[ExI] Russians bots at work again?

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat


>...That being said, when dealing with politicians rather than military, the
term of art seems to be "assault weapon" which is certainly more nebulous
and arbitrary. Of course these are the same lawyers and politicians that
classify tomatoes as vegetables for bizarre purposes related to taxation
despite the fact that they are scientifically fruit.

Of course who cares about facts anymore in this age of emotionally-driven
identity-politics?


Stuart LaForge



_______________________________________________



Stuart, I have a little fun with it.  I suggest to people with strong
feelings on the matter to take a list of the 10 most popular selling long
guns (never mind handguns for now) and put a rating, one number on
assaultiness, or assaultiety, a factor, call it K sub a.  It can be a
function of how much fear it strikes in the onlooker, or some function of
what type of stock it has, whatever you want.  

SR made a good point: you can show a lot of people the same rifle, one with
an adjustable stock, the other with the old time wooden stock, the
adjustable ergonomic one looks scarier, so it gets a higher K sub a.

Make a list, assign Ka to each, now sort the list by L.a assaultfulness.
Now draw a line somewhere on that list dividing the assault rifles from the
non-assault rifles.

Repeat with someone else.

Compare the lists and where the line is drawn, if there is a line drawn.

If I do that exercise, there will be no line, because none of the top ten
most popular models sold today are assault rifles.  Assault rifles are so
rare that the casual hobby shooter can live a long life and never see one.  

California's assault weapons ban expired after a few years.  It had zero
measurable impact on crime.  Of course now they want to try it again.

spike