FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

The police in Hong Kong would be a lot more respectful if the (massive, dense) crowd was armed with more than laser pointers. The riots in LA where Korean shop owners defended their property. Etc., etc. Hell there were violent protests in Ferguson, MO not long ago.

"Gun Control" was originally just a mechanism to keep the (black, brown) population from owning guns; just a way of disarming the black/brown population. Look at the past laws, and current policing!

Some people in the US think "It can't happen here, now we should get rid of guns!" - as we watch the authorities putting children in cages, and protests in other countries where the police beat up protesters, and riots where people defend their loved ones and property, the rise of White Nationalism from "simmer" to "boil" and people still think we shouldn't have guns?

There's absolutely no way, in hell, Americans would willingly disarm - nor should we.

yes dammit, that's why I stated I'm against backdoors. I'm not stupid, prime factoring difficulty (or equivalent) is seemingly a fundamental feature of the universe not subject to the will of man, stop assuming I'm stupid.

> and give one to some entity of government, but there is no guarantee that they won't abuse it or leak it or lose it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! they will abuse it! I said so! Has all sentience been sucked out of this thread? Has every last neuron here been devastated?

I'm fed up with this. Discourse here is like the offspring of The Golem and Sisyphus - witless strength of one and the relentless compulsion of the other becoming a novel synergy of turbo-futility where fuck all gets done but in increasingly impressive quantities.

People complain about society. Hint: we are all society.

DanG, if (ok, when) you're reading this, sorry about this. Flag away. I'm tired.

a) Every killer in the past few years PASSED the NICS check, which to my mind implies that background checks are a panacea. We should repeal background checks and not bother, they accomplish next to nothing except cost a lot of money and time and produce no worthwhile results. Everyone who wants a gun can get a gun, even in Europe. Plus, it all stands in the way of enacting real security because we pretend we don't need that.

b) Expanding checks to all sales of firearms, even those conducted face to face as some states have already done, is just more panacea PLUS it does harm to private property rights by insinuating the government in between a private exchange of goods, which is a draconian act.

c) For any such universal check system to operate, it must include registration in order to know who has what. Thus background checks are just the camel's nose under the tent with the idea that registration much 'logically' follow as the next incremental step. After registration comes confiscation, as witnessed in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Switzerland (soon). The confiscation part is by no means theoretical, but rather it is part of the plan.

Learn these lessons. Pay attention to the absolute slaughter that was the 20th century and please don't repeat it.

Our colonist predecessors got uppity about a 5% tax on tea and that helped lead to open rebellion and here we are today with crazy taxes and further and further impositions on what one can do with their own legal, private property. Enough is quite enough! Nothing would please me more than to witness another Lexington and Concord moment, another Paul Revere because it would show that we have a backbone and principles. We can't say we are free people the way we live now under all all these laws and restrictions (my father calls it 'law-ism'--the worship of laws). Being really free for once would be a welcome experience after so many decades of downward spiral. I would at least enjoy not forfeiting half my income to taxes.

That's such a painfully white suggestion - to readily remove liberties so hard won, in a way that will only effect people of color.

You do know gun control has historically only effected black/brown populations right?