[quote=zk][quote=ucodegen][quote=zk]I know that a lot of right wingers (men and women) consider themselves manly and badass. The right-wing noise machine has been playing to their perceptions of themselves for a long time. Successfully. They love to talk about liberals as pussies and themselves as powerful. This article plays right along. Enjoy it. Jack off to it, even. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s only your perception of yourself and of others, not reality.
It’s easy to paint the opposition with a broad brush and to resort to emotional bluster. Any retard can do that.[/quote]Pot, meet kettle.. because you just accomplished what you accuse others of doing.[/quote]
True. True indeed.
I have, however, also tried to engage in a meaningful discussion about gun laws. And suddenly, everyone who was talking about Switzerland has disappeared. The only responses have been, “I’m a badass and you’re a pussy.” So I responded in kind. Not my best post, I agree. In fact, to put it in my own words, it was retarded. I’d prefer to discuss the matter reasonably. Any takers?[/quote]
Sorry for taking so long to respond, zk. Christmas & holiday stuff got in the way.
What we don’t know about the U.K. is whether or not the gun laws are effective at keeping **gun crime** down (overall, their violent crime rate is higher than ours, but they track things differently, so it’s difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison…they are well known for the under-reporting of crimes), or if their surveillance program is what keeps it down.
Here’s an interesting article on the subject:
“We aren’t alone in facing this problem. Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s. Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred. Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. Their experiences can be instructive.”
“…What to conclude? Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven’t made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres. The two major countries held up as models for the U.S. don’t provide much evidence that strict gun laws will solve our problems.”
“Britain is ‘surveillance society’
CCTV cameras
There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain
Fears that the UK would “sleep-walk into a surveillance society” have become a reality, the government’s information commissioner has said.
Richard Thomas, who said he raised concerns two years ago, spoke after research found people’s actions were increasingly being monitored.
Researchers highlight “dataveillance”, the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information, and CCTV.
Monitoring of work rates, travel and telecommunications is also rising.
There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain – about one for every 14 people.”
