What specific step in the current process do you think is the most significant in suppressing demand? For that matter, why do you think there is significant demand?
That is true. But then again, I don’t hear about depressed individuals ending their lives by voting in elections, or children being killed by finding a grand jury indictment in their parents’ closet.
The registration process through the FRS seems burdensome. Ultimately I think the process is designed to place small hurdles for everyone. So combine with the test, the time, the multiple trips to the FRS office and the FFL, if there are any, and the fees, plus the threat of severe penalties should anyone run afoul of the changing DC gun laws and I think that has a non-zero impact on demand.
It depends on how you define significant, but DC is full of people and I know of no place in the US where people don’t want guns.
Let’s just be very clear about this - it is more burdensome to own a car in DC than a gun. By far. And yet, DC doesn’t have a shortage of cars. The idea that the FRS is suppressing demand by being less of a burden than the DMV is silly.
Again, I’m excluding the issue of whether you feel this is an issue of principle for you, which I can appreciate. But arguing practicalities in 2015 is really a non-issue.
Well, cars are not guns, obviously. The burden on car ownership is not comparable to one placed on a constitutional right. I do accept that demand in DC is lackluster. Why that is would be speculation, but I suspect factors that influence this are cultural as well as the history of restrictive laws crowding out gun culture. When I ask people who have grown up in CA all their lives how many states they think allow permissive concealed carry, the majority are greatly surprised that it’s over 80%. Years of restrictive laws can have that effect.
I am interested in DC for two reasons - one is principle which you suggest. The second is that DC is unique in that it’s one of the few places that have such restrictive carry laws that it can serve as a test case for SCOTUS. There are a few carry cases in the works, and several cases where cert has been denied. The Wrenn case in DC is clean and I hope that one moves forward. Peruta, Richards, and Baker in CA, CA, and HI are all in the 9th circuit and are relatively clean cases as well.
With that, I think I’ll turn this thread back over to Clothy and his weekly political thought turds.
I think I might have the answer to that question.
Oh, guns. I thought you were talking about all the restrictions the Pubbies put on voting.
Which, if memory serves, is also a constitutional right.
[EXTREME tongue-in-cheek]
Ah, but debates aren’t just a matter of facts and logic; there’s a critical third factor- enlightenment.
It’s like this: most people, whether they realize it or not, are essentially biological robots, their thoughts, speech and behavior entirely dictated by how they’ve been programmed since infancy. But a small minority of people have transcended this, and have achieved enlightenment: the ability to see how programming works, and to have original thoughts not dictated by custom or tradition. These shining masters are called “liberals”, and it is they who are responsible for all human progress since the Dark Ages. It is their noble mission to guide the benighted [del]sheep[/del] [del]proles[/del] people towards a brighter future, even if the people can’t appreciate the liberals’ wisdom. They are opposed however, by the entrenched forces of ignorance and tradition; usually called “conservatives”. Since the conservatives simply cannot see that the liberals are right, this is proof of their blindness.
So the liberals are telling you what you’re really saying, even if you don’t realize it yourself.
[/EXTREME tongue-in-cheek]
An exaggeration perhaps, but not by much in some parts of academia. The best way to win a debate with these people is a stout cudgel.
Dude, this is Clothahump we’re talking about. He’s about as bright as a stout cudgel. And I say that not because he’s a conservative, but because he’s a genuine idiot.
No, actually I’m smarter than the vast majority of the people on this board. Just because you wankers can’t handle that fact is no skin off my nose.
“Dr. Howard, Dr. Dunning, Dr. Kruger…”
You’re an angry, stupid man who can’t be bothered to understand the issues of the day, so you get them in the form of easily digested, and largely fictional pap from RW news sources.
You’re symbolic of what is wrong with this country. Entitled stupidity and ignorance behind a wall of arrogant, unearned esteem.
If this is true, you certainly don’t have a single post in this thread that demonstrates it.
Do tell. How many papers have you published, anyway?
I’ve spent most of my politically themed posts on this board giving conservatives a hard time (they deserve it!), but every now and then, liberals manage to come up with something dumb too. And it’s important to call this out, as well.
With that, I give you a post from a local lefty blog: What’s Very Wrong with “How Not to Be a Restaurant Racist”. It’s about an underlying article here.
The underlying article is a little silly, listing five ways that minor racism can creep into the restaurant experience. I think 3 and 4 are pretty legitimate, and 1, 2, and 5 are just silly. So, mixed.
Angela Garbes’s post, on the other hand, which purports to call out what’s wrong with the underlying article, manages to botch the job completely. First, she reinforces a couple of sillier points made. She accepts at face value the argument that “diners” won’t pay more for “ethnic” (more on that in a sec) restaurants. This is garbage. Besides the obvious fact that there are tons of pricey Mexican, Chinese, and Brazilian restaurants around here, it assigns to racism that which can be explained by simpler market forces. If you open a Mexican restaurant, you’re largely going to be competing with other Mexican restaurants. Which means you have to either charge around what they charge, or you have to up your game in some significant way. Partly that’s going to be higher quality food, but the experience and ambiance are going to make an even large difference to the price you can get away with charging. Sushi and teriyaki are both considered Japanese, but sushi restaurants are almost always more expensive. They’re also almost always much nicer, and the food quality is - by necessity - quite high.
She even validates the argument that Mexican and Asian are “ethnic” whereas European is not. First of all, I’m not sure I even agree that this is true. I don’t know if I’ve ever even used the term “ethnic” to refer to food, since it seems like a bizarre, amorphous category, but I have certainly used the phrase “what ethnicity of food are you thinking?” To which, Italian, French, or even “Northwest Contemporary” would be perfectly valid answers. Second, even if you can find some provincial eaters in Peoria who say things like, “I don’t like ethnic food,” it doesn’t even strike me as problematic. So what? It clearly means, “I want to eat food that I am comfortable with.”
But then, not content to reinforce someone else’s bad ideas, Garbes decides to interject some of her own. She redefines racism as “predjudice plus power”, and then declares that racism by “people of color” (a category into which she places herself) against whites is flat out impossible. Look, I’m usually pretty skeptical of these ‘reverse racism’ arguments. No, we don’t need an NAAWP just because there’s an NAACP. But to claim it’s impossible?
Here’s an article that purports to list five cases where the victim was killed, at least in part, due to race. Where the victim was white. Now, the article’s on townhall, so it’s fair to take it with a grain of salt. But here’s the thing. For Garbes’s claim to be wrong, you have to not only think that those cases are false, but actually impossible. Because being murdered on account of your race fulfills both tests of Garbes’s definition: prejudice and power (power in this case being at the individual, not institutional, level.)
But Garbes’s definition is overly restrictive, anyway. When talking about English words, it’s helpful to understand how English speakers use them. That’s what dictionary makers do. And here’s what Miriam-Webster, for example, found about racism:
[QUOTE=Miriam-Webster]
1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2: racial prejudice or discrimination
[/QUOTE]
Garbes’s definition is pretty much the definition of “institutional racism”, which is quite different.
In short, there’s no racism in restaurant pricing outcomes, nor in the use of “ethnic” to describe broad categories of food. Reverse racism, which much more rare than believed by right-wing talk radio blowhards, is possible in America.
I would just like to point out that I hate the term “ethnic” but can’t think of anything else to describe what it conveys (“things eaten by nonwhites”).
What’s the context where you need to refer to a blanket category covering Latin American, Asian, and African foods? And how can you be sure the listener wouldn’t understand “ethnic” to also include Scandinavian and German foods?
TL;DR
I started to post this in Elections, but the Mods have gotten very picky lately and it belongs here anyway. Foreginers lean at least 98-2 toward the Demtard side, AFAICT, which rather proves they’re stupid liberals.
Yes I see that Australia had a general election on September 7, 2013 with the campaign beginning August 5, barely 13 months earlier. But have you ever compared the size of itsy bitsy countries like Australia and Britain with a major U.S. state like Florida? There’s no way the U.S. could pack a complete Presidential campaign into a mere 13 months. Especially with all the issues we need to take a deep look at.
And I see that Australia swore in its 2013 PM just eleven days after the September 7 election. In 2000, with the clock to Inauguration clicking down and barely 70 days left until I-Day, the U.S. had a Seldon’s Crisis and needed the 9 wise men to settle the election rather than forcing the Biggest Vote Recount in History to take place, a veritable Manhattan Project with myriads of legal deadlines and entire regiments of judges and lawyers drafted to issue injunctions.
You foreigners need to remember that the U.S. is single-handedly propping up the world economy, serving as policeman for the world and retaining our MAD deterrent to keep the rogues in line. With as large a military as the rest of the world combined we stand ready to bitch-slap any hostile dictator as quickly as our cops take out sassy hos, teenage thugs, and other undesireables. Our President is not just another tin-pot PM, but the* Leader of the Free World,* the* Man with the Football* who could destroy all of you in the blink of an eye.
It is with exhilirating pride that we behold such fine choices as Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz to serve as the Vicar of Christ in the New World.
Disclaimer: The above post is pure parody, though not so dissimilar from opinions on American boards and blogs. Like the Bruce Willis character in Sixth Sense, American residents are too close to the problem and [spoiler alert] don’t see the abject futility.