United States Gun Control Megathread

[Ramlaen]

20 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

Don't you happen to have more or less the exact same limits to freedom of speech?

 

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

 

Of course freedom of speech is a limited right.

Nowhere in the world will you find a total freedom of speech.

 

Trump wasn’t charged with a crime for retweeting videos of people being thrown off roofs by islamic extremists.

[Alzoc]

21 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

 

Trump wasn’t charged with a crime for retweeting videos of people being thrown off roofs by islamic extremists.

 

Because the US society consider showing  raw images of crimes as normal.

We don't think that one have to make publicity for criminals to show how wrong they are.

 

23 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

no one cared until a person with a political motivation made an issue of it.

 

Actually, in this case, pretty much everybody cared, from the left to the right and even outside the political circle.

 

Quelques semaines après les sanglants attentats de Paris et Saint-Denis le 13 novembre 2015 (130 morts et des centaines de blessés), ces publications avaient immédiatement soulevé un tollé au sein de la gauche, alors au gouvernement, et de la droite, mais aussi au-delà du monde politique.

 

"A few weeks after the bloody terror attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis on 2015 November the 13th (130 dead and hundreds of wounded), those publications had immediately raised an outrage of the left, at this time at the government, and of the right, but also beyond the political world"

 

But that's beside the point.

Everybody is supposed to know the law and everybody is accountable for what they say.

Justice will then decide independently based on the applicable law and case law.

If either the accusation or the defendent are not happy with the judgement they can appeal to the decision.

If they are still not happy, they can pass the case to a higher court.

 

I mean rejecting the accusations from the single fact that the person that brought the case (may) have political motives is insane.

That's opening the door to some serious shit:

 

• Media who put the scandal in public not from the same political color? They had political motive
• Democrat elector suing a Republican representative? He had political motive

 

Doing so would be a serious breach to the equality before the law, and without it you can't say that you are in democracy anymore.

 

Yes they gained political advantage by doing so.

But it's completely decorrelated from the judgement since the Legal power is independent in his investigations and judgement as it should be.

[Sturgeon]

18 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

And that's to society to decide what is acceptable or not, and we do it democratically through our representatives at the parliament and the senate.

Just the exact same way that the American society refuse to put limitations on the 2nd amendment.

 

The more I learn about the US laws, the more I have the impression that you guys lives in generalized irresponsibility.

 

You want to have unlimited rights without the inherent and proportional responsibility that goes with it.

 

On a side note, we don't tend to go to court over every single little thing like in the US.

If something is considered obscene it had to be pretty fucked up regarding the level of tolerance of the society.

 

You cultivate responsibility, you can't legislate it. That's what some people in my country get that your lawmakers evidently don't.

[ApplesauceBandit]

 

Quote

• Do not say anything that is strictly forbidden by the law (Incitations to racial/ethnic/religious hate, apology of war crimes or terrorism, discrimination based on sexual orientation or handicap, incitations to use drugs, denial of holocaust and others)

 

This right here to me translates to "You have freedom of speech until you start talking about a subject we don't want to talk about".  I find laws on holocaust denial stupid.  Why make it illegal for someone to make a fool of themselves saying something stupid?  I would imagine that the social backlash a person would face would be a more proper punishment.  Banning people from talking about topics also only will serve to encourage people to talk about it, just maybe not in the public sphere. 

 

Religious hate seems very overreaching as well.  I think we can all agree that certain parts of some religions are fully worthy of our hatred, yet where is the line drawn there?  I don't like the idea of needing to worry about whether or not some religion or its practice is deemed bad enough that it is now OK to hate.  It's not illegal over there to hate violent jihadists sects of Islam like ISIS, is it?  Hate speech laws to me just feel ripe for abuse.

Edited March 1, 2018 by ApplesauceBandit

[Donward]

23 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

Because the US society consider showing  raw images of crimes as normal.

We don't think that one have to make publicity for criminals to show how wrong they are.

 

 

 

That's right. You guys are different in regards to how the press is allowed to report on crimes, as I recall, in terms of what gets published and information on the attacker.

 

In the US, the second we find out who the perpetrator is of a mass killing (or hell, even before) we splash the guy's social media pictures, high school yearbook photos, voting record, and online rantings all over TV, newspapers, and the Internet.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

4 minutes ago, Donward said:

In the US, the second we find out who the perpetrator is of a mass killing (or hell, even before) we splash the guy's social media pictures, high school yearbook photos, voting record, and online rantings all over TV, newspapers, and the Internet.

 

Making the little b*****d instantly famous.....TBH the French policy may be wiser here.

[Belesarius]

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

Making the little b*****d instantly famous.....TBH the French policy may be wiser here.

Not sure I totally disagree with you here.  As Sturgeon mentioned, mass shooting are to a degree, a cultural meme, and the massive media frenzy in these cases may serve to spread the meme.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

 

I think I'm having a hard time explaining myself.

She wasn't sentenced for what she said, rather for the way she did.

 

Freedom of speech is a basic right, but you can't use as an excuse to profess insanity so there are indeed limits (and said limits are built within the law which have been voted by the representatives of the Nation)

 

Limits are:

 

• Do not attempt to the private life or the right to image of an individual
• Do not say anything that is strictly forbidden by the law (Incitations to racial/ethnic/religious hate, apology of war crimes or terrorism, discrimination based on sexual orientation or handicap, incitations to use drugs, denial of holocaust and others)
• No defamation (unless you bring proof of your allegations, exception with private life see above)
• Do not insult peoples for the sake of it (i.e without bringing any facts)
• Professional secret, Military secrets,  business secrets
• Devoir de réserve: Basically if you are a State employee or part of the military you're not supposed to try to influence political opinions, you're here to serve the Nation regardless of who runs it (in private they can do whatever they want ofc, but not when at the job)

 

If you think somebody broke the rules, you can sue them.

Justice, as an independent power, will decide whether the law have been broken or not.

4

 

 

Ok so yeah, you clearly have no right to free speech. 

[Sturgeon]

2 minutes ago, Belesarius said:

Not sure I totally disagree with you here.  As Sturgeon mentioned, mass shooting are to a degree, a cultural meme, and the massive media frenzy in these cases may serve to spread the meme.

 

The right way to address this is probably not with a law, though. You can address it culturally.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

 

But it is^^

If you are guilty, you are regardless if you are a politician.

If you happen to be running an election it's your problem, don't commit crimes in the first place.

Society is not responsible for it you are.

 

Or are you telling me that citizens are not equals before the law in the US?

That if you happen to be well known, or a politician you get a free pass to do whatever you want? AFAIK that's not the case.

1

 

 

Jesus Christ Dude, have you never heard of the Clintons? LOL 

[Sturgeon]

I like how "France has dumb laws and no real freedom of speech" became "in the US, we want our politicians to be able to get away with anything!" in his head.

 

Talk about bad faith discussions.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

4 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

I like how "France has dumb laws and no real freedom of speech" became "in the US, we want our politicians to be able to get away with anything!" in his head.

 

Talk about bad faith discussions.

 

If you don't have the freedom to say "fuck the government, the church, Mohamed, and Jesus,", at the top of your lungs in public, while flipping off a cop, and burning your national flag, you ain't free, period.  

 

If you do not have the right to kill to defend yourself and have had the tools to do it removed, you are also not free.  

 

You're a subject to your government. 

[Alzoc]

1 hour ago, Sturgeon said:

You cultivate responsibility, you can't legislate it. That's what some people in my country get that your lawmakers evidently don't.

 

And that's in an ideal world where every single citizen is well educated mature and responsible.

Which is obviously not the case in any country.

 

Of course you have to legislate on it or else it's unpractical and you get something chaotic and non-functional.

 

56 minutes ago, ApplesauceBandit said:

This right here to me translates to "You have freedom of speech until you start talking about a subject we don't want to talk about".  I find laws on holocaust denial stupid.  Why make it illegal for someone to make a fool of themselves saying something stupid?  I would imagine that the social backlash a person would face would be a more proper punishment.  Banning people from talking about topics also only will serve to encourage people to talk about it, just maybe not in the public sphere.

 

The problem is that not everybody is capable to detect that what the person said is stupid, false or insane.

So ofc they will suffer some social backslash, but if they are good orators/manipulator they will have convinced tons of weak minded peoples which incidently also have the right to vote (and that's perfectly normal, they are citizens like anyone else don't get me wrong on this).

 

Not putting any limit to the freedom of speech is basically giving away democracy to who is the best liar or the one that shout higher than anyone else.

Results would be devastating.

 

And of course they will talk about it in private, those peoples have their freedom of though regardless of how stupid their ideas are.

But in private they will do far less damage saying stupid stuff than in public.

 

56 minutes ago, ApplesauceBandit said:

Religious hate seems very overreaching as well.  I think we can all agree that certain parts of some religions are fully worthy of our hatred, yet where is the line drawn there?  I don't like the idea of needing to worry about whether or not some religion or its practice is deemed bad enough that it is now OK to hate.  It's not illegal over there to hate violent jihadists sects of Islam like ISIS, is it?  Hate speech laws to me just feel ripe for abuse.

 

Of course we agree that extremism is bad, no matter where it comes from.

Generally something will be considered hate speech when you'll point at an entire population and say "Hey every single of them is responsible for this"  (basically what Hitler did with the Jews).

It's fine to say that we have problem with the most conservative fringe of islam because they refuse to bend to the Republic, but it's not to say that every single muslim do so and is a latent terrorist.

Our view on secularism is fundamentally different that in any anglo-saxon country.

 

Basically we refuse any kind of communitarianism, you have to be French first and foremost, religion being a strictly private matter.

And as you said there is a lot of ambiguity there as the law of 1905 is aimed at making sure that the State don't interfere with religion and that religion don't interfere with politics while providing freedom of religion.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

But de facto, society consider that you have to exerts some discretion and not publicly show that you belong to one religion or another.

 

You can have a small cross, or a Hamsa around your neck, a kipa on your head when you are going to the temple, no problem.

But unless you are priest, a rabin or an imam, people will look at you the wrong way if you go out in the public space wearing an attire saying "Hey I'm from X religion and that define me before being a citizen of the Republic".

It will be considered as "aggressive".

 

Some people consider islamic veil as offensive as well, personally I'm fine with it as long as it is a light, coloured cloth which tends to show that it's not a sign of submission to a religion (or social pressure) but rather a choice based on personal convictions.

Besides peoples are in general perfectly fine with a kipa, which is also a piece of cloth one put on his head so on what ground would we refuse a similarly light piece of cloth to muslim?

 

Finally you have to remember that France is an extremely irreligious country.

Recent polls show that about 50% considered themselves Christian (and for most of them very loosely, like never going to the church unless it's for weddings or funerals, just vaguely believing in god), 40% are atheist, 6% Muslim, less than 1% Jew and then the rest.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Demographics

 

Being religious is more and more considered as an outdated thing, and statistic by ages show that.

The only religion that is growing is Islam, and it remain marginal.

 

Granted that's a religion with which we have a disproportionate number of problem compared to the number of believers.

But in the meantime it's also a very new religion in France, with time I have all confidence that it's political part will be subdued, to leave only the spiritual part.

[Donward]

43 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

 

Making the little b*****d instantly famous.....TBH the French policy may be wiser here.

 

38 minutes ago, Belesarius said:

Not sure I totally disagree with you here.  As Sturgeon mentioned, mass shooting are to a degree, a cultural meme, and the massive media frenzy in these cases may serve to spread the meme.

 

Yep.  The question is how to stop it.

 

35 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

The right way to address this is probably not with a law, though. You can address it culturally.

 

We actually had something like that before in American history where Hollywood, newspapers, music, and television corporations censored their work and did so in cooperation with government and community organizations as you well know.

 

For example the Hays Code - or motion Picture Production Code - was put into place in 1934 because of the perception that there was too much sex, depravity, and violence in movies, particularly when there was no moral reason for the sex, depravity, and violence. As an example, Hollywood movies glamorized mob violence such as James Cagney's "Public Enemy". Afterwards, we still had the violence, but it was imperative to show that the badguys always lost. 

 

Wikipedia for ease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood

 

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

 

Of course, just like everything, the hippies ruined this too. 

 

(Edit: Was going to write more but I'm playing mister mom atm and have an Otter smacking at my keyboard)

 

 

 

 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

And that's in an ideal world where every single citizen is well educated mature and responsible.

Which is obviously not the case in any country.

 

 

TO be free you need to be educated?   

 

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

Of course you have to legislate on it or else it's unpractical and you get something chaotic and non-functional.

1

 

you don't think much of your fellow citizens here.   The government must save the idiots from themselves, no guns, knives or pointy things for anyone!

 

 

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

 

The problem is that not everybody is capable to detect that what the person said is stupid, false or insane.

So ofc they will suffer some social backslash, but if they are good orators/manipulator they will have convinced tons of weak minded peoples which incidently also have the right to vote (and that's perfectly normal, they are citizens like anyone else don't get me wrong on this).

1

 

People are too dumb to be free again.   You must be college educated. 

 

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

Not putting any limit to the freedom of speech is basically giving away democracy to who is the best liar or the one that shout higher than anyone else.

Results would be devastating.

 

And of course they will talk about it in private, those peoples have their freedom of though regardless of how stupid their ideas are.

But in private they will do far less damage saying stupid stuff than in public.

3

 

you prefer your extemists to stay hidden. That seems dumb, but hey, I Live in a free country so I don't care. 

 

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

 

Of course we agree that extremism is bad, no matter where it comes from.

Generally something will be considered hate speech when you'll point at an entire population and say "Hey every single of them is responsible for this"  (basically what Hitler did with the Jews).

It's fine to say that we have problem with the most conservative fringe of islam because they refuse to bend to the Republic, but it's not to say that every single muslim do so and is a latent terrorist.

Our view on secularism is fundamentally different that in any anglo-saxon country.

7

 

Doesn't seem to far from the "people are to dumb and dangerous to be free" line of thought. 

 

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

Basically we refuse any kind of communitarianism, you have to be French first and foremost, religion being a strictly private matter.

And as you said there is a lot of ambiguity there as the law of 1905 is aimed at making sure that the State don't interfere with religion and that religion don't interfere with politics while providing freedom of religion.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

But de facto, society consider that you have to exerts some discretion and not publicly show that you belong to one religion or another.

 

You can have a small cross, or a Hamsa around your neck, a kipa on your head when you are going to the temple, no problem.

But unless you are priest, a rabin or an imam, people will look at you the wrong way if you go out in the public space wearing an attire saying "Hey I'm from X religion and that define me before being a citizen of the Republic".

It will be considered as "aggressive".

6

 

Ok so no freedom of religion, maybe you assholes are oppressing people so much they are reacting with all the terror attacks. 

 

2 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

 

Some people consider islamic veil as offensive as well, personally I'm fine with it as long as it is a light, coloured cloth which tends to show that it's not a sign of submission to a religion (or social pressure) but rather a choice based on personal convictions.

Besides peoples are in general perfectly fine with a kipa, which is also a piece of cloth one put on his head so on what ground would we refuse a similarly light piece of cloth to muslim?

 

Finally you have to remember that France is an extremely irreligious country.

Recent polls show that about 50% considered themselves Christian (and for most of them very loosely, like never going to the church unless it's for weddings or funerals, just vaguely believing in god), 40% are atheist, 6% Muslim, less than 1% Jew and then the rest.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Demographics

 

Being religious is more and more considered as outdated, and statistic by ages show that.

The only religion that is growing is Islam, and it remain marginal.

 

Granted that's a religion with which we have a disproportionate number of problem compared to the number of believers.

But in the meantime it's also a very new religion in France, with time I have all confidence that it's political part will be subdued, to leave only the spiritual part.

 

 

Please never immigrate to the United States. 

[Sturgeon]

8 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

And that's in an ideal world where every single citizen is well educated mature and responsible.

Which is obviously not the case in any country.

 

Of course you have to legislate on it or else it's unpractical and you get something chaotic and non-functional.

 

No, this is exactly wrong. It's an impulse to try to control everything, but you never really can. Instead, you need to sit back, relax, and trust your people with freedoms. Freedom is scary. That's its nature.

Legislating that people be responsible is futile. Responsibility, morals, those are things that come with human growth, and that's something that the government simply can't do from the top down. So it's a cultural issue if you're lacking in it. And you can't just let it be writ and then forget about it.

[Alzoc]

6 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

If you don't have the freedom to say "fuck the government, the church, Mohamed, and Jesus,", at the top of your lungs in public, and burning your national flag, you ain't free, period. 

 

I can do it no problem.

I just don't have to be a dick while doing so that's all there is about it.

8 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

while flipping off a cop

 

That actually an assault on a person depository of the authority of the State.

 

9 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

If you do not have the right to kill to defend yourself and have had the tools to do it removed, you are also not free.  

 

Obviously we have the right to defend ourselves, we simply don't want for everybody and his mother to carry lethal tools around all the time.

10 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

You're a subject to your government.

 

Whatever limitations we have on our rights, we agreed to it through our representatives.

Therefore said limitations are perfectly legitimates, we as a People agreed that those limitations were necessary to reduce the mess while saying that another is unacceptable.

22 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

I like how "France has dumb laws and no real freedom of speech" became "in the US, we want our politicians to be able to get away with anything!" in his head.

 

Talk about bad faith discussions.

 

And I don't understand that you can't wrap your head around the fact that Justice being independent it doesn't care whether or not political prejudices are caused while investigating a politician.

That their political adversary will benefit from it is true but the law is the law, and if we are unhappy with it we will simply change it through democratical means.

[Meplat]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

 

And that's to society to decide what is acceptable or not, and we do it democratically through our representatives at the parliament and the senate.

Just the exact same way that the American society refuse to put limitations on the 2nd amendment.

 

The more I learn about the US laws, the more I have the impression that you guys lives in generalized irresponsibility.

 

You want to have unlimited rights without the inherent and proportional responsibility that goes with it.

 

On a side note, we don't tend to go to court over every single little thing like in the US.

If something is considered obscene it had to be pretty fucked up regarding the level of tolerance of the society.

 

Responsibility is something germinated and fostered in the self. Not mandated by a government or it's policies.

[Alzoc]

9 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

No, this is exactly wrong. It's an impulse to try to control everything, but you never really can. Instead, you need to sit back, relax, and trust your people with freedoms. Freedom is scary. That's its nature.

Legislating that people be responsible is futile. Responsibility, morals, those are things that come with human growth, and that's something that the government simply can't do from the top down. So it's a cultural issue if you're lacking in it. And you can't just let it be writ and then forget about it.

 

I agree that those thing takes time to mature, several generations.

Legislations are just here to put an upper limit on what the society find acceptable

and of course over time those lines will move and so will the law.

 

9 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

Please never immigrate to the United States. 

 

Don't worry I don't want to^^

The main reason being the rampant puritanism (which is also sadly slowly contaminating our society as well).

 

But well in the end different society, you guys just live the way you want and so do we.

There are things that you find unacceptable in our society and there are thing I (we) find unacceptable in yours.

And everybody will think that their solution is better^^

[Sturgeon]

16 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

And I don't understand that you can't wrap your head around the fact that Justice being independent it doesn't care whether or not political prejudices are caused while investigating a politician.

That their political adversary will benefit from it is true but the law is the law, and if we are unhappy with it we will simply change it through democratical means.

 

Backed up with whose guns?

[Legiondude]

3 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Like the guy in Scotland who went to jail for teaching a dog the Hitler salute as a joke.

He's not in jail yet, the Crown is still kicking him around the courtroom. His sentencing day has been several dates just this year, and then the prosecution keeps bouncing it down the road.

 

 

The basis for one of the arguments against him was that by using his girlfriend's pug's "cuteness" to underscore Nazi related phrases and imagery on the internet, it was like  he was radicalizing entire football stadiums

 

The "final" court day is scheduled for March 20th currently

 

[Alzoc]

17 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Backed up with whose guns?

 

Our collective will to stay true to our value (I know it's very vague^^) and in last resort by our Army (which also happen to be made up of citizens willing to give up their lives for said values).

And I'm rather confident that in case of crisis, the army will see a massive influx of citizen willing to help in any way possible.

Like I said before I don't think that a mob of peoples with guns will stand up to a regular combat unit, especially when you throw force multiplier like AFV and air support into the mix.

 

The middle ground probably, being country like Switzerland or Sweden where military service is still a thing, which allow to have a vast portion of the population with military training.

In France the service is only suspended and the draft could come back at any time if the need arise (but you could argue that if the crisis hits us too fast we won't have enough time to train citizens properly, which may be true).

 

On that note, thank you for the talk and good night/evening, having to wake up in 5 hours I'll go try get some rest^^

[Sturgeon]

3 minutes ago, Alzoc said:

Our collective will to stay true to our value (I know it's very vague^^) and in last resort by our Army (which also happen to be made up of citizens willing to give up their lives for said values).

And I'm rather confident that in case of crisis, the army will see a massive influx of citizen willing to help in any way possible.

Like I said before I don't think that a mob of peoples with guns will stand up to a regular combat unit, especially when you throw force multiplier like AFV and air support into the mix.

 

You know, I seem to remember the last time the French tried to rely on the power of elan against a bunch of machine guns it didn't go so well.

[Alzoc]

2 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

You know, I seem to remember the last time the French tried to rely on the power of elan against a bunch of machine guns it didn't go so well.

Ouch ^^

 

Though to be fair, while overconfidence was one of the reason we lost they were number of other factors, prime reason being that nobody (among the top brass at least) had seen the movement warfare coming (or didn't though hard enough about how to do it properly) , British and American only being safe thanks to large body of waters in the path and Russia being saved by it's strategical depth and it's weather once again.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

22 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

You know, I seem to remember the last time the French tried to rely on the power of elan against a bunch of machine guns it didn't go so well.

 

 

Maybe it will work better on trucks of peace?