The problem with the Assault Weapons Ban

[Merchant Marine]

[greennina]

1. Agreed!

The fact that the first dangerous thing is still allowed is a serious problem.

[X_Digger]

3. Which of these is more 'dangerous'?

Trick question, they're the same. All three are semi-automatic. All three take detachable magazines. Same caliber round. Same rate of fire (one round per pull of the trigger, as fast as you can pull the trigger.)

The top is a 'traditional' hunting rifle. The second is the new Remington R-25 'hunting' gun, based on the AR-10 (bottom picture).

[greennina]

4. They're all dangerous.

Your question doesn't make any sense. Of course all three need to be banned.

[spin]

5. Do you want the sales of new "assault weapons" banned or...

are you in favor of confiscating all such weapons?

[X_Digger]

6. *snort* good luck with that..

You're sounding like these gals now..

[JonQ]

24. Judging by that picture, that's a pretty weak threat they have

[Craftsman]

34. Judging by the photo I would need hard liquor to kiss them

[Ter]

52. Yuck!

Was everybody ugly back then?

[eqfan592]

7. Wow

Let me know when you're going after cars and swimming pools next.

[taurus145]

9. Firearms, by design, are dangerous

Why do you think they should be banned?

Do you believe that those in the hands of criminals will be surrendered if a ban is imposed?

Given our porous borders and those of nearly all of the rest of the world, why would a ban that is short of worldwide work?

[dairydog91]

10. As opposed to what? Non-dangerous guns? Where do I find those?

[paulsby]

12. free speech is dangerous

let's ban it!

[rl6214]

14. That's very progressive

greeninnie!

[cabluedem]

19. Agreed. Ban them all no execptions. Five years first offense. nt

[slackmaster]

22. Except of course for use by government employees

:eyes:

[eqfan592]

26. Yep. Then free speach is next.

Owning non-government approved books will be a five years first offense. Ohhhh, what's wrong? Don't like it when your backwards, sick logic is applied to a different right?

[spin]

32. Do you want a prison in your back yard?

You need one to house all the new criminals who refuse to turn in their firearms.

[PavePusher]

20. Really?

Why do you say that? Do any of the three a represent a significant percentage of crime tools?

Molon Labe. I presume you will come to accomplish this task yourself?

[jeepnstein]

36. Of course not.

The crowd all in favor of taking away our 2nd Amendment rights will have to pay someone with guns to go around and gather up them up. This is a really great idea for them, as long as the group paying the armed faction is supportive of their "progressive" point-of-view.

[SteveM]

44. There goes an old favorite for pig-hunting...

I guess you are not in that school of gun-control that says: We don't want to ban your hunting weapons. You just want to ban the whole ball of wax, right?

[viscrente]

50. No No No

If you want them banned in your household then by all means... Ban them.. But do you expect the government to go house to house and take them by force? How would that go? How many people would die across this country during this gun grab? Know your facts and contemplate the consequences.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson:

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

in the words of Gandhi:

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

[eqfan592]

51. Actually, about that Jefferson quote....

....it appears to be a false one.

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndbog.html

However, there's plenty of other good quotes out there. :)

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html

The top 4 quotes are all from Jefferson. :D

[proteus_lives]

49. Ahh, the voice of ignorance.

:eyes:

[Katya Mullethov]

2. They wont make that mistake again

And we wont get fooled agin , no no .

[krispos42]

8. Another problem

▼ Sporting firearm:




▼ Deadly assault weapon, according to California:




▼ Deadly assault weapon, according to the old Federal AWB:





▼ Only one problem... they're all the same exact gun with the same exact serial number:

[greennina]

37. One is more easily concealed and fired from the hip.

That's why owning one of those should have a large minimum time in prison for something so dangerous to the public.

[Merchant Marine]

38. Obviously you have never fired or handled these weapons

An M1A1 is not concealable in any way shape or form. Even with the stock folded it is still over 2 feet long. "Trenchcoat Carry" is a Hollywood cliche and will only attract suspicion from the cops.

And firing from the hip? That argument barely applies to full-autos. Firing from the hip imparts no advantage over firing from the shoulder. You cannot use the sights, have no way of aiming and suffer the effects of recoil on your arms and wrists instead of your shoulder. A gun is designed to be fired from the shoulder, and anyone firing from the hip will be lucky to hit anything beyond a few yards. The folding stock on the M1A1 was designed so it wouldn't get in a paratrooper's way on a plane, not for concealment.

Oh, by the way, you can fire a traditionally stocked weapon from the hip too. Do you get your info on this stuff from action movies or something?

[Euromutt]

47. I'll add some points about "firing from the hip"

I did my national service in the Dutch army in 1993-1994, and I was instructed in firing from the hip with both the FN FAL rifle and the Uzi sub-machine gun. We were taught to do this only in response to targets appearing suddenly at very close range, sacrificing accuracy for speed. Even then, we were taught to brace the butt of the gun against our hips to get at least something resembling a stable firing platform.

And we never actually used the method in practice.

[taurus145]

41. Concealed by whom?

I'm a big guy and there's no way I can reasonably conceal any of the rifles mentioned without the use of a very long overcoat. Even the version with the folding stock is approaching 30" in length (if it's the same model Mini-14 I have, which appears to be true.

I'm far less dangerous to the public with my firearms than anyone is with his/her car. The same goes for well over 99% of gun owners.

[krispos42]

42. If only more criminals would shoot from the hip...

Their hit percentage would drop drastically.


And it's easier to shoot a traditionally-gripped riflefrom the hip than a pistol-gripped rifle. If you look at a modern war movie compared to say a WW2 movie, the modern guys hold their guns at the "ready" position with the butt high and the barrel low. The WW2 guys (with the traditional rifles) hold their guns with the barrel high and the butt low. They're easier to hold that way, so if you want to spray bullets from your hip the traditional grip is the way to go.

Not that it is particularly hard to spray bullets from the hip anyway. Uncomfortable and inaccurate, perhaps, but not hard with either grip style..


And cutting off the buttstock of a long gun so it is easier to hide isn't really that much of a help. Even the shortest rifle is still way longer and heavier than even a large handgun. A "big" handgun is maybe 4 pounds loaded and 8 inches long, while a cut-down rifle would be maybe 6 pounds and 16 inches long... and much harder to handle. And in AR-15 rifles, part of the reloading mechanism extends into the buttsock, so you can't cut them down.

And with semi-automatic rifles the gas pressure used to cycle the action is dependent on barrel length... sawing it off would both ruin the crown of the barrel, wrecking accuracy, and it would affect and possibly render inoperable the semi-automatic loading mechanism.

[PavePusher]

43. Have you ever "fired from the hip"?

Or do you simply "shoot your mouth off"?

Either way, you prove yourself an ignorant fool.

[SteveM]

45. Hollywood not withstanding, those "thingeys which go up here" are...

are to enable fire from the shoulder. The hip-firing stuff was popularized by a lot of films about gangsters, during yet another era of prohibition.

[benEzra]

48. That's a joke, right?

Here's that same rifle in the pic above, compared to a medium-sized 9mm pistol.



Even with the stock folded for storage, the rifle is two and a half feet long, eight or ten inches high, at least four inches thick and weighs over seven pounds.

Here's an even bulkier rifle with a stock folded for storage, compared to the same medium-sized 9mm:



Handguns are easily concealable on one's person; a centerfire rifle with a civilian-length barrel just isn't, folding stock or not.

[bahrbearian]

11. where does this "they are coming to take them away" paranoia come from?

Sounds like "be afraid, be very afraid"

[Merchant Marine]

13. You infer alot

from a .jpg.

[bahrbearian]

15. No actually I was going by your text

"The problem with the Assault Weapons Ban"

[Merchant Marine]

39. That would be the part

Where the CA legislature says I can own one type of stock but not the other. This is done to protect me. All it does is highlight the idiocy and ineffectualness of those in charge.

Also, if they had gone full retard and banned everything we could have shot it down in the Supreme Court. Incremental retardation is harder to fight.

[Euromutt]

16. Perhaps from Dianne Feinstein

You know, she who said of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban (which she authored) to 60 Minutes:

If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it.

Feinstein's still in the Senate, and she's still on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In addition, in case you hadn't noticed, various members of the Obama administration have stated the administration still supports a permanent re-imposition of the "assault weapons" ban. Even though they acknowledge that legislative support is lacking at present, they appear to be waiting for another mass shooting to pounce and try to push it through.

[bahrbearian]

17. There is always someone saying they want a ban,

then there is always a knee jerk. Its not going to happen. but Guns, God and Gays always gets a reaction.

[Euromutt]

21. In this case, that "someone" is a large chunk of the cabinet...

...including the A-G, and several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, two of whom were instrumental in getting the first "assault weapons" ban passed (though Schumer was still in the House at the time). It's not mere paranoia to be on one's guard. No, I doubt anyone is actually going to try to confiscate any of my firearms or magazines, but I'd like to be able to replace or supplement the ones I have at some future date, thank you very much.

Incidentally, I'm an atheist, I'm pro-gay rights, and one of my shooting buddies is a Unitarian lesbian. So I doubt I fit into whatever pigeonhole you're trying to cram me into.

[Ready4Change]

30. Oh you people are all the same.

What have you got against pigeons and their holes?

:)

[SteveM]

46. Yeah, and she used to pack, too. Until she could purchase armed guards (nt)

[Caliman73]

18. There is no mention of anyone taking anything away in the OP

He was merely pointing out the irrational approach that was taken with the "Assault Weapons" ban that expired only a few years ago after 10 years on the books and is still law in California. The problem, for people who cannot tell from the pictures is that firearms were banned SOLELY based on their cosmetic appearance not on their function. As shown by the M1 carbine in the OP, you could legally own the rifle with the traditional butt stock and grip, but the same exact firearm with the pistol grip, was considered dangerous and illegal. Same thing with the Mini-14 in the photos that followed. Politicians did want to restrict firearms based on their look. Perhaps they wanted to ban self loading or semi-automatic actions, but they knew that it would have been impossible, so they went after what they termed "assault weapons" instead. There are politicians and organizations that continue to have the same agenda. There is no need to "be very afraid" but their is reason to be mindful of the attempts to restrict firearms through less than straightforward means.

[slackmaster]

23. With my C&R license I can have a standard-stocked M1 Carbine sent directly to my home

But I can't get one with the paratrooper stock because that would be an "assault weapon" in my state.

And I can't have ANY original M1 Carbine magazines sent to me, because the smallest ones hold 15 rounds of ammunition.

Before the magazine ban took effect in California, I bought a dozen each of the 15- and 30-rounders (intended for the selective-fire M2 Carbine) in unused condition. I also bought several 30-round AK-47 magazines in case I ever decide to buy one of those rifles.

The AW ban was stupid.

[oneshooter]

29. If you buy them from the CMP

You can have both a M1 Carbine AND a Mi Rifle shipped to your front door!!

Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

[TheWraith]

27. How about the people who support taking them away?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x270557#270565

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x270557#270594

That's not to say that there's not a huge amount of scaremongering on the subject, but there are a lot of people out there who would happily ban all guns just to fill their psychological need to blame something for the state of the world.

[taurus145]

35. California mostly

Feinstein has stated that she's in favor of confiscation.

California did just that a few years back wit several "evil looking" guns. Registrations was required "jusr ro keep track of the things". Confiscation followed. Look it up,

[JonQ]

25. Which one is more of a phallic symbol?

That seems to be the main criteria that frightens (and arouses) the grabbers.

[spin]

31. Actually, I can't see anything phallic about any firearm...

if I did, I would wander through life seeing phallic symbols everywhere.













If a person obsesses on seeing phallic symbols they probably would benefit from appointments with a good psychiatrist.

[JonQ]

33. Me neither

but they apparently do.

[rrneck]

28. Firearms have

been regulated as much as they can be logistically, legally, and politically. That's why those who would like further regulation are reduced to cosmetic and technical distinctions that are useless for any purpose other than to keep them in a paycheck. The emotional appeals are an attempt to boostrap an unworkable public policy agenda.

[cowcommander]

40. Funny thing about those M1 Carbines

I believe the stupid gun control laws with California exempts the ban of semiauto rifles without pistol grips because of the M1 Carbine and M1 Garand.