To be fair, the act of pointing a gun at somebody could be construed as increasing the likelihood of violence, which is what many people mean by "escalation". On the other hand, by the time most people feel the need to draw, violence is already in the air and on the way, which pretty much neuters the point they were trying to make.
Probably. Here nobody carries guns. Farmers are no exception. Here, there are serious predators- in addition to coyotes, there are bears and mountain lions, both of which can do serious damage to your herd. Firearms are a must for ranchers especially.
When the hunting season is open you can go hunt, but only with guns that are allowed for hunting (you can't carry a Kalashnikov for example) and only in those areas. It works the same way here, except that the range of allowed firearms is generally pretty broad. Civilians aren't allowed to carry automatics unless they have a special permit which is virtually impossible to get, and besides that the rules are pretty much designed to ensure that the animal you're hunting does not suffer needlessly.
Do you have to get a gun-license to carry a gun in America, or can anyone buy one? If I have some psychological problem will I be able to buy one? Depends on your state and the firearm. Shotguns are generally unlicensed, requiring only a background check and, in some states, a waiting period. Rifles are also require a background check but have widely varying regulations, and many calibers are restricted to military or police use.
Handguns are the most tightly regulated, since they have little sporting or utility use- there is always a background check, and there is almost always a waiting period. In some areas they are banned altogether, although those areas are under increasing pressure to repeal the bans as a result of rising crime rates.
I never had the need for a gun, as nobody here has one. And I know nobody that has a gun, except those who go to the shooting rage regularly (those who don't go regularly rent it there). I'm not sure why you would go to a range except to practice self-defense or hunting, so, my first worry would be about the kind of guy that gets his jollies from making things go bang, if you know what I mean.
Ok. But in that case I guess you wear it, and don't show it to everybody (like some nerds playing MD5 GPS). It is a widely cited fact that there has never been a gun crime in the US committed by an individual with a concealed carry permit.
Maybe. Maybenot. Here arms are banned. And we had 1 killed person because of firearms maybe 15 years ago. I don't know if the higher violet crimes depend from gun control or not. Can you link some studies? I think that would be very difficult to prove. See the studies I posted earlier in the thread; the department of justice authored them.
Why are they not good in good hands? You don't deny that there are bad people on your side of the pond, people who would hurt or maim or kill you for little or no reason- wouldn't you rather have the ability to defend yourself than pray the police show up *before* your corpse starts to smell?
In the studies I posted earlier in this thread, the U.S. department of justice indicates that only 2% of incidents of defensive civilian handgun use involved mistaken intent or identity, compared to 11% for police.
Actually, you're wrong. According to the Center for Health Statistics, there were 52,000 nonfatal violence-related injuries and 23,000 nonfatal accidental discharges, give or take. In addition, they report that most firearm deaths are suicides, rather than homocides.
The level of crime that is prevented by the use of a handgun is harder to track, but the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that there are in the range of 1.5 to 2 million defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year, based on studies conducted in 1994 and 2004. In a separate study available here
they conclude that while self-defense without a handgun resulted in a wound or death for the victim nearly half the time, the use of a handgun dropped that to nearly one-fifth of the time. Furthermore, only 38% of defensive uses of firearms involved shots fired.
However, in addition to being factually incorrect, you make the logical error of presuming that aggregate statistics accurately reflect the circumstances of an individual gun owner. The department of justice issued an advisory last year supporting the idea that gun crime statistics were "more of a map than a compass", meaning that rather than indicating future trends of gun violence, they should be used by LEOs and concerned civilians to train for the most likely defensive scenarios.
Why would somebody owning a gun be "scary" or "a lunatic"? I can understand the fear of guns empowering criminals (even if I don't agree with the conclusions some reach on that basis) but guns in the hands of the good guys should probably be reassuring, not alarming.
While I doubt any of his family or friends is going to see this, for what it's worth, my condolences go to you.
Tim Russert was both an amazing man and an incredible journalist- a tremendous asset to the fourth estate, our nation, and the world. His unique blend of hard-hitting questions and high standard of impartiality have made our politics richer, our people better informed, and our politicians that much more honest.
Without any doubt, Mr.Russert's passing is a terrible blow to the once-noble profession of journalism. He will be sorely missed both by those who knew him well and by those of us who knew only the good he did in the public eye. His death, early as it was, should be taken by all of us as a reminder of our transience, and of the need to preserve the work of our lives for the generations that come after us. Tim Russert's great work, the great effort of his life, was to restore to journalism the spirits of integrity, honesty, and candor that once characterized the mighty fourth estate. It would be a great shame to his memory if those spirits were to die with him; if, in the absence of the man himself, we allow his dreams to wither.
For everyone reading this, I hope you can find a way to honor a man who worked so hard to make this world a better place in which to live- to build upon his life's work, and to bring even one more iota of honesty to the political process. Register a voter, write a letter to your representative or the editor of your newspaper, join a campaign- and always ask the hard questions. I don't think he would've liked anything better.
RIP, Tim. If you see God, I hope you get an exclusive.
Interesting. I usually try to stay informed on politics and had missed this. The source is questionable, of course, but the original newsletters turned up soon enough, and they are indeed quite damning. To be fair, they aren't the usual caricature of racist diatribe- they avoid the 'N' word, for example- but they are filled with thinly veiled comparisons of african-americans to animals, repeated reference to black-on-white violence, and a variety of wild assertions about african-americans, their predilections, and black culture. Here's the link: L.A. Riots
Depends on where you are and who you are. In some parts of South Carolina, for instance, it is illegal to sell games that include graphic violence or other "immoral material". D&D is banned in many conservative parts of the country under inconsistently enforced witchcraft laws, comics are sometimes covered under 'adult printed material' for age limits, and of course ex cons are restricted from pretty much all of the above in many cases.
I had teachers that taught me about the Japanese internment camps, the Trail of Tears, the colonization of Hawaii, the election of 1876, the list goes on and on. Our education system sucks, but at least IMHO, not because it was whitewashed.
You can get a degree and completely skip the education part. Truer words were never spoken. As an occasional lecturer, I often find myself wondering how my audience finds its way to the fridge in the morning- in a room without a single person whose education cost less than their car.
The only optimizations mentioned in TFA are to take advantage of the Atom's power saving capabilities- which essentially consists of a few minor kernel tweaks. There's no reason why that couldn't be split into a linux-atom metapackage, assuming that isn't already what they're doing.
I'm talking about the fact that an end user cannot easily install this on their own devices. Software freedom for the end user is about the ability to choose between competing software products, not just the ability to modify the codebase. In this case, Ubuntu has taken a route that is no more 'free' than Xandros or, for that matter, TiVo, and it seems hypocritical to me.
Ubuntu built its base on the ability to easily, cleanly displace the dominant OS. Now that they've got some traction they reverse directions in a market that provides next to no freedom for users? Color me unimpressed- if they really want software to be free, the first step is giving people the ability to choose between the codebases that already exist.
As with all things meta, metacognition is based on a strong foundation of cognition. Pure cognition without hard knowledge has led us to conclude at various times that the Earth was shaped by the hands of giants, that the heavens that dance above trace the footsteps of the gods, and that man is the product of a whisper unto mud. It is dangerous, and can be dangerously wrong without the guidance of observation, careful analysis, and evidence. Like it or not, all the power of the Presidency rests in the hands of the President, and the President must accordingly take responsibility for the uses of that power, no matter what proxy exercised it. In advocating the division of power, you advocate the dissolution of responsibility, and the rise of the irresponsibility that is the mark of all tyrannical governments. So I ask you- where, if not from the responsibility of the powerful to the people, does a free society derive?
You may have missed my point about "if it came with the right to rip it". There are a few movies where I feel like the makers deserve some cash for their efforts, and in that case I don't mind subsidizing the development of the movie in exchange for the convenience of not having to d/l it.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair, the act of pointing a gun at somebody could be construed as increasing the likelihood of violence, which is what many people mean by "escalation". On the other hand, by the time most people feel the need to draw, violence is already in the air and on the way, which pretty much neuters the point they were trying to make.
I'm wearing a black cowboy hat right now, so I'm really getting a kick out of this.
Why are they not good in good hands? You don't deny that there are bad people on your side of the pond, people who would hurt or maim or kill you for little or no reason- wouldn't you rather have the ability to defend yourself than pray the police show up *before* your corpse starts to smell?
In the studies I posted earlier in this thread, the U.S. department of justice indicates that only 2% of incidents of defensive civilian handgun use involved mistaken intent or identity, compared to 11% for police.
Actually, you're wrong. According to the Center for Health Statistics, there were 52,000 nonfatal violence-related injuries and 23,000 nonfatal accidental discharges, give or take. In addition, they report that most firearm deaths are suicides, rather than homocides.
The level of crime that is prevented by the use of a handgun is harder to track, but the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that there are in the range of 1.5 to 2 million defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year, based on studies conducted in 1994 and 2004. In a separate study available here they conclude that while self-defense without a handgun resulted in a wound or death for the victim nearly half the time, the use of a handgun dropped that to nearly one-fifth of the time. Furthermore, only 38% of defensive uses of firearms involved shots fired.
However, in addition to being factually incorrect, you make the logical error of presuming that aggregate statistics accurately reflect the circumstances of an individual gun owner. The department of justice issued an advisory last year supporting the idea that gun crime statistics were "more of a map than a compass", meaning that rather than indicating future trends of gun violence, they should be used by LEOs and concerned civilians to train for the most likely defensive scenarios.
I read XKCD and have several firearms- don't judge us all.
Why would somebody owning a gun be "scary" or "a lunatic"? I can understand the fear of guns empowering criminals (even if I don't agree with the conclusions some reach on that basis) but guns in the hands of the good guys should probably be reassuring, not alarming.
*shrugs* partisans often see enemies where there aren't any.
While I doubt any of his family or friends is going to see this, for what it's worth, my condolences go to you.
Tim Russert was both an amazing man and an incredible journalist- a tremendous asset to the fourth estate, our nation, and the world. His unique blend of hard-hitting questions and high standard of impartiality have made our politics richer, our people better informed, and our politicians that much more honest.
Without any doubt, Mr.Russert's passing is a terrible blow to the once-noble profession of journalism. He will be sorely missed both by those who knew him well and by those of us who knew only the good he did in the public eye. His death, early as it was, should be taken by all of us as a reminder of our transience, and of the need to preserve the work of our lives for the generations that come after us. Tim Russert's great work, the great effort of his life, was to restore to journalism the spirits of integrity, honesty, and candor that once characterized the mighty fourth estate. It would be a great shame to his memory if those spirits were to die with him; if, in the absence of the man himself, we allow his dreams to wither.
For everyone reading this, I hope you can find a way to honor a man who worked so hard to make this world a better place in which to live- to build upon his life's work, and to bring even one more iota of honesty to the political process. Register a voter, write a letter to your representative or the editor of your newspaper, join a campaign- and always ask the hard questions. I don't think he would've liked anything better.
RIP, Tim. If you see God, I hope you get an exclusive.
I thought so too until I saw that they had the originals. Read them- I provide the link further up the thread. It's pretty damning stuff.
Interesting. I usually try to stay informed on politics and had missed this. The source is questionable, of course, but the original newsletters turned up soon enough, and they are indeed quite damning. To be fair, they aren't the usual caricature of racist diatribe- they avoid the 'N' word, for example- but they are filled with thinly veiled comparisons of african-americans to animals, repeated reference to black-on-white violence, and a variety of wild assertions about african-americans, their predilections, and black culture. Here's the link: L.A. Riots
evidence?
Depends on where you are and who you are. In some parts of South Carolina, for instance, it is illegal to sell games that include graphic violence or other "immoral material". D&D is banned in many conservative parts of the country under inconsistently enforced witchcraft laws, comics are sometimes covered under 'adult printed material' for age limits, and of course ex cons are restricted from pretty much all of the above in many cases.
I had teachers that taught me about the Japanese internment camps, the Trail of Tears, the colonization of Hawaii, the election of 1876, the list goes on and on. Our education system sucks, but at least IMHO, not because it was whitewashed.
The only optimizations mentioned in TFA are to take advantage of the Atom's power saving capabilities- which essentially consists of a few minor kernel tweaks. There's no reason why that couldn't be split into a linux-atom metapackage, assuming that isn't already what they're doing.
I'm talking about the fact that an end user cannot easily install this on their own devices. Software freedom for the end user is about the ability to choose between competing software products, not just the ability to modify the codebase. In this case, Ubuntu has taken a route that is no more 'free' than Xandros or, for that matter, TiVo, and it seems hypocritical to me.
Virtualization should heat up on this news. I'm off to do a virtualbox-vmware head-to-head
Ubuntu built its base on the ability to easily, cleanly displace the dominant OS. Now that they've got some traction they reverse directions in a market that provides next to no freedom for users? Color me unimpressed- if they really want software to be free, the first step is giving people the ability to choose between the codebases that already exist.
As with all things meta, metacognition is based on a strong foundation of cognition. Pure cognition without hard knowledge has led us to conclude at various times that the Earth was shaped by the hands of giants, that the heavens that dance above trace the footsteps of the gods, and that man is the product of a whisper unto mud. It is dangerous, and can be dangerously wrong without the guidance of observation, careful analysis, and evidence.
Like it or not, all the power of the Presidency rests in the hands of the President, and the President must accordingly take responsibility for the uses of that power, no matter what proxy exercised it. In advocating the division of power, you advocate the dissolution of responsibility, and the rise of the irresponsibility that is the mark of all tyrannical governments. So I ask you- where, if not from the responsibility of the powerful to the people, does a free society derive?
The tab key.
You may have missed my point about "if it came with the right to rip it". There are a few movies where I feel like the makers deserve some cash for their efforts, and in that case I don't mind subsidizing the development of the movie in exchange for the convenience of not having to d/l it.
I love bad movies. I use them as background noise while I'm programming.
I believe I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.