The Gendarmerie Nationale already used free software daily such as open office. The migration would have been more complicated is they were using MS Office.
Actually, they used MSOffice back in 2005. They did a staged transition to free software, first moving to OpenOffice and Firefox and Thunderbird. Now they're moving into the second stage and switching the underlying OS now that most of their applications are platform independent.
Now if only state and federal agencies in the US would do some of the same. Sadly, so long as corporations are allowed to lobby, the pork train will probably continue.
If they were one big company, and controlled 75% of the market share, of course they would. Let's say this super car company existed. And all the cars they built were tall and so required 7' of clearance. Now some worldwide body comes along and says the real "standard" for cars is that they should require no more than 5' of clearance.
You're forgetting to mention that your one big company was part of the worldwide body and helped to pick the standards then waited till the small companies had cars out, before implementing their own. Also, your analogy fails in that a 7' clearance will accommodate all cars and there is no real downside to it. With MS's nonstandard options they make it an either or proposal and worse yet, the courts found they did it intentionally to hurt other companies, with their breaking of the standards, knowing people would accommodate their cars first.
Now, you're building a fast-food business in the U.S. and your building the cover for the drive-thru. Do you build it to 5' just because some international body said that was the "standard" or do you recognize the REAL standard and build it to at least 7'?
You build it to work with the majority, but then you sue the company who builds them for their other criminal acts which allowed them to take over the car market that much and, in turn, led to greater costs for the building project.
You leave your browser open while playing games? Doesn't that eat up memory and cause slowdown?
I just checked, Safari 4 beta has been running for 17 days and 12 hours. One of my old school video games (Starcraft) has been running 12 days. A VM running Windows XP has been up for 3 days. Total system uptime is 32 days.
If you get a system with decent memory management, no you don't have to quit your programs because of performance issues. I remember back in the day people at LAN parties being amazed because I would leave Photoshop and Illustrator running in the background while playing Warcraft 3 on a couple year old laptop.
I saw a question asked. I answered it. Others didn't like my answer. It was an accurate answer.
Actually you failed to answer it because you did not provide a reason or goal. You just claimed that certain actions would do certain things, ignoring the goals stated in the earlier parts of the discussion and not introducing one of your own.
... they are used in the discussions at hand by those that actually get to make policy.
argumentum ad verecundiam.
I can't help it if an explanation of other people's reasons drives you nuts.
Again, you didn't present a reason, just a fraction of an argument.
The fact is that many people don't like guns. There are a number of valid reasons to restrict or ban ownership.
Both true, but you presented no such reason. You see in both rhetoric and logic you need to present the end goal and then a logical progression and support. You presented no end goal.
Attacking people for having opinions different than yours won't convince anyone of anything.
I'm not attacking you for having a different opinion. I don't even know your opinion on this matter. I'm not even attacking you. I'm attacking and poking fun at your complete failure to present a cogent or coherent argument or response, coupled with your personal attacks on the writer who actually had made real points and was having an intellectually honest discussion before you derailed it with a complete lack of substance.
So I must assume that you aren't interested in conivncing anyone of anything, but just pointless attacks to make you feel better about your own position. Is it working?
Nah, I'm so egotistical it is clinical. This isn't about me. It's about you. If you want to be an arrogant jerk (just like me) at least be competent. Arrogance I can accept, but only when not coupled with incompetence.
Fuck you.
No thanks.
You are just whining because I gave good reasons to ban guns.
Good reasons? Evil reasons? Either way, you didn't give any reason because you didn't state a goal. There is no reason to do anything if you don't have a goal. "Banning guns reduces the demand for iron mining" is not a reason, it's just an assertion. A goal is the reduction of iron mining, but it is not implicit in the previous statement.
Rather than arguing the points, you are attacking the messenger.
Wait, you made points? I don't recall any. What point did you make and what was it trying to support? I am attacking the messenger, because said messenger was being a prick while not having a message, or at least miserably failing to convey it.
Wah. Idiots like you (and Charlton Heston) that support gun ownership are the reason it's under attack
Nah, gun ownership is "under attack" by politicians because it is a great issue to get them votes, whether they are pro or con, people get emotional and irrational and afraid and are willing to vote as a result. That's pretty much why any issue becomes big in politics, but gun control laws are a poster child.
"My freedom to shoot you is more important than your freedom from being shot."
We already have a law to cover that. It's called "assault with a deadly weapon". I'm willing to support gun control laws as soon as someone puts together credible evidence that such laws can significantly cause a reduction in violent crime and/or murder. Once that happens, gun control falls into the category where one can claim it is conflicting rights and the rights of victims are being infringed by ownership.
Now go fuck yourself and crawl under the rock you came from.
Nah, I think I'll sit on the couch and drink some Tang and whiskey while watching
But that's an absurd assumption. I'm bounded to the weapons allowed in any place by law. A criminal is not. For example, in the Virginia Tech shooting, it was against the law for anyone to have a firearm on campus. He had one anyway, while the ex-army ranger in the building who carries a pistol most other places was unarmed.
Why? Most of the time people miss, especially with handguns and even at close ranges.
This also applies to you, so how does the gun make you safer if you cant shoot?
Who says having a gun makes me feel safer? I don't carry a gun anywhere unless I'm hunting. Of course most of the time when a firearm is used defensively it is never fired and the incident ends with just the threat of a shooting.
Then if he shot me in the back, absolutely certain.
So where are your numbers? You know survival rates for attacks with different weapons. When a mugger has a gun, he often feels safe and just demands a victim hand over their wallet. If he doesn't have a gun, he might be less confident and simply strike people from behind with a club t disable them, not trusting he'll be able to control the situation as he feels he can with a firearm. Thus more actual injuries and more deaths.
All of this, however, is useless. You can come up with logical explanations for subsets of reality all you want. It does noting to determine the general case and whether there are more or less violent crimes and murders and injuries and deaths.
Hence why most of remaining Australia's gun crime are crimes of passion.
Who cares? Why break it down into subsets? Most baseball bat crimes by people with red hair are committed on Tuesdays. Why should I or anyone else care? The goal of any sensible law or policy has to be to prevent overall violent crime and murder, which Australia's laws are miserably failing to do.
Like every other gun nut you seem to have little fact and a lot of bluster, most of which lacking in logic for example, with all other factors being the same you would argue that a knife wound is less survivable then a gunshot wound
I made no such assumption. You made a lot of assumptions, such as that all attacks are equally likely to result in a wound and that stab wounds are less serious, but you haven't presented any data to support either opinion.
? Which school of logic did you attend?
Do they still have "schools of logic" you can attend? The only formal class I had in logic was in reference to circuits. I have, however, read Aristotle and Frege and several other prominent works on the subject. Talking about bluster, I haven't been calling you on your sloppy logic for the most part, pointing out only items where you have no support at all. Every one of my comments has showed a reasoned progression a and I've addressed every point you made, whereas you've repeatedly ignored the hard questions I asked you.
o for the rest of your post, Citation needed, Its all BS.
I cited the ICVS, probably the most comprehensive and well regarded worldwide crime statistics compilation used in sociology and criminology. There have been numerous papers analyzing Australia's crime statistics comparison to their gun control laws, normalized for other factors and all of them have been inconclusive or shown no real correlation.
Our crime rate has dropped sharply since 1996...
You violent crime rate, has been up in some categories and down in other, but overall has gone up since 1996. Your "gun crime" numbers have gone down, but it hasn't lowered the number of people being murdered which has been flat as a percentage of the population.
...Our crime rate has dropped sharply since 1996...
As a rider, I'll point out how wrong this statement is. At speeds above around 25mph, to turn, you actually push in the direction you want to go (called push steering: ex. push on the left handlebar to go left), as opposed to in a car where you turn the steering wheel in the direction you want to go. BIG difference!
Steering a bike at speed is actually is very intuitive. If people don't think about it and just lean, they do it right instinctively. Counter steering sometimes takes a little practice and sometimes people do have to unlearn things. That said, the motorcycle rarely takes a behavior you do all the time and does completely different things with the same action including things you'd never want to do.
If, as you suggest, Microsoft has a monopoly, it's only because they've mastered the installation process.
Is MS's monopoly status still a matter of debate? Only on Slashdot where half the people don't understand what a monopoly is. Anyway, they did not master installation and installation suck for many use cases on Windows. For example, I want to install all the software on my old laptop, onto my new laptop. With Windows it is a PITA. With OS X (for example) it is so easy my grandmother can do it. Developers made their own installers on Windows and got good at it, but that's no credit to the OS which is incredibly messy for installation.
You have a defined goal, showing I'm wrong, but yet, you don't even know what it is that I'm advocating.
You haven't advocated anything i've seen, just nitpicked and tried to derail other conversations with pointless nonsense. I returned the same.
So you are, by definition, debating with someone that isn't debating, right?
Nope. No debate. Just sparring over crap.
And that doesn't sound silly to you?
Would I have brought up the distinction that a cannon isn't a firearm if I wasn't being silly?
So why not shut up and quit making intellectually inconsistent statements?
How can I make inconsistent statements when I only made one statement when you wrote that?
And furthermore, your premise that debating when not everyone has stated their goals is pointless is silly. Most people don't define their goals.
Argumentum ad populum? I don't care if most people are idiots. You can't have a useful debate unless a goal is stated. That's why we're not debating or doing anything useful other than browbeating you for entertainment.
Ever watch politicians talk about a point? They don't give their goal.
Ahh, the gold standard for reasoned debate. Yes, let's emulate politicians. Shit... I'd rather imitate drug addicted pop musicians. At least a few of them have fashion sense.
They don't give their goal. Is it more money from industry?
You've misunderstood. You need a goal as to what you want to accomplish by enacting legislation, which they always state. You don't need to reveal all your motivations for wanting to achieve that goal or ulterior motives. Even the bridge to nowhere had a stated goal.
Do you have the same chance if the assailant has a gun?
I have a better chance if I have a gun than if I don't. But the point is, we have to look at the overall trends, not just one hypothetical.
If the assailant shoots first I have little chance of surviving...
Why? Most of the time people miss, especially with handguns and even at close ranges.
if the assailant bludgeons or stabs first I have a far better chance of surviving
Sure about that?
...after all they are after is my wallet and watch...
Because that is the only motivation for attacking someone?
1. Number of crimes reported - this should go up initially as more people survive to report crimes and have less fear of retribution...
Umm, I don't think there are a lot of crimes unreported because the victim dies and it is never discovered, at least compared to attacks overall.
This is what happened in Australia, after 3 years the buyback scheme violent crime dropped from 14% to 8%.
You mean Australia one of the very few countries with a higher victimization rate than the US and which leads the world in burglaries? "However, the International Crime Victims Survey notes that overall crime victimization Down Under rose from 27.8 percent of the population in 1988, to 28.6 percent in 1991 to over 30 percent in 1999."
The numbers:
Homicides - up 3.2%
Assaults - up 8.6%
Armed robberies - up 45%
In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia was dropping. You've fallen for one of the classic ploys. The publish numbers that same crimes with guns are down or gun killings are down, but conveniently ignore the overall violent crime and murder rates. Mind you, I don't attribute most of these increases to the gun control laws. At the same time wealth disparity was increasing. You might want to pick your examples more carefully in future, but more importantly, you might want to look at correlations among many countries, instead of just cherry picking one.
Number of arrests
This is not a good metric as it varies as laws change, enforcement policies change, and manpower changes. It doesn't do a good job of measuring crime, just somewhat how crime is dealt with.
Types of crimes - Almost all remaining gun crime should become crimes of passion...
Trying to define things in terms of gun crimes is fundamentally misstating the problem. You should always look at overall crime, violent crime, and murder. Three murders with a knife instead of one with a gun should never be spun as a "win".
And if guns prevented crime, why is America's murder rate so high?
From the numbers I've seen lack of restrictive gun laws does reduce crime, but not murder. It slightly reduces rates of robbery and burglary. As for why the US's murder rate is so high, if you take a look at a hundred countries around the world and look at all the characteristics they have and try to correlate them you won't find much of a correlation with violent crime and gun laws at all. Places with high gun ownership rates and few laws have some of the lowest violent crime rates, while others have some of the highest. The ones that have low violent crime rates tend to have low wealth disparity, socialized medicine, free addiction treatment programs, and lower amounts of cultural diversity. If you were to look at countries around the world and only look at wealth disparity and use that to predict the US's crime rate, you'd hit it almost exactly. The UK is pretty close if that's all you look at too.
Interesting to see how many gun nuts have mod points though.
The truth is, no one honestly looking to solve the problem of violence, scientifically can look at the numbers and decide gun control laws will make any real difference. Gun control laws aren't about crime prevention, they're about getting votes. People on both sides of the issue are emotional and scared and often will vote solely on this one non-issue. Politicians on both sides of the debate exploit that to get votes and it works really well for them. I side with the "gun nuts" because it does slightly reduce crime and because I strongly believe in personal freedom. If you want to restrict personal freedom you need to show me a strong and well supported case as to how it will benefit society. For gun control, it isn't there and never has been that I've seen. They had to make up new terms like "gun crime" in order to misleadingly present statistics to even convince the gullible.
Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite side of the correlation != causation arguments that come up on slashdot every time violent video games come up.
That's because people misunderstand the issue and phrase things in an overly simplistic way.
Wrong:
Correlation = Causation
Correlation != Causation
Right:
Correlation does imply causation, but not any specific causation. For any two correlative factors the first can cause the second, the second can cause the first, both can reinforce one another, both may share a third causative factor, or there may be even less direct causation.
A huge portion of science is noticing correlations, creating a hypothesis as to a specific causation, and testing that causation. To say correlation does not imply any causation is incorrect. If there is no correlation between two factors, then there is likely no strong causation, or at least no evidence for one. If there is a correlation, then there is likely a casation, but we don't know what one until we test.
The problem referenced earlier in the thread is not caused by having multiple container formats. You could stuff the platform-specific installers into a single package file if you really wanted to. But no one wants to waste bandwidth downloading stuff that doesn't apply to them...
I do. I'd much rather have one container format with all the resources easily accessible, all nicely contained so it is portable. I already get containers that come with binaries for multiple platforms 32 and 64 bit on PPC and x86. I'd be happier yet if the container had an.exe and a binary or two for Linux. For disk limited applications I can always strip out the unneeded binaries, but the rest of the time the extra download time and disk space is more than made up for by being able to easily migrate my applications to a new system, even if it is on a different chipset. Additionally, the convenience of being able IM an application to a co-worker or friend and have them be able to run it or install it on a network share and have all the users be able to run it regardless of their platform without needing to manage multiple installs and licenses. And lets not forget installing an application on a flash drive and then taking it to work, home, the library, and to a friend's house and being able to use it on all those systems including machines I've never used before all while intelligently managing settings and preferences by user and location and failing over to the settings on the flash drive when none are available.
The problem is when binaries for multiple platforms aren't available. The author of TFA and the OP of this thread seem to expect that a package compiled and tested for one Linux platform should work easily with other Linux platforms. That's not a reasonable expectation and not one people have when they talk about different non-Linux operating systems.
But there is no technical reason a binary can't run on all Linux distros, provided you bundle needed libraries and adhere to standards. The problem is simply that people can't agree on a single standard, even when most of the options currently used have feature parity. The type functionality I describe is a huge usability win and an upgrade for every OS, but it won't happen because MS won't play ball and Linux is controlled by companies who want to push it on the server and appliance at the cost of desktop functionality.
Yes.. or are you trying to say the violent crime rate is higher in the UK than in the US?
Are you trying to imply that there are no other differences between the US and UK that could create differences in their violent crime rates? Are you trying to imply you have evidence that gun control laws are the determining factor, despite the lack of correlation if you look at countries in general?
While a lower violent crime rate in the UK is not an argument saying that outlawing guns lowers violent crime, I think it is a fairly strong argument that allowing everyone to own guns doesn't necessarily lower it either.
There have been lots of studies on the issue. The consensus last time I researched it heavily was that strict gun control laws result in a very, very slight increase in violent crime, barely within the range of statistical significance. That is to say, gun control laws are useless and likely slightly counterproductive in stopping violent crime and murder.
I think your idea shows a common misconception about violent crime. For example, a lot of violent crime occurs between gang members; the fact that the gang members they commit violence against also have weapons does not seem to deter them from committing the violence against each other.
This is cherry picking. I could just as easily say very large criminals who lift weights prefer guns are banned in an area because they can get away with more crime due to their physical ability to dominate most others.
Such use cases are fairly pointless and border on speculative masturbation. You have to look at overall rates of violent crime.
Secondly, most other forms of violent crime is not...
The same thing I said before.
I think it is a stretch to suggest everyday law abiding people apply this sort of rationality to their actions, let alone violent criminals who clearly demonstrate they do not act rationally.
Everyone acts with a mix of emotive and reasoned decision making regardless of if they are a criminal or not. If you were in a gun store next to a machine gun and a criminal was outside shooting up your car would you go shoot it out with them, or call the cops? Some people would choose each, but most people aren't interested in risking their life for the cost of a car. Most criminals are a lot less interested in burglary if they believe people are armed and may shoot them, which is why numerous studies have shown an ordinance requiring every home in a neighborhood to have a firearm drastically reduces burglary rates there. In Florida, they did away with rental car license plates because criminals were running rental cars off the road and robbing them. Why rental cars? Because they knew those were almost always tourists who flew in and were not armed (unlike much of Florida's citizenry). Both are demonstrations of crime being averted by criminals rationally fearing for their lives and changing their behavior to avoid potentially being shot.
Fact: If no one had firearms, there would be no gun-related crimes.
That's not a fact, nor is it likely. For example, my friend is a civil war re-enactor. He has a small cannon. He transports it across states where his possession is illegal. That's a gun-related crime (a cannon is a gun), but it doesn't use a firearm (a cannon is not a firearm). Further, just because there are no firearms, does not mean there are no gun related crimes. For example, I could steal a number of valuable paintings each of which portrays a gun, which makes the crime gun-related, but does not involve a gun per se. I could infringe upon the copyright of a person who has drawn up plans for the manufacture of a gun (even if no actual guns existed), and that would be a gun-related crime.
And once you are capable of stating "why yes, I agree 100% that if there were no guns there would be no gun-related crimes" then you may have something useful to add.
Why would you want him to make such untrue statements? If you're going to split hairs as to what is or is not a reason or "compelling" reason then why should you not be taken to task for semantic idiocy as well? The thing is, you haven't presented any reason for banning gun ownership because you have not stated a goal, and without a defined goal, there is no point in debating at all.
Measures to restrict the deadlier weapons have shown to be generally effective.
Really? The last objective study I saw showed a very slight increase in violent crime correlating to implementing stricter gun control laws (barely within the range of statistical significance). I don't take idiots discussing more useless legislation about a hyped up problem to be evidence that their last attempt at a solution helped.
Equally important is to minimize the rate of violent crime.
Why don't we just look at violent crime and death rates as a whole and then factors that are shown to be correlative or causative? In many specific instances the availability of deadly weapons has been shown to prevent crime.
As you correctly pointed out, violence and economics are closely linked. But you will never be able to stop all violent crime (at least not in the foreseeable future), so it will always be important to limit the damage caused by violence as well.
Attacking the root causes of violent crime (wealth disparity works better than poverty by the way) you can drastically reduce violent crime rates. Specific programs to reduce wealth disparity in specific ways have had huge, measurable effects in other places. Socialized healthcare, for example, does a better job at preventing murders than any gun control measure.
The problem with attempts to reduce access to deadly weapons are manifold. Such weapons are everywhere particularly for people who are not concerned about the law. Many attempts at suchlike have backfired, merely disarming portions of the populace so they are easier victims, making another portion of the populace into criminals more likely to commit violent crimes to cover up the fact that they're already breaking the law by possessing weapons, or pushing criminals to weapons that hurt more people (for example, in Brazil where gun control has reduced availability, drive by pipe bomb and molotov cocktail attacks skyrocketed resulting in many more bystanders being killed, injured and severely burned). You have to actually prove a method of "minimizing damage done through violence" that you can demonstrate to be effective in helping the overall problem. To date, such evidence has been sorely lacking.
Taxes increase the price of the knife, regardless of whether the knife is sold on the open or black market.
As evidenced by the fact that I can buy an eighth of fairly decent weed for about the cost of a bottle of gray goose. Oh wait.....
So the vodka costs more than it would because of high taxation and the weed costs more because of the risk of prosecution in what would otherwise be a nearly free product since it is a weed.
I guess I'm not seeing the argument that taxes can't increase the cost of a product on both the open and black markets. Even moonshine is more expensive than it would be because the producers are dodging the taxes and other laws and thus their risk is higher so they can charge more (less competition due to risks).
You don't think there might be some compatibility issues? I don't think OS X ships with msblahblah.dll...
That's what standards are about. One could easily create a standard package format (there are many) that meets the needs of all the different OS's (haven't seen this yet). The problem is getting people to adopt it and then actually stick with the standard. There's no reason there can't be a single standard that can even incorporate binaries for multiple platforms when available. It's just that getting all the different OS's to use it (especially Windows) is very difficult and keeping one company from deviating from the standard and breaking compatibility (one particular company has a habit of doing this in ways that violate the law and undermine the competition).
If you have a different idea about what makes your platform better than the others, then it's inevitable that you're going to design your system in a way that isn't compatible with the others.
That's fine for architecture, but there's no real reason why one would have to deviate from standards with regard to file/package formats, especially if those are extensible standards.
I think you're reading to much there. A knife crime is a crime committed with a knife.
Yup, but the term originated out of the attempt to start tracking violent crime based upon the implement used so that people could ignore the big picture and claim they were making progress when they demonstrably were not. When did you last hear the phrase "redheaded crime" or "Wednesday crimes". Probably never, because such distinctions in dividing up crime are arbitrary and not really useful. Likewise "gun crime" and "knife crime" but the term "gun crime" was introduced as an attempt to hide that gun control measures weren't actually making a difference in violent crime or murder statistics. It was incorrectly redefining the problem in an attempt to mislead the masses and the fact that those terms are considered normal today is simply a demonstration that the attempt worked. That's both sad and dangerous.
I suppose you could make that argument. Still you take the same person and subject them to one of two stimuli and you can often predict what will happen. I don't see that as changing the person so much as changing their environment.
It's a sad and dangerous day when "knife crimes" are seen as bad because they are disrespectful of the law.
It's a sad and dangerous day when phrases like "knife crimes" and "gun crimes" are excepted as a normal part of our lexicon, seeing as they are rooted in attempts to fallaciously redefine violent crime in a way to make absurd statistical interpretations seem reasonable in an attempt to hide the truth about politicians' inadequacy.
While death is death in the end, you have a much, much higher chance of surviving a knife attack than a gun attack.
I also stand a much better chance of surviving a bludgeoning attack if I have a gun. Moreover, if people think I might have a gun, I might not have to defend myself at all. Since all of these factors come into play it is important to look at actual numbers on violent crime and death with regard to any proposed restriction.
Besides, many knives are equally effective at causing harm using just the bladed edge (think butcher knives.)
No, they are not equally effective - the most effective type of knife to fight with is one which permits both slashing and piercing attacks. Weapons which only allow one or the other are obviously, provably less versatile.
You could make that argument if you are thinking about expert knife fighters, but I don't think that is likely the category of people who commit most violence with knives. The vast majority of concealable/carry-able knives (especially cooking knives) have no guard. For the average person, this makes stabbing less effective for injuring or killing than a knife that has no point. A very common injury in emergency rooms are people who tried to stab someone with a pointed knife and due to no guard, blood on the handle, and/or hitting a bone... ended up slicing their own hand open when the knife stopped suddenly and their hand slid over the blade.
The best argument against any litigation like this is always the same. At some point you have to accept that since any able human can kill any other able human with nothing more than a broken chopstick (you have to sleep sometime) banning things is never going to prevent murder. If you want to prevent murder, you have to change people.
You make a good point, but I disagree. You don't have to change people, just their situation and motivations. Simple things like free drug treatment programs and socialized medicine do more to reduce violence in the UK than anything else. There are well documented, scientific ways to reduce violence in societies and one of the biggest is simply reducing wealth disparity which provides psychological justification for violence.
I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or genuine genuflection at the NRA's altar... but you do know that there are plenty of countries without guns where this issues aren't prevalent? Or that death by gun is exactly like death by knife? Right?
I think what the original poster was talking about is that UK politicians pushed through large restrictions on gun ownership in the name of reducing crime. It didn't work, so they obscured the numbers, changed how they count crime to give plausible deniability, and declared success. So when violent crime continues using different implements many people (convinced that the gun legislation was successful) look to additional legislation to try to restrict ownership of other items.
Now the original poster was by no means clear, but one could easily argue that this sort of absurdly unscientific attempt to mollify the people can be laid at the doorstep of those who did the same thing in the past (with regard to guns) and then waged a misinformation campaign against the citizenry to hide their incompetence.
Slashdot Mirror
So you haven't applied Tuesday's security updates yet?
???
Last security update Apple lists was a month ago. I'll get around to that one eventually.
The Gendarmerie Nationale already used free software daily such as open office. The migration would have been more complicated is they were using MS Office.
Actually, they used MSOffice back in 2005. They did a staged transition to free software, first moving to OpenOffice and Firefox and Thunderbird. Now they're moving into the second stage and switching the underlying OS now that most of their applications are platform independent.
... but solitaire and minesweeper are great training for stakeouts ;-)
Doesn't the default version of Ubuntu have both? Mine does along with Chess, Othello, Tetris, Sudoku, Mahjongg, Blackjack, and a few others.
Now if only state and federal agencies in the US would do some of the same. Sadly, so long as corporations are allowed to lobby, the pork train will probably continue.
If they were one big company, and controlled 75% of the market share, of course they would. Let's say this super car company existed. And all the cars they built were tall and so required 7' of clearance. Now some worldwide body comes along and says the real "standard" for cars is that they should require no more than 5' of clearance.
You're forgetting to mention that your one big company was part of the worldwide body and helped to pick the standards then waited till the small companies had cars out, before implementing their own. Also, your analogy fails in that a 7' clearance will accommodate all cars and there is no real downside to it. With MS's nonstandard options they make it an either or proposal and worse yet, the courts found they did it intentionally to hurt other companies, with their breaking of the standards, knowing people would accommodate their cars first.
Now, you're building a fast-food business in the U.S. and your building the cover for the drive-thru. Do you build it to 5' just because some international body said that was the "standard" or do you recognize the REAL standard and build it to at least 7'?
You build it to work with the majority, but then you sue the company who builds them for their other criminal acts which allowed them to take over the car market that much and, in turn, led to greater costs for the building project.
You leave your browser open while playing games? Doesn't that eat up memory and cause slowdown?
I just checked, Safari 4 beta has been running for 17 days and 12 hours. One of my old school video games (Starcraft) has been running 12 days. A VM running Windows XP has been up for 3 days. Total system uptime is 32 days.
If you get a system with decent memory management, no you don't have to quit your programs because of performance issues. I remember back in the day people at LAN parties being amazed because I would leave Photoshop and Illustrator running in the background while playing Warcraft 3 on a couple year old laptop.
I saw a question asked. I answered it. Others didn't like my answer. It was an accurate answer.
Actually you failed to answer it because you did not provide a reason or goal. You just claimed that certain actions would do certain things, ignoring the goals stated in the earlier parts of the discussion and not introducing one of your own.
... they are used in the discussions at hand by those that actually get to make policy.
argumentum ad verecundiam.
I can't help it if an explanation of other people's reasons drives you nuts.
Again, you didn't present a reason, just a fraction of an argument.
The fact is that many people don't like guns. There are a number of valid reasons to restrict or ban ownership.
Both true, but you presented no such reason. You see in both rhetoric and logic you need to present the end goal and then a logical progression and support. You presented no end goal.
Attacking people for having opinions different than yours won't convince anyone of anything.
I'm not attacking you for having a different opinion. I don't even know your opinion on this matter. I'm not even attacking you. I'm attacking and poking fun at your complete failure to present a cogent or coherent argument or response, coupled with your personal attacks on the writer who actually had made real points and was having an intellectually honest discussion before you derailed it with a complete lack of substance.
So I must assume that you aren't interested in conivncing anyone of anything, but just pointless attacks to make you feel better about your own position. Is it working?
Nah, I'm so egotistical it is clinical. This isn't about me. It's about you. If you want to be an arrogant jerk (just like me) at least be competent. Arrogance I can accept, but only when not coupled with incompetence.
Fuck you.
No thanks.
You are just whining because I gave good reasons to ban guns.
Good reasons? Evil reasons? Either way, you didn't give any reason because you didn't state a goal. There is no reason to do anything if you don't have a goal. "Banning guns reduces the demand for iron mining" is not a reason, it's just an assertion. A goal is the reduction of iron mining, but it is not implicit in the previous statement.
Rather than arguing the points, you are attacking the messenger.
Wait, you made points? I don't recall any. What point did you make and what was it trying to support? I am attacking the messenger, because said messenger was being a prick while not having a message, or at least miserably failing to convey it.
Wah. Idiots like you (and Charlton Heston) that support gun ownership are the reason it's under attack
Nah, gun ownership is "under attack" by politicians because it is a great issue to get them votes, whether they are pro or con, people get emotional and irrational and afraid and are willing to vote as a result. That's pretty much why any issue becomes big in politics, but gun control laws are a poster child.
"My freedom to shoot you is more important than your freedom from being shot."
We already have a law to cover that. It's called "assault with a deadly weapon". I'm willing to support gun control laws as soon as someone puts together credible evidence that such laws can significantly cause a reduction in violent crime and/or murder. Once that happens, gun control falls into the category where one can claim it is conflicting rights and the rights of victims are being infringed by ownership.
Now go fuck yourself and crawl under the rock you came from.
Nah, I think I'll sit on the couch and drink some Tang and whiskey while watching
Assume equal armament and no you don't...
But that's an absurd assumption. I'm bounded to the weapons allowed in any place by law. A criminal is not. For example, in the Virginia Tech shooting, it was against the law for anyone to have a firearm on campus. He had one anyway, while the ex-army ranger in the building who carries a pistol most other places was unarmed.
Why? Most of the time people miss, especially with handguns and even at close ranges.
This also applies to you, so how does the gun make you safer if you cant shoot?
Who says having a gun makes me feel safer? I don't carry a gun anywhere unless I'm hunting. Of course most of the time when a firearm is used defensively it is never fired and the incident ends with just the threat of a shooting.
Then if he shot me in the back, absolutely certain.
So where are your numbers? You know survival rates for attacks with different weapons. When a mugger has a gun, he often feels safe and just demands a victim hand over their wallet. If he doesn't have a gun, he might be less confident and simply strike people from behind with a club t disable them, not trusting he'll be able to control the situation as he feels he can with a firearm. Thus more actual injuries and more deaths.
All of this, however, is useless. You can come up with logical explanations for subsets of reality all you want. It does noting to determine the general case and whether there are more or less violent crimes and murders and injuries and deaths.
Hence why most of remaining Australia's gun crime are crimes of passion.
Who cares? Why break it down into subsets? Most baseball bat crimes by people with red hair are committed on Tuesdays. Why should I or anyone else care? The goal of any sensible law or policy has to be to prevent overall violent crime and murder, which Australia's laws are miserably failing to do.
Like every other gun nut you seem to have little fact and a lot of bluster, most of which lacking in logic for example, with all other factors being the same you would argue that a knife wound is less survivable then a gunshot wound
I made no such assumption. You made a lot of assumptions, such as that all attacks are equally likely to result in a wound and that stab wounds are less serious, but you haven't presented any data to support either opinion.
? Which school of logic did you attend?
Do they still have "schools of logic" you can attend? The only formal class I had in logic was in reference to circuits. I have, however, read Aristotle and Frege and several other prominent works on the subject. Talking about bluster, I haven't been calling you on your sloppy logic for the most part, pointing out only items where you have no support at all. Every one of my comments has showed a reasoned progression a and I've addressed every point you made, whereas you've repeatedly ignored the hard questions I asked you.
o for the rest of your post, Citation needed, Its all BS.
I cited the ICVS, probably the most comprehensive and well regarded worldwide crime statistics compilation used in sociology and criminology. There have been numerous papers analyzing Australia's crime statistics comparison to their gun control laws, normalized for other factors and all of them have been inconclusive or shown no real correlation.
Our crime rate has dropped sharply since 1996...
You violent crime rate, has been up in some categories and down in other, but overall has gone up since 1996. Your "gun crime" numbers have gone down, but it hasn't lowered the number of people being murdered which has been flat as a percentage of the population.
...Our crime rate has dropped sharply since 1996...
And hugely w
As a rider, I'll point out how wrong this statement is. At speeds above around 25mph, to turn, you actually push in the direction you want to go (called push steering: ex. push on the left handlebar to go left), as opposed to in a car where you turn the steering wheel in the direction you want to go. BIG difference!
Steering a bike at speed is actually is very intuitive. If people don't think about it and just lean, they do it right instinctively. Counter steering sometimes takes a little practice and sometimes people do have to unlearn things. That said, the motorcycle rarely takes a behavior you do all the time and does completely different things with the same action including things you'd never want to do.
If, as you suggest, Microsoft has a monopoly, it's only because they've mastered the installation process.
Is MS's monopoly status still a matter of debate? Only on Slashdot where half the people don't understand what a monopoly is. Anyway, they did not master installation and installation suck for many use cases on Windows. For example, I want to install all the software on my old laptop, onto my new laptop. With Windows it is a PITA. With OS X (for example) it is so easy my grandmother can do it. Developers made their own installers on Windows and got good at it, but that's no credit to the OS which is incredibly messy for installation.
You have a defined goal, showing I'm wrong, but yet, you don't even know what it is that I'm advocating.
You haven't advocated anything i've seen, just nitpicked and tried to derail other conversations with pointless nonsense. I returned the same.
So you are, by definition, debating with someone that isn't debating, right?
Nope. No debate. Just sparring over crap.
And that doesn't sound silly to you?
Would I have brought up the distinction that a cannon isn't a firearm if I wasn't being silly?
So why not shut up and quit making intellectually inconsistent statements?
How can I make inconsistent statements when I only made one statement when you wrote that?
And furthermore, your premise that debating when not everyone has stated their goals is pointless is silly. Most people don't define their goals.
Argumentum ad populum? I don't care if most people are idiots. You can't have a useful debate unless a goal is stated. That's why we're not debating or doing anything useful other than browbeating you for entertainment.
Ever watch politicians talk about a point? They don't give their goal.
Ahh, the gold standard for reasoned debate. Yes, let's emulate politicians. Shit... I'd rather imitate drug addicted pop musicians. At least a few of them have fashion sense.
They don't give their goal. Is it more money from industry?
You've misunderstood. You need a goal as to what you want to accomplish by enacting legislation, which they always state. You don't need to reveal all your motivations for wanting to achieve that goal or ulterior motives. Even the bridge to nowhere had a stated goal.
So your comment seems senseless.
That's not the only thing that seems senseless.
Do you have the same chance if the assailant has a gun?
I have a better chance if I have a gun than if I don't. But the point is, we have to look at the overall trends, not just one hypothetical.
If the assailant shoots first I have little chance of surviving...
Why? Most of the time people miss, especially with handguns and even at close ranges.
if the assailant bludgeons or stabs first I have a far better chance of surviving
Sure about that?
...after all they are after is my wallet and watch...
Because that is the only motivation for attacking someone?
1. Number of crimes reported - this should go up initially as more people survive to report crimes and have less fear of retribution...
Umm, I don't think there are a lot of crimes unreported because the victim dies and it is never discovered, at least compared to attacks overall.
This is what happened in Australia, after 3 years the buyback scheme violent crime dropped from 14% to 8%.
You mean Australia one of the very few countries with a higher victimization rate than the US and which leads the world in burglaries? "However, the International Crime Victims Survey notes that overall crime victimization Down Under rose from 27.8 percent of the population in 1988, to 28.6 percent in 1991 to over 30 percent in 1999."
The numbers:
In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia was dropping. You've fallen for one of the classic ploys. The publish numbers that same crimes with guns are down or gun killings are down, but conveniently ignore the overall violent crime and murder rates. Mind you, I don't attribute most of these increases to the gun control laws. At the same time wealth disparity was increasing. You might want to pick your examples more carefully in future, but more importantly, you might want to look at correlations among many countries, instead of just cherry picking one.
Number of arrests
This is not a good metric as it varies as laws change, enforcement policies change, and manpower changes. It doesn't do a good job of measuring crime, just somewhat how crime is dealt with.
Types of crimes - Almost all remaining gun crime should become crimes of passion...
Trying to define things in terms of gun crimes is fundamentally misstating the problem. You should always look at overall crime, violent crime, and murder. Three murders with a knife instead of one with a gun should never be spun as a "win".
Repeat gun crime
See above.
And if guns prevented crime, why is America's murder rate so high?
From the numbers I've seen lack of restrictive gun laws does reduce crime, but not murder. It slightly reduces rates of robbery and burglary. As for why the US's murder rate is so high, if you take a look at a hundred countries around the world and look at all the characteristics they have and try to correlate them you won't find much of a correlation with violent crime and gun laws at all. Places with high gun ownership rates and few laws have some of the lowest violent crime rates, while others have some of the highest. The ones that have low violent crime rates tend to have low wealth disparity, socialized medicine, free addiction treatment programs, and lower amounts of cultural diversity. If you were to look at countries around the world and only look at wealth disparity and use that to predict the US's crime rate, you'd hit it almost exactly. The UK is pretty close if that's all you look at too.
Interesting to see how many gun nuts have mod points though.
The truth is, no one honestly looking to solve the problem of violence, scientifically can look at the numbers and decide gun control laws will make any real difference. Gun control laws aren't about crime prevention, they're about getting votes. People on both sides of the issue are emotional and scared and often will vote solely on this one non-issue. Politicians on both sides of the debate exploit that to get votes and it works really well for them. I side with the "gun nuts" because it does slightly reduce crime and because I strongly believe in personal freedom. If you want to restrict personal freedom you need to show me a strong and well supported case as to how it will benefit society. For gun control, it isn't there and never has been that I've seen. They had to make up new terms like "gun crime" in order to misleadingly present statistics to even convince the gullible.
Interestingly, that seems to be the opposite side of the correlation != causation arguments that come up on slashdot every time violent video games come up.
That's because people misunderstand the issue and phrase things in an overly simplistic way.
Wrong:
Right:
A huge portion of science is noticing correlations, creating a hypothesis as to a specific causation, and testing that causation. To say correlation does not imply any causation is incorrect. If there is no correlation between two factors, then there is likely no strong causation, or at least no evidence for one. If there is a correlation, then there is likely a casation, but we don't know what one until we test.
The problem referenced earlier in the thread is not caused by having multiple container formats. You could stuff the platform-specific installers into a single package file if you really wanted to. But no one wants to waste bandwidth downloading stuff that doesn't apply to them...
I do. I'd much rather have one container format with all the resources easily accessible, all nicely contained so it is portable. I already get containers that come with binaries for multiple platforms 32 and 64 bit on PPC and x86. I'd be happier yet if the container had an .exe and a binary or two for Linux. For disk limited applications I can always strip out the unneeded binaries, but the rest of the time the extra download time and disk space is more than made up for by being able to easily migrate my applications to a new system, even if it is on a different chipset. Additionally, the convenience of being able IM an application to a co-worker or friend and have them be able to run it or install it on a network share and have all the users be able to run it regardless of their platform without needing to manage multiple installs and licenses. And lets not forget installing an application on a flash drive and then taking it to work, home, the library, and to a friend's house and being able to use it on all those systems including machines I've never used before all while intelligently managing settings and preferences by user and location and failing over to the settings on the flash drive when none are available.
The problem is when binaries for multiple platforms aren't available. The author of TFA and the OP of this thread seem to expect that a package compiled and tested for one Linux platform should work easily with other Linux platforms. That's not a reasonable expectation and not one people have when they talk about different non-Linux operating systems.
But there is no technical reason a binary can't run on all Linux distros, provided you bundle needed libraries and adhere to standards. The problem is simply that people can't agree on a single standard, even when most of the options currently used have feature parity. The type functionality I describe is a huge usability win and an upgrade for every OS, but it won't happen because MS won't play ball and Linux is controlled by companies who want to push it on the server and appliance at the cost of desktop functionality.
Yes.. or are you trying to say the violent crime rate is higher in the UK than in the US?
Are you trying to imply that there are no other differences between the US and UK that could create differences in their violent crime rates? Are you trying to imply you have evidence that gun control laws are the determining factor, despite the lack of correlation if you look at countries in general?
While a lower violent crime rate in the UK is not an argument saying that outlawing guns lowers violent crime, I think it is a fairly strong argument that allowing everyone to own guns doesn't necessarily lower it either.
There have been lots of studies on the issue. The consensus last time I researched it heavily was that strict gun control laws result in a very, very slight increase in violent crime, barely within the range of statistical significance. That is to say, gun control laws are useless and likely slightly counterproductive in stopping violent crime and murder.
I think your idea shows a common misconception about violent crime. For example, a lot of violent crime occurs between gang members; the fact that the gang members they commit violence against also have weapons does not seem to deter them from committing the violence against each other.
This is cherry picking. I could just as easily say very large criminals who lift weights prefer guns are banned in an area because they can get away with more crime due to their physical ability to dominate most others.
Such use cases are fairly pointless and border on speculative masturbation. You have to look at overall rates of violent crime.
Secondly, most other forms of violent crime is not...
The same thing I said before.
I think it is a stretch to suggest everyday law abiding people apply this sort of rationality to their actions, let alone violent criminals who clearly demonstrate they do not act rationally.
Everyone acts with a mix of emotive and reasoned decision making regardless of if they are a criminal or not. If you were in a gun store next to a machine gun and a criminal was outside shooting up your car would you go shoot it out with them, or call the cops? Some people would choose each, but most people aren't interested in risking their life for the cost of a car. Most criminals are a lot less interested in burglary if they believe people are armed and may shoot them, which is why numerous studies have shown an ordinance requiring every home in a neighborhood to have a firearm drastically reduces burglary rates there. In Florida, they did away with rental car license plates because criminals were running rental cars off the road and robbing them. Why rental cars? Because they knew those were almost always tourists who flew in and were not armed (unlike much of Florida's citizenry). Both are demonstrations of crime being averted by criminals rationally fearing for their lives and changing their behavior to avoid potentially being shot.
Fact: If no one had firearms, there would be no gun-related crimes.
That's not a fact, nor is it likely. For example, my friend is a civil war re-enactor. He has a small cannon. He transports it across states where his possession is illegal. That's a gun-related crime (a cannon is a gun), but it doesn't use a firearm (a cannon is not a firearm). Further, just because there are no firearms, does not mean there are no gun related crimes. For example, I could steal a number of valuable paintings each of which portrays a gun, which makes the crime gun-related, but does not involve a gun per se. I could infringe upon the copyright of a person who has drawn up plans for the manufacture of a gun (even if no actual guns existed), and that would be a gun-related crime.
And once you are capable of stating "why yes, I agree 100% that if there were no guns there would be no gun-related crimes" then you may have something useful to add.
Why would you want him to make such untrue statements? If you're going to split hairs as to what is or is not a reason or "compelling" reason then why should you not be taken to task for semantic idiocy as well? The thing is, you haven't presented any reason for banning gun ownership because you have not stated a goal, and without a defined goal, there is no point in debating at all.
Measures to restrict the deadlier weapons have shown to be generally effective.
Really? The last objective study I saw showed a very slight increase in violent crime correlating to implementing stricter gun control laws (barely within the range of statistical significance). I don't take idiots discussing more useless legislation about a hyped up problem to be evidence that their last attempt at a solution helped.
Equally important is to minimize the rate of violent crime.
Why don't we just look at violent crime and death rates as a whole and then factors that are shown to be correlative or causative? In many specific instances the availability of deadly weapons has been shown to prevent crime.
As you correctly pointed out, violence and economics are closely linked. But you will never be able to stop all violent crime (at least not in the foreseeable future), so it will always be important to limit the damage caused by violence as well.
Attacking the root causes of violent crime (wealth disparity works better than poverty by the way) you can drastically reduce violent crime rates. Specific programs to reduce wealth disparity in specific ways have had huge, measurable effects in other places. Socialized healthcare, for example, does a better job at preventing murders than any gun control measure.
The problem with attempts to reduce access to deadly weapons are manifold. Such weapons are everywhere particularly for people who are not concerned about the law. Many attempts at suchlike have backfired, merely disarming portions of the populace so they are easier victims, making another portion of the populace into criminals more likely to commit violent crimes to cover up the fact that they're already breaking the law by possessing weapons, or pushing criminals to weapons that hurt more people (for example, in Brazil where gun control has reduced availability, drive by pipe bomb and molotov cocktail attacks skyrocketed resulting in many more bystanders being killed, injured and severely burned). You have to actually prove a method of "minimizing damage done through violence" that you can demonstrate to be effective in helping the overall problem. To date, such evidence has been sorely lacking.
Taxes increase the price of the knife, regardless of whether the knife is sold on the open or black market.
As evidenced by the fact that I can buy an eighth of fairly decent weed for about the cost of a bottle of gray goose. Oh wait.....
So the vodka costs more than it would because of high taxation and the weed costs more because of the risk of prosecution in what would otherwise be a nearly free product since it is a weed.
I guess I'm not seeing the argument that taxes can't increase the cost of a product on both the open and black markets. Even moonshine is more expensive than it would be because the producers are dodging the taxes and other laws and thus their risk is higher so they can charge more (less competition due to risks).
You don't think there might be some compatibility issues? I don't think OS X ships with msblahblah.dll...
That's what standards are about. One could easily create a standard package format (there are many) that meets the needs of all the different OS's (haven't seen this yet). The problem is getting people to adopt it and then actually stick with the standard. There's no reason there can't be a single standard that can even incorporate binaries for multiple platforms when available. It's just that getting all the different OS's to use it (especially Windows) is very difficult and keeping one company from deviating from the standard and breaking compatibility (one particular company has a habit of doing this in ways that violate the law and undermine the competition).
If you have a different idea about what makes your platform better than the others, then it's inevitable that you're going to design your system in a way that isn't compatible with the others.
That's fine for architecture, but there's no real reason why one would have to deviate from standards with regard to file/package formats, especially if those are extensible standards.
I think you're reading to much there. A knife crime is a crime committed with a knife.
Yup, but the term originated out of the attempt to start tracking violent crime based upon the implement used so that people could ignore the big picture and claim they were making progress when they demonstrably were not. When did you last hear the phrase "redheaded crime" or "Wednesday crimes". Probably never, because such distinctions in dividing up crime are arbitrary and not really useful. Likewise "gun crime" and "knife crime" but the term "gun crime" was introduced as an attempt to hide that gun control measures weren't actually making a difference in violent crime or murder statistics. It was incorrectly redefining the problem in an attempt to mislead the masses and the fact that those terms are considered normal today is simply a demonstration that the attempt worked. That's both sad and dangerous.
Change their motivations? That's changing them!
I suppose you could make that argument. Still you take the same person and subject them to one of two stimuli and you can often predict what will happen. I don't see that as changing the person so much as changing their environment.
It's a sad and dangerous day when "knife crimes" are seen as bad because they are disrespectful of the law.
It's a sad and dangerous day when phrases like "knife crimes" and "gun crimes" are excepted as a normal part of our lexicon, seeing as they are rooted in attempts to fallaciously redefine violent crime in a way to make absurd statistical interpretations seem reasonable in an attempt to hide the truth about politicians' inadequacy.
While death is death in the end, you have a much, much higher chance of surviving a knife attack than a gun attack.
I also stand a much better chance of surviving a bludgeoning attack if I have a gun. Moreover, if people think I might have a gun, I might not have to defend myself at all. Since all of these factors come into play it is important to look at actual numbers on violent crime and death with regard to any proposed restriction.
Besides, many knives are equally effective at causing harm using just the bladed edge (think butcher knives.)
No, they are not equally effective - the most effective type of knife to fight with is one which permits both slashing and piercing attacks. Weapons which only allow one or the other are obviously, provably less versatile.
You could make that argument if you are thinking about expert knife fighters, but I don't think that is likely the category of people who commit most violence with knives. The vast majority of concealable/carry-able knives (especially cooking knives) have no guard. For the average person, this makes stabbing less effective for injuring or killing than a knife that has no point. A very common injury in emergency rooms are people who tried to stab someone with a pointed knife and due to no guard, blood on the handle, and/or hitting a bone... ended up slicing their own hand open when the knife stopped suddenly and their hand slid over the blade.
The best argument against any litigation like this is always the same. At some point you have to accept that since any able human can kill any other able human with nothing more than a broken chopstick (you have to sleep sometime) banning things is never going to prevent murder. If you want to prevent murder, you have to change people.
You make a good point, but I disagree. You don't have to change people, just their situation and motivations. Simple things like free drug treatment programs and socialized medicine do more to reduce violence in the UK than anything else. There are well documented, scientific ways to reduce violence in societies and one of the biggest is simply reducing wealth disparity which provides psychological justification for violence.
I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or genuine genuflection at the NRA's altar... but you do know that there are plenty of countries without guns where this issues aren't prevalent? Or that death by gun is exactly like death by knife? Right?
I think what the original poster was talking about is that UK politicians pushed through large restrictions on gun ownership in the name of reducing crime. It didn't work, so they obscured the numbers, changed how they count crime to give plausible deniability, and declared success. So when violent crime continues using different implements many people (convinced that the gun legislation was successful) look to additional legislation to try to restrict ownership of other items.
Now the original poster was by no means clear, but one could easily argue that this sort of absurdly unscientific attempt to mollify the people can be laid at the doorstep of those who did the same thing in the past (with regard to guns) and then waged a misinformation campaign against the citizenry to hide their incompetence.