Helm also said that alcohol was being consumed at the cookout.
Had it been Marijuana
and everyone was black
the 'gang' gathering would have all been arrested for murder.
The drug laws in this country are ridiculously inconsistent and hypocritical.
By almost any measure, alcohol is far more dangerous and harmful than is marijuana. But guess which one is perfectly legal -- and which one can get you thrown into jail simply because you happened to have a few ounces in your possession?
One of my students joked recently: "If you're on the road and the driver of the other car is drinking alcohol, he's likely to run the stop sign. If he's high on marijuana, he'll stop and wait for the sign to turn green."
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
Not really, although having too much via ingestion can make people think they're dying. They're not, but it can be a scary experience.
__________________
"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Technically yes, practically nope.
The LD50 of THC is extremely high and can only be reached through straight injection, something cannabis users don't do. It may actually be impossible to OD through other methods.
People can reach too high of a dose, causing unwanted paranoia, sometimes manifesting in the belief that they really have taken a lethal dose.
Edit to add: One of the reasons for the extremely low lethality is that there are few canna-receptors connected to life support systems like the heart or lungs. This doesn't mean they are completely non-lethal, there may have been at least one death from certain synthetic Cannibinoids which fully activate the receptors (instead of THCs partial activation).
Only one person shot at the first-ever NRA NASCAR race in Texas, and he offed himself in the head. Alcohol may have been a factor. What if they hadn't allowed guns in the racetrack?
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Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
Obviously the gun sensed he was about to mass murder and leaped into action, shooting first saving hundreds, maybe even billions, of people. Has anyone awarded this gun a medal for its bravery and fast thinking?
(No seriously, guns and alcohol don't mix. Since watching cars drive in circles is basically synonymous with getting drunk, it would seem Nascar and guns don't mix either.)
Only one person shot at the first-ever NRA NASCAR race in Texas, and he offed himself in the head. Alcohol may have been a factor. What if they hadn't allowed guns in the racetrack?
Why do you think they allowed guns at the racetrack? It may have been an NRA sponsored event, but it was still NASCAR.
It's a pretty bizarre story in any case. Was it really an argument? Was it maybe people trying to argue the dude out of very demonstrative despondence (cut loose "in the clear" due to suppressed inhibitions--i.e. the despondence would have been suppressed normally, which says nothing about whether or not the suicide would have taken place without the alcohol or gun factors, though I do certainly recommend against that combination in general)? Did the dude decide he'd "win" the argument by shooting himself in the head (maybe the argument was over the lethality of handguns or the likelihood of spontaneous suicide)?
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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
Only one person shot at the first-ever NRA NASCAR race in Texas, and he offed himself in the head. Alcohol may have been a factor. What if they hadn't allowed guns in the racetrack?
Why do you think they allowed guns at the racetrack? It may have been an NRA sponsored event, but it was still NASCAR.
Only one person shot at the first-ever NRA NASCAR race in Texas, and he offed himself in the head. Alcohol may have been a factor. What if they hadn't allowed guns in the racetrack?
Why do you think they allowed guns at the racetrack? It may have been an NRA sponsored event, but it was still NASCAR.
And yet, he had one.
Clearly.
So are you using allowed, as in prohibition measures failed, rather than suggesting they were allowed, as in permitted? The former is about the limitations of applied gun policy/questioning the effectiveness of gun control policies (more pro-gun/anti-control), and the latter is more about the idea that if the right policies are put in place they can solve such problems/questioning the resolve to enact presumably effective policies (pro-control/anti-gun). The thing is, the answer to the former is pretty obvious ... no? That would be a rather strange question, in fact.
Well, does anyone know what the policy is at the track? A lot of sporting events are of the 'no firearms permitted by the general populace' variety, a lot are not.
Though if they were camping there, I would assume they would be permitted. Either way, if the guy killed himself by accident or deliberately, there's no particular reason he wouldn't have done it at home, or down the park, or wherever else either, especially if caused by negligence.
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A man only needs two tools in life. WD-40 and duct tape. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40.
Firearms are not allowed in the stands or public areas at TMS. This was in the concourse area where you can drive up, tailgate, camp and watch. Guns can be lawfully carried inside of cars anywhere in Texas with no restrictions thanks to Rick Perry. He signed that into law about four years ago. It sounds like he grabbed his gun from his truck immediately before the shooting took place.
That does pretty clearly violate a basic gun safety rule, but at least he's keeping his fingers off the trigger, and in the dude's defense (presuming he made sure the thing wasn't loaded before taking on this photography project), without a bullet a gun can't do any more than any other chunk of metal.
Just because it looks scary and stupid doesn't mean it's scary stupid.
Still stupid. How many people do you suppose have shot themselves, or others, with guns that they were firmly convinced were not loaded?
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.
(presuming he made sure the thing wasn't loaded before taking on this photography project)
Really bad presumption there. The number of people who have shot themselves or others because they thought the gun "wasn't loaded" is amazingly high. There have been plenty of incidents for example, of people taking the clip out of a semi-auto and assuming it had been unloaded, forgetting the one in the barrel. I have a hypothesis that people don't know how to deal with something that goes from safe to dangerous then back again in an instant (I've been amazed at the number of people who when handed a sword and told it's razor sharp, will still run their finger on the blade, as if it's not true till they have felt it. There's no way to do that with a gun.)
Still stupid. How many people do you suppose have shot themselves, or others, with guns that they were firmly convinced were not loaded?
Exactly zero.
You're using "convinced" as if it meant "assumed".
To be "firmly convinced" would require firm convincing--i.e. a proper check.
So no one has ever shot him or herself with a gun he/she was firmly convinced wasn't loaded.
But these last few posts have demonstrated the special fear about guns that most would have to overcome in order to really think about them soberly. The next phase will almost certainly be (or would almost certainly be, anyway) to mischaracterize what I'm posting here, now, as advocacy (i.e. that I think it's a good idea to casually take pictures of guns pointed at yourself) and/or to equivocate with the way I used "presume" in my previous post by conflating it with the way I used "assume" in this one as if a conditional statement (presuming/if X, then Y, hypothetically) is the same as actually being presumptuous (concluding Y by presuming rather than establishing X).
But to be perfectly honest I can't entirely avoid at last a slight tinge of the same magical thinking. I don't know if I could ever be comfortable looking down the barrel of an assembled gun like Mr. Wizard there, even if I were "firmly convinced" it wasn't loaded (my excuse is too much training to the contrary). Could be that Mr. Wizard is more rational than any of us on this count because he doesn't fear that guns have the magical ability to load themselves out of the aether after their chambers have been cleared. Of course it could also be that Mr. Wizard is a dumbass, but even if so it's still pretty unlikely he didn't check the chamber immediately prior to taking that picture ... self preservation and all that (note: "pretty unlikely" doesn't mean "certain").
To be "firmly convinced" would require firm convincing--i.e. a proper check.
So no one has ever shot him or herself with a gun he/she was firmly convinced wasn't loaded.
Well if you want to get all semantical and shit...
Quote:
Originally Posted by SkepticX
it's still pretty unlikely he didn't check the chamber immediately prior to taking that picture ... self preservation and all that (note: "pretty unlikely" doesn't mean "certain").
...assuming facts not in evidence.
and before you say something more about self preservation,
To be "firmly convinced" would require firm convincing--i.e. a proper check.
So no one has ever shot him or herself with a gun he/she was firmly convinced wasn't loaded.
Nonsense. You can be firmly convinced of something that is not true. It only refers to a state of belief, and does not say anything about to whether or not you have justified that belief beforehand by checking.
To be "firmly convinced" would require firm convincing--i.e. a proper check.
So no one has ever shot him or herself with a gun he/she was firmly convinced wasn't loaded.
Well if you want to get all semantical and shit...
Quote:
Originally Posted by SkepticX
it's still pretty unlikely he didn't check the chamber immediately prior to taking that picture ... self preservation and all that (note: "pretty unlikely" doesn't mean "certain").
...assuming facts not in evidence.
Pointedly not so, actually, hence "pretty unlikely" rather than "clear" or "obvious" or some such ... unless you're arguing against the norm of strong self-preservation inclinations in humans rather than the probability of whether or not this particular dude was acting accordingly. The former is pretty solidly established, of course, and the latter pretty completely up in the air.
My point was that the subject's situation in the photo isn't as clear a demonstration of stupidity overcoming his inclination toward self-preservation as the humorous take on the photo requires (works pretty well that way though--not exactly a tough spin to apply). I then used that fact to point out that most if not damn near all of us engage in some degree of magical thinking regarding guns and the degree of threat they represent. To the specific original point in question, you have to do something pretty stupid and/or negligent to shoot yourself accidentally. Such incidents are far more about stupidity than guns, and almost always quite clearly so, and the fact that they're so frequently interpreted the other way around is about magical thinking about guns--confirmation bias, which is typically far less restrained regarding guns, and like few other issues this mindset applies unusually well to skeptics (i.e. the normal distinctions that separate skeptics from others are far less evident regarding the issue of guns).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ari
and before you say something more about self preservation,
Quote:
The serviceman, who had been drinking with a woman at a bar before they returned to his residence, was showing her his 9mm handgun when the accident occurred, San Diego Police Officer Frank Cali told KFMB.
The man (who mistakenly believed the gun was unloaded) offered to let his friend hold the weapon, according to Cali. When she declined, he tried to demonstrate how safe it was by putting it to his head and pulling the trigger.
Yeah ... I've seen some things in my personal experience and heard some accounts from others that could be construed to indicate a possible connection between both attempting to impress women and alcohol dosage, and the functional suppression of self-preservation behavior in young male humans. Some seem to think these connections have been established and I have to admit, controversial as it may be, that I think it's at least arguable.
I wouldn't argue against that SEAL's worthiness as a Darwin Award candidate had he died, or if he comes out of the situation unable or unlikely to reproduce. I'd say the SEAL story is a much better example of how guns can be dangerous in the presence of extreme stupidity, alcohol- and/or hormonally-induced or otherwise--no presumption required beyond that the story isn't grossly distorted. In any case I'm certainly not arguing against that point.
Re: I think we need a morons with guns thrad
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