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Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:24 pm
by modernhamlet
begemot wrote:
Two New York Times editorials: ‘Terror watch lists run amok’ — now let’s ban gun purchases by people who are on them
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... e-on-them/

NYT has no shame. :roflmao:
Nice! Props to Volokh for calling out the utter hypocrisy.

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:32 pm
by KnightsFan
Dianne Feinstein would've fit in well in the Stasi.

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 5:16 pm
by TrueTexan
KnightsFan wrote:Dianne Feinstein would've fit in well in the Stasi.
Along with the vast majority of the Right Wing GOP including the GOP Presidential candidates.

Trump today has called for banning all Moslem from entering the country. The video on the news shows a large cheering crowd when he said this.
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential hopeful and real estate mogul Donald Trump is calling for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" following deadly terror attacks involving Islamic extremists in California and France.

"Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension," Trump said in a statement emailed to reporters on Monday.

"Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life," he added.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/don ... e9d1c7252b

"No sense of reason or respect for human life." How many wedding parties or other gatherings have been destroyed with innocents killed by drones How many civilians killed by orders of an administration that called a senseless war on Iraq a Crusade. We have created more terrorist by our action than the radical teaching of the Moslem radicals.

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 5:50 pm
by KnightsFan
I just posted this as a Facebook comment on somebody's status referencing the "3000000000 mass shootings in 2015" statistic, it was in reply to somebody saying that proper categorization doesn't make a difference, and felt it should belong here too, consider it my attempt at an addition to SmokeFan's blog post.
We can't solve the problem unless we know what the problem is. And right now nobody's actually talking about the problem, which is that in many socioeconomic groups violence is seen as the first response to an interpersonal conflict.

If we want to solve violence then we should be supporting groups like the National Network of Safe Communities, http://nnscommunities.org/.

If we want to stop publicity killings then we have to stop giving killers publicity, and we have to start teaching people that they're more than how many social media followers they have, that they matter.

If we want to stop terrorism we have to stop demonizing people merely because they're different than we are or because they disagree with us.
Definitely an over simplification of the solution, so I'll go ahead and throw in some more.
We can't solve the problem unless we know what the problem is.

And right now nobody's actually talking about the problem(s), which is that in many socioeconomic groups violence is seen as the first response to an interpersonal conflict.
It's that people consider fame more important than human life. It's that our rhetoric and speech and treatment of anyone different as subhuman or evil has inspired hatred in return.

If we want to solve violence then we should be supporting groups like the National Network of Safe Communities, http://nnscommunities.org/. This group is focused on preventing violence in communities through focused intervention, target the 10% of people involved in the majority of violence and you'll see a drop in the overall rate, because they won't be inspiring others. Or, better yet, take that 10% and convert them into acolytes of non-violent solutions to interpersonal conflicts. Focus on improving community and the true victims of gun violence, black urban youths, will be able to live free of fear.

If we want to stop publicity killings then we have to stop giving killers publicity, and we have to start teaching people that they're more than how many social media followers they have, that they matter. We've seen tragedy play out again and again. And we can't blame terrorism for it, there was no political motivation, instead we can only blame ourselves. As a whole we've become a nation of narcissists, trying to see who can get the most likes, shares and upvotes. And when this is combined with people who are already in a vulnerable mental state the outcome is tragic, either on a large scale, or on a small scale.

If we want to stop terrorism we have to stop demonizing people merely because they're different than we are or because they disagree with us. If you could ask daesh's leaders what they want more than anything, they would probably say the end to the West, but if you asked them in a private setting they would say they want this war to never end. Because they know that every time the US drops a bomb in Syria, flies a drone over a wedding in Pakistan or has a potential leader call for the registration of Muslims they'll gain a new recruit. If we quit these actions we take away their greatest source of volunteers.

Taking guns away won't solve a thing, and is politically impossible. So let's turn our focus to real solutions. Solutions that don't take a lot of money, political will or time. We don't have to sacrifice liberty for security. We merely must come together and decide to focus on the real problems we face.

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:24 pm
by SilasSoule
According to this article, if you take out drug and gang related shootings, the number of "mass shooting" victims in 2015 drops to about 180.

"By the most expansive definition, mass shootings have taken 462 lives this year so far. That is according to Shootingtracker.com, which counts every incident in which four or more people were shot. But most of those events are not the kind of indiscriminate public murders that spur national conversations about guns.

Stanford researchers maintain a separate database of mass shootings that don’t seem to be related to gangs or drugs. By their count, 159 have died in such events as of Nov. 24. Factoring in the latest shootings, perhaps 180 people have lost their lives in this way."

http://inhomelandsecurity.com/mass-shoo ... s-america/

Remember that in contrast, more than 1,000 Americans have been killed during encounters with law enforcement this year:

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i ... s-database#

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 9:44 pm
by drigeba
If you read it all the way to the bottom, the NYT editorial says that most of what the piece calls for is unlikely to happen. Still, a lot of folks are likely to jump on the bandwagon.

Also in the Sunday edition, which announces that the attack was influenced by ISIL, little follow up on the drastic gun control language of saturdays editorial was present.

There were some interesting facts presented by the NYT. (paraphrased here)

page 31 -45 deaths by Muslim extremists in the US, vs 48 by White supremacist and other right wing militants.

page 30 In New York state, Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum of Ulster county, a democrat, posted a message to the departments Facebook page urging licensed gun owners in his county to carry their weapons in public, citing mass shootings in Paris and California.

I like this guy...New York has more restrictive gun laws than California, particularly for EBR's.

Other Sheriffs made similar requests of their citizenry.

After passing within less than a block of an active shooter event here at home, I'd like to be able to get a CCW to defend my family and fellow citizens from an attack. The biggest problem I foresee with that is that there should be some sort of law enforcement protocol for armed citizens reacting to an active shooter scenario. Lest they be mistaken for the perp and gunned down.

Why don't they run a front page editorial on income inequality rather than the so called "Gun problem". Much bigger issue for creating violence than availability of guns.

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 10:12 pm
by inomaha
begemot wrote:
Two New York Times editorials: ‘Terror watch lists run amok’ — now let’s ban gun purchases by people who are on them
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... e-on-them/

NYT has no shame. :roflmao:
On a similar, we're not as stupid as we look vien.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... cs/419172/

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 8:56 am
by KnightsFan
SilasSoule wrote:According to this article, if you take out drug and gang related shootings, the number of "mass shooting" victims in 2015 drops to about 180.
The most accurate tracker is probably Mother Jones. Their qualifications fit most with the FBI and what the public consider a mass shooting.
The shooter took the lives of at least four people.
The killings were carried out by a lone shooter.
The shootings occurred in a public place.
If the shooter died or was hurt from injuries sustained during the incident, he is included in the total victim count. (But we have excluded many cases in which there were three fatalities and the shooter also died, per the above FBI criterion.)
We included a handful of cases also known as "spree killings"
Their count leaves it at 73 in the last three decades.

Re: NYT Ed Board: "End the Gun Epidemic in America"

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:26 am
by SmokeFan
drigeba wrote:Why don't they run a front page editorial on income inequality rather than the so called "Gun problem". Much bigger issue for creating violence than availability of guns.
For the same reason that conservative pastors preach against teh ghey instead of preaching social justice?

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:41 am
by TrueTexan
Another article on why the counting of mass shootings is absurd.
According to articles this week across the Internet, there has been an average of one mass shooting every day in the United States: 355 so far this year. It's a jarring statistic, and one that has gone viral in the wake of this week's massacre in San Bernardino, California.

But there are two problems with the number: It doesn't actually provide a clear estimate of how often the country has seen shooting rampages like the one in San Bernardino. And it obscures the broader reality of gun violence in America.

Counting "mass shootings" is notoriously complicated and contested, since there is no standard definition of what they are. Is it best to count shootings that injure or kill a certain number of people? Or should the definition focus more narrowly on attacks in which the motivation of the shooter "appears to be indiscriminate killing"?
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3392 ... in-america

The author points out that most murders are of black men.

I wonder is there a correlation with this number and poverty, jail time, unemployment, lack of a good education, etc.

The article goes on to suggest we need to look at not just the gun violence, but the underlying cause of the violence and try to correct that.

It is unfortunate that no matter what the real causes are the solution always seems to be gun control of the unwashed masses and more big brother.

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 1:25 pm
by ErikO
KnightsFan wrote:Dianne Feinstein would've fit in well in the Stasi.
She's old enough, do we know that she never spent any time in the GDR?

Re: NYT Ed Board:

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:07 am
by ArmedAndLiberal
Yesterday, for the first time in 95 years, the New York Times published an op-ed on the front page, position A1, above the fold. The subject of that op-ed: “End the Gun Epidemic in America.” The piece is filled with tired arguments and moralistic fervor, and it even includes the most vacuous of all public policy arguments: We gotta do something.

The title itself is odd. By focusing on guns themselves as an “epidemic” rather than on the ever-decreasing rate of gun violence, the Times seems to confirm that its editorial staff has a problem with gun ownership per se, regardless of its effects on public safety. The placement of the piece on the front page also suggests that the Times prefers moralizing to simple fact-checking.

But it is even worse than that. At a time when the Times could have placed a meaningful and trailblazing op-ed on the front page, perhaps calling for an end to the drug war and the thousands of gun deaths associated with it, they instead chose to advocate for an impossible public policy goal that will have little to no effect on the problem at hand.
That was from a response to the NYT editorial. :shifty:

Link:
http://www.cato.org/blog/response-new-y ... ic-america