That being said, for some people in STEM the homework is >90% of the practice that you need to pass the exams.

That is, unless it’s a topic that’s mainly memorization like medicine or organic chemistry

I think it’s more that they’re playing it loudly in public. You can lile what you like, but don’t force it down other people’s throats

Bluegrass is way better than country

Or just don’t post them to begin with

Inversely, there’s “I’m bi, but…” To point out shit that can just be platonic that people keep trying to romanticize.

Like, why can’t I complement a friend on their good fashion sense without people assuming there’s some attraction there? It’s bullshit

I didn’t say teenagers shouldn’t be able to learn. But having their own guns is not an option IMO. They can borrow in very controlled circumstances.

Then why did you go after me for pointing out that some parents teach their kids how to hunt? That’s literally what you’re claiming to not be against.

And not allowed to purchase strong alcohol until 21, just like America.

No, not like in the US. Here, you can’t get any alcohol under 21. That’s the source of the taboo. High school students love to get older siblings and crappy parents to supply them with way too much alcohol and regularly host giant parties where they drink to the point of passing out or vomiting, and often drive drunk afterwards.

Thankfully for me, my parents took the European route, and let me have a beer with dinner on occasion, and that’s it. It also helps that I don’t like loud crowded parties so I rarely attended and generally left after a few minutes.

Knives are much easier to monitor and control by the supervising adult

Not really. A student can just go buy a knife from the local store or steal one from the kitchen outside of meal prep. If they wanted to, they could acquire one and shank someone without their parents knowing. Meanwhile in the US, a teen’s main option for getting a gun trying to convince Uncle Cleatus to illegally sell them one, which he generally won’t do because that’s a felony with a 10 year sentence (though admittedly this was different 15-20 years ago).

But if you are in a plane accident, the chances of it being lethal to everyone involved is far greater than accidents in a car, statistically, surely. Nobody freaking survives a plane crash.

Your example doesn’t fit very well. A plane crash will kill everyone, regardless if it’s deliberate or a mistake. And it’s very easy to mess up when piloting a plane.

A negligent discharge from a firearm is 1: not guaranteed to hit someone, 2: not guaranteed to kill someone, and 3: is going to be isolated to a single shot. You don’t have guns spontaneously firing in all directions. Not only that, the 4 core rules of gun safety are very effective at protecting everyone in the general vicinity of a firearm, and they aren’t difficult to teach and learn.

The main concern with minors having access to firearms is deliberate attempts at violence. I don’t think I need to go into detail on why that’s a larger problem for teens, but that’s prevented by 1: keeping the guns in a safe that the kids/teens can’t get in to, and 2: being good parents that communicate and support their kids.

Now I’m not one to say “everyone should have a gun” because that’d be fucking stupid. If you (or someone in your house) are depressed or you’re a shitty parent then you shouldn’t have a gun because it’s just asking for trouble. But a lot of people build guns up in their head as some giant boogeyman that will go off on its own and murder everyone in the room like a rabid bear.

And don’t get me started on a rant about the left’s insistence on gun control and disarming themselves is contributing the the fascist takeover currently going on in the US.

That becomes moot if they aren’t motivated to commit crimes in the first place.

Even if removing guns from the US reduced crime rates, it wouldn’t be as much as doing what I described. Plus, there’s an opportunity cost, in that you only have so much political capital to spend on legislation.

How about we focus on improving the lives of 99% of the population instead of wasting political capital on trying to reclassify 50% of the population as criminals for owning guns.

Fois gras

I do not think teens under 18 should be handling a lethal weapon. Matter fact it should be over 21.

Cars are a lethal weapon, but they’re allowed to drive on public roads under supervision before they’re 16, and can drive without on private property. Kids under 18 are allowed access to cooking knives at whatever age, and should be taught how to cook before they’re adults. Teaching kids safe firearm operation under supervision is useful. Not only that, sharing hobbies with parents help with communication and bonding, giving the kids a better support structure while growing up.

Your black-and-white mindset of infantilizing teens like they’re completely incapable of handling anything before they’re 18 is demeaning and ultimately damaging to society as a whole. It leads to adults who’ve never learned skills they need to survive on their own.

I’m saying to hand rifles to toddlers, nor that the kids get unrestricted access to the guns. JFC it’s like you’re deliberately trying to misunderstand.

Where I live it’s normal for teens to go hunting alongside there parents, and when the guns aren’t in use they are stored in the family gun safe that only the parents can get into.

These parents also teach their kids gun safety, and with exposure the kids know that the guns aren’t toys to be played with. This shares similarities to how many European countries’ drinking age of 16 removes the novelty and rebellion of drinking, generally preventing them from drinking to excess

Most gun owners have more than one. If you’re a hunter, you might want to shoot different rounds for different game or seasons.

My state bans the use of rifles for deer hunting in most circumstances. In that example, you’d want 12ga for deer hunting, 20ga for duck, and 5.56 would be used for coyotes, boar, or groundhogs. And if you go boar hunting you’ll want a sidearm (9mm or .45) because they’ll gore you if they get the chance.

So that totals 4 guns for a single person with decent reasoning. Plus, if you had kids and took them hunting, you’d want at least 1 more of each type.

And for people who live in non-rural areas, you might decide to concealed carry a 9mm for protection. But handguns aren’t as ideal for home defense, so you might want a shotgun or 9mm carbine for that task, so that’d be 2 guns for 1 person.

The United States has over 4 times more murders per capita than France, for instance.

One thing a lot of people seem to forget is that the US has significantly more income inequality and significantly less social safety nets than France. Poverty drives crime.

What the US needs most is nationalized healthcare, deregulation of marijuana to cut down on mass incarceration (which breaks up families and drives poverty), actually taxing the rich, and better regulations and workers rights to prevent corporations from exploiting everyone

It does cost money to provide healthcare. Funding doesn’t come from thin air.

Then tax the rich. There’s no reason for Jeff Bezos to pay less money than someone flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

Unfortunately we’re caught in a Republican scheme to remove government benefits by gutting taxes that was started during Nixon’s adminitration

Exactly this. If the US had proper social safety nets and low income inequality, all violence (which includes gun violence) would drop.

Also note that the arguments like in the OP only ever mention gun violence. It seems dishonest that they need to be that specific to get the narrative they want.

Plus the bard is able to continually give that bonus in PF2E and it just works. I can’t tell you how many times I gave out inspiration dice in 5e only for the player to either forget it or bank it like it was wheels of cheese in Skyrim, only to be wasted with the end of yhe encounter.

5e bards suck. PF2E bards are awesome, and easily the one of most useful choices for a party of 5+ players

Ethanol is also used in food

It’s the alcohol in drinks, and that’s about it. Ethanol for fuel is not made in the same facilities as beer and whiskey. And as a whiskey fan, we probably shouldn’t encourage drinking anyways.

and as a disinfectant.

While it can be (vodka is great for keeping wool clean), it generally isn’t. You’re thinking of isopropanol (aka isopropyl alcohol), which evaporates later in the distillation process (eg the “tail”)

It’s valuable for reducing smog

And EV’s are even better at it. And public transportation.

Overall, we need to work towards on mass public transport, EV’s in smaller vehicles, and hydrogen fuels for larger vehicles. Ethanol could still be produced for the things that absolutely can’t work as an EV or fuel cell, but the scale we make it at is way larger than needed for that

In addition, the opportunity cost is that we’re not using that water and land to grow food creating secondary affects for the people that need to eat food.

Eh, the US is a net calorie exporter regarding food. We make enough to feed everyone.

A bigger problem is the additional land needed to grow the corn for ethanol. That demands expansion of agricultural land, which means destroying forests and wetlands which are extremely important for sustaining ecosystems.

You know how people are going on about ecological collapse and how the drop off in insect populations are the biggest warning sign? That’s caused by humans tearing down their ecosystems for farming and land development.

Also, the reason I didn’t include fertilizer and other fuel costs in pointing out that the ethanol itself is carbon-neutral is because the other parts of the process can potentially be changed to be carbon neutral as well. Not right now, but the tech is being worked on

The problem with ethanol that both of you seem unaware of is how energy intensive it is to create ethanol. It takes about 5 gallons of fuel to produce 4 gallons of ethanol.

Let me repeat that: when producing ethanol, you have to spend more fuel than you produce

which are shipped around the country to be burned, injecting carbon into the atmosphere.

While I broadly agree with your comment, this line is a stretch. The carbon released is only from transportation and fertilizer production. The carbon inside the ethanol itself is actually pulled from the environment, so that part is actually carbon neutral.

The big problem with ethanol production is that it takes 5 gallons of fuel to produce 4 gallons of ethanol. It’s literally just pissing away time, money, and resources just to subsidize farmers.