Hey, so far it's not been more than one per day! As I get more efficient at assembling them, some days will likely have two of them, but a) they'll always be in the section, and so are blockable and b) I dunno, some people seem to like them, and I (mostly) enjoy creating them.
I don't want to get too far into the rest of your post (well... I do, but better that I don't!:)), but I would like to pick a particular graf where I think you're conflating a few different ideas:
You wrote: "Another issue is that type of guns available in the States has no real restriction : large high calibre and semi-auto weapons are available, whereas these guns are not the defence weapon of choice for the home owner, and are far more likely to be used in a crime."
- Large, high-caliber, and semi-auto are orthogonal categories; there are large guns that shoot small bullets and vice versa, and they may or may not be semi-automatic -- it all depends on the particular gun. Many small (and small caliber) guns cannot be imported because of a complicated system of "points" whereby weapon design conventions are applied in a quest for safety (external safety = some number of points, etc.).
- As another poster has pointed out, there are quite a few restrictions in fact on the weapons Americans can buy and the process for doing so; some of these restrictions are Federal, and some are imposed by individual states. In my current state (Pennsylvania), guns are fairly easy for any adult with no criminal background or history of mental illness to obtain, as are concealed carry permits. In other states, most famously (or notoriously, depending on your point of view) California, Maryland and Hawaii, guns are much harder to obtain because of rigorous state-imposed rules, such as state-specific "drop tests." There's quite a patchwork of laws, actually; many guns or accessories are technically legal to own, but only in combination with tax stamps which bless them in the eyes of the BATF, and there too, local rules can impose further restrictions. (Suppressors and fully-automatic weapons are in this category.)
- As to whether "large high calibre and semi-auto weapons" are good for home-defense, or are likely to be used in crime: Well, again, I think there is some semantic overlap between these categories that makes your claim hard to defend. Large caliber semi-autos (I'm thinking of the 1911-style.45 pistol, but of course there are many others) are extremely popular among those whose guns are intended for home defense, and are even a popular carry gun (though not among small folk!); "large" would seem to include rifles and shotguns (though I don't know what baseline you're thinking of), and these too are frequently kept for home defense; a shotgun is often lauded as the best such tool. I can't speak to that, but I can say that a) in the early 1990s, an armed burglar was shot and wounded with a shotgun by my landlord in the apartment next to mine and b) I'm somewhat glad I hadn't at the time read about the sometimes-underestimated ability of shotgun ammo to penetrate walls, because I was 10-15 feet away at the time: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot14.htm
Crimes involving guns more often feature handguns than longarms; some people (like Gary Kleck, a famous defender of guns as crime prevention devices -- and who didn't start out as one) have famously expressed their happiness that more crimes aren't committed with (higher-power, more accurate) longarms. I think that's partly tongue-in-cheek, since I think we can all agree that handguns' smaller size makes them easier to use in certain situations, whether for good or ill.
I know that distant cousins of mine who operate farms keep (and make use of) rifles and shotguns to mercifully put down dying animals, kill predators, and keep wild boar out of their fields; I call that home defense:) (Plus, thanks to the U.S.'s insane drug laws, there's the occasional marijunana farmer, whose respect for anti-gun laws when it comes to his own protection may be shockingly slight.)
Cheers,
timothy
p.s. If you visit a range in the states, try several guns rather than only one; many ranges rent "by the hour" but allow you to swap guns within your alloted time. Once you get the hang of loading whatever it is you're shooting, the real expense is ammo.
I've been mugged at gunpoint only once... and it was with a semiauto. The feel of it against one's neck is different from that of a revolver, at least if it's a semi with the (conventional) large flat surface at the naughty end of the barrel; some (such as any autopistol with a threaded barrel, such as Glocks for the Scandivian market) wouldn't have that of course, but if someone pushes a 1911- or Hi-Power-style pistol into your neck, I think you'd notice the feel of it.
Common sense does not always win out, I realize, but wouldn't it seem that clear notice would suffice to prevent any such character defamation? (Something along the lines of "The presentation you're about to watch varies from the original DVD producion. You're about to watch the film while skipping certain scenes containing content you've elected to bypass.")
No one blames DiVinci for all the ways the Mona Lisa is butchered...
I agree with you -- it should be clearer that Slashdot may display a reader's comment in more than one context. I've requested this, too, but it's one of those things which timewise so far hasn't been high-priority. I'm sure not (yet) a lawyer, but I do think that implied license when posting to a public forum is plentifully sufficient, *really*, but making it more explicit is a good idea. I'll lend you some patience, if you lend me some right back...
"We can defeat the disease; however, you won't live through the battle."
The thing is, even the *legitimate* software on Windows tends to act like it was created with the intent to annoy and harrass; I enjoy turning people on to things like ClamAV which *don't* "expire" or nag the user. I'm typing at the moment on a ThinkPad that's still running Windows (long story; here's a short version, sorta), and here's one of the many annoyances that running Windows brings me. There's a printer for which this laptop has a driver installed, but to which it has not for some time actually been connected. However, every time the machine starts, an annoying, intrusive "printer status" doohickey shows up which complains because the printer is not connected. Thank you, Herr Computer, I was already aware. I don't actually need to "check cables and that power is on" because the printer is several hundred miles away, well beyond USB 2.0 spec. (This stupid message is probably defeatable, but my frustration point is set a bit low when it comes to stupid design decisions, and since easy poking around hasn't located it, I just live with it for now, and gripe. It will, most likely again print using that printer, so I sure don't want to have to remove the stupid over-chatty driver software just to make it shut up, then need later on to reinstall... )
Cheers,
timothy
p.s. You're the first person I've seen on Slashdot from Camp Hill, which is the closest I am to knowing anyone from Camp Hill, even though I'm living in Harrisburg for the summer.
Cool! Thanks much for the response -- it's hard to organize a site so that someone as unintuitive as me can find the right contact info;) Is your best email the one in your Slashdot profile?
I tried to sign up for the forums, after I didn't find an obvious email address for a webmaster, but (and this is before any Slashdotting took place) I got an error message instead. If I knew where to send it, I'd like to send a diff from their current home page text which would include at least a few spelling fixes, etc. Editing is fun:) -- but not when it's a bother...
"Potentially, Slashdot could work in a better way of featuring the best comments instead of posting entire new articles, but in either case, I like it."
Email suggestions:) (Or respond, better, respond to this comment -- it'll be off topic, but I'll be reading.)
This is a new thing for Slashdot (and for me), and there's no way we (I) think it's perfect yet; sometimes, for instance, while sorting comments by type makes them a bit easier to think about, the result is basically little piles of X comments vs. Z comments vs. Q comments, and not really a coherent sequence with a hero, a theme and a resolution:) So, always looking for ways to improve it -- what do you have in mind?
"Does the submitter have a special stutter that only activates itself when they try to type the word "people"?"
No — it was my fault. A mistake of course, but in the course of massaging the text of the comments into a single blob, (changing doubled hyphens to m-dashes, alternating single with double quotation marks, re-forming hyperlinks after cutting in the text-version of a comment, that sort of thing), one of my cut-and-pastes gave every "p" a ppartner which I didn't notice until well after you did. I can't now recall what I might have been *trying* to do, but the ruthless efficiency of cut-and-paste doesn't care what I was trying to do.
So, "Other than that, the parade went just fine."
And I think you've hit on it wrt the non-denial response from Microsoft. They probably think (at least, this is my version!) "People sure do believe anything. No point denying it and looking like weasels, when we could just sit back and let the ones using it out-of-license stew a bit."
"Despite PA's stance on concealed carry though, I hear that Philly is giving you guys a bad rep. Sorry to hear that, hope you can manage to convince them they'd be better off as a part of NY.;)"
You're right about that -- both because it's the most likely place in the state for someone to get mugged, and because as an (alleged) "City of the First Class" Philadelphia is often specifically excluded from statewide laws and allowed to make its own. County sheriffs handle CCW permits elsewhere in the state, but Philadelphia expanded to fill all of Philadelphia County, and the County as a governmental body is now a legal fiction.
And at least some muggers in Philadelphia openly *flout* the handgun laws* by using guns to rob pedestrians... ask me how I know:(
I agree with you (in a sense), because I'm sure some people who don't like the way guns currently work -- for anyone who pulls the trigger -- might be interested if they thought that personalized ones were a viable alternative. Like you / your wife, it sounds like.
There are two reasons someone would be firing someone else's gun against their will.
Didn't that take less time to write?"
Heh:)
OK, that makes your earlier post make much more sense to me. But it still doesn't erase the utility of non-personalized guns, for the various reasons I pedantically listed;)
Is it finally 40? I thought it was still 39/11, but 40's even better.
I have close personal knowledge of Pennsylvania's sanity on this front, as of a few days ago:) (I got a better picture than is on my Driver License, too.) It's one reason I chose to move here for grad school, despite the taxes.
NH has even saner laws than PA, but even with safe passage laws it's too much of a hassle to carry between here and there on a family vacation that includes 5 different states, as I will be taking this summer. Maybe one day, nationwide reciprocity!
Well why not make RPGs legal to own by private citizens, as well? (assuming, of course, they aren't)
a) I think that's a good question -- at least, not a question I even think I have a good answer for:) In Switzerland, with compulsory military service, there are bunkers that ordinary people have access to all over the country with rather hefty munitions. (And by "ordinary" I know I'm stretching, but only slightly -- they don't just get to play with the stuff, and "access" hinges on military use. But since the average male adult citizen *is* in the military, the sense of separation isn't the same as in the U.S. Still, there haven't been to my knowledge a lot of Hatfields v. McCoy RPG fights in Bern.)
b) No, not legal for civilians in the U.S.; "destructive devices" (including certain types of shotgun, oddly enough) you can't get as a civilian even by going through BATF hoops, obtaining tax stamps, etc.
Why not anti-aircraft missile batteries on your roof? Are there draconian neighborhood zoning laws against sandbagged foxholes and tripwire fields? Why isn't it legal to lay mines in the perimiter of your own, private yard? They're for defense only right? Like your mac-10. Who has ever been assaulted with a mine? Where do these fascist restrictions end?;-)
I dunno; anti-aircraft batteries aren't on my arguing agenda for the day. You're right that there's a strange slippery slope (and maybe you find it ludicrous that I think it's a slope instead of an obvious cliff), but on those, too, I'm not sure what the right answer is. One answer (only semi-snide) is that though I might be able to keep one, I can't -- barring great strides in miniaturization -- *bear* much of an AA rig. Perhaps "able to be carried by a human, judged either by weight tables or by personal demonstration" would be an OK test, and within the Constitution. ("Then what about," you ask, "a suitcase nuke?" Answer: I'm with you on the nuke, and have a few reasons but am too tired to get into it here.)
"I would put the right to have enough to eat as more basic than the right to bear arms."
Really? A right to self-defense is a moral right which doesn't require a particular circumstance to make it true; a "right to eat" doesn't create food -- it isn't a right at all. (Probably "right of the people to defend themselves against tyranny" or something similar would have been a better phrasing than "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," but the founding fathers knew that their perceived oppressors had specifically no interest in armed opposition and had called for arms confiscation -- so they were specific in naming one method of self-defense that the government was not allowed to sully. In so doing, they certainly made clear their belief in a right to self-defense as a general concept.)
(If someone has stolen your food, do you have a right to self-defense in getting it back?)
"As the UN definition is more all-encompasing, wouldn't it be fair to say their list is even more basic and important?"
If the ice weasels are on Saturn, shouldn't we conclude that their defrobnosticators are intensely radioative?
Or, closer, "Since my list includes turnips *and* candy, can't we conclude my list includes healthier foods, because it's longer?"
I'm not sure that "fundamental" means what you seem to think it means:)
And re: the UN's vs.U.S.'s list in particular; one (not rigorous, only rhetorical) argument that the U.S.'s version is superior is that if you look at the countries besides the U.S. who conspired to form the U.N. or who joined it before the UDHR, the history of the last 100 years shows that quite a few of them have brutally killed big chunks of their population. Of course, the UN is a bunch of statists, quite by definition...
"I've always felt that was a particular weakness. There are two reasons someone would be firing someone else's gun. Either A- they stole it or B- they are fighting for it."
- Or they've borrowed it from a friend.
- Or it's the common property of married couple.
- Or it's a rental gun at a range.
- Or it's a used gun that a person is test-firing.
- Or it's an issued duty weapon which belongs to a police department or military unit.
- Or it's being tested by a reviewer or a gunsmith.
- Or it was inherited (which makes it the user's legally, but not originally -- which seems to be relevant here)
So, more than two situations at least:) Most of the guns I've fired have belonged to someone else, but there was nothing hinky going on. I had borrowed, or rented, the guns I was using. And my parents don't have any to bequeath me;)
"Carrying a gun is, on the other hand, much more complex. To get a carrying permit, you will have, among other things, to prove you have a real need for it."
This is true in many parts of the U.S. as well (notably, Maryland, New York City, and California*).
The problem is, one of the best ways to prove that you're personally in danger such that a handgun is needed to counter a specific threat is for that threat to manifest itself. Which, if you believe you're in likely mortal danger, would be inconvenient.
timothy
* Typical of anti-gun politicians. Senator Feinstein of California believes in "one law for thee, and one for me" -- she has a concealed carry permit.
AC asked: "When was the last time you, or ANYONE you know, had to shoot a firearm in self defence? Do you really live in an area that is more dangerous than Baghdad?"
In 1993, my landlord in Austin (living in a makeshift "apartment" he'd carved out of the garage of a house he'd divided into generally more conventional apartments) shot a burglar with a shotgun, hitting him in the leg; I was asleep at the time, but this took place while I was perhaps 15 feet away. The burglar was a heroin addict, armed with a knife, and was wounded by not killed by the shot. The burglary was prevented, and no one can say what me might have done with the knife if he'd met an unarmed homeowner instead. So that's once.
In 1994, I witnessed at a gas station in West Memphis, Arkansas (on westbound 40, just over the Mississippi, if you know the area), a middle aged man being brutally kicked by a gang (4 or 5, perhaps more) of attackers in their teens or 20s; I'm not sure what precipitated the beating he was getting (did he insult them? did they try to rob him? I didn't see.), but I do know how it was curtailed: another customer at the station emerged from the station with his handgun and fired it into the air. Rubber was burned, and attackers were gone. The beating victim still had to leave in an ambulance, but at least he survived -- he seemed to be pretty well beaten, though, and getting kicked enough times in the head can certainly ruin one's life expectancy. So, that's twice if you count a very small value of "know." Witnessed, though.
Your message to the libertarians should be amended to include swimming pools, too. For instance:
"But I have a simpler, safer solution: lose your SWIMMING POOL altogether. I think every time a kid is killed by DROWNING IN A SWIMMING POOL we raise a tax on POOLS and POOL OWNERS. You can get all of that money back with interest if you get rid of your SWIMMING POOL. Eventually SWIMMING POOL owners will see that it is in their own best interest to work together to make SWIMMING POOLS safer and INACCESSABLE TO kids and the irresponsible. Everyone who owns a SWIMMING POOL is partly responsible for the culture of FUN and FRIVOLITY. I'm looking at you, libertarians."
(ha ha only serious)
Gun safety certainly can and ought to be improved (as it *has* improved, at least in the U.S., where accidental deaths have steeply declined over the past few decades), but guns as objects are not the point - safe use and (especially parental) responsibility are complex; an "object-specific tax" seems like an inevitably intrusive, tyrannical answer, which is why examples like the above make sense to me. How to assess the tax on... floor wax? Table saws? Kitchen implements? Mallets? Golf balls? And, the big one, would you impose a similar "tax" (which sounds instead like a fine) on automobile owners when their car is involved in a fatal collision? What if the owner was in no sense at fault?
And given that no gun (and no swimming pool) sneaks up on someone to shoot or drown them; how to tax the behaviors that lead to injury?
And iPods generally are mugger invitations, rather than de-invitations. Maybe the slogan fits better here?
I'd curious about the size of the subset of people who'd like this system to be mandatory in guns and would take days off from work to protest the inclusion of even non-mandatory and easily defeated "ask-permission" code in digital audio devices.*
timothy
*I'm not a fan of either. But I care more about such a system in firearms.
That's a cool idea! Do you have pictures online of your personal solution to keeping your car-chair in place? Do you have bare rails on the floor, or did you make a rocking base, or...?
One problem though (IMO) is that car seats tend toward being warm (hot!); though I didn't really want leather car seats, that's what I ended up finding as part of the best-overall deal when I bought my current car (a 1998 Subaru), and the leather really is nicer on the body than the fabric-covered seats I'd always previously had.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, so far it's not been more than one per day! As I get more efficient at assembling them, some days will likely have two of them, but a) they'll always be in the section, and so are blockable and b) I dunno, some people seem to like them, and I (mostly) enjoy creating them.
Cheers,
timothy
You could order it "Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, Topped, & Diced Scattered" ... but that's just off the top of my head.
See also http://www.wafflehouselouisiana.com/menu2.htm -- I'm a sucker for those places, even though they're objetively not the greatest bargains in the world.
Tim
I don't want to get too far into the rest of your post (well ... I do, but better that I don't! :)), but I would like to pick a particular graf where I think you're conflating a few different ideas:
.45 pistol, but of course there are many others) are extremely popular among those whose guns are intended for home defense, and are even a popular carry gun (though not among small folk!); "large" would seem to include rifles and shotguns (though I don't know what baseline you're thinking of), and these too are frequently kept for home defense; a shotgun is often lauded as the best such tool. I can't speak to that, but I can say that a) in the early 1990s, an armed burglar was shot and wounded with a shotgun by my landlord in the apartment next to mine and b) I'm somewhat glad I hadn't at the time read about the sometimes-underestimated ability of shotgun ammo to penetrate walls, because I was 10-15 feet away at the time: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot14.htm
:) (Plus, thanks to the U.S.'s insane drug laws, there's the occasional marijunana farmer, whose respect for anti-gun laws when it comes to his own protection may be shockingly slight.)
You wrote: "Another issue is that type of guns available in the States has no real restriction : large high calibre and semi-auto weapons are available, whereas these guns are not the defence weapon of choice for the home owner, and are far more likely to be used in a crime."
- Large, high-caliber, and semi-auto are orthogonal categories; there are large guns that shoot small bullets and vice versa, and they may or may not be semi-automatic -- it all depends on the particular gun. Many small (and small caliber) guns cannot be imported because of a complicated system of "points" whereby weapon design conventions are applied in a quest for safety (external safety = some number of points, etc.).
- As another poster has pointed out, there are quite a few restrictions in fact on the weapons Americans can buy and the process for doing so; some of these restrictions are Federal, and some are imposed by individual states. In my current state (Pennsylvania), guns are fairly easy for any adult with no criminal background or history of mental illness to obtain, as are concealed carry permits. In other states, most famously (or notoriously, depending on your point of view) California, Maryland and Hawaii, guns are much harder to obtain because of rigorous state-imposed rules, such as state-specific "drop tests." There's quite a patchwork of laws, actually; many guns or accessories are technically legal to own, but only in combination with tax stamps which bless them in the eyes of the BATF, and there too, local rules can impose further restrictions. (Suppressors and fully-automatic weapons are in this category.)
- As to whether "large high calibre and semi-auto weapons" are good for home-defense, or are likely to be used in crime: Well, again, I think there is some semantic overlap between these categories that makes your claim hard to defend. Large caliber semi-autos (I'm thinking of the 1911-style
Crimes involving guns more often feature handguns than longarms; some people (like Gary Kleck, a famous defender of guns as crime prevention devices -- and who didn't start out as one) have famously expressed their happiness that more crimes aren't committed with (higher-power, more accurate) longarms. I think that's partly tongue-in-cheek, since I think we can all agree that handguns' smaller size makes them easier to use in certain situations, whether for good or ill.
I know that distant cousins of mine who operate farms keep (and make use of) rifles and shotguns to mercifully put down dying animals, kill predators, and keep wild boar out of their fields; I call that home defense
Cheers,
timothy
p.s. If you visit a range in the states, try several guns rather than only one; many ranges rent "by the hour" but allow you to swap guns within your alloted time. Once you get the hang of loading whatever it is you're shooting, the real expense is ammo.
I've been mugged at gunpoint only once ... and it was with a semiauto. The feel of it against one's neck is different from that of a revolver, at least if it's a semi with the (conventional) large flat surface at the naughty end of the barrel; some (such as any autopistol with a threaded barrel, such as Glocks for the Scandivian market) wouldn't have that of course, but if someone pushes a 1911- or Hi-Power-style pistol into your neck, I think you'd notice the feel of it.
timothy
Common sense does not always win out, I realize, but wouldn't it seem that clear notice would suffice to prevent any such character defamation? (Something along the lines of "The presentation you're about to watch varies from the original DVD producion. You're about to watch the film while skipping certain scenes containing content you've elected to bypass.")
...
No one blames DiVinci for all the ways the Mona Lisa is butchered
timothy
"This film has has been modified to fit the dimensions of your TV screen." :)
(Yes, it's a sloppy argument -- but so short!)
timothy
File a bug report :)
...
I agree with you -- it should be clearer that Slashdot may display a reader's comment in more than one context. I've requested this, too, but it's one of those things which timewise so far hasn't been high-priority. I'm sure not (yet) a lawyer, but I do think that implied license when posting to a public forum is plentifully sufficient, *really*, but making it more explicit is a good idea. I'll lend you some patience, if you lend me some right back
timothy
"We can defeat the disease; however, you won't live through the battle."
... )
The thing is, even the *legitimate* software on Windows tends to act like it was created with the intent to annoy and harrass; I enjoy turning people on to things like ClamAV which *don't* "expire" or nag the user. I'm typing at the moment on a ThinkPad that's still running Windows (long story; here's a short version, sorta), and here's one of the many annoyances that running Windows brings me. There's a printer for which this laptop has a driver installed, but to which it has not for some time actually been connected. However, every time the machine starts, an annoying, intrusive "printer status" doohickey shows up which complains because the printer is not connected. Thank you, Herr Computer, I was already aware. I don't actually need to "check cables and that power is on" because the printer is several hundred miles away, well beyond USB 2.0 spec. (This stupid message is probably defeatable, but my frustration point is set a bit low when it comes to stupid design decisions, and since easy poking around hasn't located it, I just live with it for now, and gripe. It will, most likely again print using that printer, so I sure don't want to have to remove the stupid over-chatty driver software just to make it shut up, then need later on to reinstall
Cheers,
timothy
p.s. You're the first person I've seen on Slashdot from Camp Hill, which is the closest I am to knowing anyone from Camp Hill, even though I'm living in Harrisburg for the summer.
Cool! Thanks much for the response -- it's hard to organize a site so that someone as unintuitive as me can find the right contact info ;) Is your best email the one in your Slashdot profile?
Cheers,
timothy
I tried to sign up for the forums, after I didn't find an obvious email address for a webmaster, but (and this is before any Slashdotting took place) I got an error message instead. If I knew where to send it, I'd like to send a diff from their current home page text which would include at least a few spelling fixes, etc. Editing is fun :) -- but not when it's a bother ...
timothy
"Potentially, Slashdot could work in a better way of featuring the best comments instead of posting entire new articles, but in either case, I like it."
:) (Or respond, better, respond to this comment -- it'll be off topic, but I'll be reading.)
:) So, always looking for ways to improve it -- what do you have in mind?
Email suggestions
This is a new thing for Slashdot (and for me), and there's no way we (I) think it's perfect yet; sometimes, for instance, while sorting comments by type makes them a bit easier to think about, the result is basically little piles of X comments vs. Z comments vs. Q comments, and not really a coherent sequence with a hero, a theme and a resolution
Cheers,
timothy
"Does the submitter have a special stutter that only activates itself when they try to type the word "people"?"
No — it was my fault. A mistake of course, but in the course of massaging the text of the comments into a single blob, (changing doubled hyphens to m-dashes, alternating single with double quotation marks, re-forming hyperlinks after cutting in the text-version of a comment, that sort of thing), one of my cut-and-pastes gave every "p" a ppartner which I didn't notice until well after you did. I can't now recall what I might have been *trying* to do, but the ruthless efficiency of cut-and-paste doesn't care what I was trying to do.
So, "Other than that, the parade went just fine."
And I think you've hit on it wrt the non-denial response from Microsoft. They probably think (at least, this is my version!) "People sure do believe anything. No point denying it and looking like weasels, when we could just sit back and let the ones using it out-of-license stew a bit."
Cheers,
timothy
"Despite PA's stance on concealed carry though, I hear that Philly is giving you guys a bad rep. Sorry to hear that, hope you can manage to convince them they'd be better off as a part of NY. ;)"
... ask me how I know :(
You're right about that -- both because it's the most likely place in the state for someone to get mugged, and because as an (alleged) "City of the First Class" Philadelphia is often specifically excluded from statewide laws and allowed to make its own. County sheriffs handle CCW permits elsewhere in the state, but Philadelphia expanded to fill all of Philadelphia County, and the County as a governmental body is now a legal fiction.
And at least some muggers in Philadelphia openly *flout* the handgun laws* by using guns to rob pedestrians
timothy
* shock! horror!
Hey, I never said you never said that!
;)
I agree with you (in a sense), because I'm sure some people who don't like the way guns currently work -- for anyone who pulls the trigger -- might be interested if they thought that personalized ones were a viable alternative. Like you / your wife, it sounds like.
So I'm agreeing to agree, OK?
timothy
Is this a Springfield XD?
timothy
"OK, ok, rephrase original to:
:)
;)
There are two reasons someone would be firing someone else's gun against their will.
Didn't that take less time to write?"
Heh
OK, that makes your earlier post make much more sense to me. But it still doesn't erase the utility of non-personalized guns, for the various reasons I pedantically listed
Cheers,
timothy
Is it finally 40? I thought it was still 39/11, but 40's even better.
:) (I got a better picture than is on my Driver License, too.) It's one reason I chose to move here for grad school, despite the taxes.
I have close personal knowledge of Pennsylvania's sanity on this front, as of a few days ago
NH has even saner laws than PA, but even with safe passage laws it's too much of a hassle to carry between here and there on a family vacation that includes 5 different states, as I will be taking this summer. Maybe one day, nationwide reciprocity!
timothy
Well why not make RPGs legal to own by private citizens, as well? (assuming, of course, they aren't)
:) In Switzerland, with compulsory military service, there are bunkers that ordinary people have access to all over the country with rather hefty munitions. (And by "ordinary" I know I'm stretching, but only slightly -- they don't just get to play with the stuff, and "access" hinges on military use. But since the average male adult citizen *is* in the military, the sense of separation isn't the same as in the U.S. Still, there haven't been to my knowledge a lot of Hatfields v. McCoy RPG fights in Bern.)
;-)
a) I think that's a good question -- at least, not a question I even think I have a good answer for
b) No, not legal for civilians in the U.S.; "destructive devices" (including certain types of shotgun, oddly enough) you can't get as a civilian even by going through BATF hoops, obtaining tax stamps, etc.
Why not anti-aircraft missile batteries on your roof? Are there draconian neighborhood zoning laws against sandbagged foxholes and tripwire fields? Why isn't it legal to lay mines in the perimiter of your own, private yard? They're for defense only right? Like your mac-10. Who has ever been assaulted with a mine? Where do these fascist restrictions end?
I dunno; anti-aircraft batteries aren't on my arguing agenda for the day. You're right that there's a strange slippery slope (and maybe you find it ludicrous that I think it's a slope instead of an obvious cliff), but on those, too, I'm not sure what the right answer is. One answer (only semi-snide) is that though I might be able to keep one, I can't -- barring great strides in miniaturization -- *bear* much of an AA rig. Perhaps "able to be carried by a human, judged either by weight tables or by personal demonstration" would be an OK test, and within the Constitution. ("Then what about," you ask, "a suitcase nuke?" Answer: I'm with you on the nuke, and have a few reasons but am too tired to get into it here.)
Night,
timothy
"I would put the right to have enough to eat as more basic than the right to bear arms."
:)
...
Really? A right to self-defense is a moral right which doesn't require a particular circumstance to make it true; a "right to eat" doesn't create food -- it isn't a right at all. (Probably "right of the people to defend themselves against tyranny" or something similar would have been a better phrasing than "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," but the founding fathers knew that their perceived oppressors had specifically no interest in armed opposition and had called for arms confiscation -- so they were specific in naming one method of self-defense that the government was not allowed to sully. In so doing, they certainly made clear their belief in a right to self-defense as a general concept.)
(If someone has stolen your food, do you have a right to self-defense in getting it back?)
"As the UN definition is more all-encompasing, wouldn't it be fair to say their list is even more basic and important?"
If the ice weasels are on Saturn, shouldn't we conclude that their defrobnosticators are intensely radioative?
Or, closer, "Since my list includes turnips *and* candy, can't we conclude my list includes healthier foods, because it's longer?"
I'm not sure that "fundamental" means what you seem to think it means
And re: the UN's vs.U.S.'s list in particular; one (not rigorous, only rhetorical) argument that the U.S.'s version is superior is that if you look at the countries besides the U.S. who conspired to form the U.N. or who joined it before the UDHR, the history of the last 100 years shows that quite a few of them have brutally killed big chunks of their population. Of course, the UN is a bunch of statists, quite by definition
timothy
"I've always felt that was a particular weakness. There are two reasons someone would be firing someone else's gun. Either A- they stole it or B- they are fighting for it."
:) Most of the guns I've fired have belonged to someone else, but there was nothing hinky going on. I had borrowed, or rented, the guns I was using. And my parents don't have any to bequeath me ;)
- Or they've borrowed it from a friend.
- Or it's the common property of married couple.
- Or it's a rental gun at a range.
- Or it's a used gun that a person is test-firing.
- Or it's an issued duty weapon which belongs to a police department or military unit.
- Or it's being tested by a reviewer or a gunsmith.
- Or it was inherited (which makes it the user's legally, but not originally -- which seems to be relevant here)
So, more than two situations at least
timothy
"Carrying a gun is, on the other hand, much more complex. To get a carrying permit, you will have, among other things, to prove you have a real need for it."
This is true in many parts of the U.S. as well (notably, Maryland, New York City, and California*).
The problem is, one of the best ways to prove that you're personally in danger such that a handgun is needed to counter a specific threat is for that threat to manifest itself. Which, if you believe you're in likely mortal danger, would be inconvenient.
timothy
* Typical of anti-gun politicians. Senator Feinstein of California believes in "one law for thee, and one for me" -- she has a concealed carry permit.
AC asked: "When was the last time you, or ANYONE you know, had to shoot a firearm in self defence? Do you really live in an area that is more dangerous than Baghdad?"
In 1993, my landlord in Austin (living in a makeshift "apartment" he'd carved out of the garage of a house he'd divided into generally more conventional apartments) shot a burglar with a shotgun, hitting him in the leg; I was asleep at the time, but this took place while I was perhaps 15 feet away. The burglar was a heroin addict, armed with a knife, and was wounded by not killed by the shot. The burglary was prevented, and no one can say what me might have done with the knife if he'd met an unarmed homeowner instead. So that's once.
In 1994, I witnessed at a gas station in West Memphis, Arkansas (on westbound 40, just over the Mississippi, if you know the area), a middle aged man being brutally kicked by a gang (4 or 5, perhaps more) of attackers in their teens or 20s; I'm not sure what precipitated the beating he was getting (did he insult them? did they try to rob him? I didn't see.), but I do know how it was curtailed: another customer at the station emerged from the station with his handgun and fired it into the air. Rubber was burned, and attackers were gone. The beating victim still had to leave in an ambulance, but at least he survived -- he seemed to be pretty well beaten, though, and getting kicked enough times in the head can certainly ruin one's life expectancy. So, that's twice if you count a very small value of "know." Witnessed, though.
timothy
Your message to the libertarians should be amended to include swimming pools, too. For instance:
... floor wax? Table saws? Kitchen implements? Mallets? Golf balls? And, the big one, would you impose a similar "tax" (which sounds instead like a fine) on automobile owners when their car is involved in a fatal collision? What if the owner was in no sense at fault?
"But I have a simpler, safer solution: lose your SWIMMING POOL altogether. I think every time a kid is killed by DROWNING IN A SWIMMING POOL we raise a tax on POOLS and POOL OWNERS. You can get all of that money back with interest if you get rid of your SWIMMING POOL. Eventually SWIMMING POOL owners will see that it is in their own best interest to work together to make SWIMMING POOLS safer and INACCESSABLE TO kids and the irresponsible. Everyone who owns a SWIMMING POOL is partly responsible for the culture of FUN and FRIVOLITY. I'm looking at you, libertarians."
(ha ha only serious)
Gun safety certainly can and ought to be improved (as it *has* improved, at least in the U.S., where accidental deaths have steeply declined over the past few decades), but guns as objects are not the point - safe use and (especially parental) responsibility are complex; an "object-specific tax" seems like an inevitably intrusive, tyrannical answer, which is why examples like the above make sense to me. How to assess the tax on
And given that no gun (and no swimming pool) sneaks up on someone to shoot or drown them; how to tax the behaviors that lead to injury?
timothy
And iPods generally are mugger invitations, rather than de-invitations. Maybe the slogan fits better here?
I'd curious about the size of the subset of people who'd like this system to be mandatory in guns and would take days off from work to protest the inclusion of even non-mandatory and easily defeated "ask-permission" code in digital audio devices.*
timothy
*I'm not a fan of either. But I care more about such a system in firearms.
That's a cool idea! Do you have pictures online of your personal solution to keeping your car-chair in place? Do you have bare rails on the floor, or did you make a rocking base, or ...?
:)
One problem though (IMO) is that car seats tend toward being warm (hot!); though I didn't really want leather car seats, that's what I ended up finding as part of the best-overall deal when I bought my current car (a 1998 Subaru), and the leather really is nicer on the body than the fabric-covered seats I'd always previously had.
Maybe a car seat with wooden taxi beads
timothy