Not Another Gun Thread

[NeuroTypical]

First of all, I really do apologize for posting the picture. I'm sure whoever created it was only going for a snarky sarcastic zinger - and those don't really do much to foster a civil discussion. I just laughed and thought I'd share.

But since folks really do want to talk about it:

At the same time, if you really wanted to slow down the shooter, you could write a much more simplistic law that states that any gun with a barrel longer than six inches* requires a manual action to reload the chamber.

...

I'd be interested, LM on what your reaction to such a law would be.

Oh, I'd think the same thing about it that I do about most other attempts to ban certain kinds of firearms or ammo. The law won't do anything besides place limits on law-abiding people.

Folks need to understand the difference between valid legislation, and well-meaning but useless idealism. You can't make bad guys not-have high-capacity magazines in the U.S. You just can't. And you can't replace all of the gazillion semi-auto firearms out there with something requiring a manual action to reload. It's simply not within the power of government to do such things.

Legislators and politicians find themselves in quite a bind right now. They can't really do anything, but everyone is demanding they do something. The only thing that a legislator can do, is legislate. And legislation really does nothing to address the issue. (The guy already broke laws when he stole his mom's guns, shot her, stole her car, carried arms into a school zone, and shot kids. Yeah, let's pass another law - maybe nobody will break the new law!)

As for why good guys would want hi-capacity magazines, I like this Larry Correia's response:

First off, why do gun owners want magazines that hold more rounds? Because sometimes you miss. Because usually—contrary to the movies—you have to hit an opponent multiple times in order to make them stop. Because sometimes you may have multiple assailants. We don’t have more rounds in the magazine so we can shoot more, we have more rounds in the magazine so we are forced to manipulate our gun less if we have to shoot more.

The last assault weapons ban capped capacities at ten rounds. You quickly realize ten rounds sucks when you take a wound ballistics class like I have and go over case after case after case after case of enraged, drug addled, prison hardened, perpetrators who soaked up five, seven, nine, even fifteen bullets and still walked under their own power to the ambulance. That isn’t uncommon at all. Legally, you can shoot them until they cease to be a threat, and keep in mind that what normally causes a person to stop is loss of blood pressure, so I used to tell my students that anybody worth shooting once was worth shooting five or seven times. You shoot them until they leave you alone.

Also, you’re going to miss. It is going to happen. If you can shoot pretty little groups at the range, those groups are going to expand dramatically under the stress and adrenalin. The more you train, the better you will do, but you can still may miss, or the bad guy may end up hiding behind something which your bullets don’t penetrate. Nobody has ever survived a gunfight and then said afterwards, “Darn, I wish I hadn’t brought all that extra ammo.”

So having more rounds in the gun is a good thing for self-defense use.

Now tactically, let’s say a mass shooter is on a rampage in a school. Unless his brain has turned to mush and he’s a complete idiot, he’s not going to walk up right next to you while he reloads anyway. Unlike the CCW holder who gets attacked and has to defend himself in whatever crappy situation he finds himself in, the mass shooter is the aggressor. He’s picked the engagement range. They are cowards who are murdering running and hiding children, but don’t for a second make the mistake of thinking they are dumb. Many of these scumbags are actually very intelligent. They’re just broken and evil.

In the cases that I’m aware of where the shooter had guns that held fewer rounds they just positioned themselves back a bit while firing or they brought more guns, and simply switched guns and kept on shooting, and then reloaded before they moved to the next planned firing position. Unless you are a fumble fingered idiot, anybody who practices in front of a mirror a few dozen times can get to where they can insert a new magazine into a gun in a few seconds.

A good friend of mine (who happens to be a very reasonable democrat) was very hung up on this, sure that he would be able to take advantage of the time in which it took for the bad guy to reload his gun. That’s a bad assumption, and here’s yet another article that addresses that sort of misconception that I wrote several years ago which has sort of made the rounds on firearm’s forums. My Gunfight – “Thinking Outside Your Box” So that’s awesome if it happens, but good luck with that.

Finally, let’s look at the logistical ramifications of another magazine ban. The AWB banned the production of all magazines over ten rounds except those marked for military or law enforcement use, and it was a felony to possess those.

Over the ten years of the ban, we never ran out. Not even close. Magazines are cheap and basic. Most of them are pieces of sheet metal with some wire. That’s it. Magazines are considered disposable so most gun people accumulate a ton of them. All it did was make magazines more expensive, ticked off law abiding citizens, and didn’t so much as inconvenience a single criminal.

Meanwhile, bad guys didn’t run out either. And if they did, like I said, they are cheap and basic, so you just get or make more. If you can cook meth, you can make a functioning magazine. My old company designed a rifle magazine once, and I’m no engineer. I paid a CAD guy, spent $20,000 and churned out several thousand 20 round Saiga .308 mags. This could’ve been done out of my garage.

Ten years. No difference. Meanwhile, we had bad guys turning up all the time committing crimes, and guess what was marked on the mags found in their guns? MILITARY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT USE ONLY. Because once again, if you’re already breaking a bunch of laws, they can only hang you once. Criminals simply don’t care.

Once the AWB timed out, because every politician involved looked at the mess which had been passed in the heat of the moment, the fact it did nothing, and the fact that every single one of them from a red state would lose their job if they voted for a new one, it expired and went away. Immediately every single gun person in America went out and bought a couple guns which had been banned and a bucket of new magazines, because nothing makes an American want to do something more than telling them they can’t. We’ve been stocking up ever since. If the last ban did literally nothing at all over a decade, and since then we’ve purchased another hundred million magazines since then, another ban will do even less. (except just make the law abiding that much angrier, and I’ll get to that below).

I bought $600 worth of magazines for my competition pistol this morning. I’ve already got a shelf full for my rifles. Gun and magazine sales skyrocket every time a democrat politician starts to vulture in on a tragedy. I don’t know if many of you realize this, but Barack Obama is personally responsible for more gun sales, and especially first time gun purchases, than anyone in history. When I owned my gun store, we had a picture of him on the wall and a caption beneath it which said SALESMAN OF THE YEAR.

So you can ban this stuff, but it won’t actually do anything to the crimes you want to stop. Unless you think you can confiscate them all, but I’ll talk about confiscation later.

One last thing to share about the magazine ban from the AWB, and this is something all gun people know, but most anti-gunners do not. When you put an artificial cap on a weapon, and tell us that we can only have a limited number of rounds in that weapon, we’re going to make sure they are the most potent rounds possible. Before the ban, everybody bought 9mms which held an average of 15 rounds. After the ban, if I can only have ten rounds, they’re going to be bigger, so we all started buying 10 shot .45s instead.

[MarginOfError]

I understand this is your opinion gopecon, as to others, they would feel you are tone-deaf and boneheaded.

This is probably the reason why the individual is carrying this gun out in the open. As a result of the recent shootings government is now trying to ban the ownership of these guns.

This individual is providing a solid point, these types of guns don't kill people, people kill people.

The idea of the person yelling "gun!", would imply that the shooter is about to rampage throughout the mall. Why even yell "gun!" at all when there was obviously no threat to anybody's personal life?

Running around yelling "gun!" when there is no present danger is similar to yelling "fire!" in a theater when there is no fire.

If a person yells fire when there was not actually a fire is probably going to get off if he can demonstrate that conditions existed that justified thinking there was a fire.

In light of recent events, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge willing to take action against a person for yelling "gun" when a person is, in fact, carrying a gun. A reasonable perception of danger from the person witnessing the event is all that is required.

I don't visualize assault weapons being used against a single shooter or even less than a handful of shooters. I visualize an assault weapon used against an invading tyrannical force (foreign or domestic).

This brings me back to my previous question about Nephi making many swords.

If the invading force is foreign, we have a military like none other that can probably handle things well enough without involving civilians and their assault weapons.

If the invading force is domestic, it is either a) not the government, in which the military can again take care of it, or b) the government, in which case, civilians don't stand a chance against the military.

The notion that we need to arm citizens with military style weapons to protect us from the Big Bad Brother is laughable. Especially considering that Big Brother is going to have the luxury of tanks, bombers, helicopters, and drones that a civilian force won't have. The ship has sailed on the civilian force being the one line of defense between a militaristic government takeover*.

When the Constitution was written, the gulf between the kind of weaponry a citizen could get their hands on and what the government could get their hands on was not nearly as wide. So this argument doesn't really work for me.

* In this event, our best bet would be to use military personnel sympathetic to the civilian cause to acquire military resources to use against the government. If conspiracy nuts are correct that a government take over would be initiated by those godless libs, it wouldn't be hard to get the military personnel on our side since a bulk of them tend to lean conservative anyway.

[Bini]

EDIT: Your link is broken. Here's a fixed one.

Thanks, I missed that the link was screwy..

[Anddenex]

If a person yells fire when there was not actually a fire is probably going to get off if he can demonstrate that conditions existed that justified thinking there was a fire.

In light of recent events, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge willing to take action against a person for yelling "gun" when a person is, in fact, carrying a gun. A reasonable perception of danger from the person witnessing the event is all that is required.

The point still exist, there was no fire, and paranoia isn't a reasonable reason to begin yelling "fire!" when there is no fire.

Why yell "gun!" when there isn't any good reason to yell "gun!" Perceived paranoia isn't a reasonable reason to begin exciting the public.

Now if the individual fired their gun, even accidentally, then there is cause for concern.

[MarginOfError]

First of all, I really do apologize for posting the picture. I'm sure whoever created it was only going for a snarky sarcastic zinger - and those don't really do much to foster a civil discussion. I just laughed and thought I'd share.

I wasn't bothered by it. In fact, it made me chuckle.

But since folks really do want to talk about it:Oh, I'd think the same thing about it that I do about most other attempts to ban certain kinds of firearms or ammo. The law won't do anything besides place limits on law-abiding people.

Folks need to understand the difference between valid legislation, and well-meaning but useless idealism. You can't make bad guys not-have high-capacity magazines in the U.S. You just can't. And you can't replace all of the gazillion semi-auto firearms out there with something requiring a manual action to reload. It's simply not within the power of government to do such things.

Legislators and politicians find themselves in quite a bind right now. They can't really do anything, but everyone is demanding they do something. The only thing that a legislator can do, is legislate. And legislation really does nothing to address the issue. (The guy already broke laws when he stole his mom's guns, shot her, stole her car, carried arms into a school zone, and shot kids. Yeah, let's pass another law - maybe nobody will break the new law!)

As for why good guys would want hi-capacity magazines, I like this Larry Correia's response:

These are all points I understand. Which is why I have such mixed feelings.

The only rebuttal I have to the fact that these laws affect law abiding citizens is that a lot of gun crime happens when law abiding citizens stop being law abiding citizens. All of the recent high profile shootings, if I recall correctly, were committed by people with weapons that were legally obtained. (not really true in the Newtown case, since they were essentially stolen...but given that they were stolen from family, it generally isn't being considered the same as "obtained illegally").

So, the reason I have mixed feelings about limiting magazines is that it is a pretty ineffective way of accomplishing the goal (slowing down the shooter). Requiring manual action would be much more effective. And since I don't consider non-sidearm firearms to be weapons of self defense, I don't see the need for them to be even semi-automatic. (sidearms, being the better choice for self defense, should be semi automatic)

I know we can't get rid of the weapons that have already been sold. The only way to do so would be through a buy back program, which we certainly can't afford. But I would think that stopping future sales would be quite effective given time. Eventually, the banned guns would be collector's items. They'd be show pieces specifically because they are rare. But this would take 30 years. The flaw in the AWB was that it was so short term that it was doomed to fail. If it had been in place 25 years, it probably would have reached its desired effect.

But I don't really like the idea of banning the gun either. I think you'd have far more long term success by requiring manual action to reload the chamber on non-sidearms. If that were the condition, I'd be happy to forego restrictions on clip size and gun types. (I'd probably take up a fight on some ammunition though).

[MarginOfError]

The point still exist, there was no fire, and paranoia isn't a reasonable reason to begin yelling "fire!" when there is no fire.

Why yell "gun!" when there isn't any good reason to yell "gun!" Perceived paranoia isn't a reasonable reason to begin exciting the public.

Now if the individual fired their gun, even accidentally, then there is cause for concern.

I like how you pulled 'paranoia' out of "conditions existed that justified thinking there was a fire."

I am pretty sure that if no one could show malicious intent, there would be no consequences to shouting fire. It's going to be the same way with a gun.

[Anddenex]

The last assault weapons ban capped capacities at ten rounds. You quickly realize ten rounds sucks when you take a wound ballistics class like I have and go over case after case after case after case of enraged, drug addled, prison hardened, perpetrators who soaked up five, seven, nine, even fifteen bullets and still walked under their own power to the ambulance. That isn’t uncommon at all. Legally, you can shoot them until they cease to be a threat, and keep in mind that what normally causes a person to stop is loss of blood pressure, so I used to tell my students that anybody worth shooting once was worth shooting five or seven times. You shoot them until they leave you alone.

I like this part of the quote especially LM. I worked with an ex-cop who while in training were given an example of one man doped on drugs.

When the officers finally pulled him over, he opened the car door with a hatchet in his hand. The officers begin to discharge their weapons, 9mm.

The officers both unloaded one magazine into this doped up guy. Even with two magazine clips in his body, he was able to reach one officer and hit him with the hatchet.

The other officer was finally able to load again, and then finally drop the guy. My friend said, the guy had 20 or so bullet holes.

Crazy!

[Guest gopecon]

MOE, you're assumptions are right about manual operations slowing a shooter down. I've got a couple problems with your idea though. If my house is broken into in the middle of the night, I shouldn't have to use a slower gun to protect my family. Would a smaller clip matter? It might slow someone down a bit, but that would probably not matter much if no one around was armed. There are millions of semi-automatic rifles and shotguns out there today. There is no practicle way to get rid of them.

[Anddenex]

I like how you pulled 'paranoia' out of "conditions existed that justified thinking there was a fire."

I am pretty sure that if no one could show malicious intent, there would be no consequences to shouting fire. It's going to be the same way with a gun.

If there is no fire MoE, and a person begins yelling "fire!", how else would you describe it -- a calm understanding, sober minded thought???

Yes, to yell fire, in a situation where there is no fire, no reasonable reason to yell fire, is either the result of someone who is trying to be funny, who isn't funny, or someone who is paranoid.

Obviously, there could be other variables, but you are intelligent enough to get the point.

Edit: It appears you missed the conversation, there was no fire, if no fire, then what would be considered reasonable, if there is no fire?? You implied the conditions were reasonable, from "no fire."

Edited January 18, 2013 by Anddenex

[NeuroTypical]

The notion that we need to arm citizens with military style weapons to protect us from the Big Bad Brother is laughable. Especially considering that Big Brother is going to have the luxury of tanks, bombers, helicopters, and drones that a civilian force won't have. The ship has sailed on the civilian force being the one line of defense between a militaristic government takeover*.

Yeah, it's been a few centuries since George Washington crouched shivering with his unpaid, underequipped, underclothed, underfed rebel buddies. But scarcely a decade has passed since then where a similar song has not played somewhere on planet earth. Remember Lybia? Egypt's marching civilians? The Arab Spring?

They call it "asymetrical warfare". It's fascinating reading about what a tiny group can get done against an overwhelmingly larger force. I know that BigBrother-esque scenarios make great fiction and often contain little plausibility. But I also know that wars, rebellions, insurrections, and a dozen other cool sounding words, succeed or fail based on a long list of factors, not just who has the biggest guns and armor.

[Bini]

I'm not savvy on all the politics regarding firearms, but if I saw a man trucking around heavily armed, you bet I'd be notifying someone of my concern. Regardless of laws, and whether or not he is a direct threat, I would rather be safe than sorry. If after notifying store personnel or the police, and both checked it out and cleared the guy -- fine. But if he was in fact just buying a hotdog before marching over to Banana Republic to shoot his cheating girlfriend and everyone else inside, that feeling of "this is an unusual situation, I think I'll notify someone", potentially prevented lives from being taken. Again, I'm not a mind-reader, and there's no way I'd be able to tell whether this man (or any individual) heavily armed, puts me in clear and present danger -- or not. Better to check-in with someone.

[LittleWyvern]

Why yell "gun!" when there isn't any good reason to yell "gun!" Perceived paranoia isn't a reasonable reason to begin exciting the public.

If there is no fire MoE, and a person begins yelling "fire!", how else would you describe it -- a calm understanding, sober minded thought???

Yes, to yell fire, in a situation where there is no fire, no reasonable reason to yell fire, is either the result of someone who is trying to be funny, who isn't funny, or someone who is paranoid.

You're using "fire" to create a false dichotomy out of "gun." Of course you'd be more specific than just yelling "gun." I think "there's a guy flaunting a gun in the mall and I don't know what he plans on doing with it" is a reasonable response (and enough to at least warrant some common-sense concern), and isn't at all the same as yelling "gun!" as you're suggesting.

[Anddenex]

You're using "fire" to create a false dichotomy out of "gun." Of course you'd be more specific than just yelling "gun." I think "there's a guy flaunting a gun in the mall and I don't know what he plans on doing with it" is a reasonable response (and enough to at least warrant some common-sense concern), and isn't at all the same as yelling "gun!" as you're suggesting.

I think you should read my comment a little more carefully then calling my statement a "false dichotomy."

Note the statement right below this statment:

Obviously, there could be other variables, but you are intelligent enough to get the point.

I openly admitted other variables, and was recognizing that a person would understand the point.

Also, my shorthand of "gun!" was in response to this statement by Gwen.

This could be a public safety issue. What if someone freaked out and started running yelling "he has a gun!"

Edited January 18, 2013 by Anddenex

[MarginOfError]

Yeah, it's been a few centuries since George Washington crouched shivering with his unpaid, underequipped, underclothed, underfed rebel buddies. But scarcely a decade has passed since then where a similar song has not played somewhere on planet earth. Remember Lybia? Egypt's marching civilians? The Arab Spring?

In some of these cases, there were no-fly zones and NATO assurances of intervention if crack downs came too heavily. In other cases, there was a lot of diplomacy going on in the background as well. It isn't quite as simple as you claim.

They call it "asymetrical warfare". It's fascinating reading about what a tiny group can get done against an overwhelmingly larger force. I know that BigBrother-esque scenarios make great fiction and often contain little plausibility. But I also know that wars, rebellions, insurrections, and a dozen other cool sounding words, succeed or fail based on a long list of factors, not just who has the biggest guns and armor.

The game is a lot different when you can get close to your enemy. Even if you are outgunned. The link below is a clip of an Army Apache pilot I know personally. In this video he takes out 14 insurgents in Afghanistan. I asked him how far away from these guys he was when they opened fire. His answer: "A mile, mile and a half." The insurgents had no idea they were being watched.

This is to say nothing of drones.

you can tout the victories of asymmetrical warfare all you want. But when you can't see your enemy, you're at a huge disadvantage.

(WARNING: ALTHOUGH NOT PARTICULARLY GRAPHIC, THIS IS REAL MILITARY ACTION)

[NeuroTypical]

The link below is a clip of an Army Apache pilot I know personally. In this video he takes out 14 insurgents in Afghanistan.

The next time you see your Army buddy, ask him if he thinks we won in Afghanistan.

[MarginOfError]

If there is no fire MoE, and a person begins yelling "fire!", how else would you describe it -- a calm understanding, sober minded thought???

If there were evidence of a fire (something resembling smoke, for instance) I would call it justifiable. (I don't know that I'd call it a calm understanding, because what person when they see evidence of a fire stays perfectly calm?). But the point is, you won't be punished under the law unless you knowingly and deliberately yelled fire to create false panic.

Yes, to yell fire, in a situation where there is no fire, no reasonable reason to yell fire, is either the result of someone who is trying to be funny, who isn't funny, or someone who is paranoid.

You've ignored the part of my comment where I state that reasonable evidence of a fire exists.

Obviously, there could be other variables, but you are intelligent enough to get the point.

Edit: It appears you missed the conversation, there was no fire, if no fire, then what would be considered reasonable, if there is no fire?? You implied the conditions were reasonable, from "no fire."

And so if a person walks into a store carrying a scary looking gun and the mother of a 5 year old yells, "He has a gun," in the current climate, I don't think that mother is going to face consequences.

[Anddenex]

And so if a person walks into a store carrying a scary looking gun and the mother of a 5 year old yells, "He has a gun," in the current climate, I don't think that mother is going to face consequences.

Ok, I think I finally understand what you were saying.

I would agree with this sentiment. At the same time, my emphasis was upon "no fire" in other words, there isn't any reasonable evidence to yell "fire" when there is no fire, no smoke, no matches, no lighter, etc...

A person: mother, father, single, elderly, who begins yelling "he has a gun!" is paranoid. If a person sees an individual with a gun, and they alert proper authorities without causing hysteria, or other people, running in fear -- then this is better handled.

At the same time, I don't believe the person with a gun will face any consequences either, assuming they were carrying their fire arm legally and according to law.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Anddenex

[MarginOfError]

The next time you see your Army buddy, ask him if he thinks we won in Afghanistan.

When the US stopped releasing insurgent body counts in 2009, they had recorded over 6,000 insurgent deaths.

The US body count hit 2,000 in 2012.

Extrapolation would put the score at 15,000 to 2,000.

Sure, the US didn't complete all of its objectives...in a foreign country...in an unpopular war...that wasn't politically expedient. If the government turned on the citizenry, you'd have a very different ball game.

[MarginOfError]

Ok, I think I finally understand what you were saying.

I would agree with this sentiment. At the same time, my emphasis was upon "no fire" in other words, there isn't any reasonable evidence to yell "fire" when there is no fire, no smoke, no matches, no lighter, etc...

A person: mother, father, single, elderly, who begins yelling "he has a gun!" is paranoid. If a person sees an individual with a gun, and they alert proper authorities without causing hysteria, or other people, running in fear -- then this is better handled.

At the same time, I don't believe the person with a gun will face any consequences either, assuming they were carrying their fire arm legally and according to law.

I don't think either person would face consequences. I think they'd both be reprimanded, but I don't see any legal consequences...because I don't think people would view yelling "gun" in today's current climate entirely unreasonable (just irresponsible).

[Just_A_Guy]

Also, I'm curious what this guy's point was if not "OH HAI I HAVE A GUN, TAKE THAT GOVERNMENT!"

A demonstration almost, but not quite, as outrageous as wearing pants in church.

[Running away now . . . ]

[applepansy]

I haven't read the whole thread and probably won't.

One the news last night one person was quoted as saying something about the gun just going off by itself. I need a "rolling my eyes" smiley. My husband rarely comments on TV stuff but that got his attention. Only someone unfamiliar with guns would say something like that. They don't just go off. That's a Hollywood thing.

I wouldn't have been concerned at all if I'd been there and I could have been. I'm in Riverdale frequently. I would prefer open carry to concealed carry.

[NeuroTypical]

When the US stopped releasing insurgent body counts in 2009, they had recorded over 6,000 insurgent deaths.

The US body count hit 2,000 in 2012.

Extrapolation would put the score at 15,000 to 2,000.

Sure, the US didn't complete all of its objectives...in a foreign country...in an unpopular war...that wasn't politically expedient.

Pretty intricate and delicate way of saying "no", isn't it. I mean, it's not the military's fault or anything, it's just the reality of the situation that massive 1st world superpowers just can't win in Afghanistan no matter how large the body counts. You just go hide in a cave and come out after the cold season, to see the only change is some of your dumber buddies aren't around any more and US is a few hundred million dollars poorer.

If the government turned on the citizenry, you'd have a very different ball game.

Every time the dance is danced, it's a different ball game. But no really, the only way to quickly write off resistance to the scenario you propose, is to carve bits of reality off until it's little more than fluff fiction. You just don't get to write off U.S. citizens when thinking about military takeovers.

[BadWolf]

Yeah... They "go off by themselves" when someone pulls. on. the. trigger., or someone has gone to the extreme effort of disassembling/screwing around with the trigger mechanism so its vibration sensitive instead of 5-30pound of pressure, puts it back together, and then is SHOCKED that the trigger is vibration sensitive. Just shocked.

[BadWolf]

Oh. I should add. Modifying to be fully automatic & / or vibration sensitive is illegal. Already. Also voids the warranty.

[MarginOfError]

Pretty intricate and delicate way of saying "no", isn't it. I mean, it's not the military's fault or anything, it's just the reality of the situation that massive 1st world superpowers just can't win in Afghanistan no matter how large the body counts. You just go hide in a cave and come out after the cold season, to see the only change is some of your dumber buddies aren't around any more and US is a few hundred million dollars poorer.

See, you don't need your big semi-automatic weapons. You just need a cave. So why object to the law?