#AR-15 platform

[historyofguns]

The article "Does This Supplement (or Replace) Your Pistol?" by Adam Scepaniak, published on The Armory Life, explores the role of a flashlight as an essential tool in one’s everyday carry (EDC) setup, especially in environments where carrying a concealed carry weapon (CCW) pistol is prohibited. During a visit to Where Our Families Train (W.O.F.T.) in Florida, Adam discusses insights shared by Philip Toppino, emphasizing that a tactical flashlight can serve as a viable defensive tool. The article highlights the benefits of a flashlight, such as disrupting an attacker's OODA loop and remaining unobtrusive in non-permissive areas. It concludes by advocating for the flashlight's supplementary role in self-defense alongside other tools like pepper spray and knives.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

so fudd just means “has old guns” now

[attactica]

Introduction to the AR15 Ep. 2: Reloading

[transgenderer]

The gunman did not have a criminal history reflected in Pennsylvania’s public court records, and officials said they had not identified a motive. A voter-registration record showed that Mr. Crooks was registered as a Republican, though federal campaign-finance records show he donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a liberal voter turnout group, through the Democratic donation platform ActBlue in January 2021.

Mr. Crooks was killed after he fired from “an elevated position” outside the outdoor rally venue where Mr. Trump was speaking, according to the Secret Service. Law enforcement officials recovered an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle near the body of a white man they believe was the gunman, according to two law enforcement officials.

It'd be pretty funny if it turns out he was like a nevertrumper republican. Of all the groups!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, and Ellie Rushing at Philadelphia Inquirer:

BETHEL PARK, Pa. — In the sea of caps and gowns, Thomas Matthew Crooks hardly stood out. Few people clapped when his name was called. A YouTube video of his graduation two years ago from Bethel Park High School shows a slender and bespectacled student receiving his diploma with a soft smile. But the class of 2022 awoke Sunday to learn that the 20-year-old Allegheny County man was notorious, the shooter in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally that left an ex-firefighter, Corey Comperatore, dead and two other attendees wounded. U.S. Secret Service counter-snipers killed Crooks moments after he opened fire on the Saturday night rally from a nearby rooftop. The FBI said Sunday they believed he acted alone. He had not been on the bureau’s radar.

Crooks’ actions shocked residents in his hometown, sparked countless conspiracy theories online, and prompted investigators to begin combing through every aspect of his life, looking for motive. The mystery has been fueled by a near-total absence of Crooks’ social media postings, political writings, or other digital fingerprints. Several former classmates appeared on national television Sunday, quickly casting Crooks as a stereotypical loner who was bullied heavily during his time at Bethel Park. One of them, Jason Kohler, told reporters Sunday that students tormented Crooks “almost every day” and that he often wore “hunting” outfits to class. “He was just an outcast,” Kohler said, “and you know how kids are nowadays.” Yet, two former students interviewed by The Inquirer disputed the characterization. They did not recall specific incidents of violence or other antagonism involving their now-infamous classmate in the community they described as generally tight-knit.

[...] The slight traces of public information Crooks left behind leave few clues about his political ideology. Federal campaign finance records show he made a $15 donation to progressive political action committee in 2021 after President Joe Biden’s election, but later registered as a Republican, according to Pennsylvania voter data. His father was a registered Libertarian, his mother a Democrat. Crooks’ body was found on the rooftop of an agricultural tool manufacturing plant a few hundred feet from the rally with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle — legally purchased by his father. The shooter was wearing a T-shirt promoting “The Demolition Ranch,” a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts. If Crooks maintained any personal social media presence, it went largely undetected on Sunday. Discord, an instant messaging platform mainly used by video gamers, released a statement acknowledging Crooks held a “rarely utilized” account that contained no information relevant to the shooting.

Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class, but rather as someone interested in how government works, and “not trying to insert his own beliefs into it.” Another former classmate did not share this view. Max R. Smith recalled taking an American history course with Crooks as a sophomore. He did recall Crooks making political statements — but they shed no light on his actions Saturday. “He definitely was conservative,” he said. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.” Smith recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.”

The gunman who killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore and attempted the assassination of Donald Trump at Saturday night’s Butler, PA rally was not only a registered Republican but also a vehement conservative.

This should hopefully put an end to the right-wing’s nonsensical claim that a “violent leftist”/”Antifa” tried to kill Trump.

[i-identify-guns-in-posts]

''the ar 15 platform is better than the ak platform because its more customizable!!'' ''oh well the ak platform is far more reliable !!!!''

both of these arguments are wrong

CLEARLY the superior platform is the stryfe

oh i have one of those its so sick

[esotericworld]

Unknown ancient cultures are always fascinating. This one sounds nice to have lived in.

“Archaeologists recently rediscovered the long-hidden traces of an ancient Indigenous society in western Ecuador’s Upano Valley: more than 6,000 earthen platforms that once supported houses and communal buildings in 15 urban centers, set amid vast tracts of carefully drained farmland and linked by a network of roads. Stéphen Rostain of the French National Center for Scientific Research and his colleagues say they haven’t seen this unique brand of “garden urbanism” anywhere else in the ancient Americas. It is also the oldest such civilization uncovered in the area…

The artifacts that Rostain and his colleagues excavated from the house platforms suggest that people built this complex network of communities around 2,500 years ago and abandoned it sometime between C.E. 300 and 600. Rostain thinks “perhaps a series of eruptions could have made trouble for the people, because after [C.E.] 600, we don’t have any archaeological dates until [C.E.] 800.”…

Each settlement included several groups of platforms, with roads connecting them. Some settlements were small, with just a few house platforms per square kilometer, but others—such as Sangay, which overlooks most of the valley—packed more than 100 platforms into each square kilometer of a site the size of Central Park. And these larger, denser urban centers boasted taller, wider platforms that probably once held communal buildings where people might have gathered for rituals, shared work or social events, Rostain and his colleagues suggest…

Nearly all the open space between communities would have been covered with hundreds of hectares of fields, bordered by shallow drainage ditches that fed into deeper canals. That close link between the fields and the urban centers of the Upano Valley is a unique hallmark of the landscape and the people who built it. Rostain and his colleagues call it “garden urbanism.”

[beardedmrbean]

The gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump appears to have used the controversial alt-right favored social media platform Gab to spread messages “in support of President Biden,” according to the platform’s founder.

Gab CEO Andrew Torba said he learned Wednesday that Thomas Matthew Crooks “may have had an account on our platform” after getting “an emergency disclosure request from a law enforcement agency.”

The account @epicmicrowave — which the CEO stressed he has been “unable to confirm” was definitely Crooks’ — “posted on the site nine (9) times total,” Torba tweeted just 30 minutes after getting the law enforcement request

“While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden,” said the CEO of the platform launched in 2016 as a completely free-speech alternative to Twitter.

“A number of posts in particular expressed support for President Biden’s COVID lockdowns, border policies and executive orders.”

Torba shared images of pro-Biden comments made by the account, with its handle blacked out.

In one, the poster mocked someone sharing an election projection, writing in February 2021: “Didn’t you also think Biden would lose in a landslide yeah I would not be very confident in your election predictions.”

In another thread, the user defended Biden’s border policies with a study that compared crime statistics for undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants and American citizens in Texas.

“Biden executive orders don’t incentivize human trafficking as human traffickers aren’t interested in citizenships, likewise the majority of illegal immigrants are not criminals and in fact some studies (such as the one linked below) show lower rates of crime committed by these individuals,” the poster wrote.

“It is also unclear if the extensive path to citizenship is in fact effective at routing out potential bad actors hence why there is a review of that system,” the user added.

Torba said he was “disclosing this information at significant personal and business risk.

“If the past is any guide, defying the D.C. consensus by publishing the first definitive evidence that the shooter was a Biden supporter — something Democrats and their media allies have tried to cover up and deny at every turn — has a high probability of resulting in significant political and media backlash,” he wrote.

“We have saved the account data pending receipt of a search warrant,” he stated.

Crooks, 20, opened fire with an AR-15 rifle during Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, clipping the former president in the ear and killing a rally attendee before he was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

Authorities have yet to elaborate on a motive for the attack, which has sparked fierce bipartisan outrage at Secret Service failings in protecting the presidential candidate.

Formed in 2016, Gab became a favorite of many fringe voices, especially those on the alt-right who were censored on other messaging platforms like Twitter.

It was briefly forced offline in 2018 after it emerged it had been used by mass shooter Robert Bowers to spread antisemitic hate before he gunned down 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Even then, Torba had pressed the importance of his site’s free-speech message.

“The answer to bad speech or hate speech — however you want to define that — is always more speech, and it always will be,” Torba said at the time.

It has faced many more controversies since then, including its use by many who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, the CEO noted in his Wednesday post about Crooks.

“In the past, we have been the target of politically motivated inquiries from both the House Oversight Committee and the Joint Committee on the January 6th Attacks, both of which sought to interfere with our mission of protecting free speech online,” Torba wrote.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Several Uvalde families are suing Daniel Defense, the gun company whose AR-15 style rifle an 18-year-old gunman used to kill 19 children and two teachers and injure several others at Robb Elementary two years ago, lawyers said.

The family members of victims Friday also filed a separate lawsuit against California-based companies Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — and Activision, whose best-selling video game Call of Duty features Daniel Defense guns.

The lawsuits together will argue that the three companies marketed semi-automatic weapons to the Uvalde gunman before he was 18, accusing them of negligence and wrongful death. The shooter purchased firearms shortly after he turned 18 years old and then used one of those guns to carry out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

In Texas, 18-year-olds can legally purchase long guns such as rifles.

Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing the Uvalde families, says there was a direct line between the companies' conduct and the Uvalde shooting.

“Just 23 minutes after midnight on his 18th birthday, the Uvalde shooter bought an AR-15 made by a company with a market share of less than one percent,” Koskoff said in a statement. “Why? Because, well before he was old enough to purchase it, he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense. This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

The lawsuits come on the two-year anniversary of the shooting.

Attorneys argue that Daniel Defense intentionally markets its weapons to adolescents and uses platforms including Instagram and first-person shooter games like Call of Duty to promote criminal use of their weapons.

They add that Instagram provides an unsupervised channel to speak directly to adolescent boys because of what attorneys say are flimsy and easily circumvented rules meant to prohibit firearm advertising to children.

The lawsuit against Daniel Defense is expected to be filed in Texas’ 38th District Court in Uvalde County on behalf of 31 family members of the victims. It accuses Daniel Defense of courting the shooter with marketing that lures adolescents into forming an attachment with its brand of AR-15s, particularly its flagship DDM4v7.

The lawsuit against Activision and Meta was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of approximately 45 family members of the deceased and injured victims. It accuses the gaming company of desensitizing young men to acts of mass violence and grooming them to seek out weapons like those featured in Call of Duty. An Activision spokesperson did not respond to questions about the allegations in the lawsuit but issued a statement expressing their condolences to the victims’ families.

“The Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way, and we express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence,” the spokesperson said. “Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts.”

However, the Entertainment Software Association, which represents top publishers in the gaming industry, denounced efforts to blame video games for real-life acts of violence.

“We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence,” said an association spokesperson. “At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video gameplay, which detract from efforts to focus on the root issues in question and safeguard against future tragedies. Many other countries have similar rates of video gameplay to the United States, yet do not see similar rates of gun violence.”

Representatives for Daniel Defense and Meta did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

While Instagram prohibits the marketing of firearms on its platform, the lawsuit claims Instagram fails to enforce firearm guidelines while rigorously enforcing other types of content guidelines.

The Uvalde families’ legal action appears to follow a similar playbook that Koskoff, a Connecticut attorney, successfully employed in his home state, where he helped victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting win a $73 million settlement in a lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15 style rifle used in that school shooting.

That settlement was widely considered a setback for the firearms industry, which has broad legal immunity from civil complaints. A 2005 law enacted by Congress shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed using their weapons. Koskoff’s team worked around that by successfully arguing that the gun company could be sued under a consumer protection state law, through an exception to the federal law.

Over the course of the Connecticut case, documents came out through the discovery process showing that gun company Remington has a licensing agreement with Activision. It is not clear if such an agreement exists between Daniel Defense and Activision.

A 2019 Instagram post from Daniel Defense says “Call of Duty Modern Warfare launched today” and shows a photo of the type of rifle used in the Uvalde shooting.

Other Instagram posts from Daniel Defense show videos of young men actively firing the company’s rifle. A 2020 Instagram post shows an image of someone taking a gun out of the trunk of their car and the words “refuse to be a victim.”

“Gun companies like Daniel Defense don’t act alone,” Koskoff said. “AR-15s were available when many of us were growing up, but we didn’t have mass shootings by kids. What has changed is that companies like Instagram and Activision do more than just allow gun companies to reach consumers–they underwrite and mainstream violence to struggling adolescents.”

This is not the first lawsuit families have filed against Daniel Defense. Uvalde victims’ families previously filed two lawsuits against the Georgia-based gun manufacturer, alleging that the company intentionally marketed its AR-15 rifles to young males in ways that “encourage the illegal and dangerous misuse” of its weapons.

Daniel Defense has sought to dismiss those lawsuits, which were filed in federal court and remain ongoing.

In the two years since the Robb Elementary School shooting, state and local law enforcement officers have been heavily criticized for their response to the massacre. Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended upon the school and waited for more than an hour to confront the gunman, who shot indiscriminately inside two fourth grade classrooms.

The botched response was the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice report and a scathing Texas House Committee investigation. A grand jury convened by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell could determine whether any federal, state and local officers are criminally charged.

On Wednesday, Uvalde families — represented by Koskoff — filed a lawsuit against 92 Texas Department of Public Safety Officers. They also announced a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde. During a press briefing on the day of that announcement, Koskoff foreshadowed that additional lawsuits would be filed on behalf of Uvalde families, including some lawsuits focusing on the time period before the shooting.

“There has been, appropriately, so much of a focus on law enforcement,” Koskoff told reporters earlier this week. “And, I think it’s appropriate to remember that they are at the end of the road.”

Koskoff noted that the 610-page DOJ report included “not a single page on why the shooting happened in the first place.”

The number of semi-automatic rifles, which include AR-15s, produced or imported in the U.S. have increased significantly since the 1990s. AR-15-style rifles weren’t used in mass shootings until 2007, according to a database kept by Mother Jones. In 2022, gunmen used an AR-15 rifle in 67% of the 12 massacres that year.

The AR-15 was designed in the late 1950s as a military-style rifle.

Officers who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting feared the rifle and decided to not immediately confront the gunman, a Texas Tribune investigation found. Officers instead waited for a Border Patrol SWAT team based 60 miles away to arrive.

Uvalde families pushed the state Legislature to pass a bill to raise the minimum age for buying certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. That bill failed to pass in the Republican-controlled Legislature that has spent years loosening gun laws, making it easier for Texans to get guns in a state whose residents have a strong fealty to the Second Amendment.

[baldy-wan-kenobi]

The Colt 633 "DOE"

A 9mm smg based on the AR platform, made by colt for the U.S. Department of Energy to arm security forces at various nuclear power facilities. It had a 7-inch barrel (yikes), and used the same magazine as the Uzi.

It was colloquially referred to by those who used it as the "Briefcase gun", and it's unknown why exactly the front sight is a folding assembly, though some speculate that it was to fire through holes from specially made vantage points.

It actually beat out the MP5k for the DOE contract, largely due to its lesser cost and the greater familiarity of American troops with the AR-15/M16 platform.

[blubushie]

Hi, Blu! I have a question for you. (I should preface that I'm American, for context.) I'm not a very big fan of guns- i've seen them do too much damage to vulnerable people over here. That said, I do understand that people like you depend on them to do their jobs and feed and defend themselves. I really respect you and your input on this sort of thing, so I was curious- What's your stance on automatic/semi-automatic weaponry? Some people here, right-wingers mostly, say that everyone should own an AK-47 and it's an acceptable firearm to use for home defense and hunting and such. I don't think those things should be used so lightly, if at all- a handgun for defense and a rifle or shotgun for hunting should be more than enough. Plus, I imagine something that powerful would rip, say, a deer to shreds and ruin the meat, but I'm far from an expert on such things.

This is a lot, so I'm going to pick this apart piece-by-piece. (Also, for the record: I was born in America and spent many years here and am currently living here. I'm well aware of what the culture is like pertaining to firearms, since some of that culture has rubbed off on me from my father.)

I'm not a very big fan of guns-

Firstly, we don't use the term "guns" on this blog, just firearms. My experience with guns is limited to air rifles and tranquiliser rifles. My experience with firearms is more extensive.

i've seen them do too much damage to vulnerable people over here.

Yes, firearms are dangerous. They're not toys.

That said, I do understand that people like you depend on them to do their jobs and feed and defend themselves.

You cannot use firearms for self-defence in Australia. You cannot use ANY weapon for self-defence in Australia because it creates a clause of "You left home HOPING for someone to test you." If you are attacked in Australia, be it with fists, knives, or firearms, you are fucked. If you can't defend yourself, you are fucked. The law will not save you. (And we wonder why we have a problem with stabbings.)

What's your stance on automatic/semi-automatic weaponry?

They're neat and I like them. My father owns an M16, rifles, handguns, and a few shotguns--all of which are semiautomatic. I can field strip a Glock 34 (a semiautomatic handgun) in about 10 seconds. In the US I've conceal carried an M1911 and a .38 Colt Detective Special. I've shot an M16 and an M2 Browning, both full auto. If you're coming to me and expecting me to have a disapproving opinion of automatic actions, you're going to be left disappointed.

In the US, you CANNOT OWN A FULLY AUTOMATIC WEAPON without an FFL--a federal firearms licence. Additionally you need a licence from your state of residence to permit you possessing the weapon, which includes a federal background check (already required for ALL FIREARMS PURCHASES in the US) plus fingerprinting. The requirements to get both of these licences are INSANELY difficult. There are very, VERY few people who own fully automatic weapons in the US, and none of them will jeopardise their licences by using their weapons for crime.

Some people here, right-wingers mostly, say that everyone should own an AK-47 and it's an acceptable firearm to use for home defense and hunting and such. I don't think those things should be used so lightly, if at all- a handgun for defense and a rifle or shotgun for hunting should be more than enough.

I'm not even going to acknowledge the bit about "right-wingers." Politics stay off the blog.

Additionally, I'm fairly certain that you're confusing an AR-15 for an AK-47. AK-47s are primarily collector's weapons. They don't see much use outside of "fun to shoot" and are not used for crime because of how few people own them--most are collectors.

If you mean the AR-15 platform, then you're also mistaken because they ARE incredible weapons both for hunting and home defence. They're incredibly adaptable including for people with physical disabilities (who, for example, may not be able to safely grip a handgun or handle the recoil of something like a semiauto shotgun but still should be able to defend themselves with a weapon that's easily braceable against their body, easily accessible and modifiable to their specific needs, and also semiautomatic so that all they have to do is take off the safety and pull the trigger).

A bolt-action rifle takes time to cycle the bolt. I'm a professional shooter and I keep my rounds topped off. The time it takes me to eject the bolt, reload, and send the bolt forward again to chamber a round is about 2 seconds but might take longer under the duress that someone would be experiencing when their life is actively in danger.

The majority of weapons crime in the US is done with illegally obtained firearms--primarily handguns, most of which are purchased off the black market or stolen. Currently every firearm purchase in the US requires a federal background check before it can be given to the buyer. In some states there's a waiting period (which studies have shown has done nothing to damper firearms crime). It's not lawfully abiding citizens going out there and committing mass shootings--it's a mentally ill culture that values clout over life, and a media that makes killers famous.

Plus, I imagine something that powerful would rip, say, a deer to shreds and ruin the meat, but I'm far from an expert on such things.

My parting words are an image. Here's a comparison of ammunition sizes. I shoot .30-06 Springfield. The AR-15 platform shoots 5.56x45, the AK-47 shoots 7.62x39.

My rifle will do far more traumatic damage to a deer--or a person--than an AR-15 or AK-47 ever would.

But AR-15s are great for shooting pigs.

[attactica]

A ban proof AR? CMMG BR4

[thelifetimechannel]

Happy holidays! [S] Checkmate timing test

These timings match up with Tensei's "Of Gods and Witches":

Before the battle we see WV greeting AR and being super excited. AR is kinda baffled but gratified. We see their former memories in the clouds, maybe WV points to them?

Jane, Nanna, and Kanaya target bigger undead monsters. Casey's undead consort army shows up when they are almost overwhelmed. Rose and Roxy both slap their foreheads in comic dismay.

Karkat, Terezi, and the carapaces are ground troops against regular underlings.

Remaining Alpha kids are air support against flighted underlings.

Hal is hanging out taking messages from everyone directing battle traffic.

The preloader shows the Battlefield, surrounded by those weird checkboard vine things. It should be just crowded and dark enough to imply a serious sense of foreboding. Upon the flash loading, the Battlefield spins and zooms as the music starts.

SCREEN 1: 00:00-00:05 Pan up across a wide shot of the kids in various battle positions on the battlefield. Aerial combantants (Terezi, Hal, Davesprite, and the Alpha kids sans Jane and plus Calliope. Kat note: Davesprite’s on the lilypad. Matches last convo, and also, he’s a beta too :P) are around the scene. Karkat and WV stand on top of a hill, WV holding a waving red flag. The Beta kids are standing on a lilypad in center screen.

SCREEN 2: 00:05-00:09 On the chord, pan down across the kids on the lilypad, all in battle ready poses with weapons out

SCREEN 3: 00:09-00:15 On the chord, the opposite side of the hill we just saw WV and Karkat on. Pan to the right hand side. They stand on top of the hill. Scrolling by at differing speeds to the background hill are Jane (holding her fork made from the White King’s scepter), Kanaya, and Nanna. WV’s army of carapacians is gathered around them.

Screen 4: 00:15-00:19 On the chord, worm’s eye view of The Alpha kids and Calliope in the sky.

Screen 5: 00:19-00:21 A view of the underling army approaching: think the carapacian armies in flashes such as WV: Rise Up, where the hills are all separate layers that do a lot of panning. A mix of undead Alpha session underlings mingle with the Beta session’s horde of monsters.

Screen 6: 00:21-00:23 A bird’s eye view down onto the Beta’s lilypad.

Screen 7: 00:23-00:26 Third drumbeat Jane raises the scepter to begin the Reckoning. A red filter descends over the sky and contrasting green defense portals appear on the final drumbeat before the flute. A few streaks of meteors can be seen. The Reckoning has begun.

Screen 8: 00:26-00:28 As little synthesizer pretending to be a flute plays a first solemn note, the red filter descends further, the Betas look up to Jack fly overhead. They pan up, Jack moves down.

Screen 9: 00:28-00:32 On the second synthesized flute note, Jack lands on the platform.

Screen 10: :32-:34 The Betas and the ground pan down, Jack pans up. PM lands either in front or behind them

Screen 11: :34-:37 The background turns chaotic and red as Jack’s health vial appears. It’s already huge, as befitting of a final boss. It fills with vitality gel, but when it reaches the end, it laps itself and starts filling again in a different color.

Screen 12: :37-:41 Cut to a wide shot of the lillypad hovering over the battlefield. Clouds flit by, meteors fall, a crowd of underlings is trampling their way from right to left across the screen. STRIFE ROUND _ _ _ pops up at the bottom and numbers start spinning, eventually settling on ??? so that you don't know whether John had to reset to get this outcome or how many times.

:41 Slamming back to the lilypad, where John has his first engagement w Jack. This is done in a style of sprite similar to Rose’s fight with Jack pre-Cascade. They lock sword to hammer.

:45 Planetside, the Mayor raises his hand and Karkat raises his sickle and yells something. The carapace army advances against a horde of mixed underlings.

00:48 A general group of carapaces rushing forward.

00:50 Carpacean and underling footsoldiers meet. Remember: Carapaces on the left, underlings on the right!

00:52 Kanaya and Jane face off against a bunch of undead. Kanaya with her chainsaw, Jane with lifey powers glowing around her hands.

00:56 Transition by having John’s hammer and Jack’s sword meet on screen, and with a flash, we cut back to them.

00:56-00:58: With a series of blows in time with the guitar notes, John moves Jack rightwards across the screen.

00:58 John takes off Jack’s hat, but gets knocked back.

1:00 John jumps into metaphorical shadows of the background and Rose slides in, needles at the ready.

1:03-1:09: Rose takes off a tentacle. It would be amusing to try and have some kind of callback to her previous fight with Jack here.

1:10 Dirk, Roxy, Jake airborne. vs flighted underlings. This would be a good moment for a fraymotif: Jake gets the idea to use it, and either performs his and Dirk’s Caccia Amore (a buff whereby they swap glowy power auras and cleave through a group of underlings no problem) or his and Roxy’s Shot in the Dark (trapping a group of underlings in a black voidy version of Jake’s hope bubble and ricocheting bullets inside until they’re all grist).

1:26 Show planetside combat. Cool moments for people:

Karkat drags a few airborne underlings down with Blood powers for his army to trample.

Terezi does some sort of mindy thing perhaps to direct Jane and Kanaya

-The second of Jake’s two fraymotif ideas. Because you know, he’s the only one who was actually seen buying his, and Act 5 is pretty goddamn clear Fraymotifs are purchased from consorts.

-General note: While the kids can be doing good, the underlings have to be putting up a fair fight, with the tide of battle turning to the underlings’ favor once Jack uses the Miles. Otherwise the Crisis Point looks like it comes out of nowhere for no good reason.

JACK PLATFORM

1:40 Dave + Davesprite versus Jack. Davesprite takes off a wing and Dave gets his sword. Jack tries to bludgeon Dave with his massive healthbar…

1:50: Jack getting his health bar lopped in half by Dave. (NOTE: Dave does not participate in direct offensive attacks, only defense)

1:58: Jack summons the Red Miles, which destabilizes the lilypad, throws all the betas off balance, and punches holes in the lilypad. Terezi's jetpack is hit and she crashlands.

~2:05~ Crisis point

2:12 dirk gets decapitated like a dumbass.

2:13 rxn shot: Roxy is like why tf did u do that

2:15 Kanaya and Jane chainsaw their way out of an Underling Jane revive-killed a little too late, leaving them trapped in its ribcage. They’re pinned as soon as they emerge. Don’t worry, I’ll be making the gore sooty and ashy because Gill has done enough gore-things.

2:17 Karkat's army is cornered by a bunch of tough looking underlings. Looking up at the sky, meteors are hurtling towards the surface.

2:21 General pan of the carnage, ppl looking desperate

2:27 JACK PLATFORM On the Crescendo: Dave raises a hand and a bunch of Skaian defense portals glow red. Zoom into one to picture of Earth with the time ticker showing time passing.

2:30 On the crescendo: GB!Jade pops through the portal with the meteor and nabs the planet, then leaves the way she came. THEN the meteors shoot through, passing harmlessly through empty space.

2:34 Use as transition to Jade’s attack (keep the meteor but change the background), grabbing meteors and blasting them through/around Jack

2:40 PM and Jack dueling, but PM getting knocked back

2:42-2:50: A montage of tired and pinned kids (Jane reviving Dirk goes here):

2:50: Jade and PM look @ each other and nod.

2:50 As the drums kick up, PM charges the screen, providing transition for Jade’s retreats into the sky.

2:52 Jade hovers. A fraymotif circle appears beneath her while the former-Becs are seen on the lillypad below.

2:53 Cut to below her: The Spacey thing can be seen in the sky, but something comes over the hills in dramatic fashion. Cheers love, cavalry’s here The hills and the army rise until they’re in frame, Casey at the helm.

2:57 is the reveal shot with the low strings.

3:01 As the drums swell, Casey orders them to charge. They go for the underlings’ flank, a wide shot showing skeletons mobbing underlings.

3:03 A reaction shot of the two armies meeting.

3:05 Roxy and Rose slap their foreheads in a show of comic dismay, but Rose looks down in surprise to see a fraymotif circle under her feet.

3:08 In time with the Savior chords, the boys also notice the fraymotifs circles under them.

3:11: The camera cuts back to a wide shot of the battlefield to display the name of the 4-person motif: Unite Synchronize. No, shush, I know what I’m doing.

3:12 Jade gets some big ol’ insta-runes lighting up behind her.

3:13 PM and Jack fly awhile before PM suddenly takes off into the open void. Jack is confused, looking around for her. He looks up.

3:19 Activating lock-on fraymotif thing, comprised of the Light and Time circles. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.

3:22 Rose and Dave, with their insta-runes.

3:23 John nyooms in front of Jade and activates his own insta-runes. I definitely know what I’m doing, stop looking at me like that.

3:26: Space + Breath instarunes light up and spin in a way that can only mean FRIKKIN LASER BEAMS.

3:28: Zoom out, through the various flavors of instarunes, out to Jack who’s in the dead bulls-eye of all of them.

3:30 He tries to evade, but Light + Time mean there’s a dead lock-on on him.

3:32: Well clear of the blast, all four kids do a gesture that sets off the beam.

3:34 MAXIMUM BULLSHIT ACHIEVED: THE GIANT LASERBEAM OF FRIENDSHIP

We see it go off from a few angles in time with the beat and get Jack caught in the crossfire at 3:38 , taking off another tentacle and wing.

3:40: After getting laserblasted, Jack stumbles back, weakened, only to look up and see

3:42: HEY THERE, PM. She flies at him, just above the beam, sword ready and the camera zooming in each successive chord.

3:46 On the second to last chord, Jack raises his one arm and broken sword in defense: on the last chord, there’s a shot of them in the frame together, rush at one another-

3:50 Everything goes white; SHE STRIKES and fades in on her in the aftermath of a sword stroke, having taken Jack’s hand.

3:53: Everything sloooows down and Jack slowly falls to the ground away from his detached hand.

3:57 A shot of the battlefield with all the enemies dissolving as Jack falls.

04:03 On the low piano key, pulses and the battlefield goes from a torn red hellscape to normal. As the flash ends, it fades to a final screen before the replay button appears: a battlefield scene with the lillypad in the foreground transitions to the victory platform, where a green house stands. No, I don’t care if Hussie’s was red: It’s the Beta kids’ fight, the Beta kids’ regent, the Beta kids’ Battlefield, the Beta kids’ frog, and the Beta kids’ STORY - it’s the Beta kids’ green house on that goddamn victory platform.

FLASH ENDS

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Marin Cogan at Vox:

At least four people were killed, and nine were injured after a shooter opened fire at Apalachee High School in northern Georgia on Wednesday, the latest in more than 250 mass shootings that have taken place in the US in 2024. By Friday, law enforcement had charged both a 14-year-old boy and his father in connection with the shooting. The suspect, police say, used an “AR-platform-style weapon” similar to the types of guns commonly used by mass shooters. The FBI revealed that law enforcement had interviewed the suspect and his dad in 2023 over school shooting threats the boy had allegedly made on the social media platform Discord but were unable to substantiate them or take further action. Sometime after that, law enforcement sources say, the boy’s father gave him an AR-15 style rifle as a gift. The boy’s extended family has since revealed that the alleged shooter was experiencing family and mental health issues in the months leading up to the attack, and that they had tried to get him help, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the attack.

The details of the Barrow County shooting are familiar. The fact that law enforcement knew of alleged threats from the shooter over a year ago and was still unable to stop the shooting or prevent the suspect from getting a gun points to how difficult it is to prevent mass shootings. And while mass shootings make up just a small percentage of the large number of gun deaths that happen in the United States every year, they are the most attention-grabbing and obvious manifestation of the country’s unique problem of too many guns.

The problem of mass shootings will likely be with us as long as we have more guns than people. “There’s no easy solution,” says Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. The ubiquity of guns makes preventing a mass shooting extremely difficult. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to prevent mass shootings. “One of the big stereotypes, or myths we have about mass shootings in general, is that perpetrators who do this go crazy and just snap,” says Mark Follman, author of the book Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America, and an editor at Mother Jones. “That’s not the reality at all of how this works.”

There are two broad approaches that can help mitigate the threat of mass shootings: proactive efforts to identify threats in advance, performed by behavioral threat assessment teams; and targeted gun regulations like red flag laws and bump stock bans.

Identifying the threat

Mass shootings are almost never random, according to Follman. The vast majority of mass shooters don’t spontaneously decide to pull out a gun in public and start shooting. Learning to identify who’s most at risk for committing mass violence, identifying warning signs and finding ways to intervene, can save lives. That’s what behavioral threat assessment teams do. The process and composition of a team can differ in various contexts, including educational, corporate, and law enforcement settings, but the general idea is the same: the teams receive information from community members about behavior that is concerning. The teams investigate that behavior to determine whether someone is at risk of committing mass violence. Then, depending on their conclusion, the team finds a way to reach out to the person and try to get them support before they commit an act of violence. That contact can happen at the person’s home, but it might also happen at work, school, or another community setting. It’s difficult to prove the efficacy of these interventions, because there’s no way to quantify the number of mass shootings that didn’t happen because someone got help. But experts and mental health advocates say the work has prevented people from carrying out violence, and Follman has reported on cases where law enforcement believes people were successfully diverted from committing acts of mass violence. [...]

Finding gun regulations that help prevent mass shootings

One appealing thing about behavioral threat assessment work is that it’s an intervention that can be done without butting head-first into the brick wall that is America’s intractable debate over gun control.

But make no mistake: a country with over 400 million guns in it, and with gun regulation so lax that almost anyone can carry a gun in public whenever they want, makes the work of preventing mass shootings much more difficult. Georgia doesn’t have safe storage laws, which in other states require guns to be locked up and kept away from children. The shooter’s father, when questioned by police in 2023, said that his son didn’t have “unfettered” access to his guns. A law requiring guns to be secured in the state might have made it harder for the shooter to have access to the weapon he used. There are other specific gun policies that can help prevent mass shootings and might be more politically feasible. Lawmakers and voters who care about reducing mass shootings have already helped push for their passage in states like New York, Florida, and California. For advocates who care about reducing mass shooting, they are a good place to start. One of the most important legal tools available to prevent mass shootings is extreme risk laws, commonly referred to as red flag laws. The laws, currently in place in 21 states, including several after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in 2018, allow both family members and law enforcement to petition courts to temporarily confiscate someone’s firearms if they believe the owner is at a risk of committing harm either to themselves or others. Red flag laws, Follman says, are “a relatively new gun policy that is very important and very useful to the field of threat assessment.” Though critics have challenged the constitutionality of the laws, they have so far withstood legal challenges. Another common factor among mass shooters is their use of assault-style rifles, known for their capacity to rapidly fire bullets and to kill or injure large numbers of people in a short amount of time. Though research has shown that assault weapons bans can meaningfully reduce mass shooting deaths when they’re in effect, Republicans blocked an assault weapons ban when it came before Congress in December 2023, and polls show that while Americans generally favor more strict gun regulation, they are more divided on the question of whether to ban assault weapons outright.

Vox has a good story on the need to stop mass shootings before they happen.

[i-identify-guns-in-posts]

Any thoughts on that new Sig MCX Spear? Personally, I'm bored of every new gun being based on the AR-15...

The MCX Spear is a very beautiful rifle. Sig's rifle platform is honestly pretty cool ngl. But As the XM5, it looks so fucking ugly. The magazine is ugly, the stock is meh, the supressor is ugly and why the fuck does it have two charging handles???

[inkandguns]

I slept on the shotgun platform for many years. His next video is going to be “6 reasons the AR-15 is better than the shotgun”. Right tool, right time of course - and I like them both. Feel like for budget, shotgun is king. I would trust a cheap shotgun from Remington or mossberg.