Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What do I know. I just think the numbers speak for themselves, and I seem to hear the same two excuses over and over.

But everyone is entitled to draw their own conclusions.

You only have to look at the gun related deaths in the US compared to Canada. Two countries that really are almost identical in most ways aside from gun laws.

" The rate of gun-related deaths per 100,000 individuals in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom is 0.1, 0.5, and 0.03, respectively. In the U.S., the overall rate is 2.98. And that overall rate doesn’t tell the full story. In some cities, the rates are five to ten times that number. "

In case you need to protect yourself? It's much more likely to be used against you.

How can this be justified? Some out of date idea about the constitution and an armed population being a good thing? What - in case you need to overthrow the government? Not likely.

The only difficult bit is how to wean people off the idea that guns are a part of a healthy society. I don't see how it's possible in the US...

In my 36 years in Australia I don't think I've ever *seen* a gun outside a museum or being carried by a uniformed officer. I'm perfectly fine with that.

That is not true, guns are not likely to be used against you. Our problem is not a gun problem it is a family problem. Take inner cities out of the picture and our crime rate really takes a dive. Get back to the family. When the parents actually give a rats arse. Laws do no good, as someone else pointed out the drug war is the biggest failure since prohibition. You want to lower crime remove drugs and alchohol out of the picture. Of course this is impossible just like getting all the guns are impossible.

I am glad you guys are fine with your gun control, I stand by your right to do as you want as an independent country. Now just please respect us and stand by our right to do the same. We in the U.S. will never give up our guns peacefully. My 13 year old son has plenty of guns, including a AR-15, I am teaching him the importance of guns in our society.

There is a strong correlation with the large drop in crime with the legalizing of abortions. Unwanted children are a very major cause of crime. Now, I do not know if the slums in Australia are like they are here, but I do not think it was guns that caused them. My father grew up in a bad situation, he preferred knives. In fact, his gang almost never used guns because they drew too much attention. I would venture to say that the Vietnam war saved his life because enlisting in the navy straitened him out. The week previous, he saw one of his best friends die. Again no guns were involved. My father once said that if abortion would have been legal back when he was born, he wouldn't be here. I responded with: look at how much crime you were involved in as a youth. The lesson? Give women the choice to abort. No one is better able to judge if they can raise a child than themselves. A crack addict knows that it is not good for them to raise a child. Crack addicts are also very likely to get pregnant. In fact most crack and meth addicts are women because it is easier for them to pay with something other than money. That brings on another point, the war on drugs is a bigger failure than the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. It is not the end user that commits violent crimes. It is the distribution of drugs. The movie Pineapple Express was unbelievable to me because the whole time I am thinking how ridiculous it is that two potheads are that good at shooting, whereas the drug lords were bad. In reality, the drug lords are vastly more proficient than the stoner, who probably is for gun control anyways. The most dangerous job in america is not Alaskan crab fishing, it is being a crack dealer. Not only is it dangerous, it pays less than minimum wage. The crack DEALER is very likely to carry a gun. Make no mistake that the dealer is not a user. It is not even the users that make the job so dangerous, it is the other dealers. Some addicts might be able to steal a gun and use it to try and score, but most are not that resourceful and will just trade sex for crack or meth.

Wow!

What a can of worms.

Firstly, to whoever it was that thinks "let them rot in jail", these people have not been proven to have committed any crime.

Not anything.

No crime.

Zero bad stuff.

They have just been charged with a crime.

Charged is the same as accused, but only applied when its an officer of the law that's doing the accusing.

So, an officer of the law said it was true.

Nothing more or less.

Now personally I'm guessing that cops have such a huge range of seriously guilty people at their disposal, that they don't really need to pick on the innocent. I'm guessing that if they were like me, they would set up the guilty to take the fall for the crimes they knew people were guilty of.

Someone on talk back radio springs to mind when they said "Cops used to harass me all the time until I went straight and sold my machine gun".

But if I were a cop there are at least two people I can think of who I would love to put in prison because I know they are guilty of all kinds of stuff, but there is a really good case that can be made that says I, Bullwinkle the second, should not be put in a position of power sufficient to prosecute anyone else based on what I think.

That would just be crazy.

My motives include loss of self respect.

There is no way that my knowledge should be acted upon by any grown-up, but if you give me the power I'll use it.

Every time.

Even after this post, if you give me the power I'll lock them up forever. I know they deserve it.

Their modern day crimes include all kinds of real world concerns, but my point is, I cant be trusted to decide their guilt and fate, because my idea of who they are is so very much flavoured by who they were when they stole my bike 30 years ago.

It's concerns like this that made truly great countries decide that people should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.

So people in jail are considered innocent until proven guilty, at which time they are put in prison.

It turns out, in northern america you can spend years in jail before you are sent to prison if you are charged with something serious like murder.

Can you imagine spending 18 months in jail, and then having your case heard, and being let off because you didn't do it, and then trying to slide back into your normal life?

But forget domestic concerns...

Obama just backed a law that re-enables people to be lawfully detained indefinitely without charge.

People.

I'm people.

So now, once again, in the USA* , the land of the free, there is a law that sits before jail (Presumed innocent) that allows people to be locked up.

What can you think of that sits there?

What kind of limbo is that?

It sits before you are found guilty, and before you are charged, and it is forever!

What a joke.

The only people who could possibly think this is good law are [stacks of stuff (many pages) deleted ]

Blah blah blah. either you don't need to hear it because you believe it already, or no matter what anyone says, you will never believe it.

...and the land of the free....

Gun laws...

Man, gun laws are a quagmire.

I knew a fireman who had an automatic weapon before we banned them in Australia. He was a fireman. A respectable citizen that thought the majority should rule.

Except when it came to outlawing automatic weapons.

He told everyone that he would never surrender his weapon, and that if it came to the crunch, he would bury it in the hills in a sealed PVC tube of motor oil, and luckily for him, when the due date came, he didn't have to surrender his weapon because someone must have stolen it from the boot (trunk) of his car when he pulled over for coffee on his way to the police station to surrender it.

According to him.

So...

The reality is there are, and will always be, guns everywhere.

Trying to ban them is probably pointless.

But there are many countries that have more guns per person than north america.

They just dont suffer from the same gun related problems.

Guns don't kill people.

North American's kill people.

Or at least statistically more people then everywhere else.

I really boils down to a cultural thing, not a gun thing.

Canadians have stacks of guns, but tend not to shoot each other.

both sides of the supposed "government" avoid gun control issues, well, not avoid the issue but avoid doing anything about it.. they talk a big game when someone opens up on a crowd of people with a gun that has an extended magazine, but that's just talk...
do you (speaking to americans here) know which politicians get lots of money from the NRA?
gun control is used to try to scare people.. nothing is going to change.. except that gun and ammunition manufacturers tend to make more money every time they try to scare people into believing obama (or a political opponent) is gong to take their guns.. fear tactics.. seems to work pretty well, huh?
oh.. and i kind of agree with you bull.. that it's a cultural thing.. but where does that culture come from?

People are not in jail in any real numbers that have not been convicted. Almost all people suspected of a crime get released on bail until their trial. Unless that person is a huge flight risk, then they don't sit in jail waiting for a trial. I have no idea where you get your info, but it is WRONG. It takes way more than the word of a cop to put somoene in jail for more than a night. If the judge does not see enough evidence they are cut loose.

So how does it work in your country? Are those suspected of a crime, just let free until their trial?

I agree completely. Crime is not everywhere in the U.S. Take the big cities out of the picture and the crime rate in the country side is very low. Other than a few drug or drinking crimes, nothing happens in the town I live in. I can't remember the last time we had any action.

That's funny

Interesting (or not) stats:

The US has an average of 88.8 guns per 100 residents as of 2007. The firearm homicide rate (as of 2000) was 2.97 per 100,000 residents. Normalizing these that means we have a firearm homicide rate of 0.00297 per 100 residents. Homicide per gun (if my math is right) is 0.000003445, or 3.344 firearm homicides per 100,000 guns.

Australia's firearm homicide rate is 0.31 per 100,000 residents and 15 guns per 100 residents. So that's 0.00031 per 100 residents and 2.066 firearm homicides per 100,000 guns.

Given the population density differences, I'd say that's pretty comparable. In any case, it gives a better view point of the likelihood of a gun being used to kill you. Looking at raw murder rates , it appears that the US has a firearm homicide rate 10x what Australia has, but in reality it's 'only' about 1.6x as much.

Also, gun control isn't a cure all. Belarus doesn't allow citizens to own firearms and still has a firearm homicide rate per 100k residents that is higher than the US at 3.31, and with only 7.9% ownership, that puts the murder per gun rate at 41 per 100,000 guns!

It is societal conditions that cause murder and if every gun in the world were destroyed tomorrow, we'd be using knives to kill each other before noon.


Also... If you had the choice of invading two countries and you knew one had a gun ownership rate of 88% and the other 15%, which would you invade? Just saying

Well said slowRider! Helomech is also right about culture being the difference. Saying that America has one culture I'd like saying the English language has one word. In San Diego county the area with the highest population density also has the lowest crime rate. It is this small sand spit that they cll the island of Coronado. It is like a slightly less snooty version of La Jolla, San Diego's most exclusive neighborhood. Culturally it is very different from city heights, San Diego's most bloody neighborhood.

What a silly discussion for the ap forum. I have a handgun and a few rifles... Many of my neighbors have assault rifles/ak47 etc.

We also have one of the lowest crime rates in the state...

There are so many guns in our country you could NEVER go back to no guns... Just not practical. Hell, a lot of the guys make their own guns and reload ammo...you going to search everyone's house to clean them out?

I also wonder how many stabbings and other shit you guys deal with in comparison

Silly silly thread

Just a small percentage of my toys. Most will never be posted on line.

I'm pretty sure it is exactly the same, but we call it "remand" not jail, in Australia when charged with certain crimes you are remanded in custody if you are unable to post the bail set because you are poor, or the crime you are charged with makes you a risk to society or you are regarded as a flight risk. The ability to obtain bail and how much it is decided by a judge based on evidence at a bail hearing, which although is not a criminal trial as such it does mean that you cannot be placed on remand unless there is strong evidence against you. Boiled down this means that those on remand are people with strong evidence they have committed a crime who pose a risk to society or cannot or will not post bail.

Interesting reading:

http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/8/D/E/% ... ndi310.pdf

http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/B/9/1/% ... 7Dti27.pdf

http://www.judcom.nsw.gov.au/publications/st/st24

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand_(detention)

Bullwinkle II - I agree with you about the indefinate detention with out charge bit though, surely this is a breach of human rights and is very Stalinist type of behaviour which should not be tolerated. It is basically someone in authority saying "we know you done it, but we have no evidence, so we will just lock you up forever anyway"

I would have thought that boiling it down to number of homicides per gun is really just backing the fact that reducing the numbers of firearm reduces the number of deaths.. Stats can suck because they can be misrepresented and twisted. Personally I think it's more of a culture thing as have previously been mentioned, I know there are many people in the US who love their fire arms and that's fine. I'm also very happy to live in a country where ownership is seriously limited.

Each to their own, it's a matter of opinion..

As far as the incarceration thing? From time immemorial people have been locked up indefinitely without trial, it's certainly not something new to modern society..