I know we live in the country, but....

judypilot

judypilot

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Judy Parrish
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We live in the country. We live in the country because it is quiet. The houses are spaced fairly far apart, with the closest ones about 75-100 yards away. We can barely see the three houses nearest us because of all the trees. It's nice and peaceful, which is the point. Usually on New Year's and Fourth of July, someone in our area will set off firecrackers, but we can barely hear them, and they are never loud enough to keep us awake or disturb the dogs.

Until last night. My husband went to bed around 8, as we usually do, but I stayed up to watch the ball drop in New York (so glad I live in the Pacific time zone). That done, I went to bed, read for a little bit, and turned off the light, probably around 9:20. Just as I was falling asleep, "BOOM! BOOM!" Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That was it, until I was just falling asleep again, and "BOOM! BOOM!" By this time, the dogs were on high alert and restless (I confess they sleep with us, but they are small dogs...which makes no difference if they start tromping all over you). Just enough of a pause to start falling asleep, then "BOOM! BOOM!" again. At one point, I got up, and when the booms happened, bright light flashed as well (we couldn't see that from the bedroom). The booms were so loud they were echoing off the hills. Finally, the last boom was just after midnight. I don't know what the heck they were detonating, but it was TOO LOUD, even for the country. Celebrate all you want, but not with noise that can wake a square mile (or more) of countryside.
 
Here, the local ordinance allows late evening fireworks on NYE and the 4th of July. I think the local gendarme and politicians gave up on policing those days, so they just wrote themselves a law so they aren't required to deal with it.
 
Go down to Mexico sometime.
They are always in a festive mood it seems.
I heard fireworks every morning of the week!
At 7:00am!

My only other noteworthy fireworks experience was when a local 20yo lad got ahold of some mining explosives at the ranch 2 miles away on July 5th
That weekend morning there was a single, incredible concussive force which slammed the house.
The cats hit the ceiling (pretty sure there are still cat-body imprints up there), the people jerked and spasmed, flying outside to see if the roof was still intact. We thought either a cow had fallen onto the roof, or maybe a meteorite.
No damage, but I wondered if that ranch boy still had his hearing.
 
Here where I live the old folks are moving away. The kids divide up the property to sell it, then the single wides move in. Or they set up the single wides and rent them out. Noise starts now. When I moved in there was only a hand full of stick built houses. Since then there has been about 18-20 single wides come in along with typical trailer park attitudes.

When I approached one single wide about their fireworks show starting at 2am, I was told that I can't make them do anything and to get off the property. Since this was last 04 July, right in the middle of fire season, I called the 911 number and complained. A state trooper showed up. The fireworks stopped. The state trooper called me and told me if they start again I should call him. They started again. Here in NM, ****ing off a state trooper means someone has a very good chance of spending the night in jail.

The state trooper returned and left within 5 minutes with a passenger in the backseat. No fire works last night.

Also this summer there was a problem of a person invading privacy with a drone. I collected everything needed to report this person to the FAA and the police. Then I found scattered drone parts on the property, plus an impact point. No drone since.
 
It may have been tannerite. Its marketed as a binary exploding target and sold over the counter at many stores. When the two parts in the “kit” are mixed and shot with a high powered rifle it will detonate (boom, BOOM).
 
Flatiowa said:
It may have been tannerite. Its marketed as a binary exploding target and sold over the counter at many stores. When the two parts in the “kit” are mixed and shot with a high powered rifle it will detonate (boom, BOOM).
Click to expand...

I think that's what my neighbor was using on July 4th. He does some shooting now and again but on that day he was shaking the house. I thought he was doing some mine blasting ... :eek:
 
tannerite will make an impressive amount of noise. Especially when setting off more the 2lbs. There are (or were) some youtube videos of people using large amounts (50 pounds or so) of tannerite to do things like making a barn disappear.
 
Half Fast said:
Mexico? You might be confusing fireworks with gunfire....
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Lived in Mexico for 12 years, plus extensive travels outside that time. Never once heard gun fire. Fireworks daily in all but the tiniest of villages. And even the tiny ones had fireworks on all holidays. We still own this house on the coast in Oaxaca and, despite it being in a town of only about 300 people and about 50% off grid, the major holidays all get fireworks there.

The US has approximately ten times the number of guns per capita as Mexico. They just aren't very common there. OTOH, I hear gunfire at my farm in Wisconsin a few times a month since moving here a couple years ago.
 
rwellner98 said:
Lived in Mexico for 12 years, plus extensive travels outside that time. Never once heard gun fire. Fireworks daily in all but the tiniest of villages. And even the tiny ones had fireworks on all holidays. We still own this house on the coast in Oaxaca and, despite it being in a town of only about 300 people and about 50% off grid, the major holidays all get fireworks there.

The US has approximately ten times the number of guns per capita as Mexico. They just aren't very common there. OTOH, I hear gunfire at my farm in Wisconsin a few times a month since moving here a couple years ago.
Click to expand...
The cool thing is the criminals in both countries have guns.
 
Flatiowa said:
It may have been tannerite. Its marketed as a binary exploding target and sold over the counter at many stores. When the two parts in the “kit” are mixed and shot with a high powered rifle it will detonate (boom, BOOM).
Click to expand...
Wonderful stuff. A friend of mine now living in an undisclosed location, knew a fellow who supplied him with a large lot of tannerite.
He and a couple of undisclosed friends decided to see how big a hole and how loud a bang it would make.
Location was the Bonneville Salt Flats . A race going on about 5 miles off in the distance.
The group of friends dug a hole and laid the barrel full with just enough peeking out to make a good target .
They backed off about 500 yards, ear protection on, sheltered, and a friend with a large caliber 1000 yard type rifle set it off.
The hole created and the bang was earth shaking awesome.
In about 5 minutes a security truck with armed men appeared.
No harm no fowl.

Friend also blew up an out house with spectacular results.
It’s on u tube . Look up “Prairie outhouse boom.”

Fun stuff , I still have a few pounds left.
It also works well on muskrat houses.
 
Decades ago the the USDA field offices had pamphlets on how to make a very similar but much stronger mixture for farmers to use to deal with beaver damns, rocks and stumps when dynamite became more regulated and it stopped being available at the local hardware stores.
 
Zeldman said:
Also this summer there was a problem of a person invading privacy with a drone. I collected everything needed to report this person to the FAA and the police. Then I found scattered drone parts on the property, plus an impact point. No drone since
Click to expand...
Just curious - hypothetically of course - I'd guess 12 gauge with a modified choke, semi auto with 2 in the magazine and 1 in the chamber. Or maybe to keep it sporting just one in the chamber?

I do wonder when they'll start making counter attack drones using some form of miniature radar, etc.
 
rwellner98 said:
The US has approximately ten times the number of guns per capita as Mexico. They just aren't very common there. OTOH, I hear gunfire at my farm in Wisconsin a few times a month since moving here a couple years ago.
Click to expand...

Murder rate in US: 6 per 100K
Murder rate in Wisconsin: 5 per 100K
Murder rate in Mexico: 25 per 100K

Those Mexican guns are 50 times as busy.
 
I think you’re looking at 5 not 50, but point is still valid.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Murder rate in US: 6 per 100K
Murder rate in Wisconsin: 5 per 100K
Murder rate in Mexico: 25 per 100K

Those Mexican guns are 50 times as busy.
Click to expand...
Only about 2/3rds of the murders in Mexico are with guns, but yes, the cartels are a real problem. And it's still a fact that in 12 years there I never heard a gunshot, but heard fireworks daily.
 
rwellner98 said:
Only about 2/3rds of the murders in Mexico are with guns
Click to expand...

Similar here. In the US it ranges from about 2/3 to about 3/4, varying somewhat year to year.

Most years, there are somewhere around 10,000 murders by firearm in the US. Each year there are approximately 1,800,000 defensive uses of firearms. (The numbers have a wide range between studies, since they rely on surveys more than police data. Many defensive uses go unreported.)
 
Half Fast said:
Similar here. In the US it ranges from about 2/3 to about 3/4, varying somewhat year to year.

Most years, there are somewhere around 10,000 murders by firearm in the US. Each year there are approximately 1,800,000 defensive uses of firearms. (The numbers have a wide range between studies, since they rely on surveys more than police data. Many defensive uses go unreported.)
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Yes, the estimates range from 60,000 per year to 2.5m. If you have a study you think is credible, link it. I've never seen on that wasn't mostly based on guesses and excuses. e.g. "most defensive uses aren't reported, so we multiplied the reported ones by ten for reasons"
 
Half Fast said:
So the cartels have suppressors? :biggrin:
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Cartel violence is very regional. I never had any desire to live in those regions. Kind of like not wanting to live in Mississippi because it has a homicide rate in the 20's. Mexico also has a very low gun suicide rate, because there are far fewer guns within arms reach when someone gets depressed. Unfortunately, IIRC, that's the majority of gun deaths in the US.
 
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WDD said:
Just curious - hypothetically of course - I'd guess 12 gauge with a modified choke, semi auto with 2 in the magazine and 1 in the chamber. Or maybe to keep it sporting just one in the chamber?

I do wonder when they'll start making counter attack drones using some form of miniature radar, etc.
Click to expand...
Actually I was planing to hang some chicken wire near my entertainment area so when the drone came into the area to take a look, it would tangle itself up in the wire. Otherwise don't know why it crashed, but I boxed up the parts in case I needed them.
 
rwellner98 said:
Yes, the estimates range from 60,000 per year to 2.5m. If you have a study you think is credible, link it. I've never seen on that wasn't mostly based on guesses and excuses. e.g. "most defensive uses aren't reported, so we multiplied the reported ones by ten for reasons"
Click to expand...

Every study I’ve seen has major flaws and lots of holes. OTOH, every study also found the number of defensive uses of guns to be far above the number of murders by guns, though how much varied widely among studies.

Each study seems to rely on a different definition of defensive use. Some count the mere display of a gun, some only count it if the gun is fired, some only if the criminal is shot, etc. Some don’t count uses when the defender was also charged with a crime, such as unlawful possession of the gun, while others do.

So they’re all over the map. During the Obama administration, the CDC conducted a study that was as reliable as any of them, and they couldn’t set a definitive number. The CDC gave a range between 300,000 and 5M. Whatever the truth is, it’s probably somewhere between those two. Even if it’s only 100,000, that’s still 10x the number of murders using firearms.
 
“An armed society is a polite society”.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
Murder rate in US: 6 per 100K
Murder rate in Wisconsin: 5 per 100K
Murder rate in Mexico: 25 per 100K

Those Mexican guns are 50 times as busy.
Click to expand...
Serious question not intended to lock the thread: I wonder what proportion of all of those are bad-on-bad, with lots/most in Mexico drug/gang related, I suspect.
 
I’d go the other way - those gangs are down right evil. I’d say a lot of those killed are “civilians”. Lot of sorrow down there.
 
Flatiowa said:
Decades ago the the USDA field offices had pamphlets on how to make a very similar but much stronger mixture for farmers to use to deal with beaver damns, rocks and stumps when dynamite became more regulated and it stopped being available at the local hardware stores.
Click to expand...
The fact that you could buy dynamite and blasting caps at a hardware store is hard for anyone born in the last 50 years to believe. '68 is when it stopped being available over the counter without a license. Until 9/11, you needed a $5 permit/license.
 
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Llewtrah381 said:
Serious question not intended to lock the thread: I wonder what proportion of all of those are bad-on-bad, with lots/most in Mexico drug/gang related, I suspect.
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The vast majority of gun violence is cartel related. Both bad on bad, and murder of reporters, people unwilling to pay protection and other bad on good. There are tons of good cops, good military (the military does more policing than in the US and is viewed more favorably) and good government officials, but unfortunately the system is broken. It makes it hard for the many good people to gain ground against the bad people.
 
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