Ownership of military-grade weapons is already illegal or at least very heavily taxed and regulated. The Batman shooter was not using miltary-grade weapons.
I have not heard that he used an assault rifle. I believe he used a semi-automatic rifle that would have been illegal under the old assault weapons ban. Or maybe not. It depends on if it had certain mostly cosmetic features like a bayonet lug. Not the same as an assault rifle.
When you are talking about laws or proposed laws words have very specific meanings.
And “Military-grade” is a scare term the media uses with little meaning. Just because something is “military-grade” doesn’t mean its better, bigger or scarier. For instance “military-grade” explosives sounds particularly scary. You might think that the military uses much more powerful stuff than your average miner or construction site. In reality military grade explosives are less powerful than civilian explosives. The military is willing to sacrifice some power for increased stability. When talking about weapons ignorant people talk about military weapons like the AR-15 when they only look like their military counterpart.
I am all for common sense gun control. I think a lot of the problems with guns are because the laws vary wildly from state to state. But it is hard discuss the issue with some because they have no idea what they are talking about. If you throw words around and are completely ignorant of their meaning, its hard to discuss an issue with you.
That is true if you want to ban all semi-automatic rifles. The old assault weapons ban (which is still in effect here in NJ) did not do that. Instead it banned weapons that looked like military weapons but did not work like military weapons. So yes, the old law banned rifles because you could put a knife on it. And you could still buy rifles that worked exactly the same with the same rate of fire. Which is as fast as you can pull the trigger. Which is how most guns work. Ban all guns? Fine, thats your opinion. Doesn’t make certain laws less silly.
Yea, mea culpa, I didn’t take the time to look up exactly what he used.
I still don’t understand why we couldn’t “ban” (i.e. make it very difficult for someone like him to obtain) the kind of weaponry he used, without banning the kind of guns people claim to want for personal protection.
It’s my understanding that the biggest difference between the weapon the shooter was using and a regular old semiautomatic hunting rifle is the capacity of the magazine.
There are some that argue that you don’t need anything other than a bolt action rifle for hunting and target practise. I disagree. A semi automatic is much better for these purposes.
On the other hand, while you can box in prey fairly easily before they have a chance to react, once you’ve used all your 10 or so rounds from a standard load, whatever you’re shooting at is either dead or gone, unless it’s a crowd of people. So while I’d disagree with banning 100-round magazines due to the slippery slope principle, I don’t think there’s any logical reason to have them, even for self-defense purposes.
We’ll have guns, until someone comes up with a cooler/easier way to kill people.
Like when light sabers, or laser cannons come around.
I say we require people to only use 100 round drum magazines. Reports are that in Aurora it jammed which those are prone to do. Its a shitty design which is why the military never widely used them. Some use in the 40s with the Thompson but they mostly used straight magazines. The Russian PPSh-41 was prone to jamming too. I think the death toll would have been much higher if his weapon didn’t jam.
Yeah, because that worked so well with “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” I think we all know about the relevant Onion article.
The USA is far too saturated with guns to effectively eliminate them from the population. As soon as enforcement of any such BAN started, everyone will have lost their guns in unfortunate boating accidents. Even worse, with no legitemate places to practice, what limited skill the average Yank has with a gun would fade–we may as all well be equipped with broadswords within 50 or so years.
Much more likely would be a ban on firearms with more than a 6 round magazine. That would leave us armed enough for sport shooting, but make high head-count massacres more logistically difficult. Except, you know, The Black Market will always provide: Heroin, cocaine and Cuban cigars can be had with minimal effort here, full auto military grade firearms would be available to those who want them–which will not generally be an otherwise law-abiding redneck, but someone who wants to load up his apartment with hand grenades and head for the local movie house.
The problem is not the guns. It’s not the drugs. It’s the people. We have zero respect for mental illness here; and for those who are mentally ill and want to seek help despite the stigma, there may be no way to fund it because healthcare here is cost-prohibitive. You may have heard about our recent attempts to make healthcare affordable to everyone here, including the destitute? Fact is, Americans are hateful and malicious as a society. Not just violent, or into ‘rough play,’ we’re generally complete bastards to each other just as we are to the rest of the world. Impair our ability to shoot one another and you will be witness to horrific, bloody murder techniques that would give a Roman gladiator butterflies.
Opposing view: If you can’t drop it with one shot, one of the following applies:
- wrong load for the target
- bad shot placement
- target is outside of the gun’s/shooter’s capabilities
If you can’t be certain exactly where your bullet is going and what it’s going to do when it gets there, leave it in your gun until you can be certain.
I have always thought it would be interesting to run a test on this idea that if everyone were armed or at least far more than currently go armed this sort of thing would not happen.
It certainly seems in this particular instance adding a few other people with guns into the mix in a darkened smoke filled room would not end well.
I can imagine to test this they could get a bunch of people into a room with laser tag guns and have one be the secret designated gun man who would start shooting at random. It would be interesting to see if people really were able to identify who had started the shooting and who they should be shooting at once every one is brandishing a weapon and looking for someone to shoot at.
Sounds like one for Mythbusters.
LA Times article stating that gun applications went up in Colorado following the shooting.
You people are weird.
I doubt that “common sense” gun controls are going to change anything. The kinds of laws and policies that would be necessary to actually reduce gun ownership would be way too draconian for the average US voter to tolerate.
Plus, what seems like “common sense” to a normal person turns weird once a politician gets hold of it. And you wind up with silly shit like “ban that gun because it looks scary”.
And not least, to some people “common sense” does mean banning guns. The Heller decision said explicitly that there is an individual right to own guns, and municipalities like Washington DC still try to ban them from private ownership (in essence).
Not to pick on your post in particular, but I think it demonstrates what I think is a common mistake. It is not the duty of a citizen to justify the exercise of his rights; it is the duty of the government to show that he shouldn’t. IOW, the answer to “why do you want a 100 round magazine” is “because I want to” and that is a perfectly legitimate and complete answer. And yes, I am aware that that can be applied to the federal machine gun ban, but IMO the machine gun ban is a violation of the Second Amendment.
Regards,
Shodan
This attitude is why I say fuck 'em, let’s go ahead and ban guns. If you can’t be reasonable and admit that there are weapons that nobody should have, then I say that the pro-control side has no obligation to be reasonable. If every conceivable restriction is a direct threat to your penile substitute, then we just can’t have a reasonable discussion.
And I say yes, Democratic politicians! Listen to him! Please!
Thank you.
It’s probably because people anticipate a potential shortage/ban in the future, so they stock up on what they want now.
A nationwide gun ban will likely never happen. People want to hunt, sport shoot, defend themselves (police are several minutes away, at best), or just collect firearms. It’s a fundamental part of why the USA exists.
As if it would make any difference. Right wingers accuse all Democrats of being stealth gun-banners as it is. So what’s the harm in actually coming out in favor of banning guns?
Some day, it will be as unthinkable to own a gun as it would be to ban interracial dating. It will be as unthinkable as slavery. Our descendents will wonder how we ever stayed so fucking backward. I won’t live to see it, but it will happen.
Did you just use the phrases “penile substitute” and “reasonable discussion” in the same sentence? Were you trying to be ironic, or just trying to get people to point and laugh at the stupidity?
Yes, No, and Not the stupidity that you’re thinking of.
Are you kidding? They’d lose a huge number of Democratic and left-wing votes.