Hanaguma

As I stated above, these are NOT "weapons of war". No military uses them. Such useless hyperbole adds nothing to the discussion. They are not magical super powerful space weapons that do anything other than what other firearms do. They just look scary to uninformed and easily frightened people. In most cases, they are the equivalent of a Ferrari car body housing a 4 cylinder 90hp engine. All show and no go.

Any idea how many are legally passing through Mexico though? How many use illegal means like human traffickers? Please show your stats on family unification if you have them. And why this would matter to mexico.

Are you of the opinion that the possible presence of a gun does not deter crime? Try this experiment then. If you truly believe that, put a sign on your front lawn that says, "This House is a Gun Free Zone". Should make no difference to your safety. From what I have read, the difference in countries like the UK, that actually has a high rate of crime and burglary (if not murder) is that thieves don't care whether or not you are at home when they break in. Many more home break-ins happen when the home owners are still home. In the US, the criminals wait until the residence is unoccupied. Wonder why...

Thank you for proving my point. Less than one percent of firearms in the US are full auto. More than 99% are semi auto or single shot. And, using this definition of "assault rifle", almost never used in mass shootings.

Then why do you call them "weapons of war"? The rhetoric is inaccurate and unhelpful. Still waiting to hear your definition of what "they" are...

Nothing at all. But hysterical shouting will not solve anything. And focusing on a relatively rare and (from a statistical perspective) minor issue like mass shootings does nothing to impact the overall crime rate or murder rate. Banning Weapon A will only make criminals use Weapon B.

But what are "they"? Not weapons of war, that is for sure. No army in the world uses the AR15. Most militaries use fully automatic weapons, which are virtually unobtainable in the US. You want to ban the most popular gun in the US, you had better come up with a more compelling reason.

uh.......... I get it. Stream of thought. And you are wrong. ALL long guns together account for 3% of murders committed with firearms. And mass killings about 3% of all firearms murders. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ So you are really spending a great deal of energy and attention on something that is not a significant part of the problem. Handguns work just as well to kill lots of people as do long guns, plus they are easier to carry and conceal.

Sorry to sound cold, but reducing mass killings is irrelevant. Even factcheck.org, hardly a friend of the NRA, said it is "unclear" whether the ban had any measurable effect. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/factchecking-bidens-claim-that-assault-weapons-ban-worked/

Enormous body counts are a result of handguns. Knives kill more people in a year than ALL long guns combined- rifles, shotguns etc. Mass shooters use handguns as often as rifles. Again ,waiting to hear what an "assault style weapon" is...

Statistically it saved no lives. Mass killings are insignificant when weighed against the larger picture of crime and murder in general. Still waiting to hear what an "assault rifle" or "assault weapon" actually is...

Is that what an inconvenient truth is called now, "an excuse"?

The problem Tug is that the long guns are very rarely used in crime and murder as well. Plus semi auto long guns is a very large number of long guns overall. Not so many bolt action rifles left. A large amount gun crime is done using pistols, generally semi auto, generally young black men attacking and killing other young black men. As for banning "assault weapons", first we need an adequate definition of what an assault weapon actually is before we can begin to have a productive discussion. Seems for a lot of people it just means "a scary looking gun".

This article highlights the unfortuante ingratitude of many of the migrants. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64475732 They are being housed at the Watson Hotel. Looks pretty nice, certainly out of my budget. Rooms used to go for about $450 a night. https://thewatsonhotelny.com/ ..and are complaining that they may have to shift to shared, dormitory style accommodations. How about they shift back home instead?

That would be a logical conclusion. Yet somehow they manage to traverse 2000 plus kilometers of Mexico to magically arrive on the Rio Grande. Wonder how that happens... Anyway, the good Mayor needs a good hiding. Dont play progressive and call your city a "sanctuary", then try to pass off your problem to another country. Canada doesn't want to clean up your mess.

A lot of people think the gun lobby is the biggest and most insidious in America. They are wrong. it is the Pharma Industrial Complex and their enablers. They are trying to create a society with a pill for every possible need and condition. Whenever I visit the US, I am struck by how much TV advertising is devoted to various drugs, treatments, and therapies. Used to be quack lawyers, now it is drugs. As for the two in this story, they should be on trial for murder, and hopefully Florida still has a permanent punishment waiting for them.

Simply amazing how a discussion about the Biden administration's reaction to the spy balloon so quickly develops into a "...but Trump" festival. What the Great Orange Bad Man may or may not have done is completely irrelevant, particularly when there are so few details available. It is entirely possible that he messed up too. Both the current and former occupants of the White House can be wrong, it isn't a win/lose political issue. The important issue is how Biden dealt with it. Alaska and northern Canada fall under the aegis of NORAD and there are alert aircraft available 24/7 on both sides of the border. It is a shared responsibility, so there is no fear that Canadian politicians would get upset over issues of sovereignty and overflying Canadian territory.

Good to see the NABAT (Not As Bad As Trump) team out in full force here. You are missing the key phrase in the OP story- "briefly transited". That is a far cry from the current situation. This one had a liesurely 7 day transit of North America, from Alaska to South Carolina. Just happening to pass over or near many American military installations, ballistic missile bases, etc. Even if, worst case scenario, there WERE three significan incursions that Trump knew about and did not act, that does not excuse Biden's poor decision making here. What he did, to use a sports analogy, was to tackle the runner after he scored a touchdown.

Israel has the power to wipe out the Palestinians- but they don't. If the Palestinians had the power to wipe out Israel, do you think they would hesitate for even one second?

Israel left Gaza, how did that work out?

Uh, I believe that is what is called a "joke", and to take it seriously is the height of ridiculousness. Obviously a punch line in the Trump Show- if you watch the footage of it, you would know. You would also know that he said the PRESS would reward them, not Trump. Plus, if you do truly believe that Trump was a Russian asset, he would not need to make such a public plea. He would have other, more nefarious and secret, means at his disposal to contact his masters in Moscow.

Not to mention it probably already flew over Japan, Alaska, and western Canada. Now over Kansas I think? Maybe the plan is to wait until it drifts out to sea and then take it out. But by then it will have drifted over some much more densely populated areas. Not a good look at all for the Biden administration.

If that is true, then how do you explain the 2 million Palestinian muslims who are also full citizens of Israel? A racist or apartheid government surely would have expelled them long ago. Much like the Jews were expelled from nearly every Arab/Muslim country in Africa and the Middle East.

So then, what would be a "proportionate" way for Israel to defend itself against terrorists? Unguided rockets perhaps, or bombs attached to balloons, or sending in their brainwashed children....

A bit different. Crimea was part of a sovereign nation (Ukraine). Which sovereign nation did the Palestinian land belong to? The toothpaste is out of the tube. Israel exists (despite Hamas efforts). Time for the Palestinians to deal with reality instead of their fevered and homicidal dreams of martyrdom.