The fact is, there is a time of intellectual debate and a time for action. Intellectual debate didn’t seem to help the Catholics in England in 1605. It didn’t help the Roman’s or the Roman Senate. It didn’t help the peasants in feudal Japan. Tyrannical governments the world over have first stiffled true debate, then began disarming the populace. The French Revolution got bloody because no one was listening to the people. The American Revolution happened because the King and Parliament stopped listening to the people. There is a time for talking to try and affect change and a time for action. You remove the ability to take decisive action and you have effectively eliminated any chance that “intellectually convincing reasons” will have any effect.

Fear the government that fears your gun.

Joseph: 20% is 1 in 5. If you have 20% of 5 billion (five thousand million) you have 1 billion. 20% of 6 billion is therefore 1.2 billion (one thousand two hundred million), not 120 million. I believe this is only marginally more than the entire population of China. Perhaps you might wish to reconsider?

Society’s greatest weapon is its voice. Apathy is therefore a greater threat than a lack of weapons. Too often we stand by and do nothing, whilst those who lead us, especially in America, commit morally detestable acts. The US Bill of Rights, Article 8, states that “cruel and unusual punishments” will not be inflicted upon its citizens, yet America has consistently inflicted such punishments on others as of late.

Social conditions lead to inaction. Possessing a gun will not help me state an intellectually convincing reason for why an argument should be rejected; but it might win me the fight. That doesn’t mean that I was right, but it does mean that I am left.

Amendment II.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It is easy to misquote it, and it is singularly just as easy to say it is misquoted and used out of context. The Second Amendment allows for a well regulated militia and provides for the citizenry to be armed. The reasoning behind this is summed up in this pithy little quote:

Fear the government that fears your gun.

And for good reason. A well armed citizenry is the only obstacle for an out of control government seeking to make itself all-powerful within its borders, and outside of its borders as well. Look at current tyrannical governments such as North Korea and China. Look at past ones such as Rome, and feudal Japan. It was the restriction upon weapons that gave rise in feudal Japan to the ninja clans. The restriction of weapons has only empowered criminals througout history, whether those criminals are individuals maiming and murdering and stealing or governments maiming and murdering and stealing.

As for your statistic, Samuel Clemens had something to say about them.

There are three types of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics.

20% of humans out of an estimated 6 billion, is about 120 million people worldwide. If you’re afraid of such a minority perpatrating crimes undetected, you are very paranoid. Statistics are especially meaningless outside of context and doubly misleading.

Note that even the often misquoted Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants citizens a right to bear arms only in the context of “well regulated militia”! I am happy to argue that the spirit of the Second Amendment – interpreted in today’s health-and-safety concious societies – means that “well regulated militia” ought to think today seriously about permissive action links for any commercially available amunition.

From my reading the control mechanisum is not in the gun, but actually in the round of amunition. In which case making your own gun or using one currently in existance will not enable you to fire it.

If say the NY Police Dept decided that all their officers guns where to work this way, then it certainly would reduce the number of Officer down cases where they have been shot by their own guns.

Likewise if the UK Government decided to make had guns available again then they could insist on this method (with the added proviso that approved targets where the only thing that could be fired at). However the published figures that showed the number of “non-domestic” shootings with privatley owned hand guns (prior to the ban) was extreamly small.

In the UK the majority of the guns that find their way onto the street where not obtained illegaly or through a theft. The majority have been purchased quite legitamatly second hand in countries with lax gun controles and imported into the UK. Or they are converted replicas or disabled guns that have been re-enabled.

IF you examin the makings of a gun in a home workshop (see history of the SMG/Sten/Plumbers delight and the Ingram) about the only thing you cannot easily make are,

1, Rifeling in the barrel (not realy required for a hand gun)
2, Casing for the round of amunition.

And most importantly

3, The percusion cap used in the case of the round

The first can be fairly easily got around by buying an Air Rifle or some such and cutting the barell down.

Manufacture of the round of amunitions case in small caliber auto load wepons is not a simple task, in large calliber such as a manual load shot gun this is considerably easier (and reasonably possible for home workshop)

It’s the manufacture of the percusion cap that presents the most dificult problem (for a home workshop) which is why most self loaders buy them in.

There are essentially two issues with manufacture one, the forming of the percussion cap case, the second and perhaps the more difficult, is the making of the fulminate or chlorate initiator and reliably filling the case. You could very easily take your fingers off just by handeling the less stable initiator compounds.

However there is a (fairly simple) way around this, go into a toy shop that sells Cap Guns and buy the caps, then all you need to do is make a round casing that easily accomidates the toy gun cap (oh you would need to lift the paper wadding out with a pin first

So although the patent is fairly well though out in which area to make secure your basic point about going in a different direction (such as Home Build) is quite valid.

However I sugest that as long as other Countries have lax gun laws then apart from the problem of an Police Officer shot with their own wepon and Domestic accident / crime the patent is not actually worth a great deal.

In any case, anyone choosing to circumvent the scheme will simply use one of the hundreds of millions of conventional guns currently available. Even if these were not available, an improvised single shot shotgun can easily made be made from plumbing supplies. It works much like the bang sticks divers sometimes carry as defense against sharks.

I predict the proposed scheme will not be accepted, and would not work if it were.