You can, if you desire, take a look at the FBI's uniform crime statistics for 2011 and previous years. If you look here, you can see what weapons were used in homicides from 2007 through 2011.
Except for a category listed as "other guns"[1] , the type of firearm least likely to be used in a homicide is a rifle. Any by "rifle", that's all rifles. That's everything from a black-powder Sharps up through the latest civilian variant of the M-4 carbine.
You are more likely to be beaten with a blunt object, knifed, or be punched and kicked to death than you are to be killed by someone wielding a rifle.
Which means that the entire debate in Washington about Evil Black Rifles is just bullshit. It is about a horrific event, certainly, but it is by no means about the things that are most dangerous to children.
Because it is all about the optics and, yes, the agenda of some people and news outlets.
NB: Commenters, please, note the House Rules on comments. Play nice. A couple of comments are skating close to the edge.
NB2: Comments are now closed.
____________________________________
[1]Other than handguns, rifles or shotguns, that is. Artillery pieces? Mortars? Smoothbore flintlocks?
Now you KNOW injecting facts is just not going to fly... It might upset their fragile egos... sigh
ReplyDeleteSo, uh, are you saying that if a classroom full of kids gets blown away by a dude with an automatic rifle, it's not such a big deal because more people get stabbed?
ReplyDeleteWould you like to stand up in front of their parents and say that? Would Old NFO like to tell the parents of these kids that their egos are too fragile?
Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank
What do you say to the parent of a kid who gets struck by lightning at a Little League game? What do you say to the parents of three kids who get run over by a distracted or intoxicated driver? Or the mother who got worried because her daughter didn't come home on time; she ran to the bus stop, came back and her house was on fire, killing her two sons?
DeleteThere is nothing you can say. Asking me "what would I say" is proof that your argument is an emotional argument, not a rational one.
What I am saying is that we, as a society, are better off guarding against commonplace events that take so many lives that nobody pays attention to them, rather than highly unusual events. Unless, of course, such an event would take a shitload of lives, but if that were the case, we'd be doing a lot more R&D into asteroid protection.
My memory is a bit fuzzy here, but I remember that many years ago a guy with a bolt action in a College Bell Tower killed a lot of people and another guy in a Nurses dorm with a revolver that also did quite a bit of damage. It really doesn't seem to be the weapon that kills as much as the person. We have hardly even gotten to explosives yet. Remember Oklahoma City anyone?
ReplyDeleteWe have first Got to get this kind of Nut off of the front page, no more free National publicity. That should be simple but No.
Why do we glorify the Criminally Insane to such a level?
That itself is so sick to me.
w3ski
I know I'm preaching to an audience on this blog that largely disagrees with me, and I thank you for your willingness to engage in debate on this subject. That said...
ReplyDeleteComrade Misfit: There's a difference between getting struck by lightning and getting struck by a deliberately fired bullet. You can't ban or regulate lightning.
W3ski: If we covered up drunk driving stories, would that reduce drunk driving? Besides, so far as I know, there's no evidence that the mass shooters are in it for the glory. More likely, it's for revenge, or out of uncontrolled rage, or even they don't know why they're doing it. If we cover up mass shootings, all we do is make certain that there will be less outrage over them, and less caution against them. Suppose we covered up Wall Street manipulators so they got "no more free national publicity?" Would that stop them, or give them one less impediment to stopping?
Look, I have nothing against target shooters, people with legitimate and demonstrable need for a firearm (affirmed by a court, such as a woman with a vengeful ex-husband who also gets an order of protection) and I'll personally tolerate hunting even though, having once killed an animal with a firearm, I will not ever hunt again. But we don't need a Second Amendment for any of these things, any more than we need a a constitutional amendment to own and drive automobiles. What we do need sane regulation. People get killed by automobiles all the time, too, but think of the mayhem if their were no driving tests, minimum driving ages, speed limits, traffic lights or traffic enforcement.
Yours very crankily,
The
Are you saying that if someone were to try to break into my home (a situation that I have been in), that I'd have to go find a sympathetic judge to get him to sign a court order and then, maybe, I could go buy a gun?
DeleteDitch that.
I have no problem with covering mass shootings. I have a real problem with constantly naming the shooters. I believe those clowns are seeking the fame, in death, that those no-talent losers would have never earned by legitimate pursuits.
New York Crank: Comrade said it best, it's all bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI could give a flying fuck about 'target shooting' or guns needed for 'hunting'.
Your reaction and specific counter-point is the typical viseral reaction by those who flat fuckin' fear those of us who possess these firearms for no logical reason other than your own insecurities.
You want nothing better than to find some reason, any reason whether based on emotion or pseudo-science, to disarm us.
This is nothing less than cultural war and if you were honest you would admit it and own it, but you're not.
You don't like those of us who own these firearms and more over you don't want to, nor do you want to try to understand our reasons for possessing same.
You are a cultural coward in that you believe if we don't believe the way you do there is something wrong with us; either we kiss our cousins, we fear black helicoptors or we wear aluminum underwear, when in fact we distane all those suppositions, but we understand there is only ONE individual responsible for our own individual safety 24/7 --- OUTSELVES!
And there may come a time when we may in fact need those normal capacity magazines and AR-15s to defend those we love and cherish. Just ask the Korean grocers who went through the LA riots in '92...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Frank,
ReplyDeleteI think your post is all the justification I need for my position. Look at the language you're using: "It's all bullshit..." "I could give a flying fuck"... "flat fuckin' fear... "cultural war"...."cultural coward..."
It's all what in legal lingo comes under the category of "fighting words." But I'm not getting into a gunfight with you, and to put it bluntly, when you use that kind of aggressive, challenging language, I can't help escaping the impression that you *are* looking for one. That might suggest to some people that you're a dangerous person – unlike Comrade Misfit – just the kind who should not be permitted within a country mile of a loaded weapon. Or an unloaded one.
Sorry, but you ought to listen to yourself. Or just stand back and imagine that I used the same language to describe you that you're using to describe me. Hey, you might think it's justification to shoot me.
I've lived 73 years, a few of them lugging around weapons, without firing either my army M-1 Garand, or my army Browning 30-caliber, or my colt .45 semi-automatic at any human being. I was glad I didn't get the chance and I was delighted to turn all those weapons in when I was done with the army. Having shot and killed two very small animals in my teens, and seeing the agony of their deaths, I certainly don't intend to shoot anybody (or any warm blooded creature) now. Disagree with me if you must, but please do so a bit more calmly. Guns and emotions go together like gasoline and matches.
Very crankily yours,
The (old) New York Crank
You Sir are the one which is instigating the fighting words. I can live with your reluctance to kill animals...yet probably have no reluctance to have others kill them for you in order to eat them.
DeleteI can live with your reluctance to defend yourself in the face of many threats in todays world. Do not however attempt to take away my right to self defense.
The reality is that a ban on high-firing-rate semiautomatic rifles of the type used at Sandy Hook would save only a handful of lives per year. But then, air bags in automobiles save only a handful of lives per year (traction control, ABS brakes, better seat belts and improved design of crumple zones and side impact beams are responsible for the majority of the decline in auto accident deaths), yet every automobile in America is required to have air bags. The question is whether the expense outweighs the benefit. The expense of airbags is around $250 per car -- for roughly 25 million cars sold per year, that's around $6.25 *BILLION*, per year. The expense of a ban on high-firing-rate semiautomatic rifles is, what? Some guy who wants a big one because neither he nor his wife is happy with his little one has to buy a Winchester lever gun instead?
ReplyDeleteSorry, your math argument doesn't compute. Basically what you're saying is that those few dozen lives aren't worth a minor inconvenience to people who want to buy a rifle. Yet We the People have already said that a few dozen lives are worth $6,250,000,000 per year. So which is it -- those few dozen lives are valueless? Or worth $6,250,000,000 per year?
Now, if you want to argue Constitutional law, that's a case to be made. But your math argument has already been rendered moot by We The People, who already said that it's worth spending billions of dollars to save only a few dozen lives, nevermind a ban on a certain class of rifles that the vast majority of Americans neither own nor have any desire to own and which furthermore is utterly inappropriate for anything other than target shooting, due to small high-velocity bullets which would go right through the walls of any homeowner stupid enough to attempt to use one of them for self defense. Shooting a criminal is fine and good, and a .38 revolver with hollow points or a 12 gauge open choke with buckshot will handle that just fine. An AR-15 will shoot a criminal too. And your neighbor's window. And your neighbor's car. And your neighbor's toddler. And your neighbor. Just what happens when you start spraying around teeny little pointy .223 bullets at over 3,000fps in a modern cardboard suburban tract home, they don't stay contained, they go right through those ridiculously thin doors and walls. Just the facts, m'am.
Other than the added cost of the car, what restrictions on liberty and freedom were imposed by adding airbags to cars? As for the number of lives saved, NHTSA estimates 701.
DeleteWhat use you make of a weapon does depend on the circumstances. There is a time and place for a .38 revolver and there is a time and place for a scoped .30-06. And if all you have is a rifle, yes, you can buy ammunition suited to a suburban environment.
Amongst other things, Misfit, there are a large number of automobiles that I would like to buy that I cannot buy because they were not designed for airbags and never will be redesigned for airbags. Such as the Suzuki Jimney, a small 4x4 vehicle sold in many parts of the world that I will never be able to buy here in the United States because of the air bag and crumple zone regulations. A version of the Jimney was sold as the "Suzuki Samurai" here in the US many years ago and you'll pay more now for one of them used than they cost when new because they are so in demand among hard-core offroaders. Today's Jimney is a much better vehicle than that "Samurai" was, but I'll never be able to buy it.
DeleteSo what is the difference in liberty and freedom between not being able to buy an AR-15 and not being able to buy a Suzuki Jimney? Other than the distinction that one happens to be mentioned in the Bill of Rights and one is not -- which the 9th Amendment says is a meaningless distinction?
Bad Tux: Actually in practice the .223 Rem round with some of the more popular projectile weights penetrate far less than most common pistol rounds vis-a-vis sheet rock walls and common home construction materials. Granted they penetrate modern vehicles fairly well but that says more about how cars are made today than the penetration power of this particular round. This lower penetration risk is
ReplyDeleteone of the reasons behind the popularity of these carbines in law enforcement.
New York Crank: your definition of what it takes to make 'fighting words' is pretty thin just like your logic...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Uhm, you know and I know that the popularity of these carbines in law enforcement is related more to their military look and feel than to any thought of penetration risk. It annoys me that U.S. law enforcement now dresses and arms itself like an occupation army rather than as civilian peace officers whose job is to keep the peace. But that is another issue altogether.
DeleteI am not familiar with civilian rounds for the AR15 and clones. Perhaps there are frangible or hollow point rounds that do not penetrate as well as 5.56mm military rounds for the M16/M4. The typical US military M855A1 ball ammunition used in the M4 and M16 type weapons is capable of penetrating a 1/8" steel plate at 600 meters. These rounds laugh at drywall.
My point remains that a .38 or .357 revolver firing hollowpoints or a 12 gauge shotgun with a low number shot is going to be a far superior home defense weapon for the majority of people. The revolver is point and click, the shotgun is massive concentrated firepower that causes most thieves to lose control of their bowels when they hear the snick-snack of you working the pump slide. The revolver's much lower muzzle velocity, around 1,000fps vs 3,000fps, and soft lead bullets vs jacketed bullets means that assertions that it'll penetrate more than an AR15 are violations of fundamental laws of physics and deserving of nothing but derision. Just sayin'.
All: somehow this comment form is showing up in the middle of the thread. I don't know why. I started to write some comments, and have managed to make them vanish from my computer screen. (I'm a cyberklutz.) So here we go again:
DeleteEck! You write: "Your solution is to have rough possibly corrupt men take property as not everyone wants to give up theirs. When they are done with us the next target will be the 1st amendment or the 4th."
Yeah, but firearms in the possession of private citizens won't stop any form of government "taking." Waco demonstrated that. Further, people have been after the First Amendment since the first time somebody criticized anything governmental. (Viz: The Alien and Sedition Act, McCarthyism, the long-standing fight over pornography, which seems to have simmered down for a while, the desire of presumably peaceable Muslims to build a mosque on a site that happened to be a couple of blocks from the WTS, the Anti-Vice League of the late 19th Century; and the list goes on.) The most powerful weapons in these cases are lawyers and legislators. No matter how armed to the teeth a protestor might be, the various levels of governments have more. How long will some armed protestors stand up to a tank? Or even a tear gas bombardment?
All: I don't feel qualified to participate in the technical arguments about various weapons and ammunition, so I'm butting out of that one.
Center Puke88: I just about completely agree with your political analysis toward the end of this thread. To which I would add that people in crowded cities have seen too many bullets, even "good guy" bullets, hit innocent bystanders. While I'm admittedly ultimately for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment, that's not the same as saying I want to grab everybody's gun. If you live out in the wide open spaces, and hunting's your thing, I have no beef with you, although for personal reasons I won't join you. Ditto target shooters. But I do think we need universal weapons registration and licensing so that a gun sold in Idaho or even a rural part of Pennsylvania doesn't end up offing somebody in Times Square. Guns and bullets are the undocumented immigrants of the hardware world. Documenting them would help eliminate some (admittedly not all) of the violence, mayhem and tragedy they cause. Sorry, whoever brought up somebody running amok in school with a knife. That person couldn't take out a whole classroom of kids in ten seconds. And he might be brought down with a tackle the school football team's best quarterback.
An automobile, which even in possession of a madman is less likely to cause mass mortality than a firearm, has to be licensed all the same, as does its driver. We manage to have millions of automobiles and drivers in this country without having an Automobile Amendment to the Constitution. At the same time, through regulation we have tools that help keep many drunks and crazies, although admittedly not all, from behind steering wheels.
By registering firearms of all kinds, we would have a tool to help keep them out of venues like New York, where innocent bystanders can and do get caught in the crossfire. Sometimes they're not even bystanders; they're kids home in bed when a bullet comes crashing through the wall.
Okay, I've said my piece and I'm moving on. I understand your positions and I think the pro-gun people here understand mine. I think we can agree to disagree and all of us haul out the *real* heavy artillery on our own various behalfs - lobbyists, and lawyers, and politicians. Politics rides a pendulum in this country and I do believe, for now, the pendulum is swinging toward at least some reinstitution of gun control. But we shall see.
Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank
Tux, be familair, don't guess. dont suppose. go here and do some reading with someone that did some testing.. http://theboxotruth.com/docs/theboxotruth.htm.
ReplyDeleteThe standard mil round is available to the average shooter, and improved rounds as well. A 9mm makes better holes in walls.
Crank,
Your fear is not MY fear. You are what I fear. Your solution is to have rough possibly corrupt men take property as not everyone wants to give up theirs. When they are done with us the next target will be the 1st amendment or the 4th. If you can prove that gun free zone are a safety improvement for us do so. In the mean time I see from history the highest likelihood for another spree shooter is going to be a gun free zone.
Eck!
Bad Tux: Yeah, just about all the 55gr. hollowpoint rounds or lighter weight loads in .223 penetrate far less than common handgun L.E. loads in 9x19mm, .40 S&W or .45ACP in terms of house walls or exterior surfaces.
ReplyDeleteI think training issues probably have a greater influence on LE adopting the AR-15 format than appearance although that could be a subconscious reason in many cases.
Many departments are relegating their 12 gauge shotguns to 'less lethal' (a relative term) rounds as dedicated bean bag guns.
As for the .357 Magnum, it's pretty much a museum piece any more. You just don't see 'em in use all that much.
In fact the state training academy in Indiana will no longer allow a recruit to go through the firearms phase with any revolver any more...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Frank, I think BadTux has a point, though. My impression is that there are elements in the police who are as fashion-conscious about guns as any teenaged mallrat girl is about clothes. If the FBI adopted pink CZ-75s as their carry piece, I'll bet that the market would be flooded with used Glocks.
DeleteMr. James, please address what I actually said, rather than made-up comparisons to weapons I didn't even mention. You are not engaging in honest discourse when you do that. Thank you.
DeleteEck! and FWJ. I looked over the link Eck! provided and to my read, it seems to validate BadTux's concern. The .223 out-penetrated the handguns, even with frangible rounds. If I'm misreading these results, please point me at the data. On that note, what proportion of the .223 is sold as frangible rounds? Most people I know have only jacketed rounds, which they use for target shooting, and would use such for defense.
ReplyDeleteSpud, I cannot agree with you that the NYCrank instigated "fighting words", please explain how you can say that.
There is a fundamental divide in the U.S. between the two parties (Pro-Gun Rights and Pro-Gun Regulation). Note I tried to choose relatively neutral names for the groups rather than the more common name calling by both sides (Gun Nuts and Gun Grabbers). I suspect the overall balance between the two might mirror that of the Urbanized vs. Rural balance in the U.S, not numerically, but in general tendency. That's my gut, I have not researched the figures.
Both sides truly believe they are looking out for the good of all but are inherently unable to concede the others arguments. The biggest issue is likely that of the balance between the two. I feel that the Congressional gerrymandering that Republicans have been able to engage in of the past couple of cycles has resulted in a Congress that is to the right of the majority of Americans, for now. Read that again, for now! The inexorable trend on guns seems likely to be toward regulation and restriction, and as the grip on Congress slips to the left, as seems likely, the Pro-Gun crowd will face more pressure. (Again, opinion gained from viewing gun regulations and restrictions and their popularity over the last century or so)
Here's where I'm concerned the NRA has committed a huge strategic error. The French built the Maginot Line after WW1 to stop the Germans from attacking them. They decided that defense in depth wasn't what they wanted to do because it would result in conceding some French territory, so they decided to gamble it all in a solid defensive line. The problem was that when the German's flanked the Maginot Line, they were off to the races. The NRA has committed to fighting for every inch of territory, much like the French did. The currently sentiment in the country is for certain improvements in the background checks and rules. For the NRA to absolutely refuse to even consider that, in any way, is to my mind very risky.
That being said, it worked for the Russians, at a huge cost in men and material.
CP88, let's say that the NRA backs off and the `94 AWB is re-enacted. There will be another school shooting and if the shooter uses a semiautomatic handgun, then there will be calls to ban them. Even if every semiautomatic everything were turned in, there would be another school shooting. The shooter might use a pump-action shotgun, so they go away. Then a shooter will walk in with some revolvers and speedloaders-- they go away.
DeleteThe NRA knows that its most doctrinaire opponents are not looking for compromise, they want confiscation. The gun-control crowd is operating with the old Soviet mindset on negotiation: "What's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable." I truly believe that they want to take all guns away.
But then a killer will go into a school with a cavalry saber and a Bowie knife (which has happened in other parts of the world). And the cycle will repeat itself.
Granted, Comrade. But the problem I'm outlining is that the U.S. is steadily, very slowly, but steadily moving to a more urbanized, more liberal, more pro-gun control population. I own a .45 right now, and have owned and SKS, Ruger .22, 10mm Auto, .380 and more. That being said, I recognize that it seems likely that more controls will be enacted over guns. The failure of the NRA to link concrete moves in one area to moves in others (mental health, etc.) because of it's no way approach risks losing much more than they seem to gain.
DeleteThe scenario you outline is a modification of the old "I said/did nothing when they came for...". Another question I have is when, as seems very likely, linear induction weapons and microwave or laser weapons come out, will they be permissible for civilian ownership? As we know, we elected to allow the serious restrictions on fully automatic weapons and have never challenged them in any meaningful way. The reason for that is that a majority would recoil from the idea because of the specter of the slaughter possible with a fully automatic weapon (despite the fact that the slaughter would like just be like that of a SA weapon, maybe less as spraying a crowd with automatic bullets is an inefficient way to kill vs. controlled rapid fire).
Just wondering.
CP88 has a point, Misfit. The problem with democracy is that there is only one way to avoid the problem of the majority deciding to do things, and that is to impose your will upon the majority at gunpoint. At some point we have to decide whether we are a democracy, or whether we are a theocracy where high priests and priestesses of the law impose laws at gunpoint upon a population that does not desire said law.
DeleteThe majority of Americans have decided that AR15's and similar rifles are not appropriate weapons for civilians. A small minority, less than 1/3rd of the population of the US, claim that an obscure provision of the Constitution means that civilian ownership of military-style weapons is appropriate, despite the reality that the very people they quote who wrote said provision practiced nothing of the sort (militia weapons in 1775 were owned by the militia as a whole, not by individual civilian members of the militia, and were stored in town arsenals when not in use for drill or deployment because they were pretty much useless for civilian purposes just as civilian weapons of the day were useless for military purposes because they lacked bayonets -- more people were killed by bayonets in a typical battle of the day than by bullets). High priests and priestesses of the law can impose their interpretation upon the majority at gunpoint, but that never works long term in a democracy. You can either work with the majority in a democracy to arrive at laws that are reasonable, or in the end the majority *will* prevail. The NRA -- and you, apparently -- appear to have decided that working with the majority in a democracy is not something you wish to do, and that you will impose your interpretation of the law upon the majority at (literal) gunpoint despite the will of the majority. Good luck with that long-term. It has never worked long-term and you will never win that way.
Note that the majority of Americans have, however, similarly said that they want access to weapons suitable for hunting and self defense. Calling the majority of Americans "gun grabbers" because they support a ban on civilian ownership of military-style weapons is thus unreconstituted nonsense to begin with, because the majority is far more nuanced than that.
Democracy is messy and imperfect, but what's the alternative other than imposing the will of a minority upon a majority at (government) gunpoint? Note that the example of the Civil Rights movement doesn't say what people think it says. The reality is that black people did not gain full civil rights in America until they managed to convince the majority that it was in their best interests -- growing affluence of the black middle class in the 1950's, combined with the national religion of the US being the Almighty Dollar, combined with revulsion over the Nazi example of the "Final Solution" to "race problems", all changed the opinion of the majority of Americans to support of civil rights for blacks. Calling the majority "gun grabbers" and "haters of freedom" is never going to convince the majority that allowing civilian ownership of military-style weapons is in their best interests. Just sayin'.
Oh dear, now I have to argue against someone arguing my side.
ReplyDeleteBadTux, the issue with what you said is that the Constitution has the Second Amendment, and the legal rulings on the Second Amendment make it clear that the militia argument is finished. The Constitution imposes rules that abridge the right of the majority to impose its will on the whole. The majority of people likely agree that Neo-Nazi's should NOT be allowed to parade and spew their venom. The courts have protected their right to do just that, as they have protected some gun rights while allowing some restriction on them (National Firearms Act of 1934, et al.).
Now, Tux, by tossing out Priests and Priestesses and a theocracy, you are engaging in the same name calling that the people talking about gun grabbers or haters of freedom are...
Just sayin'.
The NRA and supporters keep pointing to the 2nd Amendment, but in the end the Constitution is just a piece of paper. It has meaning in a democracy only if the majority decide to uphold it. Just ask the black population of America, who despite Constitutional provisions of equal rights didn’t have them for close to 100 years after those provisions were written into the Constitution. If the membership of the NRA truly believe that the 2nd Amendment covers military-style weapons, they need to make their case to the majority of Americans. Calling the majority “gun grabbers” and “haters of freedom” is never going to convince the majority that allowing civilian ownership of military-style weapons is in their best interests, and the current Supremes are not immortal and will be dead soon enough. Just sayin’.
DeleteMore accurately, it has meaning only as long as the Courts uphold it and/or the people respect the Courts. See Mad Max. As for covering military-style weapons, it seems clear that it DID, but with the various gun laws passed since then, it seems it likely doesn't now. Even Scalia admits that further restriction might be found legal by the court.
DeleteJust hoping, Tux, that you'll return to not calling names in this debate because both sides are too important to be obscured by name-calling.
CP88,
ReplyDeleteThat pointer to "the box of truth" was not limited to one article. They did a lot of comparative testing and what you read was true but compared to what? Turns out most rounds penetrate walls even handgun. Most of the larger handgun like .357, 9MM and .40 and larger do it real well. But a lowly .22 is good for a trip though the average house wall. Rule-4, know your target and whats lies beyond. Walls don't stop much save for heat loss/gain. The structure isn't made to do that.
FYI I have a springer (umarex/ruger) air rifle and a 7.8gr pellet doing around 1000fps and at 10 yards will punch a hole in T111 (almost 3/8's inch plywood siding) and have enough left for 3/8 gypsum board too. It's not
power it's actually the fact that the materials aren't sufficient nor
intended to be. I say that as in construction I've made pilot hole with
a screwdriver and the palm of my hand in most siding.
The whole "it can shoot holes in walls" is mostly a red herring. Most
rifles do and many handguns will. Only on TV is the guy hiding below
the window safe, unless the script deems otherwise.
In the end we have people proposing law that know nothing or less but their fears are larger than life. If the so called majority (remains to be seen)
really want to push laws my fear is they will end up on the receiving end of said same laws. When someone called the Constitution and old piece of paper
I feel and fear our basic laws are being ridiculed. This would be a rode traveled only once and the outcome is not going to be good no matter what.
Eck!
Eck! I well understand the shoot-through issue. I'm very cognizent of my chosen defense location(s) and what direction I can shoot with reasonable safety (very difficult in the suburbs here, but possible with some thought). The .223 was clearly out-penetrating all the handguns by a reasonable margin, but they all were going through at least a couple of walls. (N.B. the only reason the .223 didn't really just completely outclass the handgun rounds was because the bullets tumbled (as they are designed to do) and dumped massively more energy into the last couple of sheets.)
ReplyDeleteThe shoots holes in walls issue is an issue simply because there are too many gun owners who haven't thought-out their fields of fire before they use their weapon. As for the matter of this is worse than that, the higher velocity .223 rounds are worse, in a quanitifable manner, but not massively such. It's little nuggets of truth like that that are grabbed by both sides to erect their tissue paper arguments.
I note that New York has passed a 7 round limit and am wondering how carefully they crafted the wording. If they didn't do it right, then the fixed magazine might not be covered. And on that note, the 1 year time frame to dispose of your high-capacity magazines is likely to lose in court. As an issue of taking without proper compensation, a firm deadline simply allows the buyer to outwait you, in my opinion...what say you, Comrade?
CP88,
ReplyDeleteYep rifles are rifles and hand guns are handguns. you used the former to keep
the bad guys down while trying to get to the latter.
NY, glad I left there in 76, and 81. My first worry is when that is law driving across the state is an issue even if they are locked in the trunk.
That and what does the M1 Garand owner do? Of course I see nothing there that will make them safer. How they deal with mental health remains to be seen. I thought MA was bad.
Eck!
Eck, guns in transit from state A to state C (where neither state A nor state C are New York State and where the weapons are legal to possess in both state A and state C) are covered under federal law (see that Constitution thingy again, which gives the Federal government all regulatory rights over interstate commerce). Look up FOPA. New York City has long disdained FOPA defenses but has lost every court case where it was clear that the person really was in transit from state A to state C with the firearms secured in the manner specified by FOPA. My guess is that the state will have the same issues if they attempt prosecution of interstate travellers.
DeleteThe fighting words being anyone trying to eliminate my constitutional right to bear arms...
ReplyDeleteThe discussion should be about what we are going to do about young men who for whatever reason go insane and shoot up the crowd. Attacking the public at larges rights will not address the issue.
The reasons probably boil down to over medicated, sexually frustrated young men who can't get laid and spend their days playing violent video games dreaming about being someone the world likes. Simplistic analysis, but I believe holds much truth. Taking away everyone elses toys ain't gonna fix the problem, in fact it may well bring about much more bloodshed than it seeks to prevent.