Alright, so I'm probably going to buy an Xbox One with my girlfriend soon enough. Never really looked into it up until now, so I'm wondering what I need to look out for. Any bundles to keep an eye out for? 500gb or 1tb? Kinect? Do all games need to be installed? I take it your XBL account and gamertag just transfer? What's the deal with the backwards compatibility addition? How are games like the MCC, Halo 5 and other exclusives? Any other neat features for me to know about?

Early as shit (4 something am) because I have a train to catch at 5. Discuss the wonders of excursions and "school trips", even though this could hardly be considered one. Bored and having breakfast while waiting for time to pass, so talk to me Flood.

Beat all the missions, received all the audio logs and unlocked all achievements for it.

The game definitely has its issues, but I did have an overall pretty good time playing it. The movement was wonky at times, the story irrelevant, the AI pretty bad and there were about 0 people still playing it, but I still had some fun. It's a lot like one of my all time favorite games (Wolfenstein ET) but with a whole bunch of things gone wrong. Worst thing about it is just the disappointment. Brink feels like it could've been so much more, unfortunately.

For $1.49, you can't really go very wrong. Would recommend to FPS fans for that price.

Anyone else here had or played it?

Couldn't understand a word they were saying m8.

Just finished Far Cry 4 earlier today and now I'm looking for my next 360 game to play through. I haven't played any of them before, other than getting an hour or so into Metro and Crysis 3. What should I play next?

"...it has an X problem".

If you are interested in criminal justice, law or gun regulations in general, you have undoubtedly heard these claims before. One does not need to have a degree in law or political science to regonize a clear and recurrent trend when it comes to gun violence, gun massacres and the political response to it in the United States. More often than not, the following series of events unfold.

- Person shoots up school, mall or movie theater.
- Extensive media coverage results in a massive public outrage.
- Typically leftist/democrat politicians and people say "no more!" and call for stricter gun control, often fueled by an immediate emotional response.
- Typically right wing/republican politicians and people defend gun rights at all costs and suggest a scapegoat while claiming "nothing could prevent this".
- Some time passes, the debate dies down again and the general population moves on.
- The next, inevitable mass shootings occurs usually shortly afterwards.
- Rinse and repeat.

What this "scapegoat" is often depends on the particular circumstances of the case and varies greatly as such. Sometimes it's the mentally ill and inadequate mental health care, other times it's gender or race, then it's the media and violent video games and in other cases it's a gang problem.

As opposed to my previous thread on gun control, this one does not support a particular policy of gun regulation and gun control, nor does it weigh any pros and cons of policy choices. The point of this thread is to analyse some of these often cited scapegoats or so-called "underlying causes for America's gun violence epidemic". Not that I have any delusions about whether my post will actually change something (it won't), but the reason for this is that it's one thing to see heaps of 12 year olds on Bungie make these poor arguments, but seeing almost every single republican presidential candidate relying on these scapegoats is what got me to write this addendum to my last submission.

"America does not have a gun problem, it has a mental health problem. Mentally ill people are to blame for mass shootings and gun violence. Investing in better mental health will fix the problem.

I have to start this one of by making something very clear. Better mental health care is an admirable and necessary policy that is sure to yield results. As is the case with most other countries, (mental) health care deserves more attention and should be considered a priority regardless of gun crime. However, its relation to gun crime is whimsical at best.

To cite one of the foremost studies on this topic, "notions that mental illness caused any particular shooting, or that advance psychiatric attention might prevent these crimes, are more complicated than they often seem."

A few numbers to put this in perspective are due. Less than 3% to 5% of all US crimes involve people with mental illness, and the percentages of those crimes actually involving guns is lower than the national average of these crimes commited by people without a mental illness. Additionally, less than 5% of all 120,000 gun-related homicides recorded between 2001 and 2010 were commited by a person with a diagnosed mental illness. Furthermore, people diagnosied with serious psychiatric disorders only commit about 4% of the violence in the US, while John Hopkins found no correlation whatsoever between the most common psychiatric diagnoses of the mentally ill and violence. Even more so, people with mental illness are far, far more likely to end up being victimised rather than actually commiting (violent) crimes themself.

Going by the large amount of research done on this subject, it's pretty clear that other factors contribute significantly more to (gun) violence than mental illnesses alone. The most obvious and clearly established factor is, unsurprisingly, the availability of firearms in society. The impact of reasonable gun regulations on (mass shootings) has clearly been established in other countries having adopted stricter gun control over time.

Additionally, the idea that conducting a psych evaluation alone will help curb gun violence in a significant way is also relatively unfounded. This entire suggestion is based on the assumption that psychiatric diagnoses can predict gun crime and violent behavior. Not only does this put an incredible burden on psychologists to complete the impossible task of deciding which one of the hundreds of thousands of depressed, confused, asocial and anxious people with low self esteem and many struggles in life is going to end up shooting up a school, but it's also simply not realistic. A psychiatric diagnosis is not predictive of violence and as is clearly shown by numerous statistics, the overwhelming majority of psychiatric patients or mentally ill persons fitting the profile of the typical American mass shooters never end up commiting a crime.

It is simply an impossible task to somehow determine what people are mentally ill to the point of considering commiting a mass shooting or resorting to violence, as the "predictive value of a psychiatric diagnosis is thin at best". Hundreds of thousands of people that fit the common characteristics of mass shooters (which, as already pointed out, still only make up only a fraction of all American gun violence) do not commit such crimes.

Estimates state that about 1 in every 4 people suffer from a mental illness. 61.5 million American adults have psychological issues and depending on the definitions of what count as mentally ill, this accounts for close to 20% of Americans. Are all of them going to be disqualified from owning firearms? Would you confiscate their guns because of a (past) mental illness? Not only is this a project of an impossible magnitude, but it will also affect millions upon millions of people who are of no danger to society.

Another argument to address this issue with is that the very low rates of the seriously mentally ill going out and commiting violent crime (less than 5%) are not higher in the US than they are in the rest of the developed world. The US does not have a monopoly on the mentally ill. While it's health care may be questionable, people with mental illness exist all over the world in the same numbers and a lot of them too do not receive the medical attention they deserve.

Yet despite this being the case, the US is the only developed country with such high rates of mass shootings and gun violence in general, and the general public heavily stigmatizes and blames mental illness for these tragedies rather than the easy access to firearms, which is exactly the main contributor to mass shootings and gun violence that a consortium of universities found in a massive research project.

To conclude: the US does not have more mentally ill people than other developed countries do. The mentally ill in the US only make up a tiny fraction of all gun violence and are not the sole perpetrator of mass shootings. Some studies of mass murders find that only about 20% of perpetrators have a documented psychiatric history, with only 2 out of 132 surviving perpetrators having been found mentally ill and being institutionalised. As a mental health and psychiatric expert and professor at Duke University concluded, "even a perfect mental health are system and the ability to cure depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorders would only result in a 4% decrease of overall violence in the US" and that the addition of mental health records in the background checks at gun sales only prevented an estimated 0.5% of the state in question's overall violent crime.

While more adequate mental health care institutions would help society as a whole, America's gun problem is not one of mental health (care). The mentally ill are not a good scapegoat, despite what numerous presidential candidates are trying to have you believe. The issue lies, perhaps surprisingly to some, with the easy access to guns. Blaming "mental illness" is a convenient excuse to pretend that there is nothing wrong with the American gun regulations, but one that is ultimately incorrect.

America has a gang problem disguised as a gun problem. Gang and drug related crime commited by gangbangers and junkies is the issue rather than gun control regulations.

A brief remark to start this off is once again due. Yes, the US has an undeniable gang problem that does not exist anywhere else in the developed world. This is an issue that most definitely needs addressing and affects many other political topics, including the discussion on gun regulations. However, America's gangs are not at all a main cause of its gun violence problem.

According to the governmental National Gang Center, gangs are responsible for about 2000 homicides on a yearly basis. This number reflects all homicides by any means, including those commited by guns, fists, vehicles, bats, knives and everything else. The US Department of Justice found an even lower number of gang-related homicides, settling on around 960 gang killings (again, including all homicides by any means) in 2008. Unfortunately, there exist no detailed numbers on how many of those are commited by firearms. However, if we look at the national averages of homicides in the US, we find that about 65-70% of all American homicides are commited with a firearm. If we theoretically apply that number to gangs, we find that there are, on average, around 650 to 1300 gang-related gun homicides on a yearly basis.

Comparing that number to the whole of gun homicides in the US, it becomes clear that those 650-1300 killings only make up a small portion of the 11,000 gun homicides taking place in America every single year. Accordingly, they only account for 6 to 11% of all homicides by firearm in the US.

Additionally, the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has established that the number of gangs and gang members is steadily increasing in the US. Over the last decade, that number has grown at about 3% a year or 1/3rd over the course of the entire decade. If the US truly had a gang problem rather than a gun problem, one would assume that this would lead to a drastic increase in the amount of gang-related killings. This, however, does not appear to be true as those killings have decreased by over 8% in the last couple of years, completely contradicting the idea that it is the gangs who drive gun violence in the US.

To add on this, a CDC 5-year long study on the homicide rates in cities with the biggest gang problems such as Chicago and LA established that gang homicides only make up an average of 29% of all killings in those cities, hereby contributing to the idea that is not the gangs who are mainly responsible for American gun violence. In addition, the study found that the illegal drug trade did not fuel gun crime on its own either. Drug-related killings were determined to be "consistently low" and only made up 0 to 25% of all killings taking place in those areas.

Finally, the idea that only convicted killers and die-hard criminals with prior convictions make up all gun homicides has also been suspected to be largely incorrect. While people with prior convictions do have a "relatively high incidence of lethal violence", the study concludes that focusing exclusively on these people when distributing firearms "leaves a large portion of the problem untouched". The finding that only a small minority of all people commiting mass shootings obtained their weapon illegally, only contributes to this notion.

To conclude: focusing exclusively or primarily on gangs, drugs and known violent criminals ignores the underlying problem. The US has a gang problem, but it is largely unrelated to its gun problem. The idea that simply addressing illegal firearm and drug trade, gangs and convicted felons will fix gun violence is completely unfounded and simply incorrect.

America does not have a gun problem, it has a problem with the media. Extensive media coverage of mass shootings and violent movies/games/songs compel people to commit gun violence.

This one I'm going to address very briefly. Simply put, many people claim that the media is to blame for mass shootings and gun violence. While there exists evidence to suggest that the copycat effect does encourage certain people to shoot for fame, the idea that increased media coverage results in increased (mass) shootings is not correct.

Again the comparison deserves to be made with other developed countries. Living in one of them, I can assure you that the media coverage on these international issues is also extensive. The killer is named, his methods described and the amount of victims clearly featured. This applies to both foreign and domestic incidents of mass violence, the last of which we luckily have very few. Yet despite this media attention, the amount of mass shootings and gun violence in other developed countries is incredibly low compared to the US.

Another frequent culprit are violent games, movies and songs. To address this, there are numerous studies suggesting that there is no reason to believe these forms of media cause (gun) violence. In addition, these forms of media are also distributed globally. Billions of gamers, moviegoers and listeners of aggressive songs live in developed countries outside of the US. Even if these forms of media somehow contributed to gun violence, the clear question is why this only becomes apparent in the US. If violent video games make kids shoot up schools or graphic movies result in shootings, why do they only frequently do so in the US? There are millions of gamers in Europe just the same, and the American media are undoubtedly the most popular in the world, with its games, movies and songs having a global audience.

Again the conclusion must be made that the underlying cause is not the attention the media gives to these issues that fuels gun violence, nor do violent games or movies result in people taking guns to the streets. While I do not proclaim that these don't play a factor in the violence in our society, it is pretty clear that they are not the primary or sole contributor to the problem of gun violence in the US.

Conclusion.

While many scapegoats are often called upon, none of them can be considered the primary underlying cause for the American gun problem. While they might play a small role in the American epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings, the logical conclusion is very clear. Gun violence is caused by guns. More specifically, the glorification of these tools as part of the very prevalent American gun culture, their extreme availability to the general public and the extraordinarily high rates of private gun ownership.

Flee Talks Law: Gun Control

Warning: lots of text incoming. For a tl;dr, refer to the final part.

I was originally planning on covering this subject later, but the recent events of the Oregon shooting made the topic all the more relevant right now. Discussing gun control with many people both on this website and other forums such as B.net has again revealed how varied and conflicting the opinions are that people hold on this issue. For some reason, my opinion usually seems to stand out and gets a lot of people interested in debating this. After making several different posts about this in other people's threads, I felt it was a good time to make a larger thread covering some of the things I researched. As it's clearly related to law and criminal justice, it also makes for a great first entry in my "Flee Talks Law" series.

As I already mentioned in another two posts of mine, I came into this debate and started my research being as neutral and unbiased as I possibly could. I like to think that this is still the case and that I'm capable of keeping an open mind to both sides of the argument. I have little to no prior bias, am not in any way connected to guns and have desire to keep them for my own purposes, and I am not disgusted by or afraid of others owning guns.


In my opinion and just like with many other issues, the topic of gun control basically comes down to weighing the pros and cons of certain types of gun control and the private owning, carrying and usage of firearms. As such, I will begin by evaluating what are, in my opinion, the 4 most commonly cited and most compelling “pros” or arguments in favor of easy access to guns and an armed society.

"Guns are necessary to defend our freedom and democracy. Registration leads to confiscation which, as history shows, in turn leads to tyranny. We need firearms to defend us from foreign and domestic threats and dictators."

While this argument sounds nice in theory, it really does not correspond with the evidence and research at hand. For one, the "Stalin and Hitler took the people's guns before commiting their massacres against a defenseless population" arguments that are often thrown around are mostly incorrect. They did not simply take away the people's guns to commit their attrocities more easily, and there still existed militias and many armed civilians that unsurprisingly managed to do nothing to stop the regimes.

Even more so, strong evidence suggests that especially in our more modern history, the existence of an armed population and presence of militias "overwhelmingly fostered tyranny, not liberty". As should be pretty apparent from looking at the entire developed world outside of the US, there exists no correlation between (strict) gun control and the emergence of tyranny or dictatorships, whether foreign or domestic.

Secondly, it's extremely unlikely that a tyranny will emerge in the US in this day and age. The country has a longstanding history of military tradition and engrained patriotism. The US military is the people. Until the president and chiefs of staff can rely on a completely automatic robot army without morals or doubts, there is no way that your members of the army, navy and airforce would simply turn on the people that they are sworn to protect. They are not going to imprison, enslave or kill their own friends, family and community because they are ordered to do so. There exists a big difference between fighting a foreign enemy and going door to door in your own neighborhood to kill your fellow citizens because they don't agree with what your commander thinks. Additionally, we live in an incredibly global and international society. NATO, the UN and the entire developed world is not going to sit by idly and mind their own business when Obama decides to crown himself dictator for life by somehow completely ignoring the existing system of checks and balances and openly starts shooting political dissidents in the streets or FEMA death camps.

Finally, even if such a tyranny would emerge in present day America, it is very doubtful that the second amendment and privately owned guns would be in any way able to stop this. This is no warzone in a far away land where the united and unified natives use their unmatched knowledge of the terrain and guerilla tactics to fend off an overwhelming opponent. It would not, at all, resemble the militias that fought for America's freedom a few centuries ago. Not only would a rebellion easily be crushed, but the illusion that the American people would unite to fight for freedom and liberty is really just a distant ideal. Much more likely would be that different groups with different interests would take up arms to push their own beliefs over those of anyone else. The idea that a heavily armed populace is the ultimate safeguard of a righteous and free America is not only extremely improbable, but also very dangerous. It only increases the probability that only those with the firepower will be the ones in control and that might will make right. Ultimately, it's not guns that kill or prevent dictatorships. It's the people who do.

"Guns and shooting are a form of entertainment. Target practice and collecting firearms is a good and fun hobby.
I grew up enjoying firing guns and want that to remain so."

For one, I always thought that this argument is a pretty selfish one. "Despite the fact that our loose gun control and easy access to guns directly contribute to high homicide rates, insane gun violence rates that are only rivaled by third world countries, many preventable suicides, a baffling amount of mass shootings and more gun-related accidents and injuries than any other developed country in the world, I still value my weekly session at the range above the safety, wellbeing and lives of tens of thousands of other innocent people." Sure, it's an argument like any other, but I don't see how the pros of being able to have fun during one specific activity justifies the harm and issues it causes.

Secondly, there is absolutely no reason that (strict) gun control and enjoying guns as a hobby are incompatible. As a point of reference, I will be using my own country here. Belgium is part of the group of Western European countries that have a system of restrictive gun regulations in place. Yet despite this being the case, thousands of people still enjoy guns in productive ways. For example, it's perfectly legal to become part of a hunting society and use firearms to hunt. As such, conventions on hunting and both expos and shows on gun ownership and gun collecting regularly take place. Same thing goes for sport, recreational and competitive shooting, and the possibility of collecting and modifying firearms as a hobby.

Things like these exist in pretty much all countries with strict gun control regulations. They make it pretty clear that just because a country does not encourage private gun ownership and takes pretty restrictive measures to curb gun crime, gun violence and the public carrying of firearms, this does not mean that it's impossible to enjoy shooting and firearms in a recreational or competitive way, or for the purposes of hunting and collecting. They admittedly do make it harder to do so, but I'd say that a person determined to enjoy guns and shooting as a hobby will gladly go through the extra steps to do so, and will ultimately be pleased that these additional safeguards stop a lot of people who shouldn't have a gun and help give responsible gun owners a good name.

"My right to bear arms is constutionally protected by the Second Amendment. Gun ownership is a universal, fundamental and inalienable right that can't be infringed."

This argument is by far the hardest one to address, as it is mainly situated within a metaphysical and very philosophical field where statistics, data and research isn't of much use. What someone considers to be a fundamental and inalienable right is generally a very personal choice and experience.

However, there are some remarks to be made here. For one, the right to bear arms is by no means “universal”. Out of the 190+ currently existing countries, only 3 (or, arguably, 4) have a constitution that explicitly provides for a right to bear arms, while seemingly just one more (Switzerland) does so through other statutory binding means. Out of those 3, only 1 constitution does not explicitly include a restrictive condition or requirement to the ownership of guns. That one being, of course, the USA with its Second Amendment.

Furthermore, not a single practically universal treaty or agreement on human rights consider the right to bear arms in any way fundamental, inalienable or universal. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (combined often known as the International Bill of Rights), the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the more regional treaties spanning the Americas or Africa all do not make the slightest mention of any right to own a firearm.

Despite being part of the Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, it is entirely possible to amend, rewrite or remove an amendment. For example, a popular suggestion is one held by an ex SCOTUS judge that implores the addition of a single sentence to the Second Amendment (“when serving in the militia”) in order to fix many of the existing problems that it creates.

Considering all of the above, I'd wager that the right to bear arms is an American peculiarity that is not recognized by academics and legal experts in virtually any other country or on an international and global scale. The current existence of many gun regulations and court rulings make it clear that “shall not be infringed” does not prevent reasonable restrictions, and it's rather clear that the Bill of Rights and US Constitution can very well be amended or altered.

The founding fathers were in no way flawless and supported practices and regulations that would now be considered proposterous, outdated and downright discriminatory. They lived in a very different day and age, and recognized that changes would probably be necessary. As your very own Jefferson once said, "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

While it's hard to argue that self-defense within reason is a natural right of any man, I do not see how an extremely particular way of exercising that right deserves to be a fundamental right on its own. Going by current international and global standards, I do believe that the right to bear arms is an American anomaly that to most other academics and countries brings about feelings of disbelief and disagreement. It can be changed, is not universally recognized and is a peculiar and strange extension of an already existing human right. It must again be noted that this is very philosophical and personal, but I, for one, do not consider the right to a gun an inalienable and fundamental right of extreme importance, nor does altering or restricting this particular right would result in the slippery slope fallacy of eroding all other human rights.

"Guns are a tool of self-defense. They give people the chance to fight back and stop criminals.
Criminals don't follow laws in the first place, and the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

This again seems like a very logically sound argument. “Give people guns and no one will dare to commit any crime as an armed society will keep them in check. Guns being the ultimate equalizer allow people to defend themselves and create a safer, better society.” It's a nice idea, but one that is ultimately untrue. In order to save myself the effort, I am going to quote my own post from the other thread.

Yes, criminals don't follow laws. It's the definition of a criminal. But criminals undeniably do follow some laws some of the time, both out of fear of punishment and because of obstacles to commiting them. And it's been shown many times that making something harder to accomplish or associating negative consequences to it really does deter some people.

Making something harder to do will make it less likely that people will do it. To me, that seems like a pretty common and general truth that also applies to criminal justice. Many crimes are commited in the spur of the moment or on short notice. Sure, there's the professional criminals that spend months planning out the perfect bank robbery or hitmen stalking a target to assassinate, but they are a clear minority. Simple deterrents help in a lot of cases. It's why we have speed bumps on roads, car alarms installed on all modern cars, police patrolling around cities and cameras located at certain places. Someone who is really determined to speed down that road or steal a car won't be completely prevented from doing so, but it does deter many others. As such, it has its use.

Comparatively, making guns harder to obtain reduces gun violence and more often that not homicide rates too. This is backed up by significant amounts of research on this subject. Even though there will always be those who are so determined to commit their crime that they will find more dangerous and expensive ways of obtaining a firearm, stricter access to guns does deter many of those who are not willing to go that far. Those who would've acted in the heat of the moment or who would've only actually gone through with the crime because they had the opportunity to do so will often be deterred by having it made significantly harder to commit the crime. If you make it harder for people thinking of commiting a crime to get their hands on the best tool to do so, less and less of them will actually go through with it. "Criminals routinely respond to incentives, and policies such as background checks and permit-to-purchase requirements demonstrably save lives by reducing criminal access to firearms." All the available data shows that criminals do respond to these laws and that such disincentives undoubtedly deter many of them from going through with the crime they were intending.

That aside, the merits of defensive gun use or "good guys with a gun" are so overstated that they could almost be considered a myth. More gun owners or more guns in general do not equal less crime or violence. There exist source after source after source and then some more and more research and evidence that makes this very clear.

In the US in 2015 alone, there have been over 20 (albeit not all fatal) shootings at schools. About 10,000 gun homicides. Close to 300 mass shootings. Several tens of thousands of gun accidents and injuries. How many incidents of defensive gun use would you pitch against that? A few thousand? A few ten thousand? The answer is not even a thousand cases of defensive gun use, many of which are very often illegal on top of that. Guns, in general, do more harm than good. And the ideal of a good guy with a gun being able to rise up and stop the wrongdoers is just that. An ideal with little reality to it.

People aren't Rambo. Even trained military personnel being deployed in combat zones often choke up and lose it. Same goes for trained police officers dealing with shootings that only land a small percentage of their shots on targets. People with guns will run and hide just the same when someone starts shooting at the crowd you're in, and if they do fight back it's incredibly likely that they will be inaccurate, ineffective and cause simply more chaos or damage to others around them. For everyone but you, there suddenly isn't just one shooter but there's multiple. Another guy with a gun firing away. One that probably isn't an expert marksmen and has no experience with these situations. Even trained policy officers and soldiers struggle with this. Thinking that John Doe will be able to contribute anything good to such a situation in almost all cases does not correspond with reality.

The idea that more guns is good and will protect people from the bad guys has time and time again been shown to not be true. Having a gun on you in public or kept accessible at home for self defense is significantly more likely to result in serious accidents or negative outcomes than it is to be used in an act of self defense. As only 5% of all violent crimes commited by strangers take place at home, guns kept at home (and especially those carried in public) are considerably more likely to harm you or someone close to you than they are to fend off violent intruders. It makes suicide more likely and raises the odds of a fight or quarrel in your home to turn violent, result in injury or end fatally. In general, a gun on you both in public or at home makes you less safe than the other way around.
 

Cons and conclusions.

From the above, I can personally conclude that the 4 most commonly cited pros and positives of firearm ownership, public carrying and loose gun control tend to not hold much weight. It does not prevent or stop tyranny and will not help you keep defend your liberties. Loose gun control and easy access to firearms is not the only way for people to still enjoy hunting and recreational or competitive shooting. The right to bear arms is not universal and should not be considered a fundamental human right. The founding fathers had their flaws and “because the constitution says so” really does not suffice to protect gun rights. And finally, guns do not make you safer or help a society defend itself better.

After establishing this, it's important to have a look at the cons and negatives of high rates of gun ownership and easy access to firearms. For brevity sake, I'll keep this short. Among others, America's loose gun control is directly related to: incredibly high rates of firearm homicides, very frequent mass shootings, higher rates of gun related deaths and injuries, generally higher homicide rates as close to 70% of America's homicides are commited with firearms, large amounts of (likely) preventable suicides, many instances of illegal (defensive) gun use, more police shootings, a more active and well-fueled black or gray market of illegal arms trade, higher rates of domestic violence and murder, generally higher crime rates and so on.

Now, there is more to this debate than what this brief post can cover. There are socio-economic circumstances and a lot of details to analyse and to discuss. No one in the right mind will claim that simply instating stricter gun control measures will magically fix all of these issues and result in a complete disappearance of gun violence and crime.

But weighing the discussed rather siginificant cons against the few and almost non-existent pros, I personally have come to conclude that many privately owned, carried and easily obtained guns simply do more harm than good. Gun control undoubtedly works. And while I do not necessarily think that an immediate switch to a European system or a sudden massive tightening of gun regulations is the best course of action for the US, I do believe that stricter gun regulations are the clear and logical way to go.

Just a quick survey to see how many (if any) of you guys would be interested in me doing some general posts about law stuff.

The academic year has started again and I'm getting back into a more legal mindset after ignoring all this stuff over the summer. As such, I'm regaining interest in reading and writing about some of the stuff that I don't think is too boring. I had the idea of doing some informative posts on this before, but never really got around doing it due to a general lack of interest and time constraints.

So basically: would you people be interested in me doing some general threads talking about certain legal things and law stuff. Most of it would have to be pretty general or with an international focus as I doubt many here would be interested in me going over the details of Belgian law and because I'm not that into UK or US law, but there's still a bunch of rather interesting things to talk about.

Some of the things that came to mind are the differences between the main western legal systems (inquisitorial >< adversarial), judicial activism, international criminal law, cybercrime, the difference between copyright/trademark/patent and how they work, encryption and the law, human rights, criminal law, privacy and data protection, piracy, software and open source protection, international private/public law, diplomacy, space/sea law, the death penalty, international organizations and so forth.

tl;dr is anyone interested in me doing the occasional series on certain interesting topics of law as a general introduction or informative overview?

I rarely buy the humble bundles because it's 99% trash, indie or weebshit (usually all in one), but this one's pretty good and has Total War for a theme. Figured I'd make a thread for those who were unaware that this is going on.

Pay whatever you want for:

- Medieval 2 + all DLC
- Shogun 1 + all DLC

Pay more than $10 for:

- Medieval 1 + all DLC
- Empire + all DLC
- Shogun 2 + all DLC
- Napoleon + all DLC
- a 66% discount coupon for Attila when it launches

Pay more than $15 for:

- Rome 2 + all DLC

And then there's some other stuff like a soundtrack, digital map and other stuff for spin-off games that no one really cares about.


tl;dr $15 for all Total War games (minus Rome 1) + all DLC . Offer expires in 6 days.

I've only sporadically played the games after Rome 1 and Empire, so I'm pretty excited to give the newer ones a go. Any tips from veterans? First gotta get this stuff downloaded though. 20-30gb per game (not including DLC) is quite hefty.

M. Night Shyamalan has confirmed that everyone's favorite Avatar movie (Avatar The Last Airbender) will be getting a sequel.

Hooray!

Personally thinking of going with Froakie. Not a fan of what Fennekin evolves into and Greninja looks pretty cool.

Which one did / would you pick and why?

So I finally got my 3DS in the mail. So far I only have the Super Mario game for it, so I'm open to new suggestions. What do you guys think, and what should I get next?

Anyone else watching Wimbledon? Discuss the greatest player time of all time.

For those interested:
- Live scores
- Live stream

Will update links when the game starts.

Folks over at Bungie using your outdated membership. The legend still lives.

This topic has been moved to The Flood.

http://sep7agon.net/index.php?topic=39490.0