I just now saw this. My yahoo email account sometimes disappears things on me. I lost another email about the same time.

I absolutely agree with everything you say. Biology is biology. There are differences. Sex is in the workplace, of course, and women bring it there.

I can agree with all these things, and still be creeped out by the indulgence, the wallowing, of only hiring very attractive women.

There is a long history of that in America, and it was creepy then, too. Stewardesses and what they were subjected to in the workplace is a great example. They would lose their -- THEIR WORK -- if they gained five pounds, is an example of really inappropriate use of a woman's appearance as a job qualification. These people are responsible for the safety of the passengers if a tragedy strikes. I love reading stories about how women are heroes and professional when an accident happens.

A shooting range is not a strip club. Wanting to be surrounded by women in your business who COULD work in a strip club is creepy.

Creepy really isn't the right word. It is shorthand for a complex interplay of gender roles and abuses and complicity that is endemic in our culture. I just like the way it feels in my mouth -- I found that Japanese word for it that perfectly explains my pleasure in using it. I am still pleased to know that word exists.

Gitaigo: Onomatopoeia that describes states of being, not sounds.

Creepy perfectly feels like my state of being around this video.

We are all biological beings who like to look at pretty people. Tall men make more money. Attractive people of both genders make more money. We will never be free from those responses.

But lets keep it unconscious, shall we? Let us work to be better human beings than people who reduce ourselves to walking genitalia looking for constant stimulation.

The rest of your points... yeah. I'm right with you. I am not someone who criticizes men for "looking." I find myself looking and I'm pretty firmly on the hetero side of things.

It came up the other day on a hike through the woods. A woman passed me wearing some sort of body hugging stretch pants. There was natural jiggling from her movements, which caught my eye. I found myself staring, I became aware of how perfectly proportioned she was, and how the rest of her was lovely in every aspect (I had seen her a few moments before, walking in a different direction.) I almost called out to my friends -- my god, that is the most beautiful woman. All triggered by a chance glance at an objectively beautiful rear-end.

Biology. It happens. I have no problem with it.

And those shooting range owners want to stimulate that reaction in the workplace, 100% of the time. And that, my friend, is creepy.

The thing about bump stocks that people are not realizing is that they are simply a mod that allows you to do the same thing you could already do with many semi-automatic weapons, emulate automatic fire.

There is a slightly more dangerous method which can be done simply by not bracing the stock and using the pistol grip. Many semi-auto weapons also can easily be 'broken' to cause slamfires, where the rounds are auto-fired as soon as they are loaded due to a stuck firing pin.

I highly believe in gun rights and the second amendment. But this latest tragedy has finally done it. There is simply no need to have that many semi-automatic rifles in one's possession. We need to re-enact the AWB from 1994, we need to set a cap limit on how many semi-automatic rifles a person can own, and we need to clearly state that ANY modification that can simulate automatic fire is illegal.

We have fostered a state where the mentally ill are no longer being treated or taken care of, except by drugs. Since it is clear that we have multitudes of people separated from becoming the next mass murderer simply based on whether to not they took their meds (or were diagnosed correctly to begin with), we need to make a stricter environment that prevents these people from getting the weapons to make it easier.

I think his point is it's not a 10% difference, more like >90%.
Assume they're right and it only shoots 3 times faster, and your finger of steel doesn't get tired 100 rounds in, shooting at max manual speed is even less accurate. Full auto allows far more bullets for a longer time with far more control. In a crowd shoot, it clearly makes a huge difference imo.
It wouldn't make it a non tragedy, but would certainly meaningfully affect the outcome.

My fear is they'll only ban bump stocks and not the dozen other methods of making semi auto go full auto.

@MilkmanDan, let's say he didn't have a bump stock. Do you think it would have meaningfully affected this tragedy?

If he had killed 10% fewer people (while it would obviously have been better for those people and their families), this would still have been the deadliest mass shooting in the US.

Basically, my argument is that plenty of people have managed to go on mass shooting sprees without bump stocks, and banning them won't stop the next mass shooting.

It's kinda like banning texting while drunk driving. Sure, you really shouldn't do it, but it's not the main problem!

Your video, To the Victims of This Tragedy We Send Our Thoughts and Pray, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Freedom of religion is independent of civilian armament.
History shows that religious persecution is normal for humanity, and in most cases it's perpetrated by the government. Sometimes to consolidate power (with government tie-ins to the main religion), and sometimes to pander to the grimace of a majority.

Ironically, in this country, freedom of religion only exists due to armed conflict, albeit merely as a side effect of independence from a religiously homogeneous ruling power.



It's true that Catalonians would likely have been shot at if they were armed.
However, likewise, the Spanish government will never grant the Catalans democracy so long as the Catalans are not armed - simply because it doesn't have to.
(*Barring self suicidal/sacrificial behavior on part of the Catalans that eventually [after much suffering] embarrasses the government into compliance - often under risk that 3rd parties will intervene if things continue)

When the government manufactures consent, it will be first in line to claim that people have democratic freedom. When the government fails to manufacture consent, it will crack down with force.

At the end of the day, in government, might makes right. Laws are only words on paper, the government's arms are what make the laws matter.

Likewise, democracy is no more than an idea. The people's force of arms (or threat thereof) is what assert's the people's dominance over the government.



You can say the police/military are stronger and it would never matter, however, the size of an [armed] population is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an army. Factor in the fact that the people need to cooperate with the government in order to support and supply the government's military. No government can withstand armed resistance of the population at large. This is one of the main lessons from The Prince.

Civilian armament is a bulwark against potentially colossal ills (albeit ills that come once every few generations).

Look at NK. The people get TV, radio, cell, from SK. They can look across the river and see massive cities on the Chinese side. They know they have to play along with the charade that their government demands. At the end of the day, without guns, things won't change.

Look at what happened during the Arab Spring. All these unarmed nations turned to external armed groups to fight for them to change their governments. All it accomplished was them becoming serfs to the invited 3rd parties. This is another lesson from The Prince : always take power by your own means, never rely on auxiliaries, because your auxiliaries will become your new rulers.






Below is general pontification. No longer a reply.
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Civilian armament does come with periodic tragedies. Those tragedies suck. But they're also much less significant than the risks of disarmament.
(Eg. School shootings, 7-11 robberies, etc -versus- Tamils vs Sri Lankan government, Rohingya vs Burmese government. etc.)

Regarding rifles specifically (all varieties combined), there is no point in arguing magnitudes (Around 400 lives per year - albeit taken in newsworthy large chunks). 'Falling out of bed' kills more people, same is true for 'Slip and fall'. No one fears their bed or a wet floor.

Pistols could go away and not matter much.
They have minimal militia utility, and they represent almost the entirety of firearms used in violent crime. (Albeit used to take lives in a non newsworthy 1 at a time manner)

(In the U.S.) If tragedy was the only way to die (otherwise infinite lifespan), you would live on average 9000 years. Guns, car crashes, drownings, etc. ~All tragedies included. (http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life)






A computer learning example I was taught:

Boy walking with his mom&dad down a path.
Lion #1 jumps out, eats his dad.
(Data : Specifically lion #1 eats his father.)
The boy and mom keep walking
Lion #2 jumps out, eats his mother.
(Data : Specifically lion #2 eats his mother)
The boy keeps walking
He comes across Lion #3.

Question : Should he be worried?

If you are going to generalize [the first two] lions and people, then yes, he should be worried.

In reality, lions may be very unlikely to eat people (versus say, a gazelle). But if you generalized from the prior two events, you will think they are dangerous.

(The relevance to computer learning is that : Computers learn racism, too. If you include racial data along with other data in a learning algorithm, that algorithm can and will be able to make decisions based on race. Not because the software cares - but because it can analyze and correlate.)

(Note : This is also why arguing religion is likely futile. If a child is raised being told that everything is as it is because God did it, then that becomes their basis for reality. Telling them that their belief in god is wrong, is like telling the boy in the example that lions are statistically quite safe to people. It challenges what they've learned.)



I mentioned this example, because it illustrates learning and perception. And it segways into my following analogy.



Here's a weird analogy, but it goes like this :

(I'm sure SJW minded people will shit themselves over it, but whatever)

"Gun ownership in today's urban society" is like "Black people in 80's white bred society".

2/3 of the population today has no contact with firearms (mostly urban folk)
They only see them on movies used to shoot people, and on the news used to shoot people.
If you are part of that 2/3, you see guns as murder tools.
If you are part of the remaining 1/3, you see guns like shoes or telephones - absolutely mundane daily items that harm nobody.

In the 80's, if you were in a white bred community, your only understanding of black people would be from movies where they are gangsters and shoot people, and from the nightly news where you heard about some black person who shot people.
If you were part of an 80's white bred community, you saw black people as dangerous likely killers.
If you were part of an 80's black/mixed community, you saw black people as regular people living the same mundane lives as anyone else.

In either case, you can analytically know better. But your gut feelings come from your experience.



Basically, I know guns look bad to 2/3 of the population. That won't change. People's beliefs are what they are.
I also know that the likelihood of being in a shooting is essentially zero.
I also know that history repeats itself, and -just in case- I'd rather live in an armed society than an unarmed society. Even if I don't carry a gun.

-scheherazade

Shameless self *promote
I love a good tragedy.

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To release all the energy you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you abuse it
Or use it for good?

They've armed the weapon
Countdown clock is set and
J. Robert Oppenheimer is sweatin'
Eyes are red and he's nervous
Cause on the surface this is armageddon
The shock bomb, but we're set upon and threatened
And with no sound the whole Alamogordo ground
Is glowing and cowed under one smouldering cloud
He's choked and wowed, everybody's open-mouthed
And over the ground the shock front blows, kapow!
Snap back to the alchemy
Hope before tragedy
Showed with bold math that we broke the whole atom
We choked; controlled action with poles of cold cadmium coat
To go capture neutrons and slow fracture
We broke, postponed that and we chose to go fashion
A most radioactive plutonium gadget then
Fat Man and Boy and Enola goes laughin'
As Nagasaki is blown and Hiroshima's blasted

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

Neutrons escaping from a source radiating
Merge and start atoms shaking; they begin
To unglue toward a decreased order
Entropic force distorts em
And supercharged with loads of protons they can only go farther
Cold war grows hotter--exothermal--Colorado to Joe Stalin
Coast to coast holes; silos but there's no farmer
Toe-to-toe drama
NATO and Warszawa in co-assured trauma
The globe groans everyone knows there's no calming
So show your foes and implode your core column
Quid pro quo Castle Bravo for Tsar Bomba
And move on and leave atolls exposed to gross doses of old fallout;
Slow-to-go toxins in shoals and so though we explode them no longer
Still the proof lives on in the blue lagoon water, father

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

When war games hit the stage of a gluon's rage
There's a military boot on the new doc's page
We were playing in the beginning, but grew up strange
Making radar and missiles, and new bombs blazed
And we kept grinding the lensed sights for the next sniper
Best believe son it'll pay to design fighters
All the gains of science analyzed by the
Man provide plans for sarin and cyanide
And our hands are blighted by crying
Eyes when dying lands are slammed if our grants expand the fire brighter
And there's no jury there's no sublime righter
This is our fight
And these minds are all ours so protect your pia mater
Try to feed and water good, seed trust, flee dishonour
Gotta be clean being Apollo stead of Vietnam and
Lay the armour down and be the one to stand up
And lead us on the trail of Spock
We'll elevate these motley progeny
To a future in a safer spot, an irrigated plot
Homicide a way forgot
Success is a lack of military options
Failure's not
Become a lover of a great and cosmic goal
We cannot condone these terror plots
So here we go it's our shot
Feel frail or not
This is the only world and humanity that we got

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

You gotta make your own mind up, man.

No INTENTION to expand, not a guarantee, just a statement of their alleged intentions at that time (90).
Are the words of diplomats to hold no weight, no, but they certainly aren't the same as a treaty either. The nation, and NATO, are not beholding to a statement by one diplomat not included in the final draft of the treaty being discussed, certainly not for 26 years without addressing it.
If NATO's expansion to the east was such an issue, it should have been taken up in 97 when those nations were added to NATO, not now 20 years later because NATO actually seems ready to defend them.

I do think Russia's involvement had a part in electing Trump, but they are FAR from the only player in that tragedy. The only one's to blame are the American voters....like me.

Yes, it is amazingly hypocritical and self unaware for Americans to complain that another country tried to meddle in our election. We have installed our choices in so many other countries by meddling in theirs, it's insane that we would really mention it. I must admit, I had not looked at it that way, but you're correct. We hardly have a leg to stand on in that argument.

Ah, the alternate universe of celebrity and fame - crack smoking, coke snorting, pot smoking and hooking up in public washrooms are all excusable traits if you can sing. If you can't, you're the scum of the earth, ostracized from society and living under a bridge. Sad that he's dead - sure, life is precious. A tragedy? Not in the least.

[author flagged as a spammer - redacted]

As a (slightly retired) fencer I love this, but I'd say a couple of things about the description.

The 'whap on the back' needs to apply 500g of pressure for 15ms in order to count. The time rule came in a while back to discourage 'flicking' - that exact problem.

The idea of dropping someone 'before he strikes back' is central to the roots of foil (fleuret in the video) and sabre. Essentially, if your opponent is attacking you have to parry them as a priority. The foil was traditionally the practice weapon which prioritised blows to vital areas, and defence over attack. Unfortunately, this also makes them very hard to follow if you don't know what you're watching.

Great video though. Makes me want to pick up a weapon again. Feel free to imagine some tragedy that made me swear never to fence again.

If I had to make the case for tragedy being ultimate source of comedy, this would be exhibit A.

It boils my blood to see almost daily examples of 'public servants' murdering unarmed civilians. I saw no gun, and I don't trust the police to not plant one. These days, if it's not clearly on video, the cops might as well stay silent. I don't trust a word they say...one reason I can't serve on a jury. I only wish more people would realize that police are professional liars, and should never be trusted without incontrovertible evidence to back their story up.
One more tragedy caused by police over reaction and fear. I often wonder why no family member ever comes to their family's aid with their ar15. Self defense includes defending family members.
If someone shoots my spouse in my driveway, I'm shooting them, no matter who they are or why they shot her. I'll say the same for my dog. She's more valuable to me than the average human.

Call it what you will. To me, massive illegal immigration with the goal of territorial control is invasion...no matter why they invaded. Invaders always have a reason.

The Jewish population didn't want to be mixed, nor did the Arabs by then from my readings, so there was no chance of peaceful coexistence.

Wait...what?! So...after the Nazis were gone it was too late to go home?!? How do you figure? Many if not most of them were still in Europe then.
They didn't need a promise, they needed to return to their properties, then demand reparations. They weren't promised anything by Palestine either....right?

They should have said that when the Nazis showed up, not after they were defeated...and should have fought the Nazis, not the mostly blameless (for the atrocities) Palestinians.

Again, civil wars are between native populations, not immigrants. Immigrants fighting natives is called invasion. Period.

HA!!!!! So, when neighbors and allies try to secure their borders that are being crossed by invaders, you call THEM invaders, but not the immigrant army. WTF, man?

EDIT: Should I think you call Turkey an invader of Daesh, and you a supporter of Daesh? They were in the same boat as the Jews, being ostracized and destroyed around the globe, until they came together in an area where a small portion of the natives gave them support and the majorities ignored their rise to power, they grasped territories and power, formed their separate nation, and since then have simply 'defended' themselves from the aggressive natives....right? Um....no.

No...far from the most open place, Palestine was openly hostile to them, but incapable of stopping the invasion. The U.S. was open...if they could get here. There was no separate Jewish Palestine then. I have sympathy for the European Jews until the day they tried to become a separate nation by force. Since that day, they've been the aggressive invaders doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to them without the gas chambers.

Perhaps you don't know that >90% of rockets are fired at expansionist settlements in Palestine, not Israel, met with exponentially more force against civilians. (And before you balk, there's no such thing as an Israeli civilian, they are all, 100%, military....by law).

Neighbors and allies fighting invaders of their allies are absolutely not more at fault than the invaders for the continuing tragedy...not that I support their rhetoric or actions.
The single cause of the conflict is foreign invaders taking territory by force and constant expansion ever since. Their continuing inhumanity towards the natives is another topic, morality.