Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

"I think we need to focus more on memorials before we start the politics."
-- Texas Gov. Abbott on El Paso shooting, the fourth mass killing in a week

Because that we we never have to start the politics!

"Has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud -- I repeat the word 'fraud' -- on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
-- former Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger on the Second Amendment, 1991

Notes from the constitutional conventions clearly show that the attendees intended that the second amendment was meant for state militias, as in National Guard. Hunting: sure, why not. But that doesn't matter, 'cause AR-15s are fun!

Meanwhile, Texas will be LOOSENING their gun laws! New laws will be going into effect in four weeks that were passed during their now-ended legislative session.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/many-call-tighter-gun-laws-texas-set-loosen-n1039481

I wonder if you can take a pistol on a tour of the Texas Legislature when they're in session? For some reason I suspect not. As always, what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.

(I thought I'd lost this post when LJ went down for maintenance, I'm glad it saved a draft!)


It was a year ago this month that the world learned about guns made by 3-D printers, that is, guns made out of plastic. And the world has not stood still. A man was arrested in Japan recently for making 3-D guns, Japan has VERY tough gun laws, their police at the end of every shift have to account for every round that they were issued at the beginning of the end of their shift. People are also experimenting with making lower receivers for semi-automatic rifles. The difference between an automatic rifle, one that continues to fire if you keep the trigger depressed, and a semi-automatic, one shot every time you squeeze the trigger, is the lower receiver. It is also the regulated part of the gun. So if you can print a full-auto receiver, you can buy all the other parts needed in an unregulated fashion and have an unlicensed fully-automatic rifle.

Here's what bothers me. There's a lot of people taking a very short-sited view of history. They think that if the government isn't doing precisely what they want RIGHT NOW, then it's obviously an evil and repressive government and all of their rights are being violated. Therefore, MUST HAVE GUNS! There's going to be a lot of wingnuts making and carrying these guns that are difficult to detect, and eventually people will be killed by them.

Would everyone having a 3-D printed gun prevented Putin from re-acquiring Crimea? I doubt it. What about Franco, if the population had been fully armed? Maybe, but a plastic gun isn't going to stop a tank or a Messerschmidt. France during World War 2? The American-provided Liberator single-shot pistols killed a lot of Germans, but it didn't liberate the country.

Yes, there is a political statement to be made, but what is it?

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/3d-printed-guns/

"I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't...They'd been told that by the president."
—Sen. James Inhofe, on gun control debate and the families of Newtown victims

There's no words to sufficiently express the stupid, it BURNS!

I listen to the Real Time With Bill Maher podcast. Rachel Maddow was on a couple of weeks ago, and she admitted that she likes shooting guns recreationally, and that she met her girlfriend there. I think that's pretty cool. She doesn't own a gun, I guess she borrows or rents them.