Quote from: Batch on January 11, 2016, 10:01:44 PM

You have no friends to see?

Flee lives in a different country

You'd be welcome to come over if I wasn't in the middle of exams man.

A neat idea but not a practical method of lowering gun crime, be it accidental or intentional.

True, but it might help in the long run. All of the practical issues aside, a majority of guns used in gun crime are "illegal". While legal guns are still used more often in domestic violence and mass shootings, it's the illegal ones that account for most other gun violence. Some of the most common ways that legal guns become illegal (as silly as that sounds) are straw purchases, social connections and theft. It's estimated that close to 250,000 guns are stolen in the US each year. A lot depends on how these smart guns actually work, but they could make it so that a number of these guns would effectively become useless.

There is a myriad of problems and questions surrounding it, though. How easily removable is it? How can it change ownership and have a new fingerprint added or replaced? Then there's the obvious risks of technical malfunction, the problem that a lot of accidental gun deaths and injuries are caused by a person who'd be authorised to wield it, the high costs of implementing the lock, the fact that there's already millions of guns in circulation that will never see a system like this applied...

Systems like these are promising and will definitely save some lives, but you're right in the way that the widespread use we'd need to see in order for this to actually make a meaningful impact of gun deaths and crimes is really just a distant dream at this point. Still, it is a start. Maybe a few decades from now things like this will become the standard and actually do some good.

After consulting Google:

"After Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann had been destroyed by the Granzeboma, Team Dai-Gurren split its power into pieces to form their own separate Tengen Toppa Gunmen, including Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's head becoming Tengen Toppa Lagann."

"Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is 52.8 billion light years tall"

"After transforming into a drill, its size is multiplied immensely, since its Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill is at least ten times longer (528 billion light years), and about four times wider. This gives it a cone area over 180 times the size of the Super Tengen Toppa, and a multiversal scale the size of over 100 universes."

"Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was lost when its Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break was broken by the Super Granzeboma's Anti-Spiral Giga Drill Break."

Literally what the fuck is up with this.

Recently.

>only person without a response

It's because the color of my text is orange, isn't it? Racism at its finest.

Quote from: Flee on January 10, 2016, 09:33:45 AM

Quote from: BerzerkCommando on January 10, 2016, 08:51:45 AM

Quote from: NiggerBot 9000 on January 10, 2016, 12:26:37 AM

We should get rid of the second amendment. It's obsolete, anyway

Agreed.

Maybe in a few decades. 2/3rds of Congress needs to approve and then 38 states need to ratify such a change. Not gonna happen yet.

Won't happen that way anyway.

Confiscation and scary-ergonomic-feature bans may come along, and we may go all the way down to just bolt-guns, but that is as far as it will go.

America, particularly rural America, has a longstanding tradition of hunting and outdoorsmanship. You can take their black weapons, but you'll never be able to get rid of hunting rifles. It is too great a cultural institution here in the South. You wouldn't know it based on American media you consume, because it all comes from the densely populated, politically-overpowered City States, but guns in a hunting capacity are a significant part of our culture. Excluding transplants from elsewhere, I don't know a family in my county that doesn't have an old .22lr or 30-30 stashed somewhere. The Second Amendment might get warped only to protect these weapons, but I assure you it will never disappear completely.

Perhaps. I just know that hunting and rifles aren't just an American thing. Many countries without a constitutional or legal "right to arms" allow for significant private gun ownership. Never say never, who knows how people will feel a few decades down the line and increasing amounts of restrictions have been passed. The removal of a then obsolete part of the law might not be as unlikely to them.

Quote from: NiggerBot 9000 on January 10, 2016, 12:26:37 AM

We should get rid of the second amendment. It's obsolete, anyway

Agreed.

Maybe in a few decades. 2/3rds of Congress needs to approve and then 38 states need to ratify such a change. Not gonna happen yet.

Count me in.

Quote from: Flee on January 09, 2016, 08:53:34 AM

Quote from: Fagcicle on January 09, 2016, 08:14:34 AM

Quote from: Flee on January 09, 2016, 05:17:57 AM

Quote

Rubio has suggested enacting term limits on federal legislators and Supreme Court justices

Regarding SCOTUS - the intent of no term limits was to attempt to keep political affiliation out of the job. If we had new justices every "x" years, it would simply become another majority for whichever party controlled the White House and Senate.

Although you do have a much more political court system now, it is far less than what it would be in this scenario. By having a lifetime term, you do get cases like Roberts voting to keep the health care law in place.

It's not the lifetime term that I find strange (it's the same over here), but that they're appointed by the president.

With the Senate's approval.

They don't exactly disapprove very often, though.

Not saying it's a bad system, it's just strange to me.

Rubio has suggested enacting term limits on federal legislators and Supreme Court justices

That part sounds good, at least. I'm kind of on the fence on the whole "give power to the states" thing, though. On the one hand, it's necessary in a federal state and can be very beneficial on an economic level. It makes perfect sense that each already pretty independent area is in the best position to govern the people living there and to set forth the best policies that are adapted to that specific part of the country, having the best and most accurate knowledge on its state of affairs. But on the other, I can never fully shake the feeling that all these (usually Republican) calls for increased state autonomy and independence are really just reasons to avoid progress and cling to its backwards and usually pretty religious policies and traditions.

I don't know, I guess I just rarely see this being used for actually solid purposes. Most of it seems to be motivated by goals of keeping God's creationism in schools and evolution out of them, not allowing gays to marry, fostering discrimination and alienation of minorities, breaking down the (in America already very thin) separation of church and state and so on.

Cheat will give you $10 if you use it to advertise for sep7agon. Hook a big banner behind it or something.

Flee with a French accent.

Far from it actually. French isn't my native language so I have absolutely no French accent, nor do I have the thick Dutch one that people from the Netherlands do. Most Americans I've spoken to say that I have little to no discernible accent. Here's two songs by Flemish artists singing in English, just so you can get an idea what it sounds like. I suppose I'm pretty similar to the first one, although I wish I could find the studio version on youtube.

I'll bite the proverbial bullet if it means that I can get that damn eurocommie Flee off of my FREEDOMS.

I'm flattered. <3

Well, it is an important and a fundamental component of most legal systems these days, but that importance is always relative. In the US and just about everywhere else, it can be changed or amended, it has been changed and had amendments added, and it almost definitely will be changed and amended again in the future. Additionally, they're almost always (intentionally) left open to interpretation by the judiciary branch as to stay in line with a changing society.

Seeing it as some sort of definitive and exhaustive document on natural rights and governmental workings really is a big mistake, imo.

Want me to just move this to Flood, Meta? I'm sure there's plenty of other people ready to chime in on what parts of the US you should come visit, but it's not really Serious material. Unless people are actually going to get back on topic, that is.