There are a number of advantages, but that’s all besides the point. You said “I do not see how you can use an AR-15 for self defense unless you are being attacked by an army.” Here we have a case of a man using an AR-15 for self-defense against something other than an army.
Do you understand now that an AR-15 can be used for self defense?
Had you said ‘I don’t think the AR-15 is the best choice for self-defense’, we could at least have a real debate about it, but that wasn’t what you said.
Sure, but lets say you can afford only one gun, and you mainly use it for killing coyotes. Then a Ar 15 is perfectly Ok.
:rolleyes: If you want to talk about gun bans based upon technical points, you have to use the proper terminology. You cant say “boom boom stick”.
Your words “And we can have a maximum firing per minute standard as well, if that is what is necessary.”. Lever actions and bolt actions can be fired about as fast as a semi-auto, so basing a ban on ROF will ban pretty much all firearms. Except for a few single shot.
Again, your words: " And everytime you fire it, you have to take you hand off the trigger, and work the lever (or the bolt, for bolt action guns), and then reacquire your target, giving your targets more ability to evade your fire.", and my reply- not so much as you might think as the lever or bolt can be worked in the blink of an eye.
No, I di not imply that at all, you inferred it. If indeed the shooter had a 10 round magazine rather than 20 round, etc, maybe, just* maybe*, one or two deaths could have been saved when he had to change magazines. Maybe. It is pretty mcuh the oly reasonable solution I see, banning the sale of large magazines.
We need more gun violence against spree shooters.
They do care what happens to them, in that they want to commit suicide in a “blaze of glory”. Which getting shot by an overweight 50-ish teacher doesn’t match.
Without doing a couple of hours of research on timelines I couldn’t give you specific cites, but I’m certain a 1-2 minute response time makes a difference over a 5-10 minute response time.
which undercuts your argument against prompt response.
Disturbed and/or evil people do horrible things; fortunately spree shootings are as statistically rare as they are (along with bombings, deliberate vehicle homicide, etc.). But unless you’re convinced that the positive utility of rifles like the AR-15 is effectively zero, then you have to consider whether it’s worth forbidding millions of people who’ll never do anything wrong to own certain guns because of the actions of a handful of nuts- whose depredations can and should be addressed in other ways.
I do take issue with those who feel that the correct response to danger is to squeal like frightened sheep.
Which undercuts your argument that semi-automatic rifles are extra-dangerous enough that they should be banned.
I’ll go this far. I can’t conceive of a non-combat scenario, in which the specific characteristics of AR-15-style rifles which make it so effective for school shootings (compactness and carbine-length barrel, rifle-power ammunition, and large magazines) are more effective in defense than certain weapons without all of these characteristics. I specifically asked Bone about this, and the only counter-example he provided was “civil unrest”. I don’t think even that would require 30 round magazines:
Bone never responded to this except to say that he’d been rethinking the whole gun issue lately.
What if the policies that promote more gun violence against spree shooters have the unintended side effects of: (1) enabling more people to become spree shooters in the first place, and (2) creating more crime that isn’t committed by spree shooters but just causes more people to die or be injured?
Because, as near as I can tell, looser gun policy has had no discernible effect on mass shootings but it has led to an increase in other gun injuries. I’ll refer you back to the RAND metastudy as summarized by Vox above.
This thread has strayed a bit from the premise of AR-15s and the potential link to mass shootings. I have another drafted that I’m finishing in between meetings.
Good, I look forward to reading it.
No, because they were out stealing stuff, not murdering people.
Stealing stuff gets you a fine and probation, if you get caught, maybe a bit of jail if it’s not the first time. Murdering people, they spend more resources finding you, and then put you in prison for much longer.
Why would you assume that these teens just for no reason decided to change from stealing into murdering?
I doubt that very much. These teenagers were out to steal stuff from people’s homes.
If you can afford an AR-15, you can afford both a handgun and a bold action rifle.
I don’t know that I agree entirely. To draw up specific legislation to effect gun control, you need to get all the terms and all correct, but for a discussion on the impact that having these “boom boom sticks” in society, whether you call it a clip or a magazine (especially when it is actually correct to use the term “clip”) make no difference.
The only difference is when someone decides to sidetrack, derail, and ignore an option because it is not couched in the terms that you have chosen to prefer.
Did I say what the limit was? No, just that, since you brought up some antique guns that technically match some parts, but not others, as an example of why gun restrictions cannot be made on cosmetic features, but only on function, I agreed.
Sorry, I was having trouble following, and did not realize that you were going point by point, but all in one post, as opposed to actually responding to the points, so I didn’t know what you were referring to.
In any case, I have held a gun in my hand probably less than a total of 50 hours. I still will bet you that I can pull the trigger faster than you can work the lever, and my accuracy will not be as diminished as yours. (though I admit that you may have a higher level base accuracy to start from.)
I think it would have a much bigger difference. We are not talking about a commando who has spent countless hours drilling along with his comrades and instructor for ammo changes. We are not talking abut a combat hardened veteran who doesn’t let the adrenaline and shock of combat (even if it initiated by yourself) to make hands fumble and shake. We are talking about a teenager with no training or experience, and only having mental problems as a motivator. Yes, I think that when he runs out, he’s going to waste several seconds pulling on a trigger that just goes clicky before he realizes that he needs to change. Yes, I do think that with the adrenaline and excitement, it’s going to take him longer to swap in the fresh magazine. Yes, I do think that in the heat of the moment, he may even fumble enough to drop it. Yes, I do think that the number of magazine he brings with him is going to be limited, as they are bulky, and one that fits 10 rounds isn’t 1/3 the size of one that fits 30, meaning that he brings less overall ammunition to the shooting. And finally, yes, I do think that while he is not able to fire because he is swapping out, people can find better cover or even attempt to disrupt him.
I do not propose banning magazine sizes, but instead, restricting larger magazines to people who have showed prophecies and more importantly, responsibility and stability.
Okay, you are correct that I could have phrased better. I do not see how an AR-15 is the best choice for self defense. I think about this in the way of my house. I don’t know about all houses, but mine has hallways. With a handgun, I can come around corners and turn around in hallways and just generally maneuver in a far superior fashion than if I have a rifle. It seems to me that having the length of the barrel and the stock is going to make it much easier for someone else to ambush you and get around your defense.
Now personally, I’ve spent far more time throwing knives than I have shooting guns, and if someone were to invade my home, that would be the tool of choice for me. If available I’d take a handgun over knives, but unless being attacked by an army, I’d take the knives over the AR-15.
I’d prefer to just have fewer spree shooters. YMAV.
After they’ve killed several of their classmates?
If you look at columbine, or the florida shooting, you see that the majority of injuries and fatalities were in the first minute, really in the first few seconds, before people started findig cover. Then they wander the halls and get bored.
Not in the slightest. My argument is that with a high rate of fire, they are able to take people by surprise. the more bullets they are able to get out of the gun before people realize what is going on and start taking action to either protect themselves, or in the event of armed teachers, disrupt the shooter, the more damage they do. Once poeple have ducked into classrooms and run out of the building or otherwise stopped being a group of targets where you can’t miss, the amount of damage they can do goes down drastically.
Only if your take is to completely ban such items, rather than restricting them to people who show responsibility and stability. Could be a reason to agree to some sort of compromise, before the mass shooters manage to turn enough of your fellow americans against the gun owners and pass some laws that actually will ban the things that you love.
So do I. Fortunately, that is a completely false argument, unless you are saying that that is what you would do if you didn’t have a gun.
No, it bolsters my argument that an AR-15 is a very useful weapon if you are going places to kill people, but is a poor choice of tools to defend your own home.
I’m not assuming anything about murdering. I do know that your limiting of their actions to simply stealing isn’t consistent with the possession of brass knuckles and a knife. Clearly they were willing to commit assault, perhaps battery or more. Oklahoma law presumes they were there with the intent to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence. I find your position on this light years away from anything resembling reasonability - mind boggling actually. But if your mind is made up on this I’m not going to try and convince you further.
They probably were prepared to confront and intimidate a homeowner that attacks them. Just because you are breaking the law doesn’t mean that you don’t defend yourself.
But you seem to be operating under the presumption that that was their plan, that they brought these weapons with them in order to harm the people in the house, that if the son hadn’t shot them, then he would have ended up assaulted or even dead.
They were stupid teenagers. If he had called out, “I have a gun!”, they’d have run out of the house so fast.
I am not saying that he was in the wrong. If someone comes into your house, you have the right to defend yourself. I am saying, however, that we shouldn’t be celebrating the death of these kids, and I do wish that the events had turned out less lethal for them.
I am also saying that having an AR-15 was useful against these kids because they actually posed no real danger or threat to the homeowner. If they were aware that there was someone home, and desired to hurt him, then he wouldn’t have surprised them in the kitchen where he shot them, they would have surprised him in the hallway where he wouldn’t have had the ability to bring the gun to bear on them.
I can. Multiple assailants, and a slight-statured defender.
We agree that rifles are more accurate than handguns, ceteris paribus? We also agree—or we should—that per projectile, rifles have qualitatively greater terminal ballistic effects than handguns. Further, as mentioned upthread, due to counter-intuitive quirks in terminal ballistics, light fast rifle bullets like those fired by 5.56/.223 rifles often penetrate less in common building materials than do handgun bullets or shotguns firing buckshot or slugs.
Also, recoil is dramatically less for 5.56 rifles than for shotguns firing defensive ammunition. This is a concern for all shooters, but especially those who are smaller, and/or less experienced with firearms. Aimed follow up shots are much faster and accurate with such a light semi-automatic carbine, than either a handgun or shotgun.
Disadvantages include increased size over a handgun, and increased noise, though both are going be extremely loud indoors and both may cause permanent hearing damage. Both increased size and noise are partially alleviated by allowing shorter barrels, at the cost of greatly increased noise, and suppressors.
If I were picking an ideal home defense weapon for a female, or anyone really, it’d be a short-barreled (10-ish to 13-ish inches) 5.56 with a can, light, and a red-dot sight. Easy to manipulate, low recoil, accurate to as far as anyone has any business using it in a HD situation, plenty of chances to miss, less detrimental when they do miss, and much more effective on target.
All of this is angels on a pinhead navel-gazing though. Mass shootings are a tiny part of overall firearm violence in this country, which is itself very rare for anyone not involved in the drug trade, or living in urban areas plagued by same.
My solution? Bring back the asylums, enforce the laws we already have on the books—which includes listening when two separate people call in with two separate tips, each filled with individual, particularized pieces of evidence that somebody is going to go on a shooting spree—and allow adults to be armed if they choose to and are legal to carry a firearm.
You are trying to predict the behavior of people who have, through their actions in burglarizing a home while armed, already decided to shed themselves of the morality and rules that govern civil society. What makes you think that you can predict what someone will do, who already is showing manifest evidence of poor judgment and impulse control by breaking into a home?
It’s a tragedy for their parents, and for the guy who had to shoot them. I’m glad they won’t be victimizing anyone else though. And I’m glad the homeowner had the means to lawfully defend himself against criminals like them.
Okay, thanks for giving it a reasonable go. I’m unconvinced that large magazines are necessary even in this scenario, but I’ll at least consider that there might be a non-zero number of scenarios in which an AR-15 style weapon is the most effective for self-defense. But considering that they’re so much more effective for mass shootings in places like schools, I still would contend that it’s reasonable to believe that their wide availability allows more harm (i.e. higher body counts in mass shootings) then it prevents (in those extremely rare self-defense scenarios in which only an AR-15 will do).
They’re really not, though, Andy. Or at least, they aren’t used very often.
Let’s look at the mass shootings in schools. We have this asshole, of course, and Lanza at Sandy Hook. But we also have Cho at Va. Tech, who used a Glock and a .22. We have the Columbine guys, who used a Tec-9, shotguns, and a shitty pistol caliber carbine. There’s Purdy, in CA, who used an SKS. Goh, in CA, used handguns, as did Harper-Mercer in Oregon. If you go down the list, the vast majority of shootings were with handguns. There’s a few shotguns, ARs, and .22s, but most of them are with handguns. As is most firearm crime.
I deleted a mag size discussion from my already-too-long post, but briefly, mag sizes don’t seem to matter much for an attacker. He’s already committed to planning an assault, so he just brings more of them. Assuming he doesn’t break a hypothetical magazine size law, along with all of the laws against mass murder, and brings them anyway. A defender, OTOH, especially facing multiple assailants, is often not going to have a spare mag available, and may not have time to change it out. An attacker facing cowering unarmed people, has all of the time in the world to swap mags.
It just doesn’t seem to matter, except that there’ve been, ironically, a few shootings that were handicapped by their extra-large magazines causing their weapon to malfunction. The Batman guy in Colorado, one of the N. Hollywood bank robbers, Loughner in AZ: all had jams induced by their trying to use an extra large mag and failing.
There’s a bit of devil’s advocate in my prior post, but I wasn’t kidding about the AR being the best choice for most people for that purpose.
[QUOTE=k9bfriender;20834282
No, it bolsters my argument that an AR-15 is a very useful weapon if you are going places to kill people, but is a poor choice of tools to defend your own home.[/QUOTE]
“Say hello to my little freind!”
This doesn’t really dispute my point, which is that the particular characteristics of the AR-15 make it particularly effective for school shootings. The best balance of power, maneuverability, accuracy, and with large magazines, minimizing time reloading. And I think that last part is important – the more pauses in the action, the more chances to flee or physically engage the shooter.
If various guns are more or less effective in self-defense scenarios, then certain other guns might also be more or less effective in school shootings. That’s reasonable, right? And if so, then it’s reasonable to consider what the trade-off is – I posit that the weapon most effective in school shootings also has relatively very few serious advantages in self-defense scenarios that aren’t available with other weapons. This is awfully hard to measure, but it’s at least reasonable to consider these sorts of things.
Nor would I.
I said a loose definition would be based on the rate of fire especially if it uses high-caliber rounds – so there are guns out there I would consider more effective for spree-killing, and any restrictions on AR-15s would absolutely need to include those weapons too.
Firstly restrictions on these kinds of weapon are not being advocated to reduce crime per se. Just reduce the frequency or severity of extreme events like the school shooting or vegas guy.
For the point about there being millions of guns out there…does that mean that you agree that there should be restricted access to this kind of weapon, but just think there’s no way to get us there?
It would be good to find some common ground.
You posit wrong. any attribute you give for one scenario works for the other.
I think we have a winner of most absurd statement.
On first draft of this message I started listing the ways the scenarios are different and how that affects the requirements, but frankly it would be an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
You cannot seriously suggest that the requirements of weapon for a spree killing are the same as for home defence.