Re: Oregon incident.
 

I met a chap who owned three machine guns at a Land Rover rally in Virginia.He seemed very normal camping with his wife and two children, not slathered in tattoos or wearing T shirts with extremist views.He liked our ex MOD Lightweight trail rig and asked me if I could find him some Nazi tracked armor.He then invited us to Knob Creek where the final night is a huge shoot up of fuel filled junk vehicles with tracers and was very excited as he had rented a flame thrower.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

You can always spot the Americans when you go through security in a Canadian airport, being well trained (but unobservant) sheep, they take their shoes off...

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Pulaski, as is frequently the case, has hit upon an important point. The United States had developed a nanny-state that goes well beyond that in Europe.

In the present discussion, driver training is the most striking difference, especially as it relates to personal responsibility for one's actions. Germany has stringent driver training and license testing requirements and, as a result, the average German driver is far more competent than the average American driver. Consider also the fact that German roads are far more densely populated with cars than US roads - and large stretches of the autobahn have no speed limits.

As a result, the rate of traffic fatalities in Germany is about half that of the US, despite the fact that automobiles in both countries have similar safety features. The figures are as follows:

Fatalities per 100,000 vehicles: Germany 6.4; US 13.6
Fatalities per 1 billion vehicle km: Germany 4.9 US 7.6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ted_death_rate

As a lawyer I have been dismayed at the number of lawsuits that are filed that are almost or entirely lacking in merit. I would like to see the rule that the loser pays the legal bills of the winner, which is the rule in the UK and in some cases in federal cases. This would weed out an incredible number of cases that clog our court systems.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Traffic safety researchers know that driver training doesn't work. Anyone who believes otherwise has obviously never bothered to read peer-reviewed studies on the subject, which make that abundantly clear.

There are a lot of factors that play a role in fatality rates. The propensity for Americans to drive in rural areas at high speeds far away from available trauma care and to pilot miniature tanks with bumpers that are high enough to bypass those of passenger cars are just two notable differences between Germany and the US.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

There is support for what the RoadWarrior posits for his statement that driver training doesn't work: Does that lead to the conclusion - all else apparently being equivalent, disallowing the training and licensing differences, allowing for deaths occurring on scenes far removed from medical help and heavy American SUVs/PUs wiping out little sedans with their occupants - that German drivers are simply better drivers, i.e. they are superior beings?

Re: Oregon incident.
 

The US' lower driving ages also contribute to higher fatality rates. Younger people are more impulsive, which makes them more dangerous behind the wheel. An L-plate program combined with higher driving ages would probably help.

Road design also helps. Freeways/motorways are safer than roads that have intersections and lack dividers; getting rid of tolls so that highway traffic gets diverted to interstates might help to reduce fatality rates. (The Germans don't toll the autobahnen.)

More roundabouts would also help in the US, as they reduce crash risk and severity.

I suspect that there are cultural differences, but there isn't much research on the subject. One older simulator study found that West Germans were less likely to make risky moves than Americans or Spaniards. Risk-taking is good for entrepreneurship; for driving, not so much.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Well, it's comforting to think that factors other than genetic superiority may explain the differences. As for the study you reference, it suggests that the Germans are driving more like women (risk averse) and that inclination seems to carry over into their foreign policy as well.

We'd better get back on the correct track of the bashing Republicans and their extreme right-wing gun nut constituents and allies, or the moderators are going to step in to push us back in that direction.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

I am always in favour of more roundabouts. :thumbsup:
Don't forget organized religion! That is always part of the problem. :rolleyes:

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Oh, get off your ****ing high horse.

If all religions disappeared tomorrow, no tears would be shed. Utterly worthless fake mythologies that were only designed to keep the oppressed masses in check by exploiting their fear of death have no place in the civilized world.

It's only because conservatives around the world (who also wouldn't be missed) can't stop sucking god's cock (whichever one their region likes best), that we can't rid ourselves of the cancer that is religion.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Yes. The shooter, it appears, was a registered Independent and voted for Obama in 2012. Someone changed his on-line profile AFTER he was killed and made him into a Republican - presumably so that he would better fit the template. Whoever did it excised his statement that he liked Bernie.

Also, to your point, he appears to have been trying to do his bit to solve the organized religion problem - one Christian at a time - making it even less likely that he was, in fact, a Republican.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Obama!

https://reformedmusings.files.wordpr...guns.jpg?w=500

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Another guy who must have liked Lennon's song, "Imagine."

Problem is, humans appear to always want some kind of religion. If you take away the majors, you end up with something like Marxism or Nazism (Himmler was busy trying to transform Nazism into some weird kind of religion with its headquarters in Burgundy for some reason.) The problem with the non-religion religions is they have no moral compass to prevent mass killings of non-believers of the non-religion.

Thus the Nazis could kill millions of Jews, gays, Romas and contemplate starving millions of Slavs to make Lebensraum. Stalin engineered the mass starvation of millions of Ukrainians, transported millions of people from their homelands to remote areas and created the system of gulags for opponents. The non-religion religions killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century, but that is what we're left with when the non-religions triumph.

If Islam could settle its furry arse down and content itself with oppressing the people in the lands it has already conquered, most of the rest of the religons are relatively benign and help people fulfill their spiritual needs.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Boiler, don't be a ****ing retard. The secret service carries guns for anyone, they'd even defend a Republican president for some stupid reason.

Of course, Obama would never be caught dead with a gun, would he?

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/...ticleLarge.jpg

Re: Oregon incident.
 

It's OK, but it's no 'Maybe I'm Amazed'.

It's only fashionable to critizice Islam now, but no religion is benign. We have Christians excusing their leaders arse-raping kids and spreading AIDS because condoms are made from Satan's foreskin. Ask people in Burma if they think Buddhists are nice.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

They did not carry guns for those in Oregon it seems.

Why would I care about a Republican president?