Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

26 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

Our willingness to kill each other.

 

 

But that's an effect, not a cause.

[Starlord]

Intentional homicide rate per country

 

Filtered by rate, the US is 89th.

 

Admittedly, not a perfect list by any means.

[ScottishFox]

11 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

To be clear, are you saying that Americans are, statistically, significantly more likely to be willing to kill other people than residents of other nations where incidents of gun violence are statistically less frequent?

 

Compared to the well-developed European countries we're normally compared with (France, Spain, Germany, UK, etc.) then yes, by a lot according to the Wiki page for intentional homicide rates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate).

 

My understanding is that list is not confined to gun related deaths, but homicide in general.  I'm sure nobody is wanting to implement gun control so that we can ensure murders are completed with arson, poisoning and driving cars into crowds.

The issue is our willingness to kill each other at a rate that is pretty low for the Americas, but 3x higher than Canada.

 

13 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

 

But that's an effect, not a cause.

 

I would argue that is an effect of degenerating culture, but certainly a cause when considering homicide rates.

[Hugh Neilson]

It would be interesting to see how, if at all, the homicide rate correlates with restrictions on firearms.  India falls between Canada and the US, and has pretty strict gun laws.  I will suggest that it is a lot tougher, in the heat of the moment, to burn down someone's home or poison them than it is to shoot them if you have a firearm, a lighter and a toxic substance on your person or close at hand.  However, I'd like to see the correlation, rather than apply my own gut feel.

 

Are Canadians only 1/3 as likely to consider violence, or do they have less access to the means to inflict violence?  It seems like both would influence homicide rates.  I will also suggest that glorification of the firearm cannot be unaccompanied by glorification of violence, directly using firearms and indirectly using any implement at hand.

 

If Americans are 3x as likely to commit acts of violence, perhaps we should reconsider the ease with which they are permitted into our more peaceful country (maybe you guys should pay for us to build a wall or something ), not just the ease with which they may transport lethal weapons into more peaceful countries.

[csyphrett]

3 hours ago, Starlord said:

Trump Official: Statue of Liberty poem refers to Europeans

 

Ohhhh!  Well it all makes sense now.

Who is also the son of immigrants.

It's never let me help you through the process because my family's been there. It's always my family had to put up with BS, so I'm handing it down like Ron Weasley's wand

CES

  

[csyphrett]

2 hours ago, Hermit said:

 

So much wrong with this I don't even know where to begin.

And I say that as one who has a conservative bent when it comes to illegal immigration. Pardon, it used to be conservative- now, because I don't like the idea of tearing families apart and placing kids in concentration camps I'm apparently a hippie or what not.

Folks should come through the doors our country provides, but those doors? They need to be OPEN and ready to receive. We have a moral and ethical obligation to help those coming here seeking freedom and democracy, who cannot achieve it where they come from. As soon as they say the Oath, they're as American as any one who has some great great someone or another that stepped off the Mayflower. And there's a good chance they can answer more questions about our Congress to boot. THEY had to take a test.

 

I know some others will disagree, but the way I see it...

 

You become an American, everything good about the United States of America becomes yours to take pride in. That's right, if you're born in Ethiopia or Thailand or wherever, come over here, earn your citizenship you get to be proud of the moon landing? WHY? Because you have just as much right to be as any other American of this generation and we should treasure what's best in us, cultivate it, and yes damn it be a bit proud. It's like cheering your home team when it's not YOUR ass making a touch down, you still cheer. On the flipside, while you don't have to take the blame for every bad thing America or Americans did- You do gain a sacred responsibility to keep those dark days from happening again. Trying to live up what is best in our country, fighting hard to fix the worst and keep old evils from rising again is the duty of anyone who claims to love their country. Waving the flag is cheap, making it worth waving is what matters.

 

There are going to be a lot of disagreements on what it will take to embrace the best, deny the worst.  We're not all going to agree. Welcome to a Democratic Republic! 

We all love the rags to riches story. We all love the idea of folks coming with nothing and through hard work and sweat making it big. But to me that is not the American Dream. It is the FREEDOM to chase your dreams that is what matters. Some want wealth, some want safety for their family, some want the chance to do something they love. A few want to help their fellow man. You have the chance! But thanks to racist bullcrap like Trump and his goons are trying to enact into policy multitudes wont' even get the CHANCE to prove themselves legally? We won't even offer a hand to them as they come in?  To assume that because of WHERE they came from, what they own, and not who they are, that they cannot be worthy of freedom? That we can't let them have legal means to join us?

 

That is racist, regionalist,  hateful, and let's just admit it, a betrayal on a moral and ethical level so profound that it is treasonous to the American soul.

 

I'm so pissed right now I could shove a flag pole up some bigot's ass!

 

"In God We Trust" is our current motto, but your actions determine who you are giving worship to. Right now? Trump is the high priest of fear and greed, and I didn't sign up to kiss the asses of either Phobos OR Mammon.

It sickens and disgusts me that so many of my fellow citizens are gladly puckering up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 things

1)Far be it from me to lecture anyone, but language.

2) The cruelty is the point. Why do you think so many top officials are gone, and Trump can't confirm anyone for their positions? You are either loyal, or you're not. and Trump poisons everything he touches.

CES  

[Hermit]

6 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

 

The cruelty is the point. Why do you think so many top officials are gone, and Trump can't confirm anyone for their positions? You are either loyal, or you're not. and Trump poisons everything he touches.

CES  

 

I can't argue with this. I just wish others could see it AS cruel. So many , it seems, do not, or refuse to.

The philosophical contortions I've seen to excuse his hateful policies are a dark wonder to behold, and pity.

 

 

 

[ScottishFox]

32 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

It would be interesting to see how, if at all, the homicide rate correlates with restrictions on firearms.  India falls between Canada and the US, and has pretty strict gun laws.  I will suggest that it is a lot tougher, in the heat of the moment, to burn down someone's home or poison them than it is to shoot them if you have a firearm, a lighter and a toxic substance on your person or close at hand.  However, I'd like to see the correlation, rather than apply my own gut feel.

 

Are Canadians only 1/3 as likely to consider violence, or do they have less access to the means to inflict violence?  It seems like both would influence homicide rates.  I will also suggest that glorification of the firearm cannot be unaccompanied by glorification of violence, directly using firearms and indirectly using any implement at hand.

 

If Americans are 3x as likely to commit acts of violence, perhaps we should reconsider the ease with which they are permitted into our more peaceful country (maybe you guys should pay for us to build a wall or something ), not just the ease with which they may transport lethal weapons into more peaceful countries.

 

Your mention of India lead me to a neat graphical tool called the Homicide Monitor which shows a massive cultural difference in homicide preferences in India compared with the Americas.  In North and South America from the countries I amateurishly sampled the murder weapon of choice is firearms at roughly 70%.  In India only 11% of murders are committed with firearms.

 

In the Americas most murder victims are men.  In India a whopping 71.8% of murder victims are female.  This stat in particular brings up one of my big concerns for stricter gun controls - It makes it much harder for the elderly and women to defend themselves against violence prone men.  And men do commit a pretty disgustingly large chunk of the violence.  The CDC had defensive gun uses clocking in at a minimum of 300k and possibly as high as 2 million times per year.

 

 

 

[csyphrett]

India also has a culture of violence against women so the murder rate is no surprise.

CES

[Doc Democracy]

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

A gun is a tool. It's the means like old man said. The problem is the motive. Until motives can be verified before people do things, it doesn't matter what the tool is. A semifamous case here in Clemmons is a woman got fed up with her husband telling her to stop spending money on horses. Something I could relate to at the time. She went after him with a harpoon/spear he had got somewhere and had laying around. There's been two or three cases where a man shot his wife and then himself I'm going to say in the last five-ten years maybe and we're a one horse town so it's not like there's a murder every week.

 

If a person doesn't have a gun, they will use something else. BTM used cookies.

 

A gun just makes things easier.

 

Until someone figures out why people act like they do, and how to solve that so they can deal with modern life, murder and suicide is always going to look better than trying to walk it off and trying to start over.

CES      

 

Yup, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”.  That has been the refrain for decades.  It is true but it does not solve the problem.

 

I would not argue that there are sociological issues to deal with but these presumably exist in other comparable countries that do not suffer the same mass shootings.  These folk also have access to the same improvised weaponry.

 

Guns make it easy, ready access to guns make it easier.  What would happen if there were no guns?  Even if it only prevented school shootings, would it not be worth it?

 

Doc

[csyphrett]

7 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

 

Guns make it easy, ready access to guns make it easier.  What would happen if there were no guns?  Even if it only prevented school shootings, would it not be worth it?

 

Doc

Maybe, but it will never happen in America. We have too many people who would rather shoot themselves than give up their firearms. And robbing a place is easier with a gun than a knife.

CES 

[Doc Democracy]

49 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

In the Americas most murder victims are men.  In India a whopping 71.8% of murder victims are female.  This stat in particular brings up one of my big concerns for stricter gun controls - It makes it much harder for the elderly and women to defend themselves against violence prone men.

 

I suppose I should look up the stats but British women do not seem to suffer due to a lack of access to guns...

[csyphrett]

47 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I suppose I should look up the stats but British women do not seem to suffer due to a lack of access to guns...

Britain didn't encourage the husband to stone his wife for her imperfections which India (or parts of India depending on how you look at it) was doing as recently as ten years ago I think.

CES

  

[Pattern Ghost]

13 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

What specific problem

 

Why do people keep looking for one problem?

 

13 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

leads to a significant difference in homicide rates

 

Why do we keep moving from mass shootings to general homicide rates? (Which, as you know, have been trending downward for years.)

 

I'm not even going to attempt to answer this post. You're an educated man. You should already know the answer you're looking for, especially given your profession. So, I think you're mind's made up and any answer I give will just lead to needless back and forth. I like you, as I do everyone  here, so I don't want to get into any kind of bickering with you. I will, however, direct you to that last article I linked, which was found in that long post from csyphrett above.

 

You've read my prior posts on these subjects. You know that I'm open to looking at guns, but you also know that I expect a LOT of other issues be addressed, and the effects assessed before I'm up for impinging too strongly on a fundamental right.

[ScottishFox]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

Guns make it easy, ready access to guns make it easier.  What would happen if there were no guns?  Even if it only prevented school shootings, would it not be worth it?

 

No, it would not.

 

We'd lose, per the CDC, several hundred thousand (if not a couple million) defensive gun uses per year.

 

Taking away guns w/out addressing the willingness to commit violence would leave our weakest and most vulnerable a chance to defend themselves from large, evil men. 

The increase in violent crime against women and the elderly would easily dwarf the school shooting counts very quickly.

 

Anecdotes aren't statistically relevant, but one of my favorite dumb criminal articles involved a home invaded beating up a nearly 90 year old man and throwing him in a closet so he could rob the place.

He probably should have checked the closet out first because the old man came out a minute later with his loaded shotgun and ended him.

 

Also, there's that whole 2nd amendment anti-government paranoia thing our founding father's had.  If nothing else having a few hundred million guns in circulation will keep the government from going full mainland China on us.

Have you guys seen the footage of protesters in Hong Kong singing the American national anthem and waving our flag around?  They get it. 

 

The Chinese military vehicle chains rolling into the area is not likely to end well. 

[Pattern Ghost]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I will suggest that it is a lot tougher, in the heat of the moment, to burn down someone's home or poison them than it is to shoot them if you have a firearm, a lighter and a toxic substance on your person or close at hand. 

 

And how many gun homicides are committed "in the heat of the moment," vs. say, for economic reasons? I figure there are a couple of major reasons for homicides, and the biggest two categories are personal vs. economic. Catch your wife cheating on you with the pool boy and kill them in reprisal? Personal. Shoot into a crowd of rival gang members in the parking lot of a corner store because they're impinging on your turf? Economic.

 

It'd be interesting to actually analyze this type of stuff and break down causes into workable categories that can be dealt with. I don't know if any stats for this are already available. My gut and personal experience/training tells me that economically-motivated homicides should outweigh the personal by a wide margin. People simply aren't wired to kill. Those who are in groups who routinely kill are always trained or indoctrinated in some way, whether we're talking gangs, military or cult. Most normal people who become pissed off will stop far short of murder, gun or no gun.

[csyphrett]

A quick google search (I mean like five seconds so take it with a grain of salt) gives me two top stories one from 2013 where a couple are stoned to death because the village didn't like the girl going out with the guy, the other from 2018 where India is described as the worst place for women along with Afghanistan and Syria. America is in the top ten.

 

The stoning

 

Guardian Poll of worst places for women

 

CES

[ScottishFox]

Ah, here's the link I was trying to find earlier.

 

Murder rate in gun-free medieval Europe was considered to be at least 10x modern levels (+1000%) and had periods ranging as high as 110x modern levels (+11,000%).

 

I think we often forget how good we have it by historical standards.  

 

"The historian Laurence Stone calculated that homicide levels in medieval England were at least 10 times what they are today. Certainly, we cannot doubt that it was a dangerous time in which to live. An exceptional case, even by medieval standards, is provided by 14th‑century Oxford. Levels of violence there were considered unacceptably high by contemporaries: in the 1340s, the homicide rate was around 110 per 100,000. (In the UK in 2011, it was 1 per 100,000.)"

[csyphrett]

I agree with Pattern Ghost. Taking away the suicides (depression followed by a split second decision), accidents (kid shoots their parent, sibling, or friend by mistake) police involved shootings (him or me), self defense (again him or me), murders are more likely to be about money or revenge. These mass shootings are an outlier and seemed to be spurred on by envy more than anything else.

 

Too bad the CDC can't study root causes so something can be done.

CES

 

    

[csyphrett]

5 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

Ah, here's the link I was trying to find earlier.

 

Murder rate in gun-free medieval Europe was considered to be at least 10x modern levels (+1000%) and had periods ranging as high as 110x modern levels (+11,000%).

 

I think we often forget how good we have it by historical standards.  

 

"The historian Laurence Stone calculated that homicide levels in medieval England were at least 10 times what they are today. Certainly, we cannot doubt that it was a dangerous time in which to live. An exceptional case, even by medieval standards, is provided by 14th‑century Oxford. Levels of violence there were considered unacceptably high by contemporaries: in the 1340s, the homicide rate was around 110 per 100,000. (In the UK in 2011, it was 1 per 100,000.)"

Nostalgia, it's the best drug because it's free.

CES 

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

What would happen if there were no guns?  Even if it only prevented school shootings, would it not be worth it?

 

I don't think so. I think if we had a big button that made all guns vanish from the Earth instantly, we would still have the same underlying issues with violence. You'd simply be trading the lives of the people who could have defended themselves vs. superior force for the lives of the school shooting victims, no matter how the numbers fell out. Seems like a bad deal for someone.

 

[Pattern Ghost]

2 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

Too bad the CDC can't study root causes so something can be done.

 

I'd propose that national standardization of incident reporting be funded at the Federal level, and all relevant agencies and organizations required to comply with reporting. Then anyone who wished would have a uniform data to study. And, sure, the CDC would be included. I just think uniform data should be the first priority.

[Hugh Neilson]

Do homicide rates for women and the elderly in nations which have more strict gun control legislation back up the view that easier access to firearms reduces this risk? 

 

I'm having a tough time assessing why the Canadian homicide rate, overall, would be 1/3 of that in the US. The Wiki article cited differences in trauma care - does the US have markedly worse medical care for injured people than Canada?

 

I don't see a big cultural divide (which differentiates us from, say, India or South America).  Canadians get exposed to American media constantly, and the cultures are not radically different, in my experience.

 

I do see much less access to, and reverence for, firearms in Canada than in the US.  What are the other marked differences that result in triple the homicide rate?

[Pattern Ghost]

13 hours ago, Old Man said:

  Guns, especially semiautomatic guns with high capacity magazines, endanger innocent people for no valid reason.

 

You know, my full sized M&P does whisper at me to do bad things a lot more than my single stack Shield.

 

Seriously, though, what guns or features of guns would you consider regulating or removing entirely?

 

My personal opinion, as stated above, is that we don't limit any handgun caliber weapon, but that if we limited centerfire rifle calibers to some lower magazine capacity and/or put restrictions on carrying them in public (which for the most part exist, due to anti-poaching laws in most states, but there are areas where goobers open carry rifles), then we could achieve a reasonable approach from the "means" or tools perspective. Of course, I'd want that bundled with some other things that are proven to save lives in mass shooting situations.

[csyphrett]

2 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I'd propose that national standardization of incident reporting be funded at the Federal level, and all relevant agencies and organizations required to comply with reporting. Then anyone who wished would have a uniform data to study. And, sure, the CDC would be included. I just think uniform data should be the first priority.

I totally agree with this. My understanding and I could be wrong was that the CDC is not allowed to look into gun deaths as a project like they have with other things. They are only allowed to look at DCs and the uniform reporting for that is bad. If agencies had to fill out replies like a ViCAP, the only thing against is political budget concerns

CES