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A bullet will lose sufficient velocity so that it no longer lethal relatively quickly. As an example we can use FBI specs for maximum range of the NATO standard issue M855 cartridge for 5.56mm , which is 3600 yards. Ballistics show a trajectory with 2200 foot drop at that range and a final velocity of 490fps with a retained energy of only 33ft/lbs (about 3% of muzzle energy). To attain impact at 3600 yards requires the rifle to be elevated at about 11 degrees. In reality, the bullet is likely to lose enough rotational velocity that it will destabilize much earlier, which will even more rapidly decrease velocity and power.

So, put simply, for this cartridge shooting in the air at an angle greater than 11 degrees relative to the horizon would not be particularly dangerous.

Furthermore, my understanding is that modern fighter aircraft are generally limited in performance to operational envelope of the human driving it, i.e. most modern fighter airframes are capable of performance that could literally kill a human pilot. Getting rid of the pilot opens up the possibility of gaining significant manoeuvrability.

There are no country restrictions, and only standard restrictions for things like guns, gold, and humans.

I'm curious why the restrictions on firearms? The USPS has no restrictions on shipping and insuring firearms that are mailed in compliance with federal law.

Yes, of course the Constitution is simply a piece of paper. It has no special powers. You can find plenty of people, perhaps even a majority, who are in favor of incremental abuses of the government such as this latest NSA scandal. You would find very few who would support wholesale dissolution of the constitution. The government could try absent consent of the people, but would face certain rebellion.

The Constitution can of course be amended, but requires more than a simple majority - a super-majority of the federal legislature to pass and ratification by 3/4 of the states. This of course does not happen often.

But fundamentally, of course the Constitution and the government exist at the behest of the people. It does not have magical protection powers. It does, however, have the protection of an armed populace willing to fight to defend it, even though some of those same people support laws that infringe on other's rights.

In the U.S. the law making branch of the government is comprised of representatives elected by the people. These representatives necessarily draft laws to suit the majority who elected them. Ergo, the legislative branch wields power at the behest of the majority, analogous to the wolves in the quote. Governance by mob rule, i.e. pure democracy, entails no inherent constraints on what the government (comprised of law makers elected by the majority) could do to or take from the rest of the populace. We are, instead, a constitutional republic, which constrains the majority-elected government to a narrow set of powers enumerated in the constitution.

The quote was written in 1992 in reference to two lawsuits in the state of California, itself a constitutional republic. One resulted in the quashing of a state law which was supported by the majority but nonetheless violated the state and federal constitutions. The other resulted in the removal of a cross from a popular public landmark. Much outcry was made at the time that the will of the majority was being thwarted.

I'll leave here the entirety of Simkin's posting that contained the quote:

The ACLU's cross lawsuit and the Libertarians' tax lawsuit share an interesting theme. We have been treated to the spectacle of politicians pleading for permission to continue breaking the law. In the case of the jail tax, it is particularly ironic that the lawbreakers say they need the illegal money so they can lock up the lawbreakers. Ask not for whom the lock clicks.

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote. Those rights are spelled out in the Bill of Rights and in our California Constitution. Voters and politicians alike would do well to take a look at the rights we each hold, which must never be chipped away by the whim of the majority.

No, this is not the case. The power of the majority over the minority is limited by the constitution - the Bill of Rights proscribes the oppression of the minority at the hands of the voting majority. The constitution itself is protected from the majority (the government) by the credible threat of a well-armed populace who are willing to fight to protect it.

Interesting point. In that respect, isn't the media coverage and outcry on the internet accomplishing the same thing?

> Personal example: Nearly every time I've seen a group of picketing workers outside an office building has been the first I've heard anything of their employers' practices. Even if I might care as a customer, why would I know about it?

I hadn't considered this case, and you're right that it can serve a purpose locally.

Instead of an example like that, when I hear protest I tend to think first of political gathering, e.g. the Occupy protests, which appeared to be more an example of special interests trying to spur legislative action than a method of communication.

The folks who architected this nation most certainly did, and since they're the ones who devised the sovereignty of the states and embodied the individualism and self-reliance and runs undercurrent to your claim that Americans "hate the idea of being obligated or beholden to anyone else" I think it's perfectly fair to characterize the debate in those terms. And they did in fact see these as universal rights: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

Anyways, specifically I take issue with your claim that "the idea of "human citizen[ship]" is anathama to American thought, because citizenship implies reciprocal rights and obligations." Obligations, yes, but it does not follow that the extension of our recognized rights to all people is in any way contradictory to our ideals, your personal views on collective rights notwithstanding.

Recognition of and respect for human rights need not be bound to sovereign freedom of action, as you put it. Freedom of action does not have to imply freedom to coerce.

Obviously our system does not quite work as intended, but I'm not sure I see how protesting in the street could be effective, or if it was effective how that could be a feature rather than a bug?

Yes, it absolutely does. Life as a free person is dangerous, and being free necessarily means not being protected from potential harm caused by others. It means people are held responsible after the fact, but not restrained prior.

To quote Marvin Simkin, "Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote."

The same argument could be made for felon's rights, by the way. Either a person is too dangerous to be free or you have no business taking away his rights.

That's good information on the NICS records. It would seem, though, that given the information in the NICS check record and information attainable from a mandatory bound book inspection that the end result would be the personally identifying information of the transferee. It is good, at least, that this would necessarily be a manual process.

I think you're watching the wrong people.

> Right now, most people, especially young (what's saddening), are conformists and as long as they feel relatively safe and well fed, they won't go far than writing a comment on HN... like this one :)

This has always been the case - it's human nature. It was true in 1775, it was true in the 60's and it's true today. It's the minority who stand up that change the world.

I say this as a former customer... Hughesnet is an absolute joke. Looking past their incompetent installers (who provided me with a major leak in the roof over my kitchen) and their horrible uptime (clouds in the sky = service outage), at it's best the internet service could only be described as painfully slow. Super high latency, constant dropped connections, poor throughput and to top it all off customer service that I'd rate as equivalent to cell phone providers.

Please, do yourself a favor, and stay far away.

I think you missed my point. When firemen want to practice they set up a fake fire at a safe location. When paramilitary police forces want to practice, they should and do set up a fake raid at a safe location, rather than practicing on some random non-violent offender's home.

I've contacted my state and national representatives dozens of times over the years and have found that methods of contact seems to get noticed by the staffers (who are in most cases the only ones who will ever know that you contacted the office) in the following order:

Email - generally ignored or deleted, may or may not even get a canned response. I've heard state legislature staffers claim that they can get upwards of 10K emails a day about certain issues - there is simple no way they have the capacity to sort through them even if they wanted to.

Letter - a little better as someone actually has to open the letter and stick the form letter response into the envelope. At least the politician's staff get an idea of how many people are for or against an issue this way.

Phone call - even better. You talk to someone and are an actual person to them. In most cases they will claim to actually record a position (for or against) to be tallied for the politician.

In-person visit - best of all. Nothing gets the point across like crowding their office with bodies. In my experience you are unlikely to get to speak with the actual politician, who often will hide away from their office when contentious issues are up for vote so as not to interface with the public. Some are better than others here, obviously.

This is my experience only, perhaps you're politicians behave differently. But I am quite sure about one thing - sending email is a waste of time and gives you an easy excuse to think you've done your share. If you care enough to want to get in touch, at the very minimum pick up the phone and call.

ETA: I've also typically seen that regardless of the amount of pressure applied by the public for one side of an issue, nearly every politician will simply vote the party line anyways. They know where their bread is buttered, and won't go against party leadership. I've watched legislators look over at a senior party member and be signalled which way to vote when their turn comes up. I don't think anything I've done or said to my representatives has had the slightest impact on their opinion or voting record. That's just how the game is played.

Firemen don't go around setting people's homes on fire in order to practice putting them out.

If true, clearly someone would have to be holding NICS records and the ATF would have to have access to them.

Even in other areas, there are myriad restrictions on where a person may carry. For instance, nearly all federal buildings, many "sensitive" locations identified by the state (such as within a quarter mile of a school), national parks, etc...

And those who carry legally are well aware of how fragile their rights are - one run-in with a policeman having a bad day can cost you your right to ever touch a gun again.

The reasoning behind gun ownership is more like this: if the government institutes martial law / comes to take my guns or property / commits some huge atrocity against me or my family, gun owners will be able to defend themselves. This isn't a completely accurate view, obviously, but it's the general feeling I get from growing up in the US.

One thing to add to this - the point of the second ammendment is not only to ensure the rights of individuals to protect themselves and their property from both other citizens and the government. It's presense is also intended to act as a reminder to those who wield the power of the government that they are the servant rather than the master.

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

When I say you cannot remove the ability of people to do it, I mean only that - you cannot remove the ability. And that is what all the gun-grabbing hoopla is about - physically removing the ability to do so by restricting access to guns. That, I contend, is impossible and absolutely infringes on individual rights.

The threat of retaliation, either by the victim immediately or after-the-fact by the government, is of course effective at prevention. The former is more effective, as evidenced by crime rates in areas where the government does not infringe on the right to self-defense.

Everything is a tradeoff, saying 'tramples other's rights' is misleading because it doesn't indicate which rights. Some rights are more valued than others to people (I'd gladly trade my right to kill myself for my right to free speech, if such a tradeoff existed).

It does not matter which rights - the government may not pick and choose which individual rights to value over others, it's their duty to protect them all equally - and for all people equally.

Of course it is your right to determine which rights you value the most, but it is not a power of the government. And it's a power of neither you or the government to determine which rights I value most.

To clarify, are you saying that no government entity retains either the 4473 or the NICS check records, or are you only speaking about the 4473 itself?

If any good has come from either of the last two administrations it may simply be that more people on both sides of the popular political spectrum have become convinced that the government is not our friend.

The second part is fallacy; you obviously cannot remove the ability to point a gun (or knife) at someone and make demands, and any attempt to do so necessarily tramples other's rights. In reality there are two effective choices - the person being mugged can defend them-self and/or the government can attempt to find and punish the person after the fact. The second one does not do a bit of good for the current victim, of course.

The moment it achieved it's intended political goal, I suspect.

There will be brief outcry, some half-hearted claims by a few in charge that they will look into it, and after the next shooting or terrorist attack it will be on the second page, soon to drop off the radar completely.

At least that's what I'd put my money on. They won't even be bothered to lie about it.

Whether these cases fits the reasonability test is another matter.

Damn right they are. Exigent circumstances. [1]

Police routinely coerce people into consenting to searches during traffic stops when there is no RAS. If there's a K9 unit around it's even easier; look at how often they just happen to trigger when there's no contraband at all [2]. Does a 56% false positive rate sound reasonable?

And, once they've gained access they've got wide leeway to seize whatever they want in the name of the war on drugs. At that point the owner must pay a bond to contest the seizure, and then has the burden of proving that they were not party to the crime. Note that no warrant is required for property seizure, merely probable cause [3].

[1] http://themoderatevoice.com/110361/supreme-court-expands-war... [2] http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/06/false-positives-police... [3] BJA publication NCJ-137994 – CIVIL FORFEITURE FOR THE NON-LAWYER