Correct, and my mistake. I knee-jerked.
BAD Algher!
Fun fact: Those are militia weapons, and theoretically legal, should it be brought to a Supreme Court challenge. Nobody’s bothered to do so for various reasons.
Edit: What Ahlger said, in regards to categories 1-5.
The gun, in good condition, using a reasonable load of quality powder is perfectly safe. Blocked bores are generally a symptom of a gun in poor condition, improperly loaded, or using poor powder. A musket is essentially a big metal tube with a complicated lighter at one end. Doesn’t respond well to being banged around, I admit, and the quality of powder and wadding and shot of the period was, to say the least, uneven.
Learn more about guns before you try to outlaw 'em.
Are you seriously claming that there is no essential difference in intent or expected use between a hunting rifle, anM60 and a gun-mounted grenade launcher ?
I stand by my assertion that a firearm with the capability to propel 300 to 400 bullets per minute has no peaceful use. Its sole purpose is to allow one person to kill many people at once.
JRB
Her.
JRB
Sigh. I am fully aware that a musket (or gun of pretty much any sort) works on the principle of having a small explosion in a tube. If you want to argue about the comparative safely of a 300-year old tube vs a modern tube, bring on your data.
JRB
Where have I moved a single fencepost? People here have been claiming that the 2nd Amendment should permit ownership of any type of firearm, and these were some of the arms mentioned.
JRB
No, I was claiming that the generic descriptions you used had no real meaning.
To answer THIS question: A hunting rifle and a sniper rifle, are one and the same for all practical purposes. Both are typically bolt action rifles with a scope. .300 magnum, .308 or now the .50 cal round can be used for hunting people or critters.
Now, if you want to discuss the M60 or the M4 with the grenade launcher we can. Those two are militia weapons, I agree. They fall into category 5 in my prior post (and also in category 4 for that matter). The M60’s use for personal defense is limited to rural areas where you have sufficient clearance to avoid hitting innocents. It would be very useful for a biker gang, but I would not want to use one in my suburban neighborhood. This is a similar issue with the grenade rounds used by the M203 - not many self defense needs in suburbia for a grenade. Still a good militia weapon, however.
I agree entirely up to the two sentences quoted. Although it is perfectly possible to kill someone with nearly anything (a fork, a rock, your bare hands) if you are sufficiently motivated, shooting someone in a moment of anger is substantially more likely to result in their death than attacking them with a pairing knife or a hammer (the statistics are admittedly a complete mess, but gun attacks seem to be about 2-4 times more likely to be fatal than knife attacks).
A substantial fraction of homicides start as disputes between people who know each other (again, the statistics are a mess, but perhaps 25-40%), and the assailants do not necessarily intend to kill the victim (or at least regret any such impulse when reason reasserts itself) so reducing the fatality associated with the initial attack would reduce the number of homicides overall.
Therefore, if you could identify those people likely to fly off the handle and end an argument with a bullet, and prevent them from having access to a gun, the murder statistics for this country could be materially improved. Domestic abuse is a very strong indicator of this type of behavior, which is why I absolutely support the so-called Lautenberg Amendment and think it should be rigorously enforced.
JRB
Well, the SCOTUS ruled in United States v. Miller that only arms suitable for use in a modern militia were specifically protected by the Second Amendment - of course, based on a cursory examination of military history, that does seem to include pretty much every type of firearm, but the court used that reasoning to rule that short-barreled shotguns could indeed be regulated by the NFA. (They were ignorant of the fact that short-barreled shotguns were used quite often in previous military engagements, but hey - there was no defense in the Miller case.)
JR Brown –
On the one hand, you seem to be saying that we get rid of all weapons that are too powerful for hunting or self-defense. Hunting weapons are some of the most powerful guns out there. So that’s not gonna fly. Same goes with self-defense weapons.
Find a gun forum sometime and you will see heavy debates about the relative merit of ALL calibers. These are from people that know what the hell they are talking about. Just who is going to determine what is too powerful?
Then you seem to switch horses, and attack machine guns. They are already heavily regulated with the vast majority of them owned by collectors.
And, crimes or accidents committed with machine guns are all but non-existent.
With this discussion (by various posters) of “militia” weapons, I must reiterate that it is my firm conviction that my personal safety and that of the public is under a much more present threat from gun-carrying vigilantes who distrust the established police and military than from any hypothetical totalitarian state (or what have you) that may arise in some unspecified future. Nothing said here has changed that opinion in the slightest.
And in terms of avoiding “hitting innocents”, it is my understanding that a fair percentage of handguns and most hunting rifles are likewise capable of penetrating entirely through the walls of a house and killing the guy watching TV next door.
JRB
Well, in that case one would need to come up with a different hypothesis to explain why gun control doesn’t work. Here’s another hypothesis:
A lot of the people who kill their wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend etc. are the same sort of dirtbags I mentioned in my earlier post who don’t care about gun control laws.
Since that has not been the topic of this debate, that does not surprise me in the slightest.
Depends, again, on what is being fired, how far away they are, and how thick your house is. Luckily, shots like that do not happen that often.
How many people have been injured or killed while out in public, minding their own business, by gun-carrying vigilantes who distrust the established police and military?
I guess I’m just wondering how you reached your conclusion, based on the paucity of such incidents.
Arrgh. One more time.
My involvement with this whole mess started back in post #51, where I responded to this statement by Stealth Potato:
To which I pointed out that the only legitimate uses for guns were hunting and self-defense (to which E-Sabbath added “sport shooting”), and invited Stealth Potato and anyone else to comment on what other types of guns and / or uses they felt were desirable.
The discussion escalated to machine guns because various persons have here insisted that we need to be able to own any type of firearms (including “militia weapons”) either because “you shouldn’t be able to prevent me” or so we can defend ourselves against “tyranny” (I absolutely do not buy either of these arguments).
To date my opinion remains that put forth in posts #51 and #58: private persons should be be permitted to own, for hunting purposes, a gun that will humanely and efficiently kill the animal in question, and for self-defense purposes, a gun that can scare off, and if necessary wound or perhaps kill, a person in ordinary street clothes at short range. Anything beyond that should be rendered suitable For Display Purposes Only unless you have a good argument to the contrary.
As for the relative firepower of available guns, high-stopping-power hunting weapons with a relatively low fire rate and small between-reload capacity don’t bother me. As far as I am concerned handguns are for intimidation first and foremost but should be able to wound the target or knock them down and not to blow them to smithereens (for the safety of bystanders); if you have a pressing need to be able to fight off multiple simultaneous attackers hyped up on pain-suppressing drugs you may wish to reconsider your lifestyle and / or receive counseling for paranoia.
JRB
Did YOU accept the addition of sport shooting, or not? Based on your statements, I would assume NOT.
Those two arguements go together, are nicely discussed in a variety of documents from the time of our Nation’s founding, and are expressed in the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.
As some of us have posted - that is still a WIDE variety of weapons. Again, semi-auto shotguns, semi-auto-rifles, large and small caliber rifles, and all handguns fit into this definition.
Fire rate on a bolt action depends on the shooter (put on your tin-foil hat and stroll along the grassy knoll!). Low fire rate means that you have decided to cripple waterfowl hunting, and possibly also leave more wounded animals as well (a second killing shot is often necessary).
Your use of the word intimidation is bothersome, as you should NEVER draw a weapon you are not planning to fire. You NEVER shoot to wound - as you should target the center of the chest. If the round is strong enough to knock someone down from a chest shot, then you are probably killing them as well.
As for your snark about multiple attackers, I live in one of the safest cities in America and last week we had two men (one visibly armed) rob a residence. Lifestyle reduces chances, but does not eliminate them. Some of us also drive, and driving at times requires going through tougher parts of town as well.
Well, that’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. But as has been explained before, your opinion cannot be made legal reality without reversing the Bill of Rights and fundamentally altering the constitutional structure of our government to remove the presumption that citizens have any rights outside those that are secured by law.
I’m not willing to tread down that road, no matter how much safer you claim it will make me. Security is important, but liberty is first.
Indeed. On the other hand, there are countless examples of excessive use of force by police resulting in the deaths of innocents (the ongoing rise in paramilitary police raids for drug-related warrants, occasionally even at the wrong house, comes to mind). Forget the armed civil rights advocates - if there’s one group of guys with guns you should be afraid of, it’s the macho, wannabe special-forces cops who love every chance they get to put on their ninja gear and smash their way into somebody’s house screaming and pointing their guns in the occupants’ faces.
Tell me, JR Brown, if you don’t trust the citizen with certain weapons, do you trust the police with them? If so, why?
Worldwide? Over all recorded history? Or just within living memory?
I spent a fair chunk of my life in Mexico, which has very tough gun control laws with absolutely abysmal enforcement. We got out of Chiapas shortly before the EZLN rebellion / uprising / whatever of the mid-1990’s, which was exactly the sort of self-equipped civilian movement against an abusive government that E-Sabbath esteems so highly. “Only” a few hundred people died, mainly non-combatants. There’s currently a tacit truce, but the basic social problems that sparked it all have been essentially untouched. And Mexico is pretty damn peaceful compared to most of the Third World. Take a look at the news coming out of half of the countries in Africa and Asia.
JRB
In any area subject to the Second Amendment – which is what we’re discussing.
Actually, yes, I think sport shooting is fine.
Perhaps I should phrase that differently. High-stopping-power hunting weapons don’t bother me provided they have a relatively low fire rate and small between-reload capacity.
Well, I belive that you have no right to use lethal force unless you have reasonable grounds to believe that your life or someone else’s is in immediate danger. If someone is stealing your TV you have a right to try to scare them off. No TV or media center or other consumer good is worth killing to defend. Period. Buy homeowner’s insurance.
Also I am under the impression that there are some forms of ammunition which are more likely to “incapacitate” the victim without necessarily causing lethal injury.
a) See above, b) I totally and utterly repudate carry permits unless you have reasonable grounds to believe that there is a direct and imminent threat to your life. The possibility of being mugged because you have to drive through a tougher part of town doesn’t count. Every negative aspect to gun ownership is magnified 1000% by carrying a loaded weapon in public. When you are in a car your guns should be unloaded and locked away.
JRB