The Right To Keep and Bear Arms

You sound like my father-in-law. "They're investments!"

The 800 dollars I just picked up for my rifle is definitely a plus, I would have pissed it away on other stuff if I didn't.

Besides, that rifle won me a shooting tournament.

It was a good run Howa, but I'm gonna stick with my Remington 700.◊

I passed her on to a good owner, so it's all good.

edited 17th Jul '11 1:22:18 AM by Barkey

In short form, yes, I think that attempting to ban these weapons (rifles, shotguns, pistols) is stupid and unconstitutional and misses the point because they're realistically something a civilian should expect to get use out of and not something (well, the semi-auto carbine not withstanding) that could cause extreme undue harm or outdo the police. I would like you to define "carry permit" for me, but I'd like to see a concealed carry permit for pistols. Nothing says "crime/accident waiting to happen" like someone having a deadly weapon around and nobody else knowing.

I also think that guns should be kept out of (most) public places (well, buildings. Such as hospitals, post offices, police stations, etc) and private areas, if the owners says no guns. I wouldn't qualify a national or state park as a "public place," although that starts to slide into privacy and public annoyance issues; people go to the park for peace and quiet, and if people start using it as their private range, I can see friction turning into Flame Bait really quickly.

With these kinds of weapons, I think regulation should probably be less about the weapons themselves and more about the ammo. Nobody in the civilian market should be using explosive rounds, and armor piercing is = no, period. There is a reason they're called "cop killers." I don't like hollow points, but apparently they have some kind of use for hunting...? I know they are for squishy targets, so that makes sense, but I also know they're banned by the Hague Convention, so it's rather fishy...

edited 17th Jul '11 7:52:18 AM by USAF713

^ You'd be surprised how non-lethal armor-piercing ammo is compared to some of their standard ball counterparts.

Take the 5.7mm pistol round, it pierces Kevlar like it wasn't there but does absolutely pathetic tissue damage compared to say a 9mm. It doesn't fragment or smash wider like other pistol calibers do.

Rifle ammunition is much the same way. Armor piercing .30-06 can punch through a half inch of steel plate but the only thing making it as lethal as its ball counterpart is the fact it's a fucking heavy bullet going supersonic velocities causing an impact phenomena known as hydrostatic shock. It however does not fragment or expand during impact. (But will leave a huge exit wound just about every time.)

Intermediate caliber ammunition (think 5.56) runs the gamut. 7.62 Soviet (same ammo as the AK-47) ammo in armor piercing cuts right through like .30-06 causing hydrostatic shock (obviously much less than .30-06). On the flipside armor piercing 5.56 ammunition just cuts clean through, no hydrostatic shock, very limited tissue damage. (Even at close range.) Ball 5.56 ammunition fragments and tumbles at short ranges under 150 meters though not reliably for most firearms.

Shotgun ammo doesn't really have armor-piercing rounds that I'm aware of.

I thought that AK-47 ammo was a functional hollow point round because the round actually tumbled after a while, which reduced accuracy but made the weapon stupidly powerful against soft targets. Although I could be remembering wrong.

Shotguns have heavy-alloy slugs...?

Well, the argument for me is that there is no civilian use for armor-piercing ammunition. At all. Unless you're out to kill police officers, you have no use for armor piercing ammo and could simply use the standard. So why should it be allowed if it's only possible civilian use is explicitly to attack authority figures and bypass the defenses they have that would otherwise partially or fully protect them?

Because criminals making their own body armor isn't exactly unheard of; Ned Kelly ring a bell?

As for self defence, aren't there long-ranged non lethal options available? Ones that would at least be useable in the cramped conditions of the home.

edited 17th Jul '11 8:46:38 AM by GameChainsaw

Mace is more useful for low-level threats (a drunk guy going after some chick at a bar) rather than a die-hard criminal, and somehow tasers don't seem like they're going to be reliable in civilian hands since we couldn't force the same training that cops get with them on normal people without causing a shitstorm.

Criminals do make their own body armor, but we shouldn't be encouraging vigilantism. The police have catching criminals as their job, and they should be allowed to do that. Civilians should help if they can and it's safe for them to do so, but everybody shouldn't be encouraged to be their own Punisher and go out and attack bank robbers. Those guys out in California who attacked the bank (I think it was the bank) in full body armor with AK-47s were bad enough, but it could have been a hundred times worse if a bunch of gun nuts decided they could "help" the police instead of letting SWAT do what they're meant to do.

Who said anything about being a vigilante? If some guy breaks into my house with some home-made plate armor, it's like it if I had some AP rounds.

SWAT was outgunned in that shootout. The civilians probably would have fared better using high-power hunting rifles and such.

When was the last time a criminal was that determined that they broke into a house with plate armor? That kind of thing would be done for some high-profile crime in a major institution with a lot of security. No criminal would waste that kind of effort on petty theft, and such a ridiculous and, plainly, utterly far-fetched situation doesn't justify the ammo on its own.

SWAT wasn't at their best, creative tactics-wise, in that shoot out, but it's their job to take that risk and their responsibility to deal with the situation. Civilians are not supposed to be law enforcement. Law enforcement is a job where someone is, basically, volunteering to risk their life so we, John Q. General Populace, do not have to. Doing so anyway is just spiting the police and making the sacrifices they make nominal and insults the uniform. If they want to be law enforcement so bad, they can join the police and do so properly.

edited 17th Jul '11 9:02:34 AM by USAF713

Or maybe it's a criminal who doesn't know if the homeowner is armed, and would rather not get shot in the chest; criminals can think too.

At the same time it offers the situation of what if you are defending yourself or others with your own arms and the criminals have body armor?

For example, if a repeat of the Mumbai massacre happened out here while I was out in public. I would shoot back if I had a weapon (preferably a rifle) and stop them. If they had body armor, I'd like armor piercing ammunition to save people's lives from the shooters. In those situations the cops will be of little use especially in the time frame where most of the killing will take place e.g. nearly immediately. The faster a civilian can get his weapon and start shooting back in those scenarios the fewer people will die overall.

So to deal with the possibility of armored criminals, we allow everyone to carry around weapons with armor-piercing rounds, which allows criminals with said ammunition to pass undetected and means that the police might as well not bother with the body armor anymore? That makes no sense at all.

Encouraging civilians to use force in reaction to force is also a horrible idea. Major Tom, you are a military person who has had training in combat. Most people are not, and wouldn't think through the situation intelligently. Instead of, say, sitting back and exploiting a range/situational/positional advantage, they might just rush in, get killed themselves, accomplish nothing, and add to the body count. Since most people won't follow a rule if there are exceptions, we can't say "those who are formerly in the military or currently in the military are free to do the police's jobs, everyone else run and scream" because they won't, they'll say "well I'm just as competent, let me help too!" because people are stupid.

^ There's a lot of people out there who know how to fire back and remain calm. It's the Golden Rule in regards to firearm self-defense. As I stated before, in gun circles Defensive Failure is unacceptable and intolerable.

Most people who buy firearms for self-defense are willing and able to use lethal force long before the police arrive if necessary.

Just because I can keep my head cool while having the steady aim to drop a man at 300 yards doesn't mean my next door neighbor who regularly hunts elk can't do the same thing in the same situation.

edited 17th Jul '11 9:10:28 AM by MajorTom

Or we could just go back to shooting for the head.

^ Do you know how hard that is to do?

Very. Such is why standard military training, as it was described to me by my friend's (formerly special forces) dad, is to fire two or three rounds at the enemy center of mass and move on to the next one.

Elk hunting is much different than self-defense against an armed assailant. Elk are unintelligent animals that can't hurt you unless you're foolish enough to let them get close. Also, people are different during training and actual fighting. Most civilians have no concept of how a combat situation actually works, and lack the mental conditioning to handle the stress involved. The military accounts for this, as well as police training. Self-defense class doesn't, or at least not to a sufficient degree, and couldn't because people would complain that it's too "invasive" or some other such nonsense.

From a stationary position on a stationary target? Not difficult. From a stationary position on a moving target; bit difficult. If you're both moving, the difficulty increases.

A couple thousand rounds of ammo and a weeks at the range will help; it's difficult but not impossible.

edited 17th Jul '11 9:18:02 AM by Kino

^ I'm not talking 30 meters. If you are aiming for the head at 100 meters or greater you better be a crack marksman with some good optics (ironsight or preferably a scope).

Difficulty of hitting somebody in the head becomes exponentially harder with each 100 meter increment.

edited 17th Jul '11 9:25:03 AM by MajorTom

The issue of using a handgun at 100m aside, yeah, that requires skill; last I checked i'm not the guy from Wanted.

I thought most handguns were limited to around the 50m-80m range anyway? Any further and they become inaccurate.

Has there been an outbreak of home invasions by armored persons?

I'm pretty sure most burglars prefer for nobody to be home, and so being armored would be counter-productive.

I'll need some FBI statistics to give credence to some worry about people wearing armor for home invasions.

The obvious solution is autocannons. Just switch 'em on at night when you go to bed.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

edited 17th Jul '11 10:20:13 AM by GameChainsaw

That is not what Autocannons mean. You want Sentry Guns for that.