Strawman arguments. Well, not even arguments.
I see balanced, reasonable proposals from Obama on the one hand and hysterical over-reactions (including yours) on the other.
Really? Regular calls to have the military slaughter the 150 million gun owners. Are these regular calls recorded anywhere? Press conferences? Can you cite 2 instances?
Is that the condescending part or the robot part talking? Or both?
Definitely not on board with the slaughter thing, at least until I sell mine.
Maybe you can sell it to someone you don’t like.
Not much, but the gun crowd was against it anyway, just because the ATF is jackbooted thugs or something.
You are absolutely right-Any research is useless unless you can go back in time and use it to prevent the problem in the first place. :rolleyes:
And one more ridiculous exaggeration by a member of the pro-gun crowd, this time by U.S. Senator (and alleged Presidential timber) Marco Rubio:
That’s not up there with Sen. Paul’s wild-eyed rant, but for those who claim that the exaggerations and distortions have been coming from both sides, find me one pro-gun-control Senator or member of the Obama Administration who’s said anything this nutso.
An excellent review of such comments as Sen. Rubio’s. Gist of the thing is that they are wildly upset about modest and sensible proposals that are largely popular. More to the point, they are shrieking hysterically about tyrannous proposals, but are incapable of specifying which proposals they object to , or why they object. Except that its because Obama.
I support gun rights and my only point is that focusing on “assault weapons” is counterproductive. I think its about as productive to have kneejerk reactions to anyone who opposes an assault weapons ban to have kneejerk reactions toanyone that support an assault weapons ban. But I have not heard any good arguments why an assault weapons man is anything more than symbolic victory that unnecessarily infringes on our right to bear arms.
See my post below (especially the last paragraph). This is about as gun nut as I get and about as nutty as most gun owners I know get. The population of gun owners who put up videos on youtube is NOT representative.
Why is it that people who are so very upset about the focus on assault weapons don’t seem to want to do anything about handguns either?
I’m guessing they already have plenty.
Got a question. It appears that many of these so-called military weapons aren’t really “military” weapons at all, but ordinary weapons that mimic the style, but not the function. The flash suppressor isn’t really military grade, that bayonet mount doesn’t really support a bayonet, so on and so forth.
So why do they do it? What is the manufacturers motivation in styling the gun to look like an “assault rifle” when it really isn’t?
On Bill O’Reilly’s show last night, Rubio said Obama was trying to implement a gun ban of the sort that DC had before the Heller decision.
Buhahahahahahahaaha!!!
And this is the GOP’s Great Hispanic [del]Dope[/del] Hope for 2016.
I think you may be conflating more than one thing, because otherwise I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.
Ignoring the 94-04 AWB for a second, generally the only difference between an actual military rifle like the M4/M16 and a civilian version is that the civilian version is incapable of fully automatic fire. There are variants that have other changes - for example some AR-15s have longer and/or otherwise high quality barrels for accuracy for competition shooting.
However, during 94-04, rifles were modified in order to skirt around bans. Since the ban said that rifles with stuff like bayonette lugs and flash suppresors (which don’t try to hide the flash from the person you’re shooting at, by the way, on account of the laws and physics and stuff - but rather try to keep shooting from blinding the shooter), the rifles were often modified to remove those features. Essentially, if what defines an “assault weapon” is having things like a pistol grip and a bayonette lug, you could modify those parts, for example into a thumbhole stock or saw off the bayonette lug in order for it not to be an “assault weapon” anymore.
If you say “well that’s why the ban didn’t have any teeth, it only banned minor features like that!” - well, that’s exactly the point. The main functional difference between actual military arms and their civilian counterparts is the fact that they can fire in full auto or burst modes, and that’s already strictly regulated. All that’s left to worry about is whether the gun looks scary - this is where type of stock, bayonettes, etc come in. You can’t say “the bans only ban cosmetic features” like it’s a failure of the ban - that’s just the main factoring seperating these guns from non-assault weapons. What it looks like, rather than how it functions, is what all the big fuss is about. Well, that, and the media, government, and gun advocacy groups constantly lie about what an “assault weapon” is.
So anyway, to answer your question, on weapons not skirting around the AWB, no, you can mount the same bayonette, use the same muzzle attachments, etc. as the military version. On weapons made during the AWB, you often had these weird mashups and alternations on the weapon to avoid having the banned parts, so those maybe the rifles you’re talking about.
As to why they’re made - well, they share all the same qualities aside from the select-fire that their military counterparts do. The AK’s legendary reliability is shown just as much in the civilian version of the rifle. The AR-15 has the same ergonomics that people were trained on in the military. It’s cool to own a piece of history - I own a beautiful Mauser 98k from WW2 made on captured German equipment by Yugoslavian rebels at the end of the war, and I doubt people think that makes me a baby-killer, because hey, it looks conventional. The AK and AR type rifles are similarly iconic. People have owned the common soldiers rifle of the day in the US for well over a hundred years - they’re usually rugged and reliable, proven, no shortage of accessories and replacement parts, common ammunition, etc.
Sorry, I should’ve been more clear. You’re right that the statements are hyperbolic. But I was evaluating in the context of my original challenge - to find someone saying that they expected Obama to make all gun ownership in the US legal. All the “Obama is now acting like a king” stuff is hyperbolic. But I was saying that this guy is not saying he had an expectaton that guns would be banned yesterday. That was my purpose in this thread.
I’ve been trying to keep my comments on gun threads (where I’m the main target in like 19 of them) specific to the issues brought up in that thread, and my participation here is geared towards my specific point that the OP here is full of shit.
Well, mostly because I don’t want to ban guns. Your side is the one calling for the status quo to change, and therefore the obligation is on you to make the argument.
If you were sincere in your desires to use targeted laws to improve public safety and crime rates, then we’d be talking about handguns, and possibly talking about enforcement to keep guns out of criminal (or I guess insane) hands.
But we’re not. The discussion yet again has gone to “I have a really strong emotional reaction to how this gun looks, let’s focus our efforts there” or, more cynically “I think the public will have a strong enough emotional reaction to how this gun looks, therefore I think it may be one of the few gun bans we can actually push through, and let’s ban any gun we can at any time where it seems possible”
I’m just pointing out what a good faith effort would look like on your part, if you were actually interested in reducing homicides and crime. An assault weapons ban proves quite the opposite.
After Sandy Hook the NRA suggested placing “a good guy with a gun” at schools. The hooting and derision was nearly universal.
Obama’s 18th executive order is “18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.”
A School Resource Officer is a (presumably) armed law enforcement officer.
What an idiot! More guns aren’t going to solve the problem!
You and I both know that nothing resembling a thought has happened between Ted Nugent’s ears since the Nixon administration.
Using guidance counsellors as decoys doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.