You might want to take a second look at places like Northern Ireland. Things like Predator drones are only useful in places wehre collateral damage isn't a concern. In an urban environment in the US they'd be almost useless.
I think you'll find that if a sufficiently large proportion of the population started an armed uprising, the government would soon stop worrying about collateral damage, they would simply treat all opposition as the enemy in a civil war.
If Boudica had had guns, things might have turned out differently. I'm assuming in this scenario the romans didn't of course.
Why not just assume that Boudica had fighter-bombers and cruise missiles? It's a meaningless comparison either way.
Boudica was broadly armed the same as the Romans (swords, spears and bows). The Romans won because they were better soldiers. If a few gun nuts tried to take on the US military, the results would be entirely predictable assuming they had no real popular support.
If someone's breaking in to your house and you knock them unconscious, then tie them up, cut off their cock and stuff it down their throat, that's illegal
Oops. Better go for the "not guilty on the grounds of insanity" defence then.
The fact that you can't even defend yourself in your own home with anything, much less a gun, is a travesty.
That would be a travesty if it were true.
Luckily, it's not.
Foreigners should be very careful about using the Daily Mail as a source of information about Britain: it's like reading a Klu Klux Klan newsletter for the truth about inter-racial dating.
If you try to "defend yourself" by armed struggle against the police, you're going to end up on the losing side even if you kill a few officers along the way. It's a bit like taking on the Army: there are always thousands more as back up.
No engagement or discussion, just "you are a troll/anti-American/a coward".
Having a discussion is hard when both sides are running on emotion instead of fact and when one side would see any gun crime over 0 as a valid reason to impose significant restrictions.
People who aren't gun-lovers work from the position that you should need to justify why you have a deadly weapon, rather than starting from the position that you should be allowed access to anything you like, and grudginly accepting that the private possession of nuclear weapons is perhaps not entirely necessary.
The question is, why do you care specifically about gun crime? A murder is a murder, whether it's done with a gun or with a knife. Similarly, I don't really care if I get robbed at a gun point or at a knife point; and I doubt that a rape victim would care much, either.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the problem with guns is that they make it far, far too easy to kill someone.
In a country like the UK where I live, a disagreement or fight might end up with someone getting punched; it is fantastically unlikely to end with someone getting shot.
Gun-lovers can protest all they like, the fact is that the murder rate in the US is much higher than in comparable Western countries.
The French Revolution (like the Russian Revolution) did not succeed because the revolutionaries were heavily armed compared with the existing power elite. It succeeded because the mass of people wanted change.
Natural rights are those rights -- such as ownership -- which are inalienable.
That is just your opinion. I do not think that there is any such thing as a natural, inalienable right. Property rights exist because we live in a civilised society with laws that enforce those rights. If we lived in a pure anarchy, I would be able to take any property you owned, provided I had more guns/bigger sticks and your "right" to that property would mean nothing.
But you have a right to own that rock just like someone has the right to own that coconut. Use of objects is not the same as ownership of objects.
No, you do not have a magic "right" to own anything. Society has rules about property which are made by human beings: they're not the ten commandmants written by God.
The correct answer to this question is "Need is irrelevent. I have a natural right to own them. Just because your government oppressively restricts your rights doesn't mean my government should oppressively restrict mine."
There is no such thing as a natural right, however much Americans might like to pretend otherwise. A civilised society depends on the curtailment of an individual's desire to do whatever they want. It why murder is illegal.
Restricting the ability of people to own guns is done for the same reson that restricting the ability of people to own chemical or nuclear weapons is.
Geez, what company do you work for? Around here, HR handles payroll, work permits/visas, arranges interviews, helps new hires move/settle in if needed, maintain personnel databases with vacations, sick days, etc. They are quite useful, and they do things that get in the way of engineering managers doing the engineering work.
A lot of people on slashdot think that anyone who is not a software developer is just dead wood, as though companies employ HR staff, accountants, salesmen, cleaners, secretaries, managers and the rest just for the sake of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you think the air balloon full of tourists that exploded was an accident or terrorism?
In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I would assume it was an accident.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
At least it's their own boss.
You might want to take a second look at places like Northern Ireland. Things like Predator drones are only useful in places wehre collateral damage isn't a concern. In an urban environment in the US they'd be almost useless.
I think you'll find that if a sufficiently large proportion of the population started an armed uprising, the government would soon stop worrying about collateral damage, they would simply treat all opposition as the enemy in a civil war.
Ten muggings at knife point are better than one death by shooting.
At the same time, UK - which has some of the most restrictive firearm laws in Europe - does get robbed and raped more than US does. Funny, that.
We don't have anywhere near the number of murders by guns though.
You don't need guns to rob and rape, and no one's saying that the UK is crime free. It's just that there are far fewer people murdered.
If Boudica had had guns, things might have turned out differently. I'm assuming in this scenario the romans didn't of course.
Why not just assume that Boudica had fighter-bombers and cruise missiles? It's a meaningless comparison either way.
Boudica was broadly armed the same as the Romans (swords, spears and bows). The Romans won because they were better soldiers. If a few gun nuts tried to take on the US military, the results would be entirely predictable assuming they had no real popular support.
If someone's breaking in to your house and you knock them unconscious, then tie them up, cut off their cock and stuff it down their throat, that's illegal
Oops. Better go for the "not guilty on the grounds of insanity" defence then.
The fact that you can't even defend yourself in your own home with anything, much less a gun, is a travesty.
That would be a travesty if it were true.
Luckily, it's not.
Foreigners should be very careful about using the Daily Mail as a source of information about Britain: it's like reading a Klu Klux Klan newsletter for the truth about inter-racial dating.
If you try to "defend yourself" by armed struggle against the police, you're going to end up on the losing side even if you kill a few officers along the way. It's a bit like taking on the Army: there are always thousands more as back up.
No engagement or discussion, just "you are a troll/anti-American/a coward".
Having a discussion is hard when both sides are running on emotion instead of fact and when one side would see any gun crime over 0 as a valid reason to impose significant restrictions.
People who aren't gun-lovers work from the position that you should need to justify why you have a deadly weapon, rather than starting from the position that you should be allowed access to anything you like, and grudginly accepting that the private possession of nuclear weapons is perhaps not entirely necessary.
The question is, why do you care specifically about gun crime? A murder is a murder, whether it's done with a gun or with a knife. Similarly, I don't really care if I get robbed at a gun point or at a knife point; and I doubt that a rape victim would care much, either.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the problem with guns is that they make it far, far too easy to kill someone.
In a country like the UK where I live, a disagreement or fight might end up with someone getting punched; it is fantastically unlikely to end with someone getting shot.
Gun-lovers can protest all they like, the fact is that the murder rate in the US is much higher than in comparable Western countries.
The French Revolution (like the Russian Revolution) did not succeed because the revolutionaries were heavily armed compared with the existing power elite. It succeeded because the mass of people wanted change.
A gun is not a uni-task device.
Well, I suppose you could use it to knock nails in with instead of a hammer, but other than that its purpose is to kill things.
Natural rights are those rights -- such as ownership -- which are inalienable.
That is just your opinion. I do not think that there is any such thing as a natural, inalienable right. Property rights exist because we live in a civilised society with laws that enforce those rights. If we lived in a pure anarchy, I would be able to take any property you owned, provided I had more guns/bigger sticks and your "right" to that property would mean nothing.
But you have a right to own that rock just like someone has the right to own that coconut. Use of objects is not the same as ownership of objects.
No, you do not have a magic "right" to own anything. Society has rules about property which are made by human beings: they're not the ten commandmants written by God.
Why do [you] need these guns?
The correct answer to this question is "Need is irrelevent. I have a natural right to own them. Just because your government oppressively restricts your rights doesn't mean my government should oppressively restrict mine."
There is no such thing as a natural right, however much Americans might like to pretend otherwise. A civilised society depends on the curtailment of an individual's desire to do whatever they want. It why murder is illegal.
Restricting the ability of people to own guns is done for the same reson that restricting the ability of people to own chemical or nuclear weapons is.
Geez, what company do you work for? Around here, HR handles payroll, work permits/visas, arranges interviews, helps new hires move/settle in if needed, maintain personnel databases with vacations, sick days, etc. They are quite useful, and they do things that get in the way of engineering managers doing the engineering work.
A lot of people on slashdot think that anyone who is not a software developer is just dead wood, as though companies employ HR staff, accountants, salesmen, cleaners, secretaries, managers and the rest just for the sake of it.
You can't legally fare well on welfare, it stops you from freezing or starving to death, but it's not the same as having a basic living income.
If I am genetically and chemically predisposed to enjoy slaving away in a sweatshop then imposing rest and relaxation on me would be torture.
Sometimes people need saving from themselves.
The extreme anger thing? Hmmm. That's usually personal. You don't seek out a random victim to stab them 40 times or more.
You do if you're a homicidal maniac, a serial killer or just plain psychotic.
Um, the headline correctly used breathe. What is your point?
The ten incher is a two handed device
That's what she said.
People who carry anything in the back pocket of a pair of jeans are terminally uncool..
A 7 inch tablet won't fit in your jeans' pockets, but it will easily fit into a decent coat/suit jacket or whatever.
Cook Islands .ck TLD should in theory let you have web addresses like "big.co.ck" or "oh.fu.ck". However they don't appear to work.
That would require real patients or a dummy/model to practice on. The latter are surprisingly expensive.
And the former are unsurprisingly unwilling to act as guinea pigs.