As a murderer stabbed a Muslim woman named Dr. Talat Khan to death, witnesses report that 17 Texans pulled out their firearms. 17! The murderer stabbed her, stopped to check her pulse, confirmed she was alive, & went back to stabbing her to death.
@QasimRashid A bunch of people came to her aid but they were too late. The alternative is to disarm them. There's no way on earth reading this story makes me less inclined to carry a gun.
A gun doesn't make me invincible and guarantee I can stop a racist attack like this, but it gives me better chance.
@rivetgeek
I actually meant to create safety, in the case to decrease the risk of a bad guy hurting someone. It doesn't make that risk 0%, and it increases the risk of accident, so it is far from a perfect solution and very different from a comfort object. @QasimRashid
@rivetgeek
The only remote need for protection I had was when criminals fired at each other, one person firing full-auto, 1.5 blocks from my house. I got a gun from the safe. No criminals approached my house.
They are like fire extinguishers or CO detectors that I almost certainly won't need for protection. Unlike other protection devices, every day there is some risk of the wrong person getting access to guns and a risk of accidents. @QasimRashid
@gkemp
The instructor in one firearms class I took said not to think about being sued or prosecuted in a life or death situation.If you kill someone, you'll have to live with that for the rest of your life. So just do what you have to to save lives and worry about the legal problems later. He also said if you're not a police officer, avoid entering a situation where you might make things worse, but take action if you find yourself in a situation where you can save someone. @lin11c@QasimRashid
@rivetgeek
It's 0% effective in this sample of one, where the criminal came out of nowhere and stabbed someone without warning. It's like saying seatbelts are 0% effective if someone dies in a car accident while wearing one.
It possible the criminal might have attacked more people if he had perceived there was no one around with weapons or fighting ability. The witness with the sword said his confronting the criminal may have caused him to run away. @BigEatie@QasimRashid
@rivetgeek
It's definitely not 100%. You said you have fighting ability, which is a huge benefit. It's also good to have a less-lethal weapon like a baton so a gun isn't your only choice. Having good aim, technique, and calmlu acting if you have to clear a malfunction during an emergency are important too. Even if you had all of that, someone could commit a crime in your presence, although I think those things would improve the odds. @BigEatie@QasimRashid
@rivetgeek
"Like I said in my other response: nobody expected those dozen people with guns in TX to actually use them."
Do you mean that violent crime is rare so no one expects it (thinks it likely)? Or do you mean in the unlikely event of an attack like this, no one expects actually to use a weapon?
@rivetgeek
This makes no sense at all to me. If I see someone stabbing someone to death and I think I can stop them without hurting innocents, I would shoot for their center of mass. My concern would be the the perpetrator might die and me having to live with having killed a troubled person. I don't care about legal jeopardy when it comes to stopping a cold-blooded murder. @BigEatie@QasimRashid
@rivetgeek
The article makes it sound like they got there too late, not that their weapons were insufficient. It sounds like the guy with the sword scared him off, unfortunately too late. Maybe if people had confronted him immediately without grabbing weapons... it's possible to find better solutions after the emergency is over. @BigEatie@QasimRashid
“You know those Palestinians would throw you off a rooftop for being queer,” says the western conservative who spent this entire year demanding that all transgender and non-binary people be rounded up and eradicated from the United States.
Troll/reply guy tried to get me to back down from my unequivocal statement that there's no evidence the 2020 election was stolen, claiming it's better to "meet people halfway" if I want to convince them.
No. As a researcher and educator, I believe in providing clear, accurate information.
The "evidence" that the election was stolen is made up bullshit. To call it anything else is a disservice.
If someone claims that 2+2=5, I'm not going to try to get them to compromise that it's 4.5.
@anneapplebaum Are the authoritarian impulses unrelated to the content of their political message? The run on "good change". Once they win they say voters are put upon by leftwing preaching and migration. Why do they make the leap from here to anti-democratic actions?
@exchgr There must be a solution. I'm glad #Biden is president because I think he's a good person and he's been around long enough to see things and hopefully how to help people find a peaceful resolution.
New: X/Twitter just removed the gold 'verified' badge from @nytimes's 55-million-follower account with no explanation. Musk constantly complains about NYT, and other news orgs' badges are untouched. Raises risk of impostors amid a flood of false information on X related to the Israel-Gaza war, some of which Musk has personally endorsed
It could be me but it seems like a lot of younger people these days are voting more progressive left-ish in favor of humanity and looking at a more open future
I do hope we still have a world to vote for when our time comes..😟
If we keep going like this it feels almost inevitable we have to start all over again
@stux Trump was a disgrace. #Biden is doing a good job. That doesn't mean he's flawless, but he's not purposely firing people up with bigotry; he's not trying to use his position to stay in power. @freemo
@freemo
If #Biden's evil, he has me fooled. I think he's a morally good person. I think if he abided segregation long ago, it was an honest mistake. @stux
@stargirl Assuming there a #Rayleigh distribution of signal strength, I wonder what probability of having a low packet error rate they consider to be the boundary. Do you have service in 50% of locations in your house and 100% if you climb onto the roof? This would be fun a first and then very annoying.
@Whiskeyomega@stux I imagine they get a cacophony on stations calling, and they pick the one they hear clearest. I would be thrilled if they came back to me using a handheld Yagi and a couple of watts on FM.
Someone in a meeting today said that "men have the hardest jobs in the world, like in the military." Well I've done military training, and I've worked in war zones - and I've also been on my own looking after small children.
If anyone offered me a choice between the two I'd be yelling praise the lord and pass the ammunition before they'd finished speaking.
@Loukas I think caring for small children is mind-numbing miserable work. It's made harder if people urge you to say or at least nod along that it's pure joy, it made you lose all interests, and you certainly wouldn't want to be working on any other projects.
@tzimmer_history "whether or not America should ever become an egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy."
I don't understand what #MAGA wants. Technology has made travel and communication easy, so we're not going back to times when geographic barriers mattered. Maybe it's a backlash against the fact that, for better or worse, we're becoming one world. It seems like they throw a tantrum about that but don't have specific policy goals.
@EposVox It still works today, although 15 years ago I would have naively thought that individuals having their own media would be so much better than corporate-owned media.
