Anyone can sue anyone for anything. The relevant question is whether it will actually stick at the Supreme Court.
Gun manufacturers' immunity to civil suits is not part of the Constitution. It was a law passed by Congress in 2005. That law will eventually be repealed and there is absolutely no reason that a successful civil suit against a gun manufacturer will every go to the Supreme Court. They're just companies like any other, but in this case Republicans decided to grant them some unique immunity that no other industry is given.
I'm telling you, if that one little law is repealed, the entire gun control debate changes in a heartbeat.
Yes, one can sue, but to hold them truly accountable is much more difficult, in part because sovereign immunity is too much of a thing.
GUn manufacturers do not have "sovereign immunity". In fact, "sovereign immunity" is not even a thing here in the US.
Gun manufacturers are not the cause of gun violence. Suing them is as meaningful as suing car manufacturers over people who willfully drive into crowds, or any other tool maker whose products are used to harm.
If a car manufacturer made a model whose sole purpose was to cause death, then you might have a point. The sole purpose of guns is to kill.
Modern interpretations?? Conveniently forgetting "Give me liberty or give me death?"
There was no Second Amendment when famous drama-queen Patrick Henry made his "give me liberty or..." speech. And by the way, Patrick Henry was a wealthy lawyer and slave-owner who stayed as far away as he possibly could from the Revolutionary fighting. He didn't give a shit about "liberty", he just didn't want to pay his goddamn taxes. What he really meant to say was, "Give me liberty or give this poor sonofabitch over here death!"
The right to bear arms is enumerated in the Constitution.
Well then, could you please tell the well-regulated militia to stop shooting schools up? I mean, twice in two weeks is a bit much. I don't think we're supposed to be watering the tree of liberty with the blood of school children.
Of course it is, but we can learn from places that also have gun ownership without the wholesale slaughter that is American Exceptionalism.
Just make people and corporations accountable for what they do. That's all it will take to minimize the suicidal effects of modern interpretations of the Second Amendment.
Yes, a city can sue an oil company for damages because they've already done it.
Also, as soon as the PLCAA is overturned (that's the 2005 law that makes firearms manufacturers the only industry that is exempt from civil lawsuits when their products harm people), you will see an overwhelming avalanche of lawsuits that will flip the entire gun control discussion in the US. Making corporations accountable for the external costs of what they do will be the legal trend of the coming decades. They've been getting a free ride long enough.
Martial Arts and Surfing is a good fit. What MA are you practicing/teaching?
I'm an absolute noob on the surfboard, but you're right about the stance. I practice strictly Chinese MA (mainly the internal ones for the past 15 years - Xing Yi, Bagua Zhang and of course Tai Chi Chuan) and the flowing weight distribution (ying/yang) is also very applicable. On the paddleboard I made the mistake initially of trying to maintain an evenly-distributed "horse" style stance and got nowhere. I like to imagine the waves are like a push-hands partner.
Easy to "cut" the unemployment numbers when tens of millions of people exit the work force, unvoluntarily
If you look at the graph you posted, you will see that the labor participation rate was better under Obama than has been under Trump. It has not improved one bit since Donald was elected.
Remember that when people try to tell you that under Trump we're at "full eimployment".
With a CV like that, California is indeed perfect for you.
And it's perfect for me. When I was younger, I undervalued the importance of living somewhere beautiful and what a tonic it can be for the soul. My sleepy little coastal town is as perfect a place as I've ever been, and that includes the coast of Montenegro. I get up in the morning and cannot believe I'm in such a perfect place.
Seriously, ooloorie, I really didn't mean to upset you. I understand that there are problems in California, especially in the two biggest metro areas. It's far from perfect, but unlike many other places in the US, there actually seems to be a will to try to fix these things. There's a budget surplus in Sacramento and people seep pretty happy about their state governance, except for a handful of inland cranks and right-wing talk radio hosts. At least California's not trying to balance its budget on the backs of the people teaching their kids.
You should also know that I really liked the people in Houston. Some of the best people I've ever met. Definitely some of the best taco trucks I've ever met. But the problems there seem so much more intractable than any I've seen in California. I will admit that my opinion may be skewed by the fact that my last memory of Houston was Hurricane Harvey, which was the first time I had ever experienced that kind of deadly natural disaster up close and personal. We were all ready to leave and the truck was supposed to come to pick up our belongings the day Harvey hit, and we had to postpone our trip for a week while we huddled in a room with water rising all around us and nothing but disaster porn on the TV. Rain pounded on the windows for five straight days and the sound was enough to make you insane. When we came over the hills into our little sleepy coastal town, there were real tears of joy on my wife's face, and that first glimpse of the Pacific as the sun started dipping made me feel like my heart was going to burst. Maybe I'll come to my senses someday and get tired of all this beauty, but not today.
Now you have a good Memorial Day weekend, ooloorie. If I said anything overly insulting or unnecessarily mean, I'm honestly sorry. If you come this way, I'll be happy to buy you an adult beverage of your choice.
you know, pope fuck shit, every time i read your fucking lies and the rest of you gun grabbing lying fuckers i make it a point to train another person with a firearm.
And by "train another person with a firearm", you mean, "practice in your mom's garage with your replica light sabre".
Now assume the position you poseur. Internet tough guys like you are a dime a dozen.
Stop with this shit. you are an EVIL, vile fucking lying soviet seditious traitor. and i pray every day you pieces of shit start the civil war so we can bury you and your cancerous weakness and your disgusting progeny in the dirt half way to hell where you belong. FUCK YOU.
You've been skipping your meds again, haven't you?
I wasn't talking about your pension; I was talking about the infrastructure and services you enjoy in California.
I'm a California taxpayer. I don't start collecting a pension for some years yet, thank you. I pay for what I use, and there's a little left over to send to the poor red states like South Carolina.
Since you spent your life studying and teaching critical theory and postmodernism
That's not what I spent my life studying. That's just my area of expertise. I was also a Director of Computing, a cameraman for sports television and a director of films for medical education. I put myself through school driving a cab and playing in a band. I now teach martial arts. I was already accomplished when I started pretending to be an academic and scholar. Currently, I surf.
Under Ronald Reagan, 20 years before the War on Terror
When did the national debt go up substantially?
See previous answer.
When did gas prices go up substantially?
1973
When did "mass shooting deaths - way up" occur or more properly stated when did violent crime start increasing significantly?
Violent crime is way lower than it was during the Reagan administration. School shootings are up, however, which is the result of the influence of the NRA, gamergate and Trump. There is a reason school shooters tend overwhelmingly to be white boys who like video games, AR-15s and Trump.
No doubt California is wonderful to you; as a retired academic, you are the recipient of significant monetary transfers from the working population and you can pick yourself a nice little corner of California to live in.
Correct, but you don't seem to understand how academic pensions work. They are not "monetary transfers from the working population". (See: TIAA-CREF) I can understand your confusion though, since you apparently don't have any experience with higher education. But you shouldn't be ashamed. The world need customer service reps and tech support, too.
Bad roads, bad schools, traffic jams, urban sprawl, homelessness, massive social problems.
Where have you been in California? There's none of that where I live.
Data says otherwise [usnews.com]
"affordability" rankings are nonsense. Hamburger helper is more affordable than filet mignon, but you're eating packaged starch instead of a nice steak. I've lived in Houston and I live in California. When I count the fact that I save a lot of money on utilities (I don't have to heat or cool my house) and health care (my health insurance costs went way down) and food (groceries are about 30% cheaper in California than in Houston, plus I'm in a beautiful place instead of an ugly, polluted one, I figure it's a great deal.
Isn't it great? It's a place where people like you just don't go.
I've lived in Texas. It's a shithole state. It's a place where their most famous military battle is one where the Texans got massacred and their state bird is a mosquito. It's terribly polluted and the state politicians in Texas are so corrupt it would make a Chicago alderman blush (I'm from Chicago, so I know).
The tax cuts don't really affect startups, so maybe not. You have to make a profit for it to help you.
The "bubble" is not in the profitability of the companies. It is in their valuation on the stock, bond and VC markets, which has been driven in large part by the cut in capital gains taxes and cuts in marginal rates for the investment class.
When you hear about a tech "bubble", don't think, "companies are making more money than they should". Instead, think, "companies are being valued higher than they should".
. . they'll get a government bailout like the auto and banking industries.
They've already gotten a government bailout. It was called the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" and it's exploding the deficit. It passed with only Republican votes.
The tax cuts are the air that's inflating this new bubble. Remember that when the bubble pops.
Don't forget taxes! We're not number one in taxes yet, but we're working hard!
Taxes here in California are high, but they're worth it. Plus, states like Texas just make up the difference with fees, tolls, property taxes, etc. And after you pay all those fees, tolls, property taxes, etc, you're still in goddamn Texas.
... just like it is near the top in inequality, housing costs, poverty rates, poor schools, political polarization, debt, and numerous other negative social indicators.
Since I've moved here, I'm really amused at how obsessed with California conservatives in other states seem to be.
Don't you worry, the middle class is already leaving.
Most of the people leaving California are low-income, not "middle-class". And since we've recently gone from the 7th largest economy in the world to the 5th largest economy in the world, losing a million residents over a 10 year period is not a bad thing. It means there will be less traffic when I have to drive down to LAX or up to Frisco to catch a plane when I go on one of my charity missions to bring shoes and toothbrushes to people in red states.
Slashdot Mirror
Gun manufacturers' immunity to civil suits is not part of the Constitution. It was a law passed by Congress in 2005. That law will eventually be repealed and there is absolutely no reason that a successful civil suit against a gun manufacturer will every go to the Supreme Court. They're just companies like any other, but in this case Republicans decided to grant them some unique immunity that no other industry is given.
I'm telling you, if that one little law is repealed, the entire gun control debate changes in a heartbeat.
GUn manufacturers do not have "sovereign immunity". In fact, "sovereign immunity" is not even a thing here in the US.
If a car manufacturer made a model whose sole purpose was to cause death, then you might have a point. The sole purpose of guns is to kill.
There was no Second Amendment when famous drama-queen Patrick Henry made his "give me liberty or..." speech. And by the way, Patrick Henry was a wealthy lawyer and slave-owner who stayed as far away as he possibly could from the Revolutionary fighting. He didn't give a shit about "liberty", he just didn't want to pay his goddamn taxes. What he really meant to say was, "Give me liberty or give this poor sonofabitch over here death!"
Well then, could you please tell the well-regulated militia to stop shooting schools up? I mean, twice in two weeks is a bit much. I don't think we're supposed to be watering the tree of liberty with the blood of school children.
Of course it is, but we can learn from places that also have gun ownership without the wholesale slaughter that is American Exceptionalism.
Just make people and corporations accountable for what they do. That's all it will take to minimize the suicidal effects of modern interpretations of the Second Amendment.
You can, of course. Familiarize yourself with civics and the Constitution. You will be surprised at what you learn.
Now you tell me.
Yes, a city can sue an oil company for damages because they've already done it.
Also, as soon as the PLCAA is overturned (that's the 2005 law that makes firearms manufacturers the only industry that is exempt from civil lawsuits when their products harm people), you will see an overwhelming avalanche of lawsuits that will flip the entire gun control discussion in the US. Making corporations accountable for the external costs of what they do will be the legal trend of the coming decades. They've been getting a free ride long enough.
I'm an absolute noob on the surfboard, but you're right about the stance. I practice strictly Chinese MA (mainly the internal ones for the past 15 years - Xing Yi, Bagua Zhang and of course Tai Chi Chuan) and the flowing weight distribution (ying/yang) is also very applicable. On the paddleboard I made the mistake initially of trying to maintain an evenly-distributed "horse" style stance and got nowhere. I like to imagine the waves are like a push-hands partner.
If you look at the graph you posted, you will see that the labor participation rate was better under Obama than has been under Trump. It has not improved one bit since Donald was elected.
Remember that when people try to tell you that under Trump we're at "full eimployment".
Thank you. I believe I will.
You realize that you're statistically more likely to kill one of your kids than you are to "defend" them? And defend them from what, exactly?
Your maker just called and said you're fucking nuts. He also said that when you meet him, He's going to give you a smack in the head.
Yeah, you sound like the kind of guy that should be "armed to the teeth".
And it's perfect for me. When I was younger, I undervalued the importance of living somewhere beautiful and what a tonic it can be for the soul. My sleepy little coastal town is as perfect a place as I've ever been, and that includes the coast of Montenegro. I get up in the morning and cannot believe I'm in such a perfect place.
Seriously, ooloorie, I really didn't mean to upset you. I understand that there are problems in California, especially in the two biggest metro areas. It's far from perfect, but unlike many other places in the US, there actually seems to be a will to try to fix these things. There's a budget surplus in Sacramento and people seep pretty happy about their state governance, except for a handful of inland cranks and right-wing talk radio hosts. At least California's not trying to balance its budget on the backs of the people teaching their kids.
You should also know that I really liked the people in Houston. Some of the best people I've ever met. Definitely some of the best taco trucks I've ever met. But the problems there seem so much more intractable than any I've seen in California. I will admit that my opinion may be skewed by the fact that my last memory of Houston was Hurricane Harvey, which was the first time I had ever experienced that kind of deadly natural disaster up close and personal. We were all ready to leave and the truck was supposed to come to pick up our belongings the day Harvey hit, and we had to postpone our trip for a week while we huddled in a room with water rising all around us and nothing but disaster porn on the TV. Rain pounded on the windows for five straight days and the sound was enough to make you insane. When we came over the hills into our little sleepy coastal town, there were real tears of joy on my wife's face, and that first glimpse of the Pacific as the sun started dipping made me feel like my heart was going to burst. Maybe I'll come to my senses someday and get tired of all this beauty, but not today.
Now you have a good Memorial Day weekend, ooloorie. If I said anything overly insulting or unnecessarily mean, I'm honestly sorry. If you come this way, I'll be happy to buy you an adult beverage of your choice.
And by "train another person with a firearm", you mean, "practice in your mom's garage with your replica light sabre".
Now assume the position you poseur. Internet tough guys like you are a dime a dozen.
You've been skipping your meds again, haven't you?
Yes, that is the general idea.
I'm a California taxpayer. I don't start collecting a pension for some years yet, thank you. I pay for what I use, and there's a little left over to send to the poor red states like South Carolina.
That's not what I spent my life studying. That's just my area of expertise. I was also a Director of Computing, a cameraman for sports television and a director of films for medical education. I put myself through school driving a cab and playing in a band. I now teach martial arts. I was already accomplished when I started pretending to be an academic and scholar. Currently, I surf.
Under Ronald Reagan, 20 years before the War on Terror
See previous answer.
1973
Violent crime is way lower than it was during the Reagan administration. School shootings are up, however, which is the result of the influence of the NRA, gamergate and Trump. There is a reason school shooters tend overwhelmingly to be white boys who like video games, AR-15s and Trump.
Correct, but you don't seem to understand how academic pensions work. They are not "monetary transfers from the working population". (See: TIAA-CREF) I can understand your confusion though, since you apparently don't have any experience with higher education. But you shouldn't be ashamed. The world need customer service reps and tech support, too.
First, the trajectory of unemployment numbers is only a continuation of the Obama years. If anything, the graph is flattening out under Trump.
https://data.bls.gov/pdq/Surve...
Where have you been in California? There's none of that where I live.
"affordability" rankings are nonsense. Hamburger helper is more affordable than filet mignon, but you're eating packaged starch instead of a nice steak. I've lived in Houston and I live in California. When I count the fact that I save a lot of money on utilities (I don't have to heat or cool my house) and health care (my health insurance costs went way down) and food (groceries are about 30% cheaper in California than in Houston, plus I'm in a beautiful place instead of an ugly, polluted one, I figure it's a great deal.
I've lived in Texas. It's a shithole state. It's a place where their most famous military battle is one where the Texans got massacred and their state bird is a mosquito. It's terribly polluted and the state politicians in Texas are so corrupt it would make a Chicago alderman blush (I'm from Chicago, so I know).
The "bubble" is not in the profitability of the companies. It is in their valuation on the stock, bond and VC markets, which has been driven in large part by the cut in capital gains taxes and cuts in marginal rates for the investment class.
When you hear about a tech "bubble", don't think, "companies are making more money than they should". Instead, think, "companies are being valued higher than they should".
They've already gotten a government bailout. It was called the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" and it's exploding the deficit. It passed with only Republican votes.
The tax cuts are the air that's inflating this new bubble. Remember that when the bubble pops.
From your link: "particularly lower-income residents".
Taxes here in California are high, but they're worth it. Plus, states like Texas just make up the difference with fees, tolls, property taxes, etc. And after you pay all those fees, tolls, property taxes, etc, you're still in goddamn Texas.
Since I've moved here, I'm really amused at how obsessed with California conservatives in other states seem to be.
Most of the people leaving California are low-income, not "middle-class". And since we've recently gone from the 7th largest economy in the world to the 5th largest economy in the world, losing a million residents over a 10 year period is not a bad thing. It means there will be less traffic when I have to drive down to LAX or up to Frisco to catch a plane when I go on one of my charity missions to bring shoes and toothbrushes to people in red states.
http://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/A...
Once again, California leads the way for the rest of the US. You're welcome, and please don't come here.
Deficits - up
National debt - up
gas prices - up
school shootings - up
mass shooting deaths - way up