I mistyped:

No. Guns are designed to discharge a projectile at a high velocity. That is all.
They are not designed to hammer in nails, cut a hole in paper, mow your lawn, or kill, though it is capable of any of those actions.
The human pulling the trigger is what determines what the gun's utility on any given day.

No. Guns are designed to discharge a projectile at a high velocity. That is all.

They are not designed to hammer in nails, mow your lawn, or kill.

The human pulling the trigger is what determines what it is designed for,

"Buy your fuel on cold days, you get a *little* more for your $50 than you do on a hot day (hence airlines buy fuel by weight, not volume)."

Used to be more true than it is now. Most fuel station tanks in the USA are 2-3 ft underground, below the frost line, so the stored fuel temperature stays at a relatively constant 50 or 60-something degrees even on the hottest summer days. Sure, if it's a bloody hot day at a station that isn't used much, the fuel that's actually in the pump may warm up a little, but they retain very little gas.

Unless, of course, you lived in Centralia, PA. Then....then you have a very good point.

"It's akin to Papa John complaining that giving his workers healthcare would make the pizzas cost an extra quarter. Are we as a society really so greedy that we think that's a bad deal?"

Yes. We are that greedy, which is why we are having this discussion in the first place.

"Condoms are a single-purpose, one-use-only application"

Not so.....
-Protective, transparent sleeve for waterproofing electronics.
-Fits over the end of a rifle to keep snow/water/sand out of the barrel.
-Heavy-duty rubber band at the bottom for whatever you need a heavy-duty rubber band for.
-Slice one open; use as a dental dam
-Hairnet/showercap in a pinch.
-Inflate with helium; use as a balloon. Take a bunch of them, inflate, tie together, attach a GoPro and a GPS unit and have fun photographing the neighborhood.

Is is bad that I have more uses for rubbers than what they're intended for?

But more than enough power to run the penis stretcher.

"The fact that the FBI is unable to break Tor...."

How am I halfway down the comments and haven't read another possible solution: The FBI has (or nearly has) broken TOR, sends out this press release to saying that they can't so that the folks using it for whatever illicit purposes pile data on there, giving the FBI far more data to work with. In 6 months, we read a headline that says "FBI uncovers major CP ring thanks to paid informant", and everyone goes on their merry way.

Subterfuge is fair game in "war."

...It ended in a very BAD place. Newfangled keyboard and mouse thingie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code

We've been down the testing-on humans road before. It ended in a very place.
The problem with "full consent" is that, in a lot of cases, it isn't. Ignoring the scientific problems with human-based data, the ethical considerations are extremely problematic.

As is sometimes said in the Hazardous Materials world...."The Solution to Pollution is Dilution".

Don't be too sure about the "fire fighting with grenades sounds too good to be true". We already have them:
http://www.statx.com/First_Responder.asp

Die Hard 2 isn't a great place to get your firearms information from.

Yes, there are at least half a dozen polymer frame pistols on the market (Glock, the xD family from Smith, etc...). Every single one of them has a steel slide. Every single one has a steel barrel. Read up on the entire Glock family....not one has anything but a steel barrel and slide, as there are not mainstream polymers that can take the beating. We'll ignore the springs, screws, firing pin, and a bunch of other parts that are metal and couldn't reasonably be replaced with anything else.

"The first flight of an SR-71 took place on 22 December 1964, at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California"

48 years is close enough to 50 for this discussion. We had big dreams back then, making things that only DC Comics would imagine. Now those dreams belong to other countries.

Camp Watonka.
http://www.watonka.com/cgi-local/wpage

I am making the assumption that you're male (which I realize may be incorrect); the camp is boys-only. It's a neat place with a very particular subculture. I spent 4 summers there when I was a little younger;. there were the best summers of my teenage life. They are very welcoming of teens from other countries (my last year there we had a guy, Eisa, straight off the plane from Japan. He spoke little English. We spoke zero Japanese. We made it work because that's the kind of kids that are there). It's a family run operation; the Wackers (no jokes; that really is the family name!) are damned nice people. The food is pretty good by camp standards; the instructors and counselors are generally excellent.

Do give it a look. It might be just the mix of things you're looking for.

"If I want to take the risk I should be able to buy something made of light weight bicycle tube and nylon."


Funny you say that. 4130 CrMo is a steel alloy very frequently used in roll cages of race vehicles of all sorts.

It's also very common to build lower end bicycles frames from it.