And when you can show me an American gun store selling RPGs (period!) to the general public, I will concede the point that we need yet another law banning civilian possession of such weapons of war.
Until then, your post is so much useless drivel, just one more strawman argument from a pig-ignorant anti-gun zealot.
Passions may be running high, but you need to keep this out of Great Debates.
[ /Moderating ]
The point I was trying to make is that to a lot of people, the stance of the NRA is that any gun or other projectile-firing weapon should be legal because of the 2nd Amendment and because of it’s use for the sport of hunting. Clearly, not all weapons are appropriate for hunting, and to suggest by way of arguing for definitions that they are seems, to me, disingenuous.
The terminology and manner of my framing was to point out the way that some posters here have been weaseling their way thru the discussion by needing definitions of “assault rifle” and “high-powered gun” and other terms, while arguing that guns are for the sport of hunting.
If those terms need defining, then why doesn’t “hunting” need a definition as well? Surely you would not suggest that a gun capable of taking out a tank would also be suitable for hunting, would you? I mean, what would be left of the deer to use or display? So why try and obfuscate by pulling a Clinton and demanding that every term be defined?
They may have seemed weak to you, but they have been loud since the 70s and their actions, then, had the effect of scaring some fence sitters into voting against the NRA position. Now that they are better organized and better funded, they are more overtly successful, but that should be a reason for them to act more responsibly while it seems to be encouraging elements within the NRA to behave more dishonestly.
I suppose it is possible that all 58 members got endorsements even if their Republican opponents expressed something other than complete antipathy to guns, but I have watched the NRA totally smear Democrat candidates who were pro-gun both in Michigan and in Ohio. I don’t have a list of every candidate in every election with endorsements and ads, but having seen them use such tactics, I suspect that those tactics are not rare.
Please read the post above, and please try and not ascribe positions to me that you don’t actually know. Or can you cite where I’ve ever said I’m anti-gun? I mean, if I am, as you claim, a “zealot”, it should be easy to find posts by me decrying guns and their ownership, shouldn’t it?
I’ll be happy to accept your retraction and apology for mis-stating my position at any time.
Theree is a clear history for demanding that “assault rifle” be defined: the law that pretended to address that issue was so poorly written that its definition was based on how a person with no familiarity with any firearms might perceive a weapon. Actual firepower, (both in rate of fire and velocity), were not even considered in the law.
Such a law is simply stupid and when various politicians continue to support such a law, an effective means,(to the educated public), of arguing against it is to ask for what the proponent hopes to achieve and then to ask how that proponent would define the weapons to be banned.
Going off on defintions of hunting–that have not been used to create useless and unworkable laws–is a red herring that does not addres the actual issue of the bad laws.
If you have an interest in enacting a law that limits gun ownership that is effective, (and, one hopes, Constitutional), go ahead and propose it. Then we can discuss the meat of the topic without the irrelevant sidebars. Even without hunting, we have the perfectly legitimate uses of home defense and target shooting, so hunting would simply be one more tangent that sheds no light on a solution.
Yes, I agree. And so does bringing up hunting when talking about gun use and ownership and 2nd Amendment rights, which was partly my point, as you touch on here (bolding mine):
It’s disingenuous to suggest that you want guns for hunting purposes, so you oppose restrictions on gun ownership, when in fact the NRA doesn’t just want guns for hunting, but also for self-defense, etc. (and for many, just because they like stuff that shoots other stuff out of it).
That was my whole point, and the way that people, such as smiling bandit, try and frame the argument is disingenuous and counter-productive, because to people on the fence, it can come off as if they think ALL firearms and projectile-firing weapons should be for hunting, and clearly that isn’t the case, so it weakens any argument they think they are making.
Such tactics actually reduce the legitimacy of gun rights proponents’ arguments to many people who are not actively on side or the other.
The NRA does not limit itself to hunting, as you well know. However, the NRA does have a case with regards to “armor-piercing” ammunition. Virtually all centerfire rifle ammunition (I can’t think of any exceptions, but I’m sure there are some) can pierce Type IIIA body armor. That type of body armor, by far the most commonly used because it affords the most protection while still leaving the person somewhat mobile, is intended not to stop rifle rounds but handgun rounds and shrapnel. .30-06, perhaps the most common caliber used by hunters, has long been used by the military in their weapons and can easily penetrate that armor.
In any event, you’re laboring to make a point about hunting for some reason. States have long been free to put restrictions on what weapons can can cannot be used for hunting, and in fact do so, mostly for the purpose of humanely killing game animals. You may rest assured that a .22 rimfire, barring a perfect shot, is not a humane way to kill a deer. The very things that make “high-power, armor piercing” ammunition desirable are that they can penetrate bone and muscle resulting in a quick kill.
Incidentally, since you’re looking for a semantic distinction, military-type ammunition like 7.62x39 (AK-type weapons) and 5.56 NATO (AR-15 derivatives) is classed as “intermediate-power” ammunition, so it wouldn’t be affected by any “high-power” ammunition bans anyway.
I realize I’m not explaining myself as well as I wish. I’m not laboring to make a point about hunting; I’m lampooning the type of argument that guns should be legal because they will be used for hunting, like smiling bandit (and others) seemed to be doing.
I mean, what exactly would you be hunting with a .50 BMG? An armor plated T. Rex?
Nothing. Nothing at all. Nobody anywhere has ever claimed that they wanted to use it for hunting. Conversely, it has been claimed that it is a terrorist weapon and has been implicated in crimes by gun-control organizations. Do you know the actual number of crimes committed with a .50 BMG? Zero. None. There has never been a crime committed with a round bigger than your index finger that requires a 3-foot weapon and has a muzzle flash and report that would get anybody attempting to use it illegally arrested almost immediately.
That didn’t stop California from banning the round, thus demonstrating that there is no common sense in common-sense regulations.
What a load of crap. The NRA should be held to the same standard as anyone in the public square: don’t lie, don’t slander. They clearly fail that test. You are the one going through contortions to explain why it is okay for the NRA to deceive people: as long as the people being fed misinformation and slander get to keep their guns, it’s all cool.
Are firearms really more important than integrity?
It was a rhetorical (and mocking) question.
Thanks for ignoring the actual, substantial part of my post, tho. :rolleyes:
Good God. They are fighting fire with fire. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and political lobbying is a fucking dirty game, and again, you’re only upset because it’s your “ox” being “gored,” as the Airman has already made clear multiple times. You guys don’t complain that the anti-gun lobby is using egregious disinformation and outright fabrication, including a whole vernacular of made up words and phrases straight from George Orwell. But you complain when the NRA plays their ballgame (and wins.)
And, again, it was the antis who started. This cannot be emphasized strongly enough. They started it. The NRA is just reacting to what they did.
I thought that giving the rolleyes was forbidden in GD. But the (so-called) substantive part of your post, self-described as lampooning, evoked nothing so much as rolleyes from me and was not worth responding to. What, you want me to respond to a self-described joke? I already did in the post prior to that. I responded to the one thing in your post that seemed to require a serious response.
Anyone who has to ask for a definition of hunting, and then uses rocket propelled grenades as a counter example of a suitable hunting weapon, is, in my book, an anti-gun zealot.
Don’t like my characterization of your position? Tough shit. Choose examples that are considerably less ludicrous than man-portable anti-armor weapons of war when discussing suitable firearms for hunting.
kenetic asked:
smiling bandit replied
And you are consistently ignoring both bandit’s and tom’s points that ballistically speaking, most mid-sized game rounds will penetrate any kind of body armor you can buy and wear short of an Iron Man suit. And the .50 cal (if not specifically the .50 BMG, or the Barret-model rifle) has been used for big game hunting in Africa.
And yet people want to ban them because, as they see it, any round that can penetrate any armor is too powerful. Or as Doors correctly points out, someone, somewhere, has associated the gun & round with criminals and terrorists, with absolutely zero evidence of any such use or connection.
THAT is why the NRA opposed the original “Cop Killer” Armor-Piercing Bullet Ban in the mid-80’s; as originally written, it would’ve banned just about anything .30 caliber and up. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, that would’ve included the vast majority of common (to North America) hunting rounds. The NRA did support a legislative ban on the civilian possession of any hardened-core round; that is, a round designed specifically for the purpose of penetrating armor.
And yet they were crucified in the lame-stream media, and by gun-control advocates, as wanting to put “Cop Killer” bullets into the hands of criminals; the kind of conspiracy theory nuttery espoused by Naxos, above.
And we took it. And tried to explain to supposedly itelligent, reasonable people (for over ten years, right here on the SDMB) why sweeping armor-piercing bullet bans are unworkable; why inscribing teeny-tiny serial numbers on every single bullet is unworkable; where and when owner licensing and gun registration has led to bans and confiscations.
For our pains, and our patience, and willingness to try to educate, we have been called the scum of the earth. We have been called racist. We have had to endure snide comments in “Great Debates” about penis size, lack of courage, had accusations of racism thrown in our faces, and been lumped in with mass murderers.
And now someone has the sheer fucking gall to ask us to* play nice!?*
Good-fucking-God, Merciful Bhudda, Almighty Thor, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, The Great Pumpkin, and Jumpin’-Jack-Jesus-on-a-pogo-stick, the English-speaking world never had a word for this kind of blatant, two-faced standard, and had to [del]steal[/del] borrow one from the Jews for this kind of nerve: chutzpah.
Bye bye.
TL;DR.
Regards,
Shodan
Out of that whole post that’s all you found?
It’s a good thing he put that in there so you could find justification to ignore it.
I’m not attacking the substance. The rest of the post wasn’t worth commenting on. But the quote was a reflection of the intelligence of the poster, and informed me of the likely future contributions thereof.
You deny that there’s anit-gun bias in “traditional” media sources? ABC? CBS? NBC? CNN?