In an odd move, the Trump administration today declared “bump stocks” illegal. This was a perfectly common-sense response to a technology that was designed in order to bypass restrictions on automatic weapons.
There have been other devices intended to tread the line; I remember back in the 80s there were these little cams with a crank that you could install in the trigger guard of a rifle – then you turn the crank and it pushes the cam forward faster than one could pull a trigger with just a finger. Those were made illegal, too. Bump stocks are just another cheesy prank toy that tries to establish a gray area where there doesn’t need to be one.
The “gat crank” – like an automatic rifle for chucklefucks
Apparently the “gat crank” lobby has managed to keep them legal except for in some states where the legislators are not complete assholes. Seriously, look at that thing and imagine trying to maintain a sight picture on a target while cranking that stupid machinist’s nightmare of an actuator? Somehow that wobbly kludge equates to a toxic masculinity buff for some gun owners.
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I remember when the nunchuk ban went into effect. There was a propaganda campaign about how the striking edge of the flail could generate 100 times the amount of force needed to crack a skull. Naturally, I asked my teacher how they had ascertained that. The real issue was explained over dinner by our next door neighbor, Dr. Worth D., who was the head of the teaching faculty in diagnostics at Johns Hopkins Hospital – he said “we get a lot of people in who have hit themselves in the head trying to use those things.” At that time I was a battojutsu snob and had already sparred with nunchuk users; I was able to say “they are a good way to get yourself hurt.”
The laws regarding weapons are – odd. You used to be able to buy “tannerite” high explosive (ammonium nitrate and aluminum) on amazon.com; you can still buy the precursors. You cannot buy “brass knuckles” but you can buy a carbon fiber cane with a great big stainless steel golf ball on top. In Pennsylvania, you cannot “make a dagger” unless you are a collector or a knife-maker.
Put all of this in the context of the endless stream of “tactical” spam I’ve been sharing with you, and the picture gets muddier: Americans want stuff that they’re told they can’t have. It’s around this time in the discussion that some rational person says “nobody needs a machine gun to hunt a deer!” but that’s missing the point: nobody in their right mind would want to hunt a deer with a machine gun in the first place. It’s not a matter of “need” it’s a matter of “I want it!” a primal scream of thoughtless desire, of exceptionalism. “I don’t care if nobody else can have it – in fact that makes me want it more because then I’ll have something they don’t have!”
It’s another day in America!
When I went through Basic Training (class of July 1983, Ft Dix, NJ!) I was amazed by how inaccurate automatic rifles are. Sure, I suppose if you were trying to make a great deal of noise and holes in things, then it makes sense, but mostly it seems to be a way to wear out a rifle and waste a lot of ammunition. I suppose I got my pointless displays out of my system at the taxpayers’ expense, so I can afford to sneer at this garbage.
Who needs a bumpstock when they can have a legal “as used by the military” tactical flashlight?
Pennsylvania laws: now I guess I need to find out if making a damasteel tactical spork is a felony around here.
I used to think that the most fun would be to hear someone try to claim they needed an automatic-type rifle because they wanted to hunt for hamburger made from deer, so they needed to grind up the meat as they killed it.
But now, what I want to hear is someone telling how they plan to hunt a deer successfully using only nunchucks. What a scenario!
It indeed misses the point. The hunting of deer is not mentioned in the Second Amendment, or indeed anywhere else in the Constitution. The need for an arms-bearing public is specifically stated: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…” You can start arguing from there.
Reginald Selkirk:
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…”
Are you referring to the Great Northwest Minuetman Regiment, who were equipped with nunchuks and brass knuckles? They are a little-known but forgettable part of revolutionary war histrionics…
Presumably they did explain the concept of suppressive fire to you though?
“The primary intended effect of suppressive fire is psychological. Rather than directly trying to kill enemy soldiers, it makes the enemy soldiers feel unable to safely perform any actions other than seeking cover.”
So, yes, it’s mainly about “mak[ing] a great deal of noise and holes in things”. Mostly the noise.
Dunc@#4:
Yes, they did.
It’s when they reach their AK up with one hand and pull the trigger, so the sniper knows where they are going to be when they stick their head up.
In 1983 the basic training curriculum was (I swear this is true!) still based on the curriculum from WWII: bounding fire and maneuver, suppressive fire, low crawl/high crawl, etc. I know it’s just “basic” and the interesting stuff is mission/specialty (MOS) oriented, but by then my MOS had been switched to 76V – and I was driving a forklift. By the way, you could suppress someone pretty well with one of those scary beasts… As Sazz said, “it’s mostly learning how to stand around and get shot at.” Shocking that the tactics that worked so badly at Anzio don’t even apply in Afghanistan.
I want “suppressive fire” on that deer.
I imagine that the Great Northwest Minuetman Regiment drills in powdered wigs.
Firstly: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yHFowT8XFRE/T7cy34dGq4I/AAAAAAAAAuw/sAnvedUDpAk/s1600/Nun+Chucks.jpg
Secondly, when I did my infantry reserve basic (1994) the only time we were allowed to switch our rifles to auto was when clearing a trench (or room if FIBUA). Close range, when you absolutely have to kill every muddy funster in the room/hole in the ground. At anything more than about eight metres, it’s strictly single shot. Unless… unless you’re the bloke toting the LSW. Interestingly, one of our instructors, an ex-SAS chap, had bad words to say about the LSW. It’s basically a long-barreled version of the basic SA80/L85 with some other toys on it (bipod, shoulder “strap” etc.). Reason he didn’t like it? “Too accurate”. On full auto, 30 rps, empty a standard mag in three seconds, too accurate. As in, what it’s FOR is making an area to hot to move about it, and compared to the less accurate (and heavier) GPMG, the area it heats up is too small. That was a lightbulb moment for me, when I’d previously not considered the possibility you could make a gun “too accurate”.
sonofrojblake@#7:
Until they started getting all snipey with the .50bmg it was a design feature of the M2 that it threw bullets all over a pretty wide area. Because the early versions made one bloody huge hole, and it turned out that a whole area full of damn big holes was better.
DonDueed@#6:
I was wondering if anyone would catch that.
The nunchuks sure did mess up the powdered wigs.
Finally I can start a mail order business selling tactical nunchuks to people in New York. My fortune is made!
Tabby Lavalamp@#10:
You’re going to need some tactical champagne and a tactical limo to drive around in, all that money you’re going to have!
I’ve no idea if this is still the case, but in the 80s in the UK you could only carry nunchucks if you were licenced to do so. I had a friend who was into martial arts who always carried his licence, he looked like a tall, very well muscled Jimmy Hendrix so he got stopped a lot by the police, it was easier to carry the licence at all times than be stopped without it and have a producer.
Jazzlet@#12:
You raise a point. At the time nunchuks were made illegal, they had become a popular carry weapon for community police groups like the Guardian Angels. The cops did everything they could to suppress them; cops don’t appreciate competition.
My opinion is that weapons ought to be banned based upon how dangerous they are. There are various criteria how to assess danger. If a human gets injured by this weapon, how life-threatening the injuries usually are? Are serious accidents common with this weapon? Is this weapon effective for facilitating and enabling crime? And so on. A country ought to first ban the more dangerous weapons. Once those are banned or heavily restricted, you can start thinking about what to do with other less dangerous weapons and where to draw the line between legal and illegal weapons. It’s pretty damn clear that a gun is more dangerous than a dagger or nunchaku. A country in which guns are legal but nunchaku are banned is clearly failing to think about weapons rationally.
My personal opinion is that I want gun ownership to be banned or very heavily restricted. I prefer swords and daggers and similar weapons to remain legal. Restrictions about carrying swords and daggers around are reasonable. It’s not like people need to be armed with daggers while walking around cities. But I don’t like any limitations on ownership of such weapons. This is largely because I perceive swords and daggers as artworks. Personally, I’m not interested in collecting weapons myself (just because collecting things is an expensive hobby, and I’m too lazy to get a real job), but I do love looking at pretty blades owned by other people.
This one’s tricky. In general, I make my decisions about what ought to be legal based upon the harm principle—hurting other people ought to be illegal, but doing dangerous things that only hurt yourself ought to remain legal. I understand that there are counterarguments to my position. For example, when some idiot hits himself with a nunchaku, the rest of society is forced to pay the hospital bill. But I still think that people should have a right to act foolish. My main problem is with where you draw the line between which foolish actions are legal and which ones are illegal. Some extreme sports are pretty damn dangerous. Banning nunchaku but allowing some other activity that might be even more dangerous is sort of weird. Then there’s also the problem that acting foolishly can render any activity dangerous. Even something as simple as hiking or swimming can be risky if people don’t understand what they are doing.
I may not desire owning a gun, but twice in my life I have obtained things only because I heard that some country had outlawed them. I’m talking about The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade and Mein Kampf by Hitler. Oh, the joys of Internet, you can obtain a digital version of any book, even the ones that some government somewhere might want to ban. I managed to read maybe a third of de Sade’s book before I quit. I did even worse with Hitler’s book. Both of these guys were pretty bad writers, and their books just had no appeal for me whatsoever, after the first few chapters I didn’t want to read any further. But yeah, the fact that something is banned can pique my curiosity.
Couldn’t they just focus on Kinder Eggs and healthcare?
Gilliell@#15:
Couldn’t they just focus on Kinder Eggs and healthcare?
Thread won!
Hmmm, I ought to get Great American Satan commissioned to design a “thread won” icon… mmm…
Yeah, nunchucks are great for hurting yourself, but only if you are a doofus or clumsy or both. I trained with nunchuks (without tutoring) for a few years and I am clumsy. I banged my head maybe twice(? – I really only remember one incident) and only slightly at that, I got hit worse playing footbal at school. Because I was actually acutely aware that a piece of wood traveling at high speed would hurt if it hits me, it is a conclusion that is fairly easy to get to. I was also aware that it could break a window or something, so I was careful and never broke anything.
I have also spared with nunchucks with one of my friends. We made those from string and wallpaper, so we do not hurt each other. And we did not hurt each other. I have never used nuchucks as a real weapon in a real fight, but I got a good amount of healthy exercise and fun out of them.
An upsurge of self-inflicted injuries after the Bruce-Lee movies came out? Yeah, I believe that could have happened. But educating the populace might work against that just as well as a ban without outlawing sporting equipment. Or simply wait until the fad wears out. Or, preferably, both.
To me, ban on nunchucks is downright ridiculous. They are ridiculously easy to manufacture and their dangerousnes and usefullnes in a fight are greatly exagerated. Bruce Lee was an exceptional fighter and an actor, what he pulled of in movies is not real life.
In Germany, the official reason for banning them is that they can be used as a garotte for choking. So they are banned together with kusaris and actual garottes. Which is even more ridiculous, because having a piece kevlar fishing line in your pocket is not illegal, and having two pencils at the same time is not illegal either – and a much better garotte can be manufactured from those in mere seconds than nunchucks or kusari are. This is really the case of trying to ban unbannable weapons, where if a criminal wants to use said weapon, they find a way to do so – because those weapons are, unlike firearms, easily MacGyvered from everyday items on a whim.
I think it is not a coincidence that some of the weapons banned in parts of Europe and US (nunchucks, balisongs, shuriken, shaken, kusaris) are weapons that were used in cheesy action movies in 80s and 90 – “ninja” weapons and knives that can be open with one hand. As a result of these silly policies in response to non-existent danger, my all purpose multitool that I use daily at work is actually illeagal to carry in Germany and I am one police stop by an overzealous officer from problems.
I think Ieva has summed the point greatly: A country in which guns are legal but nunchaku are banned is clearly failing to think about weapons rationally.. However this does not mean only USA (although they are going very far off the deep end in this regard) but also a big part of Europe.
I am glad that at least for now I live in a country where my desire to make blades is not impeded by any silly regulations.
Drat, replace “wallpaper” with “newspaper”. What a brain fart.
America’s got kinder eggs. The baby choking lobby has spoken!
Eh, that was supposed to have a picture. Have a link instead.
That’s not a Kinder egg, that’s a Kinder joy. The cream filling is disgusting and cannot be used to spoon up coffee the way an actual kinder egg half can be used (which is a skill you need to work on, preferably naked in a tub).
I just laugh when I hear about legal bans on nunchunks especially. They’re a fake weapon. They’re great for cool-looking movie shots to people who don’t know martial arts, but as a weapon, they’re complete rubbish. Literally a plain stick is miles better than nunchucks, i.e. a quarterstaff. And if you want something that’s better than nunchunks but also with concealability, then get a dagger.
PS:
Well, “militia” means “the people at large”, and “well-regulated” in this context means “well-armed and well-trained in war”, and so that phrase translated to today’s English roughly means “A national population that is well-armed and well-trained in war is necessary to prevent tyranny and foreign invasion, …”.
Did you know that according to today’s US federal law, almost all able-bodied male citizens of the United States between the ages of 17 and 45 are official members of the federal militia?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
I’m a member of the United States militia, and I’ve never fired a gun, and I do not own a gun, and I’ve never received any military training of any kind.
Nunchuks are basically a particularly ineffective type of club (I’d take a baseball bat over them in an actual fight any day, an item that not only isn’t banned but can be bought by a ten year old without anyone batting an eye), but you’re missing some context with the ban.
Nunchuks are a weapon associated with an ethnic minority. So are butterfly knives, for that matter. That, more than anything, is why they’re banned. Meanwhile you don’t see bans of weapons associated more with white people, regardless of how dangerous they are.
To Knabb
Could be. Thanks for raising that point.
Knabb@#23:
Meanwhile you don’t see bans of weapons associated more with white people, regardless of how dangerous they are.
Perhaps we should officially designate the AR-15 as “the white people’s gun.”
EnlightenmentLiberal@#22:
Literally a plain stick is miles better than nunchucks, i.e. a quarterstaff
Quarterstaves are nasty against unarmored opponents, which, when you’re talking about melee weapons, means “opponents who do not understand that they are in a fight.”
I used to laugh a lot at the guys I met who would talk about how nunchuks were a weapon that Okinawan peasants used to repel the samurai. For one thing, the samurai ruled Okinawa for a long time, until the US took it from them with rifles and stuff. But, I had the opportunity to spar a bit with a nunchuk practitioner when I was in high school. Bokken versus nunchuks, nobody trying to hurt anyone. After that, I was even more dismissive of nunchuks: they are a momentum-weapon that your opponent can fairly easily interrupt, killing their momentum – game over.
One other point. With weapons like this, you typically have to practice for a long time to be good with your weapon. With nunchucks and most other flails, it’s pretty easy to accidentally strike yourself, causing yourself significant injury. This is one big reason of several why nunchucks and most flails were probably not real historical weapons, and instead were later inventions by romanticists and ignorant people.
PS: Flails did exist as historical weapons, albeit relatively rare. However, when you look at real historical flails, the handle is much longer than the chain / rope length, meaning that you cannot easily accidentally strike your hand on the handle with your own weapon. Example of a real historical flail:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-section_staff