In calif. We have too many laws thats why such high murder rates . The rest of us have too few. We need just the right balance. What a joke. There is no such thing. Not in real life, not in a whole country and certainly not with thegovernment.

I can just picture the scenario: background checks dont permit me to own a gun because i once had a run in with my neighbor. You wont be permitted because you suffered slight post partem depression and a third guy because he was involved in a bitter divorce and wife filed all kinds of crazy charges. The blacks and the radical muslims will have no problem getting cleared because otherwise theyll yell racial profiling – “why do we have the least amount of registered ownership.”

Also most mass shooters showed that there was alot of planning beforehand. If theywouldnt be able to get their hands on a gun then theyd figure out how to use a bomb or some other mass casualty device.- no big deal

I would agree that the suicide rate would probably drop although i did not check into that. It takes a lot more courage to willfully torture oneself in a slow painful death than to die a quick death from a single shot.

Not necessarily. Unless she usually dresses extremely not tznius like skirt way above knee.

I did not say that anyone is over or under reporting. All i said was that each country has their own way of classifying crime. I might call it a hate crime or terrorism and you might call it homicide. I might be fine with abortion and you might call it feticide and include it in your homicide rates. These are just examples.

That said i just researched california again to see where your getting your info from and i realized that different sites report it differently. So lets go with yours for now. Strictest gun laws and their number 17 out of 50. You need to do better than that .

I still stand by my original position that the current law (that was on the floor last week) would do nothing to touch the murder rates but would just make a big show for nothing.

Lets try again:

Every country classifies each crime in a different way. They call them other things.

A list compiled by the un is only COMPILED by the un not classified. It means that the nations are self reporting crimes in the way they themselves classified it to the un. There is no oversight.

Again if you were to run a true study you would take a place as close in culture, laws, geography as us as possible to see how things would work out if we did things the way others are suggesting. California has pretty tight gun control laws and they have the highest homicide rate and one of the highest gun homicide rate in the country. These crimes are all reported by the fbi using the same standards and classifications throughout all the states (besides for two). Thats called a fair study.

A small historical point: A duel, where you had two opponents shooting at each other, was a fairly common way of settling major disputes in the early days. Theres no hint of militias there. (I would not want to see a comeback of this practice. This is not what im defending.)

Our common purpose is to serve hashem. What better way to do that than to take his perfect creations and utilize their brains, talent and emotions toward establishing a beatiful harmonios environment for the shechina to dwell. Why are we so bent on taking these special gifts rhat were given to us and melting them down to mold them into something that they are not?

Sometimes i have this sad thought. After the holocoust when people came to america and they were starting up yeshivos and schools they were practically begging for students . They werent starting up one for every type of crowd either. There were unfortunately not enough students to enroll. Survivors worked very hard to set these up because these children were viewed as the continuation of klal yisrael. They needed every single soul. Now it sounds like we are telling hashem that, please we have too many now. We dont need the ones that do a,b,c, differently than us, its going to ruin our image.

Im saying i dont know if homicide is greater in the us. The abortion was just an example with many more crimes being classified any which way. Do the research.

Im not sure about gun homicide i havent looked at that yet but it would make sense if they were far more available in the us and it is.

My point is that if someone wants to kill they will despite the facts they dont have guns. Im talking homicides not gun homicides.

I saw those numbers and actually wikipedia, which quotes those numbers, informed me of what i stated above. In addition the point made is that each country independently reports their homicide rates.

Its like asking each country to independently report their nuclear activity. Surely iraq will come up with zero activity.

I cant believe we are even having this conversation after the events of the last few days. People that intend to kill will do just that. Its fairly easy if one is determined even without guns. What about the madrid bombings? How about Norway where even the police arent armed – bomb plus guns.

About the culture thing. Natural human reaction to a grisly scene is major disgust and not a whole lot of tolerance. A person can only muster courage to cause so much carnage and blood if he is desensitized to it or if it were glorified in his culture.

Icot: The point is that if its available it would be fairly easy to get your hands on it. How many illeagal guns are there? How many are in other persons possession? Writing new laws is only a show. It wont do anything to stop the crime.

I think that the problem is the culture. How you can get it to change is anyones guess.

About the drunk driving thing: Yes, its terrible and yes you get the entire book thrown at you. But look at how many drunk drivers are still out there.

Personally, I thought it was done at an inopportune time when the entire nation was focused on the Boston bombings.

I also think its crazy. Are they going to do background checks on anybody wanting to purchase a pressure cooker?

People could cause extensive carnage with basic supplies. There is tons of info available on how to create the most efficient bomb and your going after guns?

Sorry for typos im typing from mobile device.

Also, hope u enjoy ur sweatshirt i did not mean to ruin it for u. :))

Generally if one has less rights than the other there is no equality

A) my question was general. I was just pointing out how it relates here.

B) very clever. Simply put equality that infringes is not equality.

Oom: your statement of equality bothers me.

Does everyone need to be treated equally if it causes an infringement on others rights? Where is the equality on that?

Accepting women into the tzhal is destructive to men? Where are their rights? They dont have an option to get out.

It is hypocritical that the same liberal crowd that defends a nurse that stands idly by as an old woman collapses clearly dying takes up the battle cry of vnishmartem meod.

If you let them come dictate to you what your religion is or isnt and how it applies based on written text, the laws would change so often, you wouldnt know which religion you were originally practicing.

It is stupid to think that you can call into a radio show with an apposing opinion and expect to be given a fair chance of explaining yourself.

He kept on saying hes having a conversation but in reality it was a rudely dominated session. every time one of his callers had somthing logical to say he cut into them or asked them an off topic questn.

There are so many ways to go about this conversation. You’re most in luck if this is new construction. Then i would say to apply it on plywood of floor and cover again with another plywood.

if you do it from the ceiling, it would probably help but not as much because of all the light fixtures, vents… that would go thru it.

I think a double floor is a waste of money.

green glue on the wall between layers of sheetrock helps alot although not perfect.

I don’t see any benefits of the foam. I don’t remember the name of company that did the work. sorry.

42 – why is the onus of achdus fall on the ones who did not show?

It really is Agudah’s fault. They know all about this anti – zion shittah – its not something new. They should not have invited such a controversial figure as R’ Lau to speak knowing that it would ruffle other people’s feathers.

MiddlePath: Exactly.

“I’d say that chances are, a child of 12 or 15 would probably not have the maturity or responsibility required to handle taking care of a baby or being committed to and being in a genuine relationship”

That’s exactly the point. Just because internet and FB can be used for good non harmful things it doesn’t mean that people of all ages have the maturity, moral convictions and personal safety knowledege to know how to use it. I don’t believe it should start at a young age. We could break into it slowly with the right guidance.

You say that if we ban facebook and internet, some kids will find other means of access. True. But those we can protect we should. I also don’t know if the right word is ban or something else. The word ban almost means nothing today. We need to teach appreciation.

My feeling is not to allow FB for children at home. If they allow it in school in the lab in school or something – I have to think about it.

Thanks for filling me in. I mean seriously, I know the internet is a very important tool for business and so forth. I never said to ban it completely. I just don’t see why we need to expose our children to it so much.

Let me ask you a couple of questions here. What’s your opinion about say, a twelve year old girl having an affair? Or how about a 15 year old giving birth? What about giving a 13 year old boy the keys to a car?

Please don’t answer its against the torah or such. Do you think its ok or not and why. There’s a reason for my asking this its part of the discussion.

The question here is not why we send our children to certain schools. The idea here is to provide what the parents expect when they pay for these private schools.

Your other comments have value and would provide interesting discussion in another thread.

sam2: Not mishing is a chumra people keep for themselves. It does not mean that they dont invite other guest. I know plenty of people who would not eat at others on Pesach but have plenty of needy people at their own table.

No. I was actually talking about the Halacha that a mother’s life comes before an unborn child. Even if it means an abortion. But that’s besides the point. Again, I ask you, is death the only bad thing that we’re afraid of? No, there are plenty of horror stories you hear from people that are still alive but have to live with the sad reality of not being able to bear more children because it took too long to get the care they needed.

The reason why I mentioned it is because there is one thing you might want to clarify. A mother’s life always comes before a baby. From your posts you make it sound as if you have to put the baby first.

Avram: I don’t know if you’re reading this but I’ll post anyway.

First of all, I’m sorry if I insulted you. Perhaps my wording came out too harsh. I meant to say that anyone witnessing a birth would know about the many things that could go wrong even in the most common ones. Never meant to insult your intelligence. I do appreciate your candidness in responding to my post. You’ve responded with equanimity – something my post did not deserve. Thank You.

The logic I wasn’t following was moving your whole family into the hospital or the car on shabbos in case of no heat. Childbirth puts a mother in very grave danger, as noted above. Just because something is natural and supposed to happen, it doesn’t mean that it is not dangerous. It just means that it will generally happen on its own. It doesn’t mean that that there wouldn’t be any negative consequences.

I do believe that less intervention is better. And as long as everything is fine you should let nature take its course. However, that is only once there are all types of personnel and equipment available for just in case. I am extremely apposed to scheduled c-sections or any section for that matter that is not done after all other options have been ruled out.

As far as the green journal stuff: It doesn’t make any point as well as the Netherlands stuff. Like I said before, people are prescreened to see if they are a candidate for home births. So the comparisons of mortality rates don’t make any sense. I just wonder what event, where it happens and what the effects were would disqualify people from being candidates.

I never said anything about home births exponentially or tripling mortality rates. Wrong address.