Why you can't ban firearms.

[gorfle]

Here is a video of a home-made muzzle loader of the simplest sort. The "gunpowder" appears to be ground-up match heads.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/09/tiny-cannon-is-adora.html

[rrneck]

1. Soooooo

before everyone shows up and snarks that a little gun like that ain't the same, the technology can easily be scaled up. The weapon itself doesn't matter so much as whether your weapon is better than somebody elses. And more importantly, if your advasary thinks your weapon is more effective than his.

[tularetom]

2. You can't get kids to stop trying to find ways to make things go bang.

I remember my mom bought an old toy brass cannon barrel at a yard sale. My brother and I drilled a fuse hole in it, then clamped it in a vise, dumped the powder from a dozen or so caps into the muzzle, stuffed some toilet paper in there for wadding and pushed a ball bearing of close to the same bore down the barrel. We pulled a fuse out of a firecracker and pushed it into the hole we drilled. The thing fired and the steel ball flew through the garage door, ricocheted off a concrete stock tank and broke the rear window in my dad's pickup.

But that wasn't all. We forgot (or never knew about) Newton's third law of motion - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The cannon flew out of the jaws of the vise and just missed my brother's foot as it landed on the floor.

I can't imagine this guy firing this little cannon in the house at eggs, balloons, light bulbs etc. without damaging something.

[Xipe Totec]

3. Nicolo Machiavelli - Food for thought

FWIW, I don't own any firearms, though I grew up surrounded by them. As far as home-made firearms I made a few myself, one of which made a fist-sized hole through a folding steel card table.

But I digress...

Here is the real reason why we should not ban firearms:

CHAPTER XX

Are Fortresses, And Many Other Things To Which Princes Often Resort, Advantageous Or Hurtful?

1. SOME princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects; others have kept their subject towns by factions; others have fostered enmities against themselves; others have laid themselves out to gain over those whom they distrusted in the beginning of their governments; some have built fortresses; some have overthrown and destroyed them. And although one cannot give a final judgment on all one of these things unless one possesses the particulars of those states in which a decision has to be made, nevertheless I will speak as comprehensively as the matter of itself will admit.

2. There never was a new prince who has disarmed his subjects; rather when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, because, by arming them, those arms become yours, those men who were distrusted become faithful, and those who were faithful are kept so, and your subjects become your adherents. And whereas all subjects cannot be armed, yet when those whom you do arm are benefited, the others can be handled more freely, and this difference in their treatment, which they quite understand, makes the former your dependants, and the latter, considering it to be necessary that those who have the most danger and service should have the most reward, excuse you. But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn to mercenaries, which are of the character already shown; even if they should be good they would not be sufficient to defend you against powerful enemies and distrusted subjects. Therefore, as I have said, a new prince in a new principality has always distributed arms.

[gorfle]

4. Interesting passage.

I had never read that. But the sentiment is entirely true.

"But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn to mercenaries, which are of the character already shown; even if they should be good they would not be sufficient to defend you against powerful enemies and distrusted subjects."

[spin]

5. Very Interesting. (n/t)

[divideandconquer]

6. Sure sounds like Teabaggers!

This is right out of the American right wing handbook,

[X_Digger]

7. Slap a label on it..

.. ignore the content. Sounds like it's right out of your handbook.

[divideandconquer]

8. Machiavelli is the very antithesis of progressive

Proof positive is the lack of a liberal NRA or liberals out there assassinating political leaders.

[X_Digger]

9. Machiavelli was the ultimate pragmatist / cynic.

Neither right nor left. Power for power's sake, and the approach to gather and maintain it.

And re liberals assassinating political leaders- google 'Sara Jane Moore'

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. Don't bother- evidence not conforming to dogma will be ignored or elided

Mustn't let those faith-disturbing facts get in the way.

[east texas lib]

10. What can't be banned is the will to survive.

The survival imperative within your DNA is the driving force of all weapons development as well as environmental adaptations. To deny this simple fact is to deny human nature as well as common sense. Therefore logically, the anti RKBA position is flawed and incorrect with regard to quality of life issues, while being "correct" politically for some.

[Biker13]

11. K&R

nt

[Euromutt]

12. To be pedantic, you can *ban* them

Actually eradicating them, however, is a different story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

We had a case here in Washington state last year in which the defendant had shot and killed an assailant using a metal tube from a bicycle steering column as the barrel/chamber, a .22LR cartridge, and a common hammer. The shooting was ruled justified, but then the local prosecutor tried to nail the defendant, who had served a felony conviction, for illegal possession of a firearm.

I should look up how that one panned out.