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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#253476: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:08:39 AM

[up][up][up] Gun crime and “black rifles” isn’t at all what I was talking about. We were discussing militarization of the police, and more specifically I was addressing the “A Rs aren’t actually powerful” argument, as it’s something you hear a lot from gun advocates and it’s easy to get tripped up by if you’re not that knowledgeable about guns.

I agree completely with your views about the use of rifles in gun crime, but again that’s a totally different conversation. I don’t think I’d support a handgun ban though, they’re too convenient.

I believe we’ve discussed it before, but the area I live in has long police response times and potentially aggressive wildlife. Most everyone here, myself included, are gun owners, and carrying is a practical idea if you’re going to be working outside or by yourself.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 29th 2018 at 4:14:17 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Imca (Veteran)
#253477: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:12:47 AM

I just don't see the point in a "convenient" gun myself unless your a police officer.

If your target shooting it should only come out at the range, and if your going hunting I am pretty sure they make slings...

Even as some one who supports private gun ownership, I do not think they should be something that is carried around with a person as they go about there day to day activities, that just asks for way too many problems.

Sorry.

Edit: That AR-15 map is wrong, it lists it as being used both Germany and Japan, and I am 90% germany has no AR-15s in service using the G36 instead, and I KNOW there is a grand total of zero used by the SDF.

That looks more like a map of "We gave them one to try out and they didn't like it" given how many nations have been handed the thing and just.... don't like it for one reason or another.

Edited by Imca on Aug 29th 2018 at 4:14:17 AM

Bisected8 A casual tief of punk from Her Hackette Cave (Primordial Chaos) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
A casual tief of punk
#253478: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:19:10 AM

I suppose it's worth remembering; here in the UK (the scary gun free land where even the police aren't routinely armed, and that American conservatives insist is full of violent criminals doing as they please), it's only really hand guns that are banned (aside from antiques, which is becoming a problem now that WWI and II era weapons are starting to qualify).

Long arms are fairly easy to get hold of and get a licence for (you can't have one for "self defence"), hard to lose one for (short of actually trying to shoot people with it) and the police don't really enforce it (an infamous case involving a burglar who was shot in the back saw the homeowner using a gun which he'd lost the right to own almost a year before after trying to shoot a 13 year old for scrumpting apples with it).

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#253479: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:19:40 AM

[up] Like I mentioned above, there are some exceptions. I don’t think someone who lives in a big city needs to be packing on a day to day basis, for example.

Germany uses the HK AR derivatives, and has M4s and M16s in their inventories, and Japanese special forces all use M4s rather than indigenous designs. It’s not incorrect.

Even forgetting those two countries, there are far more countries using AR-15 derivatives than AR-18 derivatives. It’s absolutley correct to state that almost every modern military uses an AR-pattern rifle. Hell, at this point you could probably argue that it’s coming close to the market saturation the AK has.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 29th 2018 at 4:24:05 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#253480: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:21:06 AM

"Oath Keepers" sounds so cultish,like the antagonists out of a fantasy novel!

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Imca (Veteran)
#253481: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:38:28 AM

You heard the KKK rank names before? The far right seems to have some kind of thing for high fantasy.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#253482: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:46:18 AM

Yeah,I've heard their leader is something like "Grand High Wizard"

The author of the harry potter books was'nt far off with naming her villains "Death Eaters"

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#253483: Aug 29th 2018 at 4:48:49 AM

As part of a plan by Betsy De Vos to address school shootings, the Education Department polled schools to see how many school related shooting took place in a year. (Defined as any gun going off on or around school property.) The Education Department claimed there were 240 such shootings.

NPR investigated and could confirm only 11. While about a quarter of those school didn't respond, likely due to the end of summer recess, more than 160 outright said that no such incident as reported by De Vos's poll took place. So it seems like a bit of BS to go ahead with the right wing agenda of arming schools and possibly undermining public schooling

It occurs to me that still averages out to just shy of one shooting a month...

Also, at the risk of being Captain Obvious, I'm realizing, more and more, that there Republicans only ever seem to succeed by employing methods to, if not outright cheat, then artificially depress opponent turnout (such as by backing a potential vote splitter or Gerrymandering) or inflating their own.

It's one thing to do that through ads or campaining, but the Republicans are going very "ends justify the means" with all of it.

While, pure statistics would suggest that there are Democrats pulling similar shenanigans, I can't imagine it's in anything like the numbers we've seen in the Republicans.

Edited by sgamer82 on Aug 29th 2018 at 5:50:35 AM

RainingMetal (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#253484: Aug 29th 2018 at 5:11:16 AM

RE: Talk shows

I think most of them took the week off prior to Labor Day, or possibly the week before and after Labor Day.

I can understand taking a break on the week of Labor Day, but they haven't been present the two weeks before Labor Day.

ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#253485: Aug 29th 2018 at 5:30:23 AM

[up][up][up]I've mentioned before in this thread and others in OTC that fascists like Nazis invoked the traditional tropes associated with heroic fantasy in their propaganda.

There is a reason you can find fascist and/or anti-democratic tropes and narratives in the heroic fantasy and sci fi genres.

Fascism in a way might be a nasty deconstruction of The Hero itself.

Edited by M84 on Aug 29th 2018 at 8:30:33 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#253486: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:15:10 AM

I'm glad Joe Arpaio lost the primaries in AZ. Now go away.

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#253487: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:15:29 AM

Heller Opinion? Let me guess?

Another way the NRA has done its best to make effective gun control regulation impossible. :/

I'm assuming the reference is the Supreme Court case Washington D.C. vs Heller, which is where noted "Strict Constitutionalist/Originalist" Scalia and the other conservatives decided that phrase about militias in the Second Amendment didn't mean anything and individuals had the right to own guns without most of the pesky regulations that were being applied tot them. From Wikipedia:

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008),[1] is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and requirement that lawfully-owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. Due to Washington, D.C.'s special status as a federal district, the decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment's protections are incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against the states,[2] which was addressed two years later by Mc Donald v. City of Chicago (2010) in which it was found that they are. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.[3]

Edited by TheWanderer on Aug 29th 2018 at 9:16:32 AM

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#253488: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:17:47 AM

This is why I couldn't bring myself to feel bad when Scalia bit the dust. That and his whole "torture is okay because Jack Bauer did it!" thing.

Edited by M84 on Aug 29th 2018 at 9:17:59 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#253489: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:20:48 AM

Yeah, but we got a younger, healthier, stupider Scalia in Gorsuch.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#253490: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:22:26 AM

That's why I despise Constitutional Originalists, at best they pick and choose what original intent they follow at worst they just use it as a cover for their real ideological goals. It's just so hypocritical and dishonest.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
thok That's Dr. Title, thank you! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Non-Canon
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
#253491: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:24:32 AM

In better news, California is replacing cash bail with a pretrial risk assessment: if you are poor and not a risk to the public, you won't go to jail while waiting for a trial because you can't make bail. Here's a CNN link on the topic. Obviously, this depends on how fair the pretrial assessment process is.

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#253492: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:28:19 AM

Also, this is an old story but I've been forgetting to post it for awhile:

Showing that there's no well meaning law or organization that can't be subverted by autocrat, Russia is abusing Interpol "Red Notices" (essentially the closest thing to an international warrant) to crack down on political dissidents and opponents who either have left Russia or otherwise aren't within its borders.

Naturally, given this administration, DHS has been all too willing to go along with Russia's abuse

A little more than six years ago, Sasha was on his way to a meeting of Russia’s pro-democracy Yabloko Party in the tiny Russian republic of Kalmykia when he was pulled into an unmarked black car by two plainclothes police officers. He was interrogated for three days about his prior activity with the party, his lawyer told me, and his captors demanded that he sign a confession that mentioned something about a kidnapping. But they wouldn’t tell him what his crime was.

After seven months in prison, Sasha—whose full name is being withheld by The Atlantic at his lawyer’s request—pleaded guilty without knowing why. In court weeks later, Russian prosecutors revealed the substantive case against him for the first time: Sasha, along with two others, had been accused and convicted of kidnapping someone, holding him in an apartment, and beating him repeatedly with a hammer. Sasha maintains that he never learned who the alleged victim was—no photo was ever submitted into the criminal record. But he served a brief prison sentence and was released on probation in December 2012, at which point he fled to the United States on a B-2 tourist visa and applied for asylum at the end of 2013.

In October 2017, Sasha and his wife were driving to work in Atlanta when they were pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. They told Sasha that the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, had issued a Red Notice at Russia’s behest, alerting authorities that he had violated the terms of his probation by traveling to the U.S. years earlier.

Much attention has been paid to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the fear of a repeat in the upcoming midterms. Less examined, however, has been Russia’s abuse of Interpol and the American court system to persecute the Kremlin’s rivals in the United States—a problem that the Atlantic Council described in a recent report as another form of “interference” by Russia. Russia’s requests to Interpol to issue Red Notices—the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today—against Kremlin opponents are being met with increasing deference by the Department of Homeland Security, according to immigration attorneys and experts in transnational crime and corruption with whom I spoke.

Interpol cannot compel any member country to arrest an individual who is the subject of a Red Notice, according to its guidelines, and “the United States does not consider a Red Notice alone to be a sufficient basis for the arrest of a subject because it does not meet the requirements for arrest under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution,” according to the Justice Department. But the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. immigration courts are effectively facilitating “backdoor extraditions,” as one immigration attorney said, in their reliance on Red Notices as a basis for detention and, ultimately, removal.

Brendan Raedy, a spokesman for ice, told me that it is the agency’s “responsibility to carefully vet any alleged Russian criminal violator that has come to the United States, and make the very best and most educated determination of whether the individual is indeed a criminal: Do they present an ongoing threat, are they fleeing criminal prosecution, or have they lied about their criminal activity in order to gain entry to the United States?” Raedy noted that ice has attaché offices who vet “criminal/fugitive leads to ensure that the individual in question is a true criminal, and not simply a political target of those in power.”

“Only after completing this process and determining which individuals are clearly the targets of legitimate criminal investigations do we then prioritize which of these criminals to pursue for either criminal investigation or deportation,” Raedy said. La Tonya Turner, Interpol Washington’s communications chief, declined to comment.

But Michelle Estlund, a criminal defense attorney who focuses on Interpol defense work, told me, “There is a disconnect between our decision to not have an extradition treaty with Russia and the decision to allow Russia to circumvent the extradition process using Red Notices. The effect is that we are removing people to countries that we would not normally extradite to.”

Sasha was initially detained on the basis of overstaying his visa, according to court records. DHS ultimately argued that he was not eligible for asylum because he had been convicted of “a particularly serious crime” in Russia—one that Sasha and his lawyer had argued was politically motivated, as criminal charges in Russia so often are. Despite an immigration judge’s finding that Sasha “testified credibly” with regard to his fears of political persecution, the court denied his request for asylum and ordered him “removed to Russia” in early June. He is still in detention, and his lawyer, Danielle Claffey, is fighting the decision.

“It was the worst asylum denial I have ever seen in the 10 years I have been doing this,” Claffey told me. Louise Shelley, the founder and director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center at George Mason University who testified in the case as an expert witness, called the decision “a travesty.”

“For all the years that I studied and worked with Russian experts within the law enforcement apparatus and the human rights community, Kalmykia was known as one of the locales with the most abusive of the legal systems,” Shelley wrote in her expert testimony for Sasha’s case. “It was particularly harsh on members of the Yabloko party that represented a political opposition and a voice of integrity in Russian politics … The liberal Yabloko party of which [Sasha] is a member has reported multiple cases of intimidation, threat and use of physical force, fabrication of criminal cases against its members, and even the outright murders of their activists.”

Two other Russian nationals currently being detained in the U.S. on the basis of a Red Notice argue that DHS and the immigration courts have relied exclusively on Russian charges—which they contend are politically motivated—to keep them detained and deny them bond hearings.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#253493: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:32:52 AM

Putin's scared of Browder.

In other news, Ward and Arpaio both got their asses kicked in the AZ Senate primary gringringrin

Ward's a nutcase who got Cernovich to campaign for her, while Arpaio's the thug who should be rotting in prison the rest of his life.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#253494: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:35:19 AM

Quite, it's lovely that such human detritus are not running in the general election.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#253495: Aug 29th 2018 at 6:52:33 AM

It's too bad Ron DeSantis couldn't have been trounced too. Speaking of which, he's already on the attack.

Calling out Venezuela as the sole reason that government assistance programs shouldn't be a thing is really getting old, BTW.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#253496: Aug 29th 2018 at 7:00:52 AM

Is it wrong that I kinda want leftists to be like “oh, we’re gonna do this? K, let’s talk about Pinochet, shall we?”

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#253497: Aug 29th 2018 at 7:07:06 AM

Morally? Absolutely not. Pragmatically? Getting into the mud with Republicans usually means they beat you with experience and their servile voter base, while yours/the moderates stays home.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Aug 29th 2018 at 11:21:13 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Mario1995 The Dishonorable from Atlanta Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
The Dishonorable
#253498: Aug 29th 2018 at 7:36:26 AM

What better way for DeSantis to kick off his campaign against Gillum than to use a racial slur against him?

This is going to get very ugly in the next couple months.

"The devil's got all the good gear. What's God got? The Inspiral Carpets and nuns. Fuck that." - Liam Gallagher
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#253499: Aug 29th 2018 at 7:51:10 AM

Mediaite is not an ideal site to be giving clicks to, just FYI.

Friendperson Since: May, 2018
#253500: Aug 29th 2018 at 7:59:34 AM

Given the amount of guns in the United States currently and how entrenched they are in our culture and society, do you guys advocate education and instruction in guns in addition to harsher penalties to violent use of or possession of firearms in crimes, or straight bans on certain types of guns, like European countries?


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