Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:All the better.. (Score 1) 204

This sort of thing happens all too often with science fairs, the are looking for above average students to encourage them to go into science fields, but for some reason frown on the amazing projects.

Years ago in High School I had a very smart friend that had a science fair project on the macroscopic effects of quantum phsical properties in quartz fibers, he spent months on the project, corresponded with scientest that were published in peer reviewed publications, etc. He easily won at the local highschool level, and at the regional level, however at the state level, he was disqualified because "Such work is beyond the abiltiy of a Highschool Student"

Comment The Simple Truth (Score 1) 43

The simple truth of the matter is often these documents are not laying around where they can be easily handed out, there are costs involved in time and effort to compile the information being requested, reviewing it for confidential information (peoples names, addresses, SSN's, etc.) so it is often not so much about hiding facts as it is not wanting to deal with the headache of complying with what is so often seen as either a casual inquiry, or some nut case that just wants to stir up trouble.

Comment Re:I hope this guy's good... (Score 1) 230

So this is sort like the case for Bradley Manning, while he may have released some documents as part of a massive file dump that show mistakes and cover ups on the part of the government, he should still be shot for treason, violating his oath, etc. In other words he should be willing to pay the price for his actions

Comment Re:Smart people know how to safely handle/store gu (Score 1) 1388

Not everyone lives in a house with paper thin walls and 12 kids behind each one, my shotgun is loaded with buck shot, my nearest neighbor is several hundred feet away and my son is grown up so it is just me and my wife in the house. It has been shown numerous times that while bird shot can cause a gruesome looking wound its abilty to penetrate deep enough to be reliable at immediately stopping a threat is minimal.

Comment Re:Smart people know how to safely handle/store gu (Score 1) 1388

I do just love this particular anti gun argument, maybe I am just unlucky, but I know of several people that have been killed in home invasions and other similar circumstances

My step sister's boss was killed at his vacation house in the tropics (I forget which island) duirng a home invasion, I did not know him well, but had met his wife a few times.

The family that lived next door to my mother had a ranch in Oklahoma that the husband would often go to for weeks at a time, one time he went there and a group of escaped prisoners were living in the ranch house, they killed him when he arrived. His wife called the police to go check on him after a couple of weeks of not hearing from him since he left home.

My ex-wife had a co-worker / close friend whose brother in law (husbands little brother) was killed by a group of juvenile gang members while withdrawing money from an ATM in Colorado, they were caught on video, and 2 or 3 were actually imprissoned until they turned 21. I was standing there when she received the phone call.

My step father had a business aquaintance who was the victim of fairly classic home invasion, he came home to find his wife tied to a chair, the burglars wanted money they thought he had hidden in the house, and beat both of them, he gave them what money he had in the house which was far less than they imagined. Thankfully this one had a more pleasant outcome as they were found alive, but tied up many hours later.

I suspect there are more, they just don't come to mind at the moment, Note I live in a relatively low crime area, if it is so rare why do I know people involved in so many.

Comment Re:Smart people know how to safely handle/store gu (Score 1) 1388

Sure and if some guy starts trying to kick in the front door of your 1 bedroom apartment while your asleep at 3 am, because he is on drugs and thinks you looked at his girlfriend wrong, how much time do you think you would have to mess with combination locks and loading the gun. Of course the real problem here is even that would not be enough for many anti gun people, they would want the gun disassembled and the ammo stored in a seperate locked box in another room.

Comment Re:Government Must Fear Pissing Off Its Citizens (Score 1) 1388

Ok, felons can't legally own guns now, normal people off the street have to jump through so many hoop to own an automatic weapon now (fingerprinting, extensive background check, letter of endorsement from local head law enforcement official, tax stamp, etc.) that VERY few do so, and there have only been a couple of cases in the last 75 years where LEGALLY OWNED automatic weapons have been used to commit a crime. As to how many someone should be allowed to own, where would you draw the line, 5, 10, 100? Some people would call any of those numbers very reasonable, or an incomplete collection. If we take that middle number of 10 it is fairly easy to hit by any sportsman in fly over country, much like having the right tool for the job iin any endevor, you need the right gun for the job, which may include: a small caliber handgun for pracitce / training, a couple of small caliber rifles (22LR, or similar) for general pest control, one with and one without optics, a mid caliber rifle for larger varmints (coyotes, etc), add in a couple of mid-large caliber for small / large deeer (white tail vs elk, etc.), maybe even add in a 3rd for for hunting in brush vs long range with optics, We are already at 6 or 7 have and have not touched on shotguns for bird hunting (different one for upland game than water fowl, etc.) or any personal defensive handguns. Now you may ask about these so called milirary styled weapons, and why they may be needed, an AR-15 is a great varmint gun, it is light weight, holds up well under exposure to the elements, can be equiped with a good medium to long range scope, does not kick too much, and 5.56 mm is just about an ideal caliber for such sized pests.

Slashdot Top Deals

"If anything can go wrong, it will." -- Edsel Murphy

Working...