81–90 of 204 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guns are like a megaphone for violence. Violent people will still exist but their reach is far less with a knife
lets have a serious discussion... knife is like number 5000 on a crazy persons shopping list. gun is probably 300 but also easier than 1-299
I never understood how anyone can take another life. To take away the memories, the experiences, the future potential of another spirit - all for the sake of what? Hate? Money? Power? How can anything be worth more than the only thing that allows one to experience this world? Sad.
Starvation, poverty, vengeance. Would you willingly let yourself starve to death? Would you willingly watch your kids starve to death? Most crime is done out of desperation, and if you and enough other people around you are desperate enough it becomes normalized behavior in order to survive. You get robbed, so instead of dieing a hobo, you rob somebody else, the problem perpetuates itself because there are so few alt…
This is just wrong.
The vast majority of Mexicans don't commit murder, and they are definitely not starving.
Greed, egoism, pettiness, rage, psychopathy, nihilism are more likely reasons.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>One of the answers is money. It would be convenient if it were true, but I don't think money is a great explanation. I come from a rural area in the Midwest, the people are very poor (even poorer than the urban poor) but have a lot of guns. Despite being poor and armed, the gun homicide rates are very low (the suicide rates are unfortunately not that low). Can you help me understand why poor farmers in the midwest d…
The answer to your question was in the comment: > for policing, for prisons, for making sure corruption and taking bribes from crime is less of an attractive choice Does this rural Midwest area have an active police presence? How well policed do you think a rural area in Mexico is?
The debate here has focused on guns as the problem. Guns are not the problem, they are an expression of the problem. To quote the article: "The Economist stated that rapid urbanisation and inequalities in wealth distribution were some of the largest factors in violent crime, and as one of the most unequal countries on the planet, Brazil backs up this claim." I think this statement applies to Mexico and other Latin Am…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet the US has the highest numbers of mass shootings.
That's not an undisputed fact. https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-us-leads-the-worl...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
> The United States has had more mass shootings than any other country.
This article mixes and matches statistical types and conclusions in a confusing manner. For example, if most United States firearm deaths are suicides, it is misleading to then follow with a quote saying “where there are more guns there is more homicide.”
Yet the US has the highest numbers of mass shootings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>One of the answers is money. It would be convenient if it were true, but I don't think money is a great explanation. I come from a rural area in the Midwest, the people are very poor (even poorer than the urban poor) but have a lot of guns. Despite being poor and armed, the gun homicide rates are very low (the suicide rates are unfortunately not that low). Can you help me understand why poor farmers in the midwest d…
The answer to your question was in the comment: > for policing, for prisons, for making sure corruption and taking bribes from crime is less of an attractive choice Does this rural Midwest area have an active police presence? How well policed do you think a rural area in Mexico is?
Not anything like you'd see in a more developed area. We had a county sheriff - I recall going months without seeing a law enforcement officer, I think we had a police to citizen ratio about 1/4th that of the nearest major city. Over the holidays, even getting emergency services can be really dicey. One time my neighbors were screaming and yelling at each other, we called the police and the dispatch told us that unless we heard it get physical, they wouldn't be able to send an officer out until the next day or the day after.
>How well policed do you think a rural area in Mexico is?
Probably equally as well, but the police in rural mexico are much more likely to be an extension of the cartels than police in the rural Midwest. If those cases, increasing patrols would actually increase cartel power. Until Mexico figures out their corruption issues, it's not clear how things can get better.
The debate here has focused on guns as the problem. Guns are not the problem, they are an expression of the problem. To quote the article: "The Economist stated that rapid urbanisation and inequalities in wealth distribution were some of the largest factors in violent crime, and as one of the most unequal countries on the planet, Brazil backs up this claim." I think this statement applies to Mexico and other Latin Am…
Yeah central american in general is a shithole. In Bolivia we are having trouble with colombians bringing in a ton of violence to the streets. To the point where hitmen tried to gun down people leaving their apartment complexes and being killed themselves, left on the sidewalk for everyone to see. Evo certainly didn't help with narcos coming up big league since his illegitimate presidency. These degenerates come to B…
The violence is concentrated in a few parts of the country. It’s not like you walk out of your house and get shot at every day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not an undisputed fact. https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-us-leads-the-worl...
From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S... > The United States has had more mass shootings than any other country.
If you'll check the references for that statement, they're all news articles based on a single study.
A study that the link above already discussed. A study that "excluded gang-related shootings, drive-by shootings, hostage-taking incidents, robberies and acts of genocide or terrorism."[1]
In other words, it's a custom-designed, cherry-picked statistic designed to make the US look worse than it is.
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/05/does-us-l...