New IS attack in Paris

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic not an actual automatic gun.

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Assuming one doesn't modify it.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

Assuming one doesn't modify it.

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That'd already be illegal though. And we are talking about what should be legal right?

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Originally Posted by Flixy

That'd already be illegal though. And we are talking about what should be legal right?

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Probably harder to modify a gun that's difficult to get hold of than one that's easy to get hold of

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Probably harder to modify a gun that's difficult to get hold of than one that's easy to get hold of

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I think ease of modification could be one of the factors to judge whether a particular firearm should be legal or not, yes. But I'm no gun expert in any way, I wouldn't know how easy or hard modifications are. If they are pretty hard anyway, they'd be done by people who really want am automatic gun, who presumably would be able to find the illegal market too. I mean even if it's illegal if you really want you can always find it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...ing-britain-fi

Time for a "temporary" ban on white men entering the US, I think.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Are you that obtuse? One could kill a handful of people, the other dozens. With equal effort. One is useful for defending oneself, the other is useful if defending against an enemy army.

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He's not being obtuse, you are continuing to be dishonest. The second deadliest shooting in US History was perpetrated by one man with two handguns, and left dozens dead.

Are you always this dishonest? You look at outliers when it comes to handgun use and ignoring the very obvious fact that it's a heck of a lot easier to kill more people with a weapon that shoots faster, has deadlier ammo, and doesn't have to be reloaded every few shots.

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-...16-6?r=US&IR=T

:o

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Originally Posted by Flixy

That'd already be illegal though. And we are talking about what should be legal right?

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Would you have any suggestion about how to check every single one of the semi-automatic rifles areound? In this thread it was claimed there are 15 million in circulation in the USA. Aside from illegal I understand it's also very easy.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Are you always this dishonest? You look at outliers when it comes to handgun use and ignoring the very obvious fact that it's a heck of a lot easier to kill more people with a weapon that shoots faster, has deadlier ammo, and doesn't have to be reloaded every few shots.

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Outliers? You realize you are basing your whole argument on outliers, right? Handguns kill an order of magnitude more people per year than AR-15s, mass shootings are hardly the norm, and not all mass shooters use AR-15s. In essence you are looking at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a population and then telling me not to focus on outliers. There's something vaguely dishonest about that, yes.

As far as the mechanics of these weapons, you are absolutely out of your depth here, Loki. You simply don't know what you are talking about. An AR-15 does not shoot appreciably faster than a handgun - it obviously depends on the rate at which the weapon can cycle, but generally for most weapons that is faster than the average person can pull the trigger. Either will fire as quickly as the operator is able. Magazine capacity might be halved, (obviously that depends on the handgun, but 16-18 rounds are fairly common magazine capacities for modern handguns) but it is possible to get thirty round handgun magazines, which would put you at parity with what most would consider the standard AR-15 magazine. Again, up until last week's tragedy the deadliest mass shooting in the United States was committed by a deranged man with two handguns.

As far as the "deadliness" of the ammunition, terminal ballistics is a fairly complex subject, and a topic of much debate among people who know far more than you or I. With a rifle you have a higher velocity bullet that is typically much smaller in diameter, and the type of wound it leaves varies on a number of factors. The bullet itself plays an important role, as some bullets are designed to maximize penetration, while others for fragmentation. At close quarters, and depending on where the bullet enters, a rifle bullet might be moving too quickly to tumble or fragment. Rifles just were not designed to operate at the same ranges that handguns are, and shotguns are known for leaving horrific wound channels. Seeing as how blood loss is the leading cause of death in gunshot wounds, being in a situation where you aren't going to be able to receive medical attention quickly, (which is pretty standard for the average mass shooting) is a death sentence regardless of the type of firearm you were shot with. In short, there are a ton of variables, and I don't think you have the breadth or depth of knowledge or qualifications for us to take your misinformed pontifications seriously.

You fuckers need to stop making me want to agree with frigging Enoch on gun control. It's ridiculous to focus on the particular make of weapon this one nutjob happened to be using. I absolutely in favor of gun control, but the furor around the AR-15 in particular reads more as wanting to punish people for liking guns than an genuine attempt to stop the next tragedy.

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

You fuckers need to stop making me want to agree with frigging Enoch on gun control. It's ridiculous to focus on the particular make of weapon this one nutjob happened to be using. I absolutely in favor of gun control, but the furor around the AR-15 in particular reads more as wanting to punish people for liking guns than an genuine attempt to stop the next tragedy.

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By one nutjob, do you mean four? Is it really so hard to understand that by making it that much easier to murder a lot of people, certain people will end up doing just that? Note how the nutjob in England managed to kill one person.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...-15-explained/

Not buying the idea that the AR-15 is this uniquely deadly firearm that needs to be obsessed over.

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Originally Posted by Loki

By one nutjob, do you mean four? Is it really so hard to understand that by making it that much easier to murder a lot of people, certain people will end up doing just that? Note how the nutjob in England managed to kill one person.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...-15-explained/

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I am afraid you have lost me. Who exactly is focusing on outliers here?

I also think it's interesting that your source claims some states have taken it upon themselves to ban semi-automatic weapons. Which states have banned semi-automatic weapons?

So it looks like y'all are presenting increasingly persuasive reasons for banning handguns or severely restricting access to them, not sure if that was your intention :o

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Originally Posted by Aimless

So it looks like y'all are presenting increasingly persuasive reasons for banning handguns or severely restricting access to them, not sure if that was your intention :o

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If your goal was to put into effect a policy that might impact gun violence, handguns would be a better place to start. I don't personally believe that it would have the desired impact, but it's certainly where it would make the most sense if you were serious about the problem. What I think would be even better would be to look into the root causes of violence, which communities are disproportionately impacted and why that is. I don't support bans on any firearm, but I also don't take people seriously who choose to focus on a weapon that is among the least likely to be used criminally.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

Assuming one doesn't modify it.

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Why don't you find the number of murders committed in the United States with a weapon that was illegally converted to be fully automatic. In fact, I'll make it even easier. What are the number of murders committed by any fully-automatic weapon, legal or illegal?

You claim that it is easy and that there is a market for these illegally converted guns, therefore it should be relatively common, right?

Pfft provided the data is reliable the answer is "almost none" in like a million decades, at least not for legal ones. Illegally modified, slightly more but infrequently in the past couple of decades.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

If your goal was to put into effect a policy that might impact gun violence, handguns would be a better place to start. I don't personally believe that it would have the desired impact, but it's certainly where it would make the most sense if you were serious about the problem.

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Going by the definitions in the assault weapons ban bill that was defeated in 2013, a third (possibly more) of the guns used in your latest mass-shootings would have been deemed illegal primarily due to the inclusion of high capacity magazines. I'm not sure how much of a reduction in non-gang-related mass-shootings one might be able to expect from such a ban in the near term. I wonder how many mass-shootings may be expected to be prevented through other means that address "root causes" without addressing means.

Especially when the gun lobby has no intention of addressing root causes, like poor mental health treatment for the poor, shitty inner city education, lack of rehabilitation in jails, etc.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Going by the definitions in the assault weapons ban bill that was defeated in 2013, a third (possibly more) of the guns used in your latest mass-shootings would have been deemed illegal primarily due to the inclusion of high capacity magazines. I'm not sure how much of a reduction in non-gang-related mass-shootings one might be able to expect from such a ban in the near term. I wonder how many mass-shootings may be expected to be prevented through other means that address "root causes" without addressing means.

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Even if you were able to ban high capacity magazines, and let's go one step farther and say you were able to somehow confiscate all the high capacity magazines currently in circulation, (which is the only way I could see such a bill having an impact given the huge number of magazines that are in private hands) then you have done two things. One, you have created a brand new black market for high capacity magazines, a market that a novice with a 3D printer could easily participate in, and two, only made it slightly harder for someone to commit a mass shooting. Reloading, especially by someone who has spent some time practicing, is not a challenging thing to do, nor is it time consuming. This could probably best be illustrated by the following video.

All right, I guess you guys're completely fucked then. Some bed you've made for yourselves. The only remaining solution is Chris Rock's bullet-pricing strategy

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Originally Posted by Aimless

All right, I guess you guys're completely fucked then. Some bed you've made for yourselves. The only remaining solution is Chris Rock's bullet-pricing strategy

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I guess I don't even see that as a terribly effective strategy. Someone who is willing to give up their life probably wouldn't blanch at spending their savings on enough bullets to cause the kind of damage they are wanting to cause. Or ambushing a police officer and taking his guns and ammunition.

I dunno man, he proposed a price of $5000 per bullet which in today's dollar value would be something like $7200. With the typical insane shooter seemingly not being particularly wealthy that might be a problem. And if some rich nutjob decided it was worth the cost, well, it would draw some attention.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

I dunno man, he proposed a price of $5000 per bullet which in today's dollar value would be something like $7200. With the typical insane shooter seemingly not being particularly wealthy that might be a problem. And if some rich nutjob decided it was worth the cost, well, it would draw some attention.

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Well then you are back to creating a thriving black market. I'd be tempted to part with a small percentage of my ammunition for the bargain basement price of $50 a bullet.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

All right, I guess you guys're completely fucked then. Some bed you've made for yourselves. The only remaining solution is Chris Rock's bullet-pricing strategy

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Yeah because mental health and urban reform, plus actually going to after the assholes that provoking and doing this shit, isn't a solution either....

Incidentally, it's incredibly dishonest to claim that an AR-15 only does bad things in the hands of bad people, and then do virtually nothing to keep the weapon out of the hands of bad people.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Using this argument, why are we spending hundreds of billions to deal with terrorism? It kills fewer Americans than lightning strikes.

Are you that obtuse? One could kill a handful of people, the other dozens. With equal effort. One is useful for defending oneself, the other is useful if defending against an enemy army.

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Exactly. We as a society set often policy priorities around emotions.

On the AR-15 issue, I assume you realize the previous "record-holder" for a shooting was Virginia Tech, which was conducted entirely with 9mm and .22 handguns?

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Originally Posted by Asmodian

So far the only reason to own an automatic gun is because it is fun, which I totally agree with fun is important!! But I don't see whats wrong in making the guns available to shoot at targets in a controlled environment like a shooting gallery. Guns can be stored there people come in pay an hourly and munitions fee get the gun they want and have fun!! It can be done in a supervised manner and there could be legal requirements for the facility to meet certain safety standards. I don't really see why you need the gun at home.

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I don't believe in banning something simply because it could harm someone else and only does so at insanely low incidence rates. If something can harm someone else, we generally ban the harmful act.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

All right, I guess you guys're completely fucked then. Some bed you've made for yourselves. The only remaining solution is Chris Rock's bullet-pricing strategy

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The other bed didn't seem to stop two major gun massacres in Paris last year.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Are you always this dishonest? You look at outliers when it comes to handgun use and ignoring the very obvious fact that it's a heck of a lot easier to kill more people with a weapon that shoots faster, has deadlier ammo, and doesn't have to be reloaded every few shots.

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I want to add a purely technical note to echo some of Enoch's comments. It is by no means clear that rounds fired by a semiautomatic rifle are deadlier than rounds fired by a handgun (BTW, the rifle used in Orlando was *not* an AR-15, but these comments work broadly across different rifle designs). Rifles differ from handguns in a variety of manners - in general, they have higher muzzle velocities, better accuracy, and longer ranges. Yet their deadliness has a lot more to do with the skill of the shooter and the type of ammunition than with the firearm choice. Famously, the M-16 in widespread use by the US and other armed forces (and the basis for the civilian AR-15) has at times been criticized for putting holes in people but not putting them 'down' - i.e. while it's a very powerful weapon, its stopping power is limited. Bullets that fragment or otherwise change on impact cause a given weapon to have much greater stopping power; also, higher calibers may be more deadly, though the actual details are complex.

Furthermore, it is not at all clear that a semiautomatic rifle would be favored over a smaller weapon for producing maximal casualties at a mass shooting. Rifles are useful for long ranges, and (automatic) rifles are useful for needing to unload a lot of lead quickly. But smaller weapons - whether handguns or machine pistols or shorter rifled weapons like bullpup or carbine designs - work much better in confined spaces than a bulky full-size rifle. Several militaries and branches of militaries have moved to compact primary weapons due to changing battlefields, especially as one gets into urban warfare - they aren't relying on handguns, of course, but they are using much smaller weapons than people typically think of when we talk about assault weapons. Many civilian 'assault weapons' are carbine designs, so they're a bit shorter, but far from the most easily maneuvered in tight spaces. I would imagine that if a trained operator was trying to kill everyone in a small space, they'd use a machine pistol or the like loaded with appropriate ammunition. Fortunately mass shooters are rarely trained and frequently nuts - that means that they buy scary looking guns but aren't necessarily optimizing their weaponry for the planned attack. It also suggests that appropriate policy might not just focus on specific weapons but more broadly on the availability of firearms as a whole.

All of the current suggestions - such as outlawing high capacity magazines or certain classes of rifles - are nibbling at the edges of a much bigger problem. Let's be honest about it and try to actually change things.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I don't believe in banning something simply because it could harm someone else and only does so at insanely low incidence rates. If something can harm someone else, we generally ban the harmful act.

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I think the fundamental difference here is that it's hard to imagine a circumstance where many firearms could be used without harming someone. Your argument works well for an object that has intrinsic worth or usefulness outside of killing people. When it doesn't, such as with firearms, the case must be made to keep them, rather than to outlaw them - even if the incidence of deaths per weapon is quite low.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Incidentally, it's incredibly dishonest to claim that an AR-15 only does bad things in the hands of bad people, and then do virtually nothing to keep the weapon out of the hands of bad people.

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Remember that the next time you drink alcohol.....

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Originally Posted by wiggin

I want to add a purely technical note to echo some of Enoch's comments. It is by no means clear that rounds fired by a semiautomatic rifle are deadlier than rounds fired by a handgun (BTW, the rifle used in Orlando was *not* an AR-15, but these comments work broadly across different rifle designs). Rifles differ from handguns in a variety of manners - in general, they have higher muzzle velocities, better accuracy, and longer ranges. Yet their deadliness has a lot more to do with the skill of the shooter and the type of ammunition than with the firearm choice. Famously, the M-16 in widespread use by the US and other armed forces (and the basis for the civilian AR-15) has at times been criticized for putting holes in people but not putting them 'down' - i.e. while it's a very powerful weapon, its stopping power is limited. Bullets that fragment or otherwise change on impact cause a given weapon to have much greater stopping power; also, higher calibers may be more deadly, though the actual details are complex.

Furthermore, it is not at all clear that a semiautomatic rifle would be favored over a smaller weapon for producing maximal casualties at a mass shooting. Rifles are useful for long ranges, and (automatic) rifles are useful for needing to unload a lot of lead quickly. But smaller weapons - whether handguns or machine pistols or shorter rifled weapons like bullpup or carbine designs - work much better in confined spaces than a bulky full-size rifle. Several militaries and branches of militaries have moved to compact primary weapons due to changing battlefields, especially as one gets into urban warfare - they aren't relying on handguns, of course, but they are using much smaller weapons than people typically think of when we talk about assault weapons. Many civilian 'assault weapons' are carbine designs, so they're a bit shorter, but far from the most easily maneuvered in tight spaces. I would imagine that if a trained operator was trying to kill everyone in a small space, they'd use a machine pistol or the like loaded with appropriate ammunition. Fortunately mass shooters are rarely trained and frequently nuts - that means that they buy scary looking guns but aren't necessarily optimizing their weaponry for the planned attack. It also suggests that appropriate policy might not just focus on specific weapons but more broadly on the availability of firearms as a whole.

All of the current suggestions - such as outlawing high capacity magazines or certain classes of rifles - are nibbling at the edges of a much bigger problem. Let's be honest about it and try to actually change things.


I think the fundamental difference here is that it's hard to imagine a circumstance where many firearms could be used without harming someone. Your argument works well for an object that has intrinsic worth or usefulness outside of killing people. When it doesn't, such as with firearms, the case must be made to keep them, rather than to outlaw them - even if the incidence of deaths per weapon is quite low.

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But don't you think that legislators would take into account that IF they regulate at all (which I still have to see) they'd have to cover a range of weapons that are dangerous rather than just look more dangerous.

By the way, the 'limited killing effectiveness' of M16/AR15, given the original area where the military version was used, couldn't that have been intentional to an extent? A dead soldier is a dead soldier, a wounded soldier is a potential burden on the war effort of your opponents.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

But don't you think that legislators would take into account that IF they regulate at all (which I still have to see) they'd have to cover a range of weapons that are dangerous rather than just look more dangerous.

By the way, the 'limited killing effectiveness' of M16/AR15, given the original area where the military version was used, couldn't that have been intentional to an extent? A dead soldier is a dead soldier, a wounded soldier is a potential burden on the war effort of your opponents.

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They didn't last time there was an 'assualt' weapons ban.

It's all theater with Congress.

WRT: Intentional Design of limited killing effectiveness. I'll direct you to the movie: The Pentagon Wars. Weapon development is not always to make the most effective weapon...but to mass produce (and get that new star on your lapel).

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Originally Posted by Veldan Rath

They didn't last time there was an 'assualt' weapons ban.

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Didn't they attempt to in the 2013 AWB bill that was defeated?

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Originally Posted by Spenni

Yeah because mental health and urban reform, plus actually going to after the assholes that provoking and doing this shit, isn't a solution either....

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In a better world it might be a solution. In the US today? I don't know if it's much more likely to succeed in preventing mass-shootings than eg. $7k bullets. Can it succeed in reducing the number of suicides? Perhaps. Probably not by much. Can it succeed in reducing gang-related deaths? Maybe, but probably not by much. Accidents? Deaths related to domestic issues etc? Maybe a little. Probably not by much.

Mental health and urban reform, whatever that may entail, are certainly worthwhile things to pursue but their greatest benefit isn't likely to be a major reduction in gun-deaths and that shouldn't be their main justification.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

But don't you think that legislators would take into account that IF they regulate at all (which I still have to see) they'd have to cover a range of weapons that are dangerous rather than just look more dangerous.

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The problem is that in some circumstances a handgun is just as deadly (or deadlier) than an 'assault rifle'. The assault weapons ban was riddled with so many loopholes that it was nearly pointless, and any similar legislation is likely to follow a similar path. We've already seen that blanket restrictions on handgun ownership fall afoul of SCOTUS so there's honestly not that much you can do on the specific weapons question - there's a bit more you could do on restricting ownership/background checks, but that is at best a marginal improvement given the large number of homicides carried out with illegally obtained/used weapons.

Honestly I think gun control advocates would do better making a solid case for repealing the 2nd amendment, while in parallel they work on policies that might actually reduce gun violence in the interim.

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By the way, the 'limited killing effectiveness' of M16/AR15, given the original area where the military version was used, couldn't that have been intentional to an extent? A dead soldier is a dead soldier, a wounded soldier is a potential burden on the war effort of your opponents.

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That's pretty verifiably not the case. Several reasons:

1. Most practically, the issue isn't precisely dead vs. wounded, but more 'down' vs. 'active'. You want your weapon to reliably put an enemy soldier out of commission, whether they are dead or wounded badly - if they are just hurt but still functional, they can wreak havoc and endanger your own soldiers - a much more immediate concern than some theoretical discussion about healthcare burdens. It just so happens that weapons/ammunition that reliably incapacitate targets also tend to have a higher fatality rate.

2. There is strong evidence that this was not the intention - first, by the way in which the weapons were designed and tested, and second, by the Pentagon's response to persistent low-level rumors about poor lethality of M16s using NATO standard M855 rounds. There is a lot of debate about whether this is a real issue or not - though it seems more likely to be a bigger problem for e.g. the M4 carbine given lower bullet velocities - but certainly fragmentation of M855 rounds appears to be less than might be desired for maximum stopping power. That's one reason why the Pentagon designed and fielded an improved M855 round specifically to address these issues.

Fundamentally the DoD has two views on the healthcare burden of enemy wounded: either your enemies don't have healthcare systems (being non-state actors or very poor), in which case it's a moot point - OR, they have relatively sophisticated healthcare systems that can easily shoulder the additional burden absent WWI-scale casualties (the real strain tends to be from civilian wounded). In that context, it makes far more sense to focus on making effective weapons systems that incapacitate enemies rather than doing some bean-counting exercise. That's also part of why the old 'one shot, one kill' mantra has long been abandoned in favor of putting multiple rounds through the center of mass of a target for insurance.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko figured out the effectiveness of wounding vs killing back in ww2 (and i'm sure its been a tactic since the beginning of time). Its one of the reasons she is famous.

V. interesting to see the continued Republican opposition to preventing people on the terrorism screening database contrasted with the NRA's u-turn on the matter. Lewk must be v. confused right now :o

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Lyudmila Pavlichenko figured out the effectiveness of wounding vs killing back in ww2 (and i'm sure its been a tactic since the beginning of time). Its one of the reasons she is famous.

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Largely irrelevant, of course, to whether it makes sense for the Pentagon in the last few decades.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

That's pretty verifiably not the case. Several reasons:

1. Most practically, the issue isn't precisely dead vs. wounded, but more 'down' vs. 'active'. You want your weapon to reliably put an enemy soldier out of commission, whether they are dead or wounded badly - if they are just hurt but still functional, they can wreak havoc and endanger your own soldiers - a much more immediate concern than some theoretical discussion about healthcare burdens. It just so happens that weapons/ammunition that reliably incapacitate targets also tend to have a higher fatality rate.

2. There is strong evidence that this was not the intention - first, by the way in which the weapons were designed and tested, and second, by the Pentagon's response to persistent low-level rumors about poor lethality of M16s using NATO standard M855 rounds. There is a lot of debate about whether this is a real issue or not - though it seems more likely to be a bigger problem for e.g. the M4 carbine given lower bullet velocities - but certainly fragmentation of M855 rounds appears to be less than might be desired for maximum stopping power. That's one reason why the Pentagon designed and fielded an improved M855 round specifically to address these issues.

Fundamentally the DoD has two views on the healthcare burden of enemy wounded: either your enemies don't have healthcare systems (being non-state actors or very poor), in which case it's a moot point - OR, they have relatively sophisticated healthcare systems that can easily shoulder the additional burden absent WWI-scale casualties (the real strain tends to be from civilian wounded). In that context, it makes far more sense to focus on making effective weapons systems that incapacitate enemies rather than doing some bean-counting exercise. That's also part of why the old 'one shot, one kill' mantra has long been abandoned in favor of putting multiple rounds through the center of mass of a target for insurance.

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I think there is another component to consider, which is while the bullets themselves could definitely be made to be more devastating to soft targets, that rounds that are designed to expand rapidly when they enter a target, (e.g. hollow-point bullets) are not in general military use by NATO countries as they have been banned by the 1899 Hague convention. It isn't necessarily purely a technical limitation of the round. While the US never ratified the pertinent declaration, it still does not issue expanding ammunition, (aside from a few edge cases - MPs are issued hollow-point rounds for their sidearms I believe).

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Originally Posted by wiggin

The problem is that in some circumstances a handgun is just as deadly (or deadlier) than an 'assault rifle'. The assault weapons ban was riddled with so many loopholes that it was nearly pointless, and any similar legislation is likely to follow a similar path. We've already seen that blanket restrictions on handgun ownership fall afoul of SCOTUS so there's honestly not that much you can do on the specific weapons question - there's a bit more you could do on restricting ownership/background checks, but that is at best a marginal improvement given the large number of homicides carried out with illegally obtained/used weapons.

Honestly I think gun control advocates would do better making a solid case for repealing the 2nd amendment, while in parallel they work on policies that might actually reduce gun violence in the interim.

<snip>.

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Thanks for that answer, it makes a lot of sense.

As for the target of repealing the second amendment; do you really see that as a feasible way of getting rid of the excessive gun-related violence in the USA?