Because some of us don’t want a revolver or a pump action shotgun?
I chose my semiautomatic pistols after very careful consideration of my needs. A double-action revolver has a long, heavy trigger pull that makes it very difficult for many people (women especially) to shoot it accurately. A single-action revolver’s trigger is fine, but having to cock the hammer for every shot makes it suboptimal for emergency use (under stress, most people are just going to think “pull the trigger!”).
I chose a handgun rather than a shotgun because it’s easier for me to keep a handgun ready for action but also locked up and concealed from thieves than a shotgun. And I can’t carry a loaded shotgun in the car with me when I’m driving alone very late at night (which is a big reason why I wanted a handgun and a carry permit).
Your proffered choices don’t meet my needs. That’s why I want to keep my semiautomatics.
One reason is presented by artemis above. The other, less logical reason is that it would cause a mass-hysterical reaction of “They’re coming for our guns!”. You would have militias and freemen and their ilk bugging out for their bunkers in a heartbeat.
I’m tired of hearing that we should only be armed with hunting guns, or that hunting should be the only valid use of a gun.
I don’t buy guns for hunting. I buy them so I can kill human beings* if I am forced to do so*. If you have a problem with that, then by all means give up your guns and leave me alone.
If I am *legally permitted *to use lethal force, the implement that I use is irrelevant. I want to have the biggest, scariest goddamn gun I possibly can so that I have more bullets on target than the person who is trying to kill me and mine.
My guns are secure and I will never use them to harm an innocent. I will also not accept being punished for someone else’s crime.
Fair enough. But you seem to be saying that the magazine enters from the other side rather than from below, which doesn’t make sense. Regardless, if that rifle has a magazine slot rather than integrated tube magazine, then it can easily be swapped to the higher capacity.
Could you explain your thought process to me? I don’t want to sound like I’m attacking you, I just genuinely don’t understand why people feel safer with guns, since according to studies it seems that people with guns are more likely to be shot than people without guns. Here’s one study that says “people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.” Do you not believe the studies? Or do you think that it’ll be different for you?
I know people have guns for protection, but it doesn’t make sense to me. It seems like protecting yourself by having a fence around your house that’s constantly on fire. It might protect you from harm from outsiders, but it also very well might harm you. Obviously that’s an exaggerated comparison, but still.
I am not an expert on PA gun laws, nor especially those of the city of Philadelphia, but isn’t it the case that it’s extremely hard for the average citizen to legally carry a gun in that city? Your cited study looked at gunshot victims in Philadelphia, right? If it’s very difficult to impossible for an ordinary citizen to carry legally in that city, then can we infer that those who were carrying in this study, were doing so illegally? And if so, did the study authors account for other factors associated with illegally carrying a weapon in Philadelphia?
My point is this: I don’t think you can look at a sample of people in Philadelphia PA who’ve been shot (especially with an N of 6% of 677, or ~41), and extrapolate that to whether carrying a firearm makes you safer in the United States as a whole. Especially for those people who take advantage of a state’s availability of obtaining a concealed handgun license. I doubt the study’s authors fully accounted for other factors that, IMHO, better explain why those people with a gun in Philly got themselves shot: membership in a criminal organization, participating in other illegal activity at or near the time of the shooting, living in a high-crime area. I’m sure a trained criminologist can come up with other applicable factors.
That makes sense. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other studies that say similar things, but it’s hard to find reliable information, since things are so heated.
There’s another thread in which this is being discussed, and the point was brought up that the studies are biased: people who live in an area where they feel they need a gun to defend themselves are more likely to be shot whether they have a gun or not, because it’s a dangerous neighborhood. If you use the numbers for those areas and lump them in with people who live in perfectly safe neighborhoods (where very few people have guns, and those who do tend not to get shot), it’s not the guns that are killing them–it’s the neighborhood.
I am not worried about being mugged. I take thorough precautions as far as my location, my surroundings, the time of day I do my business, etc. I don’t have arguments with people in bars, which is to say I already avoid the “high risk” behaviors and situations. When you make studies about how people with guns are more likely to get shot, I think this is the kind of situation you are talking about… they resort to their guns to escalate a situation that they might have otherwise avoided entirely.
If an active shooter is running amok, whether I have a gun does not matter as far as escalating the situation. The situation has already escalated. I’m either going to be shot or I’m going to shoot back. Do you have a better solution? You think any of the people in these mass shootings really had a chance at running away?
Second, I am prepared for a world in which the police are absent. The fact that these mass shootings keep happening demonstrates how ineffectual the police are. I also refer to situations like Katrina or the LA Riots in which people had to use their weapons to protect themselves and their property when the police vacated.
If there happens to be an AWB I am not sure if I’ll feel any better that only 5 or 10 children are dead because the shooter had a lever action and a revolver.
I said earlier that a person loses all credibility with me when they use stupid immature (yes, STUPID and IMMATURE) buzzwords like “gun grabber”, but I feel I should respond to your arguments in this case.
Why do I care what type of weapons you have? Because of what happened in Sandy Hook and numerous other places. Because I want to greatly reduce the chances of such things happening.
If I am indifferent to what you have, then I’m indifferent to what ANYBODY has. You may be the most mentally stable, law abiding person on the planet, but there are other people who are anything but that, and I have no fast easy way of differentiating. I have no easy way of knowing which ones are unstable or evil. I have no way of allowing good responsible people access to such things while reliably denying them to dangerous people without making EVERYBODY jump through some hoops.
As a society, we err on the side of caution for dangerous things that don’t have a need that outweighs the danger. What is your need that outweighs the danger from others that may not be as responsible or stable as you?
Enjoyment of a hobby isn’t a sufficient need. I like fireworks. It would be fun to shoot off some sky rockets in my yard on July 4th, but my state doesn’t allow it because of the possibility of irresponsible people (or defective fireworks) causing fires. I accept that because I recognize that the danger takes precedence over whatever personal enjoyment I would obtain.
That is the mature adult attitude about these things. It’s part of being a responsible member of society. “ME ME ME… My rights in all cases and the hell with society!” is not.
But he had a point. Take the rifle I purchased last month so I could target shoot with the neighbors. I wanted a .22 semi auto, because they are dirt cheap to shoot, quiet and they don’t leave your shoulder sore after a few hundred rounds. I went to the local Dick’s Sporting Goods store as they had a wide selection of low cost .22s. I narrowed my choices down and I was going to buy a Mossberg Plinkster .22, a very basic semi auto that looks like a standard rifle. However another Mossberg caught my eye. It was A model 715T. Wow, it looked really neat, just like a M16, but a.22. I had never seen the rifle before so I asked a lot of questions. Turns out that it was nothing more than the Plinkster with a composite shell over it that made it look just like a M16.
No one would ever call the Mossberg Plinkster an assault weapon. However I guarantee that most people, especially the media would call the 715T an assault rifle, based on nothing more than the way it looks, even though it is exactly the same rifle as the lowly Plinkster, just with a scary shell. There lies the problem, what is an assault rifle? One of military grade or one that just looks really really scary?
Keep in mind, these are exactly the same rifles (although the 715 comes with A 25 round magazine, the Plinkster a ten round. You can purchase A 25 round for the Plinkster however).
I think for most people, it’s “A Semi-automatic longarm that looks like something the military/a SWAT team would use”.
And the problem is the people with “issues” seem to be attracted to guns that look like M-16s and AK-47s or have what might be termed a “Tactical”-type appearance.
You and I know that mechanically, one .22 rifle is much the same as the other and it’s shouldn’t make any difference whether that .22 looks like a Ruger 10/22, an AR-15, or a Mauser K98. But to the average punter, what a gun looks like is a cromulent way of identifying how “dangerous” it is.
Look at it this way: if you go cruising around in a sporty-looking car with a bodykit, spoilers, music doof-doofing from your stereo and boot-filling subwoofer, no-one - including the police - are going to care the car might only have a 1.3 litre engine in it.
Sure, but why does a mass murderer care about whether he’s using an illegal gun to do it?
No one enjoys these wanton killings (well, almost no-one). But I don’t see any value in a direct, legislative solution to the ancient issues of homicide and warfare - root causes should be addressed.
It’s tantamount to limiting the payload on bombers after WWII since the war was so horrific and obviously should not be repeated. Why not rather work on racism, diplomacy, and economic parity instead?
… or as I was thinking the other day, as a vintage motrocycle guy you decide to go to a modern motorcycle meet up. The parking lot of one bar is filled with heavily chromed choppers with ape hangers - the other is filled with Moto Guzzis.
What can you assume about the patrons of each bar?
