1) If you're poor, EVERYTHING you spend is on necessities.
LOL. Yeah, that is the conventionally held wisdom I suppose.
However, every welfare baby I know had nice TVs (usually in every bedroom where applicable), cable service, a host of things I didn't have as a lower middle class kid--and more recently, every goddamned family had cell phones for both the adults and their progeny, and believe me they're on them yapping it up constantly. Back when I used to do superintendent work, all of the section 8 renters/welfare/food stamp recipients had a more 'wealthy' lifestyle than I did at the time or any time prior...
I fought for every nickel and dime, worked two jobs at times, and generally busted my ass. These folks, however, had no intention at all of moving up in life because they were perfectly content keeping a part time minimum wage job at Walmart, sucking off the government tit and living it up in the process. They clearly didn't have a hard time paying the sales taxes on all their goodies.
The real poor, the homeless, the disabled and the good people who refuse to go on the welfare roles are the ones who will suffer under a sales/use tax system. Seems like they're a minority though. If we weened the multitudes of healthy individuals off Uncle Sams' back and forced them to be less useless, there would be a hell of a lot more money to spend on people who really need it, and undoubtedly a large tax surplus beyond that.
Oh, it's ironic alright--in that she thought she was saying something insightful, when in reality she was loading the gun aimed at her toes. She may very well have a point, but you simply do not lightly use one of the most lethal dictators as a tool to illustrate a point. She tried and lost.
60 Minutes or one of the other contemporary news shows also covered this serious "problem" with the Audi 5000. The mechanics apparently had to do some serious modifications to "make" the car rev uncontrollably. But the breaks are more than enough to counter the engine torque anyway. So. Yeah. Driver error.//Owner of a mighty awesome Audi 5000 Turbo Quattro. Wish they still made equivalent vehicles.
Yeah. For guns. Not for bullets. At least, not yet--California recently passed an initiative to require fingerprints for ammo purchases, which is supposed to happen in 2011.
However, as a dealer, if you have a reasonable belief that your customer may be a prohibited person (even if they pass the background check), is purchasing firearms for a prohibited person, or is going to use your wares in a crime, you are obligated not to sell.
The trick is knowing when detainment becomes arrest, which has its own grey area. The fifth and Miranda do not apply to prearrest chatter or silence. A school of thought, however, says it's generally not advisable to be talkative during either happening, at lest if one values their freedom.
All the more reason that everyone should give that line any time they're harassed by the police. In four part harmony, if at all possible. Like James Madison said: As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. If you don't fight the scoundrels, you lose by default. Better to walk away with a bruised ego than never to make an effort. The worst that can happen is you end up on some kind of terrorist watch list. (it seems one man's patriot is always anothers' terrorist)
You're required to provide basic information like your name, address, but not required to show a photo ID. You need not carry anything on your body.
Sorry. The Supreme Court has further restricted these "Stop and Identify" state laws, in that you're under no obligation to answer any of those questions unless the officer has a reasonable suspicion that you're committing, have committed, or are about to commit a crime--i.e. you're detained... A simple question (am I free to go?) determines whether or not you've been detained. And if you are, simply giving your name is said to satisfy their demands. If you're arrested they have to inform you of your rights, and it's time to clap the trap and get a lawyer.
I just wanted to make it clear: police have no right to roll up and detain anyone they see fit, for no reason. Even if you're doing something as shocking as openly carrying a sidearm in a state where it's legal, this does not give police the right to detain and harass you... Yes, even if THEY don't know, or pretend not to know this activity is legal. (guess that sword cuts both ways!)
The answer to "papiers please!" is that it's time to stop expecting to have our rights trampled on, to start knowing the law and our rights better than big brother--and if they become grossly trod upon, it's our duty to file a lawsuit and collect a handsome settlement for our trouble. The more this happens, the more weary the police will be, and that's good for us.
The way I see it, they've done a very good job at creating their own job security, in the same way that civil engineers seem to love placing manholes right in the tire path in roads. (i.e. causing the suspension of the car passing over it to bounce, ultimately tearing up the road down wind of the manhole, creating a job for a civil engineer to oversee rebuilding of said road)
Filing a false DMCA notice is already an act of perjury, a potentially criminal act in this case. Of course, unless it's related to taxes or bearing false witness at a criminal trial, that crime almost always goes unprosecuted. Just make it easier to file a complaint.
In a way it would be silly to waste the time and resources for such a petty thing, but it would be fun to send a message, especially to boneheaded law firms. If a few lawyers were locked up for a short time, I bet the casual filings of these notices would disappear overnight, the burden of proof would be strongly elevated, and this law could be used as intended--and not as a means to censure unpopular opinion.
I didn't mean to say that I only take a singular 4GB card with me. Certainly not the case--I take backups as well, extra batteries, etc. re: vacations: I used to take the SLR on vacation, but figured I tended to work more than vacation, and actually didn't do a very good job of either. So, I'll occasionally plan a trip just to go capture tropical sunsets, scenes, etc. fully expecting not to vacation in the least.
Sometimes I'll even get out of the red by licensing. X)
Well, like I said, the 400D uses compact flash. The next one, the 450D used SD, and because of it's larger sensor it records slightly larger RAW files! I go out with a friend on shoots and don't notice him waiting for shots to get stored.
I admittedly haven't been keeping up with Canon's current line consumer cameras, and didn't know about the 450D. I know that some Nikons can use both, which seems logical in that you'll just about always be able to find one or the other should you need to buy a card while out on vacation... But you'll notice: the professional line is still 100% CF.
As to capacity of number of photos, I'm basing this on my experience with 35mm cameras, where a standard film cartridge allows 36 exposures, a few more in specialized cameras or with specialized B&W film. Every photographer worth his pay was bound to burn through more than a few cartridges while on any job, and changing film was just the nature of the beast.
With my 40D I'm able to get an average of 290-300 RAW + Medium/Fine JPEG exposures on a 4GB drive. That's a ton of uninterrupted shooting, over eight rolls of film worth, in fact. Unless I'm shooting motor sports or waterfowl in continuous mode, I never use even that much in a day. So, you see, an 8 or 16GB drive would be complete overkill, For Me. Obviously, if I had a 1DS Mk2 / Mk3, those bigger drives would be a lot more attractive. As far as my purposes, I'm happy to keep several 2-4GB cards and I swap 'em out when they near full.
As to filling the buffer up, the "prosumer" line can shoot 5-6.5 frames per second, usually with a 15-20 frame RAW buffer. The 400D/450D shoots 3-3.5 frames/s with a buffer for holding 6 RAW files. Trust me, if your bud was shooting that camera fast enough, it would fill up the buffer and then slow down significantly, compared to the same sensor in the professional body with a high speed CF card. There would not even be competition.
Download speeds (to a pc) are irrelevant - I don't care how long that takes.
That's you. But professionals have things to do. If you've just shot a bunch of photos of a client in the studio, and want to show them previews in Lightroom, faster is better. No surprise, cameras aimed at professional work use CF, and most serious photographers use fast firewire readers to help the process. Maybe it's not important for everyone, but I'll take every Kb/s I can.
You're right. That is a poor analogy. It would be better if the dolt hopped into his car, completely missing the exceedingly obvious and externally visible fact that it had blocks under all four axles with its wheels and tires missing, and upon starting the car and shifting into drive realizes that nothing is happening, and immediately proceeds to call AAA to complain that he needs a tow because his transmission wouldn't shift out of park. I'm pretty sure that I've heard this in a blond joke. Anyone so stupid or preoccupied is bound to be a danger to those around him.
This is on par with the sort of thing that adult sufferers of Down's syndrome will routinely understand. Unless he's the lawyer version of rain man, that level of observational dysfunction, laziness, lack of curiosity, ineptitude...or whatever else you'd ascribe it to, almost certainly carries over into his professional life... So much so that anyone would wonder how a person with these character traits would come to be in that position, no less stay there any length of time. I mean, if the guy was still working at retirement age, some consideration might be apt. Just about everyone else living in first world countries, however, have coexisted with these devices long enough to have at the least a very basic understanding of their function.
Compact Flash is similarly much more expensive than SD. I have no idea why Canon stuck to CF for their EOS 400D camera, years after SD "won" the format war (for phones/cameras etc).
Speed, in a word. In my experience, with a good reader/writer, CF cards are much faster than SD cards. SD is great for cameras which were designed with a priority on small form factor, but it would be absurd to use it in a full size SLR body--especially one that is expected to generate 10 megapixel raw files--It's important to empty the buffer to storage quickly, and equally important download hundreds of raw files quickly.
The caveat I understand is that some newer SD interfaces can rival CF read/write speeds, but the cards are just as expensive as the equivalent CF card, and this generation of cameras aren't known to support those speeds anyway. Secondly, they don't want to totally re-engineer their camera bodies between the professional and pro-consumer lines, and bluntly, professionals aren't likely to accept a non-CF storage medium at this moment. I know I wouldn't.
The damn things would be way too easy to lose, are too fragile to swap out regularly--and it wouldn't matter if they made them in 16 or 32GB+ sizes. I will NEVER fill up a 16GB+ drive with an important photo shoot, until I get a camera which makes 16GB seem small. It only makes it too easy to lose the entire shoot should a drive succumb to some kind of fault. I'll happily swap out a few 4 or 6GB cards if I need that much. If something happens to one card, I'll probably still have my ass covered.
Cause and effect. If it wasnt for the ban that number would be higher.
Of course. I think we understand that *heavy regulation* (not truly a ban) of NFA items has made it extremely improbable for them to be a cause of death. The point is, despite estimated 200,000 registered machine guns owned across the US, it's likely that more people are killed by choking to death on vitamins *every year* than all of the slayings involving federally regulated, legally owned NFA weapons throughout the years.
That's why it didn't make sense to finally ban new machine guns back in 1986. The "problem" was literally so insignificant to be a non-issue, outside of the obvious political pandering which was Mission Accomplished.
Absolutely. To put that in perspective for everyone: In 1934, that $200 tax would have been worth nearly $3200 in today dollars. This was at a time that a really fancy, very nice brand new Plymouth cost about $700, and for about $500 you could drive an early 1930's style Ford deuce-coupe cost off the showroom floor. No working man of the time could have hoped to legally own any of the NFA regulated items without significant planning or sacrifice... And because of the great depression, normal folk would have just been happy to feed and cloth themselves.
In 1986, when lawmakers realized the antiquated $200 tax had become much less significant, they conjured another law which up further effectively banned legal machine guns for poor folk. No new machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986 could be owned by a civilian. Not only did it effect new machine guns, but simply due to supply and demand (which instantly became non-existent and very high respectively), the prices of obtainable machine guns skyrocketed, and has had the effect of making a registered machine gun worth %1000 or more than a nearly identical, semi-auto only copy.
Just to make it clear to everyone out there: legally owned, federally registered machine have never even been a blip on the radar, as far as homicides and crimes are concerned. There have been fewer than 15 murders proven to have been committed with NFA weapons in the 75 years this harsh regulation has existed. There was no sound justification to ban the items again in 1986.
If anything, this 'tax' on the market restored the real effect of the 1934 $200 tax. You can't get into the hobby of owning and using machine guns for under $4000 these days... And that might get you a used up, prone to malfunction Mac-10 or beat up UZI... Which just happens to be about $3200 more than a quality semi-auto Mac-10 clone.
And it's also a pain to transfer a "folder" of files to someone over the net. Torrents are the only remotely usable solution and that requires making a torrent, uploading it to a site, and then finding a user you want to give it to who also understands bittorrent...
Totally. Someone should get on this immediately. It would be totally cool to have a program which is able to string a number of files and their associated directories together, and just dump them into one file for ease of distribution! And then, on the other side of the internets, the recipient could use the same program to take all of that stuff from the file he received, and dump it back out, directories and all.
The definition of AP ammo is at 18 USC sec. 921(a)(17): "(B) The term `armor piercing ammunition' means- (i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
(ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than.22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.
It's important to note that this subsection relates ONLY to ammunition which can be loaded in handguns. There are few shops with CNC lathes which turn out solid brass bullets, supposedly of highly uniform density metal, which are sold to be hand loaded for long range shooters. Steel and tungsten core rifle ammo is commonly available--or at least it was before all the hoarding hullabaloo.
This is the reason why FN Herstal couldn't ship the 5.7x27mm cartridge with the SS190 Steel/Aluminum core bullet. It can be used both in their PS90 carbine and FiveSeven pistol. If they only marketed the carbine in the US, an argument could be made that they would be legally able to ship the SS190 ammo, as it isn't intended for handguns, and by definition isn't armor piercing ammo, per federal law.
Back in the day you' were just as likely to get jacked up with a tonfa or baton if the police perceived that you got out of line--I'm sure of it. Nothing has changed, except the Tazer is probably a bit safer to the target, than getting clubbed about the head.
In 1997, the year that the FBI estimated firearms, they said there were 200 Million firearms in the US. The prior estimate in 1994, said that Americans owned 192 Million firearms. Just using this as a baseline, figure that our country gains 8 million firearms every three years, or 2.6 Million firearms per year. Sounds reasonable.
Extrapolating that trend to 2006, in those 9 years it can be expected that we gained about 23.4 Million guns, for an approximate total of 230.4 Million.
In 2006 there were about 18,000 homicides by firearm, and there were approximately accidental 43,000 deaths by vehicle accident. A 2006 DOT study said there were 135,399,945 registered passenger (consumer level, not buses or big rig) vehicles in the US, a number not completely out of parity, but dwarfed by the estimated number of guns for the same year.
Those 135.4 Million cars accidentally killed over 2.3 times the number of people purposefully killed with those 223.3 Million guns. That tells me, pretty plainly that American gun owners take great personal responsibility over the use of their guns... They are in fact much more careful with guns than everyone else is with their cars--considering you have to be licensed, insured and all the regulations you need to obey to drive, while you need none of that to own a gun, I think that's quite exceptional. You're welcome to check my math and statistics, but I think they're pretty close--certianly within horseshoe and hand grenade rules.
That also tells me that your theory (paraphrasing) "if you have the power you're going to use it more often" is completely bogus, and that Americans are actually quite habitually GOOD and responsible people; because while they COULD go on a bloody and murderous rampage (they have the tools after all), THEY DO NOT. When you consider that the bulk of those 18000 firearms related deaths were committed by a small minority (mostly by inner city gangs and such), you know, I think the law abiding American gun owner deserves a Gold Star.
While we're on the topic of guns and cars, it should be noted that a 4000lb car is a much better weapon with which to mow dozens of people down, than any firearm citizens are able to own.
Yes but the AK-47 is famous for its military uses. it in the very least could incite people to violence simple by them owning it.
It's a rifle, not the fucking magical One Ring created in the fires of Mount fucking Doom. It DOES NOT have the magical ability to incite people to violence, at least certianly not any more than a stuffed animal. Either you're prone to it or you're not. Most US gun owners apparently have that personal responsibility thing under control.
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1) If you're poor, EVERYTHING you spend is on necessities.
LOL. Yeah, that is the conventionally held wisdom I suppose.
However, every welfare baby I know had nice TVs (usually in every bedroom where applicable), cable service, a host of things I didn't have as a lower middle class kid--and more recently, every goddamned family had cell phones for both the adults and their progeny, and believe me they're on them yapping it up constantly. Back when I used to do superintendent work, all of the section 8 renters/welfare/food stamp recipients had a more 'wealthy' lifestyle than I did at the time or any time prior...
I fought for every nickel and dime, worked two jobs at times, and generally busted my ass. These folks, however, had no intention at all of moving up in life because they were perfectly content keeping a part time minimum wage job at Walmart, sucking off the government tit and living it up in the process. They clearly didn't have a hard time paying the sales taxes on all their goodies.
The real poor, the homeless, the disabled and the good people who refuse to go on the welfare roles are the ones who will suffer under a sales/use tax system. Seems like they're a minority though. If we weened the multitudes of healthy individuals off Uncle Sams' back and forced them to be less useless, there would be a hell of a lot more money to spend on people who really need it, and undoubtedly a large tax surplus beyond that.
Oh, it's ironic alright--in that she thought she was saying something insightful, when in reality she was loading the gun aimed at her toes. She may very well have a point, but you simply do not lightly use one of the most lethal dictators as a tool to illustrate a point. She tried and lost.
60 Minutes or one of the other contemporary news shows also covered this serious "problem" with the Audi 5000. The mechanics apparently had to do some serious modifications to "make" the car rev uncontrollably. But the breaks are more than enough to counter the engine torque anyway. So. Yeah. Driver error. //Owner of a mighty awesome Audi 5000 Turbo Quattro. Wish they still made equivalent vehicles.
Yeah. For guns. Not for bullets. At least, not yet--California recently passed an initiative to require fingerprints for ammo purchases, which is supposed to happen in 2011.
However, as a dealer, if you have a reasonable belief that your customer may be a prohibited person (even if they pass the background check), is purchasing firearms for a prohibited person, or is going to use your wares in a crime, you are obligated not to sell.
Scientology is not religion. It is a tax evasion scheme.
If only that was all they are. Godwin forgive me, but that's sort of like saying Nazis were "quite the patriotic bunch"
You're right of course.
The trick is knowing when detainment becomes arrest, which has its own grey area. The fifth and Miranda do not apply to prearrest chatter or silence. A school of thought, however, says it's generally not advisable to be talkative during either happening, at lest if one values their freedom.
All the more reason that everyone should give that line any time they're harassed by the police. In four part harmony, if at all possible. Like James Madison said: As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. If you don't fight the scoundrels, you lose by default. Better to walk away with a bruised ego than never to make an effort. The worst that can happen is you end up on some kind of terrorist watch list. (it seems one man's patriot is always anothers' terrorist)
You're required to provide basic information like your name, address, but not required to show a photo ID. You need not carry anything on your body.
Sorry. The Supreme Court has further restricted these "Stop and Identify" state laws, in that you're under no obligation to answer any of those questions unless the officer has a reasonable suspicion that you're committing, have committed, or are about to commit a crime--i.e. you're detained... A simple question (am I free to go?) determines whether or not you've been detained. And if you are, simply giving your name is said to satisfy their demands. If you're arrested they have to inform you of your rights, and it's time to clap the trap and get a lawyer.
I just wanted to make it clear: police have no right to roll up and detain anyone they see fit, for no reason. Even if you're doing something as shocking as openly carrying a sidearm in a state where it's legal, this does not give police the right to detain and harass you... Yes, even if THEY don't know, or pretend not to know this activity is legal. (guess that sword cuts both ways!)
The answer to "papiers please!" is that it's time to stop expecting to have our rights trampled on, to start knowing the law and our rights better than big brother--and if they become grossly trod upon, it's our duty to file a lawsuit and collect a handsome settlement for our trouble. The more this happens, the more weary the police will be, and that's good for us.
The way I see it, they've done a very good job at creating their own job security, in the same way that civil engineers seem to love placing manholes right in the tire path in roads. (i.e. causing the suspension of the car passing over it to bounce, ultimately tearing up the road down wind of the manhole, creating a job for a civil engineer to oversee rebuilding of said road)
Filing a false DMCA notice is already an act of perjury, a potentially criminal act in this case. Of course, unless it's related to taxes or bearing false witness at a criminal trial, that crime almost always goes unprosecuted. Just make it easier to file a complaint.
In a way it would be silly to waste the time and resources for such a petty thing, but it would be fun to send a message, especially to boneheaded law firms. If a few lawyers were locked up for a short time, I bet the casual filings of these notices would disappear overnight, the burden of proof would be strongly elevated, and this law could be used as intended--and not as a means to censure unpopular opinion.
Well, look on the bright side, he's one step ahead of those eight year old kids who get breastfed... Unless she secretly does that as well.
I didn't mean to say that I only take a singular 4GB card with me. Certainly not the case--I take backups as well, extra batteries, etc. re: vacations: I used to take the SLR on vacation, but figured I tended to work more than vacation, and actually didn't do a very good job of either. So, I'll occasionally plan a trip just to go capture tropical sunsets, scenes, etc. fully expecting not to vacation in the least.
Sometimes I'll even get out of the red by licensing. X)
Well, like I said, the 400D uses compact flash. The next one, the 450D used SD, and because of it's larger sensor it records slightly larger RAW files! I go out with a friend on shoots and don't notice him waiting for shots to get stored.
I admittedly haven't been keeping up with Canon's current line consumer cameras, and didn't know about the 450D. I know that some Nikons can use both, which seems logical in that you'll just about always be able to find one or the other should you need to buy a card while out on vacation... But you'll notice: the professional line is still 100% CF.
As to capacity of number of photos, I'm basing this on my experience with 35mm cameras, where a standard film cartridge allows 36 exposures, a few more in specialized cameras or with specialized B&W film. Every photographer worth his pay was bound to burn through more than a few cartridges while on any job, and changing film was just the nature of the beast.
With my 40D I'm able to get an average of 290-300 RAW + Medium/Fine JPEG exposures on a 4GB drive. That's a ton of uninterrupted shooting, over eight rolls of film worth, in fact. Unless I'm shooting motor sports or waterfowl in continuous mode, I never use even that much in a day. So, you see, an 8 or 16GB drive would be complete overkill, For Me. Obviously, if I had a 1DS Mk2 / Mk3, those bigger drives would be a lot more attractive. As far as my purposes, I'm happy to keep several 2-4GB cards and I swap 'em out when they near full.
As to filling the buffer up, the "prosumer" line can shoot 5-6.5 frames per second, usually with a 15-20 frame RAW buffer. The 400D/450D shoots 3-3.5 frames/s with a buffer for holding 6 RAW files. Trust me, if your bud was shooting that camera fast enough, it would fill up the buffer and then slow down significantly, compared to the same sensor in the professional body with a high speed CF card. There would not even be competition.
Download speeds (to a pc) are irrelevant - I don't care how long that takes.
That's you. But professionals have things to do. If you've just shot a bunch of photos of a client in the studio, and want to show them previews in Lightroom, faster is better. No surprise, cameras aimed at professional work use CF, and most serious photographers use fast firewire readers to help the process. Maybe it's not important for everyone, but I'll take every Kb/s I can.
You're right. That is a poor analogy. It would be better if the dolt hopped into his car, completely missing the exceedingly obvious and externally visible fact that it had blocks under all four axles with its wheels and tires missing, and upon starting the car and shifting into drive realizes that nothing is happening, and immediately proceeds to call AAA to complain that he needs a tow because his transmission wouldn't shift out of park. I'm pretty sure that I've heard this in a blond joke. Anyone so stupid or preoccupied is bound to be a danger to those around him.
This is on par with the sort of thing that adult sufferers of Down's syndrome will routinely understand. Unless he's the lawyer version of rain man, that level of observational dysfunction, laziness, lack of curiosity, ineptitude...or whatever else you'd ascribe it to, almost certainly carries over into his professional life... So much so that anyone would wonder how a person with these character traits would come to be in that position, no less stay there any length of time. I mean, if the guy was still working at retirement age, some consideration might be apt. Just about everyone else living in first world countries, however, have coexisted with these devices long enough to have at the least a very basic understanding of their function.
Compact Flash is similarly much more expensive than SD. I have no idea why Canon stuck to CF for their EOS 400D camera, years after SD "won" the format war (for phones/cameras etc).
Speed, in a word. In my experience, with a good reader/writer, CF cards are much faster than SD cards. SD is great for cameras which were designed with a priority on small form factor, but it would be absurd to use it in a full size SLR body--especially one that is expected to generate 10 megapixel raw files--It's important to empty the buffer to storage quickly, and equally important download hundreds of raw files quickly.
The caveat I understand is that some newer SD interfaces can rival CF read/write speeds, but the cards are just as expensive as the equivalent CF card, and this generation of cameras aren't known to support those speeds anyway. Secondly, they don't want to totally re-engineer their camera bodies between the professional and pro-consumer lines, and bluntly, professionals aren't likely to accept a non-CF storage medium at this moment. I know I wouldn't.
The damn things would be way too easy to lose, are too fragile to swap out regularly--and it wouldn't matter if they made them in 16 or 32GB+ sizes. I will NEVER fill up a 16GB+ drive with an important photo shoot, until I get a camera which makes 16GB seem small. It only makes it too easy to lose the entire shoot should a drive succumb to some kind of fault. I'll happily swap out a few 4 or 6GB cards if I need that much. If something happens to one card, I'll probably still have my ass covered.
Thing is, we test *everyone* I wonder if the same can be said of the Asian countries we're supposedly being whooped by. I have serious doubts.
Was that a wooshing sound, or a sonic boom? I couldn't tell.
Cause and effect. If it wasnt for the ban that number would be higher.
Of course. I think we understand that *heavy regulation* (not truly a ban) of NFA items has made it extremely improbable for them to be a cause of death. The point is, despite estimated 200,000 registered machine guns owned across the US, it's likely that more people are killed by choking to death on vitamins *every year* than all of the slayings involving federally regulated, legally owned NFA weapons throughout the years.
That's why it didn't make sense to finally ban new machine guns back in 1986. The "problem" was literally so insignificant to be a non-issue, outside of the obvious political pandering which was Mission Accomplished.
Absolutely. To put that in perspective for everyone: In 1934, that $200 tax would have been worth nearly $3200 in today dollars. This was at a time that a really fancy, very nice brand new Plymouth cost about $700, and for about $500 you could drive an early 1930's style Ford deuce-coupe cost off the showroom floor. No working man of the time could have hoped to legally own any of the NFA regulated items without significant planning or sacrifice... And because of the great depression, normal folk would have just been happy to feed and cloth themselves.
In 1986, when lawmakers realized the antiquated $200 tax had become much less significant, they conjured another law which up further effectively banned legal machine guns for poor folk. No new machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986 could be owned by a civilian. Not only did it effect new machine guns, but simply due to supply and demand (which instantly became non-existent and very high respectively), the prices of obtainable machine guns skyrocketed, and has had the effect of making a registered machine gun worth %1000 or more than a nearly identical, semi-auto only copy.
Just to make it clear to everyone out there: legally owned, federally registered machine have never even been a blip on the radar, as far as homicides and crimes are concerned. There have been fewer than 15 murders proven to have been committed with NFA weapons in the 75 years this harsh regulation has existed. There was no sound justification to ban the items again in 1986.
If anything, this 'tax' on the market restored the real effect of the 1934 $200 tax. You can't get into the hobby of owning and using machine guns for under $4000 these days... And that might get you a used up, prone to malfunction Mac-10 or beat up UZI... Which just happens to be about $3200 more than a quality semi-auto Mac-10 clone.
And it's also a pain to transfer a "folder" of files to someone over the net. Torrents are the only remotely usable solution and that requires making a torrent, uploading it to a site, and then finding a user you want to give it to who also understands bittorrent...
Totally. Someone should get on this immediately. It would be totally cool to have a program which is able to string a number of files and their associated directories together, and just dump them into one file for ease of distribution! And then, on the other side of the internets, the recipient could use the same program to take all of that stuff from the file he received, and dump it back out, directories and all.
The definition of AP ammo is at 18 USC sec. 921(a)(17): "(B) The term `armor piercing ammunition' means- (i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
(ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.
It's important to note that this subsection relates ONLY to ammunition which can be loaded in handguns. There are few shops with CNC lathes which turn out solid brass bullets, supposedly of highly uniform density metal, which are sold to be hand loaded for long range shooters. Steel and tungsten core rifle ammo is commonly available--or at least it was before all the hoarding hullabaloo.
This is the reason why FN Herstal couldn't ship the 5.7x27mm cartridge with the SS190 Steel/Aluminum core bullet. It can be used both in their PS90 carbine and FiveSeven pistol. If they only marketed the carbine in the US, an argument could be made that they would be legally able to ship the SS190 ammo, as it isn't intended for handguns, and by definition isn't armor piercing ammo, per federal law.
Back in the day you' were just as likely to get jacked up with a tonfa or baton if the police perceived that you got out of line--I'm sure of it. Nothing has changed, except the Tazer is probably a bit safer to the target, than getting clubbed about the head.
Quite wrong, actually. Texas is not an open carry state, for rifles or pistols.
In 1997, the year that the FBI estimated firearms, they said there were 200 Million firearms in the US. The prior estimate in 1994, said that Americans owned 192 Million firearms. Just using this as a baseline, figure that our country gains 8 million firearms every three years, or 2.6 Million firearms per year. Sounds reasonable.
Extrapolating that trend to 2006, in those 9 years it can be expected that we gained about 23.4 Million guns, for an approximate total of 230.4 Million.
In 2006 there were about 18,000 homicides by firearm, and there were approximately accidental 43,000 deaths by vehicle accident. A 2006 DOT study said there were 135,399,945 registered passenger (consumer level, not buses or big rig) vehicles in the US, a number not completely out of parity, but dwarfed by the estimated number of guns for the same year.
Those 135.4 Million cars accidentally killed over 2.3 times the number of people purposefully killed with those 223.3 Million guns. That tells me, pretty plainly that American gun owners take great personal responsibility over the use of their guns... They are in fact much more careful with guns than everyone else is with their cars--considering you have to be licensed, insured and all the regulations you need to obey to drive, while you need none of that to own a gun, I think that's quite exceptional. You're welcome to check my math and statistics, but I think they're pretty close--certianly within horseshoe and hand grenade rules.
That also tells me that your theory (paraphrasing) "if you have the power you're going to use it more often" is completely bogus, and that Americans are actually quite habitually GOOD and responsible people; because while they COULD go on a bloody and murderous rampage (they have the tools after all), THEY DO NOT. When you consider that the bulk of those 18000 firearms related deaths were committed by a small minority (mostly by inner city gangs and such), you know, I think the law abiding American gun owner deserves a Gold Star.
While we're on the topic of guns and cars, it should be noted that a 4000lb car is a much better weapon with which to mow dozens of people down, than any firearm citizens are able to own.
Yes but the AK-47 is famous for its military uses. it in the very least could incite people to violence simple by them owning it.
It's a rifle, not the fucking magical One Ring created in the fires of Mount fucking Doom. It DOES NOT have the magical ability to incite people to violence, at least certianly not any more than a stuffed animal. Either you're prone to it or you're not. Most US gun owners apparently have that personal responsibility thing under control.