I now live in England, where we don’t have guns and I like that; seeing an armed policeman is a indication that something bad is going on and prudence dictates it’s time to vacate the area. However, I grew up in Montana, and was (and technically still am - my mom holds them for me) a gun owner and hunter. I visit friends in the States who have large collections of guns, and when I go home I shoot and hunt birds and sometimes deer and elk. I support the right to keep and bear arms, both from a ‘cause I want to’ and ‘defend against tyranny’ perspective.
But is the AWB a really bad idea? It seems to have worked a bit the first time around, and I can’t support the idea that my former countrymen can have large-magazine-capacity semi-automatic weapons with the same background check required for a 3-shot 12 gauge. But is the AWB truly just cosmetic?
And does the banning of guns drive violent crime down? We do seem to have a recent epidemic of stabbings, but 22 teenage knife murders in London this year (population 9 million) seems a mere blip compared to the murder rate of most US cities which I would assume means gun crimes trump knife crimes by a fairly dramatic margin. Would me owning a pistol actually help here in defending me from getting shived by some yob on public transport?
As someone who owns a few Evil Black Guns™, I’m against the AWB.
This is anecdotal, but when I lived in L.A. and the AWB was in force I did not notice any decrease in violence committed with large-capacity semi-automatic rifles. This despite the stricter California laws. It’s been said countless times, but it’s true: Bans only affect law-abiding citizens. Criminals and gangs will get whatever they want, whenever they want, and however they want without regard to laws.
Another argument is that they are not useful for hunting, therefore there is no ‘need’ for them. I am not a hunter, and yet I have a use for them. I appreciate the machine and the history behind it. I like the ergonomics of a pistol grip. I like not having to reload frequently. As a sometime filmmaker, I’ve used them in projects. The fact is, I don’t shoot much. For me it’s mostly the the machine and history.
Then there’s ‘need’. Most people don’t ‘need’ a gun of any kind, let alone a semi-auto. But there are many things we don’t ‘need’ but have anyway. Who is anyone to decide what another person may have based on ‘need’? (Of course there are shooting sports that do require certain types of firearms.)
And yes, the AWB is cosmetic. The function is the same as many hunting rifles or varmint rifles. The difference between an AR-15 and a Mini-14 is that one is black and scary-looking and the other one isn’t.
I’ve probably written hundreds of thousands of words on it, and no one here agrees with me anyhow, so I’ll summarize my points as to why I believe the AWB is a bad idea:
The guns are functionally identical or near-identical to innumerable other weapons. Example: the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14, which share the same functionality, semi-auto action, ammunition, and even the same magazines. Yet one will be banned, and the other not - why is that?
The guns are not responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes or deaths. Handguns (IIRC the .38) are the largest offenders.
Banning machines has never been something I support, whether it be the 1980’s hysteria over “bullet bikes”, cell phones in cars, or Furbys.
I do favor restricting people, not the guns. As in, raising the bar for gun ownership and possession, but keeping, or even lowering, the bar on the types of weapons. I wasn’t always this way, but I’ve seen too many irresponsible people with guns, and gun owners are simply not policing themselves well enough. I could regale with hordes of anecdotes, but I won’t. Setting some restrictions on ownership will reduce some gun crimes, and possibly accidents and incidents.
The NFA Class III record of good behavior by the license holders is a damning rebuttal to many anti-gun arguments (80-some years of fully-automatic weapons ownership, with maybe 2 crimes committed by the holders, and one of them was a cop anyhow). And the general good behavior records of CCW holders like myself is pretty clear-cut, despite the open lies of Sarah Brady et al. If you can restrict the people and filter them out, then the guns aren’t the problem. So let’s all pledge to stop the political spin-machine bullshit on the Evil Ugly Guns, and start focusing on the root cause of the problem.
So other than the Ruger-14 example, are there other weapons where the gun is effectively the same but the ‘mean’ one is banned but the ‘nice’ one is not?
And isn’t the cosmetic issue partially down to the manufacturer? As in, if the Mini-14 is banned, Ruger comes out with a New and Improved ™ gun with 1 less bullet in the magazine or without an offending lug nut so they can keep on selling?
How about a common-sense ban on high-capacity rapid-fire weapons? Or at least make them as hard to get as fully automatic weapons?
What do you mean by “high capacity rapid-fire weapons?” What’s the “rapid fire” part supposed to mean? A semi automatic weapon can fire as rapidly as your finger can depress the trigger. Anything faster than that is a full-auto and already heavily regulated.
There was also no reason to throw in the fact that I had “an axe to grind.”
If you’re serious in that you support the ‘defend against tyranny’ perspective, why on earth would you want the American civilian population to be denied the right to high-capacity magazines? In the event of having to ‘defend against tyranny,’ the ‘tyranny’ would in all likelihood be armed with fully automatic weapons along with ordnance and tanks. Why handicap the population even more against ‘tyranny’ by saying our magazines can only hold ten rounds?
Even a revolver can be ‘rapid-fire’. It’s a function of how fast your finger works.
And what is ‘common sense’ about high-capacity? You can reload a revolver in about two seconds. You can swap a 10-round handgun magazine with a fresh one in about the same time. Just carry more magazines or speedloaders, is all. There’s nothing ‘common sense’ about it. A few seconds isn’t going to make a difference. Unless you want to limit the number of magazines a person can own? As Una said, it’s not the gun; it’s the person. Divide the number of nutjobs that have gone on shooting sprees by the number of ‘assault weapons’ owners – let alone owners of other firearms. I think you’ll find that the percentage is exceedingly low.
I don’t buy the ‘defense against tyranny’ argument. Yes, I know that that was an original intention; but virtually nobody is going to start a shooting war with the government.
You’d be amazed at how fast some of the guys in “Cowboy Action Shooting” can fire a revolver or a lever-action Winchester rifle. Thankfully those guys rarely turn to crime, but if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t need an assault rifle.
In World War One, the Germans thought the British were shooting at them with machine guns, when all they had were MkIII SMLEs, a bolt-action rifle with a 10 round, non-removable magazine. But, in the hands of someone trained, was capable of getting off an amazing number of aimed rounds per minute.
What I was wondering is, given that the Constitutional nature of the Second Amendment is to arm the Milita… and if you look at the Heller arguments, it was a focus of the Supremes, is it even possible to outlaw military surplus weapons?
Part of the focus of the AWB was to essentially ban a lot of military surplus weapons. I am of the opinion that those are exactly the sort of weapons that should be protected under the 2nd Amendment. Miller seems to back me up on that as well.
To tell the truth I’m not as aware of modern semi-auto rifles as I once was, but two which come to mind are the SKS/AK-47 (on the banned list) and the Ruger Mini-30 (not on the list). To compare:
Both fire the 7.62x39 cartridge, and have similar length barrels.
Both are semi-auto gas-operated weapons.
Both can use high-capacity detachable magazines of similar sizes.
The Mini-30 can be purchased with an optional flash suppressor (which despite its name, does not really suppress anything, and instead just makes a cool star-pattern when fired. However, I’ve personally heard Sarah Brady say that flash suppressors are “silencers”, and so what do I, with my firearms experience and multiple Engineering degrees, know?)
The AK has a pistol grip, and the Mini-30 doesn’t. However (and I speak from experience), a pistol grip can be installed on the Mini-30 in about 30 seconds with no tools whatsoever (de-cock the hammer, pop the rear of the trigger guard out of its latch, tilt the workings out, tilt into the new stock with pistol grip, snap the rear of the trigger guard down, and done).
A Mini-30 does not have a bayonet lug (and as an aside, why are the sponsors of this bill worried about a bayonet lug? Is there a sudden rash of mad bayonettings in the US that has somehow been missed by all major print, broadcast, radio, cable, and Net outlets?). However, a bayonet lug can be installed in about 30 seconds with the use of an Allen key.
What’s “common sense?” In the now closed thread, some held out that to them “common sense” means a repeal of the 2nd Amendment and total confiscation, presumably via house-to-house sweeps by shock troops. The fallacy of the phrase “common sense” is that it sometimes lacks any sense at all. Ask around and you’ll see quickly that “common sense” involves believing in ghosts, angels taking a personal interest in our lives, sex is bad and scary, gays are evil, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the 9/11 attacks, and global warming is a Green New Socialist plot.
Someone made a good point in the closed thread - regarding the root causes of crime. Again, how wonderful would it be to find politicians willing to address the root causes of crime, rather than employ kindergarten mentality to ban, ban, ban? People are poor and have no hope, so they turn to crime - well, let’s do something about it. Find out why they have no hope, and give them hope. With hope they will regain ambition. With that ambition - and assistance - they can better themselves and escape the circle of crime. This will involve a massive re-examination about our blind acceptance of many of the most basic Social mores and practices in this country. It will involve breaking the glamourization of “gangsta life.” It will involve money, time, and effort. It will involve unprecedented levels of cooperation and teamwork between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
Or one can just ban a new kind of gun every few years. Yup, much easier.
I only started reading the other thread, and I didn’t read that. But that’s something I’ve been saying for years (and may have posted it here in the past). Passing do-nothing legislation is easy. Fixing problems is hard.
Wait, the SKS is on the ban list? On what grounds? It doesn’t have a pistol grip, it doesn’t have a folding stock, it doesn’t have a detachable magazine, and it doesn’t have the shoulder thing that goes up. The only thing it has is a bayonet lug. How can they put that on the list?
There are aftermarket modifications that will allow the SKS to accept a detachable magazine, but they do not come on the rifle by default.
It’s a “bayonet lug”, not a “lug nut”. It’s hard to get behind “common-sense” legislation when the people who propose it don’t know what it is they’re banning. Arguing that a bayonet lug should be banned is patently ridiculous, mostly because nobody has ever been killed or wounded on the streets by bayonet charge but also because anybody intent upon killing people with a rifle is not going to get close enough to stab somebody with a bayonet anyway.
You’re absolutely right. But Miller only counted when it could be used in support of the now-defunct “militia argument”.
In any case, I wonder if any of the people from the old thread, which was closed because it turned into a debate over whether or not we should have guns at all, are going to show up here? I still fail to see how anyone could offer a logical justification for the AWB. Others tried in that closed thread, and failed. People offered up ill-informed news articles which I debunked. They proclaimed a lack of knowledge about how firearms worked, which was corrected by myself and various other people. Then it turned into a “pissing match.”
If that hadn’t have happened and the thread stayed on course, could anyone have possibly brought in evidence that actually showed that “assault weapons” led to greater crime…instead of the old “there’s more gun crime in America than any other first world nation.” Of course there is. America is a gigantic country, of course it’s going to have a shitload more gun crime than England and Germany. If England and Germany had the population of the US, the rate of gun crime would be a hell of a lot higher, don’t you think?
I don’t know about the Mini-30, but I have a Mini-14. When I got it and fired it, there was a HUGE ball of burning gasses coming out the muzzle that could be clearly seen on a sunny day. I put a flash suppressor on it and now I don’t even see the star-shaped blast. (I shoot in daylight, of course.)
(I’ve heard there are hundreds of Austro-Prussian war veterans holed up in Boca Raton who would just love to re-live their glory days before they pass on…)
It’s not that simple. There is a reasonable case to be made that crime would scale up, but in large part it comes down to cultural differences. There’s a reason that people in other countries were so willing to give up their rights vis-a-vis guns and the United States will never give up that right.