Well, we do give law enforcement hell when crime doesn't improve... can't really fault them for following the incentive not to report. I'm not sure what the proper incentive structure should be, but I bet the smarty-smarts here could come up with something better. For instance, perhaps a commission that follows up on some percentage of 911 calls.
Utah which is full of guns has a lower murder rate than Luxembourg. New Hampshire has a lower murder rate than France.
Those are absurd comparisons. Utah is almost entirely low-density population. New Hampshire is the same. Why not compare Chicago to a European city, say Paris or London or Berlin? Why not compare Utah to the less-urbanized parts of Australia? You're lecturing me on making disingenuous comparisons and then comparing a desert state to a micro-state and a sparsely-populated state without a major city to a country that contains Paris?
When any damn fool can get a gun and bring it to Chicago for $100, it doesn't really matter whether it is legal to have pistols in Chicago itself. Gun control is completely ineffective at such a local level.
But how many more knife and blunt instrument attacks?
By most accounts, more. But it results in fewer homicides, since those are less-efficient ways of killing. On balance, the homicide rate would go down.
How many more instances of honest people being confronted by thugs and backing down?
You tell me? Where does your estimate come from? I've been held up at gunpoint - they jumped on me as I came around a corner. If I had a gun, I would not have had time to draw it and they would now have my pistol as well as my wallet. If petty thieves couldn't afford a pistol, then I'd have been held up at knife-point instead and the result would have been exactly the same. I've also been held up at knife-point (in Europe), and I actually got out of that spot.
In any case, a firearm cannot be safely discharged in an urban environment. Your right to self defense does not trump my right to sleep without a stray bullet hitting me as I sleep.
A belief in gun control is the belief that a woman beaten, raped and strangled in an alley is somehow morally superior to the woman who has to explain to the police how her attacker got that fatal hole in his anatomy.
Only if you believe that a significant number of rapes are currently deterred at gunpoint.
President Obama has yet to advocate any position on gun control, and here you are criticizing, what exactly?
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I see him doing the typical "test the waters" kind of crap that presidents always do. Almost every day there is some burp of information from "an undisclosed source" or from Biden. At no point have I heard anything about pistols - only rifles, magazines, and added bureaucracy... all very easy things for the Republicans/NRA/etc to then defend, since no matter how good an idea those things might be, they will not actually have much of an effect.
He seems to still hope that people will be, in his words, "...prepared to stand up for their principles instead of falling over for the shiney gadget...".
I've given up on that hope, and also come to realize that not everyone even shares my concerns. Even if everyone DID stand up for their principles, they might still buy the shiny gadget because not everyone sees something wrong with what the manufacturer is doing.
You can also stop a high percentage of the bad guys from getting guns in the first place. This isn't a pipe dream - most of the developed world has something on the order of 100x fewer gun homicides.
Of course, assault rifles are objectively not a big problem. Handguns are. But the path of least resistance for Obama is to score some easy points by going after the big easy target. And because he's going after something that isn't a problem, it gives the other side an easy out as well. Everyone wins, ain't politics great? Oh, sure, we still have something like 8000 handgun homicides at the end, but whatever.
I admire your ideology, but I'm far too pragmatic. There is no sense in pretending that my actions will make much of a dent in the market, nor is it likely that everyone will suddenly stick to their principles. I have a friend who is vegan. Or, she tries to be. Good luck finding products - even food - made without animal products. She, like you, tries to stick to her principles and is constantly trying to evangelize veganism. I'm glad there are people like her (and yourself) out there, but that lifestyle requires far too much vigilance for me.
Did you do this yourself? A collection of 2 and 3 year old links come up, with various descriptions of how IE does on ACID. You could do the usual Slashdot thing and cherry pick the link that supports your view, or you could check it yourself.
I start my day by inhaling the fumes of jet fuel and aluminum, myself. Would never touch that composite smoke, unless it came from carpet, upholstery, and cabin interior plastics.
Aren't you being a little obtuse? The aircraft manufacturer works with the engine manufacturer and certifies only certain engines. Boeing didn't make the battery that caught fire, but they are still responsible for it.
I imagine not very well if they add fire retardant to the resin.
Aluminum burns nicely, too - and can't be put out with water. Thing is, usually people are more concerned about the jet fuel, which makes up a large percentage of the weight of the plane itself and is meant to burn.
My handy-dandy viewing distance calculator says you need to be around 10ft or closer to appreciate a 70in 1080p TV. So I guess the answer is people who want to sit 2 feet from the 70in TV:)
Am I too old or something? We always ran our personal lives from work, but it used to be a lot more invasive. You couldn't take care of many things online, so you had to leave work during working hours to take care of it. Any time you needed customer service, you had to use the telephone at work. You'd have errands to run, so you would either come in late, take an extended lunch, or leave early. Expecting a call? You had to hover near your desk so that you wouldn't miss it.
I won't defend tweeting, updating Facebook, and the like - but I think that most employers recognize that letting people take care of some personal stuff while at work ultimately improves productivity.
Technical challenges aside, there clearly is a market for non-required safety features in certain types of cars. Volvo made this their mainstay for years. And to this day, I kind of shudder a little bit when I get behind a Volvo, despite the old stereotype no longer really holding true.
My minivan comes with all sorts of expensive safety features that are not required by law - I have to assume that market forces drove Toyota to include them. Getting ranked as a safe car by the insurance trade groups will help sales with some demographics.
How is calling me names a deep contribution? I'm repeating statistical data from homeless studies and he responds with some personal experience from a different country and then claims that I'm making stuff up. It's certainly fair to say that I didn't make any citations, but nor did the person I responded to.
But that's besides the point - a person who does not think they have a mental illness or a substance abuse problem will not seek treatment, free or not. What we do instead is wait for them to commit a crime and then treat them in prison.
No. Nor do I have any family members that are homeless. I do have family members with mental illness, including one who very well might be homeless if not for friends and family.
I have been homeless.
While I appreciate your experience, the fact is that most homeless that you see "littering the street" are indeed either mentally ill or substance abusers, or both. There are many others who fill shelters, live in cars, etc - but I think that in this context, we are mostly talking about people with an untreated disease.
In short: Get bent you ignorant prick, you're pulling shit out of your arse, typical slashdot armchair sociologist, you're worse than any homeless person I've ever met.
I'd like to see your source of information, then. I'm just repeating what I saw on PBS.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we do give law enforcement hell when crime doesn't improve... can't really fault them for following the incentive not to report. I'm not sure what the proper incentive structure should be, but I bet the smarty-smarts here could come up with something better. For instance, perhaps a commission that follows up on some percentage of 911 calls.
I agree the debate is completely absurd. That is why I felt compelled to post.
Disingenuous as always.
When have I been disingenuous before?
You know the US is not a monolith?
Yup.
Utah which is full of guns has a lower murder rate than Luxembourg. New Hampshire has a lower murder rate than France.
Those are absurd comparisons. Utah is almost entirely low-density population. New Hampshire is the same. Why not compare Chicago to a European city, say Paris or London or Berlin? Why not compare Utah to the less-urbanized parts of Australia? You're lecturing me on making disingenuous comparisons and then comparing a desert state to a micro-state and a sparsely-populated state without a major city to a country that contains Paris?
When any damn fool can get a gun and bring it to Chicago for $100, it doesn't really matter whether it is legal to have pistols in Chicago itself. Gun control is completely ineffective at such a local level.
I have no problem going after poverty as well.
But how many more knife and blunt instrument attacks?
By most accounts, more. But it results in fewer homicides, since those are less-efficient ways of killing. On balance, the homicide rate would go down.
How many more instances of honest people being confronted by thugs and backing down?
You tell me? Where does your estimate come from? I've been held up at gunpoint - they jumped on me as I came around a corner. If I had a gun, I would not have had time to draw it and they would now have my pistol as well as my wallet. If petty thieves couldn't afford a pistol, then I'd have been held up at knife-point instead and the result would have been exactly the same. I've also been held up at knife-point (in Europe), and I actually got out of that spot.
In any case, a firearm cannot be safely discharged in an urban environment. Your right to self defense does not trump my right to sleep without a stray bullet hitting me as I sleep.
A belief in gun control is the belief that a woman beaten, raped and strangled in an alley is somehow morally superior to the woman who has to explain to the police how her attacker got that fatal hole in his anatomy.
Only if you believe that a significant number of rapes are currently deterred at gunpoint.
President Obama has yet to advocate any position on gun control, and here you are criticizing, what exactly?
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I see him doing the typical "test the waters" kind of crap that presidents always do. Almost every day there is some burp of information from "an undisclosed source" or from Biden. At no point have I heard anything about pistols - only rifles, magazines, and added bureaucracy... all very easy things for the Republicans/NRA/etc to then defend, since no matter how good an idea those things might be, they will not actually have much of an effect.
It's decidedly kooky, but I respect people's decisions. When you think about it, it is no kookier or more arbitrary than most religions.
He seems to still hope that people will be, in his words, "...prepared to stand up for their principles instead of falling over for the shiney gadget...".
I've given up on that hope, and also come to realize that not everyone even shares my concerns. Even if everyone DID stand up for their principles, they might still buy the shiny gadget because not everyone sees something wrong with what the manufacturer is doing.
You can also stop a high percentage of the bad guys from getting guns in the first place. This isn't a pipe dream - most of the developed world has something on the order of 100x fewer gun homicides.
Of course, assault rifles are objectively not a big problem. Handguns are. But the path of least resistance for Obama is to score some easy points by going after the big easy target. And because he's going after something that isn't a problem, it gives the other side an easy out as well. Everyone wins, ain't politics great? Oh, sure, we still have something like 8000 handgun homicides at the end, but whatever.
I admire your ideology, but I'm far too pragmatic. There is no sense in pretending that my actions will make much of a dent in the market, nor is it likely that everyone will suddenly stick to their principles. I have a friend who is vegan. Or, she tries to be. Good luck finding products - even food - made without animal products. She, like you, tries to stick to her principles and is constantly trying to evangelize veganism. I'm glad there are people like her (and yourself) out there, but that lifestyle requires far too much vigilance for me.
Did you do this yourself? A collection of 2 and 3 year old links come up, with various descriptions of how IE does on ACID. You could do the usual Slashdot thing and cherry pick the link that supports your view, or you could check it yourself.
Pretty hard, if he's not posting from a Windows machine of some flavor.
I'd hate to see Trident go, just because diversity and competition is nice. If they abandon it, I hope they open source it.
I start my day by inhaling the fumes of jet fuel and aluminum, myself. Would never touch that composite smoke, unless it came from carpet, upholstery, and cabin interior plastics.
Aren't you being a little obtuse? The aircraft manufacturer works with the engine manufacturer and certifies only certain engines. Boeing didn't make the battery that caught fire, but they are still responsible for it.
I imagine not very well if they add fire retardant to the resin.
Aluminum burns nicely, too - and can't be put out with water. Thing is, usually people are more concerned about the jet fuel, which makes up a large percentage of the weight of the plane itself and is meant to burn.
Some countries pass laws that can't be enforced, and some don't.
My handy-dandy viewing distance calculator says you need to be around 10ft or closer to appreciate a 70in 1080p TV. So I guess the answer is people who want to sit 2 feet from the 70in TV :)
I've got him beat - I just download them.
Turns out it was actually Bill Clinton.
Am I too old or something? We always ran our personal lives from work, but it used to be a lot more invasive. You couldn't take care of many things online, so you had to leave work during working hours to take care of it. Any time you needed customer service, you had to use the telephone at work. You'd have errands to run, so you would either come in late, take an extended lunch, or leave early. Expecting a call? You had to hover near your desk so that you wouldn't miss it.
I won't defend tweeting, updating Facebook, and the like - but I think that most employers recognize that letting people take care of some personal stuff while at work ultimately improves productivity.
Technical challenges aside, there clearly is a market for non-required safety features in certain types of cars. Volvo made this their mainstay for years. And to this day, I kind of shudder a little bit when I get behind a Volvo, despite the old stereotype no longer really holding true.
My minivan comes with all sorts of expensive safety features that are not required by law - I have to assume that market forces drove Toyota to include them. Getting ranked as a safe car by the insurance trade groups will help sales with some demographics.
How is calling me names a deep contribution? I'm repeating statistical data from homeless studies and he responds with some personal experience from a different country and then claims that I'm making stuff up. It's certainly fair to say that I didn't make any citations, but nor did the person I responded to.
In many (most?) places in the US, it's free.
But that's besides the point - a person who does not think they have a mental illness or a substance abuse problem will not seek treatment, free or not. What we do instead is wait for them to commit a crime and then treat them in prison.
Have you ever been homeless?
No. Nor do I have any family members that are homeless. I do have family members with mental illness, including one who very well might be homeless if not for friends and family.
I have been homeless.
While I appreciate your experience, the fact is that most homeless that you see "littering the street" are indeed either mentally ill or substance abusers, or both. There are many others who fill shelters, live in cars, etc - but I think that in this context, we are mostly talking about people with an untreated disease.
In short: Get bent you ignorant prick, you're pulling shit out of your arse, typical slashdot armchair sociologist, you're worse than any homeless person I've ever met.
I'd like to see your source of information, then. I'm just repeating what I saw on PBS.
My dad didn't mention the military, but essentially I was given the same options.