2024 USA Presidential Election

[Silent Hill | 284]

12 minutes ago, Khromak said:

How many small businesses do you think are going to include a third bathroom for trans folks? - Don't know, that's their call. There's a bunch of small businesses that don't have public bathrooms at all.

How many trans people do you think will be able to fill a trans-only football league in AL? - Not sure what AL is, but what's fair about "well, there's not enough trans people to fill a league, so we'll just let the trans-women, who are at a biological advantage, compete in the women's league"? Again, it's fair to the trans people since they weren't populated enough to create their own league, but unfair to the entire women's league. For example, do you know what a trans-woman tennis player would do in a women's league?

...I don't think these are viable solutions, TBH.

The difference for me is the severity of the "rights" being violated or the consequences of the problem. For the 99, the consequences are...you're a bit uncomfortable, or MAYBE you lose a sporting event. For the 1, the consequences are...you have to go into the men's bathroom as a female-presenting person (also inconveniencing/breaking the "privacy" of the men), or you don't get to do sports at all/have to play with/against people of the opposite gender of you. I would think for an already vulnerable people, this would be extremely harmful whereas the alternative isn't nearly as harmful, IMO. - I don't think it's fair to use the more common experience for the 99, and the outliers for the 1. For each, the potential extreme is assault/sexual assault though I can see an argument for men being more aggressive on average than women, but I've seen quite a few examples of women confronting trans-women in those spaces too. 
I'd like to think the extreme for each is rare overall and it's unfortunate that some lunatics may use the trans movement as a loophole to gain access to women's bathrooms/locker rooms, which is a real factor in the topic. 

For sports, it's not always quite as simple as "oops, ya lost this game". There are women who have trained for years to be the best and a trans-woman can waltz in and absolutely demolish them. Especially if we're talking at a collegiate and above level.

 

Exactly how often do you think underage people are having irreversible procedures done? It is EXCEEDINGLY rare, like...almost completely non-existent. Also: cis-gendered children also have irreversible procedures done as well, like plastic surgery etc. are you also campaigning against that and looking for laws to protect cisgender children from decisions themselves, their parents, and their doctors agree should be done? I feel like this argument gets thrown around a lot for something that is unbelievably uncommon. - I honestly don't think it's very common at all but it should really never happen to a minor IMO. On your point about cis-gendered children having irreversible procedures done too, what are we talking about? Cosmetic plastic surgery? Dental implants? Totally depends on the procedure to be honest. 

 

[avatar! | 1,935]

46 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

AR-15 are not automatic.  And calling them assault rifles makes no sense.  While I am of the opinion that firearm legislation needs massive overhaul, and massive tightening and regulation, I don't know what the specific answer is when so many of them are already out there and in the wild.

It's a challenging problem for certain. Take a look at Brazil --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control_in_Brazil

As of 2005 in Brazil, all firearms are required to be registered with the minimum age for gun ownership being 25. It is generally illegal to carry a gun outside a residence, and a special permit granting the right to do so may be granted to certain groups, such as law enforcement officers and judges.

Yet, when it comes to gun deaths, Brazil is #8 and for comparison the US is #20.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/theres-a-new-global-ranking-of-gun-deaths-heres-where-the-u-s-stands

Also one thing which is hardly ever reported is that in the USA the vast majority of gun deaths is from suicide. Absolutely tragic. However, a suicide is not a public danger. Whereas in Brazil, almost all the homicides were murder.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/30/gun-violence-has-killed-65m-people-worldwide-since-1990

And the point is Brazil has stricter gun regulations than in the USA but clearly that's not helping the situation. I think there needs to be "common sense" gun laws. I think the biggest legislation that will help is to make sure people with mental issues are prohibited from acquiring guns, and that people with someone at home who has mental issues have to make sure guns are secured. Otherwise there should be serious penalties. I think that sending those shiteheads (Jennifer and James Crumbley) to jail was a good start.

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,912]

On 7/15/2024 at 11:26 AM, Silent Hill said:

Stuff like this: 

I'll have to look into what he was reading from and gather context and whether or not he was presenting in good faith.  I always open this thread at work so I haven't watched it.

[Silent Hill | 284]

6 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I'll have to look into what he was reading from and gather context and whether or not he was presenting in good faith.  I always open this thread at work so I haven't watched it.

Yeah my bad, should have NSFW that one
I dug around and found it - this is the book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamer_(novel)

[Silent Hill | 284]

13 minutes ago, avatar! said:

I think the biggest legislation that will help is to make sure people with mental issues are prohibited from acquiring guns, and that people with someone at home who has mental issues have to make sure guns are secured. Otherwise there should be serious penalties.

WE HAVE A WINNER! 

I agree with the concept that less guns = less of a chance for someone with mental issues/willingness to do harm to acquire a gun, but we're beyond that as a country with the volume of guns out there. Mental illness, gang culture, and socioeconomic are the three main root causes in my mind. 

Edited July 16 by Silent Hill

[guitarzombie | 935]

I think Chris Rock had the best solution.  Make ammunition INCREDIBLY expensive haha.  Tax the fuck out of it.

[Brickman | 4,200]

3 hours ago, Silent Hill said:

That is wild - one is a war criminal dictator and the other is a what?
How are they even remotely comparable to the point of essentially wishing death on both?

I didn’t say they were both the same type of person, just that I would lose no sleep over either being assassinated. 

I’m not a big fan of people causing capitol riots and killings along with lying to try and manipulate the world to do their bidding. Doesn’t feel very democratic.

[avatar! | 1,935]

17 minutes ago, Brickman said:

I didn’t say they were both the same type of person, just that I would lose no sleep over either being assassinated. 

I’m not a big fan of people causing capitol riots and killings along with lying to try and manipulate the world to do their bidding. Doesn’t feel very democratic.

I would actually lose a TON of sleep if anything had truly happened to Trump. Mind you, I absolutely can not stand the chump, and you're 100% correct that he's a danger to democracy. However, if he was "martyred" I think the situation would be incredibly dangerous and you have to wonder what would come next. To a certain extent the same goes for Putin.

[Makar | 2,062]

[AirVillain | 533]

2 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

AR-15 are not automatic.  And calling them assault rifles makes no sense.  While I am of the opinion that firearm legislation needs massive overhaul, and massive tightening and regulation, I don't know what the specific answer is when so many of them are already out there and in the wild.

Okay... so... pardon me, they are "semi automatic"...? Pardon my ignorance, I actually thought that's was "AR" stood for "automatic weapon".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15–style_rifle

These ARE the guns that are amidst a lot of the "controversy" around gun control, though, right? And they can obliterate a child within seconds?

What I'm saying is that no CIVILIAN really "needs" a weapon like this, especially under the guise of "I have the right to bear arms". Like.... an AR-15 is a little overkill, literally, if you're just going out hunting for Bambi.

And with mass shootings, there would be much fewer casualties if regular people couldn't just buy weapons like this off of store shelves.

I get what you're saying.... what's the solution when there's so many "out in the wild"? I think you have to start somewhere and just ban all the ridiculous weapons (like an AR15?) that a civilian has no reason to own.

Then at least they're not being sold brand new off the store shelves. That's a start.

[Silent Hill | 284]

15 minutes ago, AirVillain said:

Okay... so... pardon me, they are "semi automatic"...? Pardon my ignorance, I actually thought that's was "AR" stood for "automatic weapon".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15–style_rifle

These ARE the guns that are amidst a lot of the "controversy" around gun control, though, right? And they can obliterate a child within seconds?

What I'm saying is that no CIVILIAN really "needs" a weapon like this, especially under the guise of "I have the right to bear arms". Like.... an AR-15 is a little overkill, literally, if you're just going out hunting for Bambi.

And with mass shootings, there would be much fewer casualties if regular people couldn't just buy weapons like this off of store shelves.

I get what you're saying.... what's the solution when there's so many "out in the wild"? I think you have to start somewhere and just ban all the ridiculous weapons (like an AR15?) that a civilian has no reason to own.

Then at least they're not being sold brand new off the store shelves. That's a start.

Mass shootings are done with a handgun most of the time, and are pretty rare, relatively speaking. People like to focus on AR-15 because of how big and scary they appear to be. I don't see how banning AR-15s would really cause much of an impact. 

You can pretty much argue against the need for any type of gun, but personally, I'd rather have an AR-15 over say a 9mm handgun in the event of 2+ people breaking into my home. 

[Silent Hill | 284]

55 minutes ago, Brickman said:

lying to try and manipulate the world to do their bidding

This is probably just about every politician lol

[Brickman | 4,200]

41 minutes ago, avatar! said:

I would actually lose a TON of sleep if anything had truly happened to Trump. Mind you, I absolutely can not stand the chump, and you're 100% correct that he's a danger to democracy. However, if he was "martyred" I think the situation would be incredibly dangerous and you have to wonder what would come next. To a certain extent the same goes for Putin.

He's not the current president so probably his fan base would get a little angry, everyone would give their "thoughts and prayers" and most of the world would be happier that they don't have to deal with such hatred and toxic environment that has been a huge cause of the division in the world and an assault on the democratic process. You've had sitting presidents killed before and the world moved on. I guess we can never really know though.

9 minutes ago, Silent Hill said:

This is probably just about every politician lol

Sure, in their own country, but most PMs and Presidents don't have the reach that the US president has.

[Khromak | 836]

8 minutes ago, Silent Hill said:

You can pretty much argue against the need for any type of gun, but personally, I'd rather have an AR-15 over say a 9mm handgun in the event of 2+ people breaking into my home. 

Home burglaries are incredibly rare (depending on location, somewhere around 1% chance to happen)

If there is a home burglary, the majority of them don't involve a weapon

There are no statistics for this, but I would be extremely surprised if a significant portion of break-ins involved more than 2+ people

In the tight corridors of my home, I would rather not be wielding a rifle, especially so when trying to deal with opening doors and turning corners. It's also much easier for an assailant to grab/misdirect the long barrel of an AR-15 than it is a pistol. I don't think this is a very good choice for home defense.

Great for if you need a 30 round magazine and the capability to shoot a president, a music festival, or have enough bullets to take out a bunch of school children all at once. Or deer...is it supposed to be for deer?

[Silent Hill | 284]

4 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Home burglaries are incredibly rare (depending on location, somewhere around 1% chance to happen)

If there is a home burglary, the majority of them don't involve a weapon

There are no statistics for this, but I would be extremely surprised if a significant portion of break-ins involved more than 2+ people

In the tight corridors of my home, I would rather not be wielding a rifle, especially so when trying to deal with opening doors and turning corners. It's also much easier for an assailant to grab/misdirect the long barrel of an AR-15 than it is a pistol. I don't think this is a very good choice for home defense.

Great for if you need a 30 round magazine and the capability to shoot a president, a music festival, or have enough bullets to take out a bunch of school children all at once. Or deer...is it supposed to be for deer?

Still more likely to be a victim of a burglary than a mass shooting, statistically speaking. You're right though that I would consider something like a shotgun to probably be the most effective home defense when it comes to small spaces and hallways. 

Regardless, my point still stands that a majority of mass shootings are done with handguns, so banning AR-15s would have very little impact on overall gun deaths or mass shootings. At least not nearly the impact some may like to think or hope. 

[avatar! | 1,935]

5 hours ago, Khromak said:

Home burglaries are incredibly rare (depending on location, somewhere around 1% chance to happen)

If there is a home burglary, the majority of them don't involve a weapon

The chances that you are victimized in a crime is about 2.34%, according to statistics that are reported --

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-data-says-about-crime-in-the-us/

However, what is clear is that fewer than half of crimes are reported.

Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. are not reported to police, and most of the crimes that are reported are not solved.

With that in mind, I think it's fair to estimate the true percentage as twice the reported, or 4.68% -- close to 5%. Which means 1 in 20 Americans are victimized -- this is not negligible nor small. And again, the chances of the police solving it is minimal --

Overall, law enforcement agencies cleared 12.1% of reported property crimes in 2022, down from 19.7% in 2013. The clearance rate for burglary didn’t change much, but it fell for larceny/theft (to 12.4% in 2022 from 22.4% in 2013) and motor vehicle theft (to 9.3% from 14.2%).

With respect to burglars not being armed, that could very well be true. Granted this is from 2010, but here the DoJ noted that for burglaries, in 27.6% of the time hosehold members were present, and of that 27.6% about 1/4 were physically assaulted. So yeah it seems like the chances of violence in a burglary is rather small, but again, that's from 2010. BUT again, you have to keep in mind that at least half of such burglaries are unreported.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf

[Khromak | 836]

Struggling to find the 2.34% on the link you posted. For burglary it shows 269.8/100,000 which is...00.27%

If that's to be believed, and this is also true:

27.6% of the time hosehold members were present, and of that 27.6% about 1/4 were physically assaulted. 

Then...19 people are assaulted in a burglary per year, or 00.02%

If you want to double that because people report 50% of these crimes, then 00.04%, per year.

Edited July 17 by Khromak

[avatar! | 1,935]

57 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Struggling to find the 2.34% on the link you posted

Add up all the crimes then divide by 100,000 and you get 2.34%

58 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Then...19 people are assaulted in a burglary per year, or 00.02%

The statistics are per 100,000 people. So yes, 19 out 100,000 -- which means for the USA with a population of 334 million that in total 63,460 people are assaulted in burglaries per year.

[Khromak | 836]

6 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Add up all the crimes then divide by 100,000 and you get 2.34%

I was referring to burglaries specifically, since he said he was getting an AR-15 to protect his home from 2+ burglars breaking in. It doesn't make a lot of sense to include motor vehicle theft, larceny, assault, and rape in those, but I guess you could, theoretically, use your AR-15 to protect yourself against those as well.

[ChTe | 6]

On 7/15/2024 at 1:26 PM, Silent Hill said:

For me, personally, it's more about the topic of sexual preference/identity not being relevant to schools, primarily kids in elementary/middle. I can see an argument for high school kids and tbh I don't even know what sex-ed looks like now, but that's the only place I can see it being of relevance. 
Regarding books, I was referring to some of the things you see brought up by parents during school board (or whatever they're called) meetings. Probably the outliers, but the things they read aloud at those are wild as hell and have no place in a school library, regardless of age. It's about the messaging/content more so than say the author's identity/preference. 

Stuff like this: 

 

I'd also like to add that in many cases, like Florida's HB7, this type of restriction or outright ban doesn't just affect K-12 schools, it pours over into public universities, too. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I can totally understand if you don't want a middle school-aged kid to read Fifty Shades of Gray or similar material. That's understandable, and I would completely agree in that case. However, when you're limiting what a legal adult can read, especially when that same adult can vote and die for our country? That doesn't hold up in my eyes. Not to mention it's blatantly un-American. We're supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of adults need supervision. I'm sure you can see how the actions of a few concerned parents could end up infringing on the rights of others.

There's also the fact that many of these books aren't actually explicit, they simply mention taboo topics or are written by minority authors. That's another issue entirely, though, and other people have already explained it better than I can.

[TPUSA is also not generally considered a reliable or unbiased source. I would not be surprised if the video you shared was taken out of context or straight doctored to generate outrage. Even if it's not, you can see my skepticism.]

[Link | 2,878]

On 7/16/2024 at 1:16 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

While I am of the opinion that firearm legislation needs massive overhaul, and massive tightening and regulation, I don't know what the specific answer is when so many of them are already out there and in the wild.

Australia did it. And of course it's a completely different setup over there and the exact same model wouldn't work in America, but it was apparently a big problem and they figured out a way to address it so it's a starting point to look at. @Brickman would you call it successful?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,912]

47 minutes ago, Link said:

Australia did it. And of course it's a completely different setup over there and the exact same model wouldn't work in America, but it was apparently a big problem and they figured out a way to address it so it's a starting point to look at. @Brickman would you call it successful?

Here's the problem here: a tax-funded firearm buyback and amnesties saw over 700 000 guns surrendered from an adult population of about 12 million

A large percent of Americans have had this culture of "don't tread on me, 2nd Amendment, 'from my cold dead hands' carefully cultivated in them by the right and the NRA, and it's gotten so that it's basically becoming the basis of their identity.

I mean MTG got elected via ads of her shooting rifles.  Boebert's whole thing is a restaurant where the waiters are packing (wtf?).  Trump Jr. poses for Instagram cleaning a rifle (fucking laaaawl).

It's basically the symbol for opposing the "woke radical Socialists" at this point.

I say all this as an AR-15 owner (among many other things, it's a whole Montana hunting/target shooting thing).  Because even I think these people are insane.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,912]

I should also mention that I have been the victim of violent armed robbery/home invasion.  Duct-taped, firearm pressed to my head, bear sprayed, countdowns, the whole shebang.  So if anyone is sympathetic to home invasion concerns, it's me.

But I'm also a realist.  I don't have guns locked and loaded or anything like that because I know it's a 1000 times more likely my kids get a hold of them.  So it's not like I'm sitting here fantasizing about castle doctrine like so many of the gun crazies in this country.

[Brickman | 4,200]

It was very successful here because we saw these mass shootings as a national tragedy. Port Arthur was the final straw and most wanted to do something about it. There were a few groups that sprouted the same nonsense as in here and the NRA but they were ignored because people wanted action and change.

I think Reed said it best, the US is too far gone. He even wants gun laws but is holding onto an assault rifle  it’s madness.

The day a school of KIDS got massacred and the US did essentially nothing is the day I knew the US is a lost cause. They even tried to blame teachers and wanted them to have gun training 

I don’t bother with these debates with American’s anymore, they just don’t get it. The majority are brainwashed by the gun lobby and the people who do want to make a change are instantly shut down. 

[Silent Hill | 284]

1 hour ago, ChTe said:

I'd also like to add that in many cases, like Florida's HB7, this type of restriction or outright ban doesn't just affect K-12 schools, it pours over into public universities, too. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I can totally understand if you don't want a middle school-aged kid to read Fifty Shades of Gray or similar material. That's understandable, and I would completely agree in that case. However, when you're limiting what a legal adult can read, especially when that same adult can vote and die for our country? That doesn't hold up in my eyes. Not to mention it's blatantly un-American. We're supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of adults need supervision. I'm sure you can see how the actions of a few concerned parents could end up infringing on the rights of others.

There's also the fact that many of these books aren't actually explicit, they simply mention taboo topics or are written by minority authors. That's another issue entirely, though, and other people have already explained it better than I can.

[TPUSA is also not generally considered a reliable or unbiased source. I would not be surprised if the video you shared was taken out of context or straight doctored to generate outrage. Even if it's not, you can see my skepticism.]

Yeah I actually noticed it was from Turning Point after Reed asked for the name of the book, didn't catch that. But when finding the name of the book, I saw some results of local news reporting on it, FWIW. 

Totally agree on adults being able to read whatever they want. My only concern personally is sexually explicit books being readily available to minors, the younger the worse. I honestly can't see any parent arguing otherwise.