From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: criminals & machineguns
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: usa
Lines: 60

In article <C5ME6D.Iy0@cs.uiuc.edu> kratz@cs.uiuc.edu (Jason Kratz) writes:
>In <1993Apr16.202441.16032@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>>In article <93104.175256U28037@uicvm.uic.edu> Jason Kratz <U28037@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
>>>people are getting killed by gang violence every day?  Every single day I hear
>>>about more people getting killed by gang violence and see some of the weapo{s
>>>that are being confiscated.
>
>>Is Kratz claiming that he can reliably visually distinguish an M-16
>>from an AR-15?  That he can see the difference between a semi-auto and
>>a full-auto UZI?  That he can see the difference between the various
>>versions (some full-auto, some semi-auto only) of the M-11/9?
>
>Well, let me see.  UZI, no.  M-11/9, no.

I see that I misphrased my question.  I should have asked WHICH
full-autos Kratz can accurately distinguish from semi-auto
look-alikes.  I should have also included some semi-auto only guns in
my list to see if he'd ask how to distinguish them from their
non-existent full-auto "relatives".

Let's do the former now.  Kratz has claimed that he can visually
distinguish full-autos from semi-autos.  For which full-autos is he
making that claim?  How does he do it?  Let's get specific, and as
exhaustive as possible.

>M-16/AR-15, maybe.  I remember there
>being a selector swtich on the AR-15.  If I remember correctly (please correct
>me if I'm wrong) the switch would set to an "off" position or an "on" position
>because the gun (AR-15) is semi-automatic.  Wouldn't the M-16 have a position
>for semi-auto fire and full-auto fire (or maybe 3 round bursts)?

Maybe?  Why is Kratz asking about what he told us that he knows?

Is Kratz certain that he can distinguish a three position switch from
a two position switch via TV inspection?  (Does he even get to see the
switch in the typical police display of guns?)  Note that one might
well be able to see this sort of thing in a hands on visual inspection
even though it won't be seen on TV.  And to think that Kratz was
telling us that seeing it on TV was just as accurate as being
there....

>How about the other guns?  Do they also have selector switch to switch between
>semi-auto and fully-auto fire?

Why all the questions?  Kratz assured us that he could make this distinction
and now he's asking us how he did it....

>Well, what about what I said above?  If that is correct I guess TV would be
>acceptable (if you had a good enough picture and a picture of the lower 
>receiver of the AR-15/M-16).

What about it?  It only demonstrates that, as I predicted, Kratz
was blowing smoke on this.

>>-andy gave Kratz a chance to back down on this in private
>>--
>Jason Kratz <- didn't take andy's offer to back down in private

-andy wonders what Kratz is learning from this
--
