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Nope. The cop who saved me is a TI here. In fact, he's a real life hero. He's the cop, it's a famous thing, who in full riot gear at a protest walked up to a little black kid who was holding a sign offering free hugs and asked if he could have one. He then talked to the kid at his level about what was bothering him about the police and gave him agreement and support. Talk about being incredible and knowing how to do your job.

My belief is that ready and easy access to guns is a major problem, as is the cultural mindset that, influenced by John Wayne et al, every problem can be solved by a "good guy with a gun". There's also an awful lot of talk about rights, but not a lot of lip service paid to responsibilities concerned with owning firearms. The US won't let people drink until they're 21 but will quite happily let them buy a gun with no oversight at 18. How about enforcing the same standards across the board? I'm not saying that mental health is the be all and end all of the problem by any means but it doesn't help in a society where mental ill-health is stigmatised, and it costs a small fortune to get treatment. Mental health breakdowns very rarely happen instantly, there's usually a build up over a few days or weeks that culminates in the crisis. Early intervention may prevent an incident saving lives but any crisis isn't helped if a person can lay their hands on a gun and ammunition with ease.

If you are someone who needs to believe it's not the guns but it's something else like healthcare, that is to say, uncared for mental derangement, you have a few hurdles to leap. The first hurdle is the constant exclamation that there was no prior indication of derangement by the perpetrators of these gun killings followed up by the assertion that even if there were heretofore unknown indications none would have been discovered by a common background check. So let's give you all of that but, to be fair, we'll assume that you would be keen on finding those unknown indications so we might prevent at least one mass shooting in the future. Great. You still have an empty bag. So what about this potential indication: an 18 year old kid wants to buy two AR-15 style weapons, 1800 rounds of ammunition and a dozen or so high capacity magazines. Is that an indication of potential mental instability? Is that something that should be halted until a little more investigation happens? Is that something a gun shop owner should deny by law or be held responsible for allowing? Is that a reason to have gun control laws? That's the problem. Either you believe mental instability is the issue and can be seen or you just want to use it as a trope so you can ignore the horror of these mass shooting events. Which one are you?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/briefing/masks-mandates-us-covid.html “In U.S. cities where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread at a similar rate as in mask-resistant cities. Mask mandates in schools also seem to have done little to reduce the spread. Hong Kong, despite almost universal mask-wearing, recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.“ Public service announcement

A guy arrives home at seven o’clock in the morning, stinking of whiskey, to find his angry wife waiting for him. She shouts at him, “You’d better have a darn good reason for coming home at this time in the morning.” “Of course I do,” replies the guy. “Well then, what is it?” asks his wife. “Breakfast!”

Wonder why you are not copying the part of the article that explain how masks do work, but that mask mandates have not been effective.

works.. https://www.dropzone.com/forums/topic/55701-d-b-cooper-unsolved-skyjacking/

I just like to share, what can I say.

Over the edge - BASE Magazine I've tried putting together a new base magazine, with the intent of making it a more regular thing with news, tips and educational articles. Big thanks to all that helped with issue #1. Feedback and help with future issues is more than welcome :)

Nothing to add, just this whole post bears repeating until it sinks in.

Now now, I guess your not looking to be let out of time out early at shutters for good behavior are ya G… did any part of the message where he talks about showing people respect register in your bird brain? I’d like to think I’ve come a long way since then but it’s nice to see my early work being studied it’s very flattering. It’s kinda like to early days of metals R&D you’d go down some blind alleys at first until you figure out what works. But this a good example of my outside the box thinking that I’ve fine tuned that is furthering the case. I later learned that this 302 was likely a typo…it was in reference to an unsub in the file that they were investigating with a stained right hand and his description got mixed in with coopers.. that line of investigation ended up being a dead end but just remember how Edison invented the light bulb. Let me ask you something Jer… what do you do for the case besides whine criticize and breed drama throughout the vortex. Oh wait let us not forget your brilliant revelation that cooper was a hobo living in a portland encampment lol. I hope you get your meds adjusted soon G… you don’t seem well. Take care, brush ya hair Nicky

You sir, even if you are 100, are wise beyond your years.

Usually better to have a good friend with a boat, than to have one yourself.

I believe a US marine is required to attend a 2 week refresher course EVERY YEAR for firearms certification, with half of that being live fire exercises. And that's for someone who is formally trained. (correction welcome) The civilian currency requirements should not be less than the military. (excluding military specific training scenarios) Edit - that goes for LEOs too, IMO.

A woman asks a man, “Do you drink beer?” Man: Yeah. Woman: How many beers a day? Man: Usually about 3. Woman: How much do you pay per beer? Man: $5.00, including the tip. Woman: And how long have you been drinking? Man: About 20 years, I suppose. Woman: So a beer costs $5 and you have 3 beers a day which puts your spending each month at $450. In one year, it would be approximately $5400, correct? Man: Correct. Woman: If in 1 year you spend $5400, not accounting for inflation, the past 20 years puts your spending at $108,000, correct? Man: Yeah, that's probably about right. Woman: Do you know that if you didn’t drink so much beer, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari? Man: Do you drink beer? Woman: No. Man: What color is your Ferrari?

May I make a radical suggestion? Tie the part of the Second Amendment about "right to bear arms" to the part about "well regulated militia" and require every new gun owner to enroll in a gov't recognized gun club and complete basic fire arms training at that gun club. To meet the "militia" requirement, insist that each gun club include a few active duty or retired military or police officers. Most gun clubs already contain large numbers of retired military. That is similar to the current standard in most other countries (e.g. Canada).

A few years back I was one who sided with the anti gun control folks. I don't know the answer but this has to stop.

Europeans watch the same TV shows as us, as do Canadians and Australians. They see the same cop shows with the same movie violence. They eat the same food (pretty much), drink the same booze and for the most part drive the same cars and shop in similar stores. The biggest DIFFERENCE is that Europeans, Canadians etc. don't have absurdly easy access to firearms.

One of the parents was put in cuffs and detained for urging law enforcement to do something. When she convinced the cops to let her free, she jumped the fence and got into the school and got her kids out. She was able to do that cause cops were too busy pepper spraying parents. Uvalde spends 40% of their city budget on policing AND the school board has an extensive safety plan. The shooter spent 12 minutes outside shooting before getting into the school. 12 Minutes in a state with some of the laxest gun laws and highest gun ownership. Then it took 1 hour to get enough competent people together to neutralize 1 inexperienced teenager. Then the Republican and Libertarian brainpower tells us that the only answer to all of this is to stop the democrats' gay agenda and build schools with one door which can only be attended by kids with gun racks in their trucks.

Yep, that is very true. It is worthwhile, IMO, to change our culture so we do not have the highest number of school shootings in the world. Y'know, I hear this over and over. There was an armed guard patrolling this school. He didn't stop the shooter. Two armed police officers didn't stop the shooter. In fact they regrouped or retreated or planned or something for 40 minutes before taking action, and another poster here explained why that was a good decision on their part. Adding a bunch of less trained armed people to that mix would not have made things better. And if you add more trained people, and their good decisions mean they don't engage the shooter, that means that doesn't work either. The "just add more guns" doesn't work. We keep adding more guns and the death toll keeps going up. At some point you have to admit that it's not working.

FBI part 46 p 191 (18991) Himmelsbach.. "He specifically asked for parachutes from nearby McChord Air Force Base, showing some familiarity with the area.”

After Brian/Tony quit making the Jedei, I put 1000 jumps on a Vengeance 107. Flight characteristics are fine, and in my experience the openings are also decent until the lineset goes out of trim at 500+ jumps. As for DSE's statement about why you would fly airlocks instead of x-braced, my personal feeling is that many people are jumping x-brace that don't need to and are not reaping the rewards of the high performance as they make straight-in approaches and flare it like an accuracy canopy.