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Of 1000 Americans Polled, Most Would Ban Home Printing of Guns
An anonymous reader writes "In results that may signal some discomfort with the enormous DIY promise of 3D printing and similar home-manufacturing technologies, a new Reason-Rupe poll finds that an otherwise gun control-weary American public thinks owners of 3D printers ought not be allowed to make their own guns or gun parts. Of course, implementing such a restrictive policy might be tad more difficult than measuring popular preferences." This poll is of only 1000 people, though; your mileage may vary.
Watch out for the guy printing a pointed stick...
I don't know what the law is, whether there is a federal law or if state laws apply, but what's to stop a machinist from making an AK-47 type of gun in his or her shop? That particular style of gun was designed to be simple to manufacture, and that's why you see them all over the world. If making one yourself in a machine shop is currently illegal, how would 3-D printing be legal? If it's not currently illegal, then on what basis do we make 3-D printing illegal?
I'm going to guess manufacturing your own guns are already illegal, and that this is a lot of media attention grabbing.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Whatever happened to the concept of Personal Responsibility? Of being held accountable for your own actions, instead of the knee-jerk reaction of "it's the firearms fault, ban them everywhere we can." This mass punishment, this taking away of people's ability to use their time and money as they see fit, is crazy. If someone proves that they can't handle a level of responsibility, then I can understand rights being taken away, but to punish everything, to take away abilities from everyone? I find it insulting, that I am automatically assumed to not be responsible off the bat.
It shouldn't be that hard to have a 3d printer determine if it is making something with a hole the size of a standard bullet. For example, is it drawing a circle that's 9mm or one of the other common sizes. If it were to make the hole say 9.2 mm all the gasses that should be propelling the bullet would escape on the sides.
Good for them. I want a unicorn, and I'm not going to get that either.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I sincierly doubt that there is an issue where 1000 Americans can be of one voice. Specially if the theme is guns and right to defend yourself. Seriously? have you covered only liberal and democrats in this survey? What about population where there are mostly prepers , teapartiers, GOPies ....?
They also concure that 3d printing of weapons should be banned?
What is next, home chemistry labs for kids, home biology labs, open sourced PCRs, home smitheries ?
What else should be banned because your fear of other people.
People kill, not tools.
Well of course you can make an crazy AI with general purpose for depopulatin earth so since we still don't recognise AI rights that would be the only tool which could kill people on its own.
1000 is a plenty big sample for the US population if they are chosen randomly... you get 95% confidence level with about 3% confidence interval.
http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm#one
I wonder how many people would similarly ban printing of 'objectional' pictures on color printers, say 30 years ago ? :)
Or bible translations in the 15th century ?
(oh wait, that second one was banned!)
Thankfully my rights aren't governed by popular opinion.
Dallas Real Estate
From the poll, this is the actual question they're talking about and its context.
ASK ALL:
Q36 Nextsome Americans own 3-D printers, which can make a variety of plastic objects.
Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to use this technology in
their own homes?
1 Should
2 Should not
9 Don’t know/Refused (VOL.)
ASK IF SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE 3-D PRINTERS
if yes:
Q37 3-D printers can be used to make guns or gun parts. Do you think Americans should
or should NOT be allowed to print their own guns or gun parts in their own homes?
1 Should
2 Should not
9 Don’t know/Refused (VOL.)
If the poll was properly done, 1000 people is definitely enough people to come to a conclusion, you can't "your mileage may vary" facts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wySaC_z12GY
53% say Americans should not be allowed to print their own gun parts, 44% say they should. With 1003 people the "mileage" may vary by 3.7%.
Most Americans wouldn't have joined WW2 (at least until Pearl Harbor).
Most people don't know which came first, the Revolutionary War or the Civil War.
Most states have passed anti-gay, one-man/one-woman marriage laws.
Most people generally fear change of any sort.
There's a reason we're not a democracy, we're a democratic republic. "Most people" are rather dumb.
-Styopa
But... printed guns don't kill people, people kill people... and the only thing that stops a bad guy with a printed gun is a good guy with a printed gun... and we need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work — and by that we mean armed security with printed guns... and...
And after 9/11, you could probably have gotten the same results for warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, etc. This is why we have a republic, not a democracy. The rightness of a public policy is not measured by popular support. The only real reason to go by what is popular is that if you constantly ignore the popular will on things that are neutral or right, you risk delegitimizing the government.
The *bullet* is the explosive device here, and it wasn't made with a 3D printer and anyone can make the gun part with a metal tube and nail.
Guns don't kill people bullets kill people.
...you can't print the ammo. Just ban that.
Does the right to arm bears even stop ammo from being banned?
Sure you can use 3d printers to print something that'll stick a pin in the back of a round. But that doesn't really a gun make. In that sense, this law student's enterprise is a huge troll on the legal system. And it got swallowed hook, line, and sinker. Do I really need to spell out which is which here?
The thing is that most "Average Americans[tm]" still haven't the faintest what you can and cannot do with 3d printers and don't understand how 3d printed guns are or are not a danger. All they know is there's a lot of smoke, so there has to be fire somewhere, amirite or amirite? Gots to be, mark my words. And sure, if a little thing like banning those weirdos with their fancy thing printer things from making "dangerous parts" to make the ruckus go away, why not?
Except, of course, that preventing 3d printers from printing some "bad" parts but not "good" parts is not a little thing, which ought to be obvious to the informed voter, and that the ruckus is exactly that: Politicians knee-jerking to be seen to be doing something, ie jumping around to the smell of votes.
So it's business as usual, with the reperblican demercrazy machine grinding on, leaving another promising new technology as roadkill. All because a few voters can't be arsed to do their homework.
Guys and gals, we made zip guns in Jr. high shop in the 1950s. They might not have been very accurate, but guns they were, and shoot they did. Any attempt to keep people from building and owning guns is a waste of time and money. We do have the right, not priviledge, to keep and bear arms. Just how many tax dollars are we going to spend to deny rights?
What if I print bazooka ? Technically it is not a gun.
If you ask question properly and pick the right sample of people majority of Americans will demand profiling, will support racism, will deny equal rights to gays.
I think the whole point of developing a technique to print a working gun in the first place was not specifically to make a weapon, but rather was to demonstrate that the ever increasing rate of technological development and scientific discovery is launching humanity headlong into a realm where we will have to address questions that we as a species are not prepared to answer.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
So 1000 people polled don't support constitutional rights.
We have lost.
Barely a majority, 52%? Isn't there something in the founding fathers statements regarding "tyranny of the majority" and hence the reason for the Constitution/Bill of Rights? Any technology can be used for good or evil, people are often killed with wine bottles (a 200 year old technology) yet we don't see a mass effort to redesign/restrict them for "safety". As always the focus should be on the INDIVIDUAL committing the act of violence, not the piece of hardware they choose to commit it with.
Does anyone else realize that the materials that these 3D printers are using are not strong enough to reliably make a working gun? It may be possible to get a complete gun out of these printers... but materials are a long way from being viable. You are concerned about plastic guns being capable of getting past security... Have you seen one of these printed guns fired? Have you even seen printed plastic? It is not always the strongest of materials. The process is not suited for something that has to withstand a sudden high force. Do a little research and understand what 3D printing really is and how it works before you make knee-jerk reactions to something you don't understand. Should people be printing guns? No. But the real reason is because they are more dangerous to the wielder of said gun. So everyone needs to do some homework on what they are discussing before they start crying about guns.
because most of them don't own a 3D printer. Wait until they do and then ask.
Since gun reminds me of that one. (Supposedly you could build a sten in a bicycle shop.) Is a sten much harder to build than printing a gun from a 3d printer?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
A Grizzly gunsmith lathe and mill combo costs around $4000, less than a 3d printer. The steel and aluminum rods and blocks are also cheap and available. Anyone can machine a REAL gun cheaper than they can make a plastic one. You make bullets out of lead/tin tire rim weights. If you use an older cartridge that was originally a block powder round like .45 colt or 45-70 govt. you can make your own powder. The only part that I'm not sure of is how one would make brass shell cases or primers.
My grandfather, a WWII vet and a hunter, held me upright and helped me to shoot his 12 ga. when I was four years old. It's not a hobby for some of us; it's a tool and a normal aspect of everyday life. From that age, I learned to respect firearms. As a child, I never so much as touched a gun without permission in part because I knew what they could do and I knew I could shoot them with supervision. Contrast this certain of my peers from the suburbs, who would not be allowed to use guns until they were much older, would do things like shoot BB guns at each other. They basically considered guns toys. Do not forget that we live in a country of over 300 million people. There are many different cultures here and ways of life different from your own.
WHO THE FUCK IS "WE"
Why do you get to control us?
You control what we print, our children (mandatory schooling, cps, etc etc), age of girls we can marry.
Fuck you.
In other news, a majority of those polled responded that the barn door should be closed, despite the horses running free in the pasture.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Let's make printing our own guns illegal...that should stop the criminals and terrorists for sure, they are groups highly regarded for obeying the laws.
Nearly a third of this sample would not allow you to own a 3d printer at all. I'll take their opinions on guns with a grain of salt.
Q.E.D. Most Americans (hell, most people anywhere) lack any sort of philosophy or reality-based worldview of their own and are forced to turn to mainstream media (which is all too eager to hand out their convenient, pre-packaged version with super-sticky adhesive backing).
To quote James Bovard (sorry, folks; this one doesn't get credited to ole' Ben Franklin after all):
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote."
Who is we? I've never tried to detect a gun. Who the fuck is we?
You are not part of them. You are not part of society, you are a subject of society.
They will regulate you.
Not we. They.
A well done poll of a 1000 people is actually pretty acurte. The Law of Large Numbers kicks in well shy of that. Apparently a stats class is not necessary to be a Slashdot editor.
Guess what piece of shit, there are fully opensource replecatable 3d printers.
You don't get to regulate this you fucking piece of shit.
You allready tell us what items we can and can't have.
You regulate our children (mandatory schooling).
You regulate what age of girls we can marry.
What we can do with them. How much we must obey them.
Fuck you.
I call for a rigorously (by which I mean, "not at all") scientific Slashdot poll!
I bet the numbers are very different when you poll a crowd who wonders why you would WANT a 3d printer to make a gun.
From TFA:
_______________
Some Americans own 3-D printers, which can make a variety of plastic objects. Do you think Americans should or should not be allowed to use this technology in their own homes?
Should 62%
Should not 29%
Don’t Know/Refused (Vol.) 9%
Total 100%
______________
Who the hell were the 29% that thought "Private 3D printers should not be allowed in general"?
This number does not seem realistic and brings the entire poll into question.
just sayin'.
29% of people are just idiots.
Did we get it down to 29%?
And how would all these little Stalin's, Mao's and Hitler's do that?
This is exactly why we have a constitution. The fear of the framers was that a "passing majority" could remove our freedoms/rights out of fear or anger.
Let those who are afraid of guns being owned by even responsible people print their own bullet proof rubber lined security cell to live in safe from guns, cars and stray cats.
As someone else said since criminals dont care about such laws they will print them anyway, and the only solution is for those who are so afraid -- to lock themselves tightly in a bulletproof womb for the rest of their lives.
---
Personally I think they will eventually employ these printers to generate swag goodies from all new computer games (making a mechanism to transmit the pattern only once for printing with no persistant local copy will be a better development priority). You will be finding these machines in supermarkets/malls within 10 years (beside still expensive home units)
What I find sad is that the first application of this cool new replicator technology we can think of is making weapons.
Should nuke ourselves and end it all
Guns are the worst that could happen to 3D printing. Because of it, all those greedy megacorps and not-so-megacorps have the perfect excuse to regulate the crap out of a 3D printer just so we don't pirate their supervaluable patented locked-in screws or connectors or whatever. We won't reach the day of affordable 3D printing without copy protection mechanism, DMCAs and whatnot. If they aren't downright outlawed.
Of course that's the reason it will be regulated, as they give 0 sh*ts about someone gunning down someone else.
Most Americans are idiots and sheep.
If I was in charge they would be sterilized
so they couldn't drag the gene pool down any further than
they already have.
The editors of Slashdot would be first up for the sterilization.
violently against regulating firearms in any way are the most vocal about regulating 3D printers because they can print guns.
Here's a video of a homemade 12 gauge zip gun, better then anything from a 3d printer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wV3lmbSv4
My grandfather, a WWII vet and a hunter, ...
An odd combination! What does he do --- shoot the animals and then try and save their lives! ;)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, OR OF THE PRESS; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Nobody is trying to say if you print a gun and use it, it's the gun's fault. The blame still falls wholly on the person who committed the crime. What you don't seem to understand is that laws are meant to keep people safe and secure, not just punish people after the fact. Nobody needs to prove they can't handle drinking and driving to be told not to do it, there's no reason to wait until people get hurt to stop something. Treating rules and regulations as an attack on your person is just being childish. As for 3d printing guns in particular, I'd support a method of stopping it as long as it didn't interfere with anything else, I just don't know if that's even possible. The reasoning is straightforward: Guns are regulated, making them at home bypasses regulation. Nobody would think twice about shutting down a lab producing alternatives to prescription drugs, it's really the same thing. Somehow with guns people get it in their heads the rules should all be different, that because they're mentioned in the constitution we can't regulate them. This is not the case. Even freedom of speech is regulated to some degree, primarily to keep people from inciting violence. Laws are not there because somebody assumes you can't be responsible, laws are there because it's been proven time and time again that in a group as large as this country, there are enough people who can't be responsible to justify regulating dangerous things. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have crime, everyone would just be good and responsible because it's what's right.
Your reply is well reasoned, insightful, and calm. It is a shame that it is in reply to a rabid anti-gun zealot. Unfortunately, logic and reason will never appeal to those who are terrified of other people and their own mortality.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
Or now with lolicon or cp.
Written word about marrying or having relations with young girls is banned in australlia aswell.
(Which would suggest hebrew bibles and correct translations are aswell)
There is a religion (the laws of the state) we must obey, because we are subjects. That is all there is to it.
Gun-control _wary_
Well, how about Reservations?
Seastead this.
Perhaps it's worth noting that, when the Second Amendment was instituted, gunsmithing and the manufacture of firearms was a cottage industry. On the flip side, it's probably fair to say the founders were most interested in the protection of long arms, not handguns. The pistol was developed for the sole purpose of the destruction of human life; not so with long arms, though initial development mainly concentrated on that purpose. .
This will encourage parents to get their own guns and apply those darwinian principles the American Family so desperately needs.
Boy the NRA backers who want to make guns easy to BUY are sure not going to like people making their own. Whoopsie! You guys overshot on this one.
1. Most polls are only of around 1000 people are so, they are done statisticly to reflect the demographic they are meant to represent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_%28statistics%29#Sampling_methods
2. Speaking of 1, given the poll was done by "reason.com" themselves, i want to know the sampling method used and its error rate.
3. the results of the poll where 53-44, so the reality is public opinions are really "mixed".
Is once the genie is out of the box, it's neigh impossible to get it back INTO the box. And legislation never helps.
"This poll is of only 1000 people, though; your mileage may vary."
Hey look -- it's the dumbest goddamn thing you can say about statistics.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Okay, the whole polling group was 1003 people, but the Slashdot blurb is speaking specifically about those who say they oppose the printing of gun parts at home. TFA says "Just those who agree that Americans should be allowed to own 3D printers were then asked... Do you think Americans should or should not be allowed to print their own guns or gun parts in their own homes?" Only 62% were okay with home use of 3D pritners, so in fact the number of people questioned about home manufacture of guns or gun parts was just 622 people, not 1000.
Skeptical -- citation needed.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
"Terrified of their own mortality?"
Why don't you tell that to the parents of a 5 year old toddler who was murdered by some sick gun nut that the only reason they have for wanting to make sure that doesn't happen again is that they're "terrified of their own mortality."
Do you gun nuts even listen to yourselves. Sheesh!
if your survey includes mostly people who do those things you'll get different answers but this survey was almost entirely of people who don't print 3D guns.
I wouldn't be surprised if surveys found that 53% of the population said any of these if the survey is mostly of people who don't do them
I don't buy 16+ ounce sodas. Nobody should.
I don't drink. nobody should.
I don't smoke. nobody should.
I don't vote republican. nobody should.
I don't get food stamps. nobody should
I don't own a gun. nobody should.
I don't send my kids to private school. nobody should.
You mean like run ing a company. No not that company executives do not have to ask 700 people for permission. You may mean governatorial experience. Since that is as close as you get. But not all presidents where governors.
Tempest in a Teapot of idiots. You can legally or illegally buy or steal a gun 100 times faster than doing it on a "3D Printer."
No criminal would waste his time. Only a person who is super interested in being a designer would take the time and expense to do this an exercise.
Reliable guns need metals for critical parts to function reliably for any length of time and they need to be done to tolerances and surface finishes that RP printers can NOT accomplish.
You seem well-meaning, but misinformed.
Please, go read about the definition of "well-regulated." (It doesn't mean what it means today)
Go read about the success of "gun-free" zones where almost every one of these shootings has taken place. (Newtown, Aurora, Ft Hood, Columbine, Virginia Tech.. all of them were gun-free zones)
Go read about how often these "high capacity assault weapons" are really used in murders. (less often than hands and feet and hammers)
And go read about crime statistics in the UK and Australia: after AND before their bans, gun crime AND all violent crime. (crime was decreasing before, and continued to decrease after with no uptick in the rate of decrease. Gun crime went down, and other violent crime went up because there were fewer guns available and fewer people able to defend themselves)
Your arguments are appealing on the surface, but every one of them breaks down under scrutiny. Take some time to read and become informed.
Funny in post where the make fun on people that what to ban something that can't be banned. The machine can not the if it is printing a gun or a door knob. You say it is only a 1000 people.
If theos 1000 are chosen randomly that opinion could reflect the whole country.
Irony:
N.B.:
[Emphasis mine, passim.]
The average person is a dullard.
If it were up to the average person in the 1700's, we'd still be British subjects. The average person was fine with British rule, and it was a bunch of "extremists" who wanted to revolt.
There is a reason the founders of this country did not want a "democracy" but rather a "republic". That reason is, the electorate is, by and large, composed of fucktards.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Where else in the world has more lenient gun laws than the US, that isn't a total shithole?
Seriously, consider what you're saying before you talk next time.
I don't know about your area, but that is not all that unusual. I can remember in high school watching a
friend's uncle make a rifle, bolt action. It takes some skill, but people have those skills. He was just a guy whose
day job was maintaining logging equipment.
No machine can print bullets, yet.
a ban will surely work if the criminal would obey that law. oh wait...
while
Title says it all
... the beginning of the printable weaponry. The Liberator.zip http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8458218/
The files are in stl format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_(file_format)
Can be converted to other cad formats via Accutrans @ http://www.micromouse.ca/
Of course the applicable legal warning in printing this gun is in order here: It may be a federal crime to bear such arms. Though the founders of this country would tell you its a crime to violate the second amendment.
What choice are people making? Support the unknown and changeable laws on the fly of current democracy government or Support the written in stone, honored, well published and unchangeable papers written by the founders of this Republic for which it stands. The guns they used then were made by who? And what technology existed then to match round with barrel?
Let me suggest. For those who have a problem with the Second Amendment they need to be one upped and given a problem with their use of the First Amendment until they accept the Bill of Rights in whole, not as a pick and chose what parts they want!
What does your post have to do with his? Oh wait you just wanted to insult the US. Carry on being a complete troll.
What you don't seem to understand is that laws are meant to keep people safe and secure, not just punish people after the fact.
No, most laws are in fact meant to punish people before the fact.
The speed limit laws are there because some people can't drive well or maintain cars, so they punish those who can with lower speeds than they could drive in perfect safety.
Gun laws exist because people have to "do something" when criminals use guns, even though criminals don't purchase firearms legally and ignore laws. So everyday people who just want to buy and enjoy guns have to jump through pointless hoops and delays.
Public nudity laws exist because some people are prudes and some people don't have a reasonable sense of when clothes are appropriate. So the people who just want a good tan at the beach or in the backyard are punished.
Basically most laws are no different than the stupid warnings you see on every packaged product to not drink a bottle of sunscreen or not to insert canned beans up your anus. They are not really there to protect anything, they are just there because it made someone feel good to pretend they were helping.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is like arguing the Wright brothers' first airplane didn't change anything because it could only fly a few dozen feet.
That would only be the case if at the same time people were already flying twin engine cubs around.
People have been crafting guns at home for decades. The 3D printing aspect adds nothing to that truth.
What it does show is how easily people can be led into an irrational fear of technology.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I know the gun thing is the big boogieman now in regards to 3-D printers, but I can't help but think there's more mundane things that a 3-D printer can do that the powers-that-be are afraid of. It sure would be nice to print out a new head light bezel for my truck for ten bucks instead of paying over $200 from the dealership.
Methinks you replied to the wrong post, since I was actually defending the US system in the realm of gun control as being more lenient than the majority of the rest of the world...
People are afraid of people with stupid plastic extruding machines? What about all the folks with CNC mills and lathes in their garages, including those who have had them for decades (yours truly included)?
Americans are gullible, frightened creatures. Many of the folks I know with CNC or other metalworking equipment either have made, are making,or want to make firearms. While I do worry about the obsession with open ended tubes that allow expanding gas to propel a small lump of metal out the end, it doesn't make them terrierists.
People can make powerful bombs from items at their local Ace hardware store, or they can paint their home with the same stuff. People can use their 3d printers to make cute buttons for sale on Etsy, or they can make stupid, pointless guns. I've seen folks with incredible custom metal artwork or commercial side work coming out of their home metal shops, and have also seen many, many AR-15 rifles made entirely in the same places. Again, its not my thing, but all they can do is make it illegal...they can't get rid of it. And why should they?
The poll reported 53/44 against the 3d gun printing in a small poll with a 3.7% sampling error. Given the amount of press this received in the past two weeks and the novelty of the issue, that 44% favor allowing the use its actually quite impressive.
Of 1,000 persons polled, most were utter morons.
I'm not just trolling. I mean it. Generally speaking, most people are idiots. I'm not a fan of policy being decided by mouth breathing half-wits that are easily influenced by others pulling their emotional strings or manipulating statistics.
You do realize that survey consistently find 90% support for more substantial or effective firearms control, particularly background checks?
Still, it is to be expected that more people support a ban on home production than those who otherwise support gun control. An easily available technology for producing a wide variety of guns (which do not yet exist, as such) would subvert all existing controls on sales (background checks, magazine size limits, anything). So logically, anyone who supports any legal oversight at all has to support very strict controls if not outright bans on home production.
I wonder how many of these passionate posters have 3D printers. I have one. I'm a lot less worried about this as a result. The typical non-$10,000 printer can't print something that I would trust enough to discharge in my hand. It certainly isn't as easy as an inkjet, as many of you seem to think. How many of you have manually tightened screws on your inkjet just to ensure that the letters appear evenly spaced on your page? No one? Every 3D printer requires that to some degree. The ones blowing this out of proportion are not just the technically unsavy. They're anyone without a 3D printer. Don't trust people who speak on any topic based on hearsay.
Reason-Rupe is famous for having progressively slanted polls, questions and interpretations. And since there is no way to account for such bias, this poll is useless.
We've tried banning fermentation, narcotics, and various forms of love making. Most were designed to please a well funded, politically loud group of dunces who falsely believe we can promote social good or common good by merely passing a law and putting violators in jail. Yet none of these bans have worked. To ban gun printing would be to expect the police, FBI, ATF, etc to bust down every door in the country looking for illegally printed weapons. The Brits do this with their television license, spending quite a few pounds developing roving vans to bust violators.
Is this the kind of country we want? I'd vote for "no."
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
Which is nothing.
The value of a democracy and a republic is that decisions are hard to make and implement, making the society somewhat stable, while also tending towards the members redoubling efforts during tough times, making them resilient as well. But the idea that such dcisions as are made have greater legitimacy is hogwash. Crowd sourcing works like a market, one idea and one transaction at a time; making rules based on majority opinion is just a less compeytent form of dictatorship.
I hope we get to the DuneUniverse soon, where Families have Atomics and there is no public aurthority.
Some Americans own 3-D printers, which can make a variety of plastic objects. Do you think Americans should or should not be allowed to use this technology in their own homes?
Should 62%
Should not 29%
Soooo 62% of the 1000 americans think you SHOULD be ABLE to print ANY 3D object.. Yeah right. Then it goes with the gun question.
The first one is obviously flawed, thus I place no faith in the second one.
Morever.. the gun question has 44% "SHOULD BE ABLE TO", which means, nope.. its not "most" at all.
Q: Should I be able to go to the supermarket and buy assault rifles and a shitload of ammo?
A: Second amendment! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Q: Should I be allowed to make a shitty plastic gun myself?
A: Al keida terrorist!
Democracy does not work well if the people who vote are complete idiots.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Normal people aren't gun nuts. We aren't afraid of roving bands of rapists, or that the government and law enforcement will break down, or that the modern world will cease to exist overnight and we'll have to protect our rectums from marauders with our guns.
Gun ownership is a product of fear; and MRI scans have shown conservatives -- the largest population of gun owners -- have an enlarged part of the brain that manages fearful behavior. It makes sense that people with this biological deficiency hoard guns and are perpetually consumed with thoughts about getting raped. They watch Fox News which uses fear to spread messages about buying guns and being afraid of unwanted penetration by foreigners.
The poll reaffirms that normal, sane Americans aren't crazy about guns, and only fear-driven gun nuts are. It's a view point I can't understand, because I don't live in a state of constant unwavering fear. Only gun nuts do.
You are clearly not much of an American
Our founders believed very strongly in a few things (like anon speech, which they used to great effect while freeing themselves from King George, and which I am using now) People who believe more in the sort of drivel that oozes from the skulls of Euro-socialist idiots than in the freedom agenda of our founders are simply not Americans. Being an American is NOT about a particular skin color, it's about believing in certain core ideas (which is why people from all over the planet have been able to come here and become great Americans). At this point you are probably, (as a poorly educated lefty) tempted to slam the founders for slavery or not letting Women vote. Both are bogus. Only the southern Democrat-run states had slavery; Blacks in the north were free and the 3/5ths text of the constitution does not pertain to blacks but rather to non-free persons (only the blacks in the south who were slaves and certain white indentured servants, who were quite rare) Many founders, like Franklin, were abolishonists and the presumption (which they wrote about) was that slavery would come to an end but the 3/5ths clause was necessary at that point in history to bring the slave colonies into the union and have a successful revolution. Women were in fact allowed to vote in many places in the early US if they were land owners (voting used to be tied to land ownership as a way to tamp-down the tendency in democracies to eventually implode when masses of poor people with nothing on the line vote to take things from people who have them). There were widows who inherited their property when their husbands died who voted regularly long before Susan B Anthony.
Our founders believed the US federal government should be VERY SMALL and only do a handful of things (primarily national security) and they were quite explicit about this in the constitution (which too many people ignore). They intended that the populace be armed so well that it could overthrow the government at any time and they wrote about that too. Of course, they also expected the population to be a self-regulating, self-sufficient, well-behaved, and religious adults (they wrote all THAT too and you might know it if you read more of their own words) and wrote that the system would collapse if the population ceased to be these things. People who live-up to the standards the founders set can be freely trusted to own any weapons they want (and yes, even 3D printers to print more) because they won't abuse those rights. People who want to live like chimpanzees cannot be trusted with ANY technology and will need to have their lives micro-managed by a massive bloated government to keep them from killing each-other.
It takes an insufferable moron (probably a big city dweller educated by unionized government school teachers) who is incapable of figuring out how to obtain food, water, clothing, shelter, and energy without [a] a credit card and [b] government intervention, to look at government with an anti-American attitude that government is good and/or desirable. Government is a necessary evil that should be tolerated only to the small degree that it is necessary and NO MORE. Those who serve the government in any activity that is opposed to the citizens (rather than opposed to an external threat) ought to be in fear of the citizens who are, in fact, their bosses and NOT their subjects. Freedom and liberty and small limited government did NOT get us into the present mess, skippy,.... infantile idiots who want government to grow and grow and perform all the functions of mummy and daddy and who want to have all this funded by either massive borrowing or by the government pointing guns at their neighbors and robbing them is what has gotten us into the current mess. Fools who trade their liberty and freedom for a false sense of security and access to the government nipple are what have gotten us into trouble.
You also need a little "reading comprehension". The "common defense" is the defense of the nation from external threats
When trying to characterize 300million Americans, WHERE you get your thousand is CRITICAL. In Oct 2012, you could have done a "random survey" of 1000 people in some cities and gotten a 90%+ approval of Barack Obama and nearly any left-wing crackpot idea you asked about, other cities where 90% would have rejected Obama and all the very same companion ideas, and still other cities where a random sample of 1000 would have exactly mirrored the election results.
The idea that any 1000 people will do may work just fine for an issue like "Coke" vs "Pepsi", "Pizza Hut" vs "Dominoes", "Charmin" vs "Scotties" etc but NOT for matters of public policy or politics and particularly not when the issues are muddied by fear-mongering propaganda
However, banning 3d printing as a whole, or mandating devices to check what you are printing, or forbidding the publication of CAD designs, these would be problematic.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Sometimes "most people" are just wrong.
First, you state that our 2nd Amendment derives from a British Bill of Rights which was actually based on natural law. Interesting on a couple of fronts: The Brits lack a written Constitution and their "rights" are subject to change with every session of parliament. If your "right to bear arms" is truly a "natural right" (words have meanings, you know) then no human gave it to you and no human can regulate it or remove it...it's God-given. The fact is that the Brits had no real gun rights because they had no Constitution and therefore the initial British lie of "Don't worry, it's just 'gun registration'" was so easily and in such short time morphed into actual gun confiscation and now the current sad state of affairs. The British "right" was such a non-right (and certainly not a "natural right") that the British government disarmed its population to such an extent that in early WWII the British government came hat-in-hand to the American people and asked our hunters and sportsmen to donate their guns to the British people for their self-defense. Many Americans sent their guns, and at the end of the war, the nasty little British government rounded them all up and destroyed them rather than returning them to their rightful American owners. Our founders did not originally include the "Bill of Rights" in the constitution precisely because they believed all these things (and many more) were obviously our rights (since the Constitution they drafted explicitly grants a very limited list of duties and powers to the government and explicitly leaves everything else to the states and to the people). The first Amendment does NOT grant the people ANY speech, religious, or press rights... it doubles-down on the Constitution by explicitly saying government cannot interfere in these areas. Similarly, the 2nd Amendment grants no gun rights... it just emphasizes that the government has no right to trespass on these already existing natural rights. The Bill of Rights (Amendments #1-10) was added only because some of our founders thought that some future Americans just might be so dumb as to miss the point of the plain text of the Constitution; they'd be horrified to see the extent to which the Bill of Rights has been twisted by so many evil people and presented to an ignorant population as a list of the few rights that the government grants to them... EXACTLY the sort of thing the founders feared and warned against.
Second, you claim that England heavily regulates guns without infringing on rights... this is impossible. If the right to self-defense and the right to bear arms is a ""natural right" then each and every government "regulation" is a blatant infringement. If an English citizen cannot freely make and shoot a gun, or go buy one from a local gunsmith, then he has no actual gun "right" he has, instead, a temporary and very limited revocable privilege (as long as he's a "good boy")
It would make NO sense for Americans to be tricked into falling in-line with the very English government they rebelled against and whose twisted and fallacious version of "freedom" they wrote our Constitution to specifically protect us from.
As to your "assault weapons" comment... ANY weapon you assault somebody with is an "assault weapon"... no weapon, including a howitzer or a fully automatic machine gun would be an "assault weapon" if it was never used to assault anyone. Many people have been massacred with knives and far more are wiped-out each year with cars than with the sort of firearms that leftists call "assault weapons". My firearms have never assaulted anybody and should I ever need to put anybody down with one it will be a defensive act (and therefore NOT an assault of any sort)
The real question that must always be asked is: WHY does somebody want me to not have a thing? All-too-often, governments have wanted their people disarmed because they intended to oppress their people and did not want any blow-back. Many on the left want the "gun control" not because they want to control crime (their policies in the places th
the word "Regulate" meant "to make regular"... which is why many old clocks were made with the label "Regulator".
When they granted the federal government the power to "regulate" interstate commerce, they intended that the federal government would keep the states from waging mini trade wars against each-other (in other words, trade between the states would flow regularly) ... they NEVER imagined the congress and courts would re-define the word "regulate" to mean "write lots of rules to control any and every aspect of any products or services that cross any state line and hire armies of government workers to inject themselves into all aspects of commerce".
A "well-regulated" militia was a justification, and not a condition, in the second amendment... but even had it been a condition it would have only meant that the militia (which the founders explicitly defined in their other writings as: all free adult men lacking religious objections) would be capable of ordinary, organized, unimpeded, productive function.
There is NO SUCH CHIP
Color laser printers print a tiny pattern of dots (often in yellow so they'll escape your notice and not annoy you) which contain data about the specific individual printer that printed the page. This DOES NOT BLOCK the printing of counterfeit money... it just makes it easy establish an evidence trail to nail your butt to the wall when you get caught being stupid enough to try to pass laser-printer made phoney cash. The things that prevent you from using a printer to make passable phoney money (in the US) are in the real currency NOT in your printer. US currency is made of a very special paper and special inks (neither of which come out of your laser printer... DOH!) and now with the newer bills there are things like composite security threads embedded into the paper, printed features designed to be not printable by laser printing, etc.
In short: take off the foil hat. There's no secret chip in your printer. (and trying to prevent counterfeiting that way would be stupid and pointless anyway)
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
I see a hell of a lot of infringement going on these days.
BTW, militia doesn't mean military! if you're an able-bodied male age 17 to 45 (with a few caveats) you're part of the militia. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
Yes, one can make guns with a mill and a lathe, but not many people own those, or possess the expertise to turn raw stock into a working firearm.
However, a 3d printer is different - it's primary use is for constructing other household items, but if the country erupts in violent revolt, can print a gun on short notice. Perhaps not fast enough to thwart a crime in progress, but fast enough in cases of general societal decay.
And the government need not even know it exists.
The problem with owning a firearm before you need it is that it has to be registered with the government. Which means that should the government decide to implement some oppressive measures, they can collect the guns from everyone, one by one, without incurring significant political cost. They know how many guns there are, and who has them.
OTOH, someone with a 3d printer doesn't (yet) have a gun, is not registered, and could yet have one on short notice, if they needed it for governmental control purposes. This is what irks the government. Not that people could arm themselves, but that those willing to take up arms in a patriotic cause can be unknown to the government until they're exchanging rounds with the jack-booted thugs.
It's not the fact that you have guns that worries them. It's the fact that you don't need to have one now to stop them later.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
We saw how far the background check legislation went...
It's possible to create molds for metal casting. So I suppose casting your own knife would be another possibility. Copying your own folding knife that is banned from being imported such as the spydercos.
Can we carry a gasoline sachet and a lighter for self-defense?
Casteism
Well just about any JoeBob can make a gun that will work. ... I used to live in ElPaso, and for a TV show one guy made a gun in one sitting using a band saw, engine lathe, and some metal. He shot a bullet at the end of the show just to show it works. ... Yes, the ATF got all over him for it, but this is no great feat.
It isn't a Barrett M82 or Uzi, but it is still a weapon that fires bullets.
Given the low tech needed to make firearms, 'over half' of what 1,000 people think doesn't mean much.
Unless we are going to outlaw every machine shop in the nation.
People are stupid/ignorant depending on the scenario. People with a few more dollars than they should have earned rightfully or from the darkside represents a large part of our populous. This is not a freedom issue imho it's an issue that has issues, Just bought Johnny a 3d printer so he would be cool with his friends, damn, his cheap gun put a bullet in daughter/sister Sally's head on a test run. The world copies technology at a rate that what has been created is already a disservice globally. Just think Somalia, South America, plastic and money is everywhere. Yes, there is a technical aptitude to make it work, nobody lives in caves anymore. 9/11 was supposedly hinged on box knives, a crew with plastic derringers can fuck a nations day up quickly
And how exactly do they think these laws could possibly be enforced?
The penis is used by 99% of rapist to perform a serious crime therefore those dangerous objects should banned first and owners of penises should be locked away imediately, without prosecution. Then ban knifes. Knifes have proven record of deadly behaviour in wrong hands. Clearly, the wide availability of those lethal objects in pretty much every house is a severe threat to humanity. By entering kitchen, even a nicest girl (boys were taken care of already) immediately turns in to killer waiting for an opportunity to attack, merely because the knifes are around. By taking care of penis and knife owners first, the risk of having a person with 3D printed gun out in the wild is minimal so there will be no need to ban 3D printing.
What do you do that makes a gun a tool and a normal aspect of everyday life?
Should really read the assassination politics manifesto before making up their mind.