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Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

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Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#231

Post by InclinedPlane »

sk5t wrote: post #147
InclinedPlane wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said generally. Also, even with someone who religiously carries a gun as much as possible it would be unusual for them to carry a full-sized duty pistol and the ammunition that most cops do (stereotypically a Glock 22 w/ a 15 round magazine and 2+ additional magazines, a total of 45 or more rounds). Certainly some folks do but I'd doubt that number is even in the double digits throughout the entire US, excluding of…

Double magazine pouches for concealed carry are not exactly a niche product. I would wager there are tens of thousands of Americans who pack a medium frame pistol and two spare mags.

Maybe. For single-stack magazines carrying 2 extra magazines can make a lot of sense, but once you get into double-stack magazines on guns with full-sized frames you start talking about a lot of bulk and weight. From my own observation, which is certainly anecdotal, I don't see that being commonplace at all.

It's within the realm of possibility that there are "tens of thousands" of folks who concealed carry with that amount of ammunition, but I would be surprised if that was the case.

Also, even if it is that many, it's still a tiny fraction of the populace. Even in the most enthusiastic pro-gun states only a tiny fraction of the public carries on a regular basis.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#232

Post by bane »

tiredofcareer wrote: post #212
reader5000 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the logical thing is to ignore mass murderers until their body counts approach deaths from cancer.

The trap is applying logic to being human, when humans are illogical by our very nature. kiba is doing it, and your poignant extrapolation of that logic demonstrates why we "can't think through this one, we have to feel it," as the film quote goes. She was right in that scene and the observation equally applies here, just with slightly different antagonists for the discussion. Too many engineering types try to apply…

You can't meaningfully talk about death in numbers unless you are counting deaths.

And by then you've lost the point.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#233

Post by csallen »

tiredofcareer wrote: post #130

I've noticed this tack a lot recently (three arguments like this in 24 hours), and I'm concerned by it. There seems to be an inability on the part of some people, apparently Richard Stallman included, to realize that active intent to harm human beings is not in the same ballpark as passive intent to harm human beings. They're not even playing the same sport. A fertilizer plant has a chance of harming someone in an ac…

So what you're saying is that people who value human life equally -- regardless of whether it's lost "actively" or "passively" -- are sociopaths? That people who advocate for a system that tries to save the most lives possible are sociopaths? What?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're saying that adhering to some arbitrary societal standard of behavior in the face of tragedy is more important than, you know, saving lives.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#234

Post by homosaur »

mpyne wrote: post #197
homosaur wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you're saying, but if you're not concerned about what DHS or d-bags like Lindsay Graham or Obama or police might do to erode rights, you're falling right into their trap. Shock doctrine works. I'm not suggesting that this was set up, but never let a good disaster go to waste.

Sure. But maybe, just maybe , it might be possible to have an event like this happen and note a flaw in the government's requirement to "promote the general welfare" which can be corrected without unduly infringing on civil rights. Because no offense, but Dr. Stallman sounds exactly like that dipshit in charge of the NRA who says that you can't change one single little thing about gun control because that would invit…

Well he seems to be particularly angry about something related to the locks on the building, so I don't even really know what the hell he's talking about.

There's no doubt that Stallman is intellectually inflexible and completely tone deaf. It's one of his primary virtues, really.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#235

Post by reader5000 »

temphn wrote: post #223
reader5000 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet 90% of gun owners would support virtually anything after being subjected to four months of corporate gun industry propaganda. You know, bullshit like how owning a gun "empowers" you.

How much money does the NRA have? How big is the gun industry? How much money does the mainstream media and the federal government have? Or OFA and Soros, for that matter? Worth a bit of Googling. Methinks you don't have a good order-of-magnitude estimate of how much money is on each side.

The gun industry is $32 billion. Mainstream media and fed government are not on a "side". Soros is $20 billion but a tiny fraction of that is devoted to advocacy. OFA, assuming you mean Obama For America (?), is not a single issue entity. The gun corporations are, and that single issue is maximizing profit.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#236

Post by homosaur »

krschultz wrote: post #158
homosaur wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% is some BS fake skewed poll run by some organization with an anti gun agenda. It's not possibly accurate. You can make any poll say anything if you word the question skewed enough.

I own guns. My parents own guns. My brother owns guns.my cousin owns 15+ guns and is a police officer. My girlfriends father owns guns. Some of us belong to the NRA. My brother and cousin going shooting a couple times a month. In some cases, we own guns that would be banned under a lot of gun control laws. My cousins response to Newton was to buy an AR15. Yet we all support background checks. I don't find the 90% num…

It's not that I'm against background checks per se, it's that they are useless in stopping crime. It's simply a feel good badge we can throw on our sashes.

Plus, if we're serious about reducing gun violence, we limit handguns, not rifles. We can pat ourselves on the back and make us feel better over dead kids, but the real problem in this country with gun violence is handguns. The fact that it's all about "assault rifles" (a meaningless loaded nonsense term) shows that people are not the least bit sincere or knowledgable.

I know 3 places right now I can purchase a handgun without paperwork that are not gun shows.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#237

Post by emily37 »

u2328 wrote: post #226
emily37 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This main point is ridiculous. Our response to deaths should scale exactly proportionately to the number? I shouldn't let the death of a friend upset me disproportionately more than the death of a stranger? A reasonable statement would have been, "Let's not let these deaths be cited as an excuse for tyranny." But what he said was more along the lines of, "Let's not be very upset about these deaths, because then they…

Well, that's a different issue than what Bain was attempting to argue, but I'll indulge. You said, "Our response to deaths should scale exactly proportionally to the number? I shouldn't let the death of a friend upset me disproportionally more than the death of a stranger?" You're misrepresenting what he said. He never compared the death of a stranger to the death of a loved one. What he said is that it's silly to ra…

So why should the deaths of those in Boston be more prolific to me than those that died in Texas?

I don't think prolific is the word you mean, but I'll assume you meant "meaningful" or "emotional." No one is telling you how much you should care about Boston versus Texas. The point is that for those of us who are personally affected by the Boston incident, we resent being told that we should care more about the Texas incident, because it is natural that we would be more upset about the incident that personally affected us.

You can't change the words he used to misrepresent his argument because you didn't appreciate his bluntness.

The change of wording wasn't relevant to my point, I was simply trying to summarize his view. Insert "let's make an effort not to get... as an excuse for tyranny" (his actual quote) for the paraphrased quote that I used, and the point still stands: the government's supposed tendency towards tyranny should cause us to resist tyranny, not to temper our emotional reactions to the deaths of community members.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#238

Post by bane »

wyager wrote: post #200
magic5227 wrote: post #9

This is what Stallman wrote right after the suspect was caught. My personal response is: There will always be a situation that is worse or where more people died, but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many, where the police and people of Boston were desperate to catch a person throwing explosives and shooting magazines of bullets in their city. Telling people to stay home for a few hou…

>but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many Right, because we should totally let the emotionality of a situation determine whether or not we completely overreact to the situation. >and save your opinions for a more appropriate time. RMS (and anyone else) is perfectly within his rights to say whatever he wants, whenever he wants. There is no "more appropriate time."

You're right, RMS is perfectly within his rights to say whatever damn fool thing he wants, I'm also within my rights to call him a damn fool when he does.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#239

Post by homosaur »

tiredofcareer wrote: post #199
kiba wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How they cannot be compared? The metric here is the rate of death and the probability of incidents. The goal is to reduce suffering in the most impactful way as possible.

Be careful, applying your engineering mindset to real life. We cannot quantify the human experience. Let's take one tiny minutiae of both incidents with the strong and clear prior warning that there are countless examples of these points: in general, a parent would expect her child to be safer watching the Boston Marathon than standing several feet from a fertilizer plant. That's an expectation that, while your data…

But the child IS safer at the Boston Marathon, even considering what happened. How many people have attended this event over the years? Now how many have been maimed or killed in those years?

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#240

Post by homosaur »

reader5000 wrote: post #109
mindcrime wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks or database for guns. Background checks are already required for almost all gun sales, including ones at gun-shows. This whole discussion is a red-herring. And what the f%!# good do you think a "database for guns" is going to do? You think the terrorists buy their guns over the counter, with legit IDs and happily register them with the authorities…

You appear to be angry and marginally psychotic. Willing to bet you have numerous high powered assault rifles. God bless America.

<---- reddit is that way
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