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wellthatwentbetterthanexpected · 3 years

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We’re brothers now

“I don’t care Sam” Bucky said, placing a wet cloth over his shivering partner, “we’re brothers now, this is what we do”

Or - Sam and Bucky are on a mission when Sam comes down with a fever and Bucky takes care of him, and Sam whinges about being a grown ass man.

Set after the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Nothing could ever be simple nowadays. This was meant to be a simple recon mission. In and out they said. No more than 48 hours they said.

Well it was now hour 49 and Bucky was still sat in a dodgy motel. Sam was sprawled out on the bed, blanket cocooning him whilst he shivered violently. They were meant to have left a few hours ago, but when Bucky woke up to his partner delirious from fever and coughing like a 90 year old asthmatic life long smoker he knew they weren’t going anywhere that day, except may the hospital if the said fever doesn’t break soon.

Bucky sighed for the hundredth time that morning as he got up to soak the towel in cold water again, returning to the bedside to carefully run the cooling towel over Sam’s sweat soaked brow and neck. Reaching for the thermometer again he checked his partners temperature, the same way he’s been doing every 30 minute for the last 4 hours.

103.8 - shit.

He knew he had to go and get something to bring Sam’s fever down, but he didn’t want to risk Sam waking up alone. Last time he woke up he had no idea where he was, who Bucky was, or what they were doing in a dingy motel together. It took Bucky nearly 45 minutes of batting of Sam’s feeble attempts to fight him and calm explanation for Sam to get with it enough to know who he was and that he was safe. And when that realisation occurred he’d simply collapsed into Bucky’s arms, his body finally feeling secure enough to pass out. That was 2 hours ago, when his fever was only 102.5, so God knows what he’d be like when he came round this time.

Glancing at the clock, it was now 9am. The motel staff would be around now, and Bucky decided the risk was worth the benefit. He slowly and quietly stood up and slid out of the door, glancing back to his still sleeping partners, before heading down to the main desk. A young woman sat there, no more than 24. She eyed him up and down, the usual mix of intrigue and wariness.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes ma’m. Where’s the nearest shop that should stock something for a fever?” Bucky asked, smiling politely and making himself look as non threatening as possible.

“Well that would be at Gordy’s corner shop, but I have some on me here if you’d like? Save you the trip. We can here your... fellow roommate coughing from down the hallway. He sounds like he needs it.”

She hands him a packet of pills, which he accepts gratefully, his smile now genuine.

“Thank you,” he looks at her name tag, “Isabella.”

He walks back to the room, by the end of the corridor he can hear Sam hacking up a lung. He sped up a little, and as he entered the room he was surprised to find that Sam wasn’t in bed. Shutting the door behind him he looked around for the location of the hacking, and his eyes landed on Sam, crouched in the corner of the room, gun aimed straight at Bucky’s head. Fuck, he should have removed the ammunition the minute Sam showed signs of delirium.

Bucky slowly raised his hands in the air in surrender, trying to make himself as small and un-threatening as possible when you’re a massive, muscular, super soldier with a less than inconspicuous metal arm.

“Sam.”

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“Sam, it’s Bucky.” He said, trying to make eye contact with Sam, who was now attempting to stand. As he wobbled dangerously Bucky took a step towards him. Wrong move. Sam trained the gun so the aim was directly between his eyes.

“Where am I?” Sam repeated, his voice breaking as he fights back a cough.

“In a motel. In Chicago. With me, Bucky. We’ve just finished a mission and we were going to leave earlier this morning but you’re sick.”

Sam looked at him with fever glasses eyes, the cogs in his head turning as he tried to follow what was being said.

“Buck?” He asked after a moment, lowering the gun.

“Yeah bud, it’s me.” He replied, stepping across the room and removing the gun from Sam’s hand, emptying the bullets into a dresser draw.

Bucky placed his hands on Sam’s shoulders, guiding him back to the bed.

“Back to bed with you Cap, you need to take these pills then go back to sleep.”

Sitting Sam on the edge of the bed he passed him the glass of water from the bedside table, and pulled the pills out of his pocket, popping two into Sam’s outstretched shaking hand. He downed them in one before collapsing into the bed. Bucky lay the blanket over him, just about refraining from tucking him in like a child.

Sam was asleep almost instantly, worn out from his little half arsed assassination attempt on Bucky. Bucky moved the desk chair back across the room and placed it beside Sam’s bed, taking up the position he’d sat in ever since Sam’s temp had gotten me over 103. He opened his phone and put his headphones in one ear, and continued watching the YouTube videos that Steve kept sending him now he had so much free time, being retired and all.

No more than half an hour later, Sam started coughing. There was no ease into it, he was suddenly spluttering and hacking. He tried to push himself upright but he was coughing too hard. Bucky grabbed his arm and pulled him into the sitting position, keeping his grip on him to stop Sam simply falling over. With his metal arm he gently rubbed circles on Sam’s back, hoping to both reassure and ground the newly titled Captain America. He didn’t fancy another delirious attempted murder scenario. It took a few minutes but Sam was able to take some ragged breaths without coughing. He looked to Bucky weekly.

“You know who I am?” He asked.

Sam have a weak smile, “the pain in my ass that won’t go away?” He rasped, his attempt at humour squashed by another round of coughing.

Bucky handed him the cup of water, which Sam sipped gratefully before flopping back down onto the pillows. Bucky took this as a chance to grab the thermometer and shove it in his ear, earning a feeble glare from Sam.

“101.8, well that’s better. Not great, but better.” Bucky said.

Sam hummed a response, already falling back to sleep. Bucky used this as his chance to cool his partner down further. He went to the bathroom and wet the towel with fresh cold water, before returning to his bedside vigil. He wiped the sweat off of Sam’s brow and neck again.

“Buck I’m a grown ass man.”

“You’re sick.”

“You don’t have to do this, I’m not dying, I’m just sick.”

“I want to help. And I’m not 100% sure on the not dying thing yet you know, best to have someone keeping an eye on you.”

Sam groaned, “ Please just leave me be, this’ll be super embarrassing when I’m with it again.”

“I don’t care Sam” Bucky said, placing a wet cloth over his shivering partner, “we’re brothers now, this is what we do”

Sam huffed a little, but it was completely void of true indignity, as the cooling of the towel pushed him back into sleep.

Bucky sighed, picking his phone up once again. Maybe no was the time to investigate the ebook app he’d downloaded, as it seemed like they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

#marvel whump #marvel sickfic #falcon and the winter soldier fanfic #bucky x sam #sicfic #marvel sicfic #fluff #Sam fluff

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whimsically-ominously-auspice · 4 years

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If you don't agree, don't go

You can go to the state website and petition the state remove statues and do a shit ton of other things

I have said I don't agree with the removal of statues

One for the unknown true history

Secondly it's extremely dangerous

Statues are not designed to be removed, they're very heavy and made to withstand natural disasters and more.

People get wild and it's usually a lot of chaos and rarely fully organized

People use trucks to wreck into statues to destabilize them or to wrap the chains around to pull them down

The statues themselves become projectiles which csn then harm, maim, destroy and kill others.

A statue falling down will break, sending pieces of it flying and into the bodies of bystanders.

The guy with the skateboard in the video was attacking the guy with the gun to stop him from shooting and of course he was shot.

A better method would been asking him to remove the weapon and place it in his car. That was not shown on the video.

That doesnt mean that he deserved to be shot.

Guns have no place at places like these. In what brain frequency do you use that you would consider carrying a live fire arm to a rally by hand?

I see his outfit wasn't prepped for wearing a belt and so on but he could wore a shoulder harness to keep it holster

I also saw he had a small snub nose spinner barrel which to load takes a significant amount of time as opposed to inserting a magazine clip for s gun such as a glock or other type.

I prefer people have a loaded clip seperate from their gun if they will carry because it's safer for everyone and does require thinking twice,before shooting.

It literally takes seconds. Civilians are not trained to recognize life and death situations.

I'm,not saying that those that are trained know how to handle,but I'm saying it's,safer for,everyone to think twice before shooting

If it is a serious situation requiring shooting it does allow,that valuable time to set your eyes on the suspect while loading, most successful gun handlers can load while not looking.so to load while eyeing and locating target should allow calmness to overcome and allow a better shot

If i was a gun toter i would prefer to have my gun with me, of course. But brain use is important.

Obviously I'm not going to have it out.

Unless I'm going to use it.

If I have it, I wouldn't have it where it would be easily taken. Like just in my hand or on my back in a harness. I would have it protected so that I would have it available so that I could use it to protect me

So this guy should had been, disarmed as it would easily been able to since he was just holding it like a moron.

I'm not going to judge the individual actions.

Obviously this situation did not go well.

And obviously some things could gone different

Had Mr Skate board tried to disarm him before he moved, hit him in the gun to get it -- he could have shot someone in the crowd.

What he did was cause the moron with the gun to flee.

Did he know if he had a big van with a bazooka? No. Not if he wasn't CIA or a civilian paying close attention to intuition. But he did So he did go and attack him again.

Unfortunately then the moron decided to discharge his weapon 4 times. It is said.

And the person protecting the crowd with his green skateboard was shot.

There was a small crowd and luckily it was a round barrel which does only hold about 5 shots.

Thus making it a safer type of weapon as opposed to a clip which holds 8 or more.

The smaller crowd was in,extreme danger but the small crowd vs the large crowd is the #1 is the small crowd was following or was aware that he had a gun.

The larger crowd looking at the statue and their,friends and etc were not aware of the danger.

It doesn't mean the smaller group deserved to be shot -- it means they were aware so they were in active flight or fight.

So they were in their choice mode and in their civil liberties mode using their anger or fear wisely as possible.

So to engage the moron while he was in active flight or fight was fine but again at that situation, verbal discussion could have been used to prevent the shooting.

Like I said I'm not going to judge. He could been shot direct in the gut and killed instantly or the guy may been going to get larger automatic weapons with more ammunition.

And I am informed he was actually going to get more ammunition and weapons

I still feel that a de-escalation process could have been used to protect the Mr Skateboard.

At the same time no one else was harmed but him and the situation was resolved safely in all other ways.

So I can't judge as hindsight is 2020 and I was not there and obviously from what I was told a mass shooting was prevented

I don't like,heroes being shot at and being shot.

Because I can see an alternative doesn't mean that his actions,were any less Good.

I only look for an alternative because he, as the Hero was shot.

However it was very controlled and only he was shot.

Thus psychologically, Mr Skateboard had distracted the moron from his,task at,mass shooting enough to stop,him from doing so.

He blew,through almost,all,his rounds and,he knew,he would,need,his last round, or two in order to protect himself

Thus,he could,not shoot randomly into,the crowd

Then apparently he was held under citizens arrest until the cops came. Which could had caused another victim but it was successful. From news reports lacking information of another victim

So overall it was successful.

As I said I prefer my people not be shot. But they do wear bullet proof materials which is why they are fully covered head to toe just like Mr Skateboard was.

If he was carrying an automatic weapon with more ammunition then protocol is different than what did occur.

But a 5 to 6 bullet gun and with his clothing it could be seen what more he was likely holding... Its more important to instigate flight mode as opposed to killing instantly in the crowd of people.

Same with knives and so on

Removal is primary. Thus it cuts down on visibility and the PTSD and other sickness the crowd can suddenly be subdued to.

Most people whom want to mass shoot need secrecy. They need to not be identified and seen. So we identify and we notify they're seen. Hopefully flight occurs and not shooting.

So this was perfect as that is What occurred.

Mr Skateboard was the primary y'all saw.

But there were at least 10 more swarming to stand between the shooter and the crowd so they could be shot and not random people in the crowd. Those were unseen Heroes.

Not to only stand there and be shot But to disarm and deesclatate to protect everyone else.

My people are not actually taught to speak to destabilize or deesclatate. They have their research. They knew who he was and what was in his cargo van. They knew he must be removed from the streets.

To verbiage with him would to "befriend" him and not usually cause enough for arrest. It would be considered FBI work and not CIA work.

What i would said was "you need to put your gun in your pocket. People will kill you for having it out. There's a guy right over there on the other side in a pink shirt ready to kill anyone that looks like you. Hurry put it away"

Then i would killed him myself when he went back to his cargo van, where there was no to few witnesses. I probably would made up the color but i know at least 4 people would been staring at us hard so when he looked up he would been immediately intimidated. And the more he looked for the pink shirt that didn't exist the more hate he would see being stared back at him and he would stay less time.

And so thats why we don't teach or promote verbalige. It involves the heart. It means putting down a guard to where your own heart is exposed and you must in that moment truly care about that person.

Sure acting is applicable. But over time acting warps the mind and i dont want anyone to get mentally warped by my jobs. Action needs to be done and that action is disturbing enough, its the most mentally disturbing even for the most hardened minds.

So adding in words to twist shit. It isn't worth it to me.

But in this particular case i can see where word games would worked.

Now. The point in this case where it's different so its good... That our man was shot... Although not good.

Its public. The man was arrested. He happened to have previously ran for counsel for the state. He was a political candidate.

This is the year of the big Votes! (Rockthevote.org - register. Voting is this November!)

And so now everyone can see how critical their votes are this November.

Had we done it the way i know would prevented my working Hero to be injured -- no one would known. It would never been in the news. It would been a total secret CIA mission i may have off handed mentioned later one time to answer why he was missing. Because last time,he was seen was here with a cargo van full of weapons including a bazooka and.... You fill in the rest. Yeah.

So for political reasons and the election coming and intuitive and Great Tree advice it's very critical that it did occur this way -- for the public.

So what happened is that our Heroes leveled up. It was not that small Group of people in New Mexico it protected. But potieniently the whole entire world. All of our Heroes, Not just Mr Skateboard. By default he gets extra love and attention. And hey he deserves it. He fell and was shot. I know he's bruised and hurt. So he deserves that extra love and praise and all. But no one deserves any less. They all deserve all we got.

So it's very important to remember that bad people will volunteer or try to be in the government and do extra jobs in order to filter in their evil deeds.

People could say that i do it. And that is fine to see the process that looks like it. Because i do plan to insert what i want into the world. I do, 100%

And if you think paradise at an affordable price for all is evil then so be it.

So once again i thank my team and wish them all healthy well and safe. And extra healings to Mr Skateboard.

Now as far as my group being at a place I don't agree with the events taking place.

It doesn't matter. There are people just there whom are curious. And innocent.

They need protecting.

My people research areas people will be and they go where people will be.

People with people. That's all.

I hope you understand that.

My people will protect the idiot pulling the chain to destroy the statue from a random person as well as a mom and her children just experiencing history in,the making.

My people will not protect the idiot from himself nor the cops. If the,statue falls and he gets hurt and if no one else helps -- they must wait to allow others to assist, If no one else will then my team can render first aid if it is absolutely necessary unless it's time of death then they may go first to accelerate that.

But if it's a truly innocent idiot then they will help the person and tend the wounds until medic arrives.

If the cops intervene and want to arrest the idiot my people will stand back. Otherwise if it were me, they would intervene.

Like if I went and just got tired of watching them struggle and went over and said this is how you do it -- which my team also will do if the statue is in the progress and there is partial success and there's a danger, they may take over to help the statue falling with less damage and much safer for people around.

But an organiser that is doing it with ignorant destruction is not protected.

The organiser attracts all kinds of people. Innocent. People watching history. And evil..

So my good go to protect all. From mass casualties.

Then as each individual evil is extracted from the mass crowd they treat them as they individually deserve.

The group is protected as though they're all angels. As demons show themselves or people point them out then they're looked into the eyes and their karma is given.

That is their job.

So as I said it's difficult enough

To add engagement and to use the heart as opposed to physical force then can damage my CIA members.

They are CIA. CIA Is action orientated

FBI is verbal, talk.

Police are both as well as military

They investigate then act.

CIA gets the investigation research and has it from all sources in the entire world then act based on that research.

So the CIA is elite and different than any other organizations in the world.

FBI takes years. CIA takes 2 months at most to verify and then acts.

With the new SMS they can react with seconds.

They are exclusive.

And I appreciate them with my entire heart and I designed their jobs just like above, word for word.

So if you hate what they do then you hate a lot of me and you hate the world and you hate what,they are forced to do because the world has become so dangerous

I will protect them with my life. Because it is my life experiences and my love that determines how they act. What they do.

So I understand. I understand conflicting emotions

But what they do will not change.

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casualarsonist · 7 years

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Verdun review

Verdun is a multiplayer-only FPS set amongst some of the major areas of offensive in France and Belgium during WW1. It aims to recreate the clunky brutality of the era with far more attention to detail and realism than something like Battlefield 1, for instance, and where it sacrifices a certain degree of playability, it adds a niche appeal that rewards thinking outside the box.

Developed and published by Dutch indie studios M2H and Blackmill Studios, Verdun exhibits a measure of rawness that is at times intentional and at times not. It’s not a perfect game technically or by design, and while a good deal of its faults can be rightly justified by claiming ‘that’s the First World War’, the argument is whether this translates into a worthwhile experience for the consumer.

First thing’s first - Verdun is not your typical run-and-gun game. If you get your history lessons from BF1, you won't realise that most weapons in WW1 were bolt-action rifles or revolver pistols. Automatic weapons did exist, but they were heavy, ungainly, slow to reload, and didn’t have endless supplies of ammunition. Consequently, one of the first things you might notice about Verdun is that it exploits these antiquities and inconveniences as a central facet of gameplay. Everything takes time - reloading your weapon can take anywhere between five and ten seconds depending on what you’re using which puts you at a serious combat disadvantage when the enemy has a full clip ready and loaded – this means that the automatic weapons are balanced due to their longer loading times, and also that moments spent reloading in the face of an enemy advance are terrifying. And this fits perfectly in with the theme of WW1 warfare, because the name of the game for Verdun and other battles like it is attrition. You can kill as many enemies as you have bullets in a clip, but eventually you’re gonna run out of bullets, and if they haven’t run out of men then you’re kinda fucked. This may sound frustrating, and I’m not going to lie, there are times when it certainly is, but aside from the fact that it educates you as to just how absurd and futile the strategies of WW1 warfare were, an interesting side effect of all this awkwardness-by-design is that it sets a remarkably even playing field for newcomers and veterans alike. Regardless of how talented a player may be, crossing no man’s land is still going to make you a sitting duck. There’s no one tried-and-true method for getting to the other side unscathed as the placement of the enemy and their situational awareness will ultimately determine whether or not you’re spotted and shot, and even if you make it to the opposing trench, eventually you’re going to need to reload, and when that moment comes, expert or not, you’re prey.

Because it's a one-hit kill situation with most weapons here, which has both its pros and cons; yes, it makes it easier to nail an enemy from a distance, but if at any point you allow someone to get a bead on you, you won't be celebrating Christmas this year, and 7 times out of 10 you'll never know where you were even shot from. And since most Verdun maps involve trench warfare with stretches of no-man's land in between, you will be getting killed a lot. You can't outrun a bullet, and trying to creep makes you an easy target. Advancing requires either luck, incompetence on the part of your enemies, or accurate cover fire in support. It's thrilling stuff, and dropping into one end of a trench when the enemy doesn't know you're there makes you feel like a fox amongst the hens. The game also effectively encourages teamwork between players - you’re assigned to a squad when you begin, and remaining near your designated NCO and following their orders is rewarded with improvements to personal and squad stats, and drastic increases in player experience points. You can also feel the tangible difference between acting as a lone gun and acting in synergy with your squadmates, and often times it can make the difference between life and death.

There are 4 types of gameplay, two of which are your standard DM and Team DM. The other two are the signature Frontlines mode, which pits two opposing sides in opposing trenches across a multi-stage map with the goal of taking your opponent’s zones and pushing them back in stages until they’re defeated, and Squad Defence, which is the closest the game gets to a bot match and pitches a squad of 1-4 soldiers against waves of incoming enemies, the objective being to hold out as long as possible. Of the two unique game types, Frontlines is where you will take the most punishment – get used to waiting to respawn because you’re going to die a lot. Squad Defence is fun, but can realistically go on forever – I had to bail out of an hour-long match to go to work today and didn’t get any of the associated rewards for my work because there’s no way to end the game prematurely.

Verdun’s sound design is worth a massive commendation. Fighting in the trenches at night and hearing the report of pistol and rifle fire nearby is utterly terrifying. You can follow the action by following the sounds, and after a battle the area will be filled with the screams of men shot and dying, blood trailing from their bodies as they writhe at the bottom of a shell hole. Rifles are *loud*. The sound of a shot will give away your position as much as anything else, and this knowledge just sits in the back of your mind every time you feel like a boss, sniping on the enemy from afar, knowing that every shot you take brings closer to the centre of someone else’s crosshairs

The game also looks quite good, although a tad dated, and certain tactics like watching for muzzle flashes and skylighting your enemies are very effective. At one point I managed to effectively camouflage myself in the foliage to the point that I killed two soldiers staring right at me before one of them could even get a shot off. The movement, however, is pretty bad. Clunky and fiddly controls aren't aided by very rough terrain. You can get stuck on barbed wire without knowing it was there and not know which way to move to get out, resulting in a cheap death. The game instructs you to move slowly away, but I found that to be misleading – leaping out of it is both absurd and the only way I found to reliably help myself. You can get stuck on terrain and get shot. You can get stuck behind friendlies in trenches and not be able to get past. If the game played smoother I suppose it wouldn't clash with the intentional sluggishness of the weapons, but god it'd be less frustrating.

And so this is the part where I talk about the bigger flaws with the game itself. Firstly, short of reading the manual, there's no way to teach yourself how to play - selecting a game type throws you straight into the deep end. The closest you can get to this is the co-op vs AI wave-defence game types. The half dozen or so in-game menus are all clogged with info that the game doesn't tell you the relevance of. There's no option for training or bot-matches just on your own, so when the game hurls you into the middle of a match for the first time, you're gonna get your butt handed to you time and time again. Oh, and about that, in my first play-through I was spawn-killed no less than 6 times, because sometimes it'll pop you in or behind your line, and sometimes it'll pop you right at the forefront of the attack and the enemy will kill you before you can even get your hands on the controls. You never know where you're gonna show up, and you don't have a choice. This is straight-up inexcusable. I ended my first playthrough with a crash to desktop. I started my second playthrough with a crash to desktop. This is apparently not uncommon for the game, and just highlights a certain lack of technical polish that shouldn't exist. It also undid all the progress I’d made and left my teammates in the lurch. The weapon loadouts are lacking as well. Again, this is all part-and-parcel of the realism aspect, but if you're playing as the rifleman, for instance, you get one weapon only - a rifle. You can spend points on getting one or two different versions of said rifle, but the rifle is all you have. Which means that if there's only one spot left on a team, you're stuck with one weapon and one weapon only, and you don't get a say in things (who the hell designed a rifle that only takes three rounds?!).

Verdun isn’t perfect. There is still a good degree of polish that it could use, and 2 years after release, it’s unlikely that it’s going to get it as they’re currently in the process of making a standalone expansion. But fortunately, most of my experience has been positive. The community is, generally, friendly and helpful, and the pacing and balancing of the game are uniquely satisfying. Playing against humans is a punishing experience, and results in a lot of wasted time waiting to respawn, but once you come to grips with the mechanics and start getting kills there's a certain bitter joy that comes with laying down some of the punishment you've been going through yourself. It feels authentic to a degree (I mean, they can't make a game about sitting in a bunker and getting shelled for three straight days), but there are also points where it feels clunky beyond the realism. At its core it's not a perfect multiplayer game and the distinctive setting only sets it apart by degrees, but it does a great job at presenting the unrelenting and unavoidable brutality of the conflict. Nowhere is there a more visceral and immersive portrayal of WW1. At any one time there are only a few hundred people playing, and while I haven’t had issues filling my games, I do worry about the lifespan, so I’d recommend it for a slight discount. 7/10

Good

#verdun #video game #pc #first world war #ww1 #wwi #multiplayer #trench #warfare

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marymosley · 4 years

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Lies, Damned Lies, and Presidential Debates: The Rhetoric and Reality Of Gun Control

Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the reality and rhetoric of gun control in light of promises in the Democratic primary. The fact is that many of the ideas raised by the candidates have merit but they are likely to be marginal in their impact on real gun-related fatalities.

Here is the column:

The Democratic presidential debate down in South Carolina this week has proven once again the famous line that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The line is the perfect warning to the unwary about politicians citing statistics. The quote itself is widely misrepresented as the work of Mark Twain or British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, so it seems nothing can be trusted when it comes to statistics, not even quotes on statistics.

Some false statistics, however, are so facially absurd that they are indeed harmless except to the most gullible. That was the case when former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Senator Bernie Sanders over a vote that had favored the gun industry. Biden declared that, since the vote, 150 million Americans have been killed by guns. He also said the vote happened in 2007, when it was actually in 2005. Many people immediately scratched their heads, thinking they may have missed a holocaust that had claimed roughly half the population. Later, the Biden campaign insisted it was just another one of his gaffes and the real number is 150,000 Americans.

However, even that figure is wrong, but a Democratic primary is no place for the factually preoccupied. Trillions have been pledged for reparations, free college tuition, free medical care and free child care, all to be funded using math that would embarrass Bernie Madoff. First, on the threshold statistical controversy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that all gun deaths since 2007 total about 450,000. Thus, Biden went from overstating it by more than 300 times to understating it by three times. It is possible to get this figure down to around 180,000 by excluding the 60 percent of gun deaths that occur due to suicide.

The much greater danger, however, is not the statistical but the legal misrepresentations on gun control, and those are not confined just to Biden. After all, cracking down on guns is one of the defining issues for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pledged to “stop this nationwide madness.” In the debate, Biden dramatically glared into the camera to speak directly to the National Rifle Association: the NRA: “I want to tell you, if I’m elected NRA, I’m coming for you, and, gun manufacturers, I’m going to take you on and I’m going to beat you.” The other Democratic candidates have made similar claims that they will reduce gun violence significantly with executive orders and laws.

Such statements are far more dishonest than the statistical flight of fancy promoted by Biden. Gun ownership is an individual constitutional right under the Second Amendment. A constitutional right cannot be reduced or changed by either executive order or legislation. You can only work on the margins of such exercises of constitutional rights, which belies the promise by Bloomberg that these measures would make an “enormous difference.” Elizabeth Warren declared that “we need a president willing to take executive action” to end gun violence without any explanation what she can do to limit an individual right, let alone do it unilaterally.

It is true that, in the 2007 case of District of Columbia versus Dick Anthony Heller, the Supreme Court held that “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” But like other constitutional rights such as the freedom of speech, legally imposed limits cannot deny the right itself but only place reasonable limits on its use. Thus, it may be possible to limit the size of ammunition magazines or such devices as bump stocks. Certainly, background checks would be allowed.

Red flag laws allowing interventions are also likely to pass muster. But those limits are unlikely to “enormously” reduce gun violence. The vast majority of gun possessors, and many of those involved in massacres, would pass background checks. Indeed, there remains a serious question of whether states could outlaw weapons like AR-15s. Even if the Supreme Court upheld such a ban, there are over eight million AR-15s in private hands, and a wide variety of guns with equal or higher firepower.

Then there is the problem that most gun deaths involve a single round fired by someone into themselves rather than into others. In 2017, six out of 10 gun deaths were suicides. Less than 40 percent were intentional murders, and the remaining gun deaths in the country were accidental or law enforcement shootings. While gun suicides reached their highest recorded level in 2017, nonsuicide deaths that involve guns have been declining and stand significantly lower from its high point in 1993.

While the other candidates on the debate stage forced Sanders into a rare flip on his vote to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits, it was another example of a misleading promise. I actually opposed the 2005 bill that protected gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits because it was unnecessary and because I generally oppose legislation that limits tort liability. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, however, was not the sweeping immunity claimed by Biden and other candidates.

It barred liability for injuries due to the fact that firearms were later used by criminals. The bill saved the industry some litigation costs, but the industry would have prevailed in such actions anyway if they were tried. Product liability and tort actions against manufacturers have uniformly and correctly been rejected by the courts. Guns are lawful products, and holding companies liable for later misuse of such products is absurd. You might as well sue an axe manufacturer for the Lizzy Borden murders.

Thus, even if you remove immunity protections, ban certain magazines or devices, require background checks, or even ban a couple weapon types, the reduction in gun deaths would not likely fall significantly. Individuals still would have a constitutional right to possess guns. Moreover, the vast majority of guns would remain unaffected. That does not mean we should not try to reduce those fatalities or pass these measures. Any saved life is worth the effort. But candidates are misleading voters in suggesting that, if elected, they can dramatically impact the numbers of these cases.

Of course, none of that would make for a memorable debate moment for any of the candidates. Biden would be less than riveting if he glared into the camera and poked a figurative National Rifle Association in the chest while saying he would take them on and “marginally reduce the minority of deaths associated with nonsuicidal gun incidents.” That is the reason why there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and presidential debates.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Presidential Debates: The Rhetoric and Reality Of Gun Control published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

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sogoodishouldchargeadmission · 6 years

Text

Thanks for Listening Ch. 2

While I do remember the generalized sequence of events and corresponding timeframes that followed, some of it’s gone a little fuzzy. You can thank the potent mixture of adrenaline and head trauma I was forced to choke down for any inconsistencies.

So what did I say to Bower after he pointed a gun at me?

I probably tried to talk him down; all calm and level-headed and reasonable. Leadership has always been one of my best qualities. Tensions were high, sure, but I certainly wouldn’t have said something along the lines of “Go fuck yourself.” Does that even sound like me?

Yeah, I didn’t say that.

Promise.

Anyway.

In the end, my last words to him weren't important, because they were just that--the last words Sergeant Bower ever heard.

Now, he might’ve noticed the silence that had engulfed the outer city like a sheet of wool, if he hadn’t been so busy shoving a gun in my face. And then I might’ve been able to explain that that sudden lack of sound probably meant one of two things: that either the Stranded had won, and they were on their way home, or that the Locust had won, and you get the picture. (Let’s be honest, it’d be like a flock of flying monkeys either way.)

Point being: Then and there would’ve been a pretty decent time to tap our ruby slippers three times fast and get the fuck back to Jacinto, or any place that felt like home, really.

But no. Bower had been dead set on getting those generators, flying monkeys--or giant flying squid things, as it happened to turn out--or not.

It’s a cliche, I know, but the Reaver really did come out of nowhere. A sudden parting of clouds and screaming shrill enough to break glass were the only warnings we got before the thing landed, shaking the ground and tearing up the pavement with its jagged tendrils.

Within an instant, Bower’s pistol became as threatening as a squirt gun.

For those of you who don’t know--and believe me, I’m not putting anything past you at this point--a Reaver is the Locust’s principal battlefield conveyance. That’s “horsey” to you, sans a few details. Just put on your imagination hats and picture a six legged spawn of satan that shoots rockets and lays onslaught to entire cities, carrying two gun-toting Locust the whole way. The sheer firepower on those things makes it difficult to fight them close range. Tentacles with the capacity to turn grown men into a fine jelly render it a task impossible. I won’t even go into the gaping maw of a thousand-plus teeth, or the fact that they can fly.

You know, I probably won’t ever get used to the way primal instinct turns my body into a machine of its own volition, but that’s also probably for the best; one minute I was six feet away from certain death, the next I was behind a hollowed out minivan, not only holding a gun but shooting it. Theta seemed to forget our quarrel, too, so I guess something can be said for that Reaver; by putting our lives in danger, it got me out of a sticky situation. Oh, I didn’t doubt that if we made it home alive, Bower would have a stick up his ass for the next five to seven weeks. But for the moment, I didn’t have to deal with him.

Unfortunately, not all of us got to go home.

Castle was already gone. I caught a glimpse of him as my last few rounds went into the Reaver’s passenger-side Locust, bloodied and broken on the pavement.

The Stranded were gone, too, but I didn’t see any of their bodies; it’s most likely they booked it into the bellies of crumbled infrastructure before any of us could say shit. Not that I would have; a fighting chance is all I’d wanted to give them in the first place.

Private Lester, for his credit, mustered up enough courage to unholster his Lancer and point before the Reaver fired its first round of ballistiks. There was a hiss and a boom, and for a second I was blinded by the close-range explosion. When the smoke cleared, Lester was nothing more than a stain on the sidewalk.

What’s that? This is making you queasy? Well, don’t let me ruin your lunch. We can change the topic to:

“Why the fuck don’t you people give us enough bullets?”

In case that wasn’t clear enough, this an official complaint regarding ammunition distribution. Not to be that person, but I’ll bring up the whole paper thing again, if it gets my point across:

Along with a note to ‘please use sparingly’, I woke up today to find a stack of the stuff by my bedside--thanks for that, by the way. Real dignifying.

If you cared so much about people not using this dwindling resource as origami or ass paper, maybe you shouldn't hand it out like it grows on trees. Look outside--there are no trees! So far, I’m seven sheets in. A less responsible human being might’ve had seven airplanes by now, and you wouldn’t have noticed or cared.

And yet there I was with a suddenly empty cartridge, and no goddamn bullets to remedy. Why? Oh, because munitions need to be kept under lock and key. God forbid someone takes as much as they need to save the world.

Seriously, guys, make something happen. Challenge yourselves a little.

What else could I do but start looking for a way out? The Snub Pistol I had left wouldn’t serve much purpose against a Reaver, and it’s just as well I saved it; that ammo turned out to be really useful. I mean, there’s always the blaze of glory option, but I wasn’t feeling it. And with Bower in his own little world of old-timey heroics, and Miles suddenly nowhere to be seen, I thought I’d take it upon myself to figure out the getaway sequence. For starters, that meant hightailing it back to the Packhorse; the turret on its bed would serve as a far superior weapon against our many-legged friend, and then it would just be a matter of picking up the rest of Theta and riding off into the sunset.

Despite whatever occured between Bower and me, I could’ve lived with it. And he should have lived to live with it, but I couldn’t stop what happened next.

By then, the Reaver’s pilot was dead too, leaving us a raging bullet-sponge with no master to say ‘heel’. The rockets on those things fire automatically--so we still had to duck and cover at every fifteen second interval--but for the most part, I saw a window of opportunity. I started running.

Bower took that opportunity to stay right where he was. Maybe he thought by letting the Reaver stand over him, he could shoot at its vulnerable underbelly and save the day. Maybe he didn’t notice the things advancement at all.

For his credit, I doubt he was afraid--the man was a bully, not a coward.

Whatever the case, I got to the Packhorse and turned around just in time to see Jacob Bower fold in on himself like an accordion. Under pressure of the Reaver’s thousand-pound arm, his insides had nowhere to go but out.

Luckily I don’t have nightmares. But if I did, his death would be the one to keep me up at night. God knows I’ve been having enough daydreams about it.

“It is what it is” doesn’t really cover everything, so for the record: I’m not proud of being the only person who got out of there alive, but I’m not apologizing, either. If going back at some point and getting their tags helps everyone feel a little less butthurt about what happened, then great. But a few snotty comments made by a few uninformed assholes in the mess hall isn’t going to make my heart heavy or my tummy hurt, so no need to try.

Theta Squad chose poorly. I didn’t. Boo-fucking-hoo.

I got in the truck and went to turn the key. There was no key.

I won’t lie, for half a second my jaw dropped and my blood boiled.

Regulations dictate that keys stay in the ignition for this very reason, but we all know what kind of person Bower was by now. I spared the pigheaded son of a bitch a glance, but fuck if I knew which pocket he’d bothered to use. Anyway, he wasn’t the only thing in about a million different pieces. That key was unequivocally dead, too, so it was on to plan B.

Oh, to jump start a vehicle. If my grandfather hadn’t beat the living shit out of me every time I messed with one of his old jalopies, I would consider those early summer mornings spent practicing in his garage to be some of my fondest childhood memories.

Once upon a time, stood on a toolbox, up to my elbows in learning, and so forth.

Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with recollections from the dog days of boyhood, or the science behind hotwiring a Packhorse. Just know that it wasn’t a fun time.

The truck wasn’t so bad, though.

For what it’s worth, the Reaver was ignoring me. Maybe it hadn’t noticed that I’d booked it down the street, but I’m of the opinion that ‘smooshed people goo’ is just more captivating to their kind. Hey, maybe it was something altogether deeper, but you don’t want to hear my theories about a flying squid contemplating life outside enslavement, do you? Yeah, I thought not.

Either way, Flyboy (is it weird if I name it?) stayed put, poking and hissing and (maybe) pondering its own existence. How long that welcome lack of attention/existential crisis would last, I didn’t know. Plus, the things rockets were still launching, which meant with some good aim, decent timing, and a little bad luck, I’d go up like a drum of imulsion set to the tune of ‘Baby, you’re a firework’, except I really didn’t want to be.

Think of a sitting duck. Square it, name it Damon, and there I was.

And yet.

You’ll probably call my ability to get the Packhorse started in less than two minutes a “product of superior COG training” or some similar brand of bullshit. I call it talent. The feelings that went with the engine turning over might’ve even been classified as “warm” or “fuzzy”, but then again, I wasn’t given very long to process them.

Now, I know that some of the people reading this have serious heart conditions that render said organ cold, black, or nonexistent. Others in your little clubhouse have never met the umbrella-toting cricket that tells them right from wrong, so we’ll have to excuse them too.

But maybe there are a few of you that have been experiencing a nagging sensation for the past eight to ten paragraphs; something similar to the nagging sensation that I’d been experiencing for the past eight to ten minutes.

The line you’re looking for is “aren't we forgetting something?”

And yeah, close, but it was actually someone.

Private Miles--yes, that Private Miles--decided to come out of hiding. I guess the minute he heard the Packhorse, panic set in, and he figured himself a goner; kind of a late-onset fight or flight response, and he suddenly chose flight.

Hate to break it to you, but things went the route of Icarus real quick.

See, his chosen hiding-spot this whole time had been the building behind Flyboy. To get to me from where he was would require a hell of an act. In light of our situation, there were a few roles he could’ve taken on that would have sufficed. Incognito Spy, for instance. Stoic Hero, another good choice. Shit, I would’ve been happy with Action Man, if it meant a distraction, or an over-the-top plan, or something.

He went with Damsel in Distress, complete with all the theatrics you could possibly imagine. His high-pitched screams certainly caught the Reaver’s attention.

Me? I’ve never wanted to simultaneously cry and run someone over up until that point. Don’t worry, though. I kept the waterworks in check.

Hey, before you get any funny ideas about sticking a bag over my head and shouting ‘fire’ at sunrise, let me explain.

See, with Mile’s running at me and Flyboy stomping after him, there was suddenly no time to get to the turret. I could’ve turned left or right onto the road, ensuring my own safety, but instead made the selfless decision to floor it into my coworker.

...Okay, I can see how that’s still kind of disturbing. I’m not done yet.

They were fifty yards away, roughly. The Reaver was still firing rockets, which left me a thirteen second window to grab Miles and turn out of the blast radius. Obviously, I couldn't stop the truck to do that. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

Disowning all instincts regarding self-preservation, I accelerated, fast, and drove head on into Private Miles. After hitting the hood of the Packhorse, he rolled up the windshield and into the waiting embrace of the truck bed. It was all rather graceful, considering.

No, I’m not going to explain my reasoning or thought process or how I knew that would even work other then that I was attending La Croix at fifteen. You do the head scratching. I’ll do the math.

Sharp turn, big boom, yada yada, and then we were off--me navigating the unfamiliar streets of Hale with a white-knuckled grip, and Miles doing his best to break the rear-view window instead of...oh, I don’t know...manning the turret and saving our asses. Evidently, he thought the sardine-can interior of our vehicle would be safer. That, or he was lonely out there.

By then, I’d gotten us a few blocks, swerving to avoid Flyboy’s missiles and increasingly daring kamikaze attempts. He was back in the air and I was hoping to lose him, utilizing as many alleyways and underpasses as I could come across.

I flinched when shards of glass flew into my hair. Miles had taken to using his helmet, apparently, and the window stood no chance against such a combination as metal and hysterics. Next thing I knew, he was clamoring into the back seat, then up into the front seat.

I remember only a few more things--Miles, a mess of curly brown hair and freckles and sweat. His wails, incessant and incomprehensible and even younger sounding, now that his helmet was gone. His hand, reaching out, grabbing my arm, grabbing the steering wheel.

I wish I could recall every detail of the crash--how it happened, what went wrong. But nothing is ever as simple as fading to black.

Honestly, it just feels like I went to sleep.

#Gears of War #Fanfiction #Damon Baird #Marcus Fenix #Agustus Cole #Dominic Santiago #Delta Squad

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hottytoddynews · 7 years

Link

Rocky Boyer as a young second lieutenant, just graduating from radio school at Scott Field.

Roscoe “Rocky” Boyer taught educational psychology at Ole Miss from 1955 to 1989, training two generations of teachers.

Dr. Boyer was known for his dry sense of humor, his willingness to look at old ideas from new angles, and his gift for testing schoolchildren. He was a familiar sight on campus as he rode his ten-speed bicycle to his office at the School of Education.

Few people knew that Dr. Boyer had once been Lieutenant Boyer, a communications officer with a fighter-bomber group in the Southwest Pacific.

Allen Boyer will sign “Rocky Boyer’s War,” a WWII history based on a wartime diary kept by his father, at TurnRow Books in Greenwood, on July 24; at OffSquare Books in Oxford on Tuesday, July 25; and at Lemuria Books in Jackson, on July 27.

B-25 Mitchell bomber “Sticky Kitty” was taken on an island off New Guinea in the early summer of 1944, as the the Fifth Air Force moved up the coast of New Guinea toward the Philippines. This bomber belonged to the 17th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, the bomber squadron in Rocky’s air group. In the background are a B-24 Liberator and a taxiing P-47.

When my father talked about the war, it was at night, on an empty highway. We lived in Mississippi, all our relatives lived in Indiana, and we made that long round-trip twice a year. After dark, hours behind us, hours still to go, my father would stretch his arms, shift in the driver’s seat, and talk about New Guinea and the Philippines. My mother said he did it to keep awake.

When I was growing up, the Pacific War histories I read were about American fighter planes dog-fighting with Zeros. My father’s war stories weren’t like that. He talked about recklessness and accidents and waste. One pilot he knew crashed while dropping leaflets, because the leaflets were sucked into his plane’s air intake. Another pilot killed himself trying to dip his wingtips in the tall kunai grass.

There was irony, but none of it was cheerful. My father told how a bomber crew died on a mission to drop maps to infantry on a beachhead. Nervous American anti-aircraft gunners saw their plane coming in low and fast, saw that the bomb-bay doors were open, didn’t wait to check the markings, and shot them down.

The American base on Wakde Island in early June 1944, after a Japanese night bombing raid. The bombers in the background are B-25’s from Rocky’s air group.

My father talked about the beachhead at Biak, where the airstrip was a no-man’s-land. His air group was on the side by the beach, and the Japanese were holed up in the hills and caves across the runway. At another beachhead, on Mindoro in the Philippines, there was one very bad night, when Japanese destroyers raced in and shelled the airfield. He drove a jeep to the airstrip, and they got the planes armed, lugging bombs and heavy belts of machine gun ammunition, while Japanese planes dived in and strafed them. The next day, of the five lieutenants in his tent, he was the only man still alive.

This photo was taken on the beachhead at Biak, off the coast of New Guinea, where Rocky’s air group moved in the summer of 1944. If this is not the wreckage of Captain Hancock’s bomber, which American anti-aircraft gunners shot down by mistake, it marks the place where some other air crew died.

While he was overseas, my father kept a diary. I read it when I was fourteen, and I thought it spoke pithily about the absurdity of war and the rigmarole of military life. Which it does – but three years ago, when I started turning the diary into a book, I found that the daily entries didn’t speak for themselves.

My father’s stories checked out against the squadron records. I learned the names of the pilots who had died: Lieutenant Swanson when the leaflets clogged his air intake, Lieutenant Minton doing the wingtip-dipping air-show stunt, Captain Hancock and his crew killed by mistake. But if the history was straightforward, assembling the memoir took work. My father grew up on a farm in Indiana, where diaries were for recording what happened, not how you felt about it. Just as he hadn’t talked about the war later, there were parts of the war that he hadn’t written about at the time. He had written about one notebook page a day, usually less than 300 words. From those brief lines, I had to infer a war’s worth of impact and emotion.

I had one advantage. Researching your father’s life is the mirror image of raising a child: you can look back from the matured personality you know and recognize the moments when a trait first showed itself. I knew that my father would teach Sunday school for twenty years. That cued me to pay attention when he wrote about going to church, often twice on Sunday (and the one time when he disagreed with what the chaplain was preaching, and walked out).

I could pick out his friends. They were the lieutenants from whom he heard rumors and who drove around with him in jeeps – other young men a couple of years out of college. There was Kepler the radar officer, with whom he traded gripes about Colonel Hutchison, and Foliart, who was there that night in Sydney when they commandeered the trolley-car.

My father was level-headed, a math major turned radio officer, not a man to talk about dreams or ghosts. So it mattered when he wrote about a ghost, a fraternity brother who had died at Midway. He dreamed that they met again back at college (“and as usual his hand grip was crushing,” he added). That dream came to him as his troopship steamed into the war zone – and that mattered, too. As he moved toward the war, he was grappling with its ghosts.

My father didn’t talk about being in love, but I knew he would marry my mother after the war and spend sixty years with her. When he tapped out a letter to her on the teletype in his radio truck, I knew how to read it: “This is fun, writing you, seeing the country, all I need is an ice cream cone, and a blue-eyed girl on my right, one on my left always cramps my style if I had one.” He was joking; he was love-struck.

Stray remarks went in, remembered conversations, lines from a few letters. It was enough. My mother read the galley proofs and laughed out loud; she could just hear him saying that she said.

Her laugh meant that the book had been worth writing. And perhaps I honored my father in one further way. When I think about writing his story, I remember writing it late at night, when the world is dark and quiet, and the story is what keeps you going.

Rocky Boyer’s War book cover

Allen Boyer is Book Editor for HottyToddy.com. A native of Oxford, he lives and writes in Staten Island. “Rocky Boyer’s War: An Unvarnished History of the Air Blitz that Won the War in the Southwest Pacific,” his fifth book, was published in May by the Naval Institute Press. This essay was initially published online by the Phi Beta Kappa Key Reporter.

The post Allen Boyer: “My Father’s War Stories” appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

#hottytoddy #olemiss #oxfordms #oxford ms #mississippi #university of mississippi #the grove

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