LGP Political Discussion Thread - Latest news at top

[ulf]

He wouldn't have looked anywhere else for guns?

Where? Like a private sale with no background check? Outlaw those too and give 5 years to anyone who makes a sale.

I was referring to him just stealing from someone else. I don't think he would have gotten guns in CT from a private sale either.

[ExPatriatePen]

It’s illegal in every state to sell cocaine or heroin, with penalties that are often a lot longer than 5 years, but cocaine and heroin are still widely available. And neither cocaine nor heroin are grown or manufactured in the United States in any significant quality. They’re both imported from other nations, many of them quite far away from the United States (like Afghanistan). They still get here. What would stop the same cartels that smuggle literally tons of cocaine and heroin into the United States from adding crates of handguns or rifles to those shipments? If the demand is high enough, the profit will be there, and those people have already demonstrated that they care more about profit than any silly laws.

Just playing devils advocate.. but why have any contraband items at all with that philosophy?

[columbia]

Metal detectors, for one.

[ulf]

Metal detectors, for one.

I would assume once they get installed, if someone was planning on shooting up the school, they'd just start before the metal detectors, right? (I feel weird even thinking about this stuff)

I would however think metal detectors would work if officers were manning them. Then we're talking about one expensive overhaul.

[MRandall25]

Metal detectors, for one.

I would assume once they get installed, if someone was planning on shooting up the school, they'd just start before the metal detectors, right? (I feel weird even thinking about this stuff)

Or it would be like that scene from The Matrix

[ExPatriatePen]

Metal detectors, for one.

I would assume once they get installed, if someone was planning on shooting up the school, they'd just start before the metal detectors, right? (I feel weird even thinking about this stuff)

Or it would be like that scene from The Matrix

Yeah, I mean he shot his way in... Metal detectors wouldn't have stopped him. Besides, everytime I've seen metal detectors I've seen armed guards... so I'll assume you agree with the NRA's statement yesterday then. That armed police officers be placd in every school.

[pfim]

Wayne Lapierre saying armed guards should be in every elementary school makes me want to vomit.

[Shyster]

Just playing devils advocate.. but why have any contraband items at all with that philosophy?

Why indeed. I’m certainly not in favor of the continued illegality of drugs.

[ExPatriatePen]

Just playing devils advocate.. but why have any contraband items at all with that philosophy?

Why indeed. I’m certainly not in favor of the continued illegality of drugs.

I agree with you on most counts.. but as long as I'm in DAM (Devils Advocate Mode):

Bazookas? RPG Launchers? Anthrax?

(I had to ask Shyster)

[steelhammer]

I like your insertion of the word "drastically" there. The link I provided earlier shows that states with stricter gun laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.

I see your link and raise you an entire book that says that higher gun ownership rates lead to less crime.

http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Cr ... 0226493660

Before accepting this book at face value, it's worth examining how he derives these supposed ironclad statistics. http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/12/17/who-is-gun-advocate-john-lott/191885. Scoff at the website if you will, but everything there is linked to studies including:

PW [Lott's co-authors Florenz Plassmann and John Whitley] seriously miscoded their new county dataset in ways that irretrievably undermine every original regression result that they present in their response. As a result, the new PW regressions must simply be disregarded. Correcting PW's empirical mistakes once again shows that the more guns, less crime hypothesis is without credible statistical support. [Stanford Law Review, accessed 12/3/12 via Deltoid]

In Ayres and Donohue's response to that paper, they found that Lott's data contained numerous coding errors that, when corrected, reversed the results. Furthermore, this was the second time these sorts of errors had been found in Lott's data. Lott had presented to the NAS [National Academy of Science] panel figures showing sharp declines in crime following carry laws. Declines which disappeared when the coding errors were corrected. Finally, when Lott saw Ayres and Donohue's response he had his name removed from the final paper. [Deltoid, 4/25/03]

Lott Attempted To Cover Up Debunking Of "More Guns, Less Crime" Thesis By Changing His Statistical Model. From an October 12, 2003 Mother Jones article describing how Lott reacted to Yale Law School professor Ian Ayres and Stanford Law School professor John Donohue's revelation that fixing coding errors in his research caused Lott's conclusions to be undermined:

And finally, how can I be 100% sure that this isn't Lott himself posting as Shyster considering:

Washington Post: Lott Posted Online Under The Pseudonym "Mary Rosh," Who Called Lott "The Best Professor I Ever Had." For three years, Lott repeatedly posed as an imaginary former student named "Mary Rosh." Rosh "tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics" in numerous online debates. From a February 1, 2003 article:

[columbia]

He sounds pretty legit.

[Shyster]

Before accepting this book at face value, it's worth examining how he derives these supposed ironclad statistics. http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/12/17/who-is-gun-advocate-john-lott/191885. Scoff at the website if you will, but everything there is linked to studies including:

Lott has repeatedly updated his book to respond to his critics. And several of the sources cited in the “widely discredited” section are nothing more than blog posts or law-review articles, which are not scientific or peer-reviewed. Moreover, criticism is not necessarily a sign of being incorrect. If that were the case, then nobody would believe in global warming, as it has been widely criticized.

Shortly after the first edition of More Guns, Less Crime came out, Lott was a guest-speaker at CMU. At that time, one of Lott’s greatest critics was a CMU professor named Daniel Nagin, and he attended the lecture. During the Q&A session, he rose and went to the microphone. We were all prepared for a discussion if the intricacies of the topic, perhaps getting into the weeds of the statistical methods used and how the data was interpretated. Instead, Mr. Nagin began by asking Mr. Lott where he got his degrees, and Nagin followed that up with a series of ad-hominem attacks. After several minutes of that, during which Mr. Lott was quite polite and Mr. Nagin basically said nothing that had anything to do with the book and its conclusions, a large chunk of the audience yelled at Nagin to either ask a pertinent question or get out. He left.

[steelhammer]

Before accepting this book at face value, it's worth examining how he derives these supposed ironclad statistics. http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/12/17/who-is-gun-advocate-john-lott/191885. Scoff at the website if you will, but everything there is linked to studies including:

Lott has repeatedly updated his book to respond to his critics.

Are you sure he wasn't responding to his own errors and data manipulation? Also, from the link, this peer-reviewed and well cited journal article is worth reading: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/dranove/htm/Dranove/coursepages/Mgmt%20469/guns.pdf

[Kaizer]

i dont know anything about john kerry, why is he a good choice for secretary of state? i was hoping (not that it had a chance in hell of happening) that it would be john huntsman.

[ExPatriatePen]

policy be damed ( the SoS doesn't formulate policy)... integrity is the main consideration

[Alejandro Rojas]

John Kerry = Integrity?

[ExPatriatePen]

John Kerry = Integrity?

I never said that did I?

I haven't weighed in on my opinion of JK as SoS. ... Purposely.

[MWB]

Metal detectors, for one.

I would assume once they get installed, if someone was planning on shooting up the school, they'd just start before the metal detectors, right? (I feel weird even thinking about this stuff)

Or it would be like that scene from The Matrix

Yeah, I mean he shot his way in... Metal detectors wouldn't have stopped him. Besides, everytime I've seen metal detectors I've seen armed guards... so I'll assume you agree with the NRA's statement yesterday then. That armed police officers be placd in every school.

Schools with metal detectors don't have armed guards. But yes, metal detectors are useless against someone entering the school with the intent of shooting it up anyway?

Did the NRA suggest a way for paying for every school to have armed guards?

[ExPatriatePen]

Metal detectors, for one.

I would assume once they get installed, if someone was planning on shooting up the school, they'd just start before the metal detectors, right? (I feel weird even thinking about this stuff)

Or it would be like that scene from The Matrix

Yeah, I mean he shot his way in... Metal detectors wouldn't have stopped him. Besides, everytime I've seen metal detectors I've seen armed guards... so I'll assume you agree with the NRA's statement yesterday then. That armed police officers be placd in every school.

Schools with metal detectors don't have armed guards. But yes, metal detectors are useless against someone entering the school with the intent of shooting it up anyway?

Did the NRA suggest a way for paying for every school to have armed guards?

What good is a metal detector w/o an armed guard??? Seriously!

[Rylan]

Armed Guards in schools is no bueno.

[ulf]

my former high school has had a policeman on the grounds for the past 5ish years. I thought it was unnecessary, but I don't think it's hurt anyone one bit.

To add to that: I would have been 100% against cops in schools before that. Now that I see how it's going, I don't think it's a bad idea.

[MWB]

What good is a metal detector w/o an armed guard??? Seriously!

To prevent kids from bringing in guns or knives, knowingly or unwittingly.

[ExPatriatePen]

What good is a metal detector w/o an armed guard??? Seriously!

To prevent kids from bringing in guns or knives, knowingly or unwittingly.

You make no sense. (with all due respect)

If I'm looking to just 'show off'... OK, the metal detector w/o a guard works. But there rely wasn't a threat there to begin with.

If I'm Adam Lanza, your metal detector w/o an armed guard means diddley squat...

You get hat right?

[Gaucho]

[ExPatriatePen]

Whats that supposed to mean?