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A gunman fired upon thousands of people attending a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip Sunday night, in a brutal attack that is blamed for at least 58 deaths, police say. In the mass shooting and panic that ensued, 515 people were injured. At least one of the dead is an off-duty police officer who was attending the concert.
Editorializing: Interesting how media always emphasize ISLAMIC terrorists, but downplay domestic terrorism as psychologically disturbed individual lone-wolfs.
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Over 50 dead in mass shooting in Las Vegas
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 02 2017, @09:27PM (73 children)
How about the long-range semi-auto known to be easy to convert to full auto, being sold with high-capacity mags?
I'm sure lots of people need those to hunt quail, or defend their two-bedroom and their car.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @10:05PM (71 children)
As repeatedly pointed out to you, the right of free people to arm themselves with whatever weapons they care to fancy is not about hunting nor specifically about self-defense.
In case you missed it, the US Supreme Court disagrees with you and (at the fundamental level, at least) agrees with me. Reference the 208 Heller vs DC majority opinion which recognizes that the right to keep and carry weapons pre-exists government and does not rely upon government for that right to exist.
Repealing the Second Amendment would change nothing, other than telegraph your motives to a lot of watchful and armed people.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 02 2017, @10:41PM (50 children)
My motives are saving thousands of American lives every year. What are yours, keep your shiny toy? You fancy holding back your government, what have you done for the last 16 years? Keep dreaming of being a hero.
In the meantime, I need to start going to outdoor concerts with a flak jacket and FGM-148, just in case the next asshole exercises his 2nd amendment rights to mow crowds with an M1A2. Nice civilization you got there!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @10:58PM (3 children)
I used to lean more heavily towards gun control, but recently I've started to realize just why the founders put in the 2nd amendment. Also, no amount of gun control will stop someone hell bent on killing a large number of people.
I liked the other AC's response "Freedom is simply more important than safety."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:05AM (2 children)
And yet, after 9/11, Americans allowed their freedoms to be taken from them because "scary ragheads".
Now will you have to fight to get those freedoms back? Can they be brought back simply with voting? Can you actually have candidates offered to you as a real choice instead of the choice of orange turd and lying turd (who is trying to rewrite history with "Wha happen?"
I can actually see why some people would want to old onto guns: as long as your vote REALLY means nothing, why not guns?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:15PM (1 child)
The only reason people had freedom or autonomy in the past is because the government simply didn't have the resources to monitor, categorize, and surveillance them. Thanks to the advances of the Information Age, they now have those capabilities. 9/11 helped move them along legally, but the framework had been in place decades if not centuries.
Personally Columbine was a much bigger catalyst than 9/11, since it was what got schoolchildren to accept surveillance and a breach of their rights for so long that thanks to stockholm syndrome they would be in support of their captors in the 18ish years since.
And now we have panopticon rolling through with all those kids bowing down to authority, because hey, they have nothing to hide, and they've been under the microscope their whole lives, right? Additionally, it wasn't social media that lead to the current lack of privacy, that was just an enabler after they decided to 'rebel' after those grade school/high school years without rights, where now they can show whatever they are up to with impunity (even though it has consequences, just like it did then.)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:29PM
Yeah, it's crazy what people will accept when they aren't paying attention to what 'evil' is doing.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @11:25PM (45 children)
Those same motives could be used to justify locking each person inside their own coffin-sized cell, intubated for food and waste, and left inside for the course of their natural lifespan.
Their lives would all be safe. You would find little support for your life savings.
Freedom is more valuable than safety.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 02 2017, @11:43PM (39 children)
> Freedom is more valuable than safety.
Read that a few times, already. Repeating it doesn't make it true.
Tell me what freedom you will likely lose if you give up the assault-style weapons.
The rest of the world is baffled that your "greatest country/democracy on Earth" would apparently instantly collapse into a dictatorship if you did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:20AM (38 children)
Not until you acknowledge or counter my assertion that locking people in coffin-sized cages for their entire lives would make all locked-up people safe.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:34AM (37 children)
Why would I bother to ack something absurd (yet technically correct) thrown out as a response to a suggestion that just about any non-American finds perfectly reasonable?
If we nuked everybody, we would achieve complete freedom and no more violence.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:41AM (36 children)
Because that is the logically consequence of your argument. One of the tools of reason is to understand when things lead to absurd conclusions, like a willingness to sacrifice the freedoms of many hundreds of millions of people for a few thousand lives a year.
Oh look, yet another absurd consequence. Maybe it's time to start thinking instead of complaining.
And what of these non-Americans makes their opinions worth considering more than the people subject to the situation in question?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:59AM (35 children)
> And what of these non-Americans makes their opinions worth considering more than the people subject to the situation in question?
Last time you waved around your automatic guns like teens with a power tool, they did warn you not to invade Iraq...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:07AM (26 children)
Not very hard, I noticed. The Colin Powell show was enough to overcome that advice. And gun control laws do nothing about aggressive military actions.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:24AM (18 children)
Gun ownership has nothing to do with excessive actions by the executive?
I suspect you're trying to say that "gun owners don't do squat about government overreach".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:34AM
So are you supporting the use of firearms in an armed coup to overthrow the federal United States government?
Note that I am not condemning nor supporting that viewpoint, but merely asking for clarification on your views as they regard your paraphrased response.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:19PM (16 children)
Why would you "suspect" that? To answer your question, bob_super insinuated that greater gun control laws would result in less military adventurism. There's no conceivable mechanism by which that could happen. If I were thinking that gun owners do something about government overreach, then taking away firearms (as would happen under a gun control law) would reduce their ability to do something. It is an irrational red herring, tying together two separate issues.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:05PM (15 children)
> bob_super insinuated that greater gun control laws would result in less military adventurism.
You misread my intent. You questioned why the opinion of non-American matter, in the context of a decision about guns.
I pointed out that your friends tried to dissuade you to do something wrong because you felt you could do anything you want with your army (and you did anyway).
Didn't listen; treated your friends like shit for disagreeing; got hurt in the end (still dealing with that mess).
When everyone else points out they don't have the specific problems that come with your lifestyle, take a minute to wonder whether they are all wrong.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:56PM (14 children)
Maybe, but sounds like I didn't misread your intent, to be honest. "Decisions about guns" is a ridiculously fuzzy connection to make between gun control and US military activity (which let us note is not about such "decisions" at all), and your original rhetoric was silly. If the US had gone into Iraq "waving around your automatic guns like teens with a power tool", there'd be a more lot dead on all sides (particularly, since automatic guns are notoriously ineffective against tanks and airplanes, both which Iraq had a fair number of).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:48PM (13 children)
Not all rhetorical tricks produce the intended result.
Back to the original point:
http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-prevent-says-only-nation-where-regularly-ha-57086 [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/shooting-isnt-about-gun-control-we-refuse-pass-its-57095 [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/article/americans-hopeful-will-be-last-mass-shooting-they--57093 [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/article/those-close-nation-say-it-showed-dozens-warning-si-57101 [theonion.com]
Which is pretty much what the rest of the -easily dismissed- world thinks...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:44PM (12 children)
Indeed. Now do you have something useful or interesting to talk about?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:12AM (11 children)
> Now, we're quoting The Onion?
Go ahead and tell me that the first and third of these are not right on the money.
If more people stopped to think about what the Onion says, maybe the shame at the stupidity therein exposed would help change it.
The first one is apparently re-edited for every single US massacre, just by changing the circumstances.
This discussion now has over 400 posts. 59 people are dead, over 500 injured. Earlier, 20 elementary school kids died. This year, 11000 Americans have already been gunned down by someone else, which is more than 9/11 and the ensuing wars combined (or will be, by the end of the year). And the third Onion article is right: Nothing's gonna change, it ain't gonna stop.
Enjoy your freedom ... to hope you'll draw faster than the other guy.
"Stuff happens", because of you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:47AM (4 children)
About what? It might describe a non-US stereotype, but we've already established that I don't respect those. It trivializes the problem and insinuates that all we have to do is adopt some other countries gun control regulations, ignoring that we aren't that other country.
And I have yet to see or hear of anyone "hoping" that this is the last shooting. Third link presents a bogus straw man argument.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @06:11AM (3 children)
> ignoring that we aren't that other country.
You're not your dad, your mom, your teacher or your friends. Yet, when you did something wrong, and they pointed out that you would stop hurting yourself by doing it differently, you learnt.
The second amendment is your religion. If you won't consider that civilization evolves and absolutes from hundreds of years ago can hurt you, you ain't better than Daesh.
> And I have yet to see or hear of anyone "hoping" that this is the last shooting. Third link presents a bogus straw man argument.
I have yet to see or hear anyone who is not negatively responding to the massacre.
The point of the Onion isn't that people believe they could instantly stop it. The point is they are not doing a single thing to start addressing the problem, which everyone agrees is terrible, before it happens again. Learn to read satire.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:29AM (2 children)
And again, you're just making noise. The Onion piece was simple-minded and irrelevant (as so much satire is). There's no easy fix and really, there's not much reason to fix things either. Mass shootings of this sort just don't happen that often. 59 dead people every few years sounds like a lot, until you realize that any such fix will trample on the rights of 340 million, which for the innumerate is a much bigger number, and they're all going to die of something too.
I get that you are running on pure emotion, but it's time for the child bob_super to shut up and the adult bob_super, assuming there is one, to speak.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)
Go drive your tank and prep your anthrax, since preventing you from getting any lethal toy you feel like is "trampling your rights". Who's the child ?
There are ten times more gun murders in the US than in Canada, 15 times more than most of Europe. Keep dreaming of the day you'll heroically stop the government from taking your gun, while innocents get massacred because of your childish dreams.
You're the problem.
You've got all that blood on your hands, which you then put in your ears and on your eyes, because it's inconvenient how it doesn't fit your "freedom" bullshit narrative. Who's the child?
It's your fault. Cling to your toy. You're an accessory to those murders, so you want to dismiss them as a detail. Who's the child?
Other people are free, without clinging to guns. Without access to high-power semi-auto long-range killing tools. Yet you refuse to even consider it? Who's the child?
I'm being logical. Don't call me a child, when you can't justify any of your arguments, or counter mine, except by shouting "freedom" as if holding on to a gun was the only answer. Like a prayer to a blood God.
I won't change your mind. It's religious. Have fun washing the innocents' blood of your soul/karma/whatever. Keep your useless toys. You are the root of the problem, and will never admit it.
Over and out. /thread
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:42PM
Referring only to "gun murders" is blatant deception, since a murder victim is dead regardless of the tool used. Why should anyone pay attention to you if you use such obvious deceit?
Ah yes, the old "declare yourself correct, attempt to end communication" saw. It's the functional equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shrieking "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
As much as you don't like to hear it, free people by definition must have the ability to possess and carry any type of weapons they can build or buy. This absolutely includes armored vehicles and tanks (of which many are indeed privately owned in the USA), chemical and/or biological weapons, and thermonuclear weapons. Where do you think governments get the authority to have such weapons? They are either slaveowning governments, or they derive their authority from individual people. Look up that word "derive" if you're confused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:47AM
You failed statistics, didn't you, bob.
Oh, if only we could trade in a little essential liberty for some saaaaafety...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:05AM (4 children)
I noticed elsewhere a talking point that seems to be going around the pro-firearm ownership blogs these days. If you're going to suggest a gun control policy in response to a mass shooting, show it would have fixed the mass shooting. Seems a reasonable thing to ask here.
Maybe we'll learn differently, but right now, we have a guy who apparently went to extraordinary effort to collect some nasty weapons and prepare the scene, yet doesn't belong to any of the traditional classes of people who would be denied ownership of firearms by law. With what has bounced around so far, he doesn't seem to have exhibited signs of serious mental illness or committed felony crimes in the past, for example.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @06:01AM (3 children)
> If you're going to suggest a gun control policy in response to a mass shooting, show it would have fixed the mass shooting.
I proposed earlier that regular citizens shouldn't be allowed to possess weapons which can deliver tens to hundreds of bullets per minute which are still lethal at a quarter mile or more. You don't kill 59 people from 200 yards away with a handgun, a Winchester, a hunting rifle, or a pump-action shotgun (all of which were the NRA's bread and butter, until the popularity of the Black Gun forced them to change their narrative to protecting your right to an insurrection).
The semi-auto version of a weapon of war, easily converted back to full-auto, should be treated like other weapons of war: missiles, tanks, nukes...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:10AM (2 children)
Yes, you can. The "bump stock" is not particular to guns that are painted black nor is it the only technology for making guns shoot faster. Rich guys with no prior record who pick the best weapons at the time and a venue in which to massacre people aren't going to be well handled by any sort of gun control law. It's quite irrational to even try.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:19PM (1 child)
> It's quite irrational to even try.
It's totally irrational to do nothing, just because some people will find a way around the rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:47PM
I agree, let's not "do nothing".
Let's take the time to rip away all ~20,000 of those laws that blatantly and directly violate the "shall not be infringed" directive of the legally-enshrined acknowledgement that individual people are free to arm themselves with whatever weapons they can dream up.
Counter-attack sniper rifles! Armed drones! Gas grenades! Smart rifles! [npr.org] All available over-the-counter at your local hardware store.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:02AM (6 children)
> The Colin Powell show was enough to overcome that advice.
No. It wasn't. Not even close.
Not that it prevented W from doing what he wanted, anyway.
(Score: 1) by rylyeh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:21AM
Yes - CIA gave Powell the polluted info about Saddam's WMD.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:10PM (4 children)
And yet there was no significant resistance to the invasion at the country level. A fair number of countries had positions opposing the US invasion, but they didn't act on those positions. Still haven't.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:11PM (3 children)
W took to insulting and threatening anyone getting in the way of his Saddam feud. Remember the French UN veto, Freedom fries and Jokes about Germans not wanting war?
When the elephant starts charging, you get out of the way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:39PM (2 children)
So what? Insults and threats aren't noticeably effective against a large nation-state especially when they are toothless (freedom fries and jokes about Germans didn't come from Dubya BTW).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:25PM (1 child)
"punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia", already forgotten Condi Rice?
The point of "punish France" being to send a message to anyone of smaller size...
When you wield the biggest economic stick, threats from the president's cabinet do matter.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:40PM
How well did she do on that? There's a reason I used the word "toothless".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:16AM (7 children)
The misdirection of your (valid) criticism of the international stupidity of the US government has no direct bearing on the point of this sub-thread, that being that freedom is superior to safety and that small arms in the hands of individual people is a right recognized by the US Supreme Court as one pre-existing government and existing regardless of whether or not a government exists.
If anything, your highlighting of the stupidity-cum-criminality of the US government emphasizes the usefulness of a heavily-armed populace as a counterbalance to an increasingly-criminal government. For examples of direct applications of these, see the Battle of Athens [constitution.org], and for a more recent example, the Battle of Bunkerville [tenthamendmentcenter.com]. Both are examples of armed private individual USians arming themselves and standing up against blatant criminal actions by agents of US government.
(Score: 1) by evk on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:08AM (6 children)
Guess I'm late to the show, but I find this argument about pre-existing rights strange. Isn't the the point with just about all goverments to regulate the peoples rights? Take some away and guarante others.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:22PM
Well, that and guarantee less and less as time goes on and the public becomes more accepting of the taking away of rights. You don't move to totalitarian police state instantly, the frog needs to be boiled slowly.
The point of rights is that they are freedoms that the governments can't take away. When they can, then they aren't rights any more.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:18PM (4 children)
That is absolutely not the idea upon which the US was founded. Our "founding fathers" believed that "rights" were things inherent in men which the government could never legitimately restrict. Which is why the Bill of Rights wasn't an original part of the Constitution and was instead added as amendments -- many even argued that it should not be included precisely because by defining rights in law you risk creating the belief that the law is what creates those rights -- as you just demonstrated.
See "Natural Rights": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights [wikipedia.org]
See also Federalist No. 84: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/bor/federalist-84/ [teachingamericanhistory.org]
(Score: 1) by evk on Wednesday October 04 2017, @10:18AM (3 children)
I think I understand what you say, but I find it difficult to agree. There's two different issues here.
1. Is the right to bear arms a natural right and what do we do if this right contradict other rights. The issue here isn't really guns, it is safety. It could be argued that guns are an essential part of the right to saftey (i.e. self defence). It could also be argued that a society without restrictions on lethal weapons isn't a safe society. Not even the U.S is completly without restrictions and I find it extremly unlikely that less restrictions would make the country safer.
2. Should the law define rights. This is to me more interesting and also where I found it very difficult to agree with your(?) point of view. If the law doesn't define the rights. Who should? And who will ensure that these rights are actual rights and not just a dream. People will never have a fully shared idea about what the rights should be.
It sounds to me like what you describe would lead to an anarchistic world view. I tend to like anarchy (I'm not using the general meaning of the word but refers to the ideologic idea see e.g. Robert Nozick) but find it extremly difficult to implement. The U.S is very far from anarchistic so I suspect that that's not what your ralking about.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:15AM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:32PM
Well, I don't personally believe in the magical sky fairies (although I otherwise do tend to agree about this), but it was the view of the US founders that rights essentially came from God:
I'd agree mostly in the sense that most "rights" are things that you really can't take away no matter how hard you try. Free speech...you can pass all the laws you want, people will say what they think in the privacy of their own home. Freedom of religion...you can't control someone elses' thoughts or beliefs. But the right to bear arms fits that pattern as well -- if people think they need weapons, they will find a way to arm themselves. We've got people building rail guns and tazers out of disposable cameras. We've got 3D printed pistols. Before that, we had zip guns. Before that, we had people beating plowshares into swords.
Yeah, I'm definitely sympathetic towards an anarchist view...I lean towards Anarcho-syndicalism generally. Difficult to implement because it's a social structure as much as a political one -- unlike most governments, it's not something a core group of politicians could impose by force. Essentially, people should act cooperatively in the interest of society without someone forcing them at gunpoint to do so.
I will say that I'm not *entirely* opposed to gun control under our current system, but it would need to be done in a way that applies equally to everyone. The point of the US government was supposed to be that it is "of, by, and for the people" -- ie, the government is not separate from the citizenry. So you can't say that the government gets weapons but the citizens can't. If you want a licensing exam similar to how we regulate driving, that's fine...but every cop with a gun and every soldier must pass that same exam. If you want a blanket ban on certain weapons, fine, but that ban must apply to government agents as well (a pistol ban would actually be a pretty good policy IMO...not much use in war; far from the only or even best option for home defense; mostly good at being small and easily concealed. But that won't stop these mass shootings...)
The other thing to consider is that mass *homicides* in general don't seem to correlate entirely with gun control. China has pretty strict gun control, but they've had some mass stabbings with a body count that exceeds all but the worst US shooting incidents. My feeling is that one has to be extremely desperate to turn to this kind of crime, and the reason much of Europe sees less of it is simply because they have better social programs to prevent people from reaching that point. The US, on the other hand, has a very large and vocal faction saying that your problems are your own, deal with it or die. So I think gun control is totally irrelevant if the real cause of these incidents is that inability to get help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @09:06PM
Where does law come from, if not from dictators at gunpoint? Can its authority be sourced from somewhere else? It can - but doing so comes with some drawbacks and limitations [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:00PM (4 children)
Neither the state of absolute freedom, nor the state of absolute safety, is achievable. Civilisation always involves compromises. I lose the freedom to walk anywhere I want by a civilisation allowing private ownership of land. A driving license is a good example of such a compromise: the utility of private ownership of motor vehicles is clear, as is the danger of people who have no idea how to drive safely being in control of a ton or two of metal near other humans. The compromise is to allow anyone who has demonstrated basic competence and then not demonstrated dangerous incompetence to drive. The bar is a bit higher if you want a pilot's license, because the amount of damage that you can do crashing a plane is a lot higher than the damage from crashing a car. When someone commits a violent crime, we often take away their right to liberty to protect the safety of others.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:36PM (3 children)
You do not comprehend the meaning of "freedom". A free person is the sole and exclusive owner of his human body. He has 100% ownership of his body (and thus ALL property acquired by said body) and 0% ownership in any other person's body. Any interaction between two free humans must be mutually voluntary; if not, trying to force such interaction regardless is a trespass on the victim's right to life and therefore criminal.
I know of no government on Earth that tolerates freedom. "Government" does not civilization make. Freedom is civilization. Anything less is just slavery by a different name.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:57PM (2 children)
And all property required to maintain said body? Does he, purely by dint of existing, own the rights to enough land to grow crops to feed him? A supply of fresh water?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
Yup. A free man could choose to use his body and mind to learn a skill, trade the use of that skill in mutually-voluntary trade for resources (money, barter, etc.), and then use those saved resources to buy land, crop seed, access to water (or rain cisterns, etc.).
In the event of unclaimed resources, Lockean principles and logic also detail the reasoning that supports taking ownership of such wild resources by using one's own labor to improve and manage it. It holds true of acorns in a forest to an asteroid out in space.
You are ENTITLED to nothing from others. Assuming you to be a free person, you have 100% ownership in your own body and 0% over anyone else's.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:41AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:43AM (15 children)
I completely agree. I got me two of these [wikipedia.org] and a gross of these [wikipedia.org], as well as a few dozen of these [wikipedia.org].
I also have a bunch of these [wikipedia.org] and several of these [wikipedia.org] along with 50,000 rounds of ammo for each model.
For perimeter defense, I have four or five of these [wikipedia.org] to go along with the strategically located Claymores [wikipedia.org].
I'm just a law abiding citizen who takes his personal liberty seriously.
Can anyone recommend a good (that is, cheap and doesn't ask many questions) storage facility near Omaha? Any suggestions would be appreciated!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:09AM (14 children)
Cool.
You should build your own ammo dump [wikipedia.org]. Storage facilities are actually quite insecure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:16AM (13 children)
An excellent idea. However, you wouldn't believe how unpatriotic and anti-gun my neighbors are!
After I installed the Claymores and set up the .50 Cal emplacements, the other tenants in the apartment complex where I live threw a shit fit.
So a few cars blew up. So a few people died and a bunch more were wounded (ranging from quadraplegia to castration). What's the big deal? You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, amirite?
I took care of the complainers with a few of the W79s and now no one comes near the place (and won't without radiation hazard gear for a few years). But i really can't afford the rent on a couple more apartments, so I really need a place to keep my spares and ammo.
So, no suggestions in the Omaha area? Too bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:39AM (12 children)
Wow, what a bummer! Well, there's still some good news.
A lot of that hardware of yours still has significant monetary value. Due of your own actions that caused damage to other persons and property, after witnesses have sworn out verifiable criminal complaints against your person and an investigation has confirmed the claims, you will be secured until the end of your trial. Assuming everything you claim is verified by the courts, your assets will be seized and auctioned off with the proceeds going to your victims as restitution in the best attempt we have at making your victims whole.
A shame you confused mere power with authority like so many criminals before you, but the media is going to sell a lot of papers regarding your criminal actions, those who may be on track to follow your footsteps will likely check themselves, and apartment owners will be putting up some geiger counters. If you'd just built a proper ammo dump like I'd suggested, along with enough of the implied land that you wouldn't be knocking elbows with your neighbors, nothing bad would have come of it.
Oh, right, and you'd have had to not be a murderous thug, which is the only real problem with the scenario you detail.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @05:52AM (11 children)
Oh, I see. You're one of those librul freaks who pretends to be a *real* American, but shits on the Constitution every chance you get.
I was perfectly happy to protect my neighbors from being rounded up and shipped to the FEMA concentration camps, to make room for the Muslims. I made sure that the evil government couldn't just come in here and manhandle my fellow Americans.
I made sure they knew what was going on and how I was going to keep them safe from those ISIS-loving bureaucrats in Washington. And sure enough, a couple days later, a bunch of left-wing commies from DC came to try to take the weapons I have a god-given right to own.
I made sure those evil ATF guys understood the depth of their mistake.
And just because a few people got hurt, there's all kinds of other folks out there right now who need a lesson to be taught [youtube.com]. And I'm just the guy to learn 'em!
I know what's right. Alex, Rush and Steve set me straight, and no librul government apologist like you will stop me from helping our beloved President from making America great again!
Go back to your coffee klatsches and subversive antifa meetings, you worthless lefty scum.. It's you people and the violence you do to all of us that's forcing our hands.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:25AM (10 children)
The moment your actions trespass on the person or property of any other, you are a criminal. Guns or lack thereof do not affect that principle.
Note that, in a land of truly free people, the first time you blew up someone else's car, you'd have been called out to answer for it. If you'd decided to escalate with force, you'd have been justly killed in self-defense, regardless of the size of your arsenal. There are no Rambos, even if there are a LOT of well-armed deer hunters, firearms enthusiasts, and freedom fanatics out there in flyover country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @07:08AM (9 children)
Tell that to Stephen Paddock's victims. I'm sure that will make (well, at least the ones who survived) them feel much better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @07:19AM (8 children)
So what's your point? From the initial reports, the murderer is dead, and only took so long in getting that way because there weren't enough armed persons around early enough to stop the murderer sooner - just as I'd mentioned your neighbors would be prepared to do to you when you first blew up a car that wasn't yours.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:11AM (4 children)
> only took so long in getting that way because there weren't enough armed persons around early enough to stop the murderer sooner
Totally looking forward to a crowd of concert goers shooting back at the mandalay bay from a couple hundred yards away at night. Even if half are actually sober, you'd run out of ambulances, maybe set fire to the hotel while killing innocents in their beds, and the cops would have no clue who's on which side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @08:47AM (3 children)
Apparently the very idea of someone being armed next door to a hotel room where automatic gunfire erupts out of nowhere never even crossed your mind. (Doesn't surprise me, as it appears rather narrow.)
That's effectively what happened, but with the additional time for the police to drive over to the hotel, then sort out the exact room all the racket was coming from, etc.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:31PM (2 children)
I believe CNN mentioned that the guy shot at the cops in the hotel before committing suicide.
How many brave heroes are going to burst through a hotel door with their carry toy, when an unknown amount of people inside are continuously shooting with automatic weapons?
Seriously... Stop watching Hollywood movies, people.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:08PM (1 child)
Simply because you yourself are a sniveling coward, who considers being mugged and left physically unharmed as "civilized", by no means requires other manlier men to share your "qualities".
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @10:52PM
Calling bob a sniveling coward would have looked less like a random ad hominem and more like the exposing of his tendency to project if I'd have remembered to include a link to the post he declared himself as such [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:38PM (2 children)
You're either being deliberately obtuse or are really clueless.
Stephen Paddock was the Rambo you say doesn't exist. And rather than supporting your argument, you double down and say that if only we had more Rambos, things would be much better.
So which is it? Those are contradictory statements:
or
You seem to vacillate, using whatever you can to try to justify your own beliefs. These folks are trust worthy and *never* use firearms inappropriately! But if they did, we need *more* armed folks (possibly impaired by alcohol or other substances) to shoot up a hotel with thousands of guests. What's more, these "responsible folks should be carrying their firearms (preferably with scopes and the like) on their person in an urban area to go see a concert.
No Rambos or more Rambos? Which is it? You should try to keep things straight, friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @09:11PM (1 child)
You are trying to make the case that 1 > 1. You're obviously false.
The murderer is no Rambo. He was one man, and he is now dead because other armed men came for him. Whether or not he chose to kill himself before the actual confrontation with armed men is beside the point - had there been no threat of armed men running at him, the murderer would have had no reason to kill himself if he could kill any who opposed him. He couldn't, he knew it, and if he indeed killed himself, that is the likely reason.
Still no Rambos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @11:00PM
To clarify, in the titular movies [imdb.com], Rambo does not die. John Rambo kills a lot of people, usually using guns, and lives on.
"There are no Rambos" is an acknowledgement that all humans are mortal, that sane humans acknowledge that fact, and that carrying firearms around does not change that fact. What firearms do provide is a means to turn a squishy, fragile human into a dangerous opponent. That this also allows for evil to make use of firearms is irrelevant - evil has been making use of sticks, rocks, and bare fists since the dawn of time.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:20AM (1 child)
You poor, pathetic, dead mother-fucker. Sturm-Ruger agrees with me! Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya? .44 Remington Magnum. Best use, defense against large carnivores, such as Racoons, Possums, Bandicoots, and Wolverines. Also useful in dispatching coward gun-lovers, but may be excessive force in some jurisdictions. Release the full registry of Americans who own more than six guns. We need to know where these ammosexual perverts live, and what the bag and carry limits are, during season. The interesting thing is the possibility of self-capture!
I just fucking shot myself, the Musical! [youtube.com] Never gets old. Trained by The Coward James Yeager [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:29AM
I'm sorry that you've decided that your only recourse in the face of verifiable facts is to spout gibberish mixed with murder threats.
Good luck to you in hunting down all those gun owners...
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:50AM (1 child)
One person's right to walk around with high-rate-of-fire weapons vs. the rights of 22,000 people to gather for a concert without worrying if they're just part of a target-rich environment. Hmm . . .
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:32AM
"Walking around" doesn't kill 59 people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:55AM
the second amendment is about the right to protect yourself from out of control feds, like this probable false flag attack. This is the depth of your slavery. You're demanding that the people who are killing your fellow citizens(assuming you're american) should take your fellow citizens rights away because they might kill more of your fellow citizens. WTF is wrong with you? You're like a sci-fi movie character. It's disturbing. The whole country is under this trance. They don't even know they are zombie slaves clamoring for more abuse.