DIY manufacturing ammo is way easier than firearms.

Bullets just require a mould, which anyone can buy or make, and some wheel weights, sailing weights, or lead from any number of sources, and a cheap gas furnace.

The problem with that idea is that it assumes that firearms are something that are uncommon or rare in the first place. Firearms are incredibly easy for anyone to produce with or without a 3D printer. A used drill press, lathe, or CNC costs the same as a good 3D printer. The scary black rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47s can partly be made with nothing more than a jig and a Dremel or a drill press.

But you are right in that it may be a good idea depending on the country. Australia doesn't have a multi billion dollar drug and contraband smuggling economy walking across its borders every year from Mexico.

"Sci-fi used to be about promising hopes, about what mankind can do getting to the stars. Take Star Trek, for example. It led the way into devices we take for granted."

No, Star Trek used to be about promising hopes. Sci-Fi in general has never had that theme. I mean, the year before Star Trek came out, Frank Herbert released the quintessential science fiction novel, Dune, which has the overarching theme that the only way humanity will survive in the long term (this is after they already almost annihilated themselves re the Butlerian Jihad) is by relying on a near god-like figure to enforce a form of anarcho-primitivism on the entire galaxy that humans have colonized.

If that isn't bleak, I don't know what is.

Perhaps you should move to North Korea.

The DNP has not always been liberal and the GOP has not always been conservative. Before the Southern Strategy politics of the 60s, the DNP was comprised of two factions, the Northern/Progressive Democrats and the Southern/States Rights/Conservative Democrats (KKK included). They had different political ideologies but similar goals. That is why we had weird tickets like the very liberal JFK running with the very racist and very conservative LBJ. After the Southern Strategy politics (by Richard Nixon and the GOP), the State's Rights faction abandoned the DNP for the GOP, and the GOP have had a clear political/ideological divide ever since. Just because Calhoun was in the DNP doesn't mean he was liberal.

Probably because he, like the rest of us, have no idea what that person was talking about. Maybe if they were more specific as to what they meant by "mass murder" and in what context (since it was obviously hyperbole), there would be something to address.

That claim is horse shit. The meaning of the word "homeopathy" implies its major tenant, which is that problems can be cured by diluting things that cause symptoms similar to what a person is experiencing. If it was preventative, then there would be no symptoms for the homeopathy to be paired with. Instead, homeopathy is NEVER preventative and is ALWAYS reactive. If your woo doctor says otherwise, it is because they are selling you bullshit for problems you don't even have.

It is largely a cultural thing as well. If you look at a ranking of countries by suicide rate, no country in the top 10 are guns easily and legally acquired. Some, like Japan and South Korea, gun ownership is nearly impossible. But countries like the U.S. and Switzerland, having the highest gun ownership, rank 30 and 44 respectively.

A $1200 laptop has barely the same power as a $200 desktop. What is this, the year 2000? This isn't news. This is just how laptops/desktops have always been.

Why would they do that when they can arbitrarily increase prices and hidden fees everywhere else? One of the advantages for them colluding and running an effective monopoly is they can do whatever and you either have to live with it or live without internet. It is the same reason the same companies charge $100/year to rent a $10 cable card.

Yea, you can literally buy a piece of plastic that just requires a Dremel to roughly hollow out, and from there build a complete AR-15 in less than an hour. No serial number, little to no knowhow, just a hammer, pin punches, a Dremel, and about $600. 3D printed guns are nothing more than moral panic bullshit. But so is gun-grabbing. Statistically speaking, there are few rational reasons to ban firearms, but this discussion is popular amongst people who have gun phobias. You are 50x more likely to be sent to the hospital due to a dog attack than to be killed by a firearm. I know those two things are in no way equivalent, but I have never heard someone suggest banning dogs, despite the greater frequency of harm. The reason why the largest demographic (by a large margin) for the victims of the 11,000 or so gun deaths unrelated to suicide each year are young black men, and the highest proportion of those deaths (also by a large margin) are from handguns, is largely due to the reason why that same demographic is the highest (by a large margin) in prison. The drug economy. But no, let's discuss banning "scary" looking guns like AKs and ARs, despite these being the most popular rifles in the U.S. while simultaneously their use in homicide and crime is almost unheard of (except for the black swan mass (10-30) shootings that happen with them once every decade or so).

You gave a "list price" of $15 for a product that, for all you know (and given medicine pricing, like does) costs $0.10 to produce, and your issue is the $0.35 tax?

It does apply to desktops, but there are several significant differences... like: 1. Desktop users have control of over ways to manage heat that they can't with laptops 2. If a desktop user fries their graphics card, they only have to replace their graphics card. In comparison, integrated graphics cards are permanently attached to the motherboard which typically also has a BGA processor soldered on. That is three components needing to be swapped out if the user screws up the graphics card from using a feature that has no use case. 3. User built desktops typically used for over clocking don't have warranties

About two thirds of all firearms owned in the U.S. can easily defeat body armor. The other 1/3rd are handguns which require special ammo (which can be made at home by anybody), and body armor doesn't protect one's face, arms/legs (or the arteries inside), or sometimes the stomach/groin area.

Netbooks were brilliant and were hot sellers before Microsoft decided they should run Windows CE instead of Linux (which they could do in the PC market) and laptop makers found people were buying the netbooks instead of the higher priced and higher margin standard laptops. Success killed the Netbook.