How is it where you are from ?

[Grabbed_by_the_Spetsnaz]

Like it has been repeated millions of times before, strengthened gun laws only take guns away from the law-abiding citizens. Illegal guns will still find their way into the hands of the people no matter what. Why not arm the masses to protect themselves from those people? I have a concealed firearms permit, and I'm only 18, but my state government did background checks on me, took my fingerprints, took a photo ID, etc. I'm fine with that, because I know that is going to deter assholes that want to ruin it for everyone from getting a permit to carry. Give sane people the right to carry and gun crimes will go down.

I greatly disagree honestly.

I actually used to think the same way until I done a bit of research about this, until I thoroughly done some research into this matter. I was rather shocked to see some of the reports I saw! I actually realized that some of the biggest and most notorious massacres and assassinations were done with legal firearms and that alot of gun crimes were either legally owned or was originally legally owned.

I was also having a conversation with one of my uncles friends (one of the only three people I know who own a firearm), he is a goat hunter and a bit of a gun nut, and even he believes in gun control. His words of wisdom were "If you give a paranoid man a gun, it doesn't make him any safer, it just means someones going to suffer when he has a bad day."

However, this is a discussion for a different thread, and quite frankly I not entirely sure how this subject even came to be in this thread as there was no mention about this besides a few nods here and there.

 

[Alexander Ostmann]

I greatly disagree honestly.

I actually used to think the same way until I done a bit of research about this, until I thoroughly done some research into this matter. I was rather shocked to see some of the reports I saw! I actually realized that some of the biggest and most notorious massacres and assassinations were done with legal firearms and that alot of gun crimes were either legally owned or was originally legally owned.

I was also having a conversation with one of my uncles friends (one of the only three people I know who own a firearm), he is a goat hunter and a bit of a gun nut, and even he believes in gun control. His words of wisdom were "If you give a paranoid man a gun, it doesn't make him any safer, it just means someones going to suffer when he has a bad day."

However, this is a discussion for a different thread, and quite frankly I not entirely sure how this subject even came to be in this thread as there was no mention about this besides a few nods here and there.

There are only four states that allow you to conceal carry without a permit. There are only an extremely small amount of states that do little to no background checks on anyone they issue carry licenses to.

From 1993 through 2001 violent crime declined 54%; weapon violence went down 59%; and firearm violence, 63%. - National Crime Victimization Survey
In 2010, those states with unrestricted carry had some of the lowest homicide/crime rates with firearms, with the exception of Arizona. This is easily seen in the latest Universal Crime Report.

Now you look at where Arizona is on the map, and you look which other country is close to it (for those who are proficient with geography). Also mind you Arizona has a huge immigration problem, and with illegal immigrants come illegal firearms and illegal firearm USE.

"But no! Those states just have a small population, that's why there is less gun violence!" you say. Proportionally, they still have less violent crime with firearms.

Now, since the early 90's, crime has been decreasing despite an obvious population increase. Why this is hasn't been able to be determined yet. Firearm violence and crimes are trending down with it.

So if more states have been allowing conceal carry and more access to firearms, why is firearm violence going down? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT RELATED.

 

[Colt .45 killer]

yes and no ostman. There were a number of very proficient criminologists involved in the house of commons hearings on the scrapping of Canadas long gun registry. There is actually a negative corollation. The states that enacted ccw laws saw a drop in homocide, rape, assault, and other serious offenses. Since then the crime rates in those states has been trending down faster then canada, which takes a very controlled approach to firearms.

I am always sick of people who argue for firearms control on special cases. 'paranoid people' 'sickos and murderers' etc. Allowing everyone who passes some basic checks and the lack of a criminal record ensures that the maximum number of sane and rational people are going to get a firearm. You can never predict or stop the crazies beforehand, and setting up a draconian system to try and do so is useless. What you can do is ensure that in those cases, people are able to defend themselves.

@ spetz

You say youve read the statistics, and I have as well. In Canada spousal murder with firearms is listed on the same graph as murder with knives, baseball bats, boiling water, and acid. The ammount of people killed by the water and acid being close to the total killed by firearms.

When you listen to a pro gun control advocate speaking, they will use lots of "x % of y" statements instead of giving you actual numbers. If I tell you that 75% of the people who died to firearms were killed with gun x, so x is really bad. I am likely going to be ommitiing the fact that the total number of gun deaths could be 4 people.

Firearms related deaths has reached such a minute point in overall numbers, albeit highly broadcast, that it should honestly be a lesser concern. IE In the USA ~ 150,000 people will die in the next year due to prescription drugs.

 

[husbert]

There are only four states that allow you to conceal carry without a permit. There are only an extremely small amount of states that do little to no background checks on anyone they issue carry licenses to.

From 1993 through 2001 violent crime declined 54%; weapon violence went down 59%; and firearm violence, 63%. - National Crime Victimization Survey
In 2010, those states with unrestricted carry had some of the lowest homicide/crime rates with firearms, with the exception of Arizona. This is easily seen in the latest Universal Crime Report.

big cities have always more crimes
you compare big cities with rural regions

 

[GRIZZLY]

I live in New Jersey about 20 miles West of New York City.

One of the most densely populated places on Earth (traffic) and one of the most racially diverse. It's kind of a bastardization of urban and suburban. There are foxes and deer (there used to be a couple wild turkeys but I think they went extinct around here like 5 or 6 years ago) around me but if I drive over the hill I'm in a hardcore urban area; or if I drive a bit in the opposite direction I'm in a nature reserve. It takes me 15 or 20 minutes to get to work which is like two miles away. I work with an interesting mix of people from all over the world.

I can take a short walk and hop a train into the city for fairly cheap. I honestly don't like NYC as much as everyone else (smelly, loud, overwhelming), but it's nice knowing I have access to it and that every concert I want to see will most likely stop there. On a rare occasion I'll go to a show or gallery or museum or something.

The weather is pretty average for USA I suppose. This winter we've only had a few snowstorms that really stuck to the ground. Everything looks like **** though. I live in a "swamp". The sky is grey and ominous. The trees are all crooked like a Halloween movie. Old vines conquer used car dealers from days gone by and bulky new concrete entrance ramps awkwardly clash with old roads from the 50's. Sometimes I step outside and just wish I was somewhere with pretty trees or bright green grass. It is nice that I can escape it easily as we have mountains for skiing in the winter and an ocean for swimming in the summer , both less than an hour from my place.

The culture is.... well it's like New York. There is no real underlying culture, just millions of people doing their own thing. It's cool if you're from El Salvador or Ukraine or Korea you can find people like yourself .... but it's different when you grew up here as an American. You'll find everybody from every walk of like from musicians to athletes to actors to priests to soldiers around here. Politics and religion are hot subjects around here; I try and avoid it. Economy is thriving, the recession hasn't hit as bad here as a lot of the country, but I'm not really benefiting from it... I mostly just pay expensive *** rent for a mediocre place.

As far as Jerseyans (edit: at least the ones in my area, other parts of the state are very different) go, I think the people are a little.... decadent. It's renowned world wide as a sleazy state (Jersey Shore, etc.) but I'd say it's more greedy. A lot of the people I talk to sound like they've been listening to too much gangster rap and go on about how they love working 60 hours a week and busting their *** making money just so they can buy Gucci sunglasses to go with their suit that they wear to the bar and spend $300 on drinks with. A lot of people aspire to that classy bull**** lifestyle even if they don't have a prestigious job/a lot of money/social status. They just put on some nice threads and buy Grey Goose martinis/some french wine they know nothing about and act like they own the ****in world. A lot of superficiality. People are always ****ing around with their iPhones while you're trying to talk to them and acting like they are talking to their booking agent or some ****.


I hope to someday move somewhere more calm, slow, open minded and down to earth. I've lived in other parts of the country and for the most part I hated them because of snow/winter, but I liked the genuine people more.

 

[echutter]

I live in Wisconsin. It can be a lot like Germany in how it looks, just a lot ****tier.

 

[RiccardoTheBeAst]

Hi I am from Norway,
[giga cut.]

In norway we are so simple minded that if we buy something or writing an important contract. we most likly dont care reading the contract or checking the manual what we acctually bought. because we trust everyone and anything, simply beeing naive

........unbelievable................try to do that in Italy, you will lose your clothes, your home, your car, and maybe even your soul in about one week....

 

[Rattler]

This is it http://www.cracked.com/funny-2773-chalga/ where I am from. Its terrible.

 

[Grabbed_by_the_Spetsnaz]

This is it [url]http://www.cracked.com/funny-2773-chalga/[/URL] where I am from. Its terrible.

I have no idea what I'm trying to read here, something about melons, homos and nazis?

 

[Homuth]

I love it where I live, and I hope I never have to leave.

My home is located in Zeeland, in The Netherlands.
We enjoy lovely weather in the summer ( makes for good beach parties!) and cold winters ( Ice-skating, f*ck yeah! ). Furthermore, there is a lot of water and plenty of room for fishing/diving/sailboarding. Most towns have beautiful 17/18th century buildings. The only real drawback is that our part of Holland is far away from the majority of Dutch universities.

some pic's

oh, and I don't want to start about our laws/culture/government, you all know what they are.

Spoiler!

 

[Crusher]

I thought Zeeland was a big space of nothingness, just large fields and trees. It's a lovely place to cycle there and to take pictures.

 

[Floyd]

Spring is in the air (at least it is here ):

Spoiler!

From my back porch:

Corn that was planted March 2:

Flowers in the front and few of my ferocious guard dogs..

 

[Olivier]

Nice grass!

 

[slavek]

I have to agree with Alexander, restrictive gun laws tend to hit law abiding citizens more than criminals(If a criminal wants a gun, they will find a way to get one anyways).

As for me, I live in San Jose, CA. It tends to be one big melting pot as far as ethnicity and culture goes. At least where I live, Mexican, Filipino, and Vietnamese make up a large portion of the populace. Closer to San Jose's Japan-Town, obviously there is a larger Japanese population. Cost of living is high compared to other states. Chances are you won't find a house for under 200k(200k house = scrap it down to the studs and renovate it). Apartments worth renting vary in range from 1200-3500$~ Gas prices atm are 5$/Gal~ give or take 20cents. Jobs vary, Hard to get a "good" job unless you have a background in a profession or an education. Many are part time minimum wage.

Violence is somewhat of a problem. I always carry a good knife on me even with family or public areas. Gang violence is increasing unfortunately(No help to the police getting major budget cuts/lay offs), few months ago 8~ "kids"(16-20) got arrested around my block. 6 of them had guns. We also had a recent run in with people related to the previous mentioned people. A group came after us for "Arrest revenge" and tried to break though our front door(Almost succeeded but the cops came and they tried to run). Had they broken though we would have shot them.

Food/restaurants vary alot. Many Vietnamese, Mexican, Indian, and some Japanese restaurants(Family owned "hole in the walls" are the best). Also every week or so, all of the Gourmet lunch trucks gather in one area and form a mobile restaurant armada. For food for home, we try to avoid standard super markets and instead use Costco/Local farmers markets to get what we need(Easily half the price than what you would pay in a normal store).

Schools: Quality varies. One of the newer schools built in a higher class neighbor hood had laptops issued to highschool students for school work. The school I went to was not so fortunate, instead we almost had our ROTC program and school sports dismantled. Education in highschool is so-so. Budget cuts impact teachers and resources, also many lowlifes/idiots in classes who distract everyone and waste time(Had a teacher quit after a year of insults from a small group of students. She finally left when they threw milk at her in class; she just teared up, packed her stuff and walked out.)

College; Unless you are a very good student, get scholarships and good grades, community college is the only viable/realistic option. State universities are very expensive(Read an article that said it would be cheaper to attend an Ivy league school if they accept you than to graduate from a certain few California universities. Ridiculous.

So yea, I think the best possible thing we have going for us is the weather(Which is odd this year, it is nearing April and it is pouring rain/freezing when it should be sunny) and the many choices in food due to culture. :IS2:

 

[Moyako]

Spoiler!

Nice house, Floyd. I always wondered what it feels like to live in a wooden house. Here all buildings are made of concrete and bricks. How durable those houses are?

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Well, I am from Sussex County, NJ and that is in the NW part of the state. It is mostly different here from what Grizzly described above.

Spoiler!

I live in New Jersey about 20 miles West of New York City.

One of the most densely populated places on Earth (traffic) and one of the most racially diverse. It's kind of a bastardization of urban and suburban. There are foxes and deer (there used to be a couple wild turkeys but I think they went extinct around here like 5 or 6 years ago) around me but if I drive over the hill I'm in a hardcore urban area; or if I drive a bit in the opposite direction I'm in a nature reserve. It takes me 15 or 20 minutes to get to work which is like two miles away. I work with an interesting mix of people from all over the world.

I can take a short walk and hop a train into the city for fairly cheap. I honestly don't like NYC as much as everyone else (smelly, loud, overwhelming), but it's nice knowing I have access to it and that every concert I want to see will most likely stop there. On a rare occasion I'll go to a show or gallery or museum or something.

The weather is pretty average for USA I suppose. This winter we've only had a few snowstorms that really stuck to the ground. Everything looks like **** though. I live in a "swamp". The sky is grey and ominous. The trees are all crooked like a Halloween movie. Old vines conquer used car dealers from days gone by and bulky new concrete entrance ramps awkwardly clash with old roads from the 50's. Sometimes I step outside and just wish I was somewhere with pretty trees or bright green grass. It is nice that I can escape it easily as we have mountains for skiing in the winter and an ocean for swimming in the summer , both less than an hour from my place.

The culture is.... well it's like New York. There is no real underlying culture, just millions of people doing their own thing. It's cool if you're from El Salvador or Ukraine or Korea you can find people like yourself .... but it's different when you grew up here as an American. You'll find everybody from every walk of like from musicians to athletes to actors to priests to soldiers around here. Politics and religion are hot subjects around here; I try and avoid it. Economy is thriving, the recession hasn't hit as bad here as a lot of the country, but I'm not really benefiting from it... I mostly just pay expensive *** rent for a mediocre place.

As far as Jerseyans (edit: at least the ones in my area, other parts of the state are very different) go, I think the people are a little.... decadent. It's renowned world wide as a sleazy state (Jersey Shore, etc.) but I'd say it's more greedy. A lot of the people I talk to sound like they've been listening to too much gangster rap and go on about how they love working 60 hours a week and busting their *** making money just so they can buy Gucci sunglasses to go with their suit that they wear to the bar and spend $300 on drinks with. A lot of people aspire to that classy bull**** lifestyle even if they don't have a prestigious job/a lot of money/social status. They just put on some nice threads and buy Grey Goose martinis/some french wine they know nothing about and act like they own the ****in world. A lot of superficiality. People are always ****ing around with their iPhones while you're trying to talk to them and acting like they are talking to their booking agent or some ****.


I hope to someday move somewhere more calm, slow, open minded and down to earth. I've lived in other parts of the country and for the most part I hated them because of snow/winter, but I liked the genuine people more.

It is more rural here and there are no cities, just towns with houses and farmland inbetween mostly. However we are really increasing that sprawl with stores and minimalls along the major roads leading out of towns. It was always there before, but I feel it is getting carried away and it has really made a mess with traffic. This is probably made worse because a lot of people commute out of the county for their jobs. For me, its not bad at all as I only live about 10 minutes away (or about 6 miles), we talk communting distance in time here because distance really gives you no clue how long it takes to get from one place to the other.

For the most part, people are 'nice' around here and probably middle class on average, although the economy has hurt some people. Mostly this part of the state is conservative leaning and in many cases Democrats don't even bother running for office until you get to the state and national level. Enough of the politics though. We are seeing more of an influx of illegal immigrants and that really bothers people because of the job situation(notice I said Illegal, legal immigrants are great and add nice diversity).

There usually is enough to do around here locally although if you don't live in town you have to drive if you want to go out to a bar or restuarant and that puts a damper on things because you don't want to to drink and drive. If we want to go to shows or see a concert, eastern NJ or NYC isn't that far away. If we want to camp or go elsewhere there is PA or NY to drive to which is very close. For those of you not in the know, most of NY state is extremely rural and the complete opposite of NYC.

Most of my family is around here so that is why I live here, but I have thought about moving just over the Deleware River to PA because it is cheaper to live and buy a home there. Most of NJ is an expensive place to live and the taxes are just outrageous. While I am saving for a house, its slow going in this economy and I am currently single so its just my income to rely upon. Other than that, I generally like the area.

 

[Floyd]

Nice house, Floyd. I always wondered what it feels like to live in a wooden house. Here all buildings are made of concrete and bricks. How durable those houses are?

I would venture to say that most houses (not apartments or high rises) built in the U.S. are of wood frame construction. The outside is then either brick veneer or siding of some sort.

What is durable here would not necessarily be considered durable in (oh, say) Europe for example. A lot, too, depends upon where you live in the U.S. Warm, humid, rainy Louisiana, arid New Mexico, or cold, humid, rainy Washington state. My house was built in 2000. I've had to repaint the porches twice. This year we'll have to do some maintenance on the wooden columns and wood trimming on the lower parts of the house, that sort of thing.

@Mr. Moe,
This winter I took the family up to the Berkshire area of Mass. We landed in Albany and drove over to a small ski resort. (Thank god they could make their own snow!!). As you say, its very rural. Most people who live in the cities don't really realize how vast and rural the rest of the country is. But I digress.....

I had a few preconceived notions about the kind of reception a 'good old Southern boy' was going to get up there (amongst all them Yankees ). I must say, the people we encountered were just good old fashioned 'home folk'. Very nice and very accommodating. We drove around a good bit to see the area and everywhere we went, from grocery stores to gas stations to restuarants, the people were just as pleasant as could be. It wasn't until we got back below the Mason Dixon line that we started running into 'attitude' and the 'your lucky I'm waiting on you' mentality (like they're doing me a favor by having a job ). The South better be careful. Southern hospitality is quickly becoming a thing of the past. We had a great time!

 

[Rattler]

look at this http://fishki.net/print.php?id=110126 these pic are from my country lol

 

[PermenentMarker]

look at this [url]http://fishki.net/print.php?id=110126[/URL] these pic are from my country lol

LOL

Love that bike path...

Winner of the Rally is the one who smashes into the parked van the hardest

 

[AsoBit]

Hmmm well I am from Ocean County, New Jersey. More specifically, I am 5 minutes inland from the ocean, about 10 minutes north of the bridge to Long Beach Island, about 25 minutes south of Seaside (The Jersey Shore setting) and about 40 minutes North of Atlantic City.

It's pretty boring around my area, but there's enough stuff within a short driving distance. Mostly just nature and houses around, though there's been some development going on.

There's really nothing notable about my area that I can think of. We do have a Pirate Day festival though. There's also a wawa on every corner which is nice. I really don't get out much.