Buddy of mine worked against the apartheid government in South Africa. He was a priest, and saw it as a religious duty. Lost friends and loved ones, risked everything, etc.

He wanted to go before the TRC to get his story on the record. Off the record, certain folks let him know that he was free to testify to absolutely anything that the previous government did. If he testified against the ANC, CPSA/SACP and especially Umkhonto we Sizwe, he might end up with his head cut off or otherwise severely punished. He fled SA shortly after that.

TRC's may not be as fair or useful as you might believe. Unless it's run by an independent third party and held to a high standard, it's going to end up being whatever the sponsoring government wants.

Except you can have said lawyer disbarred if you can prove they violated client confidence for unethical purposes. Contact your state bar association (for the US).

There's a simple solution everyone is ignoring. Hire lawyers in competing countries. For example. US, Switzerland, Russia and China. Split the key, send a piece to all four. Good luck getting the legal systems of all four locations to concur.

Yes, there are banks and lawyers that specialize in key or software escrow, btw. It's getting more popular in Zurich.

Flat file ascii and LTO tapes. I guarantee there will be LTO compatible tape drives for the next century, easily.

QIC tape format is 42 years old, ditto Ascii at 42 years old. It is highly unlikely ascii will be entirely disappeared in 8 years. Amazon and Google found several QIC tape readers for under $200. Tape is specifically invented and used for very long term storage. LTO tape readers will be around for a very very long time, for retention purposes. While not multi millennia solution, it's good for at least a century or two.

Acid free archival paper will last 500-1000 years. Cotton rag paper could last longer. Both are storage dependent. Probably a better choice.

Nuclear weapons have a shelf period of about 20 years. After that, they need maintenance. Could be less, could be more, depends on the type.
More time that passes, less likely the detonation and more likely a malfunction.


So, at MOST, that's only a 50 year solution. Not a "few thousand".

Oddly, I have never heard a combat vet agreeing with that assessment. Never underestimate a lot of angry civilians with often homemade or virtually antique weapons. While it may (may, not certain) be possible to conquer such folks, it gets awfully expensive. Vietnam and Afghanistan are hardy examples. Saw examples of it in the Balkans. Hell, buddy of mine that spent time in Rwanda told me about mass combat with cheap PRC machetes.

It's nearly cliche to say "Weapons don't win wars, people do". But there is more than a bit of truth in it. If weapons solely determined wars, history would be a very different place. Hell, if that was the case, pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine would not be stomping the ever lovin' hell out of the Ukrainian forces. That's actually a pretty good example of cheap, simple hand weapons taking down tanks and helicopter gunships.

Nope, just a demo piece. Heck if I know. I only know of using laser sintered parts in aircraft rotors. I'm not a firearms manufacturing material specialist. I can whistle the tune for aerospace, however.

http://www.solidconcepts.com/n...

Not really. Go ahead and have an aneurysm when you read this.

It's legal to post 3D print files of firearms. That's fully legal and permitted under the First and Second Amendments.

It's illegal to export them internationally without State Department permission, due to The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Constitution grants the US government nearly unlimited control of the borders of the United States, and that include limits on goods going in or out of the country.

Source: I did export control in the aerospace industry. Plenty of 100% fully legal domestic stuff is illegal to send internationally without a permit. Fun example? L3 FLIR cameras made in Canada are illegal to transport back into Canada. Or notch a tailpipe to fit in a HMMWV, it becomes a defense article.

You do realize that there are basically schematics for virtually every firearm in history available? Around here, we have people that make historic weapons using historic tools (ie essentially blacksmith shops). You could easily build highly lethal firearms with a load of charcoal, some decent wood and a pile of iron. It doesn't require that much skill either.

Before you say "So What?", this is still done every day in the Khyber Pass. Weapons are made using extremely primitive means. It's actually unnerving that they can and do reverse engineer firearms from even just pictures, and then make their own knockoffs.
Any machine shop in America can easily surpass Khyber Pass' charcoal fires and hammers.

What other countries do or do not do should not be the basis of American law. Constutional rights have one of three levels of protection. Might as well think of them as high, medium and low.

Strict scrutiny is the most stringent standard of judicial review, so highly protected. Example: race-based classifications.
Intermediate scrutiny requires the government to have a very important interest in infringing upon said right, medium. Examples: free speech, equal protection
Rational basis review is the bare minimum of Constitutional protection, and is regularly infringed upon government interest.

IMHO, all rights should be held to strict scrutiny standards. In reality, only a few rights are held to the highest standard, and even those are subject to infringement.

Of all the women I know well, about 60% own and/or carry firearms. Believing that only men are attached to their firearms says more about your mentality than it does anything else.

Laser sintering, arguably a form of 3D printing, is used to make firearm components. Yes, likely used by hunters, soldiers, police officers or hobbyists. Firearm assemblers source out all the components (with specifications). Some firearm manufacturers do advertise their components (high end custom weapons), others do not (everything not high end or custom). Same with cars.

Wow, AmiMoJo so perfectly proved the point, you'd swear it was masterful trolling.

That's cute. Look up "reapportioning" or "gerrymandering". That and the costs involved to win an election. Plus, all three branches collude to violate the US Constitution. So, no, we're not responsible for our government directly anymore. If we could be, that'd probably be made illegal as well. Protests will be cordoned off into "free speech zones", far from the folks they wish to protest. Riots will be put down by thousands of police officers. Petitions will be ignored. All of these have been done, and will continue to be done. And all safely ignored by those in power.

Most folks just keep their head down, mind their business and pay their taxes. I'm one of those. Sure, I vote and give money to good causes, but that's a negligible impact.

Yep, because we can't do much else. American citizens don't have that much of a say. Our elections are not quite rigged, but highly controlled by both political parties to be expensive and lopsided (voting districts are designed to be overwhelming of one political party). Our government's structure isn't designed well to handle collusion between all three branches of government. The only way to make an impact is to get a LOT of people together that are willing to spend a lot of money. That's enough to keep what you got, maybe small advances. AARP is the king of this, NRA and AFL–CIO are a much smaller examples. I wish the EFF was a bigger example.

So, the only way things like this could be stopped is a civil war. Which you probably wouldn't want, as it'd have global repercussions. If the federal government won, imagine our current system only twenty times as bonkers. If the federal government lost, there is no guarantee the new government won't be twenty times as bonkers as the current government. The Hunger Games is an literary example of California beating DC, there's plenty of other fiction and nonfiction examples.

I grew up within line of sight of Three Mile Island. Not one person got sick or died from the accident there.

We SHOULD be building new nuke plants, with lessons learned from older nuke plants. I always want to strangle folks that don't want to build new plants because old plants are "dangerous" (which they're not, they're much safer than even solar power). It's downright disturbing that we're relying on such old plants for so much of our national power grid.