Communities around the U.S. have seen shootings carried out with weapons converted to fully automatic in recent years, fueled by a staggering increase in small pieces of metal or plastic made with a 3D printer or ordered online. Laws against machine guns date back to the bloody violence of Prohibition-era gangsters. But the proliferation of devices known by nicknames such as Glock switches, auto sears and chips has allowed people to transform legal semi-automatic weapons into even more dangerous guns, helping fuel gun violence, police and federal authorities said.

The (ATF) reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021, the most recent data available.

The devices that can convert legal semi-automatic weapons can be made on a 3D printer in about 35 minutes or ordered from overseas online for less than $30. They’re also quick to install.

“It takes two or three seconds to put in some of these devices into a firearm to make that firearm into a machine gun instantly,” Dettelbach said.

  • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Why every time someone is trying to explain to americans that what you have is not normal, is fixable, and it has been fixed somewhere else there’s always some bullshit excuse like once in the 1900 hundreds their one thing happened once so there is no possible solution.

    Europe doesn’t have that. Australia had a problem with gun culture and it was fixed after one mass shooting that shocked the country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/15/it-took-one-massacre-how-australia-made-gun-control-happen-after-port-arthur

    I totally expect someone to come up with but but but US is different, because of the above: bullshit excuses. And because I post that story a lot when gun restrictions are discussed. Yes the US is different, start thinking about a similar solution, you sent a fucking man on the moon in the 1960, you can do this too.

    • hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net
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      10 months ago

      Fixing US gun violence is trivial from a policy perspective. You tax bullets at an extremely high rate while also creating a social welfare system like Europe. This restricts the ability to execute violence while also addressing some of the biggest causes. But it’s impossible to implement that because right wing terrorism is the point.

      Right wing terrorism isn’t a problem with America. It is America. It’s how the system is supposed to work. It is the point.

      Right wing terrorism keeps people traumatized. It ensures that anyone proposing a social safety net would be murdered. It is the extrajudicial extension of the oligarchy that controls America. What the government can’t do, right wing death squads do instead.

      If you stop mass shootings, you will destroy America. It isn’t being stopped because it is intentional. It isn’t being stopped because both parties, and, more importantly, the oligarchs who control them, benefit from it.

      If you think you can stop gun violence in the US, you fundamentally do not understand what the US is. The KKK has been deeply involved at all layers of government across the US for generations. Today Aryan Brotherhood infiltrates police departments across the nation. The violence is the reality of America, the thing you think is America is just a facade.

      America is colonial white supremacy maintained through terror, where guns are the primary tool of that terror. America is not normal, it’s a two party dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. America is the problem, it cannot fix the problem anymore than Nazi Germany could have fixed their antisemitism problem.

      • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Here you go. Another person that tells me it cannot be fixed, just it is for a new and different reason/excuse this time. I’ll add you to the list, I also have a new excuse now!

        • hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net
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          10 months ago

          Ok, so you, who have absolutely no context on the situation, keep being told that you’re wrong by people who have context on the situation, and your responses is to record all the ways you’re told you’re wrong so you can gloat about how you keep getting told you’re wrong by the ignorant people who actually have lived their entire lives in the place you know nothing about? Cool.

          It’s kind of like you’re listening to the 5 blind people describe an elephant over the phone and you’re like, “I have a cat, therefore you also have a cat. You need cat litter and everything you’re saying is dumb.”

          America for Europeans is either Hollywood, major cities, or Europe with rednecks. You fundamentally do not understand the context. You keep comparing to Europe and Austrian, but those models don’t work. Europe enclosed the commons generations earlier. It’s not possible for Europeans to comprehend America.

          I’ve driven for 6 hours straight with the radio on scan and not even found a signal in more than one part of the US. There are vast areas of nothing with no law and no possibility of control. The vast majority of the US is unpopulated. The closest analog would be Australia or Canada.

          Except that Austria and Canada never had an economy that relied on chattel slavery enforced by “organized milita.” That’s what the “well regulated milita” is in the second amendment, it’s slavers. Slavery and genocide are essential to the US in a way they aren’t in any developed country. If you want to compare the US to something, you need to look at Brazil.

          The US is more like a developing nation or a dictatorship than a democracy the way you think about it.

          Americans have all heard the same things over and over again. Your arguments are old and bring nothing new. So what is it exactly you’re trying to do here? What is the point if first hand information will change your articles of faith? Are you just trying to feel superior? Because coming in to a place, knowing nothing about it, and telling people they’re doing everything wrong is a pretty old school European thing to do and it really isn’t convincing anyone.

          • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Ok, so you, who have absolutely no context on the situation, keep being told that you’re wrong by people who have context on the situation, and your responses is to record all the ways you’re told you’re wrong so you can gloat about how you keep getting told you’re wrong by the ignorant people who actually have lived their entire lives in the place you know nothing about? Cool.

            Pretty much. And it’s bullshit excuses conflicting with each others, so yeah pretty fun. You guys have no idea what you are talking about, keep making up different convoluted reasons.

            All while ignoring the obvious one gets ignored. It’s the fucking guns, the sooner you get onto it, the sooner you sort out this mess.

            Or keep thinking that it just can’t be solved and spent time on lemmy philosophising why it can’t. Fine with me either way I’m pretty safe.

            • hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net
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              10 months ago

              I can’t save you from looking like an arrogant idiot if that’s what you want to do. Have fun with your life.

              • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Look I’m sorry it’s just that I argue about gun control in the US a lot and you wouldn’t believe the bullshit I have to read.

                Checkout my comments. Since we started, I had to deal, in another thread, that guns in the US cannot be banned or farmers would be robbed. And another person is trying to argue that if there weren’t guns, you’d be riddled with acid attacks like Europe, apparently, is.

                In fairness you make some good points about issues in the States. It’s just that you mix up things a bit too much and you make it all a bit conspiracy. Keep it simple, work on limiting access to the thing that is used for shooting, and you might see a reduction in, well, shootings.

                Other countries have done it. I know you think it’s not the same, but it’s not like you are working on a better solution anyway, might be worth a try?