Bump stocks. Who will be

MartinLogan Audio Owners Forum

Help Support MartinLogan Audio Owners Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Actually, more than every second day. Well more. 278 mass shootings in the USA this year to date.

Source: http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

You guys are immune to it, but seriously, this stuff doesn't happen in other countries with anywhere near the same regularity.

In 1996? Australia bought back over 1 Million guns to purge them, and in 2016 the US sold 26 Million guns to citizens for home use.

We have over 270 times more weapons in the US than Australia ever had and we just keep digging ourselves in deeper and deeper every year.

The US has about 14 times as many citizens and have about 20 times more guns per capita than Australia had until recently.
 
Last edited:
In 1996? Australia bought back over 1 Million guns to purge them, and in 2016 the US sold 26 Million guns to citizens for home use.

We have over 270 times more weapons in the US than Australia ever had and we just keep digging ourselves in deeper and deeper every year.

The US has about 14 times as many citizens and have about 20 times more guns per capita than Australia had until recently.

And remember - every illegal/criminal gun starts its life as a legal one. So if you reduce the legal ones in your society, guess what follows?
 
And remember - every illegal/criminal gun starts its life as a legal one. So if you reduce the legal ones in your society, guess what follows?

Sadly the problems in the US are almost entirely because of the disintegration of our society. We have little honor. Everything is based on greed and no one takes responsibility for their actions.

On top of that the original intent of the 2nd Amendment has been butchered and co-opted. People who purchased guns do not train with a militia. They just want to own guns.
 
This is worth the watch; got it originally off Facebook. It's funny, but I was not laughing....because of the subject matter. A sad situation indeed, as I watch my fellow human beings immediately south of the border.

https://youtu.be/a-o9pwWUzz0
 
Actually, more than every second day. Well more. 278 mass shootings in the USA this year to date.

Source: http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

You guys are immune to it, but seriously, this stuff doesn't happen in other countries with anywhere near the same regularity.


That was interesting to look through. I would contend that the definition of "mass" here might not be accurate. That said it is still too many.

On each page, I opened the source on 2 or 3 to see what the circumstances were. Virtually every one was someone with a criminal record, gang related, drug sales. Very few would be able to purchase guns legally.

Even without a gun I would contend most of those attacks would have been committed with a knife, club or some other weapon.

The justice system here doesn't hold people responsible for crimes they commit. People get arrested here regularly with 1-15 felony convictions. There is clearly a big flaw in the system, that we can all agree on.
 
The justice system here doesn't hold people responsible for crimes they commit. People get arrested here regularly with 1-15 felony convictions. There is clearly a big flaw in the system, that we can all agree on.

I think we all empathetically agree on this.

It is disgusting.

What is it with the judiciary? It is the same situation here in Australia. The police arrest the same people, over and over again and the damned judiciary just let them back on to the streets.
 
I was just looking at audio stuff on the computer and listening to the local news.

Here in our area 3 teens 2-sixteen year old and 1-seventeen year old stole an SUV and went on a robbery spree.
At a high speed they ran into a car driven by a 30 year old man on his way to work sitting at a traffic light.
The SUV rolled a number of times burst into flames and 2 of the 3 were killed. These 3 teens had over 100 arrests combined previously.

Geico Insurance was the insurance carrier for the man sitting at the light. He only had insurance to cover liability injuries. The cost of his destroyed car is not covered. His $100,000 medical cost is not yet confirmed.
The insurance company made public today that they paid $20,000 to each of the families of the teens. At this point they will not comment on why other some attorney will take the case and sue for even more.
 
What is it with the judiciary? It is the same situation here in Australia. The police arrest the same people, over and over again and the damned judiciary just let them back on to the streets.

It's complicated, but one of the main reasons is simply money. It's expensive to incarcerate someone. It's expensive to build new prisons. People want protection from crime, but they don't want to pay for it.

I used to prosecute felony drug crimes. I would put some crack dealer away for fifteen years, and then be prosecuting them on a new offense a year or two later. Why? Because the prisons in my state are already overcrowded, well beyond acceptable limits. The state government is woefully underfunded. And it is corrupt, so any extra money that does come in gets siphoned off for pet projects. The taxpayers are loath to pay more in taxes to build new prisons. And drug crimes are considered "victimless crimes" so those offenders will be the first to be released.
 
It's complicated, but one of the main reasons is simply money. It's expensive to incarcerate someone. It's expensive to build new prisons. People want protection from crime, but they don't want to pay for it.

The US already has the HIGHEST INCARCERATION RATE IN THE WORLD! What more do you want?

"our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world. "

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/

Take a peek at the world incarceration rates if every US state were a country. The ONLY countries that even come close to our national average are Cuba, Russia and Rwanda however we are substantially higher than they are.

Is it possible that our lack of being willing to pay for prisons is not the root cause of this?

We have a SERIOUS cultural problem in the US. Our society is sick and we are doing everything we can to fan the flames and make it worse.

BTW the War on Drugs has been absolutely horrible for families in the US as well as a waste of money, both to imprison these people and frequently lose their tax revenue because many pot smokers were perfectly upstanding members of society with jobs.

So instead of letting these people earn a living, pay taxes and be there for their families, we pay to lock them away.
 
Last edited:
Mark, I understand where you are coming from but the average pot smoker found guilty is not the issue with major crime and full prisons.

Though not popular with many people I know. I have said for a long time give people options.

You are a drug addict you can have free real drug treatment or all the free drugs of your choice.

If you want treatment because you want your life back, problem solved.

If you chose free drugs and you die, well, problem solved.

If we were not paying for law enforcement to deal with drug related crimes, prosecution of drug related crimes and incarceration on drug related crimes. the savings would offset the rest.

See even your "Crazy Donald" hasn't gone that far.

I too think this is an EXTREME suggestion, but, the war on drugs is never going to be won. As Rich said, there is too much money to be made.
 
OK, lets start with 'death row' .......... get rid of them.
 
OK, lets start with 'death row' .......... get rid of them.

Let's get rid of death row. It costs Tax payers HUGE sums of money to prosecute to get that sentence and about 20% of the time they are planning to execute someone not guilty.

It would save us HUGE amounts of money to just turn those into life sentences. Once again the key reasons are 1 in 5 are not guilty and it would save us a ton of money to do this.
 
We need to legalize pot nationwide and just be done with it!

Deaths because of pot are almost ZERO and you cannot OD on pot.

I've never heard of an angry pot head, but an angry drunk can kill. Pot is a very good thing for people going through chemotherapy and for people dealing with pain management. Pot is not addictive like the pain killers that big Pharma is selling and making piles of money from. So of course they pay big money to fight against pot legalization.

We also need to make the sentences for cocaine and crack the same. The only reason they are different is race related.
 
It's complicated, but one of the main reasons is simply money. It's expensive to incarcerate someone.

I agree.

But I've always said - why bother with incarcerating people for "punishment", when they owe such a debt to society anyway. Prison should be reserved for those simply too dangerous to be in the community. For the rest of them, chain their sorry legs together (or use the modern equivalent, GPS tags) and get them working. We could have new freeways, fast railways, etc with all the free labour. Heck - even if that is a stretch too far, imagine how nice and clean our cities could be if we gave the bastards just a mop and bucket!
 
Let's get rid of death row. It costs Tax payers HUGE sums of money to prosecute to get that sentence and about 20% of the time they are planning to execute someone not guilty.

It would save us HUGE amounts of money to just turn those into life sentences. Once again the key reasons are 1 in 5 are not guilty and it would save us a ton of money to do this.

BS !! I tell you what, how about we send those 20% to live with you !!

So you want to harbor and pay for those violent offenders that are part of the 80 % ???

Next thing is I suppose you will tell me that those that commit crimes against children and the elderly deserve a second chance, please , don't tell me your that sick !
 
BS !! I tell you what, how about we send those 20% to live with you !!

So you want to harbor and pay for those violent offenders that are part of the 80 % ???

Next thing is I suppose you will tell me that those that commit crimes against children and the elderly deserve a second chance, please , don't tell me your that sick !


BS? I'll show you the statistics on executed innocents and how the system frequently destroys the lives of innocent people.

As for where to put them, the whole point was that it was MUCH cheaper to lock them up for life than to deal with the appeal process and legal costs to get a life sentence to get someone on death row.

Your third comment jumps the shark and has zippo to do with what we are talking about.


We have a serious problem in the US of creating hardened criminals with our penal system. Our system creates high repeat offenders. We have an F them and throw away the keys mentality and then never trust them ever again when they are released which pretty well kills their chance at ever having a life after they served their time.

In fact for some of the serious sex offender cases, there really is no incentive for them to behave after they are released. You could self righteously say they deserve having their lived F'd up for life and I'm not saying I disagree with that. The problem is that if they can't move on, they won't and the system just guarantees more people will be hurt. So either don't let them out, or find some way that they can make a life for themselves, but you can't give them a no win scenario or someone else will pay.

BTW this is pure economics, not morality. Just like giving out free needles to help slow the spread of AIDS. It works and innocent people are saved from contracting AIDS, but may people can't get over the idea of giving out needles as somehow endorsing intravenous drug use.
 
Last edited:
BS? I'll show you the statistics on executed innocents and how the system frequently destroys the lives of innocent people.

spoken like a true bleeding heart lib (a conservative who has yet to be victimized), for God's sake how about the 80% (you like your percentages) and the families they ruined ! I hope they all move into your neighborhood when released !

Oh, as far as death row, you missed my point, once there and the appeal process has been run through........... the chair !
 
Last edited:
spoken like a true bleeding heart lib (a conservative who has yet to be victimized), for God's sake how about the 80% (you like your percentages) and the families they ruined ! I hope they all move into your neighborhood when released !

Oh, as far as death row, you missed my point, once there and the appeal process has been run through........... the chair !

You missed my point. There are 100 people represented below. All of them are on death row AFTER the appeals process.
20 of them are innocent, but we have no idea which 20 those are.
Some of them could be exonerated a decade from now if we don't kill these innocent people.
So don't kill them and give them life sentences before the expensive appeals process for the chair.

X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
 
spoken like a true bleeding heart lib (a conservative who has yet to be victimized)

Spoken like a conservative who has never been unfairly detained or convicted of something you didn't do and who fears people who are "different".

Remember that the families being ruined are also victims of our great system and not just the victims of crimes. There is a reason that many people don't trust the police. It's relatively easy to trust the police in the US if you are a reasonably well off white person living in a nice part of town.

Let's say that you were convicted of killing someone and spent 10 years on death row and were finally exonerated. Now lets say your face had been in the press and everyone in your area had passed judgement on you and feared the worst. Your wife left you, you missed out on seeing your children grow up. They grew up with the stigma of a parent in jail and ridiculed by peers and acted out getting into crime themselves because you weren't there to discipline them. Your ex-wife was suicidal at some points and had trouble making ends meet. Maybe she got involved with some guys that were not the best influence on her or your children. The damage of this mistake is now reaching another generation of your family and starting them down the wrong path.

Now you have to find employment and have a 10 year hole in your work experience and people still don't trust you. They "know" you did it even though you had nothing to do with the crime. Do you move away from your home to start fresh leaving what's left of your family behind? Keep in mind this is actually a good scenario if you are released as innocent without a record.


Getting back to your comment about criminals or released innocents moving into my neighborhood or frankly the neighborhood of most people who own a pair of ML speakers.

Think about how likely that is for a minute. The demographic that typically owns ML speakers is not living hand to mouth. I live in what I would call a top 1.5-2% neighborhood. The homes here are on a ridge spread apart with long driveways. The people here are self-employed like me, a CIO, a doctor, a business owner etc.. You get the idea. Across the street from my subdivision is a top 1% gated community with a guard, no solicitation allowed, etc. Crime around here is nil.

Take anyone released from prison with a record, and ask yourself what their chances are of ever being successful enough to be able to afford a home in an area like this might be.
 
Mark, suffice it to say we'll never agree on this so lets move on .........
 

Latest posts

Back
Top