Quite correct..223 rounds aren't designed to kill, they're designed to wound. It keeps battlefield fatalities down and results in more than one soldier being removed from action in order to care for a wounded comrade.
That doesn't stop people from being scared to death of them and treating them like the bogeyman.
No, it's not an ex post facto law, it's an ingenious loophole which is being abused. It's too bad we can't apply game rules against politicians, because this is griefing at its finest. Clearly against the spirit of the prohibition on punitive measures levied against past behavior that the State considered legal at the time, but not technically against the letter of the law because taxes are a deprivation not based in either criminal or civil law. As such, they use taxes in abusive ways, and then make the refusal to pay criminal. So, the criminal penalty is never retroactive, but they can make it effectively retroactive by cleverly manipulating tax law.
It's amazing how much of the spirit of the law has been perverted by clever manipulation of tax law. This is just the newest griefing method discovered. It'll be interesting to see if higher courts let them actually get away with it.
It's certainly punitive in nature to be charged for something that way legal according to the State at the time. It doesn't have to be intended as punitive if the effect is functionally punitive in practice.
The fact that the money from these investments is likely to be broadly tied up, and in many cases subsequently lost due to recent economic events, certainly makes this punitive in practice. Anyone unable to pay (and there will be many) will be subject to further punitive measures, in the form of penalties and seizures.
So does the Internet when applied in the context of the 1st Amendment.
People who support shortcuts past the Constitution should not complain when those same shortcuts are applied against rights they personally support (like the right to privacy). There is no mention of method in any of the first 10 Amendments, and for good reason.
If you don't like it, support it being changed the legitimate way, and not through judicial or executive re-interpretation. Re-interpretation is what got us the Drug War after the abject failure of Prohibition, and is a direct result of people supporting shortcutting Constitutional protections via re-interpretation.
Hunters don't need assault rifles. I've never actually heard of someone in the US hunting with an assault rifle, though that's likely primarily because they're upwards of 5 figures to obtain and require an incredible amount of paperwork.
If you meant a semi-automatic rifle though, which is what all weapons legally classified as "assault weapons" are, then yes, there are many people who legitimately hunt with semi-automatic rifles.
I believe the rant was intended to cast aspersions on those who use the manufactured term "assault weapon," because it is meaningless in anything other than a legal sense. It is also frequently used by the media and those who are anti-gun to imply automatic fire capabilities where they do not, and never have, existed.
The use of "assault weapon" in quotations, the obvious familiarity with which rifles are actually capable of automatic fire, and the use of the term "assault rifle" without quotations all lead me to believe the above to be true, rather than the use to be made in error to indicate the attempt to make some other point.
I'm not sure who you've talked to, but to everyone I've heard from who do not support gun rights, a gun nut is anyone who supports gun rights (whether they own guns or not).
It's a symptom of how sick the political process is, and how easy many people find it to demonize those with whom they do not agree.
Maybe that's true in other parts of the US, but in the NW the major utility command center computers aren't connected to the outside world. The most that can be done remotely is load shedding, which while inconvenient, is not destructive and can be fixed rapidly. I'll take the word of the guy who heads up electronic security for a major regional utility over some random person on the Internet, personally.
There is no national clearinghouse for reporting the defensive use of a firearm in the USA, so the collected statistics are guaranteed to be only a small percentage of the number that actually occur. They also do not include the non-firing defensive use of a weapon, which is likely to dwarf the number of defensive firings.
eBay only cracked down on high delivery charges when shipping and handling were exempt from their final value fees. Now that final value fees are charged on the total payment price including all attendant s&h charges, they don't enforce their excessive s&h policy anymore. It was only ever put into place to protect eBay's bottom line, not to protect buyers.
Information required to administer public functions does not automatically become public information. Otherwise the personal information of those in Witness Protection would be freely obtainable.
The only reason this is public information is because the law hasn't kept up with technology. Records transparency is to make sure government is operating correctly, not to harass those who are complying with the law. This is no different than collecting and disseminating the personal information of doctors who work at womens' clinics.
Most people who are extremely anti-gun are likely to say exactly that.
However, I'm all for stores being able to do so though (and I'm pro-gun). Doing so is actually to their disadvantage for many reasons, all of which I support such people engaging in.
Gandhi isn't a good example. He was opposed to the Arms Act which disarmed native Indians, and understood that violence in defense was perfectly acceptable if the alternative was abject cowardice (as opposed to reasoned pacifism, which is anything but).
Just like all the other bans, they won't have a snowflake's chance in hell of criminalizing possession of items made before the ban. Such a ban would be unlikely to survive past its first committee introduction.
Unfortunately, a high percentage of the vocal proponents of anything are delusional nuts. If all you do is listen to the most vocal about anything, you'll have a very skewed view of humanity.
Whether WMWare owns copyright or not is irrelevant. VMWare was aware of, and consented to, the licensing terms the code was publicly released under. They can stop contributing new code, but they cannot remove the code already released. Their ownership interest going forward is 100% irrelevant.
Laws can be a real threat to anyone, as can comprehensive databases in the wrong hands. Nobody on Slashdot would know anything about the latter though. </sarcasm>
Slashdot Mirror
No it wouldn't, because they're funded with public money so they have no vested interest in whether they pay out anything or not.
Now, if it involved patent examiners losing their jobs, that would be something...
Quite correct. .223 rounds aren't designed to kill, they're designed to wound. It keeps battlefield fatalities down and results in more than one soldier being removed from action in order to care for a wounded comrade.
That doesn't stop people from being scared to death of them and treating them like the bogeyman.
Interesting. I hadn't heard of that. Maybe that's what made all of the ones I've every used unreliable as time went on.
Add "Pass a law criminalizing possession of government-owned livestock" prior to passing the "Free pony" law, just for kicks.
No, it's not an ex post facto law, it's an ingenious loophole which is being abused. It's too bad we can't apply game rules against politicians, because this is griefing at its finest. Clearly against the spirit of the prohibition on punitive measures levied against past behavior that the State considered legal at the time, but not technically against the letter of the law because taxes are a deprivation not based in either criminal or civil law. As such, they use taxes in abusive ways, and then make the refusal to pay criminal. So, the criminal penalty is never retroactive, but they can make it effectively retroactive by cleverly manipulating tax law.
It's amazing how much of the spirit of the law has been perverted by clever manipulation of tax law. This is just the newest griefing method discovered. It'll be interesting to see if higher courts let them actually get away with it.
It's certainly punitive in nature to be charged for something that way legal according to the State at the time. It doesn't have to be intended as punitive if the effect is functionally punitive in practice.
The fact that the money from these investments is likely to be broadly tied up, and in many cases subsequently lost due to recent economic events, certainly makes this punitive in practice. Anyone unable to pay (and there will be many) will be subject to further punitive measures, in the form of penalties and seizures.
So does the Internet when applied in the context of the 1st Amendment.
People who support shortcuts past the Constitution should not complain when those same shortcuts are applied against rights they personally support (like the right to privacy). There is no mention of method in any of the first 10 Amendments, and for good reason.
If you don't like it, support it being changed the legitimate way, and not through judicial or executive re-interpretation. Re-interpretation is what got us the Drug War after the abject failure of Prohibition, and is a direct result of people supporting shortcutting Constitutional protections via re-interpretation.
Hunters don't need assault rifles. I've never actually heard of someone in the US hunting with an assault rifle, though that's likely primarily because they're upwards of 5 figures to obtain and require an incredible amount of paperwork.
If you meant a semi-automatic rifle though, which is what all weapons legally classified as "assault weapons" are, then yes, there are many people who legitimately hunt with semi-automatic rifles.
I believe the rant was intended to cast aspersions on those who use the manufactured term "assault weapon," because it is meaningless in anything other than a legal sense. It is also frequently used by the media and those who are anti-gun to imply automatic fire capabilities where they do not, and never have, existed.
The use of "assault weapon" in quotations, the obvious familiarity with which rifles are actually capable of automatic fire, and the use of the term "assault rifle" without quotations all lead me to believe the above to be true, rather than the use to be made in error to indicate the attempt to make some other point.
I could be wrong though...
I'm not sure who you've talked to, but to everyone I've heard from who do not support gun rights, a gun nut is anyone who supports gun rights (whether they own guns or not).
It's a symptom of how sick the political process is, and how easy many people find it to demonize those with whom they do not agree.
Maybe that's true in other parts of the US, but in the NW the major utility command center computers aren't connected to the outside world. The most that can be done remotely is load shedding, which while inconvenient, is not destructive and can be fixed rapidly. I'll take the word of the guy who heads up electronic security for a major regional utility over some random person on the Internet, personally.
I'm going to take a leap and hope this is an incorrectly-placed reply. Otherwise, I'm completely lost as to its bearing on my comment.
There is no national clearinghouse for reporting the defensive use of a firearm in the USA, so the collected statistics are guaranteed to be only a small percentage of the number that actually occur. They also do not include the non-firing defensive use of a weapon, which is likely to dwarf the number of defensive firings.
eBay only cracked down on high delivery charges when shipping and handling were exempt from their final value fees. Now that final value fees are charged on the total payment price including all attendant s&h charges, they don't enforce their excessive s&h policy anymore. It was only ever put into place to protect eBay's bottom line, not to protect buyers.
Information required to administer public functions does not automatically become public information. Otherwise the personal information of those in Witness Protection would be freely obtainable.
The only reason this is public information is because the law hasn't kept up with technology. Records transparency is to make sure government is operating correctly, not to harass those who are complying with the law. This is no different than collecting and disseminating the personal information of doctors who work at womens' clinics.
Most people who are extremely anti-gun are likely to say exactly that.
However, I'm all for stores being able to do so though (and I'm pro-gun). Doing so is actually to their disadvantage for many reasons, all of which I support such people engaging in.
Gandhi isn't a good example. He was opposed to the Arms Act which disarmed native Indians, and understood that violence in defense was perfectly acceptable if the alternative was abject cowardice (as opposed to reasoned pacifism, which is anything but).
Just like all the other bans, they won't have a snowflake's chance in hell of criminalizing possession of items made before the ban. Such a ban would be unlikely to survive past its first committee introduction.
No, they're just very, very expensive to purchase legally.
Unfortunately, a high percentage of the vocal proponents of anything are delusional nuts. If all you do is listen to the most vocal about anything, you'll have a very skewed view of humanity.
Yup. This legislation is DRM for firearms.
Whether WMWare owns copyright or not is irrelevant. VMWare was aware of, and consented to, the licensing terms the code was publicly released under. They can stop contributing new code, but they cannot remove the code already released. Their ownership interest going forward is 100% irrelevant.
Yes. In the West there's the illusion of choice. Makes people so much more accepting of unelected power-brokers.
Well yes, that's because half of humanity is female. :)
Laws can be a real threat to anyone, as can comprehensive databases in the wrong hands. Nobody on Slashdot would know anything about the latter though. </sarcasm>