Submitted Without Comment
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
I Love that the President is a Nerd.
Friday, January 11, 2013
As Smitty knows, the White House has a policy that says that any policy proposal placed on the White House website that receives the support of 25,000 people, will receive consideration and a response from the White House. This summer the White House released the recipe for its Honey Porter and Honey Ale after beer brewers petitioned the White House for its release.
Recently a bunch of nerds gathered the support of over 34,000 people in asking the federal government to begin the construction of our very own Death Star.
The White House did not disappoint. Well, they might have disappointed people by shooting down the death star concept, but at least the denial was a very creative Star Wars-laden response.
Read it here.
Reasonable People (aka ones not named Alex Jones or Piers Morgan) Debate Gun Policy
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
There are intelligent people that debate gun policy. It isn't as sensational and is probably kind of boring to most people, but it does happen. The following is the first part of a discussion with former State Representative, Joan Bauer; Cooley Law Professor, Steve Dulan; President and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy, Gilda Jacobs; and MSU Anthropology Professor, Anthony Kolenic. I disagree with a few of the panelists, but I think they made their points intelligently and without ridiculous hyperbole and shouting.
Read more...Claims, No Take Backs
The video below is an example of what we discussed earlier. If one side of the gun debate has to claim Dirty Fucking Hippies and no-guns-ever pacifists, then the other side has to claim this guy:
More fun here:
This guy is not helpful. High comedy and a laugh-riot, for sure, but not helpful in the Great Gun Debate.
Statistics
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Considering the recent debates on gun laws and school safety in the United States, I looked up a few figures to aid us in our debates. Feel free to use or abuse them as we move forward.
Some of the data may surprise you. For example, I expected accidental deaths to be a higher percentage of the totals among death of children due to firearms.
Number of Schools in the United States (2009-10 School Year)
Public: 98,817
Private: 33,366
Number of Teachers in the United States:
3.7 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) elementary and secondary school teachers in fall 2011
This above information and additional data is available at the National Center for Educational Statistics.
Number of Gun-Related Deaths in the United States (2010 - excludes small percentage of deaths due to law enforcement)
All Ages
Total: 31,328. (Breakdown not provided at this source.)Kids, Ages 1 to 14:
Homicide: 208
Suicide: 81
Accidental Death: 62
Totals:* 369
Kids, Ages 15 to 19:
Homicide: 1,554
Suicide: 668
Accidental Death: 72
Totals:* 2,315
The information above and additional data is available at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The data above came from a report compiling statistics on gun-related deaths from 1999 to 2010.
As you can see in the charts at the CDC link above, the rate of death by firearms relative to the population has overall been flat in the U.S., with the possible expception of the rates of death among teens (ages 15 to 19), which seems to have been dropping over the time period.
* Why the totals do not add up exactly, is not clear. Read more...
Merry Happy Christmahanukwaanzakkah
Monday, December 24, 2012
Just when Jay finally...finally...busts out the real science I was hoping he'd get to, I would like to take a pause in our raging, passionate, and actually engaging and well-informed gun discussion to wish everyone the Happiest, Merriest Christmahanukwaanzakkah.
Whomever you are here on this blog, be you contributor, author, guest, commenter, or stalker, Around the Keg wishes you and yours all the best.
Except trolls.
No, even trolls. 'Tis the season.
Love you all! Arguing to ensue after the holiday reprieve. So...Wednesday.
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