georgerussia

Same difference: Seattle: 7,973 per 100k for only "major crimes" London: 11,015 per 100k for "all crimes" * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

No, this is your misleading interpretation. I said A is relevant, B is not relevant. I did not say C, D, E and so on are not relevant either. What you are trying to allege that I said that only A is acceptable. This is false. And, of course, "relevant" != "acceptable". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Not really. London has population of 7,556,900 - gives us one crime per 9.07 people. Seattle has population of 602,000 - gives us one crime per 12.5 people * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

If you actually read the article till the end, you'd see the following: A total of 832,439 crimes were recorded in London in 2009, a reduction of 2.3% since 2008. There were 725 fewer young victims of violence, a reduction by 3.5%, there were 25 fewer victims of homicide - with 130 homicide victims recorded - and knife crime fell by 7.9%. which support my thoughts that this increase of "gun crime" was related to increase of enforcement for non-permitted guns and stuff like that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Maybe. JR and masterrig were talking about UK. Talking about just London (or DC) is pretty extreme cherry-picking. Worse than that would be only talking about a specific suburb. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The article says he was declared mentally ill (by the court), and that Richard J. Bonnie says this should have qualified as "mentally defective" according to GCA68. So that's your opinion against Richard J. Bonnie opinion. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Your claim: "only examples of gun owners coming to the rescue of people like him that refuse to protect themselves are acceptable." Where is this ONLY in my quote? Do you see the difference between "relevant" and "acceptable"? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

For example? That's because you're reading JohnRich. If you look on official Home Office stats, you'll see that the number of firearms offenses in UK goes DOWN. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, you are concentrating on a TOOL instead of CRIMINAL. There are thousands of aircrafts which never killed anyone! This will only restrict law abiding pilots. Criminals or those pilots who went crazy and decided to crash the aircraft into your house do not care about laws, so all those restrictions would not stop them. Even if we enforce mandatory jail time for those who violated the regulations, this won't stop those who decided to commit suicide. The only way to stop them is to enforce mandatory Stinger ownership. If any criminal or crazy pilot knows that he WILL be shot down by the first fellow with a Stinger they wouldn't even think about committing such a horrible crime! This is waste of efforts. Criminals have been broken into bank vaults in past - even into those with time locks and security devices. It happened more than once, so this will only make life more difficult for law abiding fellow citizens. Instead there should be no restrictions at all. If a fellow wants to park his aircraft near school unlocked and fueled up, he has rights to do so. After all, law abiding citizens know that it is against the law to steal someone's aircraft, so they won't touch it. And if criminals want to steal his aircraft, no security would help to prevent it. This is not important for citizens' safety, because reliable Stingers will bring him down as soon as he takes off. There are too many aircrafts there. Not to mention criminals always can buy one on a black market or bring one from Mexico, so you cannot stop aircraft ownership. The only reliable way to prevent such horrible crimes is providing Stingers to everyone. Of course, every aircraft flying over your home should be shot down immediately. This is your private property, and flying over or near your home puts your loved ones into immediate danger. If you do not shot first, they will! If you are brought to justice, let's jury of your Stinger carrying peers decide your innocence. My children will be fine - they would like extra practice aiming and following their toy Stingers. This valuable experience will help them once they grow up to a reasonable age when they can own their personal Stinger. 5 years sounds good enough age for that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

What you're talking about is an independent service (like hiring a lawyer), which is indeed true independent contractor. However this seems to be not what the article is about - it is about misclassified workers (who apparently have one or more "employers" and getting most of their income from there). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Works very well in Europe though. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The article raised some questions: The first part is basically a misguide. Companies do not avoid paying SS/Medicare (and fed/state) taxes for contractors because the contractors are responsible for paying their taxes (and this includes SS/Medicare taxes). Unemployment insurance - indeed, contractors don't pay it. But they do not use it either (not eligible for unemployment aid), so this sounds reasonable. I don't see how it can happen. When you're a contractor working for a company, the company gives you 1099 form, and sends the copy to IRS. I do not see how one can avoid reporting any of their income. It is possible to cheat on the expenses, but not on income. And if the company pays cash, then it doesn't really matter for reporting if he's contractor or employee. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The cost of Stingers is that high only because our greedy socialist government does not allow everyone to make and sell them. Look, can you legally make yourself a nice Stinger to protect your loved ones from harm? No! As soon as those restrictions are lifted, and every pop-n-mom shop is able to legally sell Stingers (assembled in China), their price will go down. It will also bring new business opportunities for private businesses which would rent Stingers for those who cannot purchase it. What?! Every NRA member knows that laws do not stop criminals (isn't that funny?), and therefore it is useless to have all those laws. Look, flying an aircraft into IRS building was already illegal - and that's what just has been done! And now you're saying that we need MORE laws outlawing flying aircrafts into IRS buildings? You must be kidding! The solution is not more laws, but less laws. It is obvious that making it illegal to fly aircrafts into buildings does not prevent criminals from doing so, and any restrictions only hurt law abiding airplane pilots. Therefore we must repeal all aviation-related laws, remove any restrictions on who can pilot an airplane, and close the FAA. Law abiding citizens can regulate themselves, and criminals will not obey those laws anyway. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Tomorrow forecast is fucking rain - AGAIN so we'll probably end up with more bitching. Last weekend was good though, I've made four jumps and the weather was nice. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The judge already "declared him declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself". * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Because the "only" part is just one of Neal lies. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Too bad you did not address any point in my reply, and just brought up a bunch of completely new items. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Your OPINION that GCA68 did not apply in Cho's case is not DATA. And it contradicts with the opinion of Richard J. Bonnie, who is the director of the University of Virginia Institute on Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You sound like a typical "dear-socialist-government-please-protect-us-from-ourselves" aircraft-control Brady type. The proud Texas redneck citizen would never beg the government to protect him from harm. The solution is there! If there was a single IRS employee in a parking lot with a Stinger this horrible crime would never happen! Think about it! This case made it extremely clear that all citizens must have Constitutional rights to purchase and carry anti-aircraft missiles. After all, criminals can steal those anyway, so why law abiding citizens cannot buy one in Safeway? Sure, there will be some losers who would say it is not a good idea, and maybe some drunk idiot may bring down an airliner with those. They ignore the fact that doing so would be a crime, and since criminals do not obey laws anyway, this is a completely irrelevant point, and making more of them available would do no harm. Nobody should restrict a responsible citizens' right to protect themselves and their loved ones from those stupid Al-Qaeda pilots and other nuts flying planes into buildings! * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

We already discussed that. Assuming real world conditions, a nut with a hammer, belt, screw-driver or pipe wrenches would be able to make significantly less damage than a nut with a gun. Cho wouldn't be able to murder 30 people with a hammer. Amy Bishop wouldn't be able to murder three professors with a screwdriver. Without guns the damage they made would be significantly less. Not often (typically news do not mention whether a person committing a crime with a gun was licensed to carry, so it's hard to tell). However since the requirements to get a carry permit typically are significantly more burdensome than requirements to buy a gun it alone would weep out some nutcases. Indeed, requiring better standards to own a gun than just being 21, having no felonies or known mental issues in past and having a credit card would be a step into right direction. Switzerland is a good example often praised by NRA crowd, but they usually forget to add that everyone from the militia goes through a mandatory training (including recurrency trainings) so the people who keep guns at home have gone through pretty much the same (or more) experience as some concealed holders here in U.S. - but they are not licensed to carry this weapon, only to keep it at home (and transfer it). And it is very hard to get a carry permit there. From what I remember most shooting sprees were started by those without criminal records. Cho didn't have a criminal record either. A few more recent examples of idiocy of some gun owners (which may or may not be licensed to carry): - A couple of idiot parents let some kids playing with their guns, which were loaded, and a kid shot another; - Another idiot started shooting outside the courthouse and injured a few people before he finally got shot; - Yet another idiot started shooting outside Capitol building in TX. Fortunately nobody died; - Yet another idiot got pissed off on his ex, and shot her new boyfriend; - An idiot teacher shot their colleagues because she didn't get a tenure; None of those were criminals or proven nutcases, so there was no valid reason to deny them guns. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

My question was "how many people were murdered with seat belts"? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

They never did (nor they tried). It is you who speculated they did, but never provided any evidence to support that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform. Sorry, dude, your opinion weights much less than that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Not at all. Alameda is directly adjacent to Oakland - and the crime rate there is significantly lower. Which is more than in DC. That's what you claimed all the time, but failed to prove every time unless you really cherry-pick your only two examples (Oakland and DC). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You didn't answer my question. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *