Canuckistani

What do you mean by that? If we chose, surely we could expand med school spaces? Seems a better idea to train them at home than import them. When we import a doctor from a 3rd world country, we deprive the country that spent money training them of their services, a form of neocolonialism. Meanwhile the medical associations here severely restrict entry of these doctors, so many of them wind up driving cabs. Where's the sense in that?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/europe-austerity-targets-too-big-125907724.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/us-eurozone-idUSBRE8500Z720120601 http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/When-has-austerity-ever-worked/Article1-866566.aspx

They didn't need to continue with easy credit once the banks were solvent again, but Carney, like everybody else is scared shirtless (what's the swearing policy here?) that things will go down again. Look at the move towards less austerity in Europe. Sounds like you know a lot more about economics than I do. But what I see is a system based on ever greater consumption either by every greater numbers of people or everybody just spending more. I don't think that is sustainable no matter if we apply left or right policies to the economy. I think we have to find a way to create a sustainable economy, one that doesn't deplete resources and doesn't rely on every more numbers of workers/consumers.

Because most gun owners are legit and will not own guns if they can't legally do so. Most of them are not bent on getting high on shooting their guns. Yeah you did No doubt, but not nearly to the same degree.

Thanks for that, did not know that. But, if the govt made its money back from it, and it save our banks, then this was a good thing. Something for the red meat conservatives to remember.

See that is the strawman right there. What's with you conservatives that you only make black and white arguments. Are you seriously saying that if we could reduce the number of guns available to criminals we would not see a reduction in killings? IED's, you know those little things build in Afghanistan and Iraq that are build in some cases with household materials, Molotov cocktails which are just as dangerous, and dozens of variants of these things. What they do to the rifles is irrelevant, its still an assault rifle and it still is a dangerous weapon. The fact that a criminal could break in to any house of his choice and have a good chance of being armed with an assault rifle seems to me like it is counterproductive to your argument. Switzerland did not go about with restrictions, they have solved the underlying cause. By your logic, the US should have allowed them those weapons, since it would have prevented them from using more lethal means. Stupid US, what were they thinking. And if you seriously mean to tell me that the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Iraq don't have access to rifles, you might want to do some research. They're using IEDs because they're going up against armored vehicles. If molotov cocktails are as effective as a gun, why are criminals expending all that effort to get guns?

Are you seriously suggesting that if we reduced the availability of guns people would kill each other in the same numbers using cars? Are you not willing to agree that guns are very efficient killing machines - if we have them harder to get there would be less killing? See above. You can't be serious about your argument here. What more lethal means come to mind? If they exist, why aren't they using them now? Sense of fair play among criminals? What makes Switzerland successful is primarily that it is an equitable society with far less crime. The people who own "assault" rifles in Switzerland are or were part of the militia - they were well trained (remind you of something?) Once they leave the militia, the rifles are converted to semi-auto function, they are no longer able to fire on automatic. Drugs are a huge income from gangs, so a huge temptation for dead ender kids. But I have no problem with what you suggest, we need to do more than just make drugs legal. We need poverty reduction and giving people a better chance at social moblity. The best way to do that would be to give their parents jobs that have a decent income.

What would fighting them without our hands tied behind our backs look like? We blow up their women and children? Are you suggesting we invade Nigeria now, or what?

Unfortunately we also have a porous border, especially at the Akwesasne reserve. Everything can be used as a weapon, but don't you think that's a lame argument. Could Husbands have run over Hassan at the Eaton center. The reason people use guns is how effective they are at killing - that's the only thing they are good for. Cars have other uses, and in the US, cars are more regulated than guns in some states. People always make a black or white arguement. "We won't cure the problem." How about if we make a significant reduction in the problem? Isn't that better than nothing? But you have a point, in that to make a serious dent in the problem we need to address social issues like poverty. As (forget his name) has pointed out, Switzerland has many guns in civilian hands, but few shootings. Of course they are all long guns, not handguns, and the people who have them have been trained and keep them well locked up. But also, Switzerland has way less poverty and a cohesive society with much less crime. But I certainly agree with your last sentence - we won't impact gangs by just fighting them - the US is great at fighting and their gang situation is just out of control. We have to address poverty and take away a major source of funding for gangs - illegal drugs, by making them legal.

All guns start off a legal ones. I don't think there's a side door where the gun factory puts out the illegal ones for the gangsters. That means the illegal guns were either stolen or bought at gun shows (what a stupid idea that is). If we reduce the number of legal guns by making legal ownership more restrictive, it reduces the pool of guns that can be stolen. It may be a bit late for that now tho, since there are so many guns floating around the US. It would take a huge effort to make a dent, and that's not going to happen.

What do you mean go after? You want to deal with a proliferation of legal guns, you tighten the laws so that less legal guns can be sold. Nobody is talking about making all guns illegal, just tightening up who can buy one legally.

Yes, but many of those illegal guns are stolen. In fact where else would they get them - every gun starts off legal. So the less guns there are legally in circulation, the less guns are available to be stolen.

But he has a point. It's not as if the govt is in the habit of buying assets from banks, even if they could make a good buck off them. It's a form of government support, that's for sure. The govt used its credit rating and ability to print money to backstop the banks, or the banks likely would have frozen up. Otherwise the govt would not have intervened. So maybe the headline should say "when is a government intervention in the market place not a socialist act?"

Boy, if there are experts on this forum, or even just people who think they understand it, I would like them to explain to me where all that money went in the last crash? The money seems to have just evaporated into thin air, yet the debt the US govt, for instance, had to take on seems very real, with real effects. Bottom line, seems to me, that our use of money is some kind of confidence game (both meanings intended) that can have devastating consequences. I will admit that I like tweaking the "experts" who didn't seem to see the last crash coming, never seem to, and yet expound on their theories as if you can take them to the bank.

I support civil disobedience pretty well any time, anywhere, no matter how trivial I deem the protest. The people protesting need to deal with the consequences of their actions - ie be willing to go to jail. The police need to act calmly and arrest people peacefully, no pepper spray etc, and the protesters need to not use violence to resist. In that case I fully support the right of those people, and who am I to judge whether their protest is merited. That to me seems to be the right balance in a democratic state. Of course it rarely happens, since there are always idiots among the protesters now who live to cause violence. And police who use that as an excuse to overreact.

People vandalizing stuff and attacking police I have a problem with too, unless there is a dire issue involved - ie heading toward revolution. Peaceful protest and civil disobedience tho, I'm all in favor, even if I personally deem the issue trivial. We should all appreciate that these are signs of freedom, if the state refrains from cracking down on them.

"They're not starving, what do they have to protest about?"

So who makes that decision? I'm sure plenty of crackers in the south said she had nothing to complain about too. Protests need to be non-violent. Civil disobedience otoh, is on as far as I'm concerned. These protests have gone way beyond being about raising tuition, that was just the trigger point. They have more to do with the occupy movement, which is why once the violence stopped so many non-students joined them. I'm sure we'll see more of this stuff happening all over the world, at least the free parts, and it will be different trigger points in each case.

That's how I see it. I'm not saying the police shouldn't investigate and catch the shooters, but I'm a lot less worried when gang bangers shoot each other. And the police make that clear when they release that it was a targeted attack - ie nothing for the average person to worry about. As long as we have gangs we'll have this sort of problem. We need policies that reduce the strength of gangs. The primary one would be drug legalization, IMO.

Now you're cherry picking cities? Your contention was that Wyoming had a low gun crime rate vs CA. I've shown it has a higher one. I'm sure I could cherry pick some burg in CA with the same population as Casper that has a lower gun crime rate. Your statement was "this is why we need CCW." WA has CCW - didn't deter that killing. Apparently the guy killed in Eatons was a gangbanger - maybe he was carrying, since they certainly don't care about the law. Didn't stop him from getting capped. As far as CCW goes, as others have said here, I don't want a bunch of numbnuts running around with guns, shooting when provoked or missing what they're aiming at. No, it's exactly an example of why we don't want CCW. We don't want a bunch of exited civilians blasting away, it wouldn't have prevented this killing. The police know who did it, let them do their jobs. In fact in most gang situations we don't want civilians blasting away - the shooters are after their gang banger victims. You turn that into a shootout, and a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt. Definitely don't want CCW for gang shootings. For the Seattle shooting, yep having somebody with a gun who knew how to use it(ie not very lax carry permits) might - might - have saved some lives. How many shootings of that type do we get, vs the carnage that would come from everybody carrying a gun? I certainly don't want to live in a society like that.

Here is your 3rd post. I've shown data that what you contend is just no true I didn't look up total homicides, just gun deaths. I felt that more relevant to the discussion. Also, you started the discussion by saying that the Eaton shooting is an example of why we need CCW in Canada. I then pointed to a recent killing of 5 people in Seattle, which has very lax carry laws. You dodged that by asking if they were indeed carrying - so what you seem to be saying is we need compulsory carry laws. I think other posters here have made good arguments why CCW is not a good idea and will likely cost more lives than it saves.

It proves that your contention that Alaska with lax gun laws has low gun crime is not valid. I thought I'd check up on the claims you made about Alaska and Wyoming, and none have proven accurate.

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

Gun homicides NY 2.67/100,000 (that includes NYC, popn 8,000,000). Gun homicides AL 2.58/100,000 (that includes Anchorage popn ,300,000) Louisiana is number one with 10.13/100,000 http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/02/louisiana_gun_laws_among_weake.html