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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Mr. Obama, scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line and frustrating Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table.
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?
You think murder with a knife is as easy as murder with a gun?
If so, why are 7 out of 10 US murders committed with a firearm?
There are an order of magnitude more knives (and bare hands) than there are guns in America, so you'd think that would make them the more likely murder weapon if it was just as easy.
I'd choose option 12), hang out with Mitsuko until she kills me.
At knifepoint!
My grandfather was a ER surgeon for several decades, and loved to talk about the gory details of his job with his grandchildren (this is a large part of why he was officially the Awesomest Granddad Ever). The three main things I took away were:
1. If you are wearing thin clothing and fall off of a motorcycle on a gravel road then you will have a very unpleasant time.
2. Men shouldn't wear wedding rings, because they get caught in the machinery at your industrial job and cause a lot more of your hand to be ripped off than you might expect.
3. Stab wounds are very survivable, but stab wounds in the gut often resulted in the stabee spending a lifetime wearing a colostomy bag.
Grandpa also had a collection of Civil War amputation kits, and two pool tables in the basement.
1%-er!
(So jealous.)
It's not even a moral judgement where we call it a "problem." It's just the basics of the act. Murder with projectile weapons is faster and easier than murder with a proximity weapon. What the hell do you think people *want handguns?!* What the hell is the big rush to have a gun "for self defense" if not to put a distance of remove from you and the attacker?
This isn't hard, and Ray's so locked into being outraged at Bob Costas for daring to be "liberal" on a football telecast that he's incapable of even thinking about the damned problem at hand.
I tried that with a Sam Bowie knife and the handle broke.
An inconvenient truth, apparently.
So he goes over the couch and is on her within 0.6 seconds.
Except that there is a chance that it takes longer, or that he slips or trips. And since she is presumably not nailed to the floor, she can move while he is doing that. Perhaps she can then make a move to get outside or behind a door.
Where with a gun, none of that is available.
The razor-edged boomerang would be a really badass way to commit suicide.
If you take the knife away from the murderer, and replace it with a pillow, or a spoon, or a live salmon, he still might be able to use those things to kill you, but he's going to have to work an awful lot harder at it.
If someone wanted to kill me, I sure wouldn't want to make it any easier for them than absolutely necessary. I'd imagine that most people feel the same way.
That is a bit of a confusing one. Is the hockey mask meant to protect you against possible boomerang blowback? Is it attached to the boomerang? Are you obligated to take the mask, or can you leave it and just take the boomerang? Is it one of those cage goalie masks? Old-school slab of plastic with a strap? A modern-stlye one with Mike Tyson painted on the side? Too ambiguous for me.
No, if someone wanted to kill you I'd want to make it as easy as possible for them!
(I kid! I kid!)
Oh FFS, guns are not super duper death ray blasters. The majority of shooters will miss a human sized target with a handgun at anything much farther away than stabbing distance unless they've actually practiced their shooting. It's hard to shoot accurately with a handgun; especially in an actual confrontation when your emotions are high and adrenaline is surging.
If we're going to posit ridiculous scenarios where an NFL linebacker somehow is unable to catch his girlfriend when they're both standing in the kitchen together, we should consider the far more likely scenario that he flat out misses her with his handgun while she runs away.
So it's your contention that the majority of gun owners don't ever practice? Then why do they need guns in the first place, if they aren't going to do the necessary preparation to use them effectively? Isn't that awfully dangerous, letting untrained people wildly brandish firearms in uncontrolled situations?
There's nothing stopping him from running after her while he shoots. As such, she's still better off with the knife than the gun.
No one said they were. Only that they were more effective murder weapons than knives. Which anyone without their head up their asses would readily admit. It's not even close to a question.
I think that the razor-edged boomerang is such a ridiculous weapon that you only choose it if you're trying to work the "don't #### with me I'm a crazed psychopath" angle. The hockey mask doubles down on that if it's the old school style. You're telling everyone else that they're about to become Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street. It's psychological warfare.
Conversely, if the hockey mask is something like the headgear that John Buck wears then it'd be really useful. The problem with the razor-edged boomerang is that if you score a hit you lose your weapon and have to go retrieve it. In this situation your foe might not be entirely dead and might, in fact, still be actively trying to take you out with the nunchucks or the RPG. In this case a little body armor would be very appreciated. You can go in with head lowered and head butt the razor-edged boomerang deeper into whatever vital organ it has lodged itself in.
As opposed to the ease of stabbing a struggling person with a knife? You assume that those same emotions that make them unable to aim have no effect on any other action.
If we're going to posit ridiculous scenarios where an NFL linebacker somehow is unable to catch his girlfriend when they're both standing in the kitchen together, we should consider the far more likely scenario that he flat out misses her with his handgun while she runs away.
Sure, if you want. I never said he would not catch her, only that it would take longer (and ignoring that his mother was there and may have been able to intervene then). Every additional bit of time is to her benefit. Is that really so hard to understand?
If you have a pissed off NFL linebacker in a room with you, do you prefer they have a gun or a knife?
Most that I know don't practice, no. Certainly not regularly or rigorously.
Who cares? Freedom isn't served by determining what people "need" and forbidding everything they don't.
You're not as stupid as this question.
Have you ever tried chasing somebody while shooting a handgun accurately at them? She'd be MUCH safer if he was doing that as opposed to chasing her with a knife.
Of course guns are superior, but it's because of the quality that doesn't matter in the scenario we've been discussing here; range. When you're a woman standing in the kitchen with an NFL linebacker and he's trying to kill you, it doesn't matter if he's got a knife or a gun. You're screwed either way.
This assumes a lot of things. Has there been any indication of the layout and size of the kitchen, as well as where the were each located, as well as his mother? My own kitchen has a permanent island which would certain complicate your simple scenario even without the mother being there.
Plus, it's a kitchen. Where there are, you know, other knives readily available to be grabbed as a defensive measure. A bit more likely than other guns.
Guys, we're talking about an NFL linebacker here. His entire job is to chase down fast, agile men who are as big and strong as he is, and tackle them. Catching and physically overpowering his girlfriend, who is not a world class athlete, would be child's play for him.
It matters because that freedom has consequences. There are 12,000 firearms deaths annually in the United States. So that cost needs to be weighed against any benefit the possession of firearms brings.
If your man doesn't own a gun, you will be relatively safe from domestic violence.
You certainly, according to Costas, won't die.
You will be relatively safer, to a meaningful degree, according to Sam and Steve. Otherwise, there is no point to their argument. Because if you have a 95% chance of dying or getting seriously hurt with a gun, and a 93% chance of dying or getting seriously hurt without a gun, then there is no bleeping point to the #### they are shoveling.
And yet he shot her. What a dunce.
I'm sure, but I think the argument, vis a vis that vs. a gun is that the action to kill with a gun takes less than a second. No matter how strong you are, humans are slower than guns. In the space you have to approach, fight, overpower, and kill, you will be able to consider WTF you are actually doing longer. He obviously felt like crap enough to go kill himself immediately, and with the time it actually would have taken to kill her there is a real greater possibility he would have felt that sooner and simply might not have finished due to the time involved. It is simply oversell that he's a sledgehammer and she's an ant; humans do really take actual time to kill physically.
...Sam, and Steve is clear: If your man doesn't own a gun, you will be relatively safe from domestic violence.
I don't even have to read back to know you simply made this up.
Try finding and quoting the actual statistics, Ray. Come on, you can do it!
Everything has consequences. But we've already made the cost-benefit analysis in the US regarding private ownership of firearms. Your side was crushed. If you guys want to make another political push for gun control, that'd be awesome. Best gift you could give the hapless GOP.
I am so very, very disappointed.
For him, no doubt. But not every drunken lout who flies into a rage is quite so well equipped as an NFL linebacker. That's the more pertinent point.
I'll put it this way: I've met about 15 or 20 Primates in person, and every last one of them would be far deadlier trying to kill someone with a gun than with a knife. That most definitely includes Mr. 95% - 93% above, though he's such a softie I doubt if he'd ever even try to kill a tax collector.
Yes, he had a gun. But try to keep up here; we're discussing a scenario where he had a knife instead. And the sad truth is that if he wanted her dead, it wouldn't have made any difference whether he had a gun or a knife.
Um, yes it would have. He'd have to try a helluva lot harder to kill her with a knife and there is also a chance that if he was holding a knife instead of a gun it never to that point.
Nah, we'd rather just let y'alls keep wrapping yourselves around the security blanket of a bunch of dying rednecks and one percenters, and leave the demographic targeting to the pros. Your consolation is that you can keep taking their money on Intrade, but that'll be our little secret.
That isn't the truth, that's a supposition you're making. The truth is that he shot her with a gun, and she is dead.
When? A decision was made in the late 18th Century, but I don't know that I would call it a cost-benefit analysis. And if somebody actually did a cost-benefit analysis today, would it necessarily have the same inputs or results as it would for 18th Century society, when the country was far more rural, and firearms were quite different than they are today?
EDIT: If the 2nd Amended were limited to sabers and flintlocks, I don't think it would be as big of an issue today.
Thank you for validating my post 1029.
But you (and Bob Costas) are making a supposition that if he didn't have a gun, she wouldn't have been killed. That's simply wishful thinking. One could equally make the supposition that if he didn't have a gun, he would have used a knife and killed his mother as well in a state of crazed bloodlust. We should be thankful he had a gun instead of a knife, thereby saving lives.
Mmm, no.
You are confusing Family Values groups for people who actually care about family values. To the former, it's not about how much you want to help families, but about how much you hate Democrats, gays, and abortions. By all accounts President Obama is an excellent husband and father, but to the Family Values voters he's worse than Newt, Joe Walsh, and diaper shitter David Vitter. Child molester Nugent is A-OK because he is "repulsed by gay sex".
Being a draft dodger and chickenhawk doesn't matter (see Romney, Newt, Cheney, Bush, Rush, Bolton, etc.) doesn't matter as long as you hunt deer with assault rifles, threaten to kill the Democratic president, and advocate for an atomic bombing of Iraq. Rhetoric matters to these people, nothing else.
#1031 is that far out of whack to you? Asking honestly.
I can't speak for Bob Costas, but that isn't a supposition I'm making. The supposition I'm making is that in the vast majority of circumstances, a gun is a far more lethal weapon than a knife.
One could make the supposition that if he didn't have a gun, he would have used a knife and killed his mother as well in a state of crazed bloodlust. We should be thankful he had a gun instead of a knife, thereby saving lives.
Oh, yes, of course. That. You betcha.
Mmm, mmm-ha.
I'm utterly baffled by your comment here Ray, completely baffled, I assume you are just playing around...
Post # 1051 I get OTOH
I think in a very specific sense this criticism of Costas is accurate. He doesn't know that sans a gun those two people wouldn't be dead. No one does. Murder can and does happen without guns. I think what most people in this thread are saying is that in a large enough sample size more guns = more murders.
Yes. Yours is the only conceivable interpretation of Costas' remarks. It's not possible he meant that having a gun handy makes it a little easier to give in to rage in a way that's irredeemable. It's clear that the only 'adult' interpretation of Costas' remarks is to pretend you have no idea what he means, and to stretch what he said well past the point of absurdity.
Sigh.
There's no point in going any further. You're already your own parody.
The only mistake Costas made was forgetting he lived in a country full of hysterical, juvenile boneheads who can't grasp the need to balance rights to gun ownership against the problems that come with essentially unfettered rights to gun ownership.
This. The idea that the time and effort to kill someone with a knife is no different than the time and effort it takes to kill someone with a knife is not reasonable.
In other words, the rage that provokes the act is neither permanent nor absolute. It could fade before success.
Or you are, Something Other. Costas said what he meant and meant what he said. If he wants to walk his comments back, he's free to do so. I've not seen him do that anywhere, despite people alibi'ing for him here.
He meant that having a gun made it "a little easier" to kill someone? Then (a) there was no point to his comment, because it doesn't move the needle much, and (b) "a little easier" is a far cry from "they would be alive today if he had no gun." He didn't say "You know, there is a small chance that they would be alive today if he had no gun." He said "they would be alive." 'Dead' and 'alive' are two very different states.
Belcher himself probably would be alive today. I doubt he would have successfully knifed himself to death with all those men around to stop and/or treat him.
I really thought it started stupid. It was no better than another post-apocalypse show, Jeremiah, which wasn't particularly good itself.
As I said a few pages ago, I personally give up... I've used guns, I've hunted, I have some family that are self-described gun nuts - if I were some godlike being who could remove the 2nd Amendment, a couple centuries of jurisprudence, and Americans love of guns in a snap without anyone being the wiser, I probably would... but I can't.
Given that the state of the national debate, the fact that gun control is losing argument (in fact, I can even understand and agree with plenty of logic as to why it 'doesn't work') -- I guess I would just ask the NRA folks to offer some solutions to the following issues. These aren't meant as gotchas -- I'm just honestly asking, what can we do about these issues? ... and as aside, please - don't offer up a "if everyone was packing, everywhere, and all the time" -- I don't want to live in a world like that.
1) How do we deal with 'straw buyers'? I understand that banning firearms in Chicago hasn't done a damn thing to keep them out of gangbangers hands... and I'm not looking to go after gun shops -- but come on, I think we all know there are some unscrupulous shop owners who are well aware of their selling to straw buyers. What sorts of laws would be acceptable to NRA folks? Would life sentences for straw buyers be amendable? Some sort of system where chronic sellers to straw buyers are legally whacked big-time? I understand the concerns against extensive registration and licensing -- but help me out here... how do we keep guns from so easily flowing from legal markets to blackmarket/illegal ownership? Can't we all agree that it happens far too much? What's the answer?
2) How do we keep guns out of the hands of 'nuts'? Gun show loopholes and the like -- again, I'm perfectly cognizant of the fears regarding IDs, background checks, etc. But - how do we ensure that people who shouldn't own guns are prevented from owning them? How do we identify such people? How do we stop them from being legal purchasers?
Throw me a bone... help me understand a solution that isn't rooted in wild west fantasy.
That's it entirely.
In 2009 there was something like a 10:9 gun:knife ratio in aggravated assaults (which the FBI defines as assaults with intent to kill or do very serious bodily harm) and something like a 10:2 gun:knife ratio in murders. There is some noise in this -- people generally aren't going to shoot to wound -- but the point is that in general it's far easier to kill someone with a gun than with a knife. We also know that we don't know very much about the specifics of the Belcher situation and can't say for certain what would or would not have happened in any given scenario. Thus:
1. Bob Costas is right in the implied general point that guns make it easier to kill someone than knives do.
2. Bob Costas may or may not have been right in his specific claim about Belcher, and in stating it with certainty he was grandstanding and talking out of his ass.
3. Bob Costas should be kneed in the nuts at least once a week.
These points both seem blindingly obvious. I should say that point #3 has nothing to do with the statements about Belcher and is more of a general truth.
I thought the first 5 episodes were pretty good , suspenseful, and interesting. But now its just fallen back to typical network hour long drama stuff. Everything is so petty and melodramatic now.
And very well said.
I guess one is going for volume, and one gets some kind of fulfilment out of more intimate methods of killing.
Plus serial killers aren't really killing people in a rage or in a fight.
Well, apparently Ray and the chorus have simply chosen to completely ignore the state of mind of a potential killer and assume all murders are exactly the same.
This seems like an appropriate time to bring out that quote you're so fond of... think it goes something along the lines of, "That's the yelp of a beaten cur."
Strange complaint coming from someone who insists "Fast and Furious" is a non-issue. But who cares about a bunch of dead Mexicans, right?
Zodiac.
Shut up, I do SO know! It's to take my mind off my 2-inch penis.
Son of Sam and Bob Costas have something in common
I don't see what this has to do with Gun control.
This is incorrect. Less than half of gunshot victims die, and of the ones who do, nearly 60 percent are suicides. — source
***
Borrowing The Good Face's utilitarian streak for a moment, if we're going to do a cost-benefit analysis of gun ownership, we should also do one for murders killing themselves.
I agree
In countries with very strict and effective gun control laws (such as China) you do have mass murder sprees being carried out by knife/machete, I would also count incidents of deliberately driving a vehicle onto a crowd as amass murder spree, obviously a gun makes a spree/mass killer more effective, but some angry sociopaths who want to kill en masse will find a way irrespective of weaponry at hand.
Really? I may never get a hybrid then. Not that I can afford anything but driving my 1999 Civic till I die. That car will long outlive me.
Son of Sam
there are more
many more
But look at where such shootings have tended to happen. The people killed at the Army base in Texas were unarmed, by policy. Columbine was a no-gun zone. I believe the Virginia Tech campus was a no-gun zone. The movie theater in Aurora banned firearm possession on its property. Those killers were shooting fish in a barrel. They knew their victims were highly unlikely to be armed.
Speaking of whom, we now know he had more than a couple minor scratches after his encounter with Trayvon Martin.
Right, these were areas where 0% of people would have guns instead of gun-friendly areas where the number would be maybe 0.2%. Deterrence!
More accurately, it's a breakdown-of-the-family problem, but that's way too uncomfortable of a topic for people like Bob Costas.
(FYI - my "also" is not meant as an agreement with snapper kehoskie.)
There's no answer as long as the NRA has an effective veto power on all gun legislation. Not that you don't know that already.
2) How do we keep guns out of the hands of 'nuts'? Gun show loopholes and the like -- again, I'm perfectly cognizant of the fears regarding IDs, background checks, etc. But - how do we ensure that people who shouldn't own guns are prevented from owning them? How do we identify such people? How do we stop them from being legal purchasers?
There's no answer as long as the NRA has an effective veto power on all gun legislation. Not that you don't know that already.
--------------------------------------------------
Everything has consequences. But we've already made the cost-benefit analysis in the US regarding private ownership of firearms. Your side was crushed. If you guys want to make another political push for gun control, that'd be awesome. Best gift you could give the hapless GOP.
Nah, we'd rather just let y'alls keep wrapping yourselves around the security blanket of a bunch of dying rednecks and one percenters, and leave the demographic targeting to the pros. Your consolation is that you can keep taking their money on Intrade, but that'll be our little secret.
This seems like an appropriate time to bring out that quote you're so fond of... think it goes something along the lines of, "That's the yelp of a beaten cur."
No question who's the beaten cur in what passes for gun debates, but in terms of issues I care about, it's always been way down my list. And as long as the IRS has more guns than you do and can squeeze enough money out of you every year, I can live with whatever private arsenal you choose to keep.
More accurately, it's a breakdown-of-the-family problem,
More accurately, it's both. More family stability = fewer violent deaths, and fewer guns = few violent deaths. Combine the two, and the violent death rate plummets.
but that's way too uncomfortable of a topic for people like Bob Costas.
Yeah, I can just imagine what sort of reception he'd get if he started in on yet another non-sports topic.
Steven Pinker's excellent book persuasively argues that life is significantly less vicious and violent today than ever before, and that this is among the very greatest achievements of human progress.
And stab wounds are serious, serious business.
Certainly one of the leading causes of death in Return to Ravnica limited.
The US and every other (functional) country have always limited arms to some extend, the agrument is and always have been over where the line is between protection and being more of the threat to others than being protected. I don't think anyone can make a sane arguement that I should be allowed to mount a .50 caliber machine gun on my Jeep... for self protection.
yeah, truely commited nuts are going to find ways to kill you no matter what, but the majority of murders aren't commited by truely commited nuts, they're commited by people in a fit of rage, and in a fit of rage, it's hard to argue that pulling out a pistol is the same thing as punching someone.
As someone just said,
Joe (you must be Kehoskie's sock puppet--they're can't be two of you), did this other poster make you cry and take your lunch money? Couldn't have been hard to do.
"My name's Joe Ray, and in order to be a contentious assh*le and because I have no ideas to propose, I'm going to pretend that in a fight there's no difference between having a gun, and having a knife."
Good call. In the case of Buffalo I suspect concentration has a lot to do with it. There were half-hearted efforts to get bars and restaurants to locate in downtown, but part of what killed that was the pitiful decision to locate Buffalo's shiny new campus for 15,000 students on farmland half an hour from the city center rather than downtown. THAT would have provided the necessary density. It was a lost opportunity, one that could have completely revitalized a collapsing city center. Imagine 15,000 students with the associated classrooms, dormitories, and support services injected into a dead city instead of into an empty exurb.
You have NO idea.
So, we're supposed to trust the actions of 'all emerging countries' as being sensible and right, but the EU and the US are clueless? Hm.
I just wanted to see this again, zonk. It's too good.
I have friends who say this, but they never tell me why. You're a serious person. What is innate to our system that simply ending the cap on SS, and putting a lifetime cap on Medicare and Medicaid expenditures per person (not that this is the best move, but it's quick and effective) wouldn't essentially solve? Do you think there's simply no political will, or is it that the system is so geflunkte that nothing can save it?
You left out, 'and DOES kill his daughter, Penny'. Leave out everything else and that fact alone would get Merle his terrorist designation. Great actor, and you're right, he plays crazy as well as anyone, with restraint and humor. It would make some sense for the show to send Merle off into the wilderness, to return with a rocket launcher strapped to his stump some time in Season 5.
I do think the character needs to be killed off, though. He's a good character, but not a deep one; there's not much of an arc for his character to take; it won't be possible for the group to take him in, or not destroy the Governor, which leaves Merle a man without a country. Better to use him narratively to show Daryl cleaving finally to the group by, say, killing Merle in a loyalty showdown. The aftermath of something like that would deepen Daryl's character substantially, and it seems like he's going to remain a significant figure on the show.
Not with the death of his daughter as the direct result of Merle's actions and lies. I just can't see it.
Am I the only one who enjoyed the first hour or so of Hancock? C'mon--drunk, badly behaved superhero who gets straightened out with the help of Jason Bateman, and with Charlize Theron in a supporting role? Not as good as it could have been, but still pretty good.
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