And as far as availability goes, prior to 1968 you could actually purchase guns by mail order without ever setting foot in a gun store or having a background check. I remember my dad buying hunting rifles and shotguns for my brother and I by mail order, and they came to our house.
I am bewildered how the conversation is about guns this time around, given the facts regarding the shooter. He was repeatedly in trouble with the school and with the law. The local police and FBI both dropped the ball on this guy. But, yeah, it’s because of guns.
People use .223 for more than coyotes. It’s a good round for groundhogs and similar size pests. But, yeah, I agree that few deer hunters use a .223. I wouldn’t. But don’t forget that you can buy an AR in other calibers, such as .308, .300, 6.5MM, etc. Lots of AR-style rifles are .22LR, too.
A lot of hunters still feel that way. Most of the guys I hunt with have said much the same. But I live in a state where semi-auto rifles are not approved for hunting. I understand that’s not true in many states.
Setting hunting aside, people are buying AR rifles because they can relatively easily change sights, stocks, triggers and other components, making it a hobby of sorts. I agree with you that a .223 isn’t great for home defense as one usually thinks of it. But it might be for a rancher who wants to be able to go out and defend his livestock and property.
I bought an AR rifle a few years ago because I worried that they might one day be outlawed. I bought it when prices settled down after they were so high several years ago. So you can chalk up at least one sale to the gun control crowd, and I doubt I’m the only one. I also bought it because I was curious, and ammo is widely available and not too expensive. I have tried different sights on it, and it’s fun to shoot.
I’m personally okay with making guns a little more of a, um, “pain in the ass” to get? As long as you CAN get them. Then again, we’ve never had a home invasion in my neighborhood, so I’m not particularly passionate about the idea of getting a gun asap. I don’t feel like in immediate danger.
That might change. I don’t own a gun, but I think there are two conditions that would personally push me to buying one: Feeling in danger, and a piece of legislation that would make me feel like I couldn’t get a gun in a timely matter if I did feel like I was in danger. As such, a Canadian style system coming down the pike would probably drive me to get a gun, and probably more than one.
What did the shooter do that would have allowed the local police or the FBI to legally intervene? I’m sincerely curious. We don’t want to the authorities to take people’s guns away just because, in their opinion, they are scary.
I don’t disagree on why people by AR-15s. Like I said, its rise was largely the result of the assault weapons ban lifting and it is certainly customizable and a fun shoot. My problem with that logic is that I don’t see where the government has to defend a ‘hobby’ at the cost of people’s lives. I don’t think that weapons used for hunting should be outlawed, but weapons used to plink at the range? That’s a different story. A tool is a tool and a toy is a toy. Government banning tools is a problem, banning toys though? I don’t have an issue with it. Bottom line is that if you could magically do away with semi-automatic weapons (I include pistols in that category. Honestly, I’m not sure that pistols have much of a place at all outside of use in trapping, but a revolver can defend you almost as well as a Glock (actually Glock’s suck, but I digress.)) these mass shootings would still happen, but they’d not be as deadly. Las Vegas with a guy with a bolt action rifle and five round clips would not have ended up with 1000 people hit. 17 dead with a bolt action rifle and five round clips in Florida would not have happened. I’m under no illusion that it’s guns that cause these crimes, but limiting guns and especially guns with no real use outside of shooting cans can make many of them less deadly and saving lives matters to me.
Taking that Instagram post and his history of violence seriously could have saved a lot of lives. I have no problem removing guns from a person with this history.
Well, now you are getting at the heart of the 2nd Amendment. It is included in the Bill of Rights not to protect hunting in the US, but to protect the right of citizens (regular people) to keep and bear arms to protect themselves. Protecting ourselves from the US government was repeatedly stated by the Founding Fathers, who had just violently ejected the previous government with the use of the most modern, advance weapons of the day. So, as distasteful as it sounds to many, we should be able to own AR rifles specifically because they are efficient tools to protect ourselves from a government run amok.
I think that many gun rights activists are aware that that is the “ultimate solution” (or at least their perception of a gun control activist’s real agenda is), which is why the won’t give an inch, and why sales of guns spike after a shooting. It’s not the shooting that makes the sales to go up itself, it’s a fear of what lawmakers might do in reaction to the shooting.
I actually have a disagreement with this line of thinking as well. My main disagreement is that ARs aren’t going to protect anyone from a government run amok. We know what happens to untrained groups with small arms that go up against a well-armed government-they end up in many pieces from aircraft and actual military hardware. If we look at the Syrian Civil War where small arms are a dime a dozen, it’s really anti-tank weapons, MANPADs and IEDs that keep rebel armies afloat. When only armed with small arms, they just die…handily. A bunch of guys with ARs against the US government are a dead bunch of guys. If you want to actually pose some sort of ‘defense against tyranny’ from the US government, you need to open up the US to sales of T-14s, Kornets, S-400s and Su-35s, not small arms. You and a bunch of like minded patriots going to your gun cabinets grabbing your ARs and overthrowing the government is about as likely as my cat learning to speak Chinese and becoming Xi Jinping’s second in command. In other words if the contention is that the second amendment is there to periodically ‘water the tree of liberty,’ then it has already failed at its job. By banning the sales and ownership of actual military hardware, we have decided that the 2nd amendment doesn’t exist for the sake of overthrowing Trump. From there, it’s only a question of where we draw the line on what constitutes a ‘Constitutionally protected arm.’ If we can say the guns on a tank aren’t constitutionally protected, why can’t we say a semi-automatic rifle?
The whole history of guns, the second amendment, is not about hunting, fun, hobby but that the citizens are the boss which the kings, dictators etc. seem to forget.
Our right to self defense is not a gift from our government…
The second amendment is about the people protecting themselves from any form of government, especially our own, that forgets they are not going to become absolute rulers despite:
The gradual leading the populations to believing that the government does not want total control.
The gradual control of elections as seen most recently.
The giving up of responsibility for safety & for free handouts which are not free.
Etc., Etc…
Right now, how many LEO’s will help in an action that is completely counter to the Constitution? Even to the point of killing unarmed and non resisting citizens? ( Way too many and they are protected by the supposed good LEO’s to much of the time. )
Even the Supreme Court says that the LEO’s do not have to serve or protect the citizens. You know, that lettering on their vehicles that say “Serve and Protect?”
So far, the good LEO’s out number the bad but the percentage is quickly reversing so that the majority will soon just be ‘Enforcers with a gun.’
Talk of having tanks & major war weapons is just silly. All that is needed is the citizens ( Including the government people, soldiers, & LEO’s etc. who are all willing to use the gun they have personally to forcefully fight for freedom from the government when it finally comes out in the open with it’s bid for total control.
The saying that disarmed people are subjects, not citizens is 100% correct.
Lack of responsibility is not freedom.
Freedom requires personal responsibility. For everything… Including your right to life.
You know what I worry about more than the US government or Princess Kate taking over my neighborhood? Someone murdering my kid in school. Funny that I get to be the boss of one thing and not the other.
Many believe that all arms are/should be protected by the 2nd amendment, including all of the military weapons you mention in your post. Since the 2nd Amendment protected the most advanced weapons when it was written, it still does/should. By this line of reasoning, not only are AR rifles protected, but so are tanks, machine guns and everything else. As with any constitutional argument, it comes down to who draws the line.
This is a simple enough thing to test, why don’t you get a bunch of your buddies with your ARs and try to take over a federal building. I’ll give you either 2 hours or 2 days depending upon whether they decide to kill you or try to do it peacefully. If you’re advocating a civil war where a large portion of the military decides to pack up its stuff and join you, then you have no need of ARs since they’ll bring their own hardware. Your toys that you take to the range to pretend you’re shooting at G-Men while dodging black helicopters aren’t going to make a lick of difference, so again I ask, why should they be legal? The only people they seem to be “protecting us from” are kindergartners, concert goers and school children. I think I’m comfortable with saying that I’d rather have the kids alive than the theoretical ‘protection.’
Sure, you can argue that all you want, but the courts have come down against that argument and it’s likely they will continue to do so. Since the precedent is set that firearms can be regulated, I see no legal obstacle to banning semi-automatic weapons.
Thanks Orwell, Ashtura and aceplace. I haven’t been reading much about the school shooter and I didn’t know his history included chargeable offenses for which he was not charged.
There are others who read that text of the 2nd Amendment which says you have a right to “keep and bear arms” in order to preserve a well-regulated militia. The militia were individuals who provided their own weapons that they could operate by themselves. That suggests to me that the line is drawn at weapons that can be carried (i.e., borne). No tanks, aircraft carriers, or crew-served weapons for you. Of course, even under this theory, machine guns should be legal.
Not to be flippant, but if you are really (truly) worried about your kid being murdered in school, you should do a little probability analysis. The odds of your kid being killed in school is miniscule, infinitesimal. He/she is in more danger traveling to and from school.