That is very true

The next best thing to sarin gas or a battlefield nuclear device to have in the closet when the Zombie Apocalypse* comes.

* Dog whistle for class war, race war, civil war, social collapse, whatever you want.

...didn't actually read the article.

It's even portrayed as a more humane, sure-kill way to hunt large mammals. Just an updated Henry Rifle.

Doesn't change the character of the thing one bit.

so it is obvious there are other uses besides mass slaughter. Not black and white enough for you, I suspect.

I admit that target shooting can be fun, along with plinking, and what have you. To each his own.

I'm sure you'll get to keep the ones you already own.

...I'll be able to legally buy another in the future as well.

no proposed AWB will be retroactive.

no one or thing would have to worry about you losing it someday and killing many many living things.

And besides, hundreds of valuable rifles on one location would never tempt a thief.

...less injured or less dead due to that responsibility.
There's crime prevention and control at its best.

If someone has to use a grenade or a flame thrower, should they insist on carrying that around anywhere?

What are the requirements and well regulated sensible safety rules to control them. I'm not talking one gun to protect yourself or hunting rifles. I'm talking weapons that would be difficult if not impossible to stop even by police. Let's get serious and hold back on gunslingers and anyone so thrilled by death or their own importance that they wish to start wars and let's step into the way of arms dealers profits.

Please, let our kids be as safe as possible, under the "right to blow holes in everything around you if you have the whim" amendment.

...are not a danger to any innocent person. Forcing me to give them up will not increase public safety in the least.

I'm not suggesting that everyone's safety depends on a weapon. I quote #27 from the (unofficial) USMC Rules for Gun Fighting: "Your number one Option for Personal Security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation."

Having said those things, banning and onerous regulations will only encourage further crime in a country where privately owned guns are as common as privately owned cars.

AKs (full-auto weapons), explosives and flame throwers (and numerous other weapons) are already only legal for private citizens after a long investigation and approval process by the ATF. The last crime involving a full-auto was the North Hollywood shootout at Bank of America in 1997. An AR-15 is no more lethal than any other semi-auto of the same caliber.

Hold back on gunslingers/thrilled by death folks by all means. Determine who those folks are according to due process in the courts not by what color they like their rifle.

What do you mean by "step into the way of arms dealers profits"?

Re: "...right to blow holes in everything..." amendment; there isn't one. Hyperbole I infer.

The typical gun club can't afford it. Now if the government is willing to heavily subsidize such measures with tax payer money I might consider it.

The Ashley Gang (motor bandits who operated THE vertically integrated distilling/distributing system for South Florida in the 1920s) obtained their FULL-AUTO weapons from military armories. They preferred the BAR, not that Thompson stuff.

settle down. I don't want to be shot. Do you?

I keep my arms locked in a safe, ammunition is locked separately.

many guns from those who insist that there should be a gun in every hand.

There must be limits. You (singularly) can agree on that.

The only place I ever usually hear that kind of verbal stupidity is the gun control people desperately trying to pretend some gun owner actually said that.

Like the; "Guns everywhere for everybody with no laws" meme they love so very much.

Hey, speaking of laws, we were promised a bloodbath in Georgia, if they passed the "Guns Everywhere" laws! Whatever happened to that law?

Has Georgia descended into the Mad Max post apocalyptic existence we were warned of, or can I still make plane connections at Hartsfield-Jackson next week?

At the National Rifle Association's first press conference since the Newtown massacre that killed 27 people, most of them elementary school children, the gun lobby's CEO Wayne LaPierre said the solution is more guns...

While encouraging Americans to buy more guns—which would enrich the companies that fund the NRA—and station gun-toting guards at all schools, LaPierre declined to support any compromise on gun restrictions. And he engaged in a brazen act of hypocrisy. He warned of a society "populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters—people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/nra-chief-calls-more-guns-everywhere

... and the stupid armed guards in every high end private school in DC where the legislators kids go? Yeah armed guards are stupid.

Yeah that's so stupid the legislators on both sides of the aisle insist on it for all their kids, but yours are on their own with a "Gun Free Zone" sign and a maybe a new front door lock.

Your problem is LaPierre keeps winning on these issues for the past 22 years, while gun control just whines online about how unfair it all is.

...legislators in Hawaii are demanding gun owners be registered.












Yay, team.

...if you fly Delta or change carriers, you may have a bit of a walk combined with train ride between flights. Going anywhere good?

of criminals and adjudicated mental incompetents having guns.

You guys have gotta try harder. It's that logic thing. I know it's tough, but . . .

slaughter machines that other things are used much more often than they are... Now that's scary!"

That implies that AR-15s are less effective than clubs, if one simply totes up the total number of people killed by each. That's not the only way a reasonable person looks at the subject. Sorry, but your argument really isn't logical (or persuasive) if you don't also consider the lethality of each weapon in an individual's hands.

But, hey, when did logic and proportion ever mean anything to the NRA?! It's more about campaign cash and true believers, isn't it?

simply pointing out an FBI statistic.
Reasonable has an objective standard, yours isn't.

The other poster wasn't being any of the above, but was trying to divert the point I originally made that semi-automatics such as the AR-15 have been more lethal, in terms of victims killed per attack, than any other type of firearm used in mass killings.

based only on media accounts in the US. You don't know that to be a fact.

It is the here and now that count, not the heaps of bodies living dead and heartless at the base of Mayan temples six hundred years ago killed with glass daggers.

Something must be done about the here and now, for it is all we can do.

Perhaps you believe that those who don't follow the NRA propaganda line are all liars? How am I lying? Is that all you can say?

a lie is intentionally telling an untruth. You believe it to be true, therefore you are not a liar. All I said that there is no empirical evidence to support that. What I did say was that you were making a fallacious argument.

...I'm surprised you guys don't have a rapid-reaction team to fly to the location of each mass shooting and console the friends and loved ones of the dead by pointing out to them that the deaths were statistically insignificant.

Let's face it... Nearly every gun in this country, in the hands of a relentless killer who picks a nice soft target, is capable of getting off dozens of shots before armed police can intervene. Revolver, lever-action gun, double barreled shotgun... Given a five-minute police response time and competent gun handling skills, dozens of shots can be fired before the first police cars screech to a halt.

Your issue seems to be that the amount of built-in customization and personal ergonomic adjustment somehow makes an AR-15 just that much faster as to be unacceptably deadly.

That an AR-15 is acceptably deadly as long as it doesn't have an ergonomic pistol grip, but that slightly superior grip and the modest increase is handling put it over some arbitrary edge.

to the Scourt.

..is an individual RIGHT, according to SCOTUS and President Obama.

...and keeping and bearing arms is one of them in the US, unless and until the Second Amendment
is repealed.

Obviously the framers were talking about 'the people' then, as a nongovernmental body, when they said 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms'.

This is yet another way that the 'militia' reading of the second amendment is destroyed.

Indeed they are separate from the government. The people are guaranteed their rights by law. Those laws were written to protect the rights of the individuals from abuses by the government. The rights of any minority may be systematically abused by the majority in the form of laws contrary to those rights. For this reason laws passed by the legislature are subject to judicial review.

The language of the Declaration of Independence: "...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." clearly announces governments as being man made creations. Governments do not have rights.

and that's saying something.

Elmer Fudd might have been able to actually kill Daffy if he hadn't been limited to a plain old shotgun.

To describe a nasty gun that has killed countless human beings.

bolt action .30 caliber rifles (ie "hunting" rifles).

The body count with Enfields, Mausers and Springfield Arms took two world wars. Just wait and see what the next one brings.

I know for a fact, as a military historian that the mauser rifle, and its many derivatives has killed many MANY times more human beings...

I even have one.. {not mine}



And no proposed legislation even mentions them.. And it is a REAL, GENUINE, fully functional "weapon of war". unlike what our current crop of leaders think.

over the last 100,000 years.

Those goal posts??

And since the semi-auto carbine is within that number, the totals are even less.

Semi-autos are NOT the battle rifle in any armed force in the world, FULL AUTOS are. So, again the numbers are not "countless." Now, in the past large numbers of soldiers were killed with the semi-auto Garand, and the semi-auto M1 carbine, but those models are considered obsolete (the latter shooting low-power rounds). And neither have the characteristics of nor the all-important "looks" of the AR and AK -- or the Sig Sauer used in Orlando.

The only way to "Ban" the AR and AK families of carbines is to engulf ALL semi-auto rifles and pistols -- the most popular type of arms in the U.S. Good luck with that.

You might note that even MSM is carrying articles and OPs which are calling for gun control advocates to drop he whole ban approach, especially as it pertains to semi-auto carbines. They don't think there is any future in that.

Nobody needs an AR-15 or similar weapon in civilian life. They are designed to be people killers. They were made for military use. To have them on American streets is insane.

Like this?



The round it fires is larger and more destructive than the 5.56/.223 of the AR. It only holds eight rounds, but can be reloaded with stripper clips as quickly as magazines can be changed on an AR.

"On American streets" is anti-gun speak for "in private hands". When they say "guns off the streets", its just code for "out of private possession".

And has been doing so since 1906. More people have been killed by a 30-06 than any 223.

Behold the mad minute... During World War 1, British troops using their Lee Enfield bolt action rifles, convinced the Germans that they were facing machine guns. And firing a far more powerful, and effective round than the AR-15

...they aren't black and scary, and therefore useless in the modern era!

The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty-aught-six" or "thirty-oh-six&quot , 7.62×63mm in metric notation and called ".30 Gov't '06" by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in use until the early 1980s.

How dare you insert facts and logic into an emotional argument!

Your ex probably used basically the same rifle used in both world wars. As for the .30-06 not being designed as a "people killer", as others have mentioned, a lot of Japanese, German, North Korean, and Chinese soldiers would disagree with that. BTW, so would some Kent State students. The biggest obsticle to a dialog between the two sides is that one side doesn't know what it is talking about.

It is up to the person who decides how to use the firearm. Since there are so many of them and used in so few crimes, it appears they are being used legally.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls

I live in Texas, with lots of hog problems, and an AR 15 type firearm is the preferred choice.

Remington has for decades made a deer rifle which is semi-auto, and before that, the Model 8 (1906) which fired .35 rounds. It's limited magazine was replaced with an early after-market "banana" magazine so it could fire more rounds. Clyde Barrow met his end via a Model 8, though the arm was designed and built for hunting.

Last edited Fri Jun 24, 2016, 03:32 PM - Edit history (1)

And procure more of them...

Even if we must print them out..

to kill feral hogs or engage in urban combat?

This is nothing but gun porn to feed the fantasies of anxious white males and convince them that as long as they are carrying a weapon "all is right with the world". (With thanks to Robert Browning)

That's racist.

At least I now know.

...people of color such as myself who own these rifles? Are we "anxious white males" too?

and substitute the appropriate label.

The Second Amendment was written for an agrarian society with no established police force and a society for which the Founders did not provide an established, standing army. Hence the need for a "well regulated militia being necessary for the security...".

If this country eliminates its massive standing army and all police forces I will concede that an armed citizenry might fill a need.

I heard a historian interviewed by Thom Hartmann make the case that the 'well regulated militia'(s) refered to in the 2nd amendment were actually slave patrols. That would indeed make them mostly, if not specifically white males.

The historian's basic premise: 'Prior to the ratification of the Constitution there were two reasons the Southern slave states wanted the inclusion of the 2nd amendment.

The first was they wanted to continue on with their slave militias. Slaves were critical to their economy but periodically they revolted, sometimes individually but sometimes they did so on a much larger scale. For this reason there were both local and state run militias used to keep the slaves in check.

The second reason stemmed from the ongoing disagreement between the slave states and the non-slave states. According to the historian the way the 2nd amendment was deliberately worded, it could legally be interpreted to mean that the 'rights of the states to operate slave militias could not be infringed'. By doing this, the slave states now in essence had a written Constitutional guarantee to continue on with slave militias, which, according to the historian, enhanced their willingness to ratify the Constitution.'

I am not sure I have the interview fully accurate but i think it is close enough. If memory serves, the historian's name was Bogus, (yeah i know...), it was a most fascinating interview imho. He was discussing his book on that topic if you care to research the name.

he isn't a historian, he is a law professor that worked for some gun prohibition think tank funded by the Joyce Foundation.
He wrote an article for a law review making that claim, but he never provided the evidence, since it was "the hidden history".
There is no evidence to support his claim, and slave patrols were State functionaries and not part of a militia.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1465114

BTW, law reviews are not peer reviewed.

Since his nonsense was ignored by historians, the only sites that cared to mention it were people like David Kopel, and this guy.
Since The Root seems left of center, I chose it.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2013/01/second_amendment_slave_control_not_the_aim/

Bogus, being one of the few believers in collective rights theory, relied on a book written by Herbert Aptheker in the late forties. Historians didn't take it seriously then, and even less so after research showed we had fewer slave revolts than other slave societies in the Western Hemisphere. The few that were not just in the South.

I used to like Hartman until he started sounding like an anti Mormon bigot with his "Romney is part of an LDS conspiracy to make the country a theocracy", that and his dishonesty on a few other issue. I found it hypocritical that he would attack my religious heritage, but any criticism of some religions is off limits. I frankly don't think he is as scholarly as he tries to portray himself.

BTW, saying that something is bad because it is more common among whites is just as racist and saying the same about any other race. White guilt and virtue signaling is no excuse.

If the Second was there only for "slave patrols," it was a badly framed amendment which required some patching up. In fact, the all-important 14th Amendment was essentially passed to keep the states from infringing on former slaves' RKBA, and all the other rights. It took until the 1950s before the courts recognized this, heralding the end of de jure segregation, and the beginning of the Civil Rights Era.

The first police force was established in South Carolina specifically as a slave control group. All white males of property were required to be armed and were considered members of the slave patrol.

On a related matter, I am currently reading a book by Garry Wills, a Pulitzer prize winning author, titled: Negro President...Jefferson and the Slave Power. A fascinating book about how the slavery question influenced both the writing of the Constitution and other matters.

The childish sexual reference, so original

That was a very informative article. Bookmarked for reference.

How were the guns used in mass shootings configured? Could those same configurations be used for practical purposes like taking down hogs? Is it possible to ban certain configurations that are optimized for inflicting mass casualties?

This is a very difficult painful topic. On one hand, I respect the right of gun ownership. But when's a gun too much gun?

you can kill them, I understand. Oh you said Urban Combat, must mean in case those urban people get rowdy we can
go in and clear the area. We have the right to protect our own property, I understand. But in what case would the average civilian engage in Urban Combat, what a preemptive strike?

The semi-auto is just that, semi-auto, one trigger pull, one shot. No military in the world uses a semi auto firearm as it's main battle rifle.

A lot of people hunting feral hogs (Now an ecological and farming problem all the way north to Michigan and Illinois) use semi autos.

Killing one or two of a herd of them doesn't stop the predation and ruined acreage.

is there a particular color that one can assume?

This feeds into the "Nat Turner" fantasy also popular among some very few of the gun crowd. The same types that dress up as Southern soldiers in re-enactments.

The idea that all these citizens of rural America will be invaded by hordes of......whoever, when the apocalypse comes or the Russians invade.

Urban combat is about the where, not the who.

when the Republicans refer to the urban voters it is code for black voters. Like I said you have a right to protect
your property, but why would you require a gun for "Urban Combat". Who are you going to fight the invading Russians?
I get a kick out of these Red Dawn fantasies the shooting magazines pollute peoples minds with.

Marginally more likely would be multiple home invaders.
However, once they are leaving the house, legal self defense gets limited really quick.

close range and you run a good risk of killing other family members or even neighbors with stray bullets. Give me a pump or semi auto shotgun, a revolver or a semi auto pistol.

An AR15 is an excellent home defense weapon. Rifles in general are easier to control and aim than handguns and thus less likely to have an issue with stray rounds. They are compact enough to use in close quarters, and due to the frangible nature of the bullets coupled with high velocity they are less likely to overpenetrate walls than most pistol rounds, or a shotgun loaded with even #6 birdshot. Personally, it is my weapon of choice for home defense.

You don't need a gun designed for 200 yards or aim at 10 feet and they make shotguns with short barrels designed for close quarters.
Who would use #6 birdshot for home defense and they also make that type of ammo for a pistol. You know the most feared sound for a home invader is the simple sound of a pump shotgun chambering a round. Of course I guess 20 people are going to conspire to rob you in that case an AR-15 would be OK. I really don't think I will have to fight off an army or the zombie apocalypse.

Its stopping power is extremely limited out of a shotgun (it only inflicts a shallow surface wound), and it's utterly useless when fired out of a handgun (a "snake shot" load).

A shotgun will deliver a very lethal wound even if fired by someone without training. A shotgun will drop a person at 50 feet or more without any problems. Bone can be a problem for a shotgun if from a distance, but soft tissue is not. Unless the home is huge, then a shotgun is more effective and less likely to kill your neighbor as the shot goes through the walls of the houses, like it would from an AR type weapon. When one of my brothers was 12 and rabbit hunting, his friend dropped his loaded shotgun. The buckshot hit my brother that was about 75 feet away. Unless for the heavy coat my brother was wearing, the buckshot would have been much more than what it was in his skin. An ER doctor had to dig it out of his back. Some of the wounds required stitches. Shallow surface wound indeed.

Buckshot out of a 12 or 20 gauge shotgun is extremely effective at close range....say, 40 yards or less. Birdshot is a terrible choice for self defense.

I can provide link after link demonstrating birdshot's lack of penetration if need be.

But I don't see an AR-15 as a good home defense weapon. It's too long for easy handling in middle of the night situations when you're coming out of a deep sleep. I see a similar problem with actually readying it for use, for almost all owners. There's a huge familiarity curve to overcome before I would consider owners to be proficient with the average AR-15.

I currently have a good old pump shotgun with #2 shot. These loads will lose a vast majority of energy after passing through a single wall, but they will tear a hole right through 1/2 inch plywood with no problem. Besides, the sound of a pump being racked is pretty much universal - a BG on the other side of a bedroom door that hears that is probably going to reconsider his life choices before opening that door.

If I didn't have grand-kids that visited us on a regular basis, I would put either my Ruger GP100 in .357, or SP101 in .327, in the drawer of the night stand. Nothing beats reliability like a wheel gun. No jams, no failures to eject or feed, and if you have a misfire, just pull the trigger again. But, they're too easy for a child, even a 5- or 6-year old, to fire. Instead, my Mossberg 590 pump shotgun sits by the bed, 5 in the magazine and none in the chamber, with the safety on. Since either my wife or I is in the bedroom at all times when the kids are visiting, that should be enough to prevent ADs. As they get older and stronger (and thus more able to chamber a shot-shell), that will probably change to a revolver in a biometric safe.

And if anyone wonders why I have a gun by my bed, We had neighbors on one side who had a young relative that was a banger wannabe, and their house got shot up. On the other side, the former renters had SWAT pay a visit shortly before they were forcibly evicted. The new renters look more civilized, but looks ain't everything. Finally, there have been a rash of car break-ins in our area the past month or so. Based on some of the people I knew in my youth, if they're druggies and they run out of easy pickings, home invasions are a logical next step. They're already occurring in some areas of Las Vegas on a fairly regular basis...

..with a 16 or 18" barrel is pretty compact and easy to handle in tight quarters. Safe and effective use of any defensive firearm requires that you be familiar and well practiced with it, and I am. Carried the M16 A1 in the Army, and have owned civilian AR's ever since.

I am sure they will be more than willing to protect you.
That way you can dispose of your evil firearms and wash the blood from your hands.

Just in case I need it again.

I guess you can accuse me of being old-fashioned...pump shotguns and wheelguns uber alles!