Maybe, but not currently under law, and the empirical evidence it happened a lot isn't there. In cases where it did, like racketeering, like I said before there are laws.
Pretending people didn't kill one black family to keep others from moving in isn't going to help here. Or gay people. Or Jews. Or atheists. Or lots of other times that has happened.
I don't fundamentally agree with the principle that stronger punishment acts as deterrence against senseless acts, but in the context of a legal system that assumes that, this is a reasonable measure.
No, actually, that's entirely untrue. Implied threats are illegal, with good reason.
And... yes, if you're killing people for holding a political position, that's likely going to be prosecuted as a hate crime. Don't know what to tell you other than that.
I was just saying any argument fundamentally structured around your "safety" is going to be oppositeofreality.txt at the final level of assessment, and is only applicable within specific constructed contexts, that don't deal with the entirety of reality.
Safety pragmatism isn't a reason to own a gun, nor a reason to preserve that right as a consequence. It's not the only reason brought up, far from it, but dispelling that myth is a component of this conversation.
Fuel provides energy. Power comes from the conversion rate of the engine. You "power" things with an engine, but the net energy comes from fuel. Some engines can handle multiple fuel types, e.g.
Um, yeah, once you're under arrest and detained, there is a legalistic distinction for the sake of practicality. The police will also deprive you of your weapons when arresting you.
I think you misunderstand hatecrimes. (Derail time, since it's more interesting and less psychopathic to discuss).
Hate crimes are deigned to have higher penalties, not because the motive is judged to be more serious, but because it creates ancillary crimes of implied intimidation and threats towards other people of the same identifiable subset. It becomes a more reasonable thing to prosecute and demonstrate than 30 counts of intimidation against the other, say, gay people in the community.
It's the same reason racketeering is a separate crime from simple fraud, because it represents a danger to all the businesses in a community.
Unsupported premise: Most effective means of self-defense.
I feel like before I could even argue about your conclusion, we'd have to have an absurdly detailed discussion that would mostly depend on you providing your definitions of: "Most effective" "Means" "Self defense"
Because with sufficiently narrow and specific definitions of all those terms, it could possibly be construed to be true, but it would drift, in my mind, to be outside the realm of fundamental rights far before that and into "esoteric statistics".
Suffice it to say: (controlled) studies have genuinely shown that owning a gun increases your death rate(per anum) by about 1.6%, with about 100% of the increase taking the form of suicides and homicides by family member.
Only if you dehumanize the members of that mob and remove from them the responsibility of their actions. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that words can be stopped and questioned.
And... again, it's only accepting those assertions as true that actually pose the danger to peoples' lives. Going "I doubt your bullet" won't save your life.
Like the right not be shot? I like that one. You don't have to keep yours.
But seriously, the right to bear arms just cannot be argued to be a natural right the way speech is. No one disagrees that abuses of both should be punished, but applying meaningful context to a right that is not natural, but instead, purpose oriented, is not only reasonable, but necessary in the modern era.
Rights don't "come" from the constitution, they are defined in a useful way. The utility of the 2nd needs to be clarified, per the dangers of firearms, and the particular restraints that should be applied to them.
It's a moot point because the "constitution=word of god" type mentalities like yours will keep us from ever even approaching the first step to amending it, but you should be arguing, in context, why this right should be so damned inviolable, not that it is.
Oh, and far more important than that, your numbers exclude:
*The FBI *The entire department of homeland security *Contracted "civilian security" corporation *Just about about every single municipal police department in the US
Except, you know, that whole protection by trial by jury that they get. Your words have limited power to do that, and get a chance to face scrutiny before taking effect.
A gun lets you instantly deprive someone of basic and fundamental rights. You may face consequences for using it inappropriately, but I assert as an absolute position deterrence is insufficient to prevent abuse.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing this out here(since this is actually the first time I've had this discussion), because speech doesn't bear the same inherent responsibilities and duties that firearms do. You are never going to deprive another person of their right to life by speaking at the wrong moment.
Point of order: the NRA is nowhere near as rich as the weapons industry. If every single civilian weapon sale in the US stopped today, and the NRA was dissolved, the small arms industry in the US would still be a multibillion dollar industry feeding off our military budgets.
I'm only bringing this up because your post is structured in a way such as to imply the NRA is the big fish here. Functionally speaking, the NRA essentially acts like an arm of the republican party, favoring republican candidates regardless of substantive firearm policy positions. And they represent a sub-group of diehard republican voters. Their main leverage exists in the republican primaries, which, in turn, drives national priorities towards ultra-right, but not rightward in general. It's kind of a curious artifact.
And that's not really all that accurate. "From the outside" it becomes trivial to ignore enough elements to make another country's problems seem trivial and one dimensional. This is exactly where the USA's predilection for invading countries comes from. In reality, political dogmas drive only a portion(a largish one though it may be) of our broken political process.
Other parts come from: *Still simmering racial prejudices *Gerrymandering, safe districts, winner-take-all elections, and pandering *A healthy dose of education issues *Unfounded nationalistic pride *Really really really bizarre takes on Christianity *Our media's obsession with short-term ratings *Money in politics *Lots more than that
And I'd say at best the first one is the only one showing much signs of improvement over the past 20 years, and that got rubbed really the wrong way when Obama got elected too.
But unfortunately, those are also real issues that affect real people. Just because they don't necessarily represent the largest net effect on the lives of all people taken in total of all possible issues, an abortion is a life-altering procedure, and marrying who you want is among the most important decisions you can make for your own life.
You can't just let those choices slide in the face of a burgeoning oligarchy, that your electoral system doesn't really allow you to address meaningfully. People will suffer as a result.
And we know it's not all that big a burden because capital gains earners are getting a greater percentage of the country's GDP year-to-year and decade-to-decade.
Because, again, efficiency. Do you want to build a separate redundant, self-routing network of switches, identifiers, and miles of cable for your company's network, when you can piggyback on the one that's already there? You probably do, since that would provide jobs in slashdot's main sector, but that's personal, "you" are an electric company in this scenario.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe, but not currently under law, and the empirical evidence it happened a lot isn't there. In cases where it did, like racketeering, like I said before there are laws.
Pretending people didn't kill one black family to keep others from moving in isn't going to help here. Or gay people. Or Jews. Or atheists. Or lots of other times that has happened.
I don't fundamentally agree with the principle that stronger punishment acts as deterrence against senseless acts, but in the context of a legal system that assumes that, this is a reasonable measure.
Hate crimes carry the implication that you'd repeat the crime for others of the same identifiable demographic, while, say, generic murder does not.
I'm saying any sort of threat where the clear intention to harm other is given, without explicit statement of such in words.
You know, things like putting butchered animals on someone's lawn to suggest the intent of violence towards them. Not. Legal.
No, actually, that's entirely untrue. Implied threats are illegal, with good reason.
And... yes, if you're killing people for holding a political position, that's likely going to be prosecuted as a hate crime. Don't know what to tell you other than that.
I was just saying any argument fundamentally structured around your "safety" is going to be oppositeofreality.txt at the final level of assessment, and is only applicable within specific constructed contexts, that don't deal with the entirety of reality.
Safety pragmatism isn't a reason to own a gun, nor a reason to preserve that right as a consequence. It's not the only reason brought up, far from it, but dispelling that myth is a component of this conversation.
Fuel provides energy. Power comes from the conversion rate of the engine. You "power" things with an engine, but the net energy comes from fuel. Some engines can handle multiple fuel types, e.g.
Um, yeah, once you're under arrest and detained, there is a legalistic distinction for the sake of practicality. The police will also deprive you of your weapons when arresting you.
I think you misunderstand hatecrimes. (Derail time, since it's more interesting and less psychopathic to discuss).
Hate crimes are deigned to have higher penalties, not because the motive is judged to be more serious, but because it creates ancillary crimes of implied intimidation and threats towards other people of the same identifiable subset. It becomes a more reasonable thing to prosecute and demonstrate than 30 counts of intimidation against the other, say, gay people in the community.
It's the same reason racketeering is a separate crime from simple fraud, because it represents a danger to all the businesses in a community.
Unsupported premise:
Most effective means of self-defense.
I feel like before I could even argue about your conclusion, we'd have to have an absurdly detailed discussion that would mostly depend on you providing your definitions of:
"Most effective"
"Means"
"Self defense"
Because with sufficiently narrow and specific definitions of all those terms, it could possibly be construed to be true, but it would drift, in my mind, to be outside the realm of fundamental rights far before that and into "esoteric statistics".
Suffice it to say: (controlled) studies have genuinely shown that owning a gun increases your death rate(per anum) by about 1.6%, with about 100% of the increase taking the form of suicides and homicides by family member.
Only if you dehumanize the members of that mob and remove from them the responsibility of their actions. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that words can be stopped and questioned.
And... again, it's only accepting those assertions as true that actually pose the danger to peoples' lives. Going "I doubt your bullet" won't save your life.
Like the right not be shot? I like that one. You don't have to keep yours.
But seriously, the right to bear arms just cannot be argued to be a natural right the way speech is. No one disagrees that abuses of both should be punished, but applying meaningful context to a right that is not natural, but instead, purpose oriented, is not only reasonable, but necessary in the modern era.
Rights don't "come" from the constitution, they are defined in a useful way. The utility of the 2nd needs to be clarified, per the dangers of firearms, and the particular restraints that should be applied to them.
It's a moot point because the "constitution=word of god" type mentalities like yours will keep us from ever even approaching the first step to amending it, but you should be arguing, in context, why this right should be so damned inviolable, not that it is.
Oh, and far more important than that, your numbers exclude:
*The FBI
*The entire department of homeland security
*Contracted "civilian security" corporation
*Just about about every single municipal police department in the US
Yeah, and how much ammo does each soldier go through per year on just training exercises? These numbers add up.
Except, you know, that whole protection by trial by jury that they get. Your words have limited power to do that, and get a chance to face scrutiny before taking effect.
A gun lets you instantly deprive someone of basic and fundamental rights. You may face consequences for using it inappropriately, but I assert as an absolute position deterrence is insufficient to prevent abuse.
I'm not sure anyone could claim the 2nd most powerful democrat in the country is a "DINO" and party purity isn't exactly the democrats' strong point.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing this out here(since this is actually the first time I've had this discussion), because speech doesn't bear the same inherent responsibilities and duties that firearms do. You are never going to deprive another person of their right to life by speaking at the wrong moment.
Point of order: the NRA is nowhere near as rich as the weapons industry. If every single civilian weapon sale in the US stopped today, and the NRA was dissolved, the small arms industry in the US would still be a multibillion dollar industry feeding off our military budgets.
I'm only bringing this up because your post is structured in a way such as to imply the NRA is the big fish here. Functionally speaking, the NRA essentially acts like an arm of the republican party, favoring republican candidates regardless of substantive firearm policy positions. And they represent a sub-group of diehard republican voters. Their main leverage exists in the republican primaries, which, in turn, drives national priorities towards ultra-right, but not rightward in general. It's kind of a curious artifact.
No, but the "coalition of the coerced" is a spin on "coalition of the willing" a phrase coined by that particular Bush. Hope things are clear now.
And that's not really all that accurate. "From the outside" it becomes trivial to ignore enough elements to make another country's problems seem trivial and one dimensional. This is exactly where the USA's predilection for invading countries comes from. In reality, political dogmas drive only a portion(a largish one though it may be) of our broken political process.
Other parts come from:
*Still simmering racial prejudices
*Gerrymandering, safe districts, winner-take-all elections, and pandering
*A healthy dose of education issues
*Unfounded nationalistic pride
*Really really really bizarre takes on Christianity
*Our media's obsession with short-term ratings
*Money in politics
*Lots more than that
And I'd say at best the first one is the only one showing much signs of improvement over the past 20 years, and that got rubbed really the wrong way when Obama got elected too.
But unfortunately, those are also real issues that affect real people. Just because they don't necessarily represent the largest net effect on the lives of all people taken in total of all possible issues, an abortion is a life-altering procedure, and marrying who you want is among the most important decisions you can make for your own life.
You can't just let those choices slide in the face of a burgeoning oligarchy, that your electoral system doesn't really allow you to address meaningfully. People will suffer as a result.
Desert storm and desert shield were not code names used under George W. Bush. Go back a generation in the dynasty.
And we know it's not all that big a burden because capital gains earners are getting a greater percentage of the country's GDP year-to-year and decade-to-decade.
Eh... if you count people making millions being taxed at 15% comparable to people making tens of thousands being taxed at 25%.
Because, again, efficiency. Do you want to build a separate redundant, self-routing network of switches, identifiers, and miles of cable for your company's network, when you can piggyback on the one that's already there? You probably do, since that would provide jobs in slashdot's main sector, but that's personal, "you" are an electric company in this scenario.