America doesn't have enough guns

[Derec]

Electromagnetic pulse.
Look up the Starfish Prime nuclear test.

If an asteroid is close enough that a nuke would trigger an EMP it would be too close to deflect. Even with nukes, you'd need to be millions of km away to deflect any large space rock. Although composition matters too.
For EMPs you need to explode a nuke in the ionosphere, which is only a few 100 km.

 

[Derec]

I would rather just... Not be doing things that significantly change the velocity of things, forever, especially when we might have to move through there again, eventually.

Why? What difference would it make?

 

[Swammerdami]

This paper goes into detail about deflecting a space rock with a neutron bomb. But it doesn't appear to address the question of how distant the deflection can or should be. Those details depend greatly on the specific trajectory of the enemy asteroid. Many discussions involve  Gravitational keyhole — a rock which intersects such a keyhole would have its trajectory altered to impact Earth on some future orbit.

All of this is unrelated, of course, to America's problem of too few guns. Let's hope that the thread-starting Infidel is a tolerant sort of fellow.

 

[Jarhyn]

This paper goes into detail about deflecting a space rock with a neutron bomb. But it doesn't appear to address the question of how distant the deflection can or should be. Those details depend greatly on the specific trajectory of the enemy asteroid. Many discussions involve  Gravitational keyhole — a rock which intersects such a keyhole would have its trajectory altered to impact Earth on some future orbit.

All of this is unrelated, of course, to America's problem of too few guns. Let's hope that the thread-starting Infidel is a tolerant sort of fellow.

Well.let me bring this back then: just give everyone a button that will redirect an asteroid through a keyhole and cause a heavy impact any time someone skins their knee and doesn't have someone around to kiss the booboo for them

 

[SigmatheZeta]

On one hand, I think that it is idiotic to bother carrying a gun. It is a liability. It is one more thing to get in the way. It is one more thing that can be misplaced. It is one more thing that needs to be maintained and cleaned if one wants it to work properly. I do not have an even slightly aggressive personality, in actual practice, and I would not actually use it in any situation whatsoever. I would be more likely to get shot by a five year old that was playing with it as if it were a toy.

That said, I say let Iran have nuclear weapons. They have a right to their own self-defense, and besides, it's kind of jingoistic to pretend that we and our buddies are the only people in the world that are "responsible" enough to be allowed to have them. It's a little bit authoritarian to ask that a country pass a "background check" in order to be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Who is making the decisions about who passes that background check, huh? It sounds to me like the only test you need to pass to have nukes is "be one of Uncle Sam's drinking buddies." Iran should tell us, "shove a warhead up your ass, you jingoistic motherfucker." Nukes don't kill people, but people kill people. More Japanese died during the firebombing of Tokyo than due to nukes. The nukes just got the emperor's fucking attention more effectively.

With that taken care of, I do not care a rodent's rectum what kind of policy my country or my state or my municipality decides on for regulating guns. I truly do not give a fuck. However, if I meet one more person that assumes that I am some sort of ignoramus because I do not have any enthusiasm about the idea about owning a gun, I will literally bend the barrel around their necks, no matter how stumpy it is, and punch them in the eye. I was being taken on hunting trips with my father when I was a fucking infant because my mother was a negligent bitch that could not be assed to change a diaper. The reason why I don't like guns is overexposure. They are a fucking nuisance.

Thank you.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

By the way, I use the "give Iran nukes" tack because the sorts of jingoistic dipshits, whose idea of "freedom" is only intended to apply to white heterosexual protestants, really start to love the idea of background checks if you demonstrate how their favorite arguments can apply elsewhere, and when it works, I have noticed a trend of reasonable people starting to agree with each other. However you settle the argument, get the topic out of my politics. Whoever you are, I truly don't give a fuck who, settle on a compromise, so we can focus on more serious issues.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Electromagnetic pulse.
Look up the Starfish Prime nuclear test.

If an asteroid is close enough that a nuke would trigger an EMP it would be too close to deflect. Even with nukes, you'd need to be millions of km away to deflect any large space rock. Although composition matters too.
For EMPs you need to explode a nuke in the ionosphere, which is only a few 100 km.

Against a city-killer a contact-fused nuke will blow it into small enough bits it will turn Tunguska into Chelyabinsk. That's worth burning out some satellites.