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Defense Distributed Has 3D-Printed an Entire Gun
Daniel_Stuckey writes with this snippet from Motherboard with an update on Cody Wilson's Defense Distributed project: "On Friday morning, Forbes's Andy Greenberg published photos of the world's first completely 3D-printed gun. It has a 3D-printed handle, a 3D-printed trigger, a 3D-printed body and a 3D-printed barrel, all made of polymer. It's not completely plastic, though. So as not to violate the Undetectable Firearms Act and guarantee it would get spotted by a metal detector, Wilson and friends embedded a six-ounce hunk of steel inside the gun. They're calling it 'The Liberator.'" (A name I'm sure that Wilson didn't come up with accidentally.)
The NRA thinks more guns are the answer. Looks like we'll find out if that's true when when we can put a gun in the hands of everyone, rich or poor.
It's a plastic toy that's shaped like a gun, but I don't believe it can be fired. The trigger looks already broken on the picture, imagine how reliable the other parts of the gun are.
They're calling it 'The Liberator.'" (A name I'm sure that Wilson didn't come up with accidentally.)
Given that the FP-45 was an absolutely *shitty* gun, that might not be a good connotation. The "original" Liberator was literally designed to be a gun you use to shoot someone else and then take their gun. Reloading (after the single shot) required about a minute and a small wooden rod or pencil.
Even during WW2, they went almost unused. They were supposed to be distributed amongst insurgency (the Polish and French resistances, mainly), but very few of those produced actually made it to continental Europe.
I suppose the intended connotation was "dirt-cheap gun". The Liberator did cost only a few dollars to produce. But I think, like the actual Liberator, I'd trust this all-plastic gun about as far as I can throw it.
You might smuggle the gun through a metal detector, but has nobody stopped to think that BULLETS ARE MADE OF METAL?!?!?
My kid will be five soon, and I thought it would be a great present!!!
Staples has reversed its recent decision to sell 3-D printers. To remain above reproach, the company will also be cancelling orders for some product lines.
You think you are helping 'gun rights'. But no.. You're just hurting the world of 3d-printing.
Taking bets on when 3d printers and other 'manufacturing devices' get on the board to be regulated somehow... It's comming. Bet. Bet money. Bet MY money.
This isn't even that special. You can make a damm gun from some scrap steel laying around the average garage.
Seriously guys, you're not helping. Stop it. Or at least keep it to yourselves.
It's actually quite easy to legally get a gun in many countries. Typically you can get a hunting license or join a shooting club. And yet, the vast majority of people don't bother. In fact, a substantial fraction of those that do get a gun choose to keep them at the club or at some other separate storage, just so they don't have to keep a dangerous weapon at home.
So, there may be people that think this will revolutionize things, in reality it's rather a non-event. People without guns mostly can get them already, but don't want to. Those that want them, already have them.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Are you suggesting that wouldn't happen if not for the gun printing efforts? Power lies with the means of production. Democratizing the means of production undermines those who hold power and there will thus always be efforts to resist--in this case to regulate--such democratization.
...only outlaws will have undetectable firearms."
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
But I'd be very interested to whom. It seems to be the person firing the gun.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not a bad idea, since tomb stone retailers price gouge so much
Is that like saying "piracy is hurting the world of p2p technology"? Is it? And if government cracks down on p2p, should we blame pirates or government?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
What, that it's a billion dollar operation that's mostly about entertainment and gossip?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Calm down. Long ago, when "zip guns" were being made out of a stolen car antenna, a rubber band, a clothespin, and a rimfire .22 bullet, and teen gangs started threatening each other with them, nobody banned antennas or clothespins.
John
Politicians won't be able to ban printers entirely. They would be lynched.
Their only real option is to try and impose some kind of blacklisted geometry detector, which won't work and will get the whole regulatory system torn out and stomped on shortly thereafter.
You show me a computer algorithm that can not only recognize arbitrary 3D geometry but discern purpose and intent of an object without any other context, and I'll show you a Nobel Prize.
The only question is how many shots before it explodes.
... You're just hurting the world of 3d-printing.
Taking bets on when 3d printers and other 'manufacturing devices' get on the board to be regulated somehow... It's comming. Bet. Bet money. Bet MY money.
...Seriously guys, you're not helping. Stop it. Or at least keep it to yourselves.
Should we blame these people for inciting others to action?
I don't think that's right. We should put the blame where it rightly belongs, which is with whatever regulation agency decides to ban things.
Also, should we worry about repercussions before there actually *are* repercussions? Aren't we guessing an extreme consequence here? I mean, do we want to be the "game over, man" guy from that Aliens movie?
And finally, should we be calling people morons and dictating their actions in a dismissive tone on the subject of gun control? There are reasoned arguments on both sides - the percentage spread between pro and con arguments is not totally convincing one way or another - certainly not at the p<0.05 confidence level we typically use. We may disagree with their position, but can we say without reservation that their position has no merit?
Personally, I'm against dictating the actions of others in the first place. I like to hold people responsible for their actions, and these people have done nothing that harms others. The sophistry "they're enabling others to kill" is just that - an emotional narrative with no basis used to sway an argument. If (and that's a big if) others are enabled by these acts, then the others would be responsible, not these people.
You have some battered wife syndrome going on there.
I'd need to see videos of this working before it means anything to me. No mention in the article how you get a firing pin and springs made out of polymer to work.
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
My kid will be five soon, and I thought it would be a great present!!!
I don't what to think when a post like this gets modded up funny.
A young boy in Kentucky has accidentally shot his two-year-old sister in the chest, killing her. He was playing with a rifle he got for his birthday. The shooting happened in Burkesville, Kentucky as the boy was playing with the 22-calibre 'youth model' gun when it was not realised that the gun was loaded. The children's uncle, David Mann, described the accident as 'something you can't prepare for'
Five-year-old shoots and kills toddler sister with birthday present rifle --- video [May 3]
Here's How the Rifle That Just Killed a 2-Year-Old Girl Is Marketed for Kids
The Crickett website is down.
mythbusters need to test the wooden gun form in the line of fire
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave..."
Americas relationship with guns simply seems CRAZY to me.
Notice how we didn't ask you about it.
Unlike Europe and Asia, this country was not founded by a conquering king. It was founded on the abuse of authority; we won our freedom because the civilians had guns and formed militias. For a while after that, we kept our freedom because the politicians were afraid that if they abused their authority that the citizenry would not be afraid to use them again. Quotes by people like James Madison sum it up better than I can: "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." "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." Of course, members of our government don't feel quite as threatened today, or if they do they don't mention it.
We also don't have to look back too far in history to see what tyrannical governments have done to unarmed civilians. Germany and Russia in the last century, of course; but Cuba and North Korea still run roughshod over their civilians. We say to ourselves, "we'd never let that happen here", and we mean it.
When some group says "we have guns because we have the right to hunt, or we need to defend ourselves from crime", they're being disingenuous. We have guns because we want our government to be nervous. We want our police officers to be polite and cautious. The 3AM knock on the door to haul away a political dissident will not be allowed to become commonplace here, because we don't even track the law abiding citizens that have guns.
Unfortunately, the price we pay is very steep. If it my child were killed in a school shooting, I'm sure I'd feel differently.
Are you suggesting that wouldn't happen if not for the gun printing efforts? Power lies with the means of production. Democratizing the means of production undermines those who hold power and there will thus always be efforts to resist--in this case to regulate--such democratization.
It will happen no matter what, but they need an excuse and this is a great one. If you notice how our privacy has been eroded, it generally comes in jumps after big some traumatic event hits the news. Kind of the same way a boa constrictor suffocates you, by tightening each time you exhale. Getting people in a lather about printed firearms being smuggled aboard aircraft or into secure areas would be the opportunity to tighten.
They love their freedoms.
Freedom is only one principle used to achieve results.
But life is about results, not principles.
Without principles, life would be dull and predictable, ho hum. The TAO says to take the middle path, if you walk down the center-line you can get hit by traffic in both directions. Pick a side, any side, at least you can see some of what's coming.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
So why haven't you done anything about your tyrannical government since 2001?
Since gun control is not happening and misguided individuals are hell bent of printing out a gun anyway.. control the ammo. Let's see how they print out 3D bullets.
This. Guns are incredibly easy to make, and the plastic gun that comes out of a printer is only going to be good for a few rounds before it breaks. Anybody who actually wants to make a gun would do well just to skip the 3D printer and hop on the internet.
The project is interesting in that someday it might be possible to produce something better. I'm skeptical, though, given the materials involved.
Don't be so negative. Imagine a bright future where you can 3d-print your own Darwin Award, wouldn't that be nice?
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
This might work for the big companies, but many of the 3d printers are home-built. There is no way they will be able to prevent the printing of guns or other things they don't like.
I'm confused... do you think Americans have a love of guns because Smith & Wesson, Remington, Lugar, Glock, etc all advertise heavily on tv, radio, billboards, bus benches, magazines, etc and that said advertising is so effective that (some) people rush into gun stores in order to buy?
With the exception of a few hunting or firearm related channels or magazines... I see far more advertising for beer or cigarettes on an average day than I do for firearms.
For the most part, firearms sales in this country have been pretty healthy for quite some time... they only spike in response to external stimuli (such as our currently slightly diminished push for additional 'gun control')... we see the same thing in plenty of other areas... grocery and home improvement stores tend to see pretty healthy sales though the year... then when there is news of an impending storm... both are cleaned out of supplies that people think they won't be able to get afterwards.
Again the reason for the current uptick (which went up since December, but has still been elevated since late 2008) was not because of marketing on the part of the NRA or firearm manufacturers... but because mostly rational people understood that something they wanted to buy may not be available latter... so buying now is preferred than risking not being able to later.
Personally speaking... I have a 'personal arsenals costing thousands of dollars'
I'd estimate that 80% of the firearms I own... are older than I am.. a few by more than a century.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Who says the bullets go through the metal detector? Camouflage them as AA batteries in your camera bag, and send them through the standard xray machine. Do you think the TSA guy watching the monitor would notice?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Well I don't know what the creator of the plastic guns personal feelings are but I think you would find the vast majority of gun owners aren't the crazies you hear about. Most are probably like myself we own 2 maybe 3 firearms (a shotgun, a rifle, and maybe a handgun or another rifle or shotgun in a different caliber for different game) they get used a few times a year for hunting and going to a gun range before the hunting season starts for some practice and then once finished the gun goes back into the locking gun cabinet or gun safe. You never hear about these people on the news as there isn't anything news worthy about some guy shooting a deer during deer season, unless it was some particularly large deer, and even then it is usually on the back page of the sports section in the news paper no one reads anymore. The people you do hear about are the ones who do stupid shit with their firearms, commit crimes, or are just fucking nuts but those people get a lot of press coverage.
Time to offend someone
What rational person who has observed gun control politics in this country for the last 50 years thinks there will not be readily available guns for sale legally in the USA anytime in the foreseeable future? That's my problem with the "gun enthusiasts". At absolute worst the Rambo pretenders may not be able to buy a semi-automatic rifle that looks like a "real army gun" like an AR-15 in some states, but they will always able to get semi-automatics which are functionally the same. I don't have a problem with gun ownership (I have a few rifles and shotguns), but I'm scared that the people that seem to want them the most are so easily deluded with, "Obama is going to take their guns away!" -- that's my relatives I'm describing. I'm really peeved that I didn't foresee this in 2008 and buy a bunch of Remington, Lugar, etc stock before the 2009 inauguration.
You mentioned advertising for cigarettes. When I suspect marketing is at work in promoting the gun culture in our country I would cite the efforts of big tobacco as an analogous example. Donating to politicians to tie their product to freedom. Making sure use of their product is featured in movies. And generally putting money in the right places to maintain a culture that is friendly to a product that is statistically harmful for most people to purchase and use.
Do I believe that big tobacco ever once placed an add telling kids that smoking is cool? No, nothing so blatant. But there is abundant evidence that they worked to promote that message in the culture using far more crafty marketing tactics. Do I think the gun industry is above doing the same? Do you? Does anyone?
Not sure what your point is about owning old guns. I don't see much argument about old guns coming from either camp in the gun debate. The gun industry has little concern if you have old guns as long as you feel compelled to buy those new ones which still represent (in your case at least) 20% of thousands of dollars of potential sales. Promoting a collecting mentality among consumers seems like a smart marketing model for gun manufacturers, baseball card manufacturers, comic book publishers, etc...
If being hit by traffic is your concern, the centre-line is not the middle path.
One who recognizes that a sizeable # of those who seek additional controls are not concerned about the constitutionality of their prohibitions or their effectiveness... and have become more brazen in their attempts than their predecessors in past.
While Obama himself has not made any specific statements regarding seizing guns... countless person in his party have... either calling for doing so immediately or preventing the transfer of certain types of weapons to anyone but the government in future (ie you die, your kid can't inherit your AR-15)... and many prefer to err on the side of caution.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Little need when such a right was explicitly codified in 1791.
Big difference between smoking & guns in movies... While you rarely see explicit branding of either (it is easier to discern what sort of firearm is on screen with the help of sites like http://www.imfdb.org.../ smoking is rarely a necessary tool of the story... while without firearms there would be very few police, crime, action or military movies.
While there has no doubt been advertising which has, I'd be curious to know how many young people 'got into firearms' because they were even remotely influenced by some tv or movie program... vs those who had the tradition passed down to them my an older relative who wished to pass down the past time of hunting or target shooting. Even in the Cub and Boy Scouts... firearms are an optional component of it.
As far as my older guns... I mentioned it for three reasons:
1. Like the previous line... I'd actually not intended to post it (as the previous line was not completed :( ).
2. Unlike almost any other consumer product... firearms hold their value and functionality pretty well over the years provided they are stored properly. While it is not uncommon to buy a new deer rifle and use it 2-3 weekends a year for 50+ years (this year will be year 9 with mine)... the same cannot be said for purchasers of almost anything else. As a result... there is a massive secondary market for used firearms of all ages and types... and even if successful advertising were getting people to buy the latest and greatest items (granted the new buying is happening, but again, I'm not convinced it is done because of any explicit efforts on the part of the gun makers)... the shear amount of options in the secondary market makes it difficult to get folks to buy new. "I could buy new... or I could save $XXX and get this used but well cared for unit of the previous model" one would say... and possibly not even require the pointless hoop jumping of a 4473 and background check.
Heck... I go to one of the evil 'gun shows' every month or two... and a good 75%+ of the firearms for sale there are used and are purchased either because A) someone is trying to save a buck on something a little older, or B) someone is into collecting certain items that they may not have been alive or able to purchase when new (if it was even available to consumers then)... which is most of what I do, and that relates to #3:
3. When people like the President or others campaign against "weapons designed for the theater of war"... I have to laugh (and cry a bit)... because inside my safe I have quite a few "weapons designed for the theater of war" that were actually built exclusively for and carried by different foreign militaries... unlike the AR-15 which is simply a consumerized (and thus less fun) version of the M-16.
To a person like me (and most people who own more than a few firearms)... advertising firearms is a pretty big waste of time as I already know what I'm looking for (mostly old things)... and when looking for something new (to me or new from the factory), do the research ahead of time to choose well.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
How many false positives do they get? How many false negatives? The auto-sear for a registered conversion device to make an AR-15 capable of automatic fire is an extremely simple object with one moving part and a spring. I can all but guarantee you that somewhere else, somehow, there is a component of some mechanical device that is nearly identical in shape, layout, and dimension.
That's probably the case for most internal parts of most modern weapons, too. Firearms are dazzlingly simple devices when all is said and done. If we start chaining down society from being able to make anything that might be mistaken for a gun, society is going to become fed up with the entire notion of that stupidity in, oh, five minutes. Long enough to find out they can't print their latest design, doodad, iWhatsit accessory, or critical replacement part for a car engine or medical device.
Even with a very good recognition algorithm that somehow didn't piss people off, all it would do is start a design arms race between black market engineers and the bureaucrats maintaining the blacklist. And that would probably, ultimately, drive a level of small arms innovation the likes of which we haven't seen in more than a century.
Exactly. Hitler took one look at that and said "never mind"...
Actually, he took a look at them and said, "Invade our bankers and money launderers? Why would we do that? They are helping to fund us when half the world won't trade with us!"
Also, they were neutral and basically German anyway. You know, the whole Aryan thing?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
totally awesome that the picture they chose for this shows it with a broken trigger.
I like the idea. When did a cop or an incumbent politician protect your freedom to commit civil disobedience? It's not free speech if you can only say it 200 metres away from your audience.
Then why does the USA have police officers who:
- arrest someone for resisting arrest
- arrest someone for using a camera
- shoot dogs that are chained during an arrest
- shoot a woman in a green van when the criminal is a man in a blue ute.
- conduct surveillance without a warrant
The US attorney-general wants the President to order executions of Americans without trial. No need for secret police, torture, or a jail cell.
I think your republic has serious problems.
I am not worried about Americans. They have enough not printed guns so that a few more printed ones do not matter. They are a spit in the ocean. I am worried what this will do in countries with sane weapon laws. And I am worried what this will do to 3D printers.
And yet you're letting it happen there, with civil liberties being trampled in the name of protecting against "terrorists", including children who bite a cookie into the shape of a gun or school girls who have bottles of dran cleaners.
Guns aren't helping the US retain freedom in the face of politicians who remove it at every opportunity.
Dem 'Mericans be craaaazy....
You shouldn't get your science and statistics out of cartoons. The graph in that cartoon has been manipualted by choosing data points that fit the conclusion, and the reasoning behind the panels is unsound as well.
The US is an outlier (by a factor of two) on both gun ownership and murder rate. But you can look within the US and there is, again, no correlation between gun ownership within populations and their murder rate.
The idea that imposing additional gun control will reduce US murder rates has no scientific support.
Good, you found some data. Why don't you copy it into your favorite spreadsheet and plot gun ownership vs homicide rates across all nations, or across OECD, and you'll see that there is no correlation.
Of course only an American would think that they are unique in overthrowing tyranny. Whilst it is true that America was founded as a direct result of this you ARE NOT unique and special. For example we here in Britain; The English Civil War, wich actually resulted in the execution of our king in an attempt to curtail tyranny. Perhaps you forgot about that one. We also find some sections of the American populace self centered, selfish. Perhaps reason you have so many troubles is this idea of Libertarianism, essentially the idea of, "my rights first, fuck everybody else's rights". I honestly think your founding fathers is they could see what you have become as a nation would disown you. This idea that an unarmed populace couldn't fight a tyrannical government is pretty weak to be honest. For every example that you give I can give a counter. For example The Spanish Civil War. Unarmed civilians very quickly organised into armed "militia". So your populace is having to endure slaughter, innocent kids etc... Because you as a nation seem to have this paranoid belief that the jack boots are going to kick your doors down at "3AM" and arming yourselves to the teeth with little of no regulation ("My rights, me, me, me") is the answer. It obviously isn't working. Time to evolve and change?
The Europeans' relationship to their ruling classes seems CRAZY to me, as does the fact that Europeans are so enamored with fascism, socialism, communism, and monarchies.
I live in Britain, where handguns are banned and to get a crippled rifle or shotgun you need to jump through a lot of hoops.
I can see this causing a lot of problems
Those frightened of 3D-printed guns in Britain should be much more worried about people making Sten sub-machine guns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten
You Brits were making them like gangbusters in WW2 precisely because they required almost nothing in the way of machining, special/expensive/high-quality/tight-tolerance parts or materials, skills to make, etc etc. Probably still plenty of old original manufacturing templates, jigs, etc scattered about that anyone interested could buy quite cheaply.
Same minimal requirements are needed to produce something like the International Ordnance MP2: http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/37779-2/international_ordnance_MP2_0068.jpg
Just check this site out: http://thehomegunsmith.com/
Those are all much greater real-world, practical threats than some geeks 3D-printing a plastic gun that's as likely to kill/maim the shoot-er as the shoot-ee.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Unlike your ruling classes? Monarchies? barely the one's ironically that seem most enamoured with them are actually Americans, usually from the ruling classes. Fascism I hope not it disgusts me and actually is illegal in many european nations. Because of course you have no fascism in the USA do you. As for communism,get over it, most of the rest of the world already has, a long time ago. Now socialism, you really need to understand what it is, really for some Americans like you I can't see you actually understand what it is. I've said it before, America is a self centered nation, the rights of the individual seems to be top priority, is sort of goes like: "My right to own lot's and lots of guns, in case 'they' come get me. Fuck everyone else's rights, fuck the kids...blah blah ". There are some sections of the American populace that actually believe that they are a superior nation. Your not, you are NOT SPECIAL. You are not the instigators of all things good. Quite frankly we are getting sick and tired of you, you give the sensible one's in your fine nation a bad name. You mire the name of your nation in the mud through your stupidity.
And you give us another shining example of what passes for political thought in Europe. Thanks for illustrating my point.
Again the reason for the current uptick (which went up since December, but has still been elevated since late 2008) was not because of marketing on the part of the NRA or firearm manufacturers... but because mostly rational people understood that something they wanted to buy may not be available latter... so buying now is preferred than risking not being able to later.
Exactamundo. Hell, I did that with some of the high-powered spherical magnets. They have now been recalled and at least one brand is now illegal to sell or resell in the USA. Those little round magnets you bought at thinkgeek? It's illegal to sell them now. Have a nice day.
I'd estimate that 80% of the firearms I own... are older than I am.. a few by more than a century.
Every firearm I own was designed before I was born, both my rifles were built before I was born, and neither one is particularly collectible. My rifle was designed in 1898 and built in 192something and rebarreled in 1935.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'd be curious to know how many young people 'got into firearms' because they were even remotely influenced by some tv or movie program... vs those who had the tradition passed down to them my an older relative who wished to pass down the past time of hunting or target shooting.
I'm curious too. I suspect it's actually fairly considerable. I knew the names, calibers, and some other specs on some various military firearms before I ever actually owned a firearm myself.
To a person like me (and most people who own more than a few firearms)... advertising firearms is a pretty big waste of time as I already know what I'm looking for (mostly old things)... and when looking for something new (to me or new from the factory), do the research ahead of time to choose well.
Advertising creates an association of a brand name to a class of products, so for most people who are too lazy or not clever enough to do proper research, it creates an air of authority for brands they see advertised repeatedly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Making a nonmetallic round seems easier to me than making a nonmetallic gun. Composite casing, ceramic/stone bullet and primer cap.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
What! is that it, is that the best America has to offer. I'm not impressed. What exactly is that supposed to mean? Politics in America is a joke, you still haven't learnt from any of the lesson we have because you are so fucking arrogant. So YOU are another shinning example of exactly why there is anti-american sentiment in Europe, no sorry, the rest of the world. Fucking grow up. You don't need guns, get it?
Unfortunately, the price we pay is very steep. If it my child were killed in a school shooting, I'm sure I'd feel differently.
Perhaps you should hand out "Martyr for Freedom! Sponsored by the NRA!" medals to all the parents who lose children in school shootings. I'm sure they'd feel much better after that.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
He never said we were unique. He only said that in comparison to Europe and Asia, our country was not founded by a conquering king. You hold up Great Britain as an example of a country that's thrown off tyranny, but I suspect you never quite passed your A-levels in history. Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of William I, after all, a guy better known to history as William the Conqueror. So, no, I'm not going to accept Great Britain as an example of a country that avoided being founded by a conquering king, given a conquering king is in the direct ancestry of your current monarch.
I'd be quite surprised if you didn't. In a nation of over 300 million people there are going to be large portions of it that you don't like. There are large portions I don't particularly like, either.
Of course they would. "Wait, you gave the vote to women, people without property, and the darkies?!"
In the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., one of Jefferson's finest writings is engraved on the wall in huge letters for the world to see.
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
So, yes, we would definitely be disowned by the Founding Fathers. But that's okay. Thomas Jefferson himself gave us permission to improve upon the model they left us. The Framers were horribly flawed human beings. Their great triumph was not that they gave us a Constitution, but they gave us a process: not a law fixed and unchanging for all time, but a means by which we could gradually make our country a shining beacon upon the hill. Rather beautiful, really.
Ah, I see. You were actually meaning to imply they'd be ashamed of how we conduct ourselves because we don't happen to agree with you? Well. Speaking as a Virginian, which is to say a member of one of the original Colonies that rebelled against George III, let me give you the traditional Virginian response to foreigners who want to tell us how we should rule ourselves: go away.
Maybe our system is correct, maybe it's not. Either way, we're not going to pay your opinion about how we should live the slightest tinker's dam of attention. Instead we'll talk with each other, our communities, our neighbors, and we'll fumble our way forward into the future together.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the death-knells of the millions of oppressed North Koreans, over the conflagration of the Jews and the Romany and the homosexuals and the dissenters in German-occupied Poland, over the cries of hunger of the one million Ukrainians who died in the Holodomor, the terrorized shrieks of the Armenians who were pursued by the Turks. We can go back even to the Mongol era, where the great Khan put large parts of Asia and Europe to the sword and unleashed a campaign of rape and terror the world had never seen before.
If you really think that an unarmed populace can quickly organize to resist an armed oppressor, then you are living in a state of utter delusion. In the K
While it doesn't appear to be mentioned in the Wikipedia article, some analysts in the wake of WWII attributed more enemy deaths to the original Liberator than to all Allied automatic weapon fire in the war. I guess you had to be there.
If the neighbor owned a gun though, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Yes they would, if they also had a gun - he would have had to break in first and then could have been shot on entry.
It's far, far easier to defend yourself in your home if you have a gun because you can go to any enclosed area and simply shoot whoever opens the door. There have been countless newspaper stories about women taking the kids into a closet and shooting intruders (who were verbally warned not to enter!) when they tried to open the closet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm sure plastic explosive would do the job, and some formulations are fairly easy to make and quite safe to handle. Of course you couldn't fire it in a normal gun without some sort of relatively sophisticated primer charge - plastique became popular precisely because unlike previous explosives it's extremely stable - you can fire a gun into it or even light it on fire without risk of explosion (it was sometimes used to heat rations during WWII)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
No, I have the education to know that the chances of a criminal shooting me are tiny
The chances of being in a car crash are very, very low.
But I'll bet you wear a seatbelt.
The thing is, even when a chance is small if the upside is huge it's simply a good idea. I wear a seatbelt; I own guns. Both for the same reasons.
The fact that you do one and not the other shows that in fact you are motivated by fear, as much as you like to pretend otherwise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unlike Europe and Asia, this country was not founded by a conquering king.
Oh, get off your horse you (anonymous) coward. A lot of countries in Europe and Asia had to fight for their freedom, too. Against Turks, Russians and so on.
While I work in a different department of the store, I still hear the stories in the breakroom and 'mostly rational' is not an accurate description of the now diminished hysteria shown by gun buyers over the past six months.
Much (most?) humor is an emotional defensive response against the recognition of painful or uncomfortable realities - I challenge you to think of a joke/prank/etc. that doesn't rest on a physically, socially, or emotionally uncomfortable reality. Fear of death. Displeasure at the complexities of relationships. Poop. (which for some reason primates seem to find both unpleasant and hilarious).
For my part it just seems like evolution in action - the stupidity of the parents resulted in the death of one of their children - such things have been happening since the dawn of life and are at least partially responsible for the fact that we're as intelligent as we are. Tragic, but an almost necessary part of the process. At least it was their own child that died and not some unlucky third party, so at least some small measure of species-benefit can come from the elimination of unfit genes.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I most certainly did pass my history A-levels thank you very much. So I take it you are ignoring the English Civil War as an example of other places, countries attempting to overthrow tyranny. That by the way led to even more tyranny. The direct ancestry to our present queen says what? Can't see your point. My point still stands.
Ah, I see. You were actually meaning to imply they'd be ashamed of how we conduct ourselves because we don't happen to agree with you?
No, I could not care one bit whether you agree with me or not.
Maybe our system is correct, maybe it's not. Either way, we're not going to pay your opinion about how we should live the slightest tinker's dam of attention. Instead we'll talk with each other, our communities, our neighbors, and we'll fumble our way forward into the future together.
aren't they all, I'm fully aware of that. I'm not judging your system, but the judgement, wisdom of you as a nation, as a whole. To the rest of the word it seems glaringly obvious what needs to happen.Of course that is entirely up to you
If you really think that an unarmed populace can quickly organize to resist an armed oppressor, then you are living in a state of utter delusion.
Sorry there are plenty of examples either way, where this happens. Very recent one's, even ongoing one's. You are just cherry picking
have you ever heard of the POUM Militia....Go read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia
Lol, already have read it. In fact I grew up in Catalonia, I used to play in the civil war defences that still exits by the coast in Vilanova i la Geltrú, next to Sitges, which from memory (read it a long time ago) is mentioned in Orwells diary.
I know and have talked to people wo were personally involved in that tradegy
So why don't you go away and teach your grandmother to suck eggs? I could say something about American arrogance now.
Look, I most certainly do not want to tell you or your countrymen how to live your lives. I am most certainly not anti-american. However I think we find what is happening over there with the gun debate, well crazy. To us it seems obvious. regulate.
I myself am interested in obtaining a FAC (Firearms Arms Certificate), here it's hard and rightly so, I am not anti guns. But what is happening in your country at the moment, the excuses, the obsession. It's bizzare, it's a pity.
Because the beer and circuses keep flowing. Let the tyranny start affecting more people in their day-to-day lives and things may change. Of course the smart strategy would be to get all the necessary powers to quash a rebellion cemented firmly in place for "good reasons" before actually beginning to abuse them for tyranical purposes. It is precisely the recent drastic expansion of easily abusable government powers that make many people extremely suspicious of recent attempts at gun control. Especially when you have things like mass shootings using handguns being used as an excuse to try ban assault rifles. The simple fact is that handguns are specifically designed to be cheap, compact, convenient, easily concealable tools for killing people - they have minimal other uses. Assault rifles on the other hand are primarily useful for hunting, military actions, and intimidation, while being considerably more difficult to conceal or wield in close quarters, and are only rarely used in violent crimes (personally I'd classify inter-gang warfare as a military action rather than a violent crime, but I suppose some might disagree).
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
>I think your republic has serious problems.
I quite agree, except on
>your freedom to commit civil disobedience
We have no legal right to such actions - pretty much by definition you are breaking a law you believe to be unjust in order to draw wider attention to the injustice, and any responsible individual engaging in such behavior does so with the expectation that they will be arrested, in fact they're counting on it - you don't draw attention to an unjust law by having the police ignore your actions, unless your cause has already garnered sufficient attention and sympathy that the police themselves begin engaging in civil disobedience in support of it.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
...if he knew anything about history, he would've called it: "The Liberator 2.0"
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Regulate. I rest my fucking case.
Little need when such a right was explicitly codified in 1791.
The interpretation of the 2nd amendment is an entire different topic of discussion, that I do not want to get dragged into, but I think an honest person will admit that it is not entirely clear how to interpret it whether you come from the pro-gun or anti-gun side. On the anti-gun side someone could highlight the issue of what it means to be a "well regulated militia" and also that a strict reading of firearm means whatever a firearm was at the time. On the pro-gun side someone could argue that surface to air missiles should be legal. I don't mean to argue either of these points, just that enough ambiguity exists that there is an incentive for those who profit from guns to spend capital on keeping their product legal. I seem to remember the tobacco industry making constitutional arguments for use of their product as well and I've met more than one smoker that asserts that their right to make others suck down their carcinogens is part of living in a free country. And I generally agree with them that if you were to present the issue to someone living in 1791 they would laugh at the idea of banning smoking in any context.
Ok, so you do believe that the gun industry is the one exception among all other businesses in that they are not making explicit efforts for people to buy their product. I don't know how to respond to that, so we will have to disagree. Regarding the origins of gun lust/interest/fascination I don't dismiss the possibility that guns are intrinsically interesting devices. I play FPS games and I think everyone likes the basic idea of projecting force. But just like when I find the remote out of reach and I momentarily try to use the force to summon it to my hand Skywalker style, I suspect that media might have something to do with my son running around making shooting sounds as he points at things. Now, do I think the gun industry pays everyone who promotes guns, no, not anymore than I think the tobacco industry pays everyone to smoke a cigarette in a film. But where we disagree, apparently, is that I believe that the gun industry, like the tobacco industry, works to influence the culture so that their product is still desired even though, statistically, it's not good for you.
So how does being 3D printed change anything, except by perhaps making the acquisition cheaper and/or easier? I challenge you to find anywhere on Earth where a sufficiently motivated and financed person can't get their hands on a gun today.
>Guns don't make the person carrying one any safer.
Correction - carrying a gun doesn't give confer invulnerability. In most circumstances being armed will increase your survival odds in an open conflict with an armed assailant. Of course if you have the option retreating will likely be even more effective, but that's not always an option for a vareity of reasons, not least of which being if you've charged with apprehending a dangerous individual. Even if you seek to retreat a gun can significantly increase your odds of doing so if your attacker wishes to prevent it and has a decent sense of self preservation. You don't even have to be a good shot - just firing an occasional round reasonably close to your attacker will cause most people to try to maintain cover, buying you precious seconds to make your escape.
Look at it from the other perspective - if the rogue cop *didn't* have a gun, do you think he would have fared nearly as well? And it's not a huge stretch to imagine that instead of a rogue cop it could be a completely innocent guy who witnessed something he shouldn't have and is trying to avoid being silenced.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
If I'm cherrypicking, then it ought to be easy for you to find five clear counterexamples for each of my examples. After all, I'm cherrypicking. I invite you to do this. If I'm in error I'd love to be corrected. The requirements are simple:
Nelson Mandela and the ANC doesn't count: he started his career in armed insurrection. Suu Kyi doesn't count: the Burmese military rank-and-file were passively refusing to enforce the junta's orders. (For instance, allowing visitors to come and go from her place of detention pretty much at-will, and turning a blind eye as she talked to the media.) Ceaucescu's Romania doesn't count: the enforcers were defecting to the protesters in record numbers. Honecker's East Germany doesn't count: when the Berlin Wall fell East German guards were among the most enthusiastic participants. Gandhi doesn't count: he was depending on English decency and sense of fair play to keep his followers alive. (Had Great Britain handled Gandhi the same way they handled 19th-century uprisings in India, Gandhi would have been strapped to a cannon and executed long before he made it halfway to the sea for his salt.) Yeltsin doesn't count: when the KGB ordered their elite counterterror forces to take back government, the counterterror forces refused.
When the people with the guns refuse to use guns, yes, unarmed protest movements can have stunning successes. I'm all in favor of them. But when the people with the guns are willing to use them to ensure their continued rule, unarmed protest movements turn into massacres.
If I'm cherrypicking, then show me five counterexamples for each of the large-scale massacres I showed. Just make sure they pass the requirements, because otherwise you're moving the goalposts.
I think that the real motives of the NRA has more to do with the liberty of companies to sell guns than with the liberty of people to own them.
If it ever come to the point were guns sales plummet 50% because people are 3D Printing them for a few dollars instead of purchasing them from gun manufacturers for a few 100s... I would be curious to see the NRA's reaction.
Just sayin...
The amount of skill and equipment you need to gather to put together a Sten has been a barrier for them being home made for criminal purposes in the UK since WW2. If matters were as easy as you suggest, then our streets would be plagued by Sten-wielding chavs. The reality is that the UK is a largely gun-free culture, and this applies to criminals too. Pretty much every developed nation outside the US is a testament to how gun control is possible and can make society better.
3D printed guns *may* change that by reducing the skill and equipment you require in one place, and kept secret from the police. I'm hoping that they are overhyping things, and their gun is as likely to take off the shooters fingers as it is to harm the intended target. I don't want the morons who think this http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/us/kentucky-accidential-shooting/index.html is "just an accident" to win
No plastic bullets? No worry.. "tap tap tap" BOOM...
You know Elizabeth II isn't a tyrant, right? The modern UK is ruled by an elected parliamentary system, one which was founded rather a long time ago. The creation of that system and its refinement into what it is today was mostly peaceful, accomplished through politics, not revolution. The same goes for most other European nations. Canada was a British colony like the US, but instead of violent revolution we achieved independence and our current democracy by peaceful political means.
Very true. And yet when I suggested in a comment to a previous story that making properly securing your gun mandatory would go a long way towards reducing gun deaths in the US somebody claimed such suggestions were just the government trying to take away his freedom.
Gun owners aren't the problem. Crazy people who think they need to have a gun in case they want to shoot somebody are the problem.
The amount of skill and equipment you need to gather to put together a Sten has been a barrier for them being home made for criminal purposes in the UK since WW2.
Not too much of a barrier, it seems.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165531/Its-wild-wild-West-Midlands-Homemade-gun-Uzis-Ak47s-make-huge-haul-firearms-seized-police-just-year.html
Pretty much every developed nation outside the US is a testament to how gun control is possible and can make society better.
Depends on what one considers "better". The people featured in the video linked below might disagree with your premise. "Gun control" didn't work out very well for them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUmKT43j4Tc
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If you want to make a 'proper' gun, you print the gun parts in the cheap enviromentally friendly plastic they use in 3d printers anyway ( PLA )
Then you make a metal version using the 'lost PLA' method.
End result is that you can pretty easily make a METAL gun, with all the durability advantages that go with it.
Throw in a hone for the barral and you can make a pretty fucking accurate weapon out of a 3d printer or CNC machine that you can make cheap as shit. Or as the other article points out, just buy the 3d printer from Staples.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Nothing.
Its rather trivial to make 'a gun' anyway. You should be less afraid of 3D Printers (which cost money) and more afraid of the Internet where you get directions on how to make guns with shit you can buy at the local hardware store and a few simple hand tools.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I am afraid this is a bit short sighted. 'Local hardware store' and 'few simple hand tools' are quite a hurdle for the usual left handed couch potato. Downloading a 'gun definition file' and filling some plastic pellets into a 3D printer are not.
Europeans have learned nothing; they are heading down the same path to economic, social, and political self-destruction they were heading down a century ago.
European intellectuals and politicians hated Americans in the 19th century, they hated Americans in the 20th century, and they are hating Americans in the 21st century. Do you think we give a f*ck anymore what you think?
No, we don't "need" guns; in fact, they may be bad for us. But one isn't free if one doesn't have the freedom to make bad choices. The totalitarian mindset is so deeply engrained in Europe that you don't even realize it.
Reported this past week in NYtimes. A 4 year old using a "scaled down rifle", (built smaller for kids) shot and killed his 2 year old sister. The gun or rifle was supposedly unloaded, but a bullet was left in the chamber. Click, bang dead.
Yes, we need more guns.
Perhaps the answer is to allow printing guns such that the NRA cannot profit from any sales. Maybe then, we replace one evil with another.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I get a similar response when I mention that I don't believe in accidental shootings and the ones that you hear about that are classed that way really are criminally negligent shootings. I will admit I have had a firearm accidentally discharge before (SKS fired when the bolt closed because the pin had frozen forward from sleet) but even then because it was being handled properly and was in good working order (didn't double or empty the mag) it just shot the soft dirt ground about 3 feet out in front of me. It was pointed in a safe direction I knew what was in the direction (the ravine my buddies and I shoot pop cans in) and we all stay behind the firing line when shooting. Granted when it did that I then unloaded it, stripped it, checked it, and cleaned it all to be sure there wasn't any issues.
Time to offend someone
Although I agree that the UK is a model system for democracies everywhere, that's not the point. The original poster said that unlike much of Europe and Asia, America traces its origins back to the overthrow of absolute rule rather than someone's imposition of it. A respondent argued that modern-day Great Britain was obviously an exception to that, due to the English Civil War. I don't buy that. If you trace Elizabeth II's ancestry back, you reach William the Conqueror. The entire reason Elizabeth is monarch is because she happens to be the descendant of someone who imposed absolute rule. The basis for Elizabeth II's monarchy rests in William the Conqueror's invasion of England, whereas the basis for Barack Obama's presidency goes back to the overthrow of George III's rule.
Besides, it seems to me that the American Revolution was unnecessary in retrospect as Canada stuck with England and still managed to get its independence.
So what? If you're creative enough tracing back pretty much anybody you might well end up at tyrannical royalty. I'm descended from a bastard son of Czar Nicolas II, who was abandoned on the steps of a monastery.
Elizabeth doesn't rule the UK. The UK is ruled by an elected parliamentary government that happens to have a figurehead monarch as titular head of state. The only difference between the UK and US in terms of rule is that the UK peacefully evolved a democratic system while the US established it by armed rebellion. Yes, I agree with you, that colours US politics to this day. I think I disagree with you that it's a good thing.
To this day the average American seems to have a weird adversarial view of his government. That in itself might even be okay, except that it seems to allow people to conveniently abrogate their democratic responsibility.
The point is this: the person I was responding to claimed that the English Civil War demonstrated that the origin of power in the United Kingdom was just as rooted in rebellion as the origin of power in the United States is. And that's simply not true. Elizabeth II (who is not a figurehead monarch: she is the only person in the UK who can authorize war or declare peace, and that's one hell of a power; further, she can unilaterally block Parliamentary attempts to limit the Crown's interests or royal prerogatives -- a monarchial benefit that I find hard to believe still exists today in the UK) traces her right to rule back to William the Conqueror, not William Who Ended Oppression. Elizabeth II's authority derives from a long-ago act of conquest, not a long-ago act of rebellion.
With respect to "I think I disagree with you that it's a good thing," I never said I believed the US's national-origin story was a good thing. I only said that it was ours. I'm not saying the UK national-origin story is bad because it's rooted in conquest, nor am I saying the US national-origin story is good because it's rooted in rebellion. I'm only saying they're different and shouldn't be expected to be the same.
One article from a tabloid is the best evidence you can come up with? Fucking gun nut moron.
One article from a tabloid is the best evidence you can come up with? Fucking gun nut moron.
Fact/info-free ad hominems are apparently the best you can come up with.
Go massage your neurotic-bordering-on-psychotic fears elsewhere with someone that may care for humoring such.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
And when will the first liberal realize that whether the gun was printed or not, or even the fact that a gun was used, has nothing to do with the actual root problem.
Hitmen have just found a murder weapon that they can print, shoot and then melt down into a set of coasters. I wonder what a 22 round shot from coffee coasters will come up as when it's run through a ballistics database? Actually, if cops come to question him he could offer them a cup of coffee and make sure not to stain his table by setting their cups on a recycled murder weapon or 2.
From TFA:
In the Forbes article, other than "a single nail that is used as a firing pin", the gun also includes another nonprintable part. The group, the article says, added a six-ounce chunk of steel into the body to make it detectable by metal detectors in order to comply with the undetectable firearms act. The act, Congressman Steve Israel says, is set to expire at the end of the year. "The very least we should do, as a matter of common sense, is extend the undetectable firearms act so that a plastic gun or component can't be brought onto planes because a metal detector can't detect them," notes Israel.
I could never understand why people have no problem with a law that categorically bans ALL guns that are made from non-ferrous materials, and/or that do not look like a gun by X-Ray, but run around like crazy people talking about armed citizens overthrowing the government over limitations on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines--or f***ing background checks. The only way a citizens group would ever have a chance at affecting change in government with guns would be by assassinating a politician--you have no chance against the military or police, sorry. And the Undetectable Firearms Act was written pretty much with that problem in mind (and, obviously other public places like airports.) Why then aren't people pooping their pants over this clear restriction to the supposed core principle of the Second Amendment?
Seriously, where are the protests and demonstrations against the banning of plastic guns 25 years ago? Where were all the threats to vote politicians out of office for violating their constitutional rights? If the answer to the theater shooting in Aurora was that movie-goers should have been carrying guns, and the answer to school shootings is armed teachers, then why not airplanes? Wouldn't we all feel safer if everyone in an airplane was carrying an undetectable plastic gun? I mean, what can box cutters do against bullets? This cognitive dissonance (and the total capitulation of the trampling of the rest of the Bill of Rights) perplexes me.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
[W]e want our government to be nervous. We want our police officers to be polite and cautious.
You forgot the pony.
Gun ownership in the US for most conservatives is not about "freedom", quite the opposite, it is about removing other people's freedoms, such as preventing voting rights and more often delaying remedy and equality, with the force of arms and threat of violence, ruling by tyranny, balanced by artificial social graces to distract people with "form over substance" discussions about Southern hospitality. For the history of the US South, most populations with strongest gun ownership see themselves as part of ruling class, superior by birthright to people in their community they hate based on ignorant prejudice, even if gun owners won't admit how tyrannical feudal class structure they perpetuate has always been.
An example of who conservatives hate? The US Military. Texas, where Defense Distributed is based, was the last US state to decriminalize members US Military voting in elections, around 1942, but Texas still disenfranchised US Military members based on race, for being black, until 1965. At the other extreme, New York State provided absentee voting rights to all New York State citizens in the US Civil War, serving in New York State units, such as the election 1864, 80 to 100 years earlier.
In the US South, conservative gun owners voting patterns in Federal elections continues a history of using government to remove and prevent non-violent equal rights, and only accepting rights equality steps under profound duress of a coalition of many of "We the People", many of "the many states" (the liberal states), and Federal government, formed to actively oppose southern prejudiced laws backed with vigilante violence to enforce rights removal, and after violence and typically many high profile unjust homicides by southern gun totting vigilantes, as gun ownership in the US South comes from a history of ethnically cleansing American Indians from land to build farms, preventing slaves gaining their freedom, putting down slave revolts to gain freedom, raising insurrection against non-violent coalitions (of the people, many states of many US States, and Federal government opposed to oppression by Southern vigilantes), preventing black people and poor people using voting rights as well as accessing education, and so forth. Most conservative state gun owners do not elect leaders nor support candidates who support such broad and non-violent key freedoms, but rather conservative candidates almost always oppose and delay rights equality.
Notice how your reply quotes where from James Madison, a slave owner who very likely understood exactly what state militias in slave states were for, established almost 100 years earlier, a militia designed to kill slaves running away for freedom, or killing slaves organizing revolts for freedom against slave owners, but your quotes are from a politician typically directed and spun toward "the Citizens of New York", a state which did not have much slavery and passed laws to progressively ban slavery in 1799, and had already provided free black people owning land with the same voting rights in the New York State Constitution before that, in 1777.
If US conservatives (often gun "rights" activists) supported "freedom" and "fair and speedy" non-violent dispute resolution for all people based on high quality equality in the eyes of the law, instead of arbitrary violent dispute resolution, then they would support full voting rights solutions for all Americans, and similar rights equality, instead of actively preventing and delaying restoration of equality. This means conservatives would support ending Federal and State level disparities, such as:
* Restoring statehood and full voting rights for Washington, DC. (600,000+ fully taxed US Citizens, more than Wyoming.)
* Statehood for Puerto Rico (3.6 million people, would become the 28th largest US State.)
* Full voting rights for all smaller population territories, such as merging Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Marianas, with Hawaii.
* To assure high quality and efficient labor markets with
Again the reason for the current uptick (which went up since December, but has still been elevated since late 2008) was not because of marketing on the part of the NRA or firearm manufacturers... but because mostly rational people understood that something they wanted to buy may not be available latter... so buying now is preferred than risking not being able to later.
What exactly did they "understand"? That Obama is a socialist gun grabbing muslim nigger? It's 2013, everything you could buy in 2007 is still available. The gun nuts didn't "understand" anything, they freaked the fuck out because a black Democrat won the presidency. These are not rational people.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The "We need our guns to keep the government in check" is one of many red herrings that various political groups, manufacturers, and other 'thought leaders' put out to keep the population squabbling over stupid arguments instead of actually addressing gun violence. There are many countries with high gun ownership and next to zero gun violence.... but no one seems to be talking about that fact.
"my rights first, fuck everybody else's rights"
Some small, vocal, ercent of the populace developed that idea (in various forms) much, much later, than the earlier notions of 'rugged individualism'. For much of America's history, small groups and families were pushing west, settling land, living on their own, free from much government intervention. You lived or died based on your ability to farm and live off the land.
The descendants of those families make up most of our 'Red States'. The red conservative center of the country, surrounded by a ring of blue liberals on the coasts.
The problem with these gun debates is that people seem to only focus on 1 or 2 things. They make the issues black and white, when it is very grey and filled with tons of variables. America has a gun violence problem not only because of various factors in our past, but now mainly due to lots of factors in our present.
1. Income inequality: major problem. We are the richest country on the planet, and we have ghettos. Yeah.... actually ghettos in almost every major city in our country, complete with gang wars. Look at this: http://stateofred.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/detroit-ghetto2-765618.jpg Looks like some place you'd expect in India right? Nope, Detroit.
2. Poor social safety nets: if people have no where to fall back and get help when they need it, violence is an option. And income inequality, ghettos, and weak social safety nets means a cycle of poverty is created that is very hard for generations of families to get out of.
3. Mainly due to the above two items, people are self-segregating. We have high levels of racism, distrust, and poor communication between communities. Which leads to great things like major riots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots
4. The war on drugs. It has created a mega complex of both gangs, prisons, and military style police units. All sides of the 'war' have increased their level of armament over time.
etc...
etc...
There are a ton of issues that contribute to high gun violence rates in America. Yeah... stricter gun laws would help in some situations, as would more background checks, but those are just 1-2 factors among dozens. And the dozens of remaining factors are ones that most 'red states' do not want to touch with a 10 foot pole.