Re: USA gun violence thread

[RealGunner]

Charles Kinsey...

Behaviour therapist helping his autistic patient. Both hands in the air and not resisting

Got shot by the cops

Survived though thankfully

What's the 'justification' of shooting here?

[DuringTheWar]

I don't think there is any question about whether out of over 1,000,000 armed police officers in the US, some of them are going to do something bad.
When that happens and there's evidence the rule of law takes care of it, e.g. like it did with Walter Scott's killer.

Now stoking up general hatred of law and order by using such examples to imply that there is systemic corruption brutality and racism is another matter.

In particular taking controversial cases like Michael Brown and turning him into a martyr when it is proven the police officer was justified in the action he took, is an attempt tear up the social fabric and rule of law.

[FennecFox7]

I don't think there is any question about whether out of over 1,000,000 armed police officers in the US, some of them are going to do something bad.
When that happens and there's evidence the rule of law takes care of it, e.g. like it did with Walter Scott's killer.

Now stoking up general hatred of law and order by using such examples to imply that there is systemic corruption brutality and racism is another matter.

In particular taking controversial cases like Michael Brown and turning him into a martyr when it is proven the police officer was justified in the action he took, is an attempt tear up the social fabric and rule of law.

For once in my life, I find myself agreeing with you. Especially about the Michael brown case. That guy was a complete thug and got what was coming to him. BLM shoot themselves in the foot when they support Ferguson being rioted, then when real cases of blacks being shot due to racism happens, people don't listen to them


I also am of the opinion that people kill people, not guns kill people. I will say this. If you think having an ak47 is a demonstration of the 2nd amendment you're an idiot. I doubt the founding fathers meant for machine guns to be carried in public. Let's not support something for the sake of your political affiliation now. Handguns are fine in my book though. And I'm not entirely against concealed carry. Jeez, that's probably the most right I'll go.

[FennecFox7]

Also, off topic but let's not villianize drugs like meth and coke when alcohol and cigarettes are just as bad.

Drug use also includes rec use yeah? Including LSD, MDMA, weed, steroids, etc. those aren't exactly sucidal drugs

[rwo power]

As the Munich amok nutcase had an illegal Glocl-17 gun, the Guardian published an interesting article on the state of guns and gun control in Germany:

Gun ownership in Germany is the highest in the European Union and the fourth highest in the world, with more guns legally owned per capita than in Mexico, Russia or South Africa. More than 5.4 million guns are registered as being in private hands.

To own a semi-automatic 9mm Glock pistol like the kind used in the Munich shootings [legally], a citizen would have had to have been over 18, waited a year for his licence and undergone a psychological evaluation.

Killings by firearms in Germany are double that of the UK. But three school massacres carried out by former students – in Winnenden in 2009 where 16 people died, in Emsdetten in 2006 where five people were hurt and the shooter killed himself, and at a school in Erfurt in 2002 where 17 people died – were instrumental in forcing through political reforms which are widely seen as making the country’s gun controls amongst the most stringent in the world.

The controls have seen the numbers of murders using a gun drop dramatically, from about 40% in 2000 to 13% in 2011, although firearms are still the most common method of committing suicide.

Two people out of every million die in gun killings in Germany each year. The statistic is one per million in the UK – and in the US 31 out of every million deaths are a homicide involving a gun.

The German authorities restrict the acquisition, possession and carrying of firearms to those with a legitimate reason for a weapon – for example hunters or members of sports shooting clubs. Although in vast swaths of the country people still love traditional hunting and shooting, gun ownership is not a right, as it is the US. There is also a ban on fully automatic weapons and restrictions on the acquisition of other types – and especially the sale of large-calibre weapons to young people.

Compulsory – and expensive – liability insurance is required for anyone who is licensed to carry firearms, and strict rules govern the storage of guns in safes.

Reforms enacted in 2009 in response to the massacre by 17-year-old Tim Kretschmerat at his school in Winnenden saw the creation of a federal gun register and the allowing of spot checks at the homes of any registered gun owner. Now applicants wait a year to receive their licence; young adults under the age of 25 must pass a psychological test; and any licence holder caught drink-driving or showing any kind of erratic behaviour has to go for a psychological evaluation as well.

The country has had a chequered modern history with gun legislation – after the lax regime of the 1930s, post-war German citizens were not allowed to privately own a gun at all until 1956. Then the rules were relaxed until the height of the Red Army Faction violence in the 1970s, when regulations were again revised.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/23/germany-guns-chequered-history-munich-shootings

[FennecFox7]

See, now that sounds reasonable ^

[VivaStPauli]

Well our government usually isn't impressively reasonable or smart, but we do not have the NRA here, and it shows.

[DuringTheWar]

And before you comment further, take a little bit of time to go through the information in each of those links then come back to this thread

Ok, done.

African-Americans don't use drugs at a higher level than whites but "wind up going to prison six times more."
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/jul/13/van-jones/van-jones-claim-drug-use-imprisonment-rates-blacks/

The first thing he has attempted to establish is the rate at which people of different races do drugs, so he can compare it to arrest rates, of which according to the National Research Council blacks have a 3-4 times higher rate. (*There is a reason for the disparity in arrest rate mentioned on the site that I'll comment on later)

It's a flawed analysis to start with, this hypothetical scenario illustrates why: If 99% of one group took drugs once in their lives whereas 1% of another group took drugs every day, which group would be arrested more? the latter I think. I cannot see any data anywhere provided by this site shedding light on the frequencies at which people of different ethnicities take drugs.

I've looked at the data in the surveys by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that the politifact site linked to - It's notable that despite a greater percentage of whites, 12 years or older, taking illicit drugs during their lifetime than do blacks (51.1% > 45.4%) when it comes to drug use in the previous year, or previous month, blacks have higher rates of drug use, albeit not by a huge amount. Does that indicate their usage is more frequent on average? Possibly but i'd rather see survey data that actually asks this question.

He goes on then to look at imprisonment rates, he makes the claim that blacks have a 5.8 times higher imprisonment rate which is bigger than the discrepancy in arrest rates. Does that suggest harsher treatment? (** The writer suggests a different reason for this later on)
It is really ambiguous as to how he derived this 5.8 figure. He mentioned two sources, the Bureau of Justice statistics which he admits are flawed because they don't include drug offenders who committed worse crimes, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission that only considers drug offenders in federal prisons. It is really unclear from where and how he got this 5.8 number, either way I don't see how it can be considered very reliable.

But the statistics provided by the U.S. Sentencing commission on drug offenders in federal prison are very interesting. They have a table showing the relationships between different drugs and races:

- 80% of offences related to crack cocaine were committed by blacks
- 69% of marijuana offences were committed by Hispanics
- 38% of methamphetamine offences were committed by whites

Those are the highest figures each race has regarding any one drug.

48.4% of all drug offences were committed by Hispanics, double either whites or blacks.

Anyway this strongly suggests drug offences by race are not evenly distributed amongst the drugs, and I've got no idea what variations there are in how law enforcement handles each drug. Is this even an apples to apples comparison?

Next he cites the NAACP who don't provide sources to their claims, and they switch from absolute to relative comparisons in a bit of statistical trickery, so i'll just ignore their claims.

*As mentioned near the start, we get to one of the definitive reasons why blacks have a higher arrest rate for drug offences. The politifact site quotes Michael Tonry, a professor of law - "Whites are more likely to sell to people they know, and they much more often sell behind closed doors. Blacks sell to people they don't know and in public, which makes them vastly easier to arrest"

In addition to which the politifact writer then says - "Police tend to patrol high-crime areas more aggressively.... which have a higher proportion of minorities"
Your source of information is basically making the same argument here as mine...

Then finally he writes:
** "Blacks arrested for drugs are more likely to be sent to jail because theyre more likely to have had a previous run-in with the law"

Well what i got from that politifact post is that there are indeed more important factors than racism when it comes to arrest rates and imprisonment rates; Variations in how blacks and whites sell drugs and previous criminal records.

"African-Americans are more likely to be arrested by police and sentenced to longer prison terms for doing the same thing that whites do."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/26/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-blacks-more-likely-be-arreste/

After reading that it is clear that the writer rated Clinton's claim true because it is technically true, not because of what was implied. Yes, blacks are more likely to be arrested for the same crime, yes they are given harsher sentences. Is it because of racism as Hillary implied? The politifact writer didn't seem to think so as far as I can tell.

So first things first, Clinton's campaign referred to a Washington post blog that used data showing blacks are 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for selling drugs than whites despited whites being 45% more likely to sell drugs.
Aside from the fact that the quote by Michael Tonry from the previous politifact post can explain this, the data used is 36 years out of date.

It then moves on to look at discrepancies in traffic offences....

" The Bureau of Justice statistics.... found that white, black, and Hispanic drivers were stopped at similar rates"

Doesn't sound like racism does it?

" However, black drivers were about three times as likely to be searched during a traffic stop"

But this does not explain why. You cant assume this is unfair treatment or racism without evidence. It is plausible that blacks are more uncooperative and show more animosity towards the police because of the resentment that exists between them as a group and the police as a group. If that is the case the police may be more suspicious of them.
If it is racial profiling, well why don't they stop blacks more than whites and Hispanics?

It then says some organisation called "The Sentencing Project" finds that blacks are twice as likely to arrested during a traffic stop despite being less likely to be found carrying contraband.
Again though this may be SUGGESTIVE of racism it is not evidence, it does not explain why the situation escalates into arrest. We know statistically blacks are more likely to resist arrest. If you aren't respectful to and compliant with police there is a good chance they'll arrest you.

Then the topic switches to sentencing harshness...

According to the Politifact writer - "When judges have discretion over how long a sentence should be for a specific crime, they tend to select longer sentences for blacks"

This is a disingenuous statement, trickery even. Not the claim that there is a discrepancy in the sentence, but the inference that it is the judges discretion that is at fault. The source he uses refutes this...

The Yale Law Journal, slide 1: " We find no evidence that racial disparity has increased since Booker, much less because of Booker. Unexplained racial disparity remains persistent, but does not appear to have increased following the expansion of judicial discretion"

The Yale Law Journal, slide 55: " If judges were, in fact, inclined to use broader sentencing discretion in ways that disadvantaged black defendants, one would expect to see at least some of that effect in the immediate vicinity of Booker"

The Politifact writer then backs away from the racism narrative by blaming poverty and the fact that there is more pressure on blacks to "cop a plea bargain" because they cant afford bail or a good lawyer.

So where is the evidence that black are mistreated because they are black? This just doesn't cut it.

And here's a little more of your "black people commit more crime" talk analyzed
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/26/rudy-giuliani/giuliani-black-and-white-people-charged-murder-are/

This Politifact post says that according to the Bureau of Justice statistics - "  It found that of all people convicted of murder or non-negligent manslaughter in 2006, 46% were white, and 51% were black"

Apparently this "undercuts" Rudy Giuliani's "fragmented" point, whatever it was, but it seems to support my "black people commit more crime talk"...

I asked whether different drugs are treated equally as harshly. Apparently they aren't.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437703/the-war-on-cops-racism-allegations-are-largely-non-factual

So crack cocaine, 80% of the offenders in crimes related to which, in federal prison, are black, is punished more severely than other drug offences.

So then the left manoeuvres itself to say the reason crack cocaine is treated more harshly is premeditated racism, because they know it will hit blacks harder.

Turns out, according to this article, it was blacks who campaigned for harsher punishments for crack offences.

God damnit the left is a basket case of infinite retardation.

[FennecFox7]

dude, you cannot say that drugs like weed, MDMA, lsd and even coke cause crimes directly. You sound like someone who's never done them. I've done everything you can think of and not once did I feel what your statistics show

Drugs don't cause crimes, people cause crimes. Just like guns don't kill people

[Unique]

dude, you cannot say that drugs like weed, MDMA, lsd and even coke cause crimes directly. You sound like someone who's never done them. I've done everything you can think of and not once did I feel what your statistics show

Drugs don't cause crimes, people cause crimes. Just like guns don't kill people

I have to disagree with you there. a bad drug habit can and will motivate people to commit crime. but just owning a gun don't motivate you to kill with it. now if you are a crack head with a gun your asking for trouble.

[izzy]

If baning guns will stop people from getting shot maybe we should try banning crack meth and heroin as well

Oh my goodness........

[Unique]

If baning guns will stop people from getting shot maybe we should try banning crack meth and heroin as well

Oh my goodness........

??

[rwo power]

Well, drugs are illegal, guns in the the US are legal. Thus drugs *are* banned, while guns aren't. See the difference?

[Unique]

Well, drugs are illegal, guns in the the US are legal. Thus drugs *are* banned, while guns aren't. See the difference?

it was a sarcastic way of saying making things illegal don't mean the problem will go away. if it did we wouldent have a problem with drugs would we.

[M99]

Well, drugs are illegal, guns in the the US are legal. Thus drugs *are* banned, while guns aren't. See the difference?

it was a sarcastic way of saying making things illegal don't mean the problem will go away. if it did we wouldent have a problem with drugs would we.

Are you saying that if guns were illegal, there would not have been a decrease in gun related violence in the US?

[Unique]

Well, drugs are illegal, guns in the the US are legal. Thus drugs *are* banned, while guns aren't. See the difference?

it was a sarcastic way of saying making things illegal don't mean the problem will go away. if it did we wouldent have a problem with drugs would we.

Are you saying that if guns were illegal, there would not have been a decrease in gun related violence in the US?

that's exactly what I'm saying. people that want a gun to shoot somone would just get one on the black market. I don't think someone would think I better not murder that man because guns are illegal. crminals will allways get hold of guns.

[rwo power]

Well for Germany it was

The controls have seen the numbers of murders using a gun drop dramatically, from about 40% in 2000 to 13% in 2011, although firearms are still the most common method of committing suicide.

So at least here the numbers are explicitely in favour of tighter gun control.

Number of murder victims in 2000: 497, number of murder victims in  2015: 296
http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/2229/umfrage/mordopfer-in-deutschland-entwicklung-seit-1987/

[DuringTheWar]

dude, you cannot say that drugs like weed, MDMA, lsd and even coke cause crimes directly. You sound like someone who's never done them. I've done everything you can think of and not once did I feel what your statistics show

Drugs don't cause crimes, people cause crimes. Just like guns don't kill people

I never said that anywhere. I was talking about the crime of possessing or selling drugs.

The statistics don't show crimes that are caused by drugs, they show people locked up because they took/sold drugs.

[FennecFox7]

Decriminalize drugs besides meth and certain opiates and these problems go away. Besides, things like Xanax and benzos are still legal with an rx. Those are ridiculously harmful drugs

@unique, spoken like someone who hasn't even done any. Don't speak for yourself

[Unique]

Decriminalize drugs besides meth and certain opiates and these problems go away. Besides, things like Xanax and benzos are still legal with an rx. Those are ridiculously harmful drugs

@unique, spoken like someone who hasn't even done any. Don't speak for yourself

I don't have to be on crack or heroin to know its a major cause of crime mate.

[VivaStPauli]

Well, yeah, because it's illegal.

[Unique]

Well, yeah, because it's illegal.

what?

[FennecFox7]

Right. Because MDMA, LSD and weed are such violent drugs. Oh man. You need a dose of reality

[Unique]

Right. Because MDMA, LSD and weed are such violent drugs. Oh man. You need a dose of reality

I'm not so much talking about MDMA LSD or weed. but young kids with no money will commit crime to get money to buy these drugs. but heroin cocaine crack meth and all addictive drugs are responsible for most of the crime in the world today imo.

[FennecFox7]

That's absolutely not true though. And decriminalizing it is always going to be the better option

[Unique]

That's absolutely not true though. And decriminalizing it is always going to be the better option

yes mate it is absolutely true. if people get hooked on hard drugs and don't have money to pay for them it is 100% fact they will commit crime to fund them. that is not a debate. that is a fact.

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