steps we can take on gun control

[ibreatheanime]

Originally Posted by ankoku

Oh and I agree with Ibreatheanime. If you really don't like how the world is, then do something about it! Sitting around and complaining isn't helping the problem. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. Voting is a powerful tool. But educate yourself on the candidates and issues before you fill in the ballot.

That is what I am saying! Educate yourself before you vote, and get your facts straight...

There is nothing that I dislike more than someone who will blindly make a coment like "Bush is a stupid War pig!" Okay If you don't like the president tell me why, don't just make blunt comments. If you aren't educated on a topic and you make blind accusations it just makes you look stupid.

If people stayed informed about current events and researched topics before they stated their opinons and voted blindly, I personally think that our country could be a better place.

We need to elect people who arent just smooth talking polticans. Vote for the best person for the job, who you agree with on most issues.

Also for "08" I am just saying if anyone is planning on voting for Clinton just because she is a women, don't do that unless you agree with her politically. I want to see a woman in the white house, but not one who is unfit for the job.

[Vexx]

Its actually more complicated than that (though not much). A certain percentage of people will be voting for "anyone not a Republican" whether it be Clinton, an ashtray, or whomever simply because they want to send a message to the Republicans to spend some time cleaning house of their neocons, looters, incompetent ideologues, and wingnuts. The danger of course, is that this simply puts *another* single party in charge of both Houses and the Exec branch... so you just get different brands of this sort of thing.
Wheee..... single party rule is a trainwreck without brakes because the wingnuts come out of the woodwork.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

But anyways, if you read my posts, I said I expected nothing from the American society. And that the decision to carry weapons is perfectly understandable, but not justifiable as a method to solve issues.

I kept linking what you were saying back to the gun control issue, and to be honest I started forgetting whose side you were on. Because, I thought that at the start of all of this, you were against guns. Yet your views seemed to support armed citizens, although perhaps for a different reason than was initially discussed here (not for vigilante justice/self defense, but for revolutionary purposes). I may have misunderstood you.

Either way, I'm glad that everyone in this thread seems to be a group of thinkers.

[WanderingKnight]

I kept linking what you were saying back to the gun control issue, and to be honest I started forgetting whose side you were on. Because, I thought that at the start of all of this, you were against guns. Yet your views seemed to support armed citizens, although perhaps for a different reason than was initially discussed here (not for vigilante justice/self defense, but for revolutionary purposes). I may have misunderstood you.

Believe me, I am against guns. That's why I said I can't justify it. But I can understand the thought process that leads Americans to do that. They're two different things.

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by Furudanuki

In the state where I reside, a set of laws that are commonly referred to as the "Castle Doctrine" (taken from the saying that "a man's home is his castle") are in effect. The "Castle Doctrine" can be summed up as follows:

1. It establishes, in law, the presumption that a criminal who forcibly enters or intrudes into your home or occupied vehicle is there to cause death or great bodily harm, so the occupant may use force, including deadly force, against that person.
2. It removes the "duty to retreat" if you are attacked in any place you have a right to be. You no longer have to turn your back on a criminal and try to run when attacked. Instead, you may stand your ground and fight back, meeting force with force, including deadly force, if you reasonably believe it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to yourself or others.
3. It provides that persons using force authorized by law shall not be prosecuted for using such force. It also prohibits criminals and their families from suing victims for injuring or killing the criminals who have attacked them.

Wow, I would love these Doctrines to be enacted in all of the 50 States instead of the The District of Columbia. But wouldn't this be rather the same as the many laws that's included within the "Self-Defense" laws passed? The Doctrine is just a more radical form of the typical self-defense clause. (United States Version)

[Furudanuki]

Originally Posted by Aoie_Emesai

Wow, I would love these Doctrines to be enacted in all of the 50 States instead of the The District of Columbia. But wouldn't this be rather the same as the many laws that's included within the "Self-Defense" laws passed? The Doctrine is just a more radical form of the typical self-defense clause. (United States Version)

"Castle Doctrine" laws or similar variants have been signed into law in over 20 states, and are under consideration by the legislatures in several others. This Wikipedia article has some basic information on the topic, but you would need to look up the details for each state if you want to be reasonably sure of having accurate information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine

[Nergol]

In 1930 America had nearly no gun laws, and the murder rate was a fraction of what it is today. That's with Prohibition, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, and Murder Incorporated at their height.

In fact, from 1930 on, we've had progressively more gun laws, and progressively more murders. There's a better case to be made that gun laws cause more murder than that they prevent them, because at least there's corrolation, if not provable causation.

Penn & Teller debunk gun control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWeTEXSV7ts

[WanderingKnight]

In 1930 America had nearly no gun laws, and the murder rate was a fraction of what it is today. That's with Prohibition, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, and Murder Incorporated at their height.

In fact, from 1930 on, we've had progressively more gun laws, and progressively more murders. There's a better case to be made that gun laws cause more murder than that they prevent them, because at least there's corrolation, if not provable causation.

A society is more complicated than that. You can't analyze a consequence in spite of a single element. From 1930 to today millions of things have changed in every society, and there are millions of things you aren't taking into account when making your statement. Why don't you take a look at poverty rate, for example? What was 1930's poverty rate, and what was the one for the successive years?

A society isn't that simple.

[ibreatheanime]

The official poverty rate in 2005 was 12.6 percent, not statistically different from 2004.
in 1959 22.4 percent was the poverty rate... but 1959 was the first year the US census collected the poverty rate.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/povdef.html
(I got this info off the US census, and this is how they collect it.)

During the 1930's there was a worldwide depression and many people were poor and without jobs.

I am not saying that there are more crimes today than in 1930 because of looser gun control as Nergol said, however I don't think poverty rate was the factor either.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

A society is more complicated than that. You can't analyze a consequence in spite of a single element. From 1930 to today millions of things have changed in every society, and there are millions of things you aren't taking into account when making your statement. Why don't you take a look at poverty rate, for example? What was 1930's poverty rate, and what was the one for the successive years?

A society isn't that simple.

That is actually his point.... too often gun-control advocates will tout causally deficient connections to "prove their point" so he was just showing how silly it was to do that. We've got people over here defining "children" as anyone under 25 just to pump their numbers and including gang-vs-gang activities (if two 19 year olds are shooting at each other over drugdealing turf ... are they children?).

So yes, absolutely you can't take data stream one and data stream two and assert cause and effect Penn and Teller do an excellent job debunking such junk thinking. If both sides would bootkick their "black'n'white world" extremists, we might get a little farther in the resolution of the mixed bag of this debate (and the larger issues that are the underlying forces in the events that start these discussions).

[Solace]

<3 Penn and Teller. Another episode that reminds me of your point Vexx is Numbers, where they show how statistics are easily abused to further personal agendas.

[Takeru]

Originally Posted by ankoku

Yes. In technical terms, it should read - The United States, of America. The 13 original colonies became states, and the distinction of a North/South America wasn't as prevalent as it is now. Back then people just referred to both continents as "the Americas". Spain held a large portion of the continents, with the British Colonies claiming most of the now East Coast in North America. France held much of Canada north of that, and Florida was claimed by the Spanish. In those times, these lands were considered parts of the Spanish, French, and British Empires, with each trying to stem the others power gains. France and Spain were allies of the colonies during the Revolution mainly because of thier interest in preventing British expansion. Much of the land claimed by America was through bartering/paying or through war in the waning years of those nations. The exception is mainly Mexico, who refused to let the US annex the southwestern states and resulted in a war that ended with those lands treatied to the US.

So yeah...it's semantics on the naming.

You also forget that, at the time, we believed in Manifest Destiny. Where the United States would at some point expand to the entire Western Hemisphere, becoming one giant country. To which eventually the US agreed upon Manifest Destiny meaning land between the Atlantic and Pacific, and above the Rio Grande, and at the Canadian border.

Originally Posted by ibreatheanime

Also for "08" I am just saying if anyone is planning on voting for Clinton just because she is a women, don't do that unless you agree with her politically. I want to see a woman in the white house, but not one who is unfit for the job.

I agree with you on that. You shouldn't just vote on somebody because "she'll be the first woman president" or "the first black president". That may be a big move in United States history, but that's small compared to what they will do in office. Besides, on the case of Clinton, I would place her husband's actions in office as a reflection on what she would possibly have if she were elected. But, then again, I may be wrong.

And on Bush, I don't agree with many of the decisions that he has made, but I do believe that he was the better choice and has done more than John Kerry was by far.