TMF

Because the gun laws we're against don't target the criminals, they target the general public. I have no problem with gun laws that go after unlawful use or possession of firearms. By your logic drunk driving shouldn't be against the law since there are laws against it, but hey, people still do it. Why bother? Texting while driving is more dangerous to motorists than drunk driving. If someone is doing it they should be punished the same or even more so. If they injure or kill another motorist while doing it then they should suffer heavy penalties the same as if someone was drunk or under the influence of drugs while driving. It's negligent, irresponsible and doesn't take into account the safety of others. It's like setting up a shooting range without a backstop. You may not mean to hit someone with your rounds, but because of your gross negligence you're gonna be held accountable for where those rounds go.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist doing this.

Absolutely, the problem is those Soldiers/Marines/Airmen have more important jobs to do other than stand in a tower/guard DFAC/PX. Support jobs alone take up over 2/3rds of those who wear a uniform downrange. That leaves very, very few combat arms folks to cover down on such large swaths of battlespace. Like I said before, if the military was to completely staff all those positions with what they have from the military then the mission wouldn't happen or our military would become so overstretched due to deployment numbers that no one would stay in past 3 years (which causes a whoooooole new world of problems for our military; think Vietnam and a lack of experienced leadership). It would just be a whole lot of service members in a dangerous place holding a little piece of real estate, which would probably result in higher casualty numbers for us because the enemy would have more freedom of movement to conduct offensive operations instead of just setting out roadside bombs and firing some mortars/rockets every so often.

Good question. The countries they hire from are usually have a pretty low standard of living. I don't actually know how much companies such as SOC pay them, but I know it's not very much. $6 a day is a lot to most on the African continent. Not to mention they're not engaged in offensive operations and aren't usually guarding places that get attacked often. They man posts which require a body to man, but not necessarily a highly trained body. I don't know what the actual cost to manning ratio is. I know that the lower tier State Dept contracts were around 400 a day. That comes out to 150ish a year being paid to the actual person on the ground, but I don't know how much additional money is being paid to the company... let's say double that for argument's sake. So if it costs around 300k a year for one guy it's still cheaper than using a uniform. For one, the companies recruit folks who already have a background. They don't just pull someone off the street, give them a few weeks of training and send them on their way. They're expected to show up already knowing how to function in a high threat environment. Yes, the military already has people on the payroll. But how many of that 2.5 million are actually trigger pullers (as in combat arms)? Probably less than 120,000. Of that number, how many are qualified to perform security tasks required of these agencies (meaning they meet the standards required)? Probably around 15,000. You know how much training and money is spent on getting someone to that level? Millions. Literally millions. I'm talking about just one guy. For the military to respond to this need they would be sinking billions of dollars to stand up a sizable enough force to meet that challenge, which by the time they did, there probably wouldn't be a requirement for it anymore. With a contract company they can recruit, train and have a body out in the field in a matter of weeks. The military can't mirror that. Maybe if the conflicts were a lot smaller it would be possible, but even in peace time SOF has a mission and it's not likely that the DOD would scoop up a bunch of SOF personnel to provide security for a bunch of fat field agents, especially since DOD isn't too keen on giving non-DOD organizations operational control of their units (i.e. some State Dept guy controlling the actions of a SOF manuever unit).

Well I agree that he committed a crime, but I'm not going to judge his actions. If someone had just shot me a couple of times I don't know what I would do, but I do know I wouldn't be in the right mental state to make any rational decision. I'd like to believe I would react appropriately, but I'm sure if I could still walk and talk my words and actions might not reflect that of calm person.

I have no intention to be in a refugee camp either, but what about the majority of the population that doesn't have the means to provide for themselves? Do we just let them starve or devolve into anarchy while the government tell them "well you should have prepared better"? This isn't about those who ARE prepared, it's about those who aren't.

Drunk Driving News: Texting More Dangerous Than DUI Shocking Texting While Driving Statistics - DUI in the News - The Atlanta DUI News Blog Studies Show Texting While Driving Worse Than Drunk Driving - Massachusetts DUI Lawyer Blog News Headlines Texting While Driving: How Dangerous is it? - Feature - Car and Driver The take away was that texters were 3-4 times slower on reaction time than a drunk and 23 times more likely to be in a crash than a non-distracted, non-impaired driver. It's sad that a drunk driver is the lesser of two evils. It's even sadder than somehow drunk driving is so heavily vilified and texting while driving is considered to be an okay practice and is waaaaay more common. I can't drive more than a few minutes without seeing someone doing this.

Driver was texting in Missouri traffic pileup - Yahoo! News In my opinion, texting while driving should be in the same category as DUI since it is equally or more dangerous. So now the NTSB is recommending that it should be banned for commercial drivers. Would it be overstepping to go so far as to recommend a Federal ban for regular drivers? How would that work for state issued licenses?

So what exactly did TEMA/FEMA do to make the situation worse? If they were ill-prepared to handle such an event don't you think it would be prudent for them to take measures to better prepare in the future?

Well in the absence of an organization tasked with addressing that problem then that's what you can expect. Unfortunately most people are not prepared to handle a disaster, so if the majority of the population suddenly loses their basic means for survival (food/water/shelter) and there is no organization in place to address it then anarchy will erupt, people will kill and many, many innocents will die. This happens all over the world, why does anyone think that wouldn't happen in the US?

I don't know what to think about this one. Yeah, I get what it looks like, but I'm not convinced that was their intention. It seems they wanted a design that "bridged" the two buildings and give the appearance of a cloud. By nature this calls for a two building design. It wouldn't look right if they did that at the bottom and it probably would be difficult to make it structurally sound if they did it at the top. The middle is the only way to do it. In the story a company official admits to realizing the similarity during the designing of it, but by that point they were probably already committed in planning and probably thought no one would notice.

JUMMMBBOOOOOO!

It would cost the tax payer 3 or 4 times more to have the organic means of many of these private companies. Trust me, the government is saving money on this. Besides, our military is simply not big enough to meet the manning challenges in combat zones and other areas worldwide. It's not as simple as just grabbing a Pvt and saying "stand here and pull security". Just providing security for a mid-size logistical hub in either country is a Battalion + size mission. The military doesn't have the resources to staff 100+ logistical sites with a BN each. That would increase our footprint on an already overstretched force and result with guys like me who get out because we're away too much. In fact, the first few years of Iraq we used locally hired Iraqis for security because we didn't have the means to provide security for ourselves. If we were responsible for providing our own security we would have spent the entire mission doing just that. No time for any operations, just security. In that case we would be doing nothing except occupying a firebase and having no effect on the enemy and that would defeat the purpose for being there in the first place. Also, in regards to the State Dept and the three letter agencies that hire out security, the requirement for the level of proficiency of those who would provide security for (what the enemy would regard as) high value targets is pretty significant. We have people in all branches with the skills to provide such a force, however, they're out hunting bad guys. To repurpose that force as a security element for State Dept employees and field agents would cripple our ability to conduct special operations. Trust me, if the problem was that simple to use military personnel as opposed to security contractors it would have already been done. The reason Blackwater ended up the way they did was they got greedy in a bid for contracts and sacrificed quality for quantity. Not to say there aren't professionals that worked there, because there are plenty, but it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the batch. They should have done a better job managing those trigger happy apples.

Sounds like they're taking it in a good direction. I know there are many here that have used their facilities in Moyock and can attest to what a nice training facility it is. It would be a shame for that to go to waste because Blackwater did such a crappy job vetting guys in order to secure contracts and then not holding them to an acceptable standard. It's really two separate sides of the house.

If a Joplin size tornado rips your community apart you would change your opinion on that.

I agree, especially if the data they're collecting is general and not specific. I guess we'd have to see what the questions are first and how they gather the answers. Is it household by household; doubt it. I'm sure they have a system to categorize based on the answers and generate statistics based on that. I don't think they have the resources or inclination to look in to how much you have in storage. It's probably more like "17 percent of homes in this area were in "X" category of prepardness. This suggests that 83 percent of the population are going to be looking for a handout in the case of mass power outage/snow-ice storm/economic collapse/rapture/zombie apocolypse. These are the things our department needs to do to prepare for such an event." I still think mail outs would be more cost effective and could be made to be more anonymous. I'm picturing some nice old lady coming to my door trying to do her part to help her community, not an evil and sinister plot to put me on a list so the gov't can steal my supplies and burn my books.

Ugghhh, I'm gonna have to buy one of these now. If indeed they are the same thing, the ATI one I molested was very nice. I think it would be a great intro handgun for a youngin' and also good for anyone that has a real 1911. You can get all the muscle memory down for draw/aim/fire at a fraction of the cost of ammo. The only thing you're not getting is practice at recoil management. I'm thinking this would pay for itself after a few hundred rounds.

A coworker of mine purchased an ATI model like this. There was a Sig model at the gunshop but it cost a little more. He brought the ATI one into the office to show and I liked it. I'm going to get one myself when I can launder a little money from my bank account when the wife isn't looking. Shooting my 1911 is pricey, so using a dedicated .22 can get the muscle memory down without breaking the bank.

I had this problem with a place I rented a long time ago, so I went around with spray foam and filled every possible location they were coming in from. Before I sealed everything up I killed a couple dozen with traps; afterward only one or two. I never saw them after that. I'm pretty sure they were getting in through a poorly sealed hole where the pipe to the water heater came through the floor.

Well I think that's gonna happen no matter what. Scumbag criminals usually have scumbag families that are looking for a handout. Who better to steal from then the person who killed their relative who was trying to steal something? In that case I would have no problem countersuing for damage done to my property by that scumbag, such as carpet replacement, mental anguish and cost of rounds put into said scumbag. The only time I've seen a SD shoot where the family went on the news and said anything worth a crap was after a convenience store shootout in Florida that left the criminal dead. The wife of the dead criminal got on the news and apologized for the trouble caused to the employee and his family for having to shoot her scumbag husband.

Kroger gift card swap brings in 90 guns | The Tennessean | tennessean.com Turns out it was a success; well in la-la logic. Quote from article: "As a whole, the collection of weaponry, surrendered to Metro police by average-looking Nashvillians over the course of four hours on Saturday, seemed sinister." Sinister?!? What they have are a bunch of breach loaded shottys and some old .22 revolvers. What would they say about my gun closet, or yours??? Wow... sinister.. wow. Gun stores are full of weapons; more than 90 at least. What makes a weapon sinister? The fact that it just a hunk of metal or plastic machinery that can launch a projectile? Sh#t, if that's the case they better not be coming for my brad nailer... it does the same thing! Once again, the media assigning blame to a tool that has no chance of being used in a "sinister" manner until it's held by someone with sinister intentions. It's no more sinister than any other object. I'm sure you could use a Nobel Peace Prize to murder someone with the proper amount of force and motivation.

Yeah, I have no desire to get one or build one, I just thought when a weapon was manufactured there was some requirement to designate a firearm as a rifle or pistol.

Well hopefully for his sake he comes out clean. He certainly should know where his weapon is at all times, but I think it would be very unfortunate that he get a criminal record for this. There are so many low-lives out there that get away clean after committing real offenses against innocent victims. I live next door to one.

This absolutely SHOULD be blown out of proportion. Maybe I don't care about my remains when I'm done with them, but I do expect to be treated with respect and so do my loved ones. We certainly owe that to those who died in service to this Country. I don't even condone treating enemy dead with disrespect and that's what this is here, disrespect. The people responsible for this should at a minimum lose their jobs and benefits and at a maximum should be jailed. If I had disposed of the enemy bodies of Muslims in a dump I would be sitting in Federal prison right now.

Is there any requirement from the prosecution to prove intent here? I understand that negligence and ignorance aren't a defense either, but for something to be a criminal act I thought there had to be an intent there to actually commit the offense. If he just had it in there by accident he didn't intend to break the law at all.