He must go through a lot of bug spray if that's how he reacts to one spider.

Kill it with fire! (at least in Australia)

Myna's are responsible for serious displacement and disruption of local species. They're fucking air rats, and shit machines to boot. You can have years of native birds rarely even wandering on to your balconey or outdoor settings, but as soon as myna's show up, everything is covered in shit in a day or so...

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bird-plague-no-myna-matter-20120922-26dvl.html

If you catch them (adults or chicks), it takes no effort to snap their necks quickly and cleanly. And if you do handle them, you may want to wear gloves and/or fumigate yourself with bug spray afterwards because they're absolutely lousy with lice.

>> ^L0cky:
I'm not sure who's disagreeing with who here.
The fact that you can teach a child in order to make their access to guns safer doesn't mean that every child that has access to guns will be taught this in a sufficient way. Besides, how many children had lots of training and still ended up shooting themselves or someone else.
You can get very detailed statistics from the CDC, unfortunately I can't link to them because they are generated by a search and the URLs generated are session specific. The statistics, as detailed as they are, don't state weather the child was educated in the use of firearms, but accidental firearms death in children is quite low. According to the CDC, between 1999 and 2010 the leading cause of accidental deaths to children ages 1-4 is motor vehicle accidents (28.9%), poisoning is 8th (2.4%) and firearms is 12th (1.0%). Going up to the 5-9 age range MVA is still the leading cause of accidental death (46.7%), with poisoning still 8th (1.8%) and firearms still 12th (1.5%). You can look them up yourself at the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention & Control.

>> ^L0cky:
If you don't think having a gun in your home would automatically make it the most dangerous thing in that home then you're either being disingenuous or you have some freaky shit going on in your house.
Having a gun in your home does not make it the most dangerous thing in the house, and the statistics I posted above back me up. There are plenty of things even in a gunless household that are lethal if a child gets its hands on it. I would argue that a gun is far safer because it can be unloaded and therefore be rendered harmless if a kid gets a hold of it. A bottle of drain cleaner, bug spray, bottle of medicine, etc. is always going to be dangerous if a child gets a hold of it. With those items, all you can do is lock them away in a safe place where a child can't get them until they are old enough to understand that they are dangerous. Any responsible gun owner would treat a gun the same as any other dangerous object in the home, by unloading it and/or locking it up until the child is old enough to be taught that it's dangerous and not something to play with.

I don't understand your objection to teaching a kid how to properly operate a firearm when the're old enough. I was taught by my father as his father taught him, and I've never killed anyone on purpose or accident.

>> ^L0cky:
So my question is: despite the fact that some kids can be taught to be careful with a firearm, what is the justification of owning one...
I can't speak for every gun owner, but I have several reasons. I personally own four guns, two rifles and two pistols. It's a hobby, I like to shoot them, but I also own them for self defense. I also like archery and own a bow. A bow is also an instrument of war and designed for the taking of human life as well as hunting, just as a rifle, but how come no one pitches a fit about bows like they do guns? I don't hunt, but I have friends that do, so there's another reason for you.

I also have gone through the steps to acquire a license to carry a concealed firearm in my state. I think of it as insurance. I have car insurance, but I don't intend to get in a wreck, and I also have home owners insurance though I don't intend for my home to get damaged or destroyed. I don't carry a gun intending to kill someone, but just like car and home insurance I have it just in case.

>> ^L0cky:
I'll play devil's advocate and say 5: to defend your property and family against an armed burgler. Yet if you take a look at the rest of the world, at countries where guns are not prolific, gun assisted burglaries are so rare that it doesn't even bear thinking about.

The fact that you need a gun to defend yourself against someone with a gun is because you both have guns. - Captain "Circular" Obvious

From everything you've posted, you seem to be thinking that someone needs a gun to defend oneself from an attacker with a gun. The majority violent of crimes do NOT involve the use of a gun, and up to 2.5 million reported crimes (many are unreported) are prevented by lawful gun owners each year, most of which do not involve discharging the weapon.

Ninety percent of violent crimes are committed by persons not carrying handguns. This is one reason why the mere brandishing of a gun by a potential victim of violence often is a sufficient response to a would-be attacker. In most cases where a gun is used in self-defense, it is not fired." [source]

>> ^L0cky:
I can't really budge on this unless you can somehow convince me that it's not preferable to live in a western society where almost all people have never even seen a real gun, therefore removing all their associated problems.
That's not an idealism, that's pretty much most of Europe.

Personally I would rather live in a society where people are educated and non violent so that we can own guns for sport, collecting, hunting, etc. and not have to deal with people's irrational fear of them. You seem to have some delusional idea that removing guns from society is going stop crime and violence. Removing guns isn't going to magically stop people from being violent and committing crimes. The UK and Australia did ban personal ownership of guns and their crime rates went up because the only ones left with guns were the criminals. [1][2][3][4]

Someone needs to start working on an electromagnetic pulse "bug spray". Just wait till you've got these things buzzing around and hovering in your face.

>> ^jimnms:

I don't mind spiders. They'll leave you alone if you don't bother them. I usually don't bother them either, but one time I found a black widow spider. For some reason I decided I wanted to catch it and keep it as a pet. I found an empty clear plastic jar in the garbage, poked a few small holes in it and used that to catch her. I needed to figure out a way to feed and water her. That night I was making dinner and I dropped a piece of frozen broccoli on the floor, and that gave me an idea. I set it outside on the front porch to attract bugs. I came back to it after I ate and there were bugs all over it. I took the jar outside, made the spider go up to the top, unscrewed the cap and set it on top of the now thawed and covered in bugs piece of broccoli. I slid it onto the top and closed it up. The spider went to town stringing them up, and I figured she'd be able to get water from the broccoli.
I set the jar in my bathroom so I could check on her every morning. The next day, for some weird reason she pulled the broccoli up into the middle of the jar and wrapped it up in a ball. A few days later, that ball was still there, and I couldn't figure out what she was doing with it. A few more days later, I went into the bathroom one morning to find the ball gone and thousands of little baby black widows all over the place. They were small enough to crawl out of the air hole I poked in the jar, but most of them were inside. I ran and grabbed a can of bug spray and sprayed the outside of the jar, then filled the sink with water and submerged the jar in the water until it filled up and drowned them all.
I decided not to try to keep spiders as pets after that.


You should never keep black widow spiders as they pose a danger to humans. While you should't outright kill them unless they are in your common areas. Like a garage. I kill the black widows that make homes in there, but I leave the ones in the backyard alone. The ones in the back yard don't pose a danger because I have no outdoor pets or children who can be injured by the things.

They aren't there to prey on humans, but they are a natural danger to humans. It is a naturally selected fear response to be repulsed by spiders; especially when they multiply.

I don't mind spiders. They'll leave you alone if you don't bother them. I usually don't bother them either, but one time I found a black widow spider. For some reason I decided I wanted to catch it and keep it as a pet. I found an empty clear plastic jar in the garbage, poked a few small holes in it and used that to catch her. I needed to figure out a way to feed and water her. That night I was making dinner and I dropped a piece of frozen broccoli on the floor, and that gave me an idea. I set it outside on the front porch to attract bugs. I came back to it after I ate and there were bugs all over it. I took the jar outside, made the spider go up to the top, unscrewed the cap and set it on top of the now thawed and covered in bugs piece of broccoli. I slid it onto the top and closed it up. The spider went to town stringing them up, and I figured she'd be able to get water from the broccoli.

I set the jar in my bathroom so I could check on her every morning. The next day, for some weird reason she pulled the broccoli up into the middle of the jar and wrapped it up in a ball. A few days later, that ball was still there, and I couldn't figure out what she was doing with it. A few more days later, I went into the bathroom one morning to find the ball gone and thousands of little baby black widows all over the place. They were small enough to crawl out of the air hole I poked in the jar, but most of them were inside. I ran and grabbed a can of bug spray and sprayed the outside of the jar, then filled the sink with water and submerged the jar in the water until it filled up and drowned them all.

I decided not to try to keep spiders as pets after that.

Humans love to anthropomorphize everything. My favorite is the Raid bug spray commercial here in the States that show human looking, talking bugs being snubbed out by an ominous floating can of poison.

Spraying bug spray in member ant's eyes - ignoring poo request by unprivileged meatbag ant.

I'm really curious who tagged this "politics". It's a commercial for bug spray... I don't get it.