carpandean

Just a little different perspective: % of crime per % of population: Overall: 2.121 black to 0.888 white (2.389:1) Murder: 3.955 black to 0.583 white (6.783:1) Rape: 2.371 black to 0.852 white (2.783:1) Violent Crime: 2.932 black to 0.751 white (3.901:1) Fraud: 2.409 black to 0.851 white (2.832:1) Weapons: 3.015 black to 0.749 white (4.025:1) Drug Abuse: 2.303 black to 0.871 white (2.643:1) DUI: 0.947 black to 1.084 white (0.874:1) Murders convictions are certainly the highest and longest incarceration rates, while DUI's are almost certainly the lowest (ridiculously so, if you ask me ... once is a mistake, five times is criminal.) Of course, we would really need to see the % of crimes that each represents and the overall incarceration rate for each to determine how disproportionate it really is. Certainly, the system has bias, but as with all statistics, you have to be careful in jumping on one just because it seems extreme.

One problem with this is that they only keep statistics on actual lethal shootings in self-defense. There are many, many cases that get virtually no media attention (a short blurb in a local paper, at best) in which the handgun is use to injure, detain or scare off an attacker. Few, if any, of those get factored into the handgun's use in defense. What also isn't accounted for is how many deaths each of those cases might have prevented (whether it was a justifiable homicide or one of the three that I mentioned.) It's hard to say what the actual balance is, because the right statistics aren't kept to do so. I also said that I support more training requirements. This should help with both of those categories. A quick note on the numbers provided, the suicide numbers are concerning, but really a separate issue. As I've said before, we have a similar overall per-capita suicide rate to many European countries and, if I remember correctly, Canada despite having far more access to guns. Japan has twice our rate with almost no guns. It is simply the most effective way to commit suicide in the US.

Thank you. I stand corrected on the origin. It does seem that manufacturers used it initially to sell something that was cool looking, but as that text shows, it was formalized and villainized by those looking to ban something scary sounding. It's like the manufactures said, "get your super-awesome black rifles" and the politicians said, "OMG, we need to ban those evil black rifles" and wrote a "black rifle" ban (note: being black has about the same effect on lethality as some of the other banned features.) I will, however, stand by the fact that AW regulations do little to affect gun violence in this country. A lot of time and effort is wasted on doing something that's main effect is pissing off millions of law-abiding citizens. Again, it plays off fears to give the impression that they are accomplishing something, but their use is simply too rare and their advantage over the next-best alternative simply too little to have a meaningful effect. Any impactful legislation will have to affect pistols (used in 3-5 times - depending on the year - as many homicides as all other types of guns combined.) Unfortunately, the characteristics that make them the best choice for crime (concealability, first and foremost) also make them the best choice for personal defense, which is why such legislation rarely passes. Even if it would, that would still have a greater effect on those that are legally owned. Relating to pistols (and CC, in particular), I am personally all for adding training/certification requirements for concealed carry permits as long as the process is (1) cheap, (2) offered frequently, and (3) relatively quick. Those ensure that CC are not only available to the wealthy and that the process is not used as de facto gun control. Texas actually has stricter requirements for CC permits, but in NYS the process is drawn out (it takes 9-18 months in many counties) and expensive. Basically, one state says, "we welcome those who want to CC, as long as they are willing to take the time/effort to learn to use their pistols," while the other says, "we fear CC, so we'll make the process really long and expensive, hoping you just won't bother," but doesn't have ability requirements.

It ("assault weapon") was created (or at least adopted and overused) by politicians who are the strongest gun-control advocates to describe something that most of them can't even tell you what makes it what it is. Conversely, the term "assault rifle" has been used by the military since Germany came out with the Sturmgewehr (literally "storm rifle", where storm is meant as in "storm a fortification"; i.e., a synonymy for "assault") in the 1940's. Again, they are select-fire weapons, which are not part of what politicians are currently trying to control, because those have been heavily controlled since 1986 (in addition to the aforementioned restriction on post-1986 select-fires, each has to be registered federally and transferred with specific paperwork.) "Assault weapons" are simply semi-automatic rifles that are cosmetically similar to assault rifles (so called "military features". Now, I won't lie and tell you that a semi-automatic weapon can't fire rapidly, because they can, but that's also not what they try to ban. They ban features that make them more comfortable and often safer to use, but do not really make them more deadly (actually, removing them often makes them less safe for law abiding citizens to use, should they need to.) In fact, we are starting to see many of them incorporated into hunting rifles. As an aside, I would be curious to see an example of a manufacturer who describes their own semi-automatic rifles as "assault rifles". It would be a first for me and I would be very surprised. There are several things to consider here. First, how many times prior to Miller was there an attempt to limit individual rights that was then opposed in court. Do we have one such case (basically, when sawed off shotguns were restricted) with a collective right interpretation after a century and a half of ambiguity and then several recent ones with an individual right interpretation? Also, I haven't read the details of the Miller decision, but did it actually state anything about the collective vs. individual right argument or did simply say that the standard by which a weapon should be allowed is weather it might be used by someone in a militia. "Well regulate" aside, "militia" meant any able-bodied male at the time of the writing of the BOR. Ironically, Miller would actually support (or, at least, could not be used to restrict) the ownership of "assault weapons" because they would clearly be the ideal weapons for a militia member to own. As for the 2nd vs. 9th, it depends on how you interpret it. You could argue that the 2nd restricted the federal government from preventing states from having their own armed forces, while a right not specifically expressed in the BOR, but covered by the fact that the 9th says there are other rights beyond the BOR, would be the individual's right to own weapons to defend their lives, families and property. That is, the individual right was just assumed, but they wanted to make sure that the Feds couldn't say, "sorry, states, we're the only ones who can have an army." Plus, as was mentioned before, there was an implied responsibility for the states to provide such forces for both their own and the nation's defense. There is plenty of evidence that many of the founding fathers would not have agreed. Also, by this argument, can the government restrict speech on the internet, because they couldn't have possibly imagined web in their day?

You do know that automatic weapons manufactured after 1986 have been banned from civilian ownership since that date and that the relatively few (and fixed in number) pre-1986 automatic weapons in civilians' hands sell for 10's of thousands of dollars, right? I'm not aware of any legally owned select-fire (automatic or burst capable) rifle being used in a spree/mass shooting. They are generally owned either by the owners at the time or by wealthy collectors, neither of whom want to give up something so valuable. As for so-called "assault weapons" (a political term created to play off the military's select-fire "assault rifles"), unless you extend the definition all the way out to include all semi-automatic, magazine or stripper-clip fed rifles (many of which would then be hunting rifles), banning "military features" will only make them uglier, not less effective. Look at NY. We have the SAFE Act, which is one of the strongest AW laws in the country, but what has it actually done? Mostly, it has had several (not-too-publicized) negative side-effects (ask the state's mental health officials) with very few benefits. Again, the biggest effect is that the ARs here are uglier than the rest of the country, but not less effective. Why? Because most of those features are about things other than effectiveness in killing (e.g., pistol grips are more comfortable to hold for long periods of time, such as when on patrol or in an over-watch position, and collapsible stocks on rifles that meet the minimum overall legth requirements are about accommodating different shooting positions or shooters with the same rifle.) Heck, even if you do go with the extended definition, pump/slide/lever-action rifles can be made that are nearly as effective. Unfortunately, you could ban all rifles that aren't single shot or bolt action (because there are way too many hunters to allow that) and you will find that you've barely affected the gun deaths in the US - they simply aren't used in that many - and even mass/spree shootings won't be cut by that much (even the most liberal-biased site shows that they are used in somewhere around a third of such deaths and you have to assume that some of those would simply switch over to pistols/shotguns like the majority already use.) The fact is "assault weapons" are a political red herring. They seem scary and have been used in a handful of terrible incidents, so they make an easy target that no politician really wants to oppose. Since they couldn't make any headway on banning pistols in the courts, they went after an easy, but ultimately insignificant (obviously not to the family members of victims, but statistically speaking) target to look like they were doing something. As for the 2nd, the founding fathers, etc ... - The individual right to keep and bear arms to defend ones life, family and property long pre-dated the US Constitution. It was one of the assumed rights that they didn't feel the need to spell out (even after deciding that they should at least add the Bill of Rights for some specific ones.) As previously mentioned, the 9th is probably where that right really falls. - Most of them did fear a a large centralized military and many of them felt that disarming the population was a good early step for a tyrannical government. There are pages and pages of quotes to back that up. An armed population is also hard to invade (foreign threat) or oppress (domestic threat). As was pointed out, it's not that they could individually defeat the military forces, but rather that they, en masse, would put up sufficient resistance to make the cost too high. This is especially true when you factor in that the military forces, themselves, would be split in their support of such orders.

Yeah, it's kinda his thing: 1st in 2014-15 2nd in 2013-14 6th in 2012-13 (shortened season) 1st in 2011-12 3rd in 2010-11 10th in 2009-10 (first season)

So ... they apologized to him for not getting out of the way?

Why can't we have nice things? :cry:

Neo and I could be friends. He thinks like I think, but says it a lot more eloquently and convincingly than I can.

Not saying that you're wrong, in general, but that's not a Marines sticker:

Ironically, that limitation was meant (in part) to prevent wealthy families controlling the government.

Great use of a GIF. Made me :w00t: .

I remember around the combine a quote from TM about liking to take true athletes, even if raw skill-wise.

If they really want to make it exciting and reduce the chance of SO, they should have 3-on-2 and 3-on-1* powerplays. :thumbsup: * and, I suppose, potentially 2-on-2, 2-on-1 and 1-on-1 when both teams are penalized.

Neither one was doing anything wrong, per se, but they clearly didn't communicate well with each other. It's like a centerfielder saying "I got it" so that they leftfielder doesn't continue making a play on the ball. I've seen that go awry with poor communications, too.

I usually try to put myself in each person's "shoes" to figure out what they may have been thinking and why their actions might have seemed warranted to them at the time, in the heat of the moment. But ... this one doesn't really suggest anything other than the officer could not appropriately decide the level to which a situation needed to be escalated. Did race factor in? Possibly, probably, who knows. What you can tell is that he was reacting to the scene with what appeared to be an undue level of energy and force. He was so jacked up that he treated a buck-twenty (give-or-take) girl in a bikini like she was an eminent threat. He didn't control, much less deescalate, the situation; he made it worse. Even without all of the recent, highly publicized black/police interactions, he would be in trouble. With them? Hard to see him not looking for a new job when the investigation is done.

Maybe in PA. Here, it takes a background investigation, fingerprinting and (at least in Monroe County) 9-18 months of waiting, plus a bunch of $. All more than getting a driver's license. However, I do agree that some basic firearms safety training/evaluation should be a requirement, as long as becoming certified by the state to teach such a course isn't so costly and time consuming that nobody is willing to do it, making it de facto gun control. Heck, even Texas requires:

Wait, this isn't a nightclub? I thought it was like studio 54.

I doubt that there are rules. Simply a supply-and-demand thing. A team has to have fired a coach that is then in high demand. At that point, they need to choose their value, which can't be so high that it scares away any team from signing him, because they also benefit from having the salary come off of the books. As you say, there may be compensation for Bylsma, but it will be a very small part of a package for a first.

Tank hangover. ;)

I feel like I'm talking to myself. Even quoted, people seemed to miss my point. The article did not say that Bylsma would cost a first. It said that his rights could be part of a package for 21. Nobody in the article, including the Pens' GM, implied that his rights would be worth anything close to a first alone. The fact that the Sabres' second 1st-rounder is one of the ones that they are targeting and the Sabres are one of the leading teams for Bylsma just makes it more likely that they could work out a deal (including, but far from limited to, Dan's rights.) Edited to add quotes: Doesn't sound like someone expecting huge compensation. Note the "one element of a trade package" in the author's quote.

That's not what I got from that article. I got: 1) Rutherford does want a first-rounder (in general) and will be talking to teams with extra ones. 2) Buffalo is one of the teams that has an extra, so the Pens will be talking to them about it. 3) Teams do sometimes get compensation beyond just getting the salary of a fired coach off of their books when they are hired by another team. 4) If the Sabres want to hire Bylsma, then his rights may be part of a package for the Sabres' extra first-round pick. In other words, it's not that he wants a first-rounder for Bylsma rights, but rather that it could be one piece in acquiring one from Buffalo.

There wasn't enough time in the process for Babs to check with his wife about whether or not Buffalo was really a possibility before the very last minute?

There are a couple of gubernatorial elections that work this way. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, then the top-two candidates have a runoff. Would be interesting to see what would actually happen in such a system. Would anything actually change? Would third-party candidates have a better chance? It certainly seems like you would avoid the case a of two similar candidates from different parties diluting each other's votes. I've always had a problem with the concept of left vs. right when there are, at minimum, two dimensions (social, fiscal) to the political landscape. Where does someone who, for example, is pro-choice, supports gay marriage, etc, but is also in favor of limited government, reduced spending and taxation, etc, fall? Upper-left? Lower-right?