Homemade hovercraft used to be a big thing since at least the '50s or '60s (and for all I know still are). Typically made by putting a prop on a vertical-axle lawnmower engine and building a simple vehicle body with a fan shroud in the middle.

There was a classic disaster that happened to a LOT of people who did this:

After they'd played around on land with it for a while they'd decide to test how it would perform on water. So they'd take it down to the local park-on-a-lake, fire it up, and drive out onto the lake.

It would work fine ... for a few minutes. Just long enough to get maybe 20 feet or so, over well over-their-heads water...

Then the spray it was kicking up and sucking back around the motor on its way to the fan would finally short out the spark wiring. Oops!

Of course they usually hadn't included any floats...

No, flying isn't the correct word.

Story I heard, back in the '60s. (Don't know if it's true, unfortunately. But I think we have some Ann Arborites here who might check the city ordinances.)

Plans had been published for making homemade hovercraft with a salvaged lawnmower engine. Stand on it like a Segway and steer by leaning.

Kid had made one and decided to take it down the LOOOONG, somewhat steep, slope of Hill street one night. (I shiver at the thought of how fast that would be going near the bottom...)

Cops had a radar trap and clocked him at freeway speeds. Issued him a ticket.

He fought it, claiming that the cops had no jurisdiction because he was flying, not driving. Didn't touch the ground. Take it up with the FAA.

Traffic court judge (rightly or wrongly) agreed that this might be true and the cops hadn't proven jurisdiction, so he dismissed the ticket.

City Council banned hovercraft within the city limits shortly thereafter. B-b

Ah, yes, does the "USA SUX0Rz!" flame ever get old on Slashdot? It truly is evergreen. Next time try spelling it "AmeriKKKa" for that extra authenticity.

1. Even old car brakes are more complicated mechanically than trigger assemblies.
2. Said devices you mention are not only far more complicated, but are far larger - enough to contain multiple redundant systems.
3. Said devices don't have to sustain sharp sudden shocks like you get in firearms.
4. Modern trigger assemblies actually tends towards more simple than the old ones, one of the benefits of being able to make complicated shapes easily. We use a 'complicated' part to reduce mechanical complexity(IE fewer moving parts).

Plenty of gyms out there that should be able to settle the liability concerns for not much money.

It'd be a balance, I know. I'm willing to bet that the healthcare savings would exceed the facility insurance for a non-extreme gym.

It's not always possible. See the 1911 with the flush trigger. Still, on my 686 a proper rod behind the trigger could even prevent it from being cocked. But I'd be extremely careful when mounting the trigger lock on - place it too far forward initially and you could end up tripping the trigger.

Oh, and I checked with my S&W 686 - with the hammer cocked it does indeed lock the cylinder in place.

And here lies the genesis of anti-gun attitudes: I can't be trusted with one, so the rest of you can't be, either.

I can assure you that children who can reach a high shelf are old enough to learn what guns are, how they work, and what happens when you fire a .357 Magnum at a watermelon, because that's exactly what my father did with me. I've been shooting since I was six, got my own BB gun at seven and a .22 at ten. Always had maximum respect for weapons, because it was drilled into me. And I intend to do exactly the same thing with my kids. Shooting and hunting are great hobbies (though I don't care for hunting myself), and self-defense is a fundamental human right. I'd rather have a daughter who knows how to shoot than one whose only hope is that the rapist won't kill her afterward.

He was an experienced detective, IIRC 20+ years on the force. One of those guys who gets to break the rules (in any organization) because, well, who the hell are you to tell him how to be a cop, rookie?

But your reaction is the same one the rest of us had - what an idiot! Wasn't just any suspect, either - the guy was arrested for murder. Dumb.

Side effects are generally predictable, and generally have a slow onset that leads to discontinuation of the drug before things become a serious problem. Failure of a self-defense gun to fire is like a new analgesic that causes instant fatal arrhythmias seconds after the first dose.

Not if you ask them. Go see if you can get away with no-knock raids in the middle of the night and killing all your neighbors' dogs before you assert that.

If they're standing close enough to you to be able to pull the gun out of your hands before you have shot them, you need to back up. Reaction time matters and in a real life-or-death situation you need to account for it.

I cannot comprehend how it is that people come up with ideas this bad. You do realize that batteries can fail for a variety of reasons, right? And that the lawful gun owner is not the problem, right? I mean, the criminal who is going to commit armed robbery does not care if you also convict him of failure to keep his batteries charged when you pick him up.

You can't guarantee that the gun will always fire if an authorized user has it without restricting your safety mechanisms to simple mechanical ones.

And now, in an article about science, you quote someone's own sources to prove them wrong, you get downmodded. But it's not a religion...

You'd be shocked at how many people get really offended if you tell them to stop using Gmail. It's like telling someone who likes to bitch about how crap TV is to stop watching - it's just utterly out of the question. You'd think it would be easy to search for "free email provider", go to page 17 of results, and pick some random one. You would also be dead wrong.