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I'm immensely glad that Germany has comparitively strict gun laws. Why? Easy, poo poo like this doesn't happen here: Germany has got crazies like everybody else, but generally speaking they won't shoot you. Because they can't. Like, a couple of months ago my dad and I were driving to the supermarket when some psycho in the car behind us apparently decided that we had wronged him somehow (I still have no idea why) and followed us, only stopping and turning around after we had gotten out in the parking lot and he had realised that there were two of us. In the US I would have been legitimately afraid that he would have been packing. In Germany the best he could do is trying to beat me up or draw a knife, both of which it's immeasurably easier to just run away from. Also it's pretty hard for toddlers to kill you or themselves with a knife. With a gun it's easier, so easy in fact that it happens more than once a week in the US. poo poo, since 2004 at least ten Americans have been shot by their dogs (and one by their cat). Guns aren't inherently evil, they are, as you said, "just tools". On the other hand they are tools explicitly designed to kill effortlessly and from a distance. People either carelessly operating guns or using them for nefarious purposes is to be expected when guns are as cheap and easy to obtain as they are in the States. I don't deny that guns have their uses, but I'd rather see that the only ones being allowed to handle them are licensed professionals with a good reason to carry a gun, because this will minimise hurt. When you don't do that and make guns available to virtually everybody, the above is what you get. Is this a price you want to be paying for something that you will in all likelihood never, ever really need? Also re: guns for "self defence": for every shooting someone dead in self-defence there were 32 criminal homicides involving a gun. The same report also shows that of all cases of self-defence against violent crime from 2007-2011, in only 0.8% of them a gun was used to threaten, intimidate or even attack the criminal. Using a gun in self-defence doesn't significantly change your chances of success either; after taking any sort of protective action against attempted violent crime (e.g. screaming for help, calling the police, attacking the offender or simply running away), in 4.2% of all reported cases, the victims were yet injured. When a gun was in place, the ratio was 4.1%. Only in cases of attempted burglary using a gun was shown to be more effective in avoiding property loss (38.5% of gun-using victims reported lost property vs. 55.9% of those who took any protective action at all). Yet using a weapon other than a gun proved to be in fact more effective (34.9% of all cases there reported property loss). Or, to put it short: having a gun at home has no effect on avoiding being attacked, and not using guns turned out to be the better alternative during burglaries. In the vast majority of cases such a gun is discharged it won't be in self-defence, but instead accidentally, when attacking friends or family members or in suicide. Again: guns are not evil. But the price society has to pay for having unfettered access to these tools is simply too heavy, and I think it's really weird that so many people don't see that.
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Feb 16, 2017 22:15
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Tbh I'm pretty sure that everybody who got gunned down by the dog or got drunk and shot up the living room would have described themselves as a "responsible gun owner" too. And saying what amounts to "it's not me, but those other people that are the problem" frankly seems to me as rather deflecting the problem. But I also don't think that I will be able to change anyone's mind in here (or vice versa), so I won't continue on this topic too. Okay, so other topic. I've never been to the States, and with the latest TSA madness the likelihood that I'll be going sometime soon is basically in free fall - no, I won't give you my FB password, thank you very much. But other friends who have been there told me that Americans basically take the car for every distance that's longer than the car itself. That's hyperbole, of course, but which distance would you be ready to walk instead of drive? Every Wednesday I walk to choir practice and back which Google Maps tells me is 1km (~0,6 miles) or about 12 minutes of walking each. Would you take the car for that? And would it even be feasible to walk in your average American town?
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Feb 17, 2017 15:14
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oldpainless posted:It's pretty great OP More like oldcomplaintless Thought of another question: I hardly ever see Americans discussing “villages“, it's always “towns“ or “cities“, and the perception of size seems different as well - I've seen towns with like 40,000 people still being described as “small“. What would you say makes a village and separates small from mid-sized and big towns?
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Feb 18, 2017 08:23
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I think this may again be connected to the diving vs. walking question? Like yesterday I was walking to my grandmother's, and because it had rained the day before the wood trails were super muddy, and not removing the shoes at the door would have meant spreading said mud everywhere. Whereas if I would have driven there I could theoretically have left the shoes on without dirtying the whole place up.
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Feb 20, 2017 08:12
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mostlygray posted:Our neighbor... 10 miles away You're taking the piss In case you aren't: Jesus, just how empty is your area? 
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May 4, 2017 16:33
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