General Political Thread 2013

I'm not trying to take sides on either of these as I'm pretty moderate when it comes to gun control, but Surf your use of stats isnt correct. A factor in a statistical regression may have a significant and direct correlation but will be one of many factors that impacts the curve. If gun ownership is a significant variable it will have it's own variable that functions outside of other variables. You're describing an equation that would be like this.

Y = mX

where Y is murder rate, X is gun ownership and m is the factor for gun ownership. Way too simple.

Your fixation on making this about assault rifles vs. hand guns is odd, to say the least. Yes, assault rifles should be taken away without question, but that doesn't mean you should just leave handguns alone. There are many handguns that are in the same boat as an assault rifle in that it has no business being available to the public.



Good f*cking god. I repeat: GOOD F*CKING GOD. Did you get a zero in Statistics in high school?

If I was a simpleton, I'd say "USA have most guns, USA have most murder." If I was an intelligent person, I would say "well, the only country that has a direct correlation between rampant gun violence and a readily and accessible public arsenal is the USA." If I was a foreigner I'd say "Why do they have so many guns when they never fight a war on their own soil?"

But you say "hey, look at these charts, BUT NOT FOR THE PURPOSE THAT THEY WERE CREATED! JUST LOOK AT THEM WHILE I DRAW IRRATIONAL CONCLUSIONS!"

Oh, and if we're counting every NO NO WORD!!! deal murder, every domestic dispute, every random act of violence that could've been avoided if some random scumbag didn't have a gun at his disposal, we're counting every f*cking NO NO WORD!!! murder in Chile. You can't play that game one way and not the other. Stop saying this.



Your stance on Canadian gun laws has already been refuted, why are you still using it as an example? 1 in every 19 Canadians owns a firearm license. If you can somehow fill in the gap where "roughly 5.5% of Canadians own a firearm license" becomes "Canada is similar to the US in firearm ownership," I'd be eternally indebted to you, because you'd redefine mathematics as we know them and thus the very reality I've grown to enjoy.

And they are not more "in favor" of the owner there, are you high? They make you go through a 5-step process in order to purchase a gun involving a seller, a buyer and a federal agency that tracks every gun sale in the country, with multiple steps for each party. DO SOME RESEARCH. Jesus.



I hate you.



Which is not even close to what is being suggested here. Although I wouldn't be against it, personally, I don't really feel like seeing ATF agent death after ATF agent death after irrational dumbf*cks start popping federal agents trying to take their guns away.

But you are (surprisingly) right regarding Japan. They have vast cultural differences than America. When we occupied Japan after WWII, General MacArthur was floored by the Japanese police officers' refusal to carry their service weapon while on duty. It got so bad that he had to create a fine policy in order to get them to carry the weapons.

In Japanese film, if a gun is shown on screen it is an incredibly ominous and threatening symbol. A scene where a single shot is fired is suspenseful, while in the US if 40 guys have a gun on screen it's not a lot and unless an H-Bomb is detonated on screen it's never "too much" firepower.

This is not a fair comparison to the situation in the US, though. I agree that it would be ideal to have the view of guns that Japan does on a national level, it's just not realistic.



Your # is off (it's 32 per 100), and, once again, research would've served you better. Out of that 32 or 40-whatever number, only about 5 of them are for handguns. The rest are almost entirely for hunting weapons. You know, since Finnish people are huge on hunting for their own food and whatnot.

BUT HEY! THEY OWN GUNZ THEY DON'T KILL PEOPLE IT MUST BE OKAY!

Oh, and that entire country has less people than the f*cking island I'm currently sitting on. Didn't you just huff and puff about me using small countries in my previous post (even though I didn't use any small countries)?



Hah, no it doesn't.



Laughably incorrect. Gun laws in every other country prevents the type of weapon used in the shooting from every being purchased.



Yes, thank you for pinpointing the issue: that these guns were legally purchased, which we are saying has no place in civilian life. You don't need assault rifles and military-issued handguns to protect your family or kill a deer.



You do realize saying this over and over doesn't make it true, right? It's like closing your eyes in a horror movie expecting Jason or Freddie Kruger to just disappear.



Wait, what? What the f*ck were we just talking about if not the second amendment in this country? Are you joking?



Horn linked to the exact article I had in the shoot already (which had me warn you against using them as an example, a warning you refused to heed.



Not a single person has said that. Again arguing against yourself. People are saying you limit mass murders by removing the tools used to carry them out. Assault rifles with 30-shot clips? Mass murder tool. Hunting rifle? Not so much.




This is the most outrageous comparison to date. I'm literally standing and clapping in amazement.

What the F*CK are you talking about.



You shouldn't have the right to a high-powered Glock handgun that is easily altered with home kits. For instance, for $150 you can turn a typical semi-automatic handgun into an automatic handgun with an extended clip. $150 dollars to go from "protect my family" to "killing machine."

But you think that's a right worth protecting?

Want a handgun to protect your family? Buy a revolver.

Yeah, when people are saying that bank bailouts piss them off more than 20 1st graders being gunned down with military firepower, it makes me wish I was Canadian too.

I don't really know what you are trying to say here.

"the factor for gun ownership" what does that mean?

Im not trying to be cute, I am genuinely trying to understand your post.

What flavor?

Wait, what?

1) I never said bank bailouts piss me off more than 20 children getting murdered.

2) apples and oranges

3) The CT shootings were an awful act carried out by one scumbag. The bank bailouts were a huge portion of our government stealing from all tax paying americans for individual personal gain.

I was answering a question unrelated to the shootings, I thought. I was answering a question about a freedom I enjoy as an American.

Deliberately vague political statements like that one just make me think of this:



The fact of the matter is that freedom means different things to different people. Some people consider the right to own a miniature arsenal to be a form of freedom; I would argue that not having to worry about you or your loved ones being gunned down is every bit as much a form of freedom.



But can we, though? As far as I can see, gun advocates seem to be staunchly in favor of maintaining the status quo. How many more events like what happened in Aurora or Tucson or Wisconsin or Virginia Tech will it take before we are able to say enough is enough? When did someone's right to a closet full of AK-47s become every bit as important as my right to personal safety? There is absolutely no justifiable reason whatsoever for a civilian to own a weapon like that, under any circumstances.



So for some background, I lived in Australia for most of the 1990s and into the early 2000s. In 1996, there was a horrific tragedy (Port Arthur massacre - here's a link for more info) that left 35 people dead. At the time, it was the deadliest massacre carried out by a single gunman. This soon prompted a ban on all automatic and semi-automatic weapons through a mandatory gov't buyback program. Australia hasn't had any massacres in the nearly 17 years since then, even though there were seven massacres in the 17 years prior. So yes, gun bans do have an effect, and no, guns really aren't available there. Maybe a few still sneak in here and there, but reducing the availability has drastically reduced the rate of use; it's quite a different case when I can purchase assault rifles at my local Walmart. More guns, less crime is the most dangerous lie the NRA has ever fed the American public.

The reason you think gun laws don't make much of a difference is not because they don't create a positive effect - it's that there aren't nearly enough of them to make the difference that they should. This is sort of like a college student skipping class all semester, cramming right before the final but still failing, and then claiming that as evidence that studying doesn't work.




Perhaps not, but it will change how easy it is to acquire guns, and that it is an enormous part of the matter. In most states I can go out right now and legally buy a firearm powerful enough to shoot down a quacking helicopter and have it wrapped in time for Christmas, and that just makes me sick to my stomach. Oh yeah, and if I do it online, I don't even need to go through a background check either (source).

The Second Amendment was written nearly 250 years ago so that local communities could form small militias if necessary; it bears absolutely no relationship to everyday life in 21st century America, and the drafters of the Constitution could never have imagined the wide array of highly powerful automatic and semi-automatic weapons we have today and the damage they can inflict.

Think of it like this. With a complex relationship to anything like cause of murder by guns there should be a large number of variables that impact it. So you have a list that might go something like this:

ownership = A
training = B
income = C
rural or urban = D
gender = E
etc etc. =

As you test a relationship you'll develop an equation like this:

Y = zA + yB + xC + wD + vE....

Each one is independent of the other and should have some impact on the number Y. You have to get the data, test the data and develop the equation to know precisely how it will work out. But each variable makes it's own contribution to the result but cant change the impact that others make.

Before we degenerate to the "Are we going to ban baseball bats too?" argument I figured I'd share this.

All the children that were attacked with a knife in China the same day as Sandy Hook are going to survive, and their parents get to see them again.

What I find interseting about this comment is the people that you are using to soap box (yes, you're using them) fully commended and applauded Obama's speech and his personal time with the families. He refused to let the White House propagate his interactions with the families, because despite your assertion to the contrary he is a genuinely good-hearted person. He was clearly heartbroken over what took place. He's not just speaking as a POTUS, the guy saw his young daughter when he looked at the photos of those victims (even if he never admits it).

The guy took a stand, in a sense he put his foot down to the constant pandering to lobbys (THE VERY THING YOU JUST SAID YOU HATE) and decided to use a nationally televised primetime speech (which, even as President he doesn't get very often) to tell his country, the people he's sworn to protect and serve, that he'll do everything in his power to stop this from happening again. He was promising the families that what happened wouldn't be forgotten or be in vein, and he was promising the victims that they weren't going to go by the wayside like so many other victims. Obama, like everyone else, has seen enough.

The real issue is you look at the leader of the free world saying "enough is enough" as a selfish and personal vendetta.

So far very few things you've said on this topic are accurate. You have proposed no solutions, just shot down ideas, and people like that are always part of the problem.

And if you think people aren't going to be forced into relinquishing some of their "freedom," after this, you're kidding yourself. Don't like it? Move to Mexico, I hear they're very lax with their gun laws, you'd LOVE the freedom down there.

So we're just supposed to ignore the fact that someone called the President a "gun grabbing n*gger?" I'm sorry, but it happened. It's relevant.

Can't separate the racism from the pro-gun faction when things like this are said.

Maybe related: the last time I actually heard someone verbalize that word in the 21st Century, they were harassing me on the sidewalk about how Scott Walker is awesome while I was collecting recall signatures.

First of all, you quoted my response to someone else's post. To quote it here is completely unnecessary and irrelevant.

Second, please tell me that you realize that our own government CREATED the problem in which they had to bail the banks out of for their own personal gain. Please tell me you know this. If you don't, you need to watch a documentary called Inside Job.

They knew this problem was coming, and because they were making money, ramped it up instead of shut it down. Im just going to have to assume you know that it was the government officials personally that benefitted nearly as much as the bankers in this thing.


Also, as a side note, I think it would be much more effective and better for everyone if we set the personal insults and namecalling aside. It doesn't add to the discussion, and only closes each other's minds all that much more.

Although I disagree with your view I do respect it and I would like to be able to assimilate it through as open of a mind as possible and calling me stupid, ignorant, dumbass, etc isn't going to allow me to see what you are really trying to say. I also realize that I have a cutting way to my language and I will cut the shyt, even if you won't.

Also, this happened and it wasn't brought up in this conversation as far as I'm aware:

blog.ctnews.com/newtownshooting/2012/12/17/newtown-officials-sought-to-tighten-gun-law/

In August, Newtown police and other officials tried to pass restrictions that would have given police more authority to enforce restrictions on target shooting.

Police Chief Michael Kehoe said the impetus for the proposal comes from an “inordinate amount of calls” in the past year about shooting on private residential properties.

“It seemed like it was every weekend for a while, and in the fall it seemed to intensify,” Kehoe said.

The complaining residents were not only seeking relief from noise disturbance, they feared dangerous conditions near their homes, the chief said.

The law would require the police chief to approve any outdoor target shooting ranges, restrict target shooting to the hours between 9 a.m. and dusk and limit the types of weapons allowed to be fired.

About 60 people came to a public hearing on the ordinance to voice their disapproval.

Legislative Council Member Mary Ann Jacob said in the August article that most attendees feared the town trampling on their Second Amendment rights. “And that is something we have to look at very carefully,” she said at the time.

...

A vote on the ordinance was delayed in September.


Things like this are how NRA fearmongering interferes with public safety. It's not just them, it's the "profits over people" mentality in general which pervades American society... to our detriment.