On 1/29/2011 10:30 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 1/29/2011 1:06 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>> That's because a hundred or more years ago they a) fought duels in
>>>> public,
>>>
>>> I think the number of deaths by duel where both sides agree to shoot at
>>> each other is nominal, unless you have some evidence that it was common.
>>>
>> I would argue that the mere fact that it took a long time to load the
>
> I have no idea what that has to do with duels. And nobody that carried a
> gun carried it unloaded when it takes a minute or more to load.
>
>>>> b) didn't have a lot of rules about when it was and wasn't justified
>>>> to shoot someone,
>>>
>>> Of course they did.
>>>
>> Depends on what you define as rules.
>
> Laws. Same as we have now. Nobody went around saying "He's italian, so I
> get to shoot him."
>
>> I would, again, argue that rules which operated on a) societal
>> justifications, i.e., the person shot was *obviously* deserving of it,
>> due to race, religion, nationality, etc., b) talking fast enough to
>> convince people you had a reason, especially since it might not be
>> possible to prove otherwise, and c) legal means to handily do away
>> with any possibility of being arrested for shooting someone, all
>> constitute a lack of effective rules. You literally just needed to
>> find the right loopholes/claims and you could shoot damn near anyone.
>
> Do you have any evidence at all for this?
>
>>>> and c) you didn't have whole organizations dedicated to BS like, "Guns
>>>> don't kill people, people do!",
>>>
>>> Because nobody was stupid enough to think otherwise. Guns were tools
>>> just like knives were.
>>>
>> Knives tend to have the trait that, unless you throw them, and even,
>> in many cases *if* you throw them, they don't tend to kill people that
>> where not involved in the altercation in the first place. Guns.. if
>> you don't hit the intended target, and even, in some rare cases, if
>> you do, you have no certainty they won't hit someone else instead.
>
> Gun control means hitting your target. :-)
>
> Note that automobiles are much more dangerous than firearms in that
> respect. Heck, last I looked, swimming pools were more dangerous than
> firearms in tht respect.
>
>  > The matches have a place and purpose, which doesn't involve
> improperly using them, and no one much
>> cares if you have a pack in your pocket, since they don't tend to
>> randomly light things one fire.
>
> And a gun in your pocket doesn't tend to randomly shoot people.
>
Sure, and buying fuel oil and fertilizer doesn't mean you *plan* to make 
a bomb. Its still considered sufficiently suspicious to require a lot 
bloody more strict rules that for a gun. Hell, you can buy a box of 
bullets, one of those extra big clips, and the gun, with less trouble 
than you could ***Cold medicine***. Why? Because you have a "right" to 
the gun, and the presumption is, "They don't plan to shoot at other 
people." The automatic presumption of anyone buying more than one 
package of something with Amphedamine in it -> drug manufacturing.

That is the thing I find so stupid about this. By all rights, in any 
sane world, buying cold medicine should be "normal". Everyone feeling 
they need to carry around something that can kill you dead, they might 
keep firing, even if they hit their target, and where ***no one*** can 
predict that being trained to a) hit, or b) properly use, the damn thing 
will actually result in either... That's insane. I don't know if, in a 
situation like that, I would a) actually hit what I intended, b) not 
panic and shoot myself in the foot instead, etc. Anyone that does is 
either lying, delusional, or has experience *in* those situations in the 
first place. And, last I checked, the minimum gun training that people 
need to own one **does not include that kind of experience**.

Hell, if you get right down to it, half the people I see driving I can't 
imagine how they passed the damn driving test (its like a frakking 
disease here, no one knows how to use turn signals in the entire damn 
city (well, 90% anyway), and that is just the first thing off the top of 
my head I find mad about how they drive). You think I should trust the 
same people with learning proper gun handling, especially when the moron 
that nearly runs me over having failed to use a turn signal gets out and 
had a side arm on is belt, and brags about his "carry permit"? He can't 
operate a car while following the rules, why the hell would I trust him 
to shoot the guy trying to rob me, instead of accidentally shooting me? 
Just saying...

>> Someone that carries them around for the *sole* purpose of, "I might
>> need to light a fire.", tend to justifiably be presumed to be possible
>> arsonists,
>
> Wow, really? And I guess anyone who carried a pocket knife on the
> grounds it's useful for opening packages ought be arrested for assault
> if they didn't get any fedex deliveries that day?
>
Yeah, ignore the rest of my explanation of what I meant by that, and 
just pick on the one detail you could reject..

And, yeah, I would think, "Most people are not as smart as they imagine 
they are, including me, which is why I wouldn't trust them to get it 
right.", is a perfectly valid bloody argument.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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