Tag: news

Perhaps a little late to the game, the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has joined its
counterparts in
Austria, Germany, and elsewhere in purchasing 3D printers to
see what this fuss about what Reason’s Brian Doherty calls
“the
unstoppable plastic gun” is about. Like everybody else, the
folks at the all-you-need-is-a band-and-it’s-a-party agency
discovered that 3D-printed guns do, in fact, go bang, though
whether they do so in the intended way depends on the material you
use to build them.

The ATF chose the Liberator, the first successfully fired model,
to test. Innovators have since moved on to
rifles,
pepperboxes,
semiautomatics, and even a
Model 1911 printed from stainless steel.

Videos posted online on the ATF’s YouTube channel (yes, really)
show a Liberator built from ABS plastic firing without drama, while
a model printed in translucent VisiJet
shatters in spectacular fashion. (Pro tip: Don’t use VisiJet
when printing your own gun.)

A helpful
fact sheet posted online promises that “ATF makes every effort
to keep abreast of novel firearms technology and firearms
trafficking schemes.” It also outlines the strict regulations
governing firearms manufacture and sale and vows that “ATF
investigates any cases in which technological advances allow
individuals to avoid complying with these laws.”

Of course, the whole advantage of 3D printing technology, and
other innovations that enable DIY manufacture of restricted and
forbidden objects, is that they render the law largely
unenforceable, since the activity takes place away from officious
eyes. You can put any statute you want on the books, but there’s
not much you can do to regulate what goes on in home workshops.

Which is why the Department of Homeland Security has
pronounced 3D-printed guns “impossible” to control.

Perhaps a little late to the game, the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has joined its
counterparts in
Austria, Germany, and elsewhere in purchasing 3D printers to
see what this fuss about what Reason’s Brian Doherty calls
“the
unstoppable plastic gun” is about. Like everybody else, the
folks at the all-you-need-is-a band-and-it’s-a-party agency
discovered that 3D-printed guns do, in fact, go bang, though
whether they do so in the intended way depends on the material you
use to build them.

The ATF chose the Liberator, the first successfully fired model,
to test. Innovators have since moved on to
rifles,
pepperboxes,
semiautomatics, and even a
Model 1911 printed from stainless steel.

Videos posted online on the ATF’s YouTube channel (yes, really)
show a Liberator built from ABS plastic firing without drama, while
a model printed in translucent VisiJet
shatters in spectacular fashion. (Pro tip: Don’t use VisiJet
when printing your own gun.)

A helpful
fact sheet posted online promises that “ATF makes every effort
to keep abreast of novel firearms technology and firearms
trafficking schemes.” It also outlines the strict regulations
governing firearms manufacture and sale and vows that “ATF
investigates any cases in which technological advances allow
individuals to avoid complying with these laws.”

Of course, the whole advantage of 3D printing technology, and
other innovations that enable DIY manufacture of restricted and
forbidden objects, is that they render the law largely
unenforceable, since the activity takes place away from officious
eyes. You can put any statute you want on the books, but there’s
not much you can do to regulate what goes on in home workshops.

Which is why the Department of Homeland Security has
pronounced 3D-printed guns “impossible” to control.

The latest rampage by rageaholic – and ultra-talented, btw –
actor Alec Baldwin is on display at TMZ.com (click above to watch).
After winning a case against a stalker,
Baldwin saw fit to scream at and threaten a shutterbug on the
streets of New York.

During the episode, Baldwin refers to the photographer as a
“cocksucking fag,” an insult that calls to mind a previous incident
in which the 30 Rock alum and current MSNBC host
threatened to foot-fuck a “toxic little queen” and “a toxic
little bitch” who had libeled his wife.

While giving no quarter to what he sees as invasive
photographers, Baldwin has checked in with advisers and
concludes

This tweet came just hours after Baldwin had tweeted
“Anti-gay
slurs are wrong. They not only offend, but threaten hard fought
tolerance of LGBT rights.”

And not long after Baldwin had tweeted (and duly deleted) this
slag on “libertarian trash” who defend gays:

I can’t speak for the Breitbart crowd (though Andrew Breitbart
was certainly a staunch supporter of gay
equality) but the “libertarian trash” at Reason has been
defending gay rights since the magazine’s earliest days in the late
1960s. In fact, when mainstream liberal and conservative
publications were still arguing over whether homosexuality should
be decriminalized, we were already talking about marriage equality.
If the state is going to involve itself in marriage (and it
shouldn’t) among consenting adults, it should not draw invidious
distinctions and treat some people as second-class citizens.

I’d like to think that Alec Baldwin can understand that about
“libertarian trash.” But if his now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t
Twitter feed is any indication, he’s already on to more important
topics, such as conflating “single-bullet theorists” with
minimum-wage flat-earthers:

The latest rampage by rageaholic – and ultra-talented, btw –
actor Alec Baldwin is on display at TMZ.com (click above to watch).
After winning a case against a stalker,
Baldwin saw fit to scream at and threaten a shutterbug on the
streets of New York.

During the episode, Baldwin refers to the photographer as a
“cocksucking fag,” an insult that calls to mind a previous incident
in which the 30 Rock alum and current MSNBC host
threatened to foot-fuck a “toxic little queen” and “a toxic
little bitch” who had libeled his wife.

While giving no quarter to what he sees as invasive
photographers, Baldwin has checked in with advisers and
concludes

This tweet came just hours after Baldwin had tweeted
“Anti-gay
slurs are wrong. They not only offend, but threaten hard fought
tolerance of LGBT rights.”

And not long after Baldwin had tweeted (and duly deleted) this
slag on “libertarian trash” who defend gays:

I can’t speak for the Breitbart crowd (though Andrew Breitbart
was certainly a staunch supporter of gay
equality) but the “libertarian trash” at Reason has been
defending gay rights since the magazine’s earliest days in the late
1960s. In fact, when mainstream liberal and conservative
publications were still arguing over whether homosexuality should
be decriminalized, we were already talking about marriage equality.
If the state is going to involve itself in marriage (and it
shouldn’t) among consenting adults, it should not draw invidious
distinctions and treat some people as second-class citizens.

I’d like to think that Alec Baldwin can understand that about
“libertarian trash.” But if his now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t
Twitter feed is any indication, he’s already on to more important
topics, such as conflating “single-bullet theorists” with
minimum-wage flat-earthers:

• A group of House Republicans introduced a
  resolution to impeach Attorney General Eric Holder. They cited
  scandals such as the “Fast and Furious” gun running operation as
  proof of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
• FBI Director Jim Comey testified yesterday that the US is
  more vulnerable
  to cyberattacks than terrorists groups like Al Qaeda.
  Don’t worry, though, he assured that law enforcement and national
  intelligence are shifting their focus to the web to keep us
  safe.
• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) says that she
  lost her health insurance because of Obamacare and that she
  refuses to use the exchange website until it’s fixed.
• The House votes today on a GOP-backed bill to allow insurance
  companies to continue to
  offer their existing plans under Obamacare.
• Alleged crack-smoking Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is apparently
  
  getting his own television show. 
• Norway will
  promote new legislation to “regulate ritual circumcision,” the
  country’s health minister said.

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Bruce Dern gives a brave and unfaltering
performance in Nebraska, the new movie by Alexander
Payne, according to Kurt Loder. Dern has already won the best-actor
award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and now his portrayal of
an old man sinking into the confusion of senile dementia is being
touted for an Oscar. This possibility has a sentimental attraction.
On the other hand, Charlie Countryman isn’t a bad
movie; in Loder’s opinion, it’s a movie of jaw-dropping
awfulness.

View this article.

My latest column for
The Daily Beast looks at pot legalization developments in
Colorado and Washington state. Voters in both places overwhelmingly
approved recreational use of marijuana last year. In January, both
states will implement insanely high taxes on weed and, in Colorado
at least, all manner of bans on which counties and cities can sell
pot.

The spirit behind the legalization efforts in both states was
that marijuana should be treated in a “manner similar
to alcohol.”

Unfortunately, it’s starting to look like both states are going
to treat pot in a manner similar to alcohol during
Prohibition. Not only are pot taxes likely to be sky high,
various sorts of restrictions on pot shops may well make it easier
to buy, sell, and use black-market marijuana rather than the legal
variety. That’s a bummer all around: States and municipalities will
collect less revenue than expected, law-abiding residents will
effectively be denied access to pot, and the crime, corruption, and
violence that inevitably surrounds black markets will continue
apace.

Read the whole thing.