Given the sheer amount of Lee-Enfields in circulation, it would probably be cheapest for them to just buy new rifles.

Just to give an example, here is what is available on a typical day on GunBroker. How many Canadian rangers are there, again?

If that is the case, then why Russian military has switched to polymer stocks on AKs over 30 years ago, and not looked back? If you look at the rest of Russian equipment, it is very much designed to be gracefully handling extremely cold weather, for obvious reasons.

Just FYI, even a single round fired causes permanent hearing damage, which is why wearing hearing protection is required on pretty much any firing range regardless of how many people are there. The damage is very small, but it accumulates over time.

For this reason, silencers are actually used widely in many European countries for routine activities involving firearms even by civilians, e.g. while hunting. Many of those countries don't regulate them at all, despite heavy regulation of firearms themselves.

It would certainly be a very good thing for police to have and use silencers consistently, in light of the fact that they do occasionally use their firearms in public, and this negatively affects the health of every single person on the scene.

This is also a myth, invented in retrospect to explain the poor performance.

The original 5.56mm was actually very much a killer round. To remind, it was 55 grain back then, and it was fired out of a barrel with 1:14 twist in Stoner's prototype. This made it understabilized, which would cause it to yaw and fragment very consistently in tissue, causing extreme permanent cavity sizes, and fist-sized exit wounds on human targets. In combination with burst fire (and to remind, the entire 5.56 thing was a sidetrack of Project SALVO, which was all about making a weapon that could fire controllable, accurate bursts.

But understabilization negatively impacts accuracy, and US army brass still clung to their notion of accurate rifle from the trenches, so they asked the twist to be increased to 1:12. This still worked reasonably well with a 55gr round out of a 20" barrel, though less so than the original. Then, finally, some idiot decided that a rifle round should reliably penetrate the standard-issue helmet at range, and so the steel-cored SS109/M855 with its 1:7 twist was adopted as a standard round - and while it does indeed penetrate really nicely, it doesn't tumble nor fragment reliably at any range. Then USMC fucked it up even further by coming up with M16A2 which replaced full auto by the useless three-round burst, and generally shying away from the concept of automatic fire by riflemen and pushing their "one shot, one kill" thing; Army actually objected to many of the changes, but they were forced to adopt M16A2 as well due to budgeting reasons.

In truth, everything that you've just told applies to pretty much any military bolt action rifle of WW2. There are plenty of Mosins around that have been similarly abused but also work. I have one with a receiver stamped 1917, and a matching barrel, and it works great even after almost 100 years of use by who knows how many owners. Ditto Mausers.

Most bolt action rifles would actually work just as well, and often better, especially if they are stainless (Lee-Enfield is not), which would make a big difference in a canoe or a kayak, or covered in salt spray. Quite a few semi auto rifles would also do all of this, good examples being SKS and various AK variants, though it's not clear why these guys would need a semi-auto at all.

The main argument for Enfield is not that it's somehow superior to all the other options. It's simply that they're already there, and I would assume there's more in the stockpiles from WW2 days. So why not just use them?

I fail to see the big difference here. If someone wants to carry a firearm for some malicious purpose, they can do so regardless of the law, so long as they have the gun itself.

I understand why some people want to ban guns outright, or reduce the amount in circulation, or otherwise limit possession - on the basis that fewer guns in general means fewer guns in the hands of criminals. But this middle ground position of "it's okay to own guns but not to carry them" never made sense to me, since it's a limit that is basically largely self policed in all practical cases, so anyone who wants to break it for the sake of committing crime is free to do so.

Given Canadian gun laws, I find it doubtful. He could just as well legally possess a pump or even a semi-auto shotgun. Or heck, even a rifle (say, Vz 58 or Tavor). There are a bunch of restrictions around transportation, but they're exactly the same as for a double barreled shotgun.

In fact, he could even get a short-barreled rifle - Canada doesn't regulate those specially, unlike US.

If you specifically want to be insulting, call them "Daish". It's basically the same as ISIS but in original Arabic, and those guys hate it because that's what the locals on occupied territories are calling them behind their back (officially they're just the "Islamic State", with no specific mention of territories; the name denies them the assertion to be a global worldwide Muslim state that they claim with the declaration of Caliphate).

In other words, declare Islam a thoughtcrime, and its public propaganda to be hate speech.

Or, shorter still, "fuck freedom of speech".

Thanks, but no thanks.

The difference, of course, is that Czechoslovakia was never a part of Russia in any way, shape or form, while Ukraine is a cradle of the entire Eastern Slavic civilization.

Even setting the balance of government powers vs individual rights aside, the problem is that there's no such encryption. If it has a backdoor, it's vulnerable. For example, if it has an extra "NSA key" that can be used to decrypt it, then that key will be leaked eventually (Snowden is a living proof of that0, and at that point all existing data is vulnerable.

What he is asking is to compromise security below any acceptable standard for the sake of his convenience. The only correct answer here is, "fuck off". There's no balance to discuss.

Can you quote that right? Because all I see in the 4th Amendment is that they're not allowed to arrest or search unless it is reasonable; it doesn't say anything about being granted a right to search things successfully.

So far as I can see, 4A is not relevant to this discussion at all. It does not grant people the right to be completely secure from any search (as it specifically excludes reasonable ones), nor does it grant the government the right to force people to make said search easier.

Why not just tax capital gains at a flat rate (higher than what it is today, that is)? It's inherently progressive at the lower scale of the spectrum (generally, the higher up you go, the more income people derive from capital gains, and the less from employment and other income), and then eventually flatline somewhere in the "insanely rich" territory. And by its nature, it's much easier to track than regular income or sales.

I would argue that it is, actually, an inherent flaw in the concept, because the spending/income ratio tends to diminish as income increases. In other words, no matter where you draw the line, it'll always be regressive (in terms of both income and wealth) for people above that line.

Why wouldn't he, with the proposed scheme? Proportional to income, his consumption is significantly less than mine - most of his income is immediately invested into stocks and such. On the other hand, I'm earning (and spending) too much to significantly benefit from the "consumption allowance". The end result is that he is paying less, but because the money has to come from somewhere, this means that I'm paying more.