The answer to this last question is a resounding "No!" At the moment, my most pressing fear is of running into a deranged psycho in a public space who has decided to do the suicide by cop thing while taking out as many innocent bystanders as possible.
Well, you have some SERIOUSLY warped fears! I mean, first of all, there's the obvious 'you're far more likely to die in a car/train/bus/airline crash' argument...but actually sticking with guns, you're far more likely to be killed by the police -- even limiting that solely to accidental deaths -- than in a mass shooting.
A rational person would be more afraid of being shot dead while watching TV one night because the cops got the address of that drug raid wrong than of being shot by a deranged gunman.
And that Wikipedia list is woefully incomplete -- I know of two right near my hometown in the past 10 years (Indiana, PA -- population 14,000,) one of which was just this year, and neither of which are on any of the Wikipedia listings. In fact, in my 18 years living there, the ONLY homicides I'm aware of were those two committed by the police, against unarmed innocent citizens.
Disarm the gang-- sorry, police officers, THEN we can start talking about disarming the law-abiding citizens.
The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides. But ALL drug deaths are essentially suicides.
Notice how nobody ever brings up those suicides when discussing gun deaths -- instead they bring up the extremely rare and relatively low body count mass shootings instead. That's what the concern is. Nobody cares if you wanna kill yourself -- whether you use a gun or a needle. They only care if you might kill *them*.
Not many people bring up gangs either -- at least not when proposing *banning* guns. That's like the idiots who die from drugs cut with various poisons. Nobody cares about them either, because they're drug addicts.
Basically, when gun control advocates talk about bodies, they mean *rich, white, suburban* bodies.
Comparing a modern firearm to something from 1896 doesn't exactly seem fair. Less moving parts to wear out. Higher manufacturing tolerances. And does that thing even use pre-manufactured ammunition? Even if the gun still works, how hard is it to get ammo? I mean I know you certainly can, and you could produce your own even for the oldest of guns (in fact, those would be easier)...but it's not going to be useful for a mass shooting spree. And spraying dozens of rounds all over the place means something very different if you have to produce each bullet by hand.
Not that I disagree with your overall stance here; I agree that getting rid of the existing guns would be near impossible and definitely not solve the root problem (hell, this is the country where people have made guns out of rubber bands and steel tubing, they'd find a way) -- but pretending a 100 year old antique would be just as effective as a brand new modern firearm? I don't see that happening...
You also have a point on this. But your flaw, I'd say is considering government is something different to citezenship. It should be not that government is there to protect each other but that each other empower ourselves through government to have the kind of society we want to live in. And I certainly, while not at any cost, want to live in a society where I don't need to be worried to be killed by a handgun.
Right, in a democratic state the government is *supposed* to be "of, by, and for" the people. And supposedly "nobody is above the law". Which means any guns the government can have, the people must be permitted to possess as well. After all, they are the same entity, and the laws must be applied equally!
Swiss culture doesn't have much in common with US culture. For one, the people are nowhere near as politically divided or generally so extreme. For another it has a working health system that's capable of handling mental illness. And for another, the gun culture is really not the same no matter what the NRA might claim. In the US you have cases of people walking into bars and restaurants with loaded guns, even in urban areas. The only time I see guns in public in Switzerland is when army reservists are moving around, or when someone is going to a gun club. People don't carry them around as part of normal everyday life.
Do you live in the US? Because you make it sound like seeing people walking around carrying guns is an everyday occurrence here. In my 23 years here -- including 18 in rural western PA, the kind of place where the first day of hunting season they cancel school -- the only times I've actually seen a gun in person was on a couple trips in college to the shooting range with the College Libertarians. Certainly never heard of someone bringing one to a bar or just walking down the street with one. I know it happens sometimes, but it's hardly common.
Remember that the USA has 40x the population of Switzerland too, so if it's reported once a month here, you'd expect it to be reported less than once every three years there even if the actual rates were identical.
As there's so many firearms in the USA banning them would be shutting the stable door - there's enough sloshing around that it will be a long time before they go out of circulation. Stopping selling new ones and ammo would help though. And really, if the gubmnt wanted to fuck you over a few pop guns aren't going to help - that bit of the constitution is so irrelevant to today's military that it's like it was written 200 years ago or something.
OK, leaving the gun debate aside for a minute...this is an argument I hear all the time, and I don't quite understand it.
What exactly do you think would happen were there to be an armed uprising in the USA, or any other modern nation? What advanced weaponry is going to stop it? What does our government have that's so much better?
What, nukes? Yeah, we both know how absurd that is, moving on...
Drones? Well, did you catch the story recently about the drone that hacks any other drones nearby and takes control of them? RF jamming isn't all THAT hard either, plus there's the numerous IR "invisibility" or blinding technologies.
Tanks? We've got armor-piercing rounds. Beyond that, we can certainly put together an IED just as well as the guys in Iraq...
And that's really an important comparison I think. All our military might and we still had a hell of a time against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, I'm not sure my fellow Americans would be as skilled or experienced (I know I wouldn't!) but you also have to balance the willingness of the military. It's one thing when you're fighting foreigners a few thousand miles away; but how many soldiers do you think would willingly turn their guns on their own citizens? Look at what happened in Egypt. Look at how many members of the armed forces were out supporting Occupy a few years ago. Some would be against us...others would be with us...and the majority I suspect would say 'screw this!' and walk away.
The challenge won't be the military. By the time they'd be deployed domestically (which is very highly illegal in the USA) we will have already won. The thing to be concerned about is how many lives will be taken first by our highly militarized police forces. But as bad as they are, generally their worst weapon is a single armored hum-vee. We can handle that at least.
It's not about the guns, it's about the lack of social services, and the crime and poverty that breeds. We may have the laxest gun laws, but we're also the ONLY industrialized nation without public healthcare for example. If your options are buying a gun and selling drugs vs. working two jobs and still starving, which one would YOU pick?
Yup. Because the problem has *nothing* to do with guns!
Compare social services and you'll see why the USA has such high rates of crime and homicide. Most gun deaths aren't random mass shootings. The VAST majority are related to gangs. Which are a result of drug prohibition and a lack of social services -- the impoverished see a lot of money to be made in drugs, and no means of subsistence anywhere else. So they turn to the black market and the violence that goes with it.
Yeah, IIRC our federal laws state that speedometers must be within 5MPH of the true speed, up to 55MPH, in order to be road legal. Which I believe is the basis for laws requiring you to be more than 5MPH over the limit to issue a citation...although again only certain states have such laws. And of course if you're over 55 (generally the max legal limit is 65, although it goes up to 80 in some states) it can be off by more than 5MPH anyway.
'You should wait for other people to take action' is not a valid rebuttal to 'I would prefer governance that may possibly be responsive to my own needs'. Try again.
Right. But the government is explicitly passing laws based on religious concepts, for religious reasons. That violates the first amendment.
Also, the 'separate of church and state' DOES exist in the Constitution through case law. Supreme court decisions are legally part of the Constitution.
As soon as gays and lesbians can have children without scientific intervention, they can get married, until then, they can be lovers/friends/partners, but not married - that is reserved by definition for couples that can, under normal circumstances, conceive children for the survival of the human race.
So, sterile couples can't marry? Or, if you're going to say that's not 'normal circumstances', how about older folks?
All religions have this built into their mantra some place or another.
What's that got to do with the government's definition of marriage? Ever hear of 'separation of church and state'?
States started with the marriage licenses to prevent brothers and sisters from marrying each other. Aside from that, nothing the state does gives a true marriage, they are called civil unions. Go and civil unionize yourselves to your heart's content, it will never be a marriage.
Strawman. Nobody wants religious marriage ceremonies for everyone. But the government has a process that is also known as 'marriage', which is separate and distinct from the religious concept of marriage, and also separate from civil unions, which *do not exist* as far as the federal government is concerned. And because they're not recognized by the feds, they're not covered by the full faith and credit clause, meaning they don't have to be recognized if you go to a different state. In fact, there are currently only four states in the USA that have any concept of 'civil unions' at all. The battle is over 'marriage' because that's what the government calls it. If you want to fight to rename it, go ahead, but that's a totally different battle.
I agree with you in a sense -- the government ought not to have any hand in marriage, or anything like it. But since they do they must offer it indiscriminately. Frankly, they should be required to issue marriage licenses to polygamists and such as well as far as I'm concerned. But religious institutions can continue to do whatever the hell they want -- they have that right as a private organization, and nobody has ever suggested taking that away from them.
A) As others have pointed out, foreign powers are foreign citizens are different concepts.
B) According to the US Constitution, no they don't. Notice that nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it state that these restrictions only apply to US citizens or within US territory. They state what rights *all people* have, which the US government may *never* violate. If it's unconstitutional for them to do it here, then it's unconstitutional for them to do it in England or Afghanistan too. Not that they care....
Business regulating itself is, pretty much by definition, tyranny. They answer to nobody, but can affect everybody. For example, I do all my banking with a local credit union, but I'm still fucked when BoA and friends decide to crash the global economy...
Government regulation at least has the possibility, in theory, of being responsible to the people. ALL people. Just because our currently government sucks does not automatically mean that private industry is always better than any possible government.
A court can issue a ruling, but that doesn't make them right.
When it's the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution, yes it does. At least that's what the Constitution says, regarding the Supreme Court:
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution...
Also defined a bit more explicitly in Hamilton's Federalist 78:
The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body.
I have no problem with throwing the book at these folks should they be found guilty. I doubt that these IP addresses corresponded to computers that were the personal property of the defendants.
That's not what the article says. And I'm pretty sure if there was any evidence that they were guilty of additional crimes for hacking and botnetting other PCs, they would be charged with it. Federal prosecutors don't generally leave off additional charges just because they feel like it -- if anything it's the other way around.
In the case of a DDoS, it is not dozens or scores or even hundreds of people you inconvenience, it is millions in the case of a popular site such as paypal where the cost of lost business can be staggering and of course you can mete out your frustrations in the comfort of your own home, you do not have to have the courage my friend had in putting his person on the line.
Well, yes, but you also don't get that effect by getting six people to participate; you need hundreds, if not thousands. The participation required scales with the damages caused. Granted, a lot of this one was via botnet, which is and should remain illegal, but that's not what these guys are being charged for.
No, that did not deter crime, it *created* it. Previously the many people who did this were law-abiding citizens. Now the few who continue to are criminals.
The statement you are arguing against was that increasing punishments did not deter crime. You have just shown an example where increasing punishments technically *increased* crime...so in a way, you proved the parent correct.
There are different methods of blocking access. Some get you arrested, some don't.
A DDoS is like telling everyone to go to a store and buy the cheapest item they can find, and pay for it in pennies. They're not physically preventing anyone from entering, they're just slowing it way down but doing so by using the service as designed. Which is perfectly legal.
Oh it's far worse than that. In some jurisdictions it's illegal to take any action to prevent an officer from entering your home -- even if he's doing so illegally. Even if he's off-duty. Even if he's threatening you. My point was that any such law or action is inherently unconstitutional and therefore is itself illegal. Not that the government agents care.
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The answer to this last question is a resounding "No!" At the moment, my most pressing fear is of running into a deranged psycho in a public space who has decided to do the suicide by cop thing while taking out as many innocent bystanders as possible.
Well, you have some SERIOUSLY warped fears! I mean, first of all, there's the obvious 'you're far more likely to die in a car/train/bus/airline crash' argument...but actually sticking with guns, you're far more likely to be killed by the police -- even limiting that solely to accidental deaths -- than in a mass shooting.
A rational person would be more afraid of being shot dead while watching TV one night because the cops got the address of that drug raid wrong than of being shot by a deranged gunman.
900 killed in the past 7 years in mass shootings. That's about 130 per year:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/21/mass-shootings-domestic-violence-nra/1937041/
Compared to 30 in January of this year alone accidentally murdered by the police:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States_2013
And that Wikipedia list is woefully incomplete -- I know of two right near my hometown in the past 10 years (Indiana, PA -- population 14,000,) one of which was just this year, and neither of which are on any of the Wikipedia listings. In fact, in my 18 years living there, the ONLY homicides I'm aware of were those two committed by the police, against unarmed innocent citizens.
Disarm the gang-- sorry, police officers, THEN we can start talking about disarming the law-abiding citizens.
The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides. But ALL drug deaths are essentially suicides.
Notice how nobody ever brings up those suicides when discussing gun deaths -- instead they bring up the extremely rare and relatively low body count mass shootings instead. That's what the concern is. Nobody cares if you wanna kill yourself -- whether you use a gun or a needle. They only care if you might kill *them*.
Not many people bring up gangs either -- at least not when proposing *banning* guns. That's like the idiots who die from drugs cut with various poisons. Nobody cares about them either, because they're drug addicts.
Basically, when gun control advocates talk about bodies, they mean *rich, white, suburban* bodies.
Comparing a modern firearm to something from 1896 doesn't exactly seem fair. Less moving parts to wear out. Higher manufacturing tolerances. And does that thing even use pre-manufactured ammunition? Even if the gun still works, how hard is it to get ammo? I mean I know you certainly can, and you could produce your own even for the oldest of guns (in fact, those would be easier)...but it's not going to be useful for a mass shooting spree. And spraying dozens of rounds all over the place means something very different if you have to produce each bullet by hand.
Not that I disagree with your overall stance here; I agree that getting rid of the existing guns would be near impossible and definitely not solve the root problem (hell, this is the country where people have made guns out of rubber bands and steel tubing, they'd find a way) -- but pretending a 100 year old antique would be just as effective as a brand new modern firearm? I don't see that happening...
You also have a point on this. But your flaw, I'd say is considering government is something different to citezenship. It should be not that government is there to protect each other but that each other empower ourselves through government to have the kind of society we want to live in. And I certainly, while not at any cost, want to live in a society where I don't need to be worried to be killed by a handgun.
Right, in a democratic state the government is *supposed* to be "of, by, and for" the people. And supposedly "nobody is above the law". Which means any guns the government can have, the people must be permitted to possess as well. After all, they are the same entity, and the laws must be applied equally!
Swiss culture doesn't have much in common with US culture. For one, the people are nowhere near as politically divided or generally so extreme. For another it has a working health system that's capable of handling mental illness. And for another, the gun culture is really not the same no matter what the NRA might claim. In the US you have cases of people walking into bars and restaurants with loaded guns, even in urban areas. The only time I see guns in public in Switzerland is when army reservists are moving around, or when someone is going to a gun club. People don't carry them around as part of normal everyday life.
Do you live in the US? Because you make it sound like seeing people walking around carrying guns is an everyday occurrence here. In my 23 years here -- including 18 in rural western PA, the kind of place where the first day of hunting season they cancel school -- the only times I've actually seen a gun in person was on a couple trips in college to the shooting range with the College Libertarians. Certainly never heard of someone bringing one to a bar or just walking down the street with one. I know it happens sometimes, but it's hardly common.
Remember that the USA has 40x the population of Switzerland too, so if it's reported once a month here, you'd expect it to be reported less than once every three years there even if the actual rates were identical.
As there's so many firearms in the USA banning them would be shutting the stable door - there's enough sloshing around that it will be a long time before they go out of circulation. Stopping selling new ones and ammo would help though. And really, if the gubmnt wanted to fuck you over a few pop guns aren't going to help - that bit of the constitution is so irrelevant to today's military that it's like it was written 200 years ago or something.
OK, leaving the gun debate aside for a minute...this is an argument I hear all the time, and I don't quite understand it.
What exactly do you think would happen were there to be an armed uprising in the USA, or any other modern nation? What advanced weaponry is going to stop it? What does our government have that's so much better?
What, nukes? Yeah, we both know how absurd that is, moving on...
Drones? Well, did you catch the story recently about the drone that hacks any other drones nearby and takes control of them? RF jamming isn't all THAT hard either, plus there's the numerous IR "invisibility" or blinding technologies.
Tanks? We've got armor-piercing rounds. Beyond that, we can certainly put together an IED just as well as the guys in Iraq...
And that's really an important comparison I think. All our military might and we still had a hell of a time against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, I'm not sure my fellow Americans would be as skilled or experienced (I know I wouldn't!) but you also have to balance the willingness of the military. It's one thing when you're fighting foreigners a few thousand miles away; but how many soldiers do you think would willingly turn their guns on their own citizens? Look at what happened in Egypt. Look at how many members of the armed forces were out supporting Occupy a few years ago. Some would be against us...others would be with us...and the majority I suspect would say 'screw this!' and walk away.
The challenge won't be the military. By the time they'd be deployed domestically (which is very highly illegal in the USA) we will have already won. The thing to be concerned about is how many lives will be taken first by our highly militarized police forces. But as bad as they are, generally their worst weapon is a single armored hum-vee. We can handle that at least.
The typical gun murder is of a family member.
No, the typical gun murder is a gang shooting. 80% according to the CDC.
http://usconservatives.about.com/od/capitalpunishment/a/Putting-Gun-Death-Statistics-In-Perspective.htm
It's not about the guns, it's about the lack of social services, and the crime and poverty that breeds. We may have the laxest gun laws, but we're also the ONLY industrialized nation without public healthcare for example. If your options are buying a gun and selling drugs vs. working two jobs and still starving, which one would YOU pick?
Yup. Because the problem has *nothing* to do with guns!
Compare social services and you'll see why the USA has such high rates of crime and homicide. Most gun deaths aren't random mass shootings. The VAST majority are related to gangs. Which are a result of drug prohibition and a lack of social services -- the impoverished see a lot of money to be made in drugs, and no means of subsistence anywhere else. So they turn to the black market and the violence that goes with it.
You said business answers to no one, but I'm telling you who it answers to.
Yeah, not me. Yet they still have control over significant parts of my life.
Your only recourse with gov is voting every X years.
Well...or impeachment or the courts...which is, quite unfortunately, still FAR more recourse than I have through private corporations.
Yeah, IIRC our federal laws state that speedometers must be within 5MPH of the true speed, up to 55MPH, in order to be road legal. Which I believe is the basis for laws requiring you to be more than 5MPH over the limit to issue a citation...although again only certain states have such laws. And of course if you're over 55 (generally the max legal limit is 65, although it goes up to 80 in some states) it can be off by more than 5MPH anyway.
'You should wait for other people to take action' is not a valid rebuttal to 'I would prefer governance that may possibly be responsive to my own needs'. Try again.
Right. But the government is explicitly passing laws based on religious concepts, for religious reasons. That violates the first amendment.
Also, the 'separate of church and state' DOES exist in the Constitution through case law. Supreme court decisions are legally part of the Constitution.
As soon as gays and lesbians can have children without scientific intervention, they can get married, until then, they can be lovers/friends/partners, but not married - that is reserved by definition for couples that can, under normal circumstances, conceive children for the survival of the human race.
So, sterile couples can't marry? Or, if you're going to say that's not 'normal circumstances', how about older folks?
All religions have this built into their mantra some place or another.
What's that got to do with the government's definition of marriage? Ever hear of 'separation of church and state'?
States started with the marriage licenses to prevent brothers and sisters from marrying each other. Aside from that, nothing the state does gives a true marriage, they are called civil unions. Go and civil unionize yourselves to your heart's content, it will never be a marriage.
Strawman. Nobody wants religious marriage ceremonies for everyone. But the government has a process that is also known as 'marriage', which is separate and distinct from the religious concept of marriage, and also separate from civil unions, which *do not exist* as far as the federal government is concerned. And because they're not recognized by the feds, they're not covered by the full faith and credit clause, meaning they don't have to be recognized if you go to a different state. In fact, there are currently only four states in the USA that have any concept of 'civil unions' at all. The battle is over 'marriage' because that's what the government calls it. If you want to fight to rename it, go ahead, but that's a totally different battle.
I agree with you in a sense -- the government ought not to have any hand in marriage, or anything like it. But since they do they must offer it indiscriminately. Frankly, they should be required to issue marriage licenses to polygamists and such as well as far as I'm concerned. But religious institutions can continue to do whatever the hell they want -- they have that right as a private organization, and nobody has ever suggested taking that away from them.
A) As others have pointed out, foreign powers are foreign citizens are different concepts.
B) According to the US Constitution, no they don't. Notice that nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it state that these restrictions only apply to US citizens or within US territory. They state what rights *all people* have, which the US government may *never* violate. If it's unconstitutional for them to do it here, then it's unconstitutional for them to do it in England or Afghanistan too. Not that they care....
Business regulating itself is, pretty much by definition, tyranny. They answer to nobody, but can affect everybody. For example, I do all my banking with a local credit union, but I'm still fucked when BoA and friends decide to crash the global economy...
Government regulation at least has the possibility, in theory, of being responsible to the people. ALL people. Just because our currently government sucks does not automatically mean that private industry is always better than any possible government.
...unless that law is challenged and upheld by the Supreme Court, at which point the legal definition of the Constitution changes to accommodate it.
A court can issue a ruling, but that doesn't make them right.
When it's the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution, yes it does. At least that's what the Constitution says, regarding the Supreme Court:
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution...
Also defined a bit more explicitly in Hamilton's Federalist 78:
The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body.
I have no problem with throwing the book at these folks should they be found guilty. I doubt that these IP addresses corresponded to computers that were the personal property of the defendants.
That's not what the article says. And I'm pretty sure if there was any evidence that they were guilty of additional crimes for hacking and botnetting other PCs, they would be charged with it. Federal prosecutors don't generally leave off additional charges just because they feel like it -- if anything it's the other way around.
The only people stealing money from peoples' paypal accounts is paypal....perhaps THEY should be made an example of!
In the case of a DDoS, it is not dozens or scores or even hundreds of people you inconvenience, it is millions in the case of a popular site such as paypal where the cost of lost business can be staggering and of course you can mete out your frustrations in the comfort of your own home, you do not have to have the courage my friend had in putting his person on the line.
Well, yes, but you also don't get that effect by getting six people to participate; you need hundreds, if not thousands. The participation required scales with the damages caused. Granted, a lot of this one was via botnet, which is and should remain illegal, but that's not what these guys are being charged for.
No, that did not deter crime, it *created* it. Previously the many people who did this were law-abiding citizens. Now the few who continue to are criminals.
The statement you are arguing against was that increasing punishments did not deter crime. You have just shown an example where increasing punishments technically *increased* crime...so in a way, you proved the parent correct.
There are different methods of blocking access. Some get you arrested, some don't.
A DDoS is like telling everyone to go to a store and buy the cheapest item they can find, and pay for it in pennies. They're not physically preventing anyone from entering, they're just slowing it way down but doing so by using the service as designed. Which is perfectly legal.
Oh it's far worse than that. In some jurisdictions it's illegal to take any action to prevent an officer from entering your home -- even if he's doing so illegally. Even if he's off-duty. Even if he's threatening you. My point was that any such law or action is inherently unconstitutional and therefore is itself illegal. Not that the government agents care.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
And: https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/free-speech-under-fire-aclu-challenge-protest-zones
Running a botnet is certainly illegal. But it doesn't sound like any of the ones arrested were responsible for the botnets that were involved.