44 ms·

...in a country which only has small islands of total prohibition surrounded by a sea of millions of available guns.

by ladon86 13y ago

ctdonath 13y ago
Cocaine and other imported hard drugs are easily available nationwide despite total national prohibition and a militaristic level of governmental opposition to importation. Take all the guns away, and demand will find a supply nonetheless.
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  Yeah, we'd have trouble cracking down on people growing Glock's in fields or manufacturing AR's from scratch with stuff they bought from CVS. And it would be impossible to stop gun's from being imported from Latin American with it's renowned industrial base for manufacturing firearms.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    I feel like there's a common misconception that guns are hard to make. They're not. Even 'assault weapons', by and large, are extremely simple systems. This guy[1] made an AK47 out of a shovel, for example. Similarly, guns are nearing the 'grows on trees' level of simplicity with 3D printing. [1] - http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x368/_ak_74_/shovel_ak/54.jpg http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x368/_ak_74_/shovel_ak/5...
    - anologwintermut 13y ago
      Gun's are not that hard to make, I assume they are fairly hard to make in volume and quality. Australia, which has rather strict gun laws, does not, by my understanding, have a massive problem with illegal guns being manufactured. Nor does England. As for the hilarious "assault shovel", my understanding was he made the receiver but purchased the barrel and most of the other parts. It just happens that because of US law, the receiver is the regulated part.
  - hga 13y ago
    "And it would be impossible to stop gun's from being imported from Latin American with it's renowned industrial base for manufacturing firearms." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(manufacturer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(manufacturer) The gun my father most recently bought is from them (a 9mm 5 round revolver, a fairly nice piece of work).
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Let's step past the snide insults and look at relevant realities: Glocks are a remarkably high-density-value product. One cubic meter of quintessential Glocks (model 17 gen 4) would have a street value of at least US$500,000. This is typical of medium-quality handguns, whatever the make & model. A way to acquire & distribute them would be found. ARs can be made from scratch with stuff bought from Lowes or Home Depot (or pretty much any decent hardware store). Go look up "80% AR receiver" for a good look. AK47s are much easier to make, and have equivalent gross performance. There is of course the current meme regarding "3D printed guns". Not quite up to desired quality yet, but those involved in the project(s) are making amazing progress in a very short time. All those types are at the upper end of complexity. Simpler designs (bolt/break/lever/revolver action) are much easier to make; we have a rich history of domestic manufacture thereof involving low-tech processes. The only "hard part" about making guns is the barrel and primers. Hard, but not impossible for individuals. Remember the spark that started the revolution resulting in the USA was, in fact, gun control (look up "Lexington and Concord"). Our culture of gun ownership by upstanding citizens is very deeply ingrained, and any suggestion of curtailing it is intensely opposed. Were all guns banned & confiscated within US borders, the rate of garage/basement gun manufacturing would be astounding. Guns are simple machines. Get a cartridge into a rifled tube, provide sufficient structural support, impact the primer, bang. They're not hard to make. Quality manufacturing has raised our de facto expectations, but workable mundane products can be turned out by a guy with a lathe and a hacksaw. It's not magic.
    - anologwintermut 13y ago
      I am familiar with 80% receivers and yes, they do rather readily demonstrate the absurdity of US gun laws (though I think the fact that the assault weapon's ban deals with bayonets attachment points demonstrates that better). But that's a legal technicality. If you actually outlawed most of the parts for a gun (particularly the barrel), it would be a lot harder to manufacture a decent gun, certainly harder than growing drugs. How much harder? Technically, I'm not sure. However, Australia, England, and Germany, all of which have rather restrictive gun laws, don't seem to have that much of a problem with home built guns. Nor, as far as I know, do they have a large problem with illegally imported guns. They do, however, have problems with drugs. Look, gun control has a lot of really stupid proponents(witness the assault weapon's ban on scary looking guns), but the argument that banning guns wouldn't work because prohibition of drugs failed is almost as stupid. It's almost as much of a blatant attempt at pandering to the liberal pro legalization crowd as the "think of the children" anti-gun stuff is to whoever listens to that crap. Countries have done it and it appears to work in so far as it does seriously reduce gun crime. It's possible there are too many guns in the US to actually ban them, but that is not the argument of the "war on drugs" analogy. Furthermore, I think that's also moot. Criminals get arrested and get their guns confiscated, guns break, they get disposed off to avoid having evidence of a crime, the supply of extent criminal guns will dwindle. As to the large set of legal gun owners in the US, some of whom might have "boating accidents" and not turn in their guns, presumably they are not going to go out and start robbing connivence stores just because. Though I grant, this whole line of reasoning is a debatable point , but there is no real analogy to the war on drugs. This doesn't mean prohibition is a good idea at all. The question of course is 1) does it actually reduce violent crime and 2) even if it did, is it morally right to take away people's ability to defend themselves.
- GVIrish 13y ago
  As long as there is the insanely high profit motive with the drug war, there'll be a black market for firearms. Drug cartels are building freaking SUBMARINES to smuggle drugs for crying out loud. They absolutely would make their own firearms if guns were banned in the United States. Never mind the fact that there are currently somewhere around 300 million firearms in private hands today in the US. It would take well over 100 years to get all of those out of circulation if you were somehow able to ban them today. And chances are the 80 million armed Americans wouldn't allow the government to take those guns anyway.
bmelton 13y ago
Or in a country where anyone can make an AK47 in his garage for less than $100 by pressing a shovel into the shape of an AK receiver. Pretty soon, we'll be entering an area where printable 3D guns are less likely to blow up in one's face, which raises the production costs a little bit in the short term, but which will likely result in even cheaper firearms manufacture.

...in a country which only has small islands of total prohibition surrounded by a sea of millions of available guns.

by ladon86 13y ago

...in a country which only has small islands of total prohibition surrounded by a sea of millions of available guns.

Cocaine and other imported hard drugs are easily available nationwide despite total national prohibition and a militaristic level of governmental opposition to importation. Take all the guns away, and demand will find a supply nonetheless.

anologwintermut 13y ago
Yeah, we'd have trouble cracking down on people growing Glock's in fields or manufacturing AR's from scratch with stuff they bought from CVS. And it would be impossible to stop gun's from being imported from Latin American with it's renowned industrial base for manufacturing firearms.
- bmelton 13y ago
  I feel like there's a common misconception that guns are hard to make. They're not. Even 'assault weapons', by and large, are extremely simple systems. This guy[1] made an AK47 out of a shovel, for example. Similarly, guns are nearing the 'grows on trees' level of simplicity with 3D printing. [1] - http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x368/_ak_74_/shovel_ak/54.jpg http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x368/_ak_74_/shovel_ak/5...
  - anologwintermut 13y ago
    Gun's are not that hard to make, I assume they are fairly hard to make in volume and quality. Australia, which has rather strict gun laws, does not, by my understanding, have a massive problem with illegal guns being manufactured. Nor does England. As for the hilarious "assault shovel", my understanding was he made the receiver but purchased the barrel and most of the other parts. It just happens that because of US law, the receiver is the regulated part.
- hga 13y ago
  "And it would be impossible to stop gun's from being imported from Latin American with it's renowned industrial base for manufacturing firearms." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(manufacturer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(manufacturer) The gun my father most recently bought is from them (a 9mm 5 round revolver, a fairly nice piece of work).
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Let's step past the snide insults and look at relevant realities: Glocks are a remarkably high-density-value product. One cubic meter of quintessential Glocks (model 17 gen 4) would have a street value of at least US$500,000. This is typical of medium-quality handguns, whatever the make & model. A way to acquire & distribute them would be found. ARs can be made from scratch with stuff bought from Lowes or Home Depot (or pretty much any decent hardware store). Go look up "80% AR receiver" for a good look. AK47s are much easier to make, and have equivalent gross performance. There is of course the current meme regarding "3D printed guns". Not quite up to desired quality yet, but those involved in the project(s) are making amazing progress in a very short time. All those types are at the upper end of complexity. Simpler designs (bolt/break/lever/revolver action) are much easier to make; we have a rich history of domestic manufacture thereof involving low-tech processes. The only "hard part" about making guns is the barrel and primers. Hard, but not impossible for individuals. Remember the spark that started the revolution resulting in the USA was, in fact, gun control (look up "Lexington and Concord"). Our culture of gun ownership by upstanding citizens is very deeply ingrained, and any suggestion of curtailing it is intensely opposed. Were all guns banned & confiscated within US borders, the rate of garage/basement gun manufacturing would be astounding. Guns are simple machines. Get a cartridge into a rifled tube, provide sufficient structural support, impact the primer, bang. They're not hard to make. Quality manufacturing has raised our de facto expectations, but workable mundane products can be turned out by a guy with a lathe and a hacksaw. It's not magic.
  - anologwintermut 13y ago
    I am familiar with 80% receivers and yes, they do rather readily demonstrate the absurdity of US gun laws (though I think the fact that the assault weapon's ban deals with bayonets attachment points demonstrates that better). But that's a legal technicality. If you actually outlawed most of the parts for a gun (particularly the barrel), it would be a lot harder to manufacture a decent gun, certainly harder than growing drugs. How much harder? Technically, I'm not sure. However, Australia, England, and Germany, all of which have rather restrictive gun laws, don't seem to have that much of a problem with home built guns. Nor, as far as I know, do they have a large problem with illegally imported guns. They do, however, have problems with drugs. Look, gun control has a lot of really stupid proponents(witness the assault weapon's ban on scary looking guns), but the argument that banning guns wouldn't work because prohibition of drugs failed is almost as stupid. It's almost as much of a blatant attempt at pandering to the liberal pro legalization crowd as the "think of the children" anti-gun stuff is to whoever listens to that crap. Countries have done it and it appears to work in so far as it does seriously reduce gun crime. It's possible there are too many guns in the US to actually ban them, but that is not the argument of the "war on drugs" analogy. Furthermore, I think that's also moot. Criminals get arrested and get their guns confiscated, guns break, they get disposed off to avoid having evidence of a crime, the supply of extent criminal guns will dwindle. As to the large set of legal gun owners in the US, some of whom might have "boating accidents" and not turn in their guns, presumably they are not going to go out and start robbing connivence stores just because. Though I grant, this whole line of reasoning is a debatable point , but there is no real analogy to the war on drugs. This doesn't mean prohibition is a good idea at all. The question of course is 1) does it actually reduce violent crime and 2) even if it did, is it morally right to take away people's ability to defend themselves.
GVIrish 13y ago
As long as there is the insanely high profit motive with the drug war, there'll be a black market for firearms. Drug cartels are building freaking SUBMARINES to smuggle drugs for crying out loud. They absolutely would make their own firearms if guns were banned in the United States. Never mind the fact that there are currently somewhere around 300 million firearms in private hands today in the US. It would take well over 100 years to get all of those out of circulation if you were somehow able to ban them today. And chances are the 80 million armed Americans wouldn't allow the government to take those guns anyway.

bmelton 13y ago

Or in a country where anyone can make an AK47 in his garage for less than $100 by pressing a shovel into the shape of an AK receiver. Pretty soon, we'll be entering an area where printable 3D guns are less likely to blow up in one's face, which raises the production costs a little bit in the short term, but which will likely result in even cheaper firearms manufacture.