Wednesday, August 29, 2007



US is most-armed country; 90 guns per 100 people: "The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said. `There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people,' it said."


Strange FAA legal advice: ""Virgin's Richard Branson and legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan recently formed The Spaceship Company `to build a fleet of commercial sub-orbital spaceships and launch aircraft.' The government's response to establish control over the new venture has been swift. ..The resulting rules, published in The Federal Register, went almost unnoticed, particularly an obscure clause inexplicably claiming `Nearly all courts have also held that the Second Amendment is a collective right, rather than a personal right. Therefore... the FAA has the authority to prohibit firearms on launch and reentry vehicles for safety and security purposes.'"




Avurt's new self-defense weapon has five shots and a forty foot range: "Many want to be able to protect themselves in the event of an attack by an assailant, but don't want to use a gun or other lethal means to do so. Many options like pepper spray and Taser's have short ranges so you have to allow would-be attackers to get close to you for them to be effective. Avurt has a new self-defense weapon called the IM-5 that uses PAVA pepper filled projectiles that have a forty foot range; when the fired projectiles strike an assailant they burst open, similar to paint balls, causing the attacker's eyes, nose and throat to burn temporarily, effectively immobilizing them. The launcher is carried in a folded position inside a purse or holster. When unfolded a red laser sight activates to allow you to aim the device. When fired the IM-5 sounds like a pistol, which will theoretically scare the attacker and alert those near-by of trouble."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John,

Kim du Toit has pointed out that given that most US firearm owners have a raft of guns, the true proportion of armed citizens is actually worryingly small.

As for the FAA ruling, they are probably worried that someone might hijack the spaceship, demanding to be flown to the Moon. Yeah, that's it.

I doubt if the pepper gun is accurate to forty feet...