No, you DON'T need tools or machining equipment to make a zip gun. That's what makes it a zip gun, and not a legit-this-works firearm.

If you've got machining equipment, tooling, lathe.. well, shit, son. Guess what they use to make firearms in factories and shops? Just make yourself an honest-to-god rifle. Shit, if you're actually GOOD with metalworking, if your equipment is really quality, you can make a rifle that's better than what you'd buy off a shelf.

Naw, all you need to make a zip gun, you can find in a typical basement. If you wanna get fancy and weld shit, well you'll need a welder, but those aren't hard to come by and aren't that hard to operate (just keep everything steel).

That's just it. There really ISN'T any technical expertise required. You get a .22LR, you get a shotgun shell, you find a hunk of pipe, you figure out how to shove it in there, hold it in place, and poke the primer. Grats, you've got a zip gun.

The only person who couldn't make one is the kind of person who couldn't figure out how to pump their own gas: an idiot.

No, it's not effective further than spitting distance, but most shootings take place at about spitting distance.

It doesn't HAVE to be effective, it just has to go bang.

Naw, they coulda picked up Koresh when he wasn't in the compound, on one of his trips into town. If all they wanted to do was serve a bench warrant they could've done that without a single person being in danger -- just walk up to the guy when he's in public and arrest him, done. Y'know rather than rolling up on his compound that they believed to be fortified and armed.

Waco was where the Feds murdered women and children, just for fun. That's all.

No, they don't care. It's extra work for them to care, and it's ILLEGAL for them to care. Maybe they'll raise an eyebrow, but they really don't care.

The ATF does not keep records of firearms. I may own any-goddamned-thing. Maybe you do. The ATF doesn't have records of that. For certain things, there IS a paper trail -- handguns, that is. And of course the pedigrees of receivers for automatic firearms are well-maintained.. but long guns?

I can go buy a rifle or shotgun today from another private citizen, cash, or sell same to same. There's no record that the transaction ever took place. Outside the background check, buying that rifle or shotgun from the store is little different than buying a TV (the store keeps paperwork on file, but that paperwork is never aggregated into a centralized database for gov't perusal -- and that's by law).

Consider it akin to open-carry laws. It's entirely legal to openly carry a firearm in my state, without a permit. That doesn't mean you won't raise eyebrows, but it does mean that those raised-eyebrows can't do a damn thing but put their foot in their own mouth.

No, actually, they don't give a shit. I could make myself a firearm, RIGHT NOW, and they're OK with that (so long as it doesn't infringe on certain things, like bore diameter, barrel length if it's a shotgun or pistol.. stuff you can own, but need some licenses (tax stamps) from the ATF to own).

For the price of a single 3D printer you could slam out dozens of zip guns. Don't even need any serious machining tools for that.

The whole 3D printed gun scare is just that. A scare. It's headlines. That is all.

The former being delivered by approximately a dozen well-dressed office dwellers before they depart to their catered meal for the rest of the day,
the latter being said by one dude who waves everyone off back to work before even turns to leave.

Exactly how it is at every company everywhere.

Sometimes I cringe at all the waste. Not the time, because the people who develop that shit, their time is worthless to begin with -- the actual physical waste, all the shit they produce to make themselves feel good but is only ever sneered at by employees that actually do work for their paycheck.

Constant improvement is secret code for constantly creating more complicated procedures under the guise of 'streamlining' a procedure.

Hope he's good to work for, too. Usually the higher the position the less inclined they are to deign the actual working floor with their presence, which just means they have absolutely no fucking clue what's going on in their company beyond the boundaries of their office and water cooler.

And sometimes, your audience should buck the fuck up and learn a little about the things they're trying to talk about.

Those are the people who extract the most wealth from companies. Their contribution? The same fucking insight you could glean by asking a 6 year old.

More expensive, and with a proprietary plug.... good luck with that.

actually old people and texting I think is a different beast. that, i think, is down to them simply not understanding the benefits of the technology.

all the old people i've heard poo-poo texting really have the same argument. they don't want to be bothered with a thousand text messages, what's wrong with just calling?

Yeah, but not ALL old people think like that. Some of them realized that, hey, if PersonFriend wants to get a hold of them, they can CALL, or TEXT. Either way is going to be a 'bother', but it's not a bother if you want to talk to them! With a text message the advantage is that they can send it off, and you can read and respond at *YOUR* leisure. Not theirs.

All the old people I've heard complain about texting use the same argument, and it's exactly the opposite of reality. They like talking to people, not reading and writing.

Me, you, most of us? Grew up with that shit. We know the value, we know sometimes a text is appropriate and sometimes we gotta call.

265FT? that's not even one single football yard. you grab any random person off the street and I can have them shooting a .22LR at 100yd, dropping no more than 2" groups, within the day.

100 yards is nothing.

You're expecting too much. I've yet to find a business anywhere that didn't send out personal communications with poor spelling and grammar and punctuation, and I've yet to find out that hasn't posted signage on their premises somewhere that is void of typos.

If I see one more " thank's! " in my life.. it won't matter, because one is already too many. how do you even fucking make a mistake like that good fucking.....

Being fair though, while the line was a bit over the top starring sylvester stallone, it was pretty valid to make.

Moxie refused for a set of reasons, the agent pointed out that by refusing for those reasons, that though the work could possibly be used to violate principals Moxie does not wish violated -- that by refusing the work, Moxie would be allowing a greater form of evil to continue for fear of creating a smaller form of evil.

I mean, I'm not saying I AGREE with anyone here, but I believe that's what the agent believes. And I can totally sympathize, with ALL parties involved, because if fighting the evil of mankind was simple and easy everyone would be doing it