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Tenants Outraged Over New York Landlord's Plan To Install Facial Recognition Technology (gothamist.com)
A Brooklyn landlord plans to install facial recognition technology at the entrance of a 700-unit building, according to Gothamist, "raising alarm among tenants and housing rights attorneys about what they say is a far-reaching and egregious form of digital surveillance."
[Last] Sunday, several tenants told Gothamist that, unbeknownst to them, their landlord, Nelson Management, had sought state approval in July 2018 to install a facial recognition system known as StoneLock. Under state rules, landlords of rent-regulated apartments built before 1974 must seek permission from the state's Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) for any "modification in service." Tenants at the two buildings, located at 249 Thomas S. Boyland Street and 216 Rockaway Avenue, said they began receiving notices about the system in the fall. According to its website, Kansas-based company StoneLock offers a "frictionless" entry system that collects biometric data based on facial features. "We don't want to be tracked," said Icemae Downes, a longtime tenant. "We are not animals. This is like tagging us through our faces because they can't implant us with a chip."
It is not clear how many New York City apartments are using facial scanning software or how such technology is being regulated. But in a sign of the times, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development last June began marketing 107 affordable units at a new apartment complex in the South Bronx. Among the amenities listed was "State of the Art Facial Recognition Building Access...." Across the real estate industry, New York City landlords have increasingly been moving to keyless entry systems, citing convenience as well as a desire to offer enhanced security. Over the years, in response to appeals filed by tenants, HCR has ruled in favor of key fob and card entry systems, saying that such substitutions did not violate rent-stabilization and rent-control laws. But the latest technology has triggered even more concerns about the ethics of data collection....
Last month, the management company reached out to a group of tenants to assuage their concerns about StoneLock. But tenants said the presentation, if anything, only deepened their fears that they were being asked to submit to a technology that had very little research behind it.
"This was not something we asked for at any given time," one tenant complaint, while one of the attorneys representing the tenants said that, among other things, their landlord had "made no assurances to protect the data from being accessed by NYPD, ICE, or any other city, state, or federal agency."
"Citing concerns over the potential for privacy and civil liberties violations, tenants at Brownsville's Atlantic Plaza Towers filed an objection to the plan in January..."
It is not clear how many New York City apartments are using facial scanning software or how such technology is being regulated. But in a sign of the times, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development last June began marketing 107 affordable units at a new apartment complex in the South Bronx. Among the amenities listed was "State of the Art Facial Recognition Building Access...." Across the real estate industry, New York City landlords have increasingly been moving to keyless entry systems, citing convenience as well as a desire to offer enhanced security. Over the years, in response to appeals filed by tenants, HCR has ruled in favor of key fob and card entry systems, saying that such substitutions did not violate rent-stabilization and rent-control laws. But the latest technology has triggered even more concerns about the ethics of data collection....
Last month, the management company reached out to a group of tenants to assuage their concerns about StoneLock. But tenants said the presentation, if anything, only deepened their fears that they were being asked to submit to a technology that had very little research behind it.
"This was not something we asked for at any given time," one tenant complaint, while one of the attorneys representing the tenants said that, among other things, their landlord had "made no assurances to protect the data from being accessed by NYPD, ICE, or any other city, state, or federal agency."
"Citing concerns over the potential for privacy and civil liberties violations, tenants at Brownsville's Atlantic Plaza Towers filed an objection to the plan in January..."
Of course it's insanity, but why start complaining *now*, when every idiot on the street and everywhere around you is carrying around a surveillance unit out of (supposed) "free" will? It's baffling to me how nothing whatsoever was done for so many decades and suddenly, there are people who get "outraged"? It doesn't make sense to me.
I'll never understand why people worship NYC. I don't want to be within 500 miles of it, personally.
Technology will make it's way to Birmingham soon enough.
"wouldn’t you want this if you are not a criminal" = "Why not just allow cops to check your asshole on demand, assuming you don't have drugs up your ass?" = Fuck your reductive argument, there are more ramifications to consider here.
Skipping over considering even a single one of them isn't actually advancing the debate, you're skipping weighing any cons entirely as if pretending there were none. That just says to me you haven't read a whole lot about dystopia.
Don't be a mindless toady. We have an entire Republican party for that.
Now, I realize even humans are not 100% perfect at recognizing faces, but is facial recognition really good enough for this kind of application? You know it will get it wrong at least some of the time.
Tenants of rent stabilized apartments are allowed to sublet their apartment, but this incurs a 10% surchage, so there's an incentive to sublet without notification.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
guest / kid fees per person? Late night door fee?
Can they make you wait days to add an new person to the door system?
As long as you're not violating occupancy laws, your landlord has absolutely no right to know who, what, or when people or things are going to or from your flat.
The United States desperately needs an information ownership law that revises the existing "you collect it, you own it" data practises. If companies can't sell data about you, they won't bother to collect it.
How is such technology different — in principle — from doormen? They too would look at everyone and remember — to the best of their ability — who walked in and out, and when?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Exactly - as long as you're not violating laws. Subleasing, AirBnB etc is a real problem for landlords and rent controlled is already scraping the bottom of the barrel of both tenants and landlord profits.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
When I lived in NYC, I knew lots of people renting "rent-regulated apartments". One worked at Goldman for 200K+ a year. It was a good deal. The person with the apartment pocked the rent spread each month. The Goldman guy paid about 75% or 80% of full market value and was able to save each month to buy an apartment.
If you have a NYC rent stabilized apartment, market forces push you very hard to live outside the city and sublet. I'm going to guess the people who were subletting, the leasors, were not paying taxes. They were well motivated to not get caught.
If the goal is to give poor people something for free, letting them sublet accomplishes that goal. Doubly so if they skip taxes.
As a landlord, facial recognition would let me avoid all the calls about lost or broken fobs. A 700 unit building needs at least 1403 keys and locks or codes need to be shuffled each time a tenant moves out. Keys are lost/stolen which requires a lock change. Codes are forgotten which requires time to ensure the person actually lives there before resetting the lock, then another family member complains about the old code not working. Codes are shared then the landlord gets a frantic call asking for the codes to be changed to keep an Ex out. A lost master or maintenance key may require changing the keys of everyone in the building. Any break-in from a shared key/code gets the landlord sued for not providing enough security. Any residents cramming people into a unit gets the landlord sued by the city for not following the housing codes despite the tenants hiding the people from the landlord. Any tenants swapping in a deadbeat then disappearing requires the landlord to evict the deadbeat and a lawsuit from other tenants if the guy turns out to be a criminal or sex offender.
Facial recognition locks would solve nearly all of those problems and let me automate another segment of the business. However, I highly doubt this system works 100% of the time and I wouldn't deploy it. All it would take is one angry person to sandpaper all the camera lenses and suddenly you have to replace every lock and have tons of angry tenants. I guess the same applies to super glue and standard locks, but I feel it has a higher chance to happen with the cameras. You'll also need to deal with family/dog walkers/caretakers/etc... needing to be added to the lists. There are some valid reasons for people to share keys. Since this would need to be done in person to get the face scan and I highly doubt tenants would be given the rights to do so, this will likely be an unexpected increase in management time. Kids may need to have their faces scanned multiple times as they grow (smarter systems can handle that, but are more hackable) and the systems will need to be installed at a low height which will annoy the taller tenants. How long does the battery backup last, assuming it has one which it must have. There are a bunch of other issues, such as a kid hiding an IR light focused on a neighbors lock, but I won't list them all. I'm not convinced the system would be an improvement. It'll improve some issues while creating new issues and I can't say which will outweigh the other.
It's too late to complain about the privacy issue. Identification can easy be added to the security cameras at the main door or in the hallways. You can track faces, walking gait, body/clothing, and which doors they enter/leave. The building likely has elevators and I'd bet money there's cameras in there too. Key fobs can log everything, so there's only a minor loss of privacy if switching from keyed locks. I say minor because the fob logs are probably kept longer than the security feeds. If that's not the case, then it's possible there's no change in privacy.
Though I'd bet this new system is more hackable than the other systems.
main door only? with an 24/7 doorman security?
If companies can't sell data about you, they won't bother to collect it.
Not true. Most of the data collected is not sold. It is used directly by the companies collecting it.
Google does not sell data. They use the data to place ads on behalf of their clients. They do not give the clients access to the data.
But generally speaking, the property management company has the right to know who, what, or when non-tenants are on the property...
Not where I live they don't. The property manager will tell you they have all sorts of rights, but they are usually lying.
The police can request any camera information and warrant for that data to be supplied under the Homeland security act (IIRC).
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
yea maybe cause they don't want landlord to know how many people are living in said apartment or who is coming and going to said apartment. With a keycard/keyfob you they don't know who has it or used it just that it was used. They could instead of using facial software just put a camera at the entrance that imposes who the card/fob is linked to apartment wise. Which would be the same thing as facial software.
You're right! It can't be that they simply don't like the idea of a fucking computer tracking their every goddamn departure and arrival.. They MUST be up to no good.
YOU ARE A FUCKING STATIST.
real example Unit is rented out then the renter subleases to a number of students so many that they simply have mattresses wall to wall and sleep in shifts. As there are too many to use the bathroom in the unit they use the common area facilities when they finally are removed after the lease is cancelled the cleanup is very costly not just to the unit owner but the owners coop. as many units around that unit invariably have pest problems and the facilities are used by far too many people who share the limited keycards keys and fobs. this was 20 years ago and only got worse once airbnb etc started.
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
The lease states who is allowed to use the unit. Landlords are allowed to enforce those clauses. Anyone not on the lease is trespassing on the landlord's property.
BULLSHIT
Your landlord has no legal right to know who you have over for dinner. He/She has no legal right to know who you brought home to fuck last night. He/She has no legal right to know who you asked to swing by your apartment to pick up your dry cleaning.
Nearly every state in the union has codified the concept of "Quiet Enjoyment" and tenants are entitled to a certain level of privacy.
When you lease/rent a property to another person you surrender a certain level of control over it IN EXCHANGE FOR MONEY
If you want to maintain state-level surveillance and dictatorial control over your property, then don't fucking lease it.
It's an apartment if you rent/lease it. It's a Condo if you own it. What the hell does being rich have to do with anything?
Good comeback. Don't address the issue, just say "It's bad over there too!".. Asshole.
Dark and lonely on the summer night. ...
...
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking - Do he bite?
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
Slip in his window,
Break his neck!
Then his house
I start to wreck!
Got no reason --
What the heck!
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
C-I-L-L
My land - lord
By: Tyrone Greene
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Almost all electronic locks contain an old school relay and will pop open if a strong magnet is put in the right spot, no logging. _All_ the chinesium ones will.
Test it.
Sure you're not a crook, but do you think they don't know?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Thank goodness the police or government would never misuse such a wonderful surveillance tool.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
so that...
- in case if a fire, they know how many people are in the building
- in the case in crime, they can rule you out if you we're not in the building
it's because they have stock in the company that produces Anonymous/Guy Fawkes masks which you'll start wearing whenever your in the building
It's an apartment if you rent/lease it. It's a Condo if you own it. What the hell does being rich have to do with anything?
Apartment describes a type of dwelling, not a type of ownership.
Condominium and co-op are types of ownership
As long as you're not violating occupancy laws, your landlord has absolutely no right to know who, what, or when people or things are going to or from your flat.
Of course, like nearly every other poster below, you ignored the fact that this is installed in the building entrances, not on every apartment entrance.
The landlord has an interest in knowing who enters the building, especially if the apartment is rent-subsidized, and the recipient never enters the building.
Ken
That's a great argument - can we apply it to gun rights? Lets see, there are 300 million guns in America, and several thousand (give or take) are used in crimes during the year - so why infringe everyone's rights to own a gun because of a few bad apples?
I don't think the issue is Airbnb, I think it has to do with rent subsidies/rent control.
Ken
The tenants are living in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled buildings, which offer highly discounted rents. However, the tenants are required to use the discounted apartments as their primary residences. The city does not want tenants to turn around and sublet their apartments at market rates, and pocket the difference. So landlords have been installing cameras to see who is living in the apartments. The facial recognition system is another step in that direction.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Skipping over considering even a single one of them isn't actually advancing the debate, you're skipping weighing any cons entirely as if pretending there were none.
Pretty suspicious that a bigot like yourself tries to attack someone on the basis of "pretending there were none" as if it were his place to point out the cons, when he's just questioning how bad they are.
If you claim they are bad, then present us some evidence or insight as to why they are bad - why wouldn't even attack you from not pointing out the ways in which they are good, because that is not what you were trying to question.
Cameras inside of a private apartment complex would seem like they would on balance be more bad than good, so what is the bad you think would be so very bad they should not be used?
Frankly the way society is today if an apartment complex did not have cameras I would install my own, at least for the hall I was on. It's just a good idea.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But I don't see a single thing wrong with this... people who don't like it can move to another building.
The landlord would, however, be voiding any leases currently in place since these facilities would not be in the lease's terms, and people should be free to find another place without violating any lease.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The only way to interfere with the interior of a mechanism surrounded by a highly permeable material using magnetic fields would be from the side where the door meets the door jam, which means the door would have to be open already for you to do anything like that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Cartman? Is that you?
This space unintentionally left blank.
I agree with your last sentence, unfortunately.
However they don't really need to register anybody, just collect the data and have the super tag the photos.
But note that the summary says that this is being done in buildings containing rent-regulated apartments, where the obvious goal is to identify those tenants who don't come and go regularly so the landlord can evict them.
It's not being done for security; you don't need facial recognition to provide recorded video to the police after a crime has been committed.
Remember the last swatting guy got twenty years. How about if the landlord gets the same, when their system falsely identifies someone and they get shot
Hey man, we aren't talking about face recognition tied to the ED-209 that is going to blow you away if you are not a match. We are talking about a system that MAYBE will just make you check in with a doorman instead of automatically opening the door. Would kind of prefer to avoid false positives you know? In fact if I could register the faces of friends it could be really handy having some degree of authorized access to my apartment allowed for if I was out traveling and forgot something.
How about you guests are they not entitled to privacy
And how many people have Ring today or other external cameras around houses without anyone caring in the slightest?
so what if they wear a face mask or scarfe they are not allowed in the building
No, just means they have to check in and show ID maybe. Which they have to do today...
I just can't see any harm you are laying out here be any different than how things already work today, that's where my confusion with this as a problem comes in.
the landlords control of the tenants, monitoring all their comings and goings,
Again, this already happens today. In fact the idea of a nosy landlord is comically universal. People who do not like it do not live in monitored complexes.
harass them and their guests and blame it on the computer because it told them to do it.
You are ascribing things to a computer it's simply not doing. It's not telling anyone to do anything. It's just saying "Don't know who this is", and then the landlord or bellman is doing whatever they already are doing today anyway, since landlords and doormen remember faces too... Or maybe I shouldn't have said that, as I'm sure there will be calls for daily mind-wipes of landlords now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mount that expensive and unpopular tech where all of these low income people can see it. Let me know how that works out for you.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
It actually sounds more than a little creepy.
Odds of a landlord springing for the quarter inch iron plates? ZERO.
My gun will never violate your right to liberty. Your car on the otherhand may take a life if you keep texting and driving.
That is next step argument after gun ban is to ban cars off the road since they are used in more crimes and death then a gun is. Just like a gun people that aren't supposed to be behind the wheel can get one and drive.
""but they do have the right to know." = Not really. Tenants have an expectation of privacy within reasonable limits. Keeping the identities of all visitors indefinitely creates a privacy hazard that does not actually improve safety." How doesn't it improve safety when people know that if they enter that building their identity is register with a video, so if something happens they have facial data of everyone in the building at the time. That would mean anyone looking to cause harm will likely GO somewhere else that doesn't have facial recognition at entry. What you are saying is a Bank would be less likely to be robbed if they had NO camera's in it. As for Privacy, the tenants only really have that reasonable limit within THE apartment they have rented, entry to said building and hall wall up to the front door of said apartment is lack of a better term Public Area which you have no reasonable expectation of privacy from the person that owns the building.
Well, to give a car analogy....
When someone kills 1 or more people with a car...you don't blame the car or try to ban them, you know?
Guns like cars are just tools, plain and simple.
They don't kill people on their own...it takes a person to misuse a car, gun, knife, etc to kill another person.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Are you on crack, broham? You expect the NYPD to... fight criminals??!! Have you ever _been_ to New York?
Get real. The cops here have no interest in reducing crime. They are basically a gang of street thugs. If the City gets safer, the police budget might get cut. Preventing that is job #1.
This dystopian technology will be used to kick the poor and squeeze the working class. NOTHING good will come of it. The City will remain as dangerous and filthy as ever.
This is from a typical lease agreement:
> The Lessee shall not assign nor underlet any part of the whole of the leased premises, nor shall permit the leased premises
to be occupied for a period longer than a temporary visit by anyone except the individuals specifically named in the first
paragraph of this lease.
Part of the problem is "rent-stabilized" housing is additional tenants who are not on the lease, using parking and utilities, and sometimes creating hazards for other residents.
Guns are nothing like cars when it comes to defining thema tool. Actually the biggest tools are those making this argument in the first place.
And your gun couldn't take my life??
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
What matters is, inanimate or not, guns seem to be doing a very good job of finding the people who will use them on innocent people. If guns weren't so good at it, there would be no need to limit them. Of course people blame the person who used the gun, but usually that person is dead so what good does that do?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Why is a face-recognizing person a good thing and a face-recognizing camera a bad thing? It can't be that the police can check it's records, a doorman will tell them just the same.
Why? Plenty of buildings have doormen that recognize all the tenants. Are they bullshit?
Don't like it? Sue the landlord into oblivion, bonus points if you make them lose their properties and jump in front of a train.
This is a private complex, you coward, not public housing. Even residents of public housing STILL have a God given right to privacy.
If the public at large isn't concerned with privacy, that just proves how stupid the average member of the public is.
No, because guns don't murder people. Criminals do.
Except more people are killed by bricks than by rifles.
/year. So bricks, clubs, hammers kill about 50% more people per year than do rifles. /year.
... GANG violence. We have a GANG problem.
Murders have remarkably stable over the last 20+ years at around 13,000/year +/- 1,000. That means, that as the population has increased murders have decreased.
Each year about 400 people are murdered by rifles.
Knives are about 1800/year
Blunt objects are about 600
Personal objects (hands, feet) kill around 850
The choice of killing are handguns. However, I rarely hear gun control people talk about handguns - they're always talking about rifles like the, oh so scary AR-15. And yet rifles make up less than 5% of the murders in this country.
And the overwhelming amount of murders are
We used to have guns sent anonymously in the mail from Sear Roebuck catalogs. - No Problem.
We used to have gun clubs and rifle ranges at schools. No Problems.
Now we have a problem? Why? It's not the guns. It's something else. You're not focusing on the problem if you're focusing on the guns.
Now, if the problem is citizen opposition to government control; if it's citizen opposition to re-education camps; then yes - citizen ownership of rifles is a problem.
US Statistical Abstract - 2012
Year - 2000, 2005, 2008,2009 Handguns - 6,778 7,565 6,755 6,503
Rifles - 411 445 375 352
Knives or cutting - 1,782 1,920 1,897 1,836
Blunt objects - 617 608 614 623
Personal weapons - 927 905 861 815
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Occupancy laws, including people who get a rent controlled apartment and then rent it out to others for more money than they pay? When talking about 700 units and rent controlled apartments, there has been a big problem where people move out and then rent to other people to "keep" the lower rent. The problem is that the fair rent would be three or more times higher than what the tenant has been paying. Passing a rent controlled apartment from person to person actually goes against the rent control laws.
There doesn't need to be any log kept of when a person comes and goes as well. As a positive thing, again with rent control in mind, the process of updating the facial recognition system to allow residents in would also keep things fair. You should never be allowed to pass on a rent controlled apartment to others, unless they are the children of listed residents.
The big problem comes from rent control, and people abusing that system. Your parents get into a rent controlled apartment, they die and because you have lived there, it is now yours, but paying what your parents had paid for rent, which may be only 1/10 the going price. You have a good job, you live somewhere else, so you now rent that apartment out to other people who are paying you and not the actual building owner. So you make a profit on a rent controlled apartment that you don't even live in. That isn't fair in the slightest.
People abusing rent control is why building owners want to clamp down on the people living in these buildings. I am not talking about people who come over here or there, but people who now are moving into the building as their home, but are not on the lease and if something happens, there are no records to show that the person even lives there.
Keeping the information from law enforcement makes the whole system useless. If you find that your Tennant is violating the lease, subletting illegally, over occupying the property or what have you then you need to go to the police to have them evicted. The police will want evidence and the system provides that. This is almost certainly the exact use case the landlord has for installing the system, monitoring access to their property.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Landlords can absolutely place restrictions on guests, particularly overnight guests. Many standard leases limit the amount of time any guest may stay including no overnight guests. While no guests at all might not hold up the landlord has huge leeway to restrict guests staying on the premises and can restrict areas that they have access to outside of your apartment (any common areas in the building). Further, a landlord my also bar a particular guest from the premises if the guest violates any of the rules of the building or the law.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Oh and you should be required to own gun insurance.
Got it. Its part of my homeowners liability policy. And the increased risk is so far down in the statistical noise level that my insurance agent says they don't bother to ask about gun ownership.
Have gnu, will travel.
You apparently missed the very first line of The Fine Summary - I quote:
A Brooklyn landlord plans to install facial recognition technology at the entrance of a 700-unit building
How, exactly, will the landlord connect anyone that walks in the entrance of the 700 unit building with a particular apartment?
Ken
As noted in the very first line of The Fine Summary - I quote:
A Brooklyn landlord plans to install facial recognition technology at the entrance of a 700-unit building
They aren't interested in who's going in which apartment, they are identifying who is on the property, who passed through the entrance .
Ken
Did you even bother to read the very first line of The Fine Summary - I quote:
A Brooklyn landlord plans to install facial recognition technology at the entrance of a 700-unit building
How, exactly, will the landlord connect anyone that walks in the entrance of the 700 unit building with a particular apartment to charge your imaginary "guest/kid fee"?
Ken
I would sleep better knowing my neighbors are not rapists or murderers.
Isn't that the purpose of the landlord's background check before renting the apartment?
Ken
You're literally asking for state surveillance of people coming and going from their homes
No, you failed to read the first line of the article summary - the facial recognition system is being installed on a camera in the 700 unit building entrance, not in front of every door or hallway. Such a system would be incapable of tracking/correlating "people coming and going from their homes".
Ken
A criminal could steal your gun and use it. Happens literally every day.
Are you familiar with the purpose of rent controlled apartments? Is it to keep down the rent for people who continue to live in the same place for a long period of time, or just to give an increasing break to people the legal resident decides to rent the apartment to?
If you live anywhere near a large city like New York, you know that crime will ALWAYS be a concern, and making sure that only people who live there can provide access. If you live in a rent controlled apartment, then decide to move out, what stops you from renting that apartment to others at a profit? That is why it isn't a horrible idea to check who is actually living in an apartment, and that does NOT mean that your activities are being monitored, just making sure that those who are entering are either living there, or are being brought in by those who do live there.
That still is the criminal doing the criminal things not the gun.
I personally have never seen a gun jump up and shoot someone without a human holding it. Well I saw it in a video game, you're not imagining video games are real life are you?
Cars have utility that goes way beyond killing people and target shooting.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Bricks have a functional purpose. Guns do not.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
As long as the tenants have another way to enter and exit the building without being surveilled, then the landlord is welcome to put the system in.
If the system covers every entrance and exit, then there is absolutely no practical difference than surveilling them at the entrance to their own flats.
But if it doesn't cover every entrance and exit, then it's hardly worth installing, as anyone they would ostensibly want to profile (AirBnB-ers, sub-lessees, etc.) would be using the un-monitored entrance.
Self-defense is a functional purpose.
Hunting is a functional purpose.
Not being helpless in the face of tyranny is a functional purpose.
The US today, is going through it's version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Self defense is a fictional purpose because nowhere is life really that dangerous. You do not live in the wild west, we have police services. If you are having gun fights every day then I suggest you move, pronto. Even in violent America, you're not likely to be in a place where you need a gun to protect yoruself ever. Also, I seem to remember a gun being at one of the previous school shootings and being not much good at all. I don't blame the guy for not wanting to sacrifice his life for other people's kifs. Shot guns are for hunting, not assault rifles, if you want a two-load shotgun then fine. You already are defenseless if the government becomes tyrannical. How could you ever have enough weapons to stand up against a modern tank?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You watch too many movies. You think a gun makes you some movie hero. It doesn't. It just creates more danger for everyone.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Those plates could already be part of the door frame.... a quarter inch isn't very thick.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's 2 to 4 times thicker than the sheet in a typical door frame.
There are 100s of stories every day of police taking 10 minutes to arrive - and that's in an urban setting. In rural settings police are often 30+ minutes away. You're dead or raped in that time.
The media's coverage of defensive gun use is close to non-existent. Not because it doesn't happen but because they are, in this arena, propagandists. Depending on what is constitutes defense gun use the stats run from over 1000/week to 10,000 a week.
The following article, using a very strict definition of DGU estimates a bit over 1000/week.
http://www.vpc.org/studies/jus...
According to you pre-WW1 technology semi-automatic riffles are "assault weapons." I stressed pre-WWI because there is very little about today's AR-15 - or any other semi-automatic rifle that separates it from earlier semi-automatic rifles: at least as far as accuracy, speed of delivery, and magazine capacity are considered. Don't believe me? Look at what is banned - it all ergonomically and safety related add-ons.
Expandable stocks,
thumbhole stocks,
pistol grips,
suppressors (makes it less loud) Bullets break the sound barrier there is no "silence" for that. Suppressors lessen the noise of the expanding gas. It reduces it from EAR DAMAGING FUKIN LOUD to simply very LOUD.
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Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Self-defense is not "movies." The right to self-defense is not something to simply give away.
We don't have a gun accessibility problem. We have a gang problem. Take away gang related violence and our gun problem magically goes away.
So, the real question is why are you so adamant about removing guns? If it was about safety you would be focused on gangs. If you were truly concerned about the instrument of destruction you would be concerned about pistols as they account for about 90% of the gun violence.
Instead you focus on the firearms least used in gun violence.
You evidently have far more faith in the benevolence of government than I do.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
If you want to get rid of gangs, do that too. Who says we can't do both? Pretty sure people have been working on that one for a long time already though.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Even if it is 100 stories per day that you hear (which I doubt, since you probably don't even read 100 news stories per day) that gives you a 0.000000305 percent chance of anything happening given 327 million people in the US. Congratulations, you are hiding under your bed for a statistical non-event.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I dunno where you live...but there are things in most of the country, even NICE neighborhoods call home invasions, or just people breaking in while you are home.
The cops are NOT going to be saving you from that....all they can do, is try to gather evidence at the crime scene. If you are not armed, they may be trying to then investigate who broke in and killed you or your family.
Not to mention, it is well established law that the police are NOT legally obligated to protect you from crime or prevent it from happening to you.
If you don't want to have them, good...but you should not have say if I have them. I'm a responsible citizen and obey the laws.
I enjoy taking my guns to the range for target shooting, I'm hoping to start competing in plate shooting matches...and I like going out to friends' houses where they have land outside city limits and we just shoot the hell out of things (2L sodas, watermelons, metal trashcans, etc...stuff that blows up is fun).
Please get it straight...the general citizenry of the US do NOT have ready access to "Assault Weapons".
The Assault rifle is one that is fully automatic. You pull the trigger with select fire enabled, and as long as you hold that trigger, it will continue to automatically fire until you release the trigger or run out of ammo.
The common AR-15 is not an assault weapon. It is ONLY a semi-automatic rifle. You pull the trigger it fires once. It fires once only for each actuation of the trigger. Period.
The AR-15 "looks" scary, but there is really nothing about it different than any other of the MANY semi-automatic rifles on the market. Many of them, if you didn't know guns...you would think were simple "hunting rifles"...wood stocks, not black....but they shoot the same ammo as the common AR, and are semi-automatic..firing the same rate as the AR-15, and you use magazines in them just like the AR.
There are MANY other semi-auto rifles that shoot MUCH more powerful ammo than the AR. And many of those don't look scary, but are much more lethal, yet you don't have people trying to ban them.
The AR is just the target, because it is the single most popular rifle in the US. It is enjoyed, because it is modular...you can take parts off, or build your own, if you want high end barrels, scopes, straps, attachments like lights, etc. But none of that stuff changes the fact it fires once for each actuation of the trigger.
And I believe that there were maybe 400 rifle killings in the US last time study was done for a year....the vast majority of gun killings (crime) in the use are done with handguns...semi-automatic handguns.
And most of these are gang members shooting each other.
Yet, where is the push for banning those?
Guns are just tools, they have many legal uses and do not kill people of their own volitions.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Pretty much this. I however advocate for the removal of warning labels. So there's that.
Yes, protecting yourself and your family. I'm gonna say that's a utility that should surpass everything your little car can do. Not to mention hunting. And well, I fucking like guns so.. This is why it was enshrined in the constitution. And owning a vehicle was not.
This is why your statement is ridiculous.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Nobody asked what you think either way you dumb cunt, you have no idea and you ask the dumbest rhetorical questions for which you're too dumb to know the answer anyway. You're a shit show personified.
And who asked what you think random AC? You seem very angry, maybe you should count to ten and take deep breaths.
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My gun will never violate your right to liberty.
Because no one has accidentally been shot before.....
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No, because guns don't murder people. Criminals do.
And cars apparently.
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Guns like cars are just tools, plain and simple.
They don't kill people on their own...it takes a person to misuse a car, gun, knife, etc to kill another person.
What is the purpose of a gun?
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Guns are nothing like cars when it comes to defining thema tool. Actually the biggest tools are those making this argument in the first place.
Shut the fuck up, you moron. A gun is a tool, designed for a specific purpose. Just like a hammer is. Yes, a hammer can be abused to break kneecaps as well as drive in nails. And cars become weapons in the hands of drunk drivers.
Yeah, and a gun can be used to shoot someone instead of shoot someone......wait a sec.
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Your argument started off with "guns have no purpose", evolved to "well I wouldn't use them for that purpose so it's not a real purpose", and ended off with "well if you really need guns you should just move".
Do you even listen to yourself?
Except more people are killed by bricks than by rifles.
Year - 2000, 2005, 2008,2009
Handguns - 6,778 7,565 6,755 6,503
Rifles - 411 445 375 352
Knives or cutting - 1,782 1,920 1,897 1,836
Blunt objects - 617 608 614 623
Personal weapons - 927 905 861 815
Ok wow, lets looks at this. First the claim more people are killed by bricks than rifles. You don't mention bricks again except to classify them as blunt objects. How many people were killed by bricks? You don't say. Then your numbers show the amount of blunt objects (broad classification of many things) vs rifles (one specific type of thing), whereas blunt objects vs firearms is completely skewed in the other direction.
Next the deflection to gang violence. Gangs aren't new. People have been ganging up since one tribe decided they didn't like the next tribe over. How is it though you think those gangs are commiting a good number of those murders? With bricks? Yeah fucking right.
Guns are far from the only problem but they are the center of a lot of issues and make most of them worse.
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Self-defense is a functional purpose.
Only if the other person has a gun also
Hunting is a functional purpose.
Hmmmm, maybe but not with the same type of gun as self defence and then only take it when you're actually hunting, ok, i'll give you that one
Not being helpless in the face of tyranny is a functional purpose.
How's that working at the moment? US police shoot anyone they feel like. People that feel like they need to defend themselves about from the police are victimised and chastised even further. Take a knee? Trump is the closest thing to tyrant the us has ever seen and a big chunk of people are eating it right up. People want to go on about the 2nd amendment. Now's your chance. The situation the US finds itself in now is the situation that was written for so go grab your well regulated militia and go restore some order.
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Breaking the terms of your rental agreement is not a personal freedom, FYI.
HAHAHAHA You're retarded. This is why everybody laughs at you guys on this matter. Stop letting emotion control your thought process. You're doing the same thing you laugh at the "YOU MURDER BABIES!!!" people for. get real man. I know from being here long enough that nothing I can say to you will make you think realistically about the situation. But you could at least try to be honest.
Well, I guess with tesla... We can't really use that one anymore lol.
I posted a video depicting what guns were like when the constitution was written. Is that factually incorrect?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You sure did, but that had nothing to do with the subject at hand except emotion.
The message is that the people who put guns into the constitution didn't foresee AK-47s. You're just being willfully ignorant and throwing out ridiculous comments so I will go away. Pretty much expected that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Self-defense is a functional purpose.
Only if the other person has a gun also
A 120 lb woman can't defend herself against a 240 lb man breaking into her home. But if she had a pistol she could. Now both of them are in mortal danger. With a pistol or rifle she could defend herself against more than one attacker.
Hunting is a functional purpose.
Hmmmm, maybe but not with the same type of gun as self defence and then only take it when you're actually hunting, ok, i'll give you that one
Actually yes - it would be the same rifle. A .223 (the most popular version of the AR) is a varmint round. In many states it's illegal to shoot deer with it (because it's not a powerful enough round.) It's the cartridge that determines the damage not the rifle (lock -brings in the rounds, stock - rests it against your body, and barrel - contains the exploding gas and directs the projectile. The rifles you're talking about banning are not assault rifles. They are all standard semi-automatic rifles. Again - take a look at what makes something an "assault" weapon. It's an ergonomic add-on (pistol grip). These add ons do not make the rifle more deadly.
Not being helpless in the face of tyranny is a functional purpose.
How's that working at the moment? US police shoot anyone they feel like. People that feel like they need to defend themselves about from the police are victimised and chastised even further. Take a knee? Trump is the closest thing to tyrant the us has ever seen and a big chunk of people are eating it right up. People want to go on about the 2nd amendment. Now's your chance. The situation the US finds itself in now is the situation that was written for so go grab your well regulated militia and go restore some order.
Police shootings have not gone up over decades. The killings of unarmed men are in the 20-50 per year(Don't have time to look up Bureau of Justices Statistics right now)
And, in case it matters, more white people are shot than black (although the percentage rate of black is higher than white)
I don't consider Trump a tyrant. What has he done that contravenes the US constitution? Has he tried to quell free speech? No. But the left is shutting down discourse on college campuses (using violence and the heckler's veto). Left wing organizations try to deplatform people they disagree with.
Has he shut down newspapers like Maduro did? Is Trump and evil right using their influence to deplatform people? No. Once again that's on the left.
The authoritarian impulses are coming from the left. We are going through a Cultural Revolution now. I can see many on the left (those that equate small-government libertarians with fascists) being in favor of reeducation camps. So, yeah. Not giving up my rifles.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
It's getting bad in Europe right now. You guys are hurtling towards serious sectarian violence. Freedom of speech is being quelled. Wrong-think prosecutions currently exist. Your society is fracturing badly. And all that is without the mass immigration and the cultural and financial problems that is bringing.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The rifles you're talking about banning are not assault rifles. They are all standard semi-automatic rifles. Again - take a look at what makes something an "assault" weapon. It's an ergonomic add-on (pistol grip). These add ons do not make the rifle more deadly.
First off, the rifles I'm talking about banning are ALL FUCKING GUNS! Next I'm not American so I don't really have any skin in the game but where I am no one has any guns and society works just fine (ish). I'd imagine it looks much different from the inside out but a gun isn't the be all and end all solution to any problem.
No it doesn't matter who they are, what's wrong is the police, or at least some of them, feel so threatened that anyone may gun them down that they are happy to shoot first. Remember that story of that (white) woman who rang them and when they turned up they shot her because she startled them or something? Or that kid who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time then got shot for doing exactly as the police said? If they weren't facing an armed populace they might not be so trigger happy? Sure innocent people are killed by police/die in custody all over the world but not in anywhere like the same numbers
Without wanting to godwin they didn't think mussolini or hitler etc were tyrants when they were voted in either. Trump may not have shut down a newspaper but he flings about terms like enemy of the people and fake news and its very, dangerous. Did he attack that paper offices, no but it was because of him and the less said about whats going on the southern border the better eh? All that aside though, let's just agree that even if he's not a tyrant at all, he's still a fucking joke (how much time/money has he spent on golf alone?) but let's not get into that.
Being deplatformed isn't an attack on your free speech, it's just people not listening anymore. You can still start your own website or stand on the street and rant your crazy shit in to the ether but no one has to listen. But no, blame it all on 'the left' and enjoy your 'cultural revolution' and with any luck it will all end in another civil war yeah?
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We do regulate the fu*k out of guns.
But your proposed common sense laws don't make sense. At least not if your goal is to prevent violence.
Imagine that criminals were driving very fast and killing people. And your solution was "not to get rid of cars" but to get rid of "assault cars." Your solution was to ban black cars (red cars, brown cars, green cars and other colors were good - but black was not); and you banned detailing and you banned leather seats and wooden steering wheels. All these "common-sense" car-laws do not impede the use of "assault cars".
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I don't see anything that Trump has done that's anywhere near fascistic.
Trump says that MS-13 are "animals" and the media says that "Trump called immigrants animals." Criticizing the media is not fascistic. What's fascistic is creating laws preventing people from speaking their minds. I'm looking at you England and the EU.
What's fascistic is preventing people from expressing themselves. I'm looking at you ANTIFA and everyone who doesn't speak out against their brown-shirted tactics. (In this case going Godwin makes sense).
France has a homicide rate of 1.35 per 100,000
North Dakota has a homicide rate of 1.2 with half the population owning guns and having more guns than people. (A lot more guns than people). Idaho has a homicide rate of 1.5 with far more guns than North Dakota.
The District of Columbia, where guns are illegal have a homicide rate of 18.0
Homicide rates in the US are low except for pockets of violence. 2% of the counties account for over 50% of the homicides. And even in those counties it's only pockets of violence.
And guns will not be illegal in the US without extreme sectarian violence and the creation of a fascistic police state. By pushing for outright confiscation you are making the situation worse for yourself. There are a lot of labor Democrats who are already skeptical of the Democratic Party for abandoning labor and class in favor of environmentalism and identitarian politics. You push the gun confiscation and they won't sit out of elections; they won't vote for a labor third party - they'll vote Republican.
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Oh, analogies...you so silly. Let's just take a tiny piece of the situation from just the right perspective and apply it to something entirely unrelated while claiming to make such a profound point.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I don't see anything that Trump has done that's anywhere near fascistic.
Lets forget about trump for a minute and about general rates of murder in different places and let me ask you a single question. How many innocent lives are your guns worth? I'm only talking school and other mass shootings here, parkland, pulse, vegas etc. Forget gang violence and other violent crime for a moment just ones that make international news.
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Guns are nothing like cars when it comes to defining thema tool. Actually the biggest tools are those making this argument in the first place.
Not really. There have plenty of cases in the US and other countries where guns were regulated. However, while homicides committed with a firearm did drop, the actual homicide rate does not. So, continuing the car analogy, as this is /., it's as if some people were killed with cars, so the banned cars, but everybody just started riding motorcycles and still ended up killing just as many people. What you do see with banning of guns is an increase in crime. Guns are a tool. They are not particularly effective in any case that is statistically relevant, but are in cases that are newsworthy. Banning them just makes people feel good about themselves and continue to ignore the underlaying issues. Americans are just murderous folks, and nobody cares about actually changing that.
Not me reading. There are, according to FBI and other reports, about 1000 defensive gun uses per week. As stated in the post - this is the most restrictive reading of defensive gun use. Depending on how it's defined it can be 10x that.
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Yes. There are too many school shootings.
Since you're interested in the topic - you need to ask yourself:
Why now and not 50 years ago when the percentage of gun ownership was far higher?
Why now and not 80 years ago when you could get them anonymously through the mail?
Why does the media not follow the recommendations of police and put out the killer's name?
What is different in society now? What can we identify that can help?
Should we stop medicating boys diagnosed with ADHD?
Should we come up with socially viable means of expressing discontent and violence? Example boxing clubs.
If guns are the problem then wouldn't there have been more violence, more school shooting before? We had gun clubs in high schools before. Hmm. There should have been a lot of school shootings. Nope.
Finally why would you sacrifice your ability to defend yourself because of these events? Do you think governments never get tyrannical? Russia, Germany, China, North Korea, Cambodia - do you really think that can never happen again.
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Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
What is the purpose of a gun?
Oh, back to this game yay. *eyeroll*
But let's play along for a moment. There are many legitimate uses including...
- Personal safety (and before you point out guns shoot more owners than criminals, that stat ignores the criminals it deters without shooting them)
- Hunting
- Pest control
- Entertainment
- Collecting
Now, let's be honest...entertainment and collecting accounts for a large percentage of purchases. But so what? When did an object need to have direct, broad, and pervasive utility to be allowable? People buy tons of stupid, useless shit all the time. Some of it's quite dangerous and is ONLY useful for entertainment.
TL;DR your question isn't relevant.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Your right to privacy doesn't extend to breaking housing rules or laws. People seem to think privacy gives them this blanket right to hide illegal things and demand that everyone look the other way even when it's blatantly obvious what they're doing.
As someone living in NYC and dealing with the situation created by things like AirBnB and illegal rentals/illegal rents/rent stabilization or control/subsidies/and so on I'll share some insight:
First off, it's common for people to abuse low-income, subsidized, or stabilized rentals. Extremely common even. Some of that is borne of necessity - people living on a fixed income who simply cannot afford to live here and don't have any money (or ability for the elderly) to move. Much of it is greed though. NYC has 1/3 of the the entire countries low-income rental units. Many of those people AirBnB or sublet or similar to make substantial money (some low-income apartments literally go for under $100 a month vs. the $2-3000+ they'd rent for otherwise). Or you have planned communities of low-income people - not the city planning them, but whole communities who intentionally are low-income so and rig the system so they basically get all the apartments. Anyone who's gone through the jewish portion of williamsburg knows this. Amazing how their low-income apartment complexes are all jewish people (nothing against jewish people, but it's incredibly obvious they have taken over those buildings).
The system is heavily abused, flawed, and any kind of correction becomes a huge fight of 'but mah privasy' while landlords following rental rules are trying to not support someone's illegal rental business on their backs. That's not to say there aren't plenty of scumbag landlords of course.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
You are entirely misinformed regarding the involvement of the police in tenant-landlord disputes.
Police only get involved in immediate life-safety (violence, fire, flood, etc.) or criminal (trespass, theft, violence, etc) situations. The Sheriff's department handles evictions, but only after a final court order directing them to do so. They have ZERO to do with reviewing evidence and determining anything.
If tenants stop paying rent, move in a few friends, AirBnB a couch or 5, and trash your apartment you have to take them to court. That's the ONLY legal means to evict them. Call the police all you want but there's basically nothing they can do unless they witness a crime or immediate life-safety issue.
The underlying (but of course they can't admit) reason behind this system is to make it much more difficult to illegally rent, sublet, or AirBnB apartments while also collecting evidence to prove the misuse in court should people persist. People are (generally) crying about privacy to protect and perpetuate their illegal activities.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Yup, but protections enacted to prevent abusive landlords went so far that it's nearly impossible to prevent abusive tenants.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Yes, because they weren't smart enough to know that it would evolve into that right? You understand WHY we have a right to keep and bear arms right? They wanted the citizens on par with the government so far as tools went. There is a reason for that. If the oppressive government has AK-47's and the citizens have Muskets.. Well, you can lie to your self but its not nice to lie to others. It is enshrined in the constitution right behind freedom of speech. I have however seen you advocate for the removal of free speech, and the right to bear arms. So I expect nothing less from you or your ilk.
Now because not those times
It boggles the mind that you don't see guns as a big part of the problem.
You can't even see the tyranny right in front of your face, but whatever, Carry on.
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This same old tired list. Ok, I'll play again.
Guns are only a valid defense against other guns.
Hunting, yeah ok then, licensed firearms and all that, go for it.
Pest control, there are much better ways than shooting them and bigger pests that do need shot falls back on hunting.
Entertainment, you can still go target shooting without full fat guns.
Collecting, ok have them deactivated and made safe and collect all you want.
It seems to be ingrained in the american psyche that if you don't have a gun everyone you meet is going to attack, abuse and god only knows what else before your government inevitably goes mwa ha ha full on totalitarian while you sit there shitting your pants. Some americans at least, some are sensible.
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You know what, I don't know how you live there I really don't. How there isn't massive immigration from that place is beyond me.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You really think you could stand up to the government with any gun you could buy. THAT'S the funny part.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So we should just let them stomp on our face right? You are what the founding fathers feared the most.
Yeah well like I tell people. I wouldn't live in a country that had gone that far over the edge. Glad I don't.
Your society is sliding away and there is nothing you can do about it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Being deplatformed isn't an attack on your free speech, it's just people not listening anymore. You can still start your own website or stand on the street and rant your crazy shit in to the ether but no one has to listen. But no, blame it all on 'the left' and enjoy your 'cultural revolution' and with any luck it will all end in another civil war yeah?
Being deplatformed may not be against the law (today) but it is restricting people's ability to converse in the public square. Other people blocking you or voting you down into obscurity is fine. Being deplatformed by mega-corporations means not being able to communicate to other people. It's analogous to your computer preventing you from writing an article; or your email service preventing you from writing and sending emails.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I have a .22, a .223 a .270 and a 12 gauge shotgun. I have never killed anyone. I have never brandished a gun at anyone.
.45 as a protection against bears.
I have a recurve bow and a compound bow. I have never brandished them at anyone.
I have had other rifles, pistols and shotguns over the years. When I was in Alaska I had a
Except for gangs and small pockets of violence the US is very safe.
The real question is why you, who presumably understands that governmental tyranny can exist anywhere is comfortable and being helpless. And, not only comfortable in being helpless that you demand everyone else be just as helpless.
And, with the rise of the authoritarian left - those that would happily put me in a reeducation camp - there is no way that I'm going to give up my guns.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Guns are only a valid defense against other guns.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
As the saying goes: "God made men. But Sam Colt made them equal."
A 120 pound woman has no chance against a 240 pound man. (Sh!t - even a 180 pound man)
One man has no chance against 3 men determined to do him harm. (unless he is really skilled and they're not)
A gun equalizes the situation. Now both sides are placing their lives at stake.
Is it better for a woman to let herself be raped than risk dying by shooting her attackers (and have them shoot back if armed)? I can't answer that. But the option should be hers. Not yours.
Guns help the physically weaker person even up the odds against the physically stronger (or more numerous) assailants.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
You have no more right to be on twitter than you do to be in any private club. They are free to set entry requirements (or lack thereof) and to kick your ass out for any reason they choose, including being an asshole. Don't like it? Start your own social network. It's not analogous to those things at all. Like I said, go shout your crazy to the ether, you might get got for public disorder but then you get to complain to the police and tell them what they can and can't do then you can come back here and tell us how it's there's no tyranny. I wonder if you would pull your gun on the authority to defend your right to free speech? That's what they're for right? One of the things anway.
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You've never killed anyone, good for you. Not having a gun doesn't make you helpless, how impotent are you?
How many schools are you willing to see shot up, and how many children killed so you can 'feel' safe?
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A 120 pound woman has no chance against a 240 pound man. (Sh!t - even a 180 pound man)
One swift knee in the happy sack and he'll drop like anyone else. Learn some fucking self defence instead of jumping straight to shoot the fucker. Say you had 3 guys with guns on you, do you think you'd be able to shoot all three before one got you? Of course not, except now you've been shot as well. By your logic the rape rate should be a lot lower in the US than in unarmed countries like the UK/Aus where guns have relatively recently been got rid off and without looking up the numbers I'd be willing to put money on that not being the case.
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Really? That's your response? You think it's that easy?
If you believe in that nonsense. You will be fuked up if, and when, you ever have to defend yourself.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
They are free to do so. Isn't interesting how you bring in libertarian economic philosophy when it pleases you but reject it when it doesn't. If Twitter doesn't have to accommodate me then Woolworths doesn't need to accommodate black people.
The concept - post 1964 - is that if you're open to the public you're open to all the public. So you think that Microsoft, or Dell, could prevent you from writing or reading things that they - as corporate entities - consider inappropriate? Yeah right.
That's what you're arguing - that corporations like Microsoft, AT&T , Bic (for pens), Kimberley Clark (paper) can edit and censor your work because it suits them. And your response is - make your own paper. Make your own computer. Maker your own Twitter.
Besides the fact that you wouldn't like that; besides the fact that the only reason you're supporting this is because you perceive it as a short-term gain - the real problem is a complete disrespect being shown to the free and open dissemination of ideas.
And, more disgusting is the double standard. Farrakan calling for the elimination of jews fine. Imans calling for the elimination of atheists, gays and jews - fine. But Laura Loomer video taping sections of English and Australian towns where she is being asked to leave because what she's wearing doesn't conform to Islamic standards. - Well now, that we need to ban.
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So the only option for self defence in your world is a gun, is that what you are saying? By the way I have had to defend myself a few times, some times go less well than others but I still havent been shot or shot anyone and as far as I know everyone involved is still alive with no lasting injuries of any kind. So that's something.
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So, a crazy person does something bad with an object. Now, that object needs to be removed.
I guess he couldn't use gasoline and styrofoam and make a home-made napalm, or a truck to kill people. (That's never been done).
There are 120 million gun owners. There are 400 million plus guns in the country. If gun owners were as violent as you irrationally fear they are this place would be a war zone. And, except for a few gang ridden areas the US is peaceful.
But no, because of some people, glorified by the press (in that they become KNOWN, become famous) because this happens once in a while (way too often) you want to ban guns. And, you conveniently forget that there were guns 60 years ago and less shootings.
Why do you ignore the obvious - that the problem is not in guns?
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If Twitter doesn't have to accommodate me then Woolworths doesn't need to accommodate black people.
So you are equal to all black people now? Did twitter stop you at the door and say not your kind or they take action after you'd done something? That's the difference there. Woolworths would be well within their rights to kick someone out of their store, black or otherwise if they were causing trouble in some way. Can you show me twitters, no blacks, no jews policy?
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In 1964 we, as a country, came to the conclusion that if you have opened up your door to the general public that you must provide services to the general public. We are fine tuning that definition now with the bakers cases being brought to the Supreme Court.
Those refinements uphold the standard that stores / companies must serve the public as a whole. The baker must sell the cake. It's saying that the baker is not required to do particular art work for e very customer. A band, for instance, cannot stop Nazi's from buying their music but they can refuse to play at a gathering.
Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc... are public companies and they are restricting access by whim. They don't follow their TOS (See Farrakan) but terminate users for using memes they don't like "Learn to Code." This is contrary to the expectations raised in corporate / individual interactions as a result of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
It's ironic to see many, who are opposed to libertarian ideals of free speech and who have a great dislike for corporations now pushing for trans-national mega corporations to be able to censor people at whim. This is a very short-term approach to the world.
50 years ago the Tuskegee Experiments were going strong. Would you have liked "conspiracy mongers" talking about it being deplatformed. (If that was a thing back then?) If deplatforming was a thing back then the MLK and Malcolm X would have been deplatformed.
A central case for freedom of the press took place in the 1930s. Could Communists publish and distribute information? The answer was yes. That unpopular speech was not to be suppressed.
But you say, Twitter and Google are private companies. Would the company who made the press used by those communists (In Seattle I think) have been within their legal and moral rights to prevent their equipment from being used by these evil communists? Would you support that. How about the credit card companies refusing access to these same communists (of course there weren't credit card companies back then - but the point stands.)
It's funny, sin't it, that you're taking such an extreme libertarian idea - that companies can do what ever they want. And, not only that, but you're defending them for their abuses. Nice.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Pest control, there are much better ways than shooting them and bigger pests that do need shot falls back on hunting.
Yeah. The other way is called poison. But you know what? Lots of people do not want to spread poison on land that they're growing food on. And, this poison affects all animals, not just the pests. And the pests - groundhogs, raccoons, can get into the 100s, if not 1000s in a hurry.
The only two choices are shooting them (very humane) or poison (not as humane and very unhealthy for everyone). Trapping is not a solution. It's useful for a raccoon or two, not 100s of groundhogs
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
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No. It's not the ONLY defense. I've been in fights and have never used a gun.
This is not an either/or scenario. However there are times when a handgun or a rifle is the best tool for the situation at hand.
Why are you so scared of an inanimate object?
I have to question if your real concern is school shootings. It's that you want the population to be disarmed. And the question is why? An armed populace can tell the govt to fuk off. Why is that not a good thing?
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
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Christ wept I don't even know where to start with this ramble. Are you trying to suggest you can go into any private business, act however you want and they not only aren't allowed to stop you but must enable you? Is that what you're getting at here? If twitter et al was government run/owned you'd have a point but they aren't and they are afforded just as much freedom to do what they want as you are and if you want to play in their garden its their rules whether you like it or not. MLK managed to do all that without the internet and the gov doing everything they could to shut him up I really don't think if twitter was around it would have made much of a difference. For the record, twitter is a toxic shit stain on the internet but that's besides the point.
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No. You can't act anyway you want. So you're saying that Twitter can ban whomever they want for whatever reason?
..." Deplatforming speech is not good. Having tech companies being able to restrict speech at whim, not following their TOS is a problem.
That's happening right now. Respectful people, putting up respectful posts are being deplatformed. And you're applauding it.
Farrakan says that Jews should be exterminated,. CRICKETS
Point out scientific fallacies in the Koran (no the moon did not split in two, and no the sun does not set in a marsh land far to the west) and you're deplatformed. (A campaign of flagging the content maker is instigated, followed through 100s of times and YouTube caves.
You're getting what you perceive to be a short-term gain here. You're coming up to a modern day Niemoller situation. "First they came for
And you're happy. For now.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond