Tweet
This is a pretty interesting article by George Will about the University of Michigan.
-
-
DSL, you have a wonderful way of misstating issues in order to fit your hard left orthodoxy (with an article from Cornell Law School, heh).You often bitch and moan that Mueller staffed his team with Democrats or people who've donated to Democrats. However, it's against Federal law (specifically Section 42.1(a) of 28 CFR Part 42, Subpart A) to make political allegiance a condition of hiring decisions. Bummer, huh? And as it turns out, the vast majority of prosecutors in NYC and Washington DC are Democrats. Shocking!!
The law says that you cannot make political party allegiance a pre-condition for employment. Do you really believe that Mueller asked the Donors their party affiliation? There was no need to ask; he knew their reputations and hired them because of their animosity toward anyone who might try to limit the power of the Deep State. Mueller is a statist, as are Comey and Rothstein. (I read this week that Comey's girls worked in the Hillary campaign).
DSL, you are always saying "Comey is a Republican..." or " Rothstein was appointed by Pres. Trump..." which anyone who reads the news knows has nothing to do with their current political beliefs. These folks are now all statists, and are part of the party of government, first, foremost, and forever. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it is a duck. Robby and the Donors have no interest in law, only in protecting the Deep State.
Your legal citation says what it says. And it says you cannot use party affiliation as a requirement for employment. That is like saying you cannot use party affiliation in appointing judges, but the Democrats do and always have. What matters is the result of a hiring process, not the words that describe it.Last edited by Da Geezer; May 20, 2018, 02:11 PM.Comment
-
Chump demands a DOJ investigation of the FBI 'implant' conspiracy fantasy. Next up is an investigation of the space alien Easter bunny recovered at Roswell that has been covered up by Deep State democrats only recently revealed by Kapture1.
Just another waste of taxpayer dollars like his Air Force One Weekend Shuttle to Maralago.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
-
He's on a tear today. Ranting and ranting. Complaining about how much the Mueller investigation has cost over the course of a year ($20M), although it's $30 M less than the military parade he wants to have down Pennsylvania Ave.Originally posted by Ghengis Jon View PostComment
-
I have no issue with requiring firearms to be locked up. All of mine are in various safes. So are the magazines and the ammo.Originally posted by Jeff Buchanan View Post
I still maintain it is the decline of American society that is responsible of the string of mass shootings. Jeff, you're only a few years older than I am. In the 1960's and 1970's, we could legally buy military rifles at any gun show. It was easy to pick up a Garand, or an M-1 carbine, or an M-14. All with high capacity magazines. One of the more popular semi-auto handguns was the Browning High Power. The BHP has a 10 round mag.
We had high capacity, military grade weapons available just like today. But not the frequency of mass shootings. These tragedies today reflect today's societal attitudes and lack of responsibility. What is acceptable behavior has changed to the detriment of society. I think that the wide open internet has played no small part in this. Through echo chambers, it reinforces the worst of human nature, and we see the results.“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
-
Yes it is ....... here's my take after about 10 seconds of thought.Originally posted by Da Geezer View Post
I believe there is a problem with restriction of free speech at M. George Will documents this pretty well as do others. Will is late to the party however. There are litterally dozens of colleges and universities facing strong criticism for implementing the kinds of policies that M has implemented. See this 2016 article from the Atlantic below:
I think there may be mitigating circumstances as well as implementation of policy regarding free speech or limits to it at M and elsewhere not well thought out but understandable based on campus events since 2015, maybe earlier.
Some, not all of the policy - the stuff that gets a bit Orwellian - is designed to insure campus speakers don't get shouted down because a particular group disagrees with them ...... see the UC Berkeley Commission report below that was released In April of this year and undertaken after several conservative speakers that were scheduled to make campus presentations, including Ann Coulter, were cancelled due to "safety concerns."
This month a law suit filed by two conservative Berkeley student groups alleging Berkeley discriminates against speakers with conservative views was allowed to proceed.
The point is, it's not just M making freedom of speech policy to limit or protect it, as poorly worded and vague as it probably is. Moreover, this is a big issue on college campuses nation wide that doesn't get a lot of press. The brouhaha about it, IMO, is simply an example of how nasty the dialogue between the left and right has become and how difficult it is to represent a university as a bastion of free speech while at the same time trying to control the crazies on both sides from being, well, stupid.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
-
Jon, would you favor re-instituting the provisions of the 1994 legislation that I linked to and sun-downed in 2004? It deals almost exclusively with the auto-feed magazines holding more than 10 rounds.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
-
I don't know. I'm generally not in favor of ineffective 'feel good' laws. Banning high capacity mags short of confiscation would generally have no effect. In cases of some rifles, one can easily tape several together to speed magazine change. There can also be no visible difference - an AR 5 round 'hunting' mag is a 20 round box with a spring block. You can't tell without physical examination. There are literally millions of 20 round or greater magazines already in circulation, just for military style rifles. This doesn't count hunting rifles. I have a 10-22. It has a 10 round rotary magazine that is a pain in the ass to reload. If I take it to the range or go out to plink paper plates, I use a 25 round banana clip for convenience.
I see in the article some states require registration of the high capacity magazines. That'll do a lot of good. When Elmer Trump shoots up an establishment, how do the 1000 other people on the registered list have any affect on that crime or any crime in the future? It just becomes a confiscation list. I'm not a fan of gov't having firearm lists of law abiding citizens for any reason.
Some states have no possession laws with grandfathering. Unless mags are date stamped, who's to know? With millions of HCM is private hands already its impossible to know.
No possession at all. Well, I guess I'll never have the privilege of living in California or New York. I'll cry myself to sleep tonight. If Michigan tried to create such a restriction, I would actively oppose such legislation. Not because of what it bans, but it would make many law abiding citizens instantly criminals. Far more dangerous, it would set a precedence in confiscating firearm components (same as requiring forfeiture). Once it happens the first time, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. This is not like banning automatic weapons, when at time of passage, pretty much only the military and the mob had them. You are talking about a component that is not uncommon.
I still believe that the sickness that has infected our society is responsible for our horrendous slew of mass shootings. We've always had the fire power but were not so sick as to use it evilly. Deal with violent crime and mental health and I think the problem of mass shootings pretty much goes away.“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
-
I agree. In addition to the internet, I believe the video games that glorify shooting are a contributing factor. They are lifelike enough that I can see how kids (all guys so far) that play them for hours may begin to confuse fantasy with reality. We are a long way from Sonic the Hedgehog.We had high capacity, military grade weapons available just like today. But not the frequency of mass shootings. These tragedies today reflect today's societal attitudes and lack of responsibility. What is acceptable behavior has changed to the detriment of society. I think that the wide open internet has played no small part in this. Through echo chambers, it reinforces the worst of human nature, and we see the results.Comment
-
They have the same video games in every other country in the world. They don't have the same issue with mass shootings, though.
I wonder what they don't have that we have?I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it onComment
-
Thanks for your input. I agree with your assessment re auto-feed magazines. Too many out there, to many easy ways to get around laws regarding these magazine, enforceable or not.Originally posted by Ghengis Jon View Post
I'm not sure I can get on-board with naming societal issues as a target for mitigating the slaughter from these mass shootings. I don't think you're doing that just saying its something behind the mass shootings. I agree with that but, what we're looking for, if looking has any utility at all and solutions exist, is some concrete legislative action to stem the ever increasing numbers of mass shootings.
I think that real solutions are out there but the discourse required to find them is so polarizing that I'm not at all confident any government body will be able to do things that will be helpful in curbing these horrible mass shootings.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
-
Plenty of other countries outside the US have mass killings, CGVT.
The last piece I read had the US 11th (per capita) on the list."The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is sometimes hard to verify their authenticity." -Abraham LincolnComment
-
I was waiting for that.
Cherry picked stat and you know it.I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it onComment
-
So who's tops? Surprisingly, Norway is, with an outlier mass shooting death rate of 1.888 per million (high no doubt because of the rifle assault by political extremist Anders Brevik that claimed 77 lives in 2011). No. 2 is Serbia, at just 0.381, followed by France at 0.347, Macedonia at 0.337, and Albania at 0.206. Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, and Czech Republic all follow. Then comes the U.S., at No. 11, with a death rate of 0.089.I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it onComment
-
In any event, if we compare the number of mass shooting deaths for each year to the United States population for each year, we get an average annual death rate of 0.09 per million from 2009 to 2015 (almost exactly the 0.089 claimed by the CPRC.)
This means that on average, between 2009 and 2015, there was one death per year from a mass shooting for every 11 million people living in the United States.
Other countries
The first thing to note about the rankings is that Lott has compared the mass shooting death rate in the United States with that of other countries where there was a mass shooting between 2009 and 2015. This might seem obvious, but it’s important to point out that very many countries did not see a single mass shooting as defined by Lott during this period.
The second striking thing about the list of mass shootings in Europe is that it is dominated by outliers. Where the United States saw at least twelve mass shooting deaths every year between 2009 and 2015, some of the other countries on Lott’s list experienced one or two rare but very high-casualty shootings. When you average out the death rates, this creates a highly misleading impression about the consistency and lethality of mass shootings outside the United States.
The example of Norway gives a good illustration of just how absurd this use of statistics is. In 2009 and 2010, according to Lott’s data, there were zero mass shooting deaths in Norway. In 2011, far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed eight people in a series of bombings in Oslo, then shot dead 69 more in a massacre at a Labor Party summer camp on Utoya island.
In 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, there was not a single death from a mass shooting in Norway.
If we compare the number of mass shooting deaths each year to the population of Norway each year, using the same method we did for the United States, we get an average annual death rate of 2 per million, more than 20 times higher than the rate in the United States (0.09 per million), even though we know there were zero mass shooting deaths in six out of those seven years, in Norway.I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it onComment
Comment