Gun control laws. Reasonable or stupid?

[Excalibur]

I've always found that law to be a bit stupid too. At 18, you're considered to be an adult, yet you can't get a handgun or drink until 21.

[k9870]

but you can have an ak-47 or ar-15 clone but no sig or 1911? makes no sense

[Spartan198]

Never made sense to me, either. I've always believed the long gun to be the more dangerous.

[Excalibur]

Well handguns and shorter guns can be concealed very easily under clothes, but then again, if it's cold enough, you can wear a large jacket or trench coat in the city and still carry around an AK or AR-15 carbine under it and still not be suspicious

[Spartan198]

Yeah, that's true. Didn't think of that.

[MT2008]

Semi-auto military-style rifles may be more dangerous (in terms of the number of people you can potentially shoot with one), but statistically, pistols are by far the most common guns used in crime. I'm guessing the logic is to keep them out of the hands of teenage thugs.

Plus, AKs and AR-15s are big, heavy, and expensive. You can hide one beneath a trench coat, but that looks quite suspicious, and it's pretty unwieldy (no matter what you see in the movies).

[Excalibur]

They hide those M733s and Sizemore hid his Gaili pretty well in Heat.

[S&Wshooter]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

I've always found that law to be a bit stupid too. At 18, you're considered to be an adult, yet you can't get a handgun or drink until 21.

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

[Mazryonh]

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.

[MoviePropMaster2008]

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.