Right now, manufacturers often put videos up on YouTube of how to install parts they sell. Like with Ikea furniture, I find these way more helpful than a paper manual. Same for videos about how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble guns (which often link to whatever cleaning products are used) [edit: BTW assembling something that already is a gun still falls under the ATF's definition of manufacturing a gun, so if Youtube uses the same definition these videos are banned even if they don't refer to specific products]
As for the 100 year gun-- let's take the M1 Garand (in WW2 movies, it's the one you hear go "ping". It's only ~85 years old, but bear with me). Over the last decade, the US government has sold off several hundred thousand of these rifles. As far as older guns go, they're fairly common. They shoot .30-06 ammunition, which can be found in most gun stores. However, 85 years ago metal was lower quality. If you use modern commercially available ammo in a Garand it will break [1]. There's a few options though. You can buy surplus ammo and hope that it was stored properly and that 40 years ago the quality control guy at the factory was having a good day[2]. Many people opt to recycle an initial batch of brass and manufacture their ammo. If done correctly this is safe, but there's a bit of a learning curve. Unfortunately the new policy bans videos that detail how to safely manufacture ammo.
[0] channels like ForgottenWeapons often describe how antique firearms work, which might run afoul of the new rules
[1] you can mitigate this with an accessory that reduces the pressure from the gasses. There's some good videos about it on youtube
[2] for more obscure weapons, I don't think this is an option
However, this is presuming that the laws regarding that are reasonable and not too lax, which as I understand they aren't (yet).
In the same vein, I think YouTube should take down a lot of life-threatening "life-hack" videos. Wilfully misguiding the public into soldering wires together unsafely, and in all likelihood get yourself killed or start a fire when one plugs in the resulting mess should be illegal IMO, akin to some kind of manslaughter.
I grew up in Port Lincoln, then moved to Adelaide, and now Launceston. Also, I have family in Queensland.
In my experience it isn’t unusual at all for someone to own a gun, or guns, in Australia.
My father had guns, my sisters family have multiple guns for pig hunting. Half the guys I work with have a veritable smorgasbord of firearms, I’m talking 10+ firearms, for hunting and just general enthusiasm. People I’ve worked with in IT in Adelaide own handguns for target shooting.
I guess it depends who you hang out with. Even some of the “hippies” I’ve known along the way own guns for pest control and dealing with injured livestock.
I guess the average city dweller in Australia probably doesn’t own firearms, but if you spend enough time in the towns and smaller cities... plenty of guns.
We do seem to mange not to shoot each other up very often. Im more worries about being punched in the back of the head.
According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/249740/percentage-of-hou... , 42% of households have guns, so while it’s close, the median household does not have a gun. And, again, firearms are far more common in rural areas than in urban areas, so I believe the statement is true.
+ Those background checks are used for lots of things other than firearm purchases
+ Firearms can be transferred legally in some cases without background checks
+ Plenty of firearms existed before the background check system and are still owned and functioning
+ Many firearms are purchased, left to rust or otherwise break, and never repaired.
+ Firearms are occasionally turned in to the police or surrendered (usually when a family member passes and their relatives don't know what to do with the firearms).
The other source of information is directly asking people, but that runs into a bunch of problems too, mostly that people will lie.
I also don't think there's any kind of remotely common pattern that lets us correct this bad data from self reporting. Liberal gun owners are likely to lie about owning a firearm since they don't want their family to know, and conservative firearm owners are less likely to trust the person they're reporting to. Many firearm owners are taught to never ever talk about being a firearm owner to avoid being a target for burglary.
My point is, we simply don't know at all. Any gross figure is extremely suspect.
Still, bad numbers are all we’ve got. I’m sure most Americans have seen guns, or know gun owners, but I’m also sure most Americans — especially most urban Americans — don’t actually own guns themselves. If they did, people wouldn’t routinely confuse “semiautomatic” and “machine gun” or “submachine gun.”
My father owned a rifle for a time when I was young, but sold it probably 30 years ago. One member of my wife's family has what would be considered a hobby farm and recently bought a rifle for shooting pests. Outside of that, I'm not aware of another gun owner amongst friends and acquaintances.
It can be as little as just taking away a important part and store it in a good locker somewhere else in your house or even just hide it or you can do like me and get a weapons safe approved by the insurance industry and bolt it to the floor. (I got mine for somewhere around USD300 and it is big enough to also contain hard drives, medications, important papers etc.)
By being careful with storage and also introducing others to safe gun culture we might make a difference by preventing accidents, preventing more stolen guns on the black market etc.
Edit: It seems I'm annoying some people. Anybody see what I did wrong? Honestly more interested in the explanation than in the stupid votes:-/
Edit2: Tried to make my post less annoying. Thanks 1337biz
Sorry for that. Will take steps to fix.
> His gun might not be working,
Based on the description it seems to be very much in working order.
> he might even have no bullets at all.
Still makes it a valuable target for criminals as ammunition might be even easier to get hold of.
> Just don't make so many assumptions about other people.
Thanks again. I'll try to fix now.
I also saw someone downvoted you and will do my part to fix that.
At least how I read the announcement this kind of linking will be forbidden which means that the companies making the products have no feedback mechanism on how successful the advertising is, which in turn can kill channels
> Provides instructions on manufacturing a firearm, ammunition, high capacity magazine, homemade silencers/suppressors, or certain firearms accessories such as those listed above.
That's going to impact a lot of channels that focus on firearms/military history as well as general how-to sorts of channels. YouTube has been a great resource in the past if you're wondering "how do I properly install these trigger pins in my rifle?" or "how do I safely load this muzzle-loader in a deer stand?"
Here's a video that will definitely fall under new regulations: you be the judge.