Zeropoint

It's time to stop asking nicely and start making the government do its damn job of caring for the citizens.

Yet you are allowed to have a computer, a 3D printer, a sack of flour, and at least at present, an encrypted Internet connection, any one of which is capable of creating far more deaths than a a personal firearm. I think it lacks perspective to suggest one nut with a gun presents a real danger to society. What is dangerous are evil people in numbers. If someone wants to produce math deaths, a semi-automatic rifle is a paltry machine. But three hundred people with rifles, or with piles of bricks, can bring down an entire community. I am far more worried about a repeat of the Tulsa Race Riots, in which the weapon of choice was simply starting fires. An entire thriving black community was eradicated in a day.
I think it is actually sufficient justification to own an item that you find it interesting and potentially useful, even weapons. You lose that right when you turn that item for criminal ends. I'm not suggesting you be allowed to own a nuke, or that a .50 Browning should be fired inside the city limits. But if someone wants to take a machine gun and shoot up pumpkins and post the results on Youtube? I think there should be some provision for that be legal. I can't launch a hot air balloon from my front yard. But people can and do make a hobby out of launching hot air balloons, in the proper time and place, with the proper permits.

Careful, Hugh. Michael Bloomberg may call you to join his PR department.
 
Ain't none of us here breathing the same air as the billionaires club. Yes, wealth is relative, and overall the majority in the First World are very privileged compared to much of the Third World; but we're a helluva lot closer to them than we are to the 1%. Jealousy isn't good, but it's excusable from the many of us struggling to keep our children fed and clothed, when we look at mansions and private jets.

Only if you think it's possible to earn a billion dollars.

Um, okay...
 
Wyoming strip club reopens with 'masks on, clothes off' party

I note that swords are not on that list. But, like pawsplay said: "Daggers, though. You can always find a justification for a dagger."

I'm a liberal gun owner (yes, we exist) but I don't really like to associate with other gun owners because of this stuff. I don't understand why enjoying some dangerous toys has to come bundled with . . . all those problematic political views.

I can see why you'd worry about that. I was a pallbearer for my maternal grandmother not that long ago and . . . yeah, it feels like something you don't want to mess up.

Honestly, this is just part of the larger and more general problem that swords are considered cool, but historically they are a specialized, secondary weapon. The samurai are associated with the katana, but during the height of medieval warfare in Japan, the chief weapons were the spear and the bow. European knights had their swords mythologized by 18th and 19th century writers who romanticized swords because fencing was popular. As in Japan, in Europe, the sword took on greater status as its utility on the open field of battle waned. The Roman gladius was a sidearm. During the Crusades era, the sword was popular in part because it could be depicted as cruciform, and the Arabic scimitar as a crescent, and this imagery persisted centuries later as the Crusades era became romanticized. But most of the actual killing during the Crusades was done by arrows, axes, maces, spears, and flails. High impact weapons were needed to breach mail or mangle flesh under it. The sword is incredibly effective in a duel, but as a general utility weapon, you would rather have a dagger in a scrum, a spear in a charge, and an axe against a well-armored foe. So all the arguments against swords and space are really just arguments against swords in general, but in space. In short, the reason to have lots of swords in space would be to resurrect the reason swords were popular in real life: duels, as status items for aristocrats, and as secondary weapons in pitched battles that hadn't quite got to the dagger/choking/atomic piledriver stage yet.
Daggers, though. You can always find a justification for a dagger.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Hmm.
 
This appears to be a person Not to be Plucked With, if you'll pardon my non-cooking-related French.

Hmm.
 
This appears to be a person Not to be Plucked With, if you'll pardon my non-cooking-related French.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

Governments can declare things open all they want, and when they do, the working class lose their unemployment protection. The working class people who had been sheltering in place and getting by then have to choose between financial disaster or risking their lives for a paltry paycheck. The drive to "re-open the economy" isn't coming from people who want to go back to work. It's coming from the rich, who want money flowing into their already overstuffed coffers faster, and from the entitled, who want other people to risk their lives for their own convenience.

That's why it's time to stop asking nicely and make them do it.

That's why it's time to stop asking nicely and make them do it.

That's why it's time to stop asking nicely and make them do it.

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye.
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
And abide the end.'
 
-Dickens 

Some kind of Mafia threat?