Hairy Caul wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:45 pm

Krev wrote: Tue Jun 07, 2022 10:21 am I'd move to Ireland in a heartbeat, but they won't take us.

I've been pouring as much as I can from my salary into Irish investments so I can attempt to get a residency visa; I imagine I'll have the required investment amount and net worth by about the time I'm 150 years old.

It would probably be easier to pose as Shane MacGowan and just head on in.

Krev wrote:

Hairy Caul wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:45 pm

Krev wrote: Tue Jun 07, 2022 10:21 am I'd move to Ireland in a heartbeat, but they won't take us.

I've been pouring as much as I can from my salary into Irish investments so I can attempt to get a residency visa; I imagine I'll have the required investment amount and net worth by about the time I'm 150 years old.

It would probably be easier to pose as Shane MacGowan and just head on in.

I've spent way too much time looking at this lately even though I know there's nearly no chance of me actually doing it. Some of the Caribbean islands on this list look attractive. https://www.moneycrashers.com/countries ... tizenship/

Portuguese golden visa looks more attractive all the time.

About 15 years ago my sister and her family moved from Chicagoland (where we grew up) to Atlanta. Shortly afterward she told me on the phone that she had taken one of her kids to a classmate's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese where she noticed one of the other parents toting a gun. She was quite shaken. "Why the hell would anyone bring a gun to a ten-year-old's birthday party?" I said because you never know when a man is going to have to defend hisself and his family at the Chuck E. Cheese.

I reminded her I live in Arizona where it's normal to see dudes packing at Circle K or Wal-Mart.

Crap.

tonyballzee wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 9:10 am "Why the hell would anyone bring a gun to a ten-year-old's birthday party?" I said because you never know when a man is going to have to defend hisself and his family at the Chuck E. Cheese.

I reminded her I live in Arizona where it's normal to see dudes packing at Circle K or Wal-Mart.

Crap.

I wonder how often any of these people have deployed their toys for self-defense. I'm 40 now, and have lived in so called 'dangerous' cities my whole life, and I have never met anyone who has ever defended themselves with a gun. I am not saying that it is impossible - I don't recall even seeing an instance of 'gun owner saves the day' on the news. It strikes me as this bizarre John Wayne fantasy that these types stroke themselves to.

My other favorite argument is resistance to tyranny. As if a few camo clad AR-15 enthusiasts are somehow gonna stop Uncle Sam from flying a drone over their house. Its lunacy.

BeyondThePale wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:02 pm

tonyballzee wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 9:10 am "Why the hell would anyone bring a gun to a ten-year-old's birthday party?" I said because you never know when a man is going to have to defend hisself and his family at the Chuck E. Cheese.

I reminded her I live in Arizona where it's normal to see dudes packing at Circle K or Wal-Mart.

Crap.

I wonder how often any of these people have deployed their toys for self-defense. I'm 40 now, and have lived in so called 'dangerous' cities my whole life, and I have never met anyone who has ever defended themselves with a gun. I am not saying that it is impossible - I don't recall even seeing an instance of 'gun owner saves the day' on the news. It strikes me as this bizarre John Wayne fantasy that these types stroke themselves to.

My other favorite argument is resistance to tyranny. As if a few camo clad AR-15 enthusiasts are somehow gonna stop Uncle Sam from flying a drone over their house. Its lunacy.

It’s the gorilla in the room. They pretend they’re carrying because an unruly armed public makes everyone safer. The truth is, they’re having fantasies of offing a person of color who’s in the process of committing a minor property crime.

I grew up with a gun rack in my room; not in my house mind you, but in my bedroom. My childhood bedroom was my dad's office before I was born and he kept his gun rack hanging there, and he kept it up there after I was born, it had wood-grain walls and the gun rack looked good there he thought. He kept trigger locks on all 5 of them and kept the ammunition in a completely different part of the house, because gun safety is important and he was responsible. He was an avid hunter and I was too, at one point in my life. What I'm saying is guns were a normal part of my childhood, were not a subject of fascination to me, and from a young age was taught that they were a tool not to be trifled with, and from a young age I knew the basics of gun safety and learned to shoot when I was in elementary school. a number of the situation that sometimes end up with a horrible accident where a friend asked if I wanted to see his dad's gun were avoided because I didn't need to see his dad's gun, because I saw my own dad's guns all the time and I had no reason to see another fucking gun. I don't need to see your dad's hammers or deep fryers or oil change setup either, buddy, I enjoy shooting guns, or at least enjoyed it; I got good aim and it's fun to hit a target or knock a can off a fencepost or what have you.

A number of mass shootings back, I basically swore off guns entirely, besides the occasional shooting of cans with a bb-gun around a campfire in the northwoods. I couldn't shoot a firearm without thinking of a kid dying, and that was that. I'm still sticking to that, but I'm also wondering with the fact that there is a mounting fascist threat in our country, and the entire law enforcement community is entirely on their sides, if it would be wise for the left-leaning folks of this country to be armed for community defense purposes. With one side of the country not wanting guns and sanely thinking there should at least be strong gun control laws, and the other side of the country fucking armed to the teeth and willing to main and kill to get their twisted point of view established as law, and the vast majority of cops are literally on their side and won't lift a finger to help young children, much less adults who disagree with them, maybe this is a good idea. Perhaps I'm too paranoid and fearing of doom, and there are a whole host of legal and logistical issues to the concept of community defense, and the only gun I own is hundreds of miles from me in a cabin in northern michigan that hasn't been fired in at least a decade, but as the phrase goes, political power flows from the barrel of a gun, the guns aren't going away, and one side has almost all of them.

tl:dr, I vote crap on guns, waffles for we might actually need them to actually protect ourselves in the not-so-distant future.

Curry Pervert wrote: Mon Jun 06, 2022 12:54 pm You just need a couple of sacrificial lambs to shoot up a few NRA rallies, maybe take out a couple of Smith & Wesson executives, problem solved.

Problem there is that they don't allow you to carry a gun into an NRA rally. Or at least the most recent one following the Uvalde shooting. I know it's pointless to mention the unrelenting hypocrisy of the right wing, but, god damn.

Jimbo wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 8:59 pm Problem there is that they don't allow you to carry a gun into an NRA rally. Or at least the most recent one following the Uvalde shooting. I know it's pointless to mention the unrelenting hypocrisy of the right wing, but, god damn.

Yeah I was figuring you'd have to shoot your way in too.

NPR reported earlier today on a bill likely to pass the senate that would at least make it harder for kids 18-21 to get a gun as easily as they can today.

It feels like pissing to fill up the Grand Canyon, but it’s better than nothing.

It should be hard and unique to qualify to become a gun owner. Standardized federal testing for all owners, annually.

The real struggle is going to be eliminating the guns people already have (“cold dead hands”, anyone?) and the sale of gun parts to build your own.