Another shooting - 20 children killed

The key difference being that it isnt a crime to be a liberal. More and more, it is literally a crime to be considered 'racist', thought to be spreading what some may consider racist views, or considered in any way racist is enough to end your career. May even land you in jail.

Another issue thye face is that 90% of the police force would resign on the spot if htye were told to get the guns from gun wielders if it became outlawed.

xSamhainx said:

The key difference being that it isnt a crime to be a liberal.

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But we can dream, can't we???

Sometimes I find these debates so funny. I end up defending social conservatives when in truth I'm socially quite liberal. I'm defending gun owners, but I have no desire to own a gun. I defend the rich from Robin Hood economics, but I've never been anything approaching rich. I get set up with all this strawman bullshit that barely applies to the positions I'm defending and has less than nothing to do with me. I'm not sure what you'd call the rightie equivalent of the blue dog democrat—maybe a heathen republican? Not whining, I actually think it's pretty funny although it does make the other side seem a bit pathetic with how they're so smug as they repeatedly miss the mark.

xSamhainx said:

The key difference being that it isnt a crime to be a liberal. More and more, it is literally a crime to be considered 'racist', thought to be spreading what some may consider racist views, or considered in any way racist is enough to end your career. May even land you in jail.

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Racists are dysfunctional and causes harm to society. Of course they may need therapy to function or jail time in the worst case.

dteowner said:

But we can dream, can't we???

Sometimes I find these debates so funny. I end up defending social conservatives when in truth I'm socially quite liberal. I'm defending gun owners, but I have no desire to own a gun. I defend the rich from Robin Hood economics, but I've never been anything approaching rich. I get set up with all this strawman bullshit that barely applies to the positions I'm defending and has less than nothing to do with me. I'm not sure what you'd call the rightie equivalent of the blue dog democrat—maybe a heathen republican? Not whining, I actually think it's pretty funny although it does make the other side seem a bit pathetic with how they're so smug as they repeatedly miss the mark.

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SDO's that I pointed out before defends the system where society is layered in hierarchy based on power. They do not defend a position, even if the system undermines them.

@dte
Well, maybe you are should be more careful about which positions to defend then? I am not happy with some of the comments that have been made here from the liberal camp. But frankly that doesn't make anything you have said more logical or defendable. And you hardly ever reply to the actual arguments made. You make it too easy for yourself, if you draw back on how misunderstood you are or how there is this witch hunt for conservativ views. And you can't be smug about it because you constantly strawman the other sides views yourself. So. boo-hoo dte, stick with the arguments or don't.
xSamhain: of course accusations of racism may sometimes miss the mark, but actual racisim is rightfully considered a crime, in my opinion. Anyway this discussion has hardly touched the issue, and that particular comment wasn't particular important to the discussion, so feel free to ignore it.

Pladio said:

That's interesting. (I am not interested enough to read the journals themselves, but I'll go ahead by trusting you know what you're talking about )

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I have actually spent a great deal of time researching this issue. Unbiased (by either side of the argument) information is very difficult to come by.

Pladio said:

This runs completely contrary to my "common sense". In my head, less guns in the country > less gun crime in the country. That seems quite simple to me.

Not that it would reduce gun crime to 0.0001 per 100k, but something more like from 5 per 100k to 4.6 per 100k or something …

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Less guns overall should theoretically lead to less crime, but gun control, so far, has never led to less guns. There are over 300 million firearms in this country. Regulating or even ceasing the sale of new guns has no influence over this.

Gun control in this country is a show, engineered to make the voting public think that they are being heard and that their government is 'doing something'. And that is part of the problem - the American public buys it hook, line, & sinker. And goes back to watching "Jersey Shore" or whatever other abominable form of entertainment that has saturated America life these days. Until of course another tragedy brings it to light again. Fortunately for our leadership, we collectively have the attention span & memory of a gnat, and they can continue to get away with this. Why do they do it? Because doing what it takes to solve the problem would be political suicide.

Pladio said:

So what do you think would be appropriate measures and why do you think the US does have so much gun crime ?

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Appropriate measures? Not sure. As I see it we can either:

A. Get rid of all the guns and trample the rights of the people, and possibly spark off a civil war.

B. Address the underlying issues that actually cause crime. These are the usual - education, poverty, unequal opportunities, fair government, etc.

What will we do? Neither of these two. They are either too hard, too expensive, or don't have enough of an immediate effect to satiate our "right now" mentality. And Jersey Shore is on again in 5 minutes.

Part of the problem is that gun laws in the US are at the state level; they need to be at the federal level to help prevent guns from being moved across state lines. Also our porous borders don't help much either.

Thrasher said:

Part of the problem is that gun laws in the US are at the state level; they need to be at the federal level to help prevent guns from being moved across state lines. Also our porous borders don't help much either.

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Take a step back, and look at what the "federal" have been doing, arming the freedom fighters in Afghan in the 80s...Syrian rebels now. And you are asking a international gun dealer/smuggler to prevent guns moving across the state broaders?

"Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.

The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/w...ms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html?_r=0

mudsling3 said:

Take a step back, and look at what the "federal" have been doing, arming the freedom fighters in Afghan in the 80s…Syrian rebels now. And you are asking a international gun dealer/smuggler to prevent guns moving across the state broaders?

"Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.

The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/w...ms-sales-reach-66-3-billion-in-2011.html?_r=0

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So maybe the rancor against the UN arms trade treaty has less to do with a genuine threat to US Sovereignty and more over the concerns of industry lobbyists? Would that mean that the most vocal of its opponents within the Senate and Congress are cynically manipulating their constituents by parroting fears and conspiracy theories they themselves do not actually believe to avoid talking about how much money the US arms exporters make out of what amounts to a huge share of the weapons ultimately find their way into the hands of as many of our enemies as allies? Do you think they did not want to discuss the prospect that preventing the sale of weapons to unreliable/corrupt states and clients who would resell them to criminals and war criminals would hurt the industry's bottom line?

And no I'm not saying any of the politicians actually think those are desirable things - but they end up being afar less simple discussion than shouting about UN troops on Texas soil. I think our politicians in general would rather shout a ridiculous argument that frames one choice as absolutely evil compared to the other than to wade into an argument where any choice has upsides and downsides even if they seem hugely disproportionate.

"I could help stem the flow of weapons to terrorists, pirates, and oppressive regimes and almost everyone would like that… but it will piss off some powerful interest groups and my potential primary opponents would really like that. Plus it would cost American jobs afterall."

"I could have a meaningful discussion on possible ways to stem the growth in entitlemetnts and perhaps find a compromise that works in some form of means testing or raising of eligibility requirements as part of a deal to avoid sequestration while fighting for protections to help those who might fall on the margins… but even if that's a good deal I'll actually have to work to explain it to my constituents and its so much easier to sound tough and shout absolute refusals."

xSamhainx said:

Racism is the new witchcraft

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Well then, we'll be needing a duck.

No one is talking about a gun law that isn't nation-wide and which isn't going to be strictly enforced.

If we're talking about making a law as some kind of minor suggestion, then I agree it won't help. Well, it might help a little bit - and that's worth something, but it won't be changing anything for real.

Also, it will be a very long process. It's like campaigns against smoking - and it will take years and years before the cultural impact is felt. The key is to take it seriously and to begin somewhere.

People are saying it's impossible to get guns off the street - but I wonder if they understand that we're talking about minimising and stigmatising. We can't ever get ALL guns off any street.

GhanBuriGhan said:

xSamhain: of course accusations of racism may sometimes miss the mark, but actual racism is rightfully considered a crime, in my opinion.

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JemyM said:

Racists are dysfunctional and causes harm to society. Of course they may need therapy to function or jail time in the worst case.

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How are you defining racism? What thoughts or words or actions or state of mind constitute a racist crime? A dumb question perhaps, but specificity is important if you are going to define something as a crime, and especially important if you are going to define it as a something of a mental illness in need of therapy or reeducation (a strange characterization, I think, for something that is pretty much the default for most societies historically and even in the modern day, not that that has much bearing on its morality in our society) .

Mr. H said:

How are you defining racism? What thoughts or words or actions or state of mind constitute a racist crime? A dumb question perhaps, but specificity is important if you are going to define something as a crime, and especially important if you are going to define it as a something of a mental illness in need of therapy or reeducation (a strange characterization, I think, for something that is pretty much the default for most societies historically and even in the modern day, not that that has much bearing on its morality in our society) .

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A political ideology that promotes hiearchy based upon beliefs about "human races".

JemyM said:

Racists are dysfunctional and causes harm to society. Of course they may need therapy to function or jail time in the worst case.

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Well, that's the problem Jemy. What constitutes "racism", what makes someone an evil heretic to the PC Police? Kill someone is one thing, but call someone a racial epithet while killing them and suddenly it's more of a crime?

Voting for Obama because he's black is racism, isnt it? No, i think people consider that ok. That's "good racism". We sure know that voting for Romney because he's white, however is racist evil and wrong, right?

What about Caroline Wozniacki padding herself up to joke around about her friend Serena Williams? Is that a "racist" crime that needs to be punished? Everyone was all upset about that one, everyone except Serena.

There doesnt have to be a murder or a serious crime, all you have to do is make a joke and you have people screaming racism. You could have told a racist joke ten years ago, and have your modern court case affected by it. That depends what race you are tho, people like Chris Rock and George Lopez make whole comedy routines around joking about white people. Make a black or mexican joke, and youre a satanic heretic. That's my problem, if it's going to be a crime then it needs to be applied across everyone equally, when there is no indication that's going to happen anytime soon.

I gave my definition in the post before yours.

sorry, thats just a BS textbook definition. This day and age, you dont have to be part of a racial undergound movement or subscribe to some racial supremecist ideology to be defined as 'racist' by the witchhunt.

I'm not talking about the Aryan Nations, or Black Panthers. Someone who makes a racist joke isnt suddenly part of some racial-supremacist political group, yet the danger is real that people's lives can be destroyed by equating them as such. Someone who for instance opposes illegal immigration, can be called "racist" because there's non-white people trying to immigrate to our predominately white nation. You must be racist if you want to keep them out, right?

It's a hammer to use against anyone, and the fact your good with punishment for those accused of modern heresy is a chilling, totalitarian vision.

back to the topic, here is gun banning campaign I can agree with since sooo many celebs sooo passionly beliving in it, enjoy and share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhWVf4e4-s

mudsling3 said:

back to the topic, here is gun banning campaign I can agree with since sooo many celebs sooo passionly beliving in it, enjoy and share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhWVf4e4-s

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The title is a bit misleading as it gives the impression they're calling for a ban on guns in general rather than assault-weapons and high capacity magazines specifically. It also calls for background background checks for all gun purchases (so no cash and carry deals at gunshows) and stiffer penalties for illegal trafficing/smuggling.

xSamhainx said:

sorry, thats just a BS textbook definition. This day and age, you dont have to be part of a racial undergound movement or subscribe to some racial supremecist ideology to be defined as 'racist' by the witchhunt.

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xSamhainx said:

Someone who for instance opposes illegal immigration, can be called "racist" because there's non-white people trying to immigrate to our predominately white nation. You must be racist if you want to keep them out, right?

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To me it's more than politics. Since I aim to be a researcher in societal psychology (not social) with focus on research and cultural conflicts I need coherent definitions and I stick with them. I seek core reasons why an individual becomes dysfunctional in a society (meaning that they disrupt an effective society by causing interruptions and conflict). I stress the importance of racial beliefs to qualify which is a categorical and "knowledgebased" reason for dysfunction. Xenophobia which is the primary reason for opposing immigrations (unless there are actual rational reasons) is an emotional reason.

That said, you do not need to be communist or fascist to be declared one either. But such namecalling have more to do with who's trying to define you than who you are. The best thing I have been called ever is "muslim".

xSamhainx said:

I'm not talking about the Aryan Nations, or Black Panthers. Someone who makes a racist joke isnt suddenly part of some racial-supremacist political group, yet the danger is real that people's lives can be destroyed by equating them as such.

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There's a vital difference between those who strike uphill or those who strike downhill. A racist strike downhill, using racial pseudoscience or derogative stereotypes in attempt to downgrade people and will continue to make a mess when called out on it.

xSamhainx said:

It's a hammer to use against anyone, and the fact your good with punishment for those accused of modern heresy is a chilling, totalitarian vision.

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Which is also why I stress the use of proper and coherent definitions.

Jemy - you may have tons of book smarts, and youre great at categorizations and classifications, but you have no common sense whatsoever.

Youre an idiot