PLAYPEN: Covid-19 Everything Political

[Craig Lamson]

Alan, try to stick to your area of expertise, whatever that may be. Most US military rifles didn't have full auto, though that may be changing. They had a selector switch which the operator could move between single-shot and burst mode, with burst mode firing three rounds. Full auto, which was give to certain elite units, would allow you to dump an entire magazine. For soldiers with less training (and most have less training than the elites) full-auto would allow a panicked reaction that would leave the soldier with an empty magazine just when he needed it most. Most soldiers were told to keep the weapon on single-shot, which is essentially what a semi-auto does, EXCEPT that work-arounds were provided by certain American companies (called bump stocks.) Bump stocks essentially allowed semi-autos to be fired in bursts, and that made them into something close to military assault rifles, although bump stocks are inherently inaccurate and are useful only for shooting into unarmed crowds, as happened in Las Vegas.

These rifles basically have one function: to kill people. In many states, until recently, these .223 rifles were not allowed for hunting because they weren't deadly enough. The .223s are actually considerably less powerful than common bolt action hunting rifles, and weren't allowed because there was evidence that they created more wounded animals, which would get away and then die a slow death, than more powerful rifles. Further, these rifles are generally less accurate, and even when well-tuned, can't compete with a well-tuned bolt-action. If you want to punch paper and test your accuracy skill, you'd be better off with a bolt-action. If you want to hunt, you'd be better off with either a more powerful rifle (for big game) or a less powerful one (a .22) for small game. I've given up hunting, though I still have a hunting cabin in Wisconsin, and when you'd be out during deer season, and you'd hear a bap-bap-bap-bap-bap from a .223 or an AK, you'd think, "Oh, shit, some clueless asshole is out here in the woods with me."

The idea that these rifles could be used to fight off a tyranny in the US is a fantasy indulged by people who like to intimidate others with their weapons. If there is ever a real tyranny in the US, it will be supported by the military, who would eat these wanna-be patriots for lunch.

Hey, big guy...

AR-15 Calibers And Cartridges
https://gundigest.com/rifles/ar-15/ar-15-calibers-and-cartridges-what-should-you-chamber-your-carbine

Of couse one could also just bump up to the AR-10...

[Alan Klein]

Alan, I'm happy to see you come around to a more leftist position. A very very liberal fund CEO has argued exactly the same thing. He says that the airlines for years have paid huge salaries to executives and have bought back huge quantities of their own stock, which is a backhanded way of giving themselves even more money, and also insulating the current board from outside challenges, all of that instead of creating a rainy-day fund. So why shouldn't we let them go bankrupt? The stockholders and bond holders may be wiped out, but so what -- the airline itself won't go anywhere. It may be combined with another, or may simply be lifted out of bankruptcy after some reorganization, but the planes and the employees will still be there, less a few top executives who'll still have their former bloated salaries tucked away. 

John, I'm not a leftist.  I'm a conservative, free-market capitalist. Leftists believe in big government.  I believe in small government that minds it's business and let's private citizens mind theirs.

[Manoli]

*deleted*

[faberryman]

*deleted*

yeah, me too, waste of time

[John Camp]

How is that a leftist position boggles my mind.

Anti-corporate, anti-big corporate salaries, anti-stockholders and bond holders, advocated by a very lefty bond fund manager (one of those ethical funds.) If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. I'm nominating Alan for Lula leftist of the year. Only us liberals or lefties will be allowed to vote, since it's our award. 8-)

[PeterAit]

So do hammers and other blunt force objects, in fact they kill far more often than long guns. 

Perhaps you can tell us when someone with a hammer has killed 58 people (Las Vegas shooting 2017, long gun) or 49 people (Florida nightclub shooting 2016, long gun) or 14 people (Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique 1989, long gun) or 13 people (Nova Scotia 2020, long gun). The list goes on.

[BernardLanguillier]

John, I'm not a leftist.  I'm a conservative, free-market capitalist. Leftists believe in big government.  I believe in small government that minds it's business and let's private citizens mind theirs.

No, leftists believe that the quality of a country is determined by the wealth of its poorest citizens.

But you, as a billionaire, are predictably not interested. 

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

And yet my firearms have not killed a thing, as do the vast Majority of those in private hands.  You are void of real logic, so lost in the liberal fog.

It’s the same story as that of the covid really. It’s about selfishness or lack thereof.

You avoid going out during a lock down not so much to protect yourself as to protect the elderly around you. It’s about solidarity. It’s a personal decision in favor of the group. You give up on your liberty to save the life of other people.

Same for weapons. Even if you selfishly may actually benefit from it (which is very unlikely) we know with total certainty that the liberal availability of weapons ends up causing the death of many people every year. People that would most probably not have died otherwise. So promoting gun ownership on the name of freedom is exactly like violating a lock down. It’s putting an imagined interest of yours, a freedom with very little actual personal value, ahead of the life of others in the group. It’s selfishness.

It’s not a coincidence that the crazy guys demonstrating against the lockdown exhibit their guns. They have understood.

Gun ownership is also an extremely naive form of consumerism. The high dominance of men among gun advocates speaks enough about the phalic nature of the gun as a symbol. A form of potential manly power compensating physical weakness and/or social sidelining. The power to take lifes. A means to gain back the respect lost by "losers". Not for you of course. But this overlooks the obvious fact that these losers who need to compensate their loss are only losers in the very system of values that allowed consumerism to reign. You are only a looser if you let the winners define who looses... It's crazy to see how self-defeating this approach is. The kids who die in school mass shootings aren't the kids of the NRA leaders... no... those go to private schools with guards at the entrance... the gun owners are left to kill each others with the shiny toys provided for their convenience. And they like it!

Cheers,
Bernard

[chez]

No, leftists believe that the quality of a country is determined by the wealth of its poorest citizens.

Cheers,
Bernard

So true. As well as how it treats their young and their elders. I was in Tanzania on a humanitarian photo assignment and a group of us rented some motor bikes and went deep off the grid 110 km on a dirt path to a remote village. Needless to say, we were all covered in dust and dirt. When we got to this village...after the initial shock of seeing a white person in their village, a little boy came running over to me with a damp cloth. "Papa, papa"...he proceeded to wash my dirty face with the clothe. Huge respect for the elders in the village and with my white beard, I looked very much elder.

Even though these villagers had very little, their values respecting both the young and elders was much more valuable than money which the west cherishes so much.

I too believe the wealth of a country runs much deeper than how thick everyone's wallets are.

[JoeKitchen]

No, leftists believe that the quality of a country is determined by the wealth of its poorest citizens.

But you, as a billionaire, are predictably not interested. 

Cheers,
Bernard

This is simply not true!

Leftist in the USA believe in big government with shared responsibilities vs. small govt with individual responsibility for conservatives. 

FYI no other system has even come close to reducing poverty then capitalism!

[BernardLanguillier]

This is simply not true!

Leftist in the USA believe in big government with shared responsibilities vs. small govt with individual responsibility for conservatives. 

FYI no other system has even come close to reducing poverty then capitalism!

You are confused again Joe. I am not advocating against capitalism. I am a firm believer in the value of innovation brought by private initiative.

Your problem is that you are looking at the world as a binary thing with everything being located on a line going from left to right. You are considering the current state of politics in the US as the end of things and letting it shape your views.

The reality can be a lot more rich and complex than that. It's totally possible to maintain a healthy free market while deploying a solidarity among people.

The size the gov, whatever that means, has nothing to do with it generally speaking.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alan Klein]

Alan, try to stick to your area of expertise, whatever that may be. Most US military rifles didn't have full auto, though that may be changing. They had a selector switch which the operator could move between single-shot and burst mode, with burst mode firing three rounds. Full auto, which was give to certain elite units, would allow you to dump an entire magazine. For soldiers with less training (and most have less training than the elites) full-auto would allow a panicked reaction that would leave the soldier with an empty magazine just when he needed it most. Most soldiers were told to keep the weapon on single-shot, which is essentially what a semi-auto does, EXCEPT that work-arounds were provided by certain American companies (called bump stocks.) Bump stocks essentially allowed semi-autos to be fired in bursts, and that made them into something close to military assault rifles, although bump stocks are inherently inaccurate and are useful only for shooting into unarmed crowds, as happened in Las Vegas.

These rifles basically have one function: to kill people. In many states, until recently, these .223 rifles were not allowed for hunting because they weren't deadly enough. The .223s are actually considerably less powerful than common bolt action hunting rifles, and weren't allowed because there was evidence that they created more wounded animals, which would get away and then die a slow death, than more powerful rifles. Further, these rifles are generally less accurate, and even when well-tuned, can't compete with a well-tuned bolt-action. If you want to punch paper and test your accuracy skill, you'd be better off with a bolt-action. If you want to hunt, you'd be better off with either a more powerful rifle (for big game) or a less powerful one (a .22) for small game. I've given up hunting, though I still have a hunting cabin in Wisconsin, and when you'd be out during deer season, and you'd hear a bap-bap-bap-bap-bap from a .223 or an AK, you'd think, "Oh, shit, some clueless asshole is out here in the woods with me."

The idea that these rifles could be used to fight off a tyranny in the US is a fantasy indulged by people who like to intimidate others with their weapons. If there is ever a real tyranny in the US, it will be supported by the military, who would eat these wanna-be patriots for lunch.

You really don't know anything about me or my areas of expertise.  I qualified on the M16 in 1965 in the USAF shortly after the M16 came out.  It was a fully automatic weapon then with switch for single shot.  After me unfortunately, the troops didn't know how to use them properly.  So they downgraded them into toy rifles with three shot burst maximums.    Actually it wasn't done as you say because they were wasting the whole 20 round magazine.  That's partially true.  But the main issue was that after the third round, the kick forced the gun back so the aim was way off.  The soldier would be shooting birds out of the sky instead of the enemy.  So that's why they set the limit at three round bursts.  You could pull the rifle back into position and shoot off another three rounds which were on target.

I really don't know what they do today since it's been 55 years since I fired it although I have fired the civilian AR-15 which is single shot only.  Frankly, I like its predecessor the M-1 carbine better as I shot a 275 out of 300 sharpshooter missing an expert ribbon by one point. 

[Alan Klein]

I do not agree with Trump on this one.

You were the first one here who said, let it ride. 

[JoeKitchen]

You are confused again Joe. I am not advocating against capitalism. I am a firm believer in the value of innovation brought by private initiative.

Your problem is that you are looking at the world as a binary thing with everything being located on a line going from left to right. You are considering the current state of politics in the US as the end of things and letting it shape your views.

The reality can be a lot more rich and complex than that. It's totally possible to maintain a healthy free market while deploying a solidarity among people.

The size the gov, whatever that means, has nothing to do with it generally speaking.

Cheers,
Bernard

You're the one talking about left vs. right here Bernard with the comment I replied to.  It's your binary universe that stemmed my response.

But like I said, left is for large govt and right is for small, in the USA.  All conservatives want smaller govt, which is one of the reason we are still behind Trump through this, he has not sought to expand government.  So long as that is the case, he will have my vote.  Biden on the other hand wants everything handled by government, including interns and aids.   

[Alan Klein]

You're the one talking about left vs. right here Bernard with the comment I replied to.  It's your binary universe that stemmed my response.

But like I said, left is for large govt and right is for small, in the USA.  All conservatives want smaller govt, which is one of the reason we are still behind Trump through this, he has not sought to expand government.  So long as that is the case, he will have my vote.  Biden on the other hand wants everything handled by government, including interns and aids.   

Joe, I have to disagree with you here.  While Trump does want less regulation and government control, smaller government, when it comes to spending, borrowing, and printing, he's just as bad as the Democrats and socialists.  Maybe worse.  The government is now buying corporate bonds, some junk bonds, and giving loans and other "gifts" to small, medium, and large businesses as well as people.  He's bailing out corporations, oil companies, airlines, and i think the cruise industry although they aren;t even American.  I may be wrong on the last one.  In any case, it's all socialism.  It's welfare for everyone. 

[Craig Lamson]

Perhaps you can tell us when someone with a hammer has killed 58 people (Las Vegas shooting 2017, long gun) or 49 people (Florida nightclub shooting 2016, long gun) or 14 people (Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique 1989, long gun) or 13 people (Nova Scotia 2020, long gun). The list goes on.

Does not matter.  More deaths wth hammers than long guns.  Period.  Tell that to the poeple whower killed with hammers. Welcome to the wonderful world of numbers. You do know, dont you' that when you remove one source, folks who want to do mass harm will just find another.  Who ever though pressure cookers, fertilizer or jet airliners would be weapons.  But when there is a will there will always be a way.  Blaming the object is a fools errand.

[Alan Klein]

It’s the same story as that of the covid really. It’s about selfishness or lack thereof.

You avoid going out during a lock down not so much to protect yourself as to protect the elderly around you. It’s about solidarity. It’s a personal decision in favor of the group. You give up on your liberty to save the life of other people.

Same for weapons. Even if you selfishly may actually benefit from it (which is very unlikely) we know with total certainty that the liberal availability of weapons ends up causing the death of many people every year. People that would most probably not have died otherwise. So promoting gun ownership on the name of freedom is exactly like violating a lock down. It’s putting an imagined interest of yours, a freedom with very little actual personal value, ahead of the life of others in the group. It’s selfishness.

It’s not a coincidence that the crazy guys demonstrating against the lockdown exhibit their guns. They have understood.

Gun ownership is also an extremely naive form of consumerism. The high dominance of men among gun advocates speaks enough about the phalic nature of the gun as a symbol. A form of potential manly power compensating physical weakness and/or social sidelining. The power to take lifes. A means to gain back the respect lost by "losers". Not for you of course. But this overlooks the obvious fact that these losers who need to compensate their loss are only losers in the very system of values that allowed consumerism to reign. You are only a looser if you let the winners define who looses... It's crazy to see how self-defeating this approach is. The kids who die in school mass shootings aren't the kids of the NRA leaders... no... those go to private schools with guards at the entrance... the gun owners are left to kill each others with the shiny toys provided for their convenience. And they like it!

Cheers,
Bernard

I don't think you should be allowed to drive to the park to take pictures.  What a selfish act.  You risk life and limb to take some dumb photos.  Don't you care about anyone? Who are you trying to impress.  Probably just some other guy.  Look how big my lens is?  Look how big my photo is.  Look how many pixels my camera has?  Give me a break.

[Craig Lamson]

You're the one talking about left vs. right here Bernard with the comment I replied to.  It's your binary universe that stemmed my response.

But like I said, left is for large govt and right is for small, in the USA.  All conservatives want smaller govt, which is one of the reason we are still behind Trump through this, he has not sought to expand government.  So long as that is the case, he will have my vote.  Biden on the other hand wants everything handled by government, including interns and aids.   

Bernard believes in the collective, not the individual.  He simply does not understand America. America is about the individual. Individuals who make the best for themselves and individual states who forge their way.  Its called the American way for a reason.  Its not for everyone.  Not everyone will get equal outcomes.  Again welcome to reality.

[chez]

Bernard believes in the collective, not the individual.  He simply does not understand America. America is about the individual. Individuals who make the best for themselves and individual states who forge their way.  Its called the American way for a reason.  Its not for everyone.  Not everyone will get equal outcomes.  Again welcome to reality.

Augmented reality.

[Craig Lamson]

Augmented reality.

American reality.