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Build Your Own Gauss Pistol
BdosError writes "A Russion software developer has developed a homemade Gauss pistol. It's not very powerful yet, but as a proof of concept, it's interesting. Nice, non-chemical slugthrower that should appeal to fans of Science Fiction and related games, like Traveller and many others."
Niiiiiice. Ramp up the power a bit more and you have the perfect sniper gun. You could shoot someone and people around them would not even know a shot had been fired, let alone what direction it came from.
Interesting concept. Just one Q though, as it doesn't seem to be discussed on the site in the link, and that is how does it achieve the effect of a normal rifled barrel in causeing the iron bullet to spin and therefore be stabilized in flight?
The guns used by those kids were:
1. Illegally purchased (They were purchased by someone who could purchase them legally, but with the intent to illegally provide them to minors, which makes the act of purchasing them illegal.)
2. Illegally owned (In the state of Colorado handguns may only be owned by persons 21 and older.)
3. Illegally possessed (In the state of Colorado it is illegal for a person under 21 to possess a handgun without supervision.)
4. Illegally carried (Carry of a concealed handgun is only allowed by permit.)
5. Illegally possessed (It is illegal for non-LEOs to possess a firearm on public school property without a concealed carry permit. Yes, this makes it "doubly" illegal for them to have had them.)
6. Illegally carried (It is illegal to carry a concealed firearm on school property without a permit . . . ditto above.)
So, discounting all the petty things (like illegally possessing handgun ammo, etc) the young lady and boys involved broke no fewer than SIX "gun control" laws before a single shot was fired.
Any insinuation that this situation would have somehow been improved by more "gun control" laws (aka further erosion of the second civil liberty enumerated in the Bill of Rights) amounts to strong evidence of a hopelessly irrational mind.
-Peter
Interestingly enough, the per capita number of guns in Canada is a mere fraction of that in the U.S.. Coincidentally, so are violent crimes and home firearms accidents. Heck, even our military is pretty touchy feely. Half the time we're not sure whether to call it an army or a "peace-keeping force"! The world knows we're F'ing peaceniks, but our biggest fear is the nuclear fallout we're going to get when some pissed off terrorists finally nuke our Southern neighbors.
There is a fine line between a fun hobby and weapons research. The weapon described in the above article is powerful enough to cause severe injury or even kill a target, is silent, and is small enough to be concealed. It's a gun, not a toy. Construction parts and ammunition for these guns are not currently controlled, unlike conventional firearms ammunition. It is quite likely a round fired from one of these guns cannot be matched to the gun that fired it, as with conventional firearms. To sum up, what we have here is a recipe for a gun that can be made from readily available parts and may also not leave incriminating evidence on every round fired. Ammunition for these suckers could be as simple as some batteries and ball bearings. Sounds like a tailor made gang weapon to me.
Is this man's website then, evil? I'd say it isn't. He's an innocent. He has no idea what people will do with his small evolutionary contribution to gauss gun technology. In this sense he's a lot like Pandora. However, the box was probably already open. There are probably several other similar and perhaps even more advanced designs out there anyways, some possibly on the net.
What is important is that theis site's readers realize that designs as refined as this one are not fun projects. They're dangerous weapons. If you build one, make sure you have adequate firearms safety training and follow the proper safety precautions when storing it. Sooner or later somebody's kid is going to shoot themselves with one of these. Don't let it be yours.
I'm only going to concentrate on this part of your post as the rest goes into what are very well factual things but have absolutely no bearing on the intention of the 2nd ammendment.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
You are correct on the beginning, but the ending is what really gives it a punch. This is a -SINGLE- sentence. The beginning nearly states why the following occurs. The 2nd half of the sentence states what actually is being guaranteed.
" the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.". This is the -ONLY- "action" of the sentence.
Granted, I didn't write it, and it's meaning is still up for debate apparently but there are a few people out there that agree with my interpretation of it:
Thomas Jefferson:
"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
George Washington:
"A free people ought to be armed." Speech Jan 7, 1790.
Thomas Jefferson:
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Letter to William S. Smith, January 30, 1787, in Jefferson, On Democracy , pg. 20 (S. Padover ed., 1939)
John Adams:
"Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self defense." A Defense of the U.S. Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88)
James Madison:
The Constitution preserves "the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." The Federalist #46.
Thomas Paine:
"...arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them," Thoughts on Defensive War, (1775)
Thomas Jefferson:
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Quoting 18th Century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764)
Richard Henry Lee:
' A militia when properly formed is in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms...To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms..." Additional Letters From the Federal Farmer 53 (1788)
Samuel Adams:
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." During Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution Ratification Convention (1788)
Alexander Hamilton:
"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year." Federalist Papers, Article 29 January 10, 1788
OK, I'm a pro-gun-ownership person myself, although I don't own any guns. I also happen to be a strict constitutionalist, meaning I hold the framers and their ideas in very high regard and the current legislative Supreme Court in equally low regard.
But I will point out that if you read not only the clause, but the text of the different colonies' suggested amendments and correspondence around this issue, it is abundantly clear that the reason the various "right to keep and bear arms" proposals were made were entirely in the context of PREVENTING the establishment of a standing army in the United States.
One could thus either say that SINCE we have a standing army, private ownership of guns should be strictly regulated since the point is now moot.
OR, one could conclude that, with the establishment of a standing army by the United States government, we have progressed DIRECTLY down the road toward an over-intrusive and domineering Federal Government. In which case the citizenry should fight ever stronger AGAINST the further restriction of firearms because it is exactly this which the Founding Fathers prophecied in the case of an over-powerful Federal system: the disarming of the citizenry as a prelude to tyranny.
Take your pick.
-Styopa
While I can see why you posted this one as AC, "Better, I think, admitting that freedoms come with associated risks and arguing that the freedom is worth it" is such a clear way to phrase things.
Unfortunately, while I understand this and accept it, apparently few others can.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Why would it matter if we could own "firearms, rockets, grenades, bombs, missles," etc., if we don't have access to ammunition? Or was that your point all along?
By the way, your reference to giving the cop "a moment to pause and think" is asinine. You may not agree with certain laws, but that's why we have them: they apply to everyone.
If a cop has to hesitate before arresting you on a drug charge because he's worried about getting blown away...you're one sorry ass MF. It's one thing to defend yourself or your family from personal injury - it's totally another to think you're above the law.
Don't like the drug laws? Write your congressman, march outside the state house, have benefit concerts, promote "awareness." But the second you threaten the life of a cop so you can smoke a joint is the second when I could care less if you occupy the planet.
Cops don't write the laws. They get paid shit wages to do their job and for the most part they do it well.
So fuck off.
***
Radio Shack. You've got questions...we've got blank stares(TM).
Imagine having to find heroin ingredients, mix and test the powder, find syringes, and finally shoot it into your vein. That, to me, would be too much trouble to get high - yet 1 in 11 adults in Baltimore city is a heroin addict. Anyone who wants it can get it.
If you can't keep crack and heroin away from people, what makes you think you can keep ammunition off the black market?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This is of course, only if you ignore the fact that the kids had the fucking propane tanks in the school rigged to explode. Suppose they didn't have a gun, what would have happened? They probably would have just blown up the school, causing many more deaths than happened with their illegally obtained guns. Care to counter?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
In Greece there was a sudden supply of really cheap (i mean 30 Euro cheap) stolen Kalasnikof (or what's it called). This is a combat rifle , not a toy. This supply was braught by the uprising in the neighbouring Albania. So it is really safe to say there are many many "war" weapons in the hands of many citizens (and mostly criminals i may add). Do you know how many die from these weapons every year? No? Well neither do i. I can not recall the last time there was a murder.
So don't blame the owning of guns or the breaking of gun laws. Blame the society and the rules and values on which it is based that drive these kids to something like that.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
"Thank you for officially beginning the obligatory Second Amendment flame-war. I will counter by making the obligatory mention of Columbine. "Columbine". Your turn."
... And I in turn will make the obligatory rest-of-the-worldian observation
"wow, aren't these crazy Americans obsessed by guns?"
Maybe someone Swiss can throw perspective on this. The Swiss murder rate is low, gun ownership is very high [the stats I've seen are for handguns, but as in Canada a higher proportion of guns are rifles than in USA]. (I'm not going to karmawhore with links to stats--the gun debate uses stats like bullets, anyway--google away.)
Even in Canada, where we have very low handgun murder rates compared to our neighbour, we don't just leave rifles unattended in public spaces. What that spoke to me of was a trust that everyone else around is more or less responsible, understands and respects the rules around guns, and is not desperate.
Since the country has survived with great stability through some incredible historical pressures, I figure the trust wasn't naive. (Maybe things are different in the EU now.) They had/have a cultural understanding around guns and poverty, about getting along politically, perhaps, an expectation of honesty, smaller town sizes...?
Everyone was involved in public military service in some way, at various times. They certainly weren't a big melting pot at the time. Who knows. But it's obvious that gun proliferation is damaging to US society... Not because of the arming of the people, but what they're arming with, and why. Maybe gun advocates should also be anti-poverty activists, in order to achieve their goals.
Damn those pesky terrorists
In Switzerland, they don't carry guns around on their hips! What are you thinking, the wild west? The answer is NOT "extremely simple" -- and I think you've never lived there. Plus, the murder rate by guns isn't as low in Switzerland as other places that have restricted access to handguns, like Canada (I guess Canucks prefer knives or broken beer bottles).
I would be interested in knowing just which countries you've been in where the murder rate is astronomical compared to the USA. If you mean places that are an economic disaster, with widespread desperate poverty, well big surprise! But if you mean heavily industrialized nations, please enlighten.
"You're a criminal, you've got your gun. You know that the honest folks don't. Now how scared are you of sticking up a cafe?" -- Well, thank you for illustrating my point about culture perfectly. You exhibit an acceptance that crime carries an acceptable risk of lethal violence. I think that that is a cultural attitude that suggests societal immaturity, rather than an abhorrence of lethal violence... in other words, a culture where someone wants/needs to steal but is more likely unwilling to kill, will have a different relationship to guns -- "you" would be scared of sticking up a cafe because of the risk of killing someone! No it's not naive to think this, but it is dependent upon social and cultural conditions, everything from income disparity to racism to what's on the tube.
Damn those pesky terrorists