World View: Violence Flares Again in China's Xinjiang Province

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama’s anti-gun campaign
• Violence flares again in China’s Xinjiang province
• Israel approves new West Bank settlements on eve of John Kerry visit
• Wall Street stocks gain on bad U.S. economic news

Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama’s anti-gun campaign

3D printer printing a cup — it could just as easily have been a gun

President Barack Obama has been more successful than former NRApresident Charlton Heston or current NRA president Wayne LaPierrein making guns available to a lot more people.Thanks to President Obama and his anti-gun campaigns, gunsales are exploding well into record territory. Gunmanufacturer Smith & Wesson reports that its gun salesare up a whopping 42% this year. According to the CEO:

“While we significantly increased our productioncapacity in fiscal year 2013, we remain capacity constrained, aswe have for the past five quarters. We plan to continueintelligently increasing capacity in fiscal year2014.”

If Obama were going to run for president again, I’m sure that Smith &Wesson would want to contribute to his campaign, because Obama is verygood for the gun business — better than George Bush or any recentpresident, and better than the NRA. Furthermore, Obama can point tothe gun industry as a place where he personally can take credit forcreating jobs — jobs for gun manufacturers, gun distributors, gunretailers, and owners of gun practice ranges. Thanks to Obama, it’sjust guns, guns and more guns. When Obama’s opponents point to hisfailures to create jobs, he can shut his critics up by pointing to hisspectacular success with creating jobs in the gun industry.

Smith & Wesson’s business is so good that they’re capacityconstrained, but 3D printers are quickly filling the gap. CodyWilson, head of Texas nonprofit Defense Distributed, has demonstrateda 3D-printed gun that can be used hundreds of times before failing,and has published the blueprints (CAD file) on his web site. Thewhole gun control issue became even more farcical last month, when theU.S. State Dept. ordered Cody to remove the blueprints from his website. But no matter, they’re now available elsewhere on the internet.

When I wrote about 3D printed gunsin December, 3D printers cost many thousands of dollars, and3D-printed guns could not survive more than a few shots. I said atthe time that the technology would quickly become much better and muchcheaper, and it already has. Staples, for example, is selling theCube 3D Printer for prices starting at $1200, and the $1000 barriershould be broken very soon. So President Obama is helping create jobsin another way, as people get into the business of 3D-printing andselling their own guns, if not legally, then in the black market. (Bythe way, I’ve been told that you can sell a 3D printed gun legally ifyou sell it in parts that the buyer has to assemble.) CNN and NY Daily News and Staples – 3D Printers

Violence flares again in China’s Xinjiang province

Xinjiang province, in northwest China, is about as far away fromBeijing as you can get and still be in China, so it’s not surprisingthe the ethnic Uighurs are extremely dissatisfied by having thedistant Beijing government tell them how to run their lives, how todress, and how to practice (or not practice) their Sunni Muslimreligion, while at the same time, discriminating against Uighurs infavor of the mainstream Han Chinese. Early Wednesday morning, a mobof Uighurs began attacking Han Chinese, including civilians, policeofficers, and other government employees. After nine were killed, thepolice shot dead ten of the rioters, and arrested three. The attackmay have been prompted by the fourth anniversary of the mob attack byUighurs on July 5, 2009, which left 197 people dead and 1,600 injured.China has a policy of resettling masses of Han Chinese in Xinjiang, inorder to dilute the Uighur population and to assimilate them. Assimilar policy in Tibet has met with no success. The Uighurs are fromthe same central Asian Turkic ethnic group as the people of Turkeyare, and in 2009, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused theChinese government of genocide, and demanded that they end theirpolicy of assimilation. Global Times (Beijing) and AFP

Israel approves new West Bank settlements on eve of John Kerry visit

Israel has approved construction permits on Wednesday for 69 new homesin East Jerusalem, in an area taken over by Israel in the 1967 warwith Palestinians. The approval comes one day before U.S. Secretaryof State John Kerry is due to arrive in Israel, with the intention ofreviving the “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians. Theapproval might therefore be interpreted as a thumb in the eye ofPresident Barack Obama, who has asked Israel to freeze settlementbuilding in order to revive the peace talks. As I’ve said repeatedlyfor the last ten years (see “Mideast Roadmap – Will it bring peace?” from 2003), a peace agreementbetween Israel and the Palestinians is impossible, since they’reheaded for a new genocidal war re-fighting the 1949 war between Araband Jews that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creationof the state of Israel. Jerusalem Post

Wall Street stocks gain on bad U.S. economic news

I just love this. The economic news was bad on Wednesday because ofdata showing the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.8 percent inthe first quarter, well below expectations for gross domestic productto grow at a 2.4 percent annual rate. Investors believe that theeconomic news was so bad that the Fed will be forced to continue its$86 billion per month quantitative easing program for longer thanexpected, and so Wall Street stocks gained 1%. (See “23-Jun-13 World View — The ‘experts’ scramble to explain the stock market plunge”.) The badeconomic news means that you and I and “the 99%” will be harmedfinancially, but the continued quantitative easing will mean that “the1%” investors and politicians will continue to be able to use thequantitative easing money to make more money for themselves. Reuters

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