Not happening, dude

I need this shirt

Man, I haven't been blown off in a while...

Some of them, sure, but there are a lot of stories of how many lies recruiters will tell you to get you to sign on, so a pretty significant number are genuinely bad people.

Jesus, there is a non-zero number people, in this thread, that don't get guns because they are afraid they might suicide? I hope you get the help you need, keeping a gun out of your house is a good thing but it is just the tip of an iceberg.

Edit: Everyone on this thread is acting like this is normal, THIS ISN'T NORMAL OR OK. PLEASE take care of yourself.

I suggest if youre looking for a shooty type hobby that doesnt involve actual guns, yes archery is very neat, though modern compound bows are comparably pricey to many guns...

Perhaps try paintballing or airsoft?

Frankly I've always found airsoft and the community around it pretty cringey, but I had a blast 'woodsballing' as a kid. The indoor competitive ranges I found silly... but it can be great fun to stomp around in the woods for a day, if you don't mind huge bruises from getting hit haha!

Even so, probably most outdoor ranges have an area for chronoing (dialing in your gas pressure so your paint is flying at an appropriate speed) or just target practice, and you can probably just plink at such a range if you wanted to.

Or maybe airsoft sounds more your thing?

You can probably hire them at the range.

But a VR gun app may satisfy you. You get the skills without the danger, noise and cost (ignoring headsets cost).

"I wonder if I shoot straight up and stand under it..."

Idk if this is something that would be legal in every state, but most shooting ranges I've seen have firearm rentals. This typically helps them to sell guns because you can see how they feel, but there's no obligation to purchase. They also might let you rent stuff that you couldn't legally purchase without crazy licensing, like fully automatic machine guns.

I have a friend who doesn't think it's a good idea for himself to own a gun for similar reasons. Others here seem to be alluding to that being a huge issue, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. It's weird to assume that the people who don't want you own guns must have mental health issues. The data is clear that owning a gun makes a person significantly more likely to be harmed by a gun, whether it's self-inflicted, an accident, a robbery gone wrong, or any number of other events. If you feel like your health and safety are at risk because of anxiety or depression or anything like that, I hope you're able to help yourself by even just chatting with somebody who is qualified to help you, maybe getting some medication and lifestyle tips also. I found that I had a vitamin D deficiency, and just taking a standard supplement every day has had a big positive impact on my mood and attitude. Like, I still feel helpless in a shitty world that we as a species are actively making worse every single day, but now I know that that's a problem that's way too big for li'l ol' me to solve. But what I can do is take a few minutes to type something to an internet stranger to tell them that they matter and that they are worth the effort of helping. You matter and you're worth the effort of helping. Even if you don't think it's particularly dire, check in with yourself. Therapy is not for emergencies, so don't wait until it's an emergency to talk to somebody.

<3

Or blowgun

If you want a pretty close experience without the real risk of suicide, you could always go with lower caliber airguns. The lack of muzzle energy means it's not a ripe candidate for killing anything but small game at most, it requires you to be pretty on top of your shit as far as consistent follow through, holdover, windage. Shot per shot cost can be pretty low, especially if you get a swaging die and make the pellets or slugs yourself. The only downside is that the guns can get pretty pricey, up in the realm of very expensive normie guns, especially for something very high quality and with all the cool stuff, but overall it's a pretty cheap and less dangerous hobby if you like shooting. Most people have this conception that they're only for kids or whatever, based on what they see at the sportsman's warehouse, but with a bit of googling you can find some guns that are pretty performative for not a lot.

When somebody contacts me out of the blue without my input, tries to sign me up to get murdered for the benefit of the military industrial complex, and reads "No, I'm not interested" as "tell me more," I become less likely to be as polite about matters. No means No, and if you keep pushing I'm gonna be as blunt as I need to be.

Public transportation.

The less of our lives we have to buy the less critical supply chain there is to “defend”

The best solution right now is to build out public and alternative transit. Busses, streetcars, lrt, greenways, woonerfs, etc are far superior and cheaper than anything we could figure out for cars.

Biodiesel is not a good option imo the NOx emmisions are generally significantly higher. Also most of the oil thats used to create biodiesel is not sourced responsibly. The production procces also still creates toxic waste although usually less than normal diesel.

Source: i just wrote a report on this if you're really interested. i can dig through my sources lmk

How about better public infrastructure, like trains and tramlines? They don't require lithium, and are fully electric.

Batteries are still better because they can be recharged without oil or extra pollution.

You cant recharge an ICE engine without more pollution and oil

'Other Country' being mainly China, which happens to sit on most of the lithium deposits on Earth if I am not mistaken.

Also to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. I remember a few years back a report of huge lithium deposits being found there but uh... yeah good luck with running that operation.

biofuels like ethanol? less efficient and more expensive, unfortunately.

Lithium for now, there’s no guarantee that will continue, but in the short-medium term at least, yes.

Natrium is up and comming.

Evs make us reliant on lithium

Oh no! No the third most abundant element in the universe! WTF are we gonna do? Use another metal with a large valency shell that makes it ideal as a dense storage medium for electrons? the horror

Bikes, bike infrastructure, and ebikes are about as carbon efficient as you can get without just straight up walking.

But they're not really feasible for most people because few cities have enough protected bike lanes and sensible zoning to let it happen.

So we have much easier options.

I'm a big fan of hydrogen for stuff like cars. Install more than enough solar or hydro or whatever, then use the surplus energy to create hydrogen cells that can be stored long-term, so that the hydrogen itself is also created with clean, renewable energy, usable on demand.

I honestly doubt that. There aren’t really good alternatives to oil, but EVs just need any kind of accu and lithium-based accus are what’s most economic right now. Furthermore lithium doesn’t get consumed like oil and there gets research done into recycling it.

Oddly enough emissions standards are one of the major reasons vehicles are getting so big.

In 2012 fuel economy standards were changed as a response to the manufacturers calling everything a truck to get around regulations (seriously - they classified the PT Cruiser as a truck in the 2000s). So now standards are weighted based on vehicle footprint instead of by class.

Notice how around 2012 was when the American auto manufacturers stopped making the old Rangers, S10s, Dakotas, etc? And now that the Ranger is back it's as big as the older F-150s and the F-150s are the size of a small airport? And as the CAFE standards get tougher over time the vehicles keep growing?

It's easier to just make the trucks bigger every refresh cycle than to make them more efficient, so that's what they do.

...But im not attracted to the small ones.

Also it moves the burning of gas from millions of these poorly efficient vehicles to a single much more efficient power plant.

Nuclear gang rise up.

I'm going all-in on shitpost.

Military personnel are still just people doing the job...just like the rest of us.