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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
If only that vehicle had a firearm of its own, it might never have happened.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
I had to stop reading dkos about things like this because the incidence of 3 and 4 year olds shooting themselves with handguns. It just kicks me in the gut every single time, and it apparently happens a couple of times a week, every week. I don't know how a parent lives after that.
“This is a harsh reminder of responsibility,” Detroit Dog Rescue’s Dante Dasaro told WJBK. “If the dog was just simply on a leash and simply was on a leash to go outside, you know, the owner would have better control. No matter how this played out it was an unfortunately situation, and it really shouldn’t have happened.”
Uh...I don't think it's necessarily just the dog who could have benefited from "better control" in this situation. Maybe gun licenses should come with a leash.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
That's a pretty horrible video. I understand why they shot the poor cow (presumably the risk to drivers if the thing is allowed to cruise around loose on the road), but damn! Just some very basic animal handling would have served everyone far better, and they wouldn't have had to kill the poor cow, much less do such a sorry job of it (head shot, dudes--I know you're trained to shoot center mass, but for something like a cow that's not attacking or shooting back, head shot right behind the eyes). Doing it "right" would still be pretty horrible though.
That did really suck to watch though. After the first attempt to shoot the poor thing there was still hope it would be more or less okay with some medical attention, but that was quickly shot all to hell.
I've seen a similar video of a smallish, friendly dog being shot and killed by a cop during a traffic stop. Completely unnecessary and uncalled for, but the cop was also more than likely doing exactly what he was trained to do.
If the police are going to be entrusted with lethal weapons while dealing with the public, they need to be better prepared to actually deal with the public and the associated vagaries, like animals. Doesn't seem like some basic animal behavior and handling training would be all that difficult to manage, and completely aside from the well being of animals it seems merely preventing the PR damage these kinds of incidents/videos do to law enforcement would be more than worth it. Shooting peoples' animals this casually, particularly during a traffic stop also creates a far greater likelihood of trouble.
A couple of years ago, during dear season, a badly wounded dear wandered up on my parents place. They normally stay away from houses, but my parents don't have a dog and they have a tree line that made for good hiding. Dear will sit down in the tall grass and trees.
My dad called the game warden who relayed to the Sheriff becuase he's busy during that time of year. A Deputy came out to assess the animal and decided without a front foot that it needed to be put down. It was small and younger so they think it got hit on accident.
The Deputy was an absolutely terrible shot. After 5 shots, my Dad asked if he needed help. So the Deputy handed over the rifle he was using and my Dad shot the dear in the head for him.
I'm not sure local Sheriff's Department has training on how to handle animals or firearms. I'm almost certain "hand your gun over to a civilian who's a better shot" isn't in the training manual.
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Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
Funny, but in all seriousness the game is a model for a rather extreme form of vigilantism, not self-defense, which is the actual anti-control argument.
Funny, but in all seriousness the game is a model for a rather extreme form of vigilantism, not self-defense, which is the actual anti-control argument.
That's the opposite of the point.
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The catch: Their behavior is totally determined by your actions in previous levels. If you hang out near a wall and spray a machine gun wildly, on the next level there will be a new bad guy who does the exact same thing, and you’ll have to shoot him with a bazooka or shotgun or whatever the game has armed you with.
The result is an exponential increase in violence from level to level. The game has no set limit on the number of levels, and eventually you’ll be overwhelmed and destroyed by the perpetually repeating actions of one of your past selves.
You could actually make a pretty coherent argument that that is not a natural progression of violence, because the standard anti-control argument is that the good guys will always outnumber the bad guys.
But I am OK with countering silly arguments with other silly arguments, so that doesn't bother me.
Funny, but in all seriousness the game is a model for a rather extreme form of vigilantism, not self-defense, which is the actual anti-control argument.
That's the opposite of the point.
Maybe in theory, but not the way the game is set up. If you're actively going after bad guys that's vigilantism, not self-defense. A sound self-defense game would give the highest points to the player who could most effectively avoid violent encounters, or who most limited the violence necessary to prevent personal harm by an aggressor (limited mostly meaning in the context of limiting victims of the aggressor, the aggressor suffering violence is a secondary concern at best). The game says it's about shooting the bad guys, but the "good guy with a gun" argument isn't about going out to shoot bad guys, it's about having a means of shooting a bad guy if all else fails. That's a fundamental tactic of self-defense that many anti-gun types don't get (and I'm trying to use "anti-" for either side's more extreme elements--by contrast I use "pro-control" and/or "pro-gun rights" for the more rational types on either side).
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Originally Posted by lisarea
Quote:
The catch: Their behavior is totally determined by your actions in previous levels. If you hang out near a wall and spray a machine gun wildly, on the next level there will be a new bad guy who does the exact same thing, and you’ll have to shoot him with a bazooka or shotgun or whatever the game has armed you with.
The result is an exponential increase in violence from level to level. The game has no set limit on the number of levels, and eventually you’ll be overwhelmed and destroyed by the perpetually repeating actions of one of your past selves.
You could actually make a pretty coherent argument that that is not a natural progression of violence, because the standard anti-control argument is that the good guys will always outnumber the bad guys.
But I am OK with countering silly arguments with other silly arguments, so that doesn't bother me.
What's being described there, though, is more like modern conventional warfare than self-defense--two sides intent on engaging the other (the enemy) with lethal intent based upon a given set of criteria (the rules of engagement) amidst a collateral/non-combatant population. The goal is to engage and win with as little collateral damage as the situation permits. In self-defense the goal is to engage only if avoidance and deterrence fail, and to disengage and evade at any good opportunity. Further, a secondary goal of engaging the aggressor is to create such an opportunity (i.e. the primary goal is to make the aggressor cease aggression, period, but escape and evasion is a very desirable means of accomplishing that).
The "good guy with a gun" schtick as argued in the wake of Newtown is specifically about very rare scenarios in which effective intervention is clearly desirable (i.e. "neutralizing" a shooter trying to kill children in a school), and it sounds like this game is trying to superimpose that defense model onto a standard day-to-day context. The two scenarios don't match up very well though. The result of exponentially escalating violence isn't surprising if vigilantes go after violent criminals in a conventional warfare modus operandi, it just has little at all to do with anything anyone is actually advocating here--it's just not pertinent to what's really going on. It's a lot like the NRA's "gun bans" and "gun grabber" dogmas in that sense.
The game says it's about shooting the bad guys, but the "good guy with a gun" argument isn't about going out to shoot bad guys, it's about having a means of shooting a bad guy if all else fails.
Perhaps in sane land, but here in America we ain't sane.
Just take a look at the Zimmerman case, backed by the crazy-pro-gun crowd, who was actually out hunting for bad guys.
The game says it's about shooting the bad guys, but the "good guy with a gun" argument isn't about going out to shoot bad guys, it's about having a means of shooting a bad guy if all else fails.
Perhaps in sane land, but here in America we ain't sane.
Just take a look at the Zimmerman case, backed by the crazy-pro-gun crowd, who was actually out hunting for bad guys.
I'm not saying the argument includes the allegation that vigilantism doesn't happen or even that the argument isn't misused to defend it, only that it's not a valid issue to defend using the argument/it's not an issue the argument is reasonably used for, and that it's not (at least officially/publicly) how the NRA (et al) uses it. The NRA offers plenty to be criticized without stretching or manipulating their position and compromising your own argumentative credibility.
Less understandable was that nearly 20 miles away, the secondary school campus I am at went into lock-down as well, replete with cryptic emails from central administration that did nothing but freak everyone out. Spent the first ten minutes of the last class of the day, in lock down, going way off topic and talking the students down from all the anxiety the situation caused.
Can only imagine what this would have been like if only the NRA's "armed volunteers" could have been there too, patrolling the hallways to do that voodoo that they do...
Less understandable was that nearly 20 miles away, the secondary school campus I am at went into lock-down as well, replete with cryptic emails from central administration that did nothing but freak everyone out. Spent the first ten minutes of the last class of the day, in lock down, going way off topic and talking the students down from all the anxiety the situation caused.
Can only imagine what this would have been like if only the NRA's "armed volunteers" could have been there too, patrolling the hallways to do that voodoo that they do...
Guns are good. So why would someone having one cause a lockdown? (Even if it was a fake one.)
I'm confused now.
If everyone is supposed to buy one, get a carry permit, and take it with them to protect themselves; won't freaking out about it be counterproductive.
It would be like locking the school down because a kid wore shoes to class. Now brining aspirin to class, fuck no. Don't do that.
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Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith