GeorgiaDon

No sir.. thats what you were doing with this: "It's pretty obvious your feelings on the matter are interfering with your ability to read" And it is pathetic. Fine. Be like that if you want. In your earlier response to me (to which I was responding) you said: "It is also unrealistic to expect a civilian to fight for his life with his bare hands against an armed shooter.... But that is what you seem to want to make everyone do.... " and also "It's disingenuous to suggest that not arming them will do anything either... Other than make them easier to kill. " Please point out to me exactly where I said anything about disarming anybody, or where I said I expected anybody to fight for their life with their bare hands. I have always been explicit that I do not question people's right to be armed for their own defense. In fact, I said: "My point is not to argue that people should not have the right to arm themselves. " So you have made shit up whole cloth when you say I want people to defend themselves with their bare hands. You have put words in my mouth when you say that I suggest disarming anyone. You want a straw man to argue against, and when you don't get the argument you expect to hear, well then you just make it up. Pathetic indeed. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Oh, that's what you were doing! I can see that as an example. I'll have to find/read the original CDC article. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Health insurance premiums and medical costs have gone up faster that any other category of expenditures I can think of, every year I have been in the US work force. The US economy puts a larger share into the medical arena than any other advanced industrial nation, a share that increases every year, yet receives value that is no better than many other countries. This expense is a huge drag on the US economy. When we spend $50,000 for a procedure that costs $10,000 elsewhere, that's $40,000 we do not have to invest in building factories or other things that might result in actual wealth/job creation. Arguments that the ACA costs too much completely ignore the fact that medical insurance premiums have been increasing at a rate well above inflation for a long time, and show no signs of slowing down, while excluding an ever larger fraction of the population. It also conveniently ignores the fact that medical expenses have long been the leading cause of bankruptcies, even amongst people with medical insurance. Of course it is now all too easy to blame every increase on the ACA, pretending that all was perfect before that socialist Obama took the reigns. All insurance companies are in the business of making money, and they all do that by collecting (and investing) premiums while limiting payouts. The practice to this point has been to limit payouts to the minimum needed to maintain credibility (no-one would buy their policies if they never paid out on anything) by cherry picking the healthy, dropping clients who start to "cost too much", and limiting covered services. That's to be expected from unregulated "entrepreneurial capitalism". It's also about the only way to stay in business in such a market, no-one will be able to compete if their policy is to cover lots of high risk customers even if they wanted to. This model leads to fewer and fewer people being covered, for less and less, at greater expense. This is the inevitable result of a completely hands-off, let the marketplace alone decide, approach. An alternative approach is to enact regulations to create a level playing field that stipulate a minimum level of services provided and prevent insurers from kicking customers out once they start to make claims against their policies. It helps the insurers out to increase the size of the potential client pool by requiring everybody to purchase coverage, and that also addresses a growing problem of people using medical services without actually paying for them. This is what the ACA does. Not saying it's perfect, but I think many of the imperfections arise from the effort to preserve the old system (many private insurers) instead of going whole hog to a single payer system. You may choose to believe that all government employees are motivated only by the desire to exercise power over regular working stiffs. I know many people, working at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, who work long hours for less pay (and more abuse) than they would get in the private sector, for the chance to work on problems that are challenging and that make a difference, improving the lives of perhaps millions of people. People take for granted all the basic research that must be done to advance a field before private industry takes any interest in becoming involved, all the work that has to be done to ensure a relatively very safe supply of food and medications, and on and on. I know there are some here who feel the government should stay out of virtually everything. If robber barons monopolize essential services, you just have to pay. If the economy collapses too bad so sad, not their problem. Have your kidneys killed by E. coli? It's up to you to figure out where it came from and then try to sue whoever sold you the contaminated food (Ron Paul's position, by the way). Got cancer from contaminated water? Same deal, you're on your own. For better or worse, most Americans feel the government does have a role in keeping things on a relatively even keel, promoting the "general welfare" and all that. The medical system in the US has been on track to seriously damage the economy, sucking up more and more of the resources while providing services to fewer people, bankrupting many of them in the process. The US has been far behind the curve, compared to every other Western democracy, in trying to address the issue. It would be completely irresponsible to continue to ignore the problem, as per Republican and Libertarian policy, IMHO. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Well if by "odd" you mean "not following the NRA script" then I suppose you have a point. Unlike some, I realize that there are upsides and downsides to every course of action. The question is, what action is optimal? In the seemingly paradoxical case of military bases as gun-free zones, I wonder what the reason for that policy was. Obviously in the Fort Hood incident, and now the Navy Yard, things would likely have turned out better had people been armed and able to respond. Yet, it is hard for me to think of the military as reflexively anti-gun. So, I assume some reason existed for the current policy, a better reason than "Clinton did it because he hates the military". I don't know the reason for the policy, so I can't form an opinion whether or not the policy is reasonable. Mass shootings are rare but spectacular events. Maybe, prior to the policy, smaller workplace incidents were common enough to justify the ban (just guessing, I don't know this). Two or three workplace incidents a week throughout the entire US military adds up to a lot more people than a couple of mass shootings, while attracting a lot less attention from the press. On the other hand, society seems to have become more violent over time. Perhaps the balance between potential defensive uses and offensive uses in the workplace has shifted, requiring a new policy. It's hard to know without any data. Of course, to some the idea of an "optimal policy" is irrelevant. The right to carry is inviolate, no need to weigh what policy would result in the lowest overall body count. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

It's pretty obvious your feelings on the matter are interfering with your ability to read, causing you to leap to conclusions that have no logical connection to the words you are responding to. I never suggested that citizens be disarmed, or prevented from defending themselves. Although I enjoy a good debate, I greatly dislike having words put in my mouth for the sake of a straw-man argument. Also, how can it make any sense that defensive gun use incidents outnumber criminal gun uses? Doesn't that have to mean that some so-called defensive uses are in response to something other than a criminal threat? In fact, since a lot of criminal acts are not met with a defensive response involving guns, your assertion suggests that people are frequently using guns for "defense" when no actual threat exists. How can an action be "defensive" if there is no actual threat to defend against? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Thanks for digging into that a bit deeper. I wonder how they interpret answers to their questions. For example, I oppose affirmative action now, although I think it was necessary at one time, because I think it has now become a crutch to allow some to make excuses for their lack of success and because it fosters racial resentment. I assume that makes me a "racist" by their metric. Just assuming that anyone who is opposed to affirmative action is racist is simple-minded to the point of stupidity. Also the notion that voting Republican makes someone a racist is pretty offensive. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I think the change of tone would be good for the Catholic Church, and indirectly good for the US if it makes at least some of the anti-choice and anti-gay types less shrill. However the basic positions of the Church are not changing: Francis remains opposed to ordination of women, and the Church still considers abortion to be murder and the practice of homosexuality a sin. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm not inclined to give such forecasts much credibility until they offer some information about their methods. If you're talking about 22 year old non-smoking non-drinking non-skydiving types, you're going to get a very different answer than if you ask about 55-year-olds with a serious sickness or two in their medical history. It's pretty easy to bias such a "study" to get the result you want. One issue I have not seen discussed re the ACA is the effect on lifetime expenses for medical insurance and health care. If you think about things from a cradle-to-grave perspective, paying a bit more when you're young in exchange for lower premiums when you get older might be a good deal. Paying higher premiums when you are young in exchange for being able to get insurance at all after you've had a serious illness may be a great deal. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

which is interesting and all, but only supports the notion that army bases aren't full of armed people.Well sure. I just have this notion that it's helpful to have the facts straight. Why does the policy exist? Was it reasonable under whatever circumstances led to its enactment? Have circumstances changed? Falsely attributing it to Clinton, as certain Republicans have been doing lately, politicizes the issue and allows it to be wrapped up with all the rest of the self-serving mythology about Democrats hating the military. I'd be genuinely curious to know when and especially why the policy was enacted. Are there good reasons to maintain the policy today? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

This article, which rickjumps1 posted a few days ago, addresses the false claim that Clinton is to blame for disarming military bases. Army regulation 190-14, which Clinton did sign in 1993, merely codified an existing Department of Defense Directive, which was put in place by George HW Bush. The Yahoo story (first link) also has the following quote: "Steven Bucci, a foreign policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and a former Army Special Forces officer, said he doesn’t believe there was “ever an open carry law” on any military base in the country in recent history. “I don’t know where people got this idea that military guys are always carrying around weapons,” Bucci said. He said that in 1973 while stationed at Fort Bragg, he was required to keep his privately owned firearm stored in an arms room while on base." So the policy of military personnel not carrying weapons on base goes back much earlier than Clinton. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

It's not my data set. I didn't write the article, nor did I post it. I simply responded to someone who misunderstood or misinterpreted it to derive an erroneous conclusion. However, it seems to me that if such incidents were routinely ended by armed citizens (as opposed to law enforcement, although they are also armed and are citizens) there is no a priori reason why there shouldn't be some incidents where the body count got beyond 4 before they were able to intervene. What are the odds that our armed citizen will be present when the first shot is fired every single time? The buzzfeed article lists nine incidents that were ended by "armed citizens with private firearms". Curiously, five of these involve off-duty police officers, police officers working security, police officers taking a class as part of their ongoing training, and in one case a retired army ranger. Of the four remaining cases, even the buzzfeed article says "details are murky" for half of them; a different motherjones article examined those cases (and others) and showed that the gunman had run out of ammo or had stopped shooting and walked out to the parking lot and appeared to be surrendering. (That's not say it doesn't take huge balls to step into a situation where you don't know if the gunman is ready to give up or not.) My point is not to argue that people should not have the right to arm themselves. It is not even to argue that it is impossible for an untrained civilian to get lucky and stop such an incident. But the record suggests that active shooters are almost always stopped by trained law enforcement, or (more commonly) kill themselves when they have achieved whatever delusional goals they had in mind. It is hard to outdraw someone who already has their gun out and is shooting. There have been several cases of civilians who tried, and found themselves dead or wounded for their trouble. Dealing with an active shooter is a very difficult task, one military personnel and certain law enforcement personnel invest a lot of time in training for. It's a totally different situation that some gang banger who wants to relieve you of your cell phone and wallet. The criminal is generally smart enough (if only barely) to figure out that the risk of getting shot is not worth the return, they prefer victims who meekly hand over the goods. Someone who is simply out to kill as many people as possible, and who expects to be killed in return, is much more dangerous. Perhaps some civilians also undergo training to deal with active shooters, at their own expense, but no-one that I know has done that. A day or two a month at the local shooting range does not prepare anyone to deal with a heavily armed and mobile gunman across the mall at a shopping center, or down the hall in a school, especially if panicked people are running around and getting in the way. It's unrealistic to expect citizens with handguns, and no training for the situation, to be able to intervene. It's disingenuous to suggest that arming even a large percentage of the population, without also training them, will do anything to reduce the frequency or severity of mass shooting incidents. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I think it was a "great leap", a huge accomplishment that required the sustained effort of thousands of people for almost a decade. I can't think of any other effort that pushed technology so far so fast, except maybe WWII. Unfortunately it stalled because the underlying motivation was political: beat the Russians to the moon, and prove our political system is better than their system. Just another Cold War proxy for actual conflict. The science was pretty much an add-on until they got to the last few missions; Apollo 17 (the last moon landing) was the first to have a trained geologist on the crew. The rush to beat the Russians meant that no time could be taken to develop cost-effective approaches. Once the race was won, there was no political motivation to sustain the effort. After all, the goal was "beat the Russians", not "establish a permanent colony on the Moon". Once the goal was achieved it became politically impossible to go back and "do it over again from the beginning", but this time with cost-effective technology. "Land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade" was a great goal, but unfortunately it also set up the conditions to make it a one-off effort and not a long-term advance. Maybe going to Mars will provide an opportunity to do things properly. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I took it as totally "tongue in cheek" (though not literally of course). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Hey Max! Hope you're doing well. Around campus, I've seen bumper stickers that say "Real doctors can treat more than just one species". I've got to find out where to get one of those. One of the problems with medical costs is what is described in the video linked in the first post as "inelastic demand". If someone needs medical treatment, they usually REALLY need it. How much will you be willing to pay if the alternative is, you die? So people will sell their home, drain their retirement, whatever it takes. Veterinarians don't have that kind of leverage, people will pay only so much for their pet's health. It's even worse for large animal vets, as no farmer will pay more than an animal is worth at market for its care. If someone is having a heart attack, or is diagnosed with a malignant tumor such that even a small delay in beginning treatment reduces the chances for a good outcome, can they really start calling around to see where they get the best value for their dollar? Add to that the secrecy that clouds everything about what medical services actually cost, and meaningful negotiation is impossible. I had minor surgery for a trigger finger, and I got bills for months. I separate bills from the surgeon, the surgical clinic, the anesthesiologist, for the x-rays, for the consultation, it just went on and on. No veterinarian could retain any clients if they treated patients that way. Medical costs are out of control because the system is engineered to exclude competition base on price, and because the alternative to paying whatever the system demands is disability or death. By the way, I suspect you might have misunderstood the point of Wendy's post. Sarcasm is hard to get across online. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Sure. Which was my point. Don was it? seemed to be deflection - half of the time it was cops, there's a differences between defensive posture and stopping the situation, and counting 3 would mean many more incidents in the denominator. OTOH, MotherJones definitely thinks it knows best. In the first paragraph I said: "In the buzzfeed report, the incidents were stopped before the death toll reached the level of a mass killing, so they would not have been considered in the motherjones report." In the second paragraph I raised the issue of the off-duty cops vs "average citizen". Not deflection, a legitimate question. Does a cop forget their training when off duty, or when working security? Do average citizens somehow acquire the knowledge of how to deal with such a situation simply by receiving a concealed carry permit in the mail, without ever having to spend a single minute training, ever having to demonstrate any proficiency with any type of firearm, and without having to demonstrate any understanding of relevant law? One theme per paragraph. I'm sure a lawyer will be familiar with such a concept. Are we not allowed to make more than one point per post? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

We've discussed this from time to time here in SC, where we routinely solve all the world's problems; the problem is the world doesn't listen. There are societal issues at play for sure. Easy access to guns, combined with those issues, makes for a toxic brew. Unfortunately there is no easy fix, no way to turn back the clock. There are so many guns out there now, any effort to ban them would just disarm the law abiding. Even efforts to address the societal ills run into conflict with deeply held values of many Americans. Any expenditure of tax dollars on programs to divert kids from a life of crime run head first into anti-tax "let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" zealotry. Our predominant system of school funding is programmed for failure: making schools dependent on local property taxes ensures that schools in poor neighborhoods struggle to provide the minimum level of quality, while schools in well-off neighborhoods have resources to cater to every interest. Yet, efforts to take money from rich districts to improve schools in poor districts is fought as "socialism". Even our war on drugs exacerbates the problem it was designed to solve, by ensuring that so many kids grow up in fatherless households. The vast majority of Americans that I have met are generous, considerate, genuinely good people. It seems strange to me, then, that they have built a society that seems so founded on selfish self-interest, where every dime invested in helping actual people to achieve their best potential is resented bitterly. What do I mean by that? As an example, every penny spent on after-school and summer recreational activities for kids is fought against, despite abundant evidence that kids hanging around with nothing to do tend to get into trouble. Then we have to spend twice as much for courts and juvenile detention facilities, but that is funded without a bat of an eye. This country could be different, if we regarded that kid in a hoodie as a potential doctor instead of as a thug. In my dreams, I guess. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Well, if the alternative was to create a whole new government agency, maybe the IRS is the lesser evil? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Like don't run out of gas in the worst part of town? In Canada we learn that lesson a different way: don't run out of gas when stuck in a snow storm. Have you ever left your home town? Say, maybe to travel? How the fuck do you know what "the worst part of town" is when you've never been there. Stay home on your couch, it's safe there.FWIW Ottawa, Canada just recorded it's 8th murder of the year. Metropolitan Ottawa has a population of 1.2 million people. Can you name any US city of similar size that has had only 8 murders so far this year? I'm pretty sure we've had more than that in the city where I live, and that has barely 100,000 people. WTF is so different in the states, that they like to kill each other so much? Ottawa has several big music festivals every summer: a blues festival, a carribean festival, folk, jazz, all kinds of music. Crowds of people downtown, having fun, at 1 in the morning or later. No violence, no fear, no need to arm yourself. Yet we are told that Canadians are not free, because they don't have the 2nd amendment. I doubt that most Canadians would trade their situation for the American version. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Sure. Which was my point. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

If you actually bothered to read the motherjones report, you would have seen that they used the FBI definition of a mass murder, which is a minimum of four killed in a single incident at a single location. So ONE of your examples would qualify. If we are to count every incident in which three or more people die as a mass murder, there would be multiple mass murders in the US every day. Further, the implication of the buzzfeed article is that such incidents are frequently derailed by joe average citizen types. The rhetorical question posed in the article title, "Can law-abiding citizens with guns combat mass shootings?", clearly suggests that arming "law-abiding citizens" would prevent such incidents. Yet, of their nine examples four involve police officers who happened to be off duty, in one case actually working as a security guard, and one more involved a retired police officer. As these people are trained to deal with situations of this nature, I question how legitimate it is to compare them to concealed-carry licensees in general. In Georgia, for example, one needs only to pass a background check to get a carry permit; no demonstration of any type of training, proficiency, or even familiarity with relevant law is required. How are we supposed to compare such people with trained law enforcement officers? I'm sure some of them do at least go to the range from time to time, but how many train regularly on how to take down an active shooter in a public place with lots of people around? As some have commented here in SC before, carrying means you can at least try to defend yourself if you are given no other choice. No dispute from me on that point. But, simply carrying does not prepare average citizens to put themselves in harms way to intentionally confront an active shooter, especially in a situation where you are likely to hit bystanders. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I don't think those reports are inconsistent. In the buzzfeed report, the incidents were stopped before the death toll reached the level of a mass killing, so they would not have been considered in the motherjones report. One quibble about the buzzfeed report, is it legitimate to count off-duty police officers (who were actually working security in one of the cases) as if they were the same as civilians who happened to be carrying and intervened? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

What struck you as "not accurate"? It all seemed pretty spot on to me. About the presentation, different strokes for different folks I guess. Not my favorite "style", but more tolerable than those annoying computer-generated monotone economics-lecture YouTube videos. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Still waiting for some who supports the revocation of SYG to answer this one....People have always had the right to defend themselves, using an appropriate level of force for the circumstance, including deadly force. SYG brings nothing new to the table in that regard. What has changed with SYG is that people no longer have any legal obligation to take non-lethal actions to avoid or defuse a situation when it is possible and safe to do so. It puts "honor" above human life: you can choose to kill someone, rather than "back down". You can even provoke a confrontation, then use the confrontation to kill someone. You can shoot someone in the back as they are walking away, then claim you were "scared they would come back". You can nearly run over a pedestrian on a sidewalk, then shoot them when they give you the finger, claiming you thought they might be armed. People have certainly also been killed as a result of belligerent assholes believing SYG gives them the right to order you to turn off your car stereo, or end your birthday party and send everybody home, to give a couple of examples. Even if the aggressor is ultimately convicted, the dead are still dead, and they are dead because SYG encourages people to be assholes. SYG fosters situations where two people both believe they are "exercising their rights", and neither will back down. SYG is the legal equivalent of the school yard crowd, surrounding the fighting kids and egging them on. It says, "stand up for your rights, back down if you're a coward". What's next for the NRA? Laws bringing back dueling? I know that the vast majority of people with concealed carry permits are responsible and do not behave in such a manner. But considering that the legal right to self defense has always existed, if SYG encourages even 1% of the population to be belligerent assholes, how are we better off? I for one do not feel safer, knowing that any asshole with a firearm can kill me, without the threat of legal repercussions, if I in any way, intentionally or not, give them the idea that I might somehow be a threat to them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Say what now?I sense a "Hold my beer and watch this" story coming. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

If the mother is guilty of rape or fraud, she may have a hard time shouldering the financial responsibility from prison. If she is not in prison, we have to wonder why? Did the male victim not press charges? Does the evidence not back up his story? As far as deception/crime is concerned, is lying about birth control a crime? If so, is saying "I'll pull out before I come" or "I won't come in your mouth", and then doing the opposite, also a crime? Should men go to jail for promising to do something, then not doing it? No method of birth control is perfect. If the guy absolutely does not want children, he has options, the least of which is to take responsibility for birth control himself. Demanding access to sex without any of the responsibility is like demanding to be able to skydive without any risk of injury or death. Such a thing does not exist in the real world. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)