tvashtarkatena

Anyone who doesn't pack a BFOD (bag full of drugs) on a high altitude expedition is a masochist. I've left gear all over the Cascades. Fkn snaffles.

Voluntary.....for now maybe. Do you even own any guns? Given his rapier wit, that would be entirely unnecessary.

And this fine piece: More mass shootings...coincidence?

Would nitrous be cheating?

Pete H had it right - gun owners are pissed off at the prospect of having some of their toys taken away. Tough toenails, really. Welcome to a society of 300 million.

Yup...just like you'd expect if you're willing to step away from the Right wing blogs and actually look at the real data AND its correlations. The science: More guns = more homicides

A good opinion piece: The simple truth about gun control

Oh, and gun ownership has been in steady decline in the US (we still have nearly twice as many guns per capita as our next competitor - Serbia LOL)- that includes the 90s when the AWB was lifted. So, there goes the more guns = less crime argument. Kinda supports the opposite conclusion, no? Shooting sports have become less popular over time - and the gun makers are freaking out about how to market their declining wares. That's why they're marketing heavily to kids, now. You know, the kids that do a lion's share of the mass shootings. I mean, who wouldn't trust a teenager with an assault rifle?

Let's start to get real, here, shall we? Twelve facts about gun violence and mass shootings in the US

LOL "There is no war on terror for the Obama White House, but there is one on Fox News." Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/29/obama-vs-fox-news-behind-white-house-strategy-to-delegitimize-news-organization/#ixzz2JO9AEj2q

Every biz needs some PR now and then.

From the wiki. That's funny, not a single researcher, not one, has proposed that a lift on the assault weapons ban had anything to do with this long term trend. It sure has had a lot to do with the increased lethality of mass shooting incidents, however. Yup...sure has. "In the long term, violent crime in the United States has been in decline since colonial times.[9] However, during the early 20th century, crime rates in the United States were higher compared to parts of Western Europe. For example, 198 homicides were recorded in the American city of Chicago in 1916, a city of slightly over 2 million at the time. This level of crime was not exceptional when compared to other American cities such as New York, but was much higher relative to European cities, such as London, which then had three times the population but recorded only 45 homicides in the same year.[10] After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Property crime more than doubled over the same period. Since the 1990s, however, crime in the United States has declined steeply. Several theories have been proposed to explain this decline: The number of police officers increased considerably in the 1990s.[11] The prison population has been expanded since the mid-1970s.[11] Starting in the mid-1980s, the crack cocaine market grew rapidly before declining again a decade later. Some authors have pointed towards the link between violent crimes and crack use.[11] One hypothesis suggests a causal link between legalized abortion and the drop in crime during the 1990s.[12] Changing demographics of an aging population has been cited for the drop in overall crime.[13] Another hypothesis suggests reduced lead exposure as the cause; Scholar Mark A.R. Kleiman writes: "Given the decrease in lead exposure among children since the 1980s and the estimated effects of lead on crime, reduced lead exposure could easily explain a very large proportion—certainly more than half—of the crime decrease of the 1994-2004 period. A careful statistical study relating local changes in lead exposure to local crime rates estimates the fraction of the crime decline due to lead reduction as greater than 90 percent.[14]"

Last week's 'protecting our freedoms with guns' news

Well, the BEST way to dehumanize someone is to enslave their clones, then sell the original's body parts to pet food companies after chaining them to a basement pipe for several years in total darkness, but I digress.

I get a kick out of the quiet little spirits that go about their day, completely unaware of the existence of their primate overlords. Dung beetles are a fave. White rhinos mark the corners of their territories with huge dung piles up to 20 feet across. These sprawling heaps are O'hare Internationals for dung beetles, who take off smoothly but seem to have no landing strategy other than to crash and roll at full speed into the soft, aromatic goodness, hopefully not hitting another dung beetle as it rolls its ball of treasure to some undisclosed location. It's pretty entertaining. Even more so when a rhino shows up to make a deposit. The idea that these cool little creatures (very cool looking, too) subsist on the poo of an animal thousands of times larger than they are, and navigate using light that is thousands of years old, is wonderful to me, but hey, I'll admit, I'm easily amused. Dung beetles also use the sun and the moon to orient themselves - opting for the Milky Way only when neither is available. They can't see individual stars, but they can discern bright sources and broad swaths of light. Researchers put various filtering helmets on them to determine this. White rhinos occasionally must cross another's territory. They must ask permission to do so, then they are escorted across by their host. If they attempt to cross without this courtesy, a fight ensues. Neighbors often hang out together - each just a few feet within their polydung shaped turf. And so it goes...

Well, seems that since the AWB sunsetted in 2004 crime has been going down... Not to mention that most states have relaxed gun laws, switched to Shall Issue for CCW, and the Supreme court has struck down a few draconian gun laws (DC's ban on hand guns). The FACTS point towards you guys as being wrong. I can post the FBI crime FACTS again if you would like? Already countered that bullshit causality argument. It hasn't gotten any more valid since then.

They'll do them less, not never, and it will be less lethal. It's called harm mitigation, not complete elimination. Just because you can't extinguish a harmful behavior doesn't mean you have to accept ultra high levels of it compared to other similar societies. Banning semi automatic weapons (I include pistols in my proposal - they are the chief culprit) would reduce the lethality of mass shooters and gang bangers. Eventually existing stocks would age out. It would also vastly reduce the overall number of weapons out there, which would proportionately reduce the amount they're used against other people, accidental or not. Better backround checks and weapons data tracking, similar to what we already to on cars (and there don't seem to be too many civil liberties concerns there save license plate cams that track people in and out of gated communities) would also do a fair bit. Requiring licensed dealers to actually have real stores that can't dissappear overnight would help. Public education - situation awareness, gun safety, educating the public about the real statistical dangers of gun ownership so they can make more informed decisions about bringing such lethality into the home - and therefore choose non-lethal, more effective home protection, like a dog, would be good. None of those policy areas are addressed as seriously as they should be. I mean, if 20 dead kindergartners doesn't do it for ya... Comprehensive policy for a comprehensive problem.

One policy reduces the shocking level of violence we have - whether inflicted on strangers, those familiar, or oneself, and one increases it. Hmmmm. Same Same. So...I'm gonna take a stab at understanding this. The actual problem shrinks because fear is lopsidedly misapplied to the less likely scenario. What, all the domestic violence, suicides, accidents, so incredibly much higger than most other first world countries, suddenly is no longer a problem that can be mitigate? That's some fucked up logic right there, boy.

WHICH PART????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Bizarre implies a pattern. Randomness is relatively common.

Sounds like we're in violent agreement. No worries, I don't get off on being right nearly all the time. It's just something I've learned to live with. All just part of rolling my little dung ball down the Milky Way until a bat comes along and picks me off.

Folks don't know each other? Not gang related? Prove it. The cops I've talked to, and that has been a few at this point, indicate domestic violence seems to be the bane of their existence. My bro, formerly head of the public defenders office of Humbolt Cty, indicates that cases between folks who have no previous association (random) are a very low percentage. National studies indicate the same. It makes sense, if you think about it for a nanosecond or so. But it's the 'random violence' fear, mostly a myth, that keeps the paranoids packin'.

Know any cops, prosecutors, or public defenders?

Depends on how you define rare. In certain areas of Seattle and surrounding King County "random" violent assaults are not rare at all. I could indeed understand why law-abiding citizens who frequents such areas may want to protect themselves with a firearm. Prove it.

I see all kinds of folks around town, gangstas and wannabe ganstas being well represented but not really pervasive. Given how popular gansta wear is, there's no reason to be afraid of what really amounts to a bunch of harmless teenagers. I'd say angry white trash is a far bigger threat as far as random violence is concerned, and they usually self identify pretty quickly. Plus - you'll get far more of that action in small towns in WA than downtown, where you might get a response to your 911 call about a day later, rather than 2 or 3 minutes. There are certainly things that make me pucker - big heavy falling things being close to top of the list, but people who look different from me aren't one of them. I understand this primal fear of other tribes, but with sufficient exposure its pretty easily overcome. There isn't a single neighborhood in this town I wouldn't walk around any time I wanted. Like Feck said, it's more about situation awareness than blanket fear. That's one lesson living in a city teaches you, I guess.