The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[filghy2]

If you want less crime then bring back teaching the values that used to make our civilisation great to kids at schools, cut the bureaucracy that we have all become slaves of.

Would that be values like respect for the truth? When exactly was this golden age when people were safe because of values? Murder rates across the developed world are lower than they have been for most of history when religion had a much bigger role. https://ourworldindata.org/homicides/
All that teaching of the ten commandments did not stop people from killing one another. And how do values explain why the murder rate in the USA is way higher than in any other developed country?

[Ben in LA]

What I want to know is why did Trump blame the mass shooting on "a mental health problem"...after signing a bill earlier this year that rolled back a regulation making it harder for people with mental illnesses to buy firearms?

[peejaye]

Texas church attack the latest US mass shooting
Associated Press The Associated Press,Associated Press 1 hour 46 minutes ago
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Law enforcement officials work the scene of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
A man opened fire on a church in South Texas on Sunday, killing several people and wounding others.

Was it MrFanti? He hasn't commented since it happened? :-|

[sukumvit boy]

Interesting article from The Washington Post explores some popular myths about guns and gun violence based on the recent release of the results of the most comprehensive study to date .
One finding that struck me (no pun) is that gun violence increased by 13% to 15% over 10 years in states that passed 'right to carry' laws . And in zero instances did citizens carrying guns intervene in shootings in progress. One of the arguments in passing such laws was that an armed citizenry would lead to increased public safety.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-gun-violence/2017/10/06/c4536e44-a9ed-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html?utm_term=.81da4a17486f

[Ts RedVeX]

I remember someone asking for the paradigm which made our civilisation the greatest.. None of us actually lived in the times, as those ended in the 16th for Poland and 17th century century for the UK, if not earlier, but some of the values that come to mind are:

- honesty
- freedom
- inequality
- family
- individuality
- respect
- (inherited) monarchy
- patriotism
- Christianity

in more less that order. I would like hear from the Americans, as they might remember more from their much shorter history and I think their countries only began falling in the 18th or even the 19th century.

[Stavros]

I remember someone asking for the paradigm which made our civilisation the greatest.. None of us actually lived in the times, as those ended in the 16th for Poland and 17th century century for the UK, if not earlier, but some of the values that come to mind are:
.

Another puzzling post. When, in 17th century England did 'Civilization' come to an end? Was it 1653? Was it 1660? Was it 1668? Was it the death of William Shakespeare in 1616?
Is there some other date you want to identify?
Which version of 'Christianity' in England are you referring to, Protestant Christianity, or the Roman Catholic version?

[trish]

Someone asked someone for a paradigm and the answer was this silly list?! Why should I give someone’s report of someone’s list any credence or notice especially since the someone who just posted it has shown herself to be somewhat deficient in the first, fifth and ninth items listed?

[Aticus100]

RedVex, your last post was at 10:49am.

That’s way too early to be on the Meth.

[filghy2]

I remember someone asking for the paradigm which made our civilisation the greatest.. None of us actually lived in the times, as those ended in the 16th for Poland and 17th century century for the UK, if not earlier.

The question I actually asked was when was the 'golden age' when people were safe because of values, as you claimed in an earlier post? It's clear from the link I already posted that the murder rate in up to the 17th century was higher it it has been since then (ie people were not safer in the era of absolute monarchy that seems to be your ideal). https://ourworldindata.org/homicides/

[Jericho]

Someone had to....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeXMKygwSco

:shrug

[Ts RedVeX]

There was never a golden age of safety.

I don't do meth.

I am no alpha and omega of all knowledge, which is probably one of the main reasons I honour you with my participation in this idiotic congregation on here. As to religion, any religion that strengthens unity of people can be better than none. It can be seen very well here in the UK, especially in some areas, where influences of those religions or ideologies are indeed very visible.

Civilisations fall over decades, so I need not give any specific dates. I personally see fall of inherited monarchy as a milestone of a country's fall.

It is much easier to fool people than convince them that they have been fooled. - Mark Twain

[trish]

https://www.snopes.com/did-mark-twain-say-its-easier-to-fool-people-than-to-convince-them-that-they-have-been-fooled/

[Ts RedVeX]

"The general idea of that quote (although not that wording) is one Mark Twain expressed in regard to lying — in that is it hard to convince people they have been a victim of a lie".

-basically what I meant

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1800592]

I hate to sound like a record stuck on the same groove, but I am confused by your arguments. For example:

As to religion, any religion that strengthens unity of people can be better than none.
-I could agree with you because there is no evidence in Poland, for example, that Roman Catholicism has united the people. But is this what you meant to say?
A major difference between Poland of the 'Golden Age' -said to have declined with the death of Sigismund August in 1572- Poland of 1917 and Poland in 2017 is that the diversity of its peoples and religion has disappeared so that all those Jews, for example, who at times flourished -who at other times were persecuted and killed- in the 'Golden Age', by 1917 were the targets of organized anti-Jewish violence that by 1945 had reduced 10% of Poland's Jewish population to as close to zero as you can get, for reasons I need not explain.
Poland remains split between secular and religious people, but to deny the enormous influence of Roman Catholicism as a force that united Poland in the 1980s would be to deny reality. But has this Catholic Church united or divided Poland? Jarosław Kaczyński who leads the Law and Justice Party is a 'conservative Catholic' who said of migrants and Muslim refugees from Syria in 2015 that they carry “all sorts of parasites and protozoa, which … while not dangerous in the organisms of these people, could be dangerous here.” [hmmm, where have we heard that language before?]
But another Catholic, Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek said at the same time
“Not accepting refugees practically means resigning from being a Christian,” he said. “I’m ashamed of those who don’t want to do their duty not just as Christians but as human beings.”
In other words, there is no evidence that the dominance of one religious organization in one country acts to unite it, and of course the parallels with the Roman Catholic Church and the Communist Party are so striking one may have replaced the other without 'the proles' noticing the difference, if it were not that they claim to worship different gods.
https://www.politico.eu/article/politics-nationalism-and-religion-explain-why-poland-doesnt-want-refugees/

Civilisations fall over decades, so I need not give any specific dates. .
--You not tell us what you think a civilization is, not an easy task I admit, but by not giving any dates you also do not tell us how, or why civilizations have gone into decline. And, for example, even if you agree with historians that Egyptian Civilization ended with the Roman occupation in 30BCE, the influence of Egyptian civilization which had already been evident in 'classical Greece' endured through the Roman period, so a civilization can cease to rule over a people and a place yet still exist in their minds and in their behaviour and make it difficult to unravel the two, just as it is claimed there are elements of Pagan Britain and its rituals in the manner in which Christianity developed here, and perhaps explain the differences between Buddhism in India and Japan.

I personally see fall of inherited monarchy as a milestone of a country's fall
-Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
As you have said before it appears you approve of Monarchy, yet it begs the question: what if it was the Monarch who created the conditions for his own downfall?
For example, it has been established that numerous factors caused the First World War, but one of them was the ambition of the German Empire to expand the range of its authority, and as it found itself shut out of expansion in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, it turned to Europe. Key decisions were thus made by the Hohenzollern Monarch Wilhelm II, but decisions that led directly to the collapse of his entire Empire, defeat, division, and discord in Germany itself.
As to the benefits of inherited monarchy, how did Russia benefit when Nicolas II inherited the Romanov throne from Alexander III? Central to the period from 1894 to 1917 was a degree of economic growth, some social change as a consequence but mostly in the urban areas, a remarkable continuation of creativity in the arts if you include Alexander and Nicolas's period to include Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Chekhov, Kandinsky, Blok, Akhmatova, and the early Stravinsky -and of course the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, more anti-Jewish pogroms that you can count, military failure in the war with Japan in 1905, administrative reform that collapsed with the assassination of Stolypin in 1911 and thus a sense of impending doom in Russia even before Nicolas -like his royal cousin Wilhelm- took Russia into a disastrous war that ended the Romanov dynasty, his life and that of his family, and the creation of an alternative autocracy under the Communist Party, albeit with Nationalism intact.

In both the Russian and German cases, the fall of the Monarchy did lead to bad things, but those things were the consequence of bad decisions made by those Monarchs and the men and women who supported them before the fall. Crucially for Europe, in these two cases, many of the former supporters of the Romanov's fled Russia in 1917 to live in Munich and Berlin where their anti-Jewish, anti-Communist beliefs became a source of inspiration for the Nazis with whom they bedded down -to re-enact the rise and fall of a pseudo-Monarchy with even more disastrous results.

Just as you cannot offer us a coherent account of civilization, so your quaint attachment to Monarchy raises more questions than it answers. You want to retain the gold from the golden age, but not the blood and shit on which it was built -or maybe you do, and accept that every civilization has its winners and losers?

In the context of this thread, how many civilizations rose and fell because the average person was armed and not under the control of the 'authority' be it a Monarch, Emperor, Wise Leader, Military Junta or Party -or because the people, fed up with corruption, lies, robbery and threats to their own lives, took up arms to overthrow their masters? Is it not thus the case that the expansion of gun ownership in the USA threatens the integrity of the Union by challenging the authority of its government? And, if contempt for government reaches a level where local armed 'militias' believe their rights are being lost, will there be another civil war in the USA?

To fire the first shot -be it Concord or Fort Sumter, the revolutionary needs a gun -and a cause. Even if the cause is not justified, and the consequences are catastrophe for all.

[trish]

What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? https://nyti.ms/2j79rRs

[broncofan]

It is much easier to fool people than convince them that they have been fooled. - Mark Twain
The idea that the average citizen should own an assault rifle is a plague on civilized society. It will be the death of us - Aristotle

[Aticus100]

There was never a golden age of safety.

I don't do meth.

I am no alpha and omega of all knowledge, which is probably one of the main reasons I honour you with my participation in this idiotic congregation on here. As to religion, any religion that strengthens unity of people can be better than none. It can be seen very well here in the UK, especially in some areas, where influences of those religions or ideologies are indeed very visible.

“The bullshit is strong in this one”
Me, doing an impression of Joda, if he’d known RedVex.

[filghy2]

There was never a golden age of safety.

This is what you said in an earlier post:
"If you want less crime then bring back teaching the values that used to make our civilisation great to kids at schools, cut the bureaucracy that we have all become slaves of."

So you admit that people were not safer in this mythical past, or are you going to move the goalposts yet again?

[trish]

Interesting strategy. Have a shooting every day and it'll never be time to talk about gun control. Thoughts and prayers everyone.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-norcal-elementary-school-shooting-20171114-story.html

[filghy2]

Have a shooting every day and it'll never be time to talk about gun control.

If it was done by a muslim, of course, it would be immediately time to talk about terrorism, immigration bans, etc.

[Ts RedVeX]

If you are a subject to a monarch who is an idiot then you are unlucky but at least there is chance that the following monarch is going to be better. Whereas in democracy, a system where 2 winos tell the Oxford proffessor how to bring his kids up just because there is more of them, you, regardless of how many history books you have read, will have to always comply with stupid laws created by people chosen by those 2 winos. When a country is ran by a monkey then at leas the monkey sometimes goes left and sometimes right. When you put a communist (the missing link between monkeys and humans in Darvin's evolution theory) in charge, he always goes left - so he always makes the bad choice.

If you do not believe that a monarch can protect you from a terrorist or a psycho with a gun, then how come you think a republican or democratic leader can? Especially when it is the 2 winos who spend their dole money on booze who vote for that leader. Obviously, nobody is going rob them at gun point, will they?

And in mythical past, when a monarch went to battle, peasants would not have to worry about being blown up by a terrorist because it was simply not their business as long as the battle was not taking place on his field. Nowadays people are being deceived into thinking that police is there to protect you and then you see a vide where 5 armed policemen are running away from a crook with a knife hecause of human rights, democracy and all that kind of bollocks... Sure. Bring about more rights. Maybe you will eventually be able to print all of them out and hide from bullets and shrapnel under all that paper!

[Stavros]

And in mythical past, when a monarch went to battle, peasants would not have to worry about being blown up by a terrorist because it was simply not their business as long as the battle was not taking place on his field. Nowadays people are being deceived into thinking that police is there to protect you and then you see a vide where 5 armed policemen are running away from a crook with a knife hecause of human rights, democracy and all that kind of bollocks... Sure. Bring about more rights. Maybe you will eventually be able to print all of them out and hide from bullets and shrapnel under all that paper!

In the real, as opposed to the 'mythical past', the peasants had to fight and die for their monarch, not having the right to ask why. Just as in the last year or so there have been more videos of innocent men being shot dead by racist policemen than policemen running away from robbers with knives. I don't know why you struggle so much with the concept of the 'social contract' that emerged in Hobbes, was taken further in Locke, and given practical, political expression in the Constitution of the USA. Your attempt to dismiss democracy as the work of two 'winos' is so silly one wonders if you even believe it yourself.

[Ts RedVeX]

Oh really? What would a peasant armed with with a scythe, or even a combine-harvester be to an armed ISIS soldier but cannon fodder? You would call their encounter a fight, I would call it slaughter. My dismissal of democracy is not silly. In theory, it is exactly how I described it: 2 winos' votes, who cannot see beyond what they gonna drink this coming afternoon, against the vote of an intelligent hard-working man, who is actually capable of seeing the bigger picture. I think I already mentioned that only maybe 10% of human population is even capable of abstract thinking. The will just blindly believing what they are told by the talking boxes they have at their homes without giving much thought to what they hear.

[Stavros]

Oh really? What would a peasant armed with with a scythe, or even a combine-harvester be to an armed ISIS soldier but cannon fodder? You would call their encounter a fight, I would call it slaughter. My dismissal of democracy is not silly. In theory, it is exactly how I described it: 2 winos' votes, who cannot see beyond what they gonna drink this coming afternoon, against the vote of an intelligent hard-working man, who is actually capable of seeing the bigger picture. I think I already mentioned that only maybe 10% of human population is even capable of abstract thinking. The will just blindly believing what they are told by the talking boxes they have at their homes without giving much thought to what they hear.

Once again I struggle to make sense of your arguments, as I think you do too. If you take an interest in the history then the peasants with scythes or pikes would belong to the local 'Baron' who would round them up as his contribution to the King's cause be it Ireland, 'France', Spain or the Scots -but that assumes loyalty to the King which has not always been found. As for the peasants, like the man said 'if they die, they die'.

So when you write: And in mythical past, when a monarch went to battle, peasants would not have to worry about being blown up by a terrorist because it was simply not their business as long as the battle was not taking place on his field. I wonder if you know what you are talking about, at least in the context of British history. When the Monarch was unable to command the authority of his subjects -to be specific, King Henry VI- the political agreement to support him broke down, and civil war ensued, so the 'monarch' was in effect at war with 'his' own people except they no longer recognised him as such with one side declaring emphatically the opposite of what you claim when you write If you are a subject to a monarch who is an idiot then you are unlucky but at least there is chance that the following monarch is going to be better.

So in fact, monarchy and its failures led to 'slaughter' -as you rightly put it- for example, on one day in the civil war, the 29th of March 1461, soldiers loyal to the Yorkist 'King' Edward IV clashed with soldiers loyal to Lancaster with estimated deaths in one day of 27,000, or 1% of the population of England at that time.

One could extend this to the Civil War in the USA with the key point being that when there is a consensus on government, and the state provides security for its citizens through the rule of law and the legitimate monopoly of force, peace is the basic character of daily life. But if enough people question that legitimacy, and are prepared to back it up with a challenge to the rule of law through armed conflict, the breakdown of the state and civil war follows.

In the context of this thread, you have to explain how the USA can justify the ownership of battle-field/military grade weapons to civilians who for the most part live in peace with the security of law and order, the police, the National Guard and indeed, the armed forces of the USA to protect them. Even in the cases of Black Americans shot dead by law enforcement, the counter-argument, that Black Americas should go armed to defend themselves from law enforcement is weak, even if they also challenge the legitimacy of White America to police them, much as some White Americans deny the right of the 'Feds' to impose taxes and laws on them they do not like. It is not the legitimacy of the USA that is at stake here, but the legitimate arguments of the Bundy Clan and all those Americans who claim the right to 'bear arms' as if there was a war on- because there is no war and the USA has not been invaded.

As for your dismissal of democracy, it exposes a bizarre perception of the UK in which you live. Look around you, all those 'ordinary' people who have jobs and families cannot be described as 'winos' and are obviously not Oxford Professors (of which there are not that many and most of them are Tories); they cannot all be dismissed as ignorant, communists, dupes, morons or whatever juvenile word you have in your locker when you are stuck for words.
Democracy took us into the EU and appears to be taking us out of it, I supported one and opposed the latter, thereby winning one and losing another, that is democracy and we can challenge the contradictions -the fishing community in Grimsby that voted to Leave the EU that now say they want to remain in the Single Market being an outstanding example. How would a powerful, policy-making Monarch be better than what we have now?

We fought wars to support Monarchs and fought wars against them. Ask an American: was George Washington, an officer in the King's Army a Traitor or a Hero when he rebelled against his King? So far you have failed to justify Monarchy as opposed to Democracy, but I don't doubt you will have another stab at this carcass of an argument.

[Aticus100]

I feel the need to point out a flaw in RedVex’s monkey analogy.
If, as is reasonable, we assume that decision to turn right is just as likely to be correct as the decision to turn left, then the money who randomly turns either left or right will be no more or less likely to be correct than the monkey who always turns left.

Just thought we should at least get that point straight. It’s the details that matter you know.

[Ts RedVeX]

Going left, or "left" is wrong. We don't assume that it is right. Hence, where a monkey has 50% chance to make a good decision of going right, or "right", then a communist has 0% chance of making a good decision as they always go "left", or left. I would also like to note that I do not mean "right" it the sense of what today's politicians declaring to be "right" represent, as there are no conservative politicians in the mainstream politics at all. There are only "far-left" and "further-left" ones. Politics and state are bad in general. They are the necessary evil that people have to agree to to avoid anarchy. Hence there should be as few officials and a single leader, court, army and police, and pretty much nothing else constituting to State (that has to live of its subjects hard work - there is no going around that).

The main reason, Stavros, why we do not understand eachother is that you are talking about history, about which you probably do know much more than I do, at least in terms or the UK's history, while I am talking about ideology. The main difference between an ideology and how it is being implemented is that there are no compromises regarding to an ideology's paradigm, whereas in politics and implementing an ideology, compromise is allowed. What I am mainly on about is that you seem to be a dedicated socialist, where I am totally not. I see no point in arguing historical facts with you because we view events differently because we have different beliefs. E.g. you see the NSZZ Solidarnosc movement as something good, and I see it as something bad. (Even though the workers also believed, and most of them still believe, it was good for them)There is no way I can convince you that the whole movement was a planned transfer of power from the socialists in power at the time in Poland, into the hands of their younger agents out of Which the leader - Lech Walesa happened to have been a worker.

On gun ban, as communists or socialists like to call them "rights", or as I, as well as this thread's author, like to call it "restrictions", the idea of telling people they cannot bear them at will is simply against the paradigm of individual freedom. I don't care how many more or less people get killed by guns. All I care about is that I will be able to defend myself, my property and family in case of an emergency. THe fact that guns are much more dangerous than knives makes people handle them with even more care than they do when handling knives, thus THere cannot be an increase in gun deaths caused by lack of regulation in the long run. Of course, that excludes the period where all the idiots shoot themselves which, by the way, is a good thing in the long run, as there will be less idiots in the society.

Imagine that you have a car that is 100% safe and can reach 500 miles per hour. Because you cannot get hurt if you crash that car, you are more likely to drive it recklessly and kill others than you would if you were driving a normal car without seatbelts or airbags. This is because in the 100%safe car you have no responsibility for your acting silly in the form of capital punishment executed immediately upon crashing at 500mph. That proves why death penalty is so important and why "human rights" should be scrapped as well, but that is another issue.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1803602

there are no conservative politicians in the mainstream politics at all. There are only "far-left" and "further-left" ones. Politics and state are bad in general. They are the necessary evil that people have to agree to to avoid anarchy. Hence there should be as few officials and a single leader, court, army and police, and pretty much nothing else constituting to State (that has to live of its subjects hard work - there is no going around that)
--I accept that you take a radical view of politics that dismisses politicians who claim to be 'Conservative' as not being conservative at all, but that it is because they can only be 'conservative' if they meet your definition of it, but few people do. But Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were conservatives, whatever you may say.

It is also confusing because your promotion of Monarchy as a form of rule, and your belief in the rights of individual sit in contradiction with each other. Monarchy as a form of rule existed for over a thousand years in Europe and failed to create or allow the kind of world you believe in where individuals make their own fate without any intervention from the Monarch and 'the Kingdom', because that is not what monarchies do. Monarchies collapsed between 1776 and Hitler because they became obstacles to economic and social progress released by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and strangled political expression among the people who resented the powers and privileges of monarchs and their hangers-on who produced nothing but spent everything.

For someone who believes markets know best, it is hard, if not impossible to reconcile monarchy with a free society. The closest you get to it may be the creation in England of 'market towns' which the monarch relieved from taxation -but if Stratford-upon-Avon, given market status by Henry VIII, why not the whole country? After all, it was the prosperity of Stratford that enabled the parents of a cheeky lad called William to go to a fine school where he was taught by graduates of Oxford who introduced him to Greek and Roman classics, and Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, without which we might not have those splendid history plays.

A signal weakness in Monarchy which also runs counter to your arguments and beliefs, is that the taxation you deplore was often the only means whereby the King could wage war. Even by the late 18th century when the powers of the English king were more limited than they had been before, the King's government in 1798 introduced the first form of income tax that we know today, in order to raise funds for the war against France. It was a temporary measure that was abolished in 1802 but revived soon after because Napoleon would not go away but the tax was abolished again after Waterloo, even though the government needed it to pay off the debts it had acquired to fight the French, Parliament voted against it.
You see the problem? War needs taxes- war creates debt-debt needs taxes. In peace time, Peel as Prime Minister re-introduced income tax in 1842, but he did so as a free marketeer and devotee of Adam Smith. Income tax was a replacement for the protected import and export duties on products that Peel believed undermined a free market, and it is claimed by liberating the market from the constraints of protection, the economy grew. But the income tax Peel expected to last for 3 years had to be extended because of the growing importance of the railways which were in trouble and needed state funding, and crucially, the war in the Crimea which had to be paid for.

So you see, Monarchs and Conservatives alike wish to preserve state power, rather than free markets, which in reality do not exist. And whether it is monarchs or governments, taxes are raised to wage war, or to offset obstacles to trade in the market, or to support failing businesses where in the 1840s you might say 'the railways were too big to fail'. But in your world, I daresay the railways should have been left to go bust until another entrepreneur came along to revive them.

The main reason, Stavros, why we do not understand eachother is that you are talking about history, about which you probably do know much more than I do, at least in terms or the UK's history, while I am talking about ideology. The main difference between an ideology and how it is being implemented is that there are no compromises regarding to an ideology's paradigm, whereas in politics and implementing an ideology, compromise is allowed. What I am mainly on about is that you seem to be a dedicated socialist, where I am totally not. I see no point in arguing historical facts with you because we view events differently because we have different beliefs. E.g. you see the NSZZ Solidarnosc movement as something good, and I see it as something bad. (Even though the workers also believed, and most of them still believe, it was good for them)There is no way I can convince you that the whole movement was a planned transfer of power from the socialists in power at the time in Poland, into the hands of their younger agents out of Which the leader - Lech Walesa happened to have been a worker.
--Again, because you believe anyone who supports the NHS is a socialist, I must therefore be a socialist, regardless of what I have to say about it. It is too complex to explain in a few words, because history and ideology are not only not exact, they thrive because of the arguments within and between them. If there were no disagreements in the interpretation of history, we would have only one narrative, just as if there were no disagreements within an ideology, those 'systems of thought' or 'dogmas' would never have experienced the convulsions they have.
You are trying to reduce the state, society and the individual to a matter of choice or compulsion, opting for an end to what you see as compulsion in favour of the freedom of the individual within or without a state. What you cannot do to my satisfaction is measure the space between the individual and the state in order to justify one and not the other. The NHS offers an example of how the State can provide a service that runs against the argument that state-run services fail because they inhibit innovation. The advances in medicine and medical training that we have experienced since 1945 have all been part of a socially funded service. Some innovations may have happened in a health care business run for profit, but the evidence that the alternative works is clear from the NHS in the UK and its equivalent services in Europe. Single and brilliant individuals have emerged from the NHS, none of them would have succeeded without their colleagues, and without the funding from the public that made their careers and innovations possible.

You deride the Solidarity movement in Poland, not because of the role it played in ending the rule of Communist Parties in Poland, Russia and Eastern Europe, but because the outcome has not been the one you wanted. But that does not in fact detract from the achievement; you can disagree with it, but you cannot re-write history just to suit your ideas and expect others to agree yours is the only valid interpretation. That is not history, it is ideology. In the end, you have preferred the comfort blanket of an ideology of individualism rather than the more complex realities of history.

On gun ban, as communists or socialists like to call them "rights", or as I, as well as this thread's author, like to call it "restrictions", the idea of telling people they cannot bear them at will is simply against the paradigm of individual freedom. I don't care how many more or less people get killed by guns. All I care about is that I will be able to defend myself, my property and family in case of an emergency. THe fact that guns are much more dangerous than knives makes people handle them with even more care than they do when handling knives, thus THere cannot be an increase in gun deaths caused by lack of regulation in the long run. Of course, that excludes the period where all the idiots shoot themselves which, by the way, is a good thing in the long run, as there will be less idiots in the society.
--Although this is the key issue in this thread, I have already argued that US citizens are already protected and cannot justify owning guns of the kind that they do. Even you have not in fact told us if you want a 'gun', or an arsenal of battlefield weapons 'in case of an emergency'. Most Americans call 911 in an emergency. The deeper issues we have discussed before so there is little else to say. Americans have decided they must have guns, it is up to them to decide if and when they can limit the kind of guns they can legally purchase, and in the meantime innocent civilians will be killed again and again.

But I have to say, when you claim I don't care how many more or less people get killed by guns you let yourself down. Perhaps if you did care, you might change your mind on gun ownership, because one day, it might be you on the wrong end of a gun, and you will want other people who do care to help you, indeed, to save you.

[slave2u]

Politics and state are bad in general. They are the necessary evil that people have to agree to to avoid anarchy.
......
Imagine that you have a car that is 100% safe and can reach 500 miles per hour. Because you cannot get hurt if you crash that car, you are more likely to drive it recklessly and kill others than you would if you were driving a normal car without seatbelts or airbags. This is because in the 100%safe car you have no responsibility for your acting silly in the form of capital punishment executed immediately upon crashing at 500mph. That proves why death penalty is so important and why "human rights" should be scrapped as well, but that is another issue.

i have been trying not to get involved in this debate but....
you ague that politics and state are bad in general, but are a necessary evil as they prevent anarchy.
i'd argue that the state is crucial to any form of civilisation above a communal level (and even then there would be leaders and rules - so politics and state).
even absolute monarchs had to deal with politics and would have had a bureaucracy (state) supporting them.

then you follow through with your 100% safe car example (ignoring that 100% safe means there can be no accidents of any type thus rendering the example redundant), but assume a 99% safe car and the 1% unsafe comes from reckless driving.
then that is where the state comes into play - yes you may walk away from a 500mph crash, but you won't escape the laws that govern reckless driving.

[Aticus100]

Going left, or "left" is wrong. We don't assume that it is right. Hence, where a monkey has 50% chance to make a good decision of going right, or "right", then a communist has 0% chance of making a good decision as they always go "left", or left. .

No RedVex, a monkey going left means the monkey is going left. Going right means it's going right.

Every single thing in the world does not need to be viewed for your bizarre prism of communist hatred.

You're unhinged.

[Ts RedVeX]

you know what? ban guns. The general will have an easier job when time comes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMl680WMDoA

[Stavros]

you know what? ban guns. The general will have an easier job when time comes


This anti-Jewish filth was offensive the first time you posted it, you must be desperate to drag it out of the sewer again having run out of arguments.

[Ts RedVeX]

Heyyyy tovarish :D Look, you are on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcScKynlyic

[Ts RedVeX]

This is actually quite an interesting channel. Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNABl0NJArA we have a socialist saying that the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics was not socialist, that democracy is good for socialism (which is true, of course), that regulations are socialist and he also explains how a socialist company would run. I wonder how Steven would run his companies if all the workers were voting democratically how much they should be paid, which solutions to implement, etc. etc :dead:

[dreamon]

I LOVE Vladimir Jaffe. That guy is awesome.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR5_ytqLXXM

Their faces when he says "I was born in USSR" :dead::dead:

[dreamon]

you know what? ban guns. The general will have an easier job when time comes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMl680WMDoA

Exactly. Gun control is the policy of authoritarian and totalitarian governments. Thankfully, America has ensured many civil liberties through the Bill of Rights.

[smalltownguy]

I LOVE Vladimir Jaffe. That guy is awesome.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR5_ytqLXXM

Their faces when he says "I was born in USSR" :dead::dead:

ya.. f*cking awesome !!! :fuckin:

[broncofan]

2 out of 3 people like a video that contains a caricature of a Jewish man, with a large nose, a yarmulke and a heavy beard being mowed down in a firing line. It's not even subtle but actually a ubiquitous image displayed on neo-nazi forums across the web. There really is no hope for some people, especially redvex but also those who watched that video and decided they like genocidal antisemitism. Not to mention death squads in general without the bias element....

[legault]

3 out of 4 now ;)

[Stavros]

Makes you wonder if the people who approve of videos that celebrate murder would be willing to do it themselves. The chilling thought is that they would.

[Ben in LA]

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/901017001

Please let the record show that an ENTIRELY GOP-CONTROLLED government is literally and actually attempting to take away your guns, not the Kenyan Muslim that was formerly in office and accused of attempting that same thing for eight years.

[fred41]

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/901017001

Please let the record show that an ENTIRELY GOP-CONTROLLED government is literally and actually attempting to take away your guns, not the Kenyan Muslim that was formerly in office and accused of attempting that same thing for eight years.

Based on the article you quoted alone, I would say this is a common sense measure. They are retrieving weapons that should not have been sold in the first place. I would like to think either administration (or either/ both parties) would enact the same measures. In this case, the administration is doing the right thing. Doing the right thing should never be slammed to support political ideology...leave that to the heinous politicians themselves.

[fred41]

Nice to see I can now add - 'anti-semitic cunt' to the list. (you know who you are)

[MrFanti]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/27/16557550/alcohol-tobacco-opioids-epidemic-emergency



In 2016, this drug was linked to more deaths than guns, car crashes, or even HIV/AIDS at its peak. Actually, it was associated with more deaths than guns and car crashes combined.


And yet folks here still "believe" guns to be more of a dangerous than alcohol.......

[MrFanti]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/27/16557550/alcohol-tobacco-opioids-epidemic-emergency



And yet folks here still "believe" guns to be more of a dangerous than alcohol.......


Guess the "thumbs down" voters really need their drinks being oblivious to the facts of deaths attributed to alcohol.....

[trish]

Either that or they think you're off topic and should have created a separate thread devoted to your special pet peeve.

[yodajazz]

Guess the "thumbs down" voters really need their drinks being oblivious to the facts of deaths attributed to alcohol.....

I think it is a 'apple vs oranges' type of thing. And consider this: Alcohol is responsible for a lot more births, than guns. lol

[filghy2]

Guess the "thumbs down" voters really need their drinks being oblivious to the facts of deaths attributed to alcohol.....

You've admitted previously that you are not actually in favour of banning alcohol, so enough with the crocodile tears. People are giving you thumbs down because you are being tedious and unimaginative.

[MrFanti]

You've admitted previously that you are not actually in favour of banning alcohol, so enough with the crocodile tears. People are giving you thumbs down because you are being tedious and unimaginative.

You really need to READ more carefully.
What I've said is that if one wants to demand a ban on guns because of the danger, then it's hypocritical to NOT want to ban alcohol too since alcohol has been shown to be more dangerous than guns.

Read what I say instead of interpreting for your own biases...

[trish]

Okay, you think those very very few who are calling on a ban of all firearms but not a total prohibition against alcohol are entangled in a contradiction provided the reason behind their call for a ban is based on body count.

So let’s examine how that is relevant to this thread:
If they’re right about guns, then they’re wrong about alcohol. Okay. But they’re still right about guns and your observation is irrelevant to the point of the thread.
If they’re wrong about guns, then it would be easier to address that directly rather than trying to disentangle the many distinctions between firearms and alcohol - all material for another thread, not this one.
You're point is irrelevant.

In any case most people here are only calling for more controls on firearms and are perfectly happy with regulating liquor as well. All of these things have already been discussed. It’s not that we haven’t read and understood your posts, you just don’t agree with our replies. Accusing us of not reading carefully enough doesn’t advance your case.

[Stavros]

You really need to READ more carefully.
What I've said is that if one wants to demand a ban on guns because of the danger, then it's hypocritical to NOT want to ban alcohol too since alcohol has been shown to be more dangerous than guns.
Read what I say instead of interpreting for your own biases...

From wikipedia:

in 2016, 37,461 people were killed in 34,436 crashes, an average of 102per day. In 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes (30,296 fatal crashes), killing 32,999 and injuring 2,239,000,and around 2,000 children under 16 years old die every year due to traffic collisions.Records indicate that there has been a total of 3,613,732 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States from 1899 to 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Protect your citizens, and ban motor vehicles...

[broncofan]

From wikipedia:

in 2016, 37,461 people were killed in 34,436 crashes, an average of 102per day. In 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes (30,296 fatal crashes), killing 32,999 and injuring 2,239,000,and around 2,000 children under 16 years old die every year due to traffic collisions.Records indicate that there has been a total of 3,613,732 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States from 1899 to 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Protect your citizens, and ban motor vehicles...
This is a good example of how ridiculous his argument is. But he is likely to actually see it as useful and another red herring to use. He will also dutifully ignore the rebuttals.

What matters in all of these areas of potential regulation is: how many deaths are preventable? Given the current state of regulation, how many deaths would be prevented by additional layers of regulation? What are the costs of those regulations?

In the case of alcohol, we tried to ban it and were not able to. So now there is a mandated drinking age that is greater than the age at which one can vote and enter the military. There are strict rules against driving and using machinery when intoxicated. There are additional layers of liability for proprietors who serve alcohol, encouraging them to use discretion when they do. We don't see a bunch of viable approaches to preventing death through regulation that can be implemented but which are blocked by lobbying.

What about motor vehicles? Well, we register cars, we have mandatory insurance, we have mandatory testing for the competency of drivers, we revoke the privilege for reckless behavior. Cars are required to have seatbelts and maybe airbags, though in the latter case if it's not mandatory they usually do. Car manufacturers are sued even when people misuse their products in predictable ways and the products fail. For instance, there have been successful suits against car manufacturers when cars flip in situations where the driver is at least partly to blame.

But with guns? Lobbying has prevented the implementation of features that make guns safer. Lobbying has prevented all sorts of regulations that in aggregate would save lives. You don't see that with motor vehicle safety or anything that is a public hazard and can be addressed...

The issue is what can be done in a sensible way v. what is actually done. And if Mr. Fanti actually considered these things, he'd realize how silly his red herring examples make him seem. In the meantime, when I'm not posting, I'm happy to vote with my thumbs.

[rhythmicdelivery]

Soooooooooooo....


With all the crazy'ness in the world goin on....


What do all the firearm owners in on the forum think YOUR president will do about arms in January???


I tried to get as many 18 rnd 9mm & 14 rnd .45ACP mags I could find before the ban takes place.....and there WILL be one!


But....EVERYWHERE I go...All "Hi-Cap" Mags & Rifles are gone!!!!!!



I couldnt even get one!!!!!


Unreal.......


Gun shops are chaging almost $200 for ONE used 30 rnd magazine....


Its all about the money I guess!!!!!


No one said anything when the IRS ( Internel Revenue Service ) bought 1,000,000 rounds of 9mm!


WTF does the IRS need with a million rounds of 9mm!
Damn...They got all the money....now they want all the ammo too ?!....


SOMETHING is going down.....WAKE THE FUCK up people!!!!

Share your thoughts!


Eve,


xoxo

These old the sky is falling stock up on bullets rhreads are my personal jam.

Never change, wingnuts.

[javier81]

These old the sky is falling stock up on bullets rhreads are my personal jam.

Never change, wingnuts.

An outright gun ban is never going to happen. However, the bones cast predicting the death of the NRA seem to be aligned correctly. Can't wait to have a few beers in memory of one of the worst organizations in American history.