Faceplant at 18-mph, on the Tesla

[Nic]

Owning guns raises the stakes for even minor disagreements.

[Smoother]

@radial interesting video.  I can remember two shootings in Houston that CLEARLY were not self defense (as defined by the law) and the grand jury no-billed them anyway.  Those two people were very lucky.  I did hear that the widow of one victim tried to sue the shooter in civil court.  I didn't hear how that turned out. Sounds like it might have become expensive, especially as, in my opinion, the shooter's actions did not qualify as self defense.

It was also interesting to hear what the lawyer had to say about the "Stand Your Ground" doctrine.  I've never thought strict adherence to this was wise, and now I have confirmation of my suspicion.

[Mmhmmm]

On December 11, 2018 at 8:31 PM, Marty Backe said:

• A better helmet - I'll probably be going to a true full-face helmet. I really don't care about scaring the natives. I think that worry is a bit overblown

It seems that the helmet isn't what scares pedestrians, as much as buzzing past them from behind when they don't know that you are coming, and the speed is enough to potentially knock them down. They instinctually are startled and scared, possibly angry.

 

 

[Marty Backe]

12 minutes ago, Mmhmmm said:

It seems that the helmet isn't what scares pedestrians, as much as buzzing past them from behind when they don't know that you are coming, and the speed is enough to potentially knock them down. They instinctually are startled and scared, possibly angry.

I try to always slow down to a crawl when I'm passing a pedestrian on a narrow path. Seems like common sense. I will whiz by pedestrians (moving on the far outside) when we are on a wide bike path and I can see that they are in no way erratic 

[Smoother]

4 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

I try to always slow down to a crawl when I'm passing a pedestrian on a narrow path. Seems like common sense. I will whiz by pedestrians (moving on the far outside) when we are on a wide bike path and I can see that they are in no way erratic 

This is a very good point.  Walkers can be very erratic.  Abruptly changing direction with no notice, etc.  The ones that piss me off the most are the ones who see you coming and start jumping around left and right as if you hadn't clocked them from 50 m back or more, and only their stupid, ineffectual actions will save their life.  Really F$%ks up ones already projected path.  As I pass I sometimes say, "I see you".  As if I want to crash into someone at 17mph!  I'm not a cyclist for god's sake,

[Marty Backe]

18 minutes ago, Smoother said:

This is a very good point.  Walkers can be very erratic.  Abruptly changing direction with no notice, etc.  The ones that piss me off the most are the ones who see you coming and start jumping around left and right as if you hadn't clocked them from 50 m back or more, and only their stupid, ineffectual actions will save their life.  Really F$%ks up ones already projected path.  As I pass I sometimes say, "I see you".  As if I want to crash into someone at 17mph!  I'm not a cyclist for god's sake,

[Mono]

2 hours ago, Smoother said:

The ones that piss me off the most are the ones who see you coming and start jumping around left and right as if you hadn't clocked them from 50 m back or more, and only their stupid, ineffectual actions will save their life.  Really F$%ks up ones already projected path.

Same here, but then I wonder why they do it. My suspicion is that not everyone is as considerate as I am when riding in pedestrian paths and that's why they are more protective than I expect them to be.

[Smoother]

6 minutes ago, Mono said:

Same here, but then I wonder why they do it. My suspicion is that not everyone is as considerate as I am when riding in pedestrian paths and that's why they are more protective than I expect them to be.

Good point. They're call cyclists   I know you ride.  Don't hate me .

[Dingfelder]

11 hours ago, RockyTop said:

It depends on the state. I have heard of several recent self defense cases that never even go to court. Example: ex-boyfriend  calls ex-girlfriend and tells her he is on his way over to kill her new boyfriend. She calls the cops. The guy pull into her driveway and starts up the walkway with a gun. Her new boyfriend shoots him dead from a window before he takes two steps. No arrests made. ( local report to years ago)

I am not breaking into that house. They probably have a gun.  (Problem eliminate)

It could also very easily be, They probably (or certainly) have a gun. Now I have a damn good reason to break into their house.

America is full of stolen guns.

[LanghamP]

On 12/16/2018 at 11:57 AM, Marty Backe said:

When facing a tough situation as a home break-in while you are in the home, I'll choose Life every time regardless of the repercussions. The police are always 10-minutes away.

While I'm a gun and archer enthusiast, I'm not in favor of most people having them simply through dumb shootings. I don't know how to regulate them (until we get the total surveillance state) because then only criminals have guns. Witness the absurd Paris shootings.

I find it extremely irritating to see signs that say, "gun free zone." I don't like that because you have announced there is no defense in that area.

I'd much prefer to have, "1 out of 20 people here are randomly assigned a concealed gun and is required to carry it. Would you like to find out which one?" 

That to me sounds like a better signal.

Correction: hmm, I wonder if spree killers simply target their workforce without considering that it is a gun free zone, and since most workplaces are gun free zones, it follows all spree killings are at gun free zones.

I do think having responders there with guns does stop further deaths.

[LanghamP]

Speaking of gun deaths, they reached a new high last year.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/gun-related-deaths-reached-40-year-peak-2017-cdc-study-finds

Of the 40,000 recorded gun-related deaths in 2017, more than a third were homicides while more than half were suicides, according to the CDC data. At 14 deaths per 100,000 people, white men accounted for the highest percentage of suicide deaths by firearm. Black men accounted for the most firearm homicide deaths.

However, suicide by gun is more like a serious way of checking out rather than an actual homicide, so I don't think that should be counted. Maybe have "death booths" so people can suicide with dignity?

 

 

[Dingfelder]

I've always thought including suicide in gun deaths as a way to inflate the gun violence statistics is cheesy in the extreme, but it's the norm.  Especially since the majority of gun deaths are suicides.  Even if it was a minority, it would be dishonest to tally suicides and murders all together in order to imply guns are used more often in crimes. 

And I'm sure many would rather not hear something like what I'm about to say, but I don't believe that the contingent of people concerned with banning guns necessarily overlaps with those concerned about suicide.  I'm not at all convinced they're any more concerned with people or their safety than anyone else is.

At any rate, I'd rather blow my brains out than try to hack myself to death with a machete, but arguing that that makes guns dangerous to the community is playing fast and loose with logic.

[Dingfelder]

P.S.:  Futurama is one of my favorite shows.  I love how in that bit, Bender does multiple things to try to save a quarter on his suicide costs.

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, Dingfelder said:

 

At any rate, I'd rather blow my brains out than try to hack myself to death with a machete, but arguing that that makes guns dangerous to the community is playing fast and loose with logic.

Well, it's mostly divorced white males over the age of 40 offing themselves, so who gives a shit about them.

Can you imagine how inhuman and painful death by EUC would be? That'd be a hell of a way to go. Bleeding through the palms of your hands...

[Dingfelder]

Sounds even worse than listening to a Pat Robertson show.

[Jon Stern]

On 12/16/2018 at 9:57 AM, Marty Backe said:

When facing a tough situation as a home break-in while you are in the home, I'll choose Life every time regardless of the repercussions. The police are always 10-minutes away.

The problem with this (very common) thinking, is it pays no regard to the true statistics of what really goes on in society. While there are 3.7 million burglaries per year, there are only about 300 murder-burglaries.

Despite what people think, the likelihood of being killed by an intruder are very, very low. You are more than twice as likely to die by entanglement in bed sheets.

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

It sounds like you are probabilistically correct in your statement.

 

[Jon Stern]

6 hours ago, Dingfelder said:

I've always thought including suicide in gun deaths as a way to inflate the gun violence statistics is cheesy in the extreme, but it's the norm. 

It's relevant once you realize that most suicide attempts by other means are unsuccessful, and singular attempts, never to be repeated. Meaning the person recovers, and goes on to live a normal life.

When a gun is used, the "success" rate goes up by a factor of 6. Meaning the person is unlikely to get a chance to realize that life isn't so bad after all.

Sure, suicide is not the same as other gun violence, but once you realize that most people who try to kill themselves aren't incurable depressives, they're people just like you or I who are going through a difficult time, you can start to appreciate that guns in the home in certain ways present a danger to you and your family.

[Marty Backe]

50 minutes ago, Jon Stern said:

The problem with this (very common) thinking, is it pays no regard to the true statistics of what really goes on in society. While there are 3.7 million burglaries per year, there are only about 300 murder-burglaries.

Despite what people think, the likelihood of being killed by an intruder are very, very low. You are more than twice as likely to die by entanglement in bed sheets.

I'm sure you're correct. But in the highly unlikely event that someone was breaking into your house while you and your family was there, wouldn't you feel safer if you had a gun (assuming that you were licensed and trained in its use)? I understand many people have a fear of guns so maybe they would fear owning a gun more than fear the intruder. We all make choices and live with the consequences, good and bad.

The bottom line is I like to feel in control of my own destiny, as much as that's possible. 

[Jon Stern]

26 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

I'm sure you're correct. But in the highly unlikely event that someone was breaking into your house while you and your family was there, wouldn't you feel safer if you had a gun (assuming that you were licensed and trained in its use)? I understand many people have a fear of guns so maybe they would fear owning a gun more than fear the intruder. We all make choices and live with the consequences, good and bad.

The bottom line is I like to feel in control of my own destiny, as much as that's possible. 

I understand that sentiment, but when what I feel is contradicted by facts, I'll try to go with the facts every time.

Some people feel that seat belts in cars make them less safe. That's a valid feeling, but it happens to be wrong.

If you really want to be safe, you'd be better off burning your bedsheets.

[Dingfelder]

4 hours ago, Jon Stern said:

It's relevant once you realize that most suicide attempts by other means are unsuccessful, and singular attempts, never to be repeated. Meaning the person recovers, and goes on to live a normal life.

When a gun is used, the "success" rate goes up by a factor of 6. Meaning the person is unlikely to get a chance to realize that life isn't so bad after all.

Sure, suicide is not the same as other gun violence, but once you realize that most people who try to kill themselves aren't incurable depressives, they're people just like you or I who are going through a difficult time, you can start to appreciate that guns in the home in certain ways present a danger to you and your family.

I count the success rate with guns as an enormous positive rather than a negative.

I'm willing to grant your claim that unsuccessful attempts tend not to be repeated, merely because I am too lazy to look it up at the moment, though I find it hard to believe and would appreciate a linked source.  Of course, there is self-selection going on in a big way, there, that biases the sample as much as it could ever be biased.  

To me, the worst case scenario by far would be some sort of partial success in a suicide attempt.  Maiming, incapacity, a painful and/or vegetative state, some combination of them, etc. ... the imagination reels when considering worst-case scenarios.  And to me, all are easily much worse than a clean death.  And most alternative types of attempts have a greater chance of a catastrophic failure than gun attempts.  Pills and suffocation, for example, can go disastrously wrong.

Regarding using the sort of logic you use to argue against gun ownership as a danger to the community at large because of gun suicides, again, it's stretching logic to a tendentious extreme.  It's really not the kind of thing people should do and I am sorry to say that I do not believe the argument can be made in good faith.  Nor that it necessarily has anything to do with caring about anybody.

[Nic]

Seems like the 'Wild West' is still the 'Wild West', even if its a little more civil these days. 

When a situation goes wrong, the shit really hits the fan!  

Carrying guns and knives is bad for everyone ... you only have to compare with other nations where these weapons are illegal to see that its better without them.

Granted, that if an intruder is carrying a gun, then you would want to protect yourself with a gun, but that's not a good argument because we are really aiming for no one to be carrying guns, and that includes the intruder.

[Scatcat]

Oh, I just finished my pop corn. Maybe I should say something... well... not.sure.I.want.to. But OK, I'll just state some statistics from Wikipedia, and let it stay at that. Each country below has a number, you may take a wild guess what that number signifies:

Russia: 10.82,
Afghanistan: 6.35,
USA: 5.35,
Latvia: 3.36,
Belgium: 1.95,
Canada: 1.68,
France: 1.35,
UK: 1.20,
Sweden: 1.08,
Spain: 0.63,
China: 0.62

When you get what these number are, they of course tell only part of the story. I don't know what to make of it. I am of two minds. But I still find the numbers interesting, because they tell a story.

[radial]

23 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

Oh, I just finished my pop corn. Maybe I should say something... well... not.sure.I.want.to. But OK, I'll just state some statistics from Wikipedia, and let it stay at that. Each country below has a number, you may take a wild guess what that number signifies:

Russia: 10.82,
Afghanistan: 6.35,
USA: 5.35,
Latvia: 3.36,
Belgium: 1.95,
Canada: 1.68,
France: 1.35,
UK: 1.20,
Sweden: 1.08,
Spain: 0.63,
China: 0.62

When you get what these number are, they of course tell only part of the story. I don't know what to make of it. I am of two minds. But I still find the numbers interesting, because they tell a story.

My S.W.A.G. is that those numbers represent homicide rates in those countries.  

[Nic]

56 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

Oh, I just finished my pop corn. Maybe I should say something... well... not.sure.I.want.to. But OK, I'll just state some statistics from Wikipedia, and let it stay at that. Each country below has a number, you may take a wild guess what that number signifies:

Russia: 10.82,
Afghanistan: 6.35,
USA: 5.35,
Latvia: 3.36,
Belgium: 1.95,
Canada: 1.68,
France: 1.35,
UK: 1.20,
Sweden: 1.08,
Spain: 0.63,
China: 0.62

When you get what these number are, they of course tell only part of the story. I don't know what to make of it. I am of two minds. But I still find the numbers interesting, because they tell a story.

UNODC murder rates (yearly): murders per 100,000 inhabitants

Assuming an average life expectancy of 80 years, this means that in USA there is a 0.4% (1 in 250) chance of dying from murder during your lifespan.