tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10422935.post276840223628568873..comments2023-09-29T00:28:05.096-07:00Comments on Ski The Far Stars: Further notes on Virginia Tech, Columbine SolutionsSkiTheStarshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17279906357450684526noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10422935.post-87917345597801504392007-05-20T14:11:00.000-07:002007-05-20T14:11:00.000-07:00Well, I guess we are on totally different wave len...Well, I guess we are on totally different wave lengths.<BR/><BR/>For starters, the "person out to kill everybody," is the attacker, not the defender.<BR/><BR/>At no point do I attempt to claim that this is a system that is better than a gun or even equal to a gun. It is not, and that is intentional. The idea is to have something that is not going to do harm in one person's hands, but, which will, in the hands of a group, slow down, stop, or deter, or possibly even kill the attacker.<BR/><BR/>You seem not to have grasp any of these points. Yes, you want to be safe ? Carry a shotgun and wear a bullet proof (resistant) vest.<BR/><BR/>The problem is that you will not be able to go many places. My concept is designed to deal with the situation by developing something which will be allowed on campus. AK-47's attract the eye....<BR/><BR/>As for being able to defend against multiple attackers as an individual, even if you have complete choice of armorments, you are unlikely to survive against 7 assailants if you are alone. This system is not intended for that situation.<BR/><BR/>As Heinlein pointed out, the best defense against such a situation is not to get yourself into it in the first place. Travel with buddies if going risky places, and why go anyway ?<BR/><BR/>We know what happened when nobody had anything. Yes, if they all had AK47 they'd of stopped him in his tracks. But if 20 students had these crossbow devices in the second classrooom, the odds are that the barrage as he opened the door would have brought him down too. In the first classroom, maybe not enough time to react.<BR/><BR/>But, look at it from the attackers point of view. He knows he might do one classroom, but he knows he's gonna get nailed in the second one. OK, so now he'll start lobbing hand made handgrenades into the rooms. It's always spy vs spy, but at least he has to work harder, and will probably be detected testing any bomb like device, if he doesn't blow himself up first.SkiTheStarshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17279906357450684526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10422935.post-49352338534121065442007-05-20T00:43:00.000-07:002007-05-20T00:43:00.000-07:00I posted the crossbow concept at several likely sp...<I>I posted the crossbow concept at several likely spots, and got just one comment, which poopooed it as it would be very hard to get the "go to sleep" mix just right.<BR/><BR/><B>Heck, this person or persons is/are out to kill everybody !</B></I><BR/><BR/>What a stupid, irrational response. It's much more likely that they're not willing to trust their life to a technology that sounds rather iffy i.e. liable to 'not go right'. Plus there's an indication that the comment considers that the 'mixture' might do more than 'put someone to sleep'...since you didn't quote the comment in full (but you did blurt out that the person who wrote it 'just wants to kill people'), I don't know what exactly this fellow actually wrote.<BR/><BR/>There's a ton of problems with your concept, though my opinion of this may be influenced by the fact that you haven't really explained things that well. I.e. 'two part semi anesthesia' - unexplained. If the anesthesia is such an important feature, why do 'two people have to act in concert' to be able to effect 'relatively instant sleep'? Surely all bolts for this device should be able to deliver 'instant sleep'? Because it sounds from your initial description that an individual user can do little more than fire a dart that makes the assailant smell bad and that is supposed to stop him in his tracks - which is, after all, the chief purpose of guns when used/carried for defensive purposes. So if the 'instant sleep' feature is unavailable to individual users who, you never know, might find themselves facing assault <I>on their own</I>, then they're up shit creek, are they not?<BR/><BR/>Plus you also say that in your opinion it would be unreasonable to carry more than 6 bolts, which is suspect for a number of reasons, such as finding themselves in a situation where they're badly outnumbered and cornered, say, 7 to 1...how is a mere 6 bolts going to help them in that situation? since you can't anticipate all situations that a person might find themselves in that would necessitate self-defence, your limit on the number of bolts that a person can carry is decidedly unreasonable. It would be better to allow people to judge these matters for themselves, yes?<BR/><BR/>And one last thing (for now) - you talk about the 'deterrent effect' of these devices - I can tell you right now that the deterrent effect will never compare to the deterrent effect offered by firearms. The very act of choosing these devices over firearms says to an assailant, 'this pussy isn't that serious about stopping me from hurting him'. Resulting in assailants being much more likely to advance on their victims even when they're pointing this device at them (ready to fire a bolt that makes them stink), which in turn results in more chance that either the assailant or the victim is going to be hurt as a result of the incident.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com