FourFans

You sure he wasn't in the Air Force?

We have many complete idiots in our country. We also have many not-complete idiots that actually trust government agencies not to lie to us or entrap us because they are naive, and often actively ignorant. In aviation, these individuals are commonly referred to as navigators. Everything you said is correct and, assuming gun owners self-educate and apply a little common sense. Those who choose NOT to be smart are the ones who will self incriminate, thereby ending up on a defacto gun registry and THEN start complaining about their rights. Lowest common denominator with shoot us all in the foot.

M2, you explore some truly unique corners of the internet.

Short answer: When this becomes law, SBR owners are required to register them. The process requires ATF approval, if they deny your request (btw if background checks take longer than 88 days, they are automatically denied), they now know that you have an SBR, that was not approved, making you a violator of federal law. In short, the ATF is trying to get owners to self incriminate before they know if they're approved to own the SBR that they already own. A federal administration having a list of approved and disapproved SBRs is, by definition, a registry. I doubt that's intentional, but it's an easy to see second order effect that shows they didn't think about this at all before implementing...soooooo....par for the course with this administration

Get the 'terp in here. I don't speak baguette. A: Epstein didn't kill himself B: Vaccines weren't magically available on time Does that mean that the plague was unleashed on the world and on a specific timelime? NO. No. Does it mean that a lot of self-minded organizations might have decided they could serve their own self-interests by acting together at very much the same time? Not out of the realm of possibility. ESPECIALLY considering the fact that the 2nd order effects hit them all differently. Everyone wants to hit the pop-up double. Not everyone it ready to score, and some people sacrifice a runner to log those two scores. There is no NWO or some WEF plot. It's really a bunch of back stabbers who want to profit in their own short term game. If you think some WEF James Bond villain can ACTUALLY CHANGE 'THE MARKET" then, why on earth do you continue to support that faction in your buying amazon, etc. ...

Most of us are trained to go-around in the event of a bus full of nuns or somesuch religious fanatics. Different rules in AC world. I like it.

Didn't know you were at American. WTF is going on in your house bro. After listening to the tapes that that JFK business doesn't looks so good.

Getting back to COVID.... Yes, we knew those things...because those are the things that viruses do, and we've known it for a very long time. Viruses are higher risk to those with pre-existing conditions...like being fat, old, or having respiratory or cardiac issues. Viruses attack children with less virulence because they have hormonal help from a developing and raging immune system. Viruses spread very fast indoors because of personal proximity and a more 'survivable' environment for the virus vs outdoors. This is nothing new. COVID acted like a VIRUS because it's a VIRUS...regardless of the fact that it was almost certainly a lab developed one: https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/report_an_analysis_of_the_origins_of_covid-19_102722.pdf That report is 26 pages long. Read it. WE as a country, and damn near as a species, acted like complete morons by letting politicians, unelected bureaucrats, and ignorant big-tech influencers...all with political agendas...to dictate the response to the virus. Yes it was man-made. Yes it was a nasty virus. But where was the call for healthy living? Where was the call to lower obesity? Where was the call to increase simple things (vitamins C, D/exercise/sunshine) that boost immune systems? Those things don't make money, and don't consolidate power. Lockdowns, mandates, 'emergency new...*insert miscellaneous vaccines/masks/ventilators/etc)' do. What started as a 'public health response' turned into a play for power at multiple levels within weeks. Hell, in China, it's still going on. It's in the playbook: "Never let a crisis go to waste." And politicians and bureaucrats certainly didn't. You think Fauci, or any other "I defeated covid" warriors will every have to worry about money or influence again? They'll be on the book/interview circuit indefinitely. Hopefully some of those interviews include congressional hearings. COVID is a virus. We should have treated it like virus. The panic surrounding it was completely unnecessary. Perhaps this is really a failure of public education. Apparently we all forgot basics like: live healthy and you get sick less. We could have treated it like any other virus, done the distancing, PROPERLY develop a vaccine, keep the economy open, protect the seriously at risk, properly address and punish those that introduced it to the world through unfiltered arrogance, and carry on. Instead we killed untold numbers with depression/suicide, and induced an entire generation to still to-be-discovered mental health issues. Again: https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/report_an_analysis_of_the_origins_of_covid-19_102722.pdf Read it. Those with common sense coupled to critical thinking knew most of this right out the gate. Unfortunately our leadership apparently doesn't possess those traits.

On USAF crews, anyone can say Reject and it's to be honored. I've had a flight doc call it, in fact, because he dropped his coke. He was banned from being on headset in our squadron after that. However, I'll take that over the 121 world where only the 64 year old captain who needs readers to see the instruments correctly can call it. I'm with you. I would call it if needed and take my lashes rather than try to amplify what I'm seeing and hope the CA agrees. It all depends on the situation. I've had several captains at my current company affirm that course of action too.

This IS nuts though. Is it not obvious this is the DNC breaking there own tools? Effectly: "Thanks for getting us momentum, the changing of federal agencies into tools to enforce leftist ideals, and getting rid of trump, now take this scandal and retire old man." Did anyone else see this coming?

"A stabilizing brace is an attachment to a pistol that functionally turns it into a short-barreled rifle, similar to a sawed-off shotgun. Such weapons are considered particularly deadly as they offer the power of a traditional rifle, but are much easier to conceal." Yes, a stabilizing attachment that marginally increases accuracy and drastically decreases concealability of a short range pistol thereby turns said pistol into a sawed off shotgun, the most unstable of all firearms, and somehow increased the "power" to that of a rifle without changing the ammunition, muzzle velocity, or ballistics... So these attachments turn a pistol into concealable sawed off shotrifle?

You might be thinking about Hillary

I do live my life differently because of the realities of the world. First and foremost, I pay attention to what's happening in the world, and I vote for people whom I believe will respond to those issues responsibly with the best interest of our country in mind. Unfortunately, my candidates did not win recently, and it appears that we have a large section of the country who doesn't very much like our country, but that's a different topic. I also try to live a sustainable life, so if the lights go off because of an EMP, or a simply a network/grid shutdown, my family and I will survive. My kids may group up in suburbia, but they will not be dependent on suburbia. Moreover, I am raising my kids to be adults who are aware of the world around them, and to understand how to filter out the ignorant opinions that media, politicians, Karens, and internet forums will spew at them. My kids great up overseas for some time. They understand why the US is truly amazing and unique in it's liberties and freedoms. Understanding the real threats in the world is definitely impacting how I raise my kids, and I value my parenting task as possibly the most important and world changing thing I might do in my life. If my kids impact a single life because of wisdom they learned in childhood, it'll have been worth it. Beyond that, I study facts and history. The American way of international relations since WWII has been to make sure other country's problems stay in other countries. You call Ukraine a quagmire for Russia. It wouldn't be a quagmire without US involvement. If you don't understand that, go read about Chinese involvement in Vietnam, or US involvement in 1980's Afghanistan, or the French Foreign Legion, or how Rome ran it's empire. History is littered with precedent. The reason America is what it is today is because we (typically) refuse to wait until the fight comes to us. If you don't think Russia would love to kneecap the US, think again. It wouldn't occur in the ways many imagine with conventional forces and red dawn, but rather with infiltration, espionage, and subterfuge. Read about Gorbachev's or China's plans and actions with infiltration agents in the US. Bottom line is that Americans cannot stick their head in the sand and pretend like all these world problems can't hurt us. Will it largely impact how I cook my eggs in the morning, probably not...unless this whole gas stove stupidity changes that. But hey, I am intentionally not buying an EV because I've read and personally seen with my own eyes how corrupt and horrid that supply chain is for the earth and our own economy. So, yeah, there are decisions I make routinely that are impacted by the international environment. However, just because you don't see a difference in your own personal day to day doesn't mean that there's nothing happening, or that personal decisions don't make a different. We ALL have blind spots. Some we choose, others we simply have for any number of reasons. Do not conflate your chosen personal blind spot with the reality of the world.

Facts don't care about your feelings. Russia, China and North Korea are all run by cults of personality. If history tells us one thing about that kind of governing system, it's that the only predictable long term outcome is chaos and sadness. No ground truth is making it out of those countries concerning just how close-hold, or hair trigger the nuclear forces really are. Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean the threat isn't there. Three highly narcissistic and insolated-from-truth men hold the keys to some seriously powerful weapons. Are you happy to simply ignore that? You're ok saying "I can't see the threat so it doesn't exist"?

That depends ENTIRELY on the state of that internal collapse. If it's replaced by a real parliamentary government (I have to laugh at that idea...but I've also heard complex and plausible options for that...), it is POSSIBLE that the US and that government could work together to contain and control the spread of nuclear arms. In any case, the Russian nuclear forces are populated by individuals who also don't want nukes randomly distributed and controlled. I have a LITTLE faith in them to try and limit distribution. One factoid should stand out to everyone in this situation though: Russia was expecting to roll over Ukraine, as was the rest of the world. They aren't, and they're having a very tough time...with UKRAINE. Not USA, not UK, the Ukraine. With the current state of Russian forces now known, it is clear that if Russian forces directly engage NATO forces for any reason, Russian military and political leadership KNOWS their only option for military victory is nuclear. That's scary.

Is this an honest question, or sarcasm?

So, if we're talking about details and context: if the person involved is, in fact, the top classification authority (even if he has only a vague idea about the rules of classification), and has decided that letters from other heads of state are now unclassified, those documents then become unclassified, correct? Removing political bias in the analysis: The Trump case is most likely that the sitting president decided to declassify certain documents that he wanted as momentos and then got cockly and arrogant about "his" momentos (oh, the ego on that moron) that he most likely declassified with a verbal order only (which is technically legal, though very poor procedure), while the Biden case is most likely that the non-sitting ex-vice president...or more likely his staff...unwittingly moved and stored classified documents inappropriately. Like it or not, the Trump case was, at least in theory, possibly legal. The Biden case was most definitely not. Both, in my book, were violations of proper processes (verbal declassification is only supposed to be used as an expedient, and should be followed by the written process) and should be investigated as such, intent or not. I see no malice in either case. Lets face it, neither of those old guys was salivating over nuclear secrets or special intel. It was ignorance and arrogance in both cases. If the legal process is completely fair, should there not be an FBI search of Biden's house? Especially considering that his son may have had direct access to said SAP documents? But instead of logic and reason, let's go ahead and analyze things with our Red or Blue glasses on instead, because that makes things so much better...

Do any of them actually make a difference? ANY classified material outside a secured environment, not to mention SCI, should equal severe consequences. One standard. The end. Seriously. Imagine realizing you had TS/SCI/SAP info in your closet at home. What would get you first, the police or the heart attack?

Quoted for posterity @cragspider

Haven't you heard? No one F's with a Biden.

...i'm guessing we're on the same side of most arguments...I'd argue that Karen should be required to test as proficient in her firearm...but that's some serious hair splitting if it gets to that point. Concur concerning Kinzinger. He's doing literally whatever he can to get paid. I can't argue with getting paid, but that bitch has sold every moral he ever claimed to get paid. 'He/That/She/It/Bag might as well be a facebook influencer.

WTF did I just look at for 10 minutes? No a single source or assumption actually linked on that page. Tons sited, none linked. It's the internet, people can say whatever they want. Without source data is all BS.

That's a fair point. From my view, we are actively in the process of giving the fight back to other people. My core point is that we need to be careful that we don't let that pendulum swing so far that we lose our ability to fight for our own interests. I could easily see our current 'leaders' doing just that, as none of them have a clue what it's like to serve something bigger than themselves, and more importantly, none of them appreciate the sacrifices that happened to get our country to where it is at the top of the heap.