3D Printable Ammo Clip Skirts New Proposed Gun Laws 1862
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Over the past weekend, Defense Distributed successfully 3D-printed and tested a magazine for an AR semi-automatic rifle, loading and firing 86 rounds from the 30-round clip. That homemade chunk of curved plastic holds special significance: Between 1994 and 2004, so-called 'high capacity magazines' capable of holding more than 10 bullets were banned from sale. And a new gun control bill proposed by California Senator Dianne Feinstein in the wake of recent shootings would ban those larger ammo clips again. President Obama has also voiced support for the magazine restrictions. Defense Distributed says it hopes to preempt any high capacity magazine ban by showing how impossible it has become to prevent the creation of a simple spring-loaded box in the age of cheap 3D printing. It's posted the 3D-printable magazine blueprints on its website, Defcad.org, and gun enthusiasts have already downloaded files related to the ammo holders more than 2,200 times." Update: 01/15 23:15 GMT by T : Mea culpa; please blame my flu for mistakenly letting through that headline with "clip" where it should say "magazine." I know the difference — and I don't own any clips.
Going the wrong way (Score:4, Interesting)
So instead of convincing them not to ban large magazines, they'll just ban guns that don't have fixed magazines.
Is that really what they wanted?
Re:I don't understand the "high cap" magazine ban (Score:3, Interesting)
Here are my views on gun control:
Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns. This level of violence must be stopped.
I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home.
This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety ... While we recognize that assault-weapon legislation will not stop all assault-weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals.
I think maybe there could be some restrictions that there had to be a certain amount of training taken.
With the right to bear arms comes a great responsibility to use caution and common sense on handgun purchases.
- Ronald Wilson Reagan
Re:Blood is on the NRA Hands (Score:4, Interesting)
And yesterday, the news reported a woman who, along with her two children, was hiding in the attic because a guy broke in with a crowbar. When he began to enter the attic, she shot him. It's very likely that if she had any weapon other than a gun, she would not have been able to stop him.
Of course, a gun being used properly isn't sensationalist for you.
Source: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/woman-hiding-kids-shoots-intruder/nTm7s/ [wsbtv.com]
Law and 3D printing will be on hell of a clash. (Score:4, Interesting)
Putting the gun debate aside for a moment...
I'm fascinated by what will happen when 3D printing manages to create its first illegal object. I don't think they've printed anything illegal yet, have they?
What will happen when they do? Authorities will have to crack down on 3D printing patterns, which will be impossible. Or perhaps the law (all laws?) will be rewritten so that possession of the object is illegal but possession of the digital design is permitted...which will make monitoring of 3D printer usage mandatory. This upcoming clash between object legality and post-scarcity technology will make the copyright wars look like a kindergarten brawl.
Re:Blood is on the NRA Hands (Score:4, Interesting)
28 gun deaths per day is a steep price for our society's inability to distinguish between anecdotes and statistics.
28 gun deaths per day is a cheap price for our society's continued freedom from government tyranny. That's what the second amendment is about. Not self defense, not hunting, not skeet shooting. Protection from tyranny. It's a recognized right for the people to possess the means to revolt should they choose.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The 2nd Amendment was written in a time when people had muskets in order to enable a well-regulated militia to defend themselves from colonial powers and attacks by native Americans, not the federal government. The militia kept their muskets locked up in an armory away from home until they were needed. We still have that, it's called the National Guard. Go sign up if you want to, but you don't get to bring your service rifle home with you.
Re:Almost no one is killed by "assault weapons" (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a firearms enthusiast, but I know how to load and fire a bolt-action rifle, and how to load and fire a revolver. I find target shooting to be entertaining, and have considered concealed carry before, but haven't found a specific need to carry. I look at it that without firearms enthusiasts in the debate, even I may lose the rights that I have enjoyed if those who go off-the-deep-end keep representing the side of firearms enthusiasts.
Re:Almost no one is killed by "assault weapons" (Score:5, Interesting)
On April 20, Harris was equipped with a 12-gauge Savage-Springfield 67H pump-action shotgun, (which he discharged a total of 25 times) and a Hi-Point 995 Carbine 9 mm carbine with thirteen 10-round magazines, which he fired a total of 96 times.
A Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy, Neil Gardner, was assigned to the high school as a full-time uniformed and armed school resource officer. Gardner usually ate lunch with students in the cafeteria, but on April 20 he was eating lunch in his patrol car at the northwest corner of the campus, watching students in the Smokers' Pit in Clement Park. the single officer was NOT IN THE SCHOOL.
At 11:22, the custodian called Deputy Gardner on the school radio, requesting assistance in the Senior parking lot. The only paved route took him around the school to the east and south on Pierce Street, where, at 11:23 he heard on his police radio that a female was down, struck by a car, he assumed. He turned on his lights and siren. While exiting his patrol car in the Senior lot at 11:24, he heard another call on the school radio, "Neil, there's a shooter in the school".[23] Harris, at the West Entrance, immediately fired his rifle at Gardner, who was sixty yards away.[23] Gardner returned fire with his service pistol.[31] He was not wearing his prescription eyeglasses, and was unable to hit the shooters.
Thus, five minutes after the shooting started, and two minutes after the first radio call, Gardner was engaged in a gun fight with the student shooters. There were already two dead and ten wounded. Harris fired ten shots and Gardner fired four, before Harris ducked back into the building. No one was hit. Gardner reported on his police radio, "Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me."
The officer did not enter the building.
They did NOT have an officer there as a guard. They had a resource officer that was there to bust unarmed kids for pot. If teachers were allowed to have concealed carry at school and allowed to carry at school after special training, it would have ended earlier with a lot fewer lost lives.
Please don't let facts get in the way of your rambling incoherent rant though..
Re:I don't understand the "high cap" magazine ban (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you know?
Wait, you don't.
Re:Clip (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Clip (Score:4, Interesting)
I just the other day got an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
He's under the impression that delay (probably due to greylisting) between mail servers is due to network latency and that this network latency is due to commercial things in the Internet. Oh, and that an email is 'an Internet'. If someone started with that and then said something that I agreed with, then it would still be very hard to respect them. But then, it would be quite hard for someone with such a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the technology to say anything reasonable about it.
Re:Blood is on the NRA Hands (Score:4, Interesting)
The militia kept their muskets locked up in an armory away from home until they were needed. We still have that, it's called the National Guard. Go sign up if you want to, but you don't get to bring your service rifle home with you.
You're wrong on several points there. Historically it was common for local militia members to be expected to furnish their own weapon.
And the current militia is:
10 USC 311 - Militia: composition and classes [cornell.edu]
Re:Clip (Score:5, Interesting)
A good rule of thumb is that in a self-defense shooting scenario, 4 of 5 rounds fired will miss. (These numbers are born out by the historical record, BTW: they're not made up. Consider when the NYPD shot Amadou Diallo. Five officers, part of a highly-trained unit with advanced firearms training, opened fire on an unarmed and harmless Diallo from a range of under five meters. Despite the tactical environment being perfect -- the officers were at point blank range, they all had the time to make a proper firing stance, etc. -- of the 41 rounds fired, 22 rounds missed. That's over a 50% miss rate under perfect conditions by well-trained personnel.)
Another good rule of thumb is that you need to place a minimum of two rounds into your target to have good -- not necessarily great, but just good -- odds of stopping the threat.
Do the math and you quickly discover that to place two rounds on target, with each round having an 80% chance of missing, results in you needing 14 rounds in the magazine. That means that with a 15-round Beretta 92, a 17-round Glock 17, a 16-round FN FNP-9, a 13-round Browning High-Power, etc., you can be relatively confident of having enough ammunition in the magazine to stop one -- one -- attacker.
There's a reason why cops carry high-capacity magazines and at least two spares, and it's the same reason why civilians who use pistols for self-defense need high-cap magazines and at least two spares.
Re:Clip (Score:2, Interesting)
A large portion of the arguments in favor of extended magazines seem to be falling into one of three categories: one is the aforementioned fantasy of killing evil gang members or whatever. I'm going to dismiss this one, it's been argued to death and I think it's ridiculous so I'm not going to go any further with that. The other two arguments seem to be that extended magazines are good because they're more effective/more useful, and that extended magazines are good because they're more likely to jam (ala the Aurora shooting) so that's what we want shooters to be using. I hoping that no one will be surprised that I don't find these two arguments compelling when taken together.
The most effective argument that I've read in response to this story is that we are not pursuing the right legislation here - yes, assault rifles (or semi-automatic rifles) are dramatic and make the news, but handguns are the biggest killers in the US by far and away. Since getting two gun laws through would be virtually impossible, legislating magazine size basically means not legislating handguns and, the argument goes, this is a mistake. I'm a math guy, and I try not to argue with numbers (they're my bosses), so this is the argument that convinced me, though I can see why some people might not be so happy with this one.
Think about it this way: you don't need something portable and concealable to defend your home or to fight a revolution or to kill dozens of drug-addled gang members. If you keep your assault rifle and get rid of handguns you can still do all of those things.
Most of that was directed at anyone who might be reading, but to address your last point specifically - restrictions on firearms and firearm accessories are not unconstitutional. It says right there in the second amendment: well regulated.