what type of gun nut are you?

[sggatecl]

I own two handguns, have no plans ever owning anything more substantial. Also have no plans to hunt anytime soon. Not sure where I belong.

 

[zyxt9]

hey tinsel, how many cars have been outlawed due to drunk driving?

your point is bogus. you cannot equate drunk driving laws to gun control laws.

and drunk drivers are prosecuted and maybe have their licenses revoked and are "prevented" from driving again, yet how many of them just get behind the wheel illegally? how many are busted for then driving illegally? boy, that piece of paper preventing them from drinking and driving sure is powerful. i give far more credit to the concept of having drivers take a breathalizer before being able to start the car...but they could always have a less drunk person, like their kid, breathe into it. or maybe use a can of air...but at least it is a more legit attempt to prevent drunk driving than that stupid piece of paper is able to accomplish.

nonetheless, MADD nor anyone else is telling the auto industry they can no longer make cars or sell them legally just because there are so many idiots who drink, drive, and kill multiple people. sometimes they manage to kill only themselves, sometimes maybe only 1 or 2...but sometimes it results in a much larger number of deaths.

you are advocating making the guns illegal instead of holding the people accountable. that is the complete opposite of the drunk driving stance. your argument holds no water. push for changes to guns somehow, like some type of sensor being on it that prevents the gun from firing if it detects a human profile in front of it. still someone could block the sensor or come up with a work around, there is no magic fix.

when a person is motivated enough to work around the restrictions, whether it is a piece of paper or physical adaptation, they will do so.

which brings it back to being a problem with the person, not the tool by which they kill others. you want to stop the bloodshed, figure out a way to fix the mental problems that cause these things. re-wiring people's brains in a manner that allows them to function completely free in all ways except killing because they are upset about something.

that's impossible? i'd counter it has a far better chance of working than some piece of paper. everyday people are working on improving the chances that one day people will be able to have computer chips in their brains to help improve memory and help with other challenges with the brain.

memristors hold a ton of promise for making this an even greater reality. and to counter the argument that people would never allow such a chip to be in their head, the government would not have to force it upon anyone (though criminals might be forced to have one implanted as part of their sentence as it would not be a cruel or unusual punishment, but provide a way for them to not serve any jail time). the demand for technology will drive the desire for people to have it. how many people, especially as they age, would want to improve their memory? how many young kids would like the ability to know everything without having to spend even a moment in school or doing homework? how many would rather have the option of "talking" to someone just by thinking (mental telepathy has long been a dream of science fiction, it looks closer and closer to be a reality one day with these chips, though hopefully there will be something included with the chip that prevents criminal hacking into someone else's brain as well). watch tv, listen to the radio, surf the web, all without the requirement of a physical device. heck, could even do all those things simultaneously. there are already people who have ordinary computer chips controlling functions in their brains, though vast majority is still in research phase. memristors are showing the ability to emulate human neural networks. once that happens, they will just need to figure out the method by which to allow the two to communicate and the world will become more and more cyborg, without governmental influence.

dreams, science fiction, never going to happen...i counter that it has a far greater chance of happening and solving the entire gun control and drunk driving issue will ever accomplish without it. our grandchildren will most likely consider it as common as we think of TVs, radios, and computers...while only knowing those things through images and data that is communicated into their brain via the memristor.

 

[Mitchrapp]

There was a burglary in our neighborhood a few summers ago where the homeowner -- in defense of himself and property -- shot and killed the 16yr old intruder. While never charged criminally in shooting and killing the intruder, based on it being "self-defense," a different side of the debate came to light in some of the local media.

The homeowner -- a 30-something fitness instructor -- had a very difficult time in dealing with having killed the 16yr old. Sure he was breaking into his house and would have certainly stolen possessions (summer open window burglaries aren't unheard of where we live) but was it worth killing him and ...no matter the justification for it, was killing a 16yr old boy something he could live with.

The family did forgive him as was relayed publicly but more than being a "right to bear arms" story, it became a "can you live with the consequences of your actions" debate.

And I think there are a lot of gun owners out there who really haven't thought through that side of things.

Was the kid carrying a weapon? I've never held a gun but if a burglar had a weapon I'd sleep fine knowing I was protecting my family.

 

[zyxt9]

i think anyone would likely have PTSD after someone broke into their home, whether that person had a weapon or not and whether they killed the intruder or not. PTSD from such an event is not specific to guns, it is just a common thing. whether in a car accident, experienced a fire, or whatever...people can have PTSD from it. heck, my bet is there are many who have PTSD from the events around Hurricane Sandy.

someone breaks into my home and my actions result in their death...i'm good with it, whether they are armed or not, because i do not know their full intention nor whether or not they would kill me or a family member, with a gun, knife, bare hands, or other weapon...it is impossible to know exactly how that person is going to behave or react upon discovering someone in the home. will they be frightened and kill or injure out of fear? don't know, don't care...defending my home and family comes first and that person's choice of entering my home was the cause of their death, not my choice to defend my property and/or family.

 

[tinselwolverine]

hey tinsel, how many cars have been outlawed due to drunk driving?

your point is bogus. you cannot equate drunk driving laws to gun control laws.

Maybe you need a little more time in the New York Public School System yourself, as a student, workin on reading comprehension. I didn't equate drunk driving laws to gun control laws; bhiilips, or whatever his handle is did. I was responding to him.

you are advocating making the guns illegal...

Again, reading comprehension work for you; the specific meaning of "making guns illegal" would be making ALL guns illegal; I haven't advocated that at all.

which brings it back to being a problem with the person...

The fuckin' person is fuckin' dead.

We cannot hold him any more accountable than that.

The rest of your wall of text came off as an acid trip rant-grandchildren with microchips in their heads, and shit like that.

Maybe you don't need to work on your reading comprehension. Maybe you should just stop responding to things you've read while you were on an acid trip.

 

[Michchamp]

...

I'm sick and tired of people jumping to the conclusion that any reasonable additional gun restrictions to the ones that we already have - like for example, disallowing the private ownership of military assault weapons; better background checks and so forth - is the same as advocating the confiscation of all guns from hundreds of thousands of people (it's actually millions) who own and use their guns responsibly.

...

Agree Tinsel, it is amazing how bogus or ridiculous some arguments are on this subject.

I think there are three kinds of people that spew this stuff:

1.) the hard-cores that read all the NRA lit, the right-wing blogs, etc. and live in a "reality" created out of whole cloth. Those are the ones that show up screaming about "tyranny" and "revolution" when the local sheriff proposes a town ordinance to ban people from blasting propane tanks with their assault rifles less than 500 yards from homes and schools...

2.) then there are the moderate republicans who don't own guns or hang around gun people, have college degrees and nice jobs, live in the suburbs, but not rural counties, don't understand what all the fuss is about, but tend to dislike anything that smacks of activism, and especially people that seem like activists. They remember those montages of film clips from the 60's where the anti-war activists smoked dope and kept America from winning the vietnam war, and they snap to attention. so they tend to side with the gun nuts and oppose any sort of firearm regulations generally, but don't delve into the actual issues much further than that.

3.) then there are the hardcore libertarians, who ignore things like "human nature" and "thousands of years of history" and believe we're better off without laws and government, everyone should be able to do whatever they want, and we'll all be a lot happier then.

groups 1 & 3 are hopeless. the hope that some good can come out of tragedies like Newtown, which we are seeing within alarming frequency, is really the hope that group 2 will wake up a bit and see that group 1 is batshit insane, and not worth engaging with politically, or locally in town halls except to call the police and file restraining orders against them.

I guess it's the last-ditch hope of liberals everywhere: "Okay conservatives, compromise with us just a little bit and we'll all be better off. But please, PLEASE don't make a deal with the reactionary nutjobs to your right, screaming about violent insurrections and prying guns from their cold dead hands and all that. It will not end well."

 

[Michchamp]

I think there are three kinds of people that spew this stuff:

1.) the hard-cores that read all the NRA lit, the right-wing blogs, etc. and live in a "reality" created out of whole cloth. Those are the ones that show up screaming about "tyranny" and "revolution" when the local sheriff proposes a town ordinance to ban people from blasting propane tanks with their assault rifles less than 500 yards from homes and schools...

2.) then there are the moderate republicans who don't own guns or hang around gun people, have college degrees and nice jobs, live in the suburbs, but not rural counties, don't understand what all the fuss is about, but tend to dislike anything that smacks of activism, and especially people that seem like activists. They remember those montages of film clips from the 60's where the anti-war activists smoked dope and kept America from winning the vietnam war, and they snap to attention. so they tend to side with the gun nuts and oppose any sort of firearm regulations generally, but don't delve into the actual issues much further than that.

3.) then there are the hardcore libertarians, who ignore things like "human nature" and "thousands of years of history" and believe we're better off without laws and government, everyone should be able to do whatever they want, and we'll all be a lot happier then.

groups 1 & 3 are hopeless. the hope that some good can come out of tragedies like Newtown, which we are seeing within alarming frequency, is really the hope that group 2 will wake up a bit and see that group 1 is batshit insane, and not worth engaging with politically, or locally in town halls except to call the police and file restraining orders against them.

I guess it's the last-ditch hope of liberals everywhere: "Okay conservatives, compromise with us just a little bit and we'll all be better off. But please, PLEASE don't make a deal with the reactionary nutjobs to your right, screaming about violent insurrections and prying guns from their cold dead hands and all that. It will not end well."

and of course I'm generalizing here...

 

[tinselwolverine]

and of course I'm generalizing here...

I'm waiting for you to respond to yourself for a 2nd time; are you?

I was feeling a little bad that I scolded you on the political board for not knowing how many conservatives opposed Bush's war; but then, I was in rare form yesterday; I got a little pissy with byco, with zyzxt; I even called bullshit on hungry for saying he was "just a regular guy" who personally owned handguns...

The times and events, I guess.

I thiink I'll go and start the Christmas movie thread.

 

[Michchamp]

I'm waiting for you to respond to yourself for a 2nd time; are you?

I was feeling a little bad that I scolded you on the political board for not knowing how many conservatives opposed Bush's war; but then, I was in rare form yesterday; I got a little pissy with byco, with zyzxt; I even called bullshit on hungry for saying he was "just a regular guy" who personally owned handguns...

The times and events, I guess.

I thiink I'll go and start the Christmas movie thread.

aw, that's ok. sometimes it's okay to get angry on a message board when people just won't listen to reason. that's DR's rule for when name-calling becomes okay.

it's like the first time someone tries to argue that cars kill people too and we don't ban them, you can be polite while pointing out the logical flaws in that argument. the second time they simply repeat themselves, it's like... they're just an idiot, and you might as well say it.

 

[redandguilty]

the hope that some good can come out of tragedies like Newtown, which we are seeing within alarming frequency, is really the hope that group 2 will wake up a bit...

I've got some bad news for you. The right-leaning moderates have been voted out. There are 6 center-right Republicans in the Senate and none in the House. Actually, there are a few center-right leaning people in the House, but they're Democrats.

http://xkcd.com/1127/

 

[Michchamp]

I've got some bad news for you. The right-leaning moderates have been voted out. There are 6 center-right Republicans in the Senate and none in the House. Actually, there are a few center-right leaning people in the House, but they're Democrats.

http://xkcd.com/1127/

yeah. I know. I thought that after I posted the last line. the chance for compromise was in 1980, ironically enough, with the elder GHW Bush. the conventional wisdom seems to be we ended up with Reagan, and for the first time in a long time, the racists, the John Birch Society wackos, the Pat Robertson crowd, etc. were no longer considered "the fringe" but given a seat at the GOP table. and they brought their guns

 

[tinselwolverine]

yeah. I know. I thought that after I posted the last line. the chance for compromise was in 1980, ironically enough, with the elder GHW Bush. the conventional wisdom seems to be we ended up with Reagan, and for the first time in a long time, the racists, the John Birch Society wackos, the Pat Robertson crowd, etc. were no longer considered "the fringe" but given a seat at the GOP table. and they brought their guns

If it's any consolation, I voted for George HW Bush in the Michigan Republican primary that year.

 

[deathroh]

My guess is there was supposed to be some kind of point to this post.

Maybe you posted this because you thought that nobody here was aware that law enforcement personnel sometimes do commit crimes.

If that's the case though I think you were wrong, I think everybody here knew that already.

Deep thoughts by tinselwolverine.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Deep thoughts by tinselwolverine.

Ha, ha.

In the late summer of 1999, my friend and neighbor asked me to go to court.

She asked me to go to court for moral support.

She wanted moral support because she, in fact, was the LAPD properties clerk from whom LAPD CRASH Officer Rafael Perez, who ended up being the key informant in the Rampart Division scandal, checked out six pounds of cocaine, and she was about to testify against him - and she was terrified.

So as I was getting ready to go to court she called me; Perez had flipped that morning, and reached a plea deal with prosecutors.

So yeah, I actually am aware that law enforcement personnel do sometimes commit crimes.

 

[zyxt9]

Maybe you need a little more time in the New York Public School System yourself, as a student, workin on reading comprehension. I didn't equate drunk driving laws to gun control laws; bhiilips, or whatever his handle is did. I was responding to him.






Again, reading comprehension work for you; the specific meaning of "making guns illegal" would be making ALL guns illegal; I haven't advocated that at all.



The fuckin' person is fuckin' dead.

We cannot hold him any more accountable than that.

The rest of your wall of text came off as an acid trip rant-grandchildren with microchips in their heads, and shit like that.

Maybe you don't need to work on your reading comprehension. Maybe you should just stop responding to things you've read while you were on an acid trip.

Gee, my apologies for the above errors.

Acid trip, eh? lol...if you are unable to comprehend the advances of technology and the path we are on is not my problem. Before you claim it to be an acid trip, why don't you do just a quick google search on "memristor neural network" and spend 5 minutes reading about the topic. While using your superior reading comprehension skillset, try to think about the next step being an interface between computer and human neural networks. Someone with your supreme intellect should be able to see the jump from computer neural network and synapses to human is not as far off as you previously thought and that to believe there is the possibility for that to be implemented in 50 years is not unreasonable. of course, 50 years after the moon landing we were supposed to have lunar bases and visiting other planets, but the costs of those were prohibitive. as memristors reach higher quality and technology exponentially improves, their costs will drop...the opposite of what happened with space exploration.

You guys want a "solution" to the problem, that has far greater potential in reality than proposed laws or adding layers of protection at every place in the US. Memristors will have the ability to stop people from having the thoughts to kill masses, or drive drunk, and other things. Some will say they will never allow themselves to be controlled in such manner, but they will be the equivalent of those who currently live without TV, computers, or other technology, and if arrested for committing a crime they can spend time in jail or get the memristor chip in their head to prevent future crimes. Do you want freedom and not have criminal thoughts, or be locked up in jail for life or even face the death penalty. Slippery slope, yes, but something humans will face in the next generations.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Gee, my apologies for the above errors.

Acid trip, eh? lol...if you are unable to comprehend the advances of technology and the path we are on is not my problem. Before you claim it to be an acid trip...

My apologies too...

...whatever that shit is, whether it's acid, weed or whatever...

...it seems to be some good shit; and I don't blame you for using it at all...

 

[deathroh]

These gun laws are infringing upon my 2nd Ammendment rights! Let's just go with mind control instead...

 

[redandguilty]

Gee, my apologies for the above errors.

Acid trip, eh? lol...if you are unable to comprehend the advances of technology and the path we are on is not my problem.

Kurzweil is Google's new Director of Engineering. Sarah Connor better watch her back.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Gee, my apologies for the above errors.

"memristor neural network"...neural network and synapses to human is not as far off as you previously thought...possibility for that to be implemented in 50 years is not unreasonable... something humans will face in the next generations.

Yeah, this is really fuckin' relevent; I'm glad you brought it up...

 

[redandguilty]

interface between computer and human neural networks

This crazy talk isn't actually crazy talk. I know someone working on this stuff. It was going to be featured on 60 minutes 2 days ago, but was bumped to cover Newton. It will air at some point though.