I finally(!!!!) got out to a couple of wilderness areas after a 3-ish year hiatus. I hit up both the Mt. Washington and Three Sisters Wilderness areas. I was going to do a longer trip, but I ended up cutting my heel fairly deep on my 1st day of hiking, which wasn't very conducive to the type of long distance hiking/camping trip I had planned. Then the lightning started, so I said "A couple days is good...for now." I guess there was a few lightning strikes that started some fires near where I was, so it was probably a smart decision to cut the trip short. I was kind of bummed out, but it was still a fun trip, and was great for mental hygiene. Anyway, here are some pictures from the trip, slide show style. Some photos have captions, others don't. Enjoy the natural splendour of Oregon! (I may end up adding a second set of slides if I have time to get out to another area before the fall term starts)
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I just wanted to say a few things about the mass shootings that took place in El Paso, Dayton, and Gilroy. In the last 8 days (July 28th to August 4th), 67 people were injured and 34 people died at the hands of (apparently, as of now) 3 different people. These numbers don't include those injured (fatally or otherwise) in other recent mass shootings in Brownsville, Mississippi, South Bend, and so on. It's also not taking into account the gun violence that happened i Chicago this weekend. I'm just focusing on the 3 incidents from the places I listed in the first sentence, but anything I have to say about those 3 incidents can easily be applied to the other incidents.
First, I want to say that I'm not going to focus on the races or personal politics of the shooters. Other people have things to say about the race and politics of the shooters, but here and now I will be focusing only on the guns and the crimes. I've said on this blog many times before that I think that semi-automatic and fully=automatic guns should be outlawed outright for civilian ownership or use. I still stand by that, even more-so now. I also think any ammunition clip/magazine that can hold more than 10 bullets should be illegal for civilians to own. I can't think of any situation a civilian would be in where 10 bullets wouldn't be enough: - If you can't kill an animal with 10 bullets, 5 to 10 more bullets probably aren't going to help your cause. -If your house is being robbed, spraying your AR-15 might kill the robber, but the robber was probably going to give up if you had just pulled a .22 revolver with 6 bullets. Joe Meth-head probably isn't breaking into your house with an Uzi that has an extended clip, and he's probably not up to get shot over a TV or an x-box, so you probably only need to fire (at most) 1 of the 6 rounds in the air to get him to sit there while you call the cops. -If the "evil Illuminati-Freemason-Police-State Government" or whatever decides to converge upon your family at your heavily fortified compound, I'm guessing they'll probably do so with tanks and soldiers in a way that makes your AR-15 or Mac-10 or single rocket launcher or whatever totally irrelevant. Basically, there's absolutely no reason for any civilian (or street-patrol police officer, really) to own anything that can hold more than 10 bullets. We have laws dealing with explosives of all types (as well as laws dealing with raw materials that can be used to make explosives), so it's high time we started getting really serious about the types of guns we allow to be available to the public, and the amount of bullets a "civically acceptable" gun should be able to hold at any given time. In Gilroy and El Paso, the shooters (from what I know) were both using WASR-10 rifles (essentially a poorman's AK-47) and an AR-15 was used in Dayton. I wonder if these individuals would have been as inclined to attempt these shooting sprees if the only weapons available to them were a basic 6 shot, single shot (which is to say neither automatic NOR semi-automatic) fire arm. I think the Gilroy case also highlights one of the faults in letting states decide firearm laws for themselves. It's nice that California made it illegal to own AK-47 style weapons, but what does that really mean when some mentally unstable idiot (who could obviously give 2 fucks about what the law says, considering they're planning to kill people) can just cross the border to Nevada to get what they want? In general, I'm a states-rights advocate because I recognize that no one policy can work for every group. But for things like firearms....things that can take potentially hundreds of lives in a matter of minutes... there has to be some blanket laws for everyone. Really, for now, that's all I have to say for now. I think there's something to be said regarding the mental health issues at hand, and I'm sure there's a racial undercurrent that needs to be addressed (from what I understand, at least 2 of these 3 incidents were enacted by people who had a violent white supremacist world view). I also think I need to finish up this math project I'm taking time from. I'm not exactly a major news/opinion source, and I doubt anyone is considering writing me in for public office, so I should probably focus on my paper and not giving my opinion of firearms policy to the 2 bots who "read" my blog and the 1 real human who accidentally clicked on this page... |
AuthorQuick access to Math & Economics papers and notes from mathematical lectures can be found via links in the CV section of this website. (click here) Archives
March 2024
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