Gun Control

[bladeracer]

You have to start looking at other reasons like the mass immigration policies at the time. Of course pointing that out gets you labelled a racist.

I think this is the reason Melbourne was locked down for so long, I think their multiculturality was the issue, and racism made it impossible to lock down just the areas that were causing the problems, so everybody had to be locked down. Certain cultures simply disregarded the basic requirements of preventing the spread of viruses.

[Lazarus]

That imprisonment rate started climbing with the introduction of privatisation of prisons apparently.

It's in the intersest of various levels of the system to have the highest incarceration rate possible.

America isn't really a country, it's more a corporate conglomerate in many ways.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publi ... e-prisons/

[mickb]

good point

[northdude]

not sure exactly how the privatization works as far as money goes but more numbers on the books usually means more funding.....

[Lazarus]

not sure exactly how the privatization works as far as money goes but more numbers on the books usually means more funding.....

This description is from my memory of a docco on Viceland, can't give authentication.

Supposedly, someone arrested on a misdemeanour can be charged federally under some circumstances.

The federal prison system gets $X/prisoner from the taxpayer and has to demonstrate a high standard of incarceration with rehabilitation as a goal.

However, the feds can contract that period of incarceration to a state correction system with lower standards for $X-Y with Y being the cream for the feds.

That state system can then subcontract to a private county prison for even less, gaining their own bit of cream.

The private systems are basically warehousing.
Massive sheds with wall to wall dormitories.

They also take the 3 strikes into consideration as often as possible because that prisoner is a guaranteed profit beast, until he's shivved.

[cz515]

That imprisonment rate started climbing with the introduction of privatisation of prisons apparently.

It's in the intersest of various levels of the system to have the highest incarceration rate possible.

America isn't really a country, it's more a corporate conglomerate in many ways.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publi ... e-prisons/

Very good point mate

[cz515]

You have to start looking at other reasons like the mass immigration policies at the time. Of course pointing that out gets you labelled a racist.

I think this is the reason Melbourne was locked down for so long, I think their multiculturality was the issue, and racism made it impossible to lock down just the areas that were causing the problems, so everybody had to be locked down. Certain cultures simply disregarded the basic requirements of preventing the spread of viruses.

There is a very good reason why people start calling racist when comments like this are done.

Australia and usa was built on immigration, but for some people it's only immigration of white people that is allowed or counted. That's racist mate. Micb, blaming on immigration, in usa most of the incarcerated are black people, mate they were brought over as slaves couple of hundred years ago.... so yes your logic is wrong. Sorry

Blade same here mate, did you realise Sydney has more immigrants..... resulting in your assessment wrong.

[northdude]

You have to start looking at other reasons like the mass immigration policies at the time. Of course pointing that out gets you labelled a racist.

I think this is the reason Melbourne was locked down for so long, I think their multiculturality was the issue, and racism made it impossible to lock down just the areas that were causing the problems, so everybody had to be locked down. Certain cultures simply disregarded the basic requirements of preventing the spread of viruses.

or they can see through the bs that fooled so many. or they come from backgrounds where fear is used as a tool for control and you need something a bit more convincing than a virus that's been around in some shape or form for centuries that we had forgotten that we learnt to live with....

[mickb]

You have to start looking at other reasons like the mass immigration policies at the time. Of course pointing that out gets you labelled a racist.

I think this is the reason Melbourne was locked down for so long, I think their multiculturality was the issue, and racism made it impossible to lock down just the areas that were causing the problems, so everybody had to be locked down. Certain cultures simply disregarded the basic requirements of preventing the spread of viruses.

There is a very good reason why people start calling racist when comments like this are done.

Australia and usa was built on immigration, but for some people it's only immigration of white people that is allowed or counted. That's racist mate. Micb, blaming on immigration, in usa most of the incarcerated are black people, mate they were brought over as slaves couple of hundred years ago.... so yes your logic is wrong. Sorry

Blade same here mate, did you realise Sydney has more immigrants..... resulting in your assessment wrong.

You might have me wrong CZ. I lived and worked in 6 x 3rd world countries mate, put in enough work towards helping people of different skin colors My point was influxes of populations with different cultures brought together can cause problems. Populations go on the move for whatever reason, usually natural or man made disasters, or invited in for cheap labor and end up living with another culture, everything from wars down to spikes in crime or incarceration occur. This isnt an opinion, its sociology and half a UN workers job is dealing with it.

I'll be the first to agree bad things occur, but the worst thing of all is when the media decides you cant point it out. As mentioned its common fare to discuss this in the poorer 3/4 of the world, just the 1st world doesnt , because politicians dont want to spend the time and money to sort it out.

Look at the plight of indigenous communities up north. Some of them are almost like warzones, incarceration rate 5x higher than the rest of the country, domestic violence through the roof, alcohol bans, kids living between 5-6 different houses. Yet any time a person tries to highlight it( black or white) the media and govt throws another "fight over Australia day " or "removes a captain cook statue" because its a 1000x cheaper than addressing the problem....

[on_one_wheel]

or they can see through the bs that fooled so many.

Exactly

Prepare yourselves folks, covid is failing to scare the masses any more ...
Monkeypox
If simply feeling unwell didn't scare you, perhaps feeling unwell and looking like the elephant man will.
Is now officially a global emergency, you'll catch it... there's a jab you can get, it'll be free, free stuff is great.

[bladeracer]

I think most of the cultures I'm talking about are "white", colour isn't the issue, their actual cultural beliefs are what cause them to have differing values on these things - not wrong just different. Other cities didn't have the issues Melbourne had.

There is a very good reason why people start calling racist when comments like this are done.

Australia and usa was built on immigration, but for some people it's only immigration of white people that is allowed or counted. That's racist mate. Micb, blaming on immigration, in usa most of the incarcerated are black people, mate they were brought over as slaves couple of hundred years ago.... so yes your logic is wrong. Sorry

Blade same here mate, did you realise Sydney has more immigrants..... resulting in your assessment wrong.

[Pennsylvania Yank]

The Sentencing Project may have some good points in their arguments, but we should keep in mind that they are a well funded, Left Wing Washington DC Think Tank whos mission is to essentially destroy and "re-imagine" our current Justice System, they are not an unbiased news source, and they will absolutely not include any counter-arguments, contrary facts, or anything in their articles that contradicts or detracts from their goals and agendas.

[Lazarus]

The Sentencing Project may have some good points in their arguments, but we should keep in mind that they are a well funded, Left Wing Washington DC Think Tank whos mission is to essentially destroy and "re-imagine" our current Justice System, they are not an unbiased news source, and they will absolutely not include any counter-arguments, contrary facts, or anything in their articles that contradicts or detracts from their goals and agendas.

Which would of course make them exactly the same as the well funded right wing think tanks and commentators who do the same.

You are right though, checking facts from a range of sources that have different views is the only way to see the "facts" rather than someone's paid "opinion".

As I stated my comment above was based on memory of a tv documentary, which was several years ago, and may hold mistakenly recalled details.

As an American with no doubt a better knowledge of the detail can you tell us where that description of the profit sharing of this prisoner creation program is incomplete or incorrect.

One other point, if that documentary description of your criminal justice system is accurate, that sounds like grievous abuse of it for profit, do you not support a change there?

[eldenk]

I don't have a problem with the logical gun laws we have, like background, storage, registration etc.
Much as I'd love to have one for the hell of it, I can't for the life of me imagine a realistic use for a bullet hose like an AR15, other than the battlefield or the dark role they play in the US now as the preferred choice for mass infanticide, so I'm sweet with the prohibition of that class.

Same goes for handguns, I'd swap a nut for a 1911 but again, I'd have no real use for it so the tight controls on them is not a personal issue.

It's the nonsensical laws like appearance, suppressors etc that I object to most, they're just "Me too" political masturbation.

On self defence, the fact that a gun owner is not even allowed to use an unloaded gun in a show of defence is bloody ludicrous.
Whereas the alternative of anyone who wants a gun purely to defend themselves seems to lead straight to the circular problem the Americans face on that front; everyone knows that everyone they meet might be armed and a potential threat and nobody wants to be the guy who brought a knife to a gun fight so everyone's tooling up.
Mutually Assured Destruction.

I can't ever imagine myself needing an AR15 to defend myself. But that's entirely beside the point. Simply put, it's not the Bill of Needs we respect and cherish in America. It's the Bill of Rights. A need's based system of Rights in which government entities alone decide what you need and don't need are not worth the paper they are printed on. Yes we can alter or change our Constitution and the Framers gave us this mechanism, but it is a very high bar and very difficult to accomplish. That is completely by design. Rights should never be able to be surrendered or taken away by a simple majority. In fact, our Founders were terrified of Democracy and the Tyranny of the Majority. They were well read scholars and learned from history. That is why they chose a Representative Republic as our system.

And I say all this knowing full well that virtually the entire civilized world other than the United States has little or no concept or care of what it means to have natural rights that government is duty bound to protect, rather than "rights" that are granted but can be easily taken away by government. Our right of armed self defense using firearms is extremely unique among citizens of the world. In fact, our entire Constitution is a radical outlier among nations, which I'm proud to say.

It really comes down to the experiment in Freedom that the United States undertook in 1776 versus the old way of thinking. Until the United States, every person in every country on earth was ruled by kings or queens or monarchs or royal families and had no choice in whether their leaders were brutal and venomous or kind and benevolent. It was a matter of chance or luck perhaps but whatever it was, the people had no choice in the matter.

I'm not saying this to be boastful or arrogant. These are simply the facts. It's not my job to make the world understand our gun culture or our worship of the Constitution and our freedoms. Much of the world has a rather cartoonish notion of what it means to live in America with gun rights. It's not the wild west here. Yes violent crime has risen but that is economic and political in nature, not due to guns, and it is still lower than it was in the early 1960's, that's also when Kids used to take guns to school with them and had shooting teams at schools, and anyone could walk into a hardware store or get a sears mail order catalog or newspaper and buy a shotgun or rifle with no questions asked. The difference today is that are having a gun and crime violence crisis in our cities because of the breakdown of our moral and cultural and patriotic values in this country, not because of guns.

I am envious of your system, despite the mainstream commentary in contrast to that. In the current state of affairs and direction of the western world, the last true bastion of freedom lays in the United States.

[Lazarus]

@ Pennsylvania Yank

"Rights should never be able to be surrendered or taken away by a simple majority. In fact, our Founders were terrified of Democracy and the Tyranny of the Majority."

Firstly, I don't claim superior knowledge of your history and governmental system than you.

However, in my opinion de Tocqueville was right in part when coining the term Tyranny of the Majority, but only in the sense of a unicameral government.

We don't have one here and neither do you, but it doesn't always lead to tyranny.
Sweden, Monaco and Denmark all have a unicameral system and they hardly qualify as tyrannical regimes.

Admittedly the other current examples, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey aren't quite as free.

As to the founders being terrified of said tyrrany of majority, I believe that John Adams was the only one on record as having an issue with it.

I would far rather be in a system ruled by the will of the many rather than the decree of the few.
That is the true tyranny.

[geoff]

I don't have a problem with the logical gun laws we have, like background, storage, registration etc.
Much as I'd love to have one for the hell of it, I can't for the life of me imagine a realistic use for a bullet hose like an AR15, other than the battlefield or the dark role they play in the US now as the preferred choice for mass infanticide, so I'm sweet with the prohibition of that class.

Same goes for handguns, I'd swap a nut for a 1911 but again, I'd have no real use for it so the tight controls on them is not a personal issue.

It's the nonsensical laws like appearance, suppressors etc that I object to most, they're just "Me too" political masturbation.

On self defence, the fact that a gun owner is not even allowed to use an unloaded gun in a show of defence is bloody ludicrous.
Whereas the alternative of anyone who wants a gun purely to defend themselves seems to lead straight to the circular problem the Americans face on that front; everyone knows that everyone they meet might be armed and a potential threat and nobody wants to be the guy who brought a knife to a gun fight so everyone's tooling up.
Mutually Assured Destruction.

I can't ever imagine myself needing an AR15 to defend myself. But that's entirely beside the point. Simply put, it's not the Bill of Needs we respect and cherish in America. It's the Bill of Rights. A need's based system of Rights in which government entities alone decide what you need and don't need are not worth the paper they are printed on. Yes we can alter or change our Constitution and the Framers gave us this mechanism, but it is a very high bar and very difficult to accomplish. That is completely by design. Rights should never be able to be surrendered or taken away by a simple majority. In fact, our Founders were terrified of Democracy and the Tyranny of the Majority. They were well read scholars and learned from history. That is why they chose a Representative Republic as our system.

And I say all this knowing full well that virtually the entire civilized world other than the United States has little or no concept or care of what it means to have natural rights that government is duty bound to protect, rather than "rights" that are granted but can be easily taken away by government. Our right of armed self defense using firearms is extremely unique among citizens of the world. In fact, our entire Constitution is a radical outlier among nations, which I'm proud to say.

It really comes down to the experiment in Freedom that the United States undertook in 1776 versus the old way of thinking. Until the United States, every person in every country on earth was ruled by kings or queens or monarchs or royal families and had no choice in whether their leaders were brutal and venomous or kind and benevolent. It was a matter of chance or luck perhaps but whatever it was, the people had no choice in the matter.

I'm not saying this to be boastful or arrogant. These are simply the facts. It's not my job to make the world understand our gun culture or our worship of the Constitution and our freedoms. Much of the world has a rather cartoonish notion of what it means to live in America with gun rights. It's not the wild west here. Yes violent crime has risen but that is economic and political in nature, not due to guns, and it is still lower than it was in the early 1960's, that's also when Kids used to take guns to school with them and had shooting teams at schools, and anyone could walk into a hardware store or get a sears mail order catalog or newspaper and buy a shotgun or rifle with no questions asked. The difference today is that are having a gun and crime violence crisis in our cities because of the breakdown of our moral and cultural and patriotic values in this country, not because of guns.

I am envious of your system, despite the mainstream commentary in contrast to that. In the current state of affairs and direction of the western world, the last true bastion of freedom lays in the United States.

last true bastion of freedom hahahahha you're making me weak

The USA is just a collection of CEO's all banding together under the illusion of some kind of democratic republic.

[Lazarus]

last true bastion of freedom hahahahha you're making me weak

The USA is just a collection of CEO's all banding together under the illusion of some kind of democratic republic.

You're right there.
It's one big military-industrial corporate conglomerate.

Pennsylvania Yank claims "Much of the world has a rather cartoonish notion of what it means to live in America with gun rights. It's not the wild west here. "

I watched a Vice docco titled Gun Shot Wounds while having lunch yesterday.
According to their medical association, over 650,000 Americans have died by gun violence since 2000, more than all service personnel lost in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
One victim was an 8yo shot by his neighbour for letting off fireworks in his own yard, many others were shot because of perceived disrespect, others for cutting in to a line of traffic etc.
Sounds like the wild west to me.

It's not a gun problem or an access to guns problem.
We all know that no gun has ever decided to go it alone and do a mag dump drive-by.

It's purely a cultural problem.