Motivational Poster Thread (warning content)

Although knives and blunt weapons may kill more Americans than all forms of domestic gun deaths...that probably just reflects that people will use whatever is at hand at the moment they decide to take action to harm others. Mass killings by civilians against other civilians in American schools, cinemas and places of worship are most often committed by firearm, by felons who have usually planned and prepared for the event. Not that I am aware of, these kind of killings don't just happen when a CCW permit holder just happens to impulsively lose their rag at the time that it happens. The fact that in China someone goes berserk with a knife does not exculpate the firearm's capacity to cause mass casualties quickly. Although it may happen, I somehow think that the odds of a mass shooting in a cinema, or church, or school with a musket or a flintlock pistol are probably pretty slim.

 

The biggest reason firearms are used (in my opinion) is because it is a distance weapon, you don't have to get up close and personal with someone who can hurt you back. That is why duels were seldom by sword after the invention of pistols. Steel scares people.

 

On the battlefield, that may be a valid point, where combatants are usually engaged at the maximum effective range...though ambushing and house/structure clearing tends to be up-close and personal. In mass shootings, it is unsurprising the number of kills that are up close and personal. Seeing the absolute terror in the victims faces is possibly not so enjoyable for the perpetrator(s) if viewed at a distance (though perhaps sniper attacks may safely do that).

I suspect the reason that auto and semi auto firearms with large magazine capacities feature most frequently in these kind of killing sprees, is much the same reason that those kind of weapons are useful in military combat...high volume of killing capability, with the capacity to reload quickly.

Duelling with swords requires quite a bit of skill at arms, that is not so easily acquired without some considerable investment in time and effort. Although duelling with pistols does require some skill at arms, it is comparatively less so than sword play, given the customary practices employed in that era by pistol duellists. That said, duelling pistols weren't cheap, so it tended to be a pursuit of the gentry, rather than the hoi paloi.

Duelling as a way of settling matters of honour with swords or pistols (between those of property or title, or breeding) died out once such practices became outlawed. What gentleman would want to spend time in prison with the filth of society, because he had survived a duel fatal to his opponent, but with honour intact.
What Was The Psychology Behind Dueling?


Those damned feminists....wanting to duel, just like the men....outrageous!!! Duelling Women: Marie-Rose Astié de Valsayre | Poisonous Pens: Belle Époque Media Culture



Female Duels Were Way More Badass Than Male Ones - Fact Fiend

A NSFW or Family link to femmes fatales sword fighters
Flickriver: Most interesting photos from Women duels & duels over women pool

Personally, I prefer duelling banjos!

 

@chelloveck vs. @tacmotusn ?

 

Ever has it been so....en garde!

 

I will miss you @chelloveck

 

It's not difficult finding images of women and children refugees arriving in skiffs and life rafts etc, but it requires placing the telescope to a functioning unbiased eye, instead of a Nelsonion empty eye socket.

Via:Perth's Syrian refugees may start in camps: Premier Barnett



Via:Canada scrambles to prepare for Syrian refugees amid unknowns - Business Insider



Via: The Greek island of Lesbos is being overwhelmed by refugees | Public Radio International







An alternative view of the refugee crisis.

 

Agreed...my father, aunt and paternal grandmother were post WWII DPs who fled before the Iron Curtain made escape nigh well impossible. They entered the American Zone illegally...having bribed some Russian soldiers at the border to let them cross. To have stayed in the Eastern zone would almost certainly have have resulted in transportation to Siberia, or death. To have been returned to the Eastern zone would have made those outcomes certain. I suspect that that would be the case for many Syrian refugees.

Whatever the form, or whatever the name...the problem is a human one, that can only be resolved by humans action.

Agreed, concerning the historical dimension of human displacement. The Syrian refugee diaspora isn't the first displacement in the world, and undoubtedly it won't be the last: Not by a long shot. Yes, the perception of the Syrian refugees being a social Trojan horse is shared by many...just as there had been suspicions that refugees from Iron Curtain countries (particularly during and immediately after the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian uprisings, would be infiltrated by Soviet and Eastern Bloc agents and other social subversives in the Cold War. In some cases those suspicions were well founded, in many other cases however, they were not.

daesh does not need refugees to Infiltrate Western societies to extend their "reach". daesh have people who are quite capable of doing that already in place, doing what terrorists and terrorist cells do. Much of their work is achievable at a distance online, from the rat holes that they presently occupy in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan etc. What Daesh desperately wants, is for Westerners to react disproportionately to the refugees and in so doing, create a pool of marginalised, disaffected young men and women sympathetic to daesh's cause, suitable for recruitment. The West's challenge is to frustrate that by not treating genuine refugees inhumanely and by putting in place mechanisms for separating the sheep from the goats.

Much the same fears and suspicions faced the Ashkenazi Jews fleeing Germany in the late 1930's. Unfortunately many that could have escaped, could not find a safe haven, outside of Germany, and their fate was sealed when they were drawn into the Nazi's final solution to "the Jewish Problem" because the questions.......



fell on deaf ears.

 

It's hard to know who to call "enemy" when the name keeps changing. ISIL, ISIS, Daesh, Islamic State, Justin Beiber..

 

My father started as a fettler with the State Railways, after emigrating to Australia and had several crappy factory labouring jobs, whilst learning English, and getting an education part-time of an evening via Technical and Further Education. He got a menial job as a text book storeman (at less pay than he was earning in his factory jobs), and worked his way up through the ranks to upper middle management in the civil service, whilst also raising a family, holding down a second part time job on weekends and serving in the Australian Army Reserve. I guess that living through the insecurity of the Great Depression, and surviving the horrors of WW2 (including the bombing of Dresden in 1945) left its stamp on him, and by extension, his family.



Via: The Guardian view on second world war commemorations: don’t leave Dresden out of the story | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian

I guess he and my mother's anecdotes about their childhood and youth were the genesis of my interest in survival, and prepping.

 

Deviator or deviant ?