I bet that guy's neighbors loved him.

 

Yeah, I'm assuming the gender here, but I think it's a safe bet a guy came up with that.

 

 

 

----- Separating post on totally different subject that shouldn't have been merged --------------------

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Old Man said:

Newly released interviews show that Uvalde first responders were specifically too frightened by shooter's AR to engage, and instead chose to let 9-year-olds do the dying.

 

According to the article, they were "outgunned":

 

 

Seems like the odds are in their favor TBH.

 

What was the excuse once they retrieved the rifles and the shields?

 

Just more excuses for cowardice.

On 3/17/2023 at 2:35 PM, Sociotard said:

Oh, and Microsoft announced it is adding a GPT4 powered tool called 'Co-Pilot' to its 365 suite of office software. Why they didn't call it ClippyGPT is beyond me.

 

They've had an AI coding assistant as part of GitHub for a while called Co-Pilot, and decided to use that brand for all their new AI integration.

I'm not splitting any hairs, LL, and I see where you're coming from. That doesn't change my opinion that marketing doesn't drive gun violence. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'm open to looking at it. It's not a contentious point for me, and I'm open to having my opinion changed. 

 

I think there's a divergence of viewpoint here, and that's OK. We're all adults, and we've known each other for a long while, albeit virtually. I think that the idea of a kid being taught how to use firearms is somewhat shocking to you, where it's not to me, provided that it's handled responsibly. Teaching kids to respect firearms from an early age, in my opinion, heads off more trouble than it causes. Unless the adult responsible for that child is an idiot. And we have plenty of them.

 

Now, I'm going to say something that I think you may -- at least partially -- agree with. I've been ruminating about this age thing a bit these past couple of days. I think it's pretty well-established that young males are not fully mentally developed, particularly when it comes to impulse control, until around 27 years old. I strongly suspect that the age of 25 to rent a car was set by actuaries who looked at traffic accident data to arrive at that number. So, why are we letting 18 year olds (for long guns) and 21 year olds (for handguns), own firearms? We can argue that an 18 year old can be drafted and can join the service and carry a firearm. Heck, I was in charge of the arms room for my unit when I was 21 years old, along with our ammo depot.  But there's the rub: The military strictly controls when and where its troops can carry their issued firearms. (War zones being an obvious exception.) And the military hammers discipline into the troops constantly. Even then, we had negligent discharges by impulsive young men who would be considered experts at handling firearms, due to poor decision making.

 

So, I'm not alarmed by children who are well-supervised enjoying shooting. I am unconvinced that marketing drives mass shootings any more than video games do. Those aren't the root causes of the issue, just more political flag waving and glad handing to get votes, perhaps with some misguided good intentions mixed in. But . . . I am wondering if we need to consider upping the age to own any firearms? And a few other things. I may put together a more comprehensive post on what I think productive crime reduction and gun legislation might look like later.

 

What I don't think it looks like is slapping a bunch of children's bandages on a gushing wound that should be handled with a tourniquet*. Which is what Biden's latest list of do nothing looks like to me.

 

As for the YT sponsorship: No surprise, there. I didn't watch all the way to the end myself, just scanned some of her videos because I was curious about her gun safety. Knowing this doesn't change my earlier opinion about the impact of marketing (and to be clear: I do despise a lot of the marketing).

 

 

 

 

*That would be a metaphor for school shootings. I'm really, really getting tired of those.

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Okay, how about this?

 

 

It looks like they're marketing to adults to me. If a family has a child they want to teach to shoot at a younger age, then a scaled-down firearm is a reasonable purchase. FWIW, the manufacture's website has an age verification on it. It's easy enough to lie on those, but shows intent.

 

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Or this?

 

 

That's the YouTube channel of a little girl who has better firearms handling and safety than a lot of adults. 

 

It'd be interesting to see a study done on the influence of marketing on criminal activity. I'm going to guess the causality to be rather low, tbh. People kill for a lot of reasons, but I seriously doubt even the most over the top mall ninja marketing is a major factor. 

 

I think the question of whether it's safe to allow a child to shoot comes down to the family. Some families are idiots, and allow young children access to "their" firearms (illegally, btw), resulting in incidents like that kid who shot a family member with their Crickett .22. Some families are too stupid to teach basic firearms safety, like my first cousin once removed's idiot husband allowing her little brother to shoot across a roadway. If you have good adults setting good examples, kids can safely enjoy recreational shooting. 

 

Those good families aren't cranking out school shooters. The bad ones should be held accountable. Most jurisdictions in the US, as far as I know, don't allow minor unsupervised access to firearms. The problem may be more that the laws have no real enforcement teeth. I've not got the energy to research that one, but it seems to be often the case that there are laws on the books without proper mechanisms and penalties in place to enforce them.

 

 

 

 

This happened today:

 

FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces New Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer

 

I'm sick, and it's late, so I'm going to reserve comment for now and let everyone else digest these for a bit. I'll post some of my own comments later.

Some people need to learn religious freedom isn't the freedom to inflict your religious beliefs* on everyone else.

 

 

 

 

*Or misbeliefs, in most cases.

45 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

Jon Stewart has a couple of episodes of his Apple TV+ show that deal with gun control. I haven't watched those specific episodes, but the interview linked above fits the format of the last half of each episode.

 

Yeah, I was trying to watch the one that the YouTube clip was from last night,  but the stream kept freezing at a certain point. I'm going to try again later tonight.

2 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

Personally, I consider everyone under twenty a quite a few people over 20 to be children. 

 

I consider everyone under 30 children, so with you there.

 

2 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

We could do those things and make gun access harder to get. 

 

I agree. But we won't figure out how to make it harder for them to access guns if we keep coming up with stupid solutions. Frankly, I haven't seen everything Stewart has to say on the subject. I tried to watch the full episode of his show that the YouTube clip was from last night, but the app kept crashing on me. Still, what I have seen is the same "common sense" nonsense that will do nothing to solve the problems it's supposed to.

 

I say again: I am NOT against doing something on the firearms end of things. I'm just against doing stupid crap to make people feel good in the moment, instead of look for actual solutions that solve the stated problem. Nothing Stewart mentioned in the clip, in the first half of the episode, or any other time I've seen him go off on an emotional tirade on the issue, will actually do what he wants. Intervention and diversion have proven to be effective in reducing deaths, yet  . . . we don't hear a damned thing about them when we talk about that demographic. If people like Stewart keep pushing for "common sense" gun reforms to "save the children" constantly, but NEVER mention intervention or diversion programs . . . they are part of the problem.

 

Try this: Search for the following terms: "John Stewart on gun control," and "John Stewart on reducing gang violence." Tell me how many videos you find of him talking about the latter.

 

By continuing to mislabel these preventable deaths as simply "children killed by guns" and not as gang-related violence, the root problem continues to be ignored.

 

 

1 hour ago, csyphrett said:

Gun tracing

 

I'm still looking for evidence that gun tracing does anything to actually solve crimes. And I'm also still looking for evidence that solving crimes prevents them.

 

10 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

methods like marking of bullets (if it's effective)

 

Note: I'm responding to this quote first, but don't take the length of the post as I continue on into the weeds personally, Tricksta. I just found myself expanding on a thought that started here.

 

Microstamping isn't really viable. But, let's say it works exactly as advertised. The police recover a spent casing at the scene of a crime. They run it through a database and determine who the last owner was. Does this solve the crime?

 

Another point Stewart makes is that it should be easier for the ATF to trace gun transfers. Which they can already do.  Do gun traces solve crimes? These are essentially the same result as microstamping. I don't know the answer to that, because Google doesn't return any results for searches for crimes solved by ATW traces (and you can't prove a negative). I suspect the number of crimes actually solved by ATF transfer traces is low, because most crimes are committed by people who aren't the original owners. In the case of mass shooters, most of those (I'm guessing) seem to be legally obtained, but ATF traces are a moot point, because the person is usually caught or killed without the need for a trace.

 

But, let's look at this more optimistically and say that microstamping and better ATF tracing of firearms increases the solve rate for homicides by a significant amount. Does that prevent gun violence? I don't think it would. The death penalty isn't a deterrent, so I doubt an increased chance of getting caught would be.

 

So, even with the best rose-colored glasses on, these things that sound like good, "common sense," ideas just aren't going to curtail our murder rate.

 

Which is another lie told by Stewart in that interview, using statistics. Here's a decent, unbiased (as far as I can tell), analysis of gun death data from Pew:

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

 

So, how is Stewart lying about the increased number of murders? He isn't. But he is using the numbers disingenuously to sow fear.*

 

Quote

How has the number of U.S. gun deaths changed over time?

The 45,222 total gun deaths in 2020 were by far the most on record, representing a 14% increase from the year before, a 25% increase from five years earlier and a 43% increase from a decade prior.

 

So far, so good. The number of gun homicides has clearly gone up. Horrible. We must do something. Stewart says we must reduce the number of guns (probably won't do squat), fund the ATF (agreed), research gun violence (agreed), require microstamping (disagreed), while Fox News says we all need to fund the police better (agreed, but not for their idiot reasons), and all go out and buy a gun (disagreed), because blood is flowing in the streets! Chaos! Calamity! (disagreed, as denoted by the sarcastic exclamation points).

 

OK, so what's the problem? The problem is that the number doesn't have context. Fortunately, the Pew report seems to be pretty clear at providing context:

 

Quote

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2020 than in any other year on record, according to recently published statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included a record number of gun murders, as well as a near-record number of gun suicides. Despite the increase in such fatalities, the rate of gun deaths – a statistic that accounts for the nation’s growing population – remains below the levels of earlier years.

 

OK, we can all breath a sigh of relief. Numbers are up, but it's not quite as bad as the raw numbers show, since our per capita rate is only slightly up.

 

Well, there were still 45,222 gun deaths in 2020, according to CDC data. That's a lot of people dead. This is a picture of a 44,000 people protest in Vienna, and it doesn't even have all the people in it:

 

 

Imagine the United States losing all those people in 2020 from gun deaths. If we could reduce that, we could save a lot of people.

 

According to the CDC, there were 3,358,814 deaths in the US in 2020. I don't think I can find a picture of that many people in one place.

 

The percentage of people who died that died from firearms:  45,222/3,358,814 = 0.013463, so about 1.35%.

 

Now, saving some of those 45k+ lives is a good thing. But you aren't very likely to get shot just walking down the street or engaging in normal daily activities like going to school, going to the movies, going shopping, etc. You might, but it's unlikely.

 

How's our overall death rate looking? Surely we're dropping like flies, right?

 

Here's a sortable ranking of death rates from World Bank. The numbers are from 2020 and per 1000 population. The whole list is rather long, but here are some highlights:

 

Bulgaria is the winner with 18

Ukraine is 3rd with 15.9

Russia is 7th with 14.6

 

OK, that was just to show the higher end of things and the Ukraine/Russia pairing. Not to pick on them, but to give a baseline. Let's look at some countries who have it "good," or at least should: Canada, Sweden and Japan. Just pulled those out of a hat b/c they're frequently mentioned as pretty decent, civilized places.

 

Canada in 84th place at 8.1

Sweden in 50th place at 9.5

Japan in 29th place at 11.1

 

OK, I thought those numbers were going to be better, especially Japan.

 

How about the US?

 

USA in 38th place at 10.3

 

What does this mean? Means we're not quite as horrible as some people would have us think, but we're also not as awesome as others would have us think. We can do better, but we could do much worse.

 

And why did I zoom out to deaths in general vs. gun deaths? Partly for the obvious perspective. We could reduce gun deaths to 0 and it wouldn't move our death rate dial by very much at all. The panic is disproportionate to the threat. This does not mean we do nothing, it means, as the Hitchiker's Guide reminds us:

So, my first point in all of this is we can, and should, approach the problem rationally.

 

My second point is that just as "national death rate" is too broad in scope, so is "gun violence" or even "homicide rate."

 

I'll reiterate my basic stance on the issue again: We need to solve root causes. We need to interpret the data not for the sake of drumming up fear for our proposed solution (including that of "do nothing" that some hold), but for a study of the causes of violence and homicide. At the end of the day, acting like guns alone can cause or prevent homicides is not productive. Neither position is true.

And that's why both Stewart and his interviewees annoy me.

 

How much has been spent by either side on root cause analysis and removing the root causes? I'm betting it's a low number.

 

My point is this: We are not a society of Mutant Biker Cowboy Barbarians.

 

We're a Confederacy of Dunces ruled by an Idiocracy.

 

 

 

 

*Note: That sounds nefarious. I don't think Stewart is nefarious. I think he cares deeply and is simply engaging in his own fears and spreading them around due to not looking at the subject dispassionately.

12 hours ago, Starlord said:

I thought that point was made well regardless of the specific age range used to define children.

 

I understand, and I agree with you on the hypocrisy of said politician. But I don't like Stewart's tactics, either.

14 hours ago, Starlord said:

Then he hits him with the number one killer of children - firearms

 

I saw that. Stewart's argument is kind of weak when "children" are defined as up to 21* years old in those stats, and the majority of those deaths are gang violence related. The more accurate conclusions from that "statistic" are that a) statistics can lie to play on emotions, and b) gang violence and diversion needs to be addressed. To address the number one killer of children, as Stewart laid it out, you would first spend massive funding on gang diversion and gang intervention (encouraging and teaching gangs how to resolve conflicts without killing one another) programs across the country.

 

The fact that we have a politician sitting there who couldn't come to that simple counter to Stewart's argument and that Stewart has (I've recently watched several of his "take down" videos regarding different topics recently) has begun restoring to poor research and talking over his interviewee are both disheartening.

 

My takeaway? The best argument for taking weapons from the population is that we have become an infantile society who as a whole doesn't possess the capacity to be trusted with the power over life and death. People can't even sit down and weigh the pros and cons of an issue with each other from different ideological standpoints without resorting to dirty debate tactics (Stewart) and without the awareness required by their office of public responsibility (any of his victim "interviewees").

 

I'm saying this as a fan of Stewart who mostly agrees with him and respects a lot of the things he's done. He's become deeply (or at least demonstrably) emotional and "fed up" when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues the last few years. He needs to get back to good research and critical analysis of all of his information sources, and be more aware of his own confirmation bias.

 

 

*Edit: That 21 is likely wrong. It looks like the CDC is currently using 19 years old as the break point, and that's likely the source Stewart was using. That same data shows that firearms take over as the leading cause of death starting at age 15. Which reinforces the point about gang activity being the root cause here.

 

Trying to watch Blonde, but it's so very, very bad. Ana de Armas was wasted in this. 

 

Finished up seasons 4 through 7 of Fear the Walking Dead. Apparently, the showrunners changed after Season 3. Seasons 4, 5 and 7 were pretty bad, occasionally rising to moments of mediocrity, though season 6 was better. 

 

Started watching some new sitcoms, Shrinking (Apple TV)(more of a dramedy, from the Ted Lasso folks), Animal Control, and Not Dead Yet. All three of those were pretty entertaining. Tried a couple episodes of That 90s Show, but was only mildly entertained, and mostly by the cameos. Verdict's out on whether we'll continue watching that one. 

 

 

 

On 2/21/2023 at 7:26 AM, Cygnia said:

A neuroscientist explains why stupidity is an existential threat to America

 

I'm torn. I didn't like the quality of that article, but I agree with the general premise.

1 hour ago, batguy said:

How can I create my own golden age super hero trading card game?

 

Do you play CCGs, LCGs or deck-building games? Play those* extensively, learn how they work. Nobody here can give you the expertise to create such a game, after all. Once you have your experience, come up with an idea for a unique twist on one of those genres. Grab some index cards. Create your cards. Playtest the heck out of it. I think Drive Thru has a POD option for cards, so you might look into that when you're ready to publish. That's it in the nutshell.

 

*One you might want to check out: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102652/sentinels-multiverse

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

Mind...he's going to be serving 90 consecutive life sentences,

 

How does he get up to 90? (I'm actually fine with him getting 90 consecutive life sentences, or whatever keeps him locked up. I'm just curious how they arrived at that number, based on the number of victims killed.)

56 minutes ago, Bazza said:

I want to op-out . 

That sounds like something an AI would say.

 

MS Presentation about Bing's AI integration:

 

https://news.microsoft.com/the-new-Bing/#webcast

I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but it doesn't seem any more of a stretch than the contortions the Commerce Clause has been twisted into, so maybe it'll work? Probably won't work with the current SCOTUS lineup though.

 

I'm good with whatever.

16 hours ago, Sociotard said:

Bear in mind its pretty small time and I've only sold 3 copies, and one of those was to my mother.

 

Correction: Four copies, one of those was to your mother and one was to me!

 

 

Update: Looks like Hemphill was fired.

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sixth-memphis-officer-fired-tyre-nichols-death-rcna69121

I tried to edit my last post, but it wouldn't save, so:

 

Here's an update from CNN: https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/crime/sixth-mpd-officer-raising-questions-in-memphis-tyre-nichols-police-department-traffic-stop-ude-of-force-white-officer-five-fired-indicted-murder/522-621200ce-9170-4d40-a015-74cdafc53c9c

 

Two things noted here:

 

1. White officer wasn't at second scene (where the beating took place)

2. This quote: While regrouping, Hemphill can be heard on his body camera saying to one of the officers, "I hope they stomp his a–". 

 

That second one says something about his mindset. Given that it was made in the heat of the moment, in and of itself, it's probably not enough for an immediate firing. However, I think a deeper dive into this guy's character should be done, with termination being a likely outcome, since he doesn't seem to have the right temperament for the job.

On 2/1/2023 at 7:16 AM, Cygnia said:

Lawyers Ask Why the One White Cop in the Tyre Nichols Case Escaped Termination

 

While it could well have been because he's white, it could also be due to the nature of use of force investigations.  There are a lot of factors that come into play from policy, to training, to legal, to the officer's knowledge and perception of the situation, as well as whether there was malice on the part of the officer. Suspension rather than immediate termination was probably the correct call based on what that article states. Further investigation will surely be done, and may lead to termination or criminal charges.

 

According to the article, he pulled the subject (victim) out of the car, and TASED him, as well as contact stunned him. Is pulling someone you intend to arrest out of the vehicle excessive force? The answer is it depends. The act itself is within reason if a) you have cause to arrest or detain the person and b) you give them ample opportunity to get out of the vehicle before yanking them out. Note that the article doesn't ask these questions. That's because the author and editor are more concerned with a catchy headline and getting their article published ASAP to try to keep up with the breakneck speed of online "reporting." And those are just two of the questions that need to be asked on the matter of getting the guy out of the car. The TASER use begs MANY questions, again, beyond the scope of the reporter's expertise. They'd have had to do a deeper dive and get an expert to consult with. But that's slow, and provocative headlines being put out quickly is what the media thrives on.

 

I watched the body cam videos. My take on this guy is that the force he personally applied very likely did not contribute to the subject's(victim's) death. Pulling people out of cars generally doesn't kill them. The TASER use also generally isn't fatal. It's unclear to me if the white officer used any language indicating malice in his intent. There was a lot of inappropriate language, but it's impossible for me to identify the speakers. He also didn't look like the person driving the situation. IMO, the action (benching vs firing) was appropriate based on what very, very little the public knows about the incident, as given on that body cam footage. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the blunt force trauma inflicted by the officers who were fired was the likely cause of the death.

It looks like the black officers were the ones who got fired, because they were the ones who most obviously contributed to the death and who were most egregiously outside the law, policy and their training.

1 hour ago, Iuz the Evil said:

Which is why I noted the motive was pending. This thread has many such statements, including about the motivation of entire professions such as law enforcement. Mine certainly not more hyperbolic given the circumstances.

 

I'm not saying you were any more or less hyperbolic than average. From time to time, I like to point out when we start to veer in the direction of early assumptions. Not always -- I don't try to run around policing the thread, as that'd be obnoxious. It's not personal, and no offense was intended. I just tend to think like an investigator, both by nature and profession at some points, including recently, so it's a kind of pet peeve. Jumping to ascribing a motive to political, racial, or other reasons that are hot buttons can sometimes obscure the truth, even if they're depressingly accurate assumptions much of the time.

This certainly looks premeditated, and political motives are definitely high up on the list of possibilities.

 

Anyway, sorry if I offended you. I do believe you to be a reasonable sort of person and respect your opinions.

6 hours ago, Tom said:

Tangentially referring back to Hermit’s “oathbreaker” comment, and the rioter’s (likely?) belief he was following the orders of ‘his’ POTUS, he may have believed he was following his oath.  

 

I think the rank and file of these guys are just uninformed morons who could use a civics class to learn the difference between a party stance and the law. I believe the leadership know damned well what they're doing is wrong and are twisting the meaning of the oath to their own ends. Frankly, they're the " . . . and domestic" enemies that their rank and file think they're protecting against.