The Biggest Nerds in the World

Gun  nuts.
Seriously.  Engage them in a discussion on guns.  What do you get?

Ex 1

Dozer you are incorrect. Magazine capacity has nothing to do with lethality. Current timelines reported show almost 20 minutes from 911 call in CT to first responders in the building… Magazine (not clips) changes take 2 or 3 seconds…

rifles are meant to extend range of a shot. The CT shooter (i hate to say this) would have been MORE LETHAL with the pistol shots… a 9MM is almost twice the size of the 5.56 mm round fired from the rifle and if the rifle is firing typical FMJ rounds you actually have better survivability since it passes through the target with less damage at those short ranges…

Sorry. You are using emotion and not an understanding of ballistics here. My guess… most of these shots were head shots since they were almost all fatal. Rifle or pistol, caliber small or large… these kids were herded and told by lock down policy to sit and wait for the attacker to come. Mag limits and rifle bans would not change stop this.

Ex 2

Mistermix, my Glock uses high capacity magazines, not clips. The ammunition for my M4 is in clips until I put the bullets in the magazine. If you’re going to talk the language of gun control, learn the language of guns first.

Ex 3

I’ve fired in excess of 1000 rounds out of mine, not one FTF or light strike in the entire lot, Defense ammo, +P, Reloads, and some IDPA light loads – This gun is my EDC, and I’ll tell you I am impressed with mine. Not a single issue, and it gets cleaned once a week by hand, and once a month in my sonic cleaner.

I did pull it out of the box and clean it with CLP, I use an air compressor set at 25psi to blow out the excess cleaner and oil before I reassemble. With several other SA weapons in my collection, I will say not a single one has had issues from my 5.25 Comp 9mm (over 10,000 rounds) to my 1911 GI A1 (in excess of 16,000 rounds) – no issues, the 1911 gets a new recoil spring every 3500 rounds if it needs it or not.

We shoot a metric F ton in this household, one of the benefits of duel income no kids, and a wife that likes to run brass as much as I do. We shoot like clock work once a week, and more often than not twice a week. I think your issue could be chalked up to a bad apple, and IMO you cut the process short by not taking advantage of the exceptional warranty and service available through Springfield.

For each bad example you find, you will also find 30 people that don’t have any issues, and never post about how great this gun really is. Game changer for me, I truly hope others dont base an opinion of this stellar weapon off your experience.

All of this overly technical conversations that attempt to split hairs over what anyone not obsessed with the subject would properly consider  arcane details seemed vaguely familiar.

Ex 1

Actually, Who Cares, stardestroyer.net provides evidence that the video is accurate. It estimates the energy contained in turbolasers to be greater than 30TJ, but the star trek wiki states the standard antimatter content in a photon torpedo to be 1kg or more, putting a maximum energy output on the order of greater than 10^17 J, or 100,000 TJ. Even assuming the true output of a turbolaser blast to be 50 times the given figure, then it seems it would not be terribly effective against the shields of the Enterprise which are designed to sustain multiple direct hits from standard photon torpedos, and presumably recharges slightly in the time between hits.

Ex 2.

Where to begin?

Let’s start with the temporal problems:

In the OT, it is implied that Leia knew her mother for several years before her death, whereas in the PT Padme dies moments after she was born.

The Old Republic existed for over one thousand generations in the OT, whereas in the PT it existed for only a thousand years.

Owen, Beru, Anakin, and Obi-wan age forty years in the twenty years between trilogies.

Character Problems:

It is implied that Obi-wan trained Anakin because of hubris (and in other versions of Jedi it confirms this), and not merely to fulfill a promise to his dying master (who, by the way, was never mentioned in the OT).

Obi-wan and Yoda simply run away at the end of Episode 3, even though they were prepared to kill both Anakin and the Emperor directly prior to this. They even meet up after their injury-less defeats, and they never consider returning together to destroy the Emperor while Anakin is incapacitated. Instead, they wait for twenty years for Luke to come of age (which actually would be considered too old to begin Jedi training anyway), and never even consider training Leia. Obi-wan even considers Luke their “only hope”, even though the PT confirmed the existence of female Jedi, making Leia a perfectly acceptable candidate for becoming a Jedi. Add to all of this the fact that it is never mentioned that Anakin’s children would be “chosen ones” in the style of their father (whatever that means), thus making their waiting pointless, as they should just finish the job themselves.

Anakin is described as the best starpilot in the galaxy in the OT, but no mention is ever made of this in the PT.

Ex. 3

Blaster bolts are seen to be slower then bullets. And here is another thing, it is below Mach as well, because the sound is simultaneous with the bolt being fired, not after.

I say the light show was necessary for the visual appeal. FACT is they must be slow enough to be visible, and HOW slow they chose the speed to appear does not concern me. It’s yet another variable that only confuses the issue.

The sounds from starships and explosions in space that aren’t even supposed to be making noise in space also happen pretty much simultaneously with the cause of the sounds.

Blaster fire is below Mach, it is proven. Also from visual evidence, it is very slow as well.

Of course, but if it is proven just provide the evidence. But let me just remind you that my original point is if it needs to show up, it has to be slowed down, so even if the weapons fire IS at c, it cannot APPEAR that way, so I won’t use a visual of something that can’t be shown as evidence. It’s kind of the same (I think) as saying you can’t prove the distance of something in space by the sound when we know we’re not supposed to hear anything.

Anyway, I chose not to get all wrapped up in canon on film like it’s absolute 100% accurate so far as it can be shown on film because I know damn well that some things need to be done for show, and it’s proven every time you hear a starship or weapon or explosion in space. And I’m pretty sure you’d never see a ship travel away from you if it jumped to FTL. But since the viewing audience is used to seeing visual representation of objects leaving into the distance and in a specific direction, you DO see ships travel into the distance.

Surely I don’t need to remind you that our eyes are pretty limited, but even a framerate 10 times our range of detection would not show light speed objects leaving the vacinity. It would be in position, you’d maybe see the first instant it started to accelerate, and then it would vanish. You’re basic ‘don’t blink or you’ll miss it’ wouldn’t even apply.

Now onto the Jedi reflexes again? Or are we all in agreement that it’s the arrival of several shots from different directions arriving simultaneously that is impossible to block, and that how long it took them to get there is mostly irrelevant? Yeah, MOST people understand that.

Anyway – Im ‘undecided’ and don’t suggest you believe about the speed based on what I say, but Im just telling you I wont believe they’re going slower based on whats shown on the screen. I’m willing to accept other evidence… but I forget why it matters. Some sci fi even show actual light beams move away from their source. Wait… Does anyone also realize the light sabers extend at differing speeds too? It’s stuff like this that I say is done for dramatic effect. Sometimes it extends instantly for immediate use… but I’ve seen one extend very slowly like… “Im in no hurry to destroy you… Im cool and taking my sweet time!”

 We have outsourced governmental regulations on firearms to the same time type of arguments one would find in a Star Wars forum.  Any argument with those who are obsessed with firearms end with firearm advocates finding some minor technical issue about what you have said followed by a giant hurumph and insistence you are not fit to be in the discussion.  While who shot first, Han or Greedo is a fun discussion, it’s not the basis for serious public policy discussion and that is what the NRA has turned the discussion over guns into.

Men, and it’s mostly men, have inane discussions about minutia of their hobby and obsess about the smallest detail of technology as if it bears any resemblance to reality.

And then there are Star Wars nerds.

If firearms are a fun hobby, I understand the obsession as not being much different from cars or Star Wars.  However, once people start seriously spending their time training how to survive a gun fight when that’s as likely to occur for the average person as is running into Greedo the Bounty Hunter, it’s time to ignore them.  They aren’t the experts, they are the obsessive nerds who take a hobby from something fun to something weird and obnoxious. Imagine we ran space policy by what science fiction nerds wanted?  I believe the White House just showed why that doesn’t make sense.

It’s just that in this case, the NRA caters to those nerds and feeds their fantasies of shoot outs and Mack Bolan novels.   It’s too bad the NRA isn’t as reality based as theforce.net.