(Untitled)

Jun 22, 2004 23:41

I have a question for the conservatives, even though they are seemingly under-represented in this community. Maybe i'm just willfully blocking out any piercing critiques that i have read on liberal policy, being the hardcore pinko that i am, but it seems to me that there has been very little critique of liberal policy, at least in this forum. For ( Read more... )

opinion, liberal, conservative

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tridus June 23 2004, 09:19:04 UTC
Nah. Police Chiefs want police to have more power.

One of the handy things about knowing that Jim down the street owns a shotgun is that its far easier to get a search warrant because Jim has a gun.

What destroys this programs credibility is not who supports or opposes it, its that we've spent $1 billion to be able to know that Jim owns a shotgun. Is this infrmation really worth $1 billion, and $113 million more per year?

Why did it cost that much? The computer system powering this thing cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Five people at my University could have built the backend system as a project if we were given a modest hardware budget and 4 months. A few networking guys could roll out infrastructure to the places that need terminals, and a couple of desktop guys and a bunch of Dell PCs could do the job.

The original estimate of $2 million for this thing was probably a realistic goal, so what happened to the other $998 million? Why is this thing FIVE HUNDRED times over budget? Why didn't they stop such a runaway black hole of money before it cost this much?

And more importantly, why do we care if Jim owns a shotgun? Jim already has a hunting license, do they expect him to go deer hunting with a pencil?

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langdon_algar June 23 2004, 09:25:35 UTC
i think the gun registry couldn't have hurt, had it stayed on budget. However, i agree that it is not worth a billion dollars.

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tridus June 23 2004, 11:00:04 UTC
Staying on budget sure wouldn't have hurt, but I'm also not sure on the usefulness of knowing who owns a hunting rifle. Is there a plague of crimes being committed with hunting rifles that registration is somehow going to fix?

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holden_wake June 24 2004, 15:02:56 UTC
there has been some interesting reality checks written about the gun registry during the campaign. the conservative ads claim it has been approaching '$2 billion'. but it hasn't surpassed $1 billion yet. and if it was scrapped it would save about $25 million a year, now that it has been all setup and everything. you won't actually save a billion by scrapping it.

and i have heard some police forces do find the system useful.

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