Of course the only correct number of gun deaths among civilians is 0, do you disagree with that?

I absolutely do disagree, yes. If my life or safety is being threatened by someone, then I absolutely have the right to use any level of force necessary to defend myself, up to and including lethal force.

BTW, the way that you state that question is a form of manipulation. It’s a common tactic used in high-pressure sales.

Prosecutors don’t coerce people, exactly. It’s more a case of, “hey, we’re pretty sure we can get a conviction if we go to trial, and if we get a conviction on these charges, we’re going to ask for the maximum jail time and/or fines. But if you agree to plead guilty to a lesser charge, you’ll spend less time in jail.” And TBH, the state usually can convict, since most prosecutors don’t like taking weak cases to trial, and the system is pretty heavily tilted in favor of prosecution for multiple reasons.

It’s not like, “take this deal or we’re going to break all your fingers and kill your mom”, but it does lay out the risks of taking a case to trial. I don’t think that’s coercive by most definitions, any more than your boss telling you that you can either get to work, or they’re going to fire you is coercive.

But yeah, the sheer volume of cases that goes through the courts requires plea deals, because otherwise it would take decades for a case to go to trial.

This is… Very confused.

You need to give more information before anyone can even make sense of this question. A public defender isn’t a prosecutor; they don’t have the ability to have anyone arrested, or prosecuted. The defendant is the client of the public defender, and the public defender is bound by professional ethics to act in the best interests of their client. The public defender is bound by attorney-client privilege, and anything that they were to disclose to the prosecutor would be inadmissible, and potentially grounds to see them sanctioned or disbarred.

So I really can’t understand any circumstances here where a defense attorney would be pressuring their client to take a bad deal and somehow threatening their client’s mother.

According to a quick Google search, 3 in 10 American adults say that they currently own a firearm; that’s around 82,000,000 gun owners in the US. Last time I checked, there were around 45,000 annual gun deaths in the US, of which just under 2/3 were suicide. That leaves somewhere around 18,000 deaths that are homicides of some form (which also includes legal self-defense). So it’s far, far less than 1/1000 gun owners that are going to shoot someone (other than intentionally shooting themselves, and IMO that’s a different issue entirely).

But, sure, if in your opinion that only correct number of gun deaths is 0, then yes, removing guns and collectively forgetting how to make them is the only solution. Just like if your opinion is that the only correct number of traffic deaths is zero, then the only reasonable solution is the completely elimination of all means of transportation other than feet.

Generated by diceware, actually. I wanted to keep it as random as possible.

I think that most people that have lived in Chicago for a while are pretty aware that, due to this kind of culture of violence, that kind of action in Chicago carries a degree of risk that wouldn’t be present in many other places. So I don’t think that it would be that out of line to make that kind of comment in general. It’s just kind of pervasive.

I would be much more surprised to hear that kind of statement in, say, Phoenix, AZ, where you almost certainly have far, far more people carrying concealed firearms legally, but don’t seem to see the same kind of gang/violence problems.

I avoid anywhere with blackberries and raspberries when they’re in season; that’s where the bears tend to hang out, and I’m not super keen on surprising a bear when I’m out hiking.

Surprised a family of bears (sow and two yearlings) trying to walk out of my basement last week in the dark. That was not fun.

I’m getting my shoulder repaired next week (I completely tore my supraspinatus tendon, wooo…). It’s going to cost me $16,000. That’s relatively cheap in the US; if I had insurance (which I don’t), I’d have to have surgery done in a hospital, and my insurance would be billed >$30k. I’ve looked into medical tourism, but I just don’t have the time; if it was still 80% torn, I could fly to Spain or something, pay cash, take 2-3 weeks to recover, do touristy shit, fly home, and still come out ahead. Unfortunately, once a tendon is fully separated, you need to address it ASAP.

And, BTW, I’m very, very lucky that I have $16k in a 401(k) that I can withdraw in the first place; if this had happened to me 10 years ago, i would have just lost partial use of my right arm for the rest of my life.

…And why don’t I have insurance? The only insurance available to me costs >$500/mo., and the annual deductible (the amount I have to pay before insurance covers anything aside from routine care and prescriptions) is $9000. My costs would be almost identical if I had the only insurance that’s available to me.

EDIT - OTOH, it’s generally a little faster for people in the US to get non-emergency care. E.g., if my supraspinatus was torn, but not completely separated, I would generally have a longer wait for surgery in the UK or Canada than I would in the US. But that’s a pretty small positive for the US system compared to a huge ton of negatives.

Statistically speaking, people that have conceal carry licenses are less likely to engage in criminal activity than the average person, and less likely to shoot a person in general. The people to worry about are the people that carry firearms without having a valid carry license. (This doesn’t apply in the relatively few states that don’t require permits to carry concealed firearms.) Essentially, people that obey one law–getting a permit before they carry a firearm–tend to be likely to obey most laws.

That’s not gun culture per se, but gang culture. Gun “culture” in the US is something that trends far more right wing in general, and tends to be mostly white, mostly (nominally) christian.

I can’t speak to other cities, but the south side and west side of Chicago (esp. around Garfield Park, Douglas Park, and all of Austin) have a serious gang problem. If you aren’t willing and able to engage in violence at the slightest perceived provocation, then you tend to be victimized. The net result is that someone that jumps a line can end up getting a beat down, or killed. (And, BTW, the gang problem is a result of a century of institutionalized racism, combined with a few decades when CPD was exceptionally effective at jailing gang leaders; instead of just two or three major gangs in Chicago, you have hundreds of small ones, all constantly fighting over tiny patches of turf.)

I’m curious how hard it would be for a typical user to chain VPNs together so that my traffic went sequentially through VPNs. In theory it seems like VPN #1 would know that it was connected to my home and VPN #2, so it couldn’t tell where data was originating. VPN #2 could see the site that was being accessed and VPN #1, but not me.

I have no idea if it actually works this way in practice through.

There is no context that makes this a smart thing to say in Texas when you’re running to be a US Senator. It doesn’t matter how rabidly you oppose 2A rights, you keep your mouth shut and don’t say a goddamn thing.

Off the top of my head, the only one that I’ve watched in recent memory was Fallout.

That’s okay, I’ll ramp up my piracy of Amazon-exclusive shows in 2025 too.

Imagine trying to argue that DUI laws shouldn’t exist because when you have had one beer you’re fine

Eh, except you probably aren’t. Depending on the state, your size, the beer, etc., one may be enough to put you over the legal limit.

The big issue is that there’s no difference at all between a 3D printer that’s used to print cute little toys and useful household gadgets, and one that’s used to print a Glock-style frame. It’s the same printer. So it’s absolutely unreasonable to regulate all 3D printers as though they were firearms, but that’s what some states are pushing to do. The second big issue is that the BATF has had regulations for years about what part constitutes a gun, and what parts are unregulated. Now the ATF is changing the rules, and prosecuting people that relied on prior rulings before doing anything.

The ghost gun thing is particularly ridiculous. You’ve always had the right to make your own firearm, and for decades the BATF has said that if a receiver (or frame, or whatever) is only 80% complete, that it’s legally not a firearm (yet). The reason it’s an issue now is that it’s finally easy enough for a regular person to make their own. Once you start regulating a block of metal–or in the case of New York, a 3D printer–as though it was a firearm, where does it realistically end? If I can pay $20,000 for a Haas 5 axis benchtop CNC mill, then a plan block of aluminum is not a ‘gun’ since I can easily mill it to be such.

Turns out Vance is full of shit. Vance said, “which does [emphasis added] drive up costs”. The quote he provided says, “There is a risk that strong consumer demand for services, increased immigration, and continued labor market tightness could lead to persistently high core services inflation. Given the current low inventory of affordable housing, the inflow of new immigrants to some geographic areas could result in upward pressure on rents, as additional housing supply may take time to materialize.” It’s clear from the wording in the quote that these pressures have not yet resulted in the higher prices, and that it’s a potential factor at some point in the future, rather than a current pressure.

Vance is, at best, being misleading.

O’Rourke is such a fucking moron. What kind of pants-on-head, helmet-wearing, short-bus riding, genetic defect of a village idiot tells people in Texas, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47”? And it’s going to be even worse now, because more and more Democratic-leaning voters own firearms than did in 2019. It’s so goddamn infuriating, because by every possible metric, Cruz is a godawful human and has zero principles.

If Dems dropped gun and magazine restrictions/bans entirely, and never brought it up again, they could peel off significant numbers of single-issue Republicans, just like Republicans could peel off a lot of single-issue Democrats is they entirely dropped abortion/birth control restrictions/bans. (And, in both cases, you’re better off addressing root causes.)

Depends on how the fines work. Check out Finland day-fine system. It’s a bit complicated, but essentially the gov’t knows how much money you make/what kind of wealth you have, and scales fines according to that. So a person that’s in the lowest 10th percentile may only pay a few dollars for a traffic fine, while someone that’s in the 99th percentile for income/wealth can end up with a speeding ticket that costs over €100,000.

But the point of saying that certain things are dealbreakers is that, outside of those, anything is within the realm of possibility.

Do I prefer people with “extreme” body modifications? Sure. Is that a requirement? No.

With food, maybe I prefer Brazilian steakhouses, but the only thing I really dislike is pasta, sandwiches, and deep-fried everything. I’m not going to exclude Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, or Polish food, just because it’s not my favorite kind of restaurant. I’m literally going to be fine with anything that isn’t on my dislike list.