Essay by Eric Worrall
Former NZ PM Jacinda Ardern has formally joined Harvard’s global push to censor online speech, because publicly questioning climate alarmism is related to mass shooting atrocities.
Former New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern joins Berkman Klein Center as Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is thrilled to announce Jacinda Ardern as its first Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow. Ardern served as the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2017 to 2023. The fellowship begins this fall.
Ardern is known globally as a dedicated and effective leader in pursuing greater online platform accountability and content moderation standards through the Christchurch Call, a community of over 120 governments, online service providers, and civil society organizations sparked by the livestreaming of deadly mass killings by a white supremacist at two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019, which killed 51 people.
“I am delighted to be formally working with the Berkman Klein Center,” said Prime Minister Ardern. “The Center has been an incredibly important partner as we’ve developed the Christchurch Call to action on addressing violent extremism online. Emerging technologies such as AI present huge opportunities to address online harms, but also challenges. My time with BKC will allow me to collaborate with the excellent team as we advance the work of the Christchurch Call.”
…
Read more: https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2023-04/jacinda-ardern-joins-berkman-klein-center
The Christchurch mosque shootings which inspired this global censorship push occurred in gun controlled New Zealand. Despite New Zealand’s strict gun laws, a maniac somehow got his hands on a semi-automatic shotgun and lots of ammo. The 51 murdered Muslims were unable to defend themselves against the heavily armed maniac, because New Zealand’s strict gun laws forbid law abiding people from bearing arms.
In the wake of this horrible atrocity, New Zealand’s then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded by doubling down on New Zealand’s gun control failure, and even more bizarrely, by attempting to link questioning climate predictions to mass shooting atrocities.
If you think I’m exaggerating, read Jacinda’s words for yourself;
…
On March 15, 2019, New Zealand experienced a horrific terrorist attack on its Muslim community.
More than 50 people were killed as they prayed. The attack was live-streamed on a popular social media platform in an effort to gain notoriety, and to spread hate.
At that time, the ability to thwart those goals was limited. And the chances of Government alone being able to resolve this gap was equally challenging.
That’s why, alongside President Emmanuel Macron, we created the Christchurch Call to Action.
The Call community has worked together to address terrorism and violent extremist content online. As this important work progresses, we have demonstrated the impact we can have by working together collaboratively.
…
As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even those most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech we value so highly.
But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to this challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it. To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value.
After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble? How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?
The weapons may be different but the goals of those who perpetuate them are often the same. To cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves. To disband communities. To collapse the collective strength of countries who work together.
But we have an opportunity here to ensure that these particular weapons of war do not become an established part of warfare.
…
Read more: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/09/full-speech-jacinda-ardern-addresses-un-general-assembly.html
I can’t help thinking that allowing law abiding people to bear arms and defend themselves when the next maniac opens fire might be a better way to reduce mass shooting casualties, than silencing critics of wind turbines. Some US mass shooters have been stopped in their tracks by courageous, law abiding people who shot back. But Jacinda Ardern and her fellow travellers seem firmly convinced that more censorship, including censoring climate skeptics, is the best way to protect people from bullets.
Maybe someone from New Zealand can explain.
Note I am not in any way criticising the Christchurch police mobilisation in response to the atrocity. The Christchurch police reacted as quickly as anyone could reasonably expect, and stopped the maniac from reaching the third mosque on his hit list, by courageously ramming his automobile. The maniac was apprehended just 18 minutes after the first emergency call. But 18 minutes is a long time, when a heavily armed madman is pumping shotgun blasts into large groups of unarmed people.
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Almost all (92%) mass shootings occur in “gun free zones”. If Ardern was not a control freak authoritarian, she might consider that gun free zones were the problem.
Her reaction to Covid is a major reason to call her a control freak, rather than just a Brit wannabee bigot on guns. She seemed to have a desire to make people truckle to her orders, rather than a rational reaction to a virus.
Australia banned the semi automatics 20 years before…..hence no massacres since
Indeed the murderer Tarrant an Australian, moved to NZ because of it’s looser gun laws
You are completely wrong about gun free zones . US states are where they are most common, far away more often than other countries
Mass killings in Australia were already so low the ban had no significant effect. The pre-ban tendency in homicides continued at the same slope.
Despite blather from Obama, the US is in the middle of industrialized countries as far as per capita mass shootings. Gun controllers routinely lie.
And Tom Halla in Australia criminals have ZERO problems getting whatever guns they desire.
A second point I want to make is that I have never heard ex PM Ardern protest a syllable at the huge death tolls from around the world from “religion of peace” violence. Decades of death tolls that make the Christchurch massacre look like a kindergarten tea party.
hence no massacres since
Flat-out false statement: There have been 12 massacres since Port Arthur, which is the incident that triggered the ban. Total of 140 dead.
Did you notice that during the Rittenhouse trial, according to the press:
It was the overwhelming position of the French press and also of a lot of US press: “semi auto vs. pistol”.
Semi auto is much more frightening. It’s almost an half auto. If you have two semi auto, can you add the two half to get a full auto? I mean two half chickens is like a chicken, right?
“Almost all (92%) mass shootings occur in “gun free zones”.”
Yeah right. And pigs fly. You my friend are making that nonsense up. Fact up or f… off.
Name a venue that allows law abiding people to carry their choice of weapon that has experienced a mass shooting.
How many shootings in malls have been stopped by law abiding concealed carry non-law enforcement?
Defending one’s self and others should not be disallowed at the whim of government. Remember, without the fear of guns, criminals can use machetes, knives, and even ball bats with impunity. They can do so both outside of your house and inside your house. Are you good in a knife fight?
“Are you good in a knife fight?”
Good point.
I see some of these criminals robbing and hurting people on tv and I just wish to see at sometime an old lady being robbed pull out her handgun and blast the hell out of the perpetrator.
The old lady probably wouldn’t have the strength to defend herself with a knife.
Happily, in my U.S. State, I, and anyone else who has not been convicted of a felony and is of legal age can carry a gun for self defense. We are not helpless in the face of a crazy gunman.
There have been old ladies in my State who have pulled out their guns and fended off their attackers.
It happens OFTEN, the MSM just refuses to cover those events.
Hence the reason machetes and now even kitchen knives are being banned in the UK.
Carrying a machete, or even a kitchen knife without good reason e.g. gardener going to or from a job, or a chef doing the same, has always been an offence.
Please define “always.”
A friend does cuisine, he has an official paper to travel with his kitchen knives (in a box) in France.
As usual, any fact that doesn’t fit Simon’s agenda is rejected out of hand.
In WWII, American engineers were studying B-17s that came back from Germany to assess what areas needed more protection in future versions. It took them a while to realize that they were studying the damage that the planes were surviving, not the ones that were being lost. They did, eventually recalibrate their thinking, leftists never will.
Remind me again Eric… what are NZ’s gun shooting statistics compared to the country that you seem to think have got it so right, i.e the US?
Before you answer, I’ll point out NZ have not had a single mass shooting since they banned semi automatics (April 2019), the US on the other hand…..
Last question Eric. What is the single biggest killer of children in the US? Shall I help you…. It’s guns Eric. Not road accidents, not cancer…..
So the US seem to be losing the battle to make the place safer by drowning in guns, or maybe you think they need more?
You want to lecture NZ about gun violence Eric, Save it. I’m happy to live in a country that has laws that mean our gun deaths are a fraction of the country you worship?
Oh and for the record the guy who did the shootings wasn’t even a kiwi, he was one of your lot….
Simon, the USA can’t control fentanyl, so what are the chances of stopping criminals getting guns? All gun laws restrictions in the USA achieve is the creation of soft targets, that is why there are so many school shootings, and also explains why democrat run big cities like Chicago are so violent.
New Zealand has the benefit of a large moat, but this natural advantage will be rapidly eroded as the falling cost of 3D metal printing and heavy duty CNC machines put a precision made gun in the hands of any New Zealand criminal who wants one.
I think gun violence is a nice distraction from the real problems that are caused by governments: the lock-downs that destroyed trillions in the economy, the mandated mRNA “vaccines” that are leaving a much larger swath of death and maiming than any violent nation, to start.
The attack on the energy sector is going to leave semi-isolated nations like NZ in a very large mess as the supply-chain crumbles and little nations like NZ may not have sufficient resources to play in Supply Chain 2.0 which is modeled on a globe that does not include Pax Americana or inexpensive and available transportation fuels.
I’ll note you didn’t answer any of my questions. And I think we both know why. The data in the US is so much worse than any other first world country. No other country even close and yet you still defend their horrendous gun laws. Nothing else to say.
A teenage thug brandished a pistol and shot someone within walking distance of my house in Australia last year, the other person was just walking their dog, so who knows what caused that senseless violence. I wonder how protected by gun laws the victim of that shooting felt?
Someone got carjacked, then a woman got snatched off the street a couple of years ago in my town. Thankfully she wasn’t hurt, but her kidnapper held her for hours before the police intercepted their car and rescued her.
A few weeks ago teenage thugs on scooters went down the street slashing a bunch of tires, including my vehicle. Someone confronted them and got threatened with a knife. Thankfully nobody got hurt on that occasion, but what about next time?
All this in my quiet country town in gun controlled Australia.
The USA has a lot of violence because they have a large population, and a long border with a country run by violent narco-terrorists, disadvantages New Zealand doesn’t suffer. But the USA at least takes care of their people, giving them the opportunity to defend themselves when they are attacked.
I’m a big guy, so plenty of confrontations have ended with the criminals being intimidated into backing off. But I’m not a young man anymore, I’m not as intimidating as I once was. And my size wouldn’t help me, if the next teenage thug who confronts me has one of those illegal guns which are circulating in my neighbourhood.
Your stories are meaningless Eric. Yes there is violence everywhere but that does not justify allowing anyone and everyone to carry a gun. But if you want stories I have a story for you. Two young girls in the US accidentally got in to the wrong car in the US. The owner took it on himself to empty his “legal” gun into their bodies.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-cheerleaders-shot-wrong-car-practice-rcna80366
Or the child who was shot going to get their ball from a neighbour.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/04/21/us-girl-6-shot-while-retrieving-ball-from-neighbours-yard/
F**king unjustifiable on every level.
“The USA has a lot of violence because they have a large population..”
That does not explain the outrageous number of deaths per capita through gun violence. Highest in the first world. It’s simple really, as the number of guns climbs, so does the number of deaths….
“I’m a big guy, so plenty of confrontations have ended with the criminals being intimidated into backing off.”
That is just plain weird. I’m 62 years old any have never found myself in a position where I had to intimidate anyone or vise versa. You must live a different life.
Don’t forget the number of accidental gun deaths. You touched on the subject in relation to your comment about the number of children killed by guns; over 1,000 children die in the USA per year because they’ve screwed up after finding their parents gun and started playing with it.
Yep, more guns means more chance to end lives, big or small.
OK Simon, so what do you want to do about it?
Ban guns?
Nope. Make everyone register and show a level of understanding when they do. No semi-automatics. They hav no place amongst civilians. A bit like the Switzerland Eric thinks is a model.
Simon,
You have been given evidence that your understanding of Switzerland is incorrect: semi-automatics ARE allowed.
You also very clearly do not know what semi-automatic means. If you feel otherwise, please state for the record what you think it is.
You really need to learn more about this subject if you want to discuss it.
First off, Switzerland not only allows semi-automatics, but full automatic. Not that Simon knows the difference.
Really Simon, you want to limit guns to those that have to be reloaded after every shot?
You really want civilians to die, don’t you.
Bumper sticker: “When semiautomatics are banned, only criminals will have semiautomatics.”
And once again, displays his sense of binary thinking.
Tools are either good or evil, evil ones must be banned.
Doesn’t matter how many people use guns to protect themselves.
A small number of people use guns for evil, therefore they must be banned.
You are pulling that number out of your nether regions. “Children” dying of guns are almost entirely late teenage gangbangers, not toddlers.
Very few young people are dying of gun violence, but many are dying of phentanyl. In Canada the government solution to phentanyl deaths has undertaken “safe injection” sites, free nalaxone kits, and free prescriptions to addicts.
On the other hand, guns that were the cause of a very few deaths are now subject to buyback (confiscation or imprisonment being the options) that only legal gun owners are faced with.
An analogy would be political virtue signalling of solving the phentanyl problem by forcing hospitals to turn over their supplies.
To put it into perspective, the official estimates are that over 100,000 young people are dying annually from opioid overdoses. That compares to 535 accidental firearm deaths, and 24,292 firearm suicides.
According to the National Safety Council, there were 535 accidental firearm deaths in 2020, of all ages. Are you purposefully lying, or did you just remember incorrectly?
Why is it that gun control enthusiasts are so poor with numbers?
“over 1,000 children die in the USA per year because they’ve screwed up after finding their parents gun”
Either these “children” have mental defect, possibly vaccine induced never shaken “shaken baby syndrome”, or the person who made up that number has such issues.
Even knowing very little about guns, it’s just unbelievable.
What do we do about all the stabbing deaths in London?
Ban kitchen knives?
How about drug deaths?
Class A drugs are banned for recreational use but Glasgow still has the worst drug death rate in Europe.
Why don’t we just go the whole hog and ban cars, after all the death statistics for road users is horrendous everywhere.
Ardern is proposing to ban free speech, and make no mistake, this authoritarian bitch would shut down WUWT given the chance. How many people will die from her misinformation about the climate?
Banning things, even guns, is not the answer to anything.
You wail and scream about gun deaths in America, which is the price most Americans are prepared to pay for their liberty from a tyrannical government. The concept of ‘self defence’ under the constitution is specifically directed at the government, not individuals.
In fact, banning peoples right to determine the direction of their own life (slavery) was the root cause of the battle between the north and the south in America all those years ago. It took guns and violence to stop that atrocity.
We have had our share of shooting deaths in the UK over the years, which highlights the complete failure of our strict gun laws rather than making a case for even stricter gun laws.
And if you really want to complain about weapons ownership, why not start with governments rather than individuals. Look at the mess the west has created in the middle east alone.
Or perhaps we should start with the mental health of a nation and the complete social breakdown in the black community with fatherless, feral children who routinely prowl the streets with gangland father figures.
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
You are just beyond sane. Knife deaths???? Tell you what. Let’s duel. I’ll have an AK 47 and you have your knife of choice.
“We have had our share of shooting deaths in the UK over the years, which highlights the complete failure of our strict gun laws”
No it doesn’t. It says they work because they are a fraction of the US slaughter…. Were you seriously a cop?
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
No… people who are unbalanced and angry who can get a gun are far more dangerous than people who are unbalanced and angry who can’t. It’s not rocket science.
Yep, so I talk from a position of authority you have never achieved.
As usual you make a childish comparison, knife Vs AK47 when I have clearly illustrated the point; how do we stop the increasing knife deaths in London without banning kitchen knives?
Ban guns all you want and there will still be gun crime.
Our gun laws didn’t protect the children of Dunblane.
Dunblane was perpetrated by an unbalanced individual. Why didn’t a perfectly sane person murder those children? They too could have obtained guns in the same way Thomas Hamilton did but they didn’t.
Nor did those guns leap out the gun club by themselves, they were taken ‘legally’ by Hamilton, which demonstrates the failure of the gun laws of the time. The guns didn’t shoot those children, the mentally deranged Thomas Hamilton did.
In which case, how about dealing with the root problem, mental health and, in the case of far to many black American children, growing up in a fatherless, single parent environment.
Or perhaps dealing with our own governments who glorify killing middle eastern men in sandals thereby normalising violence and death.
The simplistic anti gun mob like you see the symptoms and blame the weapons – knives, guns or bombs – when it’s nothing to do with them. It’s the deranged individuals, including our governments, who are the root cause of the problem, not the weapons themselves.
Deal with the causes, not the symptoms.
Yep, so I talk from a position of authority you have never achieved.”
Ummm not really.
“Dunblane was perpetrated by an unbalanced individual. Why didn’t a perfectly sane person murder those children?
Because that’s not what normal people do.
They too could have obtained guns in the same way Thomas Hamilton did but they didn’t.”
They didn’t because it was illegal.
“Or perhaps dealing with our own governments who glorify killing middle eastern men in sandals thereby normalising violence and death.”
You are one sick puppy
“The simplistic anti gun mob like you see the symptoms and blame the weapons – knives, guns or bombs – when it’s nothing to do with them.”
Ummm it is when they use them.
Clearly I do as you have never spent a working life as a cop. Have you ever served your community in any meaningful way?
Precisely my point you clot. 🤣
No it wasn’t fool. Hamilton was a member of a gun club and was legally able to own those hand guns and take them home. Our gun laws failed because they are focussed on the weapon, not the person!
You have absolutely no clue as to the vetting process in place in Scotland at the time. A cursory inspection of a home installed gun cabinet, a criminal records check and a character reference. That was it. I was despatched to do the home inspections with no training whatsoever, as were many other of my colleagues. Unless the owner actually threatened me with a weapon I had no say in whether a gun licence was issued, and I was likely to be the only face to face contact made.
You think it’s sick to object to peasants wearing sandals being bombed by western coalition armies?
You really need to examine your moral compass.
Once again, precisely my point. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Clearly I do as you have never spent a working life as a cop. Have you ever served your community in any meaningful way?
I’m not going to waste my time battling you for who has the biggest batton.
I’ll note a buy in the US shot his neighbour yesterday because he didn’t like the noise of his leaf blower. That’s what happens when guns are freely available. The sickos decide a noisy neigbour deserves to die and …. out comes the gun bought down the street.
And if he didn’t have a legally bought gun, he would buy illegally. Thanks to all the restrictions on legal purchases, it’s reached the point where buying illegally is easier than buying legally.
If you are stupid enough to think that making guns completely illegal will end illegal gun sales, then I ask you, when are illegal drugs going to disappear?
Secondly, if he didn’t have a gun, he would have chosen some other method for offing his neighbor.
Once again Simon demonstrates his belief that anything that can be abused, must be banned. Socialists think people are children who must be carefully managed by superior people, such as himself.
People get killed in France over noise too..
https://www.epochtimes.fr/trois-hommes-mis-examen-apres-meurtre-dun-riverain-a-issy-moulineaux-2072679.html
Issy-les-Moulineaux : Excédé par le bruit de jeunes riverains, le voisin de 55 ans sort armé avant d’être abattu
Because of noise made by the “young people”, Didier went out with his 9 mm HK and a flash-ball; we fired, then was disarmed and killed with a knife.
And there are many stories not involving guns.
Because insane people can use guns to hurt people, therefore guns must be banned for everyone.
Insane people also use, cars, planes, kitchen knives, pots and pans, etc to kill people?
Should all of those be banned as well?
It is common that cops with experience dealing with the criminal element don’t share your viewpoint. Mostly what I see coming from you are rationalizations based on false facts.
I’ve asked you a couple of hard questions and your response has been to ignore them. That tells me that your mind is made up and you don’t want to be bothered with facts.
One of these days Simon will come up with a example that actually addresses the point.
Alas, today is not that day.
Spurious correlation!
Simon is a firm believer in catastrophic global warming caused by CO2, based on the same spurious correlation.
Simon’s logic process, like that of most socialists is to pick his position, then find or invent facts to support it.
If someone is willing to commit murder, why would they be deterred by the trivial penalties associated with unlawful possession of a gun? Why is it so hard for liberals to understand that the definition of a criminal is someone who doesn’t follow the law?
Liberals have the mindset that if the government orders something to be done, it will be done.
They find it incomprehensible that guns would still be easily available once the government bans them.
“Yes there is violence everywhere but that does not justify allowing anyone and everyone to carry a gun.”
The real discussion in America is not guns vs. no guns- it’s about where to draw the line regarding size and power of the guns. Americans will never give up the right to have guns- an historical fact. Personally, I don’t like guns- don’t have one- don’t want one- but I like to reserve the right in case I change my mind.
Dictatorships cannot survive in a nation where everyone owns a gun. Americans, historically, have never trusted authority- whether kings or Popes. Better to have authorities fear the public than the public fear authorities.
That there is violence everywhere is why individuals need to be allowed guns, in order to protect themselves.
Tl;dr “My anecdotes are more real than your anecdotes!”
I love the way Simon’s thinking goes.
Some people can’t handle freedom, therefore no one deserves freedom.
The socialist way. Conform to the lowest common denominator rather than aspire to excellence.
That and tear down those who are doing better than yourself.
That way you don’t have to feel bad about your failures.
“Highest in the first world”
Yes, as other countries with more “gun violence” are … shithole countries.
We hear you. Even when you don’t say a thing.
Just write it down: SHIT HOLE.
You will sound less hypocritical if you do.
And….. another one. There is no teaching the stupid…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/us-canada/300863945/us-man-shoots-neighbour-dead-for-using-leaf-blower-in-own-yard
You totally ignore the positive aspects of gun ownership. That is not the behavior of a rational person. There have been at least three different studies in recent decades, with estimates ranging from several hundred thousand to over 2 million incidents per year where a gun in the hands of a ‘good guy’ has thwarted a crime.
I personally, and my companion, would have been seriously injured, if not killed, when we were charged by a free-ranging bull in a National Forest, were I not armed. I was able to stop the charge without killing or wounding the animal.
In your example above, it is clear that the person committed murder and should have been punished appropriately for it. End of story!
As a socialist, Simon believes that the world is perfectable, all we need are enough laws.
This type of thing is apparently so frequent, that Simon has to keep using the same example over and over again.
As I said the last time he used this example. Simon believes that anything that can be abused, must be outlawed.
It is typical of Simon. Ask meaningless questions, then whine when people ignore him and present him with facts he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
Eric does exactly that in this thread , pivoting like a Clinton from gun violence to…..fentanyl
Fentanyl is banned in the US isn’t it?
But people are still dying from it.
What do you do now?
Double ban it?
Do you imagine deaths from shooting will stop in the US if you ban guns?
Judging by fentanyl deaths it appears not.
“Do you imagine deaths from shooting will stop in the US if you ban guns?”
NOOOOO. But they will be lower like every other country that limits guns to crazies. AGHHHH!!!!
Now your approaching understanding! Limits guns to crazies …. and just how do you do that?
Now your approaching understanding! Limits guns to crazies …. and just how do you do that?
We do it just fine. You need a licence to drive a car, you need to register to vote, but you can buy a semi automatic rifle like it’s a stick of candy. Sick screwed up country.
you can buy a semi automatic rifle like it’s a stick of candy.
Not true.
And once again, Simon demonstrates that not only does he not know what he is talking to, he doesn’t want to know.
There are lots of gun laws in the US, the idea that anyone here can buy a gun like it was candy is so stupid that only someone who is totally out of touch with reality would believe it.
Either that, or he is just making things up again.
Mexico has the sort of gun laws you advocate. Unless you are even more ignorant than you appear, you know better.
In other words, keep the guns out the hands of crazies. Law abiding, mentally stable individuals are highly unlikely to commit random acts of violence.
Talking as an ex cop of course.
“Talking as an ex cop of course.”
So you say. Was there a reason perhaps that they asked you to leave?
The personal route, the last resort of zealous lefties.
I left of my own volition following many years of unblemished service.
But I guess you have been sacked from many jobs, judging from you jumping to conclusions.
When losing, Simon goes for the low blows.
Pathetic Simon, even by your low standards.
As usual, it doesn’t matter how many times an argument is refuted, Simon will keep using it.
Gun bans in those other countries are not the reason why they have low gun crime rates. The gun crime rates were as low or lower prior to the gun bans.
Gun bans have NEVER resulted in a drop in gun crime.
And, there is evidence to suggest that gun control laws cause crime. The best example is that when a criminal can’t legally buy a gun, then burglary is encouraged. The criminal wanting a gun ends up getting it, at the expense of the original owner from whom it is stolen.
I don’t have the citation handy, but I have read that the burglaries that occur in homes in the UK occur more frequently in occupied homes than in US homes, because the burglars are concerned about getting shot in US homes. Therefore, the known prevalence of guns in US homes acts as a deterrence to burglary.
How about we start by enforcing the laws already on the books?
How many KNOWN straw purchases are never prosecuted?
Only semi automatic plastic straws are illegal…….
No pivot, just proof that banning guns can’t work.
If it can’t work, then all you are doing is disarming the law abiding and making them more vulnerable.
Are you suggesting that you think the problem is so simple that the only thing that has to be mentioned is guns?
“Nothing else to say”?
Great.
We can only hope!
When trying to understand data, a common error is to not explicitly state and examine the assumptions relied upon. It seems that your major unexamined assumption is that the US is just like every other country in all respects, except the ownership of guns. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Culture, as formed by historical events and the religion(s), the ethnic subcultures and their different values, demographics (particularly the percentage of young males), population density and the ratio of urban to rural inhabitants, education levels, and the laws governing the justice system (whether the presumption is innocence or guilt when charged with a crime), all interact in complex ways. There are important differences in the mores between countries that have bowed to royalty for hundreds of years, and countries formed by rebels who broke away from their ‘betters,’ and in the case of the USA, even constitutionally forbid the use of titles of nobility. No two countries are exactly alike, hence their crime rates and types of crime will differ. It is a fools errand to try to blame homicide and suicide on a single factor, such as the prevalence of guns. Simplistic explanations are only compelling to simpletons. It also helps if they believe things that aren’t true.
The USA learned (Let’s hope we learned!) the hard way, that prohibiting things that people wanted and were a part of the culture, like alcoholic beverages, led to a situation that was worse than what was the rationale for Prohibition. If living without guns works for your society, fine. But, I don’t think that you should be telling other countries that they should be following your lead, implying that 5 million people on a big island are smarter than 330 million people on a big continent. It smacks of arrogance.
A much better way the examine the effectiveness of gun laws is to examine the area where the gun laws were passed, both before and after the gun laws were passed.
This method gets closest to the ideal situation whereby the only variable in your experiment are the gun law changes.
When done this way, you find that gun laws have never resulted in a decrease in violence or even gun violence rates.
In a few instances they have resulted in a small increase in such violence as criminals discover their intended victims can no longer fight back.
There is one possible exception. The late-1993 Brady Act may have decreased the firearm murder rate from an anomalous high related to crack cocaine. I wouldn’t stake my reputation on it, however. Interestingly, when the NICS was implemented in 1998, the rate started to climb again. But, I would agree, that all the rest of the federal gun laws have had no discernible effect on firearm murder rates.
The comparison holds the other way too. As one example: when Virginia loosened its concealed carry laws to allow carry in more places (IIRC it was restaurants that served alcohol) all the anti’s were screaming about how there would be “blood in the streets” because of all the shootings that would happen.
Never came to pass, and, of course, they never admitted they were wrong.
No two countries are exactly alike, hence their crime rates and types of crime will differ.
Applies to differences between states, too.
‘I’m happy to live in a country that has laws that mean our gun deaths are a fraction of the country you worship.’
Good for you. Just keep in mind that you also live in a country whose government can do anything it wants to you.
An S.S will just bend over and take what his/her government tells him to take.
Seventh jab yet, I hope. 😉
Five… never had covid and doing very well.
Five jabs, with an experimental drug which was rushed through an experimental, truncated clinical trial.
There is only one part of ‘experimental’ that applies to you and it isn’t “experi”.
If you have only had five, you are waaay overdue.
If you want to remain ‘safe’, and are not a hypocrite, you should rush out and get your sixth NOW.
(are you going to get your 6th?)
And I know someone double jabbed, then got COVID, then boosted, then got COVID again.
Studies suggest the vaccines increases the risk of COVID a lot for two weeks, then slightly decreases it, then has zero effect on COVID after a few months.
Total dud.
And that’s without going into the abominable side effects.
“Good for you. Just keep in mind that you also live in a country whose government can do anything it wants to you.”
You mean taking responsibility for its people during a pandemic? That’s right. The NZ’s government strategies resulted in NZ being only 1 of 3 in the world that increased its life expectancy during the covid years. I wonder how the US got on?
How many businesses survived? 🤔
The destruction of the construction industry in Australia 🇦🇺 is directly linked to covid lock downs.
“How many businesses survived?”
Loads, the government provided financial relief for them. That’s what good governments do. they back their decisions with constructive action.
What about the cost the children of our generation will be forced to pay?
Frequently the refrain of people like you over the climate – what about the children?
The worlds population is now trillions in debt over covid and millions of business failed because governments doled out cash to keep people at home.
Streetcred’s question was the wrong one. It should have been how many businesses failed? And your answer could only have been the same “loads” despite the financial relief.
Other than in Sweden, of course.
“What about the cost the children of our generation will be forced to pay?”
Ohhhh… you think covid didn’t come at a cost. Well there you go.
Describe the cost.
Lots of the elderly herded into homes and left to die.
Entire countries locked down with immeasurable damage to mental health, education and economies, to combat a virus known not to affect children and healthy adults.
Experimental ‘vaccines’ imposed on people by coercion, sometimes mandated, which were rushed through an experimental, truncated clinical trial.
Our governments have caused more misery than they have alleviated, and it remains to be seen if the ‘vaccines’ induce their own problems.
Oh my word….You say all that like they are bad things.
The elderly herded into homes and left to die.
Immeasurable damage to mental health.
Immeasurable damage to education.
Immeasurable damage to economies.
Experimental ‘vaccines’ imposed on people by coercion, sometimes mandated.
All good things according to Simone……
Leftist, murderous, authoritarianism writ large. Why we allow people like you to roam free beats me.
Simple Simon you are just like an itch.
Bloody annoying and you wont go away.
Yes the government did help businesses to pay wages and salaries but they had to print money and we are now all paying for it with rampant inflation.
The government took advantage of covid as they had a one o’clock TV slot every day which became compulsory viewing as we were in a nation wide lock down .
Great propaganda for a political party in power but their leader could not cope with the pace and resigned and will soon reappear at the UN. More power and no elections to worry about .
‘I wonder how the US got on?’
Pretty well, thank you! Unless, of course, one had the misfortune of living in areas or working for employers under the jurisdiction of lock-down and jab-happy Democrats.
“Pretty well, thank you! “
Ha ha. You obviously have a different definition of “pretty well.” Total deaths per capita the US came in at 15th. Worst in the first world. NZ came in at 111.
How’s the NZ economy doing?
As of September 2020:
That was back in 2020. We, like all countries struggled, but our debt is a fraction of most after the pandemic.
Of course it’s a fraction. You’re a tiny country.
Sometimes you just gotta explain things…. per capita.
And of course you have definitive numbers to back that up.
Well, nope. But you demanded numbers from MarkW earlier.
Get back under your bridge…….
How would NZ have done if a a couple of thousand illegal immigrants, many with the China Virus, had been dumped throughout your country? The Brandon administration specifically shipped a hundred thousand into Florida in an attempt to spread the virus there, since Florida “COVID” policies of protecting those at risk and leaving everyone else alone was working so well.
The policies of Brandon and other like minded government officials, who think like you, failed miserably.
BTW: The 2nd amendment to the US constitution is meant to protect the citizen from the government. An armed citizenry can, in theory, throw off an abusive government, as the colonies did England and King George III.
The American Experiment, as it is called, was to form a government answerable to the people. This is something you would know nothing about, being as you appreciate having a nanny state to care for you, until that state can no longer do so, then what?
The UK national health care system is collapsing and now anyone with the funds is paying for their own care. This is, of course, the plan. Tax people for a service not rendered, then tax the services paid for out of their own pockets. And provide services to all the immigrants that have never paid any taxes.
So my solution to the Simon problem? As soon as a Republican president and congress is in power, ship 10 or 20 thousand illegal immigrants to NZ, no COVID or any other testing to be done. See how your Polio and other contagious disease rates change.
“You obviously have a different definition of “pretty well.” Total deaths per capita the US came in at 15th. Worst in the first world. NZ came in at 111.”
In the USA, we generously compensated the hospitals/doctors for the Covid diagnosis.
How much extra compensation did NZ provide for Covid patients/diagnosis?
(it was a type of supply & demand skew in the USA)
Because the elderly and ill were at greatest risk, without saying something about the demographics, those rankings are meaningless! Once again, you are being non-rational.
Like most of the left, Simon considers citizens as children who need to be protected from themselves by people like himself.
Our average life expectancy declined. A major difference is that New York City is a major place for Europeans to fly into. COVID was decimating elderly people in Italy especially, but throughout Europe. We really only restricted the Chinese. Some of our biggest loses were in the state of New York, mostly among the elderly with other medical conditions. We didn’t have the luxury of restricting tourists to prevent COVID from being imported, like NZ did. It was the US that developed vaccines, not NZ. NZ benefited from the US taking point, and taking the hits. You are unbelievably smug.
“We didn’t have the luxury of restricting tourists to prevent COVID from being imported, like NZ did. I”
So are you saying restrictions work? I’m so confused….
“It was the US that developed vaccines, not NZ. “
Are you serious? It never fails to amaze me how ignorant and arrogant some US citizens can be. You can read the history of the global development of the covid vaccines here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_COVID-19_vaccine_development
When you shut down a tiny, borderless country to the point of banning its citizens from re-entering, and terrorise the remaining population to stay indoors with violent gangs of police officers, of course you’re going to stop transmission of a virus, that was known to only affect the elderly with co-morbidities.
The price the world pays, however, from individuals being coerced to take experimental drugs, rushed through an experimental, truncated clinical trials process remains to be seen.
This is the benevolent government you perceive, which bans guns and can’t stop gun crime, but is happy to violate the fundamental human right of bodily autonomy by forcing people to take drugs they know nothing about.
That’s what you describe as a responsible government.
“When you shut down a tiny, borderless country to the point of banning its citizens from re-entering, and terrorise the remaining population to stay indoors with violent gangs of police officers, “
Haha ummmm…. I’m guessing you weren’t there. Violent gangs of sheep maybe…. What do you read to get this stuff?
That a tiny, borderless country completely isolated itself?
I was told it by New Zealander’s who couldn’t return to their country.
Police violence isn’t restricted to punching someone. Depriving an individual of their liberty is an act of violence, and NZ police enforced Ardern’s authoritarian behaviour.
When you want to debate the roles and responsibility of the police, try spending a working lifetime in the job then get back to me.
So you were a cop then?
You mentioned it before me……
Keep taking the ‘vaccines’.
You are as thick as a short plank. simon
Thousands of New Zealander’s were locked out of New Zealand as the government that Simon worships were so disorganized .
Not one of them has ever run a business but Stuart Nash had worked for Forest Products but they made sure that he was knee capped .
Covid restrictions were extremely hard on families returning from overseas and it was far to late when the government woke up and let people back to their homeland and isolate at home with covid tests before and after .
Hmm….so a Wiki article about various Ph.D’s that successfully spelled mRNA in their doctoral thesis with no mention of Dr. Ugur Sahin and Dr. Özlem Türeci of BioNTech who actually succeeded. Seems to be ignorant and arrogant…
Tell me something I don’t know.
I was comparing the US involvement to NZ, not saying that the US alone did everything.
It never fails to amaze me how ignorant and arrogant those are whose liberal blinders impair their reading ability.
It was almost impossible for the US to effectively close its borders, being as large as it is, with two porous borders and international organizations like the UN having headquarters located in NY. However, NZ is isolated with nobody able to walk or drive across the national borders. Restrictions did appear to reduce the rate of infection initially. But, it is a different question as to whether the loss of personal rights was justified by the less than perfect results.
From your linked wiki’ article: “… the geographic distribution of COVID‑19 vaccine development shows North American entities to have about 40% of the activity, compared to 30% in Asia [mostly China] and Australia, 26% in Europe, and a few projects in South America and Africa.”
I don’t see NZ mentioned at all.
The 40% NA entities, the largest commitment, was split between Canada and the US, from your linked article, thusly: “Canada announced CA$275 million in funding for 96 vaccine research projects at Canadian companies and universities, … A further investment of CA$1.1 billion was added to support clinical trials and develop manufacturing and supply chains for vaccines. On 4 May, the Canadian government committed CA$850 million to the WHO’s live streaming effort …” [The Canadian dollar is typically worth less than the US dollar.]
Meanwhile, “In the United States, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a federal agency funding disease-fighting technology, announced investments of nearly US$1 billion to support American COVID‑19 vaccine development and manufacture of the most promising candidates. On 16 April, BARDA made a US$483 million investment in vaccine developer Moderna and its partner, Johnson & Johnson. BARDA has earmarked an additional US$4 billion for development. It will have a role in other programs for development of six to eight vaccine candidates destined for clinical study into 2021… On 15 May, the government announced funding for a fast-track program called Operation Warp Speed to place multiple vaccine candidates into clinical trials by the fall of 2020 and manufacture 300 million doses of a licensed vaccine by January 2021.
And The Mouse That Roared contributed how much?
Are people not capable of taking responsibility for their own health in NZ?
The Swedish government trusted its people, consequently they didn’t wreck their economy like NZ did. Nor did Sweden have citizens banned from entering their own country like NZ did.
And if you imagine Ardern didn’t lie about almost every covid statistic you are as dumb as you seem.
“consequently they didn’t wreck their economy like NZ did.”
One more time in harmony…..We didn’t wreck our economy
https://www.visionofhumanity.org/the-economies-best-positioned-to-recover-after-the-pandemic/
Judging by that websites standards, Nepal is doing better than NZ, which isn’t very encouraging.
How many in the US have very bad health condition?
Do you think medical care is the primary driver of health? Or something else?
Simon likes to over simplify everything.
He likes to pretend that the only difference in climate between now and 200 years ago is CO2.
He likes to pretend that the only thing that matters when discussing violence is gun laws.
He likes to pretend that the only thing that matters when discussing health, is how much money the government spends on it.
Any fact that doesn’t support his case is dismissed out of hand.
Any “fact” that does support his case is accepted unquestionly. In fact if you do question his facts, you have just proven that you are opposed to solving the problem.
And it does so with impunity. NZ criminal gangs have no problems getting firearms.
If a big, strong New Zealand gangster decides to rape a woman, she just has to lay back and take it. But at least nobody gets shot, right? /sarc
Ludicrous . You know very well John Howards gun laws pushed mass killings , note the emphasis, off the radar.
Rapists and murderers will still use knives, fists, baseball bats etc.
But Tarrant moved to NZ because of it’s looser gun laws at the time , so 50 Australian Muslims are alive.
Just because the media no longer chooses to cover something, is not evidence that it has gone away.
“If a big, strong New Zealand gangster decides to rape a woman, she just has to lay back and take it. “
You mean like happened in a New York apartment store?
The fact you know nothing of the concept – Innocent until proven guilty – exposes your authoritarian nature.
I guess I’m basing my likely hood of guilty on the fact he boasts about grabbing women’s gentles.
Once again you reveal your profound ignorance. In a free speech society we are able to say what we want.
Guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Not that he ever did, but heck, you have never been concerned with the truth.
He said he could, he didn’t say he did.
The Democratic Peoples Republic of New York? The one that doubled down after the Sullivan Act was found unconstitutional in Bruen?
The whole f’ing state is effectively a gun free zone.
Wishful thinking.
NY gun restrictions …
That would be New York City, a place where it is nearly impossible for someone without good connections to own a gun.
Your example does not support your case.
The problem with Simon’s thinking, is that he actually believes the gun laws are the reason why gun violence is low.
Reality is that in his country, gun violence has always been low. Gun laws made no difference.
The problem with Mark’s ramblings is when he has nothing to say he always starts with “the problem with….
“Reality is that in his country, gun violence has always been low. Gun laws made no difference.”
Gun laws make no difference… Knock, knock, hello, anyone home? The fact you can’t connect the dots here somehow makes so much sense.
Gun laws make no difference. See my post to you above.
yawn
Translated: I can’t refute Graemethecat’s points, so I’ll pretend not to notice.
I would say that Simon is playing dumb.
Except he isn’t playing.
As usual, Simon ignores any facts that don’t fit his agenda.
And yet your gun laws didn’t stop a massacre.
Knock, knock……
Ignorance is not a virtue scottie…
He was an Australian who planned what he did. That is very hard to stop. No one is arguing that we can stop all gun violence. But what you can stop is the angry opportunist.
Then:
He either planned it or it was an opportunistic act. You can’t have it both ways, Simone…….
Which amply illustrates your complete ignorance of the law and human nature. Like most on the left you prescribe what should happen without recognising the realities of what does happen.
Doesn’t matter where he was from, the fact remains, your gun laws did not stop him.
Great Britain had very low homicide rates in 1900, when the government imposed gun controls. Hatred of the Irish and the Labour Party were the motives, not crime.
Australia and New Zealand have no real reporting I have seen,but seem to follow British leads on keeping the peons in their place.
In the US, most early gun laws were enacted in order to prevent free blacks from acquiring guns.
I have already detailed why gun laws don’t make a difference.
Reading for comprehension was never one of Simon’s strong suits.
For comparison, California and NZ have about the same size and shape, and a big nasty fault running along the West Coast. California has about as many people as NZ has sheep, and vice versa. NZ is The Mouse That Roared.
“NZ is The Mouse That Roared.”
Why thank you. Modest doesn’t allow me to agree with you though.
A trashed economy and a terrorised population is a success?
Yawn get informed.
I am clearly far more informed about a country I don’t live in than you are living there.
Lefty, rose coloured spectacles are not conducive to making decisions in the real world.
He is far better informed than you will ever be because you refuse to see that your government does not have your best interests at heart
Some people pay a dominatrix. You do seem a likely candidate.
I think that long-term they will realize it was wrong. However, that will not erase the consequences or compensate those hurt by the fascist suppression.
Wow. Where does one start?
Not exactly comparing apples to apples.
Correction , No US city is larger than the nation of NX. I think you mean population.
I read it as population, but yes, he could have been clearer.
Plenty of places in Europe or Asia have conurbations as big as US cities.
How’s their gun violence deaths , including self inflicted and on domestic partners?
“Plenty of places in Europe or Asia have conurbations as big as US cities. How’s their gun violence deaths , including self inflicted and on domestic partners?”
I’ll look forward to this answer. Eric? AWG?
Every year there are dozens and dozens of mass stabbings in China, many of which have occurred in schools. We don’t get to hear about them in the West, thanks to the rigorous censorship of the CCP.
We don’t get to hear about them in the West, thanks to the rigorous censorship of the CCP.
Ummm then how do you know. Are you and Trump best friends with Xi?
I lived in China for five years, and have friends living there today. I was in Shanghai when a maniac murdered over a dozen patients and doctors in a hospital there.
The Wikipedia article will give you some idea. The list of massacres is far from exhaustive, however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China#:~:text=On%20August%203%2C%202022%2C%20three,in%20southeast%20China's%20Jiangxi%20province.
They export it to the middle east.
I have a suspicion that levels of domestic gun violence reflects western governments levels of exported violence.
If governments find it acceptable to routinely wage war against men in sandals, why wouldn’t that barbaric practice filter down to the individual on the street.
Government is merely a reflection of the populace that elects it.
You mean like Switzerland where private gun ownership rivals the USA, and people are encouraged to own guns to bolster national security?
There is a reason invaders go around Switzerland.
I believe every household in Switzerland is mandated to have a weapon.
“I believe every household in Switzerland is mandated to have a weapon.”
You talk complete crap sometimes.
Every Swiss man is required to serve in the military or in the alternative civilian service. (Swiss Confederation)
Soldiers can take home their personal assault rifle or their personal pistol, depending on what they’ve been trained to use in the army. (swissinfo.ch)
Killias also pointed out that automatic and semi-automatic weapons are not “generally” available. (swissinfo.ch)
Switzerland has had two mass shootings in the last 20 years. (swissinfo.ch)
Criminologist Martin Killias, who is a permanent visiting professor at the University of St Gallen’s law school, told swissinfo.ch that the background check people have to undergo to be able to acquire a gun is “very precise”. For example, although the Swiss army has a draft system, many potential recruits are not taken because they’re considered unsuitable.
“They have to undergo a psychiatric test,” says Killias. “That test is constructed in such a way that it identifies the presence of a ‘risk’. It does not say the person is dangerous, just that they are not without risk. Then this person is not eligible to get a gun.”
In 2018, for example, there were 10,200 new recruits for military service; 53 were rejected in a pre-screening for potentially presenting a danger to themselves or others. (swissinfo.ch)
I qualified my earlier statement with “I believe”. My belief was, strictly speaking, wrong, but practically representative of gun ownership in Switzerland.
What’s more interesting is that the Swiss focus on the person, not the weapon, which is a common theme amongst my posts, confirming that it’s people who kill people, not guns.
Once again, any fact that doesn’t fit Simon’s agenda, is rejected.
It is becoming increasingly apparent Eric that you deal in half truths. In Switzerland you need to obtain a permit to get a firearm and you can not obtain a semiautomatic weapon. If you are ok for the US to have those safeguards, then now you and I agree.
you can not obtain a semiautomatic weapon
False: Firearms regulation in Switzerland allows the acquisition of semi-automatic, and – with a may-issue permit – fully automatic firearms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzerland
Yeah, Swiss service rifles are selective fire, not semi-auto only. But you did not mean that.
How’s their gun violence deaths
Totally dismissing any other violent deaths, of course. Guns aren’t the only way to kill.
Compare gun violence rates before gun laws were passed to gun violence rates after gun laws were passed.
In no instance have gun laws reduced gun violence rates..
Did in NZ and Australia. Neither country had a mass shooting since we banned semi automatics.
2014 Hunt family 4 dead
2018 Osmington 6 dead
2019 Darwin 4 dead
And as usual you totally ignore the 106 dead in massacres by other means. If guns were the problem you wouldn’t have all those deaths.
As others have pointed out, your wishful thinking regarding gun violence since the gun grabs went into effect are completely wrong. There were very few incidents prior to gun laws going into effect as well.
Look at the entire picture, not just the tiny portion of it that supports your case.
Nice summary, but you’re far too polite. From drugging active boys to make them ‘behave’ in class to destroying the traditional family structure, the Left is solely complicit in creating the gun violence they are conveniently using to disarm freedom-loving Americans.
Back in the 1950s, there were almost no gun laws in the US.
Kids could even take guns to school.
And there was almost no gun violence.
Today we have lots of gun laws, and lots of gun violence.
I remember while in the Army, going on TDY to Point Barrow in 1967, to support some NASA research. While there, I picked up a Ruger 10-22 in the PX. I was traveling in uniform, but no one on any airline had any problems with me carrying my rifle onto the airplanes in its original cardboard box, in the passenger compartment, all the way back to New Hampshire. It was a far better world that we lived in.
“And there was almost no gun violence.
Today we have lots of gun laws, and lots of gun violence.”
….. and shiiiitttttteeee loads more guns. See if you can make the connection?
Er, no.
Every able-bodied Swiss adult male undergoes military training, and is required by law to keep his 7.5mm calibre automatic rifle at home.
Now tell me about the gun violence in Switzerland.
Every gun has to be permitted and there are no semiautomatic weapons allowed. If you are good with that in the US then we agree.
The current Swiss rifle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_SG_550
Capable of self-loading and fully automatic fire.
Thanks for revealing your ignorance.
there are no semiautomatic weapons allowed
I don’t think you even know what “semiautomatic” means.
Eh? 🤣
Like other Leftist weaklings, Simon has no clue about firearms, or how they work.
Please read and refute.
I and my wife own more than 10 guns. I have only bought 2.
One, a Remington 1100 12 gauge shotgun was won in a raffle. My wife bought 4 $5.00 tickets and gave the tickets to me for my birthday. Smart wife! The rest are inherited.
3 Shotguns, 4 handguns, multiple bolt and semi-automatic long guns, 2 lever action long guns.
So in the US, there are now, after the Obama and Brandon presidencies, way more KNOWN guns that people. But in general, those guns are owned in larger numbers among families that use guns. Such as GANGBANGERS, who in general own illegally obtained guns, or families like mine who have a history of hunting.
NOW, Simon, please explain why so many of the gangbanger profile are already convicted felons who then are caught with firearms, 100% prohibited to them, who are then released on bail, or OR, and not put away until trial? And why do liberal cities not prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law?
Because if you took the violent criminals off the street, the gun violence would drop in the US, and liberals can’t have that until they have registration of all guns. And as the UK and Aus. , and Germany under H!tler have shown, registration leads inevitably to confiscation.
AND in the US the ATFE is keeping an illegal registry of guns and is being sued to delete it. But have heart Simon. Even if the court orders the deletion the leftists like you will hide the records somewhere, ready to be used when the left gets control again.
Demographically unlikely.
Before the concept of gun control was introduced in America (because the government recognised the opportunity for a real insurrection) barely a household was without a gun.
Today there are many gunless households, enforced by government which is still terrified of its population.
Actually, the firearm murder rate for 2021 was the same as in 1998 and 1967. Meanwhile, the number of firearms in the population has increased substantially. See if you can make the connection? The situation is much more complex than you appreciate. Overall, our levels of violence track the percentage of young males, with transient spikes with the introduction of new drugs. With a graph of homicides and/or rates, the impact of gun control legislation is not discernible.
Does the phrase per capita mean anything to your little mind.
And no, we don’t have a shit load more guns.
Will you stop making up shit?
“…drugging active boys to make them ‘behave’ in class…”
___________________________________________
Thanks, (I guess) I haven’t considered that issue for quite some time. Has it morphed into the transgender insanity for kids?
What is new and different is that females now outnumber males going to college. The suicide rate among young White males has increased significantly. Some of the mass shootings appear to be a result of an attempt to commit “suicide by cop.” Similarly, I suspect a not insignificant fraction of the opioid overdose deaths (>100,000/yr) are from depression and ennui.
Yes, the Leftwing Media is largely responsible for the violence we see in the U.S.
Everywhere you turn, the Media is promoting violence in their programming and storylines. And that doesn’t even include the violence the Leftwing politicians promote on a daily basis.
Promoting violence as normal will cause psychopaths to think that it is ok for them to act out the violent tendencies they feel inside. And so they do. And then other psychopaths see this activity and it triggers them to violence, too.
The “Bad Boy” culture our Media has created, is creating a lot of bad boys. Give them a gun and look out! If they don’t have a gun, they will find some other weapon to use.
The Leftwing Media should stop poking the psychopath bulls. Bad things happen when you send psychopaths over the edge.
When you control for differing demographics, much of the differences in gun violence between countries, disappears.
Simon has no desire to make an honest comparison, he’s looking to score political points.
My research has shown a high correlation between homicides and males aged 14-24, modulated by the introduction of new illicit drugs like crack cocaine, temporarily increasing the rates.
“Simon has no desire to make an honest comparison, he’s looking to score political points.”
Well give me some data that says I’m wrong. I say the US has the worst gun violence in the Western world and also that they have the highest number of guns per capita. I say they are connected. I say if you allow anyone including crazy people to get them, without any restrictions, including semi automatic rifles, sooner or later the crazy people do crazy stuff.
Your turn Mark tell me which part I got wrong? Data would be helpful.
See my post above concerning gun ownership in Switzerland.
You don’t provide any data yourself. Why not set an example MarkW can follow?
Virtually every handgun sold in America, and worldwide, is semi automatic. A revolver is semi automatic for Pete’s sake.
What’s the problem with a semi automatic other than the US governments campaign against them has glorified them for the mentally unstable hell bent on mass shootings as their preferred weapon of choice.
In a class of children a semi automatic hand gun is at least as effective as a rifle but successive liberal governments have turned AR15’s into something they are not.
Simon says, “Your turn Mark tell me which part I got wrong? Data would be helpful.”
Here’s some suggestions:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6707841.John_R_Lott_Jr_
Mexico is “the western world”, and has a much higher homicide rate than the US.
And ownership of guns by private individuals is all but banned.
One need only look at Mexico (in the Western World). It has every law gun-banners want, with only the wealthy and cartels typically owning any guns. The actual murder rates would be much higher were it not for police and soldiers standing on street corners with automatic weapons. Yet, when tourists, journalists, and students are killed, it is often mass shootings that also end up being mass graves. I will no longer travel in Mexico.
What you fail to realize, probably because it is politically incorrect to talk about it, is that most of the US killings happen on ‘the wrong side of the railroad tracks.’ That is to say, the murders are geographically clustered, with some places, like Kansas City (MO) having firearm death rates in percentages of the population. Even where I live in the Midwest, my city rarely has any murders. The nearby, larger city, has frequent killings on the west side, with about the same population, same laws, and probably similar gun ownership. Gangs and drugs play a significant role — more so than guns because even our knife murder rate for the country (~1,000/yr) is higher than the total murder rate for most European countries, and about twice the number of rifle murders in the US, of which so-called assault weapons are a small fraction.
Your simplistic view of American crime is carefully cultivated by the Media, and you feel qualified to talk about it, despite obviously not researching it.
Data has been given by myself and others.
Simon as usual, just ignores anything that doesn’t support his agenda.
“Eliminating the murder rates of six cities in the FUSA would have the remaining aggregate comparable to the most pacific western nations – we have a certain demographic that makes up the vast majority of violent crime.”
Good point, very often overlooked.
Simon, who cares what a little pissant socialist-run country like New Zealand does or doesn’t do? It plays no role in the international arena and soon won’t even be able to herd sheep because of its whacky views about CO2 and Marxist political beliefs.
Mixed market economy just like US is. Plenty of state and federal intervention where there is market failure or just because they can.
In many areas NZ is more free market than US
For example they don’t bail out depositors of failed private banks, the ports and airports are private ownership. The agriculture industry in US is reife with state subsidies and government intervention under the usual rules of socialize your losses and privatise the profits
In every case, so called market failures are always the result of government intervention.
“Simon, who cares what a little pissant socialist-run country like New Zealand does or doesn’t do?”
Clearly you do enough to comment. Am I hurting your feelings?
Socialism hurts everyones feelings.
If it stopped at hurting feelings, it wouldn’t be as dangerous.
Forgive me, I was speaking in the abstract.
“Last question Eric. What is the single biggest killer of children in the US? Shall I help you…. It’s guns Eric. Not road accidents, not cancer…..”
Incorrect. The single biggest killer of children is other people. I would say people in medical garb (arbortions) has bad people with guns beat hands down.
Like most of Simon’s facts, this claim also has no basis in reality.
It’s almost as if he just makes it up as he goes along.
https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/mortality.asp
The leading cause of deaths for children is accidents, followed by cancer followed by homicides, of all types. In fact homicides are less than 1/4 as great as accidents.
Your facts are incorrect when you include teenagers
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/29/health/us-children-gun-deaths-dg/index.html
Homicide is a very limited term, as death from misue of a gun goes under…..accidents.
Homicide generally means intentional
Notably absent from the CNN report is the number of shootings using guns that are illegally held Vs those legally held.
And I’ll repeat my point that if a government finds it acceptable to export violence across the globe almost continuously since WW2, it rather sets the benchmark for its population.
Try dealing with the US governments penchant for violence before turning on its population.
Those are young adult gang members.
Most of the so called teenagers who have been hurt by guns, are 18 and 19 year olds who belong to gangs.
And not one for 25 years before that and there is a heap of stuff that is not public about this shooting This shooting was a setup don’t be a tool Simon
If Simon was half as smart as he thinks he is, he would realize that merely comparing one statistic across countries is meaningless. There are thousands of differences between any two groups of people. Gun laws are only one of these.
Then again, he actually believes that all you need to know is what the CO2 level is, in order to predict something as complex as climate.
A valid comparison is to compare a single country, before gun control laws, and after gun control laws.
The reality is that every country that has gun control and low gun violence rates, had low gun violence rates prior to passing the gun control laws.
The reality is that gun control laws have never reduced gun violence rates. The reason is simple, good guys obey gun laws. Bad guys don’t. Good guys were never the problem, bad guys are.
Guns are and will always be ridiculously easy to get. Gun control laws only make it difficult for people who obey the laws.
Absolute waste of your time arguing with a fool Mark .
Sim Simon dredges up rubbish that is mostly his imagination running wild .
He is in love with Jacinda ,in his eyes she can do no wrong .
My betting is that she will be given a sinecure at the UN where she can annoy us all telling us to reduce our emissions but she will keep flying around t he world .
(The Guardian)
In other words she can plot to impose her authoritarian beliefs on free speech over the internet having destroyed it in her mother country.
The entire Global Warming Edifice is a lie as the truth never needs censorship or suppression of free speech or “fact-checkers”.
Nope, it IS NOT guns. The people who push that nonsense are the ones who count 18- and 19-year olds as children, and even they are wrong.
ETA a quick google for “cause of child death” found numerous sites listing cause of death.
All causes — 20360
Injuries — 12336
Motor vehicles — 4074
All firearms — 3143
Homicide — 1865
You are either gullible or a liar.
Then I googled “mass shootings per capita”.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country
Annual death rate per million population from mass public shootings
1 Norway (one outlier) — 1.888
3 France — 0.347
7 Switzerland — 0.142
11 United States — 0.089
Again, you are either gullible or a liar.
Final ETA — Simon, I am bookmarking your lies above, and next time I see another lie by you, I am replying with the bookmark. You can run, but you can’t hide from your lies.
“Then I googled “mass shootings per capita”.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country
Annual death rate per million population from mass public shootings
1 Norway (one outlier) — 1.888
3 France — 0.347
7 Switzerland — 0.142
11 United States — 0.089″
Your selection of the above information from your linked article, presents an excellent analogy to the distorted reporting of anthropogenic climate change, where the focus is on the bad effects of any change in climate, and any good effects are ignored.
If you’d read the full article (and perhaps you did), you’d have come across the following.
“The median is considered by many statisticians to be better insulated against individual outlier events (such as the Norway massacre) that can skew results. This leads to a more accurate day-to-day impression and country-to-country comparison. Using the CPRC’s own data and more precise per-year population data from World Bank (the original study used only 2015 population data) to solve for the median, the more statistically sound analysis results in a notably different list:
Typical (Median) Annual Death Rate per Million People from Mass Public Shootings (U.S., Canada, and Europe, 2009-2015):
United States — 0.058
Albania — 0
Austria — 0
Belgium — 0
Czech Republic — 0
Finland — 0
France — 0
Germany — 0
Italy — 0
Macedonia — 0
Netherlands — 0
Norway — 0
Russia — 0
Serbia — 0
Slovakia — 0
Switzerland — 0
United Kingdom — 0
Using the median analysis, the United States is the only country examined that shows a propensity for mass shootings. The data itself supports this interpretation, as the United States endured mass shooting events all seven years, but the other countries all experienced mass shootings during only one or two years. Thus, in a typical year, most countries experience zero mass shooting deaths, while the US experiences at least a few.
Many other studies and articles also offer opinions or interpretations counter to that of the CPRC. For example, a 2019 paper from Econ Journal Watch, a scholarly economics journal, notes that the CPRC data included many events that would be considered military or terrorist actions, such as when 200 insurgents in Ethiopia attacked an oil field and shot 74 people. While these are undeniably tragic deaths, the EJW proposes that they are not what most people associate with the term “mass shooting” and should not be included.
Additionally, a 2021 BBC article used data from the FBI and the Las Vegas Police to point out that eleven of the thirteen deadliest mass shootings in the past 30 years in the United States occurred between 2001 and 2021 (implying that mass shootings are becoming more frequent and more deadly). A 2016 paper from the University of Alabama compared 171 countries from 1966 to 2012 and concluded that the United States accounted for only 5% of the world’s population, but 31% of its mass shootings.”
Vincent,
Have you thought of laying blame on Hollywood, the people who find it hard to make a movie without guns?
Can you imagine that repeated TV shows with a part for guns might, over the formative years of a child, might have some bad effects?
Geoff S
The Media and Leftwing politicians have created a culture of violence in the United States.
California and Canada, where a lot of shows are filmed, have pretty strict gun laws.
Yet their prop rooms are filled with full-auto machine guns plus other “evil” guns. (Maybe even a tank or two?)
How and why does the entertainment industry get a pass?
I did read the full article. I also understood that they picked the method that gave them the results they wanted. I also looked at other search results. In both cases, I took the first results. You decided you preferred the cherry-picked and massaged results.
“Nope, it IS NOT guns. The people who push that nonsense are the ones who count 18- and 19-year olds as children, and even they are wrong.”
Actually, in some gun control stats, they call them a “child” up to age 25.
AND I agree. No one under the age of 26 in the US should be allowed to vote.
I was alive when the voting age was changed from 21 to 18.
I was not 21 but a bit over 18.
I was a fool at 18.
So thankful that I can look back and know that I didn’t vote for McGovern because I was so politically astute that I didn’t know I needed to register to vote first.
Swept by the tides back then. More anchored before the next election.
Maybe 25 would be a better voting age? But at least go back to 21.
More time to experience Real Life and and realize the Left’s crap is just that.
(PS Agnew and Nixon stepped down because of “the appearance of impropriety”. So why didn’t Bill Clinton, Barry Obama, Brandon, Al Gore, Pelosi. etc. resign. A hell of a lot more that just “the appearance of impropriety”.)
And yet the left wants 16yo to vote but 18yo not to be full citizens re handgun rights.
They rightly know a 16yo should, in general, not be unsupervised with a gun. They know 16yo are numbies like all liberals and will follow their “hearts” and vote predominantly liberal.
They also want grade school minors to be able to have gender reassignment treatments, up to and including surgery without parental permission.
The Democrats are pushing to have the voting age lowered to 16.
What Nixon did was minor compared to what the Democrats have done, both before and after.
The difference was the media. They bend over backwards to ignore any faults in their candidates (Democrats) while they exaggerate every fault, real and imagined, of anyone who opposes their candidates.
Simon: Perhaps you should dig a bit deeper. The US gun deaths among children are dominated by inner city teens 13-18 in gang related violence. Then there are Young kids caught in the cross fire or hit in drive-by shootings. Almost all committed by convicted felons and minors who cannot legally own a gun. Then there are mentally ill or drug abuser parents who kill their own children, drowning, stabbing, beating and shooting all equally effective. Does New Zealand have inner city ghettos with 75% single mothers and where the primary business opportunity is selling hard drugs? Are NZ cities run by progressives who don’t believe in policing or sending violent offenders to prison? Do they put schizophrenics, drug addicts, violent felons back on the streets because they think all they need is a second, third, fourth chance?
Yes, we have a lot of gun related deaths in the US. The highest number is actually suicides. We also have roughly 10 times as many violent acts prevented by citizens who use a gun in self defense even though in the vast majority of cases the gun is never fired. Attackers are most often deterred when their target displays a weapon.
By the way, the occurrences of anyone being shot by a gun that is not being held by a person who pulls the trigger are very rare. I did read about a hunter who put his rifle in the back seat of his car and was shot when his dog jumped in and hit the trigger – and, of course, there’s Alec Baldwin. Just sayin.
PS: We now have about 100,000 Fentanyl overdose deaths/year in the US. Most all smuggled in by drug cartels through our open border with Mexico. Our current government does nothing to stop it. One might suspect that they are perfectly happy to see the kind of people who who are addicted to drugs kill themselves off. Heck they even want to provide “safe spaces” and drug paraphernalia for them at tax payer expense.
Self defence …that’s laughable as it very rarely happens , except in gangs where they blast away.
Gun violence still very common in rural and smaller cities as the US has a very confused municipal system that’s more like medieval Germany . Chicago for instance has it’s city core only 15% of the vast built up area that reaches into Indiana and Wisconsin
That FBI data excluded cities under 100,000 which are most cities
UM even using the CDC’s iffy numbers there are between 300,000 and 5,000,000 successful defensive uses of a gun yearly a basic search will show that you are just spewing sewage thinking it smells like roses and are trying to convince other of the same.
“Self defence …that’s laughable as it very rarely happens , except in gangs where they blast away.”
Not really. Guns can come in handy even when you don’t shoot someone with them.
One night, many years ago, I was sleeping in my house alone, and had no dogs to alert me, and about 1am in the morning someone broke into my house and woke me up in doing so, and the criminal walked quickly to my bedroom door and stopped at the threshold, and about that time I cocked the hammer back on the handgun I kept on my nightstand, and the criminal heard that sound and turned around and ran just as fast as he could back out the door he broke into.
I didin’t have to shoot anybody, that sound alone had the criminal on the run. But what would have happened had I been unarmed? I think it would have been an entirely different story. I might have survived, and then again, I might not have.
The sound of a cocking gun hammer, in the dark of the night, saved both of us a lot of trouble. Maybe that encounter influenced the perp to change professions. At any rate, he hasn’t been back to my house. 🙂
I think it was G. Gordon Liddy who once said, tongue in cheek, that the best burglar alarm was the sound of 12-guage shotgun being cocked. 😎
A number of recent shooting have been ended by an armed civilian.
When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.
“When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.”
Good point. Sometimes you don’t have time to wait on the authorities.
Ignorance is bliss.
You will not see self defense in the MSM. You will also not see it even in the local press, especially when the local press is liberal, NYT Wash Compost, LA Times, etc.
You may end up seeing it in the NTY, etc., when the leftist prosecutor charges the person who defended themselves. Think of the subway “shooter” who defended himself against a gang of thugs. Those thugs being the “demographic” mentioned earlier that is responsible for the majority of gun murders even though it makes up less than 13% of the US population.
He was prosecuted for multiple crimes but ended up convicted of only ONE gun offense, carrying an “UNLISCENSED FIREARM”, and was sentenced to a year in prison. Ridiculously over “punished” for a crime that constitutionally should not exist. Requiring licensing of “arms” is an abridgement to the right to keep and bear arms which the 2nd amendment says, “shall not be infringed.” If there were more Bernhard Goetz’s on NY subways there would be much less subway crime.
Two examples of NY subway shooters, you know, the bad guys, not the good guys.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/11/nyc-subway-shooting-that-left-teen-dead-was-gang-related-officials/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-york-subway-shooting-capture-suspect/story?id=84062990
very rarely happens
It’s difficult to get exact numbers especially since many of those incidents go unreported, but the estimates vary between 55,000 to 4.7 million. The real number is certainly somewhere between those two. I don’t think that is “very rare”
Actually, no. Violence of all kinds, outside the major cities is rare. It really is amazing how the places that already have the type of gun laws that you guys want, are also the places where most of the violence is occurring.
The biggest killer of children is abortion. Felons except in very rare cases aren’t permitted to own guns but somehow they get them and commit additional crimes. The real problem is morals. Religion teaches it however it is possible for parents to teach it without religion. Children need to learn to be responsible for their action and to value other people. Unfortunately progressive ideas abandon the idea of personal responsibility as the state will take care of everything. A few laws will never solve the problem. That is the easy solution that will never work. What will work is very hard as it has to take place on a personal level. If somebody fails the test by committing a crime, they need to be in prison until they learn the lesson. It may sound harsh but the truth is often harsh.
One of the things the left wing here in the States like to do is mention our number of mass shootings (I’m not entirely sure what the exact definition of “mass shooting” is, more than two I guess), and then compare it with Australia, Canada, UK, NZ, and the EU. Only the EU has a population size like ours, and doesn’t have an open border with a narco-cartel state. They like to blame the NRA and 2nd Amendment. Yet we’ve had those for far longer than I’ve been alive. So what changed? From the rise of social media to the attack on police and our border agents, and now we’re seeing a rise in violence being carried out BY transgendered people, not against them, and unequal application of the law (think BLM and Antifa), the USA of 2023 isn’t the same as the 20th century USA that I remember growing up in, when even democrats were still a little bit sane…
The original FBI definition of mass shooting is 4 killed, not including the perpetrator.
The MSM does not use this definition all the time and often will include the perpetrator in the number killed if he dies in the attack.
mention our number of mass shootings
Which is totally disingenuous. Per capita is the only reasonable measure, and by that, US ranks #11:
Norway — 1.888Serbia — 0.381France — 0.347Macedonia — 0.337Albania — 0.206Slovakia — 0.185Switzerland — 0.142Finland — 0.132Belgium — 0.128Czech Republic — 0.123United States — 0.089Plus, that completely ignores any other mass killings by any other means, like cars, bombs, etc. Which is equally disingenuous.
How many mass shootings did NZ have in the 4 years preceding the semiauto ban? They were rare events in NZ and Australia for a number of reasons, more related to demographics and differences in culture.
The last time I was in NZ (1989), our car was broken into and most of our things were stolen in the first two hours in Auckland. After reporting the theft, and deciding to do some sleuthing, I ran across a kid wearing my leather coat on a hiking trail near the museum. I dropped him with a right cross to keep him from running away, which he managed to do anyway after I told him I wanted him to come with us to the police station. The point of this is that later, in a conversation with the police and the two kids involved, all of them expressed disbelief that I had slugged the teenager. Yanks are more violent than Kiwis! And I’m a gentle person compared to many in this country. There are many who would think nothing of stabbing someone for stealing their property.
Most of the mass shootings in the US are gang shootings. The relatively rare school shootings get the headlines, followed up by conflated gang-shooting numbers to inflate the numbers and make it look like it is all innocent children.
If one uses the same definition of ‘children,’ it is probably opioid overdoses, with a total over 100,000 per year, compared to 300 mass shootings in 2022 (FBI) of all ages. Yet, there is little mentioned about it compared to guns.
Mark Twain famously said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do, you are misinformed.” If you depend on what you read or see on TV, I can assure you that you are getting biased reporting. There are several ‘news’ articles and OpEds daily on the internet, all of them promoting more and stricter Prior Restraint style gun control. The reader comments are typically running about 10:1 against the articles. Yet, I have yet to see a single article telling the other side of the story. It is just like the climate issue! There is an official liberal narrative, and that is all that gets published. There are always two sides to a story. If the public is only getting one side, then it is only getting a half truth.
Hello, Simon. I asked you a question.
Gee I thought it was abortions
And how many of those deaths are from gangbangers
I think I’ll keep my guns thank you
“You want to lecture NZ about gun violence” — Are you not lecturing us all here about US gun laws? You are a kiwi eh bro’?
He’s a socialist, in his mind that makes him an expert on every subject.
Resident Leftist Simon: Prior to the Firearms Act of 1920, almost anyone in the UK could purchase a firearm. Strangely enough, there was far, far less violence committed with firearms at that time than today.
A few years ago 82 people were crushed to death with a rented truck on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, and 12 people met the same fate in Berlin soon after. Do you propose to ban the use of trucks?
“A few years ago 82 people were crushed to death with a rented truck on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, and 12 people met the same fate in Berlin soon after. Do you propose to ban the use of trucks?”
The fact that you can’t see the difference between a truck and a gun isays so much about the giant intellect you have. I don’t think I am going to sleep tonight…..
Kindly explain the very low level of gun violence in the UK prior to the introduction the Firearms Act.
It would appear that to you, deaths are acceptable as long as they aren’t committed with a firearm. How did your ‘intellect’ come to that conclusion?
“It would appear that to you, deaths are acceptable as long as they aren’t committed with a firearm. “
Huh…. Death of a fish on my line is good. Death of a human being is bad. Unnecessary death of a human being is tragic. Death of a child unnecessarily is immoral. Does that clear it up?
In other words, you don’t care how many innocent people have to die, so long as one child is saved.
The fact that you cannot admit that the PERSON driving the truck and the PERSON shooting a gun are responsible for the deaths “says so much about the giant intellect you have”. I do know how you sleep at night, ignorance is bliss, and you must sleep blissfully.
By your reasoning, yes.
And don’t stop there. Ban all forms of transportation, even EVs. And while you’re at it, let’s ban Dihydrogen Monoxide.
(It’s found in all cancer cells. Over exposure can be acute (meaning death).
Face it, there are evil people in the world that will kill using whatever means they can, whether legally or illegally obtained.
You would disarm the good people that might be able to prevent deaths of many innocents at the hands of the evil, no matter what they have in their hand.
Just a few thoughts from those wiser than both of us.
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.”
Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787
“There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet an enemy.”
George Washington
“Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, Annals of Congress, August 17, 1789
“The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside… Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them.”
Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine, 1894
“That no man shou’d scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life de“None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to unknown recipient, February 25, 1803pends, is clearly my opinion; yet arms…should be the last resource.”
George Washington, Letter to George Mason, April 5, 1769
“The Constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, both fact and law, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person; freedom of religion; freedom of property; and freedom of the press.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Cartwright, June 5, 1824
“The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.”
James Monroe, Second annual message to Congress, November 16, 1818
“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
Samuel Adams, in Phila. Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789
You know as well as I that Simon loathes and despises the US and its founders with all his heart.
Like most socialists, Simon hates people who are more successful than he has been.
A caveat:
Bath school disaster, pair of bombings on May 18, 1927, of Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Michigan, U.S., that killed 38 schoolchildren. The perpetrator, Andrew Kehoe, also killed five adults in addition to himself in the worst school massacre in American history.
No guns involved when there were no gun laws.
Maybe some people are the problem and not what they use to kill?
Why do Governments want to remove weapons for self defense from it’s citizens?
For Simon, it’s only a massacre when it is perpetrated with guns in the US.
The fact that you can’t see the difference between a truck and a gun
The fact that you can’t see the similarity between death and death speaks more to your intellect than to Grame’s. You’re so hell-bent on blaming the gun that you ignore any other mass slaughters by other means.
The fact that Simon has to evade the question just shows that even he knows he can’t win this argument.
Explain why the citizens of New Zealand are considered untrustworthy to own firearms.
They might stop being victims?
Just a guess.
Jacinta was the top of the tree of responsibility for the shootings. The buck has to stop somewhere. The Prime Minister sets the tone and makes the laws of a country to maximise human safety through leadership on matters like discipline.
Her move to this cushy, self-glorifying job is simply an expression of guilt and an escape to think about something more pleasant. Her effort will add zero benefit to the world.
It is rank hypocrisy to run away from the consequences of her poor ability and utterly inexcusable to blame sceptics who had nothing to do with the event.
What a shallow, vicious girl she turned out to be. Geoff S
I guess you wouldn’t vote for her then. Isn’t democracy great?
‘Isn’t democracy great?’
It might be, if we had it.
Don’t you know that it’s only an example of democracy, when the socialists win.
Will she be moving to and living in Boston?
I’m sure her salary will cover the cost of living in a gated community with private security, if she chooses to do so. Gun control advocates somehow never seem to demand their own personal security teams be disarmed. Look at Biden – he just ignores all the guns his secret service detail are packing.
So you expect Biden (the legally elected president of the United States of America which has the highest level of gun violence in the western world) to not be protected? Hmmm that sounds resonable.
“legally elected” – Huh? Wadda you mean bro’?
I mean the crim Donnie lost but wasn’t man enough to face the crowd and say the words… “Congratulations Joe…. I concede.”
“crim”?
Has he been convicted of something then?
He’s been convicted in the mass press of interfering with the socialist agenda. There is no greater crime.
Interfering with women’s genitals is the charge I believe. Oh and the tax and election systems. Oh boy the list goes on…
What you believe and what is true, never manage to coincide.
CNN Simon *HATES* Donald Trump.
In the court of liberal public opinion, aka virtual Kangaroo Court.
Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Assume that Trump and Biden have a re-match. After the election, there are some irregularities in voting discovered, and it appears that the Republicans might have cheated. What would you recommend to rectify the situation and be sure that the legitimate person is installed in office?
You and Duker keep telling us guns are useless for self-defense. Therefore Biden’s Secret Service detail should be disarmed.
You and Duker keep telling us guns are useless for self-defense.
Can you quote where we said that?
“Self defence …that’s laughable as it very rarely happens , except in gangs where they blast away.”
Duker, 12.04am on this thread.
Ooops…….🤣
And I said it where?????
If restricting guns in America has the outcome of reducing gun crime, then why wouldn’t Biden lead by example?
Because the country is full of thick headed morons who think owning guns makes them better men. Quite simply his life is in danger in the position he is in. History tells us that. Read some.
Riiiight. So Biden is allowed guns to protect himself but not anyone else?
Isn’t that elitism?
There is a rich history of socialist leaders disarming their population then turning on them.
How might the Jews in Germany have responded to their appalling treatment if they were able to ‘legally’ carry weapons?
Biden is allowed guns to protect himself but not anyone else?
Government buildings have armed guards/police and metal detectors to protect the “important” government officials. But those same officials don’t think our children should benefit from the same protection.
That alone tells you it’s not about protecting children.
Don’t expect Simon to keep his arguments consistent.
Never have, but it’s fun humiliating him. 🤣
“Riiiight. So Biden is allowed guns to protect himself but not anyone else?”
Yes and you can do and so can I. But get a licence and prove you can use it. And no semi automatics. that old the left don’t want guns is a big lie…. they just want a reasonable level of control.
If you think that only guns that have to be reloaded after every shot is reasonable, then you are delusional.
Your belief that the world can be made safer by disarming the law abiding is refuted by reality.
When you compare single countries, both before and after gun laws have been passed, it’s obvious that gun laws have never reduced the rate of gun crime/violence.
For large countries like the US, where different regions have vastly different demographics and gun laws, you have to compare the individual regions.
I actually like most of the Kiwis I have met, and have had some enjoyable times with them, despite having said some critical things about NZ. However, I would never stoop to a remark such as yours about those I don’t like.
I’m beginning to think that liberalism is some kind of disease like Toxoplasmosis. You seem to think the same and have the same talking points, regardless of where you live.
And once again, our tolerant socialist feels the need to insult people for the crime of thinking differently.
Simon knows better than you do what you need to run your life and protect your family.
Simon, please tell us the results of the investigations into election fraud.
I know a lot of courts dismissed cases on technicalities and so no real investigations were made.
I saw the video of a counter running the same stack of ballots through the counter 4 or 5 times in Fulton County Georgia. Who investigated that? NOBODY. Deep State was already in place.
Don’t you just love how Simon has to mix irrelevancies in with his lies in order to keep himself in the game.
BTW, anyone else notice how Simon assumes that those who lord over us are entitled to the same protection that he would deny the rest of us.
I have no desire to damage Boston but if Arden moved there it would be good for NZ. I know it is only one psycho less to accommodate in NZ but every little helps.
One more in Boston won’t be noticed.
Read or skim this article. It is not mine; I only post this link and a short summary. Shooters stopped by civilians killed far fewer victims, because the stoppers were on the scene, whereas police had to be called, dispatched, arrive, coordinate, assess, and finally act cautiously. One begins to suspect there’s a reason Mother Jones and the police ignore shootings with fewer than 4 victims.
https://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/auditing-shooting-rampage-statistics/
Yes, I’ve read claims that occasions when someone shot a few bullets into a crowd only to be stopped almost immediately by an armed bystander weren’t really mass shootings. Completely absurd.
And a “mass shooting” (or a crime) was prevented therefore, no headline and ignored by the MSM.
In every case, the bad guy was stopped by a good guy with a gun.
Unfortunately, in most cases, thanks to gun laws, that good guy was a police officer who was minutes away.
Don’t get distracted from the real
scary part! The the only thing that has held off mindless fascist totalitarians like PM Ardern is a free internet and it’s been getting lambasted over the past couple of decades. They are working over time to take control of the internet.
The woke with over 95% of the funding to promote their ugly global
plan, all of the universities, nearly all of the cable news, most of the institutions, NGOs, a gatekeeping lock on all the major academic technical and ‘learned’ journals, propagandized curricula of children’s schools, high schools and universities churning out PhD-Lite useful fools and they got their @ur momisugly$$es handed to them in debate until they refused to debate sceptics anymore!
They have to believe that the small minority that make up this pesky contingent of sceptics must be getting trillions of dollars like they have already spent on their plan from some place with without a ripple visible. Even Big Oil can’t put up this kind of cash!
I guess they believe that Solzhenitsyn, Sacherov and the few others who foiled the USSR’s plans must have got a few billion to do the job.
Here is a quote regarding these brave folk which is applicable to dissenters here today.
“Nevertheless, there was no united opposition and each dissident individually decided the extent of involvement in the cause. Dissidents had no leader, but some were held in high esteem. For example, letters written by physicist Andrei Sakharov, or statements made by writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn had more weight than statements made by any other person.”
https://www.rbth.com/arts/history/2017/05/31/who-were-soviet-dissidents_773707
Control the information available to people and you control the people.
What do they have to base their opinion on?
If you cannot win the debate, silence your opposition.
Right — It has been the case forever.
Aw darn. That might have been a job Canada’s Justin Trudeau was hoping he’d get when he retired. Now we’re stuck with him until something else comes up where the job requirement is that you be a like a cheap adjustable wrench that rounds the flats off off nuts: a useless tool.
When Ms Ardern resigned, our spirits here in Canada fell, knowing that it meant she had a head start on Trudeau on the sinecure search. He does tick all the right boxes same as her except for sex. He (or his string-pullers) says it’s hate speech to say transwomen aren’t women, he hates guns, kneels (literally) to BLM, is ramming through a law to censor the internet, thinks Islamophobia is the greatest danger the world faces, and wants to give the country back to the aboriginals and let them run it in the meantime. On Net Zero he’s all hat and no cattle (fortunately) but like so many of the virtue signalers he can do actual damage before the whole house of cards collapses. He’s dumb as a bag of hammers but that doesn’t seem a barrier to this kind of appointment. Affirmative action for the stupid.
Oh well, it’ll be nice for him that Ms. Ardern will be in Boston where he can visit easily.
Whilst the comments mostly revolve around guns, it misses the point for all the other suppressions Jabcinda made whilst Prime Minister
Jabcinda is a socialist control freak along with her other Coalition far-lefties. She left her position abruptly because her base had left her and she would lose the next election in October of this year. Funny how citing “burn-out” as the reason she resigned, led her to accept a number of positions which seem to be with her cronies internationally. She worked in USA, UK with Tony Blair, was/is mentored by Helen Clark – a former NZ Prime Minister and UNESCO leader
She divided the country mandating covid-jabs until the Courts ruled them illegal, disdained protests at Parliament (mostly from her voter-base) because of her smarmy division of non-vaccinated as 2nd-class citizens to be vilified by the vaccinated she and her cohorts conned with misinformation courtesy of FDA and CDC
The cuddly-softly she displayed with the Christchurch massacre was a photo-op (she has a degree in political communications). The victims families are still awaiting justice. The perpetrator was in fact Australian who came to New Zealand in 2017 and shortly after obtained weaponry (how?), planning to attack the Muslim community. Whilst sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, he is now appealing https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-08/christchurch-attacker-appealing-convictions-and-sentence/101627864
On the Climate Change front, she is a promoter of Climate Control and made a deal with the Green Party to gain majority control of Parliament. This resulted in considering a “Fart-Tax” on cows directly aimed at farmers (New Zealand is one of the biggest Dairy exporters in the world) How the academics can destroy a major part of the economy because of ideology. Fortunately, her replacement Prime Minister dropped the idea (for now … an elections on the horizon)
I am a kiwi living in NZ. Jacinda Ardern’s popularity as Prime Minister tanked so she resigned. Her views on censorship were just one factor in her becoming widely detested. Other actions by her included a secret but leaked plan which is still being implemented to replace one person one vote democracy with race based power sharing. Add in climate control actions by reducing our dairy herds ( our biggest industry), stopping oil and gas exploration as well as huge government expenditure for no payback, bribing the media to support government policy etc etc. She has been our worst ever Prime Minister and left our once prosperous and peaceful country poor angry and divided.
At least in her new job she will be a long way from us.
Quite right. I too live in New Zealand.
By her secret agendas she has turned a country with arguably some of the best relations between indigenous and white people in the world into a country hugely divided…in less than 5 years. She has done permanent and irreparable damage to race relations in this country. Her successor seems to be following the same path. I’m sorry she is now inflicting herself on the USA.
That was the brief from the WEF. Divide and conquer.
Obama showed how to poison race relations and divide Society for money and power.
Obama did worse than Trump on race relations?
By far.
Just look at the huge increase in support for Republicans amongst minorities while Trump was in office.
“I can’t help thinking that allowing law abiding people to bear arms and defend themselves when the next maniac opens fire might be a better way to reduce mass shooting casualties”
Eric, that really is an extremely stupid statement to make. Such a big deal is made of this incident in NZ because it is so rare, as are the similar ones that occurred in the UK and, as others said, in Australia. In the USA, where this is pretty much no gun control, we hear about this sort of thing happening every f*****g week.
You’re absolutely correct, Refer to my reply to Scarecrow Repair’s post where he selected a statistical analysis from a linked article which was later criticised in the same article for some of the reasons you mention.
Here’s the link that Scarecrow Repair provided. Read the full article.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country
“Eric, that really is an extremely stupid statement to make. Such a big deal is made of this incident in NZ because it is so rare, as are the similar ones that occurred in the UK and, as others said, in Australia. In the USA, where this is pretty much no gun control, we hear about this sort of thing happening every f*****g week.”
Yep you hit the nail on the head….They just can’t see past the imaginary right they have to total “freedom” to do what the hell they like…. Even when the facts are so obviously against them and their wellbeing. I guess in the end they deserve what they end up with, which is a violent dangerous society, so out of whack with the rest of the world. I saw some vile conservative guy the other day saying the excessive deaths the US experiences is the price to they have to pay for “freedom.” I guess he has never had a child gunned down by a crazy with an AR15. Funny how people change their mind when that happens.
More irrational hyperbole! Murder has never been acceptable by any civilized society. What most of us demand is the ability to protect ourselves against criminals because it takes the police minutes to arrive when seconds are important. What we demand is that society hold criminals responsible for their criminal actions, and not prevent us from defending ourselves by passing prior restraint gun control laws. Most prior restraint laws are ineffective because, by definition, criminals do no follow the law. The largest number of killings in this country are the result of young males in gangs, who are ineligible to own firearms either because of their age or felon status.
One of the arguments used by the likes of yourself is that no right is absolute. The best example of that is that ‘Freedom of Speech,’ (part of our First Amendment) does not allow one to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is none, without punishment for endangering those present. However, the courts have held that Prior Restraint, in the form of a gag or tape across the mouth to prevent such actions, is unconstitutional. More realistically, one is free to engage in libel/slander, or even insurrectionist speech, but must be prepared to face the consequences for abuse of that freedom. Anything less would be to invite abuse by censors for things they just want to suppress.
OK Simon, I call BS. Provide the link to the vile crazy guy.
Leftist liars like you always make up what they want to be said and claim it to have been said.
I do LOVE EEET when you clowns walk into these things with your eyes shut. One simple google search from you would have saved you looking a fool. And calling me a liar implies I made that up. Why would I do that knowing the smarter ones here(clearly not you) would check.
Anyway, here you go and you are most welcome.
https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-it-2nd-amendment-1793113
PS it was actually another guy on Utube I saw but this guy fits the bill of misguided gun fool.
OK Simon, a thought exercise. I know, this will be very hard for you, but here goes.
Do you drive a car?
If so, replace the words “guns” or “arms” with automobile.
Now do you agree with the statements you have claimed to have been said “the other day”, and what was quoted in Newsweek.
If you, as you must being a car driver, agree with the statements, please explain how that is possible and IF you would change your perspective if one of your loved ones were killed by a car.
You are a hypocrite. To you only guns are BAD. As the old saying goes:
Only a truly civil society or arms can protect the weak and elderly from the strong and evil.
Since there has never been a truly civil society, then guns will have to do. But, of course, you don’t believe is self protection unless you are a large strong younger individual who is, in general, able to protect yourself. If that is the case, why don’t you want the weaker and older to be able to protect themselves.
Anyway. Lots of people in NZ have guns. They just are employed by your rulers.
Here Simon demonstrates the socialist trait towards binary thinking.
In their “minds” wanting freedom from government means you are into total freedom and no limits on your behavior.
It’s like those socialists who when someone objects to a new EPA regulation, immediately declare that you really want to eliminate all environmental regulations.
Well I DO want to eliminate the EPA, and all EPA regulations.
Time to start over from scratch.
AND ATF parts of ATFE. I think there MAY be a federal purpose for the explosives part, but why should there central government regulate fire ARMS since the right for non felons and the sane to bear arms is unassailable, and alcohol and tobacco should not be regulated by the federal government.
There is a reason the US constitution is so short and state constitutions are so long. MOST of the authority goes “to the States, or to the People”
That is a serious misrepresentation of the situation in the US. Back in the 1960s, it was estimated that the US had something like 10,000 federal, state, and municipal gun control laws. Since then, federal and state prior restraint style gun control laws have increased significantly to the point that it is difficult to keep up with them.
With a population of less than 5 million in NZ, all other things being equal, one would expect similar events in NZ to be about 1% as frequent, or large, as in the US. That is, if something happens weekly in the US, one might expect it every couple of years in NZ. Because there is a demonstrated correlation with crime and population density, even every couple of years is an over-estimate. And, your “every f*****g week” is hyperbole. Probably every few months is a more reasonable assessment, which would push the NZ events out to a decade or more.
I know I should not comment on the subject of gun laws in the US because…well…the lack of open minds on the subject.
The US has a mental health issue in that you do not have a functioning system to take care of your own when it comes to mental health. Combine that with easy access to firearms such as assault weapons and you have a lethal mix which shows in the ongoing senseless mass shootings. Weekly basis or are you up to twice a week now?
I was not aware that the NRA had made a “statistic” to prove the cause for assault weapons that put my own country at the top of the list. The claim seems to be that Norway has 1.2 dead per million due to mass shootings.
Anyone believing something like that should go back to school. If you read it and accepted it you should consider your own ability to check sources and your ability to analyse. And if you believe the NRA could make unbiased statistics on their pet subject – I can not help you.
Norway has had 1 – one – as in singular- mass shooting in it’s entire history. We do not have an “annual rate”. It is ridiculous to even suggest that we do have an “annual rate”. We had 1, and it was performed by a mentally ill person. Yes, we have serious deficiencies in our mental health care, and yes we have seen more than one incident of mentally ill people trying to kill a lot of people. But they cannot easily get hold of weapons that facilitate killing many in a short time. And that is the primary reason why we have had one single mass shooting in our entire history.
Norway has an annual homicide rate of 5.6 per million. The US has 65 per million.
The idea that more guns lead to more safety is insane.
I know I am not changing the minds of the willingly ignorant.
“The idea that more guns lead to more safety is insane.
I know I am not changing the minds of the willingly ignorant.”
No but not everyone here is blinded by political affiliation on this issue. Maybe some are on the fence and just need a little push.
Nothing political about guns. They have been proven to liberate political subjects, like slavery.
And they have been known to slaughter children…..
And those Jews in 1930’s Germany were unarmed, imprisoned, enslaved and slaughtered.
China also disarmed its population on the basis that they were not necessary as the government would protect the people, then it turned on them. Now its a communist state…..
Ah! But the children!
That’s the usual refrain from you leftist’s because you have nothing else.
“That’s the usual refrain from you leftist’s because you have nothing else.”
No I care about adults too, but children are our responsibility to defend. The US is failing miserably.
A claim you fail to support.
Preventing adults from protecting children is taking care of them?
So have cars, hammers, knives, bleach.
Should everything that can harm children be banned?
What about all the children whose lives were saved by guns? This number is far larger. Do they not count?
Undoubtedly true when they are in the right hands.
People kill, guns don’t.
And, as with the climate issue, many of us are operating on facts and logic, regardless of any imagined political affiliation, and come to different conclusions. You are engaging in self-delusion thinking that the only difference between our viewpoints is the result of political affiliation.
What’s an “Assault weapon”?
Every shooting is an assault, sometimes justified, sometimes not.
A single shot, muzzle loaded hand gun is therefore an assault weapon is it not?
I love watching people fall for the PR narrative of governments.
Recently before Congress Biden’s head of BATF said he couldn’t define what an “Assault Weapon” was because he wasn’t an expert on firearms. (Brandon’s head of the ATF!?!?!)
He said that was up to the Legislature to define.
AOC, Mad Max, Schumer, Shitts, Pelosi, etc. are EXPERTS!!!!
It’s always been about, “Who pulled the trigger and why?”.
SOROS DA’s are letting criminals back on streets.
“Statistics released by the FBI on Wednesday show that in 2022, there were 18% fewer active shooter incidents than in 2021, but the number of casualties rose from 243 to 313. The number of people killed, however, decreased by three.”
Tom Knighton — Bearing Arms
That apparently involved 50 shooters. So, about one per week seems to be the average. Those, however, are not just the high visibility ‘school’ shootings, but include gang shootings.
The US firearm murder rate in 2021 (FBI) was about 44 per million. It should be noted that 13% of the US population has a firearm murder rate approximately 10X that of the rest of the population (CDC). However, there are rural areas along the Canadian border, where the 13-percenters are rare, where there have been no firearm murders in over 5 years, and the rates are lower than the Canadian rate, despite Canada having much stricter gun laws.
Can you think of anything else that might kill many people in a short time? Have you heard of the Oklahoma Bomber? Or, the Happy Land arson killings? The question that should be asked, but isn’t, is why people are choosing firearms that look like military weapons, when there are things that would be even more effective and easier to obtain?
You sanctimoniously attacked the “willingly ignorant.” Are you willing to educate yourself? https://www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/6-reasons-gun-control-will-not-solve-mass-killings
You know what? The rate of homicide among Norwegians who don’t kill others is…oh, I’ll leave it to you to ponder on that.
Are you able to make an argument at all?
Back in the 60, there were local and state “asylums for the insane”. Then the ACLU and other “human rights” organizations found one or two persons who may have not been “insane” enough and sued the private companies and localities and states for “incarcerating those individuals illegally, winning millions of dollars in “awards”.
These lawsuits quickly made any private entity operating at the behest of the governments to either go bankrupt or just get out of the business, and states and localities to get out of the mental health care business.
Now you in the non-US British lineage countries mostly have a loser pays legal system. Not so in the US. Rarely does the loser pay the costs of the defendant in civil cases where the defendant wins.
SO, liberals broke the system of mental institutions in the US, yet again creating the problem we have today.
Homelessness?? How much homeless do you have in the UK, NZ, Aus? The homeless in the US are either straight out thieves and druggies, of the mentally ill thieves and druggies. Back in the 60, they were called what they are, VAGRANTS and rightly shunned. Then a federal judge ruled they have a right to be wherever they like.
Why is it allowed? Because no one dares house them for the fear of being sued.
What is different in your countries? You CAN’T sue the crown.
My brother in law was homeless in Las Vegas for about 8 years. He knew where to go, and when, to get free stuff. He always had new to him clean clothes and plenty of food. That allowed the use of his full Canadian SS to buy booze. We would pick him up a couple of times a month to take him to lunch or dinner. He had a government provided phone, so keeping in contact was not a problem. When we would meet he would give US canned food, oatmeal, rice, and even fresh vegetables, etc. that he got from the helping LIBERALS. Of course those helpers ultimately got much of their funds from the government. We had to tell him to stop.
Finally when my father in law passed, he ended up owning a mobile home on property so he only needed to pay electric and taxes and could still drink all he wanted. That lasted for about 4 more years until the alcohol killed him. His belly was the size of a watermelon, and he was not a big guy. So do-gooder liberals probably helped shorten his life by 10 or more years.
Where I am living now is where I lived 15years ago. Then, we rarely saw a “homeless” person or encampment. Now there are homeless all around. We must keep everything locked up and out of site. There is a raised freeway nearby and the state just leaves the gates unlocked because the bums just take the gates off the hinges. The state does come through every couple of months and clears the bums out, and they fill up one of more 8 yard dumpsters. As mentioned above, they have no problem getting new clothes, blankets, etc. My wife walks our dog 4 plus miles and on trash day the “homeless” are all around going through the bins.
Is the US a wonderful country or what?
Now as to Norway, a country with a truly homogenous population. All related by culture and common ancestry. Let the US send you 26% of your population who will demand free stuff, easily identifiable as “different”, and see how your statistics hold up. As you move toward 20% immigrant population, although those are mostly of European ancestry. I note that you are now choking down the number of immigrants allowed to enter Norway. How unkind of you. Your rulers must have seen the problems some immigrants were causing, NO? You are DNA testing Somalis to verify if they are actually of the family they are reuniting with? How terrible you are to not just trust them. Oh what, over 40% were lying? You are just being rac!st to call Africans liars. Of course you tested Somalis FIRST before expanding the testing to other countries you rac!sts!
To your “open minds” statement. Is your mind open to the reason for the 2nd amendment? It is for the citizens to be able to protect themselves from the government and/or foreign invaders, you nit wit. You STILL live in a Kingdom. You WANT to be ruled! The colonies threw off the shackles of Monarchy long ago.
Finally, your oil wealth allows you to afford your liberal beliefs. And with your geology, getting almost 100% of your electricity from “renewables” in the form of Hydro, you have the easiest of all worlds. Plenty of income from oil and gas and excess electricity from hydro. With lots of free money of course you can be liberal, but of course you still are rac!st. What happens when you lose that excess cash?
So you corroborate my take on the problems you have with your health care systems.We also have problems, but the basic tenets of Norwegian government is that we take care of all.
The US does not.
For the rest of what you write, there is no reply. Don’t challenge your own beliefs. Stay ignorant.
While the idea that more guns leads to more safety, may seem insane to someone who has never thought about the subject and who’s mind is closed to any data that doesn’t fit what he wants to believe, but it is still reality.
Taking guns out of the hand of the law abiding does not make the law abiding safer, it makes them less safe.
“While the idea that more guns leads to more safety, “
So how many guns will bring the death toll down Mark? Clearly the US doesn’t have enough yet coz the number of deaths is so high. Do we need one per person? Two maybe? What is the magic number that will see deaths falling?
The number would be much higher if only criminals had guns, which is the world that your laws create.
Gun laws have never reduced gun violence, in every country with tough gun laws and low gun violence rates, the gun violence rates were as low or lower before the gun laws were passed.
“I can’t help thinking that allowing law abiding people to bear arms and defend themselves when the next maniac opens fire might be a better way to reduce mass shooting casualties, than silencing critics of wind turbines.”
Arden is of course idiotic to link terrorist atrocities or gun crime with global warming skepticism.
But the assertion above is that the solution to violent crime is to arm the civilian population. Its an empirically testable proposition, and you don’t even have to do a controlled experiment to test it.
If its correct then the costs of an armed civilian population and ready access to guns should be lower than those of restricting them The costs of ready access are accidents, suicides, and gun crimes by the unbalanced which would otherwise probably not be lethal.
It seems that the US by going down the route of large scale access to guns and arming the civilian population has transformed what was a crime problem into a very big and much larger public health problem.
Eric’s argument seems to be that if we all carried guns all the time, then whenever a criminal or madman or terrorist who has profited from the ready availability to have one starts to open fire, we would all draw and put an end to him. Maybe. The problem with gun ownership and carrying in this way of thinking is that there is not enough of it. There are too many occasions when a gunman opens fire, but no-one else in the vicinity is armed. When there are armed civilians around, they return fire, and that is good, it deals with the problem. Hence the proposals to arm US teachers.
The alternative point of view is that the problem is not so much the criminal possession in Australia and NZ as the potential mass ownership, and that in some societies, for instance NZ, Australia and Europe, if society acts immediately to control and reduce that, the problem will diminish over time to negligible levels. This view would also say that the correct social response to gun crime is rapid police response. As has happened in a couple of recent US school shooting cases.
The question for Eric is: how much collateral damage from mass gun ownership and carrying are you prepared to take, to secure the aim of having an armed civilian on site and carrying when there is a criminal attempt? Because it is not a cost free alternative.
I don’t personally want to live someplace I and everyone else owns and carries guns and is ready to use them at the drop of a hat. It seems like a completely mad idea when we know already from the US how high the collateral damage is. And anyway, not at all pleasant to live in. But I guess quite some people think it is just fine and dandy. Heaven knows why!
“Hence the proposals to arm US teachers.”
I can tell you from knowing a high number of teachers and the kind of people that go in to teaching, that they will refuse to carry guns. There is no chance, zero. If they wanted to carry weapons they would have joined the military or the police. The fact that this argument has ever been used, shows how far from reality this discussion has moved.
Of course you do…….
You can always count on Simon to claim whatever experience needed to support his argument. Even if has to contradict what he has written before.
“I can tell you from knowing a high number of teachers and the kind of people that go in to teaching, that they will refuse to carry guns.”
You have NO clue .
All of our local schools have teachers and staff who carry .
Maybe that’s why we have no school shootings ?
If true that is such an indictment on things
So people taking responsibility for themselves and those in your care is an indictment on society?
The reality is that on several occasions, armed teachers have stopped shootings before they could become massacres.
Teachers who don’t want to carry guns don’t care about themselves or their students.
You are involved in wishful thinking. The homicide rate in the US not using firearms is higher than Australia’s total homicide rate, so eliminating guns would not be a panacea.
The crime rate by those of Japanese ancestry in the US is similar to the crime rate in Japan.
Denying anyone the right to self defense is traditionally a racist move, with the notion that “those people” have no rights to defend. The US has several hundred years of history, and ignoring that for some comparison to a country with a different history and people is ludicrous.
The alternative is to live in a place like Mexico, where the police and army are generally considered to be corrupt, but police and soldiers with submachine guns on the streets of the cities are the only thing between you and the avowed criminals. In my 81 years I have never observed anyone being shot and killed, nor have any of my relatives been shot and killed, nor any of my friends and their relatives. I don’t hang out with, nor frequent places where killers might be common. Do we have a problem in the US? Yes. But, the problem(s) is/are not being addressed.
While most are of the opinion that the problem of firearm murders is getting worse, and the proximate cause is the availability of guns, that is what the MSM wants you to believe. The reality is, the firearm murder rate in 2021 was that same as in 1998 and 1967. Rifle murders peaked in 1978, and accidental firearm deaths have been declining for even longer. (FBI UCR statistics)
What is happening is that the suicide rate is increasing, and gun banners use that to inflate the criminal violence numbers, with what they disingenuously call “gun deaths.” Japan has a suicide rate comparable to the US, but none are from the use of guns. That demonstrates that if guns were to magically disappear tomorrow, there would be little if any decrease in US suicides because other methods are so easily substituted. The parallel with climate disinformation is more than a little scary. The tragedy is that by focusing on guns, the problem of suicides isn’t getting the attention it deserves and needs.
No, this is not the only alternative. There are also countries in which the police and army are not generally considered corrupt, where guns are very tightly regulated or forbidden, and where violent crime is low. This is just a fact.
No, the alternative to having an armed civilian population is not living in a place like Mexico. It is living in a place like New Zealand or Australia. Or most of Europe.
This doesn’t mean that in such countries you will never have gun violence or violent crime. It does still happen. But its rare.
The US has its own set of problems and its own history, and it may not be possible to get there from here at this point. I don’t know. But I don’t want to live in a society where in any public place half those present may be carrying, and the alternative is not Mexico.
The problem is violent crime, and the solution to this is controlling it directly. The solution is not to have half the population carrying guns all the time in the hope that their vigilante action will do it. First, it won’t. Second, the collateral damage will be too great to make it cost effective.
There are too many incompetent nutters among us to make this a sensible solution. They are not a high proportion of the population, but there are still an awful lot of them, and a society in which they have relatively free access to guns is not a pleasant or safe place to live.
I am afraid that people who react to the latest mass shooting with the claim that the only alternative is Mexico and so we need more guns may be part of this small section of the population. They are actually creating Mexico. Or perhaps Baltimore or Chicago.
Fatherless homes are creating the gun violence in the US.
Johnson’s “Great Society created the fatherless homes.
Abortion via R vs W created the Godless and soulless inner cities.
End all the free stuff and then see what happens when the whole of society must be a contributor to society in the US.
What is it with gun grabbers and their utter unwillingness (or inability) to do basic logic. Countries differ from each other in thousands of different ways.
When you declare that gun laws are the sole reason why crime/violence rates are different is only declaring that you have a closed mind and have no desire to know what you are talking about.
The fact is that every countries with low gun crime rates after passing gun laws had low crime rates before passing gun crime rates.
The fact is that gun laws have NEVER impacted crime/violence rates.
In the US, there is a direct correlation between gun laws and violence.
Those places with the toughest gun laws have the highest crime/violence rates.
Those places with the least gun laws have the lowest crime/violence rates.
Those places with the toughest gun laws, crime/violence were lower before the gun laws were enacted.
Disarming the law abiding has NEVER reduced crime and never will.
You are confusing correlation and causation.
Pointing out that gun laws have never decreased gun violence rates in the area in which the gun laws apply, is confusing correlation and causation?
You clearly do not know what those terms mean.
I love the way people who know nothing about the US are so willing to display their ignorance.
The US is a big country and we vary tremendously from one place to another.
The fact is that the places in the US where guns are hardest for the law abiding to get guns are exactly the places where crime and violence are the highest.
Places where guns are easy to get and most everyone has them are the places with the lowest crime and violence.
I find it fascinating how little faith you have in your fellow man, you actually believe that other people are just a hair’s breadth away from gunning you down.
Personally, I am quite glad that you would never want to live in the US, we have enough troubles without you adding your ignorant, paranoid problems to the mix.
“Personally, I am quite glad that you would never want to live in the US, we have enough troubles without you adding your ignorant, paranoid problems to the mix.”
I didn’t say either that I do not live, have never lived, or do not want to live in the US .
I said that I don’t want to live someplace where my fellow residents have free access to guns, or where most of them routinely carry them. I am not alone in this, its a quite common feeling among otherwise reasonable people who live in the US.
And I remain of the view that its not sensible to arm the civilian population in order to tackle violent crime. Its both ineffective and brings excessive collateral damage. Tackle the crime directly, if that is the problem.
A bit like eliminating local US CO2 emissions is not a sensible measure to alleviate or prevent coastal flooding and storm damage. Tackle the problem directly.
One of the great principles of business planning: If given the argument that we should do A because it delivers B, then always ask whether A is the best way of getting to B. Or are there other, better, cheaper, easier ways.
The answer tells you whether the aim is to get to B, or whether people want to do A for some other reasons.
So basically you have such a low opinion of everyone who isn’t you.
As to your belief that it is the responsibility of government to solve the crime problem, let me remind you that your fellow travelers are doing their best to get rid of the police.
Everything that I have mentioned in my previous posts.
The mere fact that you fear your fellow citizens does not give you the right to prevent them from taking care of themselves.
I find it fascinating how little faith you have in your fellow man
I have found that it’s yet another case of projection. They don’t trust themselves with a gun, therefore nobody should have one. Good example: the teacher who didn’t want to have a gun in the classroom because he “didn’t want to shoot one of his students”
“The fact is that the places in the US where guns are hardest for the law abiding to get guns are exactly the places where crime and violence are the highest.
Places where guns are easy to get and most everyone has them are the places with the lowest crime and violence.”
If you are referring to gun-related crime and violence, can you provide a link to studies which show that is the case? After a Google search, I came across the following study which compares gun laws and gun-related deaths across America.
It’s clear from the article that the states with the strictest gun laws have significantly less gun-related deaths than those states with the loosest gun laws.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/comparing-gun-laws-and-gun-related-deaths-across-america/
I also came across another study which shows a correlation between the total number of gun-related deaths across all states, and the total number of guns manufactured in the US and imported.
https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/
“What’s the relationship between gun production and gun deaths?
When we charted gun manufacturing and imports alongside annual gun deaths going back to 1968, we found that when gunmakers ramped up production, gun deaths rose.”
Between 2008 and 2013, as production and imports surged 132 percent, the gun death rate remained essentially unchanged, at around 10 deaths per 100,000. But guns and gun deaths began rising in tandem again a few years ago. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, gun companies produced and imported more guns than ever before, and there were more gun deaths than any previous year on record — more than 45,000. In 2021, gun deaths rose to a new record of 48,830.
The findings confirm what researchers have observed for years, he said: “When there are more guns, it just increases risk,” in the form of accidental shootings, suicides, and arguments that turn deadly due to the presence of a gun.”
MarkW,
Here’s another study which shows that restrictive gun laws in a particular state might not be as effective as hoped, if the state borders another state with lax gun laws.
https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2019/march/states-with-strict-gun-laws-see-increase-in-homicides-when-they-border-states-with-lax-ones
“States with Strict Gun Laws See Increase in Homicides when they Border States with Lax Ones
Over a five-year period, most guns found in states with strict gun laws were obtained from less restrictive states.
For example, the researchers found that seven of the 10 most restrictive states are located in the Northeast and had the lowest overall firearm fatalities and homicides. On the other hand, two states, California and Illinois, that dropped in the rankings because they had neighbors with more lenient laws continue to have high rates of firearm homicides, despite their own strict gun laws, the authors said.”
Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow. –LOL!!!!! –
Thanks hun:“Grandad in tears as he faces ‘a life of isolation’
https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/london-ulez-grandad-tears-faces-26780214
these people have become monsters – it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy
edit:
They’re killing the Golden Goose:
https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/national/23483104.m-s-boss-says-london-life-support-amid-investment-plan/
The US has cornered the loony market!
How unfortunate
Are there counter movements? Somewhere where scientists can sign in the name of free science? (I might need more than one, because sometimes the wording also offends my liberal feelings.. just because one side is wrong dies not make the other one right..
Jacinda Ardern has obtained her public reward, a nice paying sinecure which allows her to continue to demonstrate I am right approach. Alas the world has an excess of such individuals, types eager to present a case using cherry picked information, nowhere is this more apparent than in the arguments over the human role in global climate. What is at stake is far too important to allow this corruption to continue.
As for the argument about guns, especially in the United States. It is difficult to avoid noting that as policing and respect for the law has declined more and more people want to have the means to defend themselves. Owning a licensed pistol or hunting rifle I can understand, but possessing weaponry that has its place in a war seems over the top.
Perhaps collecting all the guns would go a long way towards solving the issue, but it is too late for that at the moment, criminals are not going to oblige. Could I suggest the American government begin by rebuilding the domestic culture they have been busily trashing over recent decades. They would favour the world by ceasing to interfere in other countries, instead address their own problems, good place to start would be to ensure the law deals with everyone using the same standards, this also applies to corrupt politicians who have escaped condemnation and judgement for far too long.
Other than a muzzle loaded hand gun, almost every hand gun is equivalent to an AR15 in that it is semi automatic. Pull the trigger and the next round is ready to fire almost instantly. Even revolvers conform to the criteria.
The AR15’s predecessors were semi automatics, they just didn’t have the pistol grip. The glorification of AR15’s as weapons of war is entirely down to the hysterical left, imagining that bracketing them as such would demonise them. Instead they have popularised them amongst the criminal fraternity especially.
weaponry that has its place in a war
does not describe any firearm available in the US currently made and obtainable without jumping through a lot of hoops to obtain the appropriate “tax stamps” (license) and local official approval.
There is not a country in the world that uses semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-platform for its main battle rifle. You have been taken in by the misinformation of the MSM.
Please clarify what you mean by this statement. It seems you may well be ill informed.
BTW: the colonies threw off the yoke of the British government using the weaponry of war. That is what the US 2nd amendment is about. Being able to throw off an abusive government and/or defend against an invader.
Every liberal speaks of hunting and licensed guns. The whole point is about FREEDOM, you idjit.
The following link to an article on H1tler re guns contains the quote:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/to-conquer-a-nation/
So the results in Aus and NZ and the UK show that your governments have NO fear of their “subjects”.
As to rebuilding the culture. TRUMP! started the possibility of that with his SCOTUS appointments. If he had won the last election, he would have appointed another conservative, and all the NEW laws created by liberal judicial activism could possible have begun to be overturned.
Biden keeps claiming that at the time of the Revolution, ordinary people weren’t allowed to own cannons.
Like most other things Biden believes, this is untrue.
Anyone who wanted to, and could afford a cannon was allowed to buy one.
The problem was cannons were very expensive and only the richest, or governments, could afford them.
Creating guns is not difficult. Anyone with a few thousand dollars in machining equipment and a few years experience using them can build one.
After all, using the technology of the 14th century, craftsmen were able to build firearms.
Banning guns only takes them out of the hands of the law abiding, and they were never the problem.
Drugs have been outlawed for decades, yet usage rates continue to rise.
If you can’t stop drugs, what makes you think you can stop guns?
As to your rants about weapons of war, the kindest thing I can say is that you don’t know what the F you are talking about.
If you think a silhouette is what makes a gun dangerous, then you know nothing about guns.
I don’t remember hearing anything about the Christchurch incident. If lined up against the US ones, it checks in at #2.
Didn’t fit the narrative?
How interesting, I assumed everyone had heard about it. Shocking if US news outlets censored the story to avoid undermining their gun control pitch. And gun rights advocates standing up for the right of law abiding Muslims to bear arms might have messed up their right wing = bigoted racist narrative.
It might have been mentioned in passing, but certainly not in any depth or with any significant coverage. And not at all shocking, rather, quite typical of the US mainstream media.
Self-congratulatory fellow travelers, none of them will ever be viewed nearly as glowingly as they revere themselves.
I’d like an anti anti speech law: very strong legal near thuggery works, state violence works when dealing with other states; do-as-you-want libertarianism isn’t a valid external position, it’s only internally valid, when no state or state-like entity oppose you. You can’t have libertarianism in face of strong states. You need near thuggery.
The thuggery I propose (I’m very serious):
If you are a journalist in the West, you have to wear a moral red hat or a blue hat. If you don’t have a hat you don’t get called a journalist and can’t have any press badge, ever, or get any protection afforded to journalists. If you request such protection, you must show your commitment to free speech in the form of past criticism of NZ, or you get mandatory jail sentence (see? needed thuggery).
Now the hats: what do they mean?
Why would anyone risk jail with a blue hat then? It’s only a risk of going to prison, right?
Because:
So I wish complete segregation of the press, like COVID restrictions limiting movements, but for meeting of ideas.
You either get a lifetime ban on discussing certain things, or people can get Maria Butina-ed. Or you don’t pretend you are the press and pretend to be a blogger. (Or you assert that each blogger must get all protection afforded to the press, and then you must fail to recognize the authority of any judge that doesn’t have the same interpretation of law.)
(Either that or NZ people must wear a sign when they are abroad.)
It’s 2023, not 1823. A prohibition on “assault rifles” will create a lucrative black market for those already in existence. If you ever saw the movie “West Side Story” you may remember that the available urban gangland weapon in the post-WWII era was the zip gun, manufactured by ingenious young hoodlums at little expense. In this day and age it would be even easier to make deadly weapons. Restricting guns will simply illegalize what’s basically a tool. Parenthetically, the second amendment enshrines the right to keep and bear ARMS. It doesn’t mention the various kinds of arms in use during the 18th century, sabers, pikes, knives, spears, maces, bludgeons and so on. There are many unconstitutional restrictions on them today, particularly in some states, where switchblade knives are illegal, for instance.
Luckily, the cane/walking stick, considered an aid to the disabled, is legal in all circumstances, in attendance at sporting events and even during air travel. Once carried by almost every male everywhere, it can incapacitate an adversary in seconds.
If the 2nd amendment only protects the type of arms available in 1776, then the first amendment only protects the communication technologies that were available in 1776 as well.
That was a very illogical response. The 2nd amendment protects all forms of arms common in the late 18th century. The first amendment doesn’t mention technology, it says the congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Fortunately there’s a supreme court that can straighten out people like you.
The 2nd amendment protects all forms of arms common in the late 18th century. The first amendment doesn’t mention technology
Please show me where the 2nd amendment mentions technology.
The second amendment just mentions arms. It does not specify what arms.
Your distinction exists in your mind only.
Jacinda should be given a yacht only using sails to transport her from continent to continent to lecture people about reducing their carbon footprint to zero. This will work well because she will have to spend so much time navigating against winds and currents that she will have little time left when she arrives to give her lectures and greatly reduce the damage she does.
NZ’s gain (by her resigning as PM) is a big loss for the rest of us (by her joining the Berkman Klein Center).
We all know the 2015 Christchurch Mosque massacre was dreadful. It was an ugly hate crime carried out by an evil person. Nothing can change that, but responsibility for lax gun laws and poor security has to be taken by the NZ government of the day. Jacinda Ardens attempts to blame the issue onto social media groups is disgraceful . .
The biggest mass murders in the US have been committed with airplanes and bombs.
When someone is determined to kill those they hate, they will come up with a means.