Gun Control, Mental healthcare, big brother... thread

This is more that a "dump back". The crazy kid does not get the guns if father can't be found or does not approve like Mercer. Who better to judge the kid than father? And if the father has
abdicated his roll, then no gun unless he can convince the Police department he is competent.

 

Then he won't be on record as having earned the right himself. He can't pass the right on to the son.

 

I could be mistaken, but once that kid turns 18, his parents don't have a lot of legal say. But even if they did, at what age is it no longer the parent's responsibility? At 18, let it become the legal system's responsibilty. Kinda like gun registration, with a rider attached......??

 

Fine but I am suggesting that Father be the one to judge when the kid has earned the right to be armed. Perhaps the kid will need to wait until father dies and then
he tries to go through the Police department to get certified to bear arms. Some kids are ready at 18, some are not. Some aren't ready at 28. Taking dad off the
hook for these kids they abandon or ignore is a very big part of the issue.

 

This is the area that interests me as allowing for some measure of action within the limits of the existing Constitution and case law. A limitation on the number of rounds a magazine is allowed to hold could be one limitation permitted. Caliber of bullets for pistols might be another area. It might be possible to limit access to certain weapons shooting larger caliber bullets, or assault-style rifles, to individuals who pass a background check and a firearm safety program. I'm just spit-balling, but it seems to me that some level of restriction could be authorized without running afoul of 2nd amendment protections.

 

Can anyone think of a mass shooter in recent history, that was female? I can not. I can't remember one that lived with father either, always without a father or live with mother.

So we are not talking about mentally ill young men, we are talking about troubled young men without the help of a father. That is the result of my profiling.

 

I did use snopes. And their response didn't discredit the findings. They said it's misleading.

But I did my own research from their link that snopes provided (which I've seen them start to have an agenda now) and saw they've misleaded us.

http://www.abs.gov.au

See for yourself.

 

Australia crimes from 2010 to 2013,
1.) Gun related murder went from 16.9% to 18.9% (increase of 2%).
2.) Gun related Attempted Murder went from 24.2% to 32.7% (Increase of 7.5%).
3.) Gun related Robberies went from 7.1% to 7.6% (Not much of an increase)

 

http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/04/27/snopes-liberal-bias-and-trusting-the-internet/

Snopes, “Liberal Bias,” and Trusting the Internet

A few weeks ago, a post circulated on Facebook with the headline “Snopes got snoped!” It originated with a group called “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.” The group has a noticeable presence on Facebook, with over 400,000 likes and many, many shares of each of their posts. The page is clearly a “right-wing” group, with posts varying from standard conservative issues to those downright racially or sexually bigoted. I won’t address those posts further, but I want to look at the issue of Snopes’ trustworthiness directly, along with the larger issue of reliable sources.

Snopes got Snoped?
Did this story reveal something new about Snopes that I missed? I always look into claims about sources I trust, as I want to make sure they can remain on my list, or if I should reevaluate them. I looked into the story a bit further.

A website known as “Worldtruth.tv” is the source of the original story. Here is the reason it says Snopes is not a trustworthy source:

For several years people have tried to find out who exactly was behind the website Snopes.com. Only recently did they get to the bottom of it. Are you ready for this? It is run by a husband and wife team – that’s right, no big office of investigators scouring public records in Washington, no researchers studying historical stacks in libraries, no team of lawyers reaching a consensus on current caselaw. No, Snopes.com is just a mom-and-pop operation that was started by two people who have absolutely no formal background or experience in investigative research.


Only recently? Snopes has an “About Snopes” section on their website which clearly states who the founders are and how they do their investigations. Why this took “people” “several years” to find this out is baffling, when simply clicking on the “about” page would accomplish this in 5 seconds (plus reading time of course).

The story continues, giving only one example of a supposed inaccuracy regarding the story of an insurance agent posting political signs on his business sign. WorldTruth claims Snopes “condemned” this on their website. The only condemnation I can find in the article itself is Ms. Mikkelson referring to the sayings on the sign as a “zinger.”

It turns out, the entire story of Snopes misrepresenting the story came from an e-mail circulated by another right-wing website. That website has since taken down any reference to it on their site. The claim is that Snopes never contacted the company this agent represented. Turns out, they did. FactCheck.org also contacted the company, and the company verified both their request to the agent, as well as their contact with Snopes. WorldTruth reprinted a rumor that has long since been proven false.

A larger look at the site called WorldTruth.tv reveals something very hilarious. The claim that Snopes shouldn’t be trusted because it is only run by 2 people (the Mikkelsons) comes from a website run by 1 person who only identifies himself as Eddie. From WorldTruth.tv’s “About Us” page:

My name is Eddie and WorldTruth.TV is my way to share all the knowledge and information that I have acquired and been blessed with in the last 32 years of my journey on this planet.

WorldTruth.TV is a website dedicated to educating and informing people on regular basis with well-researched articles on powerful and concealed information. I’ve spent the last 32 years researching Theosophy, Freemasonry, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, the Bavarian Illuminati and Western Occultism. I remember when I first learned about the “Truth” and it wasn’t pretty. I remember learning about how the mass media lies to our faces consistently. About how the educational system only teaches the youth what they need to become obedient workers.

I have to rub my forehead every time I read it. The website making a claim Snopes cannot be accurate because they do not have a large team is supposed to be trustworthy when being run by one person. If someone can make sense of that logic, please let me know!

Apparently, the entire site is filled with re-posted articles from other fringe websites promoting conspiracies, pseudoscience, etc. For example, another headline from this site is one called “The Vaccine Hoax Is Over.” The article in its entirety is a copy from another page called the “Food Freedom Group.” So “Eddie” did quite the investigation on vaccines (yes, that is sarcasm)!

The original article goes on to “prove” vaccines are harmful (in this case the flu vaccine) by citing articles from Mercola and Natural News. I tried clicking around to various links to the original studies that show this claim to be valid, but it mostly leads in a circle to these websites. The external links I could find were to the CDC. One link was to the VAERS system, but to all reports of incidents with the HPV vaccine – which of course has nothing to do with the flu vaccine. The other link was to statements by the CDC which state the flu vaccine is safe, which the article claims is evidence of a cover-up.

Looking at “Eddie’s” research – nothing about WorldTruth is trustworthy. I guess my trust in Snopes as a quick resource, or at least a good starting point, is still secure.

Snopes’ Liberal Bias
One claim made both on my post a few weeks ago, as well as by many websites of a conservative bent, is that Snopes has a liberal bias. I thought I was clear in my post that it would appear to be so, simply because the current president is a Democrat, but for the sake of those that claim a liberal bias, I grabbed a few articles regarding our last president, George W. Bush, in order to show that what they report is based on what is being passed around, not on the politics.

President Bush’s Low IQ

The premise here was that out of all the presidents since FDR, George W. Bush had the lowest. It was a study supposedly done by a think tank that turned out didn’t exist. Snopes even found two instances of newspapers publishing the information. It had a very obvious liberal bias, as the top 3 were listed as democrats with genius level IQs, while the bottom 5 were republicans. Snopes referred to the low IQs assigned to the two Bush presidents as “insultingly low” just based on their ability to write and speak (while acknowledging the difficulty in assigning IQ based just on those items). I would think a site with a liberal bias would choose not to report this at all, or at least avoid commentary in favor of two conservative presidents.

President Bush “refused to sell his home to blacks”
When George Bush was elected governor in Texas, he bought a house that had a covenant on it from when it was built in 1939 that stated only whites could dwell in the house. This was not an uncommon practice at that time, and often these covenants went unnoticed because they were declared illegal by the Supreme Court in 1948. The wording remains because of a cumbersome legal process to have the actual wording removed, but the covenant is not enforced because it is illegal to do so.

Snopes reports that it is very plausible for the future president not to know about the covenant because it is not part of the deed seen by the buyers and sellers, but part of a larger record recorded with the county. Snopes also dismisses the liberal claim that the conservative media swept it under the rug when the conservative reporter Matt Drudge clearly did report on the issue.

President Bush Waves at Stevie Wonder
Many of the internet rumors that went around during the Bush presidency had to do with supposed gaffes that were supposed to show the president’s low intelligence. This example is another such story. Snopes listed this as false as well. As they reasoned, it is probably untrue as it was a very slight wave and from a distance, so it was likely meant for someone else. They even provide benefit of the doubt to the president, stating that the gesture of waving is an ingrained gesture of greeting, and something we might do even before thinking about it. This is even more so for a politician. As they state, this is likely more of a result of the caricature of President Bush then it is of his actual actions.’

Mitt Romney’s Shoe Shine

Snopes rates the photos above as real, but with an inaccurate description. The claim going with the photo is that while President Obama is a “man of the people” who fist bumps janitors, Governor Romney is one who will stop anywhere to get a shoe shine. What is actually happening in the Romney photograph is he is getting a security check before boarding a flight. The photo description has a pretty obvious liberal origin, and Snopes shows it to be false.

Romney uses a KKK slogan for his own campaign
The Washington Post is often accused of liberal bias. In one such case, a blogger for the paper reported Romney was using “Keep America American” as a slogan, which is associated with the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan. This started because of a report that Romney used the phrase during a campaign stop in Iowa. The Los Angeles Times later issued a correction, saying they misquoted the governor. Romney actually was saying “keep America America,” which is in reference to a less government policy, and not in any way race related.

However, the rumor was perpetuated by the Washington Post, and Snopes addressed it. Snopes went so far as to find a video of Romney using that same phrase, showing he clearly was saying “keep America America,” and not the phrase which he is accused of saying. The blogger for the Post was fired, and a correction was added to the piece. Nice work by Snopes, and not something I would expect if there was a massive liberal bias.

Trusted Sources
What did I learn from this? I learned there is yet another quack website out there, and that WorldTruth.tv is a fear-mongering, conspiracy website that should be avoided. Snopes will continue to serve its purpose in debunking social media nonsense. Although there have been one or two cases where they haven’t been able to get an answer, or a case or two where perhaps they didn’t go back to update something when additional information comes forth, they generally do a great job investigating claims and rumors of all kinds–regardless of politics.

I also will continue to investigate claims about my sources being unreliable. But I have found that sites like Science Based Medicine, Skeptoid, Bad Astronomy, and even Wikipedia (in some cases) can be good sources of information, especially when they can be quickly checked against primary sources (such as scientific papers). How deeply I investigate will depend on the purpose, but these sites will continue to serve as one place to start. Wikipedia only continues to improve thanks to the effort of Susan Gerbic and the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project. Hopefully all of our efforts to separate the good from the bad will keep our trusted sources trustworthy.

 

Bias in myth-busting?

Some critics argue that embedded in the explanations of Snopes conclusions is a political or social bias, citing the great American essayist E.B. White, who wrote, “I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular.”

Snopes even became the subject of an Internet myth itself, a widely distributed e-mail claiming it was owned by “a flaming liberal in the tank for Obama” and that TruthOrFiction.com was a less biased myth-busting website.

In response, the Mikkelsons claim to be as neutral as possible and reject the political activist label.

“We have no sponsors, investors, or partners, nor do we have any affiliation or relationship (financial or otherwise) with any political party, religious group, business organization, or any other group or agency,” states the Snopes FAQ page. “We pay all the costs of producing and operating this website ourselves and derive our income from the advertising it provides.”

For its part, the TruthOrFiction website mentioned in some of the critical e-mails even produced a piece on the rumor that Snopes “is a secret tool of the Democratic Party to Promote Barack Obama,” labeling the accusation as “fiction.”

WND asked David Mikkelson what safeguards might be in place to prevent bias from creeping into its articles.

“Our safeguard is the millions of readers (including major news organizations, government agencies, universities, and authors) who value our site’s long-established reputation for fairness, accuracy, and reliability,” Mikkelson responded. “We would not maintain such a reputation if we did not consistently apply objective standards in our reporting.”

What about the sources Snopes uses?

Other critics question the process of how the Mikkelsons choose sources they consider definitive in determining truth.

Mikkelson told WND Snopes considers several factors in determining if a source is trustworthy, including the source’s history of reliability, corroboration of other sources, tangible evidence and independent verification of the source’s information.

The Mikkelsons admit, however, that Snopes is only as reliable as the sources it cites, and they invite readers to look for the truth themselves.

“We don’t expect anyone to accept us as the ultimate authority on any topic, which is why our site’s name indicates that it contains reference pages,” states the Snopes FAQ page. “The research materials we’ve used in the preparation of any particular page are listed … so that readers who wish to verify the validity of our information may check those sources for themselves.”

When Farah wrote about Snopes in his “Beware the Internet!” column, his criticism keyed in on the website’s choice of sources.

Snopes was investigating claims that the Environmental Protection Agency was covering over safety concerns with compact fluorescent light bulbs. In determining the concerns a myth, however, Snopes cited as evidence the EPA.

“Notice the sources Snopes relies upon to conclude beyond any doubt CFLs don’t pose a serious health threat to anyone,” Farah writes, “the same government agency pushing CFLs. Where I come from (nearly 30 years of solid journalism experience), this is not considered good reporting. This is not considered the best way to seek truth and enlightenment or even objective facts.”

In the case of reports and dozens of lawsuits arguing that Barack Obama may not actually be constitutionally eligible to serve as president, Snopes has determined that Obama – despite his refusal to release his long-form birth certificate (which names the delivering hospital, doctor and other specifics) to the press or the courts – is a natural born citizen and eligible to serve as president.

The hoax-buster’s choice of sources in making the determination, however, has again led to criticism.

The Snopes conclusion refers to an image posted on another website, FactCheck, which in turn cites as documentation of Obama’s Hawaiian birth a “Certification of Live Birth” that the Obama campaign posted during 2008.

Critics, however, have pointed out that the “Certification of Live Birth” posted online is not, in fact, the same as a “Birth Certificate,” and COLBs have been issued by Hawaii
to parents whose children are not even born in the state.

California lawyer Orly Taitz, whose work is on her Defend Our Freedoms Foundation website, has written to state lawmakers across the nation, confronting the Snopes explanation directly:

“The State of Hawaii, statute 338, allows foreign born children of Hawaiian residents to get a Hawaiian birth certificate. Mr. Obama has never presented any corroborating evidence that he was actually born in Hawaii. His paternal grandmother in Kenya and the ambassador of Kenya made statements that he was born in Kenya,” she said.

“The image that Mr. Obama has posted on the Internet was not a valid birth certificate, but rather a limited value document, called Short Version Certification of Live Birth. The Certification of Live Birth does not name a hospital, name a doctor, have any signatures or a seal of the Hawaiian Health Department on the front of the document. This document is usually given to parties that don’t have a proper hospital birth certificate and it is given based on a statement of one relative only. Even the state of Hawaii doesn’t give full credit to these documents,” she continued.

Taitz has suggested the records from the “Annenberg FactCheck” cited by Snopes be subpoenaed “as to how did they claim to have examined Obama’s birth certificate and found it valid. Neither the state of Hawaii, nor Obama has ever released such birth certificate, and there is no evidence of Obama being born in any hospital in Hawaii.”

While Snopes and its critics may be at odds over the sources Snopes uses – and thus in disagreement over how reliable the site may be in every case – they do agree on one principle:

“I’ve got to tell you, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet,” writes Farah. “You’ve got to use common sense and discernment in sorting out the good from the bad.”


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2009/03/91196/#Rg2gqdgXgZFlOYBr.99

 

The increase of gun related crimes in Australia misleading? This was directly from the site snopes.com used as a reference...