
Autoweapons (1987) - dgellow
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/shivers/autoweapons.html
======
LyndsySimon
I guess I don't get it.

I mean, it's obviously a parody, and it seems to be poking fun at the
competitive nature of American academia... but it's just not funny to me.

Maybe it's because of my background? I'm a huge gun nut, so most of those
conversations seem at least to hint at something that's meaningful to me.

For instance - the US military used a slower-burning, dirty powder than
specified by the manufacturer when rolling out the M-16 and variants in
Vietnam. As a result they got dirty very fast and jammed far more often that
is acceptable. The first "example" is referring to this.

The biggest thing I came away with is that Olin Shivers knew a _ton_ about gun
culture in 1987. Considering that there was no Internet and therefore no gun
forums to waste hours every night on in 1987, he must have actually be a
firearms enthusiast himself or have consulted with someone extremely
knowledgeable to write this.

All that said, there is one line that made me smile:

"Poor Felton. Published, and published, and perished just the same."

~~~
onedognight
> Considering that there was no Internet and therefore no gun forums

It seems you missed the signature of FreeBSD co-founder Jordan Hubbard

> moderator of rec.guns

or maybe that this is a reference to a news group[1] which was the internet of
1987?

[1]
[https://groups.google.com/forum#!forum/rec.guns](https://groups.google.com/forum#!forum/rec.guns)

~~~
67726e
BBS aside, you'd think a subscription to Guns & Ammo would suffice for that
kind of stuff.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Not even close, at the level of detail in the post.

Gun magazines are notoriously bad, and pretty much rewrite the same handful of
articles over and over.

------
Crito
See also, the famous "Acknowledgements" section in the scsh manual:
[http://scsh.net/docu/html/man.html](http://scsh.net/docu/html/man.html) (Also
by Olin Shivers)

~~~
LyndsySimon
Holy crap.

If someone wrote that today, I have no doubt they'd be facing criminal
charges.

It's dated 10 days before the Assault Weapons Ban went into effect, so it's
not like it was before political correctness hit the scene. Gun control was
_the_ topic for the left at that moment in history.

Now I have to go figure out what happened to this guy.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Not sure if the firearm he mentioned qualifies under the restrictions of the
1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

In any event, you are _severely_ underestimating the federal government's
general tolerance for "obscenity" and speech that is potentially
objectionable. Honestly, if John Waters can get by fine, so can this.

Loved the jab at the left, as well. Such a descriptive term.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> Not sure if the firearm he mentioned qualifies under the restrictions of the
> 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

No, pistols were generally unaffected, with the exception of the 10-round
magazine limit. Sigs are generally double-stack pistols, so ten days after
that was published he'd have only been able to buy used magazines.

> In any event, you are severely underestimating the federal government's
> general tolerance for "obscenity" and speech that is potentially
> objectionable. Honestly, if John Waters can get by fine, so can this.

It seems to depends on the particular speech and the administration in office
at the time, no? I'm quite aware of the theoretical and practical protections
offered by the First Amendment, but publishing an implied, detailed threat
toward a small group of people you work with today is unwise to say the least.

> Loved the jab at the left, as well. Such a descriptive term.

I actually meant no offense by it. In 1994, gun control was a core issue for
the Democratic Party.

It seems readily apparent that "the left" and "the Democratic Party" are
nearly synonymous when speaking about elections at the national level.

------
gambiting
I find it weird how different US is to EU sometimes. Guns have literally never
came up in any of the conversations I had with friends, and the only "gun" I
have ever held was an air rifle during my scouts training. Yet this article is
fascinating and I would not have even though this would be such an important
thing at US universities(or at least was - 27 years ago). Entirely different
culture.

~~~
JimboOmega
It's almost unheard of for civilians to actually have automatic weapons, and
it was in the 80's too. I think this is at least partially satire.

~~~
bmelton
To be fair, there were likely a lot more fully automatic firearms on the
market in 1987 than there are today.

The law passed in 1986 basically prohibited civilian ownership of automatic
firearms manufactured after that date, so almost exclusively, legally owned
fully automatic firearms owned today were manufactured before 1986.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Right. I doubt it was "A lot more" though.

Knowing that the Registry for automatic weapons was closing, some
manufacturers registered as many as they could before the deadline. To this
day you can get "new" Sten SMGs if you're willing to pay enough (~$5-6k last I
looked). There are piles of metal pipes with serial numbers stamped on them in
a couple of warehouses that are legally considered automatic weapons.

~~~
bmelton
Your point is undoubtedly solid. Since the tax stamps in 1936, I don't think
that there's ever been a large percentage of full auto owners, ignoring how
costly and pointless they are in the first place.

It's the rare bird that is willing to endure the months of waiting and
background checks for the pleasure of spending their money as quickly as
possible.

------
bellerocky
I thought this post would be about automating weapons. Like with beagle
boards/arduino + servos and computer vision auto targeting and a smartphone.
Which would be kind of scary, but at least technically interesting.

~~~
icebraining
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4)

~~~
bellerocky
Wow, water guns to shoot squirrels. The technical stuff is super interesting.
Thank you!

------
anon4
Ugh, posts like this make me sick.

JUST BUY AK47! It was made exact for dirty hands and bad gunpowder. You think
you can improve on design? You think your M16Z8Vblahglahblahs better?

YOU KNOW NOTHING JOHN SMITH!

------
angersock
This...this is glorious.

Far more interesting and helpful than autotools debates.

~~~
HCIdivision17
Reading your comment before the article completely threw me. At the time it
was the only comment, and so I thought the whole thing was a parody of how
using autotools is overkill or something. (Or, knowing nothing like I did,
maybe about some sort of AutoCAD software suite, which can also be likened to
some forms of violence.)

Confoundation ensued until I came back and other posters noted it's actually
satire about actual gun use.

Though it was a bit fun attempting to misinterpret the whole piece that way.
Turns out it's funny from every angle.

