A surge of illegal homemade machine guns has helped fuel gun violence in the US
A surge of illegal homemade machine guns has helped fuel gun violence in the US
In the last several years, a proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic and metal is fueling a spike in semi-automatic handguns converted to fully automatic fire.
Communities around the U.S. have seen shootings carried out with weapons converted to fully automatic in recent years, fueled by a staggering increase in small pieces of metal or plastic made with a 3D printer or ordered online. Laws against machine guns date back to the bloody violence of Prohibition-era gangsters. But the proliferation of devices known by nicknames such as Glock switches, auto sears and chips has allowed people to transform legal semi-automatic weapons into even more dangerous guns, helping fuel gun violence, police and federal authorities said.
The (ATF) reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available.
The devices that can convert legal semi-automatic weapons can be made on a 3D printer in about 35 minutes or ordered from overseas online for less than $30. They’re also quick to install.
“It takes two or three seconds to put in some of these devices into a firearm to make that firearm into a machine gun instantly,” Dettelbach said.
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Gun violence is a symptom of socioeconomic inequality and a lack of mental health care. We could ban all guns today and while I'm sure there would be a reduction in violent events, people wanting to cause harm would switch to bladed weapons (see knife crime in the UK and axe attacks in China).
If somebody is going to try and kill me, I'd prefer they at least break a sweat in doing so.
Also there is empirical evidence that people are less "empathic" the further away they are from you. Shooting someone is psychologically much easier than stabbing someone.
It can be a nervous sweat if it needs to be.
Which leads to hundreds/thousands of people not dying every year due to being shot.
Even if it's only one life saved, that's great. But can't we want to fix the systemic problems that lead to gun violence as well? It also fixes a lot of other bad things that don't lead to gun violence, like homelessness, depression, preventable deaths, inadequate health care, etc.
What I'm saying is that guns aren't the problem. They make the problem worse. I'd like to see us try to fix both instead of a half measure of different gun laws.
We can do both.
You're not completely wrong. But (1) guns make it sooo much easier to cause a lot of harm, and (2) a gun gives you so much more confidence than a knife. Also: you can run from a knife, you can't run from a gun
you can run from a knife, you can't run from a gun
Ahh, not handicapable, I see.
But unintended ableism aside, you'd also be surprised, if you can get upwards of 25yrd away from the shooter, they probably can't hit you for shit (doubly so if they have a glock switch, they reduce accuracy). Most criminals don't train at all, much less for distance.
You are a bit delulu hmmm?
No, there's a reason most people who get shot, especially with handguns, are closer than 75ft: it's harder than you think. To me it's delusional how many people seem to think aim assist is real.
I wasn't referring to that, I'm aware of the inverse square law.
I guess I miss interpreted your previous comment for pro-gun, my bad.
A knife battle sounds kinda better. I'll have a greater chance to survive and some bad-ass scars.
The loser of a knife fight dies in the parking lot, the winner dies in the ambulance.
Buddy of mine (alright, coworker, but he was cool) decided to try and break up a bar fight one night, one of the guys ended up slicing his stomach right the fuck open. Like REALLY open. Was fucking wild, dude spent a long time in the hospital and never came back to work, but I did hear he was doing better so he at least did live.
Still though, point is, knife attacks are a lot more brutal than those who advocate for knives think.
Keep thinking that. Meanwhile most people here wouldn't be able to fight off someone with a knife.
It takes size and muscle, shooting the attacker takes a single trigger pull.
You may not like to hear it, but guns aren't going anywhere. Maybe if we stop making out gun owners to be some raging lunatics. Then they may be more likely to give them up.
This is all pointless anyway.
Knife crime in UK is still lower than knife crime in US. You've been drinking some weird kool-aid without faxt checking.
Sounds like I should stay strapped so I don't get poked
Its more like there are already hundreds of millions of guns in the US. Criminal element and the scum of society would keep theirs while the law abiding surrender theirs. Society would get worse and less safe.
But the so-called law abiding didn't surrender their altered guns, did they?
I'd say its a symptom of our police and justice system being completely ineffective at cleaning up our cities and locking away violent offenders to keep them out of society. They're more interested in milking the taxpayers for stupid shit that doesn't require any effort like traffic tickets or massive amounts of overtime for doing nothing. There's too many violent people out there and no one is doing anything to neutralize the threat to law abiding society.
🤡
Pure and unadulterated bullshit.
(Also the US has more knife crime than the UK as well).
I totally agree. The anti-gun crowd is just a bunch of useful idiots who refuse to tackle problems at their roots.
They're also usually city-folk who don't understand that people living in rural America only have guns to defend themselves. No cop is going to protect their farmhouse from robbers, lol.
So the pro gun in the US are just farmers that need to defend their farmhouse from robbers? You might want to sit down and think who the useful idiot is here.
Not too long ago here on Lemmy, someone told me that we need guns to protect ourselves from attacks by bears, mountain lions and rattlesnakes. Even in cities. They showed me a link about a bear harmlessly roaming around some suburb as proof of this necessity.
My pointing out that there have been 180 fatal bear attacks in all of North America since the 18th century, and many of those were bears in captivity, didn't help.
What's funny is that I don't ever see any "sensible" gun owners telling these people to stop helping.