Slashdot Mirror
Reddit Bans Subreddits Related To Selling Guns, Drugs, Sex, and More (bloomberg.com)
New submitter cornholed writes: Yesterday, Reddit updated their Content Policy forbidding transactions for certain goods and services. From the formal announcement on Reddit: "As of today, users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services, including: firearms, ammunition, or explosives; drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, or any controlled substances (except advertisements placed in accordance with our advertising policy); paid services involving physical sexual contact; stolen goods; personal information; falsified official documents or currency." Bloomberg has an interesting write-up on how Reddit is wading into the gun control debate. See this post on Reddit for a full-list of all subreddits banned. "Reddit has been something of a Wild West for users building communities by curating and commenting on content in subreddits," reports Bloomberg. "Sometimes, as in the case with gun sales, marketplaces emerge in the course of conversations within specific communities. With Reddit's increased popularity -- the site is the sixth-most-visited in the world -- has come introspection and stricter content guidelines. The company recognizes its responsibility for having provided a platform for hate groups to flourish and, more recently, the possibility that Russian propaganda on the site may have played a role in influencing the 2016 presidential election."
fuckin a. fuck reddit.
USENET is/was a purely peer-to-peer system with no effective censorship. The downside to this, of course, was massive quantities of spam, which killed it. If someone could effectively solve the spam issue without censoring...
A lot of these have dropped in the last few days.
YouTube Bans Firearms Demo Videos
Citi sets restrictions on gun sales by retail clients by adding arbitrary rules (can only sell to 21+ years-old, no standard capacity magazines, etc)
Mobster: I would like a "bunny".
Sales Mobster: What kind of "bunny"? A semi-automatic "bunny" [making a gesture like he's holding rifle] or a hand held "bunny" [making a gesture like he's holding pistol]?
Mobster: Whichever "bunny", you think is better for shooting a guy in the head.
Welcome to the future, comrade.
voat.co
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
"except advertisements placed in accordance with our advertising policy" - so, not a ban, just a price increase.
Sheep often move en masse, as though there was some coordination in effect.
Perhaps that's news to you.
Sheep often move en masse, as though there was some coordination in effect.
Perhaps that's news to you.
Do you think these policy changes for companies like Citigroup and Youtube happen overnight? I'm sure these companies have been working on these for a while - it's just strange they ALL get announced within 24-48 hours of each other.
I'm not saying there's a conspiracy. I'm just pointing out the timing is coincidental.
Is to ban the sale of rock and roll.
Asshole Reddit mods catering to the snowflakes. Jumping on the anti gun bandwagon.
"I would like a 'bunny.'"
"What kind of 'bunny'? A semi-automatic 'bunny' or a hand-held 'bunny'?"
"Which kind of 'bunny' do you think is better for shooting a guy in the head?"
"Citi said that in addition to the policy for new clients, it is starting talks with current clients on their practices and if they do not adopt changes the bank will help “transition their business away from Citi.”
From a financial standpoint this would be called shooting themselves in the foot.
Cracks me up when talking about an anti-gun policy.
I'm wondering when /r/nomorals will get punted now. Good riddance to /r/shoplifting and /r/stealing though.
You can still use reddit to buy used womens panties.
and talk about having sex with your dogs.
and express your vicious hate for everything right wing.
It's disturbing how much those 3 things overlap too.
"Citi said that in addition to the policy for new clients, it is starting talks with current clients on their practices and if they do not adopt changes the bank will help “transition their business away from Citi.”
From a financial standpoint this would be called shooting themselves in the foot.
This is just Citi throwing a minority under the bus for free publicity. From what it looks like, this is only for corporate accounts (that is, if your business uses Citi as your bank). I imagine gun retailers are a drop in the bucket for them.
The biggest possible hit they'll take is fallout from boycotts from gun groups. Looks like it's already all over social media: https://twitter.com/Citi/statu...
Some people want the internet to stay the wild west it used to be but that can't and won't happen. Peopld don't want the asshattery malware and what'll traumatize their kids. Best get used to it that era is over, the internet is for everyone now and they are going to demand it become something socially acceptable, not an autists paradise of seediness and sleaze. No gun markets drug markets creeper porn. Think about your grandma, she doesn't want to be exposed to that, just by going online.
Plain fact is, it's gotta change from its roots and grow up join civilized society. Its not for the basement dwellers any more.
Those born before Netflix might remember network TV shows with bland family content where you never see naked people or hear swearing. When Lucy, of 'I Love Lucy', got pregnant, she was not allowed to be seen on screen in that condition. We listened to Lawrence Welk music and saw the art of Norman Rockwell on magazine covers. We waved the flag on 4th of July and cheered for our baseball team and joined Boy Scouts. Yes, youngsters, that was life before the internet. We had to read National Geographic magazine to see naked people.
But why was that so? Because of the Religious Right. Because of the Moral Majority. Because of Puritans who ran the country. But mostly because of advertising sponsors who were afraid to be associated with anything 'immoral'.
We now swim in porn of all kinds with Game of Thrones and other films by Amazon, Netflix and other new media innovators. We have chat rooms where we are free to swear and say outrageous things. We freely criticize politicians and corporations and media and each other. The internet has freed us from Moral Morons and Patriotic Pimps and Advertising Assholes who suppressed free thought since the Dark Ages.
But it's happening again. The Wild West internet is gradually coming under the thumb of the Pompous Puritans. Facebook, Twitter and even Reddit are shutting down free speech bit by bit. And yes it's largely due to advertising sponsors and partly due to threats by governments around the world.
Was Reddit the last major bastion of Free Speech? Is the internet going to become as bland and mindless as 1956 television?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Guns are not illegal. The purchases on gundeals were all above board NFA licensed businesses that required NFA transfers that included background checks. So, there was no illegal activity going on there. What's next? They ban communities where people hookup because some people consider it immoral? So posting pictures of your genitalia is ok, but getting a good deal on a scope isn't?
At least according to the Slashdot articles posted. Or maybe trying to rank top websites in order of popularity is essentially impossible and we should just stop? No one thinks Reddit is a small site and it doesn't need a numerical rank assigned to it. Neither do Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon etc... We know they're all among the top either in traffic or influence.
It's definitely trying to make the news cycle, and if there are any lessons to be learnt from gamergate, it's being orchestrated, and, I'm not surprised to see some of the same companies involved again.
The rhyme of history is sounding again. When the printing press was invented in Europe, it didn't take long for establishments to see that sharing information was not always in their interests, books got banned, notably political ones. I think we're just in a similar phase as then; some companies are taking it on themselves to consolidate and control what gets shared.
Just like Google, err,, cough cough utube cough, you are clearly showing your political bias.
// never bought a GF an abortion
/// I must be a D
Doesn't matter if you are for or against gun control, you can't deny utube and reddit are left wing.
/ don't own any guns
DEEPSTATE!!!
Seems like knowing that you've enabled a murder, an overdose, or a rape might keep you up at night. Maybe Reddit just doesn't want to be a part of it. It's a big old internet. Users that want to sell guns and drugs and sex can go somewhere else.
"Reddit has been something of a Wild West for users building communities by curating and commenting on content in subreddits,"
FALSE. They censor those who have right-wing viewpoints.
Maybe if the right-wing viewpoints were expressed with less frothing-at-the-mouth fervor, the rest of us would take the viewpoints more seriously. As it is, most of the right-wing stuff has become so radical and offensive over the last few years that it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that those viewpoints are getting pushed out as fringe.
In other words, if you want to have a meaningful conversation about any given topic, regardless of what side of the issue you're on, it would help if you didn't start with an obviously crazy and offensive standpoint (e.g. "lock her up" and other similar bullshit).
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Is it a response to this, passed by the Senate 2 days ago?
According to the EFF:
Hey children. Go the fuck away'
Have you visited r/The_Donald?
Feddit ?
I gotta go look on GitHub, can't believe that theres not some oss thingy that'd work , or could be forked ...
So what'd it have ?
- fully federated?
- zero censoring - as long as it's legal
- moderated or auto-moderated
- authenticated but anonymous
- you pick spam filtering , or no
Can't stop digging this hole I'm in ...
The spaz's new theme song.
Ironically, Citi also manages the government travel card for, wait for it, the entire Department of Defense.
Alas, given that some people consider the Second Amendment to be "crazy and offensive", it's pretty much impossible to avoid the label.
Note that, from my PoV, it's the people who think the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments are Holy Writ, but the Second is just silliness who are "crazy and offensive".
Just as the ones who think the Second is Holy Writ, but the First, Fourth and Fifth are just silliness are "crazy and offensive".
Personally, I like the complete Bill of Rights. If you don't, push to get your vision enshrined in the Constitution. Not like there aren't procedures for Amending the thing....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The more users seek to embrace freedoms supported on better sites.
US brands that support freedom of speech start trending.
SJW brands that ban content become a meme.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You figured it out. It's those damned bow and arrow makers who are behind the conspiracy to get guns banned in order to drive up their sales!
As of today, users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services, including: firearms, ammunition, or explosives; drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, or any controlled substances (except advertisements placed in accordance with our advertising policy); paid services involving physical sexual contact; stolen goods; personal information; falsified official documents or currency
If I read correctly, one can still trade chemical weapons. Elephant's tusks seems fine. Human organs trafficking seems to be in a grey zone because of physical contact.
"Reddit has been something of a Wild West for users building communities by curating and commenting on content in subreddits,"
FALSE. They censor those who have right-wing viewpoints.
Maybe if the right-wing viewpoints were expressed with less frothing-at-the-mouth fervor, the rest of us would take the viewpoints more seriously. As it is, most of the right-wing stuff has become so radical and offensive over the last few years that it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that those viewpoints are getting pushed out as fringe.
In other words, if you want to have a meaningful conversation about any given topic, regardless of what side of the issue you're on, it would help if you didn't start with an obviously crazy and offensive standpoint (e.g. "lock her up" and other similar bullshit).
- -
Well, FWIW, -all- right-wing viewpoints aren't expressed that way. Crazy and offensive? I think that holds true for those on both sides of the aisle. ANTIFA, anyone? How offensive is that? ...wearing masks and attacking people because they can't stand to hear what they don't like. That my friend is fringe.
As for "the rest of us" ...from my experience those on the left don't even bother to read right-wing viewpoints - no matter how sincere. Additionally Breitbart readers cringe at rawstory comments - and vice versa. Perhaps you shouldn't stereotype >_
More like a retards playpen.
FALSE. They censor those who have right-wing viewpoints.
Nonsense. I'm frequently attacked by the "right" on Reddit.
...now right-wingers do have to deal with Redditors responding to them by brandishing pesky 'facts' which they often interpret as "attacks" but the fact that they can rarely rebut the facts proves they're not "attacks."
No one censors them.
Alas, given that some people consider the Second Amendment to be "crazy and offensive", it's pretty much impossible to avoid the label.
The "Crazy and Offensive" comes when supporters of the second amendment consider the deaths of children to be a reasonable price to pay for the right of crazies to buy assault weapons. In most people's world, there's no way that's not 'crazy and offensive.'
then shove it up your smelly, fucking cunt. The sooner you and your empliyees are found face down in the gutter with heroin needles sticking out of your arms, the sooner the internet can celebrate your self destruction .
Die you coke snorting amphetmaine addicted herpes ridden AIDS spreaders, die.
If you don't like other people's content, you tell them to go set up their own web site.
If other people don't like your content, set up your own web site.
is not illegal, but you are doing a great job of it anyway
who gives a flying fuck about anyone else's political opinions, you can't change them, but you can look like an ass for complaining
set up your own fucking web site and talk about whatever you want
kick out the losers that say stuff you don't like
my god, is this really all that hard?
Do it for the children! Think of the children! It takes a village!
The 90s wants their shitty stock phrases back.
How many of your kids got shot? None? Exactly. So stop whining SJW style about how you need to take away other's rights.
It's worth noting that gun manufacturers and dealers are used to dealing with this sort of banking tomfoolery.
It is a repeat of what they experienced in 2013 when the DOJ worked with banks to block their access to banking services in Operation Choke Point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
Who benefits from censoring and demonizing civilian gun ownership?
If you were a billionaire, wouldn't you feel uncomfortable with the idea of an increasingly pissed off worker class as income equality gets worse with each passing decade?
I always wonder why sex is named in the same context as guns, drugs and illegal materials.
Drugs and guns you can argue are dangerous things.
Illegal stuff is harmful to someone (the person you stole it from, for example).
For some reason, we are still in the middle ages where sex is thrown in with these things, not for rational reasons, but because stuff-up moral preachers want to give it a bad taste.
Will humanity ever grow up? We've been waiting since the Enlightenment.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
People whining about censorship. In this case you'd get people whining about the lack of censorship. I need someone else to ensure I don't see anything which might be ugly or disagree with my worldview. I wonder how soon before some one sues Caltrans for there be an accident on the freeway. Not in the sense of there being an accident but that they had to witness the 'horror' and tragedy of real life and were forever damaged because of it...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Looks like we can still have subreddits for child pornography!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I have diarrhea. On the face of the YouTube CEO.
Check the citizenship of anyone with any form of media ties, if they are foreign or dual citizens (divided loyalties) prevent them from publishing. Of course, this is only actually an issue for the mainstream media, who are still butt blasted that they rigged the election, rigged the prediction polls, rigged the analysis, and their corrupt traitorous bullshit is still so unpopular they lost.
stuff enthusiasts.
I think the problem is, the government is letting shootings slide. I mean, earlier this week was another one, much smaller but still, it happened.
When there was a democrat in the house, he could say grand things, knowing that Congress would never approve it. But at least He Was Doing Something About It. He managed to work both sides quite well - make the big evil Republicans the reason he can't pass anything, and at the same time, gun owners were nervous, so every time they'd buy more guns, simulating the economy more.
Now that the entire government is republican controlled, there is no more excuse. Trump can't say he can't do anything about it because Congress won't let him, and everyone knows he loves his executive orders and he's famous for his Get Things Done attitude.
Problem is, he didn't. He made some noise about it, and let it peter it. Then it happened again. And people are at their breaking point. Businesses see that, they realize that it isn't business as usual and they need to Do Something to appeal to the silent majority who do want some form of dun control. (I believe the stats have it around 75% or more. It seems less, but the NRA has a whole pile of money they spend buying politicians and in fact, if one wavers in their support, all that money suddenly goes to their opponent.
The political climate has shifted, and businesses are simply stepping into the vacuum, realizing that while the NRA business is nice, it's not actually necessary, and they get a nice PR boost from being seen as Doing Something.
As long as mass shootings keep continuing to happen (and there's no indication it's going to stop), this is going to get worse. As long as the guy in the White House does everything else other than be seen doing something about the issue, companies are going to reconsider their support. The irony is, the NRA may have one the battle (Trump does nothing), but they might lose the war (popular opinion turns against gun owners, even being brandished as idiots of a barbaric age).
As long as kids are dying in the streets, no amount of tariffs or trade wars matter.
The banking system is an important tool for the regime to oppress the people.
Disarm the common people! Down with freedom and democracy! The Social Justice reich shall last a thousand years!
Reddit - come for the bigoted elitists lecturing everyone about their moral superiority - stay for the censorship!
Guns are used to prevent at least 500,000 crimes per year - according to the Brady Foundation for Handgun Control. And most of those would-be victims are women and the elderly.
The CDC says that it's more likely over 1,000,000.
Why do you want hundreds of thousands more women to be raped and robbed?
It's still alive, but not popular as before. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Yes, probably. That bill is specifically about prostitution, but it mandates review and censorship of user-submitted content. So since these companies are implementing those processes anyway, they're likely trying to fend off further regulation by getting ahead of the censorship curve.
The fact that they're targeting guns isn't really surprising, that most recent Florida shooting is still a pretty hot topic.
Before all the alt-right Nazis go blaming liberal companies blah blah blah - someone should mention the Republican Congress passage of FOSTA. The bill makes it so that website owners can be held liable for posts of their users. Right now it is supposed to specifically target sex trafficking but broad language in the bill and the likelihood of increasing liability is making a lot of companies panic.
This is as close to a literal marketplace of ideas as we will ever get. The majority favour more gun controls now, and Citi is following the market to maximise profitability.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's due to the passage of FOSTA and the current US regimes increasing attempts at restricting web content.
Alas, given that some people consider the Second Amendment to be "crazy and offensive", it's pretty much impossible to avoid the label.
Major strawman alert.
It is only an extremely small fringe who consider the second amendment to be "crazy and offensive". The rest may think it is a bit outdated or may question the interpretation, but that is absolutely not the same.
Eat the rich.
ANTIFA, anyone? How offensive is that? ...wearing masks and attacking people because they can't stand to hear what they don't like. That my friend is fringe.
Antifa numbers a few thousand people worldwide. It is a *very* small fringe.
Also false equivalency, how many people have antifa killed? How many people have they taken freedom from?
Eat the rich.
They may have updated or expanded the policy today, but in practice the subreddits related to illegal goods/services started getting shut down a while ago. For example, for years there was a subreddit for meeting up in person with heroin dealers. Like with sex work, this was ultimately an improvement. If someone robbed you, had bad or dangerous product, or were police, feedback would be left and deaths and violence were prevented. So about a year ago, in line with the principle of sadomoralism that pervades both the right and the left, reddit decided that looking bad to ignorant people who think ''what you're doing is ruining your life, so we're going to punish you by ruining your life" was more important than harm reduction, and banned the community.
No, they probably have the same percentage of shitty individuals as any other loosely grouped mass of people.
If you look into a subculture long enough, you'll always be able to collect a shitton of asshattery, especially if you're not constrained by such thungs as context.
Fake news everywhere ;).
This is as close to a literal marketplace of ideas as we will ever get. The majority favour more gun controls now,
The vocal minority do. As we've seen in all recent elections, your point of view is shared by a minority of the population.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
The only thing anyone learned from gamergate is that a lot of gamers are really really shitty people.
That's funny, the "magazines" had to backpedal to get their advertising back, so at least they've learned that spewing lies about gamers is not profitable. You'll note that they haven't tried to go down that route again. The anti-gamergaters have not had their views spread like prior to gamer gate.
Don't get me wrong - I don't mind that the toxic SJW culture was given a pushback by the games journos - but I actually thought that they were slower learners and wouldn't change their stance on gamers that quick.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Welp, time to get downmodded for pointing out when my own side makes terrible arguments again...
Why do you consider the deaths of children to be a reasonable price to pay for you to drive your car fast instead of slow (limiting speed to, say, 25mph, would virtually end fatal vehicle collisions)? Thousands of kids a year are dying to get you that extra 35mph. Is it just because it's mostly by accident-- ok for kids to keep getting killed, as long as it's by accident? Like that should matter to someone arguing that kids dying supersedes any freedom interest right? You can't prevent all accidents. This is particularly on point since the number of kids killed in gun accidents is brought up all the time.
I'm for reasonable control like universal background checks and mental health screening (VERY carefully considered, it's one hell of a slippery slope to define this in a way that catches the really dangerous ones but not the large majority of the population that's been on some ssri or benzo for anxiety/depression); but against terrible arguments. Not to mention you'd be really hard pressed to find someone that thinks people who are repeatedly reported to law enforcement for being extremely unstable and making violent threats (your "crazies") should still be allowed to buy guns.
Businesses see that, they realize that it isn't business as usual and they need to Do Something to appeal to the silent majority who do want some form of dun control. (I believe the stats have it around 75% or more.
The stats of those who want stricter gun control are around 10%. The 75% number are those who want "some" form of gun control and who were told that there are none at the moment. The 75% are quite happy with the existing gun-controls, only they don't know it is existing.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
This appears to probably have been caused by FOSTA, which Congress recently passed. That's why it appears that many sites are coordinating these changes - the government is forcing them to by holding websites responsible for users undertaking illegal activities. More details can be found here:
https://boingboing.net/2018/03/22/craigslist-personals-shut-down.html
with some additional links to the Reddit announcement, and an EFF announcement of how Congress is censoring the internet.
These Reedit communities will move to 4chan just as some gun video channels are moving bornhup.
Could be activist board members serving on boards of different companies.
The 75% number are those who want "some" form of gun control and who were told that there are none at the moment. The 75% are quite happy with the existing gun-controls, only they don't know it is existing.
I don't think people are as stupid as you are suggesting here, so: citation definitely needed.
"As long as kids are dying in the streets, no amount of tariffs or trade wars matter."
Except...it's not that bad, and getting better.
1) violent crime is continuing a decades-long trend of decrease
2) gun homicides have dropped by 1/3 (!) since a high in the early 1990s, from 18000 to about 13000.
3) https://news.northeastern.edu/... shows that school shootings are down 75-80% in that same span.
By *any* objective measure, gun violence is decreasing significantly. We should be celebrating.wildly at the improvement.
(It's worth noting that both of these numbers have decreased simultaneous with the largest increases in private gun ownership in US history. I'm not asserting causality - I believe the violent crime decline is probably due more to easily available abortions - but certainly it disproves the superficial point that guns cause violence.)
(And as far as your "it's all Republicans, they have no excuse"...erm, they couldn't kill Obamacare despite basically running solely and universally on that platform for the last what, 6 years? I don't think you get how government works.)
-Styopa
Umm. Why?
Why the fuck do you care whether someone thinks they're a gamer or not? What makes them scum? Why are you advocating painful murder of them?
Sounds like a scummy attitude to me.
Spotted the self-identified gamer.
Anyone who hitches their identity so heavily on a single activity is worthless.
Eat the rich.
Interesting.
I think the problem is, the government is letting shootings slide.
Ummmm... am I missing something? Are they letting the shooters go free? How is anyone "letting the shootings slide"? Do you mean that new laws need to be enacted every time there is a shooting? If so, eventually you will end up with a total ban on guns, and then what? What further laws can you make once guns are 100% outlawed? Ultimately, I just do not understand what you are saying here about "letting things slide".
Hmm. I play computer games, so by simple definition I must be a gamer. Why the fuck do you think that's my identity though?
Me, I judge people by their actions. Yours are scummy.
Ummmm... am I missing something?
Yes. Mass shootings continue to happen nationally for the exact same reasons. No change to cause == what is happening is how we intend for things to be. What is happening is how we intend for things to be == letting the shootings slide.
Also Craigslist just dropped the personals according to CNN.
No, it's an actual majority.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/16...
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
My rights don't end where your feelings begin. And I will defend my rights violently, if I am backed into a corner with no other option.
No, it's an actual majority. http://news.gallup.com/poll/16...
You should read your own link, the clear majority feel they would be safer if more people carried guns.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
You should read that link. The clear majority favour stricter controls on gun ownership.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
He's probably only looking at the parts that confirm his views, but not the parts that don't. It's like people reading Damore's memo all over again, drawing two completely different conclusions depending on what or how you (don't) read it.
I find it interesting that when in the poll, two questions are very similar but yield different results
When asked if people want stricter or less strict laws on "gun sales", you get more people wanting stricter than not. As many as 60% wanting stricter laws.
But when asked on "gun control", you get 46% wanting stricter laws, with the majority either want laws to stay as is or want less strict laws (plus a few % with no opinion)
Another amusing note, though the numbers are from 2015, people believe Republicans are better at representing them on gun laws, and the NRA has more favorable opinions than unfavorable ones
We're next. The velvet gloves of governments are off. Democracy is out. Fascism is in. The vote in congress was essentially bipartisan.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You should read that link. The clear majority favour stricter controls on gun ownership.
Like I already said elsewhere, you can get people to ask for stricter gun controls only by omitting the fact that there are already gun controls, which is what these questions asked.
When respondents are under the impression that anyone can buy a gun, they will want stricter gun controls. When they are informed that the controls they want are already in place they don't ask for more gun controls. The questions in the poll you link are clearly leading, and omit the fact that the "strict gun controls" are already in place; this is not made clear to the respondents. For example:
(Asked of those dissatisfied with U.S. gun policy) Would you like to see gun laws in this country made more strict, less strict, or remain as they are?
Only 46% replied in the affirmative, even though the question doesn't specify what gun controls are in place currently (will vary anyway). By no stretch of the imagination is 46% a majority.
You really should read your own damn references:
Do you think having a gun in the house makes it -- [ROTATED: a safer place to be (or) a more dangerous place to be]?
With 63% answering "safer".
If more Americans carried concealed weapons, would the United States be safer or less safe?
With 56% answering "safer".
The majority of the responses indicate that they feel safer owning weapons.
But, tell you what - you're so sure that the majority agree with your views on gun control, so here's what you do - get a politician to back your views as their main talking points for the next election, and lets see how the majority really feel about his stance on gun control.
All the posturing and polling in the world falls apart when people actually get to vote on an issue - remember the last election when you were so sure that the majority of the world was sexist purely because they did not support a Clinton? Remember all those polls that showed your preferred candidate ahead, a sure thing?
Yeah, turned out your view was a lot more marginal than you thought. I don't know why you think your point of view is now shared by more people. If they aren't voting in favour of it you should accept the fact that your views are, in general, reprehensible. While your echo chamber tolerates your whining, others simply ignore you and vote the way they want to.
Be honest - the only way to get your way is to subvert the will of the majority. If you ask them to vote on it they aren't going to vote your way, so you have to force your views on them via new laws.
If your views were reasonable you would get your way simply by presenting a candidate that campaigned on the strength of your ideology. Until you do, you're a fringe minority, widely regarded as a lunatic by the rest of us.
Remember all the doom and gloom you predicted for Brexit because of all those "racists" who voted for autonomy? THe fact that you aren't even a little bit surprised at the lack of your predictive power should tell you tons about how insular your worldview is. You have seen so little of people and cultures that all you know is the little ideologue that is your little circle. The rest of the world doesn't actually give a fuck about the things you think they should.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Crazy and offensive? I think that holds true for those on both sides of the aisle. ANTIFA, anyone? How offensive is that? ...wearing masks and attacking people because they can't stand to hear what they don't like. That my friend is fringe.
It's true that there are fringe elements on both sides. It's just a matter of degree. From where I'm standing, the right has undertaken a radical shift of late. Antifa is nothing compared to the tea party, or the recent normalization of racism among the right, or the call for violence at any given Trump rally. There are countless examples of completely batshit-crazy behavior among the denizens of the right, compared to a very small number of examples on the left.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Hard to tell without knowing why they made the decisions. Was it to make advertisers feel better? That could affect a large number of sites at once.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You do realize that private gun ownership has approximately nothing to do with freedom and democracy, right?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It seems that way, because you're basing that opinion on your pre-existing beliefs and not facts.
Here's a list of the top 50 organizational donors to US political campaigns - guess who didn't make it?
Here's another list of the top 50 organizational donors to all federal contributions, not just campaigns - guess who's still not on the list?
Here's a list of the top 75 corporate sponsors of legislation - again, the NRA is nowhere to be found.
You have a choice here - learn that you were incorrect, accept it, and correct yourself, or double-down on the ignorance. Your call, but I know which decision I'd make.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
DILLIGAF?
Eat the rich.
This is BS recent elections have not told us that. In fact more people voted democrat in the last presidential election than republican. The electoral collage decided the election as is the law. Get out of your echo chamber for a bit.
Anyone who uses stereotypes to determine someones worth is scum and should be incinerated posthaste.
How many of your kids got shot? None? Exactly. So stop whining SJW style about how you need to take away other's rights.
I would assume they are trying to keep it that way.
You've brandished a lot of fluff without any data or links to back anything up. How about the links that get put on the top page that are explicitly liberal safe spaces (they say in so many words, that you will be banned for posting anything critical of liberalism, socialism or even communism). It's right there in the top. That happens a lot, but no right wing posts ever make it there. It's all posts about Russia electing Trump as president, and various rumors about 'maybe' scandals in the administration. Sure, in any particular thread you might have one or two criticizing you after posting a liberal manifesto, but post something as a conservative and you will have hordes of people downvoting you and attacking you. It's very much a groupthink there, and you are blind if you do not see it.
The majority favour more gun controls now, and Citi is following the market to maximise profitability.
For a poorly defined definition of "more gun control". Most of the forms of gun control that the majority want are actually already covered by laws on the books or have limited resistance even from gun 'nuts'. The problem is that anti-gun fanatics take those proposals and add outright bans and other changes that very few people agree with and lump them all together to conflate the issue or simply make things up to try and make things appear worse than they are.
For example:
- Close the gun show loophole: There is no real gun show loophole. It's merely adding a location to the fact that most private sales do not require background checks (mostly because there is almost no way to actual enforce that system if implemented). It may as well be called the "My backyard loophole" or "McDonald's Parking lot" loophole. In fact any seller who actually sells enough guns to be considered a business (in some cases that number can be as low as 1) has to be registered as a dealer or go through a dealer to sell their weapons and thereby perform the federally mandated background checks regardless of their location. The vast majority of weapons sold at gun shows are through federally licensed firearms dealers.
- Ban assault weapons: Assault weapons aren't a thing. Assault rifles such as the M-16 are, but assault weapons are merely cosmetic features added to normal weapons. The AR-15, for example, is just a normal, usually low calibre, semi-automatic rifle that is popular simply because it's very modular and easily customizable for comfort and convenience. Almost none of the customizations added to the weapons actually make it any deadlier and a bullet fired from one of these "assault weapons" behaves exactly the same as one fired from a 'normal' hunting rifle.
The one clear exception, which is also a mod available for several other rifles, is the bump stock. This is one mod that, although technically legal, does make it easier to make a semi-auto near identical to a full auto at the sacrifice of accuracy. Bans or at least tighter regulation of bump stocks does have relatively strong support.
- Increase purchase age to 21: What other constitutional right has an age requirement above and beyond reaching the recognized age of majority? Should you not be able to vote until you are 30? How about no protected speech until your 40's? Like it or not the right to bear arms is a recognized individual right and as such "shall not be infringed". People like to use the drinking age as a prime example of setting a legal requirement above 18 but drinking is not a recognized constitutional right. This one is one of the most ironic of the current protestors demands because, being primarily high school students, they are essentially demanding a restriction of their rights because they don't consider themselves mature enough to handle the responsibility of gun ownership while at the same time demanding the re-writing of American law to their preference.
- Strengthening background checks: This is often linked to the 'loophole' from above but also to such things are preventing criminals or unfit people from purchasing weapons. The problem here is that this is already the law and as has been the case in several of the last few mass shootings the failure wasn't in the background check but in the people responsible from entering the data (forgetting to submit a court martial for spouse abuse or failure to record direct threats). Not even the deepest background check will succeed if the people responsible for updating the linked systems fail to do their jobs.
- My favorite is the call to ban "high velocity rounds": This has been called for directly by the March for Our Lives kids and their supporters but is based entirely off of not having the least bit of understanding of how guns work. Almost any round fired from a rifle is 'high velocity' compared to a hand gun; it's si
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Hahahahahaha
It's always the overly emotional people who post anonymously, isn't it?
Maybe if the right-wing viewpoints were expressed with less frothing-at-the-mouth fervor, the rest of us would take the viewpoints more seriously
Just want to point up your unconscious presupposition that anyone does or should need to care what you think of their speech in order for them to be able to speak it.
This country needs guns and it needs mass shootings to occur. You WILL see more of this coming this year and indeed in the years to come!
Reddit is a disaster. It is full of bots like automod and many others auto-censoring stuff based on hidden keywords or if you link to verboten websites, but the default behavior is to not inform users that their post is censored and why. Only if you try in a private browser tab or on ceddit.com can you even find out if you are being censored on Reddit. Further most of the neckbeard Reddit mods think the more moderation actions they commit, the better they are making the place and most those actions again are also invisible to users, the default is most often that you don't know your posts are deleted and you are shadowbanned without knowing why.
Reddit mods are either:
1) nerds who simply camped on a subreddit first
2) nerds with no life who used irc/slackchat/discord to befriend the nerds that were their first.
I really wonder how Reddit became and stays popular. The only thing it has going for it is that with one count you can access hundreds of thousands of communities. It is not the frontpage of the internet by any means, it isn't diverse enough it is mostly male, young, white, college educated or college bound hardcore gamers. It is like metastasized IGN message board.
Reddit is a disaster. It is full of bots like automod and many others auto-censoring stuff based on hidden keywords or if you link to verboten websites, but the default behavior is to not inform users that their post is censored and why. Further most of the neckbeard Reddit mods think the more moderation actions they commit, the better they are making the place. Most those actions again are also invisible to users, the default is most often that you don't know your posts are deleted and you are shadowbanned without knowing why. Only if you try in a private browser tab or on ceddit.com can you even find out if you are being censored on Reddit.
Reddit mods are either:
1) Nerds who simply camped on a subreddit first. On the real internet to host a forum you at least have to pay for a domain most times.
2) Nerds with no life who used irc/slackchat/discord to befriend the nerds that were their first. Seriously look at people's user profiles more often if you don't believe it there is a small clique of power neckbeards who have 100,000+ karma modding 50+ subs. Those neckbeards trade subreddit turf like previous generations of nerds traded Pokemon or Magic the Gathering cards.
I really wonder how Reddit became and stays popular. The only thing it has going for it is that with one account you can access hundreds of thousands of communities. But it is not the frontpage of the internet by any means, it isn't diverse enough it is mostly male, young, white, college educated or college bound hardcore gamers. It is like metastasized IGN message board.
Last time I checked, there wasn't anything stopping someone from creating their own website and running BuddyPress/BBpress/vBulletin to voice their opinions with other like-minded individuals.
There was an internet before Facebook/Reddit/YouTube, people. You wanna play in their yard, you gotta play by their rules. Otherwise go buy your own damn house.
Because as a car owner I don't object to federally mandated laws governing seatbelts, airbags, bumpers, headlights, horns, crumple zones and hundreds of other rules that apply to cars. As a car owner I don't object to vehicle registration and driver testing and licensing.
Ah, logic. Gotta love it.
There are plenty of countries that restrict private gun ownership pretty severely and are free democracies (more democratic than the US currently is). Right now, the party that's against gun control is doing its level best to destroy democracy and set up permanent one-party rule, along with restriction of rights for anyone who isn't a white Christian man.
If you're thinking about a gun-owner revolt, forget about it. If the country gets into such bad shape that it's thinkable, what will decide the issue is what the United States Armed Forces do. Any possible influence armed civilians would have is at best a rounding error.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Are you on crack?
I don't use illegal drugs. I tried marijuana once, and didn't like it. I don't drink alcohol or smoke, and I'm almost completely off caffeine. What you see is how I naturally think. How you view that is your problem.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes