241–250 of 389 posts
"Scene is clear. Call unfounded. No threat to public safety in #CambMA #MIT" https://twitter.com/CambridgePolice/status/30533598012521267...
"Call unfounded" - I wonder if that means they got a prank call or maybe someone saw some geek costume with fake gun/armor
I'd still like to know what actually happened, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can thank the media for that. Its not that the violence is increasing. As you say, it is the opposite in fact. But the amount we HEAR about violence is skyrocketing. So everyone, do yourselves a favor; STOP WATCHING THE NEWS! Stop reading it! It doesn't benefit you. Take it from a recovering news junkie. You won't miss it. You won't feel less informed. The important stuff will always make it to your eyes and ears…
I have always wondered if crimes are getting more violent or if the amount of coverage we give the violent ones has increased. The closest I will get to the news is the Daily Show, because at least they poke fun at the American media for how ridiculous they can be.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I'll start by saying we do not have a gun problem in this country. We have a people problem" You have a culture problem, not a people problem. A culture whereby you are so fearful of violence that you have to carry a gun on your person every day is a broken one.
I can tell you without a doubt that I do not live in fear. Carrying a gun simply lets me go about my day knowing that I am equipped to handle an unpleasant or potentially deadly situation should I have to. Where do you live that you believe you will never fall victim to a crime? Are there no bad people where you live? There are a lot of great people where I live in a very affluent and safe environment but I'm not nai…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The history of the world is essentially a long string of instances of oppression of the many by the few. Democracy is but a blip on humanity's timeline, and there is no guarantee that what is today will still be a century or two (or a decade) from now. We came remarkably close to an all-out financial collapse just a few years ago - what happens if we aren't able to save ourselves the next time that happens; what happ…
If massacres of children in school and young students in college aren't examples of few oppressing many then I don't know what is.
But I'll bite anyways: how many more children have died under oppressive regimes where the people were not able to defend themselves?
I'd be interested to know how Americans who live in countries with strict gun controls feel about not being able to carry a weapon? Do they feel any less safe?
I grew up around guns. I was a pretty good shot -- expert with the M16, M60.
But I own no guns now. I never will.
I simply don't understand how someone can feel safer around a loaded gun. It's a fallacy to think that because you've gone through training, or that you go to the range, or whatever, that you are better equipped to handle a weapon; it's akin to claiming that you are safer walking around with a lit stick of dynamite -- just because you have done it a lot.
Which leads to why I felt so much safer in Germany. It wasn't the idea that criminals didn't have guns, it was that every empty-headed fool didn't have one. The real problem is that I am subjected to every fool's second-ammendment rights. It's not just that they can blow their own head off with their foolishness, but that me and my family are also endangered by them.
Although they may be our family, friends and neighbors; although they may be good people; they endanger us through their "rights." I would much rather live in the "danger" of a place where only criminals, police and soldiers carry weapons than to live in the "safety" of a place where any fool with a pinch of paranoia who has watched too many action-adventure apocalyptic movies can play soldier.
Good that the man was not found there(in a sense that no one was harmed). I still would like to understand few things. Of course I shall not be able to understand how it feels to have a gun when you want it(and afterwards take a decision on how to use it. To defend yourself or flash in malls or kill children for fun or out of depression) as I live in a country where having fire-arms is either a luxury for powerful an…
You assume that there _was_ a man and that he had a firearm. Both are likely to be false, especially the latter.
"There's some reason you have police, military, para-military and federal agencies so that citizens don't have to handle this aspect of security."
No, the police cannot protect the citizen from crime but they can report and investigate crime. Occasionally the police intercept a crime-in-progress. But their intervention is optional: officers may pass by a crime in progress during shift change; otherwise they'll be writing an offense report for hours. Old saying: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."
Also courts have consistently held that police are not required to protect someone. So people in the USA are in general allowed to protect themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html
"is it as easy and as simple to get a gun in USA as it's projected in films or in the media? "
It was once much easier: IIRC in the "Death Wish" movie series, Charles Bronson's character obtains his firearms via mail-order. Today it's a more involved process:
TO PURCHASE A FIREARM FROM AN FFL DEALER:
The buyer must complete and sign a "4473 form" verifying his fitness to own a firearm (to lie is a crime). The buyer must provide identification information (e.g., driver's license). The dealer phones the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). NICS is given the buyer information plus the fact that the purchase is either a long gun or a handgun (no firearm serial numbers, etc. are given to NICS). NICS does a background check and either allows or disallows the sale. The buyer pays the dealer and is given the firearm. Afterward, in a separate "bound-book", the dealer records the 4473 info along with the firearms' identifying information. The 4473 forms and the bound-book are kept forever and, if the dealer goes out of business, those records are given to the government.
http://www.atf.gov/applications/e4473/
http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/atf-f-4473.html
So to form a registry of all purchased firearms in the USA would require linking the NICS information (which legally is mandated to be destroyed after a short period of time) with the 4473 information. Federal gun control laws have driven relentlessly toward that goal (combined NICS + 4473 = firearms registration) all the while saying that a firearms registry is fantasy. But there's more...
TO PURCHASE A FIREARM FROM AN INDIVIDUAL:
The buyer must provide proof to the seller that he may legally purchase a firearm in that state. This varies from state to state but usually consists of the buyer showing a driver's license from that state and then stating that he may legally own a firearm (essentially the questions on the 4473 form must be accounted for). To lie is a crime. No NICS check is performed and no records need be kept.
This latter transaction is often termed the "Gun Show Loophole" although it can occur anywhere (no gun show is required). It is a private firearms transfer between private individuals: not dealer to customer, or customer to dealer. It is termed a "loophole" by anti-gunners because it prevents tracing firearms' with the combined NICS + 4473 information: it would render a firearms registry at least partially incomplete.
So today we are two steps away from full firearms registration:
- eliminate private firearms transfers between private individuals,
- allow the government to collect and keep forever all NICS and 4473 information.
PROBLEMS
- It is unknown whether the (passed) NICS check information is discarded after 24 hours as is mandated by law (a failed NICS check is kept longer for investigation since it indicates a crime may has been committed). One who was thorough would inquire as to the logging and backup systems used by NICS. Worst case: ATF has all NICS check data in a database.
- 4473 form information may be destroyed after 20 years. However the dealer's bound-book must be given to a business' new owner or handed over to the ATF when the business closes. Worst case: ATF has lots of 4473 information in a database.
- There have apparently been instances where the ATF scanned (illegally) dealers' 4473 forms en masse during audits.
- Worst case overall: ATF (illegally) has a combined NICS + 4473 database which is a partial registry of legally-purchased firearms in the USA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm interested in hearing your thought on this in more detail. Can you explain how the police in the UK are able to get to your house fast enough in the middle of the night when someone breaks in? It takes hardly even 30 seconds to kick in a door or break a window and enter a home. Are you really capable of calling the police, having them respond, enter and clear your own home before that person does harm to you and…
(I'll answer in the most crude general terms without aiming for nuance just to give you an idea of the culture here. Of course the reality is much more detailed than I can describe in a few paragraphs and what I say is only true to the coarsest approximation.) UK residents are simply not afraid of being shot, because there are so few firearms. Armed robberies (with guns and with other weapons) do happen and as I unde…
"Swann noted that in the UK, there are 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people. By contrast, there are 466 violent crimes per 100,000 here in America." - http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/01/10/fox-af...
(I couldn't find a list of countries on Wikipedia sorted by violent crime, only by intentional homicide, so this is the best source I could cite in the time available for making this comment)
Edit to add: I believe that abandoning fear of negative outcomes is the solution to many of our problems, not tightening the reins on society to try to prevent negative outcomes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like it's a hidden conspiracy. Gun control activists have explicitly stated that they need to take advantage of the emotion following the shootings to push their agenda. And yes, the goal of many of them (including the author of the assault weapons ban currently proposed) is confiscation. She said it herself.
Yeah it's totally irrational to seek the most obvious way to prevent recurrence of the shooting massacre of 20 children, which happens with a marked regularity. Only a New World Order could explain why people want to ban guns.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Societies must make the decision whether the opportunities lost by the vast majority of law-abiding people are worth denying opportunities to the very few criminals. Is the cure more damaging than the poison? Is a gun-free society forcing its will on those who want to own guns better or worse than a society in which criminals have slightly easier access to guns by stealing them from law-abiding owners?
You mean the opportunity to increase your probability of violent death? http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full
Edit: your reference appears to lump suicide and homicide together, which is not germane to a discussion about gun control. I'd wager that studies would find there's a correlation between owning over the counter or prescription medications and the risk of medication-induced death in the home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a lot of fear people have of guns is because they are unfamiliar with what they can and cannot do, how to use one properly, how to tell if someone else is using their gun properly, etc. Concealed carry permits already require classes and background checks. Maybe gun safety should be taught to everybody. As further evidence that the fear of guns may be overblown, consider just how widespread gun ownership is,…
Ah, so here's the point where it gets all "us vs them", eh? I have fired guns, enjoy shooting, and several (but not all) of my family members own guns. It's not that I don't believe safe gun ownership is impossible, it's that I don't trust other people, and I would like their failures with potentially lethal tools to have consequences. If you own firearms, you should know where they are, and you should secure them ag…