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Simon

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Yeah, and I’ve had to calm my kid down from having some serious anxiety after his school held an active shooter drill. 

 

I greatly appreciate PG’s reasoned approach to the situation, but Beau is just some random dude with a YouTube channel, and the Violence Project is not the only scientific study that has been conducted on the subject. I vehemently deny that law abiding citizens have any need for, or right to, assault rifles or high capacity magazines, and that’s taking the second amendment into account.  And there is certainly no reasonable objection to enforcing effective background checks.  The current “system”, if you can call it that, does little more than enable gun homicides. 

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29 minutes ago, Old Man said:

I vehemently deny that law abiding citizens have any need for, or right to, assault rifles or high capacity magazines, and that’s taking the second amendment into account.

 

Here's the thing: This opinion speaks to Beau's point number 4. You can't shoot without access to some kind of gun. So, having the discussion isn't out of the question. However, it's not an easy discussion. There are many legitimate pros to, say, the AR style of weapon.

 

Then consider this: Even if you could snap your fingers and make civilian versions of assault weapons all go away because they're the most effective thing that's readily available for mass shootings . . . then the number 2 best thing becomes the best tool for the job, and so on, until we're trying to ban pointed ends on kitchen knives. (A thing really discussed in the UK. They even trotted out professional chefs to testify that there's no legitimate need for a point on a kitchen knife.)  And this isn't a slippery slope argument, it's a real world example of using a tools-focused approach to make the public feel good, instead of approaching the whole problem.

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27 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Here's the thing: This opinion speaks to Beau's point number 4. You can't shoot without access to some kind of gun. So, having the discussion isn't out of the question. However, it's not an easy discussion. There are many legitimate pros to, say, the AR style of weapon.

 

Then consider this: Even if you could snap your fingers and make civilian versions of assault weapons all go away because they're the most effective thing that's readily available for mass shootings . . . then the number 2 best thing becomes the best tool for the job, and so on, until we're trying to ban pointed ends on kitchen knives. (A thing really discussed in the UK. They even trotted out professional chefs to testify that there's no legitimate need for a point on a kitchen knife.)  And this isn't a slippery slope argument, it's a real world example of using a tools-focused approach to make the public feel good, instead of approaching the whole problem.

I think the psychosis of the mass shooter includes a desire to be effective in killing as many people as possible.  To the extent you remove the most effective means(assault weapons with extended magazines) from the equation, you reduce not only the number of fatalities per incident but also the incidence rate.  It has been noted that there was a dropoff in mass shooting incidents during the period of the ban on assault weapons and extended magazines, and a pronounced uptick since the ban expired.  

Handguns are substantially less effective at inflicting fatal injuries compared to rifle bullets.  They're also less accurate outside short ranges, tend to have smaller magazine capacities and it's easier for police to intervene more swiftly without fear of being outgunned.  

Mental health is certainly a factor, and red flag laws might help to further reduce access to the lethal tools used to perpetrate such massacres.  Cracking down on extremist groups and the various social media and political movements empowering such extremism would help as well.  I would also point out that the acquisition of guns by extralegal means is not some impossible-to-address issue.  Gun thefts can be reduced(hell, eventually, with smart guns, maybe even basically eliminated) and illegal gun sales cracked down upon.  

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1 hour ago, megaplayboy said:

It has been noted that there was a dropoff in mass shooting incidents during the period of the ban on assault weapons and extended magazines, and a pronounced uptick since the ban expired.  

 

Seems like a questionable claim. Here's a fact-checking article about a similar claim made by Clinton:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/08/bill-clintons-claim-that-assault-weapons-ban-led-big-drop-mass-shooting-deaths/

 

A more general article:

 

https://theconversation.com/mass-shootings-arent-growing-more-common-and-evidence-contradicts-common-stereotypes-about-the-killers-121471

 

1 hour ago, megaplayboy said:

To the extent you remove the most effective means(assault weapons with extended magazines) from the equation, you reduce not only the number of fatalities per incident but also the incidence rate. 

 

That's a rather large leap in logic on your part. You're essentially stating that the lack of assault weapons will demotivate mass shooters, despite the number of shootings involving only handguns, not to mention the number of shootings where the rifle jammed and the shooter went to his secondary weapon. I think that the shooter/killer first determines that they want to commit the act, then seeks a means. I further think that's backed by more solid evidence than this claim.

 

Here are some articles about the study on contagiousness of mass shootings, the first being a recent one (from this past Tuesday) from NPR (they all cite the same study):

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/06/748767807/mass-shootings-can-be-contagious-research-shows

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/americas-mass-shooting-epidemic-contagious/545078/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/are-mass-shootings-contagious-some-scientists-who-study-how-viruses-spread-say-yes/2016/03/07/be44866a-df31-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mass-shootings-are-contagious/

 

1 hour ago, megaplayboy said:

Handguns are substantially less effective at inflicting fatal injuries compared to rifle bullets.  They're also less accurate outside short ranges, tend to have smaller magazine capacities

 

These are all excellent arguments for rifles being superior defensive weapons. You can't really say you don't want to infringe on the 2nd Amendment (and maybe you aren't saying that, but it's been said many times in arguments for "reasonable" gun control) in the same breath that you state that you want to remove the best defensive tool available from the toolbox. The sword cuts both ways here: All of the things that make these weapons effective for mass shooters makes them effective for self defense purposes. Save a high magazine capacity. One could present a rational argument for limiting centerfire rifle (and only rifle; you just admitted handguns are ineffective man stoppers) magazine capacities.

 

1 hour ago, megaplayboy said:

Mental health is certainly a factor, and red flag laws might help to further reduce access to the lethal tools used to perpetrate such massacres.  Cracking down on extremist groups and the various social media and political movements empowering such extremism would help as well.

 

The red flag laws might help. The social media use by extremists isn't curtail-able, IMO. Better to fund the feds to spy on and  infiltrate the bastards, then prosecute them every time they step over a line.

 

1 hour ago, megaplayboy said:

Gun thefts can be reduced(hell, eventually, with smart guns, maybe even basically eliminated) and illegal gun sales cracked down upon.

 

Not really. Not unless you have police departments with enough manpower and funding to bother investigating property crimes properly. And smart guns are a pipe dream. You know how annoying it is when your smart phone has an error preventing you from using it until you reboot it? That's a strict no-go on a defensive weapon.

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So, anyone remember the conversation we had up thread about cool things you can do to your AR to skirt the NFA? Like "pistol braces"? Turns out, the Dayton shooter used a pistol brace equipped AR. Here's an article that kind of recaps the stuff I said. Despite its inaccurate headline (there is no "loophole", use of the word by anti-gun folks is just to trigger people . . . no pun intended), the USA Today article has a surprisingly good breakdown:

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/05/dayton-shooter-used-gun-may-have-exploited-legal-loophole/1927566001/

 

I expect that Trump will soon push the ATF to reverse their prior decisions on pistol braces. He's not exactly the bastion of freedom that some of his supporters thought he was. (And if you parse that, it may seem like I'm implying that many Trump supporters are one issue voters to whom guns=freedom, all other considerations about a candidate be damned. And you'd be right.)

 

Personally, I think the restrictions on short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns are stupid, and they should be taken off the NFA. OTOH, it's the current law of the land and the intent of the devices is clearly to circumvent it, so . . . buh bye braces.

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2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

These are all excellent arguments for rifles being superior defensive weapons. You can't really say you don't want to infringe on the 2nd Amendment (and maybe you aren't saying that, but it's been said many times in arguments for "reasonable" gun control) in the same breath that you state that you want to remove the best defensive tool available from the toolbox.

 

May I ask: defending who against what?

Even in Texas, there is no evidence that widespread gun ownership does anything other than enable mass shooters. Mass shooters are seldom if ever contained by civilians carrying guns.

Incidentally, I'm not being weird about this. One thing I used to do with my life was to record the stories of the widows of war veterans. After a while you get tired of hearing how they had throw guns out of the window in order to protect themselves and their children from the war heroes they were married to.

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58 minutes ago, assault said:

May I ask: defending who against what?

 

If you're asking me to give you a list of incidents where an AR or similar rifle has been used in home defense, I can provide plenty. But I don't have time at the moment.

 

If you want me to enumerate the advantages of an AR type rifle for home defense, I can do that, too. But I don't have time at the moment.

 

I'm also afraid of boring the poo out of everyone talking about gun stuff.

 

I'm going into three days of 12 hour commutes plus 3 or more hours of driving a day, so I won't be writing any lengthy posts until maybe Tuesday night. Just so you know I'm not ignoring the question.

 

1 hour ago, assault said:

Even in Texas, there is no evidence that widespread gun ownership does anything other than enable mass shooters. Mass shooters are seldom if ever contained by civilians carrying guns.

 

You seem to have veered off topic here from the first paragraph of your post. You have two separate issues here. First, guns are widely used defensively, even when shots aren't fired. There's plenty of evidence of that, so if you didn't find it, you need to look harder.

 

As for mass shooters being stopped by civilians carrying guns: It happens, and I can probably name more cases than you think. Of course, given the locations of most mass shootings, law-abiding citizens wouldn't be carrying anyway. Mass shooters have also been stopped by unarmed people on quite a few occasions. Anyway, the assertion that civilians don't frequently stop mass shooters is irrelevant to the implication (of the first sentence of the paragraph quoted directly above) that widespread gun ownership only promotes mass shootings. You seem to be engaging in a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of carrying a firearm for self-defense. They key word is defense. If you're talking about taking out a mass shooter, tactically, you're going to be engaging in an offensive act, not a defensive act. The best course of action is to leave the area. Full stop. If you're also trained or level-headed enough to gather important information for responding law enforcement, or to help others get out of the area and keep their wits about them, then do that too. Engaging an active shooter is pretty out of scope for a concealed carrier.

 

1 hour ago, assault said:

Incidentally, I'm not being weird about this. One thing I used to do with my life was to record the stories of the widows of war veterans. After a while you get tired of hearing how they had throw guns out of the window in order to protect themselves and their children from the war heroes they were married to.

 

Most widows aren't so afraid of their husbands. War is truly hell. So are anecdotes.

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The Rand folks have a good breakdown on the available data and issues surrounding that data in regards to defensive gun use in the US. From the conclusion of the first section:

 

Quote

Estimates for the prevalence of DGU span wide ranges and include high-end estimates—for instance, 2.5 million DGUs per year—that are not plausible given other information that is more trustworthy, such as the total number of U.S. residents who are injured or killed by guns each year. At the other extreme, the NCVS estimate of 116,000 DGU incidents per year almost certainly underestimates the true number.

 

It's all quite fuzzy, really. But even living in the Seattle area, I've heard plenty of reports of people shooting or chasing off home invaders with privately owned firearms. And one case of a wife running a home invader through with a butcher knife. 10 times. 😲

 

When you remove gun suicides (because we don't need to defend ourselves against people trying to commit suicide and this is about defensive gun use), the number of homicides involving guns was a bit over 13k. (Per Wikipedia, quoting FBI data.)

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I was contacted by the Kamala HArris campaign and asked to take a survey to tell what I thought were important issues of the day. At the end, the survey asked, "Is there anything you want Kamala to know. Here's my reply:

 

I'd like a flat income tax similar to what Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in the 1992 Democratic primaries.

 

I'd like immigration law either enforced or changed rather than be ignored.

 

I'd like a candidate to project a calm and professional demeanor to foreign countries by addressing bread-and-butter mainstream Democrat issues rather than chasing after primary voters by fully embracing every fringe stance which comes along. Looking like a frothing radical doesn't help a candidate to appeal to Democrats as a whole and certainly doesn't help in looking professional to foreign countries.

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15 minutes ago, archer said:

I'd like a candidate to project a calm and professional demeanor....

 

Oh, sure. I suppose next you’re going to ask for rational political debates, ethical campaign finance practices, and political policies based on facts. You’re such a dreamer.

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 I confess that I’m a little wary of a flat income tax. I know that 15% is 15% regardless of your income, but it just feels like it hits harder if you have a lot less to begin with.

 

 Frankly, I’m just fine with the current progressive tax system...or would be, if everybody actually paid it. 

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3 hours ago, archer said:

I'd like a flat income tax similar to what Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in the 1992 Democratic primaries.

 

3 hours ago, Pariah said:

 I confess that I’m a little wary of a flat income tax. I know that 15% is 15% regardless of your income, but it just feels like it hits harder if you have a lot less to begin with.

 

My first issue with "flat income tax" is that the flat rate bandied about tends to be the lowest personal rate, or some other rate so low that it would generate significantly less revenue than the graduated rates in place.  At 2018-2019 rates, a person with $58,000 of income pays just about exactly 15% tax.  If we don't change the computation of income at all, that means everyone with higher income gets a tax break, and those with lower income pay more.  Fair?  Well, "fair" is a very subjective term, so some will say yes and others will say no.

 

My second is the question of how "income" will be determined.  The plan typically includes removing deductions.  OK, which deductions?  People with extraordinary medical expenses are just as able to pay as everyone else?  Do we keep deductions for retirement savings, or remove those incentives?  Specific to the US, I recall an article back in the 1992 primaries which cited several economic studies indicating his proposal would reduce the value of residential real estate by something like 1/3 to 1/2 (yes, all you homeowners, that's your houses plummeting in value).  Why?  Well, because US residential home prices are inflated by the deductibility of mortgage interest.

 

Of course, the pat answer tends to be "all income gets taxed - no deductions".  But that's impossible.  Tax a grocery store on its gross income, with no deduction for the price of the goods on the shelves, and they will all go bankrupt (or they have to massively raise their prices) - they don't have a 15% margin!  So we retain the challenge of "what deductions are properly applied to compute that income  to be taxed".

 

A 15% flat tax suggests that a kid earning $50 a week for delivering flyers pays $390 ($2,600 x 15%) of income tax.  A basic deduction/personal exemption is really just a 0% tax bracket, so it's not flat any more.  Maybe that kid is getting $50 a week for cleaning his room, making his bed, etc.  Well, that sounds a lot like getting paid for doing work, so where is his tax return, and $390 of taxes?

 

Like most complex issues, tax matters tend to have simple, easily understood, straightforward wrong answers.

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3 hours ago, Pariah said:

 I confess that I’m a little wary of a flat income tax. I know that 15% is 15% regardless of your income, but it just feels like it hits harder if you have a lot less to begin with.

 

 Frankly, I’m just fine with the current progressive tax system...or would be, if everybody actually paid it. 

 

Modern flat tax plans which you see national politicians propose don't start taxing on the first dollar of income. There's an amount of income that is exempt and there's an additional exemption per person in the family.

 

So it's still progressive to a certain extent in that the amount of income which is exempt from taxation doesn't increase so it exposes a larger percentage of your income to be taxed as you earn more and more.

 

As you point out, a lot of the problem with our current tax system is that people don't pay. Or often pay less if they can afford to hire tax consultants to find ways of sheltering their income from being taxed. So you end up with a situation where middle class people can be paying out in taxes a larger percentage of their earning than people who earn much more but can "hide" income.

 

The flat tax actually solves the problem of "that individual didn't pay anything on his personal earnings" and the Soros complaint of "my secretary pays a higher percentage in taxes than I do".

 

=====

 

Now are there some people you run across online who want to start taxing a flat amount and starting on the first dollar earned? Sure. But that's not what you typically get as proposals from mainstream presidential candidates or leaders of either party.

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The Jeffrey Epstein case and subsequent suicide is a really good example of the sort of distasteful and complex story which continues to divide the nation. 

 

Epstein appears to be a complete scumbag. His clientele are the ultra rich and elite, including royalty, celebrities and political figures. Both political parties are busy slinging mud at one another and loudly proclaiming their own members innocence (happily ignoring photos, testimony and other evidence of past associations). It's not in my opinion a Democrat vs. Republican issue, it's a power elite vs. the rest of us issue. 

 

Then Epstein commits suicide. On a second attempt. In federal custody. On suicide watch. Im a rational human being, but that makes me think things like: "he must have shot himself twice in the back of the head" or "if you are surprised Epstein committed suicide, imagine how surprised he was" or "did he throw himself down an elevator shaft into a bunch of bullets?" I can only imagine the play it will get from more emotionally invested conspiracy theorists.

 

And of course this is getting more play in the news as Trump tweets about the Clintons and their alleged role. With dozens of pictures floating around that he himself associated with Epstein, so you've got both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump looking bad, although not accused of any crime. The mud being slung around goes everywhere, sometimes it's not about politics. Other than being about powerful people abusing political and other power to sexually assault children in a systematic way ("allegedly").

 

It's a dark chapter in a dark era. So ugly. Sometimes I despair.

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Epstein wasn't on watch. They had relieved him after the standard five days. (I'm not saying that wasn't dumb on the part of the prison) And even on watch, there are ways to kill yourself if you want to. A prisoner arrested here and sent to Raleigh killed himself while on watch because he observed the guard rotation and chewed through his arm like a coyote

CES 

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21 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

Epstein wasn't on watch. They had relieved him after the standard five days. (I'm not saying that wasn't dumb on the part of the prison) And even on watch, there are ways to kill yourself if you want to. A prisoner arrested here and sent to Raleigh killed himself while on watch because he observed the guard rotation and chewed through his arm like a coyote

CES 

That's correct, he had been on watch and then was released. And his cell mate apparently moved out. 

 

I don't think that looks better, personally. I just wrapped up a job where I was responsible for suicide watch and safety cell checks, definitely clear that it's possible to end your life even on an active watch. This sets a new level for incompetence however. 

 

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/08/11/us/jeffrey-epstein-sunday/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

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1 hour ago, Iuz the Evil said:

That's correct, he had been on watch and then was released. And his cell mate apparently moved out. 

 

I don't think that looks better, personally. I just wrapped up a job where I was responsible for suicide watch and safety cell checks, definitely clear that it's possible to end your life even on an active watch. This sets a new level for incompetence however. 

 

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/08/11/us/jeffrey-epstein-sunday/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

New York's prison system  is not known for its competence. At least they didn't leave him in the shower room with the population. Then we would be hearing about a Dahmer Dive.

CES 

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25 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

New York's prison system  is not known for its competence. At least they didn't leave him in the shower room with the population. Then we would be hearing about a Dahmer Dive.

CES 

If he has any interested family members, the prison and State are extremely liable in this incident. They did not follow their own protocol by the article I cited, which is simply idiotic in a normal profile case. In this one it's unconscionable. Someone needs to be fired, or possibly face charges if they falsified records to cover themselves. 

 

This should not be a feature in our criminal justice system. 

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On 8/10/2019 at 11:42 AM, archer said:

I was contacted by the Kamala HArris campaign and asked to take a survey to tell what I thought were important issues of the day. At the end, the survey asked, "Is there anything you want Kamala to know. Here's my reply:

 

I'd like a flat income tax similar to what Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in the 1992 Democratic primaries.

 

I'd like immigration law either enforced or changed rather than be ignored.

 

I'd like a candidate to project a calm and professional demeanor to foreign countries by addressing bread-and-butter mainstream Democrat issues rather than chasing after primary voters by fully embracing every fringe stance which comes along. Looking like a frothing radical doesn't help a candidate to appeal to Democrats as a whole and certainly doesn't help in looking professional to foreign countries.

 

A flat income tax is a terrible idea.  It's just another break for the rich.  For a poor or middle class person, let's say 20%, 20% could be the difference between paying a bill or not, or getting your car fixed or not.  To a wealthy person, that's the difference between owning two or three Ferraris.  We need a properly gradiated tax system, like we had back in the 50s, where the uppermost tax bracket was taxed at 90%, and corporations didn't get so many tax breaks that some of them were paying 'negative taxes', aka getting money paid to them by the government.

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On 8/10/2019 at 3:39 AM, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Then consider this: Even if you could snap your fingers and make civilian versions of assault weapons all go away because they're the most effective thing that's readily available for mass shootings . . . then the number 2 best thing becomes the best tool for the job, and so on, until we're trying to ban pointed ends on kitchen knives. (A thing really discussed in the UK. They even trotted out professional chefs to testify that there's no legitimate need for a point on a kitchen knife.)  And this isn't a slippery slope argument, it's a real world example of using a tools-focused approach to make the public feel good, instead of approaching the whole problem.

 

It's stopping the willingness to kill each other that is the key.  While semi-automatic rifles (almost none of these guys are using actual assault rifles) are very effective for large body counts they are hardly the only way to get it done.

 

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people without a gun.

The lunatic that burned the Japanese animation studio down got 33 without a gun.

A man in China stabbed 7 hospital workers to death without a gun.

On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people[2] and the injury of 458 

 

Honestly, just the list of vehicle ramming attacks goes on for a couple pages.

 

The problem is not the tool.  It is the willingness of the people to kill other people.  Whether that is abuse, mental illness, culture or just pent up human homicidal tendencies - it is the problem.

 

More people die each year in the USA to being bludgeoned to death than shot with rifles.  Stabbings are even a higher number than that.

For every single person killed with a rifle - more than 400 are killed by medical errors.  But we won't be talking about that - we'll keep railing on about "assault weapons" because it riles up the constituents to vote.

 

Almost all mass shootings have low enough body counts to just be considered a bad weekend in Chicago.  There's precious little air time on the media about fixing Chicago, Baltimore and other cities with murder rates high enough to sicken anyone.

 

Mass shootings are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  They are just good media fodder.

 

Remember the naughty governments guide to democide (250 million plus dead civilians last century) is a two-step plan.

1-  Take away the guns.

2-  Do whatever you want.

 

 

image.png.54ae13d4ad973aafd00d891f5474835c.png

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On 8/9/2019 at 10:27 PM, CrosshairCollie said:

I keep hearing things like "This won't stop them from getting guns", or "people will still be violent" and I'm like, whatever.  Just because we can't stop all of them doesn't mean we shouldn't stop some of them...

 

Interesting how many of the same conservatives that reject this idea, used the same idea to justify the Strategic Defense Initiative. Experts indicated that SDI could at best be 90-95 percent effective and that given the number of nuclear weapons the Soviets (at that time) had, 5-10% would still completely destroy the United States. The question that was asked, "why spend all that money when the country would be destroyed anyway?" Their answer was "just because we can't stop all of them doesn't mean we shouldn't try..."

 

Strange how people will use an argument when it works in their favor, but reject the very same argument when it doesn't...

 

Quote

Or hell, as we should do with so many things, we need to emulate Sweden.  About 1/2 of all adults in Sweden own guns ... none of them own ammunition.  Hey, 2nd Amendment just says 'bear arms', doesn't say crap-all about the bullets.

 

I didn't know that! What a fascinating and, dare I say, unique way of looking at the issue. I've learned something new...it's going to be a good day. 😊

 

Lee

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1 hour ago, ScottishFox said:

 

It's stopping the willingness to kill each other that is the key.  While semi-automatic rifles (almost none of these guys are using actual assault rifles) are very effective for large body counts they are hardly the only way to get it done.

 

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people without a gun.

The lunatic that burned the Japanese animation studio down got 33 without a gun.

A man in China stabbed 7 hospital workers to death without a gun.

On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people[2] and the injury of 458 

 

Honestly, just the list of vehicle ramming attacks goes on for a couple pages.

 

The problem is not the tool.  It is the willingness of the people to kill other people.  Whether that is abuse, mental illness, culture or just pent up human homicidal tendencies - it is the problem.

 

More people die each year in the USA to being bludgeoned to death than shot with rifles.  Stabbings are even a higher number than that.

For every single person killed with a rifle - more than 400 are killed by medical errors.  But we won't be talking about that - we'll keep railing on about "assault weapons" because it riles up the constituents to vote.

 

Almost all mass shootings have low enough body counts to just be considered a bad weekend in Chicago.  There's precious little air time on the media about fixing Chicago, Baltimore and other cities with murder rates high enough to sicken anyone.

 

Mass shootings are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  They are just good media fodder.

 

Remember the naughty governments guide to democide (250 million plus dead civilians last century) is a two-step plan.

1-  Take away the guns.

2-  Do whatever you want.

 

 

image.png.54ae13d4ad973aafd00d891f5474835c.png

Who knew if you were poor, you were more likely to get shot while being robbed or shoot yourself, or if you were married, you are more likely to get shot by your significant other especially if you are the woman in the relationship, or suicide by gun is more likely to succeed than any other way?

 

 I didn't.

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49 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

Who knew if you were poor, you were more likely to get shot while being robbed or shoot yourself, or if you were married, you are more likely to get shot by your significant other especially if you are the woman in the relationship, or suicide by gun is more likely to succeed than any other way?

 

 I didn't.

I knew this. And that nationally white men over 40 are disproportionately the highest category of suicide completion. Colorado did a really interesting prevention project related to this "man therapy" (developed by a female psychologist and a PR firm). 

 

Rates are at the highest point in my lifetime. It's a serious problem. CDC recognizes it as a crisis. 

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