News Do Americans Wonder Why The World Makes Fun Of Them? Answer Here!

[Chava]

The insanely drunk college students in Europe? Americans. The drunk people shooting others in department stores for absolutely no reason? Americans. Those who think we need military-style rifles and automatic weapons with massive magazines in order to "protect ourselves" (for when a whole army tries to break into our house at night)? Too many Americans.

This is not a black-and-white issue, which gun rights people also tried to turn it into. Should I be able to own a gun or two? Yes. I actually don't have an issue with that right at all. Do we need to be able to kill forty people in a couple minutes? No. Holy f*ck.

I don't know how to prevent a drunk person from using a gun badly...all I can think of is changing gun culture. Guns are for protecting your home. You don't haul them out into the community when you are pissed off.

Yes, we are sometimes dumbshits and it's embarrassing. But we are a lovely melting pot of all kinds of good and all kinds of crazy.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Gun peeps are cray-cray....

They will fight to the death for the right to have automatic weapons. They don't care that we have tragedies like Newtown or accidents like a CHILD accidentally killing someone while on a gun range. Yeah, great....poor kid will have to live with the fact that he killed someone for the rest of his life because his parents are gun nuts who think that its fine for children to operate automatic weapons. Then again, the kid will likely grow up to be as self-righteous as his parents with the "ITS MY RIGHT!" mantra, no remorse. So Sad.

People are idiots. They think that one MINOR infringement on gun ownership (ie no automatic weapons) is equal to nobody ever being able to have guns, period. Ya, we'd call that black and white thinking, right? I'd say gun nuts need a bit of therapy! We're never going to have ALL of our gun rights taken away, but that's the fear that gun nuts spread to everyone. So we end up with school massacre after school massacre. Columbine was over 15 years ago, and it just keeps on getting worse. Its the "my rights trump all" selfish sort of attitude. Makes me sick.

And open carry? Terrifying. I hope that some person grabs a gun off an open carry person and goes crazy. Maybe it would wake the nation up to this open carry shit.

 

[Chava]

And open carry? Terrifying.

I have images of scenes out of the Wild West. Drunk cowboys step out of a bar and have a shoot-out on Main Street.

 

[Friday]

I about fell outta my chair laughing when you became Canadian @anthony.

I'll take firearms over knives & fire (both regular fire and booming) any day of the week. Most people are lousy shots.

 

[Friday]

Lol... Just to add on to the above:

What happens when you take away firearms? Knives & Fire. Of which we have practically nil. Because we're all shit scared of bladed weapons*, and f*cking clueless about how to use fire or explosives in an effective manner... As a nation. (Seriously. Moltovs thrown at brick walls. Hey! Doofus! Brick doesn't burn!) But jump over to the UK? Over 10,000 bomb attacks in 30 years (1970-2000). And stabbings? 130,000 assaults involved knives in a single year, 22,000 resulting in serious harm.

2010 stats report http://www.crimesurvey.co.uk & http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/
- 130,000 knife crimes in the UK pop 62,641,000
- 337,960 gun crimes in the US pop 311,591,517
= .0021 knife crimes per capita in the UK
= .0011 gun crimes per capita in the USA
(Assuming the math is right!)

Not saying the US is safer. Our murder rate per capita is roughly 4x UK murder rate per capita.

I'm just highly jaded. I think that number would be a helluva lot worse if Americans remembered sharp things are dangerous, and that people blow up and catch on fire quite readily. And neither of those things take any real skill to operate. If you can bake a cake? You can build a bomb.

* Snort. There's actually a study on that as well :p I'll see if I can dig it out.

 

[Chava]

@FridayJones
Well, you can only stab so many people within five minutes and in close range. That's a fact. But my bias: I like knives. My knife is like my teddy bear.

 

[Friday]

And open carry? Terrifying. I hope that some person grabs a gun off an open carry person and goes crazy. Maybe it would wake the nation up to this open carry shit.

Let me get this straight... You hope something that never happens, happens, to wake people up to what? A problem that never happens???

And you hope a lot of people are hurt by a lunatic? FFS.

Alcohol + firearms / cars / fireworks / whatever = Bad is a no brainer. But where on earth is the sense in hoping that a freak thing happens and causes a bunch of reactive legislation to address a non-existent problem? There are enough real problems, with tens & hundreds of thousands of occurrences each year that need to be addressed without going looking for bogeymen just because they're skeery.

 

[The Albatross]

@ Chava broad generalization "Americans" why not take a harder look via list 25: 25 Most Violent Places in the World (in terms of crime rate), published September 2013?

25. Baltimore, Maryland, "Though the city has seen a slight decrease in its murder rate from last year, it remains to be one of the most violent places in the United States due to its high level of drug and gang related violence."

24. Belem, Brazil

23. Bogota, Columbia

22. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

21. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

20. Muzaffarabad, Pakistan

19. Cape Town, South Africa

18. Detroit, Michigan, "With a murder rate of 54.6 per 100,000 citizens, Detroit is without a doubt one of the most violent places in the world. Four decades ago, it was known as the Murder Capital of the United States because of its very high crime rate which can be attributed to the high level of poverty, gang presence and drugs."

17. Sana’a, Yemen

16. Caracas, Venezuela

15. Mogadishu, Somalia

14. Port-au-Prince, Haiti

13. Maceio, Brazil

12. Flint, Michigan, "Known as one of the deadliest city of the United States, Flint has a murder rate of 64.9 per 100,000 citizens. It is also one of the poorest cities in the country, with rural areas plagued by illegal gun users and drug dealers."

11. St. Louis, Missouri, "Based on statistics, St. Louis, Missouri tops the list of the most violent cities in the United States, beating Detroit, New Orleans and Camden. In 2006, it was dubbed as “America’s Most Dangerous City” and in 2009, it came in second. It currently has 2,070 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Most crimes take place in the east part of St. Louis, which accounts for 65% of the total crimes committed in the city."

10. Karachi, Pakistan

9. Birmingham, Alabama, "Birmingham has always been among the deadliest cities not just in the United States but in the world. It has had consistently high crime rates since the 1990s, with a murder rate of 33.7 per 100,000 citizens. Police officers say that most of the homicides committed in the city are difficult to prevent because they are domestic."

8. New Orleans, Louisiana, "New Orleans has been ranked as one of the deadliest cities not just in the United States but also in the world. Just in 2012, this city had 193 reported murders, accounting for its 53.5 murder rate for every 100,000 citizens. Through the years, this city has been struggling against high levels of gang crimes typically associated with the rampant use of illegal firearms among its residents."

7. Nairobi, Kenya

6. Grozny, Chechnya

5. Baghdad, Iraq

4. Torreon Metropolitan, North Mexico

3. Acapulco, Mexico

2. San Pedro Sula, Honduras

1. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
(source link: Dead Link Removed )

Hmmm. So 5 of the most 25 violent places in the world are in the states. What do these things have in common? High crime, illegal guns, drug/gang violence, and maybe poverty. Birmingham Alabama seems to be an outlier though domestic violence is certainly a crime. But, it would appear that people who possess illegal fire arms with the intent to commit crime aren't the kind of people that some like ItsKismet are interested in. Burying your head in the sand @itsKismet that ain't just cray cray, that's reckless and irresponsible. But hey let's totally ignore the fact that the real problem in the world is weapons with intent to commit crime and violence, most often not registered or lawfully owned at all... and disarm the rest of us. Thanks.

I heard on a radio talk show that over 350 or so crimes were prevented last year 2014 because the crime was interrupted by a gun owner in the US versus 150 or so where a gun was involved with an intent to commit a crime. The host remarked, "If the progressives and the government have their way, what would they have said to the people who survived a crime because of a gun? Sorry, you were supposed to die or be seriously injured because that guy that had the gun? We're taking it away."

Let us not confuse the issue between lawful gun owners and unlawful gun owners. But the subarming of America and circumvention of the right to bear arms by fiat... well they have to do that because when they tried gun control at various times the past several decades, Americans... the ones who are lawful and actually vote got pissed off.

 

[The Albatross]

Last blast on the topic. I think it is important to note that by the census numbers, the United States is currently the 3rd largest nation in the world. The UK is 22nd, Canada is 37th, and Australia is 52nd as of May 2015. Per my post above, we see an example that suggests that 5 US cities are listed in the 25 most violent places in the world to live. Just to snap the "world" some perspective on this. Not inclined to dig up numbers for the 1st largest nation or 2nd... China and India.
(Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population )

 

[The Albatross]

Okay, I can't help myself cuz I logged off and got slapped in the face with an article today in the Washington Examiner today... just a bit of the subarming of America of which I speak. Hey if you can't pass it by legislation do it by regulation... "Commonly used and unregulated internet discussions and videos about guns and ammo could be closed down under rules proposed by the State Department, amounting to a "gag order on firearm-related speech," the National Rifle Association is warning.

In updating regulations governing international arms sales, State is demanding that anyone who puts technical details about arms and ammo on the web first get the OK from the federal government — or face a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in jail."
Da link: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...tened-by-new-obama-regulation/article/2565762

But hey, don't worry there are plenty of illegal firearms out there to be had to prevent crimes... they aren't the problem anyways... it's the lawful ones right? Next time I'm assaulted I'll try to play rock, paper, scissors and see what happens.

Hey Chava, you been reading what they're doing with machetes these days? But hey keep that knife like your teddy bear.

 

[shimmerz]

High crime, illegal guns, drug/gang violence, and maybe poverty.

Hmmm, even with no gun registry in Canada we don't make the list. lol. Billions of dollars which could have built subsidized shelter for homeless and disadvantaged so people would stop dying out in the street by freezing to death? Core social issues like perhaps making sure children eat every day? More social workers (who are perhaps properly trained to HELP children) which apparently we can't afford.

No, f*ck it. Why focus on that? Let's go crazy about guns. Homelessness doesn't kill people - guns do. No wait - that isn't how it goes.....

 

[anthony]

I just find it fascinating that a study must be done to ascertain common-sense. Where is the common-sense in that to begin with?

I was reading another story yesterday that political correctness is now considered officially a nuisance. No shit sherlock... political correctness was way out of control long ago. People have lost the ability to make fun of things, themselves, others, in jest and humour. Now... people jump straight to PC and take offence, claiming some moral high ground BS.

Seriously world... laugh about life before it all implodes.