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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, 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.