Maybe I didn't use the right word, I didn't only mean gun stores where they sell guns but also all types of shipments of guns, gun storages and other places where guns are stored.
All of those activities are heavily regulated and a massive amount of paperwork is required for each weapon in storage or in transit. The proposed laws do not change that in any way or form.
Also if there is additional legislation to target certain types of weapons it would mean more funds and means to target the trade and trafficking of all illegal weapons.
So IMO it's not as simple as "this is bad legislation", one has to look at the whole picture.
But like I said above, I'm not an expert in this field. However if gun fans get to have an opinion on this matter, so do I. My actual wish is that there was less violence, gun violence included, in EU and in Europe.
All of those activities are heavily regulated and a massive amount of paperwork is required for each weapon in storage or in transit. The proposed laws do not change that in any way or form.
Well maybe not regulated in the correct way. Anyway I don't want to overrule any legislation at this point, I think all means need to be at least thought about.
Euhm, legislation does not provide any extra funds for the things mentioned above. None.
One thing I do know about government funding is that it works in mysterious ways. Additional legislation might actually be the thing that might lead to more funds.
It would help if you'd at least try to educate yourself a bit about the subject before passing verdict on stuff like this.
At the moment, your posts read like "I don't like guns, so I don't mind gun owners getting shafted for all the wrong reasons".
"Shafted" as in killed? With firearms? Because that kind of thing did happen to quite a few folks down there in Paris just recently.
Oh not that kind of shafted? More like "mildly annoyed", right? But anyway, I do sort of get what you're saying. Just that it's a pretty tough time to figure out the correct thing to do right now to reduce any further stuff like what happened. There is bound to be some mistakes along the way. Personally I don't want EU or Europe to become like US in terms of gun laws.
You still haven't realized legally owned weapons were not used and were in no way connected to what happened in Paris?
Are you trolling me, because you're really going above and beyond stupidity here.
1) The legislation singlehandedly destroy sporting disciplines & recreational shooting disciplines with semi auto rifles.
2) EU government never "grandfathers" already owned guns in as legal (as is common in US laws), nor do they provide compensation for the lost cost of the weapons. My personal financial loss would be close to 4000 euros. It would be quite similar for a lot of my peers.
3) It further erodes our liberties in a disgusting fashion for reasons that have nothing to do with the actions they are taking.
The EU has never had any gun laws remotely similar to the US... And all they have ever done on EU level is strengthening the gun laws. So how could you ever fear the EU gun laws becoming like the US?
Please, educate yourself on the subject before making such judgements.
Well I'm looking at the issue from a Finnish perspective, we've always had high gun ownership levels. We've also had some big school shootings in recent years plus some other shootings. There's been a backlash against guns over here, still no gun confiscations. Maybe it's different where you live but I really doubt there will be any gun confiscations.
And yea I'm anti-gun, I went to our mandatory military service and got to shoot all kinds of guns but still I'm anti-gun.
We are not talking about a school shooting right now, but a terrorist attack. I think that is quite important, since the argument as far as I can tell here, is that better or more strict gun laws would help to prevent said terrorist attacks.
I think we can talk about school shootings, gun culture and what it means in the EU. However, that would be a different topic entierely I think. The terrorist attacks as we saw them in Paris, have a whole different nature and reason compared to school shotings. The kind of activity that is very hard if not impossible to prevent just with stronger regulations. - The past has shown at least that much when you consider how Britain, Germany, Spain and many more nations dealt with terrorism in the past, like the IRA or RAF.
I saw that movie Baader Meinhof Complex and it wasn't easy for Germany to defeat them, it's a pretty good movie btw. Took a lot of legislations and efforts by the West German government to finally get the situation under control. Not sure what kind of problem Isis will continue to be in the west. The result will probably be more military troops patrolling the streets in France and maybe some other European countries, maybe some legislative action.
I guess this is the thread to post this in, considering the topics of conversation:
I would agree that the track record for western armies in the middle east is terrible, but pulling out in and of itself can have dire consequences. I don't know much about this, but it seems America leaves them with the mess.
Seriously. Violence is not the best answer. No matter if you kill one or 10 000 people. The fact alone that we send drones over there is a problem already, as it just proves that we do as we please. International law, yes! Of course! No torture for Prisoners? But of course! However, only(!) if it suits us, right?
Look, I won't tell you that the US is evil now, we had this often enough. But 100 years of military intervention, assasination and who knows what else should give us slowly the idea that we should eventually consider to change our tactics for once, and ONLY(!) concentrate on humanitarian aid, at least for the let us say, next 50 years, if it doesn't work, than we can still go back to the snipers on drones or what ever. What is the worst that could happen? It can't be worse than what happend for the last 100 years ...
I would agree that the track record for western armies in the middle east is terrible, but pulling out in and of itself can have dire consequences. I don't know much about this, but it seems America leaves them with the mess.
That's a sad reality, yes, but one that we have simply to accept. It was already a mistake that we send soldiers there interfering with a foreign culture and nation, now we should not do another one. It would be illogically. We have to remove the troops. All of them. There is simply no alternative. The Prime Directive seems sometimes to be very cruel, but, we can not let emotions get in to that. As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes the introduction of superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral
obligation.
A starship captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive."
Lets just assume, for sake of argument, there was a giant asshole whom we ALL can agree on is a gigantic dickbag. How would giving this asshole money solve anything?
Lets just call your plan what it is, fuckem all, we have no right to infringe on another nations sovereignty.
Gigantic Dickbags that don't threaten our nat'l security aren't worth taking loans out from China to fight a dubious foreign war over that produces no lasting effect. It's hard to take the moral high-ground against Gigantic Dickbags when our "friends" in the region are little more than Lesser Gigantic Dickbags anyway, but we're cool with them because BIG OIL. Why are we, with a $18 TRILLION debt giving Billions in military aid to these Dickbags?
You have people who talk about bad dictators but thats all it will ever be, TALK. It is talk because the same person makes it crystal clear that violating a nations sovereignty is out of the question.
They then suggest that giving humanitarian aid to said corrupt government will be the correct way to solve the countries problems.
I will make it even easier to understand.
You JUST said it was a shitty idea because we give our 'dickbag', friends money right? All they do is continue to be asshats using our money correct? So essentially, all we are doing is propping up said dickbags government.
No, it won't. The point is that it is not the USA's job to try to solve other countries' problems, in large part because every time they've done so with military force they've made things worse.
Lets just assume, for sake of argument, there was a giant asshole whom we ALL can agree on is a gigantic dickbag. How would giving this asshole money solve anything?
Lets just call your plan what it is, fuckem all, we have no right to infringe on another nations sovereignty.
We dont have to assume anything. There are many dictators and giant assholes around the world. There is no point in arguing about that. I am with you on this one. The truth however simply is, in my opinion, yes, as hard and cruel it sounds, but we do not have any right to infringe with the souvereignity of other nations, just as they don't have one to infringe with ours.
We might not like it. But I feel that's the only way how you can maintain peace in the long run and actually make a real change. International law can only work, if it counts for everyone, the US as much as for Russia, for any nation in Europe as much as for any nation in the middle east. See, a couple of European nations had quite a shift in their politics, see Hungary a few years back, or Austria and the rise of national and radical parties. We might not like this evolution, but we didn't just send a military force over there to deal with the situation.
And humanitarian aid is hardly giving just money to dictators and never care about what happens with it. At which point do you decide what dictator is worth to be dealt with and which one isnt anyway? That's pretty much the core of the issue.
I know this seems coldblooded and cruel, but yes, it means essentially that we have no infringe on another nations sovereignity.
Look, try to see it from a different angle. Let us forget for a moment what we both feel has to be done or what needs to be done etc. and just go by the numbers alone.
For example, how many people have died since 9/11 in 2001?
Depending on which sources you use, the numbers can vary a lot, but even the lowest numbers range from 300 000 to 360 000 casualties in Afghanistan since 2001 to the present - so we can expect to see even more, and at least 500 000 casualites in Iraq from 2003 to 2010, some numbers go up to 1 million killed people, of which most casualties have been civilians.
For the sake of the argument and to not make matters more complicated, I will not talk about the Syrian civil war and Islamic State which contains a lot of Sadams former officers.
When we are looking back at all of what we did, I can't help it but question what good came out of the last 20 years, as far as terrorism, islamic fundamentalism and removing of dictators goes. Without the intention to blame anyone here!
But the governments we see in Afghanistan and Iraq right now, are hardly better before 2001. Infact, for the most part it was a shift in power, where the once opressed group is now the opressor, like in Iraq. Afghanistan is in a state where tribal leaders and local warloards controll the countryside while the main cities are under military controll with a relative security but only due to the presence of foreign troops - not unlike how the situation was during the Soviet invasion in the 1970s. There is very little doubt today that both Afghanistan and Iraq have only marginally improved for the mass of the civilians compared to the past. It is questionable if even those little improvements we saw, in human rights for example or giving women access to education, will actually mean a change in the long run. Iraqi prisons for example are even today not exactly a beacon for human dignity and the torture or killing of captured ISIS members is rather common, gulty or not, something that is also very often ignored in western media - it doesn't seem to fit our idea that the enemy could be actually a human too. - This definetly will be a very interesting topic for future historians to explore in the next century just as how WW2 and all around it is today. https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/iraq
Human rights conditions in Iraq have crumbled as militias, government forces and “popular mobilization committees” intensified their fight against the extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS), along with air strikes from an international coalition. The fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands, leaving Iraq with more than 2 million internally displaced persons. ISIS has committed numerous atrocities, including suicide attacks in civilian areas, summary executions, sexual assault and forced marriage, and the killings of religious and ethnic minorities. Iraqi security forces, militias and popular mobilization committees continue to carry out attacks on civilians, including massacres, kidnapping and summary executions with impunity; and are responsible for arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture.
Without the intention to put the blame on someon in particular, sadly what we see right now, is neither exceptional nor anything new. It is simply a normal occurance of war and crysis when you see the fundamental parts of a society crumbling and failing without any cohesive rule or discipline, be it with the military forces or the governments in action. Military units of all nations commited similar attrocites in WW2 for example.
If we try to analyse the situation today, we have to face a few very harsh realities. We didn't help the civilian population much. If I remember correctly a lot has become even worse since 2003 in Iraq, the mortality rate for infants has nearly halfed,
his entry gives the number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year; included is the total death rate, and deaths by sex, male and female. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=iz&v=29
or the infrastructure, that struggles to provide even the most basic needs like sanitary installations, clean water, electricity and food.
And we have yet not even talked about the politics or culture really. You simply can not hope to remove 50 in some cases 100 years of archaic structures in a couple of years with one or two wars.
There has been an incredible large number of casualties over a relatively long period of time - at least 10 years. The effects of it, will last for generations though. People that lost nieces, uncles, brothers, mothers, fathers, friends and homes and any kind of stability they might have known. And what will they grow up with? Millions of children and teenagers will grow up with the feeling that this was all caused by our actions and our idea of democracy. We can not even grasp the cultural and historical effects of what we have done yet. Only the next 50 or 100 years can tell us that. We are looking at this trough a lense, while the people in the middle east have actually to deal with our actions, well intended or not!
And that is one of the reasons why it is most of the time, better not to get your self involved in foreign policy and messing around with the souvereignty of foreign nations.
The middle east and a large part of the African world really hates us. I mean with us, Europe and the United States. And this is not just propaganda. This is a deep rooted almost culturally established form of hate.
If we only look at the casualties, the numbers alone do not even back up what we have done.
You have people who talk about bad dictators but thats all it will ever be, TALK. It is talk because the same person makes it crystal clear that violating a nations sovereignty is out of the question.
If there's no threat to our national security why should we? It's awfully arrogant to think we're going to suddenly mediate peace between Sunni, Shia, Arab, Jew, Kurd etc. All we do is become another target in the storm of shit. At great expense to ourselves, mind you, a country with a $432 Billion deficit and $18 Trillion in debt. How much do you think these wars cost? Can we not leave that whole Bush-era evangelical neo-conservative ethos in the past, it's like an animal that got passed by in evolution and ought to be extinct.
Actually glad that Crni confirmed what I said, it was the only thing I wanted to hear really.
Like who and under which criteria, is a dictator and the prime directive. You see, my big issue is liberals in the U.S. that try to 'shame', everyone into helping the 'oppressed'. Yet, at the the same time, the same people say we cannot violate another nations sovereignty.
Sander,
I guess your stepping back from your position that the west and U.S. in particular, should meddle in the affairs of others. Good to know. I remember in a different thread, you were for intervention if the U.N. OKd it.
Cimmerian,
Explained why I bothered to post here anyways. I am not looking for or arguing, or trying to justify foreign policy, I have done it to death in other threads. Just trying to get clarification from Crni and folks like Sander.
Sure, I know that it is a bit controversial because it is not a popular opinion - I am not aiming at you with this, it's just that when ever you tell someone that you are a fan of a no-interference-policy people give you a hard time. However, when I am looking at potentially 1 million dead people in Iraq I can't help it but, what would we think if someone killed 1 million Europeans with the idea of helping us. Would we be thankfull?
Sure, I know that it is a bit controversial because it is not a popular opinion - I am not aiming at you with this, it's just that when ever you tell someone that you are a fan of a no-interference-policy people give you a hard time. However, when I am looking at potentially 1 million dead people in Iraq I can't help it but, what would we think if someone killed 1 million Europeans with the idea of helping us. Would we be thankfull?
I find interesting is that when Paris get's bombed the Western world goes into mourning and anger, but when Syria and the Middle East get's bombed day by day... the Western world barely gives a crap.
Yeah but...but...it's for freedom and democracy! We're helping the good people in the Middle East by killing the evil ones! Besides, those countries are always being bombed, so why should we care?
Yeah but...but...it's for freedom and democracy! We're helping the good people in the Middle East by killing the evil ones! Besides, those countries are always being bombed, so why should we care?
