Gun Control and Regulations

Sure, but the idea is that anything which can be legally owned could then be registered by meeting the same criteria, paying the same fees and filling out the same paperwork. I.e., no more restrictions on barrel length, magazine size, stock vs stockless, with or without a sound suppressor.

Brazil's Bolsonaro signs decree easing gun restrictions

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

I don't think the United States should be the example to follow when it comes to gun control. And in an even more violent country like Brazil, there's no way I see any outcome other than bloodshed.

Life is unfair...

Franklin Armory is continuing to cheat their way through US firearm regulations as hard as they can. [1]

For background, this company has produced a series of weapons and parts designed to comply to the letter of the law, but not the spirit. They hit big when they made a trigger that can simulate burst fire while still remaining completely legal. Last year they introduced rifles that circumvent the length and foregrip regulations on rifles by not legally being rifles at all thanks to a tricky barrel. Now they’re releasing a rifle that fires one round every trigger pull like a semiautomatic but isn’t legally a semiautomatic, which means it slips right past assault weapons bans despite having the same functionality as a banned rifle.

All of these things are fairly gimmicky, and the company admits as much, but they’re marketed as “conversation pieces” to highlight perceived inadequacies with US gun laws.

They should have sent a poet.

Let me guess. All the energy required to chamber, fire, and extract a cartridge comes from the finger in the act of pulling the trigger?

I would assume so. It’s pretty ingenious in its own way, though not terribly practical.

I’m sure they’ll be popular in AWB states.

They should have sent a poet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/4-year-old-boy-shoots-pregnant-mom-face-seattle-n966411

So a little kid found a loaded gun under his parents' bed and then shot his mom in the face with it. Thank God she's in stable condition, but this is the kind of thing that happens without proper gun control enforcement.

Seattle even apparently recently voted to pass legislation that would make a gun-owner face some charges if someone else, like a kid or a criminal, manages to get a hold of the gun and causes harm with it due it being improperly secured. It's not actually in effect yet, but that's exactly the kind of law I want enacted. Enforce the "responsible" part of "responsible gun ownership" that the 2nd Amendment types keep harping on about.

They’ll find a way to deflect.

Question: How do you enforce it? (Especially without creating a defacto gun registry)

You create a gun registry. That should be an obvious goal.

The majority of gun owners are not honest about why they own guns. They own guns because they like shooting. If you offered to trade parts of the NFA and restrictions on assault weapons for a universal registry and background checks it’s likely a significant majority of gun owners would go for it.

They should have sent a poet.

Ehh, yes they do like to shoot guns. But that's a bit simplistic. Regardless, I think a registry would be counter to why we have gun rights. We don't have guns rights in case the deer rise against us. If the last century taught us anything, it's that government in a surprisingly short amount of time can become a threat to the people.

Yeah, no. The whole idea of using our gun rights to defend against a tyrannical government is patently absurd, and I’m almost embarrassed to see that kind of right-wing nonsense on this site. If you honestly believe that you have no business participating in a conversation on gun control.

I’ll also point out that we already have a de facto national registry through serial lookups, it’s just a deeply ineffective one.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 12th 2019 at 7:31:39 AM

They should have sent a poet.

Lets not tell each other who does or does not have a right to participate in these discussions.

That said, regulating gun owners rather than strictly the guns themselves does make a lot of sense, and could make the basis of a compromise of some kind.

First you would need an actual definition of "assault weapon" and some reasoning for why they deserve more regulation than non-assault weapon firearms. The best proposal I've heard for that is "all semi-automatic rifles", but that's far broader than how most people use the term.

It is not, as any number of historical examples of resistance movements, insurgencies, and uprisings can attest. If nothing else, it's far easier to fight against an invading or occupying army if weapons are widely and easily available than if they are not.

Which doesn't mean it's a good argument against gun control, of course. Policy should balance the real and concrete danger posed by the wide and easy availability of guns (namely, people shooting each other) against the theoretical and hypothetical danger of a government seeking tyrannical rule over its citizens to the point where armed insurrection is the most reasonable response.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I’m talking more the legal definition of assault weapon than the general term. My position is that they don’t need any more regulation than any other firearm.

As for whether weapons are a useful check on tyranny, only three countries on earth currently guarantee a right to guns, and only one has an unlimited right. There were a handful of countries that guaranteed it at the beginning of the 1900s but they all got rid of it. If civilian ownership of weapons actually checked against tyranny we would expect to see tyranny all over the place, but countries with low gun ownership rates seem to be doing fine. On the other side of things, armed insurrections have done alright in countries with strict gun control as well. That’s not a useful position to hold, or a good argument against increased gun control.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 13th 2019 at 7:18:19 AM

They should have sent a poet.

There is no widely agreed upon legal definition of "assault weapon", that's my whole point. The Assault Weapons Ban used an incoherent mess of a definition that included things like safety devices (such as barrel shrouds, which prevents you from burning yourself by accidentally touching a hot barrel) and cosmetic features (like pistol grips or bayonet lugs). Various states have a hodge-podge of different definitions.

The term "assault weapon" is useless because it means different things to different people, so if you use it without specifying exactly what you mean by it, no one's going to know what you're actually talking about.

This is a different argument than you made before, and one that I (also) agree with.

I know. I literally said as much in my post. I was just challenging your assertion that the idea of an armed citizenry taking on a professional army was "patently absurd". It's not. It's happened many, many times (with varying degrees of success).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I’m aware of the particulars and I agree with you on the definitions for assault weapons being legally incoherent, which is why I’m advocating for getting rid of said definitions entirely. There should be no such thing as an assault weapon, legally speaking.

As far as armed citizens taking on the government, I never said anything about that being impossible. As we’ve seen time and time again it’s very much possible. The point I’ve been making is that firearm ownership being enshrined as a right in our constitution does nothing to deter tyranny and is unnecessary even if for some reason US citizens did need to carry out an armed uprising. The poster I was replying to seemed to believe we needed a specific right to bear arms to fend off a tyrannical government, which I believe is a position incompatible with any sort of reasoned debate on the subject.

They should have sent a poet.

Citizens get away with fighting the government when the government lets them get away with it (because the alternative is a large scale killing). But if the government wants to put a group down, it has the resources to do it, regardless of how well armed they are. Guns, at best, increase the cost of tyranny, but mostly in terms of public relations.

Regardless of that, an assault weapon is best defined as any semi-automatic magazine fed weapon. They don't need to be banned, additional paperwork, checks, fees on the on the manufacture, sale and ownership of them should discourage their use by unstable individuals. Accessories designed to increase the rate of fire beyond normal operation should be banned. I see no problem with silencers, stocks, or large magazines. Background checks on such weapons should be universal, with no gun show exemptions. No open or concealed carry.

This would make revolvers and shotguns a lot more popular.

Additional restrictions on a nebulous category of weapons are unnecessary. Doubly so for a category of weapons that are essentially not used in crime. The restrictions on so-called “assault weapons” should be the same as the restrictions on any other firearm, which is to say that unstable individuals should not be able to get their hands on anything.

The category “assault weapon” is not a useful one from a legislative point of view.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 14th 2019 at 7:51:39 AM

They should have sent a poet.

I dont follow the logic. Are you also against additional restrictions on fully automatic weapons?

That’s not exactly the same thing. “Assault weapons” aren’t really any more or less dangerous than any other category of weapon, while a fully automatic weapon is distinctly more dangerous, in both the sense of danger to the user and danger when used in crime.

They should have sent a poet.

It seems to me that a weapon that fires bullets more rapidly is decidedly more dangerous than one that doesn't, in most circumstances, which is why so many militaries changed to them, before the change to full auto. Which is not to say the semi-automatics are as dangerous as full auto weapons, they aren't, but there is a distinct difference between them and manual actions.

There really isn’t any significant difference in danger. I’ll point out that pump action shotguns are used more often in crime than semi auto rifles. The main thing that makes a weapon dangerous isn’t the speed at which it shoots (though full auto should obviously remain regulated) it’s how portable it is. This is why handguns account for the vast, overwhelming majority of gun crime. There are probably more crimes committed with revolvers than with every semi-auto long gun put together.

Moreover, defining an assault weapon as any magazine fed semi auto stretches the term uselessly far. A Benelli M4 has far more claim to being an “assault weapon” than a autoloading hunting rifle, but under that definition the hunting rifle would be the assault weapon.

That avenue of regulation is unnecessarily difficult for little benefit.

They should have sent a poet.

Note that by my definition, semi-auto handguns would be considered "assault weapons" (although I admit that at this point there is little reason to keep the term). But I think that many factors go into how dangerous a weapon is, portability (I think you really meant "concealability") is one of them, but sustained rate of fire is another. So is the power and range of the round. Despite all that, what I'm trying to achieve is a simplification of firearm regulations. "Assault weapons" don't need to be banned, or even restricted in circulation all that much, they just need additional tracking and registration compared to certain other firearms. We need to know who the owners are.

BTW, a Benelli M4 is semi-automatic.

Edited by DeMarquis on Feb 15th 2019 at 10:58:44 AM

I meant accessibility, not concealability. A handgun can be kept loaded around the house much easier than a long gun. It’s much more easily manipulated if a child gets their hands on it. And yes, it is concealable. It’s far and away the most accessible type of weapon, and more than any other one aspect this is why it features so prominently in crime and accidents.

And yes, the Benelli M4 is semi-automatic. It feeds from a fixed tube though, meaning it wouldn’t be restricted under the definition you proposed.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 15th 2019 at 8:11:26 AM

They should have sent a poet.