The point is that they are not forming gangs and attacking each other because they have guns; they are doing it because of a unique lack of mentorship, opportunity, and discipline.
Right. And people in other countries form gangs too. In the UK too. The current ones take on copied American gang culture. But there used to be Teddy boys in the 50s, Mods in the 60s, Skinheads in the 70s etc. And they like to fight. Fists, kicking, chains, glass bottles, knives. Flick knives were banned back in 1959 because of gang violence.
The point is that without guns, few of these fights were fatal. If you are stabbed you might die, but more commonly you'll live.
Because from the 1990s on, American gang culture was being glamourised internationally with "Gangsta Rap" etc. UK Gangs started to use guns. Gun crime was rising, there were more gangland murders, and so the government banned most kinds of gun. Basically all the ones that could be carried covertly.
So I agree with you, guns don't cause gangs. They just make the danger of gangs much worse. Mainly amongst themselves, but also in the communities where they come from.
America would still have gangs after a gun ban. They just wouldn't be as dangerous.
138 dead children per year from accidents, 3,345 children killed in homicides and 1,665 child suicides is not "incredibly safe" in the eyes of any reasonable person.
The unreasonable person edits out the bigger numbers.
We can see here Egypt has 3.52 firearms per 100 people, while the United Kingdom has 6.72 firearms per 100 people.
In the UK, all handguns are banned. With the exception of historical mussle loaded weapons. So it's just shotguns and certain types of rifles. Basically it's just hunters and clay shooters. And unlike America, hunting isn's a big sport. There's not much to shoot other than birds, rabbits and foxes. And most of that is done by old, posh people. Plus farmers. In the countryside.
I'm surprised that that adds up to 6.72 per 100. It must be a few people with large collections. I'd be very surprised to find that there aren't more people that own guns in Egypt. And the type of guns
The few that there are: people are not walking the streets with them, and they don't tend to be around cities.
If you hadn't realized your methodology was flawed, you do now. Please stop spreading nonsense.
Flawed? Just because there's multiple variable, doesn't mean gun ownership isn't one of the main ones. I will continue pointing out the irrationality of American gun politics.
Sure, the British are violent people. And yet they still manage to murder only a quarter of the people that they do in the US.
Why? Because they don't generally have guns. You'r far more likely to survive being hit kicked or stabbed than you are to survive being shot.
On the other hand, the U.K.'s gun ban had no impact on the murder rate -- in fact the homicide and gun crime rates went up the first few years after it was instituted.
Why do you think the law to ban guns was created? Yup, rising gun crime. If you think that gun crime went up BECAUSE guns were banned, you're not thinking. Although of course the crime of illegal possession of a gun does go up, as some of those who previously held legal guns refuse to give them up.
There are also serious problems with crime being under-reported in the U.K.
And yet the figures you based your UK "double" on was a survey, so the police reporting is not relevant to it.
And some allege (I'm less certain about this claim) that even murder is undercounted in the U.K. versus the U.S., because U.K. rates are based on final disposition of cases (i.e., someone was convicted) while U.S. rates are based on reports (i.e., there's a dead body).
Some allege all sorts of crap. When it comes to guns, as with AGW, people tend to lie and distort. The British crime stats most certainly counts homicides for which there is not even a suspect, let alone a conviction.
I fully recognize that there are problems in the US with gun crime and homicides. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that all is well elsewhere, because of stricter gun laws.
No one is fooling themselves in that way. The point is the easy availability of guns means that more people that are attacked die, rather then end up injured. As the old saying goes "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But having a gun makes it an awful lot easier."
I wonder how the homicide rate would vary if we eliminated counting gangbangers shooting each other?
Another peculiarly American notion. Let's just sweep that proportion of the inconvenient statistics under the carpet. They're sub-humans.
If you think that the fact that some number of kids are injured/killed by falling TVs means it's OK to have firearms around children, then you are beyond reasonable thought.
Homicide rate is a pretty standard measure. A person was either killed, or they survived.
Violent crime rate varies in different countriesby what seriousness of crimes are included, and how it is measured, and how often it is recorded. It even varies within countries by time frame and study because of these variations.
But fundamentally, yes, the British are at least as violent as Americans, maybe more so. But because we don't have civilians owning handguns, the murder rate is a quarter.
How can you possibly describe a quarter of them being victims of homicide as "more helpless to protect themselves". These are the kind of illogical knots the US gun lobby tie themselves up in.
I'm not sure what point you are attempting with the knife crime link. I gave you total intentional homicide figures. Yes, it really is better to get stabbed and survive than shot and die.
The knife crime link does suggest that the difference in homicide figures isn't down to your suggestion of us being nicer people, because less of us had slaves as ancestors.
Guns *IS* an arbiter of overlap issue. Just as smoking is. Your right to have a cigarette vs other people's right not to be exposed to stuff that can cause them to die of cancer. Your right to have a gun vs other people's right not to be exposed to stuff that can cause them to die of gunshot wounds.
And no: "I would never shoot an innocent person" doesn't man it's not an overlap. People are shot accidentally all the time. (There's a case in South Africa with a famous Olympian right now that MAY come into that category.) And guns are stolen and then used for crime. And then there's the fact that your right to buy a gun is also the right of someone who may have murderous intentions.
Yes the solution is to make sure that all people are helpless (by law). That will keep them safe!... So when a person goes wacko (crazy enough to ignore those laws) they will be... Uhhh... Wait, that isn't turning out the way it was intended.
In the UK, handguns are banned for civilians. And most police don't carry firearms either. So in your mind, everyone is helpless. Result? A homicide rate a quarter of the USA.
Better yet, get rid of your guns when you have children. Anyone who thinks locking them up is going to prevent kids from getting hold of a gun 24/7 for 18 years is deluding themselves.
But it is cut and dried. There is no "significant disagreement" between climate scientists on whether AGW is happening. There's only uncertainty as to the forecasts of how much and how fast.
The only reason a significant proportion of the public think there is is the very subject of this news story: Billionaires are funding organisations that only exist to deny the science. They want to take as long as possible before they do anything, because they are making money by ignoring the issue right now. All those people who have doubts, you included, have fallen for propaganda from rich businessmen.
It's not the same as CFCs. CFCs didn't have the same amount of money put into denial, because there were plenty of easy alternatives that still allowed the companies to make money: Roll on and gel deodorants, mechanical sprays for cleaning products, and other forms of chemical propellants.
I'm afraid the whole concept of opposing something that is reasonable, because something unreasonable might present itself later is ridiculous. It's like the frog choosing to sit in water that is colder than ideal, just in case someone chooses to warm it in the future. Regardless of the fact that it can jump out if that ever happens.
You keep on demonstrating my point that conservatism is the politics of fear.
I watched the first couple of minutes of the clip. Scenes of rioting in Paris, from 2005. So what? I lived in Paris for 2 years some time later than that. It was the least threatening city I've ever been to. I saw one demonstration, and it was of ordinary French people against the bankers. No violence by the people, just a sit-in in the area where the Bastille used to be. Dispersed by the police using pepper spray.
Allow something like that in the USA? The USA has always had riots from time to time.
But no, your fear is a racist and religious one isn't it. You're pissing your pants because you are scared of people with brown skins and a different religion. You're pathetic.
It's decried because it reveals a fundamental dishonesty. The people in question don't more on from step to step because they are slowly assessing the evidence. They move in the tiniest steps possible only at the point at which they now feel ridiculous trying to defend the pervious step.
I give the tobacco is carcinogenic deniers no credit for finally giving up denying that science. They dragged it out for decades, during which a lot of people died. Exactly the same thing is happening here.
Thanks for the pointer. Back then I was still on PCs, so I wasn't aware of Marathon. I see it's been ported to the iPad, so I'm downloading it for a look.
I imagine Macs of the day were better featured than the PCs. So that might account for some of it? Perhaps.
Did Marathon have angled floors? I remember being impressed with that in DN3D, having been used to Doom's limitations.
I'm not American. I'm British, and I lived in Paris for a couple of years. I like France, and the only name calling is the good natured Rosbif/Froggie banter with friends.
In Britain there's no general law to force you do do business with anyone. So a business can refuse. For example when I was a teen I was refused service in a pub because I was wearing motorcycle gear. And of course nightclubs also widely refuse people if they don't like what they are wearing.
However, discrimination laws do kick in if businesses do that based on race, gender or sexuality.
I think America is similar, but I'm not completely sure.
Not sure what the comment about mod points was about. But I hope you weren't implying that had you not replied you would have modded my post down. Mod points are not for downmodding posts you don't agree with.
... Mind you I'd only ever imagined portals as complete rooms. But in actuality the borders of portals are everywhere the floor or ceiling height changes. So each chair for example consisted of two portals, one for the seat area, and one for the back.
When I used to look at Doom and Duke3D and try to imagine how the engine worked, portals was the concept I imagined. I was surprised and initially rather confused when I found out that Doom actually worked using Binary Space Partitioning.
I'm rather pleased to see that I was at least right in my theory with regards to DN33. Possibly I came up with the portals theory after seeing DN3D's windows and mirrors, and then imagined that Doom worked the same way.
Anyhow, the article was a great read.
Re:Oh, you're going to get an F on that one for su
on
Duke Nukem 3D Code Review
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The engine was written by an 18 year old. You've got to forgive the lack of college CS education and work experience, and marvel at the talent to actually make the best featured and performing 3D game engine of it's day.
Slashdot Mirror
To prove this assertion, you need to show from historical data that murders in UK were much more prevalent before the gun than after it
Right after you learn to read.
The point is that they are not forming gangs and attacking each other because they have guns; they are doing it because of a unique lack of mentorship, opportunity, and discipline.
Right. And people in other countries form gangs too. In the UK too. The current ones take on copied American gang culture. But there used to be Teddy boys in the 50s, Mods in the 60s, Skinheads in the 70s etc. And they like to fight. Fists, kicking, chains, glass bottles, knives. Flick knives were banned back in 1959 because of gang violence.
The point is that without guns, few of these fights were fatal. If you are stabbed you might die, but more commonly you'll live.
Because from the 1990s on, American gang culture was being glamourised internationally with "Gangsta Rap" etc. UK Gangs started to use guns. Gun crime was rising, there were more gangland murders, and so the government banned most kinds of gun. Basically all the ones that could be carried covertly.
So I agree with you, guns don't cause gangs. They just make the danger of gangs much worse. Mainly amongst themselves, but also in the communities where they come from.
America would still have gangs after a gun ban. They just wouldn't be as dangerous.
If only 138 die each year that's incredibly safe.
138 dead children per year from accidents, 3,345 children killed in homicides and 1,665 child suicides is not "incredibly safe" in the eyes of any reasonable person.
The unreasonable person edits out the bigger numbers.
We can see here Egypt has 3.52 firearms per 100 people, while the United Kingdom has 6.72 firearms per 100 people.
In the UK, all handguns are banned. With the exception of historical mussle loaded weapons. So it's just shotguns and certain types of rifles. Basically it's just hunters and clay shooters. And unlike America, hunting isn's a big sport. There's not much to shoot other than birds, rabbits and foxes. And most of that is done by old, posh people. Plus farmers. In the countryside.
I'm surprised that that adds up to 6.72 per 100. It must be a few people with large collections. I'd be very surprised to find that there aren't more people that own guns in Egypt. And the type of guns
The few that there are: people are not walking the streets with them, and they don't tend to be around cities.
If you hadn't realized your methodology was flawed, you do now. Please stop spreading nonsense.
Flawed? Just because there's multiple variable, doesn't mean gun ownership isn't one of the main ones. I will continue pointing out the irrationality of American gun politics.
Sure, the British are violent people. And yet they still manage to murder only a quarter of the people that they do in the US.
Why? Because they don't generally have guns. You'r far more likely to survive being hit kicked or stabbed than you are to survive being shot.
On the other hand, the U.K.'s gun ban had no impact on the murder rate -- in fact the homicide and gun crime rates went up the first few years after it was instituted.
Why do you think the law to ban guns was created? Yup, rising gun crime. If you think that gun crime went up BECAUSE guns were banned, you're not thinking. Although of course the crime of illegal possession of a gun does go up, as some of those who previously held legal guns refuse to give them up.
There are also serious problems with crime being under-reported in the U.K.
And yet the figures you based your UK "double" on was a survey, so the police reporting is not relevant to it.
And some allege (I'm less certain about this claim) that even murder is undercounted in the U.K. versus the U.S., because U.K. rates are based on final disposition of cases (i.e., someone was convicted) while U.S. rates are based on reports (i.e., there's a dead body).
Some allege all sorts of crap. When it comes to guns, as with AGW, people tend to lie and distort. The British crime stats most certainly counts homicides for which there is not even a suspect, let alone a conviction.
I fully recognize that there are problems in the US with gun crime and homicides. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that all is well elsewhere, because of stricter gun laws.
No one is fooling themselves in that way. The point is the easy availability of guns means that more people that are attacked die, rather then end up injured. As the old saying goes "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But having a gun makes it an awful lot easier."
I wonder how the homicide rate would vary if we eliminated counting gangbangers shooting each other?
Another peculiarly American notion. Let's just sweep that proportion of the inconvenient statistics under the carpet. They're sub-humans.
18,000 kids are injured each year from a TV falling onto them.
13,800 actually.
But there's a big difference between injured and killed.
There were 294 child deaths from accidents with TVs from 2000-2011. About 25 per year.
http://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/135118/tipover2012.pdf
For firearms, there's 138 children killed in accidents. 3,345 children killed in homicides and 1,665 suicides.
http://www.childdeathreview.org/nationalchildmortalitydata.htm
If you think that the fact that some number of kids are injured/killed by falling TVs means it's OK to have firearms around children, then you are beyond reasonable thought.
Homicide rate is a pretty standard measure. A person was either killed, or they survived.
Violent crime rate varies in different countriesby what seriousness of crimes are included, and how it is measured, and how often it is recorded. It even varies within countries by time frame and study because of these variations.
But fundamentally, yes, the British are at least as violent as Americans, maybe more so. But because we don't have civilians owning handguns, the murder rate is a quarter.
How can you possibly describe a quarter of them being victims of homicide as "more helpless to protect themselves". These are the kind of illogical knots the US gun lobby tie themselves up in.
I'm not sure what point you are attempting with the knife crime link. I gave you total intentional homicide figures. Yes, it really is better to get stabbed and survive than shot and die.
The knife crime link does suggest that the difference in homicide figures isn't down to your suggestion of us being nicer people, because less of us had slaves as ancestors.
Guns *IS* an arbiter of overlap issue. Just as smoking is.
Your right to have a cigarette vs other people's right not to be exposed to stuff that can cause them to die of cancer.
Your right to have a gun vs other people's right not to be exposed to stuff that can cause them to die of gunshot wounds.
And no: "I would never shoot an innocent person" doesn't man it's not an overlap. People are shot accidentally all the time. (There's a case in South Africa with a famous Olympian right now that MAY come into that category.) And guns are stolen and then used for crime. And then there's the fact that your right to buy a gun is also the right of someone who may have murderous intentions.
Yes the solution is to make sure that all people are helpless (by law). That will keep them safe! ... So when a person goes wacko (crazy enough to ignore those laws) they will be ... Uhhh ...
Wait, that isn't turning out the way it was intended.
In the UK, handguns are banned for civilians. And most police don't carry firearms either. So in your mind, everyone is helpless. Result? A homicide rate a quarter of the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Better yet, get rid of your guns when you have children. Anyone who thinks locking them up is going to prevent kids from getting hold of a gun 24/7 for 18 years is deluding themselves.
e.g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=erGOJxQIf5c
But it is cut and dried. There is no "significant disagreement" between climate scientists on whether AGW is happening. There's only uncertainty as to the forecasts of how much and how fast.
The only reason a significant proportion of the public think there is is the very subject of this news story: Billionaires are funding organisations that only exist to deny the science. They want to take as long as possible before they do anything, because they are making money by ignoring the issue right now. All those people who have doubts, you included, have fallen for propaganda from rich businessmen.
It's not the same as CFCs. CFCs didn't have the same amount of money put into denial, because there were plenty of easy alternatives that still allowed the companies to make money: Roll on and gel deodorants, mechanical sprays for cleaning products, and other forms of chemical propellants.
The fix to patch the vulnerability and remove the malware if it's there is available today. Mac users should do a software update.
As I discussed earlier, they're not, and that's a problem. This is politics fueled by fear.
They really are. Have you not compared massacres and gun death statistics to other civilised countries of the world. They're appalling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
That's not fear, that's fact.
The funny thing is, even the analogy is bogus. Frogs do jump out of water if it becomes too hot, regardless of slowness of warming.
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
I'm afraid the whole concept of opposing something that is reasonable, because something unreasonable might present itself later is ridiculous. It's like the frog choosing to sit in water that is colder than ideal, just in case someone chooses to warm it in the future. Regardless of the fact that it can jump out if that ever happens.
You keep on demonstrating my point that conservatism is the politics of fear.
I watched the first couple of minutes of the clip. Scenes of rioting in Paris, from 2005. So what? I lived in Paris for 2 years some time later than that. It was the least threatening city I've ever been to. I saw one demonstration, and it was of ordinary French people against the bankers. No violence by the people, just a sit-in in the area where the Bastille used to be. Dispersed by the police using pepper spray.
Allow something like that in the USA? The USA has always had riots from time to time.
But no, your fear is a racist and religious one isn't it. You're pissing your pants because you are scared of people with brown skins and a different religion. You're pathetic.
It's decried because it reveals a fundamental dishonesty. The people in question don't more on from step to step because they are slowly assessing the evidence. They move in the tiniest steps possible only at the point at which they now feel ridiculous trying to defend the pervious step.
I give the tobacco is carcinogenic deniers no credit for finally giving up denying that science. They dragged it out for decades, during which a lot of people died. Exactly the same thing is happening here.
Oh yeah, destroyable walls, transparent windows and reflecting mirrors were also impressive aspects of DN3D, did Marathon have those?
Thanks for the pointer. Back then I was still on PCs, so I wasn't aware of Marathon. I see it's been ported to the iPad, so I'm downloading it for a look.
I imagine Macs of the day were better featured than the PCs. So that might account for some of it? Perhaps.
Did Marathon have angled floors? I remember being impressed with that in DN3D, having been used to Doom's limitations.
I'm not American. I'm British, and I lived in Paris for a couple of years. I like France, and the only name calling is the good natured Rosbif/Froggie banter with friends.
In Britain there's no general law to force you do do business with anyone. So a business can refuse. For example when I was a teen I was refused service in a pub because I was wearing motorcycle gear. And of course nightclubs also widely refuse people if they don't like what they are wearing.
However, discrimination laws do kick in if businesses do that based on race, gender or sexuality.
I think America is similar, but I'm not completely sure.
Not sure what the comment about mod points was about. But I hope you weren't implying that had you not replied you would have modded my post down. Mod points are not for downmodding posts you don't agree with.
... Mind you I'd only ever imagined portals as complete rooms. But in actuality the borders of portals are everywhere the floor or ceiling height changes. So each chair for example consisted of two portals, one for the seat area, and one for the back.
When I used to look at Doom and Duke3D and try to imagine how the engine worked, portals was the concept I imagined. I was surprised and initially rather confused when I found out that Doom actually worked using Binary Space Partitioning.
I'm rather pleased to see that I was at least right in my theory with regards to DN33. Possibly I came up with the portals theory after seeing DN3D's windows and mirrors, and then imagined that Doom worked the same way.
Anyhow, the article was a great read.
The engine was written by an 18 year old. You've got to forgive the lack of college CS education and work experience, and marvel at the talent to actually make the best featured and performing 3D game engine of it's day.
It's not an either/or. It's both.