New End Game

[stylin19]

Joe Lieberman DECLINES the Vice-Presidency and retains the senate seat, for a 50-50 split in the senate.( assuming the dems win in Oregon )

Al Gore selects a VP that can be approved.

VP now can break ties in the Senate.
Dems get Senate back !

[Mafud]

Originally posted by stylin19 Joe Lieberman DECLINES the Vice-Presidency and retains the senate seat, for a 50-50 split in the senate.( assuming the dems win in Oregon ) Al Gore selects a VP that can be approved. VP now can break ties in the Senate. Dems get Senate back !

I'll buy that scenario! The Supreme Copurt is thus saved from the Right.

As a Muslim, I am for nearly everything the Right stands for. But as a father and a man of color with grandchildren of color, the Supreme Court in the hands of the Right would be devastating to nearly every important human and civil right, including the right of a woman to choose, which I uphold, though it flies in the face of my religious beliefs.
But the better good is served if religion is kept out of law.

[SARGE]

Mafud, that's b.s. What human rights will the Repubs take away? If you'll notice the Dems, they're good at denying a farmer his rights if they find an "endangered species" on his property, or protecting criminals who are hell bent on usurping your rights, or attempting to deny my right to defend my family with a handgun, giving folks grief for wearing "fur", or denying the right to life to a baby, who just happened to be a product of some reckless female practicing "free love". Look at it closer, without bias, and see who really wants to run your life, who believes you're too dumb for life's decisions and need Big Brother to watch over you. Repubs basically believe in the individual and no strong-arming.

Just heard where the environmental wackos have outlawed using snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park - say it's environmentally unfriendly. And, while it's your right to burn an American flag, the Dems outlawed burning the UN flag. Who's denying your rights?

[Edited by SARGE on 11-23-2000 at 12:00 AM]

[keithr]

Sarge;

This is the first time I've heard about the Democrats outlawing burning the UN flag (although it dosen't surprise me....)

When did that happen? Can you give me a link? I'd like to learn more about it, sounds like another stepping stone to the "New World Order"!

Keith

[Mafud]

Originally posted by SARGE Mafud, that's b.s. What human rights will the Repubs take away? (SNIP) Who's denying your rights? [Edited by SARGE on 11-23-2000 at 12:00 AM]

Sarge, it makes no difference who the President is if you are a white male. The only difference between you guys is your politics. Nothing else. Nothing at all.
No matter where a white guy lives, he can get a job (assuming he has a job skill or career track). If he wants to be comfortable, he can move to the mountains or seashore, North or South. No Difference for white guys.

But if you're a woman of child bearing age, Republicans, if "Dubya" Bush is elected, will outlaw every kind of abortion and if not, criminalize all abortions except those where the mother's life is endangered. Smart move: desperate woman gets abortion; goes to jail, along with the doctor.

If you're a Hispanic, Asian, female, disabled, or worse-Black, your freedoms, hard won over the past 50 years, will be chipped away, right by right.

"Affirmative Action?" Dead duck.
(Unless you're a white guy. The "good ole boy" (affirmative action for white guys) network will be rebuilt.
(Republicans looked at Black people as not deserving "Affirmative Action."
Guess what Sarge? Do you know the major beneficiary of "Affirmative Action" money and jobs?
White women, like your wife, daughters, sisters,neighbor lady. Cutting "Affirmative Action" has cost white women billions in business, housing and economic development loans and grants. White children in families earning less than the poverty income guidelines will get whacked; I could go on and on.

But by killing "Affirmative Action", programs started to help the poor (Black people benefitted a lot because they make up a disproportionately large number of those below the poverty line), you Republicans will do in a lot of poor white kids.
_________________________________________________
I am a partner in a publishing company. We have a report (I'll send you a copy if you want) showing that 51 of every 100 firearms deaths inthis country are suicides, 41 of every 100 firearms murders are committed by wives, husbands, neighbors, friends, co-workers; you know, people you are likely to know.
"Criminals" using firearms only kill 3 of the 100 persons.
3 of every 100 persons killed by firearms are accidents.
The NRA speaks lies and practices "fear baiting" on Americans.
____________________________________________
And then there's those pesky immigrants. Unless they have computer or medical degrees, it'll be "so sorry, we have no room."
But if you're Black, (any African heritage, Haitian, Caribbean (other than Puerto Rican), you can hardly get in now under a *Democratic* adminstration.
Republican administration easing immigraiton guidelines?
Please!

Democrats are warm hearted... Republicans are cold blooded.

[Kubie]

Mafud, you seem to be very unhappy with America. I'm sure there are many other countrys that will have no public ownership of guns, allow the wholesale murder of innocent babies, and all the while supporting you with money worked for by other people.
I'd want the dem's in office too if I wanted checks in the mail for doing nothing. Actually, their warm-heartedness is just buying votes. They couldn't care a rats a$$ about you personally.
Whether you are Islum, catholic, or christian, God is at the top. He says "You are for Me or against Me". You can't pick and choose what tenets to believe. Abortion is against Him.

[w1che]

I agree with the above post. To think that the republicans would take the rights away that blacks have won is just right wing dogma. Just like they will never cut old peoples SS. They know they can never get by with that even if they did want to. Some people really need to start thinking for themselves!!!!

[stylin19]

amazing how threads take on a life of their own

Democrats are warm hearted... Republicans are cold blooded.

Using Florida as an example: The DEMS & GORE backed a protest against disenfranchised voters: the butterfly ballot, blacks & minorities being threatened and search & turned away before voting, holocost surviors, old people...etc...

The DEMS & GORE threw ALL those people overboard, when Al Gore came on national T.V. and proposed that he would accept the result of the recount & absentee ballots.

The reviled Al Sharpton understands that the blacks are being used by the DEMS. hence, the endoresment, albeit late, of Ralph Nader.

Warm hearted ? fat chance. Users? you bet !

[SARGE]

Mafud is another victim of persistent liberal brainwashing. If you tell a race of people that you're a "victim", throw money at them and say "come, follow me" (and vote for me) I'll help you fight those mean Repubs. It's sad to think that so many believe themselves to be too stupid to make it on their own.

I've worked with "other races" for years and consider one a close friend. I've always felt comfortable enough to ask questions. Most of the guys are feeling used by the Dems, and also have no sympathy for their "brothers" and sisters who sit on their ass drawing welfare. Their words, not mine. Many are resented for having a good job; in fact there are some areas of town where a caucasian is safer than they are because of the resentment. I've always felt we should help the downtrodden and helpless, but help the others long enough to see the light. What's the saying - give a man fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and he feeds himself for a lifetime.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[Edited by SARGE on 11-23-2000 at 03:46 PM]

[Mafud]

Originally posted by Carlgif Mafud, you seem to be very unhappy with America.) Born in America for your information. Think of that: an American born Muslim! [I'm sure there are many other countrys that will have no public ownership of guns, allow the wholesale murder of innocent babies, and all the while supporting you] Is that "you" (me) or just "you" in the third person? Either way, owning guns has cost the lives of more than 3,000,000 people living (now dead) in America, most of them (51%) suicides. No other country is quite that friggin' stupid as a matter of fact, 3,000,000 people being the ENTIRE population of some countries! It's probably wasted on you, but why do you Right Wingers insist on killing the born with guns? And when did God revoke the right of nay person to do what they damn well please, in the full and certain knowledge that they will (or may) pay for their transgressions in the future. It ain't none of your (or my) damn business what women do with or to their bodies. Besides, and since you can't have babies, you shouldn't be making the rules. The rules (Ten Commandments) AND the "Bill of Rights" are all the rules humankind needs to conduct its affairs (the exception being traffic laws, otherwise, there'd be hell to pay out there on the roads). [with money worked for by other people.] The assumption or inference being that only conservatives or Republicans or NRA members do all the work in this country. Balderdash! [I'd want the dem's in office too if I wanted checks in the mail for doing nothing.] It's not just Dems who get unemployment checks (you have to have been EMPLOYED to get an UNEMPLOYMENT check), or disability checks or food stamps or General Assistance. Without those "free" checks, tens of millions of people (now working) would have had a real tough time. But as I say, they're now working, paying taxes, just like you and me. [Actually, their (Democrats) warm-heartedness is just buying votes.] No, it's decidely... Christian... "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you" (if you were poor, or hungry or blind or pregnant or lonely): warm-hearted = good people. [They couldn't care a rats a$$ about you personally.] Didn't say or infer what you have so blithely concluded from the whole statement. Did not want to encumber your with something frivolous however. As for poor people: remember this, take it to your grave: Democrats have (accidently) done more for poor people than Repubilcans have *ever* done for them on purpose. [Whether you are Islum,] I'd let that pass... but I'm not. It is NOT "Islum", but Islam (iss-lom) or (ees-lom). Beleivers (those who submit to God)in Islam are Muslims (moos-lims) and not "Islum." [...catholic, or christian, God is at the top.] Hey, we actually agree on something! [He says "You are for Me or against Me".] Not even close to what the New Testament says. Oh,you're probably thinking of the Old Testament GOD, who spent the first few (pre-Christian) thousand years throwing stuff off mountains, scaring the hell (get it) out of people, as opposed to Jesus, the God who forgives. But from the nature of your post and its (your) inferences, am I safe in concluding that "your" God is a card carrying NRA Republican? [You can't pick and choose what tenets to believe. Abortion is against Him.

Holy sh*t, we agree on something else! I'll be horn-swoggled!
How you Right Wing/"fundamentalist"/conservative/Republicans can so easily wrap yourselves in "God" talk and the flag when your usually baseless, racist, invidious arguments run out of substance.

[SARGE]

[Kubie]

Out of all the posts on this forum, "brainwashed" fits you to a tee, Mafud

[troysvihl]

gun control has little or no effect on suicide rates

[Mafud]

Originally posted by w1che I agree with the above post. To think that the republicans would take the rights away that blacks have won is just right wing dogma. Just like they will never cut old peoples SS. They know they can never get by with that even if they did want to. Some people really need to start thinking for themselves!!!!

I am NOT a "Right Wing" anything. Proudly American born, I vote in every election, most often for the person *I* interview for our publications & newsletters.
I then recommend and vote for the candidate(s) I think will do the lest harm to my Mother Earth, its creature and its people. I tolerate political liars not at all and damn near all of them lie.

Unless you just came in on a cabbage truck, you would know Republican lead state legislatures began their assault on "Affrmative Action" years ago, starting in Calfornia.

You said "cut." OK. What do *YOU* call it when the Social Security COLA (Cost of living adjustment) is reduced by an average 4.7% every year since Republicans took over Congress?
That the COLA itself is not (never has been) adequate to begin to cover the average 17% price increases in prescriptions since 1994, increases allowed, even encouraged by new Republican passed tax laws favoring drug companies?
Thus older Aemricans are forced to use monies they might have used to pay for heating oil, on prescriptions.
*We lose more than 300 elderly Americans every years due to cold related injuries.

What you say Republicans "can't get away with" the Republicans are doing every day.
If it's a duck, walks like a duck-yadayada, Republicans can make you think, by the sheer skill with which they twist your concept and description of ducks, make you think the duck is in fact, a Pit Bull.
Example: though the NRA promotes products (firearms) which kill or injure more than 85,000 persons every year:
*Firearms injuries account for more than $13 BILLION yearly in health cost*, lost time and lost wages every year.
*Eah year, the public pays as much as 86 cents on the dollar for treating gunshot wounds in hospital emergency rooms each year^.
^As much as $31 Billion since the inception of the Brady Bill (1994).
In that same time frame, more than 108 THOUSAND Americans have blown their brains out.
Yet, Republicans/NRA try to convince Americans that the very firearms kept in their homes, supposedly for "Safety", continue to slaughter more than 18,000 Americans every year when their owners (or the owner's under 19 year old children) commit suicide (as many as 1,500 children every year die fromeating a gun, remorselessly, year after year, 13,500 chldren since the beginning of Brady.
How, why, do Republicans and the NRA continue to say the things they do, when the opposite is true?

Suppose the 18,000 Americans were being killed by let us say...power saws, or wheelbarrows. How long do you think it would take to get the killer saws/wheelbarrows off the market?
If Americans could be made to understand the danger of firearms in the home, the BS, tripe-talking NRA would be put out of business.

[Mafud]

Originally posted by troysvihl gun control has little or no effect on suicide rates

Never said it did.
FYI: "gun control" was alive and well in the 13 original colonies.
A woman or African could not own a firarm outright. A person owning less than 10 Hectares of land could not own a firearm inasmuch as the colonial courts had long held
"That a man without property has nothing to guard."

More than 93% of present day sucides are prompted by firearms kept in the home.

[troysvihl]

>>More than 93% of present day sucides are prompted by firearms kept in the home<<

Again, firearms don't "prompt" suicide. Guns may be used to commit suicide, but they don't cause suicide. BTW, guns are used quite often to commit suicide, but I would be very surprised if was 93%.

[Edited by troysvihl on 11-24-2000 at 05:33 AM]

[Mafud]

[QUOTE
Again, firearms don't "prompt" suicide.]

"Prompt" as in (convince, persuade; prevail on or upon). Nothing else is so efficient as a tool for suicide, nothing else is as lethal.
I'm going to commit suicide. What can I use that is nearly 100% effective: poison, yes, but messy and I MAY NOT DIE, but be crippled or blinded or...
Drown myself? Too painful and suppose someone finds me before I actually drown? I'll need a lot of expensive rehap.
I want it quick and painless. I'l use a gun.


[Guns may be used to commit suicide, but they don't cause suicide.]

Did not say that. Suicides are caused by... suicidal people.

[BTW, guns are used quite often to commit suicide, but I would be very surprised if was 93%.]

I mispoke: death by firearm is the choice of the people who attempt suicide.
Guns are the favorite "choice" of those, especially youth, who are successful sucides.
Correct to say is: suicides attempted with firearms are successful 93% of the time.
(Female sucide by firearm is less than 50% sucessful. Suicide attempts by men are nearly 100% successful).
Women often pull the gun away from their bodies or turn it so they are wounded rather than killed. Women nearly always shoot themselves in the chest, not the head.
Men prefer the mouth or temple to commit suicide with firearms, nearly guaranteeing death unless the man uses a small caliber pistol, in which case, he is more often than not greviously wounded and dies either from the surtgery to remove the bullet, or from other medical complications.

[SARGE]

Outlaw cars - more folks killed by them.
Outlaw 5 gallon plastic buckets - more kids die from drowning in them than by guns.

[Mafud]

Originally posted by SARGE Outlaw cars - more folks killed by them. Outlaw 5 gallon plastic buckets - more kids die from drowning in them than by guns.

And you pont was...?

We adults don't have to leave guns within easy reach of children living in the home. If adults gave damn, 1,500 children a year would not kill themselves. If stupid, hard headed adults leave guns (or five gallon plastic buckets) within easy reach of innocently-stupid children, children will continue to die because *SOME* adult don't seem to care.
As for automobiles: fewer fools drinking and driving would solve much of that problem... but remember; cars are less likely to be picked up by a child and then have the child drop the car on its head.
(your kind of logic).

Besides, a car, unlike a gun, can't be "hidden" in a drawer or some (utterly stupid adult's) unlocked gun cabinet.

[padawan]

Boy, I don't want to get into this arguement, but Gun Control is a big issue with me.

Outlawing guns will do nothing to lower crime. The 93% stat is pure BS. I have to take a suicide prevention class every year for my job, and guns are used more by males because men are more likely to use a more permanent method than women. Women tend to use pills and stuff like that. Maybe 93% of males use guns, but I don't have any stats to say otherwise.

You say cars are not an issue, since kids don't use them? The kids that sniped the schoolyard last year stole a van to drive their stolen guns to the school. Should we outlaw vans?

Also, take away guns, and sick people will still kill. Tim McVeigh killed something like 168 people with common items found in any feed store. The Littleton murderers had built propane tank bombs. I would imagine if they did not have guns, they would have spent more time perfecting their bombs, and a lot more people would be dead. My point is this...we have a problem in the US, and it not guns. Some countries (Switzerland for exmaple), the men are issued full auto assualt rifles to keep at their homes! Imagine the brutality that reign supreme there!!! But, stangley enough, all is well. It is something fundamentally wrong with the people in the US, and no amount of laws will change the mind of criminal. We have changed over the past fifty years, so much that there is probably no turning back. It used to be a father could work, and the mother stay home and take care of the kids, providing a role model and help. Parents knew where their kids were.

Today, both parents works, kids rape other kids at the age of 10, steal guns, rob stores. Hell, I heard a report on the radio about a 12 year old boy raping a grown woman in front of her kids. He held her at gun point with a toy gun. That is not normal, my friend. If the Liberals want to blame it all on right wing propaganda, you had better get better locks for you doors. Our country will go further down the path of self destruction. We are so wrapped around our economy that we aren't stopping to look at what the price of such an economy is...it's our kids.

[troysvihl]

I don't believe there is a gun violence problem in the US to begin with. Despite the series of high profile gun crimes committed in the US recently, gun violence is in fact way down even though there has been a quadrupaling in the number of guns in the US in recent years.

And yes, we do have a higher gun crime rate than some other countries but that was true even before gun bans were instituted in those other countries. England and Australia are the most commonly used examples, b/c their gun bans are relatively new. Both countries already had lower gun crime rates than the US before their bans. And over the last two decades, England has pretty much banned guns all together. And Australia has banned guns about 5 years ago. In both of those countries, the gun-crime rates have acctually increased. Meanwhile, the US has loosened gun laws and gun violence has gone down. So it isn't the gun controls that give each of those countries lower rates of gun crime. It's got to be something else.


The suicide data given above, even if true, is not very convincing that there is a gun problem, b/c there are plenty of other countries that have complete bans on guns, yet their suicide rates are much higher. And a study out of the U of Florida showed that gun laws have absolutely no effect on suicide rates. Quite simply, if people are going to kill themselves, they're either going to buy a gun on the black market or just choose a different method. So in the words of Archie Bunker, "Would you be happier if they all jumped out of windows instead?"


[Edited by troysvihl on 11-25-2000 at 08:33 PM]

[Mafud]

Originally posted by Carlgif Out of all the posts on this forum, "brainwashed" fits you to a tee, Mafud

That's really typical of those like you who disagree with another. You call the other person names, or question their motives or mental condition.

Whereas I really don't give a hoot how you feel about me, the things I say are real. I'll repeat them:
51 of every 100 person who die from firearms are suicides.
*Here's the kicker on that statistic: eight of the fifty-one suicides kill someone else before killing themselves.
41 of every 100 people killed by firearms are killed by someone they know: we can call it "accquaitanace murder" or "accquantance violence."
That accounts for 92 of the 100 murders/firearms deaths.
3 of every 100 die in gun related accidents.
1 of every 100 die by legal intervention: (self defense or lawenforcement officer).
3 of every 100 are killed by "criminals."
1,500 children will commit suicide with firearms this year.
Another 2,700 children will die in accidents or be killed by a child friend.
A person injured by a firearm, who gets to an emergency room, will rack up a bill of nearly $14,000, whether they live or die.
A person injured by a firearm, who gets to an emergency room and is later admitted, will cost an average of $31,000, again, whether they live or die.
A person injured by a firearm, who is admitted to Intensive care, will rack uo nearly $151,000.
The same person, if they need long term care plus rehabilitation ro return to normal, will rack up nearly $360,000.
If that same person is permanenty disabled, the cost for handicap shelter, rehab, special medications-etc., will rack up a bill of more than $8784,000**.
**The taxpayer picks up around 86 cents on the dollar of that huge tab.
The figures above represent truth, the kind of truth the NRA won't talk about and your kind, like the NRA, can't handle.

That is not brainwashing, but figures you can find for yourself.
"Oooops", you won't find them on the NRA site.
You'll have to look among real people to learn the truth of those numbers.

If a woman, living in a house with firearms, after she bolts the doors, turns on the outside lights, turns out the Rotweilers, calls the security service after she turns on the new, "whole house" security system, she'll then crawl up in bed to go to sleep with the person most likely to blow her (and his) brains out.

Remember: the person most likely to kill you with a firearm lives in the house where you live. Unless that is, you turn out to be a suicide... who kills everyone in the house before you shoot your own brains into a red Tapioka pudding.

[jessho]

Mafud,
I've known three people that have taken their own life. One used a rope - one used a gun - and the other used Drano.(Yep, drank it. The death was slow and painfull.)

I won't try to reason with you about your feeling about firearms. They are yours, not mine. I keep a shotgun for security - not for hunting or sport. It is my protection from the people in this world that do not follow laws or care about firearm statistics. You have every right to feel the way that you do, but I have a Constitutional right to keep and bear firearms.

[Mafud]

Originally posted by padawan Outlawing guns will do nothing to lower crime.] I agree. But "criminals" are NOT the reason nearly 38,000 people die every year from firearms. 51% of those deaths are suicides. So we must then agree that "crime" (as you mean it), has little or *nothing* to do with firearms deaths. [The 93% stat is pure BS.] I've since posted comments on my misstatement, you ought to read it. [I have to take a suicide prevention class every year for my job, and guns are used more by males because men are more likely to use a more permanent method than women. Women tend to use pills and stuff like that. Maybe 93% of males use guns, but I don't have any stats to say otherwise.] You are serving in the criminal justice system as a law enforcement officer, but you say you don't have any stats! Bullfeathers! You have access to law enforcement computers, meaning you could find the statistics by asking one of your supervisors for keyboard time. That way, you could visit the Justice Department files and reports, the Centers For Disease Control, the DEA, The ATF and other agencies where you can look up the statistics law enforcement agencies keeps on such matters. Not knowing, or being able to refute me point for point says your statistics and your feelings and how you think are controlled by the NRA and OTHERS. [You say cars are not an issue, since kids don't use them? The kids that sniped the schoolyard last year stole a van to drive their stolen guns to the school.] Very poor analogy in that they used guns to kill, not cars. [Snip] [Also, take away guns, and sick people will still kill.] How is that you guys can take two different views to fit your point? And why "sick people?" I take from your statement that "sick people" are the only people who kill with firearms? [Tim McVeigh killed something like 168 people with common items found in any feed store.] While that matches the oblique point you wanted to make, again you are not addressing the issue. [The Littleton murderers had built propane tank bombs.] There you go again, taking the argument away from firearms to something tangental to the conversation. [Snip] [My point is this...we have a problem in the US, and it not guns.] The nearly 19,000 perons who'll die this year from firearms suicide say you're a damn liar. [Some countries (Switzerland for exmaple), the men are issued full auto assualt rifles to keep at their homes!] And again you go off on a self made toot! [Snip]. [It is something fundamentally wrong with the people in the US, and no amount of laws will change the mind of criminal.] Try to keep the "criminals" involved in gun violence straight: the "criminals" you're referring to in 41 of every 100 gun deaths in this country are the husbands, wives, housemates, neighbors, children, cousins, co-workers or some other accquaintance of the folks that get killed. Yep,they're "Criminals" all right, as soon as they pull that trigger. [We have changed over the past fifty years, so much that there is probably no turning back. It used to be a father could work, and the mother stay home and take care of the kids, providing a role model and help. Parents knew where their kids were.] But... but...what does that observation serve to prove? [Today, both parents works,] Have to. If the wive didn't insist on large fancy homes, electric this or that, new carpet every ten years, braces for the kids and th like, she might be abe to stay home. But the "Happy Days" scenario you paint applied to less than 15% of American households at any time back then. [...kids rape other kids at the age of 10, steal guns, rob stores.] [Rant snipped] If the Liberals want to blame it all on right wing propaganda, you had better get better locks for you doors.] I'm trying here, really trying to understand how one thing you say has anything to do with the other. [Our country will go further down the path of self destruction. We are so wrapped around our economy that we aren't stopping to look at what the price of such an economy is...it's our kids.

I agree about the kids. But the rest of it...?

[troysvihl]

>>If the wive didn't insist on large fancy homes, electric this or that, new carpet every ten years, braces for the kids and th like, she might be abe to stay home.<<

Acctually, taxes are the reason that families have to have to bread-winners. Taxes are the only major expense that has increased over the last few decades. (and increased substantially)




>>[My point is this...we have a problem in the US, and it not guns.]

The nearly 19,000 perons who'll die this year from firearms suicide say you're a damn liar.<<


I doubt any suicidal people will blame their troubles on firearms mafud. That would be the equivalent of a drunk driver getting into an accident and claiming that there's a real problem with the proliferation of cars in the US.



Mafud, you've stated a few times that you don't claim a casual link between firearms and suicide, yet then you come back and state something like this. Which is it? (am I the only one picking up on these inconsistencies?)

[SARGE]

Washington, D.C......no gun whatsoever allowed. Highest murder rate in the world. Libs think outlawing something produces results it wants. What they REALLY do is pass laws, don't enforce them, then say we need tougher laws since current ones aren't working. Lamebrains follow the pied piper.

Suicide too high - outlaw guns.
Drunks kill - outlaw booze
Cars kill - outlaw cars
People too dumb for ballots - outlaw punchcards
Spill hot coffee in lap - blame McDonalds
Can't afford new Sony - outlaw them or blame "big corporations"
Gore a crook - outlaw Gore
Smoking causes cancer - outlaw them evil cigs
Microsoft beats Netscape - punish Microsoft
Too stupid for SAT - outlaw it

Never, ever, blame the people...





[Edited by SARGE on 11-26-2000 at 12:53 AM]

[troysvihl]

Acctually McD's got a pretty good deal with that case. I've read that case and the woman had a stronger argument than is generally believed. She got burned so bad that she needed skin grafts. (In her crotch too. very painful) She was in the hospital for months. McD's had received many complaints about the temp of their coffee and they refused to serve it at a lower temperture. If I remember correctly, they served their coffee at 180 F, while all the other fast food places either had always served it at 140 F or had reduced the serving temp to 140 F b/c of all the complaints they had received. McD's was the only chain that served it at that temp even after consumers complained.

I think she was awarded a million $, but all the publicity that McD's got over it was worth more than that.

[Mafud]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SARGE
[B]Washington, D.C......no gun whatsoever allowed.
Highest murder rate in the world.]

That is a lie you ought to stop telling.

[Libs think outlawing something produces the results it wants.
Wha they REALLY do is pass laws, don't enforce them]

That is the job of the courts, not "Libs."
But the absolute reason murders and other violent crime have gone through double-digit reductions all over the country?
You don't have the slightest clue, not one.
Reason? In November 1993 a new federal crime bill was enacted. On February 28, 1994, the "Brady Law" took effect. Since the two laws were enacted, 238,000 FFL (Federal Firearms License) holders have been put out of business. Most of these guys were selling out of their homes, Post Office boxes, gun shows, personal transportation, (mostly windowless vans).
They could buy a Titan semi-automatic pistol for $31 and sell it out of the back of a van for $75 and up.
Tens of thousands of these so-called "kitchen table" dealers (ATF name for them), were criminals themselves, whereupon with the provisions of the new laws in hand, ATF, the Secret Service and FBI had a (two year) field day, swooping in on the "Kitchen table" dealers and lifting their licenses.
Tens of thousands of them lost their licenses because of misdmeanor domestic violence covictions.
As the "kitchen table" FFL dealers disappeared off the scene, as fewer and fewer of the handguns usually sold by them vanished, violent crimes began to drop. By 1997, violent crimes usually committed with firearms were also dropping by double digits all over the country, including DC.
Young Africana males, the usual easy targets of "kithen table" dealers, saw the rate of their deaths from firearms spiral down by 35% PER YEAR in some places.

Both laws caused turmoil in the ranks of FFL dealers, espcially "kitchen table" dealers. When the smoke cleared in early 1999, violent crimes, especially murders (among and between young Africana males) hit their lowest level in 27 years. New York City recorded five straight years in violent crime decreases and finally, its murder rate stopped going up and dropped from more than 1,800 a year to less than 700. The same thing for DC and other major metroplitan areas.
**My city saw 58 people killed in 1993. This year, we will end up with 25-28, most of them committed with deadly objects other than firearms, cars and aluminum baseball bats among the leading instruments, arson lingering in fourth place.
In 1993-1994, our community lost 37 young black males. The score this year? 4! Last year? 4!
The numbers regarding violent crimes are down all over the country due to the wholesale wiping out of the "kithen table" FFL dealers.
**FFL dealers with "hardtops" (permanent business locations) were unaffected by the new laws, (unless they had criminal convictions, including domestic violence)and their sales are up for the fifth straight year.

The doom the NRA talked about when many "assault rifles" were outlawed? Nothing! The "good" (hardtop) dealers are selling more guns every day and for full price. Why?
Those undercutting "kitchen table" dealers with their cheap guns are not out there stealing sales from the "good" dealers.
Overall, the "Liberals" done good, while Repulicans/NRA can only think of building new jails.

What was that you were saying about passing laws and nor enforcing them? Wasn't it Clinton's administration who urged (blackmailed states)into passing stricter sentancing laws? And getting them passed? Clinton and the boys locked up most of the really bad guys, which also greatly contributes to the massive drop in violent crime.
Now all someone (Bush/Gore) has to do is stop the drugs, major causes of crime, from flowing into the country.

[rant deleted]

Sarge, (I was once "Sarge" too: 1/503rd Airborne [heavy weapons]; and 1/8th Recon Company [Cav], you have not had an original thought for years. Your brain is NRA/Republican/Right Wing pudding.

I'm through talking about guns with you.

[troysvihl]

The decline in gun crimes started before either of those bills were passed. It began in the mid 80's when concealled carry laws were starting to be adopted in many states. And the reduction in crime was mostly contained to those states that passed concealled carry laws.

Even if you don't believe that concealled carry laws are responsible for the decrease in crime, all you have to do is look at the quadrupaling in the number of guns in the US. That's proof positive that the drop in crime is not due to restricted gun sales.

[Mafud]

"Acctually, taxes are the reason that families have to have to bread-winners. Taxes are the only major expense that has increased over the last few decades. (and increased substantially)"

US taxes, as a percentage of earned income, especially those taxes negated by income tax set asides, are the lowest in the industrialized world. Americans have been tax cry-babies since before the beginning of the country.

"The nearly 19,000 perons who'll die this year from firearms suicide say you're a damn liar."

You say: "I doubt any suicidal people will blame their troubles on firearms mafud."

I never ever came close to saying that, or ever made the connection: that is as you stated: "guns cause suicides."
That is putting your words in my mouth to make YOUR point.
That is demagogery at it finest.

You say: "That would be the equivalent of a drunk driver getting into an accident and claiming that there's a real problem with the proliferation of cars in the US."

Huh!!??

You repeat your assertion that I said: "Mafud, you've stated a few times that you don't claim a casual link between firearms and suicide, yet then you come back and state something like this."

What in hell are you talking about? You go back and quote where I said something like that or made the corrollary.

You continue asking questions about something I never said: " Which is it? (am I the only one picking up on these inconsistencies?) [/B][/QUOTE]

What incosistencies? Your questions smack of those of the chief prosecuter of the Spanish Inqusition, Torquemada: accusing me of causing your inventions.
I am *not* inconsistent regarding what I've said about firearms and sucides: 18,000 (or more) people commit sucide with firearms every year; period.
How in hell you get anything else out of that statement I will never know.

What bothers me in forums is the way you (and many others) try to lie to or on the very people you are speaking of.
Again, the ONLY connection I've made between guns and suicides is the above: or: try this:
every year, firearms are used by 18,000 or more people to commit suicide.
Notice I did NOT say guns cause suicides. Nor did I say if there were no guns, fewer people would commit suicide. Nor did I say fewer guns would mean fewer suicides but every year, 18,000 people use firerarms to commit suicide.

How many ways can a person say the same thing before you understand?