So what you're saying is that you want to prioritize fighting against events that take a few dozen lives at once versus several thousand that happen to occur one or two at a time?
That right there proves that the whole fiasco is more about publicity and feel good measures rather than actually trying to save lives.
and (b) because I can't see these plastic magazines working exceptionally well.
And therein lies the irony. I'd bet that these would make it through an initial 30-round run fine. Probably wouldn't stand up to repeated firings though.
Think about that though: in a crime, or a shooting spree, the perp only needs to blast through the magazine once and then its dropped and discarded. The people who care about durability and reuse of magazines are typically competition and target shooters.
So effectively, legislation is likely to affect the completely legitimate uses of the magazines, while technology remains so that all the illegal uses people might want to use them for are still doable.
Same thing happened with me and Star Trek Online. Paid $5 for the pre-order and got beta access - discovered that that game really sucked and I never bought it. And actually, at Gamestop if you never pickup your preorder they will let you transfer the credit over to another game, so I didn't even end up losing the $5.
Part of the problem is the idiotic definition of anything over 10 as "high". Virtually every duty-sized 9mm sold today comes with a 17 to 18 round magazine. The only ones that come with smaller ones are handguns that are sold in larger calibers so as to do more damage, or handguns that are made physically smaller so as to be easier to conceal.
Though I don't agree with ANY caps on magazine capacity, they'd probably meet a lot less resistance if the definition of high was a little more sane (ie, 20). Calling 10 "high" when 17 is the norm is about the same as a cable modem company adding surcharges for "excessive usage" and then declaring "excessive" as anything over 2GB per month.
By refusing to compromise on anything at all, they really invite criticism. I'm a liberal. I really don't want to take away your guns.
You seem to make the mistake that anything up to but not including outright confiscation is A-OK. You see it time and time again on the mainstream media, they're proposing registration, bans on production, bans on transfer, extra taxes, etc. Under many of the laws the next generation won't even ever have the guns we have in the first place making taking them away impossible, but as long as it's not outright confiscation they slyly say "We're not trying to take your guns away." as if you're acting paranoid.
The 2nd amendment says "Shall not be infringed.", not "Your guns shall not be taken away.".
And thus, today, this item makes no practical sense whatsoever.
And saying "well, it will work someday" is exactly how the DoD gets away with blowing vast quantities of money.
I don't think you're familiar with how the development of technology works. We don't get subscriptions from God where he periodically sends us new stuff to use. If we ever want something to be workable then we have to trudge through the entire phase where its not until it works right. With your attitude we wouldn't have cars now because the ones in the 1880's didn't really work well so we shouldn't have spent any time developing the tech.
The point is that if the computer is modifying the pull weight of the trigger, then then the computer HAS to be integrated into the mechanics of the rifle itself.
Being an asshole is legal, and should be. Freedom when it gets right down to it is all about doing things other people don't like. If every action you perform is in complete compliance with society's accepted definition of normal then you don't need any laws to protect your rights, because nobody is going to complain about your actions in the first place.
The protections are there to specifically protect against the UNPOPULAR actions that people get chided for. Freedom to do what you want so long as it conforms to exactly what society approves of isn't freedom at all.
At the same time, if I were being loaded into an ambulance by police, in the midst of a violent mental health breakdown, I would really appreciate it if the police stopped people from filming me. That's not something you want out spread around the internet.
Freedom isn't always convenient. Hell some people enjoy very nice lives under a dictatorship (particularly the dictator themselves). Doesn't mean its right. What you're effectively saying is that people should have their speech restricted even if its the truth so long as someone else finds that speech embarrassing or offensive.
Just get a wireless bridge and plug it into that. As a benefit, if you get one of those and a switch setup behind your living room TV you'll be able to get anything you want from that area connected to your home LAN without ever having to worry about purchasing separate wireless adapters.
A lot of people seem to be using them as home theater PC's. They apparently run XBMC quite well. I would be all over one right now if I didn't already have an AppleTV running Crystalbuntu.
There are plenty of other countries that are still partially on old systems. As stated, the UK still talks of weights in stones, beer in pints, etc.
Actually metric isn't completely foreign to the US either. Virtually any food package has both imperial and metric units printed on them. Cars (even the US produced ones) have speed in both km/h and mph. Almost every ruler shows metric on one side and imperial on the other. For the most part metric is all around us - its just that as a population we don't pay attention to those markings. About the only thing that we use metric in for day to day stuff are 2 liter sodas which seem to have caught on.
We were already teaching metric in school (actually in grades 1-4) back when I was in school 20 years ago. The thing is that it doesn't really matter as for the most part its something kids learn and then when they get out into the real world unless they're in specific industries they don't use anymore and they end up getting used to customary units afterwards.
I specifically remember being about 13-14 and going to work with my dad who was a construction worker. He asked me a take a measurement of something and I remember reading it back in cm instead of in (up until that point I hadn't needed to measure anything in the real world and they said to use metric in school). After he cut the wrong size of material I was thoroughly chewed out and it was made clear that I don't EVER use that side of the tape measure again:).
Lots more to do with the culture of ordering a "pint" then the quantity.
I suspect it'll be like the US liquor industry though (which mostly IS metric) - even though they don't sell actual pints if you walk into any liquor store and ask for a "pint" they know you want a 375ml bottle. And a "half-pint" is a 250ml bottle (yes, even though that's a lot more than half of 375).
Which is why I qualified my statement by saying "unless they're a gun owner outside of their job". I'm willing to bet that your uncle was, and actually kept in practice.
Security, and even law-enforcement, are much like the general population. Some will be into guns and can use them, some can't. But to assume that BECAUSE they wear a uniform that they are competent is foolish. Likewise, to assume that a regular citizen doesn't know how to handle a firearm because he lacks a uniform is equally foolish.
Then you run into the same problem as people trading in broken or useless guns to the gun buyback:
By turning in your property, you effectively endorse their political cause. They get to say that "X number of people turned in this filth to get it off of our streets and out of our schools!". Personally, I'm not willing to become part of their cause and make that value of X going higher at any cost.
If you actually do find their message convincing then by all means turn in your games.
because dropping one clip and loading another takes so much time!
Indeed. For anyone that thinks that loading a magazine is some major roadblock, take a look at the video I'm linking below. It's of Max Michel drawing his gun from a holster and firing 18 rounds - reloading twice (every 6 rounds on 3 targets) all in under 5 seconds. Granted, he's a grand-master ranked pistol shooter, but even the most ham-fisted idiot won't take more than 3-4 seconds to perform a mag change.
One of the local gun stores also offers training to both security firms and concealed carry holders (well, potential ones). They joke that most of the holes in their ceilings are from the security guards that come in for training. The "training" that most security firms are willing to pay for is to send the guys to the range and have them fire off a few dozen rounds from a revolver and then be sent back. Many security guards have never fired a gun before that and unless they're a gun owner outside of their job, many never will again.
Now take the gun enthusiasts. Most people I know that are really into guns visit the range at least monthly. I personally do at least 2 practice sessions per month, 3 USPSA pistol matches, and 1 Steel Challenge match. Generally that's 800-1000 rounds per month. I've been through concealed weapons training, hunter's education, and NROI Range Officer training. I know a ton of people in the hobby who practice and train to similar degrees.
Do you honestly think because they wear a roughly law-enforcement-esque uniform that a security guard is magically more capable of handling a weapon?
For example, where I'm at you can't serve alcohol after 2am (ie, bars have to close), though you can still buy beer from the grocer if it's 24 hours.
Hard liquor/spirits however have to be sold through specific stores (can't buy them from the supermarket) and those are mandated by state law to close at 7pm. It can still be sold for consumption after that, but you can't got out and buy a bottle for yourself.
Also, depending on the specific town many don't allow alcohol sales at all on Sundays (meaning that the bars shutoff at midnight on Saturday night).
And of course, there are still various counties and such around the country that are completely dry - no alcohol sales whatsoever in those areas.
Its hard to pin that down to a religious thing though. Granted, most of the people that fight for those laws are religious, but wine is drank by many in the Bible and many Christian faiths use wine as part of the religious rituals - its just that the particular Americanized segment of Christianity has chosen to demonize alcohol consumption.
A constant theme around these is that plenty of people noticed "red flags" in the person, and yet none of them did anything about it to get them help. I think this is probably more 20/20 hindsight than useful observation.
This whole idea of "red flags" regarding "anti-social" people is what really scares me - and should for a lot of Slashdot. I'm single, fairly quiet, only have a few friends. By most of those definitions I'm likely to be an anti-social nutcase just waiting to go off.
It almost seems like they're trying to criminalize being a quiet person that keeps to yourself.
Doubt it. If Linux wasn't doing such a great job FreeBSD would be a lot more popular.
It was always kind of an HD-DVD/Bluray situation there anyways. In the early days both were just about as good as the other. The market seemed to rally behind Linux instead, it got most of the development work, and so it took off (and today is legitimately the better of the two technically), but if the same momentum had been behind FreeBSD it would be just as good.
That's an error in the article. That gun would be what the 1994 bill termed an "assault weapon", not an assault rifle. Assault rifles have an official military definition as being capable of fully-automatic or burst fire, and any specimen not registered prior to 1986 is not legal for civilian ownership. Examples produced prior to that require a lot of paperwork and fees to acquire.
Part of the problem here is people not understanding the distinction. The so called "assault weapons" target by that bill are not machine guns, and are not capable of fully automatic fire. They also are not particularly powerful (the.223 round is so weak in power that it's illegal to even hunt deer with it in most states as its considered insufficient in power for a human kill - you have to step up to a more powerful cartridge for hunting).
Well, kinda. Some people who are gay will begin a heterosexual relationship merely to appear normal within society.
They don't really "swing both ways" - they are merely engaging in a facade to appease the masses. Those people may even have children within this relationship.
I actually have a female relative who ended up in such a situation with her husband. After 5 years of marriage and 2 children he explained to her that he just couldn't keep it up any longer (no pun intended) - that he was gay and he wanted a divorce.
Slashdot Mirror
So what you're saying is that you want to prioritize fighting against events that take a few dozen lives at once versus several thousand that happen to occur one or two at a time?
That right there proves that the whole fiasco is more about publicity and feel good measures rather than actually trying to save lives.
and (b) because I can't see these plastic magazines working exceptionally well.
And therein lies the irony. I'd bet that these would make it through an initial 30-round run fine. Probably wouldn't stand up to repeated firings though.
Think about that though: in a crime, or a shooting spree, the perp only needs to blast through the magazine once and then its dropped and discarded. The people who care about durability and reuse of magazines are typically competition and target shooters.
So effectively, legislation is likely to affect the completely legitimate uses of the magazines, while technology remains so that all the illegal uses people might want to use them for are still doable.
Same thing happened with me and Star Trek Online. Paid $5 for the pre-order and got beta access - discovered that that game really sucked and I never bought it. And actually, at Gamestop if you never pickup your preorder they will let you transfer the credit over to another game, so I didn't even end up losing the $5.
Part of the problem is the idiotic definition of anything over 10 as "high". Virtually every duty-sized 9mm sold today comes with a 17 to 18 round magazine. The only ones that come with smaller ones are handguns that are sold in larger calibers so as to do more damage, or handguns that are made physically smaller so as to be easier to conceal.
Though I don't agree with ANY caps on magazine capacity, they'd probably meet a lot less resistance if the definition of high was a little more sane (ie, 20). Calling 10 "high" when 17 is the norm is about the same as a cable modem company adding surcharges for "excessive usage" and then declaring "excessive" as anything over 2GB per month.
By refusing to compromise on anything at all, they really invite criticism. I'm a liberal. I really don't want to take away your guns.
You seem to make the mistake that anything up to but not including outright confiscation is A-OK. You see it time and time again on the mainstream media, they're proposing registration, bans on production, bans on transfer, extra taxes, etc. Under many of the laws the next generation won't even ever have the guns we have in the first place making taking them away impossible, but as long as it's not outright confiscation they slyly say "We're not trying to take your guns away." as if you're acting paranoid.
The 2nd amendment says "Shall not be infringed.", not "Your guns shall not be taken away.".
And thus, today, this item makes no practical sense whatsoever.
And saying "well, it will work someday" is exactly how the DoD gets away with blowing vast quantities of money.
I don't think you're familiar with how the development of technology works. We don't get subscriptions from God where he periodically sends us new stuff to use. If we ever want something to be workable then we have to trudge through the entire phase where its not until it works right. With your attitude we wouldn't have cars now because the ones in the 1880's didn't really work well so we shouldn't have spent any time developing the tech.
The point is that if the computer is modifying the pull weight of the trigger, then then the computer HAS to be integrated into the mechanics of the rifle itself.
Being an asshole is legal, and should be. Freedom when it gets right down to it is all about doing things other people don't like. If every action you perform is in complete compliance with society's accepted definition of normal then you don't need any laws to protect your rights, because nobody is going to complain about your actions in the first place.
The protections are there to specifically protect against the UNPOPULAR actions that people get chided for. Freedom to do what you want so long as it conforms to exactly what society approves of isn't freedom at all.
At the same time, if I were being loaded into an ambulance by police, in the midst of a violent mental health breakdown, I would really appreciate it if the police stopped people from filming me. That's not something you want out spread around the internet.
Freedom isn't always convenient. Hell some people enjoy very nice lives under a dictatorship (particularly the dictator themselves). Doesn't mean its right. What you're effectively saying is that people should have their speech restricted even if its the truth so long as someone else finds that speech embarrassing or offensive.
Do you not know the road that takes us down?
Just get a wireless bridge and plug it into that. As a benefit, if you get one of those and a switch setup behind your living room TV you'll be able to get anything you want from that area connected to your home LAN without ever having to worry about purchasing separate wireless adapters.
A lot of people seem to be using them as home theater PC's. They apparently run XBMC quite well. I would be all over one right now if I didn't already have an AppleTV running Crystalbuntu.
There are plenty of other countries that are still partially on old systems. As stated, the UK still talks of weights in stones, beer in pints, etc.
Actually metric isn't completely foreign to the US either. Virtually any food package has both imperial and metric units printed on them. Cars (even the US produced ones) have speed in both km/h and mph. Almost every ruler shows metric on one side and imperial on the other. For the most part metric is all around us - its just that as a population we don't pay attention to those markings. About the only thing that we use metric in for day to day stuff are 2 liter sodas which seem to have caught on.
We were already teaching metric in school (actually in grades 1-4) back when I was in school 20 years ago. The thing is that it doesn't really matter as for the most part its something kids learn and then when they get out into the real world unless they're in specific industries they don't use anymore and they end up getting used to customary units afterwards.
I specifically remember being about 13-14 and going to work with my dad who was a construction worker. He asked me a take a measurement of something and I remember reading it back in cm instead of in (up until that point I hadn't needed to measure anything in the real world and they said to use metric in school). After he cut the wrong size of material I was thoroughly chewed out and it was made clear that I don't EVER use that side of the tape measure again :).
Lots more to do with the culture of ordering a "pint" then the quantity.
I suspect it'll be like the US liquor industry though (which mostly IS metric) - even though they don't sell actual pints if you walk into any liquor store and ask for a "pint" they know you want a 375ml bottle. And a "half-pint" is a 250ml bottle (yes, even though that's a lot more than half of 375).
Driving drunk is ALWAYS wrong. 99% of gun owners do absolutely nothing wrong with their guns.
Which is why I qualified my statement by saying "unless they're a gun owner outside of their job". I'm willing to bet that your uncle was, and actually kept in practice.
Security, and even law-enforcement, are much like the general population. Some will be into guns and can use them, some can't. But to assume that BECAUSE they wear a uniform that they are competent is foolish. Likewise, to assume that a regular citizen doesn't know how to handle a firearm because he lacks a uniform is equally foolish.
Then you run into the same problem as people trading in broken or useless guns to the gun buyback:
By turning in your property, you effectively endorse their political cause. They get to say that "X number of people turned in this filth to get it off of our streets and out of our schools!". Personally, I'm not willing to become part of their cause and make that value of X going higher at any cost.
If you actually do find their message convincing then by all means turn in your games.
because dropping one clip and loading another takes so much time!
Indeed. For anyone that thinks that loading a magazine is some major roadblock, take a look at the video I'm linking below. It's of Max Michel drawing his gun from a holster and firing 18 rounds - reloading twice (every 6 rounds on 3 targets) all in under 5 seconds. Granted, he's a grand-master ranked pistol shooter, but even the most ham-fisted idiot won't take more than 3-4 seconds to perform a mag change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhmSg3UjEU
One of the local gun stores also offers training to both security firms and concealed carry holders (well, potential ones). They joke that most of the holes in their ceilings are from the security guards that come in for training. The "training" that most security firms are willing to pay for is to send the guys to the range and have them fire off a few dozen rounds from a revolver and then be sent back. Many security guards have never fired a gun before that and unless they're a gun owner outside of their job, many never will again.
Now take the gun enthusiasts. Most people I know that are really into guns visit the range at least monthly. I personally do at least 2 practice sessions per month, 3 USPSA pistol matches, and 1 Steel Challenge match. Generally that's 800-1000 rounds per month. I've been through concealed weapons training, hunter's education, and NROI Range Officer training. I know a ton of people in the hobby who practice and train to similar degrees.
Do you honestly think because they wear a roughly law-enforcement-esque uniform that a security guard is magically more capable of handling a weapon?
I swear some of their prototypes look like the Geth:
http://images.gizmag.com/gallery_lrg/roboy-34.jpg
Kinda. Alcohol laws tend to vary a LOT by locale.
For example, where I'm at you can't serve alcohol after 2am (ie, bars have to close), though you can still buy beer from the grocer if it's 24 hours.
Hard liquor/spirits however have to be sold through specific stores (can't buy them from the supermarket) and those are mandated by state law to close at 7pm. It can still be sold for consumption after that, but you can't got out and buy a bottle for yourself.
Also, depending on the specific town many don't allow alcohol sales at all on Sundays (meaning that the bars shutoff at midnight on Saturday night).
And of course, there are still various counties and such around the country that are completely dry - no alcohol sales whatsoever in those areas.
Its hard to pin that down to a religious thing though. Granted, most of the people that fight for those laws are religious, but wine is drank by many in the Bible and many Christian faiths use wine as part of the religious rituals - its just that the particular Americanized segment of Christianity has chosen to demonize alcohol consumption.
A constant theme around these is that plenty of people noticed "red flags" in the person, and yet none of them did anything about it to get them help. I think this is probably more 20/20 hindsight than useful observation.
This whole idea of "red flags" regarding "anti-social" people is what really scares me - and should for a lot of Slashdot. I'm single, fairly quiet, only have a few friends. By most of those definitions I'm likely to be an anti-social nutcase just waiting to go off.
It almost seems like they're trying to criminalize being a quiet person that keeps to yourself.
Doubt it. If Linux wasn't doing such a great job FreeBSD would be a lot more popular.
It was always kind of an HD-DVD/Bluray situation there anyways. In the early days both were just about as good as the other. The market seemed to rally behind Linux instead, it got most of the development work, and so it took off (and today is legitimately the better of the two technically), but if the same momentum had been behind FreeBSD it would be just as good.
That's an error in the article. That gun would be what the 1994 bill termed an "assault weapon", not an assault rifle. Assault rifles have an official military definition as being capable of fully-automatic or burst fire, and any specimen not registered prior to 1986 is not legal for civilian ownership. Examples produced prior to that require a lot of paperwork and fees to acquire.
Part of the problem here is people not understanding the distinction. The so called "assault weapons" target by that bill are not machine guns, and are not capable of fully automatic fire. They also are not particularly powerful (the .223 round is so weak in power that it's illegal to even hunt deer with it in most states as its considered insufficient in power for a human kill - you have to step up to a more powerful cartridge for hunting).
Well, kinda. Some people who are gay will begin a heterosexual relationship merely to appear normal within society.
They don't really "swing both ways" - they are merely engaging in a facade to appease the masses. Those people may even have children within this relationship.
I actually have a female relative who ended up in such a situation with her husband. After 5 years of marriage and 2 children he explained to her that he just couldn't keep it up any longer (no pun intended) - that he was gay and he wanted a divorce.