Its default (hell, only) mode of operation is lethal. Can you say that about a car, a stove, an iron, a knife? I can't slide a tomato with a gun.
I don't see how you come to that conclusion. I can go shoot a gun all day and not even hurt a fly. Hell, some days I couldn't hurt a fly even if I wanted to. If you're going to use analogy of the knife: when you're slicing that tomato, are you not violently rending and separating the component materials of a living thing? That's basically what happens when you shoot a tomato, albeit in a far less controlled fashion.
When you're cooking on the stove, are you not subjecting your food heat intense enough to alter its chemical makeup? That's kind of violent, and further: it's generally assumed that your animal foods are already dead, which means that some lethal process must have overcome them, and your vegetable foods are in a state of dying, too. I hope I need not say, but many a live lobster has also succumbed to the stove. So I would say that unless you're some kind of freak that likes to eat half live but undercooked animals, the mode of operation for a stove is 100% lethal.
And while the usual mode of operation of a car is peaceful, a person can also make a car bomb to use for terrorist purposes. Maybe it's not about how an item works, but whether it is used for good and peaceful purposes, or evil and violent purposes:
You can use the knife to prepare your food, or you can use it to slice up someone you don't like. You can use the stove to cook for the homeless, or you could use it to cook up something to poison the homeless. You can use the minivan to shuttle the kiddies to soccer practice, or you can use it to blow up an embassy, just as you can use a gun for peaceful and lawful purposes. You can practice with it and use it for recreation. You can challenge yourself and make yourself a more disciplined individual. A good person can even use it to defend the life of an innocent, just as an evil person can use it to take the life on an innocent.
When was the last time you pointed a gun at an object you didn't intend to obliterate?
All the time. After all, I don't hold any hatred against the paper or steel targets that I shoot at. And frankly, my guns do a terrible job at destroying those types of materials. I can invent far more effective and destructive tools. When I carry a pistol in a holster, I don't intend to obliterate my Volkswagen, but the muzzle "pointing" someplace at the car is a natural consequence of the act of to carrying. When I sometimes carry in a shoulder holster, the muzzle also covers anyone and everything that is behind me. I bet the people behind me would be kind of upset if it weren't concealed. Even so, I certianly don't mean to obliterate them.
Or, for that matter, from being left in a car on a hot day - this kills something like a dozen children in the US alone every year.
Good point. I had to go look it up and it seems an average of 33 kids are killed per year by being unattended in a car, resulting in hyperthermia. source
It doesn't get around the fact that these people left a device which has the express purpose of killing or injuring someone lying around in a state where it was immediately dangerous.
While I disagree with your conclusion (that the device has the express purpose of killing or injuring), I agree with the premise of the argument. These are what you call negligent parents. They're the same type of people who leave their kids to die in the summer heat, to die from poisoning from easily accessed household chemicals, open bottles of medication, etc. Letting a toddler access a loaded firearm has to be among the stupidest things a person can do, but I'm not sure that it's significantly different than say, letting a toddler play unsupervised by a pool (or any other negligent activity resulting in grave injury or death) The fact is, as humans we're constantly surrounded by things that are dangerous and can hurt and kill us. Some of these are our own inventions, but regardless it's the job of a parent to keep that from happening.
And regarding uncovered electrical outlets: there's something on the order of 4000 outlet related injuries each year. I'm sure a small number of them result in death due to the physics involved... But suppose a toddler watches someone plug in a receptacle, they're little monkey-see-monkey do learning critters. I bet these parents are conspicuously negligent in other aspects of their lives, it's just a tragedy when it results in the death of an innocent.
I tend not to leave things that are *intended* to be used as murder weapons lying around. I don't know about the grandparent poster.
A gun isn't intended to do anything but push a projectile out of a barrel. If they were actively designed to be murder machines, the engineer responsible should be taken out and shot, because they have failed miserably. After all, billions of rounds of ammunition are expended by Americans every year, and only a tiny fraction of those are ever used to injure another person. Why, if you look at it that way, guns have to rank among the least effective murder machines ever devised...
Guns are dangerous items, sure enough, and that's why responsible parents do their best to segregate their young'ns from them as well as all other potential sources of danger--at least until the child reaches an appropriate age to handle the danger responsibly.
The fact is, the parents in this story were just as likely to leave the kid in the bathtub to drown or scald to death (as many hundreds do each year), to be strangulated by loose cords, or to leave them un-guarded from electrocution by uncovered outlets, falling to death out of open windows, or from being scalded to death from the pasta cooking on the stove.
You would have us believe that the United States is the most violent of those countries (or indeed in the world), because we have the most gun related deaths. The problem here is that you're either missing the big picture, or you are guilty of a non sequitur.
After all, it's not a question of the tool used to kill, it's a question of a culture which breeds murderers; unless of course, you're one of those retards who believe that having a gun is necessary, or somehow paramount to committing homicide--in which case there's no amount of logic, facts, or correctly applied statistics which can hope to tunnel its way to your deeply rectal-cranial inverted brain.
Let's take a look at some of your 36 counties listed by their intentional homicide rate (per 100k), (most recently estimated according to Wikipedia) I won't list but some of the interesting ones.
Many of these places have very strict bans against gun ownership among non-ruling class civilians. Why the disparity? You mean people don't need guns...to kill other people? *jaw dropped, going into shock*
Bad people want the most effective tools to do their dirty work, and when firearms are available at some level to bad people, they're going to be used more often to do bad things. There is no surprise here. Simply looking at gun related deaths will make you look over many of those places, some of which are just as violent, (or even more violent) than the principal US cities which contribute to our dismal looking statistic, all despite having significant restrictions on firearms.
Japan, for example, has very few gun related homicides for two reasons: they've done quite the extensive job on eliminating guns from the country, but more importantly, they have very few homicides of any kind to begin with! It's important to note: many of the homicides which do happen there, whether involving firearms or not, are a result of the crime syndicate (Yakuza) whom, believe it or not, have prolific access to guns, even real heavy-duty weaponry--often completely outclassing the police in terms of firepower. Yeah, that's a dirty little secret.
It comes down to this: even if you outlaw the shit, if you want it bad enough, there are always ways of getting it. Fact: every attempt by any significantly sized nation to squash a black market has utterly and completely failed. Regarding firearms: The cat is out of the bag, and there is no amount of force that will send it back. Even if someone has to hand carve a gun out of a block of metal, it WILL be done... That's basically how it works in Pakistan's black market, and they have NO shortage.
Regarding your point of interest: there's about 30,000 people killed via firearm every year for the last decade and the decade prior. A little more than half are suicides (about 17,000) and the rest are a mix of homicides and accidental deaths (of which IIRC there are about 1200 a year). It's remarkably consistent, actually.
So anyway there's about 12,000-14,000 non-accidental firearms related deaths each year. Versus A little more than 3000 Americans killed by terrorists on our own soil, for the whole history of our country--kind of pales in comparison; your point stands. It's kind of silly to get worked up about terrorists, when people are so unlikely to die because of terrorists. But that's their goal, isn't it? Make a real big ugly scene, get everyone worked up.
As a firearm rights advocate, I concede that too many people are killed via firearm. It is a problem. But even if you could magically take all the guns away from *everyone*, it's not going to do a lot to the numbers. People will still kill because that's the culture.
Of course, when one cites statistics, it sounds TERRIBLE, like end of the world stuff. Until you see that about the same number of people (about 13,000) die from falls, another 13,000 die from poisoning, and 40,000 from automobiles. Yeah, far fewer people are killed with guns purposefully than are killed by cars, accidentally... All despite Americans having more guns in their closets than cars in their driveways.
Great, let's just have everyone shooting everyone
Sure... After all, *everyone* knows the 1800's American western frontier was called the Wild Wild West, because there were shootouts every noon, right after the morning brawl at the saloon, and right before the evening run-in with the in-juns... Right? Well, Wrong. There was probably never a time where men went armed as much as they did then, but Heinlein's observation, An armed society is a polite society held true. In reality, when the white men weren't being evil to the natives, it was generally the Not so Wild, West.
Heck, the most famous old west shootout, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral only tallied three deaths, and besides even that sort of event was exceptionally rare. Despite this, every time there is a debate about someone's choice to go armed, some pundit chimes in, "it's going to be the wild west all over again"... Yeah, if only we could go back to a time where the wildest thing around was Buffalo Bill's Wild West--basically a caricature of itself.
Also, I totally don't think it is reasonable to shoot someone breaking and entering. Hell it could be an old friend throwing a surprise, or a drunk gone to the wrong house or... lots of things. Point a gun at him and tell him to fuck off if you are that paranoid. Me, I'd stay in my room, shout down at them to fuck off and that I have a gun. If they come in its fair game. Otherwise I'd rather have them leave with my T.V. / w/e than shoot a person.:S
Well, I'm glad you think that you can instantly understand the motives behind a person(s) who has the mindset required to willfully and forcibly enter another person's home, with no knowledge of its occupancy... And if your home is occupied, know that this act is statistically likely to happen in the middle of night, or while other members of your family are home, but the working man (you, I guess) is not. That's just the thing, you don't know if they're intent on a simple robbery or rape and/or murder/arson. Unless you're some kind of empathic superman, but that leaves the rest of us out of luck.
The safest course of action is to assume the worst, maybe not that they're PCP riddled zombie al-queda nazi operatives, but that they do mean harm to you and your loved ones. It happens all the time, even in places everyone believes to be "safe". As the man of the house, and the defender of the home, it's not prudent to lock yourself up in a room unless you know that your family is safe. And that makes me believe your response is indicative as that of a single person with no children.
But perhaps I misjudge. Someone once said: where you stand depends on where you sit. If the TV is the worst you have to loose, then maybe it makes sense to hole up in your room. As for me, if I'm fortunate to catch a potential invader before they enter, they'll get all the warnings in the world, and I'll call 911 in the process. But the window/door/whatever is going to be covered, and if they're crazy/stupid enough to come in despite all of that, it's going to look like hamburger grinder exploded when they come to take the body.
If I catch 'em inside, they get one warning and if they do anything but turn tail or lie on the ground, they're likewise toast. I guess it's a good thing I don't associate with people likely to break in to make a surprise, and therefore earn a Darwin award in response.
The youths approached the kitchen window, before attempting to break into her garden shed, prompting Miss Klass to wave a kitchen knife to scare them away.
Miss Klass, 31, who was alone in her house in Potters Bar, Herts, with her two-year-old daughter, Ava, called the police. When they arrived at her house they informed her that she should not have used a knife to scare off the youths because carrying an "offensive weapon" - even in her own home - was illegal.
I half expect that sometime in the near future, some poor person will be provoked into defending themselves, and they'll be hauled off to town square, where they will be placed into a pillory so the townsfolk can pelt 'em with rotten fruit. And I'm positive the original assailant will be free to join in.
I'm convinced the crooks in Britain have some sort of union, and a very effective one at that.
Also: The US Army does not use the.223. We use 5.56mm. It's close and a.223 will fire a 5.56, but a 5.56 will not safely fire a.223 because the round is too light.
Wrong. The.223 and 5.56 case is close enough to ignore the difference. 5.56 cases may be built more thickly in certain areas to handle higher pressures, but on the outside they're dimensionally exactly the same.
The one important difference follows: the 5.56x45 chamber was designed to handle longer or heavier bullets, or bullets with more pronounced ogives. i.e. the cartridge can be loaded to a longer overall length, to accommodate steel tipped and tracer rounds, so that bullets with the same (or similar) ballistic profiles can be used.
When loaded into the chamber, these bullets may impact the rifling on a.223 chamber, and when fired this can lead to a pronounced pressure spike as the bullet is swaged into the bore. It could rupture the case and damage your rifle. In other words, the 5.56mm NATO chamber has a longer leade. That's the bulk of the difference. The 5.56mm chamber is also slightly bigger, to accommodate fowling, gunk and inconsistently manufactured ammo.
It's safe to fire.223 Rem rounds in a 5.56mm weapon, but it may not be safe to do the opposite.
Back in WWII, the US government developed a neat little piece called the FP-45 Liberator. It was a.45 ACP single shot pistol, made very crudely of mostly stamped metal, which was to be dropped into axis occupied territories. Included with it were ten rounds of ammunition, and a wooden dowel which was used to manually extract the spent case.
Most of the ammunition was intended to be used for practice fodder, perhaps in the basement of a ghetto building. But you'd go up to a lone nazi (or perhaps a small group, if you had some friends), ask him if he had a light for your cigarette, or distract him somehow, and then you'd blow his brains out. Then you'd take his weapons. Perhaps a rifle from a guard, then a sub machine gun from an officer, and so on--and soon enough you've got a real life Maquis unit.
The government made a million of them at $2.40 per copy, but unfortunately the OSS didn't really distribute them in Europe. Pity. It might have had good effect.
Anyway, the point is: there's millions of vastly more functional, but equally concealable pistols running around America--and some potentially very concealable rifles. Unless they pen everyone up, a handgun designed for defense can become a keystone in obtaining weapons more useful for offense. Any tank commander would be pretty nervous to know a squad humping around an AT-4s or Javelins (or whatever) got shot up the day before.
Actually,.22LR is a fantastic killer. It's probably taken more people than most other handgun cartridges combined. I think the killing power of a.22 is wholly underestimated.
As a defensive weapon, yeah... It pretty much sucks compared to others. It doesn't do you any good if your attacker dies two minutes, two hours or two days after he's done his damage to you. But I'd take it over a rock or a pointy stick.
There was an article a while back on how US soldiers were picking up and using the AK-47 and using them. One reason was most US guns use the Nato.223, which tops out at 4.1g the AK-47 uses a round that tops out at 10g (.22 tops out at g, 9mm at 9.5). People would keep coming after the first shot. Now if I have a suicide bomber running straight for me I want something that I know will make him stop.
For hunting they're mainly used for squirrels and the such. People hunting larger game go for larger guns.
Most of the inefficacy of the 5.56x45 cartridge comes from the bullet of choice. The FN SS109 bullet that NATO adopted and standardized (called M855 for the US troops) pretty much sucks. It's a 62gr steel tip bullet, and it was designed to enhance penetration at long distances (500-600M), which it does well enough.
The problem is: in the type of war were fighting, it's rare for a rifleman to engage the enemy at that distance. The second problem is that we are migrating to shorter barrel carbines (14.5 inch vs 20 inch rifle barrel), to make the weapon easier to maneuver in tight areas/house searching. The short barrel just can't launch the bullet at a velocity fast enough to make it fragment at closer ranges, and it just pokes a hole through the enemy instead of liquefying their organs.
There has been an explosion (literally) of development for better 5.56mm bullets in the last few years. The 75-80 grain bullets don't rely so much on velocity for their wounding ability, making them better suited for carbines--and they extend the fragmenting distance even further for longer barreled rifles--and they're exceptionally accurate.
Well, that sounds nice. But what are the statistics regarding homicides by neighbors vs homocides by Senators?
Senators don't have a habit of going out and killing people themselves. With the exception of Ted, they tend to use other people to do this sort of thing. However, if it were possible to total the number of deaths attributed to some US congressional action, I'm sure it would be quite embarrassing indeed.
Does somebody have some hard data on fatalities in households with vs without guns in them, where households are compared to others in the same neighborhood?
Well, more than half of the ~30,000 firearm related fatalities each year are suicides. If you ignore those, you'll surely come to a number which is not better than statistical noise--because even if people don't have guns, they'll find other ways of offing themselves.
More than twice as many people are unintentionally poisoned to death each year than are murdered by someone with a firearm. I don't have sources offhand, but It's something I remember from somewhere--probably the CDC statistics.
Not that I'm trying to be racist, but I'm sure you'll find a much stronger correlation between firearm inflicted homicides and the ratio of non-caucasians living in the area... Or in overwhelmingly white parts of the country, you'll find a strong correlation between firearm homicides and the number of poor living in the area.
we can get back the delay effect with processing, but you can't eliminate phosphor delays when you've got phosphors.
Bull. It really depends on the phosphors they decide to use, but there are R/G/B phosphors with decay times which handily beat even the fastest production LCD response times. I'm not sure why they're messing around with phosphors and shit though--a backlit RGB laser display system would be uber-cool.
As someone who works with color (I expect an RGB raster laser system can have excellent color gamut), if they can make it happen at a halfway reasonable price, I'll jump ship yesterday. I don't care how thick it is.
2) Where are you getting "similar highway ratings"? The Jetta TDIs score just above 40mpg (depends on what year you got).
I also have a 2002 TDI, which was bought after test driving a Prius. I can't care less about scores, because in my view they only illustrate tendencies one can expect about the car--they often significantly deviate from reality.
I can say however, the first time I really got bothered to calculate my fuel economy, I got 42-43 mpg while mostly driving highway across Montana and Wyoming, and the average highway speed (neglecting time spent accelerating onto the highway, etc) surely exceeded 85 mph, with brief sprints up to 100mph for passing. The average would probably be better still, because I still had a quarter tank when I got to town and drove around for the next nine days or so. But, consider it to illustrate a combined highway/city number.
I was pretty impressed. I imagine that it would have been better had I actually drove the near the speed limit, didn't have relatively grippy tires, etc. Even with two big Americans plus about 250lbs of ammo and guns, it still had enough guts to slowly accelerate up high grade hills, at 90 mph, with the famous Wyoming winds--which was usually head wind.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see the Prius even coping with these driving parameters for an extended period of time.
Let's not forget: in 18th century vernacular, "well regulated" was an idiom equivalent in meaning to "functioning properly", or "in proper working order"--or as a NASA astronaut would say "Mission Control: All shuttle systems continue to function nominally".
You see, "well regulated" is derived from "well regulated time piece", an idea quite useful to accurately and safely navigate large bodies of water such as the Atlantic Ocean--which was arguably a very big deal back in the day (an error of 5 just seconds over the voyage corresponds to about one nautical mile). Unfortunately, ye-old sailors couldn't whip out their trusty GPS or CASIO wrist watch, but instead grew to rely upon infinitely more expensive, temperamental and less consistent chronometers--and this persisted until 1773 when John Harrison invented the H5 chronometer, a marvel of its time.
Therefore, a well regulated militia was a body of men sufficiently equipped and capable of performing the duties of a militia--but enough of the history lesson, I'll leave that as an exercise for you to determine.
The "correct" answer may depend strongly on the question being asked.
See, that's the thing: Were it to actually happen, it's not going to be an evaluative short answer/essay question, unlike your example. It's going to be a multiple choice question based on the facts as they pertain to the proposed legislation. Since we're on the health care reform topic, here's an example or two:
*The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would cost blank over ten years a) about three-fiddy b) Whatever the congress has in their pockets at the moment c) $871 billion d) none of the above
*How will the bill be paid for? a) 10% tax on the services of Washington DC male prostitutes b) $460 billion in new income taxes c) $400 billion in cuts to medicare and medicaid d) omg ponies
Obviously, some fact checking would need to be done, to make sure the questions are legitimate and topical. Make it a feather in the cap of a university/honor society to present a challenging question. Give 'em a plaque or something. A great side effect would be that more eyeballs are looking at the legislation.
Such "not knowing" ought to be a disqualification in itself... If it is not, then the electorate is stupid, not the politician. Relying on some Universities to rephrase the bills into multiple-choice questions is not going to solve the underlying problem... Unfortunately..
Yes, you're quite right. It aught to be--but it's not. Unfortunately, this is precisely because the electorate is stupid or lazy, or some combination of the two... If it were possible to solve those problems, the system would tend towards self-correcting... We wouldn't need or want for something like I describe, and that would be ideal. No argument there.
Anyway, the test really doesn't rephrase anything. The only thing it would do is to measure whether or not the representatives are qualified to make decisions based on their level of knowledge regarding the proposals. Again, it would be ideal if this measurement were to happen at the poles, but it's a crap shoot now. If they don't pass the tests, they will be necessarily ineffectual as representatives, and will likely be replaced at the next election.
It would attract more well-rounded people to congress. It would also have the effect of shrinking bills to their bare essentials, because they could not hope to pass otherwise. Cutting the cruft out of our laws would be a great service to the public.
How about this: Well write a new law: Every bill will be readable for some set period before a vote, but in order for your representative's vote to count, he/she will have to pass a test derived from the law itself! We'll randomly select a number of universities to read the key points of the law, and submit one question each to the congress. A semi-unique test will be generated from a pool of questions for each congress critter, to minimize cheating, and they'll have the entire cool-off duration to study for the test.
The test will consist of 20 multiple choice questions regarding the key points. If you get seven out of ten correct (a passing C grade in US schools), you get to vote in favor of the bill, otherwise the vote is recorded as negative. Also, each test and representative's grade point average will be posted on the interwebs for all to see.
This would do several things:
1) Chiefly, it's going to keep bills short and sweet, and easy to understand. 2) It's going to force the parties to present reasonably intelligent and up-to-date candidates. (fewer ancient career politicians with no understanding of modern issues, for instance) 3) Reduce or eliminate plausible deniability--if you vote for a bad law, you won't be able to say "golly, I didn't know"
When something becomes so big and so complicated, not only can a singular individual have no chance of understanding its meaning or any distant implications, you can encounter a situation where nobody understands any of it. Ignorant haste in approving something like this is among the least desirable strategy.
I for one think it's abundantly healthy to be reluctant in accepting ANY significant amendment to our law (no less a 3000 page monstrosity). Your "reduction" of this bill will be volumes long on its own. Further, the volumes to be written in the coming years--in vain attempt to understand it all--will be enough to herniate a library. Look at the Patriot Act, another set of laws passed hastily with virtually no understanding--merely hundreds of pages long, and it's impossible to measure how much damage it has caused.
Even the vastly more simple, one liner regulations of government power set fourth in the Bill of Rights have been contested for the length of their existence. These simple words have often been stretched and warped to the point of breaking. If this hasn't been an indication of what is possible (with one liners), it's unimaginable how they will warp this heap of spaghetti.
I for one believe the en bloc method of this... this... Codex's proponents to be grotesque. It would be more vastly more productive to make it modular. Pass the provisions on which there is little disagreement NOW--and hash out the less important stuff later, instead of using the important provisions as the ram to shove this huge pill down the public's gullet.
Re:Eheh, where is the american Beetle
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A Requiem For Saab
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I won't deny that Europe has iconic cars. American icons, however, were mostly cars of the people, in that if you had a modest job, you could probably afford to buy it (at least the version with modest trim leve) in your lifetime. i.e. Middle Class people. Iconic European cars, however were (and are) mostly (with rare exception) items which could be afforded only by the wealthy.
Examples: when I think iconic American car I think Mustang, Camaro, GTO, Corvette, Classic AMC, Buicks, Plymouths etc. Most were relatively affordable late 50's-60's and 70's models with Muscle and personality. This market segment didn't really exist in Europe--or alternatively little attempt was made to fill it.
VW/Mini/MG/Triumph/Fiat/Alfa/Peugeot etc... All made interesting cars in their own right, but they just don't get the blood pumping the same as American muscle, and aren't as memorable to *us*. Even now, the currency to buy a value-priced compact car in Europe could buy a more fun, if slightly handicapped copy of an American classic... And the market lessons here have forced manufacturers to really step up in the quality department.
There is a reason every famous car comes from europe.
Of course you would say that as an European--all you've ever seen are European & Asian cars. I've seen a lot of cars from a lot of all over, and America has about 5 memorable cars to every memorable European car.
What trounced both of them was an old Model A Ford one of the guys had that still cranked and ran. I thought that was funny. They used to use that thing to drag logs out of the woods. It was the closest thing to a combined sedan/truck/tractor in functionality I have ever seen.
It's the skinny wheels and relatively tall chassis. I once saw a guy on an old WWII era Harley with a sidecar in similar conditions. I thought he was fucking nuts, but those skinny military style tires cut through the crap and he went straight up a hill where the big 4x4s were having problems.
I don't disagree that corruption is party-agnostic, but I take umbrage to terms like Republicrat or RINO that marginalise the centre right and left. They promote a "with us or against us" mentality that was famous with the United States' last president.
In my circle, those terms are used less to describe political centrists/moderates, and more to describe those who would be unelectable in locale of their choosing--except for their claimed political leanings. Frankly, as someone generally on the center right of the political spectrum, I'm glad when I see a "bad" republican replaced by a "good" democrat.
Using a shotgun was a little risky because of the potential of those pellets scattering and bouncing back when hitting metal parts.
Really, as long as you wear appropriate eye protection, you have next to nothing to worry about unless you're right on top of the target. We shoot steel plates all the time with the shotgun and pistol. As long as you're facing it head on, lead shot pretty much just splashes perpendicular to the target plane. It helps if the plates are angled down a degree or two, the impacta sprays harmlessly right onto the ground underneath.
Steel shot on steel targets, however, yeah that's recipe for injury at close range.
Anyway, I find that #4 buckshot is to be employed when desiring maximum carnage related satisfaction. Perfect balance of shot count, shot spread, and target shredding individual projectile energy.
Not sure about that. Most of the available evidence suggests that the last president of the US couldn't read at all.
Sure. That's exactly what he ("they") wanted you and Joe Blow to believe, and he met that goal with resounding success. In public and especially on television he was a dufus, but many journalists remarked they were surprised that his apparent witlessness evaporated when in private. I for one believe he was a much better actor than Regan could have ever hoped to be. Sure, he was no engineer, and didn't translate Latin texts, and didn't do us a world of good...
Speaking of which, I think it's positively a crime that most presidents have been lawyers in their pre-presidential lives. Other professions are sorely unrepresented. As if a lawyer ever did anything constructive.
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Its default (hell, only) mode of operation is lethal. Can you say that about a car, a stove, an iron, a knife? I can't slide a tomato with a gun.
I don't see how you come to that conclusion. I can go shoot a gun all day and not even hurt a fly. Hell, some days I couldn't hurt a fly even if I wanted to. If you're going to use analogy of the knife: when you're slicing that tomato, are you not violently rending and separating the component materials of a living thing? That's basically what happens when you shoot a tomato, albeit in a far less controlled fashion.
When you're cooking on the stove, are you not subjecting your food heat intense enough to alter its chemical makeup? That's kind of violent, and further: it's generally assumed that your animal foods are already dead, which means that some lethal process must have overcome them, and your vegetable foods are in a state of dying, too. I hope I need not say, but many a live lobster has also succumbed to the stove. So I would say that unless you're some kind of freak that likes to eat half live but undercooked animals, the mode of operation for a stove is 100% lethal.
And while the usual mode of operation of a car is peaceful, a person can also make a car bomb to use for terrorist purposes. Maybe it's not about how an item works, but whether it is used for good and peaceful purposes, or evil and violent purposes:
You can use the knife to prepare your food, or you can use it to slice up someone you don't like. You can use the stove to cook for the homeless, or you could use it to cook up something to poison the homeless. You can use the minivan to shuttle the kiddies to soccer practice, or you can use it to blow up an embassy, just as you can use a gun for peaceful and lawful purposes. You can practice with it and use it for recreation. You can challenge yourself and make yourself a more disciplined individual. A good person can even use it to defend the life of an innocent, just as an evil person can use it to take the life on an innocent.
When was the last time you pointed a gun at an object you didn't intend to obliterate?
All the time. After all, I don't hold any hatred against the paper or steel targets that I shoot at. And frankly, my guns do a terrible job at destroying those types of materials. I can invent far more effective and destructive tools. When I carry a pistol in a holster, I don't intend to obliterate my Volkswagen, but the muzzle "pointing" someplace at the car is a natural consequence of the act of to carrying. When I sometimes carry in a shoulder holster, the muzzle also covers anyone and everything that is behind me. I bet the people behind me would be kind of upset if it weren't concealed. Even so, I certianly don't mean to obliterate them.
Or, for that matter, from being left in a car on a hot day - this kills something like a dozen children in the US alone every year.
Good point. I had to go look it up and it seems an average of 33 kids are killed per year by being unattended in a car, resulting in hyperthermia. source
It doesn't get around the fact that these people left a device which has the express purpose of killing or injuring someone lying around in a state where it was immediately dangerous.
While I disagree with your conclusion (that the device has the express purpose of killing or injuring), I agree with the premise of the argument. These are what you call negligent parents. They're the same type of people who leave their kids to die in the summer heat, to die from poisoning from easily accessed household chemicals, open bottles of medication, etc. Letting a toddler access a loaded firearm has to be among the stupidest things a person can do, but I'm not sure that it's significantly different than say, letting a toddler play unsupervised by a pool (or any other negligent activity resulting in grave injury or death) The fact is, as humans we're constantly surrounded by things that are dangerous and can hurt and kill us. Some of these are our own inventions, but regardless it's the job of a parent to keep that from happening.
And regarding uncovered electrical outlets: there's something on the order of 4000 outlet related injuries each year. I'm sure a small number of them result in death due to the physics involved... But suppose a toddler watches someone plug in a receptacle, they're little monkey-see-monkey do learning critters. I bet these parents are conspicuously negligent in other aspects of their lives, it's just a tragedy when it results in the death of an innocent.
I tend not to leave things that are *intended* to be used as murder weapons lying around. I don't know about the grandparent poster.
A gun isn't intended to do anything but push a projectile out of a barrel. If they were actively designed to be murder machines, the engineer responsible should be taken out and shot, because they have failed miserably. After all, billions of rounds of ammunition are expended by Americans every year, and only a tiny fraction of those are ever used to injure another person. Why, if you look at it that way, guns have to rank among the least effective murder machines ever devised...
Guns are dangerous items, sure enough, and that's why responsible parents do their best to segregate their young'ns from them as well as all other potential sources of danger--at least until the child reaches an appropriate age to handle the danger responsibly.
The fact is, the parents in this story were just as likely to leave the kid in the bathtub to drown or scald to death (as many hundreds do each year), to be strangulated by loose cords, or to leave them un-guarded from electrocution by uncovered outlets, falling to death out of open windows, or from being scalded to death from the pasta cooking on the stove.
You would have us believe that the United States is the most violent of those countries (or indeed in the world), because we have the most gun related deaths. The problem here is that you're either missing the big picture, or you are guilty of a non sequitur.
After all, it's not a question of the tool used to kill, it's a question of a culture which breeds murderers; unless of course, you're one of those retards who believe that having a gun is necessary, or somehow paramount to committing homicide--in which case there's no amount of logic, facts, or correctly applied statistics which can hope to tunnel its way to your deeply rectal-cranial inverted brain.
Let's take a look at some of your 36 counties listed by their intentional homicide rate (per 100k), (most recently estimated according to Wikipedia) I won't list but some of the interesting ones.
Mexico: 10
Brazil: 25.7
Austria: 0.73
France: 1.59
Canada: 1.83
Israel: 1.87
South Korea: 2.18
Portugal: 2.50
Many of these places have very strict bans against gun ownership among non-ruling class civilians. Why the disparity? You mean people don't need guns...to kill other people? *jaw dropped, going into shock*
Bad people want the most effective tools to do their dirty work, and when firearms are available at some level to bad people, they're going to be used more often to do bad things. There is no surprise here. Simply looking at gun related deaths will make you look over many of those places, some of which are just as violent, (or even more violent) than the principal US cities which contribute to our dismal looking statistic, all despite having significant restrictions on firearms.
Japan, for example, has very few gun related homicides for two reasons: they've done quite the extensive job on eliminating guns from the country, but more importantly, they have very few homicides of any kind to begin with! It's important to note: many of the homicides which do happen there, whether involving firearms or not, are a result of the crime syndicate (Yakuza) whom, believe it or not, have prolific access to guns, even real heavy-duty weaponry--often completely outclassing the police in terms of firepower. Yeah, that's a dirty little secret.
It comes down to this: even if you outlaw the shit, if you want it bad enough, there are always ways of getting it. Fact: every attempt by any significantly sized nation to squash a black market has utterly and completely failed. Regarding firearms: The cat is out of the bag, and there is no amount of force that will send it back. Even if someone has to hand carve a gun out of a block of metal, it WILL be done... That's basically how it works in Pakistan's black market, and they have NO shortage.
Regarding your point of interest: there's about 30,000 people killed via firearm every year for the last decade and the decade prior. A little more than half are suicides (about 17,000) and the rest are a mix of homicides and accidental deaths (of which IIRC there are about 1200 a year). It's remarkably consistent, actually.
So anyway there's about 12,000-14,000 non-accidental firearms related deaths each year. Versus A little more than 3000 Americans killed by terrorists on our own soil, for the whole history of our country--kind of pales in comparison; your point stands. It's kind of silly to get worked up about terrorists, when people are so unlikely to die because of terrorists. But that's their goal, isn't it? Make a real big ugly scene, get everyone worked up.
As a firearm rights advocate, I concede that too many people are killed via firearm. It is a problem. But even if you could magically take all the guns away from *everyone*, it's not going to do a lot to the numbers. People will still kill because that's the culture.
Of course, when one cites statistics, it sounds TERRIBLE, like end of the world stuff. Until you see that about the same number of people (about 13,000) die from falls, another 13,000 die from poisoning, and 40,000 from automobiles. Yeah, far fewer people are killed with guns purposefully than are killed by cars, accidentally... All despite Americans having more guns in their closets than cars in their driveways.
Great, let's just have everyone shooting everyone
Sure... After all, *everyone* knows the 1800's American western frontier was called the Wild Wild West, because there were shootouts every noon, right after the morning brawl at the saloon, and right before the evening run-in with the in-juns... Right? Well, Wrong. There was probably never a time where men went armed as much as they did then, but Heinlein's observation, An armed society is a polite society held true. In reality, when the white men weren't being evil to the natives, it was generally the Not so Wild, West.
Heck, the most famous old west shootout, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral only tallied three deaths, and besides even that sort of event was exceptionally rare. Despite this, every time there is a debate about someone's choice to go armed, some pundit chimes in, "it's going to be the wild west all over again"... Yeah, if only we could go back to a time where the wildest thing around was Buffalo Bill's Wild West--basically a caricature of itself.
Also, I totally don't think it is reasonable to shoot someone breaking and entering. Hell it could be an old friend throwing a surprise, or a drunk gone to the wrong house or... lots of things. Point a gun at him and tell him to fuck off if you are that paranoid. Me, I'd stay in my room, shout down at them to fuck off and that I have a gun. If they come in its fair game. Otherwise I'd rather have them leave with my T.V. / w/e than shoot a person. :S
Well, I'm glad you think that you can instantly understand the motives behind a person(s) who has the mindset required to willfully and forcibly enter another person's home, with no knowledge of its occupancy... And if your home is occupied, know that this act is statistically likely to happen in the middle of night, or while other members of your family are home, but the working man (you, I guess) is not. That's just the thing, you don't know if they're intent on a simple robbery or rape and/or murder/arson. Unless you're some kind of empathic superman, but that leaves the rest of us out of luck.
The safest course of action is to assume the worst, maybe not that they're PCP riddled zombie al-queda nazi operatives, but that they do mean harm to you and your loved ones. It happens all the time, even in places everyone believes to be "safe". As the man of the house, and the defender of the home, it's not prudent to lock yourself up in a room unless you know that your family is safe. And that makes me believe your response is indicative as that of a single person with no children.
But perhaps I misjudge. Someone once said: where you stand depends on where you sit. If the TV is the worst you have to loose, then maybe it makes sense to hole up in your room. As for me, if I'm fortunate to catch a potential invader before they enter, they'll get all the warnings in the world, and I'll call 911 in the process. But the window/door/whatever is going to be covered, and if they're crazy/stupid enough to come in despite all of that, it's going to look like hamburger grinder exploded when they come to take the body.
If I catch 'em inside, they get one warning and if they do anything but turn tail or lie on the ground, they're likewise toast. I guess it's a good thing I don't associate with people likely to break in to make a surprise, and therefore earn a Darwin award in response.
How about this as yet another example of the UK's failing sanity: Myleene Klass warned by police after scaring off intruders with knife
I half expect that sometime in the near future, some poor person will be provoked into defending themselves, and they'll be hauled off to town square, where they will be placed into a pillory so the townsfolk can pelt 'em with rotten fruit. And I'm positive the original assailant will be free to join in.
I'm convinced the crooks in Britain have some sort of union, and a very effective one at that.
Also: The US Army does not use the .223. We use 5.56mm. It's close and a .223 will fire a 5.56, but a 5.56 will not safely fire a .223 because the round is too light.
Wrong. The .223 and 5.56 case is close enough to ignore the difference. 5.56 cases may be built more thickly in certain areas to handle higher pressures, but on the outside they're dimensionally exactly the same.
The one important difference follows: the 5.56x45 chamber was designed to handle longer or heavier bullets, or bullets with more pronounced ogives. i.e. the cartridge can be loaded to a longer overall length, to accommodate steel tipped and tracer rounds, so that bullets with the same (or similar) ballistic profiles can be used.
When loaded into the chamber, these bullets may impact the rifling on a .223 chamber, and when fired this can lead to a pronounced pressure spike as the bullet is swaged into the bore. It could rupture the case and damage your rifle. In other words, the 5.56mm NATO chamber has a longer leade. That's the bulk of the difference. The 5.56mm chamber is also slightly bigger, to accommodate fowling, gunk and inconsistently manufactured ammo.
It's safe to fire .223 Rem rounds in a 5.56mm weapon, but it may not be safe to do the opposite.
I'll bite.
Back in WWII, the US government developed a neat little piece called the FP-45 Liberator. It was a .45 ACP single shot pistol, made very crudely of mostly stamped metal, which was to be dropped into axis occupied territories. Included with it were ten rounds of ammunition, and a wooden dowel which was used to manually extract the spent case.
Most of the ammunition was intended to be used for practice fodder, perhaps in the basement of a ghetto building. But you'd go up to a lone nazi (or perhaps a small group, if you had some friends), ask him if he had a light for your cigarette, or distract him somehow, and then you'd blow his brains out. Then you'd take his weapons. Perhaps a rifle from a guard, then a sub machine gun from an officer, and so on--and soon enough you've got a real life Maquis unit.
The government made a million of them at $2.40 per copy, but unfortunately the OSS didn't really distribute them in Europe. Pity. It might have had good effect.
Anyway, the point is: there's millions of vastly more functional, but equally concealable pistols running around America--and some potentially very concealable rifles. Unless they pen everyone up, a handgun designed for defense can become a keystone in obtaining weapons more useful for offense. Any tank commander would be pretty nervous to know a squad humping around an AT-4s or Javelins (or whatever) got shot up the day before.
A .22 is a very very useless hand to hand weapon
Actually, .22LR is a fantastic killer. It's probably taken more people than most other handgun cartridges combined. I think the killing power of a .22 is wholly underestimated.
As a defensive weapon, yeah... It pretty much sucks compared to others. It doesn't do you any good if your attacker dies two minutes, two hours or two days after he's done his damage to you. But I'd take it over a rock or a pointy stick.
Most of the inefficacy of the 5.56x45 cartridge comes from the bullet of choice. The FN SS109 bullet that NATO adopted and standardized (called M855 for the US troops) pretty much sucks. It's a 62gr steel tip bullet, and it was designed to enhance penetration at long distances (500-600M), which it does well enough.
The problem is: in the type of war were fighting, it's rare for a rifleman to engage the enemy at that distance. The second problem is that we are migrating to shorter barrel carbines (14.5 inch vs 20 inch rifle barrel), to make the weapon easier to maneuver in tight areas/house searching. The short barrel just can't launch the bullet at a velocity fast enough to make it fragment at closer ranges, and it just pokes a hole through the enemy instead of liquefying their organs.
There has been an explosion (literally) of development for better 5.56mm bullets in the last few years. The 75-80 grain bullets don't rely so much on velocity for their wounding ability, making them better suited for carbines--and they extend the fragmenting distance even further for longer barreled rifles--and they're exceptionally accurate.
Well, that sounds nice. But what are the statistics regarding homicides by neighbors vs homocides by Senators?
Senators don't have a habit of going out and killing people themselves. With the exception of Ted, they tend to use other people to do this sort of thing. However, if it were possible to total the number of deaths attributed to some US congressional action, I'm sure it would be quite embarrassing indeed.
Does somebody have some hard data on fatalities in households with vs without guns in them, where households are compared to others in the same neighborhood?
Well, more than half of the ~30,000 firearm related fatalities each year are suicides. If you ignore those, you'll surely come to a number which is not better than statistical noise--because even if people don't have guns, they'll find other ways of offing themselves.
More than twice as many people are unintentionally poisoned to death each year than are murdered by someone with a firearm. I don't have sources offhand, but It's something I remember from somewhere--probably the CDC statistics.
Not that I'm trying to be racist, but I'm sure you'll find a much stronger correlation between firearm inflicted homicides and the ratio of non-caucasians living in the area... Or in overwhelmingly white parts of the country, you'll find a strong correlation between firearm homicides and the number of poor living in the area.
we can get back the delay effect with processing, but you can't eliminate phosphor delays when you've got phosphors.
Bull. It really depends on the phosphors they decide to use, but there are R/G/B phosphors with decay times which handily beat even the fastest production LCD response times. I'm not sure why they're messing around with phosphors and shit though--a backlit RGB laser display system would be uber-cool.
As someone who works with color (I expect an RGB raster laser system can have excellent color gamut), if they can make it happen at a halfway reasonable price, I'll jump ship yesterday. I don't care how thick it is.
2) Where are you getting "similar highway ratings"? The Jetta TDIs score just above 40mpg (depends on what year you got).
I also have a 2002 TDI, which was bought after test driving a Prius. I can't care less about scores, because in my view they only illustrate tendencies one can expect about the car--they often significantly deviate from reality.
I can say however, the first time I really got bothered to calculate my fuel economy, I got 42-43 mpg while mostly driving highway across Montana and Wyoming, and the average highway speed (neglecting time spent accelerating onto the highway, etc) surely exceeded 85 mph, with brief sprints up to 100mph for passing. The average would probably be better still, because I still had a quarter tank when I got to town and drove around for the next nine days or so. But, consider it to illustrate a combined highway/city number.
I was pretty impressed. I imagine that it would have been better had I actually drove the near the speed limit, didn't have relatively grippy tires, etc. Even with two big Americans plus about 250lbs of ammo and guns, it still had enough guts to slowly accelerate up high grade hills, at 90 mph, with the famous Wyoming winds--which was usually head wind.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see the Prius even coping with these driving parameters for an extended period of time.
Let's not forget: in 18th century vernacular, "well regulated" was an idiom equivalent in meaning to "functioning properly", or "in proper working order"--or as a NASA astronaut would say "Mission Control: All shuttle systems continue to function nominally".
You see, "well regulated" is derived from "well regulated time piece", an idea quite useful to accurately and safely navigate large bodies of water such as the Atlantic Ocean--which was arguably a very big deal back in the day (an error of 5 just seconds over the voyage corresponds to about one nautical mile). Unfortunately, ye-old sailors couldn't whip out their trusty GPS or CASIO wrist watch, but instead grew to rely upon infinitely more expensive, temperamental and less consistent chronometers--and this persisted until 1773 when John Harrison invented the H5 chronometer, a marvel of its time.
Therefore, a well regulated militia was a body of men sufficiently equipped and capable of performing the duties of a militia--but enough of the history lesson, I'll leave that as an exercise for you to determine.
Bribe... Or blackmail... Etc. Yeah, they will not willfully castrate themselves.
The "correct" answer may depend strongly on the question being asked.
See, that's the thing: Were it to actually happen, it's not going to be an evaluative short answer/essay question, unlike your example. It's going to be a multiple choice question based on the facts as they pertain to the proposed legislation. Since we're on the health care reform topic, here's an example or two:
*The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would cost blank over ten years
a) about three-fiddy
b) Whatever the congress has in their pockets at the moment
c) $871 billion
d) none of the above
*How will the bill be paid for?
a) 10% tax on the services of Washington DC male prostitutes
b) $460 billion in new income taxes
c) $400 billion in cuts to medicare and medicaid
d) omg ponies
Obviously, some fact checking would need to be done, to make sure the questions are legitimate and topical. Make it a feather in the cap of a university/honor society to present a challenging question. Give 'em a plaque or something. A great side effect would be that more eyeballs are looking at the legislation.
Such "not knowing" ought to be a disqualification in itself... If it is not, then the electorate is stupid, not the politician. Relying on some Universities to rephrase the bills into multiple-choice questions is not going to solve the underlying problem... Unfortunately..
Yes, you're quite right. It aught to be--but it's not. Unfortunately, this is precisely because the electorate is stupid or lazy, or some combination of the two... If it were possible to solve those problems, the system would tend towards self-correcting... We wouldn't need or want for something like I describe, and that would be ideal. No argument there.
Anyway, the test really doesn't rephrase anything. The only thing it would do is to measure whether or not the representatives are qualified to make decisions based on their level of knowledge regarding the proposals. Again, it would be ideal if this measurement were to happen at the poles, but it's a crap shoot now. If they don't pass the tests, they will be necessarily ineffectual as representatives, and will likely be replaced at the next election.
It would attract more well-rounded people to congress. It would also have the effect of shrinking bills to their bare essentials, because they could not hope to pass otherwise. Cutting the cruft out of our laws would be a great service to the public.
How about this: Well write a new law: Every bill will be readable for some set period before a vote, but in order for your representative's vote to count, he/she will have to pass a test derived from the law itself! We'll randomly select a number of universities to read the key points of the law, and submit one question each to the congress. A semi-unique test will be generated from a pool of questions for each congress critter, to minimize cheating, and they'll have the entire cool-off duration to study for the test.
The test will consist of 20 multiple choice questions regarding the key points. If you get seven out of ten correct (a passing C grade in US schools), you get to vote in favor of the bill, otherwise the vote is recorded as negative. Also, each test and representative's grade point average will be posted on the interwebs for all to see.
This would do several things:
1) Chiefly, it's going to keep bills short and sweet, and easy to understand.
2) It's going to force the parties to present reasonably intelligent and up-to-date candidates.
(fewer ancient career politicians with no understanding of modern issues, for instance)
3) Reduce or eliminate plausible deniability--if you vote for a bad law, you won't be able to say "golly, I didn't know"
I think it would work.
When something becomes so big and so complicated, not only can a singular individual have no chance of understanding its meaning or any distant implications, you can encounter a situation where nobody understands any of it. Ignorant haste in approving something like this is among the least desirable strategy.
I for one think it's abundantly healthy to be reluctant in accepting ANY significant amendment to our law (no less a 3000 page monstrosity). Your "reduction" of this bill will be volumes long on its own. Further, the volumes to be written in the coming years--in vain attempt to understand it all--will be enough to herniate a library. Look at the Patriot Act, another set of laws passed hastily with virtually no understanding--merely hundreds of pages long, and it's impossible to measure how much damage it has caused.
Even the vastly more simple, one liner regulations of government power set fourth in the Bill of Rights have been contested for the length of their existence. These simple words have often been stretched and warped to the point of breaking. If this hasn't been an indication of what is possible (with one liners), it's unimaginable how they will warp this heap of spaghetti.
I for one believe the en bloc method of this... this... Codex's proponents to be grotesque. It would be more vastly more productive to make it modular. Pass the provisions on which there is little disagreement NOW--and hash out the less important stuff later, instead of using the important provisions as the ram to shove this huge pill down the public's gullet.
I won't deny that Europe has iconic cars. American icons, however, were mostly cars of the people, in that if you had a modest job, you could probably afford to buy it (at least the version with modest trim leve) in your lifetime. i.e. Middle Class people. Iconic European cars, however were (and are) mostly (with rare exception) items which could be afforded only by the wealthy.
Examples: when I think iconic American car I think Mustang, Camaro, GTO, Corvette, Classic AMC, Buicks, Plymouths etc. Most were relatively affordable late 50's-60's and 70's models with Muscle and personality. This market segment didn't really exist in Europe--or alternatively little attempt was made to fill it.
VW/Mini/MG/Triumph/Fiat/Alfa/Peugeot etc... All made interesting cars in their own right, but they just don't get the blood pumping the same as American muscle, and aren't as memorable to *us*. Even now, the currency to buy a value-priced compact car in Europe could buy a more fun, if slightly handicapped copy of an American classic... And the market lessons here have forced manufacturers to really step up in the quality department.
There is a reason every famous car comes from europe.
Of course you would say that as an European--all you've ever seen are European & Asian cars. I've seen a lot of cars from a lot of all over, and America has about 5 memorable cars to every memorable European car.
What trounced both of them was an old Model A Ford one of the guys had that still cranked and ran. I thought that was funny. They used to use that thing to drag logs out of the woods. It was the closest thing to a combined sedan/truck/tractor in functionality I have ever seen.
It's the skinny wheels and relatively tall chassis. I once saw a guy on an old WWII era Harley with a sidecar in similar conditions. I thought he was fucking nuts, but those skinny military style tires cut through the crap and he went straight up a hill where the big 4x4s were having problems.
I don't disagree that corruption is party-agnostic, but I take umbrage to terms like Republicrat or RINO that marginalise the centre right and left. They promote a "with us or against us" mentality that was famous with the United States' last president.
In my circle, those terms are used less to describe political centrists/moderates, and more to describe those who would be unelectable in locale of their choosing--except for their claimed political leanings. Frankly, as someone generally on the center right of the political spectrum, I'm glad when I see a "bad" republican replaced by a "good" democrat.
Using a shotgun was a little risky because of the potential of those pellets scattering and bouncing back when hitting metal parts.
Really, as long as you wear appropriate eye protection, you have next to nothing to worry about unless you're right on top of the target. We shoot steel plates all the time with the shotgun and pistol. As long as you're facing it head on, lead shot pretty much just splashes perpendicular to the target plane. It helps if the plates are angled down a degree or two, the impacta sprays harmlessly right onto the ground underneath.
Steel shot on steel targets, however, yeah that's recipe for injury at close range.
Anyway, I find that #4 buckshot is to be employed when desiring maximum carnage related satisfaction. Perfect balance of shot count, shot spread, and target shredding individual projectile energy.
Yeast is very good at producing this stuff which kills off the competition
Not sure about that. Most of the available evidence suggests that the last president of the US couldn't read at all.
Sure. That's exactly what he ("they") wanted you and Joe Blow to believe, and he met that goal with resounding success. In public and especially on television he was a dufus, but many journalists remarked they were surprised that his apparent witlessness evaporated when in private. I for one believe he was a much better actor than Regan could have ever hoped to be. Sure, he was no engineer, and didn't translate Latin texts, and didn't do us a world of good...
Speaking of which, I think it's positively a crime that most presidents have been lawyers in their pre-presidential lives. Other professions are sorely unrepresented. As if a lawyer ever did anything constructive.