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California Lawmaker Wants 3-D Printers To Be Regulated
New submitter phrackthat writes with news that California State Senator Leland Yee (D-S.F.) says he wants regulations to track who owns and uses 3-D printers. Yee's comments come in response to the recent news of Defense Distributed's successful test-firing of a 3-D printed gun.
"He's concerned that just about anyone with access to those cutting-edge printers can arm themselves. 'Terrorists can make these guns and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free, and that is something that is really dangerous,' said Yee. He said while this new technology is impressive, it must be regulated when it comes to making guns. He says background checks, requiring serial numbers and even registering them could be part of new legislation that he says will protect the public. Yee added, 'This particular gun has no trace whatsoever.'"
Guns are equalizers. A 9mm pistol makes a 5 foot tall 100 pound woman the equal of a 6 foot 2 inch 190 pound man. This assumes of course that she is competent with it. He may kill her but trying to rape her is a dicey proposition. Given the banning of guns in the US I have no doubt that violence will explode. Crime in the US is different than Australia. I've heard conflicting things about crime in Australia since the ban although it is certain that gun deaths have decreased. I guess getting stabbed gives you a higher chance of survival than being shot. I admit that guns are more efficient.
Nice way to twist the facts.
Fact: Gun control is argued as being about making people safer.
Fact: It failed (for whatever reason).
Fact: Violent crime went UP by 40% since the great gun grab in Australia.
I ran the numbers myself a couple of months ago. I have a spreadsheet with my finding HERE. This spreadsheet has links to the sources for all data. It includes homicide (down a little), robbery (down a little), assault (way up), and sexual assault (way up). To put it another way, for every single person NOT murdered, an additional 671 people were assaulted. Those are the FACTS. My spreadsheet lays it all out, with data from the Australian Government.
I invite you to inspect the data sources and my formulas. It is all open-source, so to speak. You can look for traces of deception yourself. Once you are done, you can grab a nice steaming helping of crow.
DISCLOSURE: I used data from 1995 (just before the grab) and 2007 (latest data I found).
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Nevermind the fact that this gun is impractical for any realistic purpose, all of which have already been gone over elsewhere
Actually, they've gone several steps further with another design, having printed a lower receiver for an AR-15 (the one part that, under BATF regulations, constitutes a gun), and have raised its reliability from the original six rounds before breaking to more than 600 rounds before breaking (they're discovering that the printed part has different design constraints -- where a milled aluminum receiver has sharp corners, a printed part needs to have curves to reduce points where stress concentrates, because the plastic is weaker). However, as assembled, it's hardly a concealable or undetectable weapon, with the sixteen-inch metal barrel, upper receiver, and action. However, as you allude, a wholly 3D-printed firearm has a long way to go before it's as effective as the cheapest 'Saturday Night Special'. But to a politician, that's not important; what's important is that the fear and paranoia be whipped to a frenzy now, so that draconian knee-jerk measures can be put in place while people are feeling about the subject, not thinking about it; it's so much easier to whip up emotion than reason.
I disagree with the premise. I strongly believe that suicide is a fundamental human right. It's the one decision that is fundamentally yours.
Who should have the right to force me to keep living if I don't want to?
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.