I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable • Hacker News Board

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#111

Post by oijaf888 » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:22 PM UTC

MChristopherson wrote: post #76

jstalin wrote: post #6

Considering that rifles are used to kill fewer people in the United States than knives, fists, hammers, or bats, Mother Jones' attempt at scaring people about those who build their own guns rings a little hallow. But I get it, AK-47s look scary and so we should all be outraged. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/...

Note as well that, as far as I can tell, he did not build an AK-47. He built a copy of the semi-automatic version that is available to gun enthusiasts. He did not build what your average user of an AK would call an AK: a fully automatic machine gun.

Are you sure its not a semi-automatic AKM? Also I don't think any user of an AK-47 would call either a machine gun, more likely a rifle. A user of an AK-47 would probably call a RPK a machine gun though.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#112

Post by ianstallings » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:23 PM UTC

minamea wrote: post #61

presidentender wrote: post #3

This has been legal for a very long time, and is the cause of approximately no violence. Much as with the discussion of 3d printed firearms, it's not so much that the behaviors of gun owners and gun builders has changed as it is that the prevailing discourse in the political arena and the news is different. The author refrains from espousing an opinion in the piece, but only just, and frankly I disagree with him. The…

What? How is this not a disgrace? This article means that practically anyone anywhere in the US can have an AK-47 with no licensing. How is that supposed to make me feel safe? What if I sneak into my GF's house and her dad tries me right then and there, and decides that the punishment for fucking his daughter is death. Oh, and what do you know? He has an AK-47 for it so all my hopes of running away are dashed. People…

This is fear in action, your whole post. Use logic, not fear.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#113

Post by Taylorious » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:25 PM UTC

minamea wrote: post #101

Taylorious wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People shouldn't have the power to kill other people so easily - not unless they're the police or army." And why should some some 18yo kid in the army have that right but not a middle aged adult? Because some other army guy yelled at him for a few weeks and gave him a uniform? You mention a father could go crazy and kill you for sneaking in to screw his daughter, but what if you were a rapist sneaking in to rape his…

What, aside from the obvious reason? Someone in the military follows orders and serves the nation while someone with a gun will probably do whatever he/she feels with it and nothing actually useful. How is that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#114

Post by jacalata » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

hysterix wrote: post #69

reader5000 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually society would be much better off if the government tracked such devices. A lot of people interested in gun culture have severe inefficiencies in their cognitive abilities. Almost all mass killings are perpetrated by individuals with severe cognitive disabilities or are on some sort of prescription psychoactive. As a prominent role of government is to protect its citizens from danger, the active tracking of m…

Wow, where to begin with biased posts like these? >A lot of people interested in gun culture have severe inefficiencies in their cognitive abilities. First off you start off insulting a large group of people, painting broad strokes of assumption. You've already lost the majority of all your credibility (what little you had that is) at this point. >gun culture represents a small and decreasing minority of Americans Th…

The absolute number of guns may well be higher, but the percentage of Americans who own one is presumably far below what it was during colonial times, for instance. It is quite possible that the number of guns is rising but either a) new gun owners are not increasing as fast as the number of people or b) the number of gun owners is not increasing at all but existing owners are collecting more per capita than they used to. I don't know if that's the answer, but your argument that there are more guns than ever is a poor rebuttal to the grandparents argument that the percentage of Americans owning guns is going down.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#115

Post by ianstallings » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

reader5000 wrote: post #39

droithomme wrote: post #22

Is this supposed to be a problem? The government does not need to know about our guns, not how many we have, not what sort they are, and not where we keep them.

Actually society would be much better off if the government tracked such devices. A lot of people interested in gun culture have severe inefficiencies in their cognitive abilities. Almost all mass killings are perpetrated by individuals with severe cognitive disabilities or are on some sort of prescription psychoactive. As a prominent role of government is to protect its citizens from danger, the active tracking of m…

Maybe we should use phrenology to measure their heads and see if they can handle the weapon first? I mean, since we're going to the realm of pseudo-science, might as well.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#116

Post by Cushman » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #95

Cushman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many people on Hacker News (or hell, in the US in general) do you think have built a rifle from a kit? Order... hundreds of thousands? Millions, maybe? It depends how you define a kit, I guess. It's quite common to put together uppers and lowers and barrels and triggers et cetera when building a rifle, and I imagine most of those who do so understand the rules that govern it. Frankly building an AK from parts i…

Well, we can quibble about this, but i'm betting you that the vast majority of people in the USA haven't put together a gun from a kit, and most of them probably don't own a gun, or if they do own a gun, probably haven't thought about modifying it. Irrespective of who's right on that point, there is a cultural issue here. People who have not lived with/around fire arms, and who do not hunt, have essentially no reason…

I can understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately, I don't think this article is the explainer you're looking for, for a lot of reasons discussed in these comments, but primarily this: he destroyed the gun.

He bought it, he built it, he fired forty rounds through it and then he found it so distasteful that he didn't want it in his life, so he destroyed it. Even after mentioning how much it might have sold for, he didn't sell it. He didn't even give it away to one of the hobbyists he met, which he would have no difficulty finding takers for.

Imagine you help someone buy and put together their first computer. Not a monster machine, but a nice solid, balanced build. Later you learn that they booted it up once, played thirty minutes of World of Warcraft, and didn't like it, so they smashed all the parts with a hammer and left it out with the trash. How does that make you feel?

To a normal person, whatever, that might be a bit of an overreaction. But an enthusiast is shocked, confused, dismayed. Why? Why did you do that? I could have taken it off your hands. I could have paid shipping.

And that's the lethal problem: The author of the article, himself, could not or did not come to an understanding of how and why it is that these hobbyists feel safe and comfortable with what they do. He didn't understand them, from the sound of it he didn't really try to, and he still doesn't.

And if he doesn't understand it himself, what can he possibly hope to teach anyone else?

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#117

Post by cstross » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #83

glurgh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the prevailing discourse in the political arena and the news is different. The prevailing argument of gun advocates, at least in the US, is that "it's not our guns. it's those other, bad people's guns". It would probably help their case if they stopped arguing that owning a potentially deadly piece of gear is some universal human right not subject to regulation like, say, owning a car. Most car owners cause approxima…

"All drivers need a license and insurance." One wonders, why? At least in the case of licenses and insurance, we see folks all the time (anecdotally illegal aliens doing work, though I'm curious how well statistics actually back that supposition up) drive with neither, usually to no ill effect. Insurance usually doesn't seem to help very much in the case of a totaled car, and mostly just seems to be a captive market…

The point about insurance isn't so that the driver gets a new car if they wreck it -- it's so that if they kill or injure, or damage the property of, someone else then that someone else is covered.

Driving licenses are "a seal of approval of your driving prowess" in many countries other than the United States; American drivers frequently can't drive for shit. (Sorry, but I live in the UK, with approximately half the per-capita adjusted road death/injury rate to the US, and a driving test that's notoriously hard.)

As for "not that much death and dismemberment" because of the easy availability of firearms in the US, it's noteworthy that the level in question is a couple of orders of magnitude higher than in the UK, where firearms ownership is rare and tightly licensed. I wouldn't argue for a total ban -- if nothing else, North America is full of interesting and exciting wildlife, to which many people live in close proximity -- but there's no obvious need for city dwellers to own semi-auto rifles and handguns, and requiring those who do to carry third-party insurance in case an accidental discharge ends up injuring someone is an absolute minimum.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#118

Post by glurgh » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #83

glurgh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the prevailing discourse in the political arena and the news is different. The prevailing argument of gun advocates, at least in the US, is that "it's not our guns. it's those other, bad people's guns". It would probably help their case if they stopped arguing that owning a potentially deadly piece of gear is some universal human right not subject to regulation like, say, owning a car. Most car owners cause approxima…

"All drivers need a license and insurance." One wonders, why? At least in the case of licenses and insurance, we see folks all the time (anecdotally illegal aliens doing work, though I'm curious how well statistics actually back that supposition up) drive with neither, usually to no ill effect. Insurance usually doesn't seem to help very much in the case of a totaled car, and mostly just seems to be a captive market…

Well, we don't see that all the time - we see it sometimes. The only reason some people can drive with neither is because most people don't.

I don't think it's merely a solution in search of a problem because we seem to spend an enourmous amount of political energy on the topic in the way we don't on 'who gets to own a Ferrari'. Ferrari owners pay the exorbitant insurance fees for the privilege. You're a firearms enthusiast who would like to own a .303 British? More power to you. Pay up.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#119

Post by anon1385 » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

hysterix wrote: post #55

reader5000 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, most gun ownership is motivated by sexual signalling. Especially as blue collar niches are ravaged by automization, immigration, and outsourcing, it is increasingly difficult to for blue collar males to establish a sense of manhood. A small minority turn to gun culture as a means of reestablishing that sense.

Extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary proof. Could you provide at least ONE scientifically accurate source actually proving this obviously biased opinion? Can you provide even one? Or is this just the standard liberal, pulling information out of your own ass to further your own viewpoint style of thought so common with your type and others on ycombinator. Also your own words contradict themselves. You open you…

Firstly, please read the commenting guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html particularly: Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. and When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.

Secondly, the supposed contradiction you identified is not a contradiction at all, the first quote was talking about most gun owners the second about a minority of the entire population (who, the poster was arguing, makeup the majority of gun owners). Perhaps your reply would have benefited from you taking a few seconds to allow your masculinity to recover before you started hammering the keyboard in anger.

Thirdly, 30 seconds on google scholar will find you plenty of articles about the links between masculinity and gun ownership.

http://gas.sagepub.com/content/26/2/216.short

Stroud, Angela. "Good Guys With Guns Hegemonic Masculinity and Concealed Handguns." Gender & Society 26.2 (2012): 216-238.

In most states in the U.S. it is legal to carry a concealed handgun in public, but little is known about why people want to do this. While the existing literature argues that guns symbolize masculinity, most research on the actual use of guns has focused on marginalized men. The issue of concealed handguns is interesting because they must remain concealed and because relatively privileged men are most likely to have a license to carry one. Using in-depth interviews with 20 men, this article explores how they draw on discourses of masculinity to explain their use of concealed handguns. These men claim that they are motivated by a desire to protect their wives and children, to compensate for lost strength as they age, and to defend themselves against people and places they perceive as dangerous, especially those involving racial/ethnic minority men. These findings suggest that part of the appeal of carrying a concealed firearm is that it allows men to identify with hegemonic masculinity through fantasies of violence and self-defense.

Re: I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable

#120

Post by ianstallings » Sat, May 25, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #57

ricardobeat wrote: post #17

Thankfully this is illegal and will remain so in most of the rest of the world. 3% means there are more than 9.4 million assault rifles in US homes. Are they expecting an invasion?

Many are expecting either an invasion or a revolution. There's a disturbingly high rate of revolutionary fantasies among the gun crowd. I have no problem with keeping a gun for this, with the attitude of "and may we never need it", but many people seem positively gleeful when they talk about the possibility of violent armed revolution or resistance.

You mean like Thomas Jefferson? Yeah, he was pretty uppity.