Guns for everyone?

A report on CNN today got me thinking about Gun Control. Too often, the debate about what to do about guns turns into a shouting match. On one side, you have the NRA, warning that if the government puts any restrictions on gun ownership, the next day they’ll be breaking into homes all over the country and ripping guns out of their owners’ hands. On the other side, you have people who are families of the victims of gun violence, and are no less emotional in their cries for guns to be banned in the cities.

As is usually the case in American politics, the moderates have been shouted down into silence. The people who can actually compromise have been forced to be silent by the radicals.

No rational person wants to take all guns away. No rational person believes that everyone should be allowed to buy any kind of weapon they want and can afford. Yet too often this is what the choices presented to people seem to be.

But for those of you who can still be rational about things, can’t we come to some sort of compromise? Surely no one can argue that they need a fully automatic assault rifle to go duck hunting? Can’t we agree that an assault rifle has only one purpose, to kill people? Do you really need an Uzi for home defense? Please. Can’t we agree that people who want to own guns should go through a class to use those guns safely?

Guns are made to kill. That is their sole purpose. Whether you kill animals or people, they are a tool designed to kill whatever they’re pointed at. Anyone who argues this point is either a fool, or trying to twist things to his own benefit. Guns are made to kill.

Guns should be controlled. I do not say get rid of all guns. Not only is it impractical and unconstitutional, but I agree with the need for weapons to defend the home, or to go hunting. No, I’m not saying we should take all the guns. I’m saying we should keep violent offenders from buying guns. I’m saying we shouldn’t allow people to buy assault rifles or automatic pistols. You can defend your home as easily with a shotgun as with an AK-47. But killing large numbers of people is harder with a shotgun.

Stop yelling, and compromise.

RIP Senator Kennedy

As I'm writing this, I'm still having trouble finding the right words. When I was born, Edward Kennedy had already been the Senator from Massachussets for twenty years. His brothers John and Robert had long since been laid to rest, and the only Camelot I knew was in the stories of Arthur and his Knights. To me, a kid growing up in Georgia, the Kennedy name was a name in the textbook in History class, something remote and distant, with no connection to me. I had no frame of reference for Ted Kennedy, or his brothers.

Ted Kennedy was one of a dying breed of politicians in America. He came from a different era, a different time. It was a time when you could disagree without being disagreeable, where personal feelings about a subject didn't mean you took someone's opposition to your position personally. It was a time when people could still talk to one another, and come to a compromise.

If you want to take measure of Kennedy's work as a politician, you could look at his fourteen thousand roll call votes, or his accomplishments like the Voting Rights Act. I choose to look at all those people, Democrats and Republicans alike, who came to pay their respects at his funeral. I choose to look at long time rivals who counted themselves amongst Kennedy's friends, despite their political differences. I choose to look at the crowds of people who stood in front of the Capitol for three hours, patiently waiting for a colleague, mentor, friend to make his final stop there.

There are no lions in the Senat now, only sheep and chickens, while pigs roll in the muck. Farewell, Senator. You will be missed.

Do people really fall for this?

The old addage of fools and their money comes to mind when I see some of the email scams out there. Here's a little gem I got today, completely unedited.

-------------------------------

from	Graves, Jim
to
date		Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 1:47 AM
subject		Your Email Address Has Won:Contact Your Claims Agent Via Email At (garry4baldwin008@live.com)
mailed-by		ttu.edu

BRITISH NATIONAL LOTTERY HEADQUARTERS:
28 TAN FIELD ROAD,
CROYDON, LONDON.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Ref: UK/940X2/68
Dear Winner,
We are pleased to inform you of the final announcement of the
UK National Lottery Online Promo Programme held on the 30th of May 2009. The
draw was done electronically with several email addresses provided to this
office by microsoft to enhance the utilization of the internet.
Your email address was attached to Reference Number UK/940X2/68 and was
picked as one of the ten winning email addresses.
This has qualified you to claim the total cash prize Of £753,437 in cash
credited to file KTU/9023118308/03. This is from a total cash prize of
£7,534,370.00 shared amongst the first ten (10) lucky winners in this category
B.
Your winnings will be issued to you as soon as our claims department
verify your winning after you might have filled the
payment processing form below.
Payment Processing Form for filing of claims.
1.Name in full.
2.Address in full.
3.Age.
4.Phone No.
5.Occupation
6.Winning Email Address
Assigned Claims Agent: Mr. Garry Baldwin
Email;garry4baldwin008@live.com
Phone; +447031874347,+447031903483
Congratulations once more from all our members of Staff.
Yours Sincerely
Graves Jim
(Online Promo Co-ordinator)

-------------------------------

When you read this thing, you should have alarm bells going off all over the place. NO ONE SIMPLY GIVES AWAY MONEY! If you win a lottery you don't remember entering, that should be a major red flag.

Second, look at the email addresses provided. One is a ttu.edu address. That domain belongs to Texas Tech University. If you think a British lottery is going to send out notifications through Texas Tech, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you in Brooklyn.

The other address isn't any better. Live.com is a free email provider. Never trust anything coming to you from a free provider, unless you personally know the person behind the address. This includes things like gmail and yahoo, too. Anyone can simply sign up for an account, and say they are whoever they like. Unless you know the person behind the screenname, don't trust it!

Lesson is, don't be stupid. If its too good to be true, it probably is.

Gates-gate

So I was talking with one of my twitter friends about the Gates thing in Cambridge. Y'know, the Harvard prof that got arrested in his own home. Some people think its racial profiling. But really, if you mouth off to a cop, you deserve to get your ass arrested. Hell, I would expect to get arrested if I started shouting at a cop. Part of the reason is my parents taught me that the best way to avoid trouble with the cops was to be straight "Yes sir. No Sir. Right away officer. Whatever you say officer." You be polite, and do as the cop says, and you'll be a helluva lot better off. Getting pissed and mouthing off is a sure ticket to central booking.

Don't get me wrong, if cops were called to my home, and were questioning me, I'd be upset, too. But mouthing off at the cop is the wrong way to deal with it. Mouthing off, demanding the cop's name and badge number, telling them you're a big man, and you're going to complain, that's just plain stupid.

If you think the cop is doing something wrong, the best way to deal with things is to be polite, and respectful, and go along with what they want. That's the best way to get them to go without further incident. If you want to make a complaint, don't go angrily demanding their name and badge number, simply ask for a copy of the incident report. The report will have the name of the officer, as well as his badge, and you'll be able to file a complaint in short order, and avoid seeing the inside of a cell block at the same time.

I think the most telling piece of this story is that a black officer on the Cambridge police force who was on the scene also said that if he'd gotten to the Professor's home first, he'd have done the same thign as the white officer.

Did racial profiling happen on the part of the officers? Maybe, maybe not. But there was almost certainly some profiling going on on Gates's part. Racism and racial profiling works both ways.

What to do with Gay Marriage, or my take on CA Prop 8

For those of you who don't know, California Proposition 8 was a ballot initiative put forward a while back that specifically makes marriage between a man and a woman. Obviously, this caused something of a stir, and opponents of the measure are currently taking Prop 8 through the court system to challenge it.

Both sides are fighting the wrong battle.

The gay marriage debate has been raging for over twenty years now, and it has made only minor steps towards being resolved. The reason for this is simple. There are two institutions of marriage in this country, a religious institution, set forward in sacraments of the various religious creeds Americans follow, and a legal institution, set forward in laws that vary from state to state, and provide certain rights and privileges to those married under it. Religious people want to keep their sacraments pure, while gay people want the rights provided to them by a legal marriage. But since both institutions have the same name, the religious people don't want gay marriage, and the gay people demand it.

There is a simple way to deal with this issue, that most people on both sides would likely find acceptable. Get rid of the legal institution of marriage. Take all marriages, be they a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or any combination or group that you can think of and make them civil unions.

Now before you jump on my back, think about it for a second. Even in the case of a marriage between a man and a woman, getting married in a church doesn't mean anything in the eyes of the law, unless you get a piece of paper from the state that says you are legally married. All I'm suggesting is changing the letterhead at the top of that piece of paper, and making the legal institution we've known for centuries Civil Unions, rather than Marriages, and opening it up to all couples or arrangements.

Those currently married under the law would not see any change in their legal standing. All that would change is that people not currently able to marry under the law would be able to get the same rights and privileges as those married under the law. That includes health benefits, visitation rights, and other such things that gay couples do not have now. All these civil unions would be equal, conveying the same rights and privileges. This eliminates the problems of discriminating against people based on sexual orientation in regards to the rights couples have, which will make gays and other such couples happy.

This plan will also keep the majority of the religious types happy, because their sacraments will be safe, and beyond the reach of legal assault. Since churches decide who they will allow to be married under their sacraments, marriage will be safe. If two women find a church that will marry them, that's fine, but since that would be that church's take on their own sacraments, that is hardly an assault by the gay rights groups on the sacraments of marriage, is it?

Under this plan, everyone wins. What's the problem with that?

LEARN TO DRIVE!

For those of you who don't know it, Georgia has some of the best highways in the South. Georgia also has some of the worst damn drivers you'll ever see. And the majority of those bad drivers are in a place called Savannah.

Seriously, Savannah people can't drive for shit. Doesn't help any that when the tourists come around, they can't drive, either. I literally sat in stop and go traffic on US 80, because at two points you have to do that increadibly difficult feat of driving called merging. Yes, merging.

My question is, how do these idiots even get their licenses? Did you not take basic driving skill tests? LEARN TO FUCKING DRIVE, DUMBASSES!

Shadowrunning

So as some of you know, I enjoy playing different RPGs. One in particular is a game called Shadowrun, 4th Edition (SR4).

One of the things I love about SR4 is that no matter how bad-ass you are, there's a very real chance that you can get your ass handed to you by someone who's never held a gun before. That's because skills and abilities in Shadowrun aren't like in other games, such as Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).

In D&D, whether in 3.5 edition or the new 4th edition, you have a set number that reflects your level of competency in that skill. To use it, you roll a d20 (a twenty-sided die, for the nongamers out there) and add your skill rating to what you roll. After a point, this means you can literally 'autosucceed' on some actions, since if you need to get a 15 to perform it, and you have a 14 in the skill, you're going to make it even if you roll a 1.

That's not how things work in SR4. You will never touch a d20 in SR4. Instead, you have a whole pile of d6s. When you use a skill in SR4, you take a number of d6s make up your dice pool. This pool is determined by the skill you're using, your abilities, and any other modifiers that add or subtract to your dice pool. When you roll your dice, count up the number of 5s and 6s you roll. These are your successes. You compare these successes against the target threshold, or against the number of successes your opponent gets on their roll. It is possible for you to roll a whole handful of dice, and still come up empty against someone only rolling three dice.

Moreover, in SR4, you have 'glitches'. Like the Critical Failures of some older systems, a glitch means Bad Things(tm) are gonna happen. You get a glitch when half the dice you roll come up as 1s. It is possible to succeed in using the skill, but still glitch. So you might climb over the fence easy enough, but you get caught on the way down, and leave your pants behind. If you glitch, and get no successes, however, its called a Critical Glitch. This is when REALLY Bad Things(tm) happen. That grenade you were throwing at the bad guys? Yeah, the fuse was a bit shorter than it was supposed to be, so it went off in your hand.

Being good at a skill doesn't mean you can cakewalk through things. It simply means you're less likely to fail. SR4 is one of my favorite systems because it is so much fun to tempt the cruel whims of fate.