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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
This is quite a bit simpler than it's made out to be. Any labels gun control advocates attempt to apply to firearms in order to classify certain types that they would like to restrict will be pooh-poohed in a premeditated attempt to make them look ridiculous. It's part of the standard rhetorical scheme established by the NRA and its ilk to put up a massive Chewbacca Defense against regulation.
Sorry, but gun advocates don't get to whine about people trying to ban "scary guns" when they deliberately make guns to look as intimidating as possible while falling within the letter of the law. While rifle-style weapons capable of high-velocity, semi-automatic fire may be used in the more spectacular mass-shootings, the vast majority of violent crimes are committed with handguns. Thus, there is some logic to saying that banning "AR-15 style" guns is not going to stop violence. But the obvious conclusion of that logic chain is to ban handguns as well...
edited 6th Dec '16 3:17:22 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"To nitpick here, automatic (fires more than once per trigger pull) firearms are already illegal and have been since the 1930s IIRC. Usually what people describe as "military grade" are the various semi-auto (fires exactly once when you pull the trigger) AR-15 and AR-18 derivatives on the market, especially if they are in black plastic and have a pistol grip that is not connected to the stock. However, these are cosmetic features and most people would not describe the Mini-14 as "military grade", despite being a semi-auto rifle fed from a detachable box magazine and in the same caliber as the AR-15, as it has wooden furniture, an older-style stock and isn't covered in rails. If you want to regulate these, this is actually important, because Stevie Immashootupamall can do it just as well with either of these items, so if you want to write a law on the subject, make sure it's on actually relevant features of the weapon. For example, outlawing synthetic stocks or tactical rails doesn't do much to stop anyone, while outlawing any weapon that does not need to be manually cycled to fire the next shot or outlawing the use of any detachable magazine would be examples of meaningful regulations that target aspects of firearms actually related to their lethality.
Furthermore, any pedantry over the "military grade-ness" of longarms basically misses the point. By and large, people do not commit crimes with rifles and shotguns at a significant rate. Criminals far amd away prefer handguns, as they are far more concealable, lighter, and serve all their lethality and intimidation needs just as well. If you really want to target guns used by criminals, go after these handguns as your main priority. And hey, if you want to do that, I'm actually all for that. Honestly, I don't even get why people are so attached to them - far moreso than longarms, handguns are ill-suited to most activities other than harming other humans, as they are far less suited to hunting than rifles or shotguns.
edited 6th Dec '16 3:34:50 PM by Balmung
But I swear they are for self-defence (wooooo-oooo!)
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Thanks for the clarifications on handguns being dangerous...I think all guns should be banned from civilian purchase, except for those who genuinely feel a need for self-defense and need a permit. Like say a woman feeling threatened by a stalker and legally not having any means of proving it, would merit a desire for self-defense.
Politics has decayed enough and some voters are so impressed by "bravado" that I wonder of the slogan "better dead than red" would get the electoral and popular vote for the Democrats in 2020. Not being sarcastic either. Lots of undecided voters picked Trump because they liked how terribly he conducted himself. Edit: Whoops, not a great page topper.
edited 6th Dec '16 3:48:44 PM by Wildcard
Fighteer, the problem is that gun advocates aren't the ones who table bans aimed at cosmetic features and fail to account for handguns, that's purely something done by the gun control crowd.
When you try and ban cosmetic and safety features on a gun you're being dumb, there's no two ways about it, the gun control crowd need to ensure that they're not proposing dumb laws. It's why the fight needs to be focused on things like universal background checks, because that's a smart law that makes sense.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThis gun
◊ and this gun
◊ are chambered in the same caliber and both have the same capabilities in terms of fire rate and accuracy for the most part.
You can't just ban the second one because it looks scary. Not when there's nothing it can do that the first one can't just as well.
edited 6th Dec '16 3:52:53 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?Donald Trump has already hurt multiple companies by complaining about them on Twitter. Most recently Boeing, whose stock shot down when he said that Boeing shouldn't charge $4 billion for a new Air Force One.
Politico has a story about it.
It’s a unique dilemma for corporate chiefs accustomed to more gentle treatment, especially from historically pro-business and pro-free trade Republican presidents.
Honestly, it's cracking me up.
Isn't the Cato Institute libertarian? Not a fan of their thinking.
And I gotta love the idea that companies not trying to maximize their own profit is somehow a bad thing. It's attempting to maximize profit that leads to abuses in the first place!!
Yeah, they're responsible to shareholders. Boo hoo. I don't like shareholder culture.
“As a negotiating strategy it might work. It might push the Air Force to go back to Boeing and renegotiate the contract,” Cancian said. “If I were the Air Force, I’d be thinking of going back to Boeing to see if there are ways to reduce the costs.”
As much as a Trump presidency scares me, I do think some good may come out of it. Like calling out corruption (despite, uh, containing lots of it within his fucking cabinet), and causing people to have a lower tolerance for corruption overall in the long run, perhaps.
Dictated by the marketplace, fine. Demanded by shareholders? Like I give a crap about them.
Still, Trump’s approach is at odds with many Republicans in Congress who prefer to address incentives for companies to move production abroad through broad policy changes, including sweeping corporate tax reform, rather than individual attacks and tariff threats.
“I worry today that the pharmaceutical industry has a very false sense of relief or security because of a Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress,” he said at the Forbes Healthcare Summit.
Again, at least some good may come of this...
To be honest, I don't think any callouts Trump makes about companies are going to be based on good information and a desire to punish them for hurting society. Hurting a company out of personal, petty spite (Trump's modus operandi) is meaningless and proves nothing.
edited 6th Dec '16 4:08:02 PM by Draghinazzo
Thing is it won't take long before large companies just start either bribing Trump or feeding him false info the mess with stock took prices. They could either bribe him so he calls them awesome on Twitter or they could even just send him (via twitter) a fake story claiming a comeptetor is doing something bad and then watch as he retweets. Trump's twitter is going to become a weapon for cooperationd to use.
It sounds good now while he's having a go at companies we don't like, but what happens when he calls a green energy company stupid on twitter or says that a company in a bunch of poo for having a equality osptunity hiring practices.
edited 6th Dec '16 4:10:12 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranTaking a stand against corporations on twitter and threatening to bully them is not any real good thing. Remember that Putin became respected in Russia for getting the oligarchs behind him, putting the money into Russia and jailing two or three of them for corruption (for which they were guilty). It didn't amount to an end of kleptocracy in Russia by any means.
Trump is basically creating a neo-feudal presidency and governing by decree by running his big mouth like that.
Remember that businesspeople like to screw each other over, there's no loyalty among thieves after all.
^^ Oh, that's already happening.
Three groups of people elected Trump: deplorables, chumps, and sycophants.
Deplorables voted for him because of all the terrible stuff he stands for. Chumps overlooked all the red flags because they bought his sales pitch. Sycophants vote for whoever has an R next to their name regardless of who it is. These groups are not mutually exclusive. The chumps appear to be starting to realize they've been swindled, but as with any good snake oil salesman, only after they can't get their money back.
edited 6th Dec '16 4:45:13 PM by Wryte

I don't think that analogy is remotely similar. The argument about porn "I know it when I see it" was cited in freedom of speech and freedom of expression cases (except for the child porn) is not harmful so long as it is informed by the willing consent of participants and viewers.
Gun restrictions are about stopping weapons from proliferating into the hands of a large population, whose motivations, intentions and actions cannot be actively monitored without violating the constitution. In that context, stuff about the exact specifications about weapons and other stuff is mere pedantry meant to distract from the actual problems.