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@oromagi
I'll bite. How many US soldier have died in the past couple of years, say, to further Israeli interests?
I'll perhaps start by asking if you think we had any valid reason (in our interest) to invade Iraq and oust Saddam.
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@Wylted
I think that everyone that screws with the Clintons are guilt-ridden. They are such perfect models and harming them in any way would make me want to shoot myself 37 times in the back (in Minecraft)
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@Double_R
No, a president asking for his political opponent to be investigated is blatantly inappropriate.Turns out that when you restate someone else’s comment and leave out the important part, it’s easy to make their statement sound dumb.But back to the point; Why is this so difficult for you guys? If Obama in 2012 called China and asked them to investigate Mitt Romney would you really have a hard time understanding why that is at the very least, inappropriate?
There is a conflict of interest there, but that doesn't mean it isn't in our interest to know. Let's say there are credible rumors and some surface-level information going around suggesting that Romney is taking bribes from the mob, but the justice department doesn't do anything about it. No investigations.
At that point, I would say that it is good that we know whether or not the potential future president is corrupt. It isn't the ideal way to get that information to light because of the conflict of interest, but it is better than potentially vital information not being known at all.
That’s why we have a justice department, and a free press.
A free press that gets banned from Twitter when they start digging into these corruption stories, eh?
This just isn’t serious. First of all, a private citizen getting a job at a private company is of no interest to the United States
It matters when someone seemingly highly unqualified is paid tons of money.... oh yeah, and the private citizen that you mentioned just so happens to be the vice president's son. The very same vice president that was put in charge of Ukraine policy. Crazy, and calling Hunter "just a private citizen" right after you criticize me for: "Turns out that when you restate someone else’s comment and leave out the important part, it’s easy to make their statement sound dumb"
Second, the misunderstandings Rudy was talking about were the foreign aid that Trump stopped, and the meeting at the White House Ukraine was asking for that Trump was not responding to
And you think what? That Ukraine would do a false investigation fit with false evidence of some corruption? Biden threatened to not give them a loan unless they fired a prosecutor. You use leverage to get things done.
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@Tejretics
Thank you, and take care! (I did a quick rebuttal to part of your response above)
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@Tejretics
I appreciate the well-thought-out response. It will take me a moment to write a rebuttal to it. I won't have access to my computer for 2 days, and I start working this week. Expect a response by Wednesday night
For now, I'll respond to the poll.
Question A was quite specific: Restoring the top individual federal income tax rate to 39.6% for incomes over $400,000 (from the current 37%) and taxing the capital gains and dividends of taxpayers with income over $1 million at that top rate (instead of the current preferential rate of 20%), with no other associated changes in taxes or spending, would be unlikely to hurt economic growth noticeably.
This specifically relates to economic growth and no other detrimental effects, and it says "noticeably", which is an ambiguous term. So they essentially admit in the question that it will hurt economic growth to some degree by raising these taxes.
That doesn't mean that they want higher taxes, it just means that they don't expect these specific changes to be incredibly harmful. There also isn't any indication of how much money this would raise, especially relative to your likely large bill.
A 2012 poll from the same website asked economists: A cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would lead to higher GDP within five years than without the tax cut.
35% agreed, 35% were uncertain, and only 8% disagreed. Granted this was asked in 2012 and the question was "right now", but way more economists agreed than disagreed with the sentiment that GDP grows faster with tax cuts.
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@Tejretics
I think your 3, 6, and 10 are pretty good. Some of 5 and 7 are good.
The rest (except #1) would probably collectively destroy the country.
I don't want to sound rude, but you want massively increased immigration plus a universal child allowance (and multiple other entitlements)?
While I don't agree with Milton Freidman on everything, I surely think that his assertion of: "“you can't have open borders (free immigration) and a welfare state." was quite accurate. (I know that you are not advocating "open borders", but taking in an extra 1 or 2 million per year is pretty close).
Ignoring the social impacts of immigration, we are 100% boned if we increase expenditures and allow in more low-skill workers who will be a net-drain on those programs.
The taxes or new debt that would be needed to fund these programs would be catastrophic.
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@oromagi
The phrase comes from Sol Wachtler, the former chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals. Wachtler said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.” In the case of Presidential impeachment, the House of Representatives serves as the DA and the source of indictment while the Senate serves as Jury, so I'm not sure the metaphor applies.
I was taking some liberty with the phrase, naturally, since Congress and courts differ. But based on how partisan the impeachment votes were, I am simply saying that as of right now, being impeached is meaningless. Having the opposition in the majority is enough to be impeached as president nowadays.
However, I think that the phrase still fits well. A grand jury votes to indict, so the House reps would be the grand jury in this case (while the Senate is the trial jury), and I suppose the DA would be party leadership (and Nancy Pelosi issues articles of impeachment to be voted on, I believe is how it works), who can whip up 100% of their members' votes (the influence on the grand jury).
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@Double_R
No one offered anyone a favor. Rudy asked Ukraine for something blatantly inappropriate at best (an investigation into the president’s political opponent) in exchange for “making sure that whatever misunderstandings are put aside”.
Investigating a potential case of corruption is blatantly inappropriate? Do you not think that whether or not some corruption happened is important to know when that potentially corrupt person could be running the country? Wasn't that the whole point of that worthless Russia trial? To see if there was any collusion of our president?
Staying out of something you have no business involving yourself in in the first place is not covering anything up.
Investigating a former Vice President's potentially illegal or at the very least highly immoral/unethical use of power and severe conflicts of interest sounds like our business. Do you think that is something we should just keep buried and never bring up?
Ukraine had no (or very little) incentive to investigate a former foreign politician's corrupt acts related to getting their son a job at an energy company. So obviously, some sort of favor was needed to start the investigation. That favor would be an improved relationship (misunderstandings being put aside).
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@Greyparrot
Also, fake investigations for political gain are only good when a Democrat does it.
An impeachment is merely an indictment. And as an NY judge once put it "You could indict a ham sandwich"
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@TheUnderdog
Then the kid would get set up for adoption anyway and now they may have PTSD from the abuse. With no fault divorce, you ditch the kid, but at least the kid isn't abused. But ditching your kid is bad enough so you should face punishment for it.
Growing up in a single parent household itself is abuse. Simply look at their life outcomes
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@TheUnderdog
Fault divorce is where you need an actual reason to get a divorce, like your spouse having an affair or committing a felony.
We have no-fault divorce where you can get divorced without any real reason other than feeling like it.
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@TheUnderdog
I think bringing back fault divorce and reducing incentives for unmarried parents is much more ethical than sterilizing people by force lol
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@Wylted
Some hillbilly culture remains and is why the appalachians has a lot of poverty and criminality.
They are quite poor up in Appalachia, but oddly enough, their levels of criminality were lower than the national average last time I checked. Poverty might be because of the hillbilli-ness, but at the same time, no politician seems to give enough of a damn about them to do anything about it, either.
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@Double_R
I don't see why offering a favor to improve a relationship is a bad thing. Literally happens all the time. Do you think that Trump should help cover up Biden's corrupt dealings, of which, supposedly "evidence already exists"? (And if no evidence exists, then nothing would happen). I'd say he is neglecting his duty to the American people if he doesn't expose very pertinent information during an election: exposing information that really only he has the power to bring to light.
He should probably not cover for a corrupt political enemy, as his political opponents literally lied about evidence of Russian collusion for 4 years. They, in essence, "fabricated evidence" in the minds of people by making them believe there was evidence when there wasn't any.
It's like Nixon all over again: "YoU sPy On PoLiTiCaL oPpOnEnTs? HOW DARE YOU be the only president to ever do that!? IMPEACH!"
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@3RU7AL
But most men's groups aren't trying to address and fix problems, they're about airing grievances against feminism and women. It's so stupid and pointless.
Yeah, they generally complain about stupid issues like banning circumcision or whatever. Nothing substantive about male suicide, how men are vastly more likely to die in the workplace, etc.. Even the ones that complain about valid issues (ie. getting screwed in divorce courts with custody and alimony), only just complain or their solution is "don't get married then". It's quite pitiful to see, but generally the only men who think about these issues are just bitter.
But to address your earlier point, I think it makes sense that a lot of the work would be to "undermine feminism". Because while our previous system wasn't perfect, it was somewhat fairly balanced based on historical realities like women not working. Now that women do a lot of different things yet we keep old attitudes not perceiving these new developments, we essentially are in a system where men now get double screwed. (It would make sense that divorce courts should heavily favor women in a world where nearly no women worked).
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@Greyparrot
Most of the validation comes from other women 😅
Even betas tend to stay away from single mothers. They just simp for girls way out of their league that they pretend are single
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@Greyparrot
Single mothers are awarded all sorts of reward
The biggest reward isn’t even monetary: being called a queen on Twitter
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@Wylted
He thinks it is hillbilly culture? I guess I’d have to know what he considers a hillbilly
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@Wylted
@TheUnderdog
Lmfao, did I just witness "the libertarian case for government-mandated sterilization"?
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@Wylted
The factors around that are up for debate, but I have my theories.
Oh, do tell
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@Tejretics
Ten is a lot, but I'll do my darndest
1. Secure border from illegal immigration/end birthright citizenship
2. Decrease legal immigration- multiculturalism will kill this country
3. Revitalize our manufacturing base and protect the wages of those workers- it must be possible to make a decent living without a college degree. Manufacturing is a national security concern.
4. Make it more affordable to have children through tax credits, low-interest loans, grants, etc.
5. Reform education to promote patriotism and traditional ethics
6. Increase expenditures on infrastructure like better roads, high-speed trains, and good bridges
7. Disentangle ourselves from open conflicts/stop trying to enforce democracy in other countries
8. Need some type of healthcare reform. A public option and increasing competition among insurers would help.
9. Regulate/ban sexual degeneracy in media
10. End opioid epidemic. Regulate treatments to reduce use of opioids overall.
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@Tejretics
I’ve been good! I’m sorry, I don’t recognize your username – did you have a different one on DDO?
I had the same username. I unfortunately came to DDO right around the time of its death. Forums were already being filled with jibberish messages that I think were ads.
I remember you from this site about a year ago. Didn't interact much but I saw some of your forum posts and debates.
At least we agree that capitalism is good, if nothing else!
People that aren't these days are generally historically illiterate lol.
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@Tejretics
or whatever you’d call a combination of free markets, globalization, redistribution, and social liberty/egalitarianism
I'd call that "wrong" :P
I joined DDO as somewhat of a libertarian in 2015. I then became a proper libertarian (though not a minarchist or ancap or anything). Then became a socialist and anarchosyndicalist. Then became – I guess – a “neoliberal” or “cosmopolitan liberal”
Lol, I feel like we all go through crazy journeys. (At least us kids that get into politics) But we all seem to end up in some fairly coherent ideology, with our own little modifications.
Cutting out the meme ideologies, I essentially went from libertarian to moderate conservative to a socially far-right, ultra-nationalist, protectionist, capitalist. (Essentially the complete opposite of you)
Don't know much about you, but I remember you being a good debater. How have you been?
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@zedvictor4
Hey!
YOOOOOO!
Let's go full on LGBTQQQQQNo votes for heterosexuals or people displaying a skin tone.Oooops , that's everyone.What we need is a global dictator Big Bro.Someone like GOD.
"When I said I supported equal voting rights; I meant men shouldn't vote either"
-Benito Mussolini
I agree. Replace this cringe democracy with a based and redpilled MONARCHY
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@Greyparrot
Whatever, maybe America deserves to lose its Black kids to handguns in schools. It's not like people actually care about anything anymore. Not really
Only in election years and during February!
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@TheUnderdog
Literally every political issue affects everyone, either directly or indirectly. Even the ones you mention affect other people. Reparations? White people have to pay those and therefore are effected.
Guns? Even to non-gun owners, crime rates affect them. Tax policies affect job markets and capital allocation, even if you aren't taxed.
A better question, in my mind, is who should vote period. For example, should illiterate people vote? Should felons vote?
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@Greyparrot
More Blacks died from "mass" school shootings than whites, but the media won't teach that to the "highly -educated" Democrats
And I’ll bet the few that do know about that think that guys who wear bed sheets and burn crosses are the perpetrators
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@Fruit_Inspector
But if a gun is effective and easy to use for a murderer, it is also effective and easy to use for a self-defender. And since "assault rifles" account for an infinitesimal amount of homicides, I'm not sure what the issue is.
They are scawy and make him feel unsafe
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@n8nrgmi
You speak about guns like someone who has never seen one in real life
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@Greyparrot
Democrats have no stomach for actual gun control.
Because targeting demographics at the same rate that they commit homicide is racist or something
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@n8nrgmi
incorrect. if this is a bad person problem and guns dont make the situation worse, there should be wildly out of control non-gun murder rates too. you are correct, that it's technically possible that people are just choosing to use guns, and by some coincidence, non-gun murders are normal here... but that's counterintuitive and would be a fluke of science.
I'm not saying that it is a good thing that bad people have guns. If bad people didn't have guns, that would be optimal. But that doesn't mean that taking away guns from responsible, good people is optimal. Clearly, the best option is to give good people a means to defend themselves (especially smaller and weaker people who otherwise couldn't. Hence the name of an old Wild West revolver being the "great equalizer".)
princplles of science dont just change, unless there's a reason for it. if more guns means more murder fifteen years ago, we have no reason to assume things are different. it's not just this study either, look at the opening post... police are more likely to die with gun around as are women, and so many other metrics. you and your loved ones are more likley do die if you have a gun, that sorta stuff. if there was just one study we might consider it could be flawed, the implications. but look at the totality of the science out there.what i have on my side of the argument is the totality of the sicnece. i also have common sense. i defy you to argue from common sense that everyone carrying around guns wouldn't cause the murder rate to sky rocket.
It is not very scientific though. " Blumstein & Wallman (2006) conclude that a complex interaction between "prisons, drugs, guns, policing, economics," and "demography, including abortion" is the best explanation for the crime drop in the United States". From the 1960s to the 1990s, just about all Wealthy Western nations experienced a rise in crime and then a decrease and nobody knows why the heck that even happened. So, to just pretend that prevalence of guns is the only thing, or even the main thing, driving homicides is naive at best.
That study points to half a dozen different factors impacting crime rates. Are guns to some degree related? Perhaps, as they theorize. But do police prevalence, demographics, poverty, and plenty of other things? Yes, to a much larger degree.
I pointed out that the largest gun-owning group, Whites, have a tiny homicide rate, less than many wealthy European countries. So, I don't understand why you are so dead set on blaming guns when clearly other factors are much more important to address. Our homicide rate is incredibly skewed by other demographics that own less guns and it would be disingenuous for you to ignore that. If poverty is causing that disparity, do what you can to alleviate poverty. If culture is the cause, do what you can about that. But don't pretend that a tool is the cause of our problems.
And if you want a "common sense argument", how about this: if you know that there is a high likelihood that someone is armed and could kill you, are you more likely or less likely to pick a fight with them or try to mug them? Probably lower because you don't want to die. But if they are very likely unarmed because of a gun ban, you would feel less apprehension about insulting, robbing, or punching them?
Therefore, the common sense is: "an armed society is a polite society". By "common sense" (aka a quite worthless waste of time based on reasoning that likely doesn't apply to the real world), other types of crimes would be lower because of the prevalence of guns among regular citizens.
(Just like how other countries having nukes decreases the likelihood of you using a nuke.)
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@oromagi
The AR-15 is literally magic. It can turn a burglar into Swiss cheese in 5 seconds.
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@Greyparrot
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@ebuc
Trumpet brain dead want to our brains, if we have any.
The incorrect spelling of 'walking' leads me to believe not.
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@Greyparrot
His posts are riddled with the "you" "me" and "I" pronouns.
Did you just assume Xers pronouns?
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@Greyparrot
I don’t know too much about coal. I don’t think he was very active when I was my most active on the site.
I do remember Ramshutu. Glad he’s back. So many people have left over the past year and there have been few replacements of their caliber.
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@Ramshutu
I can’t wait to see the response to this well-thought-out post.
Perhaps they will point out a missing comma or an incorrect tense change.
Anyways, I have a question as to why you chose the word fear and seem, at least from what I’ve seen, to say that we always to some degree have a negative association with some element or choice (why we “fear” it)
To use the cake and ice cream example, why would you say fear drives that choice if we like both? If we have no negative experience with either, but instead have more of a positive association with one, why is fear in the equation at all? We might just get more dopamine from ice cream than we do with cake.
Likewise, how do you explain indifference when making decisions when no strong preference is present between items?
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@sadolite
The police will just murder you as you sleep like Duncan Lemp
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@Theweakeredge
AND - the concentration of wealth AND the capitalistic exploitation... also not capitalism itself, lmao
No, the legalization of gay marriage is the root cause of our rising deficits.
To fix it, we must adopt the Iran system.
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@sadolite
I think you responded to the wrong guy.
I haven’t talked about us defaulting or why I think debt is bad
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@badger
In Venezuela, people have to eat rats.
During the Great Depression, very few people starved.
Deficits mean very little except for how production, taxation, and spending are related relative to one another
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@thett3
Yeah for most of our history until the 1960s, we ran surpluses when we weren’t in war.
Every mildly socialist country (like Sweden) to moderate socialist country (China) to very socialist country (Venezuela) all have budget deficit spending.
Any system can run a deficit, but I’d argue that more capitalist ones (ie less welfare) are more likely to run surpluses
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@Greyparrot
No, I was assured that open borders with a welfare state was sustainable if we just taxed the rich
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@thett3
Uuuh - let's pretend the debt isn't caused by the concentration of wealth and capitalistic exploitation by America... yup, let's just pretend those aren't the direct cause of the debt.
“The people paying most of the taxes are the reason we have debt”
This kind of thinking is very indicative of having never paid taxes, oneself
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@zedvictor4
Is this some kind of Haiku? 😂
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@Greyparrot
No, we should have given the IRA $7 billion per year to buy military jets
Potatoes>oil
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@fauxlaw
This is either a really esoteric joke of some sort or a public admission of having committed assault against some random lady
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@n8nrgmi
And if we break things down by ethnicity, according to Statista, Whites are the largest gun-owning group by far. https://www.statista.com/statistics/623356/gun-ownership-in-the-us-by-ethnicity/
51% live in a household with a gun and 38% personally own a gun, compared with 28% and 18% for non-Whites, respectively. So, you would expect the murder rate in White communities to be much higher, wouldn't you?
Well, according to the FBI, 3,650 arrests were made against White people for murder in 2019. Considering that their population is 234,370,202 that means that the White murder rate is 1.557 per 100,000. So, the White murder rate is just below Belgium's and a little above France's and Romania's.
97,079,079 would then be the non-White population. They committed 4,314 murders. That is a 4.44 murder rate per 100,000.
(FBI data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43)
Since the group with more guns commits less murder (both gross and per capita), isn't it quite clear that we should not be focusing on the tools used? Obviously other, much more important factors are at play causing this high murder rate, not guns. Whatever those are (cultural, economic, etc.) are what should be at the forefront of whatever discussion there is on gun crime.
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@n8nrgmi
also, whatever your argument is.... do you agree that non-gun murders *should* be wildly out of control if this is just a bad person problem, and not a gun problem too?
Not necessarily. Saying that bad people are the problem doesn't mean that they don't have choices in tools they use to commit crimes. Bad people are choosing to use guns to do bad things.
Now does that mean you should take away guns from good people (aka the overwhelming majority of legal gun owners)? Absolutely not. It means that you need to crack down on the illegal gun trade, not punish people who purchase guns legally.
According to the BJS, most guns used in crimes are obtained illegally:
An estimated 287,400 prisoners had possessed afirearm during their offense. Among these, more thanhalf (56%) had either stolen it (6%), found it at thescene of the crime (7%), or obtained it off the streetor from the underground market (43%). Most ofthe remainder (25%) had obtained it from a familymember or friend, or as a gift. Seven percent hadpurchased it under their own name from a licensedfirearm dealer.
Over half are known to have illegally obtained the gun.
7% legally purchased it from gun shops. .8% had obtained them from gun shows. And if you want to crack down on the 25% that are gifts from family, while that is a much smaller issue, that wouldn't be a big deal.
So, why does it make sense to disarm people that want to defend themselves? You could even crackdown on gifting if you wanted, but the evidence points to the fact that people who obtain guns legally (especially those who buy for themselves) are not the people to be worried about.
also, switzerland has more gun control than we do. and, even if it didn't, it's still the exception to the rule. you can find an example or exception to fit any argument... but i cited a harvard literature review, that says the prescence of gun correlates to murder. that means that's the general rule.
Well there are plenty of high-gun places that are among the safest in the world: Canada, the Falkland Islands, Denmark, and Switzerland. This isn't just a one-off fluke. Find out what makes them exceptional and recreate that environment here. Learn from their policies.
And your Harvard source states that the only variable that was included was gun ownership rates. So, they don't even know if x causes y or y causes x. In simple terms, countries with more crime might increase gun ownership for self-defense purposes. They said that the only factor for controlling other variables was that all of the countries were developed.... That was it.
It was also a 21 year old study, but I'll give you some slack. In my experience gun studies haven't been big since the mid-2000s.
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@RM
As is the case with most foreign policy issues. Most people don't realize how complex these conflicts really are. Multiple groups have somewhat valid claims to the same land and cannot stand to live with each other.
Hamas is more or less a terrorist organization, but that doesn't give Israel a blank check to abuse all Palestinians that live in their region and force them out.
I have yet to see one nuanced politician on the matter. The few that aren't 100% pro-Israel are 100% anti-Israel.
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