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Ugh... (Score:5, Funny)
Fucking camper.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Funny)
If toy guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have toy guns. Wouldn't that be a good thing?
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Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Funny)
"And now, they're looking at banning toy guns.... and they're going to KEEP THE FUCKING REAL ONES!" - George Carlin
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Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=50+cal
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Bungie dials 911...Free Publicity... (Score:5, Interesting)
Win!
Re:Didn't Bungie used to be a Mac Game shop? (Score:4, Informative)
As for these days, not too many, but they've only been out from underneath Microsoft for about a year now. Not even really enough time to develop anything new that they could bring to Mac. Halo was actually the last game from them that I remember seeing for Mac (and it was ported by Gearbox, as I recall, not Bungie itself), but I haven't been paying as much attention to them in recent years since all they've been working on is Halo, and that franchise never really panned out the way I expected it to.
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Ah, paranoia (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe Congress can attempt to pass an "Assault Replica" bill.
I've never understood the logic of banning a gun because it looks scary. American "assault rifles" are semi-automatic. Pull the trigger, and one shot comes out. Politicians want to ban them because they look intimidating next to, say, a standard bolt-action Ruger 30.06. This is like banning a V-6 equipped Camaro because "it looks fast".
Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:4, Informative)
Don't joke, they have something similar to a 'replica ban' in the UK already.
The rational is not 'because its scary', its to make the bans rather vague in their coverage. You capture more weapons that way, with the general publics approval.
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:4, Insightful)
That is because the police got very tired of the hassle and expense the massive inquiries that inevitably followed when some moron pointed a replica gun at someone, and a police marksman shoots them.
Personally if you point a replica gun at someone, especially a policeman don't whine when you get shot.
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? You who didn't notice the "extremely large expansion in government power" during the Bush era deserve to get your playtoys taken away.
Didn't notice a one of you showing up to Bush's (few) public speaking engagements packin' 2nd amendment heat, not during the time he expanded the federal budget and deficit to new record levels, all the while crossing out sections of new law just cus his lawyers say he can.
Now that you got a Democratic president, you're all up in arms. Whoop-te-do, you're at least five years late.
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, try comparing the US with the EU and look at firearm related deaths per 100,000 [wikipedia.org]
They aren't entirely comparable as they are very different culturally, and comprised of nations that have recently had wars fought on their own soil, come out from under the boot of military dictatorships or have had relative peace for a few hundred years. And you need to piece together the EU numbers yourself. Even better, that list doesn't contain all EU members either.
It seems there are no available combined statistics for the EU, which I find rather sad and slightly disturbing, considering the amount of pressure for even tougher weapon laws. Denmark is currently in an uproar because a 19-year-old kid has been sentenced to the mandatory 7 days in prison for having two box cutters in the front door of his car, when he was picking up a friend from a club.
Best I could come up with was simply averaging across the 14 available EU member countries and I came up with this:
[Firearm homicide rate];[Non firearm homicide rate];[total] (all per 100,000) between 1998 and 2000.
USA - [2.97];[1.58];[4.55]
EU - [0.85];[3.73];[4.58]
Austria, Belgium, The Czech Republic, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Romania, Sweden aren't listed. I'm also missing a country but I can't figure out which one.
It should be noted that while none of the listed EU countries have a higher firearm rate than the US, five countries have higer homicide rates (highest was 12.3/100,000).
And while Eurostat [europa.eu] does have some info, it doesn't seem to allow you to separate whether or not firearms were involved.
Generally speaking firearms doesn't stop people getting killed. It just means they'll be killed in a different way. At least that's what the '98 to '00 statistics seem to say.
But finding usable data on non-homicide crimes that (doesn't) involve guns is going to be even trickier.
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:5, Informative)
you mean like this????
Pearl highschool "However, assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from the glove compartment of his truck and subdued Woodham inside his mother's car." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting [wikipedia.org]
or
Colorado church shooting. "Chief Richard Myers called the Colorado Springs church security staffer "a courageous security staff member who probably saved many lives." http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/09/church.shooting/ [cnn.com]
Before you say that the church security office was a trained individual. please read about the story. as I remember it the church had some word that something might happen and they asked a few people to act as security guards. "
At this point, Jeanne Assam, a church member volunteering as a church security guard, opened fire on Murray with her personally owned concealed weapon" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings [wikipedia.org]
While I agree that these 2 incidents do not prove the value of CCW. they make a clear statement that not only professionally trained law enforcement officers stop these type of crimes. There are many under reported cases of private citizens stopping criminal behavior with a firearm.
Epi
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have an example of this?
There were enough examples of this in Israel that the perps switched tactics. Trying to shoot up a shopping mall became ineffective, since the attacker didn't manage to hurt many people before being shot by several armed civilians. They started using improvised rockets instead, with a range of several miles.
Hypothetical mass murders being an argument for concealed weapons is weak at best.
Most of the time, when a firearm is used for self-defense, it's not even necessary to fire it. Just showing it to the perp tends to make them reconsider.
-jcr
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The whole gun arguement can be broken down like.. (Score:4, Insightful)
1) a gun is a weapon.
2) a weapon is a tool.
3) such tools can be used to directly influence life.
4) any tool that can directly influence life also effects the socio/political balance of power.
5) both the government and the people want/maintain power, usually for the same reasons.
6) almost anything can be used as a weapon.
Limiting how a tool is used is the right of any society. But forbidding access to such a tool is a sort-sighted attempt to effect the balance of power.
Short-sighted because
6) almost anything can be used as a weapon.
Guns are powerful tools, but certainly not the only tools which can be used to threaten the balance of power.
The kind of corny phrase 'guns don't kill people' is still as true as ever. People can and do use almost anything at their disposal to do it.
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:4, Informative)
They are the ones who sometimes stop crimes before the police arrive. They are the ones who have CCW permits and stop deranged sociopaths who are going on public murder sprees before they can kill or before they can kill as many people as they'd like to.
The fantasy land of the gun proponent. There's a boogie man behind every corner out to get you, and the gun toting everyman hero saves the day. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Legal gun ownership leads to nothing more than more guns in the wild for the bad guys to get their hands on and more gun accidents in general. The number of crimes foiled by gun carrying good guys is so small in comparison that it can barely be counted.
Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000.
Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups): 1,500.
Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188
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Re:Ah, paranoia (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, almost all the people who actually know a thing or two about guns are on the anti-control side of the debate. When the people for gun control write laws, their experience is largely drawn from movies rather than any personal experience, so their laws end up being silly and ineffectual. They also tend to say things like this [phillyburbs.com]:
"As unnerving as the Fort Dix terrorism plot was, it could have been all the more worse if the weapons of choice for alleged assailants had been .50 caliber assault guns instead of AK-47s," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer.
No, it wouldn't have. In a close quarters battle (which is what the Dix guys were planning), a 50 cal is far too bulky to be usable; we should wish the terrorist were that dumb. An assault rifle, like the AK-47, is ideal for this sort of thing.
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Re:Funny thing:doesn't happen in gun-control count (Score:4, Interesting)
But in my house, there won't be guns. If there is going to be a gun in the house, it will belong to an Adult, and it will be with them at all times till they leave my house.
In my house there are guns. They belong to an adult, as it is the only way to be (you were somewhat redundant) and they are kept locked at all times, except when they are used.
I have a kid in the house, my kid might get curious, and though I will teach her about gun safety, I'm not going to risk her forgetting what she knows so she can get a good look at the business end.
The safest thing for you to do is to not only teach your kid the gun safety, but also to teach her how to shoot. This is an important factor in reducing the curiosity of children about guns. If you say "never touch" they will want to touch when you are not around (or when it's someone's else gun.) If you say "never touch without me" it's a different story. Once the child learns how guns work the curiosity will drop quick, and many children will never want to shoot a gun again, even when they get a chance. There is a web site [corneredcat.com] all about this, and you might want to read it all.
Only now, if we had no guns, I won't have a deterrent for that kid, I can't tell them I have a gun, and I will shoot them if they enter my home.
The police, if promptly called, will need 20 minutes to get to my home. If someone decides to invade my home I have to keep that number in mind. If you have a child in the house you need to consider who and how will protect the child if an unlikely event happens.
But she won't even know I have a gun until (big IF) I have to use it to defend my family, or she is older
There is a reason to do it differently. What if she is to come across a gun outside? The safety rules will be probably too much for her to remember, especially if she is too young. A knowledge of a gun would do better. First, the gun will be recognized as such instantly (and not seen as a strange toy without a name.) Second, if you shoot a gun with a child she will remember that loud report that happens, and it will be a deterrent from exploring further. It will be a good deterrent because it will be in a different kind of memory - the memory that children use best. Safety rules, though important, depend on logical interpretation of what's happening, and we all know how good children are at that. Again I suggest reading that link above, it explains things better than I do.
I don't think gun control would work well in the US, mostly because of our combined 'I'm above the law' mindset, that makes the mass think they can do what ever they want.
Yes. The cat is not just out of the bag, it was never in the bag. And if you *magically* make all guns disappear overnight, the gangs will switch to knives. It's actually scarier than a gun. A gun works even in lightly trained hands of a housewife, but she would be a sitting duck against a knife-wielding attacker. The UK banned all guns, so knives are all the rage there.
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The police are morons (Score:3, Informative)
Washington is an open carry state.
http://opencarry.org/wa.html [opencarry.org]
Re:The police are morons (Score:5, Insightful)
+1 Informative, -1 Angry Ranting Nerd.
Washington may be an open carry State, but are fully automatic firearms legal there? Are weapons with a caliber larger than .50 legal? Google before answering, and look at the size of the 'weapon' in question.
Under Washington law, it is an offence to open-carry with the intent to cause alarm. A bystander was alarmed enough to dial 911. It's up to an officer to determine whether that alarm was intentional.
So the police investigated, determined that no crime had been committed, and left some sensible advice. Advice, not orders. Seems about right to me.
Next time you hear about some scruffy looking guy dragging a massive gun down the street, and you choose to move towards that person, then you get to armchair quarterback police response to firearms calls. M'kay?
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Re:The police are morons (Score:4, Insightful)
Washington may be an open carry State, but are fully automatic firearms legal there?
An AK-47 is semi-auto, not full-auto, so your question is irrelevant.
Are weapons with a caliber larger than .50 legal?
Again, the AK-47 is *SMALLER*, so why are you asking?
Google before answering, and look at the size of the 'weapon' in question.
The police were called about an AK-47 - not a "big gun I don't know the name of", but (specifically) an AK-47. Seeing as the caller specifically said AK-47, the cop's response should have been "AK-47's are perfectly legal to carry in the open."
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Re:The police are morons (Score:4, Informative)
There may be semi-auto versions available for hobbyists, but as a general statement that is just wrong. The AK-47 is definitely a proper assault rifle capable of emptying the 30 round magazine in 3 seconds if need be. In fact it is pretty much the mother of all assault rifles, copied dozens of times around the world.
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Re:The police are morons (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:The professor Gates case??? (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed, the situation could have been handled much better on both sides. Personally from what I've read I think Gates was just being a twit and the cop didn't do much to help the situation. Before you spew racial vitriol all over the internets, get your facts straight.
Since you apparently have not yet read the transcript I assume you're too lazy to look it up (it was posted on the front page of major news sites for some time after the incident). I'll save you the google time and provide a link:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/transcript_of_gates_call_1llqzVbjNMc0kloOxegLhO [nypost.com]
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Perhaps not an AK47 (Score:4, Insightful)
But it looks very much like something real to me. Sure you can make fun of people not knowing it does not look like an AK47. I can also imagine that somebody who knows very little about riffles would say 'ak47' where he means 'looks like an assault wepon that is not like any standard hunting rifle'.
Re:Perhaps not an AK47 (Score:5, Insightful)
In an age where it is not unheard of for a citizen to gun down schoolmates and coworkers, I think erring on the side of caution when someone is wielding a dangerous looking weapon in a populated area is appropriate no matter what the gun laws are. And I am not a fan of the police by any means.
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Re:Perhaps not an AK47 (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that the article says the employee was 'carrying' the weapon, and that police advised Bungee to be more discreet in 'transporting' the replica. So although there are no guarantees, the article certainly implies that the replica was just being carried.
Me, I think the police should have advised the individual who called in not to be such a candy ass in the future. My personal, biased, unscientific risk assessment tells me we suffer far more from excess paranoia than we do from random shootings. I acknowledge that random shootings are a real problem in the U.S., but I think the paranoia we live under is a much bigger problem.
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Well, to be fair, (Score:5, Informative)
However, it does look like a whole lot like a Barrett
Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:3, Insightful)
their way to the local farmer's market called 911 saying that they thought they saw someone walking down the street with an AK-47
I've seen people get paralyzed because a black beetle crawled across the kitchen counter. I suspect many people have the same irrational fear of guns, therefore if you carry ANYTHING that even resembles a gun their first instinct is to call for help (aka "call 911"). It's a phobia which is NOT rational, and it's no wonder they irrationally identified a toygun as an AK-47.
>>>officers advised Bungie officials to transport the gun more discretely in the future.
No. Read the Constitution mister cop (you know, that thing you pledged to protect, but apparently never read). Carrying a flag, sign, or other item is considered "symbolic speech" according to the Supreme Court and therefore protected.
Re:Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that makes the beetle phobia irrational is that the beetle involved is harmless (well, technically I'm probably making an assumption about what part of the world you're from there). Whatever you think about gun control, you surely don't think they aren't dangerous. What exactly would you consider a rational phobia?
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Re:Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Which makes being alarmed when a stranger walks down a city street with a huge gun not a phobia.
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Re:Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:4, Insightful)
It always amazes me that gun owners fail to understand that when people talk about their feelings towards guns, they are really talking about their feelings towards gun-wielders. In this case, the Halo rifle was not walking down the street by itself. It was being wielded by a person. The 911 caller was alarmed by the person carrying what they thought was a powerful weapon.
So remember kids, when we're talking about guns and gun control, we're really talking about gun toters, not inanimate objects.
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Re:Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:4, Insightful)
There's such a thing as being right, and there's such a thing as being stupidly right.
Sure, I have the right to do lots of things. I can stand up in a PTA meeting and say: "I think we ought to reconsider if sexual relationships between students and teachers are really such a bad thing." I can walk up to a group of Hispanics and say: "I really think this country would be better off if you moved to Mexico." According to the Constitution if have the right to do it, but having that right, and dealing with the consequences of exercising that right, are two entirely different things.
Walking down a street carrying what looks like an assault weapon to the average guy on the street is just begging for trouble. Notice that the cop didn't say "Don't carry the replica." He said: "Be discreet. Don't cause people to panic." There is a big difference between the two.
When it comes to exercising and fighting for your rights, choose your battles intelligently. A mature adult chooses discretion and consideration when dealing with his fellow man, not meaningless confrontation just to prove a point.
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Re:Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:5, Informative)
Police are permitted to advise people that they would be generally better off doing things even when those things are not legally mandatory; of course, people are also free to ignore such advise, arouse suspicion in their neighbors, have the police called and have the police arrive to investigate. That something is Constitutionally protected doesn't mean it isn't suspicious to your neighbors, and it doesn't mean the police won't investigate when they get a report, and that both the report and the follow-up inquiry won't be perfectly legal.
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Re:Some people fear guns like they fear bugs (Score:5, Funny)
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Older games weapons (Score:5, Funny)
Still looks like a big-ass gun to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether it resembles an AK47 or not, it still looks like a scary looking piece of kit to the untrained eye. I know nothing about guns, and while it looks comically oversized, I wouldn't automatically assume it was fake.
As a part-time theatre tech, I sometimes have to transport fake guns for shows, and I always do it discreetly. Just because I know they are fake, doesn't mean other people will, or indeed should know. It's not like people take classes on gun recognition at school. Unless you have an interest in such things, I don't see why you would know what different guns look like.
Reminds me of that girl who strolled into an airport with circuit-boards, wires and blinking lights attached to her jumper, and was surprised when security got rather twitchy. It might not have looked like a bomb to you and I, but to the average person bought up on a diet of Hollywood films, where the bombs always have sticky out wires and flashing lights (and beep, just to let you know they are there), it certainly looked suspicious.
At least in this case the police were a bit more calm and restrained once they figured out what was going on.
Re:Still looks like a big-ass gun to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, but in this instance the police acted appropriately... They were alerted to a potential threat, contained it, discovered it wasn't a threat at all and left. No charges were filed, and a suggestion was given that would result in a whole lot of police and Bungie staff not having their time wasted.
To the guy that said carrying the gun was political speech. Bullshit. In this instance, an employee was carrying a piece of equipment from point a to point b. That equipment just happened to be something that the general public took as a threat. The police suggested a way to alleviate time wasted in the future.
If they were to actually carry this item as political speech, it would be wise to alert the police that you are doing so _before_ you start marching around with a fake gun. Otherwise, you are _very_ likely to be looking down the barrel of a very real gun.
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Replica guns (Score:4, Insightful)
In the UK, this could easily result in prosecution for carrying a replica gun. I'm not opposed to that law.
Re:Death of the 2nd (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. The Americans are just scared of someone walking around. [msn.com]
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Re:Death of the 2nd (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Nearly every major PD in America has carried AR-15's (civilian version of the M-16) in their patrol cars since shortly after the North Hollywood Shootout.
Considering you are incredibly unlikely to encounter someone carrying an actual assault rifle (no semi-auto EVIL BLACK RIFLES!!!!1111 are not assault rifles, most traditional hunting rifles are deadlier than "Assault Weaponsâ") and doing so is entirely legal, it is silly to send five cars after someone just carrying one. What next? Do you want the police to send five cars when someone sees a "hacker" (aka someone with glasses and a laptop) sitting outside an office building?
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Re:AK47? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:AK47? (Score:5, Informative)
Note it is also completely legal in Washington to have a unconcealed firearm without a permit. There was a court case of a felon carrying two rifles to a pawn shop that got stopped and arrested for possession. It had to be thrown out (even though he was in illegal possession) because the cops had no probable cause to arrest him even though he was walking down the street in broad daylight with two rifles. That set the precedent for OC in Washington.
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Re:AK47? (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody called the police. In fact, my friend was carrying the other weapon I bought, a AR-15.
You're obviously a white guy
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Re:AK47? (Score:5, Funny)
Years ago I was talking to a guy who was a civil war re-in-actor and he told me about traveling from Michigan to New York via Ontario. He pulled up to Canadian Customs and the agent asked him if he was bringing any weapons into Canada. He was kind of taken aback but answered" Well yes, there is a cannon on the trailer with 20 cannon balls and black power for ammunition" this was all in plain sight. The Customs agent then said "but no handguns or unregistered rifles or shotguns?" he replied "no. but I do have a saber in the trunk" to which the Customs agent replied Thank you have a nice trip."
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Re:AK47? (Score:5, Funny)
black power for ammunition
So he was playing a yankee, huh?
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Re:AK47? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:AK47? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:AK47? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, considering that my neighbors are all upstanding, law-abiding citizens, I'd be thrilled if they all carried AKs. That'd be one helluva deterrent for criminals thinking about causing trouble.
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Re:AK47? (Score:4, Funny)
I briefly remember as a kid when you would think twice about "toilet papering" a house cause you might get shot. (even though deep down inside you knew there would be a warning shot first...) Kids today have no regard for their actions.
I'm not saying that the threat of death should be the only thing dissuading you from taking an action that you probably shouldn't, but it's a hell of a good one.
Have we gotten so afraid of each other today that we feel we need to rubberize the world? (rhetorical)
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Re:AK47? (Score:5, Insightful)
why would you expect
I expect people to recognize the gun if they call it by name.
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