Congratulations you have avoided natural selection once again.......The "huge" parts of the population that do not have normal immune systems use a disproportionate amount of the healthcare dollars. If you were forced to pay your bills out of your pocket, I suspect you wouldn't go to the supermarket to get sneezed on.
The GP's assertion that the flu hype is a money making effort is in no way refuted by your claim 'that you got sick so there must be no hype'.
the linked wiki article refers to a small arms survey. this survey is based on manufacture and importation. It routinely states that it makes no distinction between illicit guns and legally purchased ones. So this is total guns.
You said that corpses are much easier to count. Why is the united states with less than 5% of the global population and between 35-50% of the worlds small arms not just full of bodies in the streets.
Your link supplies a higher percentage of deaths by firearm. I am not sure that this is a useful statistic clearly Thailand had a high percentage. I don't doubt that there is very high rate of homicide by firearm in these 2 country's. SA 74/100000 Thailand 33/100000 and the US 3.7/100000. Are there other factors that may be to blame besides the amount of guns? The US seems to have a much higher number of guns and not nearly the homicide by gun rate.
It's too bad that you live in a country with such oppressive firearm laws that you have to purchase on the street from corrupt police officers.
I think we could go back and forth forever. There doesn't seem to be good enough data to sway either of us.
I am having trouble following your logic. You seem to say that South Africa and Thailand have very high rates of gun ownership and high crime rates. wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_ownership shows that the Us has 90guns per 100 people. Thialand has 16/100 and South Africa 13/100 these are 1/6 to 1/7 of the gun ownership rate. The wiki page is quick to point out that these numbers are not private ownership. I suspect that in other countries besides the US the private ownership is very low. I am glad that the Us hasn't had a military coup in the last few years like Thailand.
And before you tell me that US citizens with guns are unable to stop a military coup, It seems that a hand full of militants in Afghanistan and Iraq have given the US military a lot of work lately.
And not only will xenophobes be able to get Muslims kicked off planes for suspicious terroristicky activity (i.e. speaking in Arabic or praying), they can now get shot, too!
Hmm according to this there are 18 mill people in florida http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=population+florida&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g9 The wiki links shows 600000 current ccw permit holders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States The math seems to show 3.3333% of the population of Florida has a permit. I quess that means that if you go to McDonalds at least one person around you will have a permit. Probably not carrying but maybe. Why haven't the things you talked about happened already? Haven't seen the news where permit holders went on a rampage like the new york police or any reports of permit holders running amok shooting Muslims. I think you might also be surprised at the level of training that most private shooters have. Most police can barley qualify with their firearm. While the civilians are out winning competitions and practicing a lot more. Who is buying up all of the ammo causing a shortage???? Not the police......still dont see the crazy people that you seem to be talking about.... Ill keep looking. I hope you start.
I know I'm being kind of pedantic, but I find your use of "criminal behavior" to describe shootings to be disingenuous.
Criminal behavior, on the other hand, is more like robbery, rape, arson, or even drug dealing, and are far more common. I'm not sure there are too many cases where a gun in such events would be beneficial to the victim. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect, where the aggressor gets an additional advantage after taking the gun.
with just a quick search of something that happened in the last month. If you listen for these on the news you will start hearing more. I have been very surprised that defensive use with a firearm is making it to the mainstream media with more frequency. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32426383/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
I Know that with a little time I could inundate you with articles of a similar nature. The NRA (I know it's a bad word) reprints articles verified from smaller news agencies at, least 5 monthly, with defensive uses from criminal behavior.
And stopping or preventing organized crime with a gun amounts to vigilanteism, which is also frowned upon.
I am pretty sure that I never suggested stopping organized crime or vigilante behavior at all. The parent asked for evidence to support citizens stopping mass shootings and I provided. then you asked for info supporting private citizens stopping "criminal behavior " I provided it. Maybe a little more research instead of just repeating what you hear, especially about getting your gun taken away and used against you. In fact if you read this article the apparent "victims" took away the attackers weapon and then chased them away with a knife. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-robbery-lake-bn081009,0,821164.story
I do not think that everyone should go out and get a gun! People have a responsibility to train themselves on proper control and safety measures including retention and not shooting your neighbor. If people took the time to be trained and used firearms appropriately I believe we would be safer.
Pearl highschool "However, assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a.45 pistol from the glove compartment of his truck and subdued Woodham inside his mother's car." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting
or
Colorado church shooting. "Chief Richard Myers called the Colorado Springs church security staffer "a courageous security staff member who probably saved many lives." http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/09/church.shooting/
Before you say that the church security office was a trained individual. please read about the story. as I remember it the church had some word that something might happen and they asked a few people to act as security guards. " At this point, Jeanne Assam, a church member volunteering as a church security guard, opened fire on Murray with her personally owned concealed weapon" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings
While I agree that these 2 incidents do not prove the value of CCW. they make a clear statement that not only professionally trained law enforcement officers stop these type of crimes. There are many under reported cases of private citizens stopping criminal behavior with a firearm.
Its really not that hard. Like I said practice practice practice. I have shot targets in the air. I just missed more than I hit. If you read about shooting sports I think you will find that many of the people that shoot regularly (more that once every 3 months ) are very accurate.
And the gp said that it was impossible unless your on TV. That is what I was talking about. It's not nearly impossible just difficult.
Well, that, and the fact that unless you're on TV, it's impossible to hit a flying target with a single bullet. You need the multiple projectiles that a shotgun provides.
Hmm you must not know much about shooting.
Ad Topperwein shot quite a few without missing. I think that the problem today is that no one practices much.....
"During these ten days' shooting, I shot a total of 72,500 targets. I missed four out of the first 50,000 and nine out of the total of 72,500." qutoe from Ad Topperwein
these were 2.15 inch blocks hand thrown into the air and shot with a 22 rifle.
link http://www.traphof.org/topperwein-bio.htm
I guess the predictions about.xxx are correct, get every one together and then close the space.
People will find a way. Kinda like life don't you think.....
Hmm..... Your attempting to destroy a copyright method on a digital device. You would loose all of your karma for getting arrested for a DCMA violation using hairspray.
Studies do show a definite increase in suicide with gun ownership (seems obvious).
But what does a positive correlation between suicide and gun ownership really mean? Do guns cause people to commit suicide? Or do suicidal people actively seek guns? Furthermore, if suicidal people were unable to obtain guns, does such a correlation imply that they would then NOT commit suicide? Or is it possible that these people would simply find another method?
Some studies have found the likelihood of being murdered also increases.
Again, what does this correlation mean? Are guns causing these people to be murdered? Isn't it possible that people more likely to be murdered (because of their career, neighborhood, lifestyle, etc.) own guns out of the legitimate fears for their safety? Furthermore, if these people did not own guns, does such a correlation suggest that lives would have been saved? (I personally find it hard to believe that someone would kill you simply because you owned a gun, but I digress...)
Simply pointing to the correlation between gun ownership and suicide or the likelihood of being murdered as arguments against gun ownership are rather weak and generally an intellectually dishonest tactic to imply conclusions that don't actually fit the data.
-Grym
Well stated Grym.....People will find another way. Japan has had a recent run of suicide by gassing which has placed a few unintended victims in the hospital because they were in the same building. The last I had read of this was that the Japanese government was requesting that websites remove the recipe so as to decrease the amount of suicides. Btw Japan has a high suicide rates link and it is almost impossible for private ownership of firearms.
If they have the gun and you don't have one, all the more reason to just be cool about the situation. If you find someone with a gun in America and they are white middle-class, then there's a good chance that you could lose your job by hassling them about it. If you find someone with a gun in America and they are not white middle-class, then there's a good chance that you could lose your life by hassling them about it.
Excuse me, but I live in America, too, and here, if someone is caught with a gun, he goes straight to the jail, and he won't get out for a darn good while. 2% of us citizens have permits for concealed carry. Thats about 6 million. Not everyone with a gun goes to jail. I havent for the last 14 years.....
per your link......
LED-based lighting is safer and far more efficient than the Luxim device. Hmm the efficiencies listed state 100 lumen's per watt the parent shows 140l/W seems like leds are not far more efficient. I realize that the article taht you linked doesn't have the most up to date stats on leds and that the recent led bulbs are better that the eiki link but not that much better....
And I am not sure where safer comes from
Lights are not on all of the time. if less than 12 hours use which is likely than your calculations put the life at 5 years in a street light configuration.
The company makes many different forms of lighting including projectors http://www.luxim.com/ A home projector with 10 times the bulb life would let me watch just that much more porn in my mom's basement.......
If you believe that limits to laws are going to be applied to only extreme cases. Your just sticking your head in the sand. Do you ever drive just 40 mmh on the highway when the limit is 55mph? Our legal system is poor at differentiating simple crime and heinous crime and the standards are interpreted whilly nilly all of the time.
Please never say that the law will only be applied this way or that. If the law exists it can and I suspect will be used to its fullest extent.
Most pacemakers and defibrillators can be turned off with just a magnet. This is designed to allow medical staff to stop a defective device.
Yep I have done it myself and seen it done many times for diagnostic reasons in the hospital.
M
In the U.S. there is a great deal of money spent keeping preterm babies alive. Some even as small as 500g.
"The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category -- the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old." http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/cuba-vs-the-united-states-on-infant-mortality/
Just one data point sometimes doesnt make a point at all.......Cuba's health care may look better from this point but it doesn't tell the whole story......
Slashdot Mirror
The condom breaking mechanism is stupidity. If you don't know how to use the condom correctly then it breaks and you pass you genetic material
Smart persons know appropriate condom usage and do not pass on their lineage. Seems like evolutionary pressure as been applied.
Epi
how about changing the default password............
Congratulations you have avoided natural selection once again.......The "huge" parts of the population that do not have normal immune systems use a disproportionate amount of the healthcare dollars. If you were forced to pay your bills out of your pocket, I suspect you wouldn't go to the supermarket to get sneezed on.
The GP's assertion that the flu hype is a money making effort is in no way refuted by your claim 'that you got sick so there must be no hype'.
Epi
the linked wiki article refers to a small arms survey. this survey is based on manufacture and importation. It routinely states that it makes no distinction between illicit guns and legally purchased ones. So this is total guns.
You said that corpses are much easier to count. Why is the united states with less than 5% of the global population and between 35-50% of the worlds small arms not just full of bodies in the streets.
Your link supplies a higher percentage of deaths by firearm. I am not sure that this is a useful statistic clearly Thailand had a high percentage. I don't doubt that there is very high rate of homicide by firearm in these 2 country's. SA 74/100000 Thailand 33/100000 and the US 3.7/100000. Are there other factors that may be to blame besides the amount of guns? The US seems to have a much higher number of guns and not nearly the homicide by gun rate.
It's too bad that you live in a country with such oppressive firearm laws that you have to purchase on the street from corrupt police officers.
I think we could go back and forth forever. There doesn't seem to be good enough data to sway either of us.
I am having trouble following your logic. You seem to say that South Africa and Thailand have very high rates of gun ownership and high crime rates. wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_ownership shows that the Us has 90guns per 100 people. Thialand has 16/100 and South Africa 13/100 these are 1/6 to 1/7 of the gun ownership rate. The wiki page is quick to point out that these numbers are not private ownership. I suspect that in other countries besides the US the private ownership is very low. I am glad that the Us hasn't had a military coup in the last few years like Thailand.
And before you tell me that US citizens with guns are unable to stop a military coup, It seems that a hand full of militants in Afghanistan and Iraq have given the US military a lot of work lately.
Epi
>
And not only will xenophobes be able to get Muslims kicked off planes for suspicious terroristicky activity (i.e. speaking in Arabic or praying), they can now get shot, too!
Hmm according to this there are 18 mill people in florida http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=population+florida&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g9 The wiki links shows 600000 current ccw permit holders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States The math seems to show 3.3333% of the population of Florida has a permit. I quess that means that if you go to McDonalds at least one person around you will have a permit. Probably not carrying but maybe. Why haven't the things you talked about happened already? Haven't seen the news where permit holders went on a rampage like the new york police or any reports of permit holders running amok shooting Muslims. I think you might also be surprised at the level of training that most private shooters have. Most police can barley qualify with their firearm. While the civilians are out winning competitions and practicing a lot more. Who is buying up all of the ammo causing a shortage???? Not the police......still dont see the crazy people that you seem to be talking about.... Ill keep looking. I hope you start.
I know I'm being kind of pedantic, but I find your use of "criminal behavior" to describe shootings to be disingenuous.
Criminal behavior, on the other hand, is more like robbery, rape, arson, or even drug dealing, and are far more common. I'm not sure there are too many cases where a gun in such events would be beneficial to the victim. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect, where the aggressor gets an additional advantage after taking the gun.
with just a quick search of something that happened in the last month. If you listen for these on the news you will start hearing more. I have been very surprised that defensive use with a firearm is making it to the mainstream media with more frequency. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32426383/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
I Know that with a little time I could inundate you with articles of a similar nature. The NRA (I know it's a bad word) reprints articles verified from smaller news agencies at, least 5 monthly, with defensive uses from criminal behavior.
And stopping or preventing organized crime with a gun amounts to vigilanteism, which is also frowned upon.
I am pretty sure that I never suggested stopping organized crime or vigilante behavior at all. The parent asked for evidence to support citizens stopping mass shootings and I provided. then you asked for info supporting private citizens stopping "criminal behavior " I provided it. Maybe a little more research instead of just repeating what you hear, especially about getting your gun taken away and used against you. In fact if you read this article the apparent "victims" took away the attackers weapon and then chased them away with a knife. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-robbery-lake-bn081009,0,821164.story
I do not think that everyone should go out and get a gun! People have a responsibility to train themselves on proper control and safety measures including retention and not shooting your neighbor. If people took the time to be trained and used firearms appropriately I believe we would be safer.
you mean like this????
Pearl highschool "However, assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from the glove compartment of his truck and subdued Woodham inside his mother's car." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting
or
Colorado church shooting. "Chief Richard Myers called the Colorado Springs church security staffer "a courageous security staff member who probably saved many lives." http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/09/church.shooting/
Before you say that the church security office was a trained individual. please read about the story. as I remember it the church had some word that something might happen and they asked a few people to act as security guards. "
At this point, Jeanne Assam, a church member volunteering as a church security guard, opened fire on Murray with her personally owned concealed weapon" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings
While I agree that these 2 incidents do not prove the value of CCW. they make a clear statement that not only professionally trained law enforcement officers stop these type of crimes. There are many under reported cases of private citizens stopping criminal behavior with a firearm.
Epi
Good link. I was gonna link it but you beat me by quite a few hours...
WOW, Has hyperinflation hit you area already....and trickled down to the campus cops
They don't make that much around here. Maybe an accidental extra 0
E
Its really not that hard. Like I said practice practice practice. I have shot targets in the air. I just missed more than I hit. If you read about shooting sports I think you will find that many of the people that shoot regularly (more that once every 3 months ) are very accurate. And the gp said that it was impossible unless your on TV. That is what I was talking about. It's not nearly impossible just difficult.
Well, that, and the fact that unless you're on TV, it's impossible to hit a flying target with a single bullet. You need the multiple projectiles that a shotgun provides.
Hmm you must not know much about shooting. Ad Topperwein shot quite a few without missing. I think that the problem today is that no one practices much..... "During these ten days' shooting, I shot a total of 72,500 targets. I missed four out of the first 50,000 and nine out of the total of 72,500." qutoe from Ad Topperwein these were 2.15 inch blocks hand thrown into the air and shot with a 22 rifle. link http://www.traphof.org/topperwein-bio.htm
I guess the predictions about .xxx are correct, get every one together and then close the space.
People will find a way. Kinda like life don't you think.....
Hmm..... Your attempting to destroy a copyright method on a digital device. You would loose all of your karma for getting arrested for a DCMA violation using hairspray.
But what does a positive correlation between suicide and gun ownership really mean? Do guns cause people to commit suicide? Or do suicidal people actively seek guns? Furthermore, if suicidal people were unable to obtain guns, does such a correlation imply that they would then NOT commit suicide? Or is it possible that these people would simply find another method?
Again, what does this correlation mean? Are guns causing these people to be murdered? Isn't it possible that people more likely to be murdered (because of their career, neighborhood, lifestyle, etc.) own guns out of the legitimate fears for their safety? Furthermore, if these people did not own guns, does such a correlation suggest that lives would have been saved? (I personally find it hard to believe that someone would kill you simply because you owned a gun, but I digress...)
Simply pointing to the correlation between gun ownership and suicide or the likelihood of being murdered as arguments against gun ownership are rather weak and generally an intellectually dishonest tactic to imply conclusions that don't actually fit the data.
-Grym
Well stated Grym.....People will find another way. Japan has had a recent run of suicide by gassing which has placed a few unintended victims in the hospital because they were in the same building. The last I had read of this was that the Japanese government was requesting that websites remove the recipe so as to decrease the amount of suicides. Btw Japan has a high suicide rates link and it is almost impossible for private ownership of firearms.per your link...... LED-based lighting is safer and far more efficient than the Luxim device. Hmm the efficiencies listed state 100 lumen's per watt the parent shows 140l/W seems like leds are not far more efficient. I realize that the article taht you linked doesn't have the most up to date stats on leds and that the recent led bulbs are better that the eiki link but not that much better.... And I am not sure where safer comes from
Lights are not on all of the time. if less than 12 hours use which is likely than your calculations put the life at 5 years in a street light configuration.
The company makes many different forms of lighting including projectors http://www.luxim.com/ A home projector with 10 times the bulb life would let me watch just that much more porn in my mom's basement.......
If you believe that limits to laws are going to be applied to only extreme cases. Your just sticking your head in the sand. Do you ever drive just 40 mmh on the highway when the limit is 55mph? Our legal system is poor at differentiating simple crime and heinous crime and the standards are interpreted whilly nilly all of the time. Please never say that the law will only be applied this way or that. If the law exists it can and I suspect will be used to its fullest extent.
Most pacemakers and defibrillators can be turned off with just a magnet. This is designed to allow medical staff to stop a defective device. Yep I have done it myself and seen it done many times for diagnostic reasons in the hospital. M
In the U.S. there is a great deal of money spent keeping preterm babies alive. Some even as small as 500g. "The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category -- the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old." http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/cuba-vs-the-united-states-on-infant-mortality/ Just one data point sometimes doesnt make a point at all.......Cuba's health care may look better from this point but it doesn't tell the whole story......
A quick pass through the scanner would open a huge analog hole to the normal user for e-book copyright infringment.