On 1/30/2011 5:49 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> 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***.
>
> Depends where you live. In NJ, you have to have your fingerprints run
> thru the FBI to buy a box of bullets. You don't get a gun at all, unless
> you can prove you need one for work. Oh, and "I carry around tens of
> thousands of dollars of cash as part of my job" doesn't count as a good
> reason.
>
> Yet, I don't see anyone talking about how much safer New Jersey is than,
> say, Texas.
>
Course, the problem there is, NJ is hardly isolated from any place else, 
any more than Texas is. And, frankly, I wouldn't trust Texas to give 
valid statistics. One thing I have noticed is a tendency of places, 
cities, states, etc., to deflate, via careful fudging of numbers, or 
failure to accurately report things in the first place, any statistic 
that might actually represent the opposite of what they wish to be true. 
Its only when an outside audit can show the real numbers that you get 
any clear picture, and crime rate reports are *never* audited in that 
fashion (kind of hard to, when the one doing the original reporting is 
the people being audited in the first place). Given all the other stupid 
shit I see Texas doing, it would hardly surprise me is whole subsets of 
"violent crime", where being categorized as lesser offenses, and not 
thus included.

There is nothing like people that want to be seen as the nations elites, 
but are quite obviously not, misrepresenting the facts, to make 
themselves look less screwed up than they actually are. Evidence.. No, 
just suspicions, and a few half remembered cases of this actually 
happening, in places that later got caught out on it, but only after 
someone *important*, (i.e. movie star, or government official, or the 
like), became the victim of the things the locals where sweeping under a 
rug and calling, "Just normal stuff, so we didn't put it in the report."

-- 
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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On 1/31/2011 10:05 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/30/2011 5:46 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Try using an example where there is a tangible disparity between what
>>> the people fighting the government and the people in the government
>>> have to fight with,
>>
>> You mean, like, Afghanistan when the Russians or Americans invaded? You
>> seemed to completely miss my point.
>>
> And you are missing mine. Russia didn't want to wipe out everything and
> start over, neither did the US. When you enemy is unwilling to kill
> everyone they come across to win, and/or are intent of making allies,
> you have some means, even if limited, to resist. When this isn't the
> case... you get things like WWII, where being a "freedom fighter" isn't
> going to get you any place.
>
Mind, not any place if someone else doesn't help out, to be clear.

-- 
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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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> And you are missing mine. Russia didn't want to wipe out everything and 
> start over, neither did the US. 

And if there's a revolution in the USA, you think the US government will 
want to wipe out every US citizen and city and start over?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Course, the problem there is, NJ is hardly isolated from any place else, 

Yep, that's certainly part of the problem, yes.

BTW, it would be easy to enforce whatever gun control you want in the USA. 
Amend the constitution to overrule the second amendment. We have a legal 
process to do this. The problem with the people favoring gun control is that 
they *are* in enough of a minority that they can't get this to happen. Not 
unlike abortion, where no legislator is actually going to *vote* to outlaw 
it, but everyone wants the courts to decide their way.  The only reason 
people argue about the meaning of the second amendment and to whom it 
applies is because enough voters like it how it is that the legislature 
can't get rid of it.

> rug and calling, "Just normal stuff, so we didn't put it in the report."

You can go on speculating all you like. None of it actually means much until 
you show the extent to which anything like that actually happens.  You can 
speculate that if the US changed our gun laws, Norway would have less 
violent crime, and you can speculate that if the US bought fewer violent 
video games, then Norway would have less violent crime, and you'd have about 
equal amounts of support for either stance.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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On 1/31/2011 11:58 AM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> And you are missing mine. Russia didn't want to wipe out everything
>> and start over, neither did the US.
>
> And if there's a revolution in the USA, you think the US government will
> want to wipe out every US citizen and city and start over?
>
I think, if such a thing where to happen its going to be a stupidly 
small number starting it, and they will get their asses kicked so damn 
fast all the people with guns won't even have a chance to find 
ammunition for them. Which means, any *real* threat, where having lots 
of people armed, isn't going to be something that internal.

I am also pretty sure of two other things 1) If there is need of a 
revolution, it will be because things changed slowly, without people 
paying attention, and 2) the sort of people that, right now, actually 
keep talking about one are the ones that we would have to revolt 
against, if they ever successfully pushed a revolution. And, even people 
stupid enough to allow someone to erase their freedoms over a few 
hundred years are probably **not** stupid enough to follow the wackos 
that keep yapping about one right now.

In short, it will either be too late, by the time someone decides we 
need one, or it will be entirely the sort of people the government would 
be justified in doing something about, in neither case is it going to be 
either in my life time, nor anyone I would give a shit about being armed 
enough to fight the government. And, purely from the practical 
standpoint, despite our willingness to give crazies a voice, the US has, 
in general, rarely backslid into a state any worse than we previously 
found our way out of. Even some of the recent infringements (like some 
of the wire tap laws) are neither as bad as those already implemented in 
the past 200 years, nor have, when those things have existed, they ever 
*lasted* past the next period of relative peace, when people started 
asking, "Why are we still doing this?"

I might not trust many of the fools in government, but I do trust the 
system, in as much as it lends itself to progressing, far more than 
regressing. With revolutions... you don't have a damn clue what you will 
end up with. And, that should scare rational people.

-- 
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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On 1/31/2011 12:03 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Course, the problem there is, NJ is hardly isolated from any place else,
>
> Yep, that's certainly part of the problem, yes.
>
> BTW, it would be easy to enforce whatever gun control you want in the
> USA. Amend the constitution to overrule the second amendment. We have a
> legal process to do this. The problem with the people favoring gun
> control is that they *are* in enough of a minority that they can't get
> this to happen. Not unlike abortion, where no legislator is actually
> going to *vote* to outlaw it, but everyone wants the courts to decide
> their way. The only reason people argue about the meaning of the second
> amendment and to whom it applies is because enough voters like it how it
> is that the legislature can't get rid of it.
>
Yeah, the truly sad thing being, it doesn't even have to be changed to 
erase guns, just make the rules clearer. But, the invariable response is 
always, no matter what happens, or to whom, either claiming its a "state 
issue", or that its infringing on the right to ban/limit/control any 
guns at all.

>> rug and calling, "Just normal stuff, so we didn't put it in the report."
>
> You can go on speculating all you like. None of it actually means much
> until you show the extent to which anything like that actually happens.
> You can speculate that if the US changed our gun laws, Norway would have
> less violent crime, and you can speculate that if the US bought fewer
> violent video games, then Norway would have less violent crime, and
> you'd have about equal amounts of support for either stance.
>
Actually, no you wouldn't. The irony is, even though the issue of gun 
control may be fuzzy in the US, we are the #1 buyer of violent video 
games, and just about everything else similar, yet the violent crime 
rate actually dropped drastically about the time that such games hit the 
market, and its been in steady decline since. While correlation isn't 
causation, neither is it plausible to claim that the absence of 
something makes for the results in one place, while ignoring the fact 
that a similar decline/absence is happening where it is available all 
over the place. Same goes for all the claims about selling to kids. We 
have a few shootings and the like just about every decade, and someone 
manages to publish studies, and lay blame on what ever is popular at the 
time, while lacking "long term" evidence for any of it, yet.. 
restricting, or even banning, the thing in question never actually seems 
to *ever* result in the problem disappearing.

But, then, the real problem is abuse, mental health issues, and the 
like, and our refusal to deal with *those* problems, both as a nation, 
and as parents (the parents invariably always want it to be 
someone/thing else's responsibility/effect, never their own, or that of 
the child, just look at the whole MSR/Autism idiocy). But, banning shit, 
because some short term study implies that kids *maybe* get a bit more 
pushy after seeing stuff that is pushy, and concluding that this, in 
contradiction to all evidence otherwise is responsible for turning a 
measurable number of kids violent in the long term, while **nothing 
else** in their lives, apparently, have any impact, including the 
declining ability to schools to control/teach/punish for anything...

So, yeah, I personally find people that claim violence in games is a 
significant factor *at all* to be about as sound in their evidence, at 
this point, as climate change denialists. I tend to suspect, the real 
result will be something like, "If a kid already has serious issues, 
this may amplify them.", but, so can reading Catcher in the Rye, for 
some people. That doesn't mean you go around denying everyone under a 
certain age *ever* reading any books on the, "these might be dangerous", 
list. Well.. Unless you are one of the people that argues that even 
dictionaries should be abridged, lest someone under 18 look up the 
meaning of words like penis, and it have a picture of one, or something!

The solution is to deal with the problems, not stick everyone in plastic 
hamster globes, and only show them "safe" things, and never let their 
parents touch or discipline them, etc., all in some crazy attempt to 
prevent problems, by never exposing anyone to something that *might* 
increase an already existing problem. You go down that road and you get 
stupid shit, like giant hamster balls, and kids being sent to schools 
dedicate to, "protecting them", until they go out into the real world, 
and find that they have no damn clue how to deal with it. Which already 
happens, in some cases, in some of the more out of touch with reality 
religious schools.


-- 
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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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Yeah, the truly sad thing being, it doesn't even have to be changed to 
> erase guns, just make the rules clearer. 

The rules are actually quite clear, methinks. The only reason anyone thinks 
the rules are fuzzy is because they don't like the rules. I don't think 
anyone would argue, for example, that it's illegal for a member of the 
militia to own a firearm appropriate for use in the militia. Yet that's 
exactly the kinds of firearms that people try to outlaw. And "milita member" 
has a very clear definition in current law as well.

Sort of like how "evil" only has a fuzzy definition when God is doing it.

>>> rug and calling, "Just normal stuff, so we didn't put it in the report."
>>
>> You can go on speculating all you like. None of it actually means much
>> until you show the extent to which anything like that actually happens.
>> You can speculate that if the US changed our gun laws, Norway would have
>> less violent crime, and you can speculate that if the US bought fewer
>> violent video games, then Norway would have less violent crime, and
>> you'd have about equal amounts of support for either stance.
>>
> Actually, no you wouldn't. The irony is, even though the issue of gun 
> control may be fuzzy in the US, we are the #1 buyer of violent video 
> games, and just about everything else similar, yet the violent crime 
> rate actually dropped drastically about the time that such games hit the 
> market, and its been in steady decline since.

That's actually rather my point.

> But, then, the real problem is abuse, mental health issues, and the 
> like, and our refusal to deal with *those* problems, both as a nation, 
> and as parents 

Yep. That's basically what I said early on. Except in relation to firearms 
instead of video games.

> The solution is to deal with the problems, not stick everyone in plastic 
> hamster globes, and only show them "safe" things, 

Don't forget not letting them have anything dangerous, like a firearm. Gotta 
protect everyone, after all.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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On 1/31/2011 8:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Yeah, the truly sad thing being, it doesn't even have to be changed to
>> erase guns, just make the rules clearer.
>
> The rules are actually quite clear, methinks. The only reason anyone
> thinks the rules are fuzzy is because they don't like the rules. I don't
> think anyone would argue, for example, that it's illegal for a member of
> the militia to own a firearm appropriate for use in the militia. Yet
> that's exactly the kinds of firearms that people try to outlaw. And
> "milita member" has a very clear definition in current law as well.
>
> Sort of like how "evil" only has a fuzzy definition when God is doing it.
>
The problem being, most of them are not talking about a "militia". They 
are talking about everyone being armed, just to be armed. The fuzziness 
comes from the fact that, while that may have even been intended, in 
some vague sense, it probably was seen as, "the need to have one to hunt 
too", not, "the need to protect myself from some random person on the 
street", which is neither "militia", nor "hunting for food". Its hardly 
clear, had we had supermarkets all over the place back then, if the 
argument would be going on about whether the militia part is someone 
*independent* of the armed part.

>>>> rug and calling, "Just normal stuff, so we didn't put it in the
>>>> report."
>>>
>>> You can go on speculating all you like. None of it actually means much
>>> until you show the extent to which anything like that actually happens.
>>> You can speculate that if the US changed our gun laws, Norway would have
>>> less violent crime, and you can speculate that if the US bought fewer
>>> violent video games, then Norway would have less violent crime, and
>>> you'd have about equal amounts of support for either stance.
>>>
>> Actually, no you wouldn't. The irony is, even though the issue of gun
>> control may be fuzzy in the US, we are the #1 buyer of violent video
>> games, and just about everything else similar, yet the violent crime
>> rate actually dropped drastically about the time that such games hit
>> the market, and its been in steady decline since.
>
> That's actually rather my point.
>
The one is making the argument, "removing these will make things 
better", the other, "adding them will". The evidence for the former, in 
terms of games, is negative. It seems to have no correlation at all, 
even though a lot of people would like it. For gun availability to be a 
positive, you need to show that a) possession of them *does* produce a 
decline, which can't be attributed to anything else, which I don't think 
is arguable, and b) it never produces a decline in safety and 
non-violence, which I *really* don't think is at all supportable.

So, no, my point and yours are *not* the same.

>> But, then, the real problem is abuse, mental health issues, and the
>> like, and our refusal to deal with *those* problems, both as a nation,
>> and as parents
>
> Yep. That's basically what I said early on. Except in relation to
> firearms instead of video games.
>
And, if everyone only used drugs in safe places, and recreationally... 
And other various arguments in the same vein... We know guns are used to 
kill people, sometimes by people that, laughably, end up being declared 
"temporarily insane", we don't know that games do *jack*. Not the same 
thing at all.

>> The solution is to deal with the problems, not stick everyone in
>> plastic hamster globes, and only show them "safe" things,
>
> Don't forget not letting them have anything dangerous, like a firearm.
> Gotta protect everyone, after all.
>
Yeah.. We should just do away with all the laws that keep people from 
owning/doing things that are deemed dangerous on the books, because 
*all* of them are a bad idea, and lead to people in plastic bubbles.

-- 
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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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The problem being, most of them are not talking about a "militia". They 
> are talking about everyone being armed, just to be armed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_%28United_States%29

Every male between 18 and 45 is the militia. If you can get drafted, you're 
allowed to carry a gun as a militiaman.

> The one is making the argument, "removing these will make things 
> better", the other, "adding them will". 

No, my point is that you can't really tell until you try it, because it's 
not logical.

> For gun availability to be a 
> positive, you need to show that a) possession of them *does* produce a 
> decline, which can't be attributed to anything else, which I don't think 
> is arguable, and b) it never produces a decline in safety and 
> non-violence, which I *really* don't think is at all supportable.

For availability to be a positive, you have to merely show that it doesn't 
reduce the safety of people. You're requiring people in favor of maintaining 
the status quo that has been part of the constitution for 200 years prove 
that there's *never* any harm from doing so.

My point is that you can't show that outlawing guns would make things safer 
any more than those against video games can show that outlawing video games 
would make things safer.

> end up being declared 
> "temporarily insane", we don't know that games do *jack*. 

You don't know that games *don't* do jack.

> Yeah.. We should just do away with all the laws that keep people from 
> owning/doing things that are deemed dangerous on the books, because 
> *all* of them are a bad idea, and lead to people in plastic bubbles.

Except it's already on the books. If you're going to argue to change the 
constitution, you really need to cite more references than just "well, *you* 
know it's bad, and you can't prove it isn't!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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On 1/31/2011 11:54 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> The problem being, most of them are not talking about a "militia".
>> They are talking about everyone being armed, just to be armed.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_%28United_States%29
>
> Every male between 18 and 45 is the militia. If you can get drafted,
> you're allowed to carry a gun as a militiaman.
>
And, if you can't be drafted, you know, like after they removed the 
draft? I am also pretty sure that no one expects you to bring your own, 
basically random, weapons any more... lol

>> The one is making the argument, "removing these will make things
>> better", the other, "adding them will".
>
> No, my point is that you can't really tell until you try it, because
> it's not logical.
>
Chaos social engineering then.. Yeah, that always works *so* well... 
What matters is, "Is it true", not, "I would like it to be", or, "I hope 
it is". There are consequences to being wrong, and just because you are 
not going to pay them is not justification that you can make others pay 
them instead. It *is* true that even rational people can go over the 
edge, and arming them makes that more dangerous. But *is it true* that 
arming everyone counters that? If you don't actually know, its not 
exactly ethical to just shrug and go, "Ah, well.. lets try it anyway."

>> For gun availability to be a positive, you need to show that a)
>> possession of them *does* produce a decline, which can't be attributed
>> to anything else, which I don't think is arguable, and b) it never
>> produces a decline in safety and non-violence, which I *really* don't
>> think is at all supportable.
>
> For availability to be a positive, you have to merely show that it
> doesn't reduce the safety of people. You're requiring people in favor of
> maintaining the status quo that has been part of the constitution for
> 200 years prove that there's *never* any harm from doing so.
>
> My point is that you can't show that outlawing guns would make things
> safer any more than those against video games can show that outlawing
> video games would make things safer.
>
>> end up being declared "temporarily insane", we don't know that games
>> do *jack*.
>
> You don't know that games *don't* do jack.
>
I certainly have enough evidence of a correlation, if not necessarily 
causation, than they do for guns. Causation is the whole problem, and 
even there the "studies" are a bit... questionable, and do not support 
the overall trends, even if they imply bad results.

>> Yeah.. We should just do away with all the laws that keep people from
>> owning/doing things that are deemed dangerous on the books, because
>> *all* of them are a bad idea, and lead to people in plastic bubbles.
>
> Except it's already on the books. If you're going to argue to change the
> constitution, you really need to cite more references than just "well,
> *you* know it's bad, and you can't prove it isn't!"
>
You know, to some extent I have been playing devils advocate here. I see 
no damn reason why, technically, you need to change the constitution to 
set limits and rules of use, on weapons. You are not telling someone, 
"You can't have a gun", by telling them you can't just carry it around 
with you, anyplace you like, etc. You need justification for it, and "I 
am scared and think I need one", is imho, a damn stupid one, especially 
since the last person I want running around with a gun is someone scared 
enough they would actually use the damn thing, because something spooked 
them. Such a person isn't thinking rationally to begin with. But, again, 
you shouldn't need to change the damn constitution to say, "This isn't 
an appropriate place for that, or reasonable argument for having one on 
you." You certainly don't need such to prevent criminals from getting 
easy access, though, there are so many damn loopholes in the system that 
you could be a known serial killer, walk into a gun show, and someone 
would manage to find a loophole that would let you walk out with a gun. 
Guess who are responsible for those loopholes? I'll give you a hint, the 
NRA is partly responsible for them, and the rest are **manufacturers**, 
and while we are currently talking about adjusting the law to ban extra 
large magazines, no one seems to be talking about fixing the loopholes, 
or properly enforcing the existing laws.

As devil's advocate, I have to ask the question, "At what point do you 
conclude that this is unmanageable, and something more extreme has to be 
done to stop it?"

-- 
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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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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