ChiGoose

The city of Chicago cannot solve the violence on its own. Even partnering with the state government wouldn't be enough. Most of the guns used in crimes in Chicago are shipped in from out of state. Just one store in Indiana was responsible for over 850 guns used in crimes in Chicago in just a seven year period. The city has been partnering with the FBI to combat violence in the city, but so long as someone can walk into a store in Gary, Indiana and drive down the street to hand it off to gang members in Chicago, they'll never stop gun violence in the city Some people respond to all of this with "criminals are going to break the laws anyway" (which really seems like an argument for getting rid of all laws...) whereas I'd rather look at it and say "what can we do to fix this?" Simply better enforcing the laws on the books will help, but clearly the laws themselves are not effective. I'd rather have a discussion on how to make them more effective at stopping things like straw purchases, especially interstate ones. Also, Chicago barely cracks the top 10 US cities in homicide rates. St. Louis has a homicide rate almost 3x that of Chicago while cities like New Orleans, Kansas City, Memphis and Newark also have higher homicide rates than Chicago. Yet it seems like all anyone wants to talk about is Chicago...

Then you're not exactly looking very hard. People from all across the political spectrum, including the left, have proposed a myriad of ways to reduce gun deaths beyond the two you cited. But if you're only looking at gun control through the lens of a mass shooting, then you're falling into the same trap that many liberals do. Mass shootings are a small fraction of the overall number of gun deaths in this country. If we're only tailoring our laws to prevent them, then we're stopping ourselves from preventing hundreds or even thousands of deaths each year. A good starting point is this article, which lays out why we should look at firearm laws in a similar manner to automobile laws (not banning them but regulating them to make them safer and limit access to them). Here are some of the specific policies that would reduce the number of gun deaths per year without preventing law abiding citizens from owning guns: Background checks: 22% of guns are obtained without one Protection orders & red flag laws: prevent people who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from having guns and improve red flag laws Ban under-21s: Prevent kids from buying guns Safe storage: trigger locks, storing ammo separately from guns, etc. Straw Purchases: Improved enforcement on straw purchases and limits to how many guns an individual can purchase in a month Ammunition Checks: Require background checks for people buying ammo End Immunity: End the immunity the firearms industry that subsidizes it and dis-incentivizes safer gun research Research Smart Guns: There are different technologies that could prevent a gun from being used by people other than the owner. Those should be invested in and explored Empower research on guns and gun violence Improved firearms training: audits of firearm trainings show that trainers are spending more time on encouraging gun ownership than actual gun safety (which is quite different from the firearms training I took only 20 years ago) Most gun deaths are suicides*, followed by homicides. Only about 1% of gun deaths are mass shootings (and fewer than 2% are self-defense, despite what the "good guy with a gun" crowd believes). Focusing on one specific type of gun death risks missing the bigger picture. What we should be working towards is an environment where good people can still buy guns but it's much harder for bad actors to get them and more difficult for children or those in an acute mental crises to get their hands on a gun. In exchange for mildly inconveniencing gun owners, policies like these have the potential to save thousands of lives every year. Or we could just tell ourselves that these changes won't prevent 100% of deaths, so why do anything at all? Let the kids die. *By the way, people who survive suicide attempts rarely end up dying of suicide. It's an acute moment of danger in which most methods (cutting, drugs, etc) are far more like to fail than succeed with one exception: firearms. If someone going through that crises does not have access to a firearm, they will likely survive the attempt and not end up dying of suicide later.

The Right’s response: let’s do absolutely nothing because who cares about dead kids when there is money to be made?

I don’t even know who this person is

I just want to see an F-22 with a bunch of little balloons painted on the side to denote confirmed kills.

Nah, I’m right here. You’re just looking for reasons to side against rationality so you’re bringing up stuff to deflect from the basic fact that everyone should get COVID vaccines and boosters.

Incorrect Strawman

Seems like this all boils down to a choice: 1. Greatly protect yourself from severe harm while mitigating danger to those you care about around you. 2. Risk everything on the assumption that you’re as healthy as you believe yourself to be and screw anybody else. Seems like an easy choice to me, but it looks like that makes me a minority here.

I strongly recommend Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It’s a documentary from 2011 and is in Japanese with subtitles but it’s a great story, told well, while being very approachable. Essentially, an elderly man runs a Michelin 3 star sushi restaurant that only seats 10 people. The movie is about his day to day life and also about his family.

5 Reasons We Know The COVID-19 Vaccines Don't Have Long-Term Health Effects “1. History has showed us that with vaccines, adverse effects occur within eight weeks of vaccination—not years later 2. Neither mRNA technology—nor viral vector technology—is new. 3. mRNA technology does not alter your DNA. 4. As opposed to other types of treatments and medications that are taken regularly, vaccines can’t cause a surprise reaction years down the road. 5. The mRNA vaccines might feel futuristic, but their ingredients actually are not.“ The article goes a bit more in depth, but there’s little to no reason to suspect that there are long term negative effects from the vaccines.

I get why people don’t wear masks and I don’t think we should mandate them. What I fail to understand is why people would refuse to get a shot that greatly reduces their chances of a severe outcome from a contagious disease that’s still killing hundreds of people every day. Even if people don’t care about anyone but themselves, they should get the shot. Or at the very least, talk to their doctor about it.

At my old job, there were over 6,000 people in our office so we had a health clinic on site. Once a year, the clinic would do rounds, setting up shop in each department for an hour to give out flu shots. It was great. When I had five minutes, I could walk over to the conference room and get a free flu shot. Now I need to go to a pharmacy, so I have to make a bit of extra effort, but it’s worth it.

I guess, to me, it makes sense to get a shot that greatly reduces the chances of severe outcomes from a virus that’s killed millions of people and somewhat reduce the chances I might pass it to someone else, than do not get it because of vague reasons that lack any scientific backing. But that’s just me, I suppose.

Nah, everyone should consider getting regular shots. For one, not everyone knows if they have an underlying condition that puts them at risk. You might find out the hard way. Additionally, even though the reduction in transmission abates over time, getting the vaccine at a time like winter (when transmission rates are up) will reduce the chance you pass COVID to someone you care about who may have an underlying condition. Bottom line is: if you’re not sure what to do, talk to your doctor instead of the internet. I don’t believe everyone gets one, but I believe everyone should. I’m not in a risk group for the flu but I get my shot every year because people close to me are. And also, I’d rather not be sick with the flu for a week even if it’s not lethal to me. (citation needed)

Vaccines reducing transmission but their effectiveness fading over time =\= vaccines don’t reduce transmission. At the start, the hope had been that the vaccines would eradicate COVID. That didn’t happen. Instead, they are very good at preventing bad outcomes when you catch COVID and can reduce the transmission for a while. The logical response to this would be that we should look at COVID vaccines the way we look at flu shots: something we get every year or so to protect ourselves and those around us. Instead, people are somehow arriving at the conclusion that getting a vaccine is pointless or even bad.

COVID vaccines slash risk of spreading Omicron — and so does previous infection “The team found that among individuals with COVID-19, those who received at least one vaccine shot were 24% less likely to infect close contacts— in this case cellmates — compared with unvaccinated prisoners. People who had been infected before were 21% less likely to infect others compared with prisoners with no previous infection, and those who had been both vaccinated and previously infected were 41% less likely to pass on the virus compared with unvaccinated individuals without a previous infection.

Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different? “In January, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a study based on people 12 and older included in North Carolina’s state vaccine registry data. The study found the bivalent vaccine to be 58.7% effective against hospitalization compared to 25% for the monovalent one that preceded it; its effectiveness against infection was 61.8% compared to 24.9% for the monovalent. Scientists noted that this study covered a period when Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. were also circulating, which suggests the updated vaccine is more effective against those strains in addition to the ones it was designed to target.”

Hey, I know you can’t read, but I promised it if the Jan 6 committee didn’t release the transcripts. You threw out a bunch of other conditions that I never agreed to and now are trying to dunk on me because you are incapable of understanding basic reality. Sorry, buddy. Maybe sign up for some 1st grade English classes if you’re still struggling with this.

Apologies for overreacting. There is another poster on this board who tags me in random threads that I’m not participating in. So I’ll log in and have a bunch of notifications about things that I have no idea what they are. I didn’t love the idea of potentially having a second person doing that too.

The Bills have consistently had one of the best defenses in the league during Frazier’s tenure. And there is no guarantee that any replacement would be better than him. He’s not above reproach, but he’s clearly one of the better DCs in the game.

WTF are you talking about? I don’t even know what this thread is. Do I now have two people who have nothing better to do than be obsessed with me? I’’m really flattered but I’m taken, sorry.

Living in Chicago and being a part of a family that is mostly Browns fans, I would be cautious against assuming the grass is greener on the other side. With very few exceptions, winning a Super Bowl is a combination of being good and being lucky. I feel like the recipe for winning is to be very good for as long as possible and hope you get lucky. The Bills seem to be following that philosophy. While McDermott and Beane are not above criticism, they have put together a consistent contender and I have a hard time assuming we can just replace one or both of them and improve.

Actually most of the post-report revisions have increased the number of jobs. It’s possible that changes with this report (as it was way higher than expected), but that hasn’t been the trend.

God, you’re so stupid. It’s amazing. You: Will you bet that they will be released by september Me: no, but they will be released You: They didn’t release them in September, therefore you’re wrong! Just amazing levels of ignorance from you. You’re rivaling that Hamlin body double guy.

I said they would release them but I never committed to September as the dumbest person in the world contends. I agree I was wrong about how easy it is to walk out of the White House with documents. Apparently anyone can just take docs and walk out the door. Insane.