Hank Fox has brought a significant problem to my attention, one that I’ve addressed before: one of the consequences of growing American cowardice and these trumped-up Wars on Terror and Drugs (let’s call them what they are: a War on Civil Liberties) is that science and science education are collateral damage. Memepunks has an excellent post on this subject:
In an attempt to curb the production of crystal meth, more than 30 states have now outlawed or require registration for common lab equipment. In Texas, you need to register the purchase of Erlenmeyer flasks or three-necked beakers. The same state where I do not have to register a handgun, forces me to register a glass beaker. In Portland, Oregon, even pH strips are suspect. Modern off the shelf “chemistry” sets are sold without any of the questionable chemicals or equipment. For example, when a current company tried re releasing a kit based on the one marketed by Mr. Wizard himself back in the 1950s, they found that they could only include five of the original chemicals in the set. The rest of the items were replaced with inane things like super balls and balloons. Even a non neutered modern chemistry set like the C3000 from Thames and Kosmos is forced to ship without many key chemicals, suggesting to their customers that they acquire the missing ingredients elsewhere.
In the name of child safety, in order to inhibit drug peddlers, because we don’t want to make things easy for terrorists, we have put up bureaucratic barriers to the purchase of laboratory glassware — while encouraging unimpaired, unchecked access to guns.
Is this a screwed-up country, or what?
The memepunks site has some suggestions for getting around the restrictions.
But there are some lights shinning in the darkness of this situation. Companies like United Nuclear, which continue to sell chemicals and lab equipment despite legal problems, and websites that support chemistry hobbyists. Like Readily Available Chemicals, which maintains a list of places where one can make an end run around the restrictions and purchase chemicals or lab ware. Or The Nitrogen Order, who provides a how to on building your own chemistry set, and provides lessons and experiments. And Science Madness who’s forums give hobbyists a place to meet, compare notes, and exchange secrets of the trade anonymously. One of my favorites is the Society for Amateur Scientists, which just began a LABRats program, to match up youngsters that are interested in science with mentors that are practicing scientists.
That’s right, people, this is what it is coming down to: you need to break the law to do science. We’re criminalizing nerds.
At least making science dangerous and illicit and illegal ought to make us romantic outlaws look cool.
Thanks for the link, but the address is incorrect. It should be:
http://www.hyperdeath.co.uk/chemicals/
And you called it hyperdeath? =8-|
Now that’s what I call framing!
The next thing you know, the hysterical anti-drug paranoids will outlaw over-the-counter decongestants!
Oops. Too late!
I’ve added HTTP redirects from the incorrect address. Anyone who clicks the link should now be able to get through.
And you called it hyperdeath?
I had the domain name (and the fairly decent website it’s attached to) before I created the Readily Available Chemicals website. Perhaps my choice of name wasn’t so wise in retrospect…
i ♥ serendipity. i spent all night yesterday looking for a place that’ll sell me the chemicals i need to make a few stains. that last blockquote is the most useful (to me) text i’ve read on scienceblogs yet.
What can I say? I’m stunned.
What can I say? I’m stunned.
I had the domain name (and the fairly decent website it’s attached to)
Oops… That should be “fairly decent webspace…”
You got it all wrong!
Remember “Ignorance = terrorism”?
(That’s wrong too: it should be: “Enforcing ignorance = terrorism.”)
This is nothing less than a thinly-veiled attampt to outlaww knowledge. Can’t start with biology; people would notice. Chemistry, that’s where it ain’t!
Wow. US of A, we need to talk. I know you’ve had years and years to think about civil liberties, gun laws and chemicals, I just don’t think that the conclusions you have reached about it all is the same as the conclusion I have reached.
Your conclusion appears to be that hand guns are wonderful and magnificient tools anyone should own, regardless of his or her ability to use them responsibly and that harmless chemicals should be thoroughly regulated even if it doesn’t make any sense whatsover. And that civil liberties should applied only where the strongest and best-funded lobby wants them to.
My conclusion is that all politicians who endorse such nonsense should be fired immediately and that all those lobbyists should be barred from entering any legislative building ever again.
But nonetheless, US of A, you never cease to surprise me.
A little music to go with this post from “The Arrogant Worms”:It’s great to be a nerd
Having done quite a bit of chemistry when I was young, including the mixing of some serious acid baths for circuit board etching at a job I had when 16, I’m not quite sure I would label chemicals “harmless.” I treated them with just as much caution as I did guns. Perhaps more, because their risks are more varied. A gun is relatively simple compared to chemistry.
Which isn’t an endorsement of these absurd laws, but just a recommendation to play safe. ;-)
I’m sure Charlton Heston would weigh in for you. “The only way you’ll get my pipette is when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”.
Sigh; I’d heard about them removing everything that might cause any kind of liability from the chemistry sets (they were watered down when my children were kids) but was unaware of the laws requiring registration for basic laboratory glassware. I grew up with chemistry sets, microscopes, visible men (and women) and erector sets in the 50s and I am certain that playing with those “toys” was largely responsible for my interest in science, because I didn’t have a really good science teacher until high school. I’ve made a living doing environmental geochemistry for a long time now and I wonder if the same piquing of the interest followed by a career path will no longer be available to young persons. Instead they’ll just be taken to the Creation Museum and told what chapter and verse to read to understand “science,” then they’ll be appointed to a cushy theocratic position. What the hell has happened to this country?
Every time I get to thinking that Canada might be a little too touchy-feely weird for my tastes, something like this blog post comes along and reminds me that things could be a whole lot worse than “touchy-feely weird”.
“When chemistry is outlawed, only outlaws will do chemistry”
Heh, reminds me of a cartoon I saw taped to the chem department walls…
“Analytical Chemists of the Wild West”
http://www.nearingzero.net/screen_res/nz093.jpg
Home chemistry is where Charles Darwin (called ‘Gas’ as a child – not funny in his native English English) started his interest in science.
Of course a lot of chemicals aren’t totally “harmless”. For example drain cleaners are pretty hazardous. But regulating chemicals because they could possibly used by terrorists or to produce drugs and leaving guns alone is absurd. Most chemicals, especially in chemistry sets, aren’t intended to cause harm or hurt anyone, but handled wrongly they obviously can. At least some. Guns on the other hand are designed for only one purpose: causing harm. Even if the use is legitimate, like hunting, guns ultimately cause destruction. I don’t know any good reason for a decent human being to own an assault rifle privately. But good reasons for most chemicals and glassware are abundant.
It’s not as though access to guns is exactly unfettered. There is considerable paper-work involved in buying that particular kind of tool as opposed to, say, a chainsaw or a powered nail-driver. Cars and gasoline (both of which are more likely to kill you than a gun or a chemistry set) are somewhat regulated but there are so many of them around that it’s nearly impossible to prevent someone intent on causing harm with one.
The problem is that society doesn’t do a good job understanding risk and our political leaders are cowards who manipulate the public by making a big show out of “solving” problems that simply aren’t big enough to justify the effort spent solving them. Crystal meth would be vastly safer if it were produced in a proper lab – what is the exact problem we’re trying to solve here?
Please, please, let no one tell our legislators about the protons, neutrons and electrons present in all of the most deadly and/or addictive substances.
>I don’t know any good reason for a decent human being
>to own an assault rifle privately.
How about: “Because I want one”??
That’s exactly the same (and quite good) reason why people own SUVs, or eat pizza, or drive hybrids, or drink tea instead of coffee, etc. It’s a matter of personal choice.
The issue is at what point society at large overrules personal choice for the common good. Right? We can argue that guns are inherently more dangerous tools if abused than chainsaws so let’s regulate them – and that probably makes sense. But if society is going to do that, we need to understand the tradeoffs and they should make sense. That’s where I have a problem with a lot of the “logic” that’s going into regulating things today.
Does someone’s choice to smoke crystal meth harm society at large? Not much, really. Of course, since crystal meth has been made illegal (“for the good of society”…) now it is a source of self-fulfilling criminal activity. But, otherwise, if it weren’t illegal, some guy could sit at home and bake his brain with crystal meth and it’s no skin off my a** at all as long as I’m not expected to pay his medical bills or share a section of freeway with him while he’s high. Yet, we have alcohol, which is legal but regulated, and we have to deal with exactly those problems (medical bills and traffic) with a legal drug versus billions spent on interdiction programs that utterly fail to prevent the sales of an illegal drug like crystal meth.
PZ’s title to this thread is precisely right – does making something illegal cause more crime than if you just left it alone?? Well, aside from the obvious tautology – what nobody seems to want to confront is that virtually all of the “victimless crimes” (drugs, prostitution, gambling…) are criminalized because of religious beliefs. Sam Harris nudges us obliquely toward this topic in “End of Faith” but it’s one of the most important threads of that book that has not made it into the public debate about religion.
Now – back to assault rifles: who cares? What you don’t want is people killing eachother. Whether they do it with a magazine-fed repeater or a muzzle-loader is utterly irrelevant to the victim and should be irrelevant to society at large, too. In fact, “assault rifle” is an aesthetic statement, not not a technical one.
http://www.a-human-right.com/looks.html
True. But, at least in Europe, you have to go through a lot of driving lessons and you are requiered to take a first aid course. And in the end you’ve got to take two exams (one theoretical, one practical.). Afterwards you are allowed to drive, but you are the first two years under some kind of probation. That means offences are punished more severly in the beginning.
So, you see, it’s still a far cry from the paper-work involved in buying a gun in the US, I think. (Don’t get me started on gun laws in Europe. These laws are way too strict, in my eyes.)
Just on a side note, now that you mention it. In Austria, or Switzerland (I don’t know which one. Somewhere in the Alps however) there’s an iniative for people to let their drugs checked. They are told what’s inside, it’s anonymus and people can keep them.
“Now – back to assault rifles: who cares? What you don’t want is people killing eachother. Whether they do it with a magazine-fed repeater or a muzzle-loader is utterly irrelevant to the victim and should be irrelevant to society at large, too.”
Except for the fact that you can kill a hell of a lot more people with a magazine-fed repeater than a muzzle loader before the cops come and stop you. If I’m in a crowded mall and a crazy gunman comes in and starts shooting the place up, I’d definitely prefer the muzzle-loader.
I grew up with chemistry sets, microscopes,
Yeah, me too, and in those days equipment for amateurs/kids was still good quality kit. Nowadays (Sargent Welch, Ward’s, Carolina etc) it’s all chinese crap marked up 1000%, if not more.
Science is for rich people :-(
At least making science dangerous and illicit and illegal ought to make us romantic outlaws look cool.
Indeed. We’ll be seeing you with spiky hair, a leather jacket, and E V O – D E V O tattooed on your knuckles next.
Personally, I believe this is the totally wrong way to stop people from committing dangerous acts that endanger national security and embolden criminals… I rather believe that the cause of all the evil in the world is all this doggone education. See, if people don’t know how to read, they can not understand dangerous ideas presented in pamphlets, or dare I say, even books. Thus, the solution to all the internal national security problems of the United States lies in mandatory lobotomy at birth, as to eliminate any chance of ever accumulating dangerous knowledge.
After all, you are not paid to think… and if you are, well, tough luck :p
But, seriously, gimme a break, registering to purchase a glas beaker???? Given the sheer numbers of beakers I have destroyed in Chem class, I should be pretty high on the list of national security risks for having to buy the replacements. I just love paranoid dellusions in legislators…
I made chlorine gas when I was a kid. A minimal amount, to be sure, and it stayed in water solution (this was just electrolysis of salt water), but given that chlorine gas was actually used as a chemical weapon in World War I, you have to wonder what people would think these days.
Who else made WMDs in high school?
Another fun thing, of course, was the high school chemistry lab’s small stash of sodium metal. I and a couple of friends tried out the obvious reaction — though very safely (a BB-sized pellet, a 2 liter beaker of water, and a fume hood). Now go read the winning entry in Bruce Schneier’s annual movie plot contest. If you want to try this reaction out, even with all the safety precautions, better do it soon…
this is nothing less than a thinly-veiled attempt to outlaw knowledge
I don’t think it’s quite that bad. (Hanlon’s razor: Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.)
However it obviously never crossed the minds of the legislators that some people are interested in chemistry, and may wish to study it at home. This alone is a damning indictment of modern society. Many great scientists started out as home experimenters. If Linus Pauling was born today, he’d probably have gained a prison sentence rather than the Nobel prize.
I’m not quite sure I would label chemicals “harmless.”
Saying that chemicals are dangerous is a bit like saying that animals are dangerous: It depends greatly on the context. There is definitely a case for restricting very dangerous substances, but the majority of laboratory chemicals are completely safe if used sensibly. In my opinion, a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid is no more dangerous than a power-drill. Both are completely safe if used with appropriate caution.
>Except for the fact that you can kill a hell of a lot
>more people with a magazine-fed repeater than a
>muzzle loader before the cops come and stop you.
Absolutely. But if I was going to kill people in a shopping mall I’d use a homemade FAE based on gasoline, laundry soap, and a black-powder bursting charge set off with an electrical igniter from a model rocket. Total cost – about $30 (gas is getting expensive!) All the ingredients are completely unregulated.
The point is that events in which someone goes crazy and decides to go kill a lot of people are actually extremely rare.
That doesn’t mean we should ignore them, but it means that our ability to judge the effectiveness of countermeasures against rare events is impaired. For example, the “assault weapons” ban in Maryland had, what, zero impact on gun crime – that’s an interesting observation. What does it mean? I don’t know. And neither does anyone else. But I suspect it’s because instances of gun-crazies are relatively rare; rare to the point where regulating a specific kind of gun has no effect on the problem at all. For example (I lived in Maryland at the time) I was fascinated – truly awestruck – to see John Allen Mohammed (the “gas station sniper”)s bushmaster rifle described to the public as an “sniper rifle” because, well, it was being used by a sniper. I expected the press to be all over the fact that it was an “assault rifle” because it’s magazine-fed. By the way, there are loads of magazine-fed semiautomatic rifles that are not “assault rifles” – presumably because they’re not painted black, or something ridiculous like that. When you’re evaluating weapons systems, you need to consider their use, not their appearance. Since the gas station sniper (and Lee Harvey Oswald, for that matter) weren’t putting a lot of rounds downrange, they could damn near have been using blackpowder muzzle-loaders or bolt action rifles (Oswald did) and gotten the job done.
When you’re looking at infrequent events like terrorist attacks or mad gunment it’s easy to get completely screwed up by the improbability of the event and confuse that with the effectiveness of the countermeasure. If the Department of Homeland Security had told all air travellers that they had to wear their underwear on their heads on the airplanes it would, so far, have been 100% effective against terror attacks for the last 6 years. And, in fact, if we’d been doing it before 9/11 it would have been (statistically) damn near 100% effective, too.
That’s a reason. But I don’t consider it to be a good one, for it lacks… “purpose”.
Yes, you are right. I simply used a broad and very common name for several kinds of weapons. So what?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate to ban weapons. I merely want people to prove that they can handle them responsibly. Oh, and about my comment concerning the assault rifles: it’s just my opinion – like I don’t see any good reason to smoke, but that doesn’t mean I want to outlaw either one.
I have always been convinced that most of the politicians who vote for “drug war” laws are on the take from traffickers. It is a better investment than many.
If they wanted to do something for public health, they should outlaw the automobile, cigarettes, and alcohol–oh sorry, that last one has already been tried.
It’s our own fault for electing incompetent people into office. Feel good sound bytes; good hair; ‘pumping that little forward-leaning-fist-gesture up and down for emphasis with just the right thoughtful expression’ photo ops; interjecting ‘God’–often; playing to the religious right; these are the things that get people elected. The election process has gone all Hollywood, in a Roman-decadence sort of way, and everyone knows it.
Also…one of the reasons the fight against drugs is not going well is that young people know they’re being lied to. Crystal meth is a serious problem but the message that drugs are dangerous would have a lot more impact if the government agencies would stop putting marijuana in the same class as crystal meth. You can’t feed kids lies and not expect it to bite you in the ass. I don’t even use marijuana but everyone under 30 now knows, from the internet, that it’s a natural plant that has actual medicinal benefits.
Lies piss me off, they lead to unintelligent decision making–anti drug message lies, counter productive ‘feel-good-legislation’ lies, creationist lies, mindless traditional belief lies…mumble, mumble, mumble…
>That’s a reason. But I don’t consider it to be a good
>one, for it lacks… “purpose”.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem. Should society regulate that I can only want something if it has a “purpose”?? Be careful – sex for entertainment (instead of purpose) is on the chopping block. :) The argument of things having relative value based on purpose or not will end up with bible-thumping if you really want to go there, since you’ll have to fall back on externalities.
You’re absolutely right that it’s worth talking these things over and society needs to concern itself with these questions – I simply couldn’t resist poking at you because you basically raised the question and then rushed to judgement on the topic in the same sentence. So, basically, did PZ in his initial post.
These are big and serious and deep questions and we’re not going to solve them here. Or, maybe, ever. But leaping around taking unbalanced views of the utility/non-utility of various threats/countermeasures is not rational behavior, so I thought it was funny to see it in this particular blog.
Entertainment is a good enough reason ;)
You’ve got a very good point there, I admit. I basically agree with you. It’s difficult (the language barrier doesn’t help either) :)
“The point is that events in which someone goes crazy and decides to go kill a lot of people are actually extremely rare.”
Yes, I am aware of this. However, my comment wasn’t about the frequency of mad gunmen or even the legality of certain weapons. It was more to point out that the choice of weapon is NOT in fact irrelevant to the victim – not when they wouldn’t have been a victim had a different choice been made. Sure, the person standing next to me is dead whether you kill them with a muzzle-loader or a home-made bomb. They don’t care which you used – but I certainly do. It just seems kind of silly to me to say that choice of weapon is irrelevant, that’s all.
Ummm, in Texas; in a store or at a gun show, you DO have to register to buy handguns and must have a background check. I don’t even know why he said that. It is a federal law.
RamblinDude said: Crystal meth is a serious problem but the message that drugs are dangerous would have a lot more impact if the government agencies would stop putting marijuana in the same class as crystal meth.
Indeed, I get the impression this has trickled over into the adult world somewhat as well. By lumping crystal meth into the same category as all the drugs we’ve learned weren’t so dangerous, many people seem to be glossing over the fact that crystal meth is extraordinarily dangerous, and is becoming more of a societal problem all the time. I would almost categorize it as a plague, and I would confidently state that it is more of a threat to us than all the other drugs AND guns combined.
Wander into a 24 hour pool hall or convenience store or restaurant at 3 a.m. and watch the comings and goings. You’ll be amazed at the endless parade of human debris you will see, and the bulk of them (proportionately higher as you move west aross the U.S.A.) are on meth. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it yet, it is coming soon to a town near you.
And no, I don’t think idiocy like banning chemistry sets and registering beakers is the answer. But it’s a much bigger question than most people realize.
One of the big issues with the drugs law is that they treat drug addiction as a criminal matter and not a medical one. The idea that someone who is in possession of drugs for personal use is treated as a criminal is just plain stupid. Do we treat people who are addicted to alcohol as criminals ? No, but alcohol can be more dangerous than some of the drugs that are illegal. Being addicted to anything is not really a good idea, be it nicotine, alcohol, crystal meth, heroin, cocaine ,,,,,,. But what is an even worse idea is thinking that some of those addictions are medical problems and some mean you deserve to be in prison.
I’m sure if the “home chemistry kit lobby” pumped as much money into Washington as the NRA, then purchasing glass beakers and chemicals would not be a problem.
As long as there is big money in politics, common sense will always get short-shrift from lawmakers.
I tutor high school kids in chemistry over the internet. We are absolutely forbidden to help them figure out where and how to buy chemical supplies. It seems I’m walking a thin line by directing them to American Science and Surplus, purveyor of the most harmless nerd-toys known to man, when they come to me working on science projects. I’m told to refer them to their chemistry teachers for supplies. (Their chemistry teachers, overworked, underfunded, and as liability-shy as we are, most likely can’t help them either.) Oh, and if I have the slightest inkling that they’re trying to make something dangerous, I’m obliged to cut them off and contact the company lawyer.
Part of the chemistry set paranoia is that our kids have demonstrated that they’re pissed off and potentially dangerous. The same paranoia got one of my high school friends called into the principal’s office and interrogated because he wore a trenchcoat and went around all alienated. It clearly hasn’t occurred to us yet that giving kids less reason to be pissed off could help fix this problem.
Oh, by the way, the “rogue chemist” (or the rogue scientist in general) is already a romantic outlaw image. I’ve seen it in a couple places in the literature. Rifts even has a rogue scientist character class. I’ve actually seen (set in the present day) a meth-brewing outlaw chemist as a kind of iconoclastic anti-hero in a fantasy novel whose title escapes me; I suspect there’s more than one that fits that description. The outlaw scientist–especially the outlaw doctor–turns up all over the place. Unfortunately, they don’t usually end up being very good scientists, though I suspect that’s mostly because people who create literature usually studied the humanities. It’s not an image projected to people who don’t already think nerds are pretty cool, of course; but it provides a place for the nerd in the world of the rebel.
The trouble with crystal meth comes mainly from drug-war policy. Since the drug trade is illegal and de facto outside of the regulatory purview of the state, the incentive exists to make the most super-addictive drugs possible while virtually no incentive exists to make the drugs safe. Most Americans can’t be bothered to understand history, but one can point out that the moonshine-underground that existed during prohibition wasn’t exactly pumping out Mike’s Hard Lemonade. People were mixing in paint-thinner, embalming fluid and all kinds of shit to give the whiskey (or what they were calling whiskey) an extra kick, all outside of any meaningful regulation (aside from the threat of corrupt prohibition officers, of course).
Like almost all drug problem, it’s best treated with regulation and medical/public health approaches to addiction. Treating it as a crime only exacerbates the problem.
Yeah, the biggest thing that seems to be overlooked on all these “War on X” campaigns is an utter lack of attention to the source of the problem.
There is a REASON that people are turning to drugs
And no one ever thinks to look into the reasons, they just make it illegal to do, and act like that will make it all go away.
Seriously, I can’t think of a stupider response than that.
It’s scary how much work we will go through to not find out WHY something is the way it is.
Hmm… this could be a result of the lack of good science and logic education in our schools. I mean, you tell a scientist that there is something bad going on and he says “well, why is that?” But someone without those problem solving skills will just tell you to stop it.
sounds familiar neh?
Wow – apparently I’m a primary suspect. I have organic chemistry lab training. I have all kinds of distillation glassware, flasks, and condensers at home. (bought on eBay) I could probably make meth if I really want to. But I have no desire to try. I use my lab glassware to extract essential oils from orange and lemon peels and such. Soon I may make plant extracts, and I’m dying to figure out how to make essence of honey.
Actually, because of how hard it is to get antihistamines (due to anti-meth-lab supply-side strategies), it may be worth my while to buy meth and reverse-synthesize antihistamines. Seriously, it is that hard to get Claritin for my allergies! (Note to feds: I am using hyperbole here, I have no actual interest in doing this.)
The problem is, going after beakers and chemicals won’t do anything. You can make these chemicals yourself. You don’t need beakers to make anything. There are plenty of COMSUMER PRODUCTS made from Pyrex. Condensers can be made frfom metal, PVC, Vinyl, etc. This will do nothing but hinder legitimate activities.
I have encountered these same ridiculous restrictions in my own profession: photography. I make prints in a variety of antique photo processes, these are standard methods that were taught in art schools for decades. But the processes are disappearing because purchasers of the chemicals must register with the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Dept. of Homeland Security. This is apparently a new restriction, I called my photo supplier to purchase some more chemicals, and they informed me of the new regulations.
I resent being treated like a terrorist just because I purchase insignificant amounts of chemicals. These substances used to be sold in camera stores worldwide, and presumably still are outside the US. But the DEA and DHS are killing my art media due to excessive paranoia.
Forgive me for posting anonymously, but I still have stockpiles of unregistered chemicals, I do not want to draw the attention of law enforcement for possessing art supplies that I’ve lawfully owned and used for 30 years.
Giving the government such widespread regulatory power doesn’t look like such a bright idea once it starts to ‘regulate’ things you care about, does it?
Does anyone think this is an attempt to hinder science education? I bet the DI is involved to help “overthrow evolution”. They would do something so ridiculous like this.
/joke…except the part where DI does ridiculous things. This is true.
They don’t even put Meth in the same class as marijuana. Meth is Schedule II, marijuana is Schedule I (along with, oddly enough, mescaline and LSD).
So, kids, stay off the pot, and pick meth instead!
Caledonian:
The problem isn’t what is being regulated, it’s why it’s being regulated.
Attacking the crystal meth problem by making it harder to buy lab equipment and Sudafed is a bit like attacking the drunk-driving problem by raising taxes on gasoline. The one thing has nothing to do with the other, and those “solutions” only make it that much more inconvenient for everyone else to go about their business.
“The government”? We are talking about parliaments here — elected parliaments. If there are no electable politicians, run yourself.
Oops, sorry, I forgot it’s the USA, where only millionaires can run for political offices (and the richest one usually wins). Public campain funding would be a good thing.
“The government”? We are talking about parliaments here — elected parliaments. If there are no electable politicians, run yourself.
Oops, sorry, I forgot it’s the USA, where only millionaires can run for political offices (and the richest one usually wins). Public campain funding would be a good thing.
As your second paragraph points out, it’s not why regulation is taking place that’s the problem, but what is being regulated. You immediately contradicted your contradiction of me.
Let’s just legalize it. That will decrease drug related crime dramatically.
Am I the only one here putting the dots together and seeing damn scary prospects for a neo-dark ages scenario in the not very distant future?
It’s really disturbing to see this kind of concerted attack on civil liberties, public education, public creativity, innovation and science at just as we’re going to need copious quantities of innovation and creativity to get through the double whacks of resource depletion and climate change with our hides relatively intact.
Now is the worst time to wage war against the capacity for technical innovation. Unfortunately, it’s also the time when everyone from the intellectual property zombies to the security state and the religious whack lobby are pushing the hardest to stifle innovation. Where this goes is unclear but it’s highly unlikely to be good.
Yes, it’s making science education more difficult, but there are other problems with this policy beyond the short-term impact it has on children’s science projects. It’s an open secret that a majority of professional chemists developed their interest in practical chemistry through extracurricular experimentation, including — dare I say it — small-scale experiments in explosive, or in more recent decades, drugs. Legendary experimental chemists like Cavendish got their start as children making home-made gunpowder (I’m not suggesting even remotely that I’m in his league, but that’s how I got my start, too.) Dangerous and stupid? You bet. But this is also how so many creative children first get their taste for a field that is so powerful, yet far-too-often demonized subject.
Nowadays, I hate to think that perhaps many of America’s 21st century equivalents of Cavendish’s and Priestley’s might be spending their entire early adulthood in prisons, with no hope of higher education on their way out. Yes, for far too many social reasons to enumerate here, some too-clever-by-half kids are going to try to something foolish like make meth at home, but the solution is not to destroy their lives forever. These extremist, tough-on-crime policies are going to deprive the world of some remarkable scientists and engineers, and all of humanity will be poorer for it.
>Entertainment is a good enough reason ;)
That’s why I’d like to own military-grade weaponry: entertainment. Sometimes blowing stuff up is really fun!
If we start to let society require that we have “good reasons” to do the things we want to do, then we may as well let them outright regulate every aspect of our non-working free time. Right? And, pretty soon, life on earth will be just like I’m told it is in heaven: compulsory 24/7 prayer and hosannah-singing sessions.
Here’s another interesting point to ponder: I am 44 years old, own loads of firearms and dangerous toys, know how to make loads of other dangerous toys if I choose to — yet I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Perhaps – just perhaps – society should be looking at me and saying “he’s harmless; let him have whatever he wants” and taking a closer look at, oh, I don’t know, mental patients – and restricting what they can have. Not that an intelligent mental patient couldn’t figure out how to detonate a 250-gal propane tank – but he’s a lot more likely to do it than I am.
If society is going to approach societal threats rationally (which I think it should) we need to first off discredit the religious dogma of “free will” and recognize that people are not 100% in control of their behaviors. Based on that, we could make huge strides forward in dealing with dangerous behaviors. But, in an organized manner. If you want to look at threats to society as a whole, teen-agers who think they are immortal and drive too fast are far more dangerous than psychos. After all, the reason psychos are news-worthy is because they are rare!!!
Remember – 99% of Americans (I just made that number up) formulate their assessment of risk based on what some talking head on TV tells them. That’s why you get people refusing to swim in Florida because of reported shark attacks when, in fact, more people are killed by dogs every year than any other animal! Meanwhile, those same people get on the freeway, and drive 80mph without a seatbelt trying to get to the beach so they can sit on the sand where the shark can’t get ’em.
Our brains evolved in an environment where there was no way we’d get a useful intuitive grasp on risk in the large-scale. In fact, it makes evolutionary sense to overreact to new threats because we’re less likely to kill ourselves overreacting than doing nothing.
DCP:
I don’t know who would have thought there was good purpose to me having a microscope at 10. Or to building boat models. And certainly not to building ham radios. That wasn’t safe, either. The power supply can electrocute you, and stringing the antenna risks a nasty fall. Fortunately for me, my parents indulged my tinkering gene. I learned to shoot about the same time I learned microscopy. You likely won’t believe that they exercise at least two skills in common, given that this was an old-fashioned microscope.
S’funny- my mom was a former high school chemistry teacher (my dad was a Ph.D. chemist, but he died before I was three and didn’t have much effect on the family after that) and a chemistry set was the one scientific learning “toy” I wasn’t allowed to have. I guess Mom was just a wee bit too familiar with what I might be able to get up to with one. She couldn’t see any harm in my having a decent microscope or telescope, though, and she defintiely couldn’t envisage any way that I could burn the house down by messing around with batteries and transistors and suchlike. That’s how I wound up becoming an electronics geek.
These bureaucratic mom-wannabees seem to be determined to push us all into a society as locked-down, disarmed, surveilled and controlled as that of the Qin Dynasty. As to the likelihood of their succeeding, I have two words:
Liu Pang.
Assault rifles are made for one purpose only, to kill people, and they should be banned for this reason.
If you think they look pretty, buy a plastic one and I would suggest, go see a psychiatrist at the same time.
Slight tangent:
I have heard tales of gardeners being harassed when purchasing grow lights, hydroponic equipment and other indoor gardening stuff.
#55, Ktesibios,
Fixed it for you.
Any legislator who falls for this should have 1% of their electrons removed as a precaution.
I’d advise everyone else to stand WAY back when this is done, however.
Well, I’m sure the outlaws selling crystal meth are going to dutifully obey the lab equipment laws, right? Right?
I totally agree with Alan Kellog’s statement #58. That assault rifle looks pretty damned useful when law-and-order and civilization collapses. Hell, it is even quite useful when you’re attacked in your own home by someone who wants to harm you.
For others who said that one could use a gun to murder innocents, well, one could murder even more innocents by using lab equipment to make explosives. The law isn’t going to stop criminals from obtaining or making guns and explosives. The law is just a piece of paper if one can evade or destroy the army and police.
in fact, more people are killed by dogs every year than any other animal!
I think H sapiens has C lupus familiaris beat all to hell
Let alone the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide!
Fixed
Gun, I was just typing the same thing as you posted that.
I think you’ve both watched too many Mad Max movies, please see previous point regarding being attacked in your own home, or you could refer to the gun contol laws and their effects on the civilised nations of the world.
Since I can have all the guns I can afford, I have no objection to meth freaks having all the meth they can afford.I like guns. I would probably like meth too, but at my age it would give me a stroke of a heart attack. I am totally opposed to regulating other peoples private vices. I also oppose regulating any sort of self destructive behavior, so long as it stays self destructive. I have lots of guns. I shoot them frequently at my gun club. I am quite good. I don’t really worry about substance abusers bothering me. I am a little bit drunk so please excuse my ramblings. And yes my guns are all put safely away,
I used to work at this hardware store with a bunch of YECs. That was really fun. This was about the time the now defunct assault weapons ban went into effect (which I supported). One of the dipshits then said to me one morning, regarding a story in the newspaper, “Hey, some guy killed his wife with a hammer! I’ll bet you think we shouldn’t sell hammers any more!”
That’s the thing with right-wing assholes — to them “holed up in a clocktower with an assault rifle, shooting randomly at the crowd below” is the same as “guy kills one person with a hammer”. And I’m pretty god-damned tired of this firearms version of mutually assured destruction, too. More guns does not mean less crime, unless you’re really good at ignoring statistics and common sense. I’m not a gun-control supporter, in general. Against what I feel might be my better judgement, I’m not even against handguns. But assault weapons? No. You shouldn’t be able to have those.
More to the point, the bans of lab equipment don’t make a case against government regulation. To suppose that people are utterly incapable of making a descision as to what should and should not be regulated is to engage in a kind of cynical intellectual relativism which supports the idea that every last claim is every bit as true as any other claim, and which is fueled by a slippery slope mode of thinking which suggests that it was broad regulatory power, not a knee-jerk reaction and lack of oversight, which led to the ban in the first place.
Something about the “rational” arguments made by people with lots-and-lots-and-lots of guns always leaves me doubting our ability to accurately judge our own rationality…
I don’t disagree with the “I like guns” part… but I don’t think that’s comparable with the meth. I’m all for the de-scheduling and legalization of several drugs, but that’s based on scientific evidence and clinical studies. Mescaline and Marijuana, in particular, are far less damaging than alcohol in many respects, and should probably be legal. Even tryptamines, like LSD and Psilocybin, even with some paper suggesting that large doses or long term exposure might damage the brain, aren’t particularly dangerous or addictive.
But then there are drugs like PCP and Meth, which are a severe liability to not only the user, but the people around the user. Again, to simply suggest that these are every bit as benign and victimless as other drugs which should probably be de-scheduled is to engage in a kind of intellectual or factual relativism.
The best thing to do is to weigh all of the evidence on on a case-by-case basis. A cost benefit analysis would, very probably, suggest that regulation of mescaline, marijuana, LSD, DMT and so on is idiotic, while regulation of things like coke, PCP and meth are probably called for.
Although I dont believe drug use is a good idea, I also dont believe it’s any of the government’s business. And the ‘war on drugs’ is little more than a goobermint jobs program. And it should be obvious to anyone that making it hard for honest kids to buy a chemistry set, or honest, law abiding citizens to buy decongestants, isnt going to stem the flow of drugs.
Where there is demand for a product, the market will supply it, legal or not. You cant make cocaine from chemistry sets and cold medicine, but despite that it is availible for sale most everywhere.
So whats up with the comment about “unimpaired, unchecked access to guns.”? Are you ignorant of the fact that by federal law, anyone who attempts to purchase a firearm in ANY state must undergo a background check? Yet what difference would it make if guns were completely outlawed? If that were to happen, anyone who wished to obtain one despite the law would have little trouble doing so – the black market would operate at least as efficiently as it does for meth/coke/weed/MDMA. The vast majority of people who commit crimes with guns now are obtaining them illegally, and/or are legally barred from any sort of posession of a firearm. Do you think they care about breaking such laws, when they are willing to break laws with much greater penalties, by committing murder, robbery, rape, and so on? If most of a century’s dedication to a drug war can’t eliminate the readily availibility of drugs, how could the government ever keep guns out of the hands of those who wish to use them for evil?
I am continually amazed at how otherwise seemingly intellegent people can apply doublethink when the issue of firearms comes up. Here we have a fellow writing an article railing against the stupidity of the government’s feeble effort to reduce crime by infringing the rights of all of us, in a way that is highly unlikely to affect the stated purpose of the restriction, making a comment that seems to support just such ineffectual restrictions on his fellow citizens in another area, where the stakes are even higher, because an honest citizen might use their firearm for even as noble a purpose as saving the life of themselves, or their family or neighbor, or defend their home or country from things like looters after a storm, or the hopefully much less likely attack by forgien or domestic enemies.
If you dont wish to own a firearm, thats fine. But dont trouble youself about my owning one, and dont be stupid enough to believe that you can pass a law that will suspend reality and keep criminals from obtaining guns, even though the goobermint cant keep people from obtaining recreational chemicals like MDMA and LSD, which require much more rare skills to manufacture than firearms.
Oooh, “assault rifles” (if you bother to learn the actual definition, you will find out that this term is misleading in its usual application by the media and certain politicians) are made to kill people. That sounds really bad, except that that is only part of the story. Every type of gun is made to kill people, or at least would be more or less suitable to use for such a purpose. But the scary looking ‘assault weapons’ some people want to ban are almost never used in crimes. They are most commonly used for hunting and target shooting.
I laugh out loud sometimes when I hear idiots or liars (not always sure which they are…) saying things like “assault weapons are not useful for sporting purposes”. Well, what do they think they are used for? If any open minder neutral person were to investigate, they would find that the most common rifle used in several of the most popular target competitions is the notorious, scary looking AR-15 (you know, the one that looks like – but does not function the same way as – one of the rifles our military uses). This rifle is also one of the most common types used to hunt small animals like prarie dogs, and some even use them to hunt larger animals like deer. Perhaps you don’t like hunting, but unless/until we reintroduce large numbers of predators like wolves and bears into your local eco system, the population of wildlife needs to be controlled by hunters. And the reason why most of the wolves and such were killed off in decades past is that those predators would just as soon eat your child as a wild deer.
But a kitchen knife is also a rather effective tool for one whose heart is bent on murder. As is a baseball bat. Or an icepick. A gun is just a tool, just like all those other things. Besides murder, a gun can be used to defend innocent life from a criminal bent on murder, rape then murder, or robbery then murder.
And while I agree that it is not worth the death of even a criminal to prevent one’s wallet from being stolen, you have to consider this: if a criminal attacks you with a deadly weapon (whether this is a gun, or a knife, a club, or he is just a hulking brute and you are a 98# old lady), how do you know that he is not planning on using it, whether or not you give him what he wants? Dead men tell no tales they say, and many murders go unsolved. If a criminal is willing to rape or rob someone, using a knife, gun, or whatever, there is a good chance that they will go ahead and kill them to avoid leaving witnesses. I once heard that on average, a person could expect to spend a few months in jail for murdering someone else, considering the number of unsolved murders, and the range in sentances for those which are solved.
Should those who defend innocent lives with a firearm not be allowed to do so? Why would anyone believe that it is more desireable for a criminal to murder someone that for the intended victim to defend his/herself? It does happen you know…
http://claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html
And yes, I am aware that it is possible for guns to be used irresponsibly, which may result in an accidental death or injury. But do you know that drunk drivers kill nearly as many (or more in some years) people as are killed with guns, including defensive cases and police shootings? Or that young children are more likely to drown in a swimming pool than to be killed by a gun?
Why dont you take a step back from chemistry and work on logic?
Well thats just fine and dandy if you want to live in a cave by yourself (maybe you do already?). Unfortunately Myself and my children live in this world to and would prefer not to be the victim of someone who steals your really well locked up Assault weapons.
As to regulating other peoples behaviour. it’s called society and it means we can’t always do what we want to do.
Who said we’re not descended from the apes.
I doubt very much that a black market for weapons could operate as effectively as a black market for drugs in the US. Drugs are vastly easier to manufacture in a basemant than assault weapons.
Fine, whatever, you’re right. Next time CNN reports on some unhinged anti-government right-wing asshole who goes up into a clocktower to shoot at the crowds below with an assault rifle, I’ll just repeat to myself “At least he didn’t have a kitchen knife!”.
And I’m more likely to die in a DUI related wreck than a cell-phone induced wreck. Wheedle-dee. That doesn’t mean that talking on a cell-phone while driving isn’t dangerous, and it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t result in a ticket.
And, given the number of people who are killed by drunk drivers, that’s as good a case as any for better regulation of weapons.
Probably because the chemistry is a good example of knee-jerk reaction to something, while calling for better firearms regulation isn’t. PZ has mentioned, more than once, that he doesn’t exactly come down on the liberal side of things regarding gun control. But then, anything short of “I can do whatever the hell I want” is too much regulation for a libertarian, isn’t it?
I may have posted on this once before, but even some science research is now effectively outlawed. Not only current research, but past research. The government has come up with a sort of time machine to punish past activity.
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/50948/
“The Blaine border guard explained that Feldmar had been pulled out of the line as part of a random search. He seemed friendly, even as he took away Feldmar’s passport and car keys. While the contents of his car were being searched, Feldmar and the officer talked. He asked Feldmar what profession he was in.
When Feldmar said he was psychologist, the official typed his name into his Internet search engine. Before long the customs guard was engrossed in an article Feldmar had published in the spring 2001 issue of the journal Janus Head. The article concerned an acid trip Feldmar had taken in London, Ontario, and another in London, England, almost forty years ago. It also alluded to the fact that he had used hallucinogenics as a “path” to understanding self and that in certain cases, he reflected, it could “be preferable to psychiatry.” Everything seemed to collapse around him, as a quiet day crossing the border began to turn into a nightmare.”
Comparing one set of unnecessary death statistics to another, such as drink-driving and gun crime, is not, in my opinion, a valid argument as to the necessity (or not) of regulating/banning guns. I would argue that DUI deaths are almost entirely as a result of accidents whilst gun deaths are rarely so, and comparing the two is not helpful and in fact detracts from any point a pro-gun side chooses to make due to the inanity of the comparison. In any case, surely the aim is to reduce and eventually eliminate deaths from both these causes?
Oh, and having recently visited the Bay Area (I’m British which may explain my anti-gun opinions) it’s obvious to me, ban cars and the US will cease to function. If you ban guns? Not so much. [tongue in cheek]
Your background checks are a joke in comparison to the checks imposed in Europe, for example.
Almost none. That’s right. There are already way too many guns in circulation in the US.
No, drugs are easier to manufacture than guns.
Of course not. But we are not strictly talking about the people who want to commit a crime. We are talking about people who own their gun “to protect their family”, for example. Humans tend to become quite aggressive over trivial issues. What happens when those people have access to guns and see their spouse cheating on them? Of course people could still snap and use a knive, but actually killing another human being is still much, much harder with such a weapon.
The government can’t keep the most determined people from obtaining what they want, but they make it harder for the more lazy bunch. And of course it would reduce the amount of deaths caused in a rage.
From what? Other people with guns?
Who all are armed. With guns.
Yeah, right. Your guns will sure save you from “enemies”. Last time I checked conventional enemies come with tanks. Irregular enemies are suicide bombers anyway. But hell yeah, a gun will surely help in these situations.
As said before, it’s not particularly the real criminals whom I fear.
More rare skill? Possibly. But to actually manufacture firearms and ammunition, let alone military grade firearms, you require quite some machinery. That’s a lot more bothersome than to manufacture your own drugs (and less profitable, ’cause you can obtain guns legally and easily.)
Yes, I know about the term. “Drugs” is also an umbrella term for a lot of different substances, so what?
They’re primary purpose is to kill people. That’s why they were designed in the first place. Target shooting can be done with less lethal devices than “assault weapons”.
You don’t need military grade weapons to do so.
Yes. But people who are attacked with these weapons are much more likely to survive the attack. We don’t need to make it even easier for them, do we? A gun is a tool, you are right. But it’s primary purpose is to kill, unlike baseball bats
A taser or pepper spray accomplish the same thing and they don’t kill the attacker. Unless, of course, the attackers are armed. With guns.
It’s a pretty big step from robbing someone to actually kill someone. It’s even harder when you have to beat or stab your victim to death. It’s not just pointing and pulling the trigger.
Non-lethal methods suffice as well.
The most disturbing people are those who simply overreact in stress situations or when they are afraid. Guns don’t help there at all.
trumped-up Wars on Terror and Drugs (let’s call them what they are: a War on Civil Liberties)
You know, for someone who hates framing so much you sure do it well. I’m going to have to start using that one.
Slogging through all these comments makes me realize one thing: people who love guns are really fucking nutty.
Also, Caledonian’s paint is rubbing off to reveal the ideological libertarian undercoat. Better go get another coat, buddy.
Recently, I found it less difficult to obtain lab glassware and chemicals than it was to find preserved specimens for dissection. I was able to obtain a complete set of introductory chemical glassware over the internet with no hassle,(along with laboratory grade HCl and zinc) but try to get a preserved frog or crayfish–things I used to be able to buy at the neighborhood hobby and crafts store when I was a kid– is nearly impossible, I think there was one vendor.
Mike
As a child of Steal This Book and the Anachist Cookbook, the lack of regulation on the chemicals surprized me.
Mike
chemistry is really a mystery for me… worth readin this article. thanks for it.
Here is a blog site where a lot of these issues get discussed:
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/
“Probably because the chemistry is a good example of knee-jerk reaction to something, while calling for better firearms regulation isn’t”
Obviously you believe this to be the case, but I see no difference at all. I suspect that you have little personal experience with firearms or firearms owners, or perhaps your opinion has been predjudiced by a knowing someone who was a victim of a crime or an accident in which a firearm was involved. If I believed that banning guns would make the world a better place, I would advocate such a thing, but your viewpoint is totally forgien to my own experience and knowledge.
“What happens when those people have access to guns and see their spouse cheating on them?”
I remember hearing about a local woman who caught her husband cheating on her, and ran him down with her car in the parking lot of the hotel where he had been conducting his affair. What difference did it make that she didnt have a gun handy? Obviously it is possible that someone might use a gun in such a case, but I seriously doubt restrictions on firearms ownership would make any noticeable difference in the outcome of such cases.
“But we are not strictly talking about the people who want to commit a crime. We are talking about people who own their gun “to protect their family”, for example. Humans tend to become quite aggressive over trivial issues.”
Well here we come to the crux of the issue. I said above that I suspect that you are ignorant about firearms because there are probably almost as many firearms as there are people in this country, and if the simple existence/ailibility of guns excerted such a powerful psychological influence towards violence, then millions of people would be shooting it out with each other every year. Yet in fact only a few thousand use guns for evil, among the millions that own them, and those few thousand are almost exclusively part of a subset population of habitual criminals. Most people, who are not inclined to murder, arent going to go around shooting everyone who is rude to them if the happen to have a gun handy. In most states, there are tens of thousands (even hundreds of thousands in some cases) of people who regularly carry a concealed handgun, and those people are statistically much less likely to commit a crime than the general population. Last time I looked at the Texas Department of Public Safety website and examined the most recent statistics for arrests and convictions of concealed handgun licensed individuals, this group was ten to a hundred times less likely than the general population to commit most crimes. The only crime they were more likely to commit was that of having their gun someplace where it wasnt allowed, or inadvertantly exposing it, which are crimes that could only be committed by a licensee. Check that out for yourself if you are interested. As far as I have seen, other states have similar statistics. Also, in many states, a citizen may carry a firearm in plain sight without any sort of license or background check, other than the usual federal laws against posession by a felon. In Alaska and Vermont, there is no license required to carry a gun, openly or concealed. Yet these states do not have higher rates of murder, or other crimes committed with guns, than their neighbors.
The problem is that you are ignorant about firearms and firearms owners, and for whatever reason, you have come to fear them. This is not logical. You seem to believe that real life is like in the movies, and that if people were to carry guns around, there would be shootouts every day on mainstreet at high noon. But the ‘wild west’ of TV and movies is 99% fantasy. In reality, hundreds of thousands of people in this country carry guns around every day, and cases where they flip out and shoot people are extremely rare.
” it would reduce the amount of deaths caused in a rage.”
And how many times do these shootings in rage happen each year? That is, by people who have no criminal record, and are not engaged in a crime, but just flip out and kill people because they are tailgating them on the highway, or say something rude, or whatever? You might think that that happens often, but really it doesnt. Even if someone were so inclined, they might be deterred by the risk of getting caught. However satisfactory it might be to kill someone who has offended you, surely you might ask yourself if it was worth going to jail over, or even losing your life. The more likely the chance that the risk is of one’s life, rather than a time in jail, the less likely following through with such an impulse might seem to be an acceptable risk. The best deterrent would be if the potential victim were likely to be armed. In countries where only the criminals have guns, like the UK, violence committed with guns is steadily rising. A disinterested observer might compare the cases of Alaska and Vermont, which have almost no restrictions on the keeping and bearing of firearms, and those other states in the US which have lessened restrictions in the last few decades, with places where firearms ownership has become or remained more regulated or prohibited, like Washington DC, Chicago, New York, and the UK. But those who are irrationally afraid of guns ignore any evidence that doesnt fit their prejudgement, and persist in supporting laws based on a dream that simply doesnt match real life.
Your concern over “assault weapons” is silly. You claim to worry about someone stealing mine, and shooting you with it. But while that does happen occasionally, crimes committed with “assault weapons” can be counted on the fingers of one hand in most years, despite “assault weapons” being one of the fastes selling/growing parts of the firearms market. There are hundreds of thousands of them out there, but only a handful are used in crimes. I have only heard of a couple of cases of such use in the national media. The “beltway sniper” (real snipers are soldiers, not terrorists) used an assault weapon, which was stolen, and I remember hearing awhile back about a shooting in a mall, which was perpetrated with an AK style carbine, but the missing detail in the mall shooting was that the shooter was stopped by a citizen with a concealed handgun, without having to be actually shot, and held until police arrived.
You mention that “assault weapons” are designed to kill people, but all guns are designed to kill people, except perhaps a rimfires which are mostly intended for children, and indoor target competitions. In fact, military snipers don’t use assault rifles, as actual assault rifles, by definition, use less powerful ammunition and are intended for volume fire at close range. Military and police snipers use rifles that are almost identical to those used by hunters of medium sized game animals. But these same rifles, which are commonly used by hunters now, are nothing more than newly made versions of the same type of rifles most commonly used by every military force in the world for the first half of the twentieth century. In the hands of one determined to kill, a hunting rifle is more dangerous than an “assault weapon”. You may not realize this, but wounds from handguns, and assault rifles, are often non-fatal. The use of assault rifles by the military was actually intended to wound, rather than kill, enemy soldiers, with the idea that a wounded soldier among the enemy force would require other, as yet un-wounded, enemy soldiers to stop fighting and render aid to their comrade, or at least demoralize the force, where a fatal casualty might simply be left behind.
Of course it is nice that we have things like pepper spray and tasers, thats great. But these things have limitations too, and a firearm has advantages in many circumstances. The purpose of carrying a gun is not to kill anyone, but only, in the direst circumstance, to stop someone else from killing you. Anyone who shoots someone with the intention of killing them, even if in an otherwise defensible circumstance, is going beyond an appropriate response, and should be held accountable.
“The most disturbing people are those who simply overreact in stress situations or when they are afraid.”
No, I disagree. Anyone who overreacts, and irresponsibly or negligently uses a gun to harm someone, must be held responsible. Yet the most disturbing people are not those who overreact when afraid. The most disturbing people are those who place no value on the lives of others. The ones who are willing to threaten to end your life to obtain property that doesnt belong to them, satisfy their perverted sexual desires, or simply to satisfy their pride. Like Seung-Hui Cho, or the (less than a man) individual who killed my mother’s cousin and wounded her daughter a few months ago, and all the people in the world who believe that it is God’s will to kill anyone who doesnt share their religious beliefs. And scumbags like Gary Smith, Gregg Junnier, and Cary Bond (google Kathryn Jonhnston).
Yes, Guns are designed to kill. Unfortunately, there are people who will kill you unless you kill them. When possible, less leathal or non leathal tools should be used to apprehend them, and they should be incarcerated with the hope that they change their ways, or at least we are protected from their future crimes by their detention. But once they decide that they are willing to kill, or creditable threaten lethal violence, for criminal gain, their life should be put at risk, as the idea that protection of their life is a higher priority than preventing their potentially deadly crime is ridiculous. In a perfect world, it would be possible to prevent crime in every case while preserving even the life of the criminal in hope of future growth and change, but we don’t live in such a world, and in the one we do live in sometimes deadly force is the only solution. In many cases the threat of dealdly force may accomplish what nothing less could, which would be the prevention of the crime, with nothing more than the display or threat of deadly force, and in such cases less may not suffice. Pepper spray is great, but is only effective when directed at a relatively small target, basically in the eyes. The range is also very limited, although defensive encounters are usually at very close ranges, so this is often not a serious shortcoming. A firearm would be much less effective if it the defensive user operating under stress were restricted to so small a target, but a firearm is likely to be effective when directed anywhere in the thoratic cavity, as well as the head, which is a much larger target. Non-contact electrical stun guns are better, but are also short ranged, and even more critically, are usually only good for one shot. If you miss the first time, or there are multiple assailants, and that is your only option, you are screwed. Pepper spray is also less useful in a situation with multiple threats.
“Also, Caledonian’s paint is rubbing off to reveal the ideological libertarian undercoat.”
So what’s wrong with libertarian ideology? I dont completely agree with them, but laws and the government aren’t the solution to every problem; and only make the problem worse, or adress it in ineffectual ways while restricting the freedom of honest folks in many cases – remember how we started by talking about BS restrictions on chemistry sets? I dont understand you folks… on one hand you complain about the restriction of your freedom in a specific area which affects a hobby of yours, or an interest that you would like to pass on to your children, but in every other case you seem to believe that big brother knows what’s best, and we should put all our trust in the smart people that run the goobermint.
As to the relative ease of contructing firearms verses synthasizing recreational chemicals, I am not an expert in either, but I know more about the former. I do have some knowledge of machine tools, welding, and other things to do with the manufacturing and construction industries, and in case you dont know, making it hard to construct a firearm would involve massively intrusive regulations on all sorts of tools and materials. There are tens of thousands of machine shops and metal fabricating shops around this countrty, and many more people who have machine tools in their garage because they like to make things out of metal as a hobby, and not much is required to build a gun. I know more than one person who is a serious student of history with an interest in historical firearms who has built a kentucky or pennsylvania rifle (such as those used from the time of the revolutionary war period until the civil war) with hand tools. There is no way to stop such things. And as long as the military and the police have guns, or those in another country do, there will be examples for sale that are either stolen, or sold by unscrupulous members of such organizations. I have been told that fully automatic US military surplus assaut rifles, imported by the mexican mafia, sold to them by members of the mexican military (sometimes even the soldiers to whom they were issued, but in other cases supply sargents or whatever) can be bought ‘on the streets’ around here for less than the price of a new, legally obtained, similar looking “assault weapon” which is arguably less effective. I have also seen news stories about UZIs AK-47s, and various communist era submachine guns for sale in the UK, imported by the same gangs that bring in drugs.
I dont know why I took the trouble to write all of this, as I doubt anyone here will actually seriously consider any of my comments – it seems as though an unbridgeable gulf has been affixed between those of us who believe that it is our responsibility to be prepared to protect the lives and rights of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors, and those who believe that us, who desire nothing more than to be left in peace, and for the government to minimize, rather than multiply evil, are a threat to anyone. How can you be concerned about your neigbor owning a gun, and concerned that the government is lacking in wisdom in the ‘
war on terror’ and the ‘war on drugs’, yet be willing to trust that only the government be allowed guns, and that they will protect you from crime, when they cant stop people from selling cocaine?
Wow, there’s nothing quite like a 12,000-word rant to make your POV sound well-reasoned and solidly worth spending the time to read…
Most of the time, I count myself as a sort of middle-of-the-road kind of guy when it comes to gun issues (i.e. guns really aren’t for me, but there are probably legitimate reasons why some people should have access to some guns, etc.) However, as soon as the gun fanatics comes out of the woodwork with their peculiar idea of rational arguments, I have this sudden urge to ask for a ban on anything pointier than plastic sporks.
The very last thing I want to do is jump into a gun control debate, but this caught my eye:
Alaska and Vermont? You don’t suppose population density (or lack thereof) might be skewing those statistics just a skosh? I bet the Sahara Desert and Antarctica have pretty low rates of gun crime, too! ;^)
Mark, your comments might be taken more seriously if they weren’t close to 2500 words long. If you have something to say, try being concise — most nutbars are excessively prolix.
While amusing myself by trying to imagine the most imbecilic & inane right-wingnut response it occurred to me that chemistry is not mentioned in the Constitution or subsequent amendments and must not be a constitutionally protected right and therefore must be the result of activist judges defying God-sanctioned, Dobson-certified strict interpretation.
I’m just glad that I bought my rock hammers before this thing goes any further. Uh, oh, I’ve said too much.
Signed,
So what I only got a B in Organic Chemistry….damned premed sleeper cells.
Here is a simple chemistry experiment with household items.
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/preservatif/video/xlfm2_plante-preservatif
Recently read about a study that it is more likely to get robbed in the UK than in the US. But then only about 4 people get shot every year and most robberies end without any injuries.
As for the looters after a storm… You’ve got a gun, they’ve got 3 and *boom* you’re dead before you can save your wife and children. Or they use their chemistry knowledge to build a smoke-bomb ^^
Then why does it work so well in First World countries? Most bank robberies over here are committed with fake guns. (Austria in particular has had an amazing spectacular series of bank robberies in late 2006 and early 2007. Zero dead, zero injured AFAIK.)
And, people, if you want a gun so you won’t get shot, think again. The other guy will draw faster anyway. Buy a fucking bulletproof vest.
That is enough. How ignorant can one be? The USA has by far the highest use of “guns for evil” among halfway comparable countries, and by far the highest murder rate. Saying “only a few thousand” is chutzpa.
I believe that if people were to carry guns around, life would be as in the USA, as opposed to any European country I can think of. Or Canada, for that matter (which has the guns, but not the scared population who seriously considers needs for “self-defense”).
Hello-ho! You’re living in a supposed democracy. You’re not a subject of King George III of Great Britain and Ireland anymore. We have seen Big Brother, and he is you — You The People of the United States of America. You choose who makes the laws.
I agree. If they don’t live up to their job descriptions, fire them. Hint: you can fire them.
Agreed, but firstly, these are very rare, and secondly, to make a massacre they still need a gun. Try reenacting a school massacre with a chainsaw — you won’t get far (assuming you manage to get a chainsaw in the first place), no matter how batshit crazy you are.
Only if the criminal could expect all potential victims to be much better trained in the use of the weapons than s/he, and cannot expect to surprise any of them. How realistic.
Evidence? Not just from the UK, please.
They can’t because they don’t honestly try. If possession and use of cocaines were treated as an illness — with therapy instead of jail –, the number of cocaine buyers would drop drastically. Compare USA and EU again. Or compare any EU country before and after the introduction of “therapy instead of punishment”. But no, US governments traditionally try to solve problems by shooting, so you get a War on Drugs. <sigh>
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Concerning the smoke bomb, BTW, we made lots of tear gas in chemistry at school: just take anything volatile and organic, pour bromine over it, and shine some UV on it (I think direct sunlight is enough). But I don’t think bromine is easy to get. (And it wasn’t police-strength tear gas, though it was strong enough!)
Then why does it work so well in First World countries? Most bank robberies over here are committed with fake guns. (Austria in particular has had an amazing spectacular series of bank robberies in late 2006 and early 2007. Zero dead, zero injured AFAIK.)
And, people, if you want a gun so you won’t get shot, think again. The other guy will draw faster anyway. Buy a fucking bulletproof vest.
That is enough. How ignorant can one be? The USA has by far the highest use of “guns for evil” among halfway comparable countries, and by far the highest murder rate. Saying “only a few thousand” is chutzpa.
I believe that if people were to carry guns around, life would be as in the USA, as opposed to any European country I can think of. Or Canada, for that matter (which has the guns, but not the scared population who seriously considers needs for “self-defense”).
Hello-ho! You’re living in a supposed democracy. You’re not a subject of King George III of Great Britain and Ireland anymore. We have seen Big Brother, and he is you — You The People of the United States of America. You choose who makes the laws.
I agree. If they don’t live up to their job descriptions, fire them. Hint: you can fire them.
Agreed, but firstly, these are very rare, and secondly, to make a massacre they still need a gun. Try reenacting a school massacre with a chainsaw — you won’t get far (assuming you manage to get a chainsaw in the first place), no matter how batshit crazy you are.
Only if the criminal could expect all potential victims to be much better trained in the use of the weapons than s/he, and cannot expect to surprise any of them. How realistic.
Evidence? Not just from the UK, please.
They can’t because they don’t honestly try. If possession and use of cocaines were treated as an illness — with therapy instead of jail –, the number of cocaine buyers would drop drastically. Compare USA and EU again. Or compare any EU country before and after the introduction of “therapy instead of punishment”. But no, US governments traditionally try to solve problems by shooting, so you get a War on Drugs. <sigh>
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Concerning the smoke bomb, BTW, we made lots of tear gas in chemistry at school: just take anything volatile and organic, pour bromine over it, and shine some UV on it (I think direct sunlight is enough). But I don’t think bromine is easy to get. (And it wasn’t police-strength tear gas, though it was strong enough!)
I’m astonished at how many of you are truly stupid. Wake up and examine your own brainwashed consciousness.
Guns & chemicals do not kill people, bullets & bombs do. How do bullets & bombs kill people, the idiotic among you ask? They kill by being fired or triggered in the right place, at the right time.
Assholes murder people, not guns or chemistry sets.
David Marjanović writes:
I’m not sure what counts as a “halfway comparable country,” but the US murder rate is a quarter less than Poland’s and half again as much as Finland’s. I would gladly visit either nation. Admittedly, the US murder rate — 42 per million population per year — is three times that of the UK or Canada. But lest anyone point to these nations as ideals, consider that their murder rate is three times that of Japan, and three and a half times that of Saudi Arabia. One can argue whether these differences are due to culture or legal system or availability of weapons. The fact is that murder is not a significant risk in any of these nations. We’re talking about quite small numbers, from 4 per million population per year (Saudi Arabia) to 56 (Poland).
In the US, alcohol induced deaths edge out murder, and suicides are half again more common. The average American is six times more likely to die in an accident than to be murdered. To return to the subject of chemistry, the average American is slightly more likely to die from accidental poisoning than to be murdered with a gun. It makes some kind of weird sense that this turned into a discussion about guns, given how close these two rates are. I bet though, that Americans worry more about being murdered by a gun, given that it continually is one of the hottest political topics. Strangely, when it comes to controlling chemicals, it’s because they can be used to make meth, not because so many people are accidentally poisoned. Go figure.
The statistics in the first paragraph above are from Nationmaster, and in the second paragraph from the US Statistical Abstract. Of course, the statistical average doesn’t mean much to an individual case. Your chances of being murdered are much greater if you have family members or friends prone to violence, or you frequently deal with criminals. Your chances of being poisoned are much greater if you are careless with chemicals.
With apologies to Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the decongestants, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t an allergy sufferer.
Then they came for the grow lights, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a gardener.
Then they came for the Erlenmeyer flasks, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a chemist.
Then they came for the photography chemicals, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a photographer.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.
As a big fan of 12 hour sudafed bombs, I agree that it is a nuisance having to show my driver’s license when I load up on a few week’s of nose blast at the pharmacy. What impresses me most is that they haven’t computerized. What are all those hand written records worth? We’re basically relying on the pharmacists and their assistants remembering their customers. This works out here, but I doubt it works in Seattle.
I live out in the sticks out in the west. You can’t get much wester in the lower 48. Crystal meth is a two-fold problem here. It is hard on the people who take it, and it is hard on the environment where it is being made.
Crystal meth destroys teeth (meth mouth), it has other pernicious health effects, and it isn’t real good for the brain. Serious meth users cost us real money since we have to subsidize their care at the local hospital. A lot of meth users are anti-social when they are on the drug, and when they are raising funds for their next does. That means more work for more police.
The environmental problem is also serious. Meth labs leave lots of waste products, and whenever a lab gets busted, someone has to come in and detoxify the area. Meth waste is not good for the local steelhead. That costs us money too. At least marijuana is agricultural, and we could encourage organic varieties.
Personally, I’d say we should just manufacture the stuff in an appropriately green manner, and let its users commit suicide at their own pace. We could keep the users from having to steal for drugs. We could keep them off the roads. We could probably even save some money on their medical care, perhaps by doping their meth with nutritional supplements.
There is something a bit horrible about this approach, but every alternative seems to have its own horrors.
What the fudge is a three-necked beaker? I’m a chemist and I’ve never heard of such.
My father (PhD chemist, who did a lot of play chemistry as a kid) has noticed the creeping of regulations in the name of safety – particularly with mercury, which in the elemental state in a well ventilated room is pretty harmless, particularly if cleaned up (with sulfur?) quite rapidly.
Evolving Squid: Don’t be complacent – the problem is happening here too, but perhaps in a different guise. (Though people are worried about crystal meth here too …)
xebecs: That is a good way of putting it – the error is essentially a fallacy of division. (I.e., that assembled systems have only resultant, no emergent, properties)