Honest question: How is this relevant to Hacker News? As a non-American i was rather bewildered to find this here. Is there a serious overlap between gun enthusiasts and the IT community in the US?
The engineering and physics involved in building/tuning guns and shooting accurately is very interesting.
Furthermore, the "renegade" spirit required to reject the status-quo and push the envelope in science and engineering attracts quite a few of the same types of people.
Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every basically qualified engineer or physicist should be capable to building from readily available materials and tools -- makes them even more interesting. If for no other reason than to illuminate preposterous and insulting nature of the idea.
IMHO. ;)
Again, surely you mean in the US? All engineers I have ever worked with or met are almost the exact opposite of this.
IMHO ;-)
If CZ ends up picking up Colt Canada too, seems like they'd be in good hands.
The difference is in gun culture. Very few Europeans identify with guns as much as Americans occasionally do.
It’s an issue that’s become culturally politicized. I bet folks in Switzerland don’t say stuff like “people in other cantons cling to their guns and religion.”
(Czechia does has a strong civilian ownership, however)
Europe is a more diverse place ideologically and socially than most Americans tend to imagine it. The place is bigger and more complex than just Paris or Berlin, just like how America is not just NY or Houston.
I've heard from friends there is a similar passion in many towns in Germany and Austria. I would venture a guess that outside many European cities shooting for sport is much more commonplace.
https://blog.westernpowders.com/2017/11/schuetzen-the-purest...
There's also a significant, separate overlap between computer geeks and people that like to exercise their rights (See: Crypto Wars) which results in non hunting gunowners.
In my father's generation there were a ton of hunters (something like 70% of my in laws), but I have met a single person who hunts in my career in IT in Europe.
Guns for personal defence/sport are just not common on this side of the pond, I think.
Can confirm we love our guns from the engineering aspect among other reasons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Campus_carry_map_of_US_st...
It would be an amazing coincidence if none of your coworkers were interested in guns. Around 30% of Californians have at least one gun in their home. Naively extrapolating: that means if you have 15 coworkers, there is a 99.5% chance that at least one of them owns a gun. Even if only 10% of bay area techies have guns, the odds that at least one of your coworkers has a gun is still over 80%.
When my hobby became publicly known at work, I suddenly discovered I had quite a few coworkers who liked guns. They were quiet about it at work because they were afraid (rightfully) of hurting their careers.
Good times! Could never do this these days in Silicon Valley though :(
If you want to go down to the range after-work, by all means do so, but the way you Americans trivialise a toy good for nothing but war in many cases is really fascinating.
Firearms are most definitely not toys. A bring your gun to work day is a way for coworkers to bond outside of work as well as a great learning experience for the ones without much knowledge on how to safely and responsibly handle a firearm. It’s also a lot of fun shooting targets.
Ever heard of hunters? A LOT of people hunt. Also, until relatively recently it was common for american kids to bring guns to schools, and leave them in their car until after school so they could go hunting, etc. Instead of addressing things like mental health issues, it's easier to demonize guns because the politicians don't actually have to do anything other than introduce token legislation.
It's a right written in the constitution, and only referring to guns as "weapons of war" is political rhetoric. And hunting is not the only reason to own a gun- that's also political rhetoric.
By this logic, almost nothing should be banned, do you endorse that position?
I assume your response was probably born out of some political frustration, and I respect that. Happy to discuss specifics of the this position on the practicality and effectiveness of gun bans.
Where are you going to get the bullets from? Or for a shotgun, where is the powder from, the pellets etc.
I live in the UK, I quite like clay pigeon shooting, would it be a shock to you that American mass shootings basically aren't news worthy anymore unless they are more than 2 dozen people now?
I just think “an expert can make this in their garage” is a really bad reason to legalize something. I don’t think IEDs or street meth should be legal. (Apple M1s and LSD are probably fine though.)
Frightened, ignorant (of the state of the art) people are led to believe "banning" is helping them "making them safe", when instead it is harming them: nobody law-abiding remains to come to their aid, while abusers and thugs wield powerful weapons, unopposed. Instead, benighted government officials ban common farmer livestock varmint rifles by the hundreds of thousands (see: Canada, just now).
So, no -- if someone wants to ban something, then they should darn well consult with anyone who knows something about that item, to see if A) it makes sense, and B) if it will actually prevent the violent from obtaining/using it.
I am glad this article was posted. Thank you.
Plus it's a story about a finical acquisition of a famed American brand so its a trisect of "interesting to hackers" of the HN sort.
Not to mention the very fast growing 3d-printed gun parts and DIY smithing groups within these committees where it gets technical very fast.
This makes no sense. Assaulting someone is illegal, but anyone can do it. It's still illegal.
What?
We also ban nuclear and biological weapons for good reason. Does it really matter that they are harder to obtain? (Tip: They won't be in the long run, there was a time when guns were hard to make too).
I’m sure you would care if the thing we’re banning is something you like that doesn’t hurt anyone.
> We also ban nuclear and biological weapons for good reason.
Do we? I thought we built them and kept them ready to use.
> Phrasing it in Latin doesn't make it any more compelling either.
Those are legal terms because actual judges, lawyers, law enforcement officers, and others have discussed this extensively and determined that the distinction is relevant.
As a Brit, our gun controls work quite well. It basically means the idiot down the pub is not allowed to have a rifle/pistol. It's not like they cease to exist - we're still the world's #2 arms exporter.
A) A pulse on market frothiness
B) A pulse on who is opening their purse and looking
C) National security implications from the foreign purchaser of American munitions creator
D) C but with Eastern Europe. A lot of Silicon Valley is funded by funds with Russian general partners using British Virgin Islands entities which have Russian limited partners who made all their money with all the underpriced public assets in Russia, aka Oligarchs. Our salaries in a lot of startups come from Russian oligarchs. We consider that controversial because so much energy is also spent vilifying Russia and their money and its also hilarious that we are making them wealthy too, while they provide the capital to make us wealthy. So people pay attention to other constructive ways of getting Russian money into US assets. Soviet Union and satellite states are just too obvious. Even though one might as well use the Cayman Islands or British Virgin Islands.
E) No national security implication and just liking CZG and their quality control, and how that affects the general Czech gun image and brand.
F) Americans have a general consensus in favor of gun use, gun trading, gun modification, for vary wide ranges of reasons. Similar to computers and tinkering. So it will be rare to find a US-centric forum that fairly often posts culture related articles that would ignore this.
So this headline is a perfect storm. To the top, boys!
Anecdotally, but yes. Same with cars, AV & musical gear, other technical-ish stuff.
I chalk it up to technical / engineering mentalities, disposable income, and US culture. Give nerds money and the ability to blow stuff up... and they'll blow stuff up.
Anyways there are lot of SV entrepreneurs on HN so an (old) american company sold to a European (especially from the former Eastern block) is always relevant.
Also HN is much more than an "IT community" I think, much more diverse
Do I carry one with me? No. Do I have any set up for home defense? No. Do I enjoy shooting high power rifles at the range on the weekend? You bet I do.
FWIW I own more tech stuff by value than guns, so, there's that.
Most of the innovations in computers and tech are direct results from military arms research.
Silicon Valley didn’t just sprout from nothing. There were lots of engineers in the area that worked to support military contract making weapons, and their kids started computer companies.
(The term "IT worker" doesn't translate well globally.)
But yeah, the in-industry definitions are that "IT" is business-side support & project roles, while CS / Dev are coders.
To be faaaaaair, without Colt's revolutionary wheely gat, the 1911 may not have happened when it did. Let that marinate.
HELL YEA! Seriously, that time period was just dumped with brilliance in its own right, especially in engineering. It's so amazing what accomplishments were made with such basic tech. I mean seriously, the basic machine shop these days is FAR more advanced than what was available to the engineering cats back then. But those folks were spitting out brilliance like we use toilet paper after a pre-pandemic taco Tuesday.
There's a part of me that thinks our general mindset to engineering, learning and research is fundamentally different compared to that golden era of science and engineering. Honestly, I think it's for the worst. We're too subservient to technology rather than being the ones holding the chains and whips to the machines. That's going to be our downfall. Being switches to the machines and not knowing when to switch them off.
Seems more relevant than the homeless grant article tbh.
For the record I don't mind either article and clicked on both.
But as I’ve aged, I see class structures and the power of the elites much more clearly. I see how systems can be more violent than people. And that individuals do not have a lot of power these days because society is filled with so many systems.
Owning a gun returns some power to the individual. I don’t want my power for defense given to the police, I want to control that power. I don’t care if the situations I want it for will never happen, I want the comfort of having that power.
This, exactly. But also:
> we should ban them.
That “we” does a lot of heavy lifting to obscure that fact that the prohibition of guns consists of people with guns telling other people when they may and may not have guns.
The prior things pay the bills. Guns are for pleasure. Long range shooting beats meditation and yoga.
(From my experience, I don't think US IT workers are particularly pro-guns any more than average Americans.)