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Ansem

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Uh, what? America has the most armed citizens of any western nation and yet they see mass shootings and gun violence every day, more than any other first world nation. How is that possible when there is already a massive quantity of weapons in America? If America needed more guns to be safe, then it would already be the safest country in the world.

And it's not like other armed citizens aren't at shootings, either.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/about-that-good-guy-with-a-gun/2016/07/11/3ed098fe-47a2-11e6-acbc-4d4870a079da_story.html?utm_term=.718db5a39d6b

Since you want to disregard mass shootings, searching by homicides. Most of the ones above it are South American.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

The home front: So many people die annually from gunfire in the US that the death toll between 1968 and 2011 eclipses all wars ever fought by the country. According to research by Politifact, there were about 1.4 million firearm deaths in that period, compared with 1.2 million US deaths in every conflict from the War of Independence to Iraq.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34996604

Secondly, the reason that states with (slightly, let's not kid ourselves here) tougher gun laws is because people obtain them easily outside the state and bring them in, and the reason these states have tougher gun laws is because they tend to have more crime. Without some sort of federal-wide legislation, it's pretty useless.

Jesus Christ... Ok, here goes some gun education.

1) The vast majority of gun crimes are commited in inner cities. Chicago, NYC... pick a city that has a big poor black community. In addition, 80% of these homicides are drug and/or gang related.

2) Gun control only affects law abiding citizens. If a bad guy wants to get a gun, he's going to do it illegally.

Let's take Adam Lanza as an example. He stole thr gun from his mother (which is already a felony because he could not legally acquire a gun), drove to a gun free school and shot up kids.

How is taking a gun away from me who acquired it in a legal fashion going to stop that? If he couldn't steal it from his mother, he would have gotten it from another source. Nobody is going to decide not to do an evil act just because it's more of a hassle.

I will personally say that Nancy Lanza should have locked her guns up much better and that is on her. But the fact is that Adam Lanza would have commited that act anyway. He would have either looked for another gun or gotten a knife or something. Evil is evil.

In the meantime, disarming me is not going to help that. There is more than enough evidence to show that (and this is an example) women who are packing heat are able to ward off more attacks by predators than if they were disarmed.

3. Legislation is only as effective as how effective you choose to be in upholding it. Criminals don't follow the law. Go after them. Not those who legally exercise the right to defend themselves.

Edited by Right Wing Nut Job
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Jesus Christ... Ok, here goes some gun education.

2) Gun control only affects law abiding citizens. If a bad guy wants to get a gun, he's going to do it illegally.

Maybe that's right, maybe it isn't. Mentally ill people like Adam Lanza are certainly going to have more trouble getting a gun illegally if it wasn't as easy as grabbing a poorly guarded weapon. I wasn't even trying to say that gun control is the sole remedy for America's gun homicide rates. I perhaps may have believed that when I was younger, but America has as much problems with mental health and crime in general that contribute to such a fear that people feel they need to defend themselves.

My main objection is that you regurgitated the NRA slogan from La Pierre of "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," (and the implication that the US needs more guns) and then say that there is enough data of this. Where is this? Because as a whole America is an example of that being a myth considering the amount of crime or attacks that are successful with an armed populace. Even if you're a pro-gun advocate I'm not sure how you can argue that. It's not as simple as that either way.

The rest I don't care to argue about, to be honest. The most I know is that Americans as a whole don't seem unanimously aversed (and in fact, seem to be in majority in favor of) to common-sense gun regulations that wouldn't affect law-abiding citizens in anything other than at worst a lack of convenience, and could very much help the situation. They wouldn't be "going after you".

Edited by Tryhard
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And I'll respond to the stuff about Islam when I get to my apartment

There is enough data to show that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. Mass shootings like Sandy Hook take place in gun free zones the vast majority of the time.

I'll take you a step further. States with more restrictive gun control have more gun homicides than those with less. Compare Wyoming to Illinois. There are more guns per population in Wyoming and less gun violence in proportion as opposed to Illinois which has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.

Since mass shootings are a very small fraction of all gun violence (and actually take place is gun free zones), they are not representative of gun violence on any scale.

There are more shootings in Chicago than in Wyoming because Wyoming is a tiny population density so more crime in Illinois makes sense. Add to that Wyoming is VERY rural so you expect guns to be used more for hunting and things like that as opposed to self defense and crime. That kind of context matters, especially since places with more gun control laws are likely to have passed that on the grounds of homicide laws. (In the same vein, places with more extremist sects of Islam will more than likely have a ton of people trying to get the fuck out of there).

(Wyoming has 700k in a large area and Chicago has a few million in a very small area; the latter definitely doesn't have guns for hunting anything but humans)

As for Islamic attacks, sure we're also talking about a very small minority. But once again, I point to Rotheram and Thessaloniki. These are refugees that come from countries where (for example) honour killings are legal and not rare (1000 per year in Bangladesh as an example). And it just so happens that these are Islamic countries where Sharia is the rule of the land.

This is a culture that I don't want. Forget Islamic attacks; child grooming gangs and honour killings are not compatible with Western culture. Therefore, slowing immigration from countries that do practice these things is absolutely acceptable. I don't want it here in Israel and I don't want it in Western countries.

Please go into more detail. And please do what I requested; what are the statistics? Which countries are you even talking about? How many immigrants from said country perform terror attacks?

Furthermore, I know about shit like this happening in Pakistan, and we have a family friend who escaped from places near the border between Pakistan and Iraq because their family was basically executed by the Taliban when they were a child (including her parents and little sister). These are the kinds of people you would be denying as well, and that's probably the reason why people immigrate from said places in the first place. And again, you have yet to point out to me the exact numbers on this and what countries you're talking about. I get the feeling you really don't read the post and you pick and dissect anything you can counter with your emotion, and throw in an anecdote in there. That's what I just did.

Edited by Lord Raven
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It's actually relevant I think, given that I pointed out that it seems hypocritical that someone would be anti-gun control and pro-Trump immigration policy. The above is ironing out the details.

Read everything that isn't you - the topic took a pretty hard right turn from the White House.

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1.) Plenty of left-wing politicians, feminists et cetera receive death threats from radical-right wingers for voicing their opinions on a regular basis. It's not only right-wing politicians that are physically harmed by the policitical opposition for voicing their opinions or threatened to have that happen to them - in fact, I don't actually know when that was ever supposed to happen. The PEGIDA movement in germany, for example, has had demonstrations where they had cards with the names of Angela Merkel and Sigmar Gabriel [both are "leftists" in PEGIDA's eyes even though they don't actually do any left-wing politics whatsoever] attached to "symbolic" gallows. None of that has ever been done to, say, Viktor Orban or David Cameron, who are actual right-wing politicians.

2.) There's enough alt-left sources, at least in the german/austria/swiss area, that are not blind to the issues you've mentioned. I'm sure other countries have those as well. A lot of people here, who consider themselves left-wing, are more inclined to agree with Orban than with Merkel and are generally very critical of the EU in general, whom they consider to be the epicentre of PC in europe. PC culture is not something that comes only from the left wing and exclusively affects the right wing. In the instance of Hillary's statement it's the "traditional" right wing that suddenly calls for the same PC culture it supposedly despises.

3.) Both the alt-left and alt-right circles are a minority that's absolutely not representative. You're calling them the alt-right for a reason.

4.) For the most part it's still what you call the "traditional right" that carries Trump's success so my point still stands. In this case you're the exception to the rule.

5.) My point is not a direct accusation against you. I'll openly admit that I was arguing under the assumption that you took greater issue with what Hillary said in that example and wanted to challenge our way of looking at things. I could be completely wrong here - if it doesn't apply you're free to not feel talked to.

6.) Regardless of where you stand regarding point #5, I'd still like you to acknowledge point #4

1) Except that there's been right-wingers who have gotten death threats too, Geert Wilders being one of them. And some of the more notable feminists who got up death threats did so after posting massive baits (Like the Gamers are Dead articles) and later stood to gain massive amounts of media attention/donations as a result from them (and the large majority of anti-third-wave-feminism was against death threats, it was just giving them more money; and this doesn't take into account third-party trolls that were actively disrupting both sides). Also, Merkel's immigration/refugee policy was totally left wing.

2) I know of leftists that are against said issues, which is why my argument wasn't against "the left" as a whole, but against PC culture.

I'll aknowledge 3 and 4. But yeah, personally my reaction to the whole 'basket of deplorables' thing was 'so this is Clinton's latest mis-step, huh-alright, time to get back to (other stuff I was doing while browsing the internet)'.

Edited by tuvarkz
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I'm not sure if it's a misstep in retrospect; it's helped highlight the fact that Mike Pence really doesn't want to hurt David Duke's sensitive feelings. And apparently he's against namecalling now.

Yes, we can't alienate the white supremacists. That would be cruel and they wouldn't want to vote for us; we'll just make lukewarm assertions that we don't agree with them so we distance ourselves just enough to be ok.

Edited by Crysta
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The amount of health info being released is disgusting. I would be fine with "she's got the pneumonia under control", not the rest of that nonsense. What the hell do her mammograms have to do with her recent illness?

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The amount of health info being released is disgusting. I would be fine with "she's got the pneumonia under control", not the rest of that nonsense. What the hell do her mammograms have to do with her recent illness?

Expecting reasonable practices from the media will only lead to disappointment.

Edited by Phillius
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Trump failing to produce a valid rabies vaccination certificate is telling. Does Trump have rabies? Many people are saying he does.

This is very concerning!

In all seriousness this isn't at all unusual: McCain was compelled to let reporters comb through literally thousands of pages of medical records.

Edited by Crysta
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Trump failing to produce a valid rabies vaccination certificate is telling. Does Trump have rabies? Many people are saying he does.

This is very concerning!

In all seriousness this isn't at all unusual: McCain was compelled to let reporters comb through literally thousands of pages of medical records.

Wasn't that because McCain over 70 years old when in the race for President?

Anyway, I find the current race hilarious.

Trump loses voters over saying that Latino people are unwelcome or some random crap like that. Hillary loses votes over saying some stuff I don't remember that pissed off patriotic people and people with military background. This is not only true of the USA but the amount of babystepping you have to do in a presidential campaign has always been puzzling to me. Either side will exploit minimal mistakes to the fullest, AND PEOPLE FALL FOR IT!!! :D People decide their votes on it. It's amusing.

Not that Trump saying Latino people are unwanted is a "mistake", mind you. That's an absurd thing to say when there's plenty of Latino citizens in the USA. Yet its effect is less than Clinton tripping over some technicality that makes her lose votes. It's really weird IMO.

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Wasn't that because McCain over 70 years old when in the race for President?

So is Trump. Clinton falls just a few years short. Sanders is 75.

Old people run for president. People should get over it. Unless they're literally coughing up a lung and make regular trips to the hospital.

Unless they're in pristine health - and perhaps even then it won't be enough - their political opponents will always poke them about their health/age and try to make it as big an issue they can manage. Even if their previous careers and successes clearly show they are capable of still doing high stress and highly mobile jobs well.Trump thinking giving Dr. Oz a page of his medical report and thinking that makes him transparent is cute, though.

"But Sarah Palin!"

Would have still happened if he picked Gandhi as his VP.

Edited by Crysta
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So is Trump. Clinton falls just a few years short. Sanders is 75.

Old people run for president. People should get over it. Unless they're literally coughing up a lung and make regular trips to the hospital.

Unless they're in pristine health - and perhaps even then it won't be enough - their political opponents will always poke them about their health/age and try to make it as big an issue they can manage. Even if their previous careers and successes clearly show they are capable of still doing high stress and highly mobile jobs well.Trump thinking giving Dr. Oz a page of his medical report and thinking that makes him transparent is cute, though.

"But Sarah Palin!"

Would have still happened if he picked Gandhi as his VP.

That's the problem. Too many older people running for president. Old people=old ideas, which are never a good thing, on either end of the political spectrum. It'll be 14 years before I can run for POTUS, but that gives me a lot of time to formulate ways to fix my broken country. I might even wait 20 years, but I can't ignore that the newest generation of voters are making an attempt to ready themselves for the 25, 30, 35 in DC.

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Wasn't that because McCain over 70 years old when in the race for President?

Anyway, I find the current race hilarious.

Trump loses voters over saying that Latino people are unwelcome or some random crap like that. Hillary loses votes over saying some stuff I don't remember that pissed off patriotic people and people with military background. This is not only true of the USA but the amount of babystepping you have to do in a presidential campaign has always been puzzling to me. Either side will exploit minimal mistakes to the fullest, AND PEOPLE FALL FOR IT!!! :D People decide their votes on it. It's amusing.

Not that Trump saying Latino people are unwanted is a "mistake", mind you. That's an absurd thing to say when there's plenty of Latino citizens in the USA. Yet its effect is less than Clinton tripping over some technicality that makes her lose votes. It's really weird IMO.

People are just way too easily offended by anything these days. Back in the 80s the german chancellor Kohl could openly state that Arabs and Turks cannot be integrated into germany's society and that it'd be better if they stayed home.

In 2016 you can't even call a racist a racist anymore without having your opinion shitstormed by the opposition.

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Bernie Sanders was older than all of them and didn't attract so many young people because his ideas were too old, too traditional and too conservative.

Socialism in any form is an old idea. Bernie was almost quoting Lenin with some of his ideas.
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Bernie Sanders was older than all of them and didn't attract so many young people because his ideas were too old, too traditional and too conservative.

This is news to me! At least in my facebook groups, nearly every young person was gunning hard for Bernie. And too conservative?

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This is news to me! At least in my facebook groups, nearly every young person was gunning hard for Bernie. And too conservative?

Crysta was making a bad joke.

Young people love the idea of equity and socialism appeals to them, especially since they're already left. Tell them about free stuff and they'll love you (and it ain't free).

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Crysta was making a bad joke.

Young people love the idea of equity and socialism appeals to them, especially since they're already left. Tell them about free stuff and they'll love you (and it ain't free).

DAE socialism = everyone gets everything free ???????
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