the impossibilty of getting people to admit that they see the difference in damage that a single, gun-toting nutcase can do, that no single knife maniac or acid thrower can match.
They do, of corse, get it, but admitting to that defeats their argument which, of course, just won't do!
It's the basic flaw illustrating the futility of all such threads.
Guns are dangerous, more so than knives apparently here in the US. But you're missing the point. People accept the carnage on the roads with 40,000 people killed yearly, a third from drunks and probably a large percentage of people illegally speeding. They accept the carnage because they aren't going to give up their personal cars.
It's the same with guns. Americans are not willing to repeal their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms even though there are those who abuse that right. Most Americans follow gun laws and are careful users just like most people don't drive drunk. We are a country of laws. These laws can be changed. If enough people want a change, then there will be a Constitutional amendment.
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Spot on. Attempting to draw some kind of equivalence between the very numerous gun deaths and those caused by knives or rental vans is comical.
Really? Why do you think it's comical? And what makes you think murders with guns outnumber the totals from knives and vehicles? It's one thing to make an unsupported assertion and another to support it.
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Spot on. Attempting to draw some kind of equivalence between the very numerous gun deaths and those caused by knives or rental vans is comical.
Nothing comical about it. The flaw in that argument is typical: you isolate one aspect and then claim victory. Yes, isolated from other factors, and put in a favorable (for you) context, there is no doubt that a single gun can kill quicker and more efficiently than a single knife. But that is just one aspect. Just one. And only relevant for mass murders, which represent around 1% of all murders.
And yet, as the recent London example shows, knives in aggregate can kill more people there than guns in New York.
Furthermore, knowing that inherent limitation of knives, there are two solutions, both tried and true: multiple assailants with knives can kill, and did (China), dozens of victims in the same attack. Second solution: while it is difficult to kill several grown ups with a single knife and by a single attacker (the assumptions is, they would mount a serious resistance), knowing that inherent limitation of his weapon, the attacker will choose a softer target: young children, trapped in a class. Again, happened somewhere in the world already.
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Guns are dangerous, more so than knives apparently here in the US. But you're missing the point. People accept the carnage on the roads with 40,000 people killed yearly, a third from drunks and probably a large percentage of people illegally speeding. They accept the carnage because they aren't going to give up their personal cars.
It's the same with guns. Americans are not willing to repeal their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms even though there are those who abuse that right. Most Americans follow gun laws and are careful users just like most people don't drive drunk. We are a country of laws. These laws can be changed. If enough people want a change, then there will be a Constitutional amendment.
No, it is not the same at all, as I believe I illustrated some time ago; neither am I missing your point.
A car has a useful, principal purpose which is transportation, and makes our contemporary world go round, especially for those living outwith, but working within cities that may or may not provide a good public transport system to and from metropolitan areas. As it is, even the safest driver in the world is coming to face a situation where running a car anywhere near a city is going to become an untenable concept if only because of parking difficulties.
Your gun, on the other hand, also has a principal purpose which is to kill. That is probably its sole purpose.
Any attempt at making a sensible comparison is futile, as you well know even as you refuse to acknowledge.
"Nothing comical about it. The flaw in that argument is typical: you isolate one aspect and then claim victory. Yes, isolated from other factors, and put in a favorable (for you) context, there is no doubt that a single gun can kill quicker and more efficiently than a single knife. But that is just one aspect. Just one. And only relevant for mass murders, which represent around 1% of all murders."
No, Slobodan, it is not applicable only to mass murder. It is the preferred method of gang violence where guns exist in easy circulation. It also permits the easy killing of a stronger human being than the shooter, a target the killer may never have faced with any alternative weapon.
Yep, have a legally held gun for home protection, but that's the limit that makes any sort of sense that I can see.
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Ok, let's see.
There are things designed to kill (guns) and things designed with good intentions (cars), not to kill. And yet, more people are killed by things not designed to kill than by those that are. On top of that, there are more guns than cars in the US. Which means cars are several times more likely to kill you than guns. Speaking of the road to hell (paved with good intentions)...
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No, it is not the same at all, as I believe I illustrated some time ago; neither am I missing your point.
A car has a useful, principal purpose which is transportation, and makes our contemporary world go round, especially for those living outwith, but working within cities that may or may not provide a good public transport system to and from metropolitan areas. As it is, even the safest driver in the world is coming to face a situation where running a car anywhere near a city is going to become an untenable concept if only because of parking difficulties.
Your gun, on the other hand, also has a principal purpose which is to kill. That is probably its sole purpose.
Any attempt at making a sensible comparison is futile, as you well know even as you refuse to acknowledge.
"Nothing comical about it. The flaw in that argument is typical: you isolate one aspect and then claim victory. Yes, isolated from other factors, and put in a favorable (for you) context, there is no doubt that a single gun can kill quicker and more efficiently than a single knife. But that is just one aspect. Just one. And only relevant for mass murders, which represent around 1% of all murders."
No, Slobodan, it is not applicable only to mass murder. It is the preferred method of gang violence where guns exist in easy circulation. It also permits the easy killing of a stronger human being than the shooter, a target the killer may never have faced with any alternative weapon.
Yep, have a legally held gun for home protection, but that's the limit that makes any sort of sense that I can see.
A gun is far more important and useful than a car. And not only for home protection. It's there to help prevent a tyrant from taking away our freedom. That's why the right to keep and bear arms in protected in our Constitution while the right to drive can be taken away at any time. You really don't understand what's important in our relationship with the people we give power to in government. Or wish to take it. Look at how the re-elected leader of Hungary plans to arbitrarily change his country's Constitution just like Turkey's and Venezuela's. Look at the people in those countries today with their loss of freedom. Not so easy to change the American constitution but that's why we've been free for 240 years.
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A gun is far more important and useful than a car. And not only for home protection. It's there to help prevent a tyrant from taking away our freedom. That's why the right to keep and bear arms in protected in our Constitution while the right to drive can be taken away at any time. You really don't understand what's important in our relationship with the people we give power to in government. Or wish to take it. Look at how the re-elected leader of Hungary plans to arbitrarily change his country's Constitution just like Turkey's and Venezuela's. Look at the people in those countries today with their loss of freedom. Not so easy to change the American constitution but that's why we've been free for 240 years.
Alan, that's a preposterous argument. As you observe, it's your constitution that prevents dictatorship and arbitrary loss of freedom, not guns. We in England have managed to be free for substantially longer than 240 years without widespread ownership of guns.
Show me anyone who thinks his gun (and it has to be a he, obviously) is "more important and useful than [his] car" and I'll show you someone who needs to reconnect with reality.
Jeremy
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A gun is far more important and useful than a car. And not only for home protection. It's there to help prevent a tyrant from taking away our freedom. That's why the right to keep and bear arms in protected in our Constitution while the right to drive can be taken away at any time. You really don't understand what's important in our relationship with the people we give power to in government. Or wish to take it. Look at how the re-elected leader of Hungary plans to arbitrarily change his country's Constitution just like Turkey's and Venezuela's. Look at the people in those countries today with their loss of freedom. Not so easy to change the American constitution but that's why we've been free for 240 years.
Reading about civilians with guns as the means of preventing tyrants taking over the States makes me feel stunned.
There is no need to arm the citizenry to prevent that; a better way is to lock up those many people who come over not one whit less radical/fundamentalist than those in any Middle Eastern country of your choice. From religious, so-called Christian fanatics (unlike Christians I've ever met from other cultures except the Irelands and the West of Scotland); believers in aliens and deniers of global warming to folks who follow the most pointless moments of some pointless person's life on "social media" with quasi-religious fervour, you have all the possible base and catalysts you need to do anything bad that any typical tyrant could think of doing. And most if not all of those folks can own as many guns as they desire to make themselves feel invincible.
Having armed police, armed National Guards, the top military muscle in the world, do you really imagine that any ruler blessed with control of that power base is going to be stopped by civilians? Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, all those places have as many guns as people; where do you find the stability an armed civilian population supposedly brings? Madness and chaos is what you get when guns run out of control and into the hands of people who, by now, don't give a damn if they live or die.
Frankly, your armed civilians represent, to many countries, your greatest long-term threat to survival as a nation.
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Civilians with guns took over Afghanistan and Iran, to name a few from recent history. Civilians with guns defeated Germans in Yugoslavia during WWII, not its army. Civilians with guns took over the US from the British army.
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Civilians with guns took over Afghanistan and Iran, to name a few from recent history. Civilians with guns defeated Germans in Yugoslavia during WWII, not its army. Civilians with guns took over the US from the British army.
Civilians with guns in Afghanistan and Iran are hardly good advocates for similar scenarios playing out better in the US; it's quite likely you'd get a domestic version of Libya today, not any better an outcome.
Civilians with guns in the US must have outnumbered the BA, I'd imagine, but either way, I'm sure the BA was delighted to get away from a land where all sorts of snakes can kill you when only the adder, in extreme cases, can in the UK! Don't forget, from the British point of view, America was also used as a punishment, a distant place to where unfortunately unpopular people could be banished (didn't you read Forever Amber as a child?). Maybe that's why the US and Australia seem to hold similar places within the British psyche...
And yes, civilians with guns, local knowledge and unlimited foreign supply of whatever it takes kicked the US out of Vietnam, too, and as with the Brits in America, I'm pretty sure those GIs were just as delighted to be the hell out of there.
Yugoslavia and northern Italy had partisans, as had France, but I think Germany had greater problems to think about closer to home than concentrate too much on those further away.
But anyway, it wasn't civilian guns took out Hitler, who took himself out; it was international armies who took out his war machine, and several different armies combined, along with one, terrible tactical mistake about Russia!
But the little elephant is this one: some armies that are defeated, such as in the case of the US in Vietnam, were not run by politicians without any sense of the value of human life, because had they been, the resulting bloodbath would have annihilated some entire countries, providing a pretty pointless victory. The tyrant of Alan's nightmares is hardly likely to share the same fatal weakness of a normal sense of the value of life, of anyone's life, other than his own. Those armed forces you already have, and that that said, probably elected tyrant would then control, would wipe out anything in their path. And remember, this would be no foreign expedition, this would all be played out on the homeland with no tv showing heroes coming home in body bags from fighting on some foreign land. The first thing you'd lose is an uncontrolled media. And you already know what media can do in America.
The even smaller, baby elephant could be seen in the case of the American Civil War. No foreign invaders there, were there? More like too many guns, period. On the other hand, I'm sure somebody could make an argument about it all being the fault of the black slaves.
Words, words, words. It all just rolls interminably round and round like some crazy rabbit stuffed with Duracells.
Rob
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Alan, that's a preposterous argument. As you observe, it's your constitution that prevents dictatorship and arbitrary loss of freedom, not guns. We in England have managed to be free for substantially longer than 240 years without widespread ownership of guns.
Show me anyone who thinks his gun (and it has to be a he, obviously) is "more important and useful than [his] car" and I'll show you someone who needs to reconnect with reality.
Jeremy
Jeremy. It is obvious to most readers if not you, that it was your countrymen the English who ruled over America and Americans while you English were supposedly "free". And it was the American patriot in 1776 with his gun that help free ourselves from your rule. I'm sorry you're still upset about it. Maybe we should get rid of our weapons and you can give it another try.
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There is no need to arm the citizenry to prevent that; a better way is to lock up those many people who come over not one whit less radical/fundamentalist than those in any Middle Eastern country of your choice. From religious, so-called Christian fanatics (unlike Christians I've ever met from other cultures except the Irelands and the West of Scotland); believers in aliens and deniers of global warming to folks who follow the most pointless moments of some pointless person's life on "social media" with quasi-religious fervour, you have all the possible base and catalysts you need to do anything bad that any typical tyrant could think of doing. And most if not all of those folks can own as many guns as they desire to make themselves feel invincible.
I don't know of any deniers of global warming who have taken up arms and started to shoot people. I suppose you can find one or two. But Americans have pretty much accepted the ballet box and our federal and republican form of government. We still respect the decisions of our courts.
Having armed police, armed National Guards, the top military muscle in the world, do you really imagine that any ruler blessed with control of that power base is going to be stopped by civilians? Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, all those places have as many guns as people; where do you find the stability an armed civilian population supposedly brings? Madness and chaos is what you get when guns run out of control and into the hands of people who, by now, don't give a damn if they live or die.
You're also making the assuption that the Admirals and Generals of the US Navy and US Army, USAF etc would support a dictatorial regime. In our country, all military as well as all politicians swear an oath to Defend and Protect our Constitution, not the President, or other Generals, or the government. So you're assuming that these General and Admirals will violate their oath en masse. I think that most will remain patriots and defend the Constitution against tyrannical government and act militarily to defend the Constitution not the tyrant. We're not Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Even if I'm wrong and the generals support the dictator, and this is where the 2nd Amendment comes in, citizens will support their State and their State's National Guard which comes from each state. If the US National Army supported a dictator as you suggest will happen, then the several states would activate their National Guard and all their citizens who also bear arms as protected by the Constitution and go against the National Government. This is why the States insisted on the 2nd Amendment to be part of the Constitution before they would agree to join the United States. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to help prevent a National Army from taking over and asserting its power and defend a dictatorial regime. It happened in our own Civil War when the Armies and people of the South rose up against the Federal government. One can argue whether that was a smart or moral thing. But the point is that they were able to do it because they had the equivalent of a National Guard in each State and an armed citizenry.
I think part of the disconnect between Europeans and Americans on this issue is that Europe was ruled so long in the past by monarchs, Czars, and other tyrants. So there's a history of leaving power with the government. That's not so with America. Most Americans wanted their own political power and not be controlled by the English tyrant King Geroge III any more than current Brits want to be controlled by those nosey bureaucratic gnomes in Brussels. Americans who are not brain washed by the Liberal press see their guns as the instrument of their freedom and are not willing to give them up.
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Americans who are not brain washed by the Liberal press see their guns as the instrument of their freedom and are not willing to give them up.
Oh, freedom from tyranny must be precisely the reason these Michigan gun owners do this (https://www.migunowners.org/forum/showthread.php?279912-Gun-fondling):
Seems like three or four times a week I take a gun out of the safe and fondle it for the night. Dry fire it. Stare at the lines of the gun. . . . Love the feel of the gun, the lines, the weight of it. I could stare and play with it for hours! I do do that!
I just did the same thing with my AR15. I forgot how good it felt in my hands with just standard handguards on it. So simple and streamlined.
Fondle? You know, slip your finger in the mag well. To which someone else replies Prom Night drill....
Does anyone else routinely change up the accessories on their black guns and pistols just for something different? . . . . It's like the MAN version of playing dress up LOL. To which someone adds, Sometimes I play dress up with my AR15 too... Just get bored and change out accessories and what not just to change things up.
[Fondling your gun will] make you go blind
Here we have Michigan gun owners comparing how they fondle their guns to masturbation, inserting a finger inside a teen girl, and dressing up their gun like a kids game. Those are actual quotes. That is the cultural and psycho-sexual world they live in, as stated in their own words. If this is what they freely admit to in writing in public, imagine what they only share privately while drunk, or are too ashamed to admit to others.
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or
Oh, freedom from tyranny must be precisely the reason the many camera owners do this[/url]:
Seems like three or four times a week I take a camera out of the bag and fondle it for the night. Dry fire it. Stare at the lines of the camera. . . . Love the feel of the camera, the lines, the weight of it. I could stare and play with it for hours! I do do that!
I just did the same thing with my A7RIII. I forgot how good it felt in my hands with just standard battery grip on it. So simple and streamlined.
Fondle? You know, slip your finger over the shutter.
Does anyone else routinely change up the accessories on their black bodies and lenses just for something different? . . . . It's like the MAN version of playing dress up LOL. To which someone adds, Sometimes I play dress up with my A7RIII too... Just get bored and change out accessories and what not just to change things up.
[Fondling your camera will] make you go blind
[/quote]
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...inserting a finger inside a teen girl...
Ah, you homophobe you!
It is 21st century, on a prom night, one can insert a finger inside the whole alphabet soup of freaks, not just girls ;)
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My first "serious" camera was Canon FTbN, with a 50/1/4 lens. I was choosing between a Nikon model and Canon based on... wait!.... the color of lens reflection on their advertisements in Modern/Popular Photography. Decided on Canon, as I preferred their anti-reflection coating (purple), vs. Nikon's green. Like choosing a girlfriend based on preference for blondes or brunettes :)
When I got it, I could spend hours just looking at that beautiful purple reflection on the 50/1.4 lens under various angels and lights, holding it in my hands, or putting it on a table and admiring from a distance. By the way, it had to be 50/1.4, yes, sir, not a lowly 1.8, as real men must have big... lenses!
One day I noticed a tiny speck of dirt on the surface of that lens. O, horror! Immediately reached for a lens-cleaning liquid and a q-tip and started gently rubbing the curvy surface of the lens in a circular motion. Coming close to the surface with my mouth, gently blowing off the dust and breathing warm, moist air onto it. No matter what I did, the dirt was gone, of course, but now in its place were streakes from the cleaning liquid, bigger than the original speck of dirt. There goes my beautiful, perfect, round, purple lens surface, never again virgin-clean :'(
It occurred to me that the solution is to expand the circular motion across the whole surface of the lens. No luck... still could see the streaks. How about if I just squirt the liquid onto the lens, without using the q-tip? Surely it will quickly evaporate with no streaks? And so I did. Then watched in horror how the liquid goes beyond the edges of the glass, slowly dripping from one lens surface onto another, inside the lens.
My first love affair with a lens ended in a visit to the nearest camera repair shop, where they disassembled the whole lens, putting their dirty fingers inside, touching and rubbing each lens element.
I could never look at that lens the same way after that.
Hope you enjoyed it. Next installment: how I use a monopod. Stay tuned.
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Americans who are not brain washed by the Liberal press see their guns as the instrument of their freedom and are not willing to give them up.
Simpletons.
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Jeremy. It is obvious to most readers if not you, that it was your countrymen the English who ruled over America and Americans while you English were supposedly "free". And it was the American patriot in 1776 with his gun that help free ourselves from your rule. I'm sorry you're still upset about it. Maybe we should get rid of our weapons and you can give it another try.
Ah yes, I remember it well. As I said to George at the time, you can't win 'em all, old chap.
That was not the argument you put forward in the post to which I responded. You were not asserting that guns supported revolution: quite the contrary.
Jeremy
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Ah yes, I remember it well. As I said to George at the time, you can't win 'em all, old chap.
That was not the argument you put forward in the post to which I responded. You were not asserting that guns supported revolution: quite the contrary.
Jeremy
Jeremy, it never is. That's the nature of the beast.
Funny reading remarks about the Brits and the States-as-were at that time; you could easily make the mistake of believing that the Americans (white) were the natural inhabitants, first-owners of the USA-to-be! Not a mention of the smothered Indian tribes, not a peep of the inflow of all manner of different European outcast, exploiter, adventurer who was either banished there, went there to seek his fortune. Somehow, there is this mythical land and race of indigenous, supreme whites that was invaded by England at some stage, an England then repelled and sent packing back across the Atlantic. Who, then, were the people who remained post WOI? Or the ones who just moved over to the Bahamas etc. post Civil War?
Like most of history, it assumes a rosy glow of righteousness on all sides, when reality is really never simple and always stained with guilt, remose and a thick coating of lies that tries to make it all palatable.
Why do successive US and UK governments always allude to some "special relationship"? Basically, I think they both feel a bit unsure about it, but know that it perhaps comes down to the common language (which is common not by accident)) and that like it or not, old roots run deep. I suppose it's why parts of Canada and Louisiana still cling to French... it offers the imaginary glamour of something "extraordinary", much as any other special ability might do; in other words, they don't feel themseves to be only anglophones, but something a grade higher up the pole of life and comparative standing.
"I think part of the disconnect between Europeans and Americans on this issue is that Europe was ruled so long in the past by monarchs, Czars, and other tyrants. So there's a history of leaving power with the government. That's not so with America. Most Americans wanted their own political power and not be controlled by the English tyrant King Geroge III any more than current Brits want to be controlled by those nosey bureaucratic gnomes in Brussels. Americans who are not brain washed by the Liberal press see their guns as the instrument of their freedom and are not willing to give them up." ....... Alan
Power was given to government precisely to remove it from the favour and gift of monarch. And by the way, what a broad brush you use to paint monarchy!
Your local problem is that you can't even trust your elected governments because you can all see just how indebted its officers are to different power group interests. The concept of altruistic governance, i.e. for the greater good, no longer exists.
Sadly, that is something that has spread almost everywhere else, too, if not quite in so obvious a manner, and whether the US changes its Constitution or not, the result will still be as the brokers decide it will be, laws or no laws.
In truth, all your much vaunted freedoms are largely illusory for the simple reason so often overlooked: one's freedom, as in total, will always impinge upon that of somebody else with a different agenda. The sensible solution is to limit freedoms to the level that those remaining affect the safety of nobody else. A good place to start would be guns. Of course you can't agree: that would shatter your illusions of total freedom, including that of killing anybody who crosses your path, should the idea alight between your ears some sunny morning as you are on your way to work or even, perhaps, to school.
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Ah yes, I remember it well. As I said to George at the time, you can't win 'em all, old chap.
That was not the argument you put forward in the post to which I responded. You were not asserting that guns supported revolution: quite the contrary.
Jeremy
There's no need for revolution if the Constitution is being followed. Revolution will occur if some tyrant ignores the Constitution. The 2nd Amendment gives power to the 50 Sovereign States and individual citizens to put down a tyrannical national government.
There are those in America who want an all-encompassing national government. A government that would control thought and action. They understand that the 2nd Amendment will give power to the individual to stop that tyranny. Hence, they work overtime to rid the country of private guns in the hands of individuals using the depraved action of a few as an excuse to ban guns and do away with the 2nd Amendment, or water it down. Go to Venezuela and see how guns are banned and people have lost their freedoms. That poor Chinese fellow standing unarmed in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square because the government banned guns. What chance did he have? What chance did all the Chinese people have for true representative government? And now Xi will be President for life like the Maos and Castros before him not having to answer to an unarmed people.
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... There are those in America who want an all-encompassing national government. A government that would control thought and action. They understand that the 2nd Amendment will give power to the individual to stop that tranny...
There is quite a chance that it might actually be a tranny, given the current trend ;)
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There is a quite a chance that it might actually be a tranny, given the current trend ;)
Corrected. I thought about leaving it as he/she would make an interesting president.
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...
In truth, all your much vaunted freedoms are largely illusory for the simple reason so often overlooked: one's freedom, as in total, will always impinge upon that of somebody else with a different agenda. The sensible solution is to limit freedoms to the level that those remaining affect the safety of nobody else. A good place to start would be guns. Of course you can't agree: that would shatter your illusions of total freedom, including that of killing anybody who crosses your path, should the idea alight between your ears some sunny morning as you are on your way to work or even, perhaps, to school.
Well, that thought has crossed my mind on occasion. Hasn't it ever crossed yours? Good thing I don't own any guns.
How about you? :)
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Well, that thought has crossed my mind on occasion. Hasn't it ever crossed yours? Good thing I don't own any guns.
How about you? :)
An interesting post.
I make a statement, you quote it and then ask if it had ever crossed my mind...
No, of course it hadn't; it implanted itself into LuLa courtesy one of those spectral tyrants that populate your nightmares.
They say gin is back in fashion in the UK; what's the name of the game in the States?
Regarding gun ownership: since you ask, I did own an air pistol as a kid, but I realised I was a better shot with a catapult and ball bearings or glass marbles. But it was a cheap air pistol, so that's not so surprising.
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Funny reading remarks about the Brits and the States-as-were at that time; you could easily make the mistake of believing that the Americans (white) were the natural inhabitants, first-owners of the USA-to-be! Not a mention of the smothered Indian tribes,
Yes. Imagine where we'd be now if the Indians had had guns...
Jeremy
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A lot of them did have guns, Jeremy. They just got outgunned.
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A lot of them did have guns, Jeremy. They just got outgunned.
Well, you know who sold them the weapons!
Can't fool me: I saw the movie.
:-)
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Yes. Imagine where we'd be now if the Indians had had guns...
Which simply illustrates the importance of gun ownership ;)
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Which simply illustrates the importance of gun ownership ;)
Which is why the North Koreans want nukes. They're not stupid.
Now if I can only squeeze one in my garage.
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But many of the unarmed people who were killed by police were not resisting arrest.
Excuse me? I'm very interested in this subject, having worked closely beside law enforcement in the US for 28+ years. Please provide specifics. One of the cultural shifts/problems I'm interested in is exactly in this arena. If you have hard data on folk who have put their hands in the air, standing still, verbally confirming the officers' directions and following them, and then being executed by police while standing still (or otherwise as directed), I'm VERY interested in having this information. Thanks.
Rand
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A few years back, two scholars, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, analyzed 323 movements resisting tyranny from around the world that occurred between 1990 and 2006. Their conclusion:
"The central contention of this study is that nonviolent resistance methods are likely to be more successful than violent methods in achieving strategic objectives."
In fact, they found that nonviolent campaigns were twice as successful as the violent campaigns.
These are serious scholars. Chenoweth and Stephan's book on the subject won the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, given annually by the American Political Science Association in recognition of the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the U.S. in the previous calendar year.
Incidentally Chenoweth went into the research as a true believer in the efficacy of violence to overthrow tyranny. What she found convinced her to change her mind.
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If you have hard data on folk who have put their hands in the air, standing still, verbally confirming the officers' directions and following them, and then being executed by police while standing still (or otherwise as directed), I'm VERY interested in having this information. Thanks.
Rand
Liberals will say it is the policeman's duty to risk his own life and de-escalate the situation without using lethal force whenever possible. While I can appreciate the bravery of a cop who does just that, I just can't bring myself to give a sh!t when the suspect resists arrest. Sorry.
Case in point. This white cop chose not to shoot a black suicidal man wielding a gun, and the cop was fired from his job for not shooting. Is this cop a hero for not shooting? Maybe. Should cops be expected to be heroes? No.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/police-officer-wins-settlement-city-fired-him (https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/police-officer-wins-settlement-city-fired-him)
(http://is2.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music128/v4/9a/42/43/9a4243c2-5a18-982b-4eb8-ace97d1bbd63/source/170x170bb.jpg)
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A few years back, two scholars...
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ivory tower
overruled ( by me)
bad example...
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A few years back, two scholars, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, analyzed 323 movements resisting tyranny from around the world that occurred between 1990 and 2006. Their conclusion:
"The central contention of this study is that nonviolent resistance methods are likely to be more successful than violent methods in achieving strategic objectives."
In fact, they found that nonviolent campaigns were twice as successful as the violent campaigns.
These are serious scholars. Chenoweth and Stephan's book on the subject won the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, given annually by the American Political Science Association in recognition of the best book on government, politics, or international affairs published in the U.S. in the previous calendar year.
Incidentally Chenoweth went into the research as a true believer in the efficacy of violence to overthrow tyranny. What she found convinced her to change her mind.
Tell that to the unarmed "tank man" who stood up to the Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square. He disappeared shortly thereafter, many said executed by the Chinese government. Whether he was or wasn't, hundreds of other Chinese were documented as executed or just plain shot summarily for their peaceful demonstration.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-square-what-happened-to-tank-man-9483398.html
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Tell that to the unarmed "tank man" who stood up to the Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square.
No one claims that nonviolent civil resistance works 100% of the time. The empirical evidence shows that it is twice as effective as violent insurgency. Moreover, nonviolent campaigns are becoming increasingly successful and common. That's the cold, hard reality of it.
Here is Chenoweth giving a brief presentation on her research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w
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In fact, they found that nonviolent campaigns were twice as successful as the violent campaigns.
If civil disobedience works better than armed rebellion, perhaps collective suicide would work even better still, according to one popular passivist.
Yeah, right. I'd rather take my chances, thank you very much. Better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.
(https://i0.wp.com/www.quantumcannibals.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/gandhi-jews-racism.png?resize=800%2C522)
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No one claims that nonviolent civil resistance works 100% of the time. The empirical evidence shows that it is twice as effective as violent insurgency. Moreover, nonviolent campaigns are becoming increasingly successful and common. That's the cold, hard reality of it.
Here is Chenoweth giving a brief presentation on her research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w
Chenoweth and Stephan are anti-gun advocates. Hence their support from liberal anti-gun organizations. Your post: "A few years back, two scholars, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, analyzed 323 movements resisting tyranny from around the world that occurred between 1990 and 2006." Question: what kind of movements? There aren't that many countries in the world. And all these happened over a 16 years period?
According to one article I read, "Their team identified over 200 violent revolutions and over 100 nonviolent campaigns. Twenty-six percent of the violent revolutions were successful, while 53 percent of the nonviolent campaigns succeeded."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Chenoweth
What does that mean? What's the difference between a revolution and campaign. Maybe the violent revolutions failed because the government had bigger guns and the non violent campaigns, whatever that is, succeeded more because the people in power were not threatened by the demands of the protestors. Snowflakes, both of them.
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... bad example...
Why?
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Chenoweth and Stephan are anti-gun advocates. Hence their support from liberal anti-gun organizations. Your post: "A few years back, two scholars, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, analyzed 323 movements resisting tyranny from around the world that occurred between 1990 and 2006." Question: what kind of movements? There aren't that many countries in the world. And all these happened over a 16 years period?
According to one article I read, "Their team identified over 200 violent revolutions and over 100 nonviolent campaigns. Twenty-six percent of the violent revolutions were successful, while 53 percent of the nonviolent campaigns succeeded."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Chenoweth
What does that mean? What's the difference between a revolution and campaign. Maybe the violent revolutions failed because the government had bigger guns and the non violent campaigns, whatever that is, succeeded more because the people in power were not threatened by the demands of the protestors. Snowflakes, both of them.
You could answer all your questions quickly and easily by reading their research! It's not difficult to find it online.
And in the case of Chenoweth, before becoming a professor she had wanted to join the military. I have no idea about Stephan's background.
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... And in the case of Chenoweth, before becoming a professor she had wanted to join the military.
Spurned lover syndrome.
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You could answer all your questions quickly and easily by reading their research! It's not difficult to find it online.
And in the case of Chenoweth, before becoming a professor she had wanted to join the military. I have no idea about Stephan's background.
Why don't you read it and report back. Anyone can takes a bunch of statistics and draw erroneous conclusions.
It could well be that conflicts that devolve into armed conflict are the kind where the government feels threatened with their existential survival. So their position requires armed opposition to attain change which has a smaller success rate.
Meanwhile, in those examples of non-violent changes, these had a chance of occurring anyway. So the opposition had no reason to resort to arms using more political persuasion. Without analyzing each and every example, in each in all their complexity, you're asking me to take their conclusion on faith that they interpreted the statistics correctly. That's too big a leap of faith.
Even if they are right, what does a people do who are being abused? Do they protest like "tank man" and disappear? How long do you have to wait for things to change before it's OK to resort to violence for your freedom? Should American patriots waited from 1776 until 1948 to be freed from English rule along with Gandhi's India? Or should they have resorted to violence sooner as they did? It's easy to suggest patience sitting in an Ivory Tower where the biggest problem you have today is what you're going to eat for lunch. Meanwhile, people who are being abused daily by a tyrant like Assad with death and maiming and insults and starvation are faced with the opportunity to shoot their way to freedom and life.
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You can't have a pussyfied nation suddenly turning into a fierce army.
Do you think Australia, Canadian, New Zealand, British (just to pick a few) armies lack capability? All have current military operations under way. All do not have "right to bear arms" and in fact have tight gun control.
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Everything reaches its limit of elasticity and, like the unlucky knickers, snaps at the worst possible moment, just as you are wearing your miniest mini.
It's become plain to see that this "debate" depends not on the limits of normal human elasticity nor, indeed, upon the value-for-money grace of Calvin Klein, but upon the swinging in the wind steel balls paradigm, where a pair of globes bang together, mindlessly, until somebody just grabs them and renders them still.
Heysoos, you guys sure display a fine appetite for running round in circles! Unfortunately, there's no acceleration involved, so no chance of the final solution of a perfect vanishing act into a black hole which, I suppose, brings us back to your Calvin Kleins...
And its a shame. On other matters some of you display a fine sense of balance, some objectivity and the like, but in these threads, that old Greek god proves he had many sons with bad feet...
Where in hell do you find the patience (or impatience) to keep hacking at dead horses?
;-)
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Everything reaches its limit of elasticity and, like the unlucky knickers, snaps at the worst possible moment, just as you are wearing your miniest mini.
It's become plain to see that this "debate" depends not on the limits of normal human elasticity nor, indeed, upon the value-for-money grace of Calvin Klein, but upon the swinging in the wind steel balls paradigm, where a pair of globes bang together, mindlessly, until somebody just grabs them and renders them still.
Heysoos, you guys sure display a fine appetite for running round in circles! Unfortunately, there's no acceleration involved, so no chance of the final solution of a perfect vanishing act into a black hole which, I suppose, brings us back to your Calvin Kleins...
And its a shame. On other matters some of you display a fine sense of balance, some objectivity and the like, but in these threads, that old Greek god proves he had many sons with bad feet...
Where in hell do you find the patience (or impatience) to keep hacking at dead horses?
;-)
What you are basically asking is, why is there an interweb?
People no longer gather in town squares to hear the latest news and gossip from their neighbours. We now have the interweb instead. Except forum participants are only virtual neighbours so we don't feel we have to be tolerant or polite. Some people confuse disagreement with attack, the way 14 year olds do. I hope sociologists are studying these patterns of behaviour. Now and then I'll look for an old song on youtube and start reading the comments. It's astonishing how quickly a few comments about an old half-forgotten song can turn into a vicious insult-fest. This might be a new addendum to the Turing test.
Another thing is in forums such as this, our conversation companions are selected based on them accessing this site. In the real world, you wouldn't choose your conversation companions that way, i.e., just because they happen to be walking down the same street. It's a bizarre way to meet people, we just think it's normal.
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Why don't you read it and report back. Anyone can takes a bunch of statistics and draw erroneous conclusions.
I'm not sure if you understand how the academic system works Alan. Those two scholars spent years of their lives investigating these issues, after having received extensive training. Their work is then critiqued colleagues, anonymous reviewers, and critics who have genuine expertise. Only then is their work published. Chenoweth went into the research a true believer in the efficacy of violence to overthrown tyranny. Her views changed 180 degrees.
You on the other hand do not have anything like the expertise they have. You have not received anything like the training they have. You have not done the research. You're merely sounding out ideas in an Internet discussion forum. A little humility on your part would go a long way. Your questions indicate you know practically nothing about how in real life people use nonviolence to overthrow dictatorships -- which is not a criticism. Most people do not. Learn about it. I'm not about to hold your hand and guide you through the literature. I'm merely reporting their findings and pointing out some resources. Do the work yourself.
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Wow! Now I guess you understand how ignorant you are, Alan. You haven't spent the required years mumbling to yourself and thumbing your lip while "researching." You simply don't have the credentials to be able to mumble and thumb along with those properly credentialed. You should be very, very sorry that Damon isn't going to hold your hand and guide you through the literature so you'll become enlightened.
When I hear about how effective Gandhi's passive resistance was I always wonder how effective it'd have been had the "occupiers" been German or Russian instead of British.
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I wonder what "tank man" thinks of the book.
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This blind belief in the truthfulness of academic research is outright scary. As I said many times, science is the new religion for some.
How many studies that took years to research, were peer-reviewed, and published in respectable publications, were found to be faulty and debunked either contemporaneously or a bit later?
Academia lives in the proverbial ivory tower, detached from the real world. They construct models, based on simplified parameters, supposedly mimicking real life. It is a dangerous illusion to mistake academic models for real life. They are certainly useful, one of the aspects to be taken into account, but they are not a substitute for real life, and certainly not treated as a new religious dogma.
I had professors and assistants in business school who never set foot outside of academia all their life. And yet they were attempting to explain to us, practicing managers and executives, how things work in business. Really!? Surely they can teach numbers and formulas, concepts and analytical tools, and we gladly absorbed that. But claiming to know how the corporate world works from the inside, based on their models? Claiming it is all there is to know? Now, I am not saying that those who practice something know everything there is to know about the subject. Neither side should attempt to claim the monopoly on the whole truth. We need both, but a little humility would not hurt bookworms either.
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... When I hear about how effective Gandhi's passive resistance was I always wonder how effective it'd have been had the "occupiers" been German or Russian instead of British.
Quote of the year!!! Brilliant!
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When I hear about how effective Gandhi's passive resistance was I always wonder how effective it'd have been had the "occupiers" been German or Russian instead of British.
Gandhi led several hundred million of his people to freedom from the tyranny of British colonial rule. And you? Have you been to the places in India and Pakistan where the British gunned down hundreds of Indians at a time? Have you taken the time to research British colonial violence in the subcontinent? The millions who died of starvation? Do you know anything at all about the world's first nonviolent army, the Khudai Khidmatagars? Do you know anything their uniforms, their band, their training camps, their militant and civil wings, their oath? Do you know who led it?
Regarding the Nazis, share with us your knowledge about the nonviolence Europeans did undertake against Nazism, and analyze its effectiveness. Can you even name a single example? Do you know anything about this topic? Or are you just sounding off with no intent of understanding how people actually do overthrow tyranny most effectively?
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Wow! Now I guess you understand how ignorant you are, Alan. You haven't spent the required years mumbling to yourself and thumbing your lip while "researching." You simply don't have the credentials to be able to mumble and thumb along with those properly credentialed. You should be very, very sorry that Damon isn't going to hold your hand and guide you through the literature so you'll become enlightened.
When I hear about how effective Gandhi's passive resistance was I always wonder how effective it'd have been had the "occupiers" been German or Russian instead of British.
Very good points. It wouldn't have been effective at all. And any alliance partners would keep quiet.
Regarding the Nazis, share with us your knowledge about the nonviolence Europeans did undertake against Nazism, and analyze its effectiveness. Can you even name a single example? Do you know anything about this topic? Or are you just sounding off with no intent of understanding how people actually do overthrow tyranny most effectively?
Just look at the history of the former Czechoslovakia.
Czechs and Slovaks, preferring always peace to war, were first betrayed by France and UK in 1938 when Hitler decided to take over, and again in 1968 when the Russians invaded (after the very peaceful Prague spring). Although the west helped the refugees who managed to get out, there was no action or warning by USA or the western Europe to Russians "to get ready" as now by Trump and Macron.
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Academia lives in the proverbial ivory tower, detached from the real world.
I'm sorry that you had such an awful experience in business school. It seems to have scarred you for life. It must have been simply terrible being subject to all that education. I bet you've advised your children to forget about university then, so as not to make the same mistake you did!
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This blind belief in the truthfulness of academic research is outright scary. As I said many times, science is the new religion for some.
How many studies that took years to research, were peer-reviewed, and published in respectable publications, were found to be faulty and debunked either contemporaneously or a bit later?
Academia lives in the proverbial ivory tower, detached from the real world. They construct models, based on simplified parameters, supposedly mimicking real life. It is a dangerous illusion to mistake academic models for real life. They are certainly useful, one of the aspects to be taken into account, but they are not a substitute for real life, and certainly not treated as a new religious dogma.
I had professors and assistants in business school who never set foot outside of academia all their life. And yet they were attempting to explain to us, practicing managers and executives, how things work in business. Really!? Surely they can teach numbers and formulas, concepts and analytical tools, and we gladly absorbed that. But claiming to know how the corporate world works from the inside, based on their models? Claiming it is all there is to know? Now, I am not saying that those who practice something know everything there is to know about the subject. Neither side should attempt to claim the monopoly on the whole truth. We need both, but a little humility would not hurt bookworms either.
Good points again, and not only in the fields of violence or business.
For example, most doctors and nutritionists were at one time taught and still believe that cooking with olive oil and drinking milk is healthy (despite numerous new studies which debunked those myths).
https://www.pritikin.com/your-health/healthy-living/eating-right/1103-whats-wrong-with-olive-oil.html
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Wow! Now I guess you understand how ignorant you are, Alan. You haven't spent the required years mumbling to yourself and thumbing your lip while "researching." You simply don't have the credentials to be able to mumble and thumb along with those properly credentialed. You should be very, very sorry that Damon isn't going to hold your hand and guide you through the literature so you'll become enlightened.
When I hear about how effective Gandhi's passive resistance was I always wonder how effective it'd have been had the "occupiers" been German or Russian instead of British.
Regarding the last paragraph, Russ: people tend to forget that a country running any empire at a time when the motherland, the UK in this instance, is almost broke and carrying a massive financial debt to her allies during WW2, is in no position either to care or be able to engage in distant fisticuffs half-a-world away.
Independence was given in August, 1947, a very short time after the end of WW2. The cost of trying to carry responsibility for maintenance of one of the most massive railroad systems of the day, for example, is something it couldn't even begin to attempt; it can hardly afford to keep its national one working properly today, never mind the Indian one. All the additional administrative, defence and political pressures of hanging on would have been impossible, never mind trying to fight the very people who had fought and sacrificed on your side during WW2!
Apart from logistics and costs, there comes a time when the people you have had some sort of authority over have developed their own statesmen and functionaries, and you become very surplus to requirements.
Imagine if Britain had tried to ignore the social tides, the zeitgeist of the period; she would have worn herself out trying to maintain an increasingly impossible status quo.
Cynically, I'm damned sure she's glad to be freed of so many widespread responsibilities; as for raping the country, some see it as unification, to a degree, establishment of a fair legal system, education etc. etc. India was no single, absolutely united and smoothly functioning state at the time of the British intervention. Apart from having close to 400 languages (so I have repeatedly been informed), it's social structure was as near to despotic as our own sweet Alan fears he may live to see in the States unless all his fellows are able to outgun the official military.
On a personal level, all to which I can attest is this: on the day we left our home to go across the country to Bombay (where I spent a delightful six weeks or so having the then time of my life) to catch the ship back to Britain, our staff were, as were we, in tears. They for the loss of jobs and future uncertainty and, I believe, out of affection; we for the loss of people we'd known and shared many years of life beside. Not so oddly, the early life of Sally Mann, and its emotional connections, comes to mind.
Rob
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I'm sorry that you had such an awful experience in business school. It seems to have scarred you for life. It must have been simply terrible being subject to all that education. I bet you've advised your children to forget about university then, so as not to make the same mistake you did!
Attempt at sarcasm duly noted, though misdirected.
I love education, theories, books, etc. Where did I say otherwise? I actually said "Neither side should attempt to claim the monopoly on the whole truth. We need both..."
I did not have "awful" experience in business school. On the contrary. Great theories learned, horizons expanded. Late night/early morning drinks with a sitting director of the Federal Reserve Board.
All I am saying is that everything in this world, science and academia included, should be taken with a grain of salt, not treated as a religious dogma.
As for the relationship between theory and practice, I swear by this quote from Miles Davis, an advice to a young musician (quoted from memory): "First, learn all there is to learn about music. Then, FORGET it all and play until you become dizzy."
It is a yin and yang thing, Damon. Not just yin, nor yang.
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Just look at the history of the former Czechoslovakia.
I'm talking about the nonviolent direct action that Europeans took directly against the Nazis in Europe during WWII. Do any of you know anything about this topic? Anything at all?
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This blind belief in the truthfulness of academic research is outright scary. As I said many times, science is the new religion for some.
Who ever said "blind belief" other than you?
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I'm talking about the nonviolent direct action that Europeans took directly against the Nazis in Europe during WWII. Do any of you know anything about this topic? Anything at all?
Do enlighten us.
Otherwise, your posts remind me of the old joke:
A priest/imam/rabbi/ ask his faithfuls: "Do you know the story of the prophet X?"
The faithfuls: "No"
The priest: "Shame on you for not knowing it!"
Next time, he asks the same question: "Do you know the story of the prophet X?"
The faithfuls, cleverly answered: "Yes, of course!"
The priest: "Great! No need to tell you then."
A few weeks later, the same question: "Do you know the story of the prophet X?"
The faithfuls, even more clever this time: "Some of us do, some of us don't."
The priest: "Great! Those who do can then tell those who don't."
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I'm talking about the nonviolent direct action that Europeans took directly against the Nazis in Europe during WWII. Do any of you know anything about this topic? Anything at all?
I read about some of those theories, specifically by George Paxton, but any such naive ideas have been proven wrong by history and many other scholars.
Michael C. Stratford argues that nonviolent national defence is unlikely to be effective against ruthless regimes such as Nazi Germany. Stratford has provided a valuable service in undertaking an examination of this issue. I agree with him that occasionally too much weight has been put on some of the successes of nonviolent action against the Nazis, such as the resistance of the Norwegian teachers.
http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/87Nazis/
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I read about some of those theories, specifically by George Paxton, but any such naive ideas have been proven wrong by history and many other scholars.
But you don't know any actual, historic examples. You can't name them, what their tactics were. You cannot place them with the broader evolution of our collective understanding of how to most effectively topple ruthless dictatorships.
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On a personal level, all to which I can attest is this: on the day we left our home to go across the country to Bombay (where I spent a delightful six weeks or so having the then time of my life) to catch the ship back to Britain, our staff were, as were we, in tears.
On a personal level, have you ever visited the site of the notorious massacre at Amritsar? The Qissa Khawani Bazaar? Any such place?
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But you don't know any actual, historic examples. You can't name them, what their tactics were. You cannot place them with the broader evolution of our collective understanding of how to most effectively topple ruthless dictatorships.
You should stop this nonsense while you can.
I don't know all the examples, but personally lost several of my close relatives who were killed by Nazis and know of many more.
I've seen with my own eyes a lime furnace in central Slovakia where over 900 innocent Jews, Romas, Slovaks, Czechs, Russians, and Romanians were burnt.
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Gandhi led several hundred million of his people to freedom from the tyranny of British colonial rule. And you? Have you been to the places in India and Pakistan where the British gunned down hundreds of Indians at a time? Have you taken the time to research British colonial violence in the subcontinent? The millions who died of starvation? Do you know anything at all about the world's first nonviolent army, the Khudai Khidmatagars? Do you know anything their uniforms, their band, their training camps, their militant and civil wings, their oath? Do you know who led it?
Regarding the Nazis, share with us your knowledge about the nonviolence Europeans did undertake against Nazism, and analyze its effectiveness. Can you even name a single example? Do you know anything about this topic? Or are you just sounding off with no intent of understanding how people actually do overthrow tyranny most effectively?
Damon, I suspect you're too young to have had a chance to compare your theories with reality. I see that you're 45. When I was 45 I was in Thailand, involved in my third war.
I see what you're reading, and I see that you're really impressed by credentials. I read different things and I'm not at all impressed by credentials, so there's a bit of a mismatch between our world views.
Gandhi led several million people to freedom by the sufferance of the British who, as Rob points out, were in no position to continue their presence in India, even though Churchill was appalled by the idea of leaving. Yes, I know all about colonial violence. I've been to three wars and I've observed the aftermath of it first-hand. How many wars have you been to, and how much "colonial violence" have you observed first-hand? Or is your take on these things all theory?
I was a kid delivering newspapers when WW II began. I was exposed daily to the truth about how likely it was that France would escape Nazi rule without violence. Do you actually believe the Nazis wouldn't have taken over all of Europe plus Britain had they not been met with more violence than they, themselves could produce? If so you really need to sit down and read the history of the whole thing rather than "research" by people who, sitting in their air-conditioned offices "researching," haven't a clue.
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But you don't know any actual, historic examples. You can't name them, what their tactics were...
Hey, I think I heard of one: the fearless Dutch Resistance fighters unscrewing air valves on German soldiers' bicycles. Counts?
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Hey, I think I heard of one: the fearless Dutch Resistance fighters unscrewing air valves on German soldiers' bicycles. Counts?
In that category, there were also Czechs who in the first days of Russian invasion took down the house numbers and street signs and painted over, removed, or changed around the road signs (except the ones which pointed the way back to Moscow).
Sadly, in the end, there was nothing for the government and the citizens of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to do but recognize the fact that Dubček‘s grand experiment in “socialism with a human face” was over, and that the occupation force was there to stay. So much for the non violent resistance.
http://extravaganzafreetour.com/the-prague-spring-and-the-soviet-invasion-of-1968/
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I've been to three wars and I've observed the aftermath of it first-hand. How many wars have you been to, and how much "colonial violence" have you observed first-hand? Or is your take on these things all theory?
As part of my academic work I have been directly exposed to warlike violence. It's what I'm trained to do. That's what my professors do. I study how warlike violence affects people and what action they undertake to build peace. I have no idea why you think academics never leave their offices. I talk to everyone I can. People who kill. People who build peace. People who have done both. People who hate war, people who embrace it. People whose job it is to care for vets. Widows who've lost spouses, kids who lost their parents, etc.
I was a kid delivering newspapers when WW II began. I was exposed daily to the truth about how likely it was that France would escape Nazi rule without violence. Do you actually believe the Nazis wouldn't have taken over all of Europe plus Britain had they not been met with more violence than they, themselves could produce?
You are all convinced that nonviolence is total crap because of the Nazis and how brutal they were. You associate it with passivity, hopelessness, and weakness. Yet, know this:
The fact is, some Europeans did undertake successful nonviolent direct action against the Nazis. Ask a Dane about Arne Sejr, who as a 17 year old developed the "Danskerens 10 bud" (Ten Commandments for Danes). Do you know about him, what he did? Do you know what nonviolent actions the Danes took against the Nazis to fight back against the invasion of their country, and to save their Jews? Do you agree that the Danes were successful? In Germany itself, do you know about the Rosenstrasse women? Ruth Gross and her father? Do you know the reactions of Himmler, Goebbels and Hitler to these actions?
Do you know about Franz Jagerstatter? Maybe some of you do, as it's not a secret. But did you know the connection between him, Randy Kehler, and Daniel Ellsberg? Jagerstatter died an awful death. Pointless even. Yet his life and death had a direct impact on the American side of the Vietnam war, because he inspired Ellsberg, who learned about Jagerstatter from Kehler's scholarship. So in the end, Jagerstatter's life and death was far from pointless. Who could have possibly known at that time that his life would have that effect on an American war planner decades later.
In WWII, European understanding of nonviolent direct action was minimal. Europeans knew far more about waging war then they did about nonviolent resistance. Much has changed since then. We know much more now. There were no handbooks then, like Gene Sharp's "From dictatorship to democracy".
So to your question, would it have worked on a continent wide scale for people at that time, had they tried, with the limited knowledge that they had? And the answer is, we don't know, because it wasn't tried on a continent wide scale. No one knows. Maybe they simply didn't know enough to have a good shot at getting the job done. All we know for sure is that in relatively recent times (1990 onward), nonviolence is twice as effective as violence in achieving the strategic objectives of those doing it.
And we also know that in the same time period, many millions of people have been killed by combatants who are convinced that violence is the only way to achieve their ends. Five million in Congo. Almost a million in Rwanda. Who knows how many will die in Syria, in Yemen. The people waging those wars are convinced they are doing it for the best.
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You should stop this nonsense while you can.
I don't know all the examples, but personally lost several of my close relatives who were killed by Nazis and know of many more.
I've seen with my own eyes a lime furnace in central Slovakia where over 900 innocent Jews, Romas, Slovaks, Czechs, Russians, and Romanians were burnt.
Ervin Staub, who survived the depredations of both the Nazis and the communists, has dedicated his life to understanding violence, genocide and what people do (and fail to do) to stop it.
Henri Tajfel, also a Holocaust survivor, did incredible and deeply influential work on understanding the psychology behind the varieties of prejudice that ultimately lead to violence.
One can go on. I believe we should learn from what they are telling us. They have much to say.
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If in the late thirties the western democracies had forcefully attacked Nazis right away instead of nonviolent and cowardly waiting, many millions of lives and properties would have been saved.
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As part of my academic work I have been directly exposed to warlike violence. It's what I'm trained to do. That's what my professors do.
So your professors shoot at you? Blow you up? What? Please describe this "warlike violence."
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On a personal level, have you ever visited the site of the notorious massacre at Amritsar? The Qissa Khawani Bazaar? Any such place?
The greater question is this: what difference, either way, could that possibly make to anything today?
Being a tourist is just that: being a tourist. Unless you are in the place at the time of the event, all else is the political equivalent of photographic critique: second-guessing what you, anybody else should, could or would have done. It's all simply too late in the day to matter.
Coming down like an encyclopaedia is no guarantee of being right in the conclusion drawn, nor does it ensure a different perspective or superior course of action in the event of similar situations having to be met and resolved.
I often think back to the way kids act in the playground, where I have never seen the meek inherit anything more than a punch in the face. You truly believe there's a future for the adult meek to inherit something better and more productive? Have you run a business? Try being meek there, and you will starve. And business, believe it or not, is closer to reality than political posturing.
I wonder what the folks in the Gaza Strip would make of your doctrine... apart from telling you where to put it, that is.
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If in the late thirties the western democracies had forcefully attacked Nazis right away instead of nonviolent and cowardly waiting, many millions of lives and properties would have been saved.
Quite right, Les. There's even some question whether or not a forceful attack would have been necessary. If the Western powers had worked together and made it clear they were ready to attack, there's a very good chance Hitler would have gone down before the attack even took place.
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You are all convinced that nonviolence is total crap because of the Nazis and how brutal they were. You associate it with passivity, hopelessness, and weakness.
Which poster(s) do you think are convinced nonviolence is total crap? I haven't seen any posts to that effect. Maybe I just missed them.
But what about you? Do you believe there are times when violence is essential, or is that "total crap?"
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If in the late thirties the western democracies had forcefully attacked Nazis right away instead of nonviolent and cowardly waiting, many millions of lives and properties would have been saved.
Easy to say now, but if in 1935 some guy had assassinated Hitler, do you think he'd be hailed as a hero now? He'd have been tried for murder, convicted and likely killed, assuming they had the death penalty at the time and no one would remember his name. But I take your point that by 1938-1939, people should have known what was coming. But maybe it would have been better to see what was coming a decade earlier and nipped the problem in the bud.
That kind of conjecture works the other way too. How many lives would have been saved on all sides if the US had stayed out of Vietnam?
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Ahmmm...
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If in the late thirties the western democracies had forcefully attacked Nazis right away instead of nonviolent and cowardly waiting, many millions of lives and properties would have been saved.
Forgot to add.
If I remember correctly, lots of powers-that-be in the west didn't have that big a problem with what Hitler was instituting. Let's not paint the west as holier than it actually was.
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If I remember correctly, lots of powers-that-be in the west didn't have that big a problem with what Hitler was instituting. Let's not paint the west as holier than it actually was.
Very true, and nobody here painted the west as holy, it was their choice between appeasement and standing up to Hitler. France's Premier Daladier and British Prime Minister Chamberlain signed together with Hitler and Mussolini the Munich Pact, which sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain proudly declared that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time". It wasn't a very wise decision as the history showed a few years later when embarassed Chamberlain announced state of war between Germany and Britain.
Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term.
After all, it was Neville Chamberlain who would be best remembered as the champion of the Munich Pact, having met privately with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, the dictator’s mountaintop retreat, before the Munich conference. Chamberlain, convinced that Hitler’s territorial demands were not unreasonable (and that Hitler was a “gentleman”), persuaded the French to join him in pressuring Czechoslovakia to submit to the Fuhrer’s demands.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-appeased-at-munich
Walk away from the trouble when you can, but sometimes you got to fight when you are a man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEJniCCuqR4
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"Adnam, you must be patient and hold your fire. Assad will run out of bombs before he kills all of us."
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Good points again, and not only in the fields of violence or business.
For example, most doctors and nutritionists were at one time taught and still believe that cooking with olive oil and drinking milk is healthy (despite numerous new studies which debunked those myths).
https://www.pritikin.com/your-health/healthy-living/eating-right/1103-whats-wrong-with-olive-oil.html
Really? You're using a commercial operation's largely unsourced claims to debunk something despite the clear conflict of interest they have?
This is a lovely example of cognitive bias.
And to all of you who are "old and experienced" - how often do you discuss when other veterans hold different views to you? Do you just dismiss them, even though they have the same experiences as you? What about those who fought on the other side? They often hold quite different views. History, as they say, is written by the victors. That alone should tell you know to be sceptical of the views until they're otherwise tested.
Your experiences are valid and important - indeed, I will say critical, as part of the narrative and from which to draw when considering related issues. But they are not, just by being direct experiences, somehow utterly transformative or knowledge-giving. Around 4am Saturday morning I was rushed to hospital because I wouldn't breath. For about a minute I couldn't breath at all, then for a few minutes I was barely able to get enough air to stay conscious. I was choking due to a viral throat infection. I'm OK (obviously :-)). Am I now an expert in medical responses, transport, choking, near-death experiences, or anything else related? Of course, not. And, yes, that's an extreme example of a single event and many of you are providing thoughts based on years of experience. Well, I first learned first aid when I was 14 (34 years ago). That doesn't make me a doctor. Fighting in a war doesn't make you a general. Data is not the plural of anecdote.
If you're prepared to dismiss anyone without direct experience, you're limiting most progress. Of course a lot of progress comes from people without extensive (or any) real training in an area, particularly when it's a new area, but most comes from people who research the field, and the constant dismissal on the basis of "you don't have any experience" is ridiculous. I'm sure Slobo did have some bad professors in business school, but I'm also sure they had more to offer if he'd been open to the idea of listening to them even when they went against what he through he "knew" with absolute certainty. Maybe he wouldn't have changed his mind, but if he had explored the ideas and concepts he may have come up with something else, or just reaffirmed his previous views but now with more support.
Anyway, if you only want to discuss things with people with direct experience, that's a very small pool and getting smaller every day.
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Phil, you seem to be drowning in your own generalizations :)
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Really? You're using a commercial operation's largely unsourced claims to debunk something despite the clear conflict of interest they have?
This is a lovely example of cognitive bias.
Phil, I'm sorry for quoting a commercial source. It just happened to be the first link on my Google hit list.
Furthermore, I'll be the first to admit that there is too much conflicting information out there. It took me several years and sifting through a lot of contradictory information based on all kinds of studies to understand the nature of the heart and bone diseases. Not only on the causes, but also on the reversal of thoses diseases.
So instead of the aforementioned source, here are some very reputable cardiologists (who do not making living by selling any proprietory supplements or elixirs).
Deane Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, Colin Campbell, Neil Barnard, John McDougall. They have all many eye-opening articles and videos online. There are now other doctors of that school, but the above mentioned doctors were the pioneers in advocating the plant-based diet (some of them grew up originally on dairy and cattle farms), and the first two are were instrumental in making Bill Clinton switch to the healthy diets. All of these doctors (incl. Bill Clinton whose interest in human anatomy was slightly different) are in great health, and some of them are in their eighties.
https://www.ornish.com/zine/larry-king-live-dr-ornish-heart-disease/
As to the fallacy of dairy products being good for your bones, you just need to google "Is milk good for bones"?
here is one article from forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/fayeflam/2014/10/30/holy-cow-study-suggests-milk-is-bad-for-bones-heart-has-the-medical-establishment-lied-to-us/#6389a39c148f
and here is a very good book, whose author analysed hundreds of international studies on the subject.
https://www.amazon.ca/Building-Bone-Vitality-Revolutionary-Osteoporosis-Without/dp/0071600191
just read the Amazon preview
Calcium pills don't work. Dairy products don't strengthen bones. Drugs may be dangerous.
For years, doctors have been telling us to drink milk, eat dairy products, and take calcium pills to improve our bone vitality. The problem is, they’re wrong.
Last year, I posted something similar with more references on the subject:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=117612.msg981015#msg981015
I'm not trying to change anyone. All I want to do is to make people aware of the new - and I believe, more scientific and more credible information on those subjects.
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Les - thanks, those are much better sources. The excellent thing about the scientific approach is that we can change our views as better data becomes available and as we expand our experience and knowledge. Shame on all those academics going back on old data and updating and rechecking in light of new methods or understanding, right?
The other thing to be careful about is comments like "they're well into their 80s and very healthy" - which is a paraphrase, of course. There are people with all sorts of diets who live well into their 80s. "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.". Individuals clearly react differently to different diets. You can take two people, the same age, sex, weight, height, basic health profile and background, same sugar levels and feed them a packet of jelly beans. Once of them will spike their sugar levels and the other will have almost no reaction. The current investigations are into customised diets based on a wide range of input and baseline factors and data that can provide general direction to individuals about what would suit them the best. That's really exciting stuff - understanding sufficient to deliver targeted results. Again, shame on those academics!
Regarding calcium - I remember 20 odd years ago when I snapped my tibia and fibula in half and had my leg put back together, that the doctor talked to me about calcium and so on to support regrowth. He asked me about my diet, which is pretty common - more meat than is probably ideal, but lots of vegetables and a fish, meat, grains, dairy, etc. In other words, a wide variety of things. He said I wouldn't have any problems and a supplement wouldn't be of any use because I should be getting all the calcium I need already. Only in the last few years have we finally seen commentary about the vast waste and con that the dietary supplement industry largely is. Unless you're shown to be deficient in something and can't get it any other way, supplements are of little to no value.
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Phil, you seem to be drowning in your own generalizations :)
They say drowning is not an unpleasant way to go, but then there's water boarding, and I've never heard of a recovered drowning victim saying it was a fun experience. If it was anything like the choking I had for several minutes, it's horrific. It's terrifying. It's even more devastating to watch your wife looking at you while she's talking to the emergency operator and knowing she's wondering if this is the last time she'll be talking to you, and even worse because you can't talk back (can't breath, can't talk - a sure sign that someone isn't too bad is when they tell you "I can't breath"...). When you start to see the world swimming around you, and your head is bursting, and when your bladder loses control but you're fighting with every muscle in your body to force some air out so you can get some more back in, the utter relief of that first little noise of air passing through a tiny, tiny gap that you've somehow managed to cough out is palpable. My torso, my core, even my arms, ache from the physical exertion like I've been through 12 rounds in the ring and taken a beating.
What can I tell you? It was very specific, mate. And I think I was very specific but you're choosing to wave the generalisation wand to avoid responding :-) All is good. I'm still on this side and will be able to annoy you for some time yet with any luck!
Oh, and the socialised medicine had paramedics here within 6 minutes of the call - even if I had stopped breathing completely (as opposed to not being able to breath), there's a very good chance they would have revived me. I imagine it's not too bad doing a code red call at 4am, not a lot to get in the way.
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Les - thanks, those are much better sources. The excellent thing about the scientific approach is that we can change our views as better data becomes available and as we expand our experience and knowledge. Shame on all those academics going back on old data and updating and rechecking in light of new methods or understanding, right?
I don't want to hijack this thread and will add / quote only that:
Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian doctor and early pioneer of antiseptic procedures discovered by chance and observation that the incidence of puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. When he proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards, his advice was met with a strong resistance from the medical establishment and his ideas were rejected by other doctors.
Semmelweis could offer at that time no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings, and some doctors were even offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist's research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success.
I see today a definite parallel with many (fortunately not all) medical professionals who still rely on limited and outdated information from their university days and frankly, very few of them learned at that time anything about the benefits of healthy nutrition.
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Oh, and the socialised medicine had paramedics here within 6 minutes of the call - even if I had stopped breathing completely (as opposed to not being able to breath), there's a very good chance they would have revived me. I imagine it's not too bad doing a code red call at 4am, not a lot to get in the way.
Be happy you're not in Britain.
Our "socialised medicine" has many problems, and your six minutes is amazing. My younger granddaughter is a doctor, and one evening on her way back home she came upon a fresh road accident and stopped to help. It took an hour for the ambulance to arrive, and this is within Manchester itself with police also on the scene.
It isn't a matter of skills, it seems, but of logistics and the demand upon hospìtals, often unwarranted, made simply by patients going there to A&E because of difficulties in getting appointments with local GPs.
Your choking experience is something with which I sympathise; having been subject to acid reflux too often, I know too well the feeling when you wake up unable to breath because something is blocking your tubes. I am always a bit surpised when I manage to expel air that I thought wasn't in my lungs, but thank goodness that it was, because otherwise, nothing was going to be going back into them but acid. For many years now I can't eat a damned thing after about seven in the evening, latest. I suppose if suicide were ever in my mind, the way would be reminiscent of the prisoner's last meal: pig out on a late plate of all the things the cardio has banned for the past few years, especially the French cheeses and the wine, yep, those delightful whites that I used to love... oh, and some double-cream on top of my coffee, and then go straight to bed. Now there's an idea!
;-)
Rob
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Location is part of it, and time of day. They respond according to urgency. "Not breathing" is a code red - lights and sirens and break the road rules as required (and within their training) if/when safe to do so. They also dispatch a second unit that is the second nearest from another direction if available and then cancel one once one arrives.
We also have a problem here with people attending A&E and calling ambulances when it's not life threatening/very serious, but there's a really big campaign been running for about a year to educate people more. It seems to be working.
A few cases at work where we've called an ambulance but the casualty seems stable, it's been closer to 30 or 40 minutes and they will re-route as required based on urgency. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good here.
I've also seen them use a helo over short distances particularly for road accidents where a motor vehicle just wouldn't get through - watched one land just 100 meters away from my house at the time and the hospital was only 7km away. Actually, we use helos quite a lot here because of large distances and low population density.
Reflux? Yeah - I've had that and the same experience. This was a different level which I realised pretty quickly. Normally I've been able to overcome the reflux events within 10 seconds at most. I use a sleeping wedge which makes a huge difference and if I'm planning a big night I just go for a smaller day, as it were. Haven't had a problem in years, fortunately. But I can highly recommend a sleeping wedge - I even have a travel one.
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How did we get from red flags to code red!? Too many reds among the members? ;)
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How did we get from red flags to code red!? Too many reds among the members? ;)
Maybe many of us are of an age when the latter is more interesting than the former.
Jeremy
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Maybe many of us are of an age when the latter is more interesting than the former.
Jeremy
Unfortunately, probably too true!
I suspect there might also be a relationship there with the craze for photographic equipment: after a while, it becomes impossible to avoid the conclusion that the purchase of stuff, beyond a certain reasonable level of quality, brings absolutely nothing new to one's photographic ability. The moment your camera and lenses are capabe of making a crisp image in the circumstances in which you seek such, if you do, then you have reached the point of peace both for mind and wallet.
Rob
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This blind belief in the truthfulness of academic research is outright scary. As I said many times, science is the new religion for some.
How many studies that took years to research, were peer-reviewed, and published in respectable publications, were found to be faulty and debunked either contemporaneously or a bit later?...
Further to the above, an eye-opener article about "research" (emphasis mine):
https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/the-corruption-of-evidence-based-medicine-killing-for-profit-41f2812b8704
The 2 most prestigious journals of medicine in the world are The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet said this in 2015
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue”
Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of NEJM wrote in 2009 that,
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor”
So here’s a damning list of all the problems of EBM:
Selective Publication
Rigged outcomes
Advertorials
Reprint Revenues
Bribery of Journal Editors
Publication Bias
Financial Conflicts of Interests
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All perhaps true, Slobodan; but medicine which is not based on evidence - homeopathy, to dignify it with the description "medicine", for example - is at least as dangerous. Much research is a waste of time, done for the benefit of the researchers who need publications to further their academic credentials. But not - far from not - all.
Jeremy
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When using academic papers for my own research or course work, I've rarely relied on just one. You investigate many reports, journals, papers, etc., to find consistent support for or against a certain view (and if you find both sides you need to dig deeper to understand why).
Undoubtedly there are charlatans everywhere, but at least academic papers can be checked, tested, investigated, and so on. It may not be perfect (it's not), but it's orders of magnitude ahead of personal anecdote and cognitive bias.
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A 78-year-old pensioner in England has been arrested under suspicion of murder for stabbing a much younger man who, with a companion who apparently fled, broke into the pensioner's house to rob. One of the wannabe thieves was armed with a screwdriver...
Seems to me that the house should be considered sacred, that anyone breaking in deserves anything they get thrown back at them for their efforts. It's the one place where I believe guns shoud be allowed, and allowed to be used. No need for war weapons there; all close-range stuff and a pistol perfectly good and more easy to deploy that a rifle that could more easily be wrestled away from the user.
Rob
So this time the burgler entered with a screwdriver expecting the elderly resident to be defenceless and easily intimidated. by your suggestion, residents should all get guns to defend themselves. Next time burgler goes armed with a pistol - fully prepared to kill if threatened. The elderly resident is caught unawares, goes for his gun, and is killed quickly by the merciless intruder.
Or - misguided, unarmed 15 year old enters a house to steal some petty cash and is shot dead by petrified householder. Where is the proportionate justice in that?
I think the escalation is both wrong and pointless. I am obviously referring to the majority of the civilised world and not the special case of the already heavily armed US.
Jim
edit (having now read the entire thread - phew - I can see that we are largely in agreement on this topic!)
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Well, cars are as dangerous as anything else when handled badly or intentionally used as weapons, but they also have a good, fundamental purpose.
I don't really see that guns can be sheltered under that umbrella; after all, their sole design purpose is to kill. There is no other legitimate function for them, unless as threat in a defensive sense, which is but one step removed from killing or at least seriously injuring in a defensive move. In short, they serve only to cause damage, either terminal or serious enough to incapacitate.
All of which seems to me to indicate that their use outwith home protection or policing should be banned. Period.
Hunting is a whole other topic, of course, and even there, that folks can drive around with rifles on racks in their vehicles, whether they are really about to go out and catch something for dinner or not, strikes me as bizarre. Just imagine: some guys stop for a beer or three, get into an argument or just feel macho, go out to the vehicle and take one of those killing machines down off the rack... How do you reason with any guy with a head of beer, his manhood under imaginary threat, and a huge gun in his hands? And all in front of his equally nutty peers? His mother later telling the local press that her son is really a good boy won't help you and your widow one goddam bit, will it?
Hey Rob - I'm just reading through this thread for the first time and coincidentally referring to two of your posts. I quite agree with your points here - particularly the one about cars. Cars are incredibly dangerous and I personally think their use should be curtailed and controlled more. But they do have a really positive side too, and that has to be balanced with their disadvantages. A misused car is potentially lethal. A misused firearm is much more often lethal (taking into account the amount of time it is in use) - as you say, that is it's sole purpose.
Jim
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Actually, it's not the guns or the knives that are at fault. It's the people. When I was a kid there were guns all all around, yet murders were very rare. It's a behavior problem, not a gun problem.
I did find this online - though it is a bit out of date now. Maybe your recollection of murders when you were young is anecdotal and you were unaware of the overall picture in the US. In any case the murder rate seems to be more aligned with social and economic changes, not in the inherent morality of the population. These are things that could be addressed in the US and elsewhere. Removing firearms from the population is obviously a very long-term process and I agree is not going to happen quickly.
"Across the country, and even internationally, the U.S. murder rate receives more attention than any other crime rate. The trend chart below shows the murder rate as a recurring flow of sustained increases and decreases spread over the 20th century. The rate increased through the early 1900s, peaking in 1933 at 9.7 murders per 100,000 population. The rate then decreased until 1960, followed by a sharp increase until the mid-1970s. The murder rate fluctuated over the last 25 years at a historically high level, as did the overall index crime rate, but has declined rapidly during the 1990s. The murder rate in 1998, the last full year of available data, hit a 30-year low of 6.9 murders per 100,000 population. Preliminary FBI statistics show this downward trend continuing into 1999."
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Problem with that, Jim, is that in order to have any idea of what's going on you need to look at where the murders are occurring. You also need to examine the statisticians' idea of what a "murder" is. Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Chicago always has been a murder pit. So was New York until a conservative mayor got things under control and turned the place -- for a short time -- into the safest large city in the U.S.
I was brought up in a suburb of Detroit. When I was in high school I was able to take my dates downtown to the heart of Detroit for a musical -- I especially remember watching Student Prince with a girl I was awfully hot for -- then having dinner after the show, walking around the city with no thought of danger. If you did that nowadays you might make it two blocks before you'd at the very least be robbed.
As far as removing firearms from the U.S. population, you're right. It's going to be a long-term process. . . stretching to eternity. It ain't gonna happen. Not now. Not ever.
What I think is interesting is the astounding murder rate in jolly old England now that the gun removal has taken place. Golly. You'd think now that those guns can't go out on the street and shoot people things would get better.
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"What I think is interesting is the astounding murder rate in jolly old England now that the gun removal has taken place. Golly. You'd think now that those guns can't go out on the street and shoot people things would get better."
The horrible recent murders in London are a recent exception, and are heavily associated with a particular recently arrived demographic. They are not typical of the country.
At the moment nobody knows how to deal with the situation, but I am sure that we will get back to something more normal.
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"What I think is interesting is the astounding murder rate in jolly old England now that the gun removal has taken place. Golly. You'd think now that those guns can't go out on the street and shoot people things would get better."
The horrible recent murders in London are a recent exception, and are heavily associated with a particular recently arrived demographic. They are not typical of the country.
At the moment nobody knows how to deal with the situation, but I am sure that we will get back to something more normal.
And there's zero evidence that more guns on the street of London would reduce the murder rate just like pouring more petrol onto a fire rarely puts it out unless there's so much it all blows up and everything is completely destroyed...
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The horrible recent murders in London are a recent exception, and are heavily associated with a particular recently arrived demographic. They are not typical of the country.
At the moment nobody knows how to deal with the situation, but I am sure that we will get back to something more normal.
The murder rate in Chicago is heavily associated with a demographic too, and those rates are not typical of the country.
So what?
Nobody knows how to deal with this situation? Has anybody considered asking Rudy Giuiliani? He knew how to deal with this situation. Ah! But Rudy's a conservative! Can't ask HIM!
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(London) Met Police records show 37, 443 recorded knife offences and 6,694 recorded gun offences across the UK in the year up to September 2017.
That's a lot of knifes (and correspondigly a lot of deaths).
Commander Neil Jerome of the Met's territorial policing command and Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, condemned the crimes and acused the government being weak on crime for the last eight years, as well as weak on the causes of crime, but not explaining the said causes. Interestingly, the British papers list names of the victims, but not names or profile of the killers.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5251268/london-stabbings-2018-knife-crime-statistics-latest/
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... The horrible recent murders in London are a recent exception, and are heavily associated with a particular recently arrived demographic. They are not typical of the country...
Hallelujah! What I've been trying to convey all along: that it doesn't make much sense to compare the US to basically monolithic European countries, in terms of religion, ethnicity, and work and overall ethic.
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And there's zero evidence that more guns on the street of London would reduce the murder rate...
Unless you have a crystal ball, mate ;)
Hint: how can you have any evidence of what would happen in the future? Then again, you might be right nevertheless, simply because the murder rate does not depend on the type of weapon, as some of us have been trying to argue all along.
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The ONLY reason London has reached the New York murder levels is because of the drop in the murder rate of New York. And the London jump was for only two months.
"One way of looking at this is to see it not so much as London getting massively more violent, but rather New York achieving an astonishing drop in its murder rate." –Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-murder-rate-new-york-compare-worse-stabbings-knife-crime-teenagers-statistics-figures-a8286866.html
Also, the drop in murders in New York is not because of citizens with guns, but because of good and smarter law enforcement:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/london-now-dangerous-new-york-crime-stats-suggest/
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... Also, the drop in murders in New York is not because of citizens with guns, but because of good and smarter law enforcement:...
You mean that "stop and frisk" actually worked, the very thing the lefties are whining about? ;)
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You mean that "stop and frisk" actually worked, the very thing the lefties are whining about? ;)
Shouldn't a defender of individual rights and the US constitution be concerned about "stop and frisk"? Just sayin.
My brother's country house neighbour is a black guy from Pennsylvania. He's in his 60s, Vietnam vet, engineer by trade. They were talking one day about various things and the guy asked my brother how many times in his life he had been stopped by police. My brother answered, 4 or 5, all either speeding or broken tail light incidents. Then he told my brother that he had been stopped 200-250 times, not once for any obvious reason (maybe a couple of speeding tickets, can't remember the conversation now for certain). Assuming he's exaggerating by 100% and he has only been stopped 100-125 times, would you say that "stop and frisk" is a valid and efficient use of police time? At which stop, 10th, 20th, 75th, would you start to think that maybe there was something not right? At what point would you say his rights were starting to be violated? At what point would you say he had a right to be a little pissed off?
These are meant as rhetorical questions. There is no need to answer. I just wanted to illustrate the inherent problem of a white middle class guy thinking that only "whiners" complain about stop and frisk, implying that there is little basis for complaint. An all too easy remark to make when you know it probably won't happen to you, even when there are lots of white guys committing crimes.
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Robert, I was simply explaining that lauding “smart policing” means admitting that it worked. You can’t have it both ways: if you argue against “citizens with guns” in favor of “smart policing,” you can’t at the same time argue against “smart policing.” Which, by the way, is not just “stop and frisk,” but also “broken window” policing, another anathema for the Left, and, apparently, what London stopped doing.
As for individualism and the Constitution, things get complicated. What is and isn’t the latter, is ultimately interpreted by the Supreme Court. And they tried to strike a balance between a “minor inconvenience” for an individual and a greater good for the society. Granted, they did it for another type of stopping, drunk-driving check points, but the concept is the same.
As for “stop and frisk,” when ACLU forced Chicago police to fill in a two-page document for each incident, instead of a simple index card, the shootings quickly doubled in the subsequent period.
I’ve been stopped by the police, mostly for speeding. And I stopped the police in return, on the streets of Chicago, asking them for permission to shake their hands and thank them for their service.
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Unless you have a crystal ball, mate ;)
Hint: how can you have any evidence of what would happen in the future? Then again, you might be right nevertheless, simply because the murder rate does not depend on the type of weapon, as some of us have been trying to argue all along.
You can extrapolate. If gun ownership had been on the up and regulations down and the murder rate was in decline, all other things being equal, you might suggest there was a correlation (and vice versa). But the gun laws and ownerships rates are unchanged, so it's not a factor.
Availability of weapons, though, can be shown to have an affect on gun and crime rates. How? Because in Australia we tightened controls and reduced guns and we've had no more mass shootings, as one example.
Guns are far more effective at killing than bare hands, knives, or teddy bears. As a result, armies and police use guns. To suggest that more guns doesn't increase the capacity to kill is demonstrably false.
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Availability of weapons, though, can be shown to have an affect on gun and crime rates.
Guns are far more effective at killing than bare hands, knives, or teddy bears. As a result, armies and police use guns. To suggest that more guns doesn't increase the capacity to kill is demonstrably false.
as demonstrated last night in Indiana.
A toddler was playing with her father's handgun when she shot her pregnant mother Tuesday in a northwest Indiana parking lot, according to media reports.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/04/18/toddler-shoots-pregnant-mom-merrillville/527416002/
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You can extrapolate. If gun ownership had been on the up and regulations down and the murder rate was in decline, all other things being equal, you might suggest there was a correlation (and vice versa)...
Extrapolation is not evidence.
Gun ownership in the US has actually skyrocketed in recent years, while murder rates continue to decline, so, other things being equal, it might suggest that either there is no correlation or that there is a reverse one. In any case, it invalidates the myth that more guns mean more murders, just as the recent London stats do.
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as demonstrated last night in Indiana...
Many things can happen when dumb (or drug-addicted - hey, it was Indiana, or just plain unlucky) parents are involved. Like a recent case when a young boy accidentally ran over his mother trying to push the car.
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..l To suggest that more guns doesn't increase the capacity to kill is demonstrably false.
Well, duh! Agree 100%.
How could I not when you are using a truism? Of course more of anything increases the capacity of doing whatever that anything does. More cars increase the capacity for car accidents, more knifes increase the capacity for knife injuries, more men increase the capacity for more babies, etc.
Duh. But the real question here is the end result, not the capacity for it.
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You mean that "stop and frisk" actually worked, the very thing the lefties are whining about? ;)
The good and smarter is: "The force also put a huge amount of emphasis on community policing in order to build bridges between the police and members of the public." 8)
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The good and smarter is: "The force also put a huge amount of emphasis on community policing in order to build bridges between the police and members of the public." 8)
Weaseling out. if you read your own linked article, you would see that they were talking about the last 20 years and mayor Rudy Giuliani, so let's quote the whole section, not just he paragraph that suits you (emphasis mine):
Under the leadership of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and police commissioner, Bill Bratton, the NYPD introduced a zero tolerance approach to low level crime and flooded problem areas with patrols.
The force also put a huge amount of emphasis on community policing in order to build bridges between the police and members of the public.
That reference to "zero tolerance..." is the reference to "broken window" policing strategy, and everyone, at least in the US, knows what mayor Giuliani did, i.e., use "stop and frisk."
Community policing? You think that someone with intention to commit a crime and kill will be swayed by the police bringing flowers to his mom for her birthday? Or distributing ice cream to children? All worthy efforts by themselves, but effective in reducing murders!?
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Gun ownership in the US has actually skyrocketed in recent years, while murder rates continue to decline, so, other things being equal, it might suggest that either there is no correlation or that there is a reverse one. In any case, it invalidates the myth that more guns mean more murders, just as the recent London stats do.
That Radiolab podcast I provided a link to a couple of weeks ago (either in this thread or another, wish I had a better memory) presented data that the number of US households that own guns has dropped a bit (from 50% to 40%, something like that, but those are not the actual numbers, can't remember now), but that the number of guns sold has increased. Their claim was that household that already had guns simply bought more of them.
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Good, Slobo. We agree. More guns means more capacity. Therefore, less guns means less capacity. Whilst more capacity doesn't mean it will be taken up and used, less capacity must actually limit the maximum possible usage. So less guns would result in less incidents.
You've already agreed.
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Weaseling out. if you read your own linked article, you would see that they were talking about the last 20 years and mayor Rudy Giuliani, so let's quote the whole section, not just he paragraph that suits you (emphasis mine):
That reference to "zero tolerance..." is the reference to "broken window" policing strategy, and everyone, at least in the US, knows what mayor Giuliani did, i.e., use "stop and frisk."
Community policing? You think that someone with intention to commit crime and kill will be swayed by the police bringing flowers to his mom for her birthday? Or distributing ice cream to children? All worthy efforts by themselves, but effective in reducing murders!?
Funny.
There's a good Wikipedia insert that is fairly comprehensive on "stop and frisk." The introductory paragraph ends, "Research suggests that stop-and-frisk had few effects, if any, on crime in New York City."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City
The overall the implication is that it was not as effective as the political hype would suggest. As for community policing, it is a long term effort but not a panacea.
Interestingly, not only mayors but police too diverge on gun control, and unsurprisingly it is elected sheriffs that don't favor gun control while appointed police chiefs do. I guess Giuliani envisioned himself a sheriff in the Wild Wild East called New York. Hey, that could be a movie! :D
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... "Research suggests that stop-and-frisk had few effects, if any, on crime in New York City."...
I already explained on page 11 what I think of those "researches," and why each research, taken individually, should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
But again, you can't have it both ways: you can not argue, as the linked article does, that the reduction in crime in New York was due to mayor Giuliani's strategies and at the same time claim that his strategies were not efficient.
I mentioned it earlier in another thread what explains the paradox of "stop and frisk" "not working." The main argument in that research is that "stop and frisk" did not result in arrests (for illegal possession of guns). Well, duh! The very fact that thugs knew they might be stopped and frisked and, if illegal guns found on them, end up in jail, prevented them from carrying illegal guns with them on the streets.
in physics, the effect is known as "observer effect." Since you like Wikipedia, here is the explanation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
In physics, the observer effect is the theory that simply observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon.
P.S. Did I mention that when ACLU prevented Chicago police from "stop and frisk," the shootings soon doubled? How's that for "no effect"?
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It's no use Slobodan, These guys know what they believe, and nothing -- nothing -- is gonna change their minds. There's absolutely no question whether or not Giuliani cleaned up New York. Even these people will agree that he did. They haven't much choice. But they'll argue that the methods he used are ineffective. Of course that doesn't make sense, but . . .
The sad part of it is that in England the murders will go on and on because nobody is willing to learn anything from people like Giuliani. It's Darwin at work. Let natural selection take its course.
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I already explained on page 11 what I think of those "researches," and why each research, taken individually, should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
But again, you can't have it both ways: you can not argue, as the linked article does, that the reduction in crime in New York was due to mayor Giuliani's strategies and at the same time claim that his strategies were not efficient.
I mentioned it earlier in another thread what explains the paradox of "stop and frisk" "not working." The main argument in that research is that "stop and frisk" did not result in arrests (for illegal possession of guns). Well, duh! The very fact that thugs knew they might be stopped and frisked and, if illegal guns found on them, end up in jail, prevented them from carrying illegal guns with them on the streets.
in physics, the effect is known as "observer effect." Since you like Wikipedia, here is the explanation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
P.S. Did I mention that when ACLU prevented Chicago police from "stop and frisk," the shootings soon doubled? How's that for "no effect"?
I admit the Telegraph article mostly illustrated the different approaches between London and New York. But if you don't consider research, then what's left? Just opinions. And our own observations, which apparently can't be trusted and will subjectively influence what we believe to be true. Oy.
Still, the Wiki research is on the effect "stop and frisk" has on crime, not guns specifically. It uses "weapons and contraband." Also, stops on probable cause are more effective and carried less social difficulties baggage.
As for Chicago, I don't know. A culture from the past that won't stop, like a car engine that keeps running after is has been turned off? But where are the guns coming from? After all, there is no such thing as an illegal gun, only illegal ownership. So all the guns used by criminals were at one time in legal ownership, but have ended illegally in criminal hands. How? Oi, does the gun lobby believe criminals have the right to gun ownership?
EDIT: Not that it means anything but this is my last post on this thread.
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...The sad part of it is that in England the murders will go on and on because nobody is willing to learn anything from people like Giuliani. It's Darwin at work. Let natural selection take its course.
And not just England, looks like Illinois too. You can’t make this stuff up. It seems that idiocy is unlimited.
“Illinois Dems push bill rewarding schools that replace armed officers with therapists”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/19/illinois-dems-push-bill-rewarding-schools-that-replace-armed-officers-with-therapists
Because, you know, nothing increases your street cred in high school like being seen visiting a therapist. Or confronting an active shooter with soothing words: “And how do you feel about it?”
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I suppose we could just arrange for everybody on Earth to have a gun, sane, crazy, old, young, wise or stupid. Much as is already the status in some lands.
Then the laws of natural competiton would kick in, resolving at last the problems associated with overpopulation.
We'd have a world of natural "winners"! What's not to like?
Rob
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It's no use Slobodan, These guys know what they believe, and nothing -- nothing -- is gonna change their minds. There's absolutely no question whether or not Giuliani cleaned up New York. Even these people will agree that he did. They haven't much choice. But they'll argue that the methods he used are ineffective. Of course that doesn't make sense, but . . .
The sad part of it is that in England the murders will go on and on because nobody is willing to learn anything from people like Giuliani. It's Darwin at work. Let natural selection take its course.
Ah, yes. "Russ and Slobo know what they believe, and nothing -- nothing -- is gonna change their minds". Seriously, you can do better than that.
Also, London has been dealing with crime and murders longer than the US has existed. In your play book, shouldn't you be listening to them with the greater experience? Darwin and natural selection are at work, and Americans are the ones with the greater propensity to depopulate themselves at approximately 5 times the rate of the UK or Australia and 2.5 times more than Canada. The US has 4 cities in the top 50 for murder rates - the UK, none.
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... Americans are the ones with the greater propensity to depopulate themselves at approximately 5 times the rate of the UK or Australia and 2.5 times more than Canada.
Yes, mate, when losing the argument, switch the subject. Let’s talk about “propensity” to depopulate, rather than actual population growth. By your logic, the US, in the last 200+ years, should have already “depopulated” itself to the size of, say, Australia or Canada? Instead, everybody and his mother-in-law are risking life and limb to come to this “horrible” country to “depopulate” it.
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Ah, yes. "Russ and Slobo know what they believe, and nothing -- nothing -- is gonna change their minds". Seriously, you can do better than that.
Also, London has been dealing with crime and murders longer than the US has existed. In your play book, shouldn't you be listening to them with the greater experience? Darwin and natural selection are at work, and Americans are the ones with the greater propensity to depopulate themselves at approximately 5 times the rate of the UK or Australia and 2.5 times more than Canada. The US has 4 cities in the top 50 for murder rates - the UK, none.
Thanks, Phil. You illustrated my point perfectly.
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Good, Slobo. We agree. More guns means more capacity. Therefore, less guns means less capacity. Whilst more capacity doesn't mean it will be taken up and used, less capacity must actually limit the maximum possible usage. So less guns would result in less incidents.
That makes no sense. If there is an excess of capacity over usage, reducing capacity cannot be said to have any effect on usage until it starts to encroach on usage.
If I want to carry 2 litres of water around, reducing the size of my bottle from 5l to 4l will have precisely zero effect on me.
Jeremy
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Thanks, Jeremy, I missed that logic nugget from our mate ;)
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Yes, that's correct, Jeremy and Slobo. But at some point, you reduce the capacity to the point that it does impinge on usage. That's entirely logically sound and makes perfect sense. Clearly, with so many weapons, reducing those with dozens of guns by a few would have no impact, but we're talking about whether reductions can have any impact on usage and clearly it can and does once you remove enough of them.
Points to Jeremy for his pendency and it's a valid point, but stopping there and saying the general premise doesn't make sense is disingenuous!
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Yes, mate, when losing the argument, switch the subject. Let’s talk about “propensity” to depopulate, rather than actual population growth. By your logic, the US, in the last 200+ years, should have already “depopulated” itself to the size of, say, Australia or Canada? Instead, everybody and his mother-in-law are risking life and limb to come to this “horrible” country to “depopulate” it.
Actually, a percentage, we have more immigration here including people risking life and limb. That's hardly the point. I'm on topic. You (and others) claim that gun control can't have any impact, but it clearly can. More guns and Americans murder each other at 5 times the rate of places with less guns, so the argument that knives, spoons, forks, and teddy bears are just as dangerous (because people kill people, right?) is clearly absurd, as is the suggestion that London or the UK have a massive problem compared to the US.
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Thanks, Phil. You illustrated my point perfectly.
Yes, Russ, we get it. Because we disagree with you, we're wrong, but the fact that you can be viewed in exactly the same way on the opposite side of the discussion reflects nothing right? You're immune to your own proposed cause and effect?
You believe you have the ultimate and only correct set of experiences to know everything. I get it.
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Gun availability is a big factor. I'll refer to my last post (#231) on the previous page.
Availability of weapons, though, can be shown to have an affect on gun and crime rates.
>>> as demonstrated last night in Indiana, when a toddler was playing with her father's handgun when she shot her pregnant mother Tuesday in a northwest Indiana parking lot.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/04/18/toddler-shoots-pregnant-mom-merrillville/527416002/
1. Availability of the gun played an important role in this accident.
2. Most likely, the toddler learnt about guns and how to use them by watching some shooting movies
3. Parents and their attitude were another contributing factor. Presumably, it was easy for the father to get that gun. But not so easy to think ahead and act responsibly.
4. Although a freak accident, such situations are not uncommon (265 people shot in USA by kids in 2015)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/31/kids-accidentally-shot-people-5-times-a-week-this-year-on-average/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c5c4eb1d4002
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Gun availability is a big factor. I'll refer to my last post (#231) on the previous page.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/04/18/toddler-shoots-pregnant-mom-merrillville/527416002/
1. Availability of the gun played an important role in this accident.
2. Most likely, the toddler learnt about guns and how to use them by watching some shooting movies
3. Parents and their attitude were another contributing factor. Presumably, it was easy for the father to get that gun. But not so easy to think ahead and act responsibly.
4. Although a freak accident, such situations are not uncommon (265 people shot in USA by kids in 2015)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/31/kids-accidentally-shot-people-5-times-a-week-this-year-on-average/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c5c4eb1d4002
Of course you're right, Les; it's blindingly obvious, even if some folks can differentiate some imaginary lack of connection between number of deaths from the combination of quantity of weapons and opportunity for shit to happen.
Better go have a coffee or a walk - it'll be a more productive process! I'm off to make my bed, after which a shower and perhaps I may even try to make my own lunch, having bought some stuff that I shall otherwise have to dump.
Now there's a moral quandry: having bought this stuff, will it be the more moral decision to go ahead and cook it, using scarce resources, only to have a so-so-at-best meal, or should I dump it and eat out again? Will some poor sod somewhere else in the world starve because of that decision, or will it make not the slightest difference either way?
;-(
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Rob, IMHO, it will be a tastier and healthier meal if you cook it yourself. And by not throwing out the existing food ingredients, you'll help also the environment.
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Rob, IMHO, it will be a tastier and healthier meal if you cook it yourself. And by not throwing out the existing food ingredients, you'll help also the environment.
Why? I assume what Rob eats is biodegradable? 😉
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Why? I assume what Rob eats is biodegradable? 😉
Slobodan, even Rob is biodegradable!
In the event, I did make my own, and the damage now sits smiling at me and stinking in the kitchen. The meal itself was just boiled potatoes, a large red pepper fried along with a solitary egg. It tasted okay, but as ever, I wonder why the hell I bother. It's amazing how many utensils get used in that simple production.
(That said, I have discovered that my French chef is on the last year of his ten-year lease, and wants to retire/cut his losses? It was bad enough in winter when he closed. but if he's not there in summer, either...)
I sat on the terrace on three different white plastic chairs. Two, I realised purely by chance, have developed a split in exactly the same place: where the armrest meets the main back section. Well, after perhaps twenty or so years of service I can't really complain. Our first outfit was a set of those wrough iron things, full of whorls and designs, and with matching table. They look very cute, but are terribly dangerous: the tough bits rust beneath the white plastic coating where you can't see 'em, and as happened with one of ours, a neighbour fell on his ass when the thing gave way once as he was eating with us. One of our early cats used to wear a flea collar, and one day I heard a bit of a commotion and on going outside I found the poor mother hanging from it, caught on one of the curlicues No more metal, thanks.
Trouble is, I now have a few matching plastic chairs to try to get rid of somehow; perhaps Sky News will send a team round from England to come interview me and pick 'em up as part of their massive publicity campaign to rid the world of plastic.
Rob
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I sat on the terrace on three different white plastic chairs. Two, I realised purely by chance, have developed a split in exactly the same place: where the armrest meets the main back section. Well, after perhaps twenty or so years of service I can't really complain. Our first outfit was a set of those wrough iron things, full of whorls and designs, and with matching table. They look very cute, but are terribly dangerous: the tough bits rust beneath the white plastic coating where you can't see 'em, and as happened with one of ours, a neighbour fell on his ass when the thing gave way once as he was eating with us. One of our early cats used to wear a flea collar, and one day I heard a bit of a commotion and on going outside I found the poor mother hanging from it, caught on one of the curlicues No more metal, thanks.
Trouble is, I now have a few matching plastic chairs to try to get rid of somehow; perhaps Sky News will send a team round from England to come interview me and pick 'em up as part of their massive publicity campaign to rid the world of plastic.
Rob
Teak Rob - that's the way to go. I have a teak bench in the garden that we bought in around 1987 - it's still going strong, never been inside, and you know what our English weather is like. So if you invest in a teak chair/bench it will probably give you a lifetime of use......... :)
Jim