Maybe they could afford it, in theory. And? Could you spell out what you were trying to suggest from pointing out the existence of alternative manufacturing options?
If my guess is correct and what you're
trying to say is "regulation won't work because people will just make their own guns", then I have several arguments to bust that criticism.
- The pricing and availability of weapons is connected between ALL of the different manufacturing methods. The existence of alternatives doesn't matter. If for example, a hefty sales tax is slapped on mass-produced guns coming out of factories, people still won't bother with the high cost and inconvenience and skill required to make their own weapons, unless it becomes economically viable for them to do so.
Bullshit. It IS already economically viable to make your own guns. If you taxed all of the machinery to make guns, you would be making EVERYTHING more expensive because these basic tools are used to make all kinds of legal parts we need to keep society running, and you STILL wouldn't stop it from happening.
- One-off proof-of-concept devices, costing $1000s in tooling-up + time and skill, are no match for commercial guns that are properly made and cost a small fraction of that. There's plenty of scope to reduce the overall quantity, weeding out an easy 50%~80% (at a guesstimate) of the cheapest weapons on the market, thus making the remaining ones harder to obtain for the poorest buyers. And the vast majority of the remaining buyers still wouldn't consider 3d printing technology to be a realistic option.
Bullshit. There is fundamentally no difference between a receiver milled at home and a professionally produced one. Additionally by ridding the markets of the cheapest weapons, you deny the segment of the population at most risk the ability to defend themselves, the poor. The poor are the ones that live in high crime areas, and that are most likely to need a firearm to protect themselves. Of course you don't give a shit about any of that as long as your utopian ideologies are satiated.
- Being able to make your own guns involves marketable skills, and it's obvious that you can make a lot of other stuff as well. This immediately provides a person with legal options for making a living, and they're unlikely to be involved in criminal behaviour in the first place.
You assume that there are manufacturing jobs just sitting waiting for these people. There are not. Additionally not all crime is a result of poverty, some times people just lose their fucking minds.
- "But oppressive taxes will drive buyers underground and illegal manufacturing will increase", you may cry.
Doesn't matter, and it would only be temporary. A simple $100 tax on legal weapons will add up to $100 (possibly more if there's overshoot) to the bottom line on any CNC machinist making black market weapons. Therefore the total supply will still decrease. It's basic economics. There are countless real-world examples where supplier X encounters problems, therefore the unrelated supplier Y puts their prices up. RAM production was a classic case a few years ago, where problems at Korean plants meant that prices spiked everywhere.
Temporary? You are completely ignorant of economics. A permanent added cost isn't some how magically not as expensive over time. It will always be more expensive, thus there will be MORE incentive to buy from underground sources, and the supply of illegal weapons will only
increase.
- "This will reward criminals while punishing legitimate manufacturers!"
Incorrect. Criminal behaviour is still black-listed as criminal behaviour, at least proportional to the amount of crime committed. Therefore, if a black-market manufacturer increases their output because of supply problems elsewhere, they also become a bigger fish in the eyes of the law. The increased risk balances out the money.
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Again, you are completely ignorant of reality. Do you think these kingpins give a shit if a handful of their mules go to prison? They don't. If the money is there there will ALWAYS be an ENDLESS SUPPLY of people willing to break the law, and the more you enforce the law, the more they can charge for the weapons, increasing profits and motivation for supplying more weapons. Remember how well the drug war worked? There is functionally no difference between a restriction and a ban if there is economic incentive to violate it.
The biggest impediment I'm seeing is this:
Gun proponents keep coming up with half-baked excuses as to why society can't be made safer, why tax won't work, why you shouldn't even try, and dismissing vital social concerns like countless murders, deaths and injuries...
And all for what? For selfish reasons like a personal desire for cheap, tax-free toys. Or your cultural Voodoo about "potentially defending yourself" against your flesh-and-blood peers in the government sector.
Are you seriously suggesting that your Voodoo beliefs are more important than deaths that could even affect you or your family? That's utterly delusional. And selfish like I already mentioned several times.
Half baked excuses? How about your half baked gun control idea like above. It is obvious you haven't spent more than a few minutes examining the subject otherwise you would realize all of your strategies are completely flawed and would only increase incentives for trafficking illegal weapons. You claim we are just making excuses to not have gun regulations that make us safer, but what we are saying is these gun regulations will make us
LESS SAFE. Where do you get off putting us in danger to test your little half baked social experiments?
Guns should be used only by the army and SWAT. I think that such restriction would make life much easier for all.
In america it's seen as a hobby. You can see videos of people testing out guns and shoting out watermelons outdoors in some places that sometimes look like their backyard. It's pretty insane to anyone not living on there. I mean you can walk in on that area without knowing someone is shoting shit up and get shoot... pretty crazy.
Most terrorist have this "hobby" too. Americans will have to let that go. For most cases a pepper spray is just enough.
Again, I propose the challenge: Name one good reason why armymen or SWAT team members should automatically be granted more trust with a gun than your neighbors.
Challenge accepted. Regardless of intellect, reasoning, or political/religious beliefs, their life experience will provide them with one simple fact that Pavlov could have tested on his dogs:
Where there are guns, there is more potential for pain.
Anyone with an IQ of 70 can make that epiphany. Or even if they don't 'think' it, they still have the correct biological reaction with a bit of adrenaline or fear to help them prepare for violence upon having a weapon come into view. Neighbours are far more likely to be foolish, naive, or stupid and irresponsible, compared to any professional who has actually seen or experienced suffering in conjunction with guns.
Don't tell me you're another paranoid type who has fallen for that partisan nonsense about the population versus the government? Blue team versus Red team? Freedom lovers versus bureaucrats? Come on, I thought you were smarter than that. Wait for the
late harvest, more CBD, less paranoia, or so they say.
Speaking of terrorists, you are 55 times more likely to be killed by police than a terrorist.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/youre-55-times-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-a-police-officer-than-a-terrorist/5434934You are right though, it is just some voodoo belief that we would ever need to defend ourselves against our kind, loving, benevolent government. Because after all the government is not composed of people, people who are just as able as being criminal as anyone else. Also anyone with an IQ of 70 knows that you have an epiphany, you don't make them.
The first act of every tyrant and dictator is
ALWAYS finding a way to disarm the population to put them in a position where they can not resist abuse and the disposal of rule of law. Freedom is not a partisan issue. Just because you live in some fairy tail land where genocide and mass murder is erased from your mind does not mean the rest of the world is so naive. Speaking of which...
WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU LIVE? Only a coward criticizes others while hiding details about themselves so as to avoid criticism. It is easy to point out all the flaws of others from a dark corner where no one can make the same critical examination of you and your culture.
You are the worst case of confirmation bias I have come across in a very long time. You take an idea you have concluded upon, then you attempt to make your argument fit around your premise. The rest of the educated world studies the premises to find which one has facts supporting it, THEN makes a conclusion. You are in a constant fight to try to make reality fit your world view. Sorry, but that is not how it works. Can you make that epiphany?