It's also an unrealistic assumption that those who are in control of the government at that time would be unprepared for a military coup, nor that any significant number of young officers would be free thinkers capable of seeing past the indocrination and propaganda campaign that would have preceded such a tyrannical government taking control.  It is for this very reason that the Department of the Army (plus Air Force) and the Department of the Navy (plus the Marine Corps) each, independently, answer to an appointed civilian in the executive branch, namely the Secretary of Defense.  In the hopes that a single carismatic leader wouldn't be able to take control of the entire military alone, but doesn't help if the civilian government in charge of the military is the problem.  There would be a great number of veterans who could see through such b.s., removed as they are from the immediate influence of the military culture, and veterans outnumber active miltary by a large margin at any given time, but if the veterans are effectively prevented from owning the tools of their former trade (for example, labeled as 'mentally defective' and therefore ineligible to own firearms http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/citizen-warrior/2012/aug/23/judge-orders-brandon-raub-released-hospital/ ) then they are a neutered threat to tyranny.  Same goes for the organized training of firearms safety to children.  (http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/introduction.asp which is attacking the appleseed project http://appleseedinfo.org )

If that were to happen, what effect upon the Bitcoin economy do you think it might have?

Furthermore, the 'ban' on importation or manufacture of full-auto weapons are, in fact, not a complete ban.  There are exceptions, some of them notable.  For example, a FN P-90 is on my wishlist, but falls under the aforementioned importation ban.  Except for policemen.  But once it's been imported for a cop, and said cop has owned it for a period of time (2 years, IIRC) then a standard Class III transfer & ATF tax stamp is all that is required for that cop to sell that firearm to any other citizen with the correct permit to buy one.  I won't claim that this happens often, because it most certainly does not, but there have to be some guys buying up such guns (perhaps for an additional "private pension" fund?) because P-90's are available in the US, apparently legally.

Now, I don't know how many states limit their policemen in this regard.  I've no doubt that it's a non-starter in California.  But it is an exception to the ban, so there is no ban.  If there is an exception, then it's not (economicly speaking) a ban.  If the demand is high enough, the exceptions become the rule and then the ban is meaningless political drivel.

Okay, so you admit they are not banned.  Then your premise has failed, has it not?

And what is your motivation for the belief that they shout be banned?

Well, your attempt at preemption is a fail, since as I have already pointed out, Class II & Class III weapons are not banned.  They're regulated at the federal level, and rather harshly, but they are not illegal.

http://www.knobcreekrange.com/events/featured-events/machine-gun-shoot

This is also an untrue statement.  It's not illegal for a US citizen, with zero history of criminal activities nor mental illness, to own or buy a fully automatic weapon, a short-barreled shotgun, or even a shoulder fired anti-vehicle & wire guided missile.  What is required is a license for each of these classes of federally regulated weapons, and a lot of money.  As you have already alluded to, it's mostly the cost of the process that is the limiting factor.  It is simply not true that there is a ban on such weapons in the US.

This is based on a false premise.  Namely that the cost of a legally registered class III weapon is directly corrolated to the black market price of an equivalent weapon.  While there are many ways that regulation can affect the black market prices of such weapons, there comes a point that the black market weapon is cheaper to aquire than a legitimately registered one; then gun control regulations fail.  This price point is always crossed under a complete ban, so it's reasonable to look at places where such weapons are unavailable other than on the black market to take a reasonable guess as to what the maximum that regulations can force up the black market price of such weapons.

There are other practical reasons than just the high cost that criminals don't generally use class III weapons, as they are usually used by thugs who have limited experience with automatic weapons, and even the well trained USMC doesn't use full auto M-16's anymore for the average grunt; because the user has a tendency to squeeze the trigger until his magazine is empty.  A semi-auto is a better weapon most of the time anyway.

Nope, because you havn't made it yet.  Thanks for volunteering your time.

What needs to be addressed about that?  Nation states function in an environment of functional anarchy, kept in check by their own sanity and the consequences of aggression.  I'm not an anarchist, though, so I shouldn't have tp defend that position. I was merely pointing out the double standard among gun control advocates, for I have met exactly zero that advocate disarming the police.

Mykul is using 'reducum ad absurdum' to highlight the rediculouslessness of the current system.  Of course anyone willing to build and carry around a nuke is a threat to everyone around him, same for a bomb vest.  The real point here is not that you gunbanners actually believe that you can remove weapons from society, because you don't advocate removing weapons from governments or it's agents.  There is the big, pink elephant in the room.  That governments have nuclear missiles pointed at each other all of the time, and are a constant threat to each other, and all of us happen to be in the way.  So we are under threat every minute of our lives.  So the real point here is not that someone should or should not be prevented from possessing a nuke; because the practical reality is that it's not governments that actually prevent this, it's the high cost of such a weapon and it's limited usefulness to anyone with his head on straight.  But the same argument applies to any military grade weapon that a person could afford and have a practical use for, and therefore any less military/offense in design and more defensive in design as well, such as a home-defense shotgun or a handgun; the opinions of what others believe are appropriate notwithstanding.  I've shot many a full-auto machine gun, and they a a great time.  A minigun costs about $40 per second to actually fire, so it's not exactly a poor man's hobby; but who are you to say what I can't do for fun?

It doesn't really work that way.  Have you ever heard of someone robbing a gun store at gunpoint?

Or a doughnut shop with three cop cars parked out front?

I cannot fathom why you should care, I was just laying out a theory.

I have no idea, I'm on Intrade.

You're right, guns are tools.  They have a specific purpose and use.  That's how cops use them too, right?  They kill people every day with them, and yet you don't advocate that the cops stop carrying them, do you?  When you get down to the root of the gun control argument, it's about trust.  We're supposed to be able to trust men in uniform, but when these same men are wearing street clothes; whether simply off-duty or retired from service, they're no longer trustworthy?  If you can't imagine yourself comfortable around someone that you know is armed & not wearing a badge, your choices involve carrying yourself to even the odds or simply advocating for government to remove firearms from the public spaces.  The former requires much from you, including the responsiblity to brush up on both the law concerning justifiable use of force and the practical skills required in safely using a firearm; as well as the rather steep personal cost of obtaining the weapon to start with.  The latter option is simply easier, as is doesn't require anything from you other than a vote and imposes the burden of enforcement upon the police & those who wish to carry for whatever reason.  The facts remain, though, that any practical level of reducing the number of firearms in public is impossible by statutes.  Firearms are very old tech, and easily produced by skilled people today, and soon enough it will be possible to print out a crude firearm on a hobby level 3D printer.  And this one might actually be all plastic.

http://defensedistributed.com/

TL;DR = I believe that, in the event that Ron Paul & Company succeed in
forcing a brokered convention, Romney will lose and Sarah Palin will walk
out with it.

I know that this theory is going to earn me the title of 'wingnut', but
here it is.  For many months now, the media has been pondering
why Ron Paul would be so damned determined to accumulate
delegates (and keep them) heading into a convention for which he has
already admitted that he cannot win.  It's a good question that I'd been
pondering as well.  The common theories seem to fall flat to me.  The idea
that he's doing it solely for an effect on the national
platform & a prime time speaking slot is rediculous; the platform because
everyone knows that Romney would pay it lip service only until he won the
election (or more likely did not) and my own impressions of Ron Paul is
that he is a very politically savvy player but doesn't have the ego for a
loser's final speech before retirement.  For that matter, he'll get plenty
of attention for his speech on Sunday before the convention.  It also
doesn't explain the Romney campaign's willingness to risk alienating the
Paulites (not a few of whom are under 30 and former Obama voters) by using
legal challenges to attempt to deny Paul his 5 state plurality.  By my own
research, Ron Paul has (at least) seven states for his plurality, because
a plurality of delegates is different than a majority of same, nor is it
particularly related to who those delegates are 'bound' to, since
nominations from the floor are different than the actual roll-call vote.
Of course, this is all irrelevant if Romney actually has greater than 1144
votes on the first ballot, but his actions imply that if he does have that
many it's not enough over that number for him to feel comfortable in a
first round victory.  Yet, Santorum also has a five state plurality, and
the Romney campaign has done nothing to prevent his name being placed into
nomination.  Neither Paul nor Santorum have anywhere near the number of
delegates to challenge Romney under normal circumstances, even added
together they couldn't make much of a dent and there is no way that any of
them are going to broker for a Paul victory, and Paul knows this.

Gingrich has some delegates that he won't release early because he & Paul
have a bad history, and Gingrich has publicly stated that he doesn't like
Romney on a personal level.  Santorum is more likely to make a deal with
Romney for some prominate position in the adminstration in exchange for
releasing his delegates for the first vote, which would scuttle a last
ditch effort to nominate Paul from the floor.

Furthermore, Ron Paul has been running an education campaign like he did
in 2008; not one intended to be broadly desireable to the Republican base,
which is a little different than how he ran his local campaigns to be
relected.  This leads me to believe that not only does Ron Paul not think
that him winning the nomination at the convention is possible, it's not
even desireable.  He just wants to retire and let someone else take over,
and I don't think that his son is ready for that himself.

Considering all this, I contemplated what was the real goal for Ron Paul,
and concluded that he is still trying to force a brokered convention, just
not for himself.  While it's never happened before, there is nothing in
the rules that would prevent a candidate from asking his delegates to
nominate someone else entirely; and this is just the kind of long
shot chance that Paul might attempt right before retirement.

So the next question then became, who?

I came up with a set of criteria for said person, as follows....

1) Must be someone that could crediblely be endorsed by Paul, without a
significant minority of his fans responding with a "WTF?" reaction.  IMHO,
this would require someone who is already fairly well liked by the liberty
wing of the Tea Party.

2)  Must be someone with an existing national 'brand', who's name is
fairly well known, particularly across the conservative spectrum.  This
eliminates Gary Johnson, even if ballot access laws didn't prohibt him
from the Republican nomination since he has already accepted the
Libertarian Party nomination.

3)  Should be someone who didn't compete for the nomination in the
primary, since otherwise enough of the unbound delegates in Tampa would
think "that person already lost to Romney" and vote for Romney to throw
him over the 1144 on the first round.

4)  Should not be a person who has spoken ill of Ron Paul or of the Tea
Party movement.

5)  Should be a person who appeals, generally, to both sides of the Tea
Party (i.e. both the libertarians & the social conservatives)

Bonus if said person has some demographic advantage over old white men.

The only person that I could think of that fits this profile is Sarah
Palin, and after coming to that conclusion I discovered some interesting
things.

Sarah Palin....

1)   ...has never endorsed Romney in any real sense.

2)  ...has never spoken ill of the Paul movement, at least not during this
cycle; and has repeatedly warned the other candidates to not alienate the
Paulites during public speaking events over the past six months or so.

3)  ...seems to have kept four or five of her campaign team on retainer
via SarahPAC, which could be contractural but that seems odd during an
election year.  While none of these five appear to be involved in any
campaigns, they are not idle either as several of them have had guest
spots on FoxNews & FoxBusiness networks.

4)  ...has been doing an excellent job of keeping herself in the limelight
over the past six months, including a great average in endorsing Tea PArty
type people for Senate primaries.

5)  ...has significantly educated herself with regard to national and
international issues since being thrown onto the national stage without a
safety net four years ago.

6)  ...has openly stated that she believes that she could win the
nomination if there was a brokered convention.

So there it is.  I think that Ron Paul has had a secret deal with Sarah
Palin since the fall, that if she did not run in the primary (and thus
bleed off liberty minded votes from the Paul campaign) then if a brokered
convention were possible Ron Paul would do everything in his power to get
her name on the nominating ballot.  And what does Ron Paul get out of it?
His son gets first refusal for VP.  And no, I don't think that Rand nor
most of the Paul campaign staff were at all aware of this "plan B".

Thus, Sarah Palin, not Ron Paul nor Santorum nor Huckabee, is my Dark
Horse candidate.  And if Ron succeeds in this endeavor and gets Sarah's
name officially on the ballot, I believe that she will win it so long
as Romney cannot get 1144 on the first ballot. 


Some of my links follow, although in many cases the part that I think
supports my view is not evident.  This might be confirmation bias, but
here it is, nonetheless, in no particular order....



http://libertycrier.com/politics/a-brokered-convention-in-2012-looking-toward-tampa/

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-ron-paul-rebellion/87932/

http://conservatives4palin.com/2012/08/abc-tea-party-seeks-to-move-mitt-to-the-right-2.html

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/07/who-is-the-real-sarah-palin

http://rantpolitical.com/2012/08/02/our-odds-of-beating-obama-are-better-by-dumping-mitt-in-a-brokered-convention/

http://conservatives4palin.com/2012/08/how-candidates-react-when-dont-get-the-palin-endorsement.html

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sarah-palin-defends-ron-paul-hes-the-only-one-doing-something-about-reining-in-govt-growth/

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/01/palin_warms_to_paul.html

http://alaskapride.blogspot.com/2011/12/alaska-political-predictions-for-2012.html
 Close! but no cigar!

http://libertymaven.com/2008/10/27/the-great-libertarian-opportunity-palin-paul-2012/2786/
 Again, very close.  Back in 2008.


http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2012/08/ron_paul_supporters_fighting_f.html



http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/reawakening-liberty/2012/aug/3/audit-fed-first-shot-ron-paul-revolution/#.UB0jlUFAl-s.reddit



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/how-sarah-palin-helps-senate-candidates-and-how-she-doesnt/2012/08/03/835093c6-dd7f-11e1-af1d-753c613ff6d8_blog.html


http://www.dailypaul.com/244865/a-game-plan-for-tampa-tac-website#comment-2622032


http://www.palinquakes.com/open_convention


 http://conservatives4palin.com/2012/07/robert-ringer-rinosaurus-rex-fears-being-upstaged-at-the-convention.html

http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_724_2595.aspx

http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/slideshows/10-reasons-sarah-palin-would-make-a-good-president

https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/will-sarah-palin-run-for-president/


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/sarah-palin/9127510/Sarah-Palin-refuses-to-rule-out-presidential-run-saying-anythings-possible.html



http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/2012-election/prediction-someone-else-will-swoop-nab-gop-nomination

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9128871/Super-Tuesday-Mitt-Romney-dismisses-speculation-of-Sarah-Palin-challenge.html

http://thespeechatimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/ppp-sarah-palin-still-more-popular-than-actual-candidates-could-be-unity-choice-at-brokered-convention/

If I might make a suggestion, the Uncle Eric series by Rich Maybury is excellent for the simple introductions to Austrian Economic Theory and Praxeology.  Starting with Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? followed by Whatever Happened to Justice?

Dude!  You look just like one of the guys on Mythbusters!

Not really, the client only uses one key at the moment but is more than capable of handling more.  The one key rule has more to do with conserving bitcoin spinner's server resources.

There is no such of that kind of master key, either.  That was only a proposal discussed a couple years ago that never went anywhere.

I can't believe I missed this bullsh*t.  There are, in fact, at least three points in Alaska that a person standing on the ground can actually see Russian territory; that fact that this statement was not intended to be taken literally notwithstanding.

Good God, some people are just sucked into the whole MSM image machine.  Do people really think that anyone that can get elected to any governorship in America is actually stupid?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/09/can_you_really_see_russia_from_alaska.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing