Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Not what I am saying. The sane people already had them. You don't get
>> a lot of clear thinking people buying up guns, when people start making 
> 
> Fair enough. But when 150 million people already own guns, the 2 million
> crazies are less of a problem. :-)
> 

As one of the sane ones, I would have to go buy a gun now if I were to
keep one in the house. Apartment dwelling never lent itself to anything
with more reach than a baseball bat, and the practice ranges were quite
a distance away.

>> And if he bought it because he "needed" to have it close, 
> 
> Yeah. I'll have to ask my cop brother where he keeps his. I know he has
> a bunch, but I naturally never saw them.
> 
> His kid is *very* gun-safety aware. Like, if he sticks his finger in the
> dart-gun trigger before he's ready to shoot, he gets scolded. But
> they're all afraid of him at the paint-ball games.
> 

I hope that his kid didn't put up with the absurdity of junior high
school gun safety class. If I ever needed a reason to dislike the
stereo-typical southern, flannel-wearing, deer antlers in pickup truck
hunters, that was it.

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> I think you missed the whole point of it.  It's not like he's selling the 
> thing at Toy R Us (in fact, he's not selling it at all).

What's whether he's selling it or not got to do with it?  He's modified a 
lethal weapon deliberately to make it look like a child's toy, and what's 
worse he has advertised it to the world and seems to be encouraging others 
to do the same.  To assume that a child never gets sight of this gun, or any 
one of the number of copies he has influenced, seems a little naive. 
People, even gun owners, are only human, mistakes do get made, which is why 
we have thing in place to reduce the risks when mistakes get made - painting 
a gun like a child's toy just seems to be increasing the risk to me.

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On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:18:38 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

>> Sorry when I googled the phrase that is what I got.
>
>I'm not sure what phrase you're referring to, but OK.

"longest continuous government" but as you say OK :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> I hope that his kid didn't put up with the absurdity of junior high
> school gun safety class. 

He's not that old yet.

> If I ever needed a reason to dislike the
> stereo-typical southern, flannel-wearing, deer antlers in pickup truck
> hunters, that was it.

Sounds like a good idea to me. What's wrong with the idea of teaching gun 
safety in jr high?  They rarely taught us anything "practical" beyond shop 
class.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> If I ever needed a reason to dislike the
>> stereo-typical southern, flannel-wearing, deer antlers in pickup truck
>> hunters, that was it.
> 
> Sounds like a good idea to me. What's wrong with the idea of teaching
> gun safety in jr high?  They rarely taught us anything "practical"
> beyond shop class.
> 

Teaching it is a great idea. And in a county high school where lots of
the families hunt just to have enough food in the winter, it is a
necessity. Even at a younger age it would have been smart, since by 8th
grade most of these kids had been hunting with parents.

No, my reason was because these guys had no business teaching anything.
The lesson of "don't pull the trigger because the gun is always loaded"
involved the teaching handing a kid a gun, teaching them how to check if
it is loaded, and then when the kid refuses to pull the trigger the
teacher would continue to tell them the lesson says they need to pull
the trigger to demonstrate. After a few times of this "you need to" "but
you said not to" the kid inevitably gives in because the teacher says
they have to. Then the teacher gets to yell "I told you not to ever do
that!" Sure, it teaches them to not trust people in authority while
anyone is holding a gun. It also undermines the rest of the class,
because you realize these guys are idiots.

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> No, my reason was because these guys had no business teaching anything.

Heh. Good story.

Reminds me of "physical education" classes.  Usually taught by geezers too 
old to actually demonstrate how to do a push-up, for example.

Plus, they never actually taught you anything. They'd decide that today 
you'll play football, and *assumed* everyone knew all the rules *and* how to 
play football, etc.  I didn't know how to catch a football, throw a 
football, or which way I was supposed to run when I got the football.

(Football being gridiron, for all you non-americans.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> (Football being gridiron, for all you non-americans.)

  Aren't we Europeans fools for calling soccer "football"? Soccer is for
wimps, football is for Real Men. :)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Aren't we Europeans fools for calling soccer "football"? Soccer is for
> wimps, football is for Real Men. :)

Actually, "soccer" is the term for a particular set of rules for playing 
ball games with your feet.  "Football" is ball games with your feet. So, 
like, technically "hacky-sack" is football, but not soccer.

Granted, calling what americans do "football" is a stretch, if not downright 
wrong. But there's more to football than just soccer, just like there's more 
to poker than five-card hold'em and there's more to billiards than just pool.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Granted, calling what americans do "football" is a stretch

  I have always wondered why they call it football even though playing the
ball with the feet forms only a very small part of the sport. It would be
akin to calling volleyball "fistball" because you are allowed to hit the
ball with your first, and that's often used.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Granted, calling what americans do "football" is a stretch
> 
>   I have always wondered why they call it football

Trolling backwards thru wikipedia history sections...

"The game of football which was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 
permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in 
their hands towards the opposition's goal."  I don't know how relevant that 
is, tho, but apparently rugby was also called "football" originally.

American football is much closer to rugby than soccer.

Heard this weekend:
"Wow, that was quite a hit. It's taking him a while to get up."
"Well, he's moving his arms and legs, so he should be alright."
"They're carrying him off the field now."
"He'll be fine, but the nine players carrying him off all have hernias now."

Turns out he didn't fit in the MRI at the hospital, either.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On 5-10-2009 2:19, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> How about arming the Russian civilians in the 80's or the Chinese 
>> peasants with guns. Would that have lead to a armed coup to install a 
>> democratic government?
> 
> Uh, they had a democratic government, and took the totalitarian one by 
> preference. 

Well, whose preference? I think the general opinion is that the 
revolutions were supported by more people than the change to 
totalitarianism and that actually not many people understood what was 
really going on. The last you might even say about Germany. Anyway I was 
scratching the options from a list of possible evidence or suggestions 
that having guns for might be useful in preventing a setting aside of a 
constitution. Whether you formulate it as I did or as you did, these two 
countries will not add even a weak suggestion that that might be useful.

> Most people in china are quite happy with their government.

Probably right, but also not quite on topic AFAIC.

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On 5-10-2009 5:18, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Chambers wrote:
>>> If that were the case, then shouldn't all the other countries with 
>>> tougher gun control have been replaced by totalitarian regimes by now?
>>
>> Many of them have been. The USA is arguably[1] one of the countries 
>> with the longest continuous government. (Altho I don't expect that's 
>> really due to the gun laws. :-)
>>
>> [1] The argument being how you measure "continuous". One can measure 
>> it in a way that very few governments are older.
>>
> Its also the country with the highest number of people in jail, the 
> highest levels of drug use, the highest cases of teen pregnancies, the 
> highest rate of violent crime, the highest level of science denial, etc. 
> Well, once you discount places like the ME, since compared to them, we 
> have only the "second highest" number of religious fanatics.
> 
> Somehow, I would hate to think that "longest continuous government" 
> requires any or all of these things, to survive this long. 

As I understood it that phrase was for some definition of 'continuous' 
with a footnote that other definitions are possible. IMHO you have to 
carefully select that definition *knowing* that the US has to come up on 
top. For any reasonable definition that won't happen.

Let me try at a minimal and sufficient set:
- still in charge in 2009 (to exclude China, Japan and a host of other 
countries)
- a written constitution (to exclude e.g. the UK and the Vatican and to 
narrow it down to countries. Otherwise almost any European city would be 
longer)
- no major changes to the constitution (to exclude e.g. the Netherlands)
- major changes to the area of the country are explicitly allowed.

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andrel wrote:
> revolutions were supported by more people than the change to 
> totalitarianism 

That's probably true, yes.  Given that, not all totalitarian states are 
evil. The main problem is that it's difficult to get rid of the evil ones.

> that having guns for might be useful in preventing a setting aside of a 
> constitution. Whether you formulate it as I did or as you did, these two 
> countries will not add even a weak suggestion that that might be useful.

Fair dinkum.

>> Most people in china are quite happy with their government.
> Probably right, but also not quite on topic AFAIC.

I will snarkily point at the newsgroup name. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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andrel wrote:
>>> [1] The argument being how you measure "continuous". One can measure 
>>> it in a way that very few governments are older.

> As I understood it that phrase was for some definition of 'continuous' 
> with a footnote that other definitions are possible. 

Well, yes. See the footnote. :-)

 > IMHO you have to
> carefully select that definition *knowing* that the US has to come up on 
> top. For any reasonable definition that won't happen.


> Let me try at a minimal and sufficient set:
> - still in charge in 2009 (to exclude China, Japan and a host of other 
> countries)

Well, yes, I had thought of that. The right phrase is it's the "oldest" 
country, not the "longest surviving" country. :-)

> - a written constitution (to exclude e.g. the UK and the Vatican and to 
> narrow it down to countries. Otherwise almost any European city would be 
> longer)

Nah. I don't think you can say Venice has the same government it had before 
Italy was founded.  Certainly the Medici aren't the supreme lawmakers any more.

And for countries without constitutions, having the government replaced by 
force is sufficient. So, for example, going from one monarchy to a different 
family running the monarchy thru conquest would count as a "new country."

> - no major changes to the constitution (to exclude e.g. the Netherlands)
> - major changes to the area of the country are explicitly allowed.

I would think as long as it's just expansion that makes sense. Even 
voluntarily selling off territory would count. Having it taken away wouldn't.

But yeah, I wasn't arguing it was the case. I was arguing you could 
*consider* it to be the case, which is pretty good right there.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On 6-10-2009 0:11, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> revolutions were supported by more people than the change to 
>> totalitarianism 
> 
> That's probably true, yes.  Given that, not all totalitarian states are 
> evil. 

for certain values of totalitarian and evil

 > The main problem is that it's difficult to get rid of the evil ones.
> 
>> that having guns for might be useful in preventing a setting aside of 
>> a constitution. Whether you formulate it as I did or as you did, these 
>> two countries will not add even a weak suggestion that that might be 
>> useful.
> 
> Fair dinkum.

Geographical error in line 6.

>>> Most people in china are quite happy with their government.
>> Probably right, but also not quite on topic AFAIC.
> 
> I will snarkily point at the newsgroup name. ;-)
> 
No need, I know where I am.

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Darren New wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> No, my reason was because these guys had no business teaching anything.
> 
> Heh. Good story.
> 
> Reminds me of "physical education" classes.  Usually taught by geezers 
> too old to actually demonstrate how to do a push-up, for example.
> 
> Plus, they never actually taught you anything. They'd decide that today 
> you'll play football, and *assumed* everyone knew all the rules *and* 
> how to play football, etc.  I didn't know how to catch a football, throw 
> a football, or which way I was supposed to run when I got the football.
> 
> (Football being gridiron, for all you non-americans.)
> 
Snort. The ones that do know are worse. They just want to pick out the 
3-4 people in class that are good at sports, and screw everyone else.

-- 
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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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Its also the country with the highest number of people in jail,
> 
> Not necessarily. We count people in jail awaiting trial. Other countries 
> don't.
> 
>> highest levels of drug use, 
> 
> Hard to measure, I'd think.
> 
>> the highest cases of teen pregnancies, the highest rate of violent 
>> crime, the highest level of science denial, etc. 
> 
> That I'd believe.
> 
>> Somehow, I would hate to think that "longest continuous government" 
>> requires any or all of these things, to survive this long. 
> 
> It doesn't. I'm thinking it's because of the flexibility of the 
> constitution along with its inflexibility in some respects.
> 
>> And, its not so clear why, "only modern country that has relatively 
>> weak gun laws", is on the "good things" side of the line, instead of 
>> right up there with the other list. ;) lol
> 
> True, but you also have to ask about the attitudes behind it. We're also 
> one of the few countries where the soldiers don't swear to obey the 
> leaders, for example, but rather the country's legal system.
> 
No. We reserve that for the first 6-8 years of school, depending on the 
state, in the form of the pledge of allegiance. Since, after all, kids 
are a) too stupid to know what an oath is, b) it still means something 
after the 584th time you say it, and c) its not a bit insulting to 
assume that, if you don't keep saying it, you might backslide and turn 
into a commie. lol

Oh, and.. I wouldn't be too sure some of them don't. We had at least one 
moron state, multiple times, even after being admonished for it, during 
a congressional hearing, that she had, "taken an oath to defend the 
president", rather than say... the constitution.

-- 
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:
> No. We reserve that for the first 6-8 years of school, depending on the 
> state, in the form of the pledge of allegiance.

No. That's swearing to support the country, not the leaders.

> a congressional hearing, that she had, "taken an oath to defend the 
> president", rather than say... the constitution.

Well, she's a moron. That doesn't mean she actually took that oath.

Thanksgiving: I am thankful my country's leaders wear business suits and not 
military uniforms.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> No. We reserve that for the first 6-8 years of school, depending on 
>> the state, in the form of the pledge of allegiance.
> 
> No. That's swearing to support the country, not the leaders.
> 
Its still over the top, and in insult to anyone that has to retake it 
like 200 days a year, for 6-8 years.

-- 
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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