AC: every small state would wonder why join whatever replaces it?
States don't have brains, they can't "wonder" anything. By contrast, citizens do have brains, and many of them are wondering why they should continue to respect a national political system that is unfairly biased against their desires.
Funny thing is that the Electoral College system creates tyranny of the majority- within each state.
Let's use Texas as an example (although something similar happens in most states). There are a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats. When they vote for President, however, ALL the electoral votes go to Bush, instead of the Democrats sending their 30% to Kerry.
But that would also imply that Iowa's not important - and it is.
If Iowa was really important, then the voters in California would see that (especially when they start paying those farmers for food).
Let's think of some other cases where something important is represented by only a minority of the population...
You know what? I think that the USA is unfairly biased towards the uneducated. Equal voting means that high-school graduates far, far outrank PhDs. But that implies that learned people aren't important- and they are. Neglecting collegians in favor of ignoramuses would mean creating a blanket of idiocy, sinking the country towards the lowest common denominator. So I suggest multipling each person's vote by the number of diploma's she's recieved.
Also, CEOs and entrepeneurs are the drivers of economic growth- they push the creation of wealth that benefits everyone. Let's give business owners one extra vote per $250,000 annual income.
How can you attack my proposals, while defending your own? They have the same basis- a person deserves more power, because he's got more of something- real estate, or education, or money, or whatever.
Neglecting Iowa at the expense of California would mean that you'd essentially create a mecca of civilization, surrounded by an expanse of decaying towns.
If that's where fairness leads, then so be it. If equal voting power and equal ability to participate in the free market aren't enough to give those towns viability, then let them die.
PS. The use of the word "expense" in your post was completely nonsensical. In that sentence, "at the expense" should've been "in favor".
the fact of the matter is that if it were not for the systems in place to grant disproportionate weight to rural areas, there would indeed be less aid.
The nation is full of minority groups that could potentially get more aid if only they had a disproportionate voting weight.
Race, religion, gender, education, employment, income- we don't allow any of those categorizations to change the strength of someone's vote. Why should rural residents be special?
One additional thought regarding the appointment of electors, the state legislatures should adopt the model used by Nebraska and Maine and have the elector tried to the congressional district,
Sure, they should do that, but they won't. There are a lot of people who've got an unfair amount of power, and they should willingly give it up for the sake of everyone else, but don't hold your breath waiting.
The only reasonable way to change the allocation of electoral votes is a constitutional amendment. Leaving it up to the states won't work, because the people of those state's will notvoluntarily reduce their influence in presidential elections.
The electoral college is designed to defend our Federal system: a nation made up of separate states.
Yeah, because citizens today really have a greater loyalty to Georgia than the USA.
That means that there is intrinsic power in being a state, no matter how small
Stating the obvious doesn't prove it is good, only that it is.
Arguing for a number driven entirely by popular vote ignores the realities of separate states in our Federation, and invites secession and the possible dissolution of our nation.
the dissolution of the United States of America would be so bad for the stability, prosperity, and standard of living for the people of Earth that there aren't words strong enough to convey it.
If that's as obviously true as you say, then nobody will vote for secession, even in a popular election.
The point of the Electoral College is not to give individual votes different "weights" (though that may be the effect) but to provide a method of giving States fair representation.
True. But aside from the force of tradition, it's hard to defend why we need to enforce fairness amoung states, since states are not alive. Shouldn't we care more about actual people than states?
Back when the Constitution was proposed, it was seeking approval from each state, so it's understandable that a compromise was made to attract smaller states. But just because we know there was a pragmatic reason for it once, doesn't mean it's the best thing to continue with.
The general public needs to understand that U.S. Presidents are NOT elected (or defeated) by majority popular vote
Everyone (besides a scattering of idiots) knows this. That's not the question. He's not asking how things are now, but how they should be. Imagine you were building a semi-democratic nation from a blank slate (hmm, that's a hobby of President Bush...). Would you try to make each citizen's vote equally powerful, or give extra-weight to the residents of certain areas?
You never touched my fundamental point: A state deciding to split it's vote will be weakening it's own power on the national level. Why would any state do this, unless they knew that all the other states would be weakened at the same time?
but which party often changes over time. it's not always the same party in the majority.
Irrelevant. On any single day, one party is in power. The majority party will not want to reduce it's national influence, and the minority party will not be able to.
there are enough republicans in the state that such a measure could be approved,
No there aren't. The state is mostly Democrat, and both parties will have the same motivation for turnout (helping their Presidential candidate).
so invoking bush is probably not relevant.
That's just an example from today. There will ALWAYS be a presidential campaign on the horizon, and the parties will ALWAYS think it's important.
The places where this is going to start happening are in the swing states, where votors on both sides are more likely to get fed up with their state going all one way or all the other.
What, and give up being swing states? They LOVE it. (Same way NH loves having an early primary) Sure, the public complain about how 50% of all the ads on TV are political, and they get 2 different voter-survey phonecalls per day... but those annoyances are a small price to pay for their inflated importance.
Just look at the debate tonight. It's in Florida- why are both Bush and Kerry paying so much attention to Florida? Because it's a swing state. If Florida switched to allow split electoral votes, then do you think there'd be a debate there again? No, and no more Presidents would owe them pandered campaign promises anymore.
Well, if it were direct elect it could have come down to one vote. So I'm not sure how it is any better?
ANY election can come down to one vote, if everything is evenly split except for that one. But greater the number of total votes, the less probable it is that one single vote will matter.
Prehaps more importantly, if there's one big election, then all votes count the same. If Gore had somehow gotten 10,000 more votes in both Texas and Massachusetts, they wouldn't have helped him at all regarding the 500 votes he needed in Florida. If some votes are A LOT more powerful than other, then it's obvious that the system is unfair.
(Some can argue that unfairness is good, but that's a separate discussion)
That's not what "atheist" means. Theists believe god(s) exist. Atheists, by definition, don't- but that doesn't mean they believe gods don't exist!
For example, do you think I'm taller than you? If you don't think so, does that necessarily mean you think I'm shorter? No, you could have no knowledge at all.
How does this have anything to do with the Universe?
If, hypothetically, we were aware of events in other universes, then we'd have a parallel to compare Biblical Creation with.
There are very very few faithful that will say they listen to the word of someone without knowledge on the subject.
If you first explain the difference between knowledge and belief, then most will agree. Indeed, some theists are proud of this, and say that their faith in the unproven shows they are inherently good people.
Just look at the word they use all the time: "believe". They don't say "this is what we know", but "this is what we believe". "Believe" is a qualified form of "know", meaning you're not really sure, because you don't have real knowledge.
Hehe, Twirlip knows that LANTIRNs are infrared... I taught him that, ya know.
Anyway, numerous military targeting lasers are visible, especially some used by attack helicopters. (Unlikely one of those could get up above a jet, though)
LOL. So why don't you post under your login if its so meaningless.
It might not be his fault. Slashdot has a daily limit on the number of logged-in posts you can make, according to your karma score. I suppose Twirlip occasionally gets modded down far enough that he can't post much.
or grounding all air traffic in the US, are made by the President, and on 9/11 he made those decisions.
False. The FAA ordered airplanes grounded at 09:08, when "My Pet Goat" was just warming up.
It would have been a wrong decision if acting differently in those 7 minutes could have significantly changed the outcome.
Wrong. To try and fail is better than never to try at all.
I hate to have to explain this, but whenever the President is in public there are dozens of cameras trained on him watching his every move.
And knowing that, if he cared about appearances, he might've tried to project calm. Slouching in a kindergarden chair isn't the way to present a reassuring public image when facing a coordinated assault from unknown enemies. A little purposeful striding, barking orders, etc.
The claim that they did make, that is just as valid today as it was before we attacked Iraq, was that we could no longer allow potential threats to go unchecked.
At the time of Bush's invasion, Iraq was more "checked" than Afganistan, Iran, or North Korea. For him to focus all energies on the smallest threat makes him either incompetent, or a hypocrite.
Oh, lookie, you want to argue against yourself. First, say that Bush attacks the biggest threats first, without caring about internationl 'legitimacy':
See, this is the big difference between the right and the left today. You are worried about "legitimacy", while George Bush is worried about national security.
Then, you say that even though there were bigger threats, Bush was right to invade Iraq, because of international legitmacy:
Ah, the typical left wing list of countries that are supposedly worse than Iraq. Guess what? None of those countries that you listed are in direct defiance of 17 Chapter 7 UN Resolutions. That's the difference.
By the way, we have our most elite joint task force (Task Force 121, which contains Navy Seals, Army Delta Force, CIA, and other special forces) on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Yeah, that's the kind of job where you can just drop it for 16 months in Iraq and then come back and pick up exactly where you left off.
What could have been done that would have saved anymore lives in that 7 minutes?
"Admiral, I want F-15s in Combat Air Patrols over the 5 largest cities on the Eastern seaboard. Any aircraft off of it's flight path gets 2 minutes of warning- then splash it"
Those two simple sentences would've saved the Pentagon.
But anyway, whether or not Bush could've done something with that time doesn't matter as much as the fact that he didn't even try.
No, I think it was quite clear. By stating upfront that he believes inflation = thievery, he shows that all his conclusions spring from insane premises, and nothing he says will be sensible at all.
How interesting. That website has changed their definitions. Last year, they said libertarian was: "one who espouses the ideals of individual liberty", which is distinctly different from "minimizing the role of the state" (because it leaves open the possibility that the state might be positive influence on liberty). I guess they must've lapsed an agreement with a dictionary.
Guards stationed anyplace can always be ambushed by violent attackers. A few days of familiarizing with the target will detect all plaincloth guards. And even hidden guard can be pinpointed easily, such as by triggering a false alarm.
and can ambush the robbers...
How? An alarm goes off, a few shots are fired, and 100 panicked or confused guests come wandering out the doors- who's he going to ambush, exactly?
For all the griping I hear about how "cute" the Ewoks were,
Cuteness signifies powerlessness (biologically, infants have evolved to be cute as a signal that adults should protect them). If you look at them objectively, the Ewoks were darn weak: 1 meter tall, slow, clumsy, and with limbs too short to even rub their palms together.
The only thing they could do well is magically and invisibly move around 15-ton tree trunks- and of course, they could only do that offscreen.
Yet despite all this pathetic weakness, they still manage to tear through a squadron of armed imperial troops with just 1 casualty, demonstrating that the stormtroopers must be even weaker than the puny Ewoks.
And that proof just destroys any grandeur of the heros' accomplishment. How can they be proud about beating up on a bunch of guys so retarded that teddy-bears with rocks could beat them?
Lucas clearly wanted a goof in the mix to stop things from getting too stuffy,
Jar-Jar Binks was hardly "in the mix" at all. He was sprayed on top of it. Since the heros are smart enough to basically ignore Jar-Jar's random whinging, he normally just flops around on one side of the screen or the other. For proof of this, watch the Phantom Edit, and see how easy it was to remvoe Jar-Jar and leave the film intact. (You can't do the same for c3po)
Thanks for catching up with the whole point of this article.
I'll explain this slowly: her point was that many comments were going on & on about how to make better security systems, when the article itself showed that security systems were already so strong that brute force and threat of violence is now the weakest link. It was a reminder for all those non-RTFA posters spouting off.
It's as if it's defining something to simply make a cut at it.
Yes, that was Ambrose Bierce's whole point. Thanks for helping us summarize the Devil's Dictionary so succinctly.
Then you go on to invent two of your own definitions, trying to play Ambrose's game. But he's a little better at it than you, because his definition is inarguably true. I mean, really, exactly what claim in the following might you dispute?
"FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
Even the very faithful must concede on each individual point. By contrast, the "definitions" you give are simply false.
"Atheist: A person too stupid to realize the practicality of religion"
"Atheist: A person living in a constant state of hypocrisy by critisizing religious zeal
False. The majority of atheists are happy to sit back and not stir up a ruckus. And even zealous atheists don't hold a candle to the efforts put in by a hard-core theist.
Assuming you're just ignorant, you should know that automatic weapons have been illegal since 1934.
I'll assume you're ignorant, because an "automatic" weapon is one that advances the next round automatically when you fire. In fact, if you use "automatic" as a noun, it means a Colt 911-style pistol.
To be more precise, there are automatic-loading weapons, some of which are also automatic-firing.
The just-expired "assault-weapons" ban covered many kinds of very powerful automatic weapons which nonetheless were not autofire.
Slashdot Mirror
AC: every small state would wonder why join whatever replaces it?
States don't have brains, they can't "wonder" anything. By contrast, citizens do have brains, and many of them are wondering why they should continue to respect a national political system that is unfairly biased against their desires.
For one, it avoids tyranny of the majority
Funny thing is that the Electoral College system creates tyranny of the majority- within each state.
Let's use Texas as an example (although something similar happens in most states). There are a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats. When they vote for President, however, ALL the electoral votes go to Bush, instead of the Democrats sending their 30% to Kerry.
But that would also imply that Iowa's not important - and it is.
If Iowa was really important, then the voters in California would see that (especially when they start paying those farmers for food).
Let's think of some other cases where something important is represented by only a minority of the population...
You know what? I think that the USA is unfairly biased towards the uneducated. Equal voting means that high-school graduates far, far outrank PhDs. But that implies that learned people aren't important- and they are. Neglecting collegians in favor of ignoramuses would mean creating a blanket of idiocy, sinking the country towards the lowest common denominator. So I suggest multipling each person's vote by the number of diploma's she's recieved.
Also, CEOs and entrepeneurs are the drivers of economic growth- they push the creation of wealth that benefits everyone. Let's give business owners one extra vote per $250,000 annual income.
How can you attack my proposals, while defending your own? They have the same basis- a person deserves more power, because he's got more of something- real estate, or education, or money, or whatever.
Neglecting Iowa at the expense of California would mean that you'd essentially create a mecca of civilization, surrounded by an expanse of decaying towns.
If that's where fairness leads, then so be it. If equal voting power and equal ability to participate in the free market aren't enough to give those towns viability, then let them die.
PS. The use of the word "expense" in your post was completely nonsensical. In that sentence, "at the expense" should've been "in favor".
the fact of the matter is that if it were not for the systems in place to grant disproportionate weight to rural areas, there would indeed be less aid.
The nation is full of minority groups that could potentially get more aid if only they had a disproportionate voting weight.
Race, religion, gender, education, employment, income- we don't allow any of those categorizations to change the strength of someone's vote. Why should rural residents be special?
One additional thought regarding the appointment of electors, the state legislatures should adopt the model used by Nebraska and Maine and have the elector tried to the congressional district,
Sure, they should do that, but they won't. There are a lot of people who've got an unfair amount of power, and they should willingly give it up for the sake of everyone else, but don't hold your breath waiting.
The only reasonable way to change the allocation of electoral votes is a constitutional amendment. Leaving it up to the states won't work, because the people of those state's will not voluntarily reduce their influence in presidential elections.
As a matter of fact, I do. 23 out of 48, or 47% of the country.
Math time! 47 and 66. Which one of those numbers is bigger? Good.
The electoral college is designed to defend our Federal system: a nation made up of separate states.
Yeah, because citizens today really have a greater loyalty to Georgia than the USA.
That means that there is intrinsic power in being a state, no matter how small
Stating the obvious doesn't prove it is good, only that it is.
Arguing for a number driven entirely by popular vote ignores the realities of separate states in our Federation, and invites secession and the possible dissolution of our nation.
Right. That non-popular vote sure has done a good job at preventing secession.
the dissolution of the United States of America would be so bad for the stability, prosperity, and standard of living for the people of Earth that there aren't words strong enough to convey it.
If that's as obviously true as you say, then nobody will vote for secession, even in a popular election.
The point of the Electoral College is not to give individual votes different "weights" (though that may be the effect) but to provide a method of giving States fair representation.
True. But aside from the force of tradition, it's hard to defend why we need to enforce fairness amoung states, since states are not alive. Shouldn't we care more about actual people than states?
Back when the Constitution was proposed, it was seeking approval from each state, so it's understandable that a compromise was made to attract smaller states. But just because we know there was a pragmatic reason for it once, doesn't mean it's the best thing to continue with.
The general public needs to understand that U.S. Presidents are NOT elected (or defeated) by majority popular vote
Everyone (besides a scattering of idiots) knows this. That's not the question. He's not asking how things are now, but how they should be. Imagine you were building a semi-democratic nation from a blank slate (hmm, that's a hobby of President Bush...). Would you try to make each citizen's vote equally powerful, or give extra-weight to the residents of certain areas?
You never touched my fundamental point: A state deciding to split it's vote will be weakening it's own power on the national level. Why would any state do this, unless they knew that all the other states would be weakened at the same time?
but which party often changes over time. it's not always the same party in the majority.
Irrelevant. On any single day, one party is in power. The majority party will not want to reduce it's national influence, and the minority party will not be able to.
there are enough republicans in the state that such a measure could be approved,
No there aren't. The state is mostly Democrat, and both parties will have the same motivation for turnout (helping their Presidential candidate).
so invoking bush is probably not relevant.
That's just an example from today. There will ALWAYS be a presidential campaign on the horizon, and the parties will ALWAYS think it's important.
The places where this is going to start happening are in the swing states, where votors on both sides are more likely to get fed up with their state going all one way or all the other.
What, and give up being swing states? They LOVE it. (Same way NH loves having an early primary) Sure, the public complain about how 50% of all the ads on TV are political, and they get 2 different voter-survey phonecalls per day... but those annoyances are a small price to pay for their inflated importance.
Just look at the debate tonight. It's in Florida- why are both Bush and Kerry paying so much attention to Florida? Because it's a swing state. If Florida switched to allow split electoral votes, then do you think there'd be a debate there again? No, and no more Presidents would owe them pandered campaign promises anymore.
Well, if it were direct elect it could have come down to one vote. So I'm not sure how it is any better?
ANY election can come down to one vote, if everything is evenly split except for that one. But greater the number of total votes, the less probable it is that one single vote will matter.
Prehaps more importantly, if there's one big election, then all votes count the same. If Gore had somehow gotten 10,000 more votes in both Texas and Massachusetts, they wouldn't have helped him at all regarding the 500 votes he needed in Florida. If some votes are A LOT more powerful than other, then it's obvious that the system is unfair.
(Some can argue that unfairness is good, but that's a separate discussion)
First, you have no proof God doesn't exist.
That's not what "atheist" means. Theists believe god(s) exist. Atheists, by definition, don't- but that doesn't mean they believe gods don't exist!
For example, do you think I'm taller than you? If you don't think so, does that necessarily mean you think I'm shorter? No, you could have no knowledge at all.
How does this have anything to do with the Universe?
If, hypothetically, we were aware of events in other universes, then we'd have a parallel to compare Biblical Creation with.
There are very very few faithful that will say they listen to the word of someone without knowledge on the subject.
If you first explain the difference between knowledge and belief, then most will agree. Indeed, some theists are proud of this, and say that their faith in the unproven shows they are inherently good people.
Just look at the word they use all the time: "believe". They don't say "this is what we know", but "this is what we believe". "Believe" is a qualified form of "know", meaning you're not really sure, because you don't have real knowledge.
Hehe, Twirlip knows that LANTIRNs are infrared... I taught him that, ya know.
Anyway, numerous military targeting lasers are visible, especially some used by attack helicopters. (Unlikely one of those could get up above a jet, though)
LOL. So why don't you post under your login if its so meaningless.
It might not be his fault. Slashdot has a daily limit on the number of logged-in posts you can make, according to your karma score. I suppose Twirlip occasionally gets modded down far enough that he can't post much.
or grounding all air traffic in the US, are made by the President, and on 9/11 he made those decisions.
False. The FAA ordered airplanes grounded at 09:08, when "My Pet Goat" was just warming up.
It would have been a wrong decision if acting differently in those 7 minutes could have significantly changed the outcome.
Wrong. To try and fail is better than never to try at all.
I hate to have to explain this, but whenever the President is in public there are dozens of cameras trained on him watching his every move.
And knowing that, if he cared about appearances, he might've tried to project calm. Slouching in a kindergarden chair isn't the way to present a reassuring public image when facing a coordinated assault from unknown enemies. A little purposeful striding, barking orders, etc.
At the time of Bush's invasion, Iraq was more "checked" than Afganistan, Iran, or North Korea. For him to focus all energies on the smallest threat makes him either incompetent, or a hypocrite.
Oh, lookie, you want to argue against yourself. First, say that Bush attacks the biggest threats first, without caring about internationl 'legitimacy':
Then, you say that even though there were bigger threats, Bush was right to invade Iraq, because of international legitmacy:
By the way, we have our most elite joint task force (Task Force 121, which contains Navy Seals, Army Delta Force, CIA, and other special forces) on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Yeah, that's the kind of job where you can just drop it for 16 months in Iraq and then come back and pick up exactly where you left off.
What could have been done that would have saved anymore lives in that 7 minutes?
"Admiral, I want F-15s in Combat Air Patrols over the 5 largest cities on the Eastern seaboard. Any aircraft off of it's flight path gets 2 minutes of warning- then splash it"
Those two simple sentences would've saved the Pentagon.
But anyway, whether or not Bush could've done something with that time doesn't matter as much as the fact that he didn't even try.
Sorry, but you failed utterly.
No, I think it was quite clear. By stating upfront that he believes inflation = thievery, he shows that all his conclusions spring from insane premises, and nothing he says will be sensible at all.
dictionary.com describes a libertarian as:
How interesting. That website has changed their definitions. Last year, they said libertarian was: "one who espouses the ideals of individual liberty", which is distinctly different from "minimizing the role of the state" (because it leaves open the possibility that the state might be positive influence on liberty). I guess they must've lapsed an agreement with a dictionary.
always be stationed around there,
Guards stationed anyplace can always be ambushed by violent attackers. A few days of familiarizing with the target will detect all plaincloth guards. And even hidden guard can be pinpointed easily, such as by triggering a false alarm.
and can ambush the robbers...
How? An alarm goes off, a few shots are fired, and 100 panicked or confused guests come wandering out the doors- who's he going to ambush, exactly?
Republic All JAr-Jar all the time.....
Car-bo-NYTE!
For all the griping I hear about how "cute" the Ewoks were,
Cuteness signifies powerlessness (biologically, infants have evolved to be cute as a signal that adults should protect them). If you look at them objectively, the Ewoks were darn weak: 1 meter tall, slow, clumsy, and with limbs too short to even rub their palms together.
The only thing they could do well is magically and invisibly move around 15-ton tree trunks- and of course, they could only do that offscreen.
Yet despite all this pathetic weakness, they still manage to tear through a squadron of armed imperial troops with just 1 casualty, demonstrating that the stormtroopers must be even weaker than the puny Ewoks.
And that proof just destroys any grandeur of the heros' accomplishment. How can they be proud about beating up on a bunch of guys so retarded that teddy-bears with rocks could beat them?
Lucas clearly wanted a goof in the mix to stop things from getting too stuffy,
Jar-Jar Binks was hardly "in the mix" at all. He was sprayed on top of it. Since the heros are smart enough to basically ignore Jar-Jar's random whinging, he normally just flops around on one side of the screen or the other. For proof of this, watch the Phantom Edit, and see how easy it was to remvoe Jar-Jar and leave the film intact. (You can't do the same for c3po)
Thanks for catching up with the whole point of this article.
I'll explain this slowly: her point was that many comments were going on & on about how to make better security systems, when the article itself showed that security systems were already so strong that brute force and threat of violence is now the weakest link. It was a reminder for all those non-RTFA posters spouting off.
It's as if it's defining something to simply make a cut at it.
Yes, that was Ambrose Bierce's whole point. Thanks for helping us summarize the Devil's Dictionary so succinctly.
Then you go on to invent two of your own definitions, trying to play Ambrose's game. But he's a little better at it than you, because his definition is inarguably true. I mean, really, exactly what claim in the following might you dispute?
"FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
Even the very faithful must concede on each individual point. By contrast, the "definitions" you give are simply false.
"Atheist: A person too stupid to realize the practicality of religion"
False. In fact, many atheists recognize that religion is tremendously practical.
"Atheist: A person living in a constant state of hypocrisy by critisizing religious zeal
False. The majority of atheists are happy to sit back and not stir up a ruckus. And even zealous atheists don't hold a candle to the efforts put in by a hard-core theist.
But seriously, where would you put a treadmill?
In a gym. You know, the usual place to find treadmills.
Don't think of it as adding a huge controller to a video-game... it's really adding video-game entertainments to workouts.
Assuming you're just ignorant, you should know that automatic weapons have been illegal since 1934.
I'll assume you're ignorant, because an "automatic" weapon is one that advances the next round automatically when you fire. In fact, if you use "automatic" as a noun, it means a Colt 911-style pistol.
To be more precise, there are automatic-loading weapons, some of which are also automatic-firing.
The just-expired "assault-weapons" ban covered many kinds of very powerful automatic weapons which nonetheless were not autofire.