Bush/Cheney Created Conditions That Led Directly to ISIL

[Teddy B 17,252]

Apples and pumpkins. For every mile a gun drives, there are less deaths than there are for cars.

I bet drive by shootings kill far more people per mile than cars do.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I bet drive by shootings kill far more people per mile than cars do.

And it is the gun rather than the car that does the job.

[JohnR! 5,495]

You're on to nothing....

I bet drive by shootings kill far more people per mile than cars do.

And it is the gun rather than the car that does the job.

[Darnell 8,479]

It seems very obvious to me that the key point on that issue is that the prevalence of firearms throughout the United States makes for a society that is generally less save overall. Quibbling about the difference between lawful gun owners Vs. criminals who use guns to commit crime is ignoring the obvious - that is, that gun crime and gun-related fatalities have more (or as much) to do with how many guns are in circulation rather than who is using them and why.

I wanna see skewed data,

as a result of

making laws for legalized dueling,

swords or single shot pistols, only.

[Rob L 3,811]

Cars cause more deaths than guns. Ban cars. Especially on I-93.

Drivers cause more deaths..parked cars are rarely the problem.

[Rob L 3,811]

I could not disagree more.

Americans were only too happy, filled with blood lust, to destroy Iraq.

This is exactly the excuse Bush laid out for them: So long as a figure in authority said we could mass murder - no problem. Remember the Milgram experiments? That was just a stupid social psychology experiment where they had volunteers give electric shocks to what were really actors, playing students in a memory improvement experiment. (To see if the negative reinforcement of shocks would improve memory).

People were only too happy to kill the actors with lethal doses of electricity. Sixty-five percent of them. For nothing more than a stupid school experiment, not some dire national defense matter. If sixty five percent of people will kill you for four dollar an hour science experiment then a lot more of them will be just fine with war crimes that kill hundreds of thousands and make millions of refugees.

The proof of this is being seen right now. Americans, with two photos of journalists beheaded, are prepared to wage war across two countries: both Iraq and Syria, with the contradictory objective of overthrowing Syria's government at the same time.

You can make that exact same excuse: that we are being misled now. But we aren't really. We just need an excuse. We like the killing we are doing. As a country. It makes us feel powerful.

If you are right, then there is no point..America is cursed and is destined to the path the Romans took, unless our blood lust is slaked and we have returned to some sort of non monster status.

Not sure if I agree with you on the point of the Milgram experiment. ( don't think it undermines your point, it is just not relevant to your point) The question by the authors of the study was this: Could normal individuals be compelled to horrific acts by being taught to obey instructions to harm others, The conclusion :

People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and / or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

This to me is an extrinsic force ( the authority telling you that harming others is good and right) as opposed to an intrinsic drive to harm others "Americans were only too happy, filled with blood lust, to destroy Iraq"

I don't think that you could find many Americans who wanted to destroy Iraq or Iraqis. If you most hardened jingoist lets-go-get-them before-they-get-us and introduced them to an Iraqi family, they would be the first to fold.

We were told that we were liberators and we ( see Milgram) believed the line we were fed. We could examine our collective lack of critical thinking, our fear of existential threat from WMD, al Queda, Bogey-Man du Jour.

Unrelated to discussion Footnote: The Hawthorne effect tells us what we watch we change: Evidently the experiment went really wrong for us years later http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-d-moreno/harvards-experiment-on-th_b_1545919.html .... and gave us no less a product than the UniBomber

[Rob L 3,811]

Yes but there are probably more than 1.13 deaths per 100 million rounds fired.

If you can only get 1.13 deaths out of 100 million rounds...you are doing it wrong

[Rob L 3,811]

I wanna see skewed data,

as a result of

making laws for legalized dueling,

swords or single shot pistols, only.

Bring it back to Iraq

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_duels

"

• In October 2002, four months before the US invasion of Iraq, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan suggested U.S. President George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein settle their difference in a duel.^[35] He reasoned this would not only serve as an alternative to a war that was certain to damage Iraq's infrastructure,^[36] but that it would also reduce the suffering of the Iraqi and American peoples. Ramadan's offer included the possibility that a group of US officials would face off with a group of Iraqi officials of same or similar rank (President v. President, Vice President v. Vice President, etc.). Ramadan proposed that the duel be held in a neutral land, with each party using the same weapons, and with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presiding as the supervisor. On behalf of President Bush,White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer declined the offer."

[spookyturtle 9,466]

I bet drive by shootings kill far more people per mile than cars do.

Without cars, drive by shootings would be greatly reduced. Edited September 16, 2014 by spookyturtle

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Drivers cause more deaths..parked cars are rarely the problem.

That's odd, guns don't kill without a human either. Call me crazy, but I'm seeing a patter here. Inanimate objects aren't as dangerous as some would like us to believe.

[Rob L 3,811]

Without cars, drive by shootings would be greatly reduced.

Could use a bike..or a horse....not sure if that would technically be drive by, more of a ride by

[Teddy B 17,252]

Without cars, drive by shootings would be greatly reduced.

Without guns, shootings of any kind would be greatly reduced.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Teddy B

[Darnell 8,479]

Without guns, shootings of any kind would be greatly reduced.

nay!

[shot by a crossbow] becomes the daily teaser headline in the Police Blotter reports...

[decocker 7,198]

Could use a bike..or a horse....not sure if that would technically be drive by, more of a ride by

horse would be best, then you wouldn't need a gun you could just trample people.

[Sousuke 1,214]

Disclaimer for some people*

I am about to ignore the primary point of the OP. This does not imply that I am somehow in disagreement with the OP nor am I to be held responsible for things I haven't actually said.

I saw a few posts attacking the peshmerga. They are a very hard fighting group and any failures on their part are more to do with lack of equipment then training or willpower.