petronius
petronius's JournalGood, that's exactly what should happen
The only real benefit from 'buy backs' is the removal of a firearm from a place where it is unwanted and/or can't be stored properly. Once the gun is handed in, that benefit has fully accrued.
Firearms are worth money, and it's a very appropriate use of this resource to convert them into funds for public services. Destroying them provides no public benefit (and may even have a cost); firearms are fungible, and destroying the tiny number of them passing through buy-backs does nothing at all to deny a firearm to anyone who might want one...
Interesting. Previous articles made it sound like just the
'no-fly' list, but this one says it's the much broader watchlist - an even bigger misstep, I'd say.
I've posted my opposition to using these lists to deny citizens and residents their civil rights/liberties, but here are a couple of DU thread linking well-articulated arguments from outside sources:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7434309
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027439041
There's a world of difference between NICS and the Terrorist
Watchlist (and its 'no-fly' subset). In the former, entry into the dataset follows after hearings, courts, convictions, is based on a transparent process, and uses a clearly-defined set of criteria. For the latter, entry is secret, based on non-transparent criteria, with no judicial process, and the appeal process (to the extent that it's possible) is likewise murky.
I've given my opinion in previous threads, but overall I would oppose any expansion or use of the Terrorist Watchlist or other secret lists beyond the investigatory realm, and I'd encourage our representatives to cast a very skeptical eye on the lists in general...
More generally, should a civil liberty be predicated on having a fixed (mailing) address?
I'm pretty sure that when it comes to voting for example, homeless persons can list shelters or a range of non-traditional addresses (like Dear's off-the-grid shack). I'd argue that something similar should apply to 2A rights, although it could get complicated in terms of public carry, and/or storage laws, for people who don't have access to a 'shack,' vehicle, storage locker, or the like...
It was never a ban in the usual meaning of the word, but rather a proscription
on advocacy inserted into the appropriation bill for the CDC coupled with some (temporary, albeit obviously pointed and threatening) removal of funding. CDC interpreted those action as a full-on ban on research. Here's the text of the 'ban'
And here's an article from the Washington Post that gives a decent background...
From the article, this part I agree with:
A NICS access seems like an appropriate datapoint for investigators. But I'm very leery of (suspicious of, opposed to) any expansion of the use of these secret lists, to further limit civil rights/liberties or basic privileges.
This part was interesting to me:
That 420,000 is substantially lower than I've seen elsewhere, and I'd not seen before a percentage of US citizens/residents. If it's really as low as 2%, and if the 420,000 is correct, that's only 8400 citizens/residents. A really small number of people who would be able to buy a firearm in the first place. I think we should be critically questioning these lists in general, but another question that arises is: "Is it really worth allowing a secret government program to take precedence over and undermine the BoR, just in case some of that tiny number of people may be up to no good?"
The list in question is not the 'no fly' list, it's a much broader list of people for
whom the FBI believes it has "reasonable suspicion that the person is a known or suspected terrorist." A recent source I saw said there are ~700,000 people on the list, other source say up to 1.5 million people. They may not all be US citizens/residents, but I strongly disagree with Senator Feinstein et al. that this is an appropriate tool to deny civil liberties, civil rights, or privileges.
From the article:
This is as far as I think use of the list should go. (And just practically, if the people on the list are serious suspects, why tip them off with a NICS denial? And if they aren't serious suspects, why are they on the list?)
The Pedagogy of the Meaning of Racism: Reconciling a Discordant Discourse (by Carlos Hoyt Jr.)
The Pedagogy of the Meaning of Racism: Reconciling a Discordant Discourse
by Carlos Hoyt Jr.
Racism is a term on which a great deal of discourse does and should turn in all realms of social work theory, practice, policy, and research. Because it is a concept heavily freighted with multiple and conflicting interpretations and used in a wide variety of ways, the idea and action of racism is not easy to teach or learn in a simple and straightforward manner. It is a term the meaning of which has been the subject of so much argument and mutation that its utility as a clear and reliable descriptor of a crucial form of ideology or behavior is less than certain. In this article, an analysis of the dispute over the proper definition of racism is undertaken, and an approach to teaching about the term is offered in an effort to provide both teachers and students with a clear, consistent, and useful understanding of this important and challenging phenomenon.
Social Work (2012) 57 (3): 225-234. doi: 10.1093/sw/sws009
https://www.andover.edu/About/Newsroom/TheMagazine/Documents/8-PedOfRacismSWJournal.pdf
These 'definition of racism' threads come up a lot, and I've never been clear on the background and utility of the newer definition, the power + prejudice definition. (And, I see some issues with how that definition moves out into general discussion--such as on DU--in an unexamined way. There are shades of the ecological fallacy, it seems.)
The article above was informative for me, at least as a starting point...
Scientists Are Recording 24-Hour Soundtracks of Rainforests
The researchers have been working with community groups in the region for 15 years, trying to help them establish land use plans that sustain the growing communities and the forest’s native flora and fauna in the face of logging, clearcutting and farming. They had been doing small-scale sound recording, but now, with new technology, the group is recording day-long tracks and using a new technique to analyze the sound they record.
--- Snip ---
Bioacoustics give the researchers a broad picture of what’s going on in the ecosystem without them having to painstakingly count individual animals, the way they would in a traditional fauna survey.
“Sound is terrific because it captures a lot of stuff that is localized,” Game says. “We can look at indexes of sound as a gross measure of what’s happening in the landscape. Frogs, bats, insects, birds, they’re all vocalizing, and in an ideal intact forest, they all vocalize at different frequencies and patterns. As you lose species, you lose pieces of that spectrum.”
--- Snip ---
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/scientists-are-recording-24-hour-soundtracks-rainforests-180956748/
Why beef is the new SUV (CNN)
--- Snip ---
But before I get into the business of explaining where this meat came from, and why eating this stuff has a massive, unexpected effect on climate change, I feel the need to confess something: That huge slab of brisket, which came to me by way of Snow's BBQ, a delightful shack of a place out here in the heart of Texas beef country, easily was one of the most food-orgasm-y things I've tasted.
--- Snip ---
But eating beef, as I'll explain, has come to be seen, rightly, in certain enviro circles, as the new SUV -- a hopelessly selfish, American indulgence; a middle finger to the planet. It's not the main driver of global warming -- that's burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat and transportation -- but it does contribute significantly.
Globally, 14.5% of all greenhouse gas pollution can be attributed to livestock, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the most reputable authority on this topic. And a huge hunk of the livestock industry's role -- 65% -- comes from raising beef and dairy cattle.
--- Snip ---
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/29/opinions/sutter-beef-suv-cliamte-two-degrees/index.html
Nice long article tracing the climate impacts in the beef supply chain (and well-written, aside from some gratuitous snark about Vice-President Gore...)
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