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Countries are not just places you work, first of all.

ironically the first people who would disagree with you are the people who passed this piece of legislation

slightly more seriously though work is one place where language acquisition happens organically, work is where culture emerges and despite the grievances I have with Anglosphere one great aspect of it is that they are never so frail to think that language can or must be imposed by a commissioner.


Are you kidding?

One of the first things the Anglosphere did was enforce language customs. I think you should review a bit of the history here. Why do you think the standard language for flight is English? To the extent that language acquisition happens at the office, it comes at the expense of actually getting work done.


Military spending is not the driver of the debt, social and welfare spending is. And yes, it is off the table.

In a place as diverse as America, democracy starts to resemble a racial headcount. Elections start to hinge on explicit appeals to particular ethnicities or sub groups. Political parties are very loud about this and they don’t try to hide it at all. I thought it was clear why this only happens in America (the aforementioned diversity).

what does this have to do with tax policy?

If some groups are disproportionately benefited by certain social spending while a different group is disproportionately impacted by the associated taxes to fund said spending, you get a divergence in the ability to burden share across groups (this is the case in the United States). As a result of this, spending is funded by debt.

The law is vague enough that a states attorney trying to make a name for themselves could interpret it that way, yes. However, the law is very likely to be challenged on constitutional grounds. I would not be at all shocked if a proper 1A challenge effectively nullifies it.

While this is technically possible, it is not that easy. In other words, someone who is technical and experienced enough to manually create a lower like that is very likely to have extensive experience with firearms anyway (and likely owns many).

> While this is technically possible, it is not that easy.

Isn't the same thing true for 3D printers? The first time someone tries to print something they frequently end up with spaghetti and less technically competent people wouldn't even be able to get the thing to attempt printing anything.


That used to be true, but no, nowadays they print perfectly out of the box.

You'd be surprised how motivated someone in a gang could get watching a ton of videos on youtube just to get access to a gun police cannot "trace" in a meaningful way.

I would not be surprised at how motivated a gang member is to acquire a firearm, no. So, I guess point taken, however a) I was responding to a claim that's slightly different from 3D printing lower receivers, and b) I thought YouTube banned/got rid of content that actually taught you how to do this? I have not looked in a long time. In any case, milling out a block of material on your own to function as a lower is going to take a lot of time and skill, so my original point still stands.

Separately, I am always a little confused by the idea that you cannot "trace" these firearms. Maybe people do not widely understand what's going on here, but the serial number being traced is on this lower receiver, which can be swapped out (in most but not all cases). If a firearm with a 3D printed lower is used in a crime, I have to assume - though I am not an expert - that you could still connect spent casings to that weapon in the same manner. In other words, it does not matter that the lower doesn't have a factory-installed serial number plate or a stamped serial number. My guess is that this confusion is being injected intentionally in the debate by the people who support/push these badly constructed laws.


> Separately, I am always a little confused by the idea that you cannot "trace" these firearms.

It's presumably a misunderstanding of how investigations work. They're paperwork people so the assumption is that the serial number is of vital importance because it's what's on the paperwork, and if something could exist with no serial number then the entire system is in danger.

Meanwhile the serial number is overall not even that helpful. If you catch the suspect with the weapon in their possession then it doesn't matter that much what the serial number is, what matters is if the weapon they had matches the forensics. By contrast, if you don't recover the weapon then you don't have the serial number anyway.

The only case where a serial number would really do anything is if you recover the weapon after the perpetrator already tried to dispose of it and want to try to use the serial number to identify the original owner. But in that case the perpetrator can leave you without a serial number regardless by just filing it off. It doesn't really buy them anything for it to have never had one to begin with.


Serial numbers are security theater on the same level as TSA checkpoints at the airport.

That is definitely not how gang members are occupying their thoughts and activities. Real firearms are super easy to get in the US, legally or illegally, and it takes much more than "untraceable" firearms to get away with shootings.

Yes. For those unfamiliar with firearms, the above analogy is correct. One addition: in this hypothetical your “computer” is heavily regulated, but for the agency that does the regulating the only thing they consider the “computer” is the frame/case.

That makes it useful for a hobbyist, but it is by no means a replacement for a properly manufactured lower.

Depends on what the intended use is. 3DP firearms have proliferated internationally and have been used against conventional militaries. Agreed they aren't a replacement, but practical use cases exist.

Hobbyist or not, this makes it useful for getting guns (and other gear) from other people.

What I'm saying is that no one is going to build a lower in this manner for a firearm chambered in 7.62 and do anything useful/important with it. Maybe the cartridge size here is a distraction, idk, but this isn't a specification that I would consider common and/or useful for 3D printing a firearm. Even if your nominal intent is just to "finish" a gun with parts you have laying around, it's not going to be something that's consistently reliable.

I mention 7.62 specifically because most folks not familiar with 3D printed firearms are unaware that such a thing is even possible.

9mm 3DP guns have hit the news cycle repeatedly, less so for higher power cartridges. IIRC, there's a .50 BMG project well underway.


You call these project[s], which I think is very accurate for the higher power cartridges. You sound like you've seen a lot of the videos of 3D printed firearms, and from what I can tell they cluster around 9mm and 5.56. There's probably multiple reasons for that, one of which is that those round sizes are more widely available and cheaper, while another is that it is going to be easier to do than something with higher power. So to maybe simplify my point, the technical challenges and inherent safety issues on 7.62 are higher. Thus, projects they shall remain.

At this point with a 5,000 round endurance for a plastic AK receiver, I think it's fair to say the 'project' has reached maturity. Especially when this is all completed on entry level printers

Look up the WW2 FP-45 Liberator. A bad gun you could use to get a better gun. Theoretically you only need to use it once.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator


I highly doubt that anyone who 3d prints a lower does so to “use” it (I.e. shoot someone) in order to procure a better firearm.

The FGC-9 was used extensively in Myanmar for that exact purpose. The rebels would set up ambushes with FGC-9's and recover better firearms for future use

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9#Users_and_use


I would think they just print multiple guns and switch if one breaks.

Can you not imagine any motives that a person could have for printing a gun where they don't care about long term reliability?

Sure, I can imagine any number of motives and Rube Goldberg mechanisms for procuring a firearm to service that motive. My point is that if someone who is desperate to get a firearm has to 3D print one they’re going to pick a simple pistol lower. Not something for a rifle that fires a higher power cartridge. Most rifles that fire 7.62 are not in the AR format.

You don't think someone like Oswald exists in the present day?

They demonstrably do, multiple of them, and none of them used 3D printed weapons.

So there are people who would have a use for a high powered rifle with limited durability.

> What I'm saying is that no one is going to build a lower in this manner for a firearm chambered in 7.62 and do anything useful/important with it. Maybe the cartridge size here is a distraction, idk, but this isn't a specification that I would consider common and/or useful for 3D printing a firearm.

The fact that no one was caught using such a weapon is irrelevant. You stated that there are people out there who would use it, so your statement that "no one" would want to is untrue.


>You stated that there are people out there who would use it, so your statement that "no one" would want to is untrue.

Huh? There is no evidence that anyone is using a 3D printed 7.62 weapon system to do crimes. Of the existing evidence, criminals overwhelmingly use conventional firearms. I'm not understanding your point. The would-be and successful assassins in the news the last couple years used standard rifles, ranging from 5.56 to .03-06 in caliber. I think you are assuming that criminals are less sensitive to equipment reliability than they actually are.

Let me put it this way. If 3D printed firearms were such a game changer, they would already be using them at scale. They are not, and these laws are part of a fundamental misunderstanding about how firearms function and how 3D printing technology works.


You are arguing against a point I am not defending. I am giving a retort against your statement that you can't imagine why anyone would want a high powered rifle that had a limited reliability window. You admitted that there was a use case for it, and I called that out. That's it. I am not defending nor opposing the ability to 3D print firearms.

I don't think I actually did admit that, and I think the confusion lies in your assumption that someone who wants to do a crime is willing to accept the reliability issues. Perhaps it's worth pointing out that these reliability issues aren't simply lower n-cycles before failure. The weapon could explode on you on the first shot. The probability of this happening is lower for the less powerful cartridges (as I implied earlier but perhaps should've been more explicit). This concept of a "reliability window" is not the right way to think about this. In other words, if someone handed me a 3D printed 7.62 weapon system I would refuse to fire it, and call the person who made it an idiot.

You could’ve told me this story without the context and I would’ve assumed it was a barracks game being played with surveillance equipment. Hilarious.

"Mom, Lise, check it out - Dad's on TV!"

https://youtu.be/S5lihwyjk8w?t=30


Is this why shop owners board their windows and doors up every time there’s an [insert left wing cause] protest in their area? I haven’t kept up but was Charlie Kirk’s assassin a left or right winger, or one of those horseshoe fellas.

Are you trying to make a point? Go ahead and make it. Or are you one of those “just asking questions” types?

I’m one of the types who can parse observable reality and notice that businesses don’t board up when democrats win elections. They do it when the other guy wins. The claim that the “right wing”, such as it exists as a cohesive entity, is uniquely responsible for political violence today is an absurd claim on its face because I could look out my window on my commute and simply notice who was doing the violence. Or, in the case of Charlie Kirk, who was doing the assassinating.

Second this. I was skeptical because I thought I was attached to the "heft" of a full layout, but the 96% is the best of both worlds.

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