Yeah, the other day, I picked up a 12 gauge Ithaca Model 37.

It's quite a good shotgun. It fits me well, and it's light for a shotgun (which can make it difficult to shoot heavier loads, though).

I would've bought a video card instead, but since I have a difficult semester, I don't really think I'll find myself playing computer games as often as I would care for.

*sigh*

I still believe a graphics card would have been a tad better investment.

On a sidenote:
With all the current shit going on in the world, you really are not helping the worlds view in regards to Americans.

You know me from this forum and you know that I'm not the insulting type, so please don't take this as an insult but rather a friendly advice from a guy who went thru a lot of shit during his quarter century on this world.

Think before you speak,
Think before you write,
THINK before you think.

PHREAK wrote:With all the current shit going on in the world, you really are not helping the worlds view in regards to Americans.

Not changing it, that's certainly true. After so many school shootings, why haven't you got tighter gun controls? After Dunblane, gun laws became much stricter here and a similar thing happen in Australia around the same time.

Guns aren't the only thing: the environment, religion, units of measure, seatbelts, your cars, paper sizes, immigration, why does the US have to do things so differently?

Ed wrote:Guns aren't the only thing: the environment,

Which environment?

religion,

What are the US doing differently there?

units of measure,

Hehe... well, historical reasons. The British brought them the inch... and look what they've made of it. I never understood why some "imperial" units of measure differ between US and UK.

seatbelts,

How so?

your cars,

Is THAT really weird in the US? I think the Germans must be really weird with respect to cars (well, not all, but many)... but the US?

paper sizes,

Natural conclusion from having those units of measure. Note that DIN A4 is a METRIC format in spite of the weird length and width... DIN formats are defined by "DIN A0 is one square METER in a certain aspect ratio, DIN A(n+1) = half of DIN A(n) (like folding), same aspect ratio". Starting from that, it follows that the aspect ratio must be the square root of two and the sizes of DIN A4 for example are 100/sqrt(sqrt(2))^7 x 100/sqrt(sqrt(2))^9 centimeters.

why does the US have to do things so differently?

Because?

kozak6 wrote:Yeah, the other day, I picked up a 12 gauge Ithaca Model 37.

It's quite a good shotgun. It fits me well, and it's light for a shotgun (which can make it difficult to shoot heavier loads, though).

I really don't want to know what you're gonna do with it. Especially since it's a shot gun - I can't imagine a shot gun being useful for self defense. A pistol, maybe. If you can use it, you won't hit innocents most of the time. But a shot gun?

The video card might have been the better choice...

Collect? A friend of mine has lots of DVDs and has not watched all of them and probably never will.. buy a shotgun, hang it on a wall and never use it? Not that i really like guns, the only three i would like to hang on a wall are a lightsaber, a BFG and a railgun.. Oh and maybe a rocketlauncher that can actually be used for rocketjumping

Ithaca Model 37
Caliber: 12, 16, 20 gauge
Shots: 4
Action: Pump
Country of Origin: USA

Year first made: 1937



Btw if I've read correctly, this sg is for hunting.

Gun-related killings and attempted kills include around a total of 100 persons each year in Norway, thats less than 100 incidents and swe are almost 5.000.000 people.

These are, btw the stats for the countries with most killings pr capita pr year:

Code: Select all

Brasil: 29
South-africa: 26
Jamaica: 18
USA: 9
Australia:2,4
Canada: 2
Great Britain: 1,4
Switserland: 1
Japan: 0,6
Austria: 0,5
Germany: 0,2


The real interesting thing to ask, would be, why are som many people killed by guns in the US. Norway has more liberal gun laws than the US, we also have a higher density of hand guns, and we have a much much higer density of hunting weapons (pr capita that is), still gun-related killings in norway are so rare that every case makes it to the national news. GUn in norway are primaliy used for hunting. The density of hunting weapons are much higher than the one of handguns.

It might have something to do with the ovearll and historicly teached respect of life.

Is it true than in texas you can shoot anyone traspassing on your property after dark and claim self defense? If you did that here, you would be charged with, and convicted of murder in the first degree.

And for the record,I'm not agains gun in general.

My guns:

Stevens Model 311 S/S double barreled shotgun (used for hunting rodents and birds)
Winchester Model 270 .22 pump (yeah, really ) (used for extermintaiong small critters)

And my personal favourute:
A Mauser mod 98 karabin made in 1942 (first made in 1898)
caliber 7.92/75 (now thats an elephant rifle for you) (Original caliber, most are rebored)
With its original bajonette intact
(kept for historical reasons)

tChr wrote:The real interesting thing to ask, would be, why are som many people killed by guns in the US.

Well i would say most of people who get killed by a gun are killed by their OWN gun while trying to defend themselves becoz the aggressor takes it and hesitate less to shoot than the agressed person.

I think i live in one of the country where [hand]guns are the more hated in the world, and from a french point of view, someone who has a gun at home is a bit 'strange'. I mean apart the hunters, nobody has a gun at home here...

What's also representative is that there are no gun-shops in my country (perhaps there are a few in the big cities but that's all...). If you want to buy a gun it is in a sport shop and there are many (many) verifications... you'll never see big guns shops with a huge amount of different models like the US shops i've seen on tv.

All that to come to one idea : if there are more people killed by guns in the USA, its imho only because guns are more usual in this country.

I'm 25 years old, and like the big majority of people of my age in my country, i did never touched a true weapon in my whole life, and didn't even have a lotta possibilities to do it.

tChr wrote:With its original bajonette intact

muahaha french words written in other languages are hilarious

obi_wan wrote:All that to come to one idea : if there are more people killed by guns in the USA, its imho only because guns are more usual in this country.

As I said.. There are more guns in Norway (and switzerland) than in the US, but we dont have these problesm.. On the other hande, there is no gun-shops in norway either.. you get guns at small departments in large sports stores, or through your hunting organization.

divVerent wrote:

Ed wrote:Guns aren't the only thing: the environment,

Which environment?

The global ecosystem. Our emissions regulations are poor.

religion,

What are the US doing differently there?

Prosyletizing from citizens of the "Bible Belt" region is obnoxious. Have you found Jesus?

units of measure,

Hehe... well, historical reasons. The British brought them the inch... and look what they've made of it. I never understood why some "imperial" units of measure differ between US and UK.

It's rather nice to be fluent in two units of measure. The fact is that science has gone completely metric in the laboratory, but things that the stubborn public are commonly exposed to, like food, automobiles, and weather reports, are still using the old system.

seatbelts,

How so?

Seatbelt usage is around 75% now, but the biggest problem is that schools outside of New York and New Jersey do not have seatbelts on Schoolbusses. It's hard to get people out of their paradigms.

your cars,

Is THAT really weird in the US? I think the Germans must be really weird with respect to cars (well, not all, but many)... but the US?

It's true that many Americans shop for automobiles based on horsepower, which leads them to buy SUV's, trucks, and muscle cars. However, more and more people are changing this mindset; my two friends who owned Jeeps (in an urban area, too) sold them and bought more efficient vehicles, a Volkswagon and a Volvo. Fuel efficiency is the biggest factor I look for in a car.

paper sizes,

Natural conclusion from having those units of measure. Note that DIN A4 is a METRIC format in spite of the weird length and width... DIN formats are defined by "DIN A0 is one square METER in a certain aspect ratio, DIN A(n+1) = half of DIN A(n) (like folding), same aspect ratio". Starting from that, it follows that the aspect ratio must be the square root of two and the sizes of DIN A4 for example are 100/sqrt(sqrt(2))^7 x 100/sqrt(sqrt(2))^9 centimeters.

nothing to add here

why does the US have to do things so differently?

Because?

A history of isolation from Europe has made things what they are today, but really the world is growing smaller and eventually more uniform standards will be adopted worldwide, if that is entirely a good thing.

tChr wrote:

obi_wan wrote:All that to come to one idea : if there are more people killed by guns in the USA, its imho only because guns are more usual in this country.

As I said.. There are more guns in Norway (and switzerland) than in the US, but we dont have these problesm.. On the other hande, there is no gun-shops in norway either.. you get guns at small departments in large sports stores, or through your hunting organization.

The major flaw in the US system is gun shows, held like a convention where weapons distributors spend a week selling as many weapons as possible. There are age requirements to get into the place, but once you are in, you are at one of the easiest places to legally obtain a gun.

btw. I always spelled it as "bayonnette", it's always funny to have borrowed words like that, such as "dérailleur"

Ed wrote: After so many school shootings, why haven't you got tighter gun controls? After Dunblane, gun laws became much stricter here and a similar thing happen in Australia around the same time.

Tighter gun controls would have been great, but firearms manufacturers and lobbyists are too powerful for that. So to appease the public concerned about school shootings, school laws, which have less opposition from corporations and lobbyists, were enacted which called for things like "zero-tolerance", meaning a kid who left a butter knife in his truck was expelled from school. Most urban school districts increased security. At the school I was going to, security cameras were installed, security officers were hired, and a police officer was personally assigned to a school of 2000 students. There are now metal detectors in schools, and security would search backpacks. I can't speak for the entire nation, because where I went to school was very racially divided (1950's-era busing for the purpose ending racial segregation was still in place) and there were indeed a lot of fights, but we only had 2 bomb threats during the four years I was there, and one kid got expelled for bringing a water pistol to school. Really though the main function of security now is to break-up fistfights, take disruptive students out of class, and to confiscate CD players, iPods, and Cell Phones, and the police officer is in charge of giving out student parking passes (and tickets) and directing traffic at the crosswalk.

I think the gun laws in America go back to the days of the militia men, who felt they needed to arm themselves to protect their country. The mindset hasn't changed, even though the threat has - no longer do we really have to worry about an attack on our soil, but it's something that's sadly become to ingrained into our culture that people think they need guns to "protect" themselves. (this isn't related to game hunting - more people who get a bunch of weapons just for the sake of having them)

Also, a lot of gun-related killings happen as a result of gang violence, which is an unfortunate part of our society.

The shotgun is mostly for shooting at junk out in the desert, trap shooting (at clay pigeons, which are small biodegradable flying discs), and possibly hunting.

It's a poor choice for crime or self defense. It only holds 4 rounds, and the barrel alone is 30 inches long (which works out to 76.2 cm). It's too long for hallway manuevers. The effective range is also poor when compared to other guns, and it is slow to reload.

Interestingly enough, shotguns often are preferred for home defense, but shorter ones that hold more shells are preferred. At very close range, shotguns are very effective, and the spread is nowhere near as much as you'd think.

As for Ed's differences:

Environment-
Lobbyists have tremendous political influence.

Gun laws-
Gun laws actually vary tremendously by state. In some states, it's incredibly difficult to purchase a firearm. Expensive permits, expensive classes, stringent storage requirements, expensive taxes, many banned categories of guns, and other things.

In my state, much less so. In states with less gun laws, it is a result of sort of a "frontier mentality" sort of thing, I think.

The main reason we don't have more federal weapon laws is mostly due to the current crop of politicians, I think. Most gun laws are passed at the state level. On the federal level, not so much. Many anti-gun politicians are overamibitious. They try to ban handguns or so called "assault weapons" and at a national level, it just doesn't go through.

In some of the more rural states, guns are also more of a part of life. Bullets are cheaper than buying meat at the grocery store, and owning firearms isn't considered unusual.

As for religion, could you go into more detail? Do you mean the opposition to gay)) marriage, abortion, and evolution? Or something else?

Units of measure-
The things is, they are very widely established. Screws, bolts, tools, hardware, machinery, roadsigns, everything. It would be extremely time consuming and expensive to switch over, and the public reaction to it would be mostly negative. And then, the old standards will still be present in everything from before the switch. It might happen eventually, but it will take a long time before it is even seriously considered.

The metric system is much easier to use. I'll admit it. It's true. We are taught it in school for all of our science classes.

Seatbelts? Paper sizes? No idea what you are talking about.

Cars? What about them? The gas guzzling monsters? Or percieved inferiority? I hate Fords too, you know. My brother has an old Ford Taurus, and it's terrible in every way. Poorly designed, and poorly built. It's a real piece of junk. If the rest of Ford's line is anything like the Taurus, it's amazing they are still in business. I don't know anything about Chevy, GMC, or the rest of them, but I don't plan on ever owning a Ford.

Gas was also previously much cheaper, so fuel inefficiency wasn't seen as a problem. I remember a time when I was a child, where gas was less than $1 USD per gallon (about 4 liters to a gallon). The gas guzzling monsters were also popular because the massive size and weight also helps protect you in accidents. It's important, you see, if you like to talk on your cell phone while driving.

Immigration? About 10% of Mexico's population is now living in the US, or at least that is what we are told. Also, it's very complicated because some powerful people want to keep their cheap cheap labor, while others want to give illegal immigrants rights, and while others want to simply kick them out. Mostly, though, it also makes for a wonderful distraction from the war in Iraq.

Gun laws:
The federal/state differences clearly lead to inconsistencies. I guess the lack of federal legislation means that same areas are very relaxed. Still doesn't explain the high number of shootings compared to other countries with relaxed gun laws. Switzerland allows fully automatic weapons yet has a very low rate of gun crime.

Religion:
Opposition to the theory of evolution is a small but important difference. More concerning is how some evangelicals see the war on terror. I've recently read an interview with a leading evangelical cleric who was saying that the war in Lebanon was the lead up to armageddon and Christians and Jews had to unite to destroy Islam. That's more worrying than any of the things they're trying to block.

Units of Meaure:
The UK has converted just about everything in under 40 years. Only transport remains to be done. Of course, there are many people who revert to using pagean units which is still a problem. The other difference in the US is how your 'English' measures differ from our Imperial measures. You use a 440ml pint and a 3.8litre gallon whereas ours were 568ml and 4.54litre. This is a general problem with unsystematic measures which have never been unilaterally standardised, hence the need for metric.

Seatbelts:
Seatbelt wearing in the US is catching up with European countries but has been so bad historically that your airbags are tuned for a person who is not wearing a seatbelt. This is why airbags in the US kill more people than in the rest of the world.

Paper sizes:
You use letter, legal etc. Just about everyone else uses ISO A sizes. If you think it can't be changed, we did in 1959.

Cars:
It's not just the enormous engines but the low specific powers, high weigths, lack of sophistication and poor handling. This page gives some interesting figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_au ... perlatives

It seems like the only good things that American vehicales can claim in there is high production and having the fastest pick up truck, something else related to the frontier mentality.

kozak6 wrote:I remember a time when I was a child, where gas was less than $1 USD per gallon (about 4 liters to a gallon)

interesting thing... how does it costs now ?

for me nowadays it costs 1,30 euros per Liter ($6,30 USD / Gallon) ...

Gas right now costs just under 3 USD for a gallon of 87 octane. Everyone complains about it, and there are conspiracy theories in the newspapers, but nobody mentions is that it is ridiculously underpriced, because of deals cut by the Oil Companies and the Administration with oil-producing nations.
Gas should be more expensive here, so people would start considering mass transportation and other more efficient ways of transport. One of the places that I lived had a population of 1.6 million, however the trains there are used for industrial shipping, and the small bus service was only used by the economically disadvantaged. Even at my fairly large university, everyone drives their own car.
When I tell people I only ride my bike and the bus, they can't imagine how that could not be a waste of time.

Dave wrote:Gas right now costs just under 3 USD for a gallon of 87 octane.

wtf? 87 !?!

That like raw oil.. i run on 98..

going back to Ed's standards complaint

Wikipedia wrote:Some nations describe fuels according to the traditional RON or MON ratings, so octane ratings cannot always be compared with the equivalent U.S. rating by the "(R+M)/2 method".

Told you. People got touchy by all the war stuff and terrorism (and media) in the last few years. Btw, throwing knives or axes is more fun, IMO. (Love that "thump" or "thud" sound! One word: watermelons...)

I believe that the problems in America arose from the hate attitude from the rivalling gangs and the whole slavery story. America (and Japan) still have this strong competitive mentality.

I think everybody should team up. Look at the Open Source community! There is more and more free software that can compete with commercial products! On the comparison there are alot of commercial projects that became obsolete because the developer simply died! We should all team up against the extraterrestrials ! ...

tChr wrote:wtf? 87 !?!

That like raw oil.. i run on 98..

This leads to some of the differences in cars. The Koenigsegg CCR gave 806bhp but couldn't run on weak fuel so couldn't be sold in the US. The CCX is quoted as having the same 806bhp but that's running on 91 RON as you might find in the US, allowing it to be sold in the US. If however you run it on 95 RON as is normal across much of Europe, you'll get 850bhp and on bioethanol 900bhp.

Car companies have produced lower power versions for sale on the US market simply because they can't be arsed tuning for such low RON ratings. For instance, the BMW Z3 M had 322bhp across Europe but only 240bhp in the US version.

Ed wrote:

tChr wrote:wtf? 87 !?!

That like raw oil.. i run on 98..

This leads to some of the differences in cars. The Koenigsegg CCR gave 806bhp but couldn't run on weak fuel so couldn't be sold in the US. The CCX is quoted as having the same 806bhp but that's running on 91 RON as you might find in the US, allowing it to be sold in the US. If however you run it on 95 RON as is normal across much of Europe, you'll get 850bhp and on bioethanol 900bhp.

Car companies have produced lower power versions for sale on the US market simply because they can't be arsed tuning for such low RON ratings. For instance, the BMW Z3 M had 322bhp across Europe but only 240bhp in the US version.

That makes total sense too, lower octane ignites on lower pressure, and a turbo,.. well.. preassure XD

Ed wrote:
Car companies have produced lower power versions for sale on the US market simply because they can't be arsed tuning for such low RON ratings. For instance, the BMW Z3 M had 322bhp across Europe but only 240bhp in the US version.

actually you can't tune a car for lower RON without loosing power.
If you got less RON you have to take down compression to prevent self ignitionof the fuel.
efficienncy of internal combustion engines is dependend on compression.
so: less compression -> less HP
(thats all things else equal of course)

Guns? o.O
I think this is not really a "gun", but I can help with my katana (1metre long, a real katana, no industrial crap) and a Hatchet, a bigger one ...... and my dad has a 365' magnum

That shotty can easily rip off your half head from 25 metres... Wadja do with your sword, my dear padawan...?

The mauser will do than from 2000 meters

tChr wrote:The mauser will do than from 2000 meters

What a silly crap. My Nexgun will vapourize your dumb self by 8 miles distance

Do not be too sure.. all the guns, even the nexgun, in Nexuiz have a maximum range of 32768qu
I'm just too lazy to calculate what this would be in km.

<CuBe0wL> feh convert 32768qu
<feh> 32768qu is defined as 1248.4608 m.

So the mauser won