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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.)
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
...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.
Keep in mind that in the 18th century, private citizens owned artillery and warships.
Texas does in fact allow open carry of long guns. What it doesn't allow is open carry of hand guns.
In fact back when the whole Ferguson thing was more of a thing, there was an open carry demonstration by a black shooting club. They marched through one of our large cities (with rifles and shotguns) and deposited themselves next to a number of on duty police officers on their meal break.
No fireworks ensued though. Nobody got over excited. Although it does bear mentioning that the jurisdiction in question does have a black police chief and had a black DA.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Do you feel the same way about the 1st Amendment and modern technology?
Rights are Rights. You can argue about whether a certain expression of those Rights is "good" or "bad". But they're still Rights.
Don't confuse them with business decisions/rulings.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Small-scale manufacturing is the source of all coming nice things. Yes, yes, you can use it to make guns - or anything else for that matter! 3D printing will never, by itself, make Star Trek replicators a reality, you need both additive printing and milling to make small-scale, eventually in-every-home, manufacturing a reality. The "Ghost Gunner" is just an ordinary CNC mini-mill. That's kind of the point here: it's not a tool for making guns, it's just a tool. And a damn impressive one.
Yesterday I had a crown put in. The last crown I had took 2 dentist visits, because the crown had to be manufactured in a lab and mailed, a multi-day process. Yesterday it took under 2 hours. The dentists scanned my tooth, designed the replacement on a computer as I watched, and (with some intermediate steps) it was automatically milled in a back room while I waited. We're living in the future, and, yes, the future will have guns, which even if you think that's a bad thing, just think of all the other stuff we'll be making ourselves, or in the office of the appropriate professional.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not sure what they're really trying to accomplish. They're shoving their political opinion in everyone's face. Quite often, however, people like this end up generating a fair amount of animosity towards their cause and bring together opponents trying to stop them who otherwise wouldn't have enough ambition to do so. Their actions end up being counterproductive. I'm not sure why they insist on hurting their own cause but they're hell bent on doing it.
Many of us who enjoy responsible recreational and sport shooting really wish these idiots would shut up and go away because they bring unwanted attention to the subject and end up making it more difficult for the rest of us.
Who knows
The best argument I've heard for what they're doing is "if you are afraid to express your rights do you actually have those rights?"
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
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 the one who claimed, emphasis mine: "the current understanding of gun rights in the USA is a late 1900s dirty harry style invention of anyone should have a gun ." Don't try and backpedal away from it now.
I could respond to your silly training argument by pointing out:
1. Driving is a privilege, not a constitutionally recognized right.
2. The prefatory clause is not a limiting clause. It was not imagined as such by the people who wrote it nor ever interpreted that way by a court.
Of course, what's the point of having that discussion? You've got the facts so hopelessly wrong that I believe your ignorance is willful. One bloody Google search would have been enough to dispel your misinformed belief about the "current understanding of gun rights in the usa" and you couldn't even be bothered to do that.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I think it's pretty clear that the intent behind the second amendment was the perceived need to have a well regulated militia. In other words, if you want to carry a guns, sign up to join the national guard.
And you would be wrong. According to historical documents and the debates surrounding ratification, it was exactly the opposite.
The Founders were terrified of the necessity of having a "standing army" for defense. They had just fought a war against the "well regulated militia" of their own country! They considered a standing government army to be the single biggest threat to the Republic. Thus, (emphasis added):
"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."
The People are to be armed, to protect the country (which is The People), AGAINST its own army, if need be.
There were considered to be TWO militias: the common militia, which consisted of all the people, and a "Well Regulated Militia", which was the standing army. The accepted definition at the time of "well regulated" was "ordered, disciplined." That's a trained army.
But The People are not a "well regulated militia". They are NOT trained and disciplined. Yet as recently as a few years ago, the Supreme Court ruled again that the 2nd Amendment guaranteed arms to The People.
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?