A creative enough person could kill another without a weapon, and a weapon could be made from many ordinary household objects.

But this gun is only a gun, an unliscenced, unregulated gun that has proven to be less safe than an actual gun.
I see no problem which what the police are saying here, but it is a very difficult thing to regulate.

There's no need to regulate. In fact killing another person is already illegal.

But, you don't understand! This is completely different! This is killing somebody with something built with plans downloaded over the internet!! On a computer!!!

Works for US patent submissions, right?

What in the world are they gonna do when the next-gen version of a firearm is invented and the plans widely released/distributed, and that can be made cheaply, quickly, and simply with common materials, and possibly doesn't even use "bullets" as we know them at all? Maybe some sort of electromagnetically-accelerated "micro-needler" or "micro-flechette" weapon, or something accelerated-plasma-based? "Give me a phased plasma rifle in a 40 watt range."

I must say I have a fundamental problem with a government declaring that, under threat of death or imprisonment, I'm not allowed to defend my family, my community, or myself, and with being denied the current and essential tools for that defense. Police do not protect. They draw chalk outlines and *hopefully* find and arrest the suspected perpetrator(s) after the crime/violence has already occurred.

The right to personal self-defense and to the commonly-employed and current tools used to exercise that basic right to defend your life, that of your family, and of fellow-citizens, are primary and essential human rights. Without them, all other rights are meaningless. How does one exercise a right when dead? How free can one be if they have no legal ability to defend their right to continue living?

To remove the ability of people to defend themselves and their families is to make them a slave to anyone stronger, multiple attackers, or anyone who is armed. It gives the elderly, older children, and women a force-equalizer against a large and powerful male attacker. A rape whistle does no good when you're grabbed by the throat and being strangled. Likewise, the police are no help when a deadly threat is imminent and officers are minutes away at best.

I'll just leave this here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-lNiIDsFM

Strat

Tracking down radio-frequency sources, especially low-altitude, low-power, mobile transmitters, is not so easy. Just look at the equipment and infrastructure used by the British to track the RF signal emitted by TVs (for licensing fees/penalties) and pirate FM broadcasting stations. Even with all that equipment, manpower, and infrastructure, their track record is far from stellar.

It's not something that most local or even most State police forces will have. The Feds don't have the resources and manpower to cover everywhere. The FCC has very limited resources to track very small low-power mobile transmitters, especially in a tactical situation. It's not like many military or paramilitary units have the capabilities, either.

All that is also assuming that the target transmitter's operator(s) take no countermeasures/precautions or try to make the search more difficult.

I expect that the authorities will simply pass laws & enact regulations forbidding private citizens from operating all but the smallest, most primitive, limited functionality and performance drones without a Federal anal-probe and a metric buttload of cash.

Myself, I want a fast (over 100kph), armored drone with a range of 10 miles-plus, a stay-aloft time of over an hour, equipped with targeting optics and a fully-auto weapon, like an AR-180-type high rate-of-fire small-caliber weapon (can carry more .22mag rounds than 9mm, .40 cal, or similar). Or maybe just a single or even a pair of small HE rockets.

Strictly for keeping the coyotes, etc, at bay on the back-forty, of course. :)

Strat

The government prohibited legally-armed Americans from being present through "gun-free zones" in the majority of cases. The armed citizen that was present at Gabby Gifford's shooting withheld firing because of the danger to bystanders...which argues against the "wild shootout with mass innocent casualties" scenario typically trotted-out.

I disagree. You're not thinking. Just the opposite. You're emoting.

You are correct here, as the job of the police is NOT to protect you, the individual citizen. The SCOTUS ruled that police have no duty to protect. They catch the bad guys after a crime is committed. The "protection" part is each individual's responsibility.

I'll just leave this here for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-lNiIDsFM

Strat

Good job. Now you've turned a simple rapist into a necrophiliac. He could have had a nice warm, live, victim to rape if she had not been armed with your "kill the user" defense weapon.

Hard to blow a "rape whistle" when the rapist has the unarmed woman around the throat.

If anyone thinks gun control or gun bans protect those who need protecting most over the long term, please watch this historical documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-lNiIDsFM

Strat

Well to be fair, he's only completely wrong on the *facts*. Other than that... :)

Strat

This was moderated "Flamebait"? Really?

Good job striking a blow for oppressive, intrusive government and against those uppity serfs thinking they have rights.

This isn't about political parties. In case you haven't noticed, the government (regardless of which Party is in office) is spying on and violating the rights of *everyone*, including the present administration's "friends" in the mainstream press (AP).

Reminds me of an abused wife that attacks the police who are trying to arrest the husband for beating her bloody.

Strat

"Closer"!?!?

Not trying to admin somebody else's systems, but...maybe you should consider upgrading your news feed to RFC 1149 or something else a bit swifter. Seems your current one is experiencing...umm...latency-related....uh...shall we say, "issues".

We (in the US) are already there. Just go read the recent news. IRS/TEA Party/medical records seizures, DoJ/reporters, etc etc. It's not "ooh, shiny!" Hollywood, but what in the real world ever is? The results (and the violation, terror, and suffering of innocents) are the same.

"But never mind all that stuff, I heard a fresh rumor about the new i-$DEVICE!!!1!!one!!"

Strat

Seems like the administration was running arms/missiles to Syria via Turkey from Benghazi, which US Ambassador. Stevens brokered. To tie up loose ends, they arranged to have Stevens sent to Benghazi with little security or protection on 9/11 when attacks were likely and left him to die.

Unfortunately for them, this has been picked up and is getting attention. Cue these other scandals (IRS/AP) which they calculated would distract attention from Benghazi. Unfortunately again, for them, instead of distracting from Benghazi, it has morphed in public perception into a "Trifecta of Corruption" in which these individual scandals are reinforcing the others and attracting magnitudes more attention to all the scandals.

People on both sides of the political spectrum are starting to agree, and that spells big trouble for them, and I include the "mainstream"/"old guard" core Republicans. Division is what keeps *both* parties in power...while taking ever more power and freedom from us.

Strat

...That having all these distributed and location-tracked radiation detectors monitored by authorities (I have serious doubts about the government/DHS allowing anything like full and complete public access to the hit-location data) makes this effectively a very powerful tool for tracking individuals/objects/papers/etc of interest to the authorities by simply "tagging", in any number of ways and methods, whatever they want to track with a radioactive substance...liquid, powder, spray, dart, added to food/drink, etc etc.

No wrapping one's head in a damp towel. Better get your ass to Mars!

Strat

It's also against the law for the IRS to selectively harass people & organizations based on politics/ideology, too.

That's why the people who wrote the US Constitution put strict limits on government power. They understood that any power government has which is possible to abuse as such *will* eventually be used to attack political/ideological opponents to the incumbent political/ideological powers regardless of any restrictions.

This administration in particular has already thoroughly demonstrated an almost complete disregard for the Rule of Law, innocent lives, and individual freedom in pursuit of their political & ideological agendas (Fast & Furious, Benghazi missile-running-to-Syrian-rebels/Muslim Brotherhood cover-up, AP/Congressional phone record seizures, IRS political/ideological-based targeting, etc etc etc).

What makes you think they'd suddenly change? Or is the (Stockholm) Force strong with you?

Strat

>> Even better, the IRS official that was in charge of the office targeting individuals and groups for IRS harassment that politically/ideologically oppose this administration has just been put in charge of the IRS's Obamacare office. Better hope your health remains good if you speak out against the government.

Do you have sources for this please?

Ask and you shall receive.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-official-in-charge-during-tea-party-targeting-now-runs-health-care-office/

Strat

The US has not had anything even close to a "free market" for decades. Particularly regarding anything related to healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

The good news, however, is that there should be no worries about medical records being leaked and/or used against individuals or organizations since the IRS will keep those safe for all of us. They're so eager to begin, they simply walked in and seized without explanation approximately *sixty million* medical records in California that are reported to contain every California State Judge as well as many top Hollywood/media/news execs.

Even better, the IRS official that was in charge of the office targeting individuals and groups for IRS harassment that politically/ideologically oppose this administration has just been put in charge of the IRS's Obamacare office. Better hope your health remains good if you speak out against the government.

Maybe we can get the DoJ to seize the IRS's phone records to find out why, since the DoJ seems to be seizing phone records from everyone else these days, including the AP and phone records from the House of Representatives press gallery which journalists often use to call Congresspeople in their offices.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Strat

Progressives being in control of these cities for decades is WHY their economies have been devastated and gangs & drugs and the violence that follows them are out of control. All gun control does in these cities is assure the victims are defenseless. Most deadly assaults are over in less than a minute, and average police response time is about 8 minutes. They show up in time to draw the chalk outlines and fill out reports. Legislating away the *means* of self-defense is indistinguishable from outlawing self-defense.

If guns are the problem, why aren't there mass murders at NRA conventions and gun shows? I was on my school rifle team and nobody thought anything of a kid bringing his newly-acquired semi-automatic rifle in to school and showing it off to buddies by the student lockers in the main hallway between classes, with students and teachers crowding the hall. The only questions asked were what it cost and have they had a chance to shoot it yet. Nobody was shot. Nobody was panicking.

All the recent mass shootings that are being used as reasons for additional gun restrictions share a common type of location. They all occurred in "gun-free zones" where the criminal was assured of zero opposition.

The US War Against Drugs and the earlier alcohol Prohibition disaster has proven that prohibition does not work. Attempting the same foolishness with guns in the US would result in much worse violence, crime, and government corruption than both those failed policies combined.

The KKK and Southern Democrats tried for decades to keep blacks from owning firearms. Are you saying that you agree with the KKK and want to reverse decades of progress in civil rights for blacks...and everyone else as well? The KKK's hate seems rather limited compared with those who wish everyone suffer under Jim Crow laws making possessing the means for self-defense a crime.

Strat

I think having morons as elected officials is more harmful than having kids.

Agreed. While definitely something needs to be banned, I can't make my mind on what to ban. Suggestions?
(grin)

"First, kill all the lawyers." - Ye olde English playwright dude.

Seeing as how the federal government bureaucracy including the Executive branch is chock-full of lawyers, as are most (I believe) in Congress, I should wonder if some of Nostradamus' DNA was possibly included in Shakespeare's family tree.

Strat

If you remove the crime numbers from Progressive Democrat-controlled major cities with the strictest gun control laws like Chicago, NYC, etc, the US crime rate is one of the lowest.

Keeping crime and criminals in check requires cooperation and action from both police and citizens. Disarming half the crime-fighting force does not help reduce crime. It not only requires a much larger and more brutal law enforcement arm to maintain order, It turns that disarmed half into helpless victims and erodes trust, legitimacy, and respect for the government and for police, as well as reducing citizen cooperation with police. It promotes increasing hostility by citizens towards police and the government.

This is the reality for the US and it's society & culture. Maybe gun control works in Australia or the UK. If they're happy, that's great. Different solutions to fit different nations and cultures. It's not just gun control. What works in N. Korea wouldn't work in the UK. What works in France wouldn't work in China. Rinse and repeat for other nations/cultures and various laws/policies/etc. This is true for a large number of things including gun control.

Do you think gay marriage would work in Saudi Arabia? Do you think a death penalty for being LGBT would work in the US/UK? Same thing for gun laws seeking a national database/registration and outright bans in the US. It would take an extremely intrusive, controlling, brutal, and tyrannical police state to have any hope of even beginning to enforce such bans/restrictions in the US. Many millions would die.

Strat