http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/30/powerful-flame-cyberweapon-tied-to-powerfully-angry-birds/

I know it's Fox News and all that, but even then it's so horribly bad and wrong and misleading that someone deserved to be fired for this article.

Yeah, we have been discussing it in cplusplus.com too (http://cplusplus.com/forum/lounge/72211/)

I'm not surprised those birds escaped, it had to happen sooner or later with millions of installations of the game. And now set free in the internet of course they continue to target pigs because that's what they were programmed to do.

Eh? He or she deserves a raise. There's nothing untruthful about the statement, and obviously it's getting nerds to read and discuss the article. The goal of a non-public news organization is to make money and/or promote agendas.

Allow me to be Captain Obvious here: The best way to handle things like that is by NOT linking to it. Cause, you know, that's what they would like you to do

It's technically correct, but there's more to journalist ethics than that. It suggests that the fact that both Angry Birds and Flame were written in Lua somehow connects the two, abusing the general public's lack of technical knowledge. The argument is about as meaningful as "the victim was stabbed with a knife made of steel, the same material used in popular toys", only that practically everybody knows what steel is.

And, even more subtly, it mentions that Lua stems from a game programming background; even though no clear accusations are made, it cleverly connects video games with computer malware, terrorism, and real-world warfare.

No, there is nothing in there that is provably wrong, but you can't tell me someone who writes for a news corporation as heavily funded as Fox doesn't know exactly what they're doing. She's acting in the company's best commercial interest, sure, but it's still wrong and unethical and deserves punishment.

Also, it's quite hilarious. Best reading I've had from Fox in a while.

It is kind of interesting that being written in Lua makes it harder to detect on account of it being an unusual choice to write malware in. That's about the only useful nugget I got out of the article and I have no idea if it's true or not, mind ...

I'm sorry but I think you're mistaking Fox news for journalism. MOST news channels and shows have stopped actually doing proper journalism. It's all sensationalist garbage.

The ignorance of some people is absolutely astonishing.

I'll write my next worm in FORTRAN

I was just reading about this at Wired (lame, I know) where a guy that works at an AV company tries to explain some of this.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/internet-security-fail/

I read part of the fox article but stopped because it doesn't tell me anything about what this cyberweapon really is, just buzz words to scare people. What is it, a virus?

For fun do a Google search on "angry birds flame."

Man... There are articles in Spanish already... That article is a virus...

Go Corporate America!

Like I said on Cplusplus.com:

The hell. Just today I saw on Fox news a report on the Hubble findings on the date when the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxys will collide and the reporter stated several times that it would be the end of the Universe. Galaxies are not Universes just made him seem more and more of an idiot the more he talked.

No kidding. It also won't be the end of the galaxy. There's a very small chance of any stars hitting each other. Also, by that time, the sun will have entered red giant stage (most likely) ending the earth as we know it (searing it to a crisp, or pushing its orbit back).

This is also assuming we haven't made Fallout into reality by this time (or that a plague/outbreak of some kind hasn't killed us).

The problem is that media with a monetary interest cannot be neutral - the theory says they can (most objective news broker wins the consumers in the long run), but that's not how it works. Objective is boring, unpleasant, and exhausts the brain, so it doesn't sell.

As I said earlier: Go Corporate America!

Media can't even be honest let alone neutral whether there is monetary interest or not. I mean, they painted Bin Laden as a terrorist for years but they never were honest about the fact that we made him. We helped his militia rebels overthrow the ruler at that time and then left him to clean up the mess we helped make. This angered him and is what started the whole Jihad campaign on the US (which is why they are taking so long in the Middle East now because they are scared of making a new Bin Laden). Media's and news sole purpose now is to make everyone forget how bad we are getting f*cked by the government that does everything "for the people". They just forget to mention "for the people" refers to the millionaires and companies. This country was bought and paid for a long time ago by big business and the crap of you have a say in how the country is run is just an illusion. The companies and politicians just love blowing smoke up our @sses.

Specter: That's why I've been investing in guns and ammo and hoping for a right-wing victory this fall. Maybe if we can just push the country just a little further people will finally act.

We would be dead if the people ever went up against the government. They have the military and sadly most the guys in the military follow orders blindly, when they haven't become obsessed with the power their position gives them (look at the police that hurt protesters, and military have more power than them). Then you figure in US allies, they have the power to become the modern day Hitler and oppress us through power if they wanted.

You guys are kind of creeping me out now.

Yes, our government is crappy. But it's less crappy than many of the other governments in the world. If you want to run things your way, go claim an island in the Pacific or something.

It's like this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvKLyLgzUIk

"machines, built by machines, built by machines, built by machines, built by machines..."

It's not perfect by any stretch and often stifles our freedoms and the very essence of liberty;

...but that's human government.

(how do you embed youtube vids?)

No 'human government' was back when George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln ran the country. Now it is a corporate government that puts on the falsehood of still being a 'human government'.

Complacency is bad, mmmkay?^[1]

(I don't know how to embed videos either. )

<object data="URL/file attachment URL" />

Apparently it has a few issues with HTTPS and I had to change 23yrold3yrold's https to http for it to work.

Kronk: So we should sit on our butts and accept what we have because others have it worse? And it isn't about having things run "our" way, it's about having things run in a way that at least gives people a chance to have a say in how their society is governed.

If we're going to accept faulty government just because humans are faulty then we must accept every government has the right to exist because the people they govern are faulty. I for one do not believe that we are consigned to system of economic and social destitution or that we must accept what we have simply because we are flawed. We have the capacity to do better and better things don't coming along simply because we wish them to.

Yeah, we can do tons of things, but most of them end up with us dead . It is sad to see people that want change and do protests end in violence and murder where police just get a slap on the wrist and make it look like the protester(s) are being violent.

I think it will! When Andromeda and Milky Way collide, the resulted mess will most probably be something else than two galaxies you still could point out as Andromeda and Milky Way.

<reading more fox>

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The end? Probably not. The end as we know it sure.

You think giving everyone a gun and see who survives the longest solves anything? The problem of democracy, that is, building a society where everyone is granted an equal share in making community decisions, hasn't been solved for societies larger than 12 individuals yet, but just giving up and saying, well, let's go back to Social Darwinism is just silly. Until everyone on the planet acts responsibly, refuses to solve conflicts violently, and spreads an abundance of love, we'll have to put up with horribly inefficient compromises.

If you look closely I never advocated the use of violence. I simply said if the people want more they need to stand up and work for it. However, there is no way to reasonably say that violence is never the answer. The sad truth is that sometimes violence is what it takes to win the day. As Americas founding fathers understood, you need an armed and attentive people to keep the government structure in its proper role.

Bottom line: violence isn't always the answer but it doesn't hurt to have am armed society capable of fighting for itself.

Someone needs to get sued for a lot of money is that game loses any sales.

That's more like what I meant.

Maybe not, but most people get kind of uncomfortable when you start talking about stockpiling guns and ammo if you're speaking in a context other than slaughtering animals Especially in the context of pushing a country over the edge...

Only because they aren't (and/or can't). If somebody has a water balloon and you don't then you're going to be a little uneasy too.

Just saw a thing online (RSS got to love it) "Porn Actor kills man". Sounds like a bad National Enquirer article.

Bull Why would you feel less uneasy just because you now have a gun? Other people still have guns, you having that gun isn't going to make you any safer. It might actually make other people with weapons more uneasy themselves, and more prone to panicking and shooting.

Have you ever had a gun yourself? I doubt your armchair quarterback opinion is worth anything.

If things are that dangerous, that you feel you need a loaded lethal weapon on you at all times, I doubt having the gun would do all that much. If it does, I think you probably over estimated the danger of the situation.

I highly doubt it'd make me feel safer. You'd still have to be extremely paranoid to make sure someone doesn't shoot you in the back from tens of feet away.

http://catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html

If owning a gun makes you feel safer, then you don't need to have it to begin with. You are the type of person that does fit into Thomas' remark as you would be more likely to panic and shoot an innocent person during an intense situation. Police statistics even show a gun owner is more likely to be killed with his/her own gun during a house invasion. Don't get me wrong, having a gun doesn't make me uneasy either nor does it make me feel safe. Me and my wife live with my father-in-law who is former Army and retired Marine and a gun fanatic. When I first moved in 11 years ago he had guns I had never heard of before. He even buys his grandchildren bb guns to try and get them hooked on guns at an early age (my son is seven and he has a bb gun from my father-in-law and he plans to buy a pink one for his granddaughter...just to give you an idea of how far he goes). I now know how to use a wide selection of guns, but knowing this doesn't make me feel safer or uneasy. Guns, even though deadly, are about as neutral for me as programming. People kill people, not guns as a person can kill you just as easily with a knife, car, or hammer so there is no reason to feel uneasy because someone owns one. Same way you shouldn't feel safe for owning one.

So how does Canada have a lower crime rate than the US even though they have far more guns per capita?

Because we use them for hunting, we don't stock pile them for a revolution.

And yes, half of my family hunts, every year.

Nothing worth stealing? Most of our crime rate is from armed robbery which is usually to get things to fence to get drug money. So I'm guessing Canada has nothing worth stealing, or free drugs that require no crime.

We do both, but our hunting is normally "Well I didn't see Dale's orange hat when I shot him by mistake."

Also we have fairly strict laws that most (normal) people tend to follow.

By law you have to store your guns in a locked cabinet, SEPARATE from the ammo. Concealed carry I think is quite a bit more difficult to get, as is a permit to just carry in the open in public.

Emphasis mine.

Now what about all those people that don't bother with the permits, and carry anyhow? put that in your statistics.

If they're going to break the law, more laws won't help. If you make it illegal to manufacture firearms, resourceful people will just make their own weapons. They won't be as accurate or powerful as what you can buy now, but a one eyed man is king in the land of the blind.

TF: Yes, I do more safe now that I can carry a concealed weapon on me. I have been mugged twice and that weight on my hip provides a reassurance since I know I at least have the possibility of defending myself now(either through using it or by simply having the weapon).

The point of carrying a concealed weapon is that no one else knows you have it. So why would anyone else panic if they don't know you're carrying it? It's a faulty argument.

Phoenix: If I lived in a dangerous neighborhood then having a gun would indeed make me feel safer. By your argument thinking I need it means I don't need it which would be untrue because I live in a dangerous neighborhood. A cop thinks he needs his firearm for protection so does that mean he doesn't actually need it? And before you say the cop is in a dangerous profession don't forget that criminals aren't just dangerous to cops.

Trent: Not every gun-toting American stockpiles weapons for a revolution. The vast majority like to hunt or simply would like the opportunity to defend themselves. Argument void.

And as Arthur pointed out, having more laws doesn't keep criminals from breaking the law. I took my concealed license class, I passed a morals check, I have a clean record, and I go to the range regularly so that when I do find myself in the situation to use my weapon I know I have a fairly good chance of hitting what I intend to hit. I also keep all my weapons in a locked safe separate from the ammo(aside from my handgun which I keep close by in case of a break-in) and am teaching my son that they are dangerous and not toys. I would hardly call myself a danger to those around me nor do I panic easily. The only possible argument that's been presented that may have some validity is increased paranoia but even then paranoia is far too strong of a word. I am more observant of my surroundings but that doesn't mean I see danger in every person or expect to shoot every person that happens to walk behind me.

You just fell head first into the statistic I was referring to. Those who are in a crime and get the weapon for protection are more likely to have their protection used to kill them. Difference between you and the police is that they are trained in hand to hand, required to pass firearm proficiency tests, and are trained in non-lethal and lethal ways to handle situations. They are also trained to keep their firearms aimed away from the threat and to shoot to incapacitate while again most civilians shoot to kill. You have just put yourself into two situation categories, either you will become jumpy from being mugged twice and shoot an innocent person thinking they are about to mug you or you will get mugged again and they will find the gun or you will pull it and they will try to overpower you and you get shot. Seldom does that end with a good outcome of you just scaring them off.

Police officers are incompetent and have little skill.

Navy seal three time veteran.

So Navy Seals are incompetent too? Most of our police and sheriff departments are made up of retired and active military branches.

If the government took away peoples' right to have a gun, then only criminals and police would have them. That makes me feel safer just thinking about it (sarcasm).

Or the next mugger gets the gun from you and shoots you with it. Or has one himself, and shoots you the second you try to pull the gun.

Well, if you can't walk and chew gum at the same time maybe you should just stay home, away from the big bad world.

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If the government took away people's right to have a gun, then criminals would have a harder time getting guns. If the number of criminals with a gun were halved but I didn't have a gun, I'd feel much safer than with a gun and "fighting" twice as many armed criminals.

Try that in a first person shooter (using difficulty levels to adjust number of "criminals") and get back to us on that.

Laws have never impacted how easy it is to get a gun. Just how easy it is to get one legally (and since when did criminals care about that?)

I'm pretty sure he meant the total supply would be reduced. But as I said above, you can make a zipgun pretty easily.

Gun laws have been strict in Canada for 20+ years, and we still have drug dealers shooting up children's hospitals during gang rivalries. The criminals still have guns, even if you think they don't.

If you live in a first person shooter then you are much much worse off than most people. I'd worry less about getting a gun and more about the fact that every single person in the world wants to kill me. And I'd probably choose to run and hide rather than try killing many simultaneous opponents.

How do you figure that? Just the fact that there's a gun store drastically increases the options of stealing one; I can break into the store and take a gun, I can steal one in transit or in storage, I can pay off the weapon delivery guy etc. All of those options are impossible when there's no place to buy a gun.
And all of this is of course before you factor in that:

If gun sale is illegal than the number of guns in the country is around K where K is the number of armed policemen + soldiers, which means you can very easily control all of the guns in the country, and if one is stolen you'd notice quickly.

1. I doubt it is as easy as you put it, especially to pothead Bob looking for some drug money or dumbass Ivan looking for some extra power when protecting his whores and stealing from them.

2. I doubt most people would even consider the option (especially Bob and Ivan that only know about weapons what they learned from movies).

3. I doubt how effective that POS gun with shitty gunpowder and scrapmetal bullet made by Bob is. I doubt you can threaten someone at medium or long range, I doubt you'd be able to inflict more than an injury and I don't believe at all that you could make a semi-automatic/automatic improvised firearm (which is what you need if you are facing more than one person, since you'd probably get beat up while you try to handle your POS weapon)

4. I doubt anyone would go ahead and make that weapon considering that:

• Just having it is illegal and liable to cause him trouble with the law (whereas there's no law against owning a particularly nasty knife).

• He has to go through the trouble of making that weapon.

• He has to risk carrying around what is essentially a home-made explosive

• He could very easily just use a particularly nasty knife for threatening people (especially since he knows they probably don't have guns).

So even if you can easily make a homemade weapon, criminalizing firearms would still reduce the number of armed criminals (and I believe that quite drastically so).

I would probably consider legalizing the sale of guns to people to be equivalent to legalizing the sale of nuclear weapons to countries, so that my country can defend itself again some criminal country waving around its big nuclear weapon unless I give it my walletnatural resources.

It's not the idiots that you have to worry about. They're unlikely to hit you, let alone kill you. It's the career criminals that have been handling guns all their lives. And it's the career criminals that stash guns away, trade them around with each other, and smuggle them into the country, etc.

Tons of illicit narcotics are smuggled into the USA on a daily basis, despite it being highly illegal, carrying very serious punishment if caught. That right there basically proves that they couldn't control guns if they wanted to.

Append:

Statistics gathered in the USA have already demonstrated that gun-related crime increases when guns are restricted. The problem is that the criminals still have their guns. They are criminals: by definition they break the law, so making laws isn't going to deter them. Unfortunately, the law abiding citizens are made practically defenseless against the criminals, and the criminals know it.

I'd be fine with gun possession of any kind if the self-defence safe harbor laws were repealed. Feel free to possess your gun, but if you shoot someone and they die, you must be charged with at least manslaughter, no matter how threatened or provoked you were etc.

It'd still be better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

[EDIT]

Might as well hang that on the cops and soldiers too.

If the government made laws to make firearms illegal it wouldn't make a difference. Drug cartels would just start importing firearms from other countries and make a profit selling them to criminals. Look at our past. They made liquor illegal (during the prohibition era) and the mobs started underground bars to make a profit off the demand for alcohol. Same would occur with guns/drugs/etc if there is a demand for it someone will fill that demand. You can never get rid of them, but getting a weapon to feel safe after a crime is a terrible idea.

Holy shit, dude. Are you seriously trying to arguing using a comparison of FPS to real-life? That's completely messed up, man.

There are so many reasons why that comparison is crazy. I can hardly imagine what you must have been thinking when you put that point forward as part of your argument.

Let me give you a hint for one of the reasons why it is messed up: killing people is part of the goal in FPS games, both for you and for your opponents. Real life doesn't have goals like that.

Exactly why I said that. Play an FPS while trying to be a pacifist and see what it gets you. The bully types (cops included) will come after you even faster IRL.

[EDIT]

I believe you pacifist types are unaware of any aggressive attitudes within yourself, so you think that everybody else must be that way? Let me take you to certain localities in my cab.

"You look like you want to fight!"
"No, I don't want to fight"
"You callin' me a liar?"

If I had room I'd sig this out of context.

Games are usually deliberately written so that being a pacifist does not work - because fighting and killing is often a core part of the gameplay.

Real life simply isn't like that. And in real life, if someone pulls out a gun to threaten someone, it would be a bad thing if a bunch of bystanders decided to pull out their guns as well for 'defence'. All that does in increase that chance of people being killed. And again, let me emphasize that deaths in real-life are somewhat more important than deaths in a computer game.

Are you trying to imply that that situation would be somehow safer, or better, if both of those ordinary people were holding guns?

Look, maybe 'pacifist types' do have some internal aggression, which could burst out at any moment and cause them to rampage, or whatever. So then, isn't that a good reason to not let those people have guns? If someone is going to lose their temper from time to time, I'd rather them be unarmed. Wouldn't you?

And supposing someone does go berserk, and they somehow have a gun. If you had a gun as well, what are you going to do? Shoot them? Threaten to shoot them? Do you think that would calm them down? Do you think they would let you point your gun at them while they are pointing their gun at you? Do you think you can safely disarm / kill someone with a gun without accidentally shooting someone else (or yourself)? -- And even if you are confident of your abilities in this, are you confident in the abilities of every gun owner in the country?

--

...

I didn't actually mean to get involved in this debate. All I came here to say was that the FPS comparison was ludicrous. The issue of gun control is not simple, but I would have thought that the craziness of that FPS comparison was obvious. I thought you'd recognise your mistake right away, and then try to put forward a more reasonable position. But you didn't.

I don't think you or I are going to be able to change each other's mind. Apparently our basic understandings of the world are too different.

Put yourself in the bully's shoes a minute. Would you be less likely to hassle someone if it could get you shot? Did you even read that link I posted above?

http://catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html

That is easy to do in multiplayer FPS games, so it kind of blows your argument out of the water. I've played tons of games where players would just sit around letting the other teammates do the killing and normally their k:d counts were a lot lower than those of us that charged head first into finding the other team.

I remember playing Modern Combat on PS3 one night where we had a player that didn't do anything (mainly because my team was laughing about his kill/death ratio compared to ours). We all had like 30+ kills/deaths while he had 2 kills and 5 deaths.

Being a pacifist in a game has about the same results as real life, you will find some that shoot you just to shoot you and other confrontations you will avoid because they may not even see you sitting their. Also like real life, if you run into a confrontation you will have more damage (you will either kill/injure the attacker, they will over power you and kill/injure you, or a bystander will be hurt).

Even police tell you not to fight back in those situation because they can go bad real fast. Being mugged twice and buying a gun is giving you a false sense of safety plain and simple. IRL if you are killed by a mugger, unless someone saw everything, the police will drag their feet finding the killer...even more so when the ballistics say it was your gun that killed you. On the other hand, if you do kill them, you get to have fun being roasted and potentially being tried for murder instead of self-defense. You are playing with fire, and by your remarks, not understanding the full magnitude of what could happen the next time you are mugged.

[EDIT]
Yes I know it was SonShadowCat that posted that, so I just am using that as an example. Same mentality can be applied to any situation though.

When you die, can I have your computer?

No, though, I should clarify, one of the .45s and one of the 9mm my father-in-law owns are mine. I don't get a sense of safety having them though so I never bothered with getting a permit. Though, I've been arguing the scenario of someone shooting you. We haven't even got into the issues of depression, uncontrolled rage, or accidental death by assuming it was empty and shooting yourself or someone. There are more scenarios of you being killed with your own gun than there is of you defending yourself with it successfully.

Shooting at harmless targets is a lot easier than shooting a human being. It is normal, even after years of training with it, to hesitate which could result in you being overpowered. Soldiers even say that, "no matter how much training they have, it is nothing compared to when you have a real person down the barrel from you, you know they mean you kill you, but the human part of you makes you hesitate, which could cost you your life and possibly the life of your troop members."

My congenital cheapness keeps me from having a gun, but that doesn't mean I won't attack someone threatening me with one rather than depend on his mercy. Yes, that's already happened.

All it would take was a sudden flinch of the finger to squeeze the trigger and we would be reading about you in the obituary rather than talking to you on A.cc. Too many people mistake ignorance for courage. If you are attacking someone who is threatening you with a gun then you are still at his mercy. You are also changing the rules, if you start attacking them and they ultimately shoot and kill you, then you turn your attacker into self-defense giving them legal grounds to shoot you. This is one of the main reason law enforcement tell you never to resist someone holding a weapon on you.

[REVISION]
During the Casey Anthony trial there was another trial brought to my attention. A pharmacist was being robbed by two teen with guns, he shot one of the boys and the other one ran away. He then walked up to the one he had shot and shot him several more times, killing him. That pharmacist was put in prison for murder because once the boy was on the ground he was no longer a threat so killing him turned him from attacker to victim. Got to love how the law can make your good intentions turn against you fast.

What? An unarmed man can legally be killed by someone with a gun? And you say I'm changing the rules?

Crap, you replied too quick for me :

During the Casey Anthony trial there was another trial brought to my attention. A pharmacist was being robbed by two teen with guns, he shot one of the boys and the other one ran away. He then walked up to the one he had shot and shot him several more times, killing him. That pharmacist was put in prison for murder because once the boy was on the ground he was no longer a threat so killing him turned him from attacker to victim. Got to love how the law can make your good intentions turn against you fast.

His good intentions was to protect his customers.

Did you learn your street smarts from the Leave It To Beaver show?

I find it humorous that the anti-gun people seem to assume that muggers/burglars/etc. mean you no harm if you comply with their demands. You are what is called a witness to their crime, and unless they are confident that you can't identify them they have a very good reason to make you incapable of reporting what you know about them, even if you didn't see their face or hear their voice. Life is not so simple. There are never guarantees. Nobody is saying that owning or carrying a gun makes you invincible. If you put that gun down during a confrontation then there is no more reason to shoot you than there would be if you didn't have one. If you have the opportunity to instead put your attacker down then you may escape when you otherwise wouldn't. There are no guarantees. When they tell you not to fight back I think that they are predominantly referring to untrained personnel that try to be heroes without preparing for it (the majority of us, probably). That said, sometimes fighting back is necessary, and the police do recognize this. Having a gun doesn't mean that you have to use it. Then again, having a visible gun might prevent the crime in the first place. If you were planning to steal $20 would you target the guy that might blow your face off or the guy that is most probably defenseless? Again, there are never guarantees, but there are plenty of variables that play into every situation. There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect yourself. There are people in the world that wouldn't think twice about ending your life. Most people don't face off with them, but some people do, and sometimes the only way to survive it is to fight back. There are plenty of people that have successfully defended themselves with firearms, and AFAIK the successes outnumber the failures, at least in cases where the people took the time to prepare and train (as opposed to buying a gun and never learning to use it).

No that is how the law works. It is only self defense if the threat to your life and well being is there. Once it is gone by either subduing the perpetrator or disarming them, any actions taken after that makes them the victim and you the attacker. I couldn't find the one I was referring to, but I did find a similar one from Oklahoma involving a pharmacist.

Life Sentence for Man Who Shot Would-be Robber

SonShadowCat said he was mugged twice and is still here. I'd say that shows it can go either way.

There have been several cab drivers in this town who have been killed without offering resistance (? no witnesses but they didn't have weapons found on the scene), as a matter of fact the guy that talked me into driving cab was shot in the back of the head for no reason by a guy in the back seat. They were caught, and in the trial the killer said he did it to see what it felt like to kill somebody, but some people think it was a "gang initiation" thing.

Oh, yeah, the "get killed with your own gun" argument doesn't take into consideration that the crimes prevented by brandishing a gun far outweigh the disadvantages.

It's well documented that self-defense ends when the threat is stopped. An attacker that is shot and on the ground is no longer a threat unless he is still able and intent on doing harm. That doesn't mean that the original shot that put him on the ground was equally criminal to the unnecessary kill shot or overkill. The pharmacist in this case took it too far.

Possessing a gun isn't a license to kill. You have to feel threatened to use it (in many jurisdictions you can't legally use it anyway), and if you do use it then you may have to defend your decision in a court of law. Again, "better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6". Nobody is perfect, and being sentenced to prison doesn't necessarily make you guilty either, even if the court finds you that way.

It only takes once the other way to make it all nil. I don't think that he should carry just because he's been robbed twice, but until you've walked in his shoes and all that.

Arthur, are telling these stories to convince us that it's a good idea to let people carry guns?

It seems to me that if it was not so easy to get access to a loaded gun, then people would be less likely to shoot each other to see what it felt like. I wonder if anyone has tried to gather hard statistics about this kind of thing... What do you think? Do lax gun laws lead to fewer killings, or more killing? Lower crime rates, or higher crime rates? Surely someone has looked into this...

I'm not saying you should carry a gun, but I am saying the sheeple shouldn't keep me from doing it. I'm also against Obamacare, welfare, corporate subsidies, the war in the Middle East, and I don't love Jesus.

No that statement is too broad actually. It doesn't just apply to robbers killing a person with their own gun, it also includes suicide, domestic violence, and accidental killings. I do have to admit that it is a fairly padded sweeping statement.

My mom hates guns, and was freaked out about me marrying a woman that had a father that was into guns. My father was shot in the back of the head after complying to a robbery at the gas station he worked at, I was only 9 at the time. Considering my past, one would think I would be all for getting a gun for protection, but I have seen it go both ways and know that having a firearm or not having one won't effect the outcome in a way that won't mess with you.

There are so many variables that come into play, and I'm sure there are a lot of cases where people have protected themselves with firearms (I actually remember a case where a woman shot and killed an intruder with her late husbands shotgun and while it was self defense and justified, she was reported as having serious depression problems afterward due to taking a person's life).

Well, in Indiana we had a thing where they took guns seized from robberies and such, melted them down and made a thing called the Crucible (I think it was). Most the guns that were melted, were mostly guns stolen from houses and not the perpetrator's actual gun.

In past debates here we have provided evidence that US states with more guns tend to have fewer gun-related crimes. If I'm not remembering wrong, I think that Texas state, which is known for its guns, has one of the lower gun-related crime rates compared with the rest of the country (if not absolutely then relatively). Similarly, IIRC, when they tried to tighten gun laws in Washington state, gun crime increased, and it decreased again when they loosened the laws.

AFAIK, gun crime was largely unaffected by the long gun registry program in Canada, despite it costing tax payers tons of money to maintain. I don't bother keeping up with it, but I think that the government has finally decided to cut that program. That said, career criminals are still fully armed with illegal firearms. I think it's rare that they need to use them given the criminal makeup of Canada, but they still do from time to time (keep in mind that Canada is sparsely populated, and that is reflected in our known criminal activity).

There will always be cases of seemingly normal people that "snap" or act in a fit of rage and abuse their rights, but people find ways to do that even without guns, and these mishaps are rare enough that they shouldn't impose on people's rights to possess or carry. Once again, illicit drugs are extremely illegal, and the Americans in particular invest tons of money in fighting them, but they still manage to smuggle a shit load of drugs into the US daily without being caught. They can't seem to control it no matter what they do (Hell, maybe law enforcement is on the take, but they're likely equally dirty with guns). You can't honestly believe that criminals wouldn't be able to get their hands on guns if the law forbade it (technically, it does). In particular, a capitalistic society is only interested in money, and restricted items are naturally inflated.

I never thought you were saying that I, or anyone else in particular, should carry a gun. I don't know why you mentioned that. As I understand it, the issue we are talking about is what restrictions should their be on gun ownership and usage. One of the reasons the 'sheeple' might not want to let you carry a gun is that they have no way of knowing you won't decide that you want to shoot someone to see what it feels like; or no way of knowing that you won't shoot someone accidentally; or no way of knowing that you won't use the gun for some other criminal purpose. We're talking about whether people should be allowed to legally own and carry a deadly weapon just as a basic liberty, for no particular reason. That is not a liberty without consequences. It has very serious implications.

Ok. But I don't see how any of those things are relevant to our discussion.

Come to think of it, one way of getting a gun if they weren't accessible by the general public is to take them away from cops. Risky, yes, impossible, no.

[EDIT]

About 20 years ago, I was yakking with a couple of other cabbies on a cab stand, and one of them says "Let's make Ski mad!" and hits me in the gut. I didn't double over, I didn't cry out, I didn't even drop my Pepsi(TM), but it made my gut burn like fire. I set my Pepsi(TM) down, walked up to him and said "I don't get mad, I get even! and hit him with a short right to his gut. (He was about 50'ish years old and maybe 240 pounds, I was 30 something and 160 pounds). He doubled over about 5 times and said I'd hit him full force, I replied that if I'd hit him full force he'd be on the ground five feet away. Anyway, he whines over the radio the rest of the night "Ski hit me too hard!" and goes home by morning. He didn't come to work for the next three days, and I heard he'd had a stroke. He survived about two more weeks. Did I kill him? Do you want to take my hands (and my punching bag) away?

Cool story, tough guy. I like the details about how well you took the punch.

As to whether or not your hands should be taken away. Do your hands serve some purpose other than being a weapon? Is it possible to restrict access to hands? Do people need special training to be able to use hands in a safe manner so that they don't accidentally kill people when they fumble?

No. No one is suggesting that hands be taken away. No slope could possibly be that slippery.

"Just to see what it feels like" is a ridiculous argument. I think it shows extreme ignorance to even think like that. Do people randomly poke you in the eye with a pencil "to see what it feels like"? Do they randomly attempt to have doggy-style sex with snakes "to see what it feels like"? What is so special about shooting somebody with a gun that would make you want to know what it "feels" like, as opposed to anything else? There are many ways to kill or maim, and most are completely unregulated (e.g., choke, pummel, rope or tether, drown, knife, starve, IED, etc.).

There's also no way of knowing that somebody won't accidentally run people over in their car, but they hand driver's licenses out to completely incompetent fools. There's no way of knowing that people won't use a stapler for some criminal purpose, but those go completely unregulated. Etc.

As for "no particular reason", I don't think anyone buying a gun gets it "for no particular reason". They are quite an expensive hobby. The most common reasons are probably for self-defense or sport. It's a bit like saying that I bought a basketball for no particular reason. ALERT THE AUTHORITIES.

The implications of owning a gun are no more serious than owning any other potentially hazardous object, like a car, a propane tank, or a pen...

bamccaig, don't rail on me about the to see what it feels like thing. The only reason I mentioned that is because Arthur used it as an example in an earlier post. Apparently you guys are working at cross purposes at little bit.

I think he was referring to an earlier post of mine. On the other hand, another cabbie died when getting strangled with a boot lace around his neck. He did actually die from flooring the gas pedal to wind up hitting a tree at 80mph to take them with him, but ironically he was the only one to die.

He still made the argument that it was reason enough to restrict 300 million (or whatever) people's rights so that one guy couldn't satisfy that particular psychotic curiosity (I'm sure he would have lead a normal, healthy, harmless life if not for that gun ).

We'd have to make shoelaces illegal too.

Nah, just build the world's biggest asylum and move everyone in there. Then you would be restricted from guns and shoelaces .

Don't forget to replace the pens and pencils with crayons.

Should people have guns...well obviously no. If you want to shoot a gun there should be controlled places to go and use their guns, for a charge. Should thousands of Americans have guns under their beds? No, of course not.

Surely that's as simple as it needs to be? Why give morons guns?

Your thinking seems rather scrambled.

Aha! Nice.

Government is just scared of Civil War being revisited. Otherwise I doubt we would have gun laws now.

Isn't comparing gun crime rate of different states moot point? If the laws are like here, if I live in a state with very restrictive gun laws, I could just go to another state and get the license there, and I'd still be able to use the gun on my state. Isn't that how it works? So having restrictive laws in only certain states becomes useless, and those statistics that compare states are nor meaningful.

Why not comparing countries instead (it's less likely that people will travel to another country to get a gun license)? You'll then see how United States have much higher crime rates than countries with restrictive gun laws.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop

USA is the 8th country with the higher homicide with firearm rates. 3.6 per 100000 population. Look at western European countries where gun laws are very restrictive: the higher I see is Portugal with 0.84.

This graph is IMHO even more relevant. Murders per capita (for people who don't know the difference, an homicide is premeditated, while a murder isn't):

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

That graph is total murders, though. But it's easy to convert those numbers to rate for each 100000 population.
USA: 9,369 / 309,000,000 * 100,000 = 3.03
Spain: 97 / 47,000,000 * 100,000 = 0.20
Germany: 269 / 82,600,000 * 100,000 = 0.32

Murders are commonly started with small disputes, fights... It's visible how having a gun makes it easier to just kill the other people in such stressful situations.

Another thing that has been mentioned: people will get a gun even if it's illegal. Well, that's not really true. That's true for organized crime, they have their ways to get their weapons. But the majority of homicides come from "normal" people, people that would have no way of getting a gun illegally because they don't have the contacts. This specially true with murders. People don't go get a gun illegally to commit a murder because...well, then it wouldn't be a murder, it would be an homicide .

The big problem in the States is that the firearm industry has promulgated the feel that guns are needed for self defense and most citizens believe that by now.

http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/article_fbdcca11-0e03-545a-9f90-8d15edf354ab.html

Well it depends on one thing. I think all 50 states require an extensive FBI background check to make sure you have no criminal record to begin with, so that should curb it some. Though, some places do the check and still sell you a permit just to make money.

OH CANADA

Degrees of separation... A friend of a friend of a friend is bound to be an illegal arms dealer.

Nicely derailed, guys. From "Angry Birds related to Powerful Cyberweapon" in less then 100 posts.

Anyway, my take on the discussion (minus the pointless arguing against strawmen and other invalid debating devices):

Situation A - someone has a gun, I don't. I now have one problem: not getting killed.

Situation B - someone has a gun, so do I. I now have three problems: not getting killed, not killing the other guy, and not accidentally killing myself.

I'll have situation A, please.

But really, it's a simple Prisoner's Dilemma (or rather, a Tragedy of the Commons, which is the more general case though less known). If you assume that your individual safety is higher if you carry, the best strategy for each individual is to carry. But the more people carry, the lower our overall safety gets. At the extremes: if nobody carries, nobody gets shot. If everybody carries, it's bound to go wrong a lot, even if only by accident. Hence, the best individual strategy is asymptotical toward a suboptimal overall equilibrium (that's about 15 dollars worth of words in just one sentence).

As to "outlawing guns doesn't help": Even if gun control is hard or impossible to enforce completely, it does send a signal, namely that we as a society do not consider carrying a gun normal behavior, unless a special case applies to you. Requiring a license for guns signals that a gun is something that requires proper training, and needs to be handled with extreme care; not something you can casually pick up at the superstore to kill an afternoon over a few sixpacks.

I'll shut up now. Maybe I should play some Angry Birds, see if the vicious Lua blows up my computer in a fierce fireball.

Well let's just apply this to the whole world instead of individuals, disarm your entire country, no army, airforce or navy to make sure nobody gets hurt. You pacifists projecting your own fears onto others is distant enough then to make the silliness of this apparent, isn't it?

Nah, let the armed forces be armed, just don't give guns to the general public, because, they're a bunch of f*****g retards

NEWS FLASH: The armed forces gets its retards from the general public. Sometimes you crack me up.

And gives them fire-arms to use in the training camps and teh battlefield, and more importantly TRAINS THEM HOW TO HANDLE THEM. You crack my shell too.

This isn't about gun safety per se (such as never pointing at something you don't intend to shoot), but whether or not somebody freaks out and panics or whatever. You need a more hard-boiled attitude.

Well, fry you man, I don't think people should have guns so suck it

And I'm not going to take life advice from mislabeled products from the so-called "dairy section".

Where's the news on that?

Fort Hood shooting where a soldier took a gun and went on a killing spree. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting) Not to mention cases where soldiers have killed their wives/husbands. Just recently there was a cop that killed his pregnant wife because he had an affair. Training makes no difference obviously.

Any idiot can shoot a gun, training on how to handle them makes you more lethal with them. Training doesn't give you mental stability or control.

Yes, please. I'm all for that. Call me fucking Gandhi, I can take it.

I don't see any silliness in that. No guns, nobody gets shot. Simple.

The problem is the Tragedy of the Commons, or, if you prefer, the Prisoners' Dilemma (although the former I think describes the problem better). In short, if you have a gun, I need one, and then everyone needs one, and suddenly the world has become a more dangerous place overall, and nobody is any better than before they had guns.

So if you can guarantee that everyone's (criminals too) gun is confiscated and restrict supplies of reasonably strong metals to make one, I'll be happy, and as I mentioned above, I don't think I need one anyway. It does put 98 lb. weaklings on a more equal footing though (hence, the Great Equalizer).

Even if Angry Birds IS linked to nasty evil horridness it's still fun for 45 seconds.

No, the way law works here is that there are federal laws that apply to the nation, provincial or state laws that expand on or restrict those laws, as well as municipal laws that further expand on them. You have to abide by all of the laws that apply to where you are now. It doesn't matter if a neighbor state lets you or licenses you to carry a gun. The only thing that matters is whether or not your state allows it and recognizes the neighbor state's licensing requirements as equivalent or better. Your rebuttal is a failure. If it worked the way that you say it does then I'd just go into Michigan and get a gun over there (albeit, I don't imagine they would legally be allowed to sell to a Canadian citizen, but I'm not sure about that).

Comparing countries is much more difficult. The USA is largely unique in the world with unique attributes and demographics that make it susceptible to increased crime. You can compare nations, but to remain unbiased you have to give in to a lot of unknowns. For example, the USA is known for being a very wealthy nation, while also having a very large poverty-stricken population, the majority of which are racial minorities. They also don't have government funded health care, for example. It can be argued that certain demographics rely more on crime to attain care and aide that is otherwise provided for "free" in other nations. That's just one example. When you put together all of its attributes you end up with something that isn't exactly like any other nation. Comparing them side-by-side is like comparing apples to beef steak. For example, people often like to compare Canada with the USA, but as a resident of one living on the border of the other I can say that a one-to-one comparison is useless and misses the point.

Obviously, it can be argued that something is wrong with the USA, but then it can also be argued that a lot of things are right. Considering the number of guns in the hands of citizens, relatively few gun-related crimes occur, and the majority of the ones that do occur are in poverty-stricken neighborhoods full of racial minorities. It's nowhere near as bad as people claim it to be. In fact, I imagine the average American feels completely safe walking down their street unarmed, despite the fact that in many jurisdictions it is legal to carry a firearm. That doesn't mean that it always is safe, and it's not in your country either (whoever is reading this at the time).

The majority of drug users are "normal" people, not organized crime people. The organized crime syndicates exist to satisfy demand for illegal products and services from the general population. Guns are currently legal in the USA so there's little demand for illegal guns (albeit, they are still readily available to those circles that need them). If all guns were restricted then instead of going to the black market for a rocket launcher you would have to go for a .22 cal, but then the rocket launcher is right next to it on the shelf... Attempting to restrict guns in the USA would not squelch demand. The demand is there, and it would take dramatic social changes before that demand begins to disappear, and those changes would be anti-capitalistic, and therefore anti-big business, and therefore anti-government.

Arthur, I skipped over some of that article you linked to earlier.

I find it a bit unsettling... It seems to be talking about how glorious and sobering it is to be able to make the choice of who lives and who dies whenever you hold a gun. -- Well, the thing is, I really don't think it's a good idea for people to be thinking about who should live and who should die on a daily basis, as they walk around with their guns.

From a programming point of view, it makes me think of why it's good to make class members private. (It's not at all the same thing, but I'm reminded of it. Just bear with me for a sec.)

In programming, making things private, or const, or whatever is just a way of reducing the probability of mistakes. Most of the time, programmers can trust themselves to just use variables and functions and pointers and so on in the way that they are meant to be used – and if they are used correctly, there is no problem. Making things const or private can just be a pest, because it sometimes means that you have to do a bunch of useless extra stuff just to get to the task you are actually trying to do. So it's tempting to just make everything mutable and public.

The reason we don't do that is because we know that mistakes will occur. We know that we might make a typo, or forget something; or that someone who doesn't properly understand how the code is mean to work might muck something up when they add their own contribution. So we structure our code carefully and strictly to make sure that the most delicate parts of the code can only be used in the correct way.

eg. If I pass a reference to some function, I don't want to have to worry about whether or not the function is going to the value of my variable; so I make sure it is a const reference.

Like I said, this isn't really the same as gun control, but I'm reminded of it. I'm reminded of it because I know that although guns can be used sensibly and safely, and that most people will in fact use them safely; the fact is that I don't want to have to worry about someone making a mistake by misusing their gun. I want the rules in place to make it harder to misuse the guns. Of course, the rules can still be broken, just like you can still use const_cast to get around the rules in programming if you are determined to do something evil; but never the less, the rules still make it significantly safer.

Isn't that the set standard? If you want to derail a thread you have to do it in under 100 posts?

OH CANADA

Pretty sure the average is closer to 10. There's been a few 2's and 3's though.

100? Pfft.

Heh, true. Here is something to get our minds off guns. My son loves snowmen, and with our winter being terrible this year he didn't get to make one. Today he asked me to build him one, so I booted blender and made this (forgot to give them arms, but he didn't care).

{"name":"606128","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/e\/fe3783a73879d689000d95218004fe0c.png","w":960,"h":540,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/e\/fe3783a73879d689000d95218004fe0c"}

Did you say snowmen?

You do realize that this sounds slightly paradox?

Yes. People aren't addicted to guns though, so the added threshold might actually work, at least for enough people to get overall gun ownership (and consequently, irresponsible gun handling and storage) down. In any case, it would prevent people from getting guns casually. It's pretty hard to change an existing culture though, and I guess as long as average people owning guns is considered normal, I doubt there'd be any room for banning them, whereas here in good old Europe, most people would be disgusted to learn that their neighbor carries a gun, and I haven't seen anyone question the fact that legally getting one requires considerable paperwork. Kind of a vicious circle.

You make it sound as if the entire population was at war with each other. WTF. We're humans, we're supposed to be social beings. I'd rather be mugged a few times and lose a few hundred than take someone's life. Simply not worth it.

Interesting. So programming in Python is like carrying a loaded gun at all times? Food for thought.

It doesn't always work that way. If the muggers were rational they wouldn't mug you in the first place!
Granted, the guy shot in the back of the head wouldn't have been able to defend himself anyway, but just sayin'.

[EDIT]

We are social beings. Who gather into tribes and wage war on the other tribes (or social strata nowadays).

OH CANADA

Wasn't in Canada where some human feet appeared at the beach or something like that? ... Yep was in Canada (Google).

O CANADA, ON LOAM AND ABLATIVE SAND

O CANADA, MY HAND MY YARD MY PEE

Think the same thing happened in New York or somewhere on the east coast a while back too.

Back in '76 we were running down the beach in San Diego and found a human leg, but there'd been a small plane crash a few days previous.

W00T! You actually saw the leg? MAN! and what did you do? Police? Start playing with the leg? Oh man... You must be pulling my leg... hihihihi

Actually it was 4 platoons USMC running down the beach, and some drill instructors clustered around this leg until one mental giant kicked it, and when the underside became exposed, the ungodly stench caused everybody to clear the area pretty quick.

My fucking god... That must be something you'll never forget.

Lemme see... 2012 - 1976 = 36 years and I haven't forgotten it, check. OTOH, there's a lot of things in this thread I'll never forget.

Yhea... I can't believe Thomas killed that dog... Where did he get that gun anyway?

This Luka Magnota guy cut this asian dude up and sent his body parts to schools and government head quarters, and in the same week there was a shooting at Eaton Center mall. Funny thing was that my Fiance and I were planning on going to Eaton Center that day but on our way there we decided to go to another mall. Had we gone to Eaton Center we might've been caught in the cross fire because at the exact same time we were also in the food court of the other mall (the shooting happened at Eaton Center's food court).

COOL STORY BRO

Ok, if that is true, you have officially surpassed the Arthur's anecdote. THAT is something I already know won't forget in all my life... And didn't happened to me.

I have heard similar history from other people, things like that. Knowing that making just a tiny decision can save your life, or kill you... Decisions that you don't even know are so important at the moment you take them.

Same guys we just said were okay because they had 'training on how to handle guns', yet it seems a little unprofessional to sit around starring at a severed leg and then one of them to kick it.

They (at least the Leave it to Beaver couch potato types) hadn't any idea what to do with severed legs!

No, even the "Leave It To Beaver" couch potato types know you find a body or parts to call the police. Just some idiots find it more morbid and funny to mess with it instead of calling the proper authorities. Makes me think of the Casey Anthony case, wife was watching a part where they were questioning the guy that found the little girls body. He said he didn't know what to do so he called a few of his buddies over. He claimed that they were more interested in a dead snake instead of a human skull in a trash bag. For some, certain things hold more entertainment doing the sick things than doing the right thing and apparently the UMSCs that day didn't want to do the right thing (as the instructors are normally veteran soldiers that should have known better too).

[REVISION]
Okay, I'm just going to stop pu$$y footing around it. All the mentalities that people shouldn't have guns is part right, but right for the wrong reason. Strict guns laws again won't fix it. Training has nothing to do with it either. I know how to properly handle M-16, Ak-47, .306, .45, 9mm, Tech9, magnums, etc. with no training, just by firing them and learning how to use them by shooting at paper targets. Background checks only stop guys with records from getting them legally. The only thing that matters is the person's mental state as to whether they should have one or not. Columbine, Fort Hood, Virginia Tech are just examples where they obviously were mentally unfit to have firearms, but the background checks came back with no red flags from the FBI so they got them. No state will bother paying for psychiatric evaluations so the gun problem will always be there no matter what.

I read that as "I don't know how to fix the problem properly, so let's just pretend it isn't there".

I read that as "I want a perfectly risk-free existence no matter what".

I was reading something in the last couple of days where your risk of death due to terrorist activities is on par with your risk of death from your own furniture.

Let's outlaw cars, since they kill so many more people than guns do.

This thread is pathetic.

This is wrong on so many levels...

You realize that you are arguing against your own point there?

Invalid argument. Too tired to explain, but I don't think I have to.

What? I admit that terrorism does kill people occasionally? They use quite a few things besides guns, like AIRPLANES! It could have been cars if they'd collapsed a bridge or something. Let's outlaw airplanes and bridges. I'd rather risk a bullet than a 200 meter fall.

Well then, let's outlaw furniture.

I forgot that, thanks!

OK then, War On Furniture it is!

Properly? That is a false ideology. With people willing to bring firearms here illegally and under the radar, there will always be a way for people to get weapons. Government has already made it clear that the properly they want to do is to take them from the people and make it where only the military/police are able to hold them. What I'm proposing, which I know won't happen because the states wouldn't want to put out the money to do it, is make background checks AND psychiatric evaluations mandatory for those seeking to get them legally because if you fail the psych eval then you lose your chance and are marked so you can't get one in any other state. Getting rid of the illegal gun smuggling out there will take more work.

So is every other thread on this site .

What's a psych eval cost? $2000? Making gun ownership out of reach for just about everybody. How about a psych eval to drive a car? Eris knows there are plenty of nutjobs endangering everyones life!

That is easy. Destroy all of them and make everyone ride a bike or walk. Get this country back in shape.

Hello, nanny government.

Yep, that is why we get involved in other countries, because they can't rule themselves so we intervene and nanny them too.

One guy with a machete vs. a bunch of armed thugs

Gunfire... camera pans up, guy with knife is still running around.

The idea I was trying to get across is that guns don't make somebody all-powerful, and it's very liberating to know you have options. "Captain of my fate, master of my soul" and all that.

Guns? When the hell have we ever started with guns? We bomb first to soften them up then send in waves of soldiers to pick the rest off in the name of democracy and peace.

I find it very liberating to walk around unarmed and trust the majority of my fellow citizens to have a general interest in a non-violent society.

Good luck with that!

Been working fine so far. You see, most people here don't carry guns, and so far, all arguments I've had with anyone could be resolved peacefully, more or less. I have experienced some verbal abuse, and also dealt some myself, but the most violent situation I've ever been in was when I was extremely drunk, someone asked me if I had a light, and I threw obscene insults at him, and then he slapped me in the face.

Yes, I know, anyone with a gun could kill me at any given time. Sure. And when I cross the street, a car could hit me. Or I could get hit by lightning, my food could be poisoned by a lunatic blackmailer, some dangerous animal could escape from the zoo and tear me to pieces, one of my colleagues could go crazy on me with a screwdriver, a terrorist could blow up the train I'm on... I refuse to worry about these improbable things, because a) it is pointless, and b) it would only make my life miserable. Fuck everything about that. I rather be free and die tomorrow than spend the next few years shivering and hiding behind my big ugly gun.

So you're argument is, there are things in life that we can't defend against so lets not even defend ourselves from things that we can?

I for one, and Arthur I think, will happily protect ourselves from what we can even if we can't protect ourselves from everything else.

My main point is not to let the "pacifists" ensure that only criminals have guns. As I said before, I'm too cheap to keep a gun, and don't think I need one, but the reason for not thinking I need one isn't because I trust my fellow man or cops.

So apparently shooting at police is now legal in Indiana ...

If they bust your door down illegally, yes. It should have been that way all along.

I agree, but reactions in this thread might be entertaining ...

I think their problem is they're worried might get hurt if they defend themselves.

Jewish couple at a Nazi firing line:

Levi to soldiers pointing guns at them: You douchebags! You are cowardly racists! You're the scum of the earth!
His wife: Levi! Don't make trouble!

My guess is that for most people, carrying a gun wouldn't actually grant any additional safety anyway. There really aren't very many situations where having a gun is going to save the day; and even in such situations, it's fair more likely that the gun-owner will panic, or just blunder through lack of training / experience.

-- But really, like I said, this discussion is going no where. It's just a bunch of people announcing their opinions at one another with essentially no chance of anyone shifting their view. It's a bit like arguing about religion. -- The only people who might shift their view are the 'undecideds' who might be listening in.

I find Arthur's personal stories to be very compelling. I've switched my beliefs at least a half dozen times on this thread because of him.

I think they're more worried about stuff like this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27957714/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/dead-after-shooting-crowded-toys-r-us/

This link is taken from an entry in the blog you linked to in another post. (http://gunfreezone.net/wordpress/index.php/2011/05/12/csgv-dumb-comment-of-the-day-plus-a-touch-of-eugenics/) Hillariously, the author actually used that as an argument for why people should be allowed to carry guns in Toys-R-Us. Only in America...

If your liberal media is allowed to cherry pick which stories they want to print in a country of 300 million people, I suppose you can make a case for gun control. NOT!

[EDIT]

Once again, cars are dangerous!

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22murder+by+vehicle%22&btnG=Search&sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&safe=off&site=

I'd rather get shot than run over by two tons of steel going 55 mph.

I tried to go back to the thread, "Why do you still come to Allegro.cc ?".

I wanted to change my answer to Guns and Jesus.

I'm also wondering what happened. Two weeks ago there was hardly any posts, now the gun and religion threads of old are in full steam :p

Any gun or religion thread will get to full steam. We haven't done the "nanny state overseeing your every action" yet (while taking all your money) but maybe we can still avoid it to prevent all the internet pipes from overheating with excessive posts and contributing further to global warming.

Well, at least we know people here is not only interested in Minecraft .

I wasn't trying to make a case for gun control. I was only saying that what worries some people about loose gun laws is the increased probability of dumbasses shooting up eachother and possibly some bystanders without having any premediated intent to murder. To be honest, I think it's a valid concern. It's known that normal people are actually pretty hesitant to kill, even during war. Even if someone points a gun at you, it's more likely an assertion of power than a preparation to kill you. The problem is that you can't know that for sure, so if you also own a gun, you are likely to draw it and actually increase the chances of you, them or bystanders getting shot. Like you said, a person needs to feel in control of their own fate. People would rather take their chances with self-defense than assume that the other guy does not intend to actually kill them. If I could, I would buy a gun myself. Yet, I can contemplate the possibility of loose gun laws resulting in more people getting shot in the long run.

Either way, I still find it absolutely hillarious and kind of scary that the gun nut in the aforementioned blog thinks that this particular Toys-R-Us shootout story makes a case for guns.

I don't understand this logic. Assuming more people with guns increases your chances of getting shot, you'll just have both cars and guns to worry about. Besides, the main purpose of cars isn't killing things. Most people do just fine without a gun but need a car.

If you can, put yourself in the (mugger, rapist, general asshat) frame of mind. If you thought it the least bit likely your victim would pwn you (whether he/she has a gun or not), wouldn't it make them think twice? It certainly works this way for nations. "Walk softly and carry a big stick".

Oh, and to tie in with the religion thread, a quote from the movie "Gran Torino".

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It probably would decrease the number of muggers\rapists\asshats but not eliminate them. It would also increase the chances that the ones that are left will threaten you with a gun rather than a knife and end up shooting you when you threaten them. The pro-guns people just assume the net result will be a crime-free society. The anti-guns people just assume the net result will be shoot-outs everywhere. As for me, I just don't know. How do you propose to estimate how it's going to play out in the long run?

I just want the pendulum to stop its swing to the extreme left.

Do you mean that as in "I want it to start swinging to the right" or as in "let's agree that the outcome of changing the gun laws is unpredictable"?

I want it to be mostly central. Owning guns should be legal. Using them improperly should have an appropriate punishment, bleeding hearts can stifle about that too.

The punishment for using a gun improperly is usually being dead.

You're talking about Barney Fife? Gunshot wounds to the foot are rarely fatal. Or are you talking about capital punishment? Various shysterslawyers make a good living using technicalities to obstruct justice, putting death-row inmates on practically permanent retrials. OTOH, the pendulum is swinging toward putting everybody in jail for anything they can think of, it's a really big business on its own. We just put up a $6000000 jailhouse here to make money for the county, supposedly by holding other counties prisoners, but I suppose that extra joint that a construction worker had would be more likely to get him imprisoned as well.

So, what do you think is inappropriate usage; and what should the punishment be?

For example, is it ok to carry a gun into a public place; in a street, in a supermarket, in a school? Is that all cool? Is it ok to brandish a gun in those places as long as it isn't fired? Is it ok to threaten someone with a gun? Is it ok to shoot someone in self defence? -- And if that's ok, where should we draw the line for "self defence"? For example, in the story mentioned earlier about the shooting in the Toys-R-Us store, presumably those people fired because they felt threatened. Does that count as self defence?

Yes.

No.

If they're threatening you with deady force, yes.

The part where it says "wasn't shopping related" and "would not answer a question about whether the shooting was gang-related" are quite telling. These gang members are the people who don't pay attention to your silly gun laws anyway.

[EDIT]

I swear, you guys are as scared of guns as Joe Sixpack is scared of computers (although the smartphone trend is fixing that). Think about that a minute. And like I said above, the liberal media cherry picking weird occasional events to make gun owners look nutty is easy among a population of 300 million. You can find weird stuff anywhere. Here's Darth Vader playing the bagpipes while riding a unicycle.

Then there's the part where it says that according to eye-witness accounts, one of the men drew a gun after the woman with him got into a bloody brawl with another woman. Doesn't sound gang-related to me. The usual reason the police would not answer a question like that is that they can neither reliably confirm nor deny it.

OK, if he used deadly force to break up a catfight, put him in jail and throw away the key or execute him. A Darwin Award imposed by society.

I doubt that he was actually intending to shoot in the direction of the two women fighting, if only because he could hit his own wife\girlfriend. It just didn't occur to him that the other guy might also have a gun and perceive him as a deadly threat.

If it were common for people to carry guns, he wouldn't have failed like that.

We are talking about a guy who tried to break up a cat-fight by threatening with a gun! It's a very generous assumption that people like that would stop and consider the possibility that the other woman might have a husband who happens to carry a gun, even if guns were more common.

Really? Most people have the sense to look before crossing the street, lest they be flattened by a flatbed truck, don't they? It's a habitual thing for common dangers.

Most people have the sense to not draw a gun in a toy store to break up a catfight. What's your point?

[EDIT]

Well, I kind of get your point, but you're just assuming that if gun laws were more loose, people carrying guns in a toy store would be as common as cars that can run you over on the road.

Ok, I suppose we have to call a truce and agree to disagree here. As to that pendulum, it'll swing both ways eventually, just like hemlines and the stock market. But I don't like the current situation.

Yeah, a forum full of "nobody's" (compared to senators) debating topics that government have been debating for 20+ years now with no agreement. Everyone has their own point of view on both and no one will change that so they start bringing up points for or against it according to their opinion on it. I'm neutral on guns when I think about it because I've been on both sides of it and seen that the outcome is negative in regards to guns. Religion on the other hand I don't care about as it is just a construct of man. I mean God is "all knowing, all powerful, and against homosexuality" so why does He allow them to be born knowing they will become what he is against? The one I love is what George Carlin points out, He has a list of 10 things you are not to do. If you do any of those 10 things, He will send you to a special place where you will burn, suffer, be tortured for all eternity, but He loves you. Won't touch a guy being followed around by a group of men and a prostitute. Then you get the other religions that have odd beginnings like that. Even Religions that say there is no God or worship Satan.

Depends, a lot of stories popping up about people losing limbs or getting life threatening infections from wounds. I remember reading a woman had cut her index finger with a cleaned knife, and a few days later had lost her entire arm and shoulder due to flesh eating bacteria that had somehow got into the wound. With all the bacteria we have, anything is possible .

I've been drinking, and as a result giving up on programming for the moment, and listening to my collection of mp3 music files. Each one brings back some sort of memory (or else I wouldn't have saved it) and ATM growing old doesn't seem so bad, with all these experiences I have in my mind. Maybe you think I'm some sort of old fogie, but if we could sit and talk in real time it might be mind-expanding, if not instructive.

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I remember reading something once that when Jesus said to turn the other cheek, he didn't mean to submit to getting hit twice, but to force the aggressor to strike with the palm instead of the back of the hand, i.e. make him hit like a girl. OTOH, I think a palm slap is much more effective.

Uhm, that interpretation makes no sense:

While I would say the statements are purposefully exaggerated to maximize effect, he's obviously referring to pacifism or non-violence at some level.

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The most bizarre thing happened about a year ago. I wrote this short "essay" on the idea of "Turn the other cheek", quoting the same as Matthew's last post. It was on my mind after having a huge intelligent discussion with a fellow Catholic raised friend. I wrote it as a sort of journaling exercise, and it wasn't intended for anything in particular, I do that occasionally.

At the time I was going to college and taking the bus. It was winter, but it was relatively mild. When I got off the bus to transfer, this young guy comes up to me and says he can't afford the bus and lives about 1.5km away. It is rare that strangers ever ask me for anything, but I figure whatever, he can walk, and tell him I don't have any money (with a pocket full of change). He gave up on the bus right then and started walking. This strange guilt come over me, because I had just written that essay the night before, and I started thinking about it as he was walking away.

I get on the bus and the stop ticker is broken. It just keeps saying, in a robot voice, "Next Stop, Stewart Funeral Home" for ever stop on the way home. I was kind of creeped out.

A week later the same guy asked me for bus fare, and I gave it to him immediately and wish I could have given more. He thanked me, said his name was John, and that he'd buy me a timmies sometime.

... the next time I saw him he told me my sister was a lesbian (he didn't know her, thought I was someone else), was still bumming bus fares, and smelled like a mixture of urine and wet dog.

I really don't know what to think about the whole situation.

Thanks for reading! Continue on your way....

I would have dropped him, and pissed on his face.

Somebody had obviously done that already.

For some reason this reminds me when yesterday i had to work a few hours overtime and so only caught the train at 10pm to go home. It's a small local train out in the country with few people on at that time. At one station a drunk (I assume) tried to enter, but he fell right next to my window and had trouble standing up again. And I wondered if I should go to the door and hold it open for him or tell the ticket collector someone has fallen next to the train. But I just watched for a minute or two until the train rolled off again (with the guy still struggling to get up) and felt bad about it.

Hm, and not sure how this is relevant...

In Toronto, stuff like this is pretty common....but in Sarnia, I guess not.

http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/national/details.asp?c=43959

The strangest part about that article:

...so yeah, probably not as uncommon in that freakshow city...

The 50 movie extra hopefuls who were told to dress like that didn't show up.

I found that strange too. In particular, because it seems like it would make the gunman stand out, but the article implies that he's a pro. I don't understand, but meh.

Insert: Then again, it might mask his identity. Presumably his face was covered and he was wearing bright colors, and probably looked like some kind of construction worker. If that was the case though then how did they identify him?