USA Politics

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I'm sure the picture is a joke. But at the same time i believe that all these people saying that we should ban all firearms would be hoping and praying that a neighbor with a firearm would help out if someone was trying to do harm to his/her family.
 
I'm sure if someone really needs a firearm, he'll find a way to get one, even if it's illegal. Like it happens in most of the countries. But this is completely different of everyone having a firearm that easy.

All of us from Europe grew up without firearms in our homes, sometimes in dangerous suburbs. Believing that a firearm will save you from the bad guys, is most of the times a golden illusion. To go even further, one can say that this illusion of safety can push you into alienation from your bad-reputated neighbourhood -if you are living in a good neighbourhood, there's no need to have a firearm in the first place.

On the other hand, if you are 'naked' you pay attention to respect the unwritten laws and the others, to have good relations with everyone, keeping your dignity in a good level & and even knowing who's the people that 'count' in your small world. Normally nobody will touch you if you are ok person and even sometimes, some people will protect you, just because you are ok.

I think US citizens are a bit paranoiac with that matter, it's not if they were white living in South Africa.. What are the possibilities of someone be robbed while in his house?? Close to zero in a lifetime. Outside of your place your firearm will not save you anyway.
 
Honestly, along with the US gun laws being too lenient, I feel that the drinking age in France is too low and the laws towards marijuana use in the Netherlands should be more strict.
 
True gun laws here are a bit too lenient, but I don't think guns should be banned completely. But yes, we do need stricter laws.

I think pot should be legal and alcohol should be illegal. People who get drunk and then drive are very capable of killing innocent people. When have you ever heard of someone getting killed from a driver high on pot? I've known lots of people who drive while stoned and they all drive perfectly fine.
 
______no5 said:
All of us from Europe grew up without firearms in our homes, sometimes in dangerous suburbs.
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Err... no? :huh:

OK, there were none in my home, but in that of one of my best friends. So please don't say "all of us" if you can't really speak for all of us.
 
it's pointless to argue amongst ourselves about gun control in the u. s. because if you don't actully live here you'll never understand the culture. just as i wouldn't understand the culture of a european or whereever the hell you're from culture, because i do not live there. what get's me upset, and i think most would agree or at least think it's logical, is that once you let any government take one thing away from you then they don't know when to stop. do i think someone needs a gun with a 30 shot clip, of course not but if that person instead used 3 10 shot clips does it really make a difference? i would assume in all the confusion and terror that would be ongoing in a mass shooting that the last thing you would be wondering about is if that crazy s.o.b. doing the shooting actually took the time to change clips. my point being is where does it end? so you outlaw 30 shot clips and somebody does what i said and uses 3 10 shot clips. do you now out law 10 shot clips? and of course as the vicious circle dwindles down you outlaw even smaller clips. i recently seen a comment in the local paper about how anyone who wanted to carry a firearm should be required to carry an old flintlock gun. that remark was responded to by the comment that the person who wrote that remark should've wrote it with a feather and an ink well. not that i think anyone posting would do this but if you decided for whatever reason to bust into some other persons house, would you rather that person to be anti-gun and unarmed or that they might be armed and therefore the possibility that you might get shot existed. beleive it or not i'm a very friendly, outgoing, give you the shirt off my back kind of guy. but if you come around here fucking with me or my loved ones, odds are you're gonna die from lead poisoning.
 
Wästed The Great said:
Honestly, along with the US gun laws being too lenient, I feel that the drinking age in France is too low and the laws towards marijuana use in the Netherlands should be more strict.
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Again there's nothing to compare. Drinking /smoking is a threat mainly towards you. Having a gun is a threat mainly towards others. You can't kill 30 children in a school by throwing bottles, that's all it's about.

And yes, I understand very well the culture argument by maidenn.c.indiana, but guess what, culture do change when there's a necessity.
 
Wästed The Great said:
Honestly, along with the US gun laws being too lenient, I feel that the drinking age in France is too low and the laws towards marijuana use in the Netherlands should be more strict.
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If that discussion would take place in the European Politics topic (a very appropriate place) I won't try to change the topic and country.
maidenn.c.indiana said:
it's pointless to argue amongst ourselves about gun control in the u. s. because if you don't actully live here you'll never understand the culture. just as i wouldn't understand the culture of a european or whereever the hell you're from culture, because i do not live there.
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Of course it feels different if I would live there but I believe I understand enough of your culture to see some things that should not be tolerated (imo). Even if I could completely understand where it all comes from, that doesn't mean that I think some matters need to stay forever as they are right now.

Many Americans understand that as well. So instead of constantly using these "You don't understand it because you're not one of us" arguments (or tactics), I'd rather hope you two would argue with foreigners by zooming in on the content, rather than overemphasizing where someone comes from.

After all, foreigners are going to stay here and their opinions will keep on coming.
 
i have no problems with "foreigners" or their opinions and if you took my last post that way, then you took it the wrong way. the main point of my post was that where does the government stop when you start allowing it to infringe upon you're rights. many are of the opinion that the gun laws in the u.s. need to be changed while i completely and wholeheartedly disagree with that opinion.
 
Your country took away so much from it's people, and the list is so long, I won't even bother writing it. And they gave you a right to buy a gun. You do the math.
Besides, no5 already told you that cultures can change. Decades ago, your people wrote proper English in correspondence. Now look at your posts.

Disclaimer : no hard feelings about the last sentence, it's a joke. Format your posts and capitalize letters properly, for our reading clarity.
 
Glad to see this monster is being handled

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/kindergartner-suspended-over-bubble-gun-threat/


A 5-year-old girl was suspended from school earlier this week after she made what the school called a “terrorist threat.”
Her weapon of choice? A small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower.
The kindergartner, who attends Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania, caught administrators’ attention after suggesting she and a classmate should shoot each other with bubbles.
“I think people know how harmless a bubble is. It doesn’t hurt,” said Robin Ficker, an attorney for the girl’s family. According to Ficker, the girl, whose identity has not been released, didn’t even have the bubble gun toy with her at school.

The kindergartner was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation during her 10-day suspension, which was later reduced to two days. The evaluation deemed the girl normal and not a threat to others, Ficker said.
The girl’s family is considering a lawsuit against the school to get the blemish — all because of bubbles — off their daughter’s record.
“The mother has tried to get the girl in another school since this time, and they won’t take the little girl because of this mark on her record,” Ficker said.
The suspension comes one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which has created a heightened sense of alert at schools across the country.
The Mount Carmel Area School District told ABC News, “We are confident that much of the information supplied to the media may not be consistent with the facts… The Mount Carmel Area School District takes the well-being and safety of students and staff very seriously.”
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About the gun issue, I really have no super strong feelings on this. I obviously feel badly for those injured in the recent mass attacks, but my feeling is people are trying to do something for the sake of saying they are doing something and it will essentially lead to nothing .. as per usual for the government

As a quick background, I own zero guns, I have gone skeet shooting twice with a relative, the last time was over 10 years ago. I am not anti-gun or hunting, I just have no real desire to do it.
The focus seems to be on the larger weapons, but in reality most gun deaths in the US are by hand guns. Look at the recent murders in Chicago for example. I suppose people care a bit less about those because most of the victims are poor, minorities, and gang members. The only time attention gets paid is when an innocent (non gang member and usually a kid) gets caught in the cross fire.
If someone wanted to do something to actually reduce the murder rates, the focus would be on gangs.

Everything below is specific to the US
It is also my belief that the vast vast majority of legal gun owners in the US (of any type of gun) handle them in a very responsible manner and are no harm to anyone (except maybe ducks and deer, but that is another issue).
I hear the argument that people really do not need "X" type of gun and that is probably true, except that there are lots of dangerous things in society that people do not need and are allowed. No one need a car that goes over 70 (except in a few limited areas in the US where the speed limit is higher) and we might see fewer traffic fatalities due to speed. Bars really do not need to exist and there would be fewer drunk driving incidents.
I am against taking things away from people because a few (very very few) abuse them. Using the examples above, people take many more risks in a car or with booze/drugs than they do with guns.
 
N.Y. Republican releases secret list of Democrat gun control plans: http://www.examiner.com/article/n-y-republican-releases-secret-list-of-democrat-gun-control-plans
Here is the list of Democrat proposals:

--Outright confiscation of "assault weapons."
--Outright confiscation of "ten round clips" (magazines).
--Establish a statewide database of all guns.
--Continue to allow gun permit holders' names and addresses to be published by newspapers.
--Label semiautomatic shotguns with more than five rounds or pistol grips as "assault weapons."
--Limit the number of rounds in a magazine to five and confiscate banned magazines that carry a larger number of rounds.
--Prevent citizens from owning more than two magazines.
--Prevent citizens from buying more than one gun per month.
--Re-license all current pistol permit holders.
--Require renewal of all pistol permits every five years.
--Pistol permits would have to be issued by the state and not local law enforcement.
--All guns in New York would be required to be micro-stamped.
--Ammunition dealers would have to be licensed.
--All gun owners would be required to keep their guns locked in their homes.
--A fee would be assessed for licensing and registering guns.
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I actually don't see the big deal in this. All the Obama haters make it sound like he wants to completely ban guns altogether. He just wants to make gun laws more strict and I'm fine with that. It's really scary how easy it is to own some of the guns that are out there.
 
Was that the NY gun law? It will be interesting to see how some of those provisions hold up in court. I also think it will do nothing as the people who would abide by those restriction are not really the problem in the vast majority of cases. I'm not seeing the Crips turning in their extra magazines and I sure as hell would not want to be involved in confiscating these weapons.
 
Dear Americans, I all know there are plenty of silly petitions about Death Stars and Pokémon. I also know that it is not my business to mingle with American politics, as I am not American. But I feel that as someone pursuing an academic career, it is my business and interest to ask you to sign this petition:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...z-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

Please help bring a little bit of justice, in the moral, not legal sense, into this world by punishing someone who persecuted a person who did everything right and used the internet what it was developed for, the unlimited and free access to scientific data.
 
Further US Union decline ... I am happy to see the public sector numbers go down, I do not think they should exist.

The total number of union members also dropped sharply, by 400,000, to 14.366 million, even though overall employment in the United States rose by 2.4 million last year, the B.L.S. said. From 2010 to 2011, the number grew by 50,000, and the percentage of unionized workers fell only 0.1 percentage points

The bureau said union membership among public sector employees fell to 35.9 percent in 2012, from 37 percent the previous year, and there were more union members in the public sector (7.3 million) than in the private sector (7 million).
The number of union members is down from 17.7 million in 1983, the first year for which comparable numbers are available, when 20.1 percent of the nation’s workers belonged to labor unions.
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