Assualt weapons

[_maklelan]

If I thought it would make a real difference I'd have no problem stripping away the ARs from my friends, neighbors, and online acquaintances like Rockslider. I would feel cold and indifferent toward any joy taken away from anyone. I'm just not sure it will make a real difference.

It would demonstrably make a difference. Research has shown this for literally decades.

If you have a choice, maybe the AR is the best weapon to go on a spree with, but eliminate that as an option and there's plenty else that will do the job.

No, there's not. This widespread assumption that people will just find other ways to produce the same results is laughably naïve. That's not what happens. Suicide rates drop drastically when guns aren't available. Shooting sprees result in far fewer deaths when automatic weapons are not available. Shootings in and of themselves decrease dramatically when firearms are not easy to come by. These things have been shown time and time again in the research, so why do people keep appealing to assumptions like this?

My gut feeling is to make a real difference you'd need a major crackdown on all semi-autos and/or high-capacity magazines. Heck, all a real deer hunter needs is a twelve gauge with a slug round. There's restrictions already for hunters on the number of rounds they can have in a magazine for the sake of preserving game, and so hunting/target shooting can be preserved while eliminating pretty much anything you could take out a crowd with. I see the focus on assault weapons and banning this or that kind of ammo as being ineffective and I'd put money on it not working. Would I vote for eliminating everything but pump/bold actions with low-capacity clips? Not sure. It would need to be quite the crackdown effort.

It needs to be far more than just a ban on assault rifles, but it needs to include that ban. Really the gun culture as a whole needs to go, because that's going to be the biggest ideological mitigator of the chance of legislation going through and its effectiveness once it does go through.

We're focusing on these unusual events where over a dozen people are killed. According to Kevin G. If I recall correctly, taking out two or three is also considered a mass shooting, and to protect against that you'd need to eliminate/crack down on pump/bolt action guns too. You'd have to effectively come seriously close to ending hunting.

No, you wouldn't. Handguns are used far, far more frequently in gun-related homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths than hunting rifles. All we have to do is put informed and effective barriers up so that it takes more work to get the guns and they become less available to people who shouldn't have them. Right now I could go online and buy handguns and rifles without so much as an ID. That's absolute madness.

A main counterargument in terms of effectiveness of gun bans is that criminals can get guns illegally, or 3d print them, or whatever.

That's not so much an argument as an uninformed assumption. Research has consistently shown that we can effectively and significantly mitigate the availability of guns to criminals. Places with strong gun control have fewer deaths, but the guns that do come in illegally come from places where there is weak gun control. If strong gun control is federally administered we can significantly reduce that trafficking.

But what we're seeing in the highly publicized events in US is one-off loners going postal. These folks don't know anybody and no savvy criminal would deal with them, and they probably wouldn't have the follow-through to do what it takes to procure an arsenal and avoid sting operations while they're at it. So then it's down to mass killings by criminal organizations. They'll get their guns one way or another, gun laws aren't going to stop that, but they don't seem to be the focus.

This is simply not true. Gun control laws can and do significantly mitigate that. It's the lack of gun control and the gun culture that facilitates the events that do happen.

Are there other ways to end mass shootings? I don't think guns should be the only focus. Banning CNN might work just as well.

The gun culture needs to change, too, as well as better public access to mental health treatment.

[_RockSlider]

1) It prevents many disasters. They have 3 gun-related deaths per 100,000 compared to the US' 10 per 100,000. nobody is so laughably naïve as to think laws are only effective or valuable if they never fail. France is much safer than the US in large part because of their restrictive laws.

Interesting. I'm actually surprised the number is that low.

So what you are saying Mak is that the safety/security gain that you get by taking away my freedoms/rights to own a gun is based on a margin of 0.00007 (0.0001 - 0.00003)

Like I say, you are willing to sacrifice freedoms for a false sense of security.

[_RockSlider]

You're contributing to the gun culture that conditions people to think guns are more important than lives, and that's just sick.

And you're contributing to the sense of safety culture that conditions people to think that being sheeple is more important than standing up for constitutional freedoms and rights and that's just sick.

[_maklelan]

Interesting. I'm actually surprised the number is that low.

Among developed nations it's only lower than Mexico and Russia, so maybe you need to get educated.

So what you are saying Mak is that the safety/security gain that you get by taking away my freedoms/rights to own a gun is based on a margin of 0.00007 (0.0001 - 0.00003)

That's almost 25,000 people a year that don't die, so yes, I would happily take away your imaginary right to a gun, but that's not actually what I'm advocating. I'm just advocating for more informed and effective restrictions on how guns are acquired. Assault rifles should be outright banned, though. The contemporary reading of the Second Amendment as an individual right has nothing to do with the original intent, but pretending that assault rifles should be included is a laughably uninformed bit of pro-gun rhetoric, even if one were uninformed enough to accept the modern reading.

Like I say, you are willing to sacrifice freedoms for a false sense of security.

It's demonstrably not a false sense of security, it's an actual security that you just arbitrarily insist isn't significant enough because you've made guns an identity marker.

[_maklelan]

And you're contributing to the sense of safety culture that conditions people to think that being sheeple is more important than standing up for constitutional freedoms and rights and that's just sick.

That's a pathetic way to rhetorically suggest there's something wrong with me thinking human lives are more important than an imaginary right to play with a proxy dick.

[_The CCC]

Mechanically speaking there is no difference between an "Assault" Rifle and any semiautomatic rifle. They are just uglier versions of one. A good semiautomatic .3006 and a 12 gauge shot gun are about all the long rifles a civilian needs for hunting/self protection.

[_RockSlider]

Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my shotgun?
Would you take away my freedom/right to protect my family in my home with said shotgun?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my ruger 10-22?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my M1A?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my 300 win mag?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use mini-14?
We already know you would take away my freedom/right to own/use my ar15.

For each of the above, please note how much that is going to shave off the 0.00007 margin.

[_The CCC]

Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my shotgun?
Would you take away my freedom/right to protect my family in my home with said shotgun?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my ruger 10-22?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my M1A?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use my 300 win mag?
Would you take away my freedom/right to own/use mini-14?
We already know you would take away my freedom/right to own/use my ar15.

For each of the above, please note how much that is going to shave off the 0.00007 margin.

No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
I don't know what a mini 14 is, but probably no.
No.

I definitely will take away your "right" to unlawfully use those or any other weapon.

[_RockSlider]

"There's not a lot of aiming going on when shooting into large crowds. That's kinda the purpose."

The Geneva Convention has it that only FMJ (full metal jacket) bullets are used in war. This goes hand in hand with the modern use of small caliber weapons. The whole idea is to wound, not kill. The old it takes two to remove the one wounded, and of course the humanity of it all.

Take away the ar/ak bullet sprayers, and I'm left to use weapons that were actually made to kill, not wound.

[_Jersey Girl]

And you're contributing to the sense of safety culture that conditions people to think that being sheeple is more important than standing up for constitutional freedoms and rights and that's just sick.

That's a pathetic way to rhetorically suggest there's something wrong with me thinking human lives are more important than an imaginary right to play with a proxy dick.

Oh no. No, mak.

Play with a proxy dick? Tell that to the US military. Tell that to the cops. Tell that to security guards.

I live with members of the NRA who are retired and/or ex-military and who are expert marksmen. I have a shooting range on my property. I live out in the sticks where police response is slow enough to get me killed. If someone threatens my family, you can bet your intellectual ass that I want them playing with their proxy dicks to defend me.

Additionally, you might not have noticed that there are women on this forum who own guns, know how to shoot and are hobbyists who hold the same or similar level of interest as rockslider as a hobbyist.

Are they playing with their proxy dicks, too?

Get the rabid and juvenile sexism out of your posts.