Because one of the many things shoe-horned into this bill was the removal of suppressors and short-barreled rifles from the NFA, this has been the subject of conversation in a lot of the gun subs on Reddit. It’s been fun watching some of the boot-lickingest right-wing gun owners absolutely shitting all over this bill on account of how bad it is. Even the AR15 sub, which doesn’t usually allow political threads, was like, fuck it, we’re leaving this one up because everyone needs to know what absolute garbage this bill is.

“We were going to win this,” said the former senior ATF official. “These things are not like bump stocks."

Forced reset devices are actually exactly like bump stocks in that they’re legal because they force a distinct action of the trigger for every round fired. The legal definition of a machine gun is a firearm that fires more than one round per single action of the trigger. They haven’t bothered to amend or expand that definition, so these types of devices keep skirting by on a technicality.

I suppose the argument could be made that forced reset devices work in a very similar way to a machine gun’s auto sear, the difference being that they act on the trigger of the gun rather than the hammer, but it still doesn’t meet the government’s own definition of a machine gun.

Gonna be even more fun when all the empty trucks leaving from the empty west-coast ports I’ve been reading about for the past few days become empty shelves over the next few weeks. The real pain hasn’t even started yet.

Yes, comrades, Emmanuel Goldstein has struck again. Obviously this is all his doing.

I think that pretty much sums up the entire ethos of Silicon Valley these days.

Legend has it they ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

If it’s a person at all, and not one of those shit-disturber bots that get unleashed on non-MAGA spaces to start arguments over innocuous things and just generally sour the vibe. BlueSky was infested with them last month. They tend to swarm around celebrities, and posts about celebrities. Either way, a quick glance at their post history shows they’re only here to start shit with people.

There’s going to be a lot of that. I live in the Southwest, and the number of Trump-voting Latinos is shockingly high. There are a lot of conservative Latinos who straight up consider themselves to be white. Gonna be a real shock for them when it finally sinks in what the rest of their party thinks about that.

There needs to be a worker’s party. It doesn’t have to be the Democrats.

That there are only going to be two viable parties in this country is a mathematical inevitability of how our voting system works, but there’s no reason why the Democrats have to remain one of those parties. If what they’re doing right now is the best they’ve got then they shouldn’t be difficult to replace. A damp sandwich could do a better job.

I saw a cooking or travel show that featured the guy who grows those a while back. Apparently they taste absolutely amazing, but I can’t imagine justifying spending that much money on a strawberry.

I think a big problem is a lot of the explainers for new users, at least the ones that were around back when I first joined Mastodon, were or are absolute dog shit. They were all existential explanations rather than practical ones. I was trying to figure out which instance to join, and why one might be better for me than another, and every explainer I saw was basically a variation on, “iT’s JuSt LikE EmAiL. wHy Is tHaT hArD? sToP bEiNg So sTuPid, DuMmY.” None of them really explained the user experience, and how different instances might affect it, let alone the existence of the local and global feeds and how your instance choice affects those. It was like asking someone how to use chopsticks and them telling you, “It’s easy. Just put food in your mouth with them. Works just like a fork.”

Technically true, but it omits some pretty crucial information.

Once you’re into it and have the lay of the land, it seems really simple in retrospect. But if you’re coming in cold with no idea how any of it works, and the only help you get is some dickhead shouting, “EmAiL! iT’s LiKe EmAiL!” then the learning curve seems a lot steeper than it actually is.

Much like the word “woke,” MAGA conservatives have stripped DEI of its original meaning. As conservatives use it now it’s basically just a socially acceptable stand-in for the N-word (or the F-word, depending on context). Like just a couple of days ago I was at a burrito place and the guy a couple spots ahead of me in line said, “This DEI cashier better not fuck up my order again.” It was very clear what he meant was, “This N-word better not piss me off.”

Any time you hear conservatives say “woke” or “DEI,” you can almost always mentally swap it with the N-word or the F-word and what they’re saying will make a lot more sense.

Also pump-action weapons. I’m pretty sure if semi-auto weapons disappeared tomorrow everyone would still have ARs, they’d just replace the gas tube with a push rod and convert it to pump action.

Yes. It means that the gun is only capable of firing one bullet per single action of the trigger, and automatically re-cocks itself for you after you fire.

Fully automatic means a firearm that can shoot multiple rounds per single action of the trigger – i.e. a gun that keeps firing as long as you hold the trigger down. This is also the legal definition of what a “machine gun” is.

Also, a “sub-machine gun,” in case you ever wondered, is a machine gun that shoots pistol caliber bullets rather than rifle caliber.

It’s always a grift with these people.

It’s not even surprising anymore. Oh… wow… the Scooby Doo villain’s mask came off again… crazy… who ever could have seen that coming… crazy…

It’s just tedious.

I was so disappointed when Kamala came out strong for Medicare For All and then pretty much immediately caved and walked it back.

I have a strong suspicion that there is enormous pressure from the business world to keep the healthcare system the way it is. I’d bet almost anything that the instant healthcare is no longer tied to employment there is going to be a mass exodus of people from their jobs, and an absolute explosion of people starting their own businesses. I mean, I’ve had about half a dozen good scalable business ideas waiting and ready to go for years now, and the only reason I haven’t pursued them is because it would probably mean giving up my health insurance. I can’t possibly be alone in that.

And I bet if we got socialized health care, a lot of the problems we have right now with suppressed wages and poor working conditions would suddenly have a way of working themselves out.

They fucking better, because he’s definitely going to.

Bezos: “Hey Donald, I stopped my Washington Post editors from endorsing Kamala for you. Didn’t I do good, daddy?”

Trump: “Fuck you! Lawsuit! Fuck you!”

According to the caption under the picture, it’s Emily Blunt…

I keep getting served some supremely mediocre eastern European hip-hop in Release Radar and other Spotify-generated playlists because of some guy who performs as Devo. Same with guys performing as Slayer, Poe, etc.

A lot of the time they’re listed on the track along with two or three other people, so I go to the pages of those associated acts and tap the “don’t play this artist” option in the three dots menu, and that usually cuts down on how much I see them in my feeds. At least until they do a new collab.