The Center for American Progress reports
Before Stephen Paddock opened fire at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip last October, killing 58 and wounding hundreds, most Americans probably hadn't heard of bump-fire stocks--add-ons that lets a semiautomatic rifle fire as quickly as a machine gun. Until that mass shooting, they were a novelty known only among firing-range enthusiasts and Cool Gun YouTube.
Within months of Las Vegas, lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation[1] to outlaw the devices, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF, announced plans to ban them through regulation.[2]
But gun control advocates warn bump stocks are just one part of a much bigger problem. A flood of new gun technologies is pushing the envelope on what a civilian can legally own, skirting laws that have kept the most dangerous weapons off the street for decades.
[...] Weapons like machine guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles and shotguns are regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and subsequent amendments. To own one of those weapons, a civilian has to go through a lengthy approval process and pay a special tax. The job of deciding whether a gun falls under NFA's restrictions falls to ATF.
Gun manufacturers have used the law's technicalities to create guns that are just as powerful, and deadly, as restricted weapons but without the added tax and strict regulations.
Take the SAINT, by Springfield Armory. It's an AR-15 with a 30-round magazine and a 7.5-inch barrel. That's shorter than the legal rifle length under federal law. But instead of a shoulder stock, the SAINT has a "stabilizing brace" or "forearm brace"--a device designed to attach to a shooter's forearm for one-handed firing rather than resting against their shoulder. By ATF's definition, the SAINT is a pistol, not a rifle, because it isn't meant to be fired from the shoulder. So anyone who can pass a federal background check can buy one online for $989.
[...] Stabilizing braces aren't the only new gun tech to skirt around the National Firearms Act. Franklin Armory's Binary Trigger System fires two rounds with every shot--one when the trigger is depressed and one when it's released, doubling the rate of fire. Like bump stocks and stabilizing braces, binary triggers aren't currently regulated under the National Firearms Act.
In one YouTube video, a man uses a binary trigger to fire a 30-round magazine in less than five seconds. In another, a binary trigger beats out a fully-automatic weapon.
[1] Bogus link in TFA. Fixed in TFS.
[2] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday June 24 2018, @10:42AM (116 children)
The problem isn't guns, or "assault weapons", or bump stocks, or anything of the sort. It's purely cultural, and it's a relatively recent change.
Back when I was in school in the US, it wasn't unusual to see pickup trucks with rifles carried openly on a rack on the back window. These trucks even parked at schools. There were no school shootings. Todaay? Freak-out!
The difference isn't in the guns, and controlling guns is treating a symptom. Look at the UK, in particular larger cities like London. Guns are outlawed, but they still have gun crime - plus more knife attacks. So now you can be arrested for carrying a knife without a good reason, and they want to outlaw points on knives. Of course, there was the guy, a couple of months back, who was attacked with a screwdriver - which will do just fine as a stabbing weapon. Meanwhile, they have a problem with acid attacks. So...outlaw tools, chemicals...heck, better outlaw rocks.
The real questions concern culture. First, has violent crime actually increased? Second, if certain types of violence have become more common (as in: mass shootings), why is this the case? Regardless of the cause - and we can have some interesting discussions - outlawing certain types of weapons just completely misses the point. That like putting a bandaid on an ulcerating tumor: maybe it covers up the problem for a while, but it doesn't actually address the underlying problem.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:11AM (43 children)
Ditto everything Bradley13 says. Guns don't kill, people kill. And, if you take away all of the guns, people will still find a way to kill. Back in the day of Cain and Abel, there were no guns. I guess there weren't even any good knives. Just rocks and clubs, and murder was already a problem.
Change the culture, people. Hold individuals accountable for their actions. Liberal attitudes toward crime are going nowhere. Of course, neither are conservative attitudes. Let's stop criminalizing petty crimes, and severely punish serious crimes, up to and including capital punishment and various forms of corporal punishment.
Lounging around in a prison cell isn't putting the smallest of dents in crime statistics.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:46AM (14 children)
But mass murder wasn't a problem. We're not going to stop every murder. But we can try to stop, or greatly reduce, the mass murders. At least that's a good place to start.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:55AM (6 children)
But that's not much of a problem for the proposed cure. Why trample on the rights of hundreds of millions of people because a few dozen people die now and then? Why destroy our societies because there is a small problem that happens to get a lot of media attention? Should we hand our world to the intelligence agencies because the terrorists might win? Should we imprison a generation of people because kids might get high? Should we require till the end of time people to take their shoes off when boarding planes because one time this guy tried to blow up a plane?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:30PM (2 children)
^ im no gun enthisiast but we have passed the point of readon. I almost prefer to ban guns in any way becausr it will only encourage more destructive methods like running people over or a dozen other ways lots of people could be killed. Gun licensing is important and i think fair, you want to carry aeound the ability to kill someone? Better proe you know how to properly handle a firearm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:50PM
Were spell checkers banned in your neck of the woods?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:21PM
Personally, I don't want to carry around the ability to kill someone. I want to carry around the ability to stop someone from killing me.
If you don't want me to be able to stop someone from killing me, then you want me to die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:23PM
Mass murder has been a bigger problem at every point in history compared to now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:08PM (1 child)
because "gun control" will "destroy societies". hahaHAHAHAHhahahaha...wow. how *did* humanity exist before the invention of the gun. quite well actually.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:00PM
Let me remind you again what "gun control" means here. It means trampling on the rights of hundreds of millions of people because a few people died in a school shooting. When you're willing to severely compromise the integrity of a democracy merely because bad things occasionally happen, that is a recipe for the destruction of the society. No matter how much you harm your society, it won't prevent bad things from happening, and thus, there will be rationalization for the next decline in freedom.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:45PM (2 children)
> But mass murder wasn't a problem.
But murder was a bigger problem. What percentage of the world population did Cain kill vs. say Hitler, or Stalin?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:24PM (1 child)
Genghis Kahn had no guns, yet was responsible for the deaths of millions.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:39PM
Oh for fucks sake. How fucking retarded do you have to be to bring this shit up?
1. Genghis Kahn was a leader of a number of people.
2. Hitler was a leader of a number of people
3. Stalin was a leader of a number of people
4. Donald Trump is a leader of a fucked up nation too.
So, if Donald Trump kills millions of people, it's not because he got a gun and went ape nuts with it in Las Vegas. But a single fuck-head can pick up an arsenal and injure and kill 500+, or shoot up a school killing dozens in kindergarten. If people want to stop fucked up leaders, then maybe they shouldn't elect them in the first place or follow them in the 2nd place. But if you want to stop fuckheads from killing dozens of people, maybe don't give people guns that allow them to do that?
But I know, it's fucking impossible to get through to irrational people. They will keep bringing up irrelevant info about "what about Hitler?", "what about KKK?", "what about melanoma?", "what about retards on the internet?". How about keep your brains on *topic* which is "guns and their use in mass murders".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:41PM (2 children)
Actually Murder rates are down [mises.org], nearly to historic lows. (Foreign source intentionaly sited to avoid the usual argument.)
The mass murders and suicides among young people seem to happen near the end of school years, as people realize they are in a hopeless situation, likely to fail, or find themselves mercilessly mocked.
So do we prevent hopelessness (somehow)?
Or do we teach people to grow a skin?
Or do we bring back corporal punishment so mid-course corrections involve something other than a "talking to"?
We've tried the helicopter parent, everybody is a winner, nobody gets embarrassed, approaches for 40 years now.
Clearly none of these work to prevent mass murders. Desperate kids aren't afraid of dying.
Nobody has a believable explanation for the 30 year spike in murders finally tapering off in the late 90s, and
nobody has a believable explanation for the (perceived) mass murder spike yo today.
But it sure as hell wasn't gun availability, or even full auto gun availability.
(same source as above).
And when you get right down to it, the mass shootings are ALREADY included in the murder totals.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @09:34AM
One hypothesis has the start of the spike correlating with cars become ubiquitous, and the end matching with the end of leaded fuel. Nobody knows exactly how, but there is some suspicion that the brain damage caused by lead can turn people more violent. Disclaimer: Correlation does not imply causation and all that, but at least they are trying to explain it.
Improved news coverage, 24/7 news and most of all, every news channel focusing on pulling in viewers by showing more gory news than the competition.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 25 2018, @05:52PM
Actually Murder rates are down [mises.org], nearly to historic lows. (Foreign source intentionaly sited to avoid the usual argument.)
The data source for that graph is the FBI... And it's rather odd that you would pick a data set that ends in 2014 given there's more recent data out. Hmm....I wonder why that could be...
US homicide rate spiked nearly 8% in 2016, FBI report finds [cnn.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @08:54PM
If you are willing to die, as many mass murderers are, the easy way to take out 40 people is to become a bus driver. More time and expense, not worse than a college degree, gets you a large jet aircraft that you can aim at a skyscraper or stadium.
If you would rather be sneaky, there are plenty of other options. Derailing trains is easy. You can buy gasoline. Nurses sometimes manage to kill dozens. Explosives are easy to make if you've ever done high school science labs. Rosary peas are absurdly toxic. Certain mercury compounds are absurdly toxic. A school stabber (not shooter) in China got about 50 kids.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by theluggage on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:05PM (26 children)
...but people with guns (esp. semi-automatic/bump stock/binary trigger bullet sprayers) can kill a lot more than people without. Nobody is claiming that gun control will end murder forever, or even stop some nut walking in to work/school with a machette - but fewer people will die when it does happen, and the attacker is easier to stop non-fatally (making going postal less attractive as a form of suicide).
...and, yes, the UK currently has a "knife problem" by UK murder rate standards that would be far, far worse if the perpetrators had easy access to guns... If people are using knives because they can't get guns the that's an an improvement: you need a very long knife for a drive-by stabbing... and the knife crime thing seems to be suspiciously strongly correlated with cuts in policing and pressure to reduce stop-and-search tactics, hampering enforcement of the law on knives (which also means it gets disproportionate press attention).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:42PM (1 child)
Poison, explosives, moving vehicle, cut the supports of a bridge...there are innumerable ways to kill a lot of people.
What is the definition of "killing?" Is financial fraud a form of killing when it deprives people of their resources? What about stress? Is not paying a person what they are due which results in dead by heart attack killing?
There is no way to prevent mass murder. Period. Full stop. It is a part of human behavior just as it is part of the behavior of any other living organism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:52PM
There is no way to prevent mass murder. Period.
You can't prevent the generation of garbage either, yet we pay for people to pick it up everyday. Maybe you could make a statement by leaving the corpse at the scene until they pile up so high you can't see over them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:56PM (14 children)
Yup. And then there's always this [wordpress.com], which is pretty hard to argue against.
If you want it as a graph of actual figures, take [sciencenews.org] your pick [vox-cdn.com]...
Note that I've linked to data from actual established science/news sites, not "facts" from iloveguns.org, realactualhonestgunfacts.com, and similar.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @01:50PM (12 children)
Isn't that cute? Where is the graph for the REST of the world? Eastern Europe? Russia? African nations? The Carribean? Mexico?
Like so many others, VOX wants to define an elite club, and point at the US saying "You guys are the worst!"
Get all of the world on the same graph. Or, just get all of Europe on that same graph. All of Europe, and all of the US, or break all of the European countries down individually, and compare them to all of the US states individually.
Cherry picking doesn't impress me at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:17PM (11 children)
Exactly. Let's compare the US to somewhere like an active war zone, perhaps Syria or Afghanistan. That'll allow (some of) us to continue denying that we have a massive gun problem.
Or anything really, just as long as we can keep denying the problem. See the first link in my posting.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:32PM (10 children)
So, eastern Europe is an active war zone - got it.
(Score: 4, Touché) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:38PM
You misspelled "lalalala I'm not listening lalalala".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:43PM (7 children)
Damn, hit reply too early: Being an American, you're probably not aware that the Ukraine, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia are in eastern Europe. Or possibly even that they exist. They're certainly active war zones though.
Well, not sure if Fox, Infowars, or Breitbart have mentioned them, so you may not know that either.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:45PM (5 children)
To other Americans reading this: I'm making fun of this one particular guy because it's such an easy target, not y'all in general :-).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:07PM (4 children)
Easy target. You might want to do a search of this site. Use my nick, and the terms "Georgia Ukraine Ossetia Crimea Russia". Yes, I'm aware that much of eastern Europe is in turmoil. And I'm also making fun of you Euros who distance yourself from your own neighbors. "Oh, but that's not Europe", or "Yes, but we live in the CIVILIZED portion of Europe!"
Again, I say stop cherry picking. The US and Europe are a reasonable comparison. The US has communities that has almost no violent crime. If you insist on cherry picking, I can do the same thing, and find statistics that make London look like a world class hellhole.
Next - you'll claim that there is no war in the US, like there is in Ukraine. And, I'll have to point to the statistics on our southern border. Declared or not, there is a war, right here.
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/ [borderlandbeat.com]
Mainstream media won't give you any of that news. They don't notice when a bus is hijacked, then months later, all 50, 60, or even more passengers are found in a mass grave. Yes, we can legitimately compare our statistics to Eastern Europe, along with Western Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:33PM (3 children)
Ooooh, ok it makes more sense why you and some others around here sound so crazy. You believe there is a literal was r on the Mexican border. Wow.
When did economic migrants become soldiers again?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:38PM (1 child)
Click the link, and read. Lemme think a moment. The US lost about 40,000 people in Vietnam, over a period of about - uhhh - 15 years, I think. Mexico has lost more people in ten years, than the US lost in Vietnam.
If you read some of the stories at the link provided, you may choose to remain silent, and thought a fool, than to open your mouth to prove that you are a fool.
Yes, there is a war on our southern border. You may have heard references to a "war on drugs". If you step across our southern border, you will have entered the active battleground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:11PM
Good to know how nuts you RWNJs are. Every country has problems with crime and smuggling, only the US has turned it into another wsrmachine profit mechanism. You brainwashed foo!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:08PM
And you should too. It is a war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:03PM
Not that people are currently shooting, but South Ossetia and Abkhazia are clearly in Asia. Are you trying to determine continent by race? The line runs through the Black Sea.
Ukraine is more questionable. If we say that the line splits the country though, that very neatly puts the war zone in Asia and the peaceful part in Europe.
None of the above are in the EU or in any of the other sorts of regional agreements associated with Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:10PM
Ukraine? Upper North Macedonia? Don't try to play stupid, Runaway! You're not smart enough to pull it off. Oh, and we're coming to take your gun. Mandatory Mental Health Checks, coming soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:37PM
Ever heard of Correlation vs Causation?
Also best part of your stupid graphic #1 is the caveat of "in developed world." When you have to add a qualifier to make your point, there is a very big chance it's fucking bullshit. Maybe there is something else different between US and European countries, other than guns.
You want to cherry-pick? How about you break down the Homicide rates by Race... Oh what's wrong then? Is it that White Americans have a Homicide rate very close to the White Europeans? Or that Black Americans have a homicide rate very close to Black Africans? How can that fucking be?!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:13PM (1 child)
Spray & pray vs. aimed fire. If I was in the crosshairs, I'd rather be in the first situation. Secondly, even under a gun banner's dream of Australian style restrictions, firearms will still exist and be used: https://ssaa.org.au/disciplines/single-action/ [ssaa.org.au]
And if you don't think an Old West style of single action revolver (meaning the hammer must be manually cocked for each shot, you can't just pull the trigger again after a cartridge is fired, you must cock the hammer manually) can't be shot fast or accurately, check out Bob Munden's balloon trick where he pops two balloons spaced eight feet apart with a single action revolver and does it so fast, the two shots sound like one shot. You can't really tell its two shots without the aid of slow motion video. See here at about 56 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5WjkI5FuP0 [youtube.com]
I'd much rather be shot at by some kid who thinks he's all badass with his black rifle, using spray & pray techniques from a weapon with poor ergonomics making accuracy difficult (e.g., an AR pistol like the SAINT), or accessories prone to jamming (like drum mags), than by someone who knows how to shoot and has a manually operated rifle or pistol.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:49PM
Fun fact; most revolvers can have a higher rate of fire than a semi-auto weapon.
The rate of fire of a revolver is limited only by how fast the trigger can be pulled. The rate of fire on a semi-auto is limited by how fast the bolt can eject the spent case and load new round. And no mater how fast you pull the trigger on a semi-auto it will never get faster. Best I've heard is 2 to 3 rounds per second.
But I've seen 16 rounds go through a revolver in under 3 seconds, including a reload. A basic semi-auto can't match that rate of fire.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:38PM (5 children)
Remember that mass murder in France a few years ago? The one where the guy used a truck to kill 80+ people? 50% more than the Vegas shooter.
Or Oklahoma City, that was what 120+ people? No guns used there either.
NY in 2001? Again, no guns used.
My point is if someone decides to kill a lot of people they will find a way to do it. Period.
Almost half the mass murders in the last 80 years have not involved guns, and most of the ones that did use guns actually had fewer deaths than those that didn't.
We have limited resources, we can play "whack a mole" and try to ban everything used to commit murders or we can focus resources on changing the people and cultures that cause these people to go into the deep end. Doing things like banning the tool used to murder doesn't work. As you point out Brittan has actually had serious suggestions to ban chef's knives and just about any knife with a sharp point because of the increasing number of murders using knives.
Change the culture and you not only decrease gun homicides but all homicides.
Which is more important to you; getting rid of guns or preventing murders? Doing the former may help the latter but doing the latter makes the former unnecessary.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)
yeah dude should have driven a truck off the hotel roof instead!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:32AM
Actually he had a pilot's license. Had he rented a Cesna and loaded it up with gas cans and some sort of incendiary device (just to make sure), he probably would have been more effective. Heck, if he'd just rented a Ryder and started driving through the crowd he probably would have done more damage. Thankfully, he decided to go the overly complicated / less effective route and thus managed to do less damage than he could have.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)
So, to extend that principle, even if there's been a plague of house burglaries in my area, there's no point in me upgrading my door and window locks because they won't prevent a fraudster hacking my bank account?
Don't wear a crash helmet on a motorbike because it won't stop you breaking your back?
Don't wear a hat because it won't keep your feet dry?
You're preventing a ridiculous straw man: "ban guns and we won't have any ore murders!" said absolutely no one at all, ever. If you've got some magical solution to "changing the culture" so that nobody commits murder then please share - odds are that the solution (a) won't work and (b) has a vastly bigger chilling effect on our civil liberties than forgoing the right to buy guns at the local Kwickie Mart.... but, hey, put some flesh on the bones and I'll give it an open mind (unless it involves Jesus).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:33AM
So if you don't want to ban guns to cut down on murder, it sounds like you are just trying to fuck with people who own guns for no reason whatsoever. That makes you sort of a dick.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 25 2018, @05:55PM
If you need to go back 2 decades to find an anecdote that can compete with events from 2 weeks ago then you're kind of proving the opposite point.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:45PM
It is untrue that the US is unique in the occurrence of mass shootings. One can only even begin to make the claim if one conveniently excludes mass shootings in Europe (such as the Paris attacks) as "terrorism" while defining similar acts in the US (i.e., the San Bernardino and Orlando killings) as generic "mass shootings." Similarly, it's also disingenuous to ignore other forms of mass homicide that occur when the murderers use means other than guns.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @09:54AM
But bradley13 is an idiot! Oh, but this is an endorsement by a fellow idiot?? Idiots agree!! Now if only we had Thirty Helens, so we could be closer to the truth on such matters.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:34AM (28 children)
"Look at the UK".
But have you? I mean, apart from going to see Buckingham Palace and Stonehenge (weird that that's a tourist attraction, nobody British understands that), have you looked at the UK?
Our murder rate is a fraction of the US, per capita.
Out gun crime rate is so low as to be almost invisble on any graph that includes the US.
The last "school shooting" was 26 years ago. There's an entire GENERATION of people who have NEVER HEARD of a school shooting in the UK because there hasn't been one. The reason? The last one that happened, we banned guns that were owned unnecessarily.
Of course there's still gun crime. Obviously. You can ban anything you want, and of course it will still happen. It's called breaking the law, people do it all the time. But it SO HUMONGOUSLY LESS COMMON that you can't even get the concept.
I have never held, touched, fired or been present around a real gun being fired or even shown, or owned by an individual, in my life. The absolute closest I've got is in airport some police have guns on them. I don't even know what they are, what they are capable of, or what models are called, because we just don't have that gun culture.
Knife crime is literally there because there's no gun crime. The criminals find it so hard to get and keep guns undetected that all they can use are things you can pick up in a supermarket. It's hard to go on a killing spree with a knife. Not impossible, but hard. You can do more damage with an axe, or a crowbar, or even just trying to disembowel people with a spoon, and we don't outlaw those either. Yes, we regulate under-16s buying knife. It's also illegal to carry such things without due cause. You can't walk down the street with a breadknife in your hand. Why would you need to? You buy it, take it home, use it in your kitchen. But the same rule on carrying stuff applies to, say, a baseball bat in your car, or a pair of bolt-cutters. Generally speaking, most people don't need to do that and the main reason they have such things is with an intention to commit violence. If you're going to the park with your kid, fine. If you're on your way to a bread-maker's slicing contest, fine. Otherwise, why the fuck is a 16-year-old walking the street with a meat cleaver?
Notice, though, that you don't even have as strict controls on your guns as we do on knives, sticks and stones. Now imagine how strict our control of guns is.
We don't have "a problem with acid attacks". They are SO RARE that they make the news. Maybe a handful a year, in a population of 70 million. That's about the same as the number of tea-cosy related deaths (look up what a tea-cosy is, then try and imagine how you could end up dead from one). Meanwhile, there have been hundreds of gun deaths, and a dozen school shootings since the start of the year in the US and nobody even cares. It's just "daily life".
The real question concerns why you feel safe in such a country with SO VASTLY MUCH MORE crime, serious crime, gun crime, and murders per capita than a country that speaks the same language, has the same proportion of immigration, plays all the same video games, consumes all the same movies, and has just the same amount of insane nutters.
Literally ask yourself: My kids are going to grow up in a country. Would I rather one where every idiot has got a gun and school shootings aren't even news items any more because otherwise there'd be room for no more news? Or an equivalent country with similar education, far better healthcare, no school shootings, and the only time they'll see a gun - even among all their mates in their teenage show-off years - is at a cinema?
P.S. I live in the UK. All my life. In London. All my life. You're speaking absolute SHITE if you think you know about gun/knife crime there. I have NEVER lived in fear, and I've lived and worked in some of the WORST areas of it, schools in "special measures" (i.e. so bad, the government has stepped in to fix them), exposed to people in the criminal underground (e.g. asking to borrow diamond-cutters because "they work wonders on Securicor vans", wink, wink). I spent my childhood in fist-fights, I saw kids glassed and stabbed in the arm (with a pencil, of all things) in class. And I acquired a paranoia about walking through certain places at night because I knew it would end in a mugging. I ran self-defence classes for ten years, and never once described what to do if someone had a gun (first, it's pointless, run, second nobody asks, cares or thinks of it, because guns are just-that-rare)
And I've never ONCE worried that any of it would involve a gun. At worst a knife. But two unarmed people attacking you are far worse than one person with a knife. And, there's almost nothing you can do if you're surprised anyway.
Rather than spout shit, come to the UK and see how few guns, how everybody's GLAD there are so few guns, how the attacks you infer are MASSIVE MAJOR NATIONAL NEWS ITEMS when they occur, rather than daily life, and also how we don't have bajillions of cameras, live in a surveillance state, are subject to 1984, etc. etc. etc.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:39AM (18 children)
Ho-hum. Nobody gets killed in the UK? Nobody gets raped? And, immigration isn't a problem? Let's keep in mind that crime committed by people who belong to MS-13 and other immigrant gangs are included in our general crime statistics. Your own statistics are going up, because of immigration.
If we could all live in nice homogenous societies, crime would be considerably lower. Here in the melting pot. we EXPECT crime to be higher than someplace like China, or Mongolia, or England. Every culture on earth clashes with every other culture here.
So, what's your excuse for your rising crime rates? Are you ready yet to blame the Muslim invasion?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:50AM (4 children)
He's not saying that no violent crime exists, just that it is so much lower than we have here in the US that your only retort is to purposely misconstrue his comment. And nice "immigrant boogie man" straw man. Isn't there a Trump JOI video you should be watching?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:04PM (2 children)
Misconstrue? Really? Various people from Europe and the UK try to paint the US as a bunch of savages, because we have higher crime statistics than they do. They ignore, or try to ignore, the fact that ALL OF THE US has crime statistics similar to ALL OF EUROPE. If we can cherry pick statistics from one small state or another, that state's statistics look as good as the best of European states.
And, again, within a relatively small region with a homogenous population, crime statistics are pretty low. That is a fact of life.
When the Europeans and the British get their act together, and bring all of European crime statistics significantly lower than US crime statistics, then we can talk.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:16PM (1 child)
Don't think they are trying, Runaway; they are succeeding, in spades, because of these things called "facts". You Hillbilly Savage, you!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 25 2018, @12:14AM
Who you calling a Spade, you bigoted asshole?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @08:04PM
So what? There are differences in history and culture all over the world. And crime rates vary totally unrelated to "culture". (Unless, of course, you, like He, insist that the crime rates is the definition of culture.
The brutality of British rule over history, at home and abroad, has raised a culture of subservient people, afraid to challenge the government. The US is just the opposite.
Did you somehow forget "The Troubles"?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:05PM (12 children)
And Canada. Why can't we expect violent crime it to be the same as it is in Canada, per capita of course.
In Canada Muslim's make up 3.2% of the population, vs 1.1% in the United Sates. So... no.
Again, Canada is actually substantially MORE ethnically fractured than the USA. Crime rates do not correlated with ethic diversity. Your hypothesis simply doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level#/media/File:List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level,_List_based_on_Fearon%27s_analysis.png [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:19PM (11 children)
You're leaning a little toward the silly side with that. Canada doesn't have a border with Mexico. No, you can't expect the US and Canada to be an awful lot alike. Additionally, the US set the example in the Indian wars, which turned most Canadian's stomachs. Canada reached more reasonable agreements with their native population than the US did. Canada also gave up slavery long before the US did. I suppose if I tried, I could find more reasons why Canada is less violent than the US. Despite that we are close cousins, we aren't the same country. Our development went along entirely different lines.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:14PM
Ugh, youve lost this round stop already. Only other people who want to buy into the US bullshit will support you on this.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:22PM
quit embarrasing the majority of us americans. you speak only for yourself. one person. thats it. opine away, but we know you only speak for yourself.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:03PM (1 child)
Canada also doesn't have any population. Its one of the least densely populated places on earth.
And Canada actually has a land mass larger then the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density [wikipedia.org]
A mere 7 million immigrants amounts to 21% of Canada's population.
The US has 46 million immigrants which is 14% of the US population.
Of ALL the immigrants in the world the US hosts 19.8% while Canada hosts 3.2%
That's right, 20% of the world wants to come to the US.
In spite of the welcome mat Canada brags about, nobody want's to go there.
The US has more illegal immigrants (excess of 11 million) than Canada has Total Immigrants.
There are 40,000 illegal immigration arrests [thehill.com] per month along the Mexican border, to say nothing of the number slipping through.
The US had done way more than its fair share. Canada: Will you accept these people?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population [wikipedia.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday June 25 2018, @01:27AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)
Runaway, vous ne savez rien du Québec! Vous êtes l'idiot américain typique de Trump-soutenant! Vous serez refusé l'entrée au Canada!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 25 2018, @12:13AM
Pourquoi jouer votre jeu stupide? Été là , fait cela, a vissé certaines de vos femmes, a volé quelques-unes de vos chèvres, et vous les francophones n'avez aucune idée. N'essayez pas d'agir tous les Canadiens, tout d'un coup.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday June 25 2018, @01:46AM (4 children)
Didn't you ask us to accept the violence was the result of a muslim invasion? Are muslims from Mexico? No. So that's got nothing to do with that.
Agreed. That's basically my argument here. That its clearly not muslims in particular, and its not ethnic or religious diversity in general either. Despite the US sharing a border with mexico and migrants; Canada has a higher muslim density and is generally more ethnically and religiously diverse than the US -- and it HASN'T led to similar levels of violence. So its something else.
What that is, I don't know. I think America is culturally more insular and even xenophobic. I don't know why. Perhaps American exceptionalism is part of the problem. Canadians don't have that.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 25 2018, @01:56AM (3 children)
The Muslim invasion is taking place in Europe. Europe's violence is partly or mostly due to the Muslim invasion. On this continent, we don't have a lot of Muslims. Instead, we have the descendants of the Azteca running amok. They know how to take a bad situation, and make it far worse than it needs to be.
But, don't worry - if/when Canada reaches 10% Muslim population, then Canada will be as violent as the worst cities in Europe. There are several critical stages in a Muslim invasion, all based on percentage of population.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kazzie on Monday June 25 2018, @05:14AM (2 children)
I'm sure many of those Muslims would say that the Muslim Invasion(tm) is partly or mostly due to The West's recent invasions of the Middle East.
The bigger issue we have right now is that a flow of refugees was joined by a flood of economic migrants, the smugglers of which have developed a routine that forces southern Europe to rescue boatfuls of migrants that get halfway across the Mediterranean and then declare a maritime emergency. That's a far bigger political hot potato than random attacks on the public.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 25 2018, @07:12AM (1 child)
So - Europe simply doesn't hear those maritime emergencies. Problem solved. After a half dozen of those boats sink with all hands on board, the other side begins to understand that we don't feel any obligation to "rescue" them. The boats stop.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday June 25 2018, @09:39AM
Several voices have raised the issue that we're encouraging more migration by responding to distress calls. But The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea states:
The States' current President would probably take the approach of disagreeing with the convention and withdrawing from it, but in this case the USA hasn't actually ratified it yet (along with the likes of Turkey, Peru and Uzbekistan).
---
Existing EU policy is that refugees must present themselves at the first EU country they reach and be processed there: there is no centralised policy. This worked well enough while the numbers of migrants was relatively low, and the north African coast consisted of mostly stable governments. Now that Libya has been mired in a civil war for over five years, it is an open door for people smugglers, and the southern countries that have been dealing with the huge flow of migrants are getting fed up at the northern states that are doing relatively little to help. (Imagine each state in the US had to deal with migrants and refugees out of its own budget: how happy would Texas and Arizona be about that?)
Italy's new government was elected on a manifesto that included dealing with migrants: they've taken over 16,000 "saved" from the sea so far this year, more than any other EU country (to my knowledge). They recently insisted that a ship with ~600 migrants should go to the island of Malta instead because it was the "nearest port"(see here) [bbc.co.uk]. Eventually Spain agreed to take the ship in, in addition to their 12,000+ arrivals this year.
What's needed is a new policy approach, for all the EU's countries to share the problem and find a solution together, be it in the form of a unified border force, pooled funding and distribution of migrants, or otherwise. Circa 2016, Germany had accepted economic migrants (coming by land via Turkey and eastern Europe) with open arms. This route is now effectively closed, but Chancellor Merkel got a lot of stick from others in her government, and her coalition allies are threatening to bring down her government if she doesn't close Germany's border to new migrants (see here) [bbc.co.uk]. Given that knife sticking out of her back, it's unlikely that a pan-EU policy can be successfully agreed upon.
(Score: 2, Troll) by c0lo on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:55AM (2 children)
... to carry it home after you bought it? (blink... blink... grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @02:10AM (1 child)
That's not a problem. You kept in in its packaging and have the receipt on you, I assume?
Your average person wouldn't have a problem carrying home a knife they just bought, unless for some reason they had taken it out of its packaging and were openly holding it in their hand.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 25 2018, @03:44AM
The chinese shop I'm bought my latest two knives from only wrapped them in paper, but yes, I kept them wrapped until I got home.
Luckily, I was driving, I hate to thinks what I'd need to do with them on a (crowded) public transport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:01PM (4 children)
What is that, satire?
UK gov bans violent porn [boingboing.net]
You're being watched: there's one CCTV camera for every 32 people in UK [theguardian.com]
U.K. Cracking Down On Porn, Blocking It Unless Users Opt In [npr.org]
UK.gov Wants to Legislate on Comms Data Before Next Election [soylentnews.org]
House of Commons Approves UK Emergency Data Retention Law [soylentnews.org]
Open Rights Group To Take Government To Court Over DRIP [soylentnews.org]
UK Convicts People with Manga Images Depicting (Imaginary) Children [soylentnews.org]
UK Home Secretary: Project to End Mobile "Not-Spots" Could Aid Terrorists [soylentnews.org]
Court Rules UK-US Surveillance Data Sharing was Illegal [soylentnews.org]
Privacy International's Campaign to Disclose Illegal GCHQ Spying [soylentnews.org]
UK Sheinwald Report Urges Treaty Forcing US Web Firms' Cooperation in Data Sharing [soylentnews.org]
UK Wants to Ban Unbreakable Encryption, Log which Websites You Visit [soylentnews.org]
One nation under CCTV: the future of automated surveillance [wired.co.uk]
UK Home Secretary Stumbles While Trying to Justify Blanket Cyber-Snooping [soylentnews.org]
Theresa May: UK Should Stay in the EU, but Discard the European Convention on Human Rights [soylentnews.org]
London is a Model Modern Surveillance State and That's Not Going to Change [inverse.com]
UK's New Snoopers' Charter Just Passed an Encryption Backdoor Law by the Backdoor [soylentnews.org]
UK Prime Minister Repeats Calls to Limit Encryption, End Internet "Safe Spaces" [soylentnews.org]
UK's 'Extreme Mass Surveillance' Web Snooping Powers Face Legal Challenge [soylentnews.org]
WhatsApp Refused to add a Backdoor for the UK Government [soylentnews.org]
GCHQ Has Developed More Hacking Capabilities than Expected [soylentnews.org]
UK Prime Minister Theresa May Attacks Encrypted Messaging, Seeks Safe and Ethical AI [soylentnews.org]
Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:00PM (3 children)
Seriously? Do you live in the UK?
You're just parroting the same shit as I can find about the US.
Do I have to give up Facebook details entering the UK? Are the FBI asking Apple to unlock phones? Do the NSA insert code into major encryption standards that allow weaknesses years later? Every headline you quote has an opposite for the US.
The surveillance thing REALLY gives you away though:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/484956/number-of-surveillance-cameras-per-thousand-people-by-country/ [statista.com]
Whoopsie on trying that!
You seriously have no understanding until you've sampled British (and London especially) culture. Nobody is sitting there going "Oh, no, I'm on cameras 24/7!". Because it's not true. There are more cameras that I've personally installed in my workplace for security that on the 20 mile commute to that workplace.
P.S. On by default family-friendly filters can be overrode in seconds, for the account holder or anyone wanting to bypass. Honestly. You know how I know? I work in a school full of teenage children, and I advise their parents. Literally it's a checkbox on your account when you sign up and it's really "Would you like us to try to block porn categorised websites on this connection?" more than anything else. No worse than enabling SafeSearch and there's no big deal about turning it off (I work in schools, yet all my home and smartphone connections are unfiltered, plus any leased line / business connection is exempt anyway). It's no different to being given a copy of NetNanny by your ISP when you sign up, in essence. And you can choose if you want it or not. And I assure you from my work in secondary schools, no government here is tracking "violent porn" on any connection anyway and flagging anything that's not clearly 100% illegal anyway (outside the scope of violent porn laws which are pretty untested). Pick any famous BDSM website, you'll get on it, no problem.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:35PM (2 children)
You got emotional, flew too close to the Sun, and now won't accept the truth about your country. Your secret services are about as capable as ours, and your Prime Minister is Theresa May of all people, who has done much more than the FBI to undermine encryption [theregister.co.uk]. Obviously, living in the UK hasn't helped you to gain a good perspective on recent events. You don't have freedom of speech, you are living in a surveillance state, you are on a list for checking that checkbox and for other activities, and things are only going to get worse for you. The headlines you are ignoring will only multiply in the coming years. The cameras will become unnoticeable if they haven't already.
Brexit? Gesundheit.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Monday June 25 2018, @08:47AM (1 child)
My country is a incompetent bunch of twats who follow the US on whatever ridiculous endeavours they demand because you hold the keys to our nuclear program that HAS NOT CHANGED since the 70's and costs us billions. I am under no illusion. They can't GET to surveillance state as there's nobody left capable of understanding it on civil service wages.
GCHQ were a fine institution. Now they have no resources to fight against actual communications technology and have to go back to what they were before then - spies. I'm under no illusion that they have FULL capability if they so desire. So do the NSA. As you point out - they are as capable as the US ones. Which means they can do the same things as yours are doing. Despite being a tiny ant of a country. And yet somehow you're using that as reason to say that somehow you're better and not subject to the same? The US has the resources, the UK really doesn't. We only just paid off WW2 a few years ago.
We've never had explicit freedom of speech. You're not British, so you don't understand that. We don't need to write it down. We were never oppressed by an invader since... well, Viking times, so there's no need to. It's an inalienable right. Nobody even questions it.
Look up superinjunctions - which were entirely legal and then rendered moot by our media saying "fuck off, that's not how this works". Fuck Theresa May and all who sail in her, and every politician that ever held the post (I am not politically aligned with ANY of them, so attacking one doesn't rile me at all... they are ALL as bad as each other and have been for centuries). I can literally stand on the corner of Hyde Park and yell that if I like. I will DEFINITELY get away with it more than the equivalent in the US. And they're all so incompetent that actually NOTHING CLOSE to a surveillance state or undermining encryption has even happened (and it would have had to happen under the last 2/3 prime ministers to have actually affected anything we're currently using). Google caught the NSA sniffing its internal connections, not EU states. I'd like to point out that GCHQ basically INVENTED public-key encryption, kept it quiet for 40 years, let RSA think they'd invented it themselves in the 70's, and didn't tell anyone until the 90's. That's what spy agencies DO. And we're a damn sight better at it than your guys. But we haven't innovated in that regard in decades because our recruitment, education and civil service pay sucks, even at the upper echelons of the intelligence community.
At absolute best, at the absolute height of hyperbole, however, in terms of actually affecting people's daily lives, we're "just as bad" as the US. Condemning us is condemning yourself to the same extent. Whether BOTH countries are on an inexorable slide into surveillance state is questionable but you would not get one without the other. I believe it's more to do with the availability of technology and private firms holding the cards over critical infrastructure far more than anything that the governments want or could achieve on their own. We can barely run an electronic tax system, let alone a surveillance state.
If you did not see the stats I linked - the US already has more SURVEILLANCE (not just private ownership) cameras per capita than the UK and has had for over a decade. You have things like agencies sniffing cellphones in city centres and near the White House (and getting caught doing so on public record) and all the same problems. And most importantly, you have the funding to enable it.
And now you have a "regime" which is slowly isolating yourself from the rest of the world, for your own desire to "not become like the other countries", using a propaganda of "it's so much worse everywhere else". Come and see. Honestly. Get yourself a passport, pop over to the UK and the EU and see. And see how we laugh at you when you come up with this nonsense.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 25 2018, @04:48PM
In no comment did I say that you have to be worse than the U.S. to be a surveillance state.
On most of the rest we agree except:
I already said "You don't have freedom of speech". I didn't launch into a history of it or include any links, but most of us have seen relevant stories [bbc.com] and know that you don't have an explicit 1st Amendment equivalent.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday June 25 2018, @02:50PM
London sounds worse than the US. There was maybe one fight in school per year when I went (about a decade ago, and they were nearly as rare outside of it). I don't think there has been a stabbing at that school ever, in the 50 years it's been open. I don't know what glassing is, but I doubt that happens either. I live right outside of Detroit, and I've spent a lot of time there usually late at night in shady places with high murder rates (and we have one of the highest). I have been /part/ of the criminal underground my whole adult life. I've walked by myself and taken the bus at all times of night with large amounts of cash and never been mugged or robbed. I never carried a gun and never felt in danger for my life either so I really think your point is BS. Maybe you should stop drinking the koolaid and recognize that while our murder rate is higher than yours, almost all of that is from poor and poorly educated minorities with very little social and societal support. Out of 500-some murders in 2016 in Michigan (7/100,000 vs 1.2 for the UK), more than 300 occurred in Wayne county (290 in Detroit, population ~670,000)). another 47 were in Genesee county (Flint, pop. ~100,000 vs. the county's 400,000, accounts for 39 of those), Saginaw had 19 (pop. 50,000), Oakland County (pop. 1.2M) had 30, of which 16 were in Pontiac (pop. 60,000). These high crime areas are all urban, poor (all around 13-15,000 per capita - less than half the national average), and majority/disproportionately black and minority. Approximately 75% of the victims of these murders are black men between 18 and 35, with a similar proportion being arrested for commiting them. Urban areas around the country show the exact same trends. Centuries of institutionalized racism and hostile policies are what has caused these high murder rates. If you probably couldn't get a job that paid enough to feed and house yourself, had no or very few positive role models in your community, lived in de-facto segregation, and had horribly corrupt schools, politicians, and police, you would probably adopt the same nihilistic pragmatism that motivates many of the crimes that plague our cities. The issue is cultural, legal, and social, and guns aren't a large factor in WHY we have these issues. Our murder rates aren't all that much different than yours when you judge the hot-spots separately. Changing these won't happen quickly, because there isn't anything like the political will to actually pay reparations, repeal laws and policies used for oppression, and all the other things that could be done to actually make a difference. Instead, useful idiots try to shout down people because the strong hand of authority is comforting to the simple-minded. The reality is, gun laws will be enforced against minorities and political outliers like they always have, segregationist policies will continue, and the majority of the population will happily applaud the cognitive dissonance while frothing at the mouth at the racists/authoritarians/hippy/baby-killers on the other side.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:39AM (23 children)
No, there's a recent uptick but overall it's been declining for decades and anyone can google the stats - they all show the same pattern. If you remove black on black crime from the US and UK statistics, violent crime statistics are at an almost historical low. If we compare gun ownership against violent crime in the US, same story. Mention there's a problem with black kids murdering other black kids and the left labels you racist because it's all due to white oppression or some shit - go figure!
This appears to be mental health related, if the perps don't have guns they'll use bombs, vehicles, knives. If society can get back to dealing with minor transgressions and make mental health services available in conjunction with the criminal justice system we may be able to avoid incidents like Parkland. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:38PM (20 children)
The black on black crime bit becomes a racist point when asshats say "bbbut its only THOSE people who are the problem!" Reframe it as a problem we should help black communities solve and you wont get shit for it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @05:21PM (19 children)
You're attempting to apply logic because you don't understand the problem. [youtu.be] Can Democrats admit that their social programs yield increases in violence? [youtu.be] That "toxic masculinity" and grievance mongering - projecting blame for black crime onto white people as a result of "racist discrimination", "oppression" or "poverty" is utter bullshit? Doesn't it defeat the argument for gun control when you look at the stats for knife crime in the UK and ask what the cause is there? [metro.co.uk]
Mention any of this stuff, you must be some kind of "Nazi" and surrender all guns to the government that the left also call "Nazi's". Logic? Free debate results in the entire left wing narrative collapsing. This is why they are ideologically obligated to slander and attempt to silence those discussing it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)
Well youre way out in the weeds so no im not gonna wsste time tryimg to walk you back to sanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:47PM
Resort to slander and prove the point!
You're not familiar with the story of the Moynihan report? [city-journal.org] What if it were Obama making these claims? [politifact.com] Is this "sanity" or a tacit admission? [theepochtimes.com] How about hard data on black homicide rates? [vpc.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by SanityCheck on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:42PM (16 children)
Yes I agree, Democrats ruined Black families. Destroyed their societal structure, quite thoroughly. You have nothing but broken families, who do not raise their kids right, do not involve in the community, don't join their churches, just wallow in their own ignorance.
Why am I so racist? Not so, just observant, I have lived in one ghetto or another for about 15 years, so I seen it all. I have next to know friends from elementary school, because they are too fond of jail.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:02PM (15 children)
Yes I agree, Democrats ruined Black families.
Yes, they did. They were, and still are pro-slavery, now using the school to prison pipeline. Early civil rights came from the republicans.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:39PM (14 children)
Aaaaaand then the Republican party neatly flipped places with the Dixiecrats. Southern Strategy, mate, bloody well look it up. You don't get to freeze time in the late 50s and pretend the parties are still the same. Piss off with that rubbish.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:14PM (4 children)
Azuma channelling Cenk Uygur? [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:26PM
Pretty well-known history. Explicit Nixon strategy. Read Kevin Phillips book. Southern Democrats are now all Republicans, moderate Republicans are now all Democrats, and there is nothing left in the Republican party except Likud supporters, Russian agents, and Crazy Right-wing Nut-job Gun-fetishists.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:53PM (2 children)
Debunked in the comments section, which is a sentence I NEVER thought I would say. That was pathetic, AC.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @10:36PM (1 child)
Debunk this! [wikipedia.org] If the claim is that the Southern Strategy represents the Republican party of 2018, why does the Southern Manifesto not represent the party of the KKK?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 25 2018, @05:38AM
Uh...it does? That sounds a hell of a lot like small-town Republican politicos. This is the sort of thing they get caught saying on Twitface or a hot mic now and then.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:15PM (1 child)
You can't list senators. You can only list "senator", singular.
If your false history were true, one would expect that numerous senators would switch. That never happened.
What we have here is an example of a common PR strategy: if you repeat a lie often enough, people may believe it. This is the only option democrats have, because their party was the one opposing civil rights legislation. That doesn't play too well today, and they know it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:49PM
The record speaks for itself. Nice try (not really) at distraction, but just look at history from the mid-60s onward. You're full of shit, and for the sake of anyone impressionable reading this, I am going to call you out on being full of shit. Stop pissing in the memepool.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:42AM (1 child)
Bill Clinton. Crime bill. Mass Incarceration. Constitutionality of slavery for convicted of crimes (13th Amendment).
Personally, I don't like either the DNC or the GOP, but I'm sick to death of Democrats pretending to be any better than the GOP. They're worse really -- it is the GOP's job to propose right wing crap, and the Democrats' job to pass it and make it the new normal.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 25 2018, @05:20AM
Oh, I'm with you on that. Clinton did more to move the Overton Window to the right (that is, to the wrong) than any Republican could possibly dream of. He giftwrapped them everything they dreamed of.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @07:27PM (4 children)
Yeah, yeah, we all know what happened after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Doesn't make a difference. The damn democrats aren't worth the time of day. We also know what happened when they sold their soul in '68 by giving Humphrey the nomination. Nixon wasn't the only crook that year. Republican/democrat, neither one is any good. Don't expect anything good if you keep voting for them.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 26 2018, @07:45AM (3 children)
Damn skippy. At this point I'm really not sure whether the threat of letting the GOP run unchecked is worth soiling my conscience further with another D vote. There really is no good choice here...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @05:08PM (2 children)
The choices are infinite, only limited by the person in the mirror. However, don't blame yourself if others don't follow. Like the man says, all choices are personal.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 26 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
All choices *start* personal. They don't end that way. That's the point.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:21PM
That's why majority rule is no damn good. It cannot respect the life and liberty of the individual.
Today's world is neatly wrapped up in Lord of the Flies, but without the happy ending...
(Score: 1) by nnet on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)
so is there a major uptick in the number of people developing mental problems?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:45PM
There's some dispute about this due to diagnostic improvements. [businessinsider.com] The quality of care does appear to have changed in that people are now readily prescribed pharmaceuticals and there is a probable correlation. [thenewamerican.com] Likewise, gun crime continued to escalate in Chicago's black neighbourhoods following Rahm Emmanuel's closure of half the cities mental health clinics.
There's additional speculation that social media created a narcissism epidemic. [psychologytoday.com] Another change is the rise of identity politics and victim culture (itself a symptom of pathological narcissism) but even when considered in isolation, these ideas cannot possibly be good for psyche.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:50AM (16 children)
If you go to Wikipedia (I know, not the best source, etc... but they made it quite simple):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate [wikipedia.org]
and you sort the table By "guns per 100 people". USA is first in the world (89), and Serbia is second (37.82), Cyprus is third (36.4). The latter two are European countries, where guns are legal.
Looking at the deaths due to firearms (per 100,000 people), we have:
USA: 11.96
Serbia: 3.49
Cyprus: 1.87
So, the USA has a death rate due to firearms 3.427x more than Serbia, and 6.396x more than Cyprus, yet has 2.353x as many guns as Serbia, and 2.445x as many as Cyprus.
If we look at gun deaths per gun per person, we get:
$county: $gun_deaths_per_person / $guns_per_person
USA: (11.96/100,000) / (89/100) = .00013438202247191011
Serbia: (3.49/100,000) / (37.82/100) = .00009227921734531993
Cyprus: (1.87/100,000) / (36.4/100) = .00005137362637362637
Expressed as ratios of USA/$country (2.dp), we get:
USA/Serbia: 1.45 times the death rate per gun
USA/Cyprus: 2.62 times the death rate per gun.
Assuming my math is not completely borked, the USA seems to have a lot more gun deaths, even if normalised on an equal "per gun" statistic. For example, I have heard of multiple mass/school shootings in the USA, I have never heard of such an event in the news about Cyprus or Serbia (who usually end up being on the news, due to being in Europe. Cyprus in particular would be in all the EU news, being an EU member, if such a shooting occurred)
That to me says the USAs problem is not with guns, it is with violence. Guns are tools after all, they can not kill of their own initiative, it needs a human to use it. If you restrict/ban guns, people will just find other methods to be violent to each other (the UK is an excellent example). You have to treat the cause of the problem, not the symptoms.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:57AM
In relation to a point I made [nationalreview.com] in the comment preceding yours.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:13PM (8 children)
Yet.
Wait a bit until I craft some initiative in that AI drone I'm working on [youtu.be] (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:46PM (7 children)
> Wait a bit until I craft some initiative in that AI drone I'm working on [youtu.be] (grin)
Still involves a human, in this case you, to bestow said initiative to the object in order for it to become a human killing machine. Another layer of indirection but still requires a human to make a decision that they want to kill.
(btw, that video is a known CGI setup. It was faked for some game release tie-up if I remember correctly).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 25 2018, @01:16AM (6 children)
You still stick with 'algorithms don't kill people, people kill people's, right?
This path involves professional liability in the software engineering, a thing resisted by the industry so far, are you sure you want to go down on this path?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday June 27 2018, @08:56AM (5 children)
> You still stick with 'algorithms don't kill people, people kill people's, right?
Well yes. Until the day an algorithm makes a conscious decision to kill people of its own volition (in which case congrats, we have created hard AI, and it wants to kill all humans), there has to be intent on behalf of whoever is programming the device to kill. At the moment, no device will go of its own volition to kill (or do anything), we have to issue a string of commands to get it to do that.
> This path involves professional liability in the software engineering, a thing resisted by the industry so far, are you sure you want to go down on this path?
Why not? Every single other engineering profession has it, as well as certification. Only in software engineering can we get away with shipping buggy code and using the customer as a tester. Imagine if structural or aerospace engineers behaved like that, the world just would not function.
Due to lack of any personal responsibility (and here I use "personal" in both the context of the developer, or the company that sells the software), we can get away with buggy code being shipped and used all the time. Anyone who read "coding for dummies" and can string some lines of code together is a "Developer", and it shows in the poor quality of output overall in the industry.
It means wages are driven down by incompetent people, code quality deteriorates as bean counters switch out good devs for bad ones because they are cheaper, and more and more code is buggy or riddled with security holes and vulnerabilities.
Once upon a time when most software was limited in scope we could get away with this. Bit now we got full blown software in almost everything, IoT, smart_$device (of which there are many now, and growing every day), even cars are riddled with software, most of it crap, and unsupported after a few years.
I have worked in aerospace, as such I have had personal liability for my software (they insist on it, for aircraft certification reasons), you take out liability insurance, like every other engineer/company does, and then you make damn sure you do a good job, with full documentation and state diagrams showing all possible logic flows, with full unit testing. You don't ship out untested, hacked together buggy code and let the test flights debug it for you, that is a recipe for disaster.
Also, in the context of killing, there is a difference between a bug in a piece of software killing someone, and a piece of software specifically designed to kill someone. One is an accident, the other (which in the context of the kill-drone, is the one we are discussing here) requires a conscious decision by a human to kill, and programs the device accordingly.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:45AM (4 children)
Pedantic hat on
Oh, it will. Just not the world as we like it. Here's an example [theguardian.com], and I only picked it to raise a challenging (but not intentional polemic) question after.
----
Ok, before my question, the context:
By accident, you say. How much difference you reckon there is in the meaning you associate with 'accident' and the meaning the Pakistani attribute to 'fate'? Is there any difference in the nature or only in the level of due diligence applied (zero in the case of Pakistani drivers, some but clearly not enough to prevent the accident in the other case)?
Furthermore, where do you draw the line in which the negligence-caused-accidents become as criminal as the killing-by-design? Or will the two always be separated?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:37AM (3 children)
> By accident, you say. How much difference you reckon there is in the meaning you associate with 'accident' and the meaning the Pakistani attribute to 'fate'? Is there any difference in the nature or only in the level of due diligence applied (zero in the case of Pakistani drivers, some but clearly not enough to prevent the accident in the other case)?
The fatalistic mind set (which extends beyond Pakistan, it is a core component of Islam, so many Muslims are just as fatalistic, at least the ones I have met), stipulates that there is no free will, and that everything that happens is because of Allah/fate, etc....
In my mind it is just an abdication of responsibility. Rather than taking responsibility for your actions causing something to occur, you just say "it is like that because fate/Allah willed it", it is the ultimate cop out, and it isn't limited to death/killing, anything can (and is) attributed to that in such societies. I guess it is a way of coping with death and guilt, it makes people feel better that ultimately they were not the cause of the event, but a higher being, and they were just the vessel used in the event.
I don't support that notion, I see each human as having free will, and as such can make decisions, and can be held responsible for making those decisions (up to a point, sometimes other peoples decisions take you directions you don't want to go).
Of course, maybe I am wrong and fatalists are right. Maybe everything is fatalistic, and my free will is just an illusion (I think I made the decision, but in fact I was always feted to make that decision), however we basically go into philosophy at this point, and you can't prove anything concrete from such a debate.
> Furthermore, where do you draw the line in which the negligence-caused-accidents become as criminal as the killing-by-design? Or will the two always be separated?
In my mind they are separate and quite clear cut. Simply, it is about intent. Intent can be hard to prove in a court of law, of course, but it can be done, it is like the difference between manslaughter and murder, so we already have definitions for killing by design vs accidental deaths.
If you build a machine that hugs people. and it squeezes someone too hard and you kill them, that was an accident. Building a machine that is designed to crush people to death, that is not an accident, even if the end result is the same.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 28 2018, @08:04AM (2 children)
Ok, I got your mind on the 'fatalist' area.
However, there's yet something yet unanswered from my question: the difference between saying "it was an accident" and the "fate made it so".
Any difference in the nature between the two?
If there's no difference in the nature, then where does the difference reside?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Thursday June 28 2018, @11:07AM (1 child)
If you wanted to talk about fatalism, feel free to ask directly, it is an interesting philosophical subject after all :)
Yes, the difference is in the worldview of the person, and also in the reasoning as to why an event occurred.
In the case of an event occurring without the conscious intent of the main actor:
A fatalist would say "Fate ordained it", it was not only out of their hands, but fate/$deity specifically chose them to play their part in it. So it wasn't an accident, everything happened exactly according to a higher plan (even if the actors have no idea what the plan actually is). Indeed in a fatalists worldview there is no such thing as an "accident", everything happens for a reason and according to plan. (It must be a very comforting way of thinking, absolves the individual of all responsibility and everything, even death and/or painful tragedy in their life, is with purpose/for a reason)
A non-fatalist would say that it was an accident, a series of events that are a result of others making free-will decisions that led to circumstances that caused something beyond the non-fatalists control to occur.
The difference to a non-fatalist of an event being an accident or not is to do with intent of all the parties involved (hence why police do not refer to accidents as such, but refer to "incidents", and the incident can become an accident if all parties are shown in a court of law to be without intent to cause the event).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 28 2018, @11:44AM
Ok, the terminology is clear in regards with the philosophical position.
Now, let's get to the context in which we started: the responsibility in engineering.
Why is it not enough to show in a court of law the lack of intent for an engineer to be exculpated of the responsibility of an accident (derived from the design/work of that engineer)? More precisely, what/who requires or imposes extra responsibility on engineering work?
(background: I graduated physics but switched to software industry quire early after graduation. Software engineering is self-taught discipline for me. That is to say: I'm oblivious to a formal framework of "proper engineering" - as opposed to "software engineering" - my questions do not carry any implication of a debate).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:32PM (5 children)
Here's a secret about gun violence discussions.
People love to make statistics say what they want.
Unfortunately you've fallen victim to it here, comparing apples to oranges.
For the US number 70% of the 11.96 deaths per 100,000 are suicides. That's ~40,000 US gun deaths, of which ~12,000 are homicides, accidents, or state violence.
The Serbia data does not include suicide by firearm. (I chose it because it's the first one on the list after the US. Also, the website for it is available in English and I was able to find the data despite the broken link from wiki >> gunpolicy.org (a pro-gun control biased source) >> Serbia's national data bank.)
The US and Serbia firearm homicide numbers are within 5% of each other, not 300%. Serbia has a higher suicide rate than the US, and if you tick in those numbers the US rate is lower.
Every single assumption has to be checked in this conversation because data tampering and outright lies are profligate in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:28PM (2 children)
Just because suicide by firearm is predominately white-on-white crime, that is no reason to leave it out of the statistics!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @01:19AM
Why? Suicidal people could just as easily use any number of other methods, if you're making an argument for gun control you have to remove this entire section of the statistic.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:50AM
One of the highest rates of suicide in the developed western world is in Belgium. Belgium, with its very strict gun laws, has a suicide rate of 20.7/100k. The US by comparison is at 15.3/100k. http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.sdg.3-4-viz-2?lang=en [who.int]
Apparently, there are other extremely effective means to off one's self.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:30PM (1 child)
> Every single assumption has to be checked in this conversation because data tampering and outright lies are profligate in it.
And just to say, thank you for contributing, in an article that seems to primarily attract comments based on opinions and political viewpoints, I tried to inject (even if flawed, I guess I really suck at math) some actual hard numbers, and you corrected me, so now we have better data to work with.
So you are saying that there isn't that much of a difference per capita between the top three firearm ownership countries in the world? If so, it means that the USAs deaths are on par with the rest. Just that the larger population means a lot more guns, and a lot more people end up getting killed, so you hear about it more often, even if as a percentage it isn't that far off from smaller countries.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday June 25 2018, @01:29AM
> So you are saying that there isn't that much of a difference per capita between the top three firearm ownership countries in the world?
I'm not prepared to say that; it doesn't "feel right". I have some time, let me run it down.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:16PM (1 child)
"Look at the UK, in particular larger cities like London. Guns are outlawed, but they still have gun crime - plus more knife attacks. So now you can be arrested for carrying a knife without a good reason, and they want to outlaw points on knives."
That's true. Look at the graph at the top of this story in "The Economist": https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/04/03/new-yorks-annual-murder-statistics-are-still-worse-than-londons. [economist.com]
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:19PM
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/04/03/new-yorks-annual-murder-statistics-are-still-worse-than-londons [economist.com]