I was a very assertive, aggressive kid. In the second grade I actually gave a teacher a black eye. I punched my music teacher because I didn’t think he knew anything about music and I almost got expelled.

D Trump - "The Art of the Deal"

Today's tweet:

@realDonaldTrump

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!

Nothing here that I disagree with.

Baywolfe wrote:

Smudge wrote:

Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted.

https://s17.postimg.org/o7hk0ecgf/3afa38d8.jpg

...It is worth considering, as one data point in the pool of evidence about what sorts of gun control policies do and do not work, the experience of Australia. Between October 1996 and September 1997, Australia responded to its own gun violence problem with a solution that was both straightforward and severe: It collected roughly 650,000 privately held guns. It was one of the largest mandatory gun buyback programs in recent history.

And it worked...

https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback

Yeah, we've been trying to shove that piece of truth down the pro-gun people's throats for a long time.  Forget murders and suicides, mass-murders have almost completely disappeared from the Australian landscape.  It will never work here because they're all afraid that the white people would turn in their guns (even though it wasn't even all the guns) and the blacks and Hispanics wouldn't.

No, I didn't post any of this because I expected it would change anything. But even so, at least I get the minimal satisfaction which comes from speaking the truth -- even when there are forces which would attempt to prevent me from doing so.

I suspect that even here at High-Street the majority would oppose my views, and I consider the audience here to be far more sophisticated than average (see, you guys got me fooled).

It is #Verseday and we have a heavy heart. Children are being killed in our schools and our nation seems incapable of focusing on a common sense response. In the end, let us not forget those who have perished and the families and friends whose lives will be forever shattered.

In our grief, poetry can help channel our brewing emotions into more tangible thought. So today we have chosen a poem from W. H. Auden to remember the young lives lost.

"Funeral Blues"

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

fnord wrote:

America doesn't give a shit about children. Gun company profits are far more important than any number of dead children.

Apparently, you are correct.  Although the problems that Remington is having is an indicator that they are even their own worst enemies.  They would have profited much more with another Democrat in the Oval Office.

It's quality writing but you'll never get me to believe that, in situations like this, violence can be defeated by more violence.  Unless you think that Americans are just more homicidal by nature, then getting rid of most of the guns a proven solution.  There are very few moral absolutes in this world and almost all of them are followed by large body counts.

Platymingo wrote:

I'll admit to a drinky poo (two), but I've been trying to write something about the massacre problems that the USA has been having lately. This is what I have so far,

USA is a culture of independent thinking and independent living. We want to live completely unregulated. When it comes to guns, no regulations mean that bad people will get guns. Even good people, may, go insane, and they may use a gun they already own in the commission of a crime. Background checks can't tell if someone is on the edge of insanity. Background checks should be as thorough as possible, but we need to understand, that a background check is not going to fix the problem.

Can we really expect US citizens to simply give up their guns, or accept any gun restriction? Guns founded this nation and have kept it free. We should allow gun ownership to anyone of military service age, who has not been found mentally incompetent or unstable. However, We cannot protect every single person from bad, or insane people, who might be carrying a gun. We should only plan on being able to limit the damage done by a gun wielding insane person.

How can we do that? In the case of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Highschool, stepped up security would have been a starting point. The school only had one armed security guard.  In actuality, the school should have had one armed security guard for each door. Not a plain old security guard, a real security hero.  In fact, every publicly accessible building, school, movie theater, cafeteria, etc. should have each entry door, exit door, emergency exit or loading dock, covered by a security hero. A double door is TWO DOORS, and would require TWO security heroes. Each security hero should wear a miniature portable EKG or some other form of heart monitor, which would report back to the an automatic monitoring system.  If any hero's heart monitor flat lined or went crazy with activity, the police swat team would be dispatched immediately.  I am, indeed, calling for security heroes to be canaries in the coal mine.  If they die, something bad is happening. Security heroes would not be useless canaries, though.  Security heroes would carry semi-automatic 12-gauge shotguns loaded with minimum 00 buckshot rounds, and with a minimum 30 round capacity. Each security hero would be required to carry several magazines. Security heroes should feel emboldened to run toward suspected shooting incidents and to fire at will, as security heroes would be indemnified against prosecution and civil legal action, provided they were firing during a perceived security incident. There will be accidents, but only negligence would be civilly liable.

At Marjory Stoneman Douglas Highschool 17 out of more than 325,000,000 Americans died. That's less than a 20 millionth of our population. We can't let such a small number dictate to us, how we should live our lives.

Invest in security heroes.

I've been working on little something myself.  Here goes:

dear gun grabbers
go fuck yourselves
word

Last edited by JetRx (2018-02-18 01:39:24)

Appeasing the Trigger Gods

...Then I gave up. If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything? We knew that other countries could stem mass killings, homicides and suicides with gun control and gun buybacks. But we didn’t care.

In our ongoing angst about our national identity — if we weren’t John Wayne anymore, who were we? — there had been a terrible tacit judgment made: America would accept periodic human sacrifices to the trigger gods in the interest of upholding this bizarre notion that the Second Amendment is inviolate or even really threatened. We can’t even summon the energy to break the chokehold that the N.R.A. has on Republicans in Congress...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/opin … -gods.html

I get a feel like this is less about *what* the moral high ground is than *who* gets to claim it.

That's the problem.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

I get a feel like this is less about *what* the moral high ground is than *who* gets to claim it.

That's the problem.

And I feel it's exactly the reverse.

I can think of few arguments that I would rather avoid, few more thankless or any less satisfying tasks, or more Sisyphean challenges than pointing out the absolute insanity of the majority opinion of guns rights in America. But I've simply had enough, and I'm going to keep speaking the truth, because for whatever reason I'm not caught up in the collective trance. You might think it's fun to be the one guy in the nut house who isn't actually insane, but trust me on this; it's not.

I don't give a fuck if 98% of the people who read this disagree with me, and think less of me for having said it, but our current posture with regards to guns is nothing more nor less than collective insanity.

Americans are gripped in a mania about guns, and are ignoring the obvious truths which are plainly evident to almost everyone else in the world; our childish and slavish fascination with guns is causing levels of death and destruction which we would not tolerate if they were the result of a major war. These are Vietnam War level casualties we are experiencing, and for no good reason.

You don't need to listen to me. The shooters are telling you the same thing, and they are going to keep on stacking the bodies like cord wood until they get heard.

It's time for people to take their heads out of the sand and really look at what's going on.

Last edited by Smudge (2018-02-19 10:35:00)

Baywolfe wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

I get a feel like this is less about *what* the moral high ground is than *who* gets to claim it.

That's the problem.

I'm still a fan of the Aussie Laws.  No Auto-loading weapons.

Just stop sales of them now and let things slowly work their way out.

Yes that means single action revolvers, pump/bolt/lever action rifles & shotguns.  Only the military needs auto-loading weapons.

The problem with that is, if you don't combine it with mandatory weapons buyout like Australia did, you'll have these legacy weapons being bought and sold for decades, if not centuries.

Baby steps my friend, we are dealing with fanatics on this one.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/st … says-colu/

Last edited by Smudge (2018-02-21 01:20:49)

Emmeran wrote:

Who made the gun he used? The Teachers did!

Remember the nigh-deafening divestiture from Tobacco by public institutions a couple of decades ago?  We may be about to see it again.

Floriduh taking a stand against the real danger:

Pornography is being declared a health risk by the Florida Legislature.

The resolution was sponsored by Representative Ross Spano, who is running for attorney general.

Spano said there's research showing a connection between pornography use and mental and physical illnesses, forming and maintaining intimate relationships and deviant sexual behavior. The resolution states a need for education, research, and policy changes to protect Floridians, especially teenagers, from pornography.

House Democrats in committees and on the floor have said the bill is a waste of the Legislature's time and that more important bills and topics need to be heard.

During a debate, Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith asked Spano if pornography has killed or physically injured anyone. He went one step further in asking Spano if pornography has caused any first responders to seek counseling. Spano said he did not know.

Smith has had his own bill that would ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines get stuck in Spano's Criminal Justice Subcommittee.

Now we all know that no new assault weapon ban will even come close to getting passed in the Florida statehouse. But pushing an anti-porno bill ahead of it is just rubbing it in their faces.

Also, anybody want to start a pool on how long before Spano gets caught in the wide stance?

This banner of Taint's is apparently the first ever High Street banner.



Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Inside The Federal Bureau of Way Too Many Guns

Emmeran wrote:

Art is not truth. Truth conforms to reality. Art invents reality.

Because GUNS!

Holy shit. Trump is embracing gun control?

breaking news:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/us/p … ntrol.html

Last edited by choad (2018-02-28 17:25:52)

Nah, Trump is a liberal at heart so if he speaks without prep it tends to come out.

I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation...

When gun owners meet for the NRA convention, gun injury rates seem to decline

The 20 percent decline happened nationwide, researchers found.

America has around one mass shooting, defined as at least four people shot, per day on average. But for a few days in May this year, that gun injury rate is likely to drop.

A brief, partial respite from gun injuries is expected when some 80,000 gun owners descend on Dallas for the annual National Rifle Association convention. That’s because the convention has historically coincided with a temporary — and dramatic — drop in gun-related injuries, according to a new analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine...

Read the rest: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/ … jury-rates

hedgewizard wrote:

Smudge wrote:

I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation...

There are enough BS numbers in that article, that I don't know whether to trust any of the rest.  Figures don't lie, but liars figure.  The whole we own more guns than anyone else is isn't true and takes careful wording (or massaging the numbers) to make it true.  For example Swiss and Israeli guns are mostly technically owned by the state. As for the JAMA article itself, what happens when you use all the time not during the conventions rather than the three weeks before and after?  Cherry picking times or places makes me suspicious.  It's like saying we're number one in gun deaths.  You have to leave out a quarter of the other countries in the world and count suicides by gun here.

You are seriously misinformed, hedgewizard. The statistics are all readily available from a thousand sources. We own more guns per capita than any other country. We own more guns in absolute numbers than any other country. We have more gun deaths in absolute numbers than any other country. We have more gun deaths per capita than any other country.

We are the most highly armed nation in the world, and the nation which suffers the greatest amount of gun violence BY ENORMOUS MARGINS. These facts are not in dispute, and they are not the product of distortion in any form.

Most of what I state above can be gleaned from this one graph alone (but, Google can answer any of these individual questions in a split second if you need additional verification):



I stand behind the original article one hundred percent.

JetRx wrote:

Take blacks and Hispanics - who for gun-related "issues" are notched Caucasian, out of the mix, and the US would be lost in the crowd.

As Chris Rock has repeatedly told us, there is a vast difference between blacks and Niggers.  And Whiggers are every bit as bad.

Blacks are considered to be white when looking at gun violence? I can't believe I'm reading that. Any chance you'd like to back that claim up with some evidence? And by the way...even if it were true, its not the issue under discussion (which is the link between gun availability and gun violence).

The US is NOT the nation with the highest rates of gun violence. It is the nation with the highest rates of gun violence when compared to other first world nations (my bad, I was incorrect). In absolute terms, the US is the 31st worst nation for gun violence. The US has by far the highest rate of gun violence when compared to similar wealthy, first world nations (the ones included in the diagram) as well as most (but not all) of the world's other nations.

The scatter diagram came from the VOX article which we were discussing.

Smudge wrote:

Blacks are considered to be white when looking at gun violence? I can't believe I'm reading that. Any chance you'd like to back that claim up with some evidence? And by the way...even if it were true, its not the issue under discussion (which is the link between gun availability and gun violence).

The US is NOT the nation with the highest rates of gun violence. It is the nation with the highest rates of gun violence when compared to other first world nations (my bad, I was incorrect). In absolute terms, the US is the 31st worst nation for gun violence. The US has by far the highest rate of gun violence when compared to similar wealthy, first world nations (the ones included in the diagram) as well as most (but not all) of the world's other nations.

The scatter diagram came from the VOX article which we were discussing.

I'm sorry Smudge but there isn't a nation comparable to the US on that chart, not in land mass, ethnic makeup or population level.  This is the same game they play with education statistics.

As a Republic our firearms laws are all over the place but as a whole they aren't much different from Germany's and France's.

Smudge wrote:

hedgewizard: "The numbers floating around out there have a lot of liars figuring, and your numbers come from them cherry picking."

Great. Please point EXPLICITLY to the incorrect facts, and then provide your (presumably more credible) facts, and more reliable sources, because my cards -- and my data and sources -- are on the table. So far, I'm the ONLY one is this discussion to provide numbers, data, statistics and graphs -- and sources for all of those. And I'll continue to if this discussion continues. But you won't get very far by challenging hard facts, from known and credible sources, against unverified and largely off topic generalities -- which is what you're attempting to do now.

If you want to challenge a point, please be explicit, and take them, at most, one or two at a time so that I can actually address them and respond.

hedgewizard:  "As for the JAMA article itself, what happens when you use all the time not during the conventions rather than the three weeks before and after?"

The results might very well change. Neither you nor I,however, can guess in which direction they would change, nor what that change would indicate. The most likely reason the study was crafted to use the periods immediately before and after the NRA convention as controls is to keep noise in the sample to a minimum. The longer the time period used, the greater the opportunity for other factors to enter into the picture to skew the data. You imply that the study is designed to intentionally and inappropriately influence the results, but you provide no explanation about how that would be done. All else being equal, using a longer time period would weaken the credibility of the study rather than bolster it.


hedgewizard: "The UN provides homicide data for 192 countries, the small arms survey provides data for 116."

What small arms survey are you talking about? What KIND of small arms data? Is this comparison relevant to anything we are discussing? If so, you haven't explained how or why it would be. And BTW -- what does homicide data have to do with what we are discussing?


hedgewizard: "The missing countries have homicide rates rates higher than ours."

I am not discussing homicide rates, and have made no claims about them. How is this relevant? The article I posted was about gun accidents declining during the NRA convention.

Your remaining points are just a hodge podge of half expressed ideas, and of which one could spend hours exploring on their own. You may be interested in having the entire gun control debate in a single thread, but I'm not. If you continue to respond to my posts by dumping laundry lists of questions which I would need to spend a day answering, I'll simply ignore any future responses. If you genuinely have a problem with what I posted, and are willing to take it step at a time and explain your issues in such a way that I can understand and address them, however, then I'll continue to respond indefinitely and make my best effort to answer.

Directed arguments to the fellas in the pub doesn't result in you being right or wrong my friend, they only result in that the fellas don't come to the pub when you are around.

Make a statement, try to make it fun and move on.  We aren't going to solve anything here but we do enjoy a beer and a laugh at the world.