That is GREAT information that i was not at all aware of… Thank you!
There is a very clear definition of an assault rifle: it is an autoloading rifle clambering an intermediate power cartridge capable of selective or fully automatic fire. As a weapon capable of cycling the action more than once per each trigger pull, it is restricted under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (requiring purchase of a Federal tax stamp and registration with the BATFE] as well as restriction or prohibition by state laws.
An assault weapon, on the other hand, is a nebulously defined term often predicated on cosmetic features of the weapon and used carelessly by politicians and media often with the intent of exaggerating or emphasizing the power or capacity of the weapon.
This is exactly right, and is largely the reason I long ago ended my association with the NRA.
As a practical matter, most gun control laws and proposals are ill-considered measures primarily designed primarily to showcase some politician’s desire to be seen doing “something” regardless of the practicality of implementation or effectiveness in preventing crime, and in some cases are expressly designed as gun prohibition laws under a transparent cover such as the farcical California “firing pin microstamping” law which prevents manufacturers from submitting new firearms, or even new options on existing lines of approved firearms onto the CA Roster of Firearms Certified for Sale.
“Fingerprint trigger locks”, if they were a viable technology, would be adopted by law enforcement because of their very real concerns about firearm retention in a struggle with a perpetrator; in about 10% of police deaths due to shootings, the officer is shot with their own weapon. That no law enforcement agency has adopted this technology strongly indicates that it has not achieved sufficient reliability for practical use. All of that being said, it should be recognized that firearms are by virtue of their mechanism of operation, inherently hazardous devices with the potential to do harm. The majority of deaths due to shooting are not crimes at all but are accidencts and deliberate suicides which argues for better training, holding firearms owners responsible for securing their weapons, and addressing mental health as a serious public health issue rather than passing laws about arbitrary magazine capacity limits or bayonet mounting lugs.
Stranger
Agreed.
Journalists are guilty of calling any long barrelled gun that will sell news an “assault rifle”.
To sum up, almost all gun control legislation that is proposed will do virtually nothing to achieved its stated goals, while increasing inconvenience and costs for those who don’t cause problems with guns.
As somebody recently pointed out:
Now think. If you were a criminal, what qualities would you like to see in a background check procedure?
Ineffective, and not correct.
But not faster, cheaper and easier. Since if the report doesnt come back in so many days, they can buy the gun.
Right. Ask any beer drinker and he’ll tell you advertising campaigns have no influence on what beer he drinks. It’s just a coincidence that he objectively decided to drink the beer that has the largest advertising budget.
Moderator Action
I think this thread has accomplished about as much as it can in GQ. Let’s move this to GD so that folks can debate the issue a bit, which I think will help the OP understand the issues a bit better.
Moving thread from GQ to GD.
I drink whatever someone else is buying.
Big flaw in that analogy: you’re talking about advertising’s influence on which brand of a type product a consumer buys. Here we are talking about whether the consumer thinks the whole type of product should even be legal. Big difference. You’ll find big national differences and differences over time in beer consumption per capita that don’t correlate with beer advertising, which is in any case omnipresent to eg. anyone who watches live sporting events on TV. There isn’t anything like that level of marketing for guns, or political positions on guns. Because of the other huge gap in your (though common) original reasoning: US gun/ammo makers are tiny companies in a tiny market compared to those selling beer, pick up trucks, or the influence of companies of $100’s billions (Apple, Google, Amazon) in market cap on political policies related to them. Just weak reasoning all around, sorry.
National gun control is politically impossible in the US because of a large mass of US voters against it, who know their own self interest as well as any other groups of voters you want to name on any other issue. Are you easily duped into your political opinions? So why assume they are different? This kind of construction of yours though common is basically undemocratic. You really have to come with a workable system where wise people like you not ‘unduly’ influenced in their perception of their own interests get to override those who are. 
Because, with all of the other cases, the members of the government can only slip so far before they’ll be met with a bunch of people with guns. That option goes away when the item of government overreach is to start disarming the people.
Fair enough, but why do the NRA and others oppose the manufacture and sale of suchaccessories as fingerprint locks outside of regulations. shouldn’t the market place decide what’s good?
mc
But that’s just it. 1) That will never, ever happen and 2) If the government had got to the point of confiscating guns, then all they would have to do is pass an Amendment outlawing personal ownership of guns, and then all those Constitution loving gun owners would just hand them over
Your article mentions why the NRA opposes it -
especially if it becomes mandatory -
Regards,
Shodan
Other people in this thread have covered it pretty well. “Assault weapon” is a made up term, and actual assault rifles are rare and not associated with violence. In my search I can find 2 (two) murders with legal fully automatic weapons in the past 83 years. There was some issues where some were illegally modified to be automatic, though the industry has since made that mostly impossible.
Aside from that, I’m not convinced that automatic weapons are any more dangerous. That’s a Hollywood idea. They are more difficult to shoot accurately.
Of the gun deaths in the US:
- 2/3 are suicides
- most of the remaining 1/3 victims are people who are involved in gangs or the drug trade
- The remaining amount is legitimate random violence that is not
- The majority of gun deaths are with handguns. Rifles only make a small percentage, and a smaller percentage of these rifles are “assault weapons.” In short, they aren’t any more effective at killing than any other rifle, and aren’t used very often either.
Some politicians have said that they want to outlaw civilian ownership. Though it’s probably a minority opinion, but still most (D) politicians want to severely restrict civilian ownership while doing nothing about actual crime. California just passed a bunch of laws which will have zero effect on crime and make zero sense but serve to make it more difficult and expensive for people who obey the law.
If that’s true they’re doing an awful job at it. About 9-10% of their revenue comes from advertising for gun manufacturers. Another small percentage (<5%) comes from voluntary donations by manufacturers and retailers (e.g. round up your purchase, or donating x% to NRA). Some 75% of their revenue is from member dues or voluntary personal donations.
There’s no 4th amendment specific lobby. Unless you count the ACLU et al., who by the way agree with the NRA that the “allowing the mentally ill to buy guns” canard from last year was a civil rights violation. The house Democrats were essentially doing a sit-in for Bush administration-style profiling.
My cell phone fingerprint detector refuses to work when my hands are *slightly *damp. If I am ever in the situation where I need to shoot somebody (I hope not), you can bet I’d be sweating buckets. Now the technology might be more sophisticated, but it’s not something I’d trust.
Do you and others think that death threats are an exceptable way of influencing the marketplace?
shouldn’t manufacturers be free to produce products and consumers be free to not purchase them?
mc
Cool! I didn’t know Glock made a potato gun!
Sure, but there’s always a few idiots who hide behind anonymity to make baseless threats.
then you don’t have to, but what if I want to?
mc