There isn’t a Russian surplus weapon problem in the US.
We get bolt action Mosin Nagant rifles, semi-automatic only with 10 round fixed magazines SKSs, Nagant gas seal revolvers that fire an obscure cartridge, and semi-automatic Makarov pistols with < 10 round capacity as well as captured WWII suprlus from Germany and the countries that it occupided in WWII legally imported into the US not Kalishnikovs.
Why would the NRA for get behind fixing a problem that isn’t a problem in the US?
I believe that they have lobbied for increased sentences for certain gun crime BTW and have got them.
In fact, everything in your list can be used/done/owned for a multitude of reasons. The sole reason to hold a loaded working gun ( opposed to, as I mentioned very clearly, a collectible that has been mechanically rendered inoperable ) in your hands it to be able to fire with lethal force.
As a devout pacifist who studied Tae Kwon Do for 4 years and would have made 1st Don if not for a broken back, your last example is without doubt the most hilariously off the mark.
Let’s see now. Inner focus and concentration, balance, dexterity, rhythm, physical fitness, healthy social interaction, the art of the movement, precision of gesture, control of your body in motion, and so on. All good reasons to study martial arts that have nothing to do with killing someone.
Don’t come back with how target practice is about all of the above and has nothing to do with killing people. If that were the real truth, then we wouldn’t ever see paper targets outlining the body contours of a human being, now would we? You shoot at targets to practice learning where to shoot a human being to kill them.
I would agree that it is fair to say that one who ONLY ever shoots at square targets with concentric circles does what a bowman does with a target- uses a mechanical device as a means of perfecting body control in the goal of hitting the middle of the target. If that is all an owner ever did, and never left the range with a weapon but instead kept it locked AT the range, to only be used to shoot at square targets, well then that would be one thing.
That is the rare exception, you must admit. And even if what you do is only target shoot the fact remains the same- you are holding the ability to take a life in 1/10,000th of a second in your hand. No other device contains this lethal potential. Well, didn’t until guns were invented.
So what? I’m not seeing your point here. You could say the same thing about driving a car.
Every argument being made against guns boils down to “They scare me.” Face it, you don’t trust your fellow man, so you want to render him as harmless as possible. That is the creed of a serf, not of a citizen.
lowbrass, I’m saddened that Ex-Tank was the one you piled your derision upon. **I ** was the one who called you stupid and arrogant. Don’t I get any credit?
Then why do you ignore the rest of my argument? I told you why I learned to shoot.
And I call bullshit on your statement. What do you call a sword? Do you think it’s more fair to hack someone with a weapon designed solely for physical damage to other people? How about crossbows? Bows? Big rocks?
Do you even understand that there are things to shoot at that aren’t ‘paper targets that have concentric circles in the center’ that have nothing to do with shooting humans?
I will come back with the statement that target practice is a good portion of all of the above. Have you never heard of zen archery? Hell, if you were a true pacifist you would have taken yoga instead. You would become a breathatarian or a jainist. That’s a true pacifist. You’re ‘no true pacifist’.
Yes, I realize I just insulted you and put up a straw man there. It’s exactly the same one you put up. Study it. You’re exactly as wrong about shooting as the previous paragraph is wrong about you being a pacifist.
I will tell you that your statement about ‘the rare exception’ is probably really messed up. I can’t prove it, I don’t have statistical data, but those humanoid targets? I don’t see those often on ranges that aren’t frequented by police or the military. I can tell you for sure that most shooters do have something in mind if they shoot. It’s furry. Humanoid targets would be pretty darn useless for that.
Me? I shoot skeet these days. Are you familiar with the concept? It’s a little clay disc about the size of a CD. It gets thrown into the air at speed, and I have to try to smack it with a shotgun. It’s a lot like golfing. (Sporting clays are more so, but I don’t have the skill for that yet) I’d like you to explain to me how I’m supposed to be practicing shooting people that are about four inches across and traveling through the sky at baseball speeds.
And, yes, these days, I’m renting the shotgun at the range. It’s a new sport for me, I havn’t bought one yet.
Oh, and ‘what a bowman does’? Guess what. You never heard of bow-hunting? Now that’s a real challenge.
Which is yet another example of a law based on punishment after the fact rather than prevention. Do we have reliable statistics that show that punishment-based gun laws are effective?
I’m still wondering how people would categorize my hobby of shooting retired computer equipment. It really helps me destress, and helps us assure that sensitive medical data is destroyed. Trust me, after I peg a hard driver platter with a .22 a few times, not even the NSA is going to be able to read it.
Because if you wipe it, it can still be gotten back. To be really sure, you should light the suckers on fire. This is slightly more environmentally friendly.
Is the explanatory clause legally superfluous? Absolutely NOT.
Instead, it helps define what arms we are discussing. In the classic US v Miller case, the Supreme Court told the two sides to go away and come back with an arguement of whether or not a sawed off shotgun qualified as a militia weapon. Miller died before his second date, and his attorney didn’t bother to finish up the process.
FYI -a sawed-off shotgun is an excellent militia weapon.
So, gun nutz such as myself tend to see the explanatory clause as a way of specifying what the writers meant by arms. They did NOT mean hunting arms, they meant militia arms.
As for calling it an explanatory clause - that is grammar, as taught in English programs. An explanatory clause is secondary to the declarative clause.
Finally, arrogance. I will state that the vast majority of the time those who are anti-gun are poorly educated on the subject. This is natural. Unless they are employees of the Brady Center, they do not spend much time on the subject. They simply feel that guns in our society are bad.
Gun Nutz, however, spend weekends with guns at the range. They spend thousands of dollars on their firearms in both purchase, maintenance, and ancillary expenses such as targets, reloading equipment, carrying cases, etc. They also hang out with other gun nutz. OF COURSE we are better read on the subject than the average anti-gun individual. We like to read books on guns, we read gun websites, we watch the history and discovery channel specials on guns, we join gun organizations, etc.
We can also spot the uneducated (on this topic) anti-gunner very easily. First, the amateur anti-gunner will make a statement about assault rifles. Typically this will follow with a quip of, “who needs a machine gun to hunt deer?” At this point the anti-gunner has shown their complete lack of knowledge.
As to your complaint regarding talking points - it is our way of saving some time. You see, we have had this arguement many many times. It has been with friends, co-workers, and at community meetings. It has also been on the net. After awhile some of us can simply re-write what we have done many times in the past in our effort to help convince just one anti-gunner to re-think their position. It is not parroting the NRA per se, just us once again listing out the various arguements.
When someone tells me that we should get rid of guns, I usually ask them what perspective are they coming from? Is it one of “the 2nd doesn’t apply to you, just to the National Guard?” Is it, “Guns make our nation less safe?” Is it, " The rest of the civilized world has banned guns?"
Each one of those triggers a different response. If someone comes at me with a new reason to ban firearms, I will listen. I just haven’t heard a new arguement in a long time.
The project exile type operations have put people behind bars. I think that trying to tie that to a drop or rise in crime is difficult, however, given all of the other factors that impact crime (economy, drugs, education, housing, etc.).
They only thing I could say for 100% certainty is that anyone locked up for a gun crime will not commit another gun crime until released.
I’m not mad at you. You have given me exactly what I expected, NRA blather coupled with unfounded arrogance. Pretty typical, actually. The arrogance goes hand-in-hand with the false feeling of power that you try to get by buying guns. I actually pity you more than anything else.
You sound arrogant as well. You read a bunch of bullshit NRA propaganda, commit it to memory, and regurgitate it in internet debates. And then you call yourself “educated”. Please. :rolleyes:
sigh I truly regret this thread has descended to name-calling (and I’m not holding any one person up for blame). I’m reproducing your post here only to point out that referring to “the false feeling of power that you try to get by buying guns” is a pretty broad assumption, and a sterotype. Even when it is occasionally true, so what? People get feelings of power by buying powerful cars, by winning a sports contest, by working out at the gym … why is it wrong to get a sense of power by buying a gun? As I said earlier, it’s just a machine made of plastic and metal. If you try to point out that a gun is more than that, it’s a deadly weapon, then you are contradicting your statement that the feeling of power is false. Either a gun gives a feeling of power that is real or it does not. If a gun does not truly give anyone more power, than what is the point of this thread, and why should guns be regulated? If it DOES give a person more power, than your statement is false, and we must equate arguments to restrict gun ownership to attempts at removing power from the general public. That doesn’t sound like it’s in keeping with democracy to me, and I think was the whole point behind the 2nd Amendment.
Well, the NRA is the chief organization for those who hold a certain point of view; it sounds like you’re saying anyone who holds that point of view is therefore merely a propagandist. While not everyone in this thread has been polite and attempted to engage on this issue in a reasonable manner, would you claim that no one could rationally come to a conclusion that agrees with the NRA’s stated positions, WITHOUT ever reading anything published by that organization?
It sounds to me lowbrass that you dislike the attitudes of gun owners as much or more than you dislike guns themselves. I can’t fault you there; a lot of gun owners ARE pricks. But that itself doesn’t change the issues at hand. Journalists and televangists can be pretty damn annoying too, but that doesn’t negate the First Amendment.
Sorry if I sound arrogant - you sound worse. You have yet to toss in ANY new fact, arguement, or even reasoned thought process. You ignore the majority of my posts, and your response is limited to “you are just parroting NRA talking points.”
As for “bullshit NRA propaganda,” I am regurgitating talking points that I have been using since the early 1980s when I began to be interested in firearms. While I have read NRA materials, I have also read Lott & Mustard’s work. I have read Rakove’s work on the Constitution. I enjoy perusing a variety of Cato Institute publishings. The NRA is a bit soft compared to the material put out by the GOA. I have also read the Brady Center nonsense, just to see if they have anything new.
I am enough of a nut that I carry a copy of the US Constitution in my briefcase (thanks Heritage Foundation!).
My education is far more than just reading NRA materials. Sadly, you don’t even seem to hit that level of cognition on this topic. You just focus on ONE word, militia, and run with it. You don’t look at any other word in the Amendment, you don’t look at the grammatical structure, you don’t look at the history of the nation, you don’t look at the other writings of the founders, you simply use a cheap shot (of course, this IS the pit) about the NRA and walk away.
Pretty pathetic. I will take arrogant over pathetic any day of the week.
You shoot at targets to practice learning where to shoot a human being to kill them.
