I usually just sort of use whatever is to hand. Butane, rubbing alcohol, gasoline, carb cleaner, but these are all pretty flammable and/or toxic (WD-40 is good for some things, but then *that* is hard to clean off). If Monster works, that sounds good. So, like, does Doctor Pepper or Coke work too? I don't care for Monster, but I can drink the rest of the Doctor Pepper. Mountain Dew if I have to.

@MilkmanDan, excellent points all round.

I'm not a gun owner, and I have no interest in buying one for self-defence, but I have fired guns a few times (at shooting ranges or clay pigeon shoots) and it's an undeniably fun activity. I could also see myself going hunting for food at some point.

Jim Jeffries makes an excellent point in his gun control rant.
"fuck off, I like guns" is actually a reasonable argument. If you like something and you're not harming anyone with it, why should it be taken from you? After all, many "anti-gun" (or more accurately "pro-gun control") people will make the same argument FOR drugs. "I'm just smoking some weed/having a beer in my house. I'm not hurting anyone, just leave me alone".

But the thing is unless you're a hardcore libertarian, almost everyone agrees that there should be some sensible limits on drugs. Even for legal drugs like alcohol, we mandate that you must be a certain age (older than you have to be to buy a gun, which is lunacy to me) and that you can't drive drunk, etc.

The sad thing is, there's near universal agreement on this, even in the US. The vast majority of people are in favour of the kind of simple, common-sense regulations you mention.

It's just that the politicians are in the pocket of the NRA. As one of shooting survivors pointed out "We should change the names of AR-15s to “Marco Rubio” because they are so easy to buy", and I cannot say how much I want to stand up and applaud that epic burn.

Except NZ's gun laws were already stricter than Australias. To get an AR15 here, buyers must have a standard, current firearms licence and an approved police order form. If the clip has a higher capacity than 7 rounds, you need a special endorsement. Also, you must have proper storage for firearms which the police will inspect before granting a licence.

Oh, and you will have difficulty being deemed 'fit and proper' to possess or use firearms if you have:

a history of violence
repeated involvement with drugs
been irresponsible with alcohol
a personal or social relationship with people deemed to be unsuitable to be given access to firearms
indicated an intent to use a firearm for self-defence.

That's a direct quote from the police licence page

I don't really have a problem with owning guns and it's certainly not "all or nothing".

My issue with the gun arguments in the states is that they're asking the wrong questions. The problem isn't the guns, it's why you seem to think you need them.

No other developed nation has this issue. The rest of the world all have guns, we're just responsible with them. We're ok with reasonable legislation and we don't have a lunatic fringe screaming about tyranny if we can't own assault rifles.

Most importantly, no civilised country thinks you need a gun for self-defence. A) we have police for that and b) most of us just aren't afraid that someone is coming to kill us... because they aren't.

I don't think there's an easy fix to America's gun problems. Fundamentally I think the issue is cultural rather than regulatory, but honestly, at this stage, you're like a bunch of kids, who need their toys taken off them until they can prove they're mature enough to use them properly.

If someone is an alcoholic, the most important thing isn't taking the booze away, it's getting them to admit there's a problem. But sometimes, you need to take the booze away long enough for them to sober up and admit there's a problem.

Oh, God. That nightmare is back.......
Tech support calls from hell. Trying to remove that damn purple monkey from people's computer caused a lot of drug and alcohol abuse among call center employees...
I actually told customers the only way to make sure it was removed was Fdisk, format, and recovery. Or take the system outside, douse with gasoline and set on fire or both just to be sure.....

Erm... How would making alcohol illegal help, exactly? Amateurs making alcohol are much more dangerous than amateurs growing weed. The stuff can poison you or leave you blind.

Ok...his brother died from alcoholism, which turned him hard core against drugs like opioids and marijuana, and a little bit against alcohol.
Typical Trump, misidentify a problem then attack something else. Want to help keep citizens alive? Make marijuana legal and alcohol illegal. States with legal marijuana all have lowered rates of opioid deaths in their states.

However, Bay Area Metro (Caltrans) has no problem with alcohol consumption. Just sayin'

I love how people make the "this thing kills people too" argument, and then talk about a thing that is more strongly regulated than guns.

Also, while there might 80000 deaths a year due to alcohol, an estimated 140,000,000 people drink alcohol in the US, so the death rate is actually pretty low.

Apples to oranges.

80,000 alcohol deaths from my quick google are of a medical nature due to consumption. Those numbers are from users dying from disease(direct and indirect). If the 11,000 homicide gun deaths were gun owners dying because they owned guns i don't think it would be quite the issue.

Alcohol kills 80,000 a year, more than all other drugs combined. And the only benefit? Beer goggles. Time to end this menace once and for all.

Yep.

Sugar is basically rocket fuel for your body, it's insanely useful for burning large amounts of energy quickly, and since we evolved in a low sugar environment, your body is trained to want it.

But these days we live in a sugar saturated environment where most people don't do anywhere near as much physical work, so the sugar is never burnt off. It's not meant to be a staple food.

Also, your liver basically treats sugar the same as alcohol. Not only does it make you fat, but it also suppresses your bodies natural "I'm full" reaction. Worst of all are high fructose corn syrup soft drinks.

Basically, if you wouldn't give your kid a beer... don't give them coke either. Coke = beer without the drunkenness.

Can't argue that. I've been in California so long that the idea of smoking inside a business didn't even occur to me. The 'in private homes with children and apartments or townhouses' part I find draconian and unenforceable...and we have them here.
On a side note, I also find it distasteful that cigars get lumped in with cigarettes. As far as I know, there have been few if any studies on second hand cigar smoke, which has none of the toxic additives most cigarettes have so produce a different smoke. I'm not saying it's good for you, just that it hasn't been proven to be the same kind of toxicity....yet they are now taxed the same here, doubling the price overnight. (If you can't tell, I'm bitter, I can't afford them now)

True, cars have far more utility (except to tobacco farmers) but are also far more damaging in many ways. It's not meant to be a logical argument, it's more about getting people to see that they also pollute the air (a normal complaint I hear about smokers) in a directly more deadly and indirectly disastrous way, and I hope they will consider that before angrily deriding someone for a cigarette. It's a disguised 'people in glass houses' argument.

Sadly, yes, smoking is an easy target today....alcohol could be tomorrow, or marijuana again (just became legal here)....I don't like our governments going after the easy targets heavy handedly just because they can. It's too easy to portray something or someone as an easy target and go after it solely because a small persuasive group finds it distasteful.

To play devils advocate, there are a few positive sides to smoking...smoking tastes good (to smokers), it acts as a stimulant/depressant and appetite suppressor, it supports an industry of farmers and for cigars, hand rollers, and it helps thin out the herd. ;-)