• After Las Vegas massacre, Democrats urge gun laws; Republicans silent
    853 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745640]Are you now arguing that assault rifles [I]aren't[/I] weapons of war designed to rapidly kill as many people as possible? Because that's simply not true. Furthermore, Cops are expected to respond to violent crime on a daily basis. While few occasions require much in the way of firepower, they need to be equipped for every eventuality, because when you are the n person whose job is to come respond to violence, a weapon of war makes sense to have in your arsenal. Cops charge [I]towards[/I] the danger, and need to have a way to deal with the worst case scenario of multiple armed assailants, because cops are the ones who have a way to deal with that. Civilians don't. There is no rational reason why a civilian would need a weapon designed to rapidly kill large groups of people. They don't respond to violent crime every day. They don't run towards the danger. They aren't responsible for ending the threat. They aren't professionally trained in responding to a threat like that. They aren't professionally trained in using their weapons. Not only do civilians not NEED weapons like that, they actively become a threat the moment they decide to use them in a firefight. Joe Schmoe with an assault rifle, even with the best intentions, is a threat to everyone around him the moment he wants to start playing hero. The needs of an on-duty police officer in regards to firearms are fundamentally different than the needs of other people. [editline]4th October 2017[/editline] Let's not play semantics. It's pretty clear what I'm talking about.[/QUOTE] You have to see it from the civilians side though. They don't believe them as weapons of war, most of them who own guns believe them as weapons of defense. I've known vets to say that to adequately defend their family, they do need 30 rounds, and a lot of civilians trust in what vets say. They're not thinking of going out and killing anybody, but they're thinking if they ever need to stop anybody from killing anybody. A lot of people I've met that think that way as well live in worse off neighborhood's where robberies and illegal guns are common, and there's nothing they can do about the saturation of guns there other than to arm themselves, and prepare for the worst. It's anecdotal, yet their stories are as important as others. Their assault weapons, are sometimes the only thing saving their life. They don't do it out of malice, and maybe it's not rational, but it doesn't come out of a place of evil. They simply believe they need to defend their family.
[QUOTE=OvB;52745698]An AR-15 is not an assault rifle. It's not an assault rifle unless it has a select fire switch. This murder did not use an assault rifle. Assault rifles are already extremely hard to get. You're talking about semi automatic rifles. It's not semantics, it's an important distinction. There are plenty of "hunting rifles" that are semi automatic and magazine fed. Even plenty with detectable magazines. I repeat, you cannot go to Walmart or your average gun store and walk out with an assault rifle in the united states. That's simply untrue.[/QUOTE] With the full legal availability of weapon modifications designed to simulate fully automatic fire, which were used by the shooter in Vegas, it hardly matters whether it does or doesn't have a select fire switch. The end result is much the same, and the insistence on nitpicking terminology doesn't do much to help the discussion. [editline]4th October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Fire Kracker;52745710]You have to see it from the civilians side though. They don't believe them as weapons of war, most of them who own guns believe them as weapons of defense. I've known vets to say that to adequately defend their family, they do need 30 rounds, and a lot of civilians trust in what vets say. They're not thinking of going out and killing anybody, but they're thinking if they ever need to stop anybody from killing anybody. A lot of people I've met that think that way as well live in worse off neighborhood's where robberies and illegal guns are common, and there's nothing they can do about the saturation of guns there other than to arm themselves, and prepare for the worst. They don't do it out of malice, and maybe it's not rational, but it doesn't come out of a place of evil. They simply believe they need to defend their family.[/QUOTE] I want to clarify that I'm not arguing that gun owners are evil or malicious in any way. I recognize that overwhelming majority of gun owners have fully acceptable and innocent means for gun ownership, whether they think it necessary for self defense, enjoy using them for sport, or simply see it as in interesting hobby or collection. I do think it's completely unnecessary, and more than a little selfish, for gun owners to have access to weapons of warfare, designed for killing many people rapidly, because that access comes at the cost of the highest gun crime rate in the Western world, by several orders of magnitude. Obviously y'all vehemently disagree with me, and that's okay, but I don't think the hobby of gun ownership OR the claims of needing 100-round assault rifles with, effectively, fully automatic fire for "self defense" is worth the trade off. The more guns are out there, the more guns end up in the hands of killers and psychopaths, and when those guns are capable of shooting 500+ people in the span of a few minutes of firing out a window, we HAVE to do something.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745718]With the full legal availability of weapon modifications designed to simulate fully automatic fire, which were used by the shooter in Vegas, it hardly matters whether it does or doesn't have a select fire switch. The end result is much the same, and the insistence on nitpicking terminology doesn't do much to help the discussion.[/QUOTE] You don't necessarily need to modify the weapon to do what the shooter did though. All you need to do in order to bump fire is use the weapon's recoil to bounce your finger off the trigger. Slidefire stocks just make it easier. [editline]4th October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745718]I do think it's completely unnecessary, and more than a little selfish, for gun owners to have access to weapons of warfare, designed for killing many people rapidly, because that access comes at the cost of the highest gun crime rate in the Western world, by several orders of magnitude.[/QUOTE] You're forgetting that rifles in general contribute to no more than 200-300 deaths per year, to say nothing of ARs specifically. Handguns comprise the majority of the 10-15,000.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745718]With the full legal availability of weapon modifications designed to simulate fully automatic fire, which were used by the shooter in Vegas, it hardly matters whether it does or doesn't have a select fire switch. The end result is much the same, and the insistence on nitpicking terminology doesn't do much to help the discussion.[/QUOTE] If your goal is to make effective policy the terminology is critically important. You're calling this an assault rifle: [img]https://i.imgur.com/qRPf4GE.png[/img] It's a semi automatic, magazine fed rifle. It probably couldn't do the same deal of damage this guy did with his guns, but you're tossing it into the bucket of murder guns anyway. Meanwhile, uninformed legislation ends up with things like this: [img]https://i.imgur.com/Ud5rEDb.png[/img] A fully AWB compliant AR-15, sometimes even without detectable magazines. Which could easily be modified with things like a bump stock. The difference is important if you want to take "assault rifles" off the streets, you need to know what you're talking about.
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52745748]Do you want to waste all of your political potential on a .00003% chance? Or should we use that potential on something more worthwhile, like healthcare.. or bank reform.. or wealthfare reform.. or hell.. ANYTHING else. Because ANY other measure will save more lives than "ban evil black rifles".[/QUOTE] Or rather, go after fucking pistols because for fucks sake they're the leading killers. They're concealable, easy to carry, and easy to use, hence why they make up most gun related deaths.
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52745740]Considering the average cop in the US has a lower amount of range time than most gun owning civilians, its not actually clear. Does the badge all of a sudden mean that they're magically qualified to use said "weapons of war"? Or is it the ~6 week academy that they have (that's at a 5th grade reading/testing level)? Or perhaps its none of the above, and the average cop isn't any more qualified to use a rifle than the average "civilian" in the US. I'm going with the latter.[/QUOTE] That's not really relevant to the section you quoted. In context, that quote was responding to viper's post that cops aren't in the military so they are technically civilians.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745718]With the full legal availability of weapon modifications designed to simulate fully automatic fire, which were used by the shooter in Vegas, it hardly matters whether it does or doesn't have a select fire switch. The end result is much the same, and the insistence on nitpicking terminology doesn't do much to help the discussion.[/QUOTE] Does the legality of the weapon modifications really matter to someone willing to shoot into a crowd of people? The guy clearly had the intent to cause as much damage as possible and I don't think it would matter if it was an AR-15 with a slidefire stock or not.
[QUOTE=Lebofly;52744715]Yeah just pull out the mental health radar for those who clearly DON'T want to speak up[/QUOTE] Maybe there's some reason people generally don't speak up about mental health issues in this country?
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52745748]Ok enough of these emotional arguments. If that's all you're going to do then we're going to make no headway, and the rest of the US is going to continue ignoring your point of view entirely. Your point of view is entirely unsupported by statistics, and relies on the sole emotional argument of "but think of the children". Come on now, you know how to debate, and this isn't debate. I straight up remember doing the math after sandy hook, after the last "ban the evil black rifles" debate, and remember it coming down to a .00003 % chance that you'd get shot by an "evil black rifle". Do you want to waste all of your political potential on a .00003% chance? Or should we use that potential on something more worthwhile, like healthcare.. or bank reform.. or wealthfare reform.. or hell.. ANYTHING else. Because ANY other measure will save more lives than "ban evil black rifles".[/QUOTE] Again with this argument that we can only do one thing at a time. Why do gun enthusiasts so often fall back on this? We can work to improve legislation for different things at the same time. Pursuing effective gun control measures does not somehow prevent us from working to provide better healthcare, bank reform, etc. Finally, yeah, of course emotion plays a part in this. I don't like it when spree shooters kill dozens of people with weaponry that they never should have had access to. To prevent that, I believe that we should make sure that they don't have reliable access to those weapons anymore, among other measures such as pursuing competent mental healthcare, reducing wealth inequality, ending the system of racial predation in our justice system, etc. If we fail to remove guns from the table, then those other measures will never be able to have their fullest possible benefit. So, what else is the alternative here, besides ignoring the problem or addressing the wrong symptoms? The alternative shouldn't just be shrugging and saying, "oh well, another 600 people got shot at a concert last night! Them's the breaks!" [editline]4th October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Protocol7;52745774]Does the legality of the weapon modifications really matter to someone willing to shoot into a crowd of people? The guy clearly had the intent to cause as much damage as possible and I don't think it would matter if it was an AR-15 with a slidefire stock or not.[/QUOTE] Reducing the ease of access to weapons, weapon modifications, etc adds new barriers, challenges, and risks for a would-be spree shooter, both introducing new opportunities to catch him BEFORE the act [I]and[/I] limiting the lethality of the attack itself. [I]Nothing[/I] can stop [I]every[/I] attack, but we can (and have to) start taking measures to reduce them by as much as humanly possible, and one of the major cornerstones of that is beginning a long term process to eliminate our country's staggering stockpile of weapons.
To be honest I'm sort of surprised this is the first time someone has used a bump stock in a shooting.
[QUOTE=booster;52745717]Aye, but the bumpstock basically makes everyone into a highly skilled "competition shooter". The lethality of the rifle is considerably increased, making it very easy for people like Paddock to commit crimes like these. I still can't think of one reason NOT to ban or put more regulations on bumpstocks.[/QUOTE] Quoted from SH. To be fair, this is (probably?) the first time a bump-fire stock was used in a mass-shooting. Hell, this mass-shooter was probably the most prepared for a mass-shooting than anyone before him, and all of the stuff he had were legal. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction to regulate bump-fire stocks now. Not to mention all the high-cap mags should come into question of being regulated as well, but then we're probably going too far in violating the right for gun ownership. I don't have a good answer to this.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745786]Reducing the ease of access to weapons, weapon modifications, etc adds new barriers, challenges, and risks for a would-be spree shooter, both introducing new opportunities to catch him BEFORE the act [I]and[/I] limiting the lethality of the attack itself. [I]Nothing[/I] can stop [I]every[/I] attack, but we can (and have to) start taking measures to reduce them by as much as humanly possible, and one of the major cornerstones of that is beginning a long term process to eliminate our country's staggering stockpile of weapons.[/QUOTE] And now we've come full circle in our argument, in that mass shootings are a statistical blip on the radar compared to one-on-one crime. The massive stockpile of weapons might reduce one or two mass shootings, sure, but the majority of gun violence is committed in one-on-one scenarios with weapons that AWBs and background checks would not prevent access to. And that begs the question, why are mass shootings the catalyst for gun control, and not the thousands of other deaths in a year?
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52745812]I'm not. Bumpfiring is pretty inaccurate, even with a lot of practice. You can get "acceptable groups" but quite frankly that's really stretching the definition of "acceptable".[/QUOTE] I mean, its not like accuracy matters much if you're just spraying into a tight crowd of people.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745786]Again with this argument that we can only do one thing at a time. Why do gun enthusiasts so often fall back on this? We can work to improve legislation for different things at the same time. Pursuing effective gun control measures does not somehow prevent us from working to provide better healthcare, bank reform, etc. Finally, yeah, of course emotion plays a part in this. I don't like it when spree shooters kill dozens of people with weaponry that they never should have had access to. To prevent that, I believe that we should make sure that they don't have reliable access to those weapons anymore, among other measures such as pursuing competent mental healthcare, reducing wealth inequality, ending the system of racial predation in our justice system, etc. If we fail to remove guns from the table, then those other measures will never be able to have their fullest possible benefit. So, what else is the alternative here, besides ignoring the problem or addressing the wrong symptoms? The alternative shouldn't just be shrugging and saying, "oh well, another 600 people got shot at a concert last night! Them's the breaks!" [editline]4th October 2017[/editline] Reducing the ease of access to weapons, weapon modifications, etc adds new barriers, challenges, and risks for a would-be spree shooter, both introducing new opportunities to catch him BEFORE the act [I]and[/I] limiting the lethality of the attack itself. [I]Nothing[/I] can stop [I]every[/I] attack, but we can (and have to) start taking measures to reduce them by as much as humanly possible, and one of the major cornerstones of that is beginning a long term process to eliminate our country's staggering stockpile of weapons.[/QUOTE] Because we don't have to add gun control to start seeing progress in lowering violent crime. It's just the avenue that some people want to take because they don't like guns. So instead of getting something constructive done, they hang their hat on getting gun control when they know they won't and nothing good ends up happening in the end. It's a LOT easier to get things done when everyone agrees on what the available options are.
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52745791]Because you only have so much political capital. Do you honestly, HONESTLY think that the dems could ram gun control through, while simultaneously ramming through healthcare reform? You're out of your mind if you think that could happen. Here's how it'd happen in the real world: Dems suggest "ban evil black rifle bill", gets shot down because even dems are having a hard time supporting a bill that'd do absolutely nothing. Now you've got less political capital, less people are listening, so when you go up and say "hey maybe we should improve healthcare", the rest of the US says "oh those dumbasses are talking again, what do they want this time? Healthcare? Why would we trust you with healthcare, you can't even read basic statistics, why on earth would we trust you with something so complex as healthcare?" Further more, why do people fall back on this? Because its a legitimate concern. You want to legislate .0003 percent of deaths "away", because that'll make you feel better about "got rid of those evil black rifles". So you can pat yourselves on the back while you don't actually accomplish ANYTHING.[/QUOTE] Are we asking what I believe [I]needs[/I] to happen, or what I believe realistically [I]will[/I] happen? If we're asking what I believe [I]will[/I] happen, then I agree with you fully. Gun enthusiasts and the NRA are so irrationally and vehemently opposed to even [I]basic[/I] precautions against this kind of violence that getting [B]any[/B] legislation through limiting the availability of weaponry is a damn nightmare. Just the same, we [B]need[/B] to continue pushing for it. The irrational selfishness of people who place their fun murder toys above the lives of the people killed by them every day should not be the group we work to appease. We can and [I]will[/I] continue pushing for the other things that this country so desperately needs, but we should never quit pushing to get rid of the "evil black rifles" you so callously refer to, because to six hundred victims of Vegas's mass shooting attack, or the thousands of other people impacted by them, that fuckbag in the Mandalay Bay having rapid fire weapons of war with massive ammo capacity was [B]HARDLY[/B] "nothing to worry about," and legislation that could have prevented him from ever having the opportunity to arm himself to that degree would have been a pretty fuckin' big accomplishment.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745786]Reducing the ease of access to weapons, [B]weapon modifications, etc adds new barriers, challenges, and risks for a would-be spree shooter[/B], both introducing new opportunities to catch him BEFORE the act [I]and[/I] limiting the lethality of the attack itself. [I]Nothing[/I] can stop [I]every[/I] attack, but we can (and have to) start taking measures to reduce them by as much as humanly possible, and one of the major cornerstones of that is beginning a long term process to eliminate our country's staggering stockpile of weapons.[/QUOTE] Even if you ban bumpfire stocks (which I honestly wouldn't care about, to be perfectly honest), you can still easily 3d print one. And risk? Dude. We're talking about a fucking mass shooter. Those guys have already run their risk assessment, they've decided they're okay with dying. You're not going to stop them with harsher punishments. General Deterrence theory is bullshit, even when the punishment [I]isn't[/I] harsher than what the offender's decided to inflict on themselves.
[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52742391]Dood, a guy in Nice killed more people with a rental truck than this guy killed with automatic rifles. A gun is not the end all be all of murder.[/QUOTE] uh yeah, thats exactly what I said?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745829]Just the same, we [B]need[/B] to continue pushing for it. The [B]irrational selfishness[/B] of people who [B]place their fun murder toys above the lives of the people[/B] killed by them every day[B] should not be the group we work to appease[/B]. [B]We can and [I]will[/I] continue pushing for the other things that this country so desperately needs[/B], but [B]we should never quit pushing to get rid of the "evil black rifles"[/B] you so callously refer to, because to six hundred victims of Vegas's mass shooting attack, or the thousands of other people impacted by them, that fuckbag in the Mandalay Bay [B]having rapid fire weapons of war with massive ammo capacity[/B] was [B]HARDLY[/B] "nothing to worry about," and [B]legislation that could have prevented him from ever having the opportunity to arm himself to that degree would have been a pretty fuckin' big accomplishment.[/B][/QUOTE] We're selfish because we don't want to be collectively punished for the actions of a fucking madman? Ok then. The facts about gun crime committed with pistols and rifles doesn't actually matter to you? Got it. Want to push something using appeals to emotion and no fucking basis in facts or logic? Ok bro you got it. But if you want people to support your point of view, stop being so fucking dramatic, appealing to emotion, and flat out fucking [B]ignoring[/B] the people you're calling selfish murder toy toting morons. Want something done about this? Take out input as well, don't block it out thinking you're on this moral high horse of 100% righteousness. You're not.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745829]The irrational selfishness of people who place their fun murder toys above the lives of the people killed by them every day should not be the group we work to appease.[/QUOTE] I do love an insult wrapped up in an argument. [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745829]we should never quit pushing to get rid of the "evil black rifles" you so callously refer to, because to six hundred victims of Vegas's mass shooting attack, or the thousands of other people impacted by them.[/QUOTE] Around 35,000 people are killed by vehicles in the U.S. a year based on 2015 statistics. In the same year, 11,000 people were killed by guns, and in fact, close to 60% of those deaths are suicides. So let's say we have 4,400 homicides in a year caused by a firearm. Sure we have a lot of suicides by car too, so let's also subtract 60% of that 35,000 to give us 14,000 vehicle deaths that are not suicides. Of the 4,400 gun homicides, only a small fraction are the result of a mass shooting. If you are trying to use numbers to give your emotional standpoint more validity, I don't think the numbers are on your side.
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;52745830]Even if you ban bumpfire stocks (which I honestly wouldn't care about, to be perfectly honest), you can still easily 3d print one. And risk? Dude. We're talking about a fucking mass shooter. Those guys have already run their risk assessment, they've decided they're okay with dying. You're not going to stop them with harsher punishments. General Deterrence theory is bullshit, even when the punishment [I]isn't[/I] harsher than what the offender's decided to inflict on themselves.[/QUOTE] I'm not proposing a deterrence theory, I'm saying that forcing would-be shooters to go through illegal black market channels to try and get the weapons they need reduces the likelihood that they'll be able to get those weapons in the first place, and adds new opportunities for them to be caught [I]before[/I] they're able to commit the shooting. It's not deterrence, it's availability. The risk inherent in this is the risk of getting captured or killed before they can do any real damage, and those extra barriers will force mass murderers to consider whether or not its worth even trying to go for the guns as opposed to looking at other options for their rampage. They may not care about whether they live or die, but do care about being able to successfully carry out their violence before they do so. If it's too difficult, expensive, or risky to go for the guns, they'll try to figure out what else they can. It's a win-win for everybody else. If they go for the guns, they expose themselves, make themselves more likely to be found before they commit the attack. That might occur from stings, contact with people who are already under investigation, a random traffic stop discovering illegal weapons, whatever (and that's all assuming that the shooter is even CAPABLE of finding somebody who can supply them). If the killer [I]doesn't[/I] go for the guns, then it forces him to look at other methods to commit his crime, which all pose additional risks and challenges, and the large majority of which are much less lethal and require much more planning to effectively carry out. It will reduce the frequency [I]and[/I] severity of attacks. [editline]4th October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=ilikecorn;52745844]But why do we "NEED" to make this happen? Why do we "NEED" to ban "assault weapons"? We dont. They're such a statistical anomaly that their use in shootings barely registers as a drop of water in the ocean that is gun crime. And forgive me for being callous, considering I run at least 2 shootings every night, and consider that none of them are EVER caused by an "evil black rifle". (in the reddest state in the union) Actually scratch that, i've run one or two.. funny story about that.. the people who shot a guy with an "evil black rifle" were the police.. [B] Its time to face the facts, rifles aren't the root of this problem, and legislating them away isn't going to fix the problem. Now if you want to debate about pistols then i'm all ears (I still wouldn't agree, but at least you'd have a logical reason for debate, not an emotional one)[/B] The reason i'm so heavily against emotional arguments is this: Emotional arguments make for dumb laws. Prohibition was an emotional argument that made a dumb law, executions are legal because of dumbass emotional arguments. Emotional arguments have no place in the halls of congress, our bills should be backed by reason and logic, not "but think of the children".[/QUOTE] I have been from the get-go. It was you who decided that I was only talking about rifles. I'm not.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745640]There is no rational reason why a civilian would need a weapon designed to rapidly kill large groups of people. [/QUOTE] Which is why automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and the like are heavily regulated under the 1934 NFA. But a patrol cop's carbine is not 'designed to rapidly kill large groups of people'. In police use, it is designed to [I]precisely[/I] end a single threat more reliably and with less collateral damage than buckshot flying everywhere. Cops didn't start switching from shotguns to carbines in the late 90s and early 00s because they had an urgent need to fight running gun battles in the streets with multiple armed attackers. They switched because carbines accomplished the intended task of self-defense against potentially armed adversaries more effectively, more accessibly (women tend to have trouble with 00 buck) and with less collateral damage to innocent bystanders. Those requirements all directly translate to the requirements of self-defense. A fully-automatic rifle is a weapon of war. Full-auto is what you want if you are facing multiple armed attackers and need to perform suppressive fire without respect to collateral damage (ie the 'mass murder' or 'rapidly kill large groups of people' roles). SWAT teams carry full-auto weapons for exactly that purpose. Yet police carbines issued to patrol officers typically are not full-auto-capable, they're usually standard civilian-legal semi-automatic rifles. If police carry carbines in squad cars for the [I]sole purpose[/I] of fighting under wartime conditions, why don't they have weapons explicitly suited to the task? Why are full-auto weapons typically only kept in SWAT armories, along with all the other military-style equipment they need if they're actually facing such a situation? You're about to complain that I'm nitpicking over technical functionality so I'm going to head you off right there: I don't care if bump-fire stocks can approximate full-auto, this is about intent. If every carbine in every squad car is a [I]military[/I] weapon intended for a [I]military[/I] purpose, it makes no sense that they would be civilian-legal designs lacking one of the basic defining features of a [I]military[/I] weapon, let alone often military surplus with the full-auto controls [I]deliberately removed[/I]. And that's not even touching on what others have mentioned, which is that your typical cop is not trained to fight a gun battle with multiple assailants. SWAT teams are, SWAT teams are intended to respond to those types of threat, and SWAT teams are equipped accordingly with military weapons. A regular police officer does not need a military weapon, so he isn't issued one. He carries a civilian weapon, functionally identical in capabilities and intended use to weapons commonly used for self-defense.
[QUOTE=catbarf;52745897]Which is why automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and the like are heavily regulated under the 1934 NFA. But a patrol cop's carbine is not 'designed to rapidly kill large groups of people'. In police use, it is designed to [I]precisely[/I] end a single threat more reliably and with less collateral damage than buckshot flying everywhere. Cops didn't start switching from shotguns to carbines in the late 90s and early 00s because they had an urgent need to fight running gun battles in the streets with multiple armed attackers. They switched because carbines accomplished the intended task of self-defense against potentially armed adversaries more effectively, more accessibly (women tend to have trouble with 00 buck) and with less collateral damage to innocent bystanders. Those requirements all directly translate to the requirements of self-defense. A fully-automatic rifle is a weapon of war. Full-auto is what you want if you are facing multiple armed attackers and need to perform suppressive fire without respect to collateral damage (ie the 'mass murder' or 'rapidly kill large groups of people' roles). SWAT teams carry full-auto weapons for exactly that purpose. Yet police carbines issued to patrol officers typically are not full-auto-capable, they're usually standard civilian-legal semi-automatic rifles. If police carry carbines in squad cars for the [I]sole purpose[/I] of fighting under wartime conditions, why don't they have weapons explicitly suited to the task? Why are full-auto weapons typically only kept in SWAT armories, along with all the other military-style equipment they need if they're actually facing such a situation? You're about to complain that I'm nitpicking over technical functionality so I'm going to head you off right there: I don't care if bump-fire stocks can approximate full-auto, this is about intent. If every carbine in every squad car is a [I]military[/I] weapon intended for a [I]military[/I] purpose, it makes no sense that they would be civilian-legal designs lacking one of the basic defining features of a [I]military[/I] weapon, let alone often military surplus with the full-auto controls [I]deliberately removed[/I]. And that's not even touching on what others have mentioned, which is that your typical cop is not trained to fight a gun battle with multiple assailants. SWAT teams are, SWAT teams are intended to respond to those types of threat, and SWAT teams are equipped accordingly with military weapons. A regular police officer does not need a military weapon, so he isn't issued one. He carries a civilian weapon, functionally identical in capabilities and intended use to weapons commonly used for self-defense.[/QUOTE] Fair enough. So, why do civilians need to have access to [B]even deadlier[/B] weapons than police officers? The standard issue carbines for police officers responding to especially deadly threats are nothing compared to the massive drum magazines and legal full auto modifications that you're arguing civilians should be able to have access to -- modifications which serve no other purpose than to allow the wielder to kill [I]more[/I] people [I]more[/I] quickly. If you believe that police officers, whose job is to engage with deadly criminals, are acceptably armed with "only" a weapon capable of dumping out rounds as fast as they can twitch their finger, why should random civilians have deadlier weaponry than that available for easy purchase and even, in many cases, open carry? Furthermore, if it takes SWAT level training to learn how to engage with the kind of threats that deadlier weapons than standard issue police carbines are supposedly available for, why is arming civilians with similar weapons of mass slaughter, in effect if not technicality, somehow going to be acceptable when they obviously [I]lack[/I] that training?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745921]Fair enough. So, why do civilians need to have access to [B]even deadlier[/B] weapons than police officers? The standard issue carbines for police officers responding to especially deadly threats are nothing compared to the massive drum magazines and legal full auto modifications that you're arguing civilians should be able to have access to -- modifications which serve no other purpose than to allow the wielder to kill [I]more[/I] people [I]more[/I] quickly. If you believe that police officers, whose job is to engage with deadly criminals, are acceptably armed with "only" a weapon capable of dumping out rounds as fast as they can twitch their finger, why should random civilians have deadlier weaponry than that available for easy purchase and even, in many cases, open carry? Furthermore, if it takes SWAT level training to learn how to engage with the kind of threats that deadlier weapons than standard issue police carbines are supposedly available for, why is arming civilians with similar weapons of mass slaughter, in effect if not technicality, somehow going to be acceptable when they obviously [I]lack[/I] that training?[/QUOTE] Police have access to that, they just don't waste their money on them because modifications like a bump stock actually make the gun less accurate when trying to simulate full auto, and things like drum mags are not reliable and like to jam. Police need accuracy and dependability. Billy who likes to mag dump doesn't need that same level of accuracy and dependability. And also because people who think like you would be yelling at them for having those mods.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745921]Fair enough. So, why do civilians need to have access to [B]even deadlier[/B] weapons than police officers? The standard issue carbines for police officers responding to especially deadly threats are nothing compared to the massive drum magazines and legal full auto modifications that you're arguing civilians should be able to have access to -- modifications which serve no other purpose than to allow the wielder to kill [I]more[/I] people [I]more[/I] quickly.[/QUOTE] Don't forget that that the Aurora theatre shooter had an AR-15 with a drum magazine that jammed, because drum magazines are actually for the most part shitty. A lot of these "modifications that allow the wielder to kill [I]more[/I] people [I]more[/I] quickly" are novelties that more often than not hinder the performance of the rifle.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52745921]Fair enough. So, why do civilians need to have access to [B]even deadlier[/B] weapons than police officers? The standard issue carbines for police officers responding to especially deadly threats are nothing compared to the massive drum magazines and legal full auto modifications that you're arguing civilians should be able to have access to -- modifications which serve no other purpose than to allow the wielder to kill [I]more[/I] people [I]more[/I] quickly. If you believe that police officers, whose job is to engage with deadly criminals, are acceptably armed with "only" a weapon capable of dumping out rounds as fast as they can twitch their finger, why should random civilians have deadlier weaponry than that available for easy purchase and even, in many cases, open carry? Furthermore, if it takes SWAT level training to learn how to engage with the kind of threats that deadlier weapons than standard issue police carbines are supposedly available for, why is arming civilians with similar weapons of mass slaughter, in effect if not technicality, somehow going to be acceptable when they obviously [I]lack[/I] that training?[/QUOTE] Are you actually going to debate using logic and reason, or just these stupid appeals to emotion and not fucking understanding basic things about the fire arms you're raging about, like how bumpfire stocks aren't making a weapon into a full auto weapon? Or this dumb ass argument about "WHY SHOULD CIVILIANS HAVE IT IF THE POLICE DON'T?", well whats stopping the police from buying the same shit that is offered to the civilian populace? Nothing, so that argument is moot.
Every single action requires two things. Motivation and means. If you remove the means you still have the motivation, and that simply results in the subject seeking out alternative means to accomplish their goal. Making guns illegal is an inconvenience to people who want to commit violence. Without guns this dude would've flown his airplane into a building or built an ANFO car bomb and detonated it in the crowd (both of these things would likely result in more casualties then the shooting). All making guns illegal would do is punish law abiding citizens and mildly inconvenience violent individuals since there are so many other ways to cause mass death thst are readily available to an individual with a little technical knowledge. I'm really sick of this dumb perceived moral high ground antigun people think they have due to their silly bandaid solution. If you want to stop gun violence go after the motivation and not the means used.
[QUOTE=catbarf;52744304]People said the same thing circa 1770, insisting it was impossible for hunting muskets to go up against artillery and warships. Turns out if you have a gun it's much easier to take possession of the things you need to wage a war. I'm not too huge on the whole 'fight a tyrannical government' reason for owning guns but there are numerous examples of personal armament allowing a cause to achieve much more than they would otherwise, even in the modern era.[/quote] Having another developed nation backing us during the revolution wasn't exactly hurting us, either. [quote]Two points here. 1. For home defense, an AR-15 is absolutely a better choice than a handgun or shotgun. They're less likely to pierce a wall and kill your neighbors. They're easier to control so you can aim accurately and end the threat with as few shots as possible. They're manageable by women and children in a way a huge pump shotgun isn't. For a responsible gun owner, an AR-15 is less likely to inflict collateral damage on innocent bystanders and is by far the more responsible choice. Buckshot, shotgun slugs, and FMJ pistol ammo are very good at penetrating drywall, .223 is not.[/quote] You can get pistols that fire 5.56/.223 rounds. And it seems to me it penetrates dry-wall just fine. [url]http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/05/09/22-vs-223-home-defense-drywall-penetration[/url] [quote]2. In 97% of firearm crime in which the gun is identified, the weapon used is a handgun. The Virginia Tech shooter carried out his attack with handguns. The Columbine shooters were primarily equipped with handguns. I don't know why people focus on ARs and AKs when handguns are overwhelmingly a bigger problem in this country. I would sooner support a ban on handguns than one on 'assault weapons', because one of these represents an overwhelming trend in crime and gun violence while the other is a staple of armed self-defense and only in the news for its comparatively extremely rare appearance in high-profile events.[/quote] Probably because handguns are the easiest/cheapest to get and/or are more commonly available? Remember, the Columbine shooters got their guns from their parents. [quote]Bump-fire stocks are strictly for fucking around. You can fuck around with explosives, they are regulated by the 1934 NFA. I'm not sure what your point is, these are hobbyist interests. I haven't heard confirmation that a bump-fire stock was used in this attack, but if it was, it is literally the first time I have ever heard of one being used for nefarious purposes.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/03/las-vegas-shooting-gunman-used-bump-stock-device-to-speed-fire/[/url] Says he had at least two. No idea why he would have them while committing a mass shooting unless he intended to use them.
Jesus Christ BDA at this point you've basically destroyed your own argument with the methodology you've used to defend it. People have given you multiple arguments based on logical deductions and you keep looping back to the same tired argument you yourself admit is based primarily on emotion. If that wasn't enough you just started acting condescending and ignoring legitimate questions as though they were underhanded traps, even when the wording was polite and straightforward. This isn't how you debate, and it sure as hell isn't how you win people over. You're free to keep this approach, but as someone who's pretty neutral on the topic I can say that your method of debate actively pushed me away from your side. I'm not fully convinced in support of gun rights but atleast they presented hard evidence over raw emotion.
BDA, gun control measures which target "assault weapons" (semi-automatic long guns) have no effect because virtually no one uses them to commit crime or murder. Stop ignoring the math, this has been beaten to death already.
[QUOTE=OvB;52745795]To be honest I'm sort of surprised this is the first time someone has used a bump stock in a shooting.[/QUOTE] I distinctly remember having a debate with someone on these very forums that someone could use a bump-stock to commit a mass shooting, and he argued that it would be impossible to do because you can't move while bump-firing for some reason. I hate it when I'm right.
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