The Gaming Den

PhoneLobster wrote:Second teenagers have sex with teenagers. Its what they do.

Except for all the ones that don't.

The part about the christian mindset that I don't get is the abstinence as sex education one.

If that's all you're missing, you're doing better than me. I can't figure out why they take offense at being called wannabe cannibal vampires who pray to their bloodthirsty god's sacrificial victim and occasionally the victim's mom.

fbmf wrote:Yes, folks, sex is evil and dirty, and you should only do it with the one you've sworn to love forever.

Unless you're Jewish, in which case sex is good and wonderful and you should only do it with the one you've sworn to love forever.

Not sure what the Muslims believe, cause the Koran is too poorly organized for me to wade through it.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1122256025[/unixtime]]
I'm not even saying that they can't have shotguns in their car. It's just that pistols kill a lot of innocent people and intimidate a lot of people who legitimately should be talking to the police about real problems. I have never seen nor heard of any incident that Police were able to successfully diffuse by the fact that they had a pistol in their belt that couldn't have been equally diffused by the fact that they could go get a rifle or call in a squad of assault troopers.

Well certainly police have shot drug dealers or other criminals who were going to shoot them first. This is a good thing, since it likely saved the life of the police officer. When you rush into a building and yell "freeze! drop the gun!" you won't be taken seriously if you've just got a billy club. In fact, police will be even less effective now then they already are.

I can cite one episode of "world's scariest police chases" or whatever it was where I saw this one driver going out of control, who was finally stopped by a cop on foot. He stepped in front of the car with his gun pointed at the driver's head. Had the cop only had a club, I doubt things would have worked out quite as well. It's a lot of added incentive to stop when there's a gun being pointed at your head. So there's one situation that was defused solely because of a gun.

I guarantee you that if you talk to any inner city cop, they'll tell you how carrying a firearm has saved the life of at least one cop they know. I know I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a cop patrolling gang territory with only a tonfa. That's signing up for a suicide mission.

There is no need for the cops to shoot first ever, because murderers are really rare and forensics are really good. We aren't at war with our own civilian population, and it's about time we remembered that while outfitting our police force.

Forensics are nice for civilized killers who try to cover stuff up, they're nice to collect evidence to prove guilt at trials as well. But for the average petty criminal, you're probably better off with a gun.

We just don't have the resources to call in a SWAT team to investigate any call that firearms might be needed. It helps to have armed patrolmen who can respond quickly and if need be with deadly force.

SWAT teams take a while to actually get on site and are designed for actual high pressure situations requiring expert teamwork, snipers, heavy weapons and so on. They're called out when the shit really hits the fan. Like when you've got guys in heavy body armor trying to rob a bank. But you just can't afford to call out the big guns all that often.

What you all seem to be missing is that the whole "guy is gunned down for wearing a coat" thing happened in Britain, where they already do pretty much exactly what Frank is suggesting. The fact that those police officers had guns means that they were members of SO19, which is basically the British equivalent of SWAT.

Of course that actually helps Frank's point, since it proves that such a system can obviously work (at least when coupled with strong enough gun control laws), but this paticular incident hardly helps his case. At best its irrelevant, and at worst it shows that these sort of things will happen regardless of how few police officers get to carry guns.

On the other hand, if you could show that this sort of thing happens much more rarely in the UK than in America (which is probably true) then that would be a strong argument in favor of Frank's proposed system. Personally, I think it would be an improvement, but only if you also made America's gun control laws a lot tougher.

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1122578917[/unixtime]]
but only if you also made America's gun control laws a lot tougher.

Ah, so you're trying to foment civil war, eh?

If the government messes with the second amendment too much, there will be a second civil war. It's not even a question.

If you are going to throw away American lives just so we can be more like the english, be my guest.

I agree. I said it would be better, I didn't say it is an achievable goal or worth the effort to get there.

I think the second amendment is an incredibly outdated remnant of a time when "arms" were quite different and making weaponry available to the general citizenry actually helped protect against oppressive governments and invasion. Nonetheless, I realize that a lot of Americans disagree with me and that changing the constitution is virtually impossible even if you do have a lot of popular support. I didn't realize it was to the point that people would actually go to war over it, and can't understand their mindset at all, but if it means so much to so many people I suppose its best to not rock the boat.

If you can't toughen up gun laws, Frank's proposal loses a lot of its appeal. I don't think a situation where the average criminal has a gun and the average cop doesn't is really workable. So I suppose we're back where we started.

Well, perhaps I see things other people don't, there are a lot of people where I live that would in fact fight to the death to protect their guns. And that's not even mentioning the various seperatists groups stationed in the hollows and such, where even now, if you're a cop, you don't go in unless you are leading an army. Who knows what they'd do if they had a reason to be paranoid.

I had heard that Switzerland has mandatory gun ownership, yet a very low crime rate. I'm wondering how that happened?

(I personally am against gun control because banning guns in a country where guns exist causes crime to skyrocket. Criminals love defenseless victims.)

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1122594875[/unixtime]]
(I personally am against gun control because banning guns in a country where guns exist causes crime to skyrocket. Criminals love defenseless victims.)

Handing out guns to civilians is a great deterrant to street crime, like armed roberries, muggings, rapes, hate crimes and so on. It works because it forces every violent criminal to consider that he could be against not only the police, but the entirety of society.

The downside is that you're going to have a lot of problems with police enforcement because the police now have to treat every person as a potential threat. Thus the number of trigger happy cops is likely to increase somewhat.

Still I'd be more in favor of giving everyone a gun rather than trying to get rid of guns. I think the former is a lot more feasable. Gun control just doesn't work. All it does is keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. If a criminal is going to rob a bank, he sure as hell isn't going to care about the risk of buying an illegal weapon off the street.

No. Handing out weaponry to civilians does not work. Having more weaponry at hand increases the amount of violence that occurs, and increases the lethality of the violence which happens. More guns in the hands of the citizenry doesn't discourage anybody from doing anything, because the vast majority of crimes are opportunistic or performed during fits of rage. The less time it takes an average person to reach a lethal weapon, the more likely an ordinarily law abiding citizen is to kill somebody.

A gun in your house is flat more likely to be used against a family member than it is to be brandished against an intruder. Home invasions just aren't that common, and your family is there every day.

That being said, the effect of gun control, while positive, is actually really small. There is no credible evidence that arming the citizenry has any positive effects at all - for every "I totally faced off a rapist" anecdote you can whip up three "my 3 year old son found his way into the gun locker" anecdotes. For every "I made a mugger back off" anecdote" there's three "I was pretty pissed off and a little drunk, so I shot my friend in the face" anecdotes. But the effects just aren't that dramatic.

If you dispense more guns into society, more innocent people will die who shouldn't. Period. But the amount of extra people you are killing by giving out guns is just not that large. We know what causes crime:

ECONOMIC DISPARITY!

That's the big one. All the piddly shit that you mooks are encouraged to argue about like Gun Control and random bag searches and racial profiling doesn't do dick by comparison. If you want there to be less violent crime, put in a halfway decent welfare system. Anything else you do or don't do is just a fan in a hurricane by comparison.

-Username17

Switzerland does, in fact, have extremely high gun "ownership" and low homicide rates. However, what Americans think of as "gun ownership" isn't exactly the same thing -- the Swiss have a lot of guns because all of them are in the army, and the guns they have are in fact their government-issued weapons. (Yes, this means the Swiss store select-fire assault rifles in their homes.) Israel has a similar level of "civilian" firearms accessibility, but they, too, have mandatory military service.

You can have high crime rates with extremely harsh gun control (Washington, DC springs to mind) and you can have low crime rates with extremely high levels of gun possession. Whether Switzerland's murder rate would be lower if they had DC levels of gun control, I have no idea, but in general the data lead me to the conclusion that factors other than gun control have much more to do with crime rates.

--d.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1122607977[/unixtime]]
ECONOMIC DISPARITY!

That's the big one. All the piddly shit that you mooks are encouraged to argue about like Gun Control and random bag searches and racial profiling doesn't do dick by comparison. If you want there to be less violent crime, put in a halfway decent welfare system. Anything else you do or don't do is just a fan in a hurricane by comparison.

Economic problems are the number one reason for crime, yes. But welfare won't fix that.

Criminals don't just want their fair share. They want more than that. People don't become drug dealers because they can't get a job working at Walmart or some factory. They become drug dealers because they want more than some crappy minimum wage job. Crime is the fast track to riches, especially for those who aren't educated or intelligent enough to do anything but minimum wage jobs. And hell even rich people commit crimes for more money, like the accountant who embezzles money. Rich people just commit different crimes like stock fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion because the minor street punk crime style isn't lucrative enough to interest them.

Regarless of how you set up your economy people are always going to want a bigger peice of the pie. And you really can't do anything to stop people from trying to perform non-violent forms of theft aside from just coming down harshly on people who try that stuff.

Violent crimes can be solved by handing out guns to everyone. Yes, it's true that you'll have a lot more gun related accidents, but the overall crime rate will go down. The trade off may or may not be worth it in certain areas. I'm unconvinced that crimes of passion will necessarily increase due to the presence of a firearm. I mean if you're looking for ways to kill someone, it's pretty easy. Also I think people are less likely to act like asses to others if everyone is armed with a gun, so fights probably won't break out as much, because you know that anyone can kill you if you piss them off enough. People tend to respect others who carry guns and while you may see problems with people who are drunk or on drugs, I don't really see the big problem with requiring people to check their guns at the door of a bar or other drinking establishment.

But I really can't be sure if handing out guns to everyone would actually be a good solution. One thing I can be sure of however is that gun control just doesn't work. Never has and never will. You just cannot feasably take the guns out of the hands of criminals, that means the cops (and probably the civilians) need them too.

Frank, I'd thought that I would never ever see anyone else besides Steve Kangas make the direct corrolation between economic inequality and crime.

Though I think that television violence is a huge factor in it, too.

null wrote:Though I think that television violence is a huge factor in it, too.

A ridiculous claim founded on the same principles that claim D&D causes people to kill and commit suicide.

IE, some guy said so.

Frank is right as hell, social injustice causes violence and crime.

And as the injustice gets worse the crime and violence gets worse, just look at Rio.

Still gun control is still smart policy.

Edit:
Oh yeah, and don't forget the drug war, nothing breeds crime and provides it with resources like the drug war. Oh boy.

It might be wiser to fix the social injustice before you institute any form of gun control.

In short, never. Social injustice will never be fixed, because there will always be people who want more than anyone else. and they tend to gravitate toward politics, and make the rules anyhow.

wrote:Social injustice will never be fixed,

Its an ongoing project with measurable benefits. "Mostly fixed" is heaven on earth compared to "totally screwed".

wrote:because there will always be people who want more than anyone else

Pretty much, but so what?

For a start such people wouldn't be automatically adverse to making THEIR world a better more secure place.

wrote:and they tend to gravitate toward politics,

Utterly debatable, if not outright false.

The only people out there who want anyone to believe that claim are A) Greedy people in politics smearing everyone with the same brush, and B) Guilty members of the electorate who seek to shift the blame off their own shoulders.

You sound suspicously like the refusing to take responsibility by using cliched excuses about politicians crowd. Man do those people get my goat.

wrote: and make the rules anyhow.

Oh for the love of... So even if they don't go into politics they make the rules? Raw GREED makes you that powerful does it?

Yes it does, in fact. Pay fvcking attention.

the greedy people get rich. He who has teh gold makes the rule.

Are you retarded or something? I'm sorry that you have to scream at me because I don't fellate you becuase you're a liberal. Get fvcked.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1122607977[/unixtime]]We know what causes crime:

ECONOMIC DISPARITY!

That's the big one. All the piddly shit that you mooks are encouraged to argue about like Gun Control and random bag searches and racial profiling doesn't do dick by comparison. If you want there to be less violent crime, put in a halfway decent welfare system. Anything else you do or don't do is just a fan in a hurricane by comparison.

-Username17

I always that that ECONOMIC DISPARITY was the result of crime, not vice-versa...

Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1122669096[/unixtime]]
I always thought that ECONOMIC DISPARITY was the result of crime, not vice-versa...

Only if you use the broader definition of "crime" to include "anything that you do that hurts other people". The fact that as CA stated those who have the gold make the rules means that things that create economic disparity are rarely actually illegal.

But crime goes up in Michigan when factories move to Malaysia or Saipan. Factories don't especially move to Saipan to escape crime.

---

That being said, the defeatist attitude of "People in power are all the same and all bad so it doesn't matter what happens" is pretty annoying. Yes it matters who is in power, and yes different people have various different agendas which are in turn more or less palatable. Hitler and Stalin weren't the same, and neither one of them was especially similar to Roosevelt or Churchill.

There is an element of politics that is a dog and pony show. The Democrats and Republicans disagree only on who should get kick backs, how large those kick backs should be, and who should shoulder how much of the burden of paying for those kickbacks. The US does not have a major political institution that favors any sort of radical restructurement of anything. Nor does the US have any major political institution which is actually interested in running the clean and free economy that we keep fighting wars and signing treaties for.

But even those differences are real. The Democrats and Republicans are not equivalent.

But yes, GREED doesn't give you any power. Power gives you power, and it may or may not take GREED to get power in the first place. I would definately say that people in power have a higher chance of being a sonofabitch than your average man on the street. But that's not a statement that carries much meaning by itself, nor is it worth telling people to get fvcked over.

-Username17

I am about as liberal as you can get, but you (not I, you) will be damned if you think that the introduction of television has nothing to do with the rise of violent crime.

Television is responsible for Americans having a more homogenous culture, being more sexually aware, being more racially and religiously tolerant, and revolutionizing politics and I am just not going to believe that the huge amount of violence on television has nothing to do with the rise of violent crime in this country.

I don't think it is THE reason, but it is a factor.

what rise of violent crime in this country?

US Justice Department weighs in.


The fact is that people in the US didn't really view violent crime as a social problem that should be talked about until the early seventies, and as people have been talking about it more it's actually been happening less.

Really. Murder and rape are problems, but smaller problems than people seem to think. If the TV has been getting more violent, and that has an effect on violence in society, then obviously TV violence inhibits real violence. That correlation is negative. Violent crime has been on the decline for over a decade.

-Username17

Interestingly enough, there's a link on the same site that suggests there was a rise in violent crime in this country -- it just didn't happen when most people think it did. See here.

Looking at the chart, homicide rose sharply between 1900 and 1910, rose steadily until about 1940 to roughly double the 1910 level, then dropped back to the 1910 level and remained in that rough area until the late 1960s -- when it rose sharply again to about the previous high, and then dropped down again in the early to mid 1990s. That's a really interesting set of results, and I'm not sure how to explain them yet.

I would have bet on a drop in the 1940s (which did in fact occur) due to World War 2, and even the slight peak in the mid-40s could have been predicted when the war ended and large numbers of young men found themselves without a war to fight, but where does that leave WW1 and Vietnam? Did we just not lose enough people in either war to make a dent in the murder rate, or was the effect of Prohibition severe enough in the '20s and '30s to wash out whatever effect the war had? And what's with that slight trough in the "Greed Is Good" '80s?

So many questions! This should be good for hours of speculation.

--d.

Looking more closely, the peak is actually in '33, and has already fallen dramatically by '40. If you're in the mood to blame Prohibition for the '20s and the early '30s, you'll be happy to know that the peak murder year is 1933 -- the 21st Amendment was ratified at the tail end of that year, and the murder rate began to trend downward thereafter.

--d.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1122675308[/unixtime]]But that's not a statement that carries much meaning by itself, nor is it worth telling people to get fvcked over.

-Username17

No, it isn't. I never told anyone to get fvcked over it.

However, been talked down to like I was 11, then screamed at because I didn't automatically agree is very good reason to tell someone to get fvcked. I've done it to my boss, I'll certainly do it to some random assjack on the internet without a twinge of remorse.

[The Associate Fence Builder Speaks]
Gentlemen, let's remain on topic in civilized tones.
[/The Associate Fence Builder]

Lago wrote:I am about as liberal as you can get, but you (not I, you) will be damned if you think that the introduction of television has nothing to do with the rise of violent crime.

Actually, this belief puts you squarely in the mainstream of modern liberal thinking. One difference between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives want to eliminate sex from the media, while liberals want to eliminate violence.

I ain't no liberal, (aside from anything else a major political party of that name down here associates things with migrant gulags and other international disgraces).

I'm a leftist, raised by and among card carrying communists, public school teachers, and even dreaded starving artists and bibliophiles.

And I doubt that TV has an effect on violence, and I doubt it is responsible for the growth of social tolerance and other stuff like that.

Partly because there were many other much more real movements that lead to social tolerance.

People marched the streets, people DIED to forward those causes and you think a mere thing like TV is what got us where we are?

Elvis waggled his hips off air for YEARS before his gyrations freely graced the air waves, TV follows our society (with major delays) it does not lead it.

But aside from anything else because religious tollerance, racial tollerance, sexual awareness, homogenised cultures and political propoganda have existed and grown to similar, and greater, levels (and shrunk and grown and collapsed and emerged) in various cultures since the dawn of recorded history, while TV hasn't.

Its not that I believe TV doesn't do something. It IS a major communication channel and can be used to diseminate propoganda and information/disinformation. But it isn't a sole source, just one of many now and a serial over the great arc of history.

No the major thing I believe TV does is reduce the learning of social skills through interaction with actual people in the young. And I in turn think this leads to people of our general age group sucking at organizing their social lives (and not much else).

Also I do not believe in reducing sex on TV, or violence. In fact I want more sex, more violence, more drug use and most of all more "adult themes". Because these are things which make us think and feel and are the undisputed colours in which the greatest works of art and fiction are painted.

I thing the G and the PG ratings are evil and should be abolished. I think children should grow up watching things we rate now as M and MA.

Because its a learning experience.

Because its wrong to in essence lie to children (As a rule it is a betrayal of all morality to lie kids about santa claus, sex and death).

And also because when you grow up watching Teletubies and Saddle Club you become an adult who craves soul destroying dross like "Dumb and Dumber 2" and "Spanglish". Or more accurately minds raised on PG may never become MA, doesn't that worry anyone?

And if I rain on the parade of the "all politicians are evil so everything sucks and you can't blame me for not caring or making a difference" folks well its because they deserve a wake up call, THEY are part of the problem with the system and they need a slap in the face and a few harsh words, because fostering an attitude like that destroys democracy.

It isn't a desire to be worshipped due to being "liberal" (a fine a piece of propoganda regurgitating as any). Its a desire to take people who justify their feelings of guilt and apathy over politics with a destructive and defeatist world view and telling them to damn well stop screwing over our democracies with their whining personal issues.