The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

Well Columbus sailed west to get there. They are to the west of him, aren't they?

that phrase is a tautology in all the cultures of the world except America and Australia.

and yeah this makes the irony I highlighted above all the more explicit. it's absolutely nuts.

[EDITED for @squishypon3 ]

nobody's saying you could accomplish it in a fortnight. you'd have to have tons of successive changes with a time for each to settle into the minds of the disgruntled gunowners : say three months minimum. And yeah overall a project like that would take 10-15 years.

but it CAN be done. this definitely does not qualify as impossible.

WEST IS LEFT.

LEFT IS BAD.

DON'T GO WEST.

#ChinesePropaganda

I think you might've missed the Mitchell & Webb hype. I got everyone addicted to them.

That's not true. ^^;

Australia as an example...

"A common misconception is that firearms are illegal in Australia and that no individual may possess them. Although it is true that Australia has tough firearms laws, rifles and shotguns (both of which include semi-automatics), as well as handguns, are all legal.

As of 2015, about 815,000 people hold a gun license in Australia and there were around 3.5 to 5.5 million registered firearms,[1] and an estimated 1 to 6 million illegal firearms. Most people own and use firearms for purposes such as hunting, controlling feral animals, gun collecting, security work, and target shooting. Firearm ownership in Australia is increasing. For example, the state of Tasmania has more guns per capita with an average of 1 gun every 4 people or one gun every family household, followed by the Northern Territorywith 1 gun every 5 people."

-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia

oh god "greenland" killed me XD

Who possesses the guns? mostly farmers. Where do they live? the most sparsely populated parts of the country.

Which meeeeans? That didn't contradict anything I said. Tatsujb acted as if every country other than the US sees every owned weapon as an illegaly owned weapon. It doesn't matter who owns the weapon/where they live. It's legally owned.

Sure there are still legal gun owners, thanks to their mistakes school shootings can still happe, just much less often.

I don't really see how that's relevant? :/

For the record I'm super lefty when it comes to the majority of politics, I'm not arguing if gun ownership is good/bad I'm only stating facts, the facts being many countries often seen as not allowing firearms do in fact... I want heavier restrictions on weapons in the US.

Edited the original post. I'd not missed the earlier comments on Australia in the thread Squishy, I was only feeling lazy.

I thought this would lighten the mood : http://trumpdonald.org/

School shootings are stupidly rare, they just get an assload of media attention because children. 30 deaths in the US 2015, including suicides by shooters. Keeping better tabs on things like drunk driving or snow covered roads would save more lives than gun control.

You're using the same alarmist not-based-on-real-numbers logic that people in favor of bans on muslims are using. Stop.

To be fair there were like 3 in one week a few months ago.

I think I've been misunderstood. I meant that I don't have the misconception that strict gun laws equals no guns in private hands.
Even with strict gun laws sure there are still legal guns around and yes they do still cause bad things. It is just much less often. The last school shooting in Germany happened in 2009. Since then there have been a few incidents where people did try (okay well not only tried) to run amok in schools. Weapons used were things like knifes, as no gun was available to the assiliants they had to fall back to less lethal tools.

Not trying to be alarming anyone, just saying that even strict laws sure don't mean everything goes perfect and I acknowledge that. It just goes much better than without strict laws.

Fair enough. Though different people have different definitions of strict.

I just think we need a registry of gun owners and a file of the guns they legally own accessible by every police department in the country. Buying a gun means being placed on that list. Permits for things like concealed carrying and whatnot could still be issued on a state-to-state basis.

I honestly blame the media and internet culture for making these more common. Shooters are attention whores and they're getting exactly what they want.

what ? to ruin gun rights? the one thing that brought them retribution in a time of great depression and lack of reason?

they don't "want" anything. they certainly don't know what they're doing.

you're talking about them as if they actively interact, organize and act as one on a well reasoned and thought-out course of action kinda like a nation.

it's not like that either.

seems like noone really grasps their topic here.

That is the bare minimum. When the police enters a house they should have a way of knowing how many guns the owners of that house may have.

Yep it has a large part in it. The internet as a whole is a largely problematic thing for public opinion by now. With the refugee situation here in Germany it becomes very very clear that the "awesome" idea of Facebook and co. to show each user the content they like puts people into a bubble of content that fortifies whatever believe they already have. If you're doubtful about something Facebook will notice and show you more stuff that makes you even more doubtful, not showing any content that doesn't fit with what you believe in already. It makes people from all sides more and more radical and pushes them apart further and further.
I was quite shocked to read somewhere that a considerable part of US people apparently take Facebook as a source of news and it seems to be the same here in Germany.
There is a considerable amount of people by now who readily believe some report about a rape-incident shared on Facebook, even after official statements in the official press have already disproved the whole claim with the supposed victim found to be save and sound as a fluke made up by somebody to have one more reason to hate on refugees. These same people then go to demonstrations and call the official press "liar press" while already following up on the next ridiculous lie spread on the internet.

@tatsu: The one thing they want is not a gun, but to be the "cool" guy in the news. For one day be a distorted sort of action "hero" taking revenge on society.