Do you get to visit your critically injured loved one in the hospital, and be there to advise on important medical decisions? Not when the hospital staff has a legally defined policy of "family only."
Note that this case didn't exist much before Federal Law decided that you needed more privacy, and made it illegal to give out your medical information to any but family members (to include spouses). When I was young, going to a hospital to see a friend meant telling the nurse you were there to see whomever, nurse checking to see if whomever wanted to see you, then proceeding with the visit (assuming that whomever DID want to see you). Now, we have cases where unmarried partners CANNOT get permission to see their partner in hospital.
So, we fix a bad law by passing a new law. Rather than by fixing the bad parts of the previous law.
Equating "high powered weapons" with "assault weapons" (which latter are military look-alikes) shows a limited knowledge of firearms, at best.
Note, for the record, that an AR-15 fires a 55 grain bullet at around 3000 ft/sec. A.30-06 fires a 150+ grain bullet at 2700+ ft/sec (depending on the specific load). Which makes my.30-06 single shot a much more powerful weapon than my mini-14.
Note further that your AK-47 clones shoot a round with ballistics rather close to a.30-30. Which is a useful round, but frankly, by hunting rifle standards, pretty anemic.
For that matter, your basic 12 gauge (which you claim to use for boar hunting) is FAR more powerful than any "assault weapon".....
No, the left is using actual massacres and gun death statistics to oppose what actually is. It's not some fear of what might be.
Which is why, following a massacre, the Left is calling for a ban on a type of weapon that is used in ~1% of gun crimes per year - because banning "assault weapons" will have such a HUGE impact on gun crime that it's absolutely mandatory that we pass legislation RIGHT NOW!!
Note that the last "assault weapon" ban included a requirement to do a scientific analysis of the benefits of the ban.
Oddly enough, said analysis indicated that the ban had no meaningful effect on gun crime of any kind.
And so, of course, we're going to try that route again - because it worked well last time (even its proponents think its effect was trivial)...
If you want to do something about gun crime (and who really cares about "gun crime"? how about just doing something about "crime"?), might want to look at the underlying causes that drive people to do mass shootings....
What gun owners are afraid of is other gun owners.
Nope. I don't even know which, if any, of my neighbors own guns, and could care less. Of the people who I DO know own guns (mostly relatives), I've never been afraid of even an accidental discharge, much less a deliberate attempt by one of them to harm me or mine....
If we were saying "We should disarm the african americans" or "we should disarm the hispanics" or even "we should disarm the muslims" then you'd have a point, but that's not the case.
Oddly enough, the Sullivan Law (New York's first gun control law) was put in place to disarm the Italians (and African-Americans).
And most gun control laws in the latter half of the 19th century in the Old South were aimed at disarming the African-Americans.
since from what myself and others have read most of the weapons used in illegal crimes are coming from legal dealers that are selling without the checks or they come from gun shows where the checks are not required.
If the former can be proved (a legal dealer sold a gun without a background check), then the "legal dealer" can be arrested and imprisoned for violating federal law.
Note that it's generally not hard to prove, because shipping guns from manufacturer to dealer (or dealer to dealer) requires the kind of paperwork that makes it a slam-dunk (serial numbers, that sort of thing, and not all the records are under control of the crooked dealer).
Note also that it is a myth that background checks are not required at a gun show. A licensed dealer has to have a background check run whether he is selling from his shop, his home, or at a gun show.
Where the mythical gun-show loophole comes from is that a private citizen (NOT a licensed dealer) is allowed (and has ALWAYS been allowed) to sell his property, including firearms, without asking the Federal government for permission. Whether at a gun show or not.
Note that, absent a new record-keeping requirement (there are no records of background checks kept at federal, state, local, or personal level), requiring private citizens to run background checks "at gun shows" (or at any other time) would be meaningless, since there's no way to trace a firearm past the dealer who originally sold it (since he's required to keep records of gun sales).
He's accomplished as much as anyone could have accomplished, and more than most, given his extraordinary circumstances.
nonsense!
Guantanamo? All it would have taken was an Executive Order cancelling the Executive Order creating same. Then turn everyone inside loose.
Civil Rights for Gays? Do you remember how Truman handled integration of the military? THAT was an example of a President doing the right thing, the right way. Letting your SecDef take heat for a decision that you should have made was just a cop-out.
No comments about Obamacare (aka "healthcare reform" - it isn't really, it's "health insurance reform"), since most of it was designed to not cause problems until Obama was no longer eligible for reelection. We're not going to know for sure how much, if any, good it accomplishes for a long time.
Or, cut defense spending. You'd still have the world's best military if you slash it by 30%, I bet.
If we were to reduce defense spending by 30%, we'd still have $500B+ deficits every year.
If we ZEROED defense spending, we'd still be running a deficit every year.
Note that the same is true for Social Security, for those on the other side of the fence - eliminate it entirely (except for the SS taxes part), and we'd still be running a deficit every year.
No, 100% of the States do not have to agree to make this change, only enough to constitute more than half of the total electoral votes.
Just curious, does this continue to function if reapportionment removes enough electoral votes from the States in question to reduce their total to below 270? Or does the agreement go away with the electoral vote majority?
I'm asking for anyone to try anything in an attempt to take one small step in any direction. It doesn't need to work, it just needs to be an attempt.
So, you'd consider it acceptable if Congress passed a law requiring every person over age 15 to own a fully-automatic (NOT semi-auto, which is what the EVIIILLL gun used to kill those kids was) rifle? After all, that would be a step "in any direction"?
Alternately, a law forbidding automobiles within 1000 yards of any school would work as "a step in any direction".
In other words, don't be an idiot!
If you want more gun control, more power to you. It won't work to reduce the number of guns out there, and it won't work to reduce gun crime, but it's perfectly fine that you want that (and even better that you say it, rather than mealy-mouthed crap like "a step in ANY direction").
Note, by the by, that you look at Sandy Hook as an example of the evils of guns. I see a crime that took place in a "gun-free zone" - no law-abiding citizen had any chance at all of stopping whatsisbutthead even if they'd wanted to.
And, oddly enough, the law forbidding firearms in schools did NOT prevent whatsisbutthead from bringing a gun in and killing people.
And if there'd been an "assault weapon" in place, he'd still have been able to kill those kids - a shotgun doesn't care from age of target, nor does a pistol....
As for the many millions (billions now? could be I suppose) of rounds Obama has been having all the non-military agencies buy... I have heard no explanation.
If you're requiring all your Federal Agents to carry firearms (don't know if they are or not), then they're all required to qualify on their weapons. Which currently requires shooting anywhere from hundreds to thousands of rounds per year per agent.
Don't know if this is the explanation, but it's not an unreasonable explanation, especially if rules have been changed requiring all Feds to qualify to pack heat.
Note, by the way, that there are far more Federal agents than there are infantrymen in our military....
It's hard to say if, under the previous administration, we would still be in Iraq, since that was never a possible outcome. However, compared to the alternative (McCain's "100 more years!" explanation, Obama getting our troops out in his first term earns him a solid B+ from me on that promise.
Since Obama pulled out of Iraq on Bush's timetable (the one we negotiated with the Iraqi government), it's probably fairly safe to say we'd be out of Iraq, with or without Obama.
2. The Social Security Payroll Tax is not really used for Social Security - it just goes right back into the general fund, and even worse, the general fund has to pay interest to Social Security
Umm, no.
Those T-Bills we give the SSA are a zero-interest T-Bill (essentially, an IOU).
Oh, and our trade deficit has little, if anything, to do with our national debt. Our national debt goes up because Congress doesn't want to raise taxes enough to cover all the Federal spending we do. Nor does it want to reduce Federal spending to match tax revenues.
Historically, it should be noted that when we raise taxes, we raise spending. And when we lower taxes, we raise spending. See the problem?
In the real world, businesses use deficit spending to grow their ability to earn revenue all the time.
Businesses pay off their bonds from time to time.
The Feds, on the other hand, do deficit spending every year, regular as clockwork, with no intention of ever paying off the debt.
Note that deficit spending to accomplish some specific objective (as opposed to "we want to spend more money than tax revenues allow, so we'll borrow some more") wouldn't bother nearly so many people as you might think.
The problem with the deficit is that it's a permanent fixture in the budget, with no special benefit other than "yay! we get to spend more than we take in in revenue"....
Social security is not discretionary spending, and it is not part of the federal budget. It is a separate trust fund funded by separate taxes.
Umm, no. Social Security taxes are dumped into the General Fund and spent just like any other taxes. Ignore the rhetoric about "Social Security Trust Funds", and read the enabling legislation instead (yes, in spite of everything the government says on the subject, SSA is a pay-as-you-go thing just like every other Federal program).
why does our national debt keep going up? Aren't we paying it down or is the USA just making minimum payments.
We're making interest-only payments on it.
Then borrowing more every year on top of that.
Note that for all that Clinton "balanced the budget", the national debt has not decreased since before I was born. And I was alive for Kennedy's election (too young to care who (or what) the President was, but alive).
Slashdot readership (if it can really be called that, judging by how little is actually read by its posting users [slashdot.org]) is an older crowd; they are not college students. Chances are they will lament how times have changed, and then tell you to get off their lawn. Seriously, very few people here are going to be able to answer your question because they are not in college anymore.
Given the number of/.'ers who don't know the difference between "your" and "you're", or "there", "their" and "they're", or "rogue" and "rouge", I suspect that most/.'ers would consider the current levels of literacy in colleges/universities acceptably high.
the justice system seems to be trending toward making penalties harsher for the criminals that they do catch.
Read something recently that boiled down to "we increase penalties for crimes whenever we find that the Law Enforcement types aren't bothering to arrest people for these crimes because the penalties aren't high enough to make it worth the hassles of a trial"
Slashdot Mirror
Traditionally, we've always thought that 40+40 = 80.
Or were you using NK math?
Note that this case didn't exist much before Federal Law decided that you needed more privacy, and made it illegal to give out your medical information to any but family members (to include spouses). When I was young, going to a hospital to see a friend meant telling the nurse you were there to see whomever, nurse checking to see if whomever wanted to see you, then proceeding with the visit (assuming that whomever DID want to see you). Now, we have cases where unmarried partners CANNOT get permission to see their partner in hospital.
So, we fix a bad law by passing a new law. Rather than by fixing the bad parts of the previous law.
Equating "high powered weapons" with "assault weapons" (which latter are military look-alikes) shows a limited knowledge of firearms, at best.
Note, for the record, that an AR-15 fires a 55 grain bullet at around 3000 ft/sec. A .30-06 fires a 150+ grain bullet at 2700+ ft/sec (depending on the specific load). Which makes my .30-06 single shot a much more powerful weapon than my mini-14.
Note further that your AK-47 clones shoot a round with ballistics rather close to a .30-30. Which is a useful round, but frankly, by hunting rifle standards, pretty anemic.
For that matter, your basic 12 gauge (which you claim to use for boar hunting) is FAR more powerful than any "assault weapon".....
Which is why, following a massacre, the Left is calling for a ban on a type of weapon that is used in ~1% of gun crimes per year - because banning "assault weapons" will have such a HUGE impact on gun crime that it's absolutely mandatory that we pass legislation RIGHT NOW!!
Note that the last "assault weapon" ban included a requirement to do a scientific analysis of the benefits of the ban.
Oddly enough, said analysis indicated that the ban had no meaningful effect on gun crime of any kind.
And so, of course, we're going to try that route again - because it worked well last time (even its proponents think its effect was trivial)...
If you want to do something about gun crime (and who really cares about "gun crime"? how about just doing something about "crime"?), might want to look at the underlying causes that drive people to do mass shootings....
Nope. I don't even know which, if any, of my neighbors own guns, and could care less. Of the people who I DO know own guns (mostly relatives), I've never been afraid of even an accidental discharge, much less a deliberate attempt by one of them to harm me or mine....
Oddly enough, the Sullivan Law (New York's first gun control law) was put in place to disarm the Italians (and African-Americans).
And most gun control laws in the latter half of the 19th century in the Old South were aimed at disarming the African-Americans.
If the former can be proved (a legal dealer sold a gun without a background check), then the "legal dealer" can be arrested and imprisoned for violating federal law.
Note that it's generally not hard to prove, because shipping guns from manufacturer to dealer (or dealer to dealer) requires the kind of paperwork that makes it a slam-dunk (serial numbers, that sort of thing, and not all the records are under control of the crooked dealer).
Note also that it is a myth that background checks are not required at a gun show. A licensed dealer has to have a background check run whether he is selling from his shop, his home, or at a gun show.
Where the mythical gun-show loophole comes from is that a private citizen (NOT a licensed dealer) is allowed (and has ALWAYS been allowed) to sell his property, including firearms, without asking the Federal government for permission. Whether at a gun show or not.
Note that, absent a new record-keeping requirement (there are no records of background checks kept at federal, state, local, or personal level), requiring private citizens to run background checks "at gun shows" (or at any other time) would be meaningless, since there's no way to trace a firearm past the dealer who originally sold it (since he's required to keep records of gun sales).
You state here that hit air is denser than cold air. And provide a link to wikipedia.
The wikipedia link contradicts you. Which is good, since you are, in fact, wrong. Cold air is denser than hot air, not vice versa.
nonsense!
Guantanamo? All it would have taken was an Executive Order cancelling the Executive Order creating same. Then turn everyone inside loose.
Civil Rights for Gays? Do you remember how Truman handled integration of the military? THAT was an example of a President doing the right thing, the right way. Letting your SecDef take heat for a decision that you should have made was just a cop-out.
No comments about Obamacare (aka "healthcare reform" - it isn't really, it's "health insurance reform"), since most of it was designed to not cause problems until Obama was no longer eligible for reelection. We're not going to know for sure how much, if any, good it accomplishes for a long time.
Which is why BOTH Parties pretty much ignore WA. And many other States (MS, LA, as examples I actually pay attention to, having family in both).
If you want your State to be important to Presidential candidates, then it needs to go Red about half the time, and Blue about half the time.
Whether you go Red or Blue matters not at all if you ALWAYS (or even nearly always) go that way.
If we were to reduce defense spending by 30%, we'd still have $500B+ deficits every year.
If we ZEROED defense spending, we'd still be running a deficit every year.
Note that the same is true for Social Security, for those on the other side of the fence - eliminate it entirely (except for the SS taxes part), and we'd still be running a deficit every year.
Just curious, does this continue to function if reapportionment removes enough electoral votes from the States in question to reduce their total to below 270? Or does the agreement go away with the electoral vote majority?
So, you'd consider it acceptable if Congress passed a law requiring every person over age 15 to own a fully-automatic (NOT semi-auto, which is what the EVIIILLL gun used to kill those kids was) rifle? After all, that would be a step "in any direction"?
Alternately, a law forbidding automobiles within 1000 yards of any school would work as "a step in any direction".
In other words, don't be an idiot!
If you want more gun control, more power to you. It won't work to reduce the number of guns out there, and it won't work to reduce gun crime, but it's perfectly fine that you want that (and even better that you say it, rather than mealy-mouthed crap like "a step in ANY direction").
Note, by the by, that you look at Sandy Hook as an example of the evils of guns. I see a crime that took place in a "gun-free zone" - no law-abiding citizen had any chance at all of stopping whatsisbutthead even if they'd wanted to.
And, oddly enough, the law forbidding firearms in schools did NOT prevent whatsisbutthead from bringing a gun in and killing people.
And if there'd been an "assault weapon" in place, he'd still have been able to kill those kids - a shotgun doesn't care from age of target, nor does a pistol....
Nah, Clinton sold more guns with HIS "assault weapon" ban.
That may change, once we get a new "assault weapon" ban - then I really expect to see guns flying off the shelves....
Hmm, 100% of the States agree to this to make the change...
Alternately, 75% of the States have to agree for a Constitutional Amendment.
Yah, it's sooooo much easier to get the States to bypass the amendment process....
They both don't need airtight alibis - if one of them as an airtight alibi, then both can use it, since they're identical....
Of course, only one of them is a rapist. A ball-peen hammer or garden sheers to the knuckles of the innocent twin evokes quite a bit more sympathy....
If you're requiring all your Federal Agents to carry firearms (don't know if they are or not), then they're all required to qualify on their weapons. Which currently requires shooting anywhere from hundreds to thousands of rounds per year per agent.
Don't know if this is the explanation, but it's not an unreasonable explanation, especially if rules have been changed requiring all Feds to qualify to pack heat.
Note, by the way, that there are far more Federal agents than there are infantrymen in our military....
Since Obama pulled out of Iraq on Bush's timetable (the one we negotiated with the Iraqi government), it's probably fairly safe to say we'd be out of Iraq, with or without Obama.
Umm, no.
Those T-Bills we give the SSA are a zero-interest T-Bill (essentially, an IOU).
Oh, and our trade deficit has little, if anything, to do with our national debt. Our national debt goes up because Congress doesn't want to raise taxes enough to cover all the Federal spending we do. Nor does it want to reduce Federal spending to match tax revenues.
Historically, it should be noted that when we raise taxes, we raise spending. And when we lower taxes, we raise spending. See the problem?
Businesses pay off their bonds from time to time.
The Feds, on the other hand, do deficit spending every year, regular as clockwork, with no intention of ever paying off the debt.
Note that deficit spending to accomplish some specific objective (as opposed to "we want to spend more money than tax revenues allow, so we'll borrow some more") wouldn't bother nearly so many people as you might think.
The problem with the deficit is that it's a permanent fixture in the budget, with no special benefit other than "yay! we get to spend more than we take in in revenue"....
Umm, no. Social Security taxes are dumped into the General Fund and spent just like any other taxes. Ignore the rhetoric about "Social Security Trust Funds", and read the enabling legislation instead (yes, in spite of everything the government says on the subject, SSA is a pay-as-you-go thing just like every other Federal program).
We're making interest-only payments on it.
Then borrowing more every year on top of that.
Note that for all that Clinton "balanced the budget", the national debt has not decreased since before I was born. And I was alive for Kennedy's election (too young to care who (or what) the President was, but alive).
Given the number of /.'ers who don't know the difference between "your" and "you're", or "there", "their" and "they're", or "rogue" and "rouge", I suspect that most /.'ers would consider the current levels of literacy in colleges/universities acceptably high.
So, why does France issue Driver's Licenses to people subject to epileptic seizures?
Read something recently that boiled down to "we increase penalties for crimes whenever we find that the Law Enforcement types aren't bothering to arrest people for these crimes because the penalties aren't high enough to make it worth the hassles of a trial"