the entire world? There are many regions much more dangerous - South and Central America for starters.

US is still relatively safe according to them. 4 categories. "Do not travel" list is interesting. Hit last column to sort in order of danger.
But most serious travelers (like Australians) would scoff at and ignore all the other warnings.
There are a lot of 3rd world countries on the safe list too, even in Africa.

http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Index

I've know him since 1972 when we were music students in college. In 1979, he went to Switzerland to be a "street musician." He remained there and has been working the last few years to become a Swiss citizen.

Ironically, he found more opportunity there then here...

Made in the USA.

When my very elderly mother is no longer with us, my entire family is packing up and getting away. We just have to figure out where we're going, right night Peru is in the lead, but we'll see.

Thanks to the success of the Conservative movement, we've now managed to invert that trend.

We're #1! We're #1!

People have given into an irrational, unfounded fear.

Being killed by a gun by another person intent on harming you is so unlikely as to be laughable. The fact that so many people give it a second thought is absolutely irrational, and bordering on insane.

They want you to live in fear, and you have given them exactly what they want.

And the fact is gun deaths are unnecessary. Period.

Why is so much energy expended over THESE unnecessary deaths? Why so much angst over something that is so unlikely to happen it's statistically impossible.

Why? Fear. Fear that your child/ wife/ husband/ loved one will be killed. A fear perpetuated by a media that makes celebrities out of the shooters and dramatizes random events.

You can't because there aren't.

And that's what is at stake here. Gun deaths are preventable. They aren't a disease. Most are not accidents (though there is accidental deaths attributed to guns).

The largest single class of *avoidable* deaths in this country can be attributed to guns.

If people want to kill themselves, they will find a way. The fact that they have to resort to something so gruesome is a tragedy, IMO. If people want to kill themselves they should be able to seek that out peacefully - but thats not the topic at hand.

Making the claim that those deaths are preventable is lazy.

that wasn't hard to figure out.

I do not support efforts to restrict gun ownership beyond the current paradigm, if that is what you are implying.

That does not make me a gun nut.

over some one else's life I don't care what you call yourself.

You make a false equivalency by arguing that denying me my rights will save the lives of another.

Try to spin your words any way you want, preferring the current state of affairs is choosing your 'right' to be more enabled to kill others over their right to live.


Lie to yourself if you want to, but don't think your fooling everyone.




Although thanks for the 'false equivalency' laugh!

If we repeal the first amendment, we can be certain that no one will ever die again in the name of religion. We can assure that no one ever uses their "freedom of speech" to incite hatred - the hatred that leads to murder. And we can be certain that citizens seeking to murder cannot gather in mobs.

Repeal the 1st. It is the only way to achieve peace in our society.

why try to make this discussion about anything other then gun violence?




Take your time answering, I've got to go get some dinner supplies. So off to the store I go, unarmed! What a brave soul am I.

Perhaps I have not made myself clear.

You shouldn't feel that you need to be armed. You don't need to be.

The idea that you need to fear for your life and/or wellbeing is a myth, perpetuated by interests who wish to keep you afraid of your fellow countrymen.

That said, I am unwilling to take away the rights of others based on a myth.

You have absolutely no need to fear others. The likelihood of anyone hurting you with a firearm is statistically negligible.

sorry that my little joke allowed you to continue spinning away from the issue. I don't have fear for myself, I do have it for other people. For kids forced to grow up in this world that we allowed.



And for people like you, my friend( if I may call you that) who can't look at the truth long enough to discuss it. I can only guess why. Take care.

does tend to reduce the rate of suicide. Every step added increases the chance of second thoughts.

When the British government switched from coal gas to natural gas, the overall suicide rate dropped. Same for when Washington state erected a suicide barrier on the Ellington bridge. There was another nearby bridge, but it was a pain in the ass to jump from, so people stopped jumping, and more importantly, a bunch less people committed suicide.

It won't stop all the suicides by that method, obviously, but it will prevent or dramatically decrease impulse suicide.

. . . The goal here is harm reduction. Gun advocates claim, disingenuously, that if a gun control proposal doesn't stop all gun deaths then it is somehow unworthy of consideration. But we will never stop all such deaths. We can, however, take so me common sense steps to reduce their number. If we choose to do so, that is.

Actually it is the presence of guns that makes the difference. 5 times more women attempt suicide than men, 5 times more men succeed at it than women because of guns.

that wants us to live in fear?

People who have something to gain from making you afraid of something that isn't going to happen.

or wherever shootings will happen. It's not the media causing the fear, it's the reality that someone with a gun at any time can validate their fear. The shootings are not rare now, they are happening at a higher frequency based on my observations for 70 years.

The media has chosen to make a grand spectacle out of every incident with a gun.

Studies have shown they are NOT increasing, just the coverage of them, a la shark attacks a few years ago.

We need to know just how much of this $h!t is going on.

..don't think so....

Lets put a face on them.
This group of sheriffs is growing daily across the country.
Check out the site and read it carefully.

http://cspoa.org/

Eff u d

People are being killed here every day. Walk your dog, answer a Craig's List ad, drive a cab, deliver pizza, just a few recent examples. All killed by people they didn't know...with guns. Pretty sure there was intent involved.

I don't find it laughable at all.

By a gun.
On purpose.
By another person.

And if you REALLY want to make it improbable;

By someone you didn't know.

For me? I don't know...do you?

And for the record, I don't live in fear. But, I won't belittle the people who do.

I am trying to make a logical case as to why all this fear is irrational.

Living in fear is a waste of energy. People who take that to extremes make me sad.

They are always talking about needing their guns for protection. Clearly they believe they are at risk for being taken out by a stranger with a gun. The majority of them live in the country.... because they hate people and don't want close neighbors. I think the isolation causes paranoia.

Given the number of gun deaths I have a better chance of getting shot than hit by lightning, for example. In most advanced countries this is inverted.

mongering' HAS created a paranoid, weak, terrified nation that now responds to imagined threats, by invading sovereign nations and killing as many innocent people as possible, because 'everyone is out to get us'. It pays to keep that fear going, including those who arm themselves at home, terrified it appears that they will be attacked, so they 'need to be prepared to depend themselves'. And the fear creates a reality that we are now living with.

What other country has so many violent attacks on SCHOOL CHILDREN??

More Americans are killed by other Americans than any foreign terrorist could dream of. It has become a National Security issue, assuming that NS means the protection of the American people and their right to live peacefully without fear.

Apparently that is not what National Security means at all. It appears to mean protecting the right of Defense Conractors and Weapons makers to continue to profit.

I wonder how much more death and destruction it is going to take before wiser heads prevail and reign in all this hatred and violence we are perpetrating at home and abroad??

I'm cautious. I don't live in fear, but I'm wide awake.

When you are the conscious, peaceful one in a fearful, insecure world, you can still end up dead.

The "they" that you refer to are pleased to blame you, make a cautionary tale of you.

I know three people who are dead because of guns, one was a suicide. "so unlikely as to be laughable." Keep laughing. You'll be affected soon enough.
I don't live in fear, few of us here do. We go on with our lives and try to change our world for the better, and better would be a lot less guns. It's not about fear, it's about goddam common sense and the outrageous stupidity of gun worship in America by Americans. I wouldn't leave because of fear, I would leave because I'm tired of being bombarded with stupidity.

That I give this a second thought makes me bordering on insane? To not address this issue, now that's bordering on insane.

There are plenty of smart, rational people that want to come here to replace them. It's not like we don't have enough people in this country.

We don't lump every societal ill into one bucket. Many people die in car crashes, but we need cars, and therefore accept that risk. Or, to counter the latest pro-gun propaganda, we need doctors, and therefore accept that some of them will make lethal mistakes.

To reduce the problem with gun violence or mass murder to the "likelihood" of it happening to one particular person is a specious variety of "pragmatism" accepted by virtually no one, because we make qualitative distinctions in our civilization. The same logic would say that any social ill is irrelevant, compared to natural causes.

Why worry about murder at all, when cars and heart disease are vastly more "likely" to hurt people?

Because we have zero need for heavily armed paranoid people shooting up our neighborhoods, schools, and shopping malls.

Because we have no use for stupid men with rifles meandering around fast food restaurants.

Because we do not accept the risk that people will absorb so much rightwing propaganda that they will actually murder a pair of cops eating pizza "for freedom."

Because we have zero need for mass murder, and it does harm beyond the immediate list of casualties.

There is no tradeoff for these things. They are the selfish and stupid results of the worst of human impulses.

And of course, none of this is just a question of the "number" of deaths. It is the atmosphere of rage and senseless violence, and the poisonous, rationality-killing rhetoric that goes into supporting it.

You don't end up with a horrible culture because you have a lot of cars, and a corresponding number of auto accidents. You get a horrible culture when people do horrible things.

Every risk is not the same. Every death is not the same. Life and culture and society are not a set of numbers.

We know better than this.

How low does that number need to go exactly before you feel it is statistically significant?

Over a LIFETIME.

Which means that you have a .28% (not 28%) chance of being killed with a firearm - in your entire life.

You are TWICE as likely to die by FALLING.

So yeah. No. Still not going to run around terrified of the world.

http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistics/Documents/2014-Injury-Facts-43.pdf

Not saying everything is better over there, but the gun deaths certainly are off the radar. Other aspects of life can be arguably better or worse.

Most pleasant places to live here in Europe have much higher taxes than in the USA. Most Europeans think of the USA as a tax haven. Don't like 36%? Come to Germany, where it's 50% with a lo w threshold. Or try try France, Belgium, Holland or Scandinavia with their high tax rates. Switzerland is lower, but if you're not becoming a citizen, as in learning the language(s) and putting down real roots, forget it.

But there is something every day now, and something big a couple of times a week.

I fear that there is nothing left worth fighting for. Dystopia is upon us with little to no chance of getting better.

It's a sick country . I hope people can accept gun control and not be so paranoid.

... the 74th school shooting since Newtown occurred: 2 dead. Right here in the "American Oasis".

Thank gawd I'm in Oregon, but we're outnumbered by the many idiot and dumb states of this country and their influence is starting to seep across my state's borders . . .

so were already standing in a puddle here.
This is a group of unhinged sheriffs.
Check out the site carefully.

http://cspoa.org/

US Scientists Are Leaving The Country And Taking The Innovation Economy With Them

by Janet Rae-Dupree at Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetraedupree/2013/09/25/us-scientists-are-leaving-the-country-and-taking-the-innovation-economy-with-them/

Even Australia. My reasons are not related to gun violence, but having lived a year in France, it's true that the grass can seem greener on the other side of the fence.

after W stole his first "election." I spent the past winter in Florida, and believe me, I was super cautious...and worried about the gun-nuts. There are many countries safer than the US...even Mexico is far safer, if you are not a criminal.

there are a lot of people saying there are negatives to leaving, but living in a gun free society with universal healthcare is a pretty damn big positive.

We'll all meet up in the Netherlands. Screw these RW knuckle draggers.