Today's Senseless Violence

Expose of on-line gun culture:

Opinion | Gun Owners vs. Gun Nuts

https://www.removepaywall.com/article/current

 

As long as I'm ranting, you want to know what else I'm sick of? The ludicrous pedantry of gun nutz who insist upon correcting us "people who don't have a clue" that the proper nomenclature of their their precious mass murder machine is not an assault weapon, but "AR-15 rifles", and their equally ludicrous hubris in assuming that anyone insufficiently conversant in NRA talking points "must first sound like you have some knowledge of the machine."

Well, I "have some knowledge of the machine." I've fired both the M16A1 and the AR-15 assault rifles (yeah, an original Colt AR-15). The one and only difference between the two assault rifles was the selective fire; the CAR-15 assault rifle was semiautomatic; the M16 assault rifle had additional full auto capability; a niggling and completely irrelevant distinction to anyone downrange of either; in semi-auto mode, either could empty their 20-round magazines as fast as you can pull the trigger. A shooter with a semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle in Dayton shot 26 people in 32 seconds; not too shabby by assault rifle standards (unless you're NRA). I also know that it was designed by Eugene Stoner expressly for the U.S. military, expressly as an assault rifle to compete with the AK-47 assault rifle, and that despite being the designer, Stoner never owned one; despite being an avid rifleman, it never occurred to him that a civilian should own an assault rifle; a weapon designed for the express purpose of hunting human beings and killing as many of them as efficiently as possible.
I've also seen and treated enough gunshot wounds to have sufficient first-hand knowledge of what these assault rifles do to the human body; their intended target by design. It's a matter of functionality; nobody gives a shit about "it's mean looks".

There's no legitimate reason for any civilian to own an assault weapon. They serve no legitimate purpose in society. None.

 

Duly chastised and changed. However , nomenclature of "the machine ", was not really the point of my little story, now was it? Good post Piobaire.

 

"There's no legitimate reason for any civilian to own an assault weapon. They serve no legitimate purpose in society. None."

But what is an assault weapon and where much of the problem with control, lies?????

For instance, is a Ruger 10 - 22 and assault weapon, even though it's 22 cal. bullet is of lesser grain and has a lower muzzle velocity?

This little short barreled rifle is so very popular with our youth and adults alike and is very widespread with ownership.

They are semi-automatic and have these after market 50 round magazines available for them as well. Tape two together and you have a 100 rounds quickly available with a few more like them in your pockets.
That's more rounds than a standard AR15 or clone and if the perpetrator is using hollow points then even more so, wouldn't want to be on the receiving end.

OK, so more will die, of those that have been hit, if a larger caliber is used, but that doesn't make it OK in my book.

 

I don’t know the answer to this but it feels solvable and if it’s not solvable what’s the solution? It can’t be do nothing because we’ve tried that ;-p

 

And some might add center fire cartridges, which would make the wide spread 22 rim fire rifles and handguns, OK.
So, now we're back to the question of the Ruger 10 - 22 and for an example with so many other choices being out there, as well.

 

What if we granted you special powers and you got the right make the decision

 

I don't know the answer for the immediate or maybe in the long term, either, but do know that it's a huge waste of time for trying something like.....ban all assault rifles....and for expecting it to fly......when the people proposing such, can't even define one.
Yeah, I know, and if it looks mean, then it's an assault rifle.

Maybe something along the lines for making it easier to intervene, when certain individuals show tell, tale signs.
Dump a fortune into mental health programs, in the hopes that it might work.
Increase the penalties for any crime with a gun in play.

Is it feasible to get every gun off the streets of America, regardless of the 2nd amendment coming into play.
I don't think so and especially with the advent of 3D printers and who knows of the technology that's yet to come.

 

If mental health is a cause, especially given how dramatically worse our gun problem is compared to other nations, should people have to give up privacy rights and disclose mental illness? Should they be required by the government to undergo mental health evaluations prior to making a purchase?

 

We don't have more mental illness per capita than other countries. What we have is far more guns and less gun regulation per capita than other industrial countries. Conclusion: ITS THE GUNS, STUPID!

 

It’s definitely the guns, but just a quick logic aside. If our mental health were so bad as a nation that it caused 91% of all kids killed by guns world wide to be American; where guns are the leading cause of death for kids; and where we average 1.5 mass shootings a day — wouldn’t that level of national derangement also necessitate strict gun control? Crisis level mental health well beyond every other nation (if you subscribe the to mental health as a cause argument) is a reason for not against more regulation

 

For many years there wasn’t really a problem. The space between guns for hunters and target shooters and the insane weapons of war was wide enough to keep most people happy…and safe. And then the ogre of greed set in, gun pushers and manufacturers blurred the line and many innocent people have died. The NRA and fellow travelers in the R party supported the harvest of money from a nation that is now held hostage with no end in sight…. have they no shame? or even a conscience?

Nonsense debates about the 2nd amendment, what constitutes an assault weapon, the red herring of mental health is to blame, “any good guy with a gun”, pass neither the test of logic or the giggle test.

Or maybe the rest of the world hasn’t crawled down the slimy rat hole because Americans have some DNA flaw that leads to self destruction.

 

I have to wonder, even if we did ban sales of automatic weapons, how much good would it do? It should have been enacted long ago, and by now the country is saturated with them!

We know the US government isn't going to require those who already own them to turn them in, especially considering many who own them would shoot anyone who tries to confiscate them.

If we ban sales of ammunition for such weapons it would take a little while for it to go into effect, so there would be a huge surge in sales of the ammo as people stock up enough for a lifetime.

Yes it would help keep things from getting worse, but it's already way out of control. The mass murders will continue to get worse.

 

if we care about our kids more than our gun fetish we’d try to find the answer to this question.

 

My thoughts exactly, but then I was "stupid" (he evidently had an IQ test and knows it to be much higher than mine) in trying to put it across in different way.

And, I'm most sure you know that full automatic weapons have been banned since 1934, unless you can get a special license for them. Maybe some collector of Tommy Guns that have them stored in a vault and for being worth a small fortune by now, might go through this grueling procedure, but not many would bother.

 

Let's not forget it's not just guns Man with baseball bat attacked staffers at Rep. Gerry Connolly's office, police say

 

What’s a solution that doesn’t include gun control?

 

"What do you mean an assault weapons definition can't be done? There are many laws defining assault weapons, we even had a federal ban at one time."
OK, define an assault weapon for me, please.

As for the ban that they had for 10yrs running, which really didn't cover a lot of territory, there were mixed results and not like things changed a whole lot for the better. Read on .....FactChecking Biden's Claim that Assault Weapons Ban Worked - FactCheck.org