A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
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Notes -
Feel free to disregard if it falls outside the scope, but do you have any thoughts on firearms tech developments as a political tool for pro-2A partisans? Stuff like 80% lowers, firearms printing, bump stocks, pistol braces, etc? It seems to me that all of these share a common character of eroding the state's capacity to regulate the keeping and bearing of arms. Presuming this is so, do you think think such erosion is a sound strategy for the gun culture to pursue?
Great thread, btw.
I think it's a result of two things:
First is that any rule about technology is open to technological exploitation
The second is that the people who make gun control laws mostly don't know a goddamned thing about guns, so they make shit laws (on their own merits) that are easily speed-run by yokels in their basements.
In general I like it, but it does have its failure modes.
What are the failure modes, if you don't mind me asking?
Most obviously, anyone (including non-stupid criminals) can manufacture cheap, working firearms on their own. It erodes the ability of the government to control the flow of firearms, but whether that is good or bad depends a lot on who those guns go to.
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