That’s all good, I’m not the type to judge you for having a life outside of this discussion.

In all honesty, I’m clearly not as creative as your daughter and have don’t really have a clue.

That you made an incorrect assumption before, then ignored the reply, then cherry picked one mention of “deadly weapon” from a reply directed at someone else, probably suggests that you’ve probably reached the end of what you can intelligently contribute.

Like, if I told you it was hypocritical to be accusing me of “moving the goal line” I doubt you’d get it. But in the off chance you do, why don’t you see if you can rack up more kills than the 2017 Las Vegas shooter using a baseball bat?

If you still don’t get it, then maybe work out the percentages of homicide victims involving firearms vs blunt objects (unfortunately, baseball bats are not significant enough to warrant their own category and are lumped in with all other “blunt objects”) using FBI statistics:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/...ded-homicide-data-table-8

I’ll give you this for free: if you want to shift the argument away from “baseball bats are deadly weapons too!” to pointing out the low number of annual firearm homicide victims in relation to the total US population - that’s moving the goal posts ;)

I'm happy to have a discussion about the different aspects of the gun control debate, what is and isn't socialism, the differences in national cultures, etc. Particularly when you've got something useful or insightful to contribute.

But I'm not your 1st grade teacher. I'm not here to teach you how to read.

Well, if you want to be childish then maybe you can take your crayons and colouring book to the corner while the adults talk.

Agreed. The situation in the US is far more difficult politically and culturally than in New Zealand.

https://www.texastribune.org/...xas-gov-greg-abbott-says/

This seems to suggest that the Odessa shooter had failed a background check before and that the firearm used in the shooting on Saturday was allegedly not one purchased where a background check would be required (e.g. private sale). I don't know about you but this says to me that there are glaring holes in gun sale laws that aren't to do with background checks but more to do with private sales etc.

https://www.bjs.gov/...tent/pub/pdf/bcft15st.pdf

In fact, statistics say that more than 3 million applicants were denied between 1994 and 2015, with more than 40% failing for having a felony conviction and 19% failing for having a fugitive status. If the background checks can catch those people, why are they not catching all people?

Is it because of a disparity between gun purchasing laws state-to-state? Is it because some sales are exempt from background checks (e.g. private sales)? Is it because there are problems with corrupt licensed firearm dealers who knowingly supply firearms to buyers without performing the necessary checks to keep the public safe?

The Odessa article above, if the truth, suggests that it's not the background checks that failed this time.



You are right. Mass shootings, while horribly tragic, don't make the majority of gun crimes in the US. I agree it doesn't even make up a significant minority. But you do have an excessively high amount of homicides including firearms. In 2017, gun-related killings made up 73% of your homicides for the year: https://www.bbc.com/...world-us-canada-41488081. Suicides by firearms are higher than homicide deaths as well (outnumbering them 2:1), and yet there's some pretty solid research to suggest that reduced access to firearms would reduce the number of suicides a year: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/...agazine/guns-and-suicide/



Let's take your Britain example.

https://www.euronews.com/...do-the-us-and-uk-compare-

2016 gun murders in the US were 34.03 per million of population. In the UK, that number was 0.48. But we're talking knife crimes? Because knives are the equivalent replacement for guns in the UK, right?

2016 knife murders in the UK was 3.26 per million of population. That's a lot more than their gun murder rate of 0.48. They clearly have a knife crime problem.

But the US knife murder rate in 2016, per million of population, was 4.96?

In the UK, certain types of knives are banned too: https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives, whereas knife ownership laws in the US (like gun laws) depend on the state you're in. They can be strict, or they can be lax.

Because of the heightened focus on terrorism post-9/11, global intelligence agencies have focused quite heavily on the detection and prevention of bomb attack plots. The possible reason for an increase in vehicle attacks, according to an FBI memo, is because they allow terrorists with “limited access to explosives or weapons” the ability to conduct an attack with “minimal prior training or experience." https://www.counterextremism.com/...cles-as-weapons-of-terror



Gun deaths are clearly a very American problem, however. For a developed, civilised nation, you constantly win the Gold, Silver and probably Bronze medals when it comes to gun deaths, either by suicide or homicide, and no other Western country has mass shootings as often as you do.

It's baffling to suggest that the US cannot do anything about it's gun issues until Britain tackles it's knife crime issue, France it's vehicular terrorism, and whatever other random China swords (lol whut?), Japan Sarin gas (happened in 1995), Middle East bombing (do US drone strikes count?) stuff you mentioned.

That's like America is standing in front of it's burning house and refusing to do anything about it until his British neighbour waters their dying plants, the French neighbour washes his car, and the Japanese guy down the road drowns himself in the sorrow a tragedy that befell him and his household more than 20 years ago.



You wake up one morning, feeling cute, thinking about killing a bunch of people, and you've got three options in front of you:

1. A pile of bomb making ingredients
2. A knife
3. A semi automatic firearm

Obviously, time is of the essence. You don't want to spend too much time preparing to kill people otherwise you might talk yourself out of it. So that's the bomb discounted as an option, plus it's illegal to publish/obtain bomb making instructions.

The knife is a quiet option but, really, then you have to get up close to your victims and there's the possibility they might over power you. A knife still requires that you be decently strong and fit, otherwise you're stabbing one or two people max before you possibly get swarmed. Plus, good guys with guns might just shoot you.

Better take the gun. It's quick, you can kill from a distance, and it should scare most people away from you. If good guys show up, you have just as much opportunity to shoot them as they do you.

Now, if laws were to take one of those options away - which do you reckon would probably reduce the risk of a random going on a murder spree?

I don't disagree; I enjoy shooting. Doing pest control on farms is honest work. There's entirely a case to be made for higher capacity magazines where pest control is required (and I'm fairly sure New Zealand law allows for exemption applications on pest control grounds).

As for "military-style", the NZ legislation describes them as semi-automatic firearms (except for pistols) where a number of listed attachments are included (such as higher capacity magazines, bump stock-like attachments, flash suppressors etc). Based on news reports, there have been mixed responses to this with some gun owners willingly handing in their firearms, while some have declared that they're disproportionately affected by the gun bans on their legitimate firearms (e.g. WWII firearm collectors, sport shooters, etc). Whether or not this is the right move for America isn't relevant, it's New Zealand and most people seem to be supportive of the new laws. The hope is that they work and, if they don't (either for reducing the risk of shooting massacres or because they truly unfairly impact legitimate firearm enthusiasts), then we'll simply re-look at our laws and amend them again.

We're privileged to have a fairly quick legislative body that can make laws fast if needed (we had a Prime Minister once who boasted he could have a policy idea while brushing his teeth and have it become law by the time he had dinner that night), with an electoral system that's proportionally representative and can be outright punishing to political parties/governments that go against the will of the people (although, fatigue and fairness sometimes strike governments down in favour of another party).

I get the point you're probably leading to: a bolt action .22 can kill people the same as an AR-15 can. It doesn't much matter whether or not the gun looks "meaner" than others, they're deadly weapons. In New Zealand, I think the difference is that we see firearms as a privilege - not a right.

I actually live in Hong Kong but I'm sure you've already got your picture painted about who it is I am, what I believe in and all that.

I've also not said that I support the banning of guns in the US, only that I believe that gun bans work. Would they work in America? I've clearly said "No" but that's not the fault of gun laws and regulations, that's because the US has let this issue get so far away from being solved by simple legislation - the country would need a culture overhaul. That's unlikely.

As for the Christchurch shooting, that was a significant tragedy but the shooter bought his weapons legally. I don't know what you're expecting me to do - justify and defend New Zealand's gun laws? Most of the country was pretty supportive of some sort of legislative change to close whatever loopholes existed to allow the shooter to build a weapon capable of killing 51 people so quickly. Hunters, who make the the majority of New Zealand gun owners, don't need high capacity magazines and bump stock-type attachments to make firing faster. In the handful of hunts I've been on, we wouldn't have fired much more than 3-5 rounds each time. We're not playing Call of Duty.

The ban on semi-automatic military-style weapons isn't meant to stop mass shooters from murdering people - but they are meant to force them to find an alternative. If that's a bomb, we assume our intelligence agencies will do what they can to prevent that. If it's a knife, then I doubt the Christchurch mosque shooter could have killed 51 people with a knife. The gun bans in New Zealand will probably work to reduce the likelihood of a person being able to kill as quickly as the Christchurch shooter did.

It doesn't eliminate murder but it should make murdering so many less easy. The logic doesn't seem like rocket science, does it?

Tigress, earlier you said:



Then, above, you've quoted (I removed the relevant background check points to focus on the point about private sales):

[quote poster=Tigress; 47627; 911870] Under federal law:

* Under federal law, private individuals are not required to a conduct a background check before selling or transferring a firearm to someone who lives in the same state, but it is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a private individual to sell or transfer a firearm while “knowing” or having “reasonable cause to believe” that the recipient falls into one of the prohibited categories above.[89] [90]

https://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp [/quote]

That might not account for every case of a firearm obtained by someone who wouldn't pass a Federal background check but it's definitely a risk area.

How could a country tackle illegal gun purchases? First is comprehensively knowing what and where the problems are. You can't make good laws based on little or bad information. For example:

1. If you know that states with strong gun laws are often undermined by states with weak gun laws (where guns purchased in weak states are found to be used in crimes committed in strong states) then you know the disparity in gun laws between jurisdictions are a problem.

2. If you know that the biggest channel of trafficking of guns into the illegal market comes from negligent or corrupt retailers, then you know that laws relating to who can sell guns and how they sell them is a problem.

3. If you know that potentially 40% of all gun sales in your country come from unlicensed dealers who aren't required to perform background checks on the purchasers, then you might assume that this comes with a risk of increasing guns on the illegal market and know that this is a problem.

How could America stop illegal gun purchases? It doesn't. You don't want to, and you can't. It's just not in your culture to be able to do that.



In a roundabout way, this confirms that outright banning something reduces the likelihood of it showing up where we deem it outright shouldn't be vs legalising it for some people and trying to regulate against it being used by others.

-- In any case, this debate on gun control is beyond the original discussion point of gun control being supposedly "socialist policy" (which it's not).

Seems convenient that they don’t count the minute the commit criminal acts.

Maybe we should ban guns so they don’t get the opportunity to commit those acts and become criminals.

Do mass shooters who legally obtain their firearms count? What about legal owners who aren’t mass shooters but do murder people?

What’s the ratio of gun deaths with legally obtained firearms vs deaths from illegally obtained ones?

That feels like if “Honest Trailers” took over US tourism marketing. Lol.

You’re looking at it backwards. It’s because of regulation that deaths from those causes aren’t worse.

I’m also not saying, nor is anyone saying, that all guns should be banned. Not all alcohol and not all drugs are banned. But neither are they completely unregulated.

1. If we’re talking about specific areas, like the regions, then of course you’re probably right. But the statistics, on average, suggest that those with post-secondary can and do earn more over their lifetime. That’s true if we’re talking university degrees or including vocational/trade training. I don’t know your area and I don’t know the makeup of your unemployed but those with degrees and no job have better prospects than those without.

2. Of course banning guns will work. Americans will just be upset as its built into your social fabric that guns are a right.

3. I’m gonna merge two points together and lol a bit about your concern about the opioid crisis and support of Big Pharma “doing its job”. And then acknowledge that you actually don’t mind paying for other peoples’ healthcare, you just don’t like paying for government spending.

Apples and oranges again, mate. Drugs are heavily regulated, and drug deaths are overdoses. When drugs are responsible for the deaths of others are violent crimes involving.. guns. And knives. Etc.

Alcohol similarly is regulated but you can’t ban it because alcohol is ingrained in almost all adult cultures (save for strict Muslim nations, for example). Alcohol deaths are also generally related to illness developed by excessive use, or due to accidents occurring under the influence (e.g. car accidents). Mostly killing the user, but obviously alcohol users can and do kill others intentionally or unintentionally.

Banning either drugs or alcohol, or both, outright might help reduce some gun related deaths (e.g. suicides) but how will it reduce mass shootings? The strange thing about using other causes of death as a defense to tighter gun regulations is that you’re not saying gun control doesn’t work - you’re being childish and saying “Well, if I have to then those kids have to too!”

And, weirdly, you’re arguing in favour of tighter regulation by demanding the same treatment of drugs and alcohol. I don’t really think you mean to say that.

They can also be used to murder a lot of innocent people really quickly.

American experience in overthrowing their government: Once. A few centuries ago.
American experience in mass shootings: Feels like every week.

We all know why your 2nd Amendment exists but it feels like that right is being abused.

1. The potential earning power of someone with a tertiary qualification is much higher than someone with a high school diploma. And various studies have suggested that degree holders, on average, do earn more over their lifetime than their high school grad friends. The value of degree holders to the economy is higher, particularly if it’s true that many, if not most, skilled jobs (which have higher earnings and better career progression) require more than a high school education. You might not want to pay for someone else’s post-secondary education but the country needs to if it wants to guarantee a stronger economic future.

2. You weren’t asking about general sales, you were questioning what reasons could exist for banning some guns over others - using knives and alcohol as “what about” cause of death arguments. The why is that some see X guns as more dangerous either by design, or because of historical or popular usage in America’s astonishingly high rate of mass shooting incidents. Whether those reasons are right or wrong, the comparison with knives and alcohol fails because they’re completely separate and different dangers, but succeeds as examples of different types of laws applying in some instances to regulate against the risk of harm by specific types (of knives, or of alcohol-fueled situations).

3. It’s ironic that you have a problem with Congress potentially giving themselves payrises with your taxes while insurance companies and Big Pharma are laughing all the way to the bank with your money. They’ve likely done even less to earn it but, because they’re not the government, you likely don’t care.

4. If you have any examples of these reparations to ancestors of slaves, that would be interesting. Regardless, you only have two parties in the US anyway so it’s not like you have a great amount of choice if one party does something you don’t like.

5. As for the “New Green Deal”, I don’t know enough about it to comment.

A pure free market capitalist system, definitely. Rational capitalism still recognises that the neutral state, as the monopoly on violence within its territory, is integral to protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals to generate wealth.

Americans are fanatical in their opposition to socialism, sometimes without even the basic knowledge of what socialism is. Buch saying he doesn’t want to pay for anyone else’s healthcare is legitimate and a perfectly reasonable personal position to have. But it’s not socialism because the same mechanism exists in private healthcare (insurance premium individuals pay fund the healthcare of other people who make claims against the same insurance company), so being against it as a socialist policy is a mistake that seems to exist in America’s loaded view of the ideology.

The military offering state protection is required by a state to maintain its authority; paying for it would be required under both socialist and capitalist economies. Again, both could do it through taxes or they could reframe the contribution they receive from the people to either it being an operating cost of the collective profit produced by the people of the state, or the fee for service paid by private market individuals in exchange for the protection to pursue business and capital within its borders.

Why does a company like GM change its mind based on government offered subsidies? It’s the market they’re playing, the competition for business vs the supply and demand of labour.

Why would socialism need taxes to pay for a school if the school is already paid for by the people?

Maybe “welfare” policies is the more appropriate term for these. Corporate or social welfare; taxes just determine who is paying, and how much.

That’s because taxes are neither socialist nor capitalist.

Both can utilise taxation to support and protect its system (Adam Smith himself made clear that people should pay, according to their ability, the state for the protection it offers - e.g. police, administration costs of upholding the rule of law etc) but both could, theoretically, reframe “taxes” so that they’re not what we think of them today.

Socialism would see paying for things like healthcare and education as being no different to a business paying operating costs before delivering income to its workers. The workers own the means of production, so the collective decision to pay for such welfare isn’t taxation - it’s an investment. It’s not redistributing wealth because everyone shares equally in the profits of production; there are no richer people to “tax more heavily” than others as everyone shares equally in the profits. There’s no need to tax the people on their income because all state expenses, agreed upon by the people, are paid before income is delivered.

Capitalism could take the free market route and determine that private entities could provide policing and legal protections of the market, meaning no taxes needed to pay for state cops - individuals pay for their own services according to ability and need. Those who cannot afford police and legal protection could receive it anyway from wealthier individuals who see providing it out of their own pocket as being a cost of ensuring those people don’t devolve into lawlessness. It’s technically not a tax because they’re not compelled under threat of state violence to pay it, but they’re still technically paying for the benefit of others. Still, there’s no need for taxes the way we think of them now as the government doesn’t exist to provide anything, and redistribution of wealth takes place within the market’s supply and demand - and those who supposedly work hard and smart reap the rewards.

Taxes are the way we pay for things in line with either side of the ideology while we’re not fully committed to either one.

1. Interesting. Is it just liberal arts degrees that you have problems with or are you against any and all public funding support for tertiary education? The problem, as far as today's job market is concerned, is that it's not enough to walk out of high school before the end and fall into a decent job with an opportunity for progression. If you don't finish high school these days, and don't end up working a trade apprenticeship, then you can look forward to a long, fruitful career as a janitor, warehousing drone, or some other such unskilled job. And what is automation phasing out? Unskilled jobs, like warehousing people. We provide secondary school to students because that was the bare minimum you needed once upon a time to have a good career foundation. It's not enough anymore.

2. Not all knives are legal everywhere. Some States ban things like switchblades or bowie knives, and most places have laws regulating open or concealed carrying of blades. Same with alcohol, purchase and access is restricted by age and by location - you can't buy or consume alcohol under a certain age, and you can't drink wherever you want. You can't drink behind the wheel of a car. Different laws apply to different firearms for different reasons. Despite guns, knives and alcohol being apples, pears and oranges, there are clear examples of different laws applying to different situations in the purchase and ownership of each.

3. If you have private health insurance, you're already paying for other peoples' healthcare. That's what premiums are for - pooling group money to cover the risk of individuals within that group possibly needing the groups' money to pay for healthcare. Either a private company manages that fund (by which their main motivation is to make a profit, meaning payouts for the covered is dependent on the amount of money the private company has agreed to part with) or the government does (where, if your government isn't some corporate cuck run by lobbyists trying to gouge public money, generally the main motivation is to heal the sick as efficiently as possible so they can say they did a good job and get elected again). Both sides of that fence you get people paying for something that others get the benefit of (paid premiums/taxes but don't get sick), and people being delayed or denied what they paid for (insurance claim rejections vs public waiting lists/denied public coverage for specific drugs).

4. I feel like having a discussion with you about the legacy of segregation and institutional racism will probably go as well as pissing in the wind, but I agree that you as an individual person have nothing to pay for in terms of historical mistakes made.

5. Derrick has already put together some great thoughts on open borders, immigration and visa issues. I couldn't contribute half as good as what he has.

Edit: As far as "leftist policies" are concerned, I'm not sure any of those types of policies are the main contributing factors to the downfall of Venezuela, or are what makes China or Cuba the fluffholes nations that they're seen to be. It seems like these are more things seen in places like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and European nations that, more or less, aren't fluffhole nations by the same measure.

“He’s not perfect but at least he’s not Clinton.”

Gotta love the “my fluffty candidate is still better thsn your fluffty candidate” argument. Why do you put up with having fluffty candidates? Why not just change your electoral system to produce better options?

Also, what exactly are the “Leftist Policies” you’re referring to?

Yonus

Bonus

Bonus

cry,

I like Evolution. <3

Dirty thirties. Very sexy. Asia.

Pencil me in, leader of No Friends, pls bb? <3