3-D Printed Gun Ban Fails In Senate 414
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Daily Dot:"On Monday evening, a bill aimed at thwarting the production and distribution of plastic 3-D printed weapons was blocked by Senate Republicans. ... The debate over the new legislation centered around the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act, which bans the production and distribution of weapons that skirt 'walk through metal detectors.' The act has been renewed on two occasions since its passage. It was due to expire again on the 9th of December. The House voted to renew the bill last week. The rise of 3-D printing has made this year's renewal more complicated in the Senate. Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, feel the current Undetectable Firearms Act inadequately addresses the rising threat posed by printed plastic weapons."
No new law needed. There is no problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why create a whole new law when the existing one is perfectly adequate?
All of us commit three felonies a day [wsj.com] because those asshats in our legislatures just keep piling the laws on to solve non-existent problems.
This is yet another distraction by the ruling class to keep our minds off of our continually declining standard of living.
Already Banned (Score:5, Insightful)
Sandy Hook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does the article bring up Sandy Hook? It has nothing to do with this issue.
Re:Sandy Hook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to provoke emotional response....of course.
Re:Already Banned (Score:4, Insightful)
The modification would have made the metal component essential to the function of the gun, the idea being that if you remove it to make the gun undetectable, you also end up with a gun that can't fire. This is aimed largely at people who might manufacture and sell such guns and could perhaps be used as a legal tool against those that might design and publish plans for 3D-printable guns. One can debate the enforceability of such a requirement, but it has a purpose. It won't deter individuals, but that's nothing new.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Some of us don't want to live in a Mad Max style dystopia where every criminal, racist, and nut case can get their hands on whatever gun they want.
Re:New Bill =/= Passing House Approved Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
It's journalism of today - throw as many unsupported sensationalist statements out there as possible, try to induce fear, anger or any other emotions, any at all, because this is what sells the papers or gets views for the ads.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to admit you already live in this world, it's fine by me. But please stop trying to pull the blanket over everyone's else eyes.
Re:Not sure why this ban would even be necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Been done. DAG (German military ammo maker) made/makes plastic training rounds in 762x51 NATO (aka 308 Winchester), they can be lethal under 100 yards.
Or, go muzzle loader (not a gun per federal law then) and use a piezoelectric spark to ignite your powder, use a glass marble or other non-metallic item (ceramic?) as your bullet. Plenty effective at short ranges.
Already There (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us don't want to live in a Mad Max style dystopia where every criminal, racist, and nut case can get their hands on whatever gun they want.
You already live in that world. The only question left is if every sane and law abiding citizen should also be able to get a gun to protect themselves.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
No you want it so that only criminals can have guns.
Because for some reason you just can not comprehend the absolute fact that criminals and Evil-doers do not obey laws.
Want proof that gun bans do not work? My proof is simple.. Chicago and NYC. The criminals have all the guns they want, some of them are 100% illegal already, like AK-47 fully automatic. Your precious gun bans 'dont stop those from being in the hands of criminals... So why do you think more of them will help?
Re: Already Banned (Score:5, Insightful)
That criminals would be undeterred by a law is a given for all laws and regulations. The key is the law-abiding who won't willfully participate in such activities. That and having a mechanism to punish the ones you do catch.
You will never stop everybody with a law, that is well known. That isn't a requirement for us to have laws though.
Of course not. You have to look at what you're trying to prevent however. Murder is against the law, and rightfully so, but that's because the actual act being outlawed is exactly what you want to prevent. Once a murder has occurred grave harm (literally) has already occurred to another party. Same with theft. Same with rape. Same with assault.
See, all those things are directly harmful to another individual. Making laws against them certainly won't ever stop such crimes from being committed at all, but it will reduce the frequency.
The issue with plastic guns (or gun laws in general) is that the very act of having a gun isn't harmful. You can do harmful things with it, but just having one doesn't cause any harm in and of itself. The people that would use those guns to harm another person are already willing to break laws to do so - laws with much stiffer legal consequences.
Think of the number of guns in the US. There are more guns in this country than there are people. The VAST majority of them are never used in a harmful way, and the vast majority of gun owners are law abiding citizens. Passing gun laws affects most of them (because most of them actually follow the laws), but it does nothing for the tiny fraction of them that do not adhere to the law anyways, and those were the ones you really needed to worry about.
Its not that laws in general are useless - merely that laws that exist solely as an attempt to keep someone from breaking another law are useless.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Or move to a sensible country like Iceland, who doesn't have this problem despite having a citizenry that's heavily armed.
The US has a gun problem because the US has a crappy culture where violence and ignorance are celebrated and criminals are given encouragement via press and then given no rehabilitation after they commit crimes.
This has been pointed out many, many times.
Re:Already There (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe you do.
If you live in so much fear you feel the need to protect yourself with a gun you may want to consider moving to a more civilized part of the world.
To many people guns are things you see on television, or occasionally carried by specially trained armed response police.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is actually why it makes it a stupid law.
Its only benefit would be able to charge someone with more fines and problems when they have already performed an illegal act.
People: We have a Gun that is undetectable by normal means.
Government: We can't have that because people who want to hurt people with guns can get past detection. So lets make a law to fix that.
People: So If I wanted to hurt someone with a gun, which is already breaking a bunch of laws, I will just need to break one more.
Government: Thats right, and it will save you money because we will not need to invest into finding ways to track your gun.
Why doesn't the government add an extra $100 fine for performing an illegal activity.
Not just journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Government works the same way. How else did we get the Patriot Act, NSA funding for all that evil nonsense, more and more draconian "hacking" laws, as well as "terrorist" laws? How else do they justify dragging grammar school children out of their classrooms for pointing a fingers and saying "Bang!"
Welcome to the 21st Century, Comrade.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Your precious gun bans 'dont stop those from being in the hands of criminals... So why do you think more of them will help?
And your precious guns don't stop those criminals from shooting people... So why do you think more of them will help?
Why do police carry guns then?
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
So they can shoot innocent people they do not like and intimidate them. No other reason for police to carry firearms.
Re:Already There (Score:0, Insightful)
Your argument falls flat if you don't also prepare appropriately for lightning strikes, and killer bee attacks.
Also your preachy and condescending attitude makes your talk of "pushing their delusions on others" hilarious when someone points that out.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fundamental, if not always stated, purpose of most of these gun laws is to make it harder for law abiding people to own guns. With the goal of reducing the number of guns in circulation. By creating a climate of fear and uncertainty, about compliance with gun laws, gun control advocates are trying to isolate gun owners politically through attrition in their numbers over time.
I do agree that a society with fewer guns will in fact reduce the overall number of gun deaths. My concern is that the trade off between the short term goal of safety which would trade away an enduring Liberty just isn't worth it. And will ultimately lead to a less safe and secure society as the people that control the guns both legally through the government or illegally through criminal gangs will feel more emboldened to oppress and threaten those without effective means of self defense.
My ideal is a society where people don't threaten to take away people's second amendment rights and fewer and fewer people feel the need to exercise the right to keep and bear arms. The only thing that the recent push to further regulate guns (on top of layer upon layer of current gun control laws) has done is increase the number of guns in society. Not only is gun control a failure, it is counter-productive to its own express goals.
People that are willing and able to take on the responsibility of gun ownership should do so and our government should support them with reasonable regulations and laws and not burden them with unnecessary, redundant and conflicting laws as is the case now.
Re:New Bill =/= Passing House Approved Bill (Score:4, Insightful)
We can't stop people from drinking and driving, so let's not regulate that either.
Shooting people is already regulated.
Banning 3-D printed guns would be akin to (in your analogy) either outlawing alcohol (prohibition) or cars.
Or how about the booze angle... alcohol distribution is regulated, right? However, loads of people are legally making alcohol (especially wine and beer) at home, and the kits can be readily purchased all over the place, even in places that have made 99% of firearm ownership illegal (NYC).
Again, it's something anyone can make, just like with booze and an innumerable number of other things. Regulate the part that can be regulated if you must - sale and distribution of the physical product. ...but that's more-or-less already been done, and this is all just fear mongering (how many people have died as a result of printed weapons so far?)