The reason the Brady Campaign changed their name from Handgun Control Inc was because handgun bans are even less popular than “assault weapon” bans. It sure as hell had nothing to do with Jim Brady getting shot by an “assault weapon”.
What is a “military grade” weapon that is different than what is already included in your description of full automatic weapons and machine guns? And for that matter, what is “non-sporting”? The idea that there should be protectionist restrictions to protect US gun manufacturers is transparently not accurate.
Some people want to ban all guns. Some people want to ban some guns. If someone says that X wants to ban guns, that means exactly that. Not all, but some. Ignore those that are already banned - if a person wants to increase the amount of guns that are banned, they want to ban guns by definition.
Your attribution of the term “assault weapon” to the NRA is in error. The term was coined by folks interested in gun control as a way to confuse the public into supporting bans of something that sounded scary. The hope was that this would act as a gateway that lead to further bans. A literal slippery slope.
Did you know that the Brady Center used to be called Handgun Control Inc.? They did this not because the NRA rat holed them into focusing on assault weapons, but after they realized that pushing for handgun bans was a losing proposition. It’s also gun control groups that have tried to push the idea of “gun violence” vs homicide or other more accurate terminology. The goal is to conflate suicide with homicide. The word play you seem to be against is intentional - and it’s from the gun control side of the table. While you earlier criticize folks for taking issue with using incorrect terminology, this is the reason why.
The idea that the NRA propagated the “assault weapon” terminology is false.
I wasn’t “mixing up” anything. I’m pointing out a flawed argument. XT used the term “gun banner”, presumably describing people that want to ban certain types of guns. YogSosoth turned that into (paraphrasing here) ‘no one wants to ban all guns’. I said that there are lots of people that want to ban various types and configurations of guns. Those people are accurately described as “gun banners”.
And whether the USA manufactures “enough guns” or whether there is a “real need” for imports is irrelevant. He said “there is absolutely no gun ban of any type” but there are quite a few. One of those is the ban on guns manufactured outside of the United States (with a few narrow exceptions, such as the one for firearms “particularly suitable for sporting purposes”).
I think the problem with bans on certain things is that none has ever shown that banning certain things does any good at all. A ban on handguns might make a difference in a generation or two but it would leave many law abiding citizens unarmed for decades. and there is no reason why licensing and registration wouldn’t be nearly as effective over that sort of time frame.
The term Assault Weapon comes from the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994” that included a ban on certain weapons defined as Assault Weapons. It is purely a creation of the gun control advocates that wanted to use a term that polled badly (like the pro-life folks using the term “partial birth abortions” or the wealthy Paris Hilton crowd using the term “death taxes”).
Gun rights folks have been trying to pull people’s heads out of that rathole since at least 2012.
I stand corrected on the origin of “assault weapon” and will remember that in the future.
That said, the NRA liberally (I slay myself 
) also usesthe term. IMHO, the NRA and/or enthusiastic 2nd Amendmentors have since hijacked the use of “assault weapons” to confuse the public that “assault weapons” are machine guns or military M16’s. When the public then bring up “assault weapons”, it’s pretty easy to point out that it’s a nonsense definition about cosmetic appearances rather than real functionality. Keeps people that don’t know anything about firearms and want more controls than there are now ratholed (a reverse slippery slope if you will).
Christ, even if “assault weapons” were actually banned, ~80% of firearm murders are with handguns. Hence to the point of many in the thread, an assault weapon ban wouldn’t have nearly as great a result as a handgun ban. Here’s a NY Times overview. Certainly if it was the strategy by the more firearm controls crowd to get momentum behind “assault weapons”, then it has backfired.
Help me with definitions please. when I refer to “military grade” that would be something like the M-16 versus the AR-15. What is the preferred common sense way to refer to this type of difference in the weapons?
Licensing and registration is something I certainly want to see.
Not to put words in your mouth, but are you also advocating licensing and registration?
[QUOTE=China Guy]
That said, the NRA liberally (I slay myself ) also uses the term. IMHO, the NRA and/or enthusiastic 2nd Amendmentors have since hijacked the use of “assault weapons” to confuse the public that “assault weapons” are machine guns or military M16’s. When the public then bring up “assault weapons”, it’s pretty easy to point out that it’s a nonsense definition about cosmetic appearances rather than real functionality. Keeps people that don’t know anything about firearms and want more controls than there are now ratholed (a reverse slippery slope if you will).
[/QUOTE]
Just from your first cite, look at the context of how they use it:
The ‘so-called assault weapons’. It’s a joke and they are treating it as such. The entire notion that because something looks scary to clueless folks who don’t know much about guns and that this warrants a label like ‘assault weapon’ (riffing so obviously off of assault rifle with it’s military connotations) is itself a joke and such an obvious attempt to poison the well and get SOMETHING banned. You seem to be trying to turn the slippery slope around, which is either deceptive or ironic in the extreme.
Again, you turn things about. That’s the point most pro-gun folks have been trying to make in all these ridiculous threads…banning ‘assault weapons’ would be meaningless and it’s stupid to push, since outside of the fact that they look scary and frighten clueless folks with little understanding of guns and it sounds scary, it would do dick to stop gun violence. Yet liberals and gun banner types continue to try and get it passed, continue to bring it up as if it’s the holy grail to them. Of course, if they do manage to get guns banned simply because they LOOK scary then perhaps it will be that first step they want down the slippery slope because it would mean that enough people are equally clueless, stupid or ignorant that you could actually get a made up category of guns banned simply because of said made up label sounding scary and the guns looking scary…which might bode will for fooling more of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. :smack:
One is selective fire, going from semi-auto to 3 round burst (in some cases) to full auto (i.e. you squeezy the trigger thingy once and get either 1 bang, 3 bangs or a bunch of bangs), the other is you squeezy the trigger thingy every time you want a bang. Other than that there is really not that much difference between ‘military grade’ and sports rifle, assault weapon, scary gun with thingies on it that we dun know what they do or anything else wrt a rifle. The round fired is pretty much exactly the same.
You’re confusing the order of operations here. The NRA and others use the term because that is the term that is identified as the subject of ban proposals. If Bloomberg proposes we ban widgets and defines widgets and firearms that have more than 1 color, then when we talk about proposed bans we’re going to refer to it as the Widget ban. Look at the headline you link to - the terms “assault weapon” and “large” are in quotes indicating those are not accurate terms. Might as well put a little TM after it.
And keep in mind, even after explaining the purely cosmetic factors that shift a legal weapon to an illegal one, plenty of people still support the assault weapon ban. People like Obama, Hillary Clinton, Feinstein, Bloomberg - these people know precisely what they are doing and cannot be said to be so ignorant they think they are proposing bans for something else.
Do you remember that there was a federal assault weapon ban from 1994 to 2004?
Yes. But only in recent times. It worked in 1994.
The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle. The AR-15 is a brand name, so unless you are talking about that specific brand, it would be more accurate to say an AR-15 pattern semi-automatic rifle. The M-16 is a select fire rifle where the term select fire could be burst fire or full automatic. If you are talking about firing capacity, you would be better off using this distinction. Semi-automatic vs. select fire.
You listed a few categories of items, full automatic weapons, machine guns, military grade weapons, etc. By listing them separately, you imply there is distinction but I suspect you cannot identify what that is. In terms of the law, the definition of Machine Gun was defined in the NFA of 1934 and is codified in 26 U.S.C. 5845(b):
So when you say full automatic weapons, machine guns … that is redundant. Now, certain burst fire weapons which are not full auto are also defined as machine guns under the law. In military parlance, machine gun could have a more specific or different definition. In any case, there is no need to separately list full auto weapons, select fire weapons, machine guns, or military grade weapons. There is no definition of a “military grade weapon” and is as nebulous as “assault weapon”. For ease of discussion, you could simply say NFA weapons. That covers machine guns, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, destructive devices (grenades, bombs, missiles, poison gas, and any firearm with a bore over .50 inches except for shotguns or shells), and silencers (suppressors). Also covered are Any Other Weapon (AOW) that are not also pistols or revolvers and are concealable. The last one is kinda grey.
As an aside, you should check out AR Pistols. Designed to get around the distinction, these are $1000+ items that use the lower receiver of a rifle, but act as a pistol (no buttstock) because they are short barreled. In CA, to satisfy many of the hoops, they are modified so they can only fire 1 shot without manually reloading. Why people want these I do not know. I don’t judge.
Thanks for the lesson. I will endeavor to use “full auto” moving forward. And I ask because it’s certainly helpful to use commonly understood and non-inflammatory terminology in discussions and debates. If one isn’t overly into firearms or hang out with enthusiasts, it’s pretty easy to accidently use the wrong term. Of course, this board is pretty good about explaining definitions when asked. 
Yes, I was aware of the assault weapons ban. It’s flogging a dead horse now for any kind of positive movement for those that want more controls on firearms.
Yet there are many, even on this board and this thread who continue to beat that drum. I don’t get it.
Ignorance is probably the culprit. Seriously, it’s taken more than a few threads, debate and research for me to kinda figure out what’s going on here. I don’t normally have these discussions at work or in my social circle, and therefore going from half remembered memes to something akin to the truth takes some effort.
Me, I’ll still push the conspiracy theory that the NRA flame the embers as it’s, well, advantageous to do so.
Ignorance may be responsible in some cases. Do you really believe that ignorance plays a part for Obama or Hillary Clinton?
My post was eaten. The long and shot is Obama and Hillary are politicians and have an agenda. So, agree with you that ignorance probably doesn’t play a part. That said, I have no idea what their method and end game are (although I don’t think they are total firearm ban gun grabbers as have been portrayed by some)? All that said, AWB at this time is not an effective way to advance their agendas.
Jesus
WTF happened to this thread?
Well … lately we’ve been educating China Guy about assault weapons. The OP was about an AWB, so I’d call it a success.
So play this out - if we both agree that it is not ignorance that is behind the proposals of the Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others, it leaves people to draw their own conclusions about their true intentions. Is it so much of a stretch to go from they are being deceptive or misleading with regard to an AWB, that they are being deceptive or misleading with their position on gun control as a whole?
I don’t know if they support a total firearm ban and confiscation. Or maybe they are not as far towards that end of the spectrum and just favor banning 95% or other draconian restrictions. Because these are intelligent people, I don’t think they would reveal their end game so explicitly. The thing is - I can’t really distinguish their actions from the people who would support those things.
OK, I’ll play this out. Our perception is light years apart. Obama, Clinton, etc are not trying to ban somewhere between 95-100% of guns in America. Seriously. That’s lunatic left fringe territory and not part of “mainstream” gun control efforts. I would also agree that most people that want the AWS ban reinstated will sooner or later figure out that it does little to solve the problem and will want to do something more regarding handguns.
IMHO most folks that want more control, wish list is something along the lines of:
- universal registration
- background checks before all purchases
- Some sort of “official” transfer process (via a licensed dealer or even for limited family type transaction. To say it a different way, the registered owner has clear legal responsibility for the registered firearm until ownership is officially transferred (or reported lost or stolen). An analogy would be how automobile sales work now.
- Congress to fund data and studies (perhaps with the CDC) so neither side is talking out their ass. If that data shows problem solved, well and good. If the data shows there is a still a problem, then there is a need to course correct. For example, in Missouri,research from Johns Hopkins “found that in the first six years after the state repealed the requirement for comprehensive background checks and purchase permits, the gun homicide rate was 16 percent higher than it was the six years before. During the same period, the national rate declined by 11 percent.” This study is concerning, and Congress should fund additional study to prove whether or not there is merit to the findings. And if there is a strong correlation, then a change is policy is warranted.
The above allows for responsible firearm owners to own firearms. And I understand that it may take the Supremes to re-interpret the 2nd.
As I write this, I have another big question I’d appreciate an education on. I’m a simple guy. one of my big concerns with firearms is the perceived “right” by owners to sell, lend, give or otherwise transfer your firearm to a third party without oversight. The so-called “gun show loophole.” You may and probably are a responsible firearm owner, but I definitely want more than your say so that your cousin, your friend, a 2nd enthusiasts on a message board, would actually pass a background check and the legal requirements for ownership.
I don’t want to poison the well. I actually think you’re having a very productive conversation, so if this is out-of-turn, feel free to set it aside / ignore it, but … it’s my personal belief that the Congress’ “ban on research” was an attempt to stop taxpayer funding for exactly the sort of advocacy research (ie not legitimate fact-finding but pushing an agenda under the guise of “research”) that Daniel Webster and the Center for Gun Policy and Research do. Further, it’s my belief that Obama’s earlier executive actions ordering the CDC to “research gun violence” is an attempt to restart exactly this sort of disingenuous advocacy research.
I don’t want disingenuous research. CDC is pretty well respected in most areas or medicine but not without controversy. Is the NRA issue with the CDC that the CDC might actually produce unbiased research that shows increasing firearm ownership is strongly correlated with significant increased firearm violence and death? NRA is big on preventing any kind of slippery slope, and that includes research that might counter the “good guy with a gun” claim.
We should stop playing political games and move to repeal the 2nd Amendment.