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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
To be fair, I think a lot of your criticisms can be leveled at other countries as well. Perhaps the USA and its problems are just more visible?
E.g. There are c. 1,200 avoidable child deaths in the UK each year due to negligence and poor care by the UK hospitals & Health service - a much higher rate per capita than gun deaths in the US. Been going on for years but, like gun laws in the US, the politicians are too busy shouting insults at each other to sit down, fix it and save lives.
To me there is a huge difference. The NHS is trying to save lives, they just aren't always doing that very well. I don't think anyone can easily argue that gun policy in the US is doing anything other than enabling people to take lives. Relating avoidable deaths in the health system and shooting deaths is not comparing apples with apples
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On-going series of videos by Matt (“Orf”) Orfelea are comedic genius. Latest one dropped today.
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Tamping down the hysteria. Required in these times.
Of course the guns are a huge problem But there’s no easy fix. There are 400 million firearms in the States. Their so-called “gun-free cities” have the highest firearm homicides, so eliminating guns is obviously difficult. Short of a civil war and eliminating all guns, which is the same thing, a really good measure for protecting school kids is to take seriously psychopaths on social media who say they’re going to shoot up schools and shopping malls. That’s a good first step. A good second step is to secure those schools. It’s actually doable, but every time it gets raised, politicians shrug and say they don’t have the money. Those same politicians, of course, see nothing wrong and waste no time trafficking mega-billions of dollars of those same assault weapons flooded into a part of Europe that heretofore two years ago the BBC and New York Times were calling white supremacists and neo-nazis, and expecting only good things will happen when they turn up on the streets and nightclubs of Paris and Copenhagen, etc. It’s a crazy world.
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@canefan said in US Politics:
To me there is a huge difference. The NHS is trying to save lives, they just aren't always doing that very well. Relating avoidable deaths in the health system and shooting deaths is not comparing apples with apples
The point I was trying to make is that children are dying unnecessarily, the politicians & authorities know they are dying (or being killed by negligence and/or neglect) and that the current system is dangerous. But they won't do anything meaningful about it as the NHS is a shibboleth like the Second Amendment.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@canefan said in US Politics:
To me there is a huge difference. The NHS is trying to save lives, they just aren't always doing that very well. Relating avoidable deaths in the health system and shooting deaths is not comparing apples with apples
The point I was trying to make is that children are dying unnecessarily, the politicians & authorities know they are dying (or being killed by negligence and/or neglect) and that the current system is dangerous. But they won't do anything meaningful about it as the NHS is a shibboleth like the Second Amendment.
Same could be said everywhere. We in NZ are not immune to our own issues, who likes to hear of another kid who is beaten to death at home? Our mental health system is failing lots of people, some of whom will take their own lives. Deep down the politicians know there are problems. But to see politicians coming out and making comments in the wake of another shooting, how it isn't the guns that are the problem, that just feels so wrong. Of course, shootings are much more interesting to the media than NHS mortality numbers. That isn't helpful
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@JC said in US Politics:
@Kid-Chocolate said in US Politics:
Impressive list that signals outrage but tells us SFA.
“The difference is significant. Education Week, which tracks all school shootings, defines them as incidents in which a person other than the suspect suffers a bullet wound on school property. Many of the 26 previous shootings involved disputes between students in parking lots, or after athletic events, and all of them resulted in one or zero deaths. These deaths are still incredibly tragic, of course. But they are fundamentally unlike what happened in Uvalde.”
Oh that’s much better /s
Sorry buddy, but if that distinction brings you comfort I fear you may have lost perspective.
Just to be clear, the correct number of shooting deaths on school property is zero.
The page linked to in that article is so 'USA'. There are examples of shootings in parking lots (which is still fucking scary) and I wouldn't go watch a school basketball game! Apart from that it just highlights how common and fucked up guns are there:
A 7-year-old student was grazed by a bullet when a gun in another student's backpack accidentally discharged.
At least four people were wounded, including a 12-year-old student, when a man fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition from a nearby apartment building.
A school bus driver was shot and wounded while three students were on board.
I see Trump (at the NRA conference down the road in Houston) has come out suggesting that NRA heroes with concealed guns are what are needed in schools in the USA.
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@Kid-Chocolate yep. When I saw that list posted about all the shootings I wondered whether I even existed. There’s been one mass shooting this year. Not minimize it but the last one was Parkland from memory but I could be wrong. Is a lot of bullshit circulating because of the agenda on the left and their mouth piece the media. The other ones of note were in San Bernardino, just up the road from where I live, and the Miami night club and they were both Islamic terrorist in nature. Let’s just wait and see what the facts are instead of a knee jerk reaction. It’s a good Democrat strategy of never letting a crisis go to waste.
Just another viewpoint that you won’t see on the front page of Google because you know how it is.
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@canefan said in US Politics:
Same could be said everywhere.
True. But poss. shootings are way more visible to the world than politicians wilfully turning a blind-eye and downplaying 1,000's of needless deaths rather than speak out and take action as it's a national institution. Equally insane IMHO.
But to see politicians coming out and making comments in the wake of another shooting, how it isn't the guns that are the problem, that just feels so wrong
Yep. And when any politician suggests finding a compromise to do something, anything to improve the situation, they are shouted down by both sides as simultaneously being gun-crazies and trying to render Americans defenceless by wanting to ban all guns.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
houted down by both sides as simultaneously being gun-crazies and trying to render Americans defenceless by wanting to ban all guns.
Or perhaps they are just imcompetent and should have no say in anything. It we saw they learn how to balance the budget, like everyone else, they might have some credibility.
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@mariner4life we care because they have global reserve currency and despite its malaise their currency and their system is better than the alternative, i.e. China
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Could have gone in the Political Memes thread but I thought it more appropriate here.
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“”He’s now lower than Trump, and he’s really twisted about it,” another person close to the White House said.”
“Biden is grumbling to reporters that he's being undermined with walk-backs, and an unnamed official immediately says there are no walk-backs. It's walk-back inception.”
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@Kid-Chocolate the legitimate question is; credit for what?
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Day One in office he killed the Keystone pipeline, and CNN killed their top-right-screen 24/7 covid-death ticker. Full credit for both.
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@Kid-Chocolate said in US Politics:
“Biden is grumbling to reporters that he's being undermined with walk-backs, and an unnamed official immediately says there are no walk-backs. It's walk-back inception.”
Thanks for posting that.
Looking in, it's almost as if Biden and the Democrats (and much of the media) think they are on the side of history and have done all the right left-ish things - "progressive" politics, borrowing & spending oodles of taxpayers money on "infrastructure" and reversing Trump's policies - but just can't understand why the people aren't grateful
A bit of humility might help.
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Come get sum!
Danyela D’Angelo (16), southern Arizona, April 2019
Some truly incredible photographs of American gun owners with their personal collections.
US Politics