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Bay12 Presidential Focus Polling 2016

Ted Cruz
- 7 (6.5%)
Rick Santorum
- 16 (14.8%)
Michelle Bachmann
- 13 (12%)
Chris Christie
- 23 (21.3%)
Rand Paul
- 49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107


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Author Topic: Bay12 Election Night Watch Party  (Read 836125 times)

GavJ

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8640 on: September 02, 2014, 12:16:38 pm »

Quote
Won't work; it's a graph of total homicides. Either you scale it so the y axis is relative to country/total number of homicides size, and we get shouts of 'see! They have just as many homicides as us/their other homicide rates go up to compensate instead so nothing will happen if we try to implement gun control!' or you do it on the same scale the US uses and we get shouts of 'but they're smaller countries so it's totally unrepresentative!'
Except the bolded part is simply wrong, so we can just ignore the people shouting that, and it will work.

Quote
The sample size is hard to compare, since there were so few handgun murders in UK even before the handgun ban, saying the ban led to a rise or fall in the murder rate is meaningless.
No, unless there's a legitimate floor effect (literally ZERO homicides, or just 2-3 or something), then the sample sizes are perfectly easy and valid to compare, and looking at rises and falls is totally meaningful and exactly what we should be looking at.

Your argument that you've "never seen any guns" might be more convincing if not for the comment above that says there are still 15 guns per 100 people in Australia. Sounds like you simply aren't looking in the right place. 15/100 is plenty to have a plausibly decent impact on crime rates from gun legislation.

You still need to ask all the same questions about causality as for the American data, for sure. But it's plausible enough at face value to be worth diving into.
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Sergarr

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8641 on: September 02, 2014, 12:17:09 pm »

Only people who are actual farmers with actual sheep and cows even had that shit.
Now I have to wonder if there's a bunch of people in Australia with artificial sheep.... ???

And yeah, according to latest estimates, there are 90 guns for every 100 people in the US. Versus 15 per 100 in Australia.
Russia has 8.9 guns per 100 people.

US has a ridiculous amount of guns per person for a country which has not seen a land invasion on its territory since 1812.
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DJ

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8642 on: September 02, 2014, 12:18:15 pm »

And yeah, according to latest estimates, there are 90 guns for every 100 people in the US. Versus 15 per 100 in Australia.

Yeah but if you eliminate my extended family that drops down to like 25.
It might be hard to eliminate them if they got all them guns, though :P
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Reelya

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8643 on: September 02, 2014, 12:27:01 pm »

I was reading that some of the guns that they restricted back in 1986 shot up in value, to the point that they were worth about $10000 each on the black market, and that was even at a time that other guns were seeing reduced restrictions.

If you're looking for dampening effects on gun crime, look right there. That's a price where it's more profitable to sell the gun than to commit most crimes with it, which risks losing the gun if you're caught. That's something not often taken into consideration in gun control debates: changes in availability are definitely going to have big impact on market prices, hence the viability of a lot of crime.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 12:31:15 pm by Reelya »
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RedKing

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8644 on: September 02, 2014, 12:30:26 pm »

Only people who are actual farmers with actual sheep and cows even had that shit.
Now I have to wonder if there's a bunch of people in Australia with artificial sheep.... ???

And yeah, according to latest estimates, there are 90 guns for every 100 people in the US. Versus 15 per 100 in Australia.
Russia has 8.9 guns per 100 people.

US has a ridiculous amount of guns per person for a country which has not seen a land invasion on its territory since 1812.
Well the standard talking point is that all those guns are *why* we haven't seen a land invasion since 1812. (And cheerfully ignores those two rather large bodies of water to our east and west, and our cultivated good relations with our neighbors to the north and south, and our crazy high military budget since WWII...)

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wobbly

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8645 on: September 02, 2014, 12:35:59 pm »

Your argument that you've "never seen any guns" might be more convincing if not for the comment above that says there are still 15 guns per 100 people in Australia. Sounds like you simply aren't looking in the right place. 15/100 is plenty to have a plausibly decent impact on crime rates from gun legislation.

The figure is fairly deceptive though, as most gun owners own multiple guns. Also does the figure include guns stored at a shooting range? Does it include military, police or private security? As another Australian I can vouch for very few people owning guns here. I've only met 1 person who owns a gun & that was a shotgun for clay-pigeon shooting. Most police don't carry either.
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Reelya

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8646 on: September 02, 2014, 12:39:48 pm »

They saw "Red Dawn" and know to expect a fight.

The 1984 one. Not the 2012 one, I'm just reading about that now. North Korean bombers dropping paratroopers over the USA? Really? At least the Soviets were plausible. I haven't seen the new one, but it sounds like North Korea occupies a small country town in the USA and the locals teens form "The Wolverines" as a band of guerrilla fighters to oust the occupiers. Exactly what are the US Armed forces doing during all this? I really don't want to watch to find out.

Rolepgeek

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8647 on: September 02, 2014, 12:43:23 pm »

Wolves, unless they're starving, generally avoid humans due to the fact they've learned we WILL kill them.
And the Bulgaria case where they deliberately live away from remote reserves and into the peripheries of human settlements for the additional food, that is an exception?
Does this even have anything to do with anything, anymore?

Seriously, folks, drop the issue and get back to the controversial topic at hand; gun control.

We can discuss the right to arm bears and other wildlife after we finish the discussion of whether or not I'm allowed to own the severed limbs of said bears.

On that topic: I like pointing out Australia, because after it's massive gun control laws, they haven't had a single mass shooting(that I'm aware of; maybe this changed since I last checked or I fucked up my fact-finding somewhere), while the US has on the order of one every three days or so. Which is utterly ridiculous.

I believe that obtaining a lethal piece of hardware should not be easy under most circumstances, if any, just like I think thermite shouldn't be easily obtained, and that chlorine trifluoride should be completely illegal in all circumstances (I can think of no use other than causing massive amounts of death for that horrific substance). Cars are potentially lethal, but they're also far more expensive than most guns, as far as my(admittedly remarkably small in terms of purchase and whatnot, though I do enough research for sci-fi stuff that I can pretend to be well-educated on the general subject) knowledge of guns goes. And obtaining the loans and paperwork and whatnot for a car is a difficult process.

I really can't see much of a reason to own an assault rifle, submachine gun, or automatic shotgun, for that matter. Shotgun and handgun are fine for home defense(even if I feel handguns could do with some more restrictions), and hunting rifles and shotguns work for hunting, if you're into that sort of thing and make use of the entirety of the carcass. Beyond that, stuff should stay in the shooting ranges(and I will admit, shooting an assault rifle is fun, I've tried it; still think I don't want people with them just hangin' around their houses).

I get rambly sometimes, sorry.

Sidenote: Studies have found(sorry I don't have the link to the data right now, maybe in a bit, and this is going off partially faulty memory, so forgive me any mistakes and take with a grain of salt) that in counties with extremely strict gun control legislation and the like, such as where guns are not allowed period, crime rates, particularly crime committed whilst the victims are at home, is higher. Whether marginally or significantly, I don't know. However, fatalities from crimes are much lower, both in terms of deaths per capita from crimes(those not directly related to murder that is; deaths during a robbery, for example), and the proportional amount of crimes that result in death. Foggy on those parts, though.

In counties that encourage or require gun ownership, crime rates of that sort are lower, but fatalities from them are much higher.

Which all makes sense to me, and if logic and the statistics don't match up, something's usually missing; you can't just point at the data and say 'well there!' you have to actually do something with it for it to be of any use.

Personally, I'd like if gun control was a bit stricter in terms of the ease with which we can obtain lethal weapons, and perhaps require checkups(if it doesn't already, I dunno) to continue owning them like we need with driver's licenses, though preferably more frequently(every two years?), and if we(as in the country, not the thread) could then move on to dealing with the corruption of various federal systems by corporations and abuse of power and individuals by authority figures(like the police). Once that shit get sorted out, maybe we can deal with the whole abortion 'scandal', the rape-centric culture, and other bigotry here in the good ol' puritanical US of A(god I'm unpatriotic). Finally, when all that shit's sorted out, we'll be able to deal with the prejudice against AIs that's sprung up and the robot revolution that's getting ready to ignite because of everyone being assholes in the year 2050 the environment, which hopefully we were working on this whole time because it's not exactly something you can put off in the same way we can civil rights(that sounds shitty, and it is, but it's still true; civil rights don't tend to worsen over time, but the environment does), and maybe convince the rest of the world to help deal us deal with global warming and the like too.

I'm probably missing something. There's enough awful shit going on it's bound to happen.

Oh yeah, I remember now, the incredibly uneven class divide, the national debt, funding cuts for education systems, and us fucking around in other countries. Right.

...I think I'll just move out of the country once I get out of college. 10 years won't be long enough for the situation to improve much. Canada sounds good. Or Australia ehh fuck it I think I'd still rather deal with all of America's shit than fight off all the stuff that lives in Australia.

Australians are badasses, by the way. Way less guns than America, and they still survive in what is one of the most lethal environments in the world, going by wildlife(7 out of the 10 most poisonous animals in the world live in Australia).

Rambling done. I think.
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andrea

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8648 on: September 02, 2014, 12:46:08 pm »

Well the standard talking point is that all those guns are *why* we haven't seen a land invasion since 1812. (And cheerfully ignores those two rather large bodies of water to our east and west, and our cultivated good relations with our neighbors to the north and south, and our crazy high military budget since WWII...)

Do people really believe that?  I guess the US navy isn't needed, then. I mean... what has it done to protect the US territory that civilian handguns couldn't?

Reelya

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8649 on: September 02, 2014, 12:48:04 pm »

Your argument that you've "never seen any guns" might be more convincing if not for the comment above that says there are still 15 guns per 100 people in Australia. Sounds like you simply aren't looking in the right place. 15/100 is plenty to have a plausibly decent impact on crime rates from gun legislation.

The figure is fairly deceptive though, as most gun owners own multiple guns. Also does the figure include guns stored at a shooting range? Does it include military, police or private security? As another Australian I can vouch for very few people owning guns here. I've only met 1 person who owns a gun & that was a shotgun for clay-pigeon shooting. Most police don't carry either.

Yeah sports shooters are required to store the guns in the gun clubs.

15 / 100 is estimated total non-government guns (both legal and illegal). That's about 3 million guns.

Total civilian-held handguns (both legal and illegal) = 170000 or about one per 135 people. About 5% of the total guns are handguns.

Of course, it wouldn't be uncommon for a person who owns a handgun to have more than one, after all a gun owners license does not restrict how many guns you can buy, but the license is hard to get. A legal handgun owner is probably a member of a shooting range/club, where his/her gun(s) are stored. They probably own multiple guns, so handgun ownership is probably restricted to about 1 person per 250.

We're talking less than 1% (1/135) of people being members of a shooting range with a handgun of any type or having an illegal handgun - and that is assuming that all handgun owners only ever own one gun.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/australia

So, yeah, to meet someone who even owns a handgun, I'd need on average to probably meet 250 people, and even then the gun would only become an issue if I broached the subject.

The rest of the guns, 95% of the guns are mostly 22s and shotguns owned by the farmers I was talking about. Plus whatever rifles are allowed on shooting ranges (which club members CANNOT take home mind you).
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 12:52:59 pm by Reelya »
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smjjames

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8650 on: September 02, 2014, 12:54:57 pm »

Rape-centric culture, what? From that study thing linked earlier, the US is roughly the same as the UK and if you REALLY want to look at a supposedly rape centric culture, you should look at Australia according to this http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf .
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RedKing

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8651 on: September 02, 2014, 01:00:31 pm »

Great, now we need a graph cross-comparing countries by number of guns per reported wolf rape.

Also, I guess I need to move to Japan. A safe society must be the trade-off for dealing with Japanese WTFery on a daily basis.
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Bauglir

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8652 on: September 02, 2014, 01:04:17 pm »

To be fair, much of that is exports.
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RedKing

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8653 on: September 02, 2014, 01:05:18 pm »

To be fair, much of that is exports.
I dunno...from my experience, the truly WTF stuff is for domestic consumption.
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Remember, knowledge is power. The power to make other people feel stupid.
Quote from: Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.

Reelya

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Re: Richard Nixon's Sane Conservatism Nostalgia Megathread
« Reply #8654 on: September 02, 2014, 01:07:13 pm »

EDIT: Actually, I had a look at the data that the report of Australia's high rape rate is based on, and it contradicts the citation that is included.
Sources: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Statistics on Crime, Sexual Violence

http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/CTS12_Sexual_violence.xls

Apparently there was a time it was 91 per 100k, in 2003. But the current measured rate is about 29 per 100k. But the above graph cites 2003 data for Australia and 2010 data for other countries. Which is misleading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#Australia

===

Rape rates are notoriously hard to compare. Murder is murder anywhere, because a dead body is a good sign that the crime occurred, whereas rape is heavily under-reported and anti-rape legislation actually causes the reported rape rate to increase.

Plus what constitutes rape? Broadening the offense means getting more "hits" for the crime, whereas "dead body" is sort of a given in murder cases, whereas not every country defines legal rape the same.

See where Sweden is really high on reported rapes? That's entirely due to their "tough on rape" laws. Before those laws, the reported rapes were much lower there. Are we to believe that tough anti-rape laws caused more rapes?
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 01:26:37 pm by Reelya »
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