News & Not News Megathread

Metal_Bear_Rex

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Lithrael said:
Like any sociological issue, this one is very muddy. That study can't speak to questions like whether these confronted criminals would have scarpered if confronted with nothing but an angry resident or an angry resident with a baseball bat, that is, whether brandishing a gun in these situations is overkill. It does mention that more than half of these 'uses' was the gun owner only saying that they had a gun.

From your link: "Okay. I can just hear critics saying that 50 or 55 people responding that they used their gun and you're projecting it out to figures of around 2 million, 2-1/2 million gun defenses."

I'm afraid I'm not 100% on board with their explanation why that's not a valid criticism.

While I understand that the study is by no means without flaws, the argument was that I was overestimating crimes stopped by private owned guns. Whether the civilian actually brandished a gun, or claimed to have one in possession, the threat or implied threat of a gun has stopped many crimes. The numbers may not be entirely accurate, but my statement that "thousands of crimes are stopped by lawn enforcment and civilians every day" was by no means an overstatement.

http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/103.myth0.pdf
A discussion of the survey and of surveys in general

Yes yes, with every pro-gun claim or study, there will be an anti-gun or pro-control counterclaim.
 
I never thought I'd see the day that an article on Jeff Rense's website would be used in a serious discussion. Idea of Evil, you can take me. I've seen everything now. :ganishka:
 

Metal_Bear_Rex

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Skeleton said:
I never thought I'd see the day that an article on Jeff Rense's website would be used in a serious discussion. Idea of Evil, you can take me. I've seen everything now. :ganishka:

I had to google him, and in all honesty I had no idea who the guy was, but it's just a repost of an article on the nut's site. No red herrings please.
 

Lithrael

Remember, always hold your apple tight
Metal_Bear_Rex said:
Yes yes, with every pro-gun claim or study, there will be an anti-gun or pro-control counterclaim.

And with every anti-gun or pro-control counterclaim there will be twenty pages of the author complaining about the counterclaim.. http://www.saf.org/journal/11/kleckfinal.htm (mostly he seems to be angry about the idea that survey responses are not the gold standard of evidence based science)
 

Metal_Bear_Rex

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I wouldn't call it "complaining." His study was under heavy scrutiny and he was defending his case. I'm sure though that people dissected everything in that article for their won gun-grabbing counter arguments. Gun debates are on the same level as abortion and religion, as there's never going to be end to them and you're never going to convert the opposing party's viewpoints to your owns.
 

Lithrael

Remember, always hold your apple tight
Indeed, so why bring loaded terms like 'gun grabber' to a friendly discussion like this? Really what it boils down to for a lot of people looking at this debate from outside the USA's perspective is that they haven't noticed the breakdown of society with criminals running roughshod all over the defenseless population in places that are substantially less gunny than the States.
 
Metal_Bear_Rex said:
I had to google him, and in all honesty I had no idea who the guy was, but it's just a repost of an article on the nut's site. No red herrings please.

By "red herring," you must mean a nutjob's website posted a completely unsourced "interview" about a study that says, literally, "some people say they use a gun in self-defense so millions must use guns in self-defense!"* An interview, mind you, that could've been completely reworded or made up by the website. (How would you know unless you actually contacted the interviewer and/or the interviewee and asked if that's what they said?) I mean, it's clearly not a legitimate point to call into question your only source when it's a conspiracy theory nutjob saying another questionable writer said a guy said so. It's on the internet so it must be true, right?

But then again you're trying to prove crimes didn't happen a lot so I suppose "that guy said he did it so it must be true" is about as good as it's going to get.

*And that's the people who can actually remember that they used a gun in self-defense, according to the "expert." Because, you know, being in a sitation where you feel like you must threaten a person's life to survive is so mundane that you easily forget about it.
 

Metal_Bear_Rex

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Lithrael said:
Indeed, so why bring loaded terms like 'gun grabber' to a friendly discussion like this? Really what it boils down to for a lot of people looking at this debate from outside the USA's perspective is that they haven't noticed the breakdown of society with criminals running roughshod all over the defenseless population in places that are substantially less gunny than the States.

Eh. "Gun nut" or "Gun grabber", it was just harmless banter on my part.

Skeleton said:
By "red herring," you must mean a nutjob's website posted a completely unsourced "interview" about a study that says, literally, "some people say they use a gun in self-defense so millions must use guns in self-defense!"* An interview, mind you, that could've been completely reworded or made up by the website. (How would you know unless you actually contacted the interviewer and/or the interviewee and asked if that's what they said?) I mean, it's clearly not a legitimate point to call into question your only source when it's a conspiracy theory nutjob saying another questionable writer said a guy said so. It's on the internet so it must be true, right?

But then again you're trying to prove crimes didn't happen a lot so I suppose "that guy said he did it so it must be true" is about as good as it's going to get.

*And that's the people who can actually remember that they used a gun in self-defense, according to the "expert." Because, you know, being in a sitation where you feel like you must threaten a person's life to survive is so mundane that you easily forget about it.

The study is sited many other places on the internet, and I just snipped the first link from Google without thinking,so ease up. I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm trying to prove that gun crimes don't happen a lot. Where did I ever say that these crimes don't happen? I was just getting the point across that civilians do potentially save theirs or others lives every day with their guns.
 

Lithrael

Remember, always hold your apple tight
Metal_Bear_Rex said:
Eh. "Gun nut" or "Gun grabber", it was just harmless banter on my part.

I find such terms usually whip up more emotional wagon-circling than is strictly necessary. No one else used them in the last few pages at least.

Metal_Bear_Rex said:
The study is sited many other places on the internet, and I just snipped the first link from Google without thinking,so ease up.

This is true, and Skeleton is going over the top there since it's trivially easy to find cites elsewhere. However when participating in even a friendly discussion, presentation matters a little; Jeff Rense is capable of citing actual facts, sure, and Hitler probably liked birthday cake too; however if I wanted to share my favorite cake photo I would try not to link to the one on Hitler's personal website.

Oh my god internet you do not disappoint. http://hitlerparody.wikia.com/wiki/File:Hitler's_cake.gif
OMFG LOL an actual one on Stormfront! http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t701462/#post8030362

OMG wow Stormfront hahah they have happy birthday Hitler threads that break up into discussions of whether having happy birthday Hitler threads will distract from and/or harm their cause rofl
 

Metal_Bear_Rex

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Are you saying you wouldn't eat a Hitler approved cake? :carcus:

Oh my god internet you do not disappoint. http://hitlerparody.wikia.com/wiki/File:Hitler's_cake.gif
OMFG LOL an actual one on Stormfront! http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t701462/#post8030362

OMG wow Stormfront hahah they have happy birthday Hitler threads that break up into discussions of whether having happy birthday Hitler threads will distract from and/or harm their cause rofl

Oh man, that's great. Stormfront does it again!

Aazealh said:
I don't think so, no.

You must have an insanely high threshold for what you consider "enough" crime prevention with guns. Honestly, I don't see how you view hundreds of thousands of cases as not adequate.
 
Metal_Bear_Rex said:
I don't know where you're getting the idea that I'm trying to prove that gun crimes don't happen a lot. Where did I ever say that these crimes don't happen?

That was bad wording on my part. What I'm saying is the bad evidence you presented for the "guns save more lives than they take" argument is probably as good as the evidence is going to get because you're essentially having to prove a negative. If you use a gun to protect yourself and actually succeed then no crime is committed. And since most people don't report crimes that aren't committed to the police or news it's impossible to actually know how many times guns successfully stopped a crime from taking place. "Hello? Police? Yes, I'm so-and-so on the corner of so-and-so, and I was just not robbed!" So you're at a disadvantage because there really isn't evidence. At least any evidence that is even close to being intellectually honest. Hence why the people who are trying to scientifically provide proof that guns save more lives have to rely on "that guy said he did" "evidence."

tl;dr: It's not your fault. It's your position's fault.

Lithrael said:
This is true, and Skeleton is going over the top there since it's trivially easy to find cites elsewhere. However when participating in even a friendly discussion, presentation matters a little; Jeff Rense is capable of citing actual facts, sure, and Hitler probably liked birthday cake too; however if I wanted to share my favorite cake photo I would try not to link to the one on Hitler's personal website.

I wasn't asking for a link to another shady website that copy+pasted the same text. While I was firing tons of shots at Rense, the problem with the link is that it's literally just somebody writing something on a webpage. There's no source. There's no citations. There's no links to the man's research. There's no way of knowing if the interview actually happened. If it did, there's no way of knowing that's what was asked or that's the answers that were given. Using that webpage as a source is the exact same as saying "because it's on the internet."

Take your Duke link as an example. That is chock full of stats, studies, and citations. It's easy to see where they get their information, what they do with the information, and how they reach their conclusions with the information. Look at the Duke article. Now look at the Rense link. Do you see the difference in quality? Forget that it's even linked to Rense. That's not even really important even though it's generally a good indication of what you're getting yourself into (websites like that rarely link to Duke studies, for example). There's just no way to take it seriously.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Metal_Bear_Rex said:
You must have an insanely high threshold for what you consider "enough" crime prevention with guns. Honestly, I don't see how you view hundreds of thousands of cases as not adequate.

Let's just say that your evidence did not prove compelling enough for me. No hard feelings though.
 
Griffith said:
8-Year-Old Intentionally Shot And Killed Elderly Caregiver After Playing 'Grand Theft Auto'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/24/8-year-old-grand-theft-auto_n_3810778.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

I don't know, i mean when i was 6 or 7 i sliced people in a half with a chainsaw in doom, and i didn't go crazy. And there was access to guns at my family's house. Kids these days, i think they really must be putting something in the water.
Hm, thinking about it, back when i was a child, my father also always explained to me the special effects of some movies, or watching a making-of to show me how most of the stuff you see just wasn't "real". I guess this was a small but important detail, that has somehow been forgotten by parents today
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Rendarg said:
I don't know, i mean when i was 6 or 7 i sliced people in a half with a chainsaw in doom, and i didn't go crazy. And there was access to guns at my family's house. Kids these days, i think they really must be putting something in the water.
Hm, thinking about it, back when i was a child, my father also always explained to me the special effects of some movies, or watching a making-of to show me how most of the stuff you see just wasn't "real". I guess this was a small but important detail, that has somehow been forgotten by parents today
In my opinion, it's just coincidence that GTA's name even was involved in this incident. The kid shot his caretaker in the head. That's the story.
 
I've always aired on the side that I would rather give people the ability to defend themselves rather then be defenseless. Whether or not they decided to carry a gun is their decision, however they should have the legal right to do so if they feel they should. Also unless this kid actually meant to kill the caregiver, then its just a tragic and unfortunate accident.


Skeleton said:
If you use a gun to protect yourself and actually succeed then no crime is committed. And since most people don't report crimes that aren't committed to the police or news it's impossible to actually know how many times guns successfully stopped a crime from taking place. "Hello? Police? Yes, I'm so-and-so on the corner of so-and-so, and I was just not robbed!" So you're at a disadvantage because there really isn't evidence. At least any evidence that is even close to being intellectually honest. Hence why the people who are trying to scientifically provide proof that guns save more lives have to rely on "that guy said he did" "evidence."

tl;dr: It's not your fault. It's your position's fault.
Agreed. I've personally discussed this with two police officers I know in my area and both of them have told me that it's hard to nail down how many people protect themselves with firearms because as you said, they are often not reported or not logged when they are. But they have told me, on several occasions, that criminals are at the end of the day cowards who avoid confrontations and areas where they feel as though they do not have a monopoly on force. Hence areas that have more private ownership of firearms are less likely to see the level of violence that places that don't. Another part to add is that while I respect the police for performing a thankless job, they do not have an obligation to protect you and often show up after a crime has been committed. Warren v. District of Columbia concluded that, as well as many other court cases have in the past. It's up to you to take charge of your defense.

It's not the law abiding citizens who are responsible for the 10,000+ gun homicides in this country. Drugs, poverty and crime are the real triggers(no pun intended). Guns are an easy target because it's requires very little to stir the pot. Just awash people in fear mongering media, parade kids and grieving parents in front of cameras, throw a little bit of questionable statistics in and you've got a wonderful distraction to the real issues that I highlighted. Guns are inanimate objects, they cannot kill anything without someone pulling the trigger. Not trying to start a fight though.

Rendarg said:
I don't know, i mean when i was 6 or 7 i sliced people in a half with a chainsaw in doom, and i didn't go crazy. And there was access to guns at my family's house. Kids these days, i think they really must be putting something in the water.
Hm, thinking about it, back when i was a child, my father also always explained to me the special effects of some movies, or watching a making-of to show me how most of the stuff you see just wasn't "real". I guess this was a small but important detail, that has somehow been forgotten by parents today
Once again agreed, I also had guns in my home growing up and I was taught not to fear them, but to respect them. Good parenting is slowly going away unfortunately.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Walter said:
In my opinion, it's just coincidence that GTA's name even was involved in this incident. The kid shot his caretaker in the head. That's the story.

Well, not so much of a coincidence since the police went out of their way to involve it in a press release for lack of evidence to back the inference and make it a claim. Since they shared a bedroom, why not also infer the elderly caregiver was possibly abusing him sexually and he was putting an end to it? Put that in your presser, Officer Biasweasel. =)

Seriously though, if the kid was playing GTA, specifically shooting NPCs in the head, and then went and shot her in the head... That's pretty damning. Though not as much as when people deny ANY sort of connection is possible or relevant for political reasons. E.G. New Study Finds No Link Between Guns and Gun Violence.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Griffith said:
Well, not so much of a coincidence since the police went out of their way to involve it in a press release for lack of evidence to back the inference and make it a claim. Since they shared a bedroom, why not also infer the elderly caregiver was possibly abusing him sexually and he was putting an end to it? Put that in your presser, Officer Biasweasel. =)
I read police reports every day, and even for murders it's extremely rare that they'll mention the prior circumstances a suspect was in before the incident took place, to the extent that they're guessing at the motive. The typical report will describe the incident itself and the immediate circumstances, and leave the speculating to the lawyers.

So what I mean is, it's strange for the officer filing the report to speculate motive, and the press ran with it.
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
I don't see why you people are arguing over guns. Walter is right, the police just don't mention prior circumstances. So, obviously, this must be a cover up. The caregiver turned into a zombie and the child killed her in self-defense.

Edit: Yesterday, while everyone was yelling at Miley Cyrus for twerking at the VMAs, Army Staff Sargent Ty M. Carter was awarded the Medal of Honor: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/08/26/president-obama-awards-medal-honor-ty-carter
Carter was one of 53 American soldiers who woke up the morning of October 9, 2009 as the outpost where they were stationed -- one of the most remote and vulnerable in Afghanistan – came under attack by more than 300 Taliban fighters.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Walter said:
I read police reports every day, and even for murders it's extremely rare that they'll mention the prior circumstances a suspect was in before the incident took place, to the extent that they're guessing at the motive. The typical report will describe the incident itself and the immediate circumstances, and leave the speculating to the lawyers.

So what I mean is, it's strange for the officer filing the report to speculate motive, and the press ran with it.

Yeah, as someone that's not familiar with police reports, that's what struck me as odd. They basically wrote the angle. Maybe it was to deflect attention from the kid locally (but it got it picked up nationally and that angle helped, whoops), but it's still odd to me how the report went out of its way to clearly suggest something without providing something concrete (official unofficial reason). It also makes me wonder where they got the intel he was playing it right before. The kid has already proven unreliable, so there's definitely got to be some faith on the part of the officer that the game was related. I just hope it wasn't, "Just my opinion, but I saw this game lying around and that's why I think he did it. Just sayin'... in an official police report."
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Griffith said:
I just hope it wasn't, "Just my opinion, but I saw this game lying around and that's why I think he did it. Just sayin'... in an official police report."
Of course we can't know, but this is what' so devious about the relationship between a reporter and the police department. The report is THE official word on what happened, so the language used in it really paints the picture. A good reporter will rely on a report + witness interviews, but often people won't go into detail on an incident that's controversial. Once a case goes to court, lawyers are able to dig out witness testimonies and further evidence, but that's months after the incident.

So what you're left with in terms of immediate coverage of an incident is a report written by one person (usually), who has the chance to really play up the circumstances.

Btw, you should watch The Wire. :carcus:
 
Turkish warplanes shoot down Syrian helicopter

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/16/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBRE98F0K920130916

not cool

this will end really bad


And what on earth is happening here?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/us/shooting-reported-at-washington-navy-yard.html?pagewanted=all
Gunman and 12 Victims Killed in Shooting at D.C. Navy Yard

It's a navy base, so shouldn't the people be armed?
 
a third term... a THIRD term

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/22/us-germany-election-idUSBRE98K06220130922

absolute majority...

"It's a super result," said Merkel, flashing a broad smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRq89XXIPGU

maybe i should start thinking about applying for political asylum in one of your countries
 
New Bacterial Life-Form Discovered in NASA and ESA Spacecraft Clean Rooms

http://news.yahoo.com/bacterial-life-form-discovered-nasa-esa-spacecraft-clean-120000358.html

And a rare Magic Card sold for $27,000 :isidro:

http://kotaku.com/rare-magic-card-sells-for-27-000-1468597823/@rtgonzalez
 
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