I don't see this new biometric stuff being used for close range weapons-- at contact range of only a few meters, there's no time to fiddle with a pistol or do anything except pull the trigger. Mag Loc solves the retention problem; it's a metal ring that you and your spouse wear that engages a plate in the grip of your pistol to prevent anyone who takes the weapon from immediately using it against you. It's a great idea, and as shown in the reviews of the product it's definitely workable. It's available for the Colt 1911A1 now, and they told me they are adding other models in the future. This is ideal for in-home use or for concealed carry, assuming you use a 1911. If I were a law enforcement officer I would just use a pistol lanyard for retention purposes. At $89.50, I would much rather get the mechanical solution.
They used to think people would be using all kinds of energy weapons by now. Star Trek and other "space age" TV series are useful for seeing this idea and other 1960s/70s conceptions of future warfare and human interaction.
They also used to think that murder, shootings, and violence in general would be eliminated in the more sensitive, more loving, more civilized future world.
There are still fights with clubs, swords, knives, and other low-tech weapons, and there are still murders. As just one example, the effectiveness of guns has hardly improved in this century. Witness the M1911.45 caliber pistol, patented in 1902. 100 years later, it's still one of the most popular models you can buy, it's preferred by the best operators in special operations, and it's still just as deadly as the original. Sure there's body armor, and it's better than any personal armor of the last 500 years, but you can still die if you get shot in the vest. The biggest advance I've seen yet is Metal Storm, an electrically fired machinegun that acts like a bigass shotgun (check the videos!). The Army is looking at using this technology as an IFF-enabled landmine supplement that can move with the forces it protects and not accidentally blow up friendly units, among other uses. But this won't help the people with a million conventional mines in their backyards.
Unlike the government-issue advances, ordinary people killing each other remains the same as it has always been for the simple reason that the human body is still as vulnerable as it has always been-- such a fragile creature in some ways. Knives and bayonets are still issued to Army troops, the Army has been using the same rifle for almost 40 years, and people are stabbed every day.
"There will always be killing. This is how things are, in our world." -- memorable words spoken by a Somali militiaman in Black Hawk Down. He's right. But we ought never lose sight of ways to improve ordinary people's lives. Note the large amount of economic and agricultural aid doled out to developing countries each year (I know, it doesn't all make it to the needy, but it's a start).
I guess the point is, if a tool works well, there's little reason to rock the boat unless someone (a corporation) knows it can probably profit if it makes something better. As for human nature, if I could say one thing to the Creator, it would not be a request for future technology today, it would be a request to save me from the war, plague, and famine inside me.
Just wait until they turn this into a distribution system for chemical weapons or a way to conduct surveillance in cities. A swarm of the other side's robots coming at you? I'd either be running for cover or pulling out the shotgun, depending on how many there were. Great...
-- 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta notifying Ramzi Bin-al-shibh by telephone of the date of the attacks. If I wanted to get a message to someone, using a riddle over the phone is a simple, low-tech solution which worked for them.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm in awe that these two unpopular students (though not nerds in the strict sense) struck back and dealt a severe blow to the jock mentality: push us far enough and we'll strike back. Less deadly means would have been better, but now maybe jocks will think twice. Yes, it's terrible and all that, but how less terrible is the torment some people suffer at the hands of popular students?
Since Westlaw owns Findlaw.com as of 2001, expect Westlaw to either shut it down in the near future as a cost-cutting measure or fold it into their own service. Findlaw, in my opinion, is much simpler and easier to use than Westlaw, the downside is that Findlaw has no annotated codes and doesn't have all the law review articles and other materials that the major e-research tools have. Findlaw is *great* to use in conjunction with conventional book research, because you can take a list of citations from the books and look up most of the cases online for free. Of course, you still have to Shepardize in the library because findlaw doesn't have a real citation feature. BTW, the difference between books and online research is that the online research is about 100 times more expensive but 10 times faster, has all the cases from every state, and has the most recently decided cases, so it's always a good idea to check to make sure you haven't made a major error, as the updates to the books only come out monthly or so in the form of a supplement.
The article could have been summed up in one sentence: the best way to protect yourself is to buy everything with untraceable methods like cash or money orders, and limit your recorded transactions to things like land. Oh, and don't take out any loans either, or buy anything online, or fill out a census form. In other words, all the progress of the 20th century will be reduced to us paying cash at the local general store like in the 1950s because we can't trust our government. If ordinary people can avoid the new system, how hard will it be for terrorists? Thanks a lot, Uncle Sam.
First of all, how many available, attractive women actually go to the trouble of putting up their own sites or publishing their info? Unless they're in the news somehow, there aren't going to be that many references to the really desirable women because they don't need to use the internet to meet people. This is nothing new. Even if there were some questionable info on someone on the net, do you really care? Is it true or is it a satire or hoax like the onion? It's like reading a person's diary or setting up a surveillance camera inside their house. They present themselves to the world how they want to, and if you try to find out about someone online you're just asking for a skewed perspective. "Uh, honey, I found those hardcore pictures you did online 10 years ago, I wanted to let you know I still love you." Turns out it was her twin sister and she's offended that you actually *looked* for something bad about her. If you do find something online and allow that into your relationship with someone, you may find out how little you really know of yourself and each other. I mean sure, I'm as fond as the next guy of searching for news articles on women I'm interested in to see if they have any hobbies so I can ask them what they do in their spare time, but for example searching the local recorder's office to see if they own property to see if they live in a nice area is just out of line. Why don't you just ask, it will look better if they ever find out. This reminds me of that device in Japan that tells people whether there's a "match" in the immediate vicinity, like while walking on the sidewalk. Seriously, people.
The public has already gone along with it in a few areas-- the DVD CCA, for instance. An industry consortium (cartel) that sets the price and standards for content scrambling systems. I'm really suprised they haven't branched out their system to the audio industry yet, probably because research indicates consumers wouldn't buy all new equipment, or they would have done it by now. So instead, we have a few "DRM" type CDs that have come out recently but are backward compatible with home/car CD players and windows PCs. It would be much more convenient for the music industry to have a new format come along like DVD-Audio so they could start from scratch with the scrambling system as DVD did several years ago. What I see happening is that the music industry will encourage more sales of DVD players and drives so that gradually fewer and fewer regular CD drives will be sold, and people will be able to play CSS-encrypted CDs in their DVD players. A far cry indeed from the earliest days of CDs when a simple ISO "don't copy" flag on the disc was supposed to prevent people from ripping CDs to DAT in the mid 1980s.
They use "sniffers" at airports to detect explosive residue in carryon bags. Surely they can adopt that technology and just tell it to recognize other chemicals. Get sensitive enough equipment and you can recognize anything.
Locating downed planes in a forest or in heavy cloud cover/fog would be an excellent application. A larger drone with forward looking infrared (FLIR) could locate bodies and smoldering debris. In remote areas where planes sometimes go down, it's all about coverage of the area in as little time as possible to maximize the chance that the victims live. A swarm of camera-equipped butterflies autonomously looking for anything unusual might accomplish in less time and with less risk to search personnel what a search and rescue helicopter would do in a week. It's very interesting. Admittedly, for many scenarios a remote-controlled rat could be more useful, but this is all about expanding the possibilities.
Why not camouflage the butterfly to match the local population? If it's 10cm and it's camouflaged like a monarch butterfly and it never lands, I would imagine people would admire it for being a particularly large monarch butterfly, hiding in plain sight.
Interesting idea. This could be an excellent way to map wilderness areas of the U.S. and other countries. Perhaps the butterflies could be programmed to traverse from the origin vehicle to a particular destination for recovery, but be given the autonomy to check out interesting terrain features if they see any. Since the butterflies could get right into the terrain, they could have good enough resolution to justify using them over the current USGS stereoscopic photo method for creating topographical maps. Maybe they could use a form of radar to map things in 3-D or stereoscopic cameras. Or program the units to land and acquire a GPS signal at specified intervals.
In a battle zone, perhaps the butterflies could be camouflaged to match the indigenous species, as long as they weren't too large. Or the butterflies could be programmed to stay a certain distance from each other to not arouse suspicion. Since each unit is a small portion of the swarm, the loss of a bunch of them might be acceptable. Cool!
I just read the patent application and it appears that drying is accomplished during the grinding process by means of an exhaust pipe, which makes sense considering the purpose of separating the object to be disintegrated into its components. So I guess there really would be no muss, no fuss!
assembly that drops the unfortunate victim into the machine. Of course, that still raises the problem of what to do with all the liquid that would be produced (gross, I know), but you could hook up the device to a sewer line for that purpose. In light of the fact that there are much easier ways to rub someone out (pun intended), somehow I doubt this would be used except in industrial applications. Hey, it would work great in recycling metals, plastics, glass, and other expensive-to-reduce compounds. It might work great for sewage treatment too.
This makes perfect sense that their business is booming. There's still no easy way for DJs to spin CDs on the fly. With a vinyl record, adjusting tempo is easily achieved by changing the speed of the turntable. And who could forget the popular "scratch." With a CD all you can do is fade the volume when it's time for the next song.
Hmm, let's see:
The cost of the computers is factored into students' annual room-and-board expenses, and students return the computers at the end of the academic year. Pretty self-explanatory. The only students who are given the machines to keep are those who complete two years of work in the university's honors program. Also self-explanatory.
You sir, are a jackass if I ever saw one.
In a nation with 3.9 million that takes its heritage from England, it might be feasible to completely outlaw guns. Considering that the U.S. has 223 million lawfully possessed guns (Guns Used in Crime (1995) from National Institute of Justice) and a population of over 280 million, it is unlikely that the outlawing of guns will ever take place. Other small nation-states can feasibly have complete firearms prohibitions. Singapore, for instance. How cheeky that these are commonly of the British heritage, my dear chap! And no, I don't fondle mine at night...guns, that is!
- From 1899 to 1993, 223 million guns were manufactured in the U.S. 79M rifles, 77M handguns, 66M shotguns.
- Criminals prefer easily concealable handguns over any other type of firearm.
- 1.26 million handguns remain in the National Crime Information Center stolen gun file.
- 240,000 machineguns are in the National Firearms registry. Of these, 7,700 remain in the stolen gun file.
- From 1982 to 1993, 687 police officers were killed by firearms other than their own. Of these, 25% were killed with a.38 caliber handgun. 12% with.357 caliber, 9.5% with 9mm, 7.4% with 12 gauge shotgun.
- A 1991 survey of state prison inmates throughout the country found that assault weapons such as Uzi, AK, AR-15, etc. were carried by less than 1% of the inmates during the commission of the crime for which they were incarcerated.
Short answer: Congress may regulate interstate commerce.
1. 1934 National Firearms Act, requiring the registration and taxation of machineguns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, destructive devices (grenades, flamethrowers, etc.), and other weapons. Before this you could buy a Tommy gun through the mail direct from Thompson. 26 U.S.C. 53 et seq.
2. 1968 Gun Control Act, requiring that all firearms transactions be conducted through a licensed firearms dealer, and prohibits sales of military surplus machineguns to the public. Before this you could buy most guns through the mail from Sears. Public Law 90-618.
3. 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, prohibiting future manufacture of machineguns. Guarantees the right to transport any firearm through a state in which that firearm would be prohibited, to any other state where the firearm is legal, provided that the firearm is unloaded and locked in the trunk or a locked case in a vehicle. Also requires ATF records of gun purchases (except machineguns) to be destroyed after certain time period. Before this it was lawful to manufacture machineguns with payment of $200 tax.
4. 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, prohibited future manufacture of assault weapons and large capacity magazines. Requires FBI to offer National Instant Check system for states to use in background check of handgun purchases. Miscellaneous other provisions. Before this it was legal to manufacture assault weapons and large capacity magazines. H.R.3355.
In the last 70 years, the federal government has gone from zero regulation (and that means none) to significant regulation. These are the primary federal firearms laws, most other restrictions are administrative regulations by the ATF and of course laws at the state level which have been around much longer than the federal laws. These federal laws are based on Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. Indeed, federal law does not prevent you from manufacturing your own firearm as long as it is not an assault weapon or a machinegun. People do this all the time, and make some surprisingly good stuff. See FAQ at http://www.atf.treas.gov. Today, it is still possible to own machineguns and other so-called "National Firearms Act" or "Class III" weapons if you live in a state like Nevada, because currently "permission" is required from your local chief law enforcement officer. Few of these CLEOs will sign the ATF form 4 to allow you to buy a machinegun or other restricted item, except in Nevada and some other gun-friendly states. Machineguns are very expensive (and the prices are increasing) as no more will ever be legally manufactured for civilians. A select-fire M16A2 in mint condition runs around $12,000. Bottom line is money can buy anything.
None of these laws has been held to offend the 2d amendment, because the 2d amendment does not guarantee private ownership of firearms. More recently, Congress's attempt to ban guns from schools and "school zones" was ruled unconstitutional because it was not closely enough related to interstate commerce.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have a Mac, try using VNC Thing to control Windows machines!
I don't see this new biometric stuff being used for close range weapons-- at contact range of only a few meters, there's no time to fiddle with a pistol or do anything except pull the trigger. Mag Loc solves the retention problem; it's a metal ring that you and your spouse wear that engages a plate in the grip of your pistol to prevent anyone who takes the weapon from immediately using it against you. It's a great idea, and as shown in the reviews of the product it's definitely workable. It's available for the Colt 1911A1 now, and they told me they are adding other models in the future. This is ideal for in-home use or for concealed carry, assuming you use a 1911. If I were a law enforcement officer I would just use a pistol lanyard for retention purposes. At $89.50, I would much rather get the mechanical solution.
They used to think people would be using all kinds of energy weapons by now. Star Trek and other "space age" TV series are useful for seeing this idea and other 1960s/70s conceptions of future warfare and human interaction.
.45 caliber pistol, patented in 1902. 100 years later, it's still one of the most popular models you can buy, it's preferred by the best operators in special operations, and it's still just as deadly as the original. Sure there's body armor, and it's better than any personal armor of the last 500 years, but you can still die if you get shot in the vest. The biggest advance I've seen yet is Metal Storm, an electrically fired machinegun that acts like a bigass shotgun (check the videos!). The Army is looking at using this technology as an IFF-enabled landmine supplement that can move with the forces it protects and not accidentally blow up friendly units, among other uses. But this won't help the people with a million conventional mines in their backyards.
They also used to think that murder, shootings, and violence in general would be eliminated in the more sensitive, more loving, more civilized future world.
There are still fights with clubs, swords, knives, and other low-tech weapons, and there are still murders. As just one example, the effectiveness of guns has hardly improved in this century. Witness the M1911
Unlike the government-issue advances, ordinary people killing each other remains the same as it has always been for the simple reason that the human body is still as vulnerable as it has always been-- such a fragile creature in some ways. Knives and bayonets are still issued to Army troops, the Army has been using the same rifle for almost 40 years, and people are stabbed every day.
"There will always be killing. This is how things are, in our world." -- memorable words spoken by a Somali militiaman in Black Hawk Down. He's right. But we ought never lose sight of ways to improve ordinary people's lives. Note the large amount of economic and agricultural aid doled out to developing countries each year (I know, it doesn't all make it to the needy, but it's a start).
I guess the point is, if a tool works well, there's little reason to rock the boat unless someone (a corporation) knows it can probably profit if it makes something better. As for human nature, if I could say one thing to the Creator, it would not be a request for future technology today, it would be a request to save me from the war, plague, and famine inside me.
Just wait until they turn this into a distribution system for chemical weapons or a way to conduct surveillance in cities. A swarm of the other side's robots coming at you? I'd either be running for cover or pulling out the shotgun, depending on how many there were. Great...
"two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down"
-- 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta notifying Ramzi Bin-al-shibh by telephone of the date of the attacks. If I wanted to get a message to someone, using a riddle over the phone is a simple, low-tech solution which worked for them.
between the 'highly configurable' and 'less is more' camps."
less is more. more is more!
I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm in awe that these two unpopular students (though not nerds in the strict sense) struck back and dealt a severe blow to the jock mentality: push us far enough and we'll strike back. Less deadly means would have been better, but now maybe jocks will think twice. Yes, it's terrible and all that, but how less terrible is the torment some people suffer at the hands of popular students?
Since Westlaw owns Findlaw.com as of 2001, expect Westlaw to either shut it down in the near future as a cost-cutting measure or fold it into their own service. Findlaw, in my opinion, is much simpler and easier to use than Westlaw, the downside is that Findlaw has no annotated codes and doesn't have all the law review articles and other materials that the major e-research tools have. Findlaw is *great* to use in conjunction with conventional book research, because you can take a list of citations from the books and look up most of the cases online for free. Of course, you still have to Shepardize in the library because findlaw doesn't have a real citation feature. BTW, the difference between books and online research is that the online research is about 100 times more expensive but 10 times faster, has all the cases from every state, and has the most recently decided cases, so it's always a good idea to check to make sure you haven't made a major error, as the updates to the books only come out monthly or so in the form of a supplement.
If you are rich and clean, consider coming to my home, Lake Tahoe
I'm poor and dirty you insensitive clod!
And no gun control!!! This is sounding better already-- I've always wanted a full-auto MP5!
The article could have been summed up in one sentence: the best way to protect yourself is to buy everything with untraceable methods like cash or money orders, and limit your recorded transactions to things like land. Oh, and don't take out any loans either, or buy anything online, or fill out a census form. In other words, all the progress of the 20th century will be reduced to us paying cash at the local general store like in the 1950s because we can't trust our government. If ordinary people can avoid the new system, how hard will it be for terrorists? Thanks a lot, Uncle Sam.
First of all, how many available, attractive women actually go to the trouble of putting up their own sites or publishing their info? Unless they're in the news somehow, there aren't going to be that many references to the really desirable women because they don't need to use the internet to meet people. This is nothing new. Even if there were some questionable info on someone on the net, do you really care? Is it true or is it a satire or hoax like the onion? It's like reading a person's diary or setting up a surveillance camera inside their house. They present themselves to the world how they want to, and if you try to find out about someone online you're just asking for a skewed perspective. "Uh, honey, I found those hardcore pictures you did online 10 years ago, I wanted to let you know I still love you." Turns out it was her twin sister and she's offended that you actually *looked* for something bad about her. If you do find something online and allow that into your relationship with someone, you may find out how little you really know of yourself and each other. I mean sure, I'm as fond as the next guy of searching for news articles on women I'm interested in to see if they have any hobbies so I can ask them what they do in their spare time, but for example searching the local recorder's office to see if they own property to see if they live in a nice area is just out of line. Why don't you just ask, it will look better if they ever find out. This reminds me of that device in Japan that tells people whether there's a "match" in the immediate vicinity, like while walking on the sidewalk. Seriously, people.
The public has already gone along with it in a few areas-- the DVD CCA, for instance. An industry consortium (cartel) that sets the price and standards for content scrambling systems. I'm really suprised they haven't branched out their system to the audio industry yet, probably because research indicates consumers wouldn't buy all new equipment, or they would have done it by now. So instead, we have a few "DRM" type CDs that have come out recently but are backward compatible with home/car CD players and windows PCs. It would be much more convenient for the music industry to have a new format come along like DVD-Audio so they could start from scratch with the scrambling system as DVD did several years ago. What I see happening is that the music industry will encourage more sales of DVD players and drives so that gradually fewer and fewer regular CD drives will be sold, and people will be able to play CSS-encrypted CDs in their DVD players. A far cry indeed from the earliest days of CDs when a simple ISO "don't copy" flag on the disc was supposed to prevent people from ripping CDs to DAT in the mid 1980s.
They use "sniffers" at airports to detect explosive residue in carryon bags. Surely they can adopt that technology and just tell it to recognize other chemicals. Get sensitive enough equipment and you can recognize anything.
Locating downed planes in a forest or in heavy cloud cover/fog would be an excellent application. A larger drone with forward looking infrared (FLIR) could locate bodies and smoldering debris. In remote areas where planes sometimes go down, it's all about coverage of the area in as little time as possible to maximize the chance that the victims live. A swarm of camera-equipped butterflies autonomously looking for anything unusual might accomplish in less time and with less risk to search personnel what a search and rescue helicopter would do in a week. It's very interesting. Admittedly, for many scenarios a remote-controlled rat could be more useful, but this is all about expanding the possibilities.
Why not camouflage the butterfly to match the local population? If it's 10cm and it's camouflaged like a monarch butterfly and it never lands, I would imagine people would admire it for being a particularly large monarch butterfly, hiding in plain sight.
Interesting idea. This could be an excellent way to map wilderness areas of the U.S. and other countries. Perhaps the butterflies could be programmed to traverse from the origin vehicle to a particular destination for recovery, but be given the autonomy to check out interesting terrain features if they see any. Since the butterflies could get right into the terrain, they could have good enough resolution to justify using them over the current USGS stereoscopic photo method for creating topographical maps. Maybe they could use a form of radar to map things in 3-D or stereoscopic cameras. Or program the units to land and acquire a GPS signal at specified intervals.
In a battle zone, perhaps the butterflies could be camouflaged to match the indigenous species, as long as they weren't too large. Or the butterflies could be programmed to stay a certain distance from each other to not arouse suspicion. Since each unit is a small portion of the swarm, the loss of a bunch of them might be acceptable. Cool!
I just read the patent application and it appears that drying is accomplished during the grinding process by means of an exhaust pipe, which makes sense considering the purpose of separating the object to be disintegrated into its components. So I guess there really would be no muss, no fuss!
assembly that drops the unfortunate victim into the machine. Of course, that still raises the problem of what to do with all the liquid that would be produced (gross, I know), but you could hook up the device to a sewer line for that purpose. In light of the fact that there are much easier ways to rub someone out (pun intended), somehow I doubt this would be used except in industrial applications. Hey, it would work great in recycling metals, plastics, glass, and other expensive-to-reduce compounds. It might work great for sewage treatment too.
So in other words, There's still no easy way for DJs to spin CDs on the fly. Thanks a lot.
This makes perfect sense that their business is booming. There's still no easy way for DJs to spin CDs on the fly. With a vinyl record, adjusting tempo is easily achieved by changing the speed of the turntable. And who could forget the popular "scratch." With a CD all you can do is fade the volume when it's time for the next song.
Hmm, let's see: The cost of the computers is factored into students' annual room-and-board expenses, and students return the computers at the end of the academic year. Pretty self-explanatory.
The only students who are given the machines to keep are those who complete two years of work in the university's honors program. Also self-explanatory.
You sir, are a jackass if I ever saw one.
In a nation with 3.9 million that takes its heritage from England, it might be feasible to completely outlaw guns. Considering that the U.S. has 223 million lawfully possessed guns (Guns Used in Crime (1995) from National Institute of Justice) and a population of over 280 million, it is unlikely that the outlawing of guns will ever take place. Other small nation-states can feasibly have complete firearms prohibitions. Singapore, for instance. How cheeky that these are commonly of the British heritage, my dear chap! And no, I don't fondle mine at night...guns, that is!
National Institute of Justice Firearms and Crime page.
.38 caliber handgun. 12% with .357 caliber, 9.5% with 9mm, 7.4% with 12 gauge shotgun.
National Criminal Justice Reference Center. The most useful functions are abstract search and full-text search. Try searching for "firearms" or "assault weapons," etc.
From Guns Used in Crime (1995):
- From 1899 to 1993, 223 million guns were manufactured in the U.S. 79M rifles, 77M handguns, 66M shotguns.
- Criminals prefer easily concealable handguns over any other type of firearm.
- 1.26 million handguns remain in the National Crime Information Center stolen gun file.
- 240,000 machineguns are in the National Firearms registry. Of these, 7,700 remain in the stolen gun file.
- From 1982 to 1993, 687 police officers were killed by firearms other than their own. Of these, 25% were killed with a
- A 1991 survey of state prison inmates throughout the country found that assault weapons such as Uzi, AK, AR-15, etc. were carried by less than 1% of the inmates during the commission of the crime for which they were incarcerated.
Short answer: Congress may regulate interstate commerce.
1. 1934 National Firearms Act, requiring the registration and taxation of machineguns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, destructive devices (grenades, flamethrowers, etc.), and other weapons. Before this you could buy a Tommy gun through the mail direct from Thompson. 26 U.S.C. 53 et seq.
2. 1968 Gun Control Act, requiring that all firearms transactions be conducted through a licensed firearms dealer, and prohibits sales of military surplus machineguns to the public. Before this you could buy most guns through the mail from Sears. Public Law 90-618.
3. 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, prohibiting future manufacture of machineguns. Guarantees the right to transport any firearm through a state in which that firearm would be prohibited, to any other state where the firearm is legal, provided that the firearm is unloaded and locked in the trunk or a locked case in a vehicle. Also requires ATF records of gun purchases (except machineguns) to be destroyed after certain time period. Before this it was lawful to manufacture machineguns with payment of $200 tax.
4. 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, prohibited future manufacture of assault weapons and large capacity magazines. Requires FBI to offer National Instant Check system for states to use in background check of handgun purchases. Miscellaneous other provisions. Before this it was legal to manufacture assault weapons and large capacity magazines. H.R.3355.
In the last 70 years, the federal government has gone from zero regulation (and that means none) to significant regulation. These are the primary federal firearms laws, most other restrictions are administrative regulations by the ATF and of course laws at the state level which have been around much longer than the federal laws. These federal laws are based on Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. Indeed, federal law does not prevent you from manufacturing your own firearm as long as it is not an assault weapon or a machinegun. People do this all the time, and make some surprisingly good stuff. See FAQ at http://www.atf.treas.gov. Today, it is still possible to own machineguns and other so-called "National Firearms Act" or "Class III" weapons if you live in a state like Nevada, because currently "permission" is required from your local chief law enforcement officer. Few of these CLEOs will sign the ATF form 4 to allow you to buy a machinegun or other restricted item, except in Nevada and some other gun-friendly states. Machineguns are very expensive (and the prices are increasing) as no more will ever be legally manufactured for civilians. A select-fire M16A2 in mint condition runs around $12,000. Bottom line is money can buy anything.
None of these laws has been held to offend the 2d amendment, because the 2d amendment does not guarantee private ownership of firearms. More recently, Congress's attempt to ban guns from schools and "school zones" was ruled unconstitutional because it was not closely enough related to interstate commerce.