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[RedKing]

How else do you explain the NRA legislative push to not allow any sort of electronic record keeping, to mandate paper filing instead?

That's nothing but an attempt to subvert the law by keeping the agency overworked and the laws underenforced. Many of their other pushes have been in the same direction (such as the lobbying requiring the ATF head to be approved and the the restrictions meaning the ATF can't even do basic tracking requirements)

Bingo. Funny part is, it amounts to a Federal jobs program and massive waste of taxpayer money. There are hundreds of people employed at the National Tracing Center, basically doing record-keeping the way it was done 50 years ago -- a request comes in, someone has to look through records to tie it to an FFL (Federal Firearms License) number, then someone has to physically go into the warehouse, pull out a cardboard box with the original paperwork in it, pull that file, bring it back up to the tracer who's requesting it, then they can manually re-enter the results into a computer and send it to the law enforcement agency (or ATF itself, if they're the requester) who's tracing the firearm. Takes days if not weeks to trace a gun, unless there's a super-high priority on it (like the guns used in the Newtown massacre). Digitize all that, and you could eliminate hundreds of positions freeing up budget for enforcement and making traces a matter of minutes rather than days. It's fucking ridiculous.

[Loud Whispers]

Sources are in the chart, so if you don't have substantial criticisms, don't bother.

Oh not at all. I'm not nearly as invested in American history as an American would be; this is news to me.

Now, if you do a little bit of history research, you can observe that murder rates in the US have very specific correlations with historical events. Observe:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyhow, crime increases from 1900 to 1916, and drops during WW1, which makes a fair bit of sense (if people are being drafted they aren't murdering/being murdered at home). Crime increases substantially when the troops return home, and increases even more when Prohibition is put in place and organized crime becomes prevalent. Hmmm, I wonder if that will ever come up again. Anyhow, murder rates decline dramatically when prohibition is repealed in 1934, and these rates remain low until the late 1960s and early 1970s. By a complete coincidence, this period also coincides with (A) social upheaval that was far more strongly felt in the US than in any other countries and (B) The ramping up of the Drug War. Weird that murder rates would increase at the same time as the modern form of prohibition that empowers violent cartels is put into place. Why, it's almost like deja vu!

Since the murder rates have declined to nearly post WWII, does that mean that the war on drugs has been a Pyrrhic success and will continue to lower crime; or more critically, would legalizing or at least decriminalizing narcotics have any positive effect at diminishing the amount of murders committed by drug cartels and gangs?

[RedKing]

Or more cynically, that the various players in the US drug trade have entrenched themselves pretty well and aren't having the massive turf wars that they had in the 1980's. By that measure, maybe Mexico will finally die down in several years, as the cartels entrench themselves and come to agreements as to which towns belong to whom.

Just as in the 1920's Prohibition, most of the violence in Mexico isn't driven by criminals-vs-citizens or criminals-vs-police, it's criminals-vs-criminals with bystanders caught in the indiscriminate crossfire.

[GlyphGryph]

Technically they are opposing national databases in order to placate the people who are afraid the government is going to use that database to track them down and confiscate their guns.

This is exactly my point. They claim to support the laws and that we just need more enforcement, not more regulation, and then do everything in their power to protect criminals who break them. It's absurd.

[Scoops Novel]

How's organized crime as a whole doing these days?

[GreatJustice]

Since the murder rates have declined to nearly post WWII, does that mean that the war on drugs has been a Pyrrhic success and will continue to lower crime; or more critically, would legalizing or at least decriminalizing narcotics have any positive effect at diminishing the amount of murders committed by drug cartels and gangs?

A lot of the social upheaval of the previous decades died down after 1993 or so, which was a major factor. Besides that, a lot of the violence basically moved from the distributors in the US to the producers in Mexico and South America as cartels became more established. Nonetheless, a gigantic portion of US murder in general is related to the drug war (IIRC over 50%, though no source on that one right now), not to mention the number of people imprisoned. Were it ended, the murder rate of the US would fall drastically over the course of several years.

[Nadaka]

Technically they are opposing national databases in order to placate the people who are afraid the government is going to use that database to track them down and confiscate their guns.

This is exactly my point. They claim to support the laws and that we just need more enforcement, not more regulation, and then do everything in their power to protect criminals who break them. It's absurd.

Not the point I was making. The national database is opposed specifically for the case where currently legal firearms are banned (unconstitutionally) and then every gun is tracked down and confiscated. It is mostly an irrational fear, but there are people advocating that either for certain classes of guns or even all guns.

[RedKing]

Technically they are opposing national databases in order to placate the people who are afraid the government is going to use that database to track them down and confiscate their guns.

This is exactly my point. They claim to support the laws and that we just need more enforcement, not more regulation, and then do everything in their power to protect criminals who break them. It's absurd.

Not the point I was making. The national database is opposed specifically for the case where currently legal firearms are banned (unconstitutionally) and then every gun is tracked down and confiscated. It is mostly an irrational fear, but there are people advocating that either for certain classes of guns or even all guns.

Meanwhile, the NRA fully supports a national database of the mentally ill. The irony is tangible.

[Nadaka]

Yes, very irony.

[mainiac]

Bingo. Funny part is, it amounts to a Federal jobs program and massive waste of taxpayer money. There are hundreds of people employed at the National Tracing Center, basically doing record-keeping the way it was done 50 years ago -- a request comes in, someone has to look through records to tie it to an FFL (Federal Firearms License) number, then someone has to physically go into the warehouse, pull out a cardboard box with the original paperwork in it, pull that file, bring it back up to the tracer who's requesting it, then they can manually re-enter the results into a computer and send it to the law enforcement agency (or ATF itself, if they're the requester) who's tracing the firearm. Takes days if not weeks to trace a gun, unless there's a super-high priority on it (like the guns used in the Newtown massacre). Digitize all that, and you could eliminate hundreds of positions freeing up budget for enforcement and making traces a matter of minutes rather than days. It's fucking ridiculous.

Guns isn't the only place we practice this form of record keeping.  It was the dominant form of doctors offices and hospitals until very recently.  Well doctors offices were allowed to make photocopies but they still use storage rooms with paper records.  It's telling that Obamacare didn't even try to standardize what type of electronic medical records doctors offices should keep, it just tried to get them to use any EMR software at all.  We got to 54% of offices using EMR in 2011.  2011!  This is 30 year old technology and it's basic essentials for an office and we're barely past the halfway point.

And nobody is stopping us.  It's not like Xerox has had a bunch of lobbyists up on capital hill keeping Congress from setting up programs to raise the EMR use rate.  It's not like the technology isn't a no brainer.  Of course it don't come cheap... thousands of dollars of year in software fees (the rate is even worse with solo doctors who can't spread the costs).  Now that probably can be blamed on lobbyists because the EMR companies trap you with their product by tying you in with bullshit proprietary formats so they basically own your records and you can't ever leave them.  But still.  This is stuff we should fixed a decade ago.  Instead a decade ago the compliance rate was still in the single digits.

America.  We can do shit that is amazingly difficult and awesome like the curiousity rover.  But we love doing shit that is backwards and stupid like goddamn paper only records in the year 2013.

[Leafsnail]

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Wait sorry what??

[PTTG??]

Ah, well, if Israel wants no gun restrictions, no gun restrictions it'll be.

[mainiac]

Ah, well, if Israel wants no gun restrictions, no gun restrictions it'll be.

Pretty much.  Open and shut case.

[Bot Hack]

The issues in those countries are the same ones here. An ever-growing population directly dependent upon the government. We need to cut back on excess and that means convenience which is almost a sacred right here.

I was going to prepare some kind of response to this, but couldn't quite remove my palm from my face in order to do so.

Passivity kills Freedom. Please explain, or be lead by hidden notions as you most tyrant(ly) are now.

Go to the supermarket, what do I see, social and industrial Freedom?

[Bot Hack]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is this per day? That is hardly evidence for much, besides a growing nihilism and SELF-defeat. We, WE, need a goal; eh Patton, old friend.