These look like ordinary ammo for assault and other non- hunting weapons and are covertly placed in ordinary ammo boxes covertly by citizens who otherwise feel helpless with the gun mania currently gripping America. When fired they are designed to destroy the firing weapon and limit injury to people nearby.-- molecat, Jul 28 2015 For Rayford Steele http://www.army.mil/article/98324/A little further afield, but... [normzone, Jul 28 2015] <idea destroying anno>-- pocmloc, Jul 28 2015 I'm not keen on guns and I think the obsession some people have with them is unhealthy. But I don't like the idea of vandalising someone else's expensive piece of equipment.
Also, how easy is it to destroy a gun in this way without also injuring the [possibly legitimate] user?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 28 2015 Are you really the head case that this idea would appeal to, or are you just trolling ?-- normzone, Jul 28 2015 I suspect destroying is hard, but putting out of service until the barrel is replaced should be relatively simple. Alternatively, I have a sneaking suspicion that most weapons could be disabled by replacing the primer with a bit of ultrahard steel, damaging the firing pin.
That being said, not a fan of the idea for general distribution, but it might have applications in counter insurgency situations.-- MechE, Jul 28 2015 Do you not understand that "killing people who do things you don't like" is the problem you're trying to solve, therefore doing more of it is not a viable solution?-- lurch, Jul 28 2015 "Say Carl, who is that vegan-looking dude sneaking covertly around by the ammo boxes?"-- bungston, Jul 28 2015 Well that's a dumb idea, innit. Please consult Oxford or Merriam's for the difference between "half-baked" and "half-assed". Also consider:
- anybody stupid enough to have the phrase "assault weapon" in their working vocabulary couldn't figure out which of the thousands of types/sizes of ammunition to replace with... the replacements wouldn't fit into the firearm in the first place and just get tossed aside.
- if you just sorted to "military" types of ammunition, those are quite prevalent in the hunting and target communities (7.62x51NATO is .308 Winchester; 5.56x43NATO is .223 Remington)
- if you were going to walk into a militia compound and mess with their stuff, why not just walk out with the 2 or 3 weapons the bogus ammo would destroy before they called a halt and launched an investigation ? Though you might consider beforehand that members of militia groups in the US aren't the people that end up in the news.
Also, the idea was quite baked: in WWII Jewish forced-labour messed with the Nazi ammunition they were forced to produce.-- FlyingToaster, Jul 28 2015 lurch, I don't think he was looking to kill someone, just foul up the gun.
I could go for this idea. Somehow salt the ammo piles in the US and Mexico.-- RayfordSteele, Jul 28 2015 There's really only one way to do this, and that's to remove the powder from the cartridge. The primer is still powerful enough to push the projectile into the barrel, but not all the way out. The problem with this is that if they don't notice the misfire - the next full power round blows the gun apart, possibly severely injuring the user.
// who otherwise feel helpless with the gun mania currently gripping America// - So, just like everyone else in this debate, you think you're fundamentally right according to some cosmic truth, and this justifies you doing pretty much anything to further your agenda?
I don't have a dog in this race, but surely we can all see that other parties in a debate hold their views for reasons as good as our own and should be afforded the autonomy to make up their own minds?-- Custardguts, Jul 28 2015 I can suggest that the overall bullet cartridge could act something like a "shaped charge". When activated by the firing pin, it spews a small stream of molten metal at the firing pin. That should ruin at least part of the gun, without hurting the gun-holder. Alternately, the cartridge could spew glue down the length of the gun barrel, making it too small for any following bullets to pass through.-- Vernon, Jul 28 2015 What a demented motive, perhaps born of jealousy. Did the Ministry of Public Safety reject your application for a knife license?
Free men require a way to defend themselves. If the government doesn't fear its citizens, then alien elements (i.e., Jewish communists) take over the government and they start butchering the masses by the millions.-- Cuit_au_Four, Jul 28 2015 And we were doing so good for a moment there - " jewish communists " ?
I was hoping that we could start by defining " gun mania ". I've yet to see any event that resembles that. All we have is some people that have guns and some people that don't.-- normzone, Jul 28 2015 // There's really only one way to do this ... the next full power round blows the gun apart, possibly severely injuring the user. //
Seems to me there are lots of ways. One class of methods would be a bullet that telescopes into a 4 inch long tube but remains attached to the casing. That should make it impossible to eject the shell in most cases, preventing a dangerous misfire of the next round. It could be designed to destroy the barrel or just require the user to disassemble the gun to remove it.
See, no one gets hurt except for the poor schmuck trying to use his gun for self defense. If you're doing a home invasion and this happens to your gun, just make sure to bring two, and if that fails, call off the raid and run away.-- scad mientist, Jul 28 2015 No experienced firearm owner is going to put ammunition from a dubious source into a valuable and well-maintained weapon. This idea penalises the greedy, careless, thoughtless and stupid.
OK, go ahead ... [+]-- 8th of 7, Jul 29 2015 I've suggested that gun ownership under the constitution be approached by expanding upon line in the constitution that says "WELL REGULATED militia". Namely saying that people must pass the same background check and training as a police officer. This isn't a popular argument because:
1- These discussions aren't about solving a problem, they're about tribal enemy bashing and,
2- There is no intelligent rebuttal to the concept of having a law abiding American citizens becoming armed police officers. Even if there are millions of them.
I support the right of Americans to arm themselves, but not if they don't pass a background check, gun safety course and psychological profile review.
Of course I understand that there are people who would take advantage of that too. "You voted for Bush? You're obviously crazy so permit denied."
How about an I.Q. test for gun ownership? Well, they're phasing those out too so that probably wouldn't work. Oh well, I tried.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 29 2015 To me, "well regulated militia" would involve something very like being in the National Guard (one weekend a month, two weeks a year).
Unfortunately the courts have ruled that the two clauses are separate (which I really don't see).-- MechE, Jul 29 2015 The bullet could be full of some kind of corrosive chemical that simply rusts the barrel out. Or it could have little bits of martensite that embed into the gun barrel.-- RayfordSteele, Jul 29 2015 //To me, "well regulated militia" would involve something very like being in the National Guard (one weekend a month, two weeks a year).//
I think that's fine as long as the federal government isn't the one doing the regulating. I think the founders wanted there to be a bulwark against any government taken over by bad guys. Of course you'd have to be certifiably insane to think that any government could ever go bad and do bad things, (I defy anybody here to point out one single government in history that has ever been taken over by bad guys or done something bad, it's virtually impossible) but just saying. I believe that was their idea anyway.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 29 2015 The national guard is regulated by the state, not the federal government.
Or even at the city or town level would be fine (that's what the militia was in colonial times). Completely divorced from a government is a bad idea, that's how you get heavily armed compounds in the woods shooting it out with the police.-- MechE, Jul 29 2015 But what if, on the one in a trillion chance, the federal government goes bad?
For that matter, what if the police go bad? Admittedly less of a chance of that happening, but a government being at odds with its people is not impossible.
Anyway, when I say there can be constitution friendly restrictions on gun ownership, it needs to be pointed out that there already are many such regulations in place. I don't have a problem with regulations, they just should accomplish something, make some situation better and not cause a problem worse than the one it's trying to solve.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 29 2015 In the hypothetical case where armed rebellion is actually the way to go, the militia is still made up of armed citizens who have military training. The fact that said training was organized by the government doesn't change that.-- MechE, Jul 29 2015 Well, like I said, I don't really have a problem with that. And you're right, the Guard is controlled by the states, however, they can be nationalized.
I think. I could be wrong but I seem to remember the National Guard being put under Federal control during the 1960s a couple of times. I might be wrong though, I just seem to have some recollection of that being the case.-- doctorremulac3, Jul 29 2015 // But what if, on the one in a trillion chance, the federal government goes bad? //
Then given the disparity of firepower here, I'd say the old adage of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em,' probably applies.-- RayfordSteele, Jul 30 2015 random, halfbakery