Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Politics & Current Affairs => Topic started by: Anchorman on August 26, 2015, 07:09:58 PM
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Self publicity?
Insanity?
Who knows....
Pity the U.S. Congress is so wedded to its' sacred constitution that it ignores the sacredness of life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34068541
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You'd have thought that by now they'd have seen enough carnage to realise that some form of gun control is needed - one problem being that there are already vast numbers of guns in circulation there, so getting these out of circulation would be a practical problem even if the majority of the general public cooperated.
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You'd have thought that by now they'd have seen enough carnage to realise that some form of gun control is needed - one problem being that there are already vast numbers of guns in circulation there, so getting these out of circulation would be a practical problem even if the majority of the general public cooperated.
Australia did it.
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Sure, the USA could use more gun restrictions and background checking. That being said I noted the complete absence of this topic being brought up every time, like in gun restricting France, a Muslim terrorist gets a hold of guns and goes on or attempts (as in last week) a shooting spree. Why is that? Because Europeans seem to get their jollies looking down their long snouts at my American cousins while keeping quiet on the fact guns can be bought illegally in every single UK city. I also note that there has been no mention of the fact that this latest nut job was using the fact that he was gay and black and crying discrimination as the excuse to do what he has done. He's dead and now awaits final judgement.
When you stop your killers getting their guns then maybe I'll respect this typical knee jerk UK reaction against America.
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Self publicity?
Insanity?
Who knows....
Pity the U.S. Congress is so wedded to its' sacred constitution that it ignores the sacredness of life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34068541
America is a basket case. Insanity definitely.
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Yes Ad o, the USA is a basket case and this explains why the suicide rate in your Finland is higher than in the basket case.
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Sure, the USA could use more gun restrictions and background checking. That being said I noted the complete absence of this topic being brought up every time, like in gun restricting France, a Muslim terrorist gets a hold of guns and goes on or attempts (as in last week) a shooting spree. Why is that? Because Europeans seem to get their jollies looking down their long snouts at my American cousins while keeping quiet on the fact guns can be bought illegally in every single UK city. I also note that there has been no mention of the fact that this latest nut job was using the fact that he was gay and black and crying discrimination as the excuse to do what he has done. He's dead and now awaits final judgement.
When you stop your killers getting their guns then maybe I'll respect this typical knee jerk UK reaction against America.
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Who's reacting against America?
Just because their attitude to guns means that statistically, more people are butchered by guns in America per year than most of Europe combined is not being anti-American.
It's being anti-American Congress.
There's a difference.
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Yes you are Anchorman. You never go after the gun loving Swiss do you. Fact is you can be a gun loving country and not be known for shooting sprees. France, an anti gun country, and the Muslim terrorist have no poroblemos getting a hold of guns. But you will never address that will you. Nope just have to look down your beak at those damned gun lovin Yankees.
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Yes Ad o, the USA is a basket case and this explains why the suicide rate in your Finland is higher than in the basket case.
That is an obvious non-sequitur: how does the death rate from guns in the USA relate to the suicide rate in Finland?
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Where have I ever condoned terrorism. JC;
Whether IRA, INLA, UDA, UVF, Bader-Meinhoff, 'red brigade' IS/ISL, Alqeada - whatever; a terrorist is a terrorist.
What's that got to do with lax gun laws in the USA, please?
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Anchorman,
When have I ever written that you condone terrorism? Don't play me like that Anchorman. I mention the silence towards what has been going on in France and the immediate arrogant slag of the USA. This is normal behaviour for some of you UK people here. I get that Anchorman.
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I don't recall being silent over the events in France - certainly the appalling Charlie Ebdo murders were well debated on this forum.
Again, what does that have to do with the extraordinarily lax gun laws Stateside?
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Sure, the USA could use more gun restrictions and background checking. That being said I noted the complete absence of this topic being brought up every time, like in gun restricting France, a Muslim terrorist gets a hold of guns and goes on or attempts (as in last week) a shooting spree. Why is that? Because Europeans seem to get their jollies looking down their long snouts at my American cousins while keeping quiet on the fact guns can be bought illegally in every single UK city. I also note that there has been no mention of the fact that this latest nut job was using the fact that he was gay and black and crying discrimination as the excuse to do what he has done. He's dead and now awaits final judgement.
When you stop your killers getting their guns then maybe I'll respect this typical knee jerk UK reaction against America.
That's it - as per usual - shit happens in America but the Canoe has got to say that whatever shit it might be it is worse in Europe and/or Britain!
Change the bloody record, JC - we have all heard this one far, far, too many times to take any notice of it and it does nothing for your credibility on this side of the Oggin!
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When you stop your killers getting their guns then maybe I'll respect this typical knee jerk UK reaction against America.
Sorry to disappoint you, jc, but the so-called 'knee-jerk reaction' came from no-less a person than POTUS himself. He pointed out that, whilst his own country is quite happy to spent billions of dollars on anti-terrorism measures, it isn't willing to clamp down on something that sees far more deaths per year than any terrorist threat has ever done.
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America's love of firearms is crazy and then some. However many terrible gun related atrocities there are they never seem to get it! :o
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Yes you are Anchorman. You never go after the gun loving Swiss do you. Fact is you can be a gun loving country and not be known for shooting sprees. France, an anti gun country, and the Muslim terrorist have no poroblemos getting a hold of guns. But you will never address that will you. Nope just have to look down your beak at those damned gun lovin Yankees.
jc, you seem to be missing the point: gun-related death in the States is so prevalent that it needs a story like the killing of two innocent journalists, or the death of x number of students/pupils in a local school or college to get anyone's interest up. On the other hand, when did you last hear about a mass-shooting in Switzerland. The multiple-deaths associated with the Charlie Hebdo killings in France earlier this year received world-wide coverage because they were so unusual, world-wide coverage that lasted for several days, a longevity which this latest story from Virginia will never see.
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America's love of firearms is crazy and then some. However many terrible gun related atrocities there are they never seem to get it! :o
Unfortunately, Floo, your own nation has its own idiosyncracies - think of its attitude to the European migrant issue. That's no less of a head-in-the-sand attitude.
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Anchorman,
When have I ever written that you condone terrorism? Don't play me like that Anchorman. I mention the silence towards what has been going on in France and the immediate arrogant slag of the USA. This is normal behaviour for some of you UK people here. I get that Anchorman.
jc, I think that there is a 'slight' difference between what hapened in France earlier this week, and what happened in Virginia yesterday. In the latter, two professionals were shot in cold blood; no-one, to my knowledge, died in the French scenario. Rather 2 very brave, some might even say silly, American servicemen, assisted by a Frenchman and a Brit managed to disarm and overpower someone who was threatening to kill a large number of people in that train. I don't know about the media in the States and Canada, but there has been far more coverage of the acts of bravery in the British and European press than of the failure of the attacker's intentions.
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America's love of firearms is crazy and then some. However many terrible gun related atrocities there are they never seem to get it! :o
Unfortunately, Floo, your own nation has its own idiosyncracies - think of its attitude to the European migrant issue. That's no less of a head-in-the-sand attitude.
Tu quoque
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Tu quoque
By no means; just pointing out that there are many things in Britons' 'back-yard' that need to be sorted out.
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Yes Ad o, the USA is a basket case and this explains why the suicide rate in your Finland is higher than in the basket case.
Why do you always resort to this whenever anyone has anything critical to say concerning America?
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Sure, the USA could use more gun restrictions and background checking. That being said I noted the complete absence of this topic being brought up every time, like in gun restricting France, a Muslim terrorist gets a hold of guns and goes on or attempts (as in last week) a shooting spree. Why is that? Because Europeans seem to get their jollies looking down their long snouts at my American cousins while keeping quiet on the fact guns can be bought illegally in every single UK city.
Are illegal guns available, with some difficulty, in various places in Europe? Yes. Are guns - including large-calibre, large magazine, automatic rifles, for instance - freely available, legally, and permissible in public places by idiots with criminal records in the US? Yes. Do you see why there's a difference in reporting there? Would you rather look at the resulting statistics on gun-crime and gunshot deaths per capita instead?
I also note that there has been no mention of the fact that this latest nut job was using the fact that he was gay and black and crying discrimination as the excuse to do what he has done. He's dead and now awaits final judgement.
We've not seen anything to determine whether his claims of discrimination are true, yet - it's entirely possible, especially in the US, that he was discriminated against because of his race and sexuality: neither of those justifies gunning people down in the street, nor justifies a government policy which allows people to purchase firearms unchecked.
When you stop your killers getting their guns then maybe I'll respect this typical knee jerk UK reaction against America.
We do stop potential killers getting guns. That's why our deaths per 100,000 from guns stands at 0.26 against the US rate of 10.64 - that suggests, all things being equal, we stop around 97% of our killers.
(source: wikipedia list of countries by firearm related death rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate)
O.
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Yes Ad o, the USA is a basket case and this explains why the suicide rate in your Finland is higher than in the basket case.
Suicide rate per 100,000:
Finland - 11.3
US - 12.6
source: Wikipedia page on deaths by suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Suicide rate per 100,000 by gun
Finland - 3.34
US - 6.7
source: wikipedia page on list of countries by gun-related death rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
O.
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Yes you are Anchorman. You never go after the gun loving Swiss do you. Fact is you can be a gun loving country and not be known for shooting sprees. France, an anti gun country, and the Muslim terrorist have no poroblemos getting a hold of guns. But you will never address that will you. Nope just have to look down your beak at those damned gun lovin Yankees.
Gun ownership per 100 vs gun deaths per 100,000:
Switzerland: 45.7 vs 2.91
US: 88.8 vs 10.64
Yes, Americans have cultural problem in that their guns kill more people than other people's guns, but they also have twice the number of guns per person than the Swiss you try to compare them with.
Serbia was recently an active war-zone - arguably still is, in places - and yet the Americans still have a 15% higher gun ownership rate.
O.
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Have to say it again, big O; this thread shows what is to me debate and discussion at its best, where wild claims are sprayed around like cow shit from muck spreader and are countered - in fact refuted - by hard evidence. Top banana.
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Yep.
The stats don't lie - unless JC is suggesting a conspiracy by the guys at Wikipedia?
I await his response with morbid interest.
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Tu quoque
By no means; just pointing out that there are many things in Britons' 'back-yard' that need to be sorted out.
Which is a tu quoque
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America's love of firearms is crazy and then some. However many terrible gun related atrocities there are they never seem to get it! :o
Unfortunately, Floo, your own nation has its own idiosyncracies - think of its attitude to the European migrant issue. That's no less of a head-in-the-sand attitude.
It's the Tu Quoque thread. Any chance of sticking to the topic?
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Have to say it again, big O; this thread shows what is to me debate and discussion at its best, where wild claims are sprayed around like cow shit from muck spreader and are countered - in fact refuted - by hard evidence. Top banana.
Whilst I'd agree with you, Shakes, we still await jc's responses. Who knows what he might come up with ;)
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I could take a wild guess, and that guess includes the words 'funny' and 'too' though not necessarily in that order ::)
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I could take a wild guess, and that guess includes the words 'funny' and 'too' though not necessarily in that order ::)
I'm glad somebody else has become aware of his incessant parroting of his latest "catch-phrase".
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I could take a wild guess, and that guess includes the words 'funny' and 'too' though not necessarily in that order ::)
I'm glad somebody else has become aware of his incessant parroting of his latest "catch-phrase".
. . . and "snork"!
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I could take a wild guess, and that guess includes the words 'funny' and 'too' though not necessarily in that order ::)
I'm glad somebody else has become aware of his incessant parroting of his latest "catch-phrase".
. . . and "snork"!
Don't knock him. You might put him off responding. I, for one, am very interested to see whether he does respond.
Actually, I don't think that he is comfortable with irony, allusion and other forms of word play which some of use on this forum. It is sometimes said that Americans don't do irony, perhaps Canadians don't either.
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Sure, the USA could use more gun restrictions and background checking. That being said I noted the complete absence of this topic being brought up every time, like in gun restricting France, a Muslim terrorist gets a hold of guns and goes on or attempts (as in last week) a shooting spree. Why is that? Because Europeans seem to get their jollies looking down their long snouts at my American cousins while keeping quiet on the fact guns can be bought illegally in every single UK city. I also note that there has been no mention of the fact that this latest nut job was using the fact that he was gay and black and crying discrimination as the excuse to do what he has done. He's dead and now awaits final judgement.
When you stop your killers getting their guns then maybe I'll respect this typical knee jerk UK reaction against America.
Hiya,
I think you do us a bit of a disservice, old chum. If you compare the figures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate you can see that places to go if you want to be killed by a gun are USA, Central and South America, South Africa and Swaziland is where you will want to go. With 30,000 gun deaths per year in the USA (inc. 10,000 gun murders per year, i.e. 30 gun murders per day), it is far, far less likely that someone is going to get killed by a gun in France than the USA.
10,000 gun murders per year is the equivalent of more than three 9/11s per yer.
Imagine 30 terrorist-related murders per day in the USA and what the outcry would be then, yet because it is good old, constitution-guaranteed firearms by Americans themselves there is less outcry. There is much that is good in US society, but this is one thing which is not good.
I certainly do agree with those who say there would be a huge problem getting rid of the guns if they were banned though.
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I certainly do agree with those who say there would be a huge problem getting rid of the guns if they were banned though.
It's probably one of nature's ways of controlling the population explosion.
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
But there's only a limited number of BMW Z4's available.
O.
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
Didn't readers of Lawrence Krauss's book ''A universe from nothing- Afterword by Richard Dawkins'' get one of those?
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No.
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
. . . and if it is a woman requiring the gun, she get gets what instead?
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
. . . and if it is a woman requiring the gun, she get gets what instead?
Flowers for life.
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Guns and the internet, what a potent mix!!!
Gun laws in the States would be pretty pointless now as there are so many washing around that a law restricting them would be ineffective.
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
. . . and if it is a woman requiring the gun, she get gets what instead?
A vibrator. Batteries included.
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Guns and the internet, what a potent mix!!!
Gun laws in the States would be pretty pointless now as there are so many washing around that a law restricting them would be ineffective.
And yet they did it in Australia.
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
. . . and if it is a woman requiring the gun, she get gets what instead?
A vibrator. Batteries included.
I think she'd prefer someone to do all the household chores. ;D
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Guns and the internet, what a potent mix!!!
Gun laws in the States would be pretty pointless now as there are so many washing around that a law restricting them would be ineffective.
And yet they did it in Australia.
They weren't as bad as the States is, were they? The States is totally swamped by them.
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If some geezer wants a gun couldn't they just offer him a free knob extension instead?
. . . and if it is a woman requiring the gun, she get gets what instead?
A gun.
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Guns and the internet, what a potent mix!!!
Gun laws in the States would be pretty pointless now as there are so many washing around that a law restricting them would be ineffective.
And yet they did it in Australia.
They weren't as bad as the States is, were they? The States is totally swamped by them.
It was pretty bad.
The point is that throwing your hands up and saying "it can't be done" is defeatist nonsense. It can be done, all you need is the resolve to do it.
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The main stumbling block to any restriction to gun ownership in American is the NRA.
This group is one of the few places in America where political allegiances, Republican or Democrat, are forgotten in defense of the right granted under the Second Amendment:
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
This, in a way, is a similar problem to rigid adherence to the Bible or the Koran, times have changed since the words were written.
The population is now greater by many millions than it was at the time of the Amendment being made, American no longer needs a "well regulated militia", and the laws relating to various aspects of gun ownership have been, like so many others, overtaken and, to a certain extent, sidelined, by the internet.
The Second Amendment is being championed by the NRA depite the fact that the reason that the Amendement was enacted is no longer valid. The money and political power behind the NRA is enormous and, like a lot of other political power, hidden from public view and the will to oppose the NRA is either just not there or is so fragmented as to be useless.
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The main stumbling block to any restriction to gun ownership in American is the NRA.
This group is one of the few places in America where political allegiances, Republican or Democrat, are forgotten in defense of the right granted under the Second Amendment:
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
This, in a way, is a similar problem to rigid adherence to the Bible or the Koran, times have changed since the words were written.
The population is now greater by many millions than it was at the time of the Amendment being made, American no longer needs a "well regulated militia", and the laws relating to various aspects of gun ownership have been, like so many others, overtaken and, to a certain extent, sidelined, by the internet.
The Second Amendment is being championed by the NRA depite the fact that the reason that the Amendement was enacted is no longer valid. The money and political power behind the NRA is enormous and, like a lot of other political power, hidden from public view and the will to oppose the NRA is either just not there or is so fragmented as to be useless.
Too true! The ovine nature of the public in general will resist any change.
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It is not only the Second Amendment.
The Constitution was deliberately written to ensure that Government would be virtually impotent. Power - unless expressly stated in the Constitution - is retained at the lowest possible level.
The President is is the only holder of executive power. Other people cannot act except with his authority - his "Cabinet" is a collection of advisors not ministers.
The role of president is in constant confrontation with that of Congress: he can only propose legislation and budgets. Conress has the power to make a president politically impotent. The only real power he possesses of right is to command the army and declare war.
Obama clearly want to reduce the availability of firearms generally, but he is constantly opposed by institutions like the NRA. The father of the murdered TV presenter is calling for gun law reform. I doubt anyone will bother to listen.
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This, in a way, is a similar problem to rigid adherence to the Bible or the Koran, times have changed since the words were written.
Or any legal document that is over say 50 years old and hasn't been reviewed recently, Matt.
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Flowers for life.
If it was my wife, cut flowers simply don't 'cut' it. They have to be plants. Before we went to Nepal in 1992 (having lived in our house for 8 years at that point), we had to give away in excess of 150 houseplants we'd garnered over that period!!
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Everyone has got hold of the wrong end of the stick on the TV presenter murder thing. Obviously the problem here was that there were not enough guns present. If everyone had been properly armed the perp could have been halted beforehand.
To prevent such incidences in the future we are offering a new device, consisting of cameras with built in threat detection and elimination. The camera checks the images of all persons in shot, and using a self-learning pattern recognition algorithm based on statistics gathered from world wide internet use, instantly identifies any with aggressive intent and eliminates the threat using a built in micro-rocket launcher.
Available for a mere $999, P&P included for orders received by tomorrow ;)
For police forces a special version with enhanced blackness detection is available at no extra cost!
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Everyone has got hold of the wrong end of the stick on the TV presenter murder thing. Obviously the problem here was that there were not enough guns present. If everyone had been properly armed the perp could have been halted beforehand.
To prevent such incidences in the future we are offering a new device, consisting of cameras with built in threat detection and elimination. The camera checks the images of all persons in shot, and using a self-learning pattern recognition algorithm based on statistics gathered from world wide internet use, instantly identifies any with aggressive intent and eliminates the threat using a built in micro-rocket launcher.
Available for a mere $999, P&P included for orders received by tomorrow ;)
For police forces a special version with enhanced blackness detection is available at no extra cost!
Available in the US of A only until smuggled to the Middle East.!
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Everyone has got hold of the wrong end of the stick on the TV presenter murder thing. Obviously the problem here was that there were not enough guns present. If everyone had been properly armed the perp could have been halted beforehand.
To prevent such incidences in the future we are offering a new device, consisting of cameras with built in threat detection and elimination. The camera checks the images of all persons in shot, and using a self-learning pattern recognition algorithm based on statistics gathered from world wide internet use, instantly identifies any with aggressive intent and eliminates the threat using a built in micro-rocket launcher.
Available for a mere $999, P&P included for orders received by tomorrow ;)
For police forces a special version with enhanced blackness detection is available at no extra cost!
As Sheldon Cooper would say, I sense you're joking but I'm not sure why.
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
When you say guns, what type of guns - just hand guns or what?
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Can't say that I had this experince on any of my 5 trips to the US, so perhaps it is only in selected outlets, perhaps even selected states that this happens.
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Everyone has got hold of the wrong end of the stick on the TV presenter murder thing. Obviously the problem here was that there were not enough guns present. If everyone had been properly armed the perp could have been halted beforehand.
To prevent such incidences in the future we are offering a new device, consisting of cameras with built in threat detection and elimination. The camera checks the images of all persons in shot, and using a self-learning pattern recognition algorithm based on statistics gathered from world wide internet use, instantly identifies any with aggressive intent and eliminates the threat using a built in micro-rocket launcher.
Available for a mere $999, P&P included for orders received by tomorrow ;)
For police forces a special version with enhanced blackness detection is available at no extra cost!
;D
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This, in a way, is a similar problem to rigid adherence to the Bible or the Koran, times have changed since the words were written.
Or any legal document that is over say 50 years old and hasn't been reviewed recently, Matt.
Yeah, but we do not have many people on here trying to convince us that such recent documents are still a valid basis for life as it should be lived today and witrhout amendment at that!!
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
When you say guns, what type of guns - just hand guns or what?
Shotguns and other hunting guns (if there are other types - I don't understand guns.)
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Can't say that I had this experince on any of my 5 trips to the US, so perhaps it is only in selected outlets, perhaps even selected states that this happens.
Walmart sell guns, including military style semi-automatic rifles in it's supermarkets, although it announced yesterday that it would stop selling the this type. It remains the largest seller of firearms in the US.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34077774
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
When you say guns, what type of guns - just hand guns or what?
Shotguns and other hunting guns (if there are other types - I don't understand guns.)
I saw them in Walmart in the sporting section. Shotguns and rifles.
I love guns.
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
When you say guns, what type of guns - just hand guns or what?
Shotguns and other hunting guns (if there are other types - I don't understand guns.)
I was thinking AK47s, Uzis and the like.
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
When you say guns, what type of guns - just hand guns or what?
Shotguns and other hunting guns (if there are other types - I don't understand guns.)
I was thinking AK47s, Uzis and the like.
I did not see those for sale but I understand you can buy them.
I also thought they might be easier to buy at gun trade shows.
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When my daughter and family were in the US last year, they couldn't believe that it was possible to buy guns in the supermarket!
Come to France.
Not every supermarket, that's for sure, but in some ....
When you say guns, what type of guns - just hand guns or what?
Shotguns and other hunting guns (if there are other types - I don't understand guns.)
I was thinking AK47s, Uzis and the like.
I did not see those for sale but I understand you can buy them.
I also thought they might be easier to buy at gun trade shows.
My question was about buying guns in France, as someone said you can do that, but it seems they meant hunting guns etc. not military weapons.