There is a difference between regulation and banning. Do I support regulation? Absolutely, with limits. Preventing purchase by people forbidden to own one strikes me as very reasonable. Registration? With certain assurances such as acknowledgment by the state that it will never be used for the purposes of confiscation, no issue. Machine guns? I have no issue with machine guns. They are not used in crime due to the draconian (and appropriate) regulations on them. But an outright ban on any class of gun? No. I would oppose that under any circumstances.
Magazine. Not clip. This is a clip. This is a magazine. Here is the two of them together.
I addressed it briefly in my last post, but it has to do with the number of rounds available at an moment; more importantly though it has to do with re-loading time. In handguns at least, eliminating magazine fed guns would at least mean that your run of the mill criminal would have to take some time to re-load in a shootout. It means that they would have to stop, even if only briefly, rather than only be limited by the number of magazines they can carry. It requires more effort on the part of the shooter, it takes longer. Developing the skills needed to re-load a revolver at great speed on the fly takes a long time and a lot of practice to achieve. It isn’t about the responsible owners, it never has been. I feel that taking a more efficient tool out of the hands of those who misuse them, would be beneficial. I support a ban because those same types would find a way to get them if they are widely available. There is little one could probably do about organized crime, but taking the ability of the average thug to pack a hell of a lot of firepower seems to make good sense to me,
Airman Doors Thanks for the correction, I ought to have known better but I hear the terms used so interchangeably here I often forget.
That’s why your average spree killer carries multiple weapons. The rate of reloading doesn’t matter, because they have a second one ready to go. But regardless, now I’m arguing semantics. The bottom line is that abuse of rights by others does not permit the government to unilaterally decide to take them away from me.
It’s OK. It’s one of those things that really annoy me, so I thought I’d give it another shot (so to speak) at explaining the difference in the hopes that people might remember the next time. That’s not to mention that if you’re advocating banning it, I want you to get it right in the language of the legislation. It won’t pass, but at least you won’t look stupid.
I wouldn’t have an issue with that either. When you strip the issue away from responsible, recreational, sporting type owners; a gun is a tool. It is a tool for blowing holes in things from a distance. It is most often used as a weapon to kill stuff. I don’t see why your average joe needs a faster, quieter, or overpowered version of this tool in civilized society. Any legitimate use of this type of tool does not necessitate anything more than a manual action. Leave the professional version of the tool to the pros- soldiers.
Why do you need more than one shot? Especially for hunting. Bolt action rifles are widely regarded to be more accurate, less moving parts and no gas system.
Actually, it is most often used for recreation. Billions of rounds are expended at ranges yearly. For my part, I have carried a weapon with me for the last 5 years (except where prohibited by law), and the only time I have fired it was at a range.
Again, semantics, but you really need to put a check on the grandiose pronouncements.
That’s why it’s such a thorny issue. When does the abuse of anything become such an issue that the government has to infringe on the rights of it’s citizens? Whether it is guns, drugs, or anything else, at some point the govt. has to step in. Often the line is drawn arbitraily because you could argue both sides until kingdom come. E-Sabbath made a good case for sporting, in that semi-automatic helps overcome loss of focus. Flip side is that criminals get a more efficient weapon available to them. I simply drew the line at my level of comfort, which was what the OP addressed.
Maybe on the chamber and ammo part, although there are ways around that with clear magazines and ones with a slot cut out so you can see the rounds. But really, if I have to shoot all 17 rounds in my Glock I think I’ve got bigger problems than knowing how many rounds I have left.
Any decently built/designed and maintained weapon will not jam hardly at all. The M-16/AR-15 has a somewhat deserved reputation of jamming in the early days (1960’s) but that’s largely been fixed. They still have that forward assist which is disconcerting though. But most clip loaded weapons are very reliable these days. AK-47’s and variants will even fire after being dropped in the sand.
When that right is enshrined in the Constitution, you either have to walk lightly or have it changed. A ban is not “walking lightly” and no effort has been made to amend the Constitution.
They have stepped in, in many cases to the level of a tacit ban (see Washington, DC, Chicago, New York, LA, San Francisco). Those are, I believe, illegal, and following the current SCOTUS case (DC v. Heller) I believe that they will be overturned just as fast as they can be challenged.
That’s fair enough. I simply refuse to handwave away my Constitutional rights based upon someone else’s illusions of personal safety at the expense of my own.
Now wait a minute here. Bans on the amount and type of guns? Well, if we cannot own grenade launchers, automatic machine guns, AA guns, mortars and various forms of artillery, then whom pray tell is going to suppress the Stealth Bombers, Apaches, M1 tanks and the Marines should the government decide to get…uppity?
“Why do you need more than one shot? Especially for hunting. Bolt action rifles are widely regarded to be more accurate, less moving parts and no gas system.”
You my friend have never run across a herd of pissed off hogs in woods.
But anyway it really depends on what you are hunting, for deer and other medium sized game, ideally you want a one shot one kill scenario. But I also like to hunt squirrels, rabbits and doves (all with dogs) this leads to alot of very small creatures running really fast, multiple shots are not out of the question. It is whole lot easier to pop off three shots at a swamp rabbit with my Mini-14 than it is to use the bolt action .223 that I own.
Point being just because it seems unreasonable to hunt with a semi-automatic weapon to you doesn’t mean that it is unreasonable for a significant portion of the population.
Surely you are an intelligent person, and most people are on the anti-gun side, but they and you fail in this simple understanding:
Not all people in our society are civilized.
As such, they don’t obey laws regarding possession of guns at all, let alone how powerful, faster, or quieter (your terms show your ignorance of firearms, but let’s assume for this argument)
And because of #2, the “average Joe” needs these tools to protect against these predators.
If you had a machine gun in your house right now, would you kill all of your neighbors? Of course not, neither would I, but the guy that would doesn’t care about going to jail for having one, and you and I both need to protect our families from him…
People always trot out the “artillery-tank-nuke” argument in these debates. “Well, you gotta ban something, right? Why not allow every Tom, Dick and Harry to have their own doomsday device?”
Like the only thing standing in between me and that 155mm Howitzer I’ve been dreaming of is a silly law! How about the huge masses of money involved?
I don’t know about you guys, but as soon as the government lets me, I’m going to load my brand-new B-52 bomber with a couple of Fat Boys and Little Men, just in case that ICBM I’m putting in my new missile silo turns out to be a dud. :rolleyes:
And once again, we switch to the ‘small arms’ versus ‘ordinance’ issue.
Face it, assuming the 2nd Amendment allows a personal right to bear arms, it covers the weapons of a soldier. One could probably make a very good argument as to the right to carry a M-16 as a personal weapon, and it would very probably overturn the 1930s laws outlawing automatic weapons.
I can understand Acid Lamp’s position, he feels safest with people only able to fire twelve or so rounds from a single revolver before needing to switch guns.
It won’t pass constitutional muster. The reason sawed-off-shotguns are putatively illegal is that there was no defense in the case involving them. Generally, when that case is cited in court, a simple note to the effect that shotguns are, in fact, military weapons is enough to break it.
If one can demonstrate that a shotgun with a barrel of less than 18 inches in length is part of any military equipment and that its use can contribute to the common defense… it passes. It is reasonably easy to do so: such weapons were used in Vietnam for base defense. The Mossberg 590 (Military spec of the 500) has barrels down to 14" in length.
The continued presence of semi-automatic weapons and their use to provide for the common defense would prevent outlawing this class.
No, But most of them are not arsenal laden lunatics from a Chuck Norris movie either.
First off, I’ve already been through this with other posters above. I understand enough to clean and properly operate my personal firearm. Past that I have little to no interest in the technicalities of weaponry. As I also stated above, to me a gun is a tool. I only need to know how to operate MY miter saw or nail gun. I don’t need to know the intricacies of every other model out there to have a cogent conversation on the topic.
I am aware that the criminal element will try hard to obtain illegal weaponry, but by simply limiting the amount of available firearms, it will limit the amount of illegal arms floating about.
Why have limits on any weaponry then? After all they may have uzis and rpgs right? after all it’s just as likely given that they don’t obey the current laws. Sorry, but this just results in direct escalation limited only by money and infastructure to support heavier weapons.
I’m pretty sure that one shot from a .38 ought to do the trick just as well as a whole bunch from a machine gun of my own. It’s a lot less likely that I’ll hit someone else, or do other collateral damage in the process too. Frankly, If some guy starts spraying bullets from a machine gun, I’m not afraid to admit that I’d probably hide and call the cops; or at minimum wait until I had a reasonable window to retaliate. Just having a machine gun of my own doesn’t make me any safer. My bullets are not a shield against his.
