You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

93_confirmed wrote:

Exactly what Leaping Gnome said. So it's ok for police and military to have automatic weapons with high capacity magazines but not for law abiding citizens because a handful of people out of 350 million may use them to commit a crime? The government is reducing the armament capability of the entire citizenry and it further infringes on the right to bear arms. If a person wants to commit mass murder they'll find a way to do it regardless of weapon capacity.

Yes, it's always OK for the police and military to have better/more powerful weapons than Joe Sixpack. It's kind of the reason we pay taxes to have police and the military. It also has the very beneficial side effect of not requiring everyone in our society to go around packing heat like it's the Wild, Wild West.

As for the "law abiding citizen" crap, you know who else was a law abiding citizen? Pretty much every mass shooter right up to the second before they pulled the trigger. Not every gun owner is responsible pillar of society.

There's simply no justification for high-capacity magazines. You don't need them for hunting and you don't need to them for sport shooting unless you're really going to say that the right of shooters not to have to take the time to reload after a couple of shots far exceeds the right of other citizens not to get shot. You're basically pitting the recreational use of firearms against life itself.

And I'm really tired of the absolutely insane belief that firearms are required to guarantee freedom and that any attempt to "reduce the armament capability" of American citizens is going to naturally (and immediately) end in tyranny so complete that Stalin would blush.

The simple reality is that every citizen uprising from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Civil War has been smacked down by our government. Your 100-round magazine for your M16 copycat weapon isn't going to be the deciding factor in the next revolution (or race war, depending on which gun rights advocate you listen to).

OG_slinger wrote:
93_confirmed wrote:

Exactly what Leaping Gnome said. So it's ok for police and military to have automatic weapons with high capacity magazines but not for law abiding citizens because a handful of people out of 350 million may use them to commit a crime? The government is reducing the armament capability of the entire citizenry and it further infringes on the right to bear arms. If a person wants to commit mass murder they'll find a way to do it regardless of weapon capacity.

Yes, it's always OK for the police and military to have better/more powerful weapons than Joe Sixpack. It's kind of the reason we pay taxes to have police and the military. It also has the very beneficial side effect of not requiring everyone in our society to go around packing heat like it's the Wild, Wild West.

As for the "law abiding citizen" crap, you know who else was a law abiding citizen? Pretty much every mass shooter right up to the second before they pulled the trigger. Not every gun owner is responsible pillar of society.

There's simply no justification for high-capacity magazines. You don't need them for hunting and you don't need to them for sport shooting unless you're really going to say that the right of shooters not to have to take the time to reload after a couple of shots far exceeds the right of other citizens not to get shot. You're basically pitting the recreational use of firearms against life itself.

And I'm really tired of the absolutely insane belief that firearms are required to guarantee freedom and that any attempt to "reduce the armament capability" of American citizens is going to naturally (and immediately) end in tyranny so complete that Stalin would blush.

The simple reality is that every citizen uprising from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Civil War has been smacked down by our government. Your 100-round magazine for your M16 copycat weapon isn't going to be the deciding factor in the next revolution (or race war, depending on which gun rights advocate you listen to).

The police exist to serve and protect and we pay taxes in part to maintain their ability to carry out those responsibilities not necessarily to be better armed than we are.

I agree that not every legal gun owner is a pillar of society (take for instance the recent Joker copycat cases) but the gun owning population as a whole are stellar, responsible people. You're suggesting that it's ok to infringe on the 2nd amendment and restrict exactly which armaments Americans are allowed to bear just to make sure the handful of potential mass murders don't get legal access to them. If a mass murder is determined to get a 100-round drum, automatic weapon, etc. to mow down a crowd, then he/she will obtain one through illegal means if necessary. If he/she can't get that drum, they'll consider other methods to murder his targets.

You say Americans have a right not to get shot? How so? Where is that right given? On the flip side of your comment, if a recreational shooter or hunter desires a high capacity round than under what grounds does the government have the right to restrict that access? Is it acceptable for them to arbitrarily decide what's acceptable and what should be restricted? At what point do you personally draw the line with 2nd amendment restrictions? When does your 'oh sh*t' alarm go off in terms of gun restrictions?

In regards to the tyranny comments, firearms very well could be the deciding factor if this country were to ever reach the point of needing to defend against a tyrannical government. I agree with many others that this is a highly unlikely scenario and obviously there would be bigger issues than weaponry but nonetheless, American citizens have the right to be arms at all times. There are not supposed to be any asterisks, fine print, exclusions or restrictions.

93_confirmed wrote:

American citizens have the right to be arms at all times. There are not supposed to be any asterisks, fine print, exclusions or restrictions.

And in a modern society, restrictions are exactly what's needed. I think a fluid discussion on where to draw lines is healthy. Arguing that no lines should ever be permissible on the sole basis of how you interpret the 2nd Amendment is not healthy at all.

If you can't think of a good reason for a gun to be legal besides the principle of the Right to Bear Arms, then that principle is creating a more dangerous society.

I thought that the requirement to bear arms also had that it was so that a well-regulated militia could exist. Now, I feel quite comfortable in saying that what exists today for the overwhelming number of gun owners is nowhere near a well-regulated militia. What the US has is simply a bunch of people with guns.

They are not the same thing.

It also was written regarding technology that has been obsolete for over a century. I'm fine with my neighbor owning a handcrafted single-shot muzzle loader and a horn full of gunpowder, but if he comes home one day with an assault rifle and a case of hollow points, I'm finding a new apartment.

You say Americans have a right not to get shot? How so? Where is that right given?

Are you seriously asking this?
Have you never heard the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?" Don't you think that getting shot interferes, just a little bit, with the "Life" part of that?

Personally I think that there ought to be limitations on what kind of arms one can legally bare. I'm certainly open for debate on what exactly those limitations should be, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea that there should be absolutely no restrictions. I mean, do you seriously think that anyone who can afford one should be able to own a nuclear missile? If that example is too hyperbolic, what about depleted uranium ammunition?

We do have restrictions on what type you can own, and we've talked and outlined it here in the forums before.

I think the argument here is whether or not further constriction of gun
rights necessarily equates to evidence of a police state.

I don't think you can point to any one piece of evidence and say anything is a police state. But when you take everything as a whole, I don't know how you can't see how we aren't moving more towards a less caring, less respect for the rule of law and less privacy oriented society.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Two wrongs don't make a right, Funken.

I don't understand. What are the two wrongs?

I guess it just frightens me the mentality that not being able to buy a huge clip for your gun means that your liberty has in any way been infringed. Most people I know go through their entire life without every owning a gun. Are they somehow less free or less American?

I think the challenge here is that it's very difficult to find a balance point. The NRA has taken a hard line stance that any control is an infringement on the 2nd amendment. As a former NRA member, I find that position absurd.

We're also faced with a harsh reality that in a lot of cases, the "bad guys" are much better armed than our law enforcement forces. Whether you agree with the police state theory or not, no one is going to advocate for a police force that has a tactical disadvantage to the criminals.

The overwhelming challenge with gun control has never been the law abiding citizens, it's the non-law abiding ones that fuel the debate. To date, we haven't found a way keep the bad guys from winning this arms race. At some point we're going to have to decide what we want more, gun freedom or live citizens.

Edwin wrote:

I don't know how you can't see how we aren't moving more towards a less caring, less respect for the rule of law and less privacy oriented society.

I disagree with this premise. While it's true that the media and parts of pop culture paint this cynical picture, in my experience it isn't representative of society as a whole. If anything people seem more interconnected and culturally/civically active than in recent history, but maybe I just live in a bubble.

EDIT: looking back, was the double negative in your sentence intentional? Are we in agreement?

In St. Louis, we get to listen to folks in the country whine and whine and whine about the evils in the city. The crime and corruption is all you hear about.

But having lived in the city for the last 14 years, raising my daughter here, working here, and enjoying a ton of what the city has to offer, I know that it is mostly BS designed to make suburbanites more comfortable with their white flight.

I can point out dozens of great organizations in the city that make living here better every day.

We probably need to branch this discussion off into a '2nd Amendment - Catch All' but I'll reply in here for now.

Stengah wrote:

You say Americans have a right not to get shot? How so? Where is that right given?Are you seriously asking this? Have you never heard the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?" Don't you think that getting shot interferes, just a little bit, with the "Life" part of that?

Personally I think that there ought to be limitations on what kind of arms one can legally bare. I'm certainly open for debate on what exactly those limitations should be, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea that there should be absolutely no restrictions. I mean, do you seriously think that anyone who can afford one should be able to own a nuclear missile? If that example is too hyperbolic, what about depleted uranium ammunition?

I understand your point and obviously I do not wanted anyone owning nukes or any form of uranium. I'd be ok with restrictions but only if they are determined and agreed upon by the citizenry. Neither of the three branches of government should have any influence in regards to what type of arms we can bear. The 2nd amendment was intended to provide Americans with the right to bear arms for the primary purpose of defending ourselves against a tyrannical government so why would we allow this government to tell us what we can and cannot own. It's in their best interest to make sure the masses are as minimally armed (preferably unarmed) as possible to prevent any type of uprising so allowing them this level of control is completely illogical. They work for us (at least that's how it's supposed to work) and we should be telling them what we have decided to allow ownership for and what we are restricting not the other way around.

Edwin wrote:

I don't think you can point to any one piece of evidence and say anything is a police state. But when you take everything as a whole, I don't know how you can't see how we aren't moving more towards a less caring, less respect for the rule of law and less privacy oriented society.

Well said and that's the underlying argument that gets lost in the thread. It's not one single article, event, quote or sub-topic that determines whether we are in a police state it's the compilation of everything that's been discussed such as:

NDAA allows for indefinite detention of American citizens
American citizens (with suspected terrorist links) have been assassinated overseas
30k+ drones are conducting surveillance and other unknown actions
DHS is actively monitoring emails, social media, forums, etc.
TSA violates the 4th amendment at airports with their Gestapo form of "security"
TSA is now patrolling bus stops and train stations in some states (CA and TX)
Gun control legislation and a UN gun treaty are being pushed
Aggressive SWAT raids are taking place much more frequently for non-violent crimes (in many instances the wrong addresses are targeted)
Many police departments (including rural, low-population cities) are being militarized
Peaceful protestors are more frequently being victimized by police
Family farms are being violently raided by government officials for selling raw milk and other "contraband

93_confirmed wrote:

The 2nd amendment was intended to provide Americans with the right to bear arms for the primary purpose of defending ourselves against a tyrannical government so why would we allow this government to tell us what we can and cannot own.

One of the things to remember is that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states. It was mean to keep the Federal government from becoming tyrannical. Now, maybe we should understand the 2nd Amendment in its new context where it applies to both state and Federal governments as protecting the people from any government abridgement of the right to bear arms the way we understand that when the 1st Amendment says "Congress shall make no law..." we understand that to mean all governments, not just a branch of the Federal government, even though at the time state governments compelled their citizens to belong and pay for churches. However, it's also possible to understand the 2nd Amendment as making sure the states will never face a situation like Lexington and Concord, where a centralized military comes to seize the arms of a state militia.

I just don't think given the wording of the amendment, the fact that amendments were only there to make clear the restrictions on the power of the Federal government and not the state governments, and the history of the Revolutionary War that anyone can clearly say what the 'intent' should be as if it were a matter of fact.

93_confirmed wrote:

I understand your point and obviously I do not wanted anyone owning nukes or any form of uranium. I'd be ok with restrictions but only if they are determined and agreed upon by the citizenry. Neither of the three branches of government should have any influence in regards to what type of arms we can bear. The 2nd amendment was intended to provide Americans with the right to bear arms for the primary purpose of defending ourselves against a tyrannical government so why would we allow this government to tell us what we can and cannot own. It's in their best interest to make sure the masses are as minimally armed (preferably unarmed) as possible to prevent any type of uprising so allowing them this level of control is completely illogical. They work for us (at least that's how it's supposed to work) and we should be telling them what we have decided to allow ownership for and what we are restricting not the other way around.

So you want to create an entirely separate form of government--a direct democracy--to determine what reasonable restrictions our actual government can put on owning firearms? I honestly don't know how to respond to that.

I also really don't understand the paranoid, tinfoil hat obsession the pro-gun crowd has with the idea they're going to be the ones to ensure the continuation of democracy as we know it.

The belief that guns are essential to democracy is corrosive and distracting. It's corrosive because it makes it so easy for people to ignore all the ways they should be engaged with their government to make sure it doesn't turn into a tyranny and focus entirely on the idea that the government cannot be trusted at all and every citizens' primary duty is to be ready for a firearm-fueled, violent revolution at all times.

It's distracting because it's used to great effect by the NRA to deflect any criticism of the current system of gun ownership and firearms enforcement as some nefarious attack on democracy itself. Whether or not you like it, firearms impose massive costs to our society that shouldn't be ignored because of the far fetched fantasy that gun owners will some day be called upon to play Patrick Swayze's character from Wolverines.

This is the reason we don't have a central database of every gun and every gun owner: the paranoid fantasy that the government might (will) use that information to take away people's guns. It's the 21st century. They can figure out if you have guns or not by pulling your credit card transactions and examining your ISP logs. Meanwhile denying law enforcement the ability to see who is buying firearms and from who allows thousands of "legal" weapons to get into the hands of criminals through straw purchasers.

At some point the reality of how firearms are being used in our society needs to trump the fiction that guns required as some sort of extra "check and balance" in our system of government. As I've said before, there's never been a single instance the history of America of armed citizens doing anything but getting crushed by the government.

Even the birth of our nation wasn't about how Joesph Tankardofmead bravely fought off the British using the gun he so wisely owned. It was about our proto-government going massively into debt to raise and arm a proper army to fight the British (as well as the massive involvement of one of the other superpowers of the day, France).

The 2nd Amendment isn't the most important part of the Constitution. It is a poorly punctuated and outdated amendment that required 225+ years, decades of an aggressive campaign of lawsuits, lobbying, and writing legislation by the NRA, hundreds of millions of dollars, and one of the most ideologically conservative Supreme Courts to turn it into what it is today.

Trying to stay on topic...

Well said and that's the underlying argument that gets lost in the thread. It's not one single article, event, quote or sub-topic that determines whether we are in a police state it's the compilation of everything that's been discussed such as:

NDAA allows for indefinite detention of American citizens
American citizens (with suspected terrorist links) have been assassinated overseas
30k+ drones are conducting surveillance and other unknown actions
DHS is actively monitoring emails, social media, forums, etc.

These four items are business as usual for the intel organizations (domestic and external, if that distinction is still maintained) and have been practiced in one form or another for much of the past century (ie, since the creation of real intel agencies). The difference here is technology, not practice or intent. The policies are enabled by technology, but they are pretty much the same policies that have existed since at least the 1940s. We're more efficient now, but the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Unless we've been in a police state since the 30's (FBI assassinating criminal bands, bootleggers, etc.), the changes here are that we have been forced to codify this stuff in view of Americans (thank you FISA) and that the relatively useful restrictions of the Church Committee have been violated and pushed aside since the 80's, so we've moved back towards the Cold War status (but nowhere near where Nixon would have taken us, if he'd had this technology).

TSA violates the 4th amendment at airports with their Gestapo form of "security"

Gestapo? Really? The TSA is a political secret service that disappears and tortures state enemies, leaving domestic policing to the actual police organizations? I think this is a bit of hyperbole; it's what we were talking about in the Conservatives thread. As for the legality, go look at 1973's US v Davis, which established that airport searches were in support of statute (and thus administrative, not criminal) and that they were justified by balancing the expectation of privacy against the expectation of safe air travel. You may not like that, but it doesn't violate the Fourth - not all searches need to involve warrants and people have different expectations of privacy in different situations. That's the legal status these days.

TSA is now patrolling bus stops and train stations in some states (CA and TX)

And that's been done at many times in our history, for various reasons, usually the perception of an internal or external threat. Nothing new there. Also, it's hard to cite two states' policies as evidence that the whole country is a police state. In a police state, the government says "jump" and you say "I'd love to, but the cage is too small". You certainly don't see 48 states saying "No, we won't have this here."

Gun control legislation and a UN gun treaty are being pushed

Gun laws have *decreased* under Obama, with his consent. You have more freedom to own and operate weapons than you ever have had in my lifetime, especially with the Second Amendment precedent being ignored and the interpretation turned completely around by the current court. This is evidence *against* a police state.

Aggressive SWAT raids are taking place much more frequently for non-violent crimes (in many instances the wrong addresses are targeted)
Many police departments (including rural, low-population cities) are being militarized
Peaceful protestors are more frequently being victimized by police
Family farms are being violently raided by government officials for selling raw milk and other "contraband

All of this stuff was going on in the 19th and 20th centuries in various ways. In the 30's, the Feds raided farms and burned crops when farmers grew grain without permission. There have been dozens of major riots and movements that have been violently put down by the police. In the 40's and 50's, homosexuals and minorities and Communists were beaten in the streets. Heck, the police were able to practice "The Third Degree" until well into the 50's in some states, including California. And the ready availability of military tech has militarized the police as criminals upgraded and threats changed - it's not a desire to dominate. The police in the US are not generally interested in running a police state.

Bear in mind that in the past, the police *did* enforce social policy. "Separate but Equal", anti-adultery statutes, anti-sodomy laws, anti-miscegenation laws, etc. That shows that policy has gotten better, not worse - more permissive, not less - in many areas of daily life. It also shows that the police are comfortable with *more* restrictions - the Miranda Law came in in the 60's, and police today spend a large part of their days evaluating whether their next action will violate someone's rights, and knowing that they will spend a certain part of their career defending those actions in court. Police are *far* more restricted today than they were in 1952, say. And those restrictions benefit citizens and mitigate against a police state interpretation.

My point here is that we have not *materially* changed our practices since, say, Teddy Roosevelt's time, except for the better. The major exception I see is partial, in that newer technologies have increased surveillance abilities on the part of the government. But those have not changed the underlying policies, which have fluctuated from the 60's on, swinging between more and less openness and constraint. We are currently in a time of less constraint and openness, but compared to Nixon or J Edgar Hoover, we are much more free from intervention in our lives today. But the policies drive the police and intel agencies, not the other way around. When that changes, yeah, we have to worry.

Surveillance state? Sure. Police state? Nah. It's more fear than reality. And frankly the tech changes are on a different axis; policies that worked when surveillance was difficult may not make sense today, but the issue is so divided we can't get any politicians to touch it.

OG_slinger wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:

Even if the bill passed, how much does anyone's life change if they can have only a ten-round magazine instead of one containing 30 or 100 rounds?

I don't know. Let's ask the families of the people who died in Aurora and the survivors to see if they think smaller magazine sizes might have changed their lives.

Of course, we have to weigh their trivial concerns against the pressing needs of hunters and sport shooters to have 30+ rounds at the ready.

I dont see this as relevant. Someone who's bent on doing the kind of damage that the shooter planned would just take more mags to take care of his needs. If this had already been law it would not prevent what happened there.

ranalin wrote:

I dont see this as relevant. Someone who's bent on doing the kind of damage that the shooter planned would just take more mags to take care of his needs. If this had already been law it would not prevent what happened there.

If there's no difference in the number of rounds fired over time, why do people need a 35 or 100 hundred round magazine in the first place? If having to change magazines has no impact during a shooting, why not set the total at 10 or six or three round magazines?

ranalin wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:

Even if the bill passed, how much does anyone's life change if they can have only a ten-round magazine instead of one containing 30 or 100 rounds?

I don't know. Let's ask the families of the people who died in Aurora and the survivors to see if they think smaller magazine sizes might have changed their lives.

Of course, we have to weigh their trivial concerns against the pressing needs of hunters and sport shooters to have 30+ rounds at the ready.

I dont see this as relevant. Someone who's bent on doing the kind of damage that the shooter planned would just take more mags to take care of his needs. If this had already been law it would not prevent what happened there.

Agreed. As I mentioned before, if someone is well-motivated, legality isn't gonna get in their way. It's, you know, illegal to go on a shooting spree, or to plan one out. That didn't seem to stop him.

Neither of us really know if the death count would have been lower with smaller magazines. I lean towards "not really". It's... not all that hard to reload a magazine-fed rifle like that. (Incidentally, I'd not be opposed to 100 round magazines being restricted, they're sort of pointless unless you're using the weapon for suppressive fire.)

Edit: To Funkenpants: It's a matter of convenience. Where you draw the line is sort of arbitrary. (And if you're bench shooting to try and tune a weapon, the more rounds you can fire without moving to reload the better.). Personally, I'd set it at 30-rounds, just because that's sort of the design standard.

I have a problem with arguing from tragedy. It's far too easy to put in a knee-jerk response that doesn't fix the actual problem.

Allow me to ask a related question: Has the TSA made us any safer? How about the PATRIOT act? Both were measures passed in what I am assuming is good faith to make us safer. All it's done is provide a legitimate concern about state surveillance. And I posit we would have a lot less problem with the TSA if it was better regulated, but now it's part of the lexicon that backing off on that somehow lets the terrorists "win".

You can see how some people would be concerned about civilian weapons being painted with the same brush.

Restricting what kind of weaponry was at hand wouldn't have helped the tragedy at all. For better or worse, people have been killing each other for thousands of years. There have been mass murderers for just as long.

So, say we banned _all_ firearms. The lunatic could build a bunch of pipe bombs and start throwing them around. He could go on a slasher spree. He could set the building on fire. He could run down the street with a 4x4.

But I'm not saying that to say "We can't prevent everything, so we must do nothing!". But temperance is in order. You may not think that guns have any practical use. In a country of 300 million people, you're in the minority on this one. Which is okay. We don't all have to agree.

If it makes you feel any better, the NRA is also in the minority. It's basically the radical anti-gun people and the radical pro-gun people pulling on either end of the rope while most of the country just shrugs. The inertia is with the NRA, because it's harder to take away rights than it is to protect them. Which is also how it should be.

So, instead of focusing on the tools that the madman used, why don't we take a look at the madman, since that's the constant.

What could we have done to prevent someone who is by all rights a smart individual from snapping and deciding that shooting up a movie theater is the best way to get attention? Personally, I think that would have much better odds of saving lives.

Kannon wrote:

Agreed. As I mentioned before, if someone is well-motivated, legality isn't gonna get in their way. It's, you know, illegal to go on a shooting spree, or to plan one out. That didn't seem to stop him...What could we have done to prevent someone who is by all rights a smart individual from snapping and deciding that shooting up a movie theater is the best way to get attention? Personally, I think that would have much better odds of saving lives.

You think it's easier to convince psychos not to do psycho things than it is to make it difficult for a guy to secure an illegal 30-round or 100-round magazine?

Conceptually speaking, your argument should apply to machine guns. Machine guns are highly restricted in their sale and use. Someone who is intent on causing mass casualties should be able to locate one if he wants to. If this was the case, we'd expect to see more pyschos using fully automatic M-60s and SAWs in their crimes. But they don't. It seems to me that if you restrict the ownership of military-grade equipment, you cut down on the availability of the gear. You may not eliminate it, but you make it harder for people to find one.

I understand certain arguments for being against gun control, including ones that involve some kind of balancing test between the desire of hobbyist shooters to hunt or target shoot, or for people to defend their homes, and the need to reduce shooting fatalities. But arguments based on the idea that gun regulation is wholly ineffective just doesn't fit with reality in the U.S. or abroad. You don't have to show that you can eliminate all gun crime with regulation to make certain regulations worthwhile.

Funkenpants wrote:

I understand certain arguments for being against gun control, including ones that involve some kind of balancing test between the desire of hobbyist shooters to hunt or target shoot, or for people to defend their homes, and the need to reduce shooting fatalities. But arguments based on the idea that gun regulation is wholly ineffective just doesn't fit with reality in the U.S. or abroad. You don't have to show that you can eliminate all gun crime with regulation to make certain regulations worthwhile.

I'm of a mind that if a law can save just one person it's worthwhile, but i've yet to see one being recommended that would do that even going to the extreme of banning guns wouldnt do that. Trying to make people feel warm and fuzzy doesnt seem to me a good basis for a law.

I love how people say "if crazies want the guns, they will find them!" I tend to call BS on this one. Where do you even begin to find them? You don't just walk down to a corner downtown and start asking shady characters where you can get an AK47. I think that is kind of a ridiculous stance. The fact that so many of the atrocious acts of murder and mayhem we see these days are perpetrated with legally purchased firearms sort of refutes that, doesn't it?

Kannon wrote:

Incidentally, I hate the term "military hardware". It's way too broad. I don't think any sane person thinks we should all have one of these monsters. I'd consider stuff like that, the SAW you mentioned, and the massive 20mm vulcan cannons they have on gunships to be "military hardware", not stuff like an AR-15.

Well, not for nothing, but it sure as sh*t isn't a hunting rifle.

ranalin wrote:

I'm of a mind that if a law can save just one person it's worthwhile, but i've yet to see one being recommended that would do that even going to the extreme of banning guns wouldnt do that. Trying to make people feel warm and fuzzy doesnt seem to me a good basis for a law.

Oh, I agree that any law should be based on potential efficacy rather than trying to appear to do something. As I said up thread, you can't eliminate mass killings even if you get rid of all guns. Restrictions on ownership of machine guns has worked well, probably because manufacturers don't sell them through any retail channels and make them in only relatively small numbers. Gun culture in the U.S. doesn't have a problem with that kind of restriction. However, there's a split in the U.S. electorate over whether large capacity, semi-automatic weapons are as potentially damaging as machine guns. There would have to be a major change in gun culture to see changes made there. Changing magazine limits are just nibbling around the margins and maybe doing something for the sake of politics.

Funkenpants wrote:
Kannon wrote:

Agreed. As I mentioned before, if someone is well-motivated, legality isn't gonna get in their way. It's, you know, illegal to go on a shooting spree, or to plan one out. That didn't seem to stop him...What could we have done to prevent someone who is by all rights a smart individual from snapping and deciding that shooting up a movie theater is the best way to get attention? Personally, I think that would have much better odds of saving lives.

You think it's easier to convince psychos not to do psycho things than it is to make it difficult for a guy to secure an illegal 30-round or 100-round magazine?

Conceptually speaking, your argument should apply to machine guns. Machine guns are highly restricted in their sale and use. Someone who is intent on causing mass casualties should be able to locate one if he wants to. If this was the case, we'd expect to see more pyschos using fully automatic M-60s and SAWs in their crimes. But they don't. It seems to me that if you restrict the ownership of military-grade equipment, you cut down on the availability of the gear. You may not eliminate it, but you make it harder for people to find one.

I understand certain arguments for being against gun control, including ones that involve some kind of balancing test between the desire of hobbyist shooters to hunt or target shoot, or for people to defend their homes, and the need to reduce shooting fatalities. But arguments based on the idea that gun regulation is wholly ineffective just doesn't fit with reality in the U.S. or abroad.

There's an effort-reward curve, here. If you can get X firepower for Y effort, but X+2 firepower for Y*3, it's not really an effective trade.

However, the magazines are... very, very less complicated. It's basically a box with a spring. I may be good, but I can't scratch-build a SAW. I can, however, make a 20-round magazine with a basic shop. It took me a few tries to get it working reliably, but it's completely doable. (I could probably make a 30-round STANAG (The NATO standard-ish) with a bit of trial and error, but I've not ever actually _done_ it. The curve seems fiddly, but if you're... not really intending to come back or use them more than once, you can make shortcuts.).

Of note, someone has recently test-fired a 3d printed lower-receiver for an AR-15. (The lower receiver is the part that has the serial number. In an AR-15, it's sort of the frame you hang everything else on.), and the 3d files to do so are freely available. You're not going to be printing the action any time soon, but everything else you could probably get away with.

So there's probably a line where things are too complicated for a non-gunsmith to independently build, and I'm perfectly okay for restricting that kind of thing.

Incidentally, I hate the term "military hardware". It's way too broad. I don't think any sane person thinks we should all have one of these monsters. I'd consider stuff like that, the SAW you mentioned, and the massive 20mm vulcan cannons they have on gunships to be "military hardware", not stuff like an AR-15.

SallyNasty wrote:

I love how people say "if crazies want the guns, they will find them!" I tend to call BS on this one. Where do you even begin to find them? You don't just walk down to a corner downtown and start asking shady characters where you can get an AK47. I think that is kind of a ridiculous stance. The fact that so many of the atrocious acts of murder and mayhem we see these days are perpetrated with legally purchased firearms sort of refutes that, doesn't it?

AK, no. They're junk, anyway. Handguns you can get easily, though.

And it depends: Which sort of crime are you talking about? Are you taking about the rare and tragic case of people going on a mass shooting spree, or more common gun crimes? Both have issues that are traceable to more than just "easy access to firearms".

IMAGE(http://polyticks.com/polyticks/beararms/liars/uscentury.gif)
for instance. (If anyone can find me a better source for that graph, I'd be grateful. They're a little too "Rah rah NRA" for my taste, though their numbers are solid.) You'll notice the big upswings are around the "war on drugs", which had the side effect of arming up most dealers, and increasing violence in that section. You see a similar uptick around prohibition. You'll also notice a small correlation between major depressions and gun crimes and murders.

There's also the old tradition of "zip guns".

People are messy, complicated, irrational creatures. And outright bans and heavy restrictions frequently make a worse mess than existed before.

SallyNasty wrote:

I love how people say "if crazies want the guns, they will find them!" I tend to call BS on this one. Where do you even begin to find them? You don't just walk down to a corner downtown and start asking shady characters where you can get an AK47. I think that is kind of a ridiculous stance. The fact that so many of the atrocious acts of murder and mayhem we see these days are perpetrated with legally purchased firearms sort of refutes that, doesn't it?

You're living in a bubble then, and if you're desperate thats almost exactly what you do to start. Granted where you live makes a difference on the amount of time needed for delivery. Plus the number of illegal sellers seem lower compared to what they used to be, but if someone wants a gun and dont want to go through legal channels there's definitely ways to get them.

Funkenpants wrote:
Kannon wrote:

However, the magazines are... very, very less complicated. It's basically a box with a spring. I may be good, but I can't scratch-build a SAW. I can, however, make a 20-round magazine with a basic shop. It took me a few tries to get it working reliably, but it's completely doable....Incidentally, I hate the term "military hardware". It's way too broad. I don't think any sane person thinks we should all have one of these monsters. I'd consider stuff like that, the SAW you mentioned, and the massive 20mm vulcan cannons they have on gunships to be "military hardware", not stuff like an AR-15.

Most people don't have the skills to build a decent, reliable magazine. The point is not to prevent ALL magazines from being made. Rather it is to reduce the number available or increase the difficulty of securing one.

The M-16 was developed for the U.S. military to meet military specifications. Different users have different needs when it comes to design, so if it had been designed for the hunting or a target shooting markets I'd call it something different. It's just a bit of shorthand in place of saying "semi-automatic rifle with a high capacity clip and modifications designed to allow quicker and more accurate shooting of groups of other armed people."

Which is fair, and I understand. Just pointing out that it means different things to different people.

And the effectiveness of making magazines harder to procure is... debatable. It'd effect law-abiding citizens much, much more. Most petty criminals and low-rent dealers use handguns anyway because they're more concealable, so it'd not effect them at all. And people who are planning to murder large numbers of people would probably go to the extra effort. Like I said, it's not all that hard, and it's only going to get easier.

I'll admit, I'm probably biased. I apprenticed as a gunsmith for awhile. Making a machine to throw bullets is not hard. The difficulty comes in long-term reliability and durability. If you're only going to put 100 rounds through it, ever, this is less of a concern.

Kannon wrote:

And the effectiveness of making magazines harder to procure is... debatable. It'd effect law-abiding citizens much, much more.

What's the negative effect? It doesn't change shooting for sport in any major way. It would make the magazines harder for guys like Holmes to find because they would need to make their own or find someone willing to make them for him. It would not prevent all mass shootings, but the worst that happens if we tried a ban for 10 years or so is that for 10 years people couldn't shoot off big clips of ammo at the local range. Doesn't seem like a very expensive experiment, socially speaking.