The Glade 4.0

Not particularly. What's a "reason to be carrying it"? "No reason to be carrying it" does not mean a reason not to carry it. Any fear of weapons on the part of the average person is entirely a product of people promulgating erroneous ideas about firearms carry. It is hilarious to suggest that the fact that people have been convinced to be intimidated by others being armed is therefore a reason not to allow others to be armed. Yes, by all means, lets apply that logic universally. If we can convince enough people by any means whatsoever that gay sex leads to pedophilia, then clearly we also need to ban gay sex because the average person is afraid of pedophiles!



And they'd somehow respond better without the guns? Gee, how about... loading them?

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If people were required to carry guns, they'd rapidly become less afraid of them, even if people in general were afraid of them, when in the main they are not. You are afraid of guns. People in general are not.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It doesn't change the fact that your idea of what is "scary" isn't a very good metric. Nor are people afraid of guns unless they are completely irrational. I've never seen a gun just walking down the street. And that's not a reason why it's a bad idea. People, and mammals in general, are instinctively afraid of steep vertical drops. I suppose that means buildings are a bad idea. And ultimately, talking about why it's a bad idea implies there should be some sort of discussion as to whether or not it should be allowed. After all, that's what society and government exists for, to construct mechanisms that prevent "bad ideas" from damaging people's rights.

What you actually said was you'd report it to the entity you'd be required to by contract out of fear of career ending repercussions despite the lack of action by said entity for years. And besides, **** the career. If this was about shoplifting and not a violent crime, this argument might have merit but it's not and it doesn't. So while there might be some merit to reporting it within protocol at first and then going to the police later because nothing is being done about it, that's not what was implied. This same goal post shifting occurred previously, as well. The fact is, the failure to report this crime and the ultimate result of the person getting away with said behavior for years was being justified by a manufactured scenario in which some sort of career ending repercussions were to occur.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

You can find MecGars for $20 if you shop around. Other sources might be surplus OEM mags, which very strongly resemble and are rumored to be manufactured by MecGar for Sig.

Depending on chambering, there are a number of loads. IMO, and I think most would agree, full jacket 9x19 are worthless if you keep them in your self defense magazine. You need to hit something load-bearing or CNS to stop someone and I just wouldn't count on having that opportunity in a defensive scenario. They are fine for plinking or shooting paper. Stick with something 115 gr loading, expanding and preferably +P or even +P+ if your gun can handle it.

Gold Dots are what I recently picked up a box of, but 40S&W 180gr. I've also had 165gr Remington Golden Sabres. Of course, I have no idea which one stops a person better from a personal experience standpoint, but these two loads and cartridges seem to offer pretty good cavity creation and shock-wave in test ballistics gel. There's all sorts of arguments about which attributes are more valuable in terms of stopping power from a cartridge and they're almost as numerous (and oftentimes, myopic) as the arguments of which rifle platform is better AR vs. AK.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I really want me a Super Redhawk or Super Blackhowk. I've never been a big revolver guy, but I definitely want a .44 magnum.

I wouldn't mind an even higher caliber, but those are mostly 5-shot, and IMO a proper revolver carries 6 shots.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I’m surprised that so many of you are against mandatory voting. As Lenas said, you can abstain your vote or write what ever you want on there, provided you go to the place and tick off your name.

While an average person is not capable of understanding all the intricacies of politics, they are however capable of understanding their current living arrangements. If in the last 4 years they have lost their jobs, or friends and family have died due to insufficient healthcare, or if their children could no longer afford to buy housing, they will realise. If they are mandated to vote, they might vote for the other guy… Or in the case of our last election, they might choose to vote for the 3rd party, just to see what changes might occur.

Mandatory voting does bring about a need to know. An average person may not need to know what the big government is doing for their next budget, but they are certainly aware that for their area/state what the other party is promising. There is also less of a chance for politicians to break their promise, because when they do, that is the thing people are going to focus on, next election.

Of course the make up of the Australian government is different to those of the US, but when everyone votes, those tiny numbers of dead/inmate votes will no longer matter to such a degree as it does now.

Mandatory voting would only serve to benefit the political establishment*

Also, just as a reminder: in most (probably all?) U.S. states that allow write-in ballots -- I believe there are 5 that don't -- your vote will be literally thrown away unless the person you wrote in was registered and approved by the state as a write-in candidate.

While I'm at it:

Seeing.

* P.S. I hate you all for making me use this phrase

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Mandatroy voting benefiting the political "establishment" would be great insofar as A) there isn't one (at least, not as in it being a single coherent entity) and B) the more it marginalizes the whacko extremes, the better.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'd rather let the ignorant and lazy self select themselves to have less impact on others than more. Mandatory voting is an absolutely horrid idea and anyone who gives it 5 minutes of thought would agree.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Because the alternatives have worked so well thus far…

While the more educated are more willing to vote, not having mandatory voting means a certain agenda could simply tilt the scale based on simple turn out. E.g. the high turnout for Obama’s election by blacks.

Elections turn into a more marketing campaign based on a single tagline, rather than the need for careful consideration as to make a well rounded candidate. Election by Care Factor will almost always result in a skewed statistic simply because you are not getting the whole picture.

The under-educated are the ones feeling the brunt of financial issues, or they should be. Of course I can understand in a country where entitlement have become such a rampant culture, it may not be the best solution. That being said, that is not the issue of mandated voting, but more about how your government system is made up of just 2 dominant, yet similar parties, neither with a focus on educating the under-educated, but both obsessed with bandaid fixes (on different issues). E.g. the no child left behind.

Yes and thats a good thing. Motivated people are usually that way because they are informed and interested.

Why do you think mandatory voting would turn it less into a marketing campaign? More people will be turning out and less of them will be informed and interested therefore marketing will have a greater affect.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That's cartridge is pretty damned powerful. I've been looking at S&W M26 and M29 for a while now and haven't pulled the trigger (pun intended) on getting either. .44 Magnum is about the hottest round I'd care to use.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Although the power of weapons that fire .500 Magnum, .50AE or .454 Casull can't be denied as hicock45 demonstrates here. Subscriber for life!

[yt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1d7i3i0LLI[/yt]

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

.454 casull is a beast of a round. It looks like you're firing a dime at someone.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

While only having motivated people turning up is great in theory, the reality is that’s not always what happens. What you end up having is the ‘in the moment’ issue domination a nomination. Whether it’s the colour of someone’s skin, or the promise of free money.

I did not say that mandatory voting will turn it into any less of a marketing campaign, but a more rounded one. Instead of the ‘in the moment’ issue, you also have to target things other people care about. Whether it’s gun issues, healthcare, schooling, retirement, immigration, etc… You can’t just concentrate on one issue, and know that the other people wouldn’t care enough (as the issue isn’t in the spot light) to come out and vote.

When something is mandatory, it also forces the people to care. If the dude you carelessly ticked brings about Armageddon or worse, takes away more of your money, you’d be slightly upset. It gives you more ownership of the country and part of the responsibility.

Like I said, the make up of our countries may be different, as we vote for a district person, who in turn sits on the state, but also have a seat in the federal (if they get enough votes). So if they are not doing anything for the district, it is very obvious and they’ll be voted out next session.

From my experience. Everyone in Australia, from the kids to the elderly, from the under educated to the way over educated have their opinion on the politics. Even if they do not care, they certainly know which party they prefer based on their economic background.

I think your forces people to care thing has been disproven by the pants picture.

People still have their opinions on politics here - they just don't care enough to go to the polls. Thankfully.

Mandated voting would bring us that much closer to Idiocracy.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Here is why mandatory voting is retarded:

Cleveland used to be a booming city until they started electing Democrats. For over 30 years now the city has been a single-party system and every year they slide further down the poverty scale, population shrinks, the school system scores progressively lower, the economy digs itself deeper and deeper and yet they keep electing more Democrats because if it's this bad with Democrats, imagine what, "TEH REBUPDILICANS WUD DO?!"

_________________

Tell them to look


Tell them to look at Wisconsin.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

You can't tell an idealogue anything.

Not that it truly matters I suppose, the more attention I pay to politics the more I realize Khross was right about it truly being a single party system.

_________________

Am I the only one who thinks if you made voting day a holiday, especially if it was made part of a three day weekend, it would actually reduce the % of voting?

_________________
"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Oh. This is brilliant.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Somehow I doubt President McCain would have (i) withdrawn most of our forces from Iraq, (ii) accelerated the drawdown in Afghanistan, (iii) slow-walked the Iranian nuclear issue, (iv) let the Arab Spring play itself out without US interference, (v) ended the use of torture by US interrogators, (vi) appointed two left-of-center female Justices to the Supreme Court, (vii) expanded subsidies for renewable energy projects, (viii) pushed through a massive health care reform package, (ix) ended Don't Ask Don't Tell, (x) extended spousal benefits to gay fedederal employees and (xi) stopped defending DOMA in court.

If the Dems had supermajorities in the Senate and House for the last four years, hundreds of Obama's appointments to federal courts and agencies would not be held up right now, the DREAM Act would have passed, DOMA would likely be gone entirely, the stimulus package likely would have been bigger, health care reform likely would have been closer to single-payer, and dozens of other legislative packages would be different. Alternatively, if we had a Republican President and Republican supermajorities in both houses of Congress, hundreds of conservatives would be appointed to federal courts and agencies, immigration restrictions would be tightened, a federal anti-gay marriage amendment would likely pass, health care reform would be dead in the water, abortion would likely be significantly restricted, taxes would be even lower (and deficits almost certainly higher, since no Republican leadership is going to cut military spending or Medicare), and so on.

The truth is, elections really do have consequences, despite what casual observers and cooler-than-thou cynics like to think.

The truth is, my life hasn't changed since Bush 2. If you want to reach back further, the environment is still a mess, we have been at war since Vietnam in one form or another, taxes are the same, wages are flat, the deficit continues to grow, we still haven't been back to the moon, public school grades continue to get worse, etc, etc. Just to turn the tables on you, name one single significant thing that has substantially changed as a result of the political party in control in the past 20 years.

_________________

I don't see why McCain wouldn't have used the Bush time table for withdraw which would actually put it a few weeks ahead of Obama's. Lets just keep pretending stuff.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Other than a war in Iraq that lasted the better part of a decade and cost almost $1 trillion?