American milestone

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Our country's immigration policy in the past 45 years also has contributed to the rise in gun violence. We've allowed too many immigrants into the U.S. Too many to absorb, while at the same time trying to provide jobs for our native born citizens. Many of those jobs are lower paying, entry level jobs that our younger population need while entering the workforce and learning a skill. Many of them are minorities.
The highest level of gun violence is between the ages of 15-25 yrs old.
To expound on my previous post, I've provided an excerpt from an article that explains the detrimental impact on U.S. citizens from our four decade old immigration policy. How this relates to gun crime is this: Young people(15-25) are statistically most likely to commit gun violence than any other group. They are also most likely not to have a job. This bleak job scenario has contributed greatly to violent gun crimes and gang memberships.
[Bold emphasis added]
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Legislation enacted in 1965, among other factors, substantially increased low-skilled immigration. Since 1970, the foreign-born population in the United States has increased more than four-fold—to a record 42.1 million today. The foreign-born share of the population has risen from fewer than 1 in 21 in 1970, to presently approaching 1 in 7. As the supply of available labor has increased, so too has downward pressure on wages.

Georgetown and Hebrew University economics professor Eric Gould has observed that “the last four decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the wage and employment structure in the United States… The overall evidence suggests that the manufacturing and immigration trends have hollowed-out the overall demand for middle-skilled workers in all sectors, while increasing the supply of workers in lower skilled jobs. Both phenomena are producing downward pressure on the relative wages of workers at the low end of the income distribution.”

During the low-immigration period from 1948-1973, real median compensation for U.S. workers increased more than 90 percent. By contrast, real average hourly wages were lower in 2014 than they were in 1973, four decades earlier. Harvard Economist George Borjas also documented the effects of high immigration rates on African-American workers, writing that “a 10 percent immigration-induced increase in the supply of workers in a particular skill group reduced the black wage of that group by 2.5 percent.” Past immigrants are additionally among those most economically impacted by the arrival of large numbers of new workers brought in to compete for the same jobs. In Los Angeles County, for example, 1 in 3 recent immigrants are living below the poverty line. And this federal policy of new large-scale admissions continues unaltered at a time when automation is reducing hiring, and when a record share of our own workers here in America are not employed.

President Coolidge articulated how a slowing of immigration would benefit both U.S.-born and immigrant-workers: “We want to keep wages and living conditions good for everyone who is now here or who may come here. As a nation, our first duty must be to those who are already our inhabitants, whether native or immigrants. To them we owe an especial and a weighty obligation.”
Link to full article: http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...f-iowa-new-hampshire-south-carolina-combined/
 
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Pilgrim

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Well, there may be some positive movement. Take the low offense drug user and get them out of jail to free up room for some of the ones killing and or shooting people. A five year or more sentence for someone with a joint or a pill is silly.
True, but then again actually keeping the serious criminals in jail and out of the public is another matter. Yesterday a convicted bank robber out on supervised release shot and killed a Memphis cop during a traffic stop which happened to interrupt a small time drug deal. Apparently this animal killed the cop while sitting in a car trying to buy less than 2 grams of pot. This is the 3d policeman to be killed in Memphis in the last 4 years. Gun control would have done nothing to prevent this tragedy.

On a related thought, wonder if our compassionate POTUS has phoned or sent his personal condolences to the policeman's family?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ize-person-interest-killing-article-1.2312385
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
is ow where I stand.[/QUOTE]
You need to keep in mind that when Leo says we need to impose consequences, "severe enough to be too fearful to risk," he is talking about astonishingly shocking penalties applied with equally astonishing swiftness. He isn't talking about merely the death penalty in "beyond all doubt" cases in which mass killings and other murderous crimes are committed and the offender's guilt it without question, because he knows the death penalty isn't a deterrent especially when you have to wait 10 or 20 years for the sentence to finally be carried out. He's talking about a wood chipper on the courthouse steps that gets fired up immediately after the verdict is read and the sentence is proclaimed.

Be that as it may, it seems that, to many people, "gun control" isn't about more laws, it's about one simple law that simply controls who can and cannot have guns in the first place. Law enforcement and the military? Yes, absolutely. Everyone else? No.

They know that the one simple law won't happen, so they go at it with gun control creep, where a series of gun control laws creep up on you to where it's suddenly more trouble than it's worth to own a gun and you are discouraged from even wanting one. Things like background checks, permits (for a guaranteed right, mind you), limiting magazine size, outlawing certain types of ammunition, and criminalizing how a gun looks.

It's exactly the same as the creep of mandating that a woman view an ultrasound before getting an abortion, mandating that abortion clinics have full emergency room facilities and doctors with hospital admitting privileges, having a waiting period before being able to get an abortion.

When you can't get your way right now all at once, creep is the historically tried and true method for getting some personal satisfaction immediately and for starting the road to getting your way eventually.

So, before we can even begin a debate on "gun control," we need to have the term itself be defined. If it is defined by the logical and accepted definition of as being laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms, then obviously we're talking about either more laws or the changing of existing laws. One of the reasons the "wacko right" (and many not-so wacko, for that matter) says "NO!!!!" to even discussing gun control is, the Constitution plainly states, "...the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," and any kind of gun control is either an intentional or de facto infringement.

Did you know that in five states (Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Vermont and Wyoming) you do not need a permit of any kind to purchase, possess, or carry (open or concealed) a firearm? These are states which take "shall not be infringed" most seriously.

Also, did you know that there are two countries where individual firearm ownership is considered to be a natural right rather than a privilege? Those countries are the United States and Yemen.

As the National Research Council noted in 2004, the question of whether gun control policies increase, decrease or have no effect on rates of gun violence turns out to be a difficult question, and one without an easy answer (despite those who always have an easy answer at the ready). There is simply not enough data with which to form any valid conclusion. It's quite easy to conclude that the more guns there are in an area the more gun deaths and gun violence (including suicide) there will be, but that's the same as concluding there more cars there are in an area the more car accidents there are. More people are killed in kitchens with kitchen knives than with any other weapon. More people are killed by falling coconuts in countries where there are coconut trees than there are in countries where coconut trees do not exit.

This is not rocket science. In places where there are lots of guns, there will be higher rates of gun-related violence, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be the same level of violence if the same area had no guns. As the Research Council, who performed extensive research of all of the research published to date, also noted, "the absence of significant correlations between gun ownership and total homicide, assault, or suicide rates...[leaves] open the question of possible substitution effects." In other words, other means (knives, baseball bats, etc.) could have been substituted for firearms used in the commission of homicide or suicide. The totality of the research also shows that in areas high gun ownership and high concealed and carry are present, there is no correlation between an increase or decrease in gun shootings like the school and theater shootings. Many people, thanks to flawed logical assumptions and John Lott's 1998 "More Guns, Less Crime" book, that laws allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a gun legally in public may cause reductions in crime because potential criminals do not know who might be carrying a firearm. It turns out that is true in some cases but not true in others. There is not enough data to make a definitive statement either way.

The research on the impact of 18 major types of gun control laws on every major type of violent crime or violence (including suicide) found that gun laws generally had no significant effect on violent crime rates or suicide rates. Gun laws certainly had a significant effect on gun crimes and gun suicides, but the violent crimes and suicides happened just the same using other methods.

My personal belief is "shall not be infringed" should rule the debate on gun control, and that people are going to be people with or without guns (which the history of pre-gun history confirms). You don't have mass shootings in Japan because people there aren't allowed to have guns. So how do they accomplish the same result as a mass shooting? They release ricin gas in a subway or shopping mall. Getting rid of assault rifles and large magazines and any other form of infringement on gun possession is an ineffective feel-good measure at best. It's treating the symptom rather than the cause. I remember once Al Sharpton was asked what happens when the guns are gone and people start using knives? He responded with, "Then we go after the knives." His thinking is hardly unique. But the logical progression after that is eliminating anything that can be used as a weapon, including rocks, water, dirt, trees, cliffs, and eventually, people.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Simple Man....Charlie Daniels comes to mind.....take them out to the swamp and tie them to a stump and let the bug and critters and gaters have their way....:p
 
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LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Wood chippers? Good idea, but no. The death penalty applied with more stringent limitations on appeals and time frame. Something along the lines of any appeal must be filed within 90 days. The appeal must be heard within 12 months of filing. A limit on the number of appeals. Severe but fair.
 
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paullud

Veteran Expediter
I'd say the loss of an offending body part would quickly bring down crime rates. They would never be zero but we would see a significant reduction in a short time.

Why do people even bother saying that we don't do enough or that we need to have common sense laws but when asked what they should be the reply is I don't know? Just run around shrieking "Won't someone please think of the children" instead. The problem isn't a lack of gun control but it is a people problem and instead of addressing the real issue liberals want to blame the gun since they can get away with that without being called a racist. The conversation should be about changing the communities where gun violence is an issue and what can be done to inspire and elevate the people. The schools in most inner cities are horrendous and that's the first area where kids start to feel left out of society. The earlier attempts at desegregation had some flaws and there really needs to be some changes in the bureaucracy in our school systems but we could change things in a matter of a few years for the better. Now imagine if a president thought of some program, something like a voucher program to help save kids from bad schools and attend private schools. I'm sure the conservatives would support it because it brings the free market to education and the liberals would never dream of standing in the way of a program that could help so many disadvantaged people get help.
 
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Ragman

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
I need a load to Kansas. But I need to shave first. ;);)
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usafk9

Veteran Expediter
Wood chippers? Good idea, but no. The death penalty applied with more stringent limitations on appeals and time frame. Something along the lines of any appeal must be filed within 90 days. The appeal must be heard within 12 months of filing. A limit on the number of appeals. Severe but fair.

Your own state should serve as evidence enough that the death penalty is a poor deterrent to capital crime. Further, your desire to speed up what, historically, has been a flawed process, often times resulting in wrongful executions (again, in Texas also) serves little purpose, other than your own personal desire for instant gratification. Do you honestly believe any of what you propose will slow gun crime?
 
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Ragman

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Your own state should serve as evidence enough that the death penalty is a poor deterrent to capital crime. Further, your desire to speed up what, historically, has been a flawed process, often times resulting in wrongful executions (again, in Texas also) serves little purpose, other than your own personal desire for instant gratification. Do you honestly believe any of what you propose will slow gun crime?
Done properly it will and without errors.
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LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Yeah, that's pretty much what we have now and always have had alright. That and all the numskulls who can't bear the thought of responsibility and placing it squarely where it belongs rather than on objects and/or honest citizens who bear no responsibility for crime. If we could ever get the fools to quit covering their eyes we might make progress.
 

Unclebob

Expert Expediter
Owner/Operator
Solving crimes is not clear cut and easy as TV shows I like you to think. Cops act in illegal manner. Prosecutors are ethically challenged. Juries are swayed by emotions and not facts. Rich people can afford the best lawyers the average person can't.

If you want the death penalty to apply in the miniscule amount of crimes where the evidence is 100% clear cut that's fine and dandy but don't expect it to make a dent in the real problem.

Most gun violence is committed by people that know the victim.

What's the answer? Guess what sometimes there is no answer!
 
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Windsor

Veteran Expediter
You might be right, There may not be an answer. Violence is woven into the American fabric. Remember we do have more people in prison than any other country on earth.
 

Ragman

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
You might be right, There may not be an answer. Violence is woven into the American fabric. Remember we do have more people in prison than any other country on earth.
According to some, that problem can be solved.......hang 'em all!
 

JohnWC

Veteran Expediter
Need to start up the Louisiana chain gangs again and make prisons prison again were ______ years of hard labor ment just that.
 
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