The “good guy with a gun” seemingly did happen here - a civilian (i.e. neither security, police nor military) shot an active shooter and stopped the drama.

But relying on “good guy with a gun” is not a meaningful security policy as it actively encourages arming civilians. In case of an imminent threat like an active shooter - which one of the armed, non-uniformed civilians are friendly, neutral or enemies? And how do they communicate their afilliation to bystanders, fellow armed citizens and security forces - in a way that could not be exploited by an active shooter himself? Employing this as a general security policy would proliferate more guns in the society and teach everyone to be vigilant of each other, thus increasing distrust. It can also attribute to shifting the blame to victims of shootings: Why didn’t they arm themselves and shoot first?

In my view, reducing the amount of guns or at least the volume of fire (think 6-shooter revolvers instead of 17-round semiautomatics) would reduce the amount of gunshot victims in the time between start of an active shooting and the arrival of security forces that would then handle the situation professionally. A stressed-out amateur with a handgun is not as helpful as a professional, and can actually increase to the drama due to increasing uncertainty in identification of friend or foe.

Without knowing any details of this case and the actual situation that happened - at one point in time, a civilian with a firearm opened fire at another (minor) with a firearm because there was a possible danger scenario near a school. How did the “good guy” in this scenario know exactly that this was the right call to open fire, and not just another possible “good guy with a gun”?

In this case, he was evidently correct, well done! But it could easily have become a terrible blue-on-blue scenario as well.

To me, this single “good guy with a gun” scenario does not justify the fact that firearms are so widespread that the “bad guy” easily got his own, and became more deadly as a result.

Specifically, a Karabiner K98 (that I have a lot of in my basement after ww2)?

The “invisible hand of the market” is such a fascinating myth, because it frames the results of capitalist endeavors as inevitable and almost holy - but as soon as the sufficiently wealthy and well-connected suffer a setback, then “government bailouts” are granted.

The invisible hand is actually very visible of you dare to look close enough.

“Little brother is watching you!”

Conservatives (Germany ca. 1933): Hitler will only throw the enemies of the German people in jail, so I’m safe. Gestapo, some time later at their door: Hallo. Conservatives: Oh no, who could have seen this coming?

Moral of the story: The leopard bites every face.

The community allows for the accumulation of wealth by providing services, security and labor. Therefore the community is entitled to a portion of the accumulated wealth in form of taxation.

No man is an island, and nobody becomes a billionaire from their own labor. Community matters.

But there is still a management bonus for this quarter - right?

“Rapid dominance attempts to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe” (Ullman & Wade, 1996)

One could argue that “shock & awe” is a military strategy to specifically terrorize the enemy force, for example a military opponent. This would blur the line above (terrorism vs military) as it intends to affect the opponents minds with fear of the attacking group and thus coerce them away from their goal.

This strategy is one performed by an organized military that is (theoretically) bound by the rules of warfare (like the Geneva Convention) and unlawful acts can be prosecuted by either their own military law system or an international court (like the Hague). Non-state actors (insurgents, terrorist groups) on the other hand are not beholden to any law. To me, this is another relevant distinction: Is the act itself one of terror or military necessity? And is the actor a governmental organization beholden to the law?

I tolerate both steam and heroic. I can see how a launcher is useful for centralized library management (updates and reinstallation), but I also see how it is a lot of concentrated attention and potential adspace / datamining tool.

I tolerate steam because they have good features & an okay track record, and heroic because I want to receive the free epic games but do not want to give them real estate on my pc.

Resell to the next data center project, Re-steal it from there afterwards. Infinite money pump glitch!

Yes, when employed properly it can be a helpful tool. But when it’s given all the house keys and unlimited leeway, it will burn down your house (and your budget) because it cannot make reasonable choices. It’s not sentient (yet), despite all the promises from AI evangelists.

Steam on pc shows that gamers can be okay with not having physical media - as long as they trust the vendor that the thing they pay for actually means a persistent access to the game.

Unfortunately this move also gives much more power to the vendor. Once he decides to withdraw access to the player, the ownership of the paid-for thing becomes useless (until a lawsuit were to be filed and won).

Physical media without mandatory internet servers (like in pre-internet consoles) means true ownership - after buying a game, the vendor has no longer any control.

The key point to me is not directly the difference between physical disk or cloud download, but between truly offline versus online-required games (or goods in general).