[Garak]

The problem with the USA is that they've got more guns in civilian hands than population. That is totally insane.

How do even recover all those guns, from the hands of gun nuts at that? Since at this point it doesn't matter if you stop selling those guns (like the industry will let you choke their cash flow), there are already so many on the streets it's stupid.

And I really can't understand why they think every Time, Dick and Harry having a gun makes them safer.

[HoosierDaddy]

 Garak, on 11 July 2023 - 06:24 AM, said:

....

And I really can't understand why they think every Time, Dick and Harry having a gun makes them safer.

It's a catch-22 problem. Only way to protect yourself from a person with a gun, is by having your own gun. So now you have a gun, the only way another person can protect themself is by having a gun. Ad infinitum.

The real solution is that NO ONE has guns outside of government control, but some people REALLY love their guns and REALLY REALLY hate government (see the first part of my signature from one Tehol Beddict). Like "out of my cold dead hands" love their guns. It has to be a psychological power thing there. I don't get it and probably never will because of the sheer fucking absurdity of the situation.


Gun guy: "Hey, we just had a mass killing by a civilian with an assault rifle, he's lucky I wasn't there with my guns otherwise I would have got 'em!"

Other person: We should probably just ban guns not protected by the 2nd amendment, you know, the national guard/militia ones, so you don't need it in the first place.

Gun guy: "Ban guns? Fuck that, are you crazy?!? Deprive myself of protection from the assault rifle guy? I'll shoot the first mother fucker with my guns who TRIES to ban 'em. I've got to protect my family!"

Other person: First, you are single and don't have a family. Secondly, we'll take his guns too.

Gun guy: "What do you mean you're going to take his gun too! What if he/she hides it?"

Other person: Then once we find it, we'll sentence him to prison for a long, long time and any crime he commits with it will be super aggravated when it comes to sentencing/add on very strict prison sentences.

Gun guy: "That's stupid when I can just keep them safe myself. I'll just keep myself and my family protected with my OWN guns. I can hit a bullseye at 50 yards! John Wayne ain't got nothing on me, man!"

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 11 July 2023 - 03:00 PM

[worry]

That's good, but I think it's more like...
2A Warrior: We need guns to prevent federal government overreach.
Normal Guy: Okay, uh, good luck with that. I'm sure you'll win against the US military.

2A Warrior: Heh I've heard that one before, but it's really the deep state -- a phrase I heard roughly 60 months ago -- that I have a lifelong beef with. By the way, my aversion to the federal government -- in particular the FBI -- has nothing at all to do with my affiliation with extremely conservative patriarchal forms of Christianity, or my constant cheerleading for the sleaziest grifter on earth's plan to rip immigrant children from their parents and funnel them into a labyrinthine fundie-run foster care system, or the fact that I can't shut up about children's genitals and reflexively accuse all my enemies of being child predators, and I inject this fixation into every 'culture war' conversation I ever have but also it's bleeding into every interaction I have just in general, and by the way please don't bring up that the very obvious conservative MO is projection. You shouldn't consider any of that, separately or together, in analyzing my pathological need to build an arsenal to protect myself, I mean everybody's Constitutional rights, from big government.

Normal Guy: *Halfway down the street already and still accelerating*

[Gorefest]

 HoosierDaddy, on 11 July 2023 - 02:58 PM, said:

The real solution is that NO ONE has guns outside of government control, but some people REALLY love their guns and REALLY REALLY hate government (see the first part of my signature from one Tehol Beddict). Like "out of my cold dead hands" love their guns. It has to be a psychological power thing there. I don't get it and probably never will because of the sheer fucking absurdity of the situation.

I'd say it is slightly more nuanced. Although I have no experiences with this myself, coming from a densely populated small country, I can fully appreciate that if you live in a rural environment far away from direct access to services, there is a genuine case to be made for having access to fire arms for e.g. hunting, wildlife control or even personal protection. I don't necessarily see any problem with that, as long as the gun ownership comes with some training and registration requirements. Where things just get completely bonkers is when this concept of self defence and frontier spirit is being taken into densely populated areas (e.g. big cities) and is extended to all manner of fire arms that have no relevance to personal protection, hunting or other legitimate reasons (assault rifles etc). It should be blatantly obvious that there is a difference between these two situations, but this distinction seems to be completely and tragically lost in the US to the point where it has become a very dark parody of itself.

[Macros]

I also think the line "there are more guns than people in the US" needs torn apart.

Nowhere near everyone in the US has or wants a gun.
Have that many been sold? Sure. But there are guys with hundreds of guns, there are guns buried and lost all over the country as well. Legislation is 5he answer, stop being so fucking dumb USA

[amphibian]

 Macros, on 11 July 2023 - 04:01 PM, said:

I also think the line "there are more guns than people in the US" needs torn apart.

Nowhere near everyone in the US has or wants a gun.
Have that many been sold? Sure. But there are guys with hundreds of guns, there are guns buried and lost all over the country as well. Legislation is 5he answer, stop being so fucking dumb USA

I think it's like 35% of American adults that have a gun. There's a big chunk that have 1-3 guns, some that have 4-6, and a small percentage that have dozens to thousands of guns.

It's my view that people who get past 5 guns often end up sliding into dozens because they keep putting money into it. They just keep going and going, motivated by fear, hoarding, and some kind of pride in having that many.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 amphibian, on 11 July 2023 - 04:36 PM, said:

 Macros, on 11 July 2023 - 04:01 PM, said:

I also think the line "there are more guns than people in the US" needs torn apart.

Nowhere near everyone in the US has or wants a gun.
Have that many been sold? Sure. But there are guys with hundreds of guns, there are guns buried and lost all over the country as well. Legislation is 5he answer, stop being so fucking dumb USA

I think it's like 35% of American adults that have a gun. There's a big chunk that have 1-3 guns, some that have 4-6, and a small percentage that have dozens to thousands of guns.

It's my view that people who get past 5 guns often end up sliding into dozens because they keep putting money into it. They just keep going and going, motivated by fear, hoarding, and some kind of pride in having that many.

Imagining someone sitting like a dragon sprawled out on their hoard (of guns)... or diving in like Scrooge McDuck.

Quote

32% of Americans say they personally own a firearm according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey.

How Many Guns are in the US? [2023]

2021 National Firearms Survey

Quote

share of American households owning at least one firearm has remained relatively steady since 1972, hovering between 37 percent and 47 percent. In 2022, about 45 percent of U.S. households had at least one gun in their possession.

Gun ownership in the U.S. 1972-2022 | Statista

Quote

according to a 2017 survey from Pew Research Center [...] 48% of White men say they own a gun [...] 44% of adults who identify as Republican or lean Republican say they own a gun

[...] a report published in 2017 [...] of the [...] privately owned firearms in the US, about half are owned by 3% of the US adult population. And while about half of gun owners own one or two guns, 8% of gun owners own 10 or more – [...] about 40% of the total US gun stock

What studies reveal about gun ownership in the US | CNN

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

in 2022, 48 percent of Republicans reported that they owned at least one gun, and 66 percent said that they lived in a household with a gun

Gun ownership, by party affiliation U.S. 2022 | Statista

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 Macros, on 11 July 2023 - 04:01 PM, said:

Legislation is 5he answer, stop being so fucking dumb USA

The current Supreme Court's interpretation of the second amendment blocks most gun control legislation; amending the second amendment would require a two-thirds majority of the Senate, which has exactly two representatives from each state, and three-fourths of State legislatures. Voters in more than 1/3rd of states are very opposed to gun control. So it's almost certainly not going to happen anytime soon. (Though if any brave free spirit would like to assassinate the right-wingers on the Supreme Court while Biden still has time left in his term to confirm new justices... well, guns can sometimes have their uses. But explosives or poisons would probably be more effective... hack a nearby missile system? How's that ad go, Boom boom boom... what fool would bring ten thousand guns to a missile fight?)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 11 July 2023 - 06:05 PM

[worry]

SCOTUS will decide next year if it's Constitutional to prevent domestic abusers from owning guns. Based on this case...

Quote

The case focuses on Zackey Rahimi, a man living in Arlington, Texas, who agreed to a protective order in February 2020 after allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend. While the order expressly prohibited Rahimi from possessing a firearm, he was involved in five shootings in and around the city of Arlington between December 2020 and January 2021. After police officers found firearms at his home, Rahimi pled guilty to violating the Federal Firearms Act. This past spring, however, an appeals court vacated Rahimi's conviction on the grounds that the 1994 amendment was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. In doing so, the court relied on last year's landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that said modern gun regulations must be consistent with historical traditions of firearm regulation. From here on out, courts are only supposed to look at legal understandings at the time that the Bill of Rights was enacted when assessing whether a modern gun regulation is permissible under the Second Amendment.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 worry, on 11 July 2023 - 06:25 PM, said:

SCOTUS will decide next year if it's Constitutional to prevent domestic abusers from owning guns. Based on this case...

Quote

The case focuses on Zackey Rahimi, a man living in Arlington, Texas, who agreed to a protective order in February 2020 after allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend. While the order expressly prohibited Rahimi from possessing a firearm, he was involved in five shootings in and around the city of Arlington between December 2020 and January 2021. After police officers found firearms at his home, Rahimi pled guilty to violating the Federal Firearms Act. This past spring, however, an appeals court vacated Rahimi's conviction on the grounds that the 1994 amendment was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. In doing so, the court relied on last year's landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that said modern gun regulations must be consistent with historical traditions of firearm regulation. From here on out, courts are only supposed to look at legal understandings at the time that the Bill of Rights was enacted when assessing whether a modern gun regulation is permissible under the Second Amendment.

Yeah, they're almost certainly going to axe it unless two conservatives die in time.

Where'd I put my killer robots... oh right, in the future. Drats!

AI doomers seriously think rogue AI's going to be smart enough to manipulate humans into doing whatever It wants. So if they're right about that, there might still be some hope for persuading gun nuts to give up their arms (or more properly: their surrogate penises)....

Between the current threat from missiles and the future threat from bulletproof robots, without much hope of getting (and keeping) effective anti-missile defense systems, the best option for hardcore gun nuts really does seem to be networks of underground bunkers. Deep underground.

Sealed well enough against the outside to keep nanobots or poisonous gasses from getting in (remember the prophetic song: 'We used poisonous gases / And we poisoned their asses').

Nicodimas should like this too; he profits from helping people with their bunker stuff, I profit from investing in the killer robots, people above ground get shot less, people below ground get minimal government intervention as they rapidly mutate into becoming like modern-day aristocrats (which is to say: heavily inbred...). Win-Win-Win-Win!

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 11 July 2023 - 07:12 PM

[Gorefest]

The worst thing is that I can genuinely never tell when you are serious and when you are joking.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 Gorefest, on 11 July 2023 - 07:59 PM, said:

The worst thing is that I can genuinely never tell when you are serious and when you are joking.

The worst is that reality is serious (and, for humans at least, tragicomic---and absurdly contingent)---and that includes the manifold difficulties of striving for truth through empirical rationality despite our (in many aspects widely varying) conditioning and human prejudices. If it's vague (I'm assuming that your use of 'never' is obvious hyperbole) and I want to make sure you know I'm being completely serious I'll generally say so. If I don't and the reasoning (or the possibility of the simulations becoming reality) seems too horrifying to contemplate, feel free to dismiss it as mere comedy (the future will happen largely independently of whether we here want it to or not... unless of course some of you assassinate the conservatives on the Supreme Court!---which of course I don't seriously expect (or want) anyone here to actually do, though if they were assassinated it would in all seriousness be one of the most realistic paths to gun control legislation in the near future (assuming Biden and the Senate wouldn't be sentimental and foolish enough to insist on replacing them with more far right justices) and might be a net positive despite the drawbacks (though they're obviously not as bad as Putin---probably not even as bad as Trump right now...); and obviously it would be better if one of you could persuade them to see reason (a Supreme Court justice being persuaded by reason?... that's definitely high fantasy (kidding---but not about gun control...))).

If the US ever does pass strict gun control laws it will be far enough in the future that sending in bulletproof robots to seize the guns may well be an economical option. I was kidding about the 'killer' part of 'killer robots'---mostly kidding at least. One of the main points in favor of sending robots is that there's then no need for anyone to get killed (and after capturing the illegal gun owners alive and mostly uninjured, even more lives can be saved by harvesting their organs (kidding---because while that is of course true, by then human internal organs will probably be next to worthless)... and their own lives could perhaps be saved (from their own homi-sui-cidal tendencies) with some neurological interventions). Maybe tiny flying robots (with or without tentacles...)?

Of course the US government doesn't seriously need to use missiles to take out gun nut extremists, even if they barricade themselves in some complex (like the Branch Davidians iirc). Maybe tanks would be better? Some bulletproof construction equipment (or giant robots) to tear open the complex? Some explosives might be necessary.

But assuming the underground bunkers can't easily be collapsed in from above, and they can effectively be sealed against poison gas and nanobots, then ridiculous and impractical as it may seem, it might actually be their best option. And if they stay down there they probably won't cause much trouble for anyone on the surface (unless they're able to tunnel near populated areas without being detected, and pop up to cause mayhem... maybe possible but not very likely).

And Nicodimas should then make a tidy profit. So we should all be happy.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 July 2023 - 11:53 AM

[QuickTidal]

 Macros, on 11 July 2023 - 06:03 AM, said:

I assumed all of Azaths posts above were tongue in cheek leaning into absurdism as hard as possible.

Dark comedy, but comedy none the less

huh, I did not get that.

 Gorefest, on 11 July 2023 - 07:59 PM, said:

The worst thing is that I can genuinely never tell when you are serious and when you are joking.

This. It came across as completely serious to me, and with the added links and quotes all over the place it's hard to tell.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 QuickTidal, on 12 July 2023 - 12:15 PM, said:

 Macros, on 11 July 2023 - 06:03 AM, said:

I assumed all of Azaths posts above were tongue in cheek leaning into absurdism as hard as possible.

Dark comedy, but comedy none the less

huh, I did not get that.

 Gorefest, on 11 July 2023 - 07:59 PM, said:

The worst thing is that I can genuinely never tell when you are serious and when you are joking.

This. It came across as completely serious to me, and with the added links and quotes all over the place it's hard to tell.

lol

Thought the bit about prominently displaying gigantic screens at the hotel showing people getting shot and surviving because of the bulletproof clothing / accessories (should have added: in slow motion) was enough of a giveaway that I wasn't being completely serious... obviously that would terrify people. So they should have it outside the hotel (though I imagine the hotelier and local government might object to any prominent public display for tourists...). But I do think bulletproof clothing and accessories should be marketed to tourists to the United States.

And yes in all seriousness I do favor (for the United States at least) bulletproof robot security guards armed with nonlethal weapons (monitored by humans who can take control of them---for the time being; I don't think hackers are a substantial threat). Tentacles administering injected nanobots---kidding about that (well, mostly... it depends on the empirical reality of the future).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 July 2023 - 12:56 PM

[worry]

Not to brag but I have near-perfect Azath joke-dar. Only thing I'm not sure of is that time he said he woke up suddenly at 3AM and saw Grimes staring at him from the foot of his bed.

[QuickTidal]

 worry, on 12 July 2023 - 01:03 PM, said:

Not to brag but I have near-perfect Azath joke-dar. Only thing I'm not sure of is that time he said he woke up suddenly at 3AM and saw Grimes staring at him from the foot of his bed.

I will in fact go on record as saying that the only king of comedy on this board I will accept is Worry. Anything else is a pale imitation.

[Primateus]

 Azath Vitr (D, on 12 July 2023 - 12:54 PM, said:

Thought the bit about prominently displaying gigantic screens at the hotel showing people getting shot and surviving because of the bulletproof clothing / accessories (should have added: in slow motion) was enough of a giveaway that I wasn't being completely serious... obviously that would terrify people. So they should have it outside the hotel (though I imagine the hotelier and local government might object to any prominent public display for tourists...). But I do think bulletproof clothing and accessories should be marketed to tourists to the United States.

They should have those in schools, totally.

[Gorefest]

 QuickTidal, on 12 July 2023 - 01:08 PM, said:

 worry, on 12 July 2023 - 01:03 PM, said:

Not to brag but I have near-perfect Azath joke-dar. Only thing I'm not sure of is that time he said he woke up suddenly at 3AM and saw Grimes staring at him from the foot of his bed.

I will in fact go on record as saying that the only king of comedy on this board I will accept is Worry. Anything else is a pale imitation.

Makes sense. You can only take out a high mage cadre so often before it goes stale.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

What's behind America's gun-buying spree

[...] a study of individuals who said they were planning to purchase a first or second firearm during the early days of the pandemic found that would-be buyers were more likely to see the world as dangerous and threatening than individuals who were not planning to purchase a firearm.

[...] more likely to agree strongly with statements like "People can't be trusted," "People are not what they seem" [too much sarcasm?...] and "You need to watch your back," ...]

[...] also more fearful of uncertainty. They tended to strongly agree with statements such as "Unforeseen events upset me greatly" and "I don't like not knowing what comes next [so I will shoot it! look it in the eye and shoot it in the pupils' gaping maws... even if those pupils are my own---better to die free / than to live in woeful uncertainty!]"

[...] While the shocks were administered, participants were given a friend's hand, a metal object or a prop that looked and felt like a pistol [...] For participants who grew up around guns, holding the prop that resembled a firearm provided the greatest comfort

[...] "The idea behind embodiment is that your ability to act in the environment changes how you literally see the environment," [...] "Gun embodiment gets at the idea of the old colloquialism 'When you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'"

Why Some Americans Buy Guns - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

... everything looks like a bullseye?... Or like cross-hairs (holiest of holies criss-crossing our matrices)...

Everything looks like a cross between a video game, a vigilante movie, and a dangerous target?... The trigger as an extension of your brain, or your inner 'self'.... Everything looks like a trigger warning?

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 17 July 2023 - 02:52 PM