I don’t care more about guns than dead kids, stop intentionally misinterpreting my opinion and arguments. Respond to my arguments intelligently and provide counterpoints so we can better understand each other. So far, you’ve provided nothing constructive.

You say that guns are “fucking murder machines” then in the same comment state that the guns we have are too weak and useless to use against an oppressive government. Pick an argument and stick with it.

If our government is launching drone strikes against me, then they’re launching drone strikes against you too. We’re on the same side here, except if push ever comes to shove, it sounds like you’ll lay down and lick boots while others fight for you. If you’re not ok with living in a dictatorship, the least you can do is not actively get in the way of the one check/balance that the people have against our government’s military.

Gun ownership isn’t a right for Ukrainian citizens. Imagine how it felt for citizens in Mariupol, Donetsk, or Kyiv during the first few weeks of the invasion. I’m not suggesting that lone “muh guns” rednecks would save the country from a military invasion alone, but I’d bet my ass that most people who lived this would’ve been safer and fewer citizens would’ve died if they were armed and able to defend themselves while evacuating and seeking safety. The Ukrainian government backtracked and shipped citizens in Kyiv and a few other cities guns and ammo afterwards, but because gun ownership was outlawed before that, no one was trained on how to use them so they were effectively useless.

This is what you’re fighting for. A disarmed, helpless society that’d rather feel safe than be safe. It’s the same fear that ushered in mass surveillance and the complete degradation of personal privacy in the name of counter terrorism. People cheered for it.

It’s possible to have a well-armed society that isn’t rife with murderers; your grandparents lived it. Maybe we should refocus on making our society worth living in again for the marginalized people perpetuating violence. Give gang members and hopeless people an honest way to earn a livable wage, provide free and good access to mental and physical healthcare, revamp prisons so they reform instead of punish, reduce carbon emissions so our children won’t choke on their air… But you can’t boil that down into a headline as short and sensational as “children murdered because people can buy murder machines.”

“Guns are far better killing machines vs any other method you can come up with.”

Murder is murder. Banning guns doesn’t get rid of violent people, so assuming nothing else changes, we’d at best have 5 dead children instead of 8 or something. Sure it’s an improvement, but not a solution. I don’t feel that’s with it given the tradeoffs.

“Countries that ban them do not have the same rates of shootings and when they do have them are a lot less deadly.”

I’m sorry, but no shit. “Country that bans cars sees no more deaths by car accidents.”

“Blaming it on the lack of welfare is misdirection.”

I’m not blaming it on lack of welfare, I’m mostly blaming it on our decreased quality of life. Since you’re ignoring that mass shootings basically didn’t exist 60 years ago when Americans had comparatively unfettered access to guns, then look at any poor country today and their violent crime rates. When moral, legal avenues for leading a fruitful and happy life are unobtainable, then people will resort to illegal means to make that happen. This is nothing new.

“The Constitution does not need to be amended, it just has to be read. Are you in a well-regulated militia? No? You don’t get a gun. Go join up the National Guard if you want one.”

Well-regulated meant well armed and functioning, and the National Guard is a branch of the military, which is literally what a militia isn’t. Sounds like you need to read it.

"And if you think your shotgun is go to stop a dictator you will have to excuse.me while I laugh too hard to type. "

What makes you think that dictator will be on your side? If you think our current political climate is bad, itll pale in comparison to the one your kids will grow up in if Trump wins. Roll over and let your kids suffer if that’s what you want, I’d rather fight so they don’t have to.

Gentle reminder that poor rice and goat farmers have won almost every conflict against our military the last 60 years. Regardless, if our military ever goes whole hog on us like you’re suggesting and starts bombing your neighborhood, I’ll be sure to message you to ask if you’re still licking their boots. Chances are, you probably will.

There is no obvious solution.

If guns magically disappeared overnight, the people who would indiscriminately kill children would still be around. They’ll just run kids over with their car during recess, lock the doors and mix a ton a bleach and ammonia, run in with an axe, or anything else. People are creative.

We can point to Australia, Canada, or England as “proof” that banning guns = stopping murder, but people conveniently forget that they also have universal healthcare, a higher income compared to cost of living, free or cheap education, etc. These conditions breed fewer people with motives to kill indiscriminately.

The US government can continue trying to ban guns, which would start with amending the Constitution, and would end with police going door to door to round them up because most people won’t comply.

Gun control has only gotten stricter over time, yet indiscriminate shootings have only gotten more frequent. If you feel that isn’t explained by our decreased wages, social cohesion, and overall quality of life, then how else would you explain it? My grandparents could mail order machine guns to their front door, yet school shootings never happened. They could also support a family of 4 with a single parent working right out of high school, which js hilariously unimaginable today. Is that coincidence?

We’re also 12 months away from a potential dictatorship, yet people are still callling for their own disarmament. Some people think gun ownership is nuts, but I think not owning a gun right now is nuts. They might be ok with not protecting their family, but I’m sure as hell not.

When our Bill of Rights was written, “well regulated” meant well functioning and well equipped.

I’d rather see our government spend their time, energy, and money on promoting safe firearm ownership than continue pushing their take on gun control. Tax breaks or stipends for purchasing gun safes, taking classes, and teaching basic firearm safety in school would take very little work on their part and would benefit literally everyone, gun owners and non gun owners alike.

It’s fine if you disagree with the premise of our 2A, but realistically, any country’s Constitution/equivalent document only holds water while the government agrees to let it. At any point, anyone or any party can legally take office, and then say “to hell with your rights.”

How would you/your country’s people guarantee your rights without a way to enforce them?

I’m not Russian so I have a limited perspective of this, but I remember people pointing out good indicators that the invasion was really going to happen during the weeks leading up to it, like how the Russian military was setting up field hospitals along the border. Obviously, hindsight makes reflecting on this difficult, and I’m not sure what information was available to Russian citizens at that time.

I understand where you’re coming from, but a lot of violence that police encounter is spontaneous and unpredictable.

Say they pull someone over for speeding, but the driver has a warrant for their arrest or something like drugs in their car. The cop begins this encounter expecting to issue a ticket and nothing more, but the driver knows more is riding on the line than that. Violently attacking the cop to increase their chance of getting away might sound like a good option, otherwise they’ll spend years in jail for the additional charges they’re avoiding.

A lot of this behavior wouldn’t exist if our prisons focused on rehabilitation instead of cruel punishment. A simple drug charge can ruin someone’s finances and career, which almost everyone agrees is unjust. If they’re already facing many years in jail for crimes a cop would arrest them for, what’s risking some additional time in jail for a chance to avoid an arrest altogether?

Prison shouldn’t be something that people want to avoid at all costs, and the conditions we live in shouldn’t push people to commit crime to get by. Currently, our prisons are cruel and our living conditions are terrible, pushing people to steal, sell drugs, and avoid prison at all costs.

Edit: And just to clarify, I’m only highlighting that police encounter violence in situations where people wouldn’t expect it. A simple speeding ticket can end with the cop getting stabbed or runned over. Our justice system motivates people to violently avoid arrest, and our living conditions push people to commit crime. So not only do our police need reform, but we need to fix the underlying issues that push people to commit crime and avoid prison to begin with. If that’s done, then police encounters that begin non-violently would more frequently end that way too.

Not to distract from the content of this article, but why is journalism so poor now days? Almost every sentence/paragraph in this article says “she was a victim of childhood marriage,” just worded in various ways. I appreciate the background info on the origin of these laws and the the discussion of how widespread this issue currently is, but this article could be reduced to 6 or so sentences without losing any information.

I’m in the same boat as you OP - a tongue tied adult who’s considered treatment a few times before.

I’m not sure of all the benefits there are to getting it fixed though, other than being able to lick [icecream cones] with competence. I also can’t roll my Rs which made high school Spanish miserable.

I’ve read that recovery is rough the first few days after surgery, and I’m sure we’d have to relearn how to talk to some degree. This tradeoff doesn’t seem worth it to me, so I haven’t gotten it fixed.

Besides, it’s a fun conversation piece if I ever need it.

Tenant: “Hey landlord, my furnace isn’t working anymore. Fix it please.”

Landlord: Makes one phone call to a contractor and uses 10% of this month’s rent to pay them

My landlord makes maybe two phone calls like that a year, and she will have “earned” $40,800 of my money. Somehow, people like her have convinced people like you that simply owning a home that and doing 1 hour of cumulative work once a year is worth 30% of an engineer’s income.

Fuck off, leech.

How easy is it to move user data and software to another distro if I decide to change it up?

During my senior year of college, I made a burner Google account for my girlfriend and I to use with apartment/property websites. We needed a place to live after graduation, but neither of us wanted to use our personal email addresses to make accounts because fuck 'em.

The last year of engineering school requires completing a design project, typically for real business owners. My senior design team and I had a weekly video chat with my clients where we gave progress updates on our project.

During my video call the week after I made this burner Google account, the first thing my clients say is “OP, what is wrong with your name? It says something very strange.” I had no idea what they meant by this, so I shrugged it off and the meeting continued.

Later that week while I was driving home from class, what they meant finally dawned on me. I forgot to log out of my burner account before joining the video call, and the name I gave this account was “Joe Lickembottom.” So instead of my real name shown under my face during this meeting, Joe Lickembottom was.

This may not sound that bad, but one client is a self-made Texas rancher sorta character, and the other is a retired Navy SEAL commander. These people meant business and were dead serious the whole time I worked with them.

But hey, they offered me a job after graduation so they must’ve not thought too much of it haha

Pretty sure they’d have to, otherwise they couldn’t charge phones that use it

I love how people will blindly support nuclear power plants so strongly that any argument made against them is automatically called propaganda.

My power electronics professor told us the same thing you did, that nuclear power plants are dead because they’re too complex and expensive to maintain in the long run, and that renewables are the better choice at this point. Maybe this will change as fusion reactors improve, but we’re probably decades out before industrial fusion plants start showing up, if they ever do.

It’s really hard to say without being personally involved. Two years is a very comfortable amount of time to implement that specific change. The biggest hurdle is passing regulatory testing early enough to begin manufacturing in time to build a large enough stockpile before release. If they really pushed it and threw enough people at it, manufacturing could begin as little as 6 months after starting. But that’s a very risky timeline because about a million things will still go wrong all throughout the process, and “simple” design changes like this are never, ever simple.

I’m impressed if they began production one year after deciding to make the change. The EU directive might’ve been approved roughly a year ago, but Apple might’ve seen writing on the wall and started earlier too. Regardless of context, this is definitely not a >2-3 year process though.

Eh, I don’t know Apple’s intentions but this specific design change isn’t that complicated. The lightning port still uses the USB protocol so the firmware will be the same or very similar. The supporting electronics also wouldn’t change much, but at most they’d omit/add a few small passives and slightly reroute that part of the circuit to make things fit together. They’d also have to lock down a large production run of USB ports, but any manufacturer would accommodate a customer as large as Apple. They’d need to test fit it with the new phone chassis but that’s relatively simple as well. Regulatory certification would also be smooth sailing for a change this simple, since most of what’s changing is simply the form factor.

I figure it would take two years before customers would see this design change from the moment engineering was assigned it.

I’m an electrical engineer who works in production if that matters.

The Banach - Tarski Theorm is up there. Basically, a solid ball can be broken down into infinitely many points and rotated in such a way that that a copy of the original ball is produced. Duplication is mathematically sound! But physically impossible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach–Tarski_paradox