retrospec | Public Service Announcement: Weapons Laws

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Public Service Announcement: Weapons Laws

Hello. For those of you who haven’t met me, this is Officer Hitori Togusa, Recolle Police Department. I wanted to address the fact that quite a few people have been receiving weapons from Retrospec. We’ve been seeing weapons of all kinds, firearms, bladed weapons, things that you would normally see in a martial arts movie. Secondly, we’ve gotten reports that attempts to get rid of these items do not work. Retrospec has somehow gotten ahold of them and sent them back to users if they are thrown away or confiscated.

So let’s talk safety, instead. Weapons laws are in place for the safety of not just the public, but of the users of these weapons. There are a lot of details to these laws, but I wanted to provide a quick overview for people, so that we can all get through this situation a lot more safely and responsibly.

In short, no, we can’t go around confiscating everyone’s weapons, and frankly, we don’t want to. Especially after last month, it would be unfair to disarm everybody. But people are also getting back weapons that they don’t know how to use, or things they’ve never seen before. So my goal here is really just to make everybody safer in this situation we’ve been thrown into.

Firearms: A lot of people have been getting firearms of all kinds, pistols, rifles, even some guns that don’t fire physical projectiles. For gun ownership, my first piece of advice would be to go to the Deadeye shooting range and take their basic safety course. It is a requirement if you want to register your weapon, which we’ll get to in a minute. But learn how to handle the gun, how to store it, how to clean it, there’s a lot more than just learning to fire it properly.

Registration is a different matter. Retrospec seems to have no consideration of gun laws, so the possiblity that people under the legal age have been handed firearms is strong. In those cases, if there’s a way that the gun can be registered under a parent or guardian, I would very highly suggest it. But, if you want to carry your gun at all, it needs to be registered with the Public Safety Office. As a side note, concealed carry is a complete other matter, and requires an extra course and a background check to be able to do that. Follow up with anyone at the Police Department or Public Safety if you really want to know what you have to do for a concealed permit for a handgun.

But what about those guns that don’t fire projectiles? Despite the name, are they still firearms if they shoot fire? Or lasers? Under the national guidelines, they still count as a ‘destructive device.’ On this one, the law has taken into account that weapons technology is getting more advanced. They still can be legally registered.

What if the gun you got is older, or seems to have a flintlock mechanism? The registration you might look for here would be to register it as an antique, or as a show piece. There’s also a special registration for black powder weapons, and I can’t believe I have to point that out, but I’m trying to cover everyone’s bases here.

What if you got a fully-automatic rifle? In that case, we’re going to have to talk, there’s no two ways around it. Bring it to one of the Officers who is on the application. Again, we don’t want to confiscate it, since we can’t, but we want to make sure these are handled as safely as possible.

Knives and Swords: The good news is that there isn’t an age limit on ownership of knives and swords. There’s an age limit on purchasing swords, but for some reason, once you have it, there’s no problem.

The bad news is carrying them around. Concealed carry is illegal, so if you have to carry that katana with you because we’re six inches tall again and there are rats going to kill us? Don’t hide it. Carry of weapons with a spring-action is illegal, as are ballisong-type folding blades.

Swords also come with their own safety and care, especially katanas, but I don’t know who is the best authority on this matter. If anyone has experience in iaijitsu, kendo, or the like, please speak up, I’m sure there are people out there who suddenly have swords that they would not like to rust away.

Non-traditional blades fall under a lot of the same rules. I’ve seen people mentioning spears? Multiple people? Retrospec, you’ve got an odd sense of humor. Concealed carry isn’t permitted, even though it would be a lot harder with that sort of weapon.

I have to make a last note for weapons that don’t seem to physically exist. Things that exist as a part of a power set, or might be tied to an individual’s spirit. This last month has been very trying for my sense of what is real and what isn’t? But that’s no reason for me to ignore what I’m seeing.

We can’t regulate the powers that people are attaining. We shouldn’t regulate the powers that people are getting. They’re a part of you, you didn’t do anything wrong to get them, and even if they feel like they might be dangerous? Persecuting you for it is absolutely wrong. I can only urge you to try to learn how to use them, it would be your personal responsibility to keep the people around you safe. And it would be wrong of me or any other authority to try to take that responsibility out of your hands. It’s something that you are, not something that you just have.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I’m unwilling to believe that we can’t keep this city safer if we just keep in communication with each other and stick as close to the law as Retrospec is allowing us to.

Thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I hope that I won't need any of this information, but thanks for at least getting it out there.

I do have other questions for you, or maybe another officer that's on this app if this isn't in your sphere of knowledge.

If I can help, I'll try to.

If you'd rather, though, Detective Noah Gabranth and Detective Ichirou Matsuoka are the ranking officers on the application now.

[Now, because Togusa had the same very disturbing experience that Yoon-sung did, with a different superior officer suddenly not knowing what he was talking about.]

I left out a couple little facts from what I said about the farm? I was still trying to figure them out, if they mean anything or just something stupid, but considering that I've gained a skill that could be lethal, well. I think I should find out more about that kind of setting just in case.

My recommendations still stay the same, but with the caution that they might know nothing. They're just my best guess because I don't know much about their assignments before I joined on for Detective Gabranth, and before he was here for Detective Matsuoka.

As for the gained skill, are you all right?

Well... child soldiers and drug trafficking are the areas I want to look into.

I'm fine. I think I'm fine.

Fuck. This is where we all are now. I know you mean it in the much more literal sense, not the way I've been throwing around the term. But what else do you call a bunch of 19 year-olds, at best, who keep having memories of shooting rifles and fighting monsters?

Oddly enough, my guess still goes to Gabranth.

I do. I think I was something like eight or ten or in between there going through some really screwed up stuff. After that, well, okay you know my PA? The one that isn't himself any more? He's also my bodyguard and has been schooling me in self defense. I suck at it, or I did. Now I have to pull back my blows otherwise I would be pounding the shit out of the poor guy's skull. It's nothing dramatic as shooting lasers out of my eyes, but at the same time, lethal.

I would take memories of fighting monsters over this tbh. I feel bad for them, but yet, I think monsters are easier to handle then people.

I'm sorry. I get what you mean though. At least the monsters, it can still feel like something out of a nightmare. This is something that you don't want to exist. It's too real.

[Even though he's older, there's still a flash of anger on the Yoon-sung's behalf. The same feeling that he holds for Dante and Cleo, and everyone else suddenly finding themselves so dangerous so young.]

I've been talking before with other people about choice. So what would you rather? To know the rest of these memories, or if we found a way to change us back, to turn all of us back into your PA. That's been my end game plan, but I am starting to question if that's the right move.

Is there a quote or something about how Hell is empty because the devils are humans now? But yes, that's what it feels like. It's too real.

[ He wasn't looking for any sympathy over it; it felt like it was in the past even if the skills were translating to his usual workout routine. ]

My choice? To go back to being clueless or to learn more? You're seriously asking me that?

Yes. Of course.

Is what we're learning worth the cost of what it's taking to learn it? What choice would you make for yourself?

I'm still willing to learn. But that's because the cost hasn't risen too high for me, personally. I don't know what will happen if I ever cross that threshold.

Is it justice to stand back and forget what we are learning? Is it right?

Something happened to us that we get these hallucimemories and no one else. Why? Who did it? Are we remembering a past life or are we getting flashbacks to a past that was scrubbed from our minds by an alien force? Would it be fair if we lost that connection again, especially to that old self?

[ Togusa just triggered Yoon-sung's strong moral code here. He might fight against seeing others harmed, but he doesn't have the same regard to his own life or well-being. ]

I want to know more.

No. You're right.

Everybody should have the right to decide whether they are going to try to find out more, on their own. And maybe that's why I am so angry at Retrospec, because it feels like they're the ones robbing people of the ability to choose. When the memories are painful, even the people who do want to know more? Nobody is getting the chance to deal with it on their own time.

Even so. Why us?

You sound certain about the reincarnation idea. Whether it's literal or not, there's something that ties us to these people we're seeing?

I've theorized that we're being treated like some kind of PC characters inside of a virtual reality. The way things are with the missing colors or the shrinking sizes and how everyone else acts like it's normal while we don't... it makes things feel like a game system that's trying out a new feature or something. Again I'm just saying that because I'm use to how games work. Because PC characters do notice glitches while NPCs don't, like when you can go through a wall and they just stand around like you didn't and so on.

It's not a perfect theory, it's just what all this reminds me of.

I agree. We should have the right to remember or not remember. We should be able to try to work it out on our own and not let something else force the memories on us. But I doubt that whatever is doing this to us isn't going to stop. So maybe we need to make the system work with us.

The person I'm seeing feels like me. He's harder, closed off, but still feels like me. If he isn't a me from the past or from a different timeline, then whatever is causing the hallucimemories is using pieces of my mind to bring out a fantastic tale.

Good to know you see your own bias on perspective. But it still makes a lot of sense. That whatever the simulation is, it's for...our benefit? If what everyone is seeing is being hacked, though? Hacked, altered, whatever term you want to put on it? Who is the illusion for? Us, or the people outside?

But I agree that we need to get these memories to work with us, work for us. To accept the things that fit with what we know about ourselves, and maybe try to set aside the things that don't work. If it's a story, it's one you get to write. I like that.

Maybe? I'm not sure though. At one point, it almost feels like the system hack we're experiencing is less personal before it switches to something that we could call normal. I might not be making much sense. The illusion might be for the people outside. Not the NPCs, but we don't know what is outside of this. Yet.

I might take a shot at figuring out how to make my one memory work. It's not good, but since I am looking at a memory of being completely at ease around men carrying weapons I don't like? Maybe I can force the issue by trying to learn something about the weapons.

Trying to force it? Getting yourself to confront it? I'd always recommend people learn to use at least one weapon, guns aren't for everyone, though, if you aren't at ease around them. But it's really just like picking up any other skill.

If you get a sudden boost, for lack of a better term, by remembering things? All the better.

I don't like guns. I don't like the noise or the feel of them. I have had some experiences with them that never made them pleasant to be around but those memory things? I think that guns are a part of it.

And I want to be ready. Even if I don't like them. And if it triggers memories or whatever? I guess I can live with that too.

Then let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Like I said up there, my primary concern is everybody being safe. If you get handed a gun before you know how to use it, I can at least teach you the basics, and, most importantly, how to handle it safely, so you don't put yourself or anyone else at risk. If the memories come back later, then, well. I can try to help deal with it, then.

I will. Maybe I will head to a place where I can practice at least. IDEK at this point.

Thanks for letting me talk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Public Service Announcement: Weapons Laws

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