And as you'll recall, Modern Marvels is the show that deals in topics that are neither modern nor marvelous, so this can't really be all that new or exciting.
Modern Marvels episode topics include:
Fire!
Water!
The Arch! and my all-time favorite Neither Nor Modern Marvel: Dirt!
The best part of Modern Marvels is in the intro sequence where there's Foley of a ratchet being turned superimposed over an image of a Crescent-style wrench being turned.
You are seriously the biggest douchebag on Slashdot. This place is like the 'feminine hygene' aisle at your local supermarket, everybody here is a douchebag, but you sir, are the out-and-out biggest. Oh god.
What is up with the way you're formatting your paragraphs three or four words then a break. It's like you're talking in haiku but failing miserably . Seriously duder. You can type to the end of the text box. Interesting thing about computers is that you don't have to insert carriage returns, as through the magic of computational wizardishishness and other such stuff that none of us have any comprehension of your carriage returns will be placed automatically at the end of every line . I really have no idea where I was going with this . Why the hell do you format your posts this way ?Can I get an answer?
>distributed vomputing
Dude. I love this. I want to take part in a Distributed Vompute. Especially if it's what I thnk it is - hundreds upon hundreds of dudes standing around in an interconnected webwork, all of whom puking at once. Said puke filling up some giant sort of bucket somewhere. This vomit is then twirled around in a combinator of sorts (some variety of embryonic replicator) and then injected back into the participants in the Distributed Vompute as nourishment.
Really, a Distributed Vompute is a whole lot of awesome. A whole God-damned lot of awesome. Where do I sign up?
The hell with Bushy. I'm stoked at the recent announcement of the Jackass Socialists mod!
Select a skin!
Ed Kennedy! Isn't he glad he grabbed all our guns!
Charles Schumer! Oops bolt-action rifles aren't assault rifles! Way to ban something dangerous there, Chuckles! If only you'd been on the ball, your brains wouldn't be all over the Plaza!
Dianne Feinstein! Good thing that Carcano doesn't have as many thrusts per squeeze as that wicked-sinful MAK-90 you oh-so-cheerfully display as an evil, nasty-bad Assault Rifle which the mere possession of makes you a child-raping criminal, worse in every manner than Hitler! Oh wait, one shot, one kill! Bonk! Hope you like your pine box!
Whiny Asshole Slashdot Poster! Eh, shouldn't this lead be put toward something useful? Like the foil linings in a smoke detector or something? Perhaps we can make a darling pewter figure of a Space Elf out of it and use it to totally stomp all over the Space Ork army! Oh no! Watch out for the Space Mummies!! They don't die unless exploded! Good thing my Space Elves have Repeater Explod-o-cannon! +4 to explode Space Mummies! ELDAR 4EVA !!!!
OH NOSE! NOW THAT THE JOKE HAS BEEN EXPLAINED TO THE WHOLE WORLD, IT IS NOW FUNNY!
Hooray for you! Hooray for me for finally getting it! Hooray for everyone involved! Thank you for that helpful information !!!!!!!!
Ass
You sir, are quite the lad of clever discernment! I nearly fell out of my high-backed arm-chair laughing at your clever wit derived from a hack comedian on NBC! By which of course I mean a clever and talented comical-genius who spent seven long years as the Top Draw on the hit Must See TV Thursdays on NBC!
Wow! You're so clever and witty! I applaud you for this clever insight that was made ten years ago by an unfunny nit-wit on network television! But when you do it, sir, it brings this tired old man to fits of hysterics! Side-splitting and delightful! I just simply can not wait for another of your delicious witticisms!
How about asking what the deal is with airline peanuts? Or maybe that one about the parachute helmet! Because the first time that joke was made, it just wasn't funny, but somehow now these japes and jibes are just astoundingly hilarious! Watch how I chortle aloud at the gaity of it all!
Kudos to you, good sir, for tickling my funny-bone in a manner most befitting an inter-net comedian!
I'm damn-opposed to flying taxis. Could you just imagine it? Having to go in a straight line toward the destination rather than worm around streets that the passenger doesn't know and tackle the most congested freeway interchanges to rack up extraneous miles / road time?
That sort of action would cut into our fares bigtime. Fuck that noise.
So I'll go right ahead and re-iterate it, with italics so you can see how gosh-darned serious I am, and stuff !!!!!!!
Playing A Video Game Does Not Push A Nonviolent Person To Violence, Nor Can It Teach Anybody How To Operate A Firearm
Equating Columbine-style violence with video games or that evil rap music and that horrible shrieking harpy Marilyn Manson is merely a leftist copout, squealed by people who operate on an agenda of limited personal accountability so as to push their Huge World Government ploy.
So do us all a favor and shut the fuck up about how video games totally force shitheads to go out and commit acts of violence. The shitheads who shot up the joint were shitheads and they'd have perpetuated that act of violence, Doom or No Doom, Manson or No Manson. To say that anybody can be motivated to violence by the media is to greatly underestimate the intelligence of humanity as a whole.
Besides, having played the shit out of Full Spectrum Warrior, I can assure you that any tactics you learn from that game, will be easily defeated by anybody that's not a polygonal meshed AI-driven texture-mapped bad guy. In real life, you'd get yourself killed before you were even able to tell your Rifleman to like, totally look behind us and select the cone of fog and like, look over that way and OOPS HE DOESN'T DO IT ANYMORE WHEN YOU MOVE AND WHOOPS SHOT IN THE BACK BY SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY USES TACTICS !!!!!!!!!!!!
Is '*The Chronicles of Riddick' supposed to signify, or refer to, or be referred by? Why is it italicized? It appears to be a footnote, albeit an unrefrencable one. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THAT LINE? WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT?
As a man whose own personal philosophy includes having everybody in the United States as well-armed as they can possibly be, I do see folly in the grandparent poster's idea. Firing a weapon on a cramped, crowded aircraft is a pretty bad idea, even one which fires frangible, low-impulse ammunition.
I'll tell you, the pilot will make one direct and deadly hit, his second round will go straigt through the terrorists leg hitting either a stewardess or passenger deadly and his third round will entirely miss everyone, but hit straight through the planes hull.
From experience, the MP5 recoils straight back into the firer and the projectiles pretty much end up in the same spot. Even if the firer is a piss-poor shot or can't handle the minimal recoil, the cyclic rate is high enough that a three-round burst will more or less end up in the same baseball-sized circle. If the hypothetical pilot fired over his shoulder at the hypothetical hijacker, all three rounds would strike that hypothetical hijacker, unless say that hypothetical hijacker ware all rail-thin like a character in Aeon Flux. Hypothetically.
I'm opposed to the pilots being armed, they have way too much on their minds to worry about being issued a firearm, having to qualify on said firearm, learn operation and maintenance and constantly worry about all the stacks and stacks of 'deadly force' paperwork they'd certainly have to file. Fuck that noise. A better solution, at least in my opinion is to have the cockpit completely sealed-off from the passenger cabin, sealed with an airlock that could only be opened from the inside. Inside the cockpit would be a small closed-circuit TV monitor which shoots down the center aisle. If the pilots see (or are informed of via the intercom) a disturbance, the pilots simply decompress the passenger cabin momentarily, thus knocking everybody out. Problem solved, the nosebleeds that the poor little overprivleged whitebread soccer moms get could be chalked as 'acceptable losses' if it prevents the aircraft from being lost.
Now it all makes sense, you're a gun obsessed nut. With people like you I'm glad they banned automatic/assault weapons.
And you're an asshole who's been brainwashed by the media into believing that someone who will fight to retain his freedom is a 'gun obsessed nut.' If this were four hundred years ago, you'd call me a 'longbow obsessed nut' or if this was two thousand years ago, you'd call me a 'pilium obsessed nut.'
By 'militiaman' I mean 'able-bodied American citizen, aged 18 to 55.' I have a strong sense of civil responsibility and serving my community. I'm one of several to organize efforts to protect the community from fires and floods. What do you do? Cry on Slashdot that a man of my type is an 'anachronism?'
You want to play with automatic/assault weapons, go join the Army. U$A doesn't need milita's to protect us anymore that's what the Army is for.
Militias defend the citizenry from the Government. It was the Militias that defended the British Subjects from the British Army when the Crown decided that its Colonies should not be independent, autonomous entities. The same holds true now and will hold true into the future. Again, the media has warped your pereception of past events.
Besides, I have a strong belief that the U.S. shouldn't even have an Expeditionary Force, but a Well Regulated (that means 'Armed and Trained,' to those of you who've never picked up a dictionary in your lives) Militia for self-defense.
And if/when the US ever turns the military against it's own citizens I'll take my chances rather than fight beside you wackos who think you're going to topple the government and return the "freedoms" to the people.
It's never been a question of 'if' but a question of 'when.' And hey, as long as we can't Regulate, then we're pretty much impotent at the hands of the Federal forces which will come down upon us and enslave us. It really is only a matter of time. Likely not tomorrow, likely not within the next decade or century, but the liklihood of the Government enslaving us remains, unless we as the Armed, Educated Middle Class are there to prevent them from doing so. The Assault Weapons ban of 1994 and the Machine Gun Stamp Act of 1986 only serve to weaken us against the increasingly-pervasive Federal Government.
Nobody I know is trying to 'topple the government' If the interest were there, it would have been done a century ago. The interest is to remain Private Citizens of the United States and carry out our lives as peaceful, participating members of the Republic. It's all anybody really wants. Unless you're a socialist whiner who wants the The State to provide everything for you, rather than you to account for yourself and provide for yourself.
I hope the Assault Weapons Ban stands, and they pass the 50 Cal Ban too.
I doubt you can give one good, logical reason for the Government to deprive any Private Citizen the use of any object, whether that object can be used for Good or for Evil. The legitimate use of a firearm (defense against the government) by far outweighs the illegitimate use of a firearm (crime). But in this pro-socialist I-get-all-my-opinions-from-the-New-York-Times world in which you live, I'd assume you think that the two were one and the same.
Why am I responding to an Anonymous Fucking Coward anyway?
You know, that's the only thing in his entire regime that old Billy Bob Clinton never lied about: "You don't need an AK-47 to hunt deer, you don't need an Uzi to shoot skeet."
He's exactly correct. You don't need an AK-47 to hunt deer. You do need an AK-47 to defend yourself from the government, that is the exact point of that nasty old Well Regulated Milita that is Essential to the Security of the Republic that everybody seems to misunderstand, hate and fear around these here parts.
Article II of the Bill of Rights gives us the legal right and encouragement to Revolution. One does not need arms to feed himself, one does not need arms to defend himself from those intending on taking his personal property or causing personal injury. One does need to be armed to defend himself from all threats to the Republic, both Foreign and Domestic, which includes agents of the Government on the Local, State and Federal levels.
So it's the BATF's fault that you're fucking stupid enough to build blank-firing machine guns?
Wow, way to misread everything I've said. I said that I'm trying to comply with their rules, which includes drafting plans, submitting plans for approval, once plans have been submitted, a prototype must be built, once the prototype is approved, a 'first draft' proof-of-concept device must be constructed. if that gets approved, you can now go ahead and assemble the full weapon!
In order to do this, you need to build your reciever smaller (or larger) than the normal size, so as a standard bolt carrier cannot be used in the weapon, which requires lots and lots of lathing and machining. Good excellent fun!
Then after you've a weapon which does not A) Take a stock bolt carrier, B) Has a receiver that isn't standard-sized, and C) Does not take standard magazines (?????? this one utterly confounds me, the others I can understand and accept, but not being able to use the standard magazines is completly bizzare), you can submit the weapon itself to the local BATF office. It is at this point where they'll either accept your design and issue a Blank-Only Special Tax Stamp (which costs you $200) or they'll destroy the weapon right before your eyes with an oxy-torch.
This happened to a friend of mine who was trying to build a blank-firing MP40, one he'd sunk almost a thousand dollars into only to have it destroyed before him by the BATF as it didn't meet one of the at least thousand little tiny points that the weapon must meet in order to receive a stamp.
Even better, buy some fucking fireworks
Fireworks are illegal in Nevada. You can't own a firecracker but you can own TNT. You can't possess a bottle rocket but you can own an RPG-7. I love my state.
They're loud, and just as useful as blank gun rounds
No they aren't. Pray, how are you expected to load a firecracker into a bolt-action Mauser rifle? How are you to use a firecracker to operate the bolt on a Thompson? It's simply not possible. When you've stopped being an idiot, come back with a more feasable solution.
I love mental midgets.
Hey, likewise. I'm not the one being a flaming (haw) little faggot here on Slashdot, I'm one of many doing his part to restore our rights to us, rights taken from us illegaly by agents of the Federal Government. I'm active in my local political scene, I'm a registered voter, I'm a gunsmith and I'm a militiaman. It's my responsiblility to do everything in my power to do what I can to fix the things that are wrong with society. Discussing here about my travails with the BATF is not whining, which you are doing quite a bit of up there.
Bitching like a fucking whiny pussy on a goddamned forum isn't going to do a motherfucking thing.
No shit, cockhole. I'm not 'bitching like a fucking whiny pussy' but am actually doing things to exact change here on the local level. Democracy starts locally then projects Federally.
A sig like this is a little unsettling when guns have become your hobby.
Heh heh, it's a line from an Australian Rolling Thunder clone called Rough Ranger. I can't explain how much I loves me some Rough Ranger, it's just so sweaty and greasy and entirey Australian, mate.
Re-enactors should need only a convincing flash-bang special effect. Cheaper and safer, IMHO, for what is, after all, only a game or a theatrical performance.
And the best way to do this is with a blank-firing weapon. I already use a SMLE No. 1.303 and a 1911 that I've adapted to fire blanks. Some vehicle-mounted machine guns are gas-operated, one of my friends who plays as a Ranger has an.50 M2 which has been converted to operate via oxy-acetyline and a spark plug. It only sort of works.
I've been tinkering and plinkering with using the piston and cylinder from a Briggs and Stratton small motor to make the flash-and-bang effects, simply pour gasoline through the venturi into the intake, use an electric motor to turn the crank, which pushes the piston to compress the gasoline-air mixture. Once the proper compression is attained, the spark plug fires and the flash-and-bang leaves through the exhaust valve, putting quite a bright orange flash and a decent bang sound out the tube. Unfortunately, the whole rigamarole is too big and too complicated to use in small-arms, but it works okay in a pintle-mounted M2 or M1919 or MG42. It's more expensive than the oxy-acetyline setup that my Ranger friend has, but the effect is much more convincing.
We've experimented with all sorts of non-gunpowder solutions. I've tinkered with putting a baffles and a strobe in a semi-auto paintball gun, the baffles causes the compressed CO2 to create a sonic effect not much unlike that of a burst of automatic weapons fire, the LED strobe effect lights the condensing CO2 vapors. The unfortunate thing with this though, is that the 'range' is limited, you can't hear the CO2 'popping' at more than 100 yards and you can't see the flash if you're firing in broad daylight. It's not too bad of an idea which could use further refinement.
Which of course leads us back to blank-firing full-autos. Three of our Germans have their own MP40s and an MG42, each are adapted to fire blanks, two of our GIs have Thompsons and one has a BAR and our Brits have a few Stens and a few BREN guns. As a British re-enactor, I want my own Sten gun.
There's just something maddeningly-fun about running through the Urban Setting, ducking behind rubble and shooting it out with a few Wermacht with your machine guns. Until we can figure out a way to create the sound and flash of a gunpowder-based machine gun, we'll have to keep using the blank-firing guns. If a better solution presented itself, I'd be completely glad to pick up on it.
While I can appreciate the frustration you must feel, you have to realize that there's no chance someone can mow down a crowd of people with a modded PS2 box. At least, not yet.
I can see your point, but there is a more-than-likely chance that the Federal Government can use the U.S. Military to use their machine guns to mow down a crowd of U.S. Citizens and us in the populace will have absolutely nothing to defend ourselves with.
Now where the frustration sets in is that I'm trying to comply with the assholes in the BATF, I'm doing my Very Goddamned Best to conform to all their rules and regulations and still end up having to cede my BLANK-FIRING machine gun to them for destruction, losing all the money I sunk into it because it didn't meet one of the ten thousand little tiny regulations that they place upon BLANK-FIRING MACHINE GUNS, thus leaving us with a hatred of the beauracracy AND a functioning knowledge on how to manufacture and assemble machine guns. Even a dullard can see how this only breeds contempt for the BATF.
If they'd just ISSUE THE STAMPS to those of us willing to go through the legitimate channels rather than just infurating us and breeding still more contempt and hatred for this particular organization.
Perhaps I'm a hobbyist, perhaps there are a whole lot of us who enjoy the use and operation of fully automatic weapons. Perhaps if you'd read the post I'd written, you can see that I want to build a BLANK-ONLY STEN so I can SHOOT GERMANS during WWII re-enactments. Douchebag.
Then again, if you've ever, you know, read that wacky crazy Bill of Rights that we have, you'd find that it's illegal for the government to prevent you from defending yourself from it. The 1934 machine gun ban is illegal the 1986 machine gun ban is illegal, the 1989 import ban is illegal and the 1994 assault weapons ban is illegal. Thankfully, that one is to expire this September and return to us some of our rights. Those of us who give a piss about our freedoms and rights are making baby steps toward returning our rights to us, despite the fact when the 1934 ban was enacted, war should have been declared on the Federal Government. Then again, war should have been declared upon the Federal Government when Prohibition was enacted, But I digress.
In short: Fuck you, AC. There are some of us out here that care about our rights, and care about your rights. And we'll defend you and your asinine, pudding-headed view of a socialist utopia, despite how wrong it is.
As a bit of an amateur gunsmith and arms designer, I can attest as to how FUCKING FRUSTRATING rulings just like this are. Sitting on my desk right now as I type this are 1 (One) Sten Reciever Tube, all channels and holes cut, and 1 (One) Sten Mk III Parts Kit.
I can own these objects, I can buy these objects. I can do whatever I want with these objects, even assembling them to 99% functionality. But if you manufacture a 100% operational Machine Gun, we're looking at ten-to-fifteen in Federal, Pound-Me-In-the-Ass Prison.
This reasoning is absurd, especially on the part of the BATF. See, they make it easy to purchase the parts, but you can't do anything with them.
What's the fucking point? BATF won't issue a Special Tax Stamp on any Machine Gun made after or the initial paperwork filed on after 1986. So why do they allow me to buy the parts? I'm just trying to build a blank-only Sten for use with my WWII Re-enacting group.
Rulings like this are simultaneously inane and frustrating. You can own the parts, you can sell the parts, you can buy the parts but you can't USE the parts. Much like my suppressor and the damned collapsible stock I bought for my HK91.
Here's hoping that September 13th goes the way we all want it to, not that it'd solve my quandary with my dumb Sten that I've wasted a hundred bucks on so far (let alone the damned HK stock I've wasted a hundred and a half on)
Slashdot Mirror
tax collectors, right?
Modern Marvels episode topics include:
Fire!
Water!
The Arch!
and my all-time favorite Neither Nor Modern Marvel: Dirt!
The best part of Modern Marvels is in the intro sequence where there's Foley of a ratchet being turned superimposed over an image of a Crescent-style wrench being turned.
Electronic Fuel Injection? What?
You are seriously the biggest douchebag on Slashdot. This place is like the 'feminine hygene' aisle at your local supermarket, everybody here is a douchebag, but you sir, are the out-and-out biggest. Oh god.
What is up with
the way you're
formatting your paragraphs
three or four words
then a break. It's
like you're talking in
haiku but failing miserably
. Seriously duder. You can
type to the end of the
text box. Interesting thing about
computers is that you
don't have to insert
carriage returns, as through the magic
of computational wizardishishness
and other such stuff that none of us
have any comprehension of
your carriage returns will be
placed automatically at the
end of every line
. I really have no idea where
I was going with this
. Why the hell do you
format your posts this way
?Can I get an answer?
I find the fact that post has been is modded Redundant to be dazzlingly hilarious.
That's fucking pitiful. My old Jeep Cherokee gets 25 M/G and my roommate's downright archaic Celica Supra gets 22.
You'd have great mileage though if you say, drove a diesel Ford or something. But shit, man, that's pretty pathetic mileage for a motorcycle.
>distributed vomputing
Dude. I love this. I want to take part in a Distributed Vompute. Especially if it's what I thnk it is - hundreds upon hundreds of dudes standing around in an interconnected webwork, all of whom puking at once. Said puke filling up some giant sort of bucket somewhere. This vomit is then twirled around in a combinator of sorts (some variety of embryonic replicator) and then injected back into the participants in the Distributed Vompute as nourishment.
Really, a Distributed Vompute is a whole lot of awesome. A whole God-damned lot of awesome. Where do I sign up?
Select a skin!
Ed Kennedy! Isn't he glad he grabbed all our guns!
Charles Schumer! Oops bolt-action rifles aren't assault rifles! Way to ban something dangerous there, Chuckles! If only you'd been on the ball, your brains wouldn't be all over the Plaza!
Dianne Feinstein! Good thing that Carcano doesn't have as many thrusts per squeeze as that wicked-sinful MAK-90 you oh-so-cheerfully display as an evil, nasty-bad Assault Rifle which the mere possession of makes you a child-raping criminal, worse in every manner than Hitler! Oh wait, one shot, one kill! Bonk! Hope you like your pine box!
Whiny Asshole Slashdot Poster! Eh, shouldn't this lead be put toward something useful? Like the foil linings in a smoke detector or something? Perhaps we can make a darling pewter figure of a Space Elf out of it and use it to totally stomp all over the Space Ork army! Oh no! Watch out for the Space Mummies!! They don't die unless exploded! Good thing my Space Elves have Repeater Explod-o-cannon! +4 to explode Space Mummies! ELDAR 4EVA !!!!
OH NOSE! NOW THAT THE JOKE HAS BEEN EXPLAINED TO THE WHOLE WORLD, IT IS NOW FUNNY! Hooray for you! Hooray for me for finally getting it! Hooray for everyone involved! Thank you for that helpful information !!!!!!!! Ass
Is that so wrong?
Wow! You're so clever and witty! I applaud you for this clever insight that was made ten years ago by an unfunny nit-wit on network television! But when you do it, sir, it brings this tired old man to fits of hysterics! Side-splitting and delightful! I just simply can not wait for another of your delicious witticisms!
How about asking what the deal is with airline peanuts? Or maybe that one about the parachute helmet! Because the first time that joke was made, it just wasn't funny, but somehow now these japes and jibes are just astoundingly hilarious! Watch how I chortle aloud at the gaity of it all!
Kudos to you, good sir, for tickling my funny-bone in a manner most befitting an inter-net comedian!
That sort of action would cut into our fares bigtime. Fuck that noise.
Playing A Video Game Does Not Push A Nonviolent Person To Violence, Nor Can It Teach Anybody How To Operate A Firearm
Equating Columbine-style violence with video games or that evil rap music and that horrible shrieking harpy Marilyn Manson is merely a leftist copout, squealed by people who operate on an agenda of limited personal accountability so as to push their Huge World Government ploy.
So do us all a favor and shut the fuck up about how video games totally force shitheads to go out and commit acts of violence. The shitheads who shot up the joint were shitheads and they'd have perpetuated that act of violence, Doom or No Doom, Manson or No Manson. To say that anybody can be motivated to violence by the media is to greatly underestimate the intelligence of humanity as a whole.
Besides, having played the shit out of Full Spectrum Warrior, I can assure you that any tactics you learn from that game, will be easily defeated by anybody that's not a polygonal meshed AI-driven texture-mapped bad guy. In real life, you'd get yourself killed before you were even able to tell your Rifleman to like, totally look behind us and select the cone of fog and like, look over that way and OOPS HE DOESN'T DO IT ANYMORE WHEN YOU MOVE AND WHOOPS SHOT IN THE BACK BY SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY USES TACTICS !!!!!!!!!!!!
Is '*The Chronicles of Riddick' supposed to signify, or refer to, or be referred by? Why is it italicized? It appears to be a footnote, albeit an unrefrencable one. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THAT LINE? WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT?
I'll tell you, the pilot will make one direct and deadly hit, his second round will go straigt through the terrorists leg hitting either a stewardess or passenger deadly and his third round will entirely miss everyone, but hit straight through the planes hull.
From experience, the MP5 recoils straight back into the firer and the projectiles pretty much end up in the same spot. Even if the firer is a piss-poor shot or can't handle the minimal recoil, the cyclic rate is high enough that a three-round burst will more or less end up in the same baseball-sized circle. If the hypothetical pilot fired over his shoulder at the hypothetical hijacker, all three rounds would strike that hypothetical hijacker, unless say that hypothetical hijacker ware all rail-thin like a character in Aeon Flux. Hypothetically.
I'm opposed to the pilots being armed, they have way too much on their minds to worry about being issued a firearm, having to qualify on said firearm, learn operation and maintenance and constantly worry about all the stacks and stacks of 'deadly force' paperwork they'd certainly have to file. Fuck that noise. A better solution, at least in my opinion is to have the cockpit completely sealed-off from the passenger cabin, sealed with an airlock that could only be opened from the inside. Inside the cockpit would be a small closed-circuit TV monitor which shoots down the center aisle. If the pilots see (or are informed of via the intercom) a disturbance, the pilots simply decompress the passenger cabin momentarily, thus knocking everybody out. Problem solved, the nosebleeds that the poor little overprivleged whitebread soccer moms get could be chalked as 'acceptable losses' if it prevents the aircraft from being lost.
And you're an asshole who's been brainwashed by the media into believing that someone who will fight to retain his freedom is a 'gun obsessed nut.' If this were four hundred years ago, you'd call me a 'longbow obsessed nut' or if this was two thousand years ago, you'd call me a 'pilium obsessed nut.'
By 'militiaman' I mean 'able-bodied American citizen, aged 18 to 55.' I have a strong sense of civil responsibility and serving my community. I'm one of several to organize efforts to protect the community from fires and floods. What do you do? Cry on Slashdot that a man of my type is an 'anachronism?'
You want to play with automatic/assault weapons, go join the Army. U$A doesn't need milita's to protect us anymore that's what the Army is for.
Militias defend the citizenry from the Government. It was the Militias that defended the British Subjects from the British Army when the Crown decided that its Colonies should not be independent, autonomous entities. The same holds true now and will hold true into the future. Again, the media has warped your pereception of past events.
Besides, I have a strong belief that the U.S. shouldn't even have an Expeditionary Force, but a Well Regulated (that means 'Armed and Trained,' to those of you who've never picked up a dictionary in your lives) Militia for self-defense.
And if/when the US ever turns the military against it's own citizens I'll take my chances rather than fight beside you wackos who think you're going to topple the government and return the "freedoms" to the people.
It's never been a question of 'if' but a question of 'when.' And hey, as long as we can't Regulate, then we're pretty much impotent at the hands of the Federal forces which will come down upon us and enslave us. It really is only a matter of time. Likely not tomorrow, likely not within the next decade or century, but the liklihood of the Government enslaving us remains, unless we as the Armed, Educated Middle Class are there to prevent them from doing so. The Assault Weapons ban of 1994 and the Machine Gun Stamp Act of 1986 only serve to weaken us against the increasingly-pervasive Federal Government.
Nobody I know is trying to 'topple the government' If the interest were there, it would have been done a century ago. The interest is to remain Private Citizens of the United States and carry out our lives as peaceful, participating members of the Republic. It's all anybody really wants. Unless you're a socialist whiner who wants the The State to provide everything for you, rather than you to account for yourself and provide for yourself.
I hope the Assault Weapons Ban stands, and they pass the 50 Cal Ban too.
I doubt you can give one good, logical reason for the Government to deprive any Private Citizen the use of any object, whether that object can be used for Good or for Evil. The legitimate use of a firearm (defense against the government) by far outweighs the illegitimate use of a firearm (crime). But in this pro-socialist I-get-all-my-opinions-from-the-New-York-Times world in which you live, I'd assume you think that the two were one and the same.
Why am I responding to an Anonymous Fucking Coward anyway?
He's exactly correct. You don't need an AK-47 to hunt deer. You do need an AK-47 to defend yourself from the government, that is the exact point of that nasty old Well Regulated Milita that is Essential to the Security of the Republic that everybody seems to misunderstand, hate and fear around these here parts.
Article II of the Bill of Rights gives us the legal right and encouragement to Revolution. One does not need arms to feed himself, one does not need arms to defend himself from those intending on taking his personal property or causing personal injury. One does need to be armed to defend himself from all threats to the Republic, both Foreign and Domestic, which includes agents of the Government on the Local, State and Federal levels.
Wow, way to misread everything I've said. I said that I'm trying to comply with their rules, which includes drafting plans, submitting plans for approval, once plans have been submitted, a prototype must be built, once the prototype is approved, a 'first draft' proof-of-concept device must be constructed. if that gets approved, you can now go ahead and assemble the full weapon!
In order to do this, you need to build your reciever smaller (or larger) than the normal size, so as a standard bolt carrier cannot be used in the weapon, which requires lots and lots of lathing and machining. Good excellent fun!
Then after you've a weapon which does not A) Take a stock bolt carrier, B) Has a receiver that isn't standard-sized, and C) Does not take standard magazines (?????? this one utterly confounds me, the others I can understand and accept, but not being able to use the standard magazines is completly bizzare), you can submit the weapon itself to the local BATF office. It is at this point where they'll either accept your design and issue a Blank-Only Special Tax Stamp (which costs you $200) or they'll destroy the weapon right before your eyes with an oxy-torch.
This happened to a friend of mine who was trying to build a blank-firing MP40, one he'd sunk almost a thousand dollars into only to have it destroyed before him by the BATF as it didn't meet one of the at least thousand little tiny points that the weapon must meet in order to receive a stamp.
Even better, buy some fucking fireworks
Fireworks are illegal in Nevada. You can't own a firecracker but you can own TNT. You can't possess a bottle rocket but you can own an RPG-7. I love my state.
They're loud, and just as useful as blank gun rounds
No they aren't. Pray, how are you expected to load a firecracker into a bolt-action Mauser rifle? How are you to use a firecracker to operate the bolt on a Thompson? It's simply not possible. When you've stopped being an idiot, come back with a more feasable solution.
Bitching like a fucking whiny pussy on a goddamned forum isn't going to do a motherfucking thing.
No shit, cockhole. I'm not 'bitching like a fucking whiny pussy' but am actually doing things to exact change here on the local level. Democracy starts locally then projects Federally.
SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU GODDAMNED RETARD.
Hey! Right back at ya, pal o'mine!
Heh heh, it's a line from an Australian Rolling Thunder clone called Rough Ranger. I can't explain how much I loves me some Rough Ranger, it's just so sweaty and greasy and entirey Australian, mate.
Re-enactors should need only a convincing flash-bang special effect. Cheaper and safer, IMHO, for what is, after all, only a game or a theatrical performance.
And the best way to do this is with a blank-firing weapon. I already use a SMLE No. 1 .303 and a 1911 that I've adapted to fire blanks. Some vehicle-mounted machine guns are gas-operated, one of my friends who plays as a Ranger has an .50 M2 which has been converted to operate via oxy-acetyline and a spark plug. It only sort of works.
I've been tinkering and plinkering with using the piston and cylinder from a Briggs and Stratton small motor to make the flash-and-bang effects, simply pour gasoline through the venturi into the intake, use an electric motor to turn the crank, which pushes the piston to compress the gasoline-air mixture. Once the proper compression is attained, the spark plug fires and the flash-and-bang leaves through the exhaust valve, putting quite a bright orange flash and a decent bang sound out the tube. Unfortunately, the whole rigamarole is too big and too complicated to use in small-arms, but it works okay in a pintle-mounted M2 or M1919 or MG42. It's more expensive than the oxy-acetyline setup that my Ranger friend has, but the effect is much more convincing.
We've experimented with all sorts of non-gunpowder solutions. I've tinkered with putting a baffles and a strobe in a semi-auto paintball gun, the baffles causes the compressed CO2 to create a sonic effect not much unlike that of a burst of automatic weapons fire, the LED strobe effect lights the condensing CO2 vapors. The unfortunate thing with this though, is that the 'range' is limited, you can't hear the CO2 'popping' at more than 100 yards and you can't see the flash if you're firing in broad daylight. It's not too bad of an idea which could use further refinement.
Which of course leads us back to blank-firing full-autos. Three of our Germans have their own MP40s and an MG42, each are adapted to fire blanks, two of our GIs have Thompsons and one has a BAR and our Brits have a few Stens and a few BREN guns. As a British re-enactor, I want my own Sten gun.
There's just something maddeningly-fun about running through the Urban Setting, ducking behind rubble and shooting it out with a few Wermacht with your machine guns. Until we can figure out a way to create the sound and flash of a gunpowder-based machine gun, we'll have to keep using the blank-firing guns. If a better solution presented itself, I'd be completely glad to pick up on it.
I can see your point, but there is a more-than-likely chance that the Federal Government can use the U.S. Military to use their machine guns to mow down a crowd of U.S. Citizens and us in the populace will have absolutely nothing to defend ourselves with.
Now where the frustration sets in is that I'm trying to comply with the assholes in the BATF, I'm doing my Very Goddamned Best to conform to all their rules and regulations and still end up having to cede my BLANK-FIRING machine gun to them for destruction, losing all the money I sunk into it because it didn't meet one of the ten thousand little tiny regulations that they place upon BLANK-FIRING MACHINE GUNS, thus leaving us with a hatred of the beauracracy AND a functioning knowledge on how to manufacture and assemble machine guns. Even a dullard can see how this only breeds contempt for the BATF.
If they'd just ISSUE THE STAMPS to those of us willing to go through the legitimate channels rather than just infurating us and breeding still more contempt and hatred for this particular organization.
Then again, if you've ever, you know, read that wacky crazy Bill of Rights that we have, you'd find that it's illegal for the government to prevent you from defending yourself from it. The 1934 machine gun ban is illegal the 1986 machine gun ban is illegal, the 1989 import ban is illegal and the 1994 assault weapons ban is illegal. Thankfully, that one is to expire this September and return to us some of our rights. Those of us who give a piss about our freedoms and rights are making baby steps toward returning our rights to us, despite the fact when the 1934 ban was enacted, war should have been declared on the Federal Government. Then again, war should have been declared upon the Federal Government when Prohibition was enacted, But I digress.
In short: Fuck you, AC. There are some of us out here that care about our rights, and care about your rights. And we'll defend you and your asinine, pudding-headed view of a socialist utopia, despite how wrong it is.
I can own these objects, I can buy these objects. I can do whatever I want with these objects, even assembling them to 99% functionality. But if you manufacture a 100% operational Machine Gun, we're looking at ten-to-fifteen in Federal, Pound-Me-In-the-Ass Prison.
This reasoning is absurd, especially on the part of the BATF. See, they make it easy to purchase the parts, but you can't do anything with them.
What's the fucking point? BATF won't issue a Special Tax Stamp on any Machine Gun made after or the initial paperwork filed on after 1986. So why do they allow me to buy the parts? I'm just trying to build a blank-only Sten for use with my WWII Re-enacting group.
Rulings like this are simultaneously inane and frustrating. You can own the parts, you can sell the parts, you can buy the parts but you can't USE the parts. Much like my suppressor and the damned collapsible stock I bought for my HK91.
Here's hoping that September 13th goes the way we all want it to, not that it'd solve my quandary with my dumb Sten that I've wasted a hundred bucks on so far (let alone the damned HK stock I've wasted a hundred and a half on)
Um. Yeah. We call those Conservatives or Republicans where I'm from. Funny, from where I'm from, that's what we call Liberals or Democrats.