Guns

[Tsukiyumi]

And these are the people we entrust our safety to...

A friend of mine works at a shooting range, and he tells me that cops are consistently the worst shooters, with little knowledge of gun safety or tactics.

[Captain Seafort]

I'd prefer neither (anyone tries to rob my home, they'll leave in a bag). Over here, robbers have started shooting people anyways. Whether they're robbing a business or a home. Crime is skyrocketing, and there really just aren't enough police to curb it. Unless my safety is guaranteed, I'll take measures to protect myself. Like the saying goes, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

Vigilante justice solves nothing - it merely makes the criminals in question more likely to carry firearms, and shoot first and ask questions later. The solution to poor law-enforcement by the professionals is to make a nuisance of yourself to the local politicians until something gets done about it, not to try and do their job yourself. That way lies anarchy

[Captain Seafort]

And these are the people we entrust our safety to...

A friend of mine works at a shooting range, and he tells me that cops are consistently the worst shooters, with little knowledge of gun safety or tactics.

Even over here police have a reputation for being somewhat trigger-happy, and they're (supposedly) specially selected for firearms training.

[Mikey]

Not to defend some of these trigger-happy cops, but I know areas of this country where just the fact of being a cop will do that to you in time.

How did the radiology tech allow the procedure to start with a gun in the machine? It looks like there's more than one idiot in that story...

[Tsukiyumi]

People have been killed by oxygen tanks left in the MRI room in underfunded hospitals, and one kid got seriously injured by a dumbass doctor with a pen in his pocket. A GUN in the MRI machine? The guy should win North American Douche of the Year for for that assinine display of idiocy, and obviously needs another MRI to determine just how underdeveloped his frontal lobe is.

You don't bring a pillow to a knife fight, and you don't bring a GUN to an MRI exam.

[Eosphoros]

Thank you very much, you've all been very helpful. In the end, I think it's a matter of preference and personal ideology. I see that (in this case) I am ideologically closer to Mikey than Tsukiyumi. Of course, I won't draw any unnecessary and hasty conclusions out of that; I'm 19, not 9.

@Tsukiyumi> In the context of language proficiency, you do excel at your trade. You'd be surprised how many people on the Internet can't differentiate "its" and "it's" or "your" and "you're". It's a sight for sore eyes to find someone who can do that and much more.

[Tsukiyumi]

Thank you, Eosphoros. I try to avoid acronyms whenever possible, and that "it's vs. its" thing seems to puzzle some people to no end...

I believe we'll find common ground sooner rather than later. My personal ideology is rather left-leaning; I am only pro-weaponry because of personal circumstance and experiences. In an ideal world, everyone could solve their differences through rational conversation, or just agree to disagree. My experience tells me, however, that sometimes drastic action is not simply the preferred option - it is the only one...

[DarkOmen]

Its/it's is the most misspelled word in the English languge, followed closely by definitley.

[Captain Seafort]

Its/it's is the most misspelled word in the English languge, followed closely by definitley.

What about there/their/they're. That's definitely a common misspelling.

[Tsukiyumi]

Yeah, I also love when people use the wrong version of bear/bare. "Bring weapons to bare" is wrong... English is a bit of a mess, honestly. Like how comb, tomb, and bomb are all pronounced with different -omb sounds, even though they're all spelled the same. There are several english words I know how to spell, and know the context of, but have no idea how to pronounce because I've never heard them spoken...

[Captain Seafort]

The number of English words with the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings defies belief - whether/weather, sight/site, it's/its, there/their/they're, and so on.

[Mikey]

As an amateur writer AND the husband of an elementary teacher, it really boggles the mind what a screwy language English is. The number of homophones and homonyms is ridiculous, and the number of situations in which syntactical or spelling rules don't apply is staggering. That's why English is harder for native speakers to learn to read as children than many other languages - because whole, "sight" word reading is so important. If it were strictly phonetic, then "ghoti" would spell "fish" (GH as in "tough," O as in "women," TI as in "nation.") And don't get me started on English plurals!

Add to that the fact that English grammar doesn't follow the patterns even of its parent, Germanic languages. The Amish of the US, for example, are a completely insular community of German derivation - the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" is actually a corruption of the term "Deutsch." While speaking English, one of them might say "Throw Momma from the train a kiss," which follows German syntax correctly, rather than the preferred English of "Throw Momma a kiss from the train." If they would ride a train, that is.

And one of the more misspelled words in English is "misspell."

[Tsukiyumi]

...one of them might say "Throw Momma from the train a kiss," which follows German syntax correctly, rather than the preferred English of "Throw Momma a kiss from the train." If they would ride a train, that is.

Right. One is a sweet sentiment, the other is a hilarious Danny DeVito/Billy Crystal movie...

[Eosphoros]

Yeah, I know. I attend a course called "Contemporary English Language I", and just to show us how ridiculous English is, our professor made us transcribe a silly poem into IPA phonetic alphabet! She's a bit of a sadist. Damn, was that a tiresome experience. I did more homework in two months of her course than in four years of high school. But, considering the impossible difficulty of and number of exceptions in Croatian ortography, I don't have the moral right to criticize any language, including Chinese and Ancient Bajoran. In fact, there are so many exceptions in our ortography, I'm beginning to question the validity of the term "ortographic rule" in Croatian ortography. It's probably an oxymoron. And don't get me started on grammar or the lexical norm.

[Tsukiyumi]

Wouldn't things be so much more simple if we were all slightly telepathic?