As good or better depending on the blend. I used to keep a grinder and fresh grind for each pot. At one point I had Kona shipped direct from the plantation, roasted a weeks worth at a time manually and ground that fresh daily.

The sealed pod keeps the coffee fresh. The pressurized system forcing the hot water through the grounds and making each cup fresh makes a huge difference. Especially on the second or third cup of the day.

Toss in creme fresh and real sugar and you are looking at a great cup of coffee every time. Of course it depends on the variety. Surprisingly the Starbucks varieties are actually quite good. They taste like burnt crap if you go to an actual Starbucks.

" as anyone who has served in the military (a minority, but a very large minority) is acquainted with a variety of weapon types"

That certainly is not true. There is nothing on small arms training for the majority of the Navy for instance. And the vast majority of the population has no military background.

"This is the kind of crap that just shouldn't be permitted under any sane interpretation of, "A WELL REGULATED militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.""

Well regulated in the context and time referred to well trained not regulated by the state. The right to bear arms and the right to maintain a well regulated militia are two separate clauses in that amendment as well.

"Most gun owners that I've met know very little about GUN PHYSICS (or anything else requiring above a 6th grade education)."

I don't recall saying they did. I said the people I've met who do were gun owners. Actually, if you isolate it to just gun physics that may not be true. But if you include some or all of the other things I said, yes they own guns.

Human error is accidental. The fault doesn't rest with the person making the error. Or that the error was made by a person. The fault is with those who have the capability to do prevent it and do not. Bottom line. Cars kill more people than guns. We should be focusing on cars and possibly on the human error aspect. But lets avoid the blame game all around. Blaming people is a productive method of solving only a very very narrow set of problems, most of them caused by others blaming.

Does it matter? Maybe in your world it matters but in mine we should be focusing on reducing the number of people dying not speculating on the intent and purpose of tools.

Cars kill far far far more people than guns. How about we ditch the guns are evil nonsense and focus on preventing the death of children for a moment?

"But pistols have no other purpose than to kill/injure people"

Your targets are immune to pistols?

It would be possible. Completely automatic digital sighting and scope adjustment is possible too. It isn't the cost that stops people from using these things. It is definitely the reliability. When you get something to be the last ditch, everything else has failed, final barrier to the death of yourself and your family, anything that decreases reliability is a very significant issue.

Even with that a lot of people want something like this and many gun manufacturers have tried this and produced guns. The reliability decrease isn't theoretical it is very substantial to the point where the manufacturers won't sell the products.

Thanks to party politics that isn't true. Individuals who have identified either a D or R affiliation actually have less activity in the reasoning centers of their brain and draw on memory centers the moment an issue is identified with either D or R or when they identify it as such.

It's a psychological trick to get people to stop thinking. Once you get people into the us or them mentality you can manipulate them into views, justify horrible atrocities to other human beings, get them to hate people they know nothing about, and far far more. The current politicians don't have to be any more intelligent than the cattle. The system is already in place.

"There is an ever growing movement of people who don't want to eat anything that has loose synthetic origin or contains any "chemicals"."

People use pod coffee machines because they are easy, don't waste coffee, produce better tasting coffee and the coffee is no more synthetic or loaded with chemicals than any other.

"Who the fuck said anything about some sort of whizbang electronically-ignited primers?"

As far as I can tell you are the only one. He is talking about an electronic trigger not an electronic primer. Now your trigger pull is directly pulling back a spring. Any technology that could identify the owner is going to be an added layer of electronics in that process. An extra point of failure. Guns are often viewed as a last resort everything has failed emergency device. That's the primary reason we are mostly using variations of old time tested mechanical actions on them now instead of fancy electronics assisted designs.

"I suspect the number of people who know nothing about guns (at least counting those people who would qualify to vote in most democracies if they were citizens) is very small."

I find the vast majority of the population knows nearly nothing about guns. For example, I encounter very few people who realize that "assault weapon" is not an actual type of gun but rather a 100% political buzzword with no definition. Also on the political front, very few seem to have caught on to the gimmick statistic of "gun crime" and why it is meaningless if gun legislation impacts it. The number who understand gun safety, have significant actual hours logged with a gun, and understand gun physics and basic gun mechanics amount to very small handful over the years and all of them gun owners. The number of people who think a semi-automatic rifle is military grade weaponry is staggering. The number who know what semi-automatic actually means is disheartening.

An armed robber can ATTEMPT to take your food. His success isn't a given. There is no kind of asset that ultimately is more secure than your ability to secure it. I certainly am not depending on an armed government to protect my property now.

Legal rights of ownership and other things protected by a legal document aren't the physical thing they are related to. Investing in them is not investing in a tangible asset. They are no more secure than tangible than government bonds.

Occupying a house is just as tangible but that has nothing to do with buying and owning.

An armed renter becomes the owner the minute there is no longer an armed government claiming that right belongs to someone else. So does random armed guy/group walking into an empty house.

You are confusing owning a house with occupying a house.

Real estate is no more tangible than fiat. You don't actually "own" land in the event of government instability. Nor mineral rights, nor water rights, nor any other form of "ownership" that exists only by support of the government agreeing you own it. A tulip bulb on the other hand. That is yours at least as long as you can keep someone from taking it away.

Precious metals, guns, bullets, alcohol, gasoline, non-perishable food. Those are tangible assets. Anything secured by a court filed document you might as well have just left as fiat.