Democrat buys semiautomatic rifle at Va. gun show in under 10 minutes - Polidicks

Ok, so this is now like the fourth time we have done this, but let's go through it again. Fat Boy can do more damage than a Glock can. However, you would be wrong to think you are more likely to die to a Fat Boy-weapon than a Glock. Consequently, a rifle can do more damage than a hammer/fist. However, you would be wrong to think you are more likely to die to a rifle than a hammer/fist. I can try to clarify this point more if it still isn't clear.

Assuming they weren't already in motion - and the 17500J is only the average for weapons platforms that fire 50 BMG rounds. Also, people have various body types - those with weaker ligaments or poor muscle mass are more liable to suffer from the amount of torsion delivered. The amount of instantaneous force I cited above was delivered by two horses and caused a limb to be ripped out of its socket. I'm not aware of any official 'limb being ripped from socket' sources but if you have any that would clarify that the 22000J is the actual required force or merely a force observed to cause that sort of limb-tear. There are citations that a 50BMG can blow the limbs and head off small animals when they're struck by it.

The question I was responding to was "how many crimes have been committed with fire-arms purchased legally from gun shows".

That's because on those animals the wound channel created by a 50BMG round is wider than the limb it's striking. That is not the case anywhere on the human body except for fingers and toes.

This just got addressed by Grenadiac above, so I don't really care to entertain this tangent any further. It's a wildly unrelated deviation from the topic to go into detail on the effects of different .50 BMG loads on various human body types. This scenario is just not a thing that happens, let's let it die.

These aren't reports of limb strikes. These are torso strikes which rip limbs off. So we should allow the XM-8 out onto the streets for anyone to use simply because it's never been yet used to inflict harm?

The XM-8 is a select-fire assault rifle, so no, it would be regulated per NFA and GCA '86.

I always found it funny as shit that you can go to a gun show and get a gun with no background check or registration. But with a car you have to have registration, training, practice, ID renewal every 4 years, and yearly tags. Hell, signing a lease has a lot more red-tape than ever getting a firearm.

And I'm saying that some things don't need to be 'looked into further' to deserve immediate classification and regulation. You'd have a hard time impressing on me that every weapon is innocuous until proven otherwise. Are railguns not something that need to be regulated? New explosives? Some things should be regulated on the face of them because they deserve that regulation.

So if I put it on the books, today, and somebody gets arrested - tomorrow - for violating that law -- but 100 other cases don't get people arrested who should've been: that means that it's "completely impossible to enforce"?

It's more effective than there being no law and zero arrests. Wouldn't you rather do something that makes clear the intent of the law and so make it such that only those who wish to break the law break it (and thus reduce the incidence to begin with) than do nothing? I'm all for attacking the source of the crime while passing legislation that makes it clear that that sort of behavior is not tolerable or legal.

Let's do all that and make private sales that do not involve background checks illegal.

Neither side is particularly crazy about people constantly being shot on the news either.

I think the fundamental difference here is that you think that you can legislate these issues away, which is just not possible nor effective nor efficient. You know how congress works, you know what it takes to get a law passed, and your gameplan is to shotgun bills. You can't do that, you know it doesn't work, and it is just a wasted effort. You have to pick and choose your battles, and this is a battle that just doesn't carry the weight behind it to justify the effort to push it through.

I don't think anyone could pass a bill which 'solves murder'. That does not mean we should not make murder illegal. We are going well beyond 'picking and choosing battles' here when politicians are choosing to do nothing rather than something. That's not picking and choosing battles - that's waving a white flag and fleeing from the war itself.

If anyone gave two shits about actually saving lives you would easily find that the top causes of death are healthcare related and accident related. Gun deaths are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to "lethality." Break gun deaths down even more and you'll find it is even more minuscule, read up on how gun deaths are legally defined. You'll find suicides are much higher then actual homicides. Suicides make up the majority of gun deaths. There would a focus on accessible healthcare, education, infrastructure, and so on. Focusing on these would drive a lot of the death tolls down and also help reduce violence as well. But instead, we will continue the decades long agenda to attack the big spooky firearms (ironically which don't even get used that often in crimes, most gun related deaths are handguns). Make sure we ban every physical characteristic of assault rifle of mass discussion and protect the children, even though it will hardly impact the functionality of the weapon. Then when the violence continues and in order to save face we will blame a new object/enemy instead of fixing the underlining issues. Then we get into the whole other subject that people want to talk about emotional appeals and basically approve of it for gun discussion. Then turn around and condone it for other emotional appeals in other topics such as immigration ( such as the gotta ban the spooky immigrants which are murderers and rapist), just an example of both sides of the coin. It's all very hypocritical and to say otherwise is just a lie. Want to have an honest discussion about gun control and what to do? Then come in with some facts and actually attempt to show you know at least half of what you are talking about. You do not have to like or support a subject to have a realistic view on the matter, if you cannot remove bias then you need to at least recognize that. No one wants to listen to anyone who attempts to score points by saying "look how scary this is, I bought this gun in 10 minutes and I WAS WITHIN 2 MILES OF A SCHOOL." No one is also going to listen to a political group that actively has members that openly admit they are perfectly fine with the confiscation of private property. If you do not think private sales are not right and want to change it just be fucking upfront about it, at least that is more honest. Tell us what the issue you feel is and come up with a reasonable measure. But if you are going to use tax dollars in an attempt change the law and mix things up at least prove what you are doing is fucking worth utilizing money and time on. How many gun crimes can be linked back to private sales? Ironically, our government has likely impacted gun violence by selling criminal organization weapons and then losing said weapons through programs such as Fast and Furious. Why is it people talk about the fear of private gun sales, but then you have issues with organizations that cannot even speak to one another and flag people who have been convicted of a crime and get a gun because the information did not get released right. Government can hardly handle what it has now, how the hell are you expected to enforce the regulation of private sales? I mean I'm all for reasonable measures, but realistically this is going to be a bureaucratic nightmare which is going to be impossible to enforce...they can hardly combat illegal firearm sales. Most of you do not agree with people talking about what they don't know and making legislation on things they do not know enough about - why should guns be any different? They shouldn't. If you wouldn't accept legislation from someone who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about in regards to the internet, copyright, piracy, etc. Why would you accept it for this topic?

OK, let's solve those in addition to making private firearm sales illegal without a background check. That shouldn't be a thing that's allowed to begin with, practically enforceable or not. The only thing continuing this 'decades long agenda' is constant refusals to do substantial things related to the problem at hand. Digging your head in the sand and stating 'this is what people will listen to' before you even raise your voice similarly demonstrates a tone-deafness or a cowedness that doesn't befit your status as a citizen, where you should loudly and proudly be asserting your civic rights and demanding action on matters important to you and society around you. The worst thing that could ever be done about this is nothing. The second worst thing that could ever be done about this is waiting for a magic bullet to suddenly appear which solves the problem. There are laws in place regarding the internet, copyright, piracy, et cetera that were born from collaborative efforts of citizens and senators. The bad ones got repealed or were fought down - until this present administration anyway, which doesn't appear to care about the will of the people so much as the will of money. Even in this administration, that doesn't mean fighting for the cause of less deaths is unworthy or worth less your time.

I understand the frustration that no one is acting. But just because you are up to your head in water and no one has thrown you a floatie doesn't mean you should just flail around and hope it works out. You need to be a bit more collected to deal with it. And to say that "if it prevents a singular improper purchase it has already justified itself as a worthwhile effort" is disingenuous. That's just emotional appeal. Likewise, if prohibition was enacted today and as a result it stopped one death by a drunk driver, I very much doubt everyone would be saying "it was worth it". That may come across as morbid, but it is what it is.

That's a great fallacy of relative privation you got there. Cant fix X because Y is so much worse guys. Really funny considering two are massively different issues.

Yes, we should continue to listen to the people sitting next to us who are paid to tell us not to move and be calm forever while we continue to endlessly drift on the seas. That's not disingenuous. That's literally a substantiation that demonstrates that the law works - even if it doesn't work as well as we'd like. That's not an emotional appeal; stating that 'imperfect things shouldn't be allowed' is an emotional appeal. You're basically stating 'because Prohibition failed we shouldn't have any laws or regulations on alcohol because it proved we can't ban alcohol and solve the problems of alcohol'. It doesn't come across as morbid, it comes across as a farce.

Why should it be illegal to begin with? It is already illegal to sell a firearm to a criminal and doing so can catch yourself some charges. So what is the point of the law other than to ban sales from legal owner to legal owner? What is the objective? What are you trying to reduce? What is the issue? Can the issue be traced back to private sales? If you can think about those and actually prove private sales are an issue, but saying "it shouldn't be allowed to begin with" doesn't cut it.

Not what I'm saying at all, but good job missing the entire point.

The point is to ensure that people actually do background checks on people before selling them weapons. I'm not saying that you wouldn't be liable for your sale to a criminal, I'm saying some people are dumb enough to think 'I know Bob. Bob isn't a criminal because I've known him for eight years' despite Bob being a criminal and them simply being ignorant of it. The objective is to make it more difficult for weapons to land in the wrong hands. The issue can't be traced back solitarily to private sales -- but that doesn't mean that private sales aren't contributing to the problem. Saying 'we should do nothing' doesn't cut it.

I'm stating that throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at Congress is ineffective and unrealistic. To state otherwise is just to make an emotional cry that "Something needs to be done!". That doesn't help us do anything. I'm also saying that the idea of something "saving just one life" even has it's limits.

And saying 'we can't do anything because we can't do everything' has never solved a problem in all of human history.

But we've given you a huge list of things that we would actually love to see and support that would also accomplish your goal.

Great. Do one.

Because now you have a firearm that has fallen off the grid completely when its not registered to a new owner. Owner A who is registered to own the gun sells it off in a trade show to B, B sells it to his neighbor C, C uses it to kill someone and now the police only has it linked to the original owner. Its the same reason you're required by law to register your car. If either gets linked to a crime, it can be traced to who owns it. Having a loophole its dumb and irresponsible, especially when its a tool made to kill things. That's why I said its funny that in this country you go through tons of red tape for basic necessities, but owning a firearm is like buying a toy in certain situations.

Right, and the source of those problems include what I've already stated. If the government refuses to fix the whole of the problem, you dig your heels in and you demand it be brought to yield and serve the common good. Each of these things above will do more to fix the issues than banning private sales ever could. And none of them make pursuing the banning of private sales impossible or even less likely.

I completely understand that and I understand the purpose of background checks. All you are saying is basically private sales could be contribution to the problem, but we do not know for sure. Just for the sake of the argument, lets say it is a problem and we need the background check system. How do you implement that system and enforce it? Who is going to fund it? How do you give people access to the system? How do you enforce the requirements? how do you do this without impeding on peoples rights? Basically all the logistics of implementing such a huge system. Then you have to ask can it be realistically done and will it be effective? Just because it doesn't seem that way it does not mean the current legal process (Private trades) should be banned. To me just because something cannot be effective or even done properly does not justify banning a activity.