Well, in the US there's currently a lot of effort going into attempts to tackle "ghost guns". Restricting ammunition may be better from a practical perspective (I don't know for sure) but it's harder from a 2A perspective. But none of it is targeting the 3D printers as Doctorow feared. I don't know if this is because the impact of 3D printing on homemade guns and other potentially lawbreaking activities has been limited or something else. I do think there's a general suspicion of having devices try to do something about lawbreaking activity they might enable, think of the backlash against Apple's CSAM scanning proposal. This might be Hollywood's fault, the idea of devices playing cop immediately makes people think of their computer ratting them out for watching a pirated movie.

(I know almost nothing about guns and this comment is not advocating for any specific policy)

> they need the casings which could also be restricted

Are casings particularly hard to make? It seems like anyone with the tools and skills to make a gun from parts could also make little cylinders that fit in that gun. Or just do the cannon thing, have a vaguely spherical ball and some explosive stuff packed behind it.

The part that is challenging to fabricate at home is the primer.

Casings can be reused and reloaded to make new bullets.

And you could build a black-powder gun that might be a bit less accurate but would involve nothing really traceable.

Yeah perhaps in the US this might not work. I was thinking more of europe where even ammunition isn't readily available to buy already (and people don't have stockpiles except highly regulated sportshooters).

But I thought the part where the firing pin hits the cartridge gets damaged and the primer there isn't easily replaced. I'm probably wrong, I never even held a real gun.

It does get damaged but in the US at least primers are easily purchased.

> The guns are really easily tackled though.

If you can do that, you can ban guns too. Easy right? What's more, ammunition is easier to make than a gun.

https://www.quora.com/If-the-US-banned-sales-of-gun-ammuniti...

The hobbyist? describing making 400 rounds an hour by hand in his garage is a good rule of thumb.

Ammunition is easy to make when all components are readily available. Each round of modern ammo requires a bullet, a case, a load of gunpowder, and a primer. Bullets are relatively easy to cast. Gunpowder can be manufactured, but making smokeless from scratch is not easy, while the traditional black gunpowder gums up semi-auto action very fast. Cases and especially primers are very hard to make right.

Smokeless for semi automatic is strangely specific. This is not what people will make if you somehow restrict ammo casings (which you can make, and the head is simpler), so I am not sure why those requirements equate to being effective. When talking about technical barriers, it is considered obvious as to how they can and will be circumvented. Ammo is the same, but somehow you have made the leap that dropping standards will be a deterrent. This is ridiculous.

Smokeless for semi-automatic reflects the historical experience of trying to use black powder in repeating guns (even such as mag-fed bolt-actions of late 19th century).

As for technical barriers, it is obvious that they will be circumvented, yes - but experience also shows that most people don't bother, which is exactly why such barriers are still promoted by the industries that benefit from them. It's the same story for ammo and guns.

Note that I haven't said anything about the desirability of such barriers in either case. FWIW I actually own tools to manufacture "ghost guns". Nevertheless, it seems obvious to me that any such restrictions on ammo and ammo components would be effective in exactly the same sense that DRM is effective - by reducing the number of people involved in the activity by several orders of magnitude.

> The guns are really easily tackled though.

> As for technical barriers, it is obvious that they will be circumvented, yes

> any such restrictions on ammo and ammo components would be effective in exactly the same sense that DRM is effective

My original objection was that guns are "easily tackled" as an incorrect assertion. You responded with a derail into moving the goalpost to "it's partially effective". Your responses are not compelling reasons to modify my stance.