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Insurance = Safety!?!? Huh???
So now that you have made "owning" a gun less affordable there will be less gun crimes/violence...Really???
I guess you think that "rich people" are all sane, rational and responsable people who always abide by the law...No?
Hmmm weren't the shooters at Columbine all from financially well-to-do families???
I think your idea is for the Insurance salesmen!
If the NRA has selectively chosen people along with organizations to place on this "enemies list",
they should know then that they might want to take along plenty of travel provisions as they are going to have a journey much further than they might have planned;
Frank Zappa died in 1993…………..
I'm sure he'd appreciate the company though………..
The “Free Enterprise” avenue to effective gun control
If it's all about profit, as an earlier reply stated, let's maximize profit - for someone!
Supporters of the “Free Enterprise System” insist that it is self-regulating and should be applied wherever possible. Why not put this system to work on gun control too?
We have to have a license and liability insurance to drive/own a car or a motorbike that can cause "grievous injury or death" when abused or mishandled or merely because of bad luck! Guns certainly fit in that category.
A logical and reasonable requirement would be that anyone possessing a gun must be licensed, and have "appropriate" liability insurance and, of course, that a firearm cannot be purchased without proof of insurance, as is the case with a car.
Insurance companies will see an enormous opportunity for new income streams and will insist on MAJOR background checks and other conditions before issuing gun insurance. Do you think they would issue insurance to violent felons or the mentally ill? Surely, no one can object to a new and significant opportunity for profit under the “Free Enterprise System”?
Carry a gun without insurance and it will be confiscated until insurance is obtained. When someone is stopped while driving without insurance, is their car not impounded until proof of insurance is provided?
This is not interfering with your "right to bear arms", just requiring reasonable insurance to protect/or compensate those who might be injured or killed by your negligence or criminal activity.
It will have the additional positive impact on our economy of increasing the costs of gun ownership – you’d need a “rider” for each additional gun to ensure that you keep it in your possession and under control. This could substantially increase our national GDP!
Perhaps ammunition and larger magazines should be insured as well? More lethal ammunition purchase requires higher insurance coverage?
The Newtown Massacre families likely have no access to any compensation for the deaths of their loved ones. If the killer’s mother had been required to carry insurance on each of her firearms, she would likely 1) have had fewer firearms and 2) not had an “assault weapon” which would logically require higher insurance premiums and 3) to avoid even higher premiums she would have had to demonstrate her firearms were not available to her “troubled” son.
The “Free Enterprise System” as practiced by insurance companies choosing to insure firearms will create a much more “regulated” right to bear arms as is specified in the sacred Second Amendment! Who can object to that?
If your response to this proposal is that guns are too dangerous to be required to be insured – what are you then saying?????
When an organisation such as the NRA starts creating "enemies lists" it's time to declare the organisation "rogue" and an enemy of the state. What is truly scary about this is the reluctance by the politicians to take this organisation on. That says a lot about how poerful this organisation has become. For the past 30 odd years, successive governments have allowed corporations and organisations such as the NRA to become more powerful than the government itself. If we the people have anything to fear, it is unelected leaders of such powerful organisations, including the Wall St banksters.
La Pierre is a halfwit made dangerous by his money and bribery driven access to the most corrupt corrners and crannies of official Washington. His organization must be reined in and defanged.
On NRA planet, dead Rock stars are conspiring against them.
The sad part is that the mainstream media sees this guy foaming but, as usual, stops short of noting how crazy he really is.
...uh, while his "was" the voice, Frank passed ages ago. they need to publish an updated list!lol
Jlane, I've reread you posts several times and find that I owe you an appology. You make several good points and your stats turn out to be more accurate than I thought. Sorry I flew off the handle, but I didn't appreciate you saying my opinion was worthless and open borders was not worth discussing. I wish I had time to elaborate further, but thats all I have time for now. Next time I'll read your posts more carefully.
What MH professional would clear someone who exhibits loose associations, flight of ideas and major paranoid ideation for the purchase of a gun?
Think Alex Jones.
It is legal to make your own gun. You just can't make them for sale.
Socialism is a term bandied about constantly by people conned by corporatists into calling themselves "conservative". It is used as though its mere mention were evil and therefore capable of contaminating, by the mere use of the word, anything one wishes to attack. This is not informed discussion; it is not even a form of thinking.
There are no "entitlements" (except for whatever society forks over to the demands of the power exercised by the ultra-wealthy); there are only paid-for benefits whose surpluses have been and still are raided and transferred as operational expenses in the form of no-bid contracts to government contractors that spend lavishly on political campaigns and lobbying, to tax cuts, and to subsidies for the wealthy. The promise of spending so profligately on the super-wealthy was that investing those surpluses in the overprivileged would trickle down to everyone and that the result would be a thriving economy of rising wages and opportunities. The hoax worked in the sense that the wealthiest few now control our for-profit media, the GOP, much of the Democratic Party, and most of our economy--including trillions of dollars in untaxed, uninvested accounts lying inert in tax havens abroad. The ill-advised "supply-side" economic fad did not, however, bring about the higher revenues and the better, higher-paying jobs it had promised
The time has come for those who were allowed to abuse those surpluses to enrich themselves pay back what they took under false pretenses. They can pay back in the form of taxes or investments in start-up enterprises, although taxes are the more likely way to recoup what those funds lost to the wealthiest people in the world.
It makes no sense economically to slash Social security and Medicare to make up for the trillions we have squandered, and continue to squander, on the unimaginably wealthy caste because money in the hands of the poor and middle classes is spent on food, clothing, housing, and other consumer goods. The greater the consumer demand for such goods, the greater the investment in job-producing enterprises. The more money we invest in the ultra-wealthy, however, the less the investment in the US economy.
It also makes no moral sense to take from people who need Social Security and Medicare just to further fatten the accounts of our unproductive corporatocracy--or to protect their owners from making a down payment on what they owe to a society that has been so generous to them.
We should tax the wealthy because they are where the money is. Their money--in the trillions--is not being put to any productive use. Why, then, take needed resources from people who need those resources, people who will never be able to pay back our public debt, however much is take from them--especially since the more we take, the less is the purchasing power of the American people. The less We the People spend, the less businesses will invest. The spiral downward ensures a major economic depression and an even greater public debt.
There is no substitute for a growing, prospering middle class. The choice is a no-brainer: keep wasting more to appease the corporatocracy, or invest in our people and our country. The former tack is a repeat of the laissez-faire economics that led to the Great Depression.
Ability to learn is not the problem. We can learn, but not without humility and acceptance of the world as it is changing.
I don’t think most of you are seeing the big picture. Step back a little more to see the whole system. Here’s what you might see.
It’s okay to have low wages. As an associate of the low wage club, you’ll be eligible for subsidized house payments. If you want a home, instead of an apartment, you can have that too.
Your eligibly will also entitle you to a deluxe food card which will provide you and yours will ample food on the table. Many members also use their card to buy food for non-members who will pay them back in non-covered household items or plain cash so that you can make your cell phone payments, buy clothing, a TV and so forth.
When a member becomes ill or injured, the club benefits include free hospitalization at the local charity hospital. Medicaid is also available for those expensive doctor office visits. All this is at your beckoning, even without that pesky and costly Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, because of that law, some of you may now have to actually pay for a health insurance policy due to that silly mandatory clause.
Wal-Mart and all the other low-pay companies realize that they are not required to pay living wages because the government will provide cost-of-living assistance. Governor Christie, as well as other state governors know this too.
In my city, where there is a lot of low income, I dread to think what would happen to our mega-food-stores should food cards become hard to get. Millions of federal dollars must be pouring into these fine establishments and certainly are keeping the cost of food down for the living wage earners.
But wait, there’s more! Most all of these great low wage benefits are being provided by the living wage earners! And, the wealthy pay a much less proportionate share of the benefits out of their $10,000+ monthly income, so they’re happy too. Plus, landlords can rest assured that those government rent subsidy checks will arrive on time! Lord knows how difficult it is when a living wage earner gets behind on rent and creates more bookkeeping and eviction hassles.
Please don’t’ wreck a working system! Let’s keep those low wage jobs alive and well!
Actually just yes, if public funds built it or else a return in accordance with the public share http://blazintommyd.tumblr.com/
One would wonder why a 'rational' person or group would oppose closing the gun show loophole or requiring stricter standards for registration. (Opposing banning sales of a product from which they profit, like assault weapons, is completely understandable).
The most logical explanation is that the NRA, being primarily a gun manufacturer's organization, REALLY opposes any changes which will result in accurate statistical data about US gun owners. If indeed a perfect statistical base existed, I suspect that there would be a huge discrepancy between ACTUAL gun ownership by US citizens and numbers of guns manufactured (for which there is very good data).
So if not all guns manufactured here are actually sold here, where are they sold? Criminals? Gangs? Gunrunners? Restricted groups?. And of course any knowledge of such activity would eventually result in actions costing gun manufacturers up to 30% of their current sales/profits.
As long as no one knows, no one cares. Obfuscation=Profit. So don't act puzzled when the NRA opposes what all rational people consider 'no-brainers' and logical common sense solutions.
Here's a question: Would the NRA support a law allowing individuals to manufacture their own guns? After all, its our 2nd Amendment right. We need protection. Maybe 20 seconds after that was proposed, the NRA would launch a multi-million dollar campaign against it. Why? Because its all about profit.
APPLES & ORANGES
Congrats!
However your personal success is not an economic formula.
Timing...30 years ago the economy was much different; though it was the begininng of where we are today economically...So you got lucky!!!
What kind of job did you work? What was your pay? What was the price of gas???a gallon of milk???More importantly...the value of the dollar?
I ask if you think a person starting out "today" (broke in the U.S.A.) has the same opportunities you did?
Also what would you say to a person "today" whoes home loan is underwater and on the verg of foreclosure?
Some people - mostly flag waving sociopath bellicose nazi christian jingoists - don't care about facts, truth, equality, humanity...For them Fox News is there feeder bar for information and "orders".
How's that, DANNEMARC, for casting "labels"?!?!? ;)
Here again personal attacks and no rebuttals on any of the factual statements I made in previous posts. Which point do you exactly want to challenge? Here again what you say does not sync with any of my post to this blog. It is like you were talking to someone else. Go back and read them and then challenge any point I made. Again try this one:
How big a population do we want, or can manage? 300 million, 500 million, 800 million, 1 BILLION, 2 BILLION? When most of our population growth is from immigration and births to immigrants, we need to look at immigration as a plus or minus to our countries future.
What says you...... or anybody?
Actually, the capitalists in the United States have gained pretty uncontestable control over our political economy and have found many ways to lower wages - all wages - to the poverty line and below. One method is union busting to where only 7% - and falling - of private sector workers are unionized. Another is capital flight or off shoring where businesses move their operations to a part of the world where either working people have even less power and can't get an adequate compensation for their work or the cost of living is so low in U.S. dollars that it isn't necessary to pay workers nearly as much as it is here or, more usually, a combination thereof. Another is outsourcing to temporary help agencies and staffing services whose employees are forbidden by law to join unions. Thus the second and third practices are essential to the implementing of the first but all three work against the power of U.S. workers to negotiate adequate compensation.
In the '90s and especially in the 2000s the majority of U.S. blue collar jobs were either off shored or outsourced. From 2000-2009 I was part of an organization that organized temporary workers and because the law didn't allow us to join unions we had to go the community organizing route, that is, we had to act as a community group or organization rather than a union. That was a new model of labor organizing for organizing low wage workers back then adopted by organizations like Jobs With Justice (which was part of our coalition) and by Our Walmart today. I've seen workplaces employing hundreds of people transition from a workforce consisting entirely of permanent, full time employees to one entirely of part time and temp workers. I've known people to be sent by temp agencies to work for a client that erstwhile employed them directly, full time. I have known MANY people to work the same "temporary" job for the same agency client everyday for years, even decades. It is very uncommon amongst the temporary help agencies and staffing services I have dealt with - and I have dealt with almost ALL in my region of Illinois that provide a certain type of basic labor (manufacturing, wharehouse, food service, maintenance, etc.) - to pay their people any more than the minnimum wage.
Our organization has participated in a campaign to get the minnimum wage raised state by state when the Bush Administration and the Republican congress weren't amenable to raising the Federal wage from $5.15 per hour where it stood for better part of 10 years.
You won't learn much from Fox News. Studies have shown that Fox News viewers are consistently misinformed and disinformed believing such things as Sadam Hussein being behind 9/11 and that there is no human caused climate change and so on. I suggest the web site of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (fair.org). They do a good job of exposing the lies of Fox News point for point.
Your idea that this earth could be a new earth as if it were heaven is very real, and you can make it real for you. Meanwhile lions will still continue to...Then they will feast on their entrails. Praise God!
Regarding the issue of class and inequality, Mark Saulys gets it. He says "You have to look at where the power is." He seems to share my view that privatization equals theft; the theft of the commons. What once belonged to everyone and no one is now under private control. Services once for the common good, depended upon by everyone, are being hijacked by thieves. I'm talking about our healthcare system, our schools, the prisons, the media, and - if we don't watch out - the Post Office too.
If "flyguy" is more bothered at the prospect of a classless society than by this type of scenario, I feel sorry for him. - Aliceinwonderland
Your comment almost perfectly describes what the Christians preach. That eternal salvation will bring everlasting life in Heaven, where there is TOTAL EQUALITY. Where there are no black and whites but only one shade. It will be Utopian and Wonderful. We all live in the same channel. One big eye watching us and protecting us. There is no evil. In Christian Heaven, wealth will be redistributed and slavery will end.
It is ironic how so many so called Christians on earth will end up complaining of the idea and how utterly boring it will be for them.
Your entire comment is based on trying to redistribute the wealth. The wealth was redistributed from the poor to the rich in the Reagan revolution and "the people" are intent on remedying that redistribution of wealth. Get onboard or miss the bus.
You construct what is called a "false dichotomy". It's not a choice between dull, drab totalitarianism and predatorily capitalistic oligarchic tyranny. It is not at all necessary to live in any tyranny or predatory system.
What the anarcho syndicallists and libertarian socialists know is that what is needed is not a redistribution of wealth but a redistribution of POWER. If you redistribute the power the wealth will redistribute itself. The Soviet Union tried to redistribute the wealth keeping the power concentrated in the hands of a central elite. The result was that the wealth didn't get all that well redistributed either. The small minority of Communist Party members (10% of the population) had a much higher standard of living and privilege than everyone else.
Everything is about power. When you look at things scientifically and take away all the forms and formalisms you see everything is about power and relative dominance of the society. The rich need the poor because they couldn't be rich if someone else wasn't poor.
When conservatives talk about the "freedom of capitalist society" they are ulitimately referring to the fact that capitalism liberated society from feudalism by giving political and economic power to the individual. What happened, however, is that a lot of power got concentrated with a few individuals and most of the rest got little or none. Now the oligarchs seem to be trying to return us to feudalism by destroying the middle class and gaining control of government through privatization.
There is nothing more beneficial about privatized government, quite the contrary. Privatization takes government OUT of the hands of the people making it less accountable to the people and more like the personal property of one or a few rich assholes. We are much better off all owning and controlling it collectively and democraticly.
You have to look at where the power is. If a private individual has the power - and any power over YOU - then he's much more, not less, likely to be abusive and tyrannical than democratic government that is accountable to the people would be.
I gather that human beings will continue to be driven to make one million, maybe ten million, OMG even one-hundred million. I don't think any one of us is going to throw our hands up in the air in frustration and refuse to be driven to success only because we know that any dollar earned beyond the ONE-THOUSANDTH MILLIONTH dollar point is going to be taxed at 100% unless you’re not smart enough to reinvest in your damn business located within the United States of America.
Try turning on your brain and turning off FOX not so news.