Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Pattern Ghost]

6 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

The Virginia Tech shooter used a pair of high capacity pistols.  Most modern 9mm semi-autos will carry around 15 rounds per magazine.  Two pistols, one in each hand, holding 30 rounds, compares with an AR-style rifle carrying 30 rounds.  

 

He used a Glock 19 (15 round 9mm) and a Walther P22 (10 round .22 LR).  The lethality of the attack had less to do with the capacity of the weapons and more to do with the speed of getting people medical attention, IMO. Handguns do significantly less tissue damage than rifles or shotguns.

[Pattern Ghost]

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Typically unless the bullet is a magnum or cut down rifle cartridges like are used in the Casull, a pistol round will deform more and break when they hit a hard substance like bone.

 

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

You shoot a guy with a rifle, sometimes the bullet will keep going and hit somebody behind the original target.

 

Since we're talking mass shootings here, we're generally talking AR-15s with 5.56mm NATO ammo. Handguns are more likely to overpenetrate and 5.56 is more likely to break up on hitting any tissue, bone or otherwise. 5.56 fires lightweight bullets at extreme velocities (2500-3000 fps), resulting in fragmentation. Heavier, slower handgun rounds tend to retain mass and keep pushing through things. (9mm ammo typical weights are 115, 124, and 147 grains, whereas 5.56 bullet weights are typically 55, 62 or up to 75+ grains.) If you move up in caliber in a rifle, you get significantly heavier bullets pushed at the same or greater speeds, making the 5.56 look tame in comparison. But the 5.56 does far, far more tissue damage than any handgun round.

 

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Rifle bullets have been known to go through concrete walls which would stop a pistol round.

 

Here's an interesting video covering that.

 

 

[csyphrett]

6 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

 

Since we're talking mass shootings here, we're generally talking AR-15s with 5.56mm NATO ammo. Handguns are more likely to overpenetrate and 5.56 is more likely to break up on hitting any tissue, bone or otherwise. 5.56 fires lightweight bullets at extreme velocities (2500-3000 fps), resulting in fragmentation. Heavier, slower handgun rounds tend to retain mass and keep pushing through things. (9mm ammo typical weights are 115, 124, and 147 grains, whereas 5.56 bullet weights are typically 55, 62 or up to 75+ grains.) If you move up in caliber in a rifle, you get significantly heavier bullets pushed at the same or greater speeds, making the 5.56 look tame in comparison. But the 5.56 does far, far more tissue damage than any handgun round.

 

 

Here's an interesting video covering that.

 

 

Did they do tests where the block was secured? It looked like some of the rounds hit but they said the bullets didn't go in the wood.

And this was cool, PG. Thanks for the video.

CES 

[Pattern Ghost]

5 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Did they do tests where the block was secured? I

 

They don't look secured. Then again, I'm sure you could find such a test on YouTube. There are tons of videos of people shooting things with other things. Cinder blocks seem to be popular.

[Cygnia]

https://thenib.com/the-census-adds-the-citizenship-question?fbclid=IwAR3VvvJNpFFSPp8XaTdeUNIMbnE7Bd7KOMHrKuwoU_zWrNRV0NvxSAHvdCU

[Trencher]

Hmm. 

Thats disconcerting. 

https://www.chappatte.com/en/the-end-of-political-cartoons-at-the-new-york-times/?fbclid=IwAR08EVRv3WmkDIyUqZrnrIQoysMFf2nzsf53EVw6vHaTVKEqUB7dvTQkccg

 

Removing all political cartoons because of one cartoonists caricature of Nethanyanu as a seeing eye dog leading the blind Trump is a bit harsh.

 

How about judging each piece of political art on its own merits? No? Okay then..

 

I recommenced all Hero gamers to boycott New York Times all everything they are associated with. 

 

One of the victims of this artist purge says his opinion. 

https://www.chappatte.com/en/the-end-of-political-cartoons-at-the-new-york-times/?fbclid=IwAR08EVRv3WmkDIyUqZrnrIQoysMFf2nzsf53EVw6vHaTVKEqUB7dvTQkccg

Hopefully he will get onto Patreon or something.

[Toxxus]

31 minutes ago, Trencher said:

Hmm. 

Thats disconcerting. 

https://www.chappatte.com/en/the-end-of-political-cartoons-at-the-new-york-times/?fbclid=IwAR08EVRv3WmkDIyUqZrnrIQoysMFf2nzsf53EVw6vHaTVKEqUB7dvTQkccg

 

Removing all political cartoons because of one cartoonists caricature of Nethanyanu as a seeing eye dog leading the blind Trump is a bit harsh.

 

How about judging each piece of political art on its own merits? No? Okay then..

 

I recommenced all Hero gamers to boycott New York Times all everything they are associated with. 

 

One of the victims of this artist purge says his opinion. 

https://www.chappatte.com/en/the-end-of-political-cartoons-at-the-new-york-times/?fbclid=IwAR08EVRv3WmkDIyUqZrnrIQoysMFf2nzsf53EVw6vHaTVKEqUB7dvTQkccg

Hopefully he will get onto Patreon or something.

 

This is why I didn't like conservative censorship back in the olden days - lead mostly by the evangelicals - and why I dislike so intensely the desire of the control-left to censor any voice with wrong think in modern times.

 

Let the ideas out in the light of day so the good ones can be celebrated, the bad ones rejected and evil ones condemned.

 

Silencing dissent is the first step of fascism and should be rejected by everyone.

[Trencher]

I say its more than a first step this time. Blaming all for the sin of one is a sign of authoritarian mindset already. 

[Old Man]

History may not repeat itself but damn if the remakes aren't worse than the originals

[Pattern Ghost]

 

[Old Man]

Trump admits that he's open to accepting election interference from foreign countries (again)

 

Because why not violate federal election law, or even your oath to defend the Constitution against all foreign or domestic enemies, when the GOP-controlled Senate will allow it?

[Old Man]

[Toxxus]

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Need to update this with a 3rd frame that has Military Industrial Complex under the mask.

 

Way too many president elects get into office swearing up and down there will be no new wars and then....new wars.  Bush, Obama (2x I think), and sadly now it looks like Trump as well.

[Pariah]

This year's class of incoming high school seniors has never seen a time when the United States wasn't at war. For them, war is the status quo.

[BoloOfEarth]

Who are we at war with this month - Eurasia or Eastasia or Oceania?  I can never keep track, and they never tell us Proles anything.

[Pariah]

The same classic blunder we've been tied up in since 9/11: Land War(s) in (southwest) Asia. 

[BoloOfEarth]

5 hours ago, Toxxus said:

 

Way too many president elects get into office swearing up and down there will be no new wars and then....new wars.  Bush, Obama (2x I think), and sadly now it looks like Trump as well.

 

That should be Bush 2x as well, counting both Afghanistan and Iraq. 

[Lee]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

The same classic blunder we've been tied up in since 9/11: Land War(s) in (southwest) Asia. 

 

Let's just hope that we're not stupid enough to go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line...😊

[Pariah]

Makes sense if you're not paying attention to them anyway.

 

Trump's order to slash number of science advisory boards blasted by critics as 'nonsensical'

[Doc Democracy]

On 6/16/2019 at 3:29 AM, Pariah said:

Makes sense if you're not paying attention to them anyway.

 

Trump's order to slash number of science advisory boards blasted by critics as 'nonsensical'

 

It is not like he depends on facts and figures in any case - you can understand why UK politicians might complain about him calling London's murder rate failure...

 

https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/16/murder-graph-shows-london-killings-compare-us-cities-9971033/

 

 

[Toxxus]

53 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It is not like he depends on facts and figures in any case - you can understand why UK politicians might complain about him calling London's murder rate failure...

 

https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/16/murder-graph-shows-london-killings-compare-us-cities-9971033/

 

 

What makes all of these murder rate statistics so interesting is they prove that murder rate is a complex multivariate problem.

 

Also, cities with very low crime rates can blow their statistics in a single year or two by just having a small uptick.  Ex:  Plano, TX had a murder rate that was lower that a lot of Europe from 2009-2016.  Then in 2017-2018 they get a whopping 11 extra murders and they go from a per 100k rate of 1.4ish to almost 5.0.  The last two years were up 11, then down 5.  Minus that pretty nasty spike the city is looking to return to it's previous rate of about 1.4 per 100k.

 

Given the gun ownership rate in this part of Texas I feel this blows the whole more guns = more gun murder arguments to hell.

 

The reason the murder rate in St. Louis is 30-40x what it is in Plano while the cities are of similar size is very telling.  There is something very wrong going on in St. Louis.  Figure out what it is and fix it.

It's not the guns.  It's the willingness of people in that city to murder each other.

[Doc Democracy]

I reckon the statistics are more likely to vary widely when the population size is relatively low.  The bigger the city, the more stable the statistics are likely to be.  As with all statistics you are always better with a bigger sample size over a longer period...

[Pattern Ghost]

There's also the consideration of how data is gathered, and how things are classified. If we're looking at "murder" or 'homicide" rates, how are these terms defined and measured in each country. You'd think it'd be pretty cut and dry, but often it's not.  (I'm not saying it'd make a difference either way, or how much, but it's something that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the articles on this latest event.)

[Toxxus]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

I reckon the statistics are more likely to vary widely when the population size is relatively low.  The bigger the city, the more stable the statistics are likely to be.  As with all statistics you are always better with a bigger sample size over a longer period...

 

I completely agree.  Trends are more reliably established with larger data sets.

 

Still, I'd love to see someone take a run at explaining why St. Louis has a murder rate 30-40x higher than a city of similar size in the middle of gun-nut Texas.

[pinecone]

2 hours ago, Toxxus said:

 

I completely agree.  Trends are more reliably established with larger data sets.

 

Still, I'd love to see someone take a run at explaining why St. Louis has a murder rate 30-40x higher than a city of similar size in the middle of gun-nut Texas.

Cause folks in Texas is friendly?