Yes, but that seems to be a problem with both sides of the issue. There ARE some people who would like to have a discussion about laws, guns, and if/what should be done about it. However, if someone doesn’t immediately agree with all the statements by guns rights people, then that person WANTS TO BAN ALL GUNS1112!!! Or if that person doesn’t immediately say “Yeah, we should BAN ALL THE GUNS” then that person DOESN’T CARE ABOUT CHILDREN.
I have said NOTHING about advocating banning guns, or restricting 2nd amendment rights or anything even close to that. And my statements are repeatedly read to insinuate that I want to BAN GUNS!! TAKE AWAY RIGHTS!! 2nd AMENDMENT!!! blah blah blah
Maybe if after every shooting it wasn’t the same old thing:
We need stronger gun control -> “YOU WANT TO BAN ALL GUNS”
We need stronger background checks -> “YOU WANT TO BAN ALL GUNS”
We need to talk about stronger regulations -> “YOU WANT TO BAN ALL GUNS”
and the other side:
Name a law that would have prevented that massacre -> “YOU ARE A GUN NUT!”
Banning things based on arbitrary terms is kind of dumb -> “YOU ARE A GUN NUT WHO JUST HAS TO HAVE GUNS!”
Constitutional rights shouldn’t be curtailed just because something “looks scary” -> “YOU ARE A GUN NUT WHO USES HIS GUNS AS A PENIS SUBSTITUTE”
Shameful really, when someone wants to actually discuss an issue, and find out what people think. I thank Bone for listing the court cases in that one thread, and other current legal matters around the country. That’s what I thought this board was for, to fight ignorance, not to “win” a dumb argument with close to anonymous other posters
Fine, heavily restricted. Doesn’t matter anyway. I thought that someone said that fully automatic weapons were banned in some states, but I had a hard time finding out which ones. Not that important anyway.
Probably the same reason the AWB of 1994 was enacted. Or why .50 caliber rifles are banned in some states. Some people are stupid. Some gun control folks want to ban everything and will take whatever bans they can get. Seriously, what is the point of banning a $10,000+ rifle that weighs 30 lbs and each round costs $5-7 that is used in crime so infrequently it may as well be never?
Pre 1934 NFA, full auto weapons were used in some crimes as you’ve identified. After that, almost never. They all had to be registered, were restricted, etc. Then in 1986 after 50 years of virtually no crime with full auto weapons, new manufactured machine guns were banned. Since there had been virtually no crime committed with these guns, the banning is hard to make sense of. The conclusion I draw is that some people are stupid, some gun control folks want to ban anything they can, and sometimes these characteristics overlap in Congress people. Can you think of a different plausible reason why new full auto weapons were banned in 1986?
No idea. But, what is the point of banning lawn darts? Extra large sodas? Plastic bags?
And you don’t think that the provisions of the 1934 NFA had anything to do with that?
I would agree with “some people are stupid” but apparently less then total agreement is met by other posters saying “the gun rights side is quick to agree with the facts that they like and the gun control side is quick to agree with the facts that they like. The gun rights side tends to have the facts on their side MUCH more frequently.”
I don’t even know what you’re trying to say. I’m not sure if the communication problem is with me but from my vantage point your writing is very unclear.
You said: “Pre 1934 NFA, full auto weapons were used in some crimes as you’ve identified. After that, almost never”
It seems to me that the provisions of the 1934 NFA must have had SOMETHING to do with the fact that full auto weapons were almost never used in crimes after its passage.
THAT’S what I’m saying. Simply as a counter to “Heavily regulating guns has no affect on crime”
I just don’t believe in wide, sweeping statements like “won’t have ANY affect”
If the NFA was left alone, this would have been a better argument. But you leave out what happened later. After NFA, everything was registered and virtually no crime. But then in 1986, even without any crime, full auto weapons were banned for new sales/production. That is the message that I take from this story - firearms were registered, and then later banned even with no crimes committed or evidence of efficacy because some people just want to ban every firearm they can get away with.
In most states in the US, a purchase from a private party does not require a background check. All dealers (FFLs) are required to perform background checks when they sell firearms as part of their business. The background check is done by accessing the NICS system. The general public has no access to the NICS system. Private party sellers do not have the ability to perform a background check. In some instances, to mitigate the risk of selling to a prohibited person, a private party seller will request other verification to determine if the person is prohibited or not. This is voluntary.
The Coburn amendment proposed to allow private parties to access NICS to perform background checks and has checks in place to prevent abuse and protect privacy. It was universal background checks.
They do. Ever hear of the so-called “gun show loophole”? Not a good name for it, but some small time dealers pretend they are not dealers and sell guns with no forms or checking. Sometimes this is done at a gunshow, hence the name. (Not really a “loophole” either).
This would make everyone check before selling.
The gun control people dont like it. Too easy too simple and it doesnt keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens, just criminals.
Well, gun control is polarizing. Few are in the middle. To the “gun grabbers” they dont want reasonable gun laws that prevent criminals from getting guns- they want to get rid of all the guns. If we passed reasonable laws, maybe we’d stop there.
The “gun nuts” take more or less the opposite approach. They fear a
slippery slope’.
Neither side is blameless here. Neither side really wants to compromise.
The polticos in the middle only react when there’s a mass shooting and the public screams *“something must be done” so they take steps that are mostly useless and cosmetic.
But on the whole, i point the finger at the "gun grabbers’ due to the hypocrisy.
*Something must be done *are the four most dangerous words in US politics.
Are we both talking about the mid-1980’s? That’s what my post that you quoted was about: the 1986 machine gun ban. I’d never heard that machine guns had “gangster notoriety” in the mid-1980’s. I was also unaware that “assault weapons” had / have “gangster notoriety”. Could you expand on this post a little bit?
If your point is that an Assault Weapons Ban won’t degrade my ability to defend myself, then I suppose the fact that Assault weapons are only cosmetically and ergonomically different from some non-Assault weapons (and the fact that the assault weapons ban isn’t a confiscation) means that this is probably true for an assault weapons ban as well. I’m not really sure how that fits into the argument for having an assault weapons ban.
“The impetus for the National Firearms Act of 1934 was the gangland crime of the Prohibition era, such as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, and the attempted assassination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.”
I’m sure that has something to do with it (its also because machine guns are not really as useful as people seem to think). Is there a point you are trying to make? because it really sounds like you are trying to argue for a complete gun ban, the kind that gun control folks keep telling us they have no interest in.
The gun control side of the debate has got a lot of support for universal background checks and if they created an avenue for voluntary background checks, they fear it would kill the momentum for getting universal background checks. Universal background checks have the advantage of being more expensive (most schemes for universal background checks involve the participation of an federally licensed firearms dealer) and one step closer to registration (these background checks will, over time, give us a much better picture of who owns which guns). Some people think that these differences are worthy enough objectives to reject voluntary background check mechanisms to keep the pressure on getting universal background checks.
