KWhit
3487
That analogy is incredibly offensive.
Okay, I’m listening. I was trying to describe perceptions of certain segments of society in a historical context. I’m always ready to learn the proper mechanics for talking about social issues. Analogies are an important tool for explaining firearms politics to the Left, so I want to get it right. The floor is yours.
I think legislation is often about compromise, building momentum, and easing into things. Do you think meaningful/impactful gun legislation (e.g., registration and licensure, as is the case in nearly the rest of the industrialized world) had a snowball’s chance in hell? It certainly doesn’t have any chance today.
The assault weapons ban probably had very little impact on crime. But, it was probably pushed for political impact/pandering to base/etc. more than as a true piece of anti-crime legislation.
I think merely chalking it up to ignorance of the proponents on how guns work is over-simplifying things. There’s a very good likelihood that the proponents knew fully well that it wouldn’t have much impact on crime and drafted it the way they did for pragmatic, political reasons (including the chance of it passing).
I fully support your implication that Dianne Feinstein is a pandering politician willing to propose ineffective legislation! We agree.
But if you educate the base, there’s no more base to pander to, is there? Obviously it’s utopian to think we’re going to get every ignorant person out to the gun range anytime soon. But when has that stopped anyone in P&R? Let me play too.
I think politicians on both sides of the aisle pander, particular the long-term ones. It is, however, stupid to think that pandering is the sole basis for any piece of legislation. Any major piece of legislation involves a mix of pandering, pragmatism, grand-standing, optimism, and true conviction. Politics is a complicated game.
Hell, I hope that Feinstein consciously knew that some of the bill was about pandering to the base and building political capital rather than ignorantly believing it would have a huge impact on crime. I’d rather have intelligent, manipulative, realists representing my interests rather than ignorant true believers.
As to ignorant bases, both sides suffer from that as well-- the question is often about the degree of ignorance and what the topic is. I’ll take ignorance on gun knowledge over belief that the world is 6,000 years old, any day. Alas, ignorance on both sides is never going to go away.
I realize regular fireams are just as deadly as “assault weapons.” That’s why I put it in quotes in my post. As I said, I don’t have an opinion one way or the other on them. I’ll let both sides fight that one out.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You guys have it easy. It’s hard not to cringe when another fat awkward white man shows up to defend gun rights and reinforce the stereotype, at which point he decides now is the time to tell a reporter his opinion on gays and minorities. Weeee!
I hope I don’t regret joining this discussion; but here goes.
Curious to hear peoples opinions…how much do you think this back and forth over “assault rifles” is influenced by this countries fetishization of all things Special Ops since 9/11?
Edit:
I’ll expand a little on my thoughts because its somewhat trolly to just lurk and jump in with a question like that.
Living in NYC my whole life I admit the gun culture of a lot of this country is foreign to me. Through work I have been exposed to and spent time with coworkers from around the country, some of whom are very much pro gun. I always found it interesting that the feelings about guns, from the friends I know in the south, cut across party lines. That is to say that I have extremely liberal friends in Texas who are very pro-gun, etc.
WRT to the things we are calling “assault rifles”; it is indeed very much a distinction based solely on appearance as has been stated a shotgun is just as deadly as an m-16. It seems though that when we talk about “assault rifles” we are talking about a very specific look, with the forward grips, the Picatinny rails, the acog scope and the shoulder sling etc that we associate with that spec ops, seal team 6 thing.
At the risk of an over generalization…It just seems sometimes that we have an particular attachment to a certain type of gun, assault rifles in this case and I’m just wondering where that comes from.
There was a discussion about this recently. I think that fetish had more to do with the militarization of police.
Citizens’ love affair with the AR-15 has a lot of different reasons: soldiers coming home from war, the accessorization craze driven by forums and social media, a Democrat in the White House, pent-up demand from the expiration of the AWB in 2004, etc. I’m sure there are more.
- Yes, an assault rifle can be significantly deadlier than a normal semi-automatic weapon. Its not the folding stock or the forward grips. Its the big magazines allowing lots of shots before reload. When the assault weapon ban lifted, this was what bothered me. Yes, a single shot from a shotgun or rifle will kill you, but the big magazines is what helps enable the mass killings we have seen too often recently.
- The ban on assault weapons was a political move, of course. I myself would have like to have long arms restricted to manual loading (pump, bolt, lever, etc) and severly limited semiauto pistols (again, magazine size). This should have satisfied reasonable sportmen hunters and home defense people, but was absolutely not politically possible due to people who interpret the constitution as granting military-grade gun rights.
- Finally in the link http://www.assaultweapon.info/ there is great discussion on how a assault rifle is not a machine gun. True! But in the military we were trained to fire aimed single shots with the M16. In different accounts I have read, alot of our success in the middle east conflicts is because the opponent rattles off ammo in full auto mode, while the American troops respond with disciplined marksmanship. My point is an AR15 and the like are truely military-grade weapons. Do citizens need this kind of firepower? I think not.
I’ve been around many weapons from sport shooting to hunters to military weapons training. The image of these people with the full paramilitary weapons at the fast food place or whatever does not inspire me with confidence in thier judgement at all. I’d be worried if a car backfired nearby that there would be a free fire that would mow down the entire crowd.
To create a more effective message, I suggest some of you guys strengthen your grip on reality. When you question the judgment of others and then follow that up with FUD, it makes you look silly and hypocritical. These are watchwords that instantly tell me you’re not genuine or fully informed.
Now, you certainly don’t have to. Maybe you’ve stumbled on the right idea anyway. (See the comment about fat awkward white men above.) But you’re letting us kick back in our chairs and take easy shots at these obvious irrational overreaches.
Just a friendly suggestion.
RichVR
3498
I’ve fired an AR15 at my local range a few times. It’s a pleasure to aim and fire. I can see why someone might enjoy using one. But personally I can’t see owning one. Too expensive.
SEATTLE (AP) – Police say a Seattle Pacific University student on Thursday disarmed a lone gunman who entered a building and shot four people.
A hospital spokeswoman says one man has died and three other people are injured, one critically.
Police say the student building monitor disarmed the gunman as he was reloading.
Washington doesn’t seem to have a high capacity magazine ban, but here’s an example where quick-thinking individuals can take action while the gunman is reloading, which may occur more often with lower capacity magazines.
Not sure what a building monitor is. I’ll be amazed if he was trained or allowed by policy to do this, so I’m interested in hearing more.
No word yet on the gunman’s love life.
The time I went shooting with a guy who had an AR-15, the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the ammo cost. I think he was saying $1 a round. I double-checked just now, and it’s not that bad, it looks like you can get it online for $0.30 a round or so. It’s cheaper than .45 ACP! Sure, the caliber is smaller, but I’m sure there’s more propellant in the rifle rounds.
Still, costs do add up quickly. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to a range, but you can go through 50-100 rounds in short order very easily.
olaf
3501
30 cents a round is cheaper than 5.56 has been in a while. I don’t own an AR platform because of the ammo costs. I went with an AK-74 and the 5.45x39 round, of which there was incredible amounts of cheap Russian surplus ammo. Then the BATFE banned its importation for no good reason, its still pretty much the cheapest centerfire round but prices have gone up about 20%. Thanks Obama.
Sarkus
3502
Most mass killings involve small magazines and not even assault rifles, actually. That guy in LA last week? A bunch of 10 round mags and a pistol. And making it seem like its just “assault rifles” that have large capacity magazines is not correct. For example, the Ruger Mini 14 was not banned by either the Clinton-era AWB, nor was it on Feinstein’s list last year. That’s because its not an assault rifle in the form its most commonly sold. But you can put 30 round magazines on it and it fires the same round as the AR15. In fact, you can put large capacity magazines on just about any semi-auto magazine fed gun, pistol or rifle. That was the stupidity of these proposals - the Mini 14 was the gun used by the guy in Norway and it was the gun used in a very famous (and important in its consequences) FBI involved shootout in Miami in the 1980s. And yet it never ends up on these “assault rifle” bans because its not an assault rifle. I’m not suggesting it should be banned, just pointing out that what a gun looks like has nothing to do with its lethality. If you want to know about whether those proposals are about appearance over substance, that tells you all you need to know.
Magazine capacity is also an issue where it isn’t clear if limiting it has any real impact. The previous AWB limited magazines to 10 rounds, but there is no evidence that had any impact on any shooting or mass shooting during the 10 years the ban was in effect. For example, the Columbine shooters had a semi-auto rifle with only 10 round magazines that was the gun fired the most by far (96 times).
AR’s are actually pretty cheap. Even before the Newtown shootings you could get a brand new one in the $700 range. They are actually cheaper then that at the moment because the huge demand last year has been replaced by a glut this year, which is also the reason the ammo is pretty cheap now as well. The irony at the moment is that AR’s and ammo for it are cheap and easy to find while 22lr ammo is just about impossible to find.
As Tim pointed out, the latest shooting was halted by some brave individual(s) when the shooter stopped to reload. I think a hard limit on magazine capacity at say 6 rounds could help the issue, and a limit to make long arms manual load. You really do not need high capacity mags to protect your home or take down a deer.
To create a more effective message, I suggest some of you guys strengthen your grip on reality. When you question the judgment of others and then follow that up with FUD, it makes you look silly and hypocritical. These are watchwords that instantly tell me you’re not genuine or fully informed.
Tim
I tried to have concrete points in the beginning of my post regarding assault weapons overall, then end with a personal observation. Its not an overreach. i have been in military units with all manner of weapons, and with hunters, and in both cases felt personally very safe. I have also been with paramilitary gun fans, and there was a swagger and machismo and I did not feel safe. I think perhaps the difference is that with military and with hunters, the weapon is a dangerous tool with a defined purpose. For the paramilitary gun fan, the weapon seemed to be empowerment (at least that is how they acted). I cannot say all paramilitary gun fans feel that way, but in the images and videos we see on the news I see the same swagger and focus on the weapon. Not saying all gun owners are like this, but they are vocal, and I do not want to shop or have a burrito with them while they are sporting a loaded AR15.
For reference, a new Smith revolver will go for 700-1000. Materials matter.
The problem is that mass shooters plan their attacks. If you restrict capacity to some arbitrary number they’ll just change methodology. Assuming of course that they can’t get access to a high capacity weapon, which is a bold assumption considering the supply.
Case in point just this week in New Brunswick a man with an M14 (legally owned) shot 5 Mounties in broad daylight on a suburban street, killing 3 of them. The Mounties all wore standard issue vests of course, suitable for stopping 9mm but there is no defence against a rifle that powerful except the hardest of hard cover.
The man was a gun enthusiast, but more importantly he was also a conspiracy theory wacko who may have been attempting suicide by cop; seems he reconsidered though as he is now finally in custody without a further fight.
Also salient, the École Polytechnique massacre here in Montreal in 1989 was executed with a Ruger Mini 14.
I hold though that the purpose of gun legislation should not be specifically to stop spree shooting, but to minimize gun violence in general and restrict from circulating as much as possible the guns that tend to be used in crime most, i.e. handguns, submachineguns. In Canada this is managed pretty well I feel, in a way that does not prohibit responsible people from owning handguns, but interpersonal transfers of handguns are strictly regulated. Long guns suitable for hunting and shotguns are not so restricted.
