You want to tax a city owned parking lot? Who would the city be paying that tax to?
masterspace
joined 2 years ago
But most importantly, many Americans believe that the equalizing force of firearms—something that allows the citizenry to defend themselves against tyranny and for the weak/frail to defend themselves against the physically strong— is philosophically worth a small reduction in public safety.
How many times guns have helped resist tyranny in the US?
I'll start citing innocent people killed by the tyranny of widespread gun availability.
Nope.
Just objectively and provably false, this is NRA talking point nonsense.
Guns increase the rates of suicide, they increase the rates of domestic violence murder, and they make everyone less safe around police by giving police an excuse to use deadly force.
Guns also are not manufactured clandestinely en masse, anywhere, because it takes a lot of precise industrial machining to do at scale. They are not like sex or weed that are impossible to ban, when you stop manufacturing them for nonsense reasons, they stop circulating and criminals stop being able to get their hands on them.
I do not understand why Americans think they are such unfathomably unique snowflakes that none of the evidence or lessons learned from every other developed country could apply to them.
Oh do tell us the value of goods and services transported every day by gun.
Because I can give you a number for the approximate economic value provided by cars and vehicular transportation generally, can you tell us the economic value provided by guns and every random person being able to point and click murder whenever they want?
Yeah, it's explicitly distinct from const a: String which says it won't change, and var a: String, which means this is legacy code that needs fixing.
Do you know how many innocent people's blood that has cost?
Encouraging people to arms themselves will get people killed. You're racing to the bottom in a doom loop and yelling hell yeah nonsensically rather than actually trying to break out of that doom loop.
America is fucked because it's convinced it's population that it has to keep participating in its toxic behaviours to survive. That's false. It's literally just fear mongering.
However, there can eventually come a time where resistance is appropriate. Hitler never would have taken complete control of the country, exterminated so many Jews, and started Europe on the path to a world war if the Germans were armed and actively resisting his rule.
Bruh, come the fuck on. Jews were 1% of the population, meanwhile like 30% of the population actively supported the Nazis, and far more would have continued to turn a blind eye as long as violence wasn't being perpetrated against people like them.
This is nonsense alt history that ignores the fact that Nazis steamrolled and enacted death camps in far more countries than just Germany, and personal ownership of firearms didn't make a dent in stopping them.
Look at the results of that 90s LA bank robbery. It was the first time that two guys had enough body armour and firepower to challenge the local police. What was the end result? Every police officer across the country getting assigned body armour and high powered rifles, and every police agency militarizing and buying APCS, tactical units, etc.
The idea that the government would allow you to own weaponry that would legitimately challenge them is asinine.
This is honestly, the dumbest, most American take in the world.
It literally ignores the plainly obvious fact that not a single other developed country allows gun ownership, and yet, still have rights and democracy and freedom.
Guns did not get your rights, and they do not protect you from a government that has AI powered drones with anti tank mines on them. Hell a fucking APC with a sound cannon will make your AR look like a child's toy.
Guess what happened when a pair of guys had enough guns and body armour to challenge the local LA government in the 90s? Oh would you look at that, every single local government's police force across the country just militarized and bought tanks and SWAT teams in response. The idea that the government will let any random potentially mentally ill or terrorist citizen, buy enough firepower that they could legitimately challenge the government, is dumb on its face. No government anywhere allows that or would for obvious (see: terroristic) reasons.
Wide spread gun ownership just makes everyone less safe. Full stop.
On the one hand housing is good.
On the other hand, getting rid of on-street parking and moving those cars into off-street stacked lots is good as it provides space for dedicated bike and transit lanes. Plus, the faster it is to move throughout the city, the more effective space the city has to work with (i.e. a home 45m from a downtown job is a home 45m from a downtown job, regardless of whether that's at Ossington because traffic is a nightmare or whether it's at Jane because it's not).
Ideally we'd bury the parking and build housing on top, though that's not feasible for a bunch of the lots that are built on top of the subway (like along Bloor).