Now there's someone thinking like a Shadowrunner.

Hence why I distinguished between correctness in describing common use and being technically correct. Also, the same thing goes for spelling and grammar: if enough people type "rediculous" instead of "ridiculous", does that mean the typoed version "becomes a real word" and should be listed in dictionaries? How many people have to repeat the typo and for how long before it's no longer a typo?

If they take the definitions directly from native speakers' usage of the words, then they aren't really the ones who say what the definitions are. I'm not sure how long ago the shift started, but these days making sure dictionaries are descriptive instead of prescriptive (like Kagetenshi said) is a big deal.

My issue isn't with spelling, but with growing imprecision in meaning. I don't mind if the spellings of 'continuously' and 'continually' change over time, but when the majority of people no longer understand the difference between the two then the precision of the language has just decreased. There are a hundred more examples of this problem.

If language isn't taught to a certain level to a majority of its speakers, then language degrades. And our language forms the basis of our thought and our skill in critical thinking. If the language skills of a population fall, then I would make the case that the population has just become less intelligent.

I have no real problem with someone who says "LMAO J0 pwnd!!!!" (although the multiple explanation marks are unnecessary). If someone says "Trolls are more stronger" I cringe a little.

You have, but let my provide a more pragmatic point of view. It is true that a person who mugs you probably doesn't want to kill you. If this is the case then your loses will only be finiancial. However, if this isn't the case then your loss will be complete. Even a 10% chance is death is far to great to risk because the stakes are so high. It is better to err on the side of caution. The chances of someone being in an automobile crash are terribly low but most people wear seatbelts.

Living in this mindset is utterly foolish. Dismissing the possibility that it may happen is just as foolish. Either way you're just a blind man groping an elephant. The best approach, as with everything, is a holistic approach. All encounters are different and the dynamics of an encounter vary greatly depending on the location, the attacker, and the victim.

Everything favors the agressor. Everything does without exception. Even gigantic castles and fortified bunkers favor the agressor. This is because the agressor controls the situation. There is nothing wrong with taking control of a situation when you feel that your safety is threatened.

Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to carry a knife other than self-denfense. The day-to-day utility of a folding knife far outweights their usefulness in combat.

As for dictionaries I have only one thing to say.

Dord: n. Physics & Chem. Density.

Of course, I fail to see how the UK doing things like banning dagger-style kitchen knives addresses this.

Creating a sharp object is one of the basic things are stone age ancestors were able to do. IF someone really wants to stab a bouncer does the UK government think that they'll magically be unable to produce, if not procure, a makeshift stabbing implement if knives are illegal?

Besides, if a chav couldn't stab someone couldn't he just carry some nylon cord in his pocket and garrote people instead? Will the UK ban ropes, rocks, and old metal pipes next?

Ah yes, the old "the dictionary diagrees with me so it must be wrong" maneuver. Always amusing when it crops up. It's also why I've taken to using multiple dictionaries as examples for certain people.

Oxford (1955) also agrees that predators are not just hunting animals. You have to pay for the online version of the Oxford dictionary, which I ain't about to do, but my wife's 1955 printing (3rd edition, originally printed in 1933) links the word back to 1589. The origin is given as latin's praeda, definied here: http://catholic.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lo...=praeda&ending= as being related to plunder and loot, as well as animals.

I think it's safe to assume that in this particular case it isn't the 4 dictionaries that are wrong, but you. That isn't to say that dictionaries are never wrong, but others, including yourself, have covered that ground well enough already.

Natch... nobody in their right mind (and hopefully, that includes me) wants to get into a fight of any kind. At the same time, the gun on my hip does nothing that prevents me from doing everything I can to avoid that fight beginning.

Totally. I'm not going to try and claim to be driven by an emotionless survival instinct backed by an intellectual framework... I'm scared of getting killed because I like being alive... I believe this is the only life I've got.

This is very true. It's also the reason why I'm a firm believer that people who carry weapons should get pretty thorough training in their situational use... not just target practice, but the legal framework you're allowed to use the weapon within, command techniques to attempt to get the aggressor to flee or back down, the steps you go through to prevent escalating the fight, and judging when you've reached the point where starting to shoot is not only justified legally, but in the eyes of a "reasonable man" (someone viewing the situation from outside, with no emotional investment) was the only remaining option for that situation.

You draw a weapon when the situation has reached a point where you feel the need to communicate to your attacker that if he doesn't back down, you're going to kill him. Whether or not that's when you're initially threatened is entirely subjective, and unique to each situation. Obviously, some people will handle this better than others... and training is a big factor in how well people judge these situations. Again, anyone carrying a weapon has a social responsibility to be trained in it's use: practical, legal, and ethical.

I don't want jumpy people with no training carrying hammers either. You're right... they're probably going to escalate a situation, and honestly... there's no way that one of these "situations" goes well once it gets to the point where people are killing each other. The best possible outcome is that you don't get hurt.

It's worth noting, however, that most people accept armed citizens in their midst without thinking about it too much: our police and military forces. The two things that separate a Citizen from a Citizen-Officer or Citizen-Soldier in this situation are the training to carry and use a weapon appropriately, and the societal go-ahead to carry and use a weapon appropriately. The kind of training a police officer gets for these situations is pretty much identical to the training a citizen has available to them (where I live, at least)... a dedicated citizen can actually get better training than your average police officer recieves, if he's willing to put the time and money into it. Personally, I feel that's an appropriate and responsible use of my resources. The societal go-ahead is available in the form of a Concealed Pistol License (for Washington state... most states have a CCW, or Concealed Carry Weapon permit, but the general gist is the same).

If I'm trained as well as the average police officer, and have the legal option to carry, I don't see a reason I shouldn't carry, and in fact, I feel a bit of an obligation to do so. I may find myself in a situation where I'm an armed, trained citizen at the site of a violent crime in progress, when there are no police to be found... while everyone wishes they could stop those kinds of things from happening, I'm arguably better trained and equipped than your average non-carry citizen to be able to actually help. Again, my emphasis here is on training and forethought... if you're going to arm yourself with a lethal weapon, you're taking on what I consider to be a pretty serious social responsibility. I don't want Bubba the Yahoo walking around with his .44 stuffed in his belt that he blasts away at milk jugs in the backyard with... unless Bubba the Yahoo's a responsible enough citizen to have gotten the kind of training that lets you handle armed encounters properly and responsibly. We don't need powertripping idiots with guns wandering the streets, in or out of uniform.

If that situation had turned physical and was intended to be lethal, you might have ended up dead. If you'd pulled a knife, or at least had one on you, at the least you would have had the option of trying to put up an effective resistance.

I'm glad you emerged unharmed, but what worked for you doesn't work for everyone in every situation. Unarmed people are frequently killed after putting up absolutely no resistance and making every effort to comply with their attacker. I personally refuse to leave myself without the option of an effective response. The British "Bobbies," (a term that has become synonymous in the US with "gunless police officers") are disappearing or already gone, as a response to the kinds of crimes and criminals that they're encountering. If Bobbies, who would logically be trained in conflict resolution and negotiation, have decided they need to be armed to deal with the criminals that they encounter, I feel it's reasonable to decide that I (a private citizen, living in a nation with a much higher violent crime rate) should be armed as well.

If a weapon is drawn on you, you run if it seems at all feasible. You do not stick around and hope that someone who is already pointing a weapon at you means you no ill will... you run and you find cover, and you try to get away. That is one of the most effective ways to reduce the likelyhood of you being seriously hurt. This is not the Wild West, and I am not a quickdraw shooter.

If you're armed, you draw the weapon at some point in that process. Maybe you find cover but don't have an exit. Maybe you don't even get a chance to run... they draw their weapon, and attack, leaving you no real option except to try and kill them first. Maybe you have someone with you who can't run (my personal example in this case is my girlfriend of many years... she's got permanent damage in her ankles, which prevents her from running any faster than I can jog). But if you're in a situation where you've got a weapon pointed at you, it's up to you to decide if and when you should draw your own. The fact that your attacker has displayed an apparent willingness to hurt you (since he's pulled out a weapon) should be a huge indicator that you need to be ready to defend yourself.

Do you know about Stan "Tookie" Williams? Founder of the Crips, went to jail for murder, ended up writing childrens books to keep people out of gangs and became a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, recently executed in California? The murders they locked him up for were the execution of a 26-year-old 7-Eleven clerk he'd forced to lie on the floor, and three family members working in a motel office he'd broken into... before he went on to take a couple hundred dollars out of their cash registers. You must understand, I mean no disrespect for the dead when I say this, but had they been armed and attempted to resist, the worst possible outcome would have been what happened anyway... the death of the victims.

It's true that I managed to get through that situation without a scratch, and my actions included not pulling a gun on the driver. However, I didn't have a choice in the matter... I didn't have a gun. My survival of that situation was entirely dependent on the lack of desire of the driver of that car to end my life, and while I had the options of attempting to run, fight with the knife in my pocket, or talk this guy out of hurting me, I didn't think any of those options were particularly good. The fact that his advance was stopped by his mother telling him to get back into the car was not a factor in my control.

Knives and guns give advantage to the person using them, be it to intimidate the other person into complying with their demands, or in attempting to hurt them. Had the driver of that car pulled a gun on me, my first action would have been to move the few yards it would have taken to get one of the cars parked along the side of the road between me and him. At that point, if I'd had my gun on me, I would have drawn it. If someone is approaching me with a weapon, "possible intent" has absolutely nothing to do with my response. What he's doing is communicating to me "I am going to hurt you, and I have the tool to do so right here."

Had the driver gotten out of his car and his advance not stopped at his mother's behest, my options in this hypothetical become extremely limited, as he would have been all of about 5 yards away. I could stay still and hope that the guy wasn't going to try and hurt me (despite his obviously aggressive approach), I could run and hope he's not faster than me or armed with a firearm (factors I don't have any knowledge of), I could try and reason with him (despite his obviously unreasonable mood), or I could draw a weapon, tell him to STOP RIGHT THERE, DO IT NOW, OR I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU, and establish without any pretense or possibility of confusion that he's just crossed the line where his behavior makes me fear for my personal safety, and I'm going to respond with any more aggression on his part by shooting him. What he does after that is up to him.

There was no socially acceptable reason for the driver of that car to be approaching me that aggressively. There was no reason for me to think that he did not mean me harm. There was no basis for me to assume that I was being approached in that fashion by someone who was not planning on hurting me. It is not my responsibility to try and deduce if the person in front of me has "possible intent" to shoot me or is simply posturing when the message they are communicating to me is that I am about to be harmed. The driver and I would have been two people communicating on an extremely basic level. His message to me would have been "I am attacking you," and it is not my responsibility to guess if he's lying. My message would have been just as simple: "Stop attacking me or die." It's irrelevant if he's actually attacking me. It's irrelevant if he's armed or not. He needs to either make it clear that he's no longer attacking me, or die.

That is one of the most direct, clear means of communication I can imagine. I've left nothing out of the message I'm sending to the driver, and I owe him nothing else. He's placed me in a situation where the best option I feel I've got is to point a gun at a stranger and threaten to kill him. The fact that I'm giving him options at that point in time is incredibly polite of me, and it's because I have no desire to take his life, simply a desire to preserve my own. I've communicated in very few words that his actions are unacceptable to me, and that it's not that I want to kill him, but he needs to do certain very specific things so that I don't kill him. And that's a hell of a lot more consideration than he was offering me when he got out of the car and came at me.

I'm not trying to play a definition game here, so please don't feel like this is an attempt to undercut you with a dictionary. I think we both understand what you meant by this sentence, it's just that my reply requires more specific terminology.

I view the aggressor as being the person who instigated a combative encounter. Even if the hypothetical boiled down to me holding an unarmed, surrendering man at gunpoint, to me the driver remains the aggressor. There's no moral judgement here, simply a chain of simplified causality. When the good guys break down the door of a known killer, they'd be the aggressors if it led to a combative encounter, since the encounter would have been avoided had they not broken down the door.

The defender is the person who was placed into a combative encounter by another. While the defender can act aggressively (an example being killing the aggressor), this does not change his status as the defender, since he did not initiate the encounter.

By carrying a weapon, I entertain the possibility that I may use it in an aggressive manner to threaten or kill somebody (which I believe was your intent in referring to "being the aggressor"). However, I have no intention of being the aggressor in a situation. I don't want to initiate a combative encounter. I simply want a way out. There are some combative encounters where the participants don't have any way out except the death of the other participant. My first concern in a combative encounter would be the survival of myself and those I act to protect. The survival of the other guy is desireable, and it's an outcome that I would strive towards, but it doesn't supercede the priority of my own survival.

I feel comfortable that my level of training, my social responsibility, and my legal status are such that I contribute to society by being an armed citizen. I'm fulfilling a duty to myself, my loved ones, and my society by being an armed citizen. I know that you feel differently about yourself, and about the people you refer to in your anectodes about the greater harm caused by being armed, and I respect that. I believe, however, that in a society where we accept an armed, trained, responsible police officer as being a protector of the people and a societal good, we should also accept an armed, trained, responsible citizen as being a protector of the people and a societal good, as there is not a lot of difference between the two.

I understand completely. Your point of view is based on your experiences (as is mine), seems as if you've put a great deal of thought into it, and you present it in a direct, honest fashion. I don't feel any disrespect towards my point of view, you simply have a difference of opinion. Very little comes from discussing heated issues in an uncivil manner, and I'd be interested in hearing any response you might have to what I've outlined.

You are in violation of the Internet Hostility Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton on February 9th, 1996. According to the IHA, you are required to have no respect whatsoever for opposing points of view encountered on the Internet.

~J

When chipped flint hand-axes are made criminal, only criminals will have chipped flint hand-axes.

Dude, you win a medal. You eloquently conveyed everything I mean to say but lack the patience or eloquence to string together. You've done it in a reasonable fasion.

I don't intend to be Bubba Yahoo. Jumpy guys with hammers or guns are a risk to themselves and everyone around them.

But if Redneck Motherfucker decides to barricade a street intersection and approach me in a threatening manner, I am going to tell him in no uncertain terms "Get back in your vehicle and leave or I will kill you!" Or, perhaps, "Get on the ground and hands behind your head!"

And I feel that actions always speak louder than words, don't you? I mean, look at my options from where I was.

Option 1: Accelerate. Try and manouver my vehicle past his big pickup which I had no hope of moving, and risk becoming jammed on it or a pole or between both.
Option 2: Accelerate. Try to run him over.
Option 3: Squeal in reverse and risk crashing into a parked car.
Option 4: Draw a firearm and tell him to back off

Options 1 and 2 didn't appeal to me, and Option 4 was unavailable to me. I was left with Option 3, and it wound up costing me about $1,000 in repairing the other person's car. Good thing they knew my uncle, or it would have gone to insurance, and blech....

Nah. More likely they'll just sharpen a piece of rebar or bedframe.

And when rebar and bedframe are made criminal, only criminals will sleep well in concrete buildings.


You make a good point, Nezumi. Criminals do not care that it is illeagal to have a firearm, or a knife. They're already committing crimes. What's one more on the heap that adds significantly to their ability to carry out the crimes they already planned to commit?

It's nothing to them!

I didn't say that society needed everyone to be armed... just that there's obviously a societal need for at least some individuals to be armed. We arm our police and don't think twice about it.

A police officer is an armed citizen employed to serve and protect people. While there are obviously a number of ways in which I would and should defer to police officers, I see no reason why I should not be an armed citizen who can act to serve and protect people, if my training is similar to that of a police officer.

Weapons control laws actually make things easier for criminals, since their targets are usually law abiding citizens. The lack of ability of the victim to defend themselves emboldens criminals. The ratio of police to citizens is too low to realisticly be a deterrent to crime in most countries, and in most countries the response time of law enforcement is measured in tens of minutes or hours not combat turns. Speaking of which how does everyone else deal with the inevitable question of why can the cops respond to a situation in game in as little as 3-6 seconds when in real life it takes them far longer.

I can live with that.

Seriously, no position can cover all situations and its all too easy to counter every argument by constructing a scenario where the argument breaks down and saying "See! You're wrong!" I disagree with Shrike30, but I do understand what he's saying. Likewise, Shrike disagrees with me but he clearly understands what I'm saying and it is the latter that I really care about.

I do have some comments on your post Shrike, but I'll post them off-list when I have time. As I said earlier, I believe anything more would be repetition rather than clarification. Whilst someone may disagree with my points, I think if they re-read my past posts, they'll at least find that everything raised has been addressed.

I'd just like to say that I appreciate the above level of discourse.

The only thing I haven't said is that I'm a little miffed by the faith people here have in their law enforcement. Am I really so very cynical? But comments like:

just leave me dumbfounded, but perhaps I come from a different social class to some here. Regardless of views on personal armament, do we all agree that the knife amnesty is bollocks for the purpose of making Tony Blair feel smug? I personally would be amazed to learn that one single person had been saved by it.

I keep the handgun loaded (and chambered) in a lockbox under the bed. Take approx 3 secs to get into it, if even that. (a simple button combination). I do agree that better perimeter security will do more for you however.

Lock, sorry. Mind jumping ahead. Medeco are some of the finest locks available for private use. I've picked the lock on my door (I'm at an apartment, so I can't replace it) in about two minutes with two weeks practice. Of course, most robbers are more likely to just kick the thing in, and my door is fairly resistant to that.

As for security system stickers, very good. I stole a few of them from my neighbors and put them on my door. Definitely worth the trouble.

Regardless of whether or not any individual policeman would rather take a bullet or knife than let me take it, his possible self-sacrificing protective inclination does me little good if the policeman is not between me and the bullet when it gets fired. It's kind of a non-issue to me.

As for the amnesty itself? It's a PR stunt. This isn't even "if you take away people's guns, they won't stab each other," this is "if you take away people's knives, they won't go into their kitchen and get another one." I'd probably feel insulted if I was offered such an amnesty.

This law makes perfect sense.

Well it does if you look at it through the eyes of the Trial Lawyers Association in terms of Billable Hours, Attorney's Fees, and Percentages of Settlements or Judgements.

No you can actually own whatever you like, but sale is restricted on some items. I.e. if you already have a switchblade you can keep it (though not run around with it), but you can't sell them in your shop. Don't expect it to be consistant though. I can still buy a katana if I want.

Banned for sale knives are swtichblades, butterfly knives and generally weapon-only types. If you have some hideous star-trek replica thing then you can have it on your mantelpiece if you must. If you're travelling with it, you need to have a reason.

The key words are selective enforcement. If you look anti-social / poor / teenage and you're carrying some sort of knife then the police might decide to punish you for it. If you dress smart and look middle-class / respectable / older then you're unlikely to be searched in the first place, but if you are, you can probably get away with a lot more.

The purpose of this amnesty is:
(a) Make it look like Tony Blair is tough on crime and enable him to be smug
(b) Keep the Daily Mail readers comfortably worried about the youth of today and approving of any new powers Tony Blair wishes to endow the state police with.
© Convince people that the things they should be worried about are possible knife attacks (despite the lowest recorded homicide rate in the history of England and comparable to countries like Sweden), rather than paying attention to how the government is actually screwing people.

I'll say this for the amnesty: It got me reading up on this stuff and I've learnt a lot more about knives than I knew before.

Robberies/1000 ppl, US: 1.39, Australia: 1.16, Finland: 0.498
Assaults/1000 ppl, US: 7.57, Australia: 7.02, Finland 5.33
We've got no limits on ownership or sale of blades that I know of, and while I don't believe concealed carry is allowed anywhere, a lot of people own firearms, especially in the countryside. Statistics between nations cannot really be used to justify these things one way or the other, because other societal factors can easily and completely override the effects of manipulating the supply of weapons.

Crime rates in Australia have been climbing at a staggering rate since the ban went into place, and asides from the US's heightened (but dropping) homicide rate, Australia either matches or vastly outdoes the US for violent crime rates.

Change in crime rates from 1995 to 2001:

Crimes per 100k people in 2001:

Source of comparative figures

Australian Institute of Criminology site to confirm AU figures

FBI Uniform Crime Reports to confirm US figures (click link to Table 1)

The only category for Australia that has improved since the ban went into place would be homicide... a category which improved staggeringly *more* in the United States than it did in Australia over the same period of time (a 32% drop compared to an 11% drop). Homicide is a much more common occurrence in the United States (more than 3x as common).

Assault, rape, and robbery have all taken a dramatic upswing in Australia since the ban went into place.

Robbery in Australia is slightly less common than in the United States, but it's growth rate is phenomenal since the implementation of the ban. If you reverse the numbers, Australia is up from 80 to 136 per 100k in 2001, whereas the US is down from 182 to 146 per 100k in 2001.

The rape and assault rates in Australia are staggeringly higher than in the United States. Assault is nearly 2.5x more likely to occur, and rape is nearly 3x more likely to occur. Both of these crimes have seen a decided upswing from 1995 to 2001.

Criminals do not care if the police outgun them, they care if their victims might outgun them. Obviously, the criminals in Australia have figured out that their law-abiding victims aren't going to be armed, and that's marked by a decided upswing in the frequency of violent crime. I respect your efforts to bring criminals to justice, and I hope they go well... but saying that the rates of crime in Australia are "massively lower" than in the US is just flat-out wrong. The assaulters, robbers, rapists, and murderers do not care that the gun they may use is illegal, because what they're planning on doing with it makes a weapons violation pale in comparison. All that the ban managed to accomplish in Australia was the creation of a significant underground market for firearms, and the removal of firearms from the hands of law-abiding citizens, meaning that even if it is harder for a criminal to obtain a firearm, he still knows he's likely to be better armed than his victim.