Lawmanmx wrote:Ideally, there would be NO guns/bombs or Any weapons of war Anywhere, Ideally! but we all know that's never gonna happen, Unfortunately.

People would just make their own, a slingshot for example. Personally I have no problem with guns, I did my engineering apprenticeship in a weapons factory (the long gone RSAF Enfield). I've seen and handled thousands of guns in my time there, I can't ever remember wanting to take one home though.

I've got no problem with guns either, but it does seem sensible to regulate them fairly stringently.

In the US currently, due to lobbying by firms like Vista Outdoor, there is legislation preventing any digitised searching of gun owners, either their license numbers or their names. It has to be done by hand, in paper, once shops have submitted them.

How insane is that? Even those of us in law enforcement, personal protection or the military might agree that this is not how things should be.

I will continue to buy bike stuff from manufacturers and retailers that provide the best service and value. This 'revelation' does not change that. I have thought this through, extensively, and will happily discus with anybody who is interested, over a pint, but difficult to summarise and convey effectively here, and frankly not much to do with riding bikes.

GregMay wrote:You can sadly add Black Diamond to that list as well.

Only good stuff they make are the express ice screws. I'll screw morale for these...

U.S.A. U.S.A U.S.A.!

We all draw our lines somewhere. Back in the days of full-on anti apartheid even the most hard-core campaigner still sat on Armitage Shanks bowls.

Fwiw I'm only talking about Vista's input into US gun policy, the politics there and what it's resulting in. Sure, weapons will exist and be made and used, tbh it's hard to oppose in principle, at some level. To be supported by or profit from mass public gun ownership while not acting to limit innocent deaths is easier to oppose. I think I'm a bit past my 'stick to bike-relateds' online rule here though : )

Pirahna wrote:

Lawmanmx wrote:Ideally, there would be NO guns/bombs or Any weapons of war Anywhere, Ideally! but we all know that's never gonna happen, Unfortunately.

People would just make their own, a slingshot for example. Personally I have no problem with guns, I did my engineering apprenticeship in a weapons factory (the long gone RSAF Enfield). I've seen and handled thousands of guns in my time there, I can't ever remember wanting to take one home though.

Someone made the first 3D printed pistol a few years ago. It held a single round and fired just fine.

Dave Barter wrote:

Ray Young wrote: it would be decades before it had any effect.

But the people of decades later would be thankful and safe. As we are now decades after Hungerford/Dunblane.

Should we boycott manfacturers of diesel engines now too? That would save nearly 200,000 lives in a generation's time.

Like someone said before, if you wanted everything you buy to be ethically sound you'd genuinely have a hard time buying anything, unless it was built by a bloke in a shed somewhere. And from what I've seen we probably shouldn't trust blokes who make things in sheds either...

I don't have any problems with guns, or gun manufacturers for that matter.

I have pretty significant issues with the NRA though.

Richard G wrote:I don't have any problems with guns, or gun manufacturers for that matter.

I have pretty significant issues with the NRA though.

Isn't it a bit hard to unpick Gun manufacturers from the NRA, aren't they a lobby on behalf of the industry as well?

The world is full of both wonder and woe.

If I isolate any one thing in my life or even any one thing I am intending to do in the next hour I can find reasons not to do it, not to have it.

The world has become a bewildering place where I have had to protect my sanity by developing my own system of filters, a way of holding the world and its workings at a distance.

Black and white do not work, grey has an infinite amount of shades and each shade looks different depending on who is looking at it.

I could write ten thousands words on the whole gun/weapons subject and have barely got the introduction done.... so I shall retire from this thread now before my brain explodes or a sadness descends on me.

I am pleased to see that the thread is being conducted in a way that reaffirms my conviction that this is a good place (BB in general) for me to hang out.

Mbnut, well said, you are right, black white and infinite shades of grey...
As a Tibetan prayer goes:
“May everyone be happy, may everyone be free from misery,
May no-one ever be separated from their happiness...”

There are a lot of unhappy people out there, and somebody who takes the life of another human being...(and some people don’t want to take the life of animals too...) must be very unhappy...

How sad !
As humans we are evolutionary in a high place...

Ok, time to get on that bike and enjoy pushing 45lbs of fat bike and gear up those hills...

Seeing as I started this, and some part of me cares about it, I thought I'd post a short update: Vista Outdoor have announced their intention to sell off their cycle brands, Giro, Bell and Blackburn citing a reduced profit in 2017, in part a result of a general slow-done in the global cycle-trade, but also in part due to a mainly US boycott.

https://www.bikebiz.com/news/vista-outd ... -portfolio