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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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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> And, if you can't be drafted, you know, like after they removed the
> draft?
Selective Service is still in force.
> I am also pretty sure that no one expects you to bring your own,
> basically random, weapons any more... lol
But that's not the point. The federal law says who is in the militia, right
there. So even the argument that the weapons are only for the militia falls
down, even if you ignore all the arguments that it meant or should mean the
general populace.
>>> 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".
Right. So why are you arguing with me?
> 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."
On the other hand, you're the one arguing to *change* things, so it's really
your responsibility to argue that your solution would be *better* than what
we have now. You're basically begging the question.
>>> 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.
This whole sentence doesn't make sense, unless you're agreeing with me.
> 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.
Except you go to someplace like new jersey, and even though the law says
"you will get a permit to buy a gun in 30 days unless we can come up with a
reason for you not to", it still doesn't happen.
The problem with this argument is that if you allow everyone to buy guns
only to keep them locked up at home (which would certainly be enough to
satisfy the "in case of revolution" need), you're still creating a market
for guns and access by criminals to those guns. You haven't really cut down
gun crime at all. Crazy people will still have access to guns, and if
shooting people being illegal isn't enough to stop them, taking it out of
their home isn't enough to stop them.
> 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.
Yep. Nobody really wants to close the loopholes. They only want to do stuff
that *looks* like it's helpful to folks who think laws that far back in the
causality chain will affect criminals.
> 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?"
http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html
Seems like firearm deaths, including shooting people in self defense and
police shooting people, counts as a bit over 1% of all deaths. Automobiles
kill more people than guns, but nobody talks about outlawing them.
Now, down at the bottom of
http://washingtonceasefire.org/resource-center/national-firearm-injury-and-death-statistics
you see that about 60% of the firearm deaths are suicide, while 40% are
homicide (including self defense and police), and 2% are accidents.
Which rate are you trying to reduce, given that homicide is already (mostly)
illegal, so making carrying a gun around illegal wouldn't prevent that?
--
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 2/1/2011 12:41 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> 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?"
>
> http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html
>
> Seems like firearm deaths, including shooting people in self defense and
> police shooting people, counts as a bit over 1% of all deaths.
> Automobiles kill more people than guns, but nobody talks about outlawing
> them.
>
I am sure that logging did, at one time, and seamanship, etc. I find the
use of that argument seriously flawed, since the average person needs a
way to get to and from work, and even if that wasn't the case, its often
the most effective way to get things from one place to another for
resale. Unless you are going to try to argue that the vast majority of
people need guns to hunt for food, or count nail guns and staplers, its
not a reasonable comparison, any more than saying, "X number of people
fall out of windows every year, so we should ban windows". Most deaths
are, invariably, either a) health related, b) accident related, or c) a
result of dangerous things that we **need** to do something else, which
in no way involves the intent to hurt/kill someone.
Compare deaths from poisoning, knives (of the sort carried for
"defense"), and what ever other *avoidable* causes there may be, which
are not a secondary consequence of misuse of something whose purpose was
*not* to cause injury/harm/death, then make an argument. And, no, guns
***have no other use*** other than to kill, injure and/or threaten the
death/injury someone/something. Its a tool whole primary use is the one
it is used for, when it ends up killing someone, not a misuse, or accident.
I really hate such attempts to ignore the original use of things, in an
attempt to claim equivalency. Its illogical, and ridiculous. You can
kill people with water too, it doesn't make places that bottle water the
equivalent of those that make armor piercing rounds.
--
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:
> guns ***have no other use*** other than to kill, injure and/or threaten the
> death/injury someone/something.
Nah. There are plenty of people who go target shooting, for example.
And you know, if you said "outlaw all guns", I might even be with you on
that one. But nobody ever proposes that. They propose "outlaw all guns
except those belonging to government employees."
--
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 2/3/2011 12:29 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> guns ***have no other use*** other than to kill, injure and/or
>> threaten the death/injury someone/something.
>
> Nah. There are plenty of people who go target shooting, for example.
>
Interestingly, this doesn't require that the weapon used even have ammo
that is deadly, just that *generally* behaves like it would if it was,
in principle. So... But, in most cases "target shooting" is practice for
something else. Some of my family might even joke that it was to make
sure they hit the other guy wearing an orange vest in the woods, instead
of accidentally shooting an innocent deer, given the number of morons
that manage to do that every year. lol My brother stopped going on
hunting trips with friends a while back, because of that. They either
wanted to get drunk first, or drive to places no sane person would take
a vehicle, etc. He figured either he would come back one day, tied to
the hood, or he would have to leave his jeep wedged between two
boulders, half way up a cliff, and walk out.
> And you know, if you said "outlaw all guns", I might even be with you on
> that one. But nobody ever proposes that. They propose "outlaw all guns
> except those belonging to government employees."
>
Yeah. Sort of a drawback to the whole mess. You kind of can't do that,
without leaving them vulnerable to *outside* dangers, which would still
have them. But, I have always found it a bit silly that "bare arms" only
means guns, with the result that martial arts weapons **are** banned.
Heck, even if you carried a billy club, you would probably get arrested
faster for having a "deadly weapon" in some places, than you would
totting a machine gun (as long as you had the proper permit, or it
wasn't concealed... lol).
But, seriously, if you limit what people can get hold of, you can also
limit what the government officials need. If you take the position that
you can't limit anything much, all you get is a constant escalation from
**both** sides. How long before someone figures out how to make a
nuclear battery, and a "fast charge" capacitor, and we start seeing
people carrying around railguns, leading to the police deciding they
need some too, to offset that? So far, they are bulky, hard to power,
one shot, jobs, which only a few goofballs have built in their basement
(in both cases I know of personally, by people that badly underestimated
what the hell the muzzle velocity would be, and thus, how much shit it
goes through before the projective stops).
At what point do you stop? Or, more to the point, at what point do you
bloody stop and think, "Heh, you know.. it might just be a good idea of
this *never* hits the market for the average person." Somehow, these
things never get thought of until *after* something happens.
--
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:
> But, I have always found it a bit silly that "bare arms" only
> means guns, with the result that martial arts weapons **are** banned.
It doesn't, really. That's just how it gets read, because folks who think
it's the weapons that are bad instead of the criminals manage to ban the
ones that most people don't care about.
In Switzerland, they generally have their military gear, including tanks and
cannons and such, available all the time. Or at least so I have heard.
> But, seriously, if you limit what people can get hold of, you can also
> limit what the government officials need.
Part of the problem is that "making it illegal to have X" doesn't really
limit what you can get ahold of. It's already illegal to have a large
container of explosives in a rented van, but we saw how well that worked out.
> At what point do you stop? Or, more to the point, at what point do you
> bloody stop and think, "Heh, you know.. it might just be a good idea of
> this *never* hits the market for the average person." Somehow, these
> things never get thought of until *after* something happens.
OK. Consider Mexico. It's not like their aren't criminal gangs running
around with tanks and planes of their own.
I'm not saying everyone needs nuclear railguns. We already have a bunch of
things that never hit the market for the average person. Hand guns, however,
are not them. Indeed, it's that whole "never hit the market for the average
person" that a few posts ago you were arguing were the reason that guns
would be useless in a revolution to start with.
--
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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