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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
edited 16th Jun '16 7:44:38 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.To be quite frank, the distinction drawn at "fully automatic" weapons is kind of arbitrary as well; it is known, at least by people familiar with guns, that full-auto is worse than useless in most situations because it's impossible to maintain accurate aim due to the recoil. You mainly use it for suppression fire. In short, a badguy with a machine gun is not going to be any more deadly, necessarily, than a badguy with a semi-auto gun; certainly they will be less accurate.
The main issue here is the use of automatic weapons as "terror weapons", which is a psychological tactic more than a direct killing tactic. It's certainly a legitimate issue, since a significant tactical advantage to the shooter is the intimidation factor of their weapons: people may be less afraid to rush someone with a pistol than they would be someone with a machine gun. But most people, by the same logic, would not recognize the difference between a full-auto and semi-auto weapon when both take the form of a big, scary rifle.
Functionally, the distinction matters in terms of killing power and efficiency. However, since this is a political issue: the "big, scary gun" factor is relevant, given that the primary targets of these attackers are civilians who are not expected to have expert weapons knowledge.
Edit: Also, it matters to response teams, because if we let anyone buy any kind of weapon, the problem of the bad guys being better-armed than the police will arise. It's certainly an issue in other countries, like Mexico.
edited 16th Jun '16 7:49:05 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I'm going to have to disagree with you there. While you're not wrong that full auto is normally used for suppression rather than actually expecting to hit anything, a spree shooter is not in a normal battlefield situation. Stepping into a crowded room and opening up on full auto can easily kill dozens of people in seconds. That's absolutely a qualitative difference than semi-auto, and it's a good place to draw a meaningful line.
Although it's worth noting that the National Firearms Act was a reaction to criminals using machine guns as they were intended — spraying automatic fire at the police to force them to keep their heads down, basically — rather than having a spree-shooter sort of situation in mind. Think Bonnie and Clyde.
re: response unit being outgunned, that's exactly what SWAT teams were created for. Your average beat cop doesn't need any firepower heavier than a service pistol, but for situations where something more is required, you call in the people trained to actually use it properly.
edited 16th Jun '16 7:55:12 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Video: When a retired Navy SEAL
suggests that you run to solid cover
◊ before trying to play the hero, I would go with the SEAL, even if it's an appeal to authority. Although I would reserve judgement in the absence of detailed knowledge of the guy's curriculum.
edited 16th Jun '16 7:57:44 AM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot![]()
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A lot of those criminals were using the good old Thompson submachine gun that was developed for WWII and became widely popular in organized crime, especially when outfitted with the infamous drum magazine. Or possibly the movies served to glorify it in a way that never reflected reality.
Your point about firing on full-auto into a crowded room is taken, but my point is that banning weaponry solely on the basis of its full-auto setting is very nearly as effective for public safety as banning "assault style" guns on the basis of cosmetic features, which is to say not very. A bad guy who obtains a weapon capable of rapid, sustained fire (whether semi- or full-auto) and who gets access to an area that is crowded with people is going to kill a lot of them. All such weapons need to be banned in all cases.
Again, this serves to prove the point that drawing arbitrary distinctions about fire modes and cosmetic features is essentially a political strawman that serves no real public safety purpose.
edited 16th Jun '16 7:59:00 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yes, your spree shooter isn't in combat. He's got a lot of targets in a confined space with few escape routes, full auto is a huge deal there.
And the original Tec-9 was actually banned under the modification chunk of that bill but the revised version wasn't. It was still however very easy to modify and it's threaded barrel let it take all many of extensions and suppressors, effectively turning it into full rifle sized SMG.
And in fact the assault weapons ban forced IntraTec to make another revised Tec-9 without the threaded barrel and it's popularity plummeted. Without it's ability to be modified it was little more than a cheap piece of a garbage. Sales were hurt so severely that IntraTec actually went out of business and is now defunct. The Tec-9 is no longer in production.
edited 16th Jun '16 7:59:38 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?I read that normal soldiers/airmen/sailors/marines were forbidden from hanging out with Special Forces guys because they'd try to emulate their exploits and their improvisational ways are a lethally ill fit for the way normal enlisted work at all.
Don't know how it relates to civvies, though, whom I assume have no discipline to disrupt in the first place.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.I think you're underestimating just how many rounds an honest to god machine gun can put downrange. A semi-auto weapon can still be horrifically deadly, but there's a definite qualitative difference between semi-auto and full auto, which isn't true of assault weapons.
In other words, a fully automatic weapons can actually kill more people more easily and more quickly than semi-automatic weapons, while nothing about assault weapons actually make them any more deadly than other types of guns.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Well actually Fighteer it was a lot of seemingly nonsensical things being banned that led to the Tec-9 finally getting off the street.
Threaded barrels, collapsing stocks, barrel shrouds, etc. On their own they're harmless and even in the case of barrel shrouds they're safety features but they let a Tec-9 turn from this
◊ into this
◊ or this.
◊
edited 16th Jun '16 8:07:21 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?
It strikes me as a lot of effort that could have been spent more efficiently.
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I am not saying that I want full auto weapons made legal. I am saying that, by banning them and not other forms of rapid-fire weaponry, you're putting only a minor block in the way of people who intend to kill other people. You may be restricting the scope of the massacre but not the general ability to carry one out.
edited 16th Jun '16 8:10:57 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Well, yeah. What I'm saying is that there are legitimate reasons to treat automatic weapons differently from non-automatic weapons, and to regulate the former more heavily. You and I disagree on how strictly semi-auto guns should be dealt with, but what I'm getting at is that there's a significant enough difference between full auto and semi-auto to treat the two differently.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Yes, all gun control measures going forward must happen at the federal level. Straw purchases and moving weapons across state late mean that any state level legislation might as well not exist.
New York has effectively banned handguns but the place is still lousy with them. Because criminals and suppliers travel not even 20 minutes into Pennsylvania and buy them with little issue there.
edited 16th Jun '16 8:41:34 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?The top one is legal under the AWB and the one bellow isn't, what difference does it make when someone takes either of them to a spree shooting? Virtually none. Before anyone says the bottom one is more deadly "because attachments", the top one was used by Breivik on Norway's Utoya shooting, which is still the deadliest spree killing done by a single person to date where he managed to kill more than a hundred people with an Mini-14 and a Glock 17.
And yes, there is a big difference between "Assault Weapons", Assault Rifles and Semi-Autos. Respectively one is a bogus legal term invented by people who know jack shit about fire arms, the other is a weapon class consisted of a rifle that has selective fire and fires an intermediate round and the last one is the type of self loading firearm.
Virginia tech is also one of the deadliest shootings in the US with 33 deaths and it was done with two handguns a 10 round .22 Walter and a 17 rounds 9mm Glock. It was done in a less crowded and more sparse ground than the Orlando shooter and still managed to go very far without a scary looking "ass salt weapon".
edited 16th Jun '16 9:00:17 AM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent leges
Why should they both be illegal for him specifically?
Leaked Emails Show DNC Colluded with Media to Push Clinton Nomination
.
Kind of an open secret, but good to see evidence. Most of the emails is strategy agains the GOP, but the tone is surprisingly (unnecessarily?) one of "playing dirty".
edited 16th Jun '16 9:11:52 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.![]()
Angelus, I'm CIA
◊. Come with me please.
edited 16th Jun '16 9:09:23 AM by TerminusEst
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele![]()
And exactly nobody was surprised. /sigh Democracy sucks sometimes.

It is worth mentioning though that some of the sections of the assault weapons bill were specifically aimed at curbing the Tec-9. A "pistol" that any moron with an allen key could modify into a fully automatic submachine gun. It came with a variety of extra stocks, barrel extensions, suppressors, and extended magazines.
It was a pretty nasty piece of kit for a long time.
Oh really when?