GigaBuist

I'm certainly not trying to combative with the parent poster in this matter but I should try and dispell a few myths about gun owners and shooting intruders. Technically speaking we have far more to think about when it comes to shooting an intruder than you do when throwing a knife. This is highly dependant on where you live but honestly the thought process doesn't really change that much. I too live in an apartment. Some gun owners (okay, most of them) live in a house. We not only have to select our target but we must evaluate, within split seconds, where that bullet is going to land if we miss the intruder or if it passes through them. Where I live I have very few positions which I could possibly fire on an intruder to save my life and not effect anybody else. I take many measures and repeadly remind myself of various tragectories which are safe in such a situtation. I'm not alone in this matter either -- if you visit pro-gun boards like http://www.thehighroad.org you'll see many discussions about what types of rounds and calibers are suitable for such situations. Very much thought goes into these decisions. With a throwing knife you most certainly have to select your target but that is largely because you have a limited capacity in which to "fire" upon the individual. If you must concern yourself with your knife traveling through an entire house and into another building then, sir, I would like to shake your hand and become your student.

The thing I find interesting about this post is how it relates to the often heard mantra of "if crime is bad in your area, just move." This seems to show that that isn't always a good idea. Presumably the burglar lived in a high crime area and moved to a low crime area for his activities because people there were not as vigilant. That's why I dont' like the "just move" idea. It forces the situation onto somebody else. The better idea is to do something to stop crime. Many theories exist on the matter and I applaud any social action that seeks to stop crime at the root of the problem. However, an armed society is a strong deterant in my mind. If everybody is armed there's nowhere for crime to go. This is not the final solution the problem but a reasonable measure to take regardless of crime levels.

I've never been in a birdman suit (and won't be for a fairly long time)... but what about elastic or rubber hoses attached to your body and your arms to help "pull" them into the right position? Maybe they could take 10-15lbs of pressure off each arm? If the bands were attached to the wrists using a quick-releae velcro perhaps at deployment time you could bring your hands in to undo them and free your arms up entirely. Of course, that's assuming it's okay to move in such a fashion. I have no idea. if you can't move your arms like this then what about a pin release on one arm that would have a cord velcro'd on your left or right shoulder. You could nab it with your mouth and yank the pin, free your arms, and take care of business. Of course, now you have a problem with two 3 foot long bungee cords flying past your head. Attach the bungee cords running from your body to your arms to two more cords anchored around your ankles with high elasticity that could grow to 6-7 feet in length but shrink back to 2 feet to pull the stronger cords back under your body and out of the way of deploying bag. Where does this fit in with landing it? Makes it easier to hold the proper position with an even bigger wingspan I guess.

Well, it's not mine, but my younger brother has an amusing one. Typical yellow smiley face with the "Have a Nice Day!" thing around it... on his right ass cheek. I'll get a picture if y'all want one; but his behind is not very flattering so consider yourself warned. I pray he never ends up in prison.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anybody thought Austrlia was perfect. I've neve heard a native say it was nor would I try and put words in anybody's mouth. From the stats I quoted, yes, you do have less of a gun violence problem. That's noble, but there is still a violence problem. If you remove the violence problem guns are no longer a problem. it's a lofty goal for any nation to achieve high gun ownership and a low crime rate. I admit, no I have not spent any time in Australia and I've only been in Atlanta for a flight layover. Given the nature of every Austlian I have met however I can assure you I'd feel more comfortable there than I would in most US cities. I will concede on that point easily. I agree entirely here. Stats will always be slightly skewed depending on who took them. The manner in which they were collected if often not a bit point in their press releases either. For the record I do not trust anything that the NRA puts out point blank. I'll question stats from any organization and take them with a grain of salt. The debate is about gun problems, but if you read my previous posts you'll see that I'm more concerned about crime than gun crime in general. I'd rather be shot to death than beaten down with a baseball bat honestly. A violent crime is a violent crime in my mind. Elimination of violent crime would eliminate gun crime. I'm not saying that I think you disagree with me on this at all; it's my premise. I definately agree that things are categorized differently depending on your locale. What we call domestic distrubance here is probably assult in many other countries. However I feel I should point out that "assualt" was incrased in AU during this period. Unless the definition changed from 1995 until now that is indicitive of a problem. It's "nice" that the rate of gun related robberies has decresed, but at what cost? If i'm unarmed and 3 guys bust into my house with baseball bats I'm basically screwed. I'm a small guy tipping the scales at 140lbs bare naked. If I'm physically assualted there's very little I can do about it unless I have a firearm. If they're armed, and I'm armed, I at least stand somewhat of a chance. The laws passed down under certainly have removed guns from the picture but they cannot, from the above, be accredited with reducing crime. Violent crime is violent crime. I'd rather be prepeared and armed for such confrontations. Crime here is probably higher. I'll admit that in a hearbeat without any stats to show otherwise. Even if crime here isn't higher crime here is still to high for my personal tastes. I am totally against violent crime. I'm against violence in general too. However, given that my posts earlier about this being a culturlal problem have seemingly been ignored I'll don the hat of something I absolutely do not agree with but could be used, statistically, in the same manner that the anit-gun crowd uses. We'z got a problem with niggers in this country. It's the niggers causing all of the crime. Everywhere you look, if there's crime there's niggers. Us white folk in urban america with guns coming our of our asses don't kill eachother. It's them niggers doing it. If we get rid of the niggers we don't have no more crime. Niggers is the problem. In case you missed it: I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE ABOVE! However, it does fit into the argument. Some blame the item used to commit violent crime. It's easy to get rid of, as we don't really need guns many people say. Some people honestly think if we got rid of "niggers" the problem would be solved. Others could say that we just flat out don't need black people in this country. If we got rid of them then we'd have far less crime in the country. Get rid of the Mexicans too while we're at it, some of them commit crimes too. BOTH are absurd. The latter has not been brought up in this forum, except for me, and I am very happy about that. However, I see both as very simplictic views of the real prolem: violent crime. I don't care if it's done by a honkey with a baseball bat of a black fellow with a gun, they're both bad. I want both to stop. Now. i still fail to see how telling me, a peaceful American citizen that removing the guns from my house will actually help the situation. It's as non-sensical to me as saying that if I shoot random "niggers" on the street that the crime problem would go away. I appologize emphatically to anybody who may have been offended by my choice of words above. I stress that I do not at all adhere to such idiotic propositions. I have heard them before, however, from people that certainly do give credence to them. Also, to the anti-gun crowd I am certiainly not comparing you to racisists. I am only comparin the train of thought. There hasn't been a single person in this thread that has expressed such views. I only bring it into the picture becaus I have heard it before (from pro-gun people) and disagree with it in the same manner that I disagree with anti-gun arugments.

Space Cowboys?

A quick google search gives me this: click here A little more digging gives this; straight from the Australian government: click here A quick quote from there: "The assault victimisation rate increased by 44% from 563 to 810 per 100,000 population between 1995 and 2002. Assault was the only offence category to show a consistently increasing trend in the rate of victimisation over this period. The sexual assault victimisation rate increased from 69 to 91 per 100,000 population between 1993 and 2002 and was at its highest level since the commencement of the collection in 1993. In contrast, murder, attempted murder and manslaughter victimisation rates remained fairly stable over this period and were 2 per 100,000 population, 2 per 100,000 population and less than 1 per 100,000 population respectively in 2002. " The number of victims appears to be rising down there. It's very easy to find stats that show Australia isn't any better off than it was before, and easy to find stats thta show it's worse off. Finding something that shows Australia to be the pinnicale of society with no violent crime is probably going to be quite hard. Like I said before in reference to the Swiss -- it's not the guns that are the problem, it's the crime.

Revenge of the Nerds.

Your adrenal glands sit on top of your kidneys. When they start kicking in in anticipation you tend to feel as though you need to urinate. It happens to me in all manners of sporting events. Even after hundreds of wrestling matches I still get that feeling every single time.

I agree whole heartedly here. The Swiss are an excellent example of a heavily armed society that doesn't have the homicide problems that the USA has. The difference is entirely cultural and not a matter of how many guns are actually owned by citizens. Again, I agree entirely. Something has to be done about this problem. I'm not sure what exactly however. It's a social problem and I have no understanding or desire to delve into the psychology of a nation. I'd be happy to help out though if I can. Well, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 22,000 firearms laws across this country. That doesn't really seem to be helping. Besides, I thought you stated earlier that this is a cultural problem? Decreasing firearm ownership is unlikely to reduce crime. See Britian and Australia for examples. I will admit that it may reduce the number of homicides by gun. Scratch that, I'll admit that it may reduce the number of people commiting homicide by gun. The best way to reduce homicides is: to reduce homicides. How we do that exactly? I don't know, but it probably has something to do with a cultural shift that removes people's desire to ever commit such a crime. Why do people feel that they -need- to kill another person? Solve that problem and we'll be as peacful as the Swiss. Something's horribly awry with our culture, but me having a rifle in my home isn't the root cause of the problem. If it was the countries like Switzerland and the rural area I grew up in (which was teeming with firearms) would be high crime areas. Firearms do not create crime. Firearms are meant to kill but they are not soley devoted to crime. Something else is creating our crime problem and the number of illegal firearms in this country (either purchased illgally or stolen) provides a horribly ugly end result. I'd rather not, but I'll use some stereotypes here. Take your average crack head with criminal tendencies with a gun. This is a problem. Now, lets look at somebody responsible, like AggieDave or myself, and we have a gun. The criminal should not have the gun. We should take that away from him. We keep on trying to do this but it just doesn't work. There's too many guns out there for him to steal, perhaps from an AggieDave or myself. The anti-gun crowd comes across, to me, in this situation and says "get rid of the guns! Do that and there will be less of a problem." The real answer is to get rid of the crack head criminal. A town full of AggieDave's armed to the teeth isn't a problem. A town full of criminals armed to the teeth is. Our nation is like a naked man running through a field of barbed wire. Once across the field some call for better bandages and less sharp barbed wire. I say we tell the fool to stop running through the field of barbed wire. It doesn't matter how much protection you shroud the nation with, eventually something is going to rip through and the bleeding will start. Guns do not create violent crime. Crime creates violent crime. That is the root cause of our troubles. Our nation was fine with gun ownership when it was founded. Something has changed, and blaming gun ownership on it is only a stop-gag measure. If we return our nation to a body of peacable citizens the whole problem magically goes away. The right to bear arms is not outdated and it never will be; our nation's moral fibre has changed since the revolution though and that needs to be adressed. I see this in my own family. I own guns, I have a cousin that owns guns. The difference is that I'm a reasonable person willing to work for my living. He's a drug dealing degenerate that thinks little of shooting at another person over a sour drug deal. If you remove the firearms you still have one crack piping degenerate running around. I don't care if he's armed or not, a bane on society is a bane on society regardless of how well he is armed. I assure you that if you removed his firearms, hands, and feet, this steaming pile of shit would still find a way to harm another human being. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there just like him too. I would hope that the pro-gun and anti-gun crowds here could at least agree on these ideas. While some may think that removing arms is a good idea, and some are dead set against it can't both sides agree that the real solution is to stop the crime rather than remove the "tools of trade"?

Strange Brew.

Rhino, this is why there was a bit of contention over the definition of "assault rifle". To me it's any small calibre rifle that has the ability to fire in burst or full auto mode. Apparently the US government and it's citizens don't agree with me. That's why the rules Luv2Fall wrote about are above. Apparently that AK-47 sitting next to me is a sporting rifle right now. If I put a folding stock on it though -- watch out! It's now become a weapon too powerful for the American citizen to own. I can buy a folding stock for it... I can buy a tap and die set, I can buy a grenade launcher, etc... but I can't put them on the gun! It's a bit silly. It's not like we really "need" them. I'll admit that although I'm sure as heck not going to ever get rid of them. What scares me, and probably plenty of ther DZ.com people, is an elected official that doesn't trust me enough to have them. Why should it matter to them? I'm not a violent criminal. What's so scarey about peaceful citizens owning firearms? The idea of a president (or congress or senate) saying to the general population, "Ok, we control your lives now. Could you give us your guns now? You're not safe enough to handle them." is a bit well, odd, if you ask me. I was intelligent and responsible enough for this person to let me vote, but I can't have my guns? That's why I won't vote for somebody who holds such views. If they don't trust me why should I trust them?

My brother stuck a bug-zapper INSIDE his trailer for entertainment once. Apparently they make special indoor-friendly ones.

Don't sweat the small things -- pet the sweaty things. Shit happens. Keep moving. I'd rather be remembered as an idiot than an asshole. The good Lord keeps the animals and plants of the world alive; he'll do the same for me. Life's too short for cheap beer.... unless you've already got 10 good ones in you. No matter what you always have a choice. You just might not like all the options. The Lord won't give you anything you can't handle. Sometimes I wish he didn't trust me so much though. (I think that's a Mother Theresa quote -- paraphrsed). Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. Always ask yourself, "What will I regret more in 30 years? Doing this or not doing this?"

Nobody else mentioned this, but here's the slightly techy details of how it works. 1) get domian name. Network solutions, Go daddy, register.com, etc, they all work. I like register.com (even if it's not the chepeast)... their website is usually easier to navigate than Network Solution. 2) Find hosting provider... you'll need DNS an web for this. You'd be best off keeping the domain name -yours- and not registered by a 3rd party if you ask me. It's more hassle, but you can move stuff around more freely. Get a web hosting provider, setup your site there and then use your website (network solutions, go daddy, whatever) to point your primary and secondary DNS entries to whatever they tell you to. 3) Build webpage, upload to their site. That's about it for a website really. I'm a little lucky here since I've got a contract gig with a guy I went to high school with that runs his own ISP so I dump DNS onto his machines and point my website/mail back to a machine in my apartment at the end of a DSL line w/ static IP. I love it. I've seen a server get slashdotted with my own eyes even. That's fun... if you're a nerd. Like me.