To prevent harm or even death is it all or nothing in the gun debate?

Gun control is one of those rare issues where extreme solutions, not compromises, are needed. Disarmament would work. Deterrence would work. But anything in between will not. http://www.stanfordreview.org/Archive/Volume_XXXVIII/Issue_6/Opinions/opinions2.shtml

This is the last paragraph in a piece from the Stanford Review and I think it might be just the ticket.

be strictly adhered to just like the founding fathers had intended. Every student on every college campus should be armed with at least three handguns and their backpacks should be full of handgrenades. If you listen to the 2nd amendment backwards you will find the true intent of James Madison - SAFETY ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES. And, as we all know, nothing will promote safety on campuses more then heavily armed students. All that nonsense about an armed militia and safety of a free nation was just wishy washy stuff certainly open to interpretation to ensure every motherfucker in the country has enough weapons to kill hundreds and hundreds of people, just like Mr Madison intended.

I hope I've been helpful.

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: Nt.

what about those students who aren't in college yet? We should hand them out in pre-school at the latest. This 10 month old got his permit, why not all infants?

Don't tell me you're soft on baby crime?!??1!?/

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/baby.gun.ap

;)

You are right. Maybe glock can manufacture rattles.

I keep saying it, and they keep pretending not to hear.

Six-year-olds. Crazy people. People who have been in prison. They all have enemies too!!

And they have the inalienable right to defence of self, not to mention defence of property!!

And the only good tool for that job is a pistol. In yer pants at all times.

And once y'all in the Democratic Party (forgive me for an interloping foreigner) have got where ya should be on this thing, why, all the, er, concern just dripping around threads like these will go away!

I await the mandatory 'shiny metal penis' reference

Shhh! I'm polishing my Mannlicher!

only gun owners can "interpret" the constitution. Well just fucking shoot me. I own a gun and support the second amendment because it allows me to own that gun to defend our country. Please share with me what it says when played sideways at midnight. And please tell us all the value of arming all students to the hilt.

"And please tell us all the value of arming all students to the hilt."

Can you come up with just ONE example of anyone suggests arming ALL students? All students being the key there.

CalTech is not forming a Student Minuteman Regiment. UConn is not having Student Militia drills. There is no Golden Gophers SWAT Team.

And KinderCare is not running riflery drills between naptime and fingerpainting.

You're a funny man...<g>
Lee

"The fact that gun ownership imposes externalities on non-gun owners thus reveals a flaw in the libertarian solution".

A good point. "Join us or one of our kind may kill you with impunity, and it'll be your fault for not being one of us."

Yeah, very libertarian.

I am looking into what carbon footprint of mining, refining, and milling a two pound steel appliance is and what the associated cost of maintaining a supply of cast metal casings filled with high energy manufactured explosive compounds may be.


Is the probability of saving your own life greater than the known damage to the external environment and people who live in it?

The factory that I work at machines a lot of steel for faucet housings. Each finished housing weights about a pound. We lose about 4 oz of stainless steel from the pipe blank to a finished product. We make 400 a day!

About 3 million guns a year are sold in the US, long arms and handguns both. Assuming an average of 4 pounds per gun, that 12,000,000 pounds of steel in the finished products, or 6,000 tons.

That's about 4,000 compact cars worth. 4,000 cars in a nation that buys 16 million cars annually.

And the associated cost of maintaining a supply of metal castings? The occasional cleaning and lubricating. Once it's made, it only costs to maintain it if you break something. it's not like you have to change the oil in your gun and keep the anti-freeze topped off.

I would worry more about the lead solder in all of your electronics before I began worrying about recyclable, non-toxic steel.

I have changed out all my light bulbs with CFLs and I am posting using a hand me down Pentium 4. I am of course wasting electricity but seeing that is is only 62 outside I can at least benefit from the waste heat.

There is less lead in solder than once was, but is it not still prevalent in ammunition manufacturing? If you expend ammunition in annual use, the expense I speak of is that associated buying new ammunition and the associated environmental costs of lead, brass/copper and propellant manufacture.





http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/steel/pdfs/steel_energy_use.pdf



Check this link out to covert foot-pounds to BTUs

http://www.uccs.edu/~energy/courses/energyconv.html

Indoor ranges typically collect and recycle both the spend bullets and the spent cartridges, unless the shooter collect and reloads by hand. The copper and zinc in cartridge brass bring good prices. Outdoor ranges the bullets usually go into dirt backstops. I assume the bullets just sit there in the dirt until the land changes hands and needs to be cleaned up.

You would have to find numbers on how many rounds of ammuntion are manufactured every year.

Can't speak for civilian ranges since I've never worked at one, but in the Marines you'll spend a lot of time as a Lance Corporal picking up brass on the firing line and picking rounds out of the berm.

a 9mm pistol round develops about 0.5 kJ of kinetic energy, a small-caliber rifle like an AR-15 or civvie AK lookalike (.223 or 7.62x39mm, the most common rifle calibers) is 1.5 to 2.0 kJ; a deer rifle like a .308 or .30-06 is around 4.0 kJ.

Assuming a thermodynamic efficiency of around 33%, you're looking at around 1.5 kJ per round of 9mm, 4.5 to 6 kJ for a small-caliber rifle like .223, and 12 kJ for a hunting round.

OK, a slice of bread represents about 75 calories (actually kcal) and 4.186 kJ = 1 kcal. So a slice of bread is about 314 kJ.

So, the energy content of a 9mm round is about 1/209 the energy content of a slice of bread. Even the hunting round is only 1/26 the energy of the slice of bread. Negligible.

To put it in more familiar units, 1 joule equals 1 watt-second. So a 2-kJ rifle round (most common) represents about 2 kilowatt-seconds of energy--the equivalent of burning a 100-watt light bulb for 20 seconds, or a 15-watt compact fluorescent for 2.2 minutes. You will burn through a lot more energy sitting and reading a book after dark than you will shooting at the shooting range.

A typical range trip for me is 100 rounds of 9mm and 100 rounds of 7.62x39mm. Using the numbers above, that's 100 * 1.5kJ + 100 * 6.0kJ, or 750 kJ. That's only 0.2 kWh (1 kWh = 3600kJ).

To put it another way, going for a 30-minute run (which ups your body's energy consumption by about 400 kcal/hr, or 1440 kJ/hr, for the duration of the run) expends more extra energy than shooting 100 rounds each of 9mm and 7.62x39mm, as I figure it. Absolutely negligible.

If you recycle the lead and copper (most ranges do), the environmental impact of shooting is negligible...and you can also use lead-free practice ammunition, if you choose.

I vehemently disagree with Seck's conclusion. There are plenty of things that can be done to patch holes in the system of laws we have now.

The VT massacre perpetrator should not have been able to buy firearms under existing law - He had been directed by a judge to seek treatment for his mental health problems. That should have disqualified him, and that action should have caused his name to be flagged in the National Instant Check System (NICS). Private-party transfers of used firearms are unregulated, and the federal government lacks authority to regulate them. NICS is by law (Brady Act) not accessible to people who are not licensed gun dealers. In my state (California), private sales all have to be processed through licensed dealers. But in most states those transfers are not regulated, and people who have guns to sell have no way of checking the background of the buyers even if they wanted to. They should check, but need to be motivated and need a way to do it.

Total disarmament is pure pie in the sky. There is no way it could in the foreseeable future be made palatable to the country as a whole. A political party that adopted such a platform would find itself quickly out of power, thus defeating the initiative.

It's not just a garden variety strawman, it's a particularly despicable one.
:grr:

But in that same fashion, I am so damned tired of folks accusing dems, lefties, progressives, whatever, of wanting to violate their rights as provided by the 2nd Amendment when we advocate gun regulations.

Extremists and extreme thinking on both sides is what causes most of our problems in this world, imho.

I think some people in the middle just don't realize the impact of some gun-control proposals. For example, outlawing "assault weapons" as defined by the gun-control lobby would entail confiscating guns or magazines from around 40 million people, or half of all gun owners, as a rough guesstimate. That would include the most popular target rifles and defensive handguns in America.

Whenever someone advocates banning rifles with handgrips that stick out, over-5-round shotguns, and over-10-round rifles and pistols, they are talking about half or more of the guns in our family's gun safe.

There IS a lot of common ground to be found on things like background checks, preventing criminal gun access, etc. Problem is, the the repubs at the Brady Campaign and elsewhere have focused on lawfully owned civilian guns, rather than criminal gun misuse, since the early '90s, and that is where a lot of the division comes from. I'm OK with background checks and going after illegal gun traffickers, but the politicians need to keep their sticky fingers out of the gun safes of the law-abiding.


-------------------
Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMO)

The Conservative Roots of U.S. Gun Control

keep and bear arms, so I could care less about it, the rifle.

Would you like the names of two cops I knew that were killed by an assault rifle lawfully owned by a qualified gunman? Would you like to know what happened to that gunman and his lawfully owned cache' of weapons that he had?

Seriously, don't cry me a river about losing a gun, that does not in any way shape or form equate to the violation of the 2nd amendment. I'm sure your other guns will make you just as happy and make just as loud a noise.

What does someone killed with an assault rifle have to do with assault weapons?


Assault rifles and assault weapons are 2 very different things, both legally, and functionally.

individuals, it makes no difference, does it.

It is the legislatures job to pass laws to protect society, they do so based on the information provided by the experts (on both sides - NRA is pretty loud, but you know that), if they pass the laws banning a particular weapon and all those magazines loaded with bullets or particular bullets, they are well within their right. If you don't like it, then run for the job and make the difference, but don't you dare lie to yourself of others in this society by equating gun regulation to gun bans - you can keep and bear your guns, just not all the guns you want.

You probably, like about 95% of the people I talk about this with, think that assault rifles are assault weapons and covered by the assault weapon ban.

Legislators have proven many times that they are more than willing to use dishonest terminology to fool people who do not know much about firearms into supporting bills that ban weapons that are not in any way more dangerous than non-banned weapons.

If I had a nickel for every time I'd seen a news piece about the assault weapons ban coupled with footage of a fully-automatic gun firing, I'd be rich enough to buy one of those fully-automatic weapons. The joke being that the AWB had absolutely nothing to do with fully-automatic weapons, and other than a very few ultra-libertarians there's not an active lobby to allow manufacture and sale of fully-automatic firearms for general civilian use.

of assault weapons will infringe on your rights.



So what about any of the stuff listed above makes you unhappy, you can't have a folding stock or a pistol grip or detachable magazine (which the little fella with his lawful cache' of weapons and his assault rifle had, not to mention the fixed magazine capacity greater than 5 rounds).

Hell, when I handled a weapon, part of the challenge was to property load the little bitty clip after complete discharge and to get all those itty bitty targets in the best time.

Guess that was too hard for some and the bigger clips make folks have more fun. :eyes:

Rifles
* Folding/telescoping stock


Why?

* Protruding pistol grip

Double why? Rifles with pistol grips are much easier to hold safely with full positive control.

* Bayonet mount

I know the number of people murdered by bayonet in this country is staggering...

* Threaded muzzle or flash suppressor

I'm for that one, actually.

* Grenade launcher


Duh. Those have been banned for decades.

So in the rifle section, we have:

1. A provision that makes very little sense (how does a folding/telescoping sight make it more dangerous? It's still virtually impossible to conceal. And rifles are almost never used in crimes anyways).

2. A provision that actually makes rifles less safe by discouraging modern orthopedic grip designs.

3. A provision that will, possibly, eliminate the rash of bayonet deaths in this country

4. A sensible provision I'm more than willing to talk about

5. A redundant provision that has been in effect already since the 1930's

Pistols
* Magazine outside grip


Again, why? Are bullets more deadly when they come from a magazine in front of the trigger housing group rather than behind it?

* Threaded muzzle

Like with the rifles, I'm more than willing to talk about this.

* Barrel shroud

Quadruple why? How in the hell does a barrel shroud make a pistol any more dangerous?

* Unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more

*shrug* now this just seems capricious. "Oh, that pistol is heavy... it must be really deadly". Is this a Guy Ritchie movie?

* Semi-automatic version of a fully automatic weapon

I can't ask "why" enough for this one. Can you give me even one legitimate reason to ban a weapon that looks like a fully automatic weapon but is entirely semi-automatic?

Again, I'm all for Congress's ability to regulate guns just like any other consumer good. Banning weapons that fire from an open bolt, for instance, since it's fairly easy to convert them to (an uncontrollable) full-auto.

Shotguns
* Folding/telescoping stock

Like with rifles, this seems pretty pointless. They're still not concealable.

* Protruding pistol grip

Again, you're forcing gun manufacturers to manufacture less-safe firearms by avoiding modern orthopedic grips.

* Detachable magazine capacity
* Fixed magazine capacity greater than 5 rounds

I'm considering these together because they amount to the same thing: the point is you don't want someone to fire more than 5 shells without reloading. I can see some sense in this and would be willing to talk about it.

So, here again we have

1. A pointless provision
2. A provision that actually makes shotguns less safe
3. Something worth talking about

As someone who knows firearms, I see a very few worthwhile ideas interspersed with provisions that do one thing and one thing only: ban guns that soccer moms find "scary" or "military looking" even when those guns don't actually present a greater threat, and even when these guns are used in an unbelieveably small fraction of gun crimes.

I find it so entertaining that you 2nd amendment types seem to think you get to own what ever type gun, weapon, arm you want and that isn't the case.

GUN REGULATIONS DO NOT EQUATE TO A VIOLATION OF YOUR 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHT!!

If you go with that premise, maybe someone will take you seriously.

HR 1022 is exactly that - confiscation. Maybe not from me, maybe not from BenEzra, maybe not from a single law-abiding American citizen of legal age today. But it is, in a very real sense, confiscation from the future citizens of America. And that's where I draw the line.

We have to be able to trust our fellow Americans with their Constitutional rights, or else we as a nation are finished.

But hey, what's new.

If you think me dishonest, then prove it to be so. I may make mistakes - I am, after all, only human - but the ball is now in your court.

regulation of a specific weapon?

Will that do it for you buddy?

Keep in mind that had it been an M-16 military issue fully automatic rifle in place of that short barreled shotgun that the decision would have been drastically diffent.

You really don't want people running around with military grade automatic weapons do you?

thus my point. Gun ownership can be regulated and not in violation with the second amendment.

That has been my only point - it is you and your gun buddies that have said otherwise.

And under this administration, I would worry, they really don't want you guys to have any weapons. You need to be concerned with his executive orders regarding national emergencies more than you do the proposed bans of specific weapons.

You might, should you decide to have a discussion about this rather than letting this turn into the same tired entrenched fight, realize that most of us AGREE with you on alot of things. For example the great majority of us support the NFA of 1934. Support NICS checks. Support restrictions against violent fellons.

The problem comes when you start characterizing prohibition of some guns as regulation. All your going to get is resistance to that. Both from gun owners that support most of the things I mentioned above, and from those more extreme.




No, I don't think so. In another year and change the current administration will be history. Prohibitionist bills like H.R.1022 once on the books don't go away every 4 years, unfortunately.

and clips of bullets and stocks and the like upset you all so.

What exactly do you do with these things?

That executive order is more of threat to your freedoms and the 2nd amendment than that bill every could be.

People hunt with them, target shoot with them, collect them and defend themselves with them. About every kind of thing other guns are used for, except they're used in less than 3 percent of homicides. Less than shotguns in fact. Less than 500 homicides per year can be attributed to so called "assault weapons".

I of course don't do anything with them, as I don't own any. I own a bolt action 17hmr rifle and some heirloom 22 rifles.



It really isn't. The second an executive order was signed banning guns and calling for confiscation we would be headed for civil war. Like Benezra said, the literal kind. These bills on the other hand...are more subversive "frog in the pot" kinds of threats.

A ban on books the Moral Majority disapproves of would bother me, too; after all, no one "needs" Catcher in the Rye, James Joyce, or Jacques Derrida. A ban on such books wouldn't be a ban on ALL books, now, would it?

A ban on Volvo S40's, based on the claim that they are the "cars of choice of bank robbers and drunk drivers" and are "race cars with no legitimate transportation purpose" would also piss me off--not only because I really like Volvos, but because banning them based on such a spurious claims would be asinine.


My SAR-1 is my favorite target gun; it's fun to shoot, the relatively low-powered cartridge means it doesn't beat up my shoulder like a full-power rifle would, there are a lot of good and inexpensive optics choices, and it is arguably the most reliable of all self-loading rifles. It was relatively inexpensive (important to me, since I'm dad to an 8 y.o. special needs kid, with medical bills out the wazoo); is economical to shoot; and is suitable as a target gun, a home-defense carbine (in lieu of a shotgun, which I don't own), and as a low-end deer rifle, if I ever take up hunting.


It is not an either-or choice between banning my guns and infringing my other civil liberties. Respect my 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendment rights, AND keep your hands off our family's guns.

BTW, do you really consider outlawing protruding rifle handgrips to be more important than health care reform and solving the Iraq quagmire? Because they are mutually exclusive.

Merely raising prices on replacement pistol magazines (not rifle magazines) and requiring new civilian rifles to have minor cosmetic changes, cost the House AND Senate in '94, as well as the '00 presidency via TN and WV (never mind FL). How do you think the far more draconian H.R.1022 would go over?

....to turn a college campus into a slaughterhouse, I'll pay your pathetic comparisons some attention. You're not in the Gun Dungeon here, so don't expect the normal little tap dance you've been doing for lo these many years to be that persuasive.....

...and time and history are on benEzra's side and mine. A real debate on this is long overdue.

See you at the state convention next year! :hi:

Just because the republican party has been doing the gun movement's bidding for a few years, just because a few conservative courts have made some rulings favorable to your cause, just because a couple of law professors have modified their positions on the Second Amendment---yeah, I can see where you'd be hubristic enough to feel that you have it made. In actuality, this country will eventually adopt the kind of sensible, rigorous gun control measures that other advanced countries have implemented. A few more VTech-size massacres, a political assassination or two---and who can deny that these things are going to happen, given the recent history and current status of this nation?---and your run of good fortune will be over.

And if I've learned one thing from all my years of arguing with gun militants, it's that the last thing you people want is a "real debate." What you want is everything completely in your favor, and you're prepared to enthusiastically break any laws that restrict you in any way. Don't take my word for it---this viewpoint is on exhibit in this very thread.....

So now you're convinced I'm breaking the law. By doing what? Exercising my Constitutional rights?

I am apparently unable to change the way you frame gun owners, so until the next time we butt heads, salud.

Interpreting my comments to claim that I'm convinced you're breaking the law---that's a helluva stretch; must really hurt.

The last time I noticed, you and I were disembodied voices on an internet chat site. I'm in no more of a position to accuse you of personally being a law breaker than you are of me. My comments about the lawless tendencies of the gun rights movement were just that---comments about the movement in general. I stand by those comments, because there's lots of evidence of those tendencies, both here in DU and numerous other net sites and publications. You may not be a law breaker, but the company you're keeping isn't very flattering...

But you won't take my mail.

Please don't miss my post 79. It's being studiously ignored by everyone else.

The article that started this thread is a piece of stupid right-wing shit from a stupid right-wing shit on-line publication, written by a particularly dim and/or dishonest right-winger.

You'll notice that the person who started the thread -- i.e. threw the straw thing up in the air for the gun-heads to shoot at -- hasn't been back. It's kind of a habit. Here's my favourite of that poster's oeuvre:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=294238
"I had a wingnut at school today that is giving me a BS line about undocumented aliens murdering up to 12 US citizens a day. So I went and checked to internet and all I found was right-wing rags supporting this trash, can someone give me some links to blow his shit apart?"

Just comes here to get edumacated, you see.

But our dungeon friends, they didn't want to blow the shit in the opening article apart. Nooooo ... they wanted to swallow it, hook, line and sinker, as being the work of some ever so significant left/libaral moonbat proposing that their pistols be ripped from their pants ... and then blow it apart. If they are that prone to shooting at figments of the fevered right-wing imagination, well, it might be wise to steer clear ...

I won't take anybody's mail---too many years of dealing with heavily-armed individuals who don't take their meds on a regular enough basis.

For the record, I did read your post 79 and found it illuminating, as usual.

So---how much longer are you going to grace the Gun Dungeon with your presence? I've got to tell you: I feel a
lot better since I quit the place. Still fun to check in to the Gungeon and view all the RKBAers vigorously agreeing with one another.....

Unlike a few other things going on around this place lately ... search being your friend ...

Not paying much attention to the dungeon lately; dropped back in after weeks of absence and was of course warmly greeted. Just waiting now for the person whose uninformed blathering about Canadian firearms laws I just demolished, for the uninformed and totally false blathering it was, to show back up and say "oops, I was completely wrong".

Hahahahaha!

http://www.adl.org/poisoning_web/bomb_making.asp

"According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Federal agents investigating at least 30 bombings and four attempted bombings between 1985 and June 1996 recovered bomb-making literature that the suspects had obtained from the Internet.76 In these investigations, the possession of bomb-making literature has been taken by law enforcement authorities as strong circumstantial evidence that this literature has been used to plan crimes.

Like other extremist material on the Internet, bomb-making manuals are readily accessible to children. In fact, these tracts have already been accessed by eager, impressionable youngsters. The Washington Post has described discussions among 14-year-olds about "which propellants are best to use, which Web sites have the best recipes and whether tin or aluminum soda cans make better bomb casings."77 Furthermore, children have used recipes found on the Web to create and detonate bombs. For example, two 15-year-old boys from Orem, Utah, landed in a juvenile-detention center after they constructed a pipe bomb using online instructions. Similarly, three high school students in Ogden, Utah, who ignited a bomb at a Jehovah's Witnesses church later told police they learned how to make the device from a Web page devoted to the Anarchists Cookbook.78"

They can compare the number of gun-related deaths to the number of bomb-related deaths in this country, just as I can. And as a result, they would reject your comparison out of hand, just as I am doing, right now.....

Gawd you guys sure stretch don't you. :rofl:

Be careful, I have my oxford dictionary, the 3 volume set and if you aren't careful, I'll be forced to throw it at you. :rofl:

http://www.adl.org/poisoning_web/bomb_making.asp
"According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Federal agents investigating at least 30 bombings and four attempted bombings between 1985 and June 1996 recovered bomb-making literature that the suspects had obtained from the Internet.76 In these investigations, the possession of bomb-making literature has been taken by law enforcement authorities as strong circumstantial evidence that this literature has been used to plan crimes.

Like other extremist material on the Internet, bomb-making manuals are readily accessible to children. In fact, these tracts have already been accessed by eager, impressionable youngsters. The Washington Post has described discussions among 14-year-olds about "which propellants are best to use, which Web sites have the best recipes and whether tin or aluminum soda cans make better bomb casings."77 Furthermore, children have used recipes found on the Web to create and detonate bombs. For example, two 15-year-old boys from Orem, Utah, landed in a juvenile-detention center after they constructed a pipe bomb using online instructions. Similarly, three high school students in Ogden, Utah, who ignited a bomb at a Jehovah's Witnesses church later told police they learned how to make the device from a Web page devoted to the Anarchists Cookbook.78"

I never thought of the books on how to make bombs or how to pull off a murder (successful hit).

And I have no qualms with their removal from the public domain.

Not so good with analogies, are we?

You asked why I'm bothered by asinine bans on *SOME* guns that are rarely misused, since, after all, such a ban wouldn't outlaw every gun in private hands. I answered with an analogy that I hoped might get around you cognitive dissonance on the gun thing, since presumably you would be similarly bothered by asinine bans on non-fundamentalist books. But I guess playing the fingers-in-your-ears game is more fun on your end.

And I didn't mention OED, I mentioned books that the Right claims cause rape and murder by undermining society's morals.

You ask, when's the last time a Volvo was used by a drunk driver? Statistically, probably within the last couple of weeks. Well, when's the last time a civilian Steyr AUG lookalike was used in a criminal homicide? Yet you still want to ban them. (And who "needs" a car that can go 150 mph, right?)

I suppose that if you wanted an analogy that does result in deaths, I could point out that I'd be upset by a ban on fine wines, even though I don't drink. Alcohol does kill 200 times as many people as all rifles combined.

Look, you may not like this, but we are keeping our guns. ALL of them. The Feinstein ban drew the line in the sand; gun owners have done ALL the compromising in the last 100 years on what the law-abiding are permitted to own, and it will go no further. You can accept that fact and work to find common ground on fighting criminal gun misuse (and common ground CAN be found on private-sale background checks, getting mental incompetence adjudications in to NICS, and tracing all guns used in homicides to find and prosecute straw purchasers), IF you actually gave a crap about the criminal with a .357 in his waistband...

I don't find your need for the guns of your chosing an important topic and I make fun, so what.

I can't imagine waking up in the morning worried that my auto weapon will be outlawed, I just can't relate to the crisis that apparently causes for you.

Maybe I have handled guns enough to know there are other weapons that I can use, take the pinto off the market and there is still the nova. Though I have to admit, I was bummed as a kid when they removed the clackers from the market because they were hazardous, I believed it infringed on my constitutional rights to happiness.

You can keep talking all you want, you will never change what is. The banning of a few "types" of weapons is not an infringement of the 2nd amendment, you can still keep and bear arms, just not certain types. Get over it and stop making it more than it is.

As you well know, AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ARE ALREADY RESTRICTED. Possession without Federal authorization is a 10-year felony under the National Firearms Act of 1934. Given the number of times you have been corrected on that point, I can't believe you are making that claim in ignorance.

Just so there is no ambiguity, I DON'T OWN any automatic weapons. So you can stop making that claim, please. All the guns my wife and I own are non-automatic. They just have styling you don't like, and most have (gasp) post-1861 magazine capacities.


It doesn't cause a crisis at all. The guns in our gun safes aren't going anywhere. The sooner the gun-control lobby realizes that truth and refocuses its efforts away from further restrictions on lawful and responsible ownership, toward looking for common ground on criminal gun misuse, the better off you'll be.

I do get a bit irked at dumbass moral panic legislation, whether the panic in question be flag burning, adult literature, responsible alcohol use, wardrobe malfunctions, "terrah", "furriners", TV shows, the War on Non-Approved Herbs, or non-automatic rifles with (OMG!) handgrips that stick out. I especially get irked when said dumbass legislation ends up hurting efforts to fix real problems like the health care crisis, the Iraq quagmire, the crisis in Medicaid funding, job outsourcing, and whatnot, and when the advocates of said legislation want to send guys with machineguns to my door to force their views on me by proxy.

The "assault weapon" bait-and-switch has gone the way of the Volstead Act, and good riddance. It was precisely that kind of ad hoc justification of nonsensical bans that put the U.S. gun-control lobby in the sorry shape it's now in.

And to address the ad hominem aspect of your post, I can't imagine waking up in the morning and devoting my energy to coercing others into living by my beliefs; I think a philosophy of "live and let live," and tolerance of those who choose differently than I, is a lot more consistent with the Enlightenment roots of progressive thought.

and you can stop your insane rantings.

Does the feel of those pistol grips take the place of viagra?

You and your wife can make beautiful music together shooting off your weapons that are legally posessed.

Don't you have a range appointment to make or a bunch of bullets to load?

:rofl:

Insanity is generally considered to be a disconnect from reality.

Like, perchance, the reality that rifles are almost never used in violent crime, per the FBI.


Is that why Olympic target shooters use rifles with vertical grip angles?

I don't need Viagra. I run, cycle, swim, kayak, and am probably younger than you are... :)


I don't need an appointment, and I don't reload. But we do shoot together...

Have a nice day! I'm going cycling.

bE

I just don't understand where your hostility and condescension come from

respond to you and your buddies one last time, to call you all on your little game.

I have, for the most part, politely and calmly responded to each and everyone of you. Yet you all ask the same questions and continue the same moronic arguments that I don't buy and you can't force on me to accept.

You don't have to agree with me, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I see your concerns as minimal given the state of our nation. You and I both know that should a revolution be necessary, there will be guns, there are plenty of gun owners that own illegal guns and don't talk about them, the black market for guns is enormous. The true issue in our nation is the lunatic running the place and his crazy executive orders that will catch everyone off guard if, and/or, when they decide to try to disarm the land. They won't do it with legislation, they don't need to because they are distorting our government and have executive orders in place that make proposed gun regulations and existing law worth less than the paper they are written on.

You and your buddies get bored in the gun forum and then have someone post a thread like this one that you can all come into and torment posters. Your analogies are half ass and annoying, as are your silly tag team tactics. Everything you all have posted here are your proud posts in that other forum. The gun photos are pretty, we know you all know the difference between the automatic and the semi auto.

I played your games for a time, but when it became redundant and when reading your posts was just like reading the others, I got bored with it. I've said what I have to say.

Realize this, honesty is your best policy in this matter. If a gun you like is made illegal through the proper governing functions we have, then get other guns to replace it and file suit asking the court to decide if the law making the gun is legal. Don't run around saying that gun regs equal 2nd amendment violations because they don't. Act reasonably and not emotionally.

And try to respect others, if you do, then you might get that respect in return.

"The banning of a few "types" of weapons is not an infringement of the 2nd amendment, you can still keep and bear arms, just not certain types. Get over it and stop making it more than it is."


Explain that to the DC courts.

...it's right there in the text of the Second Amendment. "A well-regulated militia" is how it starts off. And how many gun laws and regulations do we, as gun owners, obey without complaint or consternation on a daily basis?

But the point you infer from US v. Miller is unsteady, though interesting. The shotgun in question was manufactured as a legal long-barrel shotgun but then illegally modified by hacking most of its barrel off with a hacksaw. This sort of improvised shotgun is extremely dangerous to use and definitely not the weaponry that a well-regulated militia would make use of.

That said, however, there are short-barrelled shotguns that are about as big as that illegal sawed-off Miller shotgun, but the barrels on these guns are especially crafted for this purpose by expert gunsmiths. And they are most definitely used with great effect by military and law enforcement units, and thus weapons that a well-regulated militia would use. But if a civilian wants to own one of these shotguns, it's a Title 2 NFA weapon, which means ownership is illegal without the license, tax stamp, transfer fee, etc. Whether or not they should remain Title 2, however, is another issue entirely.

It provides you have the right to keep and bear arms. That is all it provides. It doesn't say any arms you want, but it does provide for regulation if you make the mistake of tying your gun ownership to the militia. You don't want to do that because the state's have their militia and the court's have recognized that the state's rights and their militia are not in conflict with the 2nd amendment. You want to the phrase "keep and bear arms" to remain separate from militia, especially in this day and age, with the kooks we have in charge.

Again, go worry about his executive orders that the governors are concerned with, the power he assumes and gives to the military over the state militia in time of crisis or national emergency are frightning.

The courts have ruled recently that the "well-regulated militia" is not the same as the state militias or the National Guard, and that's a damn good thing considering that Herr Decider has decided to Federalize the National Guard and send those poor souls to Iraq, where they are wholly incapable of helping the folks in New Orleans, Greensburg, Slidell, etc.

So no, I don't have to worry about those executive orders, because they do not apply to me as an individual gun owner and - surprise! - a member of the "well-regulated militia."

It is not an unlimited right.

It is the specific regulations that may or may not violate the 2nd.

The debate here is that many of the regulations proposed are designed to make life harder for gun owners without actually doing anything to address public safety. That the regulations attack the subculture of gun ownership because it should in principal be eliminated as much as possible, rather than reducing crime and murder.

The question those two cases leave us with as regards the banning of a specific weapon is whether that weapon has a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia". Which, incidentally, probably means Miller was wrongly decided since 'shotguns having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' are used by most armies.

You want to keep the "right to keep and bear arms" away from the militia part. The constitution specifically gives the government the right to REGULATE the MILITIA.

Damn, don't you guys know nothing.

This is not a violation of your First Amendment rights, though.

Or how about the rules at DU? If the rules at DU were natioanl speech law, it would be unconstitutional. The fact that I state that "the rules are necessary and proper to protect the public (especially the children) against terrorists, and don't worry, it's not equal to a violation of your First Amendment rights anyway" is irrelevent.

The larger point here, though, is to make laws that make sense. If your intention is to make it harder to get guns, then say so and propose laws that do that. If your intention is to lower the homicide rates and crimes rates, then say so and propose laws that do that. If you intention is to make society more non-violent by stripping away all violent imagery, then say so and propose laws that do that.

Don't try to tell the public that, because 2/3rds of all gun homicides are by a handgun, you're going to ban pistol grips or bayonet lugs in order to lower the crime rate.

As long as the National Firearms Act of 1934 is still being strictly enforced, I couldn't care less if a gunsmith makes full-auto weapons for the civilian market.

That's the big problem with this issue. The original assualt rifle ban was much more about cosmetic features than anything else.

The language has become distorted, intentionally in some cases. Understand, I am not taking issue with you nor do I believe your intentions are to distort. What you said though, is an example of what I am saying.


Assault RIFLES are fully automatic military issue weapons covered under the National Firearms Act of 1934.

Assault WEAPONS are self-loading civilian rifles that are NOT fully automatic.

Again, I am not taking issue with you, just pointing out that language has become jumbled.

And it really confuses me why you have such an issue with the ban as suggested, it's not like you have a need for that big ole magazine or the clip with more than 5 bullets or the folding stock or the bayonet or the automatic weapons themselves.

None of the stuff referenced in the ban language helps any hunter or marksman, not good for skeet shooting either.

:shrug:

As I stated in another post, theres quite a difference legally, and functionally between what people call an ASSAULT WEAPON, and what is an ASSAULT RIFLE. You yourself don't appear to be aware of the difference, judging from the way you use the language.




I don't own any of the weapons named by the ban you referenced. I don't own any of the features listed in the ban you referenced. I do not intend to ever own any of them. I live out in the middle of nowhere on an old farm, and really have no use for them, personally. I have no objection to people owning semi-automatic rifles however. Why I have issue with the ban suggested, is that imposing magazine limits for example will have little to no effect on public safety. The folding stock, and the bayonette will have little or no effect on public safety. And that brings me to the kicker of your post. Automatic weapons. The ban does NOT cover automatic weapons. Automatic weapons have been heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, SINCE 1934.

Furthermore, the "protruding grip" language in the ban you referenced, DOES in fact help marksmen. It DOES in fact have a positive effect on accuracy. Also the grenade launcher language is not aimed at a real grenade launcher as most people think of them, but at a small metal stub underneath the barrels of some rifles (Benezra do you have a pic of one?).In any case, that ban is gone, and another far more draconian ban stumped for in its place.

Educate yourself about that which you propose banning. Watch this video. It is done by a police officer, and is factually accurate about so called "assault weapons". You appear to believe the whole issue is about automatic weapons, thats why I suggest it.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjM9fcEzSJ0

videos to educate me, but thanks.

Regulating weapons is not a violation or an infringment of the 2nd amendment. Banning specific weapons is not the same as outlawing ALL weapons.

You know that and it is dishonest to argue differently.

Then why do you bring up automatic weapons? Why do you use the terms "assault weapon" and "assault rifle" interchangably when they are 2 distinctly different things both functionally and legally?

And, they're not "my videos". They were made by a police officer that actually knows the difference between things you aparently don't.



And once again, specific abortions is not the same as banning ALL abortion. I'm sure women everywhere would be comfortable with that line of reasoning...NOT. In Parker vs DC handguns were BANNED. Other weapons were allowed. Parker vs DC struck down that ban on SECOND AMENDMENT grounds. That essentially destroys your argument.

Gun bans equal the ban on abortions, LOL - :rofl: :rofl:

Particularly in thos 2 cases.

A woman's body is a woman's body, your gun is some fucking inanimate object that has no purpose but to make noise and put holes in things. Big difference and you really are grasping when you try that strawman.

that doesn't mean it isn't one.

Bans generally aren't well recieved by those they effect. That rings true in both cases.



You seem to misunderstand. A gun isn't in question. Ones right to keep and bear a gun IS. The RIGHT, or more specifically capricious arbitrary regulations placed on that RIGHT (bans), are no different than capricious arbitrary regulations placed on a womans right to choose(bans). And they will be seen as such in both cases by the people effected by those capricious and arbitrary regulations. Seen as bans. You can't be a gun banner and say your not a gun banner. Well, you can say it I guess, but noone is going to buy it.

Theres quite a difference between drawing a parallel and making a strawman argument. Perhaps you see can see that now?

is so much more than your stupid metal noise maker and hole puncher.

Damn it, stop with the stupid logic - you are just proving how pathetic your position truly is.

The right to keep and bear arms is in the Bill of rights. Abortion is not. That minor difference aside, I support both a womans right to choose, AND the second amendment.

You keep missing it. I am not making a comparison between a womans body and a gun. I am comparing MY right to keep and bear arms with a womans right to choose. Both are rights. Now, you can go on pretending that I am not doing just that all you like, it ain't gonna change reality. Its only stupid logic because you think I am comparing something that I really am not comparing. That or you are deliberately trying to discredit what I am saying.

There is no comparison to your right to a weapon (which regulations do not prevent or upsurp)and a woman's right to control and say over her body. Now, if you want to compare your right to jack off to a woman's right to her body, that's a different story. So far, you get to jack off and spill your seed all you want, you just can't do it in public or in front of little children.

:hi:

STRAWMAN -- be careful someone with a match might get careless.

One can compare rights easily, whether they be written, unwritten, or constitutional, when the context of that comparison is comparing the REACTION OF THE PEOPLE WHO MIGHT BE EFFECTED BY LIMITATIONS OF, REGULATIONS ON, OR BANS HAVING TO DO WITH those rights. You know, how those people might react to "friendly language" like regulation or restriction - where a ban is what is really being discussed. That was the point, and it appears you just can't see beyond simplistic direct comparisons. Too bad for you.

Your rights are not inhibited or limited or infringed upon if laws are passed that say you can't own an assault weapon, any more than they are infringed or effected or harmed by the regulations or laws that don't allow you ownership of a tommy gun or a bazooka or a missile launcher or a nuclear bomb.

You still get a weapon, you still get to bear arms, just not the really, really rapid shooting gun that is a danger to law enforcement and average citizens and that harm outweighs your need to own it for fun.

Think of it this way, it will save you on target costs.

Just like a woman's right to vote did.

And the Freepers and other regressives every day are proving that we apparently NEED a damn amendment for abortion because the 4th and 9th just aren't enough for them!

ban abortions to your petty fear that you can't own an automatic weapon. See what type of response you get to that whacky analogy. :hi:

You claim to know the difference between an automatic and a semi-automatic, yet every single chance you get you deliberately confuse the latter with the former in order to further your agenda.

And again, you're deliberately saying we are comparing the right to choose with the right to own firearms when several people have explicitly said otherwise.

Being disingenuous does not strengthen your arguments.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=697952

Start the thread, I double dog dare you.

I am not being disingenuous, I have been steadfast in my position. Banning some guns does not equal banning all guns and thus, there is no infringement on your rights guaranteed under the 2nd amendment.

You get to own as many legal guns as you like. You just can't own the ones that the legislators deemed unsafe for society.

:hi:

then get back to me

whacky analogy.

I see you got all positive feedback. :sarcasm:

BTW, when you going to propose your legislation to your legislators.

I'm sure it will go over really big. :eyes:

Our friendly freepers are doing it. But you see, regulating is not an infringement or denial. I mean, we all just want 'reasonable' restrictions, right?

A woman's body is her body, not a concept, not a right, not a guarantee.

There is the big difference.

If you can't grasp that then you truly are dense and some med school/researcher might want to test the effect that the sound of gun fire has on the life of a brain cell.

I'm certainly not. Like I said previously, one is about a woman's body and one is about hardware.

But Falwell and others are. And they spend a lot of time and money advocating for the right of the fetus' or blastysis' (sp?) or zygote's "body".

And thus the ongoing argument about abortion in this country.

stop using their flawed and sick arguments to further your cause.

when you do, you further their cause and you can't blame anyone for thinking you like them and could be one of them

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I have the ability to reason and I know legally and even morally, the banning of a particular weapon does not equate to the outlawing of all guns and a violation of the 2nd Amendment. You just like to believe the freepers and let them scare ya, are you scared of the boogey man and those swarthy terrorists that "we are fighting over there so we don't have to fight 'em here?"

I'm not the idiot that introduced the abortion analogy to this discussion nor the total wack job that posted a thread about it.

You are truly delusional and I think you are posting on the wrong forum.

Their argument for guns, you evilly twist into a pro-abortion argument!!!!! I'm series!!111!1!11

The banning of a particular weapon MAY or MAY NOT be a violation of the 2nd Amendment. A law regulating a particular aspect of firearms possession, use, or sale MAY or MAY NOT be a violation of the 2nd Amendment.

To say with absolute certainty it IS or ISN'T is foolishness.

You can bring the same line of reasoning with the 1st Amendment. A regulation on speech MAY or MAY NOT violate the 1st Amendment. It depends on what is being banned or regulated. Banning a person shouting 'fire' without cause in a crowded theatre is illegal and not protected by the 1st. Banning a person from talking about, say, barbequeing, is legal and protected by the 1st.

And, again, for the third or fourth time, is is not an abortion analogy I am referring to. It is an analogy to the arguments, emotions, and restrictions advocated for or against by both sides.

And I don't keep guns because I'm afraid of "swarthy terrorists" or any of the other fictions that the reicht wing in this country keep screaming about. But apparently you've bought into the line about how we just can't trust people in this country with guns and we have to start banning them. Having fun with the Brady and gunguys.com people scaring you shitless about "stand-your-ground" laws, school shootings, and terrorists with .50 caliber sniper rifles?

2nd amendment

Your rantings and emotional arguments are like theirs, based in fear and based upon a lack of understanding of the facts.

You sure get all wound up over an object.


:rofl:

So, where, exactly, is my previous post wrong?

I'm not the one making an emotional argument about how we need to ban guns because they look scary. That's be, um, you.

I'm not the one making an emotional argument about how we need to all own 'assault weapons' because we have to defend ourselves against swarthy terrorists. That's be, um, you projecting your prejudice against gun owners on me.

And you're calling me wound up? And yet you're hovering on "My DU" just like I am, waiting to respond to round umpteen in our dialogue? He he! Pot, meet kettle! :-)

Of course the topics are not equal. One is about federal and/or state control over a part of your internal anatomy, the other is about property.

However, the methods of arguing are similar, the feelings invoked and expressed are similar, the real goals of the respective movements are similar, the strategic fights and incrementalism in state and federal legislatures are similar.

People argue that waiting periods for guns are not a violation of the 2nd Amendment. People also argue that waiting periods for abortions are not a violation of a woman's right to choose. Those kind of parallels.

Umm...H.R.1022 bans the most popular civilian target rifle in the United States BY NAME, namely the AR-15 platform. It also bans any self-loader that has a protruding handgrip, and most of the self-loaders that don't. The guns you are fighting to ban are now the most popular civilian rifles in America--and since rifles are rarely used in violent crime, obsessing about banning them is asinine.

The face of American target shooting:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dPgKhLIoL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/Shooters-Myths-Realities-Americas-Cultures/dp/0195150511

That competition rifle would be banned by H.R.1022, by both name and feature.

I have mentioned before that an "assault weapon" ban would cover half the guns in our family's gun safe. Like the vast majority of gun owners, my wife and I don't hunt, so I don't give the gluteals of a Ratus ratus if you'll "allow" me to own an uber-powerful scoped deer rifle or a high-zoot skeet shotgun; like most gun owners, I neither hunt nor shoot skeet. We'll keep our small-caliber self-loaders, thanks.



Might want to check your facts a bit. Ergonomic stocks with a vertical handgrip (thumbhole stock or separate pistol grip) dominate competitive rifle shooting, both rimfire and centerfire.


Anschutz bolt-action competition rifle


Biathlon rifle; note the AR-15-like grip angle


Hammerli target competition pistol, banned by H.R.1022 due to the nontraditional magazine placement


Benelli Steadygrip turkey hunting shotgun, banned by H.R.1022 due to stock shape


Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle, banned by name by H.R.1022


Ruger Mini-14 Target Model, banned by name and stock shape by H.R.1022

And a vertical handgrip isn't just more ergonomic for target shooting, it's also safer than a straight stock on a defensive carbine or shotgun, because it allows a position-sul type low ready position instead of a high ready or a muzzle-out low ready.

And have you ever shot a 16" barreled carbine at the range without a flash suppressor? I have. It's like an orange camera flash in your face with every shot.


5 rounds is ridiculously low capacity for a gun kept for defensive purposes. Carbines with three times that capacity hit the civilian market in the freaking 1860's, for crying out loud. A 10-round limit is silly enough, but a 5-round limit is positively asinine. And try shooting 10-shot groups with a 5-round magazine sometime.

When my wife and I are home, one of the carbines in our gun safe is chamber-empty, magazine loaded, and it will either have a 30-rounder in it (downloaded to 25 for spring longevity) if it's the .223, or a 20 if it's the 7.62x39mm. When going shooting at the range, I usually use 20-rounders for bench shooting off sandbags with the SAR-1, and 30's with the .223; for IDPA/3-gun type shooting, I'd probably use 30's for both, but I'm too busy to get into that scene at the moment.

BTW, if over-5-round guns, pistol-gripped longarms, adjustable-length stocks, etc. are useful only for murdering people as you claim, why do your proposals exempt pistols, shotguns, and rifles used by police? Precisely the same considerations would apply to ordinary civilian guns as apply to regular Title 1 police guns (non-SWAT).


Possession of an automatic weapon outside of police/military/government service is a 10-year Federal felony under the Title 2/Class III provisions of the National Firearms Act, unless you obtain Federal authorization (BATFE Form 4), a fact you are well aware of.

The "assault weapon" bait-and-switch doesn't have a damn thing to do with automatic weapons, just NON-automatic civilian guns. Namely, over-5-round shotguns, over-10-round rifles and pistols, rifles and shotguns with handgrips that stick out, and guns you guys apparently just think are too popular with the law-abiding (mini-14's, AR-15's, SKS's, M1 carbines, M1A's).

Assault weapons are semi-automatic, not automatic.

You seem to be an expert on it, so where is it?

If you're going to argue that the 2nd is about militias instead of general sporting purposes, then the gov't can't regulate anything that can reasonably used by a militiaman in defense of his country and state.

That would mean that the feds could put whatever warm fuzzy regulations on non-military single-shot rifles and double-barreled shotguns but couldn't touch any repeating rifle or shotgun because nearly all of those can be effectively used by a militiaman.

And in case you're wondering what a 'militiaman' is...

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=browse_usc&docid=Cite:+10USC311

I've responded to enough of you and you all are boring.

Go rub your cold metal purdy gun with some gun oil and talk about how your rights might be infringed because they want to outlaw your automatic weapon.

I am so damned tired of folks accusing dems, lefties, progressives, whatever, of wanting to violate their rights as provided by the 2nd Amendment when we advocate gun regulations.

Then as a party we need to come up with laws that don't ban popular weapons almost never used in crimes based on the number of inches by which the handgrip protrudes from the trigger housing (in the process, banning the safer modern style of pistol grip). And we need to adopt more honest rhetoric... the invention of the term "assault weapon" was very good at fooling people who don't know much about firearms, but it was even better at alienating people who do know something about firearms and are offended by the dishonesty in that label and the arbitrary and capricious way it has been applied.

2nd amendment. Regulation does not equal taking away all guns or violating your right to keep and bear arms.

Damnit, I don't care if you really like your purty gun, if the legislature rules that they are a threat to society, then they are obligated to pass laws to protect society. That is how things work.

I dislike the dishonesty of legislators' claiming that giving an ordinary civilian rifle a protuding pistol grip, or putting a pistol's magazine well in front of the trigger instead of behind it, in any way increases the threat that weapon represents.

If you can give me a coherent argument as to how either of those features actually represent a greater threat, I'll be happy to consider them (and I think legislatures have a perfectly valid interest in regulating firearms just like any other consumer product).

As it is, what I see is legislatures banning guns that "look frightening" but are not in any way more dangerous than other weapons. And that makes me and others worry that the actual agenda is a death-by-a-thousand-cuts banning of all or most firearms.

So, again, the devil is in the details here: if you can tell me how the characteristics that classify a weapon as an "assault weapon" actually make that weapon any more dangerous to the public, I'm more than happy to consider them.

See Parker vs DC/Adrien Fenty. The court overturned a ban on handguns on second amendment grounds.




The point, is that the argument can not be supported that weapons used less than 3 percent of all homicides are a "threat to society". Anyone that considers weapons used less than 3 percent of all homicides a "threat to society" and takes a public stance on it will be removed from the political process via political force by the 40 million or so people they piss off.

Go read the case law on banned weapons. You get to keep and bear your arms, just not every arm you want.

And by the way, you guys can go back to the gun forum, the little tag team attacks are old.

Again, see the case law of Parker vs DC/Fenty. In Parker vs DC/Fentygun, a ban was overturned on second amendment grounds.





That is in direct opposition to what you said. It is therefore plenty debatable.


You said "Regulation does not equal taking away all guns or violating your right to keep and bear arms." Right...and the anti-abortion crowd could say something very similar about abortion, you know...not taking away "all abortions", and it would fly like a lead balloon. Bans are not just regulation, they are prohibition. That does not change whether the topic is guns, alcohol, drugs or abortion.





My opinions are my own. My posts are my own. There is noone telling me, advising me, or otherwise guiding me on how what where or when to post. There is no coordinated effort on my part to "tag team" anyone. It just so happens alot of people here disagree with you, and I am one of them. Not only that, noone attacked you. People questioned some of your statements, and rightfully called them out as incorrect. Some folks call that debate. Did you expect something other than debate?


Edited to add the DC decision text.

Do you own a nuclear bomb (that's an "arm"), do you have the right to own one? How about the bazooka or the tommy gun?

Gosh you gun guys are such extremists. :rofl:

Noone except you is talking about nuclear weapons or bazookas in this discussion. This discussion, as far as I can see is about firearms. A tommy gun is a machine gun, and again, is regulated by the NFA of 1934. NOT BANNED.

And noone but you is talking about prohibition while calling it regulation.

you can't have one, now can you. It is a legitimate part of this discussion, what weapons can you own under the 2nd amendment, what weapons can't you own, according to you and your narrow understanding of the 2nd amendment? And to be honest with you, the way things are in our world, the ownership of nuclear devices is more in line with the need of militia (the 2nd amendment) than is the weapon with that collapsable stock.

I'm sure like I said there are some very hardcore libertarians who think that way but I don't see it here or among 2nd Amendment Democrats in general.

We are not arguing that the AWB was an inherently unconstitutional law we are arguing that it was a stupid, pointless, and ineffective law.

All I see from the 2nd amendment crowd is that dems don't respect the 2nd amendment and that regulating guns, telling someone what gun they can or cannot own, is a violation of the 2nd amendment. If you don't agree with these statements then why the hell do you continue to debate me?

I have made no judgment on the law, my only comments have been about the purdy guns and the very simple fact "gun regulation does not equate to a violation of the 2nd amendment" - I need to make that an animated gif with a url code so posting it will be quicker given the number of times I have written it in this thread.

A stupid and ineffective but Constitutionally permissable prior restraint on speech shows disrespect for the first amendment. A stupid and ineffective but Constitutionally permissable ban of certain types of firearms shows disrespect for the second amdendment.

You are right that I have argued that our party has a reputation for disrespecting the 2nd amendment and that it's largely our own fault. I stand by that.

it is your fault, you keep twisting the message or rather, you continue to repeat the NRA's take or the rights version.

If it is your party, then it is your message, it's up to you to correct it.

GUN REGULATIONS ARE NOT THE SAME AS OUTLAWING ALL GUNS - which would be the violation of the 2nd amendment.

When a party, a group, or an individual steps up and proposes, backs, or enacts a BAN, it will not be seen as regulation by the people it effects. It will be seen as what it IS. A BAN. And those people doing the proposing, backing or enacting will not be seen as people trying to regulate. They will be seen as banners. And rightly so.

Whether it violates second amendment rights or not, it throws a wrench in the works, and prevent things like national health care, social safety net, protection of choice for women, and allows for things like our military invading foreign countries, killing thousands of human beings in iraq, the needless death of thousands of soldiers, and a host of other things that noone hereabouts finds any too pleasant.

I am really amazed at the way folks allow fear to warp their judgment and reason.

Can you own a bazooka or dynomite or a hand grenade or a functioning gun from a war ship? How about a missile, nuclear or otherwise? How about a tommy gun or a sawed off rifle?

Those are ARMS (armament - weapons) - get a fucking grip and find something worthwhile to worry about, like war with Iran or that executive order that gives him and the military such power.

Sell all the guns you own that fall on that list and buy guns that aren't on the list, you can have as many of them as you like.

If your going to accuse someone of lieing, you should probably back it up eh?

And yes, one can own a bazooka or dynamite, or a hand grenade or a functioning gun from a warship, or a tommy gun or a sawed off rifle (whatever that means...I presume you meant shotgun).Those things are classified as NFA weapons and/or destructive devices by law and if one goes through the background check, and the long waiting period that usually goes with approval, and pays the 200 dollar tax, assuming one passes the background check, then indeed yes a person can own one. I am not aware of any law that prevents someone from owning missiles nuclear or otherwise. Not that I or most people would be interested in such things or that owning either of those would be sensible, but you asked.

In case you hadn't noticed, there is no list anymore. No AWB anymore. And none likely to become federal law anytime soon. We have a Democratic pro-gun congress.

Red herring...that question was settled by COMPROMISE 73 years ago. Those things are restricted largely because we are OK with you restrict them, in exchange for the Title 1 protections on our ordinary civilian guns.

Now you are trying to shatter that compromise, and take away many ordinary guns that have been deemed suitable for civilians to own for 60 to 145 years.

We didn't (and aren't) fighting about serious military hardware, here. We are fighting to preserve the lawful ownership by law-abiding adults with clean records of non-automatic civilian firearms under .51 caliber that meet the CIVILIAN (Title 1) requirements of the NFA.

Argue until you are blue in the face about whether you think the bans you propose are Constitutional; you obviously think they are, most gun owners think they aren't. But that doesn't matter worth a crap, because 40 million people DO own stuff you want to ban, and we are keeping it.


No, some of them are ordnance. Of those that are arms that can be kept and borne (rules out crew-served weapons there), the question was settled by compromise 73 years ago. See above.


You mean, like the lie that small-caliber rifles are "the weapon of choice of criminals"?

Murder, By State and Type of Weapon (FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 2005, Table 20)

All rifles combined account for less than 3% of homicides. All rifles COMBINED.


That'd be my #1 priority, if a bunch of fearmongering lobbyists weren't constantly threatening to ban half my guns.

It's you that is making the gun issue Priority 1, not me. You know gun bans will be fought tooth and nail by those whom they affect, and yet you push them anyway, because outlawing rifle handgrips that stick out is just SO much more important than health care reform, reigning in Gonzo (who shares your obsession with my guns, FWIW), and figuring out a solution to the Iraq mess.


No, how about my wife and I keep them, and you stay the hell out of my gun safe, and we work together on something that matters instead of having to waste time fighting your fearmongering about rifle stock shape.

The Second Amendment debate is generally about small arms NOT nuclear weapons. You know...FIREARMS.

Therefore it is NOT a legitimate part of the discussion.





Let me make sure I understand you here. You are saying that the second amendment is more applicable to weapons of mass and indiscriminant destruction than to firearms?

Damnit, I don't care if you really like your purty gun

Being condescending to me doesn't really help the debate. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about me based on my stance on firearms including, judging by the spelling, my accent. You didn't bother to find out that I have a graduate degree, did my undergrad in classical literature, live in a large city, go to the opera every chance I get, buy organic food as often as I can, etc.

This is a culture war we don't need to fight. There are a lot of people who don't like guns, don't know much about them, don't much like people who do like guns, make a lot of unfounded assumptions about us, and see no need to ever learn much about the very guns they think are at fault for the level of violence in our society. Sadly, some of these people have decided to turn my party into the mouthpiece for their views, which has cost us greatly in previous elections in addition to being the Wrong Thing to do from a moral and constitutional standpoint.

You tout your concerns for the 2nd amendment when the 2nd amendment is not involved. You have the right to keep and bear arms, just not every make and model, not every caliber and function, neat little add on or destructive device you want.

So stop saying dems and libs and progressives don't like the 2nd amendment or respect gun owners because that is a lie.

...me making assumptions about your life or accent or motivations to belittle your point, as you did to me with the "purdy gun" bit.

All I have pointed out is that the AWB was arbitrary, capricious, and did not do anything to improve public safety or address the guns that are used in 97% of gun crimes.

Like you, I believe that the right to bear arms is in no sense absolute and is subject to legislative regulation. But like with all other civil rights, I believe that legislation regulating it should be well-thought out and should address an exigent public need. Banning weapons based on their appearance -- particularly classes of weapons that are used to kill fewer people every year than bare hands are -- is neither well-thought-out nor does it address a public need. I have never claimed that the 2nd amendment grants me a blanket right to own any arbitrary gun, any more than the 1st amendment grants me a blanket right to say absolutely anything at any time or place. Rather, I think any regulations of either right need to be made very very carefully and only when an actual and real public (or private) harm can be countered by them, and only when that harm outweighs the value of the right being limited.

If you can tell me how the country is made less safe by the shape of the grip on my hypothetical rifle or the placement of the magazine on my hypothetical pistol, let's talk; if not, I will remain convinced that the AWB was a fairly cynical attempt to mobilize voters who don't know much about firearms.

or your shiny weapons. You have the right to keep and bear arms under the 2nd amendment, as do I, you just don't get to pick and chose every weapon you want and own it if the legislature has banned it. Regulations does not equal infringement. :hi:

Oh, I have to ask, do you go to those probush boards and give them hell that bush & gonzo want to regulate weapons now? Just wondering. If you do, I would love to be a fly on that wall.

You have the right to keep and bear arms under the 2nd amendment, as do I, you just don't get to pick and chose every weapon you want and own it if the legislature has banned it. Regulations does not equal infringement.

And as I've repeatedly said (and you've repeatedly ignored) I'm not against the principle that legislatures can regulate what firearms civilians can own, nor are the vast majority of gun-rights advocates I've met. I'm not saying the AWB is directly unconstitutional, I'm saying it's stupid. I don't recall ever bringing up the 2nd amendment in the context of arguing against the AWB.

So, rather than addressing the argument I didn't make about Constitutionality, it would be very nice if you could address the argument I did make, that the AWB is a poorly-thought out law that was passed based on media manipulation and outright lies, and only covers a class of weapons that are used to kill fewer people each year than bare hands are.

it is not an infringement of your 2nd amendment right and to say it is is a lie.

If you don't think it is then what the fuck are you continually posting to me as if I care about your stupid guns.

I don't care - I've owned guns, cleaned guns, fired guns, competed with guns, lost guns and lost friends because of guns, I don't like them and I don't give a rats ass about your love of them or the AWB - I do care that you and others like to confuse things - if you support the AWB you will be infringing on our gun rights and the 2nd amendment, our party does a bad job of blah, blah blah

Seriously, I could care less about the AWB - I see no use for the assault weapons on that list or the little extra goodies.

Go lecture someone else.

Did crimerates lessen when we had the AWB? No? Why not?
Could it be because it is ineffective feel good legislation that made soccer moms feel better?
The reason many of us are against the AWB is because it would do nothing to lessen crime, it has no effect. The cosmetic features have no effect on the lethality of the weapon. Assault weapons are light caliber semi automatic rifles, they use vamped down versions of standard rifle rounds to reduce recoil. This is a silly discussion about silly legislation.
Why support the ban if it provides no positive benefits? Because you dont like them? Grow up.

(the AWB) is not an infringement of your 2nd amendment right and to say it is is a lie.

And I'm not saying it is and no matter how often you repeat it the claim that I oppose the AWB on 2nd amendment grounds is a lie.

They keep banning me because... surprise surprise... I'm a liberal Democrat. And, yes, for the three or four posts I can get in before they tombstone me, I do often point out how hypocritical it is for Bush to run on a pro-gun-rights platform (damn near the only part of his platform I agree with) and then in fact work so hard to deny people gun rights.

a bunch of righties. I wish you did have access, it would be so much fun to watch you give 'em hell.

Have you tried PH or NU?

Damn, some of the people here act like Ruger is going to kick in their front door and epoxy a 9mm into each hand in the house.

Well, when don't bother to actually go through the process of learning how to handle guns and respect them, this is what you get.

It may not be legal but the law would not stop the transfer. Making more gun laws "sounds" good and "feels" good but it doesn't prevent gun violence.

That article is nonsense...there are plenty liberals who aren't about to let their guns be taken away -especially- by
a government run by the likes of Bushco.

They could still hunt and protect themselves from similarly armed "criminals", lunatics, enraged spouses, and adolescents playing at being badguys.

And, it would give the brave hunters a chance to display real bravery when getting their "trophies" of bears, moose, and vicious quail.

Criminals will all start carrying un-bent coat hangers and firewood!

Any gun control may prevent some tragedy, even a big one like VA Tech. No form of gun control can prevent them all. But having no gun control at all would lead to much greater gun violence.

One of the assumptions in the piece: having some "good" people carrying guns reduces the risk of being killed by a "bad" person with a gun. I've been asked the question about a nutcase coming in to shoot up a restaurant where I'm eating -- whether I'd prefer that no one else have a gun or that ten of the customers be so armed. My immediate answer: NO ONE ELSE. I'd rather have to dodge bullets from one nutcase than from 11.

As to total gun control, no civilians allowed to have guns, that conflicts with our culture and our history. I have no idea whether the 2nd Amendment was meant to address individual's rights to own guns; but I am convinced that Americans in general would not be willing to give up all civilian gun ownership, no matter what the Constitution says. I also note, however, that the motivational statement in the 2nd Amendment bases it on the desirability of a well-regulated militia. So, if that 'militia' includes guns in the hands of individuals, the 2nd Amendment itself notes that this situation need be well-regulated.

No guns, no gun crime.

I want solutions that reduce overall violent crime and murder. Not ones that substitute gun crime with knife crime.

The UK's gun homicides are less than a hundred per year, ours number 10,000. That is at least two orders of magnitude less than ours. Is the UK making progress?

No.

In the last 40 years, the UK's homicide rate (murders per capita) has steadily increased to the point that 2005 is twice that of 1967.

So reducing gun homicides and gun crime is a distraction from the real issue.

While it may be true that gun restrictions are not in play in their massive difference between our statistics the increase they have experienced in no way demands that the guns did not make a difference. In fact it would be foolish to expect that guns were the only factor in crime statistics. But it is still heavily suggestive that the lack of guns leads to a critical difference in fatalities compared to US statistics.

My argument was that dancing in joy because a country has a low gun homicide rate is false happiness if the overall homicide rate is climbing.

The guns-per-capita argument is a different one, one that, being a night shift worker about to leave for my job, I cannot make now.

Check out the high-response posts in the Gungeon.

toodles!

Until you look at comparisons *WITHIN* the United States. For example, New Jersey has some of the most draconian gun laws in the country; Florida, some of the most permissive. Their homicide rates are practically identical (4.8/100K, 5.0/100K), despite Florida having something like twice the population, AND Miami, AND the drug trade.

Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Maine, and a lot of other VERY pro-gun states have homicide rates far lower than that of New Jersey (never mind Maryland!), suggesting that other demographic factors play a much larger role than lawful gun ownership in influencing criminal violence.

Those same demographic factors in play between Maryland and NJ and Minnesota also play in U.S.-Canada or U.S.-Europe comparisons. The U.S. has pockets of urban blight and socioeconomic hopelessness that breed violent crime (many of which are in legal-gun-free zones, FWIW) and fixing THOSE problems would do a lot more toward reducing the U.S. aggregate violent crime rate than banning lawful gun ownership would.

FWIW, the U.S. homicide rate is higher than most of the developed world, but not "massively" higher. IIRC, our homicide rate is about 1.5 times that of Germany and 3.5 times that of the UK; higher, yes, but not nearly an order of magnitude higher.

Guns are much more efficient at killing. Guns are long range weapons. Guns kill innocent bystanders.

I would rather have more knife crime than gun crime.

That's the goal here.

Cheering that a smaller percentage of the body pile has bullet holes is useless and silly when the body pile is the same size year after year.

:eyes:

Innocent bystanders.

As opposed to victims of rape and murder, robbery and murder, hate-fueled murder, wanton murder, etc.? Those people had it coming?

But rape, robbery, even hate fueled murder is usually a gun crime. Crimes committed with knives are usually domestic disputes, arguments between people who know each other, etc. It's not so easy to rob someone with a knife. I'm not saying it can't and doesn't happen, but guns are the primary weapon for a robber or a rapist.

Violent crime is a tough and complex issue. There are many variables that need to be examined. My problem with guns as opposed to knives relates to the all too common scenario of someone walking down the street and dying by a stray bullet. That, in some sense (psychological, I guess), is arguably much worse than hearing about a husband who stabbed his estranged wife to death. It doesn't mean I'm happy to hear about it or that I think the victim "had it coming". Another scenario would be the gang-bangers who shoot at each other for whatever reason in the middle of a crowd. Is it worse to have rival gang members in a knife fight or a gun fight? The answer is obvious.

Then again, you may hear about a random knife attack where the motive was robbery and argue about the difference between whether or not the robber had used a gun or a knife. Though we still have an innocent dead person, any other innocent bystanders/witnesses to such a crime would not be in much danger if the robber is using a knife. This is what I'm getting at when I say I'd "rather" hear about more knife crime than gun crime. (By the way, I don't really mean that. Of course we'd all rather have no crime at all). The comparison is ludicrous because knives are not long range weapons and knives are not as immediately lethal, either.

You're a fool if you think you can remove gun violence by trying to take away all guns.

Kates and Kleck in The Great American Gun Debate (1997) cite research indicating that even groups supporting complete prohibition of guns concede this action will have little substantial effect on crime. They conclude that the reason prohibitionism is nevertheless advocated "...comes less from a belief that it will reduce crime than from a cultural and moral opposition to them . At bottom it replicates the view of many who opposed legalization of homosexual and other practices deemed 'deviant' on moral grounds even while agreeing that laws will not eradicate such practices. In this view prohibition is desirable even though ineffective, because it brands the banned conduct (gun ownership, homosexual love, or whatever) as loathsome and immoral."

Another way of saying it's all about culture war and hatred. It smells just as bad, coming from liberals.

and any attempt to coerce disarmament would result in all-out civil war. The literal kind.

Gun owners have little problem with background checks, prohibitions on criminal possession and use, and so on. The gun-control lobby isn't particularly interested in that approach, though, judging from their fixation on banning the lawful ownership of guns that are rarely misused.

The gun-control lobby isn't particularly interested in that approach, though, judging from their fixation on banning the lawful ownership of guns that are rarely misused.

The guy who wrote the incoherent screed linked in the opening post, a right-wing asshole whose scribblings are published by some little coven of right-wing assholes, and a complete nobody to boot?

There's one born every minute. And they're all equipped for jousting with straw thingies from birth, it seems.

This author cites Singapore as if it's one of the most free countries in the world simply because it has a low crime rate associated with guns.

Others ARE right, this is just another aspect of the culture war. People that live in the big urban areas, who have never owned, shot or even handled a gun attempting to lecture the rest of the US on morality and behavior.

That anybody would read something written by a right-wing asshole in a magazine for right-wing assholes, that doesn't even make the least stitch of sense, and get all in a boiling fwet about it ... without, apparently, bothering to inform themselves even minimally about what they're reading, who wrote it, who published it ...

Do read my other post. In the meantime: the author is FROM Singapore, and he's a completely right-wing asshole. Help at all?

"compromise" isn't a solution; not because it derails his pipe-dream... but because as a gun owner and RKBA supporter, "compromise" isn't even in my vocabulary and will never be an option to consider.

and this guy sure seems to have found the right audience here.

Check my other post.

(You can just scroll down to the bottom below the dotted line if you want the executive summary)

But then the gunheads do love their straw targets, so may as well offer 'em one once in a while and let 'em have at it.

The thing is just stuffed with straw.

In contrast, the solutions offered by liberals and conservatives would each have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre. If the left had its comprehensive gun legislation, Cho would never have acquired the weapons for his murderous rampage in the first place. If the right had its way, some of Cho’s victims in Norris Hall would all have carried concealed weapons and would have been able to defend themselves.

Neither statement is "true". (In that both statements are predictions, neither could be actually true.) Even with tight regulations, there will be a black market of some sort, just for starters, since all of the millions and millions of unregistered firearms in existence in the real world when regulation began would not disappear in puffs of gunsmoke, so statement one is wrong. Even with unregulated carrying of concealed firearms, not everyone, and not even one person in ever conceivable group, is going to be carrying a firearm, so statement two is wrong.

Therefore, we are led to an interesting conclusion. In theory, the left’s position on gun control would be optimal (“No Guns, No Crime”).

Huh. Suddenly it's not "comprehensive gun legislation" any more, it's "no guns". And suddenly it isn't "having fewer guns will lead to fewer gun-related crimes" any more, it's "no crime". What kind of a moron would actually say "no guns, no crime"? It's false to start with, and pointless at the very best.

In practice, however, the right’s position (“More Guns, Less Crime”) ...

Well, lucky right-wingers. They aren't being portrayed as *complete* morons.

Either of these solutions would work. Unfortunately, a mixed, decentralized stance on this particular issue would not, given the unique power and danger held by those who hold guns.

Work ... FOR WHAT? Recreating the garden of Eden? Probably not ...

The process of enforcing a total disarmament of our population will be costly and may require draconian measures. It may be necessary to modify parts of the Second Amendment. And given the political influence of the National Rifle Association and pro-gun Republicans in Congress, it will almost certainly be difficult to pass such stringent gun control legislation. But if our leaders could pull off such a legislative feat, our streets would be as safe as Singapore’s.

BOGEYMAN BOGEYMAN!!! OVER THERE!!!

Oops. It was just a straw one.

And some people think ... or claim to think ... that people who write shit like this actually support firearms control ...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Here's a little of who the author is:
http://www.stanfordreview.org/About/Staff/cseck.shtml

Though there is some truth to the idea of global warming ...

Unfortunately, although Obama’s current rhetoric calls for America to transcend her racial differences, his past views on race, as indicated in Dreams from My Father, suggest a character that is deeply compromised, shrewd, and expedient. While these ugly qualities might make him a good D.C. politician, they should not make him president of the United States.

An Early Introduction To Liberal Bias

But what the fuck is the Stanford Review??

Well, here's the self-advert on its home page:



So ...

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DOING AT DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND?

and feel like a complete moron. Cheesies, the enthusiastic gullibility around here ... to put it, um, generously ... never ceases to amaze.

This bullshit has no place at Democratic Underground, and anyone who takes the article linked in the OP seriously is just too willing to believe that the left/liberals are evil morons to be allowed out alone.

I haven't read your link nor have I read most of the posts on here. I am JUST responding to your "subject" line.

Yes, around here, it is all or nothing, on most issues. This group is far too large to actually have mediators who can point out the unfairness/fairness on both sides.

However, as someone who does NOT own a gun, I still must say that I see more unfairness on the side of the anti-gun people. They don't listen. They simply accuse everyone who doesn't agree with them of being a Freeper or so brain-dead they've bought the line of the Freeper. They never address the REAL AND ACTUAL fears of REAL AND ACTUAL people, at all. They simply malign everyone who doesn't support taking all the guns...an impossible feat as this country is swimming in guns. They accuse gun owners of all being idiots. They accuse gun owners of all being naive, simple-minded and gullible and this is the best of what they accuse gun owners of being. They NEVER address fears about protecting one's family, protecting oneself...against criminals, the government itself, killers, etc. They only demonize everyone who doesn't agree with them.

About the worse thing I see from the gun owners is calling the others "gun grabbers" or telling them that they don't support the 2nd amendment. That's it. I see nowhere near the same level of condescension, arrogance and lack of compassion or understanding... ...and I NEVER see them deal with the real fears real people have, that makes them want to own guns. ...the social issues that created a country of gun slingers.

So, once again...nope, no, no sireee bob, noperoonie, no no no...no real discourse because no mediation in the argument.
Lee