Alphecca

Hi Jeff,

My comment has nothing to do with your post, except that I would appreciate an answer to your question as well!

I got directed to your site from a debate on a site called "Shrink wrapped" over gun control.

My arguement is that basically everyone believes in some sort of gun control, it is just the extent and nature of controls that is at issue. I find the debate in the US to be way more devisive than it needs to be (I live in Canada)

I imagine we will not agree, but I would love to get your take. For instance I do not agree that cats need to be armed.

Peace, Chas

Hey Chas, I guess you can get the gist of Jeff's (and most of America's) take on it by reading this here web site. He's got archives. You Canadians (at least on the East side) are not devisive at all due to the public in general being sheeple, not free human beings. Western Canada has got a lot more politically in common with America.

BTW, there's no freakin way a Hyundai can do 141 mph, so I figure the problem is in the calibration of the cop's radar unit.

Can't blame the guy for trying to wring it out a bit, though; you know, it's a rental and all ... ;-}

Jeff, if I got pulled over I'd just have to quote Sammy Hagar, and see if the guy would give me a break - maybe write it up for 9 mph over the limit. Always carry fresh doughnuts, that's my motto - no, not those nasty yankee Dunkin ones, some Krispy Kremes, mmmmm.

The real news is: a hundai can hit 141??

A few years ago my daughter (7 at the time) climbed a tree and fell over 25 feet. I found her on her back, having tonic-clonic limb movements, a fixed and dilated right pupil, and a compound fractured jaw which was causing her to choke on her own blood. These are terrible signs that suggested skull fracture, intracranial bleeding, and the onset of brainstem herniation. That's fancy jargon for minutes to live. Calling an ambulance would be too slow. I discovered that my Subaru Legacy GT can go 112 mph on the interstate. I passed an unmarked police car as I was slowing for the hospital exit, but he didn't catch me until after I had gotten to the hospital and had an ER doc at my car. I did not get ticketed.

The best part is that my daughter made a full recovery. The EMTs intubated her so her lungs wouldn't fill with blood. The dilated pupil and other bad signs were due to stretch injury of optic and motor nerves, not to brainstem damage.

I wish to add that this is not the best way to test your car's speed and your driving skills.

Hyundais are essentially Mitsubishi clones. All the turbo-intercooler kits will bolt to the engine and need only minimal sheetmetal touchups to fit behind the grill. I recall an Excel q-ship in one of the ricerboy magazines which would turn 11 second quartermiles.

No excuse for that sort of speed except the above-mentioned medical emergency. I recall a TV ad decades back for the Triumph Spitfire in which they were jumpcutting between the Spit and a highway patrol car. The punchline was the cop pulling up at a hospital entrance followed by the sportscar, and the driver helping a young lady who looked fully dilated walk to the door.

Driving to Vegas and traveling through the desert in Utah, I got pulled over by a Trooper for doing 105mph in my Maxima. The Trooper walks up and asks me that age old question,"Do you know how fast you were going?"

I replied, "Sir, I wasn't paying attention to my speedometer, I was just trying to keep pace with the traffic."

Well, he looked left down the highway where the road went straight as the eye could see with nary a car in sight. He glanced right with the exact same view. He looked straight at me and said,"Point taken. Slow it down for the rest of your trip through Utah." and left me there without a ticket.

If the driver can handle it and the car is capable, why the hell not?

I've quit reacting over folks enjoying their freedom to do as they wish. Boob jobs, 50 cals, hot cars, fast driving, big pools, hairplugs, lear jets. If they can handle it, it's no business of mine.

Chas;

As you know, it is a 'dog eat dog' world out there...and when dogs aren't eating dogs, they're eating cats.

So of course it is a cats right to be armed for self defense. Although it is clearly challenging for a feline to conceal a firearm on their person.

The reason you find the debate in the US devisive is straightforward to understand. Once someone acknowledges the fundamental human right to self defense, and the concomitant right to possess the tools that are required for such defense, any attempt to restrict that right is completely unacceptable. Those who fail to acknowledge this fundamental right are treated with suspicion if not derision or contempt by those who do accept it, because without the ability to exercise this right, demonstrably none of the other so-called rights will or even can exist.

Which means there is no such thing as 'reasonable' gun control, because how can one place a limitation on a fundamental human right?

So your belief that everyone believes in some sort of gun control is a false one...unless keeping an accurate sight picture and a steady hand qualify as 'gun control' in your mind.

I drove in Europe for many years. I lived in Germany for 5 years. I've driven on the Autoban quite a bit. The Autoban is no better than the American Interstate system (and if you want to talk convienance of exits is much worse).

In Germany if you drive over the recommended maximum on the Autoban of 130 KPH (about 80 MPH) the law says your insurance company is not responsible to pay if you have/cause an accident.

YOU want to drive that fast, it's YOUR decision, and YOUR responsibility if something bad happens.

Now, as best as I can figure, isn't that what all of us of libertarian bent preach... personal liberty and personal responsibility?

I personally don't think it's worth dying or killing someone else just to drive that fast, however, I have been known to be moving along at over 130 MPH (about 220 KPH) on the Autoban, in good dry-road daylight conditions.

Oh, and regarding the speeding issue...

Yes, a Sonata can go 141 mph under the right conditions (no doubt this is flat out).

We're talking Vermont; I imagine the road was completely empty, with no other traffic, in which case, what difference does exceeding the arbitrary number on a sign make to anyone?

The US Interstate Highway System is designed to safely accomadate this sort of speed in a modern car. The system was designed in the 1950's for safe operation of a 1930's car (single circuit drum brakes, bias ply tires, no seatbelts) at 75 mph. If you update the parameters to a modern car (dual circuit brakes with front discs, radial tires, sea belts...a Plymouth K car from 1980 being the baseline) the design speed is 125 mph.

A modern car with ABS, excellent tires, good supportive seats, and all the other safety and performance enhancements that you'll find these days can safely operate at 141 mph or higher if there is no other traffic around.

A better question would be, why is the speed limit still 65? How about a more realistic 80 or 90, or even 'Reasonable and Prudent' like it used to be?

On the other subject of gun-control, try this link:

OF HOLOCAUSTS AND GUN CONTROL
Washington University Law Quarterly

http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-3/753-4.html

CONCLUSION

It is often pointed out how different the contemporary world is from the one in which Madison and Jefferson lived. In those days what passed for tyranny was "send[ing] hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance," "cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World," and calling "together Legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant," and other such complaints. Even with the example of the French Revolution before them, Madison and Jefferson could hardly have imagined in detail the characteristic perils of the twentieth century. But they certainly understood the crux of the problem. After all, more than two thousand years earlier, in 416 B.C., the Athenians put the population of Melos to the sword, exempting only those deemed suitable for sale as slaves. The lesson Thucydides drew from this incident remains persuasive today: "The strong do what they will, the weak endure what they must." The Founders of American democracy saw the persistence of this Thucydidean reality. They rejected the concept of a state monopoly of armed power--"the most dangerous of all monopolies," according to Madison--in favor of "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."

I-91 is a challenge because while it is rather sparsely travelled, it has some daunting hills all along the route. Trucks have a tough time on it. Reaching speeds of 141 mph takes a pretty good engine even for a car. You're generally either going up or down a hill for the entire length. I imagine they got him downhill.

Chas -- go to the search bar on the right side of the main page and type in "Weekly Check on the Bias" and start reading...

"Gun control" means, simply, hitting your intended target.

Why 141? Because you can without endangering others. I got a ticket for 120 on a highway in South Dakota, years ago. Went to court, pointed out that it was a new, twenty miles of straight, four-lane highway, and that other than the officer who'd turned onto the highway to give me the ticket after being called from the State Patrol airplane, there had been no other traffic; no cars passed us going in either direction while he was writing it. Dismissed.

They can go that fast? Wheee!

Chas,

Gun control makes just as much sense as breath control. People tend to feel they have an inherent right to live, therefore most of them would tend to get a mite upset if you tried to regulate their breathing for them. Folks around here tend to feel that the right to life includes an inherent right to defend your life and tend to get a mite upset at attempts to regulate how you choose to do so.

As the others have noted, your statement "My arguement is that basically everyone believes in some sort of gun control, it is just the extent and nature of controls that is at issue. " only proves out if you include measures such as using both hands and/or a rest.

A patrolman once asked me if I knew how fast I was going. I replied "Yessir, but way more important to me at the moment is, do you?" He told me what I was clocked at, I confirmed that that was what I had set the cruise control for and I did get a ticket. But, I must say there was no acrimony from either of us.