I have seen some limits on the capacity of magazines to be used in hunting but that is about it. So please let me know what state DNR went out of their way to outlaw those assault weapons for hunting.
This post, mentioning the war in the Pacific, reminded me of why I find this topic somewhat personal. I was at an exhibit of the carnage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on day, and was shocked at how horrible it was, when I realized something that had never struck me before. In all probability, my existence is partly due to the atomic bomb. My father, hereafter referred to as Dad, was a marine in WW2, and at the pointy end of the war, fighting in the Pacific against the Japanese.
It occurred to me that if not for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent Japanese surrender, the odds would have been excellent that my Dad would have been involved in the invasion of the home islands. Based on the Japanese performance up to that point, we can surmise that he would also have stood an excellent chance of being killed - with the result of me not existing - which I would have disliked -except that I wouldn’t care, since I wouldn’t exist.
Please define the term “assault weapon” in a non-self-referential context (i.e. not “a weapon one uses to assault people.”)
I used to use an SKS–an intermediate power semi-automatic rifle originally designed to be carried by Russian infantry–for deer hunting. It was an entirely suitable weapon for wooded areas (where shots are typically less than 50 yards) and entirely legal for that purpose.
Methinks hyperbole and ad hominem is a poor way to argue any point. The o.p. demonstrated this from the forefront, and you seemed to have learned the modus well enough to apply it to another point. Congratulations on your newfound skill.
Stranger
I hate to prolong this hijack but when gonzomax starts to work his thing, I have no other choice but to set him straight. The vast majority of deer hunting is done with a full-power cartridge like the always popular .30-06. Assault rifles, by definition, fire an intermediate cartridge. The most common one is the 7.62x39 which is used in the most common assault rifle in the world, the AK-47. Assault rifles are also by definition automatic, it is illegal to own them without possessing a hard-to-obtain Class III license, and nobody ever hunts with them. (I mean, maybe someone does, but this is not the norm.) Therefore, the civilian versions of assault rifles, which are semi-automatic, are widely recognized to be far less powerful than the common hunting rifle. This is all very common knowledge and it’s also been repeated by me probably a hundred times in debates about guns on this forum. Some people, perhaps, were educated by this, and others such as Dr. Gonzo ignore them. Gonzo ignores almost everything I say but maybe this will somehow slip through the cracks.
Before we get too worried about nucular weapons, remember that Henry Ford is probably now responsible for 10’s of millions of deaths worldwide!
The bastard! Why didn’t he implement automatic, computer-contolled, pre-tensioned three point seat belts in the Model A?
Stranger
Because a Jew suggested it?
“You can have any colour automatic, computer-contolled, pre-tensioned three point seat belt you want as long as it is invisible.”
And the three points were named, respectively, NORM, HI and MAX.
Argent, I’m curious – what exactly would you have had Oppenheimer and the many other scientists involved do?
Let’s take the way-back machine to 1939, the time of the Einstein-Szilard letter. In both Europe and America, even grad students in physics, just playing around with the math, are seeing that an atomic bomb is possible.
The only way to keep such a weapon from being developed would be a grand conspiracy of all the important physicists in the world to suppress the relevant information – to somehow turn back the clock on science, and erase the previous several decades of work.
Since that’s impossible, the scientists in the U.S. could keep themselves morally clean by refusing to take part in any bomb-making project.
Turns out we won in Europe without an A-bomb, and would have won in Pacific without one (and probably without having to invade Japan). The Nazis were bankrupt and defeated before they could get a project off the ground (we know now; couldn’t have known that would happen ahead of time).
Now – how long until somebody, somewhere does it? How do you keep that from happening? What level of suppression is necessary to try and keep a major science from making an obvious advance?
Seriously – what do you think Teller, Oppenheimer, Hall and all the rest should have done, and what do you think the consequences would have been?
Seems like we’re basically in that fix now, trying to keep some sort of international community together to suppress the spread of well-known technology. I think with sufficient international cooperation it could have been done, but that just wasn’t possible in the Iron Curtain era.
Seconded. I thought it was some kid playing hooky from middle school, until I saw it’s someone that’s been around here for years. Surprised…and disappointed!
Maybe you missed the part where I said…
I mean this in all sincerity too. Sometimes people can actually be convinced to see things differently.
Sorry – I totally missed that. Over the years, discussions on the SDMB have actually changed my mind about a couple of things; when people actually listen to each other, a lot can happen.
And US plans were for Curtis LeMay’s Twentieth Air Force to eliminate all major Japanese cities by January 1, 1946. They had already destroyed over 150 square miles of over 60 cities before Hiroshima.
It’s not. Niether is war or weapons in general. However, Nuclear weapons, despite their immense destructive power and radioactive side effects, are not inherently more or less moral then any other form of bomb. And one could argue that no weapons could ever be used for good, because all involve death and destruction. Or we could argue that all weapons can be used for deterrence againest others with similar weapons.
Hitler was trying to wipe out entire groups of people due to his personal hatreds which is a special kind of evil very few can claim. The scientists on the Manhattan project, at most, can be accused of the same horrors anyone else who supports war and munitions research, development and manufacturing are responsible for.
Last I heard, the average nuke size was still kilotons. The biggest nuke made was 100 megatons, and nobody is really interested in making them that big, let alone bigger. Why? More accurate missiles require smaller warheads to do the same amount of damage.