Vice News Investigates DIY-Guns: ‘Ghost Guns,’ ’80 Percent Lowers’

Authors S.H. Blannelberry

I like Vice News. For the most part, they do a fair job reporting both sides of any issue. But in this latest piece on DIY guns, they got lazy when reporting on one particular point. That is, the notion that states with higher rates of gun ownership have higher rates of gun deaths. This is misinformation that is pulled directly from the Violence Policy Center, an anti-gun think tank.  Although Vice didn’t disclose where they obtain that tidbit, I’m almost positive that’s where they got it.

The reality is there is no positive correlation between rates of gun ownership and gun deaths, specifically gun-related homicides. More guns and more permissive gun laws do NOT create more crime. Economist and political commentator John Lott Jr. has demonstrated this fact ad nauseam yet no one in the mainstream media (yes, I suppose I’m lumping Vice in with that crowd) seems to get it.  Maybe they’re just not looking in the right places, i.e. Lott’s organization: Crime Prevention Research Center, or maybe they just don’t want to face the truth.

Putting that aside, the short piece was pretty cool.  It was great to see former Ares Armor CEO Dimitri Karras share his vision for an armed America.

“I want to live in a world where a gay married couple can defend their marijuana pot farm with firearms that are fully automatic,” said the charismatic Karras.  “That’s the world that I want to live in.”

From Vice:

At what point does a gun become a gun? The difference between a firearm and an inanimate hunk of aluminum is just a matter of a few of holes drilled into an unfinished metal receiver.

For Dimitri Karras, who manufactures the raw materials that become AR15s, that difference is everything. Because it is legal for a hobbyist to make a gun in the comfort of their own home without going through a background check or registering it, negotiating the boundary between what is a gun and what isn’t has become Karrass’s passion. In this episode of California Soul, we delve into the world of do-it-yourself weapons to see what the future holds for gun control in America.

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  • Allen D. Benge May 29, 2016, 12:11 am

    While I can understand Ms. Fine’s feelings, she inserted herself into a crime scene with no training and no idea of how to stop the criminal activity. She is lucky to be alive, and should realize now that a Lexus is not a tank. Had she been armed and trained, she could have ended the situation then and there. I once had a guy shooting at my cab, and the only thing that kept him breathing was standing on the edge of a very busy street. He had attempted to kidnap a woman, obviously with the intent of raping her. State Senator de Leon is a total non compos mentis individual when it comes to firearms. He made a speech once where he made the statement that an AR-15 can fire 300 clips in half a second. I know of no one capable of firing and reloading 300 magazines in half a second, because the AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle, thus requires a pull of the trigger to fire one round of ammo. Even if the shooter is armed with an M-16 (the military version, full auto) the rate of fire of the M-16 is about, IIRC, 650 RPM (rounds per minute). With a full auto weapon, the weapon will fire until it runs out of ammo or the shooter releases the trigger. Why these concepts are so difficult for the anti gun nuts to grasp is beyond me, my 10-year old granddaughter understands it completely.

  • Stephen Stewart March 13, 2015, 2:41 pm

    So why wasn’t the point brought up during the interview, “Why must they be registered so that the goverment knows where they are?” Why do they need to know where they are? Obviously so when the time is right they can go out and collect them all. And what about the politicians bullshit claim of thousands of these guns are being made and sold to the cartel? What proof does he have of this? Not a fair and balanced piece in my opinion.

  • Jimmy March 9, 2015, 6:45 pm

    He is not a president,he’s a (Dictator- & in addition he is a Jesus Christ he’s not a reborn person. He has prolonged this situation about His Friends isis small letters. He has to allow them time to get more together and more of the so called money. The other so called law makers in what is called washington dc are afraid they will be put out of office if they don’t allow him to do what he decides to do.
    At the end they will all answer to the ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD, IT CERTAINLY IS NOT ala.

    JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY WAY TO THE FATHER!!!!!!!

    • steve March 10, 2015, 8:23 pm

      lol. ur funny.

  • Jack March 9, 2015, 3:04 pm

    Anybody who starts an article “I like Vice News. For the most part, they do a fair job reporting both sides of any issue.” Has automatically lost all credibility!

    • Allen D. Benge May 29, 2016, 12:23 am

      The guy in the Vice video reminded me of the t-shirt I love One guy says why do you need an AR-15? The other guy says, “I don’t need an AR-15, but I also don’t need a whiny little bitch, but here you are. I took exception to this pipsqueak’s comment that people were ‘getting around the law,’ since the people who build their own rifles are adhering to the law. The BATFE explicitly states that any person not prohibited from owning a gun may build one for his/her own use. They may not be sold without being serialized and entered into the system. We are exercising our Second Amendment rights.

  • nelson gilliam March 9, 2015, 11:09 am

    I WILL NEVER GIVE UP MY GUNS AND AMMO TO ANYONE..THE CONSTITUTION IS LAW NOT ANY TERRORIST PLAYING PRESIDENT ..AND SAYING OR WRITING ANYTHING AGAINST MY RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS NOT LEGAL AND NEVER WILL BE…ANYONE COMING TO TAKE MY GUNS WILL BE DEALT WITH LIKE ANY OTHER CRIMINAL WOULD BE …GOD BLESS AMERICA

    • quixdraw March 9, 2015, 7:57 pm

      And if you commit a felony and be convicted same, would you then release your weapons to the lawful authority?

  • Lou March 9, 2015, 8:47 am

    Registered?
    They also don’t mention that they aren’t allowed out of the state they are made.
    This was obviously an intentional antigun piece….

    • Allen D. Benge May 29, 2016, 12:15 am

      Documentation on not being able to leave the state where made, please? I am 69 and have been shooting since I was 5, have been a prison officer, a security officer and a sheriff’s deputy. I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, and I have never seen such a restriction enumerated anywhere.

  • Doug March 9, 2015, 5:28 am

    I wonder if she had a gun, if she could have stop the process? People need to be able to protect themselves and others.

    • Russ March 14, 2015, 1:59 pm

      Yep, in Dimitri Karras’s world, a smart armed woman in that car, could have ended it.
      That’s if the armed neighbors and friends didn’t do it 1st.
      I like all the scary wording Keven de Leon, Echo (shithole) Park’s CA Senator, puts into his talking points;
      “Assault Weapons”, “Ghost Guns”, I guess that scares the shit out of all the misinformed pussys here in California.
      Military uses assault weapons, and a ghost gun would be the spirit of a firearm returning from it’s death, LOL!
      It’s called a “Firearm” and a “Blank Receiver”
      Let’s just call them what they really are; “Defenders”
      The interviewer stated that the gun used at the college was a “Ghost Gun”… WRONG! It was a registered receiver.
      Who is this dopey wimp for vice news that thinks the world just got scarier because of blank receivers?
      If a deranged criminal want’s to go on a killing spree, he could go to Home Depot and get all he needs.
      Lot’s of unregistered parts to make plenty of lethal weapons (Assault Weapons)
      What a heaping pile of crap for the misguided uneducated followers of George Soros Media to swallow.

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