[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
You do not know that and even if you are correct it is near certain you would not have 100 casualties in the Orlando shooting.
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Ah, I see…you are using casualties, not deaths. Let’s say, for the sake of argument that you are correct…no one with a pump action or lever action gun could cause 100 casualties in one event. You do see, don’t you, that you are planning a major banning of an item based on a very small probability event, right? I mean, how many Oralando’s do we actually have in a given year? Even if it was 5 or even 10 times the number, it’s STILL a very small probability event you are basing your banning around.
It’s interesting you’d say this, since most pro-gun folks feel EXACTLY the same about your side. IMHO, with good cause, too.
Whether your attempt to paint with a broad brush and insult millions of people is accurate or not, the reality is that it IS the case in the US.
Just a reality check. I want a lot of things, but my fellow Americans disagree with me on many of them, so I have to take that into account. What you are proposing is not a solution that is politically feasible. Merely pointing that out.
Sure. We allow tobacco and alcohol use. Both kill more Americans, and we do it for no more than the fact that people enjoy smoking and drinking.
I agree. I think there is precedence for putting limitations and regulations on Constitutional rights. Just look at the right to free speech and even assembly. But you aren’t talking about a small regulation or limitation, but a broad based banning. I can guarantee you that this would be considered (rightly IMHO) un-Constitutional.
Will they say that only speech using hand operated printing presses is equally protected? I’m thinking…no. YMMV. Good luck with that fight.
If you can point to a case where someone with a shotgun killed 49 people and injured another 50 in the same attack please do.
The fact is the attacker in Orlando did not choose a pump action shotgun. He chose a semi-auto rifle for the task. That was not an accident.
I am done with dancing around this tactic. I cannot remember a time when gun advocates have come to anything like a reasonable accommodation with gun restriction advocates. The relative few gun restriction laws that have been passed are so riddled with holes as to be useless which, of course, gun advocates use to point to the uselessness of laws that restrict guns.
How about you, the gun owners, propose some reasonable restrictions on guns or make a case that there is no problem.
I’ll be over here not holding my breath.
More than happy to insult them.
Their fetish for guns comes with blood and crime. That blood includes little kids shooting themselves or family members (more than one a week).
We are a society. We agree on what to permit and what to restrict. Guns are an obvious, provable and statistical menace. More, they are a menace to someone else rather than yourself (as a drug might be).
So yeah, as a member of that society I absolutely have a say that guns pose a risk to me and should be regulated.
Not the same thing as guns. Apples and oranges.
There is already a HUGE swath of “arms” that the public cannot own. There are more weapons you can’t own than you can own. So why is this overly broad?
The former conservative hero on the Supreme Court was Scalia and he was really big on original intent. I am certainly cool with ditching that though. Are you?
I submit everybody wants to see mass murder shooting sprees reduce in number. No sane person wants to see them happen. At the very least, can we all agree on that as a starting point please?
If we can agree on that premise, the next step is how can we do it, in the context of how the American landscape is currently structured, as compared to Australia say, or Canada. The inherent flaw (as I see it) in the logic that banning a certain class of weapon will affect the number of mass murder shooting sprees is the fact that perpetrators use all forms of firearms which consistently contradict any given conclusions you can draw from the data.
Gun Control advocates argue that minimising access to firearms minimises the likelihood a batshit crazy will get their hands on one. It’s hard to fault that logic, in isolation. Some advocates also argue that a complete denial of access will ensure that a batshit crazy will EVER get their hands on one. OK, fair enough… in theory if we completely banned vehicles from our lives we could theoretically ensure that no fatal crashes would ever happen again.
Gun ownership advocates also want to see mass murder killing sprees get reduced, but if we run with the vehicle analogy once more, they argue correctly that there are 280 vehicles already on the roads, you can’t get rid of them. Even if you implement unbelievably tighter purchase screening you’re still going to see batshit crazies behind the wheel of a vehicle already out there in circulation.
So, to whittle this debate down to a bumper sticker…
Gun Control Advocates: ** banning = easy to do + reduced mass murder**
Gun Ownership Advocates: banning = can’t be done + won’t affect mass murder rates.
Put another way…
Gun Control Advocates: access to guns = 1:1 relationship with mass murder rates.
Gun Ownership Advocates: access to guns = random relationship with mass murder rates.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Smoke and mirrors as usual.
[/QUOTE]
What smoke and mirrors? I’m saying it flat out. Here, let me say it even more clearly…you are doing the equivalent of what the conservatives who want to ban all Muslims from entering the country are doing. They are wrong. So are you.
And if I can’t, what exactly does that mean? I can’t point to an example of someone using an M-60 to go on a killing spree either. Doesn’t mean that, if that was their only choice they couldn’t. My guess is, like so many on your side, you don’t actually know much about guns, shotguns or otherwise. Maybe you could explain why you think that someone with a sawed off shot gun at a mall couldn’t kill as many people if they really, really wanted too…or why you think that’s important in any case. If someone does manage it, does that mean we need to jerk our knee and ban shotguns next? Well, yeah, I’m sure you do think that’s the case.
They chose it because they had a choice. Take that choice away and…well, leaving aside the fact that someone planning to commit murder might also be perfectly willing to break the law and use a semi-automatic anyway, they would use what they could to do what they intended. Let me ask you think…could this killer have been more effective with, oh, say a selective fire military grade (ACTUAL military grade) assault RIFLE? I’m guessing the answer to that is, yes…of course. 3 round bursts would do even more damage. But that choice wasn’t available to him, so he chose something that was and got the job done. Would be the same thing if you limited it to shotguns and lever action rifles…or if you took those away they could always go back to what the bombers in Boston did. Unless you plan to take away everything that could be dangerous in the hands of a murder and turn the world to Nerf of course.
Then you have a small memory. But the pro-gun side is done dancing around the tactics YOUR side used for decades to slowly erode the 2nd and attempt to interpret it into oblivion and snatch away their guns by judicial fiat. And so, here we are…people like you who think that the pro-gun side isn’t reasonable and that it’s a no brainer that the government should just snatch the guns away, and people on the pro-gun side who are now equally intransigent and unwilling to compromise because they feel that they did all the compromising in the past and it put them on a slippery slope to eventual gun bans, just like the ones you are advocating. And people like me, again, stuck in the middle between folks who won’t compromise or work with each other and feel their side is the side of righteousness and light and the other side are a bunch of evil nuts…just like you said, unashamedly, painting 10’s of millions of people with your broad and ridiculous brush. This is why our system isn’t working.
I don’t own a gun. And I’m all for reasonable restrictions. Sadly, your side and the real rabid pro-gun side simply can’t meet in the middle. Your side, as characterized by your very comments in this thread, wants a slippery slope…you don’t actually WANT to compromise, Mole, you want a next step and a next to eventual banning. You’ll ‘settle’, today, for all semi-automatic weapons…tomorrow it will be they can have a musket…after that, I’m sure there is an end game where they can’t have a fire cracker. And the pro-gun side wants to expand the right beyond all other rights, to have the free and total access to any sort of firearm they want, without any sort of oversight or restriction. What’s the middle position between such ridiculous extremes?
Neither will they…nor I for that matter. No one will be.
Yes, exactly. You are happy to insult them and deride them and try and knock them down and demonize them. Got it. And trust me, they do exactly the same to you and your side.
Think of the children, ehe?
I didn’t say we couldn’t permit or restrict them. In fact, we DO THIS ALREADY. Try and go forth and buy an actual automatic weapon or a machine gun. Or try and go to several US cities and buy ANY gun at all. Or perhaps, go and actually buy a gun and see what you have to do to get one from any sporting goods or other store. You will find that there are restrictions. And I’m good with things like universal background checks and even permits to own or operate. The trouble is, 'Mole, that YOUR side wants that slippery slope. Just like you’ve freely admitted in this thread (they, of course, don’t all admit it as freely). So, a lot of those sorts of (reasonable, IMHO) measures we COULD be doing don’t get done because of exactly what I said above…neither side is willing to budge or compromise one bit, and are in constant attack mode. Just look at how this tragedy in Oralando has got you all coming out of the woodwork…again…in full on attack and grab mode.
Not my point, of course, which was talking about probability. And it’s a strawman position you have attempted to saddle me with. I, again, have no issue with reasonable regulations or restrictions. But you don’t want that and have admitted it in this thread. What you REALLY want is an out and out ban. Right?
Well, yes. After all, a gun is actually a useful though dangerous tool. While what are the uses, for society, of tobacco and alcohol again? But from YOUR perspective, as someone who thinks guns are useless and deadly anchors to society, it’s really not an apples to oranges thing…it’s exactly the same thing. Recall, you asked me ‘Can you think of any other product which causes so much death and injury in the US that we tolerate because we enjoy it as a sport and has almost no practical use’…and I answered. Those products undoubtedly cause more death than guns (and one of them is the cause of many gun deaths in fact), and injuries and we tolerate both despite the fact that we know they do so. Guns are exactly the same thing. In fact, in alcohols case we have a product that we know people will abuse AND that by abusing it they will cause not only potentially their own deaths but the deaths of anyone who happens to be simply driving in the wrong place at the wrong time…or walking in a cross walk or driving a bike or whatever.
But you said earlier there were no restrictions or permits needed. Well, assuming you aren’t being disingenuous here, the difference between, oh say the restrictions on owning an automatic weapons or machine gun and banning all semi-automatic weapons is that very, very few people EVERY owned automatic weapons or machine guns, while the vast majority of the guns owned in the US are semi-automatic. Hundreds of millions verse a few thousand. I trust you grasp now the scale since I know you have a scientific mind set. Or, to put it another way, a percent or two verse a high percent (WAG…at a minimum of 70%). I’m sure your desire to reasonably ban this class of guns has nothing to do with the fact that at one stroke you’d take away such a high percentage of firearms from the American people (by fiat and directly against the views of the majority of your fellow citizens who don’t want such broad and sweeping bans), and now that you know you are willing to look at other things, right?
I’m good with reinterpretation of the Constitution, sure. It’s SUPPOSED to be a living document. And, obviously, the FF didn’t foresee the world we live in today. And as a society, we aren’t the same people as they were. That whole no slaves thingy and folks like me being citizens kind of gives that away, no? But reinterpretation only goes so far, and when someone tries to reinterpret an Amendment so that it says the exact opposite of it’s original intent, that’s taking it too far. We, after all, have a process for getting rid of Amendments that are no longer relevant or that we, as a society feel we shouldn’t have anymore. There is precedent as well…always the hallmark of the legal system.
So, your, having decided that this is the course America should take, SHOULD use that process to create a new Amendment, vacating the 2nd, if you really want such broad based bans. That’s the process we have, and it’s a good one. You wouldn’t want someone to use the judicial system to basically turn the 1st on it’s head, would you? I, personally, don’t want to see ANY of them basically interpreted out of existence by ANY group. Not when we have a process for getting rid of them.
Oh, but XT…it’s HARD. The pro-gun side will fight! The NRA will fight! Yeah, tell it to the Prohibitionists going up against Big Alcohol™. But your side has never even tried to go this route, instead attempting to take the (IMHO) slimy dog route of basically taking away 10’s of millions of peoples rights by fiat and without giving them any say in it. Which is why the pro-gun side is the way they are now. Right now they are on top, though it’s a shaky position to be in, and the worm is already turning. When your side is back on top I have no doubt that they will try and do what did in the past and ban everything they can. And it will swing back and forth in our dysfunctional, broken system where the extremes won’t compromise and want to ram their extreme position down everyone’s throat. All this accomplishes in the end is we have a weird system where in some places we have near bans, and in others we have near total access (minus those restrictions you forgot about until you recalled them to use in another argument), and in the rest just a sort of broken mess. Very reminiscent of our health care system, for much the same reasons…
The 1986 Firearm Ownership Protection Act of 1986 is a VERY good example of legislation which instantly contradicts your position. There is a reason why a true military firearm is no longer available for sale, the NRA themselves played a key role in how that legislation was drafted at that time. The problem is, the term “assault weapon” has since been invented to suggest, incorrectly, that an “assault weapon” as defined in 2016 is a genuine real deal ex military surplus firearm. Don’t believe me? Try and buy a genuine military firearm that was once used in the military. Geezus, I live all the way down here in Australia and we supposedly have the best gun laws in the world and even I know that bit of knowledge.
In the context of implementing a meaningful reduction in the number of mass murder shooting sprees, how is that relevant? With regards to the rates of gun ownership in the US, it’s irrelevant what your opinion is, it’s reality. Whining about it isn’t a solution.
Well, not exactly. Gun control advocates would say there is a correlation, nowhere near as strong as 1:1, but strong enough to justify legal intervention. Meanwhile, I can’t believe even the staunchest gun ownership advocate would argue that the correlation is absolutely random. There are simply too many extant studies showing the dangers of gun ownership.
(Just as a trivial example, where there are no guns, there are no gun accidents. Gun accidents have a non-zero correlation to gun possession.)
You’ve identified two extreme end-point views, but I don’t think anyone actually holds either of them!
If I understand Uqbar correctly, what he’s saying is that regardless of its immediate impact, banning “assault weapons” is a first step to dismantling the gun culture. Or to quote the OP directly:
Correct me if I’m mistaken but I was under the impression that in a democracy the people at large decide (indirectly, through elected officials) what laws they want and by voting their preferred representative to achieves that end. Uqbar’s view appears to be exactly the opposite; that government’s role is to force the hoi polloi to accept the laws that are for their own good, like parents making their children eat their vegetables.
IOW, exactly the kind of arrogant social engineering that conservatives and gun owners assign to the left. A repackaging of the moral superiority that led to Prohibition, the “new culture” which was soundly rejected by the American people.
I did that, on purpose, to demonstrate the book ends which define the nature of the problem. When attempting to solve a problem, first thing you have to do is define the parameters which you’re working with. And it is random. Even if you spent $100 billion dollars buying back 60% of all the firearms currently in circulation in the US, you would still have at least 100 times as many guns in circulation as were in Australia at the time of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre which saw 35 people killed in a mass murder shooting spree. That, right there, is a metric on how many firearms will need to be removed to achieve your goal of prevention through minimisation.
In any event, other than an exercise in debating, what was the point of your post? You conspicuously avoided the the most important point I raised, which I would add you’ve also avoided throughout this entire thread. Namely, that the class of weapons being used is not related in any way to the size, regularity, or randomness of mass shooting sprees. I submit you’re engaging in confirmation bias - you’ve entered this thread with a pre conceived notion that “assault weapons” are the cause, that your theory is infallible, and any data points which contradict your premise have conspicuously been ignored from beginning to end in every post you’ve written.
The problem of mass shooting sprees go all the way back to the 1960’s. It’s a problem 50 years in the making, and it will require a solution which also takes 50 years to implement. There is no instant solution, that’s what you appear to be desperate not to want to hear.
Think of it like implementing better car safety. Slowly but surely older cars are removed from service, over time, new cars enter the market place with better safety features. A similar timeframe of gradual change is how the problem of mass murder shooting sprees will be attenuated, over time.
And if you gave anything like fair market value for the guns that $100 billion dollars probably wouldn’t even get 60% There are more guns than people in the US…probably upward of 400 million guns. At even $100 dollars a gun (which wouldn’t be fair market value for most)…well, you can see the problem. And, of course, many Americans wouldn’t go for a buy back, even if it was pushed as mandatory.
I agree with your post btw…what we really need is gradual change, not just of laws and regulations but of society. The only way to really make a difference in the US is not to try and bring out the ban hammer and force people to do what you want them to do, in their own best interests as you see it, but instead to make them want to give up their guns willingly (and make a few bucks in the process). The US population isn’t where the Australians were in the late 90’s. We might never be, but we certainly aren’t there now. And until we, collectively as a society decide we’ve had enough we won’t change because one group or another wants us too.
Personally, I think we’d be better served with moderation, with meaningful and rational regulations, but also with the acceptance that, like many things in our society that we sanction, guns carry a non-zero risk of death and injury, and we shouldn’t freak out when they happen and go off the deep end, but instead try and look at the root cause, instead of the tool used. And in some cases there is just nothing we can do…crazy people are out there, and there is a chance at any given time that one is going to be set off by religion or whatever and needlessly slaughter some number of his or her fellow citizens…or drive their car drunk or stoned to the gills into a bus full of children…etc etc.
You don't. Cheap word twisting, I assume from anger, hostility, and/or self-interest. Lowers the level of discussion for everyone (not very often I can say this in reply to a post, but just reread what I've written--the OP, and add in post #100 if you're still confused). But I'll take the opportunity to describe for those not so clouded two cultures:
The "**bad culture**" scenario. Guns are depicted, narrated in senses, etc. purely as means of coercion, advantage of force, a cheap and easy means to power; the "got a beef? stick a gun muzzle up their nose."; the shoot-the-"bad guy"-first and ask questions later; a testament to the visceral, an extension of the lizard grid, the wrongs-fixer, the grand intimidator, the "argument ender", tools of casual violence, instruments of retribution.
The "**intended culture**" scenario. The tool is depicted in its use against another human being only in scenarios where for the user everything (and I mean everything) is going sideways. It's absolute emergency, unambiguous unprovoked deadly threat, no other options say for talk-down or flight, that someone is coming at you with a crystal clear intention to do mortal harm.
Do you see the difference? Do you see how fundamental each of those depictions can be influencing what we otherwise assume are autonomous decisions on the use of the tool? And which is closer to our nation as it is now? And how do we steer from "bad" to "intended"?
Now here's what makes me really mad. I'll call it drawdown aversion. Would the second scenario come with a lowering in weapons stocks? Probably; it's likely. But do you see how ridiculous a reason that is for objecting to it? You really have to stop and ask yourself, that if people are buying guns for the purposes listed in the "bad culture" scenario, aren't we far better off without them? Folks don't get to lock up our culture because they conflate "the tune to which guns are purchased and used" in America with their right to own a weapon (goddamn it). Yet that's exactly what's happening.
I thought I already stated that you can file down the sear so that your gun will go full auto EVERY TIME you pull the tirgger so you empty your magazine every time you pull your trigger with NO ability to stop firing until the magazine is empty. No one does that on purpose.
Converting a semi automatic gun to a gun that can fire fully automatic BUT stops firing when I release the trigger requires dremelling out parts of the lower receiver, drilling holes and getting my hands on a full auto trigger set. I suppose you can try to manufacture a full auto trigger set at home but then you might as well build the whole goddam gun. that’s not what anyone would call and “easy conversion” And there is nothing about an assault weapon that makes this conversion easier than any other semi-automatic weapon.
And just FYI there is a real important distinction between a semi-automatic pistol (which is usually just called a pistol) and an automatic pistol.
XT, I would point to drunk driving and BAC. There has been a huge sea change since the 1950’s with regards to driving under the influence. It didn’t happen over night.
Same thing with firearms. 300-400M firearms in the US. It will take a while to get to universal registration, and taking the really crappy or more military style weapons out of circulation. It can be done over time or at least reduced, but if the starting point is “there are 400M guns out there, so it’s futile to do anything” will never accomplish squat.
Hats off to the NRA. Libruls in general, instead of trying to pass something meaningful like universal registration, get rat holed down into token laws that do jack shit, and then are held up by the gun enthusiast side of the house as being, rightfully, toothless. If one cares about gun control, then please don’t go in for incremental BS. Thanks for playing.
At the risk of sounding an optimist after a sad tragic event, I’m convinced pro gun advocates will happily embrace smart technology firearms. To be fair, they won’t be ironed out for some time yet, but the concept is simple. One owner, one shooter. If I pick up your gun, it won’t shoot, even if it’s fully cocked and loaded. If I steal your firearm, it won’t shoot. If I grab a cop’s firearm, it won’t shoot, but his buddy will probably shoot me regardless, just for being a jerk. Same deal the other way around, if you pick up my firearm, it won’t shoot.
That is a very elegant solution, moving forward. My preference would be a technology which permanently deactivates change of ownership too, as in, once I buy a firearm it gets microchipped and only I will be able to fire it forever and ever and ever. It’s a concept which has plenty a ways to go yet, and it won’t solve the random lone wolf problem, but over time it will solve the overall gun homicide problem. And for those who keep forgetting, that’s a far bigger problem than lone wolf murder sprees. Included in this, I would design smart technology guns on purpose to have different chambering and calibers, with a mandated cease of production regarding analog ammo. Yes, the bad guys can horde in theory, but it will run out, eventually.
Part of the process would also involve an opt in buy back system, that is, a law abiding owner could voluntarily sell their analog gun back to the US for a known tax break on their income tax at any time over a 10 year time frame, perhaps a 20 year time frame. Deliberately skew the buy back reimbursement to be higher the earlier you opt in.
In doing so, the number of analog guns in circulation would decrease and decrease. Combined with that, all new guns for sale would have to be digital smart technology guns, meeting the criteria I mentioned above. Granted, it’s the stuff of science fiction but so were mobile phones 20 years ago. It’s a solution that (hopefully) law abiding gun owners could embrace where they could say “Yeah, I can work with that.”
That is not what I entered this thread to talk about. I’m not “avoiding it,” any more than you’re avoiding talking about Free Silver and the Schleswig/Holstein issue. I came here only to post my views regarding certain very specific physical characteristics of some firearms. Period.
You can talk about anything you want to, but don’t try to compel me into a discussion that is of no interest to me whatever.
Only a couple and are rather biased since they dont (and at least one admitted CAN’T account for the protection value of a gun.) And of course, in a household full of gang members and criminals, yes, gun ownership will be dangerous.
To me, those who say guns are more dangerous are like those nuts who say seat belts are dangerous as you might be trapped in a burning car.
Universal registration is meaningless. Please tell me how that would have prevented Orlando? Guns were registered.
Checking over the various mass shooting iy seems all the guns were bought legally and "registered. The only one that sorta wasnt was the San Bernardino shooting where their neighbor/accomplice bought the guns legally then transferred the guns illegally.
Despite various TV crime shows, a unknown killer rarely leaves his gun behind to be traced. It’s not something that solves a significant number of murders.
After the SCOTUS dec, about all that is left is “incremental BS” and harassing legal law abiding gun owners.
And in the case of Martin Bryant who killed 35 in a massacre at Port Arthur in 1996, his AR-15 and his AR-10 were both legally purchased and registered, he passed every legal requirement he needed to at that time.
But it gets even more interesting when you dig into Port Arthur. There have been 11 mass murder shootings in the history of Australia in which 5 or more people died in one shooting spree by one shooter. Of them, only one featured the class of weapon now loosely referred to as “assault weapons”, namely, Port Arthur. Australians like to shout from the roof tops “Yay! Look at us, look how smart we are, we introduced gun laws in 1996 and we’ve never had one mass shooting ever since! See, that’s proof our gun laws work!”
Well, wanna know the only class of weapon we banned after 1996? Semi automatic rifles. Every other mass shooting in Australia’s history was performed by hand guns, the very class of weapon which WASN’T banned after 1996. It’s pure luck it hasn’t happened since. It’s random. Nobody can prove anything, either way. The reality is we HAVE had a mass shooting since 1996, 5 people died at the hand of one shooter (including the shooter) in 2014 - surprise, surprise, by a handgun.
At least you are honest. You are not putting forward the leftist drivel that you only support “reasonable common sense” laws. Our side realizes that the phrase is nonsense and that it is simply an intermediate step to ban all firearms.
I speak only for myself, but I think that if there was an assurance that once we banned, say, any magazines more than 20 rounds, or scary looking guns, that then that would be it, no more talk of gun control, that it would drop off the face of the earth as a serious political issue, then I might be on board with that concession.
But as you admit, that is not the end goal. If we agree to that, then a new law is proposed and we are expected to compromise on that. Then repeat until we are asking if we can keep .22 rifles in our home.
Negotiations are to be done in good faith. If I sell you a car for $5,000, I can’t come back tomorrow and say you owe me $7,500. You can’t come back tomorrow and ask for $2,500 back.
The parallels to abortion restrictions are striking. Your side doesn’t agree to 24 hour waiting periods or other rather minor restrictions because you know our side’s goal. If you give an inch, you know we will be back tomorrow for another inch. So you stand firm.
So from our side, why would we agree to this or that regulation of guns when we are simply guaranteeing that the next battle will be fought on harsher terrain?
I am a “leftist” and a shooter. I support reasonable restrictions on firearms. In no way do I support banning all civilian firearms.
But it’s easier to look at those who do seek such a sweeping ban and assume they represent all of the *rest *of us, innit? Those of us, both liberal and conservative, gun owners and not, who would really prefer to see a middle ground that will keep people safer and reduce the fetishization of firearms. Those of us who grew up with guns, who hunt or target shoot or merely support individual rights to self-defense, but who cannot support the extremism of either side.
You apparently do not trust us, or do not think we exist. We do. We are, if not a majority, a plurality larger than either extreme.
I want to preserve the 2nd. I want you, provided you are an adult American in your right mind and not a criminal, to be able to own firearms. And yet, you think I am incapable of resisting the “leftist” agenda with the same passion I resist Wayne LaPierre’s agenda.
As a responsible gun owner, you are trying to give me no choice but to side with the extremists of your side of the discussion. Fuck that noise. “Ban them all” is not the majority view in the US, and I refuse to buy into reactionary paranoia.
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Well, assuming you aren’t being disingenuous here, the difference between, oh say the restrictions on owning an automatic weapons or machine gun and banning all semi-automatic weapons is that very, very few people EVERY owned automatic weapons or machine guns, while the vast majority of the guns owned in the US are semi-automatic. Hundreds of millions verse a few thousand. I trust you grasp now the scale since I know you have a scientific mind set. Or, to put it another way, a percent or two verse a high percent (WAG…at a minimum of 70%). I’m sure your desire to reasonably ban this class of guns has nothing to do with the fact that at one stroke you’d take away such a high percentage of firearms from the American people (by fiat and directly against the views of the majority of your fellow citizens who don’t want such broad and sweeping bans), and now that you know you are willing to look at other things, right?
Same deal the other way around, if you pick up my firearm, it won’t shoot.