Jeremy [Iowa]

Actually, the data shows that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was associated with a decrease in mass shooting deaths and the number of incidents

Correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real significance, there would need to be a drop in mass shooting counts.

That aside, your own citation shows any change in deaths is questionable at best - it looks as if the average may have even increased, by the included graph.

It also seems to pretend that _merely banning the sales of more “assault weapons” would have nullified the impact of existing assault weapons.

However, after the ban expired in 2004, there was an almost immediate and steep rise in mass shooting deaths.

Again, correlation from causation aside, for this to have any real meaning there would have to be only one changing factor… and the trend would have had to been consistent with a near-elimination of the count of events.

Can you truly think of no other changes? No, say, incredible spike in the media glorifying and sensationalizing such events, inadvertently promoting them as a means of getting violent retribution as one commits suicide?

It boils down to this: was there any direct scaling of such values with the actual count of owned “assault weapons”? Of course not.

It is important to note that many additional factors may contribute to the shifting frequency of these shootings, such as changes in domestic violence rates, political extremism, psychiatric illness, firearm availability and a surge in sales, and the recent rise in hate groups

Wow. So, you dilute the value of your own correlation by highlighting factors known to be common underlying issues, yet double-down on “suggest” and “decrease”.

It’s almost entirely that.

When you have nearly no-one who wishes to commit such atrocities as a violent suicide, it doesn’t matter what tools are available for the job.

Have you considered any of the underlying factors to such and how Canada might differ?

It’s also unlikely the US Military, being citizens of the United States themselves, would have a high degree of adherence to such orders to bomb and destroy their fellow man.

That anyone thinks such is realistic is indicative of the depth of delusion.

“decent” seems to be doing some heavy lifting here. A linguistic analysis of writings of the Framers cross-referenced against era culture and stats highlights the depth of your misunderstanding.

right there in the text

Ah - I see we’re not only cherry-picking, but we’re depending on a preamble e.g. a preparatory or introductory statement as somehow limiting of scope or indicative of audience to which a right was granted.

That, and obviously the proliferation of weapons has made mass murder accessible, and in the minds of some people as described above.

Are you under the impression such things were ever not accessible?

At what point did we start regularly testing and proving out water? When did we start ensuring school bake sale food must be store-bought? You seem incredibly short-sighted.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to as a “fetish” or an “unregulated” lobby. If you were referring to nonsense like the NRA and their fundraising efforts, you’d be obligated to highlight Everytown etc. and their blue-aligned fundraising. You can’t point out a wedge issue and one side without recognizing the other side and its equivalent benefit.

If one has a clean criminal history, is a legal adult, and - in most states - has undergone some additional scrutiny or proof of proficiency, then sure - they can buy a firearm.

Given how Afghanistan turned out, I’m not sure how you think the concept of resisting the armed forces of a government as a distributed and well-armed populace is somehow unthinkable.

It’s fair to say we’ve a cesspool of stupidity - but only due to our politicians continued neglect of actual underlying issues in favor of partisan wedge-driving and profiteering of the ad revenue of sensationalized violence.

Hyper-sensationalism of the violence and its impact gave those seeking revenge and suicide a convenient two-in-one option.

Sure there is… stop using Facebook.

“Most” seems to be doing some incredibly generous work here.

Yarr intensifies

I see we can mark off “double down on wartime economy boost” on the recession check list.

Yeah I can almost guarantee that the original plan was always for him to leave. He was going to be the scapegoat with a golden parachute, allowing the company to keep the unpopular changes while disbursing the bad publicity. It’s exactly what he did with EA too.

I hadn’t considered that… fair point. Pay someone handsomely to take the immense PR hit and move on.

You’re not wrong; I suppose my criticism is as much of that practice as it is of this individual specifically.

My only complaint is such maneuvers tend to come with golden parachutes - his mismanagement of Unity leading to the whole fee debacle and erosion of trust deserves no such soft landing.

Frankly, I make solid six figures and still have a hard time even contemplating buying a new car. With how much value is lost short-term it’s like just burning cash.

I think the best vehicular investment I’ve ever made was a moderately-used Chevy Volt for, like, ~14k. That thing is a tank and still gets some EV / efficiency cred.

At risk of smug, things like this really reinforce the arguments in favor of EVs.

Oh no, petroleum is more expensive… anyway…

I’ll have to look into it - thanks for the suggestion.

Poor Splunk - such a useful tool does not deserve the upcoming enshittification.

Hikvision has a decent line of chinesium local-only PoE cameras. I’ve used a few of them with Frigate and Home Assistant with great success.