How about “it’s possible to own firearms and never shoot any human being ever, even if you own 200 handguns and a pre-1986 machine gun.” Is that moderate enough for you? Because “never shooting another person” is a quality possessed by more gun owners than “never drinks to excess” is possessed by drinkers.
I’ll admit I haven’t read the thread (in my experience all gun threads are the same) but this caught my eye in the OP. Can someone explain the logic here? Did this guy have a goal of killing some policemen at some point in his life and decided he had to get working on making this dream real before Obama took his guns away?
Two reasons: first, as many posters have repeatedly pointed out, the features banned aren’t rational. They either include things like bayonet mounts that are irrelevent outside of a combat zone, or which offer little functional difference from any ordinary deer rifle. And secondly, because pretty much if you can ban assault weapons, what firearms couldn’t be completely banned? If a gun, which by design is meant to expedite killing if need be, can be banned on the grounds that it’s too deadly, then that’s pretty much the equivalent of saying that guns can and should be banned for being guns. Already there are calls that all semiautomatics should be banned (DC even after the Heller ruling refuses to license non-revolver handguns). t’s part of what I’ve referred to as the “creeping delegitimization” of guns. People who have openly declared that their goal is the elimination of guns from America have said that their strategy is to establish every possible precedent for restricting and ultimately banning the sale and possession of guns. Pro-gun people compare it to the parable of the frog that doesn’t notice it’s being boiled to death if the heat increases gradually enough.
I’m pretty sure states have the authority to stop contraband.
In any case, taking away the ability to control borders takes away meaningful sovereignty. Either you can have states’ rights, or you can reserve regulation of interstate commerce to the central government. But states without control over interstate commerce into their territory* are not sovereign, and appeal to their “states’ rights” is folly.*
To be consistent with the interstate commerce clause & still have good government, we therefore should abolish the sovereignty of the states & make them administrative districts. Simply repealing the interstate commerce clause seems simpler, but I suppose it’s about the same either way, at this point.
Because it is a law fundamentally incapable of making anybody any safer, because the semi-automatic weapons banned are no more dangerous than the semi-automatic weapons that aren’t banned (that don’t possess the cosmetic features restricted by the law). This means you get all the downsides of restricting people’s freedoms, without any of the upsides.
Any politician who supports reintroducing the AWB is either corrupt (if they know the law can’t have any positive effect, but support it anyway) or ignorant (if they don’t know anything about the subject, but support it anyway), and neither option is acceptable in a politician.
That, and the infamous ‘a barrel shroud is the thing that goes up’ quote, which pretty clearly points out they didn’t know what they were talking about when they wrote the bill. I expect people to know what they’re talking about when they write laws that infringe on constitutional rights.
I’ve been gone for a bit, and the thread seems to have moved on, but I wanted to quickly address this.
As other posters have said, it does not matter that those modifications aren’t being used consistently to commit crimes; given the slightest bit of thought, it should be easy to see why there is no legitimate “need” to have them, other than a selfish “cause I wanna”.
And thank you for the information regarding modification to full auto. When I asked, it was because I honestly didn’t know. I talked to a friend of mine who collects guns and asked him this same question, and he said that yes, the semi auto versions of fully auto weapons are, in general, easier to mod to full auto. He also made the comment that they are also much more likely to jam. He also made the “thing that goes up” comment in regards to barrel shrouds. I can understand that from an enthusiasts point of view, no one who doesn’t understand the ins and outs of firearms should be allowed to legislate against them, but you don’t have to be a recovering meth addict to know that it’s probably not a thing that people should have easy access to.
And to E-Sabbath, I hope you can see that me saying “I think shotguns should not be an easy thing to get a hold of” is not the same as saying “No one should have shotguns”. There is a big difference there, and it is the ground that I occupy when it comes to this discussion.
Thanks to all
I think the point that you are missing is that if you take a hunting rifle that is “OK” because it is made to hunt with, add a bayo lug or a flash hider, you have not made the gun infinitely more powerful or deadly. You have only changed its outward experience. But if it is a semi auto, it is now an “assault rifle”. When you state that there is no legit “need”, you are simply stating so from your own lack of knowledge. It has been explained several times that those cosmetic features make no difference to the successful use of that rifle in a crime. They are just that, cosmetic. Either you are purposely avoiding that fact or it has not yet been explained adequately. If you are interested, I will try again. Let me know.
They are easier to convert because it is impossible to convert a bolt action or a lever action into a full auto gun. That is the limit to the “easy to convert” factor.
I agree. If someone is actively trying to legislate away constitutional rights, I expect them to have a full grasp of the situation, not a knee jerk position provided by an anti gun group.
I also will bid the thread ado after this unless something interesting comes up…but want to quickly address some final points in response:
This of course has been addressed up thread which you have ignored (or missed to give you the benefit of the doubt), but the short answer is that while there is no ‘need’ (as if that should be the final arbiter anyway), it’s not a case of ‘cause I wanna’ (which isn’t exactly a sin in any case, nor a legitimate reason to not do something) but a case of the gun grabber types deliberately targeting surplus military fire arms that would other wise be legal for banning. IOW, it’s the same ole same ole.
Well, if your friend is really an expert then his response should have been ‘it depends on the bolt/action’…so, I’m having my doubts. The look of the gun makes no difference in a conversion…it all depends on the type of bolt and the action if we are talking about ease of conversion to full automatic. However, I will concede that many (but not all) semi-automatic versions of fully automatic weapons are easier to convert (in fact, it’s harder to make them semi-auto fire only from full auto versions than it is to convert them back)…and yes, they tend to jam.
They are also illegal ALREADY…no AWB needed.
So, you are cool with weapons as long as they are deliberately designed to be hard to hold and fire well? Yes…that’s militantly unsurprising.
At any rate it’s clear that your mind is closed on this subject and there was really never any hope of altering in any way, shape or form. That’s cool because your arguments have singularly been unconvincing to me too, and while I think I’m a bit more objective on this subject than you are, there probably was no hope of convincing me either. Hopefully the thread has provided some illumination to some lurking 'doper who DID have an open mind and now has a few more puzzle pieces on this topic.
Ado
-XT
It’s also a patently absurd metric that gun grabbers never apply to themselves. The pretense is the “need” is a valid metric, at all. But when pressed, they invariably retreat and shift the goalposts, claiming that not only will they not be willing to give up any of their possessions which they do not absolutely need but you should give up yours or else you’re 1) compensating for a small penis 2) wanting to kill people with your gun fetishes 3) being a petulant child 4) blah blah. Of course, then they’ll try to avoid the analogy by claiming that they can have all sorts of things that they don’t need (including but not limited to cars and alcohol), but cars and alcohol aren’t guns, so no analogy can be made, at all.
But, of course, then “need” alone is no longer the metric, and now it’s need plus “lethality”, or something. And when it’s pointed out that things like flash suppressors aren’t adding lethality to weapons, the argument will again be shifted to something along the lines of “well, you obviously don’t really need them (For hunting only! Or maybe the degree of efficacy for self defense that we’ll allow?) so we can take them away, right?”
P.S. You misread the part about shotguns being difficult to get a hold of, though. 
Wouldn’t be the first time I misunderheard someone…so, my apologies for that and glad you pointed it out. 
-XT