"Assault" weapon has never been used as in "assaulting" someone, but as in "a squad assaulting an enemy position", implying weapons capable of fully-automatic suppressive fire. Which really is nowhere what civilians can get access... unless you want to spend >$20k on a pre-1986 firearm.
By that same reasoning there's no such thing as anything, as we all define words to be whatever we want them to mean.
Semi-automatic or full-automatic + submachine + machine pistols + ... is too much to say. It's a meta-category, which we use all the time to describe things and is incredibly helpful.
In my view, attacking terminology is a convenient way of making dialogue impossible. I suspect that "assault weapon" may have originated with the gun manufacturers themselves, as a marketing term, or within military / police circles.
> Prior to its use in U.S. firearms laws, the term "assault weapon" was limited to naming certain military weapons, for example, the Rifleman's Assault Weapon, a grenade launcher developed in 1977 for use with the M16 assault rifle,[19] or the Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, a rocket launcher introduced in 1984.
> In April 1985, Art Agnos introduced in the California State Assembly a bill to ban semi-automatic "assault firearms" capable of using detachable magazines of 20 rounds or more. Speaking to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Agnos said, "The only use for assault weapons is to shoot people." The measure did not pass when it came up for a vote.
The terminology is attacked because people are calling for restrictions when they don't even understand the subject well enough to know what restrictions they're supporting.
It's not a "meta category" at all - it's a category based on looks rather than functionality, so the term gives the illusion of a useful description without being much of a useful description. The way the term is used it does not include full-automatic + submachine + machine pistols at all - it just describes semi-automatic rifles that have plastic stocks instead of wood. There's no functional difference between a varmint rifle with a ten round magazine and a wooden stock and an "assault weapon" with a ten round magazine and a plastic stock.
That's why gun manufacturers were able to make a few cosmetic changes to turn illegal guns into legal guns the last time we had a (completely useless) "assault weapons" ban. The California "assault weapons" ban was even dumber - they listed models in the ban, making it trivial for manufacturers to sell essentially the same weapons by changing the model number.
So the real problem you're saying is that we should never try and define things because definitions themselves can always be changed?
This problem has already been solved in other areas. Look at drug laws. They cover designer drugs easily - which is the exact same problem as you describe here.
And also - it can be a meta category, and it's helpful to have that. We can define semi-automatic pretty well, and the law has ways to cover "equivalents". Your scare quotes don't change that.
No, what I'm saying is when you're reporting on, or worse making laws about, a subject you should understand the words you're using. It wouldn't kill the media (or people in Congress) to spend twenty minutes learning enough about firearms to avoid looking like complete idiots.
And yes, you can define semiautomatics pretty well. But semiautomatics will not be banned. The problem is you can't define "assault weapons" in a way that they don't cover all semiautomatics.
It's completely reasonable to put scare quotes around a nonsense term like "assault weapons". If you say that at your local range people will point at you and laugh.
That's like saying hacking language. OMGWTFBBQ He can use assembly! Its a hacking language. Hacker this, hacker that. Its all about making something sound scary. All guns are scary. Guess what? All humans are scary too. Especially full grown adult males. And you know what equalizes weaker humans with these scary full grown adult males? Firearms.
Do you support privatized consumer-owned nuclear weapons?
What about tear gas and grenades? Automatic RPG's?
You're arguing in black and white and our world doesn't work like that. Subtlety is what makes law. Me? I'd prefer most guns were illegal. You'd prefer we all could own subatomic weapons (it seems, since you're basically implying any discussion on "level of strength" is moot).
It's not hacking language. It's subtlety. Once you throw that out the window you can't have a conversation.
> As an aside, I love the Orwellian phrase "assault weapon".
"Assault weapon" (as used here, there are other uses) is a blanket term (adopted specifically in efforts to regulate the class) for a class of weapons that are primarily semiautomatic versions of fully automatic military assault rifles, assault carbines, submachine guns, machine pistols, and combat shotguns; while the exact definitions used in different laws vary they typically are semiautomatic weapons with detachable magazines, pistol grips (whether the weapon is a pistol or not), collapsible or folding stock, and mounting points for accessories like a bayonet, grenade launcher, suppressor, etc.
The one thing I can think of is pepper-spray or a taser. I would consider those "defense weapons" rather than "assault weapons". Although, I suppose you can use any weapon either way.
My impression is generally assault rifles tend to be lighter, shorter and generally less accurate than say a typical hunting rifle. (Rifles types tend to blend into each other the same way different types of hammers do)
All guns are made to kill someone eventually, so sure, every gun is basically an "assault" rifle.
However, some languages translate assault weapons into storming weapons, which I think describe this type of guns better. The storming weapons have the hint of the gun being used against a threat in an offensive way, whilst being able to inflict as much damage as conveniently and fast as possible. Therefore, by definition, it even sounds off on a linguistic level to use an storming weapon for hunting or for defense, since deers and whatnot are not real threats. Moreover, when the ammunition is manufactured to pierce kevlar, you can already figure out that you are using the gun for the wrong purpose.
As for having a storming weapon for collective purposes sounds to me just as sane as having a collection of bongs and marijuana seeds in a country where recreational marijuana is illegal. It just doesn't sound sane to collect something for the sole purpose of owning them so that you can rub them.
I gone to the army and I guess the rubbing effect is also the reason none of the officers let conscripts touch the guns outside of training, so that nobody would get charmed by the gun and it's deadly but rather simple working method. I guess they have figured out that some people get these kinds of mental conditions which make it seem justified to own one. However I do admit getting keen on my own storming weapon and its serial number as well, but at least the officers kept everyone on planet Earth by reminding that just how dangerous the thing is. Pointing an officer with assembled yet unloaded and safety locked gun would end up getting yourself beaten up and carrying the gun outside of training would end in criminal investigation.
People "need" cars because much of western civil infrastructure is built around the assumption that cars or something similar will always be around.
I think you could argue that without cars everyone would be better off. Less pollution, people would save money on gas, more public real estate for parks, etc. not to mention less people dying from accidents.
Public transit, not to mention many jobs should be able to remote work. Before cars were very common it was also common to build communities around smaller shops that were closer.
There are a lot of people in and around NYC that would argue differently.
As someone else pointed out about this post elsewhere, there are very few things that any of us actually "need" -- do you need running water and indoor plumbing? Or, to bring it a little closer to home, does anyone really need an outdoor uncovered pool, or a drink of alcohol?
But anyway, before this gets derailed, the point of the post was really about laying out the rationales for the AR-15, while openly acknowledging that many people will still find them insufficient. What I really wanted to do, though, is move the discussion away from the "rednecks with small penises" rut that it seems to be stuck in. The "need" phrasing was the framing I chose in order to hook into the "nobody needs an assault rifle" phrase that's repeated over and over again.
At any rate, again, I acknowledged up front that I wouldn't be able to convince everybody, or even most people, and that I was ok with that as long as people on the other side of the "assault weapon" debate could gain some new information about these firearms and their appeal to non-crazy, non-penis-size-compensating, non-military-fetishist normal people.
Whether anyone "wants" or "needs" an AR-15 or any other type of firearm, the rest of us need to know that anyone around us with such a weapon has some basic competence in using it and is responsible enough to do so. I had to pass a written and and practical test and I have to show financial responsibility to operate a car. If you can do that with your AR-15 then I won't object to your having it.
I suspect you are a careful, conscientious, and responsible gun owner and would have no problem demonstrating this, but there are a lot of people who have guns who are neither careful, conscientious, nor responsible. I hope you won't mind having to demonstrate your competence so that society can stop the other people, the irresponsible ones.
And of course, you might say that even if we had such requirement to demonstrate responsibility, the irresponsible people would circumvent the system and have guns anyway. I'm sure that's true for a few, but it would remove many guns from irresponsible hands and it would give law enforcement a reason to arrest the others and get them off the streets.
I read an article earlier that pointed out that in police shootings in NYC that they hit their target less than 50% of the time. Unfortunately, even light training isn't enough. And short of sending everyone into the military for active duty in combat, most people won't be thoroughly literate.
It's about personal freedom and liberty... I'm in favor of them, even if I choose not to own one.
I don't think anyone disputes that there are many things that we do that we don't need to do. These are luxuries and desires and many are allowed and legalised and many are not.
However not all luxuries are created equal.
If indulging in your luxury creates circumstances where others are now at more risk then I don't think that is OK anymore.
Having deadly weapons broadly available definitely increases homicide and mass shootings, the evidence is irrefutable.
My point and many others is that luxuries are not rights, they are not things you need and as such should not be protected beyond general freedoms. However there is a cap on freedom and that is when it infringes on the freedoms or rights of others. In this case the right to be safe and the freedom to live life without fear of these sorts of horrible things happening.
> Having deadly weapons broadly available definitely increases homicide and mass shootings, the evidence is irrefutable.
Really? As I understand it, gun ownership has increased significantly over the last two decades, and homicide and mass shootings have gone down over that same time period.
It sounds like you think it's "obvious" that availability of firearms drives people dying from firearms, but the studies I've seen don't indicate a link.
Kind of like how availability of porn doesn't drive incidences of rape, even though intuitively, a person might expect that it should.
> It's beyond conclusive that broad availability of firearms if not the cause is definitely highly correlated.
Based on my time hanging out at Slater Star Codex, the amount of shooting deaths varies in the US largely based on culture. If you take a country like The Netherlands and find the equivalent culture in the US, violent crime rates are basically identical—despite the fact that the US has far more guns per capita (within their respective, equivalent cultures).
Frankly, talking about the "US" as if it was culturally homogenous is so misleading that it's borderline unethical. Once you tease apart the statistics, guns don't stand out as a problem for certain cultures (again, AFAICT based on discussions with other people I trust).
You're looking at the wrong statistic - the number of guns Americans own has increased significantly, but today only about 32% of American households have guns present compared to close to 50% in the late 1970s[0]. The same poll found 22% of individuals owned one or more guns in 2015 compared to 31% in 1985.
So you're saying that "people who want guns" have far more guns than they used to, and yet, gun crime has decreased?!?
That's not exactly a strong argument for increased gun control.
(FWIW The statistic that is useful isn't "gun ownership" across all cultures in the US, it's within specific sub-populations. There are huge discrepancies among violent crime across different sub-populations in the US, and without breaking them out, violent crime statistics make little sense, either individually or over time.)
Slice and dice how you like. Your implication that "more guns" == "less crime" is, at best, unproven, and your citation of incorrect trends doesn't change that. Conversely, the rest of the large, highly industrialized, developed nations with liberal democracies have tight gun control laws and homicide rates a fraction of the US's.
Also, I have no idea what your "porn is to rape as guns are to murder" comparison attempts to illustrate. I don't know how to point porn at someone and..well, that's as far as that needs to go. As syllogisms go, that's pretty damned broken.
Thank you for writing this article. On balance, I disagree with the justification but it's so much more clear and thoughtful than the popular discussion about gun rights from either end of the political spectrum.
Hooking into the "nobody needs an assault rifle" refrain is important, in part because it is evaluated differently by people on each side of the issue. Because powerful weapons can actively project harm from one person to another, they are in a different category from other opt-in dangerous things like an outdoor uncovered pool and drinking alcohol.
Driving a car is frequently cited in these debates as one of those "you don't need it, but it is incredibly dangerous and causes huge numbers of deaths" activities, but I still think that gun ownership is a few steps higher on the risk-vs-utility scale, and therefore should be treated differently - there needs to be a dedicated debate that isn't sidelined by analogies to other risky activities. Those analogies complicate more than they clarify.
He mentions specifically a hunting scenario and the need to use a powerful weapon and also the ability to quickly issue a follow-up shot if the animal is only wounded, which is a humane action.
Just clarifying the point of the author, please don't project his views on me and mob me.
He didn't need to go hunting any more than I needed to go to the cinema last night.
The difference being that my going to the cinema doesn't impact the inherent safety of our society.
He wanted to go hunting. He wanted to use a powerful weapon while doing so.
I understand the desire to want things. I too think it would be cool to have a powerful weapon.
However I am also rational enough to understand that laws can't exist that grant me a powerful weapon and deny it to 100% of nutjobs.
So given the option between having a cool gun and living in a world where I may get shot to death in a cinema or club vs just not having the gun.. I choose to not have the gun and I think any truly rational person would come to the same conclusion.
Can you back up that figure please? I truly doubt 99.9% of hunters worldwide (you didn't qualify it) or even in the west hunt for 'luxury.' How long have you spent in a rural locale?
Yeah, I get his point that it's the best general purpose rifle out there. If you need to own a gun, it's probably one of your better options.
But I still don't get why you would need a gun. For the most part, we don't need to hunt for our food. We don't need to shoot targets either. Home defense, maybe, but there are other ways to be secure at home without weapons.
I do agree with his point that if you're going to argue against guns, you shouldn't pick and choose categories that are "ok". It's either we ban guns or we continue to live with them in our society.
Do you feel we should also disarm the police? In my mind there's no reason the police should have a firearm that doesn't apply to someone being attacked in their own home.
I like the analogy of swimming pools. I don't _need_ a swimming pool, and having a pool by definition makes neighborhood children and visitors with children to my house less safe.
In fact, children under 15 are about 40 times more likely to die by swimming pool than by an accidental firearms discharge [0].
I still have a pool. There are reasonable laws about having auto-closing gates and a fenced-in yard. I don't see anyone clambering to tighten restrictions on assault swimming pools.
Likewise, semi-automatic, detachable-magazine-fed rifles are responsible for something like 2% of shootings. The only real place they have significance is in mass shootings. The only refute I have to, "but if we ban these rifles we won't have shootings" is that it would just happen through a different means. The Happy Land Fire killed 87 people, not a shot fired. Timothy McVeigh killed 189 people with fertilizer... and that was in 1995 -- under the "Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994.
> In fact, children under 15 are about 40 times more likely to die by swimming pool than by an accidental firearms discharge [0].
You know, it's not really the accidental discharges I'm worried about. It's the mass shootings.
Also, you appear to be misquoting that article. The 40x number is scaled by the number of pools/firearms, and so is saying "an individual firearm is less likely to kill a child than an individual pool" (although firearms are vastly more common than pools).
And, finally, that article uses "86 children killed by accidental firearm discharge in 2000" as its primary metric. The top google hit [0] for "How many children are killed each year by guns?" gives a value of 1,500.
It looks like the 1,500 number includes all deaths of children under 18. However -- without going into that particular dataset -- these numbers are normally inflated by gang violence and include 17-year-olds killed in shootouts with police. I'm certainly interested in more data, but it's hard to find summary datasets that aren't slanted.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. But I think those 17-and-unders are still children, and I'd prefer them alive and with a chance to regret their gang-banging ways.
The Happy Land Fire killed 87 people, not a shot fired. Timothy McVeigh killed 189 people with fertilizer... and that was in 1995 -- under the "Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994.
I don't understand arguments like this at all. Is the argument that "there are other bad things so we shouldn't tackle this thing"?
> Is the argument that "there are other bad things so we shouldn't tackle this thing"?
I believe its actually "people can be killed without assault weapons, therefore restricting assault weapons has no benefit in protecting people from being killed". Which, ultimately, has the same basic kind of error in reasoning as "there are other bad things so we shouldn't tackle this thing", but its not precisely the same argument.
Right, they couple that with "…and it's also a constitutional right that our gov't believed—at the time—was important enough to put a blanket ban on themselves writing laws in the future to limit it."
Other than that, completely like "banning bad things".
It's the substitution problem. The argument (seems to be), "If we ban semi-automatic rifles, that person who wants to kill all those people won't be able to harm anyone."
History has shown us this simply isn't the case. People who want to kill people will kill people with whatever means available. Happy Land, Oklahoma City, etc are just examples of this. I didn't see a huge push to ban pressure cookers after the Boston bombings.
Keep the guns available! I'd rather have someone come after me with a gun than with a pressure cooker or fertilizer bomb:
- The gun can be a symbol conveying intent. Possibly one can negotiate or leave the premises in time. In contrast a pressure cooker in a corner does not immediately tell me that someone is out to get me. That is, I can be surprised more easily by an exploding pressure cooker or fertilizer bomb. At least with the gun I know what's going on.
- Fertilizer, gasoline and pressure cooker bombs do not tend to produce predictable wounds and often produce fatalities. I'm more likely to survive if an angry man shoots me than if he blows me up with a pressure cooker. Also the trauma surgeons have a better chance of stitching me up. Finally I'd rather live the rest of my life with a bullet in my butt than a pressure cooker lid up my ass.
" I didn't see a huge push to ban pressure cookers after the Boston bombings."
You may not have noticed it but they were effectively banned from sale by all retail stores. I was tasked with buying a new pressure cooker not 3 weeks after the Boston bombings and I simply could not find one locally. After visiting all the local retail stores, I finally gave up and ordered one on Amazon.
I can't take a pool to the local cinema and kill everyone inside. It's an irrelevant comparison.
To be exposed to the risk of drowning in your pool I actually need to go to said pool. This is not different from exposing myself to any other risk of my own free will.
My free will has no bearing on if someone wants to bring a gun to a public place and murder me and everyone else around.
That's only a valid comparison to mass shootings, which are a tiny, tiny percentage of gun deaths.
By comparison, referenced in my other comments, if someone really wanted to kill everyone in a theater they could do it with a container of gasoline, or a pressure cooker. Newtown could have been accomplished with a sword, given the size difference of the attacker to the victims.
Anyone who wants to kill you can, with any number of objects readily accessible. This is only evident to some people when they think of an object like an AR-15 because they don't think about all the other ways they could be killed.
Lethality of all of those other methods is significantly below that of a semi-automatic rifle.
The fact more people are killed outside of mass shootings by guns is irrelevant. Mass shootings are a good enough reason to get rid of them, it's a risk people shouldn't have to live with.
> Lethality of all of those other methods is significantly below that of a semi-automatic rifle.
That's just not true. In Somalia, U.S. Army soldiers actually complained about how the AR-15 round (5.56 NATO) wouldn't take down enemy combatants in a single shot.
Compare that to, say, the bombs used in the Boston Marathon. It's a night and day difference. If you're trapped in a crowded nightclub that's on fire, your odds of survival are abysmal.
People survive serious gunshots every day with proper medical attention. One of the big issues in the Orlando shooting was the 3 hour wait before any of the victims got medical attention.
To be fair, that's either because the projectile wasn't capable of fragmentation--m193--due to velocity or other reasons and the lethality of the weapon depends on fragmentation.
In a free society, the burden of justification should be placed squarely on those that would restrict your rights. You should not have to explain why you need something, the person telling you "no" should have to defend their position.
What about his needs to be safe (through the protection of his own guns)?
Or my need to be safe (through the protection of people who carries)? If someone walk into a theater and starts shooting, though I don't carry, I prefer that the guy next to me is the type to carry, and that at least half the theater carry too, so they can all drop that killer with 100 bullets at the door.
I understand that many politicians are woefully illiterate about what they think are "assault weapons", and I sympathize greatly with how annoying it must be to constantly be accused of being "sexually inadequate" and other ridiculous insults that distract from the real issues. The main problem with this author's argument, as I see it, is that while the AR-15 is very convenient, making it easily accessible for any adults who wants one is not worth the price for society as a whole. That is - would it really be an infringement on the author's rights, if as the author points out, he would need to have 3 separate guns for sporting, hunting, and use of force?
When discussing gun control, I often personally consider my own opinions on the proposed banning/legal control over encryption in public debate. Specifically, I wonder whether it is hypocritical to want to limit the sale and use semi-automatic weapons, while simultaneously arguing that encryption must be fully legal and "everyone shouldn't be punished for a few bad apples". My conclusion is usually that banning/compromising encryption would fundamentally destroy the security and privacy of critical software for everyone on a massive scale. However, I don't think the impact would be nearly as severe for gun owners that might need to pass a few ID checks and own several weapons if needed for different uses.
So my question is, to gun owners that support existing laws regarding semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15- would limiting its sale really be really as devastatingly harmful to society at large (as to warrant those existing laws)?
>So my question is, to gun owners that support existing laws regarding semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15- would limiting its sale really be really as devastatingly harmful to society at large?
The core of this issue, like so many political issues, is fear and selfishness versus hope and love. These people do not want to inconvenience their hobby to make society safer.
I would feel safer if I carried a gun everywhere. I think that I am more responsible than most people, and that I would never use it in anger. But I know that most people think that they are smarter and more responsible than they really are, and that if everyone carried a gun communities would not be safer. Choosing to be unarmed for the benefit of society is true bravery.
> These people do not want to inconvenience their hobby to make society safer.
I am one of "these people", and your perception is not true for me. Guns are not a hobby for me, nor are they for many gun owners. Rather, we view ownership and carry as civil rights.
You're right that's probably most gun owners too, I don't think hunting or target shooting is the driving reason.
I think that civil rights should be more general than that -- like you should have a right to a level of personal safety, and then we design laws to protect that right. I just think that gun ownership endangers rather than protects that right.
Author here: I consider responses like this a win, because if we're going to talk blanket bans then the discussion should really be about whether or not anyone needs a semi-auto weapon. If we moved the gun ban debate from "AR-15" or "assault rifle" to "semi-auto weapon of any kind", that would represent a step in the direction of sanity.
I personally would prefer to forget about the "what" and focus entirely on the "who", but more on that another day.
It is surprising that nobody in this thread has mentioned what I thought was the most widely-acknowledged argument in favor of firearms ownership in the United States.
In my (rural, libertarian-leaning) home state, firearms owners often explicitly cite some variant of "capacity to resist totalitarianism" or "to defend the American people's liberty against the government" as reasons for having guns.
If, like me, you regard the encroachment of an unconstitutional American surveillance/police state as the primary threat to the way of life and values of the American people, this is a strong argument indeed. In fact I would like to see heavier, more military-flavored weapons proliferate for just this reason, especially since there are diminishing marginal returns for some types of arms escalation. E.g. armor piercing anti-tank weapons or surface-to-air weapons designed for hunting helicopters are not any more useful for shooting up a school than light guns chambered for NATO 7.62. But they have vastly different deterrent effects for a state actor contemplating violence against the populace.
You might argue that this is stupid because if the situation ever devolves to the point of violent oppression, they will just drone strike dissidents' houses invisibly from the sky. But I like to think the main effect of an armed, freedom-loving population is to deter the country's leadership from instituting that level of violent oppression in the first place.
> In my (rural, libertarian-leaning) home state, firearms owners often explicitly cite some variant of "capacity to resist totalitarianism" or "to defend the American people's liberty against the government" as reasons for having guns.
That's because the individuals who wrote the US constitution gave exactly that justification—though people (of course) argue whether or not it is still relevant.
From my perspective, the 1st amendment had a similar justification, so if you really don't buy that _guns_ can keep the gov't in check in any kind of realistic way, clinging to "free speech" as something we absolutely need—for the exact same reason—rings hollow; it doesn't seem like a principled position to me to reject one and embrace the other.
I definitely do not agree that the first and second amendment have similar functions. In practice it is the restriction on free speech that is a much more effective and pernicious way of controlling a population. If you have a heavily armed population, that does not dissuade a repressive government from attacking you, it just gets more and more people killed- see Syria.
> If you have a heavily armed population, that does not dissuade a repressive government from attacking you, it just gets more and more people killed- see Syria.
Syria is a great example—for the exact opposite belief that a lack of guns is a terrible way to deal with a repressive regime, and will get you and your family killed.
Syrians are NOT "heavily armed", not even close. Syria is ranked 110th out of all countries in terms of "number of guns per capita".[0] USA has 28.8x (!) as many guns per person as Syria.
>> In my (rural, libertarian-leaning) home state, firearms owners often explicitly cite some variant of "capacity to resist totalitarianism" or "to defend the American people's liberty against the government" as reasons for having guns.
> That's because the individuals who wrote the US constitution gave exactly that justification
The only explanation they gave was "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". It's a bit ambiguous, despite attempts to insist otherwise.
But you only need to look at the first militia act to see that by "militia" they mean every able bodied man of age, and they should have a firearm of their own.
Misconstruing the phrasing of the amendment is a weak way to argue against it. At the time it was written, "well regulated" was commonly used to describe something that worked well, was in good repair, etc.
A militia being "well regulated" (in modern English) by the government that it might need to fight is the opposite of that.
Militia Act, not the article... if you look at the militia act, it specifically states that every able bodied male of age is part of said militia, and to provide their own arms.
And you also miss the phrase "In order to" as in for example... it was only one of the reasons why the right to bear arms should not be infringed, not the only one. The bill of rights was at the time argued as superfluous as some felt that most people understood that those were inalienable rights and didn't need to be spelled out. Others felt otherwise (with foresight) and wanted stronger provisions, many of which were in the original Articles of Confederation the country was founded under before the Constitution.
First, you must know that many people have may opinions on this; yours is not the only legitimate one. Welcome to democracy!
Also, the militia act isn't the law, the Constitution is.
The Constitution isn't scripture, written by gods and prophets for whom citizens should try to guess their superior, divine wisdom and intent. It's a political document, written by people as human as we are - well-meaning and flawed; earnest, careless, and horribly corrupt; etc. - just like current politicians. The wording is a compromise among those people, who certainly had many intents. (What is the "intent" of a law passed Congress? To find semi-ambiguous wording that can get a majority of votes.)
Most fundamentally, the U.S. is a democracy (and if you care for the founders' intent, that's clearly a big one), not a secular theological state ruled by the will of dead philosopher-kings. Current U.S. citizens decide the law and what the words mean, majority rules.
The militia act was the law[1] enacted under the constitution, and given the timeframe, I'd say it accurately represents the intent. I'm not saying that the constituion is scripture, or anything of the sort, I only said you only need to look at the militia act to see what was meant by the 2nd amendment.
You may say so but, with due respect, that's not evidence any more than my subjective claims. The U.S. government enacts many laws, often within the same day or hour, with vastly different intents and authored and supported by people with vastly different interests.
Powers that are granted by the Constitution to the government (for example, Congress ability to pass law).
Powers that are implied to be given to the government (for example, the President's cabinet).
Powers that are left out and to be decided by the states and the people at a later time (for example, any new laws that are not in conflict with the Constitution).
And finally, powers that are DENIED to the government (these are powers the government must NEVER have).
Now, let's read the 2nd Amendment: ...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
>shall not be infringed
In other words, the Constitution specifically DENIED the government the power to regulate arms. The government does not have that power. The government was NOT given that power.
If it seems that cut and dry, the argument is missing many things.
One thing to consider is that nothing is a literal absolute in the law; it's not an algorithm. For example, nobody denies the government's right to regulate arms as far as background checks, denying them to criminals, and until very recent history, much more stringent bans on possession - until recently, centuries of American jurists interpreted the law differently, and many still do; were/are they all illiterate? So easily dismissed by online amateurs? Also, government can outlaw advanced arms such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, and fully automatic weapons.
The government also can't regulate speech according to the text - except that it can: Dangerous speech (shouting fire in a crowded, dark movie theater where there is none, or inciting someone to murder), false commercial speech (lying in your ads), slander, etc. are all illegal.
By the same note, I don't see a handgun as being particularly less destructive in this instance... non-hollowpoint ammo fired into a crowd is more dangerous than full-jacket bullets... more deadly to those hit, but less to the people behind them.
For me it's all about personal freedom. And since most people think the police and military are the only ones that should be allowed guns... I can't think of a reason, outside military training, that anyone in the police or military should have a gun that doesn't apply to someone being attacked in their own home.
One of the problems with weapons in the AR 15 class is that they are very commonly converted to fully automatic. I cannot say if any recent mass shooting has featured such a gun, but a few of the Bundy militants in NV/OR were cited for possession of them, or bragged about possessing them on social media and forums.
Perhaps I just live in an unfortunate part of Texas, but I know a number of people who have performed the mod on theirs… and frankly, among the people I know, these were already there people I was last comfortable knowing owned any firearms at all...
You are correct. Nobody is getting gunned down by full auto here in the US. Now, some terrorist yahoo may yet change that before I'm done typing this reply, but as of now the number of people who've been killed by civilian full auto fire since the NFA ban is in the low single digits last I checked.
> One of the problems with weapons in the AR 15 class is that they are very commonly converted to fully automatic.
Citation, please?
I'm not aware of ANY AR-15 being converted to automatic and being used in a mass shooting. In fact, outside of a handful of "militia types", I can't think of any at all. The closest thing off the top of my head would be the West Hollywood Shootout back in the 90s, but I believe they used illegally-converted AKs, not ARs.
> Perhaps I just live in an unfortunate part of Texas, but I know a number of people who have performed the mod on theirs… and frankly, among the people I know, these were already there people I was last comfortable knowing owned any firearms at all...
You know a number of people who have committed a federal felony? I'm a huge gun nut and have literally hundreds of friends with large gun collections and know of no one who has manufactured an illegal machinegun.
Wait what? I created an account just to contest this. I've never ever met a single person who openly admitted to committing a felony my modifying their firearm into an illegal machine gun.
I would most certainly not call that common and I think either you're around the very small minority or full of it. That modification (illegally done) carries a penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. I seriously doubt you know people openly willing to share information that could invoke those kind of consequences.
The argument for needing encryption is very similar to the argument for needing firearms (without getting into the veracity of that need), so you've made a great comparison here. One could argue that firearms for personal defense and encryption for personal privacy/security would be completely unnecessary if the state could prevent all crimes that necessitate their use, but they do not and never can.
At the same time, the same encryption technology can be used for criminal images, terrorism and other criminal communications. The same goes for firearms being used for homicide, terrorism and other crimes. To prevent all of these, or at the very least reduce their occurrence, crippling the ability of the average citizens to protect themselves is necessary.
You also cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Encryption has been made widely available, as have firearms. If we try to remove them now, they will both still be available to individuals, but only ones willing to break the law.
To work with your simile(?), banning the AR-15 (and similar black rifles) would be more like banning AES than encryption at large. Other ones would take its place, and be no less lethal or capable of criminal use. For example, here in Canada, we restricted the AR-15 and variants but other just as deadly weapons simply took its prominence as a non-restricted weapon. For the uninitiated, restricted weapons may only be used at a range, require a permit to transit (down to the route you may use, these are only approved for transit to a range or when you are moving), must be entered in a registry, and require greater RCMP clearance to possess.
I'm not sure what side of this debate I sit on. It's a very difficult one and I doubt we will ever come to a consensus.
> ...would it really be an infringement on the author's rights ... he would need to have 3 separate guns for sporting, hunting, and use of force?
How do you imagine that is even technically possible? A venn diagram of those gun classes would nearly fully overlap. Sure you could outlaw the bayo lug and the grenade launcher notch - and that would have prevented exactly 0 deaths.
>However, I don't think the impact would be nearly as severe for gun owners that might need to pass a few ID checks and own several weapons if needed for different uses.
Or how about mass genocide that has occurred in the past in several countries shortly after disarming the population in relatively recent history? The argument against that is always "Not in modern (post-Y2K) times/first world countries, just look at Australia and/or U.K!" and I don't find that argument very convincing.
I'm not scared of the U.S government going tyrannical/genocidal. But what about people who are refugees of countries where that happened? What would they think? I see no reason to disarm a population other than the ruling class fearing an armed population or a paranoid/ignorant population thinking "guns" are the problem. (Hint: People are the problem, not guns.)
Bad guys don't need laws to buy guns and murderers have no problem selecting other weapons when there is a lack of guns.
Homicide rates per capita are very similar before and after the gun buyback in Australia. "Murders with firearms" decreased though, so I guess they can pat themselves on the back for being just as murderous but with different weapons? Same trend with the U.K. Banning guns gave an "ease of mind" but didn't actually do anything. Similar to the TSA: security theater.
I do not find gun control arguments to be compelling and firmly believe in the right for every individual to protect themselves.
FWIW I do not own and likely will never own a gun.
You have to realize that banning AR-15 will be just a beginning. Next, they will ban all semi-automatic rifles that are capable of using high-capacity magazines. Then, they will ban all semi-automatic firearms, including pistols (which, incidentally, are easier to conceal), as well as any firearms with magazine capacity over 2 rounds. It is not hard to imagine where this will end. At the same time, in some European countries, where gun laws are rather liberal, the rate of crimes with the use of firearms is low.
> At the same time, in some European countries, where gun laws are rather liberal, the rate of crimes with the use of firearms is low.
Violent crime in the US among the sub-population with a culture comparable to The Netherlands supposedly occurs at the same (very low) rate as The Netherlands, despite massively more guns per capita in the US for that same sub-population.
It's almost as if the availability of guns doesn't cause violent crime, people do.
> the sub-population with a culture comparable to The Netherlands
You mean secular urban bike riding pot tolerant gay tolerant coastal residents? What makes you think this sub-population owns massively more guns in the US?
Or do you mean white people and you're just trying to spread racist garbage?
> What makes you think this sub-population owns massively more guns in the US?
Research. For instance, Holland has the lowest gun ownership in Western Europe (1.9%).[0]
In the US overall according to Pew, "blacks are only about half as likely as whites to have a firearm in their home (41% vs. 19%)".[1]
Among "secular urban bike riding pot tolerant gay tolerant coastal residents" in the US—let's call them "liberals"—23% of homes have at least one gun. According to the [Pew 2014] survey, "southerners are just about as likely as those living in the Midwest or the West to have a gun at home (38% vs. 35% and 34%, respectively)"[1], (with the exception of the NE, which is about 1/3 lower), so I think it's reasonable to assume that "coastal" liberals in, say, CA (where I live) are around that 20% mark. There's absolutely no way they are at 1.9% like Holland. Even if CA liberals owned guns just at 3.8%, that would still be twice what Holland has.
However, it's most likely that Holland-like people, culturally-speaking (liberal, pot/gay friendly, coastal, like bikes) in the US own guns at approx. a 7-10x greater rate than do people in Holland proper. There's also no dispute that the rate of violent crime is similar among these two populations. (As it turns out, Holland has a higher violent crime rate than other European countries with substantially higher gun ownership, suggesting that higher gun ownership in Europe might contribute to a reduction in violent crime.)
Regarding your suggestion that I'm a racist, I don't think violent crime is a white-black thing in the US (as you suggest), I think it's a cultural thing. Why? Well, if you treat blacks as one "race" from a stats perspective (i.e. if you're a racist), you get rather useless statistics. If instead you divide blacks up culturally—say, into "inner-city African Americans" and "recent immigrants from Africa" among others—you see very different crime statistics as well, i.e. it's not race—being black—that seems to be the controlling factor for violent crime, it's culture. That's why racism is so stupid: the stats just don't indicate that there even is such a thing as "the black race" that you can make meaningful aggregate statements like "violent crime" about.
So. If you treat the US with a broad brush when it comes to violent crime, it's very easy to come to the mistaken belief that "guns" are the problem, or even "a" problem—the stats indicate STRONGLY that guns are not a problem. Instead, cultural (not racial!) propensity towards violent crime is the problem.
That means that if we want to reduce violent crime, reducing gun ownership among "secular urban bike riding pot tolerant gay tolerant coastal residents" by 10x isn't going to make a difference—they're basically non-violent already.
I guess I didn't make this point explicit but what I was getting at is that it's absurd to filter out a group of Americans and deem them "culturally similar" to another country and then start drawing sweeping conclusions from that. When you're cherry picking data you can reach any conclusion you want.
I'm also skeptical of arguments that some "cultures" within the US are more prone to violent crime. It's so hard to come up with firm numbers on something like that because culture is arbitrary and fluid. Socioeconomic status seems like a better predictor of criminality, it's quantitative and universal.
A ban on pistols would make a lot more sense. Statistically, you're more likely to have someone beat you to death with his fists than to be shot with a long gun. But these kinds of incidents make people emotional.
The problem is that the AR-15 isn't practically different from a smaller hunting rifle, too small for larger game like deer or elk... more useful for the likes of coyote or mountain lion threats.
In the end, the background checks people are asking for wouldn't have stopped the Orlando shooting, and short of a total ban including the police, government, govt security contractors, and even off-base military with tight armory controls would have likely stopped this, even then it would have probably been a bomb instead.
There is no reason that a cop needs a gun that doesn't apply to someone in their own home. Guns are lethal force. The end, we can go on about specifics but murder is already illegal, so are a lot of other things that people do. Maybe we should also ban all criminals (not just felons) from voting? Would that be sane? Not really.
In the end, you can't have any hope of stopping crazy short of China-like lock down, spying and personal invasion of privacy. Not to mention deleting the past from society.
I'd much rather have the personal freedom and liberties that the constitution ensures. It isn't about what I need... in the end, I'm against most gov't restrictions. Banning guns makes about as much sense as banning marijuana... It takes away personal freedom and choice for the illusion of safety.
BTW, I don't own a gun... my father worked for the police for about two decades, and my mother still does. I have friends and relatives that have guns, hunt, etc.
The AR-15 isn't an assault rifle... it's just scary looking.
I love how this is twenty paragraphs of narcissistic libertarianism followed with a conclusion that hints at "shooter control" through "network effects", which is some truly Orwellian language for government targeting of citizens based on their religious, social or political affiliations.
And I love this ignorant response, because I (the author) voted for a socialist in the Dem primary, and my "network effects"-based shooter control scheme is decentralized and designed to appeal to libertarians.
I will wait for you to publish it. Does the decentralization depend on concerned citizens reporting their neighbours to the government, or is it more of a vigilante thing?
I came away from this article feeling like I had a better understanding of why the AR-15 is such a popular weapon - considered configurable, reliable, etc. The historical argument about buying military-grade weapons because it's known to be reliable _because it has to be_ made sense to me as well.
However, I didn't feel like I understood why he needed that gun. Is he a hunter? Does he own his AR-15 for self-defense? As far as I could tell, the reason he wanted the rifle is because it's considered "cool" and he makes it clear that he views it as somewhat of a toy. Calling the AR-15 "a Lego kit for adults" made my stomach turn, but I understand where he's coming from.
EDIT: a commenter below mentions that the author lives on a 17-acre farm and owns a gun to take care of animals that invade, as well as for recreational shooting.
What's missing from this article is a discussion of why so many guys feel like they need to own such a weapon (and usually more than one) in the first place. If you're a hunter, survivalist, preparing for the zombie apocalypse, fine, yes, you need a weapon. That's understandable.
But it seems disingenuous for the author to write such a long post without including a critique of the way the AR-15 is marketed. A common ad I've seen posted is just a picture of the rifle with the caption: "consider your man card reissued". Call me insensitive, but the person who gets fired up by that ad is not someone I want to see owning a rifle. Or any kind of weapon for that matter.
Our definition of what it means to be "a real man" needs a deep and thorough re-evaluation.
I was also uncomfortably aware of the transparent appeals to the engineer's sensibility ("open source", modularity, geeking out on youtube, using adverbs like "exquisitely", "lego-blocks" etc). I found it somewhat sneaky, and in no way whatsoever did it translate to need.
We are not talking about a car or a musical instrument, we are talking about an instrument of death. Necessary for certain tasks? yes. Something all civilians should have access to? no.
As a musician, "gear-head"ism always struck me as kind of sad, a rabbit hole that has almost nothing to do with where music comes from. Ultimately harmless, though. This kind of fetishization, on the other hand, frankly disgusts me.
What makes you think of the AR-15 as a high-powered weapon? It's actually pretty low-powered as far as rifles go - virtually all bolt-action "hunting rifles" are much more powerful. The whole design purpose for this class of weapons is to be lower-powered and lower recoil to make rapid fire and fast follow-up shots more practical.
Fair enough, the word "high-powered" isn't necessarily relevant to the point I'm trying to make. I removed it from my post. The rest of my argument stands.
The AR-15 is inappropriate for the likes of deer or elk, and overkill from smaller animals...
The many sizes of ammo and rounds are the nature of having many weapons from many manufacturers in many cultures, mostly around war times.
Some people are just avid collectors... Nobody needs to have 2+ cars per household, and teenage deaths from auto accidents are significant.
For me, it's about extending personal freedom and accepting that you can never be completely safe. In the case of this shooting, it probably would have been a bomb otherwise, and would have killed/injured about as many people.
The gun is perfect for varmint hunting. It handles anything from a coyote down and I am not sure what overkill means it all depends on the bullet style. Also ar-15 style guns don't have to me .277 they can be higher caliber suitable for dear/elk. Although I agree I would rather have a lite weight bolt action if I am walking and elk hunting alot. The modular nature is great for coyote hunting.
> "consider your man card reissued"
> Our definition of what it means to be "a real man" needs a deep and thorough re-evaluation.
That's got to be a play on memes from the current presidential campaign, right? It might be more an appeal to people who consider themselves anti-Clinton or anti-democratic-party than an appeal to guys who want to feel more masculine.
I think it could definitely be a play on memes from the current campaign, which itself could be seen as a referendum on masculinity. But it goes much deeper than just the politics of year 2016.
For a time I was paid by the US gov't to use the AR-15 for its original purpose. I was well trained and used it very effectively. Later I was trained to smith it as well.
It fucking terrifies me that so many of you people have one.
It's a tough position for me to be in. I support the 2nd amendment but I don't think you folks should have access to this sort of weapon of war.
There are plenty of options that provide the utility of home defense, plinking, target practice, and hunting without having a 30 ROUND FUCKING MAG.
In a military context we wouldn't call the AR-15 a "mass casualty producing weapon" because there are relatively higher caliber, faster cycling, higher capacity, man portable weapons. However in the civilian context the AR-15 is most definitely a "mass casualty producing weapon" and should not be easily obtained.
If you're willing and it's not too personal, would you share more about your experiences using the AR-15? My father was in the military and I only ever saw his service weapon once. If it was present in our home growing up, I never knew. I mention this because I find that getting the perspective of people who have actually had to employ weapons for their original purpose adds a lot of richness to these discussions.
The problem with this argument is that in the timeframe the Orlando shooter was given (3 hours), a shotgun could have easily been a mass casualty producing weapon.
You don't have to stop to reload at empty, you can just keep feeding the magazine after every shot or two. 50 (2 3/4) shells isn't an unrealistic loadout.
The shooter spent his time in different rooms, each full of people, many of whom could have overpowered him. At many times he was within arms' length of people. There are no reports whatsoever of anyone trying to "over power"[sic] him. They were likely frozen by fear, alcohol, drugs and wounds. I'm not blaming them, simply noting that they were unable to react. He had free reign.
Under such circumstances a serious shooter with a 12 gauge would generate far _more_ casualties. LOL all you want, the 12 gauge is way more destructive than an AR, especially at the short ranges involved.
I'm perfectly OK with a 10 round magazine limit, I have trouble justifying more, even in a militia situation, no one has made a convincing argument that a greater magazine size would save lives - it just means that you'd be carrying less weight.
I am opposed to banning 'assault rifles' because an assault rift is a category with a list of things - I can make something just as deadly (and practical) without that list of things. Because of that, banning a gun with specific features (most of which are not known to enhance rate of fire or deadliness of aim) amounts to bad law.
I think that this is actually the most significant difference between guns. To rationalize having such a large magazine, you must believe either that A) you are going to be attacked by a large group of armed people, or B) are going to attack a large group of people.
It's the same rationale for not allowing fully-automatic weapons to be owned by ordinary citizens, and it's a good starting place for new legislation (and hopefully not the only legislation).
This mag limit obsession /fascinates/ me. Here is why. The people who push this are generally people who also believe that what we really need in the gun debate is hard data. Like, actual data from studies and such.
There are no studies indicating that mag limit would save lives in a mass shooting situation. None.
I understand that the mag capacity/body count link seems intuitively to be true, but I've read a number of accounts from actual weapon experts (I think the last time I saw this was on Sofrep.com, from some former SF guys) that indicate that this is not actually the case. And ultimately, wouldn't it be best to base a mag capacity ban on, y'know, actual hard data, and not what we sort of think is probably true?
I read someone who did the math (i.e. 2 seconds per mag change, rate of fire, mag capacity... I don't recall the details and Google isn't cooperating at the moment) and he determined that mag capacity has pretty much no effect on the amount of fire you can lay down in 5-minute engagement, which is about how long these shootings last.
The one thing you can say about mag changes is that they introduce an opportunity for operator error (dropped mag etc.). So over the course of some number of mass shootings, if you know the odds of operator error during a mag change and the impact of that error on the rate of fire, you could probably calculate some number of rounds saved.
Anyway, for reference, here is some random Meal Team Six commando on YouTube that I found demonstrating a mag change:
That guy took two seconds to change mags, and doesn't even look like he knows what he's doing. You can find plenty of sub-second mag changes on YouTube from random airsoft guys.
I'm pretty confident that the mag capacity/body count link would not hold up to even cursory scientific scrutiny.
I can see why you might want to say that I proved your point, but I don't think I did. If mag capacity has no effect on round count (and hence body count), then enacting a ban on a commonly available accessory and legislating some elaborate (and as yet unspecified) set of design changes to a few million existing weapons seems like a pretty silly proposal.
Any complications to usage actually make guns more dangerous, not less. There's a reason the glock is as popular with police and military personnel as it is.
With an elitist attitude and terms like 'you people' you are sounding like someone who would fit that profile. There are 8 million+ ar15s in civilian hands and how many people have been killed by them?
When I was in Fallujah we let each household keep one AK (which was almost always full-auto). Why did we do this? Because it is immoral to strip an individual of all means for self defense, especially when we knew that we couldn't protect everybody. So while the US is not a war zone, when does such a moral principle kick in?
I don't trust everybody with a rifle, hell - I especially don't trust you given your expressed view, but I accept the fact that the police can't protect everybody - and it is immoral to insist that they depend on protection that isn't there.
Bullshit it doesn't. Ever get in a firefight with a bolt-action and win? Didn't fucking think so. Fuck, a 15 minute firefight could have me expend 240+ rounds easy! (especially if our 249's were down or for suppressive reasons, but still)
So utilitarian... you know that "self defense" covers scenarios that involve more than one aggressor right? Are you proposing a more democratic form of self defense, where the mob is effectively always right? That is ignoring the moral dimension of the problem; from a purely practical perspective you can be outvoted in your self defense.
See that's what you guys (assault weapon supporters) are really all about. Some kind of military style combat engagement where you'll have to defend your family from a full breakdown of society or the zombie apocalypse or something.
That's not a likely enough occurence to justify my neighbors arsenal of mass casualty producing weapons.
An even bigger fantasy: some of you guys dream of standing up to the US gov't. IIRC that rarely works out well. Sorry but in the US you're already at a disadvantage because you're digitally tracked here. Over there they don't have to use digital devices to conduct daily life.
> That's not a likely enough occurence to justify...
Neither is the "mass shooting" likely enough to occur to justify a major curtailment of the second amendment. You are more likely to drown in a paint bucket. You aren't thinking, you've fallen under the spell of bloody shirt waving - which is fine if it ended there, but you want to impose your hysteria on others.
First, I'm not a firearm owner, but a libertarian, in favor of less government and more personal liberty all around type...
As to the police state, that's the point... there's no partial ban that shouldn't apply to the police as the police have no reason to use a firearm that shouldn't apply to someone in their own home.
It gets even more interesting: these people support that individuals should be able to defend themselves against a zombie apocalypse with the argument (I assume) that "even though that is a very unlikely event, the consequences would be catastrophic, so we should be ready for that". Basically:
probability * consequences > pain-threshold
The same people are viscerally opposed to the fight against global warming, because it is an "unlikely event", even though the consequences would be vastly more catastrophic for humankind, if it turns out to be true.
I wish my fellow warriors would learn to remember their oath to the constitution (and therefore the second amendment) in discussions like this. The fact that you don't seem to is sad but indicative of the general disregard for the importance of oaths these days.
Your casual and flippant disregard for the need to arms oneself with more than a single shot pea shooter is in direct contradiction with the second amendment. Do you disagree? (and keep it on point) Also, my verbiage left room for you to correct, eg. " don't seem to", so it's not an accusation... yet. Also, the real discussion is in my other comment in this suspiciously flagged thread.
Your comments in this thread crossed repeatedly into being uncivil. That breaks the HN guidelines. Please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post civilly and substantively, or not at all, from now on.
Really? I am assuming you are speaking about "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. "
First of all. I think that was a bad rule to be introduced in the first place. I don't think there was proper user input on that change, and the backlash was mostly ignored. That being said though...
While I can understand my comments were not put in the nicest of terms and verbiage, I in no way became uncivil. Please indicate precisely to me where I became "uncivil", and please make clear your definition of "uncivil".
Sure, I cussed a couple of times, but last I checked HN wasn't against cussing. As a matter of fact, reviewing my comments in this thread, I see nothing you could take as violating the negativity rule at all, unless you are applying an excessively broad scope to the rule that would set a precedent that would harm HN as a whole.
I do think perhaps this part might be in violation: "Also, the real discussion is in my other comment in this suspiciously flagged thread." That though, is not being uncivil, and would be a violation of another issue, and I shouldn't have said that. It's too late to edit now though.
In short, dang, you don't seem to have provided very clear reasoning for your comment, so I would like you to please clarify. I admit in retrospect this is probably why the article got flagged, perhaps rightly so, because it is a contentious subject that was/is bound to create charged debate. My comments were heated but not uncivil, and your insinuation that they were is concerning to me, especially when the other commenter at one point was making attacks on me based on my PTSD. If anything I would expect you to be saying this to him for that comment.
Dan, I eagerly await your reply, as I have always tried to be a good commenter on HN, and I am open to correction if my errors are pointed out properly.
You used phrases ("bullshit it doesn't", "didn't fucking think so", "your casual and flippant disregard", "Do you disagree? (and keep it on point)") that made your comments aggressive and personal. No one who's trying to be respectful would address the person they're talking to that way. HN threads are for respectful conversation, so please edit that kind of thing out of your comments when posting here. As a side effect, you may be surprised how much more substantive and credible they become when you do so. (You're right, btw, that cussing isn't the issue.)
More importantly, you insinuated that a fellow user had violated an oath. That's way out of line. Casually slinging such a serious charge is the kind of thing that turns internet forums into a circle of hell, so please don't do anything like that here.
I gather that you didn't mean to break any rules when posting, and probably were just expressing yourself forcefully about a topic you feel strongly about. That's natural, but if HN is going to reach the standard of civility that we strive for, we all have to exercise self-control re the 'forcefully' part. Other people doubtless feel as strongly as you do, have had different experiences that led them to different views, and—given how little information online discussions convey—may not even be understanding you correctly (or vice versa). That's a lot of opportunities for conflict, so interesting discussion depends on all of us restraining our impulses.
Dan, thanks for taking the time to type that response. I am going to take your correction to heart and try to adjust my tone in future conversations, as after having time to cool off I think you are correct that I could have expressed more self control, which would have in turn created a better discussion and debate. I'm not jealous of your job of moderation, but I'm impressed with this interaction so I tip my hat to you.
Agreed; it was always surprising to me that advocating for the violation of the constitution, allegedly the "highest law of the land", is not considered treason. Doubly so from someone who, as you said, swore to defend that constitution.
But would a glock 10 with a 15 round magazine in the Orlando context really have resulted in that much of a difference? You can always swap out magazines as one empties, and he could have just carried twice as many in with him.
He also, if I understand correctly (there's a lot of bs posts flying around) that he had passed gov't background checks that would have allowed him firearm access even if most of the population was banned from owning.
Here's a gun right that I'd like. I'd like the right to restrict one other person from being able to obtain a weapon. Even at the cost of my own right to do so. Like an anti-concealed-carry.
A huge amount of times the people surrounding these nut-jobs seem to know in advance that they're trouble. If every person had the ability to give up their own right to bear in exchange for preventing one other person from doing the same I think it would make a difference. Think of it as virtualizing the shootout between the two, each neutralizing the other.
Or perhaps a "credit" system where endorsements vs anti-endorsements must be positive? (You'd start with +1 for your own endorsement of yourself).
Difficult to implement to be sure but interesting idea?
That's somewhat what the author was suggesting when he mentioned "network effects" near the end of the article.
And you're right: by focusing on shooters—not weapons—the quote-unquote problem of rifles like that AR-15 being available to the general public becomes a lot more tractable.
So I'm no gun person (I don't even live in the US), but I know a little bit and have shot some.
This post has as much misinformation as anything else you'll read about gun.
1) The Henry rifle thing. During the Civil War period and up until WW2, military rifles and hunting rifles were basically designed with the same goal: shooting and hitting things at range. During WW2 people noticed that most person to person combat was actually at close range, and rifles were mostly used for suppression fire. Rifles like the AR-15 were designed for this close range combat scenario - which is exactly like most mass shootings. Yes, you can use an AR-15 for hunting - they are pretty good at killing things, but that doesn't make it a hunting rifle.
2) He's right about the "defensive rifle" nonsense. Is that even a thing people talk about?
3) He's right about the impossibility of defining "Assault Weapons" (although maybe restricting large capacity magazines isn't entirely stupid). His suggestion (?) about banning semi-automatic weapons seems reasonable to me.
I think you're probably a reasonable guy, and you've gotten your wires crossed, so please go back and read the article again, because nothing in the following paragraph is a response to anything I claimed in the piece or actually think:
"The Henry rifle thing. During the Civil War period and up until WW2, military rifles and hunting rifles were basically designed with the same goal: shooting and hitting things at range. During WW2 people noticed that most person to person combat was actually at close range, and rifles were mostly used for suppression fire. Rifles like the AR-15 were designed for this close range combat scenario - which is exactly like most mass shootings. Yes, you can use an AR-15 for hunting - they are pretty good at killing things, but that doesn't make it a hunting rifle."
I think it does. Your argument is that the AR-15 is the modern equivalent to the Henry rifle, which is true. But modern combat rifles are designed for different goals (killing quickly at close range), which isn't the use case for hunting.
You argue that police use makes it legitimate, but this is exactly wrong: police use it for the same reason the military do: killing quickly at close range.
Yes, the modularity of the AR-15 means you can adapt to to do other things. That isn't a strength from the point of view of stopping mass killings though.
Grandpa didn't talk about what he shot at German's and Italians. It wasn't lever action. Mostly, he dealt with that experience via anti-depressants and a lot of alcohol over the last 50 years of his life. He left a snub nosed .38 when he died. At least he didn't shoot himself.
Grandpa was a Sergent in the 504st PIR from 1942 through 46. North Africa, Sicily, the boot and a walk from Ardennes into Germany. Went to Ohio State on the GI Bill and didn't cotton bullshit. His name was Bernard Worthington Jamison. Charitably, it seems the article contains a substantial misidentification.
On the question of “why is there no moderate alternative to the NRA that attracts middle-of-the-road gun owners?”, what a lot of people who aren't involved in the community don't understand is that the NRA is the moderate alternative group. The more extremist groups include Gun Owners of America (https://gunowners.org/), Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (http://jpfo.org/), National Association for Gun Rights (https://www.nationalgunrights.org/), and Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (http://www.ccrkba.org/), among many others at the national and state level.
Last I checked, all of these smaller gun rights groups still have bigger membership rolls than the biggest anti-rights groups.
The debate isn't just about the AR-15, but since the AR-15 is "America's Gun", it just happens to get the spotlight.
The debate is about all military-grade civilian issue long semi-automatic rifles. The debate is about if the potential damage such a weapon can cause in the wrong hands is enough to justify an outright ban (or severe restriction on sales).
It was a well written piece and very informative, but I think it missed what the on-going debate is really about.
Well, this article actually makes me glad to not read Ars Technica for a while, and may actively prevent me from ever reading that thing again.
Here is how every single article on this topic of this particular author goes: there is a (quite minor, in fact) challenge, therefore we should abandon ever trying to regulate guns.
Let's start with this particular piece. Sure sure, it's quite hard to differentiate between assault weapons and "defensive weapons" and "recreational weapons." But that is MISSING THE POINT! The point is NOT that all weapons can kill. The point is: how the hell do we allow self-defense and recreational fun without endangering the society at large? However, instead of this, his argument is: hey, all weapons are dangerous, so let's just allow him (decent guy, no?) to own nuclear weapons. It's, you know, defensive.
Return to the stupid argument. Yes, there is a large difference between offensive and defensive weapons. For example, caliber. Offensive seeks to destroy, so the more power, the better; defensive seeks to disable while (let's face it) retreating, so not so much power required. Or, perhaps smaller magazine size; in hunting and defending, you don't need to spray, so replacing magazine is not that bad; while you are terrorizing, the break is awesome for your victims, obviously.
As you see, there are ways to differentiate, to make hunting/recreation safe. But no. Our dear, dear author wants none of that. Because the mechanism is so reliable, he wants like the exact same power as the guns used in battle. Because it's hard to differentiate, his solution is to let innocent people die. Because it's like a fraction more convenient, well, again, who cares about those strangers, right?
Similarly, I tried (very hard) to be open minded and read his articles on smart guns. Same kind of arguments. Oh, it's not 100% reliable, so no, it should be banned, because, omg, what if I am forced to use it.
You know, in decision making books that I worked through, there is a term for all of t these "reasons." They are called "excuses." You don't want something because, I don't know, the sizes of your hands, so you make up excuses. Oh, it's not 100% reliable. Oh, the government is taking over the world. Oh, politicians are treating me like idiots. Therefore, those bastards can die so I can get that thing.
Where did you get your information on offense vs defense? It bears no relation to anything I've ever read or had training in, and has the complete opposite recommendations.
What makes you think that offense seeks to destroy, or that defensive seeks to disable? If anything, defense needs more power, not less. The key difference is that the attacker can choose the time and place of the attack, and so can either find a time and place that works with whatever amount of power they have available (note the tendency for mass shootings to only happen in "gun free zones"), or call off the attack. Defenders do not know when they will be attacked, and so they need as much power as possible to compensate for possibly being outnumbered or caught in a disadvantageous place. That's why defenders need bigger magazines and more effective ammunition.
But both ultimately seek to control, not to destroy or disable. Once you have control, destruction is easy. And if the opponent has a firearm too, then there isn't much practical difference between disable and kill.
"You can go back to broadcasting your own moral superiority on social media, and I can go back to tuning you out until your rage therapy session is over."
Preaching on social media is so 2007, so tired and so done.
The Plaza Theater where Christina Grimmie was shot last week is less than a mile from where I went to Junior High. I saw the Friday the 13th there on a group date the last day of ninth grade. My sister and brother in law drum and dance there on stage from time to time with their friends and community.
The building where the other hundred odd people were shot last week used to be an Italian restaurant. the closest to the house where I grew up. I ate in that building more than a few times...both buildings I guess if concessions count. My mom is pushing 80. She was out walking the dog Sunday morning. She asked a neighbor if they knew what all the helicopters were doing.
I'm an alum of the high school a half mile down Kaley Ave from Pulse. Sneaking into Pulse is something its current LGBT students try to do. Some are friends of my nieces and nephews. Some were taught by my sister. The carnage touched a lot of people I know.
That's what I'm thinking about. Tonight, I don't give a fuck about your gun. It's probably a difference in priorities.
If, for you, my AR-15 ownership is prima facie evidence of my mental instability, sexual inadequacy, lack of a conscience, or what-have-you then I honestly don’t care what you think about this issue. You can go back to broadcasting your own moral superiority on social media, and I can go back to tuning you out until your rage therapy session is over.
He creates strawman critics to ridicule and rant against, which also will dissuade anyone he disagrees with from reading on and will inflame all sides, but he also claims to want reasonable, open-minded discussion.
Another missed opportunity to discuss something reasonably and bring people together. If that was really his intent, it's hard to believe a professional journalist - a professional communicator - would choose the words above.
I hope it works out better than that but I don't have unlimited time to read everything.
If you think anti-gun-rights advocates attributing gun ownership to "mental instability, sexual inadequacy, lack of a conscience, or what-have-you " is a strawman, you might like to read this link: http://blog.joehuffman.org/category/markley-s-law/ It's a blog category of hundreds of posts of Twitter users stating just that, usually in rather crude terms.
Or just read this thread.
For some reason, anti-gun-rights people seem to love to talk about how to take people's guns, and then call gun owners paranoid for thinking that people want to take their guns.
Yeah dude, you obviously haven't seen the latest Samantha Bee rant that has been shared all over my feeds as OMG SMACKDOWN. It has it all, including the penis size stuff.
Responding in kind only adds to the noise - which can provide no marginal benefit; there are plenty of others already doing the exact same thing - and it obscures the signal. For me, it obscured any signal in your article. I don't care about Samantha Bee, whoever she is, but apparently, like a contagion, her noise spread to your article.
That hard-to-detect signal is all that matters; it's so precious on the Internet; we need to curate it, take care of it. The rest is just "sound and fury".
I liked the article and have more of an appreciation for those that enjoy guns. For myself I never understood why people would need or want anything more than a small pistol, which this opened my eyes to the other side.
But serious question (and apologies if I missed it), what is wrong with making it harder to buy a gun? Is it true that I could go to a gun show and pretty much walk out with one that same day? What is wrong with just having a more stringent background check and/or classes before one can own a gun? (This may be the case in some states).
> But serious question (and apologies if I missed it), what is wrong with making it harder to buy a gun?
I assume it's because it's a) in the Bill of Rights, and thus "not up for discussion—period", and b) historically, governments have disarmed their populace as a prelude to mass murder of dissidents.
This article is absolutely appropriate for HN, had an active, engaged, and non-hostile comment section, and SHOULD NOT have been banned/flagged as inappropriate. We are all worse off because it was.
I strongly suspect that those hitting the "flag" button did so on ideological grounds, in order to shut down discussion they did not approve of.
I didn't flag it and I am participating in it and I don't think it's a good Hacker News discussion. Gun control, assault rifles, the AR15, etc. are all topics covered by the US mainstream media. I've seen them regularly since Hinkley shot Reagan and James Brady became a high profile casualty. I'm too young to know much about how it was before that.
Maybe two weeks ago, it might have been a "better" story. Today, it's not unreasonable to read it as someone's reaction to the events in Orlando and to judge a love song to the firearm used there in poor taste. Even if that was not the author's intention.
You simply can't have a proper discussion about this without talking about the constitution.
Look, first, we need to back up a second and before we get caught up in every persons minute question about detail this or reason that, and look at the bigger picture. I have some British friends (classically anti-gun) who have responded well to the following discussion flow on the issue.
First, we must establish that you, the reader, understand the hierarchy of law. That is, first, we are talking about America, and in America the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. This is a very important distinction, especially for those citizens living under monarchies or thinly veiled monarchies such as the British and various Europeans. The constitution was not established to grant rights, rather it was intended to secure individual natural rights, under natural law. The American Revolution, the Glorious Revolution, and the French Revolution all had their basis in natural law and rights. Natural law and rights existed before any state, and transcend any state.
There is no perfect list of natural rights, but there are some commonly accepted ones. John Locke called the right to self defense the first law of nature. Each and every individual has a right to defend themselves or their loved ones, and their property (I will ignore the large rabbit hole waiting for those who want to discuss how close property law is to natural liberty). If you punch me, I will defend myself. If you try to hit me with a rock, I will defend myself. If you try to strike at me with a sword, I will defend myself. If you shoot at me with a gun, I will defend myself. While the technology has changed, the principle has not.
The bottom line is I have a right to self defense, and in a world where true defense means owning a firearm, I have a right to own a firearm.
Now usually I get quite a bit of push back even on this point, and granted there is a lot of nuance to be had in the debate. What about nuclear weapons, etc... a discussion worth having but far too easily used to distract from the core issue(s). So as this point becomes tangled in confusion, I usually stop and move to the next point.
All of that aside, the second amendment of the constitution is intended as a defense against tyranny. This is not about individual or family self-defense. The second amendment is primarily about the ability of the people, from whom the government gains it's legitimacy, to defend itself from a government gone rogue, tyrannical, or despotic.
These two primary reasons, self-defense as a natural right and defense against tyranny as a natural right and constitutionally protected (not established) right, are why I don't have to answer such bullshit questions as "Why do you need a $scarysoundingweapon?" I have my suggestions about the need for increased training, and concerns about the lack of respect for firearms, but they distract from the core discussion we need to be having.
I'm a combat vet, and perhaps I am just too cynical because I have seen too much of the worlds dark underbelly, but these rights are very real to me, and while Americans are cozy, coddled, and lazy today, with a turn-key totalitarian state being put in place, centralized and monarchistic globalism on the rise, growing inequality, and increasingly startling revelation of lack of the rule of law, I have a feeling people are going to need to relearn the martial arts quicker than they are prepared for.
As a side note, there are some key conditions and justifications for deadly force I think more civilians should know, even if they don't all apply to them:
3 Conditions
1.Extreme necessity
2.Last Resort
3.When all other means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed.
7 Circumstances
1.In defense of property involving national security
2.In defense of property not involving national security but inherently dangerous to others.
3.Self-defense and defense of others.
4...
207 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] thread"Assault" weapon has never been used as in "assaulting" someone, but as in "a squad assaulting an enemy position", implying weapons capable of fully-automatic suppressive fire. Which really is nowhere what civilians can get access... unless you want to spend >$20k on a pre-1986 firearm.
Semi-automatic or full-automatic + submachine + machine pistols + ... is too much to say. It's a meta-category, which we use all the time to describe things and is incredibly helpful.
> Prior to its use in U.S. firearms laws, the term "assault weapon" was limited to naming certain military weapons, for example, the Rifleman's Assault Weapon, a grenade launcher developed in 1977 for use with the M16 assault rifle,[19] or the Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, a rocket launcher introduced in 1984.
> In April 1985, Art Agnos introduced in the California State Assembly a bill to ban semi-automatic "assault firearms" capable of using detachable magazines of 20 rounds or more. Speaking to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Agnos said, "The only use for assault weapons is to shoot people." The measure did not pass when it came up for a vote.
That's why gun manufacturers were able to make a few cosmetic changes to turn illegal guns into legal guns the last time we had a (completely useless) "assault weapons" ban. The California "assault weapons" ban was even dumber - they listed models in the ban, making it trivial for manufacturers to sell essentially the same weapons by changing the model number.
This problem has already been solved in other areas. Look at drug laws. They cover designer drugs easily - which is the exact same problem as you describe here.
And also - it can be a meta category, and it's helpful to have that. We can define semi-automatic pretty well, and the law has ways to cover "equivalents". Your scare quotes don't change that.
And yes, you can define semiautomatics pretty well. But semiautomatics will not be banned. The problem is you can't define "assault weapons" in a way that they don't cover all semiautomatics.
It's completely reasonable to put scare quotes around a nonsense term like "assault weapons". If you say that at your local range people will point at you and laugh.
What about tear gas and grenades? Automatic RPG's?
You're arguing in black and white and our world doesn't work like that. Subtlety is what makes law. Me? I'd prefer most guns were illegal. You'd prefer we all could own subatomic weapons (it seems, since you're basically implying any discussion on "level of strength" is moot).
It's not hacking language. It's subtlety. Once you throw that out the window you can't have a conversation.
"Assault weapon" (as used here, there are other uses) is a blanket term (adopted specifically in efforts to regulate the class) for a class of weapons that are primarily semiautomatic versions of fully automatic military assault rifles, assault carbines, submachine guns, machine pistols, and combat shotguns; while the exact definitions used in different laws vary they typically are semiautomatic weapons with detachable magazines, pistol grips (whether the weapon is a pistol or not), collapsible or folding stock, and mounting points for accessories like a bayonet, grenade launcher, suppressor, etc.
http://www.winchesterguns.com/products/rifles/model-94/model...
My impression is generally assault rifles tend to be lighter, shorter and generally less accurate than say a typical hunting rifle. (Rifles types tend to blend into each other the same way different types of hammers do)
However, some languages translate assault weapons into storming weapons, which I think describe this type of guns better. The storming weapons have the hint of the gun being used against a threat in an offensive way, whilst being able to inflict as much damage as conveniently and fast as possible. Therefore, by definition, it even sounds off on a linguistic level to use an storming weapon for hunting or for defense, since deers and whatnot are not real threats. Moreover, when the ammunition is manufactured to pierce kevlar, you can already figure out that you are using the gun for the wrong purpose.
As for having a storming weapon for collective purposes sounds to me just as sane as having a collection of bongs and marijuana seeds in a country where recreational marijuana is illegal. It just doesn't sound sane to collect something for the sole purpose of owning them so that you can rub them.
I gone to the army and I guess the rubbing effect is also the reason none of the officers let conscripts touch the guns outside of training, so that nobody would get charmed by the gun and it's deadly but rather simple working method. I guess they have figured out that some people get these kinds of mental conditions which make it seem justified to own one. However I do admit getting keen on my own storming weapon and its serial number as well, but at least the officers kept everyone on planet Earth by reminding that just how dangerous the thing is. Pointing an officer with assembled yet unloaded and safety locked gun would end up getting yourself beaten up and carrying the gun outside of training would end in criminal investigation.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Only that he wants one.
Which is perfectly fine. However at the end of the day I don't think peoples wants should trump my -need- to be safe.
I don't need a car. But that is because I am wealthy and am able to live very close to my place for work.
But there are people that most definitely -need- cars. If anything not needing a car is a luxury (atleast in my country).
I think you could argue that without cars everyone would be better off. Less pollution, people would save money on gas, more public real estate for parks, etc. not to mention less people dying from accidents.
There are a lot of people in and around NYC that would argue differently.
But anyway, before this gets derailed, the point of the post was really about laying out the rationales for the AR-15, while openly acknowledging that many people will still find them insufficient. What I really wanted to do, though, is move the discussion away from the "rednecks with small penises" rut that it seems to be stuck in. The "need" phrasing was the framing I chose in order to hook into the "nobody needs an assault rifle" phrase that's repeated over and over again.
At any rate, again, I acknowledged up front that I wouldn't be able to convince everybody, or even most people, and that I was ok with that as long as people on the other side of the "assault weapon" debate could gain some new information about these firearms and their appeal to non-crazy, non-penis-size-compensating, non-military-fetishist normal people.
I suspect you are a careful, conscientious, and responsible gun owner and would have no problem demonstrating this, but there are a lot of people who have guns who are neither careful, conscientious, nor responsible. I hope you won't mind having to demonstrate your competence so that society can stop the other people, the irresponsible ones.
And of course, you might say that even if we had such requirement to demonstrate responsibility, the irresponsible people would circumvent the system and have guns anyway. I'm sure that's true for a few, but it would remove many guns from irresponsible hands and it would give law enforcement a reason to arrest the others and get them off the streets.
It's about personal freedom and liberty... I'm in favor of them, even if I choose not to own one.
However not all luxuries are created equal.
If indulging in your luxury creates circumstances where others are now at more risk then I don't think that is OK anymore.
Having deadly weapons broadly available definitely increases homicide and mass shootings, the evidence is irrefutable.
My point and many others is that luxuries are not rights, they are not things you need and as such should not be protected beyond general freedoms. However there is a cap on freedom and that is when it infringes on the freedoms or rights of others. In this case the right to be safe and the freedom to live life without fear of these sorts of horrible things happening.
Really? As I understand it, gun ownership has increased significantly over the last two decades, and homicide and mass shootings have gone down over that same time period.
It sounds like you think it's "obvious" that availability of firearms drives people dying from firearms, but the studies I've seen don't indicate a link.
Kind of like how availability of porn doesn't drive incidences of rape, even though intuitively, a person might expect that it should.
The difference isn't just striking. It's actually pretty awful to think about.
It's beyond conclusive that broad availability of firearms if not the cause is definitely highly correlated.
Based on my time hanging out at Slater Star Codex, the amount of shooting deaths varies in the US largely based on culture. If you take a country like The Netherlands and find the equivalent culture in the US, violent crime rates are basically identical—despite the fact that the US has far more guns per capita (within their respective, equivalent cultures).
Frankly, talking about the "US" as if it was culturally homogenous is so misleading that it's borderline unethical. Once you tease apart the statistics, guns don't stand out as a problem for certain cultures (again, AFAICT based on discussions with other people I trust).
[0]http://www.cbsnews.com/news/number-of-households-with-guns-o...
That's not exactly a strong argument for increased gun control.
(FWIW The statistic that is useful isn't "gun ownership" across all cultures in the US, it's within specific sub-populations. There are huge discrepancies among violent crime across different sub-populations in the US, and without breaking them out, violent crime statistics make little sense, either individually or over time.)
Also, I have no idea what your "porn is to rape as guns are to murder" comparison attempts to illustrate. I don't know how to point porn at someone and..well, that's as far as that needs to go. As syllogisms go, that's pretty damned broken.
Hooking into the "nobody needs an assault rifle" refrain is important, in part because it is evaluated differently by people on each side of the issue. Because powerful weapons can actively project harm from one person to another, they are in a different category from other opt-in dangerous things like an outdoor uncovered pool and drinking alcohol.
Driving a car is frequently cited in these debates as one of those "you don't need it, but it is incredibly dangerous and causes huge numbers of deaths" activities, but I still think that gun ownership is a few steps higher on the risk-vs-utility scale, and therefore should be treated differently - there needs to be a dedicated debate that isn't sidelined by analogies to other risky activities. Those analogies complicate more than they clarify.
He mentions specifically a hunting scenario and the need to use a powerful weapon and also the ability to quickly issue a follow-up shot if the animal is only wounded, which is a humane action.
Just clarifying the point of the author, please don't project his views on me and mob me.
The difference being that my going to the cinema doesn't impact the inherent safety of our society.
He wanted to go hunting. He wanted to use a powerful weapon while doing so.
I understand the desire to want things. I too think it would be cool to have a powerful weapon.
However I am also rational enough to understand that laws can't exist that grant me a powerful weapon and deny it to 100% of nutjobs. So given the option between having a cool gun and living in a world where I may get shot to death in a cinema or club vs just not having the gun.. I choose to not have the gun and I think any truly rational person would come to the same conclusion.
Consider the cost of airlifting food to remote communities in Nunavut and you will understand the need.
http://nunavutfoodprice.tumblr.com/
But I still don't get why you would need a gun. For the most part, we don't need to hunt for our food. We don't need to shoot targets either. Home defense, maybe, but there are other ways to be secure at home without weapons.
I do agree with his point that if you're going to argue against guns, you shouldn't pick and choose categories that are "ok". It's either we ban guns or we continue to live with them in our society.
See. That's the problem. I am not forcing you to own a gun. But you're forcing me NOT to own a gun.
How about we let everybody do what they want? You can choose not to own a gun. And I can choose to own a gun.
It's called freedom.
In fact, children under 15 are about 40 times more likely to die by swimming pool than by an accidental firearms discharge [0].
I still have a pool. There are reasonable laws about having auto-closing gates and a fenced-in yard. I don't see anyone clambering to tighten restrictions on assault swimming pools.
Likewise, semi-automatic, detachable-magazine-fed rifles are responsible for something like 2% of shootings. The only real place they have significance is in mass shootings. The only refute I have to, "but if we ban these rifles we won't have shootings" is that it would just happen through a different means. The Happy Land Fire killed 87 people, not a shot fired. Timothy McVeigh killed 189 people with fertilizer... and that was in 1995 -- under the "Assault Weapons Ban" of 1994.
[0] http://www.m1-garand-rifle.com/gun-safety/firearms-versus-sw...
You know, it's not really the accidental discharges I'm worried about. It's the mass shootings.
Also, you appear to be misquoting that article. The 40x number is scaled by the number of pools/firearms, and so is saying "an individual firearm is less likely to kill a child than an individual pool" (although firearms are vastly more common than pools).
And, finally, that article uses "86 children killed by accidental firearm discharge in 2000" as its primary metric. The top google hit [0] for "How many children are killed each year by guns?" gives a value of 1,500.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=How+many+children+are+killed...
I don't understand arguments like this at all. Is the argument that "there are other bad things so we shouldn't tackle this thing"?
I believe its actually "people can be killed without assault weapons, therefore restricting assault weapons has no benefit in protecting people from being killed". Which, ultimately, has the same basic kind of error in reasoning as "there are other bad things so we shouldn't tackle this thing", but its not precisely the same argument.
Other than that, completely like "banning bad things".
History has shown us this simply isn't the case. People who want to kill people will kill people with whatever means available. Happy Land, Oklahoma City, etc are just examples of this. I didn't see a huge push to ban pressure cookers after the Boston bombings.
That's not true, "assault pressure cookers" were banned—especially the scary looking ones. Problem solved!
Does anyone take this argument seriously? This is a genuine question - I find it difficult to understand how that argument seems compelling to anyone?
Of course there are lots of ways to kill people!
The primary use of fertilizer, gasoline and pressure cookers isn't killing. The primary purpose of guns is.
- The gun can be a symbol conveying intent. Possibly one can negotiate or leave the premises in time. In contrast a pressure cooker in a corner does not immediately tell me that someone is out to get me. That is, I can be surprised more easily by an exploding pressure cooker or fertilizer bomb. At least with the gun I know what's going on.
- Fertilizer, gasoline and pressure cooker bombs do not tend to produce predictable wounds and often produce fatalities. I'm more likely to survive if an angry man shoots me than if he blows me up with a pressure cooker. Also the trauma surgeons have a better chance of stitching me up. Finally I'd rather live the rest of my life with a bullet in my butt than a pressure cooker lid up my ass.
You may not have noticed it but they were effectively banned from sale by all retail stores. I was tasked with buying a new pressure cooker not 3 weeks after the Boston bombings and I simply could not find one locally. After visiting all the local retail stores, I finally gave up and ordered one on Amazon.
To be exposed to the risk of drowning in your pool I actually need to go to said pool. This is not different from exposing myself to any other risk of my own free will.
My free will has no bearing on if someone wants to bring a gun to a public place and murder me and everyone else around.
By comparison, referenced in my other comments, if someone really wanted to kill everyone in a theater they could do it with a container of gasoline, or a pressure cooker. Newtown could have been accomplished with a sword, given the size difference of the attacker to the victims.
Anyone who wants to kill you can, with any number of objects readily accessible. This is only evident to some people when they think of an object like an AR-15 because they don't think about all the other ways they could be killed.
The fact more people are killed outside of mass shootings by guns is irrelevant. Mass shootings are a good enough reason to get rid of them, it's a risk people shouldn't have to live with.
That's just not true. In Somalia, U.S. Army soldiers actually complained about how the AR-15 round (5.56 NATO) wouldn't take down enemy combatants in a single shot.
Compare that to, say, the bombs used in the Boston Marathon. It's a night and day difference. If you're trapped in a crowded nightclub that's on fire, your odds of survival are abysmal.
People survive serious gunshots every day with proper medical attention. One of the big issues in the Orlando shooting was the 3 hour wait before any of the victims got medical attention.
Or my need to be safe (through the protection of people who carries)? If someone walk into a theater and starts shooting, though I don't carry, I prefer that the guy next to me is the type to carry, and that at least half the theater carry too, so they can all drop that killer with 100 bullets at the door.
When discussing gun control, I often personally consider my own opinions on the proposed banning/legal control over encryption in public debate. Specifically, I wonder whether it is hypocritical to want to limit the sale and use semi-automatic weapons, while simultaneously arguing that encryption must be fully legal and "everyone shouldn't be punished for a few bad apples". My conclusion is usually that banning/compromising encryption would fundamentally destroy the security and privacy of critical software for everyone on a massive scale. However, I don't think the impact would be nearly as severe for gun owners that might need to pass a few ID checks and own several weapons if needed for different uses.
So my question is, to gun owners that support existing laws regarding semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15- would limiting its sale really be really as devastatingly harmful to society at large (as to warrant those existing laws)?
The core of this issue, like so many political issues, is fear and selfishness versus hope and love. These people do not want to inconvenience their hobby to make society safer.
I would feel safer if I carried a gun everywhere. I think that I am more responsible than most people, and that I would never use it in anger. But I know that most people think that they are smarter and more responsible than they really are, and that if everyone carried a gun communities would not be safer. Choosing to be unarmed for the benefit of society is true bravery.
If you have one, you're the first target for everybody else with a gun. Kill you before you can start shooting back.
So the question becomes, who is right? You? Or Me?
I am one of "these people", and your perception is not true for me. Guns are not a hobby for me, nor are they for many gun owners. Rather, we view ownership and carry as civil rights.
I think that civil rights should be more general than that -- like you should have a right to a level of personal safety, and then we design laws to protect that right. I just think that gun ownership endangers rather than protects that right.
I personally would prefer to forget about the "what" and focus entirely on the "who", but more on that another day.
In my (rural, libertarian-leaning) home state, firearms owners often explicitly cite some variant of "capacity to resist totalitarianism" or "to defend the American people's liberty against the government" as reasons for having guns.
If, like me, you regard the encroachment of an unconstitutional American surveillance/police state as the primary threat to the way of life and values of the American people, this is a strong argument indeed. In fact I would like to see heavier, more military-flavored weapons proliferate for just this reason, especially since there are diminishing marginal returns for some types of arms escalation. E.g. armor piercing anti-tank weapons or surface-to-air weapons designed for hunting helicopters are not any more useful for shooting up a school than light guns chambered for NATO 7.62. But they have vastly different deterrent effects for a state actor contemplating violence against the populace.
You might argue that this is stupid because if the situation ever devolves to the point of violent oppression, they will just drone strike dissidents' houses invisibly from the sky. But I like to think the main effect of an armed, freedom-loving population is to deter the country's leadership from instituting that level of violent oppression in the first place.
That's because the individuals who wrote the US constitution gave exactly that justification—though people (of course) argue whether or not it is still relevant.
From my perspective, the 1st amendment had a similar justification, so if you really don't buy that _guns_ can keep the gov't in check in any kind of realistic way, clinging to "free speech" as something we absolutely need—for the exact same reason—rings hollow; it doesn't seem like a principled position to me to reject one and embrace the other.
Syria is a great example—for the exact opposite belief that a lack of guns is a terrible way to deal with a repressive regime, and will get you and your family killed.
Syrians are NOT "heavily armed", not even close. Syria is ranked 110th out of all countries in terms of "number of guns per capita".[0] USA has 28.8x (!) as many guns per person as Syria.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_c...
> That's because the individuals who wrote the US constitution gave exactly that justification
The only explanation they gave was "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". It's a bit ambiguous, despite attempts to insist otherwise.
A militia being "well regulated" (in modern English) by the government that it might need to fight is the opposite of that.
http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm
And you also miss the phrase "In order to" as in for example... it was only one of the reasons why the right to bear arms should not be infringed, not the only one. The bill of rights was at the time argued as superfluous as some felt that most people understood that those were inalienable rights and didn't need to be spelled out. Others felt otherwise (with foresight) and wanted stronger provisions, many of which were in the original Articles of Confederation the country was founded under before the Constitution.
Also, the militia act isn't the law, the Constitution is.
The Constitution isn't scripture, written by gods and prophets for whom citizens should try to guess their superior, divine wisdom and intent. It's a political document, written by people as human as we are - well-meaning and flawed; earnest, careless, and horribly corrupt; etc. - just like current politicians. The wording is a compromise among those people, who certainly had many intents. (What is the "intent" of a law passed Congress? To find semi-ambiguous wording that can get a majority of votes.)
Most fundamentally, the U.S. is a democracy (and if you care for the founders' intent, that's clearly a big one), not a secular theological state ruled by the will of dead philosopher-kings. Current U.S. citizens decide the law and what the words mean, majority rules.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792
Powers that are granted by the Constitution to the government (for example, Congress ability to pass law).
Powers that are implied to be given to the government (for example, the President's cabinet).
Powers that are left out and to be decided by the states and the people at a later time (for example, any new laws that are not in conflict with the Constitution).
And finally, powers that are DENIED to the government (these are powers the government must NEVER have).
Now, let's read the 2nd Amendment: ...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
>shall not be infringed
In other words, the Constitution specifically DENIED the government the power to regulate arms. The government does not have that power. The government was NOT given that power.
One thing to consider is that nothing is a literal absolute in the law; it's not an algorithm. For example, nobody denies the government's right to regulate arms as far as background checks, denying them to criminals, and until very recent history, much more stringent bans on possession - until recently, centuries of American jurists interpreted the law differently, and many still do; were/are they all illiterate? So easily dismissed by online amateurs? Also, government can outlaw advanced arms such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, and fully automatic weapons.
The government also can't regulate speech according to the text - except that it can: Dangerous speech (shouting fire in a crowded, dark movie theater where there is none, or inciting someone to murder), false commercial speech (lying in your ads), slander, etc. are all illegal.
For me it's all about personal freedom. And since most people think the police and military are the only ones that should be allowed guns... I can't think of a reason, outside military training, that anyone in the police or military should have a gun that doesn't apply to someone being attacked in their own home.
Perhaps I just live in an unfortunate part of Texas, but I know a number of people who have performed the mod on theirs… and frankly, among the people I know, these were already there people I was last comfortable knowing owned any firearms at all...
Citation, please?
I'm not aware of ANY AR-15 being converted to automatic and being used in a mass shooting. In fact, outside of a handful of "militia types", I can't think of any at all. The closest thing off the top of my head would be the West Hollywood Shootout back in the 90s, but I believe they used illegally-converted AKs, not ARs.
> Perhaps I just live in an unfortunate part of Texas, but I know a number of people who have performed the mod on theirs… and frankly, among the people I know, these were already there people I was last comfortable knowing owned any firearms at all...
You know a number of people who have committed a federal felony? I'm a huge gun nut and have literally hundreds of friends with large gun collections and know of no one who has manufactured an illegal machinegun.
I guess you run with a rougher crowd...
I would most certainly not call that common and I think either you're around the very small minority or full of it. That modification (illegally done) carries a penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. I seriously doubt you know people openly willing to share information that could invoke those kind of consequences.
At the same time, the same encryption technology can be used for criminal images, terrorism and other criminal communications. The same goes for firearms being used for homicide, terrorism and other crimes. To prevent all of these, or at the very least reduce their occurrence, crippling the ability of the average citizens to protect themselves is necessary.
You also cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Encryption has been made widely available, as have firearms. If we try to remove them now, they will both still be available to individuals, but only ones willing to break the law.
To work with your simile(?), banning the AR-15 (and similar black rifles) would be more like banning AES than encryption at large. Other ones would take its place, and be no less lethal or capable of criminal use. For example, here in Canada, we restricted the AR-15 and variants but other just as deadly weapons simply took its prominence as a non-restricted weapon. For the uninitiated, restricted weapons may only be used at a range, require a permit to transit (down to the route you may use, these are only approved for transit to a range or when you are moving), must be entered in a registry, and require greater RCMP clearance to possess.
I'm not sure what side of this debate I sit on. It's a very difficult one and I doubt we will ever come to a consensus.
How do you imagine that is even technically possible? A venn diagram of those gun classes would nearly fully overlap. Sure you could outlaw the bayo lug and the grenade launcher notch - and that would have prevented exactly 0 deaths.
Or how about mass genocide that has occurred in the past in several countries shortly after disarming the population in relatively recent history? The argument against that is always "Not in modern (post-Y2K) times/first world countries, just look at Australia and/or U.K!" and I don't find that argument very convincing.
I'm not scared of the U.S government going tyrannical/genocidal. But what about people who are refugees of countries where that happened? What would they think? I see no reason to disarm a population other than the ruling class fearing an armed population or a paranoid/ignorant population thinking "guns" are the problem. (Hint: People are the problem, not guns.)
Bad guys don't need laws to buy guns and murderers have no problem selecting other weapons when there is a lack of guns.
Homicide rates per capita are very similar before and after the gun buyback in Australia. "Murders with firearms" decreased though, so I guess they can pat themselves on the back for being just as murderous but with different weapons? Same trend with the U.K. Banning guns gave an "ease of mind" but didn't actually do anything. Similar to the TSA: security theater.
I do not find gun control arguments to be compelling and firmly believe in the right for every individual to protect themselves.
FWIW I do not own and likely will never own a gun.
Violent crime in the US among the sub-population with a culture comparable to The Netherlands supposedly occurs at the same (very low) rate as The Netherlands, despite massively more guns per capita in the US for that same sub-population.
It's almost as if the availability of guns doesn't cause violent crime, people do.
You mean secular urban bike riding pot tolerant gay tolerant coastal residents? What makes you think this sub-population owns massively more guns in the US?
Or do you mean white people and you're just trying to spread racist garbage?
Research. For instance, Holland has the lowest gun ownership in Western Europe (1.9%).[0]
In the US overall according to Pew, "blacks are only about half as likely as whites to have a firearm in their home (41% vs. 19%)".[1]
Among "secular urban bike riding pot tolerant gay tolerant coastal residents" in the US—let's call them "liberals"—23% of homes have at least one gun. According to the [Pew 2014] survey, "southerners are just about as likely as those living in the Midwest or the West to have a gun at home (38% vs. 35% and 34%, respectively)"[1], (with the exception of the NE, which is about 1/3 lower), so I think it's reasonable to assume that "coastal" liberals in, say, CA (where I live) are around that 20% mark. There's absolutely no way they are at 1.9% like Holland. Even if CA liberals owned guns just at 3.8%, that would still be twice what Holland has.
However, it's most likely that Holland-like people, culturally-speaking (liberal, pot/gay friendly, coastal, like bikes) in the US own guns at approx. a 7-10x greater rate than do people in Holland proper. There's also no dispute that the rate of violent crime is similar among these two populations. (As it turns out, Holland has a higher violent crime rate than other European countries with substantially higher gun ownership, suggesting that higher gun ownership in Europe might contribute to a reduction in violent crime.)
Regarding your suggestion that I'm a racist, I don't think violent crime is a white-black thing in the US (as you suggest), I think it's a cultural thing. Why? Well, if you treat blacks as one "race" from a stats perspective (i.e. if you're a racist), you get rather useless statistics. If instead you divide blacks up culturally—say, into "inner-city African Americans" and "recent immigrants from Africa" among others—you see very different crime statistics as well, i.e. it's not race—being black—that seems to be the controlling factor for violent crime, it's culture. That's why racism is so stupid: the stats just don't indicate that there even is such a thing as "the black race" that you can make meaningful aggregate statements like "violent crime" about.
So. If you treat the US with a broad brush when it comes to violent crime, it's very easy to come to the mistaken belief that "guns" are the problem, or even "a" problem—the stats indicate STRONGLY that guns are not a problem. Instead, cultural (not racial!) propensity towards violent crime is the problem.
That means that if we want to reduce violent crime, reducing gun ownership among "secular urban bike riding pot tolerant gay tolerant coastal residents" by 10x isn't going to make a difference—they're basically non-violent already.
[0] http://www.calgunlaws.com/myths-of-european-gun-laws/
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demograp...
I'm also skeptical of arguments that some "cultures" within the US are more prone to violent crime. It's so hard to come up with firm numbers on something like that because culture is arbitrary and fluid. Socioeconomic status seems like a better predictor of criminality, it's quantitative and universal.
Also, Americas gun problem goes beyond "violent crime". http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/upshot/gun-deaths-are-most... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/us/guns-children-deaths.ht...
In the end, the background checks people are asking for wouldn't have stopped the Orlando shooting, and short of a total ban including the police, government, govt security contractors, and even off-base military with tight armory controls would have likely stopped this, even then it would have probably been a bomb instead.
There is no reason that a cop needs a gun that doesn't apply to someone in their own home. Guns are lethal force. The end, we can go on about specifics but murder is already illegal, so are a lot of other things that people do. Maybe we should also ban all criminals (not just felons) from voting? Would that be sane? Not really.
In the end, you can't have any hope of stopping crazy short of China-like lock down, spying and personal invasion of privacy. Not to mention deleting the past from society.
I'd much rather have the personal freedom and liberties that the constitution ensures. It isn't about what I need... in the end, I'm against most gov't restrictions. Banning guns makes about as much sense as banning marijuana... It takes away personal freedom and choice for the illusion of safety.
BTW, I don't own a gun... my father worked for the police for about two decades, and my mother still does. I have friends and relatives that have guns, hunt, etc.
The AR-15 isn't an assault rifle... it's just scary looking.
However, I didn't feel like I understood why he needed that gun. Is he a hunter? Does he own his AR-15 for self-defense? As far as I could tell, the reason he wanted the rifle is because it's considered "cool" and he makes it clear that he views it as somewhat of a toy. Calling the AR-15 "a Lego kit for adults" made my stomach turn, but I understand where he's coming from.
EDIT: a commenter below mentions that the author lives on a 17-acre farm and owns a gun to take care of animals that invade, as well as for recreational shooting.
What's missing from this article is a discussion of why so many guys feel like they need to own such a weapon (and usually more than one) in the first place. If you're a hunter, survivalist, preparing for the zombie apocalypse, fine, yes, you need a weapon. That's understandable.
But it seems disingenuous for the author to write such a long post without including a critique of the way the AR-15 is marketed. A common ad I've seen posted is just a picture of the rifle with the caption: "consider your man card reissued". Call me insensitive, but the person who gets fired up by that ad is not someone I want to see owning a rifle. Or any kind of weapon for that matter.
Our definition of what it means to be "a real man" needs a deep and thorough re-evaluation.
if that level of reliability was needed, non military grade guns would have it.
I was also uncomfortably aware of the transparent appeals to the engineer's sensibility ("open source", modularity, geeking out on youtube, using adverbs like "exquisitely", "lego-blocks" etc). I found it somewhat sneaky, and in no way whatsoever did it translate to need.
We are not talking about a car or a musical instrument, we are talking about an instrument of death. Necessary for certain tasks? yes. Something all civilians should have access to? no.
As a musician, "gear-head"ism always struck me as kind of sad, a rabbit hole that has almost nothing to do with where music comes from. Ultimately harmless, though. This kind of fetishization, on the other hand, frankly disgusts me.
I live on 17 acres, so: coyotes, hogs, nutria (and other destructive varmints), recreational shooting.
https://t.co/o0eSUusHXI
The many sizes of ammo and rounds are the nature of having many weapons from many manufacturers in many cultures, mostly around war times.
Some people are just avid collectors... Nobody needs to have 2+ cars per household, and teenage deaths from auto accidents are significant.
For me, it's about extending personal freedom and accepting that you can never be completely safe. In the case of this shooting, it probably would have been a bomb otherwise, and would have killed/injured about as many people.
As to the style, I think that's more about personal preference... I'm not concerned about people that want "scary looking" guns.
Again, I'm not an owner... but with all this talk, wondering if i can find a local butcher that carries rabbit.
... wow, just looked, didn't realize there were that many caliber choices...
That's got to be a play on memes from the current presidential campaign, right? It might be more an appeal to people who consider themselves anti-Clinton or anti-democratic-party than an appeal to guys who want to feel more masculine.
I don't know, though.
It fucking terrifies me that so many of you people have one.
It's a tough position for me to be in. I support the 2nd amendment but I don't think you folks should have access to this sort of weapon of war.
There are plenty of options that provide the utility of home defense, plinking, target practice, and hunting without having a 30 ROUND FUCKING MAG.
In a military context we wouldn't call the AR-15 a "mass casualty producing weapon" because there are relatively higher caliber, faster cycling, higher capacity, man portable weapons. However in the civilian context the AR-15 is most definitely a "mass casualty producing weapon" and should not be easily obtained.
Thanks in advance for sharing.
Is it a capacity issue? caliber? detachable magazine? or a combination?
The shooter spent his time in different rooms, each full of people, many of whom could have overpowered him. At many times he was within arms' length of people. There are no reports whatsoever of anyone trying to "over power"[sic] him. They were likely frozen by fear, alcohol, drugs and wounds. I'm not blaming them, simply noting that they were unable to react. He had free reign.
Under such circumstances a serious shooter with a 12 gauge would generate far _more_ casualties. LOL all you want, the 12 gauge is way more destructive than an AR, especially at the short ranges involved.
I am opposed to banning 'assault rifles' because an assault rift is a category with a list of things - I can make something just as deadly (and practical) without that list of things. Because of that, banning a gun with specific features (most of which are not known to enhance rate of fire or deadliness of aim) amounts to bad law.
I think that this is actually the most significant difference between guns. To rationalize having such a large magazine, you must believe either that A) you are going to be attacked by a large group of armed people, or B) are going to attack a large group of people.
It's the same rationale for not allowing fully-automatic weapons to be owned by ordinary citizens, and it's a good starting place for new legislation (and hopefully not the only legislation).
There are no studies indicating that mag limit would save lives in a mass shooting situation. None.
I understand that the mag capacity/body count link seems intuitively to be true, but I've read a number of accounts from actual weapon experts (I think the last time I saw this was on Sofrep.com, from some former SF guys) that indicate that this is not actually the case. And ultimately, wouldn't it be best to base a mag capacity ban on, y'know, actual hard data, and not what we sort of think is probably true?
I read someone who did the math (i.e. 2 seconds per mag change, rate of fire, mag capacity... I don't recall the details and Google isn't cooperating at the moment) and he determined that mag capacity has pretty much no effect on the amount of fire you can lay down in 5-minute engagement, which is about how long these shootings last.
The one thing you can say about mag changes is that they introduce an opportunity for operator error (dropped mag etc.). So over the course of some number of mass shootings, if you know the odds of operator error during a mag change and the impact of that error on the rate of fire, you could probably calculate some number of rounds saved.
Anyway, for reference, here is some random Meal Team Six commando on YouTube that I found demonstrating a mag change:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkLCc7H-oSI
That guy took two seconds to change mags, and doesn't even look like he knows what he's doing. You can find plenty of sub-second mag changes on YouTube from random airsoft guys.
I'm pretty confident that the mag capacity/body count link would not hold up to even cursory scientific scrutiny.
I apologize if I offended you.
I don't trust everybody with a rifle, hell - I especially don't trust you given your expressed view, but I accept the fact that the police can't protect everybody - and it is immoral to insist that they depend on protection that isn't there.
Concerns over moral principles might be totally irrelevant to you though, if you are a utilitarian/end-justifies-the-means sort of guy.
That's not a likely enough occurence to justify my neighbors arsenal of mass casualty producing weapons.
An even bigger fantasy: some of you guys dream of standing up to the US gov't. IIRC that rarely works out well. Sorry but in the US you're already at a disadvantage because you're digitally tracked here. Over there they don't have to use digital devices to conduct daily life.
You already live in a police state.
Neither is the "mass shooting" likely enough to occur to justify a major curtailment of the second amendment. You are more likely to drown in a paint bucket. You aren't thinking, you've fallen under the spell of bloody shirt waving - which is fine if it ended there, but you want to impose your hysteria on others.
As to the police state, that's the point... there's no partial ban that shouldn't apply to the police as the police have no reason to use a firearm that shouldn't apply to someone in their own home.
probability * consequences > pain-threshold
The same people are viscerally opposed to the fight against global warming, because it is an "unlikely event", even though the consequences would be vastly more catastrophic for humankind, if it turns out to be true.
I don't understand their logic.
First of all. I think that was a bad rule to be introduced in the first place. I don't think there was proper user input on that change, and the backlash was mostly ignored. That being said though...
While I can understand my comments were not put in the nicest of terms and verbiage, I in no way became uncivil. Please indicate precisely to me where I became "uncivil", and please make clear your definition of "uncivil".
Sure, I cussed a couple of times, but last I checked HN wasn't against cussing. As a matter of fact, reviewing my comments in this thread, I see nothing you could take as violating the negativity rule at all, unless you are applying an excessively broad scope to the rule that would set a precedent that would harm HN as a whole.
I do think perhaps this part might be in violation: "Also, the real discussion is in my other comment in this suspiciously flagged thread." That though, is not being uncivil, and would be a violation of another issue, and I shouldn't have said that. It's too late to edit now though.
In short, dang, you don't seem to have provided very clear reasoning for your comment, so I would like you to please clarify. I admit in retrospect this is probably why the article got flagged, perhaps rightly so, because it is a contentious subject that was/is bound to create charged debate. My comments were heated but not uncivil, and your insinuation that they were is concerning to me, especially when the other commenter at one point was making attacks on me based on my PTSD. If anything I would expect you to be saying this to him for that comment.
Dan, I eagerly await your reply, as I have always tried to be a good commenter on HN, and I am open to correction if my errors are pointed out properly.
More importantly, you insinuated that a fellow user had violated an oath. That's way out of line. Casually slinging such a serious charge is the kind of thing that turns internet forums into a circle of hell, so please don't do anything like that here.
I gather that you didn't mean to break any rules when posting, and probably were just expressing yourself forcefully about a topic you feel strongly about. That's natural, but if HN is going to reach the standard of civility that we strive for, we all have to exercise self-control re the 'forcefully' part. Other people doubtless feel as strongly as you do, have had different experiences that led them to different views, and—given how little information online discussions convey—may not even be understanding you correctly (or vice versa). That's a lot of opportunities for conflict, so interesting discussion depends on all of us restraining our impulses.
He also, if I understand correctly (there's a lot of bs posts flying around) that he had passed gov't background checks that would have allowed him firearm access even if most of the population was banned from owning.
A huge amount of times the people surrounding these nut-jobs seem to know in advance that they're trouble. If every person had the ability to give up their own right to bear in exchange for preventing one other person from doing the same I think it would make a difference. Think of it as virtualizing the shootout between the two, each neutralizing the other.
Or perhaps a "credit" system where endorsements vs anti-endorsements must be positive? (You'd start with +1 for your own endorsement of yourself).
Difficult to implement to be sure but interesting idea?
And you're right: by focusing on shooters—not weapons—the quote-unquote problem of rifles like that AR-15 being available to the general public becomes a lot more tractable.
This post has as much misinformation as anything else you'll read about gun.
1) The Henry rifle thing. During the Civil War period and up until WW2, military rifles and hunting rifles were basically designed with the same goal: shooting and hitting things at range. During WW2 people noticed that most person to person combat was actually at close range, and rifles were mostly used for suppression fire. Rifles like the AR-15 were designed for this close range combat scenario - which is exactly like most mass shootings. Yes, you can use an AR-15 for hunting - they are pretty good at killing things, but that doesn't make it a hunting rifle.
2) He's right about the "defensive rifle" nonsense. Is that even a thing people talk about?
3) He's right about the impossibility of defining "Assault Weapons" (although maybe restricting large capacity magazines isn't entirely stupid). His suggestion (?) about banning semi-automatic weapons seems reasonable to me.
"The Henry rifle thing. During the Civil War period and up until WW2, military rifles and hunting rifles were basically designed with the same goal: shooting and hitting things at range. During WW2 people noticed that most person to person combat was actually at close range, and rifles were mostly used for suppression fire. Rifles like the AR-15 were designed for this close range combat scenario - which is exactly like most mass shootings. Yes, you can use an AR-15 for hunting - they are pretty good at killing things, but that doesn't make it a hunting rifle."
You argue that police use makes it legitimate, but this is exactly wrong: police use it for the same reason the military do: killing quickly at close range.
Yes, the modularity of the AR-15 means you can adapt to to do other things. That isn't a strength from the point of view of stopping mass killings though.
You can even use a different caliber in it like 6.5mm Grendel which is a 1000 yard round.
So you can most certainly use it for rapid follow up shots at long ranges while hunting.
Grandpa was a Sergent in the 504st PIR from 1942 through 46. North Africa, Sicily, the boot and a walk from Ardennes into Germany. Went to Ohio State on the GI Bill and didn't cotton bullshit. His name was Bernard Worthington Jamison. Charitably, it seems the article contains a substantial misidentification.
Last I checked, all of these smaller gun rights groups still have bigger membership rolls than the biggest anti-rights groups.
The debate is about all military-grade civilian issue long semi-automatic rifles. The debate is about if the potential damage such a weapon can cause in the wrong hands is enough to justify an outright ban (or severe restriction on sales).
It was a well written piece and very informative, but I think it missed what the on-going debate is really about.
Here is how every single article on this topic of this particular author goes: there is a (quite minor, in fact) challenge, therefore we should abandon ever trying to regulate guns.
Let's start with this particular piece. Sure sure, it's quite hard to differentiate between assault weapons and "defensive weapons" and "recreational weapons." But that is MISSING THE POINT! The point is NOT that all weapons can kill. The point is: how the hell do we allow self-defense and recreational fun without endangering the society at large? However, instead of this, his argument is: hey, all weapons are dangerous, so let's just allow him (decent guy, no?) to own nuclear weapons. It's, you know, defensive.
Return to the stupid argument. Yes, there is a large difference between offensive and defensive weapons. For example, caliber. Offensive seeks to destroy, so the more power, the better; defensive seeks to disable while (let's face it) retreating, so not so much power required. Or, perhaps smaller magazine size; in hunting and defending, you don't need to spray, so replacing magazine is not that bad; while you are terrorizing, the break is awesome for your victims, obviously.
As you see, there are ways to differentiate, to make hunting/recreation safe. But no. Our dear, dear author wants none of that. Because the mechanism is so reliable, he wants like the exact same power as the guns used in battle. Because it's hard to differentiate, his solution is to let innocent people die. Because it's like a fraction more convenient, well, again, who cares about those strangers, right?
Similarly, I tried (very hard) to be open minded and read his articles on smart guns. Same kind of arguments. Oh, it's not 100% reliable, so no, it should be banned, because, omg, what if I am forced to use it.
You know, in decision making books that I worked through, there is a term for all of t these "reasons." They are called "excuses." You don't want something because, I don't know, the sizes of your hands, so you make up excuses. Oh, it's not 100% reliable. Oh, the government is taking over the world. Oh, politicians are treating me like idiots. Therefore, those bastards can die so I can get that thing.
What makes you think that offense seeks to destroy, or that defensive seeks to disable? If anything, defense needs more power, not less. The key difference is that the attacker can choose the time and place of the attack, and so can either find a time and place that works with whatever amount of power they have available (note the tendency for mass shootings to only happen in "gun free zones"), or call off the attack. Defenders do not know when they will be attacked, and so they need as much power as possible to compensate for possibly being outnumbered or caught in a disadvantageous place. That's why defenders need bigger magazines and more effective ammunition.
But both ultimately seek to control, not to destroy or disable. Once you have control, destruction is easy. And if the opponent has a firearm too, then there isn't much practical difference between disable and kill.
"You can go back to broadcasting your own moral superiority on social media, and I can go back to tuning you out until your rage therapy session is over."
Preaching on social media is so 2007, so tired and so done.
The Plaza Theater where Christina Grimmie was shot last week is less than a mile from where I went to Junior High. I saw the Friday the 13th there on a group date the last day of ninth grade. My sister and brother in law drum and dance there on stage from time to time with their friends and community.
The building where the other hundred odd people were shot last week used to be an Italian restaurant. the closest to the house where I grew up. I ate in that building more than a few times...both buildings I guess if concessions count. My mom is pushing 80. She was out walking the dog Sunday morning. She asked a neighbor if they knew what all the helicopters were doing.
I'm an alum of the high school a half mile down Kaley Ave from Pulse. Sneaking into Pulse is something its current LGBT students try to do. Some are friends of my nieces and nephews. Some were taught by my sister. The carnage touched a lot of people I know.
That's what I'm thinking about. Tonight, I don't give a fuck about your gun. It's probably a difference in priorities.
He creates strawman critics to ridicule and rant against, which also will dissuade anyone he disagrees with from reading on and will inflame all sides, but he also claims to want reasonable, open-minded discussion.
Another missed opportunity to discuss something reasonably and bring people together. If that was really his intent, it's hard to believe a professional journalist - a professional communicator - would choose the words above.
I hope it works out better than that but I don't have unlimited time to read everything.
Or just read this thread.
For some reason, anti-gun-rights people seem to love to talk about how to take people's guns, and then call gun owners paranoid for thinking that people want to take their guns.
You can find hundreds of Twitter posts saying just about anything; we could justify any behavior on that basis.
> Or just read this thread.
I skimmed and read a large part of this discussion, and I don't see any comments of that sort. Maybe there are some but there can't be very many.
That hard-to-detect signal is all that matters; it's so precious on the Internet; we need to curate it, take care of it. The rest is just "sound and fury".
But serious question (and apologies if I missed it), what is wrong with making it harder to buy a gun? Is it true that I could go to a gun show and pretty much walk out with one that same day? What is wrong with just having a more stringent background check and/or classes before one can own a gun? (This may be the case in some states).
I assume it's because it's a) in the Bill of Rights, and thus "not up for discussion—period", and b) historically, governments have disarmed their populace as a prelude to mass murder of dissidents.
I strongly suspect that those hitting the "flag" button did so on ideological grounds, in order to shut down discussion they did not approve of.
Maybe two weeks ago, it might have been a "better" story. Today, it's not unreasonable to read it as someone's reaction to the events in Orlando and to judge a love song to the firearm used there in poor taste. Even if that was not the author's intention.
... nothing, on either the article or on HN.
You simply can't have a proper discussion about this without talking about the constitution.
Look, first, we need to back up a second and before we get caught up in every persons minute question about detail this or reason that, and look at the bigger picture. I have some British friends (classically anti-gun) who have responded well to the following discussion flow on the issue.
First, we must establish that you, the reader, understand the hierarchy of law. That is, first, we are talking about America, and in America the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. This is a very important distinction, especially for those citizens living under monarchies or thinly veiled monarchies such as the British and various Europeans. The constitution was not established to grant rights, rather it was intended to secure individual natural rights, under natural law. The American Revolution, the Glorious Revolution, and the French Revolution all had their basis in natural law and rights. Natural law and rights existed before any state, and transcend any state.
There is no perfect list of natural rights, but there are some commonly accepted ones. John Locke called the right to self defense the first law of nature. Each and every individual has a right to defend themselves or their loved ones, and their property (I will ignore the large rabbit hole waiting for those who want to discuss how close property law is to natural liberty). If you punch me, I will defend myself. If you try to hit me with a rock, I will defend myself. If you try to strike at me with a sword, I will defend myself. If you shoot at me with a gun, I will defend myself. While the technology has changed, the principle has not.
The bottom line is I have a right to self defense, and in a world where true defense means owning a firearm, I have a right to own a firearm.
Now usually I get quite a bit of push back even on this point, and granted there is a lot of nuance to be had in the debate. What about nuclear weapons, etc... a discussion worth having but far too easily used to distract from the core issue(s). So as this point becomes tangled in confusion, I usually stop and move to the next point.
All of that aside, the second amendment of the constitution is intended as a defense against tyranny. This is not about individual or family self-defense. The second amendment is primarily about the ability of the people, from whom the government gains it's legitimacy, to defend itself from a government gone rogue, tyrannical, or despotic.
These two primary reasons, self-defense as a natural right and defense against tyranny as a natural right and constitutionally protected (not established) right, are why I don't have to answer such bullshit questions as "Why do you need a $scarysoundingweapon?" I have my suggestions about the need for increased training, and concerns about the lack of respect for firearms, but they distract from the core discussion we need to be having.
I'm a combat vet, and perhaps I am just too cynical because I have seen too much of the worlds dark underbelly, but these rights are very real to me, and while Americans are cozy, coddled, and lazy today, with a turn-key totalitarian state being put in place, centralized and monarchistic globalism on the rise, growing inequality, and increasingly startling revelation of lack of the rule of law, I have a feeling people are going to need to relearn the martial arts quicker than they are prepared for.
As a side note, there are some key conditions and justifications for deadly force I think more civilians should know, even if they don't all apply to them:
3 Conditions
1.Extreme necessity 2.Last Resort 3.When all other means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed.
7 Circumstances
1.In defense of property involving national security 2.In defense of property not involving national security but inherently dangerous to others. 3.Self-defense and defense of others. 4...