A word about Mitt Romney. I may have vigorously opppsed him in 2012, disagree with 95% of what he stands for. He may have campaigned like an android in his race against Obama and he may be a poster child for vulture capitalism. But I don't doubt his sincerity in his Mormon faith, nor the role it played in his vote yesterday, as Trump is suggesting. That part of him is quite genuine.
It also isn't surprising that of all the sure-red states, Utah is where Trump is least popular. It doesn't strike me as coincidental that Mormons are called upon by their religion to do extensive mission work in foreign countries.
Satan does quote scripture. Quite famously, when he is tempting Jesus in his 40 days in the desert. It is quite literally the MAIN tactic he uses against him. It's one of the seminal moments of the New Testament. It is IMPOSSIBLE to know anything about Christianity and not know this story. This family is the biggest bunch of frauds I have ever seen. And maybe all these conservative churchgoers don't know jack-shit about their own religion either. I know this simply from paying mild attention when I was ten years old.
Maybe he's mistaking Satan with Dracula...
Don Jr.'s knowledge of Christianity is relegated to whatever was conveyed in "The Omen".
Other than for trade deals like the USMCA, which will ultimately wind up putting money into the pockets of people from both sides, the days of Democrats and Republicans working together at the Congressional level are behind us now. After Mueller, Kavanaugh, and impeachment there is simply too much bad blood for that to occur like it used to. I can live with that, as well, because I always prefer that people be truthful about how they feel.
The GOP refusing to have senate confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland >>>>>>>>>>> more responsible for the complete inability of Democrats to ever trust Republicans and work with them in good faith again than all of those things you cited.
One should always remember - Obstructionism started before Trump.
Imagine if they tried to work with him, compromise, put effort into improving health care or something, instead of this constant back and forth.
A person you can work with is not what you get with Donald Trump. He drives the back and forth. It is his thing - "us vs. them". This is fundamentally his approach. The approach the GOP has taken is crying "the Dems are partisan.." then doing the most disgusting partisan stuff themselves.
His approach is saying follow me only I can save you from immigrants and Democrats. And the sheep fall in line behind him.
You won't get someone you can work with here because he will never accept responsibility for failure or share responsibility of success. All you get is someone who blames you for everything wrong, and credits himself for anything that can be spun as being right. He wants a dictatorship.
That brings me back to an idea I had not floated in quite a while--auto-sunsets or "countdown timers" built in to all proposed legislation. Once a bill is voted upon in one chamber and gets sent to the other chamber, if it is tabled or kicked around in committee for more than 90 days the proposed legislation automatically becomes null and void. This way, bills which are wanted are discussed and voted upon right away; bills which are not simply die and the politicians have to explain to voters back home why such-and-such bill died.
Linking Chinese food to the coronavirus makes about as much sense as the people who were linking it to Corona beer.
How about the exact opposite.
Each side (house/senate) has 90-120 days to vote on legislation that is sent to them or else it is considered passed and ready for Presidential approval, who has 14 days to veto it, or it is considered signed.
You know, do the jobs that they are sent to do by the voting tax payer, instead of fighting on instamedia like sassy 13 year old girls.
That brings me back to an idea I had not floated in quite a while--auto-sunsets or "countdown timers" built in to all proposed legislation. Once a bill is voted upon in one chamber and gets sent to the other chamber, if it is tabled or kicked around in committee for more than 90 days the proposed legislation automatically becomes null and void. This way, bills which are wanted are discussed and voted upon right away; bills which are not simply die and the politicians have to explain to voters back home why such-and-such bill died.
How about the exact opposite.
Each side (house/senate) has 90-120 days to vote on legislation that is sent to them or else it is considered passed and ready for Presidential approval, who has 14 days to veto it, or it is considered signed.
Absolutely not. The default state for legislation must be "you shall not pass", otherwise proposals might turn in to laws which have unintended and potentially disastrous consequences. That system would also allow politicians to say "I know that the law is bad, but I did not vote for it" and they would be telling the truth. Unlike medicine, where inaction can lead to death, inaction in politics should result in "the situation is not being made worse".
It would be wonderful for politicians not to be acting like immature teenagers on social media. On the other hand, this gives us glimpses of their real personalities and frames of mind without any filters--their childish rants show us exactly who they are.
re: Merrick Garland....I was saying back then that the Republican Senate should have held hearings as opposed to abdicating their constitutional duty.
I completely agree that he would win if he pivoted to the left on health care. Being economically left and socially right is a sweet spot that attracts a broad base of support, but doesn't exist in current politics.
Regardless, I still think the Democrats time would have been better spent trying to negotiate a deal of some kind where they get something they want, even if that was the continuation or even expansion of Obamacare. He possibly would have went for it for something on the border, because as you say that's his big issue. That's how I feel about most partisan fights of this nature really.
They did. Remember when Democrats approved funding for a wall, Trump approved, and then threw a fit a day later and just shut down the government. Its actually impossible to get him to compromise.
@Mathsorcerer You know what would have saved more lives? If the shooter hadn't had a gun at all. Its funny to see talk about how Republicans have been right about the gun issue, when its been demonstrated again and again that its not. Name one thing a republican did that reduced gun violence. Clinton banned assault weapons during his presidency in, I believe 95, and you know what? Shooting deaths dropped by over 40%.
*sigh* Criminals will always have guns. Taking away guns from law-abiding citizens and preventing them from fighting back is an idea straight out of kindergarten--"we are all nice to each other and everyone gets along". Most gun violence does not occur from "assault weapons" (which does not have a legal definition) but from handguns. I won't try to dissuade you from wanting "no guns in anyone's hands" though--it is good to want things.
edit/add: Given that I don't feel like getting bogged down in any discussion about guns for the thousandth time, let me state that people are free to want whatever sort of gun control legislation they think will save lives. I will also state that States may enact gun control legislation because the Second Amendment does not prevent a State Legislature from acting, only Congress. That being said, please be aware that any sort of sweeping gun control legislation or mandatory buyback program--how, exactly, did Robert Francis plan on doing that? send police door-to-door to collect guns in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment? *shrug*--will not be enforced by most local police departments, sheriff's offices, the National Guard, or the military, many of whom have publicly stated that they will not enforce such a law. Good luck taking them out of the hands of law-abiding citizens with no enforcement ability--it takes guns to take away guns.
Oh....and to cross over with the immigration issue.....guns types which are made illegal here can be ignored with a quick trip over into Matamoros or Cuidad Juarez, where you can buy the gun you want then hire someone to smuggle it back across the border for you. It might cost you $1,000 more for the mule but if you are willing to break one law you might as well break one or two more. That is all that gun control does, anyway--it turns citizens who would otherwise be law-abiding into criminals. Just look at Prohibition--no one drank alcohol once it became illegal because everyone dutifully complied with the law......
*sigh* Criminals will always have guns. Taking away guns from law-abiding citizens and preventing them from fighting back is an idea straight out of kindergarten--"we are all nice to each other and everyone gets along".
sigh except that it does work. Look at Australia or the UK. You take away guns, wouldn't you know it, no more mass shootings.
"but muh Criminals have guns!" people say, well yeah, and if they do ARREST THE CRIMINALS WITH GUNS. Give the cops something to do once they get bored.
And yet, amazingly, we don't apply the lessons of Prohibition (rampant violent criminality to control an illegal market) to it's closest modern reference point, which is narcotics. The legendary gangsters of American culture?? Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein. How do people imagine these guys rose to the positions they did?? They did it by controlling the flow of illegal liquor during prohibition.
Oh....and to cross over with the immigration issue.....guns types which are made illegal here can be ignored with a quick trip over into Matamoros or Cuidad Juarez, where you can buy the gun you want then hire someone to smuggle it back across the border for you. It might cost you $1,000 more for the mule but if you are willing to break one law you might as well break one or two more. That is all that gun control does, anyway--it turns citizens who would otherwise be law-abiding into criminals. Just look at Prohibition--no one drank alcohol once it became illegal because everyone dutifully complied with the law......
In principle gun controls could be brought in, just like any other form of control. As with any law though, you get into difficulties if large sections of the population refuse to obey it - as was the case with prohibition. In many other control situations laws have been much more successful though - for instance in cutting down hugely on drink driving or smoking in public places. Clearly not everyone obeys such laws now, but they are sufficiently widely supported for there to be a significant social stigma as well as the threat of a legal sanction for those that don't obey.
I agree though that I don't think the same would happen with guns in the US currently. While gun controls have been successfully established in other western countries (like the UK and Australia for instance), the proportion of the population supporting weak or no gun controls in the US is significantly higher. More importantly than that, there is also a very strong gun culture - and that's likely to vastly reduce the social pressure that could be brought upon those ignoring any potential law by those supporting it. The clear difficulties of introducing strict gun controls is the reason of course that virtually no-one in the US is advocating that ...
Talking about guns, we've referred before to the issue of suicides - which account for far more gun deaths than homicides or accidents. This article explores that and refers to attempts in some states to reduce suicide rates - bypassing the extreme partisanship on both sides of the debate by using gun enthusiasts to promote changes, rather than academics or government employees. The changes proposed are pretty small, but evidence shows these can still have a significant impact on suicides as so many of these are impulsive - so that minor delays can lead to potential suicides not carrying through with their intention.
I have been arguing for decriminalization of most chemical substances for years. If someone wants to snort, drink, inhale, or inject something inside their own house they should be free to do so. They cannot drive after doing so, of course--that should still be illegal because they put other people at risk--and if your employer says "no drugs" then that person cannot complain if they get fired for going to work in an altered state. Of course, given that most people cannot handle their chemical substances those people will likely wind up living under the streets of Las Vegas, where an active community already exists, but they should have the freedom to make those choices if they so desire.
Wow--they *still* haven't finished compiling the results in Iowa, where Buttigieg and Sanders are only 0.1% apart.
Talking about guns, we've referred before to the issue of suicides - which account for far more gun deaths than homicides or accidents. This article explores that and refers to attempts in some states to reduce suicide rates - bypassing the extreme partisanship on both sides of the debate by using gun enthusiasts to promote changes, rather than academics or government employees. The changes proposed are pretty small, but evidence shows these can still have a significant impact on suicides as so many of these are impulsive - so that minor delays can lead to potential suicides not carrying through with their intention.
A lot of times people will lump suicide into "gun violence" statistics, which is not an accurate representation of those events. "Gun violence" exists only when person A shoots at one or more *other* people. For years I have subtracted suicide from the overall number of deaths relating to discharge of a firearm because those deaths are not technically "gun violence".
It's probably an unpopular opinion but if our military needs sending anywhere it's to Mexico. It's right in our backyard and cartels will kill dozens of cops and civilians just to keep one of their own out of prison. It's an unacceptable situation to be occuring right in our sphere of influence, if we are to get involved in other countries at all.
The *only* acceptable way in which we send troops into Mexico is if Mexico were to try and use its military to stop the cartels but face heavy losses and ask us for intervention. At one time, the Los Zetas cartel had access to military weapons--including helicopters--because one of the leaders had a brother who was a colonel. The cartel crews also like to "Mad Max" their cars--armor plating, mounted weapons, etc.
I'm not one for involuntary military invasions, but it seems a bit unrealistic to expect a mexican leader to essentially commit suicide by declaring open war on cartels, assuming they aren't already completely in their pockets already.
"Gun violence" is not the only thing that matters. It is "gun deaths" that we should be trying to decrease, and suicide is definitely part of gun deaths.
The important thing is that people are dying. If my brother died to a bullet, I would not consider it ANY better if the person who pulled the trigger was him or someone else. Suicide is no less of a tragedy than homicide. It is no less worth fighting against.
For years I have subtracted suicide from the overall number of deaths relating to discharge of a firearm because those deaths are not technically "gun violence".
Why ignoring data you don't like or that doesn't fit your worldview is totally unscientific. It's the opposite.
Firearms are one of the most common suicide methods globally. They are responsible for approximately 8% of global suicide deaths.
If you take away access to the thing that makes suicide easier, you get less suicides.
At over 6 deaths per 100,000 US suicide by gun is more than ten times greater than many countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, this rate is more than 30 times lower.
Suicide rates declining globally while in the U.S. the rate rising. Why? Could it be ease of access to a tool to get the job done? If your going to have a serious look at it why toss out a major variable that is a difference between the US and other developed countries?
Suicide is a question that should be answered by giving people the help they need so that they don't want to commit suicide, not taking away all dangerous objects so they are left in the real world equivalent of a padded room.
A lot of people are just afraid of guns, that's all, which is why it is such a hot-button topic for them. Guns exist and people will always have access to them, whether legally or illegally. Thinking "if only we could outlaw all guns the world would be a safer place" is nothing but wish fulfillment fantasy, like winning the lottery. The reason people always want to add "suicide by firearm" to the "deaths by firearm" statistic is so they can inflate the number of gun deaths to make the situation look worse than it actually is.
It is humorous, though, that the same people who long for across-the-board gun control and confiscations are also the people who think Trump is *this close* to being an outright dictator. If he were a dictator, wouldn't he declare guns to be illegal, causing them to cheer, and then roll tanks and military personnel down their residential streets, causing them to cry foul? The only way to fight back against that would be...guns....but....oh, yeah. That all makes for great talking points but neither "confiscation" nor "going Palpatine" are going to happen, which is why getting down that rabbit hole is pointless.
Oh, look--this is my stop on this subway ride.
*************
DNC Chair Perez wants a recanvass of Iowa. Sorry, Tom--you are playing a "no reload" challenge so you don't get any do-overs. You guy Joe is simply going to have to be better elsewhere.
edit/add: Andrew Yang definitely knows math. He has successfully recognized that 1% of Iowa is not enough and is beginning to lay off campaign staff. Maybe...if he had worn a tie people might take him seriously? *shrug*
Suicide is a question that should be answered by giving people the help they need so that they don't want to commit suicide, not taking away all dangerous objects so they are left in the real world equivalent of a padded room.
We should restrict access to firearms AND address the root causes of suicide. Both would decrease gun deaths and save lives; both are worth doing. I see no reason to support one but not the other.
I go on trans subreddits a lot looking for at-risk people to talk to, and I remind my trans friends of how much better off the world is with them in it. I've also warned folks to lock up their guns or get rid of them in case they make a rash decision out of despair. There's a lot of suicidal ideation among the population, and we don't need any more lives lost.
Most of you probably don't keep up with German politics, but they're really freaking out over the rise of a right wing party there. They've crept up to being second place in several areas of Germany and it's getting to the point where they can't shun them out of
participating in government anymore, so now they want to start dissolving elections. It's unlikely to happen given it needs broad support, but it goes to show the depths they will sink to.
*sigh* Criminals will always have guns. Taking away guns from law-abiding citizens and preventing them from fighting back is an idea straight out of kindergarten--"we are all nice to each other and everyone gets along".
Most of you probably don't keep up with German politics, but they're really freaking out over the rise of a right wing party there. They've crept up to being second place in several areas of Germany and it's getting to the point where they can't shun them out of
participating in government anymore, so now they want to start dissolving elections. It's unlikely to happen given it needs broad support, but it goes to show the depths they will sink to.
Well they did have a HUGE problem with right wing nationalism in the past after all.. It makes sense to want to go do something. NEVER AGAIN is supposed to mean something and all that. Dissolving elections isn't the answer but you gotta get rid of fascist ideology somehow. It's a worldwide problem. People keep thinking strongmen are the answer when they are the problem.
Suicide is a question that should be answered by giving people the help they need so that they don't want to commit suicide, not taking away all dangerous objects so they are left in the real world equivalent of a padded room.
It is a simple and unequivocal fact that guns are a easier and more effective means of committing suicide and that easy access to them makes people (especially men) more likely to both attempt and succeed at killing themselves.
This can be attested both by the many, many studies done on the subject, and anecdotally by the fact that trying to kill myself with sleeping pills + alcohol because I had no access to guns 20 years ago is why I can post this message. I survived because a friend had unexpectedly skipped university classes that morning , got my suicide note hours earlier than planned, and called the cops on me. That wouldn't have mattered one whit if I had had a gun, or any means to access one.
For years I have subtracted suicide from the overall number of deaths relating to discharge of a firearm because those deaths are not technically "gun violence".
Why ignoring data you don't like or that doesn't fit your worldview is totally unscientific. It's the opposite.
Firearms are one of the most common suicide methods globally. They are responsible for approximately 8% of global suicide deaths.
If you take away access to the thing that makes suicide easier, you get less suicides.
At over 6 deaths per 100,000 US suicide by gun is more than ten times greater than many countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, this rate is more than 30 times lower.
Suicide rates declining globally while in the U.S. the rate rising. Why? Could it be ease of access to a tool to get the job done? If your going to have a serious look at it why toss out a major variable that is a difference between the US and other developed countries?
I don't know where your 10 times higher number is coming from but it doesnt jive by what I found from the WHO statistics posted on Wikipedia. The US doesn't stand out vs most European nations and has a lower suicide rate than some (Finland for example).
@Mathsorcerer "A lot of people are just afraid of guns, that's all, which is why it is such a hot-button topic for them. Guns exist and people will always have access to them, whether legally or illegally. Thinking "if only we could outlaw all guns the world would be a safer place" is nothing but wish fulfillment fantasy, like winning the lottery."
Name one person in thread who said we should outlaw all firearms. I specified assault weapons, so this answer is already disengenuous. But the fact that assault weapons HAVE been outlawed before, and it dropped gun deaths by almost HALF, makes you continued insistence that it doesn't work farcical.
Apparently Trump really is the messiah. President for the next 1000 years. At least!
Edit: Fixed the link...
At a certain point, people should maybe stop for a second and consider the idea that maybe he ISN'T joking. And even barring that, if he wins in November, Don Jr. or Ivanka is absolutely going to be set up to run in 2024. Is there any doubt after that syncophantic press conference today with Republican lawmakers (by the way, no network would have EVER carried that kind of event for previous Presidents) that he has swallowed the GOP whole aside from Justin Amash and Mitt Romney, both of whom are now viewed as apostates?? They've abandoned absolutely everything they once stood for to a cult of personality, and I don't see how ANYONE can deny that at this point.
Apparently Trump really is the messiah. President for the next 1000 years. At least!
Edit: Fixed the link...
At a certain point, people should maybe stop for a second and consider the idea that maybe he ISN'T joking. And even barring that, if he wins in November, Don Jr. or Ivanka is absolutely going to be set up to run in 2024.
The Donald had better get them started on Dale Carnegie training real soon then. Both of them have the personalities of turnips...
At a certain point, people should maybe stop for a second and consider the idea that maybe he ISN'T joking. And even barring that, if he wins in November, Don Jr. or Ivanka is absolutely going to be set up to run in 2024. Is there any doubt after that syncophantic press conference today with Republican lawmakers (by the way, no network would have EVER carried that kind of event for previous Presidents) that he has swallowed the GOP whole aside from Justin Amash and Mitt Romney, both of whom are now viewed as apostates?? They've abandoned absolutely everything they once stood for to a cult of personality, and I don't see how ANYONE can deny that at this point.
They'll deny it, they deny everything.
Trump told George Stephanopolous like a day after the Mueller thing was over that yeah he might work with foreign countries to interfere in elections and he might not go to the FBI. People said he was joking then. Then like the next day he's extorting Ukraine to smear Joe Biden.
I don't know where your 10 times higher number is coming from but it doesnt jive by what I found from the WHO statistics posted on Wikipedia. The US doesn't stand out vs most European nations and has a lower suicide rate than some (Finland for example).
Edit: Also lower than Belgium which has very strict gun controls.
I posted the links for the data I used. I don't think it's inconsistent with the data you found. For example the world's suicide rate is going down except for the US does not fundamentally contradict your point about the suicide rate being in line with other countries.
The 10 times higher number is in response to guns specifically.
"Firearms are one of the most common suicide methods globally. They are responsible for approximately 8% of global suicide deaths."
Ok so globally guns are used in suicides but in the states...
"At over 6 deaths per 100,000 US suicide by gun is more than ten times greater than many countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, this rate is more than 30 times lower."
A country with a lot of guns has people using guns to kill themselves.
Turns out Trump wasnt entirely lying about pre-existing conditions. It looks like the administration wants the courts to avoid striking down the ACA until after the election
Why - because it's broadly popular, and it will hurt Trump's reelection chances.
At a certain point, people should maybe stop for a second and consider the idea that maybe he ISN'T joking. And even barring that, if he wins in November, Don Jr. or Ivanka is absolutely going to be set up to run in 2024. Is there any doubt after that syncophantic press conference today with Republican lawmakers (by the way, no network would have EVER carried that kind of event for previous Presidents) that he has swallowed the GOP whole aside from Justin Amash and Mitt Romney, both of whom are now viewed as apostates?? They've abandoned absolutely everything they once stood for to a cult of personality, and I don't see how ANYONE can deny that at this point.
They'll deny it, they deny everything.
Trump told George Stephanopolous like a day after the Mueller thing was over that yeah he might work with foreign countries to interfere in elections and he might not go to the FBI. People said he was joking then. Then like the next day he's extorting Ukraine to smear Joe Biden.
I don't know where your 10 times higher number is coming from but it doesnt jive by what I found from the WHO statistics posted on Wikipedia. The US doesn't stand out vs most European nations and has a lower suicide rate than some (Finland for example).
Edit: Also lower than Belgium which has very strict gun controls.
I posted the links for the data I used. I don't think it's inconsistent with the data you found. For example the world's suicide rate is going down except for the US does not fundamentally contradict your point about the suicide rate being in line with other countries.
The 10 times higher number is in response to guns specifically.
"Firearms are one of the most common suicide methods globally. They are responsible for approximately 8% of global suicide deaths."
Ok so globally guns are used in suicides but in the states...
"At over 6 deaths per 100,000 US suicide by gun is more than ten times greater than many countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, this rate is more than 30 times lower."
A country with a lot of guns has people using guns to kill themselves.
It kinda negates your theory that countries with gun control have lower suicide rates though. It sounds logical but the numbers don't back it up...
Edit: Also, the WHO says suicides are very likely undereported. Firearm suicides are the least likely to be mistaken for something else. It's messy and the gun will be right next to the body. This likely means that by proportion gun suicides are even less than your 8%.
Comments
It also isn't surprising that of all the sure-red states, Utah is where Trump is least popular. It doesn't strike me as coincidental that Mormons are called upon by their religion to do extensive mission work in foreign countries.
Don Jr.'s knowledge of Christianity is relegated to whatever was conveyed in "The Omen".
The GOP refusing to have senate confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland >>>>>>>>>>> more responsible for the complete inability of Democrats to ever trust Republicans and work with them in good faith again than all of those things you cited.
One should always remember - Obstructionism started before Trump.
A person you can work with is not what you get with Donald Trump. He drives the back and forth. It is his thing - "us vs. them". This is fundamentally his approach. The approach the GOP has taken is crying "the Dems are partisan.." then doing the most disgusting partisan stuff themselves.
His approach is saying follow me only I can save you from immigrants and Democrats. And the sheep fall in line behind him.
You won't get someone you can work with here because he will never accept responsibility for failure or share responsibility of success. All you get is someone who blames you for everything wrong, and credits himself for anything that can be spun as being right. He wants a dictatorship.
Trumpism is a cult.
How about the exact opposite.
Each side (house/senate) has 90-120 days to vote on legislation that is sent to them or else it is considered passed and ready for Presidential approval, who has 14 days to veto it, or it is considered signed.
You know, do the jobs that they are sent to do by the voting tax payer, instead of fighting on instamedia like sassy 13 year old girls.
Absolutely not. The default state for legislation must be "you shall not pass", otherwise proposals might turn in to laws which have unintended and potentially disastrous consequences. That system would also allow politicians to say "I know that the law is bad, but I did not vote for it" and they would be telling the truth. Unlike medicine, where inaction can lead to death, inaction in politics should result in "the situation is not being made worse".
It would be wonderful for politicians not to be acting like immature teenagers on social media. On the other hand, this gives us glimpses of their real personalities and frames of mind without any filters--their childish rants show us exactly who they are.
re: Merrick Garland....I was saying back then that the Republican Senate should have held hearings as opposed to abdicating their constitutional duty.
They did. Remember when Democrats approved funding for a wall, Trump approved, and then threw a fit a day later and just shut down the government. Its actually impossible to get him to compromise.
@Mathsorcerer You know what would have saved more lives? If the shooter hadn't had a gun at all. Its funny to see talk about how Republicans have been right about the gun issue, when its been demonstrated again and again that its not. Name one thing a republican did that reduced gun violence. Clinton banned assault weapons during his presidency in, I believe 95, and you know what? Shooting deaths dropped by over 40%.
edit/add: Given that I don't feel like getting bogged down in any discussion about guns for the thousandth time, let me state that people are free to want whatever sort of gun control legislation they think will save lives. I will also state that States may enact gun control legislation because the Second Amendment does not prevent a State Legislature from acting, only Congress. That being said, please be aware that any sort of sweeping gun control legislation or mandatory buyback program--how, exactly, did Robert Francis plan on doing that? send police door-to-door to collect guns in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment? *shrug*--will not be enforced by most local police departments, sheriff's offices, the National Guard, or the military, many of whom have publicly stated that they will not enforce such a law. Good luck taking them out of the hands of law-abiding citizens with no enforcement ability--it takes guns to take away guns.
Oh....and to cross over with the immigration issue.....guns types which are made illegal here can be ignored with a quick trip over into Matamoros or Cuidad Juarez, where you can buy the gun you want then hire someone to smuggle it back across the border for you. It might cost you $1,000 more for the mule but if you are willing to break one law you might as well break one or two more. That is all that gun control does, anyway--it turns citizens who would otherwise be law-abiding into criminals. Just look at Prohibition--no one drank alcohol once it became illegal because everyone dutifully complied with the law......
sigh except that it does work. Look at Australia or the UK. You take away guns, wouldn't you know it, no more mass shootings.
"but muh Criminals have guns!" people say, well yeah, and if they do ARREST THE CRIMINALS WITH GUNS. Give the cops something to do once they get bored.
In principle gun controls could be brought in, just like any other form of control. As with any law though, you get into difficulties if large sections of the population refuse to obey it - as was the case with prohibition. In many other control situations laws have been much more successful though - for instance in cutting down hugely on drink driving or smoking in public places. Clearly not everyone obeys such laws now, but they are sufficiently widely supported for there to be a significant social stigma as well as the threat of a legal sanction for those that don't obey.
I agree though that I don't think the same would happen with guns in the US currently. While gun controls have been successfully established in other western countries (like the UK and Australia for instance), the proportion of the population supporting weak or no gun controls in the US is significantly higher. More importantly than that, there is also a very strong gun culture - and that's likely to vastly reduce the social pressure that could be brought upon those ignoring any potential law by those supporting it. The clear difficulties of introducing strict gun controls is the reason of course that virtually no-one in the US is advocating that ...
Talking about guns, we've referred before to the issue of suicides - which account for far more gun deaths than homicides or accidents. This article explores that and refers to attempts in some states to reduce suicide rates - bypassing the extreme partisanship on both sides of the debate by using gun enthusiasts to promote changes, rather than academics or government employees. The changes proposed are pretty small, but evidence shows these can still have a significant impact on suicides as so many of these are impulsive - so that minor delays can lead to potential suicides not carrying through with their intention.
Wow--they *still* haven't finished compiling the results in Iowa, where Buttigieg and Sanders are only 0.1% apart.
A lot of times people will lump suicide into "gun violence" statistics, which is not an accurate representation of those events. "Gun violence" exists only when person A shoots at one or more *other* people. For years I have subtracted suicide from the overall number of deaths relating to discharge of a firearm because those deaths are not technically "gun violence".
I'm not one for involuntary military invasions, but it seems a bit unrealistic to expect a mexican leader to essentially commit suicide by declaring open war on cartels, assuming they aren't already completely in their pockets already.
The important thing is that people are dying. If my brother died to a bullet, I would not consider it ANY better if the person who pulled the trigger was him or someone else. Suicide is no less of a tragedy than homicide. It is no less worth fighting against.
Why ignoring data you don't like or that doesn't fit your worldview is totally unscientific. It's the opposite.
Firearms are one of the most common suicide methods globally. They are responsible for approximately 8% of global suicide deaths.
https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#firearms
If you take away access to the thing that makes suicide easier, you get less suicides.
At over 6 deaths per 100,000 US suicide by gun is more than ten times greater than many countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, this rate is more than 30 times lower.
Suicide rates declining globally while in the U.S. the rate rising. Why? Could it be ease of access to a tool to get the job done? If your going to have a serious look at it why toss out a major variable that is a difference between the US and other developed countries?
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-02-07/global-suicide-rate-declines-while-us-rate-rises-study-finds
It is humorous, though, that the same people who long for across-the-board gun control and confiscations are also the people who think Trump is *this close* to being an outright dictator. If he were a dictator, wouldn't he declare guns to be illegal, causing them to cheer, and then roll tanks and military personnel down their residential streets, causing them to cry foul? The only way to fight back against that would be...guns....but....oh, yeah. That all makes for great talking points but neither "confiscation" nor "going Palpatine" are going to happen, which is why getting down that rabbit hole is pointless.
Oh, look--this is my stop on this subway ride.
*************
DNC Chair Perez wants a recanvass of Iowa. Sorry, Tom--you are playing a "no reload" challenge so you don't get any do-overs. You guy Joe is simply going to have to be better elsewhere.
edit/add: Andrew Yang definitely knows math. He has successfully recognized that 1% of Iowa is not enough and is beginning to lay off campaign staff. Maybe...if he had worn a tie people might take him seriously? *shrug*
I go on trans subreddits a lot looking for at-risk people to talk to, and I remind my trans friends of how much better off the world is with them in it. I've also warned folks to lock up their guns or get rid of them in case they make a rash decision out of despair. There's a lot of suicidal ideation among the population, and we don't need any more lives lost.
participating in government anymore, so now they want to start dissolving elections. It's unlikely to happen given it needs broad support, but it goes to show the depths they will sink to.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics-idUSKBN20011M?taid=5e3c8453ecb7110001ba4b85&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1835173950
Well they did have a HUGE problem with right wing nationalism in the past after all.. It makes sense to want to go do something. NEVER AGAIN is supposed to mean something and all that. Dissolving elections isn't the answer but you gotta get rid of fascist ideology somehow. It's a worldwide problem. People keep thinking strongmen are the answer when they are the problem.
It is a simple and unequivocal fact that guns are a easier and more effective means of committing suicide and that easy access to them makes people (especially men) more likely to both attempt and succeed at killing themselves.
This can be attested both by the many, many studies done on the subject, and anecdotally by the fact that trying to kill myself with sleeping pills + alcohol because I had no access to guns 20 years ago is why I can post this message. I survived because a friend had unexpectedly skipped university classes that morning , got my suicide note hours earlier than planned, and called the cops on me. That wouldn't have mattered one whit if I had had a gun, or any means to access one.
I don't know where your 10 times higher number is coming from but it doesnt jive by what I found from the WHO statistics posted on Wikipedia. The US doesn't stand out vs most European nations and has a lower suicide rate than some (Finland for example).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Edit: Also lower than Belgium which has very strict gun controls.
Name one person in thread who said we should outlaw all firearms. I specified assault weapons, so this answer is already disengenuous. But the fact that assault weapons HAVE been outlawed before, and it dropped gun deaths by almost HALF, makes you continued insistence that it doesn't work farcical.
Apparently Trump really is the messiah. President for the next 1000 years. At least!
Edit: Fixed the link...
At a certain point, people should maybe stop for a second and consider the idea that maybe he ISN'T joking. And even barring that, if he wins in November, Don Jr. or Ivanka is absolutely going to be set up to run in 2024. Is there any doubt after that syncophantic press conference today with Republican lawmakers (by the way, no network would have EVER carried that kind of event for previous Presidents) that he has swallowed the GOP whole aside from Justin Amash and Mitt Romney, both of whom are now viewed as apostates?? They've abandoned absolutely everything they once stood for to a cult of personality, and I don't see how ANYONE can deny that at this point.
The Donald had better get them started on Dale Carnegie training real soon then. Both of them have the personalities of turnips...
They'll deny it, they deny everything.
Trump told George Stephanopolous like a day after the Mueller thing was over that yeah he might work with foreign countries to interfere in elections and he might not go to the FBI. People said he was joking then. Then like the next day he's extorting Ukraine to smear Joe Biden.
I posted the links for the data I used. I don't think it's inconsistent with the data you found. For example the world's suicide rate is going down except for the US does not fundamentally contradict your point about the suicide rate being in line with other countries.
The 10 times higher number is in response to guns specifically.
Again from here:
https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#firearms
"Firearms are one of the most common suicide methods globally. They are responsible for approximately 8% of global suicide deaths."
Ok so globally guns are used in suicides but in the states...
"At over 6 deaths per 100,000 US suicide by gun is more than ten times greater than many countries across Europe. In the UK, for example, this rate is more than 30 times lower."
A country with a lot of guns has people using guns to kill themselves.
Why - because it's broadly popular, and it will hurt Trump's reelection chances.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/03/politics/texas-republicans-trump-obamacare-supreme-court/index.html
So instead, he wants to hold onto the law until after the 2020 election and have it killed afterwards. He's a mercenary.
It kinda negates your theory that countries with gun control have lower suicide rates though. It sounds logical but the numbers don't back it up...
Edit: Also, the WHO says suicides are very likely undereported. Firearm suicides are the least likely to be mistaken for something else. It's messy and the gun will be right next to the body. This likely means that by proportion gun suicides are even less than your 8%.