MonDie

I can't study. My hypothesis is too depressing.

I forgot the Slate article.The Slate article looks at gun related deaths only, a severe shortcoming. The Washington Post article looks at total homicide. Taking all this data at face value: - Gun ownership rates are STRONGLY linked with homicide rates regardless of measure used. - Gun ownership rates linked with gun-related homicide, but non-gun related homicide unchanged. - Our current gun laws linked with lower gun-related homicides, but not overall homicide, which implies HIGHER non-gun related homicide to compensate. -This is all state-by-state data. Honestly, I'm baffled. My best explanation is that somebody used misleading data. A more shocking interpretation is that a significant number of gun purchases are made by potentially homicidal people, who remain homicidal regardless of whether they have a gun or what the gun laws are. Thus low-gun states simply have fewer homicidal people, which is reflected in gun ownership rates. It sounds cynical but it's the simplest explanation I think. Maybe gun buyers are lying to us about their true intentions.

Hello, ydoaPs. Waitforufo linked to an author giving his own analysis of guns laws v total homicides, as opposed to gun ownership v total homicide, which is what you linked to. If you extrapolate that the gun ownership is wholly responsible for the higher homicide rate, you extrapolate that no guns would mean virtually no homicide (see below). However it's only a correlation, and these high-gun areas have equal or even slightly higher non-gun related homicide rates, suggesting that at least some of it is due to a third variable, or even due to people buying guns in response to the homicides, reverse causation. Here's my post on it. I have seen uncredible graphs claiming no relationship between gun ownership and homicide, which contradicts all the credible research I've seen. Clearly there are pro-gun people spreading lies, so it's hard to know what to trust as someone who only wants honest answers.

You poor thing... Elaborate! Now!

Rumor has it the guy left a note saying Satan would reward him in hell. The digging has unveiled an interest in the occult. Not an atheist.

To be fair to Moses, I haven't actually read any of his books. I just know what the incriminating verses are.

whoops

Genesis is pretty tame. When Abraham's servant finds Rebecca, the wife to be for Isaac, they give her the choice to stay or go. She is not forced to marry Isaac even though God has apparently picked her.The sacrifice of Isaac is perhaps the most troubling part of Genesis. He goes so far as to actually strap Isaac to the alter for the burnt offering before the angel actually intervenes. Isaac knows what the alter is for, he asks where the sacrifice is at as they're preparing it. It's just such a gigantic book. Moses comes in after Genesis. Frankly, from what I've read, Moses sounds like a psychopath. If he really existed, he was probably lying about his religious experiences to manipulate his followers. That's what psychopaths do. Genesis may have had more Mesopotamian influences. It was Moses who forced monotheism on everbody, whereas before they were worshipping Mesopotamian gods. The Epic of Gilgamesh is also very tame. Perhaps moreso.

There is a connection between stronger religiosity and stronger prejudices. I actually suspect Christians have cherry picked their verses to justify their intolerance. The Bible does appear to be anti-gay, but there are far more verses condemning rich people, verses that actually come from the supposed messiah himself. I don't find Sodom & Gomorrah clearly anti-gay. Then there's abortion. There's that pesky verse about the punishment for striking a pregnant woman and causing miscarriage. If you read translations that predate the pro-life movement, the verse actually has a more pro-choice reading. Back in the days of slavery, conservative Christians were pointing to the OT verses about having slaves. I've read half of Genesis and it's not half bad. God does (implicitly) kill innocent children in his flood, but that was probably just an oversight on the author's part.

Your posts mostly stink, but this is a great point.

Here is a free-to-read one pertaining to the "only the criminals will have guns" argument. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1730562/ Effects of Maryland's law banning Saturday night special handguns on crime guns

It didn't have to end like this... I found two studies on pubmed regarding storage and mortality. The one on suicide is free to read. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9315767 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1763337/ One more. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15701912

I found John Lott's research on ResearchGate, where it may or may not be peer-reviewed, but I can't find the journal it was published in. In fact I can't find any of his research on NIH.gov Safe Storage Gun Laws: Accidental Deaths, Suicides, and Crime He previously published another conservative paper critizing the inverse abortion-crime link. It's in the Wiley Online Library. Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-Of-Wedlock Births

Will watch it. Many computer components are using manufacturer-signed firmware with a special key set by the manufacturer. In theory you can't update the firmware -- and in this case, the biometric "password" -- without the manufacturer key, although hackers are always finding crafty work-arounds. There's also forms of read-only memory that can't be rewritten, in which case they'll probably replace the authentication mechanism rather than waste the entire gun.

I'm guessing you know more than I regarding safe handling. It could also contain statistical information about how most accidents occur; circumstances that may trigger violence or suicidality in oneself or family; effective coping; and how to recognize psychological disturbances like mania, depression, psychosis, and dissociation. Recognizing self-inflicted wounds (e.g. cuts on the non-dominant arm). We could vary the material by locality, with a nice checkerboard pattern, and compare results to see what works.

Initially, courts held that literacy tests weren't necessarily unconstitutional. Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 expressed this sentiment, although it did overturn the "grandfather clause" which basically exempted caucasians from testing. However this was insufficient to prevent ethnic discrimination, which is why the Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned (literacy) tests in "covered jurisdictions" that were specific targets of the legislation. Regardless I would recommend that the test and study material are available in all major languages.

Can psychological evaluation still work if the patient is motivated to feign sanity?Testing for substance abuse is smart. Higher rates of it in BPD (borderline) and ASPD (antisocial). Substance abuse includes alcoholism, but, sadly, any "reasonable" regulation will probably focus on illicit drugs.

The tests aren't intimidation; they serve a clear purpose. They infringe on those who aren't motivated to study the material - that should qualify as child neglect anyway! Even the mentally dull should eventually pass with enough study.

accidental discharge

I proposed a gun safety test for gun owners. Maybe it could just be for people with minors in the home. I posit that gun safety is often neglected because it doesn't seem urgent, and when an accident finally happens it's too late. I considered that too, but what would it cost? Isn't the gun really just the poor man's home security system?

Oh wow! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States I counted for each year. 2000: 4 2001: 4 2002: 2 2003: 3 2004: 4 2005: 3 2006: 8 2007: 3 2008: 10 2009: 6 2010: 8 2011: 8 2012: 12 2013: 26 2014: 40 2015: 16 so far, or 2 per month Public mass shootings have suddenly become more common. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research

Extrapolating, that's around 4 shootings per month. I'm reading about how Marilyn Manson was tenuously (or outright falsely) connected with the Columbine shooters, and the band was often banned from playing. The issue returned when, seven years later, they finally got a shooter who was a Manson fan. Some people really hate that first ammendment! Shooter Asa Coon was 14. He was his only fatality.

Although I don't want this to derail the thread, I wanted to share a potentially relevant grammatical insight. If each of 5 dogs eats 1 kg, then do the dogs eat 1 or 5 kg? I contend that both answer are correct. Individually the dogs eat 1 kg, but collectively they eat 5. This ambiguity arises from having a pluralized subject, but it's not noticed until we encounter an example where the individual and collective interpretations differ in meaning. Most of of the time it doesn't make a difference. Could the 2nd ammendment conflict arise from this individual/collective interpretation dilemma? They usually say "right of the people", not "right of the person".

They can't ban my nail gun! I like that it's dangerous! That's why I bought it!

Marilyn Manson - Rock is Dead I might try more Satirnine. Thanks, Acme.