(while trying to answer this my power supply broke down :( had to go and 
buy a new one).

On 30-1-2011 2:18, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> BTW from what I have heard guns (if you know where to get them) are
>> not outside the budget of a 15 YO.
>
> A 15YO drug dealer, maybe. It's not hard to see what the price of a gun
> is. The price *you* pay for them over there? Not so much.

IIRC from a newspaper article it was in the order of €150-€200. Within 
reach of any paper-boy. Availability is mainly via Belgium, with its 
broader fire arm laws. I don't know who made them.

> I.e., I doubt there's much traffic of inexpensive stolen firearms
> between the USA and the UK.

I don't think they need to be stolen.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_night_special#Economic_class
>
> Then, if you can't actually import them, you can do this:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_gun
>
>> BTW I was not blaming anyone. I was just pointing out that also people
>> abroad may die as a result of a US policy on guns. In the Netherlands
>> they are mainly foreigners involved in drugs who get shot here, but
>> still.
>
> While I understand your concern, blaming firearm deaths on other
> countries having a big market for firearms is like blaming automobile
> deaths on other countries having a big market for automobiles. It
> basically doesn't really make much sense. The link between "americans
> are allowed to have guns" to "fred shot sam in the UK" is tremendously
> tenuous, methinks.

Proving it in a particular case is rather useless. And I am not blaming 
anyone. There was a discussion on whether the net effect of the US gun 
laws is more or less victims. My point was that you might need to look 
further than your own country. What I proposed was to compare two 
situations 1) the current one where the NRA is the main direct and 
indirect factor in gun control and 2) the fictitious USA where gun 
control is comparable with e.g. the Netherlands (which is where I live 
BTW). In the latter situation not only would the market be smaller, 
there would be less choice and not being legal would have an additional 
effect on the price. All these factors would mean that the number of 
guns in other countries would also be smaller. At least that is what I 
think. That is not a moral judgement however.
Probably the gun manufacturers and dealers would move to Canada or 
Mexico, still reducing the legal market would have an effect.


>> Ok, you are blaming the EU for a decision in Africa by leaders that
>> are more concerned about themselves than their people?
>
> The same as you're blaming America for a decision made by criminals in
> your country.

Again, I am not blaming anyone.

>>> http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/08/Bettertostarve.shtml
>> That sounds not so objective.
>
> I gave you the link to the newspaper, too. Of course it's not objective
> - it's a blog.
>
>>> Honestly, Mexico is worse. They have just as many guns, if not more.
>> Yes for exactly that reason.
>
> Mexico has many guns for exactly *what* reason? Because Americans can
> own guns? They're not especially regulated in Mexico either, you know.

Sorry, that was meant for the sentence before. Mexico is worse because 
of it's own mixture of drugs and availability of fire arms.

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On Sat, 29 Jan 2011 19:58:01 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 29/01/2011 7:32 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>>> Yes, nuances is a better word. "Liberal" changes its meaning here
>>> depending on whether it is spelt with a capital "L" or not.
>>
>> Interesting - so which meaning were you using?
>>
>>
> With a small "l", Liberal is a political party. They used to be called
> Whigs now they are just little "c"s

Ah, I see. :-)

Jim

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andrel wrote:
>> I.e., I doubt there's much traffic of inexpensive stolen firearms
>> between the USA and the UK.
> 
> I don't think they need to be stolen.

Why are you blaming the USA if you can pass import restriction laws to solve 
your problem, then?  I assumed you were talking about *illegal* firearms, 
because otherwise all you have to do is pass a law making the legal firearms 
illegal to solve *that* problem.

> Proving it in a particular case is rather useless. And I am not blaming 
> anyone. There was a discussion on whether the net effect of the US gun 
> laws is more or less victims. My point was that you might need to look 
> further than your own country.

That's fair, certainly.

> What I proposed was to compare two 
> situations 1) the current one where the NRA is the main direct and 
> indirect factor in gun control 

I think a lot of people in this country are in favor of being able to have 
their own guns. It's not like the NRA has taken over or something. There are 
a whole bunch of states where getting a gun legally is extremely difficult, 
and a whole bunch where it's really trivially easy, because people like it 
that way. And it's mainly historical situations that dictate that.

>>> Ok, you are blaming the EU for a decision in Africa by leaders that
>>> are more concerned about themselves than their people?
>>
>> The same as you're blaming America for a decision made by criminals in
>> your country.
> 
> Again, I am not blaming anyone.

OK. Read "blame" as metaphorical, then. :-)

> Sorry, that was meant for the sentence before. Mexico is worse because 
> of it's own mixture of drugs and availability of fire arms.

Yep. But it's mainly worse because the organized crime has taken over from 
the "legitimate" government. Government, really, is just the biggest 
protection racket. If you lose control to local criminals, all the laws in 
the world won't keep them from making their own firearms pretty easily.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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On 30/01/2011 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> With a small "l", Liberal is a political party. They used to be called
>> >  Whigs now they are just little "c"s
> Ah, I see.:-)

You "c", is that conservative with a large or small "c"?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:36:47 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 30/01/2011 6:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> With a small "l", Liberal is a political party. They used to be called
>>> >  Whigs now they are just little "c"s
>> Ah, I see.:-)
> 
> You "c", is that conservative with a large or small "c"?

LOL, I'm no Tory. ;-)  That'd be about as crazy as me joining the BNP and 
still wanting to live in the UK. ;-)

Jim

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On 30/01/2011 8:02 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> LOL, I'm no Tory.;-)   That'd be about as crazy as me joining the BNP and
> still wanting to live in the UK.;-)

:-D

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 30-1-2011 20:32, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>>> I.e., I doubt there's much traffic of inexpensive stolen firearms
>>> between the USA and the UK.
>>
>> I don't think they need to be stolen.
>
> Why are you blaming the USA if you can pass import restriction laws to
> solve your problem, then?

I am *NOT* blam... sorry you got that by now.

> I assumed you were talking about *illegal*
> firearms, because otherwise all you have to do is pass a law making the
> legal firearms illegal to solve *that* problem.

firearms are illegal here (minus a few exceptions). I was talking about 
legally obtained guns entering illegal into this country. But you 
already got that too.

>> What I proposed was to compare two situations 1) the current one where
>> the NRA is the main direct and indirect factor in gun control
>
> I think a lot of people in this country are in favor of being able to
> have their own guns. It's not like the NRA has taken over or something.

No, they just will make any politician or any journalist saying gun 
control may be a good idea lose his job. ;)

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On 1/29/2011 10:23 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> "What if they where not available to the criminals either
>
> That's completely unrealistic, tho. It's almost trivial to make a simple
> firearm. Even when you're in a country under martial law being invaded
> by an attacking country, it's not all that hard to get guns.
>
> Now, if you *also* disarmed the police and military, maybe that would
> happen.
>
> Or, you can look at countries where *everyone* has guns and knows how to
> use them, and see a tremendously low violent crime rate, and consider
> that maybe the guns aren't the biggest problem to address, even if
> reducing them would help.
>
Not seeing a lot of those. Most places, everyone having one isn't a good 
thing. It certainly wasn't in the US past.

>> We know we could reduce, or remove, the number of guns out there.
>
> Yeah, because that worked *so* well with drugs. And with alcohol before
> that.
>
>> We *don't* know if training will do any good. You get a lot of idiots,
>
> Sure. Because only the brightest people go into the military, and people
> accidentally shoot each other every day there.
>
>> We do not know if everyone having one is a good thing, though that was
>> *precisely* the way things where in the old west, and you could,
>> often, only tell the bad guys from the good guys by whether or not the
>> locals/courts decided you belonged on the end of, or rigging, the
>> rope, hardly a prime example of the "good" that every idiot in sight
>> being armed would produce.
>
> Sure. But that was also at a time when the only police force was the
> general population. Disarm them, and watch what the bad guys do.
>
>> And so on. And, the claims that "studies" say you are better off armed
>> take as little, or less, of *any* of the stuff into account that
>> studies saying guns are not a good thing do.
>
> No it doesn't. It's a simple statistic: People with guns got hurt in
> violent crimes less than people without guns. Admittedly it didn't look
> at things like accidental shootings, but then this was the FBI unified
> crime statistics, not the FBI unified accident statistics.
>
> Saying you can't tell whether it works is like saying you can't tell
> whether changing the speed limit state-wide reduces accidents.
>
>> Pick what can predictably work
>
> Does it work? How do you know?
>
>> Doesn't imply a real big certainty about all those "other" studies
>> saying its a good thing to have them around imo.
>
> Understand that the reason the guns are around in the USA are for when
> the shit hits the fan. We haven't had a whole lot of revolutions in this
> country, in part because of the second amendment. Before you disarm
> everyone, take into account the effect that has on how corrupt the
> government can get, before you loudly proclaim the benefits of being
> just as disarmed as the general population of, say, China. :-)
>
Imho, the second amendment doesn't have **jack** to do with it. If we 
had the government try to do something, the populace *had* risen up, and 
the result wasn't a lot of dead people, and the government winning, you 
would have a point. Otherwise, this is bloody idiocy, founded on a fairy 
tale. Everyone having a gun wouldn't help us fight the government 
successfully today, nor would it have done so at any time in the last 
century. Assuming you could get the military to act against the people 
it protects, the general citizenry would be out gunned, by so massive a 
level, it wouldn't be like freedom fighters doing sneak attacks, armed 
with a few guns, it would be more like a primitive tribe attempting to 
stop a tank, using sticks.

What keeps the government in line is a) so far we haven't had anyone 
sufficiently crazy as to believe they need to *fix* things by 
overthrowing the constitution (even if we do have a few stupid enough to 
not have a damn clue what it says), and b) the people who would have to 
enforce any such overthrow wouldn't allow it, regardless of who was 
pushing them. The general populous being able to wave a hand gun around, 
when facing a Mach-2 aircraft with frakking cluster bombs, is 
meaningless. It gets more and more meaningless as things progress.

Its also imho, a dangerous and stupid way of solving problems. The nuts 
we have right now, who *could* very easily cross that line, if not for 
the fact that less than 10% of the population would even pretend at 
following them, babble about using guns, force, and the second amendment 
to overthrow people the other 90+% of the country elected. The sane 
people are going to use every method possible to solve the problem 
without violence. The crazy people will do anything at all they must, to 
win, and shooting at things is like item 3 on every damn one of their lists.

Overthrowing governments by guns a) doesn't work, b) gets a lot of 
people dead, and c) makes no guarantee that the ones that shoot last are 
going to be the ones *defending* democratic ideals. On the contrary, the 
ones most likely to do it don't really believe in them (even if they 
play lip service to all of them, while cherry picking only the ones that 
they find helpful). The reason it doesn't work is that its the law, and 
the constitution, and the ideals, that define whether or not the damn 
thing is fair, just and/or free, not how many people got shot getting 
there. If you can't curtail the nuts, and stop violence with words, you 
have **already bloody lost**.

That is the reason why so much of the idiot rhetoric you see now is so 
disheartening. We have stopped fighting with facts, evidence and sense, 
and have instead seen one side drift more and more to the other, while 
the other side keeps getting more and more absurd. And, **they** are the 
ones suggesting that more guns is a good thing, and that we erase 
virtually every progressive law, rights, constitutional amendment, or 
principle we have, which doesn't *fit* their world view. Their answer on 
how to do this? Get a gun, in case terrorism (i.e., fear and lies) 
doesn't work, and we can't just legislate our view on everyone!

What is standing in their way is the military, not the general 
population. That is why **part** of the BS they have been pulling is to 
try to evangelize the military, to make them side with them, instead of 
the rest of the country, who are not evangelicals, literalists, etc. If 
the military is not on their side, they can't violently overthrow the 
"liberal atheist communist government". If they where, they know, quite 
well, that the general populace would be no more able to defend 
themselves against the resulting, "corrupt government", than anyone else 
has been, in countries where everyone has bloody guns, but the result is 
genocide, by whom ever has the bigger set/number of guns.

The second amendment, if directed at "preventing government corruption", 
is a fantasy. If you fail, or even if you manage to shoot the "corrupt 
official(s)", you are a terrorist, or a traitor, or a madman. You can't 
win. And no one claiming you can is talking about the next bloody Hitler 
taking over the country, they are talking about someone, "letting gays 
marry", or, "using spy satellites to read their location via their tooth 
fillings". In short, they are talking about overthrowing the country 
over something only a fraction agree with, or they are completely insane.

The fall of this country, if it comes from within, isn't going to be 
undone/prevented by a handful of people with guns. Given the kinds of 
people that tend to be most obsessed with the damn things, most of them 
are going to be *welcoming* the new order, not fighting against it.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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On 1/30/2011 8:59 AM, andrel wrote:
> (while trying to answer this my power supply broke down :( had to go and
> buy a new one).
>
> On 30-1-2011 2:18, Darren New wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> BTW from what I have heard guns (if you know where to get them) are
>>> not outside the budget of a 15 YO.
>>
>> A 15YO drug dealer, maybe. It's not hard to see what the price of a gun
>> is. The price *you* pay for them over there? Not so much.
>
> IIRC from a newspaper article it was in the order of €150-€200. Within
> reach of any paper-boy. Availability is mainly via Belgium, with its
> broader fire arm laws. I don't know who made them.
>
>> I.e., I doubt there's much traffic of inexpensive stolen firearms
>> between the USA and the UK.
>
> I don't think they need to be stolen.
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_night_special#Economic_class
>>
>> Then, if you can't actually import them, you can do this:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_gun
>>
>>> BTW I was not blaming anyone. I was just pointing out that also people
>>> abroad may die as a result of a US policy on guns. In the Netherlands
>>> they are mainly foreigners involved in drugs who get shot here, but
>>> still.
>>
>> While I understand your concern, blaming firearm deaths on other
>> countries having a big market for firearms is like blaming automobile
>> deaths on other countries having a big market for automobiles. It
>> basically doesn't really make much sense. The link between "americans
>> are allowed to have guns" to "fred shot sam in the UK" is tremendously
>> tenuous, methinks.
>
> Proving it in a particular case is rather useless. And I am not blaming
> anyone. There was a discussion on whether the net effect of the US gun
> laws is more or less victims. My point was that you might need to look
> further than your own country. What I proposed was to compare two
> situations 1) the current one where the NRA is the main direct and
> indirect factor in gun control and 2) the fictitious USA where gun
> control is comparable with e.g. the Netherlands (which is where I live
> BTW). In the latter situation not only would the market be smaller,
> there would be less choice and not being legal would have an additional
> effect on the price. All these factors would mean that the number of
> guns in other countries would also be smaller. At least that is what I
> think. That is not a moral judgement however.
> Probably the gun manufacturers and dealers would move to Canada or
> Mexico, still reducing the legal market would have an effect.
>
Not going to happen. For a large segment of the people in the US, 
especially politicians, even *suggesting* that someone else's situation 
is pertinent to the US situation is damn close to some form of 
blasphemy. Unless, of course, the one making the comparison is a right 
wing wacko, and then they ignore the actual facts, in favor of making up 
shit that they know most people won't have a clue is completely false. 
If you tried to compare to, say, the UK, their "invented" facts would 
either be to claim that their gun laws cause 500 times as many deaths, 
especially among cops, as the US, or they would lie and claim that their 
laws allowed everyone over the age of 8 to own one. Its more likely to 
be the former though, since Britain isn't "foreign" enough, and its just 
possible a large number of people would know that claiming everyone 
slept with one under their pillow would be seen through, even by total 
idiots.

But, its not uncommon for claims to be made about just about 
*everything* from prostitution to drugs, which try to make every country 
with even moderately different laws as a cell pool of hell, worse than 
anything we have here, and therefor, as bad as it is in the US, it would 
be worse if we even suggested adopting someone else's solutions, never 
mind actually did so.

We even get the same BS "internally". Like the bozo protesting the 
health care bill, on the basis it would bankrupt the whole country, less 
than a year after passing a near identical *state* bill, in his own 
state. I swear, sometimes living here is like wandering into some old 
village, where like one person in the whole thing ever went any place, 
and that was to the next bigger village, to sell a pig, so *everything* 
outside must be foreign, and wrong, and dangerous. Been at least twice 
this past week someone from either Canada, or even one of the eastern 
states, who has come in to the store I worked at and said, "Do you 
accept a Safeway card from out of state?" About ready to tell the next 
one, "Dah, Soviet Arizona accept all card, even from capitalist nation, 
like Nebraska!" I mean WTF?

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/29/2011 10:23 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> "What if they where not available to the criminals either
>>
>> That's completely unrealistic, tho. It's almost trivial to make a simple
>> firearm. Even when you're in a country under martial law being invaded
>> by an attacking country, it's not all that hard to get guns.
>>
>> Now, if you *also* disarmed the police and military, maybe that would
>> happen.
>>
>> Or, you can look at countries where *everyone* has guns and knows how to
>> use them, and see a tremendously low violent crime rate, and consider
>> that maybe the guns aren't the biggest problem to address, even if
>> reducing them would help.
>>
> Not seeing a lot of those. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

>> Understand that the reason the guns are around in the USA are for when
>> the shit hits the fan. We haven't had a whole lot of revolutions in this
>> country, in part because of the second amendment. Before you disarm
>> everyone, take into account the effect that has on how corrupt the
>> government can get, before you loudly proclaim the benefits of being
>> just as disarmed as the general population of, say, China. :-)
>>
> Imho, the second amendment doesn't have **jack** to do with it.

Sure it does. Combined with soldiers (for example) taking an oath to the 
constitution instead of the leaders, it helps.  But I'm not going to argue 
that with you.

> Assuming you could get the military to act against the people 
> it protects, the general citizenry would be out gunned,

Yes, because, you know, Afghanistan hasn't had any success in such a situation.

> The general populous being able to wave a hand gun around, 
> when facing a Mach-2 aircraft with frakking cluster bombs, is 
> meaningless. It gets more and more meaningless as things progress.

Funny. Tell them that in Iraq.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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