Cache of guns stolen from LAPD

[Wumbologist]

Not sure I've ever said guns should being outlawed in the US would work now, just think its a tragic that anyone ever got into situation where guns were common place. It's certainly not an inalienable right.

It's tragic that humans need to defend themselves from other humans, whatever the weapons in play are. But it's not going away any time soon.

Sten gun was designed because it was cheap but I don't think they were ever produced outside proper factories

From that glorious, irrefutable pile of shit information Wikipedia:

The Sten used simple stamped metal components and minor welding, which required a minimum of machining and manufacturing. Much of the production could be performed by small workshops, with the firearms assembled at the Enfield site. Over the period of manufacture the Sten design was further simplified: the most basic model, the Mark III, could be produced from five man-hours work. Some of the cheapest versions were made from only 47 different parts. It was distinctive for its bare appearance (just a pipe with a metal loop for a stock), and its horizontal magazine. The Mark I was a more finely finished weapon with a wooden foregrip and handle; later versions were generally more spartan, although the final version, the Mark V, which was produced after the threat of invasion had died down, was produced to a higher standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten

They most certainly were designed with the specific intent of being easy and inexpensive to manufacture with basic tools and relatively unskilled labor. I've seen plans for a Sten gun and while I have no desire to commit such an egregious firearms violation as manufacturing a fully automatic submachine gun, I have no doubt that I could build one with little more in the way of tools and manufacturing ability than I have now.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Uzi.

[Svartalf]

What "Uzi"? It too was designed to be manufactured in machine shops that weren't "proper factories"?

[MrJonno]

Not quite sure what the difference between a workshop and a small factory is to be honest. Maybe US gardens are so big there that they are common but if you started hearing metal work going on at someone garden in the UK the police would at least be stopping by to ask what you are doing (its not illegal unless you make too much noise but it would certainly count as suspicious).

Got the impression you were implying that they could be built in secret in an urban environment which seems pretty difficult to me

[Wumbologist]

Not quite sure what the difference between a workshop and a small factory is to be honest. Maybe US gardens are so big there that they are common but if you started hearing metal work going on at someone garden in the UK the police would at least be stopping by to ask what you are doing (its not illegal unless you make too much noise but it would certainly count as suspicious).

Got the impression you were implying that they could be built in secret in an urban environment which seems pretty difficult to me

I could do it right here at work if I wanted to, nobody would be suspicious unless they peered into the back room. Any privately owned machine shop could do it. Clandestine shops could be set up in more rural areas where nobody will come around knocking. While there are a lot of very nice, very complex firearms on the market, simple and very effective firearms are not hard for someone with tools, knowledge, and time to make.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What "Uzi"? It too was designed to be manufactured in machine shops that weren't "proper factories"?

It was made in garages in 1948.

[mistermack]

It's not really valid to compare guns with booze.
The penalties for drinking and buying bootleg booze were minor.
And it's such a trivial thing to ban, it would never get the public's support.
And you can easily make your own, how could they ever enforce it? Even in Saudi. illicit booze is widespread.

Guns are very different. The penalties for owning an illegal gun could and should be much higher.
The US loves locking people up for long periods, so no problem there.

And manufacturing illegal guns would carry even stiffer sentences. It would still go on, but at a much reduced rate.
The price of illegal guns would go up and up, which would be a good thing. It might keep them out of the hands of kids, and spawn a growing industry of illegal gun-hire.

But of course it won't happen. We all know that. But it's false to pretend that it couldn't be done.

[Wumbologist]

It's not really valid to compare guns with booze.
The penalties for drinking and buying bootleg booze were minor.

The penalties for manufacturing trafficking in bootleg booze were more severe than the penalties for drinking it, and people still did it.

And it's such a trivial thing to ban, it would never get the public's support.

And yet it passed, and was a complete joke at some times and a disaster at others.

And you can easily make your own, how could they ever enforce it? Even in Saudi. illicit booze is widespread.

I can make my own booze, and it didn't take a lot of learning to understand the process. I could similarly make my own Sten gun with the proper tools and some learning.

Guns are very different. The penalties for owning an illegal gun could and should be much higher.
The US loves locking people up for long periods, so no problem there.

The penalties for illegal firearm possession are already pretty steep. I do agree that they should be higher, but the biggest problem is a lack of enforcement. If illegal gun possession was truly a "Go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200" offense, criminals might shy away from using them a bit more. There are already plenty of laws on the books that could go a long way towards stemming illegal gun possession, if they were actually properly enforced. And you wouldn't even have to pester us nice law-abiding gun owners.

And manufacturing illegal guns would carry even stiffer sentences. It would still go on, but at a much reduced rate.
The price of illegal guns would go up and up, which would be a good thing. It might keep them out of the hands of kids, and spawn a growing industry of illegal gun-hire.

The price of illegal guns might go up, but supply and demand economics would still come into play. As long as the demand is high enough, which it will be, there will be someone out there ready and willing to supply.

But of course it won't happen. We all know that. But it's false to pretend that it couldn't be done.

It could be done, but the level of legislation and enforcement that would be necessary to accomplish it in the US would essentially turn the nation into a police state overnight.

[mistermack]

It could be done, but the level of legislation and enforcement that would be necessary to accomplish it in the US would essentially turn the nation into a police state overnight.

You wouldn't have to do it overnight.
And you would naturally have an amnesty period, to begin with, for people to hand them in.
After that, you just deal with cases as they arise.

But like I said, it won't happen.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's not really valid to compare guns with booze.
The penalties for drinking and buying bootleg booze were minor.
And it's such a trivial thing to ban, it would never get the public's support.

In the US, it got overwhelming public support. That's why they were able to amend the Constitution to do it.

And you can easily make your own, how could they ever enforce it? Even in Saudi. illicit booze is widespread.

Guns are very different. The penalties for owning an illegal gun could and should be much higher.
The US loves locking people up for long periods, so no problem there.

And manufacturing illegal guns would carry even stiffer sentences. It would still go on, but at a much reduced rate.
The price of illegal guns would go up and up, which would be a good thing. It might keep them out of the hands of kids, and spawn a growing industry of illegal gun-hire.

But of course it won't happen. We all know that. But it's false to pretend that it couldn't be done.

No need for it to happen. Your identifying a purely emotional reaction to a problem that can be solved without such draconian measures. Yours is a fear-based knee-jerk reaction based on ignorance and paranoia.

[Cunt]

mistermack would never admit to ignorance (nevermind those other 'good calls') If he would accept some reasonable standard of evidence, he might learn from this discussion, but he has made it clear that he is going to stand behind MrJonno et al regardless of evidence or reason.

[Cunt]

mistermack would never admit to ignorance (nevermind those other 'good calls') If he would accept some reasonable standard of evidence, he might learn from this discussion, but he has made it clear that he is going to stand behind MrJonno et al regardless of evidence or reason.

[Seth]

Not quite sure what the difference between a workshop and a small factory is to be honest. Maybe US gardens are so big there that they are common but if you started hearing metal work going on at someone garden in the UK the police would at least be stopping by to ask what you are doing (its not illegal unless you make too much noise but it would certainly count as suspicious).

Oh horseshit. Even in the UK no copper is going to bother snooping about in someone's workshop just because "metal work" is going on. Do you have any faint idea how much other legitimate "metal work" goes on every day? Don't be an idiot. It would be child's play to set up a machine shop capable of building literally any firearm ever made with nothing more than a lathe, a drill press, a milling machine and hand tools. You can do it in a basement, and there are tens of thousands of basement machine-shops in the US, and likely the UK as well, that the police neither know about nor care about.

Got the impression you were implying that they could be built in secret in an urban environment which seems pretty difficult to me

That's because you know fuck-all about firearms or their manufacture. A "zip-gun" consists of a piece of steel pipe two fittings available at any plumbing shop, a nail, a block of wood and some rubber tubing. It can be made by any teenager in their garage. And that's just the simplest form of firearm.

[Seth]

And manufacturing illegal guns would carry even stiffer sentences. It would still go on, but at a much reduced rate.

It's already illegal to manufacture firearms without a federal firearms manufacturing license, and the penalties are extremely stiff. Doesn't stop it from happening, and the fewer firearms available in commerce, the more bootleg firearms there will be, just as during Prohibition, as "legal" liquor was banned, bootleg liquor flowed like water from back-woods stills, urban bathtubs, and by smuggling from Canada and Mexico.

And this ignores the fact that if the government tried to ban guns in the US, the government, and its agents, would not survive long enough to enforce the ban.

[MrJonno]

British houses generally don't have basements and given how close most of them are together (ie touching) any sort of metal work is likely to piss of the neighbours extremely quickly.

You are going to be looking at industrial estates/farms to make anything and considering that even the few gun armed British criminals that we do have arent exactly going to need many guns or even for that long that they tend to hire them per hour rather than set up production lines.

I get the impression you don't actually understand urban high density live where if you even sneeze your neighbour if going to give you a quiet secular 'bless you' from the otherside of the wall