Geas

Herr Köhler is not the real problem, better start with Herrn Schäuble.

Big federal government is the problem, the Confederacy had the right idea as far as politics and decentralized government.

I do not pay attention to politics
im a fan of communism and the rhino party

In China, you'd probably be a janitor.

Nice thread. Would take forever to reply to everyone the way I would like to so Ill summarize:

Guns - Good
Obama - Bad
Paris Hilton - Bad
Sarah Palin - Naughty
Training required for concealed carry - Laughable
Colorful Tshaharks - Ive seen yellow and white varieties also
U.S. Citizens vs. U.S. Military - Improbable but not Impossible
Citizens vs. U.S. Military(would they stand a chance?) - Yes, actually. And no I am not a member of the Michigan Militia.
Legos - Kick Ass
Public School Kids Shot in Chicago - Not as bad as it sounds
German Army - Hail mein Spezialkraufte Kommando!
Nudity vs. Violence on T.V. - I think the reasoning is that 12 year olds are more likely to get pregnant than go on murder sprees(even if they have guns).

Desert Eagles... are like large penises. Insecure guys want them, those who have one mostly just play with it, and they're really only fun when a hot chick uses them.

3) Lastly, a question which always puzzled me. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution talks about "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms." Fair enough, but what are arms? Clubs are arms, knives are arms, pitchforks are arms, muzzleloader guns are arms, automatic assault rifles are arms, tanks are arms, nukes are arms. So where does your Constitution draw a line? Why are some guns legal, but chemical weapons or anthrax aren't? Wouldn't it be unconstitutional to forbid any kind of "arms", unless that part of the constitution has to be seen in context with let's say serving in a militia or army?

I believe that in the spirit of the the ammendment arms would be defined as those tools and implements which would be necessary/could be used to defend the citizen from the government. So clubs, knives, pitchforks, muzzleloaders, automatic rifles and yes tanks(in all seriousness if you can afford one you should be able to, and can coincidently, buy one) are fair game. Nuclear Weapons I would say no for a plethera of reasons most obvious being that they would be tactically and philosophically obsolete.

I'm feeling mean today, so: Someone should tell Sarah Palin's daughter that pregnancies can be aborted -- that way she can get her mom into even more trouble.

The younger one will probably start having sex soon, if she hasn't already. She's smoking hot in that polka-dot dress. Mmmmm...

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/200 ... in.600.jpg

Legos = kick ass

We may as well end this thread now, everything that needs to be said has, and legos have been given the justice they deserve.

http://kotaku.com/5046234/tragedy-as-ki ... h-real-gun

dumbass kid
this relates to things we were talking about before. any comments?

Proper training of the kid could have prevented this. The way I've seen kids trained around here in firearm safety is with air rifles. After that, things like never pointing the barrel of a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot, even when it isn't loaded, just comes second nature. I'm talking about 8 year olds that know this. If parents leave a gun in their house, and never taught their kid that, well, that is completely irresponsible.

Without looking at the video, which I can imagine from the comment, I have to ask. So how do you keep guns from the hands of the irresponsible, without further limiting there accessability in general?

lol Gojin you missed my uber addiction to geas.

and i like desert eagles for better reasons than "it's a big gun".

Naga wrote:The younger one will probably start having sex soon, if she hasn't already. She's smoking hot in that polka-dot dress. Mmmmm...

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/200 ... in.600.jpg

I just cannot wrap my mind around the fact that we may have opossum (or Alaskan beaver since opossums do not live that far up into the tundra) being served in the white house . . . look at these guys! Can't you just see her husband picking up a roadkill and saying, "damn shame to waste it!"

As for Naga's orginal comments . . .

There was an interesting article in this last week's NEJM. Keep in mind, that this is more of an editorial, but I enjoyed it. If any would like the entire article with tables and references, just send me a private message.

September 4, 2008, Number 10
Guns and Suicide in the United States.
Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., and David Hemenway, Ph.D.

"This past June, in a 5-to-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on handgun ownership in the nation's capital and ruled that the District's law requiring all firearms in the home to be locked violated the Second Amendment. But the Supreme Court's finding of a Second Amendment right to have a handgun in the home does not mean that it is a wise decision to own a gun or to keep it easily accessible. Deciding whether to own a gun entails balancing potential benefits and risks. One of the risks for which the empirical evidence is strongest, and the risk whose death toll is greatest, is that of completed suicide.

In 2005, the most recent year for which mortality data are available, suicide was the second-leading cause of death among Americans 40 years of age or younger. Among Americans of all ages, more than half of all suicides are gun suicides. In 2005, an average of 46 Americans per day committed suicide with a firearm, accounting for 53% of all completed suicides. Gun suicide during this period accounted for 40% more deaths than gun homicide.

Why might the availability of firearms increase the risk of suicide in the United States? First, many suicidal acts — one third to four fifths of all suicide attempts, according to studies — are impulsive. Among people who made near-lethal suicide attempts, for example, 24% took less than 5 minutes between the decision to kill themselves and the actual attempt, and 70% took less than 1 hour.

Second, many suicidal crises are self-limiting. Such crises are often caused by an immediate stressor, such as the breakup of a romantic relationship, the loss of a job, or a run-in with police. As the acute phase of the crisis passes, so does the urge to attempt suicide. The temporary nature and fleeting sway of many suicidal crises is evident in the fact that more than 90% of people who survive a suicide attempt, including attempts that were expected to be lethal (such as shooting oneself in the head or jumping in front of a train), do not go on to die by suicide. Indeed, recognizing the self-limiting nature of suicidal crises, penal and psychiatric institutions restrict access to lethal means for persons identified as potentially suicidal.

Third, guns are common in the United States (more than one third of U.S. households contain a firearm) and are lethal. A suicide attempt with a firearm rarely affords a second chance. Attempts involving drugs or cutting, which account for more than 90% of all suicidal acts, prove fatal far less often.

The empirical evidence linking suicide risk in the United States to the presence of firearms in the home is compelling. There are at least a dozen U.S. case–control studies in the peer-reviewed literature, all of which have found that a gun in the home is associated with an increased risk of suicide. The increase in risk is large, typically 2 to 10 times that in homes without guns, depending on the sample population (e.g., adolescents vs. older adults) and on the way in which the firearms were stored. The association between guns in the home and the risk of suicide is due entirely to a large increase in the risk of suicide by firearm that is not counterbalanced by a reduced risk of nonfirearm suicide. Moreover, the increased risk of suicide is not explained by increased psychopathologic characteristics, suicidal ideation, or suicide attempts among members of gun-owning households.

Three additional findings from the case–control studies are worth noting. The higher risk of suicide in homes with firearms applies not only to the gun owner but also to the gun owner's spouse and children. The presence of a gun in the home, no matter how the gun is stored, is a risk factor for completed suicide. And there is a hierarchy of suicide risk consistent with a dose–response relationship. How household guns are stored matters especially for young people — for example, one study found that adolescent suicide was four times as likely in homes with a loaded, unlocked firearm as in homes where guns were stored unloaded and locked.

Many ecologic studies covering multiple regions, states, or cities in the United States have also shown a strong association between rates of household gun ownership and rates of completed suicide — attributable, as found in the case–control studies, to the strong association between gun prevalence and gun suicide, without a counterbalancing association between gun-ownership levels and rates of nongun suicide. We recently examined the relationship between rates of household gun ownership and suicide in each of the 50 states for the period between 2000 and 2002.4 We used data on gun ownership from a large telephone survey (of more than 200,000 respondents) and controlled for rates of poverty, urbanization, unemployment, mental illness, and drug and alcohol dependence and abuse. Among men, among women, and in every age group (including children), states with higher rates of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm suicide and overall suicides. There was no association between firearm-ownership rates and nonfirearm suicides. To illustrate the main findings, we presented data for the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership matched with the six states with the lowest levels (using only six so that the populations in both groups of states would be approximately equal) . . .

The recent Supreme Court decision may lead to higher rates of gun ownership. Such an outcome would increase the incidence of suicide. Two complementary approaches are available to physicians to help counter this possibility: to try to reduce the number of suicide attempts (e.g., by recognizing and treating mental illness) and to try to reduce the probability that suicide attempts will prove fatal (e.g., by reducing access to lethal means). Many U.S. physicians, from primary care practitioners to psychiatrists, focus exclusively on the first approach. Yet international experts have concluded that restriction of access to lethal means is one of the few suicide-prevention policies with proven effectiveness.

In our experience, many clinicians who care deeply about preventing suicide are unfamiliar with the evidence linking guns to suicide. Too many seem to believe that anyone who is serious enough about suicide to use a gun would find an equally effective means if a gun were not available. This belief is invalid."

Reading through all of this.. I can summarize why the american government decided to give away that 700 billion:

so people can continue to spend it on:

- guns they never use properly, as we learned here guns aren't for killing, no matter of their caliber, barrel length etc.

- TV shows

- Elections

- Porn



These are all that makes the difference

Don't worry Stilgar, guns, tv, porn and electonics will save us from the end of time!

Should we be saved?

Besides.. I don't think time ends at the point when there's no one left to follow its flow

Should we be saved?

Besides.. I don't think time ends at the point when there's no one left to follow its flow

That sounds like self-depracating, new age, buddha babble to me. Time stops the moment I cease to grace the world with my presence and any opinion contrary to mine is by definition - wrong.

gojin wrote:That sounds like self-depracating, new age, buddha babble to me. Time stops the moment I cease to grace the world with my presence and any opinion contrary to mine is by definition - wrong.

Since you're a US citizen your reasoning is completely right

Alright, i have finals coming up so ill be stopping geas for a bit. ill still be on the forum a bit though.

ill be back december 13th hopefully. later