prizrak
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Remember they don’t want to take our guns at all, nope
If you recall, I was in Italy earlier this summer and it was great to be able to enjoy a cigar with my coffee at a table outside a cafe. Can't do that in the US.avanti;n3552854 said:The reason pro gun people and the NRA are right not to give an inch is that if they do, it is very likely they "lose it all", just look at what happened to smoking, you used to be able to smoke on planes, now in many places you might not even be able to smoke in your own home.
LeVeL;n3552865 said:If you recall, I was in Italy earlier this summer and it was great to be able to enjoy a cigar with my coffee at a table outside a cafe. Can't do that in the US.
As far as gun rights go, we've given far more than an inch - there are over twenty thousand gun laws in this country. The story above is from Canada but numerous US politicians have openly called for the abolotion of the Second Amendment, so clearly they aren't going to stop if we reach twenty-one thousand laws.
That NPR piece focuses greatly on the unreliability of the numbers published by the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos. Since her qualifications for that job have long since been known to be questionable at best, it would be foolish to trust the department's numbers.LeVeL;n3552931 said:The School Shootings That Weren't : NPR
calvinhobbes;n3553016 said:That NPR piece focuses greatly on the unreliability of the numbers published by the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos. Since her qualifications for that job have long since been known to be questionable at best, it would be foolish to trust the department's numbers.
This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, "nearly 240 schools ... reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting." The number is far higher than most other estimates.
But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government's Civil Rights Data Collection.
We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.
In 161 cases, schools or districts attested that no incident took place or couldn't confirm one. In at least four cases, we found, something did happen, but it didn't meet the government's parameters for a shooting. About a quarter of schools didn't respond to our inquiries.
"When we're talking about such an important and rare event, [this] amount of data error could be very meaningful," says Deborah Temkin, a researcher and program director at Child Trends.
Do you know how I know that you didn't read the NPR article?prizrak;n3553020 said:Federal DoE has very little to do with the schools here. Schools are handled on the local level with the Feds only providing stupid guidelines like common core.
Exactly. Which is why this is in the article:prizrak;n3553020 said:Regardless of who is the head of DoE the problem is that these are clearly BS stats
"Far higher than most other estimates." I.e. "BS stats", as you put it.This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, "nearly 240 schools ... reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting." The number is far higher than most other estimates.
Not that I doubt your memory, but do you have a source for that which would provide some more information? I get the impression that school districts don't always know what to report and that the DoE doesn't know how to interpret those reported numbers.Spectre;n3553053 said:Should also be pointed out that (IIRC) the DoEd stats were equally unreliable under the prior administration.
calvinhobbes;n3553055 said:Not that I doubt your memory, but do you have a source for that which would provide some more information? I get the impression that school districts don't always know what to report and that the DoE doesn't know how to interpret those reported numbers.
Spectre;n1933600 said:Relatively low. We have Houston (where all the criminals of New Orleans went and don't want to leave, causing an enormous spike in crime) as a major issue, and Dallas used to be rated as high nationally, but it turned out we were reporting our crime improperly to the FBI and DOJ.
A bit of explanation and an example - If three car burglaries occurred in a 5 block radius in the course of a 24 hour period, Dallas was reporting them as three separate crimes. The DOJ/FBI requirements say that you're supposed to report them as one 'spree crime' not three separate ones; same thing for murder. Everyone else was using the DOJ specs to report and we weren't up through 2008. I leave it up to you to determine which is the more 'honest' method of reporting crime rates. I believe that San Antonio had a similar problem; see the link above for more information.
calvinhobbes;n3553054 said:Do you know how I know that you didn't read the NPR article?
Exactly. Which is why this is in the article:
"Far higher than most other estimates." I.e. "BS stats", as you put it.
LeVeL;n3553090 said:Is Betsy DeVos actually relevant here or is this some sort of weak dig at Trump? The point is that every time someone says "omg there are daily school shootings in America!!!1!" it's blatantly false. Europeans especially seem to picture the US as the wild west, which is laughable.
LeVeL;n3553269 said:Keep in mind that Kavanaugh can't make law, nor can he single-handedly speak for the whole court. With Roe v Wade and with marriage equality a new case would have to start, make its way all the way up to SCOTUS, the Justices would have to decide to take on these cases, and then they would have to reverse precedent (in the case of Roe, 40-something years of precedent). I just don't see any of that happening, especially since Kavanaugh has repeatedly stated that these decisions are settled law. I also can't imagine thousands (tens? hundreds of thousands?) of marriages getting annulled - seems crazy but what do I know. Government should just stay out of marriage altogether.
As far as abortions go, I don't really agree with the phrasing that it's about women's control over their bodies, seems sensationalist. I actually do get the pro-life argument somewhat, although I'm pro-choice. My view can be summed up as follows: at 1 week, it's not a freaking human being; at 9mo it is and it doesn't seem moral to abort something that's about to be born - I think most people will agree with me so far. The question then becomes at what point does this "something" become a human that you would not kill. I don't have an answer to that, but just mentioning that I understand both sides of the argument. I really wish the GOP would drop these two topics, gay marriage and abortions.
Anyways...