I miss the hummingbird "family" from the trees in front of my former house but I now see hummers AND dragonflies in my current locale. Last week I noticed a wasp nest ... possibly IN my front window frame [on the outside of course]. Called the leasing office and informed them I'm deathly allergic to stings. Hopefully they'll get right on that!

edit: oh and thank you for the promote Minty

*promote hummingbird anatomy! I have a few come to my yard every now and then, and they are just amazing.. Wish I could have the feeder up, but it keeps being taken over by wasps.. Which scare the crap out of me! (oh childhood and being fearless and stupid.. The effing sting hurts like hell!)

" At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes."

Per year. You don't cite your source, but this is looks to me to be an underestimate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey there are half about half a million people claiming to be victim of a gun related crime over the course of a year. I remember being a victim of a gun crime in America (the perp was an British-born and educated woman) where the police said that they weren't going to follow things up because they were too busy with more serious crimes and they weren't confident of successful prosecution, they didn't even bother to look at the bullets or interview the perpetrator. I'd be surprised if it was even officially reported for crime statistic purposes.

"So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least."

You didn't discuss the confounding variables.

But nevertheless, nobody is saying that owning guns makes you intrinsically more criminal. The argument here seems to be that criminals or those with criminal intent will find it much easier to acquire firearms when there are hundreds of millions of them distributed in various degrees of security across the US.

And those that have firearms, who are basically normal and moral people, may find themselves in a situation where their firearm is used, even in error, and causes harm - a situation obviously avoided in the absence of firearms and something that isn't necessarily included in crime statistics.

"In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home"

Yes, but here's a fun fact. I've been burgled a few times, all but one of those times I was at home when it happened. You know what the burglar was armed with? Nothing. Do you know what happened when I confronted him with a wooden weapon? He pretended he knew someone that lived there and when that fell through he ran away. When the police apprehended him, there wasn't any consideration that he might be armed with a gun and the police merely put handcuffs on him and he walked to the police car. He swore and made some idle and non-specific threats, according to the police, but that's it. In any event, this isn't extraordinary. There are still too many burglaries that do involve violence, of course.
Many burglaries in Britain are actually vehicle crimes, with opportunity thrown in. That is: The primary purpose of the burglary is to acquire car keys (this is often the easiest way to steal modern vehicles), but they may grab whatever else is valuable and easy too.

"The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings."

What impact did it have on gun prevalence? Not really enough to stop the sentence 'guns are prevalent in the US' from being true....

" So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed."

I missed the part where you provided the reasoning that connects your evidence to this conclusion.

"Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. "

This is silly. Guns don't get manufactured and then 32% of them get stolen from the manufacturers warehouse. They get bought and some get subsequently stolen. If there were less guns made and sold there would be less guns available for felons to acquire them privately, less places to steal them or buy stolen ones on the black market, less opportunity for renting or purchasing from a retailer. Thus - less felons with guns.

If times got tough, and I thought robbing a convenience store was a way out of a situation I was in - I would not be able to acquire a firearm without putting myself in considerable danger that outweighs the benefits to the degree that pretending to have a gun is a better strategy. I have 'black market contacts' so I might be able to work my way to someone with a gun, but I really don't want to get into business with someone that deals guns because they are near universally bad news.

" states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate."

Almost all States have such laws, making the comparison pretty meaningless.

"In fact, it's {number of mass shootings} declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. "

I think 'most dead in one incident' is a poor measure. I think total dead over a reasonable time period is probably better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
The UK appears once. It is approx. 1/5 the population of the US. The US manages to have five incidents in the top 10.

Statistics can be fun, though, huh?

" In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens"

You've done a lot of hard work to show that most gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. As such, the police won't go door to door, citizens will go to the police.

"How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns?"

The same way they remove contraband from other recalcitrants. I expect most of them will ask, demand, threaten and then use force - but as usual there will be examples where it won't be pretty.

"Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns?"

That's how it typically goes down here in the UK, yes.

"Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else?"

The military has had access to weapons the citizenry is not permitted to for some considerable time. Banning most handguns etc., would just be adding to the list.

"Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?"

No, but on the other hand, can the same unreliable, dishonest, immoral and unvirtuous government ensure that allowing general access to firearms will go exactly as planned?

You see, you talk the talk of sociological examination, but you seem to have neglected any form of critical reflection.

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary"

On the other hand, I've been mugged erm, 6 times? I've been violently assaulted without attempts to rob another half dozen or so. I don't tend to hang around in the sorts of places middle class WASPs would loiter, shall we say. I'm glad most of the people that cross my path are not armed, and have little to no idea how to get a gun.

You don't source this assertion as far as I saw - but you'll have to do better than 'it's interesting' in your analysis, I'm afraid.

No formatting, because too much typing already.

The only thing that gives me hope is that sometimes people see the light:

Absolutely Uncertain (You Tube video by “Irina”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgvMGLdc908&list=PLC2A32D103123C08E#t=73
18-minute mini-documentary follows the journey of Irina, a 23-year-old liberal, Jewish New Yorker who voted for Obama in 2008

Why I'm burning my last bridge with Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIMnIh10po0
Join me as I wreck my last artifact of support for the war criminal-in-chief!! *I figured out the fraud a while back, but recently found this shirt in my closet

The problem with this country is it doesn't read. It doesn't inform itself on the issues. I'd probably still be a major nigger hating racist if it wasn't for books. If you want the skinny on that go to my Facebook Notes and read my "Racism Speech" which really isn't a speech so much as it is part of my memoirs to my two boys.

I wasn't really into this Islam thing until I happened to read The Haj by Leon Uris and Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabrielle almost back to back. I'll submit the following to give you an idea of what happened.

“we may describe it, (jihad), as a surgeon's lancet and not a butcher's knife.” Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (I'm sure there are about 200 million dead people that would disagree with him. And this from the guy who's been called the Mahatma Ghandi of Islam.)

About two years ago I ordered some reading material, including Taha's "Second Message", and a “study” Koran to find out what this "Islam thing" was all about. When I was sixteen I was chanting nam yo ho renge kyo to a piece of paper, (gahonzen?), having NO idea what I was doing. A few years later, hair down to my ass and a knapsack on my back, I hitchhiked cross country, got saved in Nashville Tenn. and went to live on a Christian farm in Mansfield Ohio. (Not the prison.) My gra'mom called me a "seeker". As I said, there came a time when I wanted to understand this "religion of peace". It was Humaid's article on jihad I found in my Summarized Bukhari that decided “things” for me.

If Islam is the “religion of peace”, where in Sheikh Abdullah bin Humaid's article on jihad can I find the equivalent of “Love Thy Neighbor” and “good will toward men”? And explain its prominence, and significance almost as an “Introduction”, in a book that's described as “the most authentic and true among the books of the Prophet”: My Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari. Also address “jihad” as it's defined in Reliance of the Traveller and answer the same question. (Chapter O-9.0: Jihad O: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion.” And explain why the “greater” jihad is only mentioned once here and never seen again in this “Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law”.)

Compare Humaid's “jihad” and Emmet Fox' Sermon on the Mount and tell me which one best represents a spirit of Love and “compassion”.

Lastly; would you pick Sheikh bin Humaid to sit on a Human Rights Commission? (That's a trick question by the way.)

Maybe you can throw in an explanation of the Jews are “monkeys, pigs and rats” on page 656 and the part where Mo says, “if somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him” on page 613 in the chapter on Jihad.

Also, explain why Humaid's “jihad” shouldn't be “Exhibit A” in refuting the “religion of peace” claim.

I've posted this many times to many Muslims and have yet to get a single response. Well, I did receive a response from some goofball named “Dr.” Mohsen El-Guindy asking me to read his books. Instead I downloaded a bunch of his articles. Which were pure rants. An Imam, sidestepped it by telling me I had to “study Islam” to gain a greater understanding.

Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah by 'Sheikh Abdullâh bin Muhammad bin Humaid
ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?233460-Jihad-in-the-Qur-an-and-Sunnah&s=4df3fc2e4e0596eb3b38115ef4b8f506 ),

Subscribe to Jihad/Campus Watch and the Middle East Forum/Quarterly, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Gatestone Institue, FrontPage Magazine, American Thinker,The Clarion Project, Cross Muslims: Muhammad unveiled, Religion of Peace (dot com) and read Raymond Ibrahim, Efraim Karsh, Patrick Poole, Caroline Glick, Bat Ye'or and others.

“She's Buried Chest High”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXdy5Fwwfzg

“An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Victory will never be found by taking the line of least resistance.” Winston Churchill

“What the horn is to the rhinoceros, what the sting is to the wasp, the Mohammedan faith is to the Arabs of the Sudan-a faculty of offence. All the warlike operations of Mohammedan peoples are characterised by fanatacism” Winston Churchill

“While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam.” Mahatma Gandhi

Well.. the clones DO attack the Geonoshians, or whatever the flying wasp things are.

Thanks for the article. It kinda reads like an add for Jennifer Mathers' 'octopuses are smart' book. Her 2008 Consciousness and Cognition paper does a better job at laying out the most cephalopod behaviors impressive behaviors:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810006001504
. Don't get me wrong; I think cephaolopods totally awesome, but I don't see the case for them being cognitive leaps and bounds above other invertebrates. The behaviors that they are capable of are found elsewhere among inverts, yet people (often encouraged by Mathers or her coauthors on that book) seem to imply they are basically eight armed dogs of the sea:

Behavioral conditioning in the lab (which Mathers likes to call "learning") - Bees, butterflies
Moving objects to close off burrows - mantis shrimp
Carrying objects as temporary refuges - crabs
Individual recognition - wasps, lobsters?, mantis shrimp.
Complex spatial navigation - ants, bees.
Learning via observation - I'm not aware of other inverts that do this, but the cephalopod evidence is also pretty weak.

Maybe there are some more recent, and more convincing results?

Those are actually part of the wasp family, and aren't ants at all. Nasty things.

*✨
Has anyone ever heard the sound of the velvet ant or 'cow ant'? All over Texas- If you pin one down they squeak similarly...real cute until you don't heed the squeak and pick one up-Their stings' worse than a wasp's-

It struck me that when he says "Americans", he really means WASPs for the most part.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/F-35B-landing-on-USS-Wasp

F-35B landing on USS Wasp has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims.

Double Wasp ftw!

Feel the same lack of remorse for houseflies,wasps, hornets, and yellow-jackets-all other bugs may walk with assurance of the remainder of their trek here, all about my ankles and toes.

There are similar spiders, in the genus Cyclosa, that use debris to create a line in their web so that when the spider sits atop the line it is almost impossible to detect, as it looks just like a piece of debris. This protects the spider from two of its main predators: birds and parasitic wasps.

This could be a similar situation, but slightly modified (i.e. evolved), so that the web debris is not just a line, but lines radiating out from a central point. Now, those predators that would've preyed upon or parasitized a small spider (such as the one living in this web), are not drawn to the web of such a large-looking spider.