And now that I've seen this comic, I've got the overwhelming urge to design holsters for dogs so gun owners can leave their firearms in safe paws when they go inside a store and have to leave both outside.
@Lupius We have those, and doggles (dog goggles) and dog body armor, and dog backpacks for water and food. Hey, the dog can carry his own damned luggage.
You know, there's the 'It's illegal to bring your dog into a store unless its a service dog' law, but if you do bring a dog in, other people aren't allowed to ask you what your dog is servicing for. So, I could bring my dog into Wal-Mart (He isn't a licensed service dog) and no one would be allowed to ask why I need a service dog. So... America's laws are fucking stupid.
@nadia
I do hear a lot about obnoxious dog owners buying used service dog vests for their pets, just to they can take them with them everywhere, regardless of hygienic concerns.
@nadia Kind of like how America hates dual citizenship and forces you to renounce your citizenship in other countries to be a citizen there, yet those countries in question can still see you as a citizen and thus provide you with dual citizenship, so it's ultimately pointless.
@SydneyCarton I saw a funny post once. Somebody said, "Are the sniffing dogs used by the police addicted to drugs, and that's how they find them?" Please get this person an education.
y'know I was thinking about the amount of gun violence we have here in the U.S. and I had a thought. IF you look at most other countries the problem isn't as big. I mean I get the United Kingdom where it's next to impossible to get a gun, but what about a country like Canada where there are plenty of guns? Why don't they have as much gun violence? Is it because Americans are irresponsible morons?
@tigercub123 No, it has nothing to do with Americans being somehow dumber than everyone else. It has more to do with the history we're dealing with, and the socioeconomic effects of that history - particularly in urban areas. If guns weren't available, you'd see at least as much and likely more violence, just not with guns. Violence is pretty much violence, whether a gun is involved or not is something of a red herring.
@Thunderbow
It might have more to do with the history and socioeconomic effects of the history, but that does not mean it has nothing to do with us being dumber than everyone else. Maybe we in fact aren't, as I tend to believe that nationality is not correlated to intelligence. But given that A - we created those historical problems, as almost none of the history that we're dealing with was out of the control of Americans as a whole (at various points in history), we've actually had more control over our own destiny than almost any other country, and B - our responses historically, including still today, tend to be incredibly short-sighted and have often made the effects worse, not better. We've compounded our problems exponentially by poor decisions.
Your last sentence is also partially true, partially not. It's true that it's something of a red herring, but not completely. Violence may be violence, but it's FAR more destructive when a gun is involved. Anyone that thinks gun control will fix the problem magically is hopelessly naive. It's too easy to be destructive, for one, and no amount of gun control will ever prevent the "bad guys" from having guns. However, that doesn't mean it is a bad idea to have any. It's been ridiculously easy for people who obviously shouldn't have a gun to legally get one. It doesn't take much to see that at least having some common sense restrictions are likely to have a positive impact. Granted, it'd probably only avert a tragedy every now and then, but that's better than nothing. Still, I would agree that given the intransigence of both sides in the gun debate, there are far more useful places to spend our energy. It's not a red herring, but it isn't worth the fight it'd take to only reduce the violence a bit.
@dumdristig @ThunderbowI want to be clear about something. While i do support gun control I don't think it will solve all our problems. because like dumdristig said anyone who believes that is naive. I support gun control because of the amount of gun violence and because it can lessen the amount of gun violence. (not get red of it) I would also like to point out that there are loads of responsible gun owners in america, some of whom even support gun control. Remember guns don't kill people, people kill people.
@tigercub123 I take it you are not aware that the UK has a much higher violent crime rate than the US. Other countries like australia that have near total gun bans also have higher rates of home invasions and rape. Other countries like japan which have low crime rates accross the board no matter how you look at it also do not have a right against police searches or seizures. China has a low crime rate unless you understand that the chinese communist part is not technically the Chinese government but is responsible for innumerable human rights violations. It is difficult to compare apples to apples or one country to another because they are all too unique for accurate or easy comparison. Food for thought. Take out the top 10 cities with the strictest gun control in the US and the US rate of gun deaths drops significantly. This is not because more gun restrictions cause more gun deaths it is because the gun restrictions are a misconceived response to economic problems in these cities. America on the whole is a very well armed and very peaceful nation.
@thirsha42
Actually, that's only true if you use each country's definition of "violent crime," which includes FAR more crimes in the UK than in the US. If you compare the individual violent crimes, the US has WAY more murders, and all others are relatively close, but the US has slightly more on most. For example, burglary and rape are both more common in the US than in the UK (not the only ones, but considering you specifically called them out for Australia, I singled them out here). But a few others go the other way, and overall, if you exclude murders, it's so close that it could easily be considered a wash. It's clear, though, that there isn't a "much higher violent crime rate" in the UK, if you make any reasonable comparison. And while the number of assaults, robberies, rapes, etc is nearly the same, far more are killed in the US, so guns do have some impact.
And while it is difficult to compare across countries, especially if you try to go for all violent crimes, where gun ownership plays a negligible role either direction, there are a few patterns that one can see. Murders are the easiest to compare, and the are where gun ownership would certainly have the largest impact. And on that, the US has significantly higher rates than any country in Western Europe, by a factor of more than two. In fact, if you look at some charts, Norway is next behind the US (of countries in Western Europe, plus the US, Canada, and Japan, which are the fairest comparison nations), and that's only because the year used was the one with the terrorist attack that killed 77 people, which drove up the murder rate by a factor of nearly 4x. And yet it was still under half the US. No matter what year you use, more people are killed in the US than any other nation that is even close to our level of wealth and political freedoms. That much one can easily compare, and it is a fair comparison, when it's as overwhelming as that is. We are not necessarily a country that has more crime, but we are a country that kills more people than any country that is at all similar. We're not a "very peaceful nation."
What are the top 10 cities for strictest gun control? I don't know which cities you'd even be talking about, although I would guess that it would include cities like Chicago, New York, Washington DC, etc. They have large absolute numbers, because they are huge cities, but none of those three show up in the top 30 for per capita murders. So, while they might decrease the rate a bit, I don't know how much they would. Detroit, though, did make the list, although surprisingly not top five, given the utter economic collapse, and population drain, both of which tend to make per capita murder rates much higher. Yes, I will certainly agree that the economic problems in major urban areas is a FAR bigger cause of violence than gun ownership, and dealing with them would far outweigh any gun restrictions. But it's hardly true that the restrictions are completely misconceived, there are reasons to believe they have some positive impact, although city-level restrictions have less impact, given how thoroughly porous a city or state border is. It still has some impact, since for the type of spree killings that we've become famous for, it can make it a bit more difficult. However, on hardened, repeat criminals, which is where national regulations have more impact (as straw buyers can be prosecuted, and background checks actually work, unlike on many of our recent spree killers), city regulations would logically have almost no impact, since for them, traveling a little ways to buy isn't the hurdle it would be for someone who is just angry and lashing out.
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