Slashdot Mirror
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.)
This is why we can't have nice things.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Not really relevant to this particular topic, but thanks for stopping the auto-play of video in the comments section, Slashdot.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
http://www.dikiligundemi.net
You have to not poke the bear. Provocation like open carry "just because" is why we don't have open carry in most states. Yes, the ATF is aware people can make their own guns, and for the most part is seems like they don't want to know because that's a whole new headache. These guys are shining a spotlight on home fabrication and basically waving it in their face. So now it will get regulated. Thanks, guys; this is why we can't have nice things.
Also, Slashdot, fix the stupid posting. I'm logged in, but you only let me post AC and you forget I'm logged in.
So when we're talking about net neutrality, taking a law from the 1930's and applying to today's technology is bad, but if we're talking about gun control doing the same thing with an 18th century amendment is somehow good? Pick one, conservatives.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
...is that they're basically taking an issue that most people either didn't really know about or didn't really care about too strongly, and are shoving it into everyone else's faces, so that they now have a reason to take a stance against it?
Several years ago I remember a protest in an open-carry state about a public library attempting to prohibit open-carry in the library. Things were nice and peaceful and respectful, until some jackass wearing hunting camo and leather two sashes covered in shotgun shells came in carrying a pump-action twelve gauge. Any goodwill that the previous firearms enthusiasts created was utterly destroyed by one jerk that decided to push the limits.
Guns are a lot of fun to shoot. There are times when guns serve a legitimate use. On the other hand, if guns are introduced into situations where they have no business then it's not exactly a surprise when movements to prohibit them or to confiscate them come to be.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm from the UK and I'm having a hard time understanding this. What are these gentlemen trying to do? What is the context around blocks of aluminium being made into guns? What problem does that solve?
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
And no, I don't mean going to the firing range and shooting off a few rounds
I mean doing something with them like giving them to the needy.
an <unnamed black president> is going to take their guns. That won't happen. What most people want is sensible gun laws, better background checks, better safety training (google toddler gun deaths), limits on high capacity magazines, restrictions on assault rifles, better mental health care (because a huge number of gun deaths are suicides so capacity is not an issue there). You don't need to carry a gun everywhere (schools, churches, grocery stores, hospitals, gov't buildings). Conceal carry makes much more sense because then you aren't advertising and making yourself a target. You shouldn't go someplace you wouldn't normally go just because you have a gun. It gives you a false sense of security.
asap please.
Have a drill and simple hand tools? Make yourself a gun. The unfinished lowers don't require that much effort to finish.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/i-built-an-ar-15-rifle-in-my-kitchen-cdbc5e9c7197
This is to show how easy it is to flout unjust laws. It worked to get the British out of India and it will work to get the BATFE out of the Second Amendment!
"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, Congress shall pass no law infringing the bearing of arms, or of the arms press."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
For regulation to work... You have to not poke the bear.
If you only have a "right" while nobody exercises it, and it goes away as soon as a few people do, did you actually have it? Hardly!
Rights unused can be silently abrogated. You have to use them occasionally, to test whether this has happened, so you can take corrective action if it has.
(If nothing else, it's easy for law enforcement personnel to start assuming that something that doesn't occur often is actually banned. So important things like carrying guns need to be done occasionally, just to keep them aware that it's really OK.)
Provocation like open carry "just because" is why we don't have open carry in most states.
If you can't do something "just because", it's not a right.
In fact its open carry demonstrations that have eduated police forces in many areas, bringing peace between law enforcement personnel and gun-toting ordinary citizens in many places where open carry was legal but had fallen out of use. It also brings the issue to visibility and educates others, especially those who grew up when it was rare, that they DO have these rights, when they hadn't been taught they did. It is a fine icebreaker for bringing out related facts - like the actual numbers on safety and the effect of gun carry on crime and injury rates.
Yes, "Poking the Bear" can also have bad effects: For instance, California's draconin gun bans got started largely when the Black Panthers carried rifles into the gallery of the State Legislature, back during the period of the Civil Rights riots when it was legal. But black people at the time were de-facto banned from carrying guns (which was much of why they could be oppressed). The legislature just made that unconstitutional infrigemet de-jure.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I don't really care about gun regulation one way or the other, but I really hate the "Come and Take It" bullshit mentality. Completely based on just that, I want the military to step in and take their guns. The idea that it couldn't if it really wanted to is absurd.
They should've called it the Molon Lathe
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Notice that again the conservative voice on slashdot is screaming about how FedEx doesn't want to transport certain goods. If the product was a pamphlet for a local union hall, the conservatives would say that FedEx was exercising their rights to free speech and freedom of association. But since the product is something that conservatives believe all Americans have god-granted rights to, FedEx's refusal to transport it is clearly a constitutional crisis.
In other words, FedEx is free to transport whatever goods they want, unless refusing them angers the conservatives. Then, FedEx must transport them in spite of their objections.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
"an act of social provocation"
All the open carry demonstrations and make a gun tricks... All seem to be the kind of sarcastic "social provocations" that one undertake to encourage stricter gun control.
I find it hilarious...
Open carry of long guns is what the Black Panthers started with in Oakland 50 years ago...
The police won't protect us, so we're going to do it, with open carry.
Ok, the guy has what they consider a 80% lower, meaning that 80% of the lower receiver of the gun is already milled. You can buy these on the internet and not need a FFL to purchase one since it's not a completed lower (has no trigger area, no area for the clip to go in, and a couple different pins and mechanics holes that are needed) I can get one forged and partly machined for a lot cheaper plus less time consuming and I wouldn't have to finish the outside of it. I would need the jigs to machine it properly and I for one would not trust doing it with hand tools or the machine shown because I wouldn't trust the accuracy and would fear catastrophic failure. You can clearly see it only a 2 axis machine. It would take more then some battery power to machine a block of aluminum in that. You'd have to do at least 3 setups of the stock. That battery would die after the first half of machining. The guys in the video seem to think people are idiots and no one knows about machining
But let assume you have a lower. Fine, but you need all the rest of the parts that make up the gun. The upper that includes the barrel, the bolt, the charging handle, on and on which you are not machining or even consider making on your own. Then you have to put it together, which by it's own is not the easiest thing, but parts a lot of times need gunsmithing to get them to fit properly. So there are tools for both the assembly AND working on parts fitment. That only is going to scare off 90% or more of people in even trying to build one. Add the cost (80% lower that's decent about 90 buck, upper kit that decent at least 500 if luck to find, the jigs 100+ dollars, tools to put it together properly 100+ to 200, time to do it all and the equipment which the "ghost gunner cnc" doesn't even tell you a price, just $250 NRD to "reserve" a spot to get one) and you pretty much eliminate it down to a select few that would enjoy this as a hobby. Oh, and you can legally only make them for yourself. Can't sell them either unless you get a manufacturers license, and nobody with a rickety l
another reason to stay away from Texas. Texas should really break off and form it's own republic, they would be much happier that wat.
Just absurdly dangerous. And this DIY isn't making it less so.
Go to Home Depot, get some black iron pipe (12 gauge size), a pipe cap, a drill and a nail. Nice if you can get a spring...
Only machining necessary is to drill a hole in the pipe cap so it holds the nail in the right place to hit the primer.
Likely to blow up after 2 shots. Possibly not survive the first one; I give it the same odds as a piece of aluminum. Probably under $10.
So we can have stories like this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
and this
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
At least they had a gun and were safe....
Anyone want to share a story about when a civilian with a gun really saved the day?
I've asked before so please dont post stories about the "authorities backing down" because squatters were armed, or other such posts.
Just a story about Bad guy with gun, good guy with gun and the story ends well.
I haven't seen a gun rack in the window of a pickup since my high school days in the '70s.
But if that myopic thinking keeps you out of Our Great State then keep it up.
We all carry guns in holsters on our hips, we all have oil wells and we all have cows in the front yards of our ranches.
Keep the anachronisms alive in your tiny-little brain...
See the thing is, according to the text of 18USC 44, you are utterly FUCKED when you characterize you activity you intend with this tool as MANUFACTURING. See, that needs extensive licensing. It's well defined and settled part of the law.
Cody Wilson (possible confidential informant/agent provocateur) already characterized activity he wishes to engage in as MANUFACTURING
Cody Wilson marketed these tools for MANUFACTURING in interstate commerce.
Cody Wilson went as far as to troll FedEx, who wouldn't ship the tools because they being put forth in commerce as tools for MANUFACTURING which is unregulated,
and also there's the tiny fact that anyone who receives one of these will no doubt run afoul of CONSPIRACY statues relating to 18USC44 and Cody's little game. That's right, every single person that receives these can potentially be considered a WILLFUL criminal actor in the total trade in all of these devices, and all illegal weapons manufactured with them.
Actually it was anyone in debt. You know, so not much has changed really. I can tell you are one of those special little snowflakes that is owned by a creditor, aren't you? Now get back to work and pay off that $200,000 student loan for your useless liberal arts degree. LMFAO
I like my guns. I'm not bat shit crazy about them. If people want ot be ammosexuals, they can have at it. But it doesn't make them not bat shit crazy.
But the kooks will be descending like flies on this rotton carcass of a subject, in 3....2....1....
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh and by the way, with CONSPIRACY statutes, they can charge the criminal actors with a total number of weapons that could be POTENTIALLY manufactured with all the units. So that would be several hundred thousand weapons or so. Cody is going away/going to put some fools away for a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time! LOL and you guys thot he was "an hero"
> (They ran the mill at a slower speed, though, to conserve juice.) That doesn't conserve juice.
BS. Any CNC / lathe / mill can be used to manufacture a gun. Heck, you can even forge the required part if you wanted to...
I mean ... FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
Spent all my mod points over in another story, but now I really wish I hadn't. +1 Insightful.
"mains power" is very British. Right to bear arms, where's that come from?
Go on YouTube and search for 80% lower. People are making them with hand drills, drill presses, and routers. Even easier if they have access to a milling machine.
Promoting this kind of gun-crazy, misogynist, conservative disgrace of a video is the reason why slashdot is filled with racists and harassers. Nerds so blinded by technology that they can be lead into supporting rape and gun culture just because someone dangles a shiny piece of machinery in front of them.
There are impressionable young geeks on this website and Slashdot has a RESPONSIBILITY not to poison their minds with this propaganda. Tech is supposed to help society grow. We can't do that if we're promoting machines that make weapons that kill people.
Slashdot is betraying nerd culture with this video.
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?
I wish Slashdot would stop pandering to pothead anarchists who want every last American citizen to be armed to the teeth with guns.
Yes, anarchists are subverting 3D printing technology to aid their cause. No, that doesn't make it sufficiently 'tech related' to warrant repeated coverage on Slashdot.
If I want to read about mentally unstable Texas gun nuts there are plenty of other sites I can read. Slashdot is for intelligent people, not anarchists, not drug addicts, and not gun nuts.
Actually it was anyone in debt. You know, so not much has changed really.
Troll food...
Bonded servants are "bad humans", slaves are "sub-humans". Sure, living conditions were similar but bonded servants were rarely whipped/lynched in public for running away. Bonded servitude of Blacks was still a thing in the southern US when I was a kid in the 60's, are your political blinkers that tight that you really believe a modern office job is comparable to either situation?
Yes, and if you trade in tools with stated public intent to MANUFACTURE arms in commerce, your local ATF/AUSA will be happy to nail you for it.
Did you read the statute? Do you know the difference between fabrication and manufacturing? Do you know what it means to intentfully state your plans to commit future crimes and for you to have taken actual steps toward such crimes?
Apparently not. Typical dumbfuck (probably a postbot anyway)
this happened over a month ago.
"Lame" - Galaxar
You can't confiscate guns from criminals. With this machine criminals will always have access to guns.
Period.
The only question is whether you want law abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves.
The division largely falls on whether you see citizens as peasants or not.
You can take weapons away from peasants. They shouldn't have them anyway, filthy animals. But citizens are halfway between peasants and nobility. And you don't take guns away from the nobility. They won't let you. They'll literally shoot you in the face if you try it.
The argument over guns is that many people feel citizens are more peasants than nobles and some feel citizens are more nobles than peasants.
That's what it boils down to.
Peasants don't really have rights as such. There's no Magna Carta for peasants. You give them what you need to give them to keep them working.
Nobles however can walk right up to the king, look him in the face, and tell him that he can't do something if the king is overstepping some agreement. The nobility won't permit it.
And that's what the gun debate at least is all about.
But it doesn't really matter anymore... because micro manufacturing makes it impractical to deny the ownership of goods through the regulation of stores and manufacturers. The manufacturing system becomes too distributed and defuse to regulate. No government agent is going to rubber stamp literally every thing that comes off your mill. So they can't stop it.
Once they've adapted to that reality and that might take another generation. Human beings are often inflexible and lacking in imagination. Look at the drug war for example... that they didn't see that one coming is further evidence of the point. But eventually they're going to lose this one.
It might take 50 years for them to finally admit it. But they can't win it.
this micro manufacturing stuff is checkmate.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
In contrast to cyber-arms control, which is in fact about NOT keeping vulnerabilities secret which will make everyone safer, gun control is a lost cause.
Because when it comes down to it, a gun consists of information, which is freely available; raw materials, which are freely available in the necessary quality; the abilities to really work the materials according to the information, which is available widely, from afghani weaponmakers to milling and printing machines; and finally the time to do it. Plus of course, the will to do it despite of government attempts to criminalize it.
With guns, the horse left the barn around 1350 A.D., and every attempt to close the door has been a failure.
Besides, the problem is not really the availability of the weapons, but the culture to use it. Guess why we've got nearly the same amount of guns as the USA, but our homicide-rate is ten times lower? Because it's really not the guns. It's the culture.
Of course you can excarbate the problem with making stupid laws that lead to the proliferation of criminal gangs by outlawing things like alcohol, drugs, prostitution and so on. Or by not having a social system that that takes care nobody falls between the gaps.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
In Texas, guns are a common sight:gun-racks are visible in the back of many pick-ups
Uh, no. They aren't unheard of but they aren't "common" especially in large cities.
Whoever wrote that has probably never been there.
Pretending to be a soldier without a soldiers responsibility isn't very "conservative" is it? It's about being a cowardly asshole.
Good luck with your homemade gun when you can't get any ammunition anymore. But wait, you say you'll make the bullets too. Fine. Then possession and manufacturing of gunpowder should be a felony too. We'll take you down to your muskets just like the founding fathers had when they envisioned the 2nd amendment.
Being prevented from possessing a small class of items is obviously different from complete prohibition which was discussed above.
If you are going to pretend to be so stupid so early in a post then I suggest not wasting so much time writing a long post that is not going to be read beyond the point of pretended stupidity. Maybe you were doing it to build a strawman in my name - I don't care - if you start with fake stupidity you are just wasting your time.
DIAF
What about the 18th Century eludes your understanding?
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.