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Come and Take It, Texas Gun Enthusiasts (Video)
In Texas, guns are a common sight:gun-racks are visible in the back of many pick-ups, and pistols, cannons, and rifles are part of the state's iconography. Out-of-sight guns are common, too: The state has had legal (though highly regulated) concealed carry for handguns since 1995, though -- contrary to some people's guess, and with some exceptions -- open carry of handguns is not generally legal. One thing that's definitely not a common sight, though, is a group of people manufacturing guns just outside the south gates of the Texas capitol building. But that's just what you would have encountered a few weeks ago, when an organization called CATI (Come and Take It) Texas set up a tent that served as a tech demo as much as an act of social provocation. CATI had on hand one of the same Ghost Gunner CNC mills that FedEx now balks at shipping, and spent hours showing all comers how a "gun" (in the eyes of regulators, at least) can be quickly shaped from a piece of aluminum the ATF classifies as just a piece of aluminum. They came prepared to operate off-grid, and CATI Texas president Murdoch Pizgatti showed for my camera that the Ghost Gunner works just fine operating from a few big batteries -- no mains power required. (They ran the mill at a slower speed, though, to conserve juice.)
I think the idea is to show the futility of attempting this kind of control in the era of 21st century technology. Ultimately, every gun is just a few bits of metal, and with a modern 3D printer or CNC machine, anyone in any first-world country can manufacture one that is not subject to any controls. Given that eventuality, arguments for why gun control is necessary become meaningless: they can be tools for oppression or revenue generation, but they cannot be said to actually increase public safety.
Even if you wanted to, how could you possibly regulate this? Once items get to the point of being able to be easily manufactured in your own house, in mass, relatively cheaply, it's nearly impossible to regulate this away.
Think of prohibition. People can/could easily make their own alcohol in their own house by just leaving grapes in a barrel. It was next to impossible to regulate and required substantial man power to prevent the little they did. Grape juice in the era actually said on the label "Do not leave in a jug for 20 days as it might turn into wine." CNC mills are not illegal, just as grape juice wasn't illegal during prohibition. You're likely to start seeing CNC mills with warnings like "do not use to make firearms."
If you try to regulate schematics, people can just download plans from some P2P service. Now you guns that are made from lower grade materials AND questionable designs.
Yesterday it was alcohol prohibition. Today it is drug prohibition. Tomorrow it will be homemade gun parts. You can try to regulate away these things, but once you can easily make them in your own home, it's a losing battle. Attempting to regulate these impossible to regulate things leads to no-knock raids, death, and more criminals. Nobody is safer and I'd argue we're all less safe. Even if they are illegal tomorrow, 20 years and 1 million no-knock raids later, they will be legal again. Prohibition never lasts.
If more guns on the street is creating a problem, then you need to start thinking about different solutions. Making it illegal to possess a firearm isn't going to fix anything.
the current understanding of gun rights in the USA is a late 1900s dirty harry style invention of anyone should have a gun
Unless you:
1. Are a convicted felon.
2. Are a convicted domestic abuser.
3. Are currently charged with any crime punishable by a year or more in prison.
4. Are an unlawful user of any controlled substance.
5. Are addicted to any controlled substance, even one lawfully proscribed.
6. Have been dishonorably discharged from the United States military.
7. Have renounced your American citizenship.
8. Are the subject of an order of protection.
9. Are a fugitive from justice.
10. Are in the United States illegally.
Those are just the people proscribed from ownership under Federal law. Many States have tougher laws and add even more people to the list. Some (my home state, New York) go further and treat gun rights as a privilege, requiring a license, which is doled out at the whim of local bureaucrats who can deny you for virtually any reason they wish.
Point being, nowhere in the United States does the "current understanding" of gun rights say anyone should have firearms. Do you actually know what the existing body of Federal, State, and Local law has to say on this subject or are you just repeating talking points you read somewhere?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You're welcome. Everybody who actually works on this site hates autoplay as much as you do. We also want a volume control in the player. That's our next video crusade.
It might seem that open carry is a bad idea, but studies indicate that bad guys simply leave when they see an open carry person and not start the crime at all. Criminals don't like resistance or danger. Even in mass shootings, something like 40% of mass murderers shoot themselves when confronted with any armed resistance.
And another problem with not allowing open carry is that it actually makes it viable for law enforcement in some states to prosecute people with concealed carry handguns if their gun is visible at all. I believe Texas is like this and is why they are pushing so hard for open carry. How ridiculous is it to charge a lady with a concealed carry permit and a holstered pistol in her purse with a crime simply because a cashier glimpses the gun as she's paying for groceries? But it's happened.
Many states have had open carry for... ever. Vermont, for example, has never required any training for licensing for concealed or open carry. It's not exactly a hotbed of criminal activity.
There are a number of incorrect claims wandering around. Rather than answer each post, I'll summarize.
Like most machines, a gun is a collection of parts. For various reasons, one of those parts must (legally) be the gun itself, and the rest are just parts attached to the gun. For guns similar to (or clones of) the AR-15/M-16, the gun is the lower receiver.
The other parts are not restricted at all. Anyone can buy barrels, springs, sears, stocks, triggers, hammers, whatever they want, off the street, over the internet, or mail order. No ID, no registration.
If a dealer is selling a receiver, either alone, or as part of a completed firearm, they have to do the background check, fill out the paperwork, etc. A non-dealer doesn't need to do any of that, but the ATF will consider you to be a dealer if you act like a dealer.
The receiver is a complicated part. It takes a lot of work to turn a piece of metal into a receiver. At some point during that work, it changes from "piece of metal with some cuts" into a receiver.
Pieces of metal that have had some work done, but not enough to become receivers, are sold as "80% receivers". These are subject to no more regulation than any other random block of metal, because it is the end user that actually manufactures the gun.
Building your own gun is perfectly legal, by the way, as long as you are doing it for yourself. If you intend to sell it, or give it away, you need to get licensed and pay for a tax stamp. If you decide later to sell it, or give it away, that is perfectly legal too, but you need to make sure that you don't do anything that would make a reasonable person think that you had intended to pass it on when you made it.
The Ghost Gunner ONLY works on these 80% Receivers. They are not capable of milling a receiver out of raw billet. Nor could they work with a raw casting or forging.
Desktop milling machines don't have the power to spin up a heavy chuck, nor, generally, could they manage enough axis velocity to keep the feed rate up when using a large diameter tool. That means 1/8" or 1/4" chucks and tools. That limits the milling depth two an inch or two. That's plenty for milling out the trigger pocket, but nowhere near enough for the magazine well.
And if anyone is interested in the topic, there is a forum thread somewhere showing a guy making an AK receiver out of a shovel. The same technique has been used around the world. The Afghans made their AKs in caves, with hand tools.
See that "Preview" button?