Defense Distributed’s New 3D Printed High Capacity Gun Magazine ‘Cuomo’
idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com
idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com
I don't know how it ever became generally accepted that every possible object and action must be regulated by the nanny state. Pretty soon that idea will be dead forever.
Strawman. That's not generally accepted, not even seriously suggested by anyone except strawmen-builders.
The generally accepted idea is that it's the job of any state to regulate actions that cause serious harm to people.
Disagreements abound about what actions exactly count as causing harm, and what form the regulations should take; specifically how far they should go in preventing such actions instead of just punishing them.
My general issue with regulations and laws is not that they're passed and used as a preventative, but that much of the time they're generally "kneejerk reactions" to whatever the hot topic is in the news at the moment. Usually means they're rarely well thought out as to what the consequences of such regulation will be in the future and tend to be full of self-interests that go against what the law/regulation is supposed to prevent in the first place. Such laws are also time-sensitive to politicians, since they feel they need to push it out while the issue is still interesting to the majority of voters. All of that just makes for what will most likely be a bad law/regulation more than a good one.
Politicians end up viewing new laws on top of old laws as an easy way to make people shut up about an issue for the time being instead of making people take responsibility and deal with the reason the law is supposidly needed in the first place. Makes them look good and something concrete they can point to that they did something while elected when elections come around.
If there were more discussion about whether a law is needed and the consequences, there would probably be less complaining about such laws and regulations further down the road and make everyone a bit less disgruntled even if everyone cannot be happy.
Shooting someone is already a crime and always has been.
Posessing a magazine with more than 7 rounds is not an action at all, and does not harm anyone.
The reason the parent used the word "nanny state" is because he's describing laws that prohibit things for which there is no victim.
Possessing a magazine does not cause harm to anyone. There are already laws against causing harm to people.
However, punishing people who do it does not make those they shot come back to life. Preventing harm is generally much more desirable than punishing those who cause it afterwards. And no, punishment does not do much to prevent mass shootings. Not having a large magazine IS it least somewhat effective to limit the damage one person can do.
Now the question is what preventive regulations are effective and whether their side effects are accceptable. I do have to wonder what exactly are the unacceptable side effects of disallowing large magazines.
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/RegulatoryServices/narcotics/na...
http://www.crscientific.com/texas-glassware.html
Keep in mind that TX generally has a pro-gun population.
Example: http://aresarmor.com/
Go head and read some of the info on this company, which is selling parts that are unfinished components of an AR-15 rifle. Essentially, they sell you an almost complete lower receiver (the part the ATF considers to be the "gun"), and you use some supplied jigs and a drill press to finish the job. Presto: untraceable, unserialized rifle unencumbered by federal rules on firearms regulated by interstate commerce.
Remember prohibition? They used to sell "grape juice concentrate" that could be mixed with water, stored in a jug for an appropriate period of time, and presto: wine.
All you need is a reasonably substantial proportion of the population willing to conspire with each other to avoid/subvert/ignore the law and you've got status quo. IMHO, restricting access to firearms will have a measurable, but ultimately negligible effect on death by firearms in the US.
It's not really an issue as long as some firearms (and thus some ammunition) is relatively unregulated; you could easily have a world where only single-shot hunting weapons are available, then use the ammunition from those (either intact or by disassembling and reloading) for other weapons.
Still, I aspire to owning an ammunition company; I wish ATK were for sale.
Basically the same thing was done in WW2.
Until 3D printers capable of printing firearms-grade metal, they aren't actually making it easier to for the vast majority of people to acquire firearms who would otherwise have to go through the regulated process. Of course, the entirety of the hysteria is based on the flawed logic that if everyone suddenly has easier(subjective) access to firearms, then everyone will start killing each other.
The reason people are looking at ways to "print" banned firearms parts is because they aren't available or are restricted in some fashion.
For anyone whose wondered why "gun nuts" want these "high capacity" magazines, the answer is very simple: Loading a mag is often a pain in the butt. It's a lot more fun to go to the range with a bunch of loaded magazines, shoot for several hours and then go home, rather than be loading magazines every 5 minutes. It's that simple. (Though of course there are cases where people have needed the higher capacity, like the recent news story about the shop-keeper who defended his store and customers with a pistol with 17 rounds.)
"Assault Weapon" is another made up term to make guns sound scary. Most people seem to think there are people running around with full auto machine guns out there.
In the 1990s the ban on "assault weapons" prohibited cosmetic and safety items, not anything that made guns more lethal. (EG: flash suppressor lets you not get blinded when shooting at night, "grenade launchers" are just tubes on WWII era weapons, grenades themselves long being made illegal, but the media loves to talk about the police discovering "grenade launchers", pistol grips and collapsable butt stocks are just ergonomics, the former promoting better form.)
Lately the popular term is "assault rifle" which have been effectively banned since 1934, and their manufacture totally banned since the mid 1980s. Plus if we're strictly speaking that term only applies to a particular rifle produced in germany in WWII.
The reason for this dishonest use of political terms is really easy: There's effectively no difference between an AK-47 and a hunting rifle, except that the AK has been demonized.
Previously demonized weapons: The "sawed off shotgun" which was a modification made by italian shop owners who wanted to be able to defend themselves against the mafia shaking them down, but didn't want to penetrate the wall and hit innocent bystanders. Thus shortening the barrel, which produces a wider spread and less collatoral damage. The mafia couldn't have that, so they got their politicans to demonize and then ban them. Racist gun control.
The "saturday night special" was nothing special at all, just the more popular firearm for poor black people living in dangerous areas to defend themselves. They couldn't afford more expensive firearms and they had a real need to defend themselves from the criminal elements, but we couldn't have that, could we? It's not a coincidence that the ghettos have become overrun with violence since the "saturday night special" was criminalized.
I could go on, the entire gun control political movement is based on misrepresentation (eg: "glocks are all plastic and undetectable by airport scanners!" which has never been true) and the ignorance of the general public.
Guns kill people like spoons make people fat. It's non-sensical, and proof positive that politicians don't have your best interests at heart when they say "oh, little girl, you should just get raped, rather than defend yourself with a pistol", which is what they're doing here.
Didn't Vancouver and London just have serious riots in 2010 and 2011 respectively? Didn't the US have massive unrest in Katrina in 2005 and LA in 1992? Didn't most countries around the world, including Germany, Japan, Russia, and China have seriously tyrannical governments within living memory? You'd have to do the calculation but probably 50% or more of the world's population has lived at some point under a tyrannical government.
Many progressives agree that the US military has committed atrocities overseas. They have seen Bush and Obama's unstinting increase in executive power, they know about the existence of kill lists that allow Predator Drone-based attacks on any American citizen suspected of being a terrorist, and they've seen the coverups revealed by Pfc. Manning.
So, whether or not you agree there is a nontrivial chance of significant financial instability in the near future, why is so much blind trust placed in US society, government, and military? We've seen civil society break down all over the world, live on our TV. The Anglosphere has been mostly immune over the 20th century, but it can happen here.
OMG... I love this! Perfect analogy, IMO.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/1...
Now, we can relate those to per-capita deaths in order countries and compare, like-to-like.
Can you clarify why it's useless to look at unless we include ostensibly unrelated statistics?
Let's take heart disease, for example. Can someone walk up to a healthy person and instantaneously give them heart disease?
Method and execution counts. A gun is a man-portable device that allows someone to project lethal force at a distance. Looking at other causes of death that use similar methods is reasonable and good.
Until someone can teleport arterial plaque into your veins at a distance without your consent, I don't find the "all other causes of death" argument to be persuasive.
Because thats what most "gun related deaths" are-- suicides.
But it pads the statistics to make people who aren't paying close attention more fearful to talk about "gun related deaths" than "murders with guns", and it also helps avoid the fact that the murder rate in countries where guns have been banned is much higher-- even if they have to use knives to do it. (how often have you seen the murder rate in Britain brought up vs. the number of "gun related deaths" brought up there in this debate?)
Yes, most people who would complete suicide by gun would not do so without a gun.
People tend not to use anything available to kill themselves. Most houses have many things which could cause certain death, but people tend to stick to a certain method.
Strawman. "Banning all the guns" was never mentioned or advocated. Please rephrase.
The rate of violent crime in the USA is around 640 per 100,000 while in the UK it is closer to 2,500 per 100k.
Clearly banning guns doesn't lower violent crime. In fact, in the UK, after they banned guns, violent gun crime skyrocketed.... because the criminals knew that their victims were disarmed.
The best numbers I could find from DOJ are from 2000, and suggest it's around 100,000.
Violent crime in the UK peaked in 1995 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Violent-crime-rates-UK-198...). Various types of gun bans were passed in 1988 and an even stricter one in 1997 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_(Amendment)_Act_1997).