If that's the case, I'm one law breaking son of a bitch :p

The Sticky Question of Gun Regulation
 

I'm a fan of guns, but only in games and other works of fiction, where they can do no real-life harm.

I'll admit that some of the knee-jerk gun ban regulations such as banning barrel shrouds (which do nothing to increase the lethality of a weapon and are solely there for a user's comfort), were quite silly, but others, such as the 10-round magazine and semi-auto only restrictions (which DO limit a gun's lethality), as well as the flash hider restriction (which makes sense when you realize it's meant to to limit people trying to hide their gun fire at night) do make sense.

At the heart of the issue is the fact that we are all unavoidably human, or as Christopher Hitchens puts it more colourfully, "we are mammals with adrenal glands too large and prefrontal lobes too small." In other words, it is sometimes unavoidable that our instincts and emotions override our rational abilities. Far too many spousal conflicts have ended with one being killed by another's (legally owned) gun, too many cases of people killing or maiming their peers while inebriated or drugged have occurred, and so on. It is much too easy for all too many people to reach for their guns and end up with death or permanent injuries when they can't or won't stop to think things over, especially with a class of objects that in most cases is really only good for the intimidation, maiming, or killing of human beings.

Even those who have trained a long time such as police officers and military personnel don't always get it right in the heat of life-or-death situations, and they spend much time retesting and requalifying. Hence the need for effective gun regulation.

A good blog summarizing the issues around gun regulation can be found here:

http://www.gunguys.com/

A good website showing how CCW permit carriers can prove "all-too-human" can also be found here:

http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm

Personally I think the restrictions on certain gun types and ammunition (especially those that have consistently proven themselves to be armour-piercing for police-level vests) don't always go far enough. Why aren't, say .50 Caliber Anti-Material rifles or armour-piercing PDW ammunition strictly military issue and usage?

Sometimes I wonder about the threads here talking about gun shows--how lax are they? There's always been the problem of straw purchasers (someone who is really buying for someone else) and the fact that these guns often end up in places where they're not supposed to be, such as in the hands of terrorist right-wing militias, or criminals in Canada, or even the drug cartels in Mexico. Easy, unregulated access from gun shows is a source of proliferation in the wrong hands.

I've no desire to start a flame war, but I think this thread needed a little balance. Modern guns, with their power of very easy life or death with little other purpose require strong sense of responsibility and trigger discipline, and the notion that any "common citizen" automatically possesses those hard-to-maintain and easily-lost qualities because of an outdated document more than a hundred years old is frankly, quite silly.

Mazryonh, but you're using VPC !!!!! as one of your sources! Talk about losing your credibility from the get go! Violence Policy Center is the political action Arm of the Brady Campaign (previously known as HCI - Handgun Control Inc), the most lying, distorting, dishonest anti gun group in existence.

What might skew some responses is that you speak of being moderate, when you quote sources that enrage most gun rights advocates, primarily because they are so full of falsehoods and distortions (and they've gotten away with it for so long because of compliant MEDIA, Law Enforcement and Politicians).

The 50 cal ban is idiotic. Consider that no 50 cal weapon (of the modern high end rifle variety) has been used by criminals or even terrorists (Al Qaeda types seem to like BOMBS, the homemade type) and what goon is going to carry around a 10 thousand dollar 50 pound rig around with him. Guess what? he won't.

Anyway this argument takes so much time that I'm not going to waste my time writing about it any more. Let's just say that Gun Control has cost me thousands of dollars in lost revenue, cost me directly thousands directly, driven many armorers out of business (some of the well known armorers are happy that they have less competition, but I think its a dangerous slope we are on). I am directly HURT by idiotic gun control and am 100% against most of the laws on the books (considering that most of the laws have nothing to do with denying bad people guns, like the ban on barrel shrouds, or pistol grips).

I just LOVE IT when a gang banger shoots it out with a a gun that's already ILLEGAL under California law and the media and politicians use it as a call for MORE GUN LAWS. As if a perp with a rap sheet a mile long can buy ANY gun legally in this state, and also getting something which the rest of the population cannot. The lapse in logic is astounding.

California has banned all usage and selling of .50 caliber ammo and any rifle that uses them already. Though they do it for no established reason. It isn't like someone's committed a crime with a Barret.

Showing people a website with LARGE numbers on a counter is a scare tactic. Showing people any numbers is meant as a scare tactic designed to put the irrational fear of us, because we are prone to be afraid of "by the numbers". I can throw all the stats of how many people are killed by guns in the US everyday, how many guns are being finished on an assembly line, etc and it isn't the words that will have your attention, but simple numbers.

Look, a crazy guy with a Glock and 10 mags of 10 round capacity limit killed 12 people and injured many others in a single day. Could he have killed more if he had 10 mags of 33 for his Glock 17? Maybe? Maybe not.

Limiting magazine capacity doesn't stop a man from pulling the trigger and killing someone. Same with ammo limitations. A 9mm hollow point to the face is still going to kill if it was a 9mm Black Talon. A .22LR round can kill a man from 10 feet away.

Yeah, I understand full auto weapons being restricted, a civilian wouldn't need something like that for protection at home. Even military and Law Enforcement don't go door to door and empty their mags in full auto like on TV and in movies.

And it is a point that it's human natural to kill and fight one another. We've been doing it since the beginning of time with sticks, stones, swords, arrows, etc. We've been doing the killing with our bare hands longer than with guns. It's because of today's perspective of the world that has lead to much debate about guns. It's not like there's forums to talk about regs about guns 100 years ago.

My turn. There's a lot of stuff I disagree with in here...from BOTH sides.

You're also quite clearly a Brit (judging by your spelling of "colourfully"), so I'm not particularly inclined to take you seriously. After all, I can't imagine you've fired a real gun (and if you have, you're the exception in a culture whose fear of deadly weapons is beyond absurd).

Flash hiders only do what they're supposed to do when you're in a huge area (i.e. a battlefield) where you're engaging an enemy 100 yards (or meters) away. They're a lot less effective in, say, an urban or suburban area where that sort of distance doesn't exist. Not to mention that there are hundreds people who live in the same area and will give away your location to the cops when asked. From the standpoint of a typical ghetto thug, a flash hider's tactical advantages are pretty limited. So no, the restrictions on flash hiders do not make much sense. The VPC (which you quoted) has even admitted this.

The difference between semi- and full-auto can matter in CQB, and it certainly makes a difference when dealing with nutcases who intend to shoot up gigantic crowds of people. But for most criminals (bearing in mind, again, that mass-killers are statistically an extremely rare phenomenon), and most people who use guns in their line of work, semi-auto is more practical and more effective. That is why current military and LE doctrine now discourages auto or burst and encourages semi-auto. The U.S. military learned the hard way that full-auto fire leads to low kill ratios-versus-rounds fired (in Vietnam, our troops fired something like 50,000 rounds for every enemy casualty inflicted).

I do agree with you that magazine capacity is an issue about which there should be little debate, and for years I have disagreed with pro-gunners who attempt to minimize its importance. I have maintained that if there was no difference between a 30-round magazine and three 10-rounders, nobody would have invented 30-rounders in the first place.

Chris Hitchens is also a drunk buffoon who hasn't expressed a remotely intelligent or coherent opinion in years (and I say this as someone who agrees with him on atheism). Bad place to start.

There are also too many cases of idiot parents drowning their kids in the bathtub, or abusing alcohol while pregnant, or generally doing stuff that in my opinion warrants natural selection to remove them from the gene pool. What is your point?

Ridiculous choice of sources. Also, on a personal note, I used to be an intern at a think tank whose work has been cited by the VPC in their reports on American arms trafficking to Mexico. In fact, I did a double-take when I found out that the VPC cited an analysis that I worked on (though I just did research, not writing). They used us to make exactly the opposite argument that we made, which infuriated me (as well as the person who wrote the piece). Let me tell you right now: The VPC is not only untrustworthy, they have ZERO academic or intellectual rigor in their work. That's why nobody takes them seriously on Capitol Hill.

Now you're demonstrating your ignorance of our laws (and guns in general) again. ANY hunting rifle will penetrate the types of body armor worn by most American law enforcement officers. Also, most "armor-piercing" ammunition is already off-limits to the American public - we can't buy the "armor-piercing" ammunition for the P90 and Five-Seven, for instance (SS192 is not classified by BATF as "armor-piercing").

It has nothing to do with gun shows; it's about private sales generally. That's a legitimate issue, and one for which I've argued that something close to licensing might be worthy of discussion.

It's sometimes hard to tell whether you support gun control or gun bans, and your disrespect for our Constitution is not going to appear very "balanced". On the contrary, it appears rather...well, British (and I hate speaking so stereotypically, as someone who studied in London and loved my boatmates).

Yes, VPC/HCI/Brady is hardly what I would call trustworthy. That being said, neither are NRA or GOA.

I've told Excalibur (in this same topic) that the IRA did in fact purchase Barrett rifles in the 1990s. They got the weapons from American gun stores, too. And they used them to kill British soldiers in Northern Ireland.

Saying this does not mean I am in favor of a ban on .50-caliber rifles, but I think it does us no good to exaggerate.

The law is certainly illogical, but it's not illogical to see why it fails: As long as gun laws differ between cities and states, then obviously a law passed in one state is not going to be effective. I'm a gangbanger in Los Angeles and I have a beyotch in a neighboring state (like Oregon) with no criminal record, the only thing I have to do to get an AK or AR-15 is get her to buy the gun for me and then drive across state lines to get it from her.

Which "crazy guy" are you referring to? And if you can't tell intuitively that said "crazy guy" could kill more people with 33-shot mags, then you have something wrong with you.

No, but that's a moot point. Anyone with common sense knows that magazine capacity allows you to fire more and, potentially, shoot more people. Are you telling me that I shouldn't have spent so much money buying 15-round mags for my SIG, when I could have bought the 10-rounders for cheaper? (they're always on sale at my FFL, because nobody around here wants to buy them anymore)

But it isn't like we've got people in the states that are that are so paramilitary organized like the IRA against the US government to get off their lawn. That's what the IRA was fighting about, beating back what they are calling British occupiers in their nation and fighting what they are calling a war. But just because it happened over there and not in America, doesn't mean it couldn't. Just don't like like making a law about it when it hasn't happen and saying it will NOT happen because of a law that's written by men on a piece of paper isn't going to work.




That's 2 illegals. One a convicted man not allowed to own a gun, and he has one now. And the second is some girl who previously has no criminal record, will NOW have a criminal record by supplying a convicted man a weapon that said man isn't allowed to have.


I was referring to the VA Tech guy and how the media described in detailed what kinds of guns he was carrying and the ammo capacity of his magazines.

Do you really think he was firing pin point shots with a 33 round magazine in semi auto or that he would just shoot wildly around until he hits someone? We don't know that. The idea for a civilian is that listing something as a "high capacity" magazine is a scare word to the general public. Granted 33 round would be a high capacity mag when compared to a Glock 17 standard mag of what? half that? I've seen news report of reporters calling an M16's 30 round magazine a "high capacity" magazine.

First off, your state and my state allows for no limit on capacity in magazines. I could get a 100 round drum mag for a Glock 17. Would I? Not really, why? practicality. It's big, unwieldy and heavy as hell to carry.

If I had a Beretta 92 and I've trained to reload very fast and not fumble with mags. It'd take about a second or 2 to unload the empty mag, insert new mag and press slide release and continue firing. Would that be so much different than if I had a 15 round magazine with a round in the chamber? What if I had a gun that doesn't have a "standard" 10 round mag like a 1911, or revolvers? What about my carry conceal weapon, which can hold up to 9 rounds because it's designed to be small, like the Walther PPS, or the Glock 26? The magazine limits would only affect full size handguns, which can have mags more than 15 depending on which model, but carry conceal, back up guns, revolvers, weren't designed to have that much ammo as a "standard". And why 10? Why not 11, or 12, or 8, or 6? Did a committee sit down for several hours and decided on such a round number like 10?

Would and average street thug, gangbanger, or random crook be that trained? maybe not, but limit in magazine capacity is a "limit" sure to shooting, but only for a second or 2 before he reloads. If the man can carry as many mags with him as possible, do you really think it'll make a difference? One more life is spared for a second before the killer reloads and runs after said victim? or another victim?

Running empty from a 10 round mag and then reloading when you're shooting against a crowd of unarmed people is just a pause of hell in lead form. Running out of ammo with a 10 round limited magazine when facing hostile people in front of you can mean life or death.

And don't say most thugs would run away at the sight of a gun in your hand. That's the same what if talk that leads to stupid laws being created in the first place. Well what if that thug or thug doesn't run away when you draw your gun on them and they react and you need to shoot. What if they had a gun, takes cover and starts shooting and you had to shoot back? And you run out because you had only 10 rounds in your mag because of a stupid law. Yeah you're right, more than 10 rounds does make a difference. If you are the person that needs more than 10 rounds.


And how about if I go shooting up a school with a .50 cal Beowulf upper on my AR-15? That's 10 rounds in a mag, half a pound of lead will be coming out of that thing when I unload and the stopping power is extreme. Plus if I aim well and hit anywhere in the torso of a victim, I'd kill them with this thing. That's 10 dead from 1 mag. If I'm a highly trained man on a killing spree and in an office building, 10 rounds can get me say 7 people if I miss a couple. Reload and boom, several more. Would having just 5 less or 2 less if I am holding a different caliber matter that much?

Maybe I'm just tired, but...what are you trying to say? This entire paragraph is a mess and I can't tell what you are trying to argue.

And your point is? The fact that it's illegal versus the fact that it can be done (and the perps getting away with it) are two different things.

Then you should have at least read the Wikipedia article before you started typing, which takes all of 10 seconds. Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people (excluding himself) and he used a Glock 19 fitted with 15-shot mags.

Cho Seung-Hui was able to kill that many people because he had them all trapped in a building (and classrooms) with no escape, so it was a matter of walking around and shooting them. Plus, he had time to do his killing because he had used chains to seal off the exits. The concern regarding high-capacity magazines is situations where a nutcase attacks a crowd of people in an area where they DO have an escape, in which case, being able to fire dozens of rounds without reloading does give him the ability to hit/injure/kill more of them. Think Stockton, CA, 1989 (the original massacre that got everyone all hot and bothered over assault weapons).

So what? If you're a mass-killer, what matters is how many rounds you can fire in the shortest time possible.

And for the last time, dude, it's "Beretta 92F", not "Beretta M92". :D

So you're correcting my spelling now and not just my points? You remind me of that cop from The Kill Point who corrects grammar and people's phrasings than their arguments, to make them seem a bit ignorant of what they are saying. You saying just because I misplaced the M in M92 when it isn't there, that I don't know what I'm talking about?

I rarely look on wikipedia because I can't even write a term paper based on facts I got from a site where anyone can edit it the way they can. I looked on several news articles about the VA Tech guy and several of them told me he had a Glock 17. One article just plain didn't care and said he had 2 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammo.

And according to the never entirely trustworthy Wiki, he had nineteen 10- and 15-round magazines, and almost 400 rounds of ammunition. It didn't state how many 15 round magazines he got, but he also had a bunch of 10 round magazines.

Maybe you have good points (or points worthy of debate), but I have a great deal of difficulty deciphering them because your writing is often incoherent. My point is that you gotta learn to edit and think your writing through.

Nope, just felt like pointing that out. Otherwise, I wouldn't have included it at the end with a ":D"

Yes, if you actually cite Wikipedia in a term paper, then that's retarded. Anyone with common sense knows that you can't cite Wikipedia. But it doesn't mean you can't look at the sources that Wikipedia cites. Wikipedia can be used to find sources; it just can't ever be the source.

Mostly, I was responding to the number of people killed. It's very easy to find endless sources confirming the number dead.

The 10-rounders were for his Walther P22 (his backup weapon).

Now, let's get back on topic. Stop contradicting me on this: Magazine capacity does matter. If it didn't, higher-capacity magazines would never have been invented.

I was talking about on U.S. Soil. I don't follow (nor care) about criminal incidents abroad. Sorry. Criminal activity abroad SHOULD NOT be a driver of American gun control laws. I know the idiots in the Media (and Mexican Govt) are trying to imply that light machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades are 'easily' attainable in U.S. gun stores, which is complete bullshit. But that's a recent (and pathetic) development. Good thing you're talking to Maryzohn, rather than me .... ;) when I see guys spouting the "oh so elitist European line" about Americans being "gun crazy", their credibility with me goes to zero. Remember that I have been directly injured by gun control, the loss of thousands (more) of revenue, operating expenses, etc. is nothing to sneeze at. :mad:

Personally, I think there should be two gun laws. No guns for convicted violent felons and no guns for the mentally incompetent. Other than that everything should be fair game. 100 round magazines? No problem. Full-auto? Yep. Heat-seeking exploding rounds? Why not. Shall not be infringed is written there for a reason.

Well, yeah for you it's a job, but I'm just an average guy.

Okay, so what does THAT mean? You support gun bans? :confused:

No, I mean it hurts you more than it hurts me and I'm a guy who loves guns

Maybe not, but that doesn't mean we can ignore these incidents.

Also, the IRA aren't just "criminals"; they're a bunch of ski mask-wearing terrorist thugs who want to make Ireland into some Third World socialist hellhole. I'd hope you would rather not see them succeed.

Yes, absolutely. Everyone knows that the Mexican government is full of shit, anyway (scapegoating us for their gun problem is an easy way out for them).

But I find it annoying that I see pro-gunners who are trying TOO hard to deny that ANY guns used in Mexico come from the U.S. I see weapons being recovered in Mexico that clearly could not have come from anywhere besides a U.S. FFL - like the PS90 carbines, or AR-15s with "post-ban" features. The "90%" figure is an obvious exaggeration (derived from terrible statistical practices), but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of guns coming from the U.S.

I know, it does suck. That being said, the AEAA is working hard to prevent stuff like this from happening, and you guys can probably weather the storm if (God forbid) anything happens to the rest of us. I mean, let's face it - as bad as British gun control laws are, the movie armorers in the U.K. are not nearly subject to the same regulations as the rest of the population. That's why "Black Hawk Down" was done with Bapty & Co weapons.

Although I disagree with Maryzohn's cheap shot at the Constitution, I do think that using the 2nd Amendment to justify any and all resistance to gun control is not a particularly convincing argument. If you really want to follow the original intent of the 2nd Amendment, then you should want to see the U.S. military disbanded and replaced by a decentralized Swiss-style militia system. I know plenty of radical Libertarians and Constitutionalists who hold precisely this opinion. But I doubt they represent the mainstream pro-gun, let alone conservative, position in the United States.

Yes we can. They're bad, but they should not have any bearing on what law abiding AMERICANS are doing in our own country.
Or they could be any of the number of privately own firearms that have been stolen and spirited into the black market. Again, I must call BS on that one. The argument that law abiding gun owners and American gun stores are in any way meaningful way responsible for the criminal acts of the Cartel thugs (who BTW, still prefer their military weapons) is an erroneous theory and should never be given ANY traction whatsoever.
Nope, they bankrupt us by making us 'exempt' but we will be forced to pay thousands of dollars YEARLY for "special permits" to continue to do what we were doing for nothing back in the day. Also tell that to ALL the businesses that won't do business with California EVEN THOUGH Armorers are exempt by law. They don't care. With California being so business unfriendly and so many run away productions, weathering the storm from a legal standpoint is pretty much pointless when they financially make it impossible. Again, it is unfortunate by I see a few of my friends in the biz who are happy that so many of their 'competition' is leaving the field. I think that's dangerous. Onerous regulations have a way of staying around forever. But then I'm biased for reasons you all know ;)

The problem with modern society is that the crazy people make the sane people look crazy, too. That problem extends to gun control as well. You've got crackpots like Randy Weaver and militant extremist group like Hutaree that all clearly believe in the Second Amendment but take it to the extremes by stockpiling full-auto belt-fed machine guns, anti-tank weapons, explosives, and so on.

You've got nutcases who believe that any form of centralized government is a direct resurrection of the Third Reich, that everything in the world from a war overseas to spilling their milk in the mornings is some New World Order conspiracy indicating that the "men in black" are out to get them, and most of these people wouldn't hesitate to reenact Ruby Ridge or Waco at even the slightest provocation and, in all honesty, more than likely don't care who gets caught in the crossfire.

The point I'm getting at here is that those people make mentally-stable, reasonable firearms enthusiasts like us look like radical extremists when we're not and we pay for it with harsher and harsher firearm restrictions.

Sorry if this sounds like an incoherent rant, but it's a thought that just popped into my head.

Maybe not, but at the very least, it's our responsibility to crack down on the people who are selling the weapons to the IRA (which we've mostly done). Furthermore, what's important is that the IRA demonstrated what can be done by terrorists with Barrets.

Nobody is saying that law-abiding gun owners are "responsible" for cartel violence. I am a law-abiding gun owner, and I am sure as fuck not responsible for the acts of cartel thugs.

That being said, you're kidding yourself if you think that straw purchases made by legal firearms buyers, and illegally transferred to Cartel henchmen, are not taking place. I lived in Texas for a short time (while I was an IMFDB member), and many of the FFLs over there have expressed concern about Mexican cartel gunmen acquiring weapons from them. Everyone knows that some guns being used in Mexico are coming from American FFLs, particularly the Five-Sevens and PS90s. Those guns aren't being stolen at all; they're being purchased new-in-the-box from FFLs by straw buyers, who get paid by the cartels to acquire weapons for them.

I don't think denying this fact (and it is a fact that should be obvious to any American gun owner who looks at recovered Mexican weapons caches) is going to make us look good. You seem to think that pointing this out is somehow tantamount to calling for more gun control laws (which it's not).

Well, again, that's why we have the AEAA now. But I'm pretty surprised that ANYBODY in the biz could see it as a good thing. Given the inter-connectedness of the armorers, it seems ridiculous that anybody could think of this in terms of monopolizing the market.

I'm not even sure you can say that these "nutcases" are all that divorced from the mainstream. The idea that bigger government is always part of some Marxist conspiracy runs pretty deep in the pro-RKBA movement in America. Plus, look at how many people on this board love to fantasize about the Chinese, or whoever else, invading America (something that I've explained is basically impossible). Sometimes, I think these people actually miss the Cold War because it means they'll never get to experience a real-life "Red Dawn". Also, the rise in firearms sales after Obama's election is not coincidental - besides the (not-so-legitimate) fears of stricter gun control, a lot of gun owners have convinced themselves that his presidency is the first step to the People's Republic of America.

Of course, there's a difference between having retarded fantasies and Waco/Ruby Ridge. But I do think that more often than not, the RKBAers are their own worst enemy.

I think I've said enough of about my own views, so I'm giving this a rest.

Most if not all gun control laws only affect law-abiding citizens and as a result are useless at stopping crime. Closing the gun-show "loophole" won't do anything and neither will magazine capacity restrictions. And flash suppressor and pistol grip bans definitely aren't going to do anything.

Do you even KNOW the history of either Ruby Ridge OR Waco? Oh how our youth have been brainwashed by the liberal media.

Ruby Ridge was 100% the fed's fault. The fact that Randy Weaver was exonerated of all charges (except the one of missing his court date etc and deemed time served). Just read the history and ALL of the crap came from the FEDS not Weaver, even though he and his family were bizarre, but the last time I heard, being a weirdo was not a capital crime.

Waco, AGAIN, was a load of crap. Koresh was a weirdo, but it was the ATF who initiated the raid and shot Koresh in the stomach. Again, the government hearings on the matter DID NOT put the FBI and ATF in a good light.

I find it astonishing that anyone lists these events as the fault of the people who were killed, not the overzealous 'law enforcement' types, who many times NEVER IDENTIFIED THEMSELVES before they went in guns blazing. I watched the Senate hearings. I never thought I would be cheering Dianne Feinstein, but she was giving the FBI hell over Ruby Ridge. She really REAMED them for (a) wearing BDUs, face masks, ballistic armor and NO identifying marks (b) not identifying themselves, and shooting at rural country people and then (c) getting mad that people were shooting back.

But I digress. But any gun owner who lists Ruby Ridge or Waco as actions which are the fault of the people (no matter how flawed) versus the Feds, they are sadly lacking in information.

Fuckin' Hell, why do we let the stupidest people in the country run the most dangerous things?

The bizarre thing about that, is that the court gave him a different date than was scheduled, so there is no way he could have made that court date.

David.

sorry, can't resist:

david,
YOU LITTLE SCUMBAG (with all due respect)
I HAVE YOUR NAME!
I HAVE YOUR ASS!
YOU WILL NOT LAUGH!
YOU WILL NOT CRY!
YOU WILL LEARN BY THE NUMBERS THAT I TEACH YOU!