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A suspected Islamic terrorist opened fire at a gay nightclub in Florida, killing 50 people and wounding another 53 before he was killed by police. While authorities continue to investigate to determine whether this man had ties to ISIS, the terror organization has not been quiet in praising the attack. This comes three days after ISIS announced they would attack somewhere in Florida. Today's attack marks the largest act of terrorism on US soil since 9/11.
takyon: The gunman reportedly called 911 emergency services to pledge allegiance to ISIS. The President will hold a briefing momentarily. Compare this article to the original submission.
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Islamic Terrorist Opens Fire on Florida Nightclub; 50 Killed, 53 Wounded
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Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried?
A: 9 edge down.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bobs on Sunday June 12 2016, @07:23PM
This is tragedy.
One of the things I am struggling to come up with is a measured, appropriate public policy response that would be effective at preventing a single, suicidal, nut from killing a bunch of people in a dark, crowded place.
The only thing that comes to mind is making it harder (not impossible) for people to get their hands on rapid firing weapons.
But that still won't stop it, just make it somewhat less likely.
Reading 400-million plus peoples' emails isn't going to prevent it
Seems like the most effective response is going to be slow, complicated and not visible:
Improving mental health and social services and
pushing back on those practicing(ISIS) , promoting and funding (Saudi Arabia) extremists and terrorist ideologies.
We can kill most/all the folks in ISIS. We can still have some crazy decide to kill a bunch of people. Was happening before ISIS and will after. I don't see any reasonable society that can make that impossible, and efforts to try will just hurt us more than a few isolated, random nuts.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday June 12 2016, @07:30PM
There is none. That's the whole problem. We've been fed this meme that every tragedy requires a new government response.
Murder is murder. It's always horrible, it's always tragic, it's always illegal, and it still happens.
What we *should* do in response to this is less. If we spent less money making the middle east into a hellhole we'd have less worry of blowback here.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:15PM
Unstable recent ISIS sympathiser goes on rampage...
Sounds a lot more like an FBI entrapment target that went off on his own and ahead of schedule than a mid-east blowback to me.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:46PM
That said we don't know all the details and it's perfectly possible this guy was just crazy and would have done this or something like this for one name or another anyway.
But the idea that just because a tragedy occurs a new law is needed is the big problem here. Absolutely retarded meme that the media-government complex just adore.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday June 12 2016, @11:25PM
I was thinking the exact same thing when the roommate told me about this. Check this out: Heavily armed man arrested near L.A. gay pride festival [reuters.com]. Perhaps the lizard people felt they were having a difficult time fomenting hatred among LGBT people towards Muslims.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gman003 on Monday June 13 2016, @12:00AM
I disagree. We had mass shootings before islamic terrorism was a notable thing, and we will continue to have it afterward. I strongly suspect that many of the attacks attributed to islamic terrorism are simply the result of an unstable person latching on to something they think will give their life meaning. The same has happened with christian terrorism or environmentalist terrorism. Eliminate one movement, they'll just find another to latch on to. Or just kill people without bothering to come up with a reason. (Now, eliminating the movement is still a worthwhile goal, because it does contribute to the frequency of such events and causes plenty of other problems, but it's not a one-shot solution to the problem)
What we need is gun control based on facts and reason, not politics. The Democrats will almost inevitably trot out another variant of the Assault Weapons Ban - a piece of legislation that was flawed in pretty much every way it is possible for a law to be flawed. All the AWB did was ban guns that looked scary. The points system counted things that do not matter - a pistol grip makes no significant difference towards a weapon's effectiveness, it's just more associated with modern military-derived weapons than with older or non-military weapons. And then, because there were still a bunch of major weapons not being covered by it, they specifically banned several guns - including a gun that was so badly-designed that it would actually be *better* for it to be in the hands of criminals rather than a better weapon, but because they had the gall to name it the "Street Sweeper" Congress just assumed it *had* to be dangerous and evil.
Whether it's right or not, because of the sheer size of our gun industry and the absurd levels the issue has been politicized, we cannot do a comprehensive firearms ban. There's no way we could get a UK-style gun control system in place, even if that was the overall best system. That's one reality that anyone proposing solutions to this problem has to accept. (FWIW, my personal opinion is that while we definitely need to decrease the political power of the gunmaker's lobby, and the near-religious level some gun owners take it to is a serious problem, the goal should not be "eliminate guns" but rather "eliminate gun deaths", so a comprehensive ban is a non-preferable solution all else being equal)
Any attempt at gun control should also address the quite-substantial but oft-overlooked suicide issue. The #1 risk factor for suicide isn't "depression" or "alcoholism" - it's "is there a gun present in the home?". And the total number of gun suicides in the US is twice the number of gun homicides. So if the goal is to actually help people, the solution should address suicides as well as homicides. And let's throw accidents into the mix as well, since those are also unreasonably high.
There are very few new ideas in this world. A quick bit of research points us towards a good solution: look for first-world countries with high levels of gun ownership, and low levels of firearms casualties. Norway and Switzerland come to the forefront pretty quickly. Firearms homicides are literally one-in-a-million in Norway, 1/30th that of the United States, and yet they rank #10 in the world for gun ownership per capita. Switzerland has even higher levels of gun ownership (thanks in part to their "military reservists keep their weapons in their home" policy), and they too have notably low levels of gun-related deaths. So what are they doing right?
Licensing. You have to register your weapons, you have to pass a test proving you know firearms safety and basic firearms law, and you can only buy ammunition that will work in a weapon you have registered.
So with that in mind, this is the rough outline of the gun control law I would write, were I somehow in charge of writing bills:
Certain weapons would need no license to own or operate. Any muzzleloader would automatically be in this class. Maybe word it as "loaded with loose black powder" if that covers edge cases better. My reasoning here is that you basically can't do a mass murder
with these things. You'd get one shot off, and then in the minute it takes you to reload, either everyone's run away, or you've been dog-piled and neutralized as a threat.
A Class I license would be needed for manually-operated long guns under 12mm in caliber (if rifled) or under 20mm in caliber (if unrifled - this is mainly for shotguns, and 10-gauge is just under 20mm). Anything from a Dreyse to a Mauser to a Winchester - bolt actions, lever actions, break actions, basically anything that isn't self-loading, under a certain size. A Class I license would require a basic weapons safety and weapons law test, making it about as hard to obtain as a driver's license. My reasoning here is that these are substantially harder to kill lots of people with - you could do a "sniper in the clock tower" thing, but that takes quite a bit of skill, and is still easily stopped. The licensing here is mainly to cut down on accidents, not crime, because there's not many armed robbers around wielding Mosin-Nagants.
A Class II license would be needed for any self-loading non-automatic long guns in those same calibers. This would be a bit harder to obtain, adding a requirement for a background check and proof-of-ownership of a gun safe (to impede theft - sure, there's no reasonable way to force people to use a gun safe, but if you make them buy it, they're far more likely to use it. The main differences would be in obtaining and transferring weapons - while with Class I, you just need to register it when bought, with a Class II, you need to file whenever you sell it, even privately - mostly to make sure that whoever you're selling it to is actually licensed for it. My reasoning here is on making it hard for an unlicensed person to possess a Class II weapon, because this is the level where crimes get serious.
A Class III license would cover any other long gun - rifles above 12mm caliber, or automatic rifles, as well as anything currently classed as a "destructive device", like an RPG. This would be about as hard to obtain as a Type 1 FFL is today, or perhaps slightly easier. After all, the NFA is a proven-effective piece of legislation - in the near-century since it started, there have been only two homicides with personally-owned automatic weapons, which is an acceptable amount. The license would be hard to obtain, easy to revoke, and would require on-site inspections every year or so to make sure they're being safely stored and haven't been stolen or lost.
You'll notice one major class of weapon not covered by any of these: handguns. And the reason for that is twofold: first, handguns, being cheaper to make, are cheaper to buy, and thus the primary firearm used for suicides; second, concealed-carry permits are quite frankly retarded. The whole point is that you can't see them being carried - if someone owns a concealable weapon, it should be assumed that they will carry it concealed because there's no way to really stop them. So any license that includes handguns (let's call them Class I.A, II.A, and III.A) is implicitly a concealed-carry license. I think it would be justifiable to make these may-issue licenses instead of shall-issue, even for Class I.A, but there's not much evidence to go on here so I could be easily persuaded.
The whole point of a licensing system, of course, is to make it possible to not license people who shouldn't be. Any felony would be grounds to revoke all licenses, of course. Dishonorable discharge from a military or police force would be automatic grounds to revoke a Class II or higher license. A court order should be able to temporarily revoke a license, on request of either law enforcement or a psychiatrist (with the intent of preventing homicides and suicides, respectively). But what to do with guns you are no longer allowed to own? Simple - escrow. A responsible party (let's say the local police for now) will take possession, but not ownership, of any firearms you legally owned but are now not licensed for. They can't do anything with it except store it, without the owner's say-so. If the owner decides to transfer or sell it to a licensed person, the police hand it over (after checking their license and politely reminding them that giving it to someone without a license is a crime). If they get their license back, they get all their guns back. If the owner orders it to be destroyed, it's destroyed, unless it's considered evidence. This should keep abuse of the license-revocation system to a minimum, because this makes it a hassle for the police instead of a potential profit source.
Last point: weapons may be pushed to a lower class by whichever government body is responsible. So something that, by the above rules, would be Class II, but should intuitively be Class I, like the Ruger 10/22, can be reclassified on a case-by-case basis. Making it only possible to lower a classification, not raise it, should cut down on pointless political point-scoring while still allowing practical concerns to be addressed.
There are a lot of things left to figure out. How do you grandfather in all the guns that already exist? Where do suppressors fit into this (since they're far over-regulated right now)? Where's the dividing line between handguns and long guns? This is obviously not a complete piece of legislation. Writing good laws is *hard*, and I don't want to spend a hundred pages on this. I wish I could make this even shorter, since it's far too long already. But my point is made. A law can be made based on evidence and reason that should be able to substantially reduce firearms-related death and injury, without unduly impeding the ability of regular, sane people to shoot guns recreationally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @01:38AM
Not bad. Problem is, the first thing you need to do for that is a constitutional amendment to revoke the second amendment.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Monday June 13 2016, @02:07AM
Not necessarily. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am particularly not a Constitutional lawyer).
The Second Amendment, taken literally, is absolute. You can bear arms - weapons, any weapons. A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles. Which is patently absurd, which is why no current Supreme Court justice is a strict constructionist. I believe every right granted in the Bill of Rights has been given some sort of exception, save the Third, to avoid extreme cases. Direct threats are not protected by freedom of speech. Riots are not protected by freedom of assembly. Being near the border wipes away your protection from unreasonable search and seizure (which is IMO wrong but that's not what the courts have ruled).
And so it is with the Second Amendment. The government may regulate the possession of arms. The federal government has regulations under Title I and Title II - this is why you can't buy an RPG-7 at Wal-Mart. You already need all manner of papers and to pay a lot more taxes than you really should in order to possess certain weapons. My proposal merely smooths out that curve - adding incremental amounts of licensing in order to reach further levels of firepower.
Not to mention that a lot of state or local governments have restricted firearms, sometimes to ludicrous degrees (coughcoughcaliforniacough).
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday June 13 2016, @03:24AM
The Second Amendment, taken literally, is absolute. You can bear arms - weapons, any weapons. A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles.
Yeah.
Which is patently absurd
If you feel that way, move to amend the constitution. Don't just ignore it.
which is why no current Supreme Court justice is a strict constructionist.
And nor are they friends to the concept of a limited government which follows the highest law of the land, as evidenced by countless authoritarian decisions.
Keep in mind that there is a stark difference between what is actually constitutional and what the courts claim is constitutional.
I believe every right granted in the Bill of Rights has been given some sort of exception
Often in utter defiance of the constitution, mind you. The courts also approved of citizens of Japanese descent being put in internment camps, the jailing of war protesters, the existence of obscenity laws and other types of censorship. They have also been entirely ineffective thus far at putting a stop to blatantly unconstitutional surveillance practices. The courts are not exactly friends to liberty.
My proposal merely smooths out that curve - adding incremental amounts of licensing in order to reach further levels of firepower.
Your proposal would make an already bad situation even worse. But this sort of thinking seems common. If there is a long history of the government ignoring the constitution, we should try to correct that, not just allow them to violate it even more while ignoring what's happening. Either create an amendment or knock it off; simply interpreting the constitution in ways that are convenient for you so that the government can have more power is unacceptable.
Not to mention that a lot of state or local governments have restricted firearms, sometimes to ludicrous degrees (coughcoughcaliforniacough).
Which isn't constitutional either.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @08:36AM
I believe every right granted in the Bill of Rights has been given some sort of exception
Often in utter defiance of the constitution, mind you. The courts also approved of citizens of Japanese descent being put in internment camps, the jailing of war protesters, the existence of obscenity laws and other types of censorship. They have also been entirely ineffective thus far at putting a stop to blatantly unconstitutional surveillance practices. The courts are not exactly friends to liberty.
This is incorrect. The Supreme Court *decides* what is constitutional. This was decided in 1803 in via Marbury v. Madison [wikipedia.org].
While this decision was not greeted warmly by many (Jefferson, notably, thought it very bad), there has been ample time to modify the court's power (in fact there have been seventeen amendments passed since that decision), yet this has not been done. Would you care to speculate as to why that's the case?
As such, it's clear that the Supreme Court is the arbiter of what is constitutional in the United States. You may disagree with their decisions (I certainly have issue with a bunch!), but unless and until there is a constitutional amendment destroying the independent judiciary, that's the way it is.
Despite the fact that I find fault with how some (if not many) cases are decided by the court, I am glad that we have an independent judiciary that is co-equal to the Legislative and Executive branches of our government.
Feel free to disagree (I'm sure you will), but you'll just be tilting at windmills, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:24PM
The US Supreme Court usurped for itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's no different than Congress with the War on Some Drugs: Congress "did its thing" (passed a law) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It is no diffferent when the Supreme Court "did its thing" (wrote a brief on a case) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's a violation of law and literally criminal.
I've written a couple [soylentnews.org] journals [soylentnews.org] on the topic in case you'd like a few more details (and I reference the logically-inconsistent Marbury decision, to boot).
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @04:32PM
The US Supreme Court usurped for itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's no different than Congress with the War on Some Drugs: Congress "did its thing" (passed a law) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It is no diffferent when the Supreme Court "did its thing" (wrote a brief on a case) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's a violation of law and literally criminal.
I've written a couple journals on the topic in case you'd like a few more details (and I reference the logically-inconsistent Marbury decision, to boot).
As I pointed out to Anal Pumpernickel, you're tilting at windmills friend.
Regardless of what you think of Supreme Court decisions, or legislation duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, those are the rules that control our government.
If you don't like it, you have several options:
Perhaps there are other options as well.
However, until such time as some or all of the above are successful, we have the governmental structure that we have.
The government we have is the government we (as Americans) created and have modified over the past 229 years or so. I don't like many of the things that the Federal government does, nor do I condone many of the unethical and downright nasty things it's done to us and to citizens of other countries.
I'd like to make things better for all of us. But claiming that Supreme Court rulings are "unconstitutional" or "criminal" isn't even wrong. It's meaningless prattle, devoid of semantic content.
Some (or many or all) of those rulings may be (and have been -- Plessy v. Ferguson [wikipedia.org] and Korematsu v. United States [wikipedia.org] come to mind) antithetical to the ideals of liberty, equality under the law and just plain fairness. One might even go so far as to say they are unethical, unprincipled and possibly even evil.
But to say that they are illegal or unconstitutional shows a lack of understanding of the governmental structures we, as a people, have placed over ourselves.
You don't have to like it. You don't need to support it. And if it's too burdensome, you don't even need to live under such a government. The choice is yours.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @09:45PM
If you make the choice to believe that a verifiable falsehood is reality, I cannot (and will not try to) force you to change your mind. I can identify and define what appears to be literal insanity, albeit a comfortable state of mind considering the alternatives, in an attempt to shake you and others out of the despondant viewpoint which says "this new verifiable lie the Supreme Court emitted must now be considered by myself to be truth or else I'm a bad American/terrorist/rebel".
You seem not to have read my journals, as the meaning behind my use of the term "criminal" is plainly defined: when the authority of the individual is trespassed by an agent of government whose authority is a derivative of said individual's, that act is a crime. While the SCOTUS' mere act of declaring a lie to be truth is arguably not a criminal act in and of itself, it is not arguable that the lie will be imposed upon others at gunpoint by agents of government using the SCOTUS' lie as the justification for such criminal acts in the Nuremberg flavor of "just following orders".
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:16PM
If you make the choice to believe that a verifiable falsehood is reality, I cannot (and will not try to) force you to change your mind. I can identify and define what appears to be literal insanity, albeit a comfortable state of mind considering the alternatives, in an attempt to shake you and others out of the despondant viewpoint which says "this new verifiable lie the Supreme Court emitted must now be considered by myself to be truth or else I'm a bad American/terrorist/rebel".
I didn't say that Supreme Court rulings were "the truth." I said that they were the law of the land and, in a bunch of cases, unethical, unprincipled and possibly evil.
Nor did I even insinuate that disagreeing with the Supreme Court made you (or anyone else for that matter) a "bad American/terrorist/rebel."
You seem not to have read my journals, as the meaning behind my use of the term "criminal" is plainly defined: when the authority of the individual is trespassed by an agent of government whose authority is a derivative of said individual's, that act is a crime.
I did read the journal entry you linked and found it puerile and rather unconvincing.
There are many things that the Federal government does that I find to be unconscionable and downright disgusting.
The question is, "What are we going to do about it?" Are there options other than that which I suggested that you'd like to see attempted?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:53PM
There were two linked journal entries, and aside from the directness and simplicity, what particular aspect(s) do you find to be silly, childish, or trivial?
My goal with the journals and my comments here is to resolve the contradiction of "law is what government says it is" with a government/law that is self-contradictory, easily seen in Dred Scott vs Sandford and also in the very existence of laws restricting possession of weapons within the same government which pays lip service to the Second Amendment.
The question of "what to do about [a criminal/evil] government" is another matter entirely. What people have done about criminal/evil laws is a matter of historical record: many ignored them (e.g. the Underground Railroad, First Prohibition, the Battle of Athens [jpfo.org], and the ongoing Battle of Bunkerville [thenationalpatriot.com] saga). For myself, I look at each claimed law that passes into my awareness and judge its validity according to the principles I wrote about in those two journal entries. I believe this is my responsibility and duty as an USian, rather putting any further effort into the futile and wholly corrupt existing federal political process (they may yet be some hope at the local level). I choose not to be a criminal, nor to support other criminals, and to treat everyone else I come across as equal or better than my own self by default. A random sampling of people who have met me will produce a positive picture of a person, with likely notable comments on my "strange" views that came up in conversation when it seemed appropriate and of interest to them according to my (hopefully correct) judgement. Naturally, when the US federal government gets around to prosecuting me, the indictment is going to be pages long, calling me a horrible crook who must spend decades if not centuries locked away in a cage.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 15 2016, @12:32AM
I look at each claimed law that passes into my awareness and judge its validity according to the principles I wrote about in those two journal entries.
So you've chosen option 4:
Promote and engage in peaceful civil disobedience to get the Federal government to do what you want it to do, promote and engage in armed rebellion against the Federal government, or both;
A valid choice. Good for you. It's certainly better than doing nothing.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @01:06AM
No. When I disregard a law as Constitutionally-void and break it (while harming no one, mind you), that is not "civil disobedience". It is exactly the same in principle as disregarding an order from MS-13 to carry large amounts of cash everywhere I go while forbidding me from being armed: an order by criminals with no principle behind it other than the naked use of force. When a person is killed by government agents over a legally-void law, that killing is a murder no different in principle than any other intentional taking of human life outside of self-defense. Criminals are criminals no matter the costume they may wear and are deserving of equal treatment when they confront you.
"Civil disobedience" recognizes the law in question as valid yet objectionable. Most of the federal government's so-called laws are in fact not valid law at all. A law's maximum authority is limited to that of a single human being's, since the supreme law of the USA's is a mere derivative of said individual's authority: it cannot exceed the authority of its source. Laws that attempt to do so are unconstitutional by definition. (Else, I could start a kidnapping gang, and at some arbitary threshhold become lawful once I had enough members/supporters.) An unconstitutional act is not law; it has no legal power, it justifies no government action, and it was invalid as law the very moment it was "passed".
If you've read my journals, that last bit may seem familiar to you in regards to Norton vs Shelby County's recognition (not establishment of) of that same principle.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday June 14 2016, @06:55PM
This is incorrect. The Supreme Court *decides* what is constitutional.
What the legal system says is true and what is actually true in reality are different matters. If the Supreme Court was always correct, then how could previous decisions ever be overridden, aside from a situation where the constitution has changed between the rulings? Did reality magically change in that time? So what you're talking about clearly only applies to the legal system. This is because there is a need to have someone decide matters at the end of the day, not because those people are always correct. When they are wrong, we must attempt to correct the issue.
You may disagree with their decisions (I certainly have issue with a bunch!)
Well, that's what I was doing. I'm not opposed to the courts ruling on constitutional matters, but I simply disagree with many of the decisions they have made. These terrible rulings need to be fixed, one way or another.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @08:00PM
What the legal system says is true and what is actually true in reality are different matters.
I never said anything about "truth." I specifically said "constitutional." What is legal/constitutional does not necessarily coincide with what's true or right. Until the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, it was "legal" in the United States to own other human beings. In fact, it was enshrined in the original text of the Constitution. This was clearly not right, nor is it "true" in an ethical sense. However, it was the law of the land.
If the Supreme Court was always correct, then how could previous decisions ever be overridden, aside from a situation where the constitution has changed between the rulings? Did reality magically change in that time? So what you're talking about clearly only applies to the legal system. This is because there is a need to have someone decide matters at the end of the day, not because those people are always correct. When they are wrong, we must attempt to correct the issue.
[...]
Well, that's what I was doing. I'm not opposed to the courts ruling on constitutional matters, but I simply disagree with many of the decisions they have made. These terrible rulings need to be fixed, one way or another.
I don't take any issue with your analysis or the sentiment behind it.
Please see my response to an AC [soylentnews.org] above.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Monday June 13 2016, @03:45AM
The anti-gunners need to take a cue from jiu-jitsu and let the second amendment collapse under its own weight. They should argue that it is literally correct. There are no limits on who can own weapons, or what weapons they can own, or where they can take them.
Go shopping with a shotgun. Start turning up to PTA meetings carrying an SMG wearing a bandolier full of grenades. Mount a homemade cannon on the back of the pickup or the roof of the SUV. Convert an AR15 into fully automatic and stand on their second amendment rights. Use a flamethrower to clear weeds in the front yard and light the BBQ.
Then agitate for a constitutional amendment.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 13 2016, @04:17PM
Thank you, I will.
I would like a world where weapons are unnecessary. Communities that feel secure in their rights don't feel the need to carry weapons. Many Europeans now, for example, are content to live without guns because they know they can get most of what they want with a well-attended strike.
That is not true in the United States. We know on some visceral, genetic level, that the only guarantee of freedom we have is our weaponry and willingness to strike back at overbearing government.
Bureaucrats, politicians, elected members of office, should perennially rest assured that if they abuse the powers of their offices too much, then angry citizens will hunt them down. We are at that point now, and only all await the appropriate spark.
Note: I am not a gun-totin' conservative, but a progressive.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 13 2016, @03:50PM
A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles.
Strictly literally speaking, "to bear" means "to carry." So unless you have a nuclear missile you can lift yourself...
So talking man-portable weapons clears up this whole silly argument. Oh wait, I suppose you can easily carry a vial of smallpox...hmm.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:17AM
Strictly literally speaking
Er, no. Using that interpretation, there would be no right to actually use the weapons for anything at all, since the 2nd amendment only speaks of keeping and bearing arms. If that was the case, why even bother mentioning such a worthless right?
Words have multiple meanings. Clearly, "to bear" means something more than "to carry" here.
(Score: 1) by BenFenner on Tuesday June 14 2016, @05:24PM
The Second Amendment, taken literally, is absolute. You can bear arms - weapons, any weapons. A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles.
This is incorrect. The 2nd amendment, taken literally, is absolute. I will give you that. However, you can bear "arms", which is not the same as "weapons". In the context in which the second amendment was written, there were two types of weapons. "Arms" and "ordinance". Arms are smaller weapons able to be carried by a single person over a reasonable distance in battle and the like. Ordinance describes larger pieces of weapons equipment carried by horses at the time (think cannons) or assembled on site after being carried by mules (think mountain guns) and as technology has moved on it now includes tanks, planes, and your aforementioned nuclear missiles. The 2nd amendment does not provide US citizens the rights to bear these ordinances.
Reasonably carry and operate on your own? Arms.
Larger weapon system? Ordinance.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday June 14 2016, @07:06PM
I highly doubt that is correct.
The earliest attestations of "ordnance" (or "ordinance", as it was originally) in a martial context have it meaning "anything a military needs to operate", including weapons of all types, ammunition, clothing, and food. Its current meaning focuses more on weapons and ammunition, particularly for the artillery, but even today you can refer to a carbine as "ordnance" and be correct (otherwise, the term "heavy ordnance" would be meaninglessly repetitive, because all ordnance would be heavy). It would be improbable for a word to condense in meaning to an extremely strict subset, and then relax back to more-or-less the original meaning. Particularly in only six centuries.
The same holds true for "arms". You can trace that back to Latin and still get a meaning that covered everything from "swords" to "catapults" (the main difference in meaning is that Latin "arma" included armor as well as weapons, with the two distinguished as "arma noctiva" and "arma defensiva"). We've dropped "defensive arms" from the meaning but "arms" still refers to any weapon.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nekomata on Monday June 13 2016, @02:05PM
Sorry mate, not true. Getting a gun in Switzerland is absolutely freaking simple.
1. Show you don't have any police record. Especially nothing drug or violence related (some other stuff might pass, idk)
2. Take you clean police record and a form to the local police station
3. They will, after some other checks (like if you have 100 speeding tickets or so) give you a WES (Waffen Erwerbs Schein, ~weapon purchase permit)
With your WES you can now go and buy up to three guns. You however do not register the ownership of your gun! You only need to show you are allowed to buy it.
No permit is needed for bolt-actions and the like (where you reload after every shot)
Special permit is needed for: carrying (almost impossible to get), full-auto weapons (need to be a collector) and silencers (collector too? idk).
So your assumtion that it has anything to do with HOW you get the guns here is wrong. I would personally assume it's a combination of culture and well-being. But I havn't given it that much tought since I can't compare the state here to the state in USA (never been there).
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Monday June 13 2016, @06:44PM
I did not solely base my proposal on Swiss gun law. I used elements of it, such as the lack of/looser restrictions on certain types of weapon, as well as elements of Norwegian gun law and elements I thought would be necessary to adapt it to American culture and American legal doctrine.
There is significant merit to the Swiss system (as evidenced by the facts), and I would be quite willing to incorporate more elements of it into this proposal. Or hell, even just adopting it outright would be better than the system we have now, even though it doesn't address problems like America's abnormally high gun-accident rate or gun-suicide rate.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 13 2016, @01:32AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @07:35PM
Any kind of gun control will result in... only criminals having guns, while everyone else doesn't. I don't own one myself, don't need one.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:11PM
You should. Otherwise you're shirking your moral obligation to aid in the defense against a tyrannical government. Which is why we're allowed guns in the first place.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @12:09AM
Oooh, look at me! I don't own a gun and I most likely never will. I'm shirking my "moral obligation"! Look, Buzzard Breath, I've seen you extremist ammosexual types gradually drift from "it is my right to own a gun" to "you should own a gun too, or you are shirking your moral responsibility". It won't work. I will not be shamed into joining your cause. If you want to convince me that gun ownership is a moral imperative then, at the least, you will have to convince me that said gun ownership provides benefits to me and those around me. Right now, you have mostly convinced me that you and ammosexuals like yourself are dangerous fools who need to be disarmed. If you want to convince me then show me the benefits to you and your ammosexuial buddies having a weapon within easy reach. No doubt you will at some point trot out the tired canard "when seconds count, the police are just minutes away"; of course, this conveniently ignores the fact that you and your ammosexual buddies also seem to be only minutes away when seconds count. Frankly, I don't think having you and your ammosexual buddies armed is buying the rest of us much in the way of benefit and is creating many more headaches than it is worth. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @01:30AM
Blah, blah, and also blah. You can either choose to exercise the power you've been given responsibly, irresponsibly, or you can stick your fingers in your ears and go lalalala. I guess we know which side of the fence you come down on. There is nothing good or right about throwing power away. The only good or right comes from using what you're given to do good.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @03:10AM
Whooosh!!! Frankly, you and your ammosexual buddies have not demonstrated all that much "good" for all the power you have been given. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @09:43AM
Over six thousand prevented crimes per day credited to private firearm ownership. Less than forty fatal shootings per day. The math is not difficult.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @12:49AM
It took me over 3 decades to "win" my first fight.
I did so by kicking the leader hard enough to injure them.
If I am afraid of maiming somebody, how the heck is a gun going to help?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @01:31AM
I guess you posted aptly, AC.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by number11 on Monday June 13 2016, @01:31AM
you're shirking your moral obligation to aid in the defense against a tyrannical government.
Where were your people when they rammed the "Patriot" act through? When they rounded up the Japanese-Americans? When they attacked Iraq under false pretenses? When Jim Crow was oppressing Blacks? Funny, the gun crowd could often be found cheering the government on.
(I'm a gun owner. I don't have any illusions about the moral values of most gun owners.)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @01:47AM
Right here, asking "are you fucking insane?!" while you lot were screaming "save me, superman!". We're not here to hold your hands and keep you from throwing your rights away every time you're scared. We're here as a last resort.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 13 2016, @01:34AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @01:45AM
You voted them in. We're here for when it becomes absolutely intolerable. Which it will within the next fifty years, I guarantee.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 13 2016, @01:52AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @02:24AM
Not really. I'll likely have to live through a few more decades of this garbage and never get to see the liberty on the other side. I'm doing all I can though and voting for the worst possible candidate for President every time. Thankfully plenty of people are stupid enough to do the same thinking they're voting correctly. Maybe it'll help speed things up and I'll get to live in a land of freedom again before I die of old age.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 13 2016, @02:38AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @09:45AM
Ya think? I'm pretty sure it's definitely my problem. It's just not currently a bad enough problem to justify another civil war.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 13 2016, @11:49AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @07:33PM
Well if you really want the killing to start now, go ahead and start organizing it. You're going to find it difficult going for a couple more decades at least though. The people are not ready. Yet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday June 13 2016, @08:33PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @02:05AM
It is what it is. Would you prefer we start the killing now? Because that's why we're allowed guns; to kill people who need a good killing. Personally I believe, like the founders did, that it should be a last resort. If your views differ, that's fine though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 14 2016, @06:22AM
You will never be there for us.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:25AM
Never? No. It'll see the light of day within the next fifty years unless things change. I'd rather it happen sooner but that's not up to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:13PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @02:31AM
LOL. You and your fetishized "armed resistance," even if you could manage to number in the hundreds of thousands, will be decimated by a few hundred pilots and operators with drones and surgical PGM strikes before you even realize you are the subject of a coordinated attack. These highly trained, indoctrinated soldiers will take you out without hesitation or remorse since you will have been branded traitors and terrorists. This will be followed up with a neat and tidy mainstream media blitz that will convince the vast majority of Americans that the right and moral thing was done.
And, no, the small number of recruits you think you have infiltrated the military with will not be able to stop this or even be aware of these classified operations. You will be done before you even get your chance to be a the hero rebelling against FEDRUL GUBBMINT tyranny, if you even survive. You are only allowed to keep your toys because the feds know that you are nothing more than a impotent joke once push comes to shove.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @10:00AM
Sweety, American gun owners don't number in the hundreds of thousands. We number around a hundred million and we own enough firearms to arm every man, woman, and child within our borders and still have a few left over.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @04:30PM
And yet--not to put too fine a point on this--I don't feel any safer because of this.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @07:24PM
You're not supposed to. You're supposed to feel safer because you own a gun. If you don't, well that makes you pretty well fucked when violent crime eventually comes your way, now doesn't it?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:48PM
Any kind of gun control will result in... only criminals having guns, while everyone else doesn't. I don't own one myself, don't need one.
The first part of your statement was correct. Then you went off the rails.
I've never yet needed one either. But there is a loaded (and secured) one within reach.
Everybody inside that nightclub was unarmed. The lone offduty cop working outside security was the only one that engaged the shooter till swat arrived. And Swat let him have several hours alone inside while he continued to shoot people.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday June 12 2016, @07:37PM
Quite.
This case isn't an example of massively organised attacks like the IRA or Al'Quiada, this isn't a group that relies on foreign funding from the US or Saudi, it's not even small groups like the Paris shootings and Brussels Bombing. It's lone nutters following propaganda on the internet perpetrating their crimes in their own country.
We had one in London in December [wikipedia.org], very hard to stop a lone gunman.
One of the three victims was seriously injured, and the other two sustained minor stab wounds. The suspected perpetrator was named as 29-year-old Muhaydin Mire of Leytonstone.
...
During a video of the alleged perpetrator being subdued by police, a bystander subsequently identified by the first name John shouted, "You ain't no Muslim, bruv. You ain’t no Muslim."
Fortunatly most are inept at causing mass casualties, at least in the UK. Go back to 2007 [wikipedia.org]
A dark green Jeep Cherokee, registration number L808 RDT,[15] travelling at a speed estimated by a witness as about 30 mph[16] (48 km/h), struck security bollards in a terror ramming attack at the main entrance to Glasgow International Airport.[2] The vehicle was reported to have several petrol containers and propane gas canisters on board.
....
Another man exited the car and ran into the terminal building while he was on fire and began writhing on the ground, before being kicked in the testicles by an airport employee, John Smeaton,[23] who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his heroism.
(sorry, I just love that headline [blogger.com])
I'm not sure why there is such a difference in victims between a lone nutter in the UK and a lone nutter in the US. Anyone?
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday June 12 2016, @07:45PM
Why in the world do you think improving social services would stop religious terrorism? He didn't kill 50 people because his EBT card was empty. He was almost certainly motivated by religious extremism.
At the risk of stating the obvious: yet another mass shooting in a gun free zone. It's convenient if you know that your victims will be unarmed.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @08:11PM
Because its hard to recruit when everyone is well taken care of and no injustices are being forced upon entire populations. The only thing that can combat such lunacy is education and time. Injustice begets further injustice; tolerance and education mean you take some hits in order yo minimize future ones.
Obviously there are times when a violent counter action is warranted, but currently that is our go to option.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:12PM
There has never been, in the history of the world, a time when everyone was "well taken care of". And there never will be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:13PM
I know plenty of rich people who are also religiously batshit crazy. It doesn't just happen to the poor.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Sunday June 12 2016, @10:24PM
Why in the world do you think improving social services would stop religious terrorism? He didn't kill 50 people because his EBT card was empty. He was almost certainly motivated by religious extremism.
As are most homophobes. Even so, most of them don't actually kill gays. But you're probably right, improving social services may not make everyone more tolerant.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday June 12 2016, @07:45PM
After a lot of thought on this today, the only thing I can think that we as the US should do, is become more isolationist. If we were not running machine learning AI games with programs called Skynet, if we were not overthrowing other countries and leaving them with nothing to fill the hole, if we were not causing such low level but persistent collateral damage every where we go... but that is our status quo. We've been shitting all over the world and now it is allowing the local disenfranchised to have a renewed purpose in what will be the short remainder of their life.
We need to step out of this fight we likely have caused, and let the region settle on its own accord. Long distance and far far away nation's aren't well equiped in dealing with problems on the other side of the world.
Meanwhile our infrastructure is crumbling (lead is still a problem, after nearly 100 years of knowing it is terrible as just a single example), our education system is clearly failing our children (see Nevada as an example), and the middle class in its death throes (just a few decades ago you only needed a single worker in the house and could still retire and go on vacations, now everyone in the house needs a job and we have stay-cations and likely get to work till we die).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @08:29PM
Build a wall, and make Florida pay for it! It would have stopped the 9-11 attacks.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday June 12 2016, @08:56PM
I'm a Libertarian who'd vote for Bernie given the chance. Isolationism doesn't mean building walls or being a conspiracy theorist.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:13PM
If you'd vote in favor of wealth redistribution, you are no libertarian.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:57PM
Uh, there is a whole 'nuther side to libertarianism, left-libertarianism, which in fact your particular strain draws heavily from, since it pre-dates it by a few hundred years.
"Wealth redistribution" is little more than "returning stolen property" in the right circumstances.
And back to your regularly scheduled rant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @08:53AM
What?
Are you telling me that an extremist is ignorant of the full extent of his own professed philosophy?
Who would have guessed!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @10:39PM
Do you have a quote to back up your claim that Bernie is somehow worse than others in the current pool of politicians?
I have one that says Bernie is a Capitalist-friendly politician of the FDR variety.
"The next time you hear me attacked as a socialist, remember this: I don’t believe government should own the means of production... I believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America instead of shipping jobs and profits overseas."
Sanders outlines pro-capitalist, pro-war positions in speech on "democratic socialism" [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [wsws.org]
Bernie may call himself a "Democratic Socialist" (a redundant term), but he's just another Liberal Democrat: Progressive taxation in proportion to one's ability to pay (and in proportion to the benefits derived from the business-friendly infrastructure provided by government)--the way it was done when USA was strongest and most vibrant.
...and if you want to see what a total mess Libertarians make of things, look at the fiasco that Gov. Sam Brownback has made of Kansas. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @11:28PM
In fact, many of Sander's positions coincide with... gasp Gary Johnson.
Granted, the Libertarian convention about imploded with its purity tests over Johnson and his pick for VP, but to claim there isn't a lot over overlap between libertarians and Sanders is just ignorant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @12:29AM
Specify 2 of those.
Make both of them ECONOMIC positions.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @01:18AM
Per on the issues-
•Break up large banks; add fees for high-risk investments. (Apr 2015)
•Why did we bail out South Korea? (Dec 2010)
•Middle class spending $2,200 each to bail out Wall Street. (Oct 2008)
•More enforcement of mortgage fraud and TARP fraud. (May 2009)
•Yes, limit size of government, but address inequality. (Feb 2016)
http://www.ontheissues.org/Bernie_Sanders.htm [ontheissues.org]
Now return the favor and point out issues where the Libertarian party and Trump agree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @02:58AM
With Trump, it's pretty easy.
For any issue, he has at least 2 positions (1 for each audience he addresses.)
Trump has no core values except to inflate his brand.
Politically, he is simply a loose cannon.
It will be interesting to see how many old-school Pachyderms refuse to vote for him in November.
...assuming he doesn't implode before then.
(Pretty sure you can go to jail for fraud--and antagonizing judges doesn't help things.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @01:38AM
Are you insane? Legitimate question. Anyone who thinks FDR was a friend to capitalists has lost their bloody mind.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 13 2016, @02:21AM
Okay vulture breath, I'm gonna spell this out real simple-like for you so even you can get it: in a consumer economy, if the consumers can't consume, the economy grinds to a halt. In a fiat money milieu, the velocity of that money is more important than the size of the supply; if the velocity drops, as it does when the rich hoard it rather than the poor and middle class spending it, the economy also crashes.
This isn't even a moral or ideological argument; it's akin to saying that in a grinding mill, if the river isn't flowing, no flour is going to get made.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @10:10AM
Ah, my number one fan. How's the family? Job treating you well?
Re: your rant... No. Shit. Sherlock. But neither will shooting the 1% cow get you any milk. Sure, you eat steak for a little bit but then you're fucked.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 13 2016, @04:40PM
You have a reality distortion field that would give Saint Jobs a run for his ill-gotten money, you know that? I'm no more a fan of yours than someone pursuing an Ebola vaccine is enamored of haemorrhagic fevers, and my motivation is roughly similar.
And if you think my plan is as silly and shortsighted as "shoot the 1%" you're delusional. No, my plan is "make the 1% pay their right and just share, whether they like it or not, and if they want to go Galt, good fucking luck to them."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @07:22PM
You're not a fan and yet you follow me around talking to me? Woot! I got me a stalker!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 13 2016, @08:35PM
No, shitheel. I "follow you around" on here to post counters to whatever toxic shit you spew hoping it'll prevent impressionable minds from being infected with whatever pernicious mind-virus you picked up. Did you not see the analogy to an Ebola researcher above, or did you choose to ignore it deliberately?
Once again: you are one of many Patient Zeros for the mental equivalent of those lovely tropical fevers that turn your organs into liquid shit; I am attempting to vaccinate anyone exposed to you. That makes me a "fan" in about the same way Ed Jenner was a fan of smallpox.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @02:03AM
I ignore roughly half of what you say on the grounds that it's bloody stupid and stupid is contagious.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:36AM
*fwoosh! phwEEEEEEEEeeeeee--boom!* FUCK! That's the second time in 5 minutes you've blown out every single last fuse in the ol' Irony-o-tron. I'm gonna start sending you the bill for replacement parts, damn it all. Even with two jobs keeping the thing supplied is murderous.\\
On the other hand, it's a very telling indication that you're well and truly out of ammunition when all you have it "hurr hurr ur a st00pid dumb poopyhead an' yer mamma wears army boots." Keep going; you aren't half as slick as you think you are and the more you keep this crap up the more you reveal your true colors to everyone watching.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:29AM
Oh please, I can do way better than that nonsense. Yo momma so ugly she puts a bag over her own head when she masturbates.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 14 2016, @05:14PM
The army boots thing would have been a better insult. See, MOST people don't look at themselves in the mirror when they jill/jack off (I realize you are an exception, but in a lot of ways you are far from normal). Whereas "yo mamma wears army boots!" is a way of saying "Your mother's a whore and shagged a random soldier and that's where she got the boots from."
You're batting zero for three so far :) Your panicked, inflamed flailing is amusing though; do keep it up. Remember, every time you fuck up, everyone on here can see it, and it just confirms what kind of person you are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @07:10PM
Your reality. It must be quite different from the one the rest of us live in. Do tell us about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 14 2016, @07:13PM
You only wish, vulture breath. Unfortunately for you, your delusions do not make you correct.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @07:23PM
A mirror, get one. Look into it when you say things along those lines. You and your shrink will thank me later.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 14 2016, @07:38PM
God damn, so this is what you've degenerated into. You got nothing left but "Uh uh, no you! You're the crazy one, nerr nerny nerr nerr!"
Go back to third grade. It's clear you never graduated the playground. And very likely didn't pass basic math or history either.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @02:37AM
The fact that Capitalism still exists in the USA is clear evidence the FDR didn't want it to fail.
Just as happened in the crash of the 21st Century, those individuals with excess wealth pounced on the failed businesses and bought them up for pennies on the dollar of what they had been worth months before.
Had he wanted to, FDR could have made a move to snatch those up for the same cut-rate prices via Eminent Domain and nationalized them.
He didn't.
...and, after that, had he wanted to finally end the repeated boom-and-bust cycle of Capitalism in the USA, he could have continued on nationalizing still-solvent companies.
What he actually did was put USAians on the public payroll when Capitalists wouldn't hire them.
(15 million of them when the population of the country was 130M.)
He put them to work building roads and bridges and ports and all sorts of things that the private sector uses.
Now these Working Class people had money in their pockets and could spend it on the products of the Capitalists.
What FDR did was save Capitalism when it had yet again completely fallen on its face.
(Too many Capitalists are too stupid to realize that without customers, there's no way to make more money and that WORKERS are their customers.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday June 13 2016, @03:56AM
Are you kidding? FDR is a great argument in a favor of capitalism. He was the polar opposite of Coolidges hands off approach that created the roaring 20s. FDRs 90% taxes and destruction of food in the middle of a depression to create demand is a socialist dream. FDR turned the 30s and early half of the 40s into a nightmare with his policies, providing every capitalist with tremendously valuable argument against socialism. He's the best friend a capitalist could have.
Unless of course, you actually had to live under his policies. Which I guess we still do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @04:47AM
destruction of food in the middle of a depression to create demand
Have a cite for that?
is a socialist dream
Socialists wouldn't have overproduced in the first place.
I don't see how "socialist" applies at all. Fnord? [google.com]
What you're talking about is Supply-Side Economics aka the boom-and-bust cycle aka Capitalism (in its most perverse form).
...and, if wealth isn't concentrated in the hands of a few (who don't spend much of it), hijinx isn't needed.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @09:39AM
If significant wealth isn't concentrated in the hands of a relative few, most of the comforts you take for granted today do not exist. Nothing that takes a large initial investment ever happens unless the government wants it to and they're not known for taking risks or having vision. Well, unless their pockets have been appropriately lined by those with concentrated wealth. The only exception I can name is the space program and it's currently suffering under a lack of vision and an abundance of risk aversion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @12:42PM
And here we go...
If significant wealth isn't concentrated in the hands of a relative few, most of the comforts you take for granted today do not exist
Is that specific to wealth or how markets are set up? I mean you could have mentioned Pareto distribution as being fairly consistent across different economies, that some people are skilled in building wealth, but that is an effect and not a condition, and the corollary is that absolutely NOTHING takes places without work. Your pile of gold doesn't magically turn into a house, but labor is free to act in the absence of capital.
Nothing that takes a large initial investment ever happens unless
Their Patreon sounds good? People form a co-op? Payment is offered as shares in lieu of wages?
There are multitudes of ways of organizing markets that don't rely on having piles of money lying around.
Even Hayek understood that coordination was key. That is capital, labor, and need all have to occupy the same space-time. The genius is bringing those elements together, not the elements themselves.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @07:31PM
Not for anything that requires significant up-front capital there aren't. Try and design and produce a prototype of a new car if you doubt it. Must be street legal in all fifty states. Not everything can be beg-sourced.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @07:56PM
There are multitudes of ways of organizing markets that don't rely on having piles of money lying around.
Not for anything that requires significant up-front capital there aren't.
Ah, tautology. Good for you.
Prior to capitalism being mistaken for markets, sailing voyages were frequently paid through shares. Were talking equivalent to multi-million dollar endeavors that got started with little seed money and a promissory IOU after the fact.
It's called market innovation. In the face of not enough money, the work still needs to get done.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @08:14PM
In the face of absent materials, work cannot get done.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @05:57PM
Huge amounts of money that just sit around and aren't used to produce new goods|services may as well be a rock that is buried and forgotten.
From FDR's time until after Ike left the Oval Office, the marginal tax rate on the billionaire class was over 90 percent.
That money was used by the gov't to build infrastructure and develop a space program.
In that time, USA transitioned from a place with 25 percent unemployment to become the envy of the world.
It's clear that collective activity by millions of people can easily match and even surpass what a few wealthy individuals can and will do.
Once again, you show your unwillingness to embrace (or even recognize) paradigms which aren't rooted in the dark past.
The AC above me mentioned, as an example, Patreon (A Kickstarter sort of thing for artists).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @07:19PM
You'd be correct if the rich left their money in mattresses. Unfortunately for your theory, they invest nearly every penny where it will make them more money. Which is putting it back in circulation and blows your entire line of reasoning out of the water.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @08:28PM
Buying a stock certificate doesn't create anything.
It simply moves that existing thing from one set of hands to another.
What you are talking about is EXTRACTING wealth from the economy while producing nothing.
The rich buying each others' mansions and yachts at ever-inflated prices doesn't improve the economy either.
At best, the economic activities of the uberrich creates economic bubbles and drives up prices for Joe Average.
Now, if that money was spent hiring a worker or building a factory, -THAT- would actually be useful for the economy.
...then there's the 1 Percenters using their excessive wealth to buy up gov't.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @02:10AM
You've obviously never worked in the business end of any publicly traded company to say something that foolish. Your stock price (which increases when people buy your stock) directly effects your ability to take out loans. Which directly effects your ability to grow, hire more employees, and pay the ones you have better. No, my friend, trading stock does in fact make a damned big difference to someone other than the two people trading.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @02:36AM
Your stock price (which increases when people buy your stock
Take off your rose-colored glasses and put down your pom-poms.
Stock prices also go down.
(That's when the smartest Capitalists buy.)
Again, nothing new is created when stock is sold.
Ownership of that simply exchanges hands.
It's no different from moving your wallet from your right pocket to your left pocket.
...and, with fewer and fewer actual customers for actual goods each week, you guys who think that unearned income, aggregated by people with more money than they can spend, is useful to the economy are a hoot.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:09AM
Yes, stock prices do go down. Until someone buys the stock. Then it stops going down. Which means buying stock kept a company from being utterly unable to get a loan and having to fold its doors and put people out of work.
Oversimplifying something as complex as the meta level of our economy is foolish. I expected better of you. Your reasoning generally tries to at least be not blatantly and provably false.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by boxfetish on Monday June 13 2016, @04:00AM
No matter how popular Sanders became as president he would be unable to enact much wealth redistribution. Perhaps tynin realizes that tall tales of rampant socialism and any tangible wealth redistribution are just right-wing scare tactics. The reality of a Sander's presidency would just be a relatively honest man trying to level the playing field and prevent any further siphoning of wealth from the working and middle classes to the rich by ending Corporate welfare and one dollar=one vote. A true Libertarian would be in favor of Sanders over Clinton or Trump. Double plus good, citizen.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 13 2016, @09:33AM
Right-wing scare tactics? It's Sanders's stated goal ffs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday June 15 2016, @12:52AM
Basically, this. Thanks, you articulate me well.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @08:11PM
Here's the unfortunate truth: rapid firing weapons are by far less efficient at killing than explosives. Even if you are effective at limiting access to semiautomatics (doubtful, as criminals intending to do this are by definition not interested in your laws and there are way, way too many already in circulation), there are a stupendous array of methods to make things blow up.
Are you old enough to remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Timothy McVeigh could not have done that kind of damage to personnel or infrastructure with civilian firearms.
Now, let's say this guy couldn't get his hands on anything more than a bolt-action .22 rifle. Instead, he makes a bomb - or a few of them. Where would we be instead? Well, the nightclub had ~320 people inside. I'm pretty sure it would have been worse. A lot worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @10:35PM
If they were really serious they would bring back the plague bearers.
If you want to create terror and chaos, no better way than an epidemic, and if you want to kill the most gays, get them sick and make them out as the roving plague of pestilence upon a city/state/country.
But these guys are a bunch of smallminded chumps, just like the KKK, Al Qaeda, etc.
We've probably had more deaths from the legislative collateral damage than we have from the physical.
I think that is telling of what is wrong with our country. If we were the home of the brave we would march proundly on without changing our way of life. But instead we have the past 16 years (18 if you go by columbine.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @11:57PM
You're not wrong about the effects of plague, etc.
However, the barrier for entry for explosives is much lower. It's as close as your local hardware, and this isn't going to change meaningfully at all because plants will always need nitrates.
Understand I'm talking here about the sole actor crazy nutjob who wants to make a mark and leave a perverted legacy behind, complete with manifesto etc. That describes the overwhelming majority of mass shootings which could possibly be reached - in theory - by gun control (putting aside that criminals don't obey laws by definition for the moment). These people don't want to be the shadowy actors behind real terror, nor do they have the support network to try and get some sort of plague weaponized. These are blaze-of-glory types, usually without any social support.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:34PM
The only thing that comes to mind is making it harder (not impossible) for people to get their hands on rapid firing weapons.
You seemed trapped in a box, and you can't think your way out of that box.
How many would this guy be able to kill with his rapid fire weapon had 5, 8, 20, 100 people in that nightclub been carrying their own weapons?
Yeah, Probably one or two innocent bystanders would have gotten caught in the crossfire. As it was, with everybody unarmed, 50 dead, and over 50 more wounded.
You people in your little thinking box will never learn until we are all dead.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @09:50PM
Just one time I hope you get to see your "everyone has guns" scenario play out. The lights go out, one person starts shooting... gawd.
Set it up with paintball guns in a disco and see how many people get shot. Maybe "one or two" can be your estimate. I'm going for maybe 100 or 200.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday June 13 2016, @03:59AM
Perhaps the reason that you haven't seen it play out should be telling you something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @10:18PM
Go easy on frojack right now. He's a bit frightened. But it gets better.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday June 12 2016, @11:57PM
One of the things I am struggling to come up with is a measured, appropriate public policy response that would be effective at preventing a single, suicidal, nut from killing a bunch of people in a dark, crowded place.
It's very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to stop a dedicated gunman intent on exchanging his or her life for their target.
Ford and Reagan would both have been dead if Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley weren't batshit crazy and woefully unprepared for the tasks to which they set themselves.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @04:35AM
have armed guards at nightclubs lol :-)