11/13: Destroying Pakistani firearms
 

http://cellar.org/pictures/pakifirearms.jpg

Pakistani authorities in Lahore use a bulldozer on Oct. 27 to destroy illegal firearms, some of which were handed in during a recent amnesty and others that were recovered during police searches. Security has been beefed up throughout the country, following violent demonstrations by Taliban supporters who condemn Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his backing of U.S. military action in Afghanistan.

Musharraf was on Meet The Press last weekend, looking very impressive. For those who want to abide by the idea that we should not go after bin Laden without proof he's responsible for 9/11, Musharraf said that he's seen the proof, and he's the guy who would have been shown it - in order to get his OK to use his country's land as a launching pad.

Although this guy is a military dictator, he seems like he knows what he's doing, has his act together, etc. Although you never know.

What a striking image. I'd like to see the "after" shot of flat guns though.

He is bold. I guess a prerequisite to the gig of Military Dictatorship. He suggests a ceasefire for Ramadan (sp?), making a compelling arguement for demonstrating respect for Islam. He is articulate and has been a key US bedfellow, but undoubtedly an opportunist. Time will tell.

If you can find images of clean shaven Kabulites digging up their TVs and VCRs I'd like to see that! Or better yet, an unescorted, uncovered woman grooving to some music, dancing in the street. Ah freedom.

MAN!

I was gonna post this one too. Pretty cool how often you and I think images are worthy of IotD. Hehe. But I guess that's why I stuck around here - 'cause of all the cool IotD's.

On a side note, Musharraf has definitely got his shit together. Of course he's looking for help from the US, but he definitely has reason to. And we have reason to look for his help. It's definitely a relationship of convenience right now, but it might turn into much more. Never know.

Here you go. I don't know if they're grooving to some music, but there's definitely an uncovered woman or two here...

http://www.digipulse.org/images/iotd/happy-afghans.jpg

Thanks, nice to see smiles. Even in the face of such a long haul full of retaliatory acts, guerilla war and anarchy. I read one news account of a man digging up his VCR and TV and popping in a dusty cassette of Titanic- HUH? I mean... Titanic? Hey, its your choice right! maybe its the water imagery...

On second look, is that a woman? are there women in the crowd? It may be a boy in the front left.

I saw news video of people playing music in the streets and men getting their beards shaved. The people were in a state of TOTAL JOY.

But it would not surprise me if the womenfolk still felk a little uncertain about the new glasnost, and didn't come out right away.

Here's a nice picture drawn by an 8-year old Afghan child.

http://rawa.false.net/kid-4.jpg

:(

From the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan's web page. (be warned: it's pretty disturbing stuff)

It's no wonder they're happy now.

RAWA has my utmost respect and admiration for their heroic defense of human rights. This image drawn by a lucky little girl with brave parents risking all to get her schooling - to say nothing of emotional help. Amazing.

The Northern Alliance...
 

...may be better than the Taliban (ain't saying much), but they are still Muslims and they still believe in Islamic law. I wouldn't be surprised to see women STILL required to cover up (though perhaps not with that thing that even covers their eyes) once they've solidified their hold on power.

true dat, russotto. i been thinking about that. and i think what would probably be best would be a mini-US. like they gots over there in japan. :) freedoms, of course - not destroying culture. but i don't know that it can be done without destroying some culture. i dunno. it's tough to say. the thing is, do we even have the right to help them out? where does one draw the line? i dunno. surely we don't want to get into "nation building", but where does "helping them out" stop and "nation building" begin?

I'll vote for basic human rights over traditional cultural practice any day.

The tricky part comes in when there is a dispute over what is a basic human right. Somewhere in my big ole cookie file there is a quote from a mayor, who says that cable is a basic human right in his town, because there is bad reception in certain areas.

Cable TV, Okay. But I should hope it's only basic cable he's talking about - no HBO. You gotta draw the line somewhere.

That's one thing that's always bene the palce i've drawn the line, where religion (or culture) comes before or impinges on basic human rights, dignity or quality of life. example: Catholic church forcing the stopping of the morning after pill being given out in french PUBLIC high schools because of what they beleive. France has one of the highest teenage birth rates. ....On a related issue a reasonably group of us at school (public) are fighting the singing of a hymn at speach night at the moment...


AH - good old arguement this one - is there such a thing as absolute rights. Yes - inside any structure (such as human society) there is, or should be so i believe. Universal decleration of human rights is usually considered a good starting point. THat mayor sounds like a very stupid person - reminds me of the DC(?) one i heard quoted "the brave men who died in vietnam, more than 100% of which were black..."

The sad part is I'd bet on a bigger protests for excessive cable fees than we'd ever see for these unaccountable courts they are setting up.

What constitutes a basic human right?

To me, and I expect most of you, the right to wear what you want seems like an easy answer. However it's easy to go to far with that. I work with a guy that finds most of Brittney Spears outfits offensive. I certainly don't, but I might find it disturbing if someones great-grandma or a guy was wearing the exact same thing.

My point is that everyone has a different interpretation. More, I don't think anyone is right. This is all opinion. What is a basic human right is no more determinable than what the best color is.

This being said coming from a democratic republic (the US) I tend towards the majority rules idea. Point is, none of us has a right to say what they should become. It's up to them. Yes, I realize they are woefully ill equiped to do much of anything too. We can offer advice and aid but that's really as far as I think our rights go.

You can read the UN's Declaration of Human rights at www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Although many dismiss the views the UN as just, again, the US- they have been wrestling with the question for over 50 years,crafting articles seeking a universal definition.

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

As Griff points out, the newly sanctioned US military courts need to be addressed here too- it all goes fuzzy and out of focus in the name of war.:(

Read it, and as a [bonehead] small-l libertarian I would have to say that the US itself doesn't adhere to all that stuff. And we have no excuse; we came up with a lot of those ideas. A declaration based on natural rights that starts by declaring all equal before the law... seems mighty familiar.

The problem with declarations upon high is that societies will pretty much do what they want to do anyway. The pressure for people to behave according to their society, as opposed to their laws, is tremendous. This would be doubly true in cases where the law comes from some distant authority. At its best, the law is a set of guidelines and a gentle nudging. The best enforcement is the neighbor, the family member, the civic association and the church. If none of those believe in the declaration on high, the society will not change.

Very true. Declarations articulate values that sometimes can lead to laws which sometimes can lead to action and maybe eventually societal change. Eventually. Unfortunately this works equally for good and evil.

It is still being played out in the long messy wake of legalized slavery in the US.

Wel that is the problem: Who si going to enforce these measures. THe UN? Is powerless in msot places, and ot my knowlegde has never waded in anywhere*purely* to stop an international law being broeken becuase in the end, they are not binding.
Until you have some kind of *real* world goverment international sutff liek this is pretty pointless, Australia is as bad.

Democratic Republic is an oxymoron - What the US is a Constutional Republic, but we know what you meant

Charlie

past tense Charlie

More and more every day.

Democracy: 3 wolves and 2 sheep voting on what to have for dinner
Republic: 3 wolves and 2 sheep voting on WHO to have for dinner
Constitutional Republic: The wolves finding out the sheep are armed

Well, we have a few old documents down in Washington that make a stab at it, which I vastly prefer to the relativism above.

And here's a point of view that brings this thread full-circle too: http://www.a-human-right.com/


http://www.a-human-right.com/RKBA/s_protects.jpg

.......................................................................................................................................................................................O, so if everyone carrys a gun we're safe?
Either that or you're gonna spend allota time doging ricochetes every time someone gets tapped on the should while in a bad mood.

Easy there, jag. I'm a big fan of gun laws, but even I wouldn't take it that far. Although, that pic is pure fear factor material. ;)

Democratic Republican IS an oxymoron. There are alot of moderates that are ox-morons too.. not that that's a bad thing.


(hehe)

I'm ell aware of the emotional manipulation element of the pic - its the message =)

I spent a month in cambodia, *everyone* has a gun, mostly assult rifle type things, net result: Allot of people, animals etc got shot. I psoe its a bit liek MAd theory - if everyone is equally armed noone is going to shoot for fear of being shot. Guns aren't nukes tho. Ordinary carrying Beretta 92Fs in underarm holsters ain't gonna do much good, even in somehting like a bank robbery the msot liekly net result is that they are mosre likely to get shot unless they've done cop training or the like.

And how anyone can defend o jsutify ordinary people being able to purchase chainguns, heavy assult rifles etc is well beyond me..
*odd image of farmer in chopper taking out predatory with 30mm chaingun*

The message isn't "everybody carries and we're safe". It's "some of us carry and we're safer". Along with "If nobody but the cops can carry legally, only the bad guys will, and they'll know their victims are all disarmed". The cops can't be everywhere.

I'm licenced, I carry, and I train better than most cops. Licenced gun owners are a very law-abiding bunch...more so than the general population, in fact. They don't walk down the street potshotting at things--that's a really fine way to lose your licence.

I don't think your Cambodian experience is really relevant, even if "a lot of people animals etc got shot". Theres's a lot of other wierd shit going on in Cambodia.

Speaking of rights: PA constitution Article 1 Section 21: "The right of Citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

I just read the UN rights list. Now I'm no lawyer but off-hand I'd descibe that text as loop-hole filled. Alot of indefinates. Oh well, I guess I should claim that backs up my point... Oddly, I'm starting to wonder if maybe I honestly believe in the "live and let die" approach. Sounds harsh but maybe deep down inside I'm a hard core Darwinist.

Blast, I just got an email saying there's another post on this thread. Better read it before getting into the gun part...

ya know, I guess this is off-topic, but I can't turn that e-mail feature off! I try turning it off in my preferences and hitting 'save prefs', but the resulting page never loads. Any ideas, undertoad?

Okie-doke. First off I forgot to thank Warch for the UN link. It was very thought-provoking.

On the gun issue, first off my stance: I'm a martial artist this more or less demands the belief one should stand up for one's self. If you need a firearm to do this then get a license Once you've done that, more power to you. I believe that our constitutional right to own a gun should be upheld. Even so, I don't own one. Nor do I expect to anytime soon. Why? Let me give three quick stories for consideration.

I'm actually training a guy with a concealed handgun license. He figures that he has to have enough time to draw the gun, and most attackers don't intend to make themselves known untill the attack itself begins. This means the would-be victim has to make the time, so he trains to fight as well.

I lived in Dallas for a while, while there a co-worker that was an ex-con told me that a trend had begun in the bad area's of town. It seems that when a car-thief saw a vehicle he knew he could sell for parts (ever heard of a chop-shop) the thief would step up to the car and shoot the driver, without speaking or calling any attention before the shot was fired. This was done just in case the driver had a gun.

I heard this story about a rape recently from someone who knew the victim personaly. She was a Tae-Kwan-Do black belt (fourth or fifth dan, I don't remember which) and was well versed in self defense techniques. She was unlocking her car door in an parking garage and didn't see the guy. Her head was driven directly into the door frame of her car before she was aware of him. This left her barely awake with a major concussion. She was then pushed directly through her own cars driver side window. This all happened in maybe a couple of seconds. The initial attack effectively immobilized her and no one in that condition could have done anything (she couldn't raise her arm, much less draw a weapon) at that point. Then the real attack began... I know an instructor that works with victim's of violent crimes often and he says stories like this one are far too common.

My point? Don't think a gun will make you safe. It just means the other guy will come at you that much harder.

Out of curiosity, how long ago was that written? If that were, for whatever reason, to be challenged, I wonder if the interpretation would be word-for-word, or the "spirit of the law."

I would read that as follows: You have the right to protect yourself, but restrictions can be applied to that right.

Juju, I've made the change for you, let's see if it "takes" this time. The option in question is "Use email notification by default".

Wierd shit? Not really, most areas in ities are as bad as bad areas of american cities, same diff.

Whit did a betterpoint of illistrating the point - it jsut raises the stakes. Carrying/owning of and semi/auto weapons here is illegal, so noone can legally carry round a firearm, heck even carrying knifes is illegal. I know as a fact that there are *very*few illegal weapons in melbourne and thsoe thatare held are held bepeople who are not stupid enough to use them willy-nilly, in other words they are pros, the kindof people who you'dahve to piss off before you'd find lead in your neck. Net result - low number of shootings.

I'm sure when that was written they wern't capable of carrying a weapon with a clip of 15 at a +5ps rate of fire. Heck you could carrying something like an MP5K PD under you're jacket without it being visible.

Not safe. But measurably safer. The "other guy" may come at you harder, or choose another victim, or simply run away. Concealed carry keeps the uncertainty in your favor.

As your stories point out, there are some attacks aganst which there is no defense. And martial arts training is a good--but not perfect--protection too, be it tai kwon do or aikido (in which I have some training) or whatever else floats your boat. All good martial arts training teaches an awareness of your environment, and carrying a firearm is not an excuse to not pay attention to whats going on around you. Quite the opposite.

But that a defense is not 100% effective is not an argument against using it--otherwise you might as well leave your keys in your car, since any car can be broken into and hotwired.

As for poor Jag, who I didn't realize was in Austrailia, my sympathies. Not only do your lawmakers have no respect for freedom of speech down there (judging by the internet laws they keep passing) but my understanding is that in the first year after your gun bans went into effect there was a 44% increase in armed robberies and the steady decrease in armed-robbery-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years turned around and became an increase.

Not exactly a success story.

Being prepared to defend yourself doesn't "raise the stakes"--the stakes are exactly the same: your life. It may, however, raise the risk for your attacker, and that's the idea.

Ironic for an american to talk to me about his or her nations respect of freedom.

Firstly: the NRL made a campaiign beased on these laws that aparantly australian homeownder were now cowering infear becuase they couldn't wield thier NVGM16s and more - that pissed off alottapeopel down here because it was BULLSHIT.

The laws affected only RIFLES - semi auto and auto rifles at that, how this would have an effect on the number of crooks with firearms is well beyond me. It has been illegal to carry a conceled firearm or own semi-auto pistols or heavy rifles for a long time so that is irrelavent in relation to armed robberies. I'm curious where thsoe stats came from, state or federal?

As a general rule, crooks dislike using deadly force, after all that carrys murder one/death - its a high risk, you're not ogin to use willnilly. Where i lived in briton i regualry saw people carrying pistols, it was gang territory but use them? Only in dire emergencies, the cost was too high. Same applies here, if someon hets shot here with a glock or something similar is goes federal immidietly, its a really serious thing and a big effort will be made to track it down. As a result shootings are very, very rare, every one will make the bloody news.

If 50% of the population are carrying a 9mm pistol, crooks are more likely to be carrying, and using.

I'd like to say that I do agree with the idea that guns add a measure to one's self defense capability. I simply don't think most of the people that carry guns fully recognize the limitations. They definately are an effective threat.

I've done some minor training (mostly target shooting and such) as part of my martial art training and have been amazed at the accuracy of a quality handgun. A friend of mine and I went out with a few of his, particulary this nice little Glock made model, no I don't remember the specifics. Having only fired a handgun once before I could hit a 1 gallon paint can at just under fifty yards the majority of the time. That's some spooky offensive capability.

I would like to point out that in the second story the ante was only uped because the criminals expected people to have guns. For that matter I expect that since most rape's are commited by someone that knows the victim that the attacker probably approached that way because he knew of her training. Same thing different situation. This does not mean that I'm against the use of guns by well trained indivduals or that martial arts don't work. It simply means that the danger a person faces may be greater because of the defenses. If I was to anger someone that knows me they are far more likely to use a gun on me than a person with no training. Just as a shoot first policy is far more likely in gun rich enviroment.

Oh yeah, hey Jag if it makes you feel any better I know a alot of Americans that are pissed about all the 'Anti-terroist laws'. Hopefully enough of us will make it clear that this neo-Macarthyism crap won't fly to make a difference.

To all US citicens, please write your reps, make it clear they've lost your vote if this keeps up. Even if it's an idle threat tell them they better change or they're out. Please! It needs to be done.

So it starts at home. Stand down. I dont own a gun.

I have been attacked. And afterwards I thought about it and decided. If in that situation again, I will think, react, resist, do my best, survive if I'm meant to. I'm no Rambo, no Annie Oaklie. I know that I'm not suited to that particular power. I continue to look for my strength and comfort elsewhere. Thats just me. Perhaps hard for some to understand, but I sleep better at night.

(Watch, I'll survive gun-play at McDonalds just to be hit by a bus, c'est la guerre.) ;)

I find this law to be null and void as PA is a commonwealth, not a State.

Technicalitingly.

~Mike

That's an unsupported assertion. Criminals will always carry, and for a convicted criminal to carry isn't legal--even here-- for whatever good the law does. Point being that they don't care if it's legal or not.

If a bad guy is determined to kill me for my purse or after a rape, it won't matter much to me whether he does it with a baseball bat, a knife, or a Glock. But if *I'm* carrying, I have superior force available in the first two cases, and equal force in the third. Naturally, I'm at a disadvantage in that he has the attacker's initiative until I understand his violent intent. But the odds in my favor are much, much better. And if he should suspect that I may be armed, he's less likely to attack. In a society that has disarmed me, he *knows* I'm disarmed unless he's had the misfortune to decide to bust on another crook. That's how the 9/11 hijackers knew they could take control of four jumbo jets with no more than *boxcutters*, and their victims are just as dead as they would have been if the weapons had been Uzis.

The argument that I should disarm in the hopes that the crooks will is silly, because they won't. Prohibition of guns works no better than prohibition of drugs, or of alcohol.

Say, Chewbaccus--if PA isn't a state, does that mean I don't have to pay income tax to the Feds? :-) People in Massachusetts, Virginia and Kentucky will be delighted too..

It stands to reason. But in government, what's that worth?

~Mike

MAggie, my arguement was about availability.......ITs not easy to get a hot handgun here, in fact its very, very hard and would cost you alot of money ($20k for a beretta rounghly) meaning less are around than if they were availiable in every gun store on a 30day purchasing time.

Well, Beretta's *are* overpriced. But not *that* much!
.
Sorry, but I simply don't beleive that price. Where did you get it? Surely *you* haven't shopped for an illicit handgun, have you? And if you have, you definatly should shop somewhere else.

If someone can really get $20,000 for a single 9mm handgun, you must have a *serious* gun smuggling problem. down there.

People with violent intent will be violent. Gun prohibition will not make them less violent. If the price you cite *is* accurate, then I'm guessing you have a lucrative black market in guns every bit as evil and violent as the drug black market.

We don't have a 30-day wait here, I can walk into a gun store and walk out with a brand new or used whatever I want...from a Beretta 9mm to a semiauto M-16, SKS or AK-47, if I'm so inclined. That's becuase I have a fireamrs licence and when they call to check my background they will see that I haven't been convicted of any criminality since the licence was issued.

And I haven't shot up the neighborhood even once yet.

Yes but you or someone like you COULD, and has extremely access to the firearms to do it.

That figure...is entirely accurate, i'm not going into where it comes from at all but it is an actual quote, as i've stated before, firearms offenses are taken very seriosuly here when high power/illegal arms are involved, its insurance money as much as anyhting else because if you go down wiht an illegal weapon and it gets traced back bad things happen - to you and them.

There is a market here, its handeled by a number of differnet...intersts mostly drug-affiliated because they already have the mechanisms to get things into the country, often by silent dumps along the top coast, so much terriroty that to watch every 50-person high speed speedboat who drops off a couple of crates and goes back is completley impossible. *I* have not, i know who have - its not bullshit.

For record that was a beretta Cougar L and 200ish rounds.

uh...
 

hey, i got a water pistol... 1/4 as functional as a beretta, 1/20th the price!

just $1,000!

add a Super Bass-O-Matic '76 for only $500 more! mmm, now that's some good bass!

Damm,
For that price I should go into business! :rolleyes:

Let's see, a nice HAAS Minimill ($39k), a nice CNC lathe (say 20k), a surface grinder (3-4k), a heat treat oven, and a few other things - call it $100k. I open a small machine shop doing general work (as the cover), and every so often run off a pistol on the side. I'd make a better living than most machinists. For that matter, stat an import/export business that moves cargo containers of ANYTHING. All you need to do is break even on the business, and put ONE gun in every 10th container::D


Think about it - drug dealers (at least in this country) regularly smuggle in drugs by the TON (just look at the busts) - how hard do you really think it would be to slip a pistol (never mind anything else) into the load. Hell, we're worried about the fact we can't stop people from smuggling in a nuke :eek:

yes, but this is australia. understand that they're more likely to catch someone importing a gun because they're so much better than us at everything they do :)

I'm sure you (or someone *like* you) COULD do all sorts of incredibly evil things too. Do you have access to a baseball bat?

The fact is that licenced firearms owners in the US are a very law-abiding group, more so than the general population.
Sorry. I find your unattributed "actual quote" totally unconvincing. Perhaps you heard about someone making an offer at that price. Maybe you even know somebody stupid enough to pay that much for one small caliber autoloader and enough ammo for a day at the range--just enough to *start* breaking it in.

But if you're telling me that's the going black-market price for such a thing, you've strained my credulity to the breaking point, and managed to convince me you're totally blowing smoke. As CharlieG points out, the guns need not even be imported. A well-known CNC-manufactured 9mm autoloader is sold profitably here in the US for $US 225.

Well, I have comments for both sides of the argument here. :) First, 20,000 dollars is a ridiculous price for a pistol. You'd pay half that for an Arctic Warfare Super Magnum Sniper Rifle for instance, and those things have an effective range of over a mile. It'd have to be one impressive pistol to match that. ;)

On the other hand, the argument that gun owners are a responsible bunch is too broad a statement for me to accept until I see figures for the number of lives saved by a gun in America stacked up against those lawlessly taken by a gun.

On the other hand:

"I'm sure you (or someone *like* you) COULD do all sorts of incredibly evil things too. Do you have access to a baseball bat?"

So why don't gun owners keep baseball bats instead? And no, I don't consider that (my afore mentioned point, not yours) as stupid as it initially seems.

I'm sure you (or someone *like* you) COULD do all sorts of incredibly evil things too. Do you have access to a baseball bat?

The fact is that licenced firearms owners in the US are a very law-abiding group, more so than the general population.

I'm sure you realise you can do allot more damage very quickly with an AK47 in a shopping mall than a baseball bat.

As for going rates i'm screwed for this because i'm not exactly about to start giving out names and phne numbers so you can check am i, although 20k is the highest i've heard. 4ish the lowest. It depends allot on what it is and where it comes from.

I'm not going ot rise to your stupid bait but there are 3 ways of getting somehting into this country, and they apply to most.
a: dump it somewhere along the coast, someone else picks it up. There is buggar all along our top coast its not hard.
b: Bribe someone to let it in, harder by far but not impossible.
c: sneak it in, with a gun this is very hard, and risky.

CharlieG would need to be a damn fine machineist to make a high quality relaible semi-automatic pistol and ammunition that was capable of being mistaken for the real thing.


*sigh* its nto baout actually killing anyone iwth it, and if you did it owuld be at clsoe range, its about bullshit and posing, you packin a gun - you serious.

As for in relaiton to drugs i still haven't seemed to hammer home th epoint that if you are caught, or even the wiff of such a thing being aorund its taken VERY seriously, i'm talking full on, police go rabit over stuff like that. Drugs are common, auto pistols are not.

Really? So you never get container-loads of metal parts?

If the Afghanis can do it with hand tools (and they can), a competent machinist can do it with modern technology. Remember, he doesn't have to design the thing, just build it.

YOur average customs XRAY eqipment is quite capable of seeing the gun hape, or at least ammunition.

Ill just wander down the sheet and but a beretta engineering guide shall i?
Its stil far from easy

this all seems to have clouded the issue that more guns equal more shots fired equals more poeple dieing though.

Because bad guys won't limit themselves to basball bats. Also,. I'd rather go up agianst a bad guy with a gun while packing myself than do the same situation with a baseball bat per each. I don't have to get as close, and it's not a battle of strength.

I'm done with this thread...jag clearly knows little about what he's saying, and hasn't really thought very much about it beyond what he's been told in school, other than to hope the evil guns go away.

People who live in places where the law-abiding people have been disarmed--be it AU or New Joisey--invent some amazing rationalizations about why it's better that way, and sour grapes can go a long way to resolve congitive dissonance. But simplistic reasoning like "if there are few guns then fewer crimes will be comitted with them" ignore all kinds of messy complicated details that go along with living in a real world filled with real people. More shots fired does *not* equal more people dieing, because that "reasoning" glosses over *who* is shooting and why. I've shot 200 rounds in the last ten days, and nobody died as a result.

oh get over it. The simple statement i made which you seem to be determined to muddy to obscurity is that a heavily armed society will result is more deaths than a relatively lightly armed one. Its like saying that no more people will die in a nuclear war than a conventional one - heavier weaponary generally does result in more deaths....That is the purpose of it after all.

Since you want to talk down to me....
Actaully - i don't see why thats relavent, apart fomr target shots etc the more shots fired at people statisticly is going to result in more deaths... Irrispective of whether those peopel are "goodies" or "baddies" more people will die. That tends to be the result of esclations in weaponary, we're much better at killing people than we were 500 years ago because OHMYGOD we have better weaponary.

While it is very hard to remove high powered weaponary from a society as soaked with it as the US to argue that if everyone is equally heavily armed noone will get hurt really is a bit silly...

Not sink to being patronising or anything.

Just because you *state* something you think is obvious dosen't make it *true*, and challenging you to back it up with reason isn't "muddying" it, except to the extent that it forces you to focus on how muddy it was to begin with.

I'm sorry, I just looked at your profile for the first time. I was about to pose an analogy from the Cold War to invite you to focus on the difference between "being armed" and "being violent", a distinction that sadly escapes many adults these days. But I had no idea how young you are; I've been trying to engage you as if you had much more life experience than you do, and it's just been falling over.

I'm also sorry if you feel talked-down-to, but the level of this conversation was beginning to feel as if it belonged in high school. Now I know why. It may be, as Clinton said, that it's good for young people to be angry. However, it's also good if they're a little selective in what they're angry *about*.

Let me offer you another quote: "Things should be made as simple as possible. But no simpler." --Albert Einstein.

Nah, not damn good - Remember, here in the US, a LOT of machinists made one for fun, sort of a right of passage. There are a LOT of gunsmiths who will make you one (It is legal).

With modern CNC machines, the problem is figuring out how to make the FIRST one, then writing the code.

That said, If I was going to make an illegal firearm, it'd be a Sten gun. THEY are trivial to make - like they were made in the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising

You have to remember that the British lost more than men at Dunkirk - they lost almost every rifle in the country. Shepherd and Turpin designed a submachine gun that could be made VERY quickly, in almost any machine shop - one of the design goals was a cost of less than 5 pounds - they succeeded - it cost 2.5 pounds. Ammo is the hardest part - in particular, the primers

This is really simple to solve.

Jag - back it up.

Simple as that.

Get some facts and back up your assertions. Or try and reason them out better.

Remember: criminals will *always* have guns. Period. Do you want your police chasing after them with butterknives?

Because your "equal"s aren't. I once shot a whole case of ammo through a 9mm submachine gun, and no one was even injured. So more shots fired does not equal more people injured.

Actually, it's even easier than that. A good CAD program will do most of the work for you. A friend of mine custom makes paintball guns. The design is obviously different but discussions of how easy it would be to make a real one is pretty common at his shop.

Actually, having a CAD/CAM system and CNC doesn't do ALL the work for you - you still have to figure out the order of operations yourself, as well as how to fixture the job. I'm NOT a professional machinist, BUT I do have some professional training as a machinist, and have a small machine shop in my basement (aka, I have too much respect for REAL machinists to call myself one)

It's amazing what you can do today