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Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

reuters.com

171–180 of 344 posts

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

#171
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?

There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. The engineering and physics involved in building/tuning guns and shooting accurately is very interesting. Furthermore, the "renegade" spirit required to reject the status-quo and push the envelope in science and engineering attracts quite a few of the same types of people. Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every b…

>>There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts.

Again, surely you mean in the US? All engineers I have ever worked with or met are almost the exact opposite of this.

IMHO ;-)

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

#172
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any country in history that prevented its downfall because its civilians are armed to the teeth?

Western democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth. Do you think the monarchys would have happily and peacefully turned over their power because of the power of love? Because someone said please sir?

> Western democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth.

Citation needed. I can't think of any good examples, except maybe for the Revolutionary French "Sans-culottes", who, as the name suggests, were _famously_ well-equipped.

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

#173
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think there is a large overlap with American IT workers and gun enthusiasts. I happen to be one of them. But I do agree with your comment. As much as I may find the topic "Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt" interesting, I believe it does not belong on Hacker News. Little by little Hacker News is turning into reddit. There is a reason why I come here and not reddit. The mods should take this post down to ensure the in…

When you say IT workers, do you mean mostly the people we used to call sysadmins? (The term "IT worker" doesn't translate well globally.)

"IT" in this context I suspect refers broadly to "tech".

But yeah, the in-industry definitions are that "IT" is business-side support & project roles, while CS / Dev are coders.

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Population continues to grow, and there are many Americans who don't own guns who represent a big market. Many have purchased their first in the past year. And yes, lots of people like collecting a shooting a wide variety of guns. Most of then do it for reasons other than or in addition to prepping. The new firearms market is not going to die; the idea that it will is fudd nonsense.

The point is that manufacturers aren't really producing a wide variety of guns. I wouldn't be surprised if 3/4 of new guns in the country are black polymer-and-aluminum AR-15s or black polymer-framed tilting-barrel striker fired pistols.

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

#175
post #106
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.

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.

...and yet, where are these publicly funded studies on gun violence since? It's a ban in fact, if not a ban in law.

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. The engineering and physics involved in building/tuning guns and shooting accurately is very interesting. Furthermore, the "renegade" spirit required to reject the status-quo and push the envelope in science and engineering attracts quite a few of the same types of people. Finally, the idea of "banning" guns -- which every b…

>>There is a large overlap between any serious engineering discipline and firearms enthusiasts. Again, surely you mean in the US ? All engineers I have ever worked with or met are almost the exact opposite of this. IMHO ;-)

Canadian. I think it's interesting. Canada buy some stuff from Colt Canada, apparently, occasionally require designs to be manufacturered by Colt Canada for service rifles, such as the one used by the Rangers in the North.

If CZ ends up picking up Colt Canada too, seems like they'd be in good hands.

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

#177
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her name was Ashli Babbitt, and she wasn't killed by a citizen with a gun, but rather a government employee with a gun.

She died because she broke a window to the US Senate chamber floor during a proclaimed riot on the US Capital. She was shot once, center mass by a trained US Secret Service officer. She died because of her belief that her white privilege would save her. She died because of her poor judgment of her own actions. Nobody told her she has a right to storm the US capital and attempt to break into the US Senate chamber. The…

It was definitely stupid to storm the US Capitol Building. No argument there.

But she was shot and killed for breaking a window.

Thank God she was put down before more glass was harmed!

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

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But they're not "meaningless", because the average person in Europe and Australia has no interest in owning a gun, never mind figuring out how to print one, and even the average hardened criminal has to consider the possibility that since it isn't necessary for them to preemptively shoot anybody who challenges them, possessing guns might not be worth the risk of additional penalties. Those are much bigger factors in…

> But they're not "meaningless", because the average person in Europe and Australia has no interest in owning a gun

You've just described yet another reason why gun control measures are meaningless. The desire to kill oneself and/or others (with or without a gun) doesn't exist in a vacuum; guns don't magically make people suicidal or homicidal. That desire happens due to a combination of socioeconomic pressures and inadequate mental healthcare - two angles that gun control proponents chronically ignore, instead pushing for band-aids like gun control because those band-aids are "easier" and don't involve confronting the painful realities of socioeconomic inequality.

Hence, my point: as home manufacturing of firearms proliferates, that band-aid loses whatever tenuous effectiveness it has. People concerned about "gun violence" are then forced to consider why people are killing themselves and each other (hint: because the average person is broke and depressed).

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

#179
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?

Relevance:

A) A pulse on market frothiness

B) A pulse on who is opening their purse and looking

C) National security implications from the foreign purchaser of American munitions creator

D) C but with Eastern Europe. A lot of Silicon Valley is funded by funds with Russian general partners using British Virgin Islands entities which have Russian limited partners who made all their money with all the underpriced public assets in Russia, aka Oligarchs. Our salaries in a lot of startups come from Russian oligarchs. We consider that controversial because so much energy is also spent vilifying Russia and their money and its also hilarious that we are making them wealthy too, while they provide the capital to make us wealthy. So people pay attention to other constructive ways of getting Russian money into US assets. Soviet Union and satellite states are just too obvious. Even though one might as well use the Cayman Islands or British Virgin Islands.

E) No national security implication and just liking CZG and their quality control, and how that affects the general Czech gun image and brand.

F) Americans have a general consensus in favor of gun use, gun trading, gun modification, for vary wide ranges of reasons. Similar to computers and tinkering. So it will be rare to find a US-centric forum that fairly often posts culture related articles that would ignore this.

So this headline is a perfect storm. To the top, boys!

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: h…

You will find that many of us gun rights supporters don't care what data comes out. I don't support 2a because fewer than n people die per year from guns.

Your honesty is refreshing, and psychopathic.
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