Independent of a government, or stateless voluntary social contract of some kind, the right to do whatever is the base state of nature; that's pretty much the crux of the issue, philosophically. The idea that a government can only levy laws which serve to restrict and to restrain is congruous with that line of reasoning. If it's not illegal, then it is legal. That's how it works.
The enlightenment era liberals which made up the bulk of the founders called this "law of nature", and limiting Congress from imposing upon this natural right by specifically enumerating it was seen as protecting something previously in existence.
You don't see many laws which exist to state "yeah, this is legal", especially outside of the Constitution itself--those tend to be the paragraphs which regulate things like elections, to conduct census, to authorize congress to mint money, to establish a patent office, to declare war, etc.
No. I agree. But there are many many law enforcement (and -esque) groups that do have at least cursory gun handling standards and require time on the range.
Like the NYPD cops who were attempting to stop a bad guy in Times Square? They only shot nine or so innocent bystanders, despite approaching him from the rear. Like my local cops? Anytime they have to shoot at someone dangerous in a car, it looks like that car took a few dozen rounds of buckshot, 50-70 rounds on average.
I know cops, I know cop culture. The only ones who reliably shoot well are the ones who are themselves enthusiasts, and often train on their own dollar unless they're SWAT. They have better training budgets, obviously. Hell, I know a cop that did not know how to disassemble and clean her duty weapon, leaving it prone to malfunction from years of qualifying practice, and years of accumulated lint and dust. I know another cop that shot himself in the calf muscle while re-holstering, because he forgot to keep his finger out of the trigger guard. Enthusiasts who attain a license of their own volition or sense of duty to their families just don't seem to have these problems quite as often.
The best argument that I have for people arming themselves is this: another two cops I know left a dog-walker scarred and with nerve damage after they beat him up, because he told the driver of the car the cops had pulled over that he would be a witness in court that he stopped at the red light.
Another cop from the same department inexplicably helped the face of a young man become more intimate with the pavement for no discernible reason, as said teenager was on the phone with his father, who himself was a Sheriff's Deputy in a neighboring county. The young man was not acting threatening or aggressive, and the police would have covered it up, manufacturing a statement which could not be corroborated with the witnesses. Were there no video footage, or a witness on the other end of the phone, they would have got away with assault and battery, under the color of law.
Some cops might be good, maybe even the majority; but when something like this happens, even the good ones tend to toe the thin blue line, and give their own the benefit of the doubt over any reasonable quantity and quality of testimony. That PD had to pay out about 1.5 million in settlements for brutality last year, and I wonder how much more we did not know about, that just got shuffled under the rug. We should give these people a monopoly on the use of force? Now, to me, that's crazy.
Except when they leave the house. While these people do have a permit to own a handgun, they don't have a permit to carry a handgun, so any handguns must therefore be left in the home. It's also quite likely that anyone who owns a handgun owns one or more long guns of some sort. Hopefully they have them sufficiently secured.
It might surprise you that most people stay away from their homes for substantial portions of the day, sometimes upwards of eight hours or more! Crazy, right?
Assault Rifle is a propagandist term invented by Adolf Hitler himself (yeah, Godwin and all, but it's actually true!), for the naming of the revolutionary StG44 machine carbine (that laid the framework for modern service rifles) which can be described as a hybrid between the design-ideologies that gave us "sub machine guns" like the MP44, Thompson, and "service rifles" like the M1 Garand, K98k or Kar 43. In other words, one would expect to see these features in a so-called assault rifle: select fire or full auto, lighter than and less powerful shorter range than a battle rifle and more accurate/longer range than a pistol-caliber sub machine gun.
Militaristic use of that term pretty much died at the end of WWII, going on 70 years ago. Most of the world's armies, including our own, simply call these things "rifles", because the leadership understands that it's the tool which wears the boots that does the assaulting, not the instrument that he carries.
Using the term Assault Rifle to describe the firearms you own (unless you do own a registered machine gun, then have at it) is falling into that same propaganda/newspeak trap that is full of so much negative connotation, so just think of it this way each time you use it. Does it serve your interests to use that term they like so much?
On the contrary, they should offer more and better types of snacks. Craft beers, cocktails, mini pizzas and things like that, and like other movie theaters, they shouldn't be afraid to charge a price that will make a substantial profit.
Make going to a movie an event, like flying on a big airliner was in the 60's and 70's, something people actually look forward to. Change the dynamic, in contrast to today where people are treated like cattle, crammed in tight seats and fed garbage food. Break the mold.
Offer good food and drink specials, not just stuff that is good relative to other theaters, but something that would bring people in on its own whether you were showing a film or not. Have clean floors and facilities, big comfy seats, and perhaps love seats so couples be closer to each-other. Have some special events for subscribers, and more than anything else, make it a adult-oriented social experience people can't get at home with an HDTV and surround sound system. Maybe consider individual screening rooms which segregate couples with noisy kids from everyone else. Dating couples would travel great distances and would be the biggest advocates for something like that.
By the same token, since the paper is so proud of their first amendment rights, perhaps they should also publish all the home addresses, home phone numbers belonging to the paper's editors, presidents, vice presidents, board of directors, shareholders, etc. While they're at it, they could also print the names and locations of the schools their children attend, because that's also likely to be public information, in some obscure, round about way.
Oh, wait. All of that information could fall into the hands of the criminal element. Huh... Oh well. After all, nothing bad could come of that, right?
I find it unnerving that many of my local police seem to be former high school jocks with a limited amount of training (and no time in the armed forces to compensate for it) and are running around with AR-15 variants in the trunks of their cars. If the M16 and its ilk like the AR15 are war machines, why are they packing them? How often do they engage an active shooter wielding an AK or an AR? Isn't that what SWAT is for?
You and I agree here. I often deal with cops from counties with a multi-jurisdictional cooperative arrangement. You'd actually be surprised on the number of cruisers which are transitioning the old pump riot shotgun kept in the cab to a police issue M1014 or M4 style AR. One county has begun issuing a real M16 decked out with an M4 upper (enough to give most gear queers a raging hard on) to each cruiser; due in large part to a government program which lends out large quantities of rifles which have been in storage since Vietnam, they're pretty much free. That's the one kept in the trunk, by the way.
Active shooters are of course an absurdly rare event, so the chances of any one unit engaging ever engaging such a thing in the lifetime of one cop is as close to nil as can be. The justification is apparently that ye old scattergun doesn't work very well on ballistic vests. I mostly see it as the ongoing militarization of our police forces, I can only think of it as the harbinger of worse things to come.
Someone whose mental capability is diminished would provide a number of reasons - too drunk, has alzheimers, mentally ill and hence walk into the wrong home.
This class of people tend not to break doors in, or have the physical capacity to do so. In the event of a drunk, someone who is high on drugs, or mental weirdo, if they cannot or will not respond correctly to "Stop. I have a gun and I will shoot you if you come closer!", and they've broken your door in, they are unquestionably a danger to your life, and the lives of your family members. As such, use of force up to and including deadly force is justified and legal in most jurisdictions, under many circumstances; for example, you may or not be required by local law to retreat from the threat, deadly force finally being legal when you're cornered. Deadly force doesn't necessarily mean firearm either. Baseball bats, axe handles, iron pipes, swords, knives, martial arts etc. may all be considered deadly force.
Police/fire services being given the wrong house in an emergency call as a result of accident or a prank.
If the EMT/Fire guys show up, that can all be sorted out before one shoots. I'd like to point out that anyone who is even trained basically understands the 4 rules of shooting. 1) All guns are loaded 2) don't point the gun at anything you don't want to die 3) Keep your finger off of the trigger until you are ready to shoot 4) Before you ready to shoot, identify your target and everything behind it. Hopefully if something were to happen like this, everyone can take a deep breath, shake hands and go home safely.****
However, chances are if there are law enforcement in your house uninvited, they're of the no-knock warrant ninja-commando type who have their address wrong. It's happened before, and sure enough, police are far and away more dangerous to your family than any other class of invader. God forbid you have a gun in your hand, as they like to shoot anything that moves first and ask questions later. You'd better hope your dog is asleep and deaf, because they're liable to shoot it as well. It's only a matter of time until these types of raids happen upon a PTSD riddled vet with a hair trigger, leaving a bunch of cops and one vet dead.
People being given the wrong address or similar for a party accidently or not. Overly informal neighbour believing you would be okay with them just popping in.****
They'll sure learn quickly to have the right address, and not just pop in****. On the other hand, if a woman is raped, it's more often by someone she knows than not, so your daughters and wife aught to be weary of such an informal neighbor, especially if its male.
Landlord if you have one entering the house to check/confirm something. Landlords knock and or call and just don't bust down the door.****
Someone entering to warn you about an imminent danger. Will probably themselves more occupied with running away to be too bothered to knock your door down and search you out.****
Gardener/Cleaner if you have one either because they're meant to be there or they came on the wrong day accidently or intentionally or you forgot what day they were supposed to be there. ****
Footnote: ****Again, just because you have a gun in hand or on your person does not mean your only available course of action is to immediately shoot every Girl Scout or innocent passerby who knocks on your door square in the face.
There are a million and one reasons why someone might be in your house
Oh? That's a pretty interesting assertion, I'll call you out on it. Please enumerate three such reasons someone would invade my home that are benign to my family and myself, property aside. If there are a million and one, three shouldn't prove too difficult.
Funny that the US military simply calls an M-16... A 'rifle'. Anything shorter than that, such as an M4 is called a 'carbine' or 'rifle', usually interchangeably. Anything smaller than that is called a sub-machine gun. Most militarizes follow the same pattern.
It's said that Adolf Hitler himself invented the term Assault Rifle (sturmgewehr, or storm rifle), for the naming of the Mkb 42 "machine carbine", which was the prototype's first designation. This was done for the simple reason of propaganda, both to increase the confidence in the arm in their own forces, and ostensibly to instill fear into their enemies. The moniker continues its history of not being a descriptive or categorizational term, and is much more often used as a tool for ideological and political proselytism, to influence certain ideas and thoughts. Newspeak.
Incidentally, German military brass of the period thought the automatic feature of the StG 44 was not especially useful, as it would lead to a waste of ammunition due to anxious spray-firing instead of deliberately aimed shots, and so they directed units that full-auto fire should be used only in emergencies. While I'm on the subject, something should be pointed about Germany's current service rifle, the G36. The G stands for Gewehr. Rifle. The Germans are back to using purely descriptive names, why aren't we?
Take a look at that list again and from the "may issue" column, move all of those checkpoints to the "no-issue" column, except for Alabama, Connecticut, and Delaware, and you'll have a picture that is closer to reality, because in practice, the rest of these states are no-issue. The point stands, the 37 states which are shall issue cover the biggest land area but have the lowest population density. Overlay that data with something like the electoral college map, see that a quarter to one third of Americans are by default ineligible for a carry permit in the first place.
Somewhere I read that our favorite gun-packn'st state, Texas, only 2% of the population has bothered to apply for a permit. That's pretty tiny, given the reputation of Texas. I wish I could find the source article, because it also pointed out that this 2% of Texas' population was statistically among the most law abiding, with fewer crimes committed even than Texas' law enforcement. Alas, it eludes me.
I'll agree with you regarding your last point, it seems that the people of Switzerland better recognize that their weapons are principal among the tools needed to keep their relatively small nation from being enveloped by their neighbors the next time Europe once again breaks out in a conflagration of war.
There are a few groups which are pretty good at suppressing those WBC cunts from their activities, patriot guard riders comes to mind, although they specialize in honoring and enforcing discipline at armed forces memorials, they also will come out in these sorts of events. It's pretty convenient, actually, that they feed on publicity. Being attention whores, they almost always publicize any planned demonstrations, allowing the well-meaning among us the opportunity to mobilize.
Although, there is that video of WBC's protestors evacuating in their bus after being routed from one of their demonstrations, and a rock comes crashing through the window. That one warms my heart every time.
I'm not sure if you're having a reading comprehension issue, but that's just about carrying. That likewise basically applies to most Americans, who live outside of right to carry shall issue states, and even the, the vast majority of people don't venture to exercise their right to carry. On the other hand, both Swiss and US citizens are generally free to buy title 1 style firearms (sometimes there is a licensing procedure, depends on jurisdiction) which they keep in their home to use for lawful purposes. They just happen to use them mostly for hunting or target shooting at organized ranges--just like the Swiss.
That specific Swiss policy is basically the same as many of our population centers: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, or most counties in California, where they do issue permits, at least in theory, but it's impossible to get a carry permit unless you're either a celebrity, a politician, or are otherwise politically connected such as being obscenely rich, security guard, etc. If you're a regular Joe pleb in one of these places, you've got no chance of scoring a permit, just like Switzerland.
As you point out, the Swiss train them to use the guns, then restrict their use to only being used on official training, or for civil defence, never for leisure. American's buy their own guns on the understanding that they are used for leisure, or for personal defence.
The Swiss train their militia to use the issued weapon (and issued ammunition), which is never to be used for any other purpose than those you correctly mentioned--during their years in militia service. After their service is complete, they given the opportunity to buy their issued rifle directly from the government, at which point it is converted by the armorer into semi-auto. They are also free to purchase their own individually owned weapons, which they can use for recreation, etc during their militia service period. They're not too dissimilar from the US in this regard.
Sounds like it wont do a god damned thing to prevent someone who is determined to kill from doing their thing. In other words, the same that applies to any such proposed law, it creates burdens for people with no criminal intent while doing absolute squat to stop violent people. Ever heard of the Beltway sniper attacks? The dude holed up in a trunk of a sedan, and over a three week period shot 14 people while looking through a hole in the trunk. 14 shot, 10 were killed. He never used more than one shot, making it difficult position the source of the shot, and he did it with a cartridge that is considered underpowered for ethical hunting of human-weight animals. Any standard hunting arm could have done better, from a longer distance, and quite frankly, with more lethality.
The criminologist's theories were all wrong, namely that the shooter was white, former military, and used a white box van. The only thing that helped in stopping the responsible individuals was the fact that they made little attempt to alter their attack pattern, and even taunted police with notes they left behind. They used the same car for each attack, didn't stray too far from their main area, and perpetuated their attacks at parking lots and gas stations--places where people move predictably.
A fairly smart guy once said "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have..." If the state provides you sufficient protection from harm, you're almost certainly in a padded cell, whether or not your delusions allow you to recognize it as such, and because of this your life is as tenuous as the whims of the person who holds the key.
Yeah, no thanks, I'll keep my liberty; damn the international norm.
Looking on the bright side, as is often known to happen, the visually impaired booby inspectors will have better sensitivity to touch than your average normal-sighted person and thus may direct their screenees to call their local oncologist. Much more disturbing is Anthony "The Tongue" Turba, the bomb-detecting TSA agent who is without all senses but taste.
No need for a formal inquisition. Just offer immunity from prosecution, a share of that $50k, and a list of addresses and numbers. It'll be a non-problem within a week.
If it was a tower of fire, it's because the tank's emergency pressure relief valve worked as intended. As the other responder indicated, the pressure in the tank rose to dangerous levels because of the added heat. Most pressurized fuel tanks require just that kind of safety device.
If it was a propane explosion, the fireball (from the propane, anyway) would have been gone by the time you heard the bang, unless that doctor's office was some sort of filling station with huge amounts of additional fuel.
You could say the same thing about many rich college kids, regardless of their origin. Most have only seen hammers and that sort of thing on a cable TV channel they've quickly surfed by. I've known their kind before, and for all of their experience with all things manual labor, a hammer might as well be a unicorn horn.
There's a huge difference in build quality between the two, that can also not be ignored. The Nexus Q is die-cast zinc, and looks like there's some finishing that goes into the unit: milling and painting can be substantial added costs in small batches. Apple TV's case is injection molded plastic, it's finished when it comes out of the mold.
It's pretty obvious that Google set out to make a flagship-quality item, something that is designed to be seen and look interesting/fashionable, and be interacted with directly, whereas you might as well hide the Apple TV behind your big screen once you get it setup.
As for myself, I always figured it was likely a situation much like Iceland / Greenland. Give the more likable of the afterlives an ugly name, and most of the the assholes will do whatever they can to be sent to that other place. So, um...yeah, see ya in hell! *Wink wink.*
I, on the other hand, have a 2004 dual 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac which has been rendered inoperable due to circuit board creep on the mainboard. If I heat it with a hair-dryer (expanding the glass and epoxy and pushing the circuits back together) it will start, but as it cools off it crashes. Turns out it's a fairly common occurrence, and something that was resolved in later models. It was about six years old when it gave up the ghost, which is disappointing to say the least for the premium I was charged for it, and the fact that it was still useful to me.
I only keep it around because I intend to rip the guts out and mod in an ATX system. I kinda like the case.
Perhaps it's not alright to have an accident, but neither is it deserving of serving a sentence in jail, and having a "justice" system ride one's back for any length of time. Frankly, the embarrassment served by sending such a text message to one's own family, his mother, father, friends and acquaintances, no less the kids, aught to be punishment enough--unless his intent truly was to have sex with the minors at the risk of becoming a social pariah amongst all of his close friends; but it doesn't sound like that idea was really proven, no less thoroughly vetted. Did he have a history of trying to solicit children? No? Give 'em a mulligan and keep an eye on his behavior for a while. But that's too sensible.
Obligatory slashdot car analogy: if you have a traffic accident with your car, with no apparent levels of negligence, should you also now be criminally prosecuted and jailed for the injury of the victim(s) like you would had you assaulted them with a weapon? Of course not, that's not the way things work in a civilized society.
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Independent of a government, or stateless voluntary social contract of some kind, the right to do whatever is the base state of nature; that's pretty much the crux of the issue, philosophically. The idea that a government can only levy laws which serve to restrict and to restrain is congruous with that line of reasoning. If it's not illegal, then it is legal. That's how it works.
The enlightenment era liberals which made up the bulk of the founders called this "law of nature", and limiting Congress from imposing upon this natural right by specifically enumerating it was seen as protecting something previously in existence.
You don't see many laws which exist to state "yeah, this is legal", especially outside of the Constitution itself--those tend to be the paragraphs which regulate things like elections, to conduct census, to authorize congress to mint money, to establish a patent office, to declare war, etc.
No. I agree. But there are many many law enforcement (and -esque) groups that do have at least cursory gun handling standards and require time on the range.
Like the NYPD cops who were attempting to stop a bad guy in Times Square? They only shot nine or so innocent bystanders, despite approaching him from the rear. Like my local cops? Anytime they have to shoot at someone dangerous in a car, it looks like that car took a few dozen rounds of buckshot, 50-70 rounds on average.
I know cops, I know cop culture. The only ones who reliably shoot well are the ones who are themselves enthusiasts, and often train on their own dollar unless they're SWAT. They have better training budgets, obviously. Hell, I know a cop that did not know how to disassemble and clean her duty weapon, leaving it prone to malfunction from years of qualifying practice, and years of accumulated lint and dust. I know another cop that shot himself in the calf muscle while re-holstering, because he forgot to keep his finger out of the trigger guard. Enthusiasts who attain a license of their own volition or sense of duty to their families just don't seem to have these problems quite as often.
The best argument that I have for people arming themselves is this: another two cops I know left a dog-walker scarred and with nerve damage after they beat him up, because he told the driver of the car the cops had pulled over that he would be a witness in court that he stopped at the red light.
Another cop from the same department inexplicably helped the face of a young man become more intimate with the pavement for no discernible reason, as said teenager was on the phone with his father, who himself was a Sheriff's Deputy in a neighboring county. The young man was not acting threatening or aggressive, and the police would have covered it up, manufacturing a statement which could not be corroborated with the witnesses. Were there no video footage, or a witness on the other end of the phone, they would have got away with assault and battery, under the color of law.
Some cops might be good, maybe even the majority; but when something like this happens, even the good ones tend to toe the thin blue line, and give their own the benefit of the doubt over any reasonable quantity and quality of testimony. That PD had to pay out about 1.5 million in settlements for brutality last year, and I wonder how much more we did not know about, that just got shuffled under the rug. We should give these people a monopoly on the use of force? Now, to me, that's crazy.
Except when they leave the house. While these people do have a permit to own a handgun, they don't have a permit to carry a handgun, so any handguns must therefore be left in the home. It's also quite likely that anyone who owns a handgun owns one or more long guns of some sort. Hopefully they have them sufficiently secured.
It might surprise you that most people stay away from their homes for substantial portions of the day, sometimes upwards of eight hours or more! Crazy, right?
Assault Rifle is a propagandist term invented by Adolf Hitler himself (yeah, Godwin and all, but it's actually true!), for the naming of the revolutionary StG44 machine carbine (that laid the framework for modern service rifles) which can be described as a hybrid between the design-ideologies that gave us "sub machine guns" like the MP44, Thompson, and "service rifles" like the M1 Garand, K98k or Kar 43. In other words, one would expect to see these features in a so-called assault rifle: select fire or full auto, lighter than and less powerful shorter range than a battle rifle and more accurate/longer range than a pistol-caliber sub machine gun.
Militaristic use of that term pretty much died at the end of WWII, going on 70 years ago. Most of the world's armies, including our own, simply call these things "rifles", because the leadership understands that it's the tool which wears the boots that does the assaulting, not the instrument that he carries.
Using the term Assault Rifle to describe the firearms you own (unless you do own a registered machine gun, then have at it) is falling into that same propaganda/newspeak trap that is full of so much negative connotation, so just think of it this way each time you use it. Does it serve your interests to use that term they like so much?
On the contrary, they should offer more and better types of snacks. Craft beers, cocktails, mini pizzas and things like that, and like other movie theaters, they shouldn't be afraid to charge a price that will make a substantial profit.
Make going to a movie an event, like flying on a big airliner was in the 60's and 70's, something people actually look forward to. Change the dynamic, in contrast to today where people are treated like cattle, crammed in tight seats and fed garbage food. Break the mold.
Offer good food and drink specials, not just stuff that is good relative to other theaters, but something that would bring people in on its own whether you were showing a film or not. Have clean floors and facilities, big comfy seats, and perhaps love seats so couples be closer to each-other. Have some special events for subscribers, and more than anything else, make it a adult-oriented social experience people can't get at home with an HDTV and surround sound system. Maybe consider individual screening rooms which segregate couples with noisy kids from everyone else. Dating couples would travel great distances and would be the biggest advocates for something like that.
By the same token, since the paper is so proud of their first amendment rights, perhaps they should also publish all the home addresses, home phone numbers belonging to the paper's editors, presidents, vice presidents, board of directors, shareholders, etc. While they're at it, they could also print the names and locations of the schools their children attend, because that's also likely to be public information, in some obscure, round about way.
Oh, wait. All of that information could fall into the hands of the criminal element. Huh... Oh well. After all, nothing bad could come of that, right?
I find it unnerving that many of my local police seem to be former high school jocks with a limited amount of training (and no time in the armed forces to compensate for it) and are running around with AR-15 variants in the trunks of their cars. If the M16 and its ilk like the AR15 are war machines, why are they packing them? How often do they engage an active shooter wielding an AK or an AR? Isn't that what SWAT is for?
You and I agree here. I often deal with cops from counties with a multi-jurisdictional cooperative arrangement. You'd actually be surprised on the number of cruisers which are transitioning the old pump riot shotgun kept in the cab to a police issue M1014 or M4 style AR. One county has begun issuing a real M16 decked out with an M4 upper (enough to give most gear queers a raging hard on) to each cruiser; due in large part to a government program which lends out large quantities of rifles which have been in storage since Vietnam, they're pretty much free. That's the one kept in the trunk, by the way.
Active shooters are of course an absurdly rare event, so the chances of any one unit engaging ever engaging such a thing in the lifetime of one cop is as close to nil as can be. The justification is apparently that ye old scattergun doesn't work very well on ballistic vests. I mostly see it as the ongoing militarization of our police forces, I can only think of it as the harbinger of worse things to come.
Someone whose mental capability is diminished would provide a number of reasons - too drunk, has alzheimers, mentally ill and hence walk into the wrong home.
This class of people tend not to break doors in, or have the physical capacity to do so. In the event of a drunk, someone who is high on drugs, or mental weirdo, if they cannot or will not respond correctly to "Stop. I have a gun and I will shoot you if you come closer!", and they've broken your door in, they are unquestionably a danger to your life, and the lives of your family members. As such, use of force up to and including deadly force is justified and legal in most jurisdictions, under many circumstances; for example, you may or not be required by local law to retreat from the threat, deadly force finally being legal when you're cornered. Deadly force doesn't necessarily mean firearm either. Baseball bats, axe handles, iron pipes, swords, knives, martial arts etc. may all be considered deadly force.
Police/fire services being given the wrong house in an emergency call as a result of accident or a prank.
If the EMT/Fire guys show up, that can all be sorted out before one shoots. I'd like to point out that anyone who is even trained basically understands the 4 rules of shooting. 1) All guns are loaded 2) don't point the gun at anything you don't want to die 3) Keep your finger off of the trigger until you are ready to shoot 4) Before you ready to shoot, identify your target and everything behind it. Hopefully if something were to happen like this, everyone can take a deep breath, shake hands and go home safely.****
However, chances are if there are law enforcement in your house uninvited, they're of the no-knock warrant ninja-commando type who have their address wrong. It's happened before, and sure enough, police are far and away more dangerous to your family than any other class of invader. God forbid you have a gun in your hand, as they like to shoot anything that moves first and ask questions later. You'd better hope your dog is asleep and deaf, because they're liable to shoot it as well. It's only a matter of time until these types of raids happen upon a PTSD riddled vet with a hair trigger, leaving a bunch of cops and one vet dead.
People being given the wrong address or similar for a party accidently or not.
Overly informal neighbour believing you would be okay with them just popping in.****
They'll sure learn quickly to have the right address, and not just pop in****. On the other hand, if a woman is raped, it's more often by someone she knows than not, so your daughters and wife aught to be weary of such an informal neighbor, especially if its male.
Landlord if you have one entering the house to check/confirm something.
Landlords knock and or call and just don't bust down the door.****
Someone entering to warn you about an imminent danger.
Will probably themselves more occupied with running away to be too bothered to knock your door down and search you out.****
Gardener/Cleaner if you have one either because they're meant to be there or they came on the wrong day accidently or intentionally or you forgot what day they were supposed to be there.
****
Footnote: ****Again, just because you have a gun in hand or on your person does not mean your only available course of action is to immediately shoot every Girl Scout or innocent passerby who knocks on your door square in the face.
There are a million and one reasons why someone might be in your house
Oh? That's a pretty interesting assertion, I'll call you out on it. Please enumerate three such reasons someone would invade my home that are benign to my family and myself, property aside. If there are a million and one, three shouldn't prove too difficult.
Funny that the US military simply calls an M-16... A 'rifle'. Anything shorter than that, such as an M4 is called a 'carbine' or 'rifle', usually interchangeably. Anything smaller than that is called a sub-machine gun. Most militarizes follow the same pattern.
It's said that Adolf Hitler himself invented the term Assault Rifle (sturmgewehr, or storm rifle), for the naming of the Mkb 42 "machine carbine", which was the prototype's first designation. This was done for the simple reason of propaganda, both to increase the confidence in the arm in their own forces, and ostensibly to instill fear into their enemies. The moniker continues its history of not being a descriptive or categorizational term, and is much more often used as a tool for ideological and political proselytism, to influence certain ideas and thoughts. Newspeak.
Incidentally, German military brass of the period thought the automatic feature of the StG 44 was not especially useful, as it would lead to a waste of ammunition due to anxious spray-firing instead of deliberately aimed shots, and so they directed units that full-auto fire should be used only in emergencies. While I'm on the subject, something should be pointed about Germany's current service rifle, the G36. The G stands for Gewehr. Rifle. The Germans are back to using purely descriptive names, why aren't we?
Take a look at that list again and from the "may issue" column, move all of those checkpoints to the "no-issue" column, except for Alabama, Connecticut, and Delaware, and you'll have a picture that is closer to reality, because in practice, the rest of these states are no-issue. The point stands, the 37 states which are shall issue cover the biggest land area but have the lowest population density. Overlay that data with something like the electoral college map, see that a quarter to one third of Americans are by default ineligible for a carry permit in the first place.
Somewhere I read that our favorite gun-packn'st state, Texas, only 2% of the population has bothered to apply for a permit. That's pretty tiny, given the reputation of Texas. I wish I could find the source article, because it also pointed out that this 2% of Texas' population was statistically among the most law abiding, with fewer crimes committed even than Texas' law enforcement. Alas, it eludes me.
I'll agree with you regarding your last point, it seems that the people of Switzerland better recognize that their weapons are principal among the tools needed to keep their relatively small nation from being enveloped by their neighbors the next time Europe once again breaks out in a conflagration of war.
There are a few groups which are pretty good at suppressing those WBC cunts from their activities, patriot guard riders comes to mind, although they specialize in honoring and enforcing discipline at armed forces memorials, they also will come out in these sorts of events. It's pretty convenient, actually, that they feed on publicity. Being attention whores, they almost always publicize any planned demonstrations, allowing the well-meaning among us the opportunity to mobilize.
Although, there is that video of WBC's protestors evacuating in their bus after being routed from one of their demonstrations, and a rock comes crashing through the window. That one warms my heart every time.
I'm not sure if you're having a reading comprehension issue, but that's just about carrying. That likewise basically applies to most Americans, who live outside of right to carry shall issue states, and even the, the vast majority of people don't venture to exercise their right to carry. On the other hand, both Swiss and US citizens are generally free to buy title 1 style firearms (sometimes there is a licensing procedure, depends on jurisdiction) which they keep in their home to use for lawful purposes. They just happen to use them mostly for hunting or target shooting at organized ranges--just like the Swiss.
That specific Swiss policy is basically the same as many of our population centers: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, or most counties in California, where they do issue permits, at least in theory, but it's impossible to get a carry permit unless you're either a celebrity, a politician, or are otherwise politically connected such as being obscenely rich, security guard, etc. If you're a regular Joe pleb in one of these places, you've got no chance of scoring a permit, just like Switzerland.
As you point out, the Swiss train them to use the guns, then restrict their use to only being used on official training, or for civil defence, never for leisure. American's buy their own guns on the understanding that they are used for leisure, or for personal defence.
The Swiss train their militia to use the issued weapon (and issued ammunition), which is never to be used for any other purpose than those you correctly mentioned--during their years in militia service. After their service is complete, they given the opportunity to buy their issued rifle directly from the government, at which point it is converted by the armorer into semi-auto. They are also free to purchase their own individually owned weapons, which they can use for recreation, etc during their militia service period. They're not too dissimilar from the US in this regard.
Sounds like it wont do a god damned thing to prevent someone who is determined to kill from doing their thing. In other words, the same that applies to any such proposed law, it creates burdens for people with no criminal intent while doing absolute squat to stop violent people. Ever heard of the Beltway sniper attacks? The dude holed up in a trunk of a sedan, and over a three week period shot 14 people while looking through a hole in the trunk. 14 shot, 10 were killed. He never used more than one shot, making it difficult position the source of the shot, and he did it with a cartridge that is considered underpowered for ethical hunting of human-weight animals. Any standard hunting arm could have done better, from a longer distance, and quite frankly, with more lethality.
The criminologist's theories were all wrong, namely that the shooter was white, former military, and used a white box van. The only thing that helped in stopping the responsible individuals was the fact that they made little attempt to alter their attack pattern, and even taunted police with notes they left behind. They used the same car for each attack, didn't stray too far from their main area, and perpetuated their attacks at parking lots and gas stations--places where people move predictably.
A fairly smart guy once said "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have..." If the state provides you sufficient protection from harm, you're almost certainly in a padded cell, whether or not your delusions allow you to recognize it as such, and because of this your life is as tenuous as the whims of the person who holds the key.
Yeah, no thanks, I'll keep my liberty; damn the international norm.
Looking on the bright side, as is often known to happen, the visually impaired booby inspectors will have better sensitivity to touch than your average normal-sighted person and thus may direct their screenees to call their local oncologist. Much more disturbing is Anthony "The Tongue" Turba, the bomb-detecting TSA agent who is without all senses but taste.
No need for a formal inquisition. Just offer immunity from prosecution, a share of that $50k, and a list of addresses and numbers. It'll be a non-problem within a week.
If it was a tower of fire, it's because the tank's emergency pressure relief valve worked as intended. As the other responder indicated, the pressure in the tank rose to dangerous levels because of the added heat. Most pressurized fuel tanks require just that kind of safety device.
If it was a propane explosion, the fireball (from the propane, anyway) would have been gone by the time you heard the bang, unless that doctor's office was some sort of filling station with huge amounts of additional fuel.
You could say the same thing about many rich college kids, regardless of their origin. Most have only seen hammers and that sort of thing on a cable TV channel they've quickly surfed by. I've known their kind before, and for all of their experience with all things manual labor, a hammer might as well be a unicorn horn.
There's a huge difference in build quality between the two, that can also not be ignored. The Nexus Q is die-cast zinc, and looks like there's some finishing that goes into the unit: milling and painting can be substantial added costs in small batches. Apple TV's case is injection molded plastic, it's finished when it comes out of the mold.
It's pretty obvious that Google set out to make a flagship-quality item, something that is designed to be seen and look interesting/fashionable, and be interacted with directly, whereas you might as well hide the Apple TV behind your big screen once you get it setup.
As for myself, I always figured it was likely a situation much like Iceland / Greenland. Give the more likable of the afterlives an ugly name, and most of the the assholes will do whatever they can to be sent to that other place. So, um...yeah, see ya in hell! *Wink wink.*
I, on the other hand, have a 2004 dual 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac which has been rendered inoperable due to circuit board creep on the mainboard. If I heat it with a hair-dryer (expanding the glass and epoxy and pushing the circuits back together) it will start, but as it cools off it crashes. Turns out it's a fairly common occurrence, and something that was resolved in later models. It was about six years old when it gave up the ghost, which is disappointing to say the least for the premium I was charged for it, and the fact that it was still useful to me.
I only keep it around because I intend to rip the guts out and mod in an ATX system. I kinda like the case.
Perhaps it's not alright to have an accident, but neither is it deserving of serving a sentence in jail, and having a "justice" system ride one's back for any length of time. Frankly, the embarrassment served by sending such a text message to one's own family, his mother, father, friends and acquaintances, no less the kids, aught to be punishment enough--unless his intent truly was to have sex with the minors at the risk of becoming a social pariah amongst all of his close friends; but it doesn't sound like that idea was really proven, no less thoroughly vetted. Did he have a history of trying to solicit children? No? Give 'em a mulligan and keep an eye on his behavior for a while. But that's too sensible.
Obligatory slashdot car analogy: if you have a traffic accident with your car, with no apparent levels of negligence, should you also now be criminally prosecuted and jailed for the injury of the victim(s) like you would had you assaulted them with a weapon? Of course not, that's not the way things work in a civilized society.
You mean to tell me nobody else does that now?