How many American senators actually know their way around guns?

[Mazryonh]

I'm sure we've all heard the jokes about Carolyn McCarthy and her "shoulder thing that goes up" quip when pressed about what a barrel shroud was. But there are a number of US Senators who are veterans of the military and should know their way around guns. Have they ever spoken out about how irrational some gun feature bans sound?

Put simply, why do features like bayonet lugs have to be banned, when a bayonet lug by no means improves the killing power of a long gun at a distance?

[Excalibur]

That's kinda of the joke of these politicians. None of them know the first thing about a gun and most likely have never handled a gun in their life, yet they parade around with heavily armed guards.

People misunderstand how firearms work. They think banning certain things will make the country safer.

They live in their bubble safe space, ignorant of the world around them.

Hundreds of homicides happen just in Chicago, alone, every year and mass media doesn't make a note of it but when a bunch of kids, in a place that isn't the dumps, gets killed, suddenly it's a gun problem.

It's absolutely bullshit.

[Evil Tim]

Come on Mazryonh, don't you remember how the Scary Gun Bill ended the menace of drive-by rifle grenadings and gangland bayonet charges?

More seriously, the feature test of the Clinton AWB and others was based on a precedent from the "sporting purpose" test of the Gun Control Act (ie the ATF Form 4950, which was a transparent attempt by US gun companies to screw over their European and Combloc competitors by either banning their weapons entirely or requiring the addition of features nobody wanted). The idea is that the features are not sporting features, therefore banning guns with those features will ban scary military rifles and leave only grandpa's lever action or something.

[Spartan198]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

That's kinda of the joke of these politicians. None of them know the first thing about a gun and most likely have never handled a gun in their life, yet they parade around with heavily armed guards.

People misunderstand how firearms work. They think banning certain things will make the country safer.

They live in their bubble safe space, ignorant of the world around them.

Hundreds of homicides happen just in Chicago, alone, every year and mass media doesn't make a note of it but when a bunch of kids, in a place that isn't the dumps, gets killed, suddenly it's a gun problem.

It's absolutely bullshit.

There was also the San Berardino shooting, which the media glosses over because liberal gun control failed to prevent it.

[Excalibur]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

There was also the San Berardino shooting, which the media glosses over because liberal gun control failed to prevent it.

That should of been considered a terrorist attack but not.

[Mazryonh]

Okay, after a bit of research, it seems that since 2013 the percentage of congress members with direct military experience has been dropping steadily ever since the end of the Vietnam War. Guess no one ever thought that this demographic change would lead to an increasing ignorance about guns at large in the US. Perhaps some of the remaining veteran congressmen privately think to themselves: "I've fired helicopter miniguns in combat and you don't know what a barrel shroud does?"

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

Come on Mazryonh, don't you remember how the Scary Gun Bill ended the menace of drive-by rifle grenadings and gangland bayonet charges?

Rifle-grenadings? You mean carbombings, right? And gangland bayonet charges still exist, they're called stabbing sprees, since bayonets that aren't WWI-vintage are just knife-length blades. What you're talking about might be par for the course in the worst part of cartel violence in Brazil or Mexico, or maybe 1930s Chicago.

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

More seriously, the feature test of the Clinton AWB and others was based on a precedent from the "sporting purpose" test of the Gun Control Act (ie the ATF Form 4950, which was a transparent attempt by US gun companies to screw over their European and Combloc competitors by either banning their weapons entirely or requiring the addition of features nobody wanted). The idea is that the features are not sporting features, therefore banning guns with those features will ban scary military rifles and leave only grandpa's lever action or something.

Obama banned importation of quite a few former Soviet firearm manufacturers without mentioning features, so the anticompetition bit wasn't necessary in the end. But the purpose behind "sporting features" bit escapes me. Even a single-shot .22 LR hunting rifle can be perfectly serviceable as a killing tool in the right hands.

[Spartan198]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

That should of been considered a terrorist attack but not.

Probably, since the FBI determined the shooters to have been radicalized, but they had no connection to any jihadist organization.

My point is, the same gun control that liberals want to subject the whole country has already been in place in CA and failed to prevent it. Because of that, the media wants to gloss over it because of that.

[S&Wshooter]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

mass media doesn't make a note of it

That's because it's raaaaaaacist to talk about black on black (or black on anyone) crime, which is what these shootings tend to be

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Rifle-grenadings? You mean carbombings, right? And gangland bayonet charges still exist, they're called stabbing sprees, since bayonets that aren't WWI-vintage are just knife-length blades. What you're talking about might be par for the course in the worst part of cartel violence in Brazil or Mexico, or maybe 1930s Chicago.

Was joking, but the Clinton AWB included "a grenade launcher" as a banned feature. Nobody could ever work out what the hell it was talking about and it's generally assumed it was trying to bag Yugo SKS rifles with grenade launcher sights under the mistaken impression they had detachable magazines.

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Obama banned importation of quite a few former Soviet firearm manufacturers without mentioning features, so the anticompetition bit wasn't necessary in the end. But the purpose behind "sporting features" bit escapes me. Even a single-shot .22 LR hunting rifle can be perfectly serviceable as a killing tool in the right hands.

Gun Control Act of 1968. There's two lines of reasoning for the import restrictions, one's a smokescreen for the other.

The fake reason was related to what the Soviets were busy doing in Africa: anyone who looked like a Marxist was getting free crates of factory AKs signed by Santa Lenin, and this was played up with the claim that the Soviets would try to legally import AKs to civil rights groups in the US in the attempt to trigger a civil war or something.

The truth was that it was a protectionist ban imposed at the not-so-subtle behest of the American gun industry. Imports of extremely desirable weapons from the Communist bloc and Europe (particularly AKs and compact pistols in metric chamberings) were really starting to put the hurt on the big US companies, so they were all for a law that either banned these weapons entirely, forced them to be nobbled with features that made them less desirable than domestically produced weapons, or forced their manufacturers to open up American subsidiaries and lose their dirt-cheap labour costs. Since they couldn't just come out and say it was protectionism, they came up with a line about these being weapons that don't have a "sporting purpose."

What the gun-grabbers did was come along and say "hey, if these weapons are too dangerous to import, why can people buy them here?" The sporting feature thing wasn't even their idea.

[commando552]

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

Was joking, but the Clinton AWB included "a grenade launcher" as a banned feature. Nobody could ever work out what the hell it was talking about and it's generally assumed it was trying to bag Yugo SKS rifles with grenade launcher sights under the mistaken impression they had detachable magazines.

Not sure it is that complicated, I always assumed it was just the idea that muzzle devices for rifle grenades were a feature of "military" rifles so were banned along with other "military" features like bayonet lugs, flash suppressors and folding stocks. In a lot of cases it is redundant though as the grenade launcher and flash hider are the same thing.

Where it gets really weird is the fact than in California the M59/66 is classified as a destructive device. I think the only reason for this is that somebody didn't read the brochure properly and though that the muzzle device had an internal diameter of 22mm and launched 22mm grenades out of it.