I'm a firearms enthusiast and was shocked to read that the rotating trigger mechanism wasn't outlawed. It almost definitely will be after this massacre.
I also think that this is a strong case of genetics at play considering that the shooter didn't even spend time with his bank robber father. The psychopath apple didn't fall far from the psychopath tree.
> I also think that this is a strong case of genetics at play considering that the shooter didn't even spend time with his bank robber father. The psychopath apple didn't fall far from the psychopath tree.
Wow doesn't that fit nicely into some narrative. His phrenologic profile was off the charts too and a Virgo on top of that!
I understand everyone is upset about what this terrorist did, so am I.
However, we should be cautious about making statements about genetics.
Apart from there not being any major scientific research behind it, it also leads to disturbing effects like the state detaining blood relatives of someone that commits crime because they will be more at risk of committing crimes in the future, thought-crimes, etc.
Not yet, but considering the sheer amount of guns in his hotel and home plus the explosives I'm willing to bet something motivated him more than mental illness.
He's not just a random crazy person that bought a gun and went on a spree, there was a lot of planning involved, so he's probably a terrorist of some sort.
Deliberately planning mass murder doesn't make you a terrorist, just a mass murderer; terrorism is defined by a very specific kind of motivation that is far from the only motivation for planned mass murder.
It strikes terror (in the sense of _fear_) into the victims there and then all the same, sure. I was talking about whether or not it constitutes _terrorism_, though. I mean, it's terrorism if the purpose is to spread fear in a way that will further some cause, but not every killing is terrorism, right?
I think the lack of a father figure plays into more than genetics.
Additionally, fathers and sons share more than just genetics. They quite often share upbringing and culture. Not to mention the Father set that example of bank robbing.
I am not an enthusiast, hence the question - if outlawed, how difficult would it be for someone to re-create it in a metal shop, or with a 3D printer? I'd assume the designs are floating on the Internet somewhere.
Even the hallowed 'automatic sear' is just an arrangement of small metal shapes and springs. The annual volumes of Jane's Infantry Weapons used to have diagrams and detailed descriptions of the sears' operation. It's only penalties of law that prevents people making or distributing them, not complexity or wizardry.
On the other hand the majority of NATO training emphasises rapid single shots, with bursts only for initiating ambush or breaking contact ( and usually only when authorised by the NCO ). Being limited to single-shot isn't therefore too much of a restriction.
Selling my Romanian AK-47 and other firearms obtained through purchase or inheritance felt great.
Since then there has been several mass casualty shootings in the states.
Wish I burned them now.
edit:
I didn't get rid of my collection over any huge reason, just didn't want the liability sitting around home when I haven't gone shooting in years. That said I feel like I've made a critical mistake in yielding my arms to people who would likely be less responsible than I during my ownership.
For anyone in the same position remember you can disable most firearms pretty easily by kludging a part or two. Hopefully will save someone that nagging feeling I have.
It is obviously my duty to deescalate & inhibit violence in my community when possible, while restricting people's avenues to tools that multiply the potential damage they can inflict.
This is why we have mental health care and regulations for buying explosives.
The best I could figure with my firearms at the time was selling them to the most responsible party possible, in my case it was gunsmiths. Recently some criminals attempted to break into their shop. Didn't get away with anything. So my choice already yielded measurable results in a way.
I'm not responsible people's heinous acts, but I am responsible for the environment people choose to act in.
I hope you aren't suggesting selling people a broken firearm.
If you want to be extra cautious in storing weapons, you can take the bolt or firing pin out and store it in a different place. I keep an old rifle out in my house for decoration, but the bolt is stored in the safe.
Mainstream journalism being fast-and-loose with weapon definitions again. I'm not sure if the NY times can't get it right, or they don't want to.
"Assault-style rifle" has no definition from what I can tell, other than getting used repeatedly by the news when "assault rifle" is technically incorrect but it looks like an assault rifle and they want to use the word "assault" near the word "rifle".
And "semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle" is just wrong. Semiautomatic-only rifles are not considered assault rifles.
Okay, but why are these distinctions important to this situation? Are you saying that there's been no legislation proposed that could have reduced the number of rounds per second this shooter could fire?
The distinctions aren't important for the Las Vegas shooting, but they are important for the national discussion around gun laws. I would much rather have laws created through processes that don't abuse language to create fear in the wake of tragedy.
I don't think the language is what's creating fear, here. It's the guns. More specifically the casual, easy availability of guns and the numerous mass murders that happen annually with them.
It's not like calling them "just guns" or whatever diminishes the fear. Or maybe it would diminish the fear--and I think that's a bit insidious to be honest. We (collectively) should fear a tool having as its only purpose to seriously injure or kill things, including (especially) people.
I suppose that depends on your POV. There are a variety of currently legal accessories that one can buy to make a semi-automatic rifle fire more rapidly. Primarily these are trigger cranks, bump fire stocks, and binary triggers. You can make these devices illegal, but out of the three trigger cranks are trivially easy to make, and bump firing is fairly easy to do with no accessories. And honestly, with hand tools and a basic amount of mechanical knowledge, it isn't very difficult to (illegally) modify most rifles to fully automatic fire.
Bump stocks or trigger cranks are legal, and perhaps could be made illegal. That would only deter some people, and as 3D printing becomes easier, these things will be producible at home.
Banning semi-automatic rifles may help, but if you want chaos and civil strife, you'll get it. There are millions of those rifles in circulation and the people who have them (many, anyway) won't want to give them up. At the least, you'll make criminals of hundreds of thousands of people, and put lots in jail for previously legal and safe ownership of a weapon.
But let's say you ban them. Now you'll have a black market with plenty of them anyway.
In theory, if we could snap our fingers and have all semi-auto rifles gone, it could help with some of the known mass shootings. But it won't stop it. And here's my last point: It will still go on. Killings and horrors will continue, and those who don't like firearms will continue to demand their confiscation and restriction until they don't exist. And they (the anti-gun left) will do that with or without the repeal of the 2nd amendment.
Already producible at home by people with fabrication skills. Heck, a wooden or plastic crank could be built with tools most people have in their houses already.
Also, 'bump stocks' aren't strictly necessary. Applying forward pressure with your stabilizing hand on a rifle as you fire can cause it to bump.
It is clear. Assault Rifle, is a automatic, or semi-automatic rifle with a handle and a large magazine/bullet capacity. It has a fast fire rate, and semi decent range (less than a standard rifle, but more than a pistol).
The one that was made famous during WW2 (which was used to assault enemy positions at slightly closer range than a normal rifle)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44
So normally when people are talking about assault rifles they think they are talking about assault weapons (or vice versa), which is a almost meaningless term used by the government and gun control groups. Just read the intro paragraph on Wikipedia to see what I mean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon If we want an actual intelligent conversation about gun control we need to stop using stupid terms such as assault weapon, and maybe even assault rifle. We need to talk about concrete attributes not some abstract class of weapons a said gun belongs to.
I always see gun promoters trying to divert the discussion from the real issue (read: mass shootings and terrorism) towards the technicality of the term "assault weapon". Would calling these guns "weapons of mass murder" be more accurate? Does that distinction really makes a difference? Why does a law abiding citizen of America needs mass murdering guns with thousands of rounds?
Because any of these law-abiding people owning a gun could snap some day and go rogue? I'd say that's a really good reason to reduce the guns availability.
Taking your garbage edit of the parent comment and setting it totally aside:
Legal firearms routinely become illegal, most often when they are stolen by people who are already criminals. Unlocked cars are a great source of 'legal' pistols as it turns out.
The problem of small arms proliferation is real and it is one of the reasons U.S. and other modern nations regulate them so much.
The technical details here matter. What features do we want the firearms owned by law-abiding citizens to have? The use of the term "assault weapon" is a tragedy of discourse norms that conflates in the minds of many the incidental features of military assault rifles with the necessary features for weapons to be used for mass murder.
And for what it's worth, if you can make an intensional definition for "weapons of mass murder" that includes the most dangerous weapons for mass-murder purposes without unnecessarily curtailing the design space for the socially acceptable uses for weapons, please go for it.
>a socially accepted use of these weapons in the US
No it isn't. Homes in the U.S. are primarily built of wood, rifles can and will produce a tremendous amount of over penetration in such "self defense" scenarios.
The idea of some idiot who cannot comprehend ballistics in an emotional panic lacing up my neighborhood with a 30rd mag fed rifle is terrifying. Take some self defense courses please.
If you are going to argue about terminology, argue first about how can there be a "design space for the socially acceptable uses of weapons". The phrase is laughable. Weapons are for killing--that's why they're called weapons. Arguing about what to actually call the physical thing that does the damage is missing the point and is trying to draw attention away from the real purpose of the thing.
Yes, these weapons are for killing. Using a firearm for home defense is socially accepted. This is exactly what makes it tricky to ban "mass murder" weapons while keeping "justified homicide" weapons legal.
"Mass murder weapon" versus "justified homicide weapon" is just a situational distinction that does nothing to address the fact that the physical thing is identical and inextricably tied to horrible, irrevocable actions. Your gun doesn't become a "justified homicide weapon" until after the fact. Up until then, it's always just a weapon because you can't prevent or enforce its use for a particular, sanctioned purpose.
They don't have to be identical physical things. That's what they mean by design space. What features (that affect things like range and rate of fire and accuracy and so on) should be legal on civilian weapons?
For the US even something like limited internal magazines isn't politically tenable (a 5 shot internal magazine and manual action would still be useful for hunting but could not be used to shoot hundreds of rounds per minute into a crowd of people).
Hell, I won't be real shocked if nothing gets done about bump stocks (which don't really have any purpose beyond shooting for fun).
”Using a firearm for home defense is socially accepted”
In the USA. There seems to be some correlation between that and the number of mass shootings in a country, so, maybe, that has to change if one wants to decrease the number of mass shootings.
> What features do we want the firearms owned by law-abiding citizens to have?
Good question. I can’t imagine any legal use for a high capacity semiautomatic weapon with armor piercing bullets. A weapon like that is comically impractical for hunting or self defense.
Law abiding citizens should be able to get by with handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles. Clips with more than a dozen rounds should be banned, as should particularly deadly types af ammunition.
Either that or we could go back to doing it the way the framers of the constitution intended; make everything illegal except for muskets.
That's not what the framers intended. They intended that the citizens have weapons sufficient for them to form a valid, militarily useful fighting force. And they knew what they were talking about; they had just found such fighting forces to be very useful in order to overthrow the government that existed at the time.
What kind of firepower do you think would be necessary to win a fight the US government? I don't own any tanks, fighter jets, stealth bombers, nuclear submarines, and I don't have a military consisting of millions of highly trained, battle tested soldiers.
Me with an AR-15 versus the Marines is not going to end well for me.
I said what the intent was. I was replying to your post that said
> I can’t imagine any legal use for a high capacity semiautomatic weapon with armor piercing bullets. A weapon like that is comically impractical for hunting or self defense.
I was pointing out that the point wasn't hunting, or even self defense. It was to form an effective fighting force, and semiautomatic (and even fully automatic) weapons and armor piercing bullets are very useful for that.
You replied, questioning whether such things could be effective today. That's a different question. It's a valid question, but it's a different question from the intent of the Second Amendment (and of what should therefore be legal).
And by the way, the militias, by themselves, were not enough to win the Revolutionary War...
> I don't own any tanks, fighter jets, stealth bombers, nuclear submarines, and I don't have a military consisting of millions of highly trained, battle tested soldiers.
Note that the other side of the popular militia resting in the states protected by the 2nd Amendment is that that was supposed to be the foundation of national defense as well, not a large standing army. (Some standing army as a cadre and rapid reaction force was viewed as necessary, and the absence of one a failing of the pre-Constitutional system.)
Well, as actasabuffoon pointed out in a parallel post, there is an argument to be made that this wouldn't work very well in the modern setting. But yes, if we're going to change it, we need to amend the Constitution.
For example, the amendment could say that "militia" means the National Guard, and that is in fact supposed to be a significant fighting force, with military-grade weapons and people trained and ready to use them. And for personal use, people can have weapons sufficient for self-defense but not for mass murder.
But for that to happen, we've got to persuade 3/4 of the state that that's the correct answer. That's a pretty tall hill to climb...
This is totally disingenuous. You want an exact legal definition of what an assault rifle is, and then you'll just come up with a gun that does the thing that the government is trying to prohibit in a slightly different way. That's exactly what the article is about. We prohibited automatic weapons, and so people come out with cranks and bump fire stocks that allow for automatic fire without violating the legal definition of more than one bullet per trigger pull.
I bet you know the history of assault weapons, but for those that don't, it makes this all understandable. In WWII, Germany's infantry primarily carried Mauser rifles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karabiner_98k) These were bolt action, meaning you had to pull the bolt back and forth between each shot. It shoots a high powered round, and it has a reasonably long barrel, which means that it can be accurate and deadly from a few hundred meters, but it also means that it has a fair bit of recoil. It has a ten round magazine, which is somewhat cumbersome to reload. This type of rifle works fine for hunting, and for firing from one trench to another or across an open field.
When Germany found itself doing a lot of house to house fighting with the Russians, this was not a suitable weapon. These firefights tended to be over very quickly and at very close range. There wasn't time to aim, and often soldiers shot from the hip while advancing. What was needed was a weapon that was fully automatic, handy, with a short barrel, fireable from the hip, with a large ammunition capacity and quick to reload with not too much recoil. The result was this: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_40), a submachine gun.
Later, the Germans realized that although the MP40 was great for house to house fighting, for longer range engagements, it wasn't accurate enough for longer ranged engagements. They needed a compromise weapon: The StG 44 (Assault Rifle 44). The StG 44 had an intermediate power round and a medium length barrel to not create too much recoil, and be easy enough to handle close in, but have enough power and accuracy to fight at medium distances. It could fire either in semiautomatic or fully automatic mode, fully automatic for a close assault, and semi for long range accurate shooting. It had a pistol grip so that it could be fired from the hip, and an easily changeable 30 round box magazine, so that it could be reloaded quickly in a fast firefight. The AR-15/M16, AK47, and virtually all general purpose military rifles from the second half of the 20th century follow this basic concept.
This is all to say, that the basic design concepts of the assault rifle, intermediate power cartridge, selectable semi/fully auto fire, medium length barrel, pistol grip, and detachable, high capacity box magazine, make this a weapon designed for war. You can argue until you're blue in the face that none of these "evil features" make it any different than a bolt action hunting rifle, but they all exist to make it more suitable as a weapon of war, and you know it.
The very same features that make it useful for soldiers to kill enemy soldiers make it more lethal in the hands of a mass shooter. The pistol grip makes it easier to shoot on the move or from the hip. The high capacity box magazine gives a lot of firepower without reloading, and makes reloading fast. The less than full power cartridge makes rapid fire (semi or full auto) more manageable, and the medium length barrel makes it accurate at medium distance while not being unwieldy in close quarters. You can't tell me that what happened Sunday, or what happened in any of the recent mass shootings would have been any where near as deadly if the shooter had showed up with a Remington 700.
>This is totally disingenuous. You want an exact legal definition of what an assault rifle is, and then you'll just come up with a gun that does the thing that the government is trying to prohibit in a slightly different way.
This is how laws work. If you want to put limits on what weapons are legal, you have to specify what those limits are. I mean, you could give broad intent-based discretion to the ATF, but that means that people don't know what is and isn't allowed and have to go through lots of uncertainty and risk when it comes to owning guns. Of course people want to make the laws clear, specific, and consistent. You wouldn't want a "don't let people get high" intent-based law when it comes to drugs. It would mean that you wouldn't know whether the antihistamines in your medicine cabinet will get you into legal trouble.
Complicating things is the bona-fide economic pressure to do things within the limits set. Guns that are better for mass murder are often better for legitimate purposes such as sport, hunting, shooting for fun, or home defense.
Well, there are a lot of reasons people buy guns. Men like to play with powerful, dangerous things, c.f. chainsaws, sports cars, etc. All well and good, count me among them. One indicator of a powerful dangerous thing is it being used by the military. Some of the very richest people in the world own things like decommissioned fighter jets. All of this is good fun as long as we're just blasting flowerpots at the range.
We live in a confusing world, where killing, especially mass murder is prohibited, and we will give you our harshest punishment for it, unless it's in the context of a war, in which case we will give you a medal and call you a hero for it.
All of this is to say that people want to own the closest thing to a military assault rifle that they can. You saw in the 1994 assault weapons ban, and in the various California assault weapons laws, that entrepreneurs will come up with ingenious ways to obey the letter of the law while circumventing the spirit of it. I do support an assault weapons ban. I don't like the idea of a bureaucrat deciding whether something falls under the intent of a law, but I don't see a great alternative given all the water under the bridge on workarounds for gun laws.
The intent should be this: discourage/restrict guns that are not relatively better for sporting or defensive purposes, but are relatively better for offensive, murderous purposes. Magazine capacity limits for sure, and maybe restrictions on detachable box magazines should be considered. In a mass shooting scenario, where one person is armed, and everyone else is unarmed, we want to give the unarmed as many chances as possible, and for as long a duration as possible, to disarm the shooter. Any sort of mod that enables the weapon to shoot more than about 1-2 rounds per second is obviously unnecessary for sporting purposes and dangerous for a mass shooter with a high capacity mag. Pistol grips I'm neutral on, although I don't see a sporting purpose, and they do certainly help with control of a weapon in combat. Intermediate caliber cartridges don't seem to have a sporting purpose, and they are good for mass shootings. I'd be inclined to restrict them, perhaps allowing a pistol grip or intermediate caliber but not both in one weapon.
I'd like to preface this by saying that yes those modifications should be illegal. However, would that have made difference? I am not that knowledgeable on the subject of gun modification, but aren't those things that would be added after purchase? And things someone could create themselves? They seems like fairly simple mechanics from short descriptions of them. So sure, outlaw them because they certainly aren't something any gun owner needs. But I don't think that would have made a difference in this situation. I doubt he had all those guns in the hotel legally. It is not like he waltzed in with his guns out in the open, he was hiding them already.
The problem of the right to bear arms is that it was done during a time when weapons were single shot, and hard to reload.
There were limits to what you could do.
Now you can classify many of these weapon as having the potential for mass killings (not very different than explosives).
Should shotguns, and single shot rifles be allowed to be bought and sold freely? Sure, as they seem to fit the idea of what an weapon during the time was, and the right is in the constitution.
Should rapid fire machine guns be allowed? Probably not. The battle is where do you draw the line of what is allowed and what is not.
Historical reasons aside, what is the difference between slow and fast weapons that would make one want to allow the one but not the other? As a first approximation, it would seem that any argument that could be given for allowing or disallowing either of the types would be applicable also to the other type.
There are some actual productive uses for "slow" weapons. Farmers who might want to shoot predators, rabbits etc. Hunting animals for food as well if you support that.
Yes, at the time they were relatively powerful, however they were still weak in an absolute sense. One person misusing a musket could not have slaughtered a small town's worth of people.
The right to bear a weapon that can't do a devastating amount of harm without others to support you is different to the right to bear a weapon that can. If you disagree, let me know when your campaign to amend the constitution to permit the production, ownership and use of nuclear weapons is ready.
> Now you can classify many of these weapon as having the potential for mass killings (not very different than explosives).
Explosives could have been made the time the constitution was written by using gun powder. Weapons being as powerful as explosives isn't itself a good reason in itself to ban them.
But otherwise I think you're right. The right to bear arms was to allow the populace to protect themselves against the state. Any kind of weapon that can provide a great deal of damage in mass shootings, and could reasonably be replaced by another safer weapon and still give the populace the ability to protect themselves from the state, should be banned.
Although an explosive, black powder (i.e. old timey gunpowder) is not a high explosive. It generates more gas than actual concussive force, so it generally only works well when enclosed in a vessel like the barrel of a musket or a cannon.
On its own it isn't actually a very useful explosive. You couldn't use it for mining, unlike dynamite (made from nitroglycerine). You could set fire to a pile of gunpowder and stand nearby, and you'd be fine.
This is why you can buy big bags of black powder easily, but you can't buy high explosives without all sorts of licences and permits.
Note that at the time, private citizens owned weapons up to and including cannons (at least on ships.) So what was allowed at the time? Everything. There were no weapons bigger than cannons at the time.
Guns are fairly simple, mechanically. They're just typically classified mentally as "things you have to get by buying them" rather than "things you can whip together with a visit to a hardware store, an arc welder, and an angle grinder".
Bump firing can be done with many unmodified semi-automatic firearms, though I hear special bump-stocks can increase accuracy and rate of fire. A trigger crank is pretty easy to construct. There are few moving parts, and nothing needs to withstand heat or high pressures.
Other limitations such as magazine capacities and bullet buttons[1] are also easy to circumvent (the San Bernardino shooters did so[2]). Most firearm components are simple pieces of metal and plastic, so it's hard to stop people from making illegal modifications. It's also hard to discover such modifications before the lead starts flying. The police can't go into every home and inspect every firearm. For the most part, these sorts of laws serve to annoy law-abiding people while slightly inconveniencing criminals.
That said, trivial inconveniences might make a difference. I doubt most criminals are willing to invest the time and effort needed to make reliable modifications to their weaponry.
They have random spot checks to make sure guns and ammunition are stored correctly (locked up separately).
They check the guns owned and make sure types and serial numbers match up.
And if you no longer have a valid reason to keep them (you quit regularly shooting at a club/range), they will ask you to hand them in and you're no longer allowed to keep them.
I'm sorry but I'm still a bit confused. Read through the article and others online, but I don't actually see it mentioned exactly what weapon was used. Is it literally an AR-15 that had some sort of change done to it? They mention 2 guns were used, but only talk about the one and don't offer much details. Asking out of curiousity, since everything I've read online doesn't really seem to just get to the point.
judging that the 90 shots in the article were done without clip change i'd speculate (based on quick Googling as i haven't touched any weapons since AK74 shooting exercises during ROTC training 24 years ago) that it was something like 100 rounds double drum AR15. The rate of fire during stretches - 11-12 per seconds suggests that the rifle itself was probably either bump stocked or converted to fully automatic. According to some news the guy also had AK47. AK has slower rate of fire - 10/sec, so that specific sound clip in the article is of AR15 not AK (there are some other sound clips from the shooting that do sound like AK).
I'm a gun owner and own a lot of firearms, including a number of semi-automatic rifles. I have never liked the bump stocks, crank triggers, and binary triggers. These "almost NFA" items are just so incredibly degenerate. You never see quality people firing these things at the gun range--it's always a scumbag. I will not cry if a bipartisan group of legislators bans the sale of these items.
> You never see quality people firing these things at the gun range--it's always a scumbag.
I'm not sure that argument would fly, but I would love to see you apply it when proposing a law! It doesn't have to be about guns even, just anything. :-)
As a fellow gun enthusiast, I agree. I have shot real NFA select fire weapons (full/burst) and while they are a fun day at the range, there is little legitimate purpose for them outside of laying down cover fire.
These modifications that make something "almost NFA" have always rubbed me the wrong way. I wouldn't be surprised if the ATF issues a new opinion letter regulating their manufacture / sale.
It’s very likely being flagged off the front page. Flagging can be used on topics that are guaranteed to start a flamewar and boy is this an evergreen flame festival topic.
I gather it's because they generally fall into general news, rather than things that would be specifically interesting to HN, and also because stories about mass shootings always tend to degenerate into people just insulting each other.
We cling to the "right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" portion of the 2nd amendment, but forget the preceding piece of the same amendment "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State".
What we have now is the absence of domestic security and no evidence of a well regulated militia. We kowtow to the ever expanding security theater encompassing the small activities in our lives, and our day to day freedom decreases with each pat down and purse search.
The people at this show were screened, patted down, searched and then fenced in. They were the proverbial fish in a barrel and they were being shot at.
Where is the well-ordered militia that has lists of citizens who have arms stock piles like Paddock? When are citizens with militia level armaments trained in an ordered and effective fashion so that we may call upon them in times of crisis? When are arms-bearing citizens evaluated for their mental stability to ensure they exercise their rights in a fashion that promotes the security of a free state? We do none of these things because we are a failing state. By failing state, I specifically mean that we are failing to fully implement laws and regulations that enact the full meaning and intent of the 2nd amendment.
It doesn't help when people who have explicitly called for an in-between solution get called "gungrabbers". I also support the right to bear arms - some arms, some places, perhaps subject to some conditions or requirements. But because I don't toe the NRA line, I get called names. Maybe part of the solution would be people matching their rhetoric to their intentions, instead of saying one thing and doing another.
To get a license to own a gun, you need to take a marksmanship test. You get 36 shots, and have to fire at a 12" circular target 25' away. Your personal maximum magazine size is the number of shots that hit the target minus 24 (36-24= max 12). If you have less than 66% accuracy (<24 hits), no license. If you only hit 25, your max size is 1. Must have gun license on you any time you're in possession of a gun outside your house (for verification of magazine limit). Shooting ranges can let you rent a gun for practice without a license, but must stay on premises.
If you're going to own a gun for the purposes of protection, you should be able to fire it accurately, or you are a danger to yourself and others. Driving a car requires proof of competence, don't see any reason why guns shouldn't be the same: especially if its an objective test.
Would be relatively politically defensible, because opposition would have to argue that people who cannot fire accurately should still be able to own higher-capacity magazines, which is pretty hard position to argue.
The biggest counterpoint I can think of is that it might make it harder for victims of domestic violence to obtain weapons to protect themselves, but I think most of those situations are close enough range that there are other non lethal alternatives (taser, mace) that could be safer/more effective for someone without shooting experience.
> If you're going to own a gun for the purposes of protection, you should be able to fire it accurately, or you are a danger to yourself and others.
But, conversely, the number of bullets you need for protection in any specific situation goes down with accuracy, so inaccurate shooters legitimately need more bullets.
Let's face it, the lack of sensible gun laws is not why the US does not have sensible gun laws. They are easy to come up with.
The problem is that there is a huge amount of people who are completely unwilling to compromise at all. For them, any amount of additional regulation is tantamount to a complete ban.
We have to somehow figure out a way to talk to these people.
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[ 65.1 ms ] story [ 3502 ms ] threadI also think that this is a strong case of genetics at play considering that the shooter didn't even spend time with his bank robber father. The psychopath apple didn't fall far from the psychopath tree.
Wow doesn't that fit nicely into some narrative. His phrenologic profile was off the charts too and a Virgo on top of that!
There's more where that came from.
However, we should be cautious about making statements about genetics. Apart from there not being any major scientific research behind it, it also leads to disturbing effects like the state detaining blood relatives of someone that commits crime because they will be more at risk of committing crimes in the future, thought-crimes, etc.
Do we know this? Do we know what his motivation was?
He's not just a random crazy person that bought a gun and went on a spree, there was a lot of planning involved, so he's probably a terrorist of some sort.
No new gun control laws came out of Sandy Hook, or any of the other mass shootings in this decade. Why should this one be any different?
Additionally, fathers and sons share more than just genetics. They quite often share upbringing and culture. Not to mention the Father set that example of bank robbing.
Looks like a bump stock was used though https://apnews.com/e74a33083fb84b1b94c1ce3da986fd4f
On the other hand the majority of NATO training emphasises rapid single shots, with bursts only for initiating ambush or breaking contact ( and usually only when authorised by the NCO ). Being limited to single-shot isn't therefore too much of a restriction.
Since then there has been several mass casualty shootings in the states.
Wish I burned them now.
edit:
I didn't get rid of my collection over any huge reason, just didn't want the liability sitting around home when I haven't gone shooting in years. That said I feel like I've made a critical mistake in yielding my arms to people who would likely be less responsible than I during my ownership.
For anyone in the same position remember you can disable most firearms pretty easily by kludging a part or two. Hopefully will save someone that nagging feeling I have.
It is obviously my duty to deescalate & inhibit violence in my community when possible, while restricting people's avenues to tools that multiply the potential damage they can inflict.
This is why we have mental health care and regulations for buying explosives.
The best I could figure with my firearms at the time was selling them to the most responsible party possible, in my case it was gunsmiths. Recently some criminals attempted to break into their shop. Didn't get away with anything. So my choice already yielded measurable results in a way.
I'm not responsible people's heinous acts, but I am responsible for the environment people choose to act in.
(I first wrote "...for being responsible", but then it has two opposite possible readings. Yikes.)
If you want to be extra cautious in storing weapons, you can take the bolt or firing pin out and store it in a different place. I keep an old rifle out in my house for decoration, but the bolt is stored in the safe.
Nah, more like disabling them so I can mount them up on a wall as a showpiece. I honestly never contemplated that route until after I sold them.
"Assault-style rifle" has no definition from what I can tell, other than getting used repeatedly by the news when "assault rifle" is technically incorrect but it looks like an assault rifle and they want to use the word "assault" near the word "rifle".
And "semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle" is just wrong. Semiautomatic-only rifles are not considered assault rifles.
It's not like calling them "just guns" or whatever diminishes the fear. Or maybe it would diminish the fear--and I think that's a bit insidious to be honest. We (collectively) should fear a tool having as its only purpose to seriously injure or kill things, including (especially) people.
Banning semi-automatic rifles may help, but if you want chaos and civil strife, you'll get it. There are millions of those rifles in circulation and the people who have them (many, anyway) won't want to give them up. At the least, you'll make criminals of hundreds of thousands of people, and put lots in jail for previously legal and safe ownership of a weapon.
But let's say you ban them. Now you'll have a black market with plenty of them anyway.
In theory, if we could snap our fingers and have all semi-auto rifles gone, it could help with some of the known mass shootings. But it won't stop it. And here's my last point: It will still go on. Killings and horrors will continue, and those who don't like firearms will continue to demand their confiscation and restriction until they don't exist. And they (the anti-gun left) will do that with or without the repeal of the 2nd amendment.
Also, 'bump stocks' aren't strictly necessary. Applying forward pressure with your stabilizing hand on a rifle as you fire can cause it to bump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle
It is clear. Assault Rifle, is a automatic, or semi-automatic rifle with a handle and a large magazine/bullet capacity. It has a fast fire rate, and semi decent range (less than a standard rifle, but more than a pistol).
First assault rifle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedorov_Avtomat
The one that was made famous during WW2 (which was used to assault enemy positions at slightly closer range than a normal rifle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44
The most famous one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47
>An assault rifle is a selective-fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine.
Semi-automatic rifles are not selective-fire rifles.
If your law abiding neighbor is building bombs in his garage, is that a problem?
Taking your garbage edit of the parent comment and setting it totally aside:
Legal firearms routinely become illegal, most often when they are stolen by people who are already criminals. Unlocked cars are a great source of 'legal' pistols as it turns out.
The problem of small arms proliferation is real and it is one of the reasons U.S. and other modern nations regulate them so much.
And for what it's worth, if you can make an intensional definition for "weapons of mass murder" that includes the most dangerous weapons for mass-murder purposes without unnecessarily curtailing the design space for the socially acceptable uses for weapons, please go for it.
Is this too much to ask? "Not killing people", is this a liberal snowflake's wet dream?
"Not killing people"? Think about it.
No it isn't. Homes in the U.S. are primarily built of wood, rifles can and will produce a tremendous amount of over penetration in such "self defense" scenarios.
The idea of some idiot who cannot comprehend ballistics in an emotional panic lacing up my neighborhood with a 30rd mag fed rifle is terrifying. Take some self defense courses please.
For the US even something like limited internal magazines isn't politically tenable (a 5 shot internal magazine and manual action would still be useful for hunting but could not be used to shoot hundreds of rounds per minute into a crowd of people).
Hell, I won't be real shocked if nothing gets done about bump stocks (which don't really have any purpose beyond shooting for fun).
In the USA. There seems to be some correlation between that and the number of mass shootings in a country, so, maybe, that has to change if one wants to decrease the number of mass shootings.
Good question. I can’t imagine any legal use for a high capacity semiautomatic weapon with armor piercing bullets. A weapon like that is comically impractical for hunting or self defense.
Law abiding citizens should be able to get by with handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles. Clips with more than a dozen rounds should be banned, as should particularly deadly types af ammunition.
Either that or we could go back to doing it the way the framers of the constitution intended; make everything illegal except for muskets.
Me with an AR-15 versus the Marines is not going to end well for me.
> I can’t imagine any legal use for a high capacity semiautomatic weapon with armor piercing bullets. A weapon like that is comically impractical for hunting or self defense.
I was pointing out that the point wasn't hunting, or even self defense. It was to form an effective fighting force, and semiautomatic (and even fully automatic) weapons and armor piercing bullets are very useful for that.
You replied, questioning whether such things could be effective today. That's a different question. It's a valid question, but it's a different question from the intent of the Second Amendment (and of what should therefore be legal).
And by the way, the militias, by themselves, were not enough to win the Revolutionary War...
Note that the other side of the popular militia resting in the states protected by the 2nd Amendment is that that was supposed to be the foundation of national defense as well, not a large standing army. (Some standing army as a cadre and rapid reaction force was viewed as necessary, and the absence of one a failing of the pre-Constitutional system.)
For example, the amendment could say that "militia" means the National Guard, and that is in fact supposed to be a significant fighting force, with military-grade weapons and people trained and ready to use them. And for personal use, people can have weapons sufficient for self-defense but not for mass murder.
But for that to happen, we've got to persuade 3/4 of the state that that's the correct answer. That's a pretty tall hill to climb...
I bet you know the history of assault weapons, but for those that don't, it makes this all understandable. In WWII, Germany's infantry primarily carried Mauser rifles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karabiner_98k) These were bolt action, meaning you had to pull the bolt back and forth between each shot. It shoots a high powered round, and it has a reasonably long barrel, which means that it can be accurate and deadly from a few hundred meters, but it also means that it has a fair bit of recoil. It has a ten round magazine, which is somewhat cumbersome to reload. This type of rifle works fine for hunting, and for firing from one trench to another or across an open field.
When Germany found itself doing a lot of house to house fighting with the Russians, this was not a suitable weapon. These firefights tended to be over very quickly and at very close range. There wasn't time to aim, and often soldiers shot from the hip while advancing. What was needed was a weapon that was fully automatic, handy, with a short barrel, fireable from the hip, with a large ammunition capacity and quick to reload with not too much recoil. The result was this: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_40), a submachine gun.
Later, the Germans realized that although the MP40 was great for house to house fighting, for longer range engagements, it wasn't accurate enough for longer ranged engagements. They needed a compromise weapon: The StG 44 (Assault Rifle 44). The StG 44 had an intermediate power round and a medium length barrel to not create too much recoil, and be easy enough to handle close in, but have enough power and accuracy to fight at medium distances. It could fire either in semiautomatic or fully automatic mode, fully automatic for a close assault, and semi for long range accurate shooting. It had a pistol grip so that it could be fired from the hip, and an easily changeable 30 round box magazine, so that it could be reloaded quickly in a fast firefight. The AR-15/M16, AK47, and virtually all general purpose military rifles from the second half of the 20th century follow this basic concept.
This is all to say, that the basic design concepts of the assault rifle, intermediate power cartridge, selectable semi/fully auto fire, medium length barrel, pistol grip, and detachable, high capacity box magazine, make this a weapon designed for war. You can argue until you're blue in the face that none of these "evil features" make it any different than a bolt action hunting rifle, but they all exist to make it more suitable as a weapon of war, and you know it.
The very same features that make it useful for soldiers to kill enemy soldiers make it more lethal in the hands of a mass shooter. The pistol grip makes it easier to shoot on the move or from the hip. The high capacity box magazine gives a lot of firepower without reloading, and makes reloading fast. The less than full power cartridge makes rapid fire (semi or full auto) more manageable, and the medium length barrel makes it accurate at medium distance while not being unwieldy in close quarters. You can't tell me that what happened Sunday, or what happened in any of the recent mass shootings would have been any where near as deadly if the shooter had showed up with a Remington 700.
This is how laws work. If you want to put limits on what weapons are legal, you have to specify what those limits are. I mean, you could give broad intent-based discretion to the ATF, but that means that people don't know what is and isn't allowed and have to go through lots of uncertainty and risk when it comes to owning guns. Of course people want to make the laws clear, specific, and consistent. You wouldn't want a "don't let people get high" intent-based law when it comes to drugs. It would mean that you wouldn't know whether the antihistamines in your medicine cabinet will get you into legal trouble.
Complicating things is the bona-fide economic pressure to do things within the limits set. Guns that are better for mass murder are often better for legitimate purposes such as sport, hunting, shooting for fun, or home defense.
We live in a confusing world, where killing, especially mass murder is prohibited, and we will give you our harshest punishment for it, unless it's in the context of a war, in which case we will give you a medal and call you a hero for it.
All of this is to say that people want to own the closest thing to a military assault rifle that they can. You saw in the 1994 assault weapons ban, and in the various California assault weapons laws, that entrepreneurs will come up with ingenious ways to obey the letter of the law while circumventing the spirit of it. I do support an assault weapons ban. I don't like the idea of a bureaucrat deciding whether something falls under the intent of a law, but I don't see a great alternative given all the water under the bridge on workarounds for gun laws.
The intent should be this: discourage/restrict guns that are not relatively better for sporting or defensive purposes, but are relatively better for offensive, murderous purposes. Magazine capacity limits for sure, and maybe restrictions on detachable box magazines should be considered. In a mass shooting scenario, where one person is armed, and everyone else is unarmed, we want to give the unarmed as many chances as possible, and for as long a duration as possible, to disarm the shooter. Any sort of mod that enables the weapon to shoot more than about 1-2 rounds per second is obviously unnecessary for sporting purposes and dangerous for a mass shooter with a high capacity mag. Pistol grips I'm neutral on, although I don't see a sporting purpose, and they do certainly help with control of a weapon in combat. Intermediate caliber cartridges don't seem to have a sporting purpose, and they are good for mass shootings. I'd be inclined to restrict them, perhaps allowing a pistol grip or intermediate caliber but not both in one weapon.
Now you can classify many of these weapon as having the potential for mass killings (not very different than explosives).
Should shotguns, and single shot rifles be allowed to be bought and sold freely? Sure, as they seem to fit the idea of what an weapon during the time was, and the right is in the constitution.
Should rapid fire machine guns be allowed? Probably not. The battle is where do you draw the line of what is allowed and what is not.
The right to bear a weapon that can't do a devastating amount of harm without others to support you is different to the right to bear a weapon that can. If you disagree, let me know when your campaign to amend the constitution to permit the production, ownership and use of nuclear weapons is ready.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle
Explosives could have been made the time the constitution was written by using gun powder. Weapons being as powerful as explosives isn't itself a good reason in itself to ban them.
But otherwise I think you're right. The right to bear arms was to allow the populace to protect themselves against the state. Any kind of weapon that can provide a great deal of damage in mass shootings, and could reasonably be replaced by another safer weapon and still give the populace the ability to protect themselves from the state, should be banned.
On its own it isn't actually a very useful explosive. You couldn't use it for mining, unlike dynamite (made from nitroglycerine). You could set fire to a pile of gunpowder and stand nearby, and you'd be fine.
This is why you can buy big bags of black powder easily, but you can't buy high explosives without all sorts of licences and permits.
Other limitations such as magazine capacities and bullet buttons[1] are also easy to circumvent (the San Bernardino shooters did so[2]). Most firearm components are simple pieces of metal and plastic, so it's hard to stop people from making illegal modifications. It's also hard to discover such modifications before the lead starts flying. The police can't go into every home and inspect every firearm. For the most part, these sorts of laws serve to annoy law-abiding people while slightly inconveniencing criminals.
That said, trivial inconveniences might make a difference. I doubt most criminals are willing to invest the time and effort needed to make reliable modifications to their weaponry.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_button
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Inv...
They have random spot checks to make sure guns and ammunition are stored correctly (locked up separately).
They check the guns owned and make sure types and serial numbers match up.
And if you no longer have a valid reason to keep them (you quit regularly shooting at a club/range), they will ask you to hand them in and you're no longer allowed to keep them.
I'm not sure that argument would fly, but I would love to see you apply it when proposing a law! It doesn't have to be about guns even, just anything. :-)
These modifications that make something "almost NFA" have always rubbed me the wrong way. I wouldn't be surprised if the ATF issues a new opinion letter regulating their manufacture / sale.
What we have now is the absence of domestic security and no evidence of a well regulated militia. We kowtow to the ever expanding security theater encompassing the small activities in our lives, and our day to day freedom decreases with each pat down and purse search.
The people at this show were screened, patted down, searched and then fenced in. They were the proverbial fish in a barrel and they were being shot at.
Where is the well-ordered militia that has lists of citizens who have arms stock piles like Paddock? When are citizens with militia level armaments trained in an ordered and effective fashion so that we may call upon them in times of crisis? When are arms-bearing citizens evaluated for their mental stability to ensure they exercise their rights in a fashion that promotes the security of a free state? We do none of these things because we are a failing state. By failing state, I specifically mean that we are failing to fully implement laws and regulations that enact the full meaning and intent of the 2nd amendment.
Somewhere in between "doing nothing" and trying to "ban all guns" there is a good solution waiting to be found.
Meanwhile the discussion seems deadlocked and I guess many of us can understand both sides.
It doesn't help when people who have explicitly called for an in-between solution get called "gungrabbers". I also support the right to bear arms - some arms, some places, perhaps subject to some conditions or requirements. But because I don't toe the NRA line, I get called names. Maybe part of the solution would be people matching their rhetoric to their intentions, instead of saying one thing and doing another.
Sorry if I came across that way.
To get a license to own a gun, you need to take a marksmanship test. You get 36 shots, and have to fire at a 12" circular target 25' away. Your personal maximum magazine size is the number of shots that hit the target minus 24 (36-24= max 12). If you have less than 66% accuracy (<24 hits), no license. If you only hit 25, your max size is 1. Must have gun license on you any time you're in possession of a gun outside your house (for verification of magazine limit). Shooting ranges can let you rent a gun for practice without a license, but must stay on premises.
If you're going to own a gun for the purposes of protection, you should be able to fire it accurately, or you are a danger to yourself and others. Driving a car requires proof of competence, don't see any reason why guns shouldn't be the same: especially if its an objective test.
Would be relatively politically defensible, because opposition would have to argue that people who cannot fire accurately should still be able to own higher-capacity magazines, which is pretty hard position to argue.
The biggest counterpoint I can think of is that it might make it harder for victims of domestic violence to obtain weapons to protect themselves, but I think most of those situations are close enough range that there are other non lethal alternatives (taser, mace) that could be safer/more effective for someone without shooting experience.
But, conversely, the number of bullets you need for protection in any specific situation goes down with accuracy, so inaccurate shooters legitimately need more bullets.
You have too show up and be considered active to get permits for certain classes of guns (including handguns).
This is a win-win: if you don’t show up on maintenance days you risk losing your license. Same goes if you don’t practice.
The problem is that there is a huge amount of people who are completely unwilling to compromise at all. For them, any amount of additional regulation is tantamount to a complete ban.
We have to somehow figure out a way to talk to these people.