"Taking guns, away from millions of people like me, isn't going to reduce mass shootings." I don't believe that is true. The difference between a "good guy with a gun" and a "bad guy with a gun" is a momentary bad decision. If, when said person makes that decision, they have a gun with them or nearby then the shooting will happen. The more people with guns the greater the chance people will get shot. It's the same with many things. The more cars on the road, the greater the chance there will be a car wreck. The difference is we need transportation. No one needs a gun.
Front page LA Times today regarding Ebikes
- Thread starter Taylor57
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tomjasz
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- Minnesnowta
Snow Maggots!
It took a while for snowboards to be accepted on ski slopes here (Mt. Baker, WA, and probably other ski areas in the state.)
kevinmccune
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- USA
sort of agree
PedalUma
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- Petaluma, CA
At some point it is a matter of proliferation and not good guys and bad guys. For example if you put a bunch hand grenades in a sandbox a pin will get pulled just because it is there and that's what hand grenades do. Intention is not part of the equation. As, for good guys and bad guys, a good guy can have one bad day and we don't know when that might be. All it takes is for millions of good guys and maybe 2% have one bad day in every twenty-year stretch. We don't know who. It is just the odds. It is not at all about the people. It is all about the proliferation.
Mr. Coffee
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- A Demented Corner of the North Cascades
Just to put a perspective on that "bad day": 54% of firearm deaths in the United States are suicides. So the owner of the firearm is also the most likely victim.
Also, I have a large extended family with many passionate firearm owners. I leave it to your imagination how many mental health emergencies can happen and how much more complicated they can be when there are loaded weapons in the home.
PedalUma
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- Petaluma, CA
That's right, or a close relative. A good friend was in hospice at home for an extended period. When she passed, I inherited a fridge full of morphine and a handgun that had been her husbands. I boxed that stuff up fast and dropped it off at the police station the same day. No questions were asked. I did not want that around me. It would be like having Gollum's ring.
kevinmccune
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- Region
- USA
one reason why I do not carry,do not want my super BlackHawk to tempt me into something I cannot fix,I have a 30 second rule if I can cooloff in 30 seconds I will not punch somebody in a bad spot or bash their head in,passivity has kept me out of serious trouble oth if someone enters the domicile with ill intent all bets are off
PedalUma
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- Petaluma, CA
Anyone remember smoking on planes? That was at the time considered an individual rights thing. Then the evidence became clear and the view shifted to realize that public safety is a right that comes first. Before that it was guns on planes. Same thing. Public safety came first. Anyone remember guns in bars and smoking in restaurants and movie theaters?
Slaphappygamer
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- Aptos
Only imagine what would happen if people disputed and denied science then. Where would we be now?
Smoking in bars and restaurants though, I was too young for that. I didn’t see any of that scene.
I once saw a fragment of a movie on the tv of a plane (prop plane, so you know the vintage) with the passengers all stirred up over something. A drunk pulls out his revolver and starts waving it around, making threats. The stew pleads with him to please put his gun away, and is finally successful at calming him down. Have things changed, or what?
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
It's interesting that there was also a transition from electric vehicles to internal combustion which caused the first protests against oil and and concerns of pollution and finite supply.
No one knew how much there was and now people are worrying about transitioning back.
No one knew how much there was and now people are worrying about transitioning back.
kevinmccune
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
still have guns in bars in good ol' virginny.had a humorous encounter at a restaurant,wifey and yt requested a nonsmoking booth( smoking stinks so bad it ruins the meal) we noticed the next table or booth over had a real bushfire going,upon complaining to the waitress- the explanation was"oh(staggered pattern I suppose) this booth is smoking the next booth is nonsmoking and so on( never underestimate the creativity of a lazy waiter)
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I would
I
I
I assume that if you sit in a "smoking" booth, you are required to smoke. Which reminds me of the time when we asked for non-smoking in a restaurant, and were seated in the back by the garbage cans.
Jeremy McCreary
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- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Thanks for posting the PDF. The linked article is behind a paywall.
Surfer interviewed in the PDF article...
“It’s convenient to hop on your bike and blaze down the trail,” Scott Farnsworth, 57, of
San Clemente said as he unloaded his surfboard from his van in the parking lot above
Trestles. “I’m really cognizant of the safety concerns people have, but I do wish there was
a better solution than banning them.”
[Emphasis added]
Well, Einstein, a good start would be be to forego blazing down the trail and ride down at a safe, respectful pace instead. You're going surfing. Is saving a minute or two on the ride down to the beach that important??
Regulation-wise, ebike riders are their own worst enemies.
We once again find ourselves up against the Technological Imperative: What can be done will be done, no matter how ill-advised.
People on ebikes will ride too fast in public spaces — and ride in places they shouldn't — simply because the technology allows them to so with minimal effort. No big-picture thought involved.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Catalyzt
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- Region
- USA
I do appreciate the reasonable, non-hysterical tone of the tangent on firearms laws, and I don't think it's that far off topic. FWIW, I think this forum has come a long way since the vax / anti-vax hysteria phase. I'm tempted to unmute the two or three folks who I muted back then.
Non-hysterical, non-polarized discussions about regulatory issues? IMHO, that is how problems get solved: You have to get your hands dirty. You have to use trial and error, make hard decisions, guess wrong sometimes, which sometimes means people get hurt or killed while it's getting figured out. The three-class system for eBikes is far from perfect-- you've heard me complain about Central Park in NYC-- but we're doing WAY better with eBikes than we did with opiates and guns. It's one reason I'm proud to be an eBiker: For whatever reason, the way we are regulating eBikes isn't totally frickin' insane.
For so many other regulatory issues, I often feel like we're charging in exactly the wrong direction. With opiates and guns, certainly, we've broken down into two polarized camps, and more and more people are still getting killed every year. It seems like every we law we write is dictated by extremism, without any common sense. Sure, carry guns to church and bars in some states! Let's make that legal, great idea! But in California, there are only a handful of .22 caliber revolvers -- low caliber, low capacity -- you can purchase legally. We're real concerned about gun violence here-- that's why we've outlawed the safer ones!
It's amazing out species has survived this long.
Don't get me started on operating systems and IT. If we'd had the same hands-off/capricious regulatory approach to electricity that we now have for information technology, we'd have different voltages coming out of the wall in every house on the block.
Jebediah, you and I might disagree on many topics-- I don't know if I believe that some people are just evil, I think intent is more complicated than that-- but I take your general point: Whatever happened to saying, "I need to think on that" and then actually doing it? Having a complex, nuanced position? Thank you for raising that issue, and raising it the way you did.
I favor gun control, not banning firearms, and certainly not confiscation. I may not feel that way all the time, but that's the way I think about it now.
But I will say, PMC and Pedal, you got me thinking, too. What about proliferation? What happens to your weapons when you die? That's one point some of y'all are making that I really respect: There are too many of them out there. Maybe that's part of sensible gun control: You have to specify what you want done with the weapon when you pass on, sign a legal document. If your kid or spouse doesn't want it, they don't get to just leave it lying around, it has to be recycled And it's probably more responsible to get a used gun if you have to have one. Dang. If we'd been doing that since the 1920s, we'd probably have a lot fewer weapons floating around out there, and they wouldn't be nearly as deadly. I hadn't even really thought about that. Why is this the first time I've ever heard anyone talking about it, either?
We also don't talk about safe storage, indemnifying mental health professionals who monitor red flag laws, or the idea that maybe the reason law enforcement professionals often make bad decisions is because they're decisions the rest of us don't want to make. There's a lot we don't talk about, because we're too afraid of offending someone, of crossing some ideological line that's unacceptable to the other members of our tribe.... well, you see what I'm saying.
Listen, I hate bump stocks, I hate ARs. I don't think I'd carry a loaded gun in my car even if were legal, and I was being attacked by a horde of zombies. And there's a school of thought that believes that firearms training has been poisoned-- often with the best of intentions, sometimes... er, not-- by the military and law enforcement mentality that large caliber and high-capacity are the only way to go, even though home and personal defense is an entirely different proposition, because your intent is to deter, and not to neutralize.
As Jebediah said? Let's think on it.
Non-hysterical, non-polarized discussions about regulatory issues? IMHO, that is how problems get solved: You have to get your hands dirty. You have to use trial and error, make hard decisions, guess wrong sometimes, which sometimes means people get hurt or killed while it's getting figured out. The three-class system for eBikes is far from perfect-- you've heard me complain about Central Park in NYC-- but we're doing WAY better with eBikes than we did with opiates and guns. It's one reason I'm proud to be an eBiker: For whatever reason, the way we are regulating eBikes isn't totally frickin' insane.
For so many other regulatory issues, I often feel like we're charging in exactly the wrong direction. With opiates and guns, certainly, we've broken down into two polarized camps, and more and more people are still getting killed every year. It seems like every we law we write is dictated by extremism, without any common sense. Sure, carry guns to church and bars in some states! Let's make that legal, great idea! But in California, there are only a handful of .22 caliber revolvers -- low caliber, low capacity -- you can purchase legally. We're real concerned about gun violence here-- that's why we've outlawed the safer ones!
It's amazing out species has survived this long.
Don't get me started on operating systems and IT. If we'd had the same hands-off/capricious regulatory approach to electricity that we now have for information technology, we'd have different voltages coming out of the wall in every house on the block.
Jebediah, you and I might disagree on many topics-- I don't know if I believe that some people are just evil, I think intent is more complicated than that-- but I take your general point: Whatever happened to saying, "I need to think on that" and then actually doing it? Having a complex, nuanced position? Thank you for raising that issue, and raising it the way you did.
I favor gun control, not banning firearms, and certainly not confiscation. I may not feel that way all the time, but that's the way I think about it now.
But I will say, PMC and Pedal, you got me thinking, too. What about proliferation? What happens to your weapons when you die? That's one point some of y'all are making that I really respect: There are too many of them out there. Maybe that's part of sensible gun control: You have to specify what you want done with the weapon when you pass on, sign a legal document. If your kid or spouse doesn't want it, they don't get to just leave it lying around, it has to be recycled And it's probably more responsible to get a used gun if you have to have one. Dang. If we'd been doing that since the 1920s, we'd probably have a lot fewer weapons floating around out there, and they wouldn't be nearly as deadly. I hadn't even really thought about that. Why is this the first time I've ever heard anyone talking about it, either?
We also don't talk about safe storage, indemnifying mental health professionals who monitor red flag laws, or the idea that maybe the reason law enforcement professionals often make bad decisions is because they're decisions the rest of us don't want to make. There's a lot we don't talk about, because we're too afraid of offending someone, of crossing some ideological line that's unacceptable to the other members of our tribe.... well, you see what I'm saying.
Listen, I hate bump stocks, I hate ARs. I don't think I'd carry a loaded gun in my car even if were legal, and I was being attacked by a horde of zombies. And there's a school of thought that believes that firearms training has been poisoned-- often with the best of intentions, sometimes... er, not-- by the military and law enforcement mentality that large caliber and high-capacity are the only way to go, even though home and personal defense is an entirely different proposition, because your intent is to deter, and not to neutralize.
As Jebediah said? Let's think on it.
I suggest that leos make bad decisions too often because with the unabated flow of guns in our society, they expect everyone they encounter to be armed. In other words, they are scared.
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PedalUma
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- Petaluma, CA
There was once a car called 'Little Bastard.' Little Bastard had a lightweight front with a rear engine. When driving around a corner the only way to keep the rear from swinging out was by jumping on the accelerator. But that meant that you were going even faster into the next corner and faster than that into the next. The real answer is to drive a balanced car and to decelerate. What I am really saying is like with Little Bastard and speed, the answer to the gun problem is not more guns.
www.hagerty.co.uk
The curse of James Dean’s 'Little Bastard' Porsche 550 Spyder | Hagerty UK
Dean was killed instantly when he crashed driving his Porsche 550 Spyder but his 'Little Bastard' would go on to cause considerably more trouble.
www.hagerty.co.uk
Slaphappygamer
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- USA
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- Aptos
Poor Little Bastard.There was once a car called 'Little Bastard.' Little Bastard had a lightweight front with a rear engine. When driving around a corner the only way to keep the rear from swinging out was by jumping on the accelerator. But that meant that you were going even faster into the next corner and faster than that into the next. The real answer is to drive a balanced car and to decelerate. What I am really saying is like with Little Bastard and speed, the answer to the gun problem is not more guns.
The curse of James Dean’s 'Little Bastard' Porsche 550 Spyder | Hagerty UK
Dean was killed instantly when he crashed driving his Porsche 550 Spyder but his 'Little Bastard' would go on to cause considerably more trouble.
