Lawrence Wilkerson's dismissive comments about self defense are very disrespectful to people who have had to resort to self defense. He wouldn't say things like that had he been unfortunate enough to have had such a personal experience. (As one parent of a Fla victim said - his child would have given anything for a firearm at the time of the event.)

Re. 2nd amendment, yes, it's not for pure self defense. The reasoning is provided within the text. The government is denied legal powers over gun ownership ('shall not be infringed') in order to preserve the ability of the people to form a civilian paramilitary intended to face [presumably invading] foreign militaries in combat ('militia').

It's important to remember that the U.S. is a republic - so the citizens are literally the state (not in abstract, but actually so). As such, there is very little distinction between self defense and state defense - given that self and state are one.

Personally, I believe any preventative law is a moral non-starter. Conceptually they rely on doling out punishment via rights-denial to all people, because some subset might do harm. Punishment should be reserved for those that trespass on others - violating their domain (body/posessions/etc). Punishment should not be preemptive, simply to satiate the fears/imaginations of persons not affected by those punished. Simply, there should be no laws against private activities among consenting individuals. Folks don't have to like what other folks do, and they don't have to be liked either. It's enough to just leave one another alone in peace.

Re. Fla, the guilty party is dead. People should not abuse government to commit 3rd party trespass onto innocent disliked demographics (gun owners) just to lash out. Going after groups of people out of fear or dislike is unjustified.







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As an aside, the focus on "assault rifles" makes gun control advocates appear not sincere, and rather knee-jerk/emotional. Practically all gun killings utilize pistols.

There are only around 400 or so total rifle deaths per year (for all kinds of rifles combined) - which is almost as many as the people who die each year by falling out of bed (ever considered a bed to be deadly? With 300 million people, even low likelihood events must still happen reasonably often. It's important to keep in mind the likelihood, and not simply the totals.).

Around 10'000 people die each day out of all causes. Realistically, rifles of all sorts, especially assault rifles, are not consequential enough to merit special attention - given the vast ocean of far more deadly things to worry about.

If they were calling for a ban+confiscation of all pistols, with a search of every home and facility in the U.S., then I'd consider the advocates to be at least making sense regarding the objective of reducing gun related death.

Also, since sidearms have less utility in a military application, a pistol ban is less anti-2nd-amendment than an assault rifle ban.







As a technical point, ar15s are not actually assault rifles - they just look like one (m4/m16).
Assault rifles are named after the German Sturm Gewehr (storm rifle). It's a rifle that splits the difference between a sub-machinegun (automatic+pistol ammo) and a battle rifle (uses normal rifle/hunting ammo).

- SMG is easy to control in automatic, but has limited damage. (historical example : ppsh-41)

- Battle rifles do lots of damage, but are hard to control (lots of recoil, using full power hunting ammo). (historical example : AVT-40)

- An 'assault rifle' uses something called an 'intermediate cartridge'. It's a shrunken down, weaker version of hunting ammo. A non-high-power rifle round, that keeps recoil in check when shooting automatic. It's stronger than a pistol, but weaker than a normal rifle. But that weakness makes it controllable in automatic fire. (historical example : StG-44)

- The ar15 has no automatic fire. This defeats the purpose of using weak ammo (automatic controlability). So in effect, it's just a weak normal rifle. (The M4/M16 have automatic, so they can make use of the weak ammo to manage recoil - and they happen to look the same).

Practically speaking, a semi-auto hunting rifle is more lethal. A Remington 7400 with box mag is a world deadlier than an ar15. An M1A looks like a hunting rifle, and is likewise deadlier than an ar15. Neither are viewed as evil or dangerous.

You can also get hunting rifles that shoot intermediate cartridges (eg. Ruger Mini14). The lethality is identical to an ar15, but because it doesn't look black and scary, no one complains.

In practice, what makes the ar15 scary is its appearance. The pistol grip, the adjustable stock, the muzzle device, the black color, all are visual identifiers, and those visuals have become politically more important than what it actually does.

You can see the lack of firearms awareness in the proposed laws - proposed bans focus on those visual features. No pistol grips, no adjustable stocks, etc. Basically a listing of ancillary features that evoke scary appearance, and nothing to do with the core capabilities of a firearm.

What has made the ar15 the most popular rifle in the country, is that it has very good ergonomics, and is very friendly to new shooters. The low recoil doesn't scare new shooters away, and the great customizability makes it like a gun version of a tuner-car.

I think its massive success, popularity, and widespread adoption, have made it the most likely candidate to be used in a shooting. It's cursed to be on-hand whenever events like Fla happen.

-scheherazade

We'll have to agree to disagree.

I guarantee you that history will show that I am correct.

There is a reason that so many intelligent thoughtful people all over the political spectrum are seeing this as a genuine threat to our Republic.

So. Yeah. Fact. Well informed people don't hesitate to say this. He is unqualified to be President of the United States of America.

EDIT: I'm solidly Democrat, and as much as I hated George W for his policy choices and manipulation of the American public over the Iraq Invasion, I always said -- he is doing what he thinks is the right thing to do. He's wrong, but he thinks he is right.

History is bearing me out on that call, too.

I'm not a knee jerk partisan who thinks that my "side" knows everything and has to get our way. We need conservatives, we need both sides of the story to struggle towards the best, albeit imperfect, solution.

Donald is unfit for the office.

That would be great, who should I speak to about changing that culture of ours?

As far as letting people fly, I never said I agree with it. I was referring to it because President Obama used it as an example. I said, somewhat sarcastically, that it wasn't a constitutional right. I never said we SHOULD ban people from flying.

I absolutely do not think we should limit a person's ability to travel based on an arbitrary list, especially since this incident pretty much proves that it doesn't necessarily stop terrorists. If a gun ban was in place, the shooter would still have been able to get weapons because he was removed from the list for some unknown (as of yet) reason.

Yes, in hindsight the Patriot Act should never have been passed. That is one of the main points of what I have been saying. We are in a crisis situation and people are knee-jerking the way they did after 9/11. Do we really need to have our government pass the Patriot Act Part Deux?

I understand the anger, the sadness, even the rage we all are feeling right now because of this incident. I've tried to remain relatively calm and not release vitriol on anyone I've replied to. I'm sure that I might have angered quite a few by not caving on my stance, but I refuse to back down because someone is pissed at me. I am not a member of the NRA. I am a fiscal conservative, a constitutionalist, and yet still a liberalist when it comes to personal life styles or choices. I've voted Republican, Democrat, Independent, and Libertarian. I think the fact that Paul Ryan ignored a possible discussion on gun laws is a bunch of horseshit. We should be able to at least talk about things, even if we might not agree with each other.

True, the constitution has some screwed up parts. However, there is a process in place to make or change amendments. If the bulk of the United States decides to repeal the 2nd Amendment, using the methods in place to do so, so be it. I'd give my guns up in that case. If the legislature decides to pass an unconstitutional law as a knee jerk reaction to a terrorist act, then they aren't getting them. The problem with unconstitutional laws, by the way, is that SCOTUS can always wink at the bill of rights and say that it is constitutional. I don't care for that, but again, it is a legal interpretation of the document if they do it. I'd give up my guns if that happened.

I don't even really have an issue if we go back to the assault weapon ban of the 90's. I get that we can make some changes and cut down on these incidents. I'm just extremely leery of package deals like lets ban everyone who ends up on a list from having weapons based on a government decision. You give someone due process to avoid being on the list, like we do to people accused of felonies before they are convicted, no problem. But as it stands, our President is just tossing an idea out there that absolutely violates multiple rights and people are eating it up like it was candy.

That is not the point. Government works a certain way and rarely is it in the favor of individual liberties. We knee jerked after 9/11 and created the Patriot Act, you know, the set of rules that gave us torture, drone strikes/raids into sovereign nations without their permission, and the NSA checking everything.

If you ban people from one of their constitutional rights because they end up on a government watchlist, then you have set a precedent for further banning. Then next we can torture people in lieu of the 5th amendment because they are on a watchlist (oh wait, we sorta already did that to a couple of us citizens in Guantanamo). The FBI fucked up and removed this guy from surveillance, even though he had ample terrorist cred. That shouldn't have happened, but should we lose our freedom because of their screw up?

If he left because of his conscience, doesn't that lend some credence to his claims? I mean, if he disagreed with what was happening out there and stayed anyway, he'd definitely have no integrity.

This isn't the 1900s - if a person objects we don't instantly assume cowardice or questionable integrity. We can forgive people knee-deep in the shit for calling him a few names over it, but we can't be so glib about it in a debate or on here. Or maybe you didn't mean that and you can clarify why his integrity is questionable.

I don't know if it is or isn't, but in the debate above it was clearly an attempt to discredit the person rather than the argument; he literally discredited the person because he was losing the argument.

The inherently chaotic event that exists in the otherwise predictable / trainable environment of driving a car is the unplanned / unmeasured disturbance. In control systems that are adaptive or self learning, the unplanned disturbance is the killer - a short duration, unpredictable event for which the system is unable to respond to within the control limits that have been defined through training, programming and/or adaptation. The response to an unplanned disturbance is often to default to an instruction that is very much human derived (ie. stop, exit gracefully, terminate instruction, wait until conditions return to controllable boundary conditions or freeze in place) which, depending on the disturbance, can be catastrophic. In our world, with humans behind the wheel, let's call the unplanned disturbance the "mistake". A tire blows, a load comes undone, an object falls out of or off of another vehicle (human, dog, watermelon, gas cylinder) etc.

The concern from my perspective (and I work directly with adaptive / learning control systems every day - fundamental models, adaptive neural type predictors, genetic algorithms etc. ) is the response to these short duration / short response time unplanned disturbances. The videos I've seen and the examples that I have reviewed don't deal with these very short timescale events and how to manage the response, which in many cases is an event dependent response. I would guess that the 1st dead person that results from the actions or inaction of self driving vehicles will put a major dent if not halt to the program. Humans may be fallible, but we are remarkably (infinitely?) more adaptive in combined conscious / subconscious responses than any computer is or will be in the near future in both appropriateness of response and the time scale of generating that response.

In the partially controlled environment (ie. there is no such thing as 100%) of a automated warehouse and distribution center, self driving works. In the partially controlled environment where ONLY self driving vehicles are present on the roadways, then again, this technology will likely succeed. The mixed environment with self driving co-mingled with humans (see "fallible" above) is not presently viable, and I don't think will be in the next decade or two, partially due to safety risk and partially due to management of these short timescale unplanned disturbances that can call for vastly different responses depending upon the specific situation at hand. In the flow of traffic we encounter the majority of the time, would agree that this may not be an issue to some (in 44 years of driving, I've been in 2 accidents, so I'll leave the risk assessment to the actuaries). But one death, and we'll see how high the knees jerk. And it will happen.

My 2 cents.
TB

Wow... that looks like it fucking killed his knees on the landing.

"If you care about animals and feel compelled to defend them, chances are you’ve come across knee-jerk accusations claiming you are “pushing your agenda,” forcing your ideas down their throat,” or “spreading propaganda.” So, why don’t other social justice advocates face the same accusations? It is very telling that human rights activists who campaign against violent and exploitative practices, such as sweatshop labor or sex trafficking, are rarely, if ever, criticized for pushing their beliefs on others. On the contrary, these activists are often lauded for their passion and commitment to justice and for exposing injustices."

http://freefromharm.org/common-justifications-for-eating-animals/animal-advocates/

"To close your eyes will not ease another's pain." - Chinese Proverb

"I am always amazed at the intensity of some knee-jerk reactions. You know there’s something seriously wrong in society when people act like heroin addicts in withdrawal at the mere suggestion of a meat-free diet. I can’t help but imagine that all that rage is tortured animal energy manifested." ~Ruby Roth

Huh. How does this work? I mean, this is a pretty elementary question, but it seems it's a pimped-up peg leg - the only actuator is at the ankle, right? So no muscle or motor to bend or extend the knee joint? Which would explain the slightly odd gait - he'd have to throw his foot ahead a bit to get his leg to straighten out.

edit: I'm an idiot. It's a below-the-knee amputation.

"Doing these things as a prelude to proselytizing means they aren't altruistic..."

Altruism isn't the right word. When people help others to their hurt, that is called agape love, a word the Christian community has owned for 2000 years. You're right of course, that more than a few churches out there are always trying to figure out how to get more members, more money etc. But that isn't all the churches, or even nearly so. For instance the churches in this community dont care who goes where; they all work together and no one is taking the credit for it. This is just one counter example to the broad brush strokes you're painting here.

I think you need a little more nuance here too, newtboy; for instance, would you say it is wrong for atheists to do good deeds in the name of atheism? Or, for the red cross to air commercials showing their accomplishments so they could raise more money to expand their mission in the world?

"And yet, here you are calling attention to yourself (and them), so you proved your statement wrong by stating it publicly. Oops! ;-)"

I didn't mention what I do newtboy, but I have no problem calling attention to the righteous who glorify God through their lives.

"Churches are for profit institutions.."

The church according to the bible is a non-profit organization. Whether churches in America reflect that or not is another question entirely. I know for my church, and almost any other church, you can request to see how the church spends its money year by year. None of the churches I have dealings with are making "profits"

"Once again I would ask, why do you question your god's clear wish that I (and others) not believe in him..."

Jesus Christ died for our sins, yours and mine. God already demonstrated His love for us while we were sinners, now the only question is, will you reciprocate? The insanity of the question posed to Stephan Fry, ie what would you say to God, is exposed by the answer "How dare you!" by Stephan. It seems that people believe God is a man who needs to explain Himself, who has something to hide. Yet, Stephan and every other human being have a lot to hide; the brutal and ugly truth of how we have all lived our lives here.

It's easy for a man to say to people who know nothing about him that he will shake his fist at God when they meet. Yet, what will he do when all of his lawless deeds are exposed and the secrets he has kept from everyone are brought to light? All the fight will go out of him immediately, this I guarantee you. Yet, this in itself is still ridiculous, considering that even merely being in Gods presence is enough to make the most hardened sinner fall to his knees and weep uncontrollably. But people won't be weeping because God loves them on that day, they will be weeping and gnashing their teeth after being confronted by the fact that they have missed the boat for eternity.

"Shirley.."

My name isn't Sherlock..

"Doing 100 good deeds and one incredibly evil deed makes one evil. No church in history has ever reached that level of goodness. Churches are evil. I hope that clears things up."

I'm glad you understand what I have been trying to explain to the sift for years; a relative goodness is no goodness at all. If you set fire to someones home, and then built 27 orphanages, would people call you good? Why is it then that people think that all of our good deeds should cause God to forgive us for a single sin? This is the reason Jesus died for us, because we can't earn Gods forgiveness and our good deeds can't erase our bad ones. Could you ever go to court and say "your honor, although I commited this crime I have done over 1000 hours of community service in my lifetime, so please dismiss the case; will that ever happen? That wouldn't be justice, and if God threw out our case without true justice, He wouldn't be a just judge.

What would I say about churches who have done evil? These are institutions; the true church is the body of Christ, of which every born again believer is a member of. That is what is happening in my community, is that no one cares about the institution of the church; they are just being the church. The reward is simply this, to serve God honorably by living a sacrificial life predicated on sacrificial love.

I especially liked the repeating "clearly did not violate established procedures or tactics" part, but no indication that they understand that all that means is the established procedures and/or tactics need to be changed so they know they can't kick people who have surrendered and complied. It sounds a lot like they didn't learn anything and will be paying out more, and larger settlements in the future until the amount is large enough to wake them up.

I also liked the "Edwards acknowledged in his testimony that Wilkens had begun to comply with his commands when he landed the kick, but said he was unable to stop the kick because he “already had the muscles fired” in his right leg." part, like he still doesn't know there's video of him taking 2 steps forward then kicking all while the motorcyclist is going down to his knees. Just so much fail.

EDIT: Oh, I missed the brake fade part. I notice the hood dip, then rebound as he hits, then quickly lets off the brake, accelerates slightly, and turns right into the bike to ram it. Brake fade might let him roll forward slowly, it would not let the front of the car raise up like the brakes were released and accelerator hit, and would not turn the wheel in the direction of the biker. That wasn't brake fade, no way, it was an intentional ramming. I'm a bit surprised that wasn't brought up in court.

Ahhh, a request for a telling of 'the saga of the broken newt'.

The first time was ridiculous, remodeling my bathroom and lifting a heavy cast iron tub by hand, not realizing it was liquid nailed to the sub floor. I crushed a vertebrae, popped a disk, and severed the nerve that operates below the knee. I was completely paralyzed below the knee for over 6 months, then for about 1 1/2 years I had partial feeling and movement, it was like my leg was completely asleep that entire time....and still is to a small extent (weakness, pins and needles).
The second time, I ran my car into a highway divider head on at 55mph and went airborne. Good thing it was an Acura Legend, a tank of a car, or it certainly would have been far worse. I was already so irreparably broken, I didn't even go get another MRI for that one, which was probably a bad idea. I still have extra back pain from that (6+ years after the fact), but it didn't do new nerve damage (that I know of) so I just accepted it as one more injury to add to the (excessively long) list.
I am accident prone, and don't take proper care of myself. I'm now paying for over 4 decades of that behavior.

My knees hurt just watching this.