6 ms·

Every time I see one of these stories I wonder how many tools I would have to remove from my garage to make it impossible to build a primitive gun in there. Wit

Every time I see one of these stories I wonder how many tools I would have to remove from my garage to make it impossible to build a primitive gun in there. With enough ingenuity I'm really not sure there would be anything left.

tbrownaw 8mo ago
Do potato cannons count?
- stefanfisk 8mo ago
  The could if lawmakers wanted them to. Here in Sweden potato guns are actually illegal if the potato achieves 10+ joule.
  - Zak 8mo ago
    That's effectively a complete ban as a thrown potato would have considerably more energy than that. A quick web search suggests professional baseball pitchers achieve ~130J, and a potato is roughly comparable to a baseball in mass.
    - stefanfisk 7mo ago
      Yep. I'm not saying that I'm for it, just that writing a law that bans them isn't all that hard.
- wombatpm 8mo ago
  I had friends who would scour the produce isle to find potatoes they could cut down to fit their potato gun with a rifled barrel.
int_19h 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Luty#Firearms_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Luty#Firearms_design > one particular design, outlined in his book Expedient Homemade Firearms, is the best known. This design makes extensive use of easily procured materials such as folded sheet metal, bar stock, washers, and hex screws. It is a simple blowback-operated sub-machine gun and entirely made from craft-produced components, including the magazine and pistol grip. The major drawback of such designs is the lack of rifling in the barrel, which results in poor accuracy and limited range This book was openly sold on Amazon 10 years ago. I still have one on my shelf.
- meindnoch 8mo ago
  See it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YE9J7qcj0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YE9J7qcj0c
  - ragazzina 7mo ago
    "[The second amendment] basically says in order to keep us free we need to be able to keep and bear arms. A lot of countries though aren't necessarily that lucky and through things we won't talk about that's starting to show its ugly head". Oh well.
ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
Wasn't the whole point of the Sten gun that it could be made out of readily-available materials (steel plumbing pipe mostly) with simple hand tools, and really only needed two of the 50 or so components to be machined? So, unless your garage is down to a pair of rusty pliers and a dried-out Biro then you're probably still up there.
83 8mo ago
There are some Youtube videos about homemade weapons in African countries and it seems you'd have to remove peoples hands in addition to their tools. Some of the functional guns out there are mostly hand whittled wood with a piece of pipe and some bailing wire.

tbrownaw 8mo ago

Do potato cannons count?

stefanfisk 8mo ago
The could if lawmakers wanted them to. Here in Sweden potato guns are actually illegal if the potato achieves 10+ joule.
- Zak 8mo ago
  That's effectively a complete ban as a thrown potato would have considerably more energy than that. A quick web search suggests professional baseball pitchers achieve ~130J, and a potato is roughly comparable to a baseball in mass.
  - stefanfisk 7mo ago
    Yep. I'm not saying that I'm for it, just that writing a law that bans them isn't all that hard.
wombatpm 8mo ago
I had friends who would scour the produce isle to find potatoes they could cut down to fit their potato gun with a rifled barrel.

int_19h 8mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Luty#Firearms_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Luty#Firearms_design > one particular design, outlined in his book Expedient Homemade Firearms, is the best known. This design makes extensive use of easily procured materials such as folded sheet metal, bar stock, washers, and hex screws. It is a simple blowback-operated sub-machine gun and entirely made from craft-produced components, including the magazine and pistol grip. The major drawback of such designs is the lack of rifling in the barrel, which results in poor accuracy and limited range This book was openly sold on Amazon 10 years ago. I still have one on my shelf.

meindnoch 8mo ago
See it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YE9J7qcj0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YE9J7qcj0c
- ragazzina 7mo ago
  "[The second amendment] basically says in order to keep us free we need to be able to keep and bear arms. A lot of countries though aren't necessarily that lucky and through things we won't talk about that's starting to show its ugly head". Oh well.

ErroneousBosh 8mo ago

Wasn't the whole point of the Sten gun that it could be made out of readily-available materials (steel plumbing pipe mostly) with simple hand tools, and really only needed two of the 50 or so components to be machined? So, unless your garage is down to a pair of rusty pliers and a dried-out Biro then you're probably still up there.

83 8mo ago

There are some Youtube videos about homemade weapons in African countries and it seems you'd have to remove peoples hands in addition to their tools. Some of the functional guns out there are mostly hand whittled wood with a piece of pipe and some bailing wire.