Thankfully, the PLCAA put a stop to those sort of frivolous lawsuits trying to bankrupt gun manufacturers. AFAIK, people haven’t successfully sued, for example, Honda who made the car that the Somali refugee used to run over people in his terrorist attack at Ohio State University. Does Honda realize that some bad person could use one of their vehicles to run over innocent people? I’m sure they do. But that’s quite a bit different than being aware of some manufacturing flaw that makes the vehicle fail and injure occupants or bystanders during normal operation, and hiding that fact. So, if the product is faulty, or malfunctions, sure. If your gun blows up while you’re target shooting and injures you (assuming you’re using proper ammunition and maintaining the firearm appropriately) sue away. But, if a bad guy gets a gun and uses it to harm you, sorry, no lawsuit for you, at least not against the gun manufacturer.
Yes and yes.
You are not paying for the criminal, you are paying for the victim of the criminal.
If you are correct on your 3000 to one ratio, then that just means that the cost of insurance (or a fund) for victims of gun violence would be negligible.
Can I get dirt cheap insurance to cover me if I get shot? If not, then the fact that responsible gun owners may have insurance on their gun does me no good, I am worried about the irresponsible gun owners. If so, then why should I have to pay to protect myself against a problem that you (gun owners and advocates against any form of gun control, including the ones we have in place) are causing?
Your second yes casts doubt on the truth of your first yes.
Perhaps if you’d elaborated on how granny needs to triple-tap that mugger (who I’ve been assured was probably scared off at the mere sight of the gun) then your pat answer wouldn’t smell so much like cow.
Most gun owners are not “causing” the problem of people getting shot. There’s a small subset of criminals, and the occasional tragic accident, that are doing that.
I don’t understand. How does the answer to the later question ‘cast doubt on the truth of’ this first one?
You asked first off if semi-auto pistols can be easily modified to fire rapidly. They can. I have the know-how and simple tools on hand that I’d need to do it to a number of mine, but it’s highly illegal so I do not.
And the now-famous “bump stocks” work just as well with a pistol. I’d provide a video link as evidence, but apparently YouTube has banned them. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Sometimes granny is facing more than one mugger. And sadly, granny doesn’t hit with every shot she fires, and not every hit incapacitates an attacker. Granny needs more than one shot, and oftentimes needs those multiple shots available in quick succession. Thus there’s a strong preference among police and CCWers for semi-auto pistols that allow multiple shots quickly.
You are “causing” there to not be any movement on any sort of gun regulations or controls that would lower my chances of being shot.
It doesn’t matter if you shoot me, or if you made it possible for the guy who shot me to get his hands on a gun, either way, you are contributing to the problem, but you are refusing to acknowledge the damage inflicted upon society by the gns that you (gun advocates in general) insist must be freely available. Essentially, you want a free rider program. You want to have your guns, for whatever use you have for them (collections, “fun” , self-defense), but you want the rest of society to pay the cost, and leave yourself off the hook.
Cigarette smokers pay a tax that goes towards healthcare and anti-smoking propaganda, because cigarettes are considered to be bad for public health. Even though I’ve never had an accident that my auto insurance has paid out, I have to continue carrying it, though I’ve demonstrated over the last 24 years that I am a responsible driver. Why? Because if all the responsible drivers dropped out, then they wouldn’t be able to cover the irresponsible ones.
I could think of other examples of items that we allow in society, but also tax or require insurance as both a discouragement from the activity that is harmful to society, and also as a way to pay for those that are harmed.
Guns are exempt from that, not because they don’t cause harm to society, and not because there are not people who are left harmed by them, but because they are guns, and therefore different.
Yeah. “… the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.”
Why should I pay premiums for criminals if I am law abiding?
Same reason you pay for car insurance even if you think you’re too good a driver ever to get in a collision. You might suddenly stop abiding the law, like so many gun owners who had claimed that same label do every day.
You mean, takes responsibility for your actions off the table. I get that there are laws that protect you from the liability, I am saying that these laws should not be shielding you from liability.
In order to protect your right to have a gun, society will suffer some. People will get hurt and killed, in order to protect your right to have a gun. You want society to protect that right for you, but you want to give nothing back to those who are harmed by it.
Why should I pay premiums for bad drivers if I am a good driver?
How am I a criminal, if I get shot?
OK, well, I disagree. Next year we’ll have another election and you can vote for the people that think like you again, and I’ll vote for the people that think along the same lines as me and we’ll see who wins, ok?
You dont. Your premiums are based upon your driving record.
The guy who left his guns unlocked within reach of small children, which is a crime. However, his homeowners insurance should cover those claims.
Okay, I’m willing to take your word for it, now that you’ve given me more than a pat tossed-off answer with no content.
Semi-auto generally fires the several shots in roughly the same direction, right? Three shots or so with one trigger pull, using three bullets, all pointed in the same direction over the mugger’s shoulder?
Sadly for granny, semi-auto used up all her bullets before she could get around to actually turning and hitting the second mugger.
I will readily grant that granny needs a gun that allows multiple shots quickly; that muzzle-loader she inherited from her grandpa won’t cut it in today’s hectic world. And I’ll further grant she needs a gun with a reasonably easy trigger to pull, so she can really get off those single shots fast if she actually gets a bead on her target. But I’m really not seeing where you’re making an argument for semi-auto helping her.
No. Semi-auto means one bullet is fired each time you pull the trigger. This is how many modern firearms function. I think you’ve confused semi-auto with full-auto here.
Then it sounds like we agree.
See above. You’re using the term “semi-auto” here, but I believe you’re thinking of full-auto fire, wherein the operator can hold down the trigger and the firearm will continue to fire until the trigger is released or the magazine is emptied.
ETA: The legal ownership of full-auto weapons is extremely restricted.
Conceded. I was getting them confused with when you have an automatic weapon set for burst fire (or whatever they call it).
Pardon me a moment while I recalibrate.
I’ve seen recent posts that if memory serves were posted by conservative people who stated that they’d be okay with banning semiautomatic weapons. I’ve also seen posts that allege that the mere act of pointing a gun at a threat’s face is often sufficient to deter many threats.
While obviously granny will be boned if she’s attacked by a squad of trained commandos, how useless do you imagine that a non-automatic weapon would be if pulled on a pair of average assailants?
That’s certainly not a widely-held conservative position. Perhaps you’ve read some posters here saying they wouldn’t object to banning SlideFire / “bump” stocks, which facilitate full-auto rates of fire from semi-auto weapons.
This is often true. Most DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) do not involve firing a shot. The mere “presentation” of a firearm is, in many cases, enough to ward off a threat.
If by “non-automatic weapon” you mean something like the muzzle-loader you mentioned before, I’m not sure how to quantify my response. It’s better than nothing, but not nearly as good as a modern semi-auto (which is why my earlier answer to your second question was a “yes”).
No, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that they’d be willing to ban semiautomatics. To be entirely fair, I’m bad enough with names and memory perhaps I got confused and they were actually just dirty stinking liberals instead.
(I’ve certainly also seen other certainly-conservative people saying they’d be okay with a ban on bump stocks. They’re usually met with the response that granny will respond by making one in her basement.)
Here I thought some weapons let you just pull back the hammer. Or has that middle been excluded by advances in technology?
The only I guess ‘conservative’ I’ve seen who has mentioned this was Scylla with his rather odd (to me) suggestion about banning semi-automatic rifles while allowing semi-automatic handguns. A lot of anti-gun people like to suggest banning semi-automatic weapons from sale because they make up the vast majority of the guns (handguns, shotguns, rifles) out there, so it’s hard to see how that would work out.
It depends on what you mean by this I guess. A revolver isn’t exactly a semi-automatic, though you can have a double action revolver (i.e. you get a shot every time you pull the trigger)…would those count? How about a bolt action rifle? Or an over and under shotgun I guess. Or are you just talking about a gun that can literally only fire one shot then you have to reload?
ETA:
I think what you are talking about is a single action revolver here. That means you pull back the hammer and then pull the trigger each time you fire. Mainly, you only see this with older (or replica) firearms today. Most revolvers are double action now.
I’d imagine it would work out with a massive increase in production and sale of whichever kind of firearms were still sellable.
I don’t have the gun knowledge to write this sort of gun law. I’m fairly confident that you could make a weapon that was reasonably immune to being modded for rapidfire without going all the way to handloading each round between shots, though.