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**Zymologist** · 06-22-2017, 10:48 AM

Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post

Santa's workshop is at the North Pole? That's just anti-Finland propaganda.

Santa lives and operates from Finland. Having a workshop in the North Pole would be stupid.

I read this as "Satan's workshop" and thought, wow, this thread has really gone interesting places.

**Teallaura** · 06-22-2017, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by Leonhard View Post

See I don't think that comparison would work at all, because gun control doesn't really mean anything in the US when its possible for anyone, medical history or not, criminal or not, to tracelessly buy weapons and ammunition in bulk via the gun show loophole. And its not like your car is inspected when you're passing state borders. Denmark has some of the strictest gun laws, as does Germany to the south. Getting weapons here is not straight forward. My father who has worked as a prison guard for fourty years now and has good friends in the police force tells me that unless you're deeply in a gang, you can't get a pistol here.

I'm not saying its impossible for someone to smuggle in a gun. That's how the gangs get them, but beyond that, no its not easy.

Um, no. Look, I have issues with gun shows but this isn't accurate. Each state has its own laws about private sales - yes, in most Bubba can sell his .38 to whoever happens to show up at the gun show - but a dealer at the self same show can't. The result is that while this is a problem, it's not the biggest problem by a long shot - very few weapons relative the the number available move this way.

The BIG problem is the 'musical chairs' version of gun control - someone wanting to get guns for their gang doesn't need to bother tracking down Bubba - they can simply travel to a state with weaker restrictions and buy in bulk there. Yes, it means someone has to have a fairly squeaky clean record - but they can simply pay someone to be that middle man. And this is why I favor Federal guidelines over the patchwork of state laws - because it unfairly allows people to sidestep their state's regulations.

My perfect world would have no guns in it - but I long since realized that it's not fair to the law abiding gun owners (and hunters, none of whom have ever shown up in the same woods where I was!

). So we compromise. Abolition is an extremely bad idea here - for one thing it extends more Federal control than should exist, for another it's likely to be met with violence if they actually attempt to enforce it (and forget Bubba - it's Ice Pick and his gang that will be the most dangerous to disarm), it would be ridiculously expensive to pro-actively enforce, that pro-active thing has massive constitutional issues and it just flat out doesn't have the political support behind it to even attempt the thing.

We can do better, fairer gun control - I just don't see a point arguing for abolition for the same reason I don't see a point to arguing for Unicorn licensing.

**Teallaura** · 06-22-2017, 10:55 AM

Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post

This is merely a legend. There is no gun show loophole. Buying a firearm, from any dealer requires a federal background check. The problem is incomplete records that allow people to get firearms that shouldn't. You would also be fighting a losing battle here anyway because only complete searches of all property, could make getting a handgun impossible and not only would that be unconstitutional, but you would have a blood bath on your hands.

He's talking about private sales - and he's correct, the loophole exists, it's just not the real control problem.

**Teallaura** · 06-22-2017, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post

Santa's workshop is at the North Pole? That's just anti-Finland propaganda.

Santa lives and operates from Finland. Having a workshop in the North Pole would be stupid.

Does not!

You big meanie!

**Teallaura** · 06-22-2017, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by Starlight View Post

Fixed the link.

? Curbing high rural suicide rates via guns here in NZ was a major motivation for enacting stricter gun control. If there's a gun around it's all to easy for a short period of depression to lead to a suicide. Without access to such an easy and quick method of suicide, people tend to think more about it and be slower to act on impulses.

I didn't spot any online, so I plotted one myself. I grabbed the gun homicide rate data per state from here which happens to be for 2011 (plus looked up Alabama's 2011 data which was missing from that table), and plotted it against the gun-control-law rankings here. Thus giving this 5 minute Excel masterpiece:

The correlation isn't as strong as for total gun deaths, but it does seem to be still there. That dotted trendline is auto-generated, and regardless of what flexibility I gave it, it consistently wanted to have a positive slope across the graph. Overall it would suggest that the strongest gun control laws as compared to the weakest ones, tend to cut the gun homicide rate by around a third and save approximately 1-1.5 lives per 100,000 people per year. On the national scale that suggests that the US could reduce the gun homicide rate by around 2000 lives per year by implementing California-level gun control laws across all states.

No, it seems to disappear. The outliers could account for the trend line alone.

I'd have to dig around the data but this isn't a compelling graph - and I AM pro-gun control.

**Teallaura** · 06-22-2017, 11:09 AM

Originally posted by Leonhard View Post

I have never talked about disarming citizens. You're reading that into what I'm saying. In fact I clarified that I don't think banning guns in the US would work. Just that Denmark doesn't have many guns, and it has some benefits. Namely less gun anxiety for the police.

You don't see mass shootings in the US?

Just a cursory reading but I see two problems - one, a lot of these are old (1999, seriously?) and two, a lot seem to be from strict gun control states.

That such killings occur periodically doesn't disprove Sparky's point - he was arguing that mass shootings aren't a constant issue here.

**Carrikature** · 06-22-2017, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by myth View Post

Perhaps I should have used my words more carefully and said "based on a cursory review of the situation at hand". I read the article and I'm clear on everything it said, or I wouldn't have said anything at all.

To be even more specific, I qualified my statement using the word 'cursory' because I happen to a criminal investigator. I interview witnesses and victims, process crime scenes, and interrogate suspects for a living. Professionally, when deciding whether an action was criminal, I like to dig into the details. This usually means hours of work, sometimes dozens of hours or more. I've been known to write reports that exceed 40 pages in length for a single case, and turn in files that are hundreds or thousands of pages long.

So you might understand why I hesitant to make a definitive statement about another police officer's actions when I'm used to that level of detail, and at this point have to rely on news reports (though I hear they released the video, I'll try to find time to go watch that). I don't trust news reports because, in my personal experience, they're about 40-60% accurate on average. In addition, even with the trial over, the news media will only have information available that was presented to a jury during a public trial. Once again, from personal experience, many times there are significant facts or pieces of evidence concealed from the jury (legally, judges orders and whatnot). That can cut both ways, of course.

But what I'm saying is, if I could look at the whole, original file, I'd happily render a clear opinion for you all. So bear with me if I'm cautious to make certain statements, please.

And to that last point, about me defending the officer's actions. I don't think I've said anything to defend the officer's actions. I'm just trying to give my opinion about the details that are being discussed and help others decide how much weight to give those facts. If anyone thinks my only desire here is to defend Officer Yanez' actions, they haven't been reading closely enough.

I have nothing against being hesitant. I operate the same way, though I don't do it for a living like you do. Understand that with a text format, all I have is the exact wording you provide. "Cursory review" and "cursory reading" are vastly different things, as I know you're aware. I can't read between the lines to know that you actually mean the former, particularly when you specifically referred only to the article.

As for defending the officer's actions, I disagree. I see and recognize your criticism of Yanez, but I don't read post #19 as anything other than a defense of him. It's not so much "he did nothing wrong" but more "if people behaved properly things like this wouldn't happen".

ETA: I'm not going to bother keeping reading the intervening 13+ pages, but I wanted to respond to this part.

**Jedidiah** · 06-22-2017, 01:12 PM

Originally posted by Starlight View Post

I think a problem in America is the way you guys often conceptualize your government as an adversarial entity, that is out to get you. In countries like NZ and Denmark the people view the government as our servants: The government exists for the purpose of doing the bidding of the people and providing services to us. I think this has subtle but important effects in what types of behavior people put up with from the government - I don't think the populace in NZ and Denmark would tolerate a tenth of the sorts of things Americans let their government get away with on a daily basis.

. . . snip . . .

So to me your question of what happens if the government is not benign, the simple answer is: Bad things happen, and the society has done a loooooot of things wrong to be in the that sort of state in the first place. It suggests a total social and cultural breakdown. Everyone having guns to 'deal with' this situation is like an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and relatively pointless. Except it's worse than an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, because giving everyone guns not only doesn't actually help any if the society and government does go pear-shaped, it has real and deadly side-effects in the present.

Originally posted by Leonhard View Post

What would you do if the US government turned fascist? Use your gun to kill the entire US army? You've built that war machine up to be bigger than the rest of the world's military combined. You think you, with a pistol, or a rifle has any chance against it? A hundred people like you in a Wako case? Even a hundred thousand US Citizens shoulder to shoulder would be no threat. And in any situation where the US government turned fascist, a lot of citizens would be fascists as well. So now you have to defend yourself against well weaponized fellow citizens who disagrees with your ideology and think you shouldn't live in the country anymore.

A few decades ago the US was a very different entity than it is now. In retrospect I can see it was moving this way, we were even warned by Eisenhower. None the less our armed forces are made up of citizens, our police force is made up of citizens and a massive move to repress would result in massive violence, not just suppression. I see the hatred from the left, and their intolerance, as leading toward this sort of thing anyway.

**Jedidiah** · 06-22-2017, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by Leonhard View Post

I have never talked about disarming citizens. You're reading that into what I'm saying. In fact I clarified that I don't think banning guns in the US would work. Just that Denmark doesn't have many guns, and it has some benefits. Namely less gun anxiety for the police.

You don't see mass shootings in the US?

Non responsive comment. None of these were the result of ordinary citizens owning and carrying guns.

**Jedidiah** · 06-22-2017, 01:23 PM

Originally posted by Leonhard View Post

What was his point then, I'm just going by what he said. "ordinary citizens in the USA can and do own and carry firearms, in public. Yet you don't see mass shootouts and murders going on because of it." That's what he said. But there are mass shootings, ranging from white supremacists walking into a church and shooting black people, to Ed Harris and Klebold of Columbine fame shooting their fellow students, to a pro lifer walking into an abortion clinic and shooting those people, to disgruntled workers bringing a weapon to a job meeting and killing his colleagues, to ...

I'm not being facetious, I'm seriously just trying to understand what he meant then.

The bold part should explain. You do not see mass shootings resulting from ordinary citizens carrying guns.

**Sparko** · 06-22-2017, 01:27 PM

This is what our corner market stores look like in 'Murika.

Picture of my sweet little grandma after picking up the day's groceries:

e7c303595e4398a20488b82dd1af51b5.jpg

My kid with his first training gun:

34aa5cffb9bb9cb560234c9f017c1129.jpg

**Adrift** · 06-22-2017, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post

Non responsive comment. None of these were the result of ordinary citizens owning and carrying guns.

How do you mean? I checked a few of these links, and I saw just that, citizens who owned guns, and then carried out mass shootings.

**Teallaura** · 06-22-2017, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post

The bold part should explain. You do not see mass shootings resulting from ordinary citizens carrying guns.

Sparky and Leo are talking past each other - and seriously, I can see why. Sparky seems to have meant 'ordinary folks don't go off shooting each other in the street' a la the Wild West. Leo is seeing 'guns are allowed but there are no mass shootings' which is easy to get from what Sparky actually wrote.

And it's a poor distinction anyway - mass shooters are 'ordinary' citizens, right up until they commit the crime.

**Adrift** · 06-22-2017, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by Sparko View Post

This is what our corner market stores look like in 'Murika.

Picture of my sweet little grandma after picking up the day's groceries:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]22914[/ATTACH]

My kid with his first training gun:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]22915[/ATTACH]

This is honestly not far from the case where I live.

**Adrift** · 06-22-2017, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by Teallaura View Post

Sparky and Leo are talking past each other - and seriously, I can see why. Sparky seems to have meant 'ordinary folks don't go off shooting each other in the street' a la the Wild West. Leo is seeing 'guns are allowed but there are no mass shootings' which is easy to get from what Sparky actually wrote.

And it's a poor distinction anyway - mass shooters are 'ordinary' citizens, right up until they commit the crime.

Thanks, that helped clarify for me as well. And yes, you're right. A citizen is "ordinary" up until they commit the crime.

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