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Must admit Brian, I don't get their thinking. I suppose when there are 300 million guns out there it has reached the point where it's nigh on impossible to reign them in and probably take more than the might of the US army!
Maybe small changes are the answer, reduce the capability of automatic weapons first, and college kids demonstrating on the streets creating a ground swell, may have same effect as women did, marching against the troubles in Ireland. Who knows?
In the end, it's easy for us to blame the politicians, vested interests etc but it's up to the public to react in large numbers. Elected members tend to take notice when their votes are threatened.
It won't happen, but the obvious way is to ban the sale / possession of ammunition - that way the number of guns in circulation is not an issue (eventually).
As you say, though, the majority of the public think that having a gun is the ultimate symbol of their freedom - comes at quite a cost, this freedom business.
"Thank you for supporting Queens Park Rangers Steep Staircase"... and I thought I'd signed up for a rollercoaster.
There is NO centralised/searchable record of who owns ANY particular gun.
Why?
Because the NRA don't want a centralised/searchable record of gun ownership.
Why don't they want it?
Because they think government will use the the register to take guns away from owners at some point in the future (eg, if the US government passes stronger gun control laws).
In 2014 US gun manufacturers sold getting on for 11,000,000 guns.
The US also imported nearly 7,000,000 guns.
In ONE year.
The most powerful nation in the world kowtowing to the NRA.
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Arm the teachers on 17:53 - Feb 22 with 2101 views
So the solution to the problem, according to Trump, is to have even more people have even more guns. WTF?
The NRA has 5,000,000 members with a revenue (they're a non-profit organisation apparently) of $433million in 2016.
$433m is pretty small fry really when you consider McDonalds had $24.6billion the same year, Nike $34billion in 2017 and Coca Cola a staggering $46billion.
So with comparitively little money, how do they yield so much power? Is it simply the sheer number of members?
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Arm the teachers on 18:29 - Feb 22 with 2069 views
I can see the only compromise they would possibly make being to stop the importation of foreign firearms, the only reason they'd do that is to protect the interests of the US manufacturers like Smith & Wesson and make it appear that they are doing something 'positive'.
Can you imagine having no centralised database?!?! So much so that the gov passed a law saying it was in fact illegal to have a computerised and searchable database of gun owners.. It is complete and utter madness..
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Arm the teachers on 22:38 - Feb 22 with 1949 views
I'm working in DC at the moment and was talking US colleague last night. Turns out that amongst other things he was very religious (part of some super-conservative Christian church) and family-oriented. Like many people in his Southern Orthodox church he was into big families - he has six kids. And he loves firearms and adores taking his kids to shooting ranges.
Only in the US can a conversation over a beer veer so quickly from religion to family values to kids in shooting ranges.
Read an article in the independent on gun laws. Japan with a population of 127 million it is legal to have a gun. However they run stringent background checks and you have to habe a 95% accurecy on the range before you qualify to get one. The upshot. You have the right to bear arms but hard to get one. How many gun deaths in a country last year with 127 million people?
Ten
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Arm the teachers on 23:22 - Feb 22 with 1908 views
Just discussing this in the pub. The most similar thing we have in this country is knife crime. Knives are everywhere in this country and nearly everyone has one. Mainly because they're very useful, unlike guns imo. Would we ever arm our police force with knives? No we give them stab vests and other protection. Some officers have guns but I'm fairly certain they're not really meant for people with knives.
Not sure what my point is but it's the best comparison I can think of over here.
So if someone walks into a school with a machine gun the teacher is now expected to get the kids to safety. unlock the gun cupboard, get the gun and best case scenario kill the shooter and end up being scarred for life or worse case get killed themself by the shooter or the swat team. Genius idea
Not at all. First of all, they will presumably have the gun somewhere handy, such as a holster on their person. Secondly, the teachers in question are all supposed to be ex-military trained to the normal high standards of that fine body of men and women.
The result should be obvious to anyone familiar with US military history i.e. countless kids killed by friendly fire, plus a 10% drop in staff attendance due to teachers having shot themselves in the foot while drawing an isosceles triangle.
Whether or not the teachers will be required to wear stetson hats, leather waistcoats and chaps and tether their horses outside the classroom is not yet clear.
Seriously though, how many ex-military teachers are there in the average American school? Its a totally stupid idea even on its own premise, and God knows that's moronic enough.
[Post edited 22 Feb 2018 23:47]
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Arm the teachers on 23:35 - Feb 22 with 1903 views
The young man at the start in this video speaks so powerfully. Trump is a piece of work - the world may just have reached peak stupid. I'm a teacher and most in-service training is pretty dull; How to Shoot a Kid would be interesting, at least.
[Post edited 22 Feb 2018 23:57]
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Arm the teachers on 00:23 - Feb 23 with 1865 views
Read elsewhere, cant find the link, that one hospital in London says they are dealing with over a thousand stabbings a week, off the back of fatalities so far this year. The bloke said they had become exerts in stab wounds in recent years.
Was quite surprised by the figures, the US isn't the only one with a problem with weapons. A simple mandatory 10 years and no parole, for carrying a knife would sort it out.
Fortunately there isn't a powerful knife lobby funding political parties.
The US is just mad. Same as Brian said, not my monkey or circus.
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Arm the teachers on 00:45 - Feb 23 with 1833 views
NRA chief Wayne LaPierre after Parkland: “Lean in, listen to me now, and never forget these words: to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.”
How about stopping a bad guy from getting a gun to start with?
The Second Amendment was an acknowledgement of the necessity of the populace to supplement the meagre resources, both of the military and law enforcement, of a fledgling state. It continued as settlers colonised westwards faster than effective governmental supervision.
But those conditions haven't prevailed for more than a century. Effective gun control would massively aid law enforcement without any harm to the defence of the state. The US should wake up to the awful cost of its continued tolerance of weak gun laws.
Arm the teachers on 00:23 - Feb 23 by Brightonhoop
Read elsewhere, cant find the link, that one hospital in London says they are dealing with over a thousand stabbings a week, off the back of fatalities so far this year. The bloke said they had become exerts in stab wounds in recent years.
Was quite surprised by the figures, the US isn't the only one with a problem with weapons. A simple mandatory 10 years and no parole, for carrying a knife would sort it out.
Fortunately there isn't a powerful knife lobby funding political parties.
The US is just mad. Same as Brian said, not my monkey or circus.
Okay, I will bite.
1000 per week. So, that's 52,000 per year. Let's say it's only actually 10,000 people doing multiple stabbings. Let's say with the introduction of your great new law, this goes down to 1000 people. As you have scared off 90% of wrong' uns.
According to this site: http://www.fpe.org.uk/the-cost-of-prisons/ It costs £40,000 per year to house prisoners. Forget about the court costs and policing in the first year, we shall just pretend that is resolved back to £40K due to efficiency savings of mass processing of offenders.
So, we are 1000 proper naughty people * £40K * 10 years. My maths is really bad as I was brought up under the milk snatcher government, but I make that £400 million. Don't panic! I have a much better idea and it costs less. So, all Tories will really love it as it is austerity for the state prisons and how can that be bad.
For a mere £300 million, we instead create jobs at £30K per year for 1000 potential bad un's to do things like pick up litter, help kids cross the road, instead of menacing them. Ask people nicely not to hang around outside the opera house quaffing champagne as it is disturbing the UB40 Reggie busker who has to make a living the only way he can.
Don't worry about "the little blighters won't even do that", yes they will. £30K for being on the street is their dream job. We shall be cleaner than Canada. And with their mobes we have an instant neighbourhood watch to watch for burglary which is the number one crime in the UK. Community policing on the cheap, more Tory luvin :)
With the £100 million left over, we can catch the ones who slip through the net. Not forgetting that each and every one of those £30K salaries will be probably spent in the UK. So, we get most of it back again as it won't' go to outsourcing companies like G4S who will offshore it all away to Luxembourg (that is in the evil EU you know).
See I have fixed that for you. Of course, you won't be able to pleasure yourself in this way anymore, thus may I recommend going to the US where you can pleasure yourself on the 3 strikes rule that is new baseball sport over there.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzz
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Arm the teachers on 02:31 - Feb 23 with 1747 views
1000 per week. So, that's 52,000 per year. Let's say it's only actually 10,000 people doing multiple stabbings. Let's say with the introduction of your great new law, this goes down to 1000 people. As you have scared off 90% of wrong' uns.
According to this site: http://www.fpe.org.uk/the-cost-of-prisons/ It costs £40,000 per year to house prisoners. Forget about the court costs and policing in the first year, we shall just pretend that is resolved back to £40K due to efficiency savings of mass processing of offenders.
So, we are 1000 proper naughty people * £40K * 10 years. My maths is really bad as I was brought up under the milk snatcher government, but I make that £400 million. Don't panic! I have a much better idea and it costs less. So, all Tories will really love it as it is austerity for the state prisons and how can that be bad.
For a mere £300 million, we instead create jobs at £30K per year for 1000 potential bad un's to do things like pick up litter, help kids cross the road, instead of menacing them. Ask people nicely not to hang around outside the opera house quaffing champagne as it is disturbing the UB40 Reggie busker who has to make a living the only way he can.
Don't worry about "the little blighters won't even do that", yes they will. £30K for being on the street is their dream job. We shall be cleaner than Canada. And with their mobes we have an instant neighbourhood watch to watch for burglary which is the number one crime in the UK. Community policing on the cheap, more Tory luvin :)
With the £100 million left over, we can catch the ones who slip through the net. Not forgetting that each and every one of those £30K salaries will be probably spent in the UK. So, we get most of it back again as it won't' go to outsourcing companies like G4S who will offshore it all away to Luxembourg (that is in the evil EU you know).
See I have fixed that for you. Of course, you won't be able to pleasure yourself in this way anymore, thus may I recommend going to the US where you can pleasure yourself on the 3 strikes rule that is new baseball sport over there.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Fully costed LazyFan for Home Secretary! - you know he makes sense.
Meanwhile with Amber Rudd like Theresa just nominally in charge by the fingertips I predict serious nationwide prison riots this summer.
Prison isn't working. Not enough officers in Wormwood Scrubbs for starters.
NRA and Trump? So entrenched in profound proud ignorance, that I and well over half the world's population I suspect, despair. Just gotta wait this term out.
I note my close to Pasadena based journo brother an ex-pat of 30 years doesn't talk of gaining US citizenship so much of late.
[Post edited 23 Feb 2018 2:57]
'I'm 18 with a bullet.Got my finger on the trigger,I'm gonna pull it.."
Love,Peace and Fook Chelski!
More like 20StoneOfHoop now.
Let's face it I'm not getting any thinner.
Pass the cake and pies please.
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Arm the teachers on 06:34 - Feb 23 with 1585 views
Does sound crazy, not least as most of the killings are carried out quickly and amongst the mayhem hard to imagine a teacher will be in the right place at the right time.
That said, and somebody has to play devils advocate here, has ANY US President done anything ever about the gun problem out there? It may be a mad idea but at least it's an idea.
Believe Trump has also talked about some method of stopping guns being instantly converted into automatics, again has any other President?
Bill Clinton introduced a ban on assault weapons in 1994. It expired in 2004 when Republicans refused to back its renewal.
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Arm the teachers on 07:23 - Feb 23 with 1555 views
The young man at the start in this video speaks so powerfully. Trump is a piece of work - the world may just have reached peak stupid. I'm a teacher and most in-service training is pretty dull; How to Shoot a Kid would be interesting, at least.
[Post edited 22 Feb 2018 23:57]
That first kid, just... Wow. It's rare for my eyes to water but how raw was that. To be so articulate at that age with that fresh emotion, just wow. Fck Trump for his lack of empathy.
So the solution to the problem, according to Trump, is to have even more people have even more guns. WTF?
The NRA has 5,000,000 members with a revenue (they're a non-profit organisation apparently) of $433million in 2016.
$433m is pretty small fry really when you consider McDonalds had $24.6billion the same year, Nike $34billion in 2017 and Coca Cola a staggering $46billion.
So with comparitively little money, how do they yield so much power? Is it simply the sheer number of members?
See my post on page 1...
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Arm the teachers on 09:04 - Feb 23 with 1516 views
That first kid, just... Wow. It's rare for my eyes to water but how raw was that. To be so articulate at that age with that fresh emotion, just wow. Fck Trump for his lack of empathy.
Exactly.
If Trump banned the sale of automatic assault weapons tomorrow as a first step, there would still be hundreds of millions of guns in circulation.
But it would be a first step.
He could introduce specially trained ex-services teachers, if that's what he wants to do - but he could also still ban the sale of automatic assault weapons - the two idea are NOT mutually exclusive.
As the Chinese proverb has it - the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is today.
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Arm the teachers on 10:03 - Feb 23 with 1457 views
There was a story on the BBC the other day (can't find the vid) where I think it was Norway that retrains 90% of its prisoners and helps them to get jobs and homes, they go out to work most days, reoffending is almost 0%
The USA is too far gone on prisons and we follow them when we should be following the Norwegians
Bill Clinton introduced a ban on assault weapons in 1994. It expired in 2004 when Republicans refused to back its renewal.
Interesting to know that, thanks.
Do you know if that 10 year period showed a reduction in fire arm deaths? I honestly don't know but if it did you'd hope any present argument for gun control would be using that information at the front of it's campaign.
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Arm the teachers on 10:09 - Feb 23 with 1439 views
Do you know if that 10 year period showed a reduction in fire arm deaths? I honestly don't know but if it did you'd hope any present argument for gun control would be using that information at the front of it's campaign.
Good question. It's not clear from the graph if the cluster following Columbine were related copycats or not. Otherwise it looks to have made a big difference. I believe the rate has gone up a lot since 2014.
[Post edited 23 Feb 2018 10:34]
A magnificent football club, the love of our lives, finding a way to finally have its day in the sun.
So the solution to the problem, according to Trump, is to have even more people have even more guns. WTF?
The NRA has 5,000,000 members with a revenue (they're a non-profit organisation apparently) of $433million in 2016.
$433m is pretty small fry really when you consider McDonalds had $24.6billion the same year, Nike $34billion in 2017 and Coca Cola a staggering $46billion.
So with comparitively little money, how do they yield so much power? Is it simply the sheer number of members?
You need to understand the politics and the power the NRA holds due to political funding, along with NRA members donating directly. You say $433 million isn't very much, but the NRA is basically a gun club, it is not a company. It is highly funded by gun manufacturers that use it to control gun laws in the US. Interesting article below worth a read.
I don't have much room left on my patent pending Trump Respect-o-meter, but it slipped down another notch with this latest stunt. A bullshit consultation that pretended to gather the views of traumatised, grieving teenagers but still ended with him giving a prequel of his latest NRA-co-produced idea. Just used those kids and parents purely so he can say he listened to a lot of people on this and thought very carefully about it. The man is scum.
Anyway, here's another decent explanation of a lot of what's going on. If you only have 5 minutes there's a hilarious add at the 15.40 point.
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