Somehow This $10k Flame-Thrower Robot Dog Is Completely Legal in 48 States
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
As a Californian I knew I was going to be disappointed before I even opened the link.
I like the weather and the governance but we’re really not allowed to own anything fun. Can’t even own a ferret or a hedgehog.
https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-gender-reveal-california...
Communities should not be put at risk because some Americans want to cosplay as action movie heroes. What makes you think that flamethrowers of all things are going to be used responsibly?
What makes you think I want to cosplay as a hero? :-)
Many vendors sell riveted "10 round magazines" that can be converted back to standard-capacity with a pliers in 30 seconds.
I mean, there is good reason for this, ferrets are very hostile to the many ground nesting birds in California. Our state bird, the California quail, is exceedingly terrestrial, and that's before we even get started on the endangered shore birds, which are the real issue as I understand it.
Gun manufacturers somehow don't get sued into oblivion for how their products are used. I suspect that product teams found to be reckless in other categories don't have the same protections.
(Is a lawyer going to try to argue that the US Founding Fathers envisioned a well-regulated militia of robot dogs with flamethrowers on their backs?)
Intentional liability shields have been legally enshrined for arms manufacturers (and for good reason.)
> well-regulated militia
Can you please never repeat this line of reasoning again? This is well-settled jurisprudence, the most anti-2A SCOTUS Justices over the last 30 years unanimously agree individual arms ownership is a right (Caetano v Massachusetts), this fact is not in dispute: "well-regulated" means "in good working order," not "restricted."
Constitutionally-enshrined rights don't change because the English language happens to evolve in 200 years.
Edit: I just did some googling. A decent British army redcoat costume still costs more today than a brand new AR-15.
“Unlimited” (until you hit a limit then we limit your bandwidth)
The "well-regulated militia" argument was quickly defused by the Court because these people are actual legal scholars with extensive, relevant English and history educations.
My intended point was that, although this brand seems to be marketing adjacent to civilian "tactical" firearms enthusiasm, and maybe emboldened by conventions in that product category, I suspect it doesn't have the same protections.
In hindsight, I should've asked that as a question.
I.e., I don't hear people lamenting about the need for "Founding-era" precedent when it comes to suffrage rights
I wasn't a part of the NYSRPA v Bruen voting decision, you're welcome to read the jurists' extraordinarily well-written opinions regarding the law of the land here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Even if this document is intended to be a "living document," it should be changed through that amendment process, not executive edicts or regular statutes. Good luck.
> I don't hear people lamenting about the need for "Founding-era" precedent when it comes to suffrage rights
Perhaps because this was increasing liberty (rather than restricting it) and actually happened via Constitutional amendment?
"First, we reviewed “[t]hree important founding-era legal scholars [who] interpreted the Second Amendment in published writings.” Ibid. Second, we looked to “19th-century cases that interpreted the Second Amendment...”"
>it should be changed through that amendment process
I think we agree here. Not saying you hold this position, but there does often seem to be a bias for favored causes, though. E.g., constrained to using the amendment process when it comes to limiting gun rights, but no such argument when it comes to edicts that limit voting rights. I would just like to see consistency in thought/principle (again, not claiming you take a biased view).
>Perhaps because this was adding additional liberty
So just to stress test this idea, you would be in favor of any additional liberty that went through the amendment process? E.g., would you think it beneficial to allow citizens rights to nuclear procurement as long as it went through an amendment process? Or reducing the voting age to 10 years old? I.e., do you tend to think more liberty is always better?
The Constitution does very little to regulate voting or define the election process: substantial responsibilities are placed upon the States and Congress to establish the parameters around the exercise of this specific right.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." is highly explicit and unambiguous. (without delving into the legal shitshow that is "shall"..)
> So just to stress test this idea
This sounds dangerously like the setup to a strawman generalization: I was postulating specifically on suffrage and why people might not be presently "lamenting" a widely-accepted-as-positive increase to liberty.
> you would be in favor of any additional liberty that went through the amendment process?
Generally, yes! I trust our 50 state legislatures to make the right choices. All of these hypotheticals probably would never survive the process: whether I alone think it's "beneficial" isn't relevant.
This is applying a hindsight bias. Do you think it was widely-accepted-as-a-positive when first implemented? Similarly, I don’t know that we can pretend to know a-priori whether changes to the status quo on gun rights may be seen as a “widely” accepted positive or negative.
I think your personal opinion is relevant because it gives context. Forums aren’t the greatest when it comes to nuanced discussion, and understanding someones thought process helps to understand if they take an appropriately nuanced view. When it’s clear they do not, there’s not much interest in further discussion because they lose some credibility.
No, but again we were talking about the present.
> we can pretend to know a-priori whether changes to the status quo on gun rights
We don't need to pretend, thankfully: we have mountains of historical data on arms regulation we can cite - many of these regulations currently exist or existed for some substantial amount of time (and possibly ran/run afoul of current liberty-preserving SCOTUS 2A interpretation.)
The typical argument is: "Well, if we just banned them all it would work! We didn't go far enough, that's why!"
If this were a widely accepted idea, we would have ratified an amendment repealing the Second already.
If they were what about cars, knives, forks, pointy objects, plastic bags, bricks, hammers, machetes, &c.
Well you can thank the gun manufacturer liability shield laws for that. Like the The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005.
One can still sue an arms manufacturer if a faulty product explodes in their face.. they just can't cry foul about what other people do with these lawful products.
I think it's a bit more nuanced. This statement is mainly related to manufacturing defects, but there are other avenues to liability more related to "reasonableness". It's also important to note this has changed over time, from former negligence liabilities to the current form of strict liability. (Point being: how society defines liability changes)
Because they (along with the NRA and others) donate to the politicians, that's the only reason gun control is never legitimately on the table.
I think what the OP was referring to was the case where lobbying impacts the alignment between representatives and their constituents.
I think the more real impact of this will be an increase in the number wildfires, and the domino effect that causes - like gobbling up entire forests or burning up homes. I guess you can argue it's not any different compared to a flamethrower gun.
BUT..when you are remote controlling the thing that shoots fire, it could lead to a sense of dissociation or desensitization. It may feel like a game, than reality. I hope that makes sense.
But any SMG or carbine could be installed quite easily.
A SMG or autopistol . . maybe. Something like the Skorpion, firing .32 ACP, might be low recoil enough for aimed fire.
[1] There's a few categories here, and popular/legal categories differ from military ones. Legal "machine guns" include firearm capable of automatic fire, but this includes: 1) Autopistols and submachine guns (SMGs) fire pistol calibers, from .22LR (American 180) to .45 ACP (Thompson); 2) Assault Rifles, firing intermediate power cartridges like .223 and 7.62x39mm; 3) Battle Rifles are firing full power rifle cartridges - .308 Winchester and 7.62x54mm- from a box or drum magazine and can fire in full auto[a]; 4) General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) capable of sustained belt-fed rapid fire with full-power rifle cartridges; 5) Here we're entering the realm of support weapons[b], firing Heavy Machine Gun rounds like .50 BMG, 12.7mm, 14mm, and other weapons like the Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher or the M134 Minigun (which fires .308 but a whole lot of them).
[1.a] Lots and LOTS of Internet Tough Guys will insist that the M14 or FAL on full auto is totally controllable by Real Men - i.e., it's only the sissification of our cucked armed forces that have brought on the curse of the Intermediate Cartridge. I'll leave judgement to the reader. Incidentally, the Venn Diagram of "Battle Rifle" and the older 1900s-1930s term "Light Machine Gun" is, functionally, a single large circle - it's just the advancement in materials and machining that make them any different. So why didn't LMGs take off back when men were Manly Men and could handle the POWER? Heh heh heh heh yeah. Physics wins again.
[1.b] Needless to say, a whole other category of internet moron insists that .50 BMG on autofire is controllable by a "man enough" infantryman operating singly. I'm sorry that this opinion exists, like, as a human being, but make your own judgement, as always.
Edit, nevermind, it was a little buried: https://throwflame.com/products/napalm-mix-fuel-gelling-agen...
The higher end one from the same maker can carry 12kg of stuff.
Despite being literally armaments of fire
Please do not do this. Use a propane torch. A flamethrower literally throws burning fluids. It will melt the ice, then a ribbon of fire will flow down your driveway. It may then melt or even ignite your asphalt.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/rkxlz1/cl...
In the wars and battles flamethrowers are famous for, Marines were doing shit like collecting skulls. Neither side was in a hostage taking mood.
On an active fire, traditional approaches on the ground involve figuring out where the fire is going, and squeezing it on the sides until it becomes manageable at the point. Backburns are sometimes used (under very specific conditions) to create areas of black (black meaning burned). Black is safe - removes flashy fuels at the front, and can corral the fire's ability to run. However, you do not want to be downwind of a fire, so backburns are used sparingly, and rarely in front of really dangerous fires. If you lay a backburn right with drip torches, you can actually encourage your fire to run backwards (back in backburn) into the active fire by burning the area closest to you, then burning closer and closer to the active fire, even against the wind. This robot could potentially allow us to set deeper backburns, so more effective counterfires. I am skeptical of my own argument because of price point (not sure how you can thermal shield to avoid sacrificing a bot, though to be fair, backburns don't generally get that hot immediately). That's the active side.
On the passive side, we have incredibly unhealthy forests on the west coast. We have changed our approaches but are toughing through the tail end of the consequences not allowing the natural cycle to cleanse ladder fuels from forests. We also live closer to the urban wildland interface nowadays. On the climate change side, we are getting more lightning strikes, which are the primary cause of western wildfires, and you can make an argument that wind patterns are changing. Bark beetles, surprisingly enough, are probably not causative (I will avoid this rabbithole but it's intuitively quite offputting), though they are spreading northward to novel biomes by the day. To get to the point, we have a ton of biomass that is dangerous to have in forests, and it's several orders of magnitude larger than our current work capacity within the USFS/BLM, even just waving off Alaska as a lost cause. Planned burns are increasingly socially accepted, and robots like these may offer an increased level of fire control, multiply work capacity, and minimize person risk. This is a much stickier argument (a lot of coordination, training, predicting demand increase for planned burns) but I'll wait to see.
I'd say bear case for using these things on fire is survivability, but also fuel load capacity, air possibly being a better resource vector (e.g. napalm bomblets), and departmental adoption, not to even address the standard swathe of hard problems (movement planning, battery capacity, dist syst for hell machines) that we all recognize here. I'm not optimistic, but I'm extremely curious to see how things go.
(I got caught in a small house fire as a child. All I remember is not being able to breathe or see anything. I had to basically feel my way out of the house.)
I think that this would be obvious: "Gee, I'd sure like to set something on fire over there, but I'm way too far way to get the job done. If only I had something that would throw flame..."