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>4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background level of deaths in the US. It's not as many as in the Texas explosion. Car accidents in the US kill around 100 people a day, and surely grievously injure hundreds more.

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Difference being of course, one was a deliberate attack on human life, and the other a very _very_ unfortunate accident.

Stupid comparison to make for the sake of pushing his agenda of "free software". I expected more from someone so smart.

5 comments

I hate to say it, but Stallman has a good point. Plant safety cuts into profits, left to itself management will not encourage safe working practice - there must be meaningful oversight by an outside agency.

Thanks to regulatory capture oversight is weak, and this is not an accident but an intended outcome of the political system.

Plant safety cuts into profits, left to itself management will not encourage safe working practice - there must be meaningful oversight by an outside agency.

Yes, because it's obviously good for business to have your plant blow sky high, destroying the entire surrounding neighborhood and killing most of your employees. If I were a plant manager, I'd make sure to put doing all that right at the top of my TODO list.

Or, maybe, just maybe, not everybody who owns/runs a business in a capitalist system is a greedy, evil, soul-sucking bastard, and maybe, just maybe, accidents happen, some of which are damn near unpredictable and unavoidable. And maybe we can't regulate our way to a society where nothing bad ever happens to anybody, ever?

> Yes, because it's obviously good for business to have your plant blow sky high

You know how this is - most often poor working practice has no immediate consequence. Perhaps a critical patch is installed a few days late, and the website does not get hacked, no adverse consequences most of the time. At some point someone will run the numbers, and conclude that good safety practice isn't that necessary. That's a recipe for disaster. Most everyone here should be familiar with the Challenger explosion and the runup to it.

> maybe, just maybe, accidents happen, some of which are damn near unpredictable and unavoidable.

That's the issue of fault-tolerant design. In an ammonium nitrate plant there is a risk of explosion; they quite simply do not belong anywhere near a town.

At some point someone will run the numbers, and conclude that good safety practice isn't that necessary. That's a recipe for disaster. Most everyone here should be familiar with the Challenger explosion and the runup to it.

That's a fair point in a sense, and I'm not arguing that it isn't beneficial to have some independent eyes looking at things and helping avoid bias. I would argue that it's not necessarily required to regulate that sort of thing and make it the job of government to try and prevent every possible contingency though. I think working to develop a voluntary certification process, something akin to ISO9001, where being certified would be a "badge of honor" and - eventually - all but a prerequisite to doing business, would be preferred.

In an ammonium nitrate plant there is a risk of explosion; they quite simply do not belong anywhere near a town.

That was definitely a sub-optimal design, for sure. I'd be curious to know the history of how that setup happened, actually.

OTOH, to play devil's advocate a little bit... how often do ammonium nitrate plants explode? One could probably argue that the industry actually is very safe if you look at it over the long-run. Or not... I don't actually have those statistics. Just a point of discussion.

Nobody ever said that we will regulate our way to a perfect society. Nobody said that every business owner is a greedy, evil, soul-sucking bastard.

But maybe, just maybe, added regulation doesn't need to hurt the honest business owners, and can be used to keep those whose ethics may be a little more sketchy in check.

But maybe, just maybe, added regulation doesn't need to hurt the honest business owners

Nobody ever said that we will regulate our way to a perfect society. Nobody said that every business owner is a greedy, evil, soul-sucking bastard

Not overtly, but it seems implied by a lot of the verbiage you hear from people arguing for more regulation and blaming business owners for pretty much everything. (Note: I don't mean just here, now, in this very discussion. I'm generalizing based on other experiences)

But maybe, just maybe, added regulation doesn't need to hurt the honest business owners, and can be used to keep those whose ethics may be a little more sketchy in check.

I would argue that that is an awfully big maybe. Government regulation, however well-meaning, is notorious for having unintended consequences... sometimes even to the point of having an effect totally counter to the original intent.

I really don't see what this has to do with the Boston bombing or people's reactions to the events of today. I took a different argument to the Holocaust extreme in another comment and it applies just as well here: why should we be "bent out of shape" today about plant safety when genocide kills millions times more people?

If you expected anything from Stallman other than to say something socially tone deaf and head slapping, well... you don't know much about RMS.

I would downvote you if I could because the comparison is certainly not stupid; just because you fear more the will of the others over accidents does not make it stupid.

If for example cars were allowed (mechanically and legally) to only accelerate to maximum 50mph many of those accidents would never happen, but people are not willing to loose their freedom to drive at crazy speeds but somehow they are willing to loose other freedoms for extremely rare events such as terrorism attacks just for the emotional effect it haves over them because it is an attack (and not an accident) with nothing rational backing it up.

They should be restricted to 4mph and be preceded by a man with a red flag. That would be much more effective than limiting them to 50mph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Act#The_Locomotive_A...

I have to drive to work, lunch and home every single day, I have to deal with an ongoing terrorist attack almost never.

woosh

+ one of those four people was a police officer

Is killing a police officer worse than killing a "normal" person?

The death of a police officer is no more tragic, necessarily, than the death of anyone else. However, an attacker who is brazen enough and well-prepared enough to attack and kill a police officer is more of a threat to the public. Ordinary citizens are generally not as well armed, armored, or trained as police officers, nor are they in near constant contact with police dispatch. Someone capable of and willing to kill police is someone who just doesn't care anymore and is willing and able to kill almost anyone.

The bad guys are also generally more likely to kill the police officer because they know he will kill them as soon as he figures out they would.

The general citizen, even when armed, will often run for his life instead.

Ordinary citizens are generally not as well armed

Not sure how accurate that statement is in America.

Disclaimer: the following text is written for non-American readers. If you are in fact an American and your statement was simply hyperbole, feel free to ignore.

America isn't the wild west. We value our right to keep and bear arms, but not that many people actually carry weapons with them. Most gun owners keep their guns at home.

The best numbers I could find [1] indicate 8 million active concealed carry permits; so at most ~4% of the adult population has a permit to carry a gun outside the home. And most of those (anecdotally) don't do it often.

[1]: http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2012/7/new-federa...

Where I grew up everyone had a shotgun and/or a deer rifle in their truck. I guess I wasn't equating being armed with having a concealed carry permit.

I said generally.

Also, even with someone who religiously carries a gun as much as possible it would be unusual for them to carry a full-sized duty pistol and the ammunition that most cops do (stereotypically a Glock 22 w/ a 15 round magazine and 2+ additional magazines, a total of 45 or more rounds). Certainly some folks do but I'd doubt that number is even in the double digits throughout the entire US, excluding off-duty LE and people working security in some capacity. People who carry concealed tend to choose smaller, lighter guns and not quite as many total rounds, because ammunition is heavy (stereotypically a Kahr PM9 w/ an extra magazine, a total of 14 rounds, or maybe a Glock 26 w/ an extra magazine, a total of 20 rounds).

Most concealed carry people I know use a normal sized 9mm. It's only been very recently that mouse guns have become trendy. Kahr has only existed as a company since the mid 90s. However, I wasn't talking about concealed carry when I made my comment.

Double magazine pouches for concealed carry are not exactly a niche product. I would wager there are tens of thousands of Americans who pack a medium frame pistol and two spare mags.

Maybe. For single-stack magazines carrying 2 extra magazines can make a lot of sense, but once you get into double-stack magazines on guns with full-sized frames you start talking about a lot of bulk and weight. From my own observation, which is certainly anecdotal, I don't see that being commonplace at all.

It's within the realm of possibility that there are "tens of thousands" of folks who concealed carry with that amount of ammunition, but I would be surprised if that was the case.

Also, even if it is that many, it's still a tiny fraction of the populace. Even in the most enthusiastic pro-gun states only a tiny fraction of the public carries on a regular basis.

In a police state, it is.

Yes, though I may sound cliche, they put their life on the line everyday for us. When you go to work do you need to carry a gun with you and know that you might not come home at night?

Working as a Police Officer is considerably less dangerous than many other labor-intensive professions. http://open.salon.com/blog/richard_rider/2010/11/08/police_f...

Okay, and why is killing someone who is risking their life worse than killing anyone else?