Instead of guns, why not regulate ammo?
a day ago by /home/pineapplelover to c/asklemmy
So yeah you can fire a bullet so many different ways, a rusty nail and hammer will do the trick. Isn't the real problem the frickin bullet?
I swear in Sweden or something, you can take a gun home but ammo is only sold and consumed at the range and not for taking home.
Sure, you can make this a hollistic approach regulating guns and ammo, but the ammo seems to be the bigger issue here. You can make guns easy peasy, but ammo is much harder to manufacture and easier to regulate.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”
I don’t think he said we need more. He said don’t give up what you have. I don't like the number of people with guns... but I do have to admit, if noone but the gov had guns. I think we would be in trouble. Nature requires opposing forces to establish equilibrium. Maybe there is another opposing force, but I can't think of it. Admittedly, people having guns isn't really stopping ICE from it's rampage. But I can imagine it would be a lot worse if they had no need to fear armed resistance at all.
And?
Pretty easy to make bullets tbh. And honestly I'm pro-gun. Arm the homeless. Arm trans people. Arm migrants.
Isn’t the real problem the frickin bullet?
Terminology is going to matter here. Modern ammunition that you're probably thinking of is sold as a self contained cartridge with a bullet (the projectile part only) at one end, some powder inside a case (brass or steel or aluminum most of the time), and a primer at the other end. You poke the primer in a very specific way which lights the powder which builds up pressure which causes the bullet to leave the case and down a barrel. The terminology matters because in the past there have been attempts to regulate the bullets by giving them each an individual serial number, or by using "microstamping" on the firing pin of the firearm to mark the case. Those proposed technologies won't work because just standard usage of the firearm would cause any marks or microstamping to become useless very quickly, and very often the first level of argument against such a law is that the person who wrote it didn't know enough about the technology to be trying to legislate it.
So yeah you can fire a bullet so many different ways, a rusty nail and hammer will do the trick.
Please don't try this. Firing a cartridge this way without the structure of the firearm around it will cause it to go off in a completely uncontrolled fashion. It's a recipe for risking losing fingers or an eye, or worse.
ammo is much harder to manufacture and easier to regulate.
The person who assassinated the former PM of Japan assembled all of the gear he had from hardware store level parts, even making his own blackpowder. That's in Japan where gun ownership isn't common. Since he accomplished it there it's unlikely to be able to prevented in the US.
The kinds of laws/regulations you're proposing are currently being used in California with regards to 3D printers. They were unworkable crap that invited government insight into everyone's home if that person happens to own a 3D printer, and they'll create a lot of privacy issues without solving any gun problems (the laws mandated 3D printers reject printing anything that might be a "gun part").
You're really proposing mandating a firearms technology level at no better than sometime in the late 1800s which won't work to solve any societal problems we're having now, but will hamper people banking on having them around for self defense.
Maybe consider the problem from another perspective when considering firearms regulations? Also consider that the internet just estimated that there are at least several hundred billion rounds of ammunition in the US. You won't design a process that effectively regulates them all without moving everyone into open air prisons devoid of their possessions, and you'd not be able to pull off something like that without a bunch of said ammo. You didn't get rid of it; you just took it out of one group's hands.
That's pretty epic. Didn't know the Japanese guy built everything from scratch
It's not intended as an epic story, rather a story about how a lot of people seem to think there's a huge moat to creating a firearm, but there really isn't.
I mean I didn't agree with the whole assassination deal, but the method is interesting
There seems to be some idea that firearm manufacturing is some version of witchcraft when the reality is that it's closer to the professor with his coconuts on Gilligan's Island. The arguments tend to go something like: "That's impossible" when actually it really isn't. "That's illegal" when not only is it not, but it's specifically protected. "You shouldn't do that" when some people just like to tinker. "That should be banned" without understanding that the regulatory framework to truly ban it would require tracking everything and every one at all times.
That last one is where you get into a lot of very hairy issues. Apps to track women's periods have been datamined, and some states propose using the data to look for possible pregnancies and termination of pregnancies. You can track every purchase of barstock, milling machines, routers, tampons, router bits, buckets, bags of salt, car batteries, and every web page access, and you'll still not stop it, but the amount of privacy you lost in trade for the attempt is staggering.
The best comment in this thread, by far, is this one as a proposed solution to the problem, but of course nobody wants to try that. Instead we want to throw regulatory spaghetti against a wall and demand that people accept less durable materials to work with or demand that people be less innovative. History suggests those approaches won't work.
There's a pretty massive difference between "I managed to build a simile of a single-shot rifle from scrap and kill a person with it" and "This legal assault rifle allowed me to perform mass murder in a public space".
You talk about arms for self defense, but the rest of us don't go around worrying about not having a 9mm or rifle in our car or next to the front door. You guys have built a problem with arms over there, and until something radical is done you'll keep having an arms problem.
I'll do you one better.
We should regulate barrels.
A gun rifled barrel is the only part of a gun that can't be reliably and descretely be made at home. You can make your own ammo essentially from house supplies and spent brass casings. With the upsurge of small desk lathes, CNCs and 3D printers you can also fabricate most parts of the receiver at home (which they now regulated too).
But a barrel however, you need very specialised heavily machinery to make a rifled barrel in a way that makes the gun not blow up in your face or be able to hit the broad side of a barn.
The barrel would also tell you a lot about the gun owners habits. If somebody goes through several barrels in a few years, they are probably using the firearm a lot and are therefore well trained and capable.
In my opinion serial numbers should also be stamped or laser engraved on the barrel not the receiver. People would also think twice before filing off the serial number and ruining the structural integrity of the barrel.
Technically you can slap together a home made rifle, as long as it uses a manufactured barrel it will be somewhere in the realm of precision of a fully manufactured firearm, reliability however may differ.
That's why countries like Germany legally define a "firearm" as "A device that expels a projectile through a barrel". The receiver or more precisely the mechanism of operation is herby completely irrelevant (there are exceptions for muscle powered devices).
This would also call for a revision on the idiotic suppressor regulation, which is in essence limiting the use of a device to further protect your hearing. Instead you either register a barrel with a fixed muzzle device or a barrel with a threaded end and you can put whatever you want on it. The government is happy, because it can assume you are a dead silent killer with a scary silencer, and you are happy because you don't have to wait 6 months for a glorified propane tank on the end of your gun.
Some people collect guns like Pokémon cards. Imagine if you can get 1 to 3 barrels and then 40 different receivers without having to register any of them. A lot of AR platfrom barrels are interchangeable, so you can have as many colors, setups from as many different manufacturers as you want. In the end even if somebody decided to go lulu and shoot up a place, they can't use more than 3 of them at once.
Collectors would also profit since now they can have as many historic firearms as they like as long as they all have a dummy barrel. No need to destroy the beautiful mechanics of the gun to deactivate it. And if they decide to actually fire it for demonstration, they can register a separate real barrel.
Edit: English isn't my first language so I mixed up threading and rifeling. Fixed that.
The FGC 9, for example, has a barrel that one can electro-chemically machine with 3d printed jigs, wire, salt water, hydraulic pipe, and a 12v battery
You mean EDM wire cutting the rifling? You could technically angle the wire inside the barrel to achieve the proper pitch. But your pitch will be limited by the length of the barrel. Also is you angle a straight wire inside a tube and cut slots into it, the bottom surface of your slot will be parabolic. Not ideal for rifling since the pressure inside the barrel will steadily grow as the projectiles moves towards the middle of the barrel and then decrease past that. You got a video of somebody attempting that. I'd love to see that. Also EDM wire cutting at home is doable, but far from easy.
It's more like rough etching away
electro-chemically machine
3D Printing Enthusiasts and Second Amendment Supporters should've been a natural fit, but instead we got CA banning plastic rope and requiring 3D printers to reject building certain designs. I don't unerstand why they didn't gel.
Sorry, English isn't my first language. I just realised that what I ment by "thread" was actually called "rifling". And, as far as I know, they either use a button broaching or a cold-hammer-forge (CHF) machines. Both not exactly cheap, easy to obtain or easy to operate. An older, much simpler method was to take an octagonal stock pipe and twist it to get the rifling. But this method is way less effective and less reliable. It was also mostly used for revolvers since it's very complicated to machine the chamber directly into the octagonal pipe.
https://youtu.be/gtLYnqZQHCY It's a lot easier than you think it is. Guns are a simple mechanical technology. Any Machinist, mechanic, welder, most carpenters, would have the tools on hand. The barrel blank and springs for mags/recoil management are the hardest parts to manufacture. Which is why most home made firearms are bolt action or slam fire while the more refined ones use blowback operation.
So yeah you can fire a bullet so many different ways, a rusty nail and hammer will do the trick.
Well, there's also the not-small matter of aiming, or firing again if the first shot didn't put a satisfactory hole where you wanted. Or just getting the bullet going fast enough to do damage, without a barrel to channel and contain the blast.
It's not like the whole history of firearms after the cartridge was invented was a waste of time.
You can make guns easy peasy
Ehhh... You can make guns. Metalworking in general is beyond most people, though. And, if you want to rifle a barrel, it's not clear if standard machine shop equipment will be enough (that's a pretty small, tight space for a lathe tool). Easy peasy is a bit of a stretch.
but ammo is much harder to manufacture and easier to regulate
People can and do reload their own ammo. I don't know if anybody DIYs their own smokeless powder, and that would probably be highly illegal, but I've heard of people making their own black powder.
I wouldn't say ammo is easier to regulate at all. The average gun owner keeps several boxes of handgun ammo and 500-1000 rounds of rifle ammo on hand to start so none of that ammo will be caught by your regulation.
If you outright banned the new purchase of ammo it would take years before the effects are really noticed, especially considering the rush to buy up every bullet on the market before the ban went into effect. Afterwords you'd see gun owners driving to a state without an ammo ban.
If you slapped a max limit on ownership, say you can't have more than 50 rounds of ammo per gun, that wouldn't have stopped almost any of the mass shooters in the last 10 years who almost all fired less than 50 shots on their rampages. Not to mention enforcing that law would be next to impossible because you'd basically need a signed warrant to check a house for illegal amounts of ammo or catch them in transit.
If you put a massive tax on ammo combined with a max purchase limit, let's say 1,000% tax and a limit of 50 rounds per ID card per day, it would be business as usual, just more expensive.
One thing that might be worth exploring would be an ammo purchase registry. Gun owners haaaaaate their names on lists aand fight it tooth an nail on guns, but they don't have the protection of the 2nd amendment for ammo. Who knows it might have a chilling effect. Or just drive more transactions through the gun show/private seller loop holes.
Gun owners haaaaaate their names on lists aand fight it tooth an nail on guns, but they don’t have the protection of the 2nd amendment for ammo.
Winds are blowing the other way: short barreled rifles and shotguns, as well as suppressors no longer go through the NFA process as of like two days ago, so details are in short supply.
Gun owners haaaaaate their names on lists
I maintain that lists of all kinds are the bigger threat to the country right now. With all the data that has already been gathered it's just a matter of time before some upstart company tells a government agency that it can play the Kevin Bacon game with their database and produce a list of that will result in results. Company gets to keep a local copy of the database because nobody thought about data privacy/protections when they cut the check.
If you slapped a max limit on ownership, say you can’t have more than 50 rounds of ammo per gun, that wouldn’t have stopped almost any of the mass shooters in the last 10 years who almost all fired less than 50 shots on their rampages.
It would; however, put a damper on anyone funding their own training. I doubt anyone's going from nothing to being a crack shot in 50 rounds, or even 500.
chilling effect
Those are bad everywhere. I wish that court case in DC that decided a defacto ban (on guns) amounted to a for-realsy ban, and was therefore unconstitutional.
I agree with most of what you're saying. OP asked so I tried to game it out the best I could. Personally I think we need to approach gun legislation like we do cars. License to carry in public, strict rules about thier usage, and automatic max penalties and enhanced charges for any crime committed while carrying a gun (legally or otherwise), which can include losing your carry license.
I would say though that your trainer wouldn't be thwarted by a bullet ownership limit either, it would just slow down their training. They'd buy their 50, shoot them, then have to buy more all of which could be done at the range.
I broadly agree with you about lists, eventually they will be misused. But the chilling effort would be the point. A chilling effect isn't universally a bad thing, modern HR practices had a chilling effect on sexual harassment in the workplace, banning nazi symbols had a chilling effect on the spread of fascist ideals in post war germany, etc. In this case the chilling effect of reducing the amount of ammo purchased might be beneficial.
Chilling effects also maintain sundown towns, keep LGBTQ people out of certain places, and the last time I checked nazi symbolism was back in vogue :-(
I think we need to approach gun legislation like we do cars. License to carry in public, strict rules about thier usage, and automatic max penalties and enhanced charges for any crime committed while carrying a gun (legally or otherwise), which can include losing your carry license.
The USA is big, and not every county/town constablulatory has left the good ole' boy network behind. You can get on the banned list by doing either the right thing or the wrong thing, and a towns full of grey men who can't speak up isn't an attractive future, and it's some people's realities. Those licenses to carry have to be approved by the locals after all.
I don't disagree with the spirit of what you said about max penalties or enhanced charges, but there've been some serious injustices to lay down at Mandatory Minimum Sentencing's feet when it's been put into practice, and I don't trust the current crop of people not to misuse it. We can't even get enhanced charges for misuse of public trust positions right.
I would say though that your trainer wouldn’t be thwarted by a bullet ownership limit either, it would just slow down their training.
You took it wrong or I misspoke; I was talking about the ability for someone to go get practice on their own without having to ask for permission. A box of 50 .22 is like $10 and closer to the size of a pack of gum (or half the size of a harmonica, or whatever size comparison the kids are using these days). I couldn't justify putting my name on a law that gave Keanu Reeves carte blanche to go train for a new John Wick movie when the average American is under greater restrictions. Where I am I learned from my father and there are ample public lands reserved for the purpose, plus any private land you can convince someone to practice at. Not every place in America has that luxury, though, and not every law is going to fit every place well.
OP asked so I tried to game it out the best I could.
Me, too. Good faith questions and answers are good things. As for strict usage, I think we already have that for the most part. Before adding any more laws I'd really like to see a national agreement on terminology as to what open carry, concealed carry, and all the terms really mean from a legal standpoint. I remember reading stories from when COVID was taking off that folks in California decided it might be time to get armed and didn't realize what the process there really involves. I doubt there's a real solid understanding of their gun registry system, either, and that's without getting into the really weird stuff that's been on the books.
In general I'm pro second amendment. It wasn't until commenting in this thread that I realized the firearm used to assassinate Shinzo Abe is probably legal in the US now thanks to the recent NFA changes regarding short barreled shotguns^1,2^. So, pro second amendment enough to be uncomfortable adding a lot of new legislation that doesn't seem to understand the underlying technology or what the second order effects might be, but not so second amendment that I'm going to lowe's when they open to prove a point. I expect someone else will get there soon enough for the clicks, though.
The practical effect of any sort of gun (or bullet) control would be to disarm the working class. I will not be disarmed under any circumstances, and the vast majority of American workers, convinced communists or not, will agree with me on refusing to disarm.
"Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." (Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, https://www.marxists.org/...)
That's completely backwards. The people who use the most ammo are generally the responsible gun owners who practice regularly. Meanwhile, you only need a handful of bullets to kill a lot of people, and one is enough to cause an accident. It punishes the gun owners you least want to punish while doing absolutely nothing to address the actual problems.
This is not how it works in Sweden, if you have a license for a gun you are allowed to buy the ammunition for the specific caliber and have at home.
ammo is much harder to manufacture
I'm not sure if that's true. I don't have any experience with it myself, but lead is notoriously easy to cast at home, because of its low melting point.
So it seems to me, all it takes to make some (shitty) ammo is some lead, a mould (which you can make from clay) and an explosive.
For a proper modern gun, that last piece is probably pretty difficult, and you would need to make casings somehow too (I'm not sure how difficult that would be). But if you were using some form of (possibly homemade) flintlock or similar, the gunpowder from fireworks should be enough.
I think regulating both guns and ammo is the way to go.
The primers are the only part that people don't regularly manufacturer at home.
Smokeless and hopefully black powder don't explode, they just burn quickly. The primer is a shock-sensitive explosive tho.
Too small, too prone to "spoilage", and waaaayyyy harder to calculate existing stockpiles. It just wouldn't be practical.
Mind you, that's ignoring any of the should factor, and I am absolutely unwilling to engage in that debate
Edit: also, it's too easy to improvise ammunition for simple firearms. You can't really shove just anything into an autoloader and expect it to feed, but anyone with a machine shop could crank out something that would work, and the supplies just aren't trackable the way something like ammonium nitrate is
No, the real problem is neither the gun nor the bullet.
Either one, by themselves or together, are harmless until someone with poor training, education, and/or mental health gets involved.
People are working on it.
This is literally a Chris Rock joke from the bigger and blacker tour.
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Unironically, Chris Rock said exactly this in his 1999 comedy special "Bigger and Blacker".
Bullet Control
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