• After Las Vegas massacre, Democrats urge gun laws; Republicans silent
    853 replies, posted
[QUOTE=evilweazel;52742917]Alcohol kills 88,000 people a year just due to over drinking, over three times the amount of gun related suicides. If we're getting rid of things because they're dangerous, alcohol has to go with the guns, fullstop. It is [B]not[/B] worth your buzz to have almost [I]90,000[/I] people a year [B][I]DIE[/I][/B]. It's about saving lives. It's about the children![/QUOTE] Which is why I fucking said "small amounts" Even moderate amounts would be the same point. Like you entirely missed the second half of my post where I said "educate people on the dangers and offer support to alcoholics" which, yes, [B]REDUCES ALCOHOL AND OVER DRINKING RELATED DEATHS[/B]. It's great you think you have a hyper good argument here, but here's the thing. Alcohol is a buzz that's harmless in small amounts. A gun is a mechanical device which can kill 10 people with a cheap off-the-counter wal-mart brand. Their intent in design is to kill, maim, murder, hunt, whatever else buzzword you want me to use, it doesn't matter. Their [I]purpose for existing[/I] is to kill people. I don't care if you and your friends like to "pop off a few rounds every once in a while" or whatever bdd said up there. [I]Responsible use of a device created purely as a tool of murder isn't an argument against strict gun control. [/I]I do love the "think of the children" bullshit you pulled though, as if that's a big time zinger.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52742930]You're like a broken record. "People will try to find loopholes in the legislation. It's pointles!" "We'll patch those loopholes as they become apparent." "People will try to find loopholes in the legislation. It's pointless!" I'm done engaging with this cyclical nonsense.[/QUOTE] Do you think Prohibition would have been more effective if they'd just banned liquors by name, and then took an attitude of 'well, we'll just revise the law any time someone produces a new alcohol product and ban it'? Don't give me that 'cyclical nonsense' shit. I'm not the one repeatedly proposing measures that have been historically demonstrated not to work. California can't make it work (see: bullet buttons). New York can't make it work (see: NY-legal ARs). Overtly anti-gun states with broad political support for quashing these loopholes can't make the system you propose work. There is no precedent to think it could work. Proposing bad legislation and then taking an attitude of 'well we'll fix the symptoms of our self-created problem as they arise' is [b]stupid[/b].
[QUOTE=Cliff2;52742949]It's almost like people have access to vast encyclopedic knowledge on anything they'd want to learn.[/QUOTE] Yeah, and you're almost definitely not going to stop them. The people that want to make guns, however, need vastly more resources, time and expertise than what's happening now in America with the whole [URL="http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/"]1500+ mass shootings or attempted mass shootings in the past 5 years.[/URL] Oh before you go all pissy with "wow the website is gunviolencearchive, as if they could be impartial" go look at the sources they use. [editline]3rd October 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=catbarf;52742957]Do you think Prohibition would have been more effective if they'd just banned liquors by name, and then took an attitude of 'well, we'll just revise the law any time someone produces a new alcohol product and ban it'? Don't give me that 'cyclical nonsense' shit. I'm not the one repeatedly proposing measures that have been historically demonstrated not to work. California can't make it work (see: bullet buttons). New York can't make it work (see: NY-legal ARs). Overtly anti-gun states with broad political support for quashing these loopholes can't make the system you propose work. There is no precedent to think it could work. Proposing bad legislation and then taking an attitude of 'well we'll fix the symptoms of our self-created problem as they arise' is [b]stupid[/b].[/QUOTE] "historically demonstrated not to work" yeah, prohibition didn't work. Gun control, however, does* *see: the rest of the world, page 293 of the 'encyclopedia of common sense'
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52742954]Alcohol is a buzz that's harmless in small amounts. A gun is a mechanical device which can kill 10 people with a cheap off-the-counter wal-mart brand.[/QUOTE] A target pistol is a backyard toy that's harmless when responsibly handled. Alcohol is a potent drug which can kill dozens with a cheap over-the-counter brand when a drunk driver plows into a crowd. You're still just invoking special pleading. What a gun or alcohol is or isn't designed to do is utterly irrelevant to the argument that 'lives aren't worth a hobby'. [QUOTE=EcksDee;52742961]"historically demonstrated not to work" yeah, prohibition didn't work. Gun control, however, does* *see: the rest of the world, page 293 of the 'encyclopedia of common sense'[/QUOTE] If you're not going to read what you're replying to, don't bother posting.
[QUOTE=catbarf;52742897]There are no exploits. I just gave you an example that doesn't involve any exploits and conforms precisely to both the intent and letter of your proposed 'semi-autos bad, magazines bad, revolvers ok' paradigm. So is your proposal actually that within a few years you want to revise the law to ban revolvers? Ban high-capacity revolvers? Ban speedloaders (literally just clips of metal that hold bullets together)? What's the exploit I'm using, exactly? You keep saying 'we'll just change the law to counter exploits' without recognizing that what I'm talking about aren't exploits, they're glaring holes in your proposed legislation.[/quote] So, impose limits on civilian revolver capabilities and mechanics. [quote]If your attempt at a nuanced approach is nonsensical and impossible to enforce in practice then it is an utter waste of time and political capital and absolutely should be abandoned altogether in favor of more useful and productive efforts.[/quote] [I]Saying[/I] that it's nonsensical and impossible doesn't actually make it nonsensical and impossible. It simply requires active enforcement. If gun manufacturers begin producing a weapon in violation of the spirit of the legislation, amend the legislation to prevent that. That's it. [quote]I would absolutely rather invest heavily in things like mental healthcare than sit and watch Congress debate for the thirty millionth time in three years over whether we need to ban Gun Product #1846 because the gun manufacturers are smarter than the gun-ignorant people who drafted the original law.[/quote] It's not an either/or situation, despite the repeated insistence of gun advocates. We can work to improve mental healthcare [I]and[/I] work to reduce the number of deadly weapons in our streets. [B]Both[/B] are necessarily to reduce the long term impacts of gun violence. [quote]Edit: Have you read anything about the Adler shotgun in Australia? Australia banned pump-action shotguns, so a company imported essentially lever-action conversions of pump-action shotguns. Thousands were imported while the government tried to get its shit together to make a decision, and the eventual outcome was that [i]nothing happened[/i] because the states couldn't reach consensus. Australia has a ban on pump-actions on the books, but a shooter can buy a lever-action that is functionally identical. The pump-action ban has failed in its intended purpose because it is an overly-specific piece of legislation based on technical details, and just counting on the government to 'ban the exploits' is impractical even in a country more overtly anti-gun and less partisan and dysfunctional than ours.[/QUOTE] Based on my understanding, the issue wasn't that lever action shotguns were banned, but that they were categorized in a different class from pump action shotguns, and the difficulty in determining how to respond to something that allowed a pump action shotgun to be converted into a lever action shotgun. If lever action shotguns were fully and unequivocally banned for civilian ownership, there would be no debate to be had. The modification would be illegal, and those creating and selling the kit would be barred from doing so. For the record, just to specify, it is automatic action weapons that I am concerned with. I don't really care about pumps/levers from an enforcement standpoint. While I'm sure you could find outlandish, inconvenient, and unreliable Frankenstein guns to present as silly "what ifs" to any specific points I make about the technical specifics, I am generally fine with guns requiring physical chambering of the round through pumps, levers, bolts, etc, as they are limited by the abilities of the user, and even at maximum potential still have a fraction of the capability of a semi-automatic weapon with an oversized magazine slotted in for use in mass violence. [editline]/[/editline] Reading more on the lever action shotgun controversy you pointed out, it seems that I was mistaken about the debate being around a conversion kit, but was instead based on a gun with an inordinately high capacity, whether the categorization was ever even appropriate, and just how far the government's ability to restrict weapons went. Sorry for the initial misunderstanding. Either way, the solution is pretty straightforward. Firmly establish the government's right to restrict firearms, limit capacity of weapons, and actively crack down on exploits and violations as we can. Even if it is not as efficient as it could be, it's still leagues better than the current state of affairs: unrestricted gun manufacturers pumping out mass murder machines for civilian sale on a daily basis.
I believe in stronger gun laws if only to create more of a stigma around guns
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52742976]So, impose limits on civilian revolver capabilities and mechanics.[/QUOTE] So to what extent are people allowed to have in regards to self defense in your scenario? A single-action revolver with only 6 rounds and nothing else?
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52742900]rehabilitation to those that are addicted.[/QUOTE] Rehabilitate gun addicts? Lol that's a new one. On the flip side, alcohol in small amounts can lead you to think you're okay to drive and end up crashing into another car and killing 3 people, and bullets in small amounts can let you go out to the range with your buddies and have some fun plinking. Here's another thing I wanna mention. America is a huge nation with single states that have larger populations than entire European nations. There are massive amounts of wealth inequality, social inequality, racial inequality. There's tons of diversity, people of vastly different backgrounds and ideas, beliefs, etc. Our health and education systems are broken and getting worse. Political corruption is on a dramatic rise. There's a pervasive cultural attitude of hyper-individualism that encourages "bootstraps" and "fuck you got mine" rather than provide communal support to those in need. People are becoming more and more isolated. Why is it any surprise that there's more violence in America than small, homogeneous nations with well functioning political, health, and educational systems? America might be an outlier among rich western nations in terms of gun deaths (it doesn't even come close to places like El Salvador, Brazil, or South Africa), but other rich western nations don't strike me as so inequal and dysfunctional either. I wonder, if you just took away gang violence from the statistic of ~36 gun-related homocides per 1 million people a year, what would you be left with? Because you don't solve gangs by banning guns, that's for sure. If you only look at true lone-wolf style mass shootings, how does the US actually compare to the rest of the world? I bet, and obviously I don't have the numbers and cannot prove this assertion, that America's gun problem isn't as ludicrously out of control as is commonly asserted. Which is why I don't believe in banning guns. I say that we can have a society where guns are not restricted to the hands of a tiny minority in the most non-lethal way possible, [i]and[/i] a society where gun homocides are not 10 times as high as the next rich western nation. But it will take more than band-aid solutions.
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52742979]So to what extent are people allowed to have in regards to self defense in your scenario? A single-action revolver with only 6 rounds and nothing else?[/QUOTE] Self defense in what context/ scenario?
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52742979]So to what extent are people allowed to have in regards to self defense in your scenario? A single-action revolver with only 6 rounds and nothing else?[/QUOTE] Dunno. I'd probably want to see data on the capabilities of an average person with a revolver versus the capabilities of an average person with an automatic pistol.But, generally speaking, I'd argue that 6-8 rounds in a double action revolver is adequate for self defense while still being sufficiently hampered by physical capabilities when compared to somebody wielding an automatic pistol with an extended magazine.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52742987]Dunno. I'd probably want to see data on the capabilities of an average person with a revolver versus the capabilities of an average person with an automatic pistol.But, generally speaking, I'd argue that 6-8 rounds in a double action revolver is adequate for self defense while still being sufficiently hampered by physical capabilities when compared to somebody wielding an automatic pistol with an extended magazine.[/QUOTE] Now hold on, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about standard (as standard as they can be anyway) magazines are specialized items? Why "extended" magazines?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52742976]The issue wasn't that lever action shotguns were banned, but that they were categorized in a different class from pump action shotguns, and the difficulty in determining how to respond to something that allowed a pump action shotgun to be converted into a lever action shotgun. If lever action shotguns were fully and unequivocally banned for civilian ownership, there would be no debate to be had. The modification would be illegal, and those creating and selling the kit would be barred from doing so.[/QUOTE] You're so close to getting it. Now replace 'pump action shotguns' with 'semi-automatics', and 'lever action shotguns' with 'revolvers'. Australia banned pump-action shotguns while allowing lever-action shotguns which were fundamentally capable of the same thing, and couldn't effectively address this loophole. You're proposing banning semi-automatic firearms while allowing revolvers which are fundamentally capable of the same thing. The same kind of exploit is inevitable, but you're counting on being able to respond to that and quash it (somehow). Australia couldn't do it. California and New York can't do it. Why do you think the US as a whole can do it? [i]What historical example leads you to think addressing loopholes after the fact is an effective system of enforcement?[/i]
[QUOTE=catbarf;52742972] If you're just going to ignore what you're replying to, don't bother posting.[/QUOTE] "ignore what you're replying to" Pot, meet kettle. My post may have been smug but that's because it's so easy to respond to every single point you've ever made. Your points, in order: [QUOTE]Do you think Prohibition would have been more effective if they'd just banned liquors by name, and then took an attitude of 'well, we'll just revise the law any time someone produces a new alcohol product and ban it'?[/QUOTE] Response: Prohibition didn't work. [QUOTE]Don't give me that 'cyclical nonsense' shit. I'm not the one repeatedly proposing measures that have been historically demonstrated not to work.[/QUOTE] Response: It's the same exact point. [QUOTE]California can't make it work (see: bullet buttons). New York can't make it work (see: NY-legal ARs). Overtly anti-gun states with broad political support for quashing these loopholes can't make the system you propose work. There is no precedent to think it could work.[/QUOTE] Response: read between the lines, gun control works, half-assed stupid gun control like what America does because of your retarded government and even dumber population and insane lobbying money causing one of the most corrupt systems in the developed world, doesn't. [QUOTE] Proposing bad legislation and then taking an attitude of 'well we'll fix the symptoms of our self-created problem as they arise' is stupid.[/QUOTE] no arguments there lol [QUOTE]A target pistol is a backyard toy that's harmless when responsibly handled. Alcohol is a potent drug which can kill dozens with a cheap over-the-counter brand when a drunk driver plows into a crowd. You're still just invoking special pleading. What a gun or alcohol is or isn't designed to do is utterly irrelevant to the argument that 'lives aren't worth a hobby'.[/QUOTE] A nuke is harmless when responsibly handled, and we're still de-arming. I already told you that responsibility doesn't matter in this argument. Sure if you want me to admit it, A responsible gun owner is a-ok. A guy responsibly drinking beer is a-ok. A person that handles guns like a guy that likes to get a but rowdy with the beer ends up with 0 to half a dozen deaths on one side, and a painful hangover the other. A person that goes overboard with guns like person that drinks themselves blackout drunk ends with several dozen deaths on one side, and a broken nose, shards of glass, jailtime and potential deaths the other. A person that goes insane with with guns like the person that drinks themselves to death ends with a hundred deaths on one side, and a dead guy. So not only is the scale completely skewed in that it takes less to murder with a gun than alcohol, but guess what. It's irrelevant. The comparisons I brought out are irrelevant. What is relevant is the intent of the device. Alcohol has, for thousands of years, been a social enhancer. Guns have, for maybe a few decades, been highly engineered killing devices. If you want to truly make the comparison apt, a "gun" version of alcohol would be a needle that kills people of alcohol poisoning when you stab them with it. "Oh but I just wanna see how it squirts out of the needle in my own back yard" I don't give a shit, it's dangerous, and so are guns. Keep them small, no ARs for civilian use, VERY rough vetting and mandatory psychological tests, regular checkups, the works. Owning guns should be a privilege, not the retarded right it supposedly is (I have my problems with that shit too, the people who wrote the 2nd didn't fucking know a guy could sit at a window and shoot hundreds of rounds into a crowd. They had fucking MUSKETS.)
Expecting us to on the spot come up with fool proof, water tight gun regulations is ridiculous. Most of our argument is simply that the current state of things is not working
[QUOTE=catbarf;52743010]You're so close to getting it. Now replace 'pump action shotguns' with 'semi-automatics', and 'lever action shotguns' with 'revolvers'. Australia banned pump-action shotguns while allowing lever-action shotguns which were fundamentally capable of the same thing, and couldn't effectively address this loophole. You're proposing banning semi-automatic firearms while allowing revolvers which are fundamentally capable of the same thing. The same kind of exploit is inevitable, but you're counting on being able to respond to that and quash it (somehow). Australia couldn't do it. California and New York can't do it. Why do you think the US as a whole can do it? [i]What historical example leads you to think addressing loopholes after the fact is an effective system of enforcement?[/i][/QUOTE] I did realize that I misunderstood that situation after looking up a couple of articles, yeah, so I do apologize for that. It seems that the debate had to do with the classificiation of the weapons, and with the powers of the government in regards to gun control. Firmly establish the government's ability to create and adjust classifications as necessary, actively enforce existing legislation, and actively patch loopholes as they become apparent. Certainly there will be inefficiencies and hiccups, but it's still considerably improved from our current situation: gun manufacturers pumping out thousands of high capacity semi-automatic weapons for civilian use with few restrictions and limited barriers to purchase on a daily basis. Furthermore, the US has gun crime rates six times higher than Australia. Despite the occasional hiccup from bureaucratic inefficiencies, it's clear that their legislation is working.
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52742961]Yeah, and you're almost definitely not going to stop them. The people that want to make guns, however, need vastly more resources, time and expertise than what's happening now in America with the whole [URL="http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/"]1500+ mass shootings or attempted mass shootings in the past 5 years.[/URL] Oh before you go all pissy with "wow the website is gunviolencearchive, as if they could be impartial" go look at the sources they use. [editline]3rd October 2017[/editline] "historically demonstrated not to work" yeah, prohibition didn't work. Gun control, however, does* *see: the rest of the world, page 293 of the 'encyclopedia of common sense'[/QUOTE] Okay and what do they use to define mass shootings? Looking at the data they use they take any shooting with multiple people in it. Most of the cases cited are multiple homicides with no motive in the news article. Context matters, if we are going to use the "think of the lives we can save excuse"...there are other things in this country which kill us at a much higher rate then firearms. Want to help reduce gun violence, instead of trying to band-aid a symptom why don't you actually fix the root of the problem. Gang violence is a symptom of social issues such as poverty, lack of education, lack of access to jobs, etc. Fix these issues and you can reduce gang violence, which will reduce "mass shootings." Murder/suicide - better protections for victims of abuse, better rehab programs for individuals suffering from mental illness or other disorders. Accidental deaths can be prevented by mandatory training and education. The fact of the matter is violence is a symptom of deeper issues, blame the guns all you want, blame the bullets, blame the 2nd amendment. That is fine, take away guns, take away ammo, destroy the constitution for all I care. Nothing will change - the violence will still continue, only difference is it will be under a different legal definition. Maybe it will be knives, bombs, cars, trucks, home-made weapons, etc. Even then gun violence only makes up a small percentage of deaths in the U.S. It is worth fighting to lower it? I think so 100 percent, but try fixing the underlining issues in this country and you will see a drop in gun violence. You can do all kinds of things, but you cannot prevent one person who is on the fringe from committing mass violence.
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52742954]Which is why I fucking said "small amounts" Even moderate amounts would be the same point. Like you entirely missed the second half of my post where I said "educate people on the dangers and offer support to alcoholics" which, yes, [B]REDUCES ALCOHOL AND OVER DRINKING RELATED DEATHS[/B]. It's great you think you have a hyper good argument here, but here's the thing. Alcohol is a buzz that's harmless in small amounts. A gun is a mechanical device which can kill 10 people with a cheap off-the-counter wal-mart brand. Their intent in design is to kill, maim, murder, hunt, whatever else buzzword you want me to use, it doesn't matter. Their [I]purpose for existing[/I] is to kill people. I don't care if you and your friends like to "pop off a few rounds every once in a while" or whatever bdd said up there. [I]Responsible use of a device created purely as a tool of murder isn't an argument against strict gun control. [/I]I do love the "think of the children" bullshit you pulled though, as if that's a big time zinger.[/QUOTE] Alcohol kills 88,000 a year through misuse. If we're banning guns based on misuse, why not save three times the lives and go after alcohol? Don'tyou think bodycount is more important than intended use? Don't be cold hearted now, were talking peoples lives here. No good reason to stop at guns.
[QUOTE=SIRIUS;52743024]Expecting us to on the spot come up with fool proof, water tight gun regulations is ridiculous. Most of our argument is simply that the current state of things is not working[/QUOTE] And my argument is that "the current state of things" has [i]waaaaaaay[/i] more to do with societal issues that we are failing to address than it does with the prevalence of guns. And that we can help the issue without subverting one of the primary founding philosophies of the entire nation. [editline]3 October 2017[/editline] Also side note, I know people love to say that the whole defense against tyranny aspect of the right to bear arms is invalid now because there are bombs and tanks and whatever else, and that people with semi-auto rifles couldn't hope to stand up against them. But that wasn't any different back in the 1770s. People with muskets couldn't hope to defeat a well trained military with cannons, regimented musket columns, ships, cavalry, etc. The American Revolution succeeded because A) the French, and B) because it was fought as a guerrilla conflict. Anyway, the whole point is to give a government pause for attacking its own citizens and provide means of resistance, not to allow the citizens to easily defeat the military in a direct conflict.
[QUOTE=evilweazel;52743036]Alcohol kills 88,000 a year through misuse. If we're banning guns based on misuse, why not save three times the lives and go after alcohol? Don'tyou think bodycount is more important than intended use? Don't be cold hearted now, were talking peoples lives here. No good reason to stop at guns.[/QUOTE] Again: alcohol is nearly impossible to prevent the production of. People actively locked in prison make it in their toilets with leftover cafeteria fruit. Guns, not so much. They require specialized equipment, skills, and materials to produce. Your condescending argument is ridiculous. Halting the mass manufacturing of guns would cripple the supply, and it would be impossible to recapture even a fraction of that through illicit channels -- unlike moonshiners and toilet winers.
[QUOTE=Nukedrabbit95;52743038]And my argument is that "the current state of things" has [i]waaaaaaay[/i] more to do with societal issues that we are failing to address than it does with the prevalence of guns. And that we can help the issue without subverting one of the primary founding philosophies of the entire nation.[/QUOTE] Society is influenced by laws
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52743054]Again: alcohol is nearly impossible to prevent the production of. People actively locked in prison make it in their toilets with leftover cafeteria fruit. Guns, not so much. Your condescending argument is ridiculous.[/QUOTE] I swear i saw something just the other day about how homemade guns are a big problem in like Australia or something. Also UncleJimmema mentioned the Sten. Guns arent really all that complicated.
[QUOTE=Cyke Lon bee;52742599]Theres actually more guns in the US than cars. They amount to more but are responsible for less death.[/QUOTE] I'm willing to bet that more people own cars than guns, though. A gun owner probably owns more guns than the average person owns cars.
[QUOTE=SIRIUS;52743058]Society is influenced by laws[/QUOTE] Which can be made to target the problem and not an object.
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52743060]I swear i saw something just the other day about how homemade guns are a big problem in like Australia or something. Also UncleJimmema mentioned the Sten.[/QUOTE] Yep, homemade guns are possible to create, with special machinery, skills, and materials. Short of building actual factories, the economies of scale of such operations are a drop in the bucket compared to the legal mass manufacturing of firearms currently seen in the United States, and could never realistically hope to capture of even a fraction of the former supply in the event that this manufacturing were to halt. It would severely choke the availability of weapons. As seen in Australia, and other nations, where the gun crime rate is 1/6th of the US's. Really, all you've done is prove my point. It [I]works[/I]. Short of a magic wand or a genie, halting [B]all[/B] gun crime is impossible. Slashing it down to a fraction of what it is now, though? That's doable.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52742871]Okay, then I am proposing a nationwide ban on all magazine-fed semi-automatic and automatic weapons for civilian use. I believe that the only firearms a civilian should have access to are pump action shotguns with limited capacity, bolt action rifles with limited capacity, and revolver pistols. Potential exceptions to these must be stored within a licensed firing range. I am proposing that we immediately halt production of other weapons for civilian purchase, grandfathering in existing weapons so long as they were registered under your ownership prior to said legislation, and then waging a long term war of attrition of the existing stocks of weapons in civilian hands. [editline]3rd October 2017[/editline] Have already explained several times, not going to again. Read my previous posts.[/QUOTE] We already did all that with the assault weapons ban. It didn't do anything to limit gun crime. It's practically common knowledge that gun crime overall has actually decreased after the ban expired. Literally all it did was piss off people who owned guns and helped shape the NRA into the retarded hardline mess it is today because everyone who ever had to deal with that pointlessly draconian legislation said "never again". Some states such as New York and Massachusetts are trying to enforce their own versions of the AWB which are even worse than the one from Clinton. My friend's dad is a correctional officer and an armorer, but his department doesn't even know if they can legally practice shooting with their own personal weapons! Everything about Assault Weapons Bans are baseless and thinking another one will somehow fix things is the definition of insanity.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52743054]Again: alcohol is nearly impossible to prevent the production of. People actively locked in prison make it in their toilets with leftover cafeteria fruit. Guns, not so much. They require specialized equipment, skills, and materials to produce. Your condescending argument is ridiculous. Halting the mass manufacturing of guns would cripple the supply, and it would be impossible to recapture even a fraction of that through illicit channels -- unlike moonshiners and toilet winers.[/QUOTE] People locked up in prison have made guns too. One again you're acting like it requires some innate and difficult to aquire knowledge to build a gun. As I've explained, and you've seemed to ignore, anyone with basic tools can make a gun. In face it is easier to make a full auto than it is to make a semi-auto. To go back to my example of the sten, a trip to the hardware store can give you more than you need to build one. [IMG]http://www.tornado-technologies.com/images/STEN/STEN_MKII_cutaway_2.jpg[/IMG] It is literally a tube, a spring, and a weight with a firing pin.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52742571]There's a whole spirited argument to be had on the intention of the second amendment, but I'll simply say that its creators could not have even [I]conceived[/I] of the weapons of today when drafting it. [/QUOTE] Couldn't you privately own [i]artillery pieces[/i] back then?
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52743067]Yep, homemade guns are possible to create, with special machinery, skills, and materials. Short of building actual factories, the economies of scale of such operations are a drop in the bucket compared to the legal mass manufacturing of firearms currently seen in the United States, and could never realistically hope to capture of even a fraction of the former supply in the event that this manufacturing were to halt. It would severely choke the availability of weapons. As seen in Australia, and other nations, where the gun crime rate is 1/6th of the US's.[/QUOTE] Uh? Yeah? But people can still do it, and do it, and have the means to do it, just like prison alcohol. What exactly are you trying to say.
You can make a sten with simple tools though iirc, it doesn't require special machining because by design its a crude as fuck design.
BDA do you know how a gun works? Honest question. Not just "pull trigger bullet come out", i mean do you actually know what a gun does? Do you know what squeezing the trigger actually does? Or how the bullet comes out?
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.