The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

Oh god gun laws and americans this should be fun. Where's my popcorn.

Tell that to Australia, who enacted harsher gun laws and saw a massive decrease in mass shootings.

The general thing here is not "omg crimes will be solved", it's the study between mass shootings and the possession of civilian firearms. There's also an argument to be made for the excessive militarisation of police in the US, which they cite as being dependent on having to protect themselves from an armed populace.

You take away the guns (at least to some extent; they don't have to all go away), you reduce the case for excessive police force. Everybody wins, except the dude who keeps a stack of semi-automatics in his shed "just in case" the government decides to go to war with him.

In which case they'd use an unmanned drone and take him out with a precision strike, tough luck. The 2A argument is fallacious, and always has been. If the government wanted you dead, unfortunately, in this day and age, you would be dead. That's not a good thing either, but it is a separate problem.

Well even without all the high tech tools to murder people they have, if a big organisation wants you dead at any cost you're never gonna stand a chance just because you have a gun or two. You're still outnumbered by orders of magnitude.

there was a number 3 option.

Statistically, you are very wrong on most of your points.

If guns have no practical purpose, how come every nation has them? Military, because asking nicely doesn't stop people from invading. Police, because criminals still get ahold of guns illegally, even if they have to traffic it. Political security, because some people kill politicians. Why do civilians need them? Because police response time is 19 minutes on average in Orlando, while in South Carolina a nightclub shooting was stopped with 0 casualties because a concealed carry stopped it. That is the difference, between "self defense" and "asking nicely", and we know asking nicely doesn't work. Every nation knows this, every national budget has firearms on it somewhere, firearms are VERY practical and necessary.

Automobiles are very easy for people to kill people with. Of all ages, there are more death statistics for automobiles. Automobiles, and planes for that matter, have a way higher kill-per-minute than firearms per unit. Statistically, your claims are unfounded.

Firearms, statistically, fall under "should be governed moderately as a dangerous tool, such as automobiles and power handsaws". Not "ban them because they have nothing but negative uses, such as crack cocaine, nuclear weapons".

Furthermore, and again, we also don't need to increase the world's leading incarceration rate, we need to lower it. Absolutely no reason to make more currently-law-abiding citizens into prisoners, we need to choose more practical laws instead of prosecuting every petty little thing with decades of prison time. Full prohibitions of items should be limited to only the worst of items, not Marijuana, not Firearms, but the hardest of drugs, leaving police to focus better on the more serious crimes, such as Rape, Armed Robbery, and Murder. People ask to own firearms, they ask for drugs, they do not ask to be Raped, Robbed or Murdered. Simply owning a gun, is not a violent act nor does it automatically commit a murder.

The only reason this isn't a modern issue, is because of globalization. People are money, killing them destorys credibility with nations that share trade and credit, and destroys your taxable income. Governments would not kill in mass their entire population. They still wing a whole lot of unsavvy laws that basically indoctrinates their citizens, unnecessary and unbeneficial tax codes, limits, hell, where I live, I cannot put any structures on my property whatsoever because laws prohibit building on less than whole acres, so every quarter acre plot of land where I live has either old dilapitated buildings predating the law or drivable RVs people are FORCED to live out of because your land would be condemned or siezed (by gunpoint) if you broke the law and decided you were going to move/build a structure on your property. THAT is a form of indoctrination, who does that law even benefit besides government seizure of property for land development... And they get away with it, because 150,000,000 people will not stand up and tell the government they can't do it, because it's petty and only affects individuals individually. If everyone stood together for legal reform, we wouldn't have laws like that still.

Yeah why, oh why would every nation have tools to murder people. Probably because people just love to murder each other since forever. Want to change that? Start with making it clear that tools to kill people are something to look down on.

There are like waaaay too many examples of governments fighting pretty blood pointless wars vs their own population. You don't even need to look into a history book to find examples, you can find examples in current day news.

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and water is dry folks. Meet our 2016 Grand Old Party platform, where coal is clean and porn is a public health crisis.

http://motherjones.com/environment/...committee-just-officially-declared-coal-clean

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rnc-platform-draft-porn-000000329.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw

http://nytimes.com/2016/07/13/us/po...ntion-issues.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&referer=

lol tell that to the thieves and gangs

You don't look down on thieves and gangs?

lol

Thieves steal based on how easy it is, not based on what they can get.

In the UK, police doesn't even have a gun, and i don't see any regular bloodbaths there. As the Bobbies there put it, "a gun makes an encounter too simple: shoot or not."

Talking about guns with US citizens is pointless. NRA brainwash is real. Maybe try again in 20 years...

It would actually be a significant improvement if current methods actually worked. Despite background checks being a thing, the mentally ill for instance can still get guns.

I've also read about bypasses like buying guns in parts to avoid registration laws, which seems like an obvious hole in existing legislation.

Bipartisianism is bullshit. I'd love to support the democrats, if their "gun control isn't gun bans" didn't always legislate in wording as "gun ban", and if they didn't choose candidates like Hillary Clinton when there were so many more legitimate politicians with less smudged records. They could be on the "right side of history", but they aren't and that's the disappointment.

There are countries out there, that have gun control but not full bans, and function splendidly, but America is all-or-nothing in it's politics. We need to reform THAT before we start making other complicated laws. Starting with making a comprehensive middle-ground law with guns, or with repealing frivolous laws currently in the system so we have the literal ability to enforce with our current police force any new laws.

Some of us are regular people unaffiliated with the NRA and are simply not going to stop owning guns because the government tells us to because we prefer self defense in case of a robbery or criminal shooting. However, if we just "allow" these laws, pfft, over 40% of the world's incarceration rate, let's make it 60%! Sky's the limit folks, nobody needs to be "not in jail", that's so overrated...

Thieves and gangs have guns. They are terrible people. The concealed carry at that South Carolina nightclub had a gun. Was he a terrible person for stopping another criminal from firing into crowds? To be fair, I wouldn't carry a firearm into a bar because it feels way too irresponsible, but that guys a hero, not a thief or a gang member. There is no comparison, between responsible citizens with guns, and criminals with guns. There is more of a comparison between nations with guns and citizens with guns, in the sense that a nation can't just simply not have a military, even in modern age. At the very least, Russia would like that. Remember the Ukraine thing?

For every "hero" like that you probably can find five idiots who shot someone, or themselves, by accident. Simply because when you're given a gun there is an infinite way to be an idiot with them and very few situations where you can be a hero.

How likely is it that someone would truly be the hero? I mean the recent Dallas shooting, the cops reported 5 gunmen when there truly was just 1, because all the regular people with guns only confused the situation. If the police has trouble with this, how would a "hero" react in say a crowded nightclub when a guy starts shooting? Someone else pulls their gun to be the hero, another hero shoots that guy (for legal reasons, preferably dead) and quickly it turns into a giant mess.

That too makes it less likely to be a hero and more likely to be an idiot.

everyone in this thread should watch Zootopia. Not only is it a good movie I find it to be on topic.

If only reality had a better UI to mark friend and foe....

Random thought: Is there any good video game that tries to capture this kind of "there is one bad guy to stop, but no help in preventing friendly fire"-situation?

any game with 100% friendly fire damage. I don't think they're that few and far between. doesn't battlefield have 100% friendly fire ?