Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[azriel]

And to just add to that ridiculously stupid Liz Truss, Where have all the on street phone boxes gone ? If you don't have a mobile, if you cant afford a landline, there is no where to phone ! You can walk for streets & streets & not find one fecking phone box. And the tight bastarding Job Center have STOPPED the phones you can use in their centers now & you are told to go home & use your own phone ! My friend racked up £16 just calling DWP, Sixteen fecking pounds !!!! money that could have got food !

[halfwise]

Funny, the existence of any universal system at all would be a liberal program over here; over there it seems to be a conservative program, the hallmarks of which it isn't well designed to meet the needs of the lower economic strata. That's still more than we would get from conservatives. The only thing our conservatives support is the military, and then they don't even want to collect taxes to support that as it's too much big government!

[Pettytyrant101]

{{My favorite bit of the Liz Truss interview, and the bit which shows that she has no idea how the system works at all- is she repeats the mantra that instead of phoning you should go into your job centre and ask for advice. She has clearly never done so. I have. Several times. The answer was the same on every occasion- 'phone the help line.'

Azriel- Mhairi is star of the future SNP I'm sure of that. And yeah 16 quid when your at the sharp end, been there, thats keeping your electricity on till the end of the week, that's keeping yourself fed for a week with some careful shopping. 16 quid can often be more than you actually have. The Tories seem to think we should be grateful that they have caved and made the phoneline free- but what sort of thinking made a help line for the poor in need a premium rate in the first place? Changing it now excuses nothing. But it does betray the Tory thinking that national debt is better paid by punishing the poorest, who dont vote, and not the middle class, who do.

Halfy- the Tories are reluctant diners at the banquet of socialist programs- if they could openly get away with a more Republican position on many things they would- but its electoral suicide here which is all that prevents them. Instead they try other guises- austerity was an excuse to cut social program budgets year on year on year for the better part of a decade- using the excuse of the global crash which they someone manged to pin on UK Labour and the poor- whilst particualry in England increasing the use of cheaper labour via private enterprise involvement in previously public sector work.
A look at the state of the English and Welsh NHS in particular will show the damage done,and that's without the spectre of Brexit and all the NHS staff who are EU citizens and upon whom the system depends (true also in all areas private and public in health care- the care home I work in has probably more immigrant carers than Scottish for example).
The Tories got elected on a promise to 'save and protect the NHS' because people wouldn't vote for the actual plan if they knew it.
Weird thing is its long term electoral suicide and they keep doing it whenever they get in power- first they cut the money, then the services, then bring in private sector groups for funding and work, all under the guise of protecting and preserving and modernising the NHS- but eventually the actual effects of what they are doing become so apparent the cover story no longer holds water and they get hammered at the next election and voted out of power. Yet they keep doing it. }}}

[Mrs Figg]

those two clips show the stark contrast between the Tories and the Opposition. Nobody in their right mind could justify charging 55p per minute, but Truss and her cronies did, brazenly and openly. She looked more flustered about not having the right answers than the actual harm to human beings. unbelievable.

[halfwise]

I tend to believe her when she said she wasn't aware of the charges. I also believe the reason she wasn't aware is because she doesn't care.

[Mrs Figg]

the Tories just appointed Caligula head of nursery schools. Esther Mc fucking Vey, head of DWP. are they mad or just evil? she makes IDS look like a nice guy.

[azriel]

Evil breeds insanity ! It corrupts & turns your mind into a loathsome creature. Oh the Hansel & Gretel witch will get her come back. Anyone not scarred will be a survivor for life after that !!

[Pettytyrant101]

{{{ Gutted for all those involved in the tragic mass murder in yet another US High School- beyond belief and grief.
This cant just go on, that's the 19th shooting in a school this year alone, and its still only February.
Surely some sense has to come to US gun law sometime?
The Senator who stood in the senate and said this just doesn't happen anywhere else is not wrong, he is absolutely right, it doesn't, he is also right that it's not a coincidence or just bad luck either its the utter abdication and dereliction of duty of US lawmakers to even attempt to address the problem- and at what price? All these young lives lost, futures snatched away. All those families irreparably shattered for the rest of their lives. Enough, surely. }}}

[halfwise]

Hey, the Republicans offered prayers.

Assault weapons should have been banned the moment they were first made available to the public. Nearly every mass shooting has employed one.

[Mrs Figg]

for a Brit the thought of assault weapons on the streets is f-ing bonkers.

[halfwise]

The effing National Rifle Association has this country bound and gagged. It's disgusting.

[azriel]

The thought of ANY weapons is frightening ! I think most of us are naïve in thinking it wont happen here & that there is such a control only shoot outs happen on TV. We assume someone has a total grip on it all. Armed coppers at Airports was enough for me, I aint messing about or acting cocky when you see the rozers tooled up

[bungobaggins]

Shapiro address the "18 school shootings so far this year" claim in the video, but here's a source you might trust more.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/no-there-havent-been-18-school-shooting-in-2018-that-number-is-flat-wrong/2018/02/15/65b6cf72-1264-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html?utm_term=.a200c430c9f6

I thought this comment from Shapiro's video was pretty insightful:

"Kids in 1897 didn't shoot up classrooms using a Remington level action rifle and a Colt 45 revolver. World War 2 veterans brought back fully automatic "war trophies", but for some reason THEIR kids didn't go shoot up schools. My friends and I had easy access to AK-47's and other "assault rifles" in the 1980's, yet we would never dream of going on a shooting spree because we were SANE and because we knew the difference between RIGHT & WRONG. Modern families don't stay together, they don't eat together and they don't go to church together anymore. Kids are just drugged and ignored, left to stare at their phones for 5 hours a day. Society has failed a generation of children that have no moral compass and (usually) no fathers at home to help mold young men into becoming GOOD men. PARENTS have failed our kids, not the gun laws (which have remained consistent for decades). The easy answer is "ban guns", but the real truth is something we don't want to face because the fact is, we have CREATED these monsters."

The problem might not JUST be guns.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Problem is the facts do speak for themselves on gun control- other western countries with gun control have less deaths by mass shooting per head of population than the US does.

America owns 48%  of all the civilian gun ownership on the entire planet- it has the most mass shootings.

It has more guns per capita than any other country- it has more mass shootings.

The US is 5% of the worlds population and makes up 32% of all the mass shootings- it has more mass shootings.

Gun homicide is 25.2 times higher in the US than in other western countries- it has more mass shootings.

The only countries worse than the US are third world or war zones. Thats not good company.

This is not rocket science- giving civilians weapons, up to and including assault weaponry, with not even basic gun control laws in place = more death by gun and mass shootings.

The facts are clear. Bloody hell 19 mass shootings in schools already this year, no amount of 'its the people not the gun' can change the fact that this doesn't happen very often in other civilised countries because we all have gun control laws (and all our youth are on rugs staring at phones too with parents of many genders single, or none- this still doesn't happen anywhere else but the US. Why?- because you let everyone have guns and then dont have any proper laws to control who, for what or why? Its madness. }}

[halfwise]

I think he does a good logical analysis, and I appreciate having Marco Rubio's comments in full.  He points out some places where gun laws could be strengthened proving he's not a gun nut.  But there are some points I would take issue with him.

1. Saying it's easy to get guns illegally, so making laws prohibiting ownership of certain guns will accomplish nothing, is almost like saying it's easy for kids to access alcohol so making laws prohibiting public consumption of alcohol will accomplish nothing.  The idea is to have the ability to enforce when the situation arises, so if a policeman sees someone wandering by with an assault rifle they can do something about it.  In some states they can't!  
2. Assault rifles should be banned.  Not easy to conceal, therefore easy to detect and relieve the owners of them.  Isn't this against their rights?  Well, name me one good use people have for carrying around assault weapons in a public area.  Those who already own them would be grandfathered in, but cannot carry them off their property..

Would this prevent what recently happened?  Well, I was mugged and beaten up a few years ago, having laws against that didn't prevent it, but does that mean the laws shouldn't exist?  Will be useful if the guy was ever caught.

Petty - part of your point was covered in the video. Drawing down the number of guns in this country is unfortunately not feasible. and the suckers last forever. Hmm...maybe do something about ammunition?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Its feasible- you just have to break it down to state by state a managable size- the UK was awash with weaponry following Empire and two World Wars- we got rid of them and destroyed them. }}

[Mrs Figg]

I agree with Bungo. its not the guns its the person pulling the trigger. we need to know why men are doing these things. how do they arrive at such a point.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ If the people dont have the guns they cant pull the trigger.
As to why- its just a numbers game- in a big country with a large population a significant percentage will have violent mental health problems just from the lottery of life and genetics, its a small percentage of the population, and a smaller percentage of mentally ill folk- but if your population is big enough even a small percentage is a lot of people.
And if you have such poor laws on who can buy and own guns that such people dont even get screened in any fashion worth a damn then give them access to weapons capable of killing lots of people quickly, well its hardly surprising you get this tragic result. }}

[Bluebottle]

Obviously, you need both to deal with personal issues of mental health, societal issues with a culture of brutality, and the number of guns available and the easy accessibility to all weapons, but in particular weapons that have no practical purpose. All these issues feed eac-other and lead to the situations we have seen.

But Petty is obviously right, you cannot shoot anyone without a gun.

[Mrs Figg]

if it wasn't a gun it would be knives. there is a problem with men and violence. making mental health the focus ignores the main problem because women who are mentally ill don't start shooting up children in schools. its something about society allowing young men to feel like its a way out or a way to settle scores or gain dominance. its a lack of care by parents and society in general, as if they are allowing these feral kids to let rip. there were warnings but they were ignored.

[Pettytyrant101]

if it wasn't a gun it would be knives- Figg

{{Yeah but you dont get many knife massacres or knife sprees- hard to kill 20 people and wound dozens more in the space of three minutes with a knife, plus you have a chance to take down a knife wielding maniac, they have to get close enough to stick you so they have to get in range for you to hit them too. These guns they just spray bullets everywhere from afar.

I dont believe this rot- its godlessness, its liberal values, its Hollywood, its video games, its single mothers, its same sex marriage. That crap gets blamed all the time- they blamed hippies and the 60's on it, they blamed anything bad in the 1970's on home video, the 80/90's video games- its an excuse. A pathetic excuse to avoid the issues or deal with Americas addiction to gun culture.

And all these things (up to and including severe mental health issues) are common in all western countries- only in America do schools and public places regularly get shot up- 19 times in less than two months. That does not happen in any other civilized country in the world.
And the main difference between America and all those other civilized countries?- gun control laws and restricted access for the public to guns and nationalised health care. The evidence is not only overwhelming its blatantly obvious. More guns in more peoples hands = more people getting shot. This isn't a difficult calculation to make!  

Take Dunblane as a good example- the last time this sort of thing happened here- immediately following it there was new regulations on gun ownership and types of firearms sold and how, our already fairly tight gun laws got made much, much more tight- in Scotland now you need a background check, a reaosn for use and to have secure storage areas just to own an airgun.
The result? How many times has the horror of Dunblane happened since? None, not once. Never happened again. And that's thanks to tightening of our gun control laws through legislation as an immediate response to just 1 school shooting- not 19 with nothing done at all, 1.

As to warning signs being missed on mental health- well that's hardly surprising in a country with barbaric health coverage. One of the advantages to government run health care is it can be much more integrated with other government agencies on a need to know basis, such as police, social work, mental health workers ect. Its not perfect, sometimes folk fall throw the cracks (thinking the tragedy of baby P here) but by in large its a far more effective way of flagging up troubled cases than not having it). Also this Figg is exactly why the SNP want the 'Named Person' scheme you keep rallying against the SNP for- to further aid with the integration of spotting these troubled youths and to have a named adult in the kids life, like a teacher, who can liaison as necessary with police, social work and health workers to flag up any potential issues.}}}

[bungobaggins]

Along with the "18 shootings" "statistic" here are a couple other bits of fake news from the other day that spread like wildfire, and with the assurance of the left media and the left's domination on social media will see no correction or clarification.

http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/02/15/florida-school-shooting-suspect-nikolas-cruz-member-white-nationalist-militia-tallahassee-leader-say/341751002/

http://reason.com/blog/2018/02/15/no-trump-did-not-make-it-easier-for-ment

The ACLU supported the repeal of this measure.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/disability-rights/gun-control-laws-should-be-fair

This is a societal, mental health, and cultural problem. These boys need fathers, they need stable families, they need emotional support and guidance; they've been discarded. We need a culture that doesn't glorify violence in films, rap music, etc. We need a media that doesn't plaster the shooters face and name all over. It's easy to say to just take everyone's guns away, or ban this or that gun. I think you only need to look at prohibition in America to see how that all worked out. People who want to get these guns and commit crimes will do it if they are legal or illegal. Especially with no southern border wall, I suspect you'd open an even wider market for banned guns coming into the country illegally.

Jordan Peterson addresses some of the problems young men face today.



https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/

[Pettytyrant101]

{{None of that explains why America is the anomaly here- other countries have all the same social issues as the US in regards to changing society- many of them are way ahead of the US- you were pretty late joining same sex marriage ect compared to other parts of the world. You're far more religious than many European countries (in the UK more than 50% are of no religion at all). The whole world watches the same media, listens to the same music. Yet only America has this problem on this scale. Therefore it cannot simply be down to the social issues you throw up as a smoke screen to the real problems.
There has to be a difference and the most obvious two differences are your laws on guns, or lack of them, and your lack of an integrated health service  covering everyone with your social work and police. Your system has no way to connect the dots when it should. And because of your gun laws when the dots aren't connected there is nothing to prevent the person going crazy and shooing somewhere up. }}}

[Pettytyrant101]

[Mrs Figg]

"Also this Figg is exactly why the SNP want the 'Named Person' scheme you keep rallying against the SNP for"

keep? I would like citations for that claim. To my knowledge I mentioned it once when it first came up. But still, it still is a nasty piece of nanny state snooping with Orwellian undertones. its still the state doing a cut price Stasi police.

I refuse to listen to Peterson, he is a disingenuous pseudo-intellectual with a filthy sexist c***brain. Probably got a tiny dick and resents women.