Lurker > darkknight109

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete Some of the bromides are stupidly difficult to get. Like there's absolutely no way you're finding them all without a guide. Also some of the dungeon music gets repetitive fast.

Phantasy Star Online Episodes I and II: Not nearly enough variation in the dungeons, I would love a way to move faster (especially through already cleared rooms), and it takes way, way too long to hit the level cap.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Umm... I guess the final area (Stone Tower Temple) doesn't really have as much to do and isn't as interesting as the other three areas. That's about it, though... that game is damn near perfect.

Chrono Trigger ......I got nothing. I guess if I had to pick on something, the original translation was a bit wonky in some parts and suffered under the NoA censorship requirements of the day (like Toma's "Soda"), but that was pretty much all fixed in the DS remake.

Phoenix Wright (the first trilogy): The games occasionally get annoyingly hand-holdy. Don't present me with a logical puzzle then have my assistant flat-out tell me the solution before I've even had a chance to try it myself.

Fantasy Zone: Dying robs you of all your upgrades, which can be crippling in the later levels. Honestly if you die at the boss in the last two or three stages, you may as well reset your game, because you're screwed at that point.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: Too easy and the level cap is too low.

TIE Fighter: Needed more fights against the rebels. In a game where you play as the Empire, it's unacceptable that you spend (far) more time fighting against other Imperial ships than rebel ones.

Super Smash Bros. series: I really do have nothing for this one. Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing with these games.

Trails of Cold Steel: Leans on anime tropes a little too hard and I'd have liked to have had more choice in party composition the way the sequel allows.

Banjo Kazooie: Dying resets your note collection from a level, meaning you have to get all 100 notes without dying which, in some of the later levels, is super-annoying (looking at you, Rusty Bucket Bay).

Legend of the Mystical Ninja: At two points in the game it makes you shell out close to 1000 in-game gold (which is a lot) to proceed, for no particularly good reason. Those parts just needlessly slow down the game.

Super Metroid: ....once again, I have nothing. This game is perfect.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

SCLOUD

New User
User Since: Feb 2018
Karma: 8

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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

shipwreckers posted...

Companies will blame everything EXCEPT themselves for low sales. That's why the "vote with your wallet" concept is so absurd. Even if literally everyone boycotted a game (as in, zero sales, not even one), there's still no guarantee that the company will actually learn the NATURE of their error, much less correct it.

If you want to make a dent, then you (and thousands upon thousands of others) have to be vocal, just like when EA got reddit bombed over Battlefront II. Burying a product in a sea of negative reviews is a good start.

But here's the thing - companies don't care (much) about negative press, they care about sales. Think of all the shit EA and Activision have taken over scummy microtransactions... then you learn that they made $787 million and $4 billion respectively off of those same transactions. With that in mind, do you think they are less likely to put microtransactions in future games or more?

If you want a product to improve, you have to do both. You have to "vote with your wallet", but you also have to be very vocal about why you are boycotting and try and draw the company's attention to it. If they see lots of complaining and lots of sales, they won't bother fixing anything because there's no impetus to do so. The only reason why negative publicity works as an incentive to fix something is because it usually leads to poor sales; if that isn't the case, negative publicity is just meaningless noise that companies are free to ignore (especially in an industry - like gaming - that is notorious for its negativity and where a small number of people can make a disproportionate amount of noise regarding things they don't like).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Look, guns are not magic forcefields that stop all theoretical attempts on your life, however I have never been in a violent confrontation where possession of a gun wouldn't stop it sharpish.

Practically speaking, a gun will keep you safe as long as you don't dick about with it, much like how a knife will help you prepare your dinner as long as you don't use it on yourself.

If guns were effective self-defence tools, logic dictates that the US - with more guns than people and significantly more guns than any of its contemporaries - would have relatively low violent crime rates. Instead, the US has a sky-high murder rate, and is average-to-high on other forms of violent crime.

The numbers don't lie - at best, guns are ineffective and at worst they fuel more crime than they prevent.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

darkknight109 posted...

OhhhJa posted...

People don't use guns every day like cars.

I use my car roughly twice a month.

I still have to have it registered and insured the same as everyone else.

Good for you. You aren't most people. By and large, cars are used waaaaaaaaayyyy more than guns every day

OK... so why did you say that cars kill way more people than guns?

I mean, if cars are used more than guns then that makes sense. It's sort of like saying "guns kill more people every day in America than tanks" - technically true, but it also is useless in supporting an argument.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

People don't use guns every day like cars.

I use my car roughly twice a month.

I still have to have it registered and insured the same as everyone else.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

The funny thing about the car analogy is that far more people die every day due to idiot drivers than guns

From the other topic:

darkknight109 posted...

I mean, let's look at another tool that has been responsible for a great deal of death and mayhem: the car. Just like guns, it has completely defensible uses. Just like guns, millions of law-abiding owners use them daily. And just like guns, they can be used - intentionally or otherwise - to seriously injure or kill innocent bystanders.

So when cars started becoming widespread around the turn of the 20th century and people suddenly noticed that a lot of people were dying to them, we fucking changed things.

Laws around cars were tightened up considerably. To this day every car on the road has to be registered with the government and insured. Stupid shit that was clearly killing people, like driving while drunk, was outlawed. Safety features, like crumple zones, seat belts, and airbags, were developed and eventually legally mandated on all new cars. And in order to even operate a car in the first place, a potential driver must be of a minimum age and must pass a series of examinations in order to prove that they can safely operate the vehicle; and if they later prove that they can no longer be trusted with that responsibility, their right to operate the vehicle is restricted or removed altogether.

End result? Car deaths peaked in 1970 and have been dropping ever since, despite the fact that there are more vehicles now than ever. Deaths per vehicle-miles-travelled have been dropping almost unabated since the 1920s when the first of these regulations were implemented.

Guns, on the other hand, have been merrily sailing in the other direction with predictable results. Safety features - like limiting magazine size - are vigorously fought by the NRA, while what flimsy regulations exist have been steadily stripped away since the 70s. Make the suggestion about creating a national gun registry and watch as gun advocates recoil in horror. What few protections exist on who can own and purchase a gun have next to no enforcement and are easily circumvented and, in many areas, no proof-of-training or background checks are required and the only thing needed to buy a gun is proof of age and sufficient cash. End result? Gun deaths have remained steadily high and virtually unaltered in the last 20 years, despite the fact that the rate of gun ownership has dropped by nearly a quarter over the same time period.

If you truly believe guns are tools, treat them that way. It won't fully solve the problem, but it would certainly help.

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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Hmm.

I just timed myself and I can tap my fingers 40 times in five seconds without too much effort, so that equates to $4.80 a minute or $288 an hour, though I don't think I could keep up that full pace for an hour straight, let alone an eight hour shift. $36 an hour for just holding it down (plainly the better option from a quality of life perspective) would be a pay cut for me, although considering that you could just sit or lean on the button and play video games all day there is an upside there.

Eh. I'd probably pass. I'm happy with what I do currently and I make more money that way.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Scloud
New User
User Since: Feb 2018
Karma: 7

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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Rasmoh posted...

They're not unless you don't train yourself to use them. (...) Guns, at worst, put you on equal ground with an attacker.

No, guns at worst can be taken from you and used against you, which is worse than useless and has a very high chance of leaving you dead.

No, if you're hoping to use a gun for self-defence, you're likely going to be disappointed because the nature of guns does not lend themselves to self defence. First off, they have to be drawn from wherever they're being carried and if that's in a concealed holster or a purse somewhere, you may as well give up at that point because you're never going to have time to draw it in an actual confrontation. If it's in an external holster you might have a chance... but you have to draw the weapon, get the safety off, aim, and fire all before your attacker reaches you. Cops - who have had more training with their weapons than Joe Average - ran experiments on this and determined that if the attacker was closer than 20 feet, they would be able to reach the cop before the cop could fire his weapon. How many muggings or rapes do you know of that occur at 20 feet? Most of the time you won't know your attacker is even there until it is far too late - they will be able to reach you long before you can reach your gun (and if they are armed as well, because, after all, guns are pretty easy to get in the good ol' US of A, you're fucked right and proper because they have the advantage of knowing when the confrontation is going to occur [and that it will occur at all] and prepping accordingly).

And that's all in ideal conditions without accounting for the reality that you are going to be amped out of your mind on adrenaline. Gun preparation and use requires fine motor skills, which is the very first thing your body's fight-or-flight response shuts down. Best of luck hitting anything when your hands are shaking from the adrenaline rush, if you've even managed to get the safety off before you've been punched in the face.

On the other hand, all that adrenaline means you'll be able to run faster and farther than you ever have in your life, so it's superb for running away. Speaking of which...

Rasmoh posted...

That's really not a better option than shooting a criminal. How high do you have to be to think it is?

I believe you mean "how experienced". I've been in martial arts for 25 years. I've trained with (and trained) cops and run numerous self-defence courses over the years. The very first thing I tell everyone when talking about civilian self defence is to a) Avoid the situation if at all possible and b) If that's not possible, run your ass off. You fight only if you cannot run, and only until an opportunity to run appears, because odds are very good that your opponent will be a better fighter and more accustomed to violence than you and the odds you will win a physical confrontation, regardless of what tools you bring to the fight, are slim-to-none.

Running doesn't require accuracy or fine motor skills. It's what your body already is trying to do, so said body is giving you some excellent tools to do it. It draws attention, which perps don't want, and can therefore get you help (make lots of noise while running to maximize this effect). At best, your attacker decides you're too much of a hassle and lets you go, in which case you survived (mission accomplished!). At worst, he gives chase and is faster than you, in which case you're no worse off than when you started.

Take a self-defence course if you don't believe me - any instructor worth their salt will tell you to run at the earliest opportunity.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Rasmoh posted...

Anything and everything can be misused for the wrong reason. Restricting one's fundamental right to defend themselves is moronic and twisted, especially when you consider guns are often the only option with an efficacy for some people.

By this logic, why not legalize missile launchers? Or civilian ownership of artillery? Or tanks? Or fighter jets? Literally every one of those things is completely safe if used responsibly and would deter crime in the exact same way as guns.

What's "moronic and twisted" is the US's insistence on allowing its citizens to own battlefield weaponry under some vague pretense of "self-defence", despite clear evidence that it's equipping criminals and resulting in wholesale butchery.

Rasmoh posted...

This is a horseshit statement and you know it. Guns deter millions of crimes every year, but that deterrence can't be packaged up into a neat little misleading statistic so you sit there and pretend that they don't.

"Millions of crimes"? Fuck me, your country must be an absolute hellhole if there are millions more crimes out there that are only held back by a wild proliferation of guns, on top of the ~1.2 million violent crimes and ~8.0 million property crimes.

The US already has far and away the highest murder rate in the world (roughly triple its nearest first-world peer) and pretty average-to-high rates of all other violent crime compared to other developed nations; if those numbers represent a downward "adjusted" total compared to what it would be without guns, you guys have seriously fucked up in looking after your country.

Rasmoh posted...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1461346/Five-years-in-prison-for-acting-in-self-defence.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9516776/Farm-tenant-arrested-after-burglars-shot-was-plagued-by-break-ins.html

Literally the first two google search options.

1. "Moreover," Mr Potter continues, "while self-defence is a complete defence to a charge of murder, the Court of Appeal has ruled that if the force you use is not judged to have been reasonable - if a jury, that is, decides it was disproportionate - then you are guilty of murder"

2. The case will reignite the debate over a householders right to defend his property

Literally text from both articles.

The first one flat-out states that self defence is legal; the jury simply decided that the force that the accused used was disproportionate to the threat against him, and there are laws on the books everywhere that make disproportionate retribution illegal (including the United States). He wasn't charged for defending himself, he was charged for using too much force in that defence.

The second one was a case of defending property, not self-defence as I stated. I understand that you think your TV is worth more than a human life, and I know there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise so I won't bother trying, but many countries have "requirement to disengage" laws that stipulate that if you have an opportunity to disengage and run you are required to do so (basically, once the immediate threat to your safety ends, your right to self-defence similarly disappears). That may sound strange to you, but rest assured your "Stand Your Ground" laws sound similarly barbaric to us, so you're going to have to chalk that one up to difference of opinion.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

ArvTheGreat posted...

wait till a canadian hockey team loses a stanley cup then we'll see how well behaved canadians are

That's just Vancouver. And Montreal, I suppose, if they'd ever been to the cup final in the last 25 years...

Three other Canadian teams made the finals and lost in the last 15 years and they were all pretty chill about it.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Rasmoh posted...

Why does the concept of people being self-reliant scare you so much? Why does the thought of someone not leaving their lives in the hands of slow-acting government officials who have no legal obligation to protect them bother you so much?

Come on, Rasmoh, I've argued with you before and I know you're not this dumb.

The issue is not people using guns to defend themselves. No one is holding marches saying "Down with people lawfully owning guns and using them in a means within the law to defend themselves and their property!". If guns were only used in defence of the innocent, I suspect that everyone, or nearly everyone, would support them.

The point is that guns frequently AREN'T used for lawful purposes. In fact, guns are used far, far more often for criminal means than for self-defence. That's the problem. The cost of having guns available as a tool of self defence does not justify what limited benefit they provide.

Rasmoh posted...

In fact, many of them face legal punishments for defending themselves or their property, which is so absurd that it's hard to believe it actually happened.

I don't know of anywhere where defending yourself is illegal and I'd love to see your source on this proving it isn't just ignorant scaremongering.

Rasmoh posted...

Tasers are extremely unreliable.

So are guns, really. Honestly, they're a terrible tool for self defence for several different reasons. Your wife is more likely to survive by running away than she is by pulling a gun.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

My fundamental disagreement with the death penalty comes from the fact that the error rate is too high (meaning it's more than zero).

Police officers have a higher wrongful death rate, why is that accepted but not wrongful death penalty, which is more humane?

It isn't.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Krazy_Kirby posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Krazy_Kirby posted...

there have been interviews with people on death row who believe that there would be more murder w/o the death penalty

Yeah, I mean, it clearly deterred them or else they would... oh, wait, no it didn't.

Since you apparently missed it, the guys who clearly weren't deterred by capital punishment aren't really that convincing of a source when saying that capital punishment is a good deterrent.

But sure, let's take their word for it. I mean, the US executes a greater proportion of its citizens than any other developed nation (and is #16 globally in that category) and is one of just four that practices capital punishment at all and it also has far and away the highest murder rate in the developed world (4.88 per 100k, which is more than triple most of its peers), so obviously you guys know what you're doing, right?
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Scloud posted...

Like the only reason USA haven't dared attack it is now they actually have nukes.

This is not at all the only reason. Or even the main reason.

War in Korea would be an absolute bloodbath and a disaster on a scale the world hasn't seen since WW2.

PyroBlade1985 posted...

The only way North Korea would become democratic is someone or something obliterates the Jong-un bloodline.

The *Kim bloodline.

As in many Asian countries, surname comes first in North Korea. Jong-Un is his given name (hence why his father was Kim Jong-Il and his grandfather was Kim Il-Sung).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

bulbinking posted...

Death penalty exist because resources dont grow on trees and why should any be expended on an individual with no help of behaving in nondestructive ways?

Thats my justification.

Its not for revenge, its not to deter crime. Its literally just throwing away the trash so the rest of us dont have to deal with the smell until it decomposes on its own.

Its social sanitation.

See, this is a reasonable viewpoint. It's not one I agree with, but it's reasonable - it actually follows facts, so thank you for that.

My fundamental disagreement with the death penalty comes from the fact that the error rate is too high (meaning it's more than zero). And you can't just say, "Well, what about cases like this one, where we're super duper sure and it's totally obvious who did it", because that never seems to cover all the eventualities.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Krazy_Kirby posted...

there have been interviews with people on death row who believe that there would be more murder w/o the death penalty

Yeah, I mean, it clearly deterred them or else they would... oh, wait, no it didn't.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

No, because I don't support the death penalty period.

Dude should be in prison for the rest of his life, though.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Cacciato posted...

darkknight109 posted...

helIy posted...

not really.

you could look at DC, too.

you can have stricter regulations all you want, but it still won't stop illegal sales, or theft.

Seems to work fine in other countries.

It's almost like the issue isn't with Chicago or DC, but the fact that they share national borders with areas where it is significantly easier to acquire weaponry.

Im also gonna guess that the countries where those laws work dont have more firearms than citizens.

By default you're correct, because no country in the world has more firearms than citizens except for the United States (next runner up is Serbia, which has 58 guns per 100 people, a little over half the US rate of 101 guns per 100 people). Which is a pretty sad commentary in and of itself and, if we're being honest, a symptom of the problem.

helIy posted...

and yet shit still happens in other countries

Nirvana fallacy. Gosh, you're just full of these today, aren't you helly?

Yes, shit still happens in other countries and no matter what is done, whether gun laws are tightened, loosened, or guns are banned altogether, shit will continue to happen in the US as well. You will never eliminate gun crime or completely negate the possibility of a mass shooting.

But that's not the point. The point is to reduce crime and violence as much as reasonably possible and by virtually any metric America lags far, far beyond its peers. You are more than seven times as likely to be killed in the United states than elsewhere (and more than 25x as likely to be killed via firearm). The US has a problem and the more people choose to bury their heads in the sand regarding fixing it, the more kids are going to wind up dead in these sorts of shooting incidents.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

So, they're not actually "removing" cheeseburgers and chocolate milk, they're just taking them off the Happy Meal menu. They did that with pop a few years ago, apparently. You're still allowed to get a Happy Meal with a cheeseburger and/or chocolate milk (and from what I could discern from the news, it won't cost any different), you just have to order it specially.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

helIy posted...

not really.

you could look at DC, too.

you can have stricter regulations all you want, but it still won't stop illegal sales, or theft.

Seems to work fine in other countries.

It's almost like the issue isn't with Chicago or DC, but the fact that they share national borders with areas where it is significantly easier to acquire weaponry.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

helIy posted...

you really only need to look at Chicago to see how that would pay off

And this, children, is called "cherry-picking".
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

SinisterSlay posted...

Bullet proof walls, doors and windows?

Wouldn't have helped much. This kid pulled the fire alarm, then started mowing people down as they came out into the halls. That's how quickly you can circumvent protections like that.

Smarkil posted...

You don't need to pass an exam to buy a gun.

No, but you need to pass one to open carry.

Smarkil posted...

Private sales are definitely not treat the same as sales from a store. Sales from a store require the Swiss equivalent of a background check while private sales only require notification of transfer of ownership be sent to one of their local political offices.

Which was what I was referring to, although I can see how that wasn't clear.

Smarkil posted...

Furthermore, not all guns are required to be held to that standard.

The exceptions are things like single-shot weapons or sport rifles that don't exactly have the potential for mass-murder of an AR-15.

Smarkil posted...

Are you telling me the difference between a mass shooting every other week and not a mass shooting is registering guns?

No, obviously it's a lot more complex than that. You'll note that several times in my posts on this subject I said that it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would help, and I stand by that.

Honestly, if you want to stop or significantly curb shooting deaths, including mass shootings, it's going to require a lot more strident action than that, and a significant change in American cultural attitude towards guns (which may slowly be happening if the decreasing number of gun owners is any indication). It's going to require some laws and regulations that have long been declared un-American and anathema by the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby.

And it will also never happen, at least not in the foreseeable future. I look at Newtown as the day America proved it is incapable of responsible, reasonable action to address the pandemic of gun violence that it and it alone among first world nations suffers under. If the wholesale slaughter of 20 elementary school students isn't enough to spur America - and Americans - to action, then I don't think anything will.

So the butchery continues. And we all gasp in horror as the latest school shooting crosses the headline and a parent with tears streaming down her face begs the president to do something... and the moment passes and we all move on until the next one a few weeks later. Repeat ad infinitum.

Now I'm not making the argument that gun restriction is inherently bad, I'm just making the argument that it may not help.

And yet, it has done just that in almost every developed nation that has imposed restrictions in the wake of such tragedy. Australia, for instance, has seen its gun homicide rate drop by more than 50% since the imposition of strict new regulations in 1996. Even in the US, States with higher gun regulation have, on average, fewer homicides than those with less.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/the-states-with-the-most-gun-laws-see-the-fewest-gun-related-deaths/448044/

Now, it would be massively oversimplistic of me to simply say "gun regulations will fix everything!" because that's not true. Part of the problem is socioeconomic (US has a greater income disparity than nearly every other developed nation, and that breeds violence); part of it is cultural (the US is far more likely than other nations to view guns as a tool of self defence as opposed to pest control or sport); and, yes, part of it *is* regulatory.

That said, regulations do save lives - they won't fix everything, but they have to be part of the solution.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Revelation34 posted...

You're the one who was talking about regulations directly related to Babbit's argument about banning them all.

Don't recall ever mentioning any regulations regarding a complete ban on guns. Maybe you can point it out to me?

I guess you never read posts since the post you responded to was clearly in response to Babbit's.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/3-poll-of-the-day/76318949/896133032

I guess you don't either, or you might have noticed that I asked you to list a time when *I* mentioned a regulation regarding a complete ban on guns, not when Babbit did.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Muscles posted...

It's a slippery slope, you don't wanna set a precedent of taking away rights from the constitution

Because obviously there couldn't be some errors or oversights in a 300 year old document written in the days before the industrial revolution. Obviously the founding fathers foresaw all future technological and societal advancements and considered them during their writing process.

Muscles posted...

Id rather live in a place with school shootings than NK with the biggest military in the world

Personally, I'd rather live in neither. And thankfully, I do.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

You're the one who was talking about regulations directly related to Babbit's argument about banning them all.

Don't recall ever mentioning any regulations regarding a complete ban on guns. Maybe you can point it out to me?
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Troll_Police_ posted...

ghenghis kahn for example gets credit for opening trade between europe and asia. alexander gets credit for bringing helenism to the middle east. both were not anything either of these monsters intended. they were genocidal maniacs, but once you actually get to a point where nobody living experienced this awful shit, or knew anyone who did, the narrative changes.

If anything, I find that people tend to accentuate the negative more with Khan. While he was an absolute monster to anyone who opposed him (and I don't think I've ever seen anyone dispute that), he was actually reasonable as a ruler (for the time period, anyways), and instituted a number of remarkably progressive policies, like allowing conquered peoples to keep their culture and religion, which was virtually unheard of at the time. That and he usually gets tagged with a bunch of awful shit that he didn't actually do, like the sacking of Bagdhad (source of the famous "The Tigris ran red with blood and black with ink" descriptor) and the creation of germ warfare by hurling diseased corpses into a besieged city, both of which were carried out by his descendants long after his own death.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Smarkil posted...

The point is that Switzerland has gun laws roughly equivalent to the US.

Except it doesn't. I already posted a bunch of the differences.

Guns have to be registered there. You have to pass an exam to be able to buy a weapon and you need to constantly renew your permit every two years or else you can't buy ammo or legally use your gun. Private sales are treated the same as sales from a store and any change in ownership must be reported to the registrar within one month's time. Concealed carry is illegal; open carry is typically only allowed by people who work in jobs that involve risks to their safety or the safety of those around them (e.g. law enforcement). Transporting a weapon may only be done if the weapon is unloaded and for a specific purpose (e.g. selling it, going to the range, etc.) and even then, transport must be direct as possible (so no driving around with a shotgun in your pickup). And, while not legally enshrined or required, most Swiss get basic military training and learn proper gun ediquette there.

That's a world of difference to what the US does. Honestly, if the US did model themselves after the Swiss, it would be a huge improvement. It wouldn't solve the problem altogether, but it would be a big step forward. Good luck doing that, though, because if you talk about gun registries and restricting the right to open carry, NRA members will recoil and hiss at you.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Smarkil posted...

darkknight109 posted...

helIy posted...

guns.

literally.

Huh. So you mean to tell me you can have a system where guns can still be used for sensible purposes, yet are subjected to regulations and oversight that ensure there isn't a mass shooting every few days?

Sounds like hippy twaddlespeak to me.

Switzerland has similar gun laws to the US with similar rates of distribution ~24% pop with at least one gun to the US's ~30%.

Why doesn't Switzerland have a mass shooting every other week?

Mostly because Swiss gun laws are tighter than Americas and include things like mandatory background checks, registration of weapons (and notification of any transfers of ownership), and a permit that must be renewed every two years (and which is checked whenever you want to buy ammo). Concealed carry is illegal, and open carry is restricted only to those who can prove a need to protect themselves or others from a specific danger (generally only granted to law enforcement or security personnel) and you have to pass an exam in order to be granted a permit for open carry. The permit must be renewed every five years.

And it should be noted that the average Swiss gun-owner gets far more training (usually in the form of militia service) than the average American gun-owner.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

You should probably PM those definitions to him, then, rather than posting them in response to me, given that it's not my argument.

You were literally responding to a response about banning guns for ALL reasons.

So were you, so by that logic I guess that means you believe all guns should be banned?

That's kind of an unrealistic viewpoint, if you ask me. You should educate yourself a little more on why complete gun bans are simply impractical.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Remember when we first met John McClane
Argyle picked him up from the plane.
Then he heard Hans, as he crept
Say Alexander wept
After seeing the breadth of his domain.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Interesting, but I'm not sure why you're posting the definition of the word "ban", when I never used it in any of my posts.

Babbit did and that's where that whole argument came from.

You should probably PM those definitions to him, then, rather than posting them in response to me, given that it's not my argument.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

helIy posted...

and then you can realize that the majority of other countries in this world can fit easily into the united states with plenty of room to spare.

i don't think you realize just how big the united states are, and why this makes it an issue for any sort of gun control reform.

Canada (1.01 Americas), Australia (0.78 Americas), and Russia (1.7 Americas) seem to have it figured out, at least if their gun crime stats are anything to go by.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

helIy posted...

guns.

literally.

Huh. So you mean to tell me you can have a system where guns can still be used for sensible purposes, yet are subjected to regulations and oversight that ensure there isn't a mass shooting every few days?

Sounds like hippy twaddlespeak to me.

Definition of regulation in English:

regulation
noun

1A rule or directive made and maintained by an authority.
planning regulations

ban1
verbbanned, bans, banning
[with object]

1Officially or legally prohibit (something)
parking is banned around the harbour in summer

Interesting, but I'm not sure why you're posting the definition of the word "ban", when I never used it in any of my posts.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

helIy posted...

guns.

literally.

Huh. So you mean to tell me you can have a system where guns can still be used for sensible purposes, yet are subjected to regulations and oversight that ensure there isn't a mass shooting every few days?

Sounds like hippy twaddlespeak to me.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

Babbit55 posted...

In the past I have presented the reasons and science and that. You know the topics that are commonly posted here after shootings. It doesnt work. Keep shooting each other, someday it will work right?

I mean 28 mass shootings in what, 42 days? Doesnt show there is an issue right? Never mind all the other gun crime that happens every day there...

Science would tell you that culling animal populations that are higher than sustainable isn't possible without guns.

Weird. I wonder how all the non-American countries do it...
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

So close to a limerick in the first two posts...
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

002 posted...

Meanwhile gangsters in the hood are killing far more people each day but let's put the spotlight on the white villain as it goes more with the evil liberal narrative. #whitegenocide #whyicantgetagirlfriend #blackprivilege

New User
User Since: Feb 2018
Karma: 3
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

The thing I don't understand about the "guns are just tools" argument is that its proponents always balk when you suggest treating them like tools.

I mean, let's look at another tool that has been responsible for a great deal of death and mayhem: the car. Just like guns, it has completely defensible uses. Just like guns, millions of law-abiding owners use them daily. And just like guns, they can be used - intentionally or otherwise - to seriously injure or kill innocent bystanders.

So when cars started becoming widespread around the turn of the 20th century and people suddenly noticed that a lot of people were dying to them, we fucking changed things.

Laws around cars were tightened up considerably. To this day every car on the road has to be registered with the government and insured. Stupid shit that was clearly killing people, like driving while drunk, was outlawed. Safety features, like crumple zones, seat belts, and airbags, were developed and eventually legally mandated on all new cars. And in order to even operate a car in the first place, a potential driver must be of a minimum age and must pass a series of examinations in order to prove that they can safely operate the vehicle; and if they later prove that they can no longer be trusted with that responsibility, their right to operate the vehicle is restricted or removed altogether.

End result? Car deaths peaked in 1970 and have been dropping ever since, despite the fact that there are more vehicles now than ever. Deaths per vehicle-miles-travelled have been dropping almost unabated since the 1920s when the first of these regulations were implemented.

Guns, on the other hand, have been merrily sailing in the other direction with predictable results. Safety features - like limiting magazine size - are vigorously fought by the NRA, while what flimsy regulations exist have been steadily stripped away since the 70s. Make the suggestion about creating a national gun registry and watch as gun advocates recoil in horror. What few protections exist on who can own and purchase a gun have next to no enforcement and are easily circumvented and, in many areas, no proof-of-training or background checks are required and the only thing needed to buy a gun is proof of age and sufficient cash. End result? Gun deaths have remained steadily high and virtually unaltered in the last 20 years, despite the fact that the rate of gun ownership has dropped by nearly a quarter over the same time period.

If you truly believe guns are tools, treat them that way. It won't fully solve the problem, but it would certainly help.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

SinisterSlay posted...

Maybe thoughts and prayers will work this time.

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, Go in peace; keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

-James 2: 14-17
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

"No way to prevent this", says only nation where this regularly happens...

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

At any rate, where longsword and katana is concerned, it's somewhat hard to compare the two since he longsword had a lot of variety whereas the katana's design was more standard.

Katana designs were anything but standardized, unless you're talking about relatively recently. Size and shape were highly variable, from short swords to swords that were longer than the samurai using them was tall. Even the characteristic curve of the modern katana wasn't a universal design and, particularly in its earliest incarnations, straight-edged katana do exist.

Babbit55 posted...

No offence here, have you trained with a longsword at all?

Admittedly not much - most of my knowledge on longswords is second-hand through friends that have done more training with them than I have. That said, I have had the chance to train with them briefly in the past, so I have a passing familiarity with their mechanics.

I still stand by what I said that the katana is generally the faster weapon, though the difference is small (and dependent on what form of longsword you're using).

Babbit55 posted...

But yes, they are used in very dfferent ways, even if they are often compared (I would say a more acurate sword to compare would be a Falchion personaly)

Which is honestly why I find the discussion a bit silly whenever "katana vs. longsword" comes up. They look similar, but they are different weapons created under different conditions to address different battlefield issues. It's like comparing a steak knife to an ice cream scoop - which one is more effective depends entirely on whether you're eating steak or ice cream.

Babbit55 posted...

I have, not used them in a fight (obviously!), though every bit of defence I have been taught about Katana work as been deflection and avoidence because the blades clashing is not a good thing (not that the edged parts of long swords are either to be fair!)

Avoidance is certainly preferable, but there are blocks for when it's not possible or practical. Even beyond that, simply standing in a ready position with blade-to-blade you will feel the swords catching on one another - it's actually very weird to experience and it only happens with sharpened blades.

Babbit55 posted...

They are not as heavy as you might think, they are pretty top heavy though! Saying that, it is easier to smash a leg with a vague hammer blow than a precice pierce with the point, specially while the other person does not what that to happen!

You don't really need precision when you're driving a spike through someone's chest, though. You're basically doing the same thing with both swings, just using different sides of the weapon.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Babbit55 posted...

Yes, some arrows could pierce plate, though not "easily" Just ask the French.

Sure it could. Youtube is loaded with videos of people shooting holes in plate mail. Here's the first one I came up with:



I went to a demo many years ago where a professional archer using a period-authentic bow fired 40 arrows in under a minute at a breast plate hung on the wall and the arrows went straight through it.

Babbit55 posted...

please point out my misinformation though

Mostly it was the stuff I've already gone through - stuff like a tsuba not being a true cross-guard, or the particulars of how the blade operates.

Honestly, having done kendo myself, one of my frustrations with the art in its modern incarnation is it spends a lot of time with shinai and very little with actual blades. Hence my recommendation to add iaido into your training if you're into swords - iaido focuses a lot more on using the sword itself rather than a stand-in. Of course, iaido has its own drawbacks, namely that most schools spend almost no time on two-person exercises or target practice - you really do need both arts to fully understand how a katana operates.

Babbit55 posted...

You agree the mats were crap, and better at cutting with softer, easy to break blades

As a metallurgist, I can tell you that even shitty ore can be made into a decent final product (and vice versa). Don't be so quick to write off katanas as "softer and easier to break", because in many cases that was not the case (Japanese ore may have been awful compared to its European equivalents, but their smithing techniques were leagues ahead).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Babbit55 posted...

Having trained and swung both I disagee on the "swing much faster" opinion, a proper longsword swing is faster, especially the tip, because of momentum (again physics).

Disagree. My own personal experience along with consensus from some of the other sword-nuts I hang around with is that the katana is noticeably faster for slashing. Admittedly the longsword tends to have an advantage on thrusts, although the technique behind thrusting with a longsword and performing an equivalent tsuki with a katana is different.

Babbit55 posted...

Anyone who teaches Katana would cringe about you talking about Katanas biting one another as them hitting like that is not wanted, and is not beneficial in any way.

Strange, because we talk about that in iai all the time and it absolutely is a real thing. It's not really a matter of "wanted" or "not wanted", it's just a reality of the sword.

Ever held a shinken (live blade)? When you place it against another blade (not cross-wise, but parallel, the same way you would hold it if you were fighting someone), they really do bite into one another; two sharp katana simply don't slide against one another the way most European swords do. It almost feels like the blade is slightly magnetic (the actual reason has to do with the sharpness and the angle of the cutting edge, but the sensation is similar).

Babbit55 posted...

Sorta right on the Warhammer, though it was not for weight, it was for crushing joints, much easier to kill with the pick if they cannot move there legs or arms!

Ever tried to hit someone on a joint with a big heavy weapon? It typically doesn't go well. Joints are attached to limbs, which are the most mobile parts of your body (AKA the hardest things to hit, particularly with any accuracy). If you're going to go for a hit with the heavy end of the weapon, aim for the centre of mass - if you hit them hard enough, you stand a decent chance of killing them (armour or no) and even if you don't, you can knock them off balance.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Babbit55 posted...

It is less likely to break when hitting something hard too, like another sword.

No knight or samurai that had a brain would ever willingly hit something hard. It happens sometimes, but the popular image of knights banging their swords off each other is pure Hollywood - about the only thing you'd get from doing that is a blunt blade.

Babbit55 posted...

The main "Weapons" of a Knight (including the longsword) could work against the armour of the time (It had to!) Samurai weapons being mostly cutting blades, would be useless against it. (no they could not magically hit the none existent "weak points" either, firstly they still had some protection there, secondly see above about skill)

The standard equipment of the samurai included guns from the 1500s onwards, which kind of kicks the ass of anything the knights could bring to bear.

And no, knights did not typically use longswords against heavy armour like plate mail (see above point about blunt blades). Standard weapons to deal with armour involved things like warhammers (which virtually every fictional representation depicts incorrectly - you hit with the pick on the "back" of the hammer, with the large "front" being used to provide weight to drive that pick into the armour), arrows (which, if properly designed, could easily punch through full-plate) or heavy weapons that could knock a knight over, at which point they could be easily dispatched by a knife in their armour joints.

You've claimed a background in kendo, TC, but unless your school was pretty lacklustre or simply focused on shinai training rather than working much with the actual blades themselves, I'm actually surprised you don't know more about the katana. A lot of what you posted was misinformed at best, completely wrong at worst. As a suggestion, you may want to supplement your kendo training with some iai, as I find you don't get a full appreciation for what's involved in using a katana without both.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Jujitsu was made because two samurai in armour can't do shit to eachother with swords, bare hand fighting is literally better.

Not really true. Jujutsu was generally not something a samurai employed by choice, except in last resort cases where he had lost his weapons and/or otherwise been disarmed. This is why many classical jujutsu techniques are against an armed opponent, rather than against another unarmed grappler.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Wow... that OP is almost completely wrong. Let's disect this.

Babbit55 posted...

It is made from Steel made from Iron Ore, a much more pure form of Iron than the Iron "Sand" used for Katana's, why? Because Japan had crap Iron and it was rare, Japanese smiths are likely they best around, because they made usable weapons from shit basically!

The inverse of this is also true; because Western smiths had higher quality steel, there were many garbage smiths around who could get away with shitty forging because the material allowed them to. Contrast with Japan where one of the cardinal rules of warfare at the time was that when you were invading an enemy city, swordsmiths and their families were always, always to be left unharmed, because they were far more valuable as new employees rather than corpses.

Babbit55 posted...

A sword made from more pure Iron will be lighter, stronger and stay sharper for longer.

This completely ignores that the design and balance of katana vs. longswords are completely different, and that's going to have a far larger effect on weight.

Babbit55 posted...

A Longsword is longer (it is a 2 handed weapon after all)

So is a katana (derp). As for which one is longer, that again depends on the design. Today all katana have a relatively uniform length, with variances based on the height of the wielder, but this was not the case historically. In their early incarnations, it was quite common to see Sephiroth-esque katana that were so large they could not be effectively wielded on foot (for a period of time, samurai mostly fought on horseback, and their sword design of the time reflected that).

Babbit55 posted...

though a significantly better lunge, and the much better cross guard too.

Lunge: Highly debatable. Longswords really aren't designed for thrusting - the length makes them unwieldy and difficult to aim properly; they, like most long-bladed weapons, are primarily designed with slashing in mind. On the other hand, katana are actually deceptively good at lunging attacks. A tsuki (thrust) with a katana doesn't have the same reach as a longsword, but thanks to the blade's curvature a thrust doesn't open up a hole so much as it carves a very large, very deep gash in an opponent (seriously, you can get a ten-inch cut by moving the sword just a few inches forward).

Cross-Guard: The katana's tsuba (what you're referring to as a cross-guard) is actually not a cross-guard at all - it's basically a design feature to keep the wielder's hand from inadvertently sliding up onto the blade (and not all historical katana had them). Katana swing much faster than longswords - a significant point in their favour, by the way - so catching with a crossguard is impractical. Not to mention, in a clash katana tend to "bite" into one another due to the way the blade is designed, so a cut that would slide all the way down to the hilt would be fairly rare.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

If you were in a club and some guy came along and grabbed your crotch, what would you do?
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

No. It's good, but it's not even the best track in its own game (see also: Mystic Cave Zone, Casino Night Zone).

Off the top of my head, Ice Cap Zone (Sonic 3), Sky Sanctuary Zone (Sonic & Knuckles), Doomsday Zone (Sonic & Knuckles), and half the Sonic Adventure and Sonic Generations soundtracks are all better options.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!