Forget the EC - if liberals really have a problem with anything except perfectly equal representation everywhere, they'd have to abolish the Senate too.
The point that I think they're missing is that we have a government of checks and balances - this is a *feature*, not a bug. The electoral college gives the possibility for a minority revolt, which is exactly what happened here. The majority ruled with too harsh a hand, made too many executive orders, and gave too little respect to the minority - and now the minority is in power to undo that damage. And the minority will *continue* to be in power until the majority can reach out to them, and peel away their support through compromise, rather than tongue lashing.
tl;dr - you can set up a government to incentivize one of three things - absolute majority rule (pure democracy), absolute minority rule (monarchy), or compromise government between majorities and minorities. We live in the third.
I'm not sure if you're really getting the point here. It's fine to state "94% certainty that 2015 was the hottest year", but it is irresponsible and fake news to flatly state "2015 was the hottest year".
I'm not arguing what year was the hottest, I'm arguing that it is fake news to report it without the caveats of uncertainty - even if they're above 90%.
tl;dr - some people reported that clinton had a 99% chance of victory, and some people reported flatly that clinton was going to win. One of these was fake news, the other one just didn't beat the odds.
Agreed - and I think that your rationale works for the self-defense side - "outliers and a sad story with a friendly face should not drive policy". As tragic as negligent discharge accidents are, we shouldn't use these outliers to disenfranchise millions of safety conscious, law abiding gun owners. There will always be victims of accidents, be it with firearms, buckets with water, or falling furniture, the question is whether the incredibly rare accident should eliminate the right of self-defense, water use, or furniture ownership.
You need to qualify that with the uncertainty for every year through which you're comparing it.
That is to say, if 1880-1978 are different than the satellite era of 1979-present, you cannot blithely state that 2016 is the hottest year from 1880-2016 (note, I'm not saying it *isn't*, I'm saying that proper uncertainty bars aren't being presented).
In particular, I'd love to see the uncertainty bars around 1934. I haven't seen any presentation of NASA data that characterizes that specifically, although they have presented uncertainty measures for recent data (oddly unreported by our MSM fake news:) ).
So why can't we do the same with guns ? Why can we not at least restrict gun ownership to people who have proven they know how to be responsible with them ?
No problems there. Not everyone should have a gun, but anyone who is willing to learn and train and abide by the law should have that right.
I can't imagine why anybody would want one in a residence
Not saying these are high frequency occurrences, but the obvious answers:
* home invasion * WROL scenario (riots, for example, that I have personally experienced)
Put another way, it's better to have a gun and not need one, than need a gun and not have one:)
Using a gun defensively just increases the risk of it being somebody else who dies.
Defensive use of a gun doesn't require you to discharge your weapon, just as defensive use of your car doesn't require you to sideswipe a reckless driver off the road. Simply having the weapon can be enough to deter a criminal most of the times, and more than that, just having the *chance* of having a weapon can be enough to deter a criminal most of the time. tl;dr - there's a reason why most high profile mass shootings happen in gun free zones
Optimists don't worry about negligible risks like violent crime.
Sure they do. It's idealists that don't:)
I really don't trust cops with guns - but I can't in good conscience take their guns away and let you keep yours.
Funny, I feel exactly the opposite way. Knowing the culture of "gun guys", I would much rather have the guy practicing at the range with me armed than a cop who simply requalifies once a year. In fact, given the fact that civilian use of force is so much more scrutinized, I'll even argue that civilians are much more likely to be safe with their weapons than police. A police officer who kills someone in the line of duty has the protection of his union, and a bunch of the legal system. A civilian who kills someone in self defense, even when it's completely legit, is held accountable in extreme ways.
A reasonable projection - based on the century long continuous decline in voilent crime rates - of when that reverse would come into being if it really hadn't done so already.
My problem with your choice of a century as a timescale is that there are too many confounding variables. Society, culture, technology, economy, infrastructure, have all changed dramatically over 100 years, and it's very hard to assert even a standard reporting of violent crime over that period of time.
Cognitive dissonance exercise for you (since I think you mentioned you believed in global warming obliquely) - given that 1916 was a worse time for humanity than 2016, and we experienced a change of approximately +0.8C of warming, why shouldn't we expect the same benefit from the next +0.8C of warming over the next hundred years?
A responsible gun owner, by definition, is not keeping his gun ready - that would not be responsible.
I firmly disagree. A CCW holder is a responsible gun owner, and keeps his gun ready. And even if you're not carrying in the house, if you have a proper safe, you can get to your loaded firearm in an emergency while still keeping your family safe from accidents. (Oh, and don't forget to keep your wife trained and your kids trained in safety and operation too!)
Those guys may not be any better with a gun than you - but they show up with their guns already loaded and they are q
There are about a thousand gun accident victims for every crime victim now - are THOSE just collateral damage to you ? How far does the ratio have to skew before you care more about them than about the few who still get killed by criminals ?
And this is *almost* the right question. You're on the right path though...here's what we need:
1) deaths due to accidental/negligent discharge of a firearm per year (about 505 according to the CDC in 2013) 2) lawful defensive use of firearms per year (estimated a minimum of 760,000)
For me, that's a pretty skewed ratio. Granted #2 is only a possible death or serious injury, but my bet is that eliminating the lawful defensive use of firearms would create much more than 505 deaths per year.
Treat the rape culture that encourages it.Teach men not to rape.
And teach terrorists not to terror, and murderers not to murder, and thieves not to steal:) In the meantime, in a world of unreformed rapists, terrorists, murderers and thieves, I'd like my daughters to be prepared to defend themselves with lethal force.
I spoke about morality, I said nothing about the law.
Okay, so morally, we should expect our police officers to be shot at first before ever using their service firearms? Do we wait for the hostage to be shot in the head before sniping the kidnapper?
You can't teach intelligence or responsibility. It's simply beyond the means of most people to learn.
Are you sure you've learned it?:) And given that pessimistic view of humanity, should we be letting them drive around in cars?
I fear both - but it's a LOT easier to defend myself against the former. I know how to drive defensively, I even took extra lessons to learn how to do that better.
Do you walk on sidewalks defensively too? And if you're allowed to have a car to drive defensively, why would you decline to allow people to defend themselves with firearms?
We can't get people to wear their seatbelts and you think you an achieve THIS on a sufficient scale to make a dent ?
Absolutely. I'm an optimist:)
if you can't pass a test on gun safety - including but not limited to proof you can actually hit what you are aiming at with VERY high results - then you shouldn't have one.
I agree entirely. Practice and training are key, and you'd be horrified to hear that most police only have to qualify with their sidearm once a year, and a passing score can be as low as 70% in some jurisdictions.
Now here's the kicker - I love guns. I was a professional sport-shot. I can hit a 1-inch bulls-eye at 50 yards 9 out of 10 times - and I can do that with pistols.
That's an awfully nice pistol for that kind of accuracy:) I never competed professionally, but did both rifle team and pistol team in high school and college. For self-defense, I can hit center body mass 10 out of 10 times at 20 yards with a pistol, although I would never take a shot at that kind of range in a self defense situation. At 20 yards with a pistol, it's time to run for cover. I'd estimate the longest distance you'd want to even attempt a shot would be 21 feet (as per the Tueller drill).
And yeah - acceptable losses since all together those are STILL less than what used to be killed by gun accidents - by a factor of a hundred.
I take it if the data showed a reverse ratio, you'd reconsider your position?
Crime is not a risk that concerns me, crime rates are dropping, and have been for a century, they will keep dropping.
That's a wonderful amount of self-security you have:) I hope you can accept that for victims of crime, this is cold comfort.
Evidence that, with the lowest crime rate in human history and dropping - self defense is a need you should give a thought to at all.
So for you, the casualties of criminals who cannot be stopped in time by a government police force are simply acceptable collateral damage?
It's simply the wrong tool for the job on every level.
I'm not sure what kind of reasons you would believe that a woman accosted by multiple men wouldn't be better off with a firearm for self defense. Are you arguing that perhaps pepper spray or a rape whistle are better at self defense?
it's morally wrong to suggest that you are justified to use lethal force for self defense at ANY moment up to where lethal force has been used against you.
Actually, the law looks at three things - Ability, Opportunity, and Jeopardy. To assert that one must wait for actual lethal force (rather than jeopardy of serious harm or death), is silly. Should a police officer wait to be shot first before shooting back?
But I do fear idiots with guns and if you don't - then you're the biggest idiot of all.
The answer to idiocy is education. Teach people proper handling of firearms. Hell, I fear idiots with *cars* more than I fear idiots with guns, and if you don't, then *you're* the biggest idiot of all:)
For everybody who is smart enough to handle guns safely, there will ALWAYS be 20 who are idiots with them and get innocent people killed.
Apply the same thought to cars. Tell me if you feel any differently:)
The point of gun control is more than anything else to end gun ACCIDENTS.
The best way to prevent accidents is training.
The second major thing it prevents is mass shootings
Interesting, Australia did something like that in response to a mass shooting, and while they haven't had another mass shooting since, they've had increases in rape, murder, assault, and suicide by means other than firearm. Acceptable losses in your mind?
We don't need to disarm criminals - they are a dying breed anyway. We just have to wait until there aren't anymore, and the risk of having to deal with one now is already so low that if you ever spend a single second worrying about it
That's an amazingly optimistic view of Chicago:)
Now, look, I get your argument - you're doing a cost benefit analysis, and you've measured the costs in accidents and mass shootings against the benefits of lawful self defense, and found it weighed in one direction. I'll caution you that perhaps your cost benefit analysis is skewed, and those who disagree with you aren't gun nuts, but simply rational actors who have used your same basic argument, but have started from different premises.
Again, if you want to educate yourself further, I highly suggest John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime". Even if you don't agree with his end conclusion, it may provide you with some food for thought if your mind is still open to learning more on the topic.
John Lott. More Guns, Less Crime. Decent book, worth a read for you.
Now, that being said, gun control nuts would actually get more sympathy from me if they dropped all the bullshit attempts at rationalization and just admitted there is nothing rational about gun control. Just admit it. You're just scared of guns. It makes you feel uncomfortable. Whether it is just a mangina thing, or a cry for a benevolent daddy of government to protect you from boogey men. Just admit it. It's an emotional thing. You have some emotional need to remove guns from the hands of your fellow citizens and leave them only in the hands of your government minders and tenders, as if any of your laws would ever stop a criminal from having a gun.
Just admit you care more about preserving your good feelings of moral superiority by trying to take away the ability of people in harsher circumstances from defending themselves, than you care about all the people raped, murdered, or assaulted who could have remained unvictimized if they had, or some other nearby citizen had, been armed. Just admit that you're okay with letting these people get raped, murdered or assaulted to satisfy your emotional needs.
All mocking aside, if you're going to have a gun, learn safe handling. The basics for children should be taught in school:
1) stop 2) don't touch 3) leave the area 4) tell an adult
For adults, proper safety knowledge of firearms should be mandatory:
1) treat every weapon as if it is loaded 2) never point at anything you don't want to destroy 3) keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot 4) be aware of what is in front of and behind your target
As for an honest conversation, I'm not quite sure if you're ready for one yet:) But if you are, please, tell me, what would convince you that individual americans should have the right to self defense with firearms?
And that's just as terrible as having an explicitly latino-only or black-only group.
Insofar as LBJ, while they might label it "unproven", they do a pretty good job of showing it wouldn't have been out of character: http://www.snopes.com/lbj-voti...
As noted in several online dictionaries, "La Raza" means "the people" or "the community."
If it simply meant "the people" or "the community", why would it explicitly limit itself to latinos and hispanics? Is the implication that whites and blacks, and other non-latinos aren't "people"? Or maybe they must be excluded from "the community"?
Specifically, the goals of SDLRLA are:
Increase the overall number of Latinos in the legal profession.
Encourage and support Latino and Latina judicial candidates to apply to the bench
Advocate for the promotion and retention of Latino and Latina attorneys and judicial officers.
Improve the professional skills of our members through our certified MCLE programs.
Provide for the professional and social interaction among our members and other organized bar associations.
Improve the delivery and access of legal services to the county’s Spanish speaking community.
Provide role models and mentoring to Latino youth through direct interaction with students and school districts.
Strongly advocate positions on judicial, economic and social issues to political leaders and state and local bar associations that impact the Latino community.
It is obvious, from the goals stated by the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, that they are focusing on a single race. If a white adopted child of a latino family joined the legal profession, it wouldn't count to them. If a white spouse of a latina applied to be a judicial candidate, it wouldn't count to them. If the white parent of a latino adopted child was promoted as an attorney, it wouldn't count for them. These, most intimate communal bonds of parent, spouse, and child, are violated by ideas of racial segregation, and give the lie to any translation of "La Raza" as "people" or "community".
The point of guns is protection from people who present a clear and present danger to yourself or other innocents. Whether or not your attackers are using guns, sharp sticks, or just their fists, if they have the ability, opportunity, and you or others are in jeopardy of grievous harm or death, being able to defend yourself is important.
The page represents uncertainty ranges for a single year.
The page compares temperatures from 1880-2015.
The implication of the comparison is that it is apples-to-apples, that is, we can say that X year is the hottest year in 1880-2015, because we have the same uncertainty in measurement for every year.
Now, if in fact the error bars around earlier temperatures in the range of 1880-2015 are significant (say specifically for 1934), it is possible that our "hottest year" claims are only a probability, not a certainty.
The bottom line here is that flat claims of "hottest year ever" without specifying uncertainty, across the entire scale of comparison, is fake news. One may argue that the general public is too ignorant to comprehend uncertainty, and the differences in uncertainty over the years, but the answer to that isn't inappropriate simplification, it's better education on uncertainty.
You're the one's who digging into his words literally, and for some reason refusing to accept the serious (and obvious) basis for Trump's complaint (The judge's heritage, not any position he or any group ever advocated).
Well, sadly, we can't actually take his initial words literally (the WSJ never released any transcript of his interview with them), but his follow up, where he called the judge's group "very pro-Mexican", is seriously about his ability to be impartial, not literally about the group being explicitly "pro Mexican". La Raza (and any other group that identifies hispanics and latinos as "The Race"), is obviously unable to be impartial about any immigration issues regarding the southern border of the United States.
He's assuming that someone that he's never met would not be able to their job, based entirely on their religious affiliation.
Taken out of context - he said it was *possible*. I would assume that being part of some fundamentalist mosque or Muslim Brotherhood group would make it more definitive.
And it's pretty convenient, too. He could take a bunch of ridiculous positions, and then all of sudden claim nobody is capable of being a judge in his case.
Absolutely fair point. That being said, I think the larger issue here is that the MSM has put on blinders to racism unless it's being perpetrated by the KKK or white nationalists. The idea of race-based groups in the United States, regardless of the race in question, is racist, period.
In my lifetime (and I'm not that old), most professional groups were the equivalent of your 'White Peoples Lawyers Association'.
The equivalent would be a lawyer's association dedicated to the service of caucasians, and limiting membership to caucasians. You may decry their internal ethnic diversity as "mostly white" (or even effectively "all white"), but the response shouldn't be to create a competing association with racial overtones, it should be to join the association and act as equal members.
Fails the laugh test. Nobody can possibly assert we measured 1880 global temperatures +/- 0.08, yet they take their 2015 (where they assert such accuracy), and compare it to the other, much less certain years.
Totally agree about #1 (http://www.vice.com/video/radley-balko-on-the-militarization-of-americas-police-force), but I'll respectfully disagree with the phrasing of #2. Income inequality doesn't matter, it's actual standard of living. Nobody cares if 3 people own 99% of all the wealth of the world, if the remaining 1% of wealth gives you a first world lifestyle with a house, car, food, and luxuries. Everybody will shit a brick if wealth is equally distributed amongst every man, woman, and child, but the quality of life is a grass hut with no electricity and starvation rations.
"Sensor measurement uncertainty has never been fully considered in prior appraisals of global average surface air temperature. The estimated average ±0.2 C station error has been incorrectly assessed as random, and the systematic error from uncontrolled variables has been invariably neglected. The systematic errors in measurements from three ideally sited and maintained temperature sensors are calculated herein. Combined with the ±0.2 C average station error, a representative lower-limit uncertainty of ±0.46 C was found for any global annual surface air temperature anomaly. This ±0.46 C reveals that the global surface air temperature anomaly trend from 1880 through 2000 is statistically indistinguishable from 0 C, and represents a lower limit of calibration uncertainty for climate models and for any prospective physically justifiable proxy reconstruction of paleo-temperature. The rate and magnitude of 20th century warming are thus unknowable, and suggestions of an unprecedented trend in 20th century global air temperature are unsustainable."
So, targeted slavery is bad, but universal slavery is okay?
Universal gun control would be removing guns from police, secret service, and outlawing private security from carrying, as many rich and politically connected people do.
Make no mistake, all gun control is targeted against the lower-class masses, and privileging the government above the people.
The thing that kills me about Tesla is that I see a bunch of rich folks driving them around, subsidized by the tax dollars of the masses.
If you really like the idea of electric vehicles, you'd be working on little tiny craptastic bikes that could be affordable commuter options for folks making minimum wage (price them cheaper than the bus, and give credits only based on income).
"2016 is the hottest year on record" is fake news if you don't include the error bars in your measurements. Even if you're doing data adjustments for various reasons, you don't get to pretend that you can measure the average global temperature to the 100ths of a degree with any sort of accuracy.
This is similar to the "fake news" of presidential polls, which while *provided* with error bars by the polling organizations, were *presented* as if those error bars didn't exist by news organizations. Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com was about the only MSM outlet making any reasonable attempt to speak to the high uncertainty of the election.
"protect[ing] american workers [is] racist" is also fake - it may be *nationalist*, but it sure as hell ain't racist.
Well, like it or not, laws against owning and carrying firearms were first created to stop black people from being armed. That's a sad genesis for the rabid gun control groups out there willing to see thousands die each year in Chiraq, with their dream gun control laws fully in place there.
That being said, I hope you can discern between NRA leadership (which botched the Castile case), and NRA members, who were also outraged:
"This time, however, the NRA faces an internal division as its members argue the group did not do enough to defend gun owners' rights by speaking out on behalf of Castile."
Let's also remember that the shooter in Castile's death wasn't a white guy - he was, however, a blue guy. And that's the problem - blue guys have too much power over us. We should not outsource our personal self defense to blue guys, and we should have much stricter rules of engagement for blue guys. I get it, it's a shit job and there is real risk of being shot in an ambush by thugs, but *that's the job*. The past few notable unjustifiable cop shootings I've seen have been driven by jittery cops, not any form of systemic racism.
A few thoughts for reform:
1) end police unions - cops who shoot people have way too many union protections to allow them time to make up phony stories. 2) use tech to avoid risk - maybe video conference via drone to the driver suspected of some traffic violation "sir, please place your license and registration in the slot", and have the drone return it to the officer who is a safe distance away from any possible ambush, or just use facial recognition to find someone's license and registration, instead of asking them for a fucking paper copy. 3) national right to carry - when seconds count cops are just minutes away 4) no more "broken tail light" crap stops - unless you're going to fix it on the spot for the person. We've got traffic laws built for revenue generation rather than public safety, and the unintended consequences (as well as the intended ones), are bullshit.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up. Probably the second time in a decade I've ever seen someone graciously accept an apology in a /. thread :)
Mod parent up. Probably the third time in a decade I've ever seen someone apologize in a /. thread :)
Forget the EC - if liberals really have a problem with anything except perfectly equal representation everywhere, they'd have to abolish the Senate too.
The point that I think they're missing is that we have a government of checks and balances - this is a *feature*, not a bug. The electoral college gives the possibility for a minority revolt, which is exactly what happened here. The majority ruled with too harsh a hand, made too many executive orders, and gave too little respect to the minority - and now the minority is in power to undo that damage. And the minority will *continue* to be in power until the majority can reach out to them, and peel away their support through compromise, rather than tongue lashing.
tl;dr - you can set up a government to incentivize one of three things - absolute majority rule (pure democracy), absolute minority rule (monarchy), or compromise government between majorities and minorities. We live in the third.
I'm not sure if you're really getting the point here. It's fine to state "94% certainty that 2015 was the hottest year", but it is irresponsible and fake news to flatly state "2015 was the hottest year".
I'm not arguing what year was the hottest, I'm arguing that it is fake news to report it without the caveats of uncertainty - even if they're above 90%.
tl;dr - some people reported that clinton had a 99% chance of victory, and some people reported flatly that clinton was going to win. One of these was fake news, the other one just didn't beat the odds.
Agreed - and I think that your rationale works for the self-defense side - "outliers and a sad story with a friendly face should not drive policy". As tragic as negligent discharge accidents are, we shouldn't use these outliers to disenfranchise millions of safety conscious, law abiding gun owners. There will always be victims of accidents, be it with firearms, buckets with water, or falling furniture, the question is whether the incredibly rare accident should eliminate the right of self-defense, water use, or furniture ownership.
Actually, take a closer look here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
I think this does a good job of presenting the % probability based on the 95% confidence interval what years might be considered ranked as what.
tl;dr - claiming any "hottest year evar" is fake news, being specific "X% possible hottest year evar" is real news.
Looks like this is the closest I could find to 95% confidence intervals: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
The difference in uncertainty between early measurements and recent ones is *huge*.
You need to qualify that with the uncertainty for every year through which you're comparing it.
That is to say, if 1880-1978 are different than the satellite era of 1979-present, you cannot blithely state that 2016 is the hottest year from 1880-2016 (note, I'm not saying it *isn't*, I'm saying that proper uncertainty bars aren't being presented).
In particular, I'd love to see the uncertainty bars around 1934. I haven't seen any presentation of NASA data that characterizes that specifically, although they have presented uncertainty measures for recent data (oddly unreported by our MSM fake news :) ).
Looks like they've been readjusting their expectations: http://news.sky.com/story/poli...
No problems there. Not everyone should have a gun, but anyone who is willing to learn and train and abide by the law should have that right.
Not saying these are high frequency occurrences, but the obvious answers:
* home invasion
* WROL scenario (riots, for example, that I have personally experienced)
Put another way, it's better to have a gun and not need one, than need a gun and not have one :)
Defensive use of a gun doesn't require you to discharge your weapon, just as defensive use of your car doesn't require you to sideswipe a reckless driver off the road. Simply having the weapon can be enough to deter a criminal most of the times, and more than that, just having the *chance* of having a weapon can be enough to deter a criminal most of the time. tl;dr - there's a reason why most high profile mass shootings happen in gun free zones
Sure they do. It's idealists that don't :)
Funny, I feel exactly the opposite way. Knowing the culture of "gun guys", I would much rather have the guy practicing at the range with me armed than a cop who simply requalifies once a year. In fact, given the fact that civilian use of force is so much more scrutinized, I'll even argue that civilians are much more likely to be safe with their weapons than police. A police officer who kills someone in the line of duty has the protection of his union, and a bunch of the legal system. A civilian who kills someone in self defense, even when it's completely legit, is held accountable in extreme ways.
My problem with your choice of a century as a timescale is that there are too many confounding variables. Society, culture, technology, economy, infrastructure, have all changed dramatically over 100 years, and it's very hard to assert even a standard reporting of violent crime over that period of time.
Cognitive dissonance exercise for you (since I think you mentioned you believed in global warming obliquely) - given that 1916 was a worse time for humanity than 2016, and we experienced a change of approximately +0.8C of warming, why shouldn't we expect the same benefit from the next +0.8C of warming over the next hundred years?
I firmly disagree. A CCW holder is a responsible gun owner, and keeps his gun ready. And even if you're not carrying in the house, if you have a proper safe, you can get to your loaded firearm in an emergency while still keeping your family safe from accidents. (Oh, and don't forget to keep your wife trained and your kids trained in safety and operation too!)
And this is *almost* the right question. You're on the right path though...here's what we need:
1) deaths due to accidental/negligent discharge of a firearm per year (about 505 according to the CDC in 2013)
2) lawful defensive use of firearms per year (estimated a minimum of 760,000)
For me, that's a pretty skewed ratio. Granted #2 is only a possible death or serious injury, but my bet is that eliminating the lawful defensive use of firearms would create much more than 505 deaths per year.
And teach terrorists not to terror, and murderers not to murder, and thieves not to steal :) In the meantime, in a world of unreformed rapists, terrorists, murderers and thieves, I'd like my daughters to be prepared to defend themselves with lethal force.
Okay, so morally, we should expect our police officers to be shot at first before ever using their service firearms? Do we wait for the hostage to be shot in the head before sniping the kidnapper?
Are you sure you've learned it? :) And given that pessimistic view of humanity, should we be letting them drive around in cars?
Do you walk on sidewalks defensively too? And if you're allowed to have a car to drive defensively, why would you decline to allow people to defend themselves with firearms?
Absolutely. I'm an optimist :)
I agree entirely. Practice and training are key, and you'd be horrified to hear that most police only have to qualify with their sidearm once a year, and a passing score can be as low as 70% in some jurisdictions.
That's an awfully nice pistol for that kind of accuracy :) I never competed professionally, but did both rifle team and pistol team in high school and college. For self-defense, I can hit center body mass 10 out of 10 times at 20 yards with a pistol, although I would never take a shot at that kind of range in a self defense situation. At 20 yards with a pistol, it's time to run for cover. I'd estimate the longest distance you'd want to even attempt a shot would be 21 feet (as per the Tueller drill).
I take it if the data showed a reverse ratio, you'd reconsider your position?
That's a wonderful amount of self-security you have :) I hope you can accept that for victims of crime, this is cold comfort.
So for you, the casualties of criminals who cannot be stopped in time by a government police force are simply acceptable collateral damage?
I'm not sure what kind of reasons you would believe that a woman accosted by multiple men wouldn't be better off with a firearm for self defense. Are you arguing that perhaps pepper spray or a rape whistle are better at self defense?
Actually, the law looks at three things - Ability, Opportunity, and Jeopardy. To assert that one must wait for actual lethal force (rather than jeopardy of serious harm or death), is silly. Should a police officer wait to be shot first before shooting back?
The answer to idiocy is education. Teach people proper handling of firearms. Hell, I fear idiots with *cars* more than I fear idiots with guns, and if you don't, then *you're* the biggest idiot of all :)
Apply the same thought to cars. Tell me if you feel any differently :)
The best way to prevent accidents is training.
Interesting, Australia did something like that in response to a mass shooting, and while they haven't had another mass shooting since, they've had increases in rape, murder, assault, and suicide by means other than firearm. Acceptable losses in your mind?
That's an amazingly optimistic view of Chicago :)
Now, look, I get your argument - you're doing a cost benefit analysis, and you've measured the costs in accidents and mass shootings against the benefits of lawful self defense, and found it weighed in one direction. I'll caution you that perhaps your cost benefit analysis is skewed, and those who disagree with you aren't gun nuts, but simply rational actors who have used your same basic argument, but have started from different premises.
Again, if you want to educate yourself further, I highly suggest John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime". Even if you don't agree with his end conclusion, it may provide you with some food for thought if your mind is still open to learning more on the topic.
John Lott. More Guns, Less Crime. Decent book, worth a read for you.
Now, that being said, gun control nuts would actually get more sympathy from me if they dropped all the bullshit attempts at rationalization and just admitted there is nothing rational about gun control. Just admit it. You're just scared of guns. It makes you feel uncomfortable. Whether it is just a mangina thing, or a cry for a benevolent daddy of government to protect you from boogey men. Just admit it. It's an emotional thing. You have some emotional need to remove guns from the hands of your fellow citizens and leave them only in the hands of your government minders and tenders, as if any of your laws would ever stop a criminal from having a gun.
Just admit you care more about preserving your good feelings of moral superiority by trying to take away the ability of people in harsher circumstances from defending themselves, than you care about all the people raped, murdered, or assaulted who could have remained unvictimized if they had, or some other nearby citizen had, been armed. Just admit that you're okay with letting these people get raped, murdered or assaulted to satisfy your emotional needs.
All mocking aside, if you're going to have a gun, learn safe handling. The basics for children should be taught in school:
1) stop
2) don't touch
3) leave the area
4) tell an adult
For adults, proper safety knowledge of firearms should be mandatory:
1) treat every weapon as if it is loaded
2) never point at anything you don't want to destroy
3) keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot
4) be aware of what is in front of and behind your target
As for an honest conversation, I'm not quite sure if you're ready for one yet :) But if you are, please, tell me, what would convince you that individual americans should have the right to self defense with firearms?
And that's just as terrible as having an explicitly latino-only or black-only group.
Insofar as LBJ, while they might label it "unproven", they do a pretty good job of showing it wouldn't have been out of character: http://www.snopes.com/lbj-voti...
If it simply meant "the people" or "the community", why would it explicitly limit itself to latinos and hispanics? Is the implication that whites and blacks, and other non-latinos aren't "people"? Or maybe they must be excluded from "the community"?
It is obvious, from the goals stated by the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, that they are focusing on a single race. If a white adopted child of a latino family joined the legal profession, it wouldn't count to them. If a white spouse of a latina applied to be a judicial candidate, it wouldn't count to them. If the white parent of a latino adopted child was promoted as an attorney, it wouldn't count for them. These, most intimate communal bonds of parent, spouse, and child, are violated by ideas of racial segregation, and give the lie to any translation of "La Raza" as "people" or "community".
The point of guns is protection from people who present a clear and present danger to yourself or other innocents. Whether or not your attackers are using guns, sharp sticks, or just their fists, if they have the ability, opportunity, and you or others are in jeopardy of grievous harm or death, being able to defend yourself is important.
The page represents uncertainty ranges for a single year.
The page compares temperatures from 1880-2015.
The implication of the comparison is that it is apples-to-apples, that is, we can say that X year is the hottest year in 1880-2015, because we have the same uncertainty in measurement for every year.
Now, if in fact the error bars around earlier temperatures in the range of 1880-2015 are significant (say specifically for 1934), it is possible that our "hottest year" claims are only a probability, not a certainty.
The bottom line here is that flat claims of "hottest year ever" without specifying uncertainty, across the entire scale of comparison, is fake news. One may argue that the general public is too ignorant to comprehend uncertainty, and the differences in uncertainty over the years, but the answer to that isn't inappropriate simplification, it's better education on uncertainty.
Well, sadly, we can't actually take his initial words literally (the WSJ never released any transcript of his interview with them), but his follow up, where he called the judge's group "very pro-Mexican", is seriously about his ability to be impartial, not literally about the group being explicitly "pro Mexican". La Raza (and any other group that identifies hispanics and latinos as "The Race"), is obviously unable to be impartial about any immigration issues regarding the southern border of the United States.
Taken out of context - he said it was *possible*. I would assume that being part of some fundamentalist mosque or Muslim Brotherhood group would make it more definitive.
Absolutely fair point. That being said, I think the larger issue here is that the MSM has put on blinders to racism unless it's being perpetrated by the KKK or white nationalists. The idea of race-based groups in the United States, regardless of the race in question, is racist, period.
The equivalent would be a lawyer's association dedicated to the service of caucasians, and limiting membership to caucasians. You may decry their internal ethnic diversity as "mostly white" (or even effectively "all white"), but the response shouldn't be to create a competing association with racial overtones, it should be to join the association and act as equal members.
tl;dr - seemingly benign racism is still racism
I don't believe in the arbitrary, pernicious concept of "race".
Even if I did believe in such an arbitrary, pernicious concept of "race", I certainly wouldn't say that all americans are a single "race".
The idea that protecting *americans* is synonymous with protecting a single "race", is silly.
Fails the laugh test. Nobody can possibly assert we measured 1880 global temperatures +/- 0.08, yet they take their 2015 (where they assert such accuracy), and compare it to the other, much less certain years.
Here, direct cite to the paper that claims greater uncertainty: http://www.eike-klima-energie....
tl;dr - discounting measurement noise as randomly distributed gives you a false sense of certainty.
Other than both were targeted towards black people in the United States.
The reducto ad absurdum is meant to make you think - does making an evil "universal" make it moral, whereas when it is targeted it is not?
They do a great job of shooting people without being armed :)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-226...
"A man has been killed in a machete attack and two suspects shot and wounded by police in Woolwich, south-east London."
But surely you agree they shouldn't make laws that don't apply to them, and *target* only the masses, right?
Totally agree about #1 (http://www.vice.com/video/radley-balko-on-the-militarization-of-americas-police-force), but I'll respectfully disagree with the phrasing of #2. Income inequality doesn't matter, it's actual standard of living. Nobody cares if 3 people own 99% of all the wealth of the world, if the remaining 1% of wealth gives you a first world lifestyle with a house, car, food, and luxuries. Everybody will shit a brick if wealth is equally distributed amongst every man, woman, and child, but the quality of life is a grass hut with no electricity and starvation rations.
If the uncertainty bars are greater than 1/4 of a degree, would you agree that you're spouting fake news? :)
Let's check for ourselves:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20...
"Sensor measurement uncertainty has never been fully considered in prior appraisals of global average surface air temperature. The estimated average ±0.2 C station error has been incorrectly assessed as random, and the systematic error from uncontrolled variables has been invariably neglected. The systematic errors in measurements from three ideally sited and maintained temperature sensors are calculated herein. Combined with the ±0.2 C average station error, a representative lower-limit uncertainty of ±0.46 C was found for any global annual surface air temperature anomaly. This ±0.46 C reveals that the global surface air temperature anomaly trend from 1880 through 2000 is statistically indistinguishable from 0 C, and represents a lower limit of calibration uncertainty for climate models and for any prospective physically justifiable proxy reconstruction of paleo-temperature. The rate and magnitude of 20th century warming are thus unknowable, and suggestions of an unprecedented trend in 20th century global air temperature are unsustainable."
Call me when you get above .46 of a degree :)
So, targeted slavery is bad, but universal slavery is okay?
Universal gun control would be removing guns from police, secret service, and outlawing private security from carrying, as many rich and politically connected people do.
Make no mistake, all gun control is targeted against the lower-class masses, and privileging the government above the people.
The thing that kills me about Tesla is that I see a bunch of rich folks driving them around, subsidized by the tax dollars of the masses.
If you really like the idea of electric vehicles, you'd be working on little tiny craptastic bikes that could be affordable commuter options for folks making minimum wage (price them cheaper than the bus, and give credits only based on income).
"2016 is the hottest year on record" is fake news if you don't include the error bars in your measurements. Even if you're doing data adjustments for various reasons, you don't get to pretend that you can measure the average global temperature to the 100ths of a degree with any sort of accuracy.
This is similar to the "fake news" of presidential polls, which while *provided* with error bars by the polling organizations, were *presented* as if those error bars didn't exist by news organizations. Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com was about the only MSM outlet making any reasonable attempt to speak to the high uncertainty of the election.
"protect[ing] american workers [is] racist" is also fake - it may be *nationalist*, but it sure as hell ain't racist.
Well, like it or not, laws against owning and carrying firearms were first created to stop black people from being armed. That's a sad genesis for the rabid gun control groups out there willing to see thousands die each year in Chiraq, with their dream gun control laws fully in place there.
That being said, I hope you can discern between NRA leadership (which botched the Castile case), and NRA members, who were also outraged:
http://www.nola.com/crime/inde...
"This time, however, the NRA faces an internal division as its members argue the group did not do enough to defend gun owners' rights by speaking out on behalf of Castile."
Let's also remember that the shooter in Castile's death wasn't a white guy - he was, however, a blue guy. And that's the problem - blue guys have too much power over us. We should not outsource our personal self defense to blue guys, and we should have much stricter rules of engagement for blue guys. I get it, it's a shit job and there is real risk of being shot in an ambush by thugs, but *that's the job*. The past few notable unjustifiable cop shootings I've seen have been driven by jittery cops, not any form of systemic racism.
A few thoughts for reform:
1) end police unions - cops who shoot people have way too many union protections to allow them time to make up phony stories.
2) use tech to avoid risk - maybe video conference via drone to the driver suspected of some traffic violation "sir, please place your license and registration in the slot", and have the drone return it to the officer who is a safe distance away from any possible ambush, or just use facial recognition to find someone's license and registration, instead of asking them for a fucking paper copy.
3) national right to carry - when seconds count cops are just minutes away
4) no more "broken tail light" crap stops - unless you're going to fix it on the spot for the person. We've got traffic laws built for revenue generation rather than public safety, and the unintended consequences (as well as the intended ones), are bullshit.