In article <12741@news.duke.edu> eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK) writes: > >This argument sounds very stupid.. if the ability to make guns from > >"simple metalworking" was easy,  then Drug dealers would make their own  > >wouldn't they???..  They do. According the the Los Angeles Police Department, illegal manufacture is one the three primary sources of machine guns and submachine guns used in crimes (sumggling and theft from the police and military being the other two.) Washington D.C. police have stated that 40% (If I'm remembering the figure correctly) of the guns they conficate were illegally built.  > >...why spend hundreds of dollars buying a gun that > >somebody else made cheap and is selling it to you at an > >exorbitant markup???...  It takes about 6 hours and a few tools to make one (at least one of reasonable quality). Unless the drug dealer enjoyes messing around on a lathe (say, as a hobby), he's going to have to  pay someone anyway. Materials plus six hours of a machinist's time for something legal would run about $100. The blackmarket prices for guns are usually in the $50 to $200 range (at least those few I've seen cited in newspaper articles were...)  > >...The simple truth of the matter is, that regardless > >of how easy it is to make guns, banning guns will reduce the  > >the number of new guns and seriuosly impede the efforts of a  > >killer intent on buying a weapon....  Washington D.C. has a total ban on handguns and prohibits assembled rifles within city limits. It's homicide rate is almost ten times the national average. It is also illegal for a D.C. resident to drive to the Virginia or Maryland suburbs and buy a gun (dealers are required by federal law to check IDs and make sure the buyer isn't from another state) so the ban  can not be easily side-stepped.  > >To show why the tools argument is the silliest i have ever seen.. take an > >analogy from computer science... almost every computer science major > >can write a "wordprocessor" yet we(comp sci majors)  would willingly pay 3   > >to 400 bucks for a professional software like wordperfect... why don't we   > >just all write our own software???...... Because it is highly   > >inconvinient!!!..  Sure. But it you couldn't buy one, you would write your own (in fact, people _did_ write their own 15 years ago...) More likely, you would find a friend who was a particularly good programer and get him give you a copy of his. Software is a _very_ bad example for your case: How many people do you know with illegal copies of $400 word processors? If people want something, and it isn't available (or affordable) legally, they will usually get it illegally.  > >Same with guns...  Quite.  > >secondly.. how does one get this gunpowder for the  > >"home made gun" ???  13-3-2. The formula has been around for half a million years. Or are you going to restrict sales of sulpher, charcoal and saltpeter? That's alot cruder than modern smokless powder, but it works very well. The only real problems are a ~25% reduction in energy (so a .357 magnum would "only" be as deadly as a 9mm) and it makes alot more smoke... Of course, a smart black marketeer could just make the gun in 9mm and steal the ammunition from the police (the police are often corruptable, and things are known to disappear from police evidence rooms and armories and reappear on the streets...)  > > If guns were really that simple to make... the Bosnian muslims would > >be very happy people (or is it the case that metalworking tools are > >banned in bosnia??? (deep sarcasm)  ).  Perhaps you weren't watching the news two years ago, but the Serbs  also tried to invade Slovinia. They were driven out after a few weeks by partisans armed with home-made _anti-tank_ weapons. The Afghan rebels frequently made their own rifles.