Our chief weapons are petulance and syntax.

Gravity still has infinite range though, so we are not talking about things having NO (only a negligible) effect on us at great distance. Additionally, distant massive objects can still influence other distant massive objects between us and them, and the latter can in turn influence us. Even were neither of those things true, just because something is too far removed to affect us does not mean it no longer exists; there could be a incredibly great difference between the Observable and Whole Universes (though of course the very nature of the first makes that impossible for us to determine.) Ultimately, "observable" is just a very sensible qualifier that discourages assumptions and reduces the likelihood of later embarrassment.


"Processed through the mind" is a hefty qualifier, and still an assumption. There remains reason to doubt its veracity, and it is unprovable. The latter is ONE criterion of axioms, but not the only one, and the former violates the criterion of self-evidence. You happen to see Jupiter come within 2° of the Moon the other night? My senses told me the latter was MUCH bigger, just as they tell me the moon covers more arc at the horizon than at azimuth, but of course my senses are filthy liars on both counts, and rather brazen ones since they persist in both falsehoods despite my brain exposing each long ago. Drugs, stress and illness can each cause completely unreliable hallucinations. Kant tells us we cannot be sure our senses accurately report all data, but Heisenberg tells us we CAN be sure they do NOT.

Existence is sure, else there would truly be naught to discuss: No Relativity, subjectivity nor Observer Effect, nor anything to debate them. All else is supposition more or less likely in proportion to total supporting evidence; it is nigh impossible for that evidence to reach the level of incontrovertible proof. Necessity is not validity.


It was OK, I just did not care for the ending; if they were going to give him the Spock treatment they should have gone all the way. People often expect too much of Hollywood, and it sometimes expects too much of itself. Checking its Wikipedia page revealed Nemesis' box office was "only" $67 million domestic and foreign, which made it a "failure" so disastrous Paramount abandoned the NextGen franchise.

Same with Superman Returns: The studio expected $500 million, so when it GOT a "mere" $450 million the entire reboot was scrapped as an embarrassing mistake. Thus, ironically, Superman Returns' excellent and extensive effort to maintain continuity with the previous films (down to recyclying the main theme and ending with the trademark curtain call in front of the spinning Earth) was all for naught, because Man of Steel ignores both that film and all previous ones.

As Tom Bosley would say, "That's Hollywood," which today seems to mean gleefully violating all our treasured childhood memories because they so deeply inspired some producer he wants to remake them in his own image. "I want to do something ORIGINAL!" Yeah? Try creating your OWN world then; if you want to do the classics, leave them as you found them, because they are not your exclusive property (really.) About the only person who has any excuse for such behavior is Lucas, who at least created the worlds and stories he butchers for (more) fame and profit now.</rant>


I would suggest a process very similar to what we do with drivers licenses:

1) An eye and/or shooting range test to verify people do not threaten anything and everything within half a mile each time they fire a gun.

2) A brief written test to verify a good, if not perfect, knowledge of the common sense rules and statutory laws of gun ownership.

3) A brief practical test to verify a good, if not perfect, knowledge of the common sense rules and statutory laws of gun use.

Again, there is nothing radical or novel about any of that; it is exactly the same thing we do for every vehicle from mopeds to big rigs (except, of course, that I would require criminal and mental health record checks at the start.) I know some people oppose that for guns, but I am not sure those who do include anyone but the same radical fringe that insists thumb-printing drivers license applicants is "the Mark of the Beast." They are beneath consideration and relevance, except insofar as they should be subject to prosecution for shooting without a license just as they are for driving without one.


True, but unless someone wants to jerry-rig something then use it without testing, hoping but not KNOWING it will work, that usually is a problem. A wooden mallet works well for the first couple nails, but reaching the thousandth nail without snapping the mallets head off the shaft and/or gouging holes in it can be tricky. Breivik demonstrated a sufficiently determined, careful and knowledgeable person can find a way, but I am QUITE weary of people using anomalous exceptions to the rule to argue reasonable precautions NEVER work. Whether it is the gun lobby claiming Breivik proves all gun control a pointless expensive failure or the anti-gun lobby claiming Nancy Lanza proves guns useless for self-defense, it still strikes me as people using stats like a drunk uses lamp posts.

Just to be clear: In the past half-year we have averaged one mass shooting every two months; THAT has gone beyond the anomalous stage.


I took the responder to mean filing the firing pin is needless if a gun has an auto sear and pointless if it does not.

Pipe bombs are a good example of what I referenced above: They are illegal throughout the US, but a few idiots still make them; that is not an argument to repeal laws against pipe bombs on the grounds they are expensive and ineffectual. A LOT of people have been arrested and imprisoned because they were caught with pipe bombs they never got the chance to use, and that is both good and effective.


I am the first to agree many people with criminal records and/or diagnosed mental illness are on the streets who should not be, if that is what you are saying. Until/unless we do better at keeping proven threats to public safety safely locked away we will have a proportionately high need to monitor those walking around free. It is contradictory, however, to say the high rate of premature release and recidivism makes guns vital for self-defense but precautions against felonious possession needless. If unreformed criminals are so dangerous they justify allowing anyone the means to kill them, they are so dangerous they justify making sure said criminals get NO guns. We cannot have it both ways.


If the shit hits the fan the dicators army will check every house for guns, registered or not. Background check data should be purged immediately after verification (though the FBI maintains NICS, and I am not suggesting the FBI purge its criminal databases,) but there is nothing wrong with licensing and registration, even ballistics records. It greatly aids tracking guns used in crimes back to the criminal. I find it odd a cop (with cause) can pull someone over and demand "license and regisration" for a car, but not a gun.

However, at this stage of the game, I would be overjoyed to let that await a later day (if any) if we had the database of people who could not buy guns. To some extent we do, but it only applies to federally licensed gun sellers, and a small majority of states do not fully participate. A CERTAIN political faction demanded and got many exceptions and loopholes in that legislation. Fact is, the mental health and criminal records are already out there and freely available to all gun sellers: Many just refuse to use them.


I would never suggest anyone trust the government beyond their own sight, but I trust private groups (ESPECIALLY political partisans) even less. The NRA and ACLU are unlikely to ever band together on anything (the ACLUs gun control position is both ambivalent and ambiguous,) so it is far more likely that one or the other would set up such a database. So ask yourself if you would trust the ACLU to maintain a database of who is ineligible to own a weapon any more than I would trust the NRA to do so. Trust is very much the issue here, since, unlike government officials, the public has no direct or other means to hold NRA and/or ACLU officials accountable for improper use and management of any database recording who can and cannot legally own a gun.

If we want ANY public oversight of such a system, it MUST be government run and thus publicly accountable.


A number of them did: Charles Whitman, Jared Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho, Adam Lanza. In Chos case, Virginia STATE law prohibited selling guns to anyone currently receiving mental health treatment—but the gun lobby used the "if they are on the street, they should not be stigmatized by denying their gun rights" argument to remove that provision for outpatients. Consequently, Chos legally bought guns DESPITE court ordered outpatient mental health treatment (as part of prosecution for stalking after classmates said they feared he would become a mass shooter and his school expelled him.)

Checking mental health records will not stop anyone without one, no, but would stop most everyone who DOES. We are back to the same old thing: Anything that does not stop EVERYONE, be it guns for defense against them or laws agaisnt them getting guns, is a pointless expensive failure. Those are not rebuttals, but EXCUSES even most of their proponents do not really believe. They are obstacles to effective reasonable gun policy, but actually ENABLE murder.


As noted, their inconsistent "logic" is not my fault and should not be my problem. A database would almost inevitably help, and trying it would burden no one.


I prefer relying on systematic training rather than cultural faux pas (even the combination does not prevent reckless driving, and even the addition of laws does not prevent drunk driving, but no one suggests we should discard driver licensing and laws against drunk driving as expensive failures.) Applying much the same comprehensive oversight and certification standards to guns as we do to cars would be no more a patch job for the former than for the latter. And, ultimately, allowing the mentally ill and/or criminals to go on shooting rampages, then killing them, is so far from an ideal solution it does not qualify as a "solution" at all.