Y'know, one wonders what goes through the heads of McBride and his Deatheaters at SCO. They don't make any money on the Linux license deal so they... raise prices?? Just where does the "Profit!" step come in?
Bah! They're just hoping to scare a few people into buying now, while the price is low. Doubt it will work, since (I assume) most companies using Linux are following this enough to know better.
And the people NOT following this have no idea SCO even exists, much less that they are demanding money for Linux.
You're not pushing for legalization of polygamy, are you?
Marrying minors is immoral? But why?
Because minors can't give informed consent.
They can't? You believe that age is a magic bullet that allows "informed consent"? And if not, why not push for removing that silly limit. Should be easy enough to develop a psych test that can determine whether people are capable of "informed consent". Unfortunately, if we used such a test, it's likely most adults wouldn't pass muster....
Bad example. 14th Amendment trumps State Constitutions every time.
Segregation is a wondeful example of the counterpoint, though. It fell when Federal Judges started to enforce the 14th Amendment. The "police beating up peaceful crowds" mostly came after the Judges started to overturn state laws.
As to overturning a popular mandate, isn't it odd that MOST of the population of Massachusetts is opposed to gay marriage, and yet their Courts have declared it not just legal, but necessary?
Gay marriage will be decided by the US Supreme Court one of these days. All it takes is a good test case (get married in MA, move to someplace opposed to gay marriage, talk to ACLU, bring suit under "mutual faith and credence" clause, under 14th Amendment, wait for ruling. NO opinion on how the current Supremes would vote on the issue (I would assume 5-4, with O'Connor casting the deciding vote) right now. But unless the Supremes rule that gay marriage IS a Right, there'll be a new test case every time a Justice is replaced - so, sooner or later, it'll be declared Constitutional, barring an Amendment to same
No, gays do NOT have exactly the same rights as straights; in particular the right to marry the person they love
No, "straights" don't have the right to marry the person they love. Unless that person happens to be of consensual age and single, and the "straight" in question is of consensual age and single.
What? Polygamy is immoral? Marrying minors is immoral? But why?
When was the last time you saw a conservative question his party or candidate? You don't hear about it that much. They are united. They do not question the party line
Nonsense! Last time it happened en masse was when Ross Perot was running. Or do you honestly believe he took votes exclusively (or even mostly) from Clinton?
Most Conservatives I know (I suspect you don't actually mean the same thing by the word I do) don't pay too much attention to "Party" - they look at "voting record". Republican != Conservative. Historically, the South voted Democrat - because the Southern Democrats were Conservative. Recently (last 20 years or so), that has changed, as more and more COnservative Democrats couldn't toe the Party line anymore, and became Republican. Or were replaced by Republicans when they DID toe the Party line.
Sounds like Louisiana. Except that we don't play that game with Presidential Electors.
You MIGHT be able to get away with that, if you could guarantee that the first election would ALWAYS matter (straw votes have problems), and that the runoff would ALWAYS occur. Since the runoff would not occur if one candidate got a simple majority in the first election (happens in LA as often as not), you'd have a problem. Not necessarily insurmountable, but a problem.
Hmm, you seem to be right that if there were no election used to choose Electors, then this could be an issue. I suspect that an attempt by a state to do this would be hit by a blizzard of 14th Amendment lawsuits, plus an ousting of the government in question at its next election, plus a new Constitutional Amendment specifying that Electors must be elected.
Note that it is possible that such a group of Electors would be challenged (it has happened in the past that states (ok, one state) have sent more than one group of Electors to Washington. It produced a bit of a problem, especially since the election in question was decided by the validation of the group of Electors so validated). Such a challenge would produce WAY more broohaha than the 2000 election....
While it is true that an instant runoff might be legal, the traditional runoff is not. from the Constitution:
Clause 4: The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
Any system that allowed the possibility that one elector would be chosen at a different time than another would not fit that.
Note that Senators and House members are NOT voted on in National elections. Louisiana, which uses a run-off system, elects its Senators and Representatives in the same way as it does its Governor.
The only National Election is for Electors for the President.
n fact, I can't find anything in the Constitution that would prohibit a state from choosing to have it's legislature or governor from choosing the electors in a presidential election, or awarding electors based on the paries of it's congressional delegates.
From the Fourteenth Amendment:
But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,(See Note 15) and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Seems you'd lose your congressional delegation is you didn't allow people to vote for Electors...
So, your principles don't extend to all people being treated equally? I'm stupid because mine do, and that might influence my vote?
Interesting. And here I thought having ONE (1) set of rules that apply to everyone was "all people being treated equally". And current marriage laws do that. One man + one woman = marriage.
It could be argued that one (wo)man + one (wo)man = marriage is justifiable. If so, why isn't one woman + one woman + one man = marriage justifiable? How about 12 woman and 18 men? Three men, five women, two goats? The possibilities are endless.
Note that I still haven't made up my mind on the issue. I'm kind of leaning toward allowing gay marriage, just to use that as leverage to force polygamy/polyandry/polygny into legality. On the other hand, monkeying with key institutions (last time we made major changes to marriage was when we made divorce free and easy - look what became of that) is hazardous.
Just out of curiousity, how many people who want us to be liked by the rest of the world think that legalizing gay marriage will make the Muslim world more friendly?
No. The Constitution requires that they recognize other state's marriages, just as it required they recognize divorces performed in Nevada back before divorce became cheap and easy everywhere.
It can be argued that the "Defense of Marriage Act" supersedes that. Unfortunately, it takes only one Federal Judge declaring the Act unconstitutional to undo that particular "protection". And since it is cleary unconstitutional, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a Judge who will say so.
He has already damaged the UN to the point where nothing is being done in Darfur.
Interestingly enough, the USA and UK are the ONLY people calling for action in Darfur. Everyone else is ignoring the issue as much as they can get away with.
You have this interesting idea that the UN has always been gung-ho for stopping genocide/crimes-against-humanity/whatever-you-disl ike. Check some history - the UN has done something when the USA has pushed it into doing something.
The UN intervention in Korea only happened because the Soviets walked out of the Security Council and the vote happened while they were gone.
Cambodia. Ever notice that the genocide there started under Ford, and continued under Carter? And the UN did nothing.
Rwanda - nice bit of genocide. Did you notice the Clinton White House trying to stop it?
The UN, alas, is a toothless tiger. Until the UN has its own military, this will continue. And the UN will have its own military only when EVERY country in the world is willing to give up enough national sovereignty to allow it. Which will be...hmm...never.
No. Actually, some states do this for state/local elections, but they cannot be done for national elections, which are done in accordance with the Constitution.
What really woke me up was their statement that only 6% of the worlds engineers are educated in the USA
We have 4-5% of the population, and produce 6% of the engineers. Sounds like we're well ahead of the curve there. Not mind-numbingly ahead, but decently so.
2: Any System Administrator worth his/her salt never, ever, ever puts a patch on a critical system without first testing, testing, testing on another system.
Read the article. The patch issue is one of compliance with federal law. Specifically, federal law mandating privacy of patient records.
The hospital types are afraid that if they do not patch immediately, and some patient information escapes into the wild, they will be found liable. The people making the software are willing to do the patch testing, but can't possibly do it quickly enough to protect against a violation of federal law (if such were to occur, and if the law were to be invoked to sue the hospital).
Note that this particular law seems to be poorly conceived and written - I've seen more than a few references to medical people being unclear on just what, exactly, is required by the law in question.
Why should the Foundation provide technical assistance? It's not really their business to "help people reach the goal".
It's not like the fundamental concepts are top secret or anything. Hell, the patents on most of it have expired. It shouldn't be all that hard for a halfway competent engineer to get something working, given enough coin to make a reasonable effort (I'd have guessed 50M before SS1 flew. Now I'd have to put the floor down around the 20M SS1 actually cost).
Big problem with the Foundation providing technical assistance is that it would actually defeat the idea of the Foundation - to encourage people to come up with as many new ideas as possible. You won't get lots of new ideas when everyone calls the same person for sanity checking ideas.
That should be an indication that it's extremely difficult to build and launch rockets. I'm just worried about when someone actually gets in one of their own personal roman candles, hoping to make it to the edge of space they will find themselves going home in a body bag.
This doesn't concern me a bit. Everyone has the right to go out with a bang (literally, in this case) if they wish.
I am, however, concerned about the possibility that they take a non-consenting soul with them - crashing on someone's house would be a bad thing (for the owners of the house - the guy in the rocket knew what he was risking when he pushed the big red button).
Even if the visitors weren't aware of humans when they'd departed, they'd detect them well before reaching this actual solar system. The radio communication leaking from a planet will be much more detectable than the tremendously smaller and quieter incoming spaceship.
YOU MUST be joking! Assume a M/AM drive, assume 1,000,000 tons mass, assuming 1g capable drives, the ship is emitting ~3x10^18 watts straight at us. Which is about 1000,000 times the world's current power output. Note my previous about time to notice us aboard that ship (~4 hours).
Yah, they'd notice us if they were coming here, before they arrived, even. But if they were NOT actually coming to visit, they could fly through 99.999% of the galaxy and never get clue one we were present.
Let's see. We've had radio for 100 years, or thereabouts. So in 1,999,000 years, give or take, it'll arrive in Andromeda. Might as well say 2,000,000.
Anyone over there will come here based on some clue that there is something worth looking at. Best news they have, BEFORE they leave, is that we're 2,000,000 years away, and have no intelligent lifeforms (homo habilis, which was the latest and greated 2,000,000 years ago, didn't provide any clues visible from Mars, much less Andromeda).
So, likely as not, they wouldn't even bother coming here. BUT, if they did, and they left at the right time to be arriving next year, they'd have gotten a clue ~50 years ago (our radio waves would have been rushing out to meet them, and they'd meet halfway), adjusted by time-dilation. Assuming they were moving quickly enough to get here in 20 years ship-time, that means they'd notice our radio ~4 hours before arrival. IF they noticed it at all, given the dopller shift, and the fact that is an (to say the least) archaic/obscure format.
So, yes, quite easy to believe in bemmies that have interstellar capability and no knowledge of us.
It is because the gun control nuts want to ban all guns. Banning machine guns is irrelevant to them, since there are very few machine guns in private hands. But semi-automatic firearms are a bit more common. and THESE semi-automatic firearms LOOK EVIL!!!
So, it's easy to get some hysteria going, and pass a ban. The ban will, of course, not reduce crime, so next time, you can ask for an even more comprehensive ban.
Note, by the way, that the Assault Weapon Ban banned guns not for being semiautomatic, or for being used in crime, but for their looks. Characteristics used to identify "assault weapons" included pistol grips and flash hiders.
Note further that it didn't ban them entirely. It made importation illegal, and made reselling them illegal (if you owned one when the ban went into effect, you could sell it. if you acquired it after the ban went into effect, you could not).
And finally, note that some semiautomatic weapons with all the features required to be names "assault weapons" under the Ban were specifically exempted from being considered "assault weapons" in the listing of exempt weapons included in the law. This was particularly annoying to me, since I spent several hundred dollars turning one of my rifles into what should have been an "assault weapon", only to find it on the exempt list when the Ban was passed. Then I had to go out and spend several hundred more dollars to get an "assault weapon", just so I could say I had one.
By they way, I have three semi-automatic rifles that fire the same round, and have similar magazine capacities. One is an "assault weapon" within the definition of the law, one is not, and the third is on the exempt list. Go figure.
even if I did design something truly miraculous, the existing gun makers don't care, they wouldn't want it, not even to steal the idea and leave me penniless.
Why do you believe this? It is statements like this that cause me to discount pretty much everything you say.
Let me give you a clue or three.
No gun manufacturer thinks that he gets good PR when someone's kid gets killed, whatever the cause. For that matter, no bed manufacturer does either, but we're trying to stay on topic.
Gun manufacturers have been developing new safety devices regularly since the idea first came along. Note that NO gun had any kind of safety for the first four hundred years of firearms history. Safety devices were first put into guns late in the 19th century, and were not common until the 20th.
Couple those two ideas, and it is clear that they'd be delighted to steal your idea and leave you penniless.;-)
seriously, the assumption that gun manufacturers haven't come up with a better safety does NOT imply they are negligent. It implies, if anything, that there aren't any better safeties that we have the technology to build. Yet.
Do we even have accurate enough measurements going far enough back to detect something with a 12 year orbit? Much less something as small as Jupiter with a 12 year orbit.
If aliens could come here, they already know we're here.
That's an interesting statement. It appears, however, to make no sense whatsoever. An alien race that lived in the Andromeda Galaxy could be quite advanced enough to come visit us.
Alas, the most recent news they could have of us would describe us as a plains-dwelling ape. Assuming that they weren't busy with the 100 billion starsystems closer to their world than us.
In other words, the possibility that someone might be able to come here does NOT imply that they know about us.
I think the dividing line is "high explosive". As opposed to, well, "low explosive". Black powder is perfectly legal in quantity (I keep half a pound or so around for that caplock I mentioned in another post). Dynamite isn't.
What class of permit will I need to buy a Tiger tank or a old Mig with a chaingun?
You can't buy either in the USA until they are demilitarized. Which basically means the gun has been trashed.
Tanks without guns are just heavy machinery, I think. Saw an article a few years back about some guy who owned twenty or thirty tanks (demilitarized, of course). Wish he had the stuff available for display, since some of them were pretty rare.
MiGs are available for sale, again demilitarized. You need whatever certification is rquired for jet engines to fly one of the things, and I expect you couldn't find anyone to sell to you without said cert.
Good rule of thumb, I guess, is "if it explodes, it's prolly a "destructive device"".
#1 My inability, lack of capital, or any other obstacle keeping me from inventing these features has nothing to do with it. Rather, it's the corporations who should be interested, but aren't, simply because legal strategy dictates what they can and can't research that is at issue.
No, they aren't putting them inn guns because noone has designed one that works. If you have no ability to design such a thing, why do you assume that others can do so?
#2 The police and military don't keep guns at home, where children might find them, or some visiting inlaw will stumble across them. So that's irrelevant.
No, it's not. Most Police officers (every one I know) keep firearms at home. In many places, police officers are required to carry a firearm, even off-duty. The question, however, is one of reliability - if the gun won't fire when *I* want it to, then it is pretty much useless to me. And to the Police and the Military, and I daresay the overwhelming majority of gun owners.
Adding a neat new safety device to a gun is all well and good, as long as it ONLY restricts unauthorized use. When it starts restricting authorized use, it is a neato keen new safety that noone will buy.
#3 I didn't fail to state that the person who was unloading this gun was an idiot. Simply that this gun company failed to live up to even the minimal safety standards that other gunmakers somehow manage to meet. This is a perfect example of a defective design, that if it had been corrected, could have prevented a tragedy.
Umm, no. An idiot pointing a gun at someone else caused a tragedy. The design of the gun had little, if anything to do with it. No mechanical safety device can prevent a gun from firing in ALL situations. And no mechanical safety device will protect you (or anyone else) from an idiot with a gun in hand.
WHich is not to say the design wasn't defective, IF it couldn't be unloaded with the safety on. As I said, I saw no indication that this was true, other than your link, and several other links referring to the same incident. Though I did see several links describing the gun in question (seems it had a tendency to jam)...
Did I immediately jump to the gun control fanatic conclusion, that all guns should be banned? Hardly. Not that it seems to cut me any slack at all
No, you didn't. But you mentioned a gun as the cause of an accident, without bothering to mention that an idiot pointed it at the kid, flipped the safety off, and proceeded to try to unload it. If, in fact, that's what happened. We can be reasonably sure that the idiot pointed the gun at the kid and flipped the safety off. It's not so clear that he was trying to unload the gun, as opposed to dicking around with the gun.
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Bah! They're just hoping to scare a few people into buying now, while the price is low. Doubt it will work, since (I assume) most companies using Linux are following this enough to know better.
And the people NOT following this have no idea SCO even exists, much less that they are demanding money for Linux.
I didn't say that.
You're not pushing for legalization of polygamy, are you?
Marrying minors is immoral? But why?
Because minors can't give informed consent.
They can't? You believe that age is a magic bullet that allows "informed consent"? And if not, why not push for removing that silly limit. Should be easy enough to develop a psych test that can determine whether people are capable of "informed consent". Unfortunately, if we used such a test, it's likely most adults wouldn't pass muster....
Segregation is a wondeful example of the counterpoint, though. It fell when Federal Judges started to enforce the 14th Amendment. The "police beating up peaceful crowds" mostly came after the Judges started to overturn state laws.
As to overturning a popular mandate, isn't it odd that MOST of the population of Massachusetts is opposed to gay marriage, and yet their Courts have declared it not just legal, but necessary?
Gay marriage will be decided by the US Supreme Court one of these days. All it takes is a good test case (get married in MA, move to someplace opposed to gay marriage, talk to ACLU, bring suit under "mutual faith and credence" clause, under 14th Amendment, wait for ruling. NO opinion on how the current Supremes would vote on the issue (I would assume 5-4, with O'Connor casting the deciding vote) right now. But unless the Supremes rule that gay marriage IS a Right, there'll be a new test case every time a Justice is replaced - so, sooner or later, it'll be declared Constitutional, barring an Amendment to same
No, "straights" don't have the right to marry the person they love. Unless that person happens to be of consensual age and single, and the "straight" in question is of consensual age and single.
What? Polygamy is immoral? Marrying minors is immoral? But why?
Nonsense! Last time it happened en masse was when Ross Perot was running. Or do you honestly believe he took votes exclusively (or even mostly) from Clinton?
Most Conservatives I know (I suspect you don't actually mean the same thing by the word I do) don't pay too much attention to "Party" - they look at "voting record". Republican != Conservative. Historically, the South voted Democrat - because the Southern Democrats were Conservative. Recently (last 20 years or so), that has changed, as more and more COnservative Democrats couldn't toe the Party line anymore, and became Republican. Or were replaced by Republicans when they DID toe the Party line.
You MIGHT be able to get away with that, if you could guarantee that the first election would ALWAYS matter (straw votes have problems), and that the runoff would ALWAYS occur. Since the runoff would not occur if one candidate got a simple majority in the first election (happens in LA as often as not), you'd have a problem. Not necessarily insurmountable, but a problem.
Hmm, you seem to be right that if there were no election used to choose Electors, then this could be an issue. I suspect that an attempt by a state to do this would be hit by a blizzard of 14th Amendment lawsuits, plus an ousting of the government in question at its next election, plus a new Constitutional Amendment specifying that Electors must be elected.
Note that it is possible that such a group of Electors would be challenged (it has happened in the past that states (ok, one state) have sent more than one group of Electors to Washington. It produced a bit of a problem, especially since the election in question was decided by the validation of the group of Electors so validated). Such a challenge would produce WAY more broohaha than the 2000 election....
Any system that allowed the possibility that one elector would be chosen at a different time than another would not fit that.
Note that Senators and House members are NOT voted on in National elections. Louisiana, which uses a run-off system, elects its Senators and Representatives in the same way as it does its Governor.
The only National Election is for Electors for the President.
n fact, I can't find anything in the Constitution that would prohibit a state from choosing to have it's legislature or governor from choosing the electors in a presidential election, or awarding electors based on the paries of it's congressional delegates.
From the Fourteenth Amendment:
But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,(See Note 15) and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Seems you'd lose your congressional delegation is you didn't allow people to vote for Electors...
Interesting. And here I thought having ONE (1) set of rules that apply to everyone was "all people being treated equally". And current marriage laws do that. One man + one woman = marriage.
It could be argued that one (wo)man + one (wo)man = marriage is justifiable. If so, why isn't one woman + one woman + one man = marriage justifiable? How about 12 woman and 18 men? Three men, five women, two goats? The possibilities are endless.
Note that I still haven't made up my mind on the issue. I'm kind of leaning toward allowing gay marriage, just to use that as leverage to force polygamy/polyandry/polygny into legality. On the other hand, monkeying with key institutions (last time we made major changes to marriage was when we made divorce free and easy - look what became of that) is hazardous.
Just out of curiousity, how many people who want us to be liked by the rest of the world think that legalizing gay marriage will make the Muslim world more friendly?
It can be argued that the "Defense of Marriage Act" supersedes that. Unfortunately, it takes only one Federal Judge declaring the Act unconstitutional to undo that particular "protection". And since it is cleary unconstitutional, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a Judge who will say so.
Interestingly enough, the USA and UK are the ONLY people calling for action in Darfur. Everyone else is ignoring the issue as much as they can get away with.
You have this interesting idea that the UN has always been gung-ho for stopping genocide/crimes-against-humanity/whatever-you-disl ike. Check some history - the UN has done something when the USA has pushed it into doing something.
The UN intervention in Korea only happened because the Soviets walked out of the Security Council and the vote happened while they were gone.
Cambodia. Ever notice that the genocide there started under Ford, and continued under Carter? And the UN did nothing.
Rwanda - nice bit of genocide. Did you notice the Clinton White House trying to stop it?
The UN, alas, is a toothless tiger. Until the UN has its own military, this will continue. And the UN will have its own military only when EVERY country in the world is willing to give up enough national sovereignty to allow it. Which will be...hmm...never.
No. Actually, some states do this for state/local elections, but they cannot be done for national elections, which are done in accordance with the Constitution.
We have 4-5% of the population, and produce 6% of the engineers. Sounds like we're well ahead of the curve there. Not mind-numbingly ahead, but decently so.
Read the article. The patch issue is one of compliance with federal law. Specifically, federal law mandating privacy of patient records.
The hospital types are afraid that if they do not patch immediately, and some patient information escapes into the wild, they will be found liable. The people making the software are willing to do the patch testing, but can't possibly do it quickly enough to protect against a violation of federal law (if such were to occur, and if the law were to be invoked to sue the hospital).
Note that this particular law seems to be poorly conceived and written - I've seen more than a few references to medical people being unclear on just what, exactly, is required by the law in question.
It's not like the fundamental concepts are top secret or anything. Hell, the patents on most of it have expired. It shouldn't be all that hard for a halfway competent engineer to get something working, given enough coin to make a reasonable effort (I'd have guessed 50M before SS1 flew. Now I'd have to put the floor down around the 20M SS1 actually cost).
Big problem with the Foundation providing technical assistance is that it would actually defeat the idea of the Foundation - to encourage people to come up with as many new ideas as possible. You won't get lots of new ideas when everyone calls the same person for sanity checking ideas.
This doesn't concern me a bit. Everyone has the right to go out with a bang (literally, in this case) if they wish.
I am, however, concerned about the possibility that they take a non-consenting soul with them - crashing on someone's house would be a bad thing (for the owners of the house - the guy in the rocket knew what he was risking when he pushed the big red button).
YOU MUST be joking! Assume a M/AM drive, assume 1,000,000 tons mass, assuming 1g capable drives, the ship is emitting ~3x10^18 watts straight at us. Which is about 1000,000 times the world's current power output. Note my previous about time to notice us aboard that ship (~4 hours).
Yah, they'd notice us if they were coming here, before they arrived, even. But if they were NOT actually coming to visit, they could fly through 99.999% of the galaxy and never get clue one we were present.
Anyone over there will come here based on some clue that there is something worth looking at. Best news they have, BEFORE they leave, is that we're 2,000,000 years away, and have no intelligent lifeforms (homo habilis, which was the latest and greated 2,000,000 years ago, didn't provide any clues visible from Mars, much less Andromeda).
So, likely as not, they wouldn't even bother coming here. BUT, if they did, and they left at the right time to be arriving next year, they'd have gotten a clue ~50 years ago (our radio waves would have been rushing out to meet them, and they'd meet halfway), adjusted by time-dilation. Assuming they were moving quickly enough to get here in 20 years ship-time, that means they'd notice our radio ~4 hours before arrival. IF they noticed it at all, given the dopller shift, and the fact that is an (to say the least) archaic/obscure format.
So, yes, quite easy to believe in bemmies that have interstellar capability and no knowledge of us.
It is because the gun control nuts want to ban all guns. Banning machine guns is irrelevant to them, since there are very few machine guns in private hands. But semi-automatic firearms are a bit more common. and THESE semi-automatic firearms LOOK EVIL!!!
So, it's easy to get some hysteria going, and pass a ban. The ban will, of course, not reduce crime, so next time, you can ask for an even more comprehensive ban.
Note, by the way, that the Assault Weapon Ban banned guns not for being semiautomatic, or for being used in crime, but for their looks. Characteristics used to identify "assault weapons" included pistol grips and flash hiders.
Note further that it didn't ban them entirely. It made importation illegal, and made reselling them illegal (if you owned one when the ban went into effect, you could sell it. if you acquired it after the ban went into effect, you could not).
And finally, note that some semiautomatic weapons with all the features required to be names "assault weapons" under the Ban were specifically exempted from being considered "assault weapons" in the listing of exempt weapons included in the law. This was particularly annoying to me, since I spent several hundred dollars turning one of my rifles into what should have been an "assault weapon", only to find it on the exempt list when the Ban was passed. Then I had to go out and spend several hundred more dollars to get an "assault weapon", just so I could say I had one.
By they way, I have three semi-automatic rifles that fire the same round, and have similar magazine capacities. One is an "assault weapon" within the definition of the law, one is not, and the third is on the exempt list. Go figure.
Why do you believe this? It is statements like this that cause me to discount pretty much everything you say.
Let me give you a clue or three.
No gun manufacturer thinks that he gets good PR when someone's kid gets killed, whatever the cause. For that matter, no bed manufacturer does either, but we're trying to stay on topic.
Gun manufacturers have been developing new safety devices regularly since the idea first came along. Note that NO gun had any kind of safety for the first four hundred years of firearms history. Safety devices were first put into guns late in the 19th century, and were not common until the 20th.
Couple those two ideas, and it is clear that they'd be delighted to steal your idea and leave you penniless. ;-)
seriously, the assumption that gun manufacturers haven't come up with a better safety does NOT imply they are negligent. It implies, if anything, that there aren't any better safeties that we have the technology to build. Yet.
Stop that! Unique does not have degrees. You are unique, or you are not unique.
Do we even have accurate enough measurements going far enough back to detect something with a 12 year orbit? Much less something as small as Jupiter with a 12 year orbit.
Just because WE have those things doesn't actually imply that that is the only answer to the question.
That's an interesting statement. It appears, however, to make no sense whatsoever. An alien race that lived in the Andromeda Galaxy could be quite advanced enough to come visit us.
Alas, the most recent news they could have of us would describe us as a plains-dwelling ape. Assuming that they weren't busy with the 100 billion starsystems closer to their world than us. In other words, the possibility that someone might be able to come here does NOT imply that they know about us.
I think the dividing line is "high explosive". As opposed to, well, "low explosive". Black powder is perfectly legal in quantity (I keep half a pound or so around for that caplock I mentioned in another post). Dynamite isn't.
What class of permit will I need to buy a Tiger tank or a old Mig with a chaingun?
You can't buy either in the USA until they are demilitarized. Which basically means the gun has been trashed.
Tanks without guns are just heavy machinery, I think. Saw an article a few years back about some guy who owned twenty or thirty tanks (demilitarized, of course). Wish he had the stuff available for display, since some of them were pretty rare.
MiGs are available for sale, again demilitarized. You need whatever certification is rquired for jet engines to fly one of the things, and I expect you couldn't find anyone to sell to you without said cert.
Good rule of thumb, I guess, is "if it explodes, it's prolly a "destructive device"".
No, they aren't putting them inn guns because noone has designed one that works. If you have no ability to design such a thing, why do you assume that others can do so?
#2 The police and military don't keep guns at home, where children might find them, or some visiting inlaw will stumble across them. So that's irrelevant.
No, it's not. Most Police officers (every one I know) keep firearms at home. In many places, police officers are required to carry a firearm, even off-duty. The question, however, is one of reliability - if the gun won't fire when *I* want it to, then it is pretty much useless to me. And to the Police and the Military, and I daresay the overwhelming majority of gun owners.
Adding a neat new safety device to a gun is all well and good, as long as it ONLY restricts unauthorized use. When it starts restricting authorized use, it is a neato keen new safety that noone will buy.
#3 I didn't fail to state that the person who was unloading this gun was an idiot. Simply that this gun company failed to live up to even the minimal safety standards that other gunmakers somehow manage to meet. This is a perfect example of a defective design, that if it had been corrected, could have prevented a tragedy.
Umm, no. An idiot pointing a gun at someone else caused a tragedy. The design of the gun had little, if anything to do with it. No mechanical safety device can prevent a gun from firing in ALL situations. And no mechanical safety device will protect you (or anyone else) from an idiot with a gun in hand.
WHich is not to say the design wasn't defective, IF it couldn't be unloaded with the safety on. As I said, I saw no indication that this was true, other than your link, and several other links referring to the same incident. Though I did see several links describing the gun in question (seems it had a tendency to jam)...
Did I immediately jump to the gun control fanatic conclusion, that all guns should be banned? Hardly. Not that it seems to cut me any slack at all
No, you didn't. But you mentioned a gun as the cause of an accident, without bothering to mention that an idiot pointed it at the kid, flipped the safety off, and proceeded to try to unload it. If, in fact, that's what happened. We can be reasonably sure that the idiot pointed the gun at the kid and flipped the safety off. It's not so clear that he was trying to unload the gun, as opposed to dicking around with the gun.