aluminiumtrioxid

Actually, yes, it is unusual - according to the NCVS, the intended victim pulling a gun on their assailant only happens in 0,9% of violent and 0,2% of property crimes, and it must be even more rare for this to have the intended effect (sadly, I have no numbers on that though).

Problem is that while guns most certainly won't protect you from your own government, they're also pretty damn unlikely to protect you from criminals either. According to the Bureau of Justice's National Crime Victimization Surveys between 2012-2014, only 0.9% of intended victims of violent crimes and 0.2% of intended victims of property crimes even responded with threatening or attacking with a firearm (no stats about the effectiveness of such tactics as far as I can see). Moreover: over a five year period between 2009-2013, only 1114 cases of justified homicide (committed in self-defense with a firearm) were observed, according to FBI statistics. That averages out to about 220 per year. On the other hand, there were 548 cases of fatal unintentional shootings in 2012 - you're more than twice as likely to get killed in an accident than you are to kill a criminal threatening you! It's also worth noting that tens of thousands of firearms (230k plus change over six years - somewhat less than 40k per annum) are reported stolen each year - contrast that statistic with the tiny number of justified homicides, or even the incidence of firearm use or threats thereof during crimes, violent or otherwise (about 260k over three years - let's go with somewhat less than 90k per annum)! Having lots of firearms lying around does not make people safer, quite the opposite. That is a valid point. It may indeed be harder to implement such a change than the benefits would justify. Which is a fine reason in itself to be against gun control! There is no need for delusions about how "guns are the only thing protecting us from our government!" and "having guns makes us safer!".

I fail to see what reason they might have other than "to make an armed insurrection harder". And, well, it's not like GD hasn't shared with us his bonerific fantasies about his heroic last stand against the forces of an illegitimate government ordering its army to fight its citizens.

Never particularly understood the paranoia about this, really. I mean, let's, for a moment, assume that owning guns would give you a fighting chance against trained soldiers who are most certainly better equipped and spend way more of their time practicing the fine art of murder (in-between kicking puppies and preparing to dastardly unleash those skills on the unsuspecting populace at the behest of the Government). Let's assume that you can take a few of them down before getting splattered all over your living room, and this would give the government pause because training those people is super time-consuming and expensive, not to mention that the subset of soldiers willing to turn their guns on their fellow citizens must be significantly smaller than the entire army, thus replacing them might be an issue (especially since enlistment rates are unlikely to skyrocket once it becomes public knowledge that you may or may not be asked to gun down your countrymen). Now, for the million-dollar question: if fear from losses incurred by armed citizens is the limiting factor on the government's ability to order the army to murder those citizens, what exactly is stopping them from just assassinating those armed citizens with drones?

On one hand, the first installment was utter ****e. On the other hand, it was also not made by Obsidian. Hmmm....

Yes, I am suggesting that. Because the problem is (as they always are) bigger than any single "magic bullet" solution can ever manage to solve. Making things illegal only affects the people who care about the legality of what they're doing. In the case of mass shootings, the fact that homicide is already illegal wasn't a deterrent; it is highly unlikely that making it also illegal to have a gun would have any significant effect. Solving the problem of mass shootings is only possible when society as a whole starts looking at the multiple factors that lead people to the point that mass death seems to be a logical choice, and working back from that trying to mitigate those factors. "Magic bullets" need not apply. I'm not convinced the only viable reason for wanting stricter gun control is that it would prevent mass shootings, though.

A Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell rpg?

Could be good, could be bad. I'd definitely welcome a horror RPG in the vein of The VVitch.

I'm firmly in the "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence" camp, so... I dunno, to me, it sounds more plausible that someone genuinely wants to have good representation but has no idea how to write characters with wildly different life experiences, outlooks and motivations from their own (after all, let's face it, if they were good writers, they wouldn't be working for Beamdog).

Because if that's all there is to the character, it's a lazy, two-dimensional stereotype, and beginning to write with the explicit goal of creating lazy, two-dimensional stereotypes is not the hallmark of an artist who takes pride in their work? I mean, you could create a character who is motivated by greed and self-interest, has gigantic boobs, and openly enjoys both her sexuality and the influence over people it gives her while being an interesting and multifaceted person on her own right, but at that point, we're past the lazy stereotypes people have problems with. I dunno, "maybe have female characters who are not terrible stereotypes" and "maybe have characters who are not straight" doesn't sound like "an attempt to piggyback issues into a popular game series" to me. It sounds more like, well, common sense. I mean, you can fault the execution, but I see nothing objectionable about the intent. I don't mean to cut in, but I found this remark very interesting. The way I see it, people rarely, if ever, fault the execution. Of anything. It's the doers intent they object to. I have a hard time comprehending anybody having problems with the intent of "let's make a diverse cast of characters who aren't lazy stereotypes". Because that's basically her intent.

I dunno, "maybe have female characters who are not terrible stereotypes" and "maybe have characters who are not straight" doesn't sound like "an attempt to piggyback issues into a popular game series" to me. It sounds more like, well, common sense. I mean, you can fault the execution, but I see nothing objectionable about the intent.

Source?

Wait whaaaaaaat must... obtain... copy...

Only one question remains now: who the hell is Amber Scott?

...Right. Understandable retort considering what the media portrays. The shock of being treated better there than in most places in Europe took a while for me to accept. Wasn't intended as voicing skepticism, more like... sure, they'll be genuinely friendly, nice and polite to you as long as you look and behave like someone belonging to their in-group. But I'm also pretty sure they'll treat you with considerably more... let's say, distance, if you're not that keen on the whole God business, or - heavens forbid - happen to be non-white, non-straight, and visibly a foreigner.

...Right.

And, in her defense, it's not just the dreadlocks, the guy's entire mannerism screams "middle class white kid trying to seem 'street'". Which made even me cringe, despite not being part of either subculture.

Indiana Jones is the transcendental sense of heroism, discovery and adventure, which rings true to anyone who has been a young boy. Do you hate heroes? I always found it easier to identify with the morally grey outsiders, really So, Bobba Fett huh? More like your generic Le Carré protagonist, really.

Indiana Jones is the transcendental sense of heroism, discovery and adventure, which rings true to anyone who has been a young boy. Do you hate heroes? I always found it easier to identify with the morally grey outsiders, really

Of course he's not bland. He's much worse: he's preachy.

...So where and how exactly can I get my hands on some PNP Avellone goodness? There's a really cool module he did for Dark Heresy here. Can't find it. Was the topic title supposed to be the joke?

...So where and how exactly can I get my hands on some PNP Avellone goodness?

Yes it frikkin' is. Does the writing have patches where the subject calls for an incredible amount of subtlety and nuance, and what we get fails to live up to that expectation? Sure it has! The entire ending is weak and thematically unsupported by anything preceding it. Ondra's dialogue in WM2 is incredibly weakly written, in light of the ending. But are the themes the game is riffing on mature and interesting? Yes they are, and only the uniquely willful obtuseness of the codexian consensus can make anyone claim otherwise.

GD how come you have never said that about all my great posts ........waaaaaaaaaaah Orogun just 2 posts made a pretty decent analysis on the motivations and psychology of two comic book superheroes that, for one brief moment, actually made me take them seriously as characters. All the comics I have read and the hundreds of hours of Batman & Superman movies I've sat through never managed to do that. Somebody hasn't read Lex Luthor: Man of Steel