This rifle of course removes the skill element and allows for shooting at an extremely long range.
Those able to prepare would be more than capable of becoming decent rifle shots already. Decent is Whitman/Texas Tower level, not Carlos Hathcock level.
That people don't do this now probably means it's somehow unappealing to most homicidal maniacs to go shoot people at "extreme" (100m) range with a rifle, rather than doing it up close. So this is probably not a huge risk.
If it makes the short-term killing spree guy more effective, then it's a problem, but I still don't see a short term killing spree person using something like this vs. a more up-close weapon where he gets to exert his power over people in immediate vicinity and dominate/kill them. Just pulling the trigger on people at range through a scope doesn't seem psychologically rewarding to most killers.
It would be appealing for terrorists, or maybe other brands of crazy, but not for your average spree killer. The Washington sniper was really amazingly unprecedented in the US, and hasn't been copied, and really was more terrorism than anything else I think.
The Knee jerk reaction would be to see the 'evil' aspect of such a precision machine, but then again who would have thought of 747's as a WMD?
I frankly see no practical purpose for such a rifle. I'm surprised they've almost sold out, but with collectors and people who just have to have something for the sake or it, maybe I shouldn't be.
The average person isn't especially relevant, because all it's going to take is for one DC sniper incident with one of these before they get banned. Especially if someone starts using it to take out politicians, police officers, etc.
The fact that you immediately go to the sniper mass killings angle is what I find to be pretty fucked up.
Ideally, this weapon would reduce the number of animal injuries, and increase the number of immediate kills.
[edit: Ah, I just re-read your comment - you are actually saying you understand the use of this weapon while hunting, but don't understand the purpose of target shooting with it. Perhaps to prepare for hunting?]
[1] - http://www.gameandfishmag.com/2012/03/28/10-shooting-targets...
[2] - http://www.gameandfishmag.com/2012/03/28/10-shooting-targets...
[3] - http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1314484
Also, read up on rail guns and benchrest shooting; then get back to me on "doing all the hard work for you".
The guys with the rail guns tho, that's a whole 'nother level.
Also, you'd be incorrect about this doing the hard work. They add the concept of "windage" almost as an afterthought, and I can tell you that at long distances, it is anything but.
In long distance shooting, pulling the trigger is the easy part.
It seems a valid point to me. Maybe you could give share your viewpoint instead this silly red herring suggestion that the parent is deranged for bringing up the point.
1) Where you claim it makes a more effective killing machine, another might easily say that it makes a much safer hunting weapon, or more easy to use for wounded, injured, disabled or handicapped hunters or veterans.
2) There are many, many ways that criminals could exploit even every day items to achieve extremely deadly results, and until we're ready to ban every single one of them (which admittedly, Mayor Bloomberg seems poised to do), we should not punish the majority for the very unlikely potential criminal use by a very small minority.
3) It's an advancement in technology that I worry may be stifled for private industry and instead hoarded for military application, which will almost certainly lead to slower development in the technology. Imagine further into the future, as the technology evolves, it might be able to distinguish between humans and potential prey. Or even perform sentiment analysis on humans to differentiate between humans at peace and humans that are actively trying to kill you.
Also, for the record, I'm not suggesting that being afraid of the potential for technology such as this is completely unreasonable, but I am arguing that in this country, at least for now, we do have a Bill of Rights that protects our right to bear arms and this, such as it is, classifies as such, and should not be bannable on the meritless assumption that every would-be shooter will now plunk down $17,000 and become a super-villain just because they can.
2) Come on, seriously? You say "even every day items". It makes less sense to ban every day items than it does to ban extravagant items that very few people, if any, need or even want. I can kill someone with a fork. More people have been killed with forks than with this weapon. Are you willing to (digitally) stand here and suggest to all of us that it doesn't make sense to ban this rifle until we ban forks?
And where is your line? Every rational person has a line at which they say "X weapon clearly should be illegal for every day people to own." So where's yours? Do you not feel high explosives should be regulated? If farmers decided sarin gas (since it was mentioned elsewhere in this conversation) was a good pesticide, would you be all for it? Wherever you draw your line, it's just as arbitrary as anyone else's.
3) I'm simply not seeing any novel technology here. Motion tracking? It's been done. Servos being controlled by a microprocessor? It's been done. Distance gauging? Trajectory adjustment? Where is the new technology that we'd all miss out on?
Regarding the note about the bill of rights, what a horribly conceived piece of writing is the second amendment. It asserts the right to "bear arms" but doesn't give any hint as to the definition of "arms". An H-bomb classifies as an "arm" just as perfectly as this firearm does. We've outgrown that short-sighted text.
US v Miller, another landmark case regarding the second amendment, defines protected weapons as those being of use to a militia. Before we go down that rabbit hole, a milita is defined by 10 US Code § 311 as all men aged 17 to 45, and has been expanded by the Supreme Court to include women as well.
As for the tech, I agree that the individual components are nothing new, but the aggregate of the parts is something new and noteworthy. For what it's worth, I also consider the Gibson robot tuner as noteworthy, as well as the Raspberry Pi, though clearly neither was exactly groundbreaking on the grand order of things.
You may not think the automation this gun provides is exotic enough to warrant being illegal, but surely you can agree that reasonable people could interpret "in common use" in that way?
That was, effectively the case in Heller, because DC had banned all handguns completely, making them clearly NOT in common use, which they felt allowed them to perpetuate their ban. DC's law was overturned on that logic.
That said, how do you prevent the banning of every new type of gun/handgun/rifle/taser/whatever if the claim is that "Well, it's never been sold, so it's obviously not in common use, so it can't be bannable?" In reality, this isn't even really a gun at all, but a complicated aiming system. The gun it's attached to is the Surgeon equivalent of a Robot tuner on a Gibson guitar (which is why I brought it up elsewhere). According to the ATF, the lower receiver of a gun like this is the only part that is the 'gun'. What this means is that I can buy the lower receiver by itself, with no firing group, no barrel, no butt stock, etc., and that constitutes the sale of a firearm. As such, as it seems that all the tech for this thing is basically in the reticle (except for the trigger group, which is still not technically part of the gun), this is really just an accessory.
People hold up the Bill of Rights as if the amendments were etched in stone by God.
Whether any given weapon should or shouldn't be legal depends on a lot of things, including the state of the country at any given time. The idea that the right to bear firearms (some arbitrary invention) belongs on the same document as eternally useful rights like the right of free speech is silly and was a huge mistake.
I think that the fact that the right to bear arms IS on the same document means that it was intended to be. You don't have to appreciate all the rights of Americans, but I really wish you wouldn't try to curtail them, especially as there are plenty of other places you could move that have, aside from the second amendment, similarish rights to those of America. (Not suggesting you GTFO or anything, but y'know, if you hate it that much, there are places you could go).
I think for myself. You get your marching orders from some parchment. It's people like me who made this country. It's people like you who bowed to King George.
I wasn't implying that hated 'the place', but you clearly seem to have issues with the second amendment. You're of course welcome to try to change things, and I would argue in fact that it is your patriotic responsibility to work for the government you want. That said, a big distinction between America and most other first world countries is wrapped up in the second amendment, so if I were in your shoes, I would likely consider moving. As I said, I'm not telling you to get out, and I'm not calling you unpatriotic, I'm just suggesting that voting with your feet is an option available to you. As there aren't any first world countries that respect the right to bear arms for me to go to, that regrettably isn't an option for me. I'm jealous of your position, if anything.
I don't know how either of us "made this country", and surely neither of us are old enough to have bowed to any King, so I'm not really sure what your point is with your last sentence.
I won't speak for bmelton but it's disingenuous to label second amendment supporters as folks who "get [their] marching orders from some parchment". Most I know recognize the right to self-defense as merely being guaranteed by the constitution rather than granted by it. The confusion I suspect is from the "parchment" often being used as a convenient argument - many in this country take for granted uniform agreement that the document does in fact bind the government; ergo to them the argument is trivially won by quoting it.
They do not always realize that those they argue against view the constitution as a "living" document subject to interpretation, and may summarily discard arguments that appeal to it's guarantees. It is also damaging to their argument that so many are willing to to support the government's disregard of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th and 10th amendments while fervently supporting the 2nd.
The main thing that's polarizing it though, is that the ACLU supports all of the bill of rights except for the second amendment, so those that support the second feel like they're the only ones that are.
Maybe it's polarizing, but there really are only two sides in this fight. There's no middle ground here - there is the ideal of freedom or there is "compromise". Not a compromise in the proper sense of the word, though. It is a pure loss, for you have less freedom than you started with and nothing in return. Votes cost nothing, so this compromise can be (and is) demanded over and over again. The end result is what we face in Maryland, never-ending iterations of legislation with no rational link to the real world, and thousands (like myself) who dream of moving to a state that is slightly more free.
It often seems like people that support the second amendment care about none of the others, and I'm sure in part that is true for a number of reasons, but that doesn't discount that there are many more "second amendment supporters" who are concerned with the broader spectrum of civil liberties, but whose views aren't necessarily represented because there are groups like the ACLU that represent "all civil rights except that one" and the like.
Are you also in Maryland? Have you considered (or are you already) joining Maryland Shall Issue?
I am in Maryland, Carroll County specifically. I'm a member of MSI, SAF and the NRA and have been engaging as much as possible with our senators and delegates over the last few weeks.
I'll likely be retreating to Pennsylvania or Virginia in the next couple of years - I'm sure many others will be as well. In the meantime, keep your powder dry and perhaps we'll meet one day on the range. :)
If by civilians you mean the French, you would be accurate. The idea of a civilian warship or artillery piece is as ludicrous then as now. It's not like people have this stuff just lying around the farmhouse. France spent billions of livres fighting the British in that period, more than 1 billion directly on the American conflict. It is entirely accurate to describe the Revolutionary War as a proxy war.
From the NRA's magazine[0]: >The New Hampshire shipments equipped much of the Patriot army at Saratoga in October 1777, and, by 1778, the majority of Washington’s regiments had replaced their earlier disparate mix of arms with French ones.
There is a staggering amount of historical revisionism to minimize the role of France in this war, and to omit any context or ulterior motive for them doing so. France was the world's major military power, as well as the largest and most populous country in Europe, and had been for centuries. War between England and France was more often than not the case for nearly 500 years between 1337 and 1815. The American war was by no means the largest or most important of these conflicts.
There's a reason that the treaty ending the war was signed in Paris, and it's not because of their fabulous wine and cheese spread. Speeches from the British Parliament will attest that they knew their enemies were Bourbon, and not American. Which should surprise no one except, lamentably, most Americans.
[0] http://www.jaegerkorps.org/NRA/The%20Revolutionary%20Charlev...
Few if any of the supplied ships were warships, fewer answered directly to the Continental Navy, and none were Ships of the Line, which meant their combat utility was, shall we say, limited. What I read here[0] about the supply of cannon is pretty dismal and does not really support your claim. It is rather abundantly clear that, to the degree that arms and equipment were contributed freely by private citizens, this happened very early in the war, and had no effect on the outcome. You may feel free to show otherwise.
[0] http://www.history.army.mil/books/RevWar/risch/chpt-12.htm
It also potentially enables those with diminished eye sight or nearsightedness for greater accuracy.
On top of that, at least as it stands right now, it makes the operation of a long-range rifle safer and more effective. I don't know why that would be considered a negative.
Very, very far down on my list of things to worry about are $17,000 ultra-long range computer aided bolt-action trigger initiated rifles.
[edit - after thinking a bit, I believe I could come up with a list of 500 things that we should be more worried about than this weapon. Just the cost alone means that there will be very few of them in general circulation. In the next 20 years, I wager there will be less than 10 homicides in the United States resulting from this weapon. If you want to get up in arms about something - start with the likely 500,000+ automobile deaths that will occur in the same time period (I'm presuming automobile safety will bring the numbers down to those levels)]
"X is more dangerous than Y" does not imply "X should be illegal if Y is illegal", due to any number of other factors.
If we wish to act rationally, and make the world a better place, there will be far greater return on our effort, lobbying, and resources, to worry about items higher up on that list, as opposed to some incredibly unlikely events that will occur because of Y.
For some reason, Y grabs our attention though - and I was just trying to pull us all back to realizing, that, in the grand scheme of things, Y is irrelevant to the safety of ourselves, our children, and our community. As such, little to no effort should be put towards worrying about, or legislating Y."
Just because you don't see the practical need for that utility does not negate that such utility exists and (in my opinion) is the express reason for the second amendment.
In short, if there is even one intentional homicide in 20 years resulting from this gun (or related technology) I would be extremely shocked.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6119a4.htm
"....Results indicated that each year an average of 3,880 persons were victims of fatal drowning."
Guns should be limited by the kinetic energy they are able to eject both per shot and per minute. No matter if the gun is home made or purchased.
Lots of dexterity involved ? Nerves of steel ? A rock-steady hand ?
Exactly. Thanks for playing.
If you're not agreeing with the parent, care to explain your point a little more articulately, and without the smug and childish "Thanks for playing"?
I honestly don't understand what point you're making, unless it is to say that because sarin gas is illegal, this gun ought to be too?
rsync brought up sarin in some inexplicable attempt at getting the better of hristov. I pointed out that sarin gas is illegal specifically because it is deadly. If sarin has any bearing on the argument, it seems to back hristov's (unstated but obvious) point that this rifle should be illegal. So I asked rsync to clarify.
I never implied this gun ought to be illegal, or made any statement about it one way or another.
His snark aside, neither bleach nor ammonia are illegal, and require approximately zero skill to combine and deploy in confined spaces.
Actually, I'll just shut up and let rsync respond if he chooses. I get a little excitable when things like this come up on HN because I love hearing the discussion of pragmatists (which I believe comprises much of HN) on the subject.
So where's your line? Are you claiming not to have a line?
That said, I will acknowledge that I believe that the right to bear arms is meant to prevent against tyranny, and as such, my line is arguably going to be much higher than I sense yours is. I will go further to state that I disagree with the national firearms act of 1934, which bans new, fully automatic machine guns for sale and import to US citizens.
We know your line is not established law, since you disagree with the national firearms act of 1934.
Where is your logic? This is what frustrates me with the Second Amendment. No one seems to have any logic behind their categorizations.
At least my point of view is rational. Make all firearms illegal. It may get me downvoted in this intolerant place, but it's at least consistent. Could you explain to me what your method of categorization is and how it's rational?
1) I think that all arms that the government possesses ought to be allowable by the citizenry. That is my interpretation of the intent of the second amendment, though I do not necessarily discount other people's beliefs as wrong. I understand that the founders aren't still around to ask (regrettably), but given what I know of the times, and what I know of our war for independence, I see a couple of logical conclusions from that, and I have settled on the opinion I have because I believe it to be the most logical extrapolation.
I also acknowledge arguments that suggest that the second amendment was primarily meant to deter the ability of foreign invasion, as it has been proven to be effective for, and fits with the actions of the times (if not necessarily the 'off the record' statements of many of our founders), and I agree that it is not as effectively spelled out as I would like it to be. That said, none of the other rights enumerated by the Constitution are either, and people don't generally balk at them. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is there any mention of Twitter, Facebook, email, megaphones, etc. I personally believe in the principle of liberty (and am in fact a Libertarian), and believe that people ought to be free, and that our country, as intended, does a better job of this than most others. That is not meant to believe that I think we are the best country, or that our people are in any way better than other people, but I think that, if our government works as it is supposed to, we have the greatest potential for freedom of any of the countries I am aware of.
As for where I set the lines, I believe that until its appointment process is somehow violated, the Supreme Court are the Constitutional authority of our nation. So, by that logic, I define my categorizations by what the Supreme Court has tested, and what they have remarked on. Regrettably, there hasn't ever actually been a test of the firearms act in the supreme court, so I am free to have a vaguely defined opinion of it because there hasn't been any opinion offered. Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently banned big gulps in the state of New York -- just because it's a law does not mean that I am obligated to agree with it. More importantly though, the courts recently struck down the ban as being arbitrary and capricious, which (thankfully) sides with my own personal opinion of it, so I believe that justice was done, however delayed.
I would happily keep going, but I think I've given enough to digest at least, and I hope I've explained my position well without completely convincing you that I'm one of those gun obsessed nuts you see on the news (I'm not).
But I'd urge you to look deeper than the Constitution for the answers to questions about what's best for the country. It's just a piece of paper, written by men in a very different time than ours. Rather than abide by the dictum of that piece of paper, ask yourself how you'd shape a nation if you were starting one from scratch. Forget this idea that we're locked into these old, vague words and their interpretations by old, flawed men and women.
Who knows, maybe you'd include the Second Amendment word-for-word in your Constitution if you were creating one from scratch. But, when your colleagues asked you why you thought the "right to bear arms" was so important, I hope you could give a better answer than "Well, some old men thought it was important hundreds of years ago."
On that note, I'm going to bed! Thanks for the discussion.
For 1, more armed populaces tend to be safer places to live. To quote Heinlein, "An armed society is a polite society", and there is evidence to that fact here in America. Of interest is a place called Kennesaw, GA which, in 1981 (I think) they enacted a law encouraging every head of household to own a firearm. In the year they enacted that law, burglaries in the town of Kennesaw dropped 80%. Since then, their crime rate has held at FAR below the national average, as well as the state of Georgia. Somewhat ironically, it obviously didn't "solve crime", but did displace it to areas outside of Kennesaw to a very large degree. Before the law was enacted, it seemed as though every media outlet in the nation was decrying the law as it would surely be "a wild west town" and "blood in the streets" and all that, but that never happened. What happened instead is that they effectively pushed crime (and presumably criminals) out of town. Since then, the population of Kennesaw has quintupled, but crime rates have stayed low.
Meanwhile, if you look to Morton Grove, IL, they enacted a gun ban at a similar time, and crime (of all types) went up across the charts. When they repealed their gun ban, crime went down. The data on Morton Grove isn't quite as marked as Kennesaw (e.g., only 17% difference instead of the more obvious 80%), so it's possibly attributable to other factors, but it's hard to explain away the results in Kennesaw.
Further, the state that has the highest concentration of "fully automatic" machine guns (e.g., already to buy new) is New Hampshire. They also have some of the most lax gun control in the nation. Open carrying firearms is fairly common place in New Hampshire, and if I recall correctly, the only thing you need a permit for is to concealed carry in a vehicle. On top of that, their state buildings don't even have metal detectors, and you're allowed to carry guns in there. Wild West sounding? Maybe, but it's the third safest state in the union.
Again, I have more data to support my position with better than "cause the Constitution said so", though I do obviously agree with my interpretation (which is also the Supreme Court's interpretation) of what it means.
No, not everyone does. There are quite a few of us who conclude, as many of the Founders and their contemporaries did, that the government has no ethical authority to judge what the people are worthy of possessing, and more to the point, has absolutely no ability to do so without devolving into oppression.
There are regrettably far fewer of us than those who subscribe to the alternate view, but we do fortunately share rank with a large contingent of the second group who at least draw the line somewhere past firearms.
"The reason we do not get more sniper mass killings is that it takes a lot of skill to hit a target at a very long range with a sniper rifle ... This rifle of course removes the skill element and allows for shooting at an extremely long range."
... in such a way as to suggest that the increased possibility for menace is so enhanced that it is irresponsible, nay, indefensible, for this to be available.
I was pointing out the fallacy of that line of reasoning. Skill requirements don't correlate with deadliness. I did not mention legality and neither did the OP, at least not in the way that other subcomments touched on.
edit: RE: The argument at hand is obviously whether a particular thing should be illegal because it is deadly.
No, that was not the argument at hand. The argument was whether high skill vs. low skill vectors of attack somehow change the ethical judgement involved in allowing something in the first place. I don't care that you hijacked the thread in this direction, but I do think it was a hijack.
How does bringing up Sarin gas help your argument here? Sarin gas = illegal, low "skill vector"[1] This firearm = legal, low "skill vector"
Unless you don't consider consistency important, you seem to be arguing that either sarin gas should be made legal or this firearm should be made illegal. I think you failed at making the point you were trying to make.
[1] I'm assuming here that sarin gas has a "low skill vector". That's obviously not true.
"Throwing a grenade" is generally considered 'low skill'. In the case of the Tokyo sarin gas incident, the gas was deployed in a plastic bag (I'm thinking zip loc) and was stabbed with a sharpened umbrella to deploy.
That is the reason, you think, and not that most people in the world are relatively decent and not psychopath monsters?
Also, since I'm bothering to respond, I'll try to at least make it informative and relatable, and I think that this article is relevant: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/overreaction_a...
I don't believe that the potential for misuse should be a valid reason to prevent development of new technology
It's a bit of a stretch to call this new technology. Aside from some clever trickery to get around remote firing laws, this is just a (maybe) novel assemblage of standard technology. The argument is obviously about its legality and its availability to consumers.
Given that, surely you can't stand by your statement if it's modified as follows:
I don't believe that the potential for misuse should be a valid reason to make something illegal
That statement's so clearly wrong to any reasonable person that it's simply not defendable.
Regarding ATF guidelines on remote firing, the wording of their rules seem geared towards actual remote firing, not aided or delayed firing, as this is. The difference is, I think, as large as the difference between a Google automated vehicle and a car with by-wire steering (or perhaps a better example is a drone to a traditional aircraft).
In cars with by-wire technology, I still have to steer, brake, accelerate, etc., but there are technologies in place that mean I am still physically driving it. There are assistive mechanisms in place that help me brake faster, or alert me when I'm crossing lanes and what have you, but I'm still driving, and presumably, still free to wreck the car, at least in most cars.
I don't believe that the potential for misuse should be a valid reason to make something illegal
That statement's so clearly wrong to any reasonable person that it's simply not defendable.
Why? Look at the dangerous potential of a baseball bat, or a crowbar, or a javelin. Should we not ban all those things? Cars? Airplanes? Ice Picks? By your argument, how are those things legal? Are you honestly suggesting that everything with dangerous potential should be legislated out of existence? Isn't that exactly what the DMCA and other digital legislation has tried to do with crypto?
I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but which do you really think is more likely:
* he's arguing that "potential for misuse" may well be a legitimate reason for regulating some things (inside a larger cost-benefit analysis about danger vs beneficial use, both observed and potential), perhaps up to and including banning
* he's arguing that every single potentially dangerous thing should be banned (and also, believes in a flat equivalence between melee weapons, firearms, and motor vehicles)
> Should we not ban all those things? Cars? Airplanes?
Probably not ban outright. We do seem to have made some progress in automobile and air travel safety by enacting/tweaking requirements for manufacture, registration and insurance for ownership, training and licensing for operating various classes of vehicle, and regulations regarding operation.
While I obviously understand the difference in utility between a gun, an airplane and a hammer, the gun is only lacking utility to people that do not believe in the value of a right to prevent against tyranny. Neither a hammer or a car is particularly effective in that regard, though our fundamental rights are more specifically geared for that objective, however ugly some might find them.
Yes, this could make it easier to shoot a person (it makes it easier to shoot anything); but there is no evidence that it will make it more likely that a person will be shot. Even if this was used to facilitate a murder (unlikely, given the cost and the background checks for gun ownership), you have to prove that the murder would not have been committed if this technology didn't exist.
I think that would be difficult to prove.
No doubt someone will trot out the old discredited "protecting our freedoms" argument, that somehow seems to apply both to personal gun ownership and invading foreign nations.