Why doesn't the US do something about mass shootings?

truethat said:
I found this Map that might put things into perspective. We have the Federal Government in the US and then we have the State Governments that are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to have the right to make their own laws for their country. whoops I meant state.

Here is a map that places other countries on the US map so that you can get an idea of what we are dealing with as Country when we are trying to get laws and regulations changed.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._U.S._states_and_countries_by_GDP_in_2012.jpg
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That's GDP. Belgium is roughly half the size of (the state of) Georgia. For instance, the whole of the UK (242,495 km2)is similar to the size of Wyoming (253,348 km2) and has roughly 20% of the US population.
 
Cylinder said:
That's GDP. Belgium is roughly half the size of (the state of) Georgia. For instance, the whole of the UK (242,495 km2)is similar to the size of Wyoming (253,348 km2) and has roughly 20% of the US population.
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Exactly, that's why it drives me up the wall when people compare Health Care issues in Belgium to the United States. Or gun control laws in Sweden to the United States.

http://65.media.tumblr.com/e1310aa9e20c3fc6b53480a432ab86ab/tumblr_o4tjd2kh2v1tds35ko1_1280.png

The infrastructure is entirely different. We have our Federal Government and our State Government and the amount of paper work and red tape required to manage this is insane.

Countries that have smaller populations, smaller sized countries, and a simple government infrastructure are useless as a comparative example.

The actual power in this country in shifting change is basically capitalism. That's the most efficient tool for progress.
 
Planigale said:
Sorry not being a US citizen or resident never attended US government class so forgive my ignorance. So why did the Bill of rights not apply to Blacks, Indians, women, or those non US citizens that ended up in Gitmo (why did no US citizens end up there?)

The problem is that the US does not have jurisdiction in Afghanistan or Iraq. If it was the Afghan government trying people it is a very different issue from the US government trying people for resisting the invasion of their country by a foreign power.

As has been said the UK detained foreign nationals of hostile countries (and indeed not even all of them - I'll try and find a reference to a retired german general resident in London who successfully appealed his detention) most German jews were never detained. This is very different from detaining your own nationals.
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One thing that you need to understand is that Native Americans were not US citizens until 1924. They were living in "sovereign nations" in the United States.
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_citizens_1.html


Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the inherent authority of indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States of America. The U.S. federal government recognizes tribal nations as "domestic dependent nations" and has established a number of laws attempting to clarify the relationship between the federal, state, and tribal governments. The reference to Indians in the Constitution is not to grant local sovereignty. The only references are:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_United_States




Women also didn't have the right to vote until 1920. African Americans........need you ask? They were regarded as "property" not people.

And then we wonder why Americans don't trust their government.
 
cullennz said:
Did you lot chose the most complex political system in the world or did it just morph?

Semi joke
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Unlike nations such as Britain with thousand year long continuous history of governance by a particular source of power, with palimpsests of ad hoc solutions strapped all over it like chairs on Jed Clampett's truck, the US was built from scratch, from the ground up, on completely new principles. One of those principles is the inefficiency of getting large numbers of people to agree on something. its deliberately designed to damp out rapid random changes in social opinion by making all changes slow to implement and requiring most of us to agree.

So while you think you're being witty with your little outsider-view-naïveté snark, what you said is functionally true - in order to accommodate the needs, opinions and desires of a vast terrain of diverse people our founders crafted one of the most cumbersome systems, difficult to manipulate and game, slow to change, requiring massive agreement between the players to change any rules.
 
Jrrarglblarg said:
Unlike nations such as Britain with thousand year long continuous history of governance by a particular source of power, with palimpsests of ad hoc solutions strapped all over it like chairs on Jed Clampett's truck, the US was built from scratch, from the ground up, on completely new principles. One of those principles is the inefficiency of getting large numbers of people to agree on something. its deliberately designed to damp out rapid random changes in social opinion by making all changes slow to implement and requiring most of us to agree.

So while you think you're being witty with your little outsider-view-naïveté snark, what you said is functionally true - in order to accommodate the needs, opinions and desires of a vast terrain of diverse people our founders crafted one of the most cumbersome systems, difficult to manipulate and game, slow to change, requiring massive agreement between the players to change any rules.
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Great post! And when the Founding Fathers were designing the Bill of Rights they looked at the flaws in existing government systems and designed fail safes to avoid those flaws.

People have a tendency to pretend that the world has changed so much, but it really hasn't. The government is still trying to carve it's way into an Oligarchy just like many governments have tried before them.
 
theprestige said:
Which is a fascinating prediction, since currently the Cliven Bundys among us rank behind common criminals, Islamic terrorists, lone nuts, and left wing activists, as far as "start the shooting" goes.
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And also toddlers. Lots of toddlers. ;)
 
theprestige said:
Which is a fascinating prediction, since currently the Cliven Bundys among us rank behind common criminals, Islamic terrorists, lone nuts, and left wing activists, as far as "start the shooting" goes.
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None of those is going to start a civil war. The Cliven Bundys have civil war as a defined goal.
 
arthwollipot said:
None of those is going to start a civil war. The Cliven Bundys have civil war as a defined goal.
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Well, we can probably take common criminals out of the discussion, anyway.

But there's not a lot of daylight between a civil war and an extremist insurgency. And the left has a long and proud history of revolution as well.

Revolution, civil war, insurgency... The label doesn't matter so much, when people take to the streets and the bullets start flying.
 
theprestige said:
Well, we can probably take common criminals out of the discussion, anyway.

But there's not a lot of daylight between a civil war and an extremist insurgency. And the left has a long and proud history of revolution as well.

Revolution, civil war, insurgency... The label doesn't matter so much, when people take to the streets and the bullets start flying.
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Anything recent?

Like not 80 odd years ago
 
theprestige said:
Well, we can probably take common criminals out of the discussion, anyway.

But there's not a lot of daylight between a civil war and an extremist insurgency. And the left has a long and proud history of revolution as well.

Revolution, civil war, insurgency... The label doesn't matter so much, when people take to the streets and the bullets start flying.
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And the US has a long history of mass killings
 
Planigale said:
Yes, everyone except the sovereign. Even as far back as Magna Carta (1215) the concept arose that the 'crown' as an institution was separate from the individual as king. Whilst the power of the crown was supreme the behaviour of the king could be constrained.The divine right of kings applied to the institution not the individual. So to an extent even the king was a subject of the crown, but certainly even the royal spouse and children are subjects in the same way as the lowest serf was.
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This is how Edward VIII was forced to abdicate when he became involved with an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, despite the fact that he was single.

Kings are accountable for what they do.
 
cullennz said:
It is hardly govt abuse is it?

It's nutter hillbillies with guns
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Read the article, the nutter hillbillies are thinking the government is violating the Constitution and over stepping its bounds.

But again, you keep acting like the gun lobby is "reacting" to incidents. It's not about reaction it's about deterrence. They see incidents in history going on constantly that show how the government abuses the Constitution and tramples their rights.

So they feel that if guns were to be made illegal the government would go hog wild in doing even worse things. They literally feel that without the constant threat of citizens with guns, the government would run roughshod over them and take over everything.

We don't even need to look outside North America to see this is not likely, hello Canada! But they don't compare the US to Canada. They compare it to dictatorships like the Philippines.

Look at Jesse Ventura debating Piers Morgan and notice again that Piers Morgan cannot wrap his mind around what Ventura is saying about Government tyranny. He never stays on that point. But the audience thinks he's making sensible points. And look how diverse the audience is. It's not just "hillbillie nutters" who feel this way. Watch to the very end and scan the audience during the debate to see all the different ethnicities, genders and ages. Then watch what happens when Ventura asks their opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0O3B7N848o
 
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cullennz said:
It is hardly govt abuse is it?

It's nutter hillbillies with guns
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That would be a matter of perspective, now, wouldn't it? ;) From their POV they were fighting against unjust government abuse of power. Keep in mind our Founding Fathers were terrorists, criminals, traitors against the crown, and only winning the Revolution saved them from the series of noose, horses and sabers that would have faced them had they lost and been captured.
 
truethat said:
Also a good point. The 10th Amendment was made for a reason. I think sometimes it doesn't click how HUGE the US really is. It's been amusing to me over the years the way Europeans will act like Americans are idiots because they aren't "well traveled" because they haven't visited different countries. Totally ignoring the convenience in Europe of having different countries an hour away. People in the US who also have different countries an hour a way, generally tend to visit them because it's easy and cheap.

But the US is huge and has many differenct climates and many different states with their own styles of life. It's as different in NYC and New Mexico as it is in London and Cyprus. Many Americans with families are well traveled they just do it within the United States because they don't have to take a transatlantic flight or worry about getting a passport. But mostly because it's a hell of a lot cheaper to do. When we visited family in Cyprus it cost us about $4000 just for plane tickets for three of us. I could have taken my entire family of 5 to Florida and Alaska for the same amount of money.
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Yet disparate countries from Turkey to Russia to Iceland have signed up to the ECHR / Council of Europe and agreed that it overrides national law. So you have to understand if European nations can agree a set of human rights why ca not the rather closer USA.
 
Planigale said:
Yet disparate countries from Turkey to Russia to Iceland have signed up to the ECHR / Council of Europe and agreed that it overrides national law. So you have to understand if European nations can agree a set of human rights why ca not the rather closer USA.
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I don't think it's the laws - which I find almost universally inspiring - it's the applications that can grate. Maybe freedom of speech means I get to burn the flag, maybe it doesn't. There are still tensions to be resolved, even when we agree about the higher ideals.
 
truethat said:
One thing that you need to understand is that Native Americans were not US citizens until 1924. They were living in "sovereign nations" in the United States.
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_citizens_1.html




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_United_States




Women also didn't have the right to vote until 1920. African Americans........need you ask? They were regarded as "property" not people.

And then we wonder why Americans don't trust their government.
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Sorry you seem to be agreeing the rights in the Bill of Rights are restricted to US citizens and non citizens are not entitled (although may be allowed) those rights. Previously I was being told that it was not true that the rights were restricted to citizens.
 
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