This guy managed to kill 32 people and wound 17 others with 10 round magazines. I highly doubt you are ever in your life going to be attacked by 49 people at once.
Is that the standard that people want? I can think of a lot of weapons that the common ground soldier has that I wouldn’t want in the hands of every citizen. And why do you think you should have the same access to all weapons as law enforcement and the military? So you can “fight them off” if the revolution comes? :rolleyes:
Snark aside, I honestly don’t understand this point of view. The same access to weapons as Law Enforcement and the Military?
As you suggest in your first paragraph standard and large are talking about two different concepts. Saying that it is ridiculous to call something that is a standardized size large is conflating these concepts. It is a poor argument when compared to taking other tacks. Your opponent may be, again as you anticipate, be speaking of the number of bullets a magazine can hold vs. how many are needed. Merely calling it a standard size does not mean that the magazine cannot hold a large number of bullets. You make no effort to determine what your interlocutor is comparing to when they say it is large and instead make the objectively wrong brush off that you can’t call a standardized size large. This makes it easier to brush off this aspect of your argument.
Why not instead drill down to find how your opposite feels that smaller magazine sizes will cut back on this kind of tragedy? How many people would be saved if a gunman had to change magazines every 10 shots instead of every 17? Point out that while it may make a few seconds of difference in a mass shooting, in a self defense situation the extra 7 bullets may be the difference between life and death.
Bah, I’m just a dumb Canuck with no real stake in this. It just bothered me that you said standard cannot be large.
It’s not a maximum - but it’s a guidepost. It’s a less arbitrary way of defining what is reasonable. Police arguably go through analysis to determine what the most effective carry tools are for them. Piggybacking off of this analysis is a means to establish a baseline. If it is reasonable for police to carry 17 round mags in their service weapons, then it is reasonable for individuals to carry 17 round mags. This isn’t to say larger magazines are unreasonable.
Another facet of this line of reasoning is that laws that prohibit people from various things related to arms sometimes exempt police, off duty police, or even retired police. This makes no sense. Just like the proposal in the OP - when exempting hunters it’s an effort to divide gun rights advocates. The idea is that gun control folks aren’t after hunters, so they should acquiesce to various restrictions. It has had limited success in the past but I think many folks have wised up to this strategy of division.
And by including police within the the same group of people that any limits will be imposed upon, then there is the expectation that police will not support restrictions that make them less effective. It adopts every argument that a police force may employ to support their choice in arms. The military aspect arises because of the militia component and that is more of a constitutional argument.
For the gun owners in the thread, rather than just shooting down other people’s suggestions with “you obviously don’t know much about guns”, maybe you could suggest what rules around firearms actually could reduce the prevalence of gun violence (even if it takes a decade).
If your position is “It is impossible to reduce gun violence through legislation”, then I’d like to know what makes America different from the other countries out there which have, apparently, reduced gun violence through legislation. Other than the fact that the gun lobby here is highly affective at blocking legislation. (Feel free to say “the Second Amendment”, too, if you really want to make the argument that it makes it impossible to reduce gun violence.)
Could you explain how any of these three suggestions would reduce the prevalence of gun violence? The first is just “If we don’t talk about it, it’s not there”, the second and third…you got me?
But I don’t find this reasonable. Of course I don’t find exempting retired police officers reasonable either. They are retired, should be subject to the same laws as everyone else.
“I should be able to because the police are able to” just doesn’t strike me as a good argument for anything.
The person needs to be respected, but when the proposal comes from a position of ignorance (i.e. the “assault weapons” proposed to be banned are fully automatic, and not semi-automatic as they actually are), and one that was argued twenty-two years ago that calling these things “assault weapons” was deliberately done to cause such confusion, then the position is faulty from the outset. The person who proposes it needs to reassess his position.
If the debate is about safety features in a car, and I am operating on the belief that an airbag deployment will kill an average adult, is my position that airbags should be outlawed a valid one?
I suspect that these regulations, as well as the ones I proposed upthread, would be okay with the vast majority of gun owners in the US, but only if you could guarantee that the anti-gun lobby would be satisfied with these regulations, and would not immediately start pushing for even stricter regulations the next time there is a high-publicity mass shooting.
Since many people seem to be of the opinion that private gun ownership has no redeeming value whatsoever and that the US would be better off completely banning it and confiscating all privately-owned firearms, many people who value their gun rights feel like they are better off not yielding any ground whatsoever, rather than “compromising” their rights away year-by-year.
And before you complain that lots of other products are highly regulated without similar complaint - is there a loud and vocal group of people lobbying for the complete ban of those products?
Each seller could be required to maintain their own records (e.g. a copy of the buyer’s license and his signature on a form), that would not be stored in a centralized database.
I accept you don’t find this reasonable. And that’s the rub - gun control folks talk about reasonable regulations, reasonable restrictions, reasonable this, reasonable that. It cuts both ways - I don’t find most gun control reasonable. So it goes.
The reason isn’t simply because police are able to. Is there a reason police are able to, or choose to? I adopt all of those reasons. Unless you are arguing that police should be restricted to 10 round magazines. Are you?
It’s unlikely. It’s also unlikely that a mob of people will loot and burn whole areas of a city while police do nothing and only those stores that have people armed with rifles be spared. It’s also unlikely to engage in a gun battle with a single person and fire 33 rounds, hitting 14 times, and having the attacker survive.
And here I thought you were bowing out. Appreciate you gracing us with your wise questions as always. As to the how - because more people would be able to carry and defend themselves. That could reduce gun violence.
The fact that the government is bloated, corrupt and inefficient doesn’t mean that they can’t accomplish things. It means that they take longer than they should, spend much more of our money than they should, and end up distributing a large portion of that money mainly to contractors and sponsors of lobbyists who manipulate the system for their own gain.
Separately, the government doesn’t have to become “evil” or super-efficient in order to confiscate all firearms. All they would have to do is pass a law that makes possession of a firearm illegal, and law-abiding citizens like myself would turn their guns in voluntarily rather than risk being charged with a felony.
That’s funny. Pull the other one. If anyone believes this is true there’s bridges to sell, Florida swamp land real estate, and PT Barnum is Nostradamus.
The devil is in the details, as usual.
[ul]
[li]Who, specifically, should become mandatory reporters? Police? Teachers? Neighbors? Family members? Employers?[/li][li]What psychiatric problems will they be mandated to report? Depression? Anxiety? Social maladjustment? Do they have to be diagnosed by a professional, or is a layman’s opinion enough? [/li][li]What due process will have to be followed before the government can confiscate their guns? Do they have to appear before a judge? Is there the presumption of innocence, or the necessity for probable cause?[/li][/ul]
Or are there other improvements that you (or friedo meant?
They can’t even catch every tax cheat, and they have their IDs. I can’t imagine them being effective at confiscating guns from registered owners even if they had a list of every single weapon and its owner. It’s laughable. And paranoia of the nth degree.
since the quote didn’t carry over, I’ll repost them here:
I’m pretty much on board with 1, 4, 6, and 7. The rest depends on the details.
hinges on an agreement of what are “reasonable” tests and requirements for licensure. i. e. they can’t be designed to be impossible to qualify for.
I am and have been in favor of “universal background checks,” even if it means all transfers have to go through an FFL. we effectively have UBC in Michigan for handgun transfers; if you buy from an FFL they run you through NICS, if you buy from a private party you have to go to your police department for a “license to purchase” where they run the background check and issue the transfer forms the next business day. However, one critical thing UBC would have to do is protect me as a seller. Right now I can sell a long gun (rifle/shotgun) to another private party basically cash and carry. If a UBC law(s) pass, then if I sell a firearm to someone who passes the background check, that should shield me from liability should the buyer later go do something bad with it.
I’m not opposed, so long as it’s not intended to be so expensive no one can afford it.
would need clear language as to what sort of mental health issues would justify temporary/permanent holds. IIRC you’re already technically disqualified from purchasing a firearm if you’ve been declared mentally incompetent or have ever been committed, it’s question 11f on the form 4473.
I don’t see doing anything worthwhile. as long as a ne’er do well can find the RFID chip, it can be rendered useless.
It seems like you missed the very last sentence you quoted. The government would not need to call out the army to disarm the overwhelming majority of law abiding citizens. Pass a law against owning particular types of guns, and the good guys will likely decide that they are happy with their job, 2.4 kids, and house with the yard, and not yet ready to die in a revolution against their own government, so they will *voluntarily hand in their guns.
*
So, congrats, you’ve disarmed all of the good guys, leaving the only guns in the hands of criminals, the insane, and Ruby Ridge right wingers.
You’re making the same argument you just ridiculed in your previous post.
They don’t need to be effective at searching them down and confiscating them. They just need to pass a law that requires people to turn them in themselves before a certain date. Sure, people could decide to just hide their guns somewhere, but they would have to live with the constant risk of being thrown in jail if they were ever found out. Normal, law-abiding people would have no choice but to comply.