The whole thing looks like AI to me. Something seems off in the coloration.

I agree with all of this. At the same time, I think that, in most cases, people should allow their body to adapt to heat, if they are healthy enough to do so. Most people can learn to be comfortable in higher heat than they believe, although some people have medical conditions that will make them more susceptible to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. If you can get by without it, you should. If you’re at risk by not using it, don’t feel guilty.

(FWIW, my office only has a/c because I have a very, very large printer in here, and it tends to have head strikes and scrap prints out if there’s no climate control. But since I’m not printing at the moment, the current temp in here is 82F.)

You are confusing actual results with people being on the right side of a conflict.

No, I’m not. The NRA is not on the right side; they’re on the side of authoritarians. They’re on the side of the boot that is kicking you in the face. They’re on the side of the cops that will be the ones disarming people, and on the side of the christian nationalists that want to take guns from everyone but white evangelical christians. The NRA does not believe that the second amendment exists for ALL people, regardless of race, religion, age, disability, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation, and they’ve never even tried to really conceal that. That’s why they are silent when someone like Filandro Castile is murdered by a cop.

When the NRA fixes it’s own shit so that, as an organization, they truly believe that 2A rights exist for everyone, and are willing to treat the disarming of any group as a crime, then we can talk. But that’s not who they are now, and it’s not likely that this is who they will be at any time in the future, since they’ve made it nearly impossible for grassroots change to happen within the org.

On top of that, as we experience higher temperatures, many people also crank up their air conditioners—which emit more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

This is not correct. Air conditioning units do not ‘emit more […] greenhouse gases’. Air conditioners use a refrigerant–usually R134a–which does have a high global warming potential (GWP) compared to methane or CO2, but that refrigerant is in a closed loop; it’s not going anywhere unless the system is damaged. Most a/c failures aren’t from refrigerant leaking out of the system, and the system no longer being able to effectively transfer heat, but from the compressor motor failing. When the compressor fails, in most cases you can evacuate the refrigerant, replace the broken part, and then recharge the system. (The fact that they can be repaired doesn’t mean that they usually are repaired. Which is shitty.)

What is true is that a/c units emit heat themselves. An air conditioner moves heat from inside a space to outside of that space; in the process of doing so, the a/c unit itself is creating an additional small amount of heat from the function of the compressor motor, electronics, etc.

Beyond that, most electricity that’s used to run a/c systems–and every other electrical device–is produced from burning fossil fuels. So if there’s more demand for electricity–such as from a heat dome that has everyone running their a/c full-time–then yes, more CO2 is going to get pumped out into the atmosphere. But if your electricity is coming from sources that are largely emissions-free, like solar, wind, or hydro, then air conditioning is a negligible source of heat.

tl;dr - don’t feel bad about using your a/c when heat rises to dangerous levels; agitate at a local, state, and national level for renewable, carbon-neutral ways of generating electricity, and for more efficient use of electricity.

The NRA hasn’t done jack shit in decades. As I said, the NRA did their level best to kill Heller v. D.C. before it even got off the ground, and that was the single most important 2A win in the last 50 years.

Don’t give me that bullshit about them being the line between the US and tyranny, when they won’t even speak up against tyranny when cops murder legally armed citizens.

So you’re saying my choices are either to side with fascists that want to take rights from people, or fascists that want to take rights from different people?

And no, it’s not a zero-sum game. My parents were life-long Republicans. They switched in the 2016 election, and have been voting mostly Democratic since then. I was raised in a deeply conservative religion, and was raised to be homophobic; I have changed, because I learned differently. The game, as you say, isn’t zero-sum; it’s persuasion. If you aren’t being persuasive, then you need to find better ways of reaching people, and yelling and telling them they’re terrible ain’t doing it. You certainly don’t win with circular firing squads.

the only beneficent quality of republicans is supporting the NRA,

Look, I like guns far, far more than most people, but I draw the line at the NRA, and Wayne LaPierre’s suit-fetish. Most people that work on 2A issues at a local level will tell you that the NRA will swoop in after a deal has already been made, and fuck everything up. If you look at the history of Heller v. D.C., you’ll find that the NRA tried to kill the suit before it even got off the ground, because they were afraid it would hurt their funding.

If you want to support 2A causes, the Firearms Policy Coalition is on of the few right now that’s both effective, and appears to avoid other ‘culture wars’ (e.g., “anti-wokeism”) nonsense. At a non-policy level, the various John Brown Gun Clubs are doing good work, the Liberal Gun Club is helping create a space for people that are both pro-gun and generally identify as left of center, and the SRA is pretty okay once you get past the tankies.

It’s even weirder because Michigan is purple-trending-blue. I’m surprised that it’s not more blue, considering how much a part labor unions played in building the industrial base that used to exist in the urban areas. So I don’t know how they think that this is gonna “own teh libz” when they’ve already lost the state. Their own party is in tatters; it’s been run by someone so extreme in the state that no one was donating money to them.

And who, exactly, defines “degenerate”? Because I know there are quite a lot of people that would define “degenerate” as anyone that is non-Christian, LGBTQ+ or LGBTQ-affirming, or non-“white” (however they’re currently defining “whiteness”).

The only way you deny these so-called degenerates a say in society is by intentionally disenfranchising them, in much the same way that Republicans have made an effort to deny non-white people a say in society through gerrymandering and voter-ID laws. (Or, earlier, through “literacy tests” and the like, or simply murdering people that tried to get black people registered to vote.)

Doesn’t seem to be. Eugene Stoner lived in Florida and California. Armalite–and later Colt–aren’t based in Michigan.

…Are you saying that there are certain people that you don’t believe should be allowed to have a vote?

That seems like a… Dangerous path to head down.

A .223 with something like a 75 grain ELD-M bullet would be perfectly adequate for hunting deer. A number of states allow hunting deer with .223; I don’t believe that Michigan does though, and certainly not south of Lansing. (I think that’s the cut-off for rifle? That might have changed since I lived there.)

There’s no reason that you can’t hunt deer with .300AAC, or even 7.62x39, both of which an AR-15 can be adapted for.

But I’ve been shooting my whole life and I fucking hate everything related to that platform.

That’s an incredibly fudd-y attitude. I’m guess that when you say “deer rifle”, you probably mean something with a wooden stock, probably bolt action but maybe lever action, and probably chambered in .30-06, or (gag) .30-30. Or god forbid, .45-70 (because yeah, I want to use a slug with the ballistics of a mortar for hunting). The AR-15 has become popular because it’s highly modular, and can get better accuracy cheaper than you can on a more traditional rifle.

Who carries a pistol with a manual safety?

Pretty much everyone that carries a 1911 derivative, or a Beretta 92. There are a bunch of others, but most people that do defensive carry, as you imply, are using striker-fired pistols, and are carrying in condition 0.

To add to this - for people that practice, .8 seconds is considered a competitive time (e.g., a good, fast time) to draw from concealment and get a single shot in the A-zone–center mass–at 7 yards. A competitive time for draw and 6 shots in the A zone at 6 yards (AKA “Bill drill”) is about 3 seconds. Anyone that’s no longer in the novice class in IDPA should be getting draw-to-shot times of 1 second or less.

I have an AR-15. It’s a perfectly fine rifle for hunting medium sized game at ranges of up to about 300y (which is a longer shot than you’ll ever get in the woods). It’s the preferred rifle for people that are trying to thin out coyote packs or sounders of feral pigs.

Fun fact, did you know that having a sink in your home increases the odds that someone in your home will die of drowning? Probably outta get rid of those.

Armalite may still make them, but it’s a bit player in the market now. Since the AR-15 has a gov’t spec attached to it, pretty much every company that makes firearms makes an AR-15, and they’re all substantially identical.

Why the AR-15? Why not the FN-FAL, the AR-10, FN F-2000, the L85A2, Steyr AUG, HK G36 or, shit, even the Keltec RBD?

Yeah, the AR-15 is a great carbine and all, but why elevate that particular rifle as a state rifle?

I dunno, when you’re talking about really specialized niches, there are still plenty of forums. Like, 600rr.net; it’s dedicated to nothing but Honda CBR600RR motorcycles. If you have a problem with a 600RR, the answer is probably there, and the forum is still ticking along because it’s just too hard to find those super-niche answers on Reddit. Want gun content with a healthy dose of homo/transphobia and christian nationalism? AR15.com has you covered. Want to talk about the minutiae of reloading and be autistically-focused on long-range accuracy? SnipersHide.com is your place. (They’re a bit fuddy though.)

Sure. If you’ve abused it in some way so that it doesn’t take or hold charge, then you might have to pay for a replacement battery. But I think there would be an implied warranty when you’re given a replacement, that the replacement was fit for service. And the company might just have to roll the cost or replacing batteries every so often into their electricity pricing models.

That’s like asking who owns a propane tanks for your grill. You own it while you have it.

When you get a new batter, you own the new one, and relinquish ownership of the previous one, paying for the electricity that’s on the new battery. AS LONG AS the battery that you’re relinquishing is substantially identical to the new battery.

Huh. Karlach was easily my favorite.

I always liked hanging out with the punks and metalheads though.

I’ve known entirely too many people that had the real life personality of Shadowheart and Astarion to really like them though. Gael and Wyll just seemed like entitled shits; not the worst, but not great people.