What exactly does the rate of fire have to do with whether or not a gun should be legal or illegal?
And by the way, does my semi-automatic forty year old Romanian AK-47 qualify as an assualt weapon to you?
How about my Remington 700 which is far more accurate than the AK over longer distances, but bolt action instead of semi-auto?
Not that either of them were bought with the intention of using them for self defense, but the fact is that if I’m ever really in a bind, they’ll work.
Alessan:
The thought of someone killing me is to abhorent to contemplate, so I have accepted the idea that no matter who it is that is attempting to end my life, I will in that situation choose between my death or his.
If it happens to be a soldier in the government’s army who is going to shoot me, then yes the thought of killing him is indeed repulsive. But worse than that is the idea of my own death.
Maximum rate of fire in combination with maximum clip size seem to me to be the only rational criteria available for defining “assault” weapons. Your antique AK-47 is less effective for laying down a field of fire than many hunting rifles, precisely because of rate of fire. However, grab a full “rock and roll” automatic rifle and put a large clip in it and you’ve got a pretty impressive ability to commit mayhem.
Surely there’s a maximum figure for sustained rate-of-fire that we as a society can accept as the limit for weapons of self defense?
First, tell me whether you want unregulated availability of all conceivable weapons for all American citizens.
If your answer is “No”, however qualified, then you already know why. If your answer is “Yes”, then I’m unlikely to convince you of the public safety concerns inherent in this debate.
Ah, but the potential that someone might use something to maybe, possibly do harm in the future isn’t the criteria we use to decide if a new restriction should be placed upon a constitutional right.
Your mouth has the ability to shout fire hundreds of times within a 2 hour period, but it is not duct taped shut when you enter a movie theatre.
The maximum rate of fire of a gun is a technical specification that has absolutely no bearing over whether or not the right to own that gun should be restricted.
Even if, for example, I can fire far more rounds per minute with an H&K MP5 than the AK-47 I described earlier, there’s no reason to assume the MP5 is any more menacing than the AK. In fact, some of the most demonized and heavily regulated guns in the United States today have never, ever been used in the commission of a crime. In all the mass murders that have ever been committed using firearms, there hasn’t been a single case of a fully automatic MP5 beig used in the commission. Ever.
So you know what, there really is no basis to assume that maximum rate of fire = potential criminal use. None.
And if you want to go the ‘self-defense’ route, I could grant you that I’ll never need to sustain 1000 rounds per minute to defend myself from a burglar. But, and here’s the part you’re really going to hate, I don’t have to provide any reason at all to the U.S. Government to exercise a Constitutional right.
Why I want to own the firearm is totally irrelevant to my right to own it. Nowhere on the ATF affidavit or the NICS form does it say ‘reason for purchase’, and they’re not allowed to ask.
So you don’t beleive in the second and fourteenth amendments to the US constitution? “Shall not be infringed” is pretty unambiguous. I imagine that as a ‘liberal’ you’d be really opposed to putting the same sort of restrictions on first amendment liberties as you do on those in the second. I really doubt you favor ‘speech control’ or ‘religion control’.
So, what you’re really saying is that you’re not at all opposed to confiscation as long as someone gets to keep guns? I mean, you should ‘instantly become a criminal’ over NYC, for example, where you can’t own any gun at all without the approval of the chief of police, and he’s allowed to deny permits for no reason at all. They’ve already had the big confiscations. Or are you saying that ‘control, not confiscation’ that only allows citizens to own guns at the whim of a government agency still doesn’t qualify as confiscation because, hey, someone with political connections can still own a gun?
Let me repeat my earlier question directly related to the allegedly ‘limited’ gun control you support.
Who, EXACTLY should be restricted from possessing guns? Not ‘Oh, whatever latest ‘bad people’ the brady bunch says shouldn’t have guns’, but exactly what groups. Bear in mind that it is already illegal for anyone convicted of a felony, found not guilty by reason of insanity, or committed to a mental institution to own one (unless they’ve gotten a pardon for the crime or medical certification that they’re not subject to the mental problems anymore). What additional groups do you think should be barred from possessing firearms?
Which kinds, EXACTLY, of guns should people be limited from possessing? Not ‘oh, whatever someone calls an assault rifle this week’, but a simple list of the guns you think people should not be allowed to have.
What sorts, EXACLTY, of childproof locks do you think should be required for people who don’t have children or who store their guns in a manner inaccessible to children? What EXACTLY should be done to people who have guns or replicas of guns made before your ‘childproof locks’ initiative passes?
EXACTLY which accessories do you think should be outlawed? ‘Fingerprint resistant handles’ sounds an awful lot like one of those vague laws
The NRA supported the ban on teflon coated bullets, though they shouldn’t have. They opposed the ban on all rifle ammunition stronger than .22 rimfire, which is what the original ban that became the ban on teflon bullets was. I don’t even get why this is listed as an issue for you.
Owning a machine gun or parts to create a machine gun currently requires that it be registered with the BATF, a tax paid, possession complies with all local laws, and a signature from the chief of police or sherriff of the city/county in which the person resides. How much more restrictive do you think the law should be?
Owning a destructive device currently requires that it be registered with the BATF, a tax paid, possession complies with all local laws, and a signature from the chief of police or sherriff of the city/county in which the person resides. How much more restrictive do you think the law should be?
What, EXACTLY, are assault weapons and why are they not legitimate to own?
Most people who want a fully automatic weapon want it for target shooting, since they’re generally not an effective personal defense weapon.
I am generally liberal, but, as I said, I have three guns: a rifle for hunting, a light shotgun (4/10) and a pistol for…you know. I inherited these from my dad, and though I wouldn’t have bought them, I didn’t get rid of them.
[QUOTE]
Let’s get the argument of the OP straight. It’s not about control. It’s about confiscation. And that, my friends, is not an issue, except to those who would rather appeal to emotions than to reason. Confiscation is wrong. Control is not. If you want to argue the points of control individually, that’s for another thread.[/QUOTE}
Please! Your reasoning is flawed. That you have a mouth capable of shouting fire in a theater is not relevant because the purpose of your mouth is not to shout fire in a theater. Potential is not the point. Purpose is the point. The purpose, of a rapid fire weapon is military: to lay down a spray of bullets and kill as many enemies as possible. If you intend to use such a weapon to protect your home or your person, you are expecting what, a division? A battalion? A squad? What? Fending off a burglar, even an armed one, with a rapid fire weapon is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer. It’ll work all right, but that isn’t why you bought the sledge hammer.
If you need assault weapons (come on, you know what they are) to make yourself feel powerful, then, by all means, fight for the right to possess them. But don’t pretend they have something to do with self defense.
**
Granted, the government can’t ask, and maybe shouldn’t ask, why you want that kind of weapons. But maybe you should.
[quote]
Ahh, but if the gun-control types aren’t going to show their hands, perhaps they could state exactly what confiscations and limitations they do and don’t support? While such people often claim not to be in favor of complete victim disarmament, they seem to go along with any gun control measure that gets proposed.
[quote]
That’s because the ones that get proposed are not about complete disarmament! There is considerable middle ground on this issue, considerable diversity among ‘gun control’ proponents, and a considerable variety of possible new regulations.
Cite?
I find it very hard to believe that any member of Congress would propose legislation to that effect or that significant numbers of Americans would support it. It’s my understanding that ‘cop killer’ bullets are specific types of ~9mm ammunition (like ‘Black Rhino’ or ‘Talon’ or whatever) designed to penetrate bulletproof vests. There is no way that legislation banning all pistol and all ~.30 cal hunting rifle ammunition would get passed.
Spoofe:
Nonsense. In a volatile, polarized issue such as this, the ‘backlash’ is a potent political force. Ever hear of a little club called the NRA? Call them the NBA - the National ‘Ballistic’ Association, 'cause that’s how they react to the tiniest proposed resriction on guns.
The talk of citizens needing guns to defend against a government “gone awry” reminds me of Carlin’s routine about flamethrowers:
Not just flamethrowers, but tanks, helicopters, jet airplane, air-to-surface ordnance and so on. Frankly, any organization possessing the above, desiring to create a military dictatorship in the Land of the Paying-Your-Salary, is not going to be cowed into submission by Clem Kaddiddlehopper and the contents of his gunrack.
Of course, these modern freedom fighters, realizing that their Ass Would Be Grass in a stand-up fight, might play the guerilla game, but as we’ve seen in recent news from Afghanistan, that’s a way of life that truly sucks.
Besides, in the Information Age, you can do a lot more damage with a computer than you could with a gun:
“Whaddaya mean, the Culpepper Switch crashed?”
“The Alaskan Pipeline is closed off? The computer-controlled valves jammed? Dammit!”
Severe economic dislocation will take the fun out of the New World Order a lot faster than a few bullets over Broadway. Believe me.
Now, that said, I don’t necessary see anything wrong with legal gun ownership. Sure, you have to register it, but you have to register everything in this country. And you’re subject to regulations on everything too. Bee Oh Oh, Aitch Oh Oh. Fill out the paperwork, send in your check, take the (what should be mandatory) training course, and go have fun.
I’m pretty sure you already know the answer to this, since we’ve had this converation before.
Sorry. You were talking about fully automatic weapons in the midst of talk about “assault rifles”, so I assumed your comment was aimed at that group of guns. My mistake. I don’t really have a problem with the current restrictions on fully automatic weapons, just on the continued assault on “assault rifles”.
sqweels: Rhino brand rounds are frangible bullets, designed to break into small pieces on impact to have a greater effect on an unarmored target. Black Talons are another brand of bullet which are designed to spread much more than a normal round on impact. Neither could even imaginatively be called “armor piercing”. In fact, they both are much less effective against an armored target than a normal round.
In fact, the way Black Talons were effectively outlawed was a tax that was so inordinately burdensome that no one could afford to pay it. Something in the neighborhood of 500%. The only people exempt from the tax? Law enforcement and the military. Of course, this tax did absolutely nothing to stop other companies besides Remington from producing the same kind of ammunition.
You think the NRA acts disproportionately against gun regulation? Remember, every flood is proceded by single drop, and every avalanche starts with a solitary snowflake.
How about that rhetoric? Solves nothing, but gun-control groups pile it on constantly, never satisfied with laws that already exist, always demanding “something” be done while ignoring the fact that practically all of their concerns could be addressed with laws already on the books.
In fact, that has become the NRA’s mantra: Enforce current laws instead of passing new legislation that is restrictive only to those that follow the law in the first place.
I never said they existed for the purpose of self defense or even that I bought the AK-47 that I own with self defense in mind.
Since you really want to know, I bought it for its intended purpose - to propell small lead projectiles at an extremely high rate of speed and make many of them accurately hit a target in a short period of time.
That is the design purpose of a firearm. It’s a very efficient machine that propells lead projectiles with, hopefully, a great degree of accuracy and precision - and if you are so interested, speed.
Now it also just so happens that one of the major uses for such a device is to hit things, including living things and even human beings, with those projectiles. But looking at them from an engineering standpoint I can’t argue that their purpose is to ‘kill humans’. What is done with their ability to cause such propulsion to cone shaped lead weights is immaterial to the fact that they are marvels of the laws of physics.
Now take my AK-47 for example. You said it’s ‘useless’ as a self-defense choice. Granted, it would never be my first choice when it comes to defending myself, but if that’s what I happen to have beside me when Mr. East End Rapist breaks into my window, then it will do the job just as well as a Browning pump 12 or a Beretta 92FS. And the reason I chose to buy it - because it’s good at what it does. It makes pieces of lead go through pieces of paper from 100 yards away, which amuses me. I get much great enjoyment out of taking the AK to the range and going through a couple of hundred rounds (when I can afford to). It’s a delightful experience and quite a bit of an exercise in dexterity, breath control, muscle control, and relaxation to shoot well.
Do I need an AK-47? No, can’t say I do. But that’s the wonderful thing about having rights and a Constitution. I don’t have to demonstrate ‘need’ to the federal government, or to you, to exercise one or all of those rights. My rights exist whether I need them or not - and that’s a good thing, because if the day ever comes that I do ‘need’ that AK-47 (god forbid), I think it’d be long past the point of asking the government to nicely let me have what I need.
And sqweels:
‘Cop killer bullets’ was a misnomer from the beginning. No cop has ever been killed with one of the bullets that was on the ban list.
Class II-A Kevlar soft body armor will stop the .45 ACP, .357 Magnum, 9mm, and 00 Buck-shot. With the exception of the 00 Buck-shot, all of those are handgun cartridges. What isn’t on the list of what the Kevlar will stop: any centerfire rifle cartridge.
Bridgeport police cheif Thomas Sweeney proved it when he had one of his employees fire a .223 caliber centerfire rifle at a Kevlar vest. The bullets penetrated the vest with no problem, and .223 is not considered to be a large caliber for a rifle.
This is what I come up with after searching the web for ‘bullets penetrate Kevlar’.
Now, this is something I’ve wondered for a while – if the solution is to “enforce current laws”:
[list=1]
[li]Why are the existing laws, assuming they are adequate for American society’s needs, not being enforced?[/li][li]How do we get law enforcement personnel to enforce them (or enforce them better)? By what specific methodology do we accomplish this? Cash incentives?[/li][/list=1]
Not being sarcastic here. Would really like to know.
I take it that the only knowledge you have about the NRA is taken from The Simpsons. The NRA has long supported keeping guns out of the hands of those that abuse them, and has long supported strict punishment of those that abuse them (Project Exile, for example).
“Tiniest proposed restrictions”… banning ammunition? Requiring registration? Fingerprinting firearms? Those are “tiny”?
It’s no worse than gun control advocacy groups, whose constant screams of “Think of the children!” and “If it only saves one life…” make one want to puke.
Sure ain’t me, buckaroo.
HCI started in 1974 as the National Council to Control Handguns (NCCH), which espoused the desire to eliminate all handgun ownership. They changed the name - just the name, mind you - in 1991 to the current Handgun Control Incorporated, and backed off on the “banning” rhetoric.
But rather than go into the whole history myself, I’ll send you to this site, where an interesting analysis is made.
But just keep in mind that HCI’s mission statement says “without banning all guns”… bolding mine. Meaning that they just want to ban the ones that you or I could own. :rolleyes:
SPOOFE, my good man, how could you leave the latest name change off the list? Handgun Control Inc. is now “The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence”. Apparently the words “handgun control” were turning people off.
Anyway, as you pointed out, the title may be different, but the song’s still the same.
Sarah Brady disgusts me to a level very few people achieve.
And I saw some of Rosie O’Donnell’s visit to the O’Reilly Factor last night. She said that she made her ‘ban all guns’ comments out of concern for children, because people told her children were dying, in the wake of Columbine and because she was emotional. Said that now she doesn’t want to ban all guns or take away people’s right to defend themselves with force.
She’s still in favor of registration and licensing, which I don’t agree with. Her intentions, I suppose, are not as bad as they had seemed for a long time. I can’t harp on her too much for the things she does want, because she’s not a person who’s very educated about guns and has no actual interest in owning them for herself, so she’s not going to have the same concerns about whether registration is ‘just the first step to a ban’.
But I think it’s good that she admits guns are not just for the use of armed bodyguards to protect the rich people who can afford to hire them. I also think it’s good she’s stopped believing everything that Sarah Brady’s website says.
“I just believed that what I was doing was right. I told the NRA (National Rifle Association) I would make it my life’s ambition to see you all don’t exist anymore and I will do this until I put them out of business. That keeps me going when I have to deal with rude people.” - Jim Brady, of Handgun Control Inc., in the _Hartford Courant,_May 21,1994
“We must get rid of all the guns.” - Sarah Brady President Handgun Control, Inc. Phil Donahue Show, September 1994 — with Sheriff Jay Printz & others
Hmmm… and yet another gun-controller unwilling or unable to answer the big question, how do their square ‘gun control’ with the 2nd and 14th amendments to the US constitution.
No, they’re incemental steps on the way to complete disarmament, like what happened in the UK (early 20th C - unrestricted firearms, then some restrictions, licensing and registration, more and more restrictions, then the present situation). As I said before, why won’t any of you tell us what gun control you do and don’t support? Hell, are there any gun-control bills in congress RIGHT NOW that you don’t support?
Except that the alleged ‘middle ground’ always seems to be halfway between ‘whatever laws we have now’ and ‘complete disarmament’. If there’s so much middle ground, please tell me which gun control laws you oppose. It’s very easy to repeat the mantra of ‘only reasonable gun control’, but it’s rather difficult for anyone to believe you when you can’t bring yourself to oppose any gun control proposal as long as it has a shocking enough name.
Perhaps you oppose the rather strange law that forbids you to have all of a bayonet, folding stock, and pistol grip on a single rifle that has a detachable magazine, but allows any one of the bayonet, stock, and pistol grip?
LOL! Slap a catchy name like ‘cop-killer’, ‘plastic gun’, or ‘assault rifle’ on something, and you and your pals will line up to ban it. You ‘find it hard to believe’ that a congressman would put forth a proposal to ban any ammunition that can penetrate a bulletproof vest, and that people like you would support it?
You can get the original legislation from back issues of the congressional record (they’re not online), or you can look at the March 5, 1997 records for Clinton’s reintroduction of the bill as HR 1349 (for that year).
Why is it always the case that gun control proponents have an ‘understanding’ of gun control laws that is completely divorced from reality? The federal legislation against ‘cop killer’ (put in quotes because there hasn’t been a single cop wearing a vest killed by it) bullets was NOT directed solely at 9mm ammunition, and was in fact directed against teflon coated rounds. Black Talon ammunition was a HOLLOWPOINT round. Hollowpoints are designed to expand, causing larger wounds and REDUCING penetration (including armor penetration). But, ohh, it had a scary name, so lets ban it. And Black Rhino? It’s a frangible round, which means it breaks into pieces when it hits something to REDUCE penetration (including armor penetration). Just like Glasers, they’re specifically designed NOT to penetrate hard objects.
(In other words, the two rounds you believe the lies about are both designed in such a way that they have less ability to penetrate body armor than simple ball ammo).
Because of the work of freedom-supporting groups like the NRA who raise a stink over it, and in spite of the efforts of people like you who will call it “the tiniest proposed resriction on guns.” Also, I never said that the legislation would ban all pistol ammunition.
LOL! The NRA has (to the dismay of many, like myself) SUPPORTED many ‘proposed restrictions on guns’. You know the Brady law, that requires FBI background checks before purchasing any firearm? They supported that, just as a single counterexample which disproves your allegation.
To be honest, this attitude scares me a little bit. It seems that you think that “the government” is just itching to suppress people in every possible way, and that “the militia” is the only thing which prevents them from doing so. I think we’re all well aware of the harm that this sort of paranoid attitude has done to America. Furthermore, I see no evidence that “the militia” has been active in combatting government oppression. What specific actions would this big, bad government have taken if not for that wonderful militia?
You were talking about fully automatic weapons in the midst of talk about “assault rifles”, so I assumed your comment was aimed at that group of guns. My mistake. I don’t really have a problem with the current restrictions on fully automatic weapons, just on the continued assault on “assault rifles”.