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There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. The engineering and physics involved in building/tuning guns and

There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. The engineering and physics involved in building/tuning guns and shooting accurately is very interesting. Furthermore, the "renegade" spirit required to reject the status-quo and push the envelope in science and engineering attracts quite a few of the same types of people. Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every basically qualified engineer or physicist should be capable to building from readily available materials and tools -- makes them even more interesting. If for no other reason than to illuminate preposterous and insulting nature of the idea. IMHO. ;)

gambiting 6y ago
>>There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. Again, surely you mean in the US? All engineers I have ever worked with or met are almost the exact opposite of this. IMHO ;-)
- calyth2018 6y ago
  Canadian. I think it's interesting. Canada buy some stuff from Colt Canada, apparently, occasionally require designs to be manufacturered by Colt Canada for service rifles, such as the one used by the Rangers in the North. If CZ ends up picking up Colt Canada too, seems like they'd be in good hands.
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    They did. The purchase was of Colt Holdings which is the parent of both Colt USA and Colt Canada.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Some European countries have more guns than you’d think. Iirc it’s estimated that some countries like Switzerland have more guns per capita than some US states (New Jersey is usually the lowest per capita). The difference is in gun culture. Very few Europeans identify with guns as much as Americans occasionally do.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > The difference is in gun culture. Very few Europeans identify with guns as much as Americans occasionally do It’s an issue that’s become culturally politicized. I bet folks in Switzerland don’t say stuff like “people in other cantons cling to their guns and religion.”
  - soneil 6y ago
    I believe gun ownership in Switzerland is very closely tied to compulsory military service. It's very much an outlier as statistics go - issuing every adult male a rifle isn't so much a gun culture as a military strategy. (Czechia does has a strong civilian ownership, however)
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Finland also has a lot of guns, about 1.5mil out of a population of 5.5mil. Compare this to the 57,000 registered guns among New Jersey’s 8.8mil residents. It’s not just military service, even if that explains Switzerland specifically. Europe is a more diverse place ideologically and socially than most Americans tend to imagine it. The place is bigger and more complex than just Paris or Berlin, just like how America is not just NY or Houston.
      - estaseuropano 6y ago
        The reasons and culture vary. Finns go hunting, Americans going to a gun range is a sport. And most of those finnish guns are probably decades old and long out of use.
        glenneroo 6y ago
        And going back to Switzerland, I was at a festival a few years back which was almost cancelled due to potent protesting by several neighboring towns since the main sport-shooting range was at the same location as the festival's HQ. Thankfully the organizer was able to talk the mayor out of it. We later heard that a neighboring town was able to accommodate the sudden influx. I've heard from friends there is a similar passion in many towns in Germany and Austria. I would venture a guess that outside many European cities shooting for sport is much more commonplace.
- s5300 6y ago
  US Mechanical engineer here from a very left leaning University Can confirm we love our guns from the engineering aspect among other reasons
barnaclejive 6y ago
That is an interesting anecdote. Here is another - No engineers I've worked with cared about guns at all.
- jhgb 6y ago
  Heh. Purely coincidentally, the only people I've known to have any guns were my engineering schoolmates (brought them to school -- apparently that would be a cause for panic and a SWAT deployment in the US but it's kind of a "meh, whatever" thing around here in .cz.)
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    Depends which part of the U.S. you're talking about. In 10 states campus carry is allowed. In a number of other states, the campuses can choose to allow it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Campus_carry_map_of_US_states.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Campus_carry_map_of_US_st...
    - beerandt 6y ago
      There's also some overriding laws, depending on the state. For instance, some states consider dorm rooms or personal vehicles to be an extension of ones private residence, and therefore not subject to firearm restrictions.
  - mvolfik 6y ago
    Yeah, Czechia is full of surprising moments. I remember my classmate bringing knife that could reliably kill somebody to school and spreading butter on his bread with it. The teachers noticed, made some stupid joke about it, and continued lecturing.
- pjkundert 6y ago
  Unfortunately, most of your “conservative” coworkers have also learned to keep their non-woke beliefs to themselves, lest they lose their job.
- 6y ago
yaacov 6y ago
> Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every basically qualified engineer or physicist should be capable to building from readily available materials and tools -- makes them even more interesting. If for no other reason than to illuminate preposterous and insulting nature of the idea. By this logic, almost nothing should be banned, do you endorse that position?
- whomst 6y ago
  Something to note is that most physical things that are banned are one-time-use (drugs, organs, etc), whereas the shelf life and resale value of the gun are much longer. Also the classification of "gun" is much wider than classifications of most other illegal things
- exolymph 6y ago
  This is one of those questions people often ask 2A people as if the answer isn't going to be yeschad.jpg
- throwaway_oil 6y ago
  Trivial counterexample: I can't make an Apple M1 chip in my garage. I can't make (good?) LSD in my garage. I can put a metal pipe on a board with a nail and have a simple, reliable 12ga shotgun. I can 3d print a 22LR pistol, or even a 9mm subgun (just add pipe for barrel, weight for bolt, and some common springs). I assume your response was probably born out of some political frustration, and I respect that. Happy to discuss specifics of the this position on the practicality and effectiveness of gun bans.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    You can 3D print a gun you can use once. Where are you going to get the bullets from? Or for a shotgun, where is the powder from, the pellets etc. I live in the UK, I quite like clay pigeon shooting, would it be a shock to you that American mass shootings basically aren't news worthy anymore unless they are more than 2 dozen people now?
    - 6y ago
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Software engineer here. I am also a gunsmith with a wide variety of tooling. Not interested in hunting in the slightest and only use handguns. I am glad this article was posted. Thank you.
- dmix 6y ago
  As a frequent HN user living in Canada, our country ranks in the top ten of (legal) gun ownership (34/100 people own a gun). Building/buying/customizing gun is a lively market, with strong crossover into the the geek community of all political stripes. Plus it's a story about a finical acquisition of a famed American brand so its a trisect of "interesting to hackers" of the HN sort. Not to mention the very fast growing 3d-printed gun parts and DIY smithing groups within these committees where it gets technical very fast.
sushisource 6y ago
> Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every basically qualified engineer or physicist should be capable to building from readily available materials and tools -- makes them even more interesting. If for no other reason than to illuminate preposterous and insulting nature of the idea. This makes no sense. Assaulting someone is illegal, but anyone can do it. It's still illegal. What?
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  Hurting someone is malum in se whereas owning guns is malum prohibitum when prohibited. This is the relevant distinction.
  - sushisource 6y ago
    That's a cop out. Literally all of our laws exist because some portion of the population are shitheads who can't be trusted. Who cares if the thing we're banning is intrinsically bad or not. Phrasing it in Latin doesn't make it any more compelling either. We also ban nuclear and biological weapons for good reason. Does it really matter that they are harder to obtain? (Tip: They won't be in the long run, there was a time when guns were hard to make too).
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      > Who cares if the thing we're banning is intrinsically bad or not. I’m sure you would care if the thing we’re banning is something you like that doesn’t hurt anyone. > We also ban nuclear and biological weapons for good reason. Do we? I thought we built them and kept them ready to use. > Phrasing it in Latin doesn't make it any more compelling either. Those are legal terms because actual judges, lawyers, law enforcement officers, and others have discussed this extensively and determined that the distinction is relevant.
tim333 6y ago
>the idea of "banning" guns... preposterous... As a Brit, our gun controls work quite well. It basically means the idiot down the pub is not allowed to have a rifle/pistol. It's not like they cease to exist - we're still the world's #2 arms exporter.

gambiting 6y ago

>>There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. Again, surely you mean in the US? All engineers I have ever worked with or met are almost the exact opposite of this. IMHO ;-)

calyth2018 6y ago
Canadian. I think it's interesting. Canada buy some stuff from Colt Canada, apparently, occasionally require designs to be manufacturered by Colt Canada for service rifles, such as the one used by the Rangers in the North. If CZ ends up picking up Colt Canada too, seems like they'd be in good hands.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  They did. The purchase was of Colt Holdings which is the parent of both Colt USA and Colt Canada.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Some European countries have more guns than you’d think. Iirc it’s estimated that some countries like Switzerland have more guns per capita than some US states (New Jersey is usually the lowest per capita). The difference is in gun culture. Very few Europeans identify with guns as much as Americans occasionally do.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > The difference is in gun culture. Very few Europeans identify with guns as much as Americans occasionally do It’s an issue that’s become culturally politicized. I bet folks in Switzerland don’t say stuff like “people in other cantons cling to their guns and religion.”
- soneil 6y ago
  I believe gun ownership in Switzerland is very closely tied to compulsory military service. It's very much an outlier as statistics go - issuing every adult male a rifle isn't so much a gun culture as a military strategy. (Czechia does has a strong civilian ownership, however)
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Finland also has a lot of guns, about 1.5mil out of a population of 5.5mil. Compare this to the 57,000 registered guns among New Jersey’s 8.8mil residents. It’s not just military service, even if that explains Switzerland specifically. Europe is a more diverse place ideologically and socially than most Americans tend to imagine it. The place is bigger and more complex than just Paris or Berlin, just like how America is not just NY or Houston.
    - estaseuropano 6y ago
      The reasons and culture vary. Finns go hunting, Americans going to a gun range is a sport. And most of those finnish guns are probably decades old and long out of use.
      - glenneroo 6y ago
        And going back to Switzerland, I was at a festival a few years back which was almost cancelled due to potent protesting by several neighboring towns since the main sport-shooting range was at the same location as the festival's HQ. Thankfully the organizer was able to talk the mayor out of it. We later heard that a neighboring town was able to accommodate the sudden influx. I've heard from friends there is a similar passion in many towns in Germany and Austria. I would venture a guess that outside many European cities shooting for sport is much more commonplace.
s5300 6y ago
US Mechanical engineer here from a very left leaning University Can confirm we love our guns from the engineering aspect among other reasons

barnaclejive 6y ago

That is an interesting anecdote. Here is another - No engineers I've worked with cared about guns at all.

jhgb 6y ago
Heh. Purely coincidentally, the only people I've known to have any guns were my engineering schoolmates (brought them to school -- apparently that would be a cause for panic and a SWAT deployment in the US but it's kind of a "meh, whatever" thing around here in .cz.)
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  Depends which part of the U.S. you're talking about. In 10 states campus carry is allowed. In a number of other states, the campuses can choose to allow it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Campus_carry_map_of_US_states.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Campus_carry_map_of_US_st...
  - beerandt 6y ago
    There's also some overriding laws, depending on the state. For instance, some states consider dorm rooms or personal vehicles to be an extension of ones private residence, and therefore not subject to firearm restrictions.
- mvolfik 6y ago
  Yeah, Czechia is full of surprising moments. I remember my classmate bringing knife that could reliably kill somebody to school and spreading butter on his bread with it. The teachers noticed, made some stupid joke about it, and continued lecturing.
pjkundert 6y ago
Unfortunately, most of your “conservative” coworkers have also learned to keep their non-woke beliefs to themselves, lest they lose their job.
6y ago

yaacov 6y ago

> Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every basically qualified engineer or physicist should be capable to building from readily available materials and tools -- makes them even more interesting. If for no other reason than to illuminate preposterous and insulting nature of the idea. By this logic, almost nothing should be banned, do you endorse that position?

whomst 6y ago
Something to note is that most physical things that are banned are one-time-use (drugs, organs, etc), whereas the shelf life and resale value of the gun are much longer. Also the classification of "gun" is much wider than classifications of most other illegal things
exolymph 6y ago
This is one of those questions people often ask 2A people as if the answer isn't going to be yeschad.jpg
throwaway_oil 6y ago
Trivial counterexample: I can't make an Apple M1 chip in my garage. I can't make (good?) LSD in my garage. I can put a metal pipe on a board with a nail and have a simple, reliable 12ga shotgun. I can 3d print a 22LR pistol, or even a 9mm subgun (just add pipe for barrel, weight for bolt, and some common springs). I assume your response was probably born out of some political frustration, and I respect that. Happy to discuss specifics of the this position on the practicality and effectiveness of gun bans.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  You can 3D print a gun you can use once. Where are you going to get the bullets from? Or for a shotgun, where is the powder from, the pellets etc. I live in the UK, I quite like clay pigeon shooting, would it be a shock to you that American mass shootings basically aren't news worthy anymore unless they are more than 2 dozen people now?
  - 6y ago

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

Software engineer here. I am also a gunsmith with a wide variety of tooling. Not interested in hunting in the slightest and only use handguns. I am glad this article was posted. Thank you.

dmix 6y ago
As a frequent HN user living in Canada, our country ranks in the top ten of (legal) gun ownership (34/100 people own a gun). Building/buying/customizing gun is a lively market, with strong crossover into the the geek community of all political stripes. Plus it's a story about a finical acquisition of a famed American brand so its a trisect of "interesting to hackers" of the HN sort. Not to mention the very fast growing 3d-printed gun parts and DIY smithing groups within these committees where it gets technical very fast.

sushisource 6y ago

> Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every basically qualified engineer or physicist should be capable to building from readily available materials and tools -- makes them even more interesting. If for no other reason than to illuminate preposterous and insulting nature of the idea. This makes no sense. Assaulting someone is illegal, but anyone can do it. It's still illegal. What?

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
Hurting someone is malum in se whereas owning guns is malum prohibitum when prohibited. This is the relevant distinction.
- sushisource 6y ago
  That's a cop out. Literally all of our laws exist because some portion of the population are shitheads who can't be trusted. Who cares if the thing we're banning is intrinsically bad or not. Phrasing it in Latin doesn't make it any more compelling either. We also ban nuclear and biological weapons for good reason. Does it really matter that they are harder to obtain? (Tip: They won't be in the long run, there was a time when guns were hard to make too).
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > Who cares if the thing we're banning is intrinsically bad or not. I’m sure you would care if the thing we’re banning is something you like that doesn’t hurt anyone. > We also ban nuclear and biological weapons for good reason. Do we? I thought we built them and kept them ready to use. > Phrasing it in Latin doesn't make it any more compelling either. Those are legal terms because actual judges, lawyers, law enforcement officers, and others have discussed this extensively and determined that the distinction is relevant.

tim333 6y ago

>the idea of "banning" guns... preposterous... As a Brit, our gun controls work quite well. It basically means the idiot down the pub is not allowed to have a rifle/pistol. It's not like they cease to exist - we're still the world's #2 arms exporter.