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Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

telecom.csail.mit.edu

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Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#321

Post by bombcar »

cutemonster wrote: post #150
noduerme wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to know what state they were working in.

If you work as a cable technician, 6 customers a day, that's around 2000 in a year. If 1 in 100 is mentally ill, in a bad mood (TV broken!) and with a gun ... Maybe there's some selection bias: You'll tend to meet angry people, who are more dumb (couldn't fix the problem themselves?)? Maybe in any weapon loving place, a job where you visit lots of people at their homes and help fixing something that's broken, is mild…

Especially if you’re disconnecting service - I dare say the repo tow truck drivers encounter MANY more gun incidents than the average AAA tow truck driver.

However I suspect the repo company allows its employees (or they’re self-employed) to carry in retaliation - I strongly suspect that the cable companies don’t allow their repairmen to pack heat.

It’s like the thin bread line - pizza delivery is more dangerous than being a cop.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#322

Post by vxNsr »

kmeisthax wrote: post #104
wkat4242 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

You're right that the US is very proud of their trigger and muzzle discipline. Or at least half of it. The other half points loaded guns with the safeties off directly at their own crotches to own the libs[0]. Going a layer deeper, Americans really, really love to abuse the shit out of customer service workers. To put it extremely charitably, we're used to being fucked by corpos so we pre-emptively fuck them back in…

> It turns out that the origin of this is not "owning the libs" – it's "owning responsible gun owners." -from your source

Yikes on linking to the wrong article that totally invalidates your argument.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#323

Post by Aloha »

avidiax wrote: post #212
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Registered to a different person" -- for the most part, guns are not registered in the USA. Was this in a state or city with a registry for AR-15s? "Loaded straight into fairly skinny jeans without checking the safety." -- Glocks do not have safeties. The idea with most newer striker-fired pistols, like the Glock, is that the gun goes in a hard-sided (molded nylon or kydex) holster. If it's not in the holster, it's…

> "Registered to a different person" -- for the most part, guns are not registered in the USA. Was this in a state or city with a registry for AR-15s? Handguns are registered to a tiny degree. The NICS checks records may be kept only on paper, and are kept by the gun dealer until they close business. Then the BATFE or a related govt. office gets them. By order of congress, this office is not allowed to computerize.

Cash person to person transfers are either still currently legal, or were currently legal until very recently.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#324

Post by bombcar »

sneed-oil wrote: post #186
wkat4242 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

> I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals I live in the EU and that's not true, I know multiple people who own guns and go to the shooting range every other weekend

People vastly underestimate the number of privately held firearms in Europe, and how “easy” it is to obtain one.

It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, and depending on the country can range from “California difficulty” to “basically an NFA stamp” but they’re out there.

Often they are not “the scary black rifle” type, but they’re still firearms.

Then again, in the USA you can buy a Gatling gun and you rarely hear issues around that - https://youtu.be/9U8850jgTwk?si=5UTz7HsgaLxgbFuS

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#325

Post by bombcar »

nly wrote: post #255
noduerme wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My nightly bedside weapon is a Beretta 92 with the safety decocker. I know a lot of people think it's silly to have a safety on that gun, but I want to be awake enough to think about it twice if I wake up in the middle of the night.

I get night terrors and sleep walk, so I'd likely end up dead of I had a weapon by my bedside.

You can get a paintball gun or air soft and experiment!

Maybe it would help with the sleep terrors, maybe it would result in a rainbow colored cat.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#326

Post by stouset »

noduerme wrote: post #249
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that seems reasonable, but now it makes me wonder about the graph - it can't be that the people who take gun ownership and security safety only know people who do likewise - how many people who take these matters seriously still have friends they hang out with who take it less seriously. Why? Well bad apples and stuff, it's hard to believe perfect discipline is maintained when some of those around you have le…

Just from personal experience among my friends and acquaintances - and anyone I meet who I chance to talk about guns with - there is a very strong self-reinforcing culture of safe handling and responsibility. People will come down incredibly hard on anyone who seems inept or who they even hear speaking about some kind of irresponsible behavior. Now, I'd say about half of these are ex-military people, but they set a s…

> Just from personal experience among my friends and acquaintances

This is significantly biasing your perspective, and I don’t think you quite realize by how much.

There are many, many gun owners who are incompetent and irresponsible. There is an entire spectrum, and it’s not a purely bimodal distribution with 95% safety-conscious owners and 5% hoodlums.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#327

Post by bombcar »

hiatus wrote: post #303
avidiax wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read about it, I couldn't understand it either. They didn't explain precisely, but IIRC, it was a pistol with a tactical light, which explains why there might be more space that usual. I couldn't find the particular incident, however. This sort of thing is unfortunately somewhat common: https://www.thetrace.org/2023/04/sig-sauer-p320-upgrade-safe... https://safariland.com/pages/service-bulletins

The sig p320 thing isn't about safeties at all but a mechanical design flaw that the company has remedied with a recall. And that safariland link just seems like safariland is a terrible manufacturer of holsters.

If this is the one I’m thinking of it was pretty clear that there was a police department that was incompetent and blaming negligent discharges on the firearm instead of on true officers.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#328

Post by vxNsr »

londons_explore wrote: post #295
charles_f wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, even accounting issues are unresolvable today. My cable company started charging me for an ultra HD TV supplement... While I have internet only. 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 p…

'miss' a payment, and the credit will be used to cover it.

Yea this appears to be the easiest way to do it, turn off autopay, let your account go into default for a day or two, they’ll use the credit, then if your bill is higher than $50, just pay it off and turn autopay back on.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#329

Post by bombcar »

Doxin wrote: post #319
iotku wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's much better than the opposite problem: forgetting to engage the safety and accidentally discharging. If you're following the firearm safety rules you're not pointed at anything/anybody you don't wish to destroy so it's a moot point. (yourself included, though at least in that case nobody else was harmed needlessly) A safety lockout (or lacktherof) shouldn't be a factor in your pointing of a gun at someone and…

I'm aware of firearm safety rules and all that. That's not my problem with this. My problem is that the safety on a firearm is part of a defense-in-depth type situation. Removing the safety switch removes a layer of that defense. I hope I don't need to explain why that's a bad thing on this forum.

There’s also the “if you ever pull the trigger in a situation where the safety keeps it from firing, you are doing something horribly wrong”. People often treat the safety as a “gun off” switch when it should never be considered that. I understand the Glock philosophy - no gun is “safe” until you’ve personally verified that there is no ammunition in it at all, and even then it should be treated as if it is loaded.

Relying on a safety to keep it “safe” is usually the first step in ventilation of the floor or ceiling.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#330

Post by bombcar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #215
Doxin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's built into the trigger mechanism. What, so pressing the trigger automatically disengages the safety? As a non-gun-person that seems like an insane design decision.

It isn't that simple. Most handguns actually have lots of "safeties" meant to ensure that it only goes off when held/pointed and the trigger is pulled. Triggers are also not like controller buttons. They generally require significant force to actually pull. No modern handgun should fire if shaken or dropped. Even guns from 100+ year ago (Colt 1911) have redundant safety features to protect against mishandling.

The 1911A1 is a marvel of engineering and anyone remotely interested in technology at all should study the design and its implications.
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