How is this different from every other encounter between SINless and Lonestar?

Sometimes they don't feel like faking the paperwork for missing bullets.

@nezumi

Yes, but rape is very dependent on definition.
One example is rape by fraud/deception. Something like that does not exist for example in germany.

(The same thing applys to murder, only it is not that extrem. For example if you look at murders in the US and Germany I would check the numbers of manslaughter, too. It might just be that a lot "would be a murder in the US" are found under that name.)



This is also a often made mistake.
A law has (close to) no effect if the baseline is low already, true (Partly because the police might not even borther to enforce it). But the other side of the coind is not true. Abolishing the law later on will not have a small effect too.
The best example for that are drug laws.
Lets just take dope for example. Before the laws were passed, there was not much consumption of marihuana. But this does not mean it won't spike if you lift the ban.

In any case I do not thing that gunlaws prevent or encourage crimes. There won't be less crime if there are less guns, and there won't be more if there are more guns.
For example we had a "school massacre" in germany reacently. Some mentally deranged teenage girl attacked her school with gasoline and a hand axe.
Casualties: 0.
Wounded: 0.
If you think of Brenda Ann Spencer you see the differance. Having no gun, does not stop you in any case (there might be some cases in which having no fitting weapon at hand is a deterrent)
The differance are the casualties.
An Axe might be very effectiv in killing a lot of zombies which are ganging up on you (if you have the physical prowess), but it is not a fitting weapon for storming your highschool (if you have not).

So what does this mean for shadowrun?
We have to consider the following:
History of the country you apply the laws to and the governing force.
How smart is the guy in command and how tight does he run his show.

So I guess everywhere Lofyr has is claws on will be very restricted.

An other big point is, that checking people for weapons and tagging them if they have any is so easy to do in Shadowrun.
This actually removes the whole "criminals will still have guns" point of the argument. The only way to carry a gun with out getting picked up by the police would be to carry it with a permit. If there are no permits... (But this point plays very much to the corner of "what is shadowrun like if you really apply the technology suggested in the books)

I suspect that in the SR world having a gun with a removed or burned RFID tag is very much like having a gun without a serial number today, an obvious sign to the cops you're up to no good

Yep I did. I took the US crime statistics off the FBI website.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats

How is this easy? I have not heard of any hand waving magic firearms detectors existing, much less being prevalent. Someone mentioned RFID, well even supposing criminals would abide the law and not remove the RFID (if they are breaking laws on a daily basis why not break this one too, it makes their job easier or possible). RFID can be blocked fairly easily, a simple Faraday cage is all that is needed. This would allow the firearm to seem legal when needed, but go undetected the rest of the time. On the other hand I could see UCAS instituting something like this considering what else politicians think is possible and a good idea (microstamping, "personalized" gun, etc.)

There are those microwave scanners. Having 6 dices needing one or two hits to detect weapons...

Please cite, I'm unfamiliar with this device.

How about these, then...







That should cover it quite nicely...

As always, you have been most helpful and kind. Thanks.

I imagine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99NHb6B03s type of firearm would become popular along with other disguised arms and methods to disguise them given "the item is listed in the device’s database" is how it identifies.

The technology to detect a concealed firearm exists, but that doesn't mean that it's used on patrol by beat cops. In the UCAS at least there is still a prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures requiring that the law enforcement officer have probable cause to scan a person. This is why at least on the streets of Seattle a Lonestar Officer wouldn't have one of those scanners (that and the fact they are expensive and Lonestar wants to turn a profit) so the law would require that a person with a firearm would have the firearm tagged and their comm displaying the permits when queried.

Using these scanners to control entry point to a restricted access location is entirely allowable however, and runners should assume they are in place before say trying to go inside the Federal Building, a courthouse, or the airport.

... or a shopping mall on extraterritorial ground ...

That's the tricky part about Extraterritoriality, the laws change and your protections under the UCAS law end at the front door.

Some random thoughts on extraterritoriality:

On corporate territory are you violating laws or policies? (Not that it matters)

In an office leased by a AAA corp is it actually extraterritorial?

Do policies put in place by a department manager, facility manager, or general manager have the same force as those put in place by an executive VP, a CEO, or voted in by the Board of directors?

It was explained somewhere what the rules were. I vaguely remember it was required to be on land owned by the corp, the entire building needed to be owned by the corp and it needed to be publicly posted. Every stuffer shack isn't territory of aztechnology.

Go troll somewhere else.

Extraterritorial areas need to be labeled very clearly and obviously. I think AA(A)s pay a fee to lease ground extraterritorially from the UCAS, so they'll only do it on areas that matter. Some corps do it more than others, as a difference of corporate culture.

Will the shopping mall be extraterritorial? Unlikely.

Will offices be extraterritorial? Likely; it removes everything in those offices from the legal scrutiny of the host country. It cuts down on snooping and bothersome regulations.

Of course, the UCAS could post all manner of scanners at the exit of an extraterritorial area as "border checkpoints" as a way of circumventing unreasonable/excessive search laws. And if they "accidentally" scan all other passers-by, well, it would be irresponsible to ignore that data, right?

Oh, and if there's been a lot of "terrorism" lately, then the UCAS can post scanners anywhere they like, to "protect the citizens". Both around high-value areas (business district) and high-risk areas (the periphery of the Barrens; stop 'em at the gate!)

This is why if you didn't take "Shady Lawyer" as a contact you deserve everything you get

My Pleasure Daylen, Gald I could help out...

Lawyer, one of the best contacts you can ever buy!

@Ascalaphus

And if something is cheap and effective, there is always a way around civil rights. Scanning is not a search. You are just "closely looking" at a person etc. etc.

Take the video surveillance in public places for example.
I guess in the 80s/90s everybody would have thought of a thousand reasons why it violates civil rights. But the second it becomes cheap and useful....
Depriving yourself of a theoretical methode is one thing, of a working methode is something else.

Cheers for the info and the link to the Reason magazine article. Interesting stuff, and yes you're right, things ain't ever that simple and, as other posters have also pointed out, the difference in definitions in collecting statistics may distort the data somewhat. Who knows? Anyway, back to the scheduled programme of ShadowRun!

Trawling through the full White Paper for England and Wales, the section on "Violent Crimes" mentions 2,203,000 "violent incidents against individuals" and 821,957 "offences of violence against the person recorded by the police", which gives figures of 1,499.5 and 4,018.9 per 100,000 people respectively. Your US statistics quote 1,246,248 "violent crimes", for 403.6 per 100,000 people.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/...011?view=Binary
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime...e/violent-crime

On the face of it, this suggests the UK is either 10x or 3.7x as violent as the US, depending on whether you use the "violent incidents" or "offences recorder by the police" statistic as equivalent to the US "violent crimes" statistic, but I wonder whether we are not comparing apples to oranges because of the definitions used for the respective stats. Also, if the Reason article nezumi kindly provided a link to is accurate, waving an imitation gun around could be classified as a violent crime in the UK stats whereas it may well not in the US.

I guess in broad strokes we can conclude that one would be more likely to be attacked in the UK, but more likely to be murdered in the US, but as was also quoted earlier in this thread, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics ...

Did anyone else read the part in the Wikipedia article about rape statistics, where they basically explain that nobody has accurate data, that reporting standards almost couldn't be more diverse?

@Ascalaphus
Yes.
If you have read the article posted here earlyer, this is partly the case even for murder.
(One of the reasons the US has much more murders, than the UK.)

Thats always the case if political and economical interest meets statistics.
You can go from global warming to energy production or education. (I am not saying that those are not issues or that everything said about it is a complete lie. But most reports are colored to please the guys who paied for the report.)

I know this is a little late to the party, because the discussion was a couple pages ago, but I want to clarify some things about gun ownership in Israel, because there seems to be some misunderstanding.

First, private gun ownership is highly regulated and very low. Generally speaking, only people who need a gun can get one: bus and taxi drivers, jewelers, guards, and other professions that are judged to be at risk. This is in contrast to Switzerland, where people can and do purchase their service weapon upon leaving the army. Hunting is almost unknown; the number of hunting rifles in the country is probably a couple hundred, and they're highly regulated. Private gun owners are not permitted to own more than 50 bullets, not counting bullets fired in a range. Hunters must collect casings, others must file a police report if they ever discharge their weapon (unlawful dischargement results in a 2 year sentence, even if you don't hit anything or anyone). Police all carry guns (usually pistols), and members of the "Citizen Guard" (a volunteer police organization) sometimes carry M1 Carbines (including a cool bullpup version!).

That said...there are a lot of guns in Israel. Especially if you ride public transportation, which is free for soldiers and thus heavily used by them (especially Sunday morning and Thursday afternoon, when you get soldiers coming to and from home for the weekend). It's not uncommon for Hebrew phrasebooks to include "Please move your rifle" or the like; hilarious, but actually pretty topical. Not all Israeli soldiers carry their guns with them at all times - usually it's only combat soldiers - but enough do that they're very visible. Still, it's the Army's gun, not your's: for example, soldiers don't usually keep their weapon at home for reserve duty (though they sometimes have in the past - my father did, for example). The ammo is never to be in the gun unless you are actually in a combat situation or expect to be any minute; it's kept in clips at a separate point on your belt. If you're off duty, you're theoretically supposed to remove the bolt from your gun and put it in a pocket so that if your gun is stolen, it can't be fired (probably about 70% compliance). If you want to put your gun down (for example because you want to change out of your uniform and go party), you're supposed to put the gun, the bolt, and the ammo in 3 separate locked locations. And despite all having served in the Army, not every Israeli knows Krav Maga. Basic Training here comes in a variety of flavors, the lower ones of which are a joke. Many (I hesitate to say most) Israeli soldiers and civilians will not have extensive firearms or self-defense ability - this is especially true of girls today (though I hope that by 2070 the genders are fully equal - not a horrible extrapolation, considering that's the length of the country's life so far)

So the average Israeli does not have a gun at home, though the streets are crawling with them. However, that's today, not in 2072: the Arsenal write-up for the Seco LD-120 mentions that it's based on a weapon that was intended for issue to all Israelis, so in Shadowrun, I would expect every Israeli to be packing a light pistol at all times, and presumably know how to use it. Shadowrun Israel seems more militarized than modern Israel (one idea I would use is borrowed from Ken MacLeod, who had gun training and marksmanship begin in elementary school - with low power lasers, that can even be done free of danger!). Guards, soldiers, police, etc. are probably packing SMGs or ARs. Every mage probably got their training through the Army, and so is proficient in basic combat spells, even if that's not their main field.

And that _slight deviation_ should already be enough to give everyone pause

I can't comment on SR4, but on SR1-3, light pistols are so weak as to be laughable. I do wonder how frequently people would actually choose a light pistol as their primary 'self defense' weapon (assuming the character knows anything about weapons, and even then, wouldn't there be reviews on the effectiveness of these things?)

Only in the hands of a novice. If yer throwing 6-9 dice and only need a 3 to hit the target, the light pistol can be effective; well unless its against cybertrolls...

In game, my characters have killed more individuals wth a Light Pistol than a Heavy Pistol. Probably because I tend to carry Light Pistols more often. But when it works, why go to something heavier?

In SR4, Light Pistols do 4P damage compared to Heavies' 5P, and have no armor modifier compared to -1. They also have somewhat shorter range. And fluff-wise, this is a weapon for all citizens to carry. It makes sense to use a light, small weapon for that.

Yup, put what the official statistics show is still very interesting.
For example it is interesting that the historic data (see page 14) shows that the UK around 1910 was significantly safer in all respects compared to the US. Given that there have been a lot of charges that senior UK police officers essentially eliminate a lot of crime from getting recorded by shuffling paperwork it's pretty obvious that there has been enormous negative change in the UK social structure.

US violent crime in 2008 was 432 per 100K while the UK reported 3200 per 100K. (The number reported is that 3.2% of adult UK residents suffered from violent crime in 2008-9, i.e. 3.2 per 100) These are both down from the peaks but the UK rate still seems crazy high.

The US murder rate has dropped to about what it was in 1910. It was 4.6 per 100K in 1910 and it's 4.8 per 100K in 2010. Other crimes have dropped greatly since the peaks in the mid 80s (when Shadowrun was written ...) and early 90s, but are still significantly elevated over say 1960 statistics.

BTW, please note that the UK reports murders in murders per million population while the US reports murders per 100K population. In addition the UK reports other crime rates as % of people impacted while the Us reports rates as number per 100K population.

Now in the SR-verse, fresh from Trigun, Derringer Meryl.

This implies there is no real difference between firearms in SR4 other than fluff; even worse than SR3. Is this an accurate conclusion?

The adjustments are actually pretty good for the pistols, SR 1-3 had the problem that the difference between a gun that should be chambered for.25 ACP (Hold Out) 9MM (Light) and .45 ACP (Heavy that .25 and 9MM and BB's and water pistols all had about the same level of effectiveness while a .45 was actually pretty useful.

By SR 4 all classes of pistol are useful, though the changes to the concealability rules have made that part of the equation a bit less important.

In short it's still not a perfect system, it traded one problem for a less noticeable problem.

SR 4 (though I think it's true of all versions) essentially worships pistols. They grossly overrate pistols in comparison to rifles and shotguns.

Tend to agree with this, particularly with the effective ranges being excessive.

Well, thats because there are no rules which give small weapons a edge in close quaters. If you would make rifles any better, there would be no more room for pistols.
Something like trying to shoot someone in melee having a rifle is out of question/has a high modifier, rifles in general have an INI-malus because you need time to aim the weapon etc. etc.
But with nothing like that, there are no edges where pistols should have them. So making rifles better or pistols worse kind of breaks their neck.
(Jesus, even in Fallout new vegas you move slower having drawn a big weapon. Making pistols with lower damage and accuracy still viable in some situations)

Important point highlighted -- crime figures can only account for what has been reported to police (and then made its way to the office which does the statistics), but the willingness to report certain crimes can vary greatly over time and sometimes area.

Additionally, the acts defined as "violent crime" might be different between the two countries, or might have changed over time, or the definition of individual crimes in that group could change (for example, the rules for self-defence are relaxed/tightened).

.. and do not forget that US (some states have Castle- doctrine) have right of self-defence right to the point to use
deadly force againts attacker.. in UK they do not have that right and even attempt to defend Himself/Herself againts
attacker only gets defender even greater punishment than attacker..
and people wonder why some consider UK as lost case when people's right's are considered..

Some states protect the right to bear arms not just in defense of self, but home and property as well. The idea of the state protecting rapists from their victim becomes alien indeed.

concealment should be enough of a benefit. If its not perhaps some sort of encumbered penalty could be used for full size rifles.

..i do remember advice by LEO-chief for women who were afraid to to be raped.... " put fingers to your throat, and puke...smell alone would
be enough to protect you..."
yeah, righhht??!!

( by supreme court decision LEO do NOT have obligation to protect private citizen..)

Well, I have to admit, "Dirty" Harry had a damned good point about the naked guy with a knife and a hard-on chasing an unarmed woman.

..hmmm.... something collecting for Red Cross...
am i in right track?....

It was a personal policy vs San Fran PD policy critique...

@Daylen

Concealment is enough for how much better rifles are right now. But if you want to make them better (or pistols worse)...

@Selfdefance
This is always the point I hate about discussion of self defance.
Everybody just assumes that who attacked whome is obvious.
If you only go by the FACTs thats quite often a hard call to make.

Who is telling you the guy laying shot down in the yard was burglar and not just the boyfriend daddy did not like?

So I am actually for quite restrictive rules for self defance, because it mostly does not hinder self defance it hinders murdering someone and claiming self defance.
(And lets be honest, most "law abiding citizen" would not kill somebody lightly. Some scum, they would.)
So the once who do the most killing profit the most from legere self defance laws.

..well..State of California have their own way...

..did u know in US some great cities law abiting citizens have much greater danger to get shot by LEO's who are committing crime in uniform and carrying
their issued sidearm than crooks assaulting citizens..