Sikh Temple Murderer Was Skinhead: Add Hate-Group Affiliation to Gun Control Laws?

Do you mean in the literal sense, because the KKK wear masks over their heads? The KKK is pretty much a laughingstock nowadays anyway...I think they're down to a couple thousand members in the whole country, and a large portion are likely FBI informants anyway.

The trickier part here is that most white supremacists have moved on to supposedly less "blatant" groups like Stormfront...their masks are more figurative. You and I could easily agree that Stormfront is primarily a racist group, but most of them present themselves more as "white nationalists" than "white supremacists." A lot of them claim not to hate, say they're just proud of their heritage, and say they're only concerning themselves over what they believe to be "white issues." I don't really believe them, but who am I to say that a lot of them don't drink their own kool-aid?

On a more fundamental level, who are we to say they don't have a right to defend their homes and families, due to their supposedly "pro-white" beliefs? Moreover...how would you objectively separate them from other racial interest groups like La Raza or the NAACP? Are you aware that many actually consider CAIR to be a Muslim hate group? Some even consider the Boy Scouts a hate group.

The lines between "hate group" and "racial/ethnic/religious interest group" have gotten blurrier and blurrier, so distinguishing them has become more of a subjective value judgment. Once we're to the point where we're deciding who can and cannot possess tools to defend themselves based on subjective value judgments about whether or not they're "haters," we open ourselves up to witch hunts where some arbiter of "hate groups" starts branding political opponents as hate groups.

In the SPLC's case, they already have, and they've been doing this for years. Paleoconservative, libertarian, and Constitutionalist groups have been getting smeared by them as hate groups for a long time (they were behind the infamous MIAC report on the "Modern Militia Movement"). They've even gotten so bold as to start attacking more "mainstream" conservative positions: Now they're smearing pro-"traditional marriage" groups as hate groups alongside abject racists like the KKK. (Before long, the label might apply to you too.) The labeling is getting completely out of control, and if we go down the road of giving the SPLC - or anyone - the power to decide who can and cannot possess arms to defend themselves (by virtue of being part of a "hate group"), it's likely to end very badly.

Actually, the reason there are cartels in Mexico is threefold. It's the combination of:
- War on drugs: Makes drugs extremely expensive, and makes selling them extremely lucrative.
- Poor economy with high unemployment: Makes profit in the drug trade look more appealing, despite the danger.
- Gun control: Gives cartels a massive advantage of force over law-abiding citizens, especially in countries where there are already too many guns in circulation for gun control to be even remotely effective (e.g. here).

Those three factors have combined over the course of decades, and they've been continued for so long that the cartels are now more powerful than the Mexican government in many ways. Given enough time, the same thing can happen anywhere with a bad enough economy, a war on drugs, and gun control. The US economy is not yet bad enough that we would become instantly like Mexico, but it is absolutely bad enough - with enough unemployed - that we would very much head in that direction.

I love how you say that Mexicans have organized their lives around the corruption, and "we here in America won't do that crap, even if we have to do it without our government's* approval*." You mean, we won't do that crap if US citizens have cheap and easy access to weapons. If we don't, it will be like Mexico: People fear to do anything, because they cannot legally defend themselves if they're targeted by the cartels for retaliation.

If you want to talk about America, how about this: The only valid epidemiological studies on the subject are the ones that isolate the variable of gun control, which are the studies which show compare the crime rates of a city before and after gun control is implemented. Predictably, whenever gun control is implemented in a US city, violent crime almost always becomes worse.

You cannot think about this subject emotionally and come to an intelligent conclusion: If you push your emotional conclusion so hard that it becomes accepted, the violence will only get worse, and the rest of us will be facepalming the whole way, because you just refused to listen.

Well, Lol, the reason the war on drugs hasn't been so successful is because Americans want those drugs, Americans like doing those drugs, we pay billions upon billions to get those drugs corrupting people of the highest order to risk their careers to make those millions they do make to deliver those drugs to Americans who want to use them.
Where have YOU been!
Your problem is that you base your logic upon supersensational news to get peoples attention, and it's over exaggerated to the point of absurdity (like Fox News).
You really think the war on drugs has been a total waste???????
Lol, then your an idiot.
Do you know who coined the phrase "The War on drugs has failed", Lol, Lol, the Latin American leaders did in their newspapers, and then that phrase came to America and people like YOU beleived it, Lol, now is that stupid or what?????

The War on Drugs that is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, and the stated aim to define and reduce the illegal drug trade has been pretty damn successful overall if you look at the big picture and keep your head out of the local scene, local nit-wits logic.
Ever since 1971 the government has successfully kept millions of tons of drugs OUT of the United States, and confiscated billions of dollars in drug money.
The reason it's failing recently, like I said is because Americans like doing drugs and will pay good maoney for them corrupting just about any level of American, because we Americans are greedy and we do like money over all other things, well except for drugs and guns that is.
You can't stop something if the people want to consume it, just look at the history of prohibition with alcohol to know that if people want something you can't stop them from using it. We like our booze, we like our drugs, and we like our guns, and that's America.
Don't give me your weak examples when you know nothing of how the real system works. Your part of the problem because you think you do know what's going on, but you don't!

As you said, the War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition, and it works just as well as alcohol prohibition did in the 20's, for the same reason, which you also provided: People are want drugs, like they want alcohol, and laws aren't going to stop them. Prohibition doesn't work...but it does get people killed:

Since drugs are illegal, the supply is drastically diminished and the price has skyrocketed to unnatural levels, which makes selling them extremely lucrative for people who are willing to take the risk. Since the drug trade isn't protected by law, people can't go to the police when they're stolen from, which fuels a culture of violence and retaliation. In fact, people can't even go to the police when someone shoots up their grandma for cocaine that just might be in the house, because when they do, the police only care about nailing them for possession (it's oddly specific because it's an actual example).

You measure success in terms of drug shipments blocked and money seized? Seriously? How about rates of drug use, or more importantly violent crime rates, or at least some other statistic that's actually meaningful outside of press releases and police departments?

The War on Drugs an inherently broken policy, just like gun control, and it's failing because that's what inherently broken policies do. You can blame it on the people all you like, but people will be people, and the only sane policy is a policy that recognizes and accepts that reality rather than trying to force your particular values on everyone else at any cost.

Both of these policies have failed so utterly in Mexico that the country is more violent than the average warzone. If your best argument against me is that I'm saying the same thing as Latin American leaders who may have pointed out the obvious years ago, so what? If you're attempting to fling random ad hominem attacks around at Latin American leaders from years past and implicate me as a fool through vague association, your compound logical fallacy shows a distinct lack of confidence in your own ability to assess and debate the issue on its merits.