172 replies to this topic

[RShack]

Is that a pro-gun or anti-gun statement?    Guns are bad because people get pissed off and shoot others.  Or you don't need a gun because it's very rare that you would ever encounter a pissed off gun wielder.

 

Oh, come on...

 

There's lots of reason to conclude that pissed off people with guns is a formula for bad shit to happen.

 

There's no credible evidence that having more people carrying guns helps anything... except gun companies...

 

Question:  Would you feel safer on a subway or airplane if everybody on it had a gun?

[BSLChrisStoner]

What's so tough to grasp for you? If there is way more violent crime in this country and more hatred, more assholes, etc...than it makes a big fucking difference.

I have no idea what the culture and crime is like in Australia. I know in the U.S., it fucking sucks. So, I need to know more than just say, well it worked there, so that means it wil work here. That's a stupid Rshack like argument.

Now, if you have stats that show it's the same, then it carries a lot more weight with me....although I still would never take guns out of people's hands..well at least some of the guns.

 

I get the point you are making Rob, and I think it is a fair one imo.  Australia a much smaller country population wise, also makes the comparison harder even with overall similar affluence numbers.

 

As we've talked many times before, also totally agree about legalizing drugs.

 

That said, if you replace Australia with Europe... you have a diverse continent with many different cultures, etc. The total population of Europe is almost a 1 to 1 with the US.  If you look at the total homicide rates in Europe vs. the US it's night and day.

 

One of the primary differences is the proliferation (or at least ease of access) of arms here.

 

For the record, I'm also fine with handguns remaining legal. Rifles remaining legal for hunters etc.  Would just like to see the larger machine guns not legally available, and have more standardized processes for obtaining guns across the country vs. the various existing laws state to state.

[RShack]

Would just like to see the larger machine guns not legally available,

 

Machine guns are not legally available... haven't been since the 1930's... unless you are officially deemed a "collector" and are willing to pay $300-per-gun for the ATF stamp... which is why you don't hear about machine-gun murders...

[SportsGuy]

I get the point you are making Rob, and I think it is a fair one imo. Australia a much smaller country population wise, also makes the comparison harder even with overall similar affluence numbers.

As we've talked many times before, also totally agree about legalizing drugs.

That said, if you replace Australia with Europe... you have a diverse continent with many different cultures, etc. The total population of Europe is almost a 1 to 1 with the US. If you look at the total homicide rates in Europe vs. the US it's night and day.

One of the primary differences is the proliferation (or at least ease of access) of arms here.

For the record, I'm also fine with handguns remaining legal. Rifles remaining legal for hunters etc. Would just like to see the larger machine guns not legally available, and have more standardized processes for obtaining guns across the country vs. the various existing laws state to state.

I'm fine with all of this.

Like I have said, the machine gun stuff I would need to hear more arguments for.

Ultimately, im not a big fan of taking away the rights of people unless they do something where they don't deserve the rights anymore. That's probably my biggest issue at the end of the day.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Machine guns are not legally available... haven't been since the 1930's... unless you are officially deemed a "collector" and are willing to pay $300-per-gun for the ATF stamp...

 

It's my lack of knowledge and correct terminology... but I believe there are plenty of guns which are legal which have extensive rounds. Not 8, 12, 16.... but 50,75, 100, etc.  Is this incorrect?

 

I'm thinking the Aurora shooter, and legal gun he had with 100 rounds.

[SportsGuy]

I have seen machine guns for sale, legally, in pawn shops. So, there is something that is clearly legal.

[RShack]

It's my lack of knowledge and correct terminology... but I believe there are plenty of guns which are legal which have extensive rounds. Not 8, 12, 16.... but 50,75, 100, etc.  Is this incorrect?

 

I'm thinking the Aurora shooter, and legal gun he had with 100 rounds.

 

A machine gun let's you pull the trigger once and hold it, and it keeps firing until you let go.  That's "automatic"

A semi-automatic requires a trigger pull for each bullet.

 

A semi-automatic handgun (one with a magazine in the handle) fires multiple bullets much more quickly than does a revolver because the mechanics of it work a lot faster.   Sometimes people get lazy and call a semi-automatic handgun an automatic, but it's not.

 

For semi-automatic weapons, the size of the magazine governs how many rounds you can shoot without having to stop and reload.  

Some states (including MD, I think) have arbitrary limits on the max size of the magazine.  Often 10.  

Semi-automatics otherwise come with std magazines that range from 12 to 18, depending on the manufacturer and the calibre.  

A .40 calibre and a .9mm might look the same, but the 9mm bullets are smaller, so the std magazine can fit more in the handle.

 

Personally, I don't see much sense in putting arbitrary limits on the size of standard magazines... but when people start having non-standard magazines that are designed *only* to let somebody shoot more bullets at people without having to stop and reload, well, that's when it starts getting demonstrably insane.

 

Re: what they call "assault rifles", what they really mean is "assault-looking rifles".  The real military ones have a switch that toggles between semi-automatic and automatic.  The legal ones are semi-automatic.  You can buy one that looks like a hunting rifle, but the macho guys think it doesn't look as cool.

 

Some semi-automatic rifles can be converted illegally to automatic.  It's not that hard to do.  But bad guys tend to not do it,  Because it's inconvenient.  Bad guys are mostly lazy.

[RShack]

I have seen machine guns for sale, legally, in pawn shops. So, there is something that is clearly legal.

 

No, you have not.

 

Maybe you saw something that looked like one.., but it wasn't one.

[mweb08]

Shooting a machine gun is a pretty cool experience.

[RShack]

No, you have not.

 

Maybe you saw something that looked like one.., but it wasn't one.

 

BTW, machine guns is where the argument that "bad guys will find a way" just doesn't hold water.

If it did, then you'd hear about machine guns being used in violent crime... but you never hear about that.  Never.  

 

You can get assault-looking rifles that mechanically are pretty much clones of the military M16... that's what an AR15 is... but they lack the switch that enables automatic mode (aka machine-gun mode).  From a mechanical standpoint, it's not that hard to change the part or modify it to turn it into a machine gun.  Some guys who are camouflage-wearing pretend-commandos do that while they're waiting for the black helicopters.  But the gun-toting criminal and movie-theater-mass-murderer who everybody uses as examples of why we all should be packing don't do that.  They could, but they don't.  Because "finding a way" isn't what governs their behavior.  Finding an easy-and-convenient way is all the trouble they're gonna go to...

[Russ]

I hate off days.

[RShack]

It's my lack of knowledge and correct terminology... but I believe there are plenty of guns which are legal which have extensive rounds. Not 8, 12, 16.... but 50,75, 100, etc.  Is this incorrect?

 

I'm thinking the Aurora shooter, and legal gun he had with 100 rounds.

 

For semi-automatic pistols, you can get people-killer magazines that stick way down out of the handle that can hold 30 rounds.

For assault-looking rifles, you can get drums that hold the bigger numbers.

 

These thing exist solely for the purpose of killing lots of people before having to reload.

It's completely nuts... but they don't get banned because of Freedom™

 

The lame excuse is that people wanna go to the shooting range, and making them reload before they shoot that many rounds is an unconstitutional infringement on their Freedom™... which is a 100% bullshit justification for making mass-murder devices legal... but there you are...

[RShack]

One last thought about the various kinds of guns and magazines...  the reason I don't see much sense in certain states arbitrarily imposing a limit on the non-mass-murder size of normal magazines is because it's way too easy to get around that... you just buy them someplace else... since the magazines aren't guns, nobody keeps track of who gets them where... it's like buying wiper blades or furnace filters... you can buy them on ebay...

 

The thing that makes the most sense to me is something nobody talks about much:  banning semi-automatics, pistols and rifles.  If you do that, then everybody who wants to have guns can still have revolvers and hunting rifles and shotguns.  I don't see why anybody needs anything beyond those 3 kinds.  For non-people-killing purposes, a non-semi-automatic hunting rifle is as good as anything. For self-defense purposes, a shotgun is probably best for most people, but a revolver is just as good an a semi-auto... if you need more than 6 bullets, you're in a dang firefight, not protecting yourself from an intruder.  

 

Plus, revolvers never jam like semi-auto's sometimes do, revolvers always work because there's nothing about them to go wrong.   Police forces didn't want to go from revolvers to the more complicated semi-automatics... but the Glock invasion pretty much made them do it... they were getting out-gunned solely because semi-auto's fire faster and they hold more bullets...  without semi-automatics, bad guys can't do as much damage without stopping to reload, and the damage they do happens slower... so, while I like my semi-automatic pistols, I can see giving them up, er, um, I mean selling them to the federal gov't... if the federal gov't was truly serious about it, I'd be fine with doing that for the greater good of having what I think would be a less-uncivilized society...

 

BTW, as a general rule, revolvers and semi-automatics don't use the same kind of bullets (rimmed vs rimless)... so controlling the kind of ammo that's sold would also help the utility of semi-automatics dry up...

 

Yeah, I know... there's a bazillion semi-auto's out there, and some people would hoard the bullets... but still... you gotta start somewhere.  IMO semi-automatics would be the best place to draw a line...  it's not banning guns, it's just banning a certain kind of gun... which is perfectly legal to do, we already did that with machine guns ages ago...of course, a faction of society would go completely berserk about it, calling it "tyranny", etc., but so it goes...