You’re the one who tried to argue an AR15 or other rifles were less dangerous because they were used in less crimes. That’s like saying a nuclear weapon is less dangerous than a club because clubs have killed more people in history than nuclear weapons.
How does my regime not affect risk? All guns are regulated, not just rifles. It’s not easy to get a handgun under my regime. If you know anything about criminals you know they are fuckups, right now they can fuckup in various ways without committing a felony and keep weapons they have. People like that would never be allowed to legally buy a weapon in the first place. Many legally bought guns are used in crimes, when random fuck ups can’t buy guns in stores that makes it harder. Random white trash losers don’t actually all know an illegal gun dealer. Further, registration of all legally purchased guns makes it vastly harder for people to purchase large amounts of guns legally and introduce them to the black market. America is the gun capital of the world, our illegally owned guns almost all come from domestic manufacturers who sold them to dealers who legally sold them to people who then transmitted them to people who can’t legally buy guns.
I did not claim to be a firearms expert. Nor was military use of automatic fire immediately relevant, I was simply pointing out that for infantrymen semiautomatic fire is generally just as effective.
I do however point this out in another thread a few weeks ago:
And I’ve actually provided for a more liberal automatic weapons regime than we have now. Right now you can’t buy a single automatic weapon that was manufactured after 1986 if you’re a civilian, which is why they are so expensive which is the biggest single barrier to ownership even bigger than the NFA.
I’m not banning a single gun. I’m regulating their ownership. I find it strange you read my post where I specifically never ban a single gun and say I’m banning guns. I’m regulating ownership of guns.
Unregulated transfers would be part of my gun control package.
Note: Civilians do not need to use XM-193 ball ammo, the JHP was half stopped in the 4th wall compared to the 00 Buck which is the point. An AR is not too dangerous to use (although all firearms are dangerous to use in home defense).
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](http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot14_4.htm)
But even in your link he claims that he didn’t know how much stopping energy the .223 had after is passed through the walls so lets look at someone who did.
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](http://www.olyarms.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=26)
So .223 is still “safer” than a pistol or a shotgun for home self defense. It is much safer than the long barreled pistol caliber carbines that were popular with police in the past. Add in that it is more effective against someone who is doing something that justifies the use of deadly force and tell me how your link really relates to the subject?
How are Pistols and Shotguns better for home defense while an AR15 is too dangerous like was claimed up thread.
Actually if you look at those stats a club is more dangerous than rifles but why not outlaw propane and gasoline or heck flame throwers which are 100% legal if you are going to spend tons of money, political capital and resources to ban things that don’t pose a huge REAL risk. Heck ban video games not due to the content but due to the deaths caused by low cardio health.
So…without a court action how are you going to restrict people from buying firearms. And you are glossing over the fact that five out of six felons get their firearms on the black market. So there you will miss 83% of the guns that are in the hands of the bad guys.
If you are going to claim there are huge strawman dealers (which is illegal BTW) please provide the cite for that claim.
As for private sales…yes it was paranoid gun control that limited small dealers from being able to run background checks. An irrational campaign against “Kitchen Table FFLs” made it so they will not award a FFL to anyone who’s address isn’t zoned commercial for a storefront. So all the gun show dealers who mostly sell non-firearm junk can’t be a FFL for the 4-5 they do sell a year and thus can’t access background checks.
Also why not just open up background checks to private citizens or compel police departments to do them, once again right now there is no legal way for a private party to sell a firearm and do that check.
Why bring up semi vs automatic vs machine gun in a reply to me then? It just muddies the water.
By positively restricting a right you are enacting a defacto “ban” on either small parts of the population like the poll tax did (or the NFA did for title II) or entire groups like the DC “licensing” did.
Heck if you are a Title II fan you should know that, how everyone sets up trusts these days to prevent the local CLEO from refusing but that isn’t a “ban” either.
So you want to force people to use less effective harder to shoot weapons that pose a higher risk to others why?
What about the 98lb grandma…the type who may actually need one outside of people with active threats.
She has to use a less effective caliber or shoot a gun she is afraid of because rifles are also better for armies to invade countries than pistols or shotguns?
Rifles in the hands of citizens are PROVEN to be no more dangerous and are obviously not the preferred weapon of most murders by looking at the numbers.
So without some cite I am still saying this is due to irrational fear and not a legislative need.
They don’t have to. This sort of thing happens so infrequently that actually worrying about it to the point where you change your behavior is irrational, although it’s understandably hard to suppress those perfectly natural emotions when there’s been a high-profile incident in the news. A parent is far more likely to kill their own child with their car, but most of them don’t worry about that very much.
Martin Hyde, first let me say that I think your scheme is not fundamentally wrong, just over-complicated.
I’m also quite ready to admit that semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 are frankly terrifying weapons of war and supreme implements of death. Any gun is a terror when wielded against the unarmed, but a semiautomatic rifle is, in most cases, much more effective than any common bolt-action rifle, shotgun, or pistol. I own an AR-15, and it would not really trouble me at all if I were required to demonstrate competence and conscientiousness in order so to do.
But, I just don’t think there is a statistical need to target them for additional regulation. Even Diane Feinstein admits that they kill a very, very tiny number of people in this country. Fewer than bees and lightning. Handguns are the real problem, and legislation aimed at making them harder (but by no means impossible) to obtain would be much more worthwhile. It would engender less opposition than ill-conceived bans or other measures, and could potentially save a lot of lives.
There is still the issue of whether licensing and registration would open the door to further bans, limits, or outright confiscation. The attitudes of so many on the anti-gun side make these real stumbling blocks even for gun owners like me, who want to see reasonable controls enacted. And I can never support any measure that is obviously just designed to hamper and inconvenience those gun owners who are interested in complying with the law, while doing little to deter criminals – things like punitive taxation, excessively harsh liability, frequent re-registration or re-certification requirements, or bizarre per-use limitations. (“Only have a hunting license? Better not touch that gun in self-defense!”)
Martin Hyde, As you know, I don’t even like you, and have called you a loony at least once (I forget why). And I am now an extremely anti-gun type who regrets voting for concealed carry back in the day. So note that I’m saying this with that context:
I tend to agree with what you’re saying on this page. We need to legislate realistically about kinds of guns and kinds of uses.
Banning heat shields and pistol grips is cosmetic and frankly kind of weird, like a gun control bill designed not actually to be effective. Feinstein’s present proposal is full of loopholes. Anyone who wants serious gun regulation should be disgusted at it–more even than the libertarian side.
But what you’re talking about, having a graduated license system, might actually work. It might be both a workable compromise and responsible, helpful policy on its own merits.
The next question is, how do we get such a system in place? On one (mostly Democratic) side, we have politicians who want the show of banning something, sort of, for votes, without having to actually change the rules in a way that would inconvenience other potential voters. On the other (mostly GOP) side, we have politicians who are at least honest about not bothering to try finding meaningful restrictions. It seems like a system like you propose is almost too oriented towards effects and objectives beyond “getting elected” to pass Congress. Is that too pessimistic?
Police regularly carry firearms with magazines that hold 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, or 30 rounds. Do you think it’s because they “secretly want to kill a bunch of people quickly” or maybe because they often miss (or hit the bad guy but he doesn’t stop) and want follow-up shots without having to reload, or sometimes they are confronted with multiple assailants? Their reasons are the same reasons that a gun owner interested in self-defense wants to have average-capacity magazines.
As someone who was forced to carry due to the actions of another person I can say the normal enthusist is not who need it.
But also note that your assumptions are not backed up with real world data.
Non-police who are forced to use their firearms tend to be less likely to hurt innocent people. Many police will never need to draw their weapon in self defense and many don’t practice any more than is required.
But the fact that you resort to calling people names like “glock toting yahoo” demonstrates your arugment is based on emotion and not on facts.
An no I no longer carry nor have my firearms not been out of the safe except to add rust protection for a couple of years now. I hated to carry and am happy to not do so but I understand the real NEED to do so for some people.
Never. But that’s because there is no political organization that wants to ban sports cars. Many politicians will talk about “reasonable regulation” of guns, but from the other side of their mouths will wonder why people need any guns at all anyways. We can see the derisive terms in this thread towards gun owners who want to keep weapons for personal protection. So it really isn’t ridiculous to assume that these “reasonable regulations” are simply a first step towards even more “reasonable regulations.” Obama said in the campaign that he thought D.C.'s total handgun ban was a “reasonable regulation.”
The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy only because it isn’t necessarily true. But given the historical record of people proposing gun control measures, it is a short step to see that these “reasonable regulations” are a way to get a foot in the door.
I wouldn’t have any problems with some controls on guns, if:
The people proposing these controls were doing so in good faith with no ulterior motives for more controls down the road. You don’t compromise in a negotiation if the person is going to ask for more next week.
These controls actually did a damn thing to stop the harm that they were purporting to address. Pass the new AWB and a deranged shooter could still overpower his Mom who legally owned and registered the weapon. Or he would use pistols, pipe bombs, or blow up the school with ammonium nitrate fertilizer. When someone can show how these laws would prevent these mass killings, I might listen. What I won’t do is join the bandwagon in a knee jerk reaction to do something simply for the sake of doing something.
A point which I have already conceded and that no one is making.
You can put away the straw man.
What is true is that confiscation is impossible without prior registration, so blocking attempts at registration is a logical defense against confiscation.
Bull. Confiscation is possible without registration. The only straw man here is this vast conspiracy/slippery slope silliness. The NRA/pro-gun lobby vastly outspends any and all opposition and has most of Congress and a good portion of the American public by the balls. It has actually convinced those debating on their behalf that any discussion about compromise is a trap, and that schoolyard grade terms like “antis” and “gun grabbers” are reasonable phrases to use in discussion with people that might hold a different opinion than themselves. Your Great Enemy is 10% real and 90% a figment of the gun lobby’s imagination, but never let it be said that advertising doesn’t work, because the money keeps pouring in.
Don’t forget who else is on the “anti’s” and “gun grabber’s” side as well however. It is absolutely impossible to look at USA Today, CNN or any of the other major media sites without an outpouring of “We must ban this, or that…” sentiments. I’m not claiming any kind of a BS liberal bias, but there is clearly an anti gun bias in the national media, and there always has been. From misinformation, to stupid mistakes, to outright lies, the media is a far bigger threat to gun rights than any of the formally created anti gun groups. Definitely a Check on the NRA’s power.
Now let us compare that with the ACTUAL uses of the lists to confiscate SKS’s in California and in New York to confiscate some rifles within the past 20 years.
And the Governor of NY just this month that they may do so:
How irrational is it when it is stated to be a viable option by real life politicians vs. being stated as an irrational fear as part of a pure ad hominem attack by someone with no cites on a message boards?
As I’ve pointed out in another thread the NRA isn’t a huge spender on lobbying. Microsoft alone spends the same amount annually that the NRA does. Industries like high tech and big oil spend orders of magnitude more than the NRA does.
The NRA’s power doesn’t come from money or spending. It comes from it’s members.