Have you priced IEEE health insurance? Oyy... I got tired of being bent over every year for that, and switched. I still pay a huge pile of money in health insurance, but less than IEEE.
Remember, the Bill of Rights was a response to criticisms of the Constitution found in the Anti-Federalist papers. Somehow, the term "anti-federalist" seems still to be right on target of you believe in the concepts of the BoR.
Let me repeat: management by wishful thinking doesn't work. Call your managers on it when they do it. If that doesn't work, find yourself a new manager.
The best way for a company to make sure that it has good managers is to do the following: 1) never block an internal transfer, 2) be more generous with internal hiring req's than external hiring req's -- this means that the list of available internal job postings will never dry up. Any company that does the above two things will find out that bad managers are easy to identify -- people flee.
The best manager that I ever had was an ex-Israeli commando officer. Here is why: 1) There was never any doubt in your mind about the result he wanted. Communication was clear at all times. After all, every person on a commando team *must* understand the objective and why it is important, or the mission will go very badly. 2) He *always* asked what it took to accomplish the objective, and actually *listened* to what you had to say. Because an under-equipped commando team will see their mission go very badly -- body bag and unpleasant letters to parents badly. So if you ever get a chance to be a manager, think like a commando officer.
So now that I've gotten to have a lot of grey in my beard, I can say that I take a much more conservative view of engineering projects than I did when I was younger. That's because now I've actually worked on products that made it to manufacturing and shipped to customers. And, of course, had to deal with gertting engineering change orders in to manufactuiring or spending a weekend in the lab cracking a lines-down bug. So I'm sure I can be seen as one of the grumpy old guys.
No matter how deep your enthusiasm,"management by wishful thinking" doesn't work. Never ingore Mother Nature, because she visits the factory very often and probes every part of the product to find the areas with sketchy manufacturing margin. Design things that can be tested -- if you can't test it, you can't ship it. And hit your bill-of-materials budget -- no one buys something that costs too much -- you aren't a designer until you've spent an entire afternoon arguing over a nickel.
But the reality is, it's just a change in how you focus your creativity. I used to get excited about intricate machinery. Now I get excited about radically cost reducing simplicity -- I apply my creativity to doing more with less. So next time some old grey-beard tells you to design out 7 screws, don't think of it as him hating on your project. Think of it as him trying to help you re-focus your creativity onto the things that matter to success.
There *is* scintered metal 3D printing. http://production3dprinters.com/slm/direct-metal-slm It is sort of expensive, but I've seen the output. You could print most of the gun, but the surface finish is kind of grainy at present (at least in what I've seen). You would need to chase the barrel with a reamer to smooth the bore and then rifle it, and polish any sliding parts. Also, you'd have to look at material strength of the 3D printed metal which is "hard as steel", but that covers a lot of ground. You might need to beef up the chamber over a regular hammer-forged barrel so that the chamber pressure doesn't give you an unexpected kaboom.
Most states that issue carry permits have a training requirement.
If you take a dispassionate look at the statistics, those with carry permits are far less likely to hurt you accidentally (or on purpose, for that matter) than police. As a friend just said, "If you want to shoot random people and cars without cause, why not just join LAPD and do it legally?"
Police in the USA are involved in violent crime (and property crime) at *exactly* the same rate as the general population. Carry permit holders, however, have about 1/20 the rate of involvement in crime compared to the general population. See the FBI stastitics.
As to insurance... which other constitutionally enumerated right requires that you buy insurance before you exercise the right? It's not a small point -- people of low income tend to live in bad neighborhoods because that can't afford the rent for a better place. A tax or insurance requirement on any means of protecting one's life falls disproportionately on those that need self-protection the most. Or, maybe you are saying that you can't have a license to write a blog unless you buy libel/slander insurance?
As Franklin said: "We must hang together, or certainly we shall hang separately."
This infinite loop of "Don't take my guns, take his video games." Follow by: "Don't take my games, take his guns" must stop. Let's look at root causes. Mental health care in the country is a disaster. We did not have mass shootings when we had mental health hospitals. They were shut down because too many people were being committed that should not have been. But now we have people sleeping under bridges because they won't take their meds or don't have access to meds.
Lanza's tharapist reported him as a danger. Her superiors couldn't be bothered to act on that information. Now, what if your child broke an arm paying intramural flag football and student health services said: "Hey, well, I'm just headed out on vacation, can you come back in two weeks?" How would you react? Let's maybe take mental health issues at least as seriously as an ankle sprain, mmkay?? There is somthing called "forced outpatient treatment". You live at home. But... there is follow up to make sure you take your meds every day, or else.
Anyway, to circle back to my point, we have seen a serious errosion of civil liberties in this country. The video gamers and the gun owners are *both* under attack for sensless reasons. We must defend each other, not blame each other, because neither is to blame. Let's focus back on civil liberties, the Bill of Rights, and reject nanny-statism. Together.
As long as they guarantee the right within reasonable boundaries, what's the problem with registering...?
... said all the gun owning Jews in Weimar Germany. Heck, said every gun owner in Weimar Germany. Which, when Hitler was properly elected according to the consitution, gave him a nice list of gun owners so that he could confiscate all civilian weapons.
So, you want to start a blog, you say? Great, go to city hall and pick up your permit. Ever try to get a building permit for something? Anything? You need to define "reasonable boundaries", first off. Then, you need to get low-level functionaries in every bureau to apply the regulations even-handedly. And when they don't, you spend days and $$'s on the appeal process.
You want to go through that for a blog?
As to whether or not the US government is correctly observing our civil liberties (1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments, in particular).... an analogy to frogs in pots comes to mind.
I don't care if it is X11. But display across the network is critical to my needs. Everyone that is trying to replace X, for whatever motiviation, needs to stop being in denial about this issue. Display across the network that is complete transparent to the application and works for all applications is critical for some computing environments.
There are plenty of board shops where you can get 2 to 8 or so boards turned at reasonable (hobbyist-friendly) prices and have boards in 4 or 5 days (no mask and silk screen). With 6/6 design rules and plated-through holes -- if you can do 6/6 and through-plating in your garage with reasonably priced equipment and good reliability, and repeatability, and not spend more than a couple hours at it, then wow, show me how. Until then, I'd rather spend my time designing and debugging than messing around with a problem I can solve cheaply by rubbing small amounts of money on it. What you do while you wait 4 days for a new board is work on your *other* projects.
As to CAM-daubing solder, you are correct in that it scales up poorly. It's great for one-off prototypes since there is zero design-specific tooling. I have an old, crotchety laser cutter and have tried making laser-cut limited-use stencil in mylar and drafting velum, which are OK down to about 0603 parts, but not so good for TQFPs, not enough resolution. A better laser cutter solves that problem, but that is high-$$. I haven't tried laser-cutting Kapton, which has a good chance of working for small quantities of boards. I've seen people etch their own stencils in brass shim stock, but again getting to TQFP is a challenge and finer pitch is very challenging.
I suppose CNC engraving a brass (or similar) stencil on a $2K machine is possible with a fine enough cutter, but I suspect it would take longer to do (by 2X or 4X) than solder-daubing. The issue for prototyping is getting a process that scales down to small quantities well. A quick to make and cheap disposable stencil would be a winner, but I haven't found a way to make that yet.
A $2K device that does solder paste and Pick-and-Place is what we need. You can have circuit boards made easily and cheaply from a number of places. It's been a loooong time since I thought it was worth the time and hassle of playing in the soup myself. I don't see the point of trying to make PCBs at home any more. Toaster oven or hot plate soldering works great for suface mount. The two killers are 1) applying solder paste, and 2) pick and place. So, a cheap reliable stencil is one option for older. A friend of mine has a Mikini 1610L CNC mill, and we did a hack to add a manual solder paste syringe (one of the compressed-air driven hand-held units) as a tool head. Our first attempt got some nearly usable boards, but it would require tuning and another rev to get the right amount of paste and make it all work. Other people have done hobbyist grade Pick-n-place. Combining the two operations, adding the webcam for precise part orientation, and hitting $2K would be a game changer.
How true. My wife *is* a lawyer. But there is very little of our own legal business that she feels qualified to handle herself, since legal practice is very specialized, and her specialties aren't a lot of good outside of a large company context. Mostly, she is very good at hiring the right lawyer and getting good value for the hours billed.
It's kind of sad that you need to be a lawyer in order to hire the lawyer that you need.
I'll say this, if you are arrested and charged with something, you need a criminal lawyer who does mainly criminal law. If it is a domestic violence charge (real or something imaginary from crazy-land) get a specialist in DV. If it in any way touches on civil rights law, get somebody with experience in civil rights litigation. If firearms are involved in any way, make absolutely certain that the lawyer understands your state's gun laws forwards and backwards. (In California, call the CalGuns Foundation hotline: http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/)
What crop? You didn't save corn seed, unless you were growing up on a farm during World War II. Soy beans, yes you probably saved that before the GMO days.
Citation? How about looking at the crop yields from the Iowa farm my great-grandfather homesteaded. The citation is my brother's income tax return, he manages the farm now. Or the yields being produced by the tenants on my father-in-law's Minnesota farm. Next question?
And let me educate you on the food chain. Yellow corn is a feed grain, not a food grain. You don't eat it. It is eaten by the animals that you eat.
I agree chemical over-use is a problem. I'm more concerned about chemicals in the ground water and run-off. As far as that goes, borer-resistant maize allows a reduction in pesticide application for the control of borers. Another valid concern with GMO varieties is the creation of 'super-pests' that evolve immunity to GMO features. Iowa, at least, requires you to plant 20% "refuge rows" -- that is 20% of every field planted to, say, a borer-resistant variety, must be planted with a non-resistant variety so that the borer moths don't evolve immunity. Who came up with the 20% number, I don't know, I sure has heck hope it is right. If you're going to worry about something, worry about something real, not something made up.
And I don't defend Monsanto. Just trying to inject a few facts into the discussion. GMO crop seeds do make business sense to the farmers, or they would not be used. Do you honestly believe that people that run a business involving a multi-million dollar capital investment can't do the math?
Yes, all true. And not in conflict with anything I said. Pretty much any GMO seed is also a hybred seed. Don't underestimate the economic value of corn-borer resistant maize or Roundup Ready soy beans.
Actually, it does pencil out. Hybred and genetically engineered seeds do produce signficantly higher yields, and in some cases reduce need for pestricides. They reduce risk by being drought resistant. Seed cost is just one of many costs of getting a crop into the ground and getting the harvest out. Fuel, fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, land rent (paid or opportunity cost) and labor all need to be accounted for.
Hybred seeds have been around for ages, and with maize, there is natural intellecual property protection, because the hybred is 'unstable', that is, you can't replant the seeds from the crop that you grow because the resulting maize plants are sterile and/or deformed. Of course, they can be stabalized with a final cross, but seed producers don't do that. Soy beans, OTOH, can not be produced in an unstable hybred. So a farmer can keep part of his bean crop and plant that as seed next year. With the advent of genetically modified soy seed, Monsanto quit *selling* soy seed, and started *licensing* soy seed.
It's always a tough sell to get someone to buy into a major change in methodology for a marginal improvement that is not clearly demonstrable. The only way to sell any new technology is to clearly demonstrate a marked advantage to adopting the new technology, with a demonstration that is clear and awakening. Thus it was ever so.
My translation of the summary is "I made my pitch, but people keep asking me: 'Why bother?', I shouldn't have to answer that! They are so mean! WAAAHHHH"
Sorry, I don't have a citation. It was a number of years ago... back when I read dead-trees newspapers. I vaguely recall that it was in an Op Ed in the San Jose Mercury News.
Yes, too true. The post just above yours says "Even 5 years ago I might have said you made that up." Well --- as I recall (and can't take time now to search newspaper archives) -- somewhere back before the INS was part of DHS (certainly more than 5 years), an INS agent detained a well-dressed Hispanic man on the streets of downtown San Jose over the lunch hour, and asked to see his green card. The man replied that he was a US-born citizen whose family had been in California since before it was a state. The INS agent continued to hassle him -- until someone managed to whack him with a clue-bat and tell him to stop hassling the Vice Mayor of San Jose.
The attack on civil liberties in this country has gotten far, far out of hand. It is time to put a stop to it, and the best bet right now is narrow, targeted lawsuits.
Really? Imagine a woman who has a restraining order against a violent ex-husband that she has been hiding from, and who owns a gun to keep him from beating her and her kids again just in case he finds them. Tell me again how she isn't harmed.
Retired police have the right to carry in any state. The police unions' argument is that bad people that they helped put away might seek them out for revenge and the cops, even ex-cops, need to defend themselves. Why is the con's ex-wife's life worth something less?
Slashdot Mirror
Free download. Very practical. I suspect it will engage a fair number of middle-schoolers.
Have you priced IEEE health insurance? Oyy... I got tired of being bent over every year for that, and switched. I still pay a huge pile of money in health insurance, but less than IEEE.
Pretty much true.
Remember, the Bill of Rights was a response to criticisms of the Constitution found in the Anti-Federalist papers. Somehow, the term "anti-federalist" seems still to be right on target of you believe in the concepts of the BoR.
Brilliant! I'd contribute to that project. Put it up on a crowdfunding platform and before you can say "swipe my Visa" I'm there.
Let me repeat: management by wishful thinking doesn't work. Call your managers on it when they do it. If that doesn't work, find yourself a new manager.
The best way for a company to make sure that it has good managers is to do the following: 1) never block an internal transfer, 2) be more generous with internal hiring req's than external hiring req's -- this means that the list of available internal job postings will never dry up. Any company that does the above two things will find out that bad managers are easy to identify -- people flee.
The best manager that I ever had was an ex-Israeli commando officer. Here is why: 1) There was never any doubt in your mind about the result he wanted. Communication was clear at all times. After all, every person on a commando team *must* understand the objective and why it is important, or the mission will go very badly. 2) He *always* asked what it took to accomplish the objective, and actually *listened* to what you had to say. Because an under-equipped commando team will see their mission go very badly -- body bag and unpleasant letters to parents badly. So if you ever get a chance to be a manager, think like a commando officer.
So now that I've gotten to have a lot of grey in my beard, I can say that I take a much more conservative view of engineering projects than I did when I was younger. That's because now I've actually worked on products that made it to manufacturing and shipped to customers. And, of course, had to deal with gertting engineering change orders in to manufactuiring or spending a weekend in the lab cracking a lines-down bug. So I'm sure I can be seen as one of the grumpy old guys.
No matter how deep your enthusiasm,"management by wishful thinking" doesn't work. Never ingore Mother Nature, because she visits the factory very often and probes every part of the product to find the areas with sketchy manufacturing margin. Design things that can be tested -- if you can't test it, you can't ship it. And hit your bill-of-materials budget -- no one buys something that costs too much -- you aren't a designer until you've spent an entire afternoon arguing over a nickel.
But the reality is, it's just a change in how you focus your creativity. I used to get excited about intricate machinery. Now I get excited about radically cost reducing simplicity -- I apply my creativity to doing more with less. So next time some old grey-beard tells you to design out 7 screws, don't think of it as him hating on your project. Think of it as him trying to help you re-focus your creativity onto the things that matter to success.
There *is* scintered metal 3D printing. http://production3dprinters.com/slm/direct-metal-slm It is sort of expensive, but I've seen the output. You could print most of the gun, but the surface finish is kind of grainy at present (at least in what I've seen). You would need to chase the barrel with a reamer to smooth the bore and then rifle it, and polish any sliding parts. Also, you'd have to look at material strength of the 3D printed metal which is "hard as steel", but that covers a lot of ground. You might need to beef up the chamber over a regular hammer-forged barrel so that the chamber pressure doesn't give you an unexpected kaboom.
Most states that issue carry permits have a training requirement.
If you take a dispassionate look at the statistics, those with carry permits are far less likely to hurt you accidentally (or on purpose, for that matter) than police. As a friend just said, "If you want to shoot random people and cars without cause, why not just join LAPD and do it legally?"
Police in the USA are involved in violent crime (and property crime) at *exactly* the same rate as the general population. Carry permit holders, however, have about 1/20 the rate of involvement in crime compared to the general population. See the FBI stastitics.
As to insurance... which other constitutionally enumerated right requires that you buy insurance before you exercise the right? It's not a small point -- people of low income tend to live in bad neighborhoods because that can't afford the rent for a better place. A tax or insurance requirement on any means of protecting one's life falls disproportionately on those that need self-protection the most. Or, maybe you are saying that you can't have a license to write a blog unless you buy libel/slander insurance?
As Franklin said: "We must hang together, or certainly we shall hang separately."
This infinite loop of "Don't take my guns, take his video games." Follow by: "Don't take my games, take his guns" must stop. Let's look at root causes. Mental health care in the country is a disaster. We did not have mass shootings when we had mental health hospitals. They were shut down because too many people were being committed that should not have been. But now we have people sleeping under bridges because they won't take their meds or don't have access to meds.
Lanza's tharapist reported him as a danger. Her superiors couldn't be bothered to act on that information. Now, what if your child broke an arm paying intramural flag football and student health services said: "Hey, well, I'm just headed out on vacation, can you come back in two weeks?" How would you react? Let's maybe take mental health issues at least as seriously as an ankle sprain, mmkay?? There is somthing called "forced outpatient treatment". You live at home. But... there is follow up to make sure you take your meds every day, or else.
Anyway, to circle back to my point, we have seen a serious errosion of civil liberties in this country. The video gamers and the gun owners are *both* under attack for sensless reasons. We must defend each other, not blame each other, because neither is to blame. Let's focus back on civil liberties, the Bill of Rights, and reject nanny-statism. Together.
As long as they guarantee the right within reasonable boundaries, what's the problem with registering...?
So, you want to start a blog, you say? Great, go to city hall and pick up your permit. Ever try to get a building permit for something? Anything? You need to define "reasonable boundaries", first off. Then, you need to get low-level functionaries in every bureau to apply the regulations even-handedly. And when they don't, you spend days and $$'s on the appeal process.
You want to go through that for a blog?
As to whether or not the US government is correctly observing our civil liberties (1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments, in particular).... an analogy to frogs in pots comes to mind.
I don't care if it is X11. But display across the network is critical to my needs. Everyone that is trying to replace X, for whatever motiviation, needs to stop being in denial about this issue. Display across the network that is complete transparent to the application and works for all applications is critical for some computing environments.
There are plenty of board shops where you can get 2 to 8 or so boards turned at reasonable (hobbyist-friendly) prices and have boards in 4 or 5 days (no mask and silk screen). With 6/6 design rules and plated-through holes -- if you can do 6/6 and through-plating in your garage with reasonably priced equipment and good reliability, and repeatability, and not spend more than a couple hours at it, then wow, show me how. Until then, I'd rather spend my time designing and debugging than messing around with a problem I can solve cheaply by rubbing small amounts of money on it. What you do while you wait 4 days for a new board is work on your *other* projects.
As to CAM-daubing solder, you are correct in that it scales up poorly. It's great for one-off prototypes since there is zero design-specific tooling. I have an old, crotchety laser cutter and have tried making laser-cut limited-use stencil in mylar and drafting velum, which are OK down to about 0603 parts, but not so good for TQFPs, not enough resolution. A better laser cutter solves that problem, but that is high-$$. I haven't tried laser-cutting Kapton, which has a good chance of working for small quantities of boards. I've seen people etch their own stencils in brass shim stock, but again getting to TQFP is a challenge and finer pitch is very challenging.
I suppose CNC engraving a brass (or similar) stencil on a $2K machine is possible with a fine enough cutter, but I suspect it would take longer to do (by 2X or 4X) than solder-daubing. The issue for prototyping is getting a process that scales down to small quantities well. A quick to make and cheap disposable stencil would be a winner, but I haven't found a way to make that yet.
A $2K device that does solder paste and Pick-and-Place is what we need. You can have circuit boards made easily and cheaply from a number of places. It's been a loooong time since I thought it was worth the time and hassle of playing in the soup myself. I don't see the point of trying to make PCBs at home any more. Toaster oven or hot plate soldering works great for suface mount. The two killers are 1) applying solder paste, and 2) pick and place. So, a cheap reliable stencil is one option for older. A friend of mine has a Mikini 1610L CNC mill, and we did a hack to add a manual solder paste syringe (one of the compressed-air driven hand-held units) as a tool head. Our first attempt got some nearly usable boards, but it would require tuning and another rev to get the right amount of paste and make it all work. Other people have done hobbyist grade Pick-n-place. Combining the two operations, adding the webcam for precise part orientation, and hitting $2K would be a game changer.
How true. My wife *is* a lawyer. But there is very little of our own legal business that she feels qualified to handle herself, since legal practice is very specialized, and her specialties aren't a lot of good outside of a large company context. Mostly, she is very good at hiring the right lawyer and getting good value for the hours billed.
It's kind of sad that you need to be a lawyer in order to hire the lawyer that you need.
I'll say this, if you are arrested and charged with something, you need a criminal lawyer who does mainly criminal law. If it is a domestic violence charge (real or something imaginary from crazy-land) get a specialist in DV. If it in any way touches on civil rights law, get somebody with experience in civil rights litigation. If firearms are involved in any way, make absolutely certain that the lawyer understands your state's gun laws forwards and backwards. (In California, call the CalGuns Foundation hotline: http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/)
What crop? You didn't save corn seed, unless you were growing up on a farm during World War II. Soy beans, yes you probably saved that before the GMO days.
Citation? How about looking at the crop yields from the Iowa farm my great-grandfather homesteaded. The citation is my brother's income tax return, he manages the farm now. Or the yields being produced by the tenants on my father-in-law's Minnesota farm. Next question?
And let me educate you on the food chain. Yellow corn is a feed grain, not a food grain. You don't eat it. It is eaten by the animals that you eat.
I agree chemical over-use is a problem. I'm more concerned about chemicals in the ground water and run-off. As far as that goes, borer-resistant maize allows a reduction in pesticide application for the control of borers. Another valid concern with GMO varieties is the creation of 'super-pests' that evolve immunity to GMO features. Iowa, at least, requires you to plant 20% "refuge rows" -- that is 20% of every field planted to, say, a borer-resistant variety, must be planted with a non-resistant variety so that the borer moths don't evolve immunity. Who came up with the 20% number, I don't know, I sure has heck hope it is right. If you're going to worry about something, worry about something real, not something made up.
And I don't defend Monsanto. Just trying to inject a few facts into the discussion. GMO crop seeds do make business sense to the farmers, or they would not be used. Do you honestly believe that people that run a business involving a multi-million dollar capital investment can't do the math?
Yes, all true. And not in conflict with anything I said. Pretty much any GMO seed is also a hybred seed. Don't underestimate the economic value of corn-borer resistant maize or Roundup Ready soy beans.
What exactly concerns you about GMO grains?
Actually, it does pencil out. Hybred and genetically engineered seeds do produce signficantly higher yields, and in some cases reduce need for pestricides. They reduce risk by being drought resistant. Seed cost is just one of many costs of getting a crop into the ground and getting the harvest out. Fuel, fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, land rent (paid or opportunity cost) and labor all need to be accounted for.
Hybred seeds have been around for ages, and with maize, there is natural intellecual property protection, because the hybred is 'unstable', that is, you can't replant the seeds from the crop that you grow because the resulting maize plants are sterile and/or deformed. Of course, they can be stabalized with a final cross, but seed producers don't do that. Soy beans, OTOH, can not be produced in an unstable hybred. So a farmer can keep part of his bean crop and plant that as seed next year. With the advent of genetically modified soy seed, Monsanto quit *selling* soy seed, and started *licensing* soy seed.
It's always a tough sell to get someone to buy into a major change in methodology for a marginal improvement that is not clearly demonstrable. The only way to sell any new technology is to clearly demonstrate a marked advantage to adopting the new technology, with a demonstration that is clear and awakening. Thus it was ever so.
My translation of the summary is "I made my pitch, but people keep asking me: 'Why bother?', I shouldn't have to answer that! They are so mean! WAAAHHHH"
Sorry, I don't have a citation. It was a number of years ago... back when I read dead-trees newspapers. I vaguely recall that it was in an Op Ed in the San Jose Mercury News.
OK, so I can't type today.
... in the state of Iowa was on line, Iowa would be a net importer of maize in a *normal* year. Something is wrong with this picture.
Yes, too true. The post just above yours says "Even 5 years ago I might have said you made that up." Well --- as I recall (and can't take time now to search newspaper archives) -- somewhere back before the INS was part of DHS (certainly more than 5 years), an INS agent detained a well-dressed Hispanic man on the streets of downtown San Jose over the lunch hour, and asked to see his green card. The man replied that he was a US-born citizen whose family had been in California since before it was a state. The INS agent continued to hassle him -- until someone managed to whack him with a clue-bat and tell him to stop hassling the Vice Mayor of San Jose.
The attack on civil liberties in this country has gotten far, far out of hand. It is time to put a stop to it, and the best bet right now is narrow, targeted lawsuits.
Really? Imagine a woman who has a restraining order against a violent ex-husband that she has been hiding from, and who owns a gun to keep him from beating her and her kids again just in case he finds them. Tell me again how she isn't harmed.
Retired police have the right to carry in any state. The police unions' argument is that bad people that they helped put away might seek them out for revenge and the cops, even ex-cops, need to defend themselves. Why is the con's ex-wife's life worth something less?