OOC Chat

[SWSF Eidolon]

ICY IN HERE!   And it's the middle of july!  


Take a vacation and cultivate some empathy Karen     distancing yourself from the scenario makes it no less unsettling!  I think a 3 month old was shot even, granted if the shooting hadn't happened and I was at that movie premier, I'd probably be cussing that baby out. Weird how a tragedy can change my opinion of an infant! hehe

[SWSF Hale]

So I dusted off my old XBOX and started playing some games I never got into: Splinter Cell... which is pretty badass. I read a couple of the novels so playing the game takes it to a whole new level.

BTW, the trailer for Splinter Cell: Blacklist looks F'n'A.

[SWSF Eidolon]

I dig the Ghost Recon's, still haven't got most recent yet but planning on it for PS3.  Last reg Xbox game I rocked was Crimson Skies.  EPIC alternate reality WWIIera-ish prop driven fighter plane game.

Has anyone ever played Valkyria Chronicles for PS3?  It's an AWESOME squad scale strategy game, beautiful water color look, WWII tech levels again but blended with some fantasy rpg themes.  Turn based interlaced with real time shooting aspects and battlefield movement.  I had it and beat it few years ago but I bought a used copy again anyways cause it's so fun and amazing.

[Syren]

Okay, so perhaps that was a bit heartless. I thought I was talking to men. The 3 month old was released this morning. Kiddo is fine. And I'm not saying it is not tragic and frightening but people too quickly leap right into the fear mongering and then comes the inevitable gun control conversations and tales of narrowly averted disaster and news coverage grasping as straws trying to draw comparisons to Columbine. I was a high school senior in los angeles when Columbine happened and with that, it was a reaction to something. Kids were bullied, they reacted. Poorly, yes but reacted. This is more horrifying because there isn't a clear motive. There was nothing those people did to make this kid react. He just...snapped. And all day, my stunned coworkers come to me and want what? A hug? They should know better than that. Dem lives in Cali, you know what the news is like there. The entire days top stories are always babies being impaled, kids kidnaped, someone's body found in a barrel in one of the canyons, gang violence, yet another drug ring...these things are common place. Colorado has been lulled into a false safety since it's been over a decade that something truely terrible has happened. This just doesn't shock me as much as it does everyone else. I pretty much assume I can be murdered anywhere I go. Does it stop me? Nope. But you can bet your ass I'm going to look damn good when I am gunned down. I realize this paints me as a cruel bitch maniac since, as a woman, I'm supposed to have feelings. And I do. Kind of.

[Dementat]

A guy I worked with "snapped" this week also. The difference is he had the courage to turn the gun on himself and not others.

[Ramano]

Here is the only question to ask when it comes to gun control... Why do you NEED a gun?

This isnt the wild west, we have a police force, and a military that controls the worlds LARGEST NUCLEAR ARSENAL. Who the fuck is going to invade us, are you fucking stupid?! So protection is out.

Vigilante justice is illegal, so if you want to call yourself a civilized being you have to abide by the laws. So thats out. If on the other hand your NOT a civilized being, then you are an animal, and in america we destroy dangerous animals. Whoops.

Hunting, well an argument can be made for this, but then again, look at Norway. Guns are outlawed yet people still get to hunt. They just have all the guns in the country locked up in giant underground police bunkers outside of hunting season. So no need for a gun in your home there either.

The fact of the matter comes down to, the only people that NEED a gun are on duty military and police. If your not that, you got no excuse. I guess you could say you want a gun, but well, I want a million $ but I dont see me getting that either, so what makes you so special? Your not, so go fuck yourself, your not getting a gun. (Damn I should be a politician. Imagine how much more would get done if when some bullshit republican tries to filibuster and one of the other delegates just stands up and said "Shut the fuck up, you aint important!" I'd bet you my house at least the first time, it would end a filibuster.

[Ramano]

And on that note, I dont even think we have a need for a military anymore now that I think about it. A single MinuteMan III ICBM carries 20, 25Mt thermonuclear warheads. Thats 20 Castle Bravo's on a single missile. This planet is supposed to be civilized so we shouldnt be out attacking other nations, so with having 2400 MinuteMan III missiles active and in-silo, why do we still need a military. Attack me, I fucking dare you, lmao! Isnt this basically how we do things anyway?

Edit: And if you dont know what Castle Bravo was, it was the largest on-planet nuclear detonation the USA ever did. We have detonated a 100Mt'er in orbit, but no one is willing to test anything bigger then 50Mt on the earth as it produces a heat corona so massive and so hot it runs the risk of starting an uncontrolled fusion reaction of all the nitrogen in our atmosphere. In otherwords, it could start our air on fire.

[Syren]

Agreed. Guns don't really go with anything. What shoes would I wear? 

[Ramano]

Army boots, lol. 2 billion soldiers world wide cant be wrong...

[Dementat]

Average Police Response Time to 911 Call:
Atlanta, GA - 11 minutes
El Paso, TX - 11 minutes
Denver, CO - 11 minutes
Kansas City, MO - 10 minutes

And those are major cities. I live in a city of 45,000 people, and we only have 2 officers on patrol at night. Imagine living outside the city limits.

The average length of time it takes a burglar to gain entrance to a home is 57 seconds.

How long does an average fight last? They say 30 seconds feels like 3 minutes. A rape can occur in 30 seconds, maybe even less.

I would prefer a confrontation in my home last only as long as it takes me to pull the trigger than the 10 minutes of beating and being killed that occurs every day around us.

[Ramano]

Heres the thing with your whole argument though Dem, I already covered this. Your asking for vigilante justice, which is illegal. What your saying is you dont trust the police to do their jobs and that we still basically live in the wild west. This falls under the civilized being option, which again, I told you what we do with dangerous animals in this nation.

Secondly, you have to be off on your numbers. 45,000 people with only 2 police officers?! My city only has 30,000 people and at any time of the day or night there are over 90 officers on duty. And the average time it takes someone to gain entrance to a home is way quicker then that. I can be in, clean it out, and be back out of a house in 50 seconds. Now, keeping that in mind, most home break-ins the criminal is 9,999 times out of 10,000 just looking for a quick score. By you coming out of your room with a gun, you simply escalated the situation that would have been done and over with in less than a minute had you just locked yourself in your room. Now perhaps you live in a ghetto apartment with no insurance, but last I knew, to hold a mortgage on a home, it is REQUIRED you have home owners insurance. Your really gunna put your life in danger for insured property?

As far as rapes, it happens about 2000 times nation wide each year. There are 400 million people living in the USA, which means your odds of actually having this happen to you are 1 in 200,000. So using that logic let me guess, you think you actually have a chance at winning the lottery too huh?

So when it comes down to it, your probably not going to be raped in your lifetime, and if you consider yourself a civilized being, if you have a break-in at your home, as the police will tell you, the best option is to lock/barricade yourself in a room, call the police and wait there for them. As I stated, the average robber is not looking for a confrontation, and the few who are fall back into lottery odds territory, and lets face it, you can replace your "stuff" with the insurance check. In closing, no good can come from your owning a fire-arm.

[SWSF Hoppus]

Two words: Trayvon Martin

Most people aren't even good drivers, you want to trust them with the power of life and death?

I'm sorry but I see no reason for any civilian to have a gun. Hunting can be a special case with special regulations. People like guns because they like guns, Self-defense is total bull shit especially in the USA. And all this 2nd amendment talk, well I'll just echo Jay's thoughts on that and the world-view at the moment it was drafted.

Strict gun control would have a chance at lessening the availability of firearms, and make these one-off shootings much more rare. You can come up with a thousand ways it might not, but give me one way having no real gun control is helping anything? Besides all these macho BS "defend ourselves from teh government" people - who incidentally are the ones voting in all the assholes anyway.

[Ramano]

The problem is, people in america are not only stupid, (I said stupid, not uneducated. You'd be surprised how many people have college degrees and wouldnt have a clue what to do if a computer told them to "press any key". Look at syren for example. ;p ) but on top of it we all have an undue sense of entitlement. We feel the world "owes" us something because we are fucking america god damn it. No one feels they should have to put in a hard days work anymore, we should just be given something.

And dont give me no shit about how you guys work hard. You work a LOT yes, but you dont have to do shit. You think you work hard, you go spend 12hrs on an assembly line somewhere, then come home and take care of kids, by yourself, go back to work another 4hrs late-shift at some shit fast food place just trying to call yourself broke at the end of the month. Then you come talk to me about what hard work is. You have any idea how many people in this nation call that "life"?

Now, thats a bitch, not even worth living life right there. I wouldnt do it, I know for a fact syren wouldnt do it, and I know the rest of you wouldnt have no more love for it either. The ultimate in bullshit living, worthy of suicide. This alone shows how entitled we feel as a nation. Do you have even an imagination of how many people worldwide would kill their children just to get even a fraction of that "shit" life. Over 2 billion people in china and india alone. Another half a billion africans.

And there-in lies the problem. You have an "entitled" nation of people, who are stupid, and you have to tell them no. Well its the same situation as dealing with a teenager, how do you tell a teenager no and not end up with a world of bullshit on your hands. And unfortunately these teenagers have guns! This whole debate right now is because an entitled teenager got told no and had a gun.

Edit: Yes I know the guy was in his early 20's, coming from experience, thats still a teenager now days.

[Dementat]

Fuck you guys, I have a right to protect myself. If you break in my house, and I defend my family, that is not being a vigilante. If I roll over and barricade myself, let you invade my privacy, that is called being a victim. Fuck that.

You want to talk about odds? There are 12 people in CO who probably would have liked to have seen their odds change. There are countless people around this nation who are thankful that they are not victims because they were allowed to defend themselves. Check and compare murder rates of states with right-to-carry laws vs. those with gun bans. Hell, Chicago has less than 10% of the population that Texas has and yet has a murder rate of equal to 1/3 of Texas.

If you become a threat to me and my family, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be civilized.

Edit: I agree about the "entitlement" rant. But I do work hard. I'm within arms reach of murderers, rapists, and child molesters for 8 to 16 hours a day. Do you know what hyper-vigilance is? It is that thing that destroys the relationships and lives of the people in my profession. It is being on your toes and watching your back all day long, just to go home and completely shut down emotionally because you are mentally exhausted. And that is a day where nothing goes wrong.

[SWSF Hoppus]

Guns on streets = no control on guns. There would be fewer violent acts (in domestic homes not in high risk areas, such as the situations you are discussing) involving firearms with strict gun control (after a few years).

As for someone breaking in - 99% of such cases would be to steal. Let them steal. By challenging them with a firearm you only put yourself and your family at greater risk.