According to the wikipedia, the population density of NYC is 10,640 per square kilometer (26,939 per square kilometer for Manhattan alone). Los Angeles is 3,124 per square kilometer, and Tokyo is 6,810 per square kilometer.
There's really no excuse for NYC or other US metro areas to not have better internet service even if they do end up having a smaller population in the metro area.
I understand that it is illegal. My question is, should it be? This is, of course, assuming one manages to do so without impacting any neighboring property. I'm aware that it is illegal and shielding isn't my concern - active blocking and jamming is. I tried to make it clear. It may not have been clear enough.
What happens if your house happens to lie between someone and the remote radio system they're communicating with?
For example: [neighbor]------[your property w/ jammer]------[cell tower]
Even if the jamming was confined only to your property you'd still block that neighbor from being able to communicate with the cell tower, as you are physically in between the two. Even outside of the area of immediate jamming you'd still create a "shadow".
That seems unlikely, but ok. In that case, go get a torrent of LibreOffice, your favorite Linux distro, or something complete unrelated to TPB. If your Torrent client supports peer exchange and DHT then it will automatically get DHT info from the peers. There's only one global DHT, so as soon as you connect to on DHT-enabled peer then you'll be able to find other DHT nodes and get properly connected.
I'm an American living in Switzerland and fly fairly regularly out of the major Swiss airports (Geneva and Zurich), as well as several other big European airports (London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Frankfurt, etc.). I also fly (or have flown) fairly regularly to/from major US airports (Washington-Dulles, Chicago, Atlanta, the New York airports, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc.
While each country and airport has its own different quirks for airport security and border controls, I've never really had a "bad" screening process with any airport -- including those in the US. The TSA's asked me to go through the nude-o-scope once (every other time has been the standard metal detector), I politely opted-out, they did a quick pat-down, and I was on my way faster than many people who went through the scanner. One time my wristwatch set off the metal detector in Zurich and they gave me a similar pat-down, only it was slightly faster as they weren't explaining exactly what they were going to do like the TSA guy was. Both were of similar degrees of "invasiveness" (that is, not unusually invasive for a standard pat-down search). The screening of carry-on luggage has been pretty much the same for decades and hasn't given me any hassle.
Even when taking unusual electronics in carryon luggage, such as scientific equipment to Oman, there hasn't been any issues.
The only difference I've noticed between the US and European screening is that the Europeans don't require that I take off my shoes. A minor thing and something I find fairly stupid, but hardly the end of the world.
To me, the big difference is at border checkpoints: the Swiss checkpoints are, as you might expect, quick and efficient. The British seem to hire cheerful, pleasant people to staff their checkpoints and I've never had any issues with them at all. Lines have been minimal, even leading up to the Olympics.
The American customs and border patrol people are dressed like street cops (including body armor) at the checkpoint. They routinely have drug-sniffing dogs and will randomly pull people out of line for additional searches. Even as a US citizen, they scrutinize my passport as if it were a fine work of art and take a moderate amount of time to do so. Evidently non-citizens from visa-waiver countries need to do some pre-travel background check online that costs $15 or so (but is good for 5 years), get fingerprinted, and have their photo taken. That's definitely a hassle and I think it's unnecessary and way more uptight than the European passport control process. Still, the whole process takes just a few minutes and you only need to go through it at the border; once inside the country it's not an issue.
Now Spamhaus can get CloudFlare to handle these attacks on their behalf (for a lot of free advertising) but MyLittleSite.com cannot, and that leave them open to extortion attacks from the criminals who run these DDoSs.
Why not? CloudFlare has a free tier specifically designed for smaller sites. It's mostly used by bloggers and stuff to cache static content than for DDOS protection, but it offers the same level of functionality. The paid service they offer has extra features like SSL support and other options, but all levels of the service offer DDOS protection.
Well, that makes sense: the Google Public DNS servers are indeed open resolvers but they have all sorts of mechanisms in place to prevent their being abused.
Cars are dangerous objects in the hands of the incompetent. This is why anybody who drives a car has to demonstrate a level of competence before they are allowed to use one on the public road. Is it too much to ask the same for gun owners (where use = carry)? Also, do gun owners in the US need to carry insurance? Because I think they should be required to.
You don't need a license to merely own a car or to operate it on private land. You do need one to drive on public roads.
Most states require a license or permit before one can carry a gun in public. That's not terribly unreasonable. The few that don't require a permit (Vermont, Alaska, Arizona I know for sure, not sure about others) do not have significantly different rates of otherwise-lawful people misusing guns carried in public.
The primary cause of death/injury/property damage for vehicles is accidental. Insurance covers accidental acts, so that makes sense. The primary cause of death/injury/property damage with firearms is intentional and criminal. Insurance does not cover such acts, so having "gun insurance" doesn't make much sense. Most homeowners/renters insurance already covers liability due to accidents that take place on the property. Umbrella liability insurance covers accidents that occurs elsewhere. I wouldn't object to reasonably-priced insurance being part of one's carry permit, but merely for ownership? Not really reasonable.
For nearly all ordinary desktop uses, Mint is a fine choice.
In particular the update manager is fairly noob-resistant and won't make major changes that could potentially break stuff without you really intending to.
I like Mint MATE, as I prefer the Gnome 2-style desktop, but Cinnamon is quite good as well.
On Windows, I prefer to use Acronis software for imaging and TrueCrypt for encryption.
Since the TrueCrypt operations happen at a low level that's transparent to Windows and other applications that interact with the disk, once I enter the pre-boot password for TrueCrypt and load Windows I can interact with the disk as if it were not encrypted: by making images with Acronis after Windows has booted, Acronis sees the disk as a standard NTFS drive. I can save the image of the unencrypted contents of the disk to some sort of secure backup media.
The backup media may be encrypted on its own, or I could use the encryption mechanisms built into Acronis to protect the image files. If I were use Acronis bootable media and try imaging the disk, I'd only get an image of the encrypted data -- by booting into Windows first I can make an image of the unencrypted contents of the disk.
If the encrypted drive were to ever fail I could write the image back to a new drive sans encryption. This also allows me more flexibility in regards to resizing the filesystem to new disks: since I took the image of the unencrypted contents of the disk I can resize the filesystem to a new disk. If I had encrypted the raw disk itself then I would not have this option. After restoring, I can then encrypt-in-place using TrueCrypt to secure the new drive.
As for the encrypted containers, mount them and back up their contents.
- Some patent law, might require acquiring codecs from elsewhere (no mp3 nor h264 are available wherever software patent apply).
Fluendo has licensed the MP3 codec for individual use and you can download and use it free of cost. It's often a package in various distros.
- Some import/export law might require acquiring encryption from elsewhere (do still the USA consider large bits key encryption as "munition" and ban its export ?)
Sort of. For the most part, developers in the US wishing to export cryptographic software need to notify the government but no review of the code is required. In essence, the government gave up on regulating nearly all crypto available to the general public, with the exception of exports to certain restricted countries like North Korea, Iran, etc. Export of certain things, like militarized crypto equipment, is more strongly regulated. The wiki has a good article on the subject.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I was always told a UPS has the PC run off the battery so that any surges or sags wouldn't affect the PC.
Most UPSs do not work like that.
Rather, common UPSs work by feeding through normal mains power with certain filters (e.g. EMI filtering, surge protection, etc.). When mains power is interrupted the inverter starts running from the battery and a high-speed switch transfers power from the now-dead mains input to the inverter. When mains power is restored to the UPSs satisfaction it switches back and starts charging the battery.
"Online" UPSs continuously run from batteries that are constantly being charged. When power is interrupted the batteries stop being charged but otherwise things continue as normal. These are usually very expensive and not as common as the switching type ones.
Actually, you can make an AR 80% lower with only a drill press. The bulk of the material removal is with drill bits and only some light cleaning up is done with the endmill. It helps that the AR lower is aluminum, not steel.
That said, I recognize that a mill will likely be more useful overall. I appreciate the link to the Sherline mills. I've been looking for a small one for some basic work and that looks like it'd hit the spot.
I'm licensed to drive a car. Why isn't that sufficient for me to operate a big rig?
Because they are functionally very different.
Similarly, there's a functional difference between a semi-automatic gun and a full-automatic gun. That's why the latter are heavily restricted but the former are widely available.
There is no functional difference between an AR-15 and a Mini-14 -- they're both semi-auto rifles, fire the same ammo, and both use detachable magazines, yet the now-expired and proposed federal "assault weapons bans" specifically exempt the Mini-14 while explicitly banning the AR-15. The only difference is appearance: the AR is black and scary looking while the Mini-14 has a traditional-looking wood stock.
The Browning BAR Safari is a popular semi-auto rifle marketed to hunters. It has a traditional appearance, wood stock, is available in the same caliber as the AR, and also takes detachable magazines. It's explicitly exempt from the proposed ban. Why?
There is no logical reason to ban one but not the other. It'd be like banning Honda Civics but not Toyota Corollas.
You should also realize that the right's gun fetish clouds their judgement at the expense of common-sense gun regulations.This is why assault weapons can be easily obtained by mass-murderers, crazy people, drug dealers, and gang bangers. Tyranny is when you can't safely go to a school, a shopping mall, or a movie theater without becoming a statistic in the latest mass killing.
And yet so-called "assault weapons" are used extremely rarely in crimes. According to FBI crime statistics, rifles of any kind are used in less than 4% of all gun-related homicides. According to Senator Feinstein, the sponsor of the ban, so-called "assault weapons" are used in less than 0.6% of all gun-related homicides. "Common sense" would tell you that statistically speaking, such guns are not the problem: the AR-15 is the most popular gun in the country among law-abiding people and is used in disproportionately tiny fraction of crimes.
Handguns are, by far, the "weapon of choice" for both mass shooters and more everyday violent criminals. However, they're also exceptionally common among law-abiding people, so restricting them would be both unpopular and (after the DC v. Heller decision) unconstitutional.
Sure it can -- you can build an AR-15 lower receiver using nothing but a drill press, some drill bits, and an endmill.
Using a slightly different kit, one can do it with nothing more than a basic mill (though a drill press and an XY table would also work).
It's not building the whole gun from scratch, sure, but it's the only legally-regulated part: you can order everything else you need through the mail without any paperwork. If one were building it from scratch then one would definitely need more skills.
If by "illegal or have restricted availability" you mean "legal to purchase from a dealer in most states" and "in violation of local and federal law" you mean "in compliance with local and federal law", then you're absolutely correct.
No, they got the manufacturer license because: 1. They want to start selling guns as a way to fund the project. 2. Once they get the FFL+SOT they can make full-auto guns. They can't sell them to anyone but police and military, but they can make them, test them, and then distribute the plans all they want. Without the FFL+SOT it's really illegal for them to make them, even for testing purposes.
Assuming you're in the US, you can buy barrels online with no paperwork.
"Ballistic fingerprinting" isn't really useful for identifying a specific gun, like where they can look at a bullet and say "Aha! Barrel #1783731 fired this bullet! Let's go see who it belongs to!", but is somewhat useful when they need to say "Did this gun, which we already have in evidence, fire this bullet, which is also in evidence? Yes? Then we've found the murder weapon."
In most states, threaded barrels are quite common. Nearly all ARs have them, as do many other guns, for the flash suppressor. There was a federal law that restricted semi-auto guns with threaded barrels (among other things) and some state level laws as well, but in the majority of states threaded barrels are not an issue.
And how, exactly, would their printer or their service know if something is lethal or not? What if someone changes the design slightly? No 3D printer maker would want to take liability for "no printing guns", so they won't. No serious user (e.g. a company making prototypes with a 3D printer) would want their designs being uploaded to a third-party who might share or distribute them.
Your proposal requires that 3D printers are only available from authorized vendors and can't be easily made by hobbyists. This is not the case.
RepRaps are entirely "free" and "open source": they can already "reproduce" by printing the various plastic parts that are required to build a new one. The electronics are based on the Arduino, which is also "free".
I think the article was trying to differentiate between (Title I semi-auto firearms, which you can buy in any gun shop) and (Title II semi-auto firearms, which are restricted by the NFA). An example of a Title II semi-auto would be a short-barreled AR.
The 07FFL allows one to make Title I firearms, but not Title II. One needs the SOT to make those. I think the author was a bit confused about the "sporting purpose", and thought that's what differentiated Title I from Title II firearms.
Plenty of manufacturers make.223 ammo designed for hunting deer: softpoints and ballistic tip ammo designed specifically for them is widely available.
Hunting with mil-spec FMJ ammo is not ethical, I agree, but with modern bullets.223 is not an unreasonable round for deer (though perhaps in the lower half of the "acceptable" range). It's more than adequate for smaller predators like coyotes.
Sorry for any confusion: I was referring to the knowledge required to complete an "80% lower", which is legally a chunk of metal (not a gun). All you need is a drill press to complete such a lower.
The remaining parts, like barrels, are essentially unregulated gun parts.
The distinction came about because the government had to exactly specify what is a "gun" and what is not. Is a piece of iron ore or metal billet a gun? Clearly not. Is a spring or trigger a gun? No. Is a gun merely a collection of all its parts? If so, what parts can be removed to make it "not a gun"? If someone sells the parts one at a time, does that count as selling a gun?These questions were answered a while back when they said that the receiver/frame of a gun is "the gun" and that a chunk of metal only becomes "a gun" when more than 80% of the machining work needed to make the receiver/frame is complete.
You're right -- making a gun completely from scratch, including the barrel, is significantly more complex.
Many would argue that gun violence has become more pervasive, and I'd have a hard time arguing against that statement.
Why? It's quite easy to argue against such a statement: according to FBI crime statistics gun-related homicide rates are at their lowest level since 1964 (scroll down to get the normalized rate-per-100,000 people) and have been declining for years. You can get the raw data from the FBI directly, if you prefer.
By any objective measure, gun-related homicide in the US has decreased significantly even as the number of legally-owned guns in the country has increased. People may perceive that gun violence is increasing (and it may well be true in certain localities in the country), but overall that's not the case.
According to crime records, while there's been some year-by-year variation in the number of mass shootings and victims, overall the trend has been constant since at least 1980. Despite the enormous media attention they get, they are statistically very rare. Are there too many? Absolutely.
There's no western society that "lives without guns". There's still gun owners in the UK and Australia, where guns are heavily restricted. The closest that I know of is Japan.
"US folk" use guns for pretty much the same way that people in other countries use them for: recreation, target shooting, hunting, competition, and other shooting sports. For various reasons, such sports are more common in modern America than they are in countries like the UK.
Self-defense is also a common reason for owning guns. There's a lot of places in the country that are quite rural and remote, where police response time can be measured in tens of minutes. Simply put, if a violent crime does occur then one has to fend for oneself until the police show up. Even in urban areas, police response is non-instantaneous: my friends used to live in a "nice" suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. Violent crime rates there are extremely low (60% lower than the state average and 50% lower than the national average). They lived in a gated townhouse community. Still, they had two attempted occupied-dwelling robberies within the span of a year and a half. In both cases, the fact that they were armed repelled the criminals -- one was later caught and arrested. They were lucky, as nobody was harmed and no shots were fired. Violent crime, while rare, can happen pretty much anywhere. (For what it's worth, they ended up getting a dog and moving to a bigger house with a yard rather than remain in the townhouse.)
The average American gun owner is not very likely to commit crimes -- nearly all gun-related violent crimes are related to drug trafficking or gang violence and are mostly carried out by people who already have criminal records that prohibit them from owning guns.
Slashdot Mirror
This has nothing to do with directly using Google, this has to do with non-Google users being blocked from sending presence invites to Google users.
Even if you run your own server, there's a lot of people who use Google and it makes sense to be able to communicate properly with them if needed.
According to the wikipedia, the population density of NYC is 10,640 per square kilometer (26,939 per square kilometer for Manhattan alone). Los Angeles is 3,124 per square kilometer, and Tokyo is 6,810 per square kilometer.
There's really no excuse for NYC or other US metro areas to not have better internet service even if they do end up having a smaller population in the metro area.
I understand that it is illegal. My question is, should it be? This is, of course, assuming one manages to do so without impacting any neighboring property. I'm aware that it is illegal and shielding isn't my concern - active blocking and jamming is. I tried to make it clear. It may not have been clear enough.
What happens if your house happens to lie between someone and the remote radio system they're communicating with?
For example: [neighbor]------[your property w/ jammer]------[cell tower]
Even if the jamming was confined only to your property you'd still block that neighbor from being able to communicate with the cell tower, as you are physically in between the two. Even outside of the area of immediate jamming you'd still create a "shadow".
That seems unlikely, but ok. In that case, go get a torrent of LibreOffice, your favorite Linux distro, or something complete unrelated to TPB. If your Torrent client supports peer exchange and DHT then it will automatically get DHT info from the peers. There's only one global DHT, so as soon as you connect to on DHT-enabled peer then you'll be able to find other DHT nodes and get properly connected.
Oh ghods. Now you've done it: I have to go and dig up my Full Throttle game and play it again.
It's like Deus Ex -- everytime someone mentions it, you have to go play it again. :)
I'm an American living in Switzerland and fly fairly regularly out of the major Swiss airports (Geneva and Zurich), as well as several other big European airports (London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Frankfurt, etc.). I also fly (or have flown) fairly regularly to/from major US airports (Washington-Dulles, Chicago, Atlanta, the New York airports, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc.
While each country and airport has its own different quirks for airport security and border controls, I've never really had a "bad" screening process with any airport -- including those in the US. The TSA's asked me to go through the nude-o-scope once (every other time has been the standard metal detector), I politely opted-out, they did a quick pat-down, and I was on my way faster than many people who went through the scanner. One time my wristwatch set off the metal detector in Zurich and they gave me a similar pat-down, only it was slightly faster as they weren't explaining exactly what they were going to do like the TSA guy was. Both were of similar degrees of "invasiveness" (that is, not unusually invasive for a standard pat-down search). The screening of carry-on luggage has been pretty much the same for decades and hasn't given me any hassle.
Even when taking unusual electronics in carryon luggage, such as scientific equipment to Oman, there hasn't been any issues.
The only difference I've noticed between the US and European screening is that the Europeans don't require that I take off my shoes. A minor thing and something I find fairly stupid, but hardly the end of the world.
To me, the big difference is at border checkpoints: the Swiss checkpoints are, as you might expect, quick and efficient. The British seem to hire cheerful, pleasant people to staff their checkpoints and I've never had any issues with them at all. Lines have been minimal, even leading up to the Olympics.
The American customs and border patrol people are dressed like street cops (including body armor) at the checkpoint. They routinely have drug-sniffing dogs and will randomly pull people out of line for additional searches. Even as a US citizen, they scrutinize my passport as if it were a fine work of art and take a moderate amount of time to do so. Evidently non-citizens from visa-waiver countries need to do some pre-travel background check online that costs $15 or so (but is good for 5 years), get fingerprinted, and have their photo taken. That's definitely a hassle and I think it's unnecessary and way more uptight than the European passport control process. Still, the whole process takes just a few minutes and you only need to go through it at the border; once inside the country it's not an issue.
Now Spamhaus can get CloudFlare to handle these attacks on their behalf (for a lot of free advertising) but MyLittleSite.com cannot, and that leave them open to extortion attacks from the criminals who run these DDoSs.
Why not? CloudFlare has a free tier specifically designed for smaller sites. It's mostly used by bloggers and stuff to cache static content than for DDOS protection, but it offers the same level of functionality. The paid service they offer has extra features like SSL support and other options, but all levels of the service offer DDOS protection.
Well, that makes sense: the Google Public DNS servers are indeed open resolvers but they have all sorts of mechanisms in place to prevent their being abused.
Cars are dangerous objects in the hands of the incompetent. This is why anybody who drives a car has to demonstrate a level of competence before they are allowed to use one on the public road. Is it too much to ask the same for gun owners (where use = carry)? Also, do gun owners in the US need to carry insurance? Because I think they should be required to.
You don't need a license to merely own a car or to operate it on private land. You do need one to drive on public roads.
Most states require a license or permit before one can carry a gun in public. That's not terribly unreasonable. The few that don't require a permit (Vermont, Alaska, Arizona I know for sure, not sure about others) do not have significantly different rates of otherwise-lawful people misusing guns carried in public.
The primary cause of death/injury/property damage for vehicles is accidental. Insurance covers accidental acts, so that makes sense. The primary cause of death/injury/property damage with firearms is intentional and criminal. Insurance does not cover such acts, so having "gun insurance" doesn't make much sense. Most homeowners/renters insurance already covers liability due to accidents that take place on the property. Umbrella liability insurance covers accidents that occurs elsewhere. I wouldn't object to reasonably-priced insurance being part of one's carry permit, but merely for ownership? Not really reasonable.
Agreed. Mint is excellent.
For nearly all ordinary desktop uses, Mint is a fine choice.
In particular the update manager is fairly noob-resistant and won't make major changes that could potentially break stuff without you really intending to.
I like Mint MATE, as I prefer the Gnome 2-style desktop, but Cinnamon is quite good as well.
On Windows, I prefer to use Acronis software for imaging and TrueCrypt for encryption.
Since the TrueCrypt operations happen at a low level that's transparent to Windows and other applications that interact with the disk, once I enter the pre-boot password for TrueCrypt and load Windows I can interact with the disk as if it were not encrypted: by making images with Acronis after Windows has booted, Acronis sees the disk as a standard NTFS drive. I can save the image of the unencrypted contents of the disk to some sort of secure backup media.
The backup media may be encrypted on its own, or I could use the encryption mechanisms built into Acronis to protect the image files. If I were use Acronis bootable media and try imaging the disk, I'd only get an image of the encrypted data -- by booting into Windows first I can make an image of the unencrypted contents of the disk.
If the encrypted drive were to ever fail I could write the image back to a new drive sans encryption. This also allows me more flexibility in regards to resizing the filesystem to new disks: since I took the image of the unencrypted contents of the disk I can resize the filesystem to a new disk. If I had encrypted the raw disk itself then I would not have this option. After restoring, I can then encrypt-in-place using TrueCrypt to secure the new drive.
As for the encrypted containers, mount them and back up their contents.
- Some patent law, might require acquiring codecs from elsewhere (no mp3 nor h264 are available wherever software patent apply).
Fluendo has licensed the MP3 codec for individual use and you can download and use it free of cost. It's often a package in various distros.
- Some import/export law might require acquiring encryption from elsewhere (do still the USA consider large bits key encryption as "munition" and ban its export ?)
Sort of. For the most part, developers in the US wishing to export cryptographic software need to notify the government but no review of the code is required. In essence, the government gave up on regulating nearly all crypto available to the general public, with the exception of exports to certain restricted countries like North Korea, Iran, etc. Export of certain things, like militarized crypto equipment, is more strongly regulated. The wiki has a good article on the subject.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I was always told a UPS has the PC run off the battery so that any surges or sags wouldn't affect the PC.
Most UPSs do not work like that.
Rather, common UPSs work by feeding through normal mains power with certain filters (e.g. EMI filtering, surge protection, etc.). When mains power is interrupted the inverter starts running from the battery and a high-speed switch transfers power from the now-dead mains input to the inverter. When mains power is restored to the UPSs satisfaction it switches back and starts charging the battery.
"Online" UPSs continuously run from batteries that are constantly being charged. When power is interrupted the batteries stop being charged but otherwise things continue as normal. These are usually very expensive and not as common as the switching type ones.
Actually, you can make an AR 80% lower with only a drill press. The bulk of the material removal is with drill bits and only some light cleaning up is done with the endmill. It helps that the AR lower is aluminum, not steel.
That said, I recognize that a mill will likely be more useful overall. I appreciate the link to the Sherline mills. I've been looking for a small one for some basic work and that looks like it'd hit the spot.
I'm licensed to drive a car. Why isn't that sufficient for me to operate a big rig?
Because they are functionally very different.
Similarly, there's a functional difference between a semi-automatic gun and a full-automatic gun. That's why the latter are heavily restricted but the former are widely available.
There is no functional difference between an AR-15 and a Mini-14 -- they're both semi-auto rifles, fire the same ammo, and both use detachable magazines, yet the now-expired and proposed federal "assault weapons bans" specifically exempt the Mini-14 while explicitly banning the AR-15. The only difference is appearance: the AR is black and scary looking while the Mini-14 has a traditional-looking wood stock.
The Browning BAR Safari is a popular semi-auto rifle marketed to hunters. It has a traditional appearance, wood stock, is available in the same caliber as the AR, and also takes detachable magazines. It's explicitly exempt from the proposed ban. Why?
There is no logical reason to ban one but not the other. It'd be like banning Honda Civics but not Toyota Corollas.
You should also realize that the right's gun fetish clouds their judgement at the expense of common-sense gun regulations.This is why assault weapons can be easily obtained by mass-murderers, crazy people, drug dealers, and gang bangers. Tyranny is when you can't safely go to a school, a shopping mall, or a movie theater without becoming a statistic in the latest mass killing.
And yet so-called "assault weapons" are used extremely rarely in crimes. According to FBI crime statistics, rifles of any kind are used in less than 4% of all gun-related homicides. According to Senator Feinstein, the sponsor of the ban, so-called "assault weapons" are used in less than 0.6% of all gun-related homicides. "Common sense" would tell you that statistically speaking, such guns are not the problem: the AR-15 is the most popular gun in the country among law-abiding people and is used in disproportionately tiny fraction of crimes.
Handguns are, by far, the "weapon of choice" for both mass shooters and more everyday violent criminals. However, they're also exceptionally common among law-abiding people, so restricting them would be both unpopular and (after the DC v. Heller decision) unconstitutional.
Sure it can -- you can build an AR-15 lower receiver using nothing but a drill press, some drill bits, and an endmill.
Using a slightly different kit, one can do it with nothing more than a basic mill (though a drill press and an XY table would also work).
It's not building the whole gun from scratch, sure, but it's the only legally-regulated part: you can order everything else you need through the mail without any paperwork. If one were building it from scratch then one would definitely need more skills.
If by "illegal or have restricted availability" you mean "legal to purchase from a dealer in most states" and "in violation of local and federal law" you mean "in compliance with local and federal law", then you're absolutely correct.
No, they got the manufacturer license because:
1. They want to start selling guns as a way to fund the project.
2. Once they get the FFL+SOT they can make full-auto guns. They can't sell them to anyone but police and military, but they can make them, test them, and then distribute the plans all they want. Without the FFL+SOT it's really illegal for them to make them, even for testing purposes.
Assuming you're in the US, you can buy barrels online with no paperwork.
"Ballistic fingerprinting" isn't really useful for identifying a specific gun, like where they can look at a bullet and say "Aha! Barrel #1783731 fired this bullet! Let's go see who it belongs to!", but is somewhat useful when they need to say "Did this gun, which we already have in evidence, fire this bullet, which is also in evidence? Yes? Then we've found the murder weapon."
In most states, threaded barrels are quite common. Nearly all ARs have them, as do many other guns, for the flash suppressor. There was a federal law that restricted semi-auto guns with threaded barrels (among other things) and some state level laws as well, but in the majority of states threaded barrels are not an issue.
And how, exactly, would their printer or their service know if something is lethal or not? What if someone changes the design slightly? No 3D printer maker would want to take liability for "no printing guns", so they won't. No serious user (e.g. a company making prototypes with a 3D printer) would want their designs being uploaded to a third-party who might share or distribute them.
Your proposal requires that 3D printers are only available from authorized vendors and can't be easily made by hobbyists. This is not the case.
RepRaps are entirely "free" and "open source": they can already "reproduce" by printing the various plastic parts that are required to build a new one. The electronics are based on the Arduino, which is also "free".
I think the article was trying to differentiate between (Title I semi-auto firearms, which you can buy in any gun shop) and (Title II semi-auto firearms, which are restricted by the NFA). An example of a Title II semi-auto would be a short-barreled AR.
The 07FFL allows one to make Title I firearms, but not Title II. One needs the SOT to make those. I think the author was a bit confused about the "sporting purpose", and thought that's what differentiated Title I from Title II firearms.
Plenty of manufacturers make .223 ammo designed for hunting deer: softpoints and ballistic tip ammo designed specifically for them is widely available.
Hunting with mil-spec FMJ ammo is not ethical, I agree, but with modern bullets .223 is not an unreasonable round for deer (though perhaps in the lower half of the "acceptable" range). It's more than adequate for smaller predators like coyotes.
Sorry for any confusion: I was referring to the knowledge required to complete an "80% lower", which is legally a chunk of metal (not a gun). All you need is a drill press to complete such a lower.
The remaining parts, like barrels, are essentially unregulated gun parts.
The distinction came about because the government had to exactly specify what is a "gun" and what is not. Is a piece of iron ore or metal billet a gun? Clearly not. Is a spring or trigger a gun? No. Is a gun merely a collection of all its parts? If so, what parts can be removed to make it "not a gun"? If someone sells the parts one at a time, does that count as selling a gun?These questions were answered a while back when they said that the receiver/frame of a gun is "the gun" and that a chunk of metal only becomes "a gun" when more than 80% of the machining work needed to make the receiver/frame is complete.
You're right -- making a gun completely from scratch, including the barrel, is significantly more complex.
Many would argue that gun violence has become more pervasive, and I'd have a hard time arguing against that statement.
Why? It's quite easy to argue against such a statement: according to FBI crime statistics gun-related homicide rates are at their lowest level since 1964 (scroll down to get the normalized rate-per-100,000 people) and have been declining for years. You can get the raw data from the FBI directly, if you prefer.
By any objective measure, gun-related homicide in the US has decreased significantly even as the number of legally-owned guns in the country has increased. People may perceive that gun violence is increasing (and it may well be true in certain localities in the country), but overall that's not the case.
According to crime records, while there's been some year-by-year variation in the number of mass shootings and victims, overall the trend has been constant since at least 1980. Despite the enormous media attention they get, they are statistically very rare. Are there too many? Absolutely.
There's no western society that "lives without guns". There's still gun owners in the UK and Australia, where guns are heavily restricted. The closest that I know of is Japan.
"US folk" use guns for pretty much the same way that people in other countries use them for: recreation, target shooting, hunting, competition, and other shooting sports. For various reasons, such sports are more common in modern America than they are in countries like the UK.
Self-defense is also a common reason for owning guns. There's a lot of places in the country that are quite rural and remote, where police response time can be measured in tens of minutes. Simply put, if a violent crime does occur then one has to fend for oneself until the police show up. Even in urban areas, police response is non-instantaneous: my friends used to live in a "nice" suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. Violent crime rates there are extremely low (60% lower than the state average and 50% lower than the national average). They lived in a gated townhouse community. Still, they had two attempted occupied-dwelling robberies within the span of a year and a half. In both cases, the fact that they were armed repelled the criminals -- one was later caught and arrested. They were lucky, as nobody was harmed and no shots were fired. Violent crime, while rare, can happen pretty much anywhere. (For what it's worth, they ended up getting a dog and moving to a bigger house with a yard rather than remain in the townhouse.)
The average American gun owner is not very likely to commit crimes -- nearly all gun-related violent crimes are related to drug trafficking or gang violence and are mostly carried out by people who already have criminal records that prohibit them from owning guns.