Quote from: Saladin on August 28, 2015, 02:21:47 PM

To be honest I don't know why Americans feel the need to even own guns. Like, you're not special, many other countries get along just fine without 'em.

Maybe because its an unalienable right?

It isn't, though. It's far from being recognized as a universal right (and rightfully so) and your amendment too can be amended.

Quote from: Septy on August 27, 2015, 07:28:44 PM

And to be serious, if the citizens ever truly needed to rise up and revolt against the Government the military would be one of the first to revolt. And other countries would also intervene to help the citizens as well as the U.N.

I don't seen any logic in this. The United States government would not allow a singular event significant enough to incite mass revolt from its citizens. It would opt to gain complete control over them slowly with small shrouded steps over many years so no red flags are raised. If any such revolts did happen, the government would blackout the media and those revolting would be labeled as terrorists. People would be kept in the dark. If things got really bad, they would shut down the internet and phone usage. Most of the population wouldn't know what was happening. If the U.N. or an other country did get involved, I would imagine it would be to help restore order and silence the protests. But all of this happening is unlikely because anything the government wants to pass that would cause such revolts would be passed in secrecy and would be kept out of the media so that the majority of the population is unaware of it, and those that are and try to warn people are labeled as conspiracy theorists.

You're kind of enforcing his point. A very common argument in favor of a lack of gun control is that the people need weapons to fight off the government in the event that it would go full totalitarian dictatorship on your asses. His point was that the government and US military would never wage a full out war on its own citizens because the military are the citizens. You simply added to that by mentioning how unlikely a full public revolt is.

Quote from: Flee on August 28, 2015, 10:19:23 AM

passing of a theoretical and practical test,

But flee, the courts would find that no different than a voting test. It's blatantly racist and only serves to stop underprivileged minorities from getting a handgun.

Gotta make the tests accessible enough that it doesn't result in indirect discrimination then. Similar discussions have taken place in regards to articles 10 and 11 of the Belgian constitution guaranteeing a right to not be unfairly discriminated against.

Honestly, the only way the situation in the US is going to improve is by a gradual change of mind. Implementing such a system straight away would never work. Not only would it always fail at the legislative level, but even if it would get accepted there would be a lot of public resistance and issues with enforcing it. The people just aren't ready for it yet and even though stricter gun control is pretty unavoidable in the future, it'll take some time. This is another social / cultural issue that is pretty different in the US than in the rest of the world and it'll probably take decades for the country to follow suit. It'll almost definitely happen, but not just yet.

That being said, a solution like this probably isn't such a bad idea down the line. The best thing to do now is to slowly implement increasingly strict measures while going along with the general progression of the public's feelings on the matter.

The system that I'd ultimately support boils down to: mandatory criminal background checks, mandatory mental background checks, medical proof of capability of handling a weapon, passing of a theoretical and practical test, different categories of weapons with different requirements, certain conditions for safe storage and handling of the firearm, registration of the firearm and finally (the most controversial one) a proper reason to own a weapon. For public concealed carry the same requirements would apply, but obviously with different and more stringent reasons.

I really don't think my post warrants a reaction like that. I first brought up findings and evidence that disproves your first point, then gave you an insight in the merits of making certain weapons harder to obtain and how both studies and government statistics undermine your second argument, followed by correcting the false opinion you're accusing me of having and then finally challenging your fallacy that I should have no right to hold an opinion or criticism on something because I'm not a citizen of a certain country.

Nothing I said was ridiculous or even much of my own opinion on the matter.

If you take guns away, that's not going to stop shit like this still. They will still happen. It won't change a god damn thing. If anything, it will make shootings and murders even more common.

It's been shown several times that restricting access to guns results in less shootings and homicides. They still happen, of course, but it's generally accepted that restricting access to guns drastically reduces gun violence.

If I really wanted to, I can go get a gun right now at a flea market, illegal? Yes, but why would I give a fuck about the law if I want to commit murder or a mass shooting?

Getting one is probably not as easy as you think. Illegal guns tend to cost quite a bit more and it has again been shown that this barrier is a pretty good disincentive for people looking to commit crimes or commit suicide.

That being said, only a tiny fraction of all gun homicides are commited by your typical criminals or gangbangers. The vast majority of shootings are commited by your typical everyday law abiding gun owner that in all likelihood wouldn't have delved into illegality to get him a gun if he couldn't do so in a way that is both legal and a lot easier.

If you don't get the point now with your side of the argument on taking away guns from everyone who LEGALLY bought theirs, then I refuse to accept your side of defense entirely, and I always will, because you're wrong.

Not once in all my years of debating and researching this have I made any argument even remotely close to taking away all guns from everyone who legally bought theirs.

Try living in the US for 22 years before you decide what our laws should be, friend.

That is a terrible argument no different from "try living in Iran for 22 years before you question their laws on stoning women for adultery" or "you should have no say on abortion / feminism / adoption / parenting because you're no woman yourself". I don't need to have lived somewhere before I can criticise its laws when they are so clearly faulty.

inb4 Gent takes it.

Main reason I use it is to be signed in with multiple accounts at the same time. For example, both my personal and gaming / youtube email are hotmail, meaning that I can't both be signed in to B.net / youtube and my own email stuff simultaneously.

Other than that, I just use it for privacy reasons. Even when I have nothing to hide, I prefer keeping my history clean and my browser free of cookies.

Quote from: Flee on August 27, 2015, 05:33:43 AM

"How did we get here? In short, contraception, divorce, cohabitation, and pornography; in other words, the war on marriage."

"Price per ticket: $245."

Morons and scam artists, folks.

Its juts a prank, bro.

What makes you say that?

Gaudi has done some great things. Been to Barcelona and saw a lot of his work (including this one) myself.

And that's why I support carry rights,

Any real American would too.

To be honest, that is a pretty irrational and emotional response to these events.

Try Imgur. Good stie for picture hosting. Terrible community and pisspoor layout for commenting and such, but it's good for just hosting and sharing images.

Similar issue here. Pretty skinny with a very fast metabolism. I can eat and do whatever I want and still won't gain any weight. Good thing for me is that my girlfriend likes the way I look, so all is fine in that department.

Also, there's a good chance it'll work itself out at a later age. Lots of people can eat whatever they want and stay skinny throughout their teens / early twenties, yet once they turn 30 the pounds start adding up easily.

i just think it's just silly to limit yourself

one of the worst things about bnet is having to use those stupid avatars

I'm not limiting myself though. I don't feel forced to only use B.net avatars. This one just grew on me, even though I do suppose I could do with a change of theme. It's been the same for quite a while.

Transparency nothing. I know full well from being in the staff chat and HQ for a time that these "extensive talks" really didn't last that long. Maybe you've ramped them up for this but it wasn't "extensive" when I was there.

We talked about the candidates every day since the nomination thread was made. It was practically the only topic of conversation in the mod chat for the past few days and everyone chimed in on more than one occasion. In the HQ forum, there's currently 5 different threads dedicated to changes to the staff and the new monitors. In the end, there's only so much talking you can do. Icy compiled a list of all the nominated members and the entire staff picked their favorites, with some of us even listing "maybe" and "no" groups while giving reasons for it all. We narrowed it down to a final few that everyone agreed on and then went with the two most popular choices. Sure, we could've always been more thorough, but I do think that we put quite a bit of effort into this.

This means nothing dude. How many times have certain members of the mod team not posted or not even been on the site in the last month or so. Activity seems to be negligible.

I'm just talking about advice on how to become a staff member, not on how to remain one. That being said, staff activity does get taken into account. It's part of the reason while the roster is being changed now. Update coming up soon.

When was the last time the current mod team contributed anything substantial to the community? Can't remember anything for a good month, maybe two.

Again, I'm merely talking about becoming a monitor rather than actually being one. Contributing simply makes you stand out.

Well this just made me laugh and you know exactly why.

I don't know what you expect (or want) me to say in public.