illinilaw08

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2017 -> 02:01 PM) SB is right in the fact that "racism" has been watered down to the point where it means nothing to the general populous anymore, and it is fairly useless politically from one party to the other. It is used so often, it has lost all meaning. So because - in your mind - the term racism has been used to often, it should never be used? Racial issues solved!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2017 -> 01:27 PM) Do we really need to list all of the white people that this idiot has gone after? Can I start with a bid of John McCain? I think it's dangerous to ignore the idea that Trump hasn't made racially motivated decisions while in office to appeal to his base. The common thread with him going after McCain or McConnell or any of the other old white dudes in the Republican Party is that they criticized Trump. It's reasonable to ask - why is Trump fighting a culture war against the NFL players who are kneeling during the National Anthem as a protest against racial inequality while refusing to overtly condemn the white supremacists in Charlottesville? I mean, not everything with him has to be racial - and I'm not sure there's a link on the treatment of soldiers killed in action - but to ignore some of the patterns of Donald Trump with respect to people of color is pretty dangerous IMO.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Oct 18, 2017 -> 01:04 PM) I think the border security and flow of illegals that Obama wanted to stop he's doing a good job on. The wall idea seems ridiculous but overall I'd say he's been a positive influence on the southern border. Other positives? Haha i dunno Disagree on the border security issue by a lot. The Obama administration deported a lot of people, but they knew they had finite resources and targeted criminals for removal. The Trump administration's policies have driven a lot of illegals underground which has some really negative impacts on policing at a local level (ie, witness won't come forward because they are concerned that any contact with law enforcement will lead to a meeting with ICE).

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 02:15 PM) Trump etched his place in history as the first president to enter the White House in favor of gay marriage. This probably belongs in the Donald Trump thread but: From Fortune - Trump Administration asks US Appeals Court to find that federal law doesn't prohibit discrimination against LGBT folks. http://fortune.com/2017/09/26/white-house-...ump-lgbt-zarda/ From the New Yorker - How Trump uses religious liberty to attack LGBT rights. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ho...ack-lgbt-rights From Fox News - Trump one-two punch hits birth control and LGBT rights. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/06/trump...gbt-rights.html

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 02:14 PM) What's your point? Your words. That's not in any way what I was doing. This is a thread about Weinstein. For some reason it's all about Trump...I don't know why. Ironically, your post here would be a perfectly suited response to your opinions on Patrick Kane when he was sexually assaulting girls. I'm not the one defending Donald Trump against accusations of sexual assault by saying "rape /= sexual assault." I'm not the one defending Donald Trump because a number of the accusations came about in 2016. At no point have you said that, if true, Trump's behavior is wrong (by contrast, everyone in this thread has condemned Weinstein). So based on all that, either women are lying about being groped by Donald Trump, or you are ok with his behavior because it's only sexual assault.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 01:57 PM) Rape =/= sexual assault. So sexual assault is fine?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 01:48 PM) Throwing the word rape around like commonplace to malign the character of your political opposition doesn't make it any better. We live in a culture where men are expected to make the first move. They're not a rapist when they read the situation wrong. Trump didn't drug anyone. Trump didn't make any insertions without consent. He didn't stick any objects you smoke into any orifices. He didn't drug anyone. He didn't promise a job. If what he's accused of is rape then I imagine the vast majority of our presidents are rapists. Jill Harth sued Donald Trump in 1997 alleging sexual assault, including non-consensual groping of private parts - it settled out of court. A 1993 book on Trump asserts that he sexually assaulted Ivana Trump while they were married. A variety of other women have come forward and accused Trump of groping them without their consent. Groping someone without their consent is absolutely sexual assault.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 01:42 PM) Because people's hate for him has made them lose touch with reality. Man, I'm glad that you know all those women were liars...

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 01:34 PM) They said they would sue him. So far nothing. Once Trump won the election he stopped being referred to as a rapist. If you guys really believe he is a rapist I am curious why you just let it go so quickly? Rape is no joke to me. Not "insult of the month" type territory. It's in its own special category. Also, my friend was talking to a girl and thought she liked him and he tried to kiss her. He read the situation wrong. She shut him down because she was still kind of with her boyfriend so she didn't want to be kissed by another. Is my friend a rapist now... Nobody has let it go, dude. Our society as a whole needs to do a better job of not giving cover to powerful men (mostly men) who use their power to prey on those around them. Penn State, the Catholic Church, Weinstein/Cosby/Ailes/O'Reily (Hollywood casting in general), politicians (including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump). Putting sexual assault into degrees, or hand waving it away because it isn't serious enough for you does nothing to remedy the problem.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 01:28 PM) I do remember a man who has been in the public light, for what? 40 years? getting a barrage of accusations against him in the weeks/months leading up to the election. Has Trump made women uncomfortable with his advances? I am sure. Has he drugged any of them? Has he traded sexual favors for influence? Has he been charged with anything? Has he been charged criminally? Have the efforts of celebrity lawyers led to anything? Was the timing of the accusers in any way curious? I am not going to sit here and continue to defend Trump but sometimes I want to pull you guys back into reality. What Trump was accused of is not the same as what Ailes/Cosby/Weinstein did. It's that simple. You asserted that it was only words from Trump. Crimson and I both provided you with a list of the many allegations of sexual assault against Trump (he seems to have a real issue with unsolicited groping). To the extent that any of those allegations are true, he has created victims - maybe not victims that suffered to the same degree as the victims of Cosby/Aiels/Weinstein, etc., but still victims. Why are you defending him?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 01:01 PM) I am not really sure of what happened with O'Reilly but comparing the victims of the men listed with Trump's p**** comment is really messed up. People suffered because of Ailes, Cosby, Weinstein and perhaps O'Reilly as well. Trump's words, while crude, didn't create any victims. BBC from October 2016 summarizing the sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump. http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37641814

QUOTE (zenryan @ Oct 11, 2017 -> 07:05 AM) Last night and today sucks but in a few hours I'll be watching the playoffs and then football all weekend. I won't go out of my way to watch the WC draw in December but next summer when this team isn't prepping for Russia with friendlies is when it'll really set in for me. Ive said it before but one of my favorite things about the WC is the actual qualifying. But this team was painful to watch. Couldn't even win one match away from home and this was a weak Hex. Honduras is trash. So is T&T. It's really amazing this team couldn't even get to the playoff. But last night summed up the last 3 years. JK should've been fired after that 4th place finish in the Gold Cup. I get why Arena was brought in, just to get to Russia but that didn't work. And how often does the reunions ever work? Maybe that's the good in this. We get to Russia and that delays the fundamental changes that need to take place. Or maybe worse, the USSF doesn't feel the heat and the status quo continues. Yep. Arena should be gone tomorrow, and Gulati should be gone as well. Failing to qualify for the World Cup, with this Hex, and at this point in the development curve of US Soccer means heads should roll. And the rebuild has to happen right away. The Bradley/Altidore/Dempsey/Howard generation is aged out of the next cycle (maybe - Bradley will be 35 in '22 and Jozy will be 31). They provided a lot of good soccer over the years, and two trips to the knockout rounds of the WC. But their time is now done. The US failed to really find and develop any homegrown talent between the core from the last decade, and the newest group (Pulisic and Wood I guess?). So the next coach needs to find the guys who are going to be the mainstays in the next set of qualifying and set the roster up for 2022.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 10, 2017 -> 03:19 PM) Not to get all political, but I guess this means we can stop with the "Republicans don't care about women" crap. Clearly the left elitists in Hollywood allowing this s*** to go on for so long don't care either. Jesus Jenks, this is ridiculous. Because of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, we can ignore the difference in policies toward women between Democrats and Republicans at the local and national level! Come on now... SB has this on the head. Men in power have been abusing people below them forever. It happens in Hollywood. It happens in corporate America. It happens on Capitol Hill. It happened at Penn State. Making it easier for the abused to come forward without fear of their careers being ruined, and getting this crap out of the shadows, needs to be the goal.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 5, 2017 -> 11:15 AM) The problem with any of the commonly given "Yes, but what about..."'s is that none of the others are constitutionally protected. There aren't many constitutional equals to gun rights that are up for debate... thinking more about it, maybe voting rights? Then again like abortion, the people who want common sense gun laws tend to be the ones who favor no voting restrictions and the ones who want no gun restrictions want voting restrictions. Politically, it is fascinating to me. Speech is constitutionally protected, but there are restrictions placed upon that right. Also, re: your abortion argument, I don't see many in the pro-choice camp advocating for unrestricted abortions at 8 months, so I don't think that analogy is on point either.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 5, 2017 -> 10:28 AM) The point is to reduce the amount of situations where a gun is available. Just like, in the sentence preceding yours, no, we will not be able to insert an intervention into all violent scenarios, but we could insert them where we can and REDUCE VIOLENCE. If the situations where guns were involved was reduced, lethality would reduce, but here's the important thing: maybe not all violence. No, I do not think all gun murders being eliminated is a likely goal. But reducing them is a very worthy goal, something that should be sought after and tweaked and revised toward the best solutions daily. The goal, IMO, should also be to reduce suicide by gun. I've harped on this before here, but attempted suicide by gun is almost always a successful attempt vs. attempted suicide by other means (pills, cutting, etc.). Now this is definitely a trickier point because it necessarily requires firearms to be less accessible in the home. But (shout out to bmags) since the government can't fund studies on gun deaths, we don't really have data available to talk solutions to that issue that both protect gun owners while also making an appreciable dent on firearm deaths...

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 04:11 PM) I dunno, you title and register your car, doesn't mean you're a good driver. If you're going with a training/certification route, make that a requirement for getting your FOID card. I'm not opposed to this and think it's a good idea, but it's not going to change shooting/death numbers significantly. OK, more paperwork/bureaucracy, more restrictions on you trying to sell the guns. Whose paying for this department of firearms? Seems like a lot of work and a lot of responsibility placed on individuals. Something like this at gun stores I would be fine with. Replace gang banger with just a general criminal. Criminals are already violating laws by using the guns in a manner that is illegal. Bans don't work, they just create black markets. I don't see any difference with guns, especially when you already have a 350 million gun back log. Again, i'm fine limiting gun sales to prevent this type of issue. When a gun is purchased from a store or trade show, the person should have a valid FOID card, mental/background checks should be done to ensure the person buying should have gun to begin with (e.g., anyone with psychotropic medications should be banned, felons should be banned, etc.). But registering/titling doesn't prevent someone from using a gun, and if people are already buying guns legally now, they'll figure out the "legal" way to do it later. So you register and title guns, the same person that legally buys the gun in Indiana legally buys the same gun in Indiana via the registration/titling law you want. That same person still transfers the gun to the eventual criminal. I believe, but am not 100% certain, that you're only allowed to sell a gun privately if you ensure the person buying has a FOID card. I don't think it's a criminal penalty but a civil one. I need to check to see if that's still accurate though. I disagree to a certain extent because it's not just the inability to eradicate crime, it's the inability to appreciably lessen crime coupled with the unfair burden on the vast majority of law abiding gun owners/purchasers. There's a balancing act there. Couple things really quick here: 1) Isn't a FOID only a requirement to purchase a gun in Illinois? Also, to the extend that a FOID card is a national thing (I honestly don't know), who is actually monitoring and enforcing sales that don't comply? 2) You have to at least pass a driver's test to legally operate a vehicle. There's some minimum threshold of competency that's required. 3) I think more restrictions on you selling guns is a good thing. I shouldn't be able to order a gun over the internet without jumping through hoops. Registration addresses that. That's honestly the point of sale that I think is the MOST concerning. And here's my biggest issue with the gun debate. I've advocating for registering firearms, and for ensuring a minimum level of competence to own a firearm - basically treating them like vehicles. At what point is a regulation not an "unfair burden on the vast majority of law abiding gun owners/purchasers?" Jenks, what regulations on guns ARE you ok with? ETA: Don't know how I missed this the first time through. With a registration and titling system, it's easier to report a firearm stolen. If your gun is used in the commission of a crime, and you didn't report it stolen, and you didn't transfer title, then there could be some sort of potential penalty (civil or criminal) to the person whose gun was used. I obviously haven't thought that all the way through, but there's actually a paper trail to follow - it's like why banks have cash reporting requirements - if somebody deposits cash above $x, the banks have to report it. Makes it way easier to chase money laundering and RICO investigations.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 02:37 PM) I agree but as i said in other responses, people are afraid that if you allow the government to take something away they will just want to continue it. You are correct about the firearms and the secondary market. This is a loophole that really needs to close. Don't those necessarily play together though? Registering firearms isn't taking them away. And it's the only way to really close (or manage) the secondary market for firearms, isn't it?

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 03:16 PM) illinilaw08 - I think the other response to your question is "what will this new law really change? Is it even necessary?" If your aim is to decrease crime, what does a gang banger care if he's carrying an unregistered gun? Or a guy like this mass-murderer. He went through all the steps to legally acquire the guns he used, so he would do the same thing if registration was required. That wouldn't have stopped anything. Couple of practical applications: 1) If firearms have to be titled and registered, then there's an easy mechanism to ensure that people are competent to own a gun when they buy a gun. Before my father-in-law took me shooting with him, he made me watch a safety video and spend a couple hours working on safety before he was comfortable taking me to the range. I don't think everyone is that cautious about guns. But if you had to take a firearm safety test before owning a gun, that would go a long way toward making sure that firearm owners respect the tool. 2) If you are selling a gun on the secondary market, and it goes through the Department of Firearms, there's an infinitely better chance that you are selling the gun to somebody who is legit. At some point in my life, I will probably inherit some firearms, and they are definitely going to be sold. It would be a lot easier to do that if the process was regulated. 3) The gang banger argument doesn't really work for me. That might be a large portion of the gun violence in Chicago, but it isn't all of the gun violence nationally. Furthermore, my understanding of gun crimes in Chicago is that they are by and large committed using firearms that are purchased legally in Indiana and other bordering states. Registering and titling firearms might slow the black market transfer of guns because they will be easier to trace - of course it's impossible to actually get a handle on that because we can't study anything relating to firearms (shout out to bmags). My take on firearms (which I've said on here a lot) is that they are a particularly dangerous tool. Make sure that people are competent to handle them, keep them out of places where liquor is served. Guns have the potential to turn an argument tragic to a degree that fists or a knife do not. Yes, you might not be able to eradicate gun crime or mass shootings like we saw in Vegas, but those aren't good arguments to not make common sense changes to our gun laws!

QUOTE (ptatc @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 01:18 PM) It falls under "if you give them an inch they'll take a mile" If you give the government a concession on automatic rifles will they take more late. I see why people get crazy about it. See, this is the part that I don't get. With as strong as the gun lobby is in this country, we're infinitely closer to Medicare For All than we are to the government taking our guns away - and I don't think we're particularly close to actually having Medicare For All enacted. Because firearms are not titled, they are really, really easy to sell to basically anybody on the secondary market right? Maybe I'm missing something here because I'm not a gun owner, and if I am, someone can educate me otherwise...

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 11:47 AM) "It's the first step towards the government confiscating all firearms" is the number one gun advocate argument against it. Right, that's the only argument that I have ever actually heard against that, and I don't really consider that a compelling argument (at all). ptac and Rock, thanks for the responses.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 11:36 AM) The issue isn't thefts as much as it is obtaining them through gun shows and similar circumstances where they aren't registered properly. ptac (and I guess anyone else) - thoughts on requiring firearms to be titled like a vehicle? Seems to me that would make it easier to create a regulated secondary market for firearm sales. It would require a nationalized database, and there would be issues accounting for the many millions of firearms already in circulation, but I've never heard a particularly compelling argument against.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 4, 2017 -> 10:25 AM) I don't like that it's for private industry, but I've been an advocate of more of these programs over jail time. Think if we put low level offenders to work cleaning up vacant lots and graffiti or starting more city beautification programs. They get punished (having to work of their crimes) and the public benefits. Yeah, huge difference between a requirement of public service (particularly on something like city beautification projects that are generally volunteer only anyway) as a diversion program to time in prison/jail and having the prison supply free labor to the private companies...

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 3, 2017 -> 04:28 PM) There is no reason there cannot be a middle ground between financial conservatism and social liberalism IMO I'm just not sure what the bolded means at this point. The Republicans' economic platform, really since Reagan, has been to cut taxes to the wealthy and let it all trickle down. On the spending side, it's been either deficits don't matter (Reagan and Bush II) or slashing spending. If financial conservatism means pushing government to be more efficient with its allocation of resources, I'm in favor of it! If financial conservatism means slashing budgets (except for the military) and cutting the safety net, I'm against it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2017 -> 03:44 PM) If there is no such influence on campaigns, why is the left still talking about Russia? Because Russia's influence over the last election, and the extent to which one of the campaign's aided or abetted that influence, is currently being investigated by a Special Counsel.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Oct 3, 2017 -> 01:52 PM) Except murder rates are way, way down. # of guns sold =/= more killings. It certainly equals more deaths by gun. Suicides are left out of this equation (per the CDC over 21k suicides by gun in the US last year), but attempted suicide by gun is almost always effective while pills and other attempts are much more likely to be unsuccessful.