Sensible Erection | Google won't do business with arms merchants. Everything is ruined forever.

Friday, 29 June 2012

Google won't do business with arms merchants. Everything is ruined forever.

quote [ We knew that Google was passing on providing advertising for the multi-billion dollar industry that is the firearms and weapons market, but it turns out that now you will not even be able to search for firearms related items in their Shopping search engine. Where once was displayed page after page of results for firearms, there is now nothing left but a desolate blank page. ]

[by foobar@6:29pmGMT] [+10 Good]

Comments

lalanda said @ 6:44pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:5 Insightful]
Good.

rangerx said @ 6:50pm GMT on 29th Jun
I guess that's their prerogative.

Cakkafracle said @ 6:55pm GMT on 29th Jun
the comments.... they burn my eyes!

danshyu said @ 7:22pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:5 Insightful]
Well, dumb comments on the site aside. Censorship is kinda bad no matter what.

foobar said @ 7:37pm GMT on 29th Jun
Nothing is being censored. They just won't sell ads to or allow arms merchants to use Google Shopping. Search results are unchanged.

structured_spirits said @ 7:45pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
To be fair, I wonder if people would have to same reaction if google was refusing to include say links to gay pride merch etc.

foobar said @ 7:46pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:2]
I'd certainly judge them negatively on it, just as I am (positively) on this.

structured_spirits said @ 7:53pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:1 Insightful]
Is there something wrong with selling guns in this country that you find "icky." They're people with a viewpoint you don't agree with who are practicing a lifestyle they enjoy that is completely legal.

foobar said @ 7:55pm GMT on 29th Jun
It wouldn't be, if I had my druthers, and it mostly isn't where I live.

structured_spirits said @ 2:32am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:2 Interesting]
I'm going to try to make a somewhat nuanced argument here, but I'm not sure how well I can express it. I'm not in favor of banning guns, but I understand that there are legitimate reasons for doing so that benefit society, and so I have no problem with people campaigning or lobbying to outlaw guns. If Google wanted to sped their money to campaign or lobby I would be fine with that. But Google is arbitrarily deciding that they don't want to carry search results for a legal activity because they do not approve of it. I have a problem with this just as I would have a problem with a search provider interfering with results for any number of controversial issues. I realize that this is their shopping engine and not their main search, but I still consider this to be a search engine issue. I can understand that a store can decide to carry or not carry a product, but refusing to not carry a product does not prevent it from being purchased elsewhere. Now I realize that purchasing guns is not a difficult thing to do in the US, so there's no real consequence of Google's decision, however, I consider this a search engine issue as I've said before. Search engines should be held to a higher ethical standard than a store because interfering with search results damages the internet in that it affects how information flows to people, so that a search engine company could conceivably minimize the dispersion of information that it didn't agree with for whatever reason just as it can maximize the dispersion of information by putting sponsored results at the top of results. Search companies know it would be unethical to place sponsored results without identifying them, and companies that have done this in the past generally have been abandoned by the public. What Google is doing here, albeit in a limited manner since it's restricted to their shopping engine, basically seems to me to be the other side of this issue. I mean what if instead of doing this because they wanted too, they took money in exchange for removing competitors results? So that stores who charge more could pay Google to remove the results of stores that charged less? This would be an unethical practice, and in my opinion saying Google can do this because they want too basically is the same as the hypothetical above. The potential for abuse is such a practice is so large as to make it intolerable in my opinion.

arctan said @ 2:36am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Insightful]
I can understand that a store can decide to carry or not carry a product, but refusing to not carry a product does not prevent it from being purchased elsewhere.

Google is not the Internet. Google is a search engine provider. They are a private company like any other private company, and if someone else wants to set up a search engine that collects info about gun purchasing from different sites they are totally welcome to do it.

The fact that Google is very big and dominant in their market space does not mean they are suddenly obligated to be neutral on all topics. That's *exactly* like claiming that just because Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in a given area they are obligated to stock everything you want them to stock.

This would be an unethical practice, and in my opinion saying Google can do this because they want too basically is the same as the hypothetical above.

It's not really any more unethical than a major catalog company only working with certain preferred vendors in their mail-order catalogs.

structured_spirits said @ 2:50am GMT on 30th Jun
I would argue that there is a difference between Google and Walmart, precisely because one is an internet-based company and the other is a brick-and-mortar store. There's a fundamental difference in navigation by url and navigation by geo-location that in my opinion drastically affects the relative power of the two companies in terms of free speech.

arctan said @ 3:44am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Informative]
Except no, there isn't. The "speech" side of the issue is Google Search. Google is doing nothing at all to keep you from finding out about guns or finding places to buy guns. It is still a lot easier to find stores that will sell you the implements of death you want than it would be if Goigle didn't exist.

Google just doesn't want to actually be a middleman to actually sell you guns and take a cut from the gun seller. Do you not understand how Google and Google Shopping are different? And that you don't have to buy something through Google Shopping to buy it online? And that in most states mail order gun purchases are already illegal anyway?

hippoh said @ 7:13pm GMT on 30th Jun
Downmodded not because disagree with your argument, but because your argument is incomplete:

If a fundamental difference in virtual versus real-world shopping affects the power of a company, you need to explain why. There's too much room between the two parts of that statement that can be bridged by any singular reasonable assumption. Furthermore, your use of IMO in bridging this gap underscores the possibility that there are numerous explanations, and it leaves the argument open to attack by simply negating your unstated assumption.

For example: if it's posited that "a difference in navigation by URL and navigation by geo-location does not affect the relative power of two companies in terms of free speech," then your argument falls apart. You need to strengthen your causal relationship.

structured_spirits said @ 11:24pm GMT on 30th Jun
Yes I agree with this, and I consider it to be an incredibly complex issue, really the kind of thing you could write an entire book about, examining the history of the marketplace, the internet, the rise of mass media ect. Really it's beyond my ability, and I'm sure there are other much more capable people who've made sufficiently succinct points more effectively than I can. A certain point comes where the amount of work required to have a discussion outweighs the potential benefits of having it. I at least like to express my feelings even if I can't really support them adequately so that at least multiple viewpoints are out there.

foobar said @ 3:31am GMT on 30th Jun
If we were talking about Google Search, I might agree. Up until now, Google Shopping has been much like a search engine; it crawled the web and displayed results. Now it will just be paid listings only, so Google is taking a much more direct role in the transaction.

I'm pretty sure selling guns runs counter to "don't be evil".

Barnabas_Truman said @ 3:53am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Insightful]
Back in the '80s my grandpa ran a small typesetting shop (his only employees were my dad, who did most of the typing, and my uncle, who did graphic design and photos). As a devout pacifist, he had a general policy of refusing all business with the military, weapons manufacturers, and so on. He was well within his rights to do so. As far as I can tell, what Google is doing here is different only in scale, so I don't have a problem with it.

lalanda said @ 8:07pm GMT on 29th Jun
Devil's advocate aside, your comparison is disgusting.

Milkman666 said @ 8:38pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:5 Funny]
I dunno, ive heard many stories of young british children who've committed suicide from a combination of bullying due to their views on gun ownership and general depression from the atmosphere fostered by the UK's gun control laws.

cb361 said @ 10:10pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:1 Funny]

structured_spirits said @ 2:46am GMT on 30th Jun
It's a free speech issue, not a gun control issue and as such falls under the umbrella of civil rights, and so is comparable to lbgt rights.

lalanda said @ 2:52am GMT on 30th Jun
It can be as comparable as you like, it's still disgusting.

Navier-Strokes said @ 3:23am GMT on 30th Jun
It can be as disgusting as you like, it's still comparable.

lalanda said @ 5:37am GMT on 30th Jun
Ugh. Ok. I disagree.

Unless you are discussing this as a linguistic exercise.

The sales of guns is controlled. The sale of gay pride paraphernalia is not.

Gay pride is a celebration of who a person is. Guns are about what a person does as a hobby.

Being gay is not a contentious issue. Gun control is.

pleaides said @ 10:01am GMT on 30th Jun
"Being gay is not a contentious issue. "

Um, What?

lalanda said @ 11:23am GMT on 30th Jun
It's legal. It is not harmful. No-one is attempting to ban it (except the insane).

pleaides said @ 1:25pm GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
Ok, fair enough

mechanical contrivance said @ 6:07pm GMT on 30th Jun
But there are a non trivial number of insane people around.

Ankylosaur said @ 8:35pm GMT on 29th Jun
Gay pride merch expresses a viewpoint. A gun expresses a bullet. It's a silly comparison. If they were refusing to sell t-shirts with pro-gun slogans on them, or, I don't know, gay sex paraphernalia, then you could make an apples to apples comparison.

eIfish said @ 8:37pm GMT on 29th Jun
How about their ban on pornography?

Ankylosaur said @ 8:46pm GMT on 29th Jun
It's different than one on guns because pornography expresses ideas or depicts activity someone else did while a gun is a device that actually does something for the person buying it? They're different things with different issues involved so you can't compare them directly. We might as well be asking, "Yeah, but what about their ban on selling human slaves?"

snowfox said @ 10:16pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:2]
The difference is that gay pride merch is not designed to kill people. This isn't about "icky" it's about "oh please god don't shoot me!"

foobar said @ 1:48am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Informative]
Oh, I don't know. You see these pictures of men sensually oiling bodies, and shamelessly flaunting their shafts in public. In front of children, even!

Guns can be kind of icky.

joe_mannix said @ 11:10pm GMT on 30th Jun
Do you really think that most murderers or criminals that are going to use a gun to commit a crime will actually look for them on Google?

Sure, Casey Anthony's mom might have used it to look up Chloroform, and maybe the Columbine duo found some of their info online, but don't you think they would have just gone elsewhere to find the info?

Google is my search engine of choice, but if they are going to decide what I should and should not search for, I'm going to find a new search engine.

I'm sure they have done the analytic studies to see how much ad revenue they will be loosing to related search keywords, but I wonder if they thought about how many people would use alternative search engines to look for firearms, and decide to use that other engine for the rest of their searches.

Google won market dominance by getting people to first try their search engine. Once people saw how it worked, they switched engines. Bye-bye Ask Jeeves and Yahoo, hello Google. Now they are giving people a reason to try other search engines.

cb361 said @ 11:47pm GMT on 30th Jun
It's odd to be criticizing a company for making ethical decisions instead of financially expedient ones. And in general, google has been better than the average at putting its money where its mouth is on ethical issues, although maybe it's easy when you've got that much money.

Of course, whether it's an ethical decision or note depends on where you stand on the gun issue. If you're against civilian gun use, you'll applaud google's stand. If you're in favour of it, you'll see this as unwarranted censorship. Very few people will be judging this impartially.

Personally, I'm too old and jaded to give any time to 'I disagree with what you say but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it.' That clause has been abused too many times, so I'll just stick to fighting to the death to ram my beliefs down other people's throats, before they ram their beliefs down mine.

Ankylosaur said @ 11:55pm GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Funny]
For fucks sake, it's not their regular search that they're changing. Is there something about owning a gun that makes people illiterate? You will still be able to search for and find guns on Google. It's their newly monetized shopping portal thing that they will charge sellers to be listed on and which you probably never even used before in its previous free-listing incarnation (who has?) that won't have guns.

Bing or other search engines don't have a shopping section like the new one Google is starting (that I know of, and if any do, guess what, you can't buy guns there either). So I don't know who exactly you are going to try instead of Google.

The worst you can complain about is that they're getting rid of the original content-neutral, non-paid search system and replacing it with something entirely new (some sort of eBay clone), but that has nothing to do with guns per se.

cb361 said @ 12:13am GMT on 1st Jul
I'm not convinced there's that much difference to the debate. People who are in favour of gun ownership will still see it as censorship because google (presumably) could include guns if they wanted to. If google had stopped crawling gun retailers for their regular searches, we would be having exactly the same debate.

Ankylosaur said @ 12:47am GMT on 1st Jul
Your local grocery store could include guns for sale if it wanted to, but that they don't isn't a good reason to rage-quit shopping there (especially if no other grocery stores sell them either).

There's a huge difference because this is really a new service that Google is starting, one that's set up in such a way -- they are paid to list things -- that they can't claim neutrality the same way that they do with their regular search, where they are essentially engaging in algorithmic journalism. This new thing has them making profits directly off of the sale of things. That puts them in the position of being at least partially legally responsible for what's sold. And, like it or not, with guns, that could lead to all sorts of headaches.

You'd have to be pretty gun-addled to not see why maybe someone would have some good reasons for not wanting to become a gun dealer, even if they don't mind pointing you in the direction of someone who is. Because that's exactly what the people in the OP are demanding from Google.

cb361 said @ 1:06am GMT on 1st Jul
Yes, but this has been said numerous times. Never-the-less, what they cover is an ethical choice, and most people who are in favour of gun ownership won't agree with it. You can't expect gun enthusiasts to see a significant distinction. Not that I care - I'd criminalise everything down to pea-shooters, and tell hunters, collectors and marksmen to suck my cock.

Ankylosaur said @ 1:23am GMT on 1st Jul [Score:1 Underrated]
Actually I would expect sensible gun enthusiasts to see a significant distinction between someone not wanting to profit directly from selling guns themselves (Google's new shopping service) for whatever reason, right or wrong; and not wanting to report on the existence of those who do sell them as part of a content-neutral, objective search (Goggle's old shopping service and their regular search).

The problem is I don't think those in the OP and some here even comprehend the basic facts of what's going on. joe_mannix's comment certainly sounds as if he believes that Google will be censoring its regular search. (They aren't. Pick a gun, any gun, and do a regular search for it and you'll find a result for someone selling it. Hell, I even found someone selling a bazooka.)

If I'm repeating myself, I'm sorry, but the basic facts bear repeating so we all at least know what we are arguing at each other about.

val said @ 6:35am GMT on 1st Jul
I don't know about all that. This seems like a logical step for a company whose unofficial motto is "Don't be evil."

snowfox said @ 6:11pm GMT on 1st Jul
I was merely addressing the argument that gun ownership is a lifestyle choice on par with homosexuality.

mechanical contrivance said @ 7:34pm GMT on 1st Jul
People don't choose to be gun owners. They're born that way.

cb361 said @ 7:55pm GMT on 1st Jul
The power of Jesus can bring them back to the light.

arrowhen said @ 8:24pm GMT on 29th Jun
Gay pride isn't designed to kill people.

eIfish said @ 8:30pm GMT on 29th Jun
To be fair, though, most guns end up used not for killing people, but for decoration, posing, and killing pieces of paper.

cb361 said @ 9:07pm GMT on 29th Jun
If every civilian gun in the USA killed somebody, it would almost wipe the entire population out.

spazm said @ 11:54pm GMT on 29th Jun
Now there's an id...

*BAM*

arrrrgghhh

mechanical contrivance said @ 12:22am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:2 Funny]
Perhaps he was dictating.

King of the Hill said @ 9:08pm GMT on 29th Jun
Yet I can search for tactical knives and other assorted weapons on their shopping search.

They are making a specific distinction.... They say they are targeting ads for weapons... not firearms, so why do they still provide search for the knives?

And yes... Knives have a myriad of uses, but I'm not shopping for kitchen knives here... and if you want to assume the knife isn't being bought for use as a weapon, then you have to assume the firearm related content is there for use as target shooting or hunting use.

Pretty fucking lame of Google.

Khafra said @ 10:15pm GMT on 29th Jun
This is the "because it's not black and white, everything is the same shade of gray" argument. The vast majority of knives are bought to cut things which are not people. The same cannot be said for guns.

GordonGuano said @ 11:13pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
Ideally, you buy a gun because you hope you never have to use it on a person. Short of vendors being able to peer into the hearts of men like the Shadow, you pretty much have to give people the benefit of the doubt.

I'd like to see the first clause of the Second Amendment applied with a bit more rigor. Just like drivers, gun owners should have to periodically demonstrate competence. As long as I'm wishing, regular viewing of Fox News, listening to talk radio, and membership in anything other than a state-sanctioned militia would be proof of incompetence, and subject the offender to lengthy prison terms and seizurr of assets, just like drug offenders.

So for the record, I'm pro-gun but fiercely anti-NRA. How's that for gray?

Naruki said @ 2:08am GMT on 30th Jun
Ideally, you buy a gun because you hope you never have to use it on a person

That makes no sense. It's like saying ideally you buy a car because you hope you never have to drive it somewhere.

If you hope you don't have to use it, you wouldn't buy it.

The portion of gun owners you are trying to describe may hope they don't have to shoot someone, but they buy a gun JUST IN CASE THEY DO. Not because they hope not to.

backSLIDER said @ 2:59am GMT on 30th Jun
I'm a gun owner and I don't think i'd ever use it even if someone was robbing my house. But I have a problem with the idea that police and military should have better guns then citizens are allowed. It makes a power difference between the two. It becomes haves and have nots. I've only gone target shooting. I own two pistols and a rifle. I don't believe my life is worth me killing someone but if you were trying to rape my wife I would kill you. I learned to shoot at a young age and I generally get away from people who don't respect guns. I have never seen a gun accident. There should be a gun owners test every few years to buy ammo. And it should be a minor ticket if your card has lapsed and you go shooting. I live in california and there is a 10day wait on pistols and a test for buying a gun. They do a check and if you've been to the loony bin it's much harder to get a gun. They are very strict with gun dealers.
Now about google. Sure they can do what they want. I don't think anyone has the right to sue them over this. But it seems like a political choice and I don't agree with it. I love most of every thing google does. I hate foxnews. This does lower my opinion of google a bit.

arctan said @ 3:47am GMT on 30th Jun
Any moral decision other people disagree with is "political", and telling people to be apolitical is thus really the same as telling them to be amoral, so screw that.

And of course the government shouldn't let everyone have access to the same weapons they have. Do you think private citizens should have tanks? Bombers? Nukes?

cache22 said @ 8:43am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:2 Interesting]
Do you think the government should?

pleaides said @ 10:03am GMT on 30th Jun
I think Thomas Hobbes would like a word with you.

Navier-Strokes said @ 3:31am GMT on 30th Jun
If you hope you don't have to use it, you wouldn't buy it.

How's that health insurance working for you?

Naruki said @ 4:45am GMT on 30th Jun
Can you get the mental health insurance? Because you appear to need it.

You just repeated the exact same nonsensical argument Gordon used!

You don't get insurance because "you hope you won't need it", but IN CASE YOU DO.

FFS, this is not difficult grammar, people.

Navier-Strokes said @ 12:33pm GMT on 30th Jun
Ahem, couple points.
1) I posted before Gordon. Noticed my posted is above his. Given I still haven't worked out time travel yet, technically I didn't repeat Gordon's argument, he repeated mine. Think about that for a second, hopefully that sets in.
2) That argument is in no way nonsensical. You hope you never use it, you expect you will. Again, your words,
If you hope you don't have to use it, you wouldn't buy it.
So no, it's not difficult grammar, nor is it difficult logic. Again, think about it, but don't hurt yourself.

Omegaphobic said @ 2:24pm GMT on 30th Jun
No... I'm rather dismayed at having to wheel out the pedantry on this one, but you are in fact totally missing the point. It is a small and petty point, but a completely accurate one. GordonGuano's initial phrasing makes no sense. He admitted this already.

Now, shall we move on to discussing something that might actually be relevant?

Navier-Strokes said @ 5:00pm GMT on 30th Jun
My point is an assertion Naruki is making to support his argument is demonstrably false. You agree, I agree, it is understood (possibly even by Naruki, not sure). He might have a legitimate argument, he might not, but if he can't make one without resorting to ludicrous assertions, and then digs his heels in for being called out on his baseless assertions, this will be the result.

I totally agree with you, it is a small point, but these kinds of unsupportable arguments happen all the time, and honestly I'd prefer if people keep their discussions / arguments honest without resorting to "Well, you're a stupidhead!", followed up soon thereafter with more false assertions in a lame effort to somehow discredit opposing assertions. You have to admit, this happens too often, and there is room to improve on forming cogent arguments.

Naruki said @ 12:38am GMT on 1st Jul
Your point is FAIL.

Before I read Gordon's rebuttal, I had already assessed that YOUR rebuttal was the same horseshit logic he had just used. THAT is what I meant.

It was just coincidence that he used the exact same example in his rebuttal, which I also commented on, as I go through these things in order, from top down.

And your second point, as retarded as it still is, has already been addressed by Omegaphobic.

Hey Om, I agree that it's petty, but I'm a bit OCD that way. BTW, saying "small and petty" is redundant. :-p

Navier-Strokes said @ 6:44am GMT on 2nd Jul
So you still don't see the difference between hope and expect.
That could be a problem.

Naruki said @ 1:26am GMT on 3rd Jul
No, YOU are the one who doesn't see. It's actually more like you are filling in non-existent blanks.

Let me show you the quote you can't seem to read properly, one more time, with emphasis:

"you buy a gun because you hope you never have to use it"

Now put on your best reading spectacles and tell me where that quote uses the word "expect" as the modifier of "because".

I'll use my wait-bot, because even if I were Methuselah I wouldn't live long enough to get your answer.

Navier-Strokes said @ 5:05am GMT on 3rd Jul
If you hope you don't have to use it, you wouldn't buy it.
Your quote. You said it, and it is demonstrably incorrect.

Naruki said @ 12:21am GMT on 4th Jul
If that were true, I think you would have demonstrated it by now. You haven't. Ergo, you are full of shit at one end or the other. Possibly both.

GordonGuano said @ 3:48am GMT on 30th Jun
"If you hope you don't have to use it, you wouldn't buy it."

So all this time, I've been paying auto/health/life insurance premiums to an industry that doesn't exist due to lack of demand? Those clever bastards!

Using "because" was bad phrasing on my part. And yes, many people buy handguns with the specific fantasy of getting to fire them at (likely dark-skinned) people*.My $0.02 is that the problem is gun culture.

*and for every Charlton Heston-fellating bigot you have a homeboy who thinks that holding a Glock sideways at chest height makes him look hard.

arctan said @ 4:27am GMT on 30th Jun
The fact that people who intend/expect to "use" their insurance are more likely to buy it is widely acknowledged by the insurance industry and seen as one of the biggest problems they have to guard against to survive in a for-profit market. It's called "adverse selection". Its existence is why that wonderfully controversial "individual mandate" forcing everyone to get insurance was necessary for Obama's universal-coverage plan.

It seems to me that if you imagine guns as an insurance policy against being violently attacked you run into what insurance companies call adverse selection -- aggressive people being more likely to buy guns -- and moral hazard -- once you actually have a gun, you start getting more aggressive than you used to think you were.

GordonGuano said @ 6:48am GMT on 30th Jun
In all seriousness, I would love to see some actuarial tables drawn up. The last statistic I've seen that I trusted was in Al Franken's book, Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot (1996?), where Al said a gun in the house is something like 46 times as likely to kill or injure a family member as a burglar. Even with that ratio, I'm not convinced gun bans are the answer.*

*of course, I am largely sympathetic to the goals of the Church of Euthanasia, in the interest of full disclosure.

Naruki said @ 4:49am GMT on 30th Jun
I'm a bit curious about something. Why did you reiterate the bad argument with the insurance example, as though I was wrong to correct you, but then agree that you misspoke?

GordonGuano said @ 6:10am GMT on 30th Jun
I don't see the insurance comparison as being invalid. The semantics that you and arctan are using are, to me, distinctions without difference. My view is that a gun can be a legitimate tool for self-defense, in addition to sport and hunting. You seem to see things differently, and that is fine. If you are not 100% committed to the responsibilities and duties of gun ownership, please don't own one. The reason I decided "because" was a clumsy turn of phrase was that it made it sound like the only reason a person would want a gun. Guns may in fact be a terrible form of self-defense insurance, but with the Second Amendment and a shootin' iron for every man, woman, and child in the States, that genie is out of the bottle. To me, the most effective way to reduce harm is to change gun culture. And not live in Chicago, apparently. They are having a rough summer.*

*Over 50 injuries and a dozen gun deaths, last time I checked. And the only place it's harder to get a gun is NYC, to my understanding.

pleaides said @ 10:19am GMT on 30th Jun
"that genie is out of the bottle" What about slavery dude? Isn't this just a lame excuse for not taking steps that would save the lives of some 30,000 of your fellow men every year in the US alone?

cb361 said @ 12:50pm GMT on 30th Jun
That one took a war though, even if abolishing slavery was incidental.

GordonGuano said @ 1:19pm GMT on 30th Jun
Have you seen Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine? IMNSHO, he makes a pretty compelling case that it's our attitude about guns that kills so many people. One way he does it is by pointing out that Canada also has plenty of guns (and plenty of racial diversity, to shoot down Charlton Heston's theory) but doesn't seem to have nearly the problem (even with free health care for gunshot wounds, go figure). Another is that our media is set up to keep people on edge and paranoid.

Also, slavery has never left the US, only waned and waxed in fashion. We keep dark-hued people working the fields now by calling it "inmate labor", and working for a salary in retail management means effectively being a slave where you are your own overseer.

30,000 gun deaths a year isn't how I'd like to see the human population reduced by 2/3 so that everyone could sustainably live like lower middle class white people in America and we could start working on taking to the stars, but it's a start.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:24pm GMT on 30th Jun
A more humane means of population control would be to shoot people in the junk instead of in the head or chest.

Naruki said @ 12:44am GMT on 1st Jul
If you didn't think it was invalid, why did you use it as a direct response to me pointing out the invalidity of your logic? Which you then agreed was invalid!

You've been paying insurance because it is mandated by law, or because YOU THINK MAY HAVE TO USE IT.

As Omegaphobic pointed out, my argument is strictly about the semantics of your phrasing, NOT about gun control at all. AND YOU AGREED WITH ME!

So why do you keep arguing about other shit that I have not commented on, and asserting a position for me that I have not announced myself?

GordonGuano said @ 2:50am GMT on 1st Jul
You keep using that word, "logic". I do not think it means what you seem to think it means. Life doesn't work out as neatly as a geometric proof. A sensible gun owner has two views in superposition. One is, 'having to shoot another person would ne a terrible thing and I hope that cup is never placed before me." Another is "if a crazy dude all hopped up on bath salts wants to eat my face, Little Elvis is going to let some daylight into him." Until the cannibal junkie shows up (or doesn't) to collapse the waveform, I can agree that you and arctan have good points and still be closer to King of the Hill's side on this issue without sinning against your precious "logic".

And while you're at it, look up "nuance".

Naruki said @ 3:35am GMT on 1st Jul
Um, again, why are you arguing gun control with me?

I was arguing semantics with you, not gun control. I did not take a position on gun control here, I took a position on ENGLISH.

You might want to look that up, and maybe you will stop going off on these insane tangents that have nothing to do with me. Yet.

I do _have_ a position on gun control, but I have not brought it up at all in this post. If you can't get past grammatical correction, there is no way in hell you are going to understand a nuanced discussion of that more personal topic.

Naruki said @ 12:22am GMT on 4th Jul
... and nothing. This is about as close as I get to being told "you were right". Too bad Gordon is the only one to be so... sensible.

arctan said @ 10:50pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:2 Insightful]
Also because guns are objectively far more dangerous than knives. They are on a whole different level of danger than knives.

This isn't really arguable, since that's the whole point of guns. If firearms weren't a whole quantum leap up from blades in lethality there would be no justification for the much greater expense of engineering and designing a firearm.

This is the kind of two-faced argument of gun enthusiasts -- on the one hand arguing "Well, if you want to ban weapons why not ban sharpened sticks or throwable rocks?" as though a gun isn't really all that different from sharpened sticks or throwable rocks, and then when they're among friends suddenly turning it into this big wankfest about how the gun that recently was just another kind of sharpened stick is in fact the most precisely and efficiently designed perfect handheld killing device known to modern science.

granitewitch said @ 12:32am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:3 Insightful]
I take an anti-gun stance much of the time, but that's because I don't like them to be mis-used.

A gun is a tool like any other. It makes a hole in something at a distance. Dynamite is a tool for tearing things apart. Poisons are effective tools for eliminating pest species, such as rats. They all have their place. And that place is not in the average home.

A hunting rifle, used to shoot deer which will them be used for food, is a good tool for a person who hunts to have. A gun that will fire 120 rounds a minute (two per second) seems to me to be a tool that no hunter really needs, let alone someone living in a suburb. A pistol is a tool that few people need. Such tools are needed by the military, but not by the average citizen.

The biggest problem with guns, as arctan points out, is that they're hugely more dangerous than pointy sticks. A small child can use a gun to blow someone's head off. They're far less likely to be able to kill someone with a pointy stick, or even a machete. That comes down to muscle power and a focused will to do harm to another person- it's pretty hard to accidentally stab a friend from across the room.

As I said in a post a couple of months ago, when it comes to home defense a gun is unlikely to be really needed, and may well result in a horrifying accident. Home invasions are not common. In the event of a burglary the intruder is more likely to run like hell at unexpected sounds, as they're more intent on taking valuable things than doing things to the occupants. A person coming down the stairs screaming and waving something long and sharp and shiny is more likely to drive off an intruder without violence actually being done. A woman waving a Gil Hibben fantasy knife and shrieking like an air raid siren will cause a large man to shit himself.

Gun enthusiasts who want to shoot targets at a range are fine, but I would prefer that the guns be kept unloaded at the range in a locked safe.

Dna01 said @ 2:32am GMT on 1st Jul [Score:2]
This, absolutely. I have a rifle that I use yearly to go hunting with my extended family. It has an internal magazine that will store five bullets, and you can store another in the chamber for a total of six shots. When I'm in the woods, I have never had any reason to fire more than twice in a row. I can appreciate the fact that an enthusiast may want something more streamlined than my little Savage 99f, but it works for me just fine. I can't imagine ever needing something that can throw thirty bullets into something at one time.

For the cost of a tag and maybe a couple bullets, I can spend a week with my family and save like $300-$500 on my food budget for the year. To me, this is the single reason I own a firearm. I have had a single home defense encounter in my life, in which I came home to an unfamiliar car and an open door, called the police, and grabbed him while he was busy with my DVD player. I held him for probably five minutes, the cops showed up, and they took him off my hands. If you can't do that, buy a stungun, not a bullet gun. Lethal force is never appropriate when protecting personal possessions.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 3:21am GMT on 9th Jul
I wish I could give you +5 for that last sentence alone, and I wish all gun owners were as responsible as you. Keep it up.

EPT said @ 4:05am GMT on 13th Jul
The bit that gets me is this: in the grand scheme of things, longarms are not the problem in the US, yet that's where all the debate lies. The problem is in handguns. Last time I checked ~2 years ago, the US was averaging ~17k homicides a year, ~13-14k were with firearms, ~11-12k of those were with handguns.

I used to be completely against guns due to my upbringing and unarmed nationality, but the more I argued about gun control on the internet over the past decade, the more I realised that the problem isn't in semi- vs fully-automatic rifles. Spree killers are a drop in the ocean. The harm is in handguns, and it makes sense given that they're mobile and concealable. The problem is that very, very little of the public gun debate focuses on handguns, instead opting for the showier rifles.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:05am GMT on 13th Jul
Is there some way we could ban, say, all firearms shorter than a certain length?

zenviper said @ 2:58pm GMT on 30th Jun
I use a pretty sweet knife for utility things.. opening boxes, cutting non-food stuffs, gardening. I never use it for violence or defense, so I think it is in a different category than guns.

cache22 said @ 3:43pm GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Funny]
I use a gun for basic home repair, changing the channel on the tellie, and the occasional bank heist.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 3:21am GMT on 9th Jul
Don't forget fly-swatting.

wottan said @ 7:45pm GMT on 29th Jun
Ive been more skeptical of unequivocal anti censorship since coming across the classic 'Shouting fire in a crowded movie theatre' example when I was younger, though that is a different arena all together than whats going on in this article..

ENZ said @ 9:02pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:2]
This isn't even an issue of censorship, it's a business choosing which products to sell. I fucking hate how Wal-Mart sells edited CD's, but the most I'm going to do about it is not shop at Wal-Mart.

I suppose you could make the argument of how Google is such a massive presence on the internet that their non-endorsement can have rippling effects, like the recent goings on over at TV Tropes where Google pulled their adds on pages pertaining to rape, and the site reacted by deleting all that content. Or how there is no law prohibiting the production or sale of AO rated games in the US, but major retailers refusing to sell such games causes game developers to cut content so they can get it in stores. Though I doubt the firearms market will collapse as a result of this.

Getting back to Wal-Mart, I find it kind of depressing that they happily sell
assault weapons but not music with the word "fuck" intact...

King of the Hill said @ 9:11pm GMT on 29th Jun
That is not an assault weapon. An assault weapon is fully automatic. That is a semi-auto... Yes... there is a distinction... You want to use the political one.

foobar said @ 9:19pm GMT on 29th Jun
Isn't the term somewhat redundant?

Mad March Harris said @ 9:59pm GMT on 29th Jun
Not at all. Fully automatic = while holding down the trigger the gun will fire until it runs out of bullets. Semi-automatic = the gun will shoot either a burst or a single bullet every time the trigger is pulled but will only do it once (until the supply of bullets is emptied). In guns that aren't automatic at all you would have to either pump out the shells manually, swing a lever to eject casings, or some other sort of manual action (ie, non-automatic).

ENZ said @ 10:06pm GMT on 29th Jun
I think he was referring to "assault weapon".

maximumtodd said @ 11:55pm GMT on 29th Jun
I highly encourage everyone to research the Assault Weapons Ban definition of an assault rifle. You will be completely confused, but you will find that it has nothing to do with auto vs semi-automatic weapons. The majority of the provisions involve imported guns/parts and aesthetics (things that make it look scary). In reality, most hunting rifles are more powerful and accurate than most so-called assault weapons. I have semi-automatic ""assault weapons"" and enjoy adding accessories to make them look cool and going to the range and shooting off a few rounds. People make fun of me, and that's fine, because I make fun of their vehicles and the money they spend on them. You can legally own fully automatic weapons, but you have to have a background check and pay the ATF tax stamp. That doesn't interest me, since I would have no where to shoot it (the gun club I belong to doesn't allow it, since you get off target after the first couple rounds) and I don't have enough money to shoot that many rounds in a matter of seconds. Also, I never considered my local gun store an "Arm Merchant", but I guess by definition he is one.

eIfish said @ 12:54am GMT on 30th Jun
Surely you mean the assault weapons definition of "assault weapon"? Assault rifles, being automatic already, are outwith its purview.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 1:23am GMT on 30th Jun
I think foobar's original point was that "assault weapon" is redundant, because all weapons can be used for assault.

arrowhen said @ 6:29am GMT on 30th Jun
Most human-manipulable objects can be used for assault; weapons are designed to be used for assault.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 6:37am GMT on 30th Jun
That's probably what I meant. Thank you for clarifying.

arctan said @ 2:33am GMT on 30th Jun
Stuff like oversized magazines, pistol grips and flash suppressors/silencers (and the screw barrels made to accept them) are part of the definition of an "assault weapon" and that's not just "aesthetics" -- those are things that you add to a weapon to make it more useful for fighting against other armed humans.

I fully believe a lot of the people who buy them just want to fantasize about engaging in combat against other armed humans rather than actually do it, but that doesn't change the nature of what they are and it's a piss-poor argument for legalizing them.

In reality, most hunting rifles are more powerful and accurate than most so-called assault weapons.

This is actually a really retarded argument and all real gun nuts *know* it's retarded, which is why it's so annoying that people say it.

Of course a semiautomatic rifle is going to sacrifice power and accuracy relative to a bolt-action rifle. That's a conscious tradeoff the designer of the weapon makes for the semiautomatic action -- despite being harder to maintain and more likely to harm the accuracy of the bullet -- being able to pump out *more bullets faster*.

That's why people use semiautomatics -- they pump out more bullets faster and thus make hitting your target easier, even if each individual bullet has less power and doesn't shoot as straight.

Arguably this is less sportsmanlike from the perspective of hunting as a noble competition, and certainly makes a hash out of what the whole damn point of target shooting historically was. But the more important thing is that this is a gigantic advantage in an actual combat situation against human beings at close range whom you are trying to kill.

All the other little things that make something an "assault weapon" are also advantages in this regard -- telescoping stocks to make it easier to carry a weapon concealed around with you, larger magazines to give you more time between reloads, flash suppressors to make your shots harder to track by human enemies, etc.

It is completely legitimate for the government to ban these things as actual material traits of a weapon that make it more dangerous to human beings and make it more useful for criminals and insurrectionists.

It is also legitimate to ban these things beyond simply their material utility in committing criminal acts but because of the toxic culture they encourage -- the fantasies of armed revolution against the government and self-styling as a paramilitary culture that we *all know* is endemic to the "gun nut" culture, aside from the protestations that they just happen to be another kind of gamer with a certain kind of toy that just happens to be a toy that propels metal pellets at animals and paper targets.

dudeman said @ 10:59am GMT on 30th Jun
http://youtu.be/yATeti5GmI8

dudeman said @ 11:01am GMT on 30th Jun

cache22 said @ 3:22am GMT on 1st Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
This guy does an excellent job convincing me that 'semi-automatic sports rifles' are just as dangerous as assault weapons.

Dioxin said @ 10:46pm GMT on 29th Jun
My gun is not an assault weapon. It's just a gun that can fire a single 20 round burst.

eIfish said @ 1:01am GMT on 30th Jun
I know you're being flippant, but you're actually correct. Assault weapons are semi-automatic, burst-firing weapons are not semi-automatic, and thus cannot be assault weapons.

Naruki said @ 2:14am GMT on 30th Jun
Wikipedia: "Assault weapon is a non-technical term referring to any of a broad category of firearms with certain features, including some semiautomatic rifles, some pistols, and some shotguns."

I find it interesting that when discussing the definition of various terms, you can read many, many posts without ever seeing someone actually bother to look it up. I've done it myself, but I usually add qualifiers to let someone know I am just giving my guess.

King of the Hill said @ 7:14am GMT on 30th Jun
Semi automatic is one pull, one round...

Anything that fires burst or fires multiple rounds as long as you keep your finger on the trigger is a full auto.

You are a glaring example of what is wrong with people's perceptions on firearms.

Again, fully automatic weapons and those full autos that feature a burst mode are indeed assault weapons and are generally not available to the general public unless they have specific endorsement as a collector or gun dealer, pay a tax stamp, fill out a shitload of paperwork and jump through some hoops.... Next is having the shitload of money to even buy one.

arctan said @ 4:53pm GMT on 1st Jul [Score:1 Informative]
There are many ways to either convert a semiautomatic to full-auto or simulate full-auto firing using a semiautomatic action. One of the simplest involves a technique known as "bump firing", pulling the rifle forward against the trigger finger rather than squeezing the trigger, allowing the recoil of the gun to automatically cause another round to be fired.

This more or less requires that you have a pistol-style foregrip mounted on the gun, which is one of the "cosmetic" features that the AWB banned. AWB enthusiasts argue that bump-firing is bad for accuracy and a dangerous thing to do -- I agree, and I do not share their apparent conviction that this means some psycho won't nonetheless do it and end up spraying bullets wildly into a crowd while trying to shoot somebody else.

ENZ said @ 9:20pm GMT on 29th Jun
Very well.

I find it kind of depressing that Wal-Mart will happily sell semi-automatic rifles but not music with the word "fuck" intact...

Khafra said @ 10:18pm GMT on 29th Jun
Really? A decade or so ago, I carried an M-16A2 with a safe, semi, and 3-round-burst selector switch. 3-round-burst is not fully automatic. But I would have a hard time convincing anyone an M-16A2 is not an assault rifle.

eIfish said @ 12:53am GMT on 30th Jun
Firearms legislation considers any firearm that fires more than one shot per trigger pull to be fully automatic. This includes n-round-bursts. So an M16A2 is not legally an assault weapon, because it is already an assault rifle.

(for those following at home, the M16 was upgraded from fully automatic to three-round-burst, because even trained soldiers were spraying the entire magazine when a burst or two would have sufficed).

arctan said @ 10:59pm GMT on 29th Jun
That's not part of the official definition of "assault weapon". That's the commonly used definition of "assault rifle", but "assault weapon" is different.

Insofar as the term has an official definition it's the one used by the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which classifies as an "assault weapon" any weapon that has the characteristics of a military rather than sporting or hunting weapon.

Full-auto firing is one of these characteristics but it's not the only one -- oversized magazines, flash suppressors, telescoping stocks, sound suppressors, etc. are all also characteristics of an "assault weapon".

None of these are as big a deal when it comes to making a weapon more dangerous as full-auto firing, but they're all characteristics that are part of making a weapon better for fighting against other armed human beings as opposed to hunting or shooting at paper targets.

Those of us who think that encouraging people to prepare themselves to fight against other armed human beings (like the cops) is a bad thing see value in laws like the now-defunct AWB, even if there was a lot of hysteria and misinformation about the sunset on the AWB making "machine guns" legal.

Certainly I don't see why anyone who wasn't planning to use their guns against another human being would think the AWB was all that big a deal, since for the purpose of target shooting or sport shooting these are all cosmetic features. If not being able to have a converted civilian M16 that looks just like a military rifle is all that big a deal to you then I think you have issues.

(And indeed everyone I knew at the time who thought it was a really big deal wasn't just a "collector" but specifically liked the "assault weapon" features precisely because they expected at some point to use their guns in a "self-defense" situation against hordes of black people -- lots of people invoking the 1994 LA riots. Those are exactly the kind of people that, as a political matter, I think should be discouraged from getting what they want.)

ENZ said @ 11:22pm GMT on 29th Jun
Aren't pistol grips on rifles and shotguns another characteristic of assault weapons?

arctan said @ 2:41am GMT on 30th Jun
Yes. There's some debate over whether pistol grips are useful for allowing faster firing from the hip and making it easier to fire several shots in quick succession.

It seems kind of obvious that this is indeed an intended benefit of having a pistol grip on your weapon or they wouldn't make one. A lot of assault weapon defenders claim that this isn't true, that pistol grips actually make your aim worse or have no effect on aim, and that there is no way you could ever usefully hit anything by firing several shots in quick succession or firing from the hip.

This 1) makes the firearm enthusiasts sound like idiots for so desperately clamoring for something that isn't actually useful and feeling oppressed and violated for not being able to buy it, and 2) doesn't actually fill me with relief, since if anything I'm *more* worried about some crazy guy with a gun firing the gun *badly* in all directions in a crowded area and killing a bunch of people he never meant to shoot than I am about some competent killer cleanly assassinating his intended target.

blibblob said @ 11:25pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
That's because you live in a time that is the least violent period in all of human history.

selfimportant said @ 11:56pm GMT on 29th Jun
It's a civil liability call too. Note that Froogle also doesn't help people find hard liquor, tobacco, home DIY surgery equipment, etc.

foobar said @ 1:21am GMT on 30th Jun
Er... did you check?

Naruki said @ 2:17am GMT on 30th Jun
No no, he was right.

Ankylosaur said @ 3:00am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Interesting]
I checked. Both vodka and cigarettes come up blank for me. Scalpels are still there.

arrowhen said @ 6:28am GMT on 30th Jun
Vodka: About 115,000 results
Cigarettes: About 1,290,000 results
Scalpel: About 23,600 results

selfimportant said @ 7:08am GMT on 30th Jun
"Vodka" was my 1st search actually (although booze sales across state lines have never been tolerated anyway, that Mr. Belvedere episode notwithstanding). I dunno if you live in some magical jurisdiction where everything is permitted

Since Google on the same page proscribes gambling equipment and traffic-light hacking devices it goes to my point that it's a business/regulatory decision as well as editorial discretion.

Aephon said @ 7:32pm GMT on 29th Jun
I use Startpage anyway.

ENZ said @ 7:42pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:3 Insightful]
I’m frankly not surprised that Google’s “strong culture and values” will gladly point you to the finest tentacle rape hentai available on the internet but will not let you research your next firearms purchase

Aside from maybe some cases of carpal tunnel syndrome, tentacle rape hentai causes no harm to anyone.

eIfish said @ 8:36pm GMT on 29th Jun
I wonder what his thoughts are on Upotte! ?

Pandafaust said @ 2:44pm GMT on 1st Jul
I have never heard of this anime but i note the first line of the review:

I’m a big fan of stupid moe-anthropomorphism premises, and as a mild firearm enthusiast this naturally piqued my interest.

Pretty much sure I don't want to meet this guy

Wait, it's not you is it 0 . 0

Ankylosaur said @ 8:38pm GMT on 29th Jun
And I'm pretty sure you'll still be able to use Google Shopping to buy movies, books, etc that depict people shooting one another, so again, bad comparison.

Ankylosaur said @ 8:40pm GMT on 29th Jun
For the analogy to work, you'd have to point to the continued availability of this.

theolypse said @ 9:31pm GMT on 29th Jun
And then we'd all laugh.

Ankylosaur said @ 11:36pm GMT on 29th Jun
Inflatable tentacle arms don't rape Japanese school girls, pirates do!

azazel said @ 7:48pm GMT on 29th Jun
I'm completely fine with this.

structured_spirits said @ 7:50pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:4 Funny]

danshyu said @ 10:12pm GMT on 29th Jun
Wow, that took me a long while to get it.

Ankylosaur said @ 11:37pm GMT on 29th Jun
What country is that from?

cb361 said @ 11:54pm GMT on 29th Jun
I found a slightly larger version online, in which you can see that the prices are in pounds, so UK. The colour scheme looks familiar but I can't place it, or the logo in the top-left.

cb361 said @ 12:04am GMT on 30th Jun
Definitely B&Q

afrasr said @ 7:59pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
#firstworldAmericanProblems

arrowhen said @ 8:31pm GMT on 29th Jun
Are these proposed changes that haven't gone into effect yet, or did they already change their minds? Another article claims that "As of June 28, queries for items such as 'Colt 1911 Pistol,' '12 gauge ammo' and 'Colt .45' are met with a 'did not match any shopping results' page.", but I just tried all three and got plenty of hits.

wynterbourne said @ 8:36pm GMT on 29th Jun
Are you sure you're on the shopping tab? I just tried each of your search results and got zero results. I also tried several searches that worked yesterday, such as Ruger SR22, that worked yesterday and received no results.

cb361 said @ 8:48pm GMT on 29th Jun
"Colt .45" on google.co.uk shopping is showing a number of replica guns, and other paraphernalia containing the word 'colt'. No actual guns, obviously, but not a blank page either.

eIfish said @ 8:53pm GMT on 29th Jun
Remember that they're not censoring searches - they build the index by scraping merchants, so they're preventing the items from appearing in the first place.

So, depending on their definition of "weapon", a Colt Nerf gun would be fine.

Ankylosaur said @ 8:59pm GMT on 29th Jun
Actually, they were simply scraping merchants and indexing them. Now they are, according to the yellow pop up on their site, "becoming a commercial site". They are going to start charging listing fees to be included, so they will be basically sharing in the profits of anything sold. That puts a different onus on them as to what's listed. It's one thing to simple say "X is selling Y at $Z", it's another to say "Buy Y from our partner X".

arrowhen said @ 9:34pm GMT on 29th Jun

theolypse said @ 2:24am GMT on 30th Jun
Google has a history of uneven rollouts and unannounced feature-testing.

King of the Hill said @ 9:13pm GMT on 29th Jun
I searched on a firing pin for an EAA Witness 9mm and got hits... but most firearm related searches returned ZERO.

cb361 said @ 10:16pm GMT on 29th Jun [Score:3 Funny]

Gun's don't kill people. Cats do.

smoug said @ 10:49pm GMT on 29th Jun
It seems to me that it's the gun accessories part that would have people irked, considering that the average American can't legally buy firearms over the internet, anyway.

Replacement parts, accessories and cosmetic modifications are however fairly popular items for internet sales.

blibblob said @ 11:34pm GMT on 29th Jun
Yeah you can, you just have to have it shipped to a licensed dealer to pick it up(who'll also charge you a fee).

eIfish said @ 1:06am GMT on 30th Jun
I think my favourite thing about the accessories market was that you could buy every part of the gun as an accessory, apart from the receiver, which is legally the gun.

You'd then buy a stamped, drilled piece of metal which was a stamped, drilled piece of metal and certainly not a gun, and if by some misfortune it got bent (say on this jig that is also not a gun) and then welded a bit and annealed, then wouldn't you know it, it turned into a receiver.

bruceski said @ 2:03am GMT on 30th Jun
Sounds like when my CPAP mask was worn out and I was looking at replacing it. A new mask requires a prescription, but parts don't. Aside from one piece of hard plastic that wasn't worn out I replaced the entire mask with parts, and could've gotten that one as well if necessary.

rndmnmbr said @ 1:52pm GMT on 1st Jul
And then you're criminally liable for manufacturing of a deadly weapon. Unless you get a positive thumbs-up from a local police authority before you begin, they tend to look at it under the same scope as making a zip-gun.

Also, the gun you're thinking of is the AK-47, where you could buy a parts kit from a cut-down military model and a separate blank pre-drilled to form the receiver. Turning said blank into a receiver is much more complicated than "bent, welded and annealed". If the blank is tempered enough to bend easily in a jig, then it'll have to be hardened to be suitable for a receiver, and that's not something your average joe can do in his garage. Also, the BATFE have changed the rules so that the parts kit can no longer contain the barrel. Now you have to buy that separately too, and that has the same required background check and waiting period that the receiver does.

eIfish said @ 3:13pm GMT on 1st Jul
Nah, you can get flats/forgings for pretty-much anything. MP5 flat, $150 AR15 eighty-percent, $100, Uzi receiver flat, $65, dozens of SMG receiver flats/machined forgings, ~$50.

As per legality, that was kinda my point. Making something illegal is not the same thing as preventing it from happening. Much like the blocks of dried grapes in the prohibition era, that would turn into wine if you were to accidentally rehydrate them and leave them in a warm place for a fortnight.

bltrocker said @ 12:58am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Good]
Screw the slippery slope. This is good.

kichijoii said @ 3:42am GMT on 30th Jun
Yes, but not because of this. The slippery slope is a fallacy that should be discarded regardless.

BergZ said @ 1:38am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Insightful]
Ordinarily I wouldn't care about or support something like this (firearms related items in their Shopping search engine), but this time I am going to support it.

My support is pure backlash for the recent scrapping of the Canadian Long Gun Registry.

azazel said @ 2:25am GMT on 30th Jun
the what now?

Barnabas_Truman said @ 1:39am GMT on 30th Jun
It's a nice idea, but I don't see how it'll make any difference--who uses Google Shop anyway?

Ankylosaur said @ 2:49am GMT on 30th Jun
People using Google+ while wearing Google Glasses?

blibblob said @ 4:51pm GMT on 30th Jun
I do for price comparisons. Also in craigslist haggling. Sometimes there's an obscure discount store selling something well under value and some people will take that as sufficient proof to lower their asking price.

kichijoii said @ 3:44am GMT on 30th Jun
WOW the comments on that page are stupid. And conservative. I'm sure there's a relation.

yasha said @ 4:32am GMT on 30th Jun
how do we know that google did this for "values" and not "legality?"

guns are regulated in lots of different markets in different ways. I'm sure there are some cities and counties where, say, advertising guns to kids under 16 is a crime. and others where gun ads can't include prices or some other whacky limitation.

and so google just throws up their hands and says "we're not dealing with this rats nest of regs."

Ankylosaur said @ 5:40am GMT on 30th Jun
As I said above, this change is anticipation of their changing what Google Shopping is. In the past it was just a specialized version of their regular search. They can't be held accountable (or not very, at least, there's still some wrangling on this I guess) for merely pointing you in the direction of someone selling something if they are doing it as part of a content-neutral search function.

But they want to monetize their shopping section and are going to start charging sellers to be listed. That changes things, and they will be more legally culpable for what's being sold since they are profiting from it.

Would Google have to register as a gun dealer? Maybe not, but you never know if some official might try to argue they should. What if their IP geolocation screws up and lets a gun listing be viewable somewhere it's illegal? Would they be criminally liable for that? What if someone buys a gun through them and shoots someone. Would the victim be able to sue them? Like it or not there's a lot of legal issues and risks associated with guns that you don't have with other things mentioned above and maybe they just don't want to deal with it.

They've been refusing to advertise various things through Google Ads for a long time for that same reason, even if you can find the same stuff through their regular search. This is the same thing. It's also similar to how you can't buy guns on eBay, since Google's moving to a similar business model.

slashbeast said @ 9:46pm GMT on 30th Jun
Yep... Googles seem to have been given the identity of a celebrity by public view. Guns have got to be a tricky thing to sell, and probably don't generate enough revenue to be worth the hassle, especially with a service that basically sells anything and everything.

Even if its something as minor as having to provide a special disclamer that pops-up when searching for guns. Still too much of a hassle for such a small percentage of one of googles many services, most of which is mostly important to promoting the suite of services google provides.

ckfahrenheit said @ 7:14am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
As if I've ever used Shopping to search for ammo. Or anything else for that matter.

windex said @ 7:58am GMT on 30th Jun
So let me get this straight.

Google, a company already unjustly persecuted by the American people by being forced to provide _health insurance_ to its employees, is now trying to retaliate against the Obama administration by refusing to sell guns?

I think this sums up every thread like this, ever.

SnappyNipples said @ 11:52am GMT on 30th Jun [Score:1 Underrated]
So let me get this straight.

There is a shopping tab on the google page?

Gamith_UK said @ 1:29pm GMT on 30th Jun
Can I get your snappy nipples straight?

two totally fine nipples

the circus said @ 9:31am GMT on 1st Jul
Just caught a late night infomercial by the NRA called The Secret War On Guns, and what an absolutely amazing piece of yellow journalism it was! I wish I could post a link to a video of it but apparently the NRA doesn't want anyone looking into it too closely or quoting it back to them because it's not available among all the videos on their website or on their YouTube channel or anywhere else I can find. If you can find it on late night TV I highly recommend catching it for a laugh or a pained groan and if you can get it online, even better.

cb361 said @ 11:45am GMT on 1st Jul
The revolution's a comin', d'y hear?

rndmnmbr said @ 1:54pm GMT on 1st Jul
Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in the second half of the 2nd amendment, but the NRA is a bunch of lunatics still hoarding food for the day the nukes hit.

the circus said @ 4:16pm GMT on 1st Jul
Well from the video, the NRA is hoarding food and guns for the day UN troops from tiny dictatorship nations come to take their guns and give them to criminals. After all, that's what happened in England and now it's Mad Max land over there, according to the video.

cb361 said @ 6:16pm GMT on 1st Jul
Well, we do eat dog food...

GordonGuano said @ 5:11pm GMT on 1st Jul [Score:2]
They do this every election year. I seem to recall Wayne "Lucky" LaPierre saying earlier this year that the fact the Obama administration had done nothing at all to limit gun ownership or distribution was proof that their sinister plans had almost come to fruition. You have to wonder what color the sky is in an NRA member's world.