Mind you, I probably don’t agree with the NRA. But I agree with what it says.
In response to Mayor Bloomberg’s claim that Second Amendment supporters believe all gun laws are unconstitutional, the NRA says:
“Second Amendment supporters…oppose legislation that would prohibit firearms and magazines best suited for defense.”
Hey, so do I! I’m good with people owning guns suited to hunting and self-defense. It’s the guns whose capacities go beyond that that I have a problem with.
So I guess they’d be good with a 10-round limit on magazine capacity, because that should easily suffice for defense against anything less than a rampaging mob.
Similarly, it sounds like they’d be good with bans on civilian possession of rifles that are accurate at distances of more than a couple hundred yards, because Lord knows you don’t need to defend yourself against someone that far away.
Yeah, I know, they’re adamantly against both of those things, as well as pretty much any other limitation on the capacity of a firearm. (Other than the ban on manufacture and import of fully automatic weapons. But that’s about it.)
But this was in a list of NRA talking points for their members to use in discussions over the Thanksgiving table.
I can only conclude that their goal was to get people who aren’t paying much attention to the debate to conclude that the NRA’s positions on certain issues are much more reasonable than they actually are.
Before we launch into what seems like a semantic debate, can we get a link to the actual NRA talking points? Your link does not contain the NRA quote in your OP, and after spending a few minutes on the NRA web site, I couldn’t find it either.
Notice that the NRA “Fact” does not claim this is a complete list of what Second Amendment supporters believe – certainly they would agree that hunting rifles, even scary ones that “are accurate at distances of more than a couple hundred yards,” fall under the ambit of the Second Amendment.
Why do you suppose police carry 15+ round capacity magazines? It’s because handguns aren’t particularly accurate, or powerful. 10 rounds absolutely doesn’t guarantee being able to stop a threat.
“Accurate at distances of more than a couple hundred yards” describes pretty much every centerfire rifle ever made.
You can’t ban large magazines, because the magazine is a small, simple component manufactured and used in large quantities. It is a box with a spring in it, like a Pez dispenser but simpler, easy to smuggle and easy to manufacture. It is like trying to stop arson by banning matches.
Is this a response to a particular need, or are you just looking for any excuse to ban more guns? The Beltway snipers didn’t use such a weapon, Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t shoot JFK at such a distance, so what crime are you claiming could not have happened with this law?
I wonder how we would design such a weapon. Could you make a rifle that shot 3 inch groups at 100 yards but got widely inaccurate after that? Besides that what’s the point? How many murders occour at 200 plus yards?
Just to be nitpicky, the Bushmaster rifle used by the Beltway snipers is accurate beyond a couple hundred yards (depending on how one defines “accurate”, of course), just like most every centerfire rifle.
Possibly, if you designed a projectile intended to maximize spindrift (maybe weight the projectile like a flywheel, heavy on the outer edge?), or one that wasn’t properly stabilized by the rifling, like shooting 75-grain 5.56mm rounds through a 1-in-9 rifled barrel.
John Mace, scroll down to the third “Bloomberg Myth”.
And I excerpted the relevant part. I don’t see how the full passage puts a different spin on the part I quoted.
Look, if I defended an unlimited mortgage deduction on the grounds that “I want a mortgage deduction that will preserve the ability of hardworking Americans to own their own homes,” that would be heavily misleading, because I’d be ensuring that the mortgage deduction applied to any number of houses of any value owned by a given taxpayer. It wouldn’t strictly be a lie, because it doesn’t exclude the more extensive applicability, but it sure wouldn’t be truthful.
OH, OK. I was using the “find” function, and it didn’t “find” the stuff in the graphics.
But it’s an absurd reading of that one line to mean that this is all that “Second Amendment supporters” oppose, instead of an example of what they oppose. If there is even such a definable group as “Second Amendment Supporters” in the first place.
The less-than-truthful part was turning “New gun laws are unconstitutional” into “Second Amendment supporters believe ‘All gun laws are unconstitutional’”. That’s the sort of shady nonsense that earns the NRA its poor reputation.
The NRA’s position on hunting is pretty clear, and I certainly don’t find anything dishonest about referring to opposition to laws that prohibit firearms useful for self-defense, without adding that they oppose other (hypothetical, there hasn’t been much of a push to outlaw deer rifles) laws for other reasons. Particularly when it’s quite well-known that the NRA is pro-hunting.
Right, but that’s not always what people mean when talking about group size. It can mean offhand, supported (eg, a bench rest, in which case a stamped AK will produce groups of 3"+), or fully supported, like you’re referring to.
Heck, I have a moisin nagant - an ancient bolt action rifle 3 round magazine and 1 in the chamber same model that was used by the White Death to kill several hundred Soviet troops back in the Winter War … and an M1 Garand that has 8 round clips … while either mrAru or I would be effective sniping from 300 yards with the stock equipment or mrAru could be effective with telescopic sights to the extent of his sight ability. We use them for hunting [mmmm bambi!] however we would feel comfortable conducting guerilla actions with either of them.
Of course this isn’t what people trying to control what we have knocking around the house wants to hear, it makes us sound like survivalists. Though I do like collecting certain antique weapons - the M1 was my Dad’s original infantry issue weapon, the P.08 and Sauer 38H were both ‘acquisitions’ he made in WW2, and both my shotguns were used by my grandfather and grandmother for duck hunting [12 ga and .410] they are all functional and maintained. [mrAru collects stuff for his own reasons, including some cute little pistol that belonged to his Great-Grandmother who used it when San Francisco had issues back in 1906 with looters. She had some rather snide commentary about ‘That Wop’:p]
Anything that would make defense more effective would generally make offense more effective as well. I’m fine with that.
10 rounds is not sufficient for defense. Many shots miss, and it takes multiple shots to stop a threat. Rough figures are about 30% hit rate, with around 3 shots to stop a single human threat. That’s the police stats. They carry multiple 10+ round magazines because it’s more effective. A typical homeowner doesn’t carry multiple magazines on their person. This is why it’s important to allow them the maximum carry capacity they choose. A person intent on doing violence will be prepared and can carry whatever weight they can bear.
People have defended themselves at distances over 100 yards. LA riots ring a bell? Civil unrest is a valid self defense scenario. Do you disagree?
And the 2nd amendment is not about hunting. Trying to shift the discussion about what is adequate for hunting is an attempt to divide the gun owning public into being okay with some of these…but not those.
I like how the article quotes Mayors against Illegal guns. I want to know what to know what MFIG(Mayors for Illegal Guns) says. It is hard to take serious any group that uses a straw man for a name
Having read the two parts of the law in question, one part places restrictions on the carrying of loaded weapons in public in a city without a concealed carry permit and without an immediate cause to do so, while the other places restrictions on people carrying loaded weapons into courthouses, the state senate, and so on.
I haven’t read the law regarding the issuing of concealed carry permits, but I would assume that there is where any problem lies, not the Mulford Act itself.
RTFirefly, are you seriously going to start a gun debate and claim to agree with the NRA, while using a link from Media Matters!?! Media Matters, really?!
I am not going to read the whole propaganda piece, but just the part about banning rifles that are accurate beyond a couple hundred yards eliminates most hunting rifles, including mine.
Have you ever been out to the western US? Hunting over distances of many hundreds of yards, with accurate shots, is common. What would you like, wounded animals from inaccurate weapons? What is this? Joe Biden’s “all you need is a shotgun?”
And again, the second amendment says nothing about a citizen’s right to hunt or for self defense. To narrow the right to be specific to hunting and self defense is to limit the 2nd amendment.
It doesn’t matter what the NRA says in the first place. They are not the official or only representative of gun owners and they can’t bargain away second amendment rights.
