Before I make my counter-point, please be aware that I do not hold your own personal views against you. You are a human being and you are entitled to your own opinion regardless of whether or not I, or anyone else, agrees or disgarees with you.
Firstly, please do not catagorise me with the rest of the European Union. Whilst Ireland and the United Kingdom may be member states of the Union, each member state is a full functional and independant, democratic country with his own laws, practices and socieities. You seem to be blind to the fact that not everyone in Europe, or the UK or Ireland has the exact same view.
What I believe you are mistakingly identifying as a common belief is the similar laws the EU member states place on firearms. Europe's countries shares similar laws with many other countries outside of Europe with regard to firearm control, so it is unfair to group up Europeans like you have.
Guns are not available or sold in the UK like the US. There are special exceptions for those that use guns for their work or sport. Here is a summary of that law.
[quote=UK Gun Law]To obtain a firearm certificate, the police must be convinced that a person has "good reason" to own each gun, and that they can be trusted with it "without danger to the public safety or to the peace". Under Home Office guidelines, gun licences are only issued if a person has legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for owning a gun. Since 1946, self-defence has not been considered a valid reason to own a gun. The current licensing procedure involves: positive verification of identity, two referees of verifiably good character who have known the applicant for at least two years (and who may themselves be interviewed and/or investigated as part of the certification), approval of the application by the applicant's own family doctor, an inspection of the premises and cabinet where guns will be kept and a face-to-face interview by a Firearms Enquiry Officer (FEO) also known as a Firearms Liaison Officer (FLO). A thorough background check of the applicant is then made by Special Branch on behalf of the firearms licensing department. Only when all these stages have been satisfactorily completed, will a licence be issued.[/quote]
You have make some accusations on what I believe, and I would like to inform you that are wrong. All humans do have a right to defend themselves, their property and their loved ones. Where you disagree with my views is how the defence is implemented and maintained. In the UK, a person is allowed to use as much reasonable force is nessecary to stop any such person from committing a crime against you. Knocking a person out with a bat would be acceptable, continueing to beat the person on the floor with the bat would not. Generally, no person has the right to use deadly force against another unless that person is under extreme risk or serious injury or direct threat of death.
You have assumed that I share a wrong opinion on people that commit the crimes rape and mugging as being social misfits that need conseling. This is not what I believe. I believe that each person's crimes should be punished to the full extend of the laws of the country, your statement makes it seem as if you believe you have the right to act as judge, jury and executioner, and you get the decide the punishment of any person that mugs or rapes you or your loved ones. There are various historical examples I could cite to directly compare this statement to, but I will choose one: Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's. The Nazi's in many cases decidedthe punishment for criminals, deciding that the end of their gun was more suitable than following the laws of the country.
I personally believe, like many billions of other human beings, that no human has the right to take the life of another human in any such circumstance if it can be avoided. Nor should anyone have the ability to threaten to terminate another's life based on some flimsy ego run through sense of self rightousness.
The Europeans do not share such a common mentality as you state it. Each member country has shown that it's peoples are comfortable and believe in their country's ability to tackle crime through applicable laws and law enforcement and police. The peoples of each country in the European Union have also made it clear that crimminals deserve proper punishment to the fullest extend of their country's laws.
You also claim a common mentality for America, which is also untrue. Many Americans are happy and confident enough in their government and local law enforcement bodies to adeqeately handle the enforcement of the law. Do you have many vigilante groups in America? Are you a vigilante yourself? Do you not trust your own police services and government? The millions of Americans that do not own a firearm are testament to the fact that a significant amount of the American population do not feel the need to "do it myself".
Your stated view of the police is not inline with the actual mandate of local law enforcement. The police exist to uphold the law and serve the community as much as they are to investigate crimminals.
[quote=Rohniss]You statement that weapons like mine caused anything is beyond stupid.[/quote]
The weapons I have seen posted are firearms, designed to kill other human beings. They are not hunting rifles or sporting items, they are weapons, like swords or maces which have a singular purpose, to make the slaughtering of a human life as easy as pulling a trigger. They facilate death and serious injury. Guns may not have caused any problems directly, but their use and implementation certainly has. Pulling a trigger is alot easier to do than strangling a person or beating a person. It is designed in such a way to kill fast and effectively.
Your observations in the social failings of Northern Ireland is atbest misinformed or at worst offensive to the sensitivities of the relatives that lost lives during that period.
During the troubles there were various organised terror and crime organisations (not just the IRA) including the IRA, UVF, UFF, INLA, UDA, Official IRA, PAF, Real IRA and various security forces including the British Army, Royal Ulster Constabulary, Ulster Defence Regiment, Northern Ireland Prison Service, Garda Síochána (Republic of Ireland police), Royal Irish Regiment, Territorial Army, English police forces, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, and the Irish Army.
3466 People were killed by the above groups or individuals or groups acting independantly from those groups. The majority of these people died, not from bombings but from various other methods of killing, with the majority of people killed by firearms.
Please look into the facts regarding what you are talking about before you go into a discussion about it without having any clue as to what you are talking about.
And if you wish to speak about the IRA, please do. The US government and it's citizens considered these groups to be "freedom fighters". America significantly contributed to funding and arming these terriorist organisations as it served what fantasied American interest the American funders had at that time. Your country was responsbile indirectly for the deaths of my fellow countrymen. But it is pointless to hold any grudge over it as recently, your country has shifted it's stance on what a "freedom fighter" is and what a "terrorist" is.
Further on that point of America funding terrorism, America also funded and trained the Taleban in Afghanistan, at that time they were fighting off invading Russian Communist forces. The Taleban and Osama bin Laden were also considered "freedom fighters" back then too.
You made a very valid point about how one doesn't need a gun to do serious harm to someone. But you hypocritically say that you do need a gun to defend yourself? If a hammer can kill someone easily and swiftly, why not just carry around hammers, maybe collect some hammers? Ah that's right, society sorta frowns upon hammer weilding people, doesn't it? The only differance is that the gun is the socially accpetable weapon of choice. In America. In most other countries, someone walking around stating they are "defending themselves" with a holstered gun would be treated the same way as a person walking around with a sharped katana. (Arrested, the weapons taken off them and them being punished by the applicable laws for carrying around a dangerous weapon.).
The only differance is that America is more accepting of weapons of human destruction than the rest of the modern world. America only stopped treating other human beings as second class citizens (and that's officially, it still goes on according to governmental statistics) a few decades ago, remember Martin Luther? So I imagine "ye old" gun will take a while longer.
I also find it funny the insane firearm crime rate America has, the amount of murders you guys have from shooting each other is crazy. Other countries have gun cultures stretching back before America even existed and yet they dont even have a fraction of the gun crime, isn't that funny?
In America, you are likely to get mugged at gun point, raped at gun point and the rest, because have you have little control over the gun obessions, until recently you could buy bullets with a pint of milk at a supermarket. That is just sick. In the rest of the modern world guncrime is rare and in the minority of overal crimes.
Carrying a gun to kill someone who would use a gun against you does make you equal, equally bad human beings with the same equal disregard for human life. Only in America are you more likley to be mugged at gunpoint than not. The only thing of yours that gets stronger with a gun in your pocession is your ego.
By restricting the spread of firearms, you wouldn't turn ordinary people into crimminals. The people that use the weapons for their work and fair sport would be granted licenses and the criminals that will mug you rape you will just incriminate themselves further by adding another charge to their envitable sheet. Normal people that aren't in military service, sportmen or farmers just do not need guns.
And, by the way, if you, Mr American, were to walk around the seedy areas of where I live with £2000 and asking around for a weapon, you would get beat up, possibly hurt and your money stolen, and if anyone was that stupid, they would deserve it. You must be living in the fantasy world of television and movie violence if think things can be that easy.
[quote=Buddha]All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? [/quote]
1. Your Middle Name: 2. Age: 3. Single or Taken: 4. Favourite Movie: 5. Favourite Song or Album: 6. Favourite Band/Artist: 7. Dirty or Clean: 8. Tattoos and/or Piercings: 9. Do we know each other outside of LJ? 10. What's your philosophy on life? 11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty? 12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest? 13. What is your favourite memory of us? 14. What is your favourite guilty pleasure? 15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you: 16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarky) - what are they? 17. Can we get together and make a cake? 18. Which country is your spiritual home? 19. What is your big weakness? 20. Do you think I'm a good person? 21. What was your best/favourite subject at school? 22. Describe your accent 23. If you could change anything about me, would you? 24. What do you wear to sleep? 25. Trousers or skirts? 26. Cigarettes or alcohol? 27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? 28. Will you repost this so i can fill it out for you?
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I don't normally post this kind of stuff, one of the questions made me think, heh.
Yeah, Star Wars, I'm a fricken nerd. Damm proud nerd too. Ain't nothing better than an old fashion space opera.
To the actual point, I've tried my hand at DMing (running) a role play gaming session. Not the new fangled shiny stuff that comes on CD-ROM (it might have ;)) on the Nintendo X-Station 4, no, no, no, the old stuff, the good stuff, the pen and paper adventures where it's just you and your imagination.
Running such a game you set the stage, you provide the backdrop for the players, the sceanarios they find themselves in and then it's up to them on their react. All rather good fun actually. Both playing and running these types of games are fun to anyone with a flare of imagination.
Stormtroopers, Sith, smugglers, blasterfights, starfighter squadrons and aliens. I'd say it got off to a good start. ;)
Please don't be put off by the first episode, I think it's horrible and I'm the biggest Berserk fan I know.
The first episode is set months after the end of the rest of the show, so it kinda messes with your head if you watch it. You're suppose to watch and think, gee, aint he a baddass with a big sword, why is he so angry, why is so fucked up? What the hell is that green egg?
No, it doesn't quite do it, the manga has that whole period, but goes into it much more detail, with more characterisation and more questions, and damm does it make you want to know how it what the happened. The anime with time and budgetary constraints squeezed this into a single episode and ends it with the Snake Apostle, about 1/5 into this intro and then time skips back into the past.
Sincd you've watch it, you can't go back in time and skip it, so I would reccomended either reading the first volume of the manga or jump straight into the rest of the series and kinda forget what happened in episode one.
Berserk is easily one of the best anime out there, despite it's poor budget, it blows most shows, old or modern away. Guts isn't just a muscle bound idiot with a big sword and the anime should allow you to see it. His origins, his reasons, his logic and his tragedy really. It's sad lonely and despolate, but he has hope. Hope which he loses by the end of the series and becomes what you see at the start.
In reality, the series is just an intro duction to the manga, if you watch it and are gripped by it, there won't be anything that will stop you from wanting to read the manga and find out what happened, and by doing this, you can see all of the stuff cut from the anime, the extra characters, the extra battles and the extra apostles.
The anime itself only really gives you the first main story arc, the Band of the Hawk, the Golden Age stuff. The story continues long into the manga. The anime finished because at the time only a certain amount of manga had been published and they had no more story to animate, that is around volume 14 in manga volumes. The manga itself is well into it's 31ist volume and beyond.
You mentioned eighties stuff? Haha, true the manga was written originally in the eighties, right along side greats such as Fist of the North Star. Miura-san wanted something diferant, something that was more than just blood and guts (no pun intended) and after a few prototypes crafted Berserk. Berserk has been going consistantly since then, all the way up to right now, Miura-san is hard at work on the next chapter.
Something to note however is that Berserk isn't a gore fest, more like an adult fairytale. Miura-san has stated however that events from the story could not have been accurately depicted if it wasn't for the gore, as let's face it, battles and wars are not pretty. The story itself at the beginning is focused heavily on wars and battles and the characters stuck in them, so this was unavoidable. Later on in the story, the more "magical" elements are introduced, such as the character Puck (who was cut from the anime because of the fact that he wouldn't have fitted in quite well with that shaky first episode. Puck acts as a comedic relief after the evnts of the anime and early manga volumes, and it does help. Faires, beasties, demons, it's all in there.
Metal Header - Gitaroo Man Lives! Original Soundtrack.
You know when you do something alot it gets sort of stuck in your head? Yeah, well it's happened to me yet again, and again it's with the addiction that is Guilty Gear. Over the past week or two I had the wonderful oppertunity to have a nice friendly get together with fellow fans and the enjoyment has been high. New blood, returning blood and even shitty but he keeps going anyways blood makes it all the more fun that it has ever been.
Isuka, Judgement, the games in the series which probally suck more than any other (Dust Strikers is out because I aint got it), have found gameplay time today, allowing me to reappreciate some of the more refined elements of each game. Heck, I even overcame the severe shittening that is the PSP d-pad just to enjoy a lovely session of #RELOAD on my ass. (Awesome since I don't have the PS2 or home console version!)
Well, I guess this has given me a nice energy kick. The saving for Amecon begins this week (woo August holiday trip!) and will be a drain on my fiancial resources, but who needs moolah when you got the interweb. ^^
Hopefully I will be working on some content for my pet project OtaGET shortly, it's about time it got some.
(Stupid marriage keeps popping up into my head, grrr! I'm actually considering bringing the date forward..)
I've been ignoring my PSP for a while now. Thanks to my choice of being a good little gamer and following $ony's advice with regular firmware updates, I have never had a chance to get into the homebrew scene.
My last firmware upgrade, 3.03 brought me.... visualisers for my music. Now, I am quite unfamilar when it comes to other people using their systems to listen to music, when personally, what I do is stick in the headphones, knock on the "lock switch" on the PSP to ensure random button pushes don't disturb the sound, place the PSP somehwere near and safe so that I have enough room with the headphone's cord and do something else, like reading or relaxing. Not watching the damm thing while it plays. Same goes if I'm out walking and have forgotten my iPod.
Without doing any modding, I did find one particulaly handy application for it though. MyTunes PSP Server. Using the RSS feeds on the PSP and my own personal wi-fi network at home and my PSP, I could stream my entire iTunes library to my PSP anywhere in the house. Heck, even outside at any wi-fi spot. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. That was my first taste of what the PSP could really do.
Firmware 3.10 came out. I ignored it. Why? A guy that goes by the handle Dark_Alex released a downgrader fo firmware 3.03. Finally, homebrew within my grasp. I only needed a copy of the original run of GTA:LCS for the PSP. The following week's payday brought me that. (With Ellen's help!)
I essentially got my PSP all over again, and for my birthday.
Aside from all of the piracy possibilities (and trust me, they are grand and awesome - PSX and PS1 games galore!!!!) I habe found the greatest device for my needs with PSP homebrew.
Getting there requires that you have genitals of steel. At any moment the PSP could "brick" (fecking up irreversably) and gone it would be. The actual process requires downloads, unzipping, altering, acquiring, red-downloading, checking, praying and swearing. Time is at standstill, every moment brings you one step closer to happiness and a heart attack.
Then my Windows crashed, losing about 40% of my data. (thank you, Mr Partition!) After a few hours of painfully reinstalling XP, I had it.
Wifi Radio (100's of stations) Emulators Kanji Flashcard Program eBook/PDF Reader
So, it plays games, movies and music, lets me reads books, surf the web, listen to net radio and newsfeeds, in addition to playing all of my old megadrive Sonic games, whilst buffing up on my Kanji. Heck, I can rip all my PSP games onto a memory stick and keep the UMD's someplace safe whilst I travel. Books? I've read 4 already with it. It has completed my geek life.
I only knew him as Mr Wilkins, a friendly school librarian, but he inspired me and helped me find my place in this universe. His passing has saddened my deeply, and I know that those after today will never get a chance to be inspired.
I've only become aware of how exciting jumping into running a Star Wars RP is. A few months down the line and I am jumping straight into the game mecchanics and whatnot. I just want to make sure I have most of the tech side done before I jump into the setting and NPC's.
I want to just jump ahead and start... =(
On related news I have just finished Reading: Legacy of the Force - Tempest and I must say it is a good read. The narrative didn't grip me as much as Bloodlines, but I suspect this has something to do with the fact that the previous author is a severe fan girl of a certain Mando ex-bounty hunter, and by co-incidence the previous book feature him. Go figure. It's all good. Jacen will be a proper Sith soon, and will be killed. Etc. Then the...
*falls asleep - having a nightmare involving the canon of the Legacy Comics*
I find myself falling in love with Susumu Hirasawa's music again, damm that guy is great.
I first heard of his work whilst watching Berserk, probally my favourite anime of all time. He did some great music for the show, "Forces" being the obviously awesome standout piece.
I later had an oppertunity to play the Berserk Dreamcast game, Sword of the Berserk: Gut's Rage. And he managed to throw in a lovely opening and ending piece for the game, which were great. It was awesome to hear more music inspired by the universe of Berserk, as with the end of the show, I guessed it would be the end of most media (ignoring the awesome manga - still being written to this day). "Forces 2" was everything I thought it would be, it helped with the immersion into the game (something that Puck's voice actor did not!!).
I was pretty happy with Hirasawa-san at this point, really great music set to an awesome universe. I read in an article that he had buddied up with Satoshi Kon (of Perfect Blue fame). Right, that was it! I had to see it.
Up until this point I wasn't expecting great things of Millenium Actress, I had only recently seen Perfect Blue, despite loving it, the synopsis of MA was a borefest. Just before the original Tomo-Dachi I sat down with Ellen and Colin, stocked up on snacks and drinks and then was blown away. The movie (we rock, thank you Manga UK English dub) was amazing, shooting up high into my favourite anime list (Berserk, my love, you are still number one). What helped was the score. It was amazing, Hirasawa-san at his finest. The music really help evoke the sense of passion and drama. Dama's audience also agreed. They loved it too.
Next came Paranoia Agent, Satoshi Kon enlisted Susumu Hirasawa to help breath life into yet another masterpiece. His work on the soundtrack again was mindblowingly awesome (Confrontational Paranoia and Black Beach being my favourites).
He also fired up the world of Berserk once more by adding a few tracks to the Berserk game for the Playstion 2. Sign and Sign 2 are worth entries into the world of Berserk music and more medals of achievement for his back catalogue.
Satoshi Kon and himself have worked yet again on a new film called Paprika, and I am very much looking forward to the combination.
In the mean time I have taken myself to looking up Hirasawa-san older work and original work, and I haven't been disappointed.
I managed to find a rare live recording of a new/old Berserk song, Forces 1.5, on Youtube.
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iwasdani's journal
calm.
indescribable.
curious.
creative.
determined.
blank.
sad.