Recent Comments

1. over 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Double click on the picture, then print to pdf using the paper size A 0. It will still be on a few pages, but it’ll be easy enough to tape them together

2. over 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   I’m pretty sure that Robert Heinlein said that first in “To Sail Beyond The Sunset”

3. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   [citation needed]

4. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   Nope, I never have ignored that part. He definitely said that there was nothing wrong with the current regulations against the mentally ill and violent felons being banned from firearm ownership. In his argument he noted that weapons in common use today, such as the AR-15, should be allowed, and that it was ‘unusual’ weapons (i.e. machine guns, rocket launchers and such) that need to have tighter regulations.

   As to the ‘unusual’ weapons, you can, if you have the money, legally buy a machine gun , or own an artillery piece, or a fighter jet, or a tank, so long as you pass the rather rigorous background check. There’s a guy who lives near me that owns a MIG (Viet Nam era to be fair, but hey, pretty cool, right?!). There are tanks for sale on the internet, even an Abrams! Google it! Not sure about RPGs though.

5. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   At the direct request of the population? Maybe, but obviously not all of them. The firearms still exist, very few were turned in. And their murder rate was ridiculously low to begin with. Proponents of bans in the US point out Australia’s decline of murders after the ban, but fail to note both the low number to begin with (~600 as the high six years prior), and that it had already fallen in half by the time the ban was instituted, and really didn’t fall that much lower afterward. They also fail to note the same 50% drop in the murder rate in the US, on a lagging curve to be fair. We’re still at 50% of the high, as is all violent crimes.

6. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember those nuclear attack drills, but duck and cover was what we did. Half of the students crouched down along the locker walls, the other half ‘covered’ over them with their coats on, spread open to protect the ones below them. I didn’t realize it until many years later, but the idea was to make sure that 1/2 of the kids survived the attack. Of course, they didn’t tell us that. They also didn’t tell us that the blast radius of a thermonuclear weapon was on the order of 30 miles, and we lived less than 10 from Philadelphia, 15 miles from Ft Dix/McGuire AFB. It was a pointless exercise, but it sure made people feel good, right?

7. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   Overreaction to a problem that’s statistically so small that even the Congressional Report commissioned by the Obama admin couldn’t even come up with a recommendation on how to address the problem. Last stats posted on the FBI Uniform Crime Report was 2016. 374 murders out of 11,000 firearm murders were committed by rifles, of which less than 270 were the dreaded ‘assault rifle’. More people were murdered by being kicked and punched to death (We need to outlaw martial arts classes!).

   70 million (admit to being) gun owners, 600 million guns, 12 trillion rounds of ammo. Believe me, if gun owners were a problem, we’d know it!

   https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/murder

   http://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Office-of-the-Governor/Sandy-Hook-Advisory-Commission/SHAC_Final_Report_3-6-2015.pdf?la=en [.pdf file]

8. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   Additional note on the Australia ban; After the ban, there was a run on PVC pipe to the point that it was out of stock at the hardware stores. Want to take a guess as to why?…

9. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

   [Note: they haven’t included all of the guns that were sold during the Obama admin. The number of firearms in circulation is now estimated to be about 600,000,000, with over 12 trillion rounds of ammo also held in private hands.]

10. almost 7 years ago on Moderately Confused

    Want to create a gun-free America in 5 easy steps?

    Here’s all there is to it:

    Step 1: Elect. For a gun-free America, the first thing you’ll need is two-thirds of Congress. So elect a minimum of 67 Senators and 290 Representatives who are on your side.

    Step 2: Propose. Then, have them vote to propose an amendment to the Constitution which repeals Second Amendment gun rights for all Americans.

    Step 3: Ratify. Then convince the legislators of 38 states to ratify that change.

    At this point, the Second Amendment is history, but you’ve done nothing to decrease gun violence. All you’ve done is remove the barrier for Congress to act.

    Step 4: Legislate. You need to enact “common sense” reform.

    You can try to do what Australia did and…ban all guns? That’s not at all what they did, but whatever, fuck it. Go big or go home, right?

    It will have to be passed by Congress and signed by the president.

    Great! The law is passed and guns are now illegal. The only thing left to do is…

    Step 5: Enforce. Guns won’t just disappear because you passed a law. You need to confiscate some 350 million guns scattered among 330 Million Americans. [Note below]

    Sure, you can try a buy-back program like Australia, but like Australia that will still leave behind anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of privately owned firearms.

    The rest you have to take.

    You’ll need the police, the FBI, the ATF or the National Guard—all known for their nuanced approach to potentially dangerous situations—to go door-to-door, through 3.8 million square miles of this country and take guns, by force, from thousands, if not, millions of well-armed individuals. Many of whom would rather start a civil war than acquiesce.

    So inevitably gun violence, which is currently at a historic low, will skyrocket.

    But that is how you get a gun-free America in five easy steps.

    http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/10/07/how-to-create-a-gun-free-america-in-5-ea