LGP Political Discussion Thread

[columbia]

I hate to be a scrooge, but the "USA" chanting at the end of the Bruins game kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

[MWB]

:roll:

Innocents aren't killed by law-abiding gun owners. Please stop demonizing law-abiding citizens because they legally obtained guns that haven't killed anyone.

Yes, they are, just in different ways, typically, than those who aren't law abiding. Columbia referred to this earlier.

Gun restrictions are not going to get anywhere. But maybe the push for more responsibility would be helpful.

[GaryRissling]

...and still others can make something like the killing of 200,000 iraqi civilians in a war without justification analogous to a wart.

[MRandall25]

:roll:

Innocents aren't killed by law-abiding gun owners. Please stop demonizing law-abiding citizens because they legally obtained guns that haven't killed anyone.

Yes, they are, just in different ways, typically, than those who aren't law abiding. Columbia referred to this earlier.

Gun restrictions are not going to get anywhere. But maybe the push for more responsibility would be helpful.

Sure. Won't disagree, but how do you judge/enforce responsibility?

[stinky]

I hate to be a scrooge, but the "USA" chanting at the end of the Bruins game kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

Can I ask why?

[Sarcastic]

Problem definitely not solved; it's a helluva lot more violent now than 40 years ago.

While I don't disagree with the folly of banning guns, it is not more violent now than 40 years ago, never mind a helluva lot. In fact, nationally it's quite a lot less. The violent crime rate per 1,000 population is 15 today, versus nearly 48 in 1973. And in the oft-cited metropolis of Chicago, there were nearly 1,000 murders in 1974; last year, the number was right around 500.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
The numbers on this chart don't reflect that. I think that on a per thousand basis it was 4.2 in 1973 versus 3.9 in 201(Last year shown) unless I'm misinterpeting something. That;s a slight improvement comparing those 2 years but not a 2/3 drop.
You're right that in the last 10 years violent crime has returned to 1970's type numbers. I guess I'm stuck in the 60's and 90's The current better numbers are still significantly worse than the 60's the 90's seemed to the high water mark. I am surprised that there's an improvement since 2000. I guess George Bush deserves credit for that. (That's meant in jest people).

I read a highly involved study not too long ago that concluded crime as a whole has gone down recently, more specifically since the crack epidemic began to erode. The study also noted that gun violence has remained the same, with the number of deaths going down, but the number of actual shootings that did not result in death remaining the same.

^ that last sentence sucks but i'm not fixing it

[columbia]

I hate to be a scrooge, but the "USA" chanting at the end of the Bruins game kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

Can I ask why?

Why would someone do that?

[BurghersAndDogsSports]

Problem definitely not solved; it's a helluva lot more violent now than 40 years ago.

While I don't disagree with the folly of banning guns, it is not more violent now than 40 years ago, never mind a helluva lot. In fact, nationally it's quite a lot less. The violent crime rate per 1,000 population is 15 today, versus nearly 48 in 1973. And in the oft-cited metropolis of Chicago, there were nearly 1,000 murders in 1974; last year, the number was right around 500.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
The numbers on this chart don't reflect that. I think that on a per thousand basis it was 4.2 in 1973 versus 3.9 in 201(Last year shown) unless I'm misinterpeting something. That;s a slight improvement comparing those 2 years but not a 2/3 drop.
You're right that in the last 10 years violent crime has returned to 1970's type numbers. I guess I'm stuck in the 60's and 90's The current better numbers are still significantly worse than the 60's the 90's seemed to the high water mark. I am surprised that there's an improvement since 2000. I guess George Bush deserves credit for that. (That's meant in jest people).

I don't know where disastercenter.com got their numbers (they don't attribute a source), but I got my info from a gallup.com survey called Most Americans Believe Crime in U.S. Is Worsening. Their data came from the U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics, which falls under the U.S. Department of Justice.

Here is the specific graphic referenced:


Also, there's no way of knowing if the definitions of 'violent crime' are consistent between the two sources.

I don't see how asking people to show ID when voting is in any way comparable to putting even more restrictions on guns.

Because voting is legal. Shooting people, generally, is not.

And the problem isn't necessarily the asking for IDs to vote, it's that the measures: 1) were only put up this year in battleground states with Republican governors/legislatures, 2) were specifically crafted to generate Republican outcomes, not voting integrity.

Perhaps the motives of these measures if the Republicans didn't have guys like Lee Atwater back in 1981 talking about the Southern Strategy and essentially saying that using the N-word might make the GOP unpopular, or Paul Weyrich (a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation) saying this in 1980:

I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact [Republican] leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

I mean, I'm just sayin'.

To be fair voting is not always legal.......when you are voting illegally. Your response bugs me because sure, the republicans did try to be strategic in their opposition of no ID. However to be fair again I can't comprehend how that can be seen as worse than a party that strategically for years "markets" to and counts on this type of voter which screams of ease of fraud.

I mean all your quotes and research and blah blah ignore the obvious point, that you don't need an ID to vote and that not only is absurd....i mean really absurd this day and age, but benefits one party and they count on it.

But I am glad you played the race card and those awesome 1980 quotes that have little bearing on today's issues with IDs or voting populace.

By the way - I touched on this on the last page which also bugs me about these responses. It can be turned around quickly on you with the basic same argument.....dems chances get greater when people don't have to show IDs to vote.

I mean, just saying.

[Geezer]

:roll:

Innocents aren't killed by law-abiding gun owners. Please stop demonizing law-abiding citizens because they legally obtained guns that haven't killed anyone.

Yes, they are, just in different ways, typically, than those who aren't law abiding. Columbia referred to this earlier.

Insignificantly they are. Accidental gun deaths rank 7th on the list of accidental deaths.
Suicide isn't responsible behavior or lawful. But then very few suicide victims are prosecuted for breaking the law.
http://www.soyouwanna.com/soyouwanna-to ... -full.html

[MWB]

:roll:

Innocents aren't killed by law-abiding gun owners. Please stop demonizing law-abiding citizens because they legally obtained guns that haven't killed anyone.

Yes, they are, just in different ways, typically, than those who aren't law abiding. Columbia referred to this earlier.

Gun restrictions are not going to get anywhere. But maybe the push for more responsibility would be helpful.

Sure. Won't disagree, but how do you judge/enforce responsibility?

Well, you'd judge it based on the number of accidental shootings. I don't know what enforcement should be involved. Required classes for gun ownership?

[doublem]

willfully ignorant and self-important but refusing to look at our own failures of a nation.

True to an extent. As is willfully ignorant, holier-than-thou and refusing to look at our successes as a nation. Basic difference as shown on this board is that some consider this a great country with its share of warts; but the good greatly outweighing the bad. Others view it as a terrible country with the little good far outweighed by the bad.

and if I was born in England I would be waving a British flag, south Africa, south African flag, etc. I never really got ethic or national pride, it seems pretty random to me. I like individuals as I meet them, don't really care what race or country they are from. and hey I love this country, all the freedoms we used to have, I wouldn't want to live in any other period of time. our "rights" get smaller every day. while the freakshow gov't sponsored media were making fools of themselves, congress was on the last legs of sighing more of our "rights" away. good ole american thing, saying one thing and doing another.

[Sarcastic]

Making sure only the right people get can get weapons is one way to help the problem and, as I said, it does not have to affect regular people.

The problem with this line of argument is that it is entirely dependent upon the presumption that legal purchasers of firearms are then turning around and using them to commit crimes. That's just not the case.

Not really. Reason for that is the private sale where anybody can buy one. That includes the criminal that goes out and robs a bank or kills someone. No sale should be done without a deep background check and documentation.

All the guns today ended up in the hands of criminals somehow. I know it's kinda late in the game because there are so many out there already, but it doesn't mean we should give up on the idea. What needs to be done is the following. Make it illegal to sell guns privately to avoid a database and the background check. Create the database and then have every single gun owner show up or be inspected yearly by the police as far as those weapons are concerned. Maybe an owner can pay a few bucks for a home appointment. If, at any time, a gun that was previously purchased by a person is ever found to be used in a crime, the original owner should be taken to court to explain how his gun went missing and why he didn't report it. If he sold it illegally, add him to the list and punish accordingly. I don't like that there are undocumented guns out there and that no one really knows how many or where. It would likely take years to have an effect, but it would be worth doing.

I do personally support the expansion of background checks to cover all handgun sales. But not because I think it will have any sort of deterrent effect on crime.

Deterrent.. maybe not a large impact. But it can be part of a larger picture that will enable us to keep a better eye on things. Fact is, we don't even hear about most shootings because they're not reported.

I do believe that every purchased gun should be recorded in a national database. I don't see anything wrong with that.

When the ACLU is sounding the alarm bells about potential violations of civil liberties and privacy rights in a gun control measure, there is something amiss with the measure.

I couldn't care less and I don't even feel it has anything to do with civil liberties. People could still purchase guns so the database would be a simple inconvenience. As far as 'privacy' to gun ownership, that's just something I completely disagree with. There should be no privacy if that means people owning a number of undocumented weapons.

The pro-gun side, imo, is too combative in this regard.

As has frequently been pointed out, that's largely a by-product of being asked to surrender a measure of individual liberty.

Imagine: "There have been far too many riots incited by hate speech of late. We should curtail the speech rights of everyone to make sure this number is reduced." That doesn't seem..... logical, does it?

The words 'individual liberty' get thrown around too freely for my taste. I don't think curbing down somewhat on the availability of guns or the ease of purchasing one is a move against it anyway. Gun owners will have to give in on something. I also think there is a lot of false propaganda shoveled around among pro-gun owners whether it's due to the gun lobby or someone else like a gun maker, and for selfish reasons, of course.

Inciting violence towards jews or muslims or whoever in an organized manner, resulting in riots or other violent acts, probably shouldn't be tolerated. Unless you feel teaching Nazi propaganda, for instance, should be allowed on the college campus.

[viva la ben]

Godwins law

[ExPatriatePen]

Godwins law

Any mention of Godwins law is a self fulfilling prophecy.

[tifosi77]

willfully ignorant and self-important but refusing to look at our own failures of a nation.

True to an extent. As is willfully ignorant, holier-than-thou and refusing to look at our successes as a nation. Basic difference as shown on this board is that some consider this a great country with its share of warts; but the good greatly outweighing the bad. Others view it as a terrible country with the little good far outweighed by the bad.

I think you're making a fundamental mistake in your analysis here, and presuming that because people are willing to express concern over warts that they are therefore immediately in the bin of people who view this as a terrible country with few redeeming qualities. And I think that's false.

Take me for example...... how would you characterize my personal view of this country?

[ExPatriatePen]

...Take me for example...... how would you characterize my personal view of this country?

Oh my, the next dozen or so pages should be absolute el-ge-pee gold!

[tifosi77]

[tifosi77]

Making sure only the right people get can get weapons is one way to help the problem and, as I said, it does not have to affect regular people.

The problem with this line of argument is that it is entirely dependent upon the presumption that legal purchasers of firearms are then turning around and using them to commit crimes. That's just not the case.

Not really. Reason for that is the private sale where anybody can buy one. That includes the criminal that goes out and robs a bank or kills someone. No sale should be done without a deep background check and documentation.

I don't disagree that all sales should have background checks. But if a person who is not legally permitted to own a gun goes out and buys one from a private party, guess what? That's not a legal transaction. Just because he went to a private party does not suddenly make him a legal gun owner. (Which is why I support universal background checks) But your premise of this being somehow 'legal' is flawed.

Create the database and then have every single gun owner show up or be inspected yearly by the police as far as those weapons are concerned.

This is at once one of the most frightening and absurd suggestions I've ever read on this board. The privacy and civil rights implications of this idea are stupefyingly broad.

The words 'individual liberty' get thrown around too freely for my taste.

Clearly....... sheesh.

[tifosi77]

Those GOP b*stards. Thankfully Dems don't gerrymander.

This is either the very first or only second time in our electoral history the party that won the popular majority vote is not the majority party in the House. Over a million more votes were cast for Democrats in Congressional races in 2012, yet the GOP emerged with their second largest majority in the body in six decades. There is a 4% gap between the percent of votes Democrats received and their share of representation in the House. I saw an infographic that showed in places like PA, OH and VA for every 1 vote required to elect a Republican it took between 2 and 3 votes to elect a Democrat.

That's poppycock.

By the way - I touched on this on the last page which also bugs me about these responses. It can be turned around quickly on you with the basic same argument.....dems chances get greater when people don't have to show IDs to vote.

I mean, just saying.

This line of reasoning is entirely devoid of any connection to reality. Aside from this being a basic corollary to the Weyrich claim; if Republicans' electoral chances diminish when the voting pool is larger, then the inverse (Democrats fare better in that situation) is self-evident.

Please cite us to the many many instances of voter fraud that IDs would have prevented, and this debate can continue. Otherwise, this is nothing more than talking point rehash.

And how many of the 2012 voter ID laws were bounced at the judicial level again?

[Gaucho]

His nickname clearly indicates that tifosi hates America and would much rather be Italian. 77 is probably code for GG, as in Greasy Ginny.

[tifosi77]

I want to get this in here before the thread gets down into the weeds. A very important story is being lost in the chaff of the Boston coverage.

U.S. Engaged in Torture After 9/11, Review Conclude

A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.

The sweeping, 577-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.” The study, by an 11-member panel convened by the Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, is to be released on Tuesday morning.

*****************

While the Constitution Project report covers mainly the Bush years, it is critical of some Obama administration policies, especially what it calls excessive secrecy. It says that keeping the details of rendition and torture from the public “cannot continue to be justified on the basis of national security” and urges the administration to stop citing state secrets to block lawsuits by former detainees.

[ExPatriatePen]

The words 'individual liberty' get thrown around too freely for my taste.

There should be a law against this...

[tifosi77]

His nickname clearly indicates that tifosi hates America and would much rather be Italian. 77 is probably code for GG, as in Greasy Ginny.

There are two types of people in the world: Italians, and people who wish they were Italian.

[ExPatriatePen]

Please cite us to the many many instances of voter fraud that IDs would have prevented, and this debate can continue.

Tif, please... (otherwise you're making a decent debate point), but please...

[DelPen]

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorial ... terror.htm

Obama Cut Domestic Bomb Prevention Funding By 45% and this was not due to the sequestor