Only the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. The rest are just fine.

No, I don’t expect parents who are ignorant about guns to teach their kids safety. We shouldn’t have to, but that’s where we’re at.

Sounds like an elective class. My ex-wife’s niece was in an after-school shotgun club. I gather it was more target practice than hunting.

I’m of the opinion that familiarity with actually shooting is more of a deterrent to the school shooter mentality than fetishizing guns. I’m basing that mostly on the idea that these school shooters can’t seem to handle a weapon, given that kills are the goal.

Taught my kids the basics at 9 and 11. They need to understand the lethality of guns, what is safe and not safe, and maybe most importantly, how to recognize someone who is not being safe and get the hell away from them.

Plus, took the mystery out of the whole thing. Now they just don’t care much.

As someone on reddit once pointed at, the AR-15 platform is designed such that the dumbest 18-yo recruit can use it.

Gunshot wounds are surprisingly survivable given swift medical attention. Which astounds my because I know a fair deal about guns, shoot most weeks, and know what various weapons and rounds are capable of.

I’m guessing the shooters are scared shitless and shaking like leaves. I doubt most are as cold blooded and methodical as the Columbine shooters. I’m also guessing the Colorado shooter lost his nerve in a hurry when he saw the consequences of his actions. The vast majority of wounds don’t seem to be anything like the Charlie Kirk fountain. In a way they’re more horrifying because the victim drops like a puppet with their strings cut, not much blood at first, no drama, just dropped straight down. Somehow that scares me more.

That incident being, in my opinion, the beginning of these shootings. Shit like this simply didn’t happen when I was a growing up, 70s through 90s. And civilians had access to the AR platform that whole time.

Funny thing about Virginia Tech, most of his kills were from his .22 pistol, about the last gun we would ever ban. That guy was calmly going for a high score. Again, that seems very atypical. Las Vegas shooter was the same particular brand of batshit insane.

Another shooting that should have been worse was the Aurora movie theater. Dumbass used a tacticool high-capacity mag. No, not the 30-round mag the gun was designed for, it was either a 50 or 100-round. It jammed almost instantly, because of course. LOL, I absolutely support idiot mags like that.

I’m actually for this. No, it shouldn’t be necessary, but it is and that’s that.

Taught my kids guns at 9 and 11. Took them out to our camp and shot a bunch of different .22s. Now instead of guns being these mysterious things “you should never touch”, well, they’ve touched and just aren’t really interested. LOL, that was 100% against my custody agreement, but I was terrified the kids would find someone’s gun one day and have Hollywood perceptions. Their mom didn’t say a word, which was really strange, so I believe she agrees.

One interesting thing I showed then was shooting an empty can with a .22. “See how that made a little hole of both sides? That’s what many people think guns do. But people are juicy, so it looks more like this.” They shit kittens when I shot a can full of water and it absolutely shredded. I think that was impactful. :)

I taught them never to pick up someone’s gun for the same reason even professionals won’t do so. “It’s not because I think you’re dumb kids, but you don’t know anything about that particular gun. What if there’s something wrong with it? How can you tell if it’s loaded? When you’re older, never accept a gun from a person who does not first clear it and show you the empty chamber. Even professionals do this. If they don’t practice this simple etiquette, they are not to be trusted and you need to get away, and stay away from that person.” Later overheard my son telling his big sis, in great detail and with great authority this rule.

Gonna suck when they’re teens. If they’re emotional wrecks like I was, they won’t see a gun in this house.

Couldn’t admit this to myself until my 40’s, but I have a serious mechanical handicap. Doesn’t stop me from trying!

We had standard tests in elementary school and I jammed out in the 90+ percentile on most subjects. The last part was called spatial reasoning. Here’s 3 shapes, if you put them together, which shape will they make. Stuff like that. Tried really hard, couldn’t do it.

I can take things apart pretty well, and I’m good at creative solutions, just can’t get the thing back together.

I’m largely redneck and I feel profoundly uncomfortable.

Yes! And because of all that, I am profoundly ignorant as to how music works.

Old science fiction books are exactly like this. They just assumed we’d have technological solutions to everything.

Also, they weren’t living in a largely collapsed ecosystem. Today we view this story in horror, but back then there were 1/4th the people, wildlife and nature was bountiful. It was probably hard to imagine that we humans could substantially alter the world. Hell, people today look into the sky and say global warming is bunk. Yeah, looks huge from down here! Take a look from space, paint on a marble.

Probably watched that movie 100 times. Last year I put it on for my wife, sat and really watched for the first time in ages. My god, came out when I was a child, still a perfect movie.

It’s what fast moving pilots do.

I’m banned on a load of comms. No idea why and too lazy to look it up. Think I caught some more bans for “fuck Kirk” comments.

Do people that create and consume such art have different brains than me? Serious question. I parsed it almost instantly, but it’s almost offensively stupid in execution. It’s not the style I object to, it’s, je ne sais quoi.

It’s a pistol mag. :)

First laugh out loud of the day!

I can’t keep the image in mind, keeps snapping back to the chupacabra.

Right!? I was excellent at French in college, but it’s been 35-years.

I know, I know, this legally means jack shit. But it does signal the world saying, “We’re sick of your shit Israel.”

From a nation-state, world-wide thing, this is significant. Diplomacy is all about, “Please stop killing each other, don’t care who started it, just fucking STOP.”

Diplomats, UN included of course, speak in words you and I don’t use when talking amongst ourselves. Even if you are defender of Israel, this takes your cover. Most welcome. Fucking finally.

Wish Avasarala was running this fucking show. “I will run your balls over a cheese grater of you fire another fucking missile! Have a nice evening.”