megaplayboy

Reminds me that "battle fatigue/PTSD" is not really modeled in Hero System. I suppose if you wanted to do it, it would be something like 1 pip cumulative per firefight, +1 per point of BODY taken, +1 for suffering a disabling or impairing wound, +1 for seeing a comrade seriously injured, +3 for seeing one killed, combat stress is healed by rest, inactive time, R&R, or even therapy. That's if you really want "gritty realism" in a game. Of course, in practice it might be as much "fun" as introducing CTE into a supers campaign..."Let's see, Captain Punchout, you've been stunned and/or knocked out 35 times in the past 5 years...you're starting to have persistent headaches, memory loss, difficulty concentrating and wild mood swings..."

There was a romanticized version of the Roman Empire which persisted in Western Culture for a very long time, even somewhat to this day. Under Genghis, the Mongols conquered most of Asia and large portions of Europe. OTOH this could just be akin to Scandinavian metal bands glorifying the Viking hordes.

Better with subtitles on. These guys are awesome.

Well, someone told me about the whole oxygen cycle thing about 30 years ago, and that the Brazilian rain forest provides a hefty percentage of both our oxygen supply and our carbon dioxide "sink". If the oxygen content of the atmosphere drops below a certain percentage(13 or 14%, IIRC), our brains basically stop working. Similarly, if the carbon content of the atmosphere hits 1000 ppm, cognitive impairment sets in. As resilient as humans are, we still have environmental requirements and the climate crisis threatens to push those requirements out of reach, with fairly obvious catastrophic, possibly extinction level consequences for our species. But something something oil stocks will take a hit, so "doing nothing" it is.

One of the recipients of the MOH threw himself on two hand grenades(the first one was a dud).

I think the drift of generations towards becoming more conservative as they age does not necessarily connote they adopt the attitudes of their parents or grandparents. A more conservative Gen Zer might be "conservative for 2065" or somesuch, which might mean being reluctant to concede that AIs should have full legal rights.

There's also: home security systems, owning a dog, neighborhood watch, etc.

Sure, prior to 1968, that's primarily what they were about.

Based on the recent news on the scandals there, I'm not sure whether the NRA is really viable as an advocacy group without a major house-cleaning. At a minimum, Wayne Lapierre has to resign. I think the government should act on existing ATF research on the sources of crime guns and draft laws and regulations accordingly. I support fully funding the ATF as opposed to the Republican tactic of starving the agency of funding. Since the primary concern is about guns getting into the "wrong hands"(violently disturbed individuals, convicted criminals), I'm generally supportive of fine-tuning policy to get closer to that goal without unduly burdening the general public.

I mean, I like guns, but I like free speech too, and there are plenty of restrictions and conditions on that!

Half the time I think firearms enthusiasts start from the proposition that they like guns, and work backwards from this conclusion to reverse engineer justifications for ownership of whatever flavor of gun they like.

To be fair, even tasers carry a decent level of risk. More than a few cases of taser-related deaths. IIRC many jurisdictions now have tighter guidelines on taser use(when, how many times, etc.). I wonder about the necessity of most traffic stops in an era of dashboard cameras and the internet. Short of someone driving recklessly, you can scan someone's plate, look up their info and record, and conceivably digitally cite them and send notice via text message or email. I also wonder whether officers really need to walk around "strapped" in all circumstances.

But if he had shot the guy center of mass, he might have been dead rather than lying on the ground with a leg wound. That doesn't really seem like an optimal outcome here.

The current lethal force standard rests on "objective reasonableness" and lethal force can be justified if the officer merely perceives a threat. But, again, justification and necessity are two different things. "Was the shooting objectively necessary?" is a dicier proposition for the LEO. Have you had de-escalation training? Implicit bias training? For the record: https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/871646/samurai-sword-drunk-shot-as-he-charges-cops/

I've read the case law on the standards for "justifiable" lethal force. I've read various critiques of police training regarding the tendency for standard procedure to lead inevitably to escalation in too many confrontations. The standards for lethal force are too permissive as they stand now. Period. How many "justifiable" shoots were "necessary" shoots? Nobody knows. Because they're not conditioned to question the necessity of these escalatory confrontations. The trend in police training is toward de-escalation training for precisely this reason. Ditto for implicit bias training, body cameras and DOJ consent decrees. I am a lawyer. Shall I describe to you the various background checks, licensing requirements, job stress, ethics training, supplemental legal education, malpractice risk, consequences of failing to secure a protective order for a client in a DV case, etc? Just having a hard job does not exempt one from hard scrutiny or real accountability. Police have strong unions, they have prosecutors who are reluctant to bring charges because they depend heavily on officer assistance and testimony, they have Supreme Court precedents giving them wide leeway imo, and they have jurors who still tend to give them great deference in any case involving allegations of misapplication of lethal force. Unarmed civilians...do not have these things going for them. How many times have you had to fire your gun on the job?

Uh, no. The German cop shot the guy in the leg because he could, that's precisely what he was aiming at. Cops are trained to shoot center of mass because they are trained to, effectively, shoot to kill, and because center of mass is the easiest thing to train to hit on a human body. But it's not reckless to target other than center of mass if you are capable of it and circumstances permit you the luxury. I am a lawyer and am very familiar with the legal standards regarding use of lethal force. They are lax as hell from a legal standpoint, imo. It's the biggest part of the reason why, even when police officers use lethal force irresponsibly, they avoid being charged and/or convicted for it. The other reason is jury deference to police. I have said before that there is a world of difference between "justifiable" and "necessary". https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-killings-are-sixth-leading-cause-death-among-young-men-n1041526

That is a possibility. Generally sentiment is pushing towards narrowing/tightening the circumstances under which lethal force use is justifiable--de-escalation attempts and a clear/reasonable sense of an immediate threat rather than any fear at all. Cops get a loophole you can fly a helicarrier through. It's why so few are charged and even fewer are convicted.

There was a guy in Germany running around attacking people with a sword a few years back. Cop brought him down by shooting him in the leg. Here all cops are trained to shoot center of mass. But it is possible to disable an attacker with a nonlethal shot, you just have to be a really good shot, esp. under pressure. Most American cops aren't trained for that.

You do know that the homicide rate dropped steadily after the passage of the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban, right?

My actual view on the issue is that we need federally funded, unrestricted scientific research on all aspects--how criminals acquire guns, characteristics of mass shooters, medical aspects of the issue, etc. I think existing research is wholly inadequate and tends to be cherry-picked by both sides without proper scrutiny of methodology. We need peer-reviewed scientific, medical and social science research on all aspects of the problem, so that policy-makers can make informed decisions using the best data available.

I'd add licensing, training requirements and liability insurance. Plus stripping away liability protections for manufacturers and dealers.

I feel like this is a straw man argument. We're not trying to reduce the homicide rate to 0. We're trying to reduce it below its current rate. There is a credible argument that reducing access to firearms reduces the homicide rate.

"Utility vs Risk" is the correct formulation for comparison. It's why we don't allow widespread public ownership of military hardware, because the risk of public harm greatly outweighs any utility to such ownership. So, does the risk of public harm posed by semi-auto rifles with a designed magazine capacity of greater than 10 rounds outweigh the public utility of such arms being widely available to the public? If, say, said availability means 500 extra civilian deaths per year, what public utility does it add/enhance to offset that?

What specific problem exists in the United States, that doesn't exist elsewhere in the developed world, that leads to a significant difference in homicide rates?

That was Bronze Age Superman, IIRC, who was just a skotch below Silver Age Superman. Nowadays the gap between the characters is narrower.