Columbine happened when I was a kid and nothing of any substance has been done since.

It’s even better at seeming knowledgeable about things that it may or may not be knowledgeable about.

Very good questions. While I’m a pacifist, I know a lot about firearms, how they mechanically work, etc (likely an “on the spectrum” thing as a direct sibling has an autism diagnosis).

One of the important aspects of technique of firing a gun is the hold. Handguns are held differently from rifles and different types of handguns, sometimes even models of the same category, must also be held differently. This is both for marksmanship and for safety. For example, holding a revolver like one holds most pistols puts the support hand in front of the cylinder, which can cause burns or potentially digit amputations (I’ve heard of but have but haven’t read any case studies of the later) due to hot gases and metal escaping from the gap between the cylinder and the barrel or holding many models of pistol too high on the backstrap is likely to cause the slide and/or hammer (if present) to “bite” the hand in the web between the thumb and forefinger. “Hammer bite” is painful but not usually a cause for great concern.

Bear with me (rawr) for a bit here because this stuff is relevant to your questions. Derringers, however, are notorious for a number of safety-related issues. First, they are small and seem unthreatening to those who are new to firearms. This is bad because they are also cheap and rather more prone to pose accidental dangers than other types of handgun.

Most basic Derringers are built cheap and simple. This means that, unlike modern revolvers, they rarely have mechanisms like a trigger safeties (mechanism that prevents the trigger from being pulled if a “sub-trigger” isn’t also pulled), safety switch/catch (“normal” safety mechanism found on pistols, rifles, and shotguns that prevents the mechanism from firing until switched to “fire”), or transfer bar safety (a relatively new safety mechanism that reduces the likelihood of a hammer-fired gun going off if dropped). Do note that none of these mechanisms are infallible (see: Tiger King for a disturbing example of a transfer bar failing to function). Additionally, Derringers frequently do not have trigger guards. Their cheap and handy size leads many new owners to put Derringers directly in their pockets, without a pocket holster (a vital piece of safety equipment for ALL pocket carrying). With their lack of safety mechanisms, this has led to numerous and not infrequently fatal unintentional discharges (self-inflicted severing of femoral artery).

In addition to all of these, Derringers are frequently hard to hold correctly, due to their compact size. My thoughts on possible injuries from the .45-70 Derringer in particular are mainly related to the recoil. Because there is only the mass of the Derringer and curved handle to mitigate the recoil would be one getting full-on punched in the hand.

The force is exerted along the bore axis (if you do the physics vector chart thingies, the arrows point straight back down the barrel). The handle has a curve to encourage it to roll but that first impulse is likely going to hit on the tiny bit of the arc furthest back before it starts to pivot. Without extra padding in gloves or another way to deflect, dissipate, or distribute that energy, fractures to hand bones are well within the range of possibility. There are further dangers of holding the firearm incorrectly, like getting smacked in the face and/or dropping it, which could lead to accidental discharge.

Overall, this firearm is a fabulously terrible idea.

That’s the beautiful thing about gifting software with permissive licenses (when one wants to): it’s a gift and anyone can do whatever they want with it for free.

ETA: I DO think that it is important for one who chooses to license software permissively to be informed about their decision and its implications. But, just like consent in other areas, as long as one enters into it intentionally and with the understanding of what the license means, it’s noone’s place to judge (and, like consent in other interpersonal areas, the license can be revoked/modified at any time - with a new version). Honestly, really weird of those that take issue with individuals choosing to gift their software to humanity - there’s way more interesting and useful things to engage in in the FLOSS landscape.

Here in the States, the only non-private option is through the Veterans’ Administration, which requires that one be a veteran or their direct family. It’s also intentionally bad, overly bureaucratic, and extremely inconvenient (had to drive 40min outside of the state capital to get my then-housemate to a veterans’ hospital once because he, a disabled veteran, couldn’t afford care anywhere else), embodying the right-wing hatred of actually compensating veterans. In fact, right-wing administrations have been caught instructing officials to attempt to avoid providing veterans with their contractually-entitled care and benefits.

Those of us who are not veterans are stuck with the private US system when terrible wait times.

When I got married, the US medical system gave me a wedding present of about $2k in medical debt for my wife’s sprained ankle. Was a great way to help newlyweds not afford to keep the (rental) house heated during the following PNW Fall/Winter.

Really more of anachronistic 19th/20th century century jest. There are two components here. The handgun and the cartridge.

The your of handgun depicted is called a Derringer, which is typically a small, concealable gun that typically fires 2 shots before requiring reloading. Generally, Derringers fire small calibers because even something like a full 9mm will cause substantial recoil when there is no semi-automatic action or mass to absorb some of it. We’ll come back to the particular Derringer shortly.

The .45-70 is a copper-cased, centerfire rifle cartridge developed for the US military in the late 19th century. The full classification of the original load being .45-70-405. This meant a .45 caliber (11.4mm) nominal bore diameter, 70 grains (4.54g) of black powder, and a 405 grain (26.25g) projectile. At the time of its adoption, it was recorded as having an effective lethal range of 1,000yds (910m). In 1879, a 500 grain projectile variant was developed with a legal range of 3,500yds (3,200m) - just to repeat this craziness, in 1879, the US military created a blackpowder rifle round capable of causing lethal injuries to those 3.2km away.

In modern times, the .45-70-405 is considered sufficient to hunt all big game in North America, including grizzlies and polar bears.

Now, back to that firearm. It appears to be an American Derringer Model M-4 Alaskan Survival. I highly doubt that any of the designers for a moment thought “a .45-70 Derringer is a good idea” and instead likely made it for novelty or to see if it could be done. I found some fun data on the M-4. It has a 4.1" (104mm) barrel length and, firing a 300 grain projectile, exerts 76.18 ft•lbs (103.29 joules) of recoil energy on its user. By compare, a similarly sized Glock 19 9mm firing a 124 grain projectile exerts 5.77 ft•lbs (7.83 joules) and the iconic Magnum Research Desert Eagle in .50AE only exerts 25.46 ft•lbs (34.52 joules) with a 300 grain projectile. So, the risk of injury to the operator is likely rather high and the manufacture and sale is likely rather irresponsible.

…People who wanted to donate their software to the public with no strings attached could see an uptick in the number of users?

Yeah… Right now California residents are paying massively inflated rates because the utility board decided that PG&E, a company that is literally a convicted killer, can pass the cost of the fines on to customers.

Not really. Look at California agriculture. You’ve got immense and unsustainable amounts of water going to almonds, pistachios, and other cash crops (not to mention animal feed for the Saudis) with voracious demand for more water, despite it causing damage to the water sources.

Yeah. That’s different. The way that I’d do it, supposing it didn’t need to be perfect (I’d use a vector-based program like Inkscape for that), would be to create the selection, paint bucket, contact selection by desired number of pixels, clear. Not as good as converting to a path but more intuitive to me having learned PS circa early 2000s.

One can reduce to two steps:

1. Draw elipse selection
2. Fill with paint bucket

I’ll not disagree that it is unintuitive, however. But, that was not the statement.

So does Gimp…

The current courts allow both qualified immunity, which is rooted in a likely malicious omission when transcribing CFR 1983, and “Civil Asset Forfeiture” which is based on nothing but ignoring the wording and intent of multiple amendments in the Bill of Rights. I didn’t anticipate them trolling favorably for the populace.

They could have also reformed it to require physical presence and actually filibustering, instead of being possible via email from the tropics. Then again, with the average age and health of Congress, that would likely put a significant limit on its effectiveness as a tactic (I don’t believe for a second that McConnell has the physical endurance to actually filibuster even a single bill).

Penis Potato

I have some Cherry XDA profile caps that I printed in Protopasta Matte PLA. They work surprisingly well. I’d say go for it.

Or cite precedent from the Spanish inquisition.

I used to use a regular garage door remote, with the clip modified slightly (bending with needle nose) to give it a snug fit on a piece of webbing on the chest of my motorcycle jacket. Just a quick tap on my chest to open/close.

That’s why there’s bbq sauce.