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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#791

Post by maest »

cwkoss wrote: post #664
homonculus1 wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police. Not to detract from your excellent point but when it comes to personal defense against crime, this applies to everyone who doesn't have private security. Even if the police are 100% on your side, they can't help you if they aren't at your side. When seconds count, the co…

I agree. Similarly, most people who live in rural areas also have a need for guns to protect themselves adequately - from animals as well as malicious people - as police and other state protection can be an hour or more away when they try to respond rapidly. I prefer to focus on the Black Panthers use case because there is an interesting cognitive dissonance in the modern left in that anti-racism and gun control are…

Your litmus test is interesting - why focus on that single group of people?

Maybe another litmus test should be "does this meaningfully decrease access to guns for a person who is planning a mass shooting?"

I don't have any stats, and I suspect more single black women die than people at the hand of mass shooters, but you see my point - it's a game of tradeoffs and focusing on a single dimension is myopic.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#792

Post by ridewinter »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #779
ridewinter wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a gun makes it 2-3x more likely someone in your family will die by a gun. So it makes you less safe, not more. https://slate.com/technology/2015/01/good-guy-with-a-gun-myt... And it definitely makes it less safe for the rest of us in society.

And the same goes for owning a car or having a pool in your back yard. That doesn't make it not worth it.

Owning a car is necessary for daily life. And your backyard pool will not impact the rest of society.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#793

Post by bsder »

program_whiz wrote: post #13

Sure, the kid was swinging at the officer, and I suppose that warrants the officer acting in self-defense. But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do? The government has all the power, and can simply snuff out any resistence. If you just stand in the streets, they really don't care, they are going to take your freedom. Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator that just decided they were going to…

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator that just decided they were going to take all property rights and freedoms like that

He wouldn't be in power long because the economy would shut down and the US cities are extremely dependent upon a functioning economy.

And say California and Texas don't go along--now what? That's more than 50% of your military.

This is similar to Syria. Sure, Assad is still in power, but what's left of the country?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#794

Post by dillondoyle »

loquor wrote: post #349

This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons: 1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984. 2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and princ…

No not alarmist. I'm with you and I strongly believe US should undo Trump so we can rebuild an international coalition of 'Democracy' to confront China, unified together, with much stronger action (backstopped with force if needed).

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#795

Post by bsder »

nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

Drones are probably more effective than guns nowadays.

Because of drones, you have to re-secure an area over and over and over while the attacker can move around.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#796

Post by hereme888 »

cwkoss wrote: post #580
nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

I think it is unfortunate that so many Americans don't know about the history of the Black Panthers. In US public school system, we are taught that the Civil Rights Act was won through peaceful marching - this is not the whole story. Black Panthers carried guns to protect protests, and having guns created a situation where cops could not rush in and beat dissent into submission. There is a strong argument that withou…

I don't think most Americans care about the history of the black panthers because nowadays they're a bunch of aggressive anti-white racists. At least in the media that's the only thing portrayed about them.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#797

Post by refurb »

dragonwriter wrote: post #387
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing with you over the difference in skill/training/etc. The Viet Cong and Taliban are obviously superior than the average American citizen. But I doubt that their respective victories were because of their military prowess. They turned the battlefield into an un-winnable game by requiring the military to effectively destroy the country in order to win. By the time the superior military wins, there's v…

> The Viet Cong and Taliban are obviously superior than the average American citizen. But I doubt that their respective victories were because of their military prowess. The VC were utterly crushed, leading the NVA to get more directly involved in the South rather than using them as a catspaw. To the extent that the combined operation had success (which it clearly did) it was because of the NVA—a regular army—and the…

Not sure why you’re downvoted as this reflects the historical record.

During Tet, the VC was crushed and ceased being an effective fighting force in the south. The NVA was forced to pick up the slack.

The eventual takeover of south Vietnam was by conventional military forces.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#798

Post by bsder »

pageandrew wrote: post #775
ridewinter wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a gun makes it 2-3x more likely someone in your family will die by a gun. So it makes you less safe, not more. https://slate.com/technology/2015/01/good-guy-with-a-gun-myt... And it definitely makes it less safe for the rest of us in society.

If you have a gun in your house and are responsible with it, nobody will be at risk.

Hogwash.

My military-trained father-in-law accidentally discharged his handgun inside the house while cleaning it. The bullet ricocheted and could have killed anybody.

It was a manufacturing defect. All those guns were recalled and replaced 2 months later.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#799

Post by seanmcdirmid »

pageandrew wrote: post #778
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the USA implemented all of Switzerland’s gun laws, a citizen who passes a background check would be able to buy a newly-made full-automatic machine gun that is not allowed in the US outside of law enforcement or military. But they wouldn't get access to the ammo needed to use those guns, which are stored in a central community location to combat an unwanted suicide problem (and aren't they semi-auto anyways?). T…

The people are the militia. The first clause of the 2nd amendment doesn’t mean what you think it means. Good article on this: https://www.mic.com/articles/24210/gun-control-myth-the-seco...

The Swiss militia is setup to protect the country from foreign invaders. The 2nd amendment was setup exactly for this same reason, as the founding fathers were thinking about the British when they wrote it.

Of course, the text is vague enough that everyone will simply draw out whatever meaning they find reinforces their biases. Given that the most fervent upholders of the amendment today were draft dodgers back in the day, it is safe to say that protection of country is no longer important in their reading of the amendment.

At any rate, even if we accept that the clause is prefatory, that doesn’t make it meaningless, it has an effect on how gun rights should be maintained (so that the populace can overthrow the government or protect against foreign invaders, it is not protected for self defense, sport hunting, target practice, etc...).

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#800

Post by chrisco255 »

24gttghh wrote: post #742
chrisco255 wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which fact have I mentioned that you think is incorrect?

It's not as simple as more CO2 = better plant growth. In fact it is likely the opposite for C3 plants. [0] Things like Corn, which uses C4 photosynthesis will hardly be affected by more CO2 in the atmosphere. I could go on and on, but this thread is the wrong place for this discussion. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4036122/ https://science.gu.se/english/News/News_detail/increased-car... https://www…

It looks like doubling CO2 causes increase in carbs and a decrease in proteins but the difference is only 1.5-14% depending on the plant species, with soy beans being the least affected. Still, a doubling of CO2 can cause certain tree species overall mass to increase by 138%.

If the yields and plant mass overall increase by more than 14%, then perhaps the trade-off is worth it. And this is perhaps why commercial greenhouse growers pump CO2 into them up to 1200PPM.

At any rate it does seem like an interesting question. What sort of species will thrive in a high CO2 environment? I do have faith in plants and their ability to adapt to such conditions, as it was the conditions they thrived under in the Mesozoic and beyond.

At any rate, thank you for the interesting studies.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2486...

https://academic.oup.com/treephys/article-abstract/14/7-8-9/...

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