Sharp objects, sure. Medication - absolutely not. That's a terrible guideline; many people are on some sort of medication for mental health, and they should be able to possess something for self-defense, especially if it's not a condition known to have increased risk. I'm not sure whether the suicide one would actually work the way you want; long-term suicide rates were pretty much unaffected when guns were banned in some countries. I agree it's a good idea on paper, but I'm not all that confident it would work. I'll agree with the paranoia one though.
In pretty much all of the countries that banned guns or implemented much stricter gun control after a mass shooting, murder rates continued on the same trend they had before, or went up slightly. Yeah, banning guns reduces gun deaths, but it doesn't look like it reduces the number or murders, which is obviously more important.
"Firearm death rate" is a shitty way to compare, since about 2/3 of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Obviously, in countries without regular access to guns, people aren't killing themselves that way.
Fun fact: on most military bases, you aren't allowed to carry guns around unless you're an MP or on gate duty. No concealed carry, no open carry, nothing. In order to get the guns on the base, you have to go to the armory, show that you're supposed to have them, check them out, check out ammo, etc. So no, Fort Hood was not literally full of highly trained people with guns.
Most of those Americans who are killed by guns are suicides. Long-term suicide rates are unaffected by gun ownership. Moreover, This CDC study says you're entirely wrong about people using guns defensively. Most mass shootings happen in zones where people aren't legally allowed to have guns, so naturally responsible gun owners wouldn't be able to stop them there.
Do you trust the US Government to assess your mental health in an unbiased way? More to the point, what things specifically would disqualify someone from buying guns or ammo? Should bipolar people not have the right to self defense? Depressed people? Where do you draw the line?
True, but they were doing it to strengthen communism, rather than for atheism. They didn't want any institutions in their country that people might look up to more than the State.
More armed guards/bouncers, perhaps. Otherwise yeah, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot we can do; banning the guns didn't help in Belgium or France.
If everyone was always armed, maybe; there are plenty of people with poor impulse control out there. But there's also some truth to the saying that an armed society is a polite society.
The error in your argument is that you only look at justifiable killings, not use of a gun in self defense - using it as a threat or just injuring the assailant wouldn't show up. This CDC study showed that "defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals".
He was arguably both. The FBI had investigated him twice before because he'd made some comments to coworkers that made him seem pretty radicalized, but the FBI couldn't find enough to justify keeping the investigation open. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive; ISIS and some very fundamentalist governments do execute gays, after all.
I'm just relating what I've seen. I don't know how common these experiences are, but I think if you look around you could find some other people with similar stories.
Or just when they're white and challenge any part of the current narrative, like objecting to the arbitrary redefinition of "racism" or racially segregated "safe spaces".
Huh. That's interesting. Thank you for the information. Does Google.com pay Google France for the server access, or...? Why do they have subsidiary companies in that case?
It's really funny how you keep assuming I'm American.
Evil does not mean untrustworthy. I also disagree; all governments do bad things, but some do more bad things than others.
Again, I didn't say the US was good, only that it's the best superpower the world has had so far. Whether that's because power corrupts or corrupt nations seek more power, who knows, but superpowers tend to do bad things. The US has, in my opinion, abused its power the least.
Trade is good. American policies, while usually more favorable to America than other countries, for the most part don't destroy economies. "nine times out of ten" is bullshit.
Yep, it is loads, whether you're talking public or private. And yeah, it's fairly understandable that Americans don't want other countries telling them how their tax policies should work. In addition, most of those companies are already operating illegally.
Ask Eastern Europe, South Korea, and Japan how happy they are to have US troops there.
Also - you absolutely did speak for every non-American, several times. "we all", "7 billion people who consider", etc.
No, I used your words as you said them. Maybe you meant something different, but I represented what you said fairly. Also - the French can be pretty fucking rude to Germans, Mexicans, Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese. It's not just Americans they're rude to.
I don't support the drone program. If it was actually surgical, like they claim, that would be better - still bad and you're right, incredibly disrespectful - but as it stands it's just making things worse.
Yep, those could definitely be part of the solution. I doubt something like that would work for planes, but cars and plants put out a lot, so getting that out of the picture would be huge.
Presumably you could just compress it as exhaust and then use the other energy sources as available. And yeah, atmospheric CO2 can't be efficiently captured yet, but presumably there's some sort of effort to develop a system to do that. We'll probably need it at some point.
Potentially, it would, but you could also use excess energy from solar or wind during peak production. If there's enough money in it, you could even build a small nuclear plant and keep that running.
Your original claim was about trustworthiness. The US is far more trustworthy than NK, and plenty of non-Americans absolutely agree with that.
I'm not constantly accused of imperialism or unspeakable arrogance. The US certainly throws its weight around, and I'm often not a fan of US foreign policy, but it's arguably the most well-behaved superpower the world has seen. Oh, Americans know a lot of the world isn't grateful. On the other hand, America gives out loads of foreign aid, and there are plenty of people who are grateful for that. Some countries are actually grateful for the Pax Americana, and the American military in general, despite its misuse.
Speak for yourself. You do not get to speak for every non-American, and just because you're upset about the way things are doesn't mean everyone else in the world is. You want to talk about unspeakable arrogance? Look in a mirror.
Google.com has no presence inside of France. If the French intentionally circumvent the redirect, and use Google that is not located in France, then that's on them. The French government should not be able to force a Google subsidiary in any other country to censor anything. At most, they should be able to tell them to not serve French traffic at all.
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Sharp objects, sure. Medication - absolutely not. That's a terrible guideline; many people are on some sort of medication for mental health, and they should be able to possess something for self-defense, especially if it's not a condition known to have increased risk. I'm not sure whether the suicide one would actually work the way you want; long-term suicide rates were pretty much unaffected when guns were banned in some countries. I agree it's a good idea on paper, but I'm not all that confident it would work. I'll agree with the paranoia one though.
In pretty much all of the countries that banned guns or implemented much stricter gun control after a mass shooting, murder rates continued on the same trend they had before, or went up slightly. Yeah, banning guns reduces gun deaths, but it doesn't look like it reduces the number or murders, which is obviously more important.
"Firearm death rate" is a shitty way to compare, since about 2/3 of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Obviously, in countries without regular access to guns, people aren't killing themselves that way.
Fun fact: on most military bases, you aren't allowed to carry guns around unless you're an MP or on gate duty. No concealed carry, no open carry, nothing. In order to get the guns on the base, you have to go to the armory, show that you're supposed to have them, check them out, check out ammo, etc. So no, Fort Hood was not literally full of highly trained people with guns.
Most of those Americans who are killed by guns are suicides. Long-term suicide rates are unaffected by gun ownership. Moreover, This CDC study says you're entirely wrong about people using guns defensively. Most mass shootings happen in zones where people aren't legally allowed to have guns, so naturally responsible gun owners wouldn't be able to stop them there.
Do you trust the US Government to assess your mental health in an unbiased way? More to the point, what things specifically would disqualify someone from buying guns or ammo? Should bipolar people not have the right to self defense? Depressed people? Where do you draw the line?
True, but they were doing it to strengthen communism, rather than for atheism. They didn't want any institutions in their country that people might look up to more than the State.
More armed guards/bouncers, perhaps. Otherwise yeah, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot we can do; banning the guns didn't help in Belgium or France.
If everyone was always armed, maybe; there are plenty of people with poor impulse control out there. But there's also some truth to the saying that an armed society is a polite society.
The error in your argument is that you only look at justifiable killings, not use of a gun in self defense - using it as a threat or just injuring the assailant wouldn't show up. This CDC study showed that "defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals".
He was arguably both. The FBI had investigated him twice before because he'd made some comments to coworkers that made him seem pretty radicalized, but the FBI couldn't find enough to justify keeping the investigation open. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive; ISIS and some very fundamentalist governments do execute gays, after all.
What sort of education would you like? Who would we be educating, and what would we be teaching them?
I'm just relating what I've seen. I don't know how common these experiences are, but I think if you look around you could find some other people with similar stories.
That sort of depends on whether OP throws them away or sells them to someone who otherwise wouldn't have gotten a laptop at all.
Or just when they're white and challenge any part of the current narrative, like objecting to the arbitrary redefinition of "racism" or racially segregated "safe spaces".
Huh. That's interesting. Thank you for the information. Does Google.com pay Google France for the server access, or...? Why do they have subsidiary companies in that case?
It's really funny how you keep assuming I'm American.
Evil does not mean untrustworthy. I also disagree; all governments do bad things, but some do more bad things than others.
Again, I didn't say the US was good, only that it's the best superpower the world has had so far. Whether that's because power corrupts or corrupt nations seek more power, who knows, but superpowers tend to do bad things. The US has, in my opinion, abused its power the least.
Trade is good. American policies, while usually more favorable to America than other countries, for the most part don't destroy economies. "nine times out of ten" is bullshit.
Yep, it is loads, whether you're talking public or private. And yeah, it's fairly understandable that Americans don't want other countries telling them how their tax policies should work. In addition, most of those companies are already operating illegally.
Ask Eastern Europe, South Korea, and Japan how happy they are to have US troops there.
Also - you absolutely did speak for every non-American, several times. "we all", "7 billion people who consider", etc.
No, I used your words as you said them. Maybe you meant something different, but I represented what you said fairly. Also - the French can be pretty fucking rude to Germans, Mexicans, Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese. It's not just Americans they're rude to.
I don't support the drone program. If it was actually surgical, like they claim, that would be better - still bad and you're right, incredibly disrespectful - but as it stands it's just making things worse.
Yep, those could definitely be part of the solution. I doubt something like that would work for planes, but cars and plants put out a lot, so getting that out of the picture would be huge.
Presumably you could just compress it as exhaust and then use the other energy sources as available. And yeah, atmospheric CO2 can't be efficiently captured yet, but presumably there's some sort of effort to develop a system to do that. We'll probably need it at some point.
Hmm. Do you have a source for that?
Potentially, it would, but you could also use excess energy from solar or wind during peak production. If there's enough money in it, you could even build a small nuclear plant and keep that running.
Your original claim was about trustworthiness. The US is far more trustworthy than NK, and plenty of non-Americans absolutely agree with that.
I'm not constantly accused of imperialism or unspeakable arrogance. The US certainly throws its weight around, and I'm often not a fan of US foreign policy, but it's arguably the most well-behaved superpower the world has seen. Oh, Americans know a lot of the world isn't grateful. On the other hand, America gives out loads of foreign aid, and there are plenty of people who are grateful for that. Some countries are actually grateful for the Pax Americana, and the American military in general, despite its misuse.
Speak for yourself. You do not get to speak for every non-American, and just because you're upset about the way things are doesn't mean everyone else in the world is. You want to talk about unspeakable arrogance? Look in a mirror.
You mean, if America keeps things the way they are? It hasn't caused other countries to make their own internet (with blackjack! and hookers!) yet.
Technically, it is a federal crime under the Communist Control Act, but no presidential administration has ever enforced it.
Google.com has no presence inside of France. If the French intentionally circumvent the redirect, and use Google that is not located in France, then that's on them. The French government should not be able to force a Google subsidiary in any other country to censor anything. At most, they should be able to tell them to not serve French traffic at all.