Look out would-be burglars, I'm gettin' a gun!!

Great Debates
181

I think SWAT teams currently use shotguns with a special muzzle attachment (and maybe a special shell) to breach some doors. I am not a speacialist in shooting down doors, but I do know that a .223 round (used in an AR-15) makes a very tiny hole, OTOH, a shotgun tends to leave a hole that you could put your hand through.

I agree with Tracer about the 30 rounds. No way a SWAT guy is running around with 30 shells in his shotgun. SWAT teams use shotguns all the time in their raids. 8 rounds is plenty when you are clearing a room. Back in WWI and II, their normal assault rifles carried less than 8 rounds.

182

Freedom2 wrote:

<nitpick>

If by “assault rifle” you mean what the modern military means by an assault rifle (low kick, light weight, selective fire), then there were no assault rifles in World War I. World War II saw the introduction of the Thompson Submachine Gun into service by a few select troops, but technically the Thompson SMG was a long-barreled fully-automatic pistol (with a stock), not a rifle. The Thompson also had both 50 round straight magazines and 100 round drum-shaped magazines, the latter giving the Thompson its classic shape in all those 1920s gangster movies.

</nitpick>

183

This’ll probably be my last post here, I just want to clarify for Tymp…

Me saying “Guns are not designed to kill” shows an irresponsibility towards guns on my part. However, you ignored that I said MORE than just that. My first post on the subject said that guns are not ONLY designed to kill… rather, manufacturers want them to be sturdier, lighter, more efficient, easier to clean, etc. If you take this point of view to mean that, in the end, those improvements make it easier for a gun to kill, thus making it “designed to kill”, that’s more a case of semantics than anything else.

Point 2: I had also said that by saying “guns are designed to kill” leaves the implication of an active usage only for the act of killing, which I disputed with the notion that a gun, in the case of home-defense, creates a passive deterrent simply by making its presence known (letting Mr. Bob Breakin know that you’ve got a gun, for instance). However, it can be argued that this passive deterrence is so effective because a gun can readily kill someone, but that’s a subject I chose not to bring up ('cuz then we’re stuck with a seemingly infinite cause-effect loop which invokes many a headache).

Point 3: I readily admitted that guns are extremely dangerous. I apologize if I gave any notions to the contrary, and I apologize further if I gave the impression that I don’t think a gun is an excellent killing machine. I do. For the purpose of wounding, disabling, or killing another living creature, a gun is the best tool the average citizen can use. But, as I’ve said before (and which people have so callously ignored in favor of this “computers weren’t designed to kill!” crap), saying that “something is designed for THIS” is extremely limiting, in that it ignores the objects many uses while focusing on the one.

Point 4: The phrase “guns are designed to kill people” is, as I see it, a completely trite sentence that was conceived as a nifty propaganda ploy, and again, limiting the argument to propaganda is just that… limiting. I prefer the phrase “guns are designed for a myriad of uses, among which includes creating massive wounds for the purpose of injury and death”. Kind of like how cops are trained to “shoot to kill”.

Point 5: My analogy of computers was completely ignored in favor of a historical discrepancy. Congratulations.

(Only seventy-two endangered species were killed in the creation of this post.)

184

Thanks for clearing that up, SPOOFE. I, at least, was lashing out more against percieved doublespeak and Conservative PC than against actual pro-gun attitudes.

Frankly, guys, I think you should change some of your arguments. Your leaning on the 2nd ammendment is starting to look like the creationists leaning on Genesist - it sounds like you’re saying that we should support the Constitution because we always have. Don’t forget, in a democratic society, any law can be changed. Even constitutional ones.

Also, stop with the “slippery slope” argument. If you keep on bringing “all or nothing” parameters to the debate, you can never be sure which way people will go. Frankly, in such situations I usually say “All or nothing? Well then, I’ll take somewhere in the middle, and screw you if you think otherwise”, but maybe I’m just a rabid moderate. Thankfully, so is much of society - it’s a beautiful human quality, the shying away from extremes.

So yeah, I support the public’s right to own firearms, and I support the government’s right to regulate said ownership. Sigh. It’s lonely in the middle.

185

Allesan, we *are in the middle
[/quote]
there are something like 20,000 gun laws on the books. Guns are heavily regulated.

We are starting to become a legal Zeno’s argument. “we’ll meet half way. OK, not the we met halfway, we will meet halfway again. Ok, now we have 75% gun control; let’s meet at 87.5%…”

Gun control has travelled in one direction since 1934. There comes a time when we have to say “far enough” especially when gun crime is decreasing.

186

You’re probably right, Zambezi, although I disagree with the nature of gun control. Some things are too easy to do, some things are too hard.

The thing is, the reason I’m taking an anti-gun position is because this thread is full of people who oppose gun control absolutely, or nearly so. If it had been filled with rabid liberals bent on banning all forms of handguns, I’d be on your side.

Democracy is a system of checks and balances, of compromises. Don’t go around asking for absolutes.

187

You’re probably right, Zambezi, although I disagree with the nature of gun control. Some things are too easy to do, some things are too hard.

The thing is, the reason I’m taking an anti-gun position is because this thread is full of people who oppose gun control absolutely, or nearly so. If it had been filled with rabid liberals bent on banning all forms of handguns, I’d be on your side.

188

I think that the problem is taking sides on some ethereal plane. We need to look at actual gun deaths, the effects of past controls, and then determine what the optimum rate of gun violence is.

Once we have done this, we need to weigh it with our freedoms.

It is my experience that the anti gun side does not look at the actual trends. Instead they argue anecdotes and hypotheticals. I will give more weight to the CDC stats than to columbine any day.

189

Well now, This thread was utterly and completely hijacked after the first page and a half. Just in case anybody was wondering, I was asking for advice on which Beretta Semi automatic handgun I should buy, The 92fs(9mm) The 99fs(9mm with adjustable sights) or the 98fs (40 S&W)

This by far is the longest thread I have ever started, but sadly only about a page and a half is truly mine.

So Everybody Back To The OP.

190

WOW I can see you don’t live in California!

191

Yikes! Is this thing still going?
Well, there’s only one thing to do, and I’m just the guy to do it. I’ve only been around for a little over a week, and already I’ve killed two threads and seriously maimed a third. So here goes:

You’ve gotten a lot of good advice already, but I want to belabor three points:

  1. If you watch much TV or movies, you’ve probably gotten the idea, subconsciously at least, that bullets that miss their intended target dissolve harmlessly in the air.
    They DO NOT!
    A bullet will keep going until it hits something or runs out of energy. Modern ammunition has a lot of energy.
    Stand in your house and pretend the walls are made of tissue paper. They might as well be. Now consider where you can and cannot shoot. Remember this.

  2. Get something you can shoot in the dark. By this I mean something that points naturally in your hand. Then, practice, practice, practice. If you need help devising some drills, ask the board. there are a lot of very knowledgable people on here.

  3. Never fire your weapon unless you know what you’re shooting at. Sorry if you feel insulted by something so obvious, but I’m not sorry for saying it. It needs to be said a lot more often, to everybody.

There. That oughta do it. Now, I’m off. (and I’m leaving too.)

192

I hope you do kill this thread. There is just too much Hijacking being done. Only about 30 people even answered my OP

193

The police in this country have special shot gun shells designed to shoot down doors. And I was watching the learning channel the other day and it showed some marines training for urban warfare. They were training specifically to shoot and be shot at by people in the same building as them. So something short range would be useful when you’ve got to go inside and clear a large building.

Marc

PS: On the other hand I didn’t see any of the guys inside the building with a shotgun.

194

MGibson: You probably didn’t see any of those Marines training with a shotgun inside a house because a Marine can’t afford to carry a huge assortment of different weapons with him for every situation (s)he may encounter. (Sure, you can do that in “Doom” or “Quake,” but in real life every gun you carry adds several pounds to your load, and each gun would digest different ammo.) And no Marine is going to enter a battle knowing (s)he’s gonna sit inside a house the entire time. They have to enter a house, clear it out, then go outside and move on to the next house, and a shotgun is not the optimal weapon for urban warfare outdoors.

Modern U.S. Marines usually carry an M-16 with them because it’s “good enough” in most situations. It’s not as good a short-range weapon as a shotgun, nor is it as good a long-range weapon as a .30-06 scope rifle, nor as good a sustained-fire weapon as a Browning automatic; but it’s versatile enough to fill all these roles pretty well. Plus, the M-16 is pretty light as rifles go, and its .223 ammunition is also relatively light.

195

And to answer your OP, fnord1966:

I would recommend against using a 9 millimeter for self-defense. It does not have enough stopping power to guarantee that you’ll down any opponent in a single hit. A .40 S&W probably has enough oomph for the job, as would a .45 ACP or a .357 magnum.

My survivalist friend swears by his colt .45 semi-automatic pistol, model 1911A1. It’s been a staple in the U.S. military since, what, 1911? Plus, .45 ACP ammo is more popular than .40 S&W, so it ought to be cheaper to buy. And finally, I’ve heard a few comments from gun dealers that lead me to believe that the .40 S&W’s high muzzle velocity puts a considerable strain on the recoil-action of a semiauto and can wear down the gun faster than .45 ACP can.

196

Yippie! Its finally dead!

Well In case you all were wondering, I have decided to get the 92fs or the 99 fs(fixed Vs. adjustable sights(9mm))

I got to shoot the 92fs in stainless steel, it is awesome. It is by far the best shooting handgun I have ever shot. It was natural, I looked at the target, I pointed at the target, I shot the target where I was looking. my largest group was about the size of a sporting clay smallest was about the size of a golf ball at 7-10 yards.

197

OH NO!!!
What have I done?

My thread lives? Oh why oh why couldnt I have left it alone? I have awoken my monster (no, not you)
I am sorry for the EVIL I have unleashed in GD.

198

I decided to ditch the Beretta in favor of a Kimber 1911 in .45 acp

Love it.
Just thought I would bring this baby back to life see if it will take off again.

199

Oh, great. Now what are you going to do with all that old 9mm ammo you bought for your first gun?

200

I never bought the 9, I decided against it. I do need some 45 ammo though, know where I can get a good deal on a case or two? like better than $211 out the door?