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Pistol sights

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Re: Pistol sights

#241

Post by maxerickson »

MrFantastic wrote: post #211
maxerickson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From several feet? While the sapling runs away? I'm also not real sure what your point is. I said I wouldn't want to face someone wielding a machete anymore than . I was acknowledging that a malicious person can be plenty dangerous with weapons that basically can't be restricted (a machete can be improvised much more easily than a repeating firearm or ammunition for said firearm).

Shooting someone that is running away is murder not self-defense.

Yes, the context of the discussion is the malicious use of weapons.

Re: Pistol sights

#243

Post by bmelton »

MrFantastic wrote: post #203
uberchet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good advice. I grew up hunting and shooting, but in adulthood have come to agree that reasonable gun control is really something we have to do. However, the gun vs. anti-gun divide in the US is as pure a split as exists on any policy position. Few on one side know or understand the thinking or positions of any on the other. People who don't shoot often don't know even the most basic things, like what differen…

It's sad that wanting background checks is seen as anti-gun. The Conservatives think that HRC was going to their house and take all their guns. That wasn't her position at all. I agree that everyone should familiarize themselves with guns but for practical self defense purposes a shotgun and a rifle are not that different. A shotgun only spreads about 8inches at a self defense range ( 10m or so ). If the range is lon…

I personally don't see it as anti-gun, but I do see it as anti-civil liberties. It is for the same reasons I oppose voter ID, or any other hoops at discouraging the opportunity to exercise the right to vote that I oppose universal background checks.

As background checks discourage the opportunity to exercise a civil right, I believe it should be viewed with the same degree of judicial scrutiny that voting should be.

An imposition of fees or taxes on the right disenfranchises the poor, just as a poll tax does. An imposition of mandatory registration or waiting periods is an imposition of delayed exercise of the right, and I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. had the right of it when he proclaimed that "A right delayed is a right denied". The imposition of any sort of vetting or background checking process seems to me to be a violation of the presumption of innocence, which in turn diminishes the effectiveness of the first and fourth amendments, and seems ripe for opening the door towards warrantless searches, stop and frisk, etc.

I personally could give two shits about guns, but because I'm a fan of the rights we're afforded as American citizens, I respect the second amendment. Failing to do so diminishes all of the other rights, as they're all subject to high-water mark interpretations of judicial scrutiny, and the lower the bar goes for bypassing scrutiny on one right, the bar is lowered for all our rights.

Re: Pistol sights

#244

Post by tahabi »

What are the rates of gun ownership among hackers? Conversations with old alumni from school indicate that back in the day, a lot of them were firearms enthusiasts, but it seems that trend died out near the turn of the century. I know MIT still has a rifle and pistol range, however.

Re: Pistol sights

#245

Post by LanceH »

gadders wrote: post #42
binarytransform wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to derail the thread too much so I'll keep it short. I did technical "things" that correlate to my current civilian career. Lessons: biggest one was to eat humble pie and realize past performance =/= future success when different domains are involved (mil vs civ). Useful things: I'm generally pretty chill when things are going wrong. I.e. client meeting goes horribly -> "Hey at least we're not in X country…

Please do derail the thread. The thread is interesting, but so would your input be.

I'm not trying to speak for the parent of your post. To put combat in perspective, it's hard to even convey what is "normal" to the military.

Some things which would be (more than) dangerous on a civilian level: helicopter dunk tank, boxing, climbing from a boat to a ship on a cargo net, working with a squad full of 19 year olds with live ammo, a lt with a map.

Going to the grenade range, pulling the pin and you're now holding a live grenade. The only safety at this point is an individual's ability to not freak out and remember what to do.

That's mostly infantry related dangers. The other branches and sections all have large machinery/vehicles ready to run people over or blast them off the flight deck. I know of a sailor who was flown out after a table slid across the mess deck and pinned him to the wall.

The list could just go on and on -- heat exhaustion, hunger, exposure, blisters, bites, infections in the field. All of this is the normal and doesn't even begin to touch on combat where someone is actively interested in doing you harm.

edit -- the point of the above is that first you have to calibrate from civ normal to mil normal before considering combat. Even military normal is so far removed from IT related stress it is laughable.

Re: Pistol sights

#246

Post by jboggan »

maxerickson wrote: post #216
Karunamon wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So allow me to get meta for a moment here. Do you want to be right, or do you want to change people's minds? Ignore the fact that we see this on two different levels and don't even agree on first principles for a moment. Let's just talk about the pure practicality and rhetoric involved. From a purely objective standpoint, a great many people in this country believe in the 2nd amendment as written. There is no legisla…

The NRA represents 5 to 10 million lost causes, nothing like the insurmountable constitutional blocker you propose. I agree that there are many more people that have associated their personal identity with the 2nd amendment than that, I'm not sure they constitute a majority of the country. The way I see it, step one is getting to a place where emotional appeals about grandma needing a force equalizer are dismissed mo…

The NRA represents a lot more people than you think, even on this board. I've never been a member but reading your comments reminds me that I ought to purchase a membership and donate today.

My grandfather, father, mother, and myself have all used a handgun in self defense before. I would posit that I am existing to type this because of personal firearm ownership. Whenever I see comments like yours I empathize and remind myself that you are good natured but that you lack the background and context to realize why someone might reasonably want or need to arm themselves. Most of my friends here in California are like that, and they have no idea how nice and safe their environment and upbringing was in the pricy coastal cities and university towns of the West Coast. Some of us are from rougher places. Having lived in many different environments with different threat levels I understand the genesis of both viewpoints, but I know which one I'd consider right.

Our criminal neighbor tried to bash my father's head in with a tire iron on the front lawn - before you counter that we wouldn't need firearms to defend ourselves with if there weren't firearms out there in the first place.

Re: Pistol sights

#247

Post by Avshalom »

ufmace wrote: post #220
Avshalom wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, no, anti-gun laws are closer to nuetering than abstinence only education. One attempts to prevent the thing from happening the other refuses to provide actual education about something that is going to happen. Abstinence only education is mandatory gun ownership and then refusing to provide any guidance beyond "don't shoot people".

I think the grandparent was speaking more of knowledge then possession of items. Many anti-gun progressives seem to know little to nothing about guns, be proud of their lack of knowledge, and recommend passing ignorant laws that will do nothing to reduce violence. It seems kind of appropriate to compare them - their attitude seems like "Guns are always bad, unless you're the Government, you shouldn't know anything ab…

I think they thought they had a clever talking point that exposed hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance but failed to take into account that guns aren't dicks so the analogy falls apart immediately.

Re: Pistol sights

#248

Post by jabl »

ekianjo wrote: post #58
jabl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely recall reading somewhere about some study where they found out that when the police fire their pistols, at a range of 5 meters they hit about 50% of the time. Having spent a fair amount of time in my youth shooting with a BB pistol in my parents garage, I find the above statistic entirely believable. Shooting a pistol accurately is much more difficult than it looks, so I can certainly imagine that in a high…

even with a rifle, in a stable position, shooting a moving target is extremely hard while popular culture makes it look trivial.

Over here moose hunting is quite popular; to keep their moose hunting license every hunter needs to pass a test (every year, IIRC) that involves hitting a moving target.

Most hunters pass this test without much difficulty. Of course, on the range the distance is known (100m, IIRC), and the target moves at a constant and known speed, so one knows how much lead is needed. Still, AFAIU in the wild the results are decent.

Re: Pistol sights

#249

Post by CWuestefeld »

JoshMnem wrote: post #218
coredog64 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always shocked and amazed that progressives rail against "abstinence only" sex ed and then turn around and promote the same thing for firearms.

Who rallies for "abstinence only" for guns in the US? Asking for background checks is more like arguing for safe sex.

It's a standard "motte and bailey" argument [1]. What you're saying is the reasonable argument that anti-gun folks fall back to. But for many of them, they're always reaching for the whole enchilada. For example, although the Brady Campaign is only pushing for strong background checks at this stage, we know that their ultimate goal is an outright ban.

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...

Re: Pistol sights

#250

Post by maxerickson »

jboggan wrote: post #246
maxerickson wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NRA represents 5 to 10 million lost causes, nothing like the insurmountable constitutional blocker you propose. I agree that there are many more people that have associated their personal identity with the 2nd amendment than that, I'm not sure they constitute a majority of the country. The way I see it, step one is getting to a place where emotional appeals about grandma needing a force equalizer are dismissed mo…

The NRA represents a lot more people than you think, even on this board. I've never been a member but reading your comments reminds me that I ought to purchase a membership and donate today. My grandfather, father, mother, and myself have all used a handgun in self defense before. I would posit that I am existing to type this because of personal firearm ownership. Whenever I see comments like yours I empathize and re…

For what it's worth I've mostly lived in moderately poor communities in the Midwest. Not grindingly poor, but not on the right side of various median measures.

Somehow I haven't been in any situations where a gun seemed like it would have helped (and there aren't such stories flying around my extended family either).

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