Pshaw.
Madness.
Just out of curiosity, what do the gun collectors who have posted in this thread actually use their guns for?
Can’t believe I missed this one. It’s not about wanting or needing, it’s convenience.
Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it is to have to reload 10 round clips when you’re competing for multi-round target contests? I have a few friends that like to compete on my land for the best score out of 50 shots (using 10 targets offset).
Give us a 50 round clip and we’ll have no excuse for a lower score because of having to change mags. Not everyone with a large capacity mag wants to kill people. Though that’s what it sounds like you’re suggesting. In that nice guy, I was just saying, kind of tone.
Me? Hunting, target shooting, making damn sure nobody will break in my house or carjack me without some retribution. And the pure, unadulterated joy of firing a gun.
And they feel good to hold. And they sound great when you operate the action. And you get a certain feeling of satisfaction when you field dress it. And they smell good when freshly oiled…
Um, what?
I’ll just take a wild guess and assume you’re expressing contempt for the gun-owning and -collecting enthusiasm expressed in this thread.
Got any evidence anyone in this thread has used their weapons to commit crimes, or negligently allowed children to get ahold of them? Can you define what “madness” is being expressed here?
There is no reasoning with the hatred us gun owners have to deal with. Hell, why do you think this thread is still going?
Nothing, really. As I said before, I think they’re interesting machines. When I do take them out, it’s for target shooting. I have no interest in hunting, nor am I likely to need them for self defense. I like my black powder guns because of the way they function; so with the autoloaders. I like black powder because they’re a chore to load. I like big magazines on the autoloaders because it’s a chore to reload every five rounds. Why do I like loading one and not the other? Because that’s the way it is. (Incidentally, I prefer 20-rd. mags over 30-rd. mags.)
For me, it’s like collecting stamps. What do stamp collectors actually use their stamps for? Same thing. To appreciate. People collect different things. Why? Because they like them. Some people have painted plates or Beanie Babies strewn all over their houses. I keep my collection out of sight, and pull out a piece when the thought occurs to me that I want to look at something, or to check one out of historical interest.
There are some people who want to ban firearms outright. This seems to be the tactic they use.
They ban “assault weapons” because "nobody needs one. Then they’ll ban “Saturday Night Specials” because criminals use them. Then to make sure no new machine guns are available. And they reduce the number of rounds that can be carried in a magazine. And so on. They know they can’t just ban all guns all at once, so they chip away at them. It’s a net gain for them every time they get a law passed. Now, there are some “anti-gun” people who think that some guns are okay to own. Maybe they’d be happy if they were all gone, but they’re not going to try to outlaw all of them. Still, there are the “radicals”…
So does anyone “need” a semiautomatic rifle with a large magazine? Actually, AR-15s are considered excellent varmint guns, and were advertised as such. (Not into killing animals myself, but I can understand how a rancher might want to get rid of prairie dogs.) Obviously, people who shoot in sporting events that require them, do need them. As has been pointed out, loading magazines slows down the action when people are “plinking” or target shooting in non-competitive activities.
What’s a “Saturday Night Special”? I’ve heard them called “cheap guns”, on the theory that a criminal will buy the cheapest gun he can to commit his crimes. Or maybe “low-lifes” will buy one because those people naturally want to carry a firearm in case they get into a bar fight. :rolleyes: But it was pointed out that people have the right to defend themselves – at least in their own homes – and that people likely to live in high-crime areas often can’t afford an expensive gun. By banning "SNS"s, they were being deprived of their right to defend themselves effectively. So the emphasis went from “cheap guns” to “cheaply made guns”. I remember hearing something about the melting point of the metal, or something like that. But then, what does the quality of manufacture have to do with the price of tea in China? So they went after the safety issue. An SNS then, is a gun that is unsafe. Imagine my surprise when I looked for a Walther PPK/S in California. The PPK/S is a well-made pistol that has an excellent record over about seven decades. But it failed the “drop test”. (i.e., it could discharge when dropped.) I guess this made them SNSs, and they were banned from California until they were redesigned to pass the “drop test”. In short, it would appear that the anti-gun people were trying to ban a “class” of guns without knowing what they were.
Machine guns? Try to get one. Banning new manufacture was meaningless in the war on crime. The only people it affected were the ones who jumped through all of the hoops to get them legally. But it makes the politicians look like they’re “doing something” and are “tough on crime”. To my knowledge, there haven’t been any legally-owned machine guns used in a crime since the 1934 NFA. (There may have been one, but I don’t remember. Still, that’s a great record.) The machine guns used in the North Hollywood bank robbery were illegally obtained or illegally converted.
There was some talk about banning rifles that use the .50 BMG round. “Oh, no! Sniper rifle!” Again, none have been used in a crime to my knowledge. But if they could be banned, then it’s a step closer to a “total ban”.
I understand why people want to ban all guns, or certain types of guns, or whatever. But guns are not the problem. The problem is Society. We have a violent history, and our national policies do not give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed. And success is a good way to reduce crime. When times are good, the crime rate goes down. When times are bad, the crime rate goes up.
So how do we fix the problem? I think it’s a matter of education, mostly. Inner-city schools tend not to be as good as schools in areas where there is more money available. If the schools are not as good, then the education is probably not as good. Without a good education, people cannot get good jobs. Without good jobs, criminal activities such as drug dealing (a hazardous and often violent occupation) may seem more attractive.
But it’s more than education. It’s also a matter of culture. “If you lie down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas.” People are products of their environments. If you live where there are a lot of gangs, then you’re more likely to join a gang than someone who doesn’t live where there are a lot of gangs. If you grow up in an environment where there is a lot of unemployment and people hang around drinking all day, you’re less likely to break out of that cycle. Now, I’ve mentioned “inner cities” and “gangs”, but I don’t want people to think that I’m pointing at minorities. There are people of all ethnicities who live in poverty. Poverty is the killer.
If we want to reduce crime, we can’t put our energies into passing laws based on fear and cosmetic attributes. We need to fix Society. Passing laws is easy; fixing the problem is overwhelming. We need to make sure our children are well-educated. (And I’m all for the Swedish-style programs for higher education – in spite of the monetary costs. It costs less for Society.) We need to make sure that people can make a decent living. We need people to have hope. If your family member is suffering because you can’t afford medical insurance, if you’re about to be evicted because your employer has found that it’s cheaper to outsource your job to another country, if you’re forced to take a low-paying dead-end job because you did not receive a good education, if you’re living in a blighted area where you’re likely to be a victim of crime, then hope may be hard to find.
It’s very well to put criminals in prison; but we need to make an effort to rehabilitate them instead of just warehousing them. But more importantly, we have to stop them from committing crimes in the first place. We can’t do this by banning this, or criminalizing that; we need to attack the problem at its root. And this is a very, very hard task. 
Well, I completely understand sportsmen wanting larger capacity clips. I’ve done a little bit of shooting in the past, always enjoyed it, and, if I lived somewhere else than in a large city in which it is simply inconvenient to get out to a place where one can do recreational shooting, most likely I’d own a firearm of my own.
So, duffer, I completely understand your explaination, and it is very reasonable.
I am still mystified by those that hold the views of Crafter_Man, on the other hand. I just can’t put myself in those boots and feel that the ownership of a firearm is as vital to liberty, as, say, I believe voting is. I am still downright bewildered as to the implication that owning a firearm with a limited capacity clip somehow is liberty lite. It is simply Greek to me. I hope it’s evident that I not interested in a debate of such a view, but I was hoping that someone would walk me through the thinking… now that this thread is in GD, though, I’m sure folks will jump in with all sorts of attacks, so, eh.
But with full respect for where you’re coming from, duffer, I do think there’s kind of a blind spot for a number of gun enthusiasts, in which they kind of make a leap from “responsible, law abiding gun owners aren’t a threat to society,” which is of course 100% true, to using that statement to wash their hands of any involvement with what is quite obviously a societal problem, and that is crime and gun violence.
I don’t mean that responsible gun owners are somehow complicit in or responsible for violence perpetrated by others, I’m simply saying that if there is a society-wide problem, no good is done by having some pretend that the problem does not exist. Specifically, I do recognize that all responsible gun owners can be trusted with a high-capacity clip, but I also believe that a criminal with a large capacity clip is a greater threat to a community. Those are not opposing views, as I’m sure you realize.
I hope you get the point I’m driving at.
well i am kinda like Johnny L.A. on this I just find guns interesting. I just use them for target shooting and sure they might come in handy for home defense, but mainly I collect them. Funny thing too, I just recently got into guns just last year as my friend introduced me to them. He showed me safe handling techniques, how to field strip and clean, etc. Before that I was kinda scared of guns, but he demystified them for me and now I own a few. I like collecting ones i find cool, or unique in some way. Like my spas-12 which looks scary ,but is just a shotgun and my calico m100p unique because of its helical magazine and looks http://www.glocktalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=2877355
As for machine guns like an mp5 or such. Pre-ban versions(meaning version made before the import ban)are legal, but you need at least $15000 to buy a legal one. plus jump thru a ton of legal hoops (like getting it signed off by a your local sherrif) and be prepared to wait about 7 months or so to actually get it. I don’t know too many criminals willing to do that when they can probably get an illegal one for much less. To put in perspective the cost the mp5 would cost about $600 bucks if they were legal to import.http://spas12.com/spas/spas12h.jpg
Mr. Coffee Nerves:
All of my firearms purchases were for a reason, even if it might only make sense to me (and other gun owners). Some were for aesthetic reasons, others for functionality, while still others for just plain old curiosity.
My Oly Arms AR-15 clone was the exception; I bought it just to say “fuck you” to Bill Clinton, Sarah Brady and the whole pack of anti-gun weasels in congress. Including the small fortune I shelled out for pre-ban 30 rd. mags. But it too is fun to shoot.
I have more guns than I could effectively shoot, including some I haven’t fired in a very long time. That’s because I’m very reluctant to sell my guns to anyone I don’t personally know and implicitly trust. There aren’t too many gun stores that will sell on consignment, and pawn shops aren’t going to give me anything even close to 1/2 fair market value. Not to mention that I don’t particularly trust pawn shops all that much, either.
The thing about guns that a lot of non-owners and anti-gun types just don’t get is that they are seen by most gun owners as simply tools. No different philosophically from the wrenches, sockets and screwdrivers in their toolboxes.
“Why so many?” some ask (others cry incredulously). Because just like wrenches and screwdrivers, different guns have different purposes. I have 4 rifles. Two good for general hunting (dear and such), two good for repelling foreign invasions. Why two? One was on principle (see above), the other was on sale and just too good a deal to pass up on.
I have two shotguns; one for sport (SASS) shooting, one for assaulting crack houses. Am I going to assault a crack house anytime soon?
Dear me, no. But God is it fun to shot! Laser sighting, nice pump-action, BOOM-clacka-BOOM-clacka-BOOM-clacka-BOOM! and little pieces of target come floating gently back to Earth. Better than a box of chocolate; at least shooting it doesn’t go straight to my waistline.
Of my handguns (6), two are old-fashioned single action “six guns” for sport (SASS) shooting. Three were for “self defense,” purchased over the years as my tastes changed in what I wanted in a self defense gun. I still have three (instead of just one) because, as I indicated above, I’m very reluctant to part with a gun to someone else unless I know them personally to be someone I can trust with a gun.
The last is a collectible, ornately engraved and fairly valuable, that I picked up on the cheap (relatively speaking). I may keep it as a family keepsake, or I may wait to see if it appreciates significantly in value and resell it later. It is very nice to look at; it looks like it needs to be in a museum.
Yeah, this thread has been a virtual flamefest full of (the shock! the horror!) politely phrased and curious questions!
(OK, plus some sarcasm like this post).
Fair enough, and if you want to own such weapons in a responsible fashion, more power to you. But… when, recently, has a group of civilian riflemen succesfully defeated a conventional army using techniques of guerilla warfare? Sure, the Viet Cong may have been outweaponed by the US, but they had a lot more than just automatic rifles…
I’ve asked this once before, but the answer got lost in the noise.
Much is made of the fact that most (or all) gun crime is committed with illegally obtained or illegal guns. How many of these guns become illegal because they are stolen from the legal owners?
And;
Does the gun itself become illegal once it’s used in a crime? If a previously responsible gun owner goes nutso and kills her husband, was it a crime committed with an illegal firearm? You see where I’m going with this, right?
from what I have read yeah some of the illegal guns do come from being stolen from private gun owners, but the majority are just smuggled in like drugs or stolen from such places as military bases. and we all can see how good we are at stopping drugs from being smuggled in. well I think it is in illegal possesion until it is used in a crime then it becomes illegal and is destroyed after it is used as evidence or what have you. But if they say bust the guy at his house on an arrest warrant and find the gun the and provided it has not been used for a crime the legal owner has a chance of getting his firearm back. as for the guy going nuts well the gun was legal til he blew his wife away.
John M. Browning (father of the beloved Colt M1911) converted a Winchester lever action to either full- or semi-auto. (Don’t have my references handy right now)
I do remember that you could affix a trip device on the lever of a Red Ryder BB gun that would cause it to fire when you closed the lever.
I have no idea what to call that, except silly. You couls put somebody’s eye out.
Note: I am not implying that we are in danger of the same thing, but to give some perspective:
Imagine half of the Jews in Germany during the holocaust were armed and willing to defend their freedom. Do you still think, with SS soldiers dying left and right, it could have been carried out?
I doubt you’d be able to find a cite of one that didn’t occur in a military engagement in the last century.
Provided you jump through the appropriate hoops and live in a state where such things are legal, acquire the 200$ federal tax stamp, get the signature of John Q. Sheriff, submit fingerprints to local, state and federal law enforcement, and pass the FBI background check, you can then shell out upwards of 10,000$ for your very own submachine gun.
That is, if you can find one for sale.
It’s a 200$ stamp attached to the purchase of a fully automatic firearm for personal ownership, and it applies to one firearm and one firearm only. If you want another, you pay the tax again. Being a Class III dealer requires a lot more finances.
I shoot my semi-automatic AK-47 at the range. I find it fun.
Banning all ‘inexpensive’ handguns just means poor people are discriminated against when it comes to self defense.
There was one. And that one was a cop who shot his informant.
Minor nitpick. The H&K MP5 is a submachine gun, as it utilizes the 9mm x 19 round, which is a handgun caliber.
Add another one to the “gun collectors” pile:
Why do I collect firearms? Primarily, simpy because I can.
Secondly, most of them I purchased for the appreciation of the machine, for the actual enjoyment of shooting competitively or just “plinking”, home defense, and even an element of just having something reliable in my pack or on my hip when I go camping in ‘bear country’.
Another side benefit I own what I own (and I’m thinking of my two AR-15s in this instance) is that, for the sake of arguement, say I get deployed to somewhere not-so-nice, like downtown Baghdad. I am so damn familiar with the AR-15/M-16 system, that should something jam or something not seem “right” when I pull the trigger, it’s instinctive that I can correct it instantly–which would prove rather helpful in a full out firefight. Admittedly, that I have a little more confidence in myself that I can at least shoot back a little better, and have better weapons handling skills after practicing on my own for a few years. Practice makes perfect. 
So, I have my guns because I appreciate them, enjoy them, and doggone it, I may have to use them someday. And admittedly, there is a measure of defiance in me that when a “treehugging, peaceloving hippie” government begins to outlaw my guns, I’ll firmly flip them a finger and tell them to take it from me when I hit my grave.
Dude, I bought six surplus mags for $20. What are you paying?
Tripler
I have guns because I can have them.
what i don’t understand about gun control and laws such as this any gun can kill you just as dead regardless of how it looks. and gun control is meaningless to criminals and just makes stuff more expensive for collectors and shooters who are law abiding. an example in high school my best friend was dating a vietnamese girl and her brother was in a gang . one evening at a party we were listening to the stereo in his car and he popped the trunk and inside were about 15-20 glocks a couple of ak-47 or kalashnikovs and 3 uzis all for sale…cheap! the glocks $35, $125 for the kalashnikovs and uzis :eek: i am pretty certain those were not legal at all or maybe they gave out class III licenses to 19 year olds just for asking.and you sure did not need to pass a background to obtain them. i don’t know where he got them ,but according to the girl that is what he did, hence his brand new infiniti. my best friend kept dating her for a while i just stopped hanging around him til he broke up with her. back to my drug analogy cocaine and pot are illegal ,but i could probably go downtown on saturday night and score some if i was so inclined, not that i would mind you. same with guns make them illegal and yeah they might be a little more expensive for the criminals, but at least they can still get them.