USA in 2016 (FRIENDLY ZONE ONLY)

[Jim]

I'm unsure how to start this topic, but I know I want to start this thread and discuss what is going on in America right now..

- Gun laws
- Race wars
- Murder
- The presidential race
- Police

I really, REALLY (and I stress this profusely) would like it to be a civil conversation and discussion about what's going on. There are people here with many different beliefs and lifestyles so we need to be respectful of that, but as many of us do not live in USA; it may be good to get a perspective from the American members about how it feels to live over there with all of this drama and wrong doing going on

Please, keep it civil but also please be as honest as you wish. This is an open society here and we want everyone to have their say.

If this thread gets out of hand and people start getting offended, it will be deleted without a second thought.

[AB23]

Taking any legal and/or constitutional questions concerning the country's governing documents, because I realize we may have a lot of foreigners here.

the police shooting last night happened about 2 1/2 miles away from where I live. So it hits close to home. Yes. State of Texas allows assault rifles to be carried on your person.

[Jim]

You're from Dallas??

[AB23]

yep. couple miles from downtown

[anguyen92]

Well, I feel like this is all very very depressing for me to read and I always think that there's got to be a better solution and approach that society can take that does not result in an unneeded death (whether it is a police death or civilian death).

As for the solution to all of this matter? I'm not quite sure to all of this. I mean when reading all of this, all I just want to do is listen the music I love and try to find solace in that. For instance, I was listening to Switchfoot's When The Light Shines Through album and it was a solid album that keeps reminding us to just not let give up in finding that light and hope. Hopefully, we, as society, can try to strive and maintain a top level of communication among our communities where we do not need jump to hasty conclusions that ends in violence.

I read something today that had one of the most positive things I've seen in these dark times for America and it was regarding the latest app game, Pokemon Go, and I think if everyone in the country can be this understanding and willing to be very communicative like what I see there, then maybe the country can be in a better place.

https://twitter.com/e1n/status/751487351617007617

[AB23]

Let me just say this before anyone starts going off about the United States.

A lot of people love living here. We understand that we have a lot of money, some of the best leadership/government structure, and have been wildly successful for over 2 centuries. In saying this, we invest more in our military by BILLIONS annually than any other country on the planet. Its a fantastic military, however, in attempts to institute peace, we overstep those boundaries. That's not the military's fault.

Because we, at times, irresponsibly deploy our troops, we have a gigantic target on our back at all times that many other countries do not have. Because of our accessibility to firearms, its a rather easy target as well. If I wanted to, I could leave my condo and buy an AR-15 on the street in 5 minutes. No license. No problem. If I can do it, so can others that are less sane.

Americans understand that its a problem. We understand that the solutions are very, very difficult and convoluted. Get rid of guns? Sure. But there are 15 million guns in circulation. Good luck getting 15 million guns turned in. Give out more guns? Well, lol at that idea. There will be single, isolated homicides on a daily basis.

Racism exists in every country on this planet. The disparity of wealth in the US is also the worst on the planet, so perhaps that exacerbates the issue.

But please, save me the "we need to do this" crap. There are a lot of smart people, the smartest people, in control of this country. Obviously, there is a political division preventing massive change. But if they can't figure it out, I guarantee you some layman can't either. I like to think I'm educated, and I can tell you right now, I can find a valid issue on both sides of almost every ideal-crisis this country is presently seeing.

So, if you're a foreigner, and you have this misplaced idea that "americans are dumb. My country does it X way, and look at us!" stop. Just stop. Our constitution was written 220 years ago. Those problems didn't exist then. There was no way it was possible to detect and foresee these issues with middle eastern terrorism, violent racism, and accessibility to assault weapons that currently exist. And the constitution ain't an easy document to change (as is the same with most country's constitutions).

Just wanted to say that before anyone gives an extremely hot take. No, you don't have the secret to a safer country engrained in your brain somewhere. No, America isn't full of uneducated dumb fucks. Yes, I still would choose to be here over, basically, every other country on the planet and I feel pretty safe every day.

[Fish Tacos]

- Gun laws: I've flip flopped on this and in the end I've landed on the conclusion of not wanting gun control. Originally, I was in the camp that assault style weapons should be restricted, but I've learned that I had some misconceptions about guns since then on what could fall under that designation and how many deaths per year are actually due to those weapons. For example, if you take an average of 11,000 US deaths per year, in 2012 there were 322 deaths due to rifles. And that's ALL rifles, so the subset of assault rifles would be smaller, but being generous and giving them the whole number of 322, that's less than 3% of deaths that would have been prevented. This doesn't seem worth it, and alas, those who would want gun control would likely agree shortly thereafter correctly claiming that handguns account for many more deaths (like 80%), and they would have enough momentum and their foot in the door to get a handgun ban. Why is this bad? 11,000 is still a big number right?

Well according to the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf

80% of gun homicides are gang-related. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011. That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns.

So essentially, the vast majority of these deaths are gang related which is more often than not banger on banger. These are typically people that pursue fast cash through illegal drugs, so acquiring illegal weapons with a ban wouldn't be all that harder and the stats wouldn't really change that much. You just be making the black market that much more profitable.

So in the long run, I don't think it is worth giving up the rights we currently have based on this.


- Police: I think we have a problem with people of all colors dying in police custody or during apprehension. I think a bunch of these are justified and some folks only remember the initial stories regardless of what the investigations find, and I think others are not. I view any group that only seeks to protect their own instead of everyone in a similar circumstance as misguided and easy to manipulate. I feel body cameras would be a good solution for everyone with enough financing, technical refreshes to departments and procedural accountability / oversight.



As far as how people from other countries view us, I just assume by default they view us as loud and ignorant war-mongers unless they say otherwise.

[AB23]

To counter:

We've completely banned assault weapons one time in this country's history via the AWB. The ban lasted 10 years, from 1994-2004.

Since 2005, mass shootings (not talking about isolated homicides) have increased exponentially. Quite literally. The past decade (as I'm sure you are aware), now that these guns are no longer banned and are actually easy to get in many states, mass shooting rates have increased to a level this world has never seen.

Logic dictates that the ban worked. And the second the ban stopped, we felt the repercussions.

[Fish Tacos]

That may be true, but between 1966 and the Orlando shooting last month, you're "only" looking at 869 victims, and again the subset of what qualifies as an assault weapon makes that number even smaller. The numbers fluctuate a bit depending on the definition of a mass shooting but that's 50 years averaging less than 18 deaths a year. Compared to the statistics listed earlier, that's nothing, even if there are more in recent history and one were to simply look at a higher average over the last 10 years. To put that in contrast, 5 times that many people die in car accidents daily (92), not even annually. And I don't say that with the implication of "you wouldn't ban cars would you?!" because I've seen that argument and don't agree with it, but rather just for perspective.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... n-america/

I've seen estimates that 26-33% of individuals have guns in the US. Assuming a population of 300M (it's higher) and assuming the lower end of 26% that's (129 shooters over 50 years/(300M*0.26))=0.000164% that have committed mass shootings scaled against the current population. It's be incredibly smaller if we did the number of people that have owned a gun over the past 50 years but I don't know where to get that number from.

I know each and every one of those people is someone's father/mother/baby/brother/etc and it's awful, but I don't think it's worth disarming the other 99.9998% of gun owners. This percentage likely goes down if you're only considering those who own assault weapons but you're still looking at a very small piece of the pie.

We've also been looking at a decrease in firearm homocide deaths over time (granted it's only through 2010)



Interestingly enough, the general consensus from the public seems to incorrectly view it as getting worse, perhaps as a function of different or more widespread media coverage.



Source: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/ ... c-unaware/

[AB23]

This is another problem. Because I can post charts and statistics that indicate exactly the opposite from very reputable sources.

You have republicans citing "I believe X is good with these stats here:" and democrats will say "I believe X is terrible and these stats show it..."

Both could be reputable. But the answer is either 1) likely in the middle somewhere, or 2) one is just blatantly incorrect.

[cheesedip1]

But please, save me the "we need to do this" crap. There are a lot of smart people, the smartest people, in control of this country. Obviously, there is a political division preventing massive change. But if they can't figure it out, I guarantee you some layman can't either. I like to think I'm educated, and I can tell you right now, I can find a valid issue on both sides of almost every ideal-crisis this country is presently seeing.

That's the problem. Both political parties/people in general think "OMG the solution is obviously XYZ" but the truth is, um I think many problems are more complex than ur average layman will be willing to believe.

Anyways, I dont have anything original to comment other than that so I'm just gonna bow out.

[Lotha]

And the constitution ain't an easy document to change (as is the same with most country's constitutions).

This made me laugh a little 'cause I live where I live and we change the constitution, like, every ten years to fit the current dictatorship.

Anyway, to the topic: I'm obviously a foreigner, and one whose country has felt the pang of American military (well, your bombs at least). And I didn't grow up hating America, unlike many, MANY young people here. When Serbia was bombed in 1999 over Kosovo, the propaganda machine was so strong everyone believed that the American military named that intervention "Merciful angel". Many believe it to this day, and it probably caused more resentment than the bombing itself did. And civilians died. And we "lost" Kosovo (good riddance, say I - a rather controversial opinion around here).

But let's look at the results, so many years later. There's some sort of peace, but also a lot of hatred. We now have a dictator that's smart enough to know he can't beat America, unlike the one that brought the NATO intervention on our heads, so that's a slight improvement, I guess. But I've always wondered how regular Americans view these conflicts, and do you ever doubt the actions of your military.

When AB23 says "we have a gigantic target on our back at all times", it sounds preposterous at first, but it is true. And the funny thing is, most people over here who claim to "hate the rotten West" and think Russia is the promised land, somehow always end up in said rotten West to live and work there if they only can.

Oh and I'd like to point out something I noticed in another thread, when you said that it's hypocritical of a German to criticize American military practices. I disagree. As someone whose country has been literally the source of all evil, but in the distant past, he has every right to be disgusted with anyone's military practices, and it's not hypocritical at all, because he probably wasn't even alive to support Germany's war campaign in WW2. And if you're an active supporter of your military, right now, you can't disregard his opinion based on "hypocrisy" because he isn't an active supporter and is precisely speaking out against actively supporting any military. Not taking anyone's side, just saying you may agree or disagree but his opinion per se is not hypocritical.

As for the guns, I don't see the solution to the problem. Yes, it's a problem that every psycho can go out and get a gun/rifle. And I probably wouldn't feel safe in such an environment, probably not even if I had a gun/rifle too. I don't see how it can be solved. There will always be people who don't want guns, and those who glorify them.

[Fish Tacos]

@AB23, I'd be curious to see some of those if you've come across them. The reason I flip flopped to begin with was because I like to think I'm open minded enough to (most of the time) be confronted if my mindset is wrong and reevaluate, which is what the data I came across did for me. If you've come across other data from sources as reputable as Pew I'd be interested in reading them and seeing how they compare.

Since Lotha brought up the other thread, I thought it was worth addressing the claim that no other country has "come close to the amount of war related deaths tied to the US since WW2" [paraphrasing]. The Second Congo War is actually the deadliest worldwide conflict since WW2 tallying between 2.5-5M deaths. The Vietnam War estimates 800K-3.5M dead if I recall correctly and the war in Iraq about 1M so depending on which part of the ranges you feel more comfortable, they could actually take the #1 spot in that statement or at least a very close second. Engagements like the Gulf War have much smaller numbers.

But I've always wondered how regular Americans view these conflicts, and do you ever doubt the actions of your military.

I'd say the average American under 35 maybe even 40 knows little to nothing about Kosovo, but then again I have a generally unfavorable expectation of my countryfolk so I could be biased. I think there is something to say towards a lack of American interest in foreign politics generally because it just seems so far removed from us. I'm not sure if this is a cultural thing or the notion that we're an "island" over here with 2 huge oceans separating us from a lot of threats.

As far as the actions of our military I think we do a lot of things in the name of humanitarian efforts and human right abuse prevention but there is a lot of overlap protecting the political and big business interests of ourselves and our partners, both official and unofficial (e.g. foreign campaign contributions). For example, we didn't find any WMDs and there were a lot of negative effects of the Iraq War which was a pretty long engagement, but even after all that the majority of Iraqis also didn't want the US to withdraw either. Were they victims of propaganda? Were we there for other reasons/interests? It's hard to have a stronger opinion without blatant evidence of collusion or scandal, and all the benefits both noble and not aren't necessary mutually exclusive, however the presence of big business and backroom deals in American politics appears to be becoming increasingly aggressive and at least superficially apparent.

Then again, we also can't rule out ineptitude at the higher levels. One such example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwa ... andal#2011

[Lotha]

Thanks Tacos. It's hard to be objective when you're at one side by birth, whether you like it or not. I know a lot of Americans don't know much about the Balkan conflicts and my question wasn't solely about that, so I'm glad you answered it in general.

I'm not sure if the humanitarian reasons are always the prevalent ones though, when it comes to the decision whether US is going to be involved in a conflict or not. I'm sure they are there, somewhere, especially when it comes to the people who actually are in the military, but I don't know about the higher powers. We can only guess, I suppose.

[Jim]

I could leave my condo and buy an AR-15 on the street in 5 minutes. No license. No problem.

This is the most vital fact of all. And it needs, absolutely NEEDS addressing. Yesterday.

[Marcos]

Each year in US, more Americans die due bike accidents than by gun shootings. Should they forbid bikes for the better good of the population?

I live in Brazil. We have banned guns from the citizens. Crimes skyrocketed. We get 10% of the world's muders by year. One of the Supreme Court ministers defends gun control, but he revelead he sleeps every night beside his gun if someone threatens him.

Gun control is not an answer. The odds of someone making a mass shooting in a gun free zone is always higher as he knows the other won't be able to fire back.

Of course I also disagree with letting anyone buying an assault rifle, specially in urban areas. I think people are entitled to self defense, but you don't need to carry a machine gun with you any given day unless you're in a war zone.

[AB23]

The purpose of a bike is not to literally hit a target. That's like saying "more people die every year by drowning... should we ban water?" What, no. Water is good. Transportation is good. Accidents are going to happen.

I find that argument extremely unpersuasive. Almost as unpersuasive as the "guns don't kill people" argument.

[anguyen92]

^^ Ahhh, yes, the whole "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." statement. I do not have a good way to dissect this, but that statement is worth mentioning here.

[AB23]

Also, I just looked it up.

On average, 750 people die from bike related incidents in the US per year. On the other hand, ~10,000 people died by gun homicide, and another 11,000 people died from suicide by gun.

So based on what I see, we're talking 21,000 people vs. 750. So the stat is inaccurate on its own... I get the point you're trying to make but the bike is a bad metaphor.

[AB23]

^^ Ahhh, yes, the whole "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." statement. I do not have a good way to dissect this, but that statement is worth mentioning here.

its one of the dumbest statements ever uttered, honestly. Just people who can't formulate an opinion on their own are brainwashed by american media like Fox News and this gets force fed into their brains.

Its idiotic, and rarely in my times studying current policy, have I found any argument more easily refuted.