Non-IT News Thread
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@scottalanmiller said:
Taiwan: Boy Trips and Tears Hole in $1.5 Million Paolo Porpora Painting
Video footage shows the 12-year-old boy holding a drink and falling into the 350-year-old “Flowers” painting, leaving a hole the size of a fist, exhibition organizers said.
Exactly why children shouldn't be allowed near fine art... no respect for history and culture.
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Did I see that he was carrying a drink or food at the time?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I understand what you are saying here - by not having guns, the crazies don't have an 'easy' access to a mass destruction device, but as Jarad just pointed out, if you take away the guns.. the crazies will just find another weapon to use. Frankly, I'd be surprised if we didn't see IEDs become a much bigger thing for the crazies.
Yes, but as the results show, having lesser weapons makes things safer for everyone. Yes now they use knives instead of guns, but that makes the police more effective, makes crowds more effective (easier to overpower a guy with a knife than a guy with a gun) and statistically just works.
Sure safer, but how much safer 0.0001% safer - I can honestly say I don't care about that percentage. I'd rather keep the danger and my weapons.
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@RojoLoco said:
Exactly why no one should be allowed near fine art
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@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender Real, intelligent background checks.
training courses
storage rules
... to get us started
Personally the background checks in my opinion would be against the 2nd amendment - but I completely understand why you want them.
Unless training courses are completely free, you're now using finance to control who does and does not have access to legal weapons
Storage rules - unless you're going to start checking people's home this one is pointless except for after the fact, and I'm pretty sure you'll get child endangerment punishment if your kid shoots them self with your weapons. Outside of that, uh no!Next??
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@Dashrender said:
Sure safer, but how much safer 0.0001% safer - I can honestly say I don't care about that percentage. I'd rather keep the danger and my weapons.
Why? What's the value to the weapons if it comes at the cost of human life?
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@Dashrender said:
Sure safer, but how much safer 0.0001% safer - I can honestly say I don't care about that percentage. I'd rather keep the danger and my weapons.
It's a LOT safer.
Here is a quote worth thinking about: "With less than 5% of the world's population, the United States is home to roughly 35–50 per cent of the world's civilian-owned guns, heavily skewing the global geography of firearms and any relative comparison"
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
It's not trivially safer. It's dramatically safer.
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@Dashrender said:
Personally the background checks in my opinion would be against the 2nd amendment - but I completely understand why you want them.
And the more something is against the second amendment, the more it sounds like a good idea. The second amendment puts us at risk.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't personally subscribe to the personal self defense theory (OK maybe I do a little), but really I subscribe more to the not allowing the government to take total control and in that vain, the citizens should have access to the same weapons as the government. Now that doesn't mean that I think people should be walking around town with handgranades or SAWs.
I can appreciate the logic but there are some issues with that theory.... like people could never afford them so they are inaccessible from financial reasons alone, this makes people so dangerous that the police and military can do nothing to protect you, those weapons take specialized training to use, etc.
I think that the fear of military takeover is problematic. Not that it could never happen, but it is very unlikely and causing real world problems in the hopes of avoiding it is a bad way to go.
When these laws were written, soldiers carried muskets and there was no police force. The world is a very different place. We don't hunt with muskets, people are not already armed otherwise and the military use weapons that the public could never afford or understand how to use. And muskets were not deadly to a crowd. A man with a musket could not kill lots of unarmed people, only likely one or two at most. And even the person he shot could often take him out before he had time to reload.
The world is a different place. The BoR was never intended to allow what it has allowed.
You make great points - but just look at the issues in Iran. Recently (I'm not sure how recently) the public looked to be trying to overthrow their government, but since they had no weapons, the police and military mowed the crowd down and subdued them before they could remove the government they appeared to despise. That is exactly what the BoR wanted it's people to be able to do - and frankly I think the citizens wouldn't stand a chance in having that happen today if even people felt it was warranted.
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According to The Guardian, the US is just slight more at risk of gun violence that The West Bank and Gaza. LOL. Literally war zones.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
You make a valid point for #1, but that still leaves #2 which could happen anywhere in the world.
Could happen, but is less likely to. Answer this question separately from everything else and see how you feel...
Would you rather:
- Attempt to defend your family from danger?
- Not have your family in danger at all?
Which is more important to you?
#2 is impossible.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't personally subscribe to the personal self defense theory (OK maybe I do a little), but really I subscribe more to the not allowing the government to take total control and in that vain, the citizens should have access to the same weapons as the government. Now that doesn't mean that I think people should be walking around town with handgranades or SAWs.
I can appreciate the logic but there are some issues with that theory.... like people could never afford them so they are inaccessible from financial reasons alone, this makes people so dangerous that the police and military can do nothing to protect you, those weapons take specialized training to use, etc.
I think that the fear of military takeover is problematic. Not that it could never happen, but it is very unlikely and causing real world problems in the hopes of avoiding it is a bad way to go.
When these laws were written, soldiers carried muskets and there was no police force. The world is a very different place. We don't hunt with muskets, people are not already armed otherwise and the military use weapons that the public could never afford or understand how to use. And muskets were not deadly to a crowd. A man with a musket could not kill lots of unarmed people, only likely one or two at most. And even the person he shot could often take him out before he had time to reload.
The world is a different place. The BoR was never intended to allow what it has allowed.
You make great points - but just look at the issues in Iran. Recently (I'm not sure how recently) the public looked to be trying to overthrow their government, but since they had no weapons, the police and military mowed the crowd down and subdued them before they could remove the government they appeared to despise. That is exactly what the BoR wanted it's people to be able to do - and frankly I think the citizens wouldn't stand a chance in having that happen today if even people felt it was warranted.
Maybe that is what it is meant to do maybe not, that isn't stated. I appreciate the idea that you want the ability to overthrow the government but I don't believe it is safe or realistic. No amount of owning guns is going to allow for that in the US.
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@Dashrender said:
Personally the background checks in my opinion would be against the 2nd amendment - but I completely understand why you want them.
Unless training courses are completely free, you're now using finance to control who does and does not have access to legal weapons
Storage rules - unless you're going to start checking people's home this one is pointless except for after the fact, and I'm pretty sure you'll get child endangerment punishment if your kid shoots them self with your weapons. Outside of that, uh no!Next??
Stuff the 2nd, as a country you'll be better off when you realize that owning a gun is a huge responsibility which should be denied to many.
Training courses - can't afford to learn how to shoot, you can't afford to shoot.
Storage rules - random checks at gun clubs & roadside stops works here. You'd be surprised how many accidents are easily preventable by sensible rules around trigger locks & storage of firearms.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
You make a valid point for #1, but that still leaves #2 which could happen anywhere in the world.
Could happen, but is less likely to. Answer this question separately from everything else and see how you feel...
Would you rather:
- Attempt to defend your family from danger?
- Not have your family in danger at all?
Which is more important to you?
#2 is impossible.
No, but you could choose to make them safer rather than more in danger.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm pretty callous and not as concerned for everyone else as it appears others are. Is it tragic when someone is killed by a strayed bullet, sure, but enough across the population to force this upon those who don't want this ruling? I think not.
That's a bit harsh but, okay. But if you don't care about innocent lives or your own safety, what makes you want guns? If the argument is that other people don't matter, you don't care about forcing this ruling on them either, right?
Correct - so if the popular vote over turned the current status quo - I wouldn't take up arms against people and go on a shooting spree if that's what you're asking.
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According to that chart on the Guardian, gun violence in the US is roughly 500% to 800% that of our counterparts in Europe. That's pretty significant. Having guns might not be the only factor, of course, as maybe their lack of drug controls makes them safer, maybe their better education makes them safer, maybe their weather makes them safer or whatever.... but the results are pretty clear that gun controls are tied to places with massively lower gun violence rates.
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"The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership - and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people"
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@Dashrender said:
That's a bit harsh but, okay. But if you don't care about innocent lives or your own safety, what makes you want guns? If the argument is that other people don't matter, you don't care about forcing this ruling on them either, right?
Correct - so if the popular vote over turned the current status quo - I wouldn't take up arms against people and go on a shooting spree if that's what you're asking.
But what is your reason for desiring the guns in the first place? Most people claim that they want them for safety (or someone, maybe themselves, maybe others) but that's been shown to be unsupported. Some people want them for hunting. As examples.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
Unless there are extrime differences in the statement of risk, you are right. All things being equal, I would choose more control every time. Being hopeless is not a good place to be. I've seen entirely too many people destroyed by that feeling.
See that is where we are completely different. I would never willingly put the lives of my kids at risk for any level of feeling more in control. Even if the difference was tiny. Whatever it takes to keep them safe.
Now, in the moment, of course irrationality takes over. But having time to think clearly about how to keep them safe, I choose safety over a false sense of security.
How can you possibly know that if you don't feel it at the same time? Sure safety is stats based, but it's also in the moment. Flip a quarter, what are your chances of getting heads or tails, of course 50/50, let's say you flipped a coin 100 times and you wound up with 70 heads and 30 tails, what are the chances of heads vs tails on the 101 flip - it's 50/50 of course, past experience has no baring on future results. I guess I feel this way about the safety you think you have in places without guns.
Another thing to remember - very few countries compare stats the same way. i.e. gun deaths in the US include suicide, but that's not really a fair number to include in the stat. There are all kinds of things added here, things removed there which make it difficult at best, impossible at worst to compare these types of stats across borders.
But of course.. there will always be more gun deaths in a country that allow the citizens to own guns than in ones that don't - but i don't consider that a fair comparison. And frankly I'm curious to know at a per capita level the number of violent crimes committed across all weapon choices to see the differences.. and we must remove suicides and accidents from the equation.
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@Dashrender said:
How can you possibly know that if you don't feel it at the same time? Sure safety is stats based, but it's also in the moment. Flip a quarter, what are your chances of getting heads or tails, of course 50/50, let's say you flipped a coin 100 times and you wound up with 70 heads and 30 tails, what are the chances of heads vs tails on the 101 flip - it's 50/50 of course, past experience has no baring on future results. I guess I feel this way about the safety you think you have in places without guns.
But when you talk about "in the moment" you are overlooking that it is the chances of "the moment" that we are avoiding. Not the safety "in the moment." If you are talking about safety after there are already guns you've missed the discussion. It's about keeping there from being the dangers situations in the first place, not just making them safer when they happen.
