Asinine study, considering liberals are the ones that mostly succumb to things like the global warming farce and the world is collapsing pandemonium. Conservatives are clearly more objective and reason oriented thinkers. They don't buy into irrationality like liberals are known for.
Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals.
The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.
The results are not that surprising, as they fit in with conclusions from other studies. Just a year ago, researchers from Harvard and UCLA San Diego reported finding a "liberal" gene. This gene had a tiny effect, however, and worked only for adolescents having many friends. The results also mesh with psychological studies on conflict monitoring.
What It Means
There is a big unknown underlying these findings. Supposing that the size of one's amygdala really does increase the likelihood of being a conservative, is the size of the amygdala determined at birth, or does it perhaps increase with frightening childhood experiences, such as authoritarian parenting and corporal punishment?
Similarly, one might ask whether the gray matter difference is affected by exposure to educational challenge, social diversity, or childhood cognitive enrichment.
The "born" versus "acquired" perspective on political attitudes is important to psychologists. After all, if political proclivities are fixed at birth in terms of brain anatomy, there is little hope of change. Most of us would probably like to see a world in which political attitudes were less polarized and more changeable, but that may be a pipe dream.
Meanwhile, the neuro-scientific fact of two very different political creatures helps clarify much of the political antics of modern democracies.
Most societies are divided into a party that wants change (the more liberal party) and one that is afraid of change (the conservatives). The liberal party is generally more intellectual and the conservative party is more anti-intellectual.
The conservative party is big on national defense and magnifies our perception of threat, whether of foreign aggressors, immigrants, terrorists, or invading ideologies like Communism. To a conservative, the world really is a frightening place.
Given that their brains are so different, it is hardly surprising that liberals and conservatives should spend so much time talking across each other and never achieving real dialogue or consensus.
As scientists, we hope that these results are replicated because they shed so much light on political behavior. As citizens, we would prefer if politicians were not divided into such different categories of a political animal.
If everyone was born with the same brain potential to acquire either conservative or liberal views, then we could be more optimistic about prospects for political communication and consensus-building. If voters were of like brain, perhaps they could be of like mind.
Asinine comment, considering
typical conservative retort - they are too ignorant to address the real points (strengths and weaknesses) so as typical they attack the persons via name calling and insults.
Funny that's also inline with the author's hypothesis. Which begs another question, is it the size of the amygdala itself or the activity that is the critical feature?
I'd also like to see this study replicated on a different demographic sample.
lack of accountability
Fear combined with lack of accountability usually has a bad ending.
Oh really
Um... Isn't LACK of fear more the product of lack of accountability? If you're less accountable, you have less to fear, I would think.
Addition
Or is the idea that fearful people seek positions in society with less accountability? And then (by some people's standards) "abuse" it?
I guess that would at least make some kind of logical sense, whether true or not. In that case accountability would not produce fear, but fear would produce LACK of accountability (by motivating the fearful to seek it).
I apologize
I went off due to emotion there. I'll admit I am not as educated as most and I find myself saying things that at times make no sense. I take all of that back. Thank you for letting me air my feelings.
Asinine Comment
You mean insults like calling someone ignorant?
Typical anonymous
Anonymous, your comment was actually quite hypocritical as you equate conservatives with name calling, when all the while you are doing the same, which is the epitome of the liberal mindset when they are incapable of, or losing a debate. Classic “bomb throwing.”
In regards to the article. This piece, along with the “study”, was engineered and written by liberals, so I hold the findings to be devoid of any scientific method and therefore pseudoscience. What’s next? A study about the dangers of eating meat put out by the soybean growers association?
Narrow Minded Much
Nice selective reasoning you have there. "This is from a source I don't like therefore it's invalid." Ignorant reasoning like that is the reason our country is so divided and sides polarized. And if it was from a conservative source would you trust it then? I don't entirely everything in the article either but it makes some valid points in regards to not letting perceived mindsets dictate our politics. Also you ascribe name calling as liberal mindset tactic when conservatives engage in the same kind of tactics. Projection at it's finest
Motivated Reasoning
Anonymous wrote:Nice selective reasoning you have there. "This is from a source I don't like therefore it's invalid." Ignorant reasoning like that is the reason our country is so divided and sides polarized. And if it was from a conservative source would you trust it then?
In my country the "conservatives" abandoned reason and reality in the 1970s because they believed they were "liberal" traits. It was contrary to The Southern Strategy to govern by reason and evidence: the USA Republican Party had found itself irrelevant because the country had shifted "leftward" politically--- the Nixon Regime therefore created the fear of black people "replacing white people" to increase its political power.
Likewise AK, you are accusing
Likewise AK, you are accusing anonymous of doing the same thing you are doing. Can you say HYPOCRISY? Typical conservatist.
Orwellian vs. Stalinesque
Anonymous wrote:Likewise AK, you are accusing anonymous of doing the same thing you are doing. Can you say HYPOCRISY? Typical conservatist.
It is a form of Stalinesque cognition, and their cult master, Glorious Orange Leader, engages in constantly: the cultist projects onto his or her victim behavior that the cultist had just engaged in. The cultist is aware of her or his deceit for a fraction of a second before emotional self-defense mechanisms rewrite the history of the cultist's behavior in the brain of the cultist. The cultist then emphatically defends the false history, often providing additional (and imaginary) details of What Really Happened.
Asinine study considering it
Asinine study considering it finds you a typical cowardly conservative?
As a conservative..
Use your purported complex brain to run through this one: If an opponent really is cowardly, what sort of threat do you think he might perceive in being called a coward? The likely result is this conservative pulling into his conserv-o-shell™ and treating you as a serious threat to his social standing, which in the evolutionary past had a serious link to his chances for survivial. And his brain still sees it that way.
Or put another way, you might as well have just threatened to kill the man for the amount of fear that comment just evoked.
>>>a serious threat to his
>>>a serious threat to his social standing, which in the evolutionary past had a serious link to his chances for survivial.
Uh.... fear is what keeps you
Uh.... fear is what keeps you alive. There are bold people and there are old people but there are very few bold old people.
Fear doesn't keep you alive...
Intelligence does... having the intellectual capacity to look at a situation's possible outcomes and making an informed decision about whether that outcome is worth pursuing or not is what keeps people alive. One doesn't need to be afraid of snakes to know not to play with it. Moreover (in this specific example), certain religious sects frequently handle snakes without fear, but still end up dying from snake bites.
Fear Keeps Us Safe?
A lot of people were afraid to reduce nuclear weapons or ban lead in consumer goods.
The title is misleading. The
The title is misleading. The article initialy refers to "fear" and "anxiety" but later states that conservatives are more apt to recognize threats and respond with aggression due to a larger amygdala. It doesn't state anything about fear in the rest of the article. This makes sense. Despite the fact that we are in war time, conservatives out number liberals in the Armed forces 2 to 1. The ratio gets even higher the more dangerous the military occupation. The ratio approaches 4 to 1 in the special forces. Fearful people don't join the infantry in war time. People who recognize threats and meet them join the infantry. Again, this is consistent with the idea that liberals don't recognize and meet external threats as well as conservatives. You're the cowards.
Fear, the amygdala, conservatism
If you read the actual study instead of just the article then it does discuss the fear more in detail, but when the amygdala is large the individual is generally fearful of new information. Also there are 28 other studies (over 20 years) which study similar things with similar findings every time and some of those go more into the details of what you claim does not exist; they also show that liberals amygdalas do respond to things that are actually fearful (for instance if their lives are in danger, during starvation, and when actual threats are present). The high latent inhibition brain (which makes up around 95% of the population) removes information from its enviornment it is uncomfortable with; with an overly developed amygdala the aim is to remove information and stimulus that may cause the individual to feel inferior so generally focuses on others being worse than they actually are and as it doesn't involve empathy or compassion is generally confused with logic. The high latent inhibition brain with a more developed anterior cingular cortex is more likely to see others as better than they are, is able to recognize an emotional response as it does involve compassion and empathy (for some reason sociologically fear and aggression are not seen as emotions), and thus able to receive new information. Though I do agree that people with large amygdalas make better soldiers as they are less likely to suffer from ptsd as it is easier to justify certain actions when one has a large amygdala. Also, anyone without a large amygdala would be far more likely to actually read the study before commenting, would recognize that people are on a spectrum, and recognize that even if he or she is part of the group it doesn't necessarily apply to them so would not be emotionally upset over a study which matches 28 other studies.
Not so much
Uh...wrong pal, that's not how it works. Fewer liberals in the army doesn't make them cowards and more conservatives serving doesn't make them courageous. You seem to have confused practical reasoning with cowardice. There are many reasons people may join the military. exaggerated notions of patriotism, personal reasons, family history, financial situations, all these things can be major factors that can compel people to want to join the military. Irregardless of whether few or more liberals serve you can't gauge someone's courage based on whether or not they join the army. Statistically speaking conservatives are less likely to be concerned about the environment than liberals. Does that mean conservatives hate the environment? I think not.
Army Liberals
Anonymous wrote:Uh...wrong pal, that's not how it works. Fewer liberals in the army doesn't make them cowards and more conservatives serving doesn't make them courageous. You seem to have confused practical reasoning with cowardice. There are many reasons people may join the military. exaggerated notions of patriotism, personal reasons, family history, financial situations, all these things can be major factors that can compel people to want to join the military.
Indeed. My country (United States of America) hires foreign nationals to fight its invasions, with the promise of later citizenship and education: the people who *CHOOSE* to join "standing militaries" are excessively fearful and excessively "Conscientious" in the O.C.E.A.N. model.
Non-conservatives in my country do not join the military because there are no military threats against the USA; conservatives join the military because they see imaginary threats. This has been known for over 60 years.
Army liberals reply by anonymous
Are you referring to conservatives perceived imaginary threats such as the imaginary planes that flew into those imaginary buildings and killed thousands of imaginary people. Yes, conservatives live in a fairytale land full of unicorns and magical rainbows. Please do make sure to wake us from our daydream when the real threat appears.
Appears Mentally Ill
Anonymous wrote:Are you referring to conservatives perceived imaginary threats such as the imaginary planes that flew into those imaginary buildings and killed thousands of imaginary people. Yes, conservatives live in a fairytale land full of unicorns and magical rainbows. Please do make sure to wake us from our daydream when the real threat appears.
The title is misleading. The
The title is misleading. The article initially refers to "fear" and "anxiety" but later states that conservatives are more apt to recognize threats and respond with aggression due to a larger amygdala. This makes sense. Despite the fact that we are in war time, conservatives out number liberals in the Armed forces 2 to 1. The ratio gets even higher the more dangerous the military occupation. The ratio approaches 4 to 1 in the special forces. Fearful people don't join the infantry in war time. People who recognize threats and meet them join the infantry. Again, this is consistent with the idea that liberals don't recognize and meet external threats as well as conservatives. You're the cowards.
Conservative brain
It may be that the liberals had better employment opportunities than joining the armed forces, when the survival of the country wasn't at stake.
The title is misleading. The
The title is misleading. The article states that conservatives are more apt to recognize threats and respond with aggression due to a larger amygdala. It doesn't state anything about fear. This explains why, despite the fact that we are in war time, conservatives out number liberals in the Armed forces 2 to 1. The ratio gets even higher the more dangerous the military occupation. The ratio approaches 4 to 1. Again, this is consistent with the idea that liberals don't recognize and meet external threats as well as conservatives. Read the article next time asshole. You're the cowards.
The title is misleading. The
The title is misleading. The article states that conservatives are more apt to recognize external threats and respond with aggression due to a larger amygdala. It doesn't state anything about fear. This explains why, despite the fact that we are in war time, conservatives out number liberals in the Armed forces 2 to 1. The ratio gets even higher the more dangerous the military occupation. The ratio approaches 4 to 1 in the special forces. Again, this is consistent with the idea that liberals don't recognize and meet external threats as well as conservatives. Read the article next time asshole. You're the cowards.
The title is misleading. The
The title is misleading. The article states that conservatives are more apt to recognize external threats and respond with aggression due to a larger amygdala. It doesn't state anything about fear. This explains why, despite the fact that we are in war time, conservatives out number liberals in the Armed forces 2 to 1. The ratio gets even higher the more dangerous the military occupation. The ratio approaches 4 to 1 in the special forces. Again, this is consistent with the idea that liberals don't recognize and meet external threats as well as conservatives. Read the article next time asshole. You're the cowards.
It is always challenging to
It is always challenging to accept new information, even that based on rigorous scientific exploration, if it doesn't conform to one's belief system. Simply discounting scientific research without actually analyzing one's own biased or reading the paper seems immature to me. But what do I know, I have the ability to see the complexity of systems and I'm not afraid of learning new things about the universe as I am a self-proclaimed liberal. Oh yeah, and a physics teacher.
Belief system, huh
So, did this new information conform to your belief system or not?
Global warming is based on
Global warming is based on scientific evidence, not farce. But, of course, conservatives actually believe there are such things as "death panels" included in Obamacare, not because they are real, but because somebody told them so, and with their heightened fear response, they do not look rationally at such claims to see if there is any validity to them. Nor do they look rationally at any other outrageous claims the far-right makes, they just believe them outright because, with their enlarged amygladas, they are easily frightened. Those who are passing off these ideas count on it! Just like they neither understand, nor look at the science involved in understanding climate change before they dismiss it as a farce, because somebody told them to. Do your own research, learn some science. Educate yourself!
The Bell Curve is also based
The Bell Curve is also based on science. There's also a study that says liberals are more likely to be pedophiles. And then there's the number of liberals in prison. Oh, and liberals don't really fair all that well on IQ tests either. Perhaps what conservatives really fear is a world run by perpetual adolescents.
liberals have lower IQ?
liberals have lower IQ? where is that study?
This entire comment is a
This entire comment is a complete fabrication. Sorry you were so threatened by the scientific evidence in the article.
liberals don't really fair all that well on IQ tests either.
No, that should read "fare all that well on IQ tests either." But according to your logic you may just be claiming to be a liberal, yourself.
You're kidding right?
You realize that actually the exact opposite has been shown multiple times.
People that identify as classical liberals (libertarians) and strong liberal have an average I.Q. of 106.42, whereas those that identify as conservative and strong conservative have an average I.Q. of 94.82. Meaning that actually liberals have a higher I.Q. on average than those that claim to be conservative. According to a longitudinal study completed in 2010. (In case you're wondering, those who have strong liberal and classical liberal views actually scored similarly across the board, with no statistical difference)
A 2009 study correlated cognitive capacity with political beliefs among 1,254 community college students and 1,600 foreign students seeking entry to U.S. universities, it found that conservatism is "related to low performance on cognitive ability tests." In 2012, a paper reported that people endorse more conservative views when drunk or under cognitive pressure; it concluded that "political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought."
There is some evidence that liberals have less education, because people who have no high school education are more likely to be liberal (by a small margin), than conservative. This pattern repeats with those that didn't graduate high school, those that did graduate, those that have some college, and into college graduates, but once you get into post graduate work suddenly the trend is flipped on its head, drastically. People who have postgraduate education are almost entirely liberal.
cognitive diversity
"People who have postgraduate education are almost entirely liberal." This is a false assumption not based on scientific sampling but based on population of the largest group of postgraduate learners namely those entering the field of education a much easier degree to attain than a science based degree. Those seeking MAs in ED outnumber all other degrees in most universities. However those seeking more difficult degrees in the sciences deal in logic and facts not emotions. For the writer to say almost all Postgraduates are liberal demonstrates the lack of thought and lack of peer reviewed research into the subject.
Global warming is based on
Hummm... interesting. I would love for someone to please explain to me how any scientist, meteorologists, etc can claim that global warming actually exists when neither can ACCURATELY predict what the weather or temperatures will be just a month out, BUT we are to totally believe they can predict what will happen a hundred years out? How in the world is this possible? I truly would love to have this answered. And, if the science is there... why did they have to change it from 'Global Warming' to 'Climate Change'? Is it because we have been in a cooling phase for the last couple of years? I believe that God has taken really good care of this great planet over the years. It has cooled... it has warmed... and then it cooled again...and it still exists. Not only has God taken great care of us and the planet that we live on... He also has a great sense of humor. Whenever there is a 'global warming' rally, He has it snow...just to show that He is in charge and in control.
Me thinks that it is the left, "the intellectuals" that are the ones that are afraid. After all, it seems that it is the 'right' or the 'conservatives' that are the ones that have no qualms in protecting themselves and others (yes, even the left) with their personal firearms, when the need arises. Most in the military are also conservatives. They are the ones that think of others before themselves. It is they that will lay down their lives to protect their fellow man, not the left. And if you are tempted to start spouting that guns need to be banned because of the deaths that have occurred because of them... stop and research it first. Every single one of them were leftists. They were mostly mentally impaired, usually stolen the gun because they had been declined when trying to purchase a gun from the gun shop (as in Laughner's case and others). It is not the gun that kills people, it is the evil, demented person that pulls the trigger. A gun in the hands of the good person, will be the one that saves innocent lives.
Why we know Global Warming is real
I'll take a stab at it..
I can address the specific argument you've posed by giving you a similar argument you can see through.
If you're very drunk and driving through the mountains at 120mph, I can tell you with a very high level of certainty that you'll crash. I can't tell you Exactly where you will crash, just like a meteorologist has trouble telling you what the weather will be in 11 days at a specific point on the planet.
The fact that you can't stay in your lane on a curvy road that you're traversing at well past what could possibly be a safe speed shows a clear pattern though.. you skid around the corners but eventually, you'll skid just a bit too far and you'll be embedded in the mountain or flying off the edge of the road.
Weather is chaotic. No one denies this. Just like no one knows exactly where the drunk will end up the next time they turn the wheel, it's difficult to predict Exactly what will happen in the next instant in a chaotic system.
It's not call Global Weather Change though.. is it?
It's called Global CLIMATE change.
Weather is not Climate. It's vitally important that you understand this so I'll harp on this a bit. Bear with me please.
Last Winter, it was brutally cold over most of North America. Conservatives predictably proclaimed Global Warming debunked because it was 15 below in the mid-west. But what about the other side of the planet? At the same time it was 15 below in North America, it was 60 degrees F at the same Latitude in Russia.
From the limited perspective of looking out a mid-west window, it sure looked like the climate was getting colder last winter but all you had to do to understand how faulty the perspective was to turn on the TV and watch people walking around in Shorts at the Winter Olympics.
We have a solid record of GLOBAL temperatures. We know that the planet has begun to warm precipitously since the start of the Industrial Revolution. It doesn't go up every year, sometimes the average temperature of the planet recedes for a year or two but the overall progress over decades.. over a century and a half.. has been upward.
Here's what we know...
* The average global temperature Has been going up since we started releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere in the mid-1800s.
* several of the hottest average years on record have been in the past decade.
* Urban heat islands.. we've understood the phenomenon for almost a century.. we adjust for that in the data.
* C02.. Physicists have understood why it's Greenhouse gas and how it works as such for nearly Two hundred years. Seriously. The science is that settled.
You can prove it for yourself with a couple bottles, thermometers, a heat lamp and some bi-carbonate antacid tabs if you really wanted to.. the science is really that simple.
* It's OUR CO2 in the upper atmosphere. We know there's more Co2 in the upper atmosphere, we know how it affects the climate, and we know we put it there because it's isotope ratios match that of the carbon that was formerly locked away in fossil fuels.
* It's not the sun.
.. I could go on and on.
There's literally hundreds of years of solid evidence for Climate change. More than you can imagine. The science behind it is solid.
Further, to hold your position you have to argue that tens of thousands of Climate Scientists who have spent their lives becoming experts in this field have all successfully conspired to carry on an elaborate hoax without anyone giving up the secret. Have you ever known 10 people to keep a secret? Tens of thousands of Climate Scientists have though? For Decades?
Seriously?
Of course, you can ignore all the science and just believe that God wouldn't allow such a thing.
Let me re-cast your argument for you though.
"Not only has God taken great care of us and the planet that we live on".. he'd never allow plagues to happen that wipe out half of the population of a content, nor would he allow huge swaths of Australia burn year after year as it suffers through heat-induced droughts. He'd never allow a lake as large Erie to become so polluted that it's tributaries would catch on fire. He'd never allow for nuclear melt-downs that de-populated hundreds of square miles in Russia.. because he takes great care of us and the planet. Right? World Wars? Cataclysms like volcanos? Nope.. they don't happen because God takes care of us and the planet.
Maybe there's a god, maybe there isn't. If there is a Christian god though.. you should re-read your scriptures to see what he's capable of allowing. Not only did he give us free-will, he's demanded genocide of his followers in the past. We've proven we have the ability to destroy our environment over and over. That's undeniable. He hasn't stopped us before, he's not stopping us now.
Climate is Not Greater Than the Sum of the Weather
Having lived a long life of summers and winters, droughts and floods, cold weather and warm, I can faithfully report that the climate has not changed - at least there has been no change in the ranges of expected weather conditions. Or do you insist that the climate is changing without effect on the weather?
Climate
{facepalm}
And again, we have someone who doesn’t understand that Climate is the measure of weather trends over time and large areas.
If you lived in Antartica, you might think the weather in your neighborhood was unchanging.
Cold in the Summer, deathly cold in the Winter, period full stop.
If you lived in Arizona, though, you’d have noticed the persistent drought that’s been going on for decades.
And if you weren’t that smart, you might assume that was the “new normal”.
Remember, just because it’s not raining in your back yard doesn’t mean there isn’t a flood going on a mere hundred miles away.
Ha, you're trying to explain climate
Explaining something like this to someone like Thoughtful is like when an ancient Greek wise man tried to explain that the earth is NOT the center of the universe. His audience replied: "But I look up in the sky everyday and the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, so CLEARLY the sun is going around US and not the other way around. And I can see Russia from house."
Thank you!
Thanks for that intelligent answer to this oft-repeated, mamby-pamby Christian "argument." The human capacity for denial never ceases to amaze me, but Christians have turned it into an art form. I should know, I used to be one. So glad I escaped the clutches of the cult of religion.
Because weather is not the
Because weather is not the same thing as climate, and if you don't understand the difference in that, how can you expect to know anything about global warming? That is basic.
Global warming is based on
When you apply a flame to a kettle of water can you not predict the condition of the water in 10 minutes without being able to predict each individual bubble rising from the bottom of the kettle? "You thinks that it is the left, "the intellectuals" that are the ones that are afraid." And you may have a point there when we liberals on the "left" (as you label us) run into those who disregard science and look at the world with fearful aggression. But I don't lump conservatives into that group since real conservatives have always brought meaningful ideas to conversations. In my opinion, in just in the past few decades the meaning of conservatism has changed to something irrational and concerning to reasonable caring people.
Thoughtful'd truly love and answer...
100 years from now, the stock market will be higher than it is today. But I can't tell you what it will be next month or even next week. There's your answer, Thoughtful.
Climate gun rant
Climate change is a constant. Global warming is a public media term ... not sure when it popped up. Might have something to do with the popping up of "Inconvenient Truth". It was changed to get back to the 'science' and away from the 'media' sensationalism.
How can they know ... they say they are such and such % sure at this time due to this correlation. The evidence comes as time passes. Exon has papers that say they knew what they were doing would cause global climate changes. Don't you read the news?
Note on God ... not a he.
As for its cooled before ... well you may not like that very much either... the reality of climate change is you better be prepared to adapt. And as for NOW... the polar caps are melting and the inland glaciers are melting [98% of them anyway] so you better prepare for higher oceans which at the same time seem to be acidifying and dying. If you keep your head in the sand ... you will end up under water. These are facts. Read some real science research. There are even films to watch.
As for guns ... you don't listen very well there either. Nobody is banning them. Just taking unnecessary ones out of the hands of incompetent people. Who needs a fully automatic assault rifle? When is the last time some citizen used one to stop a crime? Really its just a fetish. A weird fashion. And has almost no relativity to this article in a psychology magazine.
Take the science for what it is and don't feel bad that you have less grey matter and a bigger fear factor. Conservatives fear strangers, the economy, the government itself. How's that for some generalizations.
RE: Climate gun rant
Regarding your gun comments... When is the last time anyone used a "fully automatic assault rifle" to commit a mass shooting? Never. Or at the very least never in any of the events which have taken place during the Obama Administration. The rifles used in all of these events were semi-automatic rifles. In fact, in the recent event in CA those rifles were both semi-automatic and also utilized the completely useless "bullet "button" restriction, which is designed to slow down the shooters ability to change magazines.
Anyway, lets move on to some facts.
Liberals like to reference facts, right up until those facts don't line up with their agendas. Here are some facts and an interesting reaction to these facts, that to me, seems to paint the picture that liberals are in fact rife with needless fear of guns.
Mass Shootings (4 or more deaths) for recent presidents: Reagan=11, Bush Sr.=12, Clinton=23, Bush Jr.=20, Obama= *** 162 ***
Per the FBI's own website:
In 2014 Rifles were used to kill 214 people.
In 2013 Rifles were used to kill 285 people.
In 2012 Rifles were used to kill 322 people.
In 2011 Rifles were used to kill 323 people.
In 2010 Rifles were used to kill 358 people....
I will assume your superior intellect can derive a pattern with these statistics. So what we have here is an absurdly strange jump in the number of mass shootings from prior Presidents, to Obama. Combined with the stratospheric number of "Mass Shooting" events taking place under Obama's reign, we have real world numbers from our very own FBI showing that rifle related deaths have been on a steady decline year over year...yet the number of mass shootings has strangely sky rocketed.
And what is the result of this? Obama wants to focus on gun control laws to further strip US Citizens of their rights, even when gun related deaths have been declining year over year and rifles are used in effectively zero percent of all gun related homicides.
I would argue that it's the liberals who are overly fearful. They demand more gun laws in an effort to punish law abiding citizens, and do so out of pure ignorance of the real facts. If you were an unbiased observer of this calamity that is our political system; you would look at the glaring number of mass shootings under Obama and simply start there to try and solve the problem. Maybe the smart first move would be to remove the variable tied to the mass shooting events aberration. Process of elimination.
I would also like to add one tidbit of interesting information regarding the rifle related deaths. The vast majority of the rifle related deaths are in fact law enforcement killing citizens in the act of committing a felony. When someone is killed by an officer it's still classified as a homicide; however its considered justified. So, when you take it a step further and remove those death figures from the annual numbers I listed; you are left with at most a few dozen murders committed by regular people with rifles. Yet, the focus is constantly on stripping the rights further of the law abiding people who are doing nothing wrong.
I would classify that as an unnecessary fear by a group of people fueled by pure ignorance.
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