After Dropbox finds a child porn collector, a chess club stops his knife attack

"I failed my mission to kill everyone."

Read the whole story

 

[jandrese]

Formerootus[/url]":7yf3mc7u]

tj1182[/url]":7yf3mc7u]So everyone is ok with the fact that Dropbox ratted this guy out and won't say how? Unbelievable! I dropped them way back when condy rice was put on the board.

The how seems obvious (PhotoDNA at image upload time). Aside from that, what's to be bothered about? You were willing to send your data to a third party, did you think they wouldn't be able to look at it? If you are that concerned, you should be encrypting on your client before you put it in the cloud.

I've become increasingly concerned that we only seem to be catching the absolute dumbest of the criminals, and taking a long time to do so. It really doesn't speak so well of the system if it can only catch the guys who are practically begging to be caught. Putting extremely obvious unencrypted files up on sites using their real name and not even a basic proxy.

 

[AliceWonder]

jandrese[/url]":dplis573]

Formerootus[/url]":dplis573]

tj1182[/url]":dplis573]So everyone is ok with the fact that Dropbox ratted this guy out and won't say how? Unbelievable! I dropped them way back when condy rice was put on the board.

The how seems obvious (PhotoDNA at image upload time). Aside from that, what's to be bothered about? You were willing to send your data to a third party, did you think they wouldn't be able to look at it? If you are that concerned, you should be encrypting on your client before you put it in the cloud.

I've become increasingly concerned that we only seem to be catching the absolute dumbest of the criminals, and taking a long time to do so. It really doesn't speak so well of the system if it can only catch the guys who are practically begging to be caught. Putting extremely obvious unencrypted files up on sites using their real name and not even a basic proxy.

Intelligent criminals are hard to cache, mainly because they go into politics.

 

[FurkanGozukara]

that means everything we uploaded somewhere is scanned and probably checked by real humans

so there is no privacy at all

which means never upload any photo or media that you would not like others to see

this can include your wife, your family photos etc

hack i don't even trust uploading my source code files or any document files

 

[AliceWonder]

Blue Adept[/url]":1zxwjksl]If we could outlaw guns in the US, then situations like this would never happen again.

Um, what? This didn't involve guns.

And responsible people should be allowed to have them, just like responsible people should be allowed to have sports cars designed for driving faster than public roads allow.

 

[Keef]

This

...22 felony counts of child pornography possession. Released from prison on a $12,500 bond...

makes it seem like a scenario that could've been prevented.

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

dermott[/url]":10shw8hl]

Flaming Sasquatch[/url]":10shw8hl]

Rommel102[/url]":10shw8hl]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":10shw8hl]

Meailda[/url]":10shw8hl]

Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the NFA in the 1930 and new sales banned since 1980s. Maybe you are thinking about "scary black rifles". Weapons no more dangerous than their non-black counterparts but since they were scary looking a huge amount of political capital was expended to ban them for a decade with absolutely no benefit found (as concluded by the DOJ).

No he is talking about the semi-automatic 22 rifles that everyone is scared of. Apparently because you can kill alligators with them. I think people call them ARs.

That is what I meant, but mainly ones that you can shoot enough bullets out of as fast as you can pull your finger before reloading to take out the average day care classroom or chess club. I'm less concerned about ones you have to load slower or that hold less bullets, since maybe then a brave unarmed vet or vacationing navy-man could jump on you when you are reloading and before you've blown away the entire class. I'm not particularly worried about alligators... I think whether we call them ' assault rifles' or 'super shooty things' is not REALLY my concern, despite the rampant gun-illiteracy problem in america today that has been identified in this thread.

You are describing nearly every modern firearm from pistols to rifles that has been made in the last 120 years.

Unless you pulled a Superman IV and magically collected every gun in the world and destroyed them, you aren't going to be able to eliminate mass shootings whether they are carried out by deranged psychopaths or radical terrorists.

Even if you did, such individuals would find another way to do harm. That could be with a pressure cooker and some household chemicals or simply by driving a Dodge Ram over a bunch of children waiting in line for the bus. The only reason that most choose the gun is because it has a higher rate of success and it is really easy to off yourself at the end.

I do agree that violence is sickening and that we must do something to help curb it, but at least in the USA both the populist media narrative around mass shootings as well as the darker reality of urban gun violence have root causes that aren't "guns". But addressing deep rooted issues such as mental health and poverty take a lot more effort than that simpleton argument.

Yet, since banning almost all guns in 1996, Australia hasn't had a single mass shooting in the last 20 years. Similarly, after heavily regulating firearm possession in 1997, the UK has had only a single gun rampage in 18 years (in 2010). In that instance it took the perp over 6 hours to find and kill about a dozen individuals. (Not exactly the gun-down-the-kids-in-60-seconds problem they'd been having previously).

There is a strong correlation between increased gun control and decreased mass killings.

I count 9 massacres in Australia since 1996.
Not counting the 2 in 1996 alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... _Australia

The two in 1996 were shootings. Two of the other nine are shootings (Hunt Family Murders, Hectorville Siege), so your statement (Australia hasn't had a singel mass shooting in the last 20 years) is wrong on its face.


To be fair, I'm of the rare opinion that the weapon used in a murder isn't really the point. I prefer reducing massacres to replacing them with multiple-stabbings, bombings, etc. Counting them apart from each other is a bit myopic.

Anecdotal, the US has a very different response to public beheadings than the UK.
Removing firearm-related violence may not be the end game if you're after massacres in general, and not specifically gun-violence.

I agree that even banning guns completely will not prevent all mass killings. I do maintain that civilian access to multi-shot guns allows even pooly planned spur-of-the-moment attacks to quickly rack up high body counts before the police can mount a decent response. I think removing that capability is a net benefit to society.

I said mass shooting instead of massacre for a very good reason - to disregard the non-gun-related incidents. There will always be people with murderous intent; the trick is to make their 'job' as hard as possible while infringing personal freedoms as little as necessary.

You are correct that there have been two gun incidents in Australia since 1996; one resulting in 3 fatalities and the other having 4 fatalities. Since there is no universally recognized victim threshold to determine when a shooting becomes a mass shooting, news outlets and various government agencies all use different criteria. Some say 3 or more victims, others 4, still others 5; some include the shooter, others do not. If you use the lowest limit of 3 victims then, yes, there have been two *small* mass shootings since 1996. Conversely, if you use the large cutoff that doesn't include the shooter, there have been none.

Regardless of how you define those two incidents, neither of them come anywhere close to 1996 where 35 people died. Nor does it come close to the 60 other people who died in mass shootings, all in groups of 5 or more, during the 10 years prior to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

Compare:
1986 to 1996 mass shooting deaths = 95 in 10 years
1997 to 2015 mass shooting deaths = 8 in 19 years

You do the math.

 

[TK]

How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

 

[AliceWonder]

TK[/url]":2d46xwsl]How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

Because some of us mentioned we were glad the pervert didn't have a gun for his mission of death.

 

[strykerakamack]

AliceWonder[/url]":13dw0swd]

TK[/url]":13dw0swd]How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

Because some of us mentioned we were glad the pervert didn't have a gun for his mission of death.

And we all want to live in the land of unicorns and never never land where only good things happen

 

[coslie]

strykerakamack[/url]":5jurvuzc]

AliceWonder[/url]":5jurvuzc]

Damnicus[/url]":5jurvuzc]

strykerakamack[/url]":5jurvuzc]

sketchy9[/url]":5jurvuzc]1. Amazing that this vet remembered his training 50 years after the fact.
2. Imagine if this loser had had access to a firearm.

A Brave Man who would not have been able to protect himself or those
around him due to the fact that the library was a gun free zone .
A 75 year old who has more balls than all the anti gunners combined
A truly brave man to run towards danger instead of away like most of the nanny state raised today.

While I agree this man has giant balls, I disagree with your assertion that "anti gunners" (as you call them) lack balls.

Please note I am not anti-gun. I do believe they are too easy to acquire. There's a difference.

When I refer to lacking balls I mean That they refuse to to take account of their own protection
and willfully cede their right to self preservation to someone else .
ie ; your sitting at a table and an armed person breaks in and means to kill you
So your choices are
1- die because you don't own a gun and are afraid to own one
2- die while calling 911 because you have no means of defending yourself against a gun
3- die because some one else decided you are not allowed to have a gun
4- Don't die because guns are evil and no one owns one
5- Live by killing the person , by using the firearm which you had on the table

Now when # 4 becomes a Reality , which it never will btw , because only people can be evil ,not objects ,till then,
realize no matter how painful it will be . that

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE YOURSELF WHEN CONFRONTED BY A PERSON WITH A WEAPON
WHO MEANS TO KILL YOU .

As this maniac proved violence can occur at any moment anywhere any time any place
If instead it was a 75 year old women without the means of being allowed to be armed
(It was a gun free zone so for a law abiding citizen it would be illegal to carry a gun anyway)
Who knows how many people would have been slashed ?
So yes living in denial that bad things can happen to good people at any time .
You foster your ideals that your non self preservation should be followed by the rest of society ?
Sorry I refuse to be sheep led to slaughter .........So should you

People who lack a morale compass will never cede their right to hurt you unless forced to
Why would you cede your right to protect yourself ??????????????

How many hours a day do you spend sitting at the table with a gun waiting for someone to break in?

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

TK[/url]":2dpum72v]How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

Because so many Arsians (myself included) just can't keep our traps shut when someone on the Interwebs is wrong!

 

[Zak]

simonov[/url]":15p7mge8]I haven't even read the article yet, but just wanted to say, "After Dropbox finds a child porn collector, a chess club stops his knife attack" is certainly the Ars Technica headline of the year.

I was wondering what a chess club is, some kind of blunt weapon or something.

 

[shinyliony]

Six pages of comments, and nobody made a pun about a kids' chess club and child pawn?

There is hope for us yet.

 

[ChiralMichael]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":2nfc1bcg]

Iphtashu Fitz[/url]":2nfc1bcg]

simonov<ca>[/url]":2nfc1bcg]How is a PhotoDNA file of child porn any different, fundamentally, from, say, a JPEG file of the same image? Both are computer codes that could be used to display a prohibited image. Or does the one-way hash make it okay?

The same exact way the value b2650798dd5f07838ccd91af91b22db1 is different from this image:

That first value is the md5sum hash of the image. There's no way you can get the original image back from the hash, but it's easy to calculate the hash from the image.

PhotoDNA apparently creates a similar hash but it's not a hash of every individual byte in the image (as this md5sum one is). The PhotoDNA hash value will apparently be the same even if the image has been altered slightly by cropping, watermarking, etc.

Mods, please check out this post. I don't think that dog is of legal age.

/snark.

Well, if you think that photo constitutes pornography, god help you.
;-P

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

cerberusTI[/url]":3e8xoqdh]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":3e8xoqdh]So... lessons from the last two weeks. When planning crazy civilian attacks - Having assault rifles = mass casualties, not having them = minimal casualties, able to be stopped by heroic unarmed elderly people.

As a society, this inevitably leads me to support LESS regulations for assault rifles because... just... reasons... I'm sure we'll get this answer soon from the internet and then I'll understand better and life will fit back into its black and white / good/evil / manicheanistic categories where reason isn't so necessary.

An assault rifle would not be the weapon of choice for a single person to cause mass casualties (assuming you could obtain one, that takes some doing in the US). It is far too specific in its target and obvious in its use to be a good tool for this purpose.

Topping the list of much more suitable methods to cause mass casualties would be things like explosives or toxic gasses in poorly ventilated areas. If you wanted to be more creative, a plasma cutter used on a rail line or important structural component of a bridge, decompression and ignition of a natural gas delivery system, or any of like a dozen other things I can think of off the top of my head would be much better at this than a gun.

This was a poorly adjusted teenager raging against the world. The ease with which he was foiled was due more to his lack of serious planning, means, and accomplices than anything else. ISIS is a serious threat because they are organized and have some means.

All the alternatives you enumerate, while undeniably effective, require an *intelligent* killer. Someone who can research their target, follow a detailed recipe, and safely handle dangerous chemicals. These would be the methods of your typical "smart psychopath". Thankfully that kind of human is very, very rare.

The problem with easy access to firearms is that even your typical garden-variety enraged idiot can use them quickly and effectively. That same idiot would have neither the patience, nor the skills, to succeed at any of the tasks you listed above, and would likely poison or detonate himself in the attempt. He or she could, however, easily and on the spur of the moment use a couple of loaded pistols to get down-n-dirty at the local daycare with training no more advanced than "make sure the safety is off, point it at your target, and pull the trigger".

 

[AliceWonder]

strykerakamack[/url]":1s4pudcc]

AliceWonder[/url]":1s4pudcc]

TK[/url]":1s4pudcc]How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

Because some of us mentioned we were glad the pervert didn't have a gun for his mission of death.

And we all want to live in the land of unicorns and never never land where only good things happen

What is that suppose to mean?

Are you suggesting that because bad things will still happen we shouldn't as a society try to limit the damage that can be done when they happen?

That seems illogical.

 

[cerberusTI]

Flaming Sasquatch[/url]":3hsybet7]

cerberusTI[/url]":3hsybet7]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":3hsybet7]So... lessons from the last two weeks. When planning crazy civilian attacks - Having assault rifles = mass casualties, not having them = minimal casualties, able to be stopped by heroic unarmed elderly people.

As a society, this inevitably leads me to support LESS regulations for assault rifles because... just... reasons... I'm sure we'll get this answer soon from the internet and then I'll understand better and life will fit back into its black and white / good/evil / manicheanistic categories where reason isn't so necessary.

An assault rifle would not be the weapon of choice for a single person to cause mass casualties (assuming you could obtain one, that takes some doing in the US). It is far too specific in its target and obvious in its use to be a good tool for this purpose.

Topping the list of much more suitable methods to cause mass casualties would be things like explosives or toxic gasses in poorly ventilated areas. If you wanted to be more creative, a plasma cutter used on a rail line or important structural component of a bridge, decompression and ignition of a natural gas delivery system, or any of like a dozen other things I can think of off the top of my head would be much better at this than a gun.

This was a poorly adjusted teenager raging against the world. The ease with which he was foiled was due more to his lack of serious planning, means, and accomplices than anything else. ISIS is a serious threat because they are organized and have some means.

All the alternatives you enumerate, while undeniably effective, require an *intelligent* killer. Someone who can research their target, follow a detailed recipe, and safely handle dangerous chemicals. These would be the methods of your typical "smart psychopath". Thankfully that kind of human is very, very rare.

The problem with easy access to firearms is that even your typical garden-variety enraged idiot can use them quickly and effectively. That same idiot would have neither the patience, nor the skills, to succeed at any of the tasks you listed above, and would likely poison or detonate himself in the attempt. He or she could, however, easily and on the spur of the moment use a couple of loaded pistols to get down-n-dirty at the local daycare with training no more advanced than "make sure the safety is off, point it at your target, and pull the trigger".

If it really did require an intelligent killer the world would be in a better place, but it does not. It merely requires that they are in contact with someone who can do as you describe, which is how ISIS becomes dangerous.

They have people capable of making explosives and coming up with plots to use our own infrastructure against us (9/11 being a prime example by their predecessor), they also have young fools who are willing to sacrifice their lives in a blaze of rage. The combination is far more dangerous than the sum of its parts, and bears much similarity to any other military (the difference being the willingness to target civilians, likely due to lack of options.)

The chance of death by random idiot with a gun is very small, even in the US where firearms are widely available. It is by no means a significant public health issue, but it is a highly visible one.

 

[DevilDukk]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":1wez3iwj]

Statistical[/url]":1wez3iwj]

assault rifles .... nonsensense, nonsense, nonsense

Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the NFA in the 1930 and new sales banned since 1980s. Maybe you are thinking about "scary black rifles". Weapons no more dangerous than their non-black counterparts but since they were scary looking a huge amount of political capital was expended to ban them for a decade with absolutely no benefit found (as concluded by the DOJ).

I guess I'm thinking of the ones where you just keep pulling the trigger and it keeps shooting more and more bullets and no elderly vietnam vet would ever be able to run up to you and punch you and make you stop. I guess I think that I'd rather live in a world where it is less likely that people in society have access to those types when planning to kill folks.

I guess I don't really give a sh*t about model numbers and the pointless arguments about whether pink ones or faster shooting ones or bazookas or tanks should/shouldn't be classified as 'assault widgets' or 'high capacity thingamajigs' so as to obfuscate the actual point. This is a person intending harm to children being thwarted because he didn't have a gun. I like this type of outcome better than the other kind.

Can't put the 120 seconds of Googling into learning the basic vocabulary, still has strong opinions he expects to be taken seriously. Have you ever stopped to consider how much you folks sound like creationists?

 

[DevilDukk]

TK[/url]":360ti76q]How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

Because ayemahnuhrd decided to run his mouth on a subject he knows so little about, he lacks the vocabulary to express himself correctly and people with actual knowledge of the matter corrected him.

 

[EchtoGammut]

More than the attempt at committing an even more heinous crime, I am struck by how obsessed with child pornography pedophiles are. I have to think part of the issue is that we treat it as a crime first, illness second. As an illness, I am not aware of there being a cure via therapy or chemicals, but I am also not aware of a lot of research being done into finding one. We as a society are getting better at tracking down these guys, but I have to ask wouldn't it be better if there was a solution to their illness?

Think about it another way. You are obsessed with child porn, what are your options? If you continue your habit, you will either get caught or eventually rape a child. Where can you go for help? Is there any psychiatrist in Peoria that has experience working with such a problem. I will go out on a limb, without doing any google research and say no. If I were to guess the total number of psychiatrists that have any experience treating this could fill your local Arby's. Since we know this is an issue that isn't going to go away, maybe we should invest some money into prevention.

I worked with a guy, that I found out was a pedophile when the police arrested him at work. I felt mad at myself for not seeing it, but truth is there was nothing have seen. He had been convicted before and after getting out and working for a few years, raped a co-worker's child that he picked up from school.

 

[the_danube]

If he wasn't miserable enough now, he's gonna love prison!

 

[toyotabedzrock]

Before the porn was on the net I think they all became priests to fuck actual children instead of looking at images...
I'm not sure the current strategy is actually making people safe because no one thinks of consequences.

 

[Tam-Lin]

SixDegrees[/url]":21n7kejh]

Eh, I'd guess there was plenty of help available if he had bothered to seek it out. Instead, it seems that his very first reaction to being caught and realizing the trouble his odious habit was going to cause him was to lash out at random victims, instead of dropping a dime on the local counseling service.

Not true. There's an interesting book about this, _The Other Side of Desire_ by Daniel Bergner, that profiles four people with sexual predictions that most people would consider outré: a serious sadist, a foot fetishist, an amputee fetishist, and a pedophile. One thing he drives home is that, like so many forms of mental illness (and the last one certainly is), this isn't really a choice for people. That's not to say pedophiles should be allowed to do what they want, but it's not a moral failing. There's a case documented where a formerly normal man suddenly became obsessed with pedophilia, arrested, and so on. Turned out he had a brain tumor; when that was removed, he recovered.

And there isn't a place these people can go; most therapists would feel compelled (sometimes by law) to turn someone coming to them for help over to the police, even if they'd never actually acted on their desire. And we don't have any good way of treating them, either.

Again, I'm not saying that what pedophiles want to do is OK, but it's not an "odious habit," it's something that's tied to one of our strongest impulses, at a very base level of our consciousness, and there isn't really a place they can go for help. Pedophiles often know that what they want is wrong, but they can't stop wanting it.

 

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Flaming Sasquatch[/url]":1pmpza0n]
The problem with easy access to firearms is that even your typical garden-variety enraged idiot can use them quickly and effectively.

Actually that is not the case. Take as an example, Vonderrit Meyers ( name??? ).Instead of baggiong a cop he got blown away by a cop. Why? His gun jammed after three shots. Why? Best guess is that when he borrowed -- err --- that is stole the gun it had three bullets in it and then he loaded the wrong type of bullets.

Fact is that the criminal element loves guns. They love to point guns at people, They love to act tough with guns. What they do not like is the care and feeding of guns. For example, regular cleaning.

The end result is opften times for the criminal element gun jam if they are lucky. If they are not the guns explode in their hands faster then a firework in Jean Pierre Paul's hand.

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

DevilDukk[/url]":31zq2swd]

TK[/url]":31zq2swd]How in sweet merciful fuck did a thread about a knife attack get derailed into yet another gun control mess?

Because ayemahnuhrd decided to run his mouth on a subject he knows so little about, he lacks the vocabulary to express himself correctly and people with actual knowledge of the matter corrected him.

And then people with broader knowledge had to correct those people. And so on, and so on...

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

cerberusTI[/url]":37icnrjo]

Flaming Sasquatch[/url]":37icnrjo]

cerberusTI[/url]":37icnrjo]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":37icnrjo]So... lessons from the last two weeks. When planning crazy civilian attacks - Having assault rifles = mass casualties, not having them = minimal casualties, able to be stopped by heroic unarmed elderly people.

As a society, this inevitably leads me to support LESS regulations for assault rifles because... just... reasons... I'm sure we'll get this answer soon from the internet and then I'll understand better and life will fit back into its black and white / good/evil / manicheanistic categories where reason isn't so necessary.

An assault rifle would not be the weapon of choice for a single person to cause mass casualties (assuming you could obtain one, that takes some doing in the US). It is far too specific in its target and obvious in its use to be a good tool for this purpose.

Topping the list of much more suitable methods to cause mass casualties would be things like explosives or toxic gasses in poorly ventilated areas. If you wanted to be more creative, a plasma cutter used on a rail line or important structural component of a bridge, decompression and ignition of a natural gas delivery system, or any of like a dozen other things I can think of off the top of my head would be much better at this than a gun.

This was a poorly adjusted teenager raging against the world. The ease with which he was foiled was due more to his lack of serious planning, means, and accomplices than anything else. ISIS is a serious threat because they are organized and have some means.

All the alternatives you enumerate, while undeniably effective, require an *intelligent* killer. Someone who can research their target, follow a detailed recipe, and safely handle dangerous chemicals. These would be the methods of your typical "smart psychopath". Thankfully that kind of human is very, very rare.

The problem with easy access to firearms is that even your typical garden-variety enraged idiot can use them quickly and effectively. That same idiot would have neither the patience, nor the skills, to succeed at any of the tasks you listed above, and would likely poison or detonate himself in the attempt. He or she could, however, easily and on the spur of the moment use a couple of loaded pistols to get down-n-dirty at the local daycare with training no more advanced than "make sure the safety is off, point it at your target, and pull the trigger".

If it really did require an intelligent killer the world would be in a better place, but it does not. It merely requires that they are in contact with someone who can do as you describe, which is how ISIS becomes dangerous.

They have people capable of making explosives and coming up with plots to use our own infrastructure against us (9/11 being a prime example by their predecessor), they also have young fools who are willing to sacrifice their lives in a blaze of rage. The combination is far more dangerous than the sum of its parts, and bears much similarity to any other military (the difference being the willingness to target civilians, likely due to lack of options.)

The chance of death by random idiot with a gun is very small, even in the US where firearms are widely available. It is by no means a significant public health issue, but it is a highly visible one.

Yet so many of your yearly gun fatalities are precisely that - death by random idiot with a gun. In the US you are several orders of magnitude more likely to be shot to death than you are to be blown up by a terrorist.

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

DevilDukk[/url]":1p1wr0fd]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":1p1wr0fd]

Statistical[/url]":1p1wr0fd]

assault rifles .... nonsensense, nonsense, nonsense

Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the NFA in the 1930 and new sales banned since 1980s. Maybe you are thinking about "scary black rifles". Weapons no more dangerous than their non-black counterparts but since they were scary looking a huge amount of political capital was expended to ban them for a decade with absolutely no benefit found (as concluded by the DOJ).

I guess I'm thinking of the ones where you just keep pulling the trigger and it keeps shooting more and more bullets and no elderly vietnam vet would ever be able to run up to you and punch you and make you stop. I guess I think that I'd rather live in a world where it is less likely that people in society have access to those types when planning to kill folks.

I guess I don't really give a sh*t about model numbers and the pointless arguments about whether pink ones or faster shooting ones or bazookas or tanks should/shouldn't be classified as 'assault widgets' or 'high capacity thingamajigs' so as to obfuscate the actual point. This is a person intending harm to children being thwarted because he didn't have a gun. I like this type of outcome better than the other kind.

Can't put the 120 seconds of Googling into learning the basic vocabulary, still has strong opinions he expects to be taken seriously. Have you ever stopped to consider how much you folks sound like creationists?

One does not require a gearhead's knowledge of gun minutiae to make an accurate assesment of situational dynamics. In this case "compared to single shot weapons, multi-shot pistols make it much easier to kill lots of people quickly".

 

[jlseag]

I've become increasingly concerned that we only seem to be catching the absolute dumbest of the criminals, and taking a long time to do so. It really doesn't speak so well of the system if it can only catch the guys who are practically begging to be caught. Putting extremely obvious unencrypted files up on sites using their real name and not even a basic proxy.

If not for Snowden's there would even be more low-hanging molesterror types potted into dragnets. So be thankful all levels of players are upgrading their opsec vs. boss. Because like encryption, freedom is free!

 

[jlseag]

And there isn't a place these people can go; most therapists would feel compelled (sometimes by law) to turn someone coming to them for help over to the police, even if they'd never actually acted on their desire. And we don't have any good way of treating them, either.

Again, I'm not saying that what pedophiles want to do is OK, but it's not an "odious habit," it's something that's tied to one of our strongest impulses, at a very base level of our consciousness, and there isn't really a place they can go for help. Pedophiles often know that what they want is wrong, but they can't stop wanting it.

Sounds like "the climate did it" or "we evolve to lust" justification types. If they can't stop wanting wrong, it's because they're opposed to the rest of us who can't stop wanting right.

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

MouseTheLuckyDog[/url]":2lwzl9pm]

Flaming Sasquatch[/url]":2lwzl9pm]
The problem with easy access to firearms is that even your typical garden-variety enraged idiot can use them quickly and effectively.

Actually that is not the case. Take as an example, Vonderrit Meyers ( name??? ).Instead of baggiong a cop he got blown away by a cop. Why? His gun jammed after three shots. Why? Best guess is that when he borrowed -- err --- that is stole the gun it had three bullets in it and then he loaded the wrong type of bullets.

Fact is that the criminal element loves guns. They love to point guns at people, They love to act tough with guns. What they do not like is the care and feeding of guns. For example, regular cleaning.

The end result is opften times for the criminal element gun jam if they are lucky. If they are not the guns explode in their hands faster then a firework in Jean Pierre Paul's hand.

Oh yes, indeed, guns require regular maintenance. I've seen it first hand; I have one friend who is an avid hunter and another who does target shooting with pistols. I still maintain that care and feeding of your average gun is much simpler and less risky than attempting to mix poison gas or building a bomb from scratch. Furthermore, a pistol is much easier to conceal than a welder or plasma cutter (as was suggested earlier). Finally, a handgun can be quickly seized, loaded and used to kill from a distance in a matter of minutes, making it far more tempting to use for crimes of passion. An otherwise functional yet marginal individual who owns (or can easily locate) a handgun need only be pushed over the edge once to become an 'idiot with a gun' capable of quickly killing multiple innocent victims before police or bystanders can mount any effective response.

Exactly this kind of scenario plays out over and over again in the US, with far more frequency than in any other first world country.

 

[operagost]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":2z9vzeod]So... lessons from the last two weeks. When planning crazy civilian attacks - Having assault rifles = mass casualties, not having them = minimal casualties, able to be stopped by heroic unarmed elderly people.

Or able to be stopped by heroic armed elderly people.

Your argument is invalid.

 

[Idontno]

James Vernon - definition of a hero.

RockDaMan[/url]":1vi4o3kn]

I'm curious - how do the justice systems of other countries handle cases like this?

In Australia where I am - differently and the same ....
- Politicians would have been tripping over each other to be in a photo op with James Vernon.
- James wouldn't have to worry about medical expenses - fully covered by medicare
- Brown is 19 so he is an adult as far as legal system goes - same as USA - I think
- His reception by other inmates probably wouldn't differ
- His time behind bars would likely be a hell of a lot less here [sadly] - for either the child porn offences or the attempted murder of the kids

 

[operagost]

EchtoGammut[/url]":2uuofg7m]More than the attempt at committing an even more heinous crime, I am struck by how obsessed with child pornography pedophiles are. I have to think part of the issue is that we treat it as a crime first, illness second. As an illness, I am not aware of there being a cure via therapy or chemicals, but I am also not aware of a lot of research being done into finding one. We as a society are getting better at tracking down these guys, but I have to ask wouldn't it be better if there was a solution to their illness?

Think about it another way. You are obsessed with child porn, what are your options? If you continue your habit, you will either get caught or eventually rape a child. Where can you go for help? Is there any psychiatrist in Peoria that has experience working with such a problem. I will go out on a limb, without doing any google research and say no. If I were to guess the total number of psychiatrists that have any experience treating this could fill your local Arby's. Since we know this is an issue that isn't going to go away, maybe we should invest some money into prevention.

I worked with a guy, that I found out was a pedophile when the police arrested him at work. I felt mad at myself for not seeing it, but truth is there was nothing have seen. He had been convicted before and after getting out and working for a few years, raped a co-worker's child that he picked up from school.

I have to wonder how easy it is to get help if someone has this problem. I would think that somewhere along the line, there would be some "mandatory reporter" who gets the cops to raid the guy's house looking for something in his browser history to incarcerate him for.

 

[cryptowest]

The same exact way the value b2650798dd5f07838ccd91af91b22db1 is different from this image:

there's a dickbutt in the snow

 

[operagost]

SixDegrees[/url]":31h6lsne]

pjlahaie[/url]":31h6lsne]

simonov[/url]":31h6lsne]
Made some minor edits to emphasize a point. A little education is required here. When some criminal misuses an AR-15 the bicoastal media and their credulous consumers are outraged. But no one is outraged when someone misuses a Honda Accord or Ford F150. You kind of expect the most popular cars in America to also be popular with criminals.

Except the Honda Accord or the Ford F150 weren't designed to kill. Guns were created for the sole purpose of injuring/killing. Handguns are designed to injure/kill *people*, so are assault rifles.

Also, I'll note that the dangerous nature of automobiles is thoroughly recognized by society, and as a result they are extremely tightly regulated, from manufacturing through driver education and licensing through titling requirements.

By all means, if safety is of concern, let's regulate guns as tightly as we do cars.

Don't need to have a criminal background check to buy a car.

Don't need to be 18 to own a car. Don't need to be 21 to own a small car.

Don't have governors on cars to keep them from being too powerful in some states.

Don't have lawsuits against car manufacturers when someone kills a person with one.

All you can say about cars and guns are that they are differently regulated. We don't really need more regulation of guns... maybe just more training of shooters.

 

[No Wire Hangers]

I don't understand these people that are driven to download and trade child pornography. There seems to be a lot of them. Do they want to have sex with children to the exclusion of everything else? What is wrong with them? I'm sure that there are people that are attracted to children and dont ever act on it. What is it that pushes someone over the edge?

 

[shinyliony]

cryptowest[/url]":g6ffdffv]

The same exact way the value b2650798dd5f07838ccd91af91b22db1 is different from this image:

there's a dickbutt in the snow

How many other people scrolled back through the thread to see if it was always there or whether it was a new addition?

 

[Idontno]

dermott[/url]":1gxndu82]
Killing things is certainly a possible purpose of firearms. Some of them are even purpose-built for it. Sure.
Many activities with firearms do, certainly, harken back to their military and hunting roots. It would be silly to deny that.

No shit sherlock!
and here I was thinking they were mainly to cover situations where you may have forgotten a golf club or maybe a walking stick !

 

[Mountainking7]

Moral of the story: Don't use dropbox?