The tag line "The potential for guns made from commodity parts found at the local hardware store" just isn't sensational enough to move copy. Folks have been hand-crafting zip guns for the better part of a century now, if not longer. Hell, half a century ago you could order a firearm (long or short) through the Sears catalog and have it delivered to your doorstep via the Postal Service. No oversight. No license. No FFL. Wasn't the end of the world until the ignorant, myopic, ratings-chasing, fear-mongering drama queens made it so.

I know many people who will be thrilled with self-driving cars, as "driving" is a frustrating-but-necessary expenditure of effort required to get them from A to B (which is all they give a damn about anyway.) What makes you think there aren't similar people who would embrace a self-aiming firearm? "Honestly, I don't want to learn to be a marksman. I just want to blow the crap out of my ex-husband's pickup truck."

Would have been an interesting case to sit-in on. I can imagine that the dialogue went something like this:

Lawyer: Your honor, the court needs to understand that the motion picture industry employs hundreds of people in the process of making a feature length film.
Judge: Uh huh.
Lawyer: When these dirty internet pirates steal the movie, they are stealing the food from the children of these good people.
Judge: So you suffer losses?
Lawyer: Yes! Almost incalculable losses. That's why we seek the statutory penalty of $150,000 per individual.
Judge: [types on computer] I see that the film in question is available on Amazon for nine bucks.
Lawyer: Uhm, yes, I believe that is the correct amount.
Judge: So an individual who purchases this item through Amazon and watches it generates $9 in revenue, minus Amazon's overhead?
Lawyer: Uhhhh ... yes.
Judge: So your client receives up to $9 for the legitimate viewing, but somehow suffers $150,000 in damages because the method of viewing changed?
Lawyer: Your honor, it's complicated.
Judge: Enlighten me. Where does this $150,000 delta come into play?
Lawyer: Uhm ... pain and suffering.
Judge: Pain and suffering?
Lawyer: Yes ... mine. OH GOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE WORKING FOR THESE PEOPLE!

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" has a blatant upskirt scene involving Majel Barrett. Then there's the whole stalactite-phallus later in the same episode.

The ugly truth is anything can be porn. Are you shopping for shoes, or do you have a high heel fetish? Hard to tell simply because you have the Christian Louboutin website on your computer's display.

Looks like Ultraman to me. I would expect noodle restaurants using this robot to be free of angry monsters.

I don't recall Hernandez and Carranza lobbing pipe bombs at the LAPD, nor did they return fire. Did I miss something?

I believe the previous poster is suggesting that the presumption of innocence is significantly reduced when you have explosive devices and toss them at the cops.

I was advised that "a boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money."

I'll cite the Webster dictionary for the definition -
WEAPON : something (as a club, knife, or gun) used to injure, defeat, or destroy.

For an item to be a weapon, it needs to be applied in a specific manner. The hammer, sitting on the table, won't jump up and bop you on the head all by itself. Neither will the firearm, nor the table itself, nor this nifty rock I have here. All of these items can be weapons when applied properly. The application (and intent) makes it a weapon.

I have personally survived two home invasions ... both occurred while I was home. One was in New York outside of Albany. The other was in the suburbs of Washington DC. Your unwillingness to accept the reality of the situation is not justification to dictate what my defensive posture should or shouldn't be.

Why would you want to put a hole in something from a distance?

Because that something is holding a knife to your daughter's throat? And because that something is unlikely to wait for you to go to the garage and get the extension cord for your drill because he's on the other side of the room?

As much as you don't like it, a gun is a tool for defending against a threat. It is highly optimized to he effective and reliable. It is the wrong tool to choose should you need to machine a hole in something, just as a square tipped shovel is the wrong tool for that job.

Maybe if the researchers had a serious talk with the cows, and explained that they wouldn't get to wear big-cow underpants until they used the cow-potty properly, they would have better results. Pointing out that their cow-peers were wearing big-cow underpants can be an effective peer-pressure motivation. Also, there's generally a cow-kindergarden prohibition if cows can't use the cow-potty by themselves. And they do want to go to cow-kindergarden, right?

Offering pop-culture stylized big-cow underpants as a reward/bribe should only be used as a last resort, as it sets a bad precedent.

Further, last time I checked, Assange didn't have a police force or military with which to enforce his Rule of Law upon his subjects.

I would imagine that this situation exists for games featuring cars, airplanes, or any other product that has a corporate brand identity. But a headline decrying "Video Games Fund the Automotive Industry" just doesn't have any punch.

You beat me to the Tragedy of the Commons reference. In every experience I have with shared property or resources, we humans seem to gravitate toward depletion. I purchased some tools to be shared amongst a few friends. One took a screwdriver and hacked the handle off because he needed a piece of steel. The drawer full of drill rod was 3m away, but he destroyed the tool (and its availability to others) because:
- there were plenty more in the toolbox
- the drill rod is "way over there"
- "Why do you care? It's not like it was *your personal* screwdriver."

And don't get me started on how ugly freebie handouts can get.