Status report Page 6,089

Quote: DaButt @ 17th February 2021, 11:33 PM
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What surprises me most about this photo isn't the gun but the fireplace. In southern Texas! land of the ubiquitous air conditioner it is evidently so hot and I think I'm right in saying arid and dry as oppose to hot and humid Florida. It's obviously come in handy now though. How long was it before the novelty of snow drifts wore off there?

Anyway, what's wrong with your 38? Probably the most successful short range 'stopper' of all time, I thought. And imo a lot more attractive than these modern military style pistols. The star of many a movie. If I was a Yank that's the gun I'd own, a shiny chrome .38 special. A design classic.

Monday it was an hour in the dentist's chair for root canal treatment with a local anaesthetic in the gum.

Today it's THE jab in the arm.

I've had pricks all over different parts of my body this week.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 19th February 2021, 10:23 AM

I've had pricks all over different parts of my body this week.

Ooooo, bragging again, Honky Tonk.

Quote: billwill @ 18th February 2021, 11:22 PM

Basically, we Brits don't like the idea of ordinary citizens becoming Judge, Jury and Executioner.

Neither do we - in most situations. But when you're faced with an imminent threat to your life, "kill or be killed" is the name of the game. It's basic human nature. A fundamental right, even.

Quote: billwill @ 18th February 2021, 11:22 PM

There can be too many cases of mistaken impressions in the USA where a possible criminal gets shot dead for just seeming guilty.

That number is too big if it's more than zero, but it's actually very small in comparison to the thousands who are murdered by criminals every year.

Quote: billwill @ 18th February 2021, 11:22 PM

Also in this past year in the USA there have been far, far too many cases where the police have opened fire on persons with mental instability usually killing them, yet they usually get off any severe punishment.

"Suicide by cop" is not a new phenomenon, and a mentally ill person is just as capable of killing an officer as a sane person. A cop has seconds at best to protect himself against a person charging with a knife. It's a fraction of a second to defend against someone with a gun. Cops do not deserve any punishment whatsoever if they kill someone in self-defense, even if the dead person was mentally ill.

Quote: billwill @ 18th February 2021, 11:22 PM

What I fail to understand about the American attitude to guns is why the NRA and gun-lovers are so reluctant to have the manufacturers put effort into creating guns that can only be fired by the owner (or approved substitute). As far as I can see after phasing in such controlled weapons (itself a difficult task), this would put a stop to school massacres

We've discussed this before, but the primary function of a gun is to fire when the trigger is pulled. Anything that complicates that process will only result in failure at the critical moment when the owner finds himself in a life or death situation. Batteries will fail. Fingerprint readers will be stymied by blood/dirt/sweat. Gun owners will die.

As for school massacres, they are fortunately very rare. Nothing will stop a determined killer. The Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017 was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, with 60 people killed. The 2016 terrorist attack in Nice killed 86 people. The weapon was a truck.

Quote: billwill @ 18th February 2021, 11:22 PM

In my opinion this is due to mis-interpretation of the infamous Second Amendment to the constitution. All too often we see that espoused as "it is necessary that citizens can be armed, so that they can displace a bad government". Actually there's nothing in the second amendment to support that, it is far more clearly intended to ensure that the citizenry are armed so that they can quickly become a Militia to assist the Government forces to defend the USA against EXTERNAL invasions.

The Supreme Court has ruled several times that the Second Amendment covers the individual's right to bear arms for their own protection.

Quote: billwill @ 18th February 2021, 11:22 PM

This latter was a technique that worked/works well in Switzerland and kept the Nazis out.. Swiss men having done their equivalent of National Service and having been trained to use guns, were/are required to keep their supplied weapon at home {with a very small quantity of ammunition} and to head for the mountains and become Guerilla fighters if the relevant national alarm is raised. This fact was/is well publicised to potential enemies, so became an effective deterrent.

I don't want to participate in guerilla warfare, I want to protect myself and my property from dangerous criminals. :)

Switzerland would last about a week against a determined enemy.

But I have met DaButt!!

He and his son and son's fiance (?) came to the UK & we met at one of the BSG Boozups.
He brought a rucksack full of tins of (10% Alcohol) USA beers of various brands.

Quote: playfull @ 19th February 2021, 12:48 AM

I hope you all keep safe DaButt. It is a measure of how much the world has changed in recent years that a bunch of brits (and the other nationalities too) can show real concern for a Texan they have not met. And get real time updates. An amazing thing this internet.

Cheers!

I've met some of of these people in the flesh, but a couple of them are no longer with us. :(

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 19th February 2021, 7:36 AM

What surprises me most about this photo isn't the gun but the fireplace. In southern Texas! land of the ubiquitous air conditioner it is evidently so hot and I think I'm right in saying arid and dry as oppose to hot and humid Florida. It's obviously come in handy now though. How long was it before the novelty of snow drifts wore off there?

I never use it, but it came in handy during the power outage. San Antonio is essentially on the edge of the green eastern half of the country. As you travel west out of the city everything becomes drier and browner, eventually becoming desert. It can get humid here (and VERY humid near the Gulf and Houston) but it's not nearly as bad as Florida. The snow and ice became tiresome after about 24 hours. :)

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 19th February 2021, 7:36 AM

Anyway, what's wrong with your 38? Probably the most successful short range 'stopper' of all time, I thought. And imo a lot more attractive than these modern military style pistols. The star of many a movie. If I was a Yank that's the gun I'd own, a shiny chrome .38 special. A design classic.

I have one of these, but it's designed for concealed carry. The short barrel makes for poor aim at distances and it only holds 5 rounds. My .40 holds 16 and is better suited for home defense. It's aluminum, so not very shiny. :(

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Quote: billwill @ 19th February 2021, 2:29 PM

But I have met DaButt!!

He and his son and son's fiance (?) came to the UK & we met at one of the BSG Boozups.
He brought a rucksack full of tins of (10% Alcohol) USA beers of various brands.

My son will marry her later this year. I'll be in London with my daughter, her husband, and my two grandkids, so maybe we can meet up in August, Covid-willing. I could bring more beer. :)

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

Neither do we - in most situations. But when you're faced with an imminent threat to your life, "kill or be killed" is the name of the game. It's basic human nature. A fundamental right, even.

Mayhap, but all too often it seems that there is no actual threat to your life, just a presumption of a threat.

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

"Suicide by cop" is not a new phenomenon, and a mentally ill person is just as capable of killing an officer as a sane person. A cop has seconds at best to protect himself against a person charging with a knife. It's a fraction of a second to defend against someone with a gun. Cops do not deserve any punishment whatsoever if they kill someone in self-defense, even if the dead person was mentally ill.

This is a fatuous argument., because all to often it seems that presumption of danger is wrong. Yes I agree that genuine self-defence that doesn't need punishment, but shooting people from some distance away when that person has hands up in the air needs to be tried in court as thoroughly as any murder case,

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

Switzerland would last about a week against a determined enemy.

Aye just like the Taliban, they were easily defeated in about a week. Or were they?

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

As for school massacres, they are fortunately very rare. Nothing will stop a determined killer. The Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017 was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, with 60 people killed. The 2016 terrorist attack in Nice killed 86 people. The weapon was a truck.

Simply saying that there are other weapons that could be used instead of a gun is not a valid logical arguement. You could always drop a shower of coins from a high place onto a crowded street if you couldn't find a lethal truck.

The worst terrorist attack used Air-liners as far as I am aware, but at least Air-liners have other purposes. As far as I am aware most school shootings have not been terrorist attacks, but have been done by distressed/mixed-up schoolkids who have 'borrowed' weapons belonging to licenced members of their family.

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

I don't want to participate in guerilla warfare, I want to protect myself and my property from dangerous criminals. :)

Are you implying that despite being licenced to have guns you would not use them to defend the USA from insurgents? In other words you want to use a later court interpretation of the Second amendment while ignoring the main thrust of the paragraph.

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

We've discussed this before, but the primary function of a gun is to fire when the trigger is pulled. Anything that complicates that process will only result in failure at the critical moment when the owner finds himself in a life or death situation. Batteries will fail. Fingerprint readers will be stymied by blood/dirt/sweat. Gun owners will die.

Gun owners often die anyway shot with their own weapon. The most common cause seems to be lack of training in the use & maintenance of guns, often being cases of young children playing with parent's guns. It's no good arguing that you personally always train your relatives & friends to be careful with guns and their maintenance because it is clear that a significant number of licenced gun owners do not do this. You are not the problem, those careless owners are just as much to blame as the criminals you blame for everything. But any attempts to tighten down the laws to reduce the risk of guns being fired by the 'wrong' persons gets shouted down, especially by the NRA.

With modern technology, if development of personal-fire-control systems was enabled to continue, it is certain that the failure rate (that you mention) could be brought far below the rate of accidental injurious/fatal shootings that exist at present. Any person who doesn't follow the proper maintenance procedures, (including changing any batteries at scheduled intervals), shouldn't be allowed to own a gun anyway, badly maintained guns are lethal. If the USA can build robots that can autonomously land on Mars and transmit pictures back to Earth, they can surely devise a viable personal-fire-control system. Of course there would be a long time to get people to change-over to owner-only weapons and eventually there would have to be a ban on weapons that did not have that feature. Don't lump all the issues together. There's no point in exclaiming that the criminals would still have the old-fashioned weapons, the situation has to be tackled one point at a time. Personal-Fire-Control is for the prevention or reduction of accidental shootings, Deliberate shooting by criminals will need a different reduction/prevention method.

Accidental Sootings:

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

That number is too big if it's more than zero, but it's actually very small in comparison to the thousands who are murdered by criminals every year.

As I said, tackle that as a problem in itself, don't wrap it up/confuse it with the separate problem of criminal usage.

Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM

"Suicide by cop" is not a new phenomenon, and a mentally ill person is just as capable of killing an officer as a sane person. A cop has seconds at best to protect himself against a person charging with a knife. It's a fraction of a second to defend against someone with a gun. Cops do not deserve any punishment whatsoever if they kill someone in self-defense, even if the dead person was mentally ill.

We manage well enough in the UK without presuming and killing mentally-upset or mentally deficient people. Unfortunately your cops seem to have a mental fix that: A person is behaving erratically, he must have a weapon, shoot him, my life is more important than his, so the tinyiest risk to my life must be eliminated.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 19th February 2021, 10:23 AM

Today it's THE jab in the arm.

No tea & biscuits to follow. Then someone walked off with my wine gums... :(

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My goodness me.

So many words on guns.

Obviously no point in making it 18 or 21 if you haven't taught your kids to use it properly first. The scope for use of .22, SLR or major Uzi may well currenly be underrated in the US and of itself questionable for restrictions on rights under itse constitution. For example, why don't they allow adverts in the US selling guns to suggest transexual 12 year old kids would be better off waving one at the parents if the parents are prejudiced, ie mentally ill? Because obviously a prejudice of that sort is not only psychological abuse and coercion but it currently hides behind the fact that big business doesn't want to sell it in that way and become unpopular with its crank old purchasers. The (regular) protestor and visitor to this shore protests too much. The words say one thing. The picture suggests she lives in a mansion and is an architect of fake news. I remain profesionally vague about any connections of mine to GCHQ. But a re-visit seems unlikely.

Before allowing this woman into the group permanently, ask her the following reasonable questions:

1. When Cuthbert was a hermit on the Holy Island. was he into Angelic blokes so far as they are worth taking any notice of whatseover (B) women including dark witches (C) nothing - just not bothered (D) cross dressers, lovely, but not religious per se or (E) just himself and God with him enjoing nightly wanking?

2. Sid James was originally from South Africa and a boxer but what was his specific role in violently overturning apertheid and how many times precisely did he chortle about tits?

3. When were you in the same room as Sid James as he we he was having sex and lovely Keneth Williams was next to the bed with his camera and his diary laughing? If your answer is not at all, get a job, love, in fracking rather than parading your pretend trailor trash status.

4. What are the links between Beatrix von Storch MEP, Hitler's Finance Minister, Marxism, Imperial College, London and Post Normal Science? If you have gigantic breasts which prevent you from being intelligent enough to answer this one, provide the bust size and three nude photographs in full light.

5. What year did Peters and Lee meet, following Peters's close association with the Krays? Did they shag on their first date or wait until marriage before considering coitus? Did they get married at all or were they mainly for gay rights? Would Peters have been straight with better eyesight?

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 19th February 2021, 6:04 PM

No tea & biscuits to follow. Then someone walked off with my wine gums... :(

Interesting bit of trivia (?) What Hancock gets out and offers to Hugh is actually a packet of Fruit Gums, BUT the BBC deemed that it was advertising as the term Fruit Gums was a trade name belonging to Rowntree's, so they insisted the script was changed to the generic Wine Gums.

Not a lot of people know that................:)

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 20th February 2021, 12:12 AM

Interesting bit of trivia (?) What Hancock gets out and offers to Hugh is actually a packet of Fruit Gums, BUT the BBC deemed that it was advertising as the term Fruit Gums was a trade name belonging to Rowntree's, so they insisted the script was changed to the generic Wine Gums.

Not a lot of people know that................:)

So when Ellen Wilkinson got you out on the Jarrow March, did she give you and indeed us any long term plan or was it that you marched miles in your hobnails and threadbare slacks just because of her sex appeal? I wouldn't mind it either way other than for the fact I doubt there was even one Afro-Caribbean incorporated in your throngs.

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 20th February 2021, 12:12 AM

Interesting bit of trivia (?) What Hancock gets out and offers to Hugh is actually a packet of Fruit Gums, BUT the BBC deemed that it was advertising as the term Fruit Gums was a trade name belonging to Rowntree's, so they insisted the script was changed to the generic Wine Gums.

Not a lot of people know that................:)

As in "Don't forget the fruit gums, mum"

Too Late......................... :P

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 20th February 2021, 10:44 AM

As in "Don't forget the fruit gums, mum"

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 7th February 2021, 12:21 AM

The main feature in this week's Saturday Morning Pictures..........

Cup Fever 1965

Not bad, and would certainly be of interest..............................................................

Oh, and the leading boy was Denis Gilmore, who has been in loads of stuff over the years, including the famous "Don't forget the Fruit Gums mum!" TV advert.

Went to the Eye Clinic this morning, and am going to have to have an operation on my left eye to save what little sight I have in it. If I don't have it done, I will eventually go blind in that eye, WHICH would be absolute hell IF, by accident, I lost the sight in my right eye, which, although it too has glaucoma, is still pretty much OK - at the moment. :(

For the technically minded, the op. is called a Trabeculectomy, which basically is to cut a tiny "trapdoor" in the eye to relieve the pressure in the eyeball, which is what glaucoma is. I have been using eye drops for over 20 years now to relieve the pressure, but my left eye doesn't respond like my right does for some reason - it may be due to the fact that I had a trauma in my left eye when I was at school, and this is possibly the reason - too late to worry about that now.

Hope it goes well.