I was a right fucking gobshite when I was a kid. Got a slap off my teacher once. Yes I derserved it.
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I was a right fucking gobshite when I was a kid. Got a slap off my teacher once. Yes I derserved it.
hey ong, are you familiar with extrawelt? if no check them out, i think you might like them. germans r kool. saw them live at this festival thingy recently (along with tipper and glitch mob and nicolas jaar, really good line up) and it was awesome.
the thing i dislike most about victim culture is the way it dictates the way all people should speak to each other to avoid any offense. promoting the desire to be tactful and respectful and decent to one another is great, but the whole sjw movement slips into fascism so quickly. i usually find that the hardcore sjw types have no real understanding of other humans -- how people from all different walks of life talk/perceive/interact differently. they apply these static rules to everyone around them and completely ignore how complex human beings really are. they just don't understand other people, don't know how to talk to them, and don't understand why everyone else can't communicate on their set of rigid terms. hence retard twitter war after twitter war featuring confused person vs. rabid psycho
i'm fascinated by people so it feels like an affront to the awesome spectacle of humanity when i see these people that try to dilute anything interesting out of life with their shitty blanket rules on how to interact, or constantly seeking offense. if i was to be offended by anything i could possibly be offended by and avoided anyone that ever said anything "problematic" i'd miss out on some of the most eccentric, interesting, and illuminating social situations. i mean for fuck's sake, sometimes you just have to enjoy the show.
Once again, despite her disability, aubreymcfate says a lot of reasonable things all at once.
This sounds German. It's good, I like it. Very minimal. Thanks for this! Not as good as Tipper though, I'm very jealous you saw him.Quote:
hey ong, are you familiar with extrawelt? if no check them out, i think you might like them. germans r kool. saw them live at this festival thingy recently (along with tipper and glitch mob and nicolas jaar, really good line up) and it was awesome.
I've been listening to Greek dub of recent, check those guys out. Pretty much everything I've clicked of theirs is superb.
This week I have mostly been listening to Balkan swing, and iconic UK punk.
That last tune makes me want to shout!
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
[ ] Cleverly meta joke
[X] Total lack of awareness of he is perceived
If you type more than a couple of sentences, wuf, you're running your mouth (assuming the metaphor can be extended to text).
I'm fairly sure your "old" WW style was centered around running your mouth, and you have professed as much... or at least begged for forgiveness over any perceived slights due to your "in-game persona."
I really don't think internet gobbing off counts. Most of the shit I say in poker chat I wouldn't dare say at the casino.
[x] Has no clue what running your mouth means.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I don't fear the SJW's fascist utopia will come to fruition, what worries me is that, despite all the signs pointing to this fact, they're overplaying their hand and continuing to do so at full steam-- this is worrying because the longer they're at it and the more fervent they go about it, the harsher the snap back is going to be.
I'd rather our temporary cultural resting point be somewhere along the lines of "yeah, black people and women have gotten the short end of the stick historically, and we still have a ways to go to really figure out what real(istic) equality really looks like and how we get there" as opposed to every issue touched by SJW's being thought of as trivial and not worth serious consideration.
I know what it means, and my statement was directed to wuf.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
The fact is that I perceive him as very cool when he's off the cuff. However, he tends to be condescending and preachy when he takes more than a sentence or two to explain himself. Then, if he isn't rewarded for his effort with agreement, he turns to petulance and sarcasm.
In short: he's running his mouth.
This exact attitude will get you clocked by random midwest blue collar types more often than not. They will use the exact argument that "he was running his mouth, so I put him in his place." Well, at least some of them, some of the time.
So maybe there's a difference in regional use, but this is how I've heard it used, and was my intended use.
the times i've done this are when playing werewolf, a didactic game where a priority is to protect yourself and get people to agree with you. you've got me wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
"running your mouth" is speaking to/about somebody in such a way that you're insulting and challenging them at the same time. it can be explicit or implicit. it's repetitive in such a way that it can be described as berating, and it typically requires doubling or tripling down. a simple example of the least of what it takes to have run your mouth:
guy a: go fuck your mother
guy b: what did you say?
guy a: you heard me. go fuck your mother.
[x] Still has no clue what running your mouth means.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Have you people seen Kermit's new hot ass fucking girlfriend? I'm so glad he shitcanned that abusive fat whore Miss Piggy and got him a hot, skinny, young piece of ass.
I totally agree, I think that a lot of the backlash towards SJW stuff begins to mirror SJW mentality and attitudes, it becomes similarly kneejerk and reactionary and abandons critical and thoughtful examination. People often become the thing they hate, like militant atheism as a reaction to fundamentalist religion. It's the same "us vs them" dynamic on both sides which is basically the death of any real understanding or learning.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
I think it plays a stronger role in our culture than you give it credit for.
im wary of the "it's the same on the other side" arguments. ive been on both sides, sometimes it isn't the same. i have come to see the "it's the same on the other side" trope as more of a propaganda tool and defense mechanism of social justice elitism in the first place.
where is this backlash to sjw that is just like sjw lunacy?
I'm just talking about individuals who begin to mirror the same traits they are against: snap judgment, lack of critical thinking, kneejerk reactions, emotional reactions, us vs. them mentality, etc. Just because it doesn't look exactly the same it doesn't mean it's absolved of any critique. I'm in favor of everyone calmly and rationally and thoughtfully judging things on a case by case basis, and not having a kneejerk reaction simply because it appears to be SJW or appears to be feminist. Many people have a Pavlovian response to the language of ideology from the "opposing" side.
Also, there are certain swaths of MRA types that are just fucking nuts. They are the equivalent to the angry socially inept girls that occupy the really lunatic spots on Tumblr. Angry socially inept dudes on Reddit whose entire philosophy is filtered through their anger at women. It's all the same brand of hysterical rage transmuted into a identity/ideology. (no I'm not saying all MRA dudes are like this, everyone just calm down)
Yes we can quibble about the difference and who is crazier in which spots of the internet or mainstream media, but it still boils down to people getting sucked into ideological "us vs. them" binaries and never being able to think outside of it. We should try and be mindful of the ways our perceptions are conditioned.
Besides you know I wasn't saying it as a means of defending the other side so stfu :p
All that being said I do think there's strains of sjw or comparable modes of thought and rhetoric that permeate our public discourse and the state of higher education more than others and it's definitely a real issue. The internet made all this possible btw. McLuhan global village y'all! We weren't made to get along;)
Unrelated: to those who want book recs I shout from the mountain tops: HARUKI MURAKAMI
I am reading hard boiled wonderland at the end of the world and it is a work of pure genius
this guys brain is a wonderland
the internet has made it more pervasive and powerful, but social justice has been a significant mainstay for a long time. social justice is the philosophical root of communism, for example. in this country and more recently, social justice has been very extreme on issues of race for many decades.
also i blame education subsidies far more than the internet. regarding college alone, its dramatic shift towards the ridiculous is emergent from it becoming 13th-16th grade due to subsidies. dont get me started on subsidization of k-12, which is a primary culprit for "you name it" problems we have.
Yeah, great posts Audrey.
I think it's very important to not treat the individual as a whole. SJW stuff has in many cases become comical, but that's typically the case for any movement that reaches this level of mass appeal. There are very smart people doing very important work that comfortably fit into the SJW label. They're using critical thought to try to solve problems on the societal level-- and, yeah, it might be that their critical thought has lead them down the wrong path, but let's not forget that for every great solution there were countless other people working on alternative, complimentary, and, more importantly and more often than not, conflicting solutions. Out of this environment of competitive problem solving, we've got everything that we have, from pencils to iPhones to special relativity.
Save your disdain for the charlatans and fundamentalist, not the people who, however misguided, are honestly trying to find solutions.
im just happy south park is on the case. they're cultural movers for sure. a big part of matt's and trey's success came from satirizing the (social justice) suppression of expression from the xtian right. so it'll be interesting to see how the liberal south park audience handles tasting their own medicine.
Fuck south park right now. Theyre doing this long, drawn out SJW arc, AND THATS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR. Make me laugh, not feel hipstery while drinking fraps and going "nice".
episodic south park lols are on reserve for the privileged few.
Anyone of the opinion that occasional shootings of 5-10 people are acceptable losses for preserving the second amendment in the United States?
I don't think that says what people are saying it says. And if you speak to some very, very good lawyers, some would disagree. But many of them agree with me, you're going to find that it doesn't protect that. We have to start a process where we take back this country. Our country is going to hell. We have to take it back.
false dilemmaQuote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
what doesnt the 2nd protect?Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
i support the right to bear arms because i believe it more efficiently and effectively creates a more secure and safe environment. i have found that the typical media personnel, who hates firearms, focuses on a small subset of data in order to push an agenda.
We have to bring out country back, Wuf. We're in big trouble. We're losing so much, we're losing so much to so many. We have to bring our country back. We have at least 11 million guns in this country, not only the lives their taking but everything else, and you know about the crime wave, no one knows the crime wave better than you, there is a literal crime wave going on and you know, if you look, we spent a lot of money last year on gun deaths and we have to do something about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
i cant tell if you're serious.
Look, we're gonna straighten this out, and make America great again. Somethings happening. Something incredible is happening. A guy comes over here, gets a gun, nobody stops anybody, its like we're open territory, and that guy gets a gun and then we have to deal with his problems for 85 years. And I said, "it cant be'. But everybody says "oh no, that guy can buy a gun all he wants". But it turns out im right! Because if you read the language, other than some television scholars who say "oh no, he can buy a gun", people are coming from china, coming from all over asia, theyre coming from latin america, south america, theyre coming from mexico, they walk into gun stores and buy guns. It doesnt read that way. And people say "oh no, you have to go through a whole big thing, so many states with so many referrendums" but it doesnt have to be that way. Because I turned out to be right. We have to get rid of these guns, its disgraceful.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
ah i get it.
trump's an idiot
I like gun rights as the ultimate example of placing a high value on freedom in spite of real societal drawbacks. I don't see it as an issue of people needing the ability to defend themselves from an unruly government or criminals or whatever. I just think people should be able to do basically what they want to do and face the consequences that result. Freedom is just really fucking important, even when it's freedom to kill someone. To chop off freedoms at some arbitrary point along the freedom spectrum like at buying assault weapons, cooking napalm, making a dirty bomb or whatever is to open the door to a bunch of other tyrannical nonsense.
As soon as liberals make headway on gun rights, they will have (ahem) ammunition to advance their agendas on every issue that could possibly cause harm to people. As it turns out, a huge shitload of the things humans do on a constant basis have risk of death or serious injury to ourselves and others. Driving is incredibly dangerous. We banned guns so let's ban all fast cars (see Paul Walker's family currently suing Porsche). Or once self-driving cars become a thing, let's ban all human driving. Let's ban unhealthy foods (or at least tax them severely), since people die of heart attacks. Let's ban swimming, since people drown. Or low handrails on balconies, since people fall. As soon as you forge the logical chain of People Getting Hurt = Law Must Exist, we're fucked. In that regard, we're fucked already.
Ya, we're gonna ban swimming Renton. You caught us. Its point 15 in Bernie Sander's POTUS agenda, and he's got the entire democratic party's support on it.
Also, I hear Trump is pushing a "I want the right to kill people back" platform thats gaining marginal success.
good points. i do want to say that gun rights can be viewed as a security booster. who stops people from breaking into homes? the cops? nope, they're too far from the scenes. when people stop home invasion, it's the victims and the neighbors of victims. they stop it by using their eyes, ears, and sometimes weapons (or just threat thereof) so that the perpetrators know the consequences and are deterred by them. eyes and ears are easily the biggest tools for defense (they're what people use to inform law enforcement of the criminal behavior after the fact), but weaponry has a necessary place too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
if it was illegal to harm somebody whom you felt threatened by, i think crime would increase.
It doesn't assume that only one or the other has to happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
he's not wrong. you're not going to ban swimming, and im not going to ban swimming, but we're people who live in a world where we think banning something like swimming is ridiculous. but the causal relationship that gets from here to banning runs much deeper than this time and place. there are countless things that generations long dead would have laughed at as being utterly silly and impossible to enact policy on, yet today they're on the books. policies emerge from movements and movements emerge from culture. a culture that regularly tries to solve problems by banning stuff is a culture whose progeny tries to ban things thought to previously be silly to ban.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Bernie sucks and will get absolutely fucking nothing done ever just like he's never gotten jack shit done in his whole career except get 4chan behind him.
the dilemma i referred to was an implicit one: that mass shootings are caused by the right to bear arms (inferring that a rejection of arms would reduce or eliminate mass shootings). i dont believe that my support for the 2nd is also support for more mass killings.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
i'll go on record and say that the idea that mass shootings are caused by the right to bear arms is almost as ridiculous as the idea that oceans cause shark attacks.
Heres why Gun control is different than that entire rant of whatever. You do what you want with your body. Fine. Live with the consequences of swimming or eating. But you dont have control over what other people do. Sure, we can sue them after. We can throw them in jail. But that doesnt make necromancy suddenly possible. Those kids are gone forever. Those families are broken now, beyond repair. The kids who saw it happen are broken now, beyond repair. These are deaths of kids who will never reach whatever potential they might have had, they will never get to experience life. They will never realize their dreams, nor will they ever fall in love. Theyre gone. Theyre gone because they went to school one day, and instead of a teacher they saw a gun. They werent careless and drowned in a pool, they just went to fucking school.
Its true, I'd rather we lived in a world where the government didnt have to baby us all the damn time. But have you seen the world we currently live in? People arent responsible. The argument is always against the government stepping in, but people havent earned that right. Laws are made in response to events, not products. The first gun control laws were a response to the mafia and the assassination of a President. Its not some conspiracy to take people's guns away. Its mommy stepping in because her children arent responsible enough. You killed a fucking president, go to your room. But we arent getting better. Instead of becoming responsible and actually demonstrating that we can handle owning a gun, there's another damn school shooting.
Its not wrong, so long as somebody in some point in time may eventually possibly do it?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Swimming and gun control are entirely different things, and legislation regarding either are passed/rejected for entirely different reasons. It'd be like if I said "getting rid of regulation? Next we'll have cockroaches in our food, and die of small pox within a week". Its completely ridiculous.
And its true, some laws are made that are silly. Loads are. But that doesnt mean all laws are silly, and it doesnt mean gun control is either. There is a tool out there that enables someone to eradicate the freedoms of another with relative ease. Yet gun control like making the trigger harder to pull so a 9 year old cant do it is completely off the table.
guns aren't the cause. gun control would do nothing to solve the issue. if the view that guns are the problem and gun control is the solution was accurate, anders breivik wouldn't exist. the fact that anders breivik does exist should be enough for complete dismissal of the rationale from the gun control crowd, as the level of mass killing he created in such a small population with strong gun control is off the charts. statistics can be used to make any case anybody wants, and that's what has happened in the gun control echo chamber.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
if im using "gun control social justice" logic, i get to say that the cause of mass shootings is having a democratic president. why else are there "oh so many" mass shootings under the most leftist regime we've had in decades? now the truth is that this claim is wholly specious, but my point is that it's no less specious than what the gun control crowd uses. it's identifying an association and calling it causation.
as to your other point, you lament the irresponsibility of the people then prescribe an even greater reduction of responsibility. i don't think it's a coincidence that mass shootings don't happen in places where the culture is highly in favor taking responsibility for your own safety.
it is absolutely, undeniably true that the thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. the left scoffs at this idea then jams its head in the sand the moment the law (the "good guys with guns") show up. it's not a coincidence that a community college, a place where the good guys with guns are miles away, where the culture is "let somebody else do it", would be the mark for a mass shooting. send this dickhead to a rodeo and he gets off two shots max.
since we're on the topic, why is it that the private university i attend has taken significant security measures (like all locked classroom doors) yet the extent of security the community college i transferred from was a guy who drove a truck around on occasion? isn't the government supposed to protect us? why is a private institution doing a better job?
Last things
1) We have laws in the US that protect people from other people. Maybe the day will come where we dont need such laws, but today they exist and are in full force. "Freedom" is not the reason to prevent gun control, just like its not the reason to abandon our laws on murder and rape. The argument against this is libertopia.
2) The 2nd amendment doesnt grant full clearance either. I was only half joking when I was trumping around. The 2nd amendment has never been held to be a blank check on gun ownership. The text isnt clear itself, and could be read as to only apply to militias. Regardless, the SCOTUS has found that the right is not unlimited. Its not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. They even upheld gun laws currently in place, like restrictions on felons, school zones, and the sale of firearms. The amendment has also been construed as to only apply to weapons in common use at the time of the amendment (so muskets?). There is also a longstanding historical tradition that bans the carrying of "dangerous and unusual weapons" as the court put it. SO from an amendment standpoint, gun control works there too.
3) The statistics standpoint. This seems like just a crock of shit to me. Both sides seem to be bullshitting here, because the answer shouldnt be disputable. Does gun control impact crime, yes/no/idk? Both sides say it does, but come to a different impact. This isnt like global warming though where its only the 1% of dropout scientists that disagree. I'd like laws that stop the deaths of children, so if this information isnt reliable then I think "children's lives matter" wins.
This doesnt defeat gun control in any way, shape, or form. The only way it would is if you believe gun control is meant to eradicate crime. Its not. Its meant to decrease crime.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Im not sure what correlation you're referring to here. If you mean things like "Norway has gun control, and less murders" than sure. But school shootings are pretty clearly caused by guns, and technology exists which would make children unable to use them.Quote:
if im using "gun control social justice" logic, i get to say that the cause of mass shootings is having a democratic president. why else are there "oh so many" mass shootings under the most leftist regime we've had in decades? now the truth is that this claim is wholly specious, but my point is that it's no less specious than what the gun control crowd uses. it's identifying an association and calling it causation.
Perhaps. I dont know of a way to force millions of Americans to suddenly be mature though, and doing nothing instead is baffling to me.Quote:
as to your other point, you lament the irresponsibility of the people then prescribe an even greater reduction of responsibility. i don't think it's a coincidence that mass shootings don't happen in places where the culture is highly in favor taking responsibility for your own safety.
Police officers undergo a ton of gun control tho. Not only that, but reports of "police brutality" and "complaints against police officers" both dropped substantially when even more control was implemented.Quote:
it is absolutely, undeniably true that the thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
The failure of a city to maintain an efficient police force does not mean gun control is wrong. As for your rodeo idea, I can be cute and say an automatic weapon would get off a lot more than 2 shots. But I can be cuter and say that gun control is the reason they have any chance to retaliate at all. They were lucky the assailant was prevented from buying rocket launchers or sniper rifles.Quote:
it's not a coincidence that a community college, a place where the good guys with guns are miles away, where the culture is "let somebody else do it", would be the mark for a mass shooting. send this dickhead to a rodeo and he gets off two shots max.
No no no, you misunderstand. The goverment provides that minimum base level of security, but you're certainly free to make yourselves more secure.Quote:
since we're on the topic, why is it that the private university i attend has taken significant security measures (like all locked classroom doors) yet the extent of security the community college i transferred from was a guy who drove a truck around on occasion? isn't the government supposed to protect us? why is a private institution doing a better job?
as it should be. the cost of doing this is >0, which gets to the principle of how much value is reasonable to force an entity to put on a life. but even worse, the unintended consequences of this could arguably create even more deaths, as well as it's social engineering at its finest. the social engineering of it is if you wanna start eradicating guns from peoples' lives, one of the best ways to do it would be to sneak in laws that disincentivize involvement of children with their parents. many gun enthusiasts shot their first firearm at around age 10 or below.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
the unintended consequences of a law like this would be huge. it would increase irresponsibility by parents ("naw just leave the gun on the counter, little billy is too weak to pull the trigger, da gubmint made sure of it"). it would increase irresponsibility by handlers ("naw bro didn't you hear, triggers are tough to pull now so no more need for trigger discipline"). as is pretty much always the case when the government passes laws like this, we'd create even more problems than what we solve.
More freedom, less utopianism.
The notion that a murderer is confined by the tool in his hand is ludicrous to me. There were murders and mass killings before guns. There will still be murderous assholes, some of whom have the determination to find or make a killing device, even if there are no more gun manufacturers.
No amount of regulation is going to change human nature.
Humanity is far more complex than the way the issue of gun control frames us. We are a vicious, violent species from time to time. No matter how pleasant life can be in between, there is much reason to believe that there will be terrible times again. Genocide is still a thing humans are doing. When the common people don't have commensurate weaponry, the results are too stunning to describe. The promise that it wont happen here, never ever, is not compelling. Even if I am persuaded to trust that my gov't will never be corrupted, I cannot be persuaded to believe that gov't is all powerful against invasion.
In short: a few mass shootings at schools is a mighty price to pay, but in this case, it's well worth it.
The argument that anyone has a right to live a life without coming face to face with death is ridiculous entitlement. If you have not had to face terrible humanity, then count yourself as lucky. Your experience is not the whole story.
So what? You act like this is the only regulation to ever increase the safety of people at a cost. Two "wrongs" dont make a right, but when my car has to pass emissions every 2 years...I dont really care if my gun cost goes up $20.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I can speculate too. We do nothing, and school shootings become so common place that nobody bats an eye anymore. We teach children that shooters are rewarded with fame and live on forever, and its really not such a big deal that your best friend died anyway. Youll make a new one.Quote:
but even worse, the unintended consequences of this could arguably create even more deaths, as well as it's social engineering at its finest. the social engineering of it is if you wanna start eradicating guns from peoples' lives, one of the best ways to do it would be to sneak in laws that disincentivize involvement of children with their parents. many gun enthusiasts shot their first firearm at around age 10 or below
the unintended consequences of a law like this would be huge. it would increase irresponsibility by parents ("naw just leave the gun on the counter, little billy is too weak to pull the trigger, da gubmint made sure of it"). it would increase irresponsibility by handlers ("naw bro didn't you hear, triggers are tough to pull now so no more need for trigger discipline"). as is pretty much always the case when the government passes laws like this, we'd create even more problems than what we solve.
"The Future Is Scary" is not a real argument.
You dont seriously believe that children are capable of the same scale of tragedies w/o guns. You know quite well that guns are the only reason mass school deaths by children are even possible. Ok, bombs and plagues and such too, but those are controlled as well. There is no child capable of killing his entire class by arming himself with a knife or spear.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
And you are not naive enough to believe any person and their gun stands any chance against an army. It is not the 1700s. We dont fight in militias anymore, and a single drone is all it takes to wipe you off the map before you can even load your whatever. Maybe the people currently undergoing genocide would be better off with guns, but their fight is different than whatever fight Americans will face.Quote:
Humanity is far more complex than the way the issue of gun control frames us. We are a vicious, violent species from time to time. No matter how pleasant life can be in between, there is much reason to believe that there will be terrible times again. Genocide is still a thing humans are doing. When the common people don't have commensurate weaponry, the results are too stunning to describe. The promise that it wont happen here, never ever, is not compelling. Even if I am persuaded to trust that my gov't will never be corrupted, I cannot be persuaded to believe that gov't is all powerful against invasion.
I have a constitutional right to life. Thats not entitlement.Quote:
In short: a few mass shootings at schools is a mighty price to pay, but in this case, it's well worth it.
The argument that anyone has a right to live a life without coming face to face with death is ridiculous entitlement. If you have not had to face terrible humanity, then count yourself as lucky. Your experience is not the whole story.
The "wrong" that is murder and rape is nothing at all like the "wrong" of owning firearms.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Besides, freedom is usually a good enough reason for things. It's why we're here today and have what we have, after all.
It takes a convoluted reading to say that the right to bear arms is dependent upon being in a militia. The militia part is the qualifier for why the right exists, but the right itself is to bear arms. It's not to bear arms if in a militia or if a militia is needed. It's to bear arms, full stop.Quote:
The text isnt clear itself, and could be read as to only apply to militias.
I agree in principle. That said, SCOTUS loves doing the wrong thing (I'm not saying they're wrong here, I have no opinion on it). It can be said its decisions emerge more from the need for maintenance of legitimacy than from unconditional adherence to the constitution.Quote:
Regardless, the SCOTUS has found that the right is not unlimited. Its not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. They even upheld gun laws currently in place, like restrictions on felons, school zones, and the sale of firearms. The amendment has also been construed as to only apply to weapons in common use at the time of the amendment (so muskets?). There is also a longstanding historical tradition that bans the carrying of "dangerous and unusual weapons" as the court put it. SO from an amendment standpoint, gun control works there too.
2011 was the year that a gun control regime far outperformed a less-than-that-gun-control regime when it comes to mass shooting deaths per capita. My point isn't that this helps my point, but that it's an example of the specious use of statistics the gun control crowd uses. Where are all the gun control proponents saying that it clearly doesn't work since this tiny population of gun-controlled Norwegians had a HUGE mass shooting?Quote:
This doesnt defeat gun control in any way, shape, or form. The only way it would is if you believe gun control is meant to eradicate crime. Its not. Its meant to decrease crime.
Mass killilngs are not caused by guns; they are often associated with guns. We don't know most of the causes of mass killings. If we use the logic that guns cause mass killings, we must also use the logic that guns stop them. Besides, gun control typically just removes them from lawful citizens, not criminals.Quote:
Im not sure what correlation you're referring to here. If you mean things like "Norway has gun control, and less murders" than sure. But school shootings are pretty clearly caused by guns, and technology exists which would make children unable to use them.
It's not gun enthusiasts that scare me. The last place I want to be is in a room full of gun control proponents and a firearm sitting on the table. Half of them wouldn't even know how to pick it up without accidental discharge. Even then, killers are not killers because they lack maturity.Quote:
Perhaps. I dont know of a way to force millions of Americans to suddenly be mature though, and doing nothing instead is baffling to me.
There's no "doing nothing" here. Gun enthusiasts typically do more for safety issues than gun control advocates. I'll be clear in saying that I think gun control (outside of extreme stuff) would just make things less safe. I think it already has. The last thing I want to see is the government be given more responsibility for safety, because its track record of not handling that power well is so clear.
I'm not sure what you mean by the gun control undergone. Besides, I'm not sure I think it's that great an improvement for a regime that causes way way way way too much suffering to be hailed as a success when one of those "way's" is removed.Quote:
Police officers undergo a ton of gun control tho. Not only that, but reports of "police brutality" and "complaints against police officers" both dropped substantially when even more control was implemented.
I don't take much issue with this. When I argue against gun control, I inadvertently do not even consider the most destructive among them as a part of the debate. That said, a rocket launcher isn't a gun, and I haven't seen much evidence that assault rifles are more productive for mass killings than handguns.Quote:
The failure of a city to maintain an efficient police force does not mean gun control is wrong. As for your rodeo idea, I can be cute and say an automatic weapon would get off a lot more than 2 shots. But I can be cuter and say that gun control is the reason they have any chance to retaliate at all. They were lucky the assailant was prevented from buying rocket launchers or sniper rifles.
Well, the government is pretty bad at it, then. It's terrible at stopping crime. In fact, it's great at creating crime.Quote:
No no no, you misunderstand. The goverment provides that minimum base level of security, but you're certainly free to make yourselves more secure.
Regardless, how does a regulation on trigger tension qualify as "minimum base level of security"?
Well, you're saying that you know what the cost of a life is and that the government can reasonably implement regulation to enact this. I'm saying that isn't necessarily the case and also we don't use this sort of logic for most other things. Take vehicular collisions for example. Millions of lives could be saved (other peoples' lives taken from them against their direct choice) by reducing the speed limit to 25 miles per hour. Since I always try to look at things like an economist does, I'll go there: at what cost and who should be the authority to determine that? I'd like it if the government could be a positive here, but history isn't on its side.Quote:
So what? You act like this is the only regulation to ever increase the safety of people at a cost. Two "wrongs" dont make a right, but when my car has to pass emissions every 2 years...I dont really care if my gun cost goes up $20.
I get it. I think it's ridiculous. But how does this mean the problem is guns? There is a far, far better explanation that the problem is the media that glorifies the killers. And an even bigger cause in how the populace at large slurps it up as entertainment. Guns are a scapegoat.Quote:
I can speculate too. We do nothing, and school shootings become so common place that nobody bats an eye anymore. We teach children that shooters are rewarded with fame and live on forever, and its really not such a big deal that your best friend died anyway. Youll make a new one.
"The Future Is Scary" is not a real argument.
There are some pretty big mass killings with knives.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
There are a lot of ways to more effectively kill people than shooting up schools. Shooting up schools is popular, um, probably because of how glorified it is The typical killers' priorities are to strike fear into the hearts of the nation and to be anti-heroes. If it was just about the killing, they typically wouldn't be interested in massacres.
Renton, you think everyone should be free to build a dirty bomb? I really don't want to be condescending here, but isn't this a red flag warning that your ideology has lead you astray?
And wuf, I'm pretty sure you don't agree with this, yet you quote Renton and offer a vague co-sign of his overall post, "some really good points." I mean, this is essentially Trump telling that supporter who asked about Obama being a Muslim, "Well, yeah, we're going to look into that."
It's kind of telling that you two rarely, if ever, contradict each other whenever something in the realm of governance comes up. Are you interested in honest dialogue, or are you trying to win a point for your side?
I don't know how anti-government Renton is, but I'm 100% anti-government, meaning that I think taxes shouldn't exist and there should be no law monopoly telling anybody what they can or can't do. This includes dirty bombs or nukes or death rays from outer space.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
Now, if my logic goes only this far, then it's utterly ridiculous. But it doesn't end here. I don't support that behavior at all. I think anybody who is building a dirty bomb should have a bullet put between his eyes. Renton probably does too. Notice where he said that people should "face the consequences" of their actions. I fully support making production of dirty bombs the hardest thing in the world to do, but I do not support a violence monopoly having the power to be the only regulator of this. The reason for this distinction is that I think that the violence monopoly is actually less effective at deterring rogues than a competitive market is. I've said before that I think if security was a market, nuclear weapons would be eradicated. Nukes are an enormous liability to the profit incentive in the market, but they're pretty much the biggest piece of equity a violence monopoly can have. It's no wonder that the world has so many nukes when the system incentivizes that behavior.
So when I (and probably Renton) say something like "people should be free to harm others", I also think that people should be free to stop people from harming others. I know that in a law market, the type of law insurance company I would purchase would be VERY rigorous in preventing initiation of violence.
If you're not sure why I think the fact that I don't support violence shouldn't just mean that I support monopolized laws against those things, it's because monopolies don't work as well as markets. Our governments, the violence and law monopolies and tax regimes that they are, have done a horrible job so far, and I believe the economic principles for why monopolies don't work that well are the reasons why.
It should be noted that the government is only capable of enforcing laws that the people value at large. This is consistent with the common defense of democracy, that the government exists by the will of the people and is subjected to the will of the people. This means that ultimately the values the government holds must be consistent with the values of the country, so to speak.
The government doesn't protect us from war. People protect us from war. We protect us from war. We do not want war to a great degree, and if a government official campaigned to drop a nuke on Canada, we would vote him out. This is why it is not unreasonable to say that a market can handle security of even the most destructive weapons. The government is not saving us from ourselves. We're not sitting here crying "but weeee waaaaant waaaar" and the government says "daddy knows what's best". In a security market, consumers would still value "don't drop nukes on Canada" policies and companies would exist to serve this choice. The transmission of that message would actually be far more powerful too.
You're wrong about what I believe / know quite well on both counts.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
You couldn't even finish the paragraph before your non-violent mind came up with some creative solutions to the quandary. Even if the knife/spear is true (probably not a statistical certainty), it's not the entire list of non-gun options available to them.
"Bombs" are controlled? Sure, OK.
I deleted a couple of quite simple ways to figure out how to make very dangerous stuff with commonly available chemicals.
Just for one simple example which isn't deleted: a potato gun takes a couple of hours to build, is powered by hairspray, and can be easily modified to launch something worse than a potato, or modified to a much more destructive purpose.
As a child, my friends and I went to the gas station, bought a couple of the oversized lighters and went into the woods to use one of them to light the other one on fire. We literally made a fire bomb out of two lighters as kids of ~12. We had no intent to hurt anyone, and no one was hurt, but the idea that making a bomb is hard for kids has a steep dropoff rate around age 11 to 17 for some kids.
You can't possibly stop someone with the creativity and determination from being able to make a big boom. The materials are literally everywhere, and you can't possibly control things like "over-pressured containers" or fire.
Furthermore, anyone who commits a pre-meditated mass murder is not a "child" anymore.
This is an argument for less regulation, not more.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
I live in St Louis. It was always going to be a "first response" target for nuclear strike by the Russians during the cold war. St Louis was making missile warheads at the time. There's literally nothing I could do about it. I don't think there's any good argument that myself or my neighbors should wield something powerful enough to stop an ICBM, much less our own ICBMs.
So I agree there have to be limits. Anything you can make in your basement in less than a week from commonly available items, though... if you regulate this class of things, then you simply inconvenience honest people, and do nothing to criminals at all.
@underline: There are far too many human variables for anyone to possibly know this.
Your right to life is not a right to peace. It is not a right to be free from witnessing violence.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Your argument that the people who weren't killed that day somehow have a right to not have been near it is entitlement.
I don't accept it. I've heard and seen some crazy stuff. Mind-numbing stuff. Life is hard. Shit happens. You have a right to face that mind-numbing, hard shit, to seek happiness amid the turmoil.
You do not have a right to happiness.
Well since I said it in my brain, typed it, then reviewed it and clicked submit, I think its fairly safe to say that I didn't get a red flag warning at any point.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
I will say that I wasn't clear about one aspect of the point I was trying to make there. I'm not so much talking about the implementation as about the reason for the law itself. It's reasonable to have a law against making a dirty bomb because the act of making a dirty bomb is 99% consistent with the intention of hurting a lot of people. You can then make laws against anything that fits this criteria, and remain logically consistent. Liberals want that criteria to be "anything that can possibly hurt anyone," and that was the point of my post.
The largest school-related mass killing in American history was not performed with guns.
If guns were the big driving reason that school shootings were happening like they have been, then they would have happened more often before Columbine.
Liberals and logic are like oil and water.
lol noQuote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
So by arguing for a liberal amount of freedom, I'm somehow being logical?Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
The funny thing is that I get called "a liberal" for most of my views. *shrug*
liberal is a very weird word. it wasn't so long ago that liberal meant a proponent of the free market, but now it means an oft antagonist to the free market. there's also a good deal of overlap between liberals and conservatives when abstracting about certain policies that disappear when the policies are viewed more concretely.
one of the most accurate simplistic descriptions of the left and right ive come across is that the left is made up of a large group of generally pro-government people and the right is made up of fractured groups of people who are irritated by the left. this makes a lot of sense to me. the right isn't that anti-government at all, and the factions are not that similar to each other. but the right does very much dislike the left.
i hope one day there will be a significant enough political faction whose organizing ideology is pro-markets. right now maybe 5% or so of voters specifically vote against government intervention.
Nobody was talking to anyone at the kids' table.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Because an adult making a bomb means we shouldn't make it harder for children to shoot children. Oh please.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
School knifings have happened. There was a PA one recently. The death toll was 0. Turns out, it's hard to kill someone when you don't use a gun or explosive...both of which should be heavily controlled.
And this argument of "why haven't more bad things happened before gun control"...they did. One of our presidents was assasinated, and the mafia was kind of a big deal.
@mmm: gun control is not about making death impossible. It's about making it much more difficult. The set of people capable of making a bomb successfully and implementing it successfully is much smaller than the set of people able to fire a gun. That's undeniable.
But it's more than the fact that guns are efficient and easy. It's psychologically much simpler too. A kid making a bomb would need weeks to figure it out. Weeks where he has to commit to his actions and thoughts. A kid with a gun needs an hour to find where his daddy hid it.
To say either of these differences are meaningless or that they necessitate 0 gun control...idk how that makes sense at all.
Im sorry you experienced whatever it is you experienced. But I'm not being entitled, you're being selfish because the world wasn't fair to you. If we took your answer to small pox, the disease would still be here. Bad things happen, stop being entitled, is NOT a reason to avoid bettering ourselves and preventing death.
I hope it felt good to get that out.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
SMH
I guess I appreciate the paradox of being utterly childish while accusing someone else of being a child.
*shrug*
There has been no school shooting in the United States in the past 25 years where a child shot a child.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
I agree. I just might disagree about where the line should be drawn. I don't actually know what your position is as pertains to "regulation." I agree that some weapons should be regulated, and not others.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
I don't think the answer is, "The kids that got shot should have had guns."
I don't think the answer is, "No one should have guns."
Your right to not be killed has nothing to do with my right to use a deadly weapon to not kill you.
I even have a driver's license. I am licensed to use a machine capable of lethal damage to myself and to others. So the idea that something is "easy to find and use" is a compelling argument for why that thing should be regulated. However, it says nothing to the degree or nature of the regulation.
I deny it.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
There's a gas station within walking distance of me that will happily sell me a gas can, full of gas, a rag and a lighter and not bat an eye about it. I'm pretty sure any child knows that gas is flammable and that fire can hurt and/or kill people. There are even signs on the gas pump warning you that gasoline may explode if it is not in a well-ventilated container.
*wink wink*
The information is literally everywhere.
I hope I've dispelled your notion that it would take weeks to figure out. I think the ~1 hour time frame is about the same for a trip to the gas station with a $10 bill.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Psychologically... I guess... maybe... but neither of us is a psychologist.
I said neither of those things. I said the differences you perceive are not differences in my perception. I never argued for 0 gun control.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
To restate about differences:
"Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right"
-Ani Difranco
Frankly, I am not opposed to much more licensing and safety permits for a wider group of weapons. It doesn't take much to get a driver's license, and anything potentially as lethal should have a similar licensing requirement and be legal. A hunting rifle is a perfectly acceptable tool for a hunter to own. Given the appropriate licensing, he may own a tool which has the primary function of delivering lethal power. Anything which has a primary use of commensurate lethal power should be legal to anyone with commensurate licensing.
Restricting the freedoms of 99% of the people to prevent a minority from doing hurtful things is not acceptable to me.
I appreciate that, but really I'm a lucky SOB in the grand scheme of things.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
I've heard far too many stories of brutality first hand, but even those are pale in comparison to what goes on in the world.
I recall the images from Rwanda. St Louis has a large refugee population from Bosnia. Genocide is happening in our lives.
I'm not being selfish when I say that brutal humans are among us, and they tend to prey on other humans they perceive as defenseless. I'm not being selfish when I say that you do not have the right to tell someone they cannot own the tools of their livelihood. I'm not being selfish when I doubt your prophetic authority to predict how or when people may need to defend themselves from "immoral assault."
Not all death should be prevented. I'm neither against capital punishment, nor am I against a violent revolution to overthrow corrupt and abusive regimes of power. I do believe that no one can predict what swings in morality may take to any culture.
I don't follow you on the small pox bit. I'm arguing that humans are brutal and unpredictable, and whether or not they have guns is not the issue at hand. To abuse your metaphor, I'm saying don't treat the small pox as a skin disease.
lol: "But that percentage dropped to 42 per cent once the woman had had pre-marital sex with at least two partners"
Where the hell did they find these people.
I want to point out that it's something that's been replicated in many Western countries over and over again. It's not a fluke.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
This looks like typical Daily Mail nonsense to me. The married sample size is 418. The population of the subject nation is 318 million. They studied these people for five years, when successful marriages are measured in decades. The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that spoon is being really clever with his trolling when he says "truth hurts" while linking DM.Quote:
The study tracked the relationships of a representative national sample in America of 1,294 unmarried men and women aged 18-34.
The researchers followed the subjects for five years. In that time, 418 were married.
Take that up with the National Marriage Project. Just because the Daily Mail reports on something doesn't make it illegitimate.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Additionally, you do not understand sample sizes or the concept of representative samples.
Also, take it up with the several other studies that have found the exact same thing.
Well I was unaware of any other studies, seeing as I don't see reference to it in the article, and you don't mention that in your initial post. I missed your second post before responding.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Still, I was expecting trash before I even opened the link. DM is standard trash british tabloids. Sure they report actual facts sometimes, but they're still British tabloid who print whatever they think will sell papers.
Did I ninja that successfully?
Random, but were you around when commune posts didn't count towards your visible post total? I just thought of that for some reason.
My post count trebled when werewolf posts were included.
It's true, the Daily Mail is not exactly known for being reputable. I had the same reaction Ong, but then figured I ought to at least check out the National Marriage Project. Despite its name, it doesn't seem ideologically-driven or biased (although if you actually read the study, which I did, the language vaguely suggests otherwise... Hard to tell where their motives lie)
What's important to assess is why satisfaction rates drop, not if. The possible reasons are myriad, and probably have a lot to do with our sexually repressive culture. After all, 22% is just fine.
(I originally wrote "repressively sexual" culture which makes me laugh, totally opposite meaning haha. Although on second thought maybe there is a truth in that wording as well...)
Mass shootings and victim culture have a symbiotic relationship. When the gunman goes from person to person, asking them what religion they are before he shoots them, and only one person fights back, taking seven bullets with him, there is something seriously wrong with our culture. The instilled belief that we must be victims, that we must never fight for ourselves or others, that we must wait for others to solve problems, that the government is responsible for our safety, are the reasons that mass shootings yield such high fatalities. Furthermore, they're probably why mass shootings have the frequency they do. The gunman expects the victims' codependent relationship with him in order for them to fulfill their destiny of being the victims that culture tells them they are.
Teach personal responsibility and that social justice leftism is the Siren's lure, and watch as gunmen lose their power to paralyze and slaughter.
Also, the truth doesn't hurt for those of us who know what we need and find it ;)
I'd argue that our culture is no longer sexually repressive and that the opposite is true to the point of fault.Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
maybe for generation z.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Making sex before marriage illegal would eliminate teen pregnancy in the same way that making guns illegal would eliminate people getting shot.
Nice segue.
I liked these two recent tweets by Thaddeus Russell:
To get to the root of mass shootings the left needs to see whiteness and masculinity as systems of repression, not just oppression.
I would rather understand and address the prevalence of homicidal unhappiness than have the police conduct house-to-house searches for guns.
There's an idea in what could be called the game section of the "red pill" community that systematic demasculinization and demonization of masculinity is a large contributing factor in a number of the shootings and other random acts of violence. Primarily, they're talking about a lack of understanding of being able to talk to, somewhat understand and deal with women along with an understanding of being responsible for one's own growth (and increased ability to attract the opposite sex). Here are a few quick examples:Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
1. For Andreas Lubitz (the plane crash guy), he was a distinctively beta tryhard who basically hijacked and crashed the plane because a chick dumped him and wouldn't get back with him.
2. For Elliot Rodger (please read his manifesto if you haven't, it's amazingly cringe-worthy), he was an anti-PUA who couldn't understand why his ridiculous butthurt outbursts, creepy demeanor and family's money didn't nail him all sorts of pretty ass white girl pussy.
3. For Dylann Roof (the SC church shooter), it all started because a chick he liked wanted to fuck a black guy instead of fucking his creepy ass.
Edit: And about the shithead in Oregon, according to the NYT:
He was also a virgin, though not by choice, and he lived with his mother (parents divorced when he was 16), who coddled him at some pretty extreme levels and claimed he had Asperger's.Quote:
For investigators searching for his path to mass murder, he left behind a typewritten manifesto at the scene and a string of online postings that showed he had become increasingly interested in other high-profile shootings, angry at not having a girlfriend and bitter at a world that he believed was working against him.
It isn't just the gunmen and hijackers that the misandry and feminization of male culture affects. It's the people who get killed too.
I'm sorry, but I'm not afraid of a gunman. He may win, but I'll be goddamned if I don't die with my hands around his throat. I've probably always felt this way because it's what my dad taught me and I grew up in the boonies, where standing up for yourself and others is a cherished virtue. I used to think big cities were where sophisticated and intelligent people went. Now I know better. It's ironic that the most educated people are typically the most ignorant. Wait, it's not ironic, because obviously that would be the case since the underpinnings of the education system is government propaganda.
I loathe how beaten down my culture has become. I find myself too often thinking that if I were in a bad situation and were to do the right thing, I'd be punished for it. I remember back in elementary school, my brother was getting pushed around by the class bully, a kid almost twice his size. Then my brother had enough and beat the piss out of him. He wasn't punished (the bully was) and the faculty was so proud of what he had done that I heard them reminiscing about it years later when I was in their classes.
If this happened today, the bully would be the victim and my brother would have been severely punished. It would have been railed into his head that self-defense is always wrong and the only avenue to solve problems is to wait for the governmental authorities to intervene. It's so bad that my brother would probably have had to not fight back and purposely get visible bruises in order to get any sympathy.
It seems that the reason victimizing the perpetrator has become so enticing and popular is because we have developed knowledge about how perpetrators are often victims of other situations. We have all heard how a school bully usually has trouble at home. This is all true and important to understand, but our culture has gotten irrational about it. In the situation my brother was in, the bullying from the bully and the victimhood of that bully at home are two separate issues. But these days nobody seems to be able to separate them. George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin are a fantastic example of this. Zimmerman's potential racism that could have propelled him to pursue Martin is an entirely separate issue from the circumstance of shooting Martin in self-defense, yet the entire media and political class and most of the people you can talk to merge the two and call Martin's death the result of racism.
I don't know why bad logic is so pervasive. I wonder if it's new. It probably isn't new, but it does seem to be exacerbated by dysfunctional institutions.
re: Dylan Roof, reminds me of the guy who was obsessed with Bjork and then went mental when she started dating a black guy, recorded hours upon hours of himself talking about it, his plan to send Bjork some kind of explosive package, him making the package, and then finally killed himself, on camera, at the end, after the package had already been sent out. It's all on YouTube (suicide included...), and it's insanely fascinating because of how... lucid, perceptive, and not overtly insane he seems. Anyway you should check it out if for whatever reason that stuff interests you. It's the best you'll get in regards to this kind of case study because he recorded sooo many hours of footage and none of it is edited, it's all there in its long mundane glory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricard...3pez_(stalker)
I think those who talk about "toxic masculinity" would point to those same exact examples, so I guess it just depends on how you look at it. Either way their rage is centered around their ideal of masculinity and their failure to meet it. Which, of course, is not the fault of masculinity itself but masculinity as they are taught to perceive it.
I was talking with a British guy I have a class with. One of the main things he doesn't like about the states is how big of pussies Americans are.
Hanging out with Greeks in Greece is the biggest reprieve from a lot of uniquely American bullshit.
I imagine Greece has a pretty significant honor culture, albeit probably a less violent one due to being more chill and less repressed.
I like the Mediterranean view of law and norms, where breaking them only matters when people are being harmed by the break. Contrast this to the American view of law and norms, where breaking them is itself wrong.
Pretty clear that if you're retarded, you're for gun rights.
That said, I'm for gun rights, because guns are cool and represent the seed and machine of sedition.
PS ++Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
Even then, still retarded.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...eral-ceasefire
I wonder if the 2nd amendment circa 7076 would include the right to bear nukes.
This reminds me of a philosophical discussion I had in my college days. Something about how for humans to evolve to the point of a successful interstellar species, we must reach and pass a point where everyone in the world has the technical ability to wipe out the entire race. If any single one person can and does wipe out the race, we fail. I don't fancy our chances.Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
This is pretty much the only viable explanation as to why it's not obvious to us already that there are smarter beings out there. It only takes one crazy fucker to undo billions of years of evolution.
Also, I feel I should point out the nukes will probably be school experiment stuff by 7076. Maybe the amendment will have to be the right to bear black holes, or neutron stars, or perhaps big bangs.
I just want to point out that the right to be armed was not created by the Constitution. The Constitution just provides a point in our government's foundation that this right will not be taken away.
To chime into the gun debate, if law and order broke down globally, Americans would be much better positioned to cope than Brits. How the fuck am I supposed to stop someone trying to rob me if they have a gun and I don't? Gun laws do not stop people getting guns, they just stop the people who can be trusted with guns from having them, ie the law abiding people.
Switzerland is an armed nation (31% armed). Only 10% of their homicides are caused by guns, and they have around a tenth of the level of homicide compared to USA, per capita. The problem clearly isn't guns, it's American culture. Selfish competetive attitudes are encouraged. Violence is glorified. Who can tell me the name of more victims than shooters from Columbine? This kind of stuff won't stop with tighter gun laws. You've got to get the guns off those who refuse to give them up first.
Furthermore, to give up your guns isn't to just put your trust in the current government. It's to put your trust in every government of the future. That's a big leap of faith to make.
Guns are bad. When only bad people have guns, that's really bad.
Crack was the scapegoat for unemployment and a number of other problems in the 1980s (that already existed before crack came along). It's much easier for politicians to blame shit on crack and throw taxpayer money at police programs and prisons than to actually address those problems.
The same thing is happening with guns and these random acts of violence now.
Dirty bombs aren't really that big of a deal, but they could be interchanged with something more general like "nucular fuckin' weapons of mass destruction" to make the same point.Quote:
Originally Posted by boost
To answer a different, but related question: Should everyone be free to build a bomb that would kill hundreds of people? Yes. The reason for this is the materials required to do so are so basic and important to the lives of a ton of people that they should be kept available without red tape. This availability is what provides the ability to build the bomb.
We should be free to discover this world and everything we can coax it to do for us.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Should and won't.
When you wield great authority, you live in fear of losing it; a fear that'll grow into every corner of your charge. You can't pretend to govern until you pretend to fear losing grip of what you govern.
Bullets take infrastructure.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
After a week, your supermarket won't be stocked with fresh beef. How are you going to keep yourself up with fresh gunpowder? These high tech weapons require industry to maintain. That's the beauty of the modern world - unreal amounts of work go into even the dumbest shit in your life.