Egoshooters

[mike777]

We know that the war on drugs has enabled criminals to prosper without (it appears) doing much to reduce illicit drug use. We know that prohibition in the US didn't end alcohol consumption.

Yes, I agree with libertarians and (some) conservatives that the war on drugs is a counterproductive failure. Legalizing drugs won't solve all drug problems, of course, but it will eliminate the most serious ones.

BTW I thought some countries did this and did not like the results. In any event perhaps some one can find some research on this subject on actual real world results. Again this may be a good thing to let the Europeans and Canada lead on and we can learn from.

[Aberlour10]

It will be interesting to see if Germany or for that matter Europe bans all guns in the home.

Knowing long-term points of view of political mainstream forces to this subject,....it will not happen in forseeable future in Germany for sure.

 

Robert

[blackshoe]

This may be true in the U.S. where there are hundreds of millions of guns in circulation

 

In fact, nobody knows how many guns there are in private hands in the US.

[blackshoe]

Guns are not inherently addictive, nor does their use (consumption) generally give pleasure, to the non-psychopathic amongst us.

 

So anyone who enjoys hunting, or target shooting, or skeet shooting, or participating in certain Olympic events (can you say biathlon?) must be a psychopath? Come on, Mike, I thought better of you than this!

[mikeh]

Guns are not inherently addictive, nor does their use (consumption) generally give pleasure, to the non-psychopathic amongst us.

 

So anyone who enjoys hunting, or target shooting, or skeet shooting, or participating in certain Olympic events (can you say biathlon?) must be a psychopath? Come on, Mike, I thought better of you than this!

Read both my earlier posts.. I hope it is clear that I was responding, in my last, to a comment from Jimmy, and that my first made it clear that my opposition to guns, and my suggestion that possession of such guns be severely punished, was aimed at handguns and automatic or semi-automatic weapons. Hunters don't generally hunt with handguns nor with machine pistols.

 

Nor do I see much evidence that competitive target shooters prefer to spray their target with 30 rounds in 2 seconds, rather than carefully aim a single bullet at a time, using a long barrelled weapon (and, yes, I know that there is such a thing as target shooting with a handgun... I also know that the type of gun designed for that use is not the type of gun favoured by gang members or b&e artists).

 

Ultimately, this entire argument goes to the type of society in which we would like to live. The protoypical US view is that the 'rights' of the individual have some mystical justification that warrants suppression of societal interests where they conflict with individual interests.

 

That is a philosophy that is ignored in virtually all areas of society other than gun ownership and health care. But it speaks to an image inculcated in Americans since early childhood. The same politicians who denounce gun control speak loudly in favour of warrentless wire tapping, or indefinite incarceration of 'enemy combatants', laws prohibiting same-sex marriage or abortion, and, of course, the war on drugs. Heaven forbid anyone enjoying cannibis... or entering into a solemn societally blessed union with a loved-one of the same gender! But meddle with guns and you are violating a sacred right to be an individual!

 

Of course, a similar caricature can be made about societies in which group welfare and goals are afforded greater relative weight. The usual US conservative riposte is to refer to communist societies, which is transparently a stupid analogy.. but social-democratic states such as Sweden, Germany and so on are appropriate ones, and there are examples of philosophical inconsistencies in their cultures as well (and I am not excluding Canada, either....nor any other country that aspires to any degree of individual freedom)

 

The arguments about what kills what, or about the 'benefits' of individual handgun ownership ultimately, it seems to me, boil down to these issues of balancing societal v individual rights. I reject the anthropologically false premise that we are an individualistic society... and, recognizing that we are social animals, I tend to emphasize societal goals as more important than individual ones... but, please, don't take this as saying that individual rights are non-existent or unimportant.. in my view, a reasonable society would recognize that the affording of individual freedoms is a primary concern until and unless such freedoms for some cause too much grief for others. I also see different but equally reasonable societies having different tipping points... but I know where mine exists on this issue.

[blackshoe]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, and then I ... didn't. Shame on me.

 

All I'll say at this point is that societies, as such, don't have rights. People have rights. And it is fundamental that if person A has a certain right, person B can't take that right away from person A, and person B cannot get around that by getting together with person C, person D, etc. And I don't care how large you make the group.

 

Do with that whatever you like. I'm done with this thread. Really. B)

[mikeh]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, and then I ... didn't. Shame on me.

 

All I'll say at this point is that societies, as such, don't have rights. People have rights. And it is fundamental that if person A has a certain right, person B can't take that right away from person A, and person B cannot get around that by getting together with person C, person D, etc. And I don't care how large you make the group.

 

Do with that whatever you like. I'm done with this thread. Really. B)

Sorry, you're through :)

 

Seriously, though... would you not agree that the very notion of individual rights is, at its heart, a societal construct? Individual rights, as described in the US Constitution, don't arise or even exist, in any real form, in the absence of a societal consensus that affords them recognition and protection.

 

Consider: while the framers of the US constitution recognized, as self-evident, certain individual rights, they did so ONLY for adult white males :)

 

If individual rights have always had some inherent existence, why couldn't/didn't the framers of the constitution see them as applicable to african-americans or white women?

 

Consider: in primitive hunter-gatherer societies, the notions that we entertain about equality of opportunity, privacy, due process and so on are alien to everyone.

 

It seems to me to be inescapable: we are social animals, the rituals and habits we use to guide our interaction with fellow humans arise out of the dynamics of our groups. Our cultures have, at least in what we refer to as the West, developed along the lines of recognizing certain very limited individual freedoms.. which some members of some societies have fetishized.

 

No society treasures individual rights in the fashion that Blackshoe describes, including the US.

 

All US jurisdictions restrict many, many 'fundamental' individual rights.

 

I could be a genius and study extremely hard at home and actually train myself to be a good medical doctor, yet no state would let me practice medicine.. why?

 

I like to smoke... I like to go to a bar where everyone likes to smoke.. yet in many cities, I would be breaking the law if I did.

 

I could be a wonderful self-taught driver, yet I face criminal sanction if I don't get a licence.

 

Ditto re flying a plane over a city

 

And what if, for fun, I want to yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre?

 

Or if I wanted to send my hard-earned money off to Al Queada? To be used only to harm Afghani civilians?

 

Or I want to grow and smoke my own pot to relieve the symptoms of my incurable and painful disease? In an area equipped with a fan and filter so no one need be disturbed by the smell or smoke?

 

Or I want to have an abortion?

 

Or I want to marry a member of the same sex?

 

And so on.

 

The notion of sacrosanct human rights is demonstrably hypocritical in the mouths of many who assert it in defence of their position on any given issue... they vote for lots of restrictions on the 'rights' of others while proclaiming that their preference should be sacred.

 

I am not accusing any poster here of that.... this is an obseravtion aimed at most public figures who posture, not individuals prepared to debate.

 

Also.. everything I post in the WC has to be taken, no matter how strongly worded, as an expression of OPINION... I claim no privileged position with respect to my views on anything in the WC, even if it sounds as if I do B)

[jdonn]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, and then I ... didn't. Shame on me.

 

All I'll say at this point is that societies, as such, don't have rights. People have rights. And it is fundamental that if person A has a certain right, person B can't take that right away from person A, and person B cannot get around that by getting together with person C, person D, etc. And I don't care how large you make the group.

 

Do with that whatever you like. I'm done with this thread. Really. B)

I could simplify what I think Mike is saying by saying this.

 

It is nothing more than your opinion that individuals have rights but societies don't. America and Europe view that question very differently, as one example. But almost anywhere, society is given many rights that limit individual freedoms. For example, there are speed limits since society's right to not be put in danger of being crashed into is thought to supercede your right to go as fast as you want. Similar reasoning for why smoking is banned in certain public places (here anyway), and numerous other things.

[hanp]

I think one of his other points (the hypocracy of choosing what we do and what we do not see as rights) is at least as strong.

[kenberg]

"Rights are a social construct" fits my views pretty well. If we go back to the Founding Documents, of course there is a claim that certain things are self-evident. But when it came to writing the law of the land, it begins "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union..." . Nothing there about anything being self-evident and I like it that way.

 

With regard to guns and a more perfect union, the fact is i am just so damn lucky. No one seems to want to kill me, minor acts of vandalism seem to be the tough crime problem we have locally, and so on. Some people live in some pretty shitty neighborhoods. If I were forced to live there for a while, I probably would by [or maybe even buy B)]a gun. Whether I should be able to do so is another issue of course. I don't think that the answer is obvious.

[mike777]

"Guns are just one issue, bottom line this is about government doing much much more to reduce risk in our life."

 

-----

 

 

"Some people live in some pretty shitty neighborhoods. If I were forced to live there for a while, I probably would by a gun. Whether I should be able to do so is another issue of course. I don't think that the answer is obvious."

 

----

 

"In any event this is all about the government trying to reduce the risk in our lives. What freedoms are we willing to trade off. It will be interesting to watch and learn from Canada and Europe. "

[Codo]

Everybody can compare some simple facts:

 

Where are more people injured/killed by others?

 

A. In states like the US with liberal laws according to guns?

B. In states which try to find a balance between social needs and individual rights like Sweden or Germany?

C. Totalitarian states like China?

D. No longer existing states like Somalia

E. States with a very big difference between poor and rich like Brazilia or India?

 

You can find out on yourself. As a clue: I am really happy to live here.

 

P

[Hanoi5]

I believe most Swiss people have a gun at home, a rifle in fact. How many accidents of these type have ocurred in Switzerland? I strongly believe that the solution to most problems lies in education.

[Aberlour10]

I believe most Swiss people have a gun at home, a rifle in fact. How many accidents of these type have ocurred in Switzerland?

There were many single accidents happened with these weapons. So, the former swiss military service men are still permitted to keep their weapon at home but!!!! ... the swiss parliament prohibited private storage of military ammunition for these guns in 2007.

 

Military guns are used in 280 gun deaths a year in Switzerland, according to reserach by Professor Martin Killias of Lausanne University. This is the equivalent of a gun death rate of 3.7 deaths per 100,000 people, which is higher than the gun death rate in most other Western European countries, for all types of guns, not just military guns

 

Robert

[luke warm]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, and then I ... didn't. Shame on me.

 

All I'll say at this point is that societies, as such, don't have rights. People have rights. And it is fundamental that if person A has a certain right, person B can't take that right away from person A, and person B cannot get around that by getting together with person C, person D, etc. And I don't care how large you make the group.

 

Do with that whatever you like. I'm done with this thread. Really. :lol:

I could simplify what I think Mike is saying by saying this.

 

It is nothing more than your opinion that individuals have rights but societies don't. America and Europe view that question very differently, as one example. But almost anywhere, society is given many rights that limit individual freedoms. For example, there are speed limits since society's right to not be put in danger of being crashed into is thought to supercede your right to go as fast as you want. Similar reasoning for why smoking is banned in certain public places (here anyway), and numerous other things.

i think it's self-evident that societies do have rights, but those rights are given by the governed... since, in the founders' view, we (the governed, or the individual) have the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the role of gov't is to function in a way that limits those rights as little as possible... that's simply a matter of political philosophy, and i understand that other societies don't share the view of the founders

[Lobowolf]

that's simply a matter of political philosophy, and i understand that other societies don't share the view of the founders

Nor do a good percentage in this society.

[mikeh]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, and then I ... didn't. Shame on me.

 

All I'll say at this point is that societies, as such, don't have rights. People have rights. And it is fundamental that if person A has a certain right, person B can't take that right away from person A, and person B cannot get around that by getting together with person C, person D, etc. And I don't care how large you make the group.

 

Do with that whatever you like. I'm done with this thread. Really. :(

I could simplify what I think Mike is saying by saying this.

 

It is nothing more than your opinion that individuals have rights but societies don't. America and Europe view that question very differently, as one example. But almost anywhere, society is given many rights that limit individual freedoms. For example, there are speed limits since society's right to not be put in danger of being crashed into is thought to supercede your right to go as fast as you want. Similar reasoning for why smoking is banned in certain public places (here anyway), and numerous other things.

i think it's self-evident that societies do have rights, but those rights are given by the governed... since, in the founders' view, we (the governed, or the individual) have the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the role of gov't is to function in a way that limits those rights as little as possible... that's simply a matter of political philosophy, and i understand that other societies don't share the view of the founders

Since the founders believed in a lot of currently unfashionable ideas, we have to hope that the vast majority of US citizens no longer share their peculiar view of god's generosity in handing out fundamental rights.

 

I don't want to turn this thread into a religious debate, but any attempt to argue that god bestowed rights will quickly run afoul of the problem, in whatever religion we look at, that religion's god seems to be politically incorrect, by current western standards.

 

I think that our societies in the west generally see women as entitled to equal treatment under the law as that afforded to men. That idea would have been scandalous in the late 1700s... as would have been the 'absurd' notion that 'negros' had the same intrinsic worth and rights as a white man... heck, the founders established a rule that a black person counted only as a fractional human as far as the census was concerned!

 

If ever we need evidence that individual rights are constructs of society, surely we find it in the changing of views on who has what rights, over time.

[jdonn]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, and then I ... didn't. Shame on me.

 

All I'll say at this point is that societies, as such, don't have rights. People have rights. And it is fundamental that if person A has a certain right, person B can't take that right away from person A, and person B cannot get around that by getting together with person C, person D, etc. And I don't care how large you make the group.

 

Do with that whatever you like. I'm done with this thread. Really. :(

I could simplify what I think Mike is saying by saying this.

 

It is nothing more than your opinion that individuals have rights but societies don't. America and Europe view that question very differently, as one example. But almost anywhere, society is given many rights that limit individual freedoms. For example, there are speed limits since society's right to not be put in danger of being crashed into is thought to supercede your right to go as fast as you want. Similar reasoning for why smoking is banned in certain public places (here anyway), and numerous other things.

i think it's self-evident that societies do have rights, but those rights are given by the governed... since, in the founders' view, we (the governed, or the individual) have the God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the role of gov't is to function in a way that limits those rights as little as possible... that's simply a matter of political philosophy, and i understand that other societies don't share the view of the founders

I think you are focused too much on "role" and not enough on "function". Also your "since" wasn't justified.

[Lobowolf]

Since the founders believed in a lot of currently unfashionable ideas, we have to hope that the vast majority of US citizens no longer share their peculiar view of god's generosity in handing out fundamental rights.

 

I don't want to turn this thread into a religious debate, but any attempt to argue that god bestowed rights will quickly run afoul of the problem, in whatever religion we look at, that religion's god seems to be politically incorrect, by current western standards.

 

I think that our societies in the west generally see women as entitled to equal treatment under the law as that afforded to men. That idea would have been scandalous in the late 1700s... as would have been the 'absurd' notion that 'negros' had the same intrinsic worth and rights as a white man... heck, the founders established a rule that a black person counted only as a fractional human as far as the census was concerned!

 

If ever we need evidence that individual rights are constructs of society, surely we find it in the changing of views on who has what rights, over time.

I agree, strongly.

 

However, whether or not you believe that "rights" derive from God, are a social construct, or are inherent in the fabric of the universe, there's still a fundamental question of political philosophy that has to be considered. At their most basic level, are"rights" (whatever they are) something that a citizenry gets from its government, or that a government gets from its citizenry? Whatever inconsitencies and moral flaws the founding fathers of the USA had, I think they got that question dead-on right.

[helene_t]

It is nothing more than your opinion that individuals have rights but societies don't. America and Europe view that question very differently, as one example.

Not sure if this is true.

 

European legislation is more restrictive w.r.t. traffic regulation and gun ownership.

 

U.S. legislation is more restrictive w.r.t. same-sex partnerships and narcotics. And abortion is more controversial.

 

It might be a funny exercise to construct some kind of overall liberty index for various countries. Just counting the number of activities that are illegal would be meaningless, but one could ask people in different countries how often they refrain from doing something because it is illegal although it would not be immoral in their personal opinion. Or something like that.

 

Btw, phrasings like "society X thinks that" annoy me. Surely only individuals can have opinions about something. OK, organizations can have official opinions on some issues, and groups of people can have prevalent opinions. But the opinion of a country (or continent) is nonsense imho.

[mikeh]

Since the founders believed in a lot of currently unfashionable ideas, we have to hope that the vast majority of US citizens no longer share their peculiar view of god's generosity in handing out fundamental rights.

 

I don't want to turn this thread into a religious debate, but any attempt to argue that god bestowed rights will quickly run afoul of the problem, in whatever religion we look at, that religion's god seems to be politically incorrect, by current western standards.

 

I think that our societies in the west generally see women as entitled to equal treatment under the law as that afforded to men. That idea would have been scandalous in the late 1700s... as would have been the 'absurd' notion that 'negros' had the same intrinsic worth and rights as a white man... heck, the founders established a rule that a black person counted only as a fractional human as far as the census was concerned!

 

If ever we need evidence that individual rights are constructs of society, surely we find it in the changing of views on who has what rights, over time.

I agree, strongly.

 

However, whether or not you believe that "rights" derive from God, are a social construct, or are inherent in the fabric of the universe, there's still a fundamental question of political philosophy that has to be considered. At their most basic level, are"rights" (whatever they are) something that a citizenry gets from its government, or that a government gets from its citizenry? Whatever inconsitencies and moral flaws the founding fathers of the USA had, I think they got that question dead-on right.

I think that the topic is more complex, and more subtle than is suggested by your phrasing... I stress that I mean no disrespect when I say that.. my own thoughts are at best semi-formed since this is not an area in which I have any particular training or education.

 

I do think that it is necessary to perform a thought experiment, in the sense of imagining the power structures that prevailed in early human societies... since we are speaking of pre-historical times, even the best informed ideas of anthropoligists must contain some degree of speculation.

 

We need to do this, in my view, because we cannot understand our current inter-individual relationships without at least attempting to trace how we, as members of our societies, got here from there.

 

We can look to other primate cultures for some guidance, I suspect, since we share common ancestry and many of our social interactions seem to be meditated by the hard-wired structure of our brains.

 

I may well be in error, but my understanding is that primates are hierarchical in social structure and it appears that we are as well.. how else do we explain the popular use of 'alpha male', as one example? Or the adoration that Royalty still seems to engender from some parts of society.

 

If so, it seems to me that in at least one sense 'we' as individuals either assert or bestow authority upon people we see as below or above us in our instinctive hierarchical view.

 

But as the number of poeple in a given society grew beyond the point when we could 'know' our standing vis a vis everyone else.. when we could no longer actually know everyone else, then matters became more complex, and less directly personal.

 

Classes would develop.. we'd recognize where we stood in terms of the stratification of society... and from my limited knowledge of history, it does appear that all 'states' ended up with a stratified society.. arguably that still exists today, altho in theory some cultures claim to have moved beyond that.

 

Once we have stratification, we have different 'rights' according to which strata we inhabit... slaves have the least.... including, and this is difficult for some american partisans to accept, in the USA when it was founded. Women traditonally were not much better off than slaves... indeed, women have been legally defined as property for extended periods of human history, across many cultures.

 

It seems to me that there is at least an argument that such cultures have a distribution of rights that was not 'bestowed' by the people on the rulers or 'granted' by the rulers to the people, but that sort of evolved as a result of growing complexity impacting instinctive views of hierarchical relationships, which in turn arise, in the smallest societies, from genetically mediated social interaction.

 

Our debate about whether rights come from the people or the government reminds me of the debate about free will. There is compelling evidence that the 'I' that we like to think is the decision maker for our body is actually a passenger, and a mechanism for telling us, after the fact, why we did something. Nerve impulses triggering a limb action are known to be sent BEFORE we 'decide' to perform the action. Experiments with people who by accident or surgery have had the two sides of their brains disconnected shows that one side will make up a reason for an action performed after the other side was told to do something.

 

Thus, it seems to me, we may rationalizing an issue as if its outcome were a matter of choice by rational individuals when in fact it is as it were an emergent property of complex factors not subject to rationality at all.

[Gerben42]

European legislation is more restrictive w.r.t. traffic regulation and gun ownership.

 

Not sure if Europe is more restrictive w.r.t. traffic regulation... Penalties are high in the US for this compared to most European countries.

[Lobowolf]

I think that the topic is more complex, and more subtle than is suggested by your phrasing... I stress that I mean no disrespect when I say that.. my own thoughts are at best semi-formed since this is not an area in which I have any particular training or education.

 

I do think that it is necessary to perform a thought experiment, in the sense of imagining the power structures that prevailed in early human societies... since we are speaking of pre-historical times, even the best informed ideas of anthropoligists must contain some degree of speculation.

 

We need to do this, in my view, because we cannot understand our current inter-individual relationships without at least attempting to trace how we, as members of our societies, got here from there.

 

We can look to other primate cultures for some guidance, I suspect, since we share common ancestry and many of our social interactions seem to be meditated by the hard-wired structure of our brains.

 

I may well be in error, but my understanding is that primates are hierarchical in social structure and it appears that we are as well.. how else do we explain the popular use of 'alpha male', as one example? Or the adoration that Royalty still seems to engender from some parts of society.

 

If so, it seems to me that in at least one sense 'we' as individuals either assert or bestow authority upon people we see as below or above us in our instinctive hierarchical view.

 

But as the number of poeple in a given society grew beyond the point when we could 'know' our standing vis a vis everyone else.. when we could no longer actually know everyone else, then matters became more complex, and less directly personal.

 

Classes would develop.. we'd recognize where we stood in terms of the stratification of society... and from my limited knowledge of history, it does appear that all 'states' ended up with a stratified society.. arguably that still exists today, altho in theory some cultures claim to have moved beyond that.

 

Once we have stratification, we have different 'rights' according to which strata we inhabit... slaves have the least.... including, and this is difficult for some american partisans to accept, in the USA when it was founded. Women traditonally were not much better off than slaves... indeed, women have been legally defined as property for extended periods of human history, across many cultures.

 

It seems to me that there is at least an argument that such cultures have a distribution of rights that was not 'bestowed' by the people on the rulers or 'granted' by the rulers to the people, but that sort of evolved as a result of growing complexity impacting instinctive views of hierarchical relationships, which in turn arise, in the smallest societies, from genetically mediated social interaction.

 

Our debate about whether rights come from the people or the government reminds me of the debate about free will. There is compelling evidence that the 'I' that we like to think is the decision maker for our body is actually a passenger, and a mechanism for telling us, after the fact, why we did something. Nerve impulses triggering a limb action are known to be sent BEFORE we 'decide' to perform the action. Experiments with people who by accident or surgery have had the two sides of their brains disconnected shows that one side will make up a reason for an action performed after the other side was told to do something.

 

Thus, it seems to me, we may rationalizing an issue as if its outcome were a matter of choice by rational individuals when in fact it is as it were an emergent property of complex factors not subject to rationality at all.

I think that the topic is more complex, and more subtle than is suggested by your phrasing... I stress that I mean no disrespect when I say that.. my own thoughts are at best semi-formed since this is not an area in which I have any particular training or education.

 

 

Agreed; I was just emphasizing the starting point (or "a" starting point) of the discussion.

 

 

 

Our debate about whether rights come from the people or the government reminds me of the debate about free will. There is compelling evidence that the 'I' that we like to think is the decision maker for our body is actually a passenger, and a mechanism for telling us, after the fact, why we did something. Nerve impulses triggering a limb action are known to be sent BEFORE we 'decide' to perform the action.

 

Also agreed, but to the extent that we may have options and exist outside the box, it's beneficial to act as though we do.

[hanp]

European legislation is more restrictive w.r.t. traffic regulation and gun ownership.

 

Not sure if Europe is more restrictive w.r.t. traffic regulation... Penalties are high in the US for this compared to most European countries.

True, but the point Helene was making is of course correct.

[mike777]

It may be a good idea to ban all guns in private homes given we all know there will be another kid with another gun killing other kids at school.

 

 

My concern is just passing more laws and again not really enforcing them. Will we really build enough jails to shelter, feed and provide proper health care for all those who keep guns at home illegally.

 

I would hate to just pass another law just to feel good about ourselves.

 

btw some posters have discussed slavery. It seems we have our hands full just trying to enforce the laws on our books and build enough prisons.

 

"Although outlawed in nearly all countries, forms of slavery still exist in some parts of the world. [3][4] According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people (although some put the number as high as 200 million) who worked in virtual slavery in 2007, spread all over the world.[78] According to FTS, these slaves represent the largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history and the smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

 

If there are 27M to 200Million slaves now in the world perhaps we could try and work on that problem first and not just pass some more laws.