4 ms·

I once watched that monologue. He argued that bullets should cost 5k$ to make killing unaffordable, IIRC. This raises another point, with regard to the origina

by gordaco 14y ago

I once watched that monologue. He argued that bullets should cost 5k$ to make killing unaffordable, IIRC. This raises another point, with regard to the original article: will printing bullets be easy with 3d printing technology? I may not be as easy (you probably need to insert manually the powder at some point), but I think it will eventually happen.

pinaceae 14y ago
this is my point - printing the whole thing does not do anything without adding gunpowder. creating that out of a 3d printer is a bit longer off, re-arranging molecules is a tad hard. the US already regulates handling of explosives. simply expand that regulation to any amount of gunpowder. no need to ban guns, no interference of the constitution. having a right does not mean that it needs to be easy or cheap.
- learc83 14y ago
  What do you think happens when bullets cost $5000? You've just created a new revenue stream for drug cartels. Manufacturing ammunition isn't any more difficult than running a meth lab.
  - pinaceae 14y ago
    do you think the black market for ammo would be more like the drug market rather than the current black market for guns&explosives? remember, it needs to be hard for mentally unstable kids like the recent one to get ammo. no one will ever stop someone like Breivik or the Unabomber, who spent years planning their attacks.
    - learc83 14y ago
      I think you underestimate how ingrained guns are in our culture. If you priced ammunition out of the reach of an ordinary citizen, you've effectively banned guns for the ordinary citizen. The first problem you have to deal with is the number of lives that will be lost in the armed insurrection you've caused. There are thousands of people just waiting for the government to take their guns and I can guarantee you any kind of gun ban (even if it's only an effective ban) will cause enough deaths to offset any drop in murders for the next 50 years or so. After that's over there is still going to be a large criminal element who isn't going to stop fighting each other over drugs and will need ammunition to do it. > it needs to be hard for mentally unstable kids like the recent one to get ammo How many people die each year to mentally unstable kids as opposed to crimes committed by hardened criminals usually involving drugs? If you haven't looked at the statistics, it's overwhelmingly the latter.
      - pinaceae 14y ago
        to lay this out more precisely, and I live in Austria, so I have a front row seat on how to use bureaucracy to steer behavior: you do not simply raise prices to 5000$. no, you gradually boil the water through addition of red tape. selling ammo should not be banned, the drug war shows what happens then. no, it needs to be legal, just amazingly, mind-numbingly complicated. the cost of the process would then be the markup on the sale. make the IRS, TSA, EPA whichever other three-letter agency you can find go all in and creative on ammo manufacture, sales, distribution. oh boy, the CO2 emissions alone should be fun. and quality standards, only the purest gunpowder should be approved, FDA-style. to protect the shooters of course, misfires are bad in your fight against the government - even the NRA can't deny that. Call it all the "Make Gun-Owners Safe" act, drop it in front of the republicans, tie some tax decreases to it. Try voting against that one.
        learc83 14y ago
        >Call it all the "Make Gun-Owners Safe" act, drop it in front of the republicans, tie some tax decreases to it. Try voting against that one. Won't happen. There's too much organized resistance against gun regulation. Besides, something like you're proposing was already tried. The EPA floated the idea of banning lead bullets, and within hours the mailing lists were circulating and the attempt was utterly and completely destroyed. The pendulum has been swinging in the direction of less restrictive gun laws for the past 20 years or so, even many of my otherwise extremely left wing friends now own guns, and support gun rights.

by gordaco 14y ago

pinaceae 14y ago

this is my point - printing the whole thing does not do anything without adding gunpowder. creating that out of a 3d printer is a bit longer off, re-arranging molecules is a tad hard. the US already regulates handling of explosives. simply expand that regulation to any amount of gunpowder. no need to ban guns, no interference of the constitution. having a right does not mean that it needs to be easy or cheap.

learc83 14y ago
What do you think happens when bullets cost $5000? You've just created a new revenue stream for drug cartels. Manufacturing ammunition isn't any more difficult than running a meth lab.
- pinaceae 14y ago
  do you think the black market for ammo would be more like the drug market rather than the current black market for guns&explosives? remember, it needs to be hard for mentally unstable kids like the recent one to get ammo. no one will ever stop someone like Breivik or the Unabomber, who spent years planning their attacks.
  - learc83 14y ago
    I think you underestimate how ingrained guns are in our culture. If you priced ammunition out of the reach of an ordinary citizen, you've effectively banned guns for the ordinary citizen. The first problem you have to deal with is the number of lives that will be lost in the armed insurrection you've caused. There are thousands of people just waiting for the government to take their guns and I can guarantee you any kind of gun ban (even if it's only an effective ban) will cause enough deaths to offset any drop in murders for the next 50 years or so. After that's over there is still going to be a large criminal element who isn't going to stop fighting each other over drugs and will need ammunition to do it. > it needs to be hard for mentally unstable kids like the recent one to get ammo How many people die each year to mentally unstable kids as opposed to crimes committed by hardened criminals usually involving drugs? If you haven't looked at the statistics, it's overwhelmingly the latter.
    - pinaceae 14y ago
      to lay this out more precisely, and I live in Austria, so I have a front row seat on how to use bureaucracy to steer behavior: you do not simply raise prices to 5000$. no, you gradually boil the water through addition of red tape. selling ammo should not be banned, the drug war shows what happens then. no, it needs to be legal, just amazingly, mind-numbingly complicated. the cost of the process would then be the markup on the sale. make the IRS, TSA, EPA whichever other three-letter agency you can find go all in and creative on ammo manufacture, sales, distribution. oh boy, the CO2 emissions alone should be fun. and quality standards, only the purest gunpowder should be approved, FDA-style. to protect the shooters of course, misfires are bad in your fight against the government - even the NRA can't deny that. Call it all the "Make Gun-Owners Safe" act, drop it in front of the republicans, tie some tax decreases to it. Try voting against that one.
      - learc83 14y ago
        >Call it all the "Make Gun-Owners Safe" act, drop it in front of the republicans, tie some tax decreases to it. Try voting against that one. Won't happen. There's too much organized resistance against gun regulation. Besides, something like you're proposing was already tried. The EPA floated the idea of banning lead bullets, and within hours the mailing lists were circulating and the attempt was utterly and completely destroyed. The pendulum has been swinging in the direction of less restrictive gun laws for the past 20 years or so, even many of my otherwise extremely left wing friends now own guns, and support gun rights.