Nice dodge Renob but you still failed to answer any of the actual questions I posed to Argent Towers You seem to argue that the govt. be it local, or federal ought not to be able to place any restrictions on you or your activities unless you have already committed a crime. Sometimes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure though. I’m not so foolish as to think that guns are inherently dangerous or evil, I own one myself. I just don’t see and demonstrable reason for owning any large caliber or fully automatic firearm posted in this thread other than: “I want one!” or “Because I can!”. Why not have grenades, mines and RPG’s too? they don’t cost that much. If you’ve got a bigger budget, why not acquire some anti-aircraft cannon, or a minigun? I agree that there are people who can own and ise such equipment responsibly, but it is specialist weaponry.
As an aside, I always thought the American Assault Weapon ban was not in place so much because bayonet lugs or pistol grips made them dangerous, but because banning those features essentially removed a large number of military surplus weapons from the market, thus making it rather onerous on both would-be buyers and manufacturers who now have to go to a lot of trouble to make “civilian” versions of popular weapons(and many don’t bother). At least, that’s what it seems like to me. The equally unreasonable ban on imported Chinese weapons seems to serve the same purpose.
I notice that the Tavor, for example, is on the ban list, while up here in Canada they are “non-restricted”.
An anecdote I posted in a recent thread.
I’m very much anti-Republican at this point in time – the GOP will have to do a buttload of house cleaning before I’d cast a vote their way – but I do wish the Dems would drop gun control from their platform. Although DSeid brings up a valid point – at the Dem caucus I attended earlier this year, some of the idiocy that was submitted for inclusion in the platform was just drop-jaw, mind-numbingly stupid. If even 10% of it actually made it to the national level, the stated platform can’t be taken too seriously as actual policy goals.
Soon, brothers and sisters of the Kumbayah Alliance, soon! The Day draws nearer! The One, the Obamessiah, will seize the power of the Unitarian Executive, and the black helicopters will fly, my pretties, fly! We will send our blue-helmeted minions spreading across the nation, and we will seize every assault rifle, hand gun, bb gun and staple gun in the nation! And then! Forced gay marriages for Eagle Scouts, free heroin and hamster porn distributed in our madrassas, er, schools. Schools, yes.
What is a “gun nut”? A gun nut is anyone who believes this issue is of any serious consequence. Keep the goddam things, if it makes you feel so good, muzzle tov, much good may it do you. Enough, already. There’s millions of the damn things out there, there is no way, none whatsoever, that any meaningful “ban” can or will ever happen. It can’t be done, not with every blue-helmeted Swede and every black helicopter in the world, it can’t be done.
But if you really believe, deep in the cordite soaked reptile brain stem, that gun control is the most important issue facing us today, or even in the top ten…you are a gun nut. And that includes people who think banning them is in the top ten as well. Forget it, Jake, its Chinatown.
Keep the goddam things, if it makes you feel safer, stronger, whatever. We don’t care anymore. A lot of drunken arguments that might have devolved into fistfights between knuckle-walking troglodytes will end in fatality, but we can’t do anything about that. Enough, already. Just fucking keep 'em, and shaddup about it, already!
I’m not afraid of guns, I’m afraid of the guy who wants one. But anyone who really wants one is going to get one, and there ain’t shit I can do about it.
Uh, what do fully automatic firearms have to do with anything? They’re already heavily controlled by the NFA and FOPA.
This is about the Assault Weapons Ban. You know, the invented category of weapons that’re semi-automatic and generally in weaker calibers that happen to look like their fully automatic cousins.
Argent Towers writes
> . . . moron Carolyn McCarthy . . .
> . . . You thick-headed, ignorant morons. . .
> . . . I tend to think of the Pit as mainly a place for posters to condemn other
> posters, despite any pretensions otherwise. . .
If you want people to treat you with respect, treat them with respect. All of them, not just the ones who happen to be posting on the SDMB. When you call people who are otherwise considered to be intelligent “morons,” you’re giving up any chance for your opinions to be looked as anything other than rants. You know perfectly well that these people that you’re calling morons are intelligent by any ordinary standard. (Indeed, I’d bet that many of them would do better on an IQ test than you.) What you mean by “morons” is anyone who differs from your deepest political opinions. The first thing that anybody has to do to engage in a rational political argument is to realize that people who disagree with him are not idiots and don’t like to be called such.
It doesn’t matter what your definition of assault rifle is. The crimes were committed using weapons most likely to be covered under the proposed assault weapon ban, which is an appropriate response to
I think the emphasis was less on gaining their respect and more on them not trying to pass illogical laws out of ignorance.
If these people are intelligent, why are they trying to pass laws that are dependant on insignificant details like whether a particular rifle has a conspicuous pistol grip or not?
I don’t need to know how to operate a tank or the physics behind a nuclear weapon to come to the conclusion that it’s a pretty good idea to restrict their sale to regular people.
Guns don’t really scare me, but your logic doesn’t work here. Gun control activists base their arguments on lots of things besides fear of guns, like statistics that say crimes committed with guns are more deadly than crimes committed without guns, the fact that guns are used so often to commit violent crime, accidental shootings, and the enormous precedent for controlling or regulating dangerous things.
http://forum.gundigestmagazine.com/tm.aspx?m=121 Get these repubs too. By the way a lot of dems hunt and own guns. Many are not anti guns. Some dems and repubs do not think assault weapons are good for society. Their right to their own thinking must be denied. I am glad mr. Towers has assumed the right to make their decisions for them. He cannot be wrong.
They are talking about a 1000 dollar rebate next year. Perhaps you can lobby and get them to send every American an assault rifle instead That would be good.
Grumman writes:
> If these people are intelligent, why are they trying to pass laws that are
> dependant on insignificant details like whether a particular rifle has a
> conspicuous pistol grip or not?
Again, what you’re saying is that anyone who differs from your political opinions must be stupid. Don’t you understand the difference between calling someone wrong and calling them stupid?
Sorry, not sure how I got from Semi, to fully. :smack:
I’m of the “middle ground” here, so I’d probably end up annoying both sides if I contributed heavily to this thread. :eek:
But I will say this: As far as your statement here, I’m in agreement. My main problem with loudly stated opinions in general is that too often people don’t avail themselves of relevant (and reliable!) material. There was little excuse before the web and much less now.
It makes no sense to fear the mere appearance of a gun in someone’s possession. A possessor that is directly threatening, aggressive, or suspicious-acting is another matter, of course. 
- “Jack”
What’s wrong with having a big, mean, scary-looking, not-useful-for-hunting assault rifle for use in defending your home, family, and property? I believe the 2nd amendment was about defense, not hunting.
I don’t own guns and personally don’t even like them, but they’re out there and banning them won’t do anything but take them out of the hands of law abiding citizens. I don’t like the idea of having a well-armed government and an unarmed populace, no matter how futile or unlikely a popular defense against government military aggression might be. And the founding fathers didn’t like it either.
What about the fact that in this instance, they are stupidly wrong?
Well, damn, this thread went to the land of pointless idiots yammering at each other. We could have had a discussion on the new face of gun control. But no.
Look, if I want a Hummer, I’m going to buy a Hummer. I don’t care if you don’t like seeing it parked in my yard. It’s in my yard, not yours.
If I want a hybrid, I’m going to buy a hybrid. I don’t care if you think it’s an eco-weenie baby car. It’s in my yard, not yours.
Quit yer bitching about ‘don’t need’ and ‘shouldn’t have’ and try to address this as policy, or shaddap. Because you’re all coming off as aggressive pud-whackers with itsy bitsy brains, spewing talking points rather than actual debate.
Yes it does. If you were right, they’d be trying to ban particular types of weapons which are actually used and used for a non-trivial reason, in the comission of crimes. What actually happens is that the people writing laws and being anti-gun fixate on the aesthetic aspects of guns. To be blunt, most of the seem to have no idea what the difference between a magazine and a clip is, or what semi-automatic and automatic mean, or why many guns which look “scary” just… look “scary” and are not particular special or unusual aside from that, or why heavily regulating “sniper rifles” is a joke.
If it’s like the last AWB, no they’re not. The SKS was available(and cheap!) everywhere except California while the ban was in effect. I think there was a Cali legal version without a bayonet lug that was sold as well.
Yes, I understand the difference. Don’t you understand the difference between defending your position and handwaving? I asked you a question, either you can think of a reason why an intelligent person would want to pass a law which bans a semi-automatic rifle with a conspicuous pistol grip and bayonet mount but doesn’t ban a semi-automatic rifle with a straight stock and bayonet mount, or you should admit that your position is unfounded.
No, no, NO.
At least two of the crimes were committed using an SKS - which is not covered by the proposed ban, which I already said. The SKS has a bayonet lug (oooohhhhh scary) but no pistol grip, folding stock, or detachable mag. It does not qualify for the moronic ban. But the writers mistakenly labeled it as an “assault rifle” and then a “high powered assault rifle.”
See what I’m getting at?
Ignorance of firearms is the problem here.
ETA-I see this was already mentioned