Why not make it 7, or 5, or some other arbitrary and meaningless number? Why not make it 8 and a half, where half of one of the bullets has to throw out a small flag that says ‘Bang!’ on it? Why 10 rounds? What possible difference does it make in any case? With a clip fed weapon you can change out a clip in about 2 seconds…maybe 5 if you are particularly inept. So, what practical difference does it make?
I don’t think that all gun owners have issues with regulations. The trouble is that the regulation well has been poisoned by past actions of the anti-gun folks, so ANY regulation is now going to have a knee jerk reaction from the pro-gun factions. And insane or stupid regulations such as the ones in the old AWB or this new ‘improved’ version REALLY make pro-gun folks nervous, since it’s obvious they would have no practical impact on gun crime or anything else, and are either irrational measures by folks who are clueless and stupid or are part of a deeper game, one designed to get a gun ban through the death of a thousand cuts. Either way, it’s the very stupidity that has pro-gun folks jerking their knees on this issue.
Well, my intention is basically to regulate what specific guns people own by tying ownership of them to specific purposes.
I have no problem with someone buying a AR-15 and using 30 round magazines at the gun range. But they are very dangerous weapons in that configuration, they serve no valid hunting purpose, and I don’t view them as valid need for self defense. So I’d license them for range use only. Note the target license, aside from the collector’s license or the carry class of the self defense license is the hardest to get.
I don’t want people circumventing the regime of “appropriate use” by buying an AR-15 and saying that’s their hunting rifle or their home defense weapon.
Note the home defense weapon is actually the easiest to get, it has no additional requirements above the baseline. But it also has the most restrictive limitations on what you can own, basically only shotguns and pistols.
Since the requirements are so small, anyone who has passed the requirements to get a Hunter or Target Shooter license would already have satisfied all requirements to have a Self Defense license (at least the Home Defense classification.) But they couldn’t use their AR-15 for home defense, but they could use a shotgun they bought for hunting or range use, or a pistol. (While I didn’t specifically say it, I would approve pistols for hunting, but they’d be a bit limited and you’d have to show you were hunting appropriate game for pistol usage.)
Also, and as should go without saying, guns can be “cross-licensed.” A pump-action shotgun could be associated with both a Hunter and Self Defense license, or a Target and Self Defense license. A revolver could basically be associated with every type of license out there and the only restriction if you somehow had every license would be you could only use it for hunting where appropriate for the animal you are license to hunt.
Basically I’ve created a regime of relatively easy to get licenses: Home Defense and Hunting, but you can’t get the most destructive weapons under those licenses. And there are limitations to what you can do with those licenses.
Harder to get licenses like the Target Shooter and Collector’s License allow you to get most of the weapons that would be banned by the 1994 or Feinstein AWB, but they are a lot harder to get.
If someone could get one of the weapons intended for higher licenses for home defense, it basically undermines the whole system.
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Are you saying that just because any number would be arbitrary, there should be no limit whatsoever?
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No, I don’t see how any limit would have any practical impact on such crimes. There are, of course, practical limits…a weapon would be unusable or at least difficult to use if you attempted to put too large a clip on it, but from the perspective of supposedly trying to limit harm to the public it’s all pretty much the same. If you allow a semi-automatic action using any sort of clip then it’s all the same. If you could, somehow, ban those, then revolvers would be just about as easy to reload with speed loaders and ejector systems. So, unless you can ban things back to single shot systems (where, what was historically done is to just have a bunch of pistols on your person), it’s kind of a silly, arbitrary regulation that is more for warm fuzzy feelings from people who don’t understand than a practical regulation that would actually have some sort of effect on crime. Especially when you consider the grandfathering clauses and all the millions of ‘high capacity’ clips out there already.
Even if this were true, which it isn’t (at a minimum the ‘solution’ to this ridiculous arbitrary number is to either ignore it…you are talking about someone who is planning to do murder, you think they are going to worry about some regulation??..or, just carry multiple guns if you are so inept that it takes you too long to switch clips), so what? Shooting rampages are pretty rare events, so why try and legislate specifically for them?
So, it is your position, then, that the pro-gun folks are homogeneous, in that they are all, by their very nature, reasonable and responsible people? And all we need do to bring them around is to propose reasonable and responsible restrictions? To be greeted with loud cries of “Hosannah!” and “Hallelujah!”.
This is remarkable. Every other slice of humanity…black people, white people, women, gays, etc. are sundry and motley, being comprised of the reasonable and sane, all the way over to the bug-eyed and deranged. But not these people? These people are different?
Laws like these are probably mostly useless and ineffective. The only upside is that they may reflect a cultural change in our society’s unique approval and affection for firearms. Small steps are best.
But if no steps are taken to respond to those changes, then the next time (and there will be a next time…) the response will be worse, and even less reasonable. And if no action is taken…or, more importantly perhaps, no action is seen to have been taken…then the ante goes up, and up, until finally the actions taken can hardly help but be extreme.
The road to sanity is going to be long and hard, it requires that we change ourselves. But at least there are some footprints behind us, even if they are not pointed in precisely the right direction. One step forward, one sideways, maybe half a step back every once in a while. it is the hard way, the slow way, the painful way. I submit that it is, finally, the only way.
Because the people are angry and frightened. Great confusion under Heaven that is extra special not good. If these laws do nothing more than take some of the evil air out of that balloon, it will be a good thing. Because that offers the opportunity for more reason and calm deliberation. And we are both solidly in favor of calm and deliberation.
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So, it is your position, then, that the pro-gun folks are homogeneous, in that they are all, by their very nature, reasonable and responsible people? And all we need do to bring them around is to propose reasonable and responsible restrictions? To be greeted with loud cries of “Hosannah!” and “Hallelujah!”.
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Why no, 'luci…it’s pretty apparent then they aren’t, since I’m a ‘pro-gun’ folk, and I don’t have a major issue with sane regulation. I think that most pro-gun people are reasonable and responsible, but then so are most anti-gun folks, and even many on the fence on this issue. Is there a point to this digression or were you just rambling here?
Well, it’s your strawman, so you tell me. Straw by any other name smells as sweet, no doubt.
Submit all you like, but the facts are that gun violence in the US has been in decline for decades now, and this at a time when gun restrictions have been loosening. The gun bill under discussion in this thread is unlikely to have ANY measurable, quantifiable effect on this decline in gun violence, and is merely a feel good measure.
Obviously people are angry and afraid. Same sentiments they felt after the attacks of 9/11.
I’m not seeing the reason or calm deliberations…could you point some of them out? I’m seeing frantic liberals lashing out and trying to revive obviously ridiculous legislature that didn’t work worth a damn the last time it was put in because it’s so obviously flawed and silly.
I am generally the first to oppose any “for the children” legislation, but they shouldn’t have to worry that someone is going to burst into their fucking classroom and start shooting people.
Do you have any statistics or evidence to show they are more dangerous? IIRC the highest body count for a mass shooting in the US was done with pistols with less than 15 round capacity. (V Tech)
How many defensive uses can you show where a 30 round magazine was used in a way where it would have been safer for the person to use a 10 round magazine?
The AR15 is a highly respected home defense weapon and with larger calibers is actually a great platform to build a very accurate and effective hunting firearm.
The AR15 is easier to shoot, has much more effective ballistics and SAFER for neighbors and others on the other side of a wall than either shotguns and or pistols. The 223 round is small and at high speeds breaks apart and penetrates less than pistols or buckshot.
Most murders are committed with stolen pistols so by what reasoning are you restricting firearms that are more effective and easier to use? If you are claiming safety please provide a cite.
If you look at the real numbers and not wild guesses on what is dangerous you will see that “shotguns” which are OK for some reason actually kill MORE people than all rifles let alone the claimed “super dangerous” assault weapons.
So see, this is what is happening, Feinstein is risking handing the federal government back over to the Republicans like happened after the 1994 ban and is accomplishing little outside of potentially spending tons of money to solve a tiny part of the “problem”
Heck you are twice as likely to be killed by lighting than be murdered by a rifle in this country.
As a “liberal” I am open to logical scientific sound gun control measures but this is a witch-hunt and not legislation that will “fix” anything.
I’m going to make an appeal to authority on the AR15. I’m retired Army with over 20 years in service, I’ll pick a rifle over a handgun to do damage with any day of the week and multiple times on Sunday.
An assault rifle is far more effective at killing people than a pistol. The way I know this is because military forces play for keeps, and the most effective killing weapons end up in the hands of soldiers.
I did not make the claim that semiautomatic rifles are statistically more dangerous in terms of gun crime, I made the claim they are intrinsically more dangerous as measured by how effective they are at killing.
Rifles have killed more people in the 20th century than probably any other weapon, when you consider the huge number of deaths in warfare to the rifle. Pistols are often used as a weapon of last resort in the military, or for people like pilots who can’t easily carry a rifle. That should be sign enough that they are not considered by people that actually need the most effective weapons to be anything but the most effective standard small arm.
Also, to be frank there is far too much talk about fully automatic versus semi-automatic. I’d say when I was actually an infantryman, I was just as effective with the M16 in semiautomatic select-fire mode as I would have been with it in fully automatic (or three round burst later on.)
Gun control is not about “death prevention” in the direct sense, it’s about creating an environment where the following is true:
The government is involved in all transfers of guns.
The government requires license for gun use.
The guns you own are tied to what license you possess.
Something I should have mentioned, and should have been obvious, my licensing regime would not allow for any unregistered transfers whatsoever.
You guys ask how all this registration and licensing would ever effect gun crime in the country.
To me it’s this simple, a lot of gun homicides happen in this country because it is very easy to get guns. Do you think the people of Britain are less homicidal than Americans? I don’t believe so, I think there is simply strong evidence that making it very hard for just anyone to get a gun makes it harder to kill people.
A huge portion of gun homicides as part of robberies probably simply wouldn’t happen with a knife or other weapon. A gun makes it easy and final to kill someone in a robbery, with a knife you’re going to mostly be interested in keeping someone at bay while you get away with your loot, because closing into melee range with a knife is a lot riskier than holding someone behind a cash register at gun point.
If you create strict licensing and regulation, like I propose, you achieve the following:
Gun owners can still get any gun they can today and in fact many guns they cannot easily get today.
It is much more difficult to legally own a gun.
This means far fewer law-abiding citizens will go through the trouble. This has what I call a “generational impact.” I don’t believe my regulations have an immediate impact on criminals. But fifty years from now, where only people that have really jumped through hoops can legally buy guns, I suspect far fewer people will “lose” (genuinely or selling them or whatever) guns. Only the most responsible people will have guns, which means far fewer legal guns will ever become illegal guns.
The fact that is is much harder to legally possess a gun, means in a huge number of “police-citizen interactions” where right now a police officer may see a gun but have no authority to take it, he’ll now be able to take the gun. Let’s say a cop goes to a house in response to a disturbing the peace call. He’s let into the house and sees a gun laying on the floor in the corner. That’s a plain view violation, if the person has the gun illegally it’s a serious crime, if they have it legally, they no longer get to have legal guns. So over time many of the current guns would be taken up. Inherited guns would be turned in by people who didn’t want to register.
I suspect the supply of illegal guns to criminals is probably facilitated by people with clean backgrounds buying lots of guns and selling them to criminals or people with backgrounds that wouldn’t pass muster taking advantage of third party sales. Stricter licensing and registration means people buying guns in bulk to redistribute to criminals would be immediately known to police, and people would suffer serious consequences for doing something that’s legal today (buying guns from another person with no registration/legal transfer.)
On your “appeal to authority” (which is a logical fallacy BTW)
What was your MOS? In those 20 years did you working on tactics policy for urban warfare? (semi similar to home defense) Or were you just required to qualify with your weapon?
The problem is that you are arguing from irrational fears about what the risks from firearms are. In this country if you avoid hanging out with felons and avoid selling and or buying drugs your risk of being shot is tiny.
Unless you are claiming that Feinstein proposing this new law is going to end war I see no reason to even consider your quote:
As the effectiveness of the standard small arm has little to do with what criminals use to commit crimes.
So you are arguing to ban and spending billions tracking things due to their potential risk rate and not any real facts? I would rather use a harm reduction principle and spend that money and those resources to actually reduce death and suffering.
I am surprised that as a claimed expert you didn’t point out that full-auto is only really useful for covering fire in small arms. But note that Machine guns (name for full-auto or burst fire firearms per the NFA) have been and are legal and have been registered for 75 years. The only murder committed in all that time by a legal machine gun was by a police officer.
This is my point, this silly banning style gun control does nothing to impact those committing most of the crimes but it does rally a part of the electorate who tends to be anti-gay rights, anti-reproductive rights anti-universal coverage and anti-science.
If she does pass this AWB we will be handing legislative control over to them at a point in history when all of those items are critical.
Why not work on “closing the gun show loophole” or other solutions. Which, by the way, was partially created by irrational ineffective a gun control witch hunt for “kitchen table FFLs.”
Also, you are patently wrong about penetration of the .223 round versus pistol rounds.
Some aspects of wound theory and stopping power are actually still debated by experts in the field, but in general yes a larger bullet will create a larger hole. But a less energetic large bullet doesn’t have as much penetration power as a more energetic bullet.
A .223 round is a lot more effective at piercing body armor than many higher caliber pistol rounds because of the higher muzzle velocity and thus penetration. The muzzle energy of a .223 round out of some rifles will be over 1300 ft lbs, while a 9 MM round can be as low as 383 ft lbs. The 9 mm round is higher caliber and will make a larger hole but will have lower penetration into the body and less ability to penetrate armor.
Well, I’d love to see how you talk to people when you are being an asshole. Did you ever stop to think that your definition of reasonable as a non gunowner may be a touch different than mine as a gun owner? So far, you’ve called me a wannabe mass murderer so I guess I’m really not interested in continuing the discussion. Here’s the deal, high cap mags aren’t the problem. You ban them now and then when the next mass shooting occurs, you’ll want to ban something else, and it will all seem quite reasonable to you. We’ll disagree then as well.