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Randomness thread, part two.

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  1. #21601
    I don't claim that more guns makes people safer. I claim that responsible gun ownership makes people safer.

    While gun ownership is not the biggest deterrent to tyranny, it is a deterrent. Given that tyranny is the most destructive force in civilization, any reasonable deterrent looks to me a big plus.

    An additional point I haven't made yet is that even without this stuff, the individual should still have the right to defend himself. Human agency and individualism are among the most important concepts in modern thought. Even if you can find a statistic that says more people die because people own guns, if we apply these Enlightenment concepts, I still have a right to defend myself, and so does everybody else. These concepts are how society got better than it once was and how it continues to get better than it is.

    We're not in a fundamentally different place than we were a few hundred years ago. The West is still cleaved in two: Enlightenment ideals of individualism, humanism, and liberty that brought great prosperity on one side; and on the other side is more or less the Romanist and Marxist subservience, uniformity, and collectivism that brought great destitution.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-09-2016 at 01:33 AM.
  2. #21602
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    what planet do you live on where even the more "responsible" humans aren't prone to irresponsible actions due to emotion?

    what about that respectable and responsible fella who turns out to be prone to episodic mental illness but hasnt had his first episode yet? should he get one? what about that quiet loner from the back of your year 10 class in school nobody bothered to talk to who was rumoured to torture small animals in his backyard in his spare time while his parents smoked meth, but has only been seen to be quiet and well-behaved in school/wider society? does he qualify as a responsible gun owner? should he be allowed to own a gun under your moral system? what's to stop him from giving it to that braindead militant cop-hating wannabe-anarchist fella who became his first ever friend in life at age 17 due to their mutual misfittery? what about that nice young Syrian man who became radicalised in his muslim beliefs in his late 20's due to rampant racism in his community (not justifying him in doing so). what happens to the guns he legally acquired when he turned 18 to hunt animals that aren't swine? what happens when guns are so readily available amongst a nation of mixed ethnicities, goals, and cultures? well, turn on your tv. how many police officers were shot in the US in the last 24 hours? about what were the purported grievances of the murderers? i think they were upset about some recent event? someone was murdered next to a red car in a parking lot on camera in front of the world? there was a gun involved there, too i think?


    also, you claim "responsible gun ownership makes people safer"... than what? no guns? free guns for all? only in the hands of the cops/military? you did not finish your sentence.

    do you own/carry a gun in your daily life?
    Last edited by rpm; 07-09-2016 at 01:51 AM.
  3. #21603
    Quote Originally Posted by rpm View Post
    what planet do you live on where even the more "responsible" humans aren't prone to irresponsible actions due to emotion?
    If we could eradicate weapons and violence, we'd solve this problem. But that's unreasonable. Are you suggesting that only specialized government entities should have firearms? History has shown this to be a bad idea. What about situations like Breivik that go from bad to worse because there's little people can do to stop him?

    also, you claim "responsible gun ownership makes people safer"... than what? no guns? free guns for all? only in the hands of the cops/military? you did not finish your sentence.
    Than all of those options. Maybe if guns were impossible to manufacture via magic or whatever we'd be safer, but even then we'd go back to hacking each other up with swords and mass stabbings.

    do you own/carry a gun in your daily life?
    I do not. After I graduate I probably will.
  4. #21604
    Quote Originally Posted by rpm View Post
    i still tilt a little bit every time i hear some yank try to claim that more guns = greater public safety, less deaths etc.
    Agree. But when the "benefits" of something are so fundamentally ingrained in a society, you're not going to overcome that. The Brits for instance will almost all agree how great it is to have a free health service for all (as its a fundamental part of our cultural values), but countries with different systems will disagree.

    It's nuts to suggest though that teachers with guns (for instance) would be a good thing. Focussing on a reactive solution, rather than a proactive solution that addresses the underlying symptoms and causes will never be optimal. Nobody can rule out the red mist coming down, but the chances of a life altering event taking place when you're armed has to be significantly higher. You're never going to stop cold blooded, pre-meditated instances though of course, which is why I think a lot of US mass shootings must be a consequence of US society.

    I don't get the argument that having a public that is armed prevents tyranny in the modern, developed world. A battle against highly trained personnel with access to ludicrously expensive equipment would only go one way. NATO and the UN are much better mechanisms now to prevent and remove tyranny, but noting they don't step into African countries where there really are tyranny problems and high, non-drug related murder rates.
  5. #21605
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Do you see the difference in risk? A mere 0.5% risk of a repeat of Nazi-like government totalitarianism is costly to such a degree that you'd have to drunkenly shoot millions of mums to even it out.
    And you think that your democracy would allow such a government to be elected in the first place.?

    Even though it may be rosy right now, the track record of disarming individuals is atrocious. The worst events in human history can be said to have partly depended on the disarming of individuals.
    such as?

    A guy walks into a store and starts shooting random people and he's stopped by a concealed carrier and you say I can't prove that he planned on continuing to shoot?

    Everybody believes that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Some of us believe that we must allow ten minutes of mass slaughter while waiting for the cops or SWAT to show up, while others believe that victims should be empowered to not be victims.
    How does he walk into the store with a gun in the first place if the populace have been disarmed? take the weapons away and the victims don't exist.


    Yes, this is an extremely important point. In a world of violent crime, responsible carry makes us safer. We should not be so willing to deny our own agency.
    bollocks .you go to a party and people have been drinking, and a fight breaks out. Without guns you end up with broken noses and bruises , with have a go hero's carrying concealed guns you get someone drawing their gun to protect someone in the fight followed by others drawing their guns and a bloodbath with many dead. How did that make the people there safer?


    I misspoke. I meant "growth in preponderance." Gun crime is decreasing as gun ownership is increasing. Regardless, it is wrong to make a case either way based on statistics like these since none of them tell more than a small fraction of the story. It's better to use logic instead.
    the only logic that applies is that if the people don't own guns no one gets shot and police don't end up shooting as a precaution in case the people have a concealed gun.


    Not only does it not, but there is actually no way that we could know one way or the other. Gun ownership and concealed carry are preventative of some potential death. We really have no idea how preventative; it could be enormous or it could be meager. However, when we logic this thing, it makes more sense why firearm ownership make peoples' lives better than otherwise.
    Again thats bollocks , its easy to tell whether gun ownership causes more gun deaths by comparing similar countries without widespread gun ownership and those with it and comparing the number of gun deaths per capita.


    The elements I mentioned are root problems. Gun banishment is window dressing. People die from airplanes, cars, pressure cookers, and even furniture. Nobody is calling to ban them.
    How can you compare accidents with premeditated shootings?And you're wrong, when people were premeditatedly killed in 911 air crashes ,and the pilot killing himself flying into a spanish mountain much stricter controls were brought in on who could even get into the cockpit of planes and medical/pysch assessments of pilots ....ie much greater regulation to reduce the risk
    It is mighty curious that the calls to ban firearms have the same origins of the calls to embrace totalitarianism. This is not so much a battle over guns but a battle over fundamental ideologies. Do we believe that people should control their lives or that government should control peoples' lives?
    again complete bollocks , the argument could be put the other way and ask why the government should allow individuals to have access to firearms with the ability to kill other member of the public and should the government be doing more to protect its citizens from lethal weapons.

    Your whole argument is that the population have to carry guns to protect themselves against other gun owners. Take away the other gun owners and hey, what do you know, you don't have to protect yourself with a gun against them.hmmm that sounds like logic to me rather than your ramblings.
  6. #21606
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    I live in the middle of nowhere right now. Taking away my right to own a gun would undoubtedly make me less safe. Bad things do happen in life, and I am short and often travel in a group of one. If a badguy comes to a farmers home one night, how does he survive? Police won't gwt there in any reasonable time. His only shot is with a gun. (That's regardless of whether the badguy is armed. I would lose most fights with just single individuals).

    But I think it should be more like a drivers license. As a matter of fact, the whole licensing thing came about for simular reasons.
  7. #21607
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    If a badguy comes to a farmers home one night, how does he survive? Police won't gwt there in any reasonable time. His only shot is with a gun. (That's regardless of whether the badguy is armed. I would lose most fights with just single individuals).

    But I think it should be more like a drivers license. As a matter of fact, the whole licensing thing came about for simular reasons.
    if badguy knows that the peope he is robbing/attacking is likely to be armed wouldn't they also likely to be armed and also more likely to actually shoot first? With both armed you are more likely to have somebody shot dead and most likely you , rather than both unarmed where you are likely to have bruises.
  8. #21608
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    if badguy knows that the peope he is robbing/attacking is likely to be armed wouldn't they also likely to be armed and also more likely to actually shoot first? With both armed you are more likely to have somebody shot dead and most likely you , rather than both unarmed where you are likely to have bruises.
    How would the badguy know I was armed? Criminals arnt superspies. However, I admit that in an environment where guns are readily available, criminals are much more likely to bring a gun to a crime.

    Why do you assume a home invasion will leave me with bruises? I live in a location close to cartels and gangs. 4 years ago, a gang entered a man's home and beat him to death with baseball bats. It's cuz he looked at them funny earlier that day.
  9. #21609
    Can go on about it all you like but the figures pretty much speak for themselves.
  10. #21610
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    And you think that your democracy would allow such a government to be elected in the first place.?
    Maybe mine, maybe not mine, maybe one in the future.

    such as?
    One example is enough: Germany. Additionally, transplant the Nazi government into the US and watch as its tyranny is unsuccessful due to the high amount of "from my cold, dead hands" people we have. People owning guns is a small part of the battle; a big part is embracing the value of the 2nd Amendment, that people have the right to use lethal force against tyranny.

    How does he walk into the store with a gun in the first place if the populace have been disarmed? take the weapons away and the victims don't exist.
    You mean like how the war on drugs has taken away drugs?

    bollocks .you go to a party and people have been drinking, and a fight breaks out. Without guns you end up with broken noses and bruises , with have a go hero's carrying concealed guns you get someone drawing their gun to protect someone in the fight followed by others drawing their guns and a bloodbath with many dead. How did that make the people there safer?
    You missed my point. If somebody is doing bad things, you stop him appropriately. If somebody is shooting people, to appropriately stop him you need guns. To your point, the scenario you laid out is highly rare. Many measures have and can be taken to prevent it as well.

    the only logic that applies is that if the people don't own guns no one gets shot and police don't end up shooting as a precaution in case the people have a concealed gun.
    As I mentioned before, this would be reasonable if we could assume people wouldn't have guns. We can't assume that.

    Again thats bollocks , its easy to tell whether gun ownership causes more gun deaths by comparing similar countries without widespread gun ownership and those with it and comparing the number of gun deaths per capita.
    One of the most important lessons that I believe there is in the social sciences is to not make an argument that depends on a handful of statistics. Statistics are the most cherry picky of things around. When have you seen in the gun debate somebody use statistics regarding the role of disarming the Germany population in creating gun deaths by the Nazis? Never. It's ridiculously hard to quantify as well as it undermines the anti-gun argument. Additionally, if we're comparing the US and UK, we're not comparing "similar" countries, like you say.

    How can you compare accidents with premeditated shootings?And you're wrong, when people were premeditatedly killed in 911 air crashes ,and the pilot killing himself flying into a spanish mountain much stricter controls were brought in on who could even get into the cockpit of planes and medical/pysch assessments of pilots ....ie much greater regulation to reduce the risk
    According to the arguments used against me, intentions don't matter.

    again complete bollocks , the argument could be put the other way and ask why the government should allow individuals to have access to firearms with the ability to kill other member of the public and should the government be doing more to protect its citizens from lethal weapons.
    I'm not interested in the only people with guns being the government.

    Your whole argument is that the population have to carry guns to protect themselves against other gun owners. Take away the other gun owners and hey, what do you know, you don't have to protect yourself with a gun against them.hmmm that sounds like logic to me rather than your ramblings.
    I do not assume that guns magically disappear by passing laws. I assume a >0% probability of tyranny avoidance by having an armed populace with the particular value of countering tyranny.
  11. #21611
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    There's certainly an argument to be made about being far away from the police and having to rely on yourself. But if there were no guns in circulation you could just use an ace or baseball bat to defend yourself.
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  12. #21612
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    if badguy knows that the peope he is robbing/attacking is likely to be armed wouldn't they also likely to be armed and also more likely to actually shoot first? With both armed you are more likely to have somebody shot dead and most likely you , rather than both unarmed where you are likely to have bruises.
    It has more of a deterrent effect. This is also why mass shooters like places like schools, where they know they'll get loads of kills with little resistance and don't like places with high carry rates, where they know they may get gunned down before they get their first kill.
  13. #21613
    Quote Originally Posted by rong View Post
    There's certainly an argument to be made about being far away from the police and having to rely on yourself. But if there were no guns in circulation you could just use an ace or baseball bat to defend yourself.
    I've claimed as much. I've stated other reasons why I don't think this matters for the ultimate decision on whether or not people should have the right to bear arms, but on this point directly, banning and confiscating and heavy enforcement on guns is not going to take them from the hands of many criminals. It's just not. It would be the failed drug war all over again.
  14. #21614
    Quote Originally Posted by ImSavy View Post
    Can go on about it all you like but the figures pretty much speak for themselves.
    What figures? What do they speak for?
  15. #21615
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Maybe mine, maybe not mine, maybe one in the future.



    One example is enough: Germany. Additionally, transplant the Nazi government into the US and watch as its tyranny is unsuccessful due to the high amount of "from my cold, dead hands" people we have. People owning guns is a small part of the battle; a big part is embracing the value of the 2nd Amendment, that people have the right to use lethal force against tyranny.



    You mean like how the war on drugs has taken away drugs?



    You missed my point. If somebody is doing bad things, you stop him appropriately. If somebody is shooting people, to appropriately stop him you need guns. To your point, the scenario you laid out is highly rare. Many measures have and can be taken to prevent it as well.



    As I mentioned before, this would be reasonable if we could assume people wouldn't have guns. We can't assume that.



    One of the most important lessons that I believe there is in the social sciences is to not make an argument that depends on a handful of statistics. Statistics are the most cherry picky of things around. When have you seen in the gun debate somebody use statistics regarding the role of disarming the Germany population in creating gun deaths by the Nazis? Never. It's ridiculously hard to quantify as well as it undermines the anti-gun argument. Additionally, if we're comparing the US and UK, we're not comparing "similar" countries, like you say.



    According to the arguments used against me, intentions don't matter.



    I'm not interested in the only people with guns being the government.



    I do not assume that guns magically disappear by passing laws. I assume a >0% probability of tyranny avoidance by having an armed populace with the particular value of countering tyranny.
    There's a greater than zero probability of tyranny avoidance through tonnes of stupid things, that doesn't make them a good idea.
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  16. #21616
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    In fact I can't actually believe you are using that line. It's ridiculous.
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  17. #21617
    Quote Originally Posted by The Bean Counter View Post
    Agree. But when the "benefits" of something are so fundamentally ingrained in a society, you're not going to overcome that.
    This is a really insightful point.


    It's nuts to suggest though that teachers with guns (for instance) would be a good thing.
    Some should. Forcing them to would be a bad idea, but you could design a highly stringent and effective method to make sure the right teachers are armed. They could have part law enforcement credentials or something. There are lots of ways to do it.

    It's important to keep in mind that the reason schools are such popular targets for murderers is because the faculty and administrators have gone so far out of their way to make sure that they are unable to defend themselves. They're largely dismissive of this one aspect of reality.

    I don't get the argument that having a public that is armed prevents tyranny in the modern, developed world. A battle against highly trained personnel with access to ludicrously expensive equipment would only go one way. NATO and the UN are much better mechanisms now to prevent and remove tyranny, but noting they don't step into African countries where there really are tyranny problems and high, non-drug related murder rates.
    It's not that a tyrannical government couldn't take over the US, but that it's much harder to do so, and thus less likely, when people are armed with an intent to fight tyranny. If the government had infinite political capital, yeah it wouldn't be stopped by citizens fighting back. But it doesn't have infinite political capital.



    Let me change gears a little here and provide a theory for how the 2nd Amendment could be extremely important in protecting from tyranny. In the different European countries, the threat of a tyrannical government taking over is ridiculously low compared to what it used to be. One reason why that could be the case is because the countries no longer have the potential for conquest. Conquest went hand in hand in how these governments used to come about. Why don't European countries have this anymore? Because they can't compete with the US in this manner. This implies that if citizen ownership of firearms has a deterrent effect on the construction of tyranny, it actually wouldn't be that effective for European countries to have citizen firearm ownership, but it would be more effective for the US to. If the US wanted to go the way that Germany, France, Russia, Spain, Japan once did and get all tyrannical and conquesty, it would be capable of doing so to a far greater degree than any other country.

    Even though your government might not tyranny you, our government might tyranny you. "From my cold, dead hands" might be one of the most peace-sustaining mottos around.
  18. #21618
    Quote Originally Posted by rong View Post
    In fact I can't actually believe you are using that line. It's ridiculous.
    I use that particular line in hopes that you will step back and acknowledge that it is actually the case that there is a threat of tyranny rife throughout history. The 2nd Amendment was designed specifically to combat this. Maybe you have a better idea of how to go about it, but don't bury your head in the sand and call me ridiculous. Those who forget history are bound to repeat it. There's been way too much forgetting of history in our so-called postmodern world, and way too much dismissal of the tools our antecedents used to solve the problems that today we barely acknowledge.
  19. #21619
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    That's not logic. You have to state your premises in logic. Merely claiming a stance is logical is the opposite of logical.
    I've laid out a lot of my premises many times already. My particular point you responded to was an attempt to just get somebody else to just think about it. This is a topic that we can only "solve" through a great deal of inferences.


    Everything is arguable. What's your point?
    It's a colloquialism. We're sitting around a fire pit, shooting the shit. If I know something is true, I'm not going to say "it's arguable," but if I have a controversial point that I can't fully demonstrate but I think is still accurate, I'm sometimes gonna preface it with "it is arguable..."

    Are you stipulating this point? If so, get on with it rather than claim to nameless arguers as an appeal to authority.
    Are you asking me why I would stipulate that point? Well, the places that Britain exported its values to are in general more prosperous today than others. For example, Britain exported values to the US while Portugal did to the Brazil; one of these places has done much better than the other. Look at South Africa. Is it the best place in Africa to live? Might just be. Look at Canada and Australia. Exemplary examples. Even India, with it's myriad of problems, still is arguably a more progressing in prosperity place that those surrounding it.

    Do I think this is absolutely the case? No. This is just the type of argument typical in the liberal arts.

    FWIW, every society in the world prides themselves on charity and hospitality like they've got it on a lockdown.
    Still, some places are better than others. Regardless of the reasons why, the amount of generosity in a sparsely populated and self-reliant place is higher than densely populated and dependent places. It isn't even that the people are different, but that the society is different and rewards different values.

    What the raging BS is the "most freedom" measured in?
    Probably the best way to understand this to account for all types is degree of intrusion by government.

    I bet the pre-civilized humans had way more of it than any modern American.
    I bet you're right.

    You know how much we "freedom loving" Americans love to put other Americans in prisons, right?
    A lot aren't philosophically consistent and lots of weird stuff happens when differentiated concerns converge. We've discussed this a great deal in the past; the problem is having such a strong tax-funded monopoly on prisons. All sorts of the "wrong" people get thrown into prison then.

    Don't believe all the hype about American freedom, Mr. "My gov't steals from me!"
    I can and will believe it. Curiously, it's largely my liberal arts education at lefty schools that taught me this unintentionally. Primary documents and textbooks regarding history, philosophy, law, the humanities, etc. tell a remarkable story.


    lolwat? You think America has a lockdown on freedom? Have you seen a globe lately? Investigated successful democracies around the world? Turns out we're not really very good at freedom, despite how much we think we love it.
    In the states, look at employment rates and where people are moving. You can probably be a moderately intelligent person and not do so hot in NYC, but you'd have to be a real dipshit to have a sucky life in Colorado.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-09-2016 at 03:24 PM.
  20. #21620
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    Here's research funded by Obama that found guns were used defensively up to 500,000 to 3 million times per year: http://www.ncdsv.org/images/IOM-NRC_...lence_2013.pdf

    Your chances of being the victim of a firearm-related crime if you are not in a gang, committing suicide or committing a criminal act: 0.0000086% (Source: CDC)

    This shit isn't rocket science people. Guns aren't the problem, and trying to pass laws to remove them in the United States will cause a lot more problems than it will solve.
  21. #21621
    Discussing guns with Brits is a unique experience. Y'all never had nothing to fear from the Queen and probably have the most respectable of national cultures surrounding how power is obtained. Contrast this to Russia, where it's not entirely out of the question for ideologues to just go and fucking murder everybody who disagrees with them. Not proper!

    It's much better than arguing with American SJWs. They have the heart of a Bolshevik, so they want terribleness for those they disagree with, but they're also pampered asses, so they're too lazy to get violent.

    Man where's Spoon and Rilla? We could really use them.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-09-2016 at 03:44 PM.
  22. #21622
    Speak of the devil!
  23. #21623
    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    Here's research funded by Obama that found guns were used defensively up to 500,000 to 3 million times per year: http://www.ncdsv.org/images/IOM-NRC_...lence_2013.pdf

    Your chances of being the victim of a firearm-related crime if you are not in a gang, committing suicide or committing a criminal act: 0.0000086% (Source: CDC)

    This shit isn't rocket science people. Guns aren't the problem, and trying to pass laws to remove them in the United States will cause a lot more problems than it will solve.
    Fuck that is a low ass probability.


    Your post is probably more convincing to others than any of mine. I get super conceptual where you almost have to spend many hours thinking about it to get anywhere.
  24. #21624
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    One example is enough: Germany. Additionally, transplant the Nazi government into the US and watch as its tyranny is unsuccessful due to the high amount of "from my cold, dead hands" people we have. People owning guns is a small part of the battle; a big part is embracing the value of the 2nd Amendment, that people have the right to use lethal force against tyranny.
    completely different situations. Germany didn't disarm the whole population just a small percentage whilst relaxing gun ownership rules for the rest of the population. Germany had also been crippled as a result of the versilles treaty which had been strongly influenced by jewish politicians and bankers which fueled the rebellion by the population against he Jews that fostered the atmosphere that got the Nazis elected and then to start the oppression of the Jews. Where is the oppression of ordinary US citizens and economic despair to fuel that facism in the US? WHo defines the tyranny ? its an also cliche'd adage that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.it just depends which side you are on.



    You mean like how the war on drugs has taken away drugs?
    Didn't realise that you were addicted to guns creating the demand
    You missed my point. If somebody is doing bad things, you stop him appropriately. If somebody is shooting people, to appropriately stop him you need guns. To your point, the scenario you laid out is highly rare. Many measures have and can be taken to prevent it as well.
    Its you missing the bleeding obvious, if the guns are removed there isn't anyone shooting that needs to be stopped appropriately . Any illicit gun carriers would then have armed police to deal with them .

    As I mentioned before, this would be reasonable if we could assume people wouldn't have guns. We can't assume that.
    There is no reason why over time that guns couldn't be gradually removed .take out the assault rifles and sub machine guns first .


    One of the most important lessons that I believe there is in the social sciences is to not make an argument that depends on a handful of statistics. Statistics are the most cherry picky of things around. When have you seen in the gun debate somebody use statistics regarding the role of disarming the Germany population in creating gun deaths by the Nazis? Never. It's ridiculously hard to quantify as well as it undermines the anti-gun argument. Additionally, if we're comparing the US and UK, we're not comparing "similar" countries, like you say.

    why , if anyone should be armed after the 20th century out of british and US citizens it would be the british having had two wars on its borders with germany attempoting to invade. Americans have not had to face an invasion threat and the only people you are "defending " yourselves against are your fellow citizens."
    According to the arguments used against me, intentions don't matter.
    how on earth do you figure that ...intent is the crux of the matter in that when people are armed they will use those arms instead of exploring other options.

    I'm not interested in the only people with guns being the government.
    why? in the UK the populace and police generally aren't armed with guns , with a subset of firearms officers deployed should armed incidents occur. Do you really fear democracy and the will of the people?
    I do not assume that guns magically disappear by passing laws. I assume a >0% probability of tyranny avoidance by having an armed populace with the particular value of countering tyranny.
    why, just have an orderly progression of weapon types that will be made illegal over time . population can still remain armed initially but the most dangerous weapons will be removed first. As gun crime reduces the population will move towards disarming.
  25. #21625
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Fuck that is a low ass probability.


    Your post is probably more convincing to others than any of mine. I get super conceptual where you almost have to spend many hours thinking about it to get anywhere.
    I'm of the opinion that you're never going to get anywhere with the conceptual route because there's such a pussification, especially in Europe but on the left in the United States, around the concept of opposing tyranny or the fundamental human right to own and bear arms on par of those who would attack you, steal your shit and leave you to die. If you throw simple, raw figures at them, then their only options are to admit that they're wrong or to look like dipshits. If they choose to look like dipshits, there's nothing else you can do.

    Also, it's real funny that they didn't mind Americans with guns when they were about a year from speaking fucking German with a Nazi cock up their ass.
  26. #21626
    if your chances of getting shot are that low , why the hell do you need guns to protect yourself against armed people?.
  27. #21627
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    Quote Originally Posted by rong View Post
    There's certainly an argument to be made about being far away from the police and having to rely on yourself. But if there were no guns in circulation you could just use an ace or baseball bat to defend yourself.
    Maybe you could. What about a 20yr old woman, who lives alone? Someone who is recovering from surgery st home? Suppose there is more than one assailant?

    In mamy areas, I agree that home invasions typically do not result in death. But this is not true for ALL areas.

    Nevertheless, even if the statistics are accurate, I don't think it's reasonable to tell someone to merely accept the __% chance that they will die when unarmed, just because the chance might be higher if you had a gun.
  28. #21628
    Keith, it appears that with at least a few of your arguments, you're not engaging my arguments and going about your points as if I said nothing.

    For example:

    Its you missing the bleeding obvious, if the guns are removed there isn't anyone shooting that needs to be stopped appropriately . Any illicit gun carriers would then have armed police to deal with them .
    I have addressed this several times. It cannot be assumed that rigorous laws and enforcement would remove all guns from the US. I have already agreed that, yes, if we live in a fantasy world where we can magically make guns disappear, then there wouldn't be need to use guns for the purpose of protection from criminal shooters. But we don't live in that fantasy world. With even the most rigorous of laws, our illegal gun trade would be vibrant in ways that it doesn't make sense in the UK.
  29. #21629
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    if your chances of getting shot are that low , why the hell do you need guns to protect yourself against armed people?.
    The "why do you care" argument applies to your side as well. If the probabilities are so low, what good would you actually be doing with gun control?

    There are many reasons outside the arena of probability of death that we have for wanting guns.
  30. #21630
    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    Here's research funded by Obama that found guns were used defensively up to 500,000 to 3 million times per year: http://www.ncdsv.org/images/IOM-NRC_...lence_2013.pdf

    Your chances of being the victim of a firearm-related crime if you are not in a gang, committing suicide or committing a criminal act: 0.0000086% (Source: CDC)

    This shit isn't rocket science people. Guns aren't the problem, and trying to pass laws to remove them in the United States will cause a lot more problems than it will solve.
    Is that percentage contained in the tl;Dr report? Would be good to read a bit more about it. That's 1 in 12 million ish I think, which means the number of innocent people murdered by guns averages about 25 per year in the US if I'm understanding what that figure is representing. It doesn't include coercing or injuries however.
  31. #21631
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    With even the most rigorous of laws, our illegal gun trade would be vibrant in ways that it doesn't make sense in the UK.
    Agree that you'd likely be shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. Plus it's harder for the U.S. to control its borders, particularly given the proximity to many of the countries where the gun death rate is the highest in the world.

    Edit: which is what makes any war on drugs pointless.
    Last edited by The Bean Counter; 07-09-2016 at 07:10 PM.
  32. #21632
    Out of interest, what's the MO of a US serial killer? Strangulation?
  33. #21633
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    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post

    Also, it's real funny that they didn't mind Americans with guns when they were about a year from speaking fucking German with a Nazi cock up their ass.
    not relevant given we are discussing public gun laws. every country's army has guns. it is expected that the american army brought guns to the gun fight. ps im not british either, as i think sometimes people think i am.

    for those USAns who dont like cherry picked data but cherry pick their data, look up the port arthur massacres in tasmania and the aus governments response. compare and contrast relevant crime/violence/deaths/mass shooting frequencies or any other social measure you could imagine gun laws relating to.
  34. #21634
    Quote Originally Posted by The Bean Counter View Post
    Agree that you'd likely be shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. Plus it's harder for the U.S. to control its borders, particularly given the proximity to many of the countries where the gun death rate is the highest in the world.

    Edit: which is what makes any war on drugs pointless.
    trump will solve that with his dirty great big wall across the mexican border.......wonder if he's a fan of game of thrones
  35. #21635
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    On the fundamental right to bear arms and opposing tyranny:

    As you probably recall, ratification of the Constitution wasn't a forgone conclusion and when Massachusetts passed theirs with an attached 'request for amendment' most other states followed suit. Massachusetts didn't include any language towards guns or militia with their ratification but Virginia and New York did.
    Their part specific to guns/militias read:

    Virginia's Requested Amendment


    • That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free state. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.



    Virginia's was an almost word-for-word copy of the Virginia Declaration of Right's passed by the state 11 years earlier. New York's was split into 3 parts and you can see Virginia's influence in the wording.

    New York's Requested Amendment


    • That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, including the body of the people capable of bearing arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state.
    • That the militia should not be subject to martial law, except in time of war, rebellion, or insurrection.
    • That standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be kept up, except in cases of necessity; and that at all times the military should be under strict subordination to the civil power.

    James Madison took the proposed amendments from all the states, summarized them, and submitted 20 amendments to Congress. His summarized 2nd amendment read:

    • The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

    After debate only 12 amendments survived to be sent to the states. When it emerged the wording of the 2nd amendment was cut/rearranged to the one we know today:

    • A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.


    Context:
    Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising led by former Massachusetts Militiamen and Veterans of the American Revolution which took place between 1786 - 1787. Daniel Shays led several thousand "rebels" to fight against the economic injustices that were facing farmers and agrarian peasants all across America. These farmers were experiencing extreme poverty following the end of the Revolutionary War. All across Massachusetts (and the rest of America) farmers saw their lands foreclosed on in unfair property seizers, and they wanted to fight back, which they did here. They were also trying to fight taxes which were beginning to be levied against them. They fought this in many ways, but among them was closing and obscuring roads so that government agents couldn't reach rural parts of the state. Shays' Rebellion would ultimately be put down, but it startled the gentry who feared further uprisings throughout the United States.

    I also like to point out that the naming of this event is really interesting. The people who did this, called themselves Regulators ( modeling off of the North Carolina Regulators
    who also fought against economic injustices before the start of the American Revolution.). The idea of Civilian Regulation was a popular idea that sought to end government corruption and stamp out the overwhelming power of the gentry. They believed that if the government wasn't regulating itself on behalf of "We the People", then "the People" had the right to regulate, or take back the government -- to take it back and do what they believed was right. They didn't see themselves as a rebellion, but rather the gentry labeled them as such in order to de-legitimize their cause. The gentry didn't want to call these men "militiamen" or "regulators" for this reason (which they clearly were), but instead, branded them as "rebels" who needed to be stopped.

    Veterans like Benjamin Lincoln would raise militias on their own and mounted their own assaults against the "rebels." They call themselves the "the Massachusetts Militia" even though it was the former militias who they were fighting! So as they begin to debate this on the national stage, especially in 1787 at the Constitutional convention, the gentry singled out Daniel Shay (even though there were actually many other leaders), and they said he was crazy and people were only following a demagogue. They hailed The Massachusetts Militia as the victors and saviors and asserted that militias are what will save America in the future against such madness.

    Answer:
    Although the Constitution is drawn up in 1787, it is not ratified until December of 1791 when the Bill of Rights was finally agreed upon. Whether or not to include the Bill of Rights (and what to include inside it) was a matter of extreme contestation between the Founders and everything within it was deeply fought over.

    When we look at the Second Amendment specifically, we should look at a few things before hand. First, by the 1790s, other small rebellions had popped up all over the country. Terry Bouton's article "A Road Closed: Rural Insurgency in Post-Independence Pennsylvania" (The Journal of American History, Vol. 87, No. 3 (Dec., 2000), pp. 855-887) masterfully explains the fighting and rebellion that took place in the rural countrysides of Pennsylvania that mirrored what had happened in Massachusetts with Shays' Rebellion. Simply put, the gentry were terrified that they were losing control of rural America, and as a result they would not be able to seize foreclosed land and collect taxes, which they deeply wanted. Empowering militias to be trained and carry firearms allowed the gentry to call up these men in times of need and suppress these rebellions that were taking place.

    Now there was already precedent in existence for protecting militias and their rights to bear arms in many states. Multiple other bills of rights from other states had already protected a militia's right to bear arms (such as Section 13
    of Virginia's Declaration of Rights) and many of these states were fighting to have the federal government protect this as well.

    Now, look at the very wording of the Second Amendment
    .
    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
    "A well regulated Militia" is the key phrase. They are referring to the militias led by people like Benjamin Lincoln and his Massachusetts Militia not Shays and his "rebellion". The initial goal was to protect a state's right to call up arms against rebels, not to arm the masses. The Founders feared that in some states (like Rhode Island) that were already being drastically controlled by the poor (rather than the gentry), that local governments would start being able to choose who could keep and bear arms, and that by creating the Second Amendment, the gentry would always have the ability to call up and arm militias in times of need.

    Clarification: I also need to stress that this question mentioned Jefferson by name, however he was not a signer of the Constitution, but did certify the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1792.

    Tl;Dr: The second ammendement wasn't passed in spite of Shays' Rebellion, rather it was passed because of Shays' Rebellion.
    Note also that the Articles of Confederation include a clause (Article VI, Section 4) that has similar wording to the Second Amendment: "... every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
    It is a common misconception in regards to the Bill of Rights that as originally written, they were intended to protect the rights of the people from the government. This is not exactly true. In reality, the Bill of Rights was written to curb the abilities of the Federal Government, and allow the States to set their own policies with considerable leeway. The Federal Government, for example, could not pass a law limiting the right to assembly, but a state could. To quote from United State v. Cruikshank, “The First Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting Congress from abridging the right to assemble and petition, was not intended to limit the action of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National Government alone.”



    So what does this tell us about the Second Amendment, circa 1800? On the one hand, the operative clause was supposed to be taken exactly as written “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" but properly read would add in there "By the Federal Government". On the other however, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” does actually mean that the Amendment was written with militia in mind, but not in a way to say that possession was tied to membership in the militia (a silly requirement, since all men between 18 and 45 were anyways). Rather, read it like “The Federal government can’t ban people from owning weapons because it would be oppressive to The States”. It was delegating the regulation of arms to the States, so that they could be assured a certain level of oversight over their militias. There was no reason that, say, 1800s Pennsylvania couldn’t have prohibited everyone from owning a firearm if the legislature so chose (That being said, many states had their own provisions mirroring the Bill of Rights and limiting what the states could regulate as well. The Pennsylvania Constitution, for instance, included a provision stating *“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state”. So just because the 2nd Amendment did not protect the right to bear arms on every level should NOT BE TAKEN to imply that it wasn’t nevertheless protected on the state level. Just depended on the state).


    And for 200+ years, that’s essentially what the 2nd Amendment meant. In Presser v. Illinois, in 1885, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this fact, writing “But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state.”



    But in the early 1900s something HUGE happened. The 1925 Supreme Court case Gitlow v. New York ended with the ruling that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment applied to the States via the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause! Born from this was the process that became known as Incorporation. Slowly, the Bill of Rights began to go through this process and more and more parts of the various Amendments were incorporated against the states. Finally, by the late 60s, aside from some very minor provisions, all that remained unincorporated were the 2nd and 3rd Amendments. Born from this was the assumption by most modern, casual observers, that this was always the case, and thus the assumption that the 2nd Amendment applied to the people in the same way that the 1st Amendment did, which while perhaps a safe assumption, had not yet been verified by the Supreme Court, who did not deign to address this fact in Miller, a Federal case, and the only major 2nd Amendment Ruling of the modern era.


    It was only in 2010, in a case known as McDonald v. Chicago, that the right to keep a firearm was found to be an incorporated right by the Supreme Court.


    Now, what does this all mean? Well, technically at least, the Founding Fathers didn’t exactly mean the 2nd Amendment to be taken as we read it now. But it isn’t because of the wording. It clearly grants an individual right “to the people”. It is because of the concept of tiered government that was held by the Founding Fathers and applied to all the Amendments, which was turned out totally by the Incorporation Doctrine some 100+ years later. Perhaps it is an unforeseen development to the likes of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton et. al. or maybe they knew they had gotten the ball rolling and envisioned that liberal democracy was heading in that direction. It seems to be that anyone can make whatever argument that they want there, and easily find support for it. But the fact is that it did happen, and it didn’t just affect the 2nd Amendment. It changed the 1st, 3rd, 4th and so one, and is a monumentally important evolution in government and the concept of rights as pertains to the United States and its citizens.


    So what does this all mean then, for the TL;DR crowd? The 2nd Amendment, as originally written, was not meant to protect the individual’s absolute right to keep and bear arms, but it ISN’T because the Amendment should be read as not pertaining to the individual, but because it only applied to one level of Government. The flipside is that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to firearms for everyone, but applying it on a state level is a 20th century doctrine only made possible by the 14th Amendment that has resulted in this modern interpretation of the Bill of Rights as a whole.
    So to bring it back to the video, the guy in it is pretty wrong in his understanding of the 2nd Amendment as the Founding Fathers wrote it. You simply can't talk about the 2nd Amendment without addressing Incorporation, and ignoring it pretty much invalidates whatever point you are making.
    The 2nd amendment wasn't to protect the individual liberty of people against the State, it was to protect the Free State itself. Though protecting against tyranny is how it looks like it works now, the FF never thought of it as a mechanism against the tyranny of a Free State over its people, even though the idea of forcefully regulating a gov't that wouldn't regulate itself was popular among rural people and some States at the time.
    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 07-10-2016 at 07:57 AM.
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  36. #21636
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    It's funny that the nature of American Law is necessarily vague in order to gain primary agreement because it perpetually kicks the can down the road on a lot of issues. With the history of the 2nd amendment, I'm betting anyone can see anything they want in it.

    The goals of the 2nd amendment and why it was agreed upon and which reason for agreement you prefer is up for a lot of interpretation.

    Is an armed populace a check against tyranny? I think so. Is it an effective check, I don't know. I really doubt it in the modern context and I even doubt it in the context of any era in American History. I think the character of the American voter, who believes so strongly in the ideals of the 2nd amendment, is a much more effective check.

    It looks like to me, the 2nd amendment is a show-piece that signals to the people what makes them American.
    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 07-10-2016 at 08:18 AM.
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  37. #21637
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    We're not in a fundamentally different place than we were a few hundred years ago. The West is still cleaved in two: Enlightenment ideals of individualism, humanism, and liberty that brought great prosperity on one side; and on the other side is more or less the Romanist and Marxist subservience, uniformity, and collectivism that brought great destitution.
    You're insane. There aren't two sides. There are two small extremes that believe in the purity of their beliefs and then there's a metric fuckton of people in the middle who have mixed beliefs about both. They only cleave when both extremes gain enough influence and declare that, "if you're not with us, you're against us."

    You're doubly insane for thinking that not only are the people cleaved in two, but that one side is strictly correct over the other.
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  38. #21638
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    It has more of a deterrent effect. This is also why mass shooters like places like schools, where they know they'll get loads of kills with little resistance and don't like places with high carry rates, where they know they may get gunned down before they get their first kill.
    Plus, they're all like 17 and school has been their entire life.

    Dallas shooters aimed down armed police officers pretty effectively.
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  39. #21639
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    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    Here's research funded by Obama that found guns were used defensively up to 500,000 to 3 million times per year: http://www.ncdsv.org/images/IOM-NRC_...lence_2013.pdf
    Defensive uses of guns by crime
    victims is a common occurrence,
    although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996;
    Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defen-
    sive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by
    criminals, with estimates of a
    nnual uses ranging from about 500,000 to
    more than 3 million per year (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about
    300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the
    other hand, some scholars point to radically lower estimate of only
    108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimiza-
    tion Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a
    controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per
    year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken
    from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is
    difficult to interpret because res
    pondents were not asked specifically
    about defensive gun use.
    A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numer-
    ous or rare they may be, are effec
    tive in preventing injury to the gun-
    wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual
    defensive uses of guns (i.e., incident
    s in which a gun was “used” by the
    crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have
    found consistently lower injury
    rates among gun-using crime victims
    compared with victims who used othe
    r self-protective strategies (Kleck,
    1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck,
    2004). Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary
    across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the
    crime, so further research is needed, both to explore these contingencies
    and to confirm or discount earlier findings.
    Even when defensive use of guns is
    effective in averting death or in-
    jury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a
    gun in the home or carrying a gun in public—concealed or open carry—
    may have a different net effect on the
    rate of injury. For example, if gun
    ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by
    those who invade the homes of gun owne
    rs this could cancel or outweigh
    the beneficial effects of defensiv
    e gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992,
    1993, 1995). Although some early studies were published that relate to
    this issue, they were not conclusive
    , and this is a sufficiently important
    question that it merits additional, careful exploration.
    Consistently lower incidents of injury when you protect yourself with a gun vrs other means.

    edit

    In addition to the restrictions on certain kinds of data collection,
    congressional action in 1996 effectively halted all firearm-related injury
    research at the CDC by prohibiting the use of federal funding “to advo-
    cate or promote gun control.”
    18
    In 2011, Congress enacted similar re-
    strictions affecting the entire U.S. Department of Health and Human
    Services.
    19
    The net result was an overall reduction in firearm violence
    research (Kellermann and Rivara, 2013). As a result, the past 20 years
    have witnessed diminished progress
    in understanding the causes and ef-
    fects of firearm violence.


    I love when one side doesn't like any of the possible solutions, they try to make it so there simply isn't a problem.

    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 07-10-2016 at 08:57 AM.
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  40. #21640
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    Guns also can be used to intimidate and coerce through threats of
    violence. In 2010, firearms were involved in less than 6 percent of the
    total 3,148,250 reported aggravated or simple assaults (Truman, 2011).
    Similarly, less than 7 percent of all rapes or sexual assaults in 2010 in-
    volved a firearm (Truman, 2011).


    People aren't even using guns to command others.

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  41. #21641
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    Seems like the meat of the problem is urban hand-gun violence from this report.

    ...I should re-watch The Wire.
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  42. #21642
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    Incorporation is a fascinating subject, and I wish more people knew about it. Being born in a post incorporation world, I took it for granted and was shocked to discover my previously limited rights
  43. #21643
    TLDR; wufs wrong?
  44. #21644
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    The 2nd amendment wasn't to protect the individual liberty of people against the State, it was to protect the Free State itself. Though protecting against tyranny is how it looks like it works now, the FF never thought of it as a mechanism against the tyranny of a Free State over its people, even though the idea of forcefully regulating a gov't that wouldn't regulate itself was popular among rural people and some States at the time.
    Good stuff. You can't have a law that denies supremacy of law.

    I think the character of the American voter, who believes so strongly in the ideals of the 2nd amendment, is a much more effective check.

    It looks like to me, the 2nd amendment is a show-piece that signals to the people what makes them American.
    The best point in the thread. Still, you need an intact 2nd (or something akin) to maintain this sensibility. You wouldn't wanna think that your excellent point means that we could get rid of the 2nd and Americanism would still be as anti-authoritarian as it is.

    You're insane. There aren't two sides. There are two small extremes that believe in the purity of their beliefs and then there's a metric fuckton of people in the middle who have mixed beliefs about both. They only cleave when both extremes gain enough influence and declare that, "if you're not with us, you're against us."
    That there are two sides doesn't negate this. It's a spectrum (more like several spectrums). History is the story of ideas and cultural movements. Since it is natural to categorize, the best categorization that I've seen that explains Europe and America is the play between Enlightenment type ideals and Romanism type ideals. People at different times fall on different parts of these spectrums, but the ideas at play have still been things like "greater decentralization and differentiation of religion (Enlightenment ideals) versus greater centralization and uniformity of religion (Romanism ideals)."

    You're doubly insane for thinking that not only are the people cleaved in two, but that one side is strictly correct over the other.
    One led to great prosperity; the other didn't, it even led to great suffering. The one that led to great prosperity allows for elements of the other to exist within its framework; the other does not vise versa.
  45. #21645
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    TLDR; wufs wrong?
    No. The right is to "keep and bear arms." The stated purpose for the existence of this right is "security of a free state." This provides for bearing arms in protection of a free state from usurpers both foreign and domestic. It is specific, but it's also vague because it has to be.
  46. #21646
  47. #21647
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    Incorporation is a fascinating subject, and I wish more people knew about it. Being born in a post incorporation world, I took it for granted and was shocked to discover my previously limited rights
    Can you give a rundown of the elements of incorporation that you think make it such an important topic for people to know about?
  48. #21648
    Quote Originally Posted by The Bean Counter View Post
    Out of interest, what's the MO of a US serial killer? Strangulation?
    I don't understand the question. Serial killers have lots of modus operandi.
  49. #21649
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    You're insane. There aren't two sides. There are two small extremes that believe in the purity of their beliefs and then there's a metric fuckton of people in the middle who have mixed beliefs about both. They only cleave when both extremes gain enough influence and declare that, "if you're not with us, you're against us."

    You're doubly insane for thinking that not only are the people cleaved in two, but that one side is strictly correct over the other.
    I responded to this already, but I see how my initial point was made poorly, particularly by the idea that the West is cleaved in two. In my latest response, I explained what I actually meant. There are pressures from two types of antipodal ideologies. I didn't mean that everybody is either one or the other.
  50. #21650
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I don't understand the question. Serial killers have lots of modus operandi.
    UK killers like to strangle and sexually assault, or a good stabbing. Just wondered if having easy access to guns affected that, but I just can't imagine killers would get the same satisfaction from shooting somebody in the head.
  51. #21651
    I think you're right.
  52. #21652
    Depends on the range. I'd get a great deal of satisfaction from a head shot at, say, 100 yards.

    Also depends on the head.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  53. #21653
    In a gunless Murika, wild pigs would probably overrun Texas. They breed like rabbits and have already done billions in damage. It's legal (and encouraged) to just hunt them en masse for sport, yet the hogs are still winning the war.
  54. #21654
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    free/dumb. i really like that spelling for some reason,,

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  55. #21655
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ...yet the hogs are still winning the war.
    I wouldn't say the hogs are winning the war, I'd say the bacon eaters are. The last thing a bacon eater wants to see is the hog population struggling to keep up with the bacon eating.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  56. #21656
    spoonitnow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    Seems like the meat of the problem is urban hand-gun violence from this report.

    ...I should re-watch The Wire.
    lol who would have thought
  57. #21657
    Quote Originally Posted by rpm View Post
    free/dumb. i really like that spelling for some reason,,

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6VcszNLRWPE&feature=share
    Irony: it's because of freedoms people like Lenny Bruce fought for that Mr. Jeffries can do what he does. It's because of freedom that Mr. Jeffries owns such a nice outfit, that crowds of people have resources enough to spend their evening with him, and that Netflix can distribute his digital product across the world.

    That said, it ain't comedy unless it's ridiculing the best things about you. So, yeah, freedumb ahoy!
  58. #21658
    Never really warmed to Jeffries, he just isn't that good. He's also really false.
  59. #21659
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    @JKDS: How fluid is the number of sitting justices on SCOTUS?

    Someone was telling me the President could appoint any number of Justices he wants, and that it is up to the Senate to confirm them, but no limit is set in the constitution. They were saying that Obama should appoint like 6 more justices so that he stacks SCOTUS with liberally minded people.

    I see that this is half-true... the limit is not set in the constitution, but later. I just found out about the Judiciary Act of 1869.

    My question is how binding is this Act? Is it like... congress made the law to limit congress, so whenever they feel like they don't want to follow it, then they can just abolish it? Or is that the wrong idea? Is it more or less binding than that?
  60. #21660
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    @ wuf. he's not ripping on freedom. he's ripping on how dumbass yanks glorify it as if the (relative, compared to many nations) freedom they enjoy is exclusive to them or their culture. and fly around the world talking far too loud and dropping freedom bombs on people
    Last edited by rpm; 07-13-2016 at 09:29 PM.
  61. #21661
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    ps i say dumbass yanks to refer to dumbass yanks (yanks are people from the usa to people outside the usa) and not broadly to people from the usa
  62. #21662
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    @mmm: look up "court packing" and roosevelt. He made such a play in the 1930s, though the court gave in to his demands before anything became of it.

    Edit: the short answer though is that congress can choose to increase the number if they so desire. Nothing in the constitution prevents them from doing so.

    However, they may have difficulty in removing justices. If the act said "no judges", it would likely violate the sepa ration of powers (but not for lower court judges...).

    The court, of course, may try and fight it. They might even say that increasing the number violates the constitution in some way. Then we get into a huge mess. So much of law relies on each branch respecting the others power, that things get messy pretty quick when they dont.
    Last edited by JKDS; 07-13-2016 at 09:38 PM.
  63. #21663
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    Quote Originally Posted by ImSavy View Post
    Never really warmed to Jeffries, he just isn't that good. He's also really false.
    I don't get that from him. Maybe I'm falling for his act because I don't think he's a great joke writer, but I still watch some of his stuff because I think he's likable.
    The strengh of a hero is defined by the weakness of his villains.
  64. #21664
    Freedom gave us netflix.

    -wuf
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  65. #21665
    It sure did/does.
  66. #21666
    Check out Milton Friedman's Free to Choose series. It'll impress on you the idea that freedom is at the heart of growing economic prosperity.
  67. #21667
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    I'll have to side with the muricans on the gun issue. We have lived very protected lives in western societies for the past 80 years, and we have a good outlook for the next couple of decades so we tend to not worry about the big picture. Gun ownership is a deterrent for tyranny. Any kind of systematic genocide is made significantly harder if the target population is armed. Gun ownership and mandatory military training is one of the main reasons the 2nd world war went past Switzerland. I don't own a gun, I don't want a gun and I prefer to be around people who don't carry guns. But I do want the right to own a gun.
    The strengh of a hero is defined by the weakness of his villains.
  68. #21668
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    France, man, fucking hell.
    I'm the king of bongo, baby I'm the king of bongo bong.
  69. #21669
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    There's this BBC docu where they send Richard Dawkins to Israel to see what would happen to him, and he goes to meet a guy who was brought up as a secular jew in NY, then moved to Israel to relocate Muslims to make way for jewish settlements, as you do, and ended up converting to Islam. So obviously there's a guy who will be able to see the big picture. So Dawkins goes to meet him and like 30s into the conversation this guy is like: 9/11 is what happens when you let women wear sports bras and have movies on TV etc.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8b3vhTO248

    I personally can't be fucking bothered. I'm turning into George Bush pre-Iraq... just smoke 'em out! But probably what we really need is Ayaan Hirsi Ali to become a recognizable name. People like her and the guy who wrote Radical... Najid Nawaz... fuck those names btw. Also the guy has a punchable face, but there have to be people who can talk to moderates and get them to just stop it with the religion stuff.
    The strengh of a hero is defined by the weakness of his villains.
  70. #21670
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    You know what's kind of ironic, if my kid got killed by that truck with some Islamic nutter driving it, I could see myself getting a gun and seeking retribution on whichever group I felt was responsible, which is exactly what that guy was doing.
    I'm the king of bongo, baby I'm the king of bongo bong.
  71. #21671
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    No, you wouldn't.
    The strengh of a hero is defined by the weakness of his villains.
  72. #21672
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    The acronym LOL was used by NASA to mean "Little Old Ladies" during the Apollo moon missions.

    Hey, that's a display of sexism that I hadn't thought of!
  73. #21673
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  74. #21674
    oskar's Avatar
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    Possible parallels to Turkey right now. I think the failed coup has huge potential to cement Erdogans power.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR1X3zV6X5Y
    The strengh of a hero is defined by the weakness of his villains.
  75. #21675
    I suspect you're right.

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