That is why the last AWB failed. legislating cosmetic features of a gun. Maybe some people learned but on here it seems some have not.

really works against us and therefore a whole new look at legislation must be made. I think the intelligent lawmakers know this and will act accordingly. It's not exactly a big secret.

My point is NOT that anyone should be writing legislation without a grounding in the subject matter. My point is that there will be an attempt to discredit our side no matter how much grounding we have!

Polymer bodies were the last big thing, and that was the 1950s.

Like I say further down thread, we're stuck in minutiae because our party chose to go this way, rather than basing gun regulation on the actual capabilities of firearms.

I don't know if you've been reading what I have, but that's exactly what is being discussed and it's discussed A LOT! there was a great deal of discussion about it after Tucson and even more so after Newtown. It is being done deliberately to make distinct differences in what hunters or a homeowner may need in a gun, and what the gun used in mass shootings are capable of. And it is a crucial distinction to the political aspects of the issue.

... which I've always supported anyways.

What proposal are you talking about, because I definitely haven't seen one?

but youre right there's not enough legislation being fielded to regulate manufacture. we can and should design and build safety into commercial weapons. osha regulates industrial hazards and cars are required to have seat belts its the same idea. prevention is worth a pound of cure.

It makes no sense to legislate beyond what's been invented.

And of course police will be exempt from this law, because it's important that their guns not malfunction.

it's the *will* that's missing.

talking about it (and also about the evolution of the gun debate over the years, another topic I've seen discussed more and more) today on Chris Hayes show. You should watch the video of that segment on the Up with Chris Hayes page on msnbc.com. Chris has a very smart, liberal show.

But this ban is what is pretty critical right now, isn't it?

Dozens of guns were specified by name, including their variants. The cosmetic features that were mentioned were only a small part of the law.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr1022/text

Most every piece of major legislation is updated by congress throughout the years to keep it current. The AWB was never updated to keep pace with manufacturer loopholes and was allowed to expire because of the mythology perpetuated by the NRA and other assorted gun proliferates. The law didn't fail because of some small segment of text contained within the law, it failed because the billion dollar per year gun industry, the NRA, and other assorted gun proliferation interests invested millions perpetuation the exact same misinformation campaign you are perpetuating still. Some people have known this all along.

Just sayin'

Start with the "banned" rifle.
Remove/change the needed cosmetic parts.
Change the name.
Sell the same rifle now as "not banned".

Just sayin'

All the California-legal AR-15-based rifles would suggest otherwise.

Or do I not understand the nature of CA's laws?

Which kinda sorta doesn't make it an "assault weapon". If it has a detachable magazine, it can't have the other features which make it an AR-15. Even those who have built workaround models (that all require a tool of some sort to drop the magazine) still can't sell or distribute high capacity magazines.

So yeah, I suppose it depends on how you define "works".

So your semi-automatic with detachable magazines has to look like a hunting rifle. Well done, CA?

I know very little about CA gun laws.

The law specifies that if the rifle includes assault weapons features, it must have a fixed magazine that can't be removed without a tool. The bullet button requires the tip of a bullet to actuate the device that releases the magazine, which means you can't just release it with your finger. So you can certainly buy something that looks like an AR-15, but it's not going to work like an AR-15.

Furthermore if California was all that concerned about the "bullet button" they could easily close that loophole by amending the law. I suspect they aren't all that concerned about it.

That was what I meant

You can still buy a rifle with a detachable magazine, but people who want something that looks and shoots like an AR-15 must go with either a fixed magazine or one that requires a tool to drop the mag which increases the reloading time which was the whole point.

Just the pre-req for feature counts applying.

That was what I meant by saying a semi-auto with detachable magazines has to look like a hunting rifle, which I question the point of mandating.

The point was to restrict the lethality of what someone could buy and use with very little training or experience. To that end the California legislation works. Personally I would go a lot farther, but due to the large number of vocal gun proliferates we will probably never achieve the gun homicite rate that the rest of the advanced world has because people will still be questioning the point of mandates.

Just sayin'

They're equally deadly as an AR-15; they just look more traditional. What has that accomplished?

That's why the military still uses hunting rifles.

Just sayin'

Are you aware that as a factual question none of the features CA bans make a gun fire faster?

There's more to lethality than fire rate. If you want to argue a deer rifle is just as lethal as an AR-15, then be my guest. I'm just not going to go there with you.

Cheers!

I'm talking about an AR-15 with a deer rifle form factor

the magazine is not removable, i.e. it is a "fixed magazine". Meets the definition according to the law.

While you can buy the tool needed to remove the magazine, a bullet works just as well.

Start with a normal "ar-15".
Remove the flash hider.
Remove the bayonet lug.
Change the shape of the stock and grip to a single piece.
Give it a new name "CA-15b".
All is legal now.
It is the same rifle, just looks different.

This easily-customized, modular design of the ar-15 platform is one of the selling points.

Which was and is the point of the law.

All that changed was the looks of the rifle.

It is the same rifle! Same working parts. Shoots the same ammo. Uses the same magazines.

> Which was and is the point of the law.

That would be up for debate, but is not the current topic of this thread.

Take a California legal AR-15 and see how many rounds you can get off compared to one that is legal in other states and then tell me again how it's just the looks that changed.

new and improved CA-15b that he was talking about not the AR-15

I have no idea if a CA-15b is something that's real or made up, but he was talking about a gun that has the same basic design as an AR-15. It might look similar, but it sure ain't the same.

A CA legal AR-15 type rifle requires a tool to change magazines and the capacity can't exceed 10. In terms of lethality that doesn't compare with a Bushmaster capable of quick 30 round magazine swaps you can buy here in TX, at least within the realm most would call reality.

It has to look like a Mini-14. Great.

of the assault type weapon features thus able to have a detachable magazine. and the function would be identical to the AR-15.

There are two ways you can make an AR-15 type receiver design CA legal. You can either turn it into a deer rifle, or you can turn it into a non-detachable magazine style weapon that mimics the other features of the AR-15. Either way the rifle is not as lethal which serves the purposes of the law, and the legitimate purposes of those who want to own this type of weapon.

The other poster keeps wanting to claim a deer rifle is as lethal as an AR-15. It ain't. The AR-15 is designed to easily hold the weapon with one hand, release the magazine with one finger, and load a fresh magazine with the other hand. That's why pretty much every military in the world uses this design for their primary infantry rifle. You can't do that with a CA legal weapon.

The other poster keeps wanting to claim a CA legal deer rifle type design is just as lethal as an AR-15. It ain't. If it was, the military wouldn't have radically changed the design of the infantry rifle some 40 years ago.

I like your optimism but that's just wrong. The grip design was changed to reduce drops, increase muzzle control, and enforce shoulder firing. It's no slower or faster to reload with than a traditional grip.

It was adopted in the 1950's because polymers were available, and the shape doesn't work in wood (you'd either need a joint, which would be weak, or the grip would have to be cut against bias so the whole thing would be weak).

It's an interesting idea, but it's just not true.

In this case "works" means you can kill just as many people, exactly as quickly, as you could before the law.

I bought my first "assault weapon" under the old assault weapons ban. It didn't in practice actually accomplish anything. Sure I can't attach a bayonette to it, it doesn't have the scary looking flash suppressor on the end of the barrel, but it is every bit as capable as it was before those cosmetics were changed.

Reality is that there is no technical difference between an assault weapon as they are called and any other semi auto weapon built in the last 100 years. So the only way to differentiate and not have to ban the majority of guns made in the last 100 years is to use the only difference that exists, which is cosmetics.. how it looks.. which is useless in accomplishing the stated goal of the law as looks are so simply changed.

You really do need at least some knowledge of the weapons to make any informed law that could stand up in court, knowledge I could teach anyone in under ten minutes would suffice.

The problem with all of these laws is they are nothing more than a half-fast middle ground solution that won't work as effectively as they should whether or not they hold up in court. The answer has already been found and is to do like most other advanced countries and ban most types of guns and highly regulate the rest. That's why the UK had 58 gun homicides in 2010 when the US had around 12,000. Even by the time you factor in a 4-5 times greater population in the US, you still aren't even in the same ballpark.

So yeah, we can talk about what will actually work, but I don't think the gun proliferates want to go there and the public goes along so long as the white gun homicide rate is nowhere near the black gun homicide rate.

I recommended banning semiauto rifles with detachable mags, and pistol mags that protrude past the bottom of the mag well more than a bullet's diameter. People have asked things like "well, what about this hunting rifle?" or "why should my carbine that uses Beretta 92 mags be regulated differently than a Beretta 92?"

It's so simple: If you can replace an empty rifle magazine with a full one, which means you could have seven or eight full ones in an ammo pouch on your belt, the gun should not be legal to make any more of. But instead we're going to get into semantics and wind up with "sporter stock" AK-47s like the last time we tried this.

Hello from the UK.

Now then. I came on the US boards for all sorts of reasons. One of them was to explore this whole gun control thing.

Here's my credentials:

1. Combat veteran soldier
2. Left wing (generally)
3. used to work in UK as gun licensing officer for police
4. Shooter
5. former Magistrate.
6. heavy drinker
7. good looking with the lights off

Right, so, this gun control thing.... seems you Americans get all mixed up about several issues. I want to come back to that.

In UK, and I don't pretend we have it perfect, nor that our solution would work there where you are, we do this:

1. Anyone can have a gun
2. Unless they are convicts for certain crimes (violence etc.)
3. You have a gun, you are responsible for keeping it safe
4. You need two upstanding persons (i.e. no convictions see (2)) to reference you
5. You pay the cops £55 every 5 years
6. you only get guns that are useful for sport or vermin or hunting. That is, small magazine no military loads.

7. Oh, we knee jerk banned pistols after the Dunblane massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre

I say this because a lot of the Conservative and pro gun argument in US seems to be scare tactics saying that countries like mine are some sort of gun desert... and that, therefore, we are in thrall to Obamanazi socialist evil government monsters.

A full baker's dozen of my points above are perfectly accurate.

it is important to know just what you are banning or there will be another usless law that does not really ban "assault weapons" like the last one. I am amazed at seeing people here say that definitions do not matter. That is something I usually associate with the right wing. They most certainly do matter when legislation is written.

then I have a right to a voice in the discussion. Period.

... definitely the most meaningful!

But if you want others to heed that voice, you should know what you're talking about.

the entire discussion will be nothing except the minutae of gun lore & technology. Any slip-up in terminology will be greeted with 'you don't know what you're talking about.' Do you apply the same standard to thermonuclear weaponry? Is everyone who decries the proliferation of these weapons to be dismissed out-of-hand because they haven't memorized the millisecond-by-millisecond mechanism of the fusion reaction?

Nice try, but your not-so-subtle admonition to STFU is obvious.

Let's stop proposing and advocating laws that are based on silly minutiae

You're off by six orders of magnitude there.

If you insist on making glaring mistakes, why wouldn't your opponents seize on them? That said, there's a great deal more to this debate than technology. There's also the market, the ecology of crime, and statutory and constitutional implications of both gun rights and restrictions. I would hope you'd have some interest in being knowledgeable in those areas at least, even if your familiarity with the actual firearm mechanism.

The passengers in a sinking boat have a right to voice their proposals for keeping themelves afloat but nobody wants to listen to the guy who says they should drill a hole in the bottom to let the water out.

That's a very vague statement. What is that "something" to which you refer?

The demand for more specificity works both ways, you know...

...I don't know that it is an apt analogy. Being susceptible to disease does not mean most people know how to treat it. Being stranded by an auto transmission failure does not mean most of us know how to fix it.

In this case, however, the information we need is pretty widely available.

yeah but if you are qualified to discuss it from one point of view, perhaps it logically follows that you need to be qualified from other relevant points of view too. As well.

You not think?

than truly ignorant solutions proposed by gun control advocates.

Sure, expertise is very important, and I personally have no endorsed any particular solution. (Interesting that so many who have weighed in presume from my statement that I and others who agree will tend to blindly endorse proposals that have not been vetted by firearms experts. Who said that?)

It's no different from, say, tax law. I am no expert on tax codes and am not qualified to draft tax legislation. But my views on what a fair tax system looks like are not even remotely invalidated by this lack of expertise. Those who do have expertise need to craft proposals responsive to the rights and desires of the citizenry, rather than use their secret knowledge as a rhetorical bludgeon to dismiss their legitimate needs and concerns.

The problems come when laws try to accommodate supposedly lawful uses of firearms, which results in loopholes which the weapons manufacturers use to sell guns which are assault weapons by any reasonable standard.

If you don't understand fully how the camshaft is controlled by the crankshaft, how could you ever be expected to have a valid opinion on speed limits?

regulations on the design of cam shafts, it's natural to ask what the relationship is, and whether the proposer of the cam shaft regulation clearly knows what a cam shaft does and doesn't do. I don't think I've ever seen an actual attempt to shut anyone out of the conversation, and I'd reject it if I did - what I see when people bring up firearm technology are attempts to have a conversation...

I think a lot of gun-control advocates don't actually realize that these "technical details" are actually the basis of the law they are advocating. And that we're trying to point out that these details are a kind of silly thing to regulate guns based on.

Now only an expert can deal with the problem
Because half the problem is seeing the problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem

Now in America we like solutions
We like solutions to problems
And there's so many companies that offer solutions
Companies with names like Pet Solution
The Hair Solution. The Debt Solution. The World Solution. The Sushi Solution.
Companies with experts ready to solve the problems.
Cause only an expert can see there's a problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only and expert can deal with the problem

Those who believe knives and hammers have the same deadly potential as a gun are the people who are ignorant about guns. The people who think people carrying guns in public and engaging in shoot outs any time they feel threatened will make our nation safer are extremely ignorant.

It seems that many of the people who are experts on the makes and models and technical aspects of guns are extremely ignorant about the dangers guns pose to our society.

Those who know all about the technical specs of a gun often CARE very little about gun violence.

If one is capable of understanding the minutiae of armaments and ammunition... one is capable of understanding the role guns play in violence and murder in the US ... to not understand (or purport to not understand) is willful ignorance

We care and want something that will reduce it. So called assault weapons, even though lately have been in the spotlight with these terrible tragedies, actually account for very few deaths. Handguns much more and most people are not even talking about that. We need to talk about what may actually work. Full background checks, better cooperation between states and feds. Better mental health treatment. I like the idea of voluntary weapons licensing to help on the background check. Crack down on existing laws and have stiff penalties as with straw purchasers. A bayonet lug is not the problem.

It is absolutely crazy that we allow people to carry handguns with them in public places, greater restrictions on handguns are needed even more than an assault weapons ban is. I support an assault weapons ban, but I acknowledge that in order to really tackle the problem of gun violence we need to do something about handguns as they kill far more people than assault rifles do.

any impact on handguns? Shutting down the "Gun Show Loophole" doesn't effect hand guns? Not being able to buy ammunition on line? I am surprised. I thought they were guns too.

The only reason this discussion gets bogged down in minutiae is because some Democratic party leaders have insisted on trying to write laws based on technical minutiae.

If the push were to ban semi-automatics, that's all there would be to talk about. If the party wanted to limit guns based on their ability to fire a lot of bullets in a short period of time, there would be no particular details to talk about. However, since the party has instead been committed for over twenty years now to regulating the technical minutiae of how semi-automatics can look, those details are inevitably a part of the discussion.

The fault, dear CTyankee, is not in our stars but in ourselves.

for this battle. Your point about what Feinstein did (how many years ago?) was made in a great op ed piece today in the NYT. That piece also pointed out how existing gun laws were weakened considerably by lax enforcement and that was deliberate and not by our side, except that our side pretty much gave up in the face of fierce lobbying and lying by the NRA and their enablers.

Meanwhile we'll see how determined we are this time. the administration has put a lot of chips on the table with this issue and if they follow thru, we'll see how it goes.

As I said, I am watching. Everybody.

If the goal is to make mass random shootings much more difficult (and I question whether that rather than "normal" shootings should be our primary prevention goal), there's a very simple law we could pass:

Ban semi-automatic weapons with detached magazines.

That's it. It's that simple. No technical details to discuss. This is a class of weapons that can fire a lot of bullets very quickly (so it's what mass shooters tend to use). If we decide as a society that that is too much firepower for a civilian, there's no reason we can't schedule them under the NFA like we did machineguns back in the 1930's.

But there's not (or hasn't been in the past) the political will to do that (mostly because nobody knows what to do with the ones that are already out there). Instead, we invented a class of weapons called "assault weapons" that is a subset of semi-automatics, and defined that based on a few dozen technical details of how those weapons look. None of the details people throw around to your chagrin are about how quickly a weapon can fire, or how deadly it is, or anything like that. They're all about how it looks because that's what we have been and still are trying to regulate. We want to outlaw the weapon Lanza used in Newtown while still keeping legal an exactly equally-capable weapon as long as it looks like a hunting rifle. There's a definition of insanity that is often misattributed to Einstein, and I think it applies here.

We can pretty much forget about having the ban fairy take care of those.

... would you agree that a ban on semi-autos with detachable mags at least does what people are trying to accomplish?

(That is, the practicality of bans aside, the AWB doesn't do what its supporters think it does.)

...then yes. I would agree. It does exactly what they set out to do.

"If you seriously think the President is coming to take away your guns --- it's high time somebody did."

Exactly! I want these preppers to make themselves known as the psycho's they are. These people want to shoot American soldiers. That is what these Patriots believe in.

Senators. Be part of the debate. And don't let up. They need to hear from you!

You are, however, incorrect that there isn't already discussion of how quickly a weapon can fire and how deadly it is. I've certainly heard it many times over the past few weeks. It's out there and it's part of the dialog on this subject. Really it is.

You have the cause and effect confused.

contraception, taxes, teaching science in schools, making budgets for a nation, medicine and health care?

Yeah. I didn't think so.

Whether it's the medically invalid nonsense about "partial birth abortions", or writing laws about teaching evolution when they can't even accurately describe the theory, or what have you.

Selectively demanding expertise based on personal ideology is dishonest, at least.

Many of the same people on the right who demand "expertise" in writing gun laws are the same ones who have no problem with anti-science legislation based on "faith" and other "ideologies."

I'm tired of liars and I'm tired of the media creating a safe haven for lies as having equal value as facts. I'm also tired of those who continue to support and catapult the media spin.

If for the past 20 years our party had been pushing for a ban on semi-automatics, we wouldn't get lost in these discussions. Unfortunately, for 20 years our signature piece of gun legislation has been a very minutiae-oriented regulation of what semi-automatics can look like (that's what the "assault weapons ban" is; despite its name it's not a ban, it's a set of rules about what the fastest-firing class of guns can look like). Not only is this a kind of silly thing to be pushing for, it inevitably drags us down into talk of barrel shrouds and bayonet lugs, because that's what the law is about.

I liked that piece; a lot of it is what the "gun" side of things here has been saying for a long time: why is nobody who lied on a background check form prosecuted? etc.

That said, it still talks about banning assault weapons, and that's going to drag us right back into this mud because it's not a capabilities-based law. (Banning large magazines is, and has a lot more support.)

author of the piece doesn't know this and perhaps lots of NYT readers don't either. You could do them a service by contributing what you know. And I'm not being snarky here...I think you should.

That's why a newspaper that is otherwise ruthless on issues of usage still allows reporters to use "assault weapon" and "assault rifle" interchangeably.

Though this bit of usage isn't really worth trying to police anymore. The floodgates are open.

question it, in terms of capability (as you have suggested). Correct?

And look at all weapons based on capabilities.

Granted, any gun can be an assault weapon, so we need to refine the meaning of "assault." but I think most Americans have an idea of what that means. In hearings we can hear expert testimony on exactly HOW MUCH and HOW QUICKLY. I think the American people want to hear about the public safety issue at stake here.

who wrote and debated those laws.

Me? I'm just pointing out the cynical hypocrisy of double standards being used by the repubs.


(and writing some sloppy sentences while doing so. Eek! as evidenced by my edit. *sigh*)

However, I don't like seeing wool pulled over democrats' eyes, so I do what I can here. The AWB doesn't do what you think it does, and it's a pretty bad law.

You see, I was pointing out double standards; you're talking about a specific law. We've some cross-talk going on. You're having a debate about AWB; I was pointing out a tactic.

Look at the asshole congressmen making comments about women's bodies being able to take care of pregnancies from "real" rape. These idiots are voting on laws that affect women with this ignorance. Or the state senator who was in the news the other day having no idea what evolution was. http://www.democraticunderground.com/11245415
It should be a rule that people making laws or writing legislation have a clue about what they are writing about in all areas. It isn't like they can't hire staff to research the subjects for them. The country would be a better place if this was a rule for governing.

So that some fat pasty suburbanite doesn't have to leave his pistol at home when he goes to the big city full of "those people".

Or is it only those who hold the guns who are expert enough. In this case, this is called extortion, which is a crime.