What we have now is good. We have to somewhat take advantage of kids when they r young and dumb to join the military yet still old enough to do so with some maturity.
Alcohol is one of the worst drugs out there, 21 at the earliest to save stupid kids from themselves.
they say they are forcing people into working or volunteering if they want their free healthcare. but the thing is, only less than ten percent of people who are going to be kicked off should be contributing more and aren't. the large majority of medicaid for the poor recipients are already working full time or more than the minimum 20 hours per week. they are being run off due to red tape and administrative hurdles.
### **Housing Reform: Restoring Fair Access, Productive Ownership, and Improving Affordability**
To ensure housing serves people rather than speculation, ownership rules should prioritize residents and working families over corporations and absentee investors.
**1. Limit non-resident and corporate ownership.**
Primary homeownership should be reserved for individuals and families. Corporations and foreign entities would no longer be permitted to purchase or hold residential property directly. This ensures that housing functions as shelter and community investment—not as a financial asset detached from local realities.
**2. Discourage excessive property accumulation.**
To prevent the concentration of housing in the hands of a few, a **progressive property-profit tax** would apply to additional properties owned by individuals:
* 10% on net profits from a second home
* 20% on a third
* Increasing by 10% for each additional property, up to 90% on the tenth and beyond.
This structure allows moderate ownership but disincentivizes speculative hoarding that limits supply and drives up prices for others.
**3. Apply similar principles to multi-building landlords.**
For apartment developers and landlords, the same progressive schedule would apply—not by the number of apartments, but by the number of separate buildings owned. This encourages **efficient design and higher-density living**, rewarding those who provide housing well rather than simply expanding their holdings.
**4. Broader outcomes.**
These measures would:
* Increase availability of single-family homes for first-time buyers
* Lower speculative demand, thereby reducing housing inflation
* Encourage responsible and efficient rental development
* Realign the housing market with its social purpose: *to provide stable, affordable shelter and shared prosperity.*
---
AI can already use copyrighted works, as long as it's done with fair use. so it can and does even summarize copyrighted works. though with that said, sometimes it blurs the line of what is legally permissible and over reach. and that's a fact, that legal experts is the state of AI vis a vis copy righted material .
Voting for trump three times for his Reich reminds me of something.... the third reich
## **Why the U.S. Cannot Replicate the Welfare States of Other Countries Without Losing Competitiveness**
It is commonly said that the United States pays lower taxes than other developed nations. While partially true in headline numbers, this comparison **misses the broader context of total spending and systemic inefficiencies**.
### **1. Nominal Taxes vs. Total Spending**
* The U.S. collects about **24% of GDP in taxes**, below the OECD average of **33%**.
* However, the U.S. spends roughly **18% of GDP on healthcare**, with about **half funded privately**. If this private expenditure were included, our total effective spending on social services is roughly **on par with other developed nations**.
### **2. Key Structural Differences**
Three factors make the U.S. system appear more “tax-efficient” than it actually is:
1. **Healthcare inefficiency:** Our system costs roughly **twice as much per capita** as other developed countries.
2. **Military expenditure:** The U.S. maintains a military **larger than the next ten countries combined**, inflating government spending without contributing to social services.
3. **Historical borrowing from Social Security:** Decades of borrowing against Social Security and Medicare have delayed fiscal reckoning, meaning we must now begin paying down that debt. while this is sugnificant, estimates are that the government is only paying back about 2 trillion that it has borrowed, which isn't a huge portion of our gdp
### **3. Implications of Raising Taxes**
Simply increasing tax rates would not replicate the welfare state of other countries at lower costs:
* Higher taxes could fund more social services, but due to **existing inefficiencies**, the U.S. might **spend more than other countries** while achieving the same outcomes.
* Without structural reform, higher taxation alone would **increase burdens without improving service efficiency**.
### **4. The Bottom Line**
While Americans nominally pay lower taxes, this statistic **ignores the hidden costs of private healthcare, military spending, and historical borrowing**. Any discussion of welfare expansion must address **structural inefficiencies** as much as tax policy.
---
## **A Humane and Economically Responsible Immigration Policy**
The United States faces the challenge of balancing **immigration enforcement, economic needs, and humane treatment**. A practical solution involves creating a structured, temporary **visitor worker program** tied to economic realities.
### **1. Wage Alignment and Economic Fairness**
To protect domestic workers while remaining humane, we should set the **minimum wage at $12.50 per hour**—historically close to the average after inflation.
* This ensures that American workers are not undercut while maintaining affordability for employers.
* The wage cap discourages extreme profit-seeking that could incentivize illegal labor exploitation.
### **2. Visitor Worker Status**
Illegal immigrants would be offered a two year window
to gain **legal visitor worker status**.
* They would **voluntarily register** during this window.
* Violations of the law, such as criminal activity, would result in deportation.
* Visitor workers would **receive room, board, and basic medical provisions** from their employers, creating a structured and humane employment environment.
This system allows labor to move efficiently where it’s most needed while gradually **integrating workforce needs** with the domestic economy.
### **3. Legal Compliance Mechanisms**
Businesses must use **E-Verify** to confirm worker eligibility.
* Registered visitor workers automatically pass verification.
* Strict enforcement will discourage illegal labor while keeping essential industries supplied.
### **4. Optional Physical Barriers**
While a wall or fence could help reduce illegal entry or drug trafficking, it is **not immediately necessary**. Long-term enforcement and verification measures are more cost-effective and flexible. Illegal Immigration after all doesnt go endlessly up, it just fluctuates, after all, and with everify and deportation crack downs, itd likely go downward
### **5. Rights and Citizenship**
Visitor workers would **not receive constitutional rights or voting privileges**.
* Birthright citizenship could be reconsidered, though children born in the U.S. may still be naturalized.
* These measures focus on maintaining sovereignty and legal consistency without unnecessary cruelty.
### **6. Balancing Humaneness and Law**
This approach acknowledges the **human dignity of immigrant laborers** while **enforcing the rule of law**.
* Most undocumented immigrants are law-abiding.
* By providing structured legal pathways, the system minimizes the risk of exploitation and reduces political and social friction.
### **7. Long-Term Outlook**
Over time, the program aims to:
* Phase immigrant labor into regulated, transparent channels.
* Protect domestic employment and wages.
* Allow the free market to allocate labor where it’s most productive.
This policy combines **economic prudence, humane treatment, and legal enforcement**, providing a **realistic, fair, and implementable framework** for managing immigration in the United States.
---
## **A Realistic Path to Affordable Healthcare: Regulate Costs and Insurance, Not Rebuild the System**
Anyone who knows me knows that **healthcare affordability** is the issue I care most about. In a prosperous country like the United States, everyone should have access to care — not as a luxury, but as a basic right.
Yet, after years of studying how other nations do it, I’ve come to realize that America’s political system may be **too entrenched and too corrupted by special interests** to deliver a clean, ideal fix like “Medicare for All.”
### **1. The Real Problem: Prices, Not Patients**
The United States spends **roughly twice as much per person on healthcare** as other developed nations, despite similar or worse outcomes. The main reason isn’t that Americans use more care — it’s that we **pay vastly higher prices** for everything: hospital stays, drugs, procedures, and even basic services.
Most countries control healthcare costs through **national or regional price regulation** — essentially saying, “Here’s what this service is worth.” In contrast, U.S. providers are allowed to charge whatever the market will bear, and insurance companies simply pass those inflated costs along.
That’s why our system devours nearly **20% of GDP**, while others deliver better care at 10–12%.
### **2. The Middleman Problem: For-Profit Insurance**
Private insurance adds little real value to healthcare delivery.
* Administrative overhead for private insurers averages **15–20%**, compared to **2–3% for Medicare**.
* Profit motives push insurers to deny care, not manage costs.
We don’t need to eliminate private insurance, but we should **make it nonprofit**, as many European countries have done. This would preserve consumer choice while eliminating the incentive to inflate costs.
### **3. A Smarter Way Forward: Regulate and Gradually Slow Growth**
Rather than tearing down the current system, the U.S. should **keep existing structures**—Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance—but **cap healthcare cost growth** below the rate of inflation for a fixed period, perhaps 5–10 years.
This wouldn’t slash prices overnight — that would shock the system. Instead, it would gradually bring healthcare costs back in line with the broader economy, allowing hospitals and providers to adapt.
At the same time, the federal government could:
* Expand **Obamacare in states that haven’t adopted it**, covering millions more low-income people.
* Allow **upper-income uninsured individuals** to buy into **Medicaid-like plans**, paying full or near-full cost if they can afford it.
* Continue **price benchmarking**: Medicare pays roughly one-third less than private insurers, and Medicaid pays about one-third less than Medicare. Expanding these benchmarks would normalize our prices to international standards over time.
### **4. Why Not Medicare for All?**
“Medicare for All” sounds appealing, but under current political realities it’s risky. With **lobbyists dominating Washington**, universal coverage could easily become universal price gouging — bankrupting the country rather than saving it.
The better approach is to **fix the market we already have**. Make it fair. Make it efficient. And make it affordable. Once costs are controlled, universal coverage becomes achievable without economic shock.
### **5. The Principle: Healthcare as a Right, Profit as a Tool, Not a Master**
Healthcare should not be a profit engine. It should be a **public good**, delivered through **private and public channels** that serve the same goal: keeping people healthy without financial ruin.
By focusing on **price regulation** and **nonprofit insurance**, America can reach the same results as nations with universal care — affordable access for all — without risking economic collapse or political gridlock.
---
### **Conclusion**
The United States doesn’t need to copy another country’s healthcare system. It just needs to **discipline its own**.
By regulating prices, limiting profit motives, and expanding coverage incrementally, we can cut costs nearly in half while preserving the freedom and innovation of our mixed system.
That’s not idealism — it’s **practical reform that works with the system we have**, not against it.
---
## **A Modern Boarding House System to Help Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis**
America’s housing crisis is not just about supply—it’s about **structure**. We’ve priced ordinary people out of shelter while dismantling the very housing models that once kept communities stable and affordable. The solution isn’t endless subsidies or luxury development—it’s the **rebirth of the boarding house**, redesigned for the 21st century.
### **1. The Model: Affordable, Shared Housing with Accountability**
In this system, **boarding houses** would be built and maintained by **private contractors using federal loans administered through the states**. This ensures efficiency and oversight while removing the excessive profit motive that has distorted both public housing and private markets.
Each resident would have **a private room** but share kitchens, bathrooms, and common spaces—lowering costs dramatically through shared infrastructure. Rent would be **set at one-third of a resident’s income**, ensuring fairness and affordability across income levels.
Those with little or no income would pay very little. Those with moderate means would pay proportionally more—giving them a **natural incentive** to transition to independent housing as their finances improve.
### **2. Funding and Sustainability**
Instead of simply **paying people’s rent**, as many current programs do, this system **creates assets that repay their cost**. Federal funds would operate as **revolving loans**—money lent to build and maintain facilities, repaid over time by income-based rents. In this way, the program becomes **fiscally sustainable** rather than another permanent subsidy.
### **3. Behavioral Expectations and Community Standards**
One hard truth of housing policy is that **shared environments can collapse without order**. Drug abuse, crime, and untreated mental illness can turn affordable housing into unsafe housing.
To prevent this, residents would **voluntarily agree to a behavioral contract** as a condition of residence, including **waivers permitting random drug searches** and compliance checks. This ensures a clean, stable living environment and deters criminal activity.
Such measures would be **constitutional when based on informed consent** and could be carried out under the supervision of state housing authorities or independent community boards to prevent abuse.
### **4. Addressing the Hardest Cases**
Not everyone would fit into this model. A small subset of people—those with **severe mental illness, violent criminal histories, or entrenched addiction**—would require specialized treatment or secure housing arrangements. These cases would need **targeted social or medical interventions**, handled separately from the general boarding system.
### **5. The Broader Benefits**
* **Efficiency:** Shared housing uses less land, less infrastructure, and less energy per person.
* **Fairness:** Everyone contributes something—no one gets a completely free ride.
* **Mobility:** Residents can move upward as their circumstances improve, freeing space for others.
* **Community:** Shared living fosters connection, responsibility, and a sense of belonging—antidotes to the isolation that often drives addiction and despair.
### **6. A Realistic Path Forward**
This proposal is not utopian—it’s practical. We already spend enough on housing assistance to fund such a model; we simply **spend it inefficiently**. By replacing fragmented aid programs with an accountable, income-based boarding system, we could eliminate most homelessness while rebuilding the ladder between poverty and stability.
The only people left outside would be those who **refuse structure altogether**—and they, too, would be addressed through case-by-case outreach and care.
---
### **Conclusion**
The affordable housing crisis can’t be solved by slogans or subsidies alone. It demands **a structural solution**—one that blends compassion with accountability, public support with personal responsibility.
Modern boarding houses, fairly funded and firmly managed, could provide that missing middle ground: **a humane, cost-effective bridge between the street and self-sufficiency.**
---
**A Smarter Path to Fiscal Discipline: Linking Spending to GDP**
America’s federal budget process has become a cycle of chaos—annual debt ceiling standoffs, partisan brinkmanship, and short-term fixes that ignore the structural problems underneath. A better approach is to **tie federal spending to the size of the economy** itself.
Under this plan, **Congress would set every major category of discretionary spending**—defense, infrastructure, education, welfare, and so forth—as a **fixed percentage of GDP**, rather than an arbitrary dollar amount. For example, defense spending might be set at 4% of GDP, and it would automatically scale as the economy grows.
This framework would maintain a **balanced budget by design**, ensuring that government spending grows no faster than the economy that supports it.
### **Built-In Flexibility**
Of course, no formula can anticipate every circumstance. Congress should retain the authority to **override the GDP rule on a case-by-case basis**, such as during wars, recessions, or natural disasters. But by default, spending would stay in sync with the nation’s productive capacity.
This balance between **discipline and flexibility** would end the recurring debt ceiling crises that destabilize financial markets and erode public trust.
### **What About Recessions?**
Critics might object that GDP contracts during recessions, forcing automatic spending cuts. In practice, this effect would be modest. Even during the Great Recession, GDP fell by only about **5%**, meaning a 5% temporary cut—not catastrophic.
In extreme downturns, like the Great Depression’s 30% collapse, Congress could simply use its emergency authority to **temporarily exceed the GDP rule** and stimulate recovery. This model doesn’t handcuff policymakers—it simply forces **intentionality** and **transparency** in deficit spending.
### **Why Social Security and Healthcare Should Be Exempt**
Two major spending categories—**Social Security and healthcare**—should remain **outside** this GDP-based cap. These programs are unique because their costs depend on demographics, prior borrowing, and promises made decades ago.
Right now, Washington’s accounting system **pits essential programs against each other**. For example, to “save” Social Security, lawmakers may cut food assistance or housing aid—forcing a false moral choice between supporting seniors and feeding children. That’s a broken structure, not a moral dilemma.
Social Security should stand on its own balance sheet. Its looming shortfall—projected to reduce benefits to 80% by 2033—deserves an honest, separate debate. Possible fixes include:
* Modestly raising payroll taxes on higher earners
* Gradually increasing the retirement age
* Adjusting benefits for wealthier retirees
* Or a balanced mix of all three
Similarly, **healthcare spending** should be treated as its own long-term challenge, with reform driven by cost efficiency and demographic trends, not annual budget negotiations.
### **The Goal: Stability, Fairness, and Accountability**
This GDP-linked budget rule would restore **fiscal sanity** without sacrificing economic agility. It would end the recurring hostage crises over the debt ceiling, promote predictability in federal planning, and create a transparent link between **national prosperity and national spending**.
By carving out Social Security and healthcare for separate, long-term reform, Congress could finally confront those programs on their own merits—without raiding or sacrificing other priorities.
This is the kind of **realistic, bipartisan solution** America needs: disciplined, flexible, and grounded in both economics and common sense.
---
### **A Smarter Alternative to Student Loans: Income-Based Education Contributions**
Instead of relying on traditional student loans, graduates should pay a fixed percentage of their income—say **5% to 10% annually for ten years**—as an education contribution. There would be **no loans, interest, or debt collection**, just a clear future payment schedule tied to income. The government could estimate the net present value of those future payments and fund colleges upfront, recovering the funds later through the tax system.
This approach aligns the incentives of **students, schools, and society** far better than the current model. Colleges would have a direct financial stake in ensuring that their graduates are **economically viable**, since the government’s payments to schools would depend on graduates’ real-world success. As a result, universities would be motivated to focus more on **practical education** and less on unnecessary coursework or inflated program lengths.
At the same time, the government could still require a small set of **foundational courses**—basic psychology, sociology, science, math, writing, and reading—to ensure that all graduates possess a well-rounded general education. But beyond that, institutions would have the flexibility to streamline degrees for efficiency and employability.
This model also encourages **shared responsibility**: students still “chip in” for their own education through their future earnings, which resonates with conservative values of accountability and self-reliance. Meanwhile, progressives can support it for its fairness—those who earn more contribute more, while those with lower incomes aren’t crushed by debt.
Over time, the system would **self-correct**. Programs that consistently produce low-earning graduates would receive less funding, prompting universities either to improve those programs or scale them back. In turn, high-performing programs would thrive, creating a natural feedback loop between educational value and economic outcome.
For example, a humanities degree might remain viable for top-performing students with exceptional talent or drive, but schools would no longer be rewarded for enrolling unqualified students into costly programs that yield poor job prospects. This isn’t punitive—it simply ensures that resources are invested where they produce meaningful returns for both the student and society.
The result would be a more **rational, results-driven education system**—one that balances personal freedom, economic realism, and social fairness.
Ultimately, proposals like this are the kind of **concrete, policy-focused solutions** that Washington should be pursuing. Bureaucracy and politics have distracted us from pragmatic reform. It’s time to rebuild education financing around **outcomes, responsibility, and opportunity** rather than debt.
---
I love love watchin you debate against the conservatards, an fighting the good fight. You r so smart and articulate and we get to watch u perform for free
Smoke and get drunk and do drugs? Kill themselves? Run away from home? Skip school completely? Maim themselves?
Its self evident cause kids are always being limited and everyone understands that's the way ot should be. Do u think 6 year old girls can consent to sex with a 40 year old man? Do u think every kid should have the right to vote? Voting isn't body autonomy but it affects each other. Should kids be allowed to drive? Smoke and get drunk and do drugs? Join the military? Kill themselves? Run away from home? Skip school completely?
Maybe I needed to state the obvious here but I still maintain its self evident
This is a stupid debate. It's self evident and part of civilized society that minors dont always have the same rights and privileges and abilities as adults. If u wanna allow Trans surgeries of minors fine I understand but dont start with the premise that minors are basically the same as adults
There might be some plausibility that it's not so much that objective carrers are leftist but that leftists infiltrate objective careers
But the idea behind the arguments that these esteemed members of society can't be trusted to be objective is kinda ridiculous
Yes there are institutional biases but these guys are our most objective thinkers and their political positions should tell us something especially when its so overwhelming against a guy like trump
Orangemanbad
Here are some survey results about how scientists report voting or political preferences, especially toward Donald Trump. The numbers vary depending on how “scientist” is defined and which survey is being asked. ([GenomeWeb][1])
## Key findings
* A **2020 Nature** survey of ~900 of its readers (many scientists) found about **8%** supported Trump, while **86%** favored Joe Biden. ([GenomeWeb][1])
* A survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists Scientific Network (UCSSN) found that in the 2016 election, **89%** of those scientists surveyed voted for Hillary Clinton, and only **1%** voted for Trump. ([Scientific American][2])
* More recently, a Nature-poll of about 2,000 scientists showed only **6%** support for Trump, with 86% favoring Kamala Harris (in the context of the 2024 election). ([Science Times][3])
---
## Rough summary
Putting it all together, a fair estimate is that **somewhere around 5-10%** of scientists surveyed in recent U.S. polls say they would vote for or support Donald Trump, with a much larger fraction supporting Democratic candidates, at least in the surveys publicly reported.
---
It’s hard to say precisely, but according to a 2024 survey of U.S. college faculty, only 8 percent said they planned to vote for Donald Trump. (Inside Higher Ed)
Not sure what u r referencing but I edited the message cause of technical difficulties.
That stat that gun murders are comparatively wildly out of whack but not nongun murders. Very revealing and not really possible to wiggle out of
You can tell this is a gun problem, not just a bad person problem as the gun lobby says, also by comparing non-gun homicides of similar countries as the USA, and then adding guns to the mix: non-gun homicides are slightly on the higher side but within normal range, while gun homicides go wildly higher. If this was a bad person problem at its core, there would be a wildly higher amount of non-gun homicides as well, but that's not the case. Included is an article describing this phenomenon and a link with a picture.
https://i.imgur.com/skcT8qr.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/71n1u2/gunnongun_homicide_rates_in_oecd_countries_for/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/canada-gun-control-debate/566102/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2018-07-28T09%3A00%3A12
How do u wiggle out of this? If this is a bad person problem then non gun murders should be wildly out of whack too in the usa. Thats overwhelmingly implied in the data
"SO are you using stats on individual gun ownership as a type of red herring to avoid the chart above which conclusively prove that societies that allow guns are safer"
I already showed u that that graph is misleading. The per capita use of guns has increased but the actual number of people owning guns has decreased. Per capita use is misleading then. Plus u idiotically say your simple little graph proves your position while you just ignore the overwhelming weight of all the stats in the opening post
Also yes we could triple the amount of people owning guns. Or what if everyone carried around guns? Would defensive gun use sky rocket? Of course. But so would the murder rates. And not every time a gun is used to kill when defensively is it justifiable. and, if defensive uses sky rocketed, would that mean suddenly 1 in four more lives were saved? no, of course not. the more there are defensive uses of guns, the less likely they are to have actually saved a life. plus, it does seem pretty high up there that one in four times that someone's life is saved when a crime occurs
also blacks might be more likely to kill than whites, and we do have more blacks than other countries, which could indicate that it's a racial problem, but we have this stat which strongly indicates gun cause more murders than when guns aren't involved.
-You can tell this is a gun problem, not just a bad person problem as the gun lobby says, also by comparing non-gun homicides of similar countries as the USA, and then adding guns to the mix: non-gun homicides are slightly on the higher side but within normal range, while gun homicides go wildly higher. If this was a bad person problem at its core, there would be a wildly higher amount of non-gun homicides as well, but that's not the case. Included is an article describing this phenomenon and a link with a picture.
https://i.imgur.com/skcT8qr.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/71n1u2/gunnongun_homicide_rates_in_oecd_countries_for/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/canada-gun-control-debate/566102/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2018-07-28T09%3A00%3A12
and, the gun stats above indicate state by state comparisons, and what they indicate, in general is that gun control works and that the presence of guns increases the likeihood of death, no matter what international comparisons say. just one study or correlation might not mean much, but if you take all the stats in the opening post as a whole, it's clear that guns cause an increase in the liklihood of murder and that gun control probably works.
Also that little example highlights some issues. No one said the boy who was followed home had his life threatened or endangered. So what happens is every time theres a conflict, or more often than ideal, someone has to die? Thats life tho theres always conflict but that doesnt justify someone getting killed every time.
Also yes we could triple the amount of people owning guns. Or what if everyone carried around guns? Would defensive gun use sky rocket? Of course. But so would the murder rates. And not every time a gun is used to kill when defensively is it justifiable
also, are you suggesting that if we had less guns that this murder rate compared to the rest of the developed world would be way higher? that defensive gun uses brings it down from being super high? what exactly are you arguing? do you think brings murder rate down or just violent crime rate? reglardless, you have the statistics mixed up, as my last post shows.
no one is saying people shouldn't have a gun for self defense, in general. we're just saying they should be discouraged by our policies given more people are harmed by the wide spread prevalence of guns than are benefited. but anyone who's a law abiding citizen and willing to play by the rules, and really wants one, can have one.
also, the per capita gun ownership rate has gone up in recent decades but that the number of people owning guns has gone down. while gun ownership has gone down, so has the murder rate.
### What the data show
* **More guns overall:**
The total number of civilian-owned firearms in the U.S. has grown steadily. Estimates put it at **over 400 million firearms today**, up from ~200 million in the mid-1990s.
* **Per capita increase:**
Because the U.S. population grew more slowly than gun sales, the **guns-per-person ratio has risen**. Current estimates suggest **1.2+ guns per person**.
* **Fewer households owning guns:**
Surveys (e.g., General Social Survey, Pew Research) show that the **percentage of households with a gun has declined** since the 1970s–80s.
* 1970s: ~50% of households reported owning a gun.
* 2020s: ~30–40% report owning a gun (depending on the survey).
* **Concentration of ownership:**
A smaller share of people own guns, but those who do often own **multiple firearms**. Some estimates say **half of U.S. guns are owned by ~3% of the population** (“super-owners”).
### Why this matters
* It explains the paradox: **per capita gun ownership goes up while household ownership goes down.**
* Politically and culturally, this means gun enthusiasm is concentrated in a smaller but very committed subset of Americans.
GUN SCIENCE
-where there is more gun control, there is less murder. this is the scientific consensus, as shown with the literature review. being a literature review makes this a lot more informing than just being a single study; we see the consensus forming. also included is a link to a poll of scientists but a literature review itself makes the claims even stronger.
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11120184/gun-control-study-international-evidence
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oe-hemenway-guns-20150423-story.html
-where there are more guns, there is more murder, across geographic regions from localities and larger. this is also a lot more informing because it a literature review of lots of studies. what's more, people are shown not to kill with other weopons instead of guns, as is often argued, because if they did there would be no correlation here.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
-women are five times more likely to be killed if their significant other has a gun. this is a practical point in illustration of the guns v murders correlation. same in individual lives as general trends
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447915/
-you are more likely to be murdered if you have a gun, as well as those close to you
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858
-States with more gun control have fewer mass shootings
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/433017-states-with-stricter-gun-control-regulations-have-fewer-mass?fbclid=IwAR0f5l5eW7d-rX4ZoE8R2MOe6VBvLJVrfQQRFwd2b7anlBIM_wgsYYx-uQk
-only around two hundred and fifty killings are done in the name of self defense per year. people like to pretend defense is such a huge thing, but the odds of being murdered is is closer to forty times higher. the odds of being shot and not necessarily killed are upwards of four hundred times higher.
-we have half the worlds guns in the usa but a small percent of the worlds population
-Police are more likely to kill unjustifiably in low gun control and high gun areas due to their increased fear, and police are more likely to be shot themselves in those areas.
http://justicenotjails.org/police-shootings-gun-problem/
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/more-guns-more-dead-cops-study-finds-n409356
-Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the United States' gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-u-s-gun-deaths-compare-to-other-countries
-High school kids in the USA are eighty two times more likely to be shot than the same kids in other developed countries.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0767
-states with more gun control have fewer youth who die from guns
-it is claimed that most murders are gang related, but this looks to be factually incorrect in the link. even if higher numbers floating around on the internet are true, our murder problem still there if you take out the gang murders from consideration. the numbers here can be arrived at with basic math.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-defilippis/do-we-have-a-gang-problem_b_5071639.html
-this really isn't just a mental health problem. we don't have more people with mental health problems than other countries.... just more people with guns. the study controls for mental health factors v other factors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
-we dont have more crime than the rest of the world, just a lot more people getting shot and killed. you aren't more likely to be mugged here, for instance, but you are more likely to be mugged and shot in the process. again a gun problem. showing it's not just deviants being deviants as some suggest but an emphasis on the gun problem.
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9217163/america-guns-europe
-You can tell this is a gun problem, not just a bad person problem as the gun lobby says, also by comparing non-gun homicides of similar countries as the USA, and then adding guns to the mix: non-gun homicides are slightly on the higher side but within normal range, while gun homicides go wildly higher. If this was a bad person problem at its core, there would be a wildly higher amount of non-gun homicides as well, but that's not the case. Included is an article describing this phenomenon and a link with a picture.
https://i.imgur.com/skcT8qr.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/71n1u2/gunnongun_homicide_rates_in_oecd_countries_for/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/canada-gun-control-debate/566102/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2018-07-28T09%3A00%3A12
-people like to say assault rifles are not that dangerous, because there are only a few hundred murders with them per year out of only around ten or so thousand of gun murders. the thing is though, the percent chance an assault rifle will be used to kill someone is significantly higher than the chance other guns will be used to kill someone. /// you can do the math yourself. there are 2.5 million assault rifles in circulation. 374 rifle deaths per year. there are 11000 gun homicides. there's a gun for every person in the usa, 340 million. what's the math say? 374 divided by 11000 is 3.4 percent of deaths are from rifles. 2.5 milliion divided by 340 milliion is less than a percent. so what does this mean? despite rifles being less than a percent of guns, they cause 3.4 percent of deaths. that is, a rifle has a higher percent chance of being used to murder than a non rifle. most guns that are used in murder are hand guns, but assault rifles are more likely to be chosen over a hand gun when faced with that choice. just like, as an analogy, people are more likely to speed in a sports car, but most cars that speed are not sports cars.
-people like to throw around number of defensive gun use. the idea is that not all defensive gun uses result in a killing. the most common number in literature is tens of thousands, though the number vary wildly. the only thing is, even if you are more likely to use a gun in self defense than being murdered, you are still more likely to be murdered than someone who doesn't have a gun. also, a lot of those thousands of defensive uses are not all that critical.... downplaying their significance. and, a lot of those 'defensive' uses were actually situations that were people instigating and escalating a situation that wouldn't otherwise exist, as the link below illustrates. even if we used the higher numbers, is it all that convincing that there are tens of thousands more near murders in a nation with already a globally disproportionate number of murders? it holds true, that we could give lots more people guns, and that may increase defensive use... but it would come at the cost of more murder, too.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/
-for more on giving an overview of the gun issues, see the following
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts
-in the usa, the number of murders has overall gone down in recent decades. the thing is, while the number of guns went up, the number of people owning them went down. also, this is just one measure: all the other measure include all the countries and localities where gun levels are proportionate to murder rates.
-for more information on gun policy in the usa and other countries: www.gunpolicy.org
-australia. they enacted major gun reform around twenty years ago after a mass shooting. they bought back a bunch of guns and enacted other gun control. their mass shootings stopped. this almost surely is not an anomloy. their homicides dropped by up to fifty percent. the idea is a lower murder rate came with a lower percent of people owning guns (note that this is different than the specific gun ownership rate because if less people own more guns that could cause the percent owning to go down but the overall rate could be the same). misinformation attempts like to point that overall murder went up slightly after reform, but the rate did not and went down. also, the number of guns have gone up closer to previous level but the gun ownership rate is still lower. it is true that global murder went down, and some of that correlates with australi's rate... but global reductions arent as drastic s australia's.
https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback
-japan. they literally have barely any murders, and barely any guns. they have a rigorous process for allowing guns
POLICY AND COMMON SENSE POINTS
-here are some ideas for gun control ranked by experts as more to less effective, with a comparison to how much public support each has. this is important because experts say gun control can be effective, and this shows examples.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/upshot/how-to-reduce-mass-shooting-deaths-experts-say-these-gun-laws-could-help.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
-i read a story about a boy who got a gun out of his house to shoot some bullies who followed him home. they were challenging him. he admits he wouldn't have did this if he didn't have access to a gun. ive seen with my own eyes an adult do in a pretty exactly the same situation... it's not just limited to kids. remember again that men are five times more likely to kill their significant other if they have a gun. guns cause escalation when the situation otherwise wouldn't. a gun is critical.
-the world isn't magically split into those who will stop at nothing to get a gun and those who aren't. preventing some from being allowed a gun will sometimes prevent them from getting one. when they go off on their significant other or get into a tussle, as the examples and trends show.... they are less likely to kill someone.
-40% of gun sales involve no background check. 90% of people support background checks. 70% of the NRA does. most people want better gun control. congress isn't doing anything, it stands to reason, because they are beholden to the gun lobby.
-barely anyone is hard core per the second amendment. everyone has limits. no machine guns, no grenade launcher, some like the current set up. the thing is, the current set up is arbitrary, there is nothing magical about it.
-the idea of rigid approach to gun control is atypical from a historical perspective as shown in the following section, and a world wide perspective. barely any other countries enshrine such fundamental rights to gun, and these countries aren't those who we'd otherwise want to emulate or be compared to. people just cling to what they have been taught. before the NRA got involved politically, most people wanted to ban hand guns in the recent century.
it's plausible to charge trump in the documents case, cause he kept refusing to return the documents. but he is the executive branch personified, so i'd say just let it go and pick better battles. ie it's plausible that he can simply deem in his own head whether something is declassified. the incitement case i see you debating on here all the time, and it's just not the slam dunk you think it is. it's actually very debateable at best whether he incited a riot, and half of people dont think he did, myself included. again, pick better battles.
it was probably a state case, but the case where he was getting attacked for appriasing his property high for one purpose and low for another purpose, as if that's fraud, is another example of witch hunt. that's what anyone might do, within reason. and then that campaign fianance scandal, wittch hunt.
taken together, all these things just give the public the impression trump's political enemies are doing a witch hunt for political purposes. if trump is as unlawful as you say he is, you'd find slam dunks of crimes, not things that are open to interpretation that half the population dont even agree on.
dont get me wrong, trump is as corrupt as they come, but the idea that he's going around breaking criminal laws all day every day, is something that just sits in your head.
there's also that georgia case where he tried to get that govenor to 'find' votes for him, and the michigan case where he tried to install fake electors. those cases might be worth prosecuting. that doesn't mean there's not a witch hunt for most things against him.
Just because the followers of jesus are corrupt doesnt indicate anything about jesus himself. I dont know why you feel compelled to share what you have, maybe you just what to give me food for thought, in which case, I understand
I guess my point is that trumps haters fucked around, and they found out. Im not saying trump is justified in this, but when people abuse the legal processes of justice, we shouldn't be surprised when someone as corrupt as trump does it back.
Polemics much? Jesus said to take up our crosses and follow him. He said to love our neighbors. This is exactly what im saying. You seem to think the fact im not being koombuya about other religions im missing something. Jesus said he came to bring division and that those who reject the gospel are condemned. This hardly sounds like kumbuyya. The way I framed the other religions are factually correct. What fault do u find? U just give abstractions and polemics, almost wasnt worth responding to, but I know u r better capable than that as a debater
