Granite Dad’s reminder that 3-D printing is going to
completely change firearm availability does render much of the rest of the
discussion more symbolic than safety-related. There is a second issue that is
also usually unaddressed. A great deal of gun ownership is by minority groups,
and this goes double for firearms that are already held illegally. (Let me
repeat, however, most gun owners of all groups are responsible, nonviolent
people who have firearms for sport and defense.) We tend to miss that because
gun-rights groups and advocates are largely white, and prominent black politicians
are among the strongest gun-control advocates, hoping that mere gun-reduction
can reduce violence. It won’t, but I can see why they hold that hope. Sitting in morning circle for Montessori School to make the world safer isn't likely to be a force-multiplier for righteousness either. Even if you are Senators.
5 comments:
Not the first time
As the InstantMan likes to say on some of his gun control posts, this is more about making Those. People. Obey. than achieving some sort of overall reduction in violence. This is our substitute for real inter-tribal violence. At least until it isn't anymore.
3d printing aside, any well-equipped machine shop should be able to make guns...possibly not as long-lasting as those made in a larger factory, but good enough for several hundred or thousand rounds. Guns and gun parts are also eminently smugglable, just stash them in the bales of heroin that are already being smuggled in. Or for that matter just ship them in as normal shipments with a false manifest.
'Progressives' mostly have no concept of how physical things are made, and they also have a hard time understanding how changing environments lead to changing behavior and the rise of new organizations and institutions. Guns today get made in large factories and sold mostly through various open distribution channels, they can't imaging it could happen any other way.
"Meat comes from the supermarket." (I'm reminded of some people who were outraged at Sarah Palin for hunting for meat. Surely she should simply buy the plastic-wrapped packages - hunting is cruel! Or something like that.)
I wonder what the attitude of such people toward amateur gunsmiths or loaders is. Hmm.
Making ammo is a little more difficult. When supplies deteriorate (decades), how do you replace them? How do you keep accurate without burning some of your supply from time to time?
I'd guess that making some variety of smokeless powder and primers would be doable for a good enough chemical firm, albeit risky if they got caught--but I'd not bet that it would be uniform enough to reliably cycle the action for autoloaders. Bootleg could probably feed bolt-action OK.
So you'd have to rely on stolen or smuggled ammo.
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