Nothing to do with NRA or gun-control specifically. It's the general principle that when legislation is pushed on the back of an 'emotional' issue like the slaying of children, the likelihood of a sensible legislation passing is minimal. It will be something that "people back" at that point. (angry people, that is) Like I said in my first post, if they wanted to make reducing gun deaths a priority, this anomaly (mass shooting) does absolutely nothing to change ones stance on the issue, if they were to look at it sensibly. Gun availability has increased, while gun deaths have decreased overall. There are other ways which have proven effective in reducing gun crimes. Look at success stories like New York city, for example, where it has managed to reduce the rate of gun crimes at an unprecedented rate as far as major American cities are concerned. It was the worst among the major cities, now (per/capita) it is an example of reducing gun crimes at a rapid rate (90s, 00s). Gun-control measures have been pretty much the same throughout (among the highest in the US), even when gun-crimes were the highest in the country. What changed was that they implemented a pragmatic form of policing. They didn't apply 'global' legislation that would affect everyone but noticed that some neighborhoods or even 'sub-cultures' were much more problematic (massively disproportional heavy crime rates) and required more resources. The same 'lefty' types that strongly favor draconian measures for everyone were strong opponents of the policies implemented in NY, supposedly because it would disadvantage the black community and encourage profiling and whatnot. In the end compared to decades past the main beneficiaries were precisely black teenagers, whose rate of involvement in gun deaths were decreased tremendously. And the measures aren't particularly draconian either, stop-and-frisk policies in known areas, allowing police officers to make use of 'street knowledge' that every civilian (black, white, pink) does, which was previously discouraged as to not encourage "profiling". These policies though had many intricate components and are never as easy a slogan as "ban guns!". They actually require the policy makers to look at the numbers, make sense of the data, and yes even make use of it to spread resources efficiently.
Anyway, Spurs lucked out on the Villa win. We are on the way for a 9+ point margin by the end of the season HIAG.
I think your summary is somewhat distorted. The vast majority of street crime in the U.S. is committed with handguns - those, it would be next to impossible to legislate against, nearly every household in the country owns one. However, the majority of these massacres are committed with automatic weapons - Uzi's, Mach 10's and the like. There is no justification, neither self defense nor otherwise for owning, or wanting to own, that type of weapon. There is therefore no good reason why private ownership of these types of weapons should not be banned.
A simple way to get around Second Amendment zealots is to say, fine, if you want to obey a 200 year-old piece of legislation you can only own the weaponry from the time it was written - muskets and breach-load rifles.
These massacres, even with all the publicity, are still too rare to base any policy decisions, compared to the population that would be affected. Let heads cool, and propose measures and solid reasoning why the legal ownership of such weapons is a danger to others. Like with any legislation the extreme "fringe" cases aren't what it should based on, otherwise there wouldn't be much that would be allowed to purchased/acquired/used by now. For many models converting semi-automatic weapons to fully-automatic is trivial too (same with extending magazine capacity), which is a thing a type of person that is motivated to indiscriminately killing anyone in his path wouldn't find much of an inconvenience to prep for. A google search and some handiwork away basically. In Germany didn't that kid kill 16 of his former schoolmates with a single handgun anyway? These (still very rare, and overcovered in the media) tragedies will occur anyway, basing proposals on them isn't sound. Banning new sales of assault weapons on other grounds is another issue altogether.
Are you willing to do away with the adaptability of a constitution when it comes to other rights as well, say human rights? I know you spuds are big on the "good old days" but it wasn't all pretty.
Then perhaps they should consider forbidding the sale of the ammunition that feeds these weapons. The point is, you have to start somewhere. No, not every one of these massacres ( for that's what they are) is committed with an automatic weapon, just the majority. Let's face it, if you're intent on killing as many people as possible, in the shortest amount of time possible, which seems to be the intent of these lunatics, then those are the obvious weapons of choice.
NRA die hards say gun control doesn't work, and point to things in countries with gun control such as Dunblane as a reason - completely ignoring the handgun ban came into effect as a result of that massacre. They also seem to be immune to statistics. For example, in the US the firearm-related death rate is 10.2 per 100,000 in the US (10th worst in the world) and firearm-related homicide rate is 3.7 per 100,000 (14th worst in the world) and firearm-related suicides is 6.1 per 100,000 (2nd worst in the world) - they're a First World nation, yet their gun crime problems are closer to Third World nations, and this apparently isn't cause for concern.
Right, this doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon so lets just say no more talk about guns. Any new posts about it will be deleted so either start an article on General Chat or PM eachother if you want to continue the discussion. Lets get things back on topic. Arsenal are ****
I want to talk about guns ! The NRA recently said that 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is with a good guy with a gun' <psychoticsmiley>
Seriously is it that hard to stay on topic? When I start deleting, innocent posters may get caught in the firing line. Now back to Rifle Watch, I mean Rival Watch!
This isn't about my dislike of Fergie, I agree that Pardew has put himself in a bad position to talk about other people's treatment of officials but I find one quote particularly unsettling. "He forgets the help I gave him by the way." On the subject of Pardew he feels betrayed because he believes he's helped him as a manager, presumably through selling him Obertan. Ignoring the fact that he had no use for the player and Newcastle were probably the only bidder Obertan was interested in, I think it's fairly disturbing that Fergie goes around doing these "favours" and expecting the manager to then never criticise or disagree with him ever again. He sounds like an weak man on a power trip, he did the same with BBC after they dared to publish evidence of one of his son's involvement in bungs. It'll be a great day for the Premier League when he retires although I suspect he'll still be bending ears at the FA and with referees until he dies.
He probably gave him some advice in one of his post-match wine drinking sessions that they all seem to bang on about, for some reason. Why he feels that should allow him to act like a twat and influence match officials without anyone mentioning it is beyond me, though.
Calling Newcastle a "wee club in the North East" just sums him up and his contempt for the North East and NUFC. How United fans can continue to defend him is beyond me, but then again you have to be devoid of morales, principles and rationale to "support" that club anyway. I know United fans that were fed up f his conduct years ago and want him gone understandably.
Signed for you from Liverpool didn't he? I wouldn't go that far though. United fans will always prefer to concentrate on talking about trophies that Fergies won, whilst others have tired of his antics and the amount that he gets away with. It's like Chelsea fans will always remember Drogba first for the great player he was and taking the winning penalty in the CL final, whilst others who didn't like him or Chelsea will remember him as a diver and a cheat first. I wouldn't expect it anyother way as fans we always give the benefit of the doubt to our players/managers and prefer to look at the positives in their careers when we remember them. The only thing that bugs me about actual United fans is that some will get a bit hysterical trying to defend their team and start bleating on about ABU and how they've won so many trophies, "when was the last time your side won the league?", etc. They're not the only club who's fans come out with that kind of boring crap though but apart from that my only gripe with them is that they feel what Chelsea and City are doing is wrong but they have some right to spend all the money they gain from having fans across Asia and the World who buy their shirts and have no connection to the club.
Oh YV I agree with a lot of what you say if not all of it, thing is United are different to everybody else and it's been that way since the 90s or arguably even the 50s for reasons I won't go into now. I've always said as much as I dislike Arsenal, Spurs and West Ham to a degree (well actually immensely ) I can respect their fans to an extent because they are just like us. I don't ever go on the United board simply because I cannot relate to them. For them, it's all about attaching yourself to success rather than supporting a club because of your close affinity/connections irrespective of its failures. As my mate says United fans are mainly first generation football fans whose parents weren't interested in football, didn't ever take them to games etc so couldn't show them the right path so instead they just support the team who is winning. What Chelsea and City have done is no different to what United have done only the media have successfully managed to convince the public that it is. Football never has been equal, financial imbalance has always existed. Remember before Arsenal left South London they were a club who had won nothing and had very low attendances. Back then they were far smaller than Chelsea and Spurs (possibly West Ham as well at this point), Henry Norris (The Abramovich of that era) came in and gave Chapman vast sums of money to prize away all the best players and bring them to Arsenal. Arsenal enjoyed a successful period, the foundations of which today they enjoy and it allowed them to be labelled a "big club" and have bragging rights over other London clubs. In my eyes, that is no different to what Abramovich is trying to do with Chelsea. Remember Northern and Midlands clubs had decades over Southern clubs so we have always been playing catchup.
It's true, if you meet someone who claims to be a Man U fan the first thought is, oh! not a real football fan then. The opposite of meeting someone who supports say Colchester or Scunthorpe. Biased I know, but I always expect Spurs fans to understand and appreciate football. Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool also have many hangers on who are more interested in reflected glory than football. It goes with success at the top end. I expect Spurs will attract their share when the new stadium is built.
