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He has been very vocal in opposition of governmental encroachment on civil liberties during his senate term. He was, in fact, the last senator left in opposition to the extension of the Patriot Act.

Heinlein captured the essence succinctly. Luck is nothing more than a label people use to describe probabilities they have not planned for.

"More doubtfully compatible with the liberal conception of equality is another measure which also gained wide support in liberal circles, namely the use of progressive taxation as a means to effect a redistribution of income in favour of the poorer classes. Since no criterion can be found by which such progression can be made to correspond to a rule which may be said to be the same for all, or which would limit the degree of extra burden on the more wealthy, it would seem that a generally progressive taxation is in conflict with the principle of equality before the law and it was in general so regarded by liberals in the nineteenth century."

- Liberalism, F. A. Hayek

I share this only to illustrate that this technology is not enabling a radical new ability to produce cheap personal-use weapons, but more of an (expensive) prototype evolutionary step in the process.

In addition, possibly in contrast to this printed design, a home made receiver that is properly surface-hardened after machining is fully as capable and safe as any other receiver manufactured to the TDP.

Not to be pedantic, but they are not pronounced the same in American English.

http://www.englishpage.net/showthread.php?10393-Pronunciatio...

I worked for a company (they were the U.S. market leader in their online communications niche) who took this to an extreme. They outsourced their customer service, and in a misguided effort at quality control scripted every single response a service rep was allowed to say. As in, they were literally prohibited from saying anything that was not a scripted response during a support call.

Eventually a rumor circulated that the folks responsible for retention and turnover decided to fight their poor numbers by manipulating the scripts to make it as difficult as possible to cancel service. Don't know for sure if that was true, but there was circumstantial evidence in the (sometimes comical) live chat scripts that infuriated customers posted online.

Do you (or anyone else) have some concrete data for incidence rate of fatal overdoses in the U.S.? I'm curious if it's really all that common.

This does not, of course, include justifiable homicides.

ETA: So as not to scare anyone remember that in major cities typically between 65% and 91% of murder victims are criminals, and most of the killings are gang related.

ETA - Thanks, missed that page on the site.

But, thanks for clarifying.

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. :)

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.

That's a pretty ridiculous statement for them to make. A person who drops $17K on a precision rifle (and you can drop a heck of a lot more than that on a quality rifle without all the electronic crap) damn well knows about consistency in ammunition, and most of them are going to be experienced handloaders as well.

The best shooters in the world handload, and that includes the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (who can certainly afford the most expensive factory ammo). They do so because you simply can't mass produce cartridges that are as accurate and consistent as handloads. You can't mass produce ammo tailored to the chamber tolerances of a specific rifle. You can't fire form enough brass at the factory to load a lifetime's worth of ammo for an individual rifle. Even if you tried, you're back to square one after you replace the barrel at 5K rounds.

As a result, you end up paying $17K for a rifle that cannot possibly be used to it's fullest potential.

> From the quote above, I doubt the software can compensate for different grain bullets or different amounts of powder.

This could be, but if so would destroy the premise that this computerized gizmo offers any improvement over a human calculator. Experienced shooters have no problem memorizing ballistics tables for their particular loads - that this computer could not would be, well, laughable.

I apologize if I'm being grumpy about all this. It's simply depressing to me that with all the challenges, intricacies and fascinating phenomena in the world of shooting folks here are so fixated on the little computer they strapped on top.

I gather that it must be more publicity stunt than anything; or perhaps at best a vehicle to a lucrative government R&D contract. Shooters don't need or want this and those who don't shoot because they think it's too hard won't pay for it (if such a person exists at all). The government has no possible use for it beyond automated weapons systems which they already operate, but I wouldn't put it past them to pay for additional development just for the hell of it.

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.

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.

This is baffling... what on earth makes the ammunition proprietary? Does the chamber or priming system deviate from the SAAMI/CIP specifications for those cartridges?

A few states do outlaw or ban some specific NFA weapons however - for instance 5 states outlaw individuals from possesing machine guns.

Anyways, none of this impacts the fact that the term "assault rifle", as introduced with the German Sturmgewehrs and now subverted by the U.S. media to mean "scary looking gun", has a specific military meaning that distinguishes it from other small arms like the battle rifle. Let's use Wikipedia's definition: An assault rifle is a selective fire ... rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine.

The distinguishing features of the assault rifle, compared to the contemporary battle rifles at the time it was popularized (like the M1 Garand), is that it is chambered for a lower powered non-pistol cartridge (which translates into lighter weight), has a detachable magazine and is capable of burst or fully automatic fire.

I'm not aware of any military or paramilitary organization that uses a definition substantially different from this, or anything like the one you've suggested.

I can't blame the lobbyists either, they're just looking out for themselves the same as the rest of us do.

I can blame the legislators. They're the ones with a monopoly on force wielded against us for their own gain.

1. http://www.airforcetimes.com/xml/news/2009/01/airforce_pilot...

From the original article:

"When you add in the incentives, the PPA value becomes more comparable to rates we’ve seen signed in California," said Kim.

Apparently nearly all of the difference between standard solar rates and this rate is due to government subsidy.