https://beta.washingtonpost.com/pol...links-between-mental-health-violent-behavior/ https://gizmodo.com/the-plan-to-use-fitbit-data-to-stop-mass-shootings-is-o-1837710691 Last week, the Washington Post reported that the White House had been briefed on a plan to create an agency called HARPA, a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA. Among other initiatives, this new agency would reportedly collect volunteer data from a suite of smart devices, including Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echos, and Google Homes in order to identify “neurobehavioral signs” of “someone headed toward a violent explosive act.” The project would then use artificial intelligence to create a “sensor suite” to flag mental changes that make violence more likely. According to the Post, the HARPA proposal was discussed with senior White House officials as early as June 2017, but has “gained momentum” after the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The latest version of the plan, reportedly submitted to the Trump administration this month, outlined the biometric project called “SAFE HOME,” an acronym for “Stopping Aberrant Fatal Events by Helping Overcome Mental Extremes.” A source told the newspaper that every time HARPA has been discussed in the White House “even up to the presidential level, it’s been very well-received.” A copy of the plan obtained by the Post characterizes HARPA as pursuing “breakthrough technologies with high specificity and sensitivity for early diagnosis of neuropsychiatric violence” and claims that “a multi-modality solution, along with real-time data analytics, is needed to achieve such an accurate diagnosis.” That’s a lot of vague buzzwords, but the general idea is clear: collect a wealth of personal data in order to flag mental status changes in individuals and determine whether those changes can predict mass violence. It’s an approach that strikes George David Annas, deputy director of the Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship Program at SUNY Upstate Medical University, as ridiculous. “The proposed data collection goes beyond absurdity when they mention the desire to collect FitBit data,” Annas told Gizmodo. “I am unaware of any study linking walking too much and committing mass murder. As for the other technologies, what are these people expecting? ‘Alexa, tell me the best way to kill a lot of people really quickly’? Really?”
Unreal, they know not of what they speak but they just keep talking. The term "assault weapon", at least to a veteran, implies a lightweight carbine rifle that fires a relatively small caliber with relatively large ammo capacity. Carbine means short. Yeah even an AK-47 round is regarded as a relatively small round at 7.62 x 39mm. These weapons generally have a high rate-of-fire. Weapons falling into this category used to be employed by the military for close work, urban stuff etc but came to be more highly regarded for the light weight of the weapon and the light weight of the ammunition and so weapons like the M-16 came into much wider use. And that is it. That is the total actual definition of an assault weapon to anyone who knows. A folding stock does not make something an assault weapon. Mag capacity does not make something an assault weapon. A flash suppressor does not make something an assault weapon. I don't like them and I've got an expert marksmanship decoration with the M-16. Got no use for them. Instead I like what is called a Main Battle Weapon. You can buy the civilian variant of the M-14 (the Springfield M1A) which has never been called an assault weapon and has never been banned and just avoid the whole thing. It shoots through cinderblock and has incredible range. Its considered just a long rifle. Problem solved.
Open carry in a public urban setting is wrong imo, but not for the reasons you perceive or understand.
Finally! Your starting to get it. Now what is the probability that someone will break into your house and have a fully automatic military weapon? Ok good. Now why is that probability low. Right. Those guns are hard to come by for civilians. Not impossible, but not so easy ,right? And since they are illegal, you take a big risk of getting caught if you've got one. Right? Ok now just take the next step and figure out what we should do to lower the probability of someone breaking into a house or shooting up a Walmart with an AK? Its definitely not going to zero. But more importantly, its not going to be reduced one bit by you yourself owning an AK. But lets lower it by some substantial amount like we did for fully automatics. Good. Now your catching on. Its all about lowering the probability so you can feel safe with a hand gun that can fire a few shots. We like you and we know you like pretending you're safe with your AK. But we also don't want you or your family to be killed for a stupid reason when we have it in our power to lower the probability of that happening. It would be a lot easier to get rid of most of the AKs out there then most realize because, despite there being a lot of them, they are nowhere near evenly distributed among the population. Laws are made with the intention of reducing the probability of crimes. And often, if they are well constructed and enforceable , they have proven to be quite effective in reducing probability. It's a juvenial argument to say that when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns, because that's true by definition. So lets move beyond juvenile arguments and recognize Its all about altering probability.
You mean the discussion on you telling me I am unable to comprehend your argument and to ask Tony to explain it to me? If you don't like responses that are insulting and off topic, stay on topic in the first place and don't lob insults of your own.
What a joke! Take an ambiguous description of a weapon and define it with another made-up, ambiguous definition. "Ah, Military Style means assault weapon!" Face it, you know precisely jack shit about firearms and are parroting a media narrative. You do realize that short of bolt-action rifles, and shotguns, pretty much every other firearm is semi-automatic, right?
Actually i wasn't parroting a media narrative, I was parroting an official definition in New Zealand. Your false logic has made me distrust you. The notion that a person has to understand much of anything about the workings of firearms to understand the statistics of gun violence, and the conclusions to be drawn from those statistics, is flawed. My first firearm was a break-barrel White Powder Wonder shotgun. I used it to hunt ducks as a kid long before you were born. I subsequently owned a Remington model 33 and a Winchester hex barreled 22 long rifle with a walnut stock and beautiful peep sight. That was a gorgeous gun. I never owned a semiautomatic gun of any sort, nor do I have any interest in such. My interest in guns is strictly from a sportsman's viewpoint. I have zero interest in using them to kill people. My dad and uncles were all sportsmen and owned shotguns and rifles. They did not own semiautomatic weapons. My dad in fact finished first in many skeet shooting competitions. He did not own an AK-47. Would that disqualify him from knowing anything about gun violence or guns? If you have a constructive comment re my post #795 above I would be delighted to read it.