Reply to post: Re: Magical thinking

Defense Distributed starts selling gun CAD files amid court drama

Alan Brown Silver badge

Re: Magical thinking

"Just like how not too many people have trouble getting cannabis in this country despite it being a Schedule I controlled substance (this was true even before the recent wave of state recreational and medical legalization)"

The more interesting unsaid part of that paragraph is that in areas where legalisation has occurred, access to cannabis by underage users has pretty much been completely cut off - vendors do NOT wish to risk their licenses (unlike your average illegal street dealer who doesn't care), people have found they're less exposed to being aggressively marketed (or "gifted"(*)) substances they don't want AND they know what they're getting in terms of actual strength. (interestingly, actual honest to god stoners seem to be getting decent assistance with their mental health problems too)

(*) One of my friends was a victim of "unwanted extras" being laced into his purchase. The dealer thought it was funny. My friend didn't - he and 3 people ended up in ER with major panic attacks thanks to an unwitting dose of "P" and not knowing WTF was happening.

The average violent criminal is an opportunist who picked up a gun for $100-200 or less. They're not going to have the time or patience to setup a 3D printer to do this shit - and in countries with stronger gun controls there's already a cottage industry of underground gunsmiths making illegal weapons from untraceable parts for those who want them. They may buy a 3D printer to make things faster but the average thug is still going to go to his local armourer for a weapon, not try and make it himself - apart from anything else, a gun is no use without anything to fire and ammunition sales are usually also controlled/monitored with batches being traceable.

This is mostly a free speech issue but married to the US 2nd amendment penis extension fanaticism and people wanting to be the next Timothy McVeigh/Unabomber floating around you have a potentially explosive mixture.There's a valid point in there (thought crimes and censorship) but it's all pretty muddled up. and the more extremely the US waltzes into outright authoritarianism the more extreme the voices on the other end become too.

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