The death rate by firearm in the US is higher, per capita, than in all of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Gun deaths elsewhere are more criminality and gang related. There is no other country in the world with regular school shootings.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...
Europe has mostly Europeans, Asia mostly Asians, Oceania (Aus & NZ) mostly Europeans.
Unsurprisingly, then, if you break down the rate of homicide by firearm in the US by race, you see similar statistics. ie. European/White Americans have a rate that puts them among the safer European countries; African Americans are among the highest in the world.
Please tell me you’re not trying to say what it seems like you’re trying to say. There are few disadvantageous statistics in the us that don’t disadvantage the black community in the US, and there’s more than correlation to back up those relationships.
Of course I'd be flagged/banned for publicly suggesting a genetic factor behind that correlation, so I wouldn't do that. I only highlighted the correlation, and it is a very strong one, between race and rate of homicide by firearm in the US. Our own biases are going to heavily influence what we perceive to be the underlying reason behind this phenomenon.
That may be, but it's an objective fact that gun violence stats are strongly correlated with race. You are free to investigate or speculate on the underlying reasons for that. I didn't offer my perspective.
Why don't inner city gang members shooting other inner city gang members and hitting innocent people in the crosshairs not count as a mass shooting?
If you look at the mass shootings of the FBI most wanted they're not 90% Columbine wannabes, they're 90% people who engage in criminal behavior and have a criminal record engaging in violence against others with criminals records and unrelated innocents becoming collateral damage
Because all hell would break loose if the general American public understood the magnitude of the problem of black violence and crime. It doesn't align with the interests of political or media elites to demonise blacks, while they rub their hands gleefully over the prospect of an evil White shooter.
Fun to write stuff like that and feel the righteous indignation. If only it were true.
Except you obviously moved the goalposts there.
The "this" there is no way to prevent, in the only nation where it happens, is school shootings. We are not just at the top of that list, we're at the bottom as well, because it doesn't happen anywhere else.
So much for "this is the only country where this happens".
Granted, some of these are "school stabbings" or "school bombings" or "school throwing kids out of a window", but the death tolls appear to be of similar magnitude. There are exceptions (e.g., Uvalde, where the death toll had more to do with police cowardice than choice of weapon).
The problem here isn't "guy has a gun", the problem is "guy wants to kill a bunch of people". Until the real problem is acknowledged, nothing is going to change.
> So much for "this is the only country where this happens".
Which isn't what was said. What was said is this is the only country where this regularly happens. The U.S. comprises 5% of the of the world's population yet endures 24% of the world's primary school attacks over the last 20 years.
It's not moving the goalposts. I linked to that page because Wikipedia breaks the data out in to three separate pages, and I didn't want to confuse the issue. At a glance, the data for secondary and post-secondary schools don't appear to be different in any meaningful way (though I did not take the time to count).
Besides, even one example would be enough to refute the OP's claim that "it doesn't happen anywhere else".
The salient point is that this is NOT the only country where this happens. Not even close.
I'm sorry, I don't care whether you "believe me" or not.
You: This is the only country where this happens.
Me: False. Here is some data that shows it happens in many other countries.
What is there to "believe" here? All that was necessary to refute you was to find ONE incident in another country. I found dozens. Linking to the other two lists (each of which also have many incidents in other countries) can only further destroy your incorrect assertion. There's no way those can magically make you right. Even if the other two both had zero (which they don't...far from it), that wouldn't matter in the slightest.
> Which isn't what was said. What was said is this is the only country where this regularly happens.
I beg to differ. That's exactly what was said.
OP:
> The "this" there is no way to prevent, in the only nation where it happens, is school shootings. We are not just at the top of that list, we're at the bottom as well, because it doesn't happen anywhere else.
(emphasis mine)
You:
> The U.S. comprises 5% of the of the world's population yet endures 24% of the world's primary school attacks over the last 20 years.
That's not what those data show. Plenty of attacks in China, for example.
I guess all the other preventable deaths - suicide, highway accidents, obesity. That we do little or nothing about - they've been unchanged or growing for decades.
The culture of Australia is not the culture of the United States.
I am extremely confident attempting to repeal the Second Amendment wouldbe met with violence if necessary. Lone actors, small groups, guerrilla warfare, or full-blown civil war are all not only likely, but all but guaranteed depending on the specifics.
Plus, firearms are durable goods, and won’t just “go away” even if you ignore the political implications. There are literally more firearms in the US than people.
Please note that my comments here, unless otherwise stated, are informed by my understanding of the political environment rather than my personal beliefs.
"Arms" are not limited to firearms - ammunition is included in that.
If we sidestep that, then there's the fact that many of us reload. Aside from a few oddball calibers, I shoot almost exclusively ammunition that I've manufactured at home from components.
If you manage to regulate components out of circulation, they can be made at home, from relatively common supplies, without too much additional effort.
What worked in Australia was the national unification of gun laws - Queensland, Tasmania, and the two territorries were aligned with the laws in the (then) bulk of the populated parts of Australia - NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.
The gun buy back was good deal to encourage people to turn in any old guns that they either didn't want to licence or were unable to licence (due to having a criminal record or the gun being fully automatic).
Having a modern up to date, searchable central registry of guns, ownership, and requiring every sale to be recorded is a major advantage for Australia over the US.
In Australia twelve years olds can join a gun club (with parental permission) and the majority of people can own a gun if they wish - subject to a record free from violence and a demonstration of competance and ability to keep and store weapons safely.
I'm in rural Australia and have some guns for feral control use.
My neighbour has a fairly decent assortment of guns and shoots ULR (ultra long range) targets at 5,000 yards.
> "By re-running the same commentary it strengthens the original commentary tenfold each time. ... In the wake of these really terrible things, we have this comment that really holds up."
I remember there was that one guy who said something about repeating the same thing over and over until it became true.
Firearm related X is the wrong thing to measure. Obviously if guns are truly banned, there will be no gun crime. There will still however be knife crime, fist crime, car crime, etc.
The thing we want to measure is if we can (as a country) live our lives in peace. Better measures of this might be all crime, violent crime, life-span related measures, or even mental health and drug abuse.
Banning one specific thing does not change human nature. We need to take a holistic view to address many issues underlying violent crime, firearm related or not.
A firearm is the most effective defensive weapon a person can have, surely - but not even close to the most destructive.
If someone’s goal is indiscriminate destruction, an automobile is much more effective. Explosive, incendiaries, or even poisons would be all cause more destruction than a firearm.
Handguns in particular are relatively ineffective as weapons go. A knife attack is more likely to result in the death of the victim than a handgun. The reason handguns are carried more than knives for defense is that knives typically kill through blood loss while firearms do so through immediate physical trauma.
Having a friend attempt suicide by jumping (and survive after since emergency services got there in time) in the last month I read a book on tips to help the suicidal.
It was stressed again and again to remove access from firearms from them. A gun at home is far, far easier a means to a death known to be guaranteed and painless than the stereotypical means of suicide like jumping from a public structure or overdose---and to the temporarily distorted mind to which suicide is the wrong choice, this ease of execution of a suicide method that is so final and painless is material.
For how unlucky my suffering friend is, at least they did not have access to a gun.
Yikes. Suicide by gun isn't guaranteed, at all. You would think it would be, but that's not the case. Last second flinch and now you're a stoic veggie from here on out.
Suicide bags. Those are the way to go for a painless death with better odds of success.
What worked in Australia was the national unification of gun laws - Queensland, Tasmania, and the two territorries were aligned with the laws in the (then) bulk of the populated parts of Australia - NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.
The gun buy back was good deal to encourage people to turn in any old guns that they either didn't want to licence or were unable to licence (due to having a criminal record or the gun being fully automatic).
Having a modern up to date, searchable central registry of guns, ownership, and requiring every sale to be recorded is a major advantage for Australia over the US.
In Australia twelve years olds can join a gun club (with parental permission) and the majority of people can own a gun if they wish - subject to a record free from violence and a demonstration of competance and ability to keep and store weapons safely.
I'm in rural Australia and have some guns for feral control use.
My neighbour has a fairly decent assortment of guns and shoots ULR (ultra long range) targets at 5,000 yards.
This would be a challenge in the US due to the uphill work required to get all US states and territories on the same page to uphold and enforce the same simplified set of core firearm regulations.
Unifying gun laws in America wouldn't just dike up the blood tide, it could actually increase the responsible shooting public's choice of guns. The sheer number and variety of weapons kept from the US marketplace by the gun lobby is frustrating and hilarious, considering that their war-cry elicits voter anger like almost no other.
Let's think about this: how about a National Energetics License Program[0]? Totally free. Base it on something like the Security Clearance program, but make it so it doesn't cost a bazillion dollars. Measure the amount of energy (kJ/S) the handheld can put downrange in, eh, 10 seconds. Divide it by the mass-volume of the device. Create several classes based on this. Class 1: equivalent to single shot weapons, anyone can have it. Class 2: equivalent to low-capacity semiautos, revolvers, requires something like Public Trust clearance. Class 3: equivalent to high cap semiauto, Secret clearance. Class 4: full auto, Top Secret. Etc etc.
Also, in my opinion, suppressors don't make it easier to liquidate schoolchildren, but they do keep the quiet outdoors. Nix the tax stamp. Also also? Those eight hundred dollar Chinese M-14 knockoffs? Belgian rifles? Mil-surp SVT-40s? Oh yeah, keep 'em comin'. Colt might be pissed. Screw 'em.
In other words, it's a slightly less onerous process than the one you have on your Kia. It would prevent . . almost everything that hits the news, because damn, there is nothing tracking rapid fire weapons, at all. I could drive to the next state over and buy almost literally anything cash in hand, short of an actual full auto. This means that I'd at least need to show I'm not a flake of the first order.
And shooters would legit be pretty damn happy. Unless it's that guy with the Rivian who just shovelled fifty thousand dollars into buying a tenth-hand PKM because FULL AUTO. He might be pissed. Screw him.
But if you screw with your NEL, oh man, you would be done. So, so, so done. Lose the weapon or get it stolen[1] when it's unsecured? Yeah, you got problems. You'll get bad shit for anything bad that happens with your weapon. Hell, how parents dodge accessory charges for most of these shootings is a mystery to me. In Florida, this one chick left an AR on the sofa with a full mag, a round racked, safety off (State 4, aka Instant state, which means SOMETHIN'S GETTIN' SHOT). Anyway, her kid grabbed it after getting pushed around and shot his buddies outside. The little bastard's in jail basically forever, but her and the fam?> Nah, they're good. That is hot bullshit, and if you don't think so, I'm not sure what else to say.
[0] We used to have citizen shooting agencies, back in the day when people didn't think the government was coming to take their babies and testicles.
[1] Don't get me started on pawn shops that stay in brisk business while somehow getting a quarter of their inventory "stolen" every six months. Motherfuckers, you're not even trying to hide what you're doing . .
It's the general consensus at the rock pit that guns should at least be like cars, that "Every State For Himself" gun law is ridiculous, and that tax/law around silencers/full auto/cheap foreign milsurp is silly[1].
This could be the geo area I'm in. Also, we're all quite old. Could also be I always end up in really obscure "ranges", due to the fact that more "normal" commercial ranges have regs against shooting mil-surp. Also, hell, they're expensive.
I still keep my mouth shut about politics (unless prompted) - I'm not an idiot - but no one is freaking out about the usual freak-out subjects, unless it's a new caliber or some Range Character or something like that.
[1] Something that unifies all of that crap into one big license is just better, and if I get cheap import ammo and rifles too? It's a no-brainer - it's less bureaucracy, more fun. I do suspect, however, it's too complex of an idea for Congress to pull off without it getting yoinked into something even stupider. Basically, we need to figure out a way that it makes money for rich people. Also, Democrat leadership - or their committees - will need to learn what a "bolt" is, if they want to effectively legislate on it. The Assault Rifle Bans are King Stupid.
>I could drive to the next state over and buy almost literally anything cash in hand, short of an actual full auto.
You couldn't. At least not legally. Buying firearms from a private party in another state is illegal by federal law. You could only buy long guns from a federally licensed dealer in a neighboring state if that firearm is legal in your state of residence. If you wanted to buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, it would have to be transferred to a dealer in your state.
>In Florida, this one chick left an AR on the sofa with a full mag, a round racked, safety off (State 4, aka Instant state, which means SOMETHIN'S GETTIN' SHOT).
Can you mention where these State levels are defined? What you described sounds closer to Condition 0 on the firearm condition readiness scale.
>Condition 0: A round chambered, full magazine in place, hammer cocked, safety off.
If we're talking about frustrating the gun industry, then all of your licensees should be able to privately manufacture firearms in the classifications they are allowed to have.
Condition 0, yeah, I've heard that's the real term. The guy who plays "range officer" fills my head with crap he got from who knows where. I don't even remember what the range guy back in Dixie said.
And yes, that's absolutely right. And not a bad idea. Since the weapons have a license, there's also penalties for bad faith that can go back to the originator. "Hey this thing's made of pipes!". We're almost in that stew right now with all the garage-built AKs on the market, but there's nothing linking them to anybody, in spite of the fact they blow up every now and then.
We tried unifying the gun laws (and all borne-arms laws!) in America: we passed a single Constitutional amendment which states that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. It’s the supreme law of the land; no law which violates it has any legal effect. The several states and the United States went ahead and infringed the right anyway, in 51 different ways, and plenty of localities got in on the act, too.
> Having a modern up to date, searchable central registry of guns, ownership, and requiring every sale to be recorded is a major advantage for Australia over the US.
Some folks think that having a single, accurate, searchable registry of arms and their owners makes it tremendously easy for the government to confiscate those arms, and consider that a disadvantage. Imagine how a government might misuse a central database of citizens which indicated who belonged to which disfavoured minority groups …
I had to use the english Wikipedia to find the secondlast school schooting in Germany(the last happened just a few months ago). The mass shootings in germany since 2000 rarely exceed 4 (with the perpetator), so most of them wouldn't even be categorized as an mass shooting, the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012 would categorize a few more as mass killing but that would be just 2-3 more than the other death based definitions.
I thought that the covid lockdowns and "forced" vaccines would be when we got to see conservatives and libertarians proudly enforce their 2A rights, but I guess it wasn't tyrannical enough for them, despite rhetoric indicating otherwise.
I wish some idiot HN users would stop trying to turn this site into Reddit. Keep the trash political ragebait submissions there, please. HN is the last bastion of good discussion on the web.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 444 ms ] threadFun to write stuff like that and feel the righteous indignation. If only it were true.
- Intentional homocides per capita: 59th
- Firearms per person: 1st
- Firearm-related deaths per capita: 9th (and 1–8 are all in Central America or South America, with the exception of Jamaica)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm...
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...
Unsurprisingly, then, if you break down the rate of homicide by firearm in the US by race, you see similar statistics. ie. European/White Americans have a rate that puts them among the safer European countries; African Americans are among the highest in the world.
The mass shooting in Vegas, in Tasmania, in Norway, in New Zealand, etc?
As an objective fact (your words) extreme mass shootings are strongly correlated with race.
The rest seem more correlated with economic circumstances.
According to Wikipedia, 4 of the 6 sources for definitions of mass shootings in America specifically exclude "gang" related shootings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
How convenient.
Except you obviously moved the goalposts there.
The "this" there is no way to prevent, in the only nation where it happens, is school shootings. We are not just at the top of that list, we're at the bottom as well, because it doesn't happen anywhere else.
Hence the title.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_related_to_pri...
So much for "this is the only country where this happens".
Granted, some of these are "school stabbings" or "school bombings" or "school throwing kids out of a window", but the death tolls appear to be of similar magnitude. There are exceptions (e.g., Uvalde, where the death toll had more to do with police cowardice than choice of weapon).
The problem here isn't "guy has a gun", the problem is "guy wants to kill a bunch of people". Until the real problem is acknowledged, nothing is going to change.
Which isn't what was said. What was said is this is the only country where this regularly happens. The U.S. comprises 5% of the of the world's population yet endures 24% of the world's primary school attacks over the last 20 years.
Besides, even one example would be enough to refute the OP's claim that "it doesn't happen anywhere else".
The salient point is that this is NOT the only country where this happens. Not even close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_related_to_sec...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_related_to_pos...
I’m sorry, but I do not believe you at all
You: This is the only country where this happens.
Me: False. Here is some data that shows it happens in many other countries.
What is there to "believe" here? All that was necessary to refute you was to find ONE incident in another country. I found dozens. Linking to the other two lists (each of which also have many incidents in other countries) can only further destroy your incorrect assertion. There's no way those can magically make you right. Even if the other two both had zero (which they don't...far from it), that wouldn't matter in the slightest.
Take the L and move on.
You: move every goalpost
All that was necessary to refute you was to find ONE incident in another country.
Is one isolated incident really all that is necessary to refute the Onion's assertion that this is the only country where this regularly happens?
> Which isn't what was said. What was said is this is the only country where this regularly happens.
I beg to differ. That's exactly what was said.
OP:
> The "this" there is no way to prevent, in the only nation where it happens, is school shootings. We are not just at the top of that list, we're at the bottom as well, because it doesn't happen anywhere else.
(emphasis mine)
You:
> The U.S. comprises 5% of the of the world's population yet endures 24% of the world's primary school attacks over the last 20 years.
That's not what those data show. Plenty of attacks in China, for example.
It's really, really hard for me to understand why gun violence doesn't make you feel indignation, righteous or otherwise.
But right now, I am willing to listen.
>Excessive alcohol use was responsible for more than 140,000 deaths in the United States each year
Firearm deaths don't even break 5 digits.
It worked in Australia [1]
[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback
I am extremely confident attempting to repeal the Second Amendment wouldbe met with violence if necessary. Lone actors, small groups, guerrilla warfare, or full-blown civil war are all not only likely, but all but guaranteed depending on the specifics.
Plus, firearms are durable goods, and won’t just “go away” even if you ignore the political implications. There are literally more firearms in the US than people.
Please note that my comments here, unless otherwise stated, are informed by my understanding of the political environment rather than my personal beliefs.
If we sidestep that, then there's the fact that many of us reload. Aside from a few oddball calibers, I shoot almost exclusively ammunition that I've manufactured at home from components.
If you manage to regulate components out of circulation, they can be made at home, from relatively common supplies, without too much additional effort.
The gun buy back was good deal to encourage people to turn in any old guns that they either didn't want to licence or were unable to licence (due to having a criminal record or the gun being fully automatic).
Having a modern up to date, searchable central registry of guns, ownership, and requiring every sale to be recorded is a major advantage for Australia over the US.
In Australia twelve years olds can join a gun club (with parental permission) and the majority of people can own a gun if they wish - subject to a record free from violence and a demonstration of competance and ability to keep and store weapons safely.
I'm in rural Australia and have some guns for feral control use.
My neighbour has a fairly decent assortment of guns and shoots ULR (ultra long range) targets at 5,000 yards.
Annual setup and test with initial flight path drone PoV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE
I remember there was that one guy who said something about repeating the same thing over and over until it became true.
The thing we want to measure is if we can (as a country) live our lives in peace. Better measures of this might be all crime, violent crime, life-span related measures, or even mental health and drug abuse.
Banning one specific thing does not change human nature. We need to take a holistic view to address many issues underlying violent crime, firearm related or not.
The gun is greatest weapon of destruction a regular citizen can have, is allowed to carry and buy. Knifes needs physical proximity to use.
A firearm is the most effective defensive weapon a person can have, surely - but not even close to the most destructive.
If someone’s goal is indiscriminate destruction, an automobile is much more effective. Explosive, incendiaries, or even poisons would be all cause more destruction than a firearm.
Handguns in particular are relatively ineffective as weapons go. A knife attack is more likely to result in the death of the victim than a handgun. The reason handguns are carried more than knives for defense is that knives typically kill through blood loss while firearms do so through immediate physical trauma.
It was stressed again and again to remove access from firearms from them. A gun at home is far, far easier a means to a death known to be guaranteed and painless than the stereotypical means of suicide like jumping from a public structure or overdose---and to the temporarily distorted mind to which suicide is the wrong choice, this ease of execution of a suicide method that is so final and painless is material.
For how unlucky my suffering friend is, at least they did not have access to a gun.
Suicide bags. Those are the way to go for a painless death with better odds of success.
I, for one, would much rather worry about the pugilist in the bell tower or the inevitable school drive-throughs and all their copycats.
The gun buy back was good deal to encourage people to turn in any old guns that they either didn't want to licence or were unable to licence (due to having a criminal record or the gun being fully automatic).
Having a modern up to date, searchable central registry of guns, ownership, and requiring every sale to be recorded is a major advantage for Australia over the US.
In Australia twelve years olds can join a gun club (with parental permission) and the majority of people can own a gun if they wish - subject to a record free from violence and a demonstration of competance and ability to keep and store weapons safely.
I'm in rural Australia and have some guns for feral control use.
My neighbour has a fairly decent assortment of guns and shoots ULR (ultra long range) targets at 5,000 yards.
Annual setup and test with initial flight path drone PoV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE
This would be a challenge in the US due to the uphill work required to get all US states and territories on the same page to uphold and enforce the same simplified set of core firearm regulations.
Unifying gun laws in America wouldn't just dike up the blood tide, it could actually increase the responsible shooting public's choice of guns. The sheer number and variety of weapons kept from the US marketplace by the gun lobby is frustrating and hilarious, considering that their war-cry elicits voter anger like almost no other.
Let's think about this: how about a National Energetics License Program[0]? Totally free. Base it on something like the Security Clearance program, but make it so it doesn't cost a bazillion dollars. Measure the amount of energy (kJ/S) the handheld can put downrange in, eh, 10 seconds. Divide it by the mass-volume of the device. Create several classes based on this. Class 1: equivalent to single shot weapons, anyone can have it. Class 2: equivalent to low-capacity semiautos, revolvers, requires something like Public Trust clearance. Class 3: equivalent to high cap semiauto, Secret clearance. Class 4: full auto, Top Secret. Etc etc.
Also, in my opinion, suppressors don't make it easier to liquidate schoolchildren, but they do keep the quiet outdoors. Nix the tax stamp. Also also? Those eight hundred dollar Chinese M-14 knockoffs? Belgian rifles? Mil-surp SVT-40s? Oh yeah, keep 'em comin'. Colt might be pissed. Screw 'em.
In other words, it's a slightly less onerous process than the one you have on your Kia. It would prevent . . almost everything that hits the news, because damn, there is nothing tracking rapid fire weapons, at all. I could drive to the next state over and buy almost literally anything cash in hand, short of an actual full auto. This means that I'd at least need to show I'm not a flake of the first order.
And shooters would legit be pretty damn happy. Unless it's that guy with the Rivian who just shovelled fifty thousand dollars into buying a tenth-hand PKM because FULL AUTO. He might be pissed. Screw him.
But if you screw with your NEL, oh man, you would be done. So, so, so done. Lose the weapon or get it stolen[1] when it's unsecured? Yeah, you got problems. You'll get bad shit for anything bad that happens with your weapon. Hell, how parents dodge accessory charges for most of these shootings is a mystery to me. In Florida, this one chick left an AR on the sofa with a full mag, a round racked, safety off (State 4, aka Instant state, which means SOMETHIN'S GETTIN' SHOT). Anyway, her kid grabbed it after getting pushed around and shot his buddies outside. The little bastard's in jail basically forever, but her and the fam?> Nah, they're good. That is hot bullshit, and if you don't think so, I'm not sure what else to say.
[0] We used to have citizen shooting agencies, back in the day when people didn't think the government was coming to take their babies and testicles.
[1] Don't get me started on pawn shops that stay in brisk business while somehow getting a quarter of their inventory "stolen" every six months. Motherfuckers, you're not even trying to hide what you're doing . .
I appreciate your well-thought out response but I gotta ask, are you a gun/shooting enthusiast or do you know a lot of them?
I ask because I'm related to several and they regard basically ANY regulation/"red tape" as a giant PITA.
This could be the geo area I'm in. Also, we're all quite old. Could also be I always end up in really obscure "ranges", due to the fact that more "normal" commercial ranges have regs against shooting mil-surp. Also, hell, they're expensive.
I still keep my mouth shut about politics (unless prompted) - I'm not an idiot - but no one is freaking out about the usual freak-out subjects, unless it's a new caliber or some Range Character or something like that.
[1] Something that unifies all of that crap into one big license is just better, and if I get cheap import ammo and rifles too? It's a no-brainer - it's less bureaucracy, more fun. I do suspect, however, it's too complex of an idea for Congress to pull off without it getting yoinked into something even stupider. Basically, we need to figure out a way that it makes money for rich people. Also, Democrat leadership - or their committees - will need to learn what a "bolt" is, if they want to effectively legislate on it. The Assault Rifle Bans are King Stupid.
You couldn't. At least not legally. Buying firearms from a private party in another state is illegal by federal law. You could only buy long guns from a federally licensed dealer in a neighboring state if that firearm is legal in your state of residence. If you wanted to buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, it would have to be transferred to a dealer in your state.
>In Florida, this one chick left an AR on the sofa with a full mag, a round racked, safety off (State 4, aka Instant state, which means SOMETHIN'S GETTIN' SHOT).
Can you mention where these State levels are defined? What you described sounds closer to Condition 0 on the firearm condition readiness scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Cooper#Firearm_conditions...
>Condition 0: A round chambered, full magazine in place, hammer cocked, safety off.
If we're talking about frustrating the gun industry, then all of your licensees should be able to privately manufacture firearms in the classifications they are allowed to have.
And yes, that's absolutely right. And not a bad idea. Since the weapons have a license, there's also penalties for bad faith that can go back to the originator. "Hey this thing's made of pipes!". We're almost in that stew right now with all the garage-built AKs on the market, but there's nothing linking them to anybody, in spite of the fact they blow up every now and then.
We tried unifying the gun laws (and all borne-arms laws!) in America: we passed a single Constitutional amendment which states that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. It’s the supreme law of the land; no law which violates it has any legal effect. The several states and the United States went ahead and infringed the right anyway, in 51 different ways, and plenty of localities got in on the act, too.
Some folks think that having a single, accurate, searchable registry of arms and their owners makes it tremendously easy for the government to confiscate those arms, and consider that a disadvantage. Imagine how a government might misuse a central database of citizens which indicated who belonged to which disfavoured minority groups …