Not if you were mass killing in self defense.Voronwë the Faithful wrote:The last I knew, mass killing is criminal violence.
(*eyeroll directed at the gun lobby*)
Not if you were mass killing in self defense.Voronwë the Faithful wrote:The last I knew, mass killing is criminal violence.
Liable for what, is the key, imo. If liable for the results of people using guns unlawfully, then I don’t think it’s ludicrous at all to say that would put an end to gun manufacturing in America. How many multi-million dollar awards could a company survive?Voronwë the Faithful wrote: However, in my opinion it is ludicrous to say that allowing gun companies to be held liable would mean the end of gun manufacturing in America.
Allowing gun companies to be held liable would simply help force them to manufacture and advertise their product in a responsible manner <snip>
What are car companies held liable for? Not for deaths caused by illegal or careless use of those vehicles (which are inherently dangerous). As far as I know, they’re held liable when a flaw in the vehicle has caused a death. This doesn’t seem apply to the gun industry. I’d be all for holding a gun manufacturer liable if a gun exploded in someone’s face at a firing range, but that isn’t the issue here.<snip>(just like allowing car companies to be held liable encourages them to act responsibly).
I agree it's ridiculous that gun safety can't be studied. But that doesn't really get to the issue of holding gun companies liable for people using their legally sold products unlawfully. I just can't see a justifying principle there. You have to change the legal status of the weapons.CosmicBob wrote:But car companies are required to install safety features that work. You can't buy a new car without a seat belt or an airbag. And the government does safety testing on cars, and research on ways to reduce accidents. They are legally not allowed to do that with firearms. I find that to be ridiculous. What if there was something that you could have on a gun that would make it safer? We can't know, because no one does the research. It's not cost-effective, so the industry won't do it. And the government can't.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I agree it's a very, very big upset and the results will have to be carefully analyzed to figure out where the polling went (massively) wrong but in general the polls have actually been pretty good this election cycle wrt the democrats. I think we should be careful not to discount them too much...Dave_LF wrote:*Edit: Not quite. I don't know exactly how the rules work, but it looks like it's going to be 63 Sanders to 53 Clinton. He needs to narrow Clinton's lead by a lot more than 10 if he's going to catch up, but the fact that the polls were so, so far off here throws doubt on pretty much everything going forward.
Yes, you're right of course. It was an intemperate remark, made from an intemperate state of mind. It's distressing to see the Methodology fail so badly on my own territory, though. And personally embarrassing as well--I had a number of people ask me yesterday who I thought would win. Normally I respond to that sort of question with something like "well, there is a range of possible outcomes, each with its own probability, and which is realized will depend on how the balance of power between several factors shakes out," etc. etc. This time I decided to pretend I'm a normal person, and just said "Clinton, by a lot." And it didn't happen. The Norns of geekdom again remind me that my participation is mandatory.superwizard wrote:I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I agree it's a very, very big upset and the results will have to be carefully analyzed to figure out where the polling went (massively) wrong but in general the polls have actually been pretty good this election cycle wrt the democrats. I think we should be careful not to discount them too much...Dave_LF wrote:*Edit: Not quite. I don't know exactly how the rules work, but it looks like it's going to be 63 Sanders to 53 Clinton. He needs to narrow Clinton's lead by a lot more than 10 if he's going to catch up, but the fact that the polls were so, so far off here throws doubt on pretty much everything going forward.
From looking at the county-by-county breakdown and the exit polls, two factors jump out at me:Cerin wrote:It will be interesting to see analysis of what went wrong with the polling.
Could be. I considered doing so myself, but when push comes to shove, I'm not quite that cynical (at least not without a bigger payoff). Now, it may be that a large number of likely November Democrats have a Republican candidate they sincerely consider an acceptable second place choice, and crossed over to vote accordingly. The only reason I'd have for voting on that side would be to mess with them, and I'm not sure how one would even do that this year.Primula Baggins wrote:One theory I've read in several places is complacency on the part of Hillary voters—that many stayed home, and possibly many others crossed over to vote for Kasich.
The eastern parts that suffered the most are also the parts that went for Clinton. But, significantly, by smaller-than-predicted margins. The west half of the state (where I live) held up better in the 00s, and Sanders actually managed to pull off a win in the big cities there despite what a demographic model might predict. Personally, I'm not surprised by that aspect of things. The politics of the area are dominated by religious conservatives, and that seems to prevent people from becoming liberal unless the urge is so strong that they become really liberal (you can see the same effect the other way around in places like Madison, Wisconsin).Túrin Turambar wrote:I also suspect that Sanders' economic message went down well in Michigan, which has probably suffered more economically over the last decade or so than any other state (except perhaps Nevada). As did Trump's, for similar reasons. Still, it's a remarkable win for Sanders. And Trump seems to have bounced back from his little dip last week.
Hey, I resemble that remark! I say that I'm a cultural Dutch Reformed Protestant* who no longer practices, and I'm only half joking when I do. I'm pleased that "my" community rejected Trump, but disappointed that they went with Cruz instead. West Michigan evangelicals tend to be more pragmatic and less anti-intellectual/anti-establishment than their southern kin, and I'd hoped that would lead them to vote for Kasich instead. He seems to fit their philosophy, he's a neighbor, and he's the only one of the remaining serious GOP candidates who hasn't bragged about how fast he'd start World War III.ETA: On a personal note, I noticed Cruz did quite well in a number of counties in central western Michigan. That makes sense to me, as I know the area to have a lot of conservative evangelical Christians. My eldest brother lived for about twenty years in Muskegon, on the western side of MI, and I visited him there in the summer of 2001. The towns to the north had a lot of people of Dutch background who were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, which is quite conservative and evangelical in North America. Vison liked to say that if that was the Dutch Reformed Church, she'd love to see what the unreformed one was like (there were also quite a lot of Dutch-Canadians who were members of the Church up the Fraser Valley from where she lived). I have distinct memories of tall blond people and shops refusing to sell liquor on Sundays up the Lake Michigan coast from Muskegon, in Grand Rapids and (aptly-named) Holland. Those areas have all gone for Cruz.