Uhm... OK, the minister dude was a little blunt, but if you smuggle contraband animals into a country and then get busted, I think you ought to be happy you got any countdown/warning period to get them out at all.

If Joe Average did this and the authorities caught him, I'd imagine it would be highly likely they'd confiscate the animals on the spot and euthanize them quickly. Possibly with no chance to appeal, etc.

So, that might be one of the first times that I've actually disagreed with John Oliver on his new show...

Here, take as long as you want. All the info and sources are exactly where he says they are, in the YouTube description. I've copied them here for you. If he hadn't provided all of these I might be inclined to agree with you. But he did provide the evidence, so you don't just have to believe the buzz words, you can actually check it out for yourself.

SOURCES

On average, black men's prison sentences are 20% longer than white men's for comparable crimes: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142...

Black people and white people use illegal drugs at similar rates, but black people are far more likely to be arrested for drug use: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/1/5850830/w...

African Americans are far more likely to be stopped and searched (although the contraband hit rate is higher among white people) in California: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/...

And in New York (where the data isn't quite as good but appears to be comparable to CA): http://www.nyclu.org/content/nypd-qua...

Those wrongfully convicted and later exonerated by DNA are disproportionately African American: http://www.innocenceproject.org/Conte...

Black kids are far more likely to be tried as adults and more likely to receive life sentences: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/...

Black former convicts get fewer employer callbacks than white former convicts: http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/...

Emily and Brendan are more hirable than Lakisha and Jamal: http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/...

On that front, this study is also interesting: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/9... and similar results have been found in the UK: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2009... and also in Australia: http://ftp.iza.org/dp4947.pdf

Also, this news story has some great analysis: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/bus...

High schools with mostly African American and Latino students are less likely to offer courses in Algebra II or Chemistry than high schools with mostly white students: https://www.documentcloud.org/documen...

This article explores many of the other ways that increasingly segregated schools have negatively affected African American students: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/sun...

And this story discusses the fact that African American students are more than twice as likely to be suspended as white students--even in preschool. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2...

The ACP report on racial disparities in U.S. health care: http://www.acponline.org/advocacy/cur...
This (dated) study is also damning: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36... and there's lot of good info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and...

More info on increasing disparities in life expectancy between black and white people in the US: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...

The most recent polls show fewer white people thinking racism is not a problem than the ones I used in this video (although still a huge divide): http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/22/politic... and http://www.washingtonpost.com/politic... and http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/12...

Racial wealth disparity and the role that inheritance plays: http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/...
Related wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_i...

The widening of the wealth gap: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/...

Nonvideo recommendations: I really like Roxane Gay's work in Slate and The Butter; this story in the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/bus... Chris Rock's recent interview at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news..., and Ashley Ford's commentary and analysis: https://twitter.com/ismashfizzle. Also Kiese Laymon's wriitng is great, including http://gawker.com/my-vassar-college-faculty-id-makes-everything-ok-1664133077

Oh! I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing the video. LOL!
Predictable 'officers are always right, even when they're wrong, and you should simply allow then to screw you hard and dry and hope for the best in court' mentality and suggestions, though.
Cops are trained on how to act. They ignore that training, or abuse it, to act improperly.

EDIT: I would disagree. I believe that the majority of people have official police contact at least one point in their life, either as suspects or victims.
It depends on your definition of 'civilly'. Most police contact is legally proper, that doesn't mean the cop acts civilly. From experience, when they think you've been criminal or non-compliant, police civility goes right out the window and the inappropriate violent threats, name calling, and angry cursing starts instantly, before the 'suspect' has a chance to react at all. That's why I was pulled out of my car at gunpoint and thrown violently to the ground by a screaming cursing officer when he misread my license plate and thought my car was stolen.

Yes, the vast majority of police contact is done properly....just as the vast majority of contact with murderers, rapists, thieves, and child molesters is done with proper conduct. That does not excuse it when they act improperly, just as the previous good conduct doesn't excuse a murder/rape/theft/molestation later. Duh.
Yes, most people know that if you don't cow tow to cops, kiss their ass, and allow them to violate you in whatever way they like, they'll further abuse their power to fuck you hard and you'll pay the price. (I learned that lesson, 'respect authority even when it's wrong or you pay the price', at 4 years old when my dad closed fist punched me across the room for saying 'NO', but being a learning experience didn't make his actions acceptable by any means). Funny how you turn violent abuse of power and violation of civil rights into 'won't make you happy' and assign the blame to the victims of abuse for not being subservient enough. It's a bit more than 'won't make you happy', dude.
It's not a 'small number' of contacts that end up with abuse and/or murder, it may be a 'small' percentage, but once is once too many, thousands of times per year is unacceptable by any reckoning. How can you ignore that? It's unconscionable. It's also near 100% of the time that the 'blue wall' closes in around the offending cops and protects them, so that makes you ALL accessories after the fact. You also know this well.
This guy could easily have ended up dead, he did not instigate or even participate in the violence. He was incredibly lucky his buildings security system caught the incident or he would be in prison for years to come, based on cops lies and abuse.
'We people' expect cops to act according to the laws they swore to uphold. We expect them to follow procedure and work to de-escalate violence, not to go rogue and act violently as a first resort, especially true when there's been no crime committed.
This guys behavior, sitting unarmed, without contraband, calmly and quietly, led to his fate, beaten and arrested over nothing at all, (for asking why he was searched in the first place, or contempt of cop, neither being a crime) and charged with serious felonies based on cop's lies. You once again put the blame on the victim, because it can't possibly be the cops acting improperly in your myopic viewpoint, even when it's on video. Fortunately it's a tiny minority viewpoint not held by many.

" At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes."

Per year. You don't cite your source, but this is looks to me to be an underestimate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey there are half about half a million people claiming to be victim of a gun related crime over the course of a year. I remember being a victim of a gun crime in America (the perp was an British-born and educated woman) where the police said that they weren't going to follow things up because they were too busy with more serious crimes and they weren't confident of successful prosecution, they didn't even bother to look at the bullets or interview the perpetrator. I'd be surprised if it was even officially reported for crime statistic purposes.

"So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least."

You didn't discuss the confounding variables.

But nevertheless, nobody is saying that owning guns makes you intrinsically more criminal. The argument here seems to be that criminals or those with criminal intent will find it much easier to acquire firearms when there are hundreds of millions of them distributed in various degrees of security across the US.

And those that have firearms, who are basically normal and moral people, may find themselves in a situation where their firearm is used, even in error, and causes harm - a situation obviously avoided in the absence of firearms and something that isn't necessarily included in crime statistics.

"In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home"

Yes, but here's a fun fact. I've been burgled a few times, all but one of those times I was at home when it happened. You know what the burglar was armed with? Nothing. Do you know what happened when I confronted him with a wooden weapon? He pretended he knew someone that lived there and when that fell through he ran away. When the police apprehended him, there wasn't any consideration that he might be armed with a gun and the police merely put handcuffs on him and he walked to the police car. He swore and made some idle and non-specific threats, according to the police, but that's it. In any event, this isn't extraordinary. There are still too many burglaries that do involve violence, of course.
Many burglaries in Britain are actually vehicle crimes, with opportunity thrown in. That is: The primary purpose of the burglary is to acquire car keys (this is often the easiest way to steal modern vehicles), but they may grab whatever else is valuable and easy too.

"The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings."

What impact did it have on gun prevalence? Not really enough to stop the sentence 'guns are prevalent in the US' from being true....

" So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed."

I missed the part where you provided the reasoning that connects your evidence to this conclusion.

"Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. "

This is silly. Guns don't get manufactured and then 32% of them get stolen from the manufacturers warehouse. They get bought and some get subsequently stolen. If there were less guns made and sold there would be less guns available for felons to acquire them privately, less places to steal them or buy stolen ones on the black market, less opportunity for renting or purchasing from a retailer. Thus - less felons with guns.

If times got tough, and I thought robbing a convenience store was a way out of a situation I was in - I would not be able to acquire a firearm without putting myself in considerable danger that outweighs the benefits to the degree that pretending to have a gun is a better strategy. I have 'black market contacts' so I might be able to work my way to someone with a gun, but I really don't want to get into business with someone that deals guns because they are near universally bad news.

" states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate."

Almost all States have such laws, making the comparison pretty meaningless.

"In fact, it's {number of mass shootings} declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. "

I think 'most dead in one incident' is a poor measure. I think total dead over a reasonable time period is probably better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
The UK appears once. It is approx. 1/5 the population of the US. The US manages to have five incidents in the top 10.

Statistics can be fun, though, huh?

" In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens"

You've done a lot of hard work to show that most gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. As such, the police won't go door to door, citizens will go to the police.

"How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns?"

The same way they remove contraband from other recalcitrants. I expect most of them will ask, demand, threaten and then use force - but as usual there will be examples where it won't be pretty.

"Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns?"

That's how it typically goes down here in the UK, yes.

"Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else?"

The military has had access to weapons the citizenry is not permitted to for some considerable time. Banning most handguns etc., would just be adding to the list.

"Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?"

No, but on the other hand, can the same unreliable, dishonest, immoral and unvirtuous government ensure that allowing general access to firearms will go exactly as planned?

You see, you talk the talk of sociological examination, but you seem to have neglected any form of critical reflection.

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary"

On the other hand, I've been mugged erm, 6 times? I've been violently assaulted without attempts to rob another half dozen or so. I don't tend to hang around in the sorts of places middle class WASPs would loiter, shall we say. I'm glad most of the people that cross my path are not armed, and have little to no idea how to get a gun.

You don't source this assertion as far as I saw - but you'll have to do better than 'it's interesting' in your analysis, I'm afraid.

No formatting, because too much typing already.

OH...and considering the recent attempt by chiccochodiarreah, to defame and otherwise lambast me publicly, I would like to take this opportunity for anyone reading this with the power to otherwise tamper with my mail or any winner's who receives a prize as specified here, that nothing which could be considered contraband or of nefarious intent ever came or will come form me into your possession.

FUCK the dumb-shits and the Babylonian high priests of illusion!!

just like in contraband, starring marky mark

Sadly prescient, I fear. I'd hate to be in a warzone when they weaponize all those autonomous flying drones everyone's making now...

Not to mention when someone has the bright idea of strapping pipe bombs on them and flying fleets of GPS-guided flying bombs into crowded places.

And I'd be surprised if smugglers weren't already using those to get contraband across borders. From what I can tell, currently you can get a kit for a couple of thousand dollars that includes GPS and autopilot with waypoints, with half an hour of flying time and a top speed of about 80 kilometres per hour...

1) Leave your seat belt on.

2) Roll the window all the way down.

3) It's helpful to put both hands on the door ledge after you roll the window down.

4) TELL the cop when you are going to reach in the glove box (or wherever) to present the registration.

5) Anything an officer can see through your windows is fair game, so hide your contraband.

NEVER CONSENT TO SEARCHES.

>> ^possom:

It does seem excessive when the line regarding "Criminal contraband" was stricken through on the warrant, suggesting they had no anticipation of drugs, weapons, etc. Then why the 13 armed men?

I'm pretty sure that was the judge that stroked through that line. It had what I assumed was his initials on the side. That just means the judge didn't give them authority to look for "Criminal contraband".

"SWAT" is probably accurate, but the government probably has some other more innocuous sounding name they call their task force.

I guess since they were looking for evidence of fraud, their reasoning for busting the door with a SWAT team was to prevent any evidence from being destroyed. The usual absurdity.

UPDATE: http://www.news10.net/news/article/141207/2/DOE-raids-Stockton-home-as-part-of-fraud-investigation

Neighbors are backing his story. "Excessive Force" now mentioned and an attorney acquired. It does seem excessive when the line regarding "Criminal contraband" was stricken through on the warrant, suggesting they had no anticipation of drugs, weapons, etc. Then why the 13 armed men?

""They surrounded the house; it was like a task force or S.W.A.T team," across the street neighbor Becky said. "They all had guns. They dragged him out in his boxer shorts, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him."

According to Becky and her two children, the raid started at 6 a.m. with agents ramming down Wright's front door.

"I watched until I went to work at 10:45 and they were still out there," Becky said.

Her young daughter, Valerie, said she counted 13 agents and one Stockton police officer outside Wright's home.

"I felt really bad for those kids," said Becky about agents when they brought out Wright's three children. "They were crying really loud.""

Thanks for the promote!

In reply to this comment by radx:
*promote

This was also part of his Contraband routine in '09, available at your local warez site retailer.

*promote

This was also part of his Contraband routine in '09, available at your local warez site retailer.

>> ^Tymbrwulf:

As ridiculous as searching a 3 year old for contraband is, put yourself in the TSA officer's position. She's required to do a search on anyone when the gate beeps twice regardless of age. She would have probably been reprimanded for NOT searching the child.
The system is broken.
BUT
It's easy to find fault without proposing a solution, so what say you, sifters? How would you fix the problem?


Just like you end a war, you end the TSA.

As ridiculous as searching a 3 year old for contraband is, put yourself in the TSA officer's position. She's required to do a search on anyone when the gate beeps twice regardless of age. She would have probably been reprimanded for NOT searching the child.

The system is broken.

BUT

It's easy to find fault without proposing a solution, so what say you, sifters? How would you fix the problem?

>> ^NinjaInHeat:

NordlichReiter: I am missing the point? the ship was bound to Gaza, it gave word that it was heading to Gaza in advance, they were informed in advance that they would not be allowed passage, they were offered in advance to have their ship inspected for contraband... Of course the fact Israel did what it did before the ship actually crossed over is illegal, if you had read my first comment you'd see I acknowledged that, but that -isn't- the point. I'm trying to figure out whether those soldiers acted appropriately, whether this was some senseless slaughter brought on by "trigger happiness", but no, let's not talk about that, that's not what the controversy's about, I am missing the point...


If they acted illegally in boarding the ship before the crime was committed, then it is pretty clear that they acted inappropriately.