Moontanman

It seems to me that we are discussing more than one thing here. Strict background checks and requiring guns to be sold only to licensed people seems rather obvious to me as at least part of the cure..

I could go for that but it would be very difficult to do this, personally I have given up all my handguns and now only keep shotguns..

I've been wondering about these things as well...

I say no more right now, how do we keep this from happening? Give me a way to take the guns from 350 million people? Do you persecute other wise innocents, knock down walls of every dwelling in the USA, more importantly stop criminals from using guns to commit crimes? How do you take guns from criminals. Is it worth turning otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals? Accidental shootings by trained police officers is not uncommon, do you take their guns away? How does me turning in my shotgun save little kids? If a criminal does attack me, and it does happen with some regularity, I guess I can feel satisfied that when the criminal is gone the police can try to catch who did it after me and mine are buried?

I was allowed to drive cars at ten, motorcycles a few years later, off road of course but I drove them... I was taught to drive by responsible adults who limited my access but allowed me to learn. responsible adults seem to figure rather importantly into raising children. I hate to say it but at least some of these shootings seem to be, at least on some level, the result of a lack of responsible parenting to some extent...

I can define a squirrel into a lion but it doesn't make it a lion. Assault weapons are full auto military guns. They ones we buy are lookalikes. I agree that limited magazine capacity would be a good idea but to ban a gun because it looks like military weapon is just silly. Although, as i said, anyone who thinks they have to have one is probably living out a Rambo fantasy. Shot guns are far better for home defense, much less dangerous and far more practical. My grandpa was the owner of the one I saw. A few years back i had a run in with local drug traffickers. The Sheriff told me that if i didn't have a gun now was the time to get one. He told me that they couldn't be there instantly and I was the first line of defense. On another note they did have a car sitting near my house for a couple weeks just incase..

You got that right! I had that pounded into me as child until I dreamed about it. My first gun was a breech loading shotgun, I wa 10 or 11. I put up hay for an entire summer to buy it. I went alone to the feed store to buy it, I picked it out paid for it and carried it home (walking). The feed store was several miles away. I really wanted that gun, now my son has it. I was death on squirrels for a few years! Oh I forgot, yeah turkey shoots! Biggest gun I ever shot was a 4 gauge, I tried to buy a 10 gauge bolt action slug gun many years back but I was to slow and someone else got it...

So in your definition a semi auto hunting rifle is an assault weapon? They fire just as fast, just as deadly, some even allow the use of cips of many rounds of ammo...

The episode was called "The 37s"

I am pretty sure I can be done with genetic testing, possibly someone else is better informed...

On Star Trek Voyager they did find and old pickup truck adrift in space in one episode...

Actually no, there are natural subspecies, usually this indicates that the gene pools are separated but the separation didn't occur long ago enough for their genes to be incompatible. This can be true for species as well, neanderthals are considered a different species of human but we do carry evidence that we did mix our genes in the distant past. No, think of your first cousin, you both share a common ancestor who might still be alive but neither of you are that ancestor nor ancestral to each other. Object X can be your ancestor and still be alive. It reminds me of the old question if humans descended from monkeys why are there still monkeys. The answer is that while humans and extant monkeys share a common ancestor and that ancestor, if alive today would be classified as a monkey, we are not descended from any monkeys alive today... I'm sure this was one method used to estimate the time since wolves and dogs last shared a common ancestor the molecular clock is not required to show common ancestry...

I am not going to apologise for having a gun, I think it's my right as a free citizen who follows the law and safety regs. I have been around guns my whole life, guns were an integral part of growing up and responsible adults taught me to use and respect guns. I'm not all that keen on carrying one with me all the time. Hand guns are dangerous in a way that long guns are not. Even the police have accidents with handguns relatively often. I have shot guns, I got rid of my pistols many years ago, this idea of carrying around a rifle "open carry" is silly. I do not go places i feel would likely require me to defend myself with a gun. Fortunately where I live such areas are profoundly rare and maybe nonexistent. I support reasonable gun control, a license wouldn't be a bad idea, even gun insurance, background checks are a no brainer and should be strictly pursued. I think it's quite a bit too easy to buy a gun and concealed carry is a good way to ruin your life by killing someone by accident. Assault weapons are illegal already, you cannot own a real assault rifle. The ones that are called that are just semi auto rifles that are mean looking and most likely appeal to people who have rambo fantasies as much as anything else. For person defence a pump shotgun is the way to go, two safeties, three if you count having to load it before use. If I thought open carry was ok I still would limit it to shotguns. This silly idea that citizens could defend against our government if it went rogue is just stupid. A rifle can easily kill someone miles away, a pistol isn't much safer in that respect. #5 shot in a twelve gauge is the best load for self defense although I keep a box of 000 buck at hand just in case I have to kill a car or a raging bull elephant. I do know people with dozens of guns, they collect them, keep them locked up in safes and usually only have a very limited amount of ammo if any for most of them.

Thanks for the correction, I should not have missed that one...

Thanks, I was too lazy to look it up, but I was sure I "remembered it" very interesting the two studies disagreed.

Must be? I doubt you can even make the case that it could be...

Well for me it would be when I die I would be god in my own cosmos and be able to make it anyway i wanted (might be why I am an aquarium nut) and yes I want centaurs!

Actually, if i remember correctly, it was a documentary and we all how "accurate" they can be it was asserted that is only occurs in some populations, the implication was it was a North American Population but it has been a while and I don't remember. OT, I really shouldn't have posted it, just confuses the issue...

From what I understand there is some gene drift from domestic dogs back to wolves as well. Black coloration evolved in dogs and was passed back to wolves at some relatively recent point..

Yes this can be demonstrated quite accurately...

No, science doesn't deal in absolutes... Science constructs models that conform to the data. The ancestors of mammals can be traced back in the fossil record to the Cambrian but since they do not have DNA from the time period they have to use body shape and structure. Dimetrodon is one of the more famous reptiles that is considered to similar to the mammal reptile link, synapsids really, reptiles is no longer considered to be a separate group.

I was changing the water on my avocado seedlings and i realised I might be doing something you are not that i didn't mention. I grow Riccia fluitans in all my jars, The stuff has pretty much taken over any standing water that doesn't have azzola in it, azzola is even more aggressive but both fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and the tree roots seem to be tangled up in the Riccia... Maybe? Maybe not?

So should a bordello. Depends on whether or not you like unicorns. What you seem to be saying is that your heaven is the correct heaven because you think it is and we are somehow wrong because we don't agree with you... I honestly cannot see how one heaven could please everyone, if there is such a place it has to be subjective instead of objective. This negates your claims quite nicely.

Are you asking if there is a modern animal that is ancestral to mammals?