champu

And that's really the root of the problem with financial "benefits" to individuals that come from the government. Once the dust settles, the individual is not benefited and you just end up with superfluous gears in the machine that would hurt people to remove, so no one ever does. As you noted, being able to deduct mortgage interest doesn't actually make it easier to afford home ownership, it means everyone can now afford to spend more to buy a house. It just turns "house dollars" into a different, inflated currency that only houses and mortgages are traded in.

Now mullets, that should be illegal! And he was already down on the ground with a set of pruning shears / hedge trimmer / machete or whatever he was using... ...missed opportunities...

Our friends at the Washington Post being a bit melodramatic, what a surprise. Now a police K-9 Unit is heavily armed and the long arm of oppression? I have to agree there. Terms like "heavily-armed" and "fully-loaded" (or my favorite: "fully-armed") can safely be ignored when encountered in a news article whether it is a quote or otherwise. Note: "heavily-loaded" is okay, but only when describing an intoxicated person.

See, I appreciate the phrasing of the question there. When going down a safety checklist it should read "if you have guns, do you keep them secured/locked away so your child (under the age of x where x is another thread worth of terrible internet arguing) can not gain access to them?" You can just say, "yep, I understand the precautions I need to take, I have everything I need to secure firearms in my house, and I've talked to my kid about what to do if they encounter a gun whether it's in my house or at a friend's house." and get on with things. If the conversation is, "Do you own any firearms? Have you considered not owning firearms?" it will immediately start to feel like someone on your doorstep asking you how you feel about Jesus.

The headline is also helpful in pointing out that these mysterious spy cameras were collecting data. I wonder how the local fire chief feels about where that thing was located.

It's important to remember the distinction between power and energy.

No disagreement from me on any of those points. To complement your point on depression, range safety officers are generally not psychologists or social workers, but all the ranges I'm familiar with have a policy where they won't rent a firearm to someone who shows up alone and doesn't already have a firearm of their own.

And abstinence is the most reliable and effective measure to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. "Do you own any firearms?" "Yes." "Well, as your doctor my safety advice is that you shouldn't" "Thank you, that's very helpful." The rest of their "stronger regulations" is just parroting the democratic national platform on gun control. On at least one topic they go beyond by stating that they want the definition of assault weapon to be as broad as possible and they are against grandfathering. Do all pediatricians feel this way? No... but the ones supporting and lobbying politicians all do. The assault weapon ban is an interesting thing for an association of medical practitioners to recommend. The feature set that makes something an assault weapon is almost entirely ergonomic in nature. Telescoping stock so that it adjusts to the length of the user's arm. Pistol grip to keep the wrist in a more comfortable orientation. Flash suppressor to prevent impairing the shooter's vision. Barrel shroud to prevent burning of the shooter's off hand... ...oh and grenade launchers... they had to include grenade launchers to wrap up the list on a scary note... I'll admit that one's not ergonomic. "Hey Doc, I love shooting, but I get this crick in my neck and my wrist is sore at the end of the weekend." "Sounds like your posture needs some work! I'm prescribing you an assault weapon!"

I strongly disagree. Similarly, it is not a waste of time to discuss child firearm safety with a firearm owner that has no children. There's actually a short chapter in the California FSC Study Guide (side note: I like how the pdf is still titled "hscsg.pdf", but that's another topic) about firearms and children. As I said before, I think something like that would be useful to all parents of young children, and would probably be about the level of detail appropriate if it were coming from a doctor. It would be absurd for a doctor to ask, "So, do you have a pool or stairs? No? Well then, I won't waste the 45 seconds it would take me to talk about safety recommendations around pools and stairs then." I think the best way to respond to a doctor if he or she asks you if you have guns in the house is by saying, "I'm interested in what you have to say if my answer was 'yes'."

Well, that's fine once the child is old enough to go to school, but toddlers are more than capable of getting themselves in trouble before that. Doctors are, for better or for worse, really the only place people consistently bring babies and toddlers and so, pragmatically speaking, it is a reasonable venue to disseminate information about very young child safety. And along those lines, I don't see anything wrong providing new parents with information about safety considerations in their home or when they visit family or friends. It should cover guns, stairs, toxins, pools, etc. whether or not the person has any of those things in their house because all those things exist in someone's house and there's a good chance you will find yourself with your toddler in one of those houses. Gun owners would prefer doctors not ask the question about ownership and would prefer not to answer it for the same reason people don't like all those state laws that force doctors to basically give a lecture to a woman about how horrible a person they are and make them go and think about it for three days or whatever before they're allowed to come back and have an abortion. This regulation is stupid in the opposite direction, but the idea of a doctor shaming people for having an abortion or owning a gun when they have children in their house are both no good.

I don't like the restriction either. I also don't think it is necessary to ask if someone has guns in their home before providing sound and general advice about child gun safety. Any advice about gun safety that a doctor would be in bounds providing should be heard by anyone with a child in case, heaven forbid, at some point in their childhood they encounter a gun other than in their home.

You think being offended is a choice? I never chose not to be offended... you bigot.

http://www.inquisitr.com/1910448/atf-claims-ar-15-ammo-ban-was-just-a-typo/ http://www.atf.gov/sites/default/files/assets/Library/Notices/atf_framework_for_determining_whether_certain_projectiles_are_primarily_intended_for_sporting_purposes.pdf http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2015-03-021015-advisory-notice-those-commenting-armor-piercing-ammunition-exemption-framework.html The "typo" or "publishing mistake" aspect of this story is the misunderstanding that the ban had already happened because the exemptions weren't listed in online documentation. I don't think they're trying to say that quote in the middle link above was a typo (which I hope anyone could agree would be complete crap.) It is an interesting development that the ATF are back-peddling on the framework now after the white house already gave a statement loosely defending the framework when it was criticized. My "simplest cynical explanation" for this whole ordeal was that this was the BATFE responding in a petty way to the pistol brace ordeal this past year by saying, "Oh, it's a handgun you say and thus not subject to our $200 transfer fee and registration? Well if it's a handgun then I've got some bad news for you and your M855 ammo..."

What's the over/under on how long it takes before some new poster reads one of my 'elk' comments and responds with, "It's 'ilk' you illiterate moron!"

There's a Starbucks less than 300 m from my house and I've never bought coffee there. Sure, I may occasionally dump either of the two ingredients on my counter, but I'm not that out of it in the morning.

One could count the stars on a given American flag and then make a decision on how inclusive it was. Fewer than 48 stars and you know the flag came before the 19th amendment. Fewer than 37 and you know it came before the 15th amendment. Whenever I see protestors burning a US flag that only has a couple dozen stars on it I think, "They have a point, there were definitely some things about the US in the 1820s that needed to change." /edited to add tangent... I wanted to use excel to calculate how many days it had been since a state had been added when each state was added to determine the most specific thing you could protest by being literal in the number of stars you put on an American flag before burning it. I found that Excel refuses to operate with "negative dates" or dates prior to its epoch of 1 Jan 1900 which is disappointing. Though by adding 2000 to each of the years with a replace all, the same end is achievable... Turns out the answer is 41 which was only a valid number of stars for 3 days. 39 stars would be absurd as there were never exactly 39 states in the US.

Do you have a reference for this? The deadline has passed to introduce new legislation this year and I couldn't readily find anything. Last year's AB 2444 banned state sales of the confederate flag, but that's not really the same thing.

I think you guys are missing the point of his post. narcimund is not arguing that everyone is born straight. He's explaining that, in his estimation, most people who think being gay is a choice think that everyone is born straight. He's trying to advise the audience on how better to argue with people who think being gay is a choice. I get this type of reaction quite a bit around here too. I try to tell some people, "hey, that's actually not going to persuade our opponents, you should tr-" and before I can finish I'm being told that me and my elk can go fuck ourselves.

I've put water in the machine twice causing the cup to overflow. I've scooped unground beans into the filter. I've poured ground beans into the basket with no filter. This morning I took the crank off the grinder and tried to scoop beans into it with the lid still on.

No, they are talking about these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCsiGrBbbEY

Yeah, I remember we talked about this back in this thread a few weeks ago. It is very strange to have the ATF publish a letter that says "we're planning to revoke the exemption we gave to M855 ammo because it turns out you can shoot it out of a handgun" and upon review of the law and the cartridge design all I can think of is... "wait, why did you feel you had to exempt it in the first place?" Because a lot of ranges here in Southern California use a desert/semi-arid mountain as a backstop, M855 is not especially popular (I've actually never purchased any) for fear of starting brush fires with sparks from steel on steel impacts. That said, this fails the "what if we just didn't do this" test that should be applied to more government actions. Sort of like when someone at work says, "hey I need you to fill out x or submit y" or something along those lines, and it's for something you've done a million times without doing this new thing, and you're really busy, and you just want to respond, "Worst case, and be honest, what would happen if I just didn't do that? Oh, nothing at all? Great, I'm not doing it."

???

I didn't say "on topic" so I dunno, maybe? To be clear, btw, this is more of a placeholder thread for when there are developments with these bills. It'll be interesting to see what makes it all the way to the governor's desk and what he signs. It is early on and these are all going to get marked up between now and the summer so a discussion on any one in particular at this point is premature. My point right now is just to note how predictable the flood is every year, even in a state that already checks the boxes of assault weapons bans, magazine bans, handguns that have to light up and play a song when they're loaded, universal background checks, and very restrictive may-issue CCW.

The annual slurry of California Gun Bills are here... Oh boy... SB 707 - "Peruta v. Gore may result in people actually being able to get CCW permits, so lets start restricting those further." AB 1134 - "Also, instead of making gun owners sue every county sheriff one by one to make them follow the Peruta ruling, we'll make them sue every police department one by one because that will take longer." AB 443 - "Civil Forfeiture is swell... let's use it on guns." SB 678 - "Smart guns exempt from roster (i.e. exempt from microstamping requirement (i.e. smart guns are the only new handgun models allowed))" AB 529 - "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun... is the DMV." This is an odd one as I'm reasonably sure it's already illegal, but it may be an attempt to make it easier to prosecute or give DAs something easy to use in a plea deal... SB 456 - "There 'oughta be a law against threatening to shoot up a school." A few positive ones (at least as currently written)... SB 566 - "We probably don't need to charge honorably discharged Vets the extra $25" AB 499 - "If you have a CCW permit and you want to carry while you are bow hunting, knock yourself out." AB 1154 - "Let's not get sued when an interactive map of all CCW permit applicants shows up in the LA Times." AB 950 - "If forced to surrender your guns because someone is worried about you, you can at least surrender them to a dealer of your choice while you try to prove your innocence to get them back." AB 225 - "...and if the person flat out lied on the report they should go to jail." SB 452, AB 1415, and SB 347 - "You know how voters made stealing a gun a misdemeanor last year? Yeah, it should probably go back to being a felony." SB 714 - "...and if they were already prohibited, maybe they should be in jail longer next time." And then we have the placeholder bills where they get it in before the deadline by making a change that isn't a change. This is where the magic the happens later in the year... AB 462 - "...?" AB 144 - "...?" AB 892 - "...?"

Not entirely true. If you and the group before you are both doing belly jumps, but they hose up their exit and just turn into a ball of people for several seconds then you may want to give them a little more time as they won't be in the upper (usually faster) winds as long as your group will be. Also, your video guy should be filming it for entert- I mean educational purposes anyway. Or if the uppers = the airspeed of the plane you can watch them to see them open before you exit.