In countries with guns banned…hasn’t crime gone up? Like throughout history (recent I guess) the banning of guns has resulted in more crime I have heard. Is this true or not?
Yeah, I don’t think such bans can pass Constitutional muster anymore. I didn’t think they could before, but now with the decision in Heller (which, among other things, asserted that blanket bans on classes of weapons commonly in use by the people are not permissible), combined with the existing case law in Miller, such a ban would be completely indefensible Constitutionally.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court kinda screwed us over when it comes to fully automatic weapons - Scalia’s seemed to balk at the idea machine guns should be protected, and stated in a bizarre Catch-22 that it would be permissible to ban machine guns because they are not in common use. He conveniently didn’t mention that the reason that they are not in common use is because they are already so heavily restricted. In addition to mandated registration, fully automatic weapons made after 1986 are completely illegal for civilian transfer or ownership, which has driven the price of pre-'86 machine guns to absurd heights ($15,000 to $20,000 for a gun that is nearly identical to a semi-auto that sells for $800).
But aside from all that, “assault weapon” bans are just pure sensationalism. The gun grabbers figure that it’s easiest to demonize and attack weapons that have a lot of scary-looking black plastic on them. Hence the ridiculous attempts to ban things like pistol grips, flash hiders, and barrel shrouds (a.k.a. “the shoulder thing that goes up.” :D).
So-called “assault weapons” are used in a tiny fraction of crimes involving firearms – as others have said, thugs, muggers, gangsters, and rapists tend to prefer cheap, concealable weapons. Large, low-powered semiautomatic rifles are just not the typical criminal’s weapon of choice. So it doesn’t even make sense from that angle, even if you disregard the fact that gun control is a lazy approach to the crime problem that in reality solves nothing.
I’ll be keeping my scary black rifles, thank you very much. Or, if it would really make you feel safer, I might be willing to paint some of them pink. Maybe.
I think I meant AKS/AK-47…maybe there isn’t even an AKS…
Oddly, my Mini-14s, which I shot tens of thousands of rounds through, do not exhibit that behavior at all. With any ammunition I’ve used. 
Just to play devil’s advocate…what about that assertion that there is more crime in Indiana than in New York? I’ve heard people say that there’s overall more crime in gun-friendly states than in states with very strict gun laws. Something tells me this can’t be true, but if it is, why?
One thing you can always bring up in a debate with anti-gun people is the fact that Switzerland has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, and one of the lowest rates of crime in the world. Then they’ll respond by saying, “well of course, because Switzerland isn’t poor/isn’t ethnically diverse/etc.” In which case you’ve set a trap for them and they are forced to admit that it’s cultural factors - and not the guns - that cause the crime.
There is a small rifle called the AKS-74U which is like a miniature version of the AK-47 and fires the 5.45mm round.
I can’t speak for Argent Towers, but I think he means the butt plate such as on the M-1A that flips up and rests on top of the shoulder.
I was using Israeli surplus. I don’t know if their ammo is ‘hotter’ than ours, but I definitely had a ball of flame out the end before I put the flash suppressor on.
Who means that? I didn’t mean that - I meant the SKS doesn’t have a barrel shroud (which was referred to by a certain congresswoman, in an interview with a certain bow-tie-wearing talk show host, as “the shoulder thing that goes up” when she was asked what it was.) But I think we all know that joke.
Ah. I’d forgotten about that.
That was Carolyn McCarthy. I think we can have some understanding for her position, though: her husband was murdered and her son severely injured by Colin Ferguson on the Long Island train in 1993. While I don’t agree with her particular stance, I can definitely understand why she feels the way she does.
It isn’t. There’s not really any overwhelming trend in crime rates between gun-friendly and more restrictive states, and generally cultural factors provide a better explanation. For example, Vermont, where anybody can strap a gun to their hip with no permit or license required, has the lowest per capita rate of firearms homicides in the country. It would be tempting to claim that this is because of the loose firearms laws, but it probably has more to do with the fact that Vermont is small, comparatively wealthy, culturally and ethnically homogeneous, and has relatively low population density.
If anything, the trend leans more towards the conclusion that gun-friendly states have less crime, but implying a particular causation from that would be an error.
Hmm…making laws based on emotion and not reason…reminds me of another politician named McCarthy.
Yes. To me, the first thing that they should do if they want an assault weapons ban is come up with a legal definition of an assault weapon that makes sense. I’d still disagree with the ban, but I’d disagree with it less.
I have to observe, though, that you understand her position and circumstances far better than she does yours as a gun owner - and she’s the one pushing legislation through.
Well, it is impossible for them to do that. So they’ll keep on using superficial aesthetic criteria, because they realize - oh boy, do they ever realize - how deeply we are all affected by movies and television and the news, and they know that the evil-looking black guns with big magazines and folding stocks and pistol grips are ingrained into people’s minds as being scary evil assault weapons, and they will milk that public perception for all it’s worth because it’s the only card in their deck.
Actually I guess you can’t have a deck if you only have one card, so it’s their only card. Whatever.
Agreed. But I think that in this argument it is far better to take the high ground. I don’t like the mischaracterizations of the anti-gun people, and as a result I choose not to engage in a battle of rhetoric.
There are many good and reasonable arguments against the AWB and I’ve yet to hear one that makes sense to justify it. The percentage of crimes that are committed with whatever it is that they try to claim is an “assault weapon” is so low as to make the time and money spent on the legislation ludicrous. If a ban was really about crime, cheap handguns would be the target rather than expensive rifles.
It was never about crime or public safety. It was about looking like they were doing something by going after a poorly defined group of products that someone thought looked scary.
I bought my first AR15 during the ban. I bought my second after the ban. Wanna know the difference between them that made the first so much safer for everyone around me? A collapsible stock. Yes, my shoulder thing went in and out. The function of the weapons are identical except one can be adjusted for people with short arms. Pretty scary, eh? Short people shooting comfortably… There should be a law!
Safe and non-banned XM15 E2S
Scary and dangerous post-ban AR Carbine
I knew the goddamn midgets were planning a revolution this whole time. Here’s the proof. Scramble the jets!
Anyway, the funny thing is, you can get an AR chambered in .22LR and it’d still be an assault weapon by the criteria of the ban.
If you have a few minutes, I found something on YouTube a while back that puts it into perspective. In the end I couldn’t figure out which was covered by the AWB and which wasn’t.
That Pesky Assault Rifle (sic) Ban
Yes, there’s rhetoric. Yes, there’s a biased point of view. But I challenge you to watch that and say that the AWB was anything but cosmetic in nature.