Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[redwallzyl]

cant find an article but heard it on the radio. 30 (congressmen?) are going to have a briefing from a nuclear weapons expert on what trump is capable of doing in relation to nuclear strikes. worrying to say the least.

also the supreme court might kill gerrymandering.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/politics/gerrymandering-supreme-court-wisconsin.html

oh and the republicans lied to the middle class, again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/politics/republican-tax-rewrite-middle-class.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=politics

[Strife26]

Thought crimes aren't good mkay.

Yep. We really need to start jailing people who aren't sufficiently in line with the times.

[redwallzyl]

Thought crimes aren't good mkay.

Yep. We really need to start jailing people who aren't sufficiently in line with the times.

no no, that's not how thought crime works. what you do is condition people to self police so when they think wrong thoughts they are conditioned to think of them as bad. then they either face an internal conflict that destroys them or give in and conform. no active policing needed. not kidding.

[nenjin]

Because there's no societally unacceptable values that people should self-censor on, right? Like "All brown people, gays, transgenders and jews should be killed."

[Lord Shonus]

Apparently 2 bump stocks have been found in the hotel room of Paddock.

So something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxv_c7fwZU4

Seriously why the fuck is something like that legal in the USA?

What is the point of banning automatic weapons if you can legally modify them in this way?

The real reason is that a bump stock does not modify the firing mechanism of the gun in any way, and the relevant legislation is concerned entirely with the firing mechanism.

All a bump stock or similar device does is to enable you to pull the trigger faster. It doesn't allow you to just hold the trigger down and spray bullets, which is what it would have to do for current law to affect them.

As to why legislation hasn't been proposed to target them specifically, it is largely a matter of obscurity. Most people have never heard of the things, an most people who have heard of them regard them with scorn. They are the firearm equivalent of putting a massive spoiler on your Camaro, or overclocking your i7 to the melting point ti get 201 fps instead of 200.

[Antioch]

Thought crimes aren't good mkay.

Yep. We really need to start jailing people who aren't sufficiently in line with the times.

The USA as a nation is falling further and further out of line with the times....

[redwallzyl]

Because there's no societally unacceptable values that people should self-censor on, right? Like "All brown people, gays, transgenders and jews should be killed."

I never made a statement as to whether it was good or bad but merely how it works. the point is the thought police is "you" and much like the real police they can do many things.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Uncritical thought is always bad in the end. Even uncritical thought about good values is bad because it's a fragile and unevolving system. People who uncritically think that genocide is bad are vulnerable to stumbling across /pol/, reading one of those "racial realist" treatises, and realizing that "I was lied to all this time, Hitler really was trying to save us from ourselves". I would not be at all surprised if a bunch of the current alt-reicher crop had something almost exactly like that happen in their past.

People ought to be able to say why genocide is idiotic and wrong, not just think that it is.

[wierd]

Apparently 2 bump stocks have been found in the hotel room of Paddock.

So something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxv_c7fwZU4

Seriously why the fuck is something like that legal in the USA?

What is the point of banning automatic weapons if you can legally modify them in this way?

There isn't one, and the NRA knows it. It's just a way to let gun nuts and NRA schills claim "automatic weapons are already illegal", usually in all caps, and fob off demands for better gun laws.

People tend to ignore that behind every massacre is a series of events. Some of them, like the decision to do something like this, we can only influence indirectly. Others, like buying and modifying the weapons required, we can directly make more difficult -- and that means more people, on the path from thinking about murdering lots of people to actually murdering lots of people, will hit an obstacle, fall off, and not want to get back on. Or they do, they break more laws, and they get caught.

Way to totally satisfy one of my predictions there, Trekkin!

It may seem trite and with bad timing to be so cynical so soon, but my predictions in the aftermath of this occurrence:

1) People will demand harsher gun control laws. (Never mind that fully automatic weapons, such as the ones used, are *ALREADY ILLEGAL*)
2) The issue of stronger enforcement of existing laws will not be broached. Item #1 will dominate all debate.
3) People rightly pointing out that making more laws to outlaw what was already outlawed, without actually stepping up enforcement of those laws, is pissing into the wind-- will be declared evil people who want automatic weapons on the street, when no such thing is being said.
4) The NRA will put its foot in its mouth again, and will stir up the usual crazies.
5) Questions about how this man managed to get that much heavy automatic weaponry up 32 floors without being noticed or stopped by building security will not be broached, or if they are, will not make their way into the media, as the spotlight be will be dominated by item #1.

I see it did not take long at all for predictions 1 and 4 to come to pass-- less than 24 hours-- and already in such a short period, the false-position strawman rhetoric that is behind prediction 3 has already materialized as well!

You really should look to Reelya for guidance on how to debate this legitimately. While I do not concur with Reelya, due to it not passing the sniff test (His position does not sit well with me, because it conflates a dependent variable with an independent one-- EG, adding more laws without also increasing enforcement will supposedly reduce supplies, when it is actually the increased enforcement that reduces the supplies, not the legality [see for instance, why software piracy is a thing, and yet ubiquitous, despite being illegal.] that causes this reduction in supply.), he does present an ACTUALLY SUBSTANTIAL counter argument besides "Nuh uh! Only doodie heads would say that!"

I believe you should too, instead of resorting to an ad-hominem inducing strawman.

[Antioch]

Apparently 2 bump stocks have been found in the hotel room of Paddock.

So something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxv_c7fwZU4

Seriously why the fuck is something like that legal in the USA?

What is the point of banning automatic weapons if you can legally modify them in this way?

There isn't one, and the NRA knows it. It's just a way to let gun nuts and NRA schills claim "automatic weapons are already illegal", usually in all caps, and fob off demands for better gun laws.

People tend to ignore that behind every massacre is a series of events. Some of them, like the decision to do something like this, we can only influence indirectly. Others, like buying and modifying the weapons required, we can directly make more difficult -- and that means more people, on the path from thinking about murdering lots of people to actually murdering lots of people, will hit an obstacle, fall off, and not want to get back on. Or they do, they break more laws, and they get caught.

Way to totally satisfy one of my predictions there, Trekkin!

It may seem trite and with bad timing to be so cynical so soon, but my predictions in the aftermath of this occurrence:

1) People will demand harsher gun control laws. (Never mind that fully automatic weapons, such as the ones used, are *ALREADY ILLEGAL*)
2) The issue of stronger enforcement of existing laws will not be broached. Item #1 will dominate all debate.
3) People rightly pointing out that making more laws to outlaw what was already outlawed, without actually stepping up enforcement of those laws, is pissing into the wind-- will be declared evil people who want automatic weapons on the street, when no such thing is being said.
4) The NRA will put its foot in its mouth again, and will stir up the usual crazies.
5) Questions about how this man managed to get that much heavy automatic weaponry up 32 floors without being noticed or stopped by building security will not be broached, or if they are, will not make their way into the media, as the spotlight be will be dominated by item #1.

I see it did not take long at all for predictions 1 and 4 to come to pass-- less than 24 hours-- and already in such a short period, the false-position strawman rhetoric that is behind prediction 3 has already materialized as well!

You really should look to Reelya for guidance on how to debate this legitimately. While I do not concur with Reelya, due to it not passing the sniff test (His position does not sit well with me, because it conflates a dependent variable with an independent one-- EG, adding more laws without also increasing enforcement will supposedly reduce supplies, when it is actually the increased enforcement that reduces the supplies, not the legality [see for instance, why software piracy is a thing, and yet ubiquitous, despite being illegal.] that causes this reduction in supply.), he does present an ACTUALLY SUBSTANTIAL counter argument besides "Nuh uh!"

Uhm the dumpfire device IS LEGAL

[wierd]

The stock is not really involved in the firing mechanism.  See Shonus's spot on critique above.

The receiver is what handles full auto operation, not the stock.  Modification of the receiver to operate in full auto mode is indeed illegal.

[Trekkin]

Uhm the dumpfire device IS LEGAL

And can increase the firing rate to 400 to 800 rounds a minute, too. That's the thing people outside the gun community are worried about, since it makes it easier for one man to rapidly kill dozens and wound hundreds of people. The technical details of how that capability is achieved are a secondary concern, except insofar as they determine how easy it is to acquire such a weapon. It being legal makes it easier. It being straightforward to illegally modify a legal semiautomatic weapon for fully automatic fire also makes it easier, although that apparently didn't happen here.

As I said above, there are steps in the lead-up to a massacre that we can't really control directly. We can't stop people deciding they want to kill a lot of people. What we can do is make it harder for them to do so, and part of that is making it harder to acquire the necessary weapons. The more shop time it takes to make a weapon with an unreasonably high firing rate, the more chances we have that they'll decide it's not worth it or do something that signals to law enforcement that they're a threat. The more laws they have to break, the more chances we have that it will give someone just enough pause that they give up and the earlier they can be legally stopped. You never know what will throw someone off that route, but we can at least put as many roadblocks up as possible, even if only perceptually.

[nenjin]

People ought to be able to say why genocide is idiotic and wrong, not just think that it is.

It's called "not being raised by shitty parents and have two brain cells to rub together." It's not "fragile." And it's unevolving because it's a core value that there isn't much if any wiggle room on, it has no need to change. Unless you can articulate a situation where exterminating an entire race of people is actually a good thing. (MSH We're not in the 40k thread!)

I don't disagree people should be able to articulate the logic behind their beliefs. It's just, in this instance, there's so need unless you want to have a pre-school level conversation about why hurting people for your own gain is bad for society.

It's like, do we really need to debate why NAMBLA isn't a good thing, or can we just say that preferentially having sex with children is bad.

[wierd]

That I can agree to, and fits perfectly in line with my "improve enforcement" argument.

Things that skirt the intent of the law (which basically is, "Bro, YOU DO NOT NEED FULL AUTO TO KILL VARMINTS. PERIOD. FULL AUTO SHIT IS FOR KILLING PEOPLE, KILLING PEOPLE IS AGAINST THE LAW, DONT DO IT, DONT MAKE THINGS TO ENABLE YOU TO DO IT.") by looking for technicalities in a "Herp! I modified the stock in a totally unsafe and stupid way to avoid your verbiage about modding the receiver! HERPA DERPA!!" type way--need to be enforced against.

The NRA crazies are the ones who like to do the whole "I'm not touching you!" game.

Just like with annoying kids who pull that shit, enforcement is the answer. Not more bureaucracy.

[wierd]

People ought to be able to say why genocide is idiotic and wrong, not just think that it is.

It's called "not being raised by shitty parents and have two brain cells to rub together." It's not "fragile." And it's unevolving because it's a core value that there isn't much if any wiggle room on, it has no need to change. Unless you can articulate a situation where exterminating an entire race of people is actually a good thing. (MSH We're not in the 40k thread!)

I don't disagree people should be able to articulate the logic behind their beliefs. It's just, in this instance, there's so need unless you want to have a pre-school level conversation about why hurting people for your own gain is bad for society.

It's like, do we really need to debate why NAMBLA isn't a good thing, or can we just say that preferentially having sex with children is bad.

Puts on the "that guy" hat for a moment.

Just putting this here Nenjin--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece

This does not try to discount that real psychological harm happens to children who are involved in sex acts--- It is just that what constitutes a moral imperative is very much not as fixed as you try to imply. (that righteous indignation you just felt? That's what people felt about gay sex 30 years ago. take that in stride.)