The General Political Thread

[junedragon]

More EU hypocrisy plainly visible re: the Catalonia Referendum.

Enforce your nation's immigration/border laws and the EU Commission freaks the fuck out about "human rights" and collective responsibility. Send in national police to beat up peaceful groups and storm voting locations and they boldly declare that such "proportionate force" is needed to uphold the rule of law (still waiting for an explanation as to how voting can be illegal in a so called democracy).

[junedragon]

but people aren't being mown down by gunmen every other week.

Fun fact. Less than a thousand people have died in mass shootings in the US in the past 50 years. Islamic extremists have killed almost 500 people in Europe in the past 2 years (and wounded thousands more). But you keep telling us the second one is not a problem/major-concern and the first one you keep making sensational comments about ("mowed down by gunmen every other week"). hmmm....

[Theodin]

what a fun fact

[Duuring]

More EU hypocrisy plainly visible re: the Catalonia Referendum.

Enforce your nation's immigration/border laws and the EU Commission freaks the fuck out about "human rights" and collective responsibility. Send in national police to beat up peaceful groups and storm voting locations and they boldly declare that such "proportionate force" is needed to uphold the rule of law (still waiting for an explanation as to how voting can be illegal in a so called democracy).

Democracy is based on the rule of law. Democracy has rules, though this may come as a surprise to some people. Read this article, which shows why the Spanish government is entirely right in its action and the Catalan regional government are nothing but a bunch of hypocrite opportunists trying to ride the nationalism-wave.

https://medium.com/@tripu/referendum-e53331ddf841

Fun fact: "One more thing to consider: three years ago, the separatist Catalan government authorised police force to stop a popular “multireferendum” about a number of social issues in Catalonia, confiscating ballot boxes. Clearly, the Catalan leaders do not think that casting a ballot is always okay."

[Toffee]

Spoiler

Right so you don't have any actual evidence. A quick google search brings up results telling me that the majority of mass shooters obtained their firearms legally.

You're correct, I sadly do not have any documentation on the exact number of illicit firearms coming from Mexico into the United States. In case you didn't know, illegal firearms are not registered. And now it seems we've switched from the majority of gun criminals to mass shooters. Nice.

Poland and other ex-Communist Block countries are a haven for illegal weapons. Pretty much the entirety of Dutch organized crime is armed with AKs. So actually, yes, there are.

There's a clear-cut difference between old weapons being circulated like in formerly communist countries, and weapons being produced in addition to being circulated like in countries south of North America.

As for the Netherlands:

Spoiler

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/netherlands

[close]

So as I thought, not nearly comparable to the scale amount of illicit firearms in the US.

[close]

Of course you don't have evidence, so what is the basis of your claim. My point is that the majority of shooter's firearms are bought legally in the USA. This was always a conversation about mass shooters as that is the entire reason for the calls for gun control in the USA. Have you not been reading the news since forever?

[Edwin]

Various things to keep in mind re: gun control.
1) Take away the guns and they'll find other ways to kill one another. In London someone is stabbed to death on average every 6 days. London police respond to stabbing incidents on average 5 times a day. Of course mass shootings are rare in the UK as a result of strict gun control, but it doesn't do much to reduce gang related violence which is where the bulk of the casualties are.
2) Gun control just isn't going to work in the USA, a country where there are already more guns than people. You can do various things to make the rules tighter but it's still going to be very easy for someone living there to get a gun.
3) I suspect this is more to do with the fairly poor way the US treats those with mental health issues. Americans have always had the right to bear arms yet mass shootings have only been a significant problem since the 1970s. The safest decade in modern American history was the 1950s when you had mass gun ownership, even laxer gun control laws than you have now, and an adult population with a higher degree of military experience than any previous generation.

Quite so. I'll take that as the conclusion to this debate.

[Karth]

Spoiler

Right so you don't have any actual evidence. A quick google search brings up results telling me that the majority of mass shooters obtained their firearms legally.

You're correct, I sadly do not have any documentation on the exact number of illicit firearms coming from Mexico into the United States. In case you didn't know, illegal firearms are not registered. And now it seems we've switched from the majority of gun criminals to mass shooters. Nice.

Poland and other ex-Communist Block countries are a haven for illegal weapons. Pretty much the entirety of Dutch organized crime is armed with AKs. So actually, yes, there are.

There's a clear-cut difference between old weapons being circulated like in formerly communist countries, and weapons being produced in addition to being circulated like in countries south of North America.

As for the Netherlands:

Spoiler

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/netherlands

[close]

So as I thought, not nearly comparable to the scale amount of illicit firearms in the US.

[close]

Of course you don't have evidence, so what is the basis of your claim. My point is that the majority of shooter's firearms are bought legally in the USA. This was always a conversation about mass shooters as that is the entire reason for the calls for gun control in the USA. Have you not been reading the news since forever?

In crime ridden cities, its the opposite.  That's what should be looked at more than the occasional mass shooter, considering how many people die in inner cities due to gun violence.  Take a look at this study: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
Majority of incarcerated felons charged with homicide with a gun involved got them illegally, either through social media or other connections.

[Toffee]

So why is gun crime such a big issue in the US? Because of the gun culture. Nobody can deny that.

[TheBoberton]

What an incredibly disingenuous manner in which to frame the debate. Of course a nation with more firearms is going to have more firearm related crime.

[joer5835]

Of course a nation with more firearms is going to have more firearm related crime.

No, not neccesarily. Just look at Switserland.

[Toffee]

Not true at all boberton

[TheBoberton]

So you're saying that access to firearms doesn't correlate with their use in crime?

[William]

I think it has more to do with American culture. There was one particular Michael Moore documentary I had watched in class I  liked calling Bowling for Colombine. It talks a lot about the nature of American news and how it pushes violence and race as identifying factors while in Canada everyone is fine and leaves their doors unlocked and every adult male in Switzerland owns a gun. It's not the guns, it's the people.

For these reasons I want us to reintroduce slavery or just send the blacks back. Literally 90% of America's problems would go away 

[Theodin]

Not everyone is "fine in Canada"

[Toffee]

So you're saying that access to firearms doesn't correlate with their use in crime?

Not every country is the same. Clearly there is something different in America which makes its society a lot more dangerous in regards to firearms. I don't know what that is though.