General Gun Control DISCUSSION Thread

[synaesthetic]

The picture is a media "infographic" which is riddled with inaccuracies:

The only Glock model that is capable of firing anywhere near 300 rounds per minute or higher is the Glock 18, which is a machine pistol and not legal for civilian ownership. A compact Glock such as the one pictured would be absolute hell to even attempt firing that fast. Your hands and wrists would be incredibly sore, not to mention your poor pointer finger.

No models of Sig Sauer autopistols are capable of firing 300 rounds per minute. That is completely ludicrous. The infographic is utterly wrong as both weapons are double-action duty pieces with fairly heavy trigger pulls--especially the DAO Glock.

I don't care how fast your twitchy trigger finger is, you can't fire five rounds in one second with these guns. It's just not physically possible.

The Bushmaster, as I already mentioned, is not a LEO or military variant. It's a civilian variant. It cannot fire in full-auto or 3-shot-burst modes. It is not used by military or police departments--they use the specific purpose-built versions of the AR platform.

About the only accurate thing on the entire graphic is the prices, though even that can vary.

[Urzu 7]

In America, it is easier to get guns and ammo then it is to get a good job. There is something wrong here.


Synaesthetic brought up competitive sports shooting and recreational target practice. I just don't care about those things when weighed against the large amount of gun violence and gun massacres in America. We don't even form local militias, in case of emergencies (which would be a good thing). We have a wide availability of guns. Having local militias for emergency situations would be good, and one of the really good reasons for gun ownership. But if people aren't going to make these militias happen, then just ban semi-automatics. People can use other guns for hunting animals. People can use different firearms and other weapons in combination with home security systems to have more secure homes from assailants.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

In America, it is easier to get guns and ammo then it is to get a good job. There is something wrong here.

It's easier to buy something with money than it is to get a decent job? Wow, what a shocking revelation!

I'd say that's probably true in pretty much any first-world country right now. That doesn't even count the fact that your comparison was like saying it's easier to catch fish than catch bicycles with a fishing rod.

[Ithekro]

Variants of the Bushmaster (an AR15 manufactured by Bushmaster Firearms International) are used by some nation's poice departments and militaries, but the only models sold in the United States are the semi-automatic models. The "Assault Weapons Ban" of the 1990s made them come up with a variant to comply with those rules whcih basically changed the clip to be a 10 round version (that probably wasn't removable, making it annoying to reload, but I couldn't swear to that) and with no pistol grip. That was basically all they changes to make it "not an assault weapon" under the new law.

States that still have versions of the Assualt Weapons ban (such as California) still will have the Bushmaster M4 Type "Post Ban" Carbine avalible.

[synaesthetic]

The AWB is a bunch of feel-good nonsense, anyway. The only actual purpose the law had was to limit magazine capacities, which I don't really have a problem with, since I prefer .45 ACP for defense over higher-velocity, better penetrating rounds like 9x19--big, slow bullets don't go through as many walls as small, fast bullets.

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

I have no idea WTF a Bushmaster rifle is of any use for civilians. If it was for me, assault rifles (and their derivatives) as well as handguns like the ones shown here should be banned for starters. It's obvious they are not going to be used in hunting animals.

So many fallacies, so little time.

By that definition in the propaganda image being thrown around, THIS is an "assault rifle."



The stupidity of the media knows no bounds.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Don't be disingenuous. For one, that Bushmaster is a civilian variant. It is not capable of full-auto or 3-shot-burst firing. It's no different than any other semi-automatic rifle, except it's black and has a synthetic stock and a pistol grip.

Don't commit the "evil black rifles" fallacy. There's absolutely no difference between that rifle and an equivalent Browning in .223 chambering with wood furniture and engravings of leaping stags in a field. It's aesthetics and appearance only. I can quite easily take a standard Ruger Mini-14 with a wooden stock and fore from my local sporting goods store and buy a bunch of aftermarket crap for it to make it look "tacticool" just like that Bushmaster.

There are legitimate uses for these firearms. Just because one wouldn't hunt with them doesn't mean they cannot be used for other purposes, such as competitive sport shooting, recreational target shooting and home or personal defense.

Madame, you are spot on correct.
Here is the difference between an AR-15 and a real M16 (just like a car, it's what's under the "hood" that counts):

Lower Reciever:
AR-15 is on the left, M16 is on the right:



Trigger group:


Bolt Carrier:


Bottom of bolt-carrier, AR-15 is on the left, M16 is on the right:



There are other major differences like where automatic parts holes must be drilled etc., but the fact remains the guns are totally different mechanically and thus an AR-15 IS NOT an assault rifle because it has been designed to shoot like any other civilian hunting rifle (semi-auto).

Originally Posted by kyp275

Nevermind the inaccuracies in that picture (designed for military use? LOL), your assertion is actually quite incorrect. The AR15 platform is used quite often for hunting, as it is a very effective rifle.

Neither is hunting the only legitimate use of firearms.

Agreed.
I really wish people would come to terms with the fact that part of being a citizen of the United States entails being a member of the militia.
Like it or not, it is the law and therefore the government was prevented from abolishing the militia by the 2nd amendment to the constitution and its guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms.

[Urzu 7]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

It's easier to buy something with money than it is to get a decent job? Wow, what a shocking revelation!

I'd say that's probably true in pretty much any first-world country right now. That doesn't even count the fact that your comparison was like saying it's easier to catch fish than catch bicycles with a fishing rod.

The statement tries to suggest irony.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

There are legitimate uses for these firearms. Just because one wouldn't hunt with them doesn't mean they cannot be used for other purposes, such as competitive sport shooting, recreational target shooting and home or personal defense.

I don't believe in that personal defense thing. If someone wants to do competitive sport shooting, recreational target shooting or biathlon, just go register yourself into such centers. However even then, those guns should NOT leave the physical boundaries of those centers. And even if that's not case, I'm all in favour of a very very lengthy procedure and tight background check (that includes owners & relatives) by police units to even earn the right to own a gun for such purposes.

Japan did everyone quite a favor by banning most firearms from getting into civilian hands and they ARE the example to follow. We talk about a nation that has seen guns from as far back as the time the first English settlers arrived in North America.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/339130

Not a new thing for Japan, 1600s saw restrictive gun controls ensured to "almost total prohibition of firearms." Today, gun licensing is required and is heavily regulated by Japan's National Police Agency, :
* No-one in Japan shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords, and very few exceptions are allowed.
* The only types of firearms which a Japanese citizen may acquire are rifles or shotguns.
* Sportsmen are permitted to possess rifles or shotguns for hunting and for skeet and trap shooting, but only after submitting to a lengthy licensing procedure.
* Without a license, a Japanese citizen may not even hold a gun in his or her hands.
* Shotguns and rifles for hunting or sports may be possessed upon completion of a licensing procedure that requires a police background check, successful completion of a safety course, passing of shooting, written, and psychological tests, and police verification of secure storage, prior to approval being granted by the police to purchase a firearm.
* Fully automatic weapons are restricted to military and police. Gun owners must take a class once a year and pass a written test.

Sorry to break it, but the US have come to a point there's a need for something radical such as what is done in Japan in order to solve a big part of the issue at hand.

edit: I've seen the AR-15 and M-16 pictures above. Even then, it's so easy to turn a semi-auto rifle into a full-auto rifle; that's a known fact.

[Ithekro]

Well the Colt M1911A1 was designed to stop people...any people even if charging at you.

It is heavy and can rack the wrist, but not nearly as much as say a Ruger Super Redhawk (a .44 magnum revolver) or an Israeli made .50 cal Desert Eagle. The Desert Eagle is just too damn big of a gun. I don't mean the bullets, just the scale of it. I had a hard time reaching the slide release on the damn thing. I have no such problem on the Colt M1911M1.

I rather like Ruger made 9mm pistols as they don't rack your wrists as much.

And yes the AWB was an idiot law. It was designed mostly to limit magazine sizes, but the hard sell was mostly against "scary looking weapons". YOu could manage to have a even deadly weapon that looked rustic that has been a main battle rifle for the Army in the 1940s and the ban wouldn't notice it at all. Or even older weapons from Europe that are much deadlier (read accurate) with the same rate of fire, and be completely missed by he ban.

Guns might be easy to find, but they are expensive to buy. As much or more that a high end computer.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

I don't believe in that personal defense thing.

Good for you, but realize that other people disagrees, quite vehemently I may add.

Sorry to break it, but the US have come to a point there's a need for something radical such as what is done in Japan in order to solve a big part of the issue at hand.

Also disagree. There ARE problems that needs to be addressed, but your idea isn't going to do it, which would do little than punish those who has done nothing wrong while leaving the core issues untouched.

I've seen the AR-15 and M-16 pictures above. Even then, it's so easy to turn a semi-auto rifle into a full-auto rifle; that's a known fact.

That's really a moot point. To do so would require a competent gunsmith willing to break the law, at which point he can very well just build a full auto rifle from scratch.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

I don't believe in that personal defense thing.

So you'd rather just die if someone attacked you, then? I'd rather be able to fight back, thanks.

If you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.

[Ithekro]

Americans are nowhere need as socially orginized as the Japanese. We don't have anything nearly as regimented in how we deal with others based on status or anything else for that matter. Thus such laws would hold emmense amounts of resentment and likely mass disobediance based on past experiance with the 1994 AWB.

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

I don't believe in that personal defense thing. If someone wants to do competitive sport shooting, recreational target shooting or biathlon, just go register yourself into such centers. However even then, those guns should NOT leave the physical boundaries of those centers. And even if that's not case, I'm all in favour of a very very lengthy procedure and tight background check (that includes owners & relatives) by police units to even earn the right to own a gun for such purposes.

Japan did everyone quite a favor by banning most firearms from getting into civilian hands and they ARE the example to follow. We talk about a nation that has seen guns from as far back as the time the first English settlers arrived in North America.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/339130



Sorry to break it, but the US have come to a point there's a need for something radical such as what is done in Japan in order to solve a big part of the issue at hand.

edit: I've seen the AR-15 and M-16 pictures above. Even then, it's so easy to turn a semi-auto rifle into a full-auto rifle; that's a known fact.

I don't believe in that disarmament thing, and here's why:

Gun-control doesn't work, and never has in the US.
In 1934 the National Firearms Act was passed which banned citizens from owning a sawed off shotgun or machinegun without registering them and getting a Federal Tax Stamp liscence.
In 1938 it became illegal to sell weapons across state lines without a Federal Firearms Liscence, yet millions of guns are bought and sold illegally all over the US yearly.
In 1968 congress passed the Gun Control Act of 68 which required every gun buyer to fill out form 4473 and effectively ended mail order sale of guns by non-FFL dealers, it also banned the sale of assault rifles (real, fully automatic/machine rifles, tri-burst, commonly called "select-fire") without a liscence are reclassified them as machineguns (which they are not).
In 1986 the sale of new machinguns to citizens was banned entirely.
In 1989 Bush Senior banned the import of foreign made militia rifles (semi-automatic military style weapons that are NOT assault rifles).
In 1994 the "Assault Weapons Ban" was passed that banned militia rifles and high-capacity magazines. Yet the North Hollywood Bank robbers used real assault rifles (fully automatic) in 1997.
Clintion pushed for an got passed the "Gun Free Schools" Act of 1995, yet in 1998 Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold violated that law when they entered Columbine with two sawed off 12-guage shotguns and two tech-nine semi-auto pistols with high-cap magazines.
In 2002 the DC Sniper caused a reign of terror for weeks with an AR-15 and low capacity mags (5-rounds).
School massacres started in North America in 1764 wtih the Pontiac Rebellion Massacre in Delaware where 10 school children were killed, and have continued ever since.

Einstein (attributed to him) once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results", let's stop making the same mistake by banning guns or pushing for more gun-control. History has proven that it doesn't work.

What does work?
The Israeli model of armed teachers, and citizens and requiring them to train and become proficient in the use of arms to protect not only themselves but our children.
Jeanne Assam proved this works in the US in 2007 at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs when she stopped an active shooter from committing an atrocity.

When we as a society take responsibility for ourselves and our loved ones, instead of passing the "buck" to government, then we will lessening in the frequency and damage of mass murderer attacks.

Until we do that, they will continue no matter how many bans, or restrictions, or other non-effective gun-control laws are passed.
Hell, there was another shooting on Saturday in California, no one was hurt, but the man had hi-cap mags in a state that banned then in the 1990s.
There was another one at a hospital in Georga, but an armed police officer stopped him...dead.

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

edit: I've seen the AR-15 and M-16 pictures above. Even then, it's so easy to turn a semi-auto rifle into a full-auto rifle; that's a known fact.

Oh really?
How pray tell would you go about doing that without the tools (milling machine, lathe, drill press at a minimum) and the know how (the exact dimensions are required for conversion to mill out the lower reciever, and drill in the EXACT places. If you're off by a thousandth of an inch the weapon will malfunction and jam/bind. Guns are like wristwatches, they must be TIMED in order to function.).

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

So you'd rather just die if someone attacked you, then? I'd rather be able to fight back, thanks.

If you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.

Self-defense by killing the other? We're running in circles here. There are countries doing just fine with self-defense without a tool made firsthand to kill.

That's a risk to take, but it leads more often than not to outlaws (mostly from organized crime) killing each other. At least the term "innocent casualties" almost never appears at all from our local news.

[Ithekro]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

So you'd rather just die if someone attacked you, then? I'd rather be able to fight back, thanks.

If you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns.

Well, until they can sweep the country a hundred thousand times to round up all the firearms.

But then what? That is the situation a lot of people fear. Most sight either that only the criminals will have guns, or they point to the Nazi ban on firearms before they started getting nasty to various enthic and social groupings. Or one of maybe a dozen other dictatorships that banned weapons before enacting cruelty on their civilian populations.

That is the fear in the gun owning crowd and one of the reasons some of them hold on to the 2nd Ammendment. They see an armed civilian population as the first defense against tyranny at home, as it makes sure the government knows that if they push the civilians (militia) can push back.

[Urzu 7]

Part of the problem is that American culture is ill and troubled. The Colorado shooting, this Newtown shooting, yeah, American culture is ill and troubled. This illness is multifaceted.

There are many things that make America ill. You wanna know what is one way in which America is ill? We are infatuated with guns! Why, why are we like this? Of course not all of us are, but plenty of Americans just love their guns. America has a love affair with guns, so is it any surprise that we have out of control gun violence.

[synaesthetic]

It's also important to note that the function of the police is not to protect you. It is to investigate crime. The police are not your personal bodyguards and they never will be.

Of course, if they can help, they will, but their primary function is to investigate crime. If you don't want to fall victim, you have to protect yourself. I do this on a daily basis. There are parts of the city I actively avoid, parts of the city I won't go after dark, and if I have to go out somewhere after 11PM, I don't ever go alone.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Part of the problem is that American culture is ill and troubled. The Colorado shooting, this Newtown shooting, yeah, American culture is ill and troubled. This illness is multifaceted.

There are many things that make America ill. You wanna know what is one way in which America is ill? We are infatuated with guns! Why, why are we like this? Of course not all of us are, but plenty of Americans just love their guns. America has a love affair with guns, so is it any surprise that we have out of control gun violence.

I would argue that the infatuation is with violence rather than guns. The gun has always been a part of the American culture, yet it really isn't until recent history that these type of incidents starts to get out of control.

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

Self-defense by killing the other? We're running in circles here. There are countries doing just fine with self-defense without a tool made firsthand to kill.

That's a risk to take, but it leads more often than not to outlaws (mostly from organized crime) killing each other. At least the term "innocent casualties" almost never appears at all from our local news.

We are indeed running around in circles

You can't simply look at the issue in a bubble, every country have their own cultural, ethnic, social-economic circumstances that simply aren't something you can just transplant onto another country, least of all one that's as different as Japan and the US.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

Self-defense by killing the other? We're running in circles here. There are countries doing just fine with self-defense without a tool made firsthand to kill.

Name me a method of self-defense that has the range, speed, effectiveness and reliability of an autopistol while also being easy to carry and easy to use.

Seriously, if you come up with something that isn't a gun, that can stand toe-to-toe against an attacker armed with a gun, I will honestly look into it.