Displaying comments 1 to 24 of 24
MeTa post:
Shooty McGunpants
Given the events of last week, it is really inappropriate to "moderate" comments to this question, which announces (vaguely and without details or motive) a course of action that could very well be dangerous to public health.
And is also well within the law and askme guidelines.
If we're going to be arguing about "public health", maybe we should avoid censoring honest questions asked in an effort to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 2:25 PM on April 24, 2007
MeTa post:
Too much tragedy for one thread
As an ignorant foreigner maybe someone could explain to me why a college student needs access to not only one but possibly two handguns.
Target practice and defense of self and country are the usual arguments. Also, (this obviously doesn't apply to most college students), there are many civilians for whom handguns are daily-use items: hunters, farmers, ranchers, back-country campers, security guards, rent-a-cops, etc. Count me as chuckling at the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 1:50 PM on April 16, 2007
There are many civilians for whom handguns are daily-use items: hunters, farmers, ranchers, back-country campers, security guards, rent-a-cops, etc.
Those people may use handguns, but they don't need them. In almost every situation, a long gun is a more accurate and efficient choice.
I very strongly disagree. If long guns were "a more accurate and efficient choice" for rent-a-cops and security guards (not to mention... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 4:56 PM on April 16, 2007
I don't think the majority of americans own guns, but now I'm starting to wonder.
About 40% of American households own guns. They are all, of course, cowards, as noted above; the definition of "coward" having been changed from "someone whose prudence or fear overwhelms their courage" to... well, I'm not certain, actually.
It's always amusing to me to see the total disconnect between gun reality and gun... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 10:01 AM on April 17, 2007
Norway, Switzerland, and Finland are all above 20% due to their national defense policy, yet their homicide statistics are mostly in line with similar countries in Europe.
The hidden causal factor here is foreskins.
Well, either that or decent cheese. I know I get a sense of murderous rage every time somebody mentions Kraft Singles.
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 10:29 AM on April 17, 2007
He just went in a store and bought it over the counter. You think it should be that easy?
Have you ever actually bought a gun over the counter? If so, you'd know that Hui had to pass a federal criminal background check before he got that gun, and in doing so his name and address were recorded along with the serial number of the gun. Virginia also has an additional state-based background check on top of that. I'm not sure what else you want, here --... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 3:56 PM on April 17, 2007
The denying guns to everybody else in the process concept does have its merits.
Sure, if by "merits" you mean criminalizing millions of Americans and removing any government oversight of the gun trade. I mean, Prohibition and the Drug War worked so well, I can't see how a Gun War could possibly go wrong!
And again, somebody who's actually willing to do what Hui did is not going to be any more than... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 5:42 PM on April 17, 2007
As opposed to anything goes over the counter weapons sales?
Either you have no clue about what "anything-goes" actually means, or you have no clue about what American over-the-counter gun sales are like. I'm betting on both. Hint: the markets I was talking about sell rocket launchers and mines, a few things you won't find at the local Big 5. Largely because a legal market can be regulated, whereas a black market can't. For instance, how much... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:00 PM on April 17, 2007
And while a few more layers of inconvenience probably wouldn't stop the next Virginia Tech-style massacre, I have to wonder if it might prevent a few suicides, dv homicides, and the like.
To be honest, it probably would. But at best, even with a law that could somehow prevent every single gun fatality in this country, you're still disenfranchising millions to safeguard 30,000 people. And disenfranchising is exactly what some of these... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:36 PM on April 17, 2007
But at the same time, gun-rights advocates demand the right to bear arms to "defend themselves". If incidents like this are so rare, random and unlikely, why do they feel the need to carry a weapon?
Because nobody's defending against the "one in a million". They're defending against muggers, rapists, thieves, etc., of which we have a lot more of than one in a million, even though things aren't as bad as they were in the 70s. And... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 9:40 AM on April 18, 2007
I guess, unfortunately, the difference with guns is that relatively few of them are used to kill their freedom-valuing owners, and end up killing innocent people who may place different values on the freedoms involved.
This is false. Well over half of the gun fatalities each year in this country are suicides. Relatively many of our guns kill their owners, to the point where the average American is significantly more likely (odds are... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:04 AM on April 18, 2007
It's just not all or one. You have to get a license to drive a car. That we could do with a little more in the way of that with gun ownership is not an unreasonable concept to me.
Clearly. And when it turns out that poor blacks can't get a gun license in Florida any more than they can get a drivers license in Florida, I guess that's not unreasonable, either?
I'd be a lot more tolerant toward this argument if we hadn't just gone... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 3:30 PM on April 18, 2007
MeTa post:
healthy dialogue
Is there some way in which armchair medical advice answers a question asking for social advice?
When the questions is asking for social advice on how to get help in solving a medical problem, perhaps?
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 3:53 PM on April 4, 2007
MeTa post:
Good ask metafilter thread that doesn't answer the question? Yes, they exist.
...please don't undermine their efforts by flouting the law that they worked so hard to build. Unless you have an actual medical problem, please buy your bud on the street like everyone else!
That's my comment, and I stand by it. In fact, it took me three or four tries to make it that polite. Mostly because I'm a medical marijuana activist who suffers from chronic pain due to ankylosing spondylitis -- the main symptom is HOLY CRAP CONSTANT AGONY --... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:11 AM on February 23, 2007
More on the problem...
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:16 AM on February 23, 2007
then you have bigger (and much more local) battles to fight than whether Canadians ask their doctors about qualifying for marijuana licenses.
Obviously!
That said, anon asked for my advice, and I gave it. I'd give it the same way again, even knowing the facts you've given me about the way the system works in Canada. Whether there's a system in place to catch spurious claims or not, it's not ethical to claim to have... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:16 PM on February 23, 2007
MeTa post:
Ironically, for the off-topic stuff from this post...
I didn't read any of this -- just wanted to note that between the first flameout and now, I've been reading it as dirty numb bagel boy. Wow, do I feel stupid, right now.
Well, if it makes you feel better, you're not alone. I actually had to scroll up upon reading your comment in order to figure out what the hell it was if it wasn't "dirty numb bagel boy".
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 7:38 PM on January 2, 2007
MeTa post:
As an informal survey of the bizarre demographic...
I don't watch TV shows at all, and haven't for the past five years. I do watch a lot of DVDs and play Playstation 2 games, though, so it's not as if I don't have a TV. I just decided that it'd be better to use the TV to watch stuff that I really want to see, as opposed to whatever's on.
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:12 AM on May 17, 2004
MeTa post:
Some AskMetafilter standards? Debated posting this...
Personally, I think there should be full-scale archives for AskMe... or at the very least, archives that go back a year or so. It'll be really annoying if those of us who read AskMe every day get hit with the exact same questions every 30 days (or however long it takes for the archives expire). Plus, six months from now when my cat suddenly thinks it's a dog, it'd be nice if I could look up the previous thread about it.
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 1:03 PM on May 14, 2004
MeTa post:
Maybe it's me, but "Your Asian-fetish...
The best thing about this whole thing was that, despite adamgreenfield and SpaceCadet's best thread-jacking efforts, the thread was more-or-less back on track the next morning. Ryvar in particular deserves the Blue MeFi Star for On-Topicness Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. Or something.
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 10:24 AM on February 29, 2004
MeTa post:
A boring, very minor quibble with a view to...
It would definitely be nice to have support for other character sets... I've gotten "?"s from trying to post in Japanese, even though everything looked fine on preview. It would be really great to be able to type in Japanese and have MeFi display it correctly. This said, I think there is some sort of workaround for this, but I've never been able to get it to work. Anybody got a concise explanation of how to correctly post Japanese to MeFi?
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 2:57 PM on January 29, 2004
MeTa post:
In Japan, don't they use the Lichter Scale?...
The funniest thing about all this, to me, isn't dhoyt's joke, but the juxtaposition of the joke and the thread in which it appears. Most Westerners can't properly pronounce "tsunami"...
posted to MetaTalk by vorfeed
at 11:50 AM on September 26, 2003
