No, they didn’t.
But I assume you’d object if I said, “If you believe the First Amendment gives you freedom of the press, fine, print whatever you like, on handcranked movetable typesetting machines. But did the Framers say anyone has the unassailable right to a blog?”
On what basis do you read the First Amendment expansively and the Second narrowly?
How is the cash value determined? The black market value of my handgun will skyrocket as numbers dwindle.
This gun owner, while having a slight concern that things probably wouldn’t end at this level of regulation, doesn’t disagree in principal with the general concept of your proposal. I will point out that you fall victim to a common regulatory mistake of starting out defining what isn’t allowed, and then also defining what is allowed.
In stating this, you have forgotten two classes of firearms that I enjoy. The breach action shot gun (in single shot and over-under), as well as the muzzle loader. If the goal is reduced firing rate and capacity, these are the guns you want to keep around.
As for your specific points.
Any buy back program that doesn’t want to be seen as just a strong arm gun grab, better be offering something like highest average retail in the proceeding 12 months.
You are right that black market values will skyrocket, there will need to be a penalty for legally registered handguns that end up in the wrong hands.
(Deleted)
A detachable magazine allows you to store a firearm without ammunition in it, while still being able to load it quickly if you need it.
It’s safer, more convenient, and more effective.
It’s not an entirely separate issue. Millions of people would refuse to abide by various aspects of the proposed laws, the great majority of whom have never committed and would never commit a serious crime of any sort. The ramificatons of threatening these people with prison would be dramatic. Think the GOP is in trouble? There’d never be a Democrat outside the most liberal of areas who supported these types of draconian measures elected to any national office.
Would it reduce gun crime? OK. Fewer guns = fewer gun crimes, mostly because it would be tougher for most criminals to afford/steal one. However, if you think I’m going to be able to defend myself in the middle of the night with a shotgun, I disagree. I can kill an intruder with one shot of my 12 gauge, along with any family members who happen to be sleeping in the room next to mine.
I have owned two firearms in my life, both of them being the handgun variety. With a brother who is a policeman as well as an avid hunter, I’ve shot plenty of rifles and shotguns with him (target and skeet only), but find the hobbies of marksmanship boring and hunting for sport abhorrent. I own one handgun now and would only use it to protect the lives of those I love. I practice shooting at a local range to keep my skills sharp. My family has no idea that we have a gun in the house and no way to use it should they stumble upon it. That’s exactly the way I want it to be. It is part of my evening routine to make the gun available for my use at a moment’s notice. In the morning, I return the weapon to an unuseable state should it somehow be discovered. Convince me that it would be better and easier to wake up in the middle of the night and use a shotgun rather than my handgun to protect my loved ones.
A firing pin is a small, typically solid machined part, contained within a channel in the slide or receiver, and experiencing a very strong mechanical and pyrotechnic shock with every use. There is no conceivable way to install an RFID chip on the firing pin, and no way to expect that it will survive or that the signal will be available to an RFID sensor if it were.
I am also failing to understand the obsession with semi-automatic firearms as being particularly dangerous, and it should be noted that the double action revolver, while functioning in a different manner from reciprocating slide autoloading pistols, is also technically a semi-automatic weapon insofar as it is capable of firing with a single pull of the trigger without any other action by the operator. It is readily demonstrable that one can fire just as rapidly with a pump action or lever action firearm, and I have personally fired bolt action rifles at a rate exceeding 1 round per second (albeit with reduced accuracy). If firearms need to be regulated or restricted based upon lethality and the lack of responsibility of the general public, then such a restriction should cover all manner of mechanical actions in equal measure without making exception or specification on particular weapons based upon non-critical functional or cosmetic features.
As for silencers and suppressors, they are already regulated by federal law (NFA 34) and most states have additional laws restricting or banning them. The use of silencers in criminal activities outside of movies and the televisor is negligible. And they are used elsewhere specific for noise abatement in hunting and recreational shooting.
Stranger
No idea - how did Australia determine the cash value of guns turned in during their amnesty? As for the black market, I don’t doubt that guns would continue to be bought and sold illegally, but they will be harder to procure and there will be fewer guns overall. Look at the UK.
Not being snarky here, but wouldn’t a pistol-calibre carbine do the job? I’ve seen some really short, handy lever-actions like the Marlin chambered in .357 mag that would do the job admirably. Also, if overpenetration is a concern, don’t they make shotgun rounds for home defense that specifically address this issue?
Differences: Slaves are harder to hide on the top shelf of your closet or in your nightstand. Slaves get harder to handle when they get word that they are freed.
Similarities: You have to keep both out of reach of the children.
The point he made is a valid one though. Major changes are possible if the populace has the will to change. Yes, there will always be illegal guns - that’s true even in the UK - but at least reducing the number and accessibility of firearms will reduce the number of tragedies and gun crime.
I would suggest you are in the minority. One gun? Great. You have practiced and know how to really use it? Great again. You disarm it and hide it and nobody in the family even knows you have it? Even greater!
Unfortunately, the news reports very rarely mention people like you and give you a pat on the back for shooting some crazed drug addict who broke into your house.
What we do hear is cases of domestic violence - husband shoots wife and then may or may not commit suicide. Wife kills husband. Child finds gun and kills family member, or kills themselves. Teenage son takes gun and kills parents or other teenager. Gun is stolen in robbery and later used to hold up/rob/kill someone else. Drunks at a bar brandish their hand guns and shoot someone there or in the parking lot outside. Those are the stories we hear on the news almost daily. Those are the news reports we see every night on local TV with lots of yellow tape and police investigating another domestic murder/suicide/accidental shooting/armed holdup.
So I would say that for every hand gun owner like you, intending solely to protect the family from some intruder crashing down the front door, there are probably 100 times more incidents of that same handgun being used to kill someone in the family by another family member than shooting some unknown intruder. Doesn’t sound like great statistics to me.
Even though you sound like a very sane person who sincerely wishes only to protect his family with a hand gun, even from your step-by-step description of your sane approach to gun ownership, you are implying that many, if not most, of other the hand gun owners are nowhere near as cautious, well trained and safety conscious as you are. If everyone were as sane as you, we wouldn’t even be having this public debate. But you know as well as I do that that is not the case. And I am sure you could probably just as easily and quickly yank out a shotgun from under the bed and greet any intruder before they had a chance to wipe their feet on the front door welcome mat.
And for those who claim they need automatic rifles, I am not quite sure exactly how many intruders they are expecting to come through that front door, or how many deer they expect to shoot in that herd of deer up in the woods? Exactly how many rounds per second are needed to secure your home/shoot deer these days?
So - I think banning hand guns and automatic rifles seems like a rather simple request.
Hasn’t the Supreme Court pretty much settled this? I can’t imagine that nobody has ever challenged the arms control laws already in effect, which currently define the Second much more narrowly than the First.
(One slave) = (One gun)
It’s so easy when you use algebra.
I don’t think you’re being snarky. I just don’t know enough about firearms to answer your question. I do know that I am extremely confident in my ability to use the handgun I now own for its intended purpose. As for shotgun rounds that that are made specifically for home defense, it’s likely they are available. I’ll investigate them, but I’d have to be really sure (I mean have absolutely no doubt) that they would kill the intruder without penetrating some drywall and killing a loved one. If I’m shooting, it’s not to scare off someone. It’s to make damn sure that they can no longer pose a threat to my family.
Others have addressed your other points. I’ll take this one.
First, silencers and suppressors are the same thing. No device truly silences a weapon, therefore the standard and industry term is suppressor.
Suppressor ownership is legal in 39 states. Hunting with a suppressor is legal in most of them. Why? Because guns are loud. Permanent hearing damage can easily occur in many shooting situations. As such damage is cumulative, even using hearing protection is no guarantee of no damage.
Here, let the kids at AACtell you more.
Silencers generally increase the accuracy of a host firearm while reducing recoil and eliminating up to 90% of the muzzle signature. Shooters are able to concentrate more on breath control and trigger pull when they are not subjected to the fatigue and distraction of a deafening, bright, muzzle report. Beginning shooters are typically not intimidated when introduced to the shooting sports with a silenced firearm, and are able to easily hear instructions given to them by trainers as the report of a host firearm is reduced to below the OSHA guideline level for hearing damage. **Silenced firearms are also less likely to disturb any people, livestock, or wildlife that may be in close proximity to where you shoot. **
Like fully automatic weapons, suppressors are regulated by the BATFE; all owners are subjected to a full background check by the ATF and FBI before you can take possession of the item.
**People who willingly subject themselves to this scrutiny do not commit crimes with these items. **
I have looked, but been unable to find evidence of a single legally-owned suppressor used in a murder in the U.S. Do let me know if you find one.
I presume your post is in reaction to the recent school shooting, which from what I read, did not include the use, or possession of a suppressor. Yet, you seek to ban them? Junior didn’t use a Golden Retriever, a ham sandwich, or a number 2 pencil, either. Shall we ban those as well, just in case you don’t like them?
If you don’t want one, don’t get one. Me? I like plinking in the country without gunshots disturbing everyone for 3 miles around. I bet they like it even more.
Mass killings like the most recent school shooting are an unspeakable evil, but knee-jerk reactions like yours will not prevent further such actions. Restricting access to weapons only to those authorized would be a huge step. Had crazy-boy’s mom locked up her weapons, we may not be having this conversation.
Truly addressing mental illness and preventing the MI from accessing weapons would be another huge step towards and end to gun violence.
Crazy people do crazy things with many different things. Let’s address the crazy, not the things.
And, since I assume it’s safety that you truly seek, please let us know your plan to eliminate the 443,000 deaths per year due to smoking, the 40,000 car crash deaths per year, the 75,000 deaths due to alcohol abuse, and the roughly 225,000 deaths per year due to medical malpractice and hospital errors and infections.
Perhaps the degree of caution concerning my gun stems from the fact that a child I coached in youth baseball was accidentally shot and killed by a rifle he and and friend were playing with at his house. A single shot ended one and ruined several lives – it’s been almost twenty years and even I’m still thinking about it. I’ll not let that happen to my family if I can possibly help it.
Can I yank a shotgun out from under my bed in time should I wake up and discover an intruder at our bedroom door? Maybe, but not as quickly as I can my handgun. Sometimes seconds – even one second – can make the difference. Aside from that, I’m still not sold on the idea that a using a shotgun can prevent me from hitting a family member with the same trigger pull that killed an intruder. Ending a human life is bad enough without that repercussion to worry about. Would such doubts make me hesitate when the time came?
I’m not a gun person. I believe in background checks, waiting periods, and registration of all firearms. I think that only licensed dealers should be able to sell firearms and ammunition and that all such transactions should be recorded. I see no need for the typical person to own an automatic rifle or anything comparable. However, I believe that I have the right to defend myself and my family with deadly force in certain situations. Why should I be denied that right?
Instead of a ban, why don’t we at first try more restrictive licensing and regulation?
Whenever people jump straight to a ban in response to an event like this, it suggests that they are not really interested in trying to balance freedom and civil rights with public safety, and are instead just trying to advance some dogmatic agenda.
A biometric safe might make your life significantly easier. I don’t own a handgun, but I always imagined I’d store one in a safe.
