The NSA data was used to identify suspicious behavior, and establish probable cause, but all the evidence used to convict was collected by normal law enforcement.

Court cases get thrown out every single day because of issues in establishing probable cause. It is one of the most common reasons for criminal cases to be dismissed in court. For the government to now claim that probable cause can be established without the defendant seeing the evidence is quite literally overturning centuries of jurisprudence.

Anyway my outcomes will be better by having a gun.

Statistically speaking, you are more likely to kill yourself in moment of depression, a family member in the heat of anger, or a family member in an accident, rather than a criminal seeking to do you harm.

Fact: If you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide.

Citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182
Citation: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/105/4/888.full
Citation: http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/02/01/1559827610396294

Saying my argument is retarded is ignoring the clear and well establishing science. Rejecting the evidence with anger and namecalling does nothing to support your side that you will react with calm rationality in all situations, and never snap.

Gun ownership is dangerous. Being scared of owning guns is similar to being scared of owning venomous snakes. Except keeping venomous snakes in your home is safer for you and your family than keeping guns in the home.

Statistically gun owners have a much higher risk of suicide: http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/2007-releases/press04102007.html

"Removing all firearms from one's home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide,"

Statistically gun owners face a much higher risk of homicide in the home: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506

Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

Living in a home that contains guns increases the risk of homicide by more than 40%, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Gun ownership increases the cost of home insurance. Insurance agencies are in the business of managing risk. If the benefits of gun ownership decreased your overall risk, then insurance rates would go down.

I couldn't agree more. Your belief that firearms make you safer is based purely on a "it cant happen to me" attitude. You are gambling against the odds, assuming that your outcomes will be better, without applying facts and real world statistics.

My point is opportunity sometimes outweighs the downside of not getting paid.

I fully understand the concept of being so desperate to have a job that you are willing to work for free in the hopes that it one day turns into a paying job. Ergo, you think the system is fair, because work experience is the payment rather than money. Are you aware that most slave-owners considered themselves to be good people? From the slavers perspective they provided free shelter, food and clothing to their slaves, and gave them a better quality of life, and longer life expectancy. They provided all these things in lieu of a salary, thus, it was in their eyes a fair system. You are echoing thousands of pro-slavery arguments from two centuries ago when you say that tertiary benefits make up for not paying a wage.

You are absolutely correct. Here's an excerpt from a slave owners diary in 1861:

When Dick married Hetty, the Anderson house was next door. The two families agreed to sell either Dick or Hetty, whichever consented to be sold. Hetty refused outright, and the Andersons sold Dick that he might be with his wife. This was magnanimous on the Andersons' part, for Hetty was only a lady's-maid and Dick was a trained butler, on whom Mrs. Anderson had spent no end of pains in his dining-room education, and, of course, if they had refused to sell Dick, Hetty would have had to go to them. Mrs. Anderson was very much disgusted with Dick's ingratitude when she found he was willing to leave them. As a butler he is a treasure; he is overwhelmed with dignity, but that does not interfere with his work at all.

Clearly the slave owning society feel they are being overly generous by giving an education to their property. They even gave him a choice of where to work for free! Your vision of society fits perfectly in line with the Antebellum south. (To be clear, I'm not calling you a racist, you're just pro-slavery which is actually frowned upon in most societies in the 21st century)

Does that mean God wants us to eat longpig too?

If you are actually innocent, but the truth makes you sound guilty. There are any number of situations where you simply wouldn't believe something had happened except you saw it with your own eyes.

Scenario: You take a walk at night, decide to stop by a building to smoke and lean against the building smoking and playing with your lighter. You then witness a cat by the trashcan that knocks over a bottle filled with some chemical. This chemical combines with some oil on the ground which then ignites and starts a fire. The fire rages almost immediately, and the building burns down. You call the fire department and report the fire. The arson investigation team determines that oil was poured on the building and the fire was intentional. Now, the investigation focuses on you because your cell phone is the only one traced to even be in the area.

Do you:

a) Tell the jury that you were beside the building lighting cigarettes and playing with your lighter, and this crazy sequence of barely believeable events happened? Even though you are 100% innocent, you are admitting to playing with fire beside the building that is the site of a presumed arson.

b) Lie under oath and make up another story about what you were doing

c) Decline to answer those questions about why you were there and what you were doing on the grounds that it might (falsely) incriminate you

Everyone reading this has at least once witnessed something they consider more or less "unbelievable". At least some of those unbelievable moment could lead to a criminal investigation. A cow (may have) started one of the largest fires in American history after all. Mrs O Leary testified to that fact after she herself was accused. The debate still rages on about what the truth of the situation was.

They have built many skyscrapers. But nobody on the planet has built a building this tall before. The current tallest building in the world took 6 years to build. China plans to build a taller building, using only 5% of the time, and 10% of the budget of the Burj Khalifa.

What a bunch of B.S. D&D came from miniatures wargaming.

And dice came from throwing rocks around, and chess came from an Indian game called chaturanga, and cards and dominos both had the same precursor game in China. I hate to break it to you because it makes me feel old too, but Gygax's original version of dungeon crawling is the same kind of ancient history to most players today. When compared to the average age of most players, the "recent" trend of improv theater has been that way their whole lives.

Settlers is well-known for being horridly UN-balanced!

Any game that uses dice adds an element of randomness. Thats the entire point of dice after all. It makes it possible for less skilled players to stay competitive, and keeps the game on the "casual" side of things. Otherwise you go into a whole different game category, and get games like Chess & Go, where the best player will almost always win. (People don't give their chess pieces unique names and personalities either!)

Remember kids: games are not stories. If some mechanic would make for a great story, driving plot and drama, that doesn't mean that it is a good mechanic for games.

If you want a pure strategy and tactics game, then choose a boardgame or computer game. Everyone I know that likes pen & paper RPG, likes it specifically because it makes a great format for collective storytelling, with some rules thrown in (the book), and some chance thrown in (the dice), to make it more challenging / interesting / dramatic.

Settlers of Catan is a well balanced game, with great mechanics- but people don't name their cities and come up with riveting tales about the empires they are building. Warhammer 40k is a great tactical wargame, but there usually isn't a lot of "character development". D&D is neither of those games.

He probably should be paranoid at this point. Every intelligence service in the world knows his name, and a non-trivial number of them want him to stop. The US govt and protection citizenship implies is likely the only reason he is still alive.

I'm saying when compared to dismembering children, searching a house WITH the homeowners permission, but WITHOUT an easily obtained warrant, is the lesser evil. It isn't great, and they certainly could have gone about it in a better way. But lets not pretend that the impact of looking for a person is worse than the impact of detonating bombs in a public place. Sorry if that is too pragmatic for ya.

The marathon bombings were nothing compared to the police action that followed.

I must've missed some of the news. How many people had their limbs blown off by the police during the search? How many children were killed during the optional curfew?

Right. You're reinforcing my point.
It is currently hard to acquire such weapons, thus they are never used. It isn't because the criminals WANT to have the same firepower level as police and homeowners. They would want to use automatic weapons but can't get them because of restrictions and cost.
However, a criminal could find a sturdy metal pipe to use as a barrel and print the rest of an automatic weapon.
With this technology, it changes from hard, to easy. From expensive, to cheap. This guy is putting on his own handicaps by only using plastic. He could have a fully functioning automatic rifle today if he wanted and was willing to substitute a few metal parts. And if he can do it today, lots of people can do it tomorrow.

A person can live without either, but civilization can no longer exist without computers.