Re: Wicked Lasers 445nm 1W(!) portable deathray
That's about as accurate as saying any Joe Blow off the street can shoot fireworks in excess of 500G simply by paying extra taxes. If you actually do your research, you'd see that both examples require special permission from the ATF. This is pretty much what I said about needing permits. Permits nor licenses are automatically awarded. You apply for them and you may or may not get it. After an individual goes to the effort to be granted one, they're not likely to do something stupid to get it revoked, which cannot be said about the public at large.
Fireworks are not arms. Grenades, bombs, missiles and other such weapons are classified as destructive devices under NFA. State and perhaps even local rules in some jurisdictions may change the picture somewhat but the only significant difference between buying a conventional firearm through an FFL and buying an NFA weapon is the $200 tax stamp. Yes, a transfer in the NFA registry has to be recorded but that isn't a significant barrier to lawful purchase as compared to common firearms. Buying a non-NFA firearm through an FFL still requires a background check and in many areas there is a waiting period. The law was designed to harass and tax, not ban. Congress did not even feel it had the power to ban anything at the time. Even the Prohibition required an amendment to the Constitution.
Your last sentence there is exactly why these laws are ineffective at preventing crime. Criminals don't buy NFA weapons. Criminals get their machineguns from the same people who smuggle in billions of dollars of illegal drugs, they make their own, steal them from military arsenals or similar. Criminals still have inexpensive access to machineguns, it's law abiding shooters who pay tens of thousands of dollars and a $200 tax stamp for a legal example. Similarly there have been laws against murder since the dawn of history yet this outright ban has never been successful in stopping murders. Criminals don't obey the law by definition.
While I may have used a poor example as you are somewhat correct and I was mistaken that there are no complete bans on then, they are still heavily regulated as a whole with outright bans in many states. If they are such a poor choice for a weapon, than why were they historically a popular choice for street criminals?
The only restrictions that affect switchblades "as a whole" are on the federal level and they deal with who can make, sell, transport and buy from who... through a wacky interpretation of the so-called commerce clause as so many other federal level laws attempt to use to find validity.
Gorn got it right, they never were an especially popular weapon for street criminals. Just like the dreaded "assault weapons" the criminals who used them were far and away most commonly fictional characters on tv or in movies. We all heard the dire predictions of "blood in the streets!" when the AWB sunset more than half a decade ago and it simply never happened. Shall-issue concealed carry laws prompted similar cries of "blood in the streets" almost two decades prior, yet it never happened. Similarly my state's legislators recently clarified the legality of making and owning switchblades after a period of time when judges were trying to "legislate from the bench" by citing a law pertaining to so-called "ballistic knives." Despite the clarified legality of switchblades once again there has been no "blood in the streets!" I sincerely doubt we will now be faced with "melted retinas in the streets!"
Historically speaking the switchblade style of lockwork was popular among common pocket knives, though not as common as slipjoint folders. There are examples of switchblades that are a couple hundred years old. As far as their suitability as weapons, criminal or otherwise, there is nothing especially deadly about them. The only difference between a switchblade and any other pocketknife is that the switchblade opens when you push a button or lever. While a neat gimmick there are currently many other gimmicks that can open a blade one handed as fast or faster that don't even rely on a spring to drive the blade. The balisong can do that as well and most balisongs have no springs at all. Slightly less well known is just about any pocketknife regardless of lockwork can be opened one handed as fast or faster than a switchblade via the inertia method.
Wat does this have anything to do with my statement, which is confirmed directly from Wicked Lasers' technical specification on this device, that the laser can cause eye damage from 200 meters away?
It seems you're trying to sell the idea that the laser is especially dangerous. A great multitude of mundane objects do far more real damage. Perhaps in your ideal world everybody would live in a padded rubber room and be fed applesauce through a crack in the door but it just doesn't make sense to freak out about lasers when there are so many other much more dangerous items that go completely unregulated.
If you read the news you can easily find daily occurrences of people misusing lasers and directing them at airplanes and helicopters.
I hear about it from time to time. I hear about vehicular manslaughter a lot more often. Are pilots more valuable than pedestrians?
Very interesting you say that since much of what the journalists in question were quoting was from this very thread.
As others have pointed out they tend to take things way out of context.
No disrespect, but I have actually studied Constitutional law as well as Supreme Court case law and it is you who are mistaken about "how freedom works in the US". Our "rights" are those and only those which are enumerated in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other Amendments. Your quote of the 10th Amendment, without getting into a history lesson, comes from two concepts: establishing the limited power of the federal government, and second, specifying in no uncertain terms that for something to be criminal it must be spelled out (this was obviosuly a problem with British rule which they were trying to correct). There is nothing which say states cannot nor should not create new laws when applicable to meet the evolving needs of society.
No disrespect intended either, I bear you no ill will and I don't think badly of you, but if that's the impression you got you had a poor teacher. That wouldn't be surprising though since many universities these days teach an agenda rather than the facts. We both agree that the Constitution places limitations on government power, that is an explicitly stated purpose within the Constitution itself. The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are super-extra-especially protected but they aren't the only 10 rights Americans have. The Ninth Amendment explicitly states that.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
You may have merely forgotten this, it may have slipped the mind of your teacher, but it seems to me that a constitutional scholar should at the very least be familiar with the Bill of Rights. I believe all Americans ought to be able to recite the Bill of Rights from memory but that's another story.
Ahh, so by that rationale weapons grade plutonium is covered under Second Amendment protection (I think not).
A gun owner using the nuclear strawman??? :thinking:
Sorry you are just flat out wrong. You can read literally dozens of US Supreme Court cases (which I actually have done) which clearly limit the power of the Second Amendment to personal firearms,
here's one example:
'We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of "dangerous and unusual weapons." '
Define "dangerous and unusual." You also left out something very important, the preceding sentence.
Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those "in common use at the time."
This is interesting because in relation to lasers we will eventually be entering an era when directed energy weapons are "in common use at the time." Miller does seem to acknowledge that technology marches on as the chief objection in that case was that the weapon in question had a short barrel, not that it fired metallic cartridge ammunition. Miller is simultaneously ridiculous because there is no "common use" clause in the Second Amendment.
Nowhere will you find the discussion of lasers because they quite simply are not protected by the 2nd Amendment. Arms = Firearms.
Oh boy.
I defy you to demonstrate that only firearms are arms. That goes against the entire etymology of the word "arms."
