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Police Swarm Bungie Office Over Halo Replica Rifle
sv_libertarian writes 'A panicked person in Kirkland, WA called local police on Wednesday, claiming they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47. It was actually a Bungie employee carrying an overgrown model of a Halo sniper rifle, which resembles an AK-47 as much as a Volkswagen resembles a Formula 1 racer.'
Halo 3: ODST is set to launch on September 22nd, and fans got some new details and early looks at the game during PAX.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah that looks just like an AK47...
Win!
Maybe Congress can attempt to pass an "Assault Replica" bill.
I've never understood the logic of banning a gun because it looks scary. American "assault rifles" are semi-automatic. Pull the trigger, and one shot comes out. Politicians want to ban them because they look intimidating next to, say, a standard bolt-action Ruger 30.06. This is like banning a V-6 equipped Camaro because "it looks fast".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Washington is an open carry state.
http://opencarry.org/wa.html
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
...was an idiot and should have paid more attention to the fact they were near Bungie Studios.
Sorry, has to be said. Probably the same kind of twit who reports 5 year olds playing with toy guns to the cops.
But it looks very much like something real to me. Sure you can make fun of people not knowing it does not look like an AK47. I can also imagine that somebody who knows very little about riffles would say 'ak47' where he means 'looks like an assault wepon that is not like any standard hunting rifle'.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
God forbid someone in the U.S. is seen having a gun.
...it doesn't look like an AK-47, but that's become the generic term for "semi-automatic rifle with detachable magazine", thanks in part to lazy reporters who don't know the 1st thing about firearms.
.50 sniper rifle, so even I'd wonder if it was the real deal or not.
However, it does look like a whole lot like a Barrett
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
their way to the local farmer's market called 911 saying that they thought they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47
I've seen people get paralyzed because a black beetle crawled across the kitchen counter. I suspect many people have the same irrational fear of guns, therefore if you carry ANYTHING that even resembles a gun their first instinct is to call for help (aka "call 911"). It's a phobia which is NOT rational, and it's no wonder they irrationally identified a toygun as an AK-47.
>>>officers advised Bungie officials to transport the gun more discretely in the future.
No. Read the Constitution mister cop (you know, that thing you pledged to protect, but apparently never read). Carrying a flag, sign, or other item is considered "symbolic speech" according to the Supreme Court and therefore protected.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If you go around with a replica of a BFG-9000, the name of the gun claimed would be probably more similar to the actual weapon name.
It looks more like a Barrett M82A1
The times we live on, everyone seems to be afraid of the guy next door. Can't we all just effin relax and not be paranoid? It is obvious that the person who called the cops was completely paranoid, AK-47? That thing is not even close to resemble an AK47.
But I definitely agree that these guys carrying the model should have covered it not to make people react like this guy. Hopefully it is a lesson learned.
My 2 cents
"I told you NOT to mess on MY server!"
And while they called out the SWAT team for a replica gun, people shrug their shoulders at Labor Day traffic, which kills a lot more people than any shooting spree. Human beings are absolutely terrible at risk assessment.
So give the Washingtonian this much credit, he at least caught on that it was Warsaw Pact, not NATO. :)
Whether it resembles an AK47 or not, it still looks like a scary looking piece of kit to the untrained eye. I know nothing about guns, and while it looks comically oversized, I wouldn't automatically assume it was fake.
As a part-time theatre tech, I sometimes have to transport fake guns for shows, and I always do it discreetly. Just because I know they are fake, doesn't mean other people will, or indeed should know. It's not like people take classes on gun recognition at school. Unless you have an interest in such things, I don't see why you would know what different guns look like.
Reminds me of that girl who strolled into an airport with circuit-boards, wires and blinking lights attached to her jumper, and was surprised when security got rather twitchy. It might not have looked like a bomb to you and I, but to the average person bought up on a diet of Hollywood films, where the bombs always have sticky out wires and flashing lights (and beep, just to let you know they are there), it certainly looked suspicious.
At least in this case the police were a bit more calm and restrained once they figured out what was going on.
Paul Leader
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/9/2009/09/572e98692fa347840615abb4a61a2455/original.jpg
As shown by this pic I found in the comments in TFA, you'd have to be pretty stupid to call it an AK47. If you don't know what it is, just say "ZOMG some guy is carrying a gun that is LARGER than him". I'm sure the cops would come, even if you didn't drop the A-word. That being said, if you see a short guy with a massive gun walking towards a game studio: most importantly, a studio that made a bunch of war (sci-fi or otherwise) games, maybe you shouldn't jump the gun.
Okay, so maybe this person didn't have internet, a TV, or children and therefore had never heard of/seen Halo, but even so, they shouldn't have immediately assumed the worst. Hell, the police should have said "It's perfectly legal to do that in our state". Although, I imagine they did say that and the person kept flipping out until the cops decided to answer it.
God forbid if this person opts to move to Hollywood. They may very well down several phone companies from how many panic-stricken calls they would make. Or on Halloween, even, imagine the horrors of people wielding fake (and real) chainsaws and various other weapons around children!
I would expect misidentification, as the kind of person who would freak out is more likely never to have seen an AK47 before. The prop in question more resembled a Barrett .50 cal, a much cooler weapon.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The Kirkland police chiefs son was just walking down the street with a bazooka and went running into his garage when I saw him!!!!!
CALL SWAT! CALL 911!
RAID HIS HOME WITH NO WARRANT!!! Hurry!!
I'm a totally reliable witness!! Really I am.
Viral marketing in action here...
The cops didn't respond with swat, like the title makes it sound like. They said it was just 5 cops, and they didn't even say if they just showed up and knocked or kicked open the doors with guns drawn. I'm not sure about everyone else but I think it's not the worst thing they could of done sending a few cops to investigate. It could of been that a disgruntled bungie employee got pissed and came to work with the intent to kill or some such, aka going postal. It doesn't sound like there was any series issues, no ciations were issues and all they did was ask bungie and it's employees to cover their large weapon replicas when transporting them. They don't have to cover them but it's a good suggestion if one wants to avoid inciting any sort of panicked police calls. On the bright side if any bungie employees were planning to take an AK and go postal, now would be a good time to do so.
There were plenty of parties that "acted stupidly" in that case, but they were all the president's cronies. That's one of the few examples where the police weren't morons.
Unless you think that the idea that an officer should, upon deciding that the man he's speaking to really is the owner of a house that someone reported a possible break-in at, and which man is shouting at him to leave the house, leaves the f'ing house.
No, Gates, a Harvard Professor, who did, in fact, break into his own house* decides that the best course of action would be to get all indignant that the serfs in the police department would deign to check upon his well being. Of course, the fact that getting himself arrested would give the African Studies professor some kind of "street cred" if pulled off correctly never entered into this intellectual giant's mind.
*Actually owned by Harvard's Housing Dept. Which makes the whole thing triply dumb because he was apparently too lazy or impatient to call up housing to get an extra key and instead forced his way in, possibly causing damage to Harvard property.
I'm don't want to suggest that gates should be punished for his reprehensible behavior, but I'm sitting here wondering why Harvard is allowing their good name to continue to be tarnished by his ongoing employment as a professor
That's a terrible example. Especially when not two hours drive to the south the police are conducting raids and arresting women for stripping and prostitution despite neither of those activities being illegal in the state and particular circumstances.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Article says they saw it around 4:20 pm...
Now where have I seen that number before....
It doesn't matter whether the geek thinks he recognizes a prop from the game.
It does matter that at a distance - or in shadow - the gun looks like a real - plausible - military grade weapon.
I doubt that even a SWAT team member can keep in its head every known variant design or customization.
Well, with the exception of the UK (too far gone past 1984) this kind of shit doesn't happen in strictly gun-controlled western Europe, because seeing such a gun is so unlikely that most people will assume it's a toy or something.
Our pigs are just as fucktarded as the typical US donut muncher, but they have the luxury of not having to assume every jaywalker is going to start shooting. As a result, they still have to use their hands or not-100%-lethal flashballs to beat up journalists. Old school shit. Should they pull their guns, they would have to fill lots of forms afterwards, and that would considerably eat into their free time. So little time, so many pastis bottles to empty.
Anyway, I trust the 2nd amendment brigade will vote me down with thoughtful historical references to Hitler taking the guns of the Jews (that's exactly how WWII started) and Stalin denying conceal-carry to Sakkharov resulting in the Cuban missile crisis, but I thought you needed to be reminded of the cost of that particular hobby, err I mean "freedom."
In the UK, this could easily result in prosecution for carrying a replica gun. I'm not opposed to that law.
Perfectly appropriate for police as they did not immediately begin firing automatic weapons from their cars upon arriving in the general neighborhood and subsequently taze anyone who saw or said anything.
If toy guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have toy guns. Wouldn't that be a good thing?
"And now, they're looking at banning toy guns.... and they're going to KEEP THE FUCKING REAL ONES!" - George Carlin
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
This reminds me of the time that I was shooting a BB gun in a empty coul-de-sac.
A lady about a block away called the police saying that I had a shotgun and that there were shots fired (wtf? Has she ever heard a shotgun before?). The police were not particularly friendly to me either, when four cops in two cars appeared out of nowhere with their weapons drawn.
So, it's not surprising to me in the least bit that this could have happened.
A neutral communications medium is essential. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true.
It's a legitimate tactic!
[/red vs blue]
maaaaaybe an M82.
It's bigger than a Barrett sniper rifle. What it actually looks like is an "anti-tank rifle", a bad idea from WWI which hung around until anti-tank rockets were invented. The classic was the Boys rifle out of the UK. Note the similarity. Further development in that direction led to a real BFG. It's even bigger than Halo's weapon. There were about a dozen variants on that theme, none successful.
Anti-tank rifles were a desperation measure to give infantry something to use against tanks. Tanks quickly acquired more armor than anything like that could penetrate, so they were ineffective. They were too big to lug around for any other target, so they fell out of use.
... When Natalee Portman naked and petrified stopped being funny.
:)
On a more serious note, If _I_ was developing a Game which involves huge real looking guns, I would have employees draw lots for who gets arested in a publicity stunt where we send him outside with it and call the police.
If the cops are particularly trigger happy (as In Jamaica) we would even chat with a specific police team to have them do the arrest without anyone getting hurt.
But that's just me thinking like a rapacious capitalist
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Walking around town with a fake gun that looks extremely real is just stupid and irresponsible. I dare anyone to walk around there own home town and see what will happen,because the police will come calling on you, thats a guarantee. Now maybe if it were the 1800,s you can get away with walking around town with a rifle but not today ya wont.
Jack of all trades,master of none
That's great that you've instructed your children on "The Three Rules." Perhaps now you should learn them yourself? I sure hope they're not learning from your example.
I have two loaded handguns in my house right now.
And for my next trick, I'll copypasta the third rule, and perhaps you can compare these two statements and see what is amiss...
"3. ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use."
And that uppercase is the NRA's, not mine. Next time you get all sanctimonious and YayGuns!, maybe you shouldn't shoot (Hah! See what I did there?) yourself in the foot while doing it.
Free publicity for Halo 3 -- are folks sure that this is a real story?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
As if my Karma could get any lower...
Yes, it looks like a real firearm. Very nicely done, actually.
No, it does not look like an AK of any design -- more like the Barrett 50 as somebody else said.
Most reasonable-thinking people probably wouldn't care if it were slung over a shoulder. But if the person transporting it were, for example, at the low ready with it, then people would start getting nervous. If while at the low ready, they happen to sweep it in the direction of somebody who also happened to have an actual, legally-possessed, legally-concealed firearm then, well, somebody's not going to walk away.
That said, in typical /. fashion, I haven't read the entire post, so don't know the particulars of how this thing was being transported.
Did the Bungie staff use human or Covenant weapons to fight off the swarming cops?
>> The police weren't allowing people into the lobby, ordering Bungie developers to stay in their big development room.
There are a lot of developers who now have a basis for a substantial civil suit against the police department for unlawful detainment. It is illegal for police to detain any person without Reasonable Articulable Suspicion that the person has or is about to commit a crime.
They received a call about A PERSON carrying what appeared to be a weapon. They had RAS to detain A PERSON, not a building full of people.
The fact that this happened in Kirkland actually explains everything.
These are the same kind of person that decided at some point in the past that their numbering system for the streets of central Kirkland should not correspond in any way to the established system that flows through every surrounding city or town in the Seattle eastside area. To top it off, they even decided that Avenues would run east/west in Their town, instead of north/south like everywhere else in the area.
And while they called out the SWAT team for a replica gun, people shrug their shoulders at Labor Day traffic, which kills a lot more people than any shooting spree. Human beings are absolutely terrible at risk assessment.
The full weight of Labor Day traffic deaths is borne by fifty states and a population of 300 million people.
The 2006 Amish school shooting spree occurred within a one-room schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania.
The body count doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
Risk assessment isn't meaningful when a singular event overwhelms and devastates an entire community. When there are no mechanisms in place for recovery.
The loss of the Titanic became more than an indictment of the technology and management of the vessel.
It became an indictment of a social order in which the First Class passenger lives and Second and Third dies with her working class crew.
That - in an instant - changed the survival equation for everyone in every setting.
I think it's a mindset. Maybe it just makes more sense to Europeans to not have guns. But in the US, there are tons of reasons why people feel they would need a gun. Heck, if it weren't for our right to have guns, we would have been screwed during the revolution.
But in my house, there won't be guns. If there is going to be a gun in the house, it will belong to an Adult, and it will be with them at all times till they leave my house. I have a kid in the house, my kid might get curious, and though I will teach her about gun safety, I'm not going to risk her forgetting what she knows so she can get a good look at the business end.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great we can have guns. In this country, people have the mindset that they can do what ever they want, so we get gangster kids and knuckleheads running around with guns showing off how cool they are, and killing rivals and innocent people. If we take our guns away, we will still have this problem with gangsters and knuckleheads who (because we live in a 'free' country) think they are above the law and can do what they want. Only now, if we had no guns, I won't have a deterrent for that kid, I can't tell them I have a gun, and I will shoot them if they enter my home.
Now I don't own a gun, but I know all about gun safety, I grew up with guns in my life. If I were to own one, my child would also know about gun safety. But she won't even know I have a gun until (big IF) I have to use it to defend my family, or she is older and mature enough to understand its purpose.
I don't think gun control would work well in the US, mostly because of our combined 'I'm above the law' mindset, that makes the mass think they can do what ever they want.
Indoctrinate : to instruct especially in fundamentals or rudiments Educate : to develop mentally, morally, or aestheti
Didn't bungie used to make Macintosh games? How many Apple titles are there from that shop nowadays?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
You're not far wrong... It doesn't look like an AK-47, but it looks scarily similar to a Barret M107.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=50+cal
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
But if he's just carrying it, then the cop shows up, investigates, and tells the guy it would be a good idea to keep the gun in a case so he didn't frighten his neighbors.
Ummm... That is exactly what happened.
The person who had thought they'd seen a gunman in the neighborhood had actually seen a Bungie employee carrying a replica Halo rifle back to the studio's offices, Bungie community director Brian Jarrard told me. Recognizing there was no longer an emergency, officers advised Bungie officials to transport the gun more discretely in the future.
Kirkland police, contacted today for more details, said a passerby on their way to the local farmer's market called 911 saying that they thought they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47 about 4:20 p.m.
Five officers were dispatched to the area to investigate, but were able to figure out what had happened within about ten minutes.
And the rest of TFA alternates between "I caught no more than that glimpse of the one police officer" and "The cops had descended upon the studio".
In other words... Bungie is jumping onto this free publicity as much as they can.
If that means blowing things out of proportion a little - so be it. They will learn to live with that burden.
Eventually.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
resembles a real rifle. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was the Barrett 82A1 .50 cal rifle. Take a look and compare. I think this person was justified to be concerned. I do doubt that the game geek that was carrying it looked very menacing though.
http://www.barrettrifles.com/home/rifle_82.aspx
Back in the day when I was a sea cadet I was part of the honor gaurd. We used to take our rifles home to polish up, repaint the blacking and clean the webbing. Now these were real WW2 .303 but had no bolts. Lots of us used to take the bus and we never had any problems.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
All those blockbuster/action films are great to watch, but there are also crazy people that get the wrong idea... Real or not though, they should've transported it more discretely as any responsible gun owner would. There's no need to draw attention. No one likes to hear someone shout "FIRE" in a crowded building.
Can I play?
First off... They may be all be suspects until the case is investigated but they are ALL witnesses, so the police can detain them for questioning if the need arises.
Second... There is a little legal term called "aiding and abetting". Look it up and correlate it with what I said about suspects and witnesses.
Also...
Their "Reasonable Suspicion" (as for the "Articulable" - they have a witness who saw a person carry what looked like a very large automatic rifle into a building) extends all the way up to the point when they confirm the following:
Who was it that was carrying that large gun?
Why?
Were they doing that alone or with help from someone or under someone's instructions?
AND if there was something illegal about it.
And they do that by questioning people.
After which they decide if those people are witnesses or suspects in the potential crime.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So we're hearing criticism of the police. But I'd be interested to hear about how the Bungie employee was acting. I am guessing the Bungie employee was pleased as punch to be asked to carry some kit he doesn't often get to play with *right down a public street*, knowing it looks a little bit scary, and a bit hard. Probably strutted down that street feeling like he was the big man. I'm willing to guess he was a bit at fault here - otherwise, given how many guns there are in America, how come false alarms like this don't happen all the time? What sparked particular interest for the police this time? My understanding is that it's relatively trivial in the USA for somebody to walk around with a gun so why this time. My guess is the Bungie guy was behaving like a fool in some manner (or the person phoning in was really freaked for some reason).
Maybe if Bungie had said "look this might freak sombody out, wrap it in a cover" the whole episode would have been avoided.
As for getting the model of the gun wrong, well, you can hardly blame the police for not chasing that up. If you've got somebody potentially loose with a lethal weapon and people are phoning in worried, you don't sit in the cop shop and say "well we're not coming out until you can give us the exact model of gun - and if you get it wrong we're going back to the office again and you'll have to sort it out".
You may be able to tell different guns apart from each other, but a lot of folk can't, they've got other things they are interested in like cars, flower arranging, their grand kids, etc. this doesn't make them a fool, just somebody with more important things to do with their time. Like other posters have noted, "AK-47" is probably shorthand for "scary gun".
I, for one, am not at all concerned about someone trying to fire a Barret .50 standing up. The first shot will send him to the ground, and send the gun several meters behind him.
It is fair to say that this incident happened only about a week after there was a major highway shutdown due to shootout by two gunmen in the King County/Seattle area (which includes Kirkland, Redmond, and Bellveue). The two males who were arrested after shots were fired over I-5 Friday night had an AK-47 and multiple rounds of ammunition: http://northseattle.komonews.com/content/spd-shooters-near-nscc-had-ak-47-multiple-rounds-unused-ammo
It's perfectly legal for me to carry my AK-47 around. I can even bring it to a school if I leave it in the car.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f234/PORSCHER/BarrettM107.jpg
Table-ized A.I.
They can sometimes be used to keep a gun from making so much noise.
Glad to hear that I can go in a French bank with a toy gun in hand & not get shot!
There's about fifty different ways my kid could quickly and brutally kill themselves or another person in my house, and there are no guns. I won't argue about the concern for safety; but I'm not sure there's a sensible reason to single out the risk from guns, when the staircase or powersaw represents a greater real danger.
This 'fire, ready, aim' mentality, unfortunately permeates many police departments-and its gotten much worse since 9/11. I lived in a small town of 8000 that had its own 18 member police department. Every cop there had the attitude: "I put my life on the line for you every day" even though there had NEVER been an officer that died in the line of duty there EVER! Yet, in recent history they had shot a car driver (fortunately not fatally) for the crime of changing a flat tire. Turns out they punched the wrong license plate number into their newfangled crusier computer (bought with a Homeland Security grant-along with an SUV with a telescoping night sight), and got a 'hit' that it was a stolen car. Of course they never bothered to notice that the car on their screen was a completely different make, model and color then the one with the flat tire. Instead, with their adrenaline 'rush' fully formed, they jumped out of the car pulled their guns, and then the guy stood up and reached into his jacket pocket to get his wallet, shot him.
Are these isolated incidents? Hardly. Thank god that cooler heads prevailed in this incident-or there could have been a very real possibility of someone getting hurt.
and concealed carry. In fact, it is a 'will issue' state meaning the local PD MUST issue a concealed carry permit within 60 days unless the background check reveals an issue. But the issue is a little more complex. This is how a Police Lieutenant explained it to me when I was taking a gun safety class here: Although 'Open Carry' is specifically allowed in Washington for anyone not otherwise prohibited from owning guns (such as felons), any other citizen can claim 'feeling intimidated' and call 911. If this happens, the PD MUST investigate and MUST send a report to the prosecutor, period. In fact, this Lt. reports being harassed by citizens for open carry when he was 'out of uniform' (meaning he had on a sweater and his badge was on a chain around his neck in full view, which is an authorized uniform in this jurisdiction.) If these people only knew. He carries three guns at once: One Glock in a holster, another mid-back, and a third J-frame .38 in his pocket (A J-frame is a fairly small revolver. The Glocks are, of course, semi-automatics.) The last two you'll never see unless he needs it.
The bottom line here is that a gun-o-phobic populace can claim 'intimidation' because they 'feel frightened' if someone else is simply carrying a gun and lodge a complaint that must be 'investigated.' In this case people cannot be expected to know that a) the gun wasn't real and b) that it was not an automatic, which is PROBABLY illegal here (Lots of rules for this kind of firearm.) How the investigation was carried out is another matter, but here it had to get to that point.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
The story mentions an AK-47. Everyone here knows what an AK-47 looks like, that gun looks nothing like it and that becomes the whole focus of the story.
The 911 call went probably something like this "Help, I see someone walking with a big gun. What kind I dunno one of those big things like an AK-47."
What next? An elephant breaks loose and the story focusses on how the caller said it was an african when it was actually an indian elephant?
If there is a god, each and everyone of the idiots that went "haha, that ain't an AK-47 will be attacked by alligator, call the police for help, then have the police show up and walk away again because the thing using them for a chew toy is a crocodile.
This story has the idiocracy tag, I know who the real idiots are here.
And really, carrying a semi-realistic looking replica weapon in public. What are you thinking.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Shows how itchy our police force is to get into a gun fight. If someone says the word gun they're all over it. The police are worse than criminals.
1) I'm talking about kitchen knives, not combat / hunting knives.
2) The person I was replying to was talking about FAKE GUNS you incompetent shit. Learn to read and you might realize that the things you're bitching about are completely off topic.
3) Brian Cox has lived in the U.K. and the U.S. - that makes him qualified to talk about the differences in laws and how the societies treat their citizens.
4) How did I show idiocy? By knowing that the person I was replying to was talking about FAKE GUNS while you weren't smart enough to realize that?
5) I've only even HEARD of (let alone met or interacted with) a handful of people from the U.K. that disagree with the Orwellian path that the U.K. is on. Just about every person from the U.K. I've heard of, talked to, interacted with on forums like slashdot, or is a friend of another friend in the U.K. thinks that these idiotic fascist policies are just wonderful. That makes my use of "you people" a pretty valid generalization.
Brian Cox moved because it's where his career took him - he didn't leave because he thought the U.K. was bad. It wasn't until after he left and realized how much better citizens were treated in the U.S. that he started commenting on the sad state of the U.K.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
*ahem* Read what the person I responded to was talking about - he was talking about FAKE GUNS. A knife is infinitely more dangerous than a FAKE GUN.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Yea, the cops advice? "Next time carry it wrapped up in a towel or under a long trench coat. You know Matrix style."
Alright. I'll stick with making crossbows for when that happens. Silent, really deadly, no registration required, and pretty easy to build compared to guns.
http://sourcemage.org/ - Have fun
The police were called about an AK-47 - not a "big gun I don't know the name of", but (specifically) an AK-47. Seeing as the caller specifically said AK-47, the cop's response should have been "AK-47's are perfectly legal to carry in the open."
It is idiotic to expect the 911 caller to be an expert on military grade weapons.
The only thing he really wants to do is get out of the line of fire of that big fucking gun.
But in my house, there won't be guns. If there is going to be a gun in the house, it will belong to an Adult, and it will be with them at all times till they leave my house.
In my house there are guns. They belong to an adult, as it is the only way to be (you were somewhat redundant) and they are kept locked at all times, except when they are used.
I have a kid in the house, my kid might get curious, and though I will teach her about gun safety, I'm not going to risk her forgetting what she knows so she can get a good look at the business end.
The safest thing for you to do is to not only teach your kid the gun safety, but also to teach her how to shoot. This is an important factor in reducing the curiosity of children about guns. If you say "never touch" they will want to touch when you are not around (or when it's someone's else gun.) If you say "never touch without me" it's a different story. Once the child learns how guns work the curiosity will drop quick, and many children will never want to shoot a gun again, even when they get a chance. There is a web site all about this, and you might want to read it all.
Only now, if we had no guns, I won't have a deterrent for that kid, I can't tell them I have a gun, and I will shoot them if they enter my home.
The police, if promptly called, will need 20 minutes to get to my home. If someone decides to invade my home I have to keep that number in mind. If you have a child in the house you need to consider who and how will protect the child if an unlikely event happens.
But she won't even know I have a gun until (big IF) I have to use it to defend my family, or she is older
There is a reason to do it differently. What if she is to come across a gun outside? The safety rules will be probably too much for her to remember, especially if she is too young. A knowledge of a gun would do better. First, the gun will be recognized as such instantly (and not seen as a strange toy without a name.) Second, if you shoot a gun with a child she will remember that loud report that happens, and it will be a deterrent from exploring further. It will be a good deterrent because it will be in a different kind of memory - the memory that children use best. Safety rules, though important, depend on logical interpretation of what's happening, and we all know how good children are at that. Again I suggest reading that link above, it explains things better than I do.
I don't think gun control would work well in the US, mostly because of our combined 'I'm above the law' mindset, that makes the mass think they can do what ever they want.
Yes. The cat is not just out of the bag, it was never in the bag. And if you *magically* make all guns disappear overnight, the gangs will switch to knives. It's actually scarier than a gun. A gun works even in lightly trained hands of a housewife, but she would be a sitting duck against a knife-wielding attacker. The UK banned all guns, so knives are all the rage there.
For me, personally, it's not a mindset of "I'm above the law." It's a mindset of "I am the law."
Now we can argue that all you like, but in a world as big as the one we live in, to truly be free means being able to defend yourself and your neighbor if needed. In order to police the entire country and the world from people that would like to do harm to another would require a security system that would place us all into "prison." We wouldn't be able to walk across the street without first providing evidence that we needed to be on the other side.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Try to kill someone accidentally without a gun or something that requires a license.
That snitch gonna get shot by a replica...
They should have told the cops that they're Republicans, on the way to meet President Obama.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Well, with the exception of the UK (too far gone past 1984) this kind of shit doesn't happen in strictly gun-controlled western Europe, because seeing such a gun is so unlikely that most people will assume it's a toy or something.
I travel all over the US, and can't remember the last time I saw a gun in public - save one holstered security/law enforcement personnel.
I have a kid in the house, my kid might get curious, and though I will teach her about gun safety, I'm not going to risk her forgetting what she knows so she can get a good look at the business end.
While I think it's absolutely the responsible decision to not own a gun if you don't feel 110% comfortable doing so (kids or otherwise), it's worth mentioning a combination gun safe/case would be appropriate here if you still wanted to own one with a child present.
You can buy a good one for as little as $50, that doesn't occupy much more room than a pistol itself in your drawer.
Sheesh, that was my first thought. An AK47 just sprays some bullets a relatively short distance. A .50 cal sniper rifle can kill somebody from 1km away. Nevertheless, it is still legal to own them. I guess the Secret Service must have some defense against them, but I don't know what it is. They can penetrate an engine block, so I certainly wouldn't trust so-called bullet-proof glass against one.
The average person probably doesn't know much about one gun from another. I don't fault them for not knowing the make and model. It doesn't look like an assault rifle to me though, it looks more like a high powered long range sniper rifle. Not the sort of thing you bring in to shoot up the office.
I like the comment from the cop though.. be more discreet. Yeah, next time make sure you hide it under your trench coat. :)
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
An exciting way to settle arguments! I invite my friends over just to watch safely behind our re-inforced glass. Bottoms up!
Quack, quack.
Unless you're taking hostages you are unlikely to get shot.
Even if the rifle was real what reason did the police have to swarm the Bungee office? Open carry is 100% legal in Washington. http://opencarry.org/wa.html
this:
1) a gun is a weapon.
2) a weapon is a tool.
3) such tools can be used to directly influence life.
4) any tool that can directly influence life also effects the socio/political balance of power.
5) both the government and the people want/maintain power, usually for the same reasons.
6) almost anything can be used as a weapon.
Limiting how a tool is used is the right of any society. But forbidding access to such a tool is a sort-sighted attempt to effect the balance of power.
Short-sighted because
6) almost anything can be used as a weapon.
Guns are powerful tools, but certainly not the only tools which can be used to threaten the balance of power.
The kind of corny phrase 'guns don't kill people' is still as true as ever. People can and do use almost anything at their disposal to do it.
Quack, quack.
What? Nobody got tasered? It's a dull news day, indeed.
Our pigs are just as fucktarded as the typical US donut muncher, but they have the luxury of not having to assume every jaywalker is going to start shooting.
Great - just know that the thieves, rapists, and other assorted criminal element of your countries know that same little tidbit too.
Gun laws only take guns away from the honest man, who a fellow honest man doesn't need to fear anyways.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I'm concerned about nutjobs. With guns.
And as far as I'm concerned, anyone with an NRA membership I've seen so far is a complete nutjob. Obsessive. Compulsive. Aggressive. Paranoid. And often, though not always, very stupid.
Just look.
I thought more like the Accuracy International AW50 http://www.50bmgstore.com/ai50bmg.htm
GPP is completely wrong and the parent post has it mostly right, with one small exception:
It wasn't until Oni and Halo that they shifted development to Windows-first and then Windows only.
Not quite correct. What happened during that time is that Bungie was working on Oni (and maybe Myth III?) and starting development on Halo. As far as I know, all were supposed to be simultaneous Mac and Windows releases. But, then Microsoft made the deal to buy them to develop Halo for the XBox, so Bungie (West) finished up Oni and sold it via "Gathering of Developers", MacSoft, and Rockstar Games (for the three platforms it was released on, Windows, Mac, and Playstation respectively). Bungie sold the Myth franchise to Take Two to develop Myth III. Ever since, Bungie has been exclusively developing for the XBox, and then others have come up to port Halo and Halo 2 to other platforms.
I also miss the old Bungie. But I am also fairly happy with the new Bungie.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Try to kill someone accidentally without a gun or something that requires a license.
Bump...Oh no sorry for knocking you down the stairs into the basement...Billy? Wake up, Billy.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
I figured the caller was high...
"a passerby on their way to the local farmer's market called 911 saying that they thought they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47 about 4:20 p.m."
I'm sorry, but as someone who hasn't played Halo, if I saw someone walking down the street with that gun, I'd be seriously worried. It doesn't look like a toy gun, a target practice gun, and definitely not a hunting rifle. Why wouldn't the police be called?
That doesn't mean toy guns or replicas or fantasy models should be illegal, but you can't expect to carry one down the street and not have the police take an interest in what the hell you're doing.
The only thing he could have been charged with would be causing a public scare, which he wouldn't be charged with if he had a valid reason for carrying it, which he seems to have had.
Seriously, how fucking old are you? Wherever you work, do you hand in reports to your superiors and customers with this kind of grammar? You have no excuse if you're over the age of 12, and even I knew better grammar when I was 8. Don't post here anymore until you type less like a brain-dead monkey with a typewriter and more like a civilized human being, you fucking idiot.
Well, it's about the right size^W length, and they've both got tripods (well, bipods ... whatever you want to call them), but I'd say that the similarity ends about there.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
It could just as well have been an AK-74. Can't tell the difference between an AK-47 and an AK-74 at a distance, at least I can't.
I'd like to ban all the hand guns, say anything under 30 inches long!
I think all carry should be open, in fact I think it should be required to be open, hundreds of thousands of Washington's residents have a permit to hide there weapons and walk down the street.
...since so many misguided people mistook "Halo" for a real game.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I've stumbled a few times.
Never been shot.
a guy going to buy some food is paranoid about something at about 4:20 pm. what great timing.
The Bungie employee was being very iresponsible by carrying this in public, it certainly looks like a gun to me and initially I would be a little concerned if I was in the US and saw someone in plain clothes walking down the street with one - I certainly couldn't couldn't determine if it was an AK-47 and I'm not up on American military hardware but it certainly looks realistic to me. The poster seems to be suprised that the person in Krikland could not correctly identify the type of gun being carried, can everyone in the US determine makes and models of guns from a glance? I think this is not a story, it looks like a real gun and the person in Kirkland did the right thing by reporting it. In the UK we often get the police being called out to houses where idiots are brandishing replica guns. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5494894/Man-arrested-for-waving-gun-in-Godfather-fancy-dress.html
As a graduate of the "teach them to shoot and they'll be bored" school of gun safety, let me say that this works. I don't own any guns, because to me, here's what that means:
1) Go spend a lot of money at the sporting goods store (AFTER buying the gun, which ain't cheap) for a bunch of non-reusable crap (ammo).
2) Drive out to the boonies.
3) Plunk away at things for no good goddamned reason, gun oil staining whatever you're wearing that day.
4) Get bored or run out of ammo.
5) Drive back home.
6) Spend the rest of the goddamned day taking guns apart, cleaning and oiling them.
I actually kind of like shooting, but only if I am spared the ownership part. Oh, and I hate the noise, and the ear protection you have to wear because of it.
Now, if you're going out hunting, I can see that tracking something could be fun, but then let's say you bring something down. Now what? You're out their field-dressing a big bloody mammal, pulling out guts and lugging the carcass around. No thanks. Just bring me back some if you get anything, how's that?
I never played with the guns in the house, and they weren't even locked up until my dad inherited so many we needed a gun case. Why should I play with them? I'd shot all of them, and it was not that interesting.
And there is probably the heart of why I think pro-control people are kinda crazy. If they had any idea how mundane firearm ownership and use was, they would shrug their shoulders and move on as well.
This guy's experience:
Rifles? Agreed. Same here.
Automatic (or semi) Rifles? Different story. BIG "fun" bringing those out.
Handguns? Ugly. Very very ugly. Too empowering. Too tempting.
I too enjoy shooting other people's guns. But they really shouldn't own non-hunting rifles or handguns. That's stupid. Sorry, rationalize away, but it really is.
First they start with toy guns then work their way up to real guns. This can lead to terrible tragedies.
.
It's just like how America started out this century with a starter president and then moved up to one who can speak in complete sentences and then folks started going absolutely crazy when he said he wanted to talk to our children.
Actually, there are many smaller calibers capable of doing accurate work at 1km. The 50bmg can go closer to 2-2.5km, and there are a few smaller rounds (338 Lapua) that can equal it with less fuss
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
There was at least one gun owner who was forced to leave her gun in the car to comply with Texas law back in 1991 during the Luby's mass shooting. She survived but her parents didn't. It was after this that Texas became a shall issue state. Most of the time that we see mass shootings in the US, they tend to be places where one isn't allowed to carry a weapon anyways.
It has happened in Israel a few times, for example Mercaz HaRav.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
officers advised Bungie officials to transport the gun more discretely in the future.
Carrying a gun in plain sight is perfectly legal, but if you hide it, it becomes "carrying a concealed weapon". Without a permit, that IS a crime. So the police are advising Bungie officials to break that law?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Ok, you convinced me. We should outlaw other potential weapons too, like spoons and medium- to large-sized rocks.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
It might be easier to just outlaw people and other living things.
Quack, quack.
My personal favorite: a teacup.
Well, this may be a funny article, but that thing in the picture definitely looks like a serious, portable machine gun.
Probably best not to walk down the street with it.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You should drive by more rural high schools in October/November and look in the rear window of the pickup trucks in the parking lot... there are plenty of guns out in public if you just know where to look. My niece turned 10 this year and I bought her a single shot .22 rifle (a "Cricket" youth (short) rifle). This past Sunday was the first chance I had to get away from my two kids (3y and 7mo) and take my niece up to the rifle range for half a day.
She started to get pretty decent on the 50 yard range with the peep-hole sight by the end of the day. She left her glasses as school, so hitting the paper at 100 yards once was a big enough accomplishment. :D
She thought the staple gun we used to hang the targets made about as much noise, and had about as much kick, as the .22LR did.
Not so for my S&W40 pistol or the .30-06 Model 70 I was double checking before elk season.
Next up - find enough time to have her come over and we'll clean her rifle together.
The lethality of falling down stairs is greatly exaggerated in the media.
You'd have had a far better shot with the kids playing with a chainsaw.
Sorry, that argument falls apart pretty quickly when you think about it. How? If we used your thought process, everyone should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. I mean, nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people.
Obviously, we differentiate between how deadly something is. Everything just isn't a tool. Nuclear weapons can kill many people extremely easily so we don't want everyone accessing them. Guns also make it a lot easier to kill someone (not to the same extreme as nuclear weapons, but easier than with our fists). The question is where you draw the line on what is acceptable and what isn't.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Sure, but he was comparing an AK-47 to a 50 cal, not the 50 cal to smaller calibers.
I know those BS NRA talking points. Those numbers have nothing to do with each other. Falling, for fuck's sake, is a fact of life. It happened before guns existed. Those 776 deaths, on the other hand, could have been avoided by simply taking away the god damn guns.
You might fantasize about Hitler's second coming as a result of gun control as much as you want. But even if that scenario was a possibility, it would still be true that those 776 people wouldn't have died without those guns. Because with that kind of argument you could justify anything; after all, tobacco companies could (and probably have) say that people die anyway, and so many more die of causes unrelated to smoking, so why target us?
In any case, I'm talking about deliberate killings. Murders. I've seen enough assholes get worked up on the road over nothing that I don't want to have to entertain the possibility that they have a pistol in their glove compartment.