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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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  • no credit cards for gun sales- you don’t pick up the gun until the dealer has cash in hand. Persons under 25 need to wait two weeks before picking up semiautomatics.

  • media coverage of mass shootings is banned.

  • straw purchasers and felons in possession are automatically guilty of attempted murder, not the previous crimes. No plea bargains are permitted and there is a strong mandatory minimum.

  • gang members on the list of prohibited persons. Person to person transfers are prohibited and must be an FFL transfer.

  • insurance companies cannot attempt to incentivize businesses banning licensed concealed carry.

And is there any evidence the guy was a Nazi? He had gang tattoos but the speculation about white supremacist ideology comes from a patch on his jacket reading RWDS, which could be a bar, a mechanic shop, something left on the jacket from the guy who donated it to a thrift store, etc.

Truly, Nazi's and white supremacist are a very diverse and eclectic group.

My theory; Being hispanic means he can be racists as hell and never get called on it, hence the various online postings. With racism being keyed only to white people, everyone in the media makes the assumption that he's automatically white with no research on the matter.

Very low-hanging fruit, but here are Ian Miles Cheong and Tim Pool beclowning themselves in the face of this, and Elon Musk getting real close to it.

I hate to rely on Twitter-mining of social media, but yeah, sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.

Almost all of those policy proscriptions is less likely to work for the simple fact that 3D printers go BRRRRRR

The median mass shooter is not an experienced gunsmith, or an accomplished 3d printer nerd, nor indeed experienced in any kind of small scale manufacturing at all. He’s a troubled but managed to keep his nose clean 19 year old NEET. Making it harder for him to buy guns is making it very difficult for him to acquire them.

Most other Western countries seem to be dealing with that problem adequately.

Define "adequately."

There's already been at least one attack using such a weapon.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/3d-gun-print-germany-synagogue-shooting-stephan-balliet-neo-nazi-a9152746.html

And they're popping up with increasing regularity across Europe too.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/europol-keeps-wary-eye-on-threat-from-3d-printed-guns/

Only in September, Icelandic police said they had arrested four people suspected of planning a “terrorist attack”, confiscating several 3D-printed semi-automatic weapons.

The same month, Spanish authorities discovered an illegal gun-making workshop of a man in his forties in the Basque Country.

That find followed two other such cases in the country in 2021.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63495123

Police are seizing 3D printed weapons in greater numbers. From the start of last year there have been 21 recoveries of weapons, a "significant increase" on previous years, though still small compared to conventional weapons, Mr Perfect says.

Do you think this becomes more or less common in the coming years?

And let us be specific: how many shootings using these sorts of weapons would have to occur in other countries before it wasn't adequately dealt with?

Insofar as in toto most Western governments control the supply of guns pretty well despite the apparent threat of 3-D printed guns. Some individual instances of them being used hardly disproves that picture.

Yeah, so you're either skilled enough to do it, or reckless enough to willingly sell such guns to unstable, weird people you don't know.

The whole thing with 3D printers is the skill required is minimal, so long as you can operate a computer.

And more to the point, the cost is usually much lower.

or reckless enough to willingly sell such guns to unstable, weird people you don't know.

That's... generally how black markets work, yeah.

The whole thing with 3D printers is the skill required is minimal, so long as you can operate a computer.

You're out here saying anyone who can operate a tablet or a gaming console can also make a FGC9 without major issues or help ?

I'll also note here that Breivik tried to buy a gun at a 'black market' in Czech Republic and failed miserably.

Not that there isn't one, but you have to be a criminal to access it, which the average spree shooter isn't,

Most of this I'd class as police state stuff, and most of it wouldn't help for these sorts of mass shootings. Straw purchasers are a different problem, ordinary criminality. Two week waiting periods don't help with people who plan (which is a lot of these mass shooters).