SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Six months after Elon Musk raised the eyebrows of sane people everywhere by announcing his Boring Co. would sell flamethrowers for $500 a pop, the first 1,000 deliveries were made Saturday for customers who showed up at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.
The flamethrowers went like, well, flaming hotcakes when they went on sale in late January, selling out in just four days. In all, 20,000 were sold, raising about $10 million in revenue for Musk's tunnel-boring startup. The devices, technically called "Not a Flamethrower" to skirt federal shipping regulations, shoot a two-foot flame.
[...] Despite concerns about the wisdom of allowing personal flamethrowers in wildfire-prone California, state legislators last month shelved legislation that would have required them to come with a safety warning.
[...] 2017 was California's most destructive wildfire season ever, with more than 9,000 fires burning acreage the size of Delaware and killing at least 46 people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @07:11AM (4 children)
You mean two or more?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:17PM (3 children)
That's a good point. How is it that the press makes such a huge deal out of the two deaths in Tesla cars, but says nothing about the tens of thousands of people who die in other brands?
For that matter, why does everyone run around with their hair on fire about firearms and the deaths that result from their misuse, but say nothing about the orders of magnitude more people who die when cars are misused? People who misuse firearms generally tend to intend to misuse them, but then so do drivers who misuse cars to speed, cut others off, run red lights, and the like. There are even those who use automobiles to intentionally run over others. Why aren't the same people crying about guns crying about cars, too?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:58PM
Because other brands don't advertise as having autopilot. Teslas no longer have all the needed sensors because Musk is arrogant enough to not think they're needed.
Also whataboutism isn't helpful. We know that Teslas aren't anywhere near good enough at self driving, they fail to handle Easy situations like vehicles parked in the side of the road, highway exits and motorcycles in the lane ahead.
This is basic stuff that humans generally get right. The situations that lead to most deaths the cars can't handle anyways.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 12 2018, @11:16PM (1 child)
I'm not sure you've thought that through.
As you pointed out in your post, when people misuse a motor vehicle, the intention is usually to go fast, not to kill someone.
The misuse of firearms is always with the intention of shooting someone. The two are not even a good comparison, despite you mentioning the vehicular murders that have occured recently.
Those are so execptional to be front page news for days.
I suppose the point is that a vehicle has a use beyond murdering people, a handgun does not.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:38PM
Sure it does. I've used handguns more times than I can count, but I have never once used it to murder people. I use them for target shooting. Other people use them for home protection. Farmers outside town where I grew up used them to put down livestock with broken legs, or to kill coyotes.
People use long guns for the same, but also for hunting. That may not be a common use for urbanites, but it's an important supplement to the family food supply in many parts of the West.
There's also, of course, the purpose for why the Founding Fathers enshrined firearm possession in the Constitution, as a check on government overreach. Many scoff at that idea now, but they conveniently gloss over how busy people in Iraq and Afghanistan kept the history's largest and most powerful military for years with weapons no heavier than handguns and rifles. That is, they had no tanks, or attack choppers, or fighter jets, or missiles, or satellites either.
Washington DC delenda est.