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[Scelly9]

Cars are just stupid. If anything else in our culture killed as many people as cars do, we would outlaw it immediately.

[penguinofhonor]

If guns suddenly get the ability to shoot people to their jobs or goods across the country then I'll tolerate a comparison to cars.

[Scelly9]

If guns suddenly get the ability to shoot people to their jobs or goods across the country then I'll tolerate a comparison to cars.

Trains where working fine. Perhaps not quit as efficiently, but they where doing fine.

[penguinofhonor]

Massive infrastructure upgrades would be required to replace cars with trains. Guns, not so much.

[kaijyuu]

Drivers licenses could probably stand some tighter quality control too

This is something I've VERY much wanted ever since I got my license. I should NOT be anywhere near the driver's wheel, yet I can legally drive these giant hunks of lethal metal. And I am not the only incompetent one not only enabled to drive, but pressured to.


Were it up to me you'd need several years of training to drive on public streets legally.



Oh, and guns: I see no real purpose for their existence outside of sport like target shooting. At best, they even the odds if a fight breaks out (a short weakling with a gun is an even match for a huge muscular person with a gun). That does not in my mind justify their use.

[Leafsnail]

After all, we give teenagers the ability to control a two-ton (and sometimes more) box on wheels controlled by their feet and powered by explosions.

After giving them lessons and a test and ensuring that they stick to rigorous laws to prevent those boxes from killing people.  And making sure we take the right to drive those boxes away if they do stupid things with them.

[kaijyuu]

ensuring that they stick to rigorous laws

bwahahahahahahaha

[Leafsnail]

...Well I guess America has weaker road laws (and a corresponding higher death rate on the roads) than a lot of places, but it still has laws against driving too fast and drink driving and the like.

[GlyphGryph]

kaijyuu
Guns also allow relatively poor and/or isolated people in the country to feed themselves. That is not a minor thing.

In fact, even countries with otherwise strict gun laws will also have exceptions for this purpose.

Leafsnail,
Considering the 'laws' against driving too fast and drunk driving effectively amount to slaps on the wrists in most places, I'm not sure if it's saying much.

And hey, at least are road laws (and safety level) in America is better than a good number of other countries, where my experience says they don't even bother with stuff like drivers licenses and the roads are populated not just by dicks, like in America, but by insane dicks.

* GlyphGryph shudders.

There are definitely worse places to drive... (and significantly better)

[Leafsnail]

You get banned from driving here if you speed or drive drunk too much (can't remember the exact points for each of them).  There are places with worse road conditions, but they tend to be a lot poorer (ok, I'll grant Italy as an exception.  Italian drivers are completely nuts and every single car I saw there had at least one noticable dent).

[Frumple]

After giving them lessons and a test and ensuring that they stick to rigorous laws to prevent those boxes from killing people.  And making sure we take the right to drive those boxes away if they do stupid things with them.

Just a test. Lessons aren't actually required, at least in my state, just the ability to pass the drivers test. Again, they gave me a license. When I passed the test, it was probably the third time I had been behind a wheel, and I'd never had formal lessons... nor any particular notable informal ones beyond watching other people drive. Despite this, I passed, and they sent me on my way.

And yeah, actual enforcement of road law is incredibly spotty. You have to be doing something particular egregious or have a cop cruising for tickets to actually have someone come down on you for breaking them, and there's a number of laws that get broken almost universally (speed limit being broke and turn signals not being used are particularly common. The former especially... it's easier to count the people going the speed limit than the people going over.). Then there's just the horrendously stupid things, like tailgating and suchlike. Would totally vote for a law saying that all tailgaters get beat for ten minutes or so with a bat with "Inertia" engraved in it. But I digress...

Though yeah, you can get the license probated or taken if you get caught doing the wrong thing often enough.

[Bauglir]

I dunno about "slap on the wrist". Current 1st offense minimum penalties in Iowa, for instance, seem to be 2 days in jail, $625 fine, and 180 day license suspension (with a possibility of getting a restricted license), and a quick skim of other states seems to show similar degrees of penalties (there is some variation, of course, so naturally you do wind up with some states with just a license suspension, and then you have California with a minimum $1400 fine, 4 day jail time, but oddly only a minimum 30 day license suspension). Getting my information here, if that helps. I mean, I dunno about you, but those fines would absolutely kill my finances for months, and possibly result in a crippling debt spiral depending on how you're allowed to pay them. Missing work to serve jail time probably doesn't result in paid vacation, either.

[Solifuge]

If guns suddenly get the ability to shoot people to their jobs or goods across the country then I'll tolerate a comparison to cars.

Relevant. Also relevant to the thread, as I would never have discovered this cartoon, much less ever seen the Japanese version this sequence comes from, if not for piracy in the form of unpoliced Youtube uploads.

To add to this, piracy is directly responsible for a fan community for this show working for years to create a fan-translation, and later to get in contact with the original concept artist, express their gratitude to him directly thanks to members who could translate for them, and finally encouraging him to talk the producers into including the US in their DVD re-release of the show. They didn't even know there was a demand for the show in English, but now they're combining the English and Japanese audio and subs in the DVDs, and planning to sell them in English-speaking countries as well, expanding their market... all made possible thanks to piracy.

[kaijyuu]

Samurai Pizza Cats has been a cult classic since as long as I can remember. I'm not sure it's the best of examples since its fanbase existed before youtube, when people still exchanged tapes. EDIT: Further proof it's not obscure.

Something like the MLP/brony fanbase sure as hell wouldn't exist without piracy, though. Without youtube, you wouldn't of heard of it, and Hasbro wouldn't have another huge fanbase that's starting to rival their huge Transformers one.

[Jervill]

Or MST3K..."keep circulating the tapes" anyone?