Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

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Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies that are exhibitors or attendees at the annual SHOT trade show, are not very scared of the Californian AG yet.

I'm unaware of the Californians attempting to seize anyone's domain name over this issue. But indeed this also seems like an overreach, California doesn't get to regulate what an Internet gun accessory store in Idaho advertises or publishes on the Internet. State to state transfers of serialized items go through a well defined federal government regulated process, such as if a person in Nebraska buys a Zastava M70 online from a dealer in Montana.

Damn, I didn't even considered this angle. Lot's 18+ items dont actually require age verification online. Yet porn/socials are being subjected to it.

Just shows what priorities are.

Items require payments which usually would be a credit card. Kids cannot get a credit card on their own as far as I know so the parents have to be involved in some way. (Obviously there are alternatives like paypal, prepaid debit cards, etc but it is quite a bit harder to actual get the item).

Hard to get prepaid debit cards? They sell them anywhere with a cash register these days.

Are you suggesting this is fine for sites outside the scope of Texas's specific ire?

I am not saying it is hard to get a prepaid debit card. I explicitly mentioned it as a workaround. I am saying that it is harder to get buy a physical item over the internet then to just visit a site.

Guns are good and equal freedom. Boobs are bad and lead to degeneracy. I hate this place.

Its only because every last thing in modern life is based on a lie.

Most of these lies can be traced back to someone controlling something to preserve or increase wealth.

So if I happen to have guns for boobs, and I go around topless showing off my gun-boobs, am I a magnificent symbol of liberty or am I deplorably degenerate?

The ID (and therefore the age) is checked when one goes to pick up their firearm at the local FFL dealer, so an age check on the site doesn't add anything useful.

Correct, I was referring to the websites that have implemented only the most basic fig leaf of legal compliance (ca. 2001 era HTML popup of "are you over 18?") to be able to browse the product selection, even of items that aren't serialized/FFL 4473-requiring firearms receivers. Like, yes, I totally need to confirm that I'm over 18 to look at this Streamlight flashlight.

But you see, guns aren't harmful to small children. It's that damn pornography. Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life, but man, seeing a private area? Life ruined.

Of course, once the number of years since you were born reaches exactly 18, your brain automatically shuts off the part of you that is impossibly traumatized by private areas, so it's suddenly completely okay and normal.

Oh, and when you reach exactly 16, somehow you're only impossibly traumatized by private areas on the screen, not in-person. Everyone knows this is true.

(I don't mean to be genuinely insensitive about the real harms that adult content can pose. I just think there's a difference between calling content harmful simply because it's adult and content causing harm because the viewer isn't ready for it)

It also makes complete and total sense that you can sell your body by joining the Marines as an 0311 MOS rifleman/grunt on your 18th birthday, but you're going straight to hell if you have an alcoholic drink before you're 21. I don't know if I've ever met a European who doesn't think the US's alcohol age laws are weird.

I have a cousin who lives in Illinois and joined the Marines. He's 20 now. He can shoot fully automatic weapons in the military and has won awards for handgun precision and skill.

But he can't buy a handgun in his home state or drink a beer.

Make it make sense.

It’s my understanding, for the most part, that they do not have constant access to fire arms, that they are somewhat tightly controlled on base precisely because the army has learn widespread indiscriminate access is a safety problem despite all this training.

The army "learned" no such thing. There was never a safety problem with guns on military bases. Guns were banned by Bill Clinton as part of a broader gun control push by the Democrats.

The effect has been the opposite of increased safety. We've had a couple of unopposed mass murder incidents on US military bases since the ban went into effect, most notably by Nidal Hasan, who was able to kill 13 and wound 33 because nobody else had a weapon.

Joining the military helps the government achieve its goals. Having a gun at home doesn't, and drinking doesn't. You scratch the government's back, and it'll scratch yours.

Honestly I think the legal age for drinking could be lower if only society treated it better. A lot of drinkers are not only reckless but brought up to be reckless by how society treats them, what society expects of them, peer pressure, etc.

Similarly to how I'm salty about having to obtain LSD from black markets instead of having a known safe supply from a pharmacy. I trust my vendor, but the skill to not only find the market but to find the vendor and actually execute the ordering process is not easy to come by.

A lot more things could be available if people were properly informed and not just fed propaganda about how they're waay too dangerous. It's completely possible to be responsible about substances, it's called harm reduction. Also prescriptions are a thing -- even if I had to get a prescription from my doctor, I would even be fine with that as long as I'd get to take it at home.

I've always been curious what means and criteria one can use to vet a synthetic drug.

Do you mean well-known drugs or new drugs? Tests have been developed for well-known drugs, and at big parties there are often harm-reduction charities offering free or cheap drug testing.

I mean established ones. I'm aware of the narcotic safety tests, but have no idea how one might check the quality of a psychedelic like LSD before taking it.

Reagent tests are the standard for that. They're basically a bunch of acids that change colors depending on what they're mixed with. You test some samples with a bunch of them, and the way each one changes colors tells you what is or isn't in the samples. Ehrlich reagent is good for checking for the presence of LSD, others are good for ruling out adulterants. Fent strips for example are used to check for presence of fentanyl. You can get all of the above from places like DanceSafe.

For a few years after states raised the drinking age to 21, you could still drink at 18 on a military base. Even today base commanders still have the ability to lower the age to 18 if there's a nearby international border over which personnel can drink at that age.

Yes, US alcohol laws are stupid. Modern temperance activists were able to greatly restrict legal access to booze using anti-drunk driving "for the children" rhetoric.

> Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life

It's even worse, the children might see a gun and want one! California can't have that.

> I'm unaware of the Californians attempting to seize anyone's domain name over this issue.

They may not be attacking the domain but they're attempting to leverage the US Legal system to shut down operations. Arguably that's even worse- they can't just move to another domain/tld.

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