Two simple questions about slaughtering tools
What right is lost if you can't buy a high capacity magazine?
What state interest is served by allowing their sale?
Large capacity magazines have one purpose and one purpose only--to enable the rapid killing of human beings.
They serve no purpose in hunting
They serve no purpose in personal defense
They serve no purpose in target shooting
If you think you will ever stand against the military might of the USA shoulder to shoulder with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger behind an over turned car at the end of your block with your beloved assault rifle and high capacity magazine, you're too delusional to be allowed to own any gun.
We have a gun problem in this country and the video is worth a look
High capacity magazines are the common denominator in mass killings. It is time to ban them.
Comments
That is also my sensitive point with Bernie.
He might be convinced otherwise. He is somewhat busy now. And I make not apologies for his position (Not mine to do) , or his militaristic positions. Which I also disagree with but he has more information than I.
Laughing my head off at Hillary's angry Cleveland speech, denouncing weapons trafficking. Projecting much, or total denial?
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
yeah...
That's just Hillary showboating again.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
If this is about terror, it's about homegrown terror--
and terror of a kind that derives as easily from certain Christian sects as Muslim ones.
Just putting that out there.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I'll see your stupid and raise you a silly
If I have a 3 round magazine, how may shots can I fire before reloading?
If I have a 30 round magazine, how many shots can I fire before reloading?
Owning only 2 rifles and one shotgun, I may be fuzzy on the answers, so please Ed, check me on them.
I believe if you have a 3 round magazine, you can fire 3 shots before reloading (or 4, see following parenthetical).
I believe if you have a 30 round "high capacity" magazine, you can fire 30 shots before reloading (31 cuz I guess you could chamber one before putting in the magazine....).
Good so far?
Good.
I further believe it takes greater than 0 seconds to flip the switchy thing that ejects the magazine, correct?
I think it takes greater than 0 seconds to grab another magazine, insert it in the whatchamacallit (receiver?) and pull back the thingamabob to put a round in "the special place" (chamber?)
I think it then takes greater than 0 seconds to identify a target, aim and fire.
Amirite about those three things?
Then I ask, how in the blue mother lovin' blazes is it stupid to propose interrupting a killer? What right does anyone lose if we interrupt that killer on his spree?
--tapping my boot here in Texas while I wait for an answer--
I'm not aiming for perfection (get it?), just better.
I think we've got to start someplace and this is a sensible place to start. Is there someplace you'd rather start, or are you just happy with the status quo, in which case I can't think of any reason why I should listen to a damned thing you have to say on the topic.
Dig within. There lies the wellspring of all good. Ever dig and it will ever flow
Marcus Aurelius
And actually, I think you can tape the mags
together so you don't even have to reach to 'reload' and grab another one. Neat trick, eh? Not sure how that effects the math, but I'm just sure someone will correct us here.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Nope
Magazines can be taped together, yes. But you still have to eject the empty one, turn the two so the full one is now uppermost, and insert that one. Then, with most firearms, you will have to "ready" it by working the action or at least releasing the action lock.
It can be done in a couple, three seconds.
Why anyone would want a high-capacity magazine is beyond me. The really large ones are notorious for jamming.
The more people I meet, the more I love my cats.
Keep 'em small
Used to be, when you bought a Colt AR-15 it came with two 20-round magazines blocked to only hold 5 shots each; it was a pretty simple operation to remove the block, though. Shooting the gun would be just as much fun with a 5-shot mag and it would probably save on ammo to boot. Plus anyone wanting to go Rambo would have to haul a lot of magazines with them.
People need to focus on the capacity of the weapon, not its looks. If they created a version of the AR-15 that looked like a water gun, it would be just as deadly when combined with a detachable high-cap mag. The Virginia Tech shooter used a handgun, so banning military style rifles wouldn't have stopped him whereas limiting the size of the magazines available would have limited the damage.
Moratorium on ANY new legislation dealing with "rights"
Right now!! We need a moratorium on ALL legislation that deals with the citizens rights. That includes EVERYTHING! No snooping, no abortion changes, no search and seizure laws and NO NO new illegal war powers. Every time the congress gets together now a days we lose something. Let's look at the bigger picture of war and election finance. I know these above arguments are dear to a lot of people but they are a detraction to geopolitics that are NEVER discussed in national elections - these constitutional rights won't count worth a shit if the government can dictate ALL of our rights without a constitution to protect us and drone out the rest of the planet...
Peace
FN
"Democracy is technique and the ability of power not to be understood as oppressor. Capitalism is the boss and democracy is its spokesperson." Peace - FN
geopolitics
is a passing, though currently fashionable, fancy, invented about 100 years ago by a winger Brit obsessed with dirt.
The rights of individual human beings, these are eternal.
I aplogize for entering this conversation
and then for losing my temper and getting snarky.
I mistakenly thought we could have a reasonable discussion and I could make sincere comments without being attacked.
I generally don't get pissed about online conversations, but being falsely accused (of motivations, positions, etc despite the fact I have literally zero reason to misrepresent my position in an online forum) is one of my hot-button issues, so I'm stepping away.
Peace all.
Gets ugly fast, doesn't it
At a number of places it seems that any thread about gun violence and regulation gets very ugly, very fast. Then extremists on both sides pull out all the stops and don't cre who gets caught in the crossfire. In this day and age (e.g., with paid Clinton trolls invading sites---and who knows who else is bankrolling others) one might even be tempted to think that this is an intentional tactic to prevent discussion of the topic, as opposed to mud-slinging. It's a bit like heavy negative campaigning: suppress the vote and clear the field for the zalots.
It might be
the wig on your cat. I know that it's making me tense!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I am sickened by people
Who after every senseless tragedy immediately turn the topic into don't you dare talk about guns. Not an ounce of sympathy for the victims. Have you no shame?
“The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us”
― Voltaire
And one more for you, please.
What difference do you imagine that banning a few accessories will make?
I guess I'm a gun nut since, like millions of westerners, I was raised around them and have had them my whole life. Part of being a gun nut is understanding both what they can do as well as what they can't.
As we have already seen in very recent history, the only result of banning some guns and/or some accessories is the price of said guns and accessories goes ballistic (pun intended) and the small manufacturers develop a new mechanism or widget to get the product around the ban.
In the end, what stops these maniacs is removal, not of weapons, but of their motivation.
I have no problem with any rules or regulations, but I do have a problem with this notion that the problem lies with the tool, not in the hand using it, or the idea that motivated it.
Ban guns completely (cops first) and I'll glady vote for it, but all that will do is reduce the body count, and while that ain't nothing, it is not a solution.
Yep, we all know
how well prohibition worked and the war on drugs,Imo this ban would have the same outcome. “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Benjamin Franklin
We have ample examples of exactly what
happens when we go the prohibition route. Criminals become the super-rich and their children rule the world.
Works for me
If it reduces it by one that is a good enough reason for a ban.
Like healthcare, other countries make gun regulations work - if this is not a problem for ordinary countries it should be a piece of piss for the exceptional one.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
I heard that today as well
"all it's going to do is maybe save a few people..."
I was all... that's the entire fucking point.
So I'm with you, stevej - works for me and mine.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
regardless of the subject
if one option saves a life or lives then that is the preferable one. Saving lives should be the gold standard of policy making imo.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
You didn't answer the question.
Do you really believe that without the rifle and pistol, the most recent maniac in Floriduh, or the dozens that have come before, wouldn't have used another means to kill as many people as possible? And what about the thousands of less spectacular, but far more lethal daily litany of murder carried out between the "newsworthy" slaughters?
Watch Bowling for Columbine, again. Micheal Moore came to his understanding while making this film and he is quite explicit in his conclusions in it.
We have a problem and we need a solution. While pretending that bans are solutions might make you feel better, that doesn't make it a solution. The problem lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.
No, I don't believe that murder on the largest scale possible
would cease to exist if guns didn't exist. Timothy McVeigh used a car bomb. I also don't believe that "saving even one life" is an acceptable rationale to restrict gun ownership. We can be regulated to death and lose all of our freedoms in the name of safety and health. I don't want to live in a bomb shelter, never ride in a car, or give away my privacy so the handful of crazies in the human race can't hurt me.
I am a gun owner. I would be unhappy if the Kenyan walked in and demanded our guns. (snark) Having said that, we don't own one mega clip, one assault rifle, or one bullet proof vest. We don't conceal carry or open carry. Guns belong locked up and unloaded when not at the target range or in the woods hunting for food. They are/should be usually more useless than not for defense in daily living. By the time we found the key, unlocked the different cabinets housing the guns and ammo, loaded the gun, well, the intruder would be claiming his social security on our stolen identity. Civilians and civilian policing agencies don't need military gear. If someone wants military gear, then they should join the military and go fight in our endless wars.
Guns are dangerous and each gun design is intended to serve a purpose besides being able to kill. Guns need to be regulated according to their design, and gun regulation is simply a way to do that. The fact that we can't even get assault weapons and mega clips so highly regulated so that only the most researched people and purposes can get them speaks to our corrupt politicians and the abundance of fools in the human race.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Complete agreement. I've been watching the pointless
back and forth between these groups for most of my life, and 100% of the results have gone only one direction. Yet somehow, the anti-gun people can't seem to stop screaming long enough to notice that what they've been doing is only making it worse.
6,045 deaths so far this year, 354 in the last 72 hours. [s]but the guns are the real problem.[/s]
I misread your second paragraph. I would be quite happy with a universal ban (especially and starting with the cops), but that isn't going to happen and anything else is a distraction from the real issue of why we feel entitled to kill one another.
I say
let's give it a try and find out!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
You're either part of the solution or part of the problem
If you're saying nothing can be done you're part of the problem. Other civilized nations have somehow managed to deal with this - Australia for one, see upthread.
License all guns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-gibson/gun-regulations_b_1703778.html
No need to ban them, just require licensing and insurance. Large capacity magazines should require double licensing and insurance.
Expand background check laws.
Confiscate from violent criminals, violent mentally ill, domestic abusers.
To keep guns, the consumer would need money, sanity, and a safe place to store them, as well as training and a responsible gun ethic.
Just license guns, require carrying of insurance. Each individual gun wouldn't necessarily require a new license, but there should be limits on how many weapons each license covers.
The responsible gun owner who shows her/his kids gun safety, stores them in a gun safe, uses only for target practice and hunting should not be charged at the same rate as the irresponsible owner who keeps loaded guns around the house in the reach of kids, poses naked with them (no thanks, guys, really don't need to see ammosexual guy again), and insists on carrying them publicly wherever he/she goes.
The person who owns a machine gun or AR15 should be charged liability insurance like the guy who owns a Ferrari. Much more money.
And people should be able to lose their gun licenses. No "three strikes you're out", but a "one strike you're out" rule. That is, one incident of a weapon being fired outside of a shooting range or hunting environment, one child or dangerous person getting access, one domestic violence incident, one violent crime of any kind, and no guns for you.
No, this wouldn't be a comprehensive solution – you'd still need background checks and denials, and in some cases confiscation, but it would be a piece of the solution.
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