Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 19

[acbytesla]

Maybe I’m missing something. Isn’t a handgun much, much better than a rifle for home defense.

I guess it depends on your definition of better. But yeah.

However, this statistic might make you question having one.

A handgun in your home is seven times more likely to be used to kill a member of the household or an acquaintance of the household than a stranger.

 

[Cain]

A handgun in your home is seven times more likely to be used to kill a member of the household or an acquaintance of the household than a stranger.

All the more reason to have a gun: Someone in your household probably wants to kill you. I sleep with a pillow under my Glock.

 

[Belz...]

People are saying he invented the Renaissance. Lots of people are saying, "Sir, you invented the Renaissance." I've read it, too. I don't think most people know that.

Believe me.

 

[Belz...]

However, this statistic might make you question having one.

A handgun in your home is seven times more likely to be used to kill a member of the household or an acquaintance of the household than a stranger.

I don't think that's very relevant. Statistics are useful for populations, but not for individuals.

 

[Lurch]

I don't think that's very relevant. Statistics are useful for populations, but not for individuals.

Indeed. Every individual is unique and thus ineluctibly irreducible to the statistics of more than one!

The creed of the "unique American" for whom the rest of the world is irrelevant and inapplicable.

 

[Belz...]

Indeed. Every individual is unique and thus ineluctibly irreducible to the statistics of more than one!

The creed of the "unique American" for whom the rest of the world is irrelevant and inapplicable.

I don't think you understood my meaning.

"People who X are more at risk of Y" is a general statistic. It doesn't mean that one person who X's is more at risk of Y. For example, people tend to drive pretty badly, and end up in accidents of their own making. There are statistics for that. But you can't tell whether one person owning a car will get into an accident of his or her own making. That was my point. I'm not sure I'm explaining that clearly.

 

[Pixel42]

Population statistics tell you about populations, they tell you nothing about individuals, yes. Assuming that population statistics can be used to predict the characteristics of individuals is the root cause of prejudice, and it's simply wrong.

For example: the average male height is greater than the average female height, but that doesn't mean my brother is bound to be taller than my sister. My brother is 5 ft 9", and my sister is 5ft 10".

 

[Fast Eddie B]

At the risk of being dragged down the same rabbit hole yet again...

What I find terribly sad is that so many people feel they have the need to carry a gun on them...even to church. Doesn't say much for us as a country that they feel so unsafe.

Nope.

When that happens, the gun-nuts will want to carry bigger guns and more guns than their imaginary attackers who have guns. Logically this will lead to all Americans packing as many heavy weapons and ammo as they can carry everywhere they go.

I think the false assumption here is that some people feel they “need” to carry a gun because they’d feel “unsafe” otherwise.

My case is I feel quite safe when unarmed, which I am when traveling in a state that does not honor my concealed weapon permit. The only “active shooter” scenarios I’ve been involved with was when I was an officer in a high crime area and I was dispatched to such. Maybe it’s because I saw the reality of such incidents that I now like to be prepared for them, no matter how slight their likelihood. It’s not so much that I now feel “safer” when armed, more that I feel better prepared - “empowered” as it were.

And it’s not only mass shootings where a gun wielded by a responsible citizen can be beneficial. Many “smaller” encounters - someone going berserk with a machete, a man about to stab someone, for instance - where an armed citizen may find themselves in a position to prevent injury or death to a fellow citizen or citizens.

Add to that that for 8 1/2 years I was required to be armed when off duty. That amount of time is plenty for such to become ingrained a habit. One I still have after 30 years off the force.

Perhaps there exist paranoid gun nuts who carry with little or no training and with John Wayne fantasies. But those I know who do carry do not come close to meeting that description, and I suspect it’s mostly a caricature fostered by those who oppose citizen carry of concealed firearms.

 

[Ladewig]

I don't think that's very relevant. Statistics are useful for populations, but not for individuals.

Yes and no.
If you showed that statistic to every gun owner, the vast, vast majority of them would say, “yeah, but that statistic includes all the idiots who don’t know how to handle a gun. I’m a responsible gun owner and I while I am prepared to shoot an intruder to death, I would never ever shoot a family member to death.” And yet, at the end of the year, the folks who ended up killing an intruder would be outnumbered 7:1 by the folks who killed a family member or acquaintance.

The height of men and women is not quite a useful analogy. Unless the statistics were such that if you chose 8 men at random and 8women at random and then paired them up. And the results were 7 of those pairings resulted in the man being taller than the woman, then it would be a useful comparison.

 

[Matthew Best]

I don't suppose anyone will be surprised by this, but Donald Trump thinks the Constitution is "like a foreign language", can't read it without stumbling and blames everyone else for his inability to do so.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...ter-with-the-constitution-very-stable-genius?

But the president stumbled, trying to get out the words in the arcane, stilted form the founding fathers had written. Trump grew irritated. “It’s very hard to do because of the language here,” Trump told the crew. “It’s very hard to get through that whole thing without a stumble.” He added, “It’s like a different language, right?” The cameraman tried to calm Trump, telling him it was no big deal, to take a moment and start over. Trump tried again, but again remarked, “It’s like a foreign language.”

 

[acbytesla]

I don't think that's very relevant. Statistics are useful for populations, but not for individuals.

Really? I think that stat says a lot to the individual thinking about getting a gun for their safety. More likely than anything, that gun will be used for suicide or killing someone you know than defending yourself against a stranger. The easy availability of that firearm is far more likely to affect your life negatively than positively.

 

[quadraginta]

If he faces Sanders, he can scream about him being a filthy Socialist who hates America. Just like he will with any other candidate nominated by the Dems.
Seriously, the Dems could resurrect and nominate Ronald Reagan and he'd be called a Socialist.

By current GOP standards it would be true.

 

[Armitage72]

I don't suppose anyone will be surprised by this, but Donald Trump thinks the Constitution is "like a foreign language", can't read it without stumbling and blames everyone else for his inability to do so.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...ter-with-the-constitution-very-stable-genius?

Heck, I've been able to recite the Preamble from memory for decades, although if I did it out loud it would likely have the cadence of the song from Schoolhouse Rock.

 

[acbytesla]

Heck, I've been able to recite the Preamble from memory for decades, although if I did it out loud it would likely have the cadence of the song from Schoolhouse Rock.

That's OK. I find myself doing "conjunction function" and "I'm only a bill" all the time.

 

[Matthew Best]

It's this we're talking about right?

https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-ii

It doesn't appear to be in a foreign language.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I found Hawthorne hard to follow until several chapters in.

It may be worth pointing out I was 16.

A few well done period productions have helped me understand the cadence more.

How a person can reach 70 after a lifetime of swimming much closer to circles of power than I have still has trouble with mild legalese (the Constitution is very "easy reading" on that scale) is astounding.

 

[varwoche]

That's OK. I find myself doing "conjunction function" and "I'm only a bill" all the time.

I'm Just a Bill, written by Dave Frishberg and sung by Jack Sheldon who died a few days ago.

 

[Darat]

What I find terribly sad is that so many people feel they have the need to carry a gun on them...even to church. Doesn't say much for us as a country that they feel so unsafe.

Makes you wonder what all that praying does....

 

[Darat]

In the U.S. we have "national security letters" which can compel companies to cooperate with authorities while simultaneously placing them under gag order.

Lots of countries have some mechanism like this.

So why target Huwawei specifically?

Has any existing Huwawei infrastructure been demonstrated to perform in a way that would (intentionally) compromise a secure connection/share information with unauthorized parties?

Some problems, but probably just bad coding and QC. And many other USA companies have issues, and look at Intel and its pretty much entire 86 chips.

 

[Darat]

But Apple is not a Chinese company.

So it means they have less control over what is built into their phones than Huawei does.