Getting back to some comments after a great trip through the Westrern US
of course, my kid will never, ever shoot herself with my gun, since I don't own one, and I will never ever accidentally shoot an innocent person, and no one will ever take a gun from me to use against me or anyone I love. Any of which is much more likely to occur, should I own a gun, then me successfully defending myself against a violent intruder with a gun, trained or not.
Well, that's where we'll have to agree to disagree. Statistics say that even despite all of the little shit gang-bangers (who drastically increase said statistics), the most common firearm related injury is purposefully self-inflicted.
Unless, of course, your survival kit includes lethal weaponry.
A good survival kit probably should include lethal weaponry, at the very least some kind of combat knife--for its practical utility, hunting utility (tie it to a stick to improvise a spear), and yes, even defensive purposes. Any number of other tools useful for survival are also deadly weapons if one chooses to use them that way. And that's the point: a gun isn't too dissimilar from a camping spade, or a hammer, even if its potential uses are arguably more...limited... But beyond that, it's all up to the user.
As for firearms, I keep a short and light.308 bolt action hidden in the back of my Jetta (probably not among the stereotypical VW owners) and it's accompanied by some very basic camping/survival gear: a modicum of sterilized water, a water filter and a dozen MREs, all good for short term rationing but if you're stuck for more than 2-3 days you're in big trouble, and you either have to rely on someone's generosity (which is known to be in short supply during hard times), luck, the grace of $diety, or you have to find (or take) food/water on your own at some point.
New Orleans, Haiti, Pakistan... These are recent events to take lessons from--and each event effected millions of people. Millions more are silently effected by crippling droughts. Hate to be blunt, but you're a fool to think that a catastrophe can't happen here (or wherever you are)
One man's paranoia is another man's preparedness. Strictly speaking, the former is usually accompanied by some level of psychosis or delusion, and the latter is often accompanied by a feeling of collectedness, i.e. the opposite of being fearful, the opposite of paranoia.
If one is in a state of preparedness, there are actually very few things worth fearing... If that means having a gun or a few in the home (and being practiced with it), learning basic skills, or a keeping a survival kit in the trunk of the car--that's not so bad. After all, exceedingly unlikely events seem to happen more often than we like... And if you're involved in such a scenario, once is far too many times.
It's a gamble like anything else in life. If you never need the supplies, equipment and/or skills--what's the worst that can happen? You waste few hours that you could have used doing something else? Big deal.
1919A4s were all originally chambered for.30-06 Springfield, unless they were sold to friendly foreign governments who used.303 British or 8mm Mauser (namely, Turkey, Hungary and a couple pre-soviet Slavic nations, but those would be exceedingly rare). So, it was either re-chambered by a private owner/gunsmith or by the US Navy during or prior to the Vietnam war, and if it was modified by the Navy it would have been properly called a Mk 21 Mod 0, where it was used on a ship borne pintle mount (patrol boats, generally). I'll let you guess how likely one of those weapons ended up in private hands.
Either your pawn shop guys don't know their shit, or they're trying to pawn off to some chump something that in all likelihood doesn't function reliably. Depends on how aggressively it's priced, and how expertly the conversion was done.
Well, unlike suppressors, SBRs and SBSs, most FFL/SOTs don't regularly stock transferable MGs. That's what I mean. They're unlike virtually any other item one can buy at a retail store, including suppressors--because there's a fixed supply... They're more like antiques in that way.
Is that "buying it off the shelf"? Perhaps... but that phrase implies a casual go in and pick it up type of transaction, when the reality is that couldn't be further from the truth.
My reply, however, was more specifically regarding the GPs assertion: Only thing you need is a Federal Firearms Permit and you can pick it right up off the floor., which is wrong on two counts: 1) as you know, you don't need an FFL 2) even an FFL/SOT dealer must file Form 3 (Application to transfer Title 2 firearms) with the BATF...
Form 3s are taking about a month, maybe more maybe less. I don't know whether you bought your suppressor from your local SOT, or from an out of state SOT... But if you had done the latter, you would know it's about a month wait for your dealer to receive the item before they're willing to let you do the Form 4 paperchase... After all, YOU don't want to do a Form 4 on a serialized item, when there's no particular guarantee you're going to receive that serial number. As you can imagine, it could be a royal fuck-up if your out of state dealer messes up while your forms are being processed.
P.S. Congrats on your suppressor. They're a fun and addicting hobby. May I ask what you got?
Actually, that's not entirely difficult. There are hobbyists who make primers and powder today. Getting the right combination of primer power to gunpowder might be tricky. But it's doable.
The cartridge brass is actually one of the more harder to quantify parts of a firearm system... The metallurgy must be very specific. You want the brass to be slightly springy, because one of its lesser known functions is to serve as a gasket to the chamber. It must very predictably contract from its expanded state. It must also be hard enough that it doesn't flow under the designed pressure. Sometimes, you want the neck of the brass to be annealed, so that it doesn't crack--and the rest of the case remains work hardened.
But none of this is out of reach of the truly dedicated individual.
Only because it's an incredibly poor tool for that particular job--just try to do it without losing the can's contents. I can more successfully open cans with my fighting knife... Another object which by extension of your logic has only one purpose in life: to kill people, since that's actually what it was designed to do... Every feature from the clip point, and the cross section of the blade, the fuller (the groove which lets blood out and lightens the blade), to the guard and the pommel makes it a knife superbly adapted to puncturing and slashing humans.
They even make a rubberized plastic version, which you can use to simulate a real knife and safely train in the art of knife-fighting with a *live* human opponent. Yet such knives overwhelmingly find utility roles, like opening cans, cutting tree limbs, and other survival related uses.
The point of this is: You can't classify tools based on inference. Even if most firearms are weapons by your assumption, there are clearly some which were designed for other uses. By the principal of falsifiability, I will show that your assertion that all firearms are maiming and killing machines is patently false.
There is a group called the International Shooting Sport Federation which oversees their brand of sport shooting--so happens this is the variety which of sport shooting which appears in Olympic events. So, we have an organization which internationally promotes the sport of shooting. Competitors in these matches often use very expensive ($10,000 on up) highly specialized instruments, which are in every aspect finely tuned to the particular discipline of this sport, and indeed specifically and ergonomically tuned to the individual using it.
You have various shotgun matches, centerfire rifle matches, rimfire rifle, rimfire pistol and centerfire pistol etc. etc. To be competitive in these disciplines, you basically *must* use the firearms specifically designed with these competitions in mind. Can these devices maim and kill humans or other critters? Certainly. In many ways, they might very good at that purpose. Are they designed to kill? No. They're clearly designed to shoot at graduated circular targets--and do a very good job of it.
To the point: no, they typically don't. They're antiques and artifacts which often wind up in private collections. More Americans die from ingrown toenails than are killed by old (machine) guns.
Well, silly, your problem is that of a terminology mix-up. A gun isn't a weapon any more than fancy NASA pen--both are carefully crafted and very refined tools. Sure, in normal usage one goes bang when asked to do so, and the other one doodles very nicely (even upside down!) But, I recognize that with without me or some comparable being, either of these inanimate objects will just sit there indefinitely doing nothing particularly interesting...
But when I have either in my hands, I'm the weapon. I'm the dangerous, chaotic influence who is capable of putting the tools to use, as I see fit. If I had a particularly bad day, I *could* stab someone in the face with the pen (don't underestimate a pen) or I could do something similar with the gun, or the car, or the hammer, or the butter knife, or the brick, or the pointy stick.
The idea that a firearms' only purpose is to maim or kill is ridiculous. If the gunsmith's job was to create a maiming and killing machine, he fails miserably. Billions of rounds of ammunition are expended every year, all but a tiny fraction fall into earthen embankments, harming no soul. So, if you want to talk about murder machines, let's talk about the dreaded killbot menace.
I own a newer model 1911 with a sturdy slide safety and an internal drop safety (what is lacking in older models, making them very dangerous)
Actually, the lack of the drop safety (firing pin block) isn't all that dangerous on a 1911. It's the military and police department policies invented by useless bureaucrats which promoted dangerous behavior... Often, it was (very stupidly) mandated that automatic pistols were to be carried with the hammer decocked. Anyone who knows the 1911 knows that if you do that, the hammer is free to hit the firing pin. A modest force to the hammer = kablooie. After a some predictable incidents, military users were required to carry on an empty chamber with the safety on, a policy successfully recognized by soldiers as further ensuring the pistols' uselessness in an emergency.
When it's carried cocked and locked, however, the hammer has the normal position on the sear--and it also has a fall back fail safe, the half-cock position which catches the hammer if the full cock sear breaks.
As for the safety spontaneously disengaging: For what it's worth, I have been carrying a 1911 for 7 or 8 years and have *never* had my safety come off. You might want to look into a different holster or stronger detent spring--oh, and my open carry holster also has retention strap which would intercept the hammer in the event all of the safeties and so-on failed.
Shows how much you know: The Browning you're talking about is the Model 1919--probably chambered in.30-06. By all rights, they're antiques, and own-able examples are priced accordingly. And, you can't just go in, plunk down 25 grand and legally buy it off the shelf--even if you are a Federal Firearms Licensee, because even FFLs must APPLY with the BATF for Each and Every machine gun (and other title 2 firarms) they transfer to their inventories--which can take one to two months, depending on how busy the ATF is..
Sure, you can go reserve it and put down a deposit while they wait for the paperwork to go through, but you won't have it in your hands for some time after that. That has been the standard operating procedure for wanna-be machine gun owners for oh... For about 80 years now.
Good point. In fact, that was entirely part of the plan. A granddaddy to the AK-47, the PPSh-41 (of 1941), was a simplified submachine gun, designed such that it could be mostly mass-produced by an unskilled workforce during war-time. It worked fabulously. Even the Germans who picked up captured units were converts way back then. It just worked more reliably in the cold and snow than their own precision-built MP-40s.
If you ever get the chance to see one in person, here's something interesting: The vast majority of PPSh carbines have rear sights that are out of kilter from the front. They still generally shoot to point of impact--by heroic effort of whoever sighted the rifle in. The hardest part to get right part of any gun is obviously the barrel. But that's really not so hard, either. It just requires more dedication--dedicated machinists and gunsmiths have been rifling barrels for a quite a while now, after all.
One might notice that they've become extremely lax with regards to development. Source has badly stagnated and as such they aren't really selling any engine licenses. Their own game development proceeds at a snail's pace. However Steam sales are extremely brisk. They are making tons of money on it.
As far as I can tell, selling Source licenses hasn't ever been a main focus for Valve. And as far as advancing the engine itself: most of the bells and whistles would be lost on (or even detract from) their most popular games. TF2 is extremely popular due to its own virtues, and I bet it'll still be popular with the cartoony look well after games based on more advanced engines are forgotten.
This also means you have to allow distribution of your game on Steam, but also that you game probably cannot be distributed on any other download platform.
It means no such thing. There are plenty of games sold on Steam which are distributed by other methods--and games sold that way never touch Steam... Big name and indie games alike. Of course on the same token you also have the third-party retail-box games which must be attached to Steam (as you mentioned).
Do they want to be the hub for every game? You bet. It's every corporation's wet dream to be the center of their own universe. So far they haven't been evil about it--that's one good thing... And it gives big developers reason to abandon *BAD* DRM like SecuROM.
They could similarly round up and kill a bunch of people who likely didn't act as informants, then say "if you snitch, we'll do this to you", and it would have exactly the same deterrent effect on potential cooperators... The taliban (or indeed anyone who uses terror-tactics) doesn't require justification when it comes to fucking people up--if they think murdering a bunch of people furthers their goal in some way, they just do it.
That Bluto/Brutus guy aught to watch out. Word on the street is, a flock of spinach-crazed tykes is lookin' to punch his lights out... And brother, you don't want to tangle with spinach-enriched ankle-biters.
Seeing as how well regulated militias are better than non regulated militias (i.e. street gangs), we ought to make sure our law abiding citizens have a right to arm themselves.
"Well regulated" in context of the second amendment does not refer to 'restricted', more like disciplined, organized, resolute, and properly armed (with a standard firearm and accessories, as first described in the Militia Acts of 1792) In other words, if you have a body of people who are capable, trained and willing to work towards a common goal (under command) when called to a task, you have a militia.
An armed street gang really is a disparate idea to that of a militia--they're just a violence-prone mob. Overwhelmingly, we simply have a non-regulated quasi-militia: a bunch of guys with guns and non-standard equipment, who are of indeterminate proficiency, with little to no formal training. Better than nothing, but not really as capable as a formal militia.
I think I need to buy a cane to wave at people. Well, just make sure this one sentence doesn't slip from your Alzheimers'-addled brain, and you'll be set: "Get off my lawn you damn kids!", combine that with some of your cane-waving and the provocative application of your Depends(TM) undergarments (that's right old man, undergarments) and you'll be set.:D
I think Valve added filter functionality, which allows you to do basically that. I think you can blacklist bad servers too. Personally, I just look for clan / gaming community servers. They're usually pretty respectable. Now, I just have my set of favorites and rarely play outside of those.
Well, I guess it's sort of like tag. But in some of the games which follow that idea, the player which is "it" gets powerups. Cootie monster (yeah, lol) was the closest thing I could think of, since the player usually becomes some kind of monster, and is naturally attacked by everyone.
I think there was a thing called HulkMod for Quake 3... And I got it backwards: whoever kills the monster becomes the new monster. I vaguely remember some game which had the same premise, but with vampires and vampire hunters.
D) Badly managed servers. For example, on Team Fortress 2, you will have people who decide to make everyone be engineers, then suddenly allow for one spy, then make everyone be engineers once someone on their team is the spy...
That's not a badly managed server. That's a server with a custom game mode that you don't happen to like. A few multiplayer games have had something of a "cooties" mode, where you either A) avoid getting killed by the cooties monster, B) become the cooties monster and have to kill someone else. As for me, I sometimes find that kind of game an interesting distraction. Sometimes the modder comes up with something *GOOD*, or at least something original.
Here's badly managed servers for you: every singular MW2 PC server. Due to the idiotic idea that is iwNET, you will be paired you will be paired with a given 'server' if they have an open slot and you have a decent ping. That 'server' is some other schmuck playing in your game. A good 50+% of connections are bad, very bad, or horrible, I'm sure due to any number of faults. Further, the server 'admin' either doesn't know how to correct issies, or is apathetic to the fact that some turd is running a wall-hack or aim-bot.
If that wasn't bad enough, the kids have found ways of creating servers with their own rules: and here's the rub: you're still connecting to them regardless of any want or desire on your behalf... And you have no idea that you're connecting to a hacked server before you're in it. Example: A few weeks ago, I joined up on a server that instantly leveled me to level 70, and gave me darn near *every* achievement. Every unlock for every gun, every logo...You know... it sucks royal.
Maybe I'm the only guy who likes playing to accomplish achievements. It forces me to break the mold, try guns and stuff that I might not have liked at first--and learn to dominate people with them. Now, I have every achievement, and can't get rid of them. Can't bring myself to play it anymore.
At least the modded servers in TF2 tend to advertise that fact--giving you the opportunity to decide if you want to join or not.
Query: What type of people do you get when power is vested in Parliament? Answer: Subjects. What type of people do you get when power is vested in The People? Answer: Citizens.
Having your people ruthlessly exterminated by an evil dictatorship arguably isn't funny. But that didn't stop Mel Brooks (who by the way, served in the Army whilst invading Germany) from making fun of Nazis and Hitler. Sometimes, the best way you can get revenge on someone is to laugh at them--paraphrasing Brooks.
Maybe having a gun put in your face can't ever be funny for a teller. Myself, I probably would have laughed right there on the spot, having been in more bleak situations. But trying to quantify what makes people laugh? That's even more ridiculous than Darth Vader robbing a bank.
The shockwave of a.50 caliber round going through the air being enough to rip skin open or rip a person apart is also a common myth. A large, supersonic bullet traveling through the air doesn't have that big of an effect on the air passing by it.
I had a Lieutenant friend who steadfastly believed in this. I bet it started back around WWII--some nincompoop probably got a little too close to the muzzle of an M2 machine gun--and yeah, I bet the gasses coming out of that could tear some flesh. The myth just keeps getting passed on and on.
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Getting back to some comments after a great trip through the Westrern US
of course, my kid will never, ever shoot herself with my gun, since I don't own one, and I will never ever accidentally shoot an innocent person, and no one will ever take a gun from me to use against me or anyone I love. Any of which is much more likely to occur, should I own a gun, then me successfully defending myself against a violent intruder with a gun, trained or not.
Well, that's where we'll have to agree to disagree. Statistics say that even despite all of the little shit gang-bangers (who drastically increase said statistics), the most common firearm related injury is purposefully self-inflicted.
Unless, of course, your survival kit includes lethal weaponry.
A good survival kit probably should include lethal weaponry, at the very least some kind of combat knife--for its practical utility, hunting utility (tie it to a stick to improvise a spear), and yes, even defensive purposes. Any number of other tools useful for survival are also deadly weapons if one chooses to use them that way. And that's the point: a gun isn't too dissimilar from a camping spade, or a hammer, even if its potential uses are arguably more...limited... But beyond that, it's all up to the user.
As for firearms, I keep a short and light .308 bolt action hidden in the back of my Jetta (probably not among the stereotypical VW owners) and it's accompanied by some very basic camping/survival gear: a modicum of sterilized water, a water filter and a dozen MREs, all good for short term rationing but if you're stuck for more than 2-3 days you're in big trouble, and you either have to rely on someone's generosity (which is known to be in short supply during hard times), luck, the grace of $diety, or you have to find (or take) food/water on your own at some point.
New Orleans, Haiti, Pakistan... These are recent events to take lessons from--and each event effected millions of people. Millions more are silently effected by crippling droughts. Hate to be blunt, but you're a fool to think that a catastrophe can't happen here (or wherever you are)
One man's paranoia is another man's preparedness. Strictly speaking, the former is usually accompanied by some level of psychosis or delusion, and the latter is often accompanied by a feeling of collectedness, i.e. the opposite of being fearful, the opposite of paranoia.
If one is in a state of preparedness, there are actually very few things worth fearing... If that means having a gun or a few in the home (and being practiced with it), learning basic skills, or a keeping a survival kit in the trunk of the car--that's not so bad. After all, exceedingly unlikely events seem to happen more often than we like... And if you're involved in such a scenario, once is far too many times.
It's a gamble like anything else in life. If you never need the supplies, equipment and/or skills--what's the worst that can happen? You waste few hours that you could have used doing something else? Big deal.
1919A4s were all originally chambered for .30-06 Springfield, unless they were sold to friendly foreign governments who used .303 British or 8mm Mauser (namely, Turkey, Hungary and a couple pre-soviet Slavic nations, but those would be exceedingly rare). So, it was either re-chambered by a private owner/gunsmith or by the US Navy during or prior to the Vietnam war, and if it was modified by the Navy it would have been properly called a Mk 21 Mod 0, where it was used on a ship borne pintle mount (patrol boats, generally). I'll let you guess how likely one of those weapons ended up in private hands.
Either your pawn shop guys don't know their shit, or they're trying to pawn off to some chump something that in all likelihood doesn't function reliably. Depends on how aggressively it's priced, and how expertly the conversion was done.
So, game over.
Well, unlike suppressors, SBRs and SBSs, most FFL/SOTs don't regularly stock transferable MGs. That's what I mean. They're unlike virtually any other item one can buy at a retail store, including suppressors--because there's a fixed supply... They're more like antiques in that way.
Is that "buying it off the shelf"? Perhaps... but that phrase implies a casual go in and pick it up type of transaction, when the reality is that couldn't be further from the truth.
My reply, however, was more specifically regarding the GPs assertion: Only thing you need is a Federal Firearms Permit and you can pick it right up off the floor., which is wrong on two counts: 1) as you know, you don't need an FFL 2) even an FFL/SOT dealer must file Form 3 (Application to transfer Title 2 firearms) with the BATF...
Form 3s are taking about a month, maybe more maybe less. I don't know whether you bought your suppressor from your local SOT, or from an out of state SOT... But if you had done the latter, you would know it's about a month wait for your dealer to receive the item before they're willing to let you do the Form 4 paperchase... After all, YOU don't want to do a Form 4 on a serialized item, when there's no particular guarantee you're going to receive that serial number. As you can imagine, it could be a royal fuck-up if your out of state dealer messes up while your forms are being processed.
P.S. Congrats on your suppressor. They're a fun and addicting hobby. May I ask what you got?
Actually, that's not entirely difficult. There are hobbyists who make primers and powder today. Getting the right combination of primer power to gunpowder might be tricky. But it's doable.
The cartridge brass is actually one of the more harder to quantify parts of a firearm system... The metallurgy must be very specific. You want the brass to be slightly springy, because one of its lesser known functions is to serve as a gasket to the chamber. It must very predictably contract from its expanded state. It must also be hard enough that it doesn't flow under the designed pressure. Sometimes, you want the neck of the brass to be annealed, so that it doesn't crack--and the rest of the case remains work hardened.
But none of this is out of reach of the truly dedicated individual.
But nobody builds a sword to open a can.
Only because it's an incredibly poor tool for that particular job--just try to do it without losing the can's contents. I can more successfully open cans with my fighting knife... Another object which by extension of your logic has only one purpose in life: to kill people, since that's actually what it was designed to do... Every feature from the clip point, and the cross section of the blade, the fuller (the groove which lets blood out and lightens the blade), to the guard and the pommel makes it a knife superbly adapted to puncturing and slashing humans.
They even make a rubberized plastic version, which you can use to simulate a real knife and safely train in the art of knife-fighting with a *live* human opponent. Yet such knives overwhelmingly find utility roles, like opening cans, cutting tree limbs, and other survival related uses.
The point of this is: You can't classify tools based on inference. Even if most firearms are weapons by your assumption, there are clearly some which were designed for other uses. By the principal of falsifiability, I will show that your assertion that all firearms are maiming and killing machines is patently false.
There is a group called the International Shooting Sport Federation which oversees their brand of sport shooting--so happens this is the variety which of sport shooting which appears in Olympic events. So, we have an organization which internationally promotes the sport of shooting. Competitors in these matches often use very expensive ($10,000 on up) highly specialized instruments, which are in every aspect finely tuned to the particular discipline of this sport, and indeed specifically and ergonomically tuned to the individual using it.
You have various shotgun matches, centerfire rifle matches, rimfire rifle, rimfire pistol and centerfire pistol etc. etc. To be competitive in these disciplines, you basically *must* use the firearms specifically designed with these competitions in mind. Can these devices maim and kill humans or other critters? Certainly. In many ways, they might very good at that purpose. Are they designed to kill? No. They're clearly designed to shoot at graduated circular targets--and do a very good job of it.
To the point: no, they typically don't. They're antiques and artifacts which often wind up in private collections. More Americans die from ingrown toenails than are killed by old (machine) guns.
Well, silly, your problem is that of a terminology mix-up. A gun isn't a weapon any more than fancy NASA pen--both are carefully crafted and very refined tools. Sure, in normal usage one goes bang when asked to do so, and the other one doodles very nicely (even upside down!) But, I recognize that with without me or some comparable being, either of these inanimate objects will just sit there indefinitely doing nothing particularly interesting...
But when I have either in my hands, I'm the weapon. I'm the dangerous, chaotic influence who is capable of putting the tools to use, as I see fit. If I had a particularly bad day, I *could* stab someone in the face with the pen (don't underestimate a pen) or I could do something similar with the gun, or the car, or the hammer, or the butter knife, or the brick, or the pointy stick.
The idea that a firearms' only purpose is to maim or kill is ridiculous. If the gunsmith's job was to create a maiming and killing machine, he fails miserably. Billions of rounds of ammunition are expended every year, all but a tiny fraction fall into earthen embankments, harming no soul. So, if you want to talk about murder machines, let's talk about the dreaded killbot menace.
I own a newer model 1911 with a sturdy slide safety and an internal drop safety (what is lacking in older models, making them very dangerous)
Actually, the lack of the drop safety (firing pin block) isn't all that dangerous on a 1911. It's the military and police department policies invented by useless bureaucrats which promoted dangerous behavior... Often, it was (very stupidly) mandated that automatic pistols were to be carried with the hammer decocked. Anyone who knows the 1911 knows that if you do that, the hammer is free to hit the firing pin. A modest force to the hammer = kablooie. After a some predictable incidents, military users were required to carry on an empty chamber with the safety on, a policy successfully recognized by soldiers as further ensuring the pistols' uselessness in an emergency.
When it's carried cocked and locked, however, the hammer has the normal position on the sear--and it also has a fall back fail safe, the half-cock position which catches the hammer if the full cock sear breaks.
As for the safety spontaneously disengaging: For what it's worth, I have been carrying a 1911 for 7 or 8 years and have *never* had my safety come off. You might want to look into a different holster or stronger detent spring--oh, and my open carry holster also has retention strap which would intercept the hammer in the event all of the safeties and so-on failed.
Shows how much you know: The Browning you're talking about is the Model 1919--probably chambered in .30-06. By all rights, they're antiques, and own-able examples are priced accordingly. And, you can't just go in, plunk down 25 grand and legally buy it off the shelf--even if you are a Federal Firearms Licensee, because even FFLs must APPLY with the BATF for Each and Every machine gun (and other title 2 firarms) they transfer to their inventories--which can take one to two months, depending on how busy the ATF is..
Sure, you can go reserve it and put down a deposit while they wait for the paperwork to go through, but you won't have it in your hands for some time after that. That has been the standard operating procedure for wanna-be machine gun owners for oh... For about 80 years now.
Good point. In fact, that was entirely part of the plan. A granddaddy to the AK-47, the PPSh-41 (of 1941), was a simplified submachine gun, designed such that it could be mostly mass-produced by an unskilled workforce during war-time. It worked fabulously. Even the Germans who picked up captured units were converts way back then. It just worked more reliably in the cold and snow than their own precision-built MP-40s.
If you ever get the chance to see one in person, here's something interesting: The vast majority of PPSh carbines have rear sights that are out of kilter from the front. They still generally shoot to point of impact--by heroic effort of whoever sighted the rifle in. The hardest part to get right part of any gun is obviously the barrel. But that's really not so hard, either. It just requires more dedication--dedicated machinists and gunsmiths have been rifling barrels for a quite a while now, after all.
I saw one at the local monthly super-cruise a while back. I'm not one to be prone to envy, but I'll admit, I turned a little bit green right then.
One might notice that they've become extremely lax with regards to development. Source has badly stagnated and as such they aren't really selling any engine licenses. Their own game development proceeds at a snail's pace. However Steam sales are extremely brisk. They are making tons of money on it.
As far as I can tell, selling Source licenses hasn't ever been a main focus for Valve. And as far as advancing the engine itself: most of the bells and whistles would be lost on (or even detract from) their most popular games. TF2 is extremely popular due to its own virtues, and I bet it'll still be popular with the cartoony look well after games based on more advanced engines are forgotten.
This also means you have to allow distribution of your game on Steam, but also that you game probably cannot be distributed on any other download platform.
It means no such thing. There are plenty of games sold on Steam which are distributed by other methods--and games sold that way never touch Steam... Big name and indie games alike. Of course on the same token you also have the third-party retail-box games which must be attached to Steam (as you mentioned).
Do they want to be the hub for every game? You bet. It's every corporation's wet dream to be the center of their own universe. So far they haven't been evil about it--that's one good thing... And it gives big developers reason to abandon *BAD* DRM like SecuROM.
They could similarly round up and kill a bunch of people who likely didn't act as informants, then say "if you snitch, we'll do this to you", and it would have exactly the same deterrent effect on potential cooperators... The taliban (or indeed anyone who uses terror-tactics) doesn't require justification when it comes to fucking people up--if they think murdering a bunch of people furthers their goal in some way, they just do it.
That Bluto/Brutus guy aught to watch out. Word on the street is, a flock of spinach-crazed tykes is lookin' to punch his lights out... And brother, you don't want to tangle with spinach-enriched ankle-biters.
Seeing as how well regulated militias are better than non regulated militias (i.e. street gangs), we ought to make sure our law abiding citizens have a right to arm themselves.
"Well regulated" in context of the second amendment does not refer to 'restricted', more like disciplined, organized, resolute, and properly armed (with a standard firearm and accessories, as first described in the Militia Acts of 1792) In other words, if you have a body of people who are capable, trained and willing to work towards a common goal (under command) when called to a task, you have a militia.
An armed street gang really is a disparate idea to that of a militia--they're just a violence-prone mob. Overwhelmingly, we simply have a non-regulated quasi-militia: a bunch of guys with guns and non-standard equipment, who are of indeterminate proficiency, with little to no formal training. Better than nothing, but not really as capable as a formal militia.
Don't forget the thought provoking cinematic masterpiece that is Piranha 3D.
I think I need to buy a cane to wave at people. :D
Well, just make sure this one sentence doesn't slip from your Alzheimers'-addled brain, and you'll be set: "Get off my lawn you damn kids!", combine that with some of your cane-waving and the provocative application of your Depends(TM) undergarments (that's right old man, undergarments) and you'll be set.
Funny you should mention those things, but yeah, that seems to be the general trend in the UK.
I think Valve added filter functionality, which allows you to do basically that. I think you can blacklist bad servers too. Personally, I just look for clan / gaming community servers. They're usually pretty respectable. Now, I just have my set of favorites and rarely play outside of those.
Well, I guess it's sort of like tag. But in some of the games which follow that idea, the player which is "it" gets powerups. Cootie monster (yeah, lol) was the closest thing I could think of, since the player usually becomes some kind of monster, and is naturally attacked by everyone.
I think there was a thing called HulkMod for Quake 3... And I got it backwards: whoever kills the monster becomes the new monster. I vaguely remember some game which had the same premise, but with vampires and vampire hunters.
D) Badly managed servers. For example, on Team Fortress 2, you will have people who decide to make everyone be engineers, then suddenly allow for one spy, then make everyone be engineers once someone on their team is the spy...
That's not a badly managed server. That's a server with a custom game mode that you don't happen to like. A few multiplayer games have had something of a "cooties" mode, where you either A) avoid getting killed by the cooties monster, B) become the cooties monster and have to kill someone else. As for me, I sometimes find that kind of game an interesting distraction. Sometimes the modder comes up with something *GOOD*, or at least something original.
Here's badly managed servers for you: every singular MW2 PC server. Due to the idiotic idea that is iwNET, you will be paired you will be paired with a given 'server' if they have an open slot and you have a decent ping. That 'server' is some other schmuck playing in your game. A good 50+% of connections are bad, very bad, or horrible, I'm sure due to any number of faults. Further, the server 'admin' either doesn't know how to correct issies, or is apathetic to the fact that some turd is running a wall-hack or aim-bot.
If that wasn't bad enough, the kids have found ways of creating servers with their own rules: and here's the rub: you're still connecting to them regardless of any want or desire on your behalf... And you have no idea that you're connecting to a hacked server before you're in it. Example: A few weeks ago, I joined up on a server that instantly leveled me to level 70, and gave me darn near *every* achievement. Every unlock for every gun, every logo...You know... it sucks royal.
Maybe I'm the only guy who likes playing to accomplish achievements. It forces me to break the mold, try guns and stuff that I might not have liked at first--and learn to dominate people with them. Now, I have every achievement, and can't get rid of them. Can't bring myself to play it anymore.
At least the modded servers in TF2 tend to advertise that fact--giving you the opportunity to decide if you want to join or not.
Query:
What type of people do you get when power is vested in Parliament? Answer: Subjects.
What type of people do you get when power is vested in The People? Answer: Citizens.
Having your people ruthlessly exterminated by an evil dictatorship arguably isn't funny. But that didn't stop Mel Brooks (who by the way, served in the Army whilst invading Germany) from making fun of Nazis and Hitler. Sometimes, the best way you can get revenge on someone is to laugh at them--paraphrasing Brooks.
Maybe having a gun put in your face can't ever be funny for a teller. Myself, I probably would have laughed right there on the spot, having been in more bleak situations. But trying to quantify what makes people laugh? That's even more ridiculous than Darth Vader robbing a bank.
The shockwave of a .50 caliber round going through the air being enough to rip skin open or rip a person apart is also a common myth. A large, supersonic bullet traveling through the air doesn't have that big of an effect on the air passing by it.
I had a Lieutenant friend who steadfastly believed in this. I bet it started back around WWII--some nincompoop probably got a little too close to the muzzle of an M2 machine gun--and yeah, I bet the gasses coming out of that could tear some flesh. The myth just keeps getting passed on and on.