We have friends who used to live in Venezuela, but managed to escape, thanks to the wife being a US citizen. I don’t know when your data is from, but Venezuela today is a disaster and even 10 years ago when our friends escaped the government was useless. You didn’t leave your apartment for a weekend without hiring security. Any strict gun laws on the books wouldn’t have been enforced.
Maybe, hard to tell. Other nations with solid gun control have higher rates. But I would say there would be a drop for a while, anyway.
Can ONLY ship to a registered FFL dealer, not to an abandoned building. Unless it was a black powder or antique firearm? You can not buy a gun in another state, you must be a resident of that state. So, I have some doubts here, unless they violated several Federal laws, in which case- there were laws to prevent this.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/may-nonlicensee-ship-firearm-through-us-postal-service#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Postal%20Service%20recommends,used%20to%20ship%20a%20handgun.
A nonlicensee may not transfer a firearm to a non-licensed resident of another state. A nonlicensee may mail a shotgun or rifle to a resident of their own state or to a licensee in any state.
Perhaps the link I helpfully provided in my post?
Think about that.
With rare exceptions like probably California and Colorado, it is not illegal for private citizens to make their own firearms for personal use.
But most civilians lack the equipment, tools, etc to make their own. So they’d turn to those who do, and don’t mind making a quick buck on the side, because, well, the sort that do that don’t see it as a crime after all.
And yes, I know people in this category. Although in the case in question, the offer was out of honest friendship and shared interests, not profit driven.
But in a world where all other ready-made firearms were suddenly gone? I don’t believe they’d have the willpower to forgo the easy money.
I have the documentation. I have the receipt from the gun store, which I got when I contested the charges, and I have the shipping address, and I have the conversation with the officer in the North Hollywood police station who was able to tell me exactly how this went down. By luck, I got the guy who was the expert on this. I called him because I thought that the local precinct might like to know what was coming into their jurisdiction (and it was not an antique gun) but it was nothing new to him.
I’m sorry this goes against your charming faith that the obviously unenforced laws prevent this. I did not call the Feds, but I suspect they know all about it.
Laws can not prevent crime. They can just catch violators, and penalize them. Murders happen, despite laws against murder. You choose to let the gun store get away with breaking the law. But my point was- this sort of stuff is already against the law.
You also stated “to buy automatic weapons” and automatic weapons are pretty much illegal in the USA. Buying one by mail is unlikely in the extreme, since they are illegal in Oregon- no gun store would carry one-, and pretty much in the uSA (there is a special licence to just own one, and it is very hard to get, and they cost many thousands of dollars) This gives me some doubt as to your story.
Every country would be a different story.
But the biggest part of the story is that an unusually reliable killing tool would first go to legal authorities before reappearing elsewhere. And during that time, extra-legal killing would go down.
India is now the most populous country, so look there first. While the Naxalite insurgency could still use explosives, the State Armed Forces would be rearmed so much faster as to have good chance of putting an end to that endless war.
In countries lacking gun factories, the dynamic might be different. Russia might re-supply the neo-colonialist Wagner group faster than local forces could re-supply. Giving the strongest parties in conflicts a boost is not always good! But I’m conservative enough, in a totally old-fashioned sense of the word, to believe this usually would be a blessing. And I’m optimistic enough to believe people would find ways to extend the benefits of the experiment.
I’ve been pretty cynical in thread about positive results, but did want to mention areas that I do think would be positive in the US. Forgotten guns and panic-purchased guns. (I’ve done threads on this).
The first, which in many cases is just a delayed version of the second, is that gun Person A has had for years, or decades, and is sitting somewhere in a house, long forgotten (or very nearly so) until someone (often a young person) is visiting and a totally avoidable tragedy ensues.
The second class, where someone after a shocking event, personal crime encounter, or other moment of emotion buys a gun, perhaps goes shooting once or twice (hopefully with a trainer) and then calms down and puts it away never to be used again. Where, if given long enough, it falls into the first category.
These guns are also the ones hardest to trace in many cases if stolen, and other than a non-zero financial value (if not forgotten and the owner wants to sell), represent no downsides in their loss. A firearm in your home you are no longer aware of, do not maintain, and do not secure is a risk to all.
True. I cheerfully admit altho crime may not go down a bunch, murder certainly would.
Knife crime would skyrocket.
Then again, the track record of home-made guns actually working well or at all is really spotty. You see it periodically in the news, somebody tries making their own gun (often to commit a crime), and it jams or otherwise fails. Not always, but enough that a lot of those quick-and-dirty replacement guns would just be junk.
Oh, I agree 100%, which is why I said this earlier:
The parties I mentioned in the post you responded too fall under the “small shop machining” would be the first category, but the second I mentioned, well, yeah, danger to themselves and others.
Here in England, it wouldn’t make much difference.
Three children killed, ten other people injured in a mass stabbing earlier this week.
80% of handgun deaths are suicide… Assisted suicide is only for the rich, so poor people need an option since its our lives.
Mass murderers with handguns kill 20, without breaking a sweat.
You are glossing over the massive disadvantages a crossbow has compared to modern firearms. It’s not about power, it almost never is with archery gear. My 50# selfbows shoot right through a deer at 30 yards, with shaving-sharp broadhead arrows that are tuned to fly perfectly.
Unlike a bullet, an arrow / bolt doesn’t do any more damage in the target, whether it flies just barely out the other side or travels 20 yards after the fact, burying itself in a tree. There is no temporary pressure cavity.
Modern firearms (and airguns) shoot with such high muzzle velocities that trajectory worries over most hunting distances are almost moot. Not so with bows and arrows, not even with the fastest compound crossbow available. Curved trajectories require a strictly limited effective range or phenomenal range-estimating skills over varying terrain.
It is no big deal to drop a game animal at 150 yards using a modern rifle with a good scope. Even with the latest, greatest commercial crossbow, just 50 yards is a long range deal replete with uncertainties. Yes, the broadhead bolt will kill any animal in North America, but you need to hit it in the right spot, first. Most people do not have the skill / patience to get to within 50, preferably to within 25 yards of game animals. That’s why the crossbow has no hope of replacing modern firearms in any situation. But there’s plenty more.
With a modern firearm or a modern airgun, you can shoot five or more shots in quick succession, even with the sights trained on the target. It takes minimal movement / effort, of the loading hand only, to reload the gun.
With a crossbow, you need to change position drastically to reload, not only alerting any game / humans to your presence, and not only getting off target, but having to look at the crossbow, missing whether the target moves, or where it moves, and in a combat situation, exposing yourself to any amount of enemy fire. That’s why medieval crossbowmen had pavise-bearers with them.
Crossbows are the hardest projectile weapons of all to operate inside a building / out in the terrain. That is because they project out sideways as well as forwards. That’s a drag in a mostly-vertical forest, hallways etc. etc. Handheld bows, as well as rifles with any power source are inherently quicker / easier to move around / into position. Crosswbows’ front-heaviness is a factor here, too.
With a modern crossbow, quality carbon bolts, equipped with broadheads, can cost up to about 40 dollars a piece. Generally, when you shoot an arrow / bolt outside the target range, especially with a high-velocity modern bow / crossbow, the arrow / bolt is a goner, whether you hit or missed our target; bolts suffer damage in the target, and bury themselves deep into trees, and skid “miles” under brush / turf. As crossbow bolts are mostly substantially shorter than arrows, they disappear much more easily. This alone is a steep barrier to adopting a crossbow over a rifle, as much as firearm ammo has increased in cost.
Of course, airguns are by far the most cost-effective projectile weapons around, as per ammo cost. With them, you can also carry 5 000 rounds with you in an ordinary backpack, with room enough for beverages, snacks, medical kit, firestarting materials etc. etc.
Have you seen military procurement processes?
My guess is that there would be far less murder and manslaughter. Yeah, I know, you can stab, strangle, bludgeon, etc people to death, but it is more difficult and is harder to do in a single moment of anger. Also, I don’t think you would see any “drive-by stabbings”, and you wouldn’t see many cases where a thrown knife, spear, club, etc would accidentally pass through the walls of a house and kill an innocent person residing therein. Also, it’s pretty hard to “accidentally” stab, bludgeon, strangle, etc a person before you would have enough time to stop.
Warlord weapons were often smuggled out from the military, so the military would still have them first.
However, you make a good point. How it would play out would differ depending on the country.
EDIT: Come to think of it, I recently read a history book relevant here ( Caroline Alexander, Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World). A lot of the small arms, flown to China by the US/UK, and intended for the official Chinese military, in World War II, did get promptly smuggled out without going through Chiang Kai-shek’s forces first. But I think, or hope, that’s a less common pattern.
Are you counting the gas cylinders as part of the “ammo”?