I believe the idea is that our democracy is mortally wounded. It’s over, no matter what we do. If you have studied 20th century history, well, you already know what’s coming. I saw it in Trump 1.0.

I’ll fight. And let’s just say I believe the 2nd amendment is now very appropriate. But I’m one old man with only one life to lose. I can’t make meaningful change.

Science has become political, projecting an antivax attitude resonates with the rubes. Nothing more to it.

I was always on the front lines of dealing with software vendors and I was just fine setting up a call. Now if the website wouldn’t give me so much as basic info and pricing, denied.

Related, one night I spend an hour researching bulk sandbag prices. Found ONE site that displayed my cost, no “call for pricing”.

No way we colonize space or smaller rocks until we invent artificial gravity, which I don’t think is possible. Even spin “gravity” comes with a nauseous Coriolis force unless the station is huge and you’re on the outer edges.

Luna is a death trap, no magnetosphere, radiation soaked, and the fine dust would make asbestos look like lung candy.

Much the same for Mars. No radiation protection, fine dust clogging everything.

Actually, that comes at 30.

So cute!

Funny enough, it was an agricultural class where the utility of the quadratic equation hit me. Professor didn’t even call it that, but we used it to calculate maximum efficiency in fertilizer spread.

Seems you’re correct. So how are poppy seeds so common if they’re Papaver somniferum? Weird.

Thank you for your take! American gun nuts tend to think Europeans can’t own a weapon, at all. Funny enough, what you’ve described is most of my gun collection. A dozen shotguns, mostly single shots and vintage/antiques. Loads of .22s, but my wife’s Walther .22 is a total POS! How funny is that? And yes, American hunting rifles are typically bolt-action. I think there are a couple of states where it’s illegal to hunt with an AR platform? The rounds are too wimpy for clean kills. (That’s a joke meme.)

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

First day teaching my little kids I took an empty beer can and holed it with a .22. Tiny hole on one side, tiny hole on the other, no surprise.

Then I pointed out that humans are mostly bags of water. Filled the same sized can full of water, shot it with the same gun, same round. They shit kittens.

100% with ya. Going shooting at my camp shortly.

I’m in Florida and so many sites block or want to verify me that I automatically hit my VPN server.

Only the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. The rest are just fine.

No, I don’t expect parents who are ignorant about guns to teach their kids safety. We shouldn’t have to, but that’s where we’re at.

Sounds like an elective class. My ex-wife’s niece was in an after-school shotgun club. I gather it was more target practice than hunting.

I’m of the opinion that familiarity with actually shooting is more of a deterrent to the school shooter mentality than fetishizing guns. I’m basing that mostly on the idea that these school shooters can’t seem to handle a weapon, given that kills are the goal.

Taught my kids the basics at 9 and 11. They need to understand the lethality of guns, what is safe and not safe, and maybe most importantly, how to recognize someone who is not being safe and get the hell away from them.

Plus, took the mystery out of the whole thing. Now they just don’t care much.

As someone on reddit once pointed at, the AR-15 platform is designed such that the dumbest 18-yo recruit can use it.

Gunshot wounds are surprisingly survivable given swift medical attention. Which astounds my because I know a fair deal about guns, shoot most weeks, and know what various weapons and rounds are capable of.

I’m guessing the shooters are scared shitless and shaking like leaves. I doubt most are as cold blooded and methodical as the Columbine shooters. I’m also guessing the Colorado shooter lost his nerve in a hurry when he saw the consequences of his actions. The vast majority of wounds don’t seem to be anything like the Charlie Kirk fountain. In a way they’re more horrifying because the victim drops like a puppet with their strings cut, not much blood at first, no drama, just dropped straight down. Somehow that scares me more.

That incident being, in my opinion, the beginning of these shootings. Shit like this simply didn’t happen when I was a growing up, 70s through 90s. And civilians had access to the AR platform that whole time.

Funny thing about Virginia Tech, most of his kills were from his .22 pistol, about the last gun we would ever ban. That guy was calmly going for a high score. Again, that seems very atypical. Las Vegas shooter was the same particular brand of batshit insane.

Another shooting that should have been worse was the Aurora movie theater. Dumbass used a tacticool high-capacity mag. No, not the 30-round mag the gun was designed for, it was either a 50 or 100-round. It jammed almost instantly, because of course. LOL, I absolutely support idiot mags like that.

I’m actually for this. No, it shouldn’t be necessary, but it is and that’s that.

Taught my kids guns at 9 and 11. Took them out to our camp and shot a bunch of different .22s. Now instead of guns being these mysterious things “you should never touch”, well, they’ve touched and just aren’t really interested. LOL, that was 100% against my custody agreement, but I was terrified the kids would find someone’s gun one day and have Hollywood perceptions. Their mom didn’t say a word, which was really strange, so I believe she agrees.

One interesting thing I showed then was shooting an empty can with a .22. “See how that made a little hole of both sides? That’s what many people think guns do. But people are juicy, so it looks more like this.” They shit kittens when I shot a can full of water and it absolutely shredded. I think that was impactful. :)

I taught them never to pick up someone’s gun for the same reason even professionals won’t do so. “It’s not because I think you’re dumb kids, but you don’t know anything about that particular gun. What if there’s something wrong with it? How can you tell if it’s loaded? When you’re older, never accept a gun from a person who does not first clear it and show you the empty chamber. Even professionals do this. If they don’t practice this simple etiquette, they are not to be trusted and you need to get away, and stay away from that person.” Later overheard my son telling his big sis, in great detail and with great authority this rule.

Gonna suck when they’re teens. If they’re emotional wrecks like I was, they won’t see a gun in this house.

He seems an adept shooter. I’d bet he was aiming for center mass like a good little sniper. But one can hardly ask the local range if he can practice from their sloping roof out to 250 yards.