America is a terrifyingly broken country.

It’s like ‘every day is backwards day’ crossed with an infinitely-recursive manifold.

…I’m too informed to believe that a hand gun would be useful against these assault weapons, sorry.

I grew up around these things, you see - and hated them for years. Then at one point I realized I was just about the only leftist around, and just about the only person without a gun around, and the math clicked for me: It’s a much stickier situation than anyone really wants to acknowledge.

I’ve seen them carried around frequently while in the US - people carry them openly displayed on the back of their trucks. Who’s to guess how many have guns in their cabins and trunks? I’ve also followed the US’ wars closely enough to know that modern warfare looks like a bunch of armed citizens in a hilux, and that a state border won’t be saving any leftists stuck in southern Illinois when the RWDSs return.

Edit: I’m standing by this one. Disagree as you will.

Just to reiterate this, there is a difference between smoking the last cigarette you could legally purchase, and the last gun you could legally purchase: The gun sticks around afterward.

I agree to the change in behavior that it will lead to a decrease in sales on legal markets, which was the basis of my comment. Now, what change in user behavior - if any - do these laws cause that would result in the non-possession of currently possessed firearm? That’s the only way the bans would be comparable.

I guess I should have explained my opinion. Fair enough.

Cigarettes are not reusable, are not continuously functional for a hundred years or more, and cannot end a life in a single muscle movement. This severely restricts situations in which they could potentially act analogously - they are too fundamentally different.

What makes it a good comparison in your view?

Horrible comparison tbh.

Lemmy is acting weird so I can’t go back and quote, but no, you phrased your attribution in reverse at least once.

I’m pretty sure all of the people you don’t want having assault weapons in states like Illinois already have them.

I’m not so sure the ones those people dream of targeting have yet acquired reciprocal defenses.

Happy to see less guns around, but I do worry about the pre-existing distribution of them.

All this probably happened because we stopped to geoengineer by outlawing ships blowing sulphur into the air which created additional cloud cover.

You have your causality running backwards… this was already here, and the sulfur was masking it. This happened because we put so many GHG in the air.

It works, and without wrecking havoc on the overall system.

Europe is the one that initiated the sulfur reductions. With the additional dimming data now available, they reviewed it to determine how much damage had been caused. The conclusion? The benefits of reducing sulfur actually outweigh the damage of unmasked warming. The plan for further reductions was upheld.

If we mask radiative forcing, we don’t want to be doing it with sulfur. That leads to acid rain, ocean acidification, and asthma and other diseases. CaCO3 is a candidate. The long-term consequences of any candidate is unknown. Except that we know that the less sulfur raining down on us and the fish in general, the better.