Nothing I wrote criticized the concept of the Second Amendment *in the context it was originally written.* The problem is that people are taking it entirely out of context to support their "God given right" to own any number of countless automatic weapons, which falls entirely outside of the spirit of the Second Amendment. Most people these days either ignorantly or willfully misinterpret that spirit.

So you take away the video games from the kids, and what they do? They turn on the TV, where we have a nonstop news cycle of violence, drone strikes, wars all around the world, graphic footage of people blowing their brains out on the news; and when that "news" gets too much, you turn the channel to the movie channel, where you get more films of people blowing each other up in various gruesome ways. Video games may very well be a major problem, but singling out that one tree in a huge forest of a violence-obsessed culture seems a little shortsighted. In the USA, violence is entertainment, and we don't even think twice about it. Then everyone starts wondering why people do shit like this? Give me a break. It's not video games; it's not Marilyn Manson. It's EVERYTHING put together.

And that's before you even consider the other factors here, one of which is – surprise! – the fact that basically anyone can purchase an automatic assault rifle for a few hundred bucks. (My 21-year-old unemployed little brother owns an M-16, for God's sake.) It pisses me off, because all of these people who bang on about the Second Amendment seem to never have read it – the actual words are "a well-regulated militia" or something to that effect, not "every US citizen has the right to be armed to the fucking teeth." Furthermore, the Second Amendment was written when the most dangerous weapon available was a muzzleloading musket; a pretty far cry from an AK-47. I have no problem with somebody owning a small-caliber pistol for their own defense, or a rifle for hunting, but I haven't heard one single compelling reason why your average citizen should be able to own as many assault rifles or other semiautomatic or automatic weapons as he or she wishes. Until somebody really honestly addresses that issue and stops pissing their pants because they're afraid of what the gun lobby is going to do, the rest of the discussion is basically moot.

Yeah, there are definitely cultural influences as well, hence my writing "it's not just as simple as 'nobody can get a gun.'" At the same time there are many societies around the world where assault weapons are not available, and -- surprise! -- massacres perpetrated using assault weapons don't occur.

Generally I think people should be able to own small-caliber firearms for personal defense -- I have been mulling over buying a .22 pistol myself. However there is NO reason, no reason whatsoever, why ordinary citizens should be able to equip themselves with semiautomatic assault rifles. There is no practical reason why such weapons should be allowed to be sold on the open market in any way, shape, or form. I agree with the other responder that guns laws are not black and white, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument for the availability of assault rifles or other military-grade weapons.

As always, the Onion nails it.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/right-to-own-handheld-device-that-shoots-deadly-me,30742/

Japan, where I lived for 10 years, has *nothing* like this. Yes, the occasional crazy has been known to hack and slash up random people with a knife, but a) those incidents are much less frequent than in the US and b) the amount of damage is limited by the relatively indestructive nature of the weapons. And while it's not as simple as "nobody can get a gun", not having access to guns definitely limits the ability of nutters like this guy to wreak havoc on such a massive scale.

I hated a lot of shit about Japan but reading articles like this as my daughter prepares to enter kindergarten really makes me think hard about moving back.

It's not a citation per se, but you can ask anyone who lives or has lived in a country with strict gun laws how many gun massacres they have each year, and the answer is going to be a hell of a lot less than the ridiculous number we have here in the US. Connecticut School? Oregon Mall? Sikh Temple of Wisconsin? Aurora movie theater? Jesus.

My old econ professor said "in the USA, you call it lobbying. In my country and in others, they call it corruption." We have this culture of just accepting it as part of politics when really it should be strictly outlawed, but obviously the only people who will outlaw it are the cunts being paid to keep it legal. Short of a revolution, we are basically fucked. Not in a catastrophic way, but in a "slow, inexorable slide to the bottom" kind of way.

...to everyone ELSE in the office as a way to kill efficiency. Send one person home to sleep it off, or get everyone sick -- are managers really this dumb?

Don't forget that there are other makers of quality Windows RT tablets as well. I demo'd the Surface in Boston, was relatively impressed, and then saw the Asus VivoTab RT -- generally has the same specs, good battery life, and comes with a *free* keyboard dock that not only turns it into a laptop with proper tactile feedback on the keys, but adds another 8 hours to the battery life. All for the price of a Surface sans any accessories. Not a hard choice to make.

Apple's got it nailed because they're not competing with other hardware vendors -- only they can produce the stuff that runs iOS. Microsoft is competing with its own OS customers, though -- naturally there's going to be some cannibalism going on.

Burned my mod points already, but + effing 1. This post hits the nail directly on the head.

I love how the knee-jerk reaction to criticism of Obama is "well, Romney would have sucked too!"

Guess what? They both suck. And the longer we buy into the illusion that there is any real substantial difference between the two, the illusion that democracy is working properly despite there being only two viable candidates who do basically the same fucking thing after being elected, the longer we are going to be stuck with a broken political system.

(As for Obama supporting small businesses -- pfffffffft. It's the same thing as Dubya's energy-efficient house. The little personal actions mean next to nothing in light of the greater policy actions he's helped enable. Do people really not understand this?)

The fact that Homer looks eerily like Steve Ballmer is the icing on the cake. I tip my hat to you, sir.

No, Mac is a Volt. Windows 7 is the Prius. Windows 8 is a concept car with two different steering wheels, seven wheels, and two gas tanks -- one for petrol and one for diesel.

I've gotten the Mac equivalent of the BSOD several times -- didn't think such a thing existed until I saw it with my own eyes. Less frequent than XP, more frequent than 7 (so far I haven't had any major freezes on 7).

First, it's common across platforms; second, yes, the issue partially is how difficult it is, because in the grand scheme of things it's about the most minor annoyance you will ever have to deal with in your life. First world problems, anyone? "Meeeh, my computer keeps trying to open Word when I want to open the file in Notepad, I had to actually click the mouse three times to stop it, meeeeeeeh". I'm a person who usually stands on his principles but fuck me, this is meta-complaining at its finest.

Gee, you're right, I better go spend an extra $1000 on a Mac.

Only two types of people would pay a $500 - $1000 (or more) premium for something anyone with the most basic computer literacy can do in 15 minutes: an idiot, or someone who likes to boast about having the money to do so. Which is funny, because in the grown-up world, most of us can afford an extra $500 or $1000 here and there, so your thinly-veiled bragging just sounds pathetic, that's all. ...although if people are willing to pay that kind of money for no crapware, I think I may have a new career as a Crapware Removal specialist.