According to iTele there are now 118 dead.
Edit: Now it's up to 140. What a sad day :(
replies(5):
Edit: Now it's up to 140. What a sad day :(
The knowledge that a network could carry out such a widespread and well-coordinated attack without being preempted, in a situation of maximum alert, will heavy on the minds of any French citizen regardless of whether victims were 118 or 119. Basically, the French security system has been revealed as completely ineffective. That is a huge problem.
You can't even prevent them when not being a free society. Its not like terrorism only occurs in free societies.
Terrorism doesn't need weaponry. The only deterrent would be to read people's minds, and you've probably watched Minority Report and other such dystopian scenarios. It's something that needs to be solved at the root, and TBF I don't believe it can be fixed.
On the street and in restaurants, that's another story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorism_in_the_Sovi...
This is not a Breivik, or a "Shoe Bomber" Reid; this is '70s-style, organised, cross-border terrorism -- the sort of which "we" were supposed to be good at handling by now.
What the hell is wrong with people, suggesting guns as a solution to unpredictable violent situations where guns wouldn't make any difference.
You arm citizens, now what? Shoot anyone that looks mildly suspicious? Hear a bomb go off, you take out your gun then scare the shit out of people surrounding you, then get shot by somebody else that thinks you're part of the bombing?
If you control for these gangland shootings, the per capita rate in the U.S. is about the same as Western Europe and Canada.
The U.S. has a socio-economic problem in the ghetto areas, not a gun problem per se, unless you want to argue that it's too easy for gangbangers to obtain guns.
Law abiding citizens with guns aren't doing most of the shootings. Suicides, that's a different story.
Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
Being a police state is one thing; being an _effective_ police state is something else, much harder (at least in the pre-computer era). In the Soviet case, it didn't help that they didn't really care much about crime...
Really we need to ban guns from shooters. But there's no way to identify them without catching a lot of harmless people up in the same net. Even poor black gang members can be harmless.
Soviets did have some organized crime, but they were well, Russians.
GDR, Czechoslovakia, etc, somewhat less inept countries had very little crime and no organized crime to speak of.
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Here are 12.
http://controversialtimes.com/issues/constitutional-rights/1...
I've seriously considered the "arm your citizens" argument, and honestly can't think of it helping, at all.
These guys aren't your run-of-the-mill muggers; they're actively thinking about inflicting the highest casualties in the most efficient manner.
Today it's shootings since most people wouldn't be armed, tomorrow it's something else that guns won't prevent.
While the regime exercised strong control of information prior to glasnost, and had plenty of motive to repress information that would indicate weakness of the regime, there are numerous known hijackings, the 1977 Moscow bombings, and others. (While reliable information about responsibility for some, and any broader organizational responsibility that might be behind those clearly responsible for others, is hard to come by, there does seem to be a disproportionate link to Armenia among the known incidents, with some specifically linked to Armenian nationalists.)
As 'NotHereNotThere said, terrorists attack in a way adequate to the conditions. They have time to prepare, so whatever means of defense you have, they'll strike in a way in which those means won't help you.
You have articulated the opposite of what self defense proponents want. Here in AZ proponents of humans being able to defend themselves got a recent (partial) win with United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez. Talking large groups of people hostage is logistically extremely difficult when even a few % are armed.
And to those who say "they will use bombs instead of attacking armed people"... Should bombs be banned too?
Terrorism doesn't need weaponry.
(and I'm not talking about 9/11, although it could count as such as well)
How many of the attacks happened because it was easy to get guns in the first place?
A terrorist will always be able to procure guns. But what about an unhappy employee, an angry teenager ?
Arming people is no solution to terrorism.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/amsterdam-paris...
My feeling (being a European) is that I would feel much more threatened by the fact than people I can see in the street can have a gun than I would feel safer because some random strangers could protect me with their guns.
From time to time there are some news that someone get stabbed because for having allegedly had a bad look on someone else. With guns, you don't even have the option to run.
There are civilians lawfully carrying guns in Europe, just not many of them, so be free to already feel threatened. I'm not saying we should give guns to every kid out there, but if 1% of citizens were armed, shooting up 100 people wouldn't be such an easy endeavor.
I think, however, that it's a bit of an absolute statement, as even skirmishes in the combat theaters still heavily rely on small arms from both sides. Perhaps it is possible for that to become the world we live in, however I don't see that being the case given past history.
Keep in mind the idea of an armed populace isn't a one dimensional outcome to only defend against terrorists, but as an equalizer against any assailant in a life or death situation, be they foreign or domestic.
I just want people to have the option to defend themselves if they choose. In this case, the French people did not and do not have that option. Gun laws in France makes NYC look like a paradise for gun owners.
I was saying that if we have armed citizens, the offenders will only use methods that don't get them shot before they strike. So suicide bombings are on the table. Compare with this attack, where the assailants must have known they're not walking out of that one alive.
> I just want people to have the option to defend themselves if they choose.
The core question here is - defend from what? Guns won't help you defend from a terrorist attack anymore than they can help you defend from an asteroid strike. Since we don't use extinction of dinosaurs as a pro-gun argument, we shouldn't use terrorist attacks either. Note that I'm not supporting pro- or anti-gun stance here, I only refuse to accept invalid arguments - from either side.
From any assailant, be it a mugger, rapist, breaking and entering, "terrorism" (whatever that actually means), an oppressive state, etc.
Would you rather just do nothing and accept whatever comes your way as fate?
Solzhenitsyn in general gives a sense that the USSR wanted to keep things more or less held together, but wasn't that concerned about people who fell between the cracks.
What do you know about crime in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years? (A whopping 29 years combined.)