Weird News

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by BigV

It's a bullshit bumper sticker

We're an armed society. How does that translate to politeness here? A polite society is a polite society. An armed society is a dangerous society.

Laddie, that is the whole point. Was Robert A. Heinlein some kind of retard?

You will not understand the truth of this until you carry a gun. Even if just onto a firing range to become skillful at keeping your shots inside the ten-ring. That's the middle of the big round black spot. I meantersay, it's remarkable how benevolent and courteous you become throughout your time on the firing line.

Allow me to posit that our society does not have enough gun violence -- not properly directed, against the evildoers. Not yet.

[Luce]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Was Robert A. Heinlein some kind of retard?

Naw, just juvenile and a terrible writer. Seriously. Farnham's Freehold was an assault on the very idea of writing.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Luce

Naw, just juvenile and a terrible writer. Seriously. Farnham's Freehold was an assault on the very idea of writing.

Sorry, kid, it's none of those... there is, after all, Time Enough For Love. His writing did not have the occasional leaps into poetic sensibility that Roger Zelazny had, but then who else did? Heinlein's prose was instead transparent -- its style does not get in the way of its story, and that's an accomplishment. RAH's particular distinguishing mark was his making of radically curious, even outrageous, societies and constructing tales springing out of these -- FF no less than his others.

RAH has an imitator in David Drake and another in David Weber. Operas, that is. I say of the Weber 'Verse that they have *extremely* cheap interstellar flight to make the plots/societies derived from, erm, the more dysfunctional sorts of earthly societies even work. But that's for some other post, some other day.

For bad, yet published, writing, you go to Pel Torro (a pseudonym, but you can Wiki this hack) for the abysmal worst -- or Piers Anthony when he was just trying to pay the mortgage. Not quite as abyssal, but his stuff is too thin for adult readers, leading to unflattering speculation as to Piers' general mentality. Even he was a step up from L. Ron Hubbard, who is unreadable.

It may be friendly advice to say there are at least a couple even awfuller writers out there, one fraudulent but sane, just nontalented, and one who is probably not quite sane and even worse a writer -- Edward Chu-Teh Eng, perpetrator of Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate. You can find this one sporked and on YouTube, if you are a) daring, b) insensitive if not insensate, and c) have a strong stomach. No, it's not present enough to be gory, nor is it nasty in the de Sade manner -- but you may irritably want those hours or minutes of your life back.

[Luce]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

RAH has an imitator in David Drake and another in David Weber.

The hell you say, Junior. Being in the same genre doesn't make you an imitator. Weber, Drake, and Pournelle did fine with their own individual styles. None of them, for example, took a few pages aside to tell you why women aren't actually people, black folks can't be trusted, or made up annoying ass, unnecessary words ("grok").

Heinlein was a hack.

[fargon]

People around here are very polite, and armed.

[Gravdigr]

Ouch.

[Gravdigr]

Oh I'm all for carrying. Concealed or otherwise. But have the permit to carry concealed. Flag that fact when the license plate is run "This individual is on the list of ppl carrying concealed. Be warned."

And, I ain't stopping to help nobody. If I'm concerned enough, which I usually ain't, I'll go down the road and call 911 for them. That's as involved as I get, pretty much. Of course there are situations where I would get involved.

But, generally, I ain't getting involved cuz now urrbody got a gat in they belt. Those ppl in distress you mentioned, they got guns, too, now. Everybody wants to kill you. You now have to live that way.

[Gravdigr]

Cops will start frisking everybody they stop. I believe that's how this made it to law.

Car/person searches will go through the roof, mark my words.

[slang]

I wonder how the other states that don't require a permit handle this? And what their numbers are?

I've never had problems in any regard. Even after law enforcement arrives. Or if they aren't even dispatched.

That could change in a second though.

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

...Those ppl in distress you mentioned, they got guns, too, now. Everybody wants to kill you. You now have to live that way.

We live in different worlds I guess.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by slang

I wonder how the other states that don't require a permit handle this? And what their numbers are?

I've never had problems in any regard. Even after law enforcement arrives. Or if they aren't even dispatched.

That could change in a second though.



We live in different worlds I guess.

The world you both dwell in includes permitless Vermont. You know -- totally famous for those mass massacres over syrup rustling 'n' shit. Yeah.

One of you is ignoring the observable phenomena.

Besides Vermont, and with the proviso that some of these several States apply a condition or two, there are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, both Dakotas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wyoming.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Conditions like you can't be nuts or a criminal?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Conditions like you can't be nuts or a criminal?

Or even, in effect "Thou shalt not carry in aid of a crime." That's pretty much Vermont's.

[BigV]

I stop and help strangers.

I don't carry a gun.

I'm not afraid.

When I am afraid, I don't stop. I use my judgement. I like the idea of having more tools in my toolkit, but I don't want a gun. In my opinion, the risk of a bad outcome is a lot higher than the chance of a good outcome, so, no gun.

As for the second amendment, I believe in and support our Constitution. I also think that there are sensible rules that can be applied to gun ownership that are not being applied. Rules that sensible, reasonable people can agree to that would have the net effect of making everyone safer.

The rule highlighted by Grav will not, in my opinion, make everyone safer.

[Gravdigr]

My viewpoint comes from an incident that happened a few years ago in the next town over.

Well known local guy stopped to help a couple with their hood up on the side of the road. It was an ambush robbery. When the good guy got out to help, the man pulled out a knife and started stabbing, the woman grabbed the man around his legs so he couldn't get away from the bad guy. They took his wallet out of his pants while he lay in the road bleeding to death. This happened on a main street of the town, a state highway.

The killers put their hood down and drove away and were never caught.

It had been ~20 years since the last outright murder in that town.

It's situations like that that keep my head on a swivel, and Sturm, Ruger & Company close at hand.

[Gravdigr]

That guy wasn't afraid, and he didn't carry a gun.

I guarantee he died terrified. And if he died unafraid, he still died.

People are rotten.