We actually have one of, if not the, largest known deposits of these strategic minerals right here in the U.S. We’ve just been too politically lazy, letting the foreign controlled econutz and business owners overly motivated by the bottom line to develop the mining

China’s New Weapon Isn’t a Missile. It’s a Magnet.

On April 4, the Chinese government issued sweeping new export controls on critical rare earth elements in response to the Trump Administration’s reciprocal trade plan. And while the categories of rare earths included — samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium — are unknown to most Americans, they are embedded in everything from smartphones to stealth bombers.

These new restrictions are not just a new volley in the ongoing back-and-forth between Washington and Beijing. For those paying attention, this is a strategic maneuver that puts pressure directly on the backbone of U.S. national defense and the broader high-tech economy.

While the move is couched in the language of national security and non-proliferation compliance, its timing and scope are not accidental. China is leveraging its near-total dominance over the global rare earth supply chain to shape geopolitical outcomes and force the U.S. to respond.

To better understand the government’s options, it’s helpful to know more about what these rare earth elements do. Dysprosium and terbium are used to produce high-temperature-resistant magnets essential for electric motors in guided missiles, aircraft, drones, and naval propulsion systems. Samarium-cobalt magnets power everything from F-35 jet actuators to targeting systems. Gadolinium is a key component in military-grade sonar. Scandium-aluminum alloys reduce weight while maintaining strength in aerospace structures. Lutetium is increasingly used in advanced radiation detection and positron emission tomography (PET) systems.

These are not luxury materials. They are irreplaceable components in mission-critical systems. It is impossible to build an advanced hypersonic glide vehicle, a submarine-launched cruise missile, or a battlefield drone swarm without them.

China dominates the pipeline for these materials entering the rest of the world, controlling approximately 70 – 85% of their global production and processing capacity. In many cases, such as with dysprosium and terbium, China is not just the dominant supplier, it is the only economically viable one.

The implications of the new restrictions extend far beyond defense. These same elements are foundational to industries that define modern civilization: consumer electronics, factory automation and robotics, health care, electric and hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, medical imaging, semiconductors, appliances, and more. Now Beijing is threatening to block them from those it considers its adversaries.

China has a history of leveraging their advantage in this sector. In 2010, China restricted rare earth exports during a territorial dispute with Japan. In 2023, it imposed curbs on gallium, germanium, and graphite (important in semiconductor production) in response to U.S. chip export bans. Last year, it strengthened restrictions on gallium and germanium and added antinomy and superhard materials.

This latest move is most expansive yet. It targets a broader array of elements, and the regulatory language is sweeping, covering metals, oxides, alloys, compounds, magnets, and even mixed-material targets used in thin-film manufacturing. China is proving that it is willing to endure economic blowback to assert long-term strategic control, and as tensions with the U.S. rise, the boundaries of a new materials Cold War are being drawn.

The Trump Administration is watching this carefully and has already begun taking aggressive steps toward putting the U.S. in a greater position of rare earth and critical mineral self-sufficiency. But American progress in this area over the past 20 years has been sluggish. Building rare earth processing plants is capital-intensive and geopolitically challenging.

Fortunately, the U.S. can access its own rare earth resources within its borders. The Mountain Pass deposit in California is now scaling up production, although it still sends a substantial amount of its mined ore to China for processing. It also largely lacks the heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium. Another very large resource, located in Nebraska, can produce these defense-critical rare earths in additional to establishing global U.S. dominance in production of the rare earth scandium. That project could move to construction immediately, given adequate financing.

But China’s dominance in midstream processing, the chemical separation and purification that turns mined rock into usable materials, remains unrivaled.

To address this challenge, the U.S. must treat rare earth independence not as an industrial policy footnote but as a core national security imperative. That means accelerated investment in mining, extraction, refining, and recycling capacity, all backed by government dollars, loans and loan guarantees, and streamlined permitting. Importantly, as President Trump’s recent Critical Minerals Executive Order proposes, the Defense Production Act should be fully leveraged to jumpstart rare earth projects on U.S. soil.

Further, any domestic investment must be met with greater cooperation between Washington and allied nations that can counter China’s monopoly. Japan, South Korea, Canada, and Australia should be part of a coordinated, supply-secure bloc for critical materials.

The wars of the future may not start with missiles, but with minerals. And unless the U.S. invests in securing access to the elements that power our technologies, we may soon find ourselves on the wrong side of a digital and defense divide.

The Idiocy of Trying to Ban Possession of 3D Printer Files

I’m part of the last generation to grow up without the internet. That didn’t really happen until the 1990s, and much of the popularity that followed was well after my high school years. Yes, I’m old.

I was still young enough to embrace this new technology. I remember the early days when it was difficult to find stuff on the internet, especially with the terrible search engines we had available, but then stuff changed. We had Google make it easier to find whatever you were looking for–it sucks now, for the record–and then we got social media where it was easy to connect to folks and build relationships.

So I understand the internet and how it works about as well as anyone who doesn’t get into the technical aspects in and of themselves probably can.

Which is why the push from some anti-gun states to prohibit the files for 3D printers that allow people to make their own firearms and accessories is absolutely idiotic.

Proving that some folks aren’t sure how the internet works, several states are striving to make it harder to make firearms and firearm components privately.

In recent news from California, New Jersey, and New York, blue state prosecutors and lawmakers are making an extra effort to curb the availability of digital gun plans and devices that can help legally produce home-built guns, which are allowed under federal law.

In New Jersey, the Democrat-controlled state Assembly passed A4975 last month in a 50-26 roll call along party lines. The bill makes it a crime to possess digital instructions to manufacture guns and gun components, including receivers or magazines. Under the proposal, a person who is not licensed or registered to manufacture firearms but possesses any digital firearm instructions is guilty of a fourth-degree felony, which is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a fine of up to $10,000.

Meanwhile, in New York, Manhattan’s Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg has penned a letter to Creality, a Chinese 3D printer maker – one of the largest in the world – to urge the company to do more to block its machines from having the capability to make gun components. Further, Bragg wants Creality to police its cloud community for such CAD files.

That first sentence, though, says it all.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Constitution doesn’t apply for a moment. In such a case, you can make anything you want illegal. You can prohibit anything at all.

What you can’t do, though, is stop people who don’t respect the law.

Now, here in the real world where there is a Constitution and the right to keep and bear arms is supposed to be protected by the Second Amendment, there are major problems with such laws beyond the fact that they don’t work, especially since making your own gun has been legal since well before the founding of this nation. I think one would be hard-pressed to find a law from the time of the founding that would serve as an analog.

So there’s that.

But we also have to acknowledge just how ridiculous the law is with regard to preventing criminals from doing anything. I mean, this is the era of the internet. People can find whatever they want.

Even sites that try to prohibit people from IP addresses in those states–which may impact people living just across state lines or others who have IP addresses that may not accurately pinpoint their homes–will run into an issue because VPNs can be set to make it appear you live in a completely different state.

You can’t stop the signal.

Yeah, the law will allow prosecution of people who happen to have these files, but so what? How are they going to enforce it unless they’re tipped off that someone has these files? They’re not. How will they most likely get tipped off that someone has them? They’re using them to print gun parts and likely selling them.

By then, they’ve already broken the state laws against printing the guns in the first place, so the damage is done.

Yes, this is idiotic.

But then again, considering which states are looking at this, nothing at all should be shocking about the idiocy.

SpaceX launches first-of-its-kind human spaceflight mission around Earth’s poles.

Mission commander and cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang and his three crewmates — Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge and Eric Philips — are now safely in orbit, tucked inside their 13-food-wide SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

The group is expected to handle more than 20 science experiments and research studies during their time in space, most of which focus on their health and response to the disorienting environment of microgravity.

All told, the Fram2 crew will spend three to five days in space. They’ll try to capture unique footage from their windows as they lap the planet end-to-end, passing over Earth’s poles for the first time in human spaceflight history.

Manhattan DA calls on 3D printing companies to deter creation of ghost guns

With crimes involving ghost guns on the rise, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., is calling on a 3D printer manufacturer to put more safeguards in place to prevent the spread of 3D-printed guns and gun parts.

Bragg penned a letter to Shenzhen Creality 3D Technology Co., Ltd. (Creality), which produces 3D printers available to individual consumers, to install their printers with an available 3D-printing software program that detects the shapes of common gun parts and blocks their printing. Bragg also called on Creality to take down any online blueprints, also known as CAD files, from its cloud platform, and to ban the creation of illicit weapons in the company’s user agreement.

The letter comes after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold federal regulations, which the DA’s office filed an amicus brief in support of last summer, requiring ghost gun parts to have serial numbers and compelling background checks for prospective buyers of ghost gun home-assembly kits.
“We are calling on companies that sell 3D-printers to work with us to stem the flow of dangerous weapons into our communities by implementing targeted, commonsense fixes. Too often, gun violence tragically takes innocent lives and tears at the fabric of our communities. Over the past several years, the number of illegal, 3D-printed firearms and ghost guns has increased significantly. We have an aggressive and holistic approach to combatting gun violence alongside our law enforcement partners but we cannot do it alone. We are hopeful that we can partner with these companies and make a meaningful impact on public safety,” said District Attorney Bragg.

Creality printers have been previously seized during searches by law enforcement in New York City, including recent cases; the DA’s office cites the cases against Luigi Mangione and Robert Guerrero, which are still in progress, as well as Cory Davis and Cliffie Thomspon, both of whom plead guilty to manufacturing ghost guns.

Since 2020, the DA’s Office has been cracking down on use and possession of ghost guns and illegal firearms, creating the Ghost Gun Initiative with the NYPD. Between 2021 and 2024, homicides decreased by 20%, and shootings decreased by 45% in Manhattan.

In 2023, Bragg introduced legislation to close loopholes in New York’s gun laws to make manufacturing 3D-printed and ghost guns and gun parts a felony. The legislation would also make it a misdemeanor to share, sell or distribute files containing blueprints for 3D-printed firearms components.

Bragg will be sending similar letters to other leading consumer brands of 3D printers in the coming weeks. Click here to read the full letter.

I won’t connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud
March 24, 2025

Jeff Geerling:

This weekend I had to buy a new dishwasher because our old GE died.

I bought a Bosch 500 series because that’s what Consumer Reports recommended, and more importantly, I could find one in stock.

After my dad and I got it installed, I went to run a rinse cycle, only to find that that, along with features like delayed start and eco mode, require an app.

Bosch dishwasher Home Connect logo

Not only that, to use the app, you have to connect your dishwasher to WiFi, set up a cloud account in something called Home Connect, and then, and only then, can you start using all the features on the dishwasher.

Video

This blog post is a lightly-edited transcript of my latest YouTube video on Level 2 Jeff:

Continue reading “”

That phone in your pocket is a spy and a tattle tale. The goobermint has long known, and long used this knowledge for its own purposes. The demonscraps are so stupid,  they think we’re so stupid, they can sell their BS as fresh clean cattle fodder.


‘Inorganic’ – GPS Data Reveals Bernie Sanders, AOC Anti-Oligarchy Rally Was Full Of Serial Protesters

The Democratic Party launched a full-scale propaganda blitz in a desperate attempt to sway public opinion as its favorability ratings plunged to record lows. True to form, the party of leftist radicals prefers to bend reality—relying on rent-a-protesters or, in this case, inorganic crowds—to create a false perception of popularity. And that’s exactly what unfolded on Friday in Denver.

Drone footage shows a large crowd as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, spoke at Denver’s Civic Center. The outspoken socialist wrote on X: “34,000 people out in Denver. Largest political rally there since 2008.” 

Sanders attempted to explain that the large turnout reflected what voters are saying: “No to authoritarianism. No to oligarchy. No to Trumpism.”

However, leftist corporate media failed to fact-check the socialist for misinformation or disinformation. Others did—using a sophisticated algorithm to analyze data from all smartphone devices at the event—and found the numbers were severely overinflated. 

Many of the attendees were probably bussed in and had a history of participating in Antifa/BLM, pro-Hamas, and pro-Palestinian protests. The Democratic Party is known for bussing activists through NGO networks to events to fill seats—a tactic repeatedly used throughout Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign trail to create fake hype.

Data analyst Tony Seruga exposed just how staged the latest Democratic Party rally was, revealing their ongoing attempts to manipulate public perception with inorganic crowds made up mainly of DEI activists rather than genuine grassroots supporters:

GPS—Here we go again, there were 20,189 devices. Still a large crowd but not even close to the 30,000 quoted in Denver newspapers nor the 34,000 quoted by Bernie Sanders and AOC.

84% of the devices present had attended 9 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests, 31% had attended over 20.

For more insight into what data we also look at in addition to GPS location data would be demographic and psychographic data using over 6,000 different databases, i.e., like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Pew Research Center, market research firms like YouGov, Experian, specialized tools like ESRI’s Tapestry Segmentation, consumer surveys, social media platforms like 𝕏, Facebook, Linkedin.

Demographic data includes basic characteristics like age, gender, income, education level, occupation, marital status, family size, ethnicity, and where people live (e.g., city, state).

Psychographic data dives deeper into people’s lifestyles, values, attitudes, interests, personality traits, social class, activities, and how they make purchasing decisions. For example, it might show if someone values sustainability, enjoys outdoor activities, participates in community activism.

While demographic data is straightforward, psychographic data can reveal sensitive personal details, like beliefs even life goals.

Additionally, by cross pollinating each device with other devices regularly within close proximity to the target device we are able to build a detailed profile for each target.

90% of those in the above 84% were likely working with one of these five groups and is the reason for their presence.

Once again, this is based a very sophisticated algorithm that looks at the behavioral metrics for each device, including the physical 1:1 proximity to leaders and paymasters from these groups in the past.

Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, Troublemakers and the Democratic Socialists of America.

Each receives money from ActBlue and at least three, via USAID.

Disruption Project: Legal status is unclear, likely operating illegally. Rise & Resist: 501c4 non-profit Indivisible Project: 501c4 non-profit Troublemakers: Legal status is for profit. Democratic Socialists of America: 501c4 non-profit

Continue reading “”

Space Force General: Chinese Satellites ‘Dogfighting’ in Orbit.

The vice chief of the U.S. Space Force said Chinese satellites have been observed rehearsing “dogfighting” maneuvers in low Earth orbit, a display of the communist nation’s ability to perform complex maneuvers in orbit.

The maneuvers, referred to as rendezvous and proximity operations, involve not only navigating around other objects but also inspecting them, the Air Force Times reported Tuesday.

“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein said Tuesday at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C.

A Space Force spokesperson told the Air Force Times the observation occurred in 2024 and involved three Shiyan-24C experimental satellites and two other Chinese experimental spacecraft, the Shijian-605 A and B. The Shijian-6 systems were believed to be on a signals intelligence mission, which could be used to determine the geolocation of a signal’s origin, which helps in identifying the location and movements of adversaries, according to the American Military Institute.

Guetlein’s comments came as the Space Force intensifies efforts to establish dominance in space, both by defending its satellites from enemy attacks and through offensive measures of its own, according to the Air Force Times.

“The purpose of the Space Force is to guarantee space superiority for the joint force — not space for space’s sake,” Guetlein said. “Space [operations] guarantee that, just like all the other domains, we can fight as a joint force, and we can depend on those capabilities.”

Guetlein used the satellite dogfighting demonstration among other concerning activities from “near-peer” U.S. adversaries. That included Russia’s 2019 demonstration of a “nesting doll,” during which a satellite released a smaller spacecraft that then performed several stalking maneuvers near a U.S. satellite.

Such operations indicate the space capability gap between the U.S. military and its closest adversaries is shrinking, a concern Space Force leaders have been raising for years, the Air Force Times reported.

“That capability gap used to be massive,” Guetlein said. “We’ve got to change the way we look at space or that capability gap may reverse and not be in our favor anymore.”

Elon Musk Drops New Info About Massive Cyberattack Against X

There were some major outages on the social media platform X on Monday, with X owner Elon Musk saying it was due to a “massive cyberattack” that went on throughout the morning and afternoon.

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk explained. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

He went on to say they were “tracing” the attack.

Musk later appeared on Fox Business with Larry Kudlow where he was asked about the cyberattack and about whether it was “foreign sourced.”

“Well, we don’t we’re not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” Musk said.

Now it should be noted that IP addresses showing as Ukraine doesn’t necessarily mean Ukrainians did it when the people behind the action might be using VPNs. Would Ukraine really leave a trail back to themselves if they did it? That would seem a bad move.

The folks who truly have a lot to lose from Musk’s actions are the people whose power he is disrupting here in the U.S. Those are the folks who want him out of government. But Musk may have more information and he’ll likely find out even more as he continues to look into it. Chances are they will run these characters to ground when they make such a huge attack.

The day before, some were spreading a false story that Musk wanted to cut off Starlink to Ukraine. Both he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio scotched that story. But that further hyped the “Ukraine anger” against Musk.

 

A lot of people faced outages, and there still seem to be issues with such things as embedding tweets and things.

Meanwhile, a group called Dark Storm Team claimed credit for the attack.

Continue reading “”

Undocumented commands found in Bluetooth chip used by a billion devices.

Update 3/9/25: After receiving concerns about the use of the term ‘backdoor’ to refer to these undocumented commands, we have updated our title and story. Our original story can be found here.

The ubiquitous ESP32 microchip made by Chinese manufacturer Espressif and used by over 1 billion units as of 2023 contains undocumented commands that could be leveraged for attacks.

The undocumented commands allow spoofing of trusted devices, unauthorized data access, pivoting to other devices on the network, and potentially establishing long-term persistence.

This was discovered by Spanish researchers Miguel Tarascó Acuña and Antonio Vázquez Blanco of Tarlogic Security, who presented their findings yesterday at RootedCON in Madrid.

“Tarlogic Security has detected a backdoor in the ESP32, a microcontroller that enables WiFi and Bluetooth connection and is present in millions of mass-market IoT devices,” reads a Tarlogic announcement shared with BleepingComputer.

“Exploitation of this backdoor would allow hostile actors to conduct impersonation attacks and permanently infect sensitive devices such as mobile phones, computers, smart locks or medical equipment by bypassing code audit controls.”

The researchers warned that ESP32 is one of the world’s most widely used chips for Wi-Fi + Bluetooth connectivity in IoT (Internet of Things) devices, so the risk is significant.

Continue reading “”

Reminds me of stories of snake oil salesmen


AI Gun Detection System Blows It In Nashville School Shooting

A school shooting in Nashville made a lot of headlines, but it wasn’t quite what a lot of people think of as school shootings these days. Yes, it was a shooting and two people died–one of which was the shooter, apparently–and one person was injured, but it also wasn’t quite Uvalde or Virginia Tech. It was, however, awful for everyone present that day and an innocent person lost their life.

It wasn’t the first school shooting in Nashville in recent years, either.

After a shooting at the Covenant School, a lot of places stepped up their efforts to fortify schools. This is something I’ve personally been an advocate for.

The problem is that we need to use proven strategies or, if we’re going to rely on new technology, we need proven backups as well. One of those unproven technologies we’ve talked a lot about here at Bearing Arms is AI gun detection systems, such as those deployed on the New York City subway.

I’m just not convinced they’re ready for primetime.

In Nashville, it seems that, once again, we know the skeptics were right.

The technology system meant to prevent school shootings failed to detect the Antioch High School shooter’s gun, an official confirms.

A Metro Nashville Public Schools’ spokesperson says based on the camera location and the shooter in relation to the camera, it did not detect the weapon.

MNPS adds the camera did activate an alarm trigger when law enforcement and school resource officers arrived with their weapons.

The technology, Omnialert, is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) gun detection used in all Metro Schools.

Look, I like being right as much as the next guy, but I hate seeing the proof that I was right unfold like this. I’m not alone in my skepticism, either, but I’m pretty sure everyone else who had concerns feels the same way.

Omnialert is, of course, just one company. However, Evolv was the company in the NYC subway system, and it also had major problems.

A third company called ZeroEyes has been engaging in state lobbying efforts to restrict tax dollars to only go to companies with certain credentials, which coincidentally only they have. I don’t like the practice they’re undertaking, but it’s possible theirs would work better.

What people call AI today isn’t really artificial intelligence. Most of it is just software with a bunch of if/then statements that winnows down the possibilities and does so very quickly. Yet, like any software, garbage in, garbage out. It’s only as good as the programmers themselves, and while large language models can learn from the inputs they receive, there’s no indication this software can.

Or maybe it does.

What we do know is that in a key moment, the very moment this system was designed to prevent, it failed spectacularly.

It also seems that guns had been found on campus previously, according to one parent who voiced security concerns regarding the school, and begging for metal detectors to be installed.

That’s right. It seems the schools decided AI was all that was needed and not something tried-and-true like metal detectors.

Technology is great, and while I may be skeptical of taxpayer dollars going toward experimental technology, there’s nothing inherently wrong with trying new things. However, relying on these unproven technologies almost exclusively, as seems to have happened here, isn’t the answer.

The only backup seems to have been two school resource officers who were in a completely different part of the school when the incident happened and who arrived after the killer took his own life.

But I can’t help but wonder how things would have gone if the Nashville schools respected teachers’ right to keep and bear arms and an armed staff member had been present. Sure, the shooter would have probably still died, but no one else would have.

It means;
1 ‘You can’t stop the signal’
2 Gun control has been dead for years, but the moron wanna-be gun grabbers haven’t yet gotten to the ‘acceptance’ stage of grief.


What Would It Mean if CEO Killer’s Suppressor Was 3D Printed?

In the early days after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s murder, there was a lot of speculation as to what exactly the killer used. With the arrest of Luigi Magione, though, many of them have been answered. We know that Magione was in possession of a 3D-printed handgun and he had a suppressor.

However, what we’re not seeing in most of these reports is just where the suppressor came from.

I’ve reached out to the NYPD for answers, though they haven’t responded by the time this particular piece has gone live. In fairness to them, I sent that email early this morning before most decent people were awake.

What’s interesting, though, are a lot of reports that this was like a 3D-printed suppressor.

‘I can confirm it is a 3D-printed gun,’ Print Shoot Repeat, who runs the YouTube channel PSR, said. ‘What are the odds it was a 3D-printed suppressor? Well, I think kind of high honestly.’

He explained that a 3D printer suppressor is ‘super light,’ but does not allow the slide the cycle properly.

The shooter of Thompson experienced a similar issue during the murder when he shot and had to recycle the slide to take another shot.

However, another gun expert with more than 30 years of training told Dailymail.com that most guns with a suppressor will behave that way.

‘There are different causes for jamming,’ the expert, who spoke on anonymity, said.

‘Sometimes the ammunition is poor sometimes the firearm is dirty, it’s not maintained. The ammunition is a poor grade. It doesn’t matter what kind of gun it is.

So yeah, there’s debate.

What we don’t have are answers.

3D-printing a suppressor fits what we know about the killer. We know he printed the receiver for his gun–my speculation has been that he knew all the media reporting on “gun tracing” but didn’t understand what that meant, so he wanted to avoid being identified quickly or easily–and that suppressors are more tightly controlled than firearms are. It’s very likely he did print his suppressor.

That brings up all kinds of possibilities and probabilities that a lot of gun control activists aren’t going to like.

First, again, suppressors are tightly controlled. There aren’t “suppressor kits” marketed throughout the internet where you guy buy a kit, print some key parts, and you legally have a suppressor. It doesn’t work like that. One could argue that there are kits available, but they’re not marketed as such and I have yet to find one that requires a 3D-printed part to work.

So that brings us to the idea that the whole thing was 3D printed.

No laws on the books allow just anyone to print themselves a suppressor.

“Yeah, but the files are all over the internet, most likely.”

Sure. However, there’s a problem with that argument. See, while possession of those files might not be illegal, having them on the internet likely is.

The gun files you can find on the internet are generally only there because the State Department has decided that they don’t violate the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or ITAR. That basically says that weapons and weapons technology can’t be exported without federal approval. That includes technical data.

On Monday, a State Department spokesperson confirmed to Bearing Arms that the U.S. Munitions List in Category I does, in fact, include suppressors and the technical data required to make them.

In other words, those files shouldn’t lawfully be on the internet in the first place.

While the State Department wouldn’t comment on any potential investigation, this still blows all the “we should ban ‘ghost guns'” rhetoric out of the water.

In no way are suppressors lawfully produced, and yet Magione allegedly produced one. If such a tightly controlled item can be produced from tightly controlled information, then just how does anyone really think they can stop guns from being made?

Yes, Magione reportedly used a kit, but we’ve covered the FGC-9, which doesn’t require any kits, just parts from the hardware store.

The truth of the matter is that just the possibility that Thompson’s killer used a 3D-printed suppressor illustrates that gun control isn’t a winning strategy. You’re never going to keep things out of the hands of people who want them badly enough. They’ll find a way.

While everyone is going nuts about the gun itself, the suppressor is the bigger issue, which is why no one wants to talk about it.

The Trillionaires of Mars

The first entity to establish a Mars colony will be the universe’s first trillionaire.

Lately, we’ve had a lot of puddlefish whining about how “we” shouldn’t go to Mars. Some of them actually think they get a vote, based on economic illiteracy and the delusion that SpaceX is somehow part of the US federal government. [Closed caption for the hard-of-thinking: it isn’t.]

But others just think they are giving good investment advice… SpaceX investors can do what they want, but Mars is a frozen wasteland full of nothing but near-vacuum and rocks.

So why would anyone want to go there?

Source: @cb_doge

Elon Musk likes to answer this question by pointing out that it’s not a good idea to store all humanity’s eggs in one basket. He’s right, but this kind of argument isn’t comprehensible to everyone, nor is it the full picture.

So now it’s the SF writer’s turn.

And therefore I present to you…

An Economic Roadmap for the Future of Humanity.

Continue reading “”

Kissinger’s final warning: Prepare now for ‘superhuman’ people to control Earth

Humanity must begin preparations to no longer be in charge of Earth because of artificial intelligence, according to a new book from the late statesman Henry Kissinger and a pair of the country’s leading technologists.

The rise of AI creating “superhuman” people is a major topic of concern in “Genesis,” published Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company. It’s the “last book” from Kissinger, according to the publisher’s parent company Hachette. Kissinger was a longtime U.S. diplomat and strategist who died last year at age 100.

Kissinger’s co-authors, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and longtime Microsoft senior executive Craig Mundie, finished the combined work after Kissinger’s death, and The Washington Times has obtained an advance copy. Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie wrote they were among the last people to speak with Kissinger and sought to honor his dying request to finish the manuscript.

The authors offer a bracing message, warning that AI tools have already started outpacing human capabilities so people might need to consider biologically engineering themselves to ensure they are not rendered inferior or wiped out by advanced machines.

In a section titled “Coevolution: Artificial Humans,” the three authors encourage people to think now about “trying to navigate our role when we will no longer be the only or even the principal actors on our planet.”

“Biological engineering efforts designed for tighter human fusion with machines are already underway,” they add.

Current efforts to integrate humans with machine include brain-computer interfaces, a technology that the U.S. military identified last year as of the utmost importance. Such interfaces allow for a direct link between the brain’s electrical signals and a device that processes them to accomplish a given task, such as controlling a battleship.

The authors also raise the prospect of a society that chooses to create a hereditary genetic line of people specifically designed to work better with forthcoming AI tools. The authors describe such redesigning as undesirable, with the potential to cause “the human race to split into multiple lines, some infinitely more powerful than others.”

“Altering the genetic code of some humans to become superhuman carries with it other moral and evolutionary risks,” the authors write. “If AI is responsible for the augmentation of human mental capacity, it could create in humanity a simultaneous biological and psychological reliance on ‘foreign’ intelligence.”

Such a physical and intellectual dependence may create new challenges to separate man from the machines, the authors warn. As a result, designers and engineers should try to make the machines more human, rather than make humans more like machines.

But that raises a new problem: choosing which humans to make the machines follow in a diverse and divided world.

“No single culture should expect to dictate to another the morality of the intellects on which it would be relying,” the authors wrote. “So, for each country, machines would have to learn different rules, formal and informal, moral, legal, and religious, as well as, ideally, different rules for each user and, within baseline constraints, for every conceivable inquiry, task, situation, and context.”

The authors say society can expect technical difficulties, but those difficulties will pale in comparison with designing machines to follow a moral code, as the authors said they do not believe good and evil are self-evident concepts.

Kissinger, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mundie urged greater attention to aligning machines with human values. The trio said they would prefer that no artificial general intelligence surpassing humanity’s intellect is allowed to emerge unless it is properly aligned with the human species.

The authors said they are rooting for humanity’s survival and hope people will figure it out, but that the task will not be easy.

We wish success to our species’ gigantic project, but just as we cannot count on tactical human control in the longer-term project of coevolution, we also cannot rely solely on the supposition that machines will tame themselves,” the authors wrote. “Training an AI to understand us and then sitting back and hoping that it respects us is not a strategy that seems either safe or likely to succeed.”

Software Development Goes Full Brown Shirt On 3D Printing

Software makers have solidified their place as useful idiots for the anti-Second Amendment agenda by leading the charge when it comes to the development of programs that detect gun parts being made by 3D printers, block those prints and in some cases, automatically notify the authorities. Claiming that these advances are aimed at curbing the illegal printing of firearms and firearms parts, these companies have donned their brown shirts a bit too quickly and have not the first clue regarding the tradition and constitutionality of homemade guns in America.

Cloud-based 3D printing management platform 3DPrinterOS has partnered with Montclair State University to develop an algorithm that identifies the 3D printing of firearm parts, but they are not the first. Print&Go recently launched a software system designed to block 3D-printed production of firearms called 3D GUN’T. What this software does not offer before it invades your privacy and tells you what you can and can’t do in your home on the equipment you paid hard-earned money for is detect whether or not you are a prohibited individual, that is a person who’s record prohibits them from legally purchasing or possessing a firearm.

“This partnership allows us to explore the intersection of technology and public safety. We are excited to contribute our knowledge to develop a system that can make a real difference in identifying and mitigating risks associated with 3D printed firearms,” says co-director of the MIX at Montclair State University, Jason Frasca.

I have long said that the attack on 80% receivers as being “too easy to complete” has been disingenuous, a statement supported by authorities and companies now setting their sights on 3D-printing, which is effectively a 0% home build. If starting from scratch is considered illegal, then let’s face the facts, the goal is to prohibit Americans from exercising their Constitutional right to construct a firearm at home, a move that I find in contempt of the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which directs authorities to respect the historical traditions of the Second Amendment.

Print&Go claims 3D GUN’T is designed to prevent the illegal manufacture of firearms via 3D printers, however, if a law-abiding citizen in a free state (actual America) chooses to manufacture a gun at home using their 3D printer, how does 3D GUN’T distinguish between this user and a criminal? It doesn’t. The software treats all Americans as criminals, deploying advanced algorithms to analyze CAD files, sent remotely or loaded via USB, and detect components that resemble firearm designs, immediately blocking print jobs that match these items in its extensive database. Additional use of artificial intelligence (AI) recognizes new or modified gun designs, keeping the software adaptive to emerging freedom and helping to stifle it.

3D GUN’T doesn’t stop there. It goes full Gestapo in your home, logging details of each print job and allowing authorities to trace activities and conduct a full audit trail, with integrated firmware installed directly on printers ensuring that unauthorized printing is blocked even if the printer is offline. The icing on top is real-time camera monitoring, providing visual oversight during printing and stopping any job where it detects a firearm shape.

“3D GUN’T is a critical tool in our efforts to ensure the responsible use of 3D printing technology… The solution not only prevents the illegal manufacture of firearms but also creates peace of mind for clients, whether they are makers, educational institutions, or businesses. With 3D GUN’T, users can oversee the management of their print jobs with the assurance that their technology misuse can be mitigated,” says Print&Go’s CEO John Amin.

The silver lining to this situation is that it opens up an oppertunity for 3D printer manufacturers who respect the rights of Americans to step in and fill a void. It also allows us yet another vote, this time with our bank accounts. Note these software developers and the 3D printer manufacturers who utilize this technology, then ask yourselves if you want to give them your money or invite them into your home. 

It may be artificial, but it isn’t intelligent.
The old “GIGO” Garbage In-Garbage Out, still applies


How Artificial Intelligence Is Repackaging Gun-Control Talking Points

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the world in which we live—for the better, of course, say most of the developers of AI. But these systems are often fed biases, including anti-Second Amendment biases, by their creators and AI is even known to just make things up. So, how should we reckon with the inevitable impacts of this fast-emerging technology?

AI has already proven to be capable of doing a number of tasks. A relatively basic form of AI is found in the streaming service that sends out texts noting that you might like a movie that was recently introduced to a service. That text is created because an AI program decided that, based on the types of television shows and movies you’ve watched previously, this new movie should appeal to you.

Some companies are now using AI to write marketing copy, to produce manufacturing timelines, to perform product tagging and to compose product descriptions. The use of AI in this field even prompted a Hollywood writers’ strike.

When we focus on how AI might impact our Second Amendment-protected rights, however, the first thing we run into are chatbots. The chatbot is the most-popular and readily accessible form of this technology. It is known as “generative AI.” If you ask a chatbot a question, it will generate an answer. Chatbot answers are “generated” from the data the chatbot has been fed by what are known as “large language models,” or LLMs. A scientific research paper noted that the most-popular chatbot, ChatGPT, was based on one of the largest LLMs ever created, which contained tens of thousands of pages of publicly available text from books, articles, opinion pieces, websites and even works of fiction.

But AI chatbots do much more than collect information. Using sophisticated algorithms, they possess the ability to perform what seems like analysis of the data. If you ask a chatbot, “What were the main causes of the American Civil War?” it will find material in its database related to the pattern of words in this question. Then, using the above-noted algorithms, it would create a text to answer the question. In this case, the answer would likely summarize various theories as to why the Civil War happened, and note which theories are more accepted than others by current historians. It would provide names and dates and may also provide the main sources the chatbot used to compile the answer. The chatbot will usually do all this in seconds, and if you are using a public chatbot like ChatGPT, it will do it for free.

It is not just a caveat that many of these chatbots have programming that actually allows them to make up citations. AI is supposed to be all facts, but for several reasons we’ll get into, it also writes a lot of fiction.

So okay, what about Second Amendment-related questions?

It’s clear that the use of these chatbots and other forms of AI will increasingly impact journalism and the public discourse on the Second Amendment. It will thereby impact future gun-control proposals. As journalists will increasingly use chatbots to research and perhaps to write the news, any bias baked into this AI will be used to influence public opinion. And indeed, chatbots have been found to possess a pronounced, human-generated bias against pro-Second Amendment issues. Also, as previously noted, the chatbots themselves are known to generate completely fabricated “data.”

Continue reading “”

Gun Made Launches The Largest Online Search Engine For Guns and Ammunition

Gun Made just launched the largest online search engine for firearms and ammunition, connecting consumers to more than 4,000 gun stores across the United States. The coolest thing about this search engine is it provides gun buyers with real-time inventory so they can not only check the price, but see if a nearby brick-and-mortar store has the gun in stock. Gun Made tracks over 500 million items so consumers can locate in-stock products on shelves anywhere in the country, including right in their own backyard with a simple ZIP code search for local inventories.

Gun Made also plans to expand the search engine’s capabilities by the end of the year to include firarms parts and accessories as well. The sheer volume of tracking necessary to bring this information to your computer, tablet, or phone browser is remarkable, however, Gun Made has faced the challenge head-on, making it the first website in the firearms industry to provide this capability.

Continue reading “”

BREAKING UPDATE: 8 Killed, 2,750 Wounded, Mostly Hezbollah Terrorists, as Pagers They Use to Communicate Explode Across the Country

LATEST UPDATE: Lebanon’s Health Minister reports that eight people have been killed and 2,750 injured due to exploding pagers across the country, per ABC News.

Over 1,000 individuals, mostly Hezbollah terrorists, were wounded when the pagers they use for communication exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Authorities are expecting that the number of victims will continue to rise.

The incident, confirmed by security sources, is being called the “biggest security breach” the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror network has faced since its ongoing war with Israel began.
The explosions, reported by Reuters, occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time. Panic spread as Hezbollah-controlled areas in southern Beirut and other parts of the country were hit with explosions that lasted for over an hour.

Security sources confirmed that the devices were the latest models used by Hezbollah and were thought to be critical in their communications amidst their war efforts against Israel.

Despite Hezbollah’s close ties with Iran, which has been instrumental in supplying the group with weapons and communications technology, this incident marks a significant embarrassment for their operations.

Hezbollah’s use of technology, likely provided through Iranian channels, appears to have backfired in the most dramatic way possible. Even the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was reportedly injured in one of the blasts, according to Iranian media.

All signs indicate a remarkable operation orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad.

More from Reuters:

The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources said.

The wave of explosions lasted around an hour after the initial detonations, which took place about 3:45 p.m. local time (1345 GMT). It was not immediately clear how the devices were detonated.[…]

Lebanon’s crisis operations center, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming in for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.

The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 50 ambulances and 300 emergency medical staff were dispatched to help in the evacuation of victims.

Continue reading “”