The vast majority of gun violence of all types, suicides, gang murders, mass shootings, domestic violence etc. are committed with hand guns. Hand gun ownership popularity is at a high in the US across many demographics.

But assault rifle bans are the most popular form of gun control, probably because of the popularity of hand guns.

I think it's because it's easier to divide and conquer with 'big scary assault rifles meant for the battlefield' - it helps gather some people who are in the middle, and agree with Heller in that people should be able to defend themselves especially at home... if you say assault rifle bad - no one needs one to hunt with - you get some people nodding...

so it's easier to pass and claim a victory lap.

I saw a definition recently that said assault rifle bans.. any rifle with at least one 'military type accessory' - that wording is part of the charade. I'm guessing a forward grip, maybe a red dot would be in that?

Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB's double barrell shotgun suggestion would not be the best protection for many grandmas, imho.

so maybe 'because of the popularity of hand guns' is that in a way, in that people in the middle want them.. I think some people will read that as in 'the popularity' is causing lots of shootings and that makes gun control popular.

maybe. all situations are different not an exhaustive suggestion(s) thought processes atm. ymmv.

> Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB's double barrell shotgun suggestion would not be the best protection for many grandmas, imho.

Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves? Maybe it is and I just haven't been exposed to it. For me, I'd feel more nervous with someone with deteriorating memory and eyesight handling a lethal weapon next door.

> Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves?

I don't think the way to reason about this is based on "serious fire power" vs some other kind of weapon that you feel is more acceptable. All guns can be lethal.

If grandma feels unsafe, she might get a gun. I can understand how older people might want firepower when they know they can't physically fend off an attacker.

If you accept grandma's right to be armed, would you rather she use a more or less dangerous gun?

Most gun controls make the weapon less safe. It's similar to how people think sharp knives are more dangerous, but they're actually much safer than dull knives.

The way to think about it is that the round is doing most of the work. The gun is just a delivery system for the round, and besides fully automatic weapons, every other weapon choice is about safety, accuracy, and reliability.

A "Short Barrel Rifle" or "Short Barrel Shotgun" is easier to operate, and therefore more safe than a non-NFA rifle. They were regulated to make people feel better, not to add safety. The velocity of NFA SBRs is actually lower than the velocity of a bullet leaving a non-NFA 16" barrel.

A silencer is not silent, it's just hearing protection, but also requires an NFA tax stamp. They don't sound like they do in the movies, and there's no mistaking it's a gunshot.

Expandable stocks and foregrips are scary looking, but the whole point of them is to gain accuracy, which makes the gun safer. These are usually legal, but there are silly regulations around these too.

Larger magazines allow you to focus on your threat instead of counting your bullets. For now, these are legal, but banning magazines with large capacity is a common talking point.

The reason all of these items look scary is because we see military with them. But even in the military, they're not to make the guns more lethal. The whole point is operational safety.

If you don't think anyone should be allowed to have a gun, that's actually a more defensible position. If people are allowed to have guns, they should be allowed to have any gun and any gun attachment that improves their safety.

> If you accept grandma's right to be armed, would you rather she use a more or less dangerous gun?

The idea that any gun would have made my grandma more safe is ludicrous to me. Giving my grandmother a gun would have either made her less safe, or way way less safe.

> If people are allowed to have guns, they should be allowed to have any gun and any gun attachment that improves their safety.

She was allowed to have one, but the only attachment that would have improved her safety is no gun.

I suppose it depends on what type of grandma you have :)

Maybe with training, your grandma could enjoy plinking targets and also be safer in her home?

There are grandmas that love hunting and spending time at the range.

It'd be nice to live in a world where nobody ever commits acts of violence. Unfortunately, we banned violence long ago, and it seems that criminals are still doing it anyway. The next best thing we can do is be prepared.

Then again, comparing New World statistics to Europe ans Asia, it seems pretty clear that personal gun ownership isn't the only option for staying alive.

Which gun ownership stats are you using for Europe? IIRC there's a ton of unregistered literally military guns lying around over there from the various wars.

Guns don't go bad, after all.

(And if you count things like the Holodomor, Holocaust, Cambodian Genocide etc as murder, I think the correlation between 'murder rate' and 'civilian gun ownership rate' takes a decidedly different slope)

We can not compare America to Europe or Asia - there are too many differing factors.

A lot of people want to compare because money or gdp is similar or whatever - but they are all totally different.

I'd love to have the same kind of social safety nets that many Euro countries have, I think much of the US violence in related to the lack of stability in families that is a reflection of financial insecurities honestly.

Other things like the value of the drug markets here, and the quick access of Latin countries to here ( https://www.businessinsider.com/latin-america-is-the-worlds-... ) - make a huge difference. comparing stats about any other place is just apples and oranges.

You know your grandmother better than I, so I have little doubt that you may be right. Certainly there are plenty of senior citizens that do not have the physical or and mental abilities to properly wield a weapon. I'd like to think that all of those are well taken care of with others protecting them in one way or another.

I have about a dozen grandmas in my neighborhood that are all physically and mentally doing very well. They don't need walkers or wheelchairs. some still work, some run businesses. They garden, the go out. Every single one of them can wield a shovel or a firearm if need be.

Sadly there is advice out there that puts them in more danger in a similar way that you describe with yours - I've heard popular advice repeated like 'you need a revolver that don't jam' - best thing is 'a double barrel 12 ga shotgun' - quite frankly I think that is terrible advice for most of them.

For many with the kind of physical limitations in our area, something like a GSG-16 .22 , a Mossberg 715 Pistol .22 , even a Walther Arms Uzi Tactical Rifle Semi-Auto .22 - these things would be easier to use, less fear of recoil, easier to keep on target of bad guys and less chance of inuring self, or bystanders / neighbors..

yet some of the GC ideas would limit access to exactly these kinds of safer features all in the name fear mongering 'military assault accessories' -

the grandma next door would be less safe being forced not to have access to these options and instead forced to use something will less control and options. That's simply truth.

again, it may not be true for every grandma in the world, but a majority of them (that are not bedridden / incapacitated etc), I think so.

a mag full of 22 win mag is not really 'serious firepower' - I mean it is, but I think people would consider like a SCAR or M60 to be serious - and lots of people chuckle at someone using '22'...

I think it depends on where you live, and how valuable you are in terms of theft and attractiveness.

For examples - the super rich in Miami probably need more security than the richer in Beverly Hills. If you are attractive / sexy in Miami you are probably not more in danger than if you are that sexy in like St Louis or Newark NJ / Detriot.

There was a country girl in the news a couple years back, she was young and very pretty. The whole town knew her husband had died / had a funeral - a couple weeks later she needed firearms to stop bad things happening at her house.

I've been in Nashville (TN) and the suburbs of it for many years, and I will say that you won't need weapons everyday, but the crime, especially with violent younger people is increasing at a rate that is kind of shocking. We have multiple armed robberies all around us. Last week someone put a knife to a convenience store customer;s throat in order to rob the gas station.

People and places are being robbed left and right around here these days - and many of them get extra violent without reason. Some have been caught on door cams lately. With the 'gentrification' that certain places are bringing - it's not going to get any better.

I spent more than a decade working the nightshift downtown. It was during those times it became clear to me, when you need help, if you have time to call the cops - it will take a long time for them to get to you.

My neighbor who is grandma age has had her house attempted to be broken into multiple times throughout the years. Partially because it is off the main road enough to be secluded for privacy in attacks.

People around her are busting into cars, jacking mail from mailboxes a lot.. that is not usually violent, but when you catch these people doing these things, sometimes they pop off with all kinds of crazy, sometimes with stolen guns.

I don't know what it's like in the part of the world you are in, but around here it's not everyday you in the thick of it - not like SE DC was in the 80s.. but everyday there is lots of crime all around us (like within a 1/2 mile and lots within 5 miles) - it's just a matter of time before you are in a normal place at a bad time.

Hopefully you can run / drive away and maybe just use a pepper spray and whistle.. but the criminals around here have really stepped up the violence and guns the past few years. There are signs it's getting worse. I would suggest the possible need for weaponry during the daylight hours is much more often now than it was a decade ago I'd say only those who worked at night needed to really be extra aware of surroundings and such.

  lots of people chuckle at someone using '22'

President Reagan very, very nearly died from one ricocheted .22 round.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ron...

I had not known that, appreciate the reference. Indeed I think a 22 or 22 win mag is probably good for most grandma situations - it could certainly stop a couple of bad guys that are not wearing plate armor.. easy to control recoil, so they won't be afraid of it going off, and they can focus on sending multiple rounds towards targets to stop them.

From what I've seen in the news and videos most of violent criminals around here have been tshirts and hoodies, generally 1 -4 people, although the group of kids that took a musician out recently over a van I think was 5 maybe 6 at once. 30 rounds of 22 would be better than trying to swat them with a heavy purse.

If your threat was high value target, or some kind of state entity, I would not count on a 22 to be the best choice. Some people have suggested winter coats and layers of cloth can impede a 22, maybe if it's hollow.. for grandmas in Minnesota and such I'd probably suggest training with and getting used to something that can run critical duty or critical defense ammo through it instead maybe.

Most of my older neighbors would do well with any low recoil round if the platform was easy to handle.

Which is one reason this assault style banning talk bothers me so much. It literally makes them more dangerous and puts them in more danger by regulation, which is not silly.

It gives the strong criminals an advantage and the weaker citizens a disadvantage in life threatening situations.

again, not an expert, doctor, lawyer, etc.. just been doing some research and trying to share some things I have found that may be surprising for those who have not. There is certainly more to know, ymmv.

An "M16" shoots a 22 caliber bullet. Its called a 223, but its a 22 caliber diameter bullet.

What's the plan for when grandma develops dementia? The paranoia will make her unwilling to part with her beloved firearm...do we just wait until she murders a family member or home health aid?

That seems like a much more important question than bickering over precisely which firearm grandma should have as she slides into dementia.

https://khn.org/news/dementia-and-gun-safety-when-should-agi...

I agree we need more plans for dementia, Alzheimer's and similar mental and physical defunks.. with guns and other rights as well.

There will likely come a point when people need to step in and take control of elderly people's finances, weapons, other possession, choices for nutrition and healthcare, all that.

There are people at many ages that are stripped of their rights for different reasons. I hope the world exposes more of these concerns. I recently helped with a site for exposing some people who used the law for taking over people's stuff - family pushed through a busy judge, took over her house and bank accounts, made her broke after a couple years then disappeared. She was left to the state to care for with no money, no house, everything - and she was quite capable of planning her future and retirement, but it was all taken.

I think there are many people who have had rights taken from them in unfair ways. In same cases states are moving to restore voting and gun rights who have served their time and such.

At the same time we need more tests for proving that people are mentally and physically fit enough to wield weapons, cars, and other things safely.

In some of those cases it may make sense to have special teams show elderly people how to use different weapons and different cars should the need arise. In other cases it could be deemed that they should not drive or try to defend themselves.

I'd like to think our society will take care of these older people so they never need to worry about transportation or fighting. We need to make a lot of changes for the future if this is to be however. Right now our society is set to leave a lot of old people to languish without good care and safety - and most just look the other way as they suffer.

>probably because of the popularity of hand guns.

I think it's more that most of those advocating for these rifle bans have limited or no experience with any firearm, let a lone rifles. Most of these things just look scary to people who are unfamiliar with them, even though they'd be functionally equivalent to rifles with wooden stocks and wooden foregrips.

Edit: clarifying word

Agreed. A 9 MM rifle vs a 9 MM pistol both semiautomatic the main difference is accuracy and thats due to barrel length. You wont magically get bullets out faster.

I feel like anybody wanting to pass gun laws in congress should take basic firearms courses. It takes a lot for me to be in the range as a newcomer and just shoot. I am convinced the issue isnt guns its the culture / mental state of the person with the gun.

Worse yet you are disarming people who had a better chance against criminals who have access to worse weapons and will likely go for those.

This is literally untrue. 9mm ammo comes out of a longer barrel at higher velocity than out of a shorter.

http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html

Velocity isn't really what you care about though. I understand the point you're trying to make, but that table really points out that the type of the round you're using has a greater effect on velocity than the barrel length itself. The linked muzzle energy plot, which is what you really care about, shows this quite well, where we stay fairly stable for all tested rounds and fall off significantly at barrel lengths shorter than 7".

Muzzle energy is defined as the bullet's kinetic energy upon exit, which is proportional to the square of velocity, which means barrel length necessarily affects muzzle energy more than muzzle velocity.

From quick Google searches, 9mm pistol barrels are around 4-5 inches long, 9mm rifles around 16". This has a major impact on muzzle velocity, and an even greater impact on muzzle energy.

But it's still reliant on trigger pull. How quickly you shoot rounds is roughly similar, depending on the reset trigger of the gun. In some cases you get more rounds out quicker from a pistol, they might not have the same velocity or accuracy however.

Edit: In other words I'm talking about rate of bullets fired per second, and not how fast they leave the clip / magazine which is what you're talking about.

It’s a common contention of the gun advocacy community that it’s ignorance that drives awb, but that flies in the face of the evidence that veterans are disproportionately represented in elected officials, police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation & its a subject that is easily researchable.

I think it’s more likely that the people who are politically motivated around this issue represent the extremes and that leads to weird compromises.

I'm not sure what this has to do with my point. Veterans generally don't support more gun control (I am one), but you're right that political motivations can cause weird bedfellows. Anyway, I wasn't really talking about politicians as it were ... more the general public.

Right. The point that gets missed is that the contention is often less about the nuances of any particular firearm's capabilities and more about the common intentions of their use. EVERY gun is violent in the hands of someone trying to commit violence. Yet, mass shooters (who kill people in a particularly cruel manner, randomly, and that which is difficult for the average person to guard against) gravitate to assault rifles, for whatever reason. So people want them banned. Will that stop mass killings, from a functional perspective? Probably not. But it does remove a step in the psychic progression from normalcy to a massacre. Since the whole problem is a dysfunction of our collective processing of the lives we face, maybe the disruption to that flow a ban would represent is enough. Some say we're afraid of the big scary rifle; I say, sure, and a mass shooter feels empowered by it.

As an addendum, I have to imagine that GRAs enjoy this debate, because as long as we're stuck on it, we don't have to talk about how access to handguns increases the successful suicide attempt rate.

  mass shooters... gravitate to assault rifles

Absolutely false. The vast majority of "mass shootings" are with handguns.

We have different definitions of mass shooters. I assume you advocate strongly, with great investments of time, energy, and money, to alleviate the ones I would say you're including erroneously, yes?

Slick reply, but a mocking, obsequious attempt to brush the definitions aside changes nothing: the parent comment is correct.

> We have different definitions of mass shooters.

You're almost certainly talking about high profile shooting incidents with broad media coverage, that drive what is essentially a moral panic.

Parent comment is referring to incidents where 3+ people get shot, which often do not make the national and international media, and are predominately carried out with handguns.

The shootings last August that got a lot of attention are a great example. Couple of back-to-back mass shooting incidents in TX and Ohio got a lot of press... even though just the week before something like 34 people got shot in Chicago over the course of 2 days; hardly a word in the press outside of Chi-town.

You're mistaken, as I was simply trying to draw attention to the fact that the motivations, and therefore salves, for a) a mass shooter who enters a soft target and kills strangers indiscriminately, and b) a "mass shooter" who knows his target and catches innocents in the crossfire, differ substantially.

You group the two in order to dilute the focus of anti-gun violence advocacy, but you're given away by how little you care about instances of the latter definition otherwise. If "mental healthcare" is your panacea, it won't help non-suicide handgun violence. You know that, and I know that, and it's then perplexing why you would think we wouldn't notice.

when "police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation" - they could have their own protection interest in mind more than yours.

When they choose to carry 'high capacity magazines', SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) - and other weaponry, it is understood these things help them be safer...

If grandma is not allowed to be safer because random bad guy - you have to wonder, or should maybe.

> SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo)

It's not that bad.

The easy way is to find an SBR you want to buy, file Form 4 for $200, wait for a few months, then take receipt of your NFA item.

Or if you want to do a conversion from an existing rifle, file Form 1 (also $200) and get short barrel. The disadvantage is that you've then created an NFA weapon, so you'd have to be more careful how you handle transfer and sale.

If you don't want an NFA SBR, well, AR-15s can be pistols. Pistols can be short. Pistols can't have buttstocks, but there are legal products that are not "intended" to be used as stocks. They happen to look just like a stock, but they're totally intended to be used as an arm brace. If you do use one as a buttstock, that's not how it was intended to be used, but it is legal to do so. This approach is so popular that ATF has issued letters saying it's not illegal.

Here's most of what you need to know: http://preparedgunowners.com/2017/04/27/atf-reverses-opinion...

It's not mentioned in the article, but pistols cannot have a forward grip, as that would make them "Any Other Weapon", which is NFA. If you have a forward grip but don't have the tax stamp, you'll go to prison. Keep in mind you can start down the AR-15 pistol route, then later get your Form 1 tax stamp to convert it into a rifle by attaching a stock.

This is all quite ridiculous, but that's the law.

> If you have a forward grip but don't have the tax stamp, you'll go to prison.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure this applies even if the grip isn't attached, or is attached to another gun. All depends on how friendly the ATF is feeling...

Yeah, sometimes. There's an ATF concept called "constructive possession" which means if you have all the parts, you're in a legal grey area. If the ATF thinks you have the intent to assemble an unlawful weapon, and you have constructive possession, then you might be a criminal.

I think it's unlikely (but possible) a case would be brought against you for just having the grip, and I'm not sure if that's ever actually happened. As opposed to if you had all the parts to make a machine gun, where there could only be one use for those parts.

Also interesting, drilling the extra hole in your AR-15 lower so that it could some day accept an auto-sear is a serious felony, even if you don't own the auto-sear.

I'm fascinated by how insane these rules are after I learned that I can't legally own or operate a firearm because I'm a medical marijuana user. If cannabis ever gets unscheduled, I'd like to build a little arsenal.

Twice now “grandma” has been employed as a reason assault rifles should be legal. Come on, this has nothing to do with a fictional grandmother with a scopes rifle. It’s like some talking point gone awry.

I mentioned large capacity magazines, forward grips, and a red dot sight. Not 'scopes' - which could mean many things, but I believe are more often referring to 4x,10, 16, etc magnified scopes that are more often used for long range hunting..

My point was that some of the 'assault rifle bans' are trying to stop simple things like a grip addon, a collapsible stock, an over 10rd magazine - any one of those things could make the whole thing illegal..

and I would want grandma to have access to those things, all of them. It would make her, and her neighbors safer.

This is not fictional in any way shape or form.

Not too long ago a grandma near me went to take the shooting class with a 38 revolver.. it hurt her wrists after a few shots and everyone quickly realized she would not be able to perform the amount of firing to do the practice and the test with one.

If she had been given a police issue SBR MP5 with muzzle break, forward grip, collapsible stock, laser and red dot - she would be able to plink accurately all day long.

These things they want to ban are actually safety features - but people can't see that.

I may have to make a few grandma videos to show this maybe.

I think we all personally want safety for grandmas in that way.

Unfortunately we can't all control that. When my neighbors moved here they chose safe neighborhoods that had little violence / crime. Over the years the demographics have changed immensely, and crime has soared. Many people here are stuck, they want to get out but housing from here to an hour outside of town has gotten so expensive it doesn't make sense.

No journal of anything that compares the USA to Japan and crime or shootings debunks anything.

No other country in the world has the same challenges that America does. I'd love to live in a place that has real social safety nets and does not have the Latin American countries a hop skip and train away ( https://www.businessinsider.com/latin-america-is-the-worlds-... )

but sometimes it's best for you and grandma to have a condom and not need it than to need one and not have it. Even if you want grandma to never have to worry about stds.. they actually happen a lot, want it or not.

> When my neighbors moved here they chose safe neighborhoods that had little violence / crime. Over the years the demographics have changed immensely, and crime has soared.

Where is this? My understanding is that violent crime has been reduced in a majority of America.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...

> I'd love to live in a place that has real social safety nets and does not have the Latin American countries a hop skip and train away

This doesn't make sense, the Latin countries were a hop skip and a train away 20 years ago, so this is a moot point.

> the US, with the most guns per head in the world, has the highest rate of deaths from firearms, while Japan, which has the lowest rate of gun ownership, has the least.

Well, duh. I bet more people die from falling down stairs in multi-level houses than in single level.

A scoped rifle? vs. assault rifle? I mean, sometimes these concepts are combined, but generally a modern military-style rifle has iron sights or at most a reflex sight.

I think your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding.

Not only that, support for banning hand guns has collapsed: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun.... In 1959, 60% of people favored a handgun ban, to 36% opposed. By 2011 that had flipped to 73% opposed and just 26% in favor.

People focus on rifles, which are responsible for relatively few deaths, because banning handguns is wildly unpopular. (Heck Kamala Harris owns a handgun.)

Rifles have none of the legitimate uses that gun advocates go on about so its a low reward but 0 loss situation to ban them.

Unless someone is proposing you need to defend your house against a zombie invasion.

? The majority of hunting is performed with rifles, though shotguns and pistols do have roles. This includes semi-automatic rifles.

A big fraction of serious marksmanship is done with rifles, including multiple formats that depend upon semi-automatic rifles.

There are many collectors of curios & relics of military and sporting history, which are overwhelmingly rifles.

My brother kills trapped raccoons on his property with a rifle instead of drowning them because he feels it is more humane.

There's a ton of legitimate sporting use, some defense use, and they are used much, much less in crime than handguns.

Is this a super low effort troll?

The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with finding food.

The tinfoil hat interpretation is that rifles are far more effective in both battlefield (full barrel) and urban warfare (carbines) than sidearms, and confiscating them removes the last chance any populace has against its own government. Such that it's in the interest of despotic regimes to do so.

Private ownership of battle rifles (c.f. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq insurgency) are pretty much the only (valid) defense against the "Lol you think you can fight a war against an adversary with drones and nukes?" argument.

> The majority of "mass shootings" are gang violence, but gun control advocates will bring it up when there is a school/mall/etc. shooting to play on people's fears and make them believe that almost every day there is someone killing a bunch of kids in a school.

I think the difference is gang shootings typically take place in rough neighborhoods. When you enter a high crime area you're aware of an elevated risk. Innocent bystanders do get killed but it's probably a much lower percentage than the gang members. As horrible as it is, gangs are somewhat consenting to this level of violence by initiating it.

Terrorism and mass shootings are horrific because they typically take place in previously safe areas and claim almost exclusively innocent bystanders.

If you have children in school, they now practice "Code Red" drills where they lock the classroom and hide to simulate an active shooter.

Wether your pro or anti-gun no one wants the reality we have now where kids grow up with this kind of fear.

While the number of deaths from terrorism are far lower, the fear is probably far higher because kids grow up thinking/knowing it could happen anywhere.

I think for this reason people focus more on these mass shootings and how to prevent them.

>Wether your pro or anti-gun no one wants the reality we have now where kids grow up with this kind of fear.

The level of fear instilled into the population is wildly disconnected from the realities of risk and we've known this for decades. Whether it's the security theater at the airport, modern day duck-and-cover, or whatever the 6pm news is scaring old people with this week; the line of reasoning that goes something like "we taught people to fear risk X, the way to alleviate the fear is to reduce the likelihood of X" is the most asinine bullshit in the world.

Totally agree.

The way to alleviate the fear is through education and turning off the dramatic, need FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) to sell things, "news".

> "we taught people to fear risk X, the way to alleviate the fear is to reduce the likelihood of X" is the most asinine bullshit in the world.

The US was a scary place after 9/11. I'm sure a lot of money was wasted in domestic security that didn't do anything, but I'm glad we made an effort to reduce the likelihood of future terrorist attacks rather than just reinforcing how incredibly rare they are.

We can't stop terrorism or mass shootings but we should try to make it as difficult as possible even if they are rare events.

The Post 9/11 security theater is not a good model to follow, and to compare your plans for gun control to that in any sort of positive association is a good reason for any person who has the slightest of care toward civil liberties to just flat out ignore you.

I'm not using it as a model of perfection, but rather saying at least we did something. Sure, it wasn't perfect and we could have done way better, but imagine if we had done nothing but told people how rare terrorist attacks are each time they happened. There's a ton of room in between those two extremes to try to make a positive change.

> As horrible as it is, gangs are somewhat consenting to this level of violence by initiating it.

I'm going to preface this by saying I have no opinion on gun control.

Gang members don't live in neighborhoods inhabited exclusively by other gang members (I doubt they make up the majority in any neighborhood). The people who live in these neighborhoods never consented to this, and it's much harder for them to move than to avoid public areas so imho gang violence is just as bad if not worst than any other type of shooting.

One thing I don't get is Mother Jones excludes shootings that result from domestic violence, drug deals and gang activity.

Probably because those shootings are probably in high gun control areas like Chicago, NJ, CA where laws are strictest, so it shows that gun control doesn't really work to stop those, and those deaths are usually the result overwhelmingly of handguns, not AR-15's or "assault style rifles" which are just semi-automatic rifles that look militaristic and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks. In this case, the numbers don't help their agenda.

The most effective forms of gun control should be focused on guns used in the majority of crime, which are handguns, but that's not the discussion that's being had because the gun debate is media driven, which is centered around mass shootings (greater shock factor, better ratings), which statistically are the rarest and of least concern by numbers (I think gun death/homicides by rifle < 300 even including mass shootings). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

AR-15s are also very popular because they're a platform you can take an AR-15 lower, and or buy a cheap one and build up slowly over time until you have a very nice and accurate rifle. They look militaristic because their metal exterior but when people say they're identical functionally to hunting rifles, they're not lying when it comes to the part that handles firing the bullet.

I'll also leave people with this: https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1138520780042465280

I'm really tired of this argument that people are irrationally afraid of black rifles and simply don't understand the machines they're purporting to regulate. These are devices that were designed to be field stripped by 18 year olds in a jungle. They're not that complicated.

The Mini-14 (for example) has a wooden stock, and looks like something out of Little House On The Prairie, in part because it was brought to market at a time where the M-16, a descendant of the Stoner AR-15 design, had acquired a reputation for dreadful unreliability. In an urban environment, it's just as problematic as an AR-15; what's your point?

Another almost perfectly unhelpful argument is the irrationality of assault weapons bans. This is the Nelson Muntz of firearms regulations argument. The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine. It was the 2A crowd, and particularly the NRA, that fought off gun control advocates to the absurd position they occupy now. It's not some article of faith among gun control advocates that grips and barrel shrouds are actually important. The NRA is the reason we ended up here, and now they're telling us to stop hitting ourselves.

Also, another example of a firearm with a wood stock? The AK-47.

> The Mini-14 (for example) has a wooden stock, and looks like something out of Little House On The Prairie, in part because it was brought to market at a time where the M-16, a descendant of the Stoner AR-15 design, had acquired a reputation for dreadful unreliability. In an urban environment, it's just as problematic as an AR-15; what's your point?

That you don't see pictures of the Mini-14 on the evening news as an exemplar of something to be prohibited when they're trying to drum up support for new laws.

> The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine.

Which is to say the significant majority of all rifles. So straight forward but not sane, because it would be enormous overreach rather than anything that could actually pass or survive judicial review.

But then the compromise is inherently ridiculous because there is no meaningful distinction to be made between an ordinary hunting rifle and a "military" rifle, and instead of accepting that they proceeded to insist on meaningless distinctions.

> Which is to say the significant majority of all rifles. So straight forward but not sane, because it would be enormous overreach rather than anything that could actually pass or survive judicial review.

I'm amused that this is an actual argument. "We're not idiots who don't understand guns, if we had our way we would have had a ban for an overreaching category of firearms!"

It's easy to win arguments when you make them up yourself to knock down. That comment is responding to and inaccurately paraphrasing me. I'm right here. I suggest you rebut something I actually said.

Not inaccurate:

> The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine.

It's interesting to see you write as if the very words in your quotation aren't there to compare with how you paraphrased them. A bold choice!

Being truthful is not bold. Or maybe it is from your standpoint.

If you don't think that the category of semiautomatic longguns that have detachable magazines is not overreaching, then more power to you. Sorry, I mean bless your heart as they might say in the South.

> This is the Nelson Muntz of firearms regulations argument. The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine. It was the 2A crowd, and particularly the NRA, that fought off gun control advocates to the absurd position they occupy now.

This is a fair point. I think people underestimate the degree to which 2A advocates are playing from a position of strength. People here in Maryland probably don’t know that semi-automatic rifles remain completely legal notwithstanding the 2013 “ban.”

That raises the question though: presumably, gun control advocates were maneuvered onto this hard-to-defend ground be for reasons. Presumably, nobody could gin up enough support to take away semi-automatic hunting rifles from Minnesota Democrats.

I think a federal ban on semi-automatic rifles is a ridiculous, overreaching, and counterproductive goal. Hunters in Minnesota already require licenses; should Minnesota choose, those licenses should suffice to ensure access to semi-automatic rifles. I don't care what color those rifles are, but Minnesota might care about their magazine sizes. Montana might opt out of firearms regulation entirely; that also seems like a perfectly cromulent experiment to run in the laboratories of democracy.

> The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine.

The last time I saw you in a discussion like this, I asked you for a source and all you could give me was a draft bill with a few guns banned by name. No general ban on semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines. I think you're wrong on this. You should stop repeating this unless you can back it up.

I appreciate the attempt at a mic-drop here, but I actually responded to your comment with a link to a bill that was not merely "a few guns banned by name". Maybe you missed it; my response came a day or two after you wrote your comment. I'll hold on to my argument, thanks.

This is what you linked to:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/386...

Were you thinking of something else? Because I really don't see how it supports your argument.

You've just linked to a bill that effectively allows the attorney general to designate any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine an "assault weapon". There's not a barrel shroud to be found in it.

It's an I-Know-It-When-I-See-It standard that would not have survived legal challenge with carveouts for Jimmy's squirrel rifle and grandpappy's hunting rifle. Sure, it's not feature tests, but it's not any more rational. If the intent was to ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, that law does not do that. If you believe that this law is "sane and straightforward," what rational basis is there for banning some semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines while leaving others available at the whim of the Attorney General?

I was going to type out a rebuttal to this, because I think you're mischaracterizing a straightforward and somewhat technical proposal. But I realize that's besides the point. You don't like this proposal, which is fine. But you had no footing to make the argument that it didn't exist at all, or that it didn't back up my argument. Concede that, and I'm happy to keep discussing.

I wouldn't like proposals that banned semiautomatic weapons with detachable or high capacity fixed magazines, either, but I'd concede that such proposals make a rational distinction in potentially dangerous functionality. My problem specifically with this proposal as well as subsequent ones that include feature tests and the like is that they fail to make any rational distinction.

You're entitled to your opinion that the bill in question is a "sane and straightforward" approach in contrast to subsequent proposals that aren't because of irrational feature tests. I just don't think that's a defensible one. Giving the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury wide latitude to say "this semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine is ok but this other one isn't" is just as arbitrary as later feature tests. And if anything, this proposal is worse public policy: one administration could add every eligible semi-automatic rifle to the list and the next one could make the list empty.

Either ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines or don't. Maybe exempt rimfire from any ban or don't. If there's a rational distinction beyond that to be made, make it.

You can use the word "sane" to mean anything you want it to. As you well know, since you're the one who brought that long, detailed previous thread into this one, the meaning I'm giving it "not based on cosmetic features like grips and barrel shrouds". The basis for my argument is factual, and you should concede that, because you yourself set the tone and expectation of rigor on this thread, and you aren't living up to that standard.

That I'm not even advocating for that particular proposal is besides the point. You accused me of arguing in bad faith, and I am now pointing out that it's in fact you that are doing that now. It's an easy problem to correct; you simply have to say "I was wrong about that, let's move on".

Instead of replying with a bunch of counter arguments to some random person on HN, why don't you make a proposal?

What is your idea? How should guns be regulated in America.

I'm fucking tired of this same "we need to do something" argument all the time, with nobody ever actually saying anything at all.

Like no shit, something should be done.

You got a idea? What is it?

I don't know why you think this would be difficult to respond to. Obviously, I think that states should be allowed to enact and administer laws that require licensure for possession of semi-automatic long guns.

Ultimately, you are agruing for DRM. Note that the State Separtment is _still_ (after the court loss) trying to claim ITAR on firearm CAD's.

Our ability to print guns will only improve. Hand waving it away as something you dont think matters wont change it.

Our ability to print everything will only improve. If you're an an-cap, there's a coherent argument to be made here, but if not, your argument proves too much.

You are arguing for two classes of people; those with access to general purpose computing, and those without.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI

An AK-47 is a fully automatic rifle.

People argue AR-15 are "fully semi-automatic rifles" which is an oxymoron or "assault style" or that AR stands for "assault rifle". This is the level of ignorance and misinformation in the debate I'm addressing.

An Assault or Automatic rifle can fire multiple round bursts and an AR-15 is no more dangerous than any other semi-automatic weapon (like a standard Glock pistol). You conflate it with an M-16, just like every other ignorant person. An M-16 fires multi round bursts, an AR-15 is single trigger pull, single bullet fire, just like any other rifle a citizen can legally purchase without a special license including the wood stock hunting rifle with a scope that hunters would use to drop a large buck, bear, or boar (which are often larger caliber in those cases). AR-15's are heavily modifiable, easy to repair, reliable, and use the same 5.56 NATO ammo so the ammo is cheap and can be bought surplus. If they were in anyway similar to an M-16 in anyway that mattered (meaning they can fire multiple bullets in a single trigger pull), you'd get a nice raid from the ATF. The AR-15, just like a semi-automatic pistol or hunting rifle requires you to pull the trigger again for each bullet you want to fire. The argument here singling out this gun because its popular with everyone, including crazy people doesn't make a bit of difference in making anyone safe if someone buys another semi-automatic rifle and does the same thing, or just carries two pistols (as was the case at VA Tech).

Again, these are laws nitpicking over a gun that is a rifle, when rifles account for < 4% of gun deaths in a country where gun violence isn't the major cause of death and stabbings/homicide and mass murders and bombings and shootings are still massive problems in other western countries with outright gun bans. It's not a rational application of our time and attention for the best effect and preventing unwanted death and homicide. Your argument is driven by media sensationalism, that is profit and ratings driven, real gun policy requires dealing with the boring every day pistol and criminal violence, and the underlying causes of violence and crime. The people saying no one needs guns have armed guards and security personnel and can afford to live in very safe upper crust neighborhoods or regions like Martha's Vineyard or in penthouses with door men, or gated communities. They live in San Francisco, not Oakland, they live in NYC or downtown Manhattan, not Camden, NJ. They can walk to a police station, they're not 30 minutes drive from the local county sheriff. It's the height of privileged people dictating policy for an environment they're isolated and protected themselves from. It's okay if they ban guns because it doesn't truly effect them in any meaningful way. Unless they're on the receiving end like the HK government, in which case its probably best for you you keep the average citizen disarmed.

Erm, the post your responding to distinguishes, correctly between an ar-15 and m-16. You're attempting to correct someone who, by all accounts, appears to know more about firearms than you do.

It's also simply false that the only differentiating factor of "danger" to a weapon is whether or not it is semi or fully automatic. If an ar-15 were no more dangerous than a Glock pistol, you wouldn't need an ar-15 to defend from the onslaught of wild hogs.

Or in other words: pick one, either at style rifles are superior for self defense, or they're non more dangerous than a pistol. You can't have it both ways.

He doesn't tho, he compares an AR-15 to an AK-47 and says an AR-15 is designed to broken down in the jungle (that's the M-16, which was what was used in Vietnam, they conflated the two, trying to disingenuously frame AR-15's as a war weapon used by the military).

Rifles are superior for self defense at a distance. So in the "wild hog" scenario, best to pick them off from a tree, or before they get close. In a more realistic case, shooting someone coming at you from across your yard (especially if you have a large yard or live close to wilderness). But if wild hogs aren't your concern, but assailants coming across your yard that are armed: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/homeowner-shoots-kills-men-...

Any closer than that you're probably better off with a shot gun for home defense, unless...you're defense needs are different or you're concerned about multiple assailants, which case a pistol might be better.

Pistols are more apt for shooting and more easily handled in a close quarter environment, where accuracy isn't difficult to achieve and you need to move the gun quickly, so an assailant that is close to you. They're also easier to conceal and carry with you. That's when you'd want a Glock, with hollow points which would do far more that 5.56 ammo since the caliber on even a 9mm much less a 45 is significantly larger. The tip of a 5.56 bullet isn't much larger than a .22 so to say its more dangerous, unless you count velocity, but unless you're wearing body armor, a 9mm or .45 pistol would be worse. It's why police generally carry pistols, and honestly, if you're worried about the "active shooter" in a building, pistols are just as much and have been as much of a threat, to say nothing of what most gun homicides are caused by.

> He doesn't tho, he compares an AR-15 to an AK-47

No, he points out that an AK-47 has a wooden stock.

> that's the M-16, which was what was used in Vietnam, they conflated the two, trying to disingenuously frame AR-15's as a war weapon used by the military

The M16 is an AR-15. Like, it's the same platform, it's just that the M16 variant is automatic and uses nato rounds. The AR-15 was designed to be broken down in the jungle in vietnam, which is why the US army adopted it under the designation M16. This isn't really controversial[0], "The M16 rifle is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military." But before it was designated the M16, the US Army procured standard, automatic, AR-15s. Early M16 and early AR-15s are practically identical, and early M16s were stamped as AR-15s, so yes, in the early 60s, the US military absolutely used AR-15s as a war weapon.

So yes, he's exactly right, and demonstrably better educated on firearm history than you are.

Its again worth noting that an AR-15 has a higher muzzle velocity, stopping power, and range than any handgun you'd be able to fire accurately. It's also easier to hit things with a rifle than with a handgun, not that it's particularly hard with a handgun, it's just much, much easier with a rifle. So I'll just reiterate, your argument that an AR-15 is no more dangerous than a Glock is nonsense. They absolutely are. They're meant to be, a Glock is a tool for self defense, an AR-15 is a marginally dumbed down military tool.

> unless you count velocity

Yes, the fact that you aren't counting velocity is strange. A single bullet from an AR-15 will knock you over. The same isn't true for your average 9mm.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle

Well the velocity argument is a factor of it being a rifle, thus can hold a larger charge and are designed to because the bullets need to go further without losing accuracy due to gravity and air resistance, etc. This is a something it has in common with any hunting rifle. Yes you can knock someone down, certain hollow points can do that too.

Yes, we all know the AR-15's are made by the same people and 90% similar, but the part that matters, the part the ATF cares about, the part that makes it ready for military use or an assault weapon is whether its automatic or not. Take that away and its no more capable for military use then any other hunting rifle. You say its designed to broken down and repaired in the wilderness, that doesn't make it inherently more deadly or more military/assault style. So is a Glock, having a simple, reliable mechanism that's easily repaired and doesn't break down is a good feature to have, it doesn't make it militaristic, its a design a hunter would want who will spend days or weeks at a time in the wilderness (watch Meat Eater), or a safety feature as gun failures lead to accidental discharges, which is a factor on the range. It's not the first thing to be designed based on a need in the military, that applicability to civilians (like GPS) being designed to be easy to repair. The thing that makes an M16 militaristic is automatic fire, which a soldier needs for suppressing fire or hitting an enemy with multiple shots. Everything else you described is a feature of any other rifle. It's like saying a Humvee shouldn't be driven by civilians because the military uses Humvees and some have turrets (which are removed in the civilian version), when every other feature of the Humvee can be found in other civilian SUVs (just as every other feature of the AR-15 exists in other civilian use rifles). The aspects of the gun you're complaining about exist in other rifles that are not military rifles.

I think if you take any serious time digging into this you'll find that people who actually use tactical rifles in military operations do not attach the same significance to fully automatic fire that you're alleging they do. There's a reason that military carbines are selective fire, that many selective fire weapons do 3-round burst instead of fully automatic, and that most combat operations are performed exclusively using semi-automatic fire.

The simple fact is that MSRs are tactical military weapons; that's what the AR-15 was designed to be as well. "MSR" is an Orwellian term. It's proponents believe that citizens should have unregulated access to military weapons, but lack the courage needed to make that argument forthrightly to the public.

I don't know what Humvees have to do with anything. I suppose you could be concerned that military vehicles might tear up the streets? Who knows: despite the fact that Scalia himself, in the text of Heller, affirmed the right of states to regulate military weapons, states have in reality almost total authority to regulate vehicles, and almost none to regulate firearms.

(I don't think semi-automatic rifles are going anywhere; they're too useful for hog and coyote hunting. I'm not an advocate for a national "ban" on really any firearm, or really any national firearm policy at all. Let Montana regulate how it wants to.)

They don't except for cover and move exercises. Then the automatic fire and burst mode features are great for suppression tactics.

But again, what are you going to make illegal about the AR-15 that doesn't also apply to hunting rifles, specifically much big game hunting rifles that are far deadlier (higher velocity rounds, higher caliber).

You're demonizing because of its history and it looks the same but its feature set is identical to that of any other legal civilian use rifle, other than maybe clip size (which clips are probably the easiest part to make yourself), there isn't much about it that you could write a law for that wouldn't apply to every other rifle society finds acceptable or give the "mass shooter" the same advantage. Hence the Humvee vs SUV argument. Its the same as arguing Humvees are made for the military, so the civilian models should be banned even though they removed every feature (like the armor and turrets) that don't exist in any other civilian model SUV that is legal. It's the same rational, if you wanted to ban Humvees cause someone did bad things with them under the argument its a military style vehicle, any thing you "banned" would also lump in the other civilian SUVs with the same features. If you banned the AR-15 someone would just make another rifle tomorrow, that was just different enough with a different model number, the danger would still be there, and as discussed that danger isn't even significant compared the gun violence done with hand guns so people's obsession with it irrational on all fronts because they're hung up on the "looks like a military gun" aspect of it.

We're talking about writing a law here, and setting policy. What's the policy you're going to write that takes away a killer's ability to do anything they couldn't do with another rifle?

If were me, and I don't think it matters, but lets say I had to write a law tomorrow "gun to my head", pun intended. I would make only bolt action rifles available to civilians for the purposes of hunting without any special license, it doesn't do much, but it does create a higher barrier without much practice and training to be effective at harming a high number of individuals in a short window. Then I would make semi-automatic weapons available to civilians who got a permit similar to CCW training, where you have to go through a day or two's worth of safety and legal use training, get a full background check, etc, but once you're licensed you can buy as many semi automatic rifles you desire, you'd be required to secure the weapons under lock when in storage, anyone can fire your rifle as long as they're in the presence of a licensed individual who owns the weapon (so if a friend wants to fire it at the range, that's fine) and the training needs to be affordable and accessible (similar to CCW) so that we're not creating a class of haves and have nots where only the very privileged can own one, simply the ones wanting to put in the time and training. And I don't try to single out an AR-15 as anything silly like a "military style assault weapons" that's not any different from any other semi-automatic rifle available on the market.

Infantry fire teams have designated team members with machine guns for this reason. It's not at all hard to find service members writing about why infantry squad members don't need fully automatic weapons at all: they waste ammo, they aren't more effective at neutralizing targets, they increase collateral damage, and they're harder to maintain.

My point, then, is that the argument that a weapon is or isn't "military" ("tactical" is the right term) based on fully-automatic fire capability simply fails. It's just not true. Not historically, and not in modern practice. Rather, it's something that civilian firearm advocates want to be true so they can avoid serious debates; it's one of a small collection of "mic drop" arguments like "Heller" or "3D printing" or "sporting rifles" that exist to cut off discussion rather than furthering it.

The "gun violence done with hand guns" argument is another of the same species. Clearly, hand guns kill more people in the US than tactical rifles. Cars kill more people than either, and opioids more than cars, and heart disease more than opioids. There are particularized reasons we care about each of these things, and public policy debates aren't serialized so that we must first dispense with the opioid epidemic before we deal with the problem of military weapons that enable people to barricade themselves in high-rise hotels to kill dozens of people attending an outdoor concert, and that allow mass shooters on foot to stand off beat officers and force them to wait for reinforcements before confronting someone killing schoolchildren at random.

If RPGs were regulated the way tactical rifles are now, you'd have the same argument; no doubt fewer people would die by portable artillery than by handguns as well! Your argument proves too much; that's a strong sign that it isn't valid.

Well if they have a guy available with a machine gun, sometimes you have to improvise, so its nice to have the option. There are cases where a machine gun isn't in position to provide suppressing fire, or the guy with it got taken out, etc. It's besides the point, but yes I concede that its not ideal to use for that purpose.

My arguments, just mean we agree more than we disagree. We just disagree how it should be handled. Again, I argue there's nothing about a M-16 set with the switch spot welded to single fire mode that is any different from a hunting rifle when it comes to features and capability, which is what an AR-15 kind of is. So you can't make just an AR-15 illegal without doing any significant progress towards removing the actual danger posed by them, or just converting mass shooters to using pistols (as a few mass shooters have done so anyway) or another semi-automatic hunting rifle. My point is when it comes to legal policy, what are you saying can't be sold to civilians exactly? Someone will just buy a different brand, or they'll modify the patent slightly so its no longer "an AR-15".

I updated my last post to include the law I would write more or less if I did have to say, take AR-15's off the table as an option for anyone to just buy whenever they wanted. But it includes all semi-automatic rifles, not just "military rifles".

I think we agree on the facts of an AR-15, but disagree fundamentally on what to do with those facts. I think banning AR-15's would be one of those laws that buy political points but don't actually address the problem in a way that doesn't punish or hamper law abiding citizens and more importantly actually make us safer in any practical sense, so its a purely negative tradeoff. And if you're going to go through the time and effort, find away to address the biggest problems first (gun violence in general which is hand guns, and addressing the underlying causes of violence) then hyper focusing on one gun. It's like banning plastic straws, when most of the plastic waste in the ocean is being dumped overseas and plastic straws are at least recyclable where as the case with McD's who recycled their plastic straw waste their recycler wasn't equipped to recycle the paper ones. Its a law that does more to make people feel/look good then address the very serious issue in any significant way.

Read hunter forums debating MSRs vs. bolt-action rifles. You'll have no trouble finding hunters certain that MSRs are overtaking traditional hunting rifles simply because they appeal to undisciplined, unserious weekend warriors who are drawn to their military look-and-feel, and that arms manufacturers feed into that because traditional hunting rifles also last forever and the industry needs people to get on a continuous upgrade cycle.

You haven't seen me anywhere advocate that we ban anything, let alone a particular semi-automatic weapon by name; in fact, the root of this long subthread is a comment from me saying the exact opposite thing, that wood-stock ranch rifles pose exactly the same problems as black rifles.

What I have a problem with is the faux superiority gun maximalists dress their arguments in, along with a culture that elevates a simple machine designed to be serviced by teenagers outdoors in the rain into a solemn, secret brotherhood, as if being able to remove the fire group from an AR-15 meant these putzes had the mechanical aptitude to swap out a car transmission or even replace a hot water heater. The technical details behind assault weapons are far more learnable than almost any other technical issue we regulate without issue.

I stated my policy preference elsewhere on the thread: give up on national firearms policy, back down on the maximalist Heller interpretation that says MSRs are off the table for state regulation, and allow states to license (on a presumption of must-issue basis) all semi-automatic long guns if that's what their citizens decide they want to do.

> You haven't seen me anywhere advocate that we ban anything, let alone a particular semi-automatic weapon by name; in fact, the root of this long subthread is a comment from me saying the exact opposite thing

> I stated my policy preference elsewhere on the thread: give up on national firearms policy, back down on the maximalist Heller interpretation that says MSRs are off the table for state regulation, and allow states to license (on a presumption of must-issue basis) all semi-automatic long guns if that's what their citizens decide they want to do.

From the perspective of many, that's "allow guns to be banned". It'd be sort of like saying "back down from the maximalist Roe v. Wade position" or "back down from the maximalist Brown v. Board of Education position", and then getting mad when people accuse you of being anti-abortion or pro-segregation.

I don't care about this argument. This isn't a courtroom or a legislative hearing; we're discussing ideas. You'll have to address the things I'm actually saying instead of demanding that I answer for everyone else on my side of this debate.

No I liken an AR-15 to a Honda Civic. It's just a car, but you can modify them into some kind of Fast and Furious drift racing machine. So you can buy an AR-15 for $500 and upgrade it to a very nice $3000 rifle. But that doesn't change that the Honda Civic is a solid vehicle, accessible for its cost, and is something you can start out with at minimal cost and customize to your liking if you get really into it. Or the Toyota Hilux even. But law/policy wise, there's nothing practical you can say this is bad and makes it more lethal than another gun. It's just more likely to be the kind of gun an idiot would buy, which is the kind of person whose going to get angry at the world and go kill innocents, it'd just be another gun if you took that one off the market, because its going to be which ever gun is more popular with the casual person.

If you're serious about hunting, you'd get a bolt action, for the reasons described, because you want your first shot to be your only shot.

I agree on the weekend warrior thing. But that's why I honestly think while guns are a right, because history teaches that eventually people need to defend themselves. But they're also a responsibility, and places like Switzerland or people who are trained in the responsibility aspect of gun ownership are what you want.

You've just read a whole thread of two people explaining to you why an AR-15 is more lethal than handguns.

On paper or in reality, because the deaths by rifles total is < 400 a year? My point is that any rifle, especially the larger caliber ones are more lethal than handguns, so the AR-15 isn't that special for a rifle in terms of lethality, all rifles are more lethal than handguns on paper.

When you access risk, likelihood is a factor, you mitigate for risks that have a higher likelihood. If I'm worried about protection from being killed I'm more worried about a drunk driver than a meteorite even tho the meteor has a higher lethality. Handguns are lethal enough you get shot by one, the survival rate isn't significantly higher than a rifle especially considering you're statistically more likely to be shot by one. Stabbings tend to be more lethal than either, but and there are more people stabbed then shot by rifle (~1500-3000 in US per year), certainly more the case overseas. Missing forest for the trees.

Are we just being pedantic here? What are you arguing or is the point of argument if you don't want to ban guns or ban the AR-15 or military style weapons specifically? If you're arguing it just to argue I honestly don't see how that's constructive. I'm discussing this in the context of gun violence, in the context of the media hyper focusing on military style rifles when they're not the major cause of deaths, even in mass shootings (which are just as often or more often pistols).

You're repeating yourself. I addressed that argument already as well. If you want to rebut what I said, that's fine, but you can't just repeat the same point as if there hadn't been a response to it. Be specific about what your issue with my argument is. Or rest your case; it's fine if we just disagree.

> I'm really tired of this argument that people are irrationally afraid of black rifles and simply don't understand the machines they're purporting to regulate.

Given that more people are killed with hands and feet than are killed with rifles of any kind, "assault" or otherwise, yes, it's an irrational fear.

Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

For 2018, the numbers are:

Rifles: 297 Hands and feet: 672.

Do you think people advocating gun control haven't considered these numbers? Heart disease kills more people than crime of all sorts. We still generally want police departments.

Is there some book or FAQ these arguments all get sourced from? They always seem to be the same ones. At this point, I'm not even annoyed that people disagree with me about firearms, but just that their arguments are so boring.

It seems a bit dubious to ban something that has legitimate uses and isn't even on the "leaderboard" in the murder category.

If you believe handguns should be banned, it is at least somewhat logically consistent of a position. But if you ban something that is a fringe edge-case in the statistics, we know a priori it will be minimally effective at best, and at worst those murders will be performed by other, more convenient means.

You can't feel the arguments from the gun-control crowd are any less boring than your arguments, right? It's been the same shit for ages.

The whole debate is boring, crazy that we keep delving into it.

Considering that even some firearm maximalists don't appear to understand the history of the weapon they're defending or that of the FAWB, I dispute how "boring" my argument is.

By the same argument police departments don't respond in the two minutes it takes for a violent incident to take place, even more so the further outside a city center you are. So even though fires don't happen often, you still keep a fire extinguisher, the same argument is used for home defense.

> Do you think people advocating gun control haven't considered these numbers?

I think the overwhelming majority of them are ignorant of them, yes. Do you have data that shows otherwise? If so, perhaps you should present it.

> but just that their arguments are so boring.

Calling a fact "boring" is not a refutation of it.

For those who are curious.

All firearms: 10,265

>and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks.

Yeah, this. It's sort of developed into a moral panic because so many in the media grow up in urban centers on the east coast and don't have much contact with firearms. The reporting becomes pretty tainted, and in some cases hilariously inaccurate.

The majority of people live in urban centers.

One of the biggest difficulties in modern America is bridging the urban/rural divide:

My father, living in a rural area, purchased a shotgun for home defense -- when 911 was accidentally dialed, the sheriff's response time was roughly 30 minutes. Their primary political concerns revolve around taxes and regulation. Sometimes a bear walks through the neighbor's yard.

At our house in the city, on the other hand, I can throw five burritos and hit five other residences. I can't imagine firing that same shotgun in our house, as our windows and our neighbor's windows are in direct opposition. Police response times are quick, but we have people camping in the bushes across the street, a car break-in thrice a decade, and the occasional heroin addict passed out in the park, needle still in his arm.

These are two entirely different modalities of living, and we are trying to apply federal law to both. The second amendment is essential to our democracy, but it is increasingly difficult to argue with the growing calls to address gun violence as a public health threat. Nobody wants to get shot, everyone wants to live free and out from under the thumb of a tyrannical government. We can find a way.

Virginia had. Lot of success with limiting the number of purhases per month to cut back on strawman purchases. It made a statistical drop in gun violence. To truly combat that or mass shootings we need to address the why, not the how. And that isn't better psych car and red flag laws. Psychologists admit freely they can't distinguish between those who will harm people in mass shootings and the multitude of others with similar personalities. It has to be about asking what in our society prompts people to harm themselves or others and reducing those stressors. Again, why, not how or who.

A shotgun is actually pretty reasonable Urban defense, particularly with lead shot that isn't too large.

Rifles are a big no no though. They can carry very far and overpenetrate.

I've been contemplating bear spray to fill that role. Deployed in the confines of our home, it would put both us and any assailant in a world of hurt, but nobody has to die (and, if turned against us, we might suffer far less).

Even bird shot, fired from within our house, could easily kill our nearest neighbors. They're less than 10m away, and separated only by plate glass. The buckshot that my father has selected for home defense could easily reach them through their interior walls. I've already dealt with enough death in life.

If the assailant is armed, they can still fire at you. It won't really work. If a criminal can shoot back or attack after getting shot, especially one that is high, mace isn't going to do it, just ask law enforcement. Criminals will always have access to guns despite the law.

Probably need some evidence to back up your claims about their motivation.

Gun control on the state level will not stop the flow of guns across state borders. It's dishonest of you to suggest otherwise. Speaking as a gun owner.

Here's the trouble with that argument:

> Gun control on the national level will not stop the flow of guns across national borders. It's dishonest of you to suggest otherwise.

People smuggle drugs into this country at scale. The same people who are among the most likely perpetrators of homicides. If prohibiting possession has no effect and prohibiting importation is similarly ineffective then it's hard to see how a national prohibition would do much more than a state one.

We have open borders between states and mostly controlled borders between countries. Regardless, the guns flow out of the US, not into it.

The "controlled borders" between the US and its neighbors are each more than a thousand miles across, and I'm led to believe that most of those in favor of gun control are sour on the effectiveness of securing them with a wall or other such measures.

Moreover, contraband flows toward the places where it's prohibited. If certain firearms went from not prohibited to prohibited then they would flow in rather than out.

And I'm not saying a national ban would have no effect, only that it would have a similar effect to a state-level ban -- regular people would follow the law, and then you might get e.g. fewer firearms suicides (but more non-firearms suicides). But if you expect gangs to stop arming themselves because of "borders" or national law, just look at Mexico.

The demand would drop and so would gun manufacturing. There would be less guns on the street and more effective securing/training of legal guns/owners.

Clearly there is a spectrum of choices that can be made, some more effective than others. As mentioned, state borders have effectively zero restriction in movement and should be taken in context with any criticism of local gun laws.

Why would there be less guns on the street? Aren't the vast majority of those illegally obtained anyways? IMO the more likely response would be that all the guns that were previously stolen/criminally obtained legal guns would become fully automatic since there's no reason not to at that point. (Manufacturing cost difference is basically nil, and if you're already smuggling an illegal rifle might as well make it automatic)

Guns aren't exactly rocket science to make, and the plans are available online. Good guns, reliable guns, safe guns? Not so much, but why would the criminals in question care?

You’ve forgotten the single most important factor. When it comes to intentional deaths by firearm, mass shootings target white children at a much higher per capita number. If white teenagers were getting killed by gun murders at even the rate of black kids killed by cops we’d have a national ban.

See the fact California started heavily restricting gun ownership once black people started exercising their Second Amendment rights (and that happened under a Republican government)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

  under a Republican government

Actually, Democrats controlled the Assembly, and the Mulford Act didn't move until it had a majority of Democrat cosponsors.

It passed the Assembly in a bipartisan manner, but the governor was a republican (Reagan). It was also introduced by a republican (Mulford).

I didn't mean to excuse the Democrats who supported it, they were racist opportunists, I merely wanted to point out the CA Republican party dropped its principled support for 2nd Amendment Rights as soon as the people they would be protecting didn't look White like them.

  It passed the Assembly in a bipartisan manner

It passed both houses with over 2/3rds majorities, and neither was Republican controlled... so your attempt to make it a partisan thing is confusing.

> so your attempt to make it a partisan thing is confusing.

I said it bipartisan. Both Democrats and Republicans supported it. But it's more intesting to me and many others that Republicans supported gun control, because Democratic support is a given. I wasn't aiming to say either party acted better in this specific case.

It’s fairly straight forward, Republicans have traditionally been anti gun control. But when push came to shove they abandoned that position when it meant allowing black men to be armed.

That said the GOP was much less strident in their gun worship back then generally.

Name one gun control measure opposed by CA Republican assembly members or senators that term. One.

CA Republicans of that era were not anti gun control.

Bill Gates' graphic isn't compelling except in the case of some cancer and traffic accidents. Most heart disease, almost all Alzheimer's, most cancer, etc. are just various ways that old people die. You're going to have to die in some manner, so reducing Stroke deaths is just going to mean more Heart Disease deaths a few years later on a person who got to live a full life.

Traffic accidents, earlier cancers, suicides, etc. take people who had much more quality life to be lived.

Even if you exclude "natural causes" the point is still there. Terrorism is ludicrously over-represented in the media, even compared to homicide. Homicide is half as likely as suicide but the media has it reversed. Drug overdose is preventable in ~100% of cases and kills three times more people than homicide but it's completely ignored.

Why is gang violence somehow more acceptable than "regular" violence? Minors are victims of "gang violence" too.

And TBH, I don't really give a shit about the age of the victims. It's the same result, a life ended prematurely by someone else. While you can make an argument that and adult who died by gun violence got more of a chance at life than child who died from the same, you can't really say that the crime is any different.

Murder is murder. Against a child, against an 40-something, and against an elderly person. What is taken away remains the same. Trying to make the murder of children worse only serves to decrease the severity of murder of an elderly person.

I feel some control over whether or not I’m in a gang, but little over whether I happen to be shopping at the mall at the wrong time. That’s why gang violence is more acceptable I guess?

That’s a ridiculously offensive viewpoint. Most kids born into tough circumstances choose not to join a gang.

The person you're responding to didn't say that.

I’m sure a lot of children are directly and indirectly affected by gang violence.

Are you saying that if all mass shootings were only caused by gang violence than people not in gangs shouldn’t be concerned about potentially helping reduce them?

They get lumped in because they are real mass shootings where tons of people die, but if you explain it as gang violence, it will be immediately ignored as something black/hispanic people do.