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Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

reuters.com

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Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#101

Post by pjc50 »

rayiner wrote: post #46
Spooky23 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's still a little high, most of these companies are on the wane. Guns in the US are near saturation from a market perspective and regulatory changes will eventually kick the floor out. Time to cash out... It's like when Phillip Morris bought Kraft and General Foods in the 80s to spin them off later when tobacco regulation came.

Monthly gun sales have about tripled since 2000, and we had a lot of guns even back then: https://www.google.com/search?q=gun+sales+per+year&client=sa... As to regulatory changes: support for a handgun ban is the lowest its been since Gallup started tracking the statistic in 1959: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun... . It's just 26% today, versus 60% in 1959. Unlike with tobacco, there's no…

And covid has made the mass shooting argument irrelevant. It's killed about ten times as many americans. The US can sustain 10k gun casualties a year without moving the politics at all.

Until it comes to the Capitol, I suppose.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#103

Post by arkitaip »

lutoma wrote: post #102

Honest question: How is this relevant to Hacker News? As a non-American i was rather bewildered to find this here. Is there a serious overlap between gun enthusiasts and the IT community in the US?

HN is much more conservative and libertarian than you might think.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#104

Post by 1MoreThing »

rayiner wrote: post #57
groby_b wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like with tobacco, big studies have been suppressed. Guns are far from a well-ventilated issue, they're just well-entrenched. The Dickey amendment got clarified in 2018, and the first earmarks for research were for FY2020 - so, I'd say we wait with those proclamations a few more years.

What difference are those studies going to make? If Columbia University in the City of New York discovers you can use guns to kill people, are voters suddenly going to go "oh, well then!"

That's clearly not the kind of research that's going to be done.

Funding of gun studies means we can make arguments backed up by data instead of partisan bickering. Calls to arm teachers in classrooms or mandate trigger locks on guns have real world effects, and both sides think they're right about it. Funding for studies of specific actions and policies help us as a society make more informed decisions.

More info: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993411/

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#105

Post by yellowapple »

einpoklum wrote: post #40
vageli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.” With 3d printed guns already a reality (I have seen designs for completely printed models, including the bolt carrier), the cat is out of the bag.

The fact that it is possible to make a gun using 3D-printed parts does not make it a significant contributing factor to the prevalence of guns (for non-recreational use) in the US.

Correction: it's not a significant contributing factor yet. It takes a pretty advanced case of myopia to not be able to foresee home firearm manufacturing growing.

At the current rate of development, I give it 10 years, tops, before European and Australian gun control measures are effectively meaningless.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#106

Post by aksss »

groby_b wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monthly gun sales have about tripled since 2000, and we had a lot of guns even back then: https://www.google.com/search?q=gun+sales+per+year&client=sa... As to regulatory changes: support for a handgun ban is the lowest its been since Gallup started tracking the statistic in 1959: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun... . It's just 26% today, versus 60% in 1959. Unlike with tobacco, there's no…

Like with tobacco, big studies have been suppressed. Guns are far from a well-ventilated issue, they're just well-entrenched. The Dickey amendment got clarified in 2018, and the first earmarks for research were for FY2020 - so, I'd say we wait with those proclamations a few more years.

The Dickey Amendment didn't ban any studies or doing research, it banned the CDC from advocating gun control policies at a time when the administration was pushing it to use its authority/reputation to do so. It would be like me saying you can do all the research you want on teenage pregnancy and the like, but we're not funding your department to do political advocacy campaigns for abstinence. Stick to the science.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#107

Post by m0ngr31 »

throwawaysea wrote: post #98

Can someone more familiar with this world explain where the law ended up on building your own guns? I recall a controversy around whether you can even share open source 3D printing plans (which to me felt like a violation of the first amendment) but leaving that aside, I've also heard that it is possible to do so using more traditional methods.

In a majority of states you can manufacture your own firearms as long as you didn't build them with the intent to sell. To do that would require an FFL.

I can't remember exactly, but in California you can make your own, but it has to have a serial number. I can't remember what other restrictions they have.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#108

Post by ISL »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #95
ISL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed with the sentiment that modern companies are capable, but disagreed on the rocket comparison -- the comparison is difficult at best. One is travelling at tremendous speed (Mach 5 or something?) and has milliseconds for course-corrections, the aspires to come to a gentle halt and can close some feedback loops over and over again for thousands of milliseconds. Edit: If you wish to make a weapons comparison, one…

> One is travelling at tremendous speed (Mach 5 or something?) Much higher, about mach 20 to 25. They are moving seriously fast.

Oh, you're right -- it has been ages since I've read about things like ABM intercept problems.

That does a great job of placing the accuracy problem in context: That's ~7 km/second, or perhaps a mile per eyeblink.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#109

Post by kbenson »

einpoklum wrote: post #40
vageli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.” With 3d printed guns already a reality (I have seen designs for completely printed models, including the bolt carrier), the cat is out of the bag.

The fact that it is possible to make a gun using 3D-printed parts does not make it a significant contributing factor to the prevalence of guns (for non-recreational use) in the US.

I think the point was to note that shutting down manufacturing us no longer a useful way to prevent firearms from being made. They don't need to be 3D printed right now because there are factories. If all the factories shut down tomorrow, that wouldn't stop new guns from being produced.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#110

Post by Spooky23 »

rayiner wrote: post #46
Spooky23 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's still a little high, most of these companies are on the wane. Guns in the US are near saturation from a market perspective and regulatory changes will eventually kick the floor out. Time to cash out... It's like when Phillip Morris bought Kraft and General Foods in the 80s to spin them off later when tobacco regulation came.

Monthly gun sales have about tripled since 2000, and we had a lot of guns even back then: https://www.google.com/search?q=gun+sales+per+year&client=sa... As to regulatory changes: support for a handgun ban is the lowest its been since Gallup started tracking the statistic in 1959: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun... . It's just 26% today, versus 60% in 1959. Unlike with tobacco, there's no…

Even smartphone demand slows down. And that's a device with daily utility with a 2-5 year life.

Seriously, I'm coming at this from a perspective of a country boy who went shooting 3-4 times a month as a teen, and earned a bounty for shooting pigeons on a farm. How much more demand can be filled for more guns the mostly sit around and gather dust? It's a market driven by ignorance and fear -- folks are treating these things as investments for a doomsday that will never come.

I'm not an anti-gun guy... I own two shotguns, a hunting rifle and a .22. What's the point of adding more? Pistols, AR-15 fetishization, etc aren't for me. What I have will probably be in great shape beyond my lifetime; if anything I might trade up if I got into skeet again.

Say you are right and no regulatory changes take place.... you're still going to have a cohort of old people who hit the gun hoarding profile start to die off and flood the secondary market with estate sales. My parents have a neighbor in the country that probably has >250 rifles, and there are way more people like that than the WW2/Korea generation that has mostly left us. What's the collector value of yet another AR-15 clone?

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