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Forums - Politics Discussion - Another Shooting, Another Gun Free Zone

Conina on 17 July 2015
sc94597 said:
Scoobes said:

No, we're just next to Russia and have the issues in Ukraine. Then there's Libya and the short hop across the Mediterranean sea to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Oh, let's not forget the border with Iraq and Syria, those two countries where we're fighting ISIS.

But no, we've got nothing on the US/Mexican border...

Most of Western Europe is not next to Russia. If you want to make that comparison, I might as well throw in all of Central and South America. The distances between England and Russia is something like 3,000 miles. Meanwhile the distance from Pennsylvania and Columbia is 2,500 miles.

And most of the USA is not next to Mexico by your logic. London - Moskow is 1.550 miles, Berlin - Moskow is 1.000 miles



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mornelithe on 17 July 2015
sc94597 said:

The effects of drug prohibition and cartels travel all the way to New York, however. That's a empirical dataset. Can the same be true with regards to Ukraine's civil war and London?

"From neighboring states" is the key word here. A lot of crime isn't commited by de jure states though, but by smaller organizations.

The question is how does the border affect crime rates. It isn't about where one will vacation to. The crime rates of the U.S are more influenced by Mexico's situation, than European countries with regards to Librya, Iraq, or Syria.

It has very little do do with "gun culture" and much more to do with power differences between those involved in the drug trade. Cartels are worst in "gun controlled" Mexico than they are in the U.S, for example.

Absolute fact.  The Cartels power isn't the drugs themselves, it's the drug routes, and individuals (whether they're police, customs etc...) who are in their pocket, who are willing to support/overlook shipments.



sc94597 on 17 July 2015
Conina said:
sc94597 said:
Scoobes said:

No, we're just next to Russia and have the issues in Ukraine. Then there's Libya and the short hop across the Mediterranean sea to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Oh, let's not forget the border with Iraq and Syria, those two countries where we're fighting ISIS.

But no, we've got nothing on the US/Mexican border...

Most of Western Europe is not next to Russia. If you want to make that comparison, I might as well throw in all of Central and South America. The distances between England and Russia is something like 3,000 miles. Meanwhile the distance from Pennsylvania and Columbia is 2,500 miles.

And most of the USA is not next to Mexico by your logic. London - Moskow is 1.550 miles, Berlin - Moskow is 1.000 miles

The question that next needs to be made, is - how many national borders must you cross between Moskow and London, and how many between  Mexico and the U.S? Using this logic, then we should also include much of South and Central America besides Mexico.



the_dengle on 17 July 2015

Well the guns weren't inside the building, right? Sounds like they need to expand that gun-free zone to be a little bigger. Maybe like a few... thousand... square miles.



Conina on 17 July 2015
sc94597 said:
Conina said:

And most of the USA is not next to Mexico by your logic. London - Moskow is 1.550 miles, Berlin - Moskow is 1.000 miles

The question that next needs to be made, is - how many national borders must you cross between Moskow and London, and how many between the Mexico and the U.S? Using this logic, then we should also include much of South and Central America besides Mexico.

Finland or Poland are directly connected to Russia or the Ukraine. And there aren't regular border controls within the "European Union Customs Union" since the "Schengen borders code":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Customs_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area



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sc94597 on 17 July 2015
Conina said:
sc94597 said:
Conina said:

And most of the USA is not next to Mexico by your logic. London - Moskow is 1.550 miles, Berlin - Moskow is 1.000 miles

The question that next needs to be made, is - how many national borders must you cross between Moskow and London, and how many between the Mexico and the U.S? Using this logic, then we should also include much of South and Central America besides Mexico.

Finland or Poland are directly connected to Russia or the Ukraine. And there aren't regular border controls within the "European Union Customs Union" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Customs_Union

That wasn't my point. Borders are much more than their controls. They represent geo-political distinctions. People within borders interact more with others within their borders than outside due to aligned political and cultural similarities (albeit there are exceptions when the politics don't coincide with culture.) I'm sure there is much more interaction between Los Angeles and New York City than Kiev and London.



Scoobes on 17 July 2015
sc94597 said:
Scoobes said:
sc94597 said:

Most of Western Europe is not next to Russia. If you want to make that comparison, I might as well through in all of Central and South America. The distances between England and Russia is something like 3,000 miles. Meanwhile the distance from Pennsylvania and Columbia is 2,500 miles. Alaska is closer to much of Russia. ;) 

Anyway, I would argue that drug cartels are more responsible for criminal activity in the U.S than the Ukrainian civil war in most of Europe outside of Ukraine.

Using that logic I could easily say that New York isn't exactly next to Mexico either, but has its fair share of crime. Or that the bible belt shouldn't really count as part of the US stats as the culture is so different to the coastal states.

Europe is Europe, and the US is the US. Throughout history, and today geographically, it is far more vulnerable to violence from neighbouring states. Where do you think a large portion of terrorists come from? 

The border with Mexico doesn't really compare considering this is the same country where many go for Spring Break (don't see that happening in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq or Syria at the present time).

So now we come full circle to the topic at hand, because you're right, in most of Europe criminal activity isn't anywhere near as bad the gun crime/homicides you get via the Cartels even with the more dangerous neighbouring countries as we haven't had the huge gun culture the US has had over the years. Less guns coming in, less going out.

The effects of drug prohibition and cartels travel all the way to New York, however. That's a empirical dataset. Can the same be true with regards to Ukraine's civil war and London?

"From neighboring states" is the key word here. A lot of crime isn't commited by de jure states though, but by smaller organizations.

The question is how does the border affect crime rates. It isn't about where one will vacation to. The crime rates of the U.S are more influenced by Mexico's situation, than European countries with regards to Librya, Iraq, or Syria.

It has very little do do with "gun culture" and much more to do with power differences between those involved in the drug trade. Cartels are worst in "gun controlled" Mexico than they are in the U.S, for example.

Hmmm.. sounds like we're arguing two different points.

For the cartels, I would argue they have more to do with the "war on drugs" and general drug policy than actual gun control. The cartels have grown ridiculously powerful over the years due to the failure of sucessive Mexican and US governments to get a handle on the issue.

I don't get your point on "gun controlled" Mexico however. The laws might be stricter than the US but they have the right to own firearms for protection in private residences, and with reason, can carry guns outside. Laws in Europe are generally far stricter. In both Mexico and the US, there is very little gun control compared to most countries in Europe.




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Conina on 17 July 2015
sc94597 said:

That wasn't my point. Borders are much more than their controls. They represent geo-political distinctions. People within borders interact more with others within their borders than outside due to aligned political and cultural similarities (albeit there are exceptions when the politics don't coincide with culture.) I'm sure there is much more interaction between Los Angeles and New York City than Kiev and London.

I'm sure there is much more interaction between Hanover and Venice or between Amsterdam and Warsaw than between Houston and Seattle. Do you really think there aren't political and cultural differences within the USA?



Bofferbrauer on 17 July 2015

The problem are not the guns per se - germany, canada and finland have quite many guns in circulation, yet such massakers are extremly rare in those countries.

Many argue it's because of the respective cultures, but I'd say that's only half the truth.

The main reason in the US is a lack of perspective from the lowest classes. Especially ex-convicts have barely any rights at all left to them, really pushing them back into criminality instead of reforming them. While there are ways to get out of of this misery, people with low education will probably never find it. Bettter education would help more than more guns to solve the problem, as the guns only treat the symptom, not it's cause. Also, uparming the population will only result in uparming the criminals, as they want to make sure of their success with a risk limited as much as possible. A Lensman Arms Race which the general population could never hope to win.

My suggestion, apart from the aforementioned gun control would be a kind of bullet control over a transition period where eduction gets ramped up significantly. There are to many guns aready in circulation to make any gun control work in the US. A bullet control, where only a licensed hunter could buy bullets (as a private person. Security companies could still access more freely, and no limitation for the military..), and a limited amount of them by basically trading empty clips for full ones. While this wouldn't hinder bad guys to get guns, they couldn't fire them as they wouldn't have any access to the bullets. And when education fianally showed the next generations how to avoid those pitfalls, crime would diminish sharply because both the number of criminals dwindle down (few new "recruits"), and crime in general (due to less criminals, but also because it renders crime activity more risky if not properly armed, which by a bullet control would become very difficult to achieve).

The sole real problems which this would bring would be a loss of jobs in the armement indusrty, since the US are still the single biggest private market for guns. And the NRA weakening very much, but that being a problem or not is up to every one's own perception.



Aeolus451 on 17 July 2015
Bofferbrauer said:
The problem are not the guns per se - germany, canada and finland have quite many guns in circulation, yet such massakers are extremly rare in those countries.

Many argue it's because of the respective cultures, but I'd say that's only half the truth.

The main reason in the US is a lack of perspective from the lowest classes. Especially ex-convicts have barely any rights at all left to them, really pushing them back into criminality instead of reforming them. While there are ways to get out of of this misery, people with low education will probably never find it. Bettter education would help more than more guns to solve the problem, as the guns only treat the symptom, not it's cause. Also, uparming the population will only result in uparming the criminals, as they want to make sure of their success with a risk limited as much as possible. A Lensman Arms Race which the general population could never hope to win.

My suggestion, apart from the aforementioned gun control would be a kind of bullet control over a transition period where eduction gets ramped up significantly. There are to many guns aready in circulation to make any gun control work in the US. A bullet control, where only a licensed hunter could buy bullets (as a private person. Security companies could still access more freely, and no limitation for the military..), and a limited amount of them by basically trading empty clips for full ones. While this wouldn't hinder bad guys to get guns, they couldn't fire them as they wouldn't have any access to the bullets. And when education fianally showed the next generations how to avoid those pitfalls, crime would diminish sharply because both the number of criminals dwindle down (few new "recruits"), and crime in general (due to less criminals, but also because it renders crime activity more risky if not properly armed, which by a bullet control would become very difficult to achieve).

The sole real problems which this would bring would be a loss of jobs in the armement indusrty, since the US are still the single biggest private market for guns. And the NRA weakening very much, but that being a problem or not is up to every one's own perception.

"Bullet control" is no different than gun control because a person needs both to shoot and that is protected by the constitution. Cracking down on gangs to the point they disband or relocate and seriously going after drug dealers that deal drugs worse than pot would do a lot more towards gun control with criminals. Politicians are too focused on gun control on legal guns and not on the black market/gangs/the worst drugs.