[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Oberon

For example in guns, tougher sentences for those violating gun safety protocols should also be accompanyed by a campaign to inform and educate people on gun safety as well as an effort by gun manufacturers to ensure that new firearms have as many safety features as possible (although tbh I'm pretty sure that they already do) and perhaps research into whether a non-intrusive device can be made for making older firearms safer.

The problem is that people often can be informed about what safe protocols are - and ignore them. This is what occurred in the Idaho shooting. The woman was educated, trained and chose to ignore well established rules - and it cost her and her family her life. People choose all the time to violate good sense - and no amount of "laws" are going to change that. The problem isn't people with guns - its people with guns who make bad choices, but going after the ones who make "safety errors" instead of those that commit actual crimes is putting the cart before the horse. If you want to focus on guns - lets focus on those that use guns in a manner that violates the rights of others before anything else. That is what frustrates so many legal gun owners - gun control advocates want to stop gun crime/violence (so they say) - yet they somehow expect some new gun law to help. If a criminal with a gun is going to violate the law by robbing / assaulting someone - is some "gun law" magically going to make them reconsider? No - they are already going to violate the law - so one more violation won't matter to them....

The level playing field comes back to trying to create a more equal society, where the money isn't quite so lopsided.

What you've got to try and avoid though, is the criminalisation and demonisation of the poor, which is becoming a sadly too common occurrence and it's something that appeals to that inner part of a person that likes to feel superior to someone else.

Yes, we all start out and end up the same in a physical sense. But what differentiates people is the choices they make in between birth and death. There are a LOT of people who grew up poor and have worked their way out of poverty. This is found across racial boundaries - but it is found less in some social demographics. When you take a closer look, you find that the social structure of those demographics has been eroded significantly, and the majority who are stuck in poverty are also being victimized by the "benevolent" government - never given any reason or encouragement to work to get out of poverty.

Example - why should a person choose to work when they can choose not to - and get their housing, food and essential bills paid for? What encourages them to get out and make a better life for themselves? Why practice responsibility when a woman on government aid can get pregnant, have yet another child and then collect more money from the aid program instead of being encouraged (or even "pushed") to make something out of her life?

The problem with the poor isn't that they are poor. It is that they are being victimized - primarily by a government (in the US at least) that gains power from them being poor. After all - if they keep you in power because you give them freebies - the more they need and the more you give the more power you have....

I don't know the situation in the US, but in the UK there's been a determined focus by the ConDems to fight benefit fraud, by making it tougher to gain certain benefits. Now in theory this might sound like a good solution, but in practice it's had the unfortunate side effect that many people who are legitimately in need of these benefits have been unable to get them, in particular people who are disabled. This has had a knock on effect.

If a person can prove via documentation that they have a true need, like a disabled person who has been determined to be disabled, I have no problem with certain benefits being offered. But when you have people like my ex-wife, who is trying to get disability right now - yet texted me that she was "working holiday hours" at a call center to make money for Christmas - yea that needs to be denied. That kind of fraud happens a LOT and it actually costs those who need services.

Finally - you can not have a "fully equal society". Not everyone is equal. Some people have talents in one area - others have talents in others. I am not equal to any NBA player on the court, but I doubt many of them can perform a double-tap. Its like gender "equality". Men and women can do different things better than the other. I know a few women who are mechanically inclined, but the vast majority don't have the skill to tear down a small block and rebuild it. I don't know a single guy capable of having a baby, or picking out the latest "stylish" clothes. Heck, as a guy I am proud I can make my socks match! I know people of many races and both genders who are better chemists, physicists, researchers, etc. that I am. Equality can not exist because not everyone is equal. When a person is born, they are a blank slate of limitless potential - and it is the choices they make that let them reach - or limits - that potential.

Sorry, but your just not going to get me to agree that the 20yr old kid who chooses to rob a liquor store for cash, gets drunk, beats up and kills his pregnant girlfriend is somehow my "equal". His choices made him NOT my equal. Personal responsibility matters - and until we as a society get back to that - there is little hope for those that are trapped and told that its everyone else's fault that they are poor and downtrodden.