The original CPU water block was sent on its way to Germany a little later than I wanted, via USPS. That was part of the delay, as I originally wanted to send it either via UPS or FedEx, but both wanted what I considered too large an amount to send a 1lb package international. UPS was the worst, quoting me over $100, while FedEx wanted about $85. DHL quoted me at $75. The postal service, however, wanted only $25 using a flat-rate box.
But at least that’s out of the way.
Revisiting components
While talking with AlphaCool I was looking for alternate hardware, namely to replace the water block. I didn’t want to go with Alphacool again. Nothing on them, and I’m sure my experience was a 1-in-a-million occurrence, but when you are that 1 in the million, it tends to turn you away from them. And in this case, it’s turning me away, at least with regard to the CPU water block.
So I researched around a bit more and found the Koolance CPU-380A, which I ultimately purchased from Performance-PCs to replace the AlphaCool block. About the only concern with the block is its warranty, which carries this provision: “Use of 3rd-party replacement parts, coolants, or coolant additives will void this warranty.” So to keep the warranty in place, you need to use their coolants. This isn’t all that shocking since they can’t possibly test their water blocks with everything on the market. And I have no interest in using any dyes or additives anyway.
But having the block in hand, it feels significantly more solid than the AlphaCool block. I don’t think I’m going to have any problems with it. My only minor complaint is simply how heavy the block is, but again it feels significantly more solid.
For the graphics cards I gave my wife the option to upgrade to something else if she desired, but given that would require acquiring other water blocks, we decided to stick with the GTX 660, and getting two again as well since we’ve already got the water blocks and there is no indication either was damaged.
But on the coolant side, I was originally planning to go with just plain distilled water and copper sulfate, which is an anti-microbial. I ultimately decided to go with Koolance’s coolant in the end to avoid impacting the warranty on the CPU block (EK’s warranties don’t carry such limitations). The Koolance CPU block is entirely nickel-plated copper, even on the side exposed to the fluid, which is perfect as the EK blocks are the same so there isn’t really any concern about mixed metals with regard to the blocks, only the fittings.
Now one thing I discovered searching around on EK’s website is their suggestion that copper sulphate additives not be used as they can tarnish the components, especially nickel components. Again that is what I had originally considered using, just plain distilled water and copper sulphate. And that is what pushed me too Koolance’s liquids. The fact I’m not affecting the warranty on the CPU block is just a nice plus.
Different pump
Around the time I purchased the second radiator that was going to be installed before this whole mess started, I also purchased another pump – the AlphaCool VPP655. Performance-PCs had a special on it, getting the pump body only, no housing, for $75, which is still going on as of the time I write this. Getting this pump to flow, however, when getting it tubed into the smaller radiator has been problematic. I purchased the Bitspower D5 mod top from my local Microcenter for housing it, and again it seemed to not want to flow regardless of what I did. So I found AlphaCool’s HF D5 top for their pump and ordered that in.
In hindsight I should’ve just ordered it to begin with, especially given the price difference. But hey, you live and learn. And now I have a spare D5 pump top. Perhaps I’ll list it on Amazon after I replace the screw that ended up falling down the sink drain.
So why did I go with the D5 pump? Well in trying to tube up the reservoir to her existing pump, I was going through different fittings trying to figure things out, and the threads on the Phobya pump stripped as a result. Fittings can get purchase on it, but in trying to tube things up it’s easy to wrench things loose without realizing it with how stripped the threads have become.
Plus the D5 pump just looked better in the Bitspower housing – and it’ll look still better in comparison to the Phobya pump in the Alpahcool housing I have on the way, especially with the LED I also ordered to go with the unused LED plug that came with the Bitspower reservoir.
And the D5 is considered the more powerful pump as well.
So I’ll just keep the Phobya pump around for creating makeshift loops for flushing components. I do still need to put the new radiator through the water filter, now that I think about it, even though I’ve washed several gallons of distilled water through it. Just to be sure it’s rinsed out completely.
More time to wait
All in all, though, we’re not exactly in a hurry to get another loop built out. Instead I’m more concerned with what Alphacool is going to determine when they receive and examine the CPU block. Now while I’d like to get working on a new water loop for my wife’s machine, I’m content in waiting, even if I wait till I get new graphics cards. I’ve already ordered new thermal pads for the blocks.
I’ve still got plenty to do in the interim. I need to flush out both radiators and both of the graphics card water blocks. I’ll likely need to soak all the fittings in distilled water as well to ensure all traces of the previous coolant is gone. I need to wait for the new pump housing so I can figure out how to tube up everything – actually I have an idea in mind on how to tube the pump to what will be the lower radiator, so it’s just a matter of getting things hooked up and testing for flow.
So there’s definitely more to come in the future on this. And hopefully sometime in the next month I’ll have a finished water loop that won’t leak again two months down the road.
Recall from a previous post regarding my wife’s computer that I’m having to rebuild it with a new mainboard. Part of this will require working with the front panel connector plugs, plugging them into the mainboard. I’ve always hated these things because they tend to require being plugged up while working in a tight space.
My wife’s build had the additional concern of the front panel connectors on her case – the Corsair 750D – not being able to reach. But I found extension cables by NZXT at my local Microcenter, so all was saved on that. Well the extension cables allowed me to build out different plugs for the cables, and the fact my wife’s computer caught fire and needed to be rebuilt was the perfect opportunity to try it out as a concept.
Basically I scrounged some USB connectors out of another case I had – actually my wife’s previous case – after pulling all the cables out. Tedious work, because I had to use a staple instead of what could be considered a proper tool, but it saved me from needing to order new ones. And using the FPIO pinout on her mainboard, I assembled two plugs from the extension cables that can then get plugged into her mainboard.
Looks a hell of a lot cleaner, right?
Now this does take a little work, but it definitely allows things to stay cleaner, and these plugs had the added benefit of not slipping off the mainboard’s pin array when tying them up, so I didn’t have to keep double-checking them.
If you want to do this yourself but don’t have any connectors you can scrounge, you can buy additional ones from Performance-PCs. Those ones have the benefit of not having any of the plugs blanked out, so they’ll have greater compatibility with more mainboards, since some mainboards have a full set of pins for the array – this one has blank spots – that could render USB-specific connectors useless.
Now on a full-tower case this isn’t always necessary as you’ll have more room around the mainboard and power supply for accessing the FPIO pin array on the mainboard. On smaller cases, like mid-towers and smaller, I highly recommend giving this a try. But before you do, I’d recommend getting a proper toolkit to help with this.
Yes the build log continues, but this iteration does not begin on a high note. And just to warn you, this is going to be a long article, but I cover a lot of things that happened in a short period of time with a lot of explanatory information as well.
About 8 weeks post-installation of my wife’s loop, we had a catastrophic failure of one of her components, and I think it’s the CPU block that failed. Recall from previous iterations of this series that the CPU block is the AlphaCool NexXxoS XP³ Light – Plexi Edition. In the loop we’d been using the Mayhem’s XT1 coolant diluted to about 1.5L, about a 10% dilution.
Prior to the failure, I had acquired an AlphaCool XT45 240mm radiator to install in the floor of my wife’s case. My intent with adding the second radiator was to also flush out the coolant and replace it with just straight distilled water and a few drops of copper sulfate. Her reservoir came with a silver plug so there would be no need for a kill coil. And I had intended on doing the installation the weekend following the catastrophic failure, after I had acquired the last of what I needed to do the installation.
Needless to say, those plans got scrapped.
The failure was beyond catastrophic to the point of it being lucky I was home. The leaking coolant fell onto the first graphics card and ignited, while some additional coolant fell to the second graphics card and caused some corrosion but did not ignite. Thankfully the flame didn’t last long, but I cut power and pulled the plug to be sure while also grabbing the fire extinguisher as an extra precaution – you do have one of these in your home, right? Had neither my wife or I been home – the failure occurred about 20 min after she left for work – what would we have been coming home to?
The material safety data sheet for the coolant specifies that the main ingredient is mono-ethylene glycol, which is classified as a flammable liquid – it likely shorted out several of the components on the graphics card where it made contact, causing it to ignite.
Once I was sure nothing was going to flare up, my first move was to drain the loop – that all-important drainage system I made sure to install and test comes in handy yet again. Then it was a matter of pulling things out, starting with the graphics cards. Things didn’t look good.
What led me to believe the CPU block was the cause of the failure was the drips of coolant that were hanging off it after I had drained the loop. You can see from the pictures that there were not any trails of coolant leading from the fittings, leading me to believe the perimeter of the block is what failed, likely from the o-ring inside it. This picture below shows drops of water still sitting on the lower edge of the CPU water block.
Under the graphics cards was a horror story as well, as you can tell by the above pictures. This is what happens when you mix flames with PCBs. The fact several of the electricity-regulating components got fried, literally, led me to declare all the singed components to be a total loss.
My concern then fell to what else might have been lost beyond the mainboard and graphics cards. The memory chips looked perfectly fine, but the scorching reached to alongside the CPU socket. Getting the block off the CPU, I was able to inspect it and didn’t see anything obvious wrong with it. There wasn’t any scorching or anything like that on the CPU, so I was confident it survived – though I would need to acquire another mainboard to know for certain to set up a bench test on both the CPU and memory chips with a spare video card.
So yet another trip to my local Microcenter was in order. In the mean time I needed to also get the larger radiator out of the system so I could flush it out, get all traces of the glycol coolant out of what remained of the loop, along with the pump and reservoir.
In the mean time, I also took some time to see if I could figure out what happened. I built a makeshift loop with another pump and reservoir and some spare fittings to get the CPU block back under pressure. One thing I noticed right away was the thickness of the water coming out of the loop, as if the glycol solution had separated and gelled up inside the block. How that could lead to the catastrophic failure I’m unsure, but I could definitely notice the water coming out of the block and back toward the reservoir was definitely not the same as the water that originally went in and it seemed a lot of the concentrate was being rinsed out.
Unfortunately I was not able to reproduce a leak, so I’m not sure what happened, and in hindsight I realized that what I could’ve done was hooked the pump to an external power supply to keep the loop under pressure to see if I could observe a leak. But when your system just caught fire, you’re probably not going to be thinking along those lines.
But I was still of the conclusion that the CPU block was to blame, either directly through a component failure, or indirectly by way of the coolant separating and gelling up. So the next task on the list was getting ahold of AlphaCool.
* * * * *
Contacting AlphaCool
Now trying to figure out how to contact AlphaCool was initially not easy, as their main website is a mix of English and German and I’m an English-only kind of person. So I contacted Performance-PCs, the retailer through which I ordered the block, for assistance in contacting AlphaCool to help get this or at the least investigated. Performance-PCs forwarded my e-mail of to their sales representative with AlphaCool UK who replied back to them with permission to give me his e-mail address. So I sent an e-mail directly to the sales rep:
Recall from the previous e-mail chain with Performance-PCs that the component in question is the AlphaCool NexXxoS XP3 Light – Plexi Edition. It was installed on an AMD FX-8350 processor on an ASRock 990FX Extreme4 mainboard.
How to begin on this… I believe the AlphaCool CPU water block that was being used in my wife’s computer failed in some way and leaked coolant inside her computer, causing components to literally catch fire. Thankfully the fire was small and did not last long, but it still caused the loss of two graphics cards plus her mainboard. I’m unsure if the memory and CPU were lost as well as I have not yet had an opportunity to test those, as I need to acquire a new mainboard first.
Getting back to the water block. It was installed about eight (8) weeks ago. The installation was smooth and the leak testing went smoothly as well and I had no reason to believe there was a leak from any of the components or fittings in the loop. Everything ran smoothly until yesterday afternoon when the aforementioned leak occurred. I’m unsure if the failure was due to the water block being faulty, or if the issue was caused or exacerbated by the coolant I chose for her system — Mayhem’s XT-1 Clear, which according to its material safety data sheet is made from monoethylene glycol (MSDS is available here: http://www.mayhems.co.uk/front/download/XT1-150ml-MSDS.pdf).
I also have pictures of the components following the failure, and I can forward those to you if you desire — they are several megabytes a piece which is why I have not just directly attached them here.
So the first thing I believe needs to happen is I need to get the CPU block back to AlphaCool to be examined. So starting with that, how can I get the process started to do that?
Again my intent with initiating contact was to find out if the CPU block actually failed, and AlphaCool would be best able to examine this. They can determine if the block did actually fail due to some fault in its manufacture, or if the coolant was the issue. If the coolant was the concern, then I would have to take things up with Mayhem’s. As it was a Friday afternoon my time when I contacted him, meaning Friday night in the UK, I realized it might be till the following Monday before I heard back.
And the following Monday I received a reply from AquaCool’s UK representative, pointing me to the details on how I can start a defective item claim through the Aqua Tuning store, which I started that evening after getting home as the support request required attaching pictures for defective items. Good thing I have a high quality camera.
* * * * *
Microcenter and Testing the hardware
At Microcenter, I considered getting her the same mainboard I run in my system, the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3, which Microcenter had for a shelf-price of $135. Unfortunately they did not have her original mainboard in stock anymore. But in searching their site the night of the fire, I discovered they had an ASUS Sabertooth R2.0 mainboard for $148 as an open box – it’s typically $185 on the shelf right now. So for only $13 more, I decided to spring for that given this is for a predominantly gaming machine that will, in the end, be overclocked and water cooled. Unfortunately the mainboard did not have the back-panel I/O shield, but I was able to order a replacement through ASUS’s eStore.
When I got home, I decided to break down the computer more out of the case. I discovered that the smell from the burnt PCB had gotten into the radiator, and I wasn’t sure how to get that smell out. I decided that the best attempt would be to run the fans that were on it continually to see if that would work. The smell was also on the case, and I wasn’t sure if I’d have to scrap it or if I could recover it in similar fashion. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to scrap either.
First order of business though would be testing the CPU and memory chips.
I set up a test workbench on the mainboard’s box, using the stock CPU cooler I still had around and a spare graphics card along with a spare power supply. Once I got everything seated and double-checked (the DRAM_LED on the mainboard kept trying to tell me the memory chips weren’t seated properly), I powered it up and watched as everything came to life. So far, so good, and meaning I wasn’t out yet another $300 in hardware for the processor and memory chips, or so I hoped.
But merely getting a response from the mainboard wouldn’t tell me if the CPU and chips suffered any damage, only that they were responding when the mainboard pinged them. To fully test them, I booted up an Ubuntu USB drive and pulled Prime95 off the web. Now for the CPU cooler I was using IC Diamond thermal compound, and the temperature maxed out at 53C according to Psensor, running Small FFT on all 8 cores to have them maxed out at 100%. I left that running for about an hour before declaring it done – if there were any major issues, I figured it would’ve been found within that time frame.
After that came the memory test with MemTest86+ – press F6 while the nearly-blank purple screen is displayed as the live drive is booting and select “Test Memory”. That test came back clean as well.
So thankfully the only losses were the graphics cards and the mainboard – the latter of which is already replaced simply because I needed it to make sure the CPU and memory chips weren’t dead as well, as well as set my wife up with a working system until I can start building out a water cooling loop again. That will happen when I get another CPU water block, as I’ll build out a CPU water loop at least since the stock AMD cooler sounds like a blow drier.
* * * * *
Smelly components
If you’ve ever had the wonderful opportunity to be in the vicinity of burning PCBs, you probably know the smell very readily. Prior to this, the last time I encountered that smell that I can readily recall was a little over 15 years ago when I attempted to upgrade a computer with an AT mainboard and power supply. Some of you probably know where this is going. I connected the power supply to the mainboard incorrectly, and fried the power supply and the mainboard as a result – literally there was smoke coming out of the power supply via the exhaust fan. My father was sitting in the living room at the time – we lived in a 3 bedroom apartment – and he recognized the smell straight away.
Now thankfully that smoke wasn’t accompanied by any flames, that I could readily tell at least, so the smell didn’t really linger. Unfortunately for my wife’s computer, the smell got into her radiator and also settled quite readily into her case. I wasn’t ready to declare them to be a loss, though, though I feared I would be doing so.
After getting her case virtually cleared out, I got the Bitspower X-Station out as well and used it for powering the fans on her radiator (Corsair SP120s) with an external power supply and let the fans blow overnight before checking on them. The smell was almost completely gone from the radiator after that. There was a slight lingering odor where there was a gap between two fans, but I wasn’t concerned as the vast majority of the smell was gone, though I did leave the fans blowing for another couple hours to clear out as much of the last as possible.
Taking that as a good sign, I set up a large fan to blow on her case. My wife and I had a concert in Omaha to see that day (Lindsey Stirling at the Sumtur Amphitheater in Papillion, NE), so there’d be plenty of time for the fan to do its work, hopefully. Now I knew the case would likely take longer simply because it’s larger but the fan did do the trick. We got home about 3am following the concert, and when I checked on the case I could not smell any of that burnt scent on it.
Another $225 in components saved.
* * * * *
Following up with AlphaCool
The reply to my e-mail to the AlphaCool support e-mail address would be from the UK rep. I had no idea the e-mail would be going to the same person, and worded my e-mail as such. The reply included two follow-up questions: was the pump still working and were the temperature alarms turned off on the mainboard?
The manual for the mainboard doesn’t specify any kind of configurable alarms, so the answer to the latter is No by default. I do know that many modern mainboards have temperature fail-safes: they will power the system off if the CPU gets too hot. And if you attempt to turn the system back on, it’ll either power down quickly or the BIOS will issue a beep code saying the CPU is overheating.
You might be surprised to know that this feature wasn’t implemented until relatively recently in computer years. This meant that prior to such an implementation, it was quite easy to cook your processor, and the mainboard with it. Computer processors get very, very hot – hotter than you can touch without burning your skin – even with the kind of air cooling solutions available. It is easy for the processor temperature to jump into the 40s Celsius in just the first 15 seconds after you turn on the computer, and that’s with the processor fan on. Without the fan on, or without a cooling solution on the processor at all, temperatures can fast climb over 100 Celsius and higher, getting hot enough to literally fry the processor and mainboard – search YouTube for ‘cpu no heatsink’ and you’ll find some videos showing this.
Recently I saw a video of a guy building a computer where he didn’t even put the cooling solution onto his processor before getting it powered on. He had a somewhat good reason for doing so: he wanted to get the computer to POST before continuing further, as if it didn’t POST, then he would’ve had reason to believe something was faulty. Without those failsafes, though, he could’ve easily fried his machine doing that. And as in that video he was using an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme mainboard with an Intel i7 3930K processor – i.e. $1,000 worth of components according to NewEgg’s current pricing – it was one costly risk to take that thankfully worked out in the end.
Personally, I was waiting for the thing to practically burst into flame watching the video.
And I certainly understand the nature of the question regarding the pump, given that in my e-mail to the support address and the earlier e-mail, I’m alleging that the failure of the component that is still under warranty and should not have failed caused the loss of several hundred dollars in components. So naturally he’s going to want to ask a few additional questions to determine if another failure in the system led to the block failing. And as CPUs can get pretty hot, if the pump failed, then the coolant would start heating up, possibly causing a build-up of steam pressure inside the loop, with coolant leaking at the first point of failure.
But I tested the pump by setting up a makeshift loop and all was well. So far everything still points to the CPU block.
* * * * *
And that is where I’ll call this iteration. I’ll be sending the block into AlphaCool later this week, which will be interesting since I’ve never actually mailed anything international before – AlphaCool is in Germany. I’ll continue with another iteration once I hear back from AlphaCool on the status of the water block or if I have anything new to add with regard to getting my wife’s system back up and running.
There seems to be more and more articles showing up about women talking about what has become known as "street harassment". I recently encountered one such article today, courtesy of one of my Facebook friends. And the common denominator among all of these articles is this: this is what happened to me, and we know the problem is pervasive in society.
And then skeptical people like me come along and ask one question that has yet to be answered: how pervasive is it, and what evidence can corroborate this alleged pervasiveness? Because the rule of thumb with most skeptically minded people is simply that the plural of anecdote is not data. Yet merely calling into question the pervasiveness of such harassment tends to get me labeled quite quickly: misogynist, rape apologist, victim blamer, and on from there. Hell even suggesting that women carry firearms, as it’s been shown that presenting a firearm to a potential attacker will get you out of that situation virtually every time, gets me labeled the same by much the same people.
On the mark of there not being really any significant amount of data backing up the claim that street harassment is pervasive, I have one question: given the pervasiveness of camera phones and smartphones, and smaller video-capable cameras also available on the market, where is the video of this occurring? I mean video cameras and their mere presence is enough to keep police officers at bay – mostly.
The author of the above-linked article noted that much of her harassment occurred while she was riding her bike. She doesn’t need to just merely put up with it, but why is her response to it merely complaining about it, either to her boyfriend or, now, online? Why are the subsequent events to this alleged harassment merely just writing about it or complaining about it? Why does it seem no one is actually doing anything about it?
I’d wager that if the author of that article had a small camera mounted to her bike that was constantly recording, with the blinking light clearly and plainly visible, she’d probably get left alone a good majority of the time. I’m not going to say 100% of the time, but it’d probably come pretty close as there are always going to be assholes out there who will be assholes even if a camera is rolling. And the harassment events she does capture will have clear and decisive evidence to back it up – possibly evidence that could stand up in Court.
Yet no one seems to be taking such a pro-active role in trying to combat this "epidemic" of harassment against women. And I don’t understand it. Instead it seems the programmed response to saying that women need to be pro-active is, "We need to tell men to not rape", or something along those lines. And the cycle continues, and the only thing women do about it is complain or wallow in secrecy.
Meanwhile people like me, who say that pro-active measures need to be taken, are called victim blamers, rape apologists and misogynists.
Let me put it this way: if merely telling or teaching people to not break into homes actually worked, home alarms and car alarms wouldn’t be necessary. If merely telling people to not kill was enough, concealed carry wouldn’t be a consideration. And if telling men to not rape – and telling women to not rape as well – was all it took, women wouldn’t have any basis for complaint. So why is it that women continue to want to take passive roles on this? Why do they continue to suffer, only to complain about it online or in secret, when there are proactive measures they can take to actually combat the problem?
It makes me wonder if they actually want the problem to go away. I’m not talking about the women who are actually being victims. I’m certain they want the issue to disappear. I’m talking about the women who seem to be fueled by each story of this happening, the ones whose livelihoods are funded by the fact this issue exists. I’m really starting to wonder if they actually want the issue to go away. If they did, they’d be calling for women to be more proactive. The means exist to be more proactive. We have the technology, yet it doesn’t seem to be getting used. Why not?
I really think it’s because there is a small group of women who need these victims to not only exist but for more to keep cropping up. And until women get more pro-active about harassment, they will not only be victims for their harassers, but will also be used by those who need them around for their own livelihoods.
And really that seems to be a problem, not just with street harassment, but in general. Too many people are making money or gaining political power from the victims of harassment and violent crime, meaning I don’t believe they genuinely want the issue to go away or become a very infrequent occurrence, because their power and money would then dry up in short order.
Back in December 2012, just after the Sandy Hook tragedy, the anti-gunners were hoping that the incident would turn gun laws in their direction, hoping that it would lead to numerous new restrictions on firearms. While they would win in many State legislatures – in States already having restrictive gun laws, so they wouldn’t exactly gain any new ground – they would lose at the Federal level.
Here’s the irony: California already gives the anti-gunners, the “gun control lobby”, most everything they could want, and it still could not stop a lunatic with an inferiority complex. Elliot Rodger passed not just one, but two background checks. And this isn’t the NICS “instant” background check, but a background check conducted across a 10-day waiting period. He legally acquired two 9mm pistols. And under California law, those pistols also had to be registered with the State, and he had to pass a firearms safety course prior to purchasing his first pistol as well.
So why did this not work? Why did laws not stop him? Because like the other mass shooters before him, laws did not dissuade him. The bureaucratic hurdles lawmakers threw in front of him didn’t slow him down. He had his mind set on killing women. His manifesto detailed his plans. This was a man with an extreme inferiority complex combined with one hell of a sense of entitlement, who wanted to make the world suffer because the world wasn’t giving him what he felt he had coming.
He even made disturbing videos and posted them online, and his behavior was becoming increasingly worrisome, resulting in a visit by the police. Why did the police not move to seize his firearms? Was there nothing under California law allowing the police to obtain a seizure warrant through the Court? Was there nothing the State of California could’ve done that could’ve prevented this tragedy? At the least, was no one in law enforcement watching his YouTube account?
Instead people are once again blaming gun owners. And the reason is quite simple: the person on whom all blame should instead be laid put a bullet through his head.
This incident has the gun control lobby pretty much backed into a corner. The only legitimate move they have now is to call for outright bans on firearms. Nothing they could request will ever again be seen as “common sense”. Everything else they’ve called “common sense” and “necessary to prevent future tragedies” failed to stop such a tragedy.
So now anything less than a complete and total ban on firearms called for by any anti-gun group is pretty much a petty exercise, because Isla Vista shows it won’t be enough, that it won’t meet the ends they claimed it would meet.
In short, virtually all of gun control’s claims pretty much died with the Isla Vista killer and his six victims.
Recently in the news you’ve probably been hearing a lot about "smart" firearms. The concept is simple: a firearm with an electronic "lock" that must be disengaged in an appropriate manner before the firearm can discharge. The flaws with the concept are immense and myths abound about it. So let’s get into this.
First, proper care of any firearm requires disassembly so you can clean it. Sometimes the takedown is simple to clean out the barrel and firing chamber, perhaps scrub out the slide. Every once in a while the takedown needs to be a bit more involved to clean out gunk that gets into all kinds of nooks and crannies and piles up over time. If you own a Beretta 92, you probably know that periodically you need to remove the extractor and clean under it – and you’ve probably seen what can build up under there over time.
It’s one of the reasons Glocks are so popular, as they are quite easy to properly maintain.
This means that because disassembly is a mandatory part of maintenance, there would need to be disassembly instructions available, meaning instructions to potentially get to the electronic lock on the firearm and either bypass it or completely remove it.
Now it’s a common assertion for anti-gun proponents that the NRA is "blocking" smart guns from coming to market – which is not true, they are only seeking to block mandates surrounding them, such as the one in New Jersey. They say these guns are needed because they can "only" be fired by the person who owns it. This is not true.
For one, any firearm that would rely on a radio signal to function can be jammed. This means that if these firearms started becoming standard issue for military and police, signal jammers, despite their illegality, would start becoming widely popular among gangs, organized crime syndicates, terrorists, and the like. Guaranteed.
Second, the eletronic discharge authorization mechanism – the electronic "lock", so to speak – can be bypassed or removed altogether, meaning the safety mechanism that gun control proponents are most demanding (short of an outright ban on civilian firearm ownership) is easily bypassed or disabled. All it’d take is a multimeter to various contact points on the circuit board to find out which chip to bypass, in which case it’s a simple solder job to render the "lock" inoperable. Meaning the stolen firearm that wouldn’t work because of a biometric or RF lock is no longer inoperable and can be used like any other firearm.
But you know what cannot be easily bypassed? The safety mechanisms already built into every firearm on the market today, because they are tightly integrated into the function of the firearm.
Plus, depending on how the firearm is built, something as simple as a static discharge to the body of the firearm could render it dead. So hopefully whoever’s making these "smart" firearms are doing some ESD tests across the entire body of the firearm.
"Oh but we can pass a law that makes it illegal to bypass such mechanisms." For one, most States already have such laws, as the laws against defacing a firearm would apply to attempting to modify or disable such electronic mechanisms. But do you really think that’d stop people from doing it?
And how much effect do you think that’d have on the illegal arms trade, both in the US and abroad? Likely none, since a lot of firearms are defaced or illegally modified before being sold on the illicit markets – an example is modifying the mechanisms that prevent automatic fire in a semi-auto firearm.
Plus if a person disables the electronic lock, how can a police officer determine if the lock is functioning? They have to discharge it. So are they going to discharge it during a roadside detention for something minor? Absolutely not, because it would be an unjustifiable discharge of a firearm and expose the officer to potential criminal liability. So they’d have to seize the firearm to either examine it on sight or take it to a lab, which would require probable cause under the Fourth Amendment, meaning if challenged the officer would have to demonstrate through evidence a very sound reason to believe the firearm they seized was illegally modified.
Too many gun control proponents appear to look at "smart" firearms as their Holy Grail without looking at the fake gems and flaking gold leafing coming off the chalice to reveal the smart firearm to be anything but.
Ah AMD or Intel? If you’re building a computer, you’ve probably debated this idea. You’ve probably even run some numbers, done some reaserch to see what benchmarks look like, and probably only come out of it even more confused than you did going in. Which should you buy?
Well on price point, AMD will save you money. This isn’t without its tradeoffs though, as Intel beats AMD in most every benchmark that matters except one: heat. Intels knowingly run hotter than AMD chips, and this is because of a known change that Intel made to their processors with the Ivy Bridge line, but I’m not going to get into that. Just know that if you buy Intel, you’re not only paying more for your processor, you’re going to need much better cooling capacity for it.
But overall, which should you go for?
Well I’ll just give you an idea of what I do, along with my desktop’s specifications. First, I do games. I run mostly FPS games like Bioshock Infinite, but I do other games as well like Diablo III, Max Payne 3, and Unreal Tournament. Basically I have a range of games that have a range of requirements. I’m also a professional software engineer, and I write code on my desktop machine.
Graphics card cooling: Kraken G10 and ThermalTake Water 2.0 Performer for cooling, using Corsair SP120 fan instead of stock fans
Memory: 8 GB
Hard drive: Western Digital Black 1 TB
I’ve actually been running AMD chips for over 15 years predominantly. I’ve had Intel only once that I can recall. Here’s what chips I’ve run in the past:
Intel 486DX-2 66MHz
AMD K6-2 333 MHz initially, then upgraded to 500 MHz
AMD Athlon 800 MHz (Slot A)
AMD Athlon XP (can’t recall specifically which)
AMD X2 4200+
So I’ve typically gone with AMD, and I’ve never had issues.
Initially I went with AMD because the Intel 486DX-2 was an AT mainboard in an AT case, so upgrading from that and keeping my case meant going with an AT mainboard, specifically a baby-AT mainboard. This was 1999, mind you, and the baby AT mainboard I purchased (it was an EFA P5MVP3-AT) had both AT and ATX compatibility, and you could buy ATX cases that supported baby-AT mainboard with ATX connectors. For all the IT guys who’ve been around the block, hands up if you’ve ever fried an AT power supply because you connected it wrong! Initially when I ran that mainboard, I think I actually had a Cyrix processor and then traded up to the K6-2 after a short while.
It wouldn’t be until after I’d received my Associate’s degree and was pursuing my Bachelor’s degree that I’d upgrade to an ATX case while sticking with the baby-AT board. But having the ATX case allowed me better upgrade options, and I took on an AMD Athlon (Slot A) processor/mainboard combination my college roommate was selling off after he upgraded to something better. I ran that for a year before upgrading to the Athlon XP. And I ran that for almost 3 years before upgrading to the X2 in mid-2007. And I upgraded from the AMD X2 only this past December, when I went with an AMD FX-8350, meaning I had the X2 for about 6 1/2 years.
And I’ve never regretted sticking with AMD because I could not justify the higher price tag of the Intel chips and mainboards. Even with the laptops I’ve owned, I’ve gone with AMD. And I would argue that for most PC users, AMD is the way to go. You’ll get pretty good performance, and an Intel chip won’t provide noticeable differences in most anything a typical user could throw at it.
Now for things that are more CPU intensive, then you may want to lean toward Intel. But the only way you could justify it is if your livelihood rested on you having the Intel processor. For example, if you do professional photography, videography, cinematography or film development, or you’re a marketing consultant or contractor making advertising campaigns. Basically if you’re doing things that are very high end, where every little bit of performance makes the difference between meeting a deadline or not.
For gaming, go with AMD. The only place where Intel beats AMD with regard to gaming is benchmarks. But the performance difference is not something you’ll actually see. Any FPS that is above the refresh rate of your monitor it won’t display. And as long as the FPS is in the 40s or better, sustainably, you won’t really notice anything better than that. Your eyes can’t tell the difference between 50 FPS and 80 FPS unless you’ve got a crappy monitor. Remember that television is 29.97 frames per second for NTSC, 25 frames per second for PAL, and most film is at 23.97 or 24 frames per second. Virtually all videos you watch on YouTube will be 30 frames per second at best.
So if you are a gamer, go with AMD and take the money you’d save and either go with more memory, a better mainboard, a better graphics card, or better cooling. You could even take it and go with a better case if you’ve otherwise budgeted on everything else. The money you save going with AMD can be poured into your system elsewhere where it will count, and for many games, your GPU matters more.
If you’re a developer, unless you absolutely must have Intel, go with AMD and take the money you otherwise would’ve spent and go with better storage options, whether internal or external. If you’re going to be running virtual machines or doing any kind of virtualization – such as for Android or Windows Phone development – then memory is where you should concentrate, as you’ll want the fastest and largest amount of memory you can afford, so pour your money there.
Only if you find yourself in need of triple or quad-channel memory should you go with Intel or one of the server AMD options, but that’s going to cost you one hell of a premium. You’ll need an Intel i7 3820, 39xx or 49xx processor and a mainboard with 6 or 8 DIMM slots. The i7 3820 retails for around $300, while the 3930K is about $600 depending on retailer. And the mainboards are going to run several hundred dollars as well. Unless you’re running multiple VMs simultaneously on your desktop, you’re not going to need that and an AMD FX processor with dual-channel RAM will suit you just fine – just make sure you have plenty of RAM for when you’re running VMs depending on what operating systems you’ll be running.
Now after all of this, some might call me an AMD fanboy. Except I’ve gone with AMD all this time merely because of value. AMD is the better value overall in my opinion, and it will be for most people as well. And the money saved by going with AMD can be poured into other areas that’ll get better bang for the buck: more or better memory, a better mainboard, better storage options or more storage, better cooling, and so on.
In short, unless your livelihood rests on your computer’s raw performance, save your money and go with AMD.
Just as many atheists say that “atheism is a lack of belief in a god or gods” is one phrase that irks me to no end, another common statement that I’ve always found troubling is “atheism is a religion like off is a TV channel”. Along a similar vein, “atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color”. Aside from being childish, they’re not correct. And they also assist to undermine the legal protection of the First Amendment to which all atheists are entitled.
This is the proper comparison: atheism is a religion like not speaking is speech. Let me explain.
I’ve already explained how the freedom of speech includes the right to withhold speech. The Supreme Court of the United States has numerous times defended the freedom of speech against laws that compel people to actually say something:
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.
— West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 US 624 (1943) at 642
They have also defended the freedom of religious expression against laws that compel a person to proclaim belief in a deity:
We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person “to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”
— Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 US 488 (1961) at 495
The right of a person to not speak is a right considered so sacred that law enforcement is required to inform you of that right before you are interrogated, though whether you actually exercise that right by shutting up is up to you. Clearly the idea that you cannot be compelled to speak, except under certain conditions (such as an oath of office, being sworn into the military, etc…), is so sacred that to say “atheism is a religion like off is a TV channel” or something like that is just completely stupid.
Again atheism is a religion just as not speaking is a form of speech. You cannot be compelled to speak and you cannot be censored except in very, very rare circumstances. Both are protected by the First Amendment. No person can be prescribed to or proscribed from proclaiming a belief in a deity as well. And as atheism is not believing in a deity (it’s not a “lack of belief” as so many atheists assert, continually), the proper assertion is that atheism is a religion just as silence is speech.
So yes, atheism is a religion. Not in the same way as Christianity, as so many Christians like to assert. Instead, again, atheism is to religion what silence is to speech. Plain and simple.
And let’s shoot down a couple common retorts before they have a chance to rear their ugly heads. First, not teaching Christianity is not the same as teaching atheism – i.e. not telling a student that the Christian god exists is not the same as telling them no deity exists. That’s like saying not teaching a child that oranges exist is the same as telling them they don’t exist. Sorry but it doesn’t work that way.
And teaching evolution is not teaching atheism. Evolution is not the “atheist creed” either, as many Christians – especially creationists – like to assert. Atheism doesn’t have any creed – though if the Atheism+ people have their way, that’ll likely change.
Cynthia Tucker is a columnist with a column called "As I See It" published through uExpress. Her recent article is titled "America is Exceptionally Dumb When to [sic] Comes to Guns". This should be a rather easy response, given some of the language and rhetoric she employs quite early on. So let’s get into this.
While Americans typically laud our national "exceptionalism" — a sense that the trajectory of history has bestowed greatness upon the United States — there are a few of our distinctive characteristics that don’t deserve celebration. On the subject of firearms, for example, the United States is exceptionally irrational. No other nation has set guns aside as an object of worship.
It is true that every nation has characteristics that don’t deserve celebration, some more so than others. But in the United States, guns are not seen as "objects of worship". It is what they represent that is worshipped. Given that you are black, I’m going to make a presumption that you are Christian. Do you worship the cross, or do you worship what a cross represents? If you say the former, you are an idolater according to the Bible.
So what then do guns represent? Quite simply: individual power. And with individual power, freedom.
We have let a blood-soaked gun lobby dictate our laws and regulations on firearms;
"Blood-soaked gun lobby"? These words alone tell me that the rest of your article is going to be nothing but fallacies and lies. You are basically pitting the blame for every firearms death in history on every gun owner in the United States simply by shear fact that we own firearms. Wouldn’t surprise me if you feel that every other gun owner is to blame for Sandy Hook, including the woman whose firearms were actually used in that massacre, the same woman who was killed before the massacre actually occurred.
The one thing many seem to forget, you included, is that the gun lobby is actually every gun owner in the United States. I am part of the gun lobby through my membership to the United States Concealed Carry Association. About 5 million individuals are members of the gun lobby through their memberships to the National Rifle Association.
It isn’t the "gun lobby" dictating America’s policy on guns. It is the citizens belonging to those organizations.
we have passed "stand your ground" laws that allow violent and angry men to murder unarmed people;
And no talk on the "blood soaked gun lobby" would be complete without bringing up Trayvon Martin, now would it? For one, George Zimmerman never tried to use "stand your ground" as a defense in Court. There was no justification for it, as the evidence shows Zimmerman was not even on his feet when he fired his weapon. There was no discernable distance between him and Martin when Martin was shot.
But the laws don’t allow for the murder of unarmed people. "Stand your ground" still requires a justifiable claim of self defense, along with a demonstration through evidence that the law applies to your specific case. Stop taking your education on the law through the press and actually do some real research.
we have given the mentally unstable the ability to buy military-style assault weapons with which they wreak havoc on crowds.
No, the mentally unstable are specifically barred by law from being able to do such.
But here’s the thing, and it hits on a foundational principle in the United States: the person must be declared mentally unstable in a Court of Law to lose the right to possess firearms. You see, we have this thing called "due process". And we have a requirement in the United States that before a person can lose any rights, they must first be adjudicated by a Court.
Now if a person who has been adjudicated mentally unstable is still able to purchase a firearm, that is a concern that needs to be addressed with the NICS system, which is something that the President sought to address through executive order.
In addition, we have allowed the gun lobby to suppress research into the public health consequences of our firearms-worshipping culture. Indeed, U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. — running in a crowded GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat — has recently reversed himself, going back on an earlier pledge to support such studies. It hardly gets any loonier than that.
The gun lobby has not suppressed such research. The research has actually been going on.
What was suppressed was government funding of that research, specifically research that is to be performed by the United States Public Health Service, which has a stated anti-gun agenda. The goal of public research regarding guns is to manufacture or misinterpret data to the point where a ban can be seen as necessary for the preservation of public health. It is one of the reasons the NRA blew up with regard to Obama’s latest nominee for Surgeon General.
Science is not supposed to have any kind of agenda, yet with guns that seems unavoidable for some reason. But regardless, science should not dictate policy that will be used to limit rights. After all, data exists that suggests that atheists have better sex lives than the religious, and sex is seen as a necessary part of a healthy relationship. So should we outlaw religion so people can have better sex, and therefore better relationships and lives overall?
In the 1990s, the National Rifle Association successfully stymied public health researchers who wanted to study the causes and consequences of gun violence.
Your description of the research is incomplete. They wanted to study the consequences of gun violence with the express intent of justifying a ban on all firearms, that dastardly Constitution and its Second Amendment notwithstanding.
The gun lobby clearly fears that science will discover that guns are dangerous and that, well, more guns are more dangerous.
It’s not the science that is feared, but the politicians who will use that science to further their agenda. Plus, as I’ve already said, the research has been going on absent the public funding, so the gun lobby hasn’t suppressed anything except a source of funding. In fact, I believe the NRA has actually funded research regarding guns and violence.
However, after the Sandy Hook atrocity in December 2012, it appeared that the dead bodies of 20 small children — and six adults — might be enough to finally restore some sanity to the national conversation.
So because the "national conversation" hasn’t been going the way you feel it should, it has not been sane? Interesting take on that. It’s also interesting that you you mention the six adult victims of that atrocity as merely a side statement instead of part of your main thought. Were their lives no less valuable than the children who were killed, or are their deaths somehow less politically convenient?
Indeed in mentioning the Tuscon shooting that put a bullet through Gabrielle Giffords’ head, I see it hardly ever mentioned that there was a 9 year-old girl who was killed that day: Christina Taylor Green, who was born September 11, 2001. Instead all of the focus is on Giffords, and not really on any of the dead from that day. Why is that? Likely because Christina was the only child killed that day – i.e. there weren’t enough dead children to give it much attention.
Sandy Hook, on the other hand, was a blood-filled gold mine for the anti-gun crowd.
But Sandy Hook didn’t restore sanity to the national conversation. It filled it with even more insanity. All you have to do is look at the legislation introduced in its wake, not just in Congress, but in the State legislatures throughout the United States and look at what States like New York, Colorado and Connecticut have passed in the name of Sandy Hook.
So Kingston has dutifully signed up to block Obama’s request for CDC funding for gun violence research, telling ProPublica recently that "the president’s request to fund propaganda for his gun-grabbing initiatives through the CDC will not be included" in the next appropriations bill.
Again, that is because the CDC and the United States Public Health Service have a stated anti-gun agenda and a stated anti-gun bias.
That means that some of the questions we desperately need answered won’t get the inquiry they deserve: Do background checks deter gun violence? How many mass shooters had a detectable mental illness? What is the link between suicide and gun ownership? Even Kingston’s question about a possible link between violent video games and mass shootings won’t be studied.
Actually all of these questions and more have been studied.
Do background checks deter gun violence? The correlation exists, but I don’t believe causation has been established, and likely won’t as the NICS went into operation in late 1998, five years into the declining trend in overall violence in the US.
How many mass shooters had a detectable mental illness? I believe the answer so far has been close to all of them. You don’t even need a study to answer that question. Doing some research just with Wikipedia will give you that answer. But I know the continuation of that question is "and what can we have done to prevent those people from having access to guns?" Answer: not much without a Court intervening.
What is the link between suicide and gun ownership? Quoting Harvard University:
The preponderance of current evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for youth suicide in the United States. The evidence that gun availability increases the suicide rates of adults is credible, but is currently less compelling.
And it has been shown that there is no link between violent video games and mass shootings, so there is no need to address that question. Close to all of the mass shooters were not known gamers, and virtually all gamers are not people who will commit mass shootings. Ever since the rumors circulated that the Columbine killers played Doom, video games have been a scapegoat because it’s something easy to blame rather than looking at the real problem.
Interestingly, guns are quite easy to blame as well, and have been readily blamed.
Even before Columbine, the Federal government was looking into violent video games, in particular due to the infamous Mortal Kombat, along with lesser-known titles. And there has actually been nothing to suggest that violent video games increase violence, and plenty of data to the contrary.
Recall that since 1993, violent crime in the United States has been on a steady decline, despite the consumption of violent video games being on a constant increase. Even the United States Army decided to get in on that action. Mass shootings have been nothing but a drop in the bucket as far as overall violence is concerned as well. Horrible as such tragedies are, they are dwarfed by the number of other firearms victims – homicide, suicide and accidental combined – which is still further dwarfed by the number of people killed in car accidents.
One thing that continually irks me is the implication or assertion by anti-gun propagandists that we don’t have much regulation or restriction on firearms in the United States. With regard to concealed carry, I made this statement in a YouTube comment:
Here in KC, there’ve been random shootings nearby where I work. In fact along streets I must drive to get to work. I’ve been a CCW for over a year and keep my firearm in my vehicle while in the building (don’t want to get fired carrying it), but over the last couple days I’ve been making sure it’s in ready reach while in my car.
And that’s just the most recent example of why I carry.
Another commenter responded with this:
Maybe if we had SOME reasonable gun restrictions, those random shootings might be reduced. Just sayin’.
Just saying… I replied with this:
There are already so, so, so many laws on the books governing the use, misuse and even potential misuse of firearms that people like you are completely oblivious. Even my pro-gun parents were surprised to learn that I purchased two pistols online — i.e. in the same way James Holmes is alleged to have — and then I detailed all the steps I needed to go through after paying for the gun just to be able to take possession of it.
Trust me, we have plenty of restrictions on guns, their acquisition, use, misuse, potential misuse, and ownership. I think we’ve long, long ago passed the point of diminished returns.
So what kind of laws and regulations are we talking about? Well using the Revised Statutes for the State of Missouri (RSMO), I thought I’d detail every law that I could potentially break just by taking my firearm out of my apartment. Now as I said earlier, I do have a Missouri CCW endorsement, issued by the Office of the Sheriff for Clay County, MO. First two statutes are universally applicable to me due to my CCW endorsement:
RSMO 571.030(1)(1): Missouri law does not allow for the concealed carry of a firearm.
RSMO 571.030(4): Applicability of RSMO 571.030(1)(1) is exempted for persons who have a "valid concealed carry permit issued pursuant to sections 571.101 to 571.121". This section also allows for "universal" concealed carry, in that anyone with a valid concealed carry permit or endorsement issued by any State in the US or political subdivision therein is allowed to carry concealed in Missouri.
RSMO 571.121(1): Whenever I have my firearm on my person, I must also have my endorsement with me as well. Failure to produce it upon demand by a law enforcement officer is an infraction carrying up to a $35 fine.
If my firearm becomes visible in any way while I am outside my home, I become subject to RSMO 571.037, which allows that I can "briefly and openly display the firearm to the ordinary sight of another person", so long as I take care to ensure it is only "briefly" visible. This could be due to my shirt riding up for any reason other than me intentionally revealing my firearm, as intentionally revealing my firearm could be considered intentionally displaying my firearm "in an angry or threatening manner".
I mean, think about it, if I’m out in public, chances are if I intentionally reveal my firearm, it’s going to be in an angry or threatening manner. I’m likely not going to stand out on a street corner talking to a friend or neighbor, only to pull out my gun to say "Check this out!" Typically if a gun is in someone’s hands outside of a gun range or gun shop, the intent is to display the firearm as a show of force. And I am only allowed to do this in response to a threat – i.e. for self defense.
One evening my wife and I were in line at a local Italian restaurant. Standing in the foyer were two police officers, and a third I knew had just pulled up and was behind us walking in. I had my firearm on me, but my wife did not. The officers allowed us to go ahead of them as they were waiting on the other officer who had come in behind us. After ordering our food, I needed to bend over the counter slightly to sign the check… in front three police officers. Had my shirt ridden up to reveal my firearm, I probably would’ve been momentarily detained by them and asked to show them my endorsement.
If someone else had seen the firearm, things probably would’ve been far from smooth. I cannot predict in advance how someone will respond should they see my firearm due to it becoming unintentionally exposed. And if someone becomes alarmed that I’m carrying a firearm and they create a scene, the person who creates the scene upon noticing my otherwise lawful activity could actually be arrested for disturbing the peace, RSMO 574.010. If I’m in a private establishment and that person catches the attention of the establishment’s management, then that management can ask me to leave. My refusal to leave would be a first-degree trespass, class B misdemeanor under RSMO 569.140.
I become subject to RSMO 571.037 whenever I take my firearm out of my holster while I’m outside my apartment, even if I’m on my back patio. In my case, this would likely occur when I am transferring my firearm from my holster to a lock box I keep in my vehicle, or from the lock box back to my holster. RSMO 571.030(3) allows me to store my firearm in my vehicle. If I take the firearm out of the holster and display it in what could be considered a threatening manner without justification (i.e. self defense), I could be charged with "assault in the third degree" – RSMO 565.070 – which is a class C misdemeanor at minimum, which carries a prison term of not more than 15 days [RSMO 558.011(1)(7)]. If I’m shown to have acted "recklessly", then it becomes a Class A misdemeanor, which carries a prison term of not more than one year [RSMO 558.011(1)(5)].
Even with a concealed carry permit, however, I cannot walk just anywhere with my concealed firearm. RSMO 571.107 provides for numerous places in which I cannot carry my firearm, and ties into Federal law with subsection 9, "Any place where the carrying of a firearm is prohibited by federal law".
However, those statutes only apply to the building in question and not to my vehicle. So if I’m parked at a public school, I can stow my firearm in the lock box of my vehicle and be perfectly fine. If I exit my vehicle with my firearm, things become questionable, and I’m certainly breaking the law if I actually enter the school building with it, or any facility considered attached to the school, such as a stadium. The typical language of the vehicle exemption states:
Possession of a firearm in a vehicle on the premises of the [prohibited location] shall not be a criminal offense so long as the firearm is not removed from the vehicle or brandished while the vehicle is on the premises
The prohibited locations include:
Any state or local law enforcement office or station
Within 25 feet of a polling place on an election day
Any adult or juvenile corrections facility
Any building that has court rooms within it (not limited to just court houses)
Any building for any local, county or State government agency or legislature
Any place that is primarily devoted to the sale or dispensation of alcoholic beverages, without consent of the owner
Areas of an airport in which access requires being searched or inspected
Public or private elementary or secondary schools, colleges or universities without consent of that school’s governing body or a school board official
Child care facilities without consent of the manager
Gambling operations without consent of the owner or manager, pursuant to gaming commission rules
Gated areas of an amusement park
Places of religious worship without the consent of the minister or other persons exercising control over the place of worship
Private property where the owner has posted that weapons are not allowed, so long as the posting meets certain minimum requirements
Sports arenas or stadium with seating for 5000 or more persons
Hospitals
Carrying my firearm into one of these prohibited locations is not a criminal act, but is an offense similar to a traffic infraction, except where a stricter definition is provided in RSMO 571.030. Now if I walk into one of these locations and draw my firearm without justification, it becomes a Class C misdemeanor at minimum, as noted above. Multiple offenses risk suspension or revocation of my concealed carry endorsement, in which case I become subject to RSMO 571.030(1)(1), a class D felony, punishable by a prison term of up to 4 years [RSMO 558.011(1)(4)].
Speaking of RSMO 571.030, let’s get into this, shall we. I’ve already said that carrying a concealed firearm without a permit is a Class D felony in Missouri, but what else is prohibited, and under what classification of offense do they fall? Section 1 of that statute provides the breakdown:
Discharging or shooting a firearm into a dwelling, train, boat, aircraft, motor vehicle, or any building or structure in which people assemble such as a business establishment [class D felony]
Exhibits in an angry or threatening manner, in the presence of others, a weapon readily capable of lethal use [class D felony]
Possess a readily usable firearm or projectile weapon while intoxicated, or handles or uses such weapon in a negligent or unlawful manner, or discharges the weapon unless acting in self defense [class A misdemeanor if unloaded, class D felony if loaded]
Discharging a firearm within 100 yards of any occupied schoolhouse, courthouse, or place of worship [class B felony]
Discharging a firearm at a mark, at any object, or at random [class B felony]
Discharging a firearm on, along, or across a public highway or discharges the firearm into any outbuilding [class B felony]
Carrying a firearm or weapon into a place where people have assembled to worship [class B felony]
Carrying a firearm into an election precinct on an election day [class B felony]
Carrying a firearm into any building owned or occupied by any Federal, State or local government agency [class B felony]
Discharging a firearm at or from a motor vehicle, at another person, at any other motor vehicle, or at a building or habitable structure, unless acting in self defense [class A felony if a person is killed, class B felony if not]
Carrying a firearm, loaded or not, or any other weapon into a school, onto a school bus, or onto the premises of any school sanctioned event or function [class A misdemeanor if unloaded, class D felony if loaded]
I think this about covers pretty much everything…
Now there are exceptions to all of these, but those exceptions generally do not apply to civilians. Again, class D felonies carry up to 4 years in prison. The the items noted as class B felonies carry prison terms of no less than 5 years and no more than 15 years in prison. Any violation that results in injury or death is processed as a class A felony, which carries a prison term of no less than 10 years in prison to no more than 30 years in prison, or imprisonment for life. So all of these offenses carry prison terms with them.
This basically means that any use of a firearm that cannot be justified as self defense, or that does not occur at a firing range, means you go to jail, even in the gun-friendly State of Missouri. If my firearm is ever in my hand outside of my apartment, I could be in violation of criminal laws that carry jail time and potentially huge fines. To anyone who believes there already is not any reasonable regulation or restriction on firearms, let the above show you how wrong you are.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as Federal law provides for further offenses, though you generally need to be crossing State lines or acting in some manner that brings the Federal government’s interstate commerce regulations into play.
But I can hear the anti-gun nuts already. "Well that covers after you already have a gun." True. But acquisition of a firearm is already covered under the law. Again I’ll be going just on Missouri’s statutes here. Now before getting into this, the vast majority of firearms acquisitions occur through licensed dealers. Obtaining a firearm in Missouri is relatively easy, but still requires submitting to the minimum Federally-mandated procedures. This is why the anti-gun politicians in Washington want to cull the herd of what a person can obtain.
So what about "universal background checks"? Let’s show how they’d apply to Missouri.
First, scratching the serial number off a firearm is a class A misdemeanor in Missouri, and possessing that firearm is a class B misdemeanor, so that’s already covered. And as most firearms sold on the black market will likely have their serial numbers removed, again, the law already has that covered.
RSMO 571.063 defines a crime called "fraudulent purchase of a firearm". This has several definitions:
A person (transferee) who attempts to persuade or entice someone (transferor), whether it is a private party or licensed firearms dealer, into transferring a firearm under circumstances which transferee knows to be unlawful
A person who provides information known to be materially false with the intent to deceive transferor about the legality of a firearm transfer
A person who willfully procures another person to do either of point 1 or 2
Fraud in general is a serious crime, and fraud involving the acquisition of a firearm is even more so.
RSMO 571.060 defines the crime of "unlawful transfer of weapons", which occurs when a person "knowingly sells, leases, loans, gifts or delivers a firearm or ammunition to any person not lawfully entitled to possess it". Under Missouri law, that is a class D felony. And possession of a firearm by a person not lawfully able to possess one is a class C felony as defined by RSMO 571.070.
Is there anything that hasn’t been covered yet? Again, there is already plenty of regulation around firearms, their acquisition, use, misuse and even potential misuse. But then that is why the focus is on draconian ideas like licensure of all firearms owners and registration of all firearms in a national database, because when calls for bans on specific firearms or firearms features fail, the attention is turned to the gun owners themselves, and how it can be made more difficult to exercise a right.
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