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Take them for all the money that can be had. False arrest charges would be nice too.

Victims of police misconduct have been suing them, and getting big damages, but it hasn't made much difference so far. I figure that in Chicago, the payouts are about $50,000 per cop per year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
U.S. cities pay out millions to settle police lawsuits
By Radley Balko
October 1, 2014
The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this year that the city has payed out nearly half a billion dollars in settlements over the past decade, and spent $84.6 million in fees, settlements, and awards last year. The Chicago Police Department is about three times the size of the Baltimore PD. Chicago the city has about four times as many people as Baltimore. Crunch those numbers as you wish. Bloomberg News reported that in 2011, Los Angeles paid out $54 million, while New York paid out a whopping $735 million, although those figures include negligence and other claims unrelated to police abuse. Oakland Police Beat reported in April that the city had paid out $74 million to settle 417 lawsuits since 1990. Thatâ(TM)s a little more than $3 million per year. The Denver Post reported in August that the Mile High City paid $13 million over 10 years. The Dallas Morning News reported in May that the city has forked over $6 million since 2011. And last month, Minneapolis Public Radio put that cityâ(TM)s payout at $21 million since 2003.

Cell phone videos are the worst thing that ever happened to violent cops. After a few big outrageous headline cases, juries are more likely to give big awards to the victims. But juries are still really unlikely to convict a cop of a crime. And it's almost impossible for a city or police department to fire those cops, even after they cost the city big civil damages.

You might wonder, at what point would the taxpayers decide that they're spending so much on bad cops that we should fire them, but I haven't seen any sign of it. A lot of politicians (including GWB and Obama) are enthusiastic about firing teachers, on much weaker charges.

It's hard to believe how powerful the police unions are and how the police can get away with almost any crime without being fired. Not only are they an occupying army in the streets, they're an occupying army in the government.

You are probably in more danger of being shot by a black. Stats prove that.

No, they don't

On the other hand, perhaps you are, if you're also black.

A majority of the country believes in so-called "socialist" policies, regardless of how those people want to label themselves. There's a reason why Bernie is so popular - he's saying what a lot of other people think. Incidentally, that's the exact same reason why Trump is so popular, except the exact opposite direction.

...when 22 million records of personal information including SSNs of federal employees were stolen? How much did the United States government fine the United States government for failing to protect private data held by the United States government?

Is this how Lifelock should have done business?

Boeing collects $13B in subsidies from taxpayer https://www.washingtonpost.com... http://america.aljazeera.com/o... http://www.cheatsheet.com/busi... then spies on taxpayer. http://heavy.com/tech/2014/11/... http://www.wired.com/2014/11/f... http://www.usnews.com/news/art... Not cool, Boeing.

You have yet to give a Trump example of that so I don't see the need.

Here you go.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/22/...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

And for "balance",

http://www.theblaze.com/storie...

Trump followers don't seem any more militant than most Obama followers (to give another US group which gets casually accused of fascism).

Please find an example of Obama inciting violence or approving violence at a rally and there actually being violence at the same rally

No. "Both sides" do not do it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

A whole bunch of crap gets stuck into the omnibus bill. It gives them cover on some things and in other ways represents a compromise between the parties. Both parties wanted to pass CISA despite it fucking the American people (i.e. letting businesses conduct mass surveillance and just happening to turn that over the government to be used for any purpose government wants without liability and I believe with no time limit for data retention).

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

High time to abandon the two party system, at least in terms of Congress.

Congress is giving away all the oil to multinationals. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Pet charity projects throwing money haphazardly at random causes a few billionaires feel strongly about is an undemocratic disgrace. Had more of their largesse been taxed, we the people could've put it to better use dealing with our deficit, fixing our failing infrastructure, or even using it to help pay for ambitious new programs like universal basic income and single payer healthcare. Those ideas have the potential to totally end poverty. Pet charity projects like Gates' or Zuckerberg's hold no such potential.

Instead of praising this, we should be asking ourselves what kind of society we want to live in.

From the article: "Who should fund our general societal needs and how? Charities rarely fund quotidian yet vital needs. What would $40 billion mean for job creation or infrastructure spending? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a budget of about $7 billion. Maybe more should go to that. Society, through its elected members, taxes its members. Then the elected officials decide what to do with sums of money."

See also: public vs. private social expenditures as a percentage of GDP.

he was a widely respected University of Chicago faculty member writing in Slate.

FTFY.

Don't laugh.

He's going to be President of the University and get promoted to editor for Slate.

This kind of "thinking" is rampant in wackademia and "progressive" publications.

Jail for visiting a web page? Hell, how about death penalty for not toeing the line on climate change?

Hell, maybe he can be President and use an unconstitutional big-brother list to take away another Constitutionally-guaranteed right?

Here, read this, especially the part about the FAA wanting to educate drone users, not punish them: https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Also, you're giving me the 'pointed stick' argument: anything can be used as a weapon so why don't they just ban everything? It's not a valid argument. Point: If ALL drone users had acted responsibly in the first place, none of this would be happening right now, but that's not the case, the Djinn is out of the bottle, the proverbial horse has left the proverbial barn, Pandora's semi-autonomously-flying box has been opened; it ain't going back the way it was no matter how much whiners whine about it, so just pay your $1.67 per year registration fee and move on already. Maybe the next time some new 'toy' in the lawn darts category comes up, citizens instead of the government will jump up and make sure people aren't being stupid with them, instead of the gods-be-damned clusterfuck this whole gods-be-damned toy drone thing has turned into.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Here's the important part for the 'tl,dr' crowd: The FAA is focusing on educating drone operators, since they believe most illegal operation of drones is due to ignorance on the part of the operators. Forcing you to pay a whole $5 for 3 years and put a number on your drone is a way to make you pay attention and learn the rules. Again: you're getting off EASY, they're not assuming everyone is a criminal or terrorist, they're not outlawing drones, they're not doing this to make money (in fact it probably COSTS more to operate the registration process than the $5 they're charging).

Have fun getting your stuff stolen by police when you leave. NC has some of the best civil asset forfeiture protections of any state. In the rest of the country, civil asset forfeiture now exceeds all burglaries.

Such a hard decision. Live in a place where the police are thugs who steal my stuff, or live in a place where I can't have solar panels in one town.

That's just my point though. Even though the democrats currently hold every statewide office in Virginia, the Republicans still have a majority in both houses of the state legislature, and hold 8 of the 11 seats in the House... and North Carolina has far more of a Republican tilt in its voting population.

As for the Governor - the reason he got elected was that the Republicans ran a complete right-wing ideologue, who on top of being a jackass that had used the Attorney General's office to go on political witchhunts against scientists (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/science/earth/23virginia.html?_r=0), was also tied to the scandals of the outgoing Republican Governor (who wound up later convicted of bribery - https://www.washingtonpost.com... ).

The government simply got used to being able to see everything at all times. Now that we can create blind spots, they are paranoid and lashing out.

Paranoid? " Lashing out "? I don't know how to break this to you, but it isn't really about you.

Paris massacre: At least 128 killed in gunfire and blasts, French officials say
ISIS claims responsibility for Paris massacre; attackers include Belgians, Frenchman, possible Syrian migrant

San Bernardino shooting: Farook tied to jihadist recruiter, officials say
The Evolving Extremist Threat - The Islamic State group’s plan to promote violence worldwide is bearing fruit.

Imam Says America, Europe Taking Muslim Refugees Will Only Help Spread Caliphate; Tells Muslim Refugees to Breed With Europeans
European Union predicts 3 million more migrants by end of next year

The late Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post has recalled:
"I guess it started for me with Vietnam, when the establishment felt it had to lie to justify a policy that, as it turned out, was never going to work ... [documented] hidden away in the Pentagon Papers..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

It seems to me we (the electorate) keep sending the people who are best at it, because they keep telling us what we want to hear, back in.

Or, we could have just gotten false information from people supposedly in the know.

Which would ignore that entire department setup by Donald Rumsfeld known as the Office of Special Plans which according to The Guardian, "operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney."

The Guardian further adds, "Mr Tenet has officially taken responsibility for the president's unsubstantiated claim in January that Saddam Hussein's regime had been trying to buy uranium in Africa, but he also said his agency was under pressure to justify a war that the administration had already decided on."

Nope. If you are only looking at half the facts, I can see how you would come to that conclusion. But I never made any claim to the validity of the prewar intelligence, just that Bush never made the claim that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

Are you honestly trying to suggest that two thirds of the American public misunderstood the President, Vice President, as well as Condoleezza Rice? Seriously?

So I don't really know why you are bringing it up. It doesn't refute my claim which you seemed to sidestep quite nicely.

Can you explain why during testimony in a lawsuit brought on behalf of the estates of 9/11 victims, George Eric Smith, a senior business analyst for Sun Gard Asset Management, and Timothy Soulas, a senior managing director and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, why former CIA Director, R James Woolsey, at that time a member of the administration's Defense Policy Board, Colin Powell and George Tenet all swore under oath that a "conclusive link" between Saddam and 9/11 existed? It seems strange that these members of the Bush Administration would swear under oath that they believed such a thing if they never thought it was true.

I mean your position is only valid if you ignore quite a lot of reality which makes it not real at all. We had faulty intelligence reports, over stated reliability of these reports, and outright lies by captured Al Qaeda personnel.

So, we're going to go with the Bush Administration was inept as a defense? I can agree that looking back in hindsight that is likely to be the case. But then we have that nagging issue of all the times multiple members of the Bush Administration mentioned Saddam and 9/11 in the same sentence.

To say misinformed statements (which is what it really boils down to) is a lie while ignoring the lies that caused the misinformation itself is a lot dishonest to say the least. It is as if you have a narrative and damn anything getting in it's way. You are what you are claiming Bush and Co to be.

Bullshit.

What I keep hearing out of you is that somehow, as if by magic, the overwhelming majority of the American public just woke up one morning and decided that Saddam was involved in 9/11 but that all the times the Bush Administration mentioned this had nothing at all to do with that.

You apparently are here to tell all of these Americans that they are idiots and nothing the Bush Administration did in any way was responsible for this error. Sure, let's go with that.

First, I never said we didn't get things wrong...

Indeed.

I said that Bush's position was never that Iraq was connected to 9/11, his position was that we couldn't operate as usual after 9/11 because of the magnitude of it.

So, when "President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials have often asserted that there were extensive ties between Hussein's government and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network; earlier thi

Since you seem to have an interest in the numbers, here are some graphs with December numbers that may interest you.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

A few months ago, 30% of Republicans without a degree backed Trump, while 8% with a degree did. Now his support among non-graduates is at 40% or more.

Other poll questions suggest that less-educated people are more concerned about illegal immigration (competition for jobs, wages?). It also appears that people concerned about illegal immigration like Trump. So that's probably one major tie-in; if you're concerned about illegal immigrants affecting your employment opportunities and wages, it would be reasonable to like Trump's tough talk on immigration. So a lesson for other candidates would be to clearly convey that they intend to enforce immigration law.

I actually feel better understanding that. Previously I wondered why people like him. Now I understand, he's taking the strongest position on something that directly affects their ability to support their family.

Trump's misstatements of facts and reluctance to explain -how- he intends to accomplish things are probably less of a negative among people who are themselves not as well educated in the facts. Someone who does not personally understand much about how the federal government works is unlikely to appreciate that fact that someone like Ted Cruz does understand how to get things done and what the logistical challenges are.

I basically called Trump a clueless jerk, so I should mention two of his strengths :
He's a very effective negotiator who gets deals done. That could be helpful if Democrats controlled one or both houses of Congress, and in foreign relations. He'd need a lot of expert advice on what the deal SHOULD be, but he hires experts and then negotiates good deals.

He's a LEADER. Kennedy was a leader, think of his speeches that challenged the country to accomplish great things. Reagan led the country and got things done while Democrats controlled Congress. Obama got nothing done while his own party controlled Congress for two years. Instead, he waited around for Nancy Pelosi to make decisions and lead. That is possibly Obama's biggest shortcoming- he does not lead. Trump is very much accustomed to personally leading companies and major projects. He'll not sit on his hands and fret over the polls.

Again, I do think he's ignorant on the issues, but to be fair I wanted to also acknowledge his strengths. If he does win, hopefully he'll hire knowledgeable advisors and listen to them. He has done so in business, hiring Steve Wynn and other very bright people.

No, he already has his liberal bona fides. Whatever the reasons for his popularity, it's not because of any deeply rooted commitment to the Republicans or conservative ideals, generally.

This is the key. Please see here. Sure, it's WaPo, but it's clear that Trump is doing nothing but trolling. Also see here.

That being said, I like a good troll. Trump is doing classic trolling at its finest. <trump>I know a lot of trolls! I'm very good friends with a lot of trolls!</trump>

NO SINGLE US CORPORATION HAS MOVED OVER SEAS.

You may call this a nitpick, but if a company moves its headquarters overseas, it *has* moved overseas.. and then (likely) still has a U.S. branch.

I simply googled "companies moving headquarters offshore". This first result:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
mentions Burger King and Chiquita.

"Make it about “political correctness run amok”: For instance, you might open the article with the transgender students’ protesting the Person of Stature’s University talk. But then you will pan back and show that this is but one instance among many in a much larger and disturbing trend sweeping the nation—aka, “political correctness running amok.” (I am not sure why political correctness is always “running amok” as opposed to other synonymous phrases, but just roll with it.) And at this point, you can simply provide readers with a laundry list of seemingly similar incidents of activists and minority groups taking things way too far with their “political correctness” and “censorship.” For examples of this laundry-list approach, see recent high profile pieces by Jonathan Chait, Michelle Goldberg, and Caitlin Flanagan (there are countless others—The Atlantic alone seems to be churning out one or two of these per month!). The benefit of this approach is that you don’t have to go too in depth about any specific issue (e.g., interviewing all the parties involved, accurately conveying their differing perspectives, etc.)—you can just hastily depict all of them as being outrageous. Additionally, this allows you to conflate some potentially legitimate issues (e.g., protests of the Person of Stature) with a bunch of random mean things that random people (who have no stature) have said on Twitter." https://medium.com/@juliaseran...
"When people rail against political correctness, they're usually stating that it has run amok." http://www.dummies.com/how-to/...
"Political Correctness Run Amuck!" http://reflectionsfromtheburg....
"On the other hand, I do think political correctness has run amuck" http://greginhollywood.com/jer...
"There are those who claim that political correctness has run amuck." http://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/ne...
"Flag defenders: Political correctness has run amok." https://www.dailyadvance.com/n...
“the clearest example of political correctness run amok that I have seen in quite some time.” http://knoxblogs.com/humphreyh...
"Political correctness run amuck again." http://forum.woodenboat.com/sh...
"Has political correctness really 'run amok' on college campuses?" http://talk.collegeconfidentia...
"Political Correctness Run Amok" http://www.newsmax.com/Freind/...
"Has political correctness really 'run amok' on college campuses?" https://www.washingtonpost.com...
"Has Political Correctness Run Amok?" https://www.insidehighered.com...
"In Fort Collins, political correctness run amok"

" Look no Western country allows to carry around guns and buy guns that easily."

And neither do most Eastern countries, or Southern countries, or Northern countries, etc. Yet many of them have murder rates far higher than the US.

The fact that you rely on some assumption that 'Western' countries are more moral/advanced/civil/whatever is bigoted to begin with, but it also torpedoes your argument that guns are the problem. Social structures and living conditions shouldn't matter if guns are the root cause of violence. Russia is on-par with the US in regards to technology, has strict firearm ownership restrictions, and the murder rate is 4x higher. Gun problem or people problem?

Additionally, randomly picking France or some other 'Western' country that is the size of Minnesota and has 1/8th the US population is simple cherry-picking. If you take all of Europe from Portugal to Moscow, which is far more equivalent to the size, population, and geographic disparities of the US, as well as income and education variations, the murder rates are far closer despite firearm ownership being so much less so as to be statistically none in comparison.

"And you have a mass shooting almost every day"

Only by a measure which includes 'shootings' in which nobody was killed, and the vast majority is gang violence in the inner city.

"Your ignorance (as a country) will be your undoing."

For most Americans (those born 1960 or later) it's never been safer. There are 10,000 less murders a year than 20 or 30 years ago. The murder rate is lower or equal to what it was in 1960. Rapes are down, assaults are down, etc.

You can't say the same for Europe. The incidence of rapes, assaults, hate-crimes, etc are all higher than the US. Now you have a refugee problem, how's that working out for Europe these days?

It's hardly a one-factor cause and effect of course. This graph https://img.washingtonpost.com... though shows an interesting split; for developed first world countries there is a pretty linear relationship between guns per capita and gun related deaths per capita, with the US not really off the curve, merely just out on one end of the spread. but for third world/developing countries, there is generally a median number of guns per capita, but the gun related death rate is variable, and can be very very very high.
thinking about it, that's probably not too surprising (the linear, first world thing), given that the majority of gun deaths are suicides; expand that to a general "crimes of passion/impulse" category, where somebody isn't meticulously planning a crime or suicide but just has an impulse and grabs what is handy, and it's clear that having more guns handy would increase that incidence. and presumably having more guns would increase the frequency of accidental shootings, toddlers finding and triggering a gun, etc.
so the actual number of planned firearm murders or even firearm crime numbers might not be that sensitive to the overall guns per capita, even though the overall gun fatality rate is.

...its not like Congress is going to work with him after all the name calling he has directed at them over the years.

If congress won't work with him, how did he get his massive education reform bill passed this week?

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com...

...I expect Slashdot to thoroughly Savage Diane for her attempts to undermine internet freedom and privacy just as they savaged Trump for merely suggesting what Hillary Suggested.

What was Trump savaged for again? You may have the savaging mixed up. They should be savaged for this, but Trump takes it 100000000 times further

You do realise that you just said that persecution of people for thoughtcrime is 100000000 times better than bigotry? Are you actually insane?

It's a known quantity.

Right. . . It is not like there are tons of new discoveries every day , right? Sorry, but your assertion is absurd. Knowing how CRISPR, itself, works in no way reduces the risk when we use it on all the stuff (you know, life on planet Earth) we barely understand.

How about we perform an experiment. . .you and I both get into fully automated cars. I allow you to randomly change binary bits of my car's programming (much like natural mutation). You allow me to randomly change source code functions, configuration values, etc. . . of your car (much like the genetic script kiddie activities you are asserting are complete harmless). Let's see who lives longest. . . : )

...I expect Slashdot to thoroughly Savage Diane for her attempts to undermine internet freedom and privacy just as they savaged Trump for merely suggesting what Hillary Suggested.

I turned on Trump not for his Internet comment, but instead the "lets temporarily ban entry to the U.S.A. for all Muslims" comment. It shows a blatant willingness to violate the spirit of the first amendment if not the letter.

...I expect Slashdot to thoroughly Savage Diane for her attempts to undermine internet freedom and privacy just as they savaged Trump for merely suggesting what Hillary Suggested.

What was Trump savaged for again? You may have the savaging mixed up. They should be savaged for this, but Trump takes it 100000000 times further

...I expect Slashdot to thoroughly Savage Diane for her attempts to undermine internet freedom and privacy just as they savaged Trump for merely suggesting what Hillary Suggested.

and he doesn't often change his mind.

Except on immigration, abortion, Planned Parenthood, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syrian refugees, gun control, taxing the wealthy, Social Security, Hillary Clinton, and even his party affiliation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

I'd say that Donald Trump changes his mind fairly often, if you take him by his words.

In LA

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Oh, I see you read the Washington Post. Good for you!

Look at that list. It has 10 events on it and it covers 19 years. Meanwhile, we've had 355 mass shootings this year. Case closed, the incidence of people protecting themselves with guns is practically zero. It's a fantasy.

But Al Gore is a dirty, rotten Liberal

So is Trump. He was a registered democrat, favors single-payer healthcare, he's pro-choice, favors a wealth tax, etc.

"Every day, huh? What mass shooting happened yesterday?"

The one from yesterday was put on an earlier date, it already happened on one of those 355 mass shootings during this year.
Some days there have to be several mass shootings, otherwise they can't put them all into one year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

What color is the sky on your planet?

US Senator calls for RICO investigations into global warming "deniers"

Wisconsin Democrats conducted secret "John Doe" criminal investigations of Republicans

Dare to criticize Hillary! and get criminally charged with "campaign finance" law violations

You forgot Loretta Lynch (a fitting last name if there ever was one) threatening to prosecute people for "hate speech" against the religion of her boss. Speech that is either religious, or political (or both) in nature and protected by the 1st Amendment.

Corrupt at it's core, no reason to follow the rules anymore.

Some day the crime will be 'inciting a riot' through writing an insightful article, or annoying a politician, or being a member of an opposition party.

No it won't.

You are suing the slippery slope fallacy. I expect you to provide a plausible turn of events that leads to this slippery slope.

What color is the sky on your planet?

US Senator calls for RICO investigations into global warming "deniers"

Wisconsin Democrats conducted secret "John Doe" criminal investigations of Republicans

Dare to criticize Hillary! and get criminally charged with "campaign finance" law violations

How quickly is the US realistically trying to get away from coal plants? I say realistically as a premeditated strike against the eventual posts that wind and solar will solve everything. The US corporations seem to have gone with natural gas as an alternative, with fracking, which has its own issues, but smog and clean air isn't really among them.

Surely you jest. Coal is a dead man walking in the US. Even before Obama's recent draconian EPA policy, coal plants were closing en masse for several years now. Most plants that can convert to natural gas have converted to natural gas. The others are closing down at record rates. All new energy capacity being added this year and the next are dominated by natural gas and wind plants. And that trend is supposed to continue for the foreseeable future as coal power continues to be phased out (the vast majority of the coal plants in existence are very old already, nearing end of life, and new ones aren't being built). It's not even close how dead coal is: https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Nobody's talking about helping the poor fat Americans overcome their obesity, poor education, violence

You dumb fuck. Of course they are.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

http://www.christianpost.com/n...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/rea...

http://articles.chicagotribune...

But we're not obligated to do anything and it's not our fault if something bad happens to a group of people somewhere in the world today.

First John 3:17 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

The government, through Saudi Arabia, is an ISIS supporter. And then, after ISIS, you will hear about ISIS 2.0, or is it Al Qaeda 3.0? Either way, the war is coming home to roost.

If all judges were this sensible, then those who want to imprison people for "climate change denial" will be thwarted.

All zero people.

Well probably not quite zero, there's enough people in the world that there's probably one nutjob who says something like that. I'll bet you can't find a remotely significant number of people with such views.

Crawl out from under that rock, because you're WRONG:

Read a US Senator (Democrat, natch) call for bringing RICO charges against climate deniers.

More here: Arrest Climate-Change Deniers

And here: Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent?

More: Al Gore Blasts GOP Climate Deniers, Thom Hartmann Says Throw Them in Jail

Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice

Death Penalty for Global Warming Deniers?

WTF? DEATH PENALTY?!?!?!

Yes indeed - death penalty. And he's not alone:

Climate “Deniers” Must Be Jailed or Killed

What States' Attorneys General Can Do About Climate Deniers (Hard to believe the Kennedy clan has fallen that far - JFK tried to depose a Communist dictator instead of sucking up to him...)

The reason for the 2nd amendment and indeed much of the constitutional convention was Shay's Rebellion. Shay's rebellion really freaked out the powers that be in the early US. Shay's rebellion was precipitated by many rural farmers were getting foreclosed on by banks so some folks rebelled and took-up arms. When the Governors called out the militia to put down the rebellion they found that the arms leftover from the revolution were in federal armories. The feds refused to open the armories to the states, even at gunpoint! The state's found this particularly galling as they claimed that they paid for these arms (historically wrong, but a good propaganda point at the time). That is why you see such an odd prefatory statement for the second amendment that you see nowhere else in the constitution: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,...."
Washington responded to a similar insurrection, The Whisky Rebellion, with force using the second amendment as grounds to press the militia into service to put it down. Interestingly, Washington led the force and was the only US president to go into battle while in office. Harrison Ford, exempted.

It isn't about wishing death on a pet. It's about the way life has worked for all of recorded history. Change it and there will be unintended side-effects.

> hopefully your human family members will live longer along with your pets.

That's spin to make it more palatable to mess with these animals in the lab. We stopped medical research on chimpanzees and now these guys are selling this new version.

Humane research has helped us end a lot more suffering than it has caused. Even some of the cruel research that Hitler did has saved more lives than it initially cost (I'm talking about just the research portion not his genocide). I'm not saying that causing a death now is ok if it saves 2 lives later but if the research is done humanely and ethically then it should be allowed. In this particular case, the types of experiments that are likely to be done will most likely cause very little if any pain and if the puppies are well cared for and then placed with good homes to live out their lives then how is this any different than someone raising normal puppies to sell.

It isn't about wishing death on a pet. It's about the way life has worked for all of recorded history. Change it and there will be unintended side-effects.

> hopefully your human family members will live longer along with your pets.

That's spin to make it more palatable to mess with these animals in the lab. We stopped medical research on chimpanzees and now these guys are selling this new version.

In a typical year, just over 300 people are killed by those things in the US.

Huh? That number seems low. As of October 1, according to the Washington Post, there were 294 mass shootings so far in 2015, and that was still with three months left in the year. That accounted for 380 deaths so far, with well over 1,000 injured. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal claims "the US leads the world in mass shootings." http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-...

How many of those shootings were with long guns versus a hand gun? For instance, in the US, the definition of a long gun is anything with a rifled barrel over 16" and any smooth bore weapon greater than 18". At least for Civilian purposes. The military may have bull-pup rifled long guns that are typically around 14" in barrel length. See Wikipedia for more info on long guns.

More idiot citizens with guns means more this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Well done, citizen.

In a typical year, just over 300 people are killed by those things in the US.

Huh? That number seems low. As of October 1, according to the Washington Post, there were 294 mass shootings so far in 2015, and that was still with three months left in the year. That accounted for 380 deaths so far, with well over 1,000 injured. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal claims "the US leads the world in mass shootings." http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-...

As best I can tell he's near the mark. The statistics I can find show 300-400 rifle murders per year, with many times that caused by handguns. Source: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." - no matter how much the anti-gun spin-meisters would try to convince you otherwise.

Yep. So the most logical thing to do is: make sure there are as little bad guys with a gun as possible!
You see: the good guy of today could be the bad guy of tomorrow.
This NRA slogan ignores the cost of just about anybody owning a gun: the opportunity cost.

A lot of deaths in the US by guns are the result of someone having a fit and just because the gun is there this results in loss of lives. And this is not even talking about kids that accidentally or in anger shoot their parents/brother/sister/...

Gun possesion and the amount of gun related kills are simply related, no matter how much the NRA propaganda would like to convince you otherwise! link

...in fact, this wasn't even the only mass shooting that day. Another dude in Savannah shot 4 people yesterday, killing one.

Frankly, I'm at the point where I'm sick of hearing about it. Anything that happens daily, sometimes multiple times a day, and nobody gives enough of a shit about to actually try to prevent, is no longer news. How does it help me to report it to me? We should just hand over reporting of these incidents to traffic reporters, so we know where not to drive, and get on with our lives.