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Comment by sgjohnson | Hacker News Reader

I mean, if you’re at your own home, and your guns have suppressors on them… it’s fine.

Nope, they’re an NFA item. Highly regulated, you can get men in suits at your door for the offense of buying several oil filters at once.

Not finding any regulation on the misuse of oil filters … yet.

They make pretty decent silencers when affixed to the muzzle of a gun, and suddenly become an NFA item.

I know a guy with a diesel repair shop who bought a “suspicious” number of filters off Amazon at once. A couple suits showed up at his door asking about them. We totally live in a surveillance state, and Amazon feeds your purchase history into it.

41 months in prison for your oil filter...

"Maryland Man Arrested for Fuel Filter Silencer" https://www.guntrustlawyer.com/maryland-man-arrested-fuel-fi...

Seems it wasn’t just “possession of an oil filter silencer”:

> Candelario sold and manufactured AR-15 style assault rifles in Maryland without a license. The ATF caught Candelario by using an anonymous man to purchase the firearms in a gas station parking lot. This agent purchased six rifles, as well as two fuel filter silencers.

It is issued in the form of enforcement action by the ATF. The recent SC ruling on regulatory agencies may change this some.

the "fuel filter" thing with the right other stuff is constructive possession even if u dont build it.

Constructive intent is what the ATF claims (and wins in court).

According the the NFA, anything you use as a suppressor, is a suppressor.

Be it an empty bottle, an oil filter, or a potato (yes, really).

if even a pillow; asking for a friend.

Yes, but there's nothing wrong with using an NFA item for reasonable self defense.

Has this been tested with silencers specifically? Seems like it’s nasty both directions; if you usually run a silencer on your home defense gun, they’d get you for that. If you don’t, and you take the time to put one on, it undermines your self defense claim.

Guns at any home don't really have an absolute level of fineness I'd say; it also depends on where the home is, who is in the home, if the person possessing the guns is reasonable and trained etc.

If your home is a small apartment in a building with small apartments all around you with walls that are essentially a thin sheet of cardboard, and the gun owner hears voices that aren't really there, is it still fine? (and suppressors don't even factor in at this point since they are essentially just hearing protection)

I don't think there is a universally applicable rule where it is fine or not-fine. Factors like the individual(s) involved, the location and even social climate make such a big impact when it comes to weapons. Probably also why there is a blanket ban on suppressors, not because it was actually based on the use with common sense.

Suppressors are regulated heavily under the NFA. You have to receive explicit permission from the Feds for each one.

The US, like it or not, has specific carve out allowances for firearm ownership by the mass civilian population. You may not find it reasonable.

It doesn't have anything to do with liking things. Blanket rules that apply to incompatible scenarios are just dumb, and not reasonable in any form.

The endless 'defence' for bad rules makes no sense either, it's okay to say "it isn't perfect and when we find a better way we might adopt it". Rules are just constructs that can be changed.

Tyrannical states tend to remove weapons and armor from the population early in their campaign. Some countries realized this in their founding and made sure that would be rather difficult to enforce.

Yet somehow in actual tyrannical states it doesn't solve anything, and in states where there are more guns than population it mostly just costs the lives of childen and citizens who were going about their day.

Life also doesn't revolve around states and guns, and countries that do seem to have a partial culture revolving around just that are generally very young countries that seem to be stuck in a vicious circle.

Instead of blindly deferring reality to an amendment to a man-made rule you could also engage in proactive betterment of society.

An armed citizen and a citizen working for the betterment of society are not mutually exclusive.

> engage in proactive betterment of society

I do, we just disagree on this topic.

> Suppressors are regulated heavily under the NFA. You have to receive explicit permission from the Feds for each one.

You make it sound far worse than it actually is. But everybody legally able to own a firearm, is also legally able to own any NFA item (if they are legal in their state of residence).

All you have to do is pay $200, submit your fingerprints, file an application and wait. You don't even need to provide them with a reason. And as long as the application is in order, and you're legally able to possess a firearm, there's no reason at all to refuse the application.

Also, Texas no longer cares about the NFA as far as suppressors are concerned.

In virtually all of the states a home intruder is considered a deadly threat by itself, so it's perfectly fine to shoot them. Even in super liberal states like New York or California it's perfectly okay to open fire on home intruders.

What do the rules have to do with it? We're talking about violence-centric thinking and making blanket statements that cannot apply to non-uniform societies.

If there are some rules that say it's fine to eat poop, does that mean that everyone now has to constantly eat poop? Probably not. Same applies to all the other "you are allowed to do X" rules. If all we do is parrot what someone else wrote at some other time in some other context, we'll just get nowhere and stay in limbo forever.

I'm missing the point you're trying to make.

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