Massacre in Connecticut

Why the scare quotes around liberty? Is this what you liberals do when someone proposes freedom in some area where you don't like them having freedom?

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

post #1049 of 1058

5/6/13 at 4:42pm

Hands Sandon

Joined: Sep 2008
Location: .:.Jesus Christ.:.
Posts: 4,843
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJ1970

Why the scare quotes around liberty?

Agreed. It's hard to argue these are new weapons in the fight against tyranny until they've been used to kill at least 100,000 Americans.

"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

Reply

"If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation".

~ William Hazlitt

Reply

post #1050 of 1058

5/6/13 at 4:54pm

jazzguru

Joined: Mar 2009
Location: Dystopia
Posts: 6,399
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

Agreed. It's hard to argue these are new weapons in the fight against tyranny until they've been used to kill at least 100,000 Americans.

???

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

(I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.)

Reply

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

(I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.)

Reply

post #1051 of 1058

5/6/13 at 5:18pm

MJ1970

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 8,906
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hands Sandon

Agreed. It's hard to argue these are new weapons in the fight against tyranny until they've been used to kill at least 100,000 Americans.

By that reasoning, abortion doctors are fantastic weapons in the fight against tyranny.

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

post #1052 of 1058

5/7/13 at 3:13pm

MJ1970

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 8,906
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Gun violence in US has fallen dramatically over past 20 years, Justice Dept. report finds:

Quote:

Gun violence in America has fallen dramatically over the past two decades, and the number of murders committed with a firearm is down too, though guns are still by far the leading type of crime weapon, according to a new report from the Justice Department.

As for where crime guns came from, the study notes that less than two percent of convicted inmates reported buying their weapons at gun shows or flea markets. The highest number, 40 percent, said the guns came from a family member or a friend. About 37 percent said the weapons were stolen or obtained from an illegal source. The rest say the guns were bought at a retail store or pawn shop.

Murders committed with a gun dropped 39 percent to 11,101 in 2011, from a high of 18,253 in 1993, according to the report.

Other crimes committed with guns were down even more sharply — from 1.53 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011, a drop of 70 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Around 70 percent of murders were committed with a firearm, and of those, the vast majority involved a handgun -- fluctuating between 70-80 percent.

The report is strictly factual and offers no analysis about the reasons for the decline in gun violence.

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

post #1053 of 1058

5/10/13 at 2:49pm

jazzguru

Joined: Mar 2009
Location: Dystopia
Posts: 6,399
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Study: Despite drop in gun crime, 56% think it's worse

Quote:

Violent gun crime has dropped dramatically in the past two decades, but the majority of Americans think it's more of a problem now than ever, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.

According to the survey, done in March, 56% of Americans believe gun crime is worse today than it was 20 years ago. And 84% believe in recent years, gun crime has either gone up or stayed the same — when the reality is that it has dropped significantly.

The rate of non-fatal violent gun crime victimization dropped 75% in the past 20 years; The gun homicide rate dropped 49% in the same period, according to numbers Pew researchers obtained from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The public doesn't get its feelings out of crime statistics," said Alfred Blumstein, an urban systems professor at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University. "The public gets its feelings from particularly notorious events, and what the press talks about."

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

(I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.)

Reply

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

(I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.)

Reply

post #1054 of 1058

5/10/13 at 3:05pm

MJ1970

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 8,906
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzguru

Study: Despite drop in gun crime, 56% think it's worse

Quote:

"The public doesn't get its feelings out of crime statistics," said Alfred Blumstein, an urban systems professor at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University. "The public gets its feelings from particularly notorious events, and what the press talks about."

A couple of things:

Shootings like the one in Newtown, etc. are anomalies. That's what makes them news. In this way they are much like plane crashes. Anyone afraid to fly because of a crash and choosing to drive instead is in the same category here. Plane crashes are big events. They garner a lot of press attention for a business that loves big events that keep everyone tuned in for lengthy periods of time. Terrorist attacks are the same way. Yet we've been convinced to trade away some liberty and privacy for those kind of minor risks.
People (Americans in particular it seems) have an incredibly short backwards view of time. They are extremely short-sighted (looking forward also BTW.) The thing(s) that just happen is the most important, most common, most representative of reality, even when it isn't.
People (Americans in particular it seems) are highly emotional and given to highly emotionalized responses to events while taking leave of whatever rational or logical thinking capacity (limited to begin with) they have.
Politicians love these three things. Easier to manipulate people like this.

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

post #1055 of 1058

5/11/13 at 4:05am

marvfox

Joined: Feb 2011
Location: Arizona
Posts: 1,629
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Pretty soon another massacre will happen.

Reply

post #1056 of 1058

5/12/13 at 5:21pm

groakes

Joined: Mar 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 42
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJ1970

A couple of things:

Shootings like the one in Newtown, etc. are anomalies. That's what makes them news. In this way they are much like plane crashes. Anyone afraid to fly because of a crash and choosing to drive instead is in the same category here. Plane crashes are big events. They garner a lot of press attention for a business that loves big events that keep everyone tuned in for lengthy periods of time. Terrorist attacks are the same way. Yet we've been convinced to trade away some liberty and privacy for those kind of minor risks.
People (Americans in particular it seems) have an incredibly short backwards view of time. They are extremely short-sighted (looking forward also BTW.) The thing(s) that just happen is the most important, most common, most representative of reality, even when it isn't.
People (Americans in particular it seems) are highly emotional and given to highly emotionalized responses to events while taking leave of whatever rational or logical thinking capacity (limited to begin with) they have.
Politicians love these three things. Easier to manipulate people like this.

While the death from firearms has declined, the incidence of wounds has risen. Perhaps because of an improvement in medical procedures dealing with gunshot trauma?

Reply

post #1057 of 1058

5/12/13 at 5:42pm

MJ1970

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 8,906
offline
Select All Posts By This User

Quote:

Originally Posted by groakes

While the death from firearms has declined, the incidence of wounds has risen. Perhaps because of an improvement in medical procedures dealing with gunshot trauma?

I'm not sure what point you're addressing exactly. The post of mine you quoted was me offering an analysis and opinion about why it is that many people things there is more gun violence despite an apparent decline in gun violence.

In my previous post, I posted a link (about a report from the justice department and/or BLS) which was not strictly about a decline in gun-related homicides (over 20 years) but gun-related violence generally. While the article does not go into detail about what is considered "violence" it seems reasonable to assume that gunshot wounds (whether or not resulting in death) would be included in that.

Additionally, the info-graphic you posted refers to a different (much shorter) time range, so we have a bit of an Apples/Oranges comparison going here.

Finally, we don't have a link to the root data for the info-graphic so it's hard to know what's what there. Admittedly my link does not contain a link to the actual justice department report either but I quickly found it here. Figure 2 on page 2 of the PDF version of the report shows even non-fatal gun violence in decline. In fact, over this period, non-fatal gun violence appears to have declined at a faster rate than gun homicides. This article also contains additional information, apparently from that same report, that shows non-fatal gun violence has been in decline (with what appears to be a slight upslope in the past couple years) for a couple decades:

Granted medical procedure improvements would provide an explanation for gunshot wounds resulting in fewer gun-related deaths/fatalities, it seems that would manifest itself in a faster rate of decline in gunshot deaths/fatalities vs. non-fatal gun wounds/violence. In fact, depending on how these two categories are tallied, it could show up as a decrease in fatalities and an increase in non-fatal gun violence.

Edited by MJ1970 - 5/12/13 at 6:06pm

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

The state is nothing more than a criminal gang writ large.

Reply

post #1058 of 1058

5/13/13 at 8:48am