this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2026
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Just to have fun by being a bit pedantic, the a bullet is a possible source of toxic lead, and if you are using the colloquialist 'bullet' to mean a charged cartidge containing a bullet, the gunpowder charge makes it a tiny bomb, which can be dangerous as well, even without a gun, especially when exposed to idiots with hammers or fire.
Playing along...
If a lead bullet in a charged and primed casing sits undisturbed in a crowded room, it will neither poison people nor discharge itself
'Undisturbed' is doing a bit of lifting there. The same could be said of a person, generally speaking. Leave most people in a room, they won't hurt anyone either. It's just a matter of what circumstances make each dangerous. If you put bullets in a room and set the room on fire, they act as little bombs. If you do that with a person, it makes them less dangerous, because they're dead. If you put a person in solitary confinement for years on end, they'll come out mentally disturbed, and possibly violent. Do the same with a bullet, and it comes out presenting the same hazards as when it went in.
Sure, and you can walk down the road and get struck by lightning with the same odds of a bullet randomly firing on its own and injuring or killing you.
On the flip side, the reality (to the significant digit) is that a person with a gun but no bullets can hurt you. A person with bullets but no gun can also hurt you. In fact, a person with neither a bullet nor a gun can hurt you too! It happens all the time.
But you know what doesn't happen all the time?
A loaded gun discharging itself without a person attached.
The common theme is not the guns, it's the people. Let's fix that part.
Yeah, I'm with you on the direction to approach from, if slightly different in tack. I was just amusing myself. Hopefully I wasn't causing you too much annoyance.
Nah, not annoyed. Tbh, fixing the people is going to be much harder than just regulating the implements of their destruction.
It has to be possible, though. Some places seem to manage some kind of sanity, at least.
You mean places that support their societies with things like affordable health care? Not sure that type of progressive governance is going to be a reality in the US for some time
Never impossible, but not happening yet. I have a suspicion things will shift more as the cold warriors inevitably succumb to the limits of mortality. All the power and money in the world still can't stop the power of time.
Yep... time heals all wounds, it's up to us to make new ones (and we make them like this)