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Is >this< trend your fried?
Check out the last spike.
It may be due to this year's history making drought and the threat of higher food prices (and maybe shortages).
Time to ammo up.
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Make guns illegal? How about make 3-D Printers illegal?
First Partially 3-D printed gun
Next some terrorists will send a 3-D printer on an airplane and have it print their guns while in the hold of the aircraft.
I apologize to Citizen Fleshgrinder for mocking him in another thread.
Hooray for the future!
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What this really means is Google is magic.
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Speaking of which, take a look at this.
If they keep going this way, the Brits will be talking about banning rocks pretty soon.
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Speaking of which, take a look at this.
If they keep going this way, the Brits will be talking about banning rocks pretty soon.
Why yes, I believe we will. That story only came out 7 years go and knives were banned the very next...what do you mean they're still legal? Surely someone on the Internet isn't goign to deliberately mislead people like that, are they? What kind of a**!#@+$ would do such a thing?
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It is the work of those who want to take over the planet once all the citizens are duly unarmed to defend themselves. From what, may you ask?
Wolfman:
uk 2009 = 42 gun-related deaths total, not murders, deaths total, including suicide and accident.
I live in a country of some 62+ million people, where a death by gun is national news. Joke all you want, but I am pretty happy about that.
In 2010, you had more firearms murders per capita than we had total gun related deaths in 2009.
Yeah, isn't it great?
Yeah, isn't it great?
Yep. Pretty much awesome.
And our murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 1.23(2010) & 1.23(2011)
While the USAs was murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 4.8(2010) & 4.7(2011).
Despite significantly higher population density and less draconian systems of justice...
It's almost as though restriction of weapon ownership and carrying means people have fewer opportunities to kill one another, while death penalties and harsh prison sentences have little to no efficacy as deterants to crime...
Now, of cause that ain't to say that the UK is awesome, there are a fair few countries that get it more right than we do, but when given a target like the US as is, rather than the US as it has the potential to be, almost any modern social democracy looks good on this(and just about every other measure of societal health you can name).
Mexico has an 18/100K rate despite their pretty strict gun laws.
Pretty sure that it's not quite so simple as "GUN LAWS YAY!"
Yeah, isn't it great?Yep. Pretty much awesome.
And our murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 1.23(2010) & 1.23(2011)
While the USAs was murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 4.8(2010) & 4.7(2011).
Despite significantly higher population density and less draconian systems of justice...
It's almost as though restriction of weapon ownership and carrying means people have fewer opportunities to kill one another, while death penalties and harsh prison sentences have little to no efficacy as deterants to crime...
Now, of cause that ain't to say that the UK is awesome, there are a fair few countries that get it more right than we do, but when given a target like the US as is, rather than the US as it has the potential to be, almost any modern social democracy looks good on this(and just about every other measure of societal health you can name).
Because freedom, that's why. I think people take the whole term of freedom very poorly. Then again, I just don't worry about these things.
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Because freedom, that's why. I think people take the whole term of freedom very poorly. Then again, I just don't worry about these things.Yeah, isn't it great?Yep. Pretty much awesome.
And our murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 1.23(2010) & 1.23(2011)
While the USAs was murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 4.8(2010) & 4.7(2011).
Despite significantly higher population density and less draconian systems of justice...
It's almost as though restriction of weapon ownership and carrying means people have fewer opportunities to kill one another, while death penalties and harsh prison sentences have little to no efficacy as deterants to crime...
Now, of cause that ain't to say that the UK is awesome, there are a fair few countries that get it more right than we do, but when given a target like the US as is, rather than the US as it has the potential to be, almost any modern social democracy looks good on this(and just about every other measure of societal health you can name).
*Laughs* oh boy, seriously? Mmm, how many states can gay couples recieve near identical rights to married straight people? How many states restrict sexual activities between consenting adults? How many ban gambling?
What freedoms do you have in practice that I don't?
Mexico has an 18/100K rate despite their pretty strict gun laws.
Pretty sure that it's not quite so simple as "GUN LAWS YAY!"
Mexico can't enforce it's gun laws, so they don't really count.
And at least some, possibly a large percentage, of the guns used in Mexico are brought in from the US. Having a porous border with a country with lax gun laws doesn't help much.
Which is part of why DC has such high gun crime by the way.
What freedoms do you have in practice that I don't?
The right to bear arms, apparently.
The right to bear arms, apparently.What freedoms do you have in practice that I don't?
Mmm... Oh, you mean like the 12 gauge, two 4/10's, .22 rifle, and assorted hunting and targetry grade Airguns in my grandfathers gun safe right now, oh and the cavalry sabre? In practice, non-felons have a right to gun ownership here.
[edit]Or, for that matter, the gun safe full of .22 rifles owned by my old school.
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No, I mean like AK-47s.
Anyway, it was just snark. I don't believe that American citizens are any freer than most of the inhabitants of the industrialized world.
Yes, but you don't have the guaranteed right to them that can't be taken away.
Or at least that's the claim.
A lot of people in many developed countries have at least the same freedoms we have in the US. In many cases more. And they have them without the same kind of Constitutional protections that we hold so important.
Sometimes I wonder if we'd be better off without the explicit protections in the Constitution. Maybe if we couldn't just assume we were guaranteed those rights, we'd pay more attention to them and realize we actually need to fight to keep them, whatever the piece of paper says.
Neither do americans, not in practice atleast.
-That right can be amended out of the constitution.
-No doubt licencing laws and control measures can be tightened to the point of a ban in practice.
-Any sufficiently tyrannical government can ignore both law and constitution.
Which is why the statement was
"What freedoms do you have in practice that I don't?"
Because what really matters is what is actually happening on the ground.
Edit: There is a lot to be said for getting out their and fighting for your freedoms. We have had mixed results with it of late, despite 600,000+ signitures on the 38 degrees 'save our NHS' campaign, and over welming public love and support for the NHS, we have been ignored and stealth privatisation continues(regardless of the fact the minister in charge recieved major campaign contributions from the chairman of care uk, the company most likely to benefit most from the changes) but we have also had victories, such as preventing the sell off of national forests(in a deal that was likely to COST MONEY FOR THE COUNTRY?!?!?!?!?!) and getting Olympic sponsors to to turn down tax rebates for their sponcership.
Take your freedoms for granted at your own peril. At the end of the day, the constitution is just a number of pieces of paper and an idea, that any sufficiently powerful group of people can ignore if they so desire.
"Paper will take anything written on it."
--Joseph Stalin
Which was exactly my point.
It sounded more pithy when J.V. said it.
Why yes, I believe we will. That story only came out 7 years go and knives were banned the very next...what do you mean they're still legal? Surely someone on the Internet isn't goign to deliberately mislead people like that, are they? What kind of a~!+$%#$ would do such a thing?
Sorry about the old link, though I'm pretty sure that I heard something new about that in the past week or two, that's why I didn't check the date.
Anyway, I don't think a numbers comparison does the matter justice, since America and Britain are very different. For one thing, Britain is a lot more homogenous. There is also the fact that the realities are, and always will be different. For example, Britain can realistically ban guns because it is a small island nation. The US, on the other hand, has large borders that are actively not being enforced. That's not a dig at Obama, Bush and Clinton did the same damn thing.
Anyway, what it comes down to is who is going to be able to get their hands on whatever it is. On some level, I can applaud Britain for being able to ban firearms to the point where not even criminals use them, but that is never going to be an option here. So here, the answer is to arm everyone, and trust in the fear that lawbreakers have of an armed populace.
Anyway, I don't think a numbers comparison does the matter justice, since America and Britain are very different. For one thing, Britain is a lot more homogenous. There is also the fact that the realities are, and always will be different. For example, Britain can realistically ban guns because it is a small island nation. The US, on the other hand, has large borders that are actively not being enforced. That's not a dig at Obama, Bush and Clinton did the same damn thing.Yeah, because the problem with guns in the US is that they're being smuggled in from Canada and Mexico.
The guns are being manufactured here and smuggled to Mexico to fuel their drug wars.
What exactly do you mean by Homogenous in this instance?
Island nation within 22 miles of its nearest neighbours in places, with thousands of privately owned yachts and motor boats capable of crossing the channel which is an almost entirely un-policed border.
Which was exactly my point.
Many Americans seem to assume the existence of rights in the constitution means they actually have those rights and that they can't be taken away, while ignoring that for much of the country's history many of those rights didn't really exist.
I know it can be hard to tell, but that was me agreeing with you ;)
With a large population of immigrants from it's colonial days, not to mention the Irish, who are racially and even culturally close but have had Troubles with England.
Anyway, I don't think a numbers comparison does the matter justice, since America and Britain are very different. For one thing, Britain is a lot more homogenous. There is also the fact that the realities are, and always will be different. For example, Britain can realistically ban guns because it is a small island nation. The US, on the other hand, has large borders that are actively not being enforced. That's not a dig at Obama, Bush and Clinton did the same damn thing.Yeah, because the problem with guns in the US is that they're being smuggled in from Canada and Mexico.
The guns are being manufactured here and smuggled to Mexico to fuel their drug wars.What exactly do you mean by Homogenous in this instance?
Island nation within 22 miles of its nearest neighbours in places, with thousands of privately owned yachts and motor boats capable of crossing the channel which is an almost entirely un-policed border.
If he is talking race, then there is a difference between use, Amereica has a 72.4 % White or European American population, while britain is 85.67% White British. But here is where it get messy, because that 85.67% is split between three culture(english, welsh and scots), living in their home lands, with separate cultures, traditions and a messy history of war and hatred, and even in some cases seperate languages, and that is before you even add in the Irish. Irish/British history adds in a level of complexity and passion no nation wants to deal with.
Then you have the Pavee and Roma, our two major nomadic cultures.
A Jewish population that has been here since Oliver Cromwell. Thats just the 'natives.' Groups that have been here in largish numbers for hundreds of year.
Then you have the people of the Caribbean, India and pakistan, all of whom travelled here in their thousands in the last seventy/eighty years, who have woven themselves into the fabric of out culture, enriching it greatly. Cypriates, both turkish and greek, not to mention just plain old greeks and turks, communities from almost every africian and middle eastern nation, Chinese, Filipino and Malaysian peoples...
Then you get into the European immigrants, here through our membership of the EU, such as large polish populations(who, as the stupid would say,"comin' over here, takin our jobs").
Then things get messy, you have class divide, decaying upper class resentful of their loss of power, the super rich in their millionaire ghetto villages, a middle split down the middle between readers of the guardian and the daily mail, whats left of the working class seeing the last vestiges of their jobs in industry be gutted and casualised thanks to the crippling of the unions, and the 'chavs' those people who don't have the opportunity to be working class getting trampled on by everyone. Oh, and then you can add on the Pavee and Roma who don't even exist within such social hierarchy. Used to be acceptable to for a pub to have a sign that said "no blacks, no dogs, not gypsies" now its just a bit of cardboard with "no gypsies" scribbled on it.
Then it gets really messy when you add religion and football.
A shout out to my Scottish peeps and their Welsh friends!
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It seems to me there should be other Economic indicators we can look at.
Which ones?
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To indicate what?
I've never been into the whole idea of getting a gun to protect myself.
I'm a decent enough shot, but if I have to aim and shoot you, you can aim and shoot me.
If things went to hell, I'd be much more of an IED/Booby Trap kind of guy.
Some call it cowardice, I call it intelligence in the face of superior arms.
To indicate what?
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To indicate how well the economy is doing.
This thread is about the economy.
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Oh.
Well, you might want to check out corporate profits. It'd probably be more indicative than internet searches for firearms.
Oh.
Well, you might want to check out corporate profits. It'd probably be more indicative than internet searches for firearms.
Actually the amount of guns sales has always been a good indicator of what the normal populace THINKS about the economy.
If they think the economy is getting worse, they get scared.
Scared people buy guns.
So it's not a fantastic gauge of the actual numbers but instead of public perception, ESPECIALLY in the US due to their gun culture.
Oh.
Well, you might want to check out corporate profits. It'd probably be more indicative than internet searches for firearms.
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What do corporate profits have to do with predicting the economy?
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e.g. If I sell my corporation, I will have a lot of profit. That doesn't
imply the economy is doing well. In fact, since I just sold my
corporation maybe things are bad.
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Oh.
I thought we were looking for indications as to how well the economy is doing. Now you tell me we're trying to predict the economy.
Here's my musical prediction.
Ok. People seem confused.
Let me do one of those definition things:
Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance.
Carry on ...
Edit: I've always enjoyed the nuances of The Big Mac Index (even though it is about currencies, and not specifically the American economy.)
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Ok. People seem confused.
Let me do one of those definition things:
Economic indicators allow analysis of economic performance and predictions of future performance.
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A lubricant allows me to have more enjoyable sex.
That is not the definition of a lubricant.
Anyway, I don't know much about money, so I'll bow out.
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Hurray for public school.
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So you dismiss without investigation the notion that a spike in gun sales might be an indicator for, say, consumer confidence?
So you dismiss without investigation the notion that a spike in gun sales might be an indicator for, say, consumer confidence?Better than looking at the consumer confidence data?
Just saying that everything is economics. It's resource allocation. If gun sales are up, those people are NOT spending money elsewhere. They're either going without to have more guns or borrowing money.
I don't think gun sales, or even worse queries about how to buy a gun on google, are a particularly good windsock for our economy by any stretch of the imagination. But it does raise questions and it is an interesting phenomenon, nonetheless.
I think it's a unique situation. The actual gun lobby/manufacturing industry is actually actively trying to tell its would-be customers that the government is going to take their product away any day now. That's a really weird marketing strategy.