I love that factories and corporations have long since ceased to exist, but everyone and their moms carry assault rifles with working 5.56mm bullets. This does, of course, make video games in post-apocalyptia more fun (thank you, Fallout 3). I'm not a gun expert, but I understand you need a fair amount of precision to make automatic weapons, as well as to make bullets that fire in anything more advanced than a musket. I'll buy that people can figure out how to make relatively small metal pellets and stuff gunpowder into a tube (assuming they have access to saltpetre...)

Also -- don't mean to set off a firestorm or anything, but I did a double-take at JudyMac's post earlier. Where are you getting your numbers -- 1 in 4 men are gay? I suspect gay men everywhere would rejoice if this were the case, and there would be a far more equitable set of rights if the oppressed population was 25% of the country.

This actually leads me to my other personal pet peeve of far-future writing, both apocalyptic and just plain-old-futurey: the absolute loosening of sexual "values" results in 1) apocalypse, 2) ennui, malaise, and godlessness (that often leads to apocalypse) that only the main character discovers a way out of. These plots tend to sound to me like "our kids have no respect" crossed with the fall of civilization. It's hard to read such a story and not hear "You kids get your keisters off my lawn!" echoing around my head.

1. It's been done to death.
2. It takes an overly simplistic view of youth and society as a whole.
3. It usually ignores the effects of religion (which often disappears in the book), <insert favorite STD>, and the quasi-cyclical nature of what people view as "values." All three of these things will likely be around until the end of humanity, even with the evil influences of that darn rock-&-roll music.

That people will think differently about sex in the future -- sure, I buy that. It's part of speculating the nature of the future to write about it. That they will have destroyed the world through sexual permissiveness, or at least created a world where half the people couldn't care less if it were to be destroyed? I don't think so. I think in any version of the future there will still be sex in the form of hippie love communes, modern traditional marriages, illicit homosexual encounters, and of course two teens sneaking out into the woods at a promise-keepers' "purity" convention.

My high school class read Alas, Babylon. Out of all the stories we read and watched about nuclear devastation, that's the one I actually enjoyed.

Edited to add: I remember liking ALAS, BABYLON, too, but it's been a long time since I've read it.

On the one hand, the tolerances on modern ammo are too tight for people to make anything useful from scratch. Too wide or long, won't fit the chamber, gun won't be fireable. Too short or thin, pressure will spike when the trigger is pulled and the gun (and possibly shooter) will be damaged, probably seriously.

On the other hand, people commonly make their own ammunition through a process called "reloading", in which you take fired brass, clean it and resize it, reload it with new gunpowder and primer, and pack a new bullet in the end. The equipment required to reload is mechanically simple.

It is entirely feasible for an individual to cast his own bullets, and (in a real pinch, and after a lot of dangerous experimentation) make his own gunpowder. It is the brass and primers that require advanced manufacturing processes.

Because there are millions of rounds of good brass extant (which can be reused 3 or 4 times) and a lot of primer caps that will remain good indefinitely, it is possible to have a Fallout 3 sort of future. The ammo supply would most likely run out when the last unfired primer cap was ignited.

.22 bullets today don't have a percussion cap. The percussion-sensitive primer compound is poured into the casing before the powder.

None of the processes used to make bullets would defy preindustrial age technology. Given the need and the knowledge, a late bronze age technological level would suffice to make bullets, though steel age for the barrels. Reliability, range, and accuracy would not be as high, nor would full automatic weapons be reliable due to inherent inconsistency in casing sizing, but still plausible for a small and primitive manufactory to produce bullets. In the alternative, the latest advancement in fire delivery, Lead Storm's electic ignition technology, is relatively simple to reproduce.

Flame throwers are hazardous devices, even the best made modern ones have disastrous outcomes in inexperienced hands.

RPGs are also relatively simple to reproduce in otherwise primitive conditions. And, again, reliability, accuracy, and range would suffer, but if delivered on target, effectiveness would not be diminished. In Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold Farnham tipped homemade explosive projectiles with a friction-percussion senstive compound. Fortunately, Heinlein didn't accurately portray the chemical preparation. Authentic, but not sufficiently accurate for an amatuer chemist to make it.

Air rifle technology would be fairly easy to develop and quite effective and faster firing than guns. my only thought is of an air rifle based society, having to fire in space.....

I think common sense implies a few things.
1. It is harder to build things in post-apoc than it is now. materials are more scarce, etc. (This is situation dependent, but probably, usually true.)

2. If 1 is true, and RPG's are easy enough to make, as you imply, I think the police would be going against them more often now.

In other words "if it were so easy, more people would do it."

Having them around in P.A. stories isn't like... absurdly ridiculous or anything but, for me, it requires some additional suspension of disbelief.

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lol rich, that makes me think of Dr. Strangelove

Just making black powder, the least needed grenade ingredient, nowadays is a heavily controlled industry. Before the discovery of one particular and counterintuitive safety protocol for making black powder, manufactories blew up all the time.

The early motion picture industry relied on a simple to make pre-petroleum age plastic film that was highly explosive and incendiary. Theaters burned down regularly before a more stable plastic was developed. The same material is common today as a primer compound in British munitions. The same material was used to make early 20th Century plastic objects. Faux turtleshell hairbrush handles, among other things, were made from it. It had a curious tendency to explode in extreme circumstances. Even fireworks manufacturing is heavily controlled in most countries. Heck, even some fertilizers are heavily controlled since the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing.

Today, just about any American rifle, no matter how cheap, will shoot to mechanical accuracy of about 1 minute of angle.

So while it would be possible to build something like a primitive rifle, and something like a primitive bomb launcher, p.a., it's not going to be possible to replicate the accuracy, reliability, and destructive force that make today's weapons so darn useful. You can't put a molotov cocktail in a slingshot and call it an RPG, even if the gross function is the same.

We CANNOT permit a mine-shaft gap.

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You can't put a molotov cocktail in a slingshot and call it an RPG, even if the gross function is the same.

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The Gays was just me being idiotic. I saw someone posit the 1 in 4 people are gay thing, which strikes me as kinda high, and made a feeble attempt at humor. And I wasn't even drinking at the time.

I googled the mine shaft gap and was illucidated. I have seen Dr. Strangelove, of course, but it was about 20 years ago and I had forgotten the dialogue I will have to pause from administering CPR long enough to see it again.

Another PA cliche-- utopian/distopian enclaves.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes- A Boy and His Dog-

Ants. Spiders. Rats. You name it.

The greatest word that solves all problems in comic books, though, is: SOMEHOW.

Peter Parker managed to get bit by a radioactive spider that SOMEHOW transferred its DNA to him.

SOMEHOW Reed Richards and company didn't die when exposed to radiation.

Bruce Banner SOMEHOW survived a gamma ray(?!!) explosion and SOMEHOW manages to keep his pants on even though every other piece of clothing doesn't make it through the transformation.

SF proper grew out of it fast enough---but the comics never did.

And regarding mutations in comic books again (forgive the slight sidetrack), why are all mutations in those stories useful? razor-sharp claws, powers of flight, weather-control, super-strength?

I don't like Piers Anthony's Xanth stories in most respects, but I did like one thing about them. EVERYONE in Xanth had powers, but that doesn't mean that those powers were useful. For instance, there were some people who could make a purplish spot appear on the wall, and that was it.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15049_marvel-comics-vs-science-5-most-absurd-superhero-origins.html

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I remember one line from a list of Bart Simpson's Biggest Beefs: Years of exposure to radiation, but no cool superpowers...

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