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Thyroid

Guns and gun control

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From what I hear, technically the structure of the crown places her at the head of the government and the church for some silly bullshit historical reason. What I meant was less that she had direct control, which she doesn't, and more that you actually have living people representing the crown which your whole government is historically based on, going back for centuries upon centuries. You even have the queen's face on your money. All we have is very stately portraits of 200-years-dead statesmen and rebels.

Retail idea: Home Despot. A warehouse store for all your ruling needs.

(in case you're not American)

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Despotify exists, but it's another thing entirely.

Bah, leave it to open source guys to turn an awesome name into something unfunny :nodance:

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From what I hear, technically the structure of the crown places her at the head of the government and the church for some silly bullshit historical reason. What I meant was less that she had direct control, which she doesn't, and more that you actually have living people representing the crown which your whole government is historically based on, going back for centuries upon centuries. You even have the queen's face on your money. All we have is very stately portraits of 200-years-dead statesmen and rebels.

And... what's her take on gay marriage? I'm intrigued.

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I was driving with my dad upstate and on the way we were talking about gun control. He made these points:

  • Targeting assault weapons doesn't make sense because mass shootings are still done with shotguns and handguns, and are perfectly effective at killing people
  • More mental health care availability might help, but even if Adam Lanza had been seen by a psychologist, nothing in his psychological profile would have prevented him from acquiring his own guns legally under current ownership laws (although proper psychological counseling may have prevented him shooting)
  • If Adam Lanza's mother took proper care to keep her weapons locked safe, she might still be alive.
  • If there is a public concern about gun violence, public schools should offer gun safety and defense classes aimed at teaching what to do if you find a gun, how to safely handle and store firearms, as well as personal defense if you're attacked by someone with a firearm (if this idea bothers you, keep in mind the idea of "abstinence sex education" and what a mess that is. It's better to teach kids something you don't think they should need to know than not to teach them the essential facts)
  • People talk a lot about the militia clause, but they tend to forget about the militia movement of the 80s and how scary that shit was.

I'd also like to point out that mass shootings tend to follow widespread reports of mass shootings. I think that's becoming clear to the public right now.

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If there is a public concern about gun violence, public schools should offer gun safety and defense classes aimed at teaching what to do if you find a gun, how to safely handle and store firearms, as well as personal defense if you're attacked by someone with a firearm (if this idea bothers you, keep in mind the idea of "abstinence sex education" and what a mess that is. It's better to teach kids something you don't think they should need to know than not to teach them the essential facts)

It's not much, but when I was a kid growing up in Texas, I was taught in multiple grade-school safety sessions and in junior-high health class not to touch my parents' guns, if they had any lying out. I was told that they were the opposite of toys, that they had the power to ruin lives, and that I should go find an adult I trusted to handle them. It wasn't much, but it was something.

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That's good that they at least did that. I bet it would be obnoxious for parents, but if you had a program that taught kids to be conscious of their home gun safety, you could have kids pester their parents to keep the guns locked safe. I mean hell, have you ever ridden in a car with a kid without putting on your seat belt? That kid will nag your ass until you strap in. It's not a pleasant experience, but I suspect it's better for public safety. Kind of along the same lines as "friends don't let friends drive drunk"

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Targeting assault weapons doesn't make sense because mass shootings are still done with shotguns and handguns, and are perfectly effective at killing people

Doesn't matter, still has the potential to save lives. They kill more at a quicker speed, it's a step we can take. No one seriously needs those things. If people are seriously needing to clutch to those things, their priorities in life are all wrong.

More mental health care availability might help, but even if Adam Lanza had been seen by a psychologist, nothing in his psychological profile would have prevented him from acquiring his own guns legally under current ownership laws (although proper psychological counseling may have prevented him shooting)

Hence stricter laws bypassing the uselessness of figuring out when and if some dork with a stockpile of weapons is going to be a potential threat. On top of that, I think there should be a limit on how many weapons one can own at a time. His mom seemed to have some issues as well, she did take her sons to the shooting range for some cowboy fun after all. Also, the theatre shooting guy was arms to the teeth.

I'm of the opinion that once you own more than maybe two or three guns, you've got some mental health flaws already.

If Adam Lanza's mother took proper care to keep her weapons locked safe, she might still be alive.

Yes she must swallow the key next time.

If there is a public concern about gun violence, public schools should offer gun safety and defense classes aimed at teaching what to do if you find a gun, how to safely handle and store firearms, as well as personal defense if you're attacked by someone with a firearm (if this idea bothers you, keep in mind the idea of "abstinence sex education" and what a mess that is. It's better to teach kids something you don't think they should need to know than not to teach them the essential facts)

This is just silly. This will probably encourage impressionable youth to own more guns and become enamoured with them if they really know how to use them. Either way, there's a lot of better things public schools can have funding pumped into than this.

By the way, Scruff McGruff already told me not to fuck with my dad's guns as a kid, plus all of this was included in the useless D.A.R.E. program. This stuff already exists beyond taking the kids down to the firing range after biology.

People talk a lot about the militia clause, but they tend to forget about the militia movement of the 80s and how scary that shit was.

??? Not sure what this is as I would have been too young in the 80s, but a glance at wikipedia tells me this includes the types like Timothy McVeigh and the Branch Davidians. There's not much else to be said about the mental state of those folks. It also includes paranoid backwards right wing rednecks it seems, again the type who love stockpiling the weapons. So are you using that to argue more towards a change in the 2nd amendment? I'm confused.

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This is just silly. This will probably encourage impressionable youth to own more guns and become enamoured with them if they really know how to use them. Either way, there's a lot of better things public schools can have funding pumped into than this.

In general I agree with you, but I think you're kind of falling victim to the analogy that luftmensch is making here. That's nearly the same as the anti-sex-ed person saying "but learning about sex will make kids have way more sex!" The way that it's taught will make a big difference, and it could go either way.

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As you say, the way it's taught will make a difference. So if I understood Luftmensch right he was suggesting that everyone should learn the ins and outs of gun handling, either in self defense or keeping, which means you are going to be firing the gun, cleaning the gun, learning about different kinds of guns, creating scenarios in which you should be using a gun, etc.

Unlike sex where nearly everyone starts in their teens, a majority of kids in public school are not destined to use guns. Sex also isn't a weapon, so sex ed functions as a helper to the sex you are mostly likely going to have. As you said it goes either way for both issues, so maybe it does have the effect of kids wanting to have more sex, but sex ed is for doing it right.

And as I said, we already have gun safety stuff in public schools that do not involve playing with guns or teaching you that it's okay to use guns in certain situations and this is how you should, unless that's stripped away now as well. I haven't been in middle school in a while. I do remember multiple grades involving lectures videos about the dangers of guns, including one I still remember in second or first grade where a boy gets out his Dad's gun and proceeds to shoot his friend in the face. Didn't really enjoy that one back then. I think that's more than effective than having me learn how to turn the safety on myself when my silly dad is walking around in his boxers with his AK loaded. Oh Dad, you so crazy.

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Doesn't matter, still has the potential to save lives. They kill more at a quicker speed, it's a step we can take. No one seriously needs those things. If people are seriously needing to clutch to those things, their priorities in life are all wrong.

Arguably, but his point was that targeting ARs specifically won't make a difference, because mass shootings are done with whatever is available. There's a perception that ARs kill more people, but the Binghamton shooting was done with berettas, Campo Delgado used a handgun and a knife, Luby's Massacre was done with two handguns, San Ysidro McDonald's massacre was done with an SMG, a pistol, and a shotgun, the Walk of Death was done with a Luger, and the GMAC Massacre was done with a semiautomatic rifle (I just went to the List of rampage killers: America to get these stats). While I don't think you're wrong necessarily, there's a robust argument to be made that no one class of firearm is responsible for mass shootings.

Hence stricter laws bypassing the uselessness of figuring out when and if some dork with a stockpile of weapons is going to be a potential threat. On top of that, I think there should be a limit on how many weapons one can own at a time. His mom seemed to have some issues as well, she did take her sons to the shooting range for some cowboy fun after all. Also, the theatre shooting guy was arms to the teeth.

I'm of the opinion that once you own more than maybe two or three guns, you've got some mental health flaws already.

Aye, the point is that you have to have better mental health services and better gun license screening. Individually they aren't effective enough.

This is just silly. This will probably encourage impressionable youth to own more guns and become enamoured with them if they really know how to use them. Either way, there's a lot of better things public schools can have funding pumped into than this.

Education isn't zero-sum, I think we can manage to teach weapon safety alongside gym without somehow magically making our science programs weaker. As for being enamored, there's a few things I could say about that but the sum of it is I think that's a pretty ignorant assumption.

??? Not sure what this is as I would have been too young in the 80s, but a glance at wikipedia tells me this includes the types like Timothy McVeigh and the Branch Davidians. There's not much else to be said about the mental state of those folks. It also includes paranoid backwards right wing rednecks it seems, again the type who love stockpiling the weapons. So are you using that to argue more towards a change in the 2nd amendment? I'm confused.

Not necessarily, the point was just that if you required everyone with a gun to be in the militia, you'd have a militia full of the sorts of people who own guns, which is downright frightening.

Unlike sex where nearly everyone starts in their teens, a majority of kids in public school are not destined to use guns. Sex also isn't a weapon, so sex ed functions as a helper to the sex you are mostly likely going to have. As you said it goes either way for both issues, so maybe it does have the effect of kids wanting to have more sex, but sex ed is for doing it right.

And as I said, we already have gun safety stuff in public schools that do not involve playing with guns or teaching you that it's okay to use guns in certain situations and this is how you should, unless that's stripped away now as well. I haven't been in middle school in a while. I do remember multiple grades involving lectures videos about the dangers of guns, including one I still remember in second or first grade where a boy gets out his Dad's gun and proceeds to shoot his friend in the face. Didn't really enjoy that one back then. I think that's more than effective than having me learn how to turn the safety on myself when my silly dad is walking around in his boxers with his AK loaded. Oh Dad, you so crazy.

I never experienced gun safety programs growing up. Never had D.A.R.E. or Scruff McGruff. And none of those certainly existed when my father was growing up in the 60s. Which is to say, I have no basis to know whether what programs we have in place already are sufficient. Maybe they are.

The point is, if there's a public fear of gun violence, then there's a public interest for public education of guns and how to deal with gun violence. That's how you treat fear. When my dad and I were talking, the topics we agreed made sense were to address safe gun storage (make sure your family has a gun locker kids!), what to do if you find a gun, and how you should react if someone tries to shoot you.

Whether it's appropriate to teach students how to properly and safely handle guns, that's debatable (and wasn't what I was getting at). Unlike sex, like you say, not everybody's going to have a gun, not even most people. But living in the US, you've lived a very sheltered life if you don't encounter guns. Some areas might demand that gun education demand gun handling and use. Some might demand that it emphasizes the dangers and risks. But in any case it is education. Maybe what exists is just fine.

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Arguably, but his point was that targeting ARs specifically won't make a difference, because mass shootings are done with whatever is available. There's a perception that ARs kill more people, but the Binghamton shooting was done with berettas, Campo Delgado used a handgun and a knife, Luby's Massacre was done with two handguns, San Ysidro McDonald's massacre was done with an SMG, a pistol, and a shotgun, the Walk of Death was done with a Luger, and the GMAC Massacre was done with a semiautomatic rifle (I just went to the List of rampage killers: America to get these stats). While I don't think you're wrong necessarily, there's a robust argument to be made that no one class of firearm is responsible for mass shootings.

A sub machine gun is still an automatic weapon, which I am also against the average Joe getting his hands on.

I never said assault rifles did most of the killings. It definitely will make a difference because if someone wants to rampage with a hand gun instead of a bullet sprayer because they don't have access to it, then that shaves off the amount killed. No one has any plausible reason to own an AK and the like in home. For now, they are the easiest target. Baby steps. Can't take all the fun guns away from the crazed rednecks overnight or they will pretend it's the rapture.

Education isn't zero-sum, I think we can manage to teach weapon safety alongside gym without somehow magically making our science programs weaker. As for being enamored, there's a few things I could say about that but the sum of it is I think that's a pretty ignorant assumption.

I never experienced gun safety programs growing up. Never had D.A.R.E. or Scruff McGruff. And none of those certainly existed when my father was growing up in the 60s. Which is to say, I have no basis to know whether what programs we have in place already are sufficient. Maybe they are.

The point is, if there's a public fear of gun violence, then there's a public interest for public education of guns and how to deal with gun violence. That's how you treat fear. When my dad and I were talking, the topics we agreed made sense were to address safe gun storage (make sure your family has a gun locker kids!), what to do if you find a gun, and how you should react if someone tries to shoot you.

Whether it's appropriate to teach students how to properly and safely handle guns, that's debatable (and wasn't what I was getting at). Unlike sex, like you say, not everybody's going to have a gun, not even most people. But living in the US, you've lived a very sheltered life if you don't encounter guns. Some areas might demand that gun education demand gun handling and use. Some might demand that it emphasizes the dangers and risks. But in any case it is education. Maybe what exists is just fine.

Well then the word I chose, "enamoured," was obviously the wrong one and I'm instead changing it to "confident." This is directly referring to the proposal of giving school children hands on experience. It's pretty nuts, I don't see why you are arguing this. I don't see how it's ignorance on my part either. If you teach a teen in an impoverished ISD that has gang and gun violence issues how to properly handle a fire arm, they will be more sure of themselves and use a firearm efficiently. To a lot of these kids, guns are a way of life as they are in a dog eat dog area. The only message you should be sending out to these kids on how to safely handle guns is to not handle them at all. This would the furthest away from the "sheltered" areas which you speak of and you seem to think these kinds of areas are the best place to teach children how to handle guns when it's probably the worst.

Plus teens with problems with depression will have a great knowledge on how to use that gun to cleanly commit suicide without misfiring and turning into a vegetable.

I don't even know why we are debating this, because it's NEVER going to happen.

All of the schools I went to did not exclusively teach gun safety. They were lumped in with various videos and lectures on drug prevention, staying out of gangs, avoiding sexual predators, calling 911, abusive parents, depression, drunk driving, sex ed, smoking cigarettes, and bullying. Are you seriously saying you went to a school without any kind of social programs?

Even then I'm sure a few of the cartoons or tween drama shows you may have watched after school touched on gun violence. I'm almost sure there's a very special episode of Saved by the Bell where someone may or may not come at Zach Morris with a gun. Sonic the Hedgehog wanted me to put that gun away.

Either way, your more modest proposal already exists. I'm not even sure why you are proposing it if you are at the same time questioning it's usefulness. I feel like you are just playing devil's advocate for fun but are not actually believing in half of the things you are saying, as you seem to actively doing the same in other threads.

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Your proposal: children should be terrified of guns because knowing how to use guns will make you kill people.

What I said: people should understand what proper firearm safety is, be aware whether their family is storing their firearms safely where they can't be reached by the wrong hands, and know what to do in the event of a shooting.

Never watched TV growing up. You seem to have trouble grasping that I did not grow up with gun education. Whatever exists, I've never seen.

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Your proposal: children should be terrified of guns because knowing how to use guns will make you kill people.

Yes I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said. And since my proposal is not my proposal but what school boards are already doing (but I suppose not in South Carolina?) I guess they are of the same mind? Knowing how to use a gun makes you wanna kill, not making it easier if you want to kill. Sure. Way to read, troll.

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No, and he's carrying it too far, but you did make it sound like there are a lot of at-risk low-income teens who are holding off on their gang initiation until they get their firearm safety down pat. I think having kids see and handle a gun while a responsible adult shows and tells them why it's not a toy and how to make sure one is safe to touch isn't ridiculously out there in plausibility, though who knows in this current political climate.

Like you said, a lot of current in-school programs are just "Guns are bad, mmkay?" browbeating that don't teach kids how to behave around a firearm at all. There are a lot of deaths from accidental discharges that could be prevented with a less abstract curriculum.

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The point would be they are very well already in gangs but not necessarily great with firearms.

What you're saying is exactly the same browbeating except an adult is holding one and saying no instead of watching a video or hearing statistics. I'm pretty sure the programs teach you how to behave around guns. Don't touch and run and call the police if someone has one. And if it's up in the air whether it works or not why are you saying you can prevent it with less abstract curriculum. I'm pretty sure the gun problem doesn't boil down to us not teaching enough especially when you have conflicting message from the wackos Fox News and the dads who watch it talking about how gun owning is a virtue and we need to arm ourselves from the government takeover. Yes, I've had this talk from my father.

I think what might be a better way to prevent a lot of accidental discharges is having less guns in circulation.

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I'm not boiling anything down. I'm arguing against monocausotaxophilia and for multi-pronged approaches to problems. Yes, we need less firearms out there, but it also wouldn't hurt to bulk up and diversify our educational programs on the remaining ones, so that the gun Dad left out by accident isn't the first one Jimmy's seen that's not on the TV.

I mean, really? I spoke about those DARE sessions I attended and health class lectures I received, but if I'd found a gun at age ten, I probably would have played with it just a bit before going to find someone, trying my best to be careful because the grownups had said, "Do not touch," because I'd never touched one before. I don't think that would have been the case if I'd been allowed to touch a gun under supervision in a formal setting, so I think it's worth considering.

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I understand line of thinking for gun safety education, I think it was beneficial for me. My dad taught me how to fire a rifle when I was about 13 or so, and it was a good education in respecting guns and treating them with care. You get a long speech about why guns are dangerous, about NEVER pointing a gun at anyone else, and then you fire it a few times so all of the information that was just dropped on you gets imprinted permanently. A lot of my friends and family had similar experiences.

But I think the only reason any of that worked is because it came from someone I had utmost trust in. I'm not sure how we would build a successful program for gun safety at an institutional level. I think the only people who would walk away from a gun safety class and apply what they've learned are the ones we aren't worried about anyway. :-/

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I don't even know why we are debating this, because it's NEVER going to happen.

All of the schools I went to did not exclusively teach gun safety. They were lumped in with various videos and lectures on drug prevention, staying out of gangs, avoiding sexual predators, calling 911, abusive parents, depression, drunk driving, sex ed, smoking cigarettes, and bullying. Are you seriously saying you went to a school without any kind of social programs?

Yes... As I mentioned earlier, it did happen.

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The thing with gun safety demonstrations is that the only ones people remember are those that end up in the newspaper because a cop accidentally shot himself in the leg while demonstrating trigger discipline.

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Yes... As I mentioned earlier, it did happen.

This is not a mandatory gun safety class about self defense and gun handling. This is an elective sport and all of the gun clubs in that article were sport oriented. Crazed hunters seem to generally not be the problem here, not at all the same.

I mean, really? I spoke about those DARE sessions I attended and health class lectures I received, but if I'd found a gun at age ten, I probably would have played with it just a bit before going to find someone, trying my best to be careful because the grownups had said, "Do not touch," because I'd never touched one before. I don't think that would have been the case if I'd been allowed to touch a gun under supervision in a formal setting, so I think it's worth considering.

Well, this is a silly and hypothetical anecdote, because I can counteract the point that I never fucked around with my dad's 3 rifles that were just left in a closet (irresponsible, yep). I knew better and I had no interest in the danger involved, mostly because I was told along the way not to. And you know what, neither of our stories really matter because they are anecdotal and not really representative as a whole.

I think because we are on a message board of generally reasonable people, we are not really having our great stories of gun availability leading to death and rampages at an early age either by ourselves or people we have known. I must say in my four years of high school there were four gun shot suicide from people using their parents guns. I was friends with one of them. His dad was a gun nut, owning way too many and safari hunting with tons of stuffed dead animals in one room in their house.

At a young age the guy was tasked with shooting sick or dying cows on their farm in the head. The environment was already way fucked and violence oriented before he shot himself in the head. Needless to say, easy access to guns during a depressed period in his life made suicide a very simple option. On top of that, his older brother three years later ended up shooting a police man three times from his car window after being pulled over. Guy was licensed to carry his firearm but now he's in prison.

It seems most of you guys playing the Devil's Advocate and talking about the virtues of the 2nd Amendment do so while at the same time constantly conceding we still need more gun control and that gun violence is a major issue. Weapons bans and stricter gun control follows a very simple logic: less guns in circulation, especially bullet sprayers and things like more limited magazines, lead to less chances of drastic measures taken by mental "revolutionary" right wingers, angry people, poor people, criminals, children, the depressed, gangs, and pampered suburbanite teens and young adults on a rampage. All the scolding and talking to in the world doesn't prevent those who want to and are ready to kill. It's really simple, you can't predict when someone will get out of hand with a gun, so if they don't have one, the ease of the kill is taken away.

I keep hearing on NPR during my morning commute that 70% of Americans are for stricter gun control. While I have no idea of their survey pool, it seems to me outside of loud white older white guys, most of the newer generation in our country is ready for the gun obsession to die.

So I think what's going to happen here based on the recent news is that the NRA will continue to look foolish, weapons manufacturers will continue to lobby democrats and republicans for loose laws to keep filling their deep pockets, and the constituents who want stricter gun control or weapons bans will be ignored. Therefore we will keep getting loosely enforced half assed laws that are for looks more than effectiveness.

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Well, this is a silly and hypothetical anecdote, because I can counteract the point that I never fucked around with my dad's 3 rifles that were just left in a closet (irresponsible, yep). I knew better and I had no interest in the danger involved, mostly because I was told along the way not to. And you know what, neither of our stories really matter because they are anecdotal and not really representative as a whole.

As you pointed out, even though you weren't interested in using the rifles and everything turned out okay, just tossing them in the closet is still irresponsible. Part of the point is to have public awareness that firearms, if you have them, need to be locked away in case young you happened to be the sort of person who would gladly grab and play with rifles or go on a rampage. As was the case at Sandy Hook. If Adam Lanza went through the same education program you and apparently millions of Americans have, clearly the point not to touch firearms was lost on him.

Weapons bans and stricter gun control follows a very simple logic: less guns in circulation, especially bullet sprayers and things like more limited magazines, lead to less chances of drastic measures taken by mental "revolutionary" right wingers, angry people, poor people, criminals, children, the depressed, gangs, and pampered suburbanite teens and young adults on a rampage.

I don't disagree with that necessarily, and I wouldn't stand in the way of measures to restrict gun ownership because I think there's too damned many guns. My point is just that gun control laws have been used around the world and even within the US with no statistically significant effect. Your logic is simple, but it's a hypothesis, and the numbers don't show gun control laws have any effect. Not by themselves at any rate. Yes, fewer guns does mean less gun violence, but you can't just wave the magical legislative law and make guns stop existing. In your argument's defense, I'll note that gun control is one essential step towards making a society that values guns less.

I keep hearing on NPR during my morning commute that 70% of Americans are for stricter gun control. While I have no idea of their survey pool, it seems to me outside of loud white older white guys, most of the newer generation in our country is ready for the gun obsession to die.

As a member of that younger generation, I agree whole-heartedly. I still don't thing that legislative say-so will magically fix things. As Gormongous said, monocausotaxophilia isn't the way to reform.

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