Coreece

I doubt John is against any evidence based program that reduces gun violence anywhere. I'll also hazard that he is happy being taxed for the purpose. Same for me. Even if I was uncertain that the results would align with my hopes I would still support the programs. But that is also how I feel about assault weapon and high capacity magazine restrictions. The thing is that neither approach is likely to increase gun violence in America so, if we are being completely rational, why not both? And now. Ask HIM. . . "When US homicide rates (per 100,000) reach the levels in Australia, western Europe and Scandinavia without changing gun laws, I'll acknowledge that approach works." I've already posted a link to three laws that have shown to reduce homicide rates. I do have some reservations with universal background checks, but closing the gun show loophole seems reasonable enough. Also, "may issue states" have an additional level of protection but I don't think the decision should be left to the sole discretion of some sheriff, but I'm not sure how it really works in those states. I also think we can do more wrt cases of domestic violence. It's ridiculous that a guy after being bailed out of jail for beating his wife for cheating on him can then stop into walmart on the way home and buy a gun to blow her away. I mean, I know there are other ways of getting a gun, but perhaps a restriction might give him more time to cool off.

Yes I would say so. This is one of the things that makes the USA so successful and at the same so miserable. Two better words would be individualism and opportunism. Both of these things are not nearly as profound in other countries. In Europe nobody has a problem with socialized health care for example... The individual has higher standing in the American Psych than it has in the old country by far. Here's some stuff on income inequality that I think follows that line of thought: "research suggests that inequality raises the stakes of fights for status among men. The connection is so strong that, according to the World Bank, a simple measure of inequality predicts about half of the variance in murder rates between American states and between countries around the world. When inequality is high and strips large numbers of men of the usual markers of status – like a good job and the ability to support a family – matters of respect and disrespect loom disproportionately. Inequality predicts homicide rates “better than any other variable”, says Martin Daly, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McMaster University in Ontario and author of Killing the Competition: Economic Inequality and Homicide. This includes factors like rates of gun ownership (which also rise when inequality does) and cultural traits like placing more emphasis on “honor” (this, too, turns out to be linked with inequality). All types of homicide are much less common in the egalitarian Scandinavian countries than in the US. But disputes over male status are so much lower in such countries that while in the US, 77% of victims are male, only 50% are in the Nordic nations." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/08/income-inequality-murder-homicide-rates

Well Channman made a comment about Chicago mass shootings and then John changed the subject to Memphis and Kansas City murder rates. But if you want to talk mass shootings, Chicago leads the way. They take up an entire page in the mass shooting database that I posted earlier and are home to almost 10% of all mass shootings around the country: - 25 mass shootings in Chicago - 4 in Los Angeles - 0 in New York City, 4 in Brooklyn - 1 in Detroit - 2 in Kansas City - 3 in Memphis St. Louis, Philadelphia and Baltimore are pretty nasty with 8-10 each. Right, that's what I'm talking about. If we're going to compare what cities are "safer" then these areas are segregated enough to make a clear distinction for comparison with patterns of segregation that are repeated in almost every other major city in the U.S. I've spent a lot of time in downtown Chicago, sometimes months at a time. It's world class, and not only do I feel safe while exploring the night life, I actually feel protected. Chicago's murder rate of 24 is practically irrelevant to me when visiting because homicides are virtually non-existent in those ares, just as it is irrelevant if you were to visit the poor segregated areas where the murder rates are 2-5 times higher than that, and are in fact driving that murder rate to begin with. This income/violence gap between these segregated areas is only getting worse. On one side you have strong growth with zero murders and $9 million dollar condos in Trump tower, but the city can't be bothered with adequately funding evidence-based prevention programs to help alleviate the burden to those living on the other side with murder rates of 30-80+ and per capita incomes of around 20k or so. And I suppose the only reason John won't acknowledge such programs is because he thinks that arguing in favor of them somehow undermines the effectiveness of gun laws. Anyway, here's a link to an interesting article about Chicago's crime/income gap when compared to New York and L.A: "once again there is a key divergence seen in the Chicago data when compared to New York and Los Angeles. While black and Latino household income levels tend to mirror gains made by white and Asian households in New York and LA, household incomes for Chicago blacks and Latinos are essentially flat compared to whites and Asians, leading to a widening gap in household incomes by race and ethnicity." there is evidence that suggests there are correlations between high levels of poverty and high levels of crime. And it's quite clear that, in Chicago's case, especially compared to New York and Los Angeles, blacks and Latinos are not enjoying the same economic gains experienced by whites and Asians. The legacy of segregation in Chicago leads to economic disconnection, frustration, and potentially opens avenues for violent crime to take root and expand.

Excuse me, but you were the one that suggested Kansas City, despite being in a gun friendly state had a higher overall murder rate than Chicago, but if you're going to talk about gun friendliness/lax gun laws, shouldn't you be comparing firearm homicide rates for each city? Do you even know what they are? The link I posted earlier shows: Chicago - 8.1 Kansas City - 8.2 Not really the best example to make your case, is it? (*note - these rates are based on the entire metropolitan area for each city)

Didn't mention any such thing. Correct, I confused Jerry's penis comment with your penis comment from another thread. In this thread you were rambling on about Rambo, not penises, my bad. Glad we got that all straightened out, thanks!

It would be nice to have a list like the one above that breaks each city down by neighborhood and has the ability to sort by crime rate, demographics, median income, median housing and any other relevant or possible contributing factors. That way whenever someone feels like having a pissing contest about which cities are the safest and why that is, we can just whip out our stats and compare without playing games.

That's a great suggestion. Since many major cities in the U.S are still relatively segregated with massive income gaps, how about from now on we just compare the crime rates in poor areas of one city to the poor areas of other cities? Same with the wealthier areas.

Well, yes...and no! See, now you fall prey to a similar thing: You suddenly bring in "white, christian, conservative" when none of these words or concepts were part of the comments above. You must be new here. Of course you're right, but just for shits and giggles, who do you really think he was referring to? Fellow liberals like himself? Non-religious/liberal gun owners like Georgia Don and Joe Weber? Black gun owners with tiny penises? . . . and of course that's what Kallend wants, which is why he decided to nitpick your post and raise it as a platform to criticize penis size rather than addressing any of the posted facts, solutions, etc., that he oddly enough dismisses as a diversion. There was no confusion with your post. Again, he was just using it as a diversion from the aforementioned stats, facts, solutions, etc. that he's either unable or unwilling to address. Ban Garlic. That's about the closest he's ever came to actually answering that question.

Of course it's not entirely fair to compare rates to raw numbers. A long while back I criticized John for choosing either rates or raw numbers depending on which fit his narrative the best. This was more of a play on the words "more dead," and was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But at the same time Chicago's 1400+ murders is a significant number, the highest for any major metropolitan area BY FAR, so yes, it does irritate/offend me a bit when Kallend seemingly tries to down play it, especially when he refuses to acknowledge ANY evidenced based prevention programs that are severely underfunded in Chicago and continue to be cut back. For many people in Chicago it's a reality they face everyday, so yes. If you're living between East Garfield and West Garfield in the figure below, Hondurus might look like a safe, affordable and attractive weekend destination - $160 round trip, $42/night. Do you really think it would matter to these people if you told them Chicago is "safer" than a handful of other metro areas? Do you think they really care that millions of wealthy white people jam-packed into high-rise condos and gated communities skew the numbers and make Chicago look safer on paper? The fact is that Chicago is segregated, with a rich world class city on one side and Chiraq on the other, so you guys can talk about lower murder rates all you want, but it's not a reality for most of the blacks (and Hispanics) living there - and they deserve for that distinction to be recognized - which is part of the reason why I always bring up Chicago, not because of the NRA, or gun laws, or lobbying groups or whatever else.

Murder rates in Memphis or Kansas City don't make people more dead than they are in Chicago. However, there ARE more dead in Chicago than both Memphis and Kansas city Combined. It's not even close.

Hi John, I call it the Dick Stretcher delusion. Jerry Baumchen See, one can try to find common ground with varying perspectives based on an abundance of evidence, stats, facts, etc., in an attempt to calm the divisive rhetoric and move collectively toward a more unified stance against gun violence, but apparently some people are more interested in the size of men's penises than they are in real, practical solutions. Indeed, just look at the comments above. Why trouble yourself with harsh reality when you can just blame the ills of American society on white, (preferably christian) conservative penile inadequacy? It just marks how shallow their depth of perspective really is on the issue.

That's what I thought was likely. It's somewhat common sense, I would think. Sure, but another point I wanted to bring up is that if you want to go by the definition used to identify the 250+ mass shootings that we were talking about in my previous post, then the impact of assault rifles on those numbers wouldn't be as profound and would more closely reflect the numbers that Blacksmith was talking about. So I agree with you that different definitions can muddy things up a bit. Take for example Everytown's analysis. They determined that there were 173 mass shootings from 2009-2017 and that "the majority of mass shootings were related to domestic or family violence. These incidents were responsible for 86 percent of mass shooting child fatalities." All these varying stats and definitions change the dynamics in how we think about mass shootings, how we talk about them, and more importantly, how we mitigate their effect.

Right, this is nothing new. Leftist groups have been crying conspiracy for years and have even given Obama shit for attending the national prayer breakfast. It just never gained much traction because like most conspiracy theories it's based primarily on biased preconceptions and suggestive innuendo that fails to make the case - and this series is just more of the same - a sloppy, incohesive and somewhat inconsistent 5-hour long gish gallop around the world and back. But don't take my word for it: The Atlantic: "dramatic reenactments, a plinky and faintly menacing piano score, selective splicing of clips featuring Maria Butina and Muammar Qaddafi. And yet, as the series continues, it’s unclear whether the Fellowship is as powerful as it would like to be, or whether its aura of mystery is its most distinct asset." "it’s hard to believe after five episodes that the Fellowship has more political influence than any K Street lobbying shop or Christian coalition." Mashable: "what could be a scathing exposé of a theocracy in the making falls flat, following too many leads that go nowhere in an already complex narrative." "The narrative weaves together numerous accusations of apparent wrongdoing, but fails to tie them off with any one "Ah-ha!" moment." Indiewire: "The big frustration with “The Family” is that it explores so many different tentacles of the organization that it fails to come to a cohesive whole." WaPo: "Many progressives will love the documentary because it gives them what they want to hear, while conservatives will probably question the motives of those involved." I can see how you might get that impression from the first episode which is basically an unflattering series of overly dramatic reenactments, but given the next 4 episodes that follow a more traditional documentary style, I'd say that being "entitled to do what they please" is a fairly inaccurate assessment depending on what you're actually talking about.

Here's a comprehensive database of those 257 mass shootings: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting?sort=asc&order=%23 Killed They are defined as "mass shootings based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot OR killed, not including the shooter." https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology Because the majority of those 257 shootings didn't involve any deaths and were related to things like domestic violence, gang fights and other issues that aren't typically associated with mass shootings nor deemed worthy of national attention. That type of air time is reserved for angry Muslims, Christians, Atheists, white supremacists and depressed teenagers pumped up on psychotropic drugs that decide to shoot up schools, churches, mosques, nightclubs, concerts, etc. Regardless tho, it's important not to lump all these shootings together but to categorize them appropriately since things like domestic violence will obviously require a different set of solutions than that of school shooting rampages. The link to the 340 mass shootings over a 50 year period that I posted earlier were all defined as: "an incident of targeted violence carried out by one or more shooters at one or more public or populated locations. Multiple victims (both injuries and fatalities) are associated with the attack, and both the victims and location(s) are chosen either at random or for their symbolic value. The event occurs within a single 24-hour period, though most attacks typically last only a few minutes. The motivation of the shooting must not correlate with gang violence or targeted militant or terroristic activity." https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/mass-shooting-factsheet/

Jesus Jerry Jesus, Jerry and JoeWeber. . . haha

He paid them to look the other way just like he's done his entire life, why should ending it be any different? Kind of poetic if you think about it, eh? Oh nevermind, you said "conspiracies aside."

One could only hope.

Yep, that pretty much sums up this thread. All these paraphrases but no one can be bothered to post at least one link to any sources to back up anything they've said. I still have no idea who the fuck this guy is. I guess we're just left here blue-balled and have to figure it out for ourselves, thanks.

Only about 20% of all mass shootings in the last 50 years involved assault rifles, but they accounted for almost half of the deaths. https://rockinst.org/issue-area/assault-weapons-mass-shootings-and-options-for-lawmakers/

Very, very hard. Republicans really, really want to be able to claim that a shooter was a leftist to muddy the connection between Trump's support of violence and shootings. (And yes, Democrats really want to be able to talk about white supremacists who go on shooting sprees, too.) But let's say that politicians put the good of society above the good of their party. (Ha!) That still doesn't solve the problem, because Alex Jones or someone is going to hover outside the courthouse, get a picture of the guy, look him up online so he can claim "LEFTIST KILLERS TARGET INNOCENTS" (or ignore it if it's a Nazi.) (And again, vice versa.) And someone in the press - not the WSJ, or MSNBC, or the NYT perhaps, but Joe's News Circus or someone. And they will do that because people will want to know, and people determine which news service makes money. I wish there were a way to make that happen. But with a capitalist news-source model I don't see it. And that pretty much sums up the dynamics of it all. The only other problem to mention is the correlation between the level of media hype and gun sales.

There will be a witchhunt. Witches will be found. Nah, it's over. All the reps calling for an accounting will soon be schooling around some other shiny object and never hold them to it. Same shit, different fucking day.

That's the problem tho, what other defendant?

Yeah, I have a couple ideas of several captioned photos/comics, but I'm refraining out of respect for the victims. I just don't consider this a gleeful moment considering that justice may have been averted.

These aren't the days of old where you can just go running around searching for any link to click, you need to protect yourself. Sounds like your type of lot lizard, eh?

Oh please. That's ALL he does.  Bullshit, he said stirring, not smoking.