| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Laws will never be able to stop or prevent criminals. You want peace, laws are the wrong tree to bark at.
Do you actually believe this to be true, or what?
Because it's super false. We have ample evidence that, for many people, the existence of a law is itself the determining factor in whether to participate in a criminal act. If the law exists, fewer people commit the act it criminalizes. If the law doesn't exist, more people commit that act.
So why do you insist otherwise?
|
Laws will never be able to stop or prevent criminals. You want peace, laws are the wrong tree to bark at.Go tell that to japan ;)
Japan has a very different culture which is far more community minded then here in the US. That has a much larger then laws could ever dream.
@Scott
I certainly don't think of it in terms of black vs white, and some laws have an effect but they affect decent people who don't have strong feelings about the course of action being controlled, and most such things are minor and not to be worried about the same way as major crimes like murder or armed robbery which are commited by folks who don't have strong moral convictions against such actions or are absolutely desperate, and in either of those cases, laws don't help.
Basically, culture and social norms have the primary effect on such matters. Take the limiting of guns. It is mostly pointless because most crimes dealing with guns are commited with illegally obtained or used weapons. It isn't so much a danger that weapons are allowed to the public but rather that so few of the public actually use that freedom, that criminals don't worry about civilians pulling out a gun in self defense.
If most people had guns and knew how to use them properly then criminals would need to be covert about their crimes because the severe risk of pulling out a gun and commiting a crime with people around. No it isn't the only solution but it is the one that most preserves the value of freedom which absolutly requires people to take primary responsibility for their own safety.
If most people had guns and knew how to use them properly then criminals would need to be covert about their crimes because the severe risk of pulling out a gun and commiting a crime with people around. No it isn't the only solution but it is the one that most preserves the value of freedom which absolutly requires people to take primary responsibility for their own safety.
No, they'd just assume all their targets were armed and act accordingly. Better to smack you upside the head with a bat from behind than to wave the bat in your face 'politely' if the mugger believes you are armed.
It simply escalates the issue.
|
|
So everyone should give up all their rights and let others walk all over them rather then actually pay attention to their surroundings and be prepared to do something about the injustices of the world when they happen to meet.
How childish it is to look for others to be responsible for one, to continue ones life being taken care of without ever growing to be self sufficient, to look to some governmental/corporate authority to take the place of ones parents in being responsible for ones actions/inactions.
Freedom and childishness don't mix well. That is partly why we are having so many problems in the US.
I for one resent people telling me how I am supposed to take the childish course of action.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So everyone should give up all their rights and let others walk all over them rather then actually pay attention to their surroundings and be prepared to do something about the injustices of the world when they happen to meet.
Thats the way! The minute your idea is shown to have a huge gaping hole in it, throw your hands in the air and make fatalistic comments about how we should all just kill ourselves now and avoid the rush because we are now all 100% crtain to die at the hands of a all the muggers and murders who are now destined to kill us... because having the common sense not to arm every living being to the teeth is 'giving up our rights to the tyrant next door'.
Wow, what a horrible horrible place to live in when you need to think that way and live so terrified by every shadow you need to arm up just to deal with the day, and how terrifying must it be to think that the very act of arming up makes it more likely something truly horrible will happen.
Of course Cire, any time anyone works out how to do something we have been doing for the last several centuries, all laws become obsolete and we need to freak out :)
|
|
I think you missed the point. What is accomplished by remaining unable to defend yourself? If you don't learn to defend yourself then you are responsible for losing the fight.
The world isn't going to roll over and play nice with you because you act likea child. I wasn't making some sarcastic comment. Exxagerated a bit, but literal none the less.
And laws are a limitation on your rights. Be carefull what rights you give up, because you cannot control those you have taken responsibility for you. And if they abuse the power you've guven them, what will you do? Will you even notice who is at fault?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, laws are there to preserve and engender your rights.
I also think your understanding of defence is as flawed as your thinking on laws. As is the apparent siege mentality that the whole big bad world is out to get us all.
No one has 'taken responsibility' for us, they have been entrusted with functions with our society, and we have the ability to remove them through democratic process should they fail to keep their end of the bargain with the broader community.
The way you tell it, you must be living in Fallujah, and if you were, I'd credit the point of view.
Once again...time to exit a thread because the insulting and small minded have arrived..later kids.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh no, please, don't go.
No, they'd just assume all their targets were armed and act accordingly. Better to smack you upside the head with a bat from behind than to wave the bat in your face 'politely' if the mugger believes you are armed.
Hmm. That's exactly how I was mugged.
On the other hand, I didn't have a gun, they did have a knife and a baseball bat, and I still got hit in the head.
|
Which is the core of the debate. If you want a gun because you are afraid of the world, I don't have an issue with you getting a gun. It is irrational, since every study says you are in more danger because you are a gun owner, but whatever.
But I would like some kind of background check to be run when you buy it. I am fine with it being a quick swipe of your drivers license, like the cops do, or even you get a license that says "I'm kosher to buy an AK 47."
But it is currently easier for me to get a Gun at a Gun Show than to get booze.
So...you know, I think we can change that without a problem, and it would have flagged the Aurora and Virginia Tech guy.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The ability to produce unlimited and un-trackable military performing (if not in grade or quality) would be a violent organization/revolutionary (subjective) dream device.It's been done, all hail Mr Kalashnikov.
No, it hasn't been done before - not like this.
You are comparing a gun designer who made his own weapon design that went into mass production (supported by the state) to a technology that allows precision design and development without the need for factories and mass production or even technical proficiency.Attempting to dismiss this as something less than big because you miss the point only illustrates that you miss the point.
Yeah gin in bathtubs blah, blah, more whistling pass the graveyard nonsense. If kids could produce powerful alcohol with reliable and safe results out of their bathtubs it would be an issue that would affect the increased use and abuse of alcohol among youth - again though quality alcohol is easier to get than a gun. If alcohol was banned, then yeah - kids would be producing booze in their bathtubs. But right now that argument is comparing apples to oranges (as is the zip gun argument).
The issue here - detractors or not - is that weapons and magazine features which are currently illegal or are about to become illegal in many places by law are going to be 100% unenforceable.
Being able to easily make a reliable extended magazine (disposable or not) off another persons design with limited technical knowledge means magazine restrictions laws are pointless. They assume mass production and scarcity - both which can be controlled and both of which are circumvented by this technology.
Same applies to creating fully automatic weapons (banned everywhere), this circumvents the need for a factory, mass production, background checks, technical proficiency in gunsmithing (if designs are tested and uploaded by someone else) and pretty much every law that derives its strength from controlling manufactures with the assumption that if it isn't mass produced it can't be used by the citizenry. This gets around all of that.
The last page of arguments is akin to comparing being able to record and album with a tape recorder in the room or attached to a turntable (all the Saturday night special/zip gun/gin made in the bathtub for the last 1000 years, etc) to being able to rip a cd off your computer. This isn't at the 1980's level of music duplication when it comes to weapons manufacture - we now have technology that has us heading towards ripping music and sharing music to cranking out your own cd in minutes with minimal knowledge, just with guns.
The ones who will suffer the most will be the gun manufactures as the need for a "nice" gun with their exorbitant prices based off of production limitation or artificial scarcity will be bypassed and the cost of weapons will go down - also as their designs are stolen and duped and placed on a 3d printer to make reliable clone weapons. The winners will be the ones who want weapons (for whatever reason - 2nd amendment rights to people who can't get weapons).
I know this scares gun control advocates - but this is the reality of technology.
Which is the core of the debate. If you want a gun because you are afraid of the world, I don't have an issue with you getting a gun. It is irrational, since every study says you are in more danger because you are a gun owner, but whatever.
I've never owned a gun, nor have I ever wanted to own a gun, but, indeed, whatever.
People miss the central core of the situation here.
When new technology comes knocking, we have a choice. We can adopt it, letting us enjoy the fruits of the new methods, or we can decide it is too dangerous and try to shut it down, which will only delay it for a while unless the repression used is truly monumental in scale.
Of course, there are many people in various positions of entrenched interests in such situations. They will desperately want to abolish the new technology for EVER, because it threatens their business model. They find the issues that will become problematic if we adopt the new technology, and try to sell that "as our society works now, the effects of this technology will be HORRIBLE!!1". Many people listen.
But... society always changes. Gay couples CAN marry in France these days, and they could not only a few weeks ago, right? NOTHING stays the same over enough time. And their argument fails by even discussing "as our society works now". Well, duh! The entire point of technological advances is to ALLOW FOR A DIFFERENT SOCIETY.
I am sure there will be problems in this. There always is, and always has been. But some things are worth changing for, and I have complete confidence that when they show up, ways will be found to deal with them that do not include banning, if they try.
The film industry tried banning the home VCR. When they weren't allowed to, they adopted it, and home movies were a profitable part of their industry ever since.
If the argument is "We can't have this because it makes our gun laws inefficient", I say the gun laws are not what we're trying to protect. Laws can be changed, and should be so, if the potential gain is large enough. 3D-printing more than qualifies.
I'm still trying to figure out how gay marriage is a technological advancement.
|
|
It'll be great fun to watch the NRA, which basically represents the gun manufacturers now, come out against this.
It will be interesting to see how this will test their core objective - protect the right to bear arms or to side with gun manufactures (the smaller of which will probably go out of business) to suppress or control this technology.
So do they become true 2nd amendment advocates or do they become the new RIAA/MPAA?
The Constitution doesn't give us the right to print arms.
People miss the central core of the situation here.
When new technology comes knocking, we have a choice. We can adopt it, letting us enjoy the fruits of the new methods, or we can decide it is too dangerous and try to shut it down, which will only delay it for a while unless the repression used is truly monumental in scale.
Of course, there are many people in various positions of entrenched interests in such situations. They will desperately want to abolish the new technology for EVER, because it threatens their business model. They find the issues that will become problematic if we adopt the new technology, and try to sell that "as our society works now, the effects of this technology will be HORRIBLE!!1". Many people listen.
It'll be great fun to watch the NRA, which basically represents the gun manufacturers now, come out against this.
The day of "these evil firearms pirates are destroying an industry" draws ever nearer.
On the plus side, the printers become cheap, Gun manufacturers loose business, NRA can't afford to bribe congressmen, real gun legislation becomes possible.
Laws will never be able to stop or prevent criminals. You want peace, laws are the wrong tree to bark at.
You need to go live somewhere without laws for a while.
|
|
Thinking more about it, they may just attack the quality and safety of the printed weapons, while highlighting the fact that criminals can get them so easily. That both keeps pressure on blocking new regulation and ramps up the fear so that people will buy more "real" guns.
Or in real sci-fi bizarre fashion it could flip the other way. Gun manufactures can complain that 3d printing will allow the production of fully automatic weapons and that they cannot compete unless they themselves can produce the same (but higher quality) weapons. With the unfair playing field argument, aka the classic big box stores vs. online retailers tax issue that is currently coming up.
Or maybe more like the medical marijuana issue here (in CA for example), it's against federal law, people don't really want these places around but demand for the drug is so high/everyone is doing it that it gets ignored as law. E.g. - if the law is unenforceable due to "ease of access/everyone is still going to do it, so why not regulate" it argument.
I doubt there will be a strong lobby to push for the return of fully automatic weapons but if they become common place in personal manufacture and the world doesn't end you could see people (in some states) change their stance on the issue to allow the return of production and control (safety, tax revenue, etc) to legitimate manufacturers.
Again, sci-fi stuff, still good for a laugh though.
|
|
On the plus side, the printers become cheap, Gun manufacturers loose business, NRA can't afford to bribe congressmen, real gun legislation becomes possible.
Which become unenforceable/just printed paper because now you can go to your gun dispenser (next to the ice dispenser) in the fridge and make PKP LMG or a SAW. Even combine the two items so you can make an M4 out of ice - maybe even making it with a hollow stock so you can drink your alcoholic beverage of choice while looking down the scope?
Which become unenforceable/just printed paper because now you can go to your gun dispenser (next to the ice dispenser) in the fridge and make PKP LMG or a SAW.
I don't think firing a fully automatic weapon with a barrel made out of plastic and all plastic parts is a good idea. I know there are printers that can use metal, but i can't see those getting cheaper than a black market gun any time soon.
Even combine the two items so you can make an M4 out of ice - maybe even making it with a hollow stock so you can drink your alcoholic beverage of choice while looking down the scope?
Suddenly the department of alchohol tobacco and fire arms being combined makes a lot more sense...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Plastic is today.
But we are in the early days of a revolution in genomics which is which looks likely to do some very funky things indeed with synthetic biology. Add to that the current nanotech advances.
Metal-like polymers are a near inevitability.
I'm still trying to figure out how gay marriage is a technological advancement.
*Sits the goblin on his knee*
You see when a woman loves another woman, but one of them wants to be loved in a way that isn't physically possible....
I'm still trying to figure out how gay marriage is a technological advancement.*Sits the goblin on his knee*
You see when a woman loves another woman, but one of them wants to be loved in a way that isn't physically possible....
You invited a polymorphously perverse goblin into your lap?!?
[Rest of the post censored]
I don't know about that, but women's liberation is largely the result of cheap, effective contraception.
Along with the whole Sexual Revolution, basically not happening without the Pill. The openness associated with that probably paved the way for the gay rights movement which leads us to gay marriage.
[Waggles eyebrows at Madame Sissyl]
|
I don't think firing a fully automatic weapon with a barrel made out of plastic and all plastic parts is a good idea.
The barrels on fully automatic firearms wear out faster than the barrels on slower firing guns...
So, one made of plastic/polymer would just have to be replaced sooner than one made of metal...
Other than that, if a barrel can withstand the pressures of semi-auto fire, than it should have no problems with full auto fire...
Guns don't kill people, but xeroxes of guns might.
|
|
I suspect that 3D printers will eventually make it possible for most people to create their own guns. At that point laws against owning guns or not registering them effectively become pointless... someone can always just create a gun when they want one and then destroy it afterwards. Thus, the only remaining form of 'gun control' will be controlling when/if a person can carry a gun around with them... which, frankly, ought to be the focus of gun control laws anyway.
The vast majority of violent crimes are committed with a handgun which was concealed on the perpetrator while they were travelling to the crime scene. Carrying a concealed firearm is usually illegal... but the penalties for this crime are so minor that criminals do it all the time anyway. Make the penalty for carrying a concealed firearm 20 years in prison and criminals would NOT carry guns around with them all the time... it'd be like asking the police to send them to prison. That would eliminate spontaneous 'crimes of opportunity'... which are by far the most common.
If you don't allow me to print my guns you're effectively banning those guns from me and violating my 2nd Amendment rights.
Creation and ownership are not and have never been legally equivalent.
For instance, it is legal to own $100 bills.
It is not legal for you to print new $100 bills.
The Constitution (arguably) guarantees the right to "keep and bear" firearms. No mention is made of their creation, and to my knowledge not court decision has held that the 2nd amendment implies the right to create firearms. Creating firearms for personal use is legal, but that is a function of federal law, not the Constitution, and modifying that law to address 3D printing would be much, much easier than amending the Constitution or rolling the dice with a Supreme Court decision.
To me this doesn't mean anything. Anything can be a lethal weapon, anything! Even an empty hand. A flimsy plastic gun don't change a single thing imo.
If you don't allow me to print my guns you're effectively banning those guns from me and violating my 2nd Amendment rights.Creation and ownership are not and have never been legally equivalent.
For instance, it is legal to own $100 bills.
It is not legal for you to print new $100 bills.
The Constitution (arguably) guarantees the right to "keep and bear" firearms. No mention is made of their creation, and to my knowledge not court decision has held that the 2nd amendment implies the right to create firearms. Creating firearms for personal use is legal, but that is a function of federal law, not the Constitution, and modifying that law to address 3D printing would be much, much easier than amending the Constitution or rolling the dice with a Supreme Court decision.
It's okay, TOZ--I thought it was funny.
To me this doesn't mean anything. Anything can be a lethal weapon, anything! Even an empty hand. A flimsy plastic gun don't change a single thing imo.
I'm not on the side of arguing that this is a crisis, but just because an empty hand can be lethal does not mean that it is as lethal or as easily lethal as something else.
It's okay, TOZ--I thought it was funny.If you don't allow me to print my guns you're effectively banning those guns from me and violating my 2nd Amendment rights.Creation and ownership are not and have never been legally equivalent.
For instance, it is legal to own $100 bills.
It is not legal for you to print new $100 bills.
The Constitution (arguably) guarantees the right to "keep and bear" firearms. No mention is made of their creation, and to my knowledge not court decision has held that the 2nd amendment implies the right to create firearms. Creating firearms for personal use is legal, but that is a function of federal law, not the Constitution, and modifying that law to address 3D printing would be much, much easier than amending the Constitution or rolling the dice with a Supreme Court decision.
I just took a load of Poe's Law to the face, didn't I?
"load to the face"
Hee hee!
|
|
Well, even if he is being sarcastic/trying to sound like a gun nut or whatever - banning a means production to or access to buy is proxy banning. It would be in-line with have legal abortion in a state, but banning the facilities or Drs who are certified and able to conduct those abortions.
There is no assigned federal status on who can or cannot manufacture weapons and the current law does lean towards the protection of personal manufacture and use.
Banning the methods of creation - which would really mean banning 3d printers for the sake of this discussion - could be argued as an attack on a person's 2nd amendment right to bear arms and blocking an avenue to procure a firearm.