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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 5, 2017 16:16:15 GMT -5
Believe it or not, the monarchy really doesn’t affect us much in our day-to-day lives.
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Post by alicechalmers on Oct 5, 2017 16:32:09 GMT -5
Believe it or not, the monarchy really doesn’t affect us much in our day-to-day lives. That is utterly beside the point. The American Revolution affected the culture of this country, and continues to do so.
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Post by stellarfeller on Oct 5, 2017 16:50:51 GMT -5
Again, I did not make the original point.
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Post by alicechalmers on Oct 5, 2017 16:58:29 GMT -5
The original point is that the U.S. got started with an uprising, a big 'ol "fuck you" to the government. Then a new government was started based on a document largely intended to limit said government. That is a part of the culture difference. No one is saying that Canada is different because of the monarchy, but because of our resistance to it.
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Post by TapToTalk on Oct 5, 2017 21:51:55 GMT -5
I have 3 FB friends calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. They all got lots of likes. My response to one I know well was "Good luck with that."
(And here I thought they were busy trying to get the electoral college eliminated. Guess they forgot about that one.)
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Post by Lor on Oct 6, 2017 9:31:53 GMT -5
What could be done? Why not more extensive background checks? We certainly seem to have no issue having our existence verified if we want credit cards or loans or things like that. And I don't think that one's mental health necessarily comes into question during these checks. Companies can ask people to pee in a cup to screen for drugs. Why is asking for some, if any information from a gun buyer suddenly so intrusive? Acquiring a gun just isn't the same as going to the supermarket for a bag of frozen green beans. Why not put limits on the types of guns and firing capacity that private citizens can legally own? Does it really require a hail of bullets to bring down a single deer? Or a veritable buffet of firearms to keep the home secure? I'm far more fearful of being shot by the armed protector-citizen than I am of being shot by an actual criminal! Why not make it illegal to buy or sell kits that modify guns into something even deadlier than their original intent? We can manage to make buying other things against the law. Why not this? We've been able to regulate things such as how one buys a package of cold medicine and not too many people ascended the soapbox to squeal about their rights being trampled by making it less convenient to gain access to an ingredient in meth. And regarding the notion of adding bag screening into the hotel check in process. Why would that be any different than screening bags at an airport? Or upon boarding a train or cruise ship? Agreed, especially the bolded. Asking how anyone would be adversely affected misses the point. I probably own a hundred things that wouldn't adversely affect my life without. It's not up to the govt to take those things away from me because some people don't use them responsibly. The government legislates a lot of things because people don't use them responsibly. There is a limit to how much alcohol people can drink when they are driving to reduce the risk to the public. Honest question - are there a lot of people that are advocating banning all guns? That's not reasonable, if that happened here it would mean I'd never have another moose steak and that would be a tragedy! ETA: This is a great discussion and I appreciate having a better understanding of the reasoning behind people's opinions, thank you!
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Post by TapToTalk on Oct 6, 2017 10:05:11 GMT -5
When you ask "are there a lot of people advocating banning of all guns", the answer is that they are not direct about it. There are definitely vocal critics who want to repeal the second amendment. If you follow gun legislation in California, where there are plenty of gun owners, the state is trying to legislate gun ownership out of existence through increasing regulation and higher fees. This latter tactic is what most left leaning politicians are proposing on a national level and in other states.
The "why would anybody need" argument is very prevalent. I'm not a fan of other people telling me what I need or don't need.
Let me add, I don't own a gun. I'm not a gun hobbyist.
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Post by Tpatt100 on Oct 6, 2017 10:10:36 GMT -5
Examples: Cigarettes Abortions
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Post by Sprockey on Oct 6, 2017 10:16:11 GMT -5
Yes, why would anyone need to have more than 3 abortions? They should be banned. And why don't we just ban cigarettes altogether? No one needs those.
And thus starts the slippery slope. Other people deciding what I need or don't need simply because they "don't get it"
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Post by Tpatt100 on Oct 6, 2017 10:48:39 GMT -5
Well with abortions the laws are worded so that they can say they are about protecting women’s health physical or mental.
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Post by Chat Rouge on Oct 6, 2017 18:28:14 GMT -5
Yes, why would anyone need to have more than 3 abortions? They should be banned. And why don't we just ban cigarettes altogether? No one needs those. And thus starts the slippery slope. Other people deciding what I need or don't need simply because they "don't get it" Or, let's make everything that's previously been deemed unlawful readily available to be bought or sold in any or all quantities that anyone wants. How about ivory? Conflict diamonds? Heroin or cocaine? The list could go on, but I suspect you get the point. So why exactly don't we "need" some things, yet others, like more guns than one has fingers to simultaneously pull the trigger, are off limits for regulation? Slippery slope indeed.
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Post by alicechalmers on Oct 6, 2017 19:32:38 GMT -5
Not like regulation of heroin and cocaine has done any good.
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stl
Full Member
Posts: 633
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Post by stl on Oct 6, 2017 19:51:01 GMT -5
First, I have to say that while I don't have especially strong feelings either way as I can see both sides, if someone somewhere declared tomorrow that all guns were banned in the US that would be totally fine with me. I'm not a big fan of them.
That said, with all the calls of "doing something" I don't know that there is any one "something" we can do that would prevent anything like this from happening again. The terrifying fact is that this guy was the guy next door. There were no red flags. I heard an interview with his brother where the brother said he hopes an autopsy shows this guy had a brain tumor because then it might make sense to him.
Passing a law that says hotels have to search all bags at check in probably wouldn't have flagged him, he would have just had to be a little more creative. Bring 2 bags filled with normal things like clothes and toiletries at check in. Leave the guns in the car. A few hours later go to the car, put the guns in some big shopping bags and bring them up to your room. No need to stop at the desk. Or will we expect minimum wage, untrained hotel employees to tackle any guest with a rogue Nordstrom shopping bag? What about motels where you park outside your room? The clerk never sees your bags.
I also think that we all agree that "crazy people" should not be allowed to own guns. How exactly do we accomplish that? How do we define who the "crazy people" are? Is it anyone who has been hospitalized in a mental health ward? Anyone who has ever seen a mental health professional? Any kind of health professional who diagnosed something mental health related? Will there be a database of ICD-9 codes? Who will decide which diagnosis codes go on it? Will we have to search prescription records for any kind of anti-depressant and/or anti-psychotic and/or some other kind of "mental health" drug? Will we search insurance records or pharmacy records? How far back will we look? Where will these records be stored? With a private company that will safeguard the information, similar to how Equifax stores and safeguards our credit and financial information? Who will be allowed to access this database and for what purpose? If we require individual gun sellers to run a background/mental health check on potential gun buyers, are we okay with that same individual having the right to see our mental health records? Or will they just get a "denied" message that the buyer will then have to follow up on? What about people who might have sought help for depression or other issues who now won't because they're afraid they'll show up on some "crazy people" list?
I mean it all sounds great and people mean well, and I understand the feeling that we need to "do something" or "start somewhere" but until we have a better way of identifying why people do this and intervening to prevent it, I don't know that there is a great solution at hand. And that's the scariest part, that no one wants to admit, which is that it really could be the nice guy next door. People generally aren't 100% pure evil and most people probably only see the 99% not evil/normal side of them. It's just that in some people that 1% of evil is off the charts evil but it doesn't come out until they do something like this.
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Post by TapToTalk on Oct 7, 2017 11:24:30 GMT -5
There seems to be consensus on the bump stock. It enables someone to easily use something legal for illegal purposes. It is a small "something", likely not enough for the critics.
This guy had a lot of money, took a lot of time to plan this, chose multiple targets and venues, picked out the "perfect" location which was likely given to him for free and seemed to have hidden what he was doing from those closest to him. He likely could figure out how to exploit any loopholes.
I dunno how you stop someone like this. Even the most oppressive regimes on the planet have terrorists that cause major civilian casualties.
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Post by villanelle on Oct 8, 2017 2:45:21 GMT -5
I don't think you do stop someone like this, or at least not every someone who is similar. You stop some, you slow down others. That's the best anyone can hope for.
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Post by Lor on Oct 8, 2017 7:06:48 GMT -5
There seems to be consensus on the bump stock. It enables someone to easily use something legal for illegal purposes. It is a small "something", likely not enough for the critics. I think a small something is still better than nothing. Each human life saved is progress. I don't think you do stop someone like this, or at least not every someone who is similar. You stop some, you slow down others. That's the best anyone can hope for. When you think of the population of the U.S. and in comparison how rare these madmen are then stopping some and slowing down others is worth a lot of lives. If this guy had been slowed down at least a few of those 59 victims could have gone home instead of to the morgue.
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