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Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

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

#401

Post by mrguyorama »

noduerme wrote: post #109
dreamcompiler wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>takes safety and knowledge of the laws around storing/carrying/brandishing/firing them very seriously.

What matters is what happens when their friend does something dangerous with a gun, and they don't seem to care. My entire family is "responsible gun owner" including my brother who definitely seems to care about safety, but all that goes out the window when another family member brings out the guns at a family BBQ while absolutely drunk. You can bet your ass nobody said anything. If you aren't willing to narc on irresponsible gun behavior, you ARE NOT a responsible gun owner.

Also, Kyle Rittenhouse took a gun across several state lines, possibly stirred up shit, got shot at, and killed the person doing so. While the actual event of shooting was ruled "self defense", how is it "responsible" to take your firearm to a protest with the intent of being a counter protester. If "Anti fa" did such a thing, these people would riot, but Rittenhouse was invited to talk at fucking CPAC.

That's the kind of person these people lionize. They are envious that he was able to kill someone with a gun and get away with it. They want to be him.

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

#402

Post by charles_f »

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.

I donno, there's a chance that the credit doesn't get used, they charge me interest and fees for missed payment, and I get to spend hours on the phone to get these reversed

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

#403

Post by mrguyorama »

bee_rider wrote: post #378
pmarreck wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are 60 times as many privately owned guns in the EU as there are in Montana. > There are 5 time as many guns in the US, but 20 times as many murders. gonna need a fact-check on these claims, please, because initial googling reveals these are, at the very least, false or misleading I live in the Northeast US and very few people have guns here. Incidentally, even if it is difficult to purchase a gun, it's trivi…

What did you find in your search? At least, the gun count seems pretty close, as far as I could tell. https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/05/which-european-country-b... > Around 46% of all 857 million guns in civilian hands around the world belonged to people living in the United States in 2017, a survey has found. > The European Union's 513 million inhabitants owned a collective 79.8 million firearms in 2017. And the “…

Gun ownership is not evenly distributed. Their are as many guns as citizens in the US, but out of ten people, 8 have no guns, 1 has a single handgun, and 1 has 10 guns.

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

#404

Post by mrguyorama »

bombcar wrote: post #317
rootw0rm wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey now, if i don't sleep with the thing, how am i gonna grab it when i'm asleep?

I took “sleep with” as a sexual thing but you’re right, it’s probably referring to nightstand guns or the famous bedshotty.

Worth noting, it is impossible to both have a gun for home defense, and be a "responsible" gun owner. Being a responsible gun owner implies the guns are properly locked up, away from ammunition, because kids regularly play with daddy's guns and kill each other and themselves, but if your gun is locked up in a safe separately from it's ammo like it is often legally required to be, there's no way you can actually use it for home defense.

But everyone still claims they are "A responsible gun owner" because all that actually means to the gun culture in the US is that you are white or rural or conservative.

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

#405

Post by buzer »

esperent wrote: post #338
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 live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. Come on, this is totally untrue. I grew up in rural Ireland and it's very common for farmers to own guns. Hunters too. Check here [•] - Finland, for example, is only a couple of percentage points behind the US in number of households that own a gun (42% vs 37%). The difference is in th…

At least Finland's stats are a bit misleading. They are using number of guns per capita, not number of households with guns (and might also be using number of permits instead of number of guns, same gun might have more than 1 permit). There's about 650 000 permit holders in Finland, i.e. about 12%. Of course there are some people who have access to illegal guns but I don't think that's very high number. Estimates I see for number of illegal guns (which include deactivated guns which can be reactivated) are from 35 000 to 200 000.

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

#406

Post by bee_rider »

mrguyorama wrote: post #403
bee_rider wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you find in your search? At least, the gun count seems pretty close, as far as I could tell. https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/05/which-european-country-b... > Around 46% of all 857 million guns in civilian hands around the world belonged to people living in the United States in 2017, a survey has found. > The European Union's 513 million inhabitants owned a collective 79.8 million firearms in 2017. And the “…

Gun ownership is not evenly distributed. Their are as many guns as citizens in the US, but out of ten people, 8 have no guns, 1 has a single handgun, and 1 has 10 guns.

That isn’t really a fact-checking issue, though, it is an alternative interpretation of the data. I think your post is a fine way to begin a reasonable argument.

I actually don’t care to argue back. I object to the argument-less fact check request and insinuation that the figures are misleading, on principle. It is annoying to give your conversation partners homework for no reason.

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

#407

Post by JohnClark1337 »

thatoneguy wrote: post #31

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…

[dead]

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

#408

Post by mrguyorama »

bombcar wrote: post #318
kelnos wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but I suspect there's a bit of selection bias going on there in both our cases. I just don't think I'd be able to sustain a friendship with the kind of person who owns guns and handles them irresponsibly, and I expect the same might be true of you.

You’re spot on - everyone who I know who “does gun” has an extremely hostile reaction to people who handle them irresponsibly. And those people are often irresponsible in many other ways, too.

Except everyone who "has a hostile reaction to people who handle guns irresponsibly" has a story of a range or person they know who does exactly that, and their response is simply to stay away, instead of narcing on them and making the community safer at the expense of being a tattle tale.

So there are plenty of people who call themselves "responsible gun owners" but turn a complete blind eye to bad behavior.

Or they will keep a loaded gun in their bedroom for home defense, something that is outright NOT responsible gun owner behavior, yet is the primary cited reason people own guns in the US.

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

#409

Post by throwaway_e66m »

mohinder wrote: post #264
noduerme wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> gaslighting Please. Just link a study or something. FWIW I think it's wild I'm being accused of gaslighting over a simple request. Isn't that DARVO?

I think the issue is that it's such an easy web-search, your failure to do it and instead make a "simple request" appears to present an implication that the phenomenon in question doesn't exist, i.e. gaslighting.

The assertion for which you asked evidence is not a correlation between prosecutorial policy ("fully prosecuting criminals") and crime rates, but rather the existence of the policies themselves. So, there's no need for a "study": the prosecutors put it down in writing (and those policies then get reported by the media).

For the record, I support some of these prosecutorial reform efforts, but through legislation which eliminates things like "add-on charges", not by prosecutors selectively deciding who will and won't get them.

But, since you asked, here's just a few -- and I'll make the "simple request" to you to do the "hard work" of a web-search if you want more than these: try Chesa Boudin, Larry Krasner, etc.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg announces he is directing his staff either not to prosecute, accept "community diversion" in lieu of prosecution, or at least not to seek any jail time, for a slew of offenses, including e.g. armed robbery:

https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Day-O...

Media coverage of same:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/us/alvin-bragg-manhattan-dist...

https://nypost.com/2022/01/04/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-to-st...

LA district attorney George Gascón, upon being elected, issued a memo modifying the policy to reduce the charging of violent criminals:

https://da.lacounty.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/SPECIAL-DIRE...

Media coverage of same:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/crimes-las-prosecute

And while anecdotal, here's evidence of the implementation of that policy, a letter from Union Pacific railroad to the DA's office, complaining that when their agents apprehend criminals robbing trains, they are not fully prosecuted:

https://www.up.com/cs/groups/public/@uprr/@newsinfo/document...

HN thread on same:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29985568

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

#410

Post by mrguyorama »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #175
noduerme wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

The reality is that nearly every "responsible gun owner" knows gun owners who are not responsible, and usually just ignore that unfortunate reality. None of my family members, including the ones who "take safety seriously" and lock up their stuff from their kids, would EVER narc on the family member who thinks shooting up their back yard while drunk or high is okay. They rationalize this through all sorts of "but they aren't hurting anyone" wishful thinking, ignoring that being irresponsible with a gun in one way usually means they are being dangerous with firearms in other ways.

So many people provide direct evidence that they do not respect the danger or power of firearms, and most gun owners just look the other way.

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