106 Comments
Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I went shooting for the first time with some buddies back in July 2019. I remember wondering how people could get so passionate about such a stupid redneck activity that was rendered totally obsolete by the benevolent power of policemen and governments.

What a difference 8 months can make.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Acta non verba, I suppose. When one's actions are in direct opposition to one's words, I take both the actions and words less seriously.

My guess is that Brynn doesn't really believe much of her catastrophizing. In true egregore node fashion, she's just repeating the catastrophic screeching from other Twitter drones, for that sweet sweet social media clout.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

great job - feel like I don't read this substack enough...

You note the problem with unregistered guns in this country. It doesn't get that much better if you do go through the hoops to purchase, own and lawfully use guns. And all those scenarios which you eloquently note triggered more (and many first time) gun sales can be boiled down to the fact that the gov't systems we rely upon are fragile at times. Can't count on overwhelmed emergency services and if you don't have another option you're screwed.

It is a semi-crime (or precrime) to simply own guns - in my beloved New Jersey we are warned that when we are transporting guns to the range (the only legal reason to transport them) we need to go from point a to point b. Stop for gas, its a felony, etc. And the laws for things like magazine capacity, ammo types, suppressors, types of stocks on long guns... it all seems designed to trick you into mandatory time in prison for simple mistakes...

And then there is the whole 'duty to retreat' context in neighboring NYC a parking attendant was shot by a robber and managed to disarm and neutralize the robber with the offending weapon. The attendant was initially arrested in his hospital bed for "attempted murder assault and gun possession" (NYPost April 1, 2023 ). Status since changed to "pending investigation"...

Putting people in an impossible position of either being defenseless or on the razor edge of a frivolous felony. "Be your own 911" was laughed at as some prepper, paranoid idea before 2020 - now not so much.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

It is funny that The War on Guns has proven about as successful as The War on Drugs, The War on Iraq or The War on Afghanistan.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I owned zero guns prior to 2020. Now my wife and I have 12. The kids also love going to my brother's farm and shooting.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Can of ammo but when she opens it, it's fruit.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Geez, these people are nauseating.

"There is no way to change hearts and minds of Republicans or the courts."

What is this changing "hearts and minds" of the "courts"? There is a word for that, it's called activism. Instead of just understanding you are wrong, period, and then realizing there is a path to change (an amendment) you just want to ram your will down the throats of others. Screw you. I'm sick of these people and their complete lack of self-awareness.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

That's some impressive whining going on there. Hey lady, it's not Republican run towns that have a "gun violence" problem, so of course the Republicans think "more guns" is a good answer to the few random psychos they see.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

She is rather saying the quiet part out loud, isn't she? "War on Guns" is rather directly a War on the Constitution, now isn't it?

Nice of her to be frank about it, at least.

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Apr 12, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Or maybe she's a closet White Hat working for the gun industry?

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Apr 12, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Interesting. I have one friend in California (I'm a Brit, in France). He & his wife are extremely liberal. I was surprised when I visited him last year, to learn that he'd just bought a handgun

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Apr 12, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I am a firearms instructor in Texas, and I have seen more first time gun owners in the last two years than ever before.

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

netflix showed us transhumanist rich people immortality and it looked as bleak as it sounds (though my wife didn’t complain too much about a half naked joel kinneman through most of it).

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Apr 11, 2023Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

All good except for one point at the end. "When transhumanists invent immortality for the rich" is mistaken in two ways. It will not be immortality, it will be indefinite lifespan. ("Biological immortality" is okay because it doesn't imply invulnerability.) The other thing is that, like every technology, it will start "for the rich" (rich globally or by US standards?) and quickly get cheaper. Like automobiles, computers, and cell phones were for "rich" but now they aren't.

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Wait, what? You're a gun nut because of AI and transhumanism? Like, you actually think that's a real threat, but a threat that gun ownership somehow mitigates? Wow. That's very Goldilocks!

I guess I must have misinterpreted that Moloch post. I thought you were pointing out how not-really-serious the AI-apocalypse crowd was, with a big blind spot around how people don't need to own guns themselves if they can own governments.

For my part, I've worked with research-grade machine learning. I think that MIRI / AE crowd is very full of themselves and running a scam or two. I'm a gun nut for what I suppose are fairly traditional reasons: mere sci-fi doesn't put me over the threshold like history does. But I do find your takes quite entertaining, and the analyses valuable.

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