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Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday
Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. 'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,' says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a cannon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. 'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says."
...it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat.
He then continued to say, "Also, I use it to hunt deer."
First? Is it really a good idea to give an 11 year old a cannon. Even though you will tell him not to use it unsupervised eventually theres going to come a time where his friends say something like "cmon we will just shoot it once"...... and then before you know it they are invading a nearby neighborhood...
Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgment - Zemfram Cochrane
Though Daugherty said he is still stunned that he had to get clearance from the NSA for the archaic artillery piece
Why would he need clearance from the NSA?
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
The article didn't say it cost $6000, but that it would be worth that. It would be hard to spend $6000 in materials for a Civil war era cannon that you build yourself.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
So we can only have stuff as long as the government doesn't find it threatening?
Oh, I see this guy's on the Union side. Maybe they're worried about him pointing it at Baltimore's civilians and making demands, as the Union army did.
My kid brother, the machinist, made a scale replica of the 24 pounder long guns on the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides). He didn't cast iron; he machined it from a solid piece of modern steel (so it was WAY stronger than the originals).
Then he made a scale carriage, machined (because it was so hard) from seasoned timbers from an old dock being disassembled.
It was 1/4 scale, as I recall. When fired using modern muzzle loader powder (and totally guessing at the charge), it shot a beercan filled with cement about a quarter mile :-)
He sold it eventually to a collector, but what a cannon that was!
This kid lives in Charleston. Why is he talking about shooting at rebels? What has the South come to? Where is the adult supervision?
This would be a great way finally to enjoy a good walk and maybe even get a hole in one.
People nowadays are such wimps...
At random times, my dad gave me a loaded revolver, a tub of arsenic, a box of rabid weasles, a car with the brakes disabled, etc. etc
And I'm still alive
my parents also used to play this fun game where they'd drop me off in the woods naked and covered in bacon fat and I would have to find my way home
good times, good times
just so there's no risk he turns into a girlie man.
Every boy needs to learn that you have to have a big cannon and wield it with authority should any dispute come up.
(Warning: Failure to recognize sarcasm is the eighth deadly sin, specially in a world of manly men.)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Sweet!
'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says
Anyone else have an image of Stormtroopers firing one of these, relieved that they finally have a better weapon than those blasters?
This is totally OT.
Not necessarily. It's just geared more towards history, or even engineering, nerds than computer nerds. I'm willing to bet any 11 year old kid who's a civil war buff gets picked on as much as the rest of us did in school. At least until he gets a 700lb cannon...
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
I'm not exactly worried about being robbed at cannon-point...
Good thing he didn't ask for a Tank.
BEST DAD IN THE WORLD!
I'm not exactly worried about being robbed at cannon-point...
That's just because you don't have any oil.
Have gnu, will travel.
Daugherty said his son is very mature and would be able to handle the responsibility of owning a piece of artillery.
"He's a good kid. One thing about my son he has a great respect for guns and weapons, so he will not be firing this anytime soon without an adult present."
I'm sure that's all true. Unlike Mr. Daugherty, I actually do remember being 11 years old. I also remember not doing a very good job of thinking of the consequences of my actions. So we'll all wait for the day when 1 or 2 years from now when this "good kid" and his friends fire this cannon at other people or nearby property and cause damage that they are held accountable for.
That title should read "Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Himself, Under The Cover of His Son's Birthday".
What a charming and delightful way to relive one of the darkest chapters in our nation's history. :P
Of course, there's been at least one successful revolution... google the battle of athens, tenn.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Wait until a cannonball punches through your roof into your living room and then get back to us.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I'm calling "bullshit" on the NSA bit. The NSA is a bunch of spys and technology geeks. They would have little interest in a Civil War-era black powder cannon. From the NSA web site "The NSA/CSS core missions are to protect U.S. national security systems and to produce foreign signals intelligence information."[http://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml]
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
"I want a thermonuclear device."
Arms are weapons that one man can carry by himself. Cannon are arms that need a wagon or ship. Thus, he has no *constitutional* right to own this weapon, it's so unlikely he'll hurt someone with it, the authorities allow him to have it.
Backpack nules -> arms
ICBMs -> cannon
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
My wife's uncle builds and shoots them. Years ago, he competed with his cannon, in both round shot and rifled competitions, with self-cast balls and "bullets" (I forget the correct name for them). These days he just does it for fun.
You do have to be careful with them, though. Last year (2008) on the fourth of July, he took his small (2.5") cannon down to the city park like every year, to fire it as part of the city's early morning festivities. That went well, and on the way back he decided to stop off at my house and wake us all up, since my kids usually go down to the park. Unfortunately, he forgot to lower the tailgate of his pickup truck before touching off the powder. It blew an 8-inch hole through his tailgate. The cannon didn't have a projectile loaded, just gunpowder and a wad, but the force mangled his tailgate.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I would love to be the kind of dad who could do this, but my daughter would prefer it in pink or come with horses & cell phone.
'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,'
Translation"
'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I really got it for myself even though I won't know it until my son drops his interest in it.'
Technically, yes. There's nothing in the constitution that denies Bill Gates the right to own a nuclear weapon is there? Nothing even close. I suppose you can interpret the private ownership of WMDs to be unconstitutional because of their definition of mass-destruction, thus by their existence in private hands violating other citizen's right to liberty.
And now to nitpick; The Civil War was hardly a bitch-slapping. It was the single bloodiest event in US history, out classing (in sheer destruction) all other wars thus-far combined.
It could have fallen on either side at many different stages of the war. Had Davis pushed into Washington first-thing, it would have been over before it started (as DC was relatively undefended) Or had Lincoln's generals not been a bunch of screw-ups etc. And, of course, the almost million dead between direct conflict, starvation, disease etc again, a little more than a bitch slap.
Now, whiskey rebellion, fine, or even prior to that when Massachusetts or Maine threatened to secede, or Delaware considered joining the Confederacy, or (as in an above post, MD) those were mere bitch-slaps. Man, those whiskey rebellion dudes really were push-overs.
a troll from 1861
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is a really great episode of This American Life here: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=734 that is relevant to this story. Act 1 has Sarah Vowell (a liberal anti-gun person) whose father is a gunsmith who built his own cannon. She tells about going out with him to fire it for the first time.
Lighten up, Francis. Just because the cannon doesn't run Linux doesn't mean its not cool.
But still, imagine a cluster of these things.
Historically, Americans are just very distrustful of our government. That's why the founders had to put the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution to get the people to support it enough for ratification. It's also why it's hard to get stuff like government controlled healthcare passed here.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You mean that somewhere, someone has NOT taught their son to be a pansy, and fear anything that has any remote chance of hurting someone? Oh, the horror! The next thing you know, he'll let the kid have his own POCKET KNIFE, for crying out loud. Won't someone please... THINK OF THE CHILDREN????
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
BATFE itself is not rational. They've declared a shoe string a machine gun, they've declared double barrel shotguns machine guns, they've declared broken guns machine guns, they prohibit felons from buying .22lr derringers, but allow them to own .50cal muzzle loaded rifles. 90% of gun laws serve no practical purpose, but are knee-jerk reaction laws to show that a certain politician is "making America more safe" when election time comes around.
A while back I was working at a place that had both engineering and manufacturing, and I mostly hung out with the engineers but I worked on some of the manufacturing equipment so I met a lot of the manufacturing people. One guy looked like an 80's stoner, black jacket, long hair, bad teeth, you know the type. I'd never talked to him. One day, apropos of nothing, he walked up and handed me a thick sheaf of papers and said "I thought you'd enjoy this." It was plans for making a homebuilt mortar, similar in size to the cannon in TFA (but with a much less pretty and detailed carriage.) It was machined out of a piece of solid 6" thick steel stock. It's actually a pretty cool design, although my metal lathe can't manage something that big. But ever since, I've wondered if I have "CLOSET ANARCHIST" written on my forehead, that makes people who don't know me walk up and volunteer stuff like this, since this wasn't the only time that's happened.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
There is no requirement to inform, nor an age requirement.
I'm sorry that the subject of whatever despot you live under cannot be trusted with Liberty.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Oh, come on now. Most 11 year olds have access to much more dangerous stuff. The Stove, the Parent's Prescription Pills, the Family Car. I know a girl, who at around 10 or 11, stole her parent's car. They even called the cops on her and she was arrested.
A cannon just seems dangerous, but mostly it's just a heavy piece of cast iron that sits there.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Clearly we have different definitions of "11 year-old" :)
It's a convenient way of looking at it, and may be as far as 2A interpretation will go, but that's historically inaccurate. There were many crew served weapons - canon - in private hands at the time of the American Revolution. You needed to be wealthy to support a canon and the crew to operate it, but they were there. That's not to mention privateers - not only were the canon in private hands, but so was the whole damned warship! :)
My evolving interpretation of the 2A is that, if the intent was to allow the citizenry to defend themselves against tyranny and/or revolt, that means the individual has the right to the same or equivalent weapons as can be expected to be used by the tyrants. Limited only by what I can afford. So if the local police have fully automatic M4 carbines, I should be afforded that same right, to the limit of my pocketbook.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I think you're just jealous.
I'm afraid they are describing a mortar, not a howitzer. A howitzer *can* shoot like a mortar, and it *can* shoot like a gun, but the thing that makes it a howitzer is the ability to do both.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Backwards? I have to kind of agree since Daugherty had to check that it was legal first. But dangerous? From what I understand about the cannon, it is probably less dangerous then a gas stove. I will not argue about it serving no practical purpose since there is no way it could penetrate modern armor at any significant range or pose a threat to a moderately awake person. Since the thing is so heavy and hard to load, I seriously doubt the kid will be trying to rob a 7-11 with the thing.
You are probably unaware that the 2nd amendment serves two purposes; 1)allows people to be able to own guns to do hunting and 2)allows the people to have a way of physically fighting the government if needed. Remember the founding fathers had to fight for their freedom which wouldn't have been possible if people didn't own guns.
What truly makes a backwards country is one where they outlaw protecting yourself and takes away your means for protecting yourself.
Cause, I want my son to ask me for a Wave Motion Gun! :)
Somebody has been playing too much Empire: Total War
So, the government has no problems with people building artillery as long as it has no firing pin, and you tell them first. Then it's legal to possess such a dangerous piece of weaponry which serves no practical purpose - and it's ok for your 11 year old kid to own it. America really is a backwards country.
See in America, the people are the government. I know that is hard to understand in most of the rest of the world where the people are subjects of the government. On the other hand, many Americans have been working very hard to change that, so perhaps before much longer that distinction will be gone and the American people will be subjects like so much of the rest of the world.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
you should have written
"Cannons don't kill people. Criminal confederate rebels with cannons do."
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
some one who happens to have been born more than 11 years ago and less than 12 years ago? how do you define an eleven year old?
One of my biology heroes, Ramon y Cajal, was also interested in cannons. When he was 11, he also had his own cannon (although he did build it himself.) He used it to destroy the gates of his hometown, got thrown in jail. Almost immediately upon his release he built a bigger one which blew up, injuring himself in the process. This seems to have curbed his interest in cannons. He still led a pretty wild life after that as well. He settled down a bit after contracting malaria, tuberculosis, and having seven kids, and made the foundations of neuroscience. We still refer to him as the father of neuroscience in fact.
Again though, Cajal did build his cannon, not his dad. Here's hoping though he doesn't have to injure himself, get malaria or tuberculosis, but does do some great things in life.
Possession of WMDs is probably regulated by international law/treaties, so this might limit Bill Gates' ambition of becoming a nuclear power. At least until he gets his own country and a seat in the Security Council, that is.
"General Grant, the Rebs have broken through our lines! What are we going to do?"
"Calm down, Colonel. Get the Beowulf Battery on line."
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Now, if he were in Tennessee or Montana, he could claim exemption under the states' Firearms Freedom Acts from federal gun laws! Well, except that it's a little too big...
Revive the Constitution.
...head shot
Arms are weapons that one man can carry by himself. Cannon are arms that need a wagon or ship. Thus, he has no *constitutional* right to own this weapon, it's so unlikely he'll hurt someone with it, the authorities allow him to have it.
Backpack nules -> arms
ICBMs -> cannon
No, no, no, no, and no. The British marched on Concord to retrieve the cannons that the colonists had. The colonists fought back at Lexington and were defeated, but the battle of Concord became a route as the British troops retreated.
The reason the colonists stood up to the British at Lexington was to protect their rights to own cannon and that is where the spirit of the 2nd amendment came from. Thus the right to own cannon are protected by the United State Constitution.
"But still, imagine a cluster of these things."
Why imagine it - there are plenty of movies with them.
Although with cannon, it's called a "battery".
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
http://www.pers-place.uklinux.net/tommyogtigern/flamethrower.gif
My UID is prime. Hah!
Anytime you need to get permission from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for a Birthday present, you know it's going to be the best birthday ever.
A destructive device (26 U.S.C. 5845) includes "Any weapon by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, the barrel or barrels of which have a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter, except a shotgun or shotgun shell which the Secretary finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes;"
But it does exclude "any other device the Secretary finds is not likely to be used as a weapon, or is an antique or is a rifle which the owner intends to use solely for sporting purposes."
So if you have the signature of the Secretary (of the BATF), maybe you're OK.
If you don't understand what an awesome nerd accomplishment building your own Civil War cannon is ... you really don't have any business calling yourself a nerd.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"But still, imagine a cluster of these things."
You don't have to imagine it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_battery
This sig is false.
To my knowledge, Microsoft is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. So, as long as they go out to international waters to do it, there should be no law in place to stop them from becoming a nuclear power.
I've a friend who has been making these for customers for years. His are machined from brass propeller shafts recovered from antique motorboats. He milled them down in all size from a 24" long barrel to monster sized artillery. They are quite functional, firing lead balls he casts himself from self-made tools and the polished brass is absolutely beautiful. Just an idea for anyone with a hankering to make one, but doesn't have access to a foundry to cast iron.
Go read the Federalist Papers dimwit. You know, there are tons of resources that encompass the founding of this nation that aren't written into The Constitution.
What you're doing is akin to claiming that anything about Judaism and Christianity is written in the 10 commandments.
Though Daugherty said he is still stunned that he had to get clearance from the NSA for the archaic artillery piece
Why would he need clearance from the NSA?
I'm guessing the reporter messed this one up. The Department of Homeland Security would be my guess.
I couldn't disagree with you more. There are plenty of gun nerds.
Also: What was the first thing you thought when you saw the article?
Chances are it involved having one of these yourself, firing it, or possibly analyzing it. If so, then this article did indeed interest you. I, for one, welcome my beowulf cluster of muzzle loading cannon overlords, possibly running Linux...
so the government does not consider the weapon a threat
This statement says so much...
Mind the frickin' laser...
I hear that they're often loaded with a salt, and frequently used in bar fights.
Uhm, in most civilized countries the people are not "subjects of the government" although I've noticed a lot of americans like to pretend that they're the only once with even a semblance of freedom.
More likely the comment was directed at the fact that the parent felt that there is something wrong in laws that allow an 11 year-old to play around with cannons.
You see, in other countries the government, as a servant of the people, attempts to protect the sane parts of the population from nutjobs who think it's their god-given right to own artillery, bombers, nuclear weapons and other items that are highly likely to end up injuring or killing some innocent bystander.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Someone who was born exactly 11 years ago, duh!
If there in international water there is one of two things to come into play they are flying some country's flag and they can police them as they see fit. If not any nation can police them as they see fit.
No sir I dont like it.
The constitution does not limit the freedom of the populace to do anything.
It gives the federal government specific powers, lists specific rights that the federal government is not allowed to infringe upon, and then specifically declares that anything not mentioned is a right reserved by the states and the people.
Of course, everyone just ignores the constitution these days. The federal government acts like it has unlimited power to do whatever it wants. And for the most part, the courts have agreed.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Lots of Civil War re-enactors have built artillery pieces before. There are whole batteries of them! As for it going to an eleven year old, he will have a great deal of difficulty moving it around without dad's truck. Ammunition will cost over $20/round, so he won't be firing it very often. Before we all became politically correct (and more urbanized) after WWII, a boy would often get "his first rifle long before he has his first long trousers." This kid has a lot less potential to get into mischief with a howitzer than he does with a .22 rifle!
P.S. With a little research, dad could have bought one of these for a lot less than $6K.
Technically, yes. There's nothing in the constitution that denies Bill Gates the right to own a nuclear weapon is there? Nothing even close. I suppose you can interpret the private ownership of WMDs to be unconstitutional because of their definition of mass-destruction, thus by their existence in private hands violating other citizen's right to liberty.
Nothing in the constitution perhaps, but there is formal legislation now on the books that prevents ordinary citizens from owning WMDs, including biological and chemical weapons (aka Chlorine and Mustard Gas weapons). This law was passed shortly after 9/11/2001 when it was pointed out that a private citizens could (at the time) own a nuclear warhead and there were concerns about somebody sneaking in a former Soviet weapon and law enforcement personnel being powerless to stop it from coming in from a legal perspective. BTW, this is a law that has yet to be challenged, but I find it hard to believe that any judge would declare it unconstitutional ... certainly not SCOTUS if it went up to appeal (which any such challenge which was successful would be appealed ultimately to the supremes).
World War II, particularly if the planned invasion of Japan had happened without the use of nuclear weapons, certainly would have passed the U.S. Civil War in terms of American military casualties. The Civil War only gets a higher body count when you combine both the Confederate and Union casualties together even with the use of nukes. The invasion of Japan was estimated to have between 1 to 2 million American casualties had it gone forth. God alone knows what Japan would have suffered in a convention military assault in that era. And people condemn the USA for its use of nukes on Hiroshima.
This said, many of the individual battles of the Civil War were as intense as any in recorded history, and certainly ranked up with significant battles like Normandy and Operation Market Garden.
This article reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books, Catapult: Harry and I Build a Siege Weapon, by Jim Paul. The author chronicles how he built a working catapult, getting a National Endowment for the Arts grant to fund it. It sure makes my job look boring!
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I don't know why some people are all excited about an eleven year old with his own cannon. Kids that age already build some of their own stuff that is at least as dangerous. Spud guns, tennis ball guns, zip guns, tiger traps with punji sticks, pipe bombs, Molotov Cocktails, chlorine gas grenades, stills, the list goes on and on.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Slavery is profoundly wrong and no action taken to promote or sustain it can be considered moral.
Succeeding or not succeeding is not essential moral issue. How else did the US or Texas come about if not for succession?
But the Civil War was only about states' rights insofar as that meant their right to join a new country when a president was elected from a newly formed abolitionist party who threatened to infringe on the state "right" of slavery.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Nah, West Virginia seceded from Virginia so they could stay in the Union. Those aren't rebs at all.
I'd put it on my doorstep with a sign that said "Dear Mormons, my cannon would like to learn about Jesus. Please speak directly into barrel."
...to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The government should not consider ANY weapon a threat, because the Right of the People to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed. Arms are arms, whether they be spit-ball tubes, cannon, or nuclear weapons. If an arm is available to the government, The People are entitled to it for their own defense.
But, that's an ideal world in which the government obeys the rules imposed upon it by The People, and we all know how much of a fantasy that is...
...Dad's been watching *way* too much Mythbusters.
You see, in other countries the government, as a servant of the people, attempts to protect the sane parts of the population from nutjobs who think it's their god-given right to own artillery, bombers, nuclear weapons and other items that are highly likely to end up injuring or killing some innocent bystander.
Exactly the rub... Who gets to say who is sane and who is a nutjob? I prefer to live free in a world were bad things might happen, bad people might exist, and those responsible might be held accountable. There are no guarantees and I think it is foolish and offensive to shackle society in the guise of its own good. Technology has already degraded the value of the 2nd Amendment to the point where it is essentially pointless. It is not likely any armed confrontation between the American populace and the U.S. government could have any semblance of the relative parity of the combatants of the Revolution. Still, I will keep my 30-06 even if I can't have an F16, M1 Abrams, or nuclear sub. I have much more faith in this guy and his kid with the cannon they have put thought into than I do with this guy's kid driving when he turns 16. Or does your government protect you from driving because drivers may be nutjobs too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TTkPE0ew40
This is the worst gift ever! Whats he going to do with this? He'll (hopefully) need a parent whenever he wants to "play" with it. He would have been better off with a toy gun or a classic shootin' shell pistol form the 60's
Or does your government protect you from driving because drivers may be nutjobs too?
This shows you don't "get it". The purpose of a cannon (as in, what it was invented to do) is basically killing and maiming people, while a car can be used to kill people it is by no means its primary purpose.
Now, this guy may not intend to use his cannon to kill people, but the point is that it's still a cannon and most people don't really have any good reason to own a cannon. While I personally see nothing wrong with a properly licensed collector or enthusiast owning some pretty scary and dangerous weapons I still have issues with just letting random people build or purchase cannons, fighter jets, tanks and the like (the two latter assuming guns are still intact).
(By "properly licensed" I mean "has shown that he/she is somewhat mentally stable and capable of at least not killing innocent bystanders while playing with his cannon/tank/nukes")
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
I have several friends that have had cannons before. Sure, the *antique* kind, not the "40mm" kind that fires at a high rate per minute...
I've seen these at civil war re-enactments. And ya know what? In *thousands* of these per year, the people are more likely to get hurt due to the SUN and the BOOZE they sneak in, than the cannons.
Is the concern that someone's gonna hold up an ATM with a 700 pound cannon that fires once a minute? Is that REALLY your concern? You really need to turn off the TV, watch it too long and it'll rot your brain AND your voting.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Taking over the government? Nope
Let's see: 11-year old civil war buff
This is an anti-wedgie cannon
I bet Natalie Portman has a cannon of her own.
This cannon is very similar in design to the classic "Napolean" 12 pounder. Guns like this are not primarily intended to "use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent". That's what a mortar is for. These kinds of cannons were aimed straight at the target.
R. Lee Ermey has a wonderful new series on the History channel called Lock 'n Load. One episode deals with field artillery. They fire a Napolean, among other guns. They also fire a mortar of the civil war era.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Stuffed into the crotch of my pants?
And I doubt a fellow would be alone for very long with a 700 lb. cannon in his pants...;-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
The fact that the Bill of Rights was included by the Federalists to help ensure ratification by a skeptical public is common knowledge, acknowledged by Federalists at the time. Even if you weren't aware of that, and didn't read anything about the ratification process, it should be obvious by taking one look at them and comparing their content to that of the main body of the Constitution.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If you can read history, and not be distrustful of governments, then you cannot read.
Possibly?!? Of course it runs Linux. I'd run too if I saw one of these things facing me.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Technically, no, they can't arbitrarily "police" any vessel they wish. But private possession of that much fissile material without an appropriate license from a signatory government also certainly violates some UN treaty. That they can enforce (although they might want to make sure that one of the US, UK, France, Russia or China is willing to back them up on their interpretation of the treaty).
No, but the NRC currently has legal standing to regulate and license private possession of that much fissile material. One suspects that the NRC would not license "assemble a nuclear weapon". It might be entertaining to listen to the Supreme Court questioning, but it seems unlikely that the Court would rule Bill's second amendment rights trump the NRC's authority to regulate. After all, the Court has never ruled that the second amendment overrides the states' authority to regulate high explosives.
+1 Sadly True
Governments don't have rights, they have powers. A specific set of powers is delegated to the federal government in the constitution, and all other powers are the states'. Supposedly.
Eh, sort of. West Virginia seceded because they wanted to outlaw slavery, while the Commonwealth of Virginia did not.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
You have a much, much better chance of a drunk ramming their car through your living room wall than a cannon ball coming through the roof. Doesn't mean we go around clamoring for the cars to be banned. Stupid people will do stupid things - we just have to learn to live with it, and lock them up after they've done them. If you try and get preemptive and stop it from happening in the first place we all end up living in padded cells for our own protection.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
1. Perhaps "NSA" was supposed to be "NFA" - National Firearms Act? Which classifies certain types of weapons as "destructive" and regulates their use/possession. 2. I've been to the Knob Creek Machinegun Shoot twice, and on each occasion, a fellow there brought a Civil War cannon, a rather large muzzleloader he fired about once every 20 - 45 minutes or so.
So if the local police have fully automatic M4 carbines, I should be afforded that same right, to the limit of my pocketbook.
For the most part you can own a fully automatic M4 carbine. Civilians with the appropriate tax stamp (essentially a $300 fee to the BATF) can own a fully automatic weapon so long as it was made prior to 1986. Thing is the government really considers a specific part to be the gun - usually the receiver, but you can also get a registered fully auto sear for an M16/AR15 as well. If you pay the stamp for it (and the going price of about $8k to $10k for the part) then you can install it in an otherwise brand new AR15 carbine and have a select fire machine gun - it's just expensive. For older guns if you have a registered receiver then the 1986 law only applies to it. You can have a gunsmith or machinist remake and outfit the entire gun with new parts as long as the receiver is still intact, and you're good and legal.
You see that often with government regs where some simple part is legally the item. Airplanes are much the same. The registration plate for example is considered an airplane, so you'll see people paying thousands of dollars for an original Piper J3 Cub's plate alone, simply because it's not too hard to rebuild one of those old planes from scratch, but getting it registered as anything but an experimental is hard with a homebuilt plane. Attach that nameplate to your replica though and now it's legally considered to be the same old plane that the plate came from.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I live in Fairmont but I didn't hear anything. Based on the article the test firing was last Tuesday, with it being reported in the Saturday paper, and if it was during the day I would have been at work anyway. That's too bad. I didn't even know this was happening but I don't read the local paper. I can't tell where in Fairmont it was done simply based on the picture.
This is off topic but why is it that a lot of media agencies can't help but use a non-standard 3+ character abbreviation for West Virginia? The AP uses W.Va. (and other non-standard abbreviations compared to the USPS) and it seems even the Times West Virginian uses the same abbreviation. The wikipedia page says "The Associated Press Stylebook states that in contexts other than mailing addresses, the traditional state abbreviations should be used." but I personally think that is stupid. Besides, the USPS abbreviation is the traditional abbreviation in my opinion. The AP abbreviated names seem to have arbitrary cutoff points (although it only abbreviates for states with more than 5 letters) which just makes them appear inconsistent.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
The Government in the US has no business controlling Healthcare, or much of anything else Constitutionally.
If you don't like it, you can take it and shove it up your commie ass, bitch.
When I was a kid my parents got me an air gun.
I fancied my self a sniper.... I used to wear camo, paint my face, hide in the bushes and shoot people in the ass with pepper corn's... It was a while before they caught me too - I got away with it 4 times before victim #5 caught me and beat the shit out of me.
Fun times...
Posting AC for obvious reasons.
Someone modded THAT interesting? Slashdot mods must be extra dense today.
I can immagine funny, or even overrated, but interesting? What's next? Someone rating that bad pun "insightful?"
(hint: "A salt-end battery" vs "Assault and battery")
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"Just think. Violence. Without paperwork."
I occasionally wonder how the gov plans to regulate molecular assemblers. Some nuke designs don't need fissile material.
My father was part of the Revolutionary War Re-enactment Militia back in the 70's, and we used to raise merry Hell with our cannon. I can remember firing Quaker Oatmeal canisters full of sand (puff rounds) several hundred yards out to sea off Cooper's Beach in the Hamptons.
One time, they did a parade in Sag Harbor, but the village wouldn't let them fire the cannon. It was only a 2-pounder, but they still wouldn't let them fire it. They were afraid it would break the windows in some of the historic buildings, which admittedly, are several hundred years old. Well, they held off until the very end of the parade, then fired it anyway. No damage, scared the HELL out of the judges and the crowd loved it.
However, now the gun had to be cleaned.
Dad and Walter took it to the end of the pier and got ready to clean it, when dad noted that the bore was the exact same diameter as a "D" cell battery. Walter noted the same thing, and in a few minutes, they'd charged the cannon and rammed a D-cell down the bore.
Now...a cannon with just a wadding load makes a huge "BOOM" with a big cloud of smoke. Very showy, very flashy. The gun rocks back a little, and that's it.
However, a cannon with an actual round in it makes a sound not unlike a Howitzer from those old WWII movies. A kind of "PAH-WOOOM", followed by the sound of ripping canvas heading down range. The smoke cloud is much narrower, and oh yeah? The cannon jumped it's blocks and went flying down the pier like a scalded cat. Probably scared the bejabbers out of a few baymen that day.
Dad was already hopping in the truck, Walter was chasing after the cannon before it rolled off the pier, and they both threw it in the back and took off before the cops could come.
They cleaned it at home this time.
[End Of Line]
As you alluded to, the 1986 gun law screwed with the economics of automatics - absent this law, they should really only cost more due to the care and feeding angle: automatics aren't that hard. They also aren't too useful save for suppression fire, so I'm unhappy about the law, but see them as second pri objectives in the struggle for more liberal gun laws. The sniper-style hardware I prefer need not look scary, so bradyites don't seem to care.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
international treaties have no force of law. Since nukes have no military purpose save for stopping other nations from using them and are really pricey to keep (dangerous too), would that put them outside the purview of the 2nd amendment? Since the goal is to ensure that the citizenry has force of arms, I see the test of protection as a weapon's suitability for use by a military unit; currently nobody is given reign to use nukes in an engagement, right?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Not sure I get your comment, sorry. But what exactly does the cannon story have to do with Shrub's years in the White House?
Huh?
Yep. And in ten years or so, anyone with the budget of even a tiny country will be able to assemble designer viruses -- think Ebola with robust airborne transmission. If I'm going to worry, I worry about that a lot more than I worry about someone outside the existing nuclear club being able to fabricate a nuke.
Ratified treaties do (or at least should) have the same weight as any national law, and in fact sometimes can take precedence over the existing national laws, even the constitution. A small tactical nuke ca be pretty useful for defending against large hardened targets or masses of soft targets, so one could argue that they are necessary to defend your ranch from the massive waves of pillaging Mongols. Somebody really should test this theory in court.
I didn't think muzzleloaders... cannon or portables like pistols or smoothbores used fuses. Fuses are used for grenata.
I've never fired one myself but I've studied the issue a little. Pour charge down barrel or rip open paper cartridge and pour measured charge. Put wadding in barrel and finally the ball. Ram said ball down into the barrel with ramrod. Prime the pan with additional powder. Carefully pull back the hammer that has the flint into the cocked position. Aim, pull trigger. Hammer flies forward, flint strikes plate, sparks fall into pan igniting primer which burns through to the charge in the barrel. Click, sputter, BOOM!
Cannon works much the same way cept you touch a long match to the primer hole.
I wonder if he makes his own black powder?
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Please file the RFC for transporting protocol of packets by cannon.
No they don't. Ratified treaties lead to laws to enact the treaty, but all are secondary to the c'tion. Your tacnuke might be handy except that the political result is so nasty that nobody is willing to use it. Sorry, but nukes aren't really that useful.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
*cough* World Wars I and II. Or do only American casualties count?
You also have a much higher chance of getting hit by lightning than you do drowning while standing in a parking lot in Las Vegas.
Statistics are meaningless without context. Drunk driving accidents happen a lot because there are lots of cars all over the place, and altogether too many people getting drunk and operating them. Cannon accidents are rare because there simply aren't that many people fucking around with cannons.
That doesn't mean that if there's some 11 year old kid with a working cannon a block or two down that the odds don't shift. Does that mean we should take it away? Not necessarily, but this kid and his parents had better hope nothing bad ever happens. It stands a fantastic chance of ruining their lives as well as other peoples'.
The best way to fire an SUV would be to sling it with a Trebuchet. One this size should do the job quite well http://www.fitz-claridge.com/Trebuchet/index.html
Am I wrong or something, but I think that at those times you measured the canon by the size / weight of cannon ball not the cannon itself. Did a little calculation. If barrel diameter 4'' and assumption that diameter of ball is almost the same and that cannon presumably will use iron (100% clean) cannon balls I got 1.7 pounds.
that's a very small window to be 11 years old ...
"And now to nitpick; The Civil War was hardly a bitch-slapping. It was the single bloodiest event in US history, out classing (in sheer destruction) all other wars thus-far combined."
I suppose you mean "in sheer destruction on the US soil". ;) )
And also to nitpick: I don't know of many wars having taken place on the US territory (you lucky guys
Unless you live in a free country, such as Montana, where you can have all the machine guns you want, and the state police will defend you against attack by the BATF.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Not distrustful enough though.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Depends - the BATF has declared that law as invalid. My guess is it'll go to SCOTUS for review eventually, but regardless, even if valid the law by it's own wording didn't apply to machine gun parts.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I am ashamed at how ridiculous "so-called" Americans can be in this modern world. Cars kill more people than firearms today, yet no one runs ducking for cover at the sight of a 16 year old soloing in his used Chevy for the first time. People all over the country, teens included, celebrate Independence Day by firing off illegal fireworks, yet few complain or report such crimes. But if someone chooses to make a device of historic value for such celebration, you can only find wrong in it. Has there ever been a report since the end of the civil war, ever, of anyone, child or adult, hitting someone's house with a canon? I think not. I wonder why it is not more common place. What is it about the people who wish to stifle Freedom that instills so much fear in them of their fellow law abiding citizenry? Frankly, what worries me more than anything is such "enlightened" people mis-using their 1st amendment right to free speech to tarnish, restrict and destroy our other equally valuable rights.
I do not care to take the time to create an account for a site I have no intention to return to. Be content I bothered to take the time to respond at all.
And damned if it doesn't tick me off. I've got my 870 Express Super Mag though. Wonder what they'll call my police-spec slugs? If history is any indicator, probably a machine gun.
The other thing that ticks me off is the laws regulating guns. The second amendment states that "the right of the people to bear arms...shall not be infringed." I'm feeling damned infringed.
no, obviously millions of people weren't killed in the US Civil War.
Revised: the bloodiest event in US History even if you included all US Casualties from all other wars in which the US fought combined.
Even WW1 and WW2 aren't the bloodiest if you include all casualties.
What, 50 million died in China during the purges after the commies took over? That beats both big wars combined no?