The biggest problem in the US is that we always want one thing to solve all of our problems. And the truth is, these aren't problems that can just be fixed with a couple of laws; it requires understanding that they are complicated issues that require a lot of changes, not only in legislature, but also society itself.

I fully agree and I don't think that anyone in the right mind would argue that addressing one aspect of this issue would solve everything. Simply attempting to fix it all by addressing mental health, gangs, media, drugs, illegal weapon trade on an individual basis will not solve anything, and the same goes for gun legislation. Gun control, on its own, will never be a magical fix for this entire problem.

The main point of my post was to present the idea that the American gun culture and easy access to firearms is also something that definitely needs to be altered. And as I tried to argue in this thread, it probably needs to be addressed more thoroughly and urgently than any of the other factors that play into this.

The reason I made this thread was to respond to the many scapegoats people use as an excuse not to actually talk about gun control. "I know there's a lot of gun violence and mass shootings, but if we just address X first then..." No. Just no. Stricter gun regulations are a vital part for such an overhaul to work. Yes, they need to be combined with a lot of other changes in society, but they are an absolute necessity. That was the main point I was trying to make.

When I first looked at the picture I thought the UK was green (muslim law) and I laughed a fair bit <.<

Hmm of the systems detailed here, Civil sounds slightly less uh... prone to whimsy. If everyone is following from the same set of rules rather than the rules set out by a higher court that dealt with a similar case a long time ago it seems a bit... better really.

I'm really not a fan of the yank system for arguing in courts, it really does seem to just be ripe for abuse and favouring those who hire the better (more expensive) lawyers <_<

Question though, I imagine it'd be unimaginably difficult for a country to change from common to civil - would you agree? <.<

Agreed with everything you said and yeah, it would be almost impossible for a country to make a complete change to the opposite system.

For a common law country to switch to a civil law system would require a complete overhaul of its established legal history. All relevant court rules addressing all particular scenarios would somehow have to be codified and turned into law. All practicing lawyers would have to be re-educated on how to apply laws rather than rulings, and they'd have to completely change the way they behave in court by partially abandoning the "contest to present the better story" mindset.

For a civil law country to adopt a common law system would also require a major overhaul. You'd either have to get rid of a lot of past laws and have jurisprudence fill in the gaps, or work with a dual system where court rulings decide the interpretation for the future and old (out of commission) laws work for the past. Plus, the courts and lawyers would have to switch to the "arguments rather than justice" approach, which I don't see many of them being able to get over.

Much more desirable (and actually very real) is slowly adopting measures and factors of the other system. For example, the US is almost entirely adversarial, yet employs an inquisitorial approach without a jury and with more power to the court for misdemeanors and traffic violations, and also has a constitution (which is generally rare for common law countries). And the other way around, many civil law countries have numerous common law and adversarial elements to them. Belgium, for example, has a more adversarial procedure for the most serious of crimes. It employs a jury (that is however assisted by a judge who still conducts the main investigation and trial) and focuses a lot on combining the cases presented by the parties with the independently established evidence.

I actually just started learning a bit about common law in my classes so this was a really nice read.

Glad to have helped.

"...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.

I'll get back to the questions in a bit, currently working on something else.

You should kill yourselves.

Thank you. At least someone else who recognizes the greatness that is Fluttershy. You tell them, girlfriend.

The flee meme is getting old

That's -5 Flee BFF Points©  for you.

Right here, friend.

As promised, here is the second installment in my law series. Due to overwhelming demand, this one will deal with some of the most common systems of law throughout the world. While I realize this topic is far less of a hot topic than gun control currently is in the US, I do hope some of you will read it and maybe even learn a thing or two.



Before we get started discussing the different systems, two major remarks are to be made.

1. As of now and to my knowledge, there no longer exist any purely adversarial or inquisitorial systems anymore. Over the past 80 years, we have experienced a great amount of convergence. Both systems have been eager to adopt certain parts of its counterpart which lead to the creation of many hybrid systems. While the original foundations and principles still dominate these newly formed hybrids that as such can still be categorised in one of the two groups, you'll undoubtedly find adversarial elements in inquisitorial systems and vice versa.

2. In this thread I will be linking civil systems of law with an inquisitorial approach, and common systems with an adversarial approach. This is not necessarily the case for all countries in the world, as the approaches and systems are not necessarily linked. However, this seems to be the case for the vast, vast majority of legal systems, so for simplicity sake I will follow that distinction.



Common Law systems are historically tied to the British empire. Emerging in the Middle Ages, it found its way around the entire world by being used as the go-to system in England's colonies. As such, the countries that still use it these days are almost exclusively former British colonies. The US, the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand are the most commonly used examples.

Civil Law systems are based on the tradition of Roman law and found its way into mainstream society by its adoption by several European imperial powers such as Spain, France and Portugal. Nowadays, the most notable users of this system are the countries in mainland Europe, Russia and South and Central America.


Now that we've got that brief history lesson over with and everyone hear hopefully is aware of what system is in act in their own country, we can move on to the more interesting parts, namely what the actual differences between these systems are.

One of the most fundamental and notable differences is that of the role which legislation and jurisprudence (being the whole of legal rulings and judgments) play.

In Common Law systems, the main focus lies on tradition, past practices and legal precedents set by higher courts. As you all know, it is up to the judiciary power to interpret legislation and apply it to factual circumstances. In both the US and UK, these court rulings are arguably as important for later cases as the laws themselves. The decisions made by higher courts (Courts of Appeal, High Courts of Justice, Supreme Courts) are binding precedents that directly determine the outcome of later similar cases.

Lower courts have no choice but to follow the principles established by higher courts and to apply them in all cases similar to the original one. This legal principle is known as the principle of "stare decisis". It is only when a new and later case is fundamentally distinct from all previously recorded cases (known as a "matter of first impression") that it falls on a judge to create new case law by establishing a brand new precedent.

In Civil Law systems, the complete opposite applies. Higher courts can still create fundamental case law on constitutional matters and such, but they do not directly bind all lower courts. These lower courts are free to come a different conclusion, but ultimately the higher courts will always reign supreme through the principles of appeal.

Instead of binding precedents, it are inclusive systems of written rules, regulations and laws that form the foundation of the civil systems. They rely on codified bundles of law (known as codes) that lay out detailed laws and regulations within different areas of the law (criminal code, civil code, commercial code...). The rule of the judges here is not to fill in the often intentional blanks in legislation, but to simply apply the existing statutes to particular cases.

This distinction is clearly apparent in the field of contractual law. In common law systems, the freedom of contract is incredibly extensive. Very few provisions or safeguards are directly implied or guaranteed by law. Unless a clear and express prohibition legislative prohibition exists, everything is permitted in a contract. Civil law systems generally have a lesser degree of contractual freedom in the sense that there exist numerous contractual clauses and safeguards that are implied or guaranteed by law. While this generally still allows both consenting parties to deviate from a lot of non-binding legal provisions, it is often more protective and provides for numerous safeguards against abuse.


Now that we've covered the main distinctions between common and civil law, it's necessary to analyse in what way they approach actual trials and jurisprudence. As mentioned above, the Common Law systems generally employ the so-called adversarial approach, while Civil Law systems tend to stick to an inquisitorial one.

Under an adversarial approach, such as employed in the US for all cases but the smallest of misdemeanors, the role of the court and judge is rather limited. The judge is supposed to simply act as a referee between the prosecution and defense who battle it out between themselves. The court acts in a non-partisan way and oversees the trial taking place unfolding as a contest.

In such a system, the truth of the matter is to be determined by open competition between the prosecution and defense or between the numerous civil parties. It are the parties who determine what witnesses are called upon, what questions they are asked, what evidence they bring forward and in what order they do it all in. The judge has no choice but to base his judgment on the evidence submitted to him by the parties, ultimately deciding on what version of the facts that was presented to him supposedly matches the truth. In addition to this, adversarial systems more often rely on trials by jury.

Under an inquisitorial approach, such as employed in most of mainland Europe, the judge plays a much more important role. In addition to observing due process and maintaining order between the parties, the court and judge are actively involved in proving facts, questioning witnesses and discovering the truth.

In such a system, the main goal is to achieve justice and uncover the truth for the individuals and society as a whole by both mandatory presence and actions by the parties, their lawyers, the public prosecutor and the court itself. The court is capable of questioning witnesses, ordering additional investigations, bringing forth its own evidence and examining the case in the ways and order that it deems fit. The judge ultimately evaluates all evidence at hand, conducts his own investigations while collaborating with both parties and finally reaches a verdict that he deems to be the truth. The presence of a jury here is usually reserved for only the most serious of cases.


A typical trial consists out of several different phases, the first one being the so-called investigative phase. In an inquisitorial system, this is where the public prosecutor collects evidence and decides whether or not to press charges and involve an examining judge. In an adversarial system, this phase is generally conducted pretty much the exact same. The police, prosecutor and defense gather evidence and build their case.

Second comes the examining phase in the inquisitorial system. This phase does not exist in an adversarial system and involves the examining judge to complete the case file and refer it to the actual judge on the merits of the case. He reviews the record, conducts examinations, collaborates with the parties and finishes the collection of evidence before ultimately concluding the second phase.

Finally, the so-called trial phase takes place. In an inquisitorial system, all parties involved are given a record and overview of all the available evidence before the start of the trial. A different judge than the examining one leads the procedure, gives the word to the parties to make their case and is capable of ordering additional examinations or the reviews of witnesses. In an adversarial system, this is where both the prosecutor and defense give their version of the events before a judge and/or jury. They bring forth the evidence and witnesses that they selected when building their case and seek to convince the judge or jury of their rightfulness, typically done so by cross-examination of evidence and witness statements.


Unsurprisingly, there exists no ultimate or vastly superior system. Both have their pros and cons which deserve to be weighted and compared to one another.

The most commonly cited positive of a common law and adversarial system is the flexibility of the system. A judge can keep up with the times and adapt to the societal needs without having to rely on the intervention of the legislator, which is something that can take considerable amounts of time and is often done without much foresight. A second pro is the larger degree of freedom for people drafting a contract. What's in the contract is what is being decided on, period. There's little to no implied clauses or mandatory safeguards, making it a straightforward experience for most lawyers. A final positive is the suggestion that the system provides a better protection against a biased state, as the conduct of the trial is in the hands of the parties and usually a jury.

There are however numerous negatives that deserve to be mentioned. The idea that a biased state with a powerful judge will keep down the common man comes from a time where only the rich upper class could get into law. Nowadays, this idea has little to no truth to it anymore. Additionally, it's commonly suggested that an adversarial system drastically favors the wealthier parties. Rather than an objective search for the truth, it usually ends up being a contest between lawyers to string together the most convincing story blatantly appealing to emotion and to the power of the word. The more money you have, the better the lawyer(s) you can pay and the more convincing you can present your case. It is a system often critiqued for favoring the rich and powerful. The fact that these systems are also more prone to allowing plea bargains or pre-trial settlements contributes to the possibility that the stronger party will "bully" the other into submission. The risk that the pursuit of winning and the accompanied perversion of the court and justice dramatically outshines the hunt for the truth is a very real one.

The positives on a civil and inquisitorial system should be pretty clear. Due to the fact that it employs codified bodies of law that are easily accessible to all, it greatly empowers the people without an education in law. You don't need to have extensive knowledge of numerous court cases, rulings of high courts and matters of precedence as with a common law system, as simply reading the extensive regulations and laws will make a lot of things rather clear to all. Lawyers still have a very important role to play, but matters of law are generally more easily accessible and understandable to your ordinary man in the street. A binding, clear and easily accesible code will provide the necessary information rather than large amounts of court rulings addressing certain aspects of the matter. As mentioned above, this becomes very clear in contractual law where two people can draft a contract and still receive adequate protection for most scenarios without having to worry about writing a 50 page document to cover everything.

It also comes with the added benefit that the actual trials are far less populist. No longer is it the most convincing story bringing a jury to tears brought by some expensive lawyers that win the cases, but it's the judge and court itself that conducts most of the investigation to get to the absolute bottom of things. It's generally considered to be more fair, more justice-based and generally in the hands of an expert of law rather than a jury. In addition, the role of the victim is more fleshed out. They can often become an actual party to the proceedings and obtain a right to inquiry.

The main negative of such a system can be found with a lack of flexibility of the law. When changes are needed, the high courts can rule their cases a certain way and give incentives to the legislator to change the laws, but they cannot set new, binding precedents for new and unseen cases. This whole process can be slow and inadequate, as opposed to a quick court ruling. However, it does rule out the risk of judicial activism crossing certain lines. This does come at a price, as court cases generally take longer, are more in-depth and cost society more.


To conclude, both systems have their clear pros and cons, but I believe that the ideal solution combines elements of both. The civil law codified systems are generally more clear and easily accessible, but are more rigid and less flexible as opposed to the common law ones that are often more convoluted but easily changed and at a highe risk of judicial activism. An inquisitorial approach to law gives the benefit of a more in-depth and truth-oriented analysis, but often takes longer and takes the trial out of the hands of the parties themselves, while an adversarial approach faces harsh criticism for being populist and not as focused on truth, justice and facts, but does put the parties themselves behind the steering wheel of the trial.

I've gotten pretty frustrated with several games before, usually do to things like lag or bugs, but never actually threw or broke anything over it.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is legitimately one of the best games ever made, though.

Quote from: Flee on October 08, 2015, 10:18:10 AM

Fluttershy

tbh flutterfags are the scary kind of white people you expect to shoot up a school

The only real reason I actually support gun control is to keep guns out of my own hands.

Quote from: Flee on October 08, 2015, 03:38:53 AM

Quote from: DontbanmemodIknowyouwant2 on October 08, 2015, 01:26:02 AM

Like I give a shit about Eurotrash plebs.

Serious board is for serious discussion. These kind of posts will not be tolerated.

Like I give a shit.

Bye-bye then.

Like I give a shit about Eurotrash plebs.

Serious board is for serious discussion. These kind of posts will not be tolerated.