171–180 of 486 posts
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That doesn't mean the death rate of children due to firearms is high, it could just mean there isn't really anything else that kills children i.e. they mostly have parents looking out for them, don't have to work dangerous jobs, and haven't lived long enough for lifestyle factors to take effect yet.
It does mean theres three kids shot dead for every one that drowns.
I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…
For approximately two months, we had absolutely zero internet service, while Comcast continued to collect our monthly fees. We kept calling, and they kept sending out tech after tech. I don't recall what the final tech fixed, but they complained that all of the previous techs should have spotted the issue. We never got reimbursed for those two months of non-service, but we did magically start getting cable tv after the final tech visit. We figured it was their gesture of kindness for the Comcast hell we'd been through.
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No, it can't be theft unless the service provider lost the channel being "stolen" to the "thief" which makes no sense. Things quickly become silly when we insist on using the wrong concept where it doesn't apply. Charges like disrupting business operations or unauthorized access I can see, but theft? nah.
It is defined as theft under the laws of several states. Here are links to a few states' theft of services statutes. Pennsylvania: https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.039.02... Texas: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-31-04/ New York: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/165.15 Oregon: https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_164.125
I feel like this story could be titled “In Which a Smart Person Overestimates Their Competency With The Legal System” Always get a lawyer.
* EDIT: fixed gender pronouns
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> I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing or murdering people. I take it you have not actually visited the United States.
In fairness, everyone I know in the US who owns firearms - which is basically everyone I know here - takes safety and knowledge of the laws around storing/carrying/brandishing/firing them very seriously. But the sheer scale of the US population and the absolute number of guns is just difficult to conceive of from a European perspective. We have something like 60 privately owned guns in this country for every person i…
Why? Well bad apples and stuff, it's hard to believe perfect discipline is maintained when some of those around you have less than perfect discipline.
It seems like a question that one could probably get pretty close to answering (although not perfect).
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The rule of thumb is you are still way more likely to be killed by other things before being killed with a firearm. It’s not really that bad. Once you graduate from school your risk of being shot dead dramatically lowers and other normal causes of death take the top spot.
Firearms are the second-leading cause of death in children and adolescents in the US. 15%. [0] [0] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754
You also lump in a disproportionate amount of street gang-related shootings, which have different causes and different solutions, and make it look like suburban teens are uniquely at risk from firearms . . . when they're not. The vast majority of firearm homicides in this country are suicides, and the next-most involve street gangs and the drug trade, and involve young men with criminal records killing other young men with criminal records using illegally-obtained pistols.
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I'm a gun owner and I believe in the rights of citizens to be armed, but I'm still not sure this is a good argument. On principle, anything that causes unnecessary deaths should be curtailed unless the benefits somehow outweigh the damage. We still have people driving cars who kill each other every day by accident, but there's a general feeling that it would be better to do away with that if we could find a way to el…
As someone who moved to the US and finds the gun culture absolutely bonkers, I get the gun culture and why they had it in the constitution. I don’t get the obsession behind open carry though. What good is people walking around in shopping malls with large semi automatic rifles on their back?
Firearms can, in many situations, allow you to enforce your will over that of other people who may be intent on harming you or others.
The thing I never quite understood is why so many of us believe they'll encounter those situations walking to train station in the urban core.
So in one sense, I think I can understand the thinking behind it but at the same time think people are mistaken for how often you'll need to shoot someone while walking home in the city or in the burbs.
That being said... I worked part time as an agent for a bail bondsman to pay for college and frequently carried large sums of cash with me through bad neighborhoods. I open carried with the approval of the sheriff's office and municipal police departments largely as a reminder that I could shoot back. But I never had to. The last person a potential criminal wants to shoot at is their bail bondsman... I never drew, aimed or fired my firearm in two years of working that job. In many ways I think it was like part of a "costume" that communicated I had the weight of social convention on my side.
I feel like if something this dumb happened now, there'd be no way to get it resolved that quickly, and without hiring a lawyer. Getting Comcast lawyers to respond to you at all is the one bit in particular I can't picture happening.
I didn't notice right away so a couple months went by. I called them, they stopped charging me, and credited my cable account back. But what is utterly crazy, is that that credit is never used. The months come and go by, and balance is still -$50 (i.e. I have an over payment of 50)
I called a few times to get to money back, because, it's my money. I received 3 different explanations that were obviously made up and contradicting each other (call centers make shit up all the time). Eventually someone told me the balance will be paid off when I close my account and the only way I have to recover it is to change operators. Except they don't have competition where I am.
It's trivial, not a jail time, but this simple enough process of "take that amount and write a cheque" is already impossible because a) no-one knows b) no-one cares c) I'm not gonna sue on such a low amount d) I can't leave e) there's no incentive whatsoever for anyone to expand some effort to understand what is happening to my account f) no-one has any sort of any power, and escalations are a myth
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In some European countries there's a recent trend to attack people perceived as "the state", such as firefighters and paramedics in certain situations. Afaik, this is usually done by low income, uneducated people that good stone grudge and then lash out. You can indeed be happy that they don't have access to firearms.
This is not done by “low income, uneducated people". This is done by 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants from the middle east and africa. Please be specific, otherwise these problems will never be resolved. I come from a low income neighborhood but native parents, this was unheard of up until the 2000s.
Edit: I don't say that MENA immigrants targeting public services is not an issue. I say that this issue exists globally too, it's a result of having a lot of uneducated demoralised people, whatever their background or origin.