Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have an 18" military issue machete. It takes and holds a razor edge. I can sever 4-5 cm saplings with one angled cut.
From several feet? While the sapling runs away? I'm also not real sure what your point is. I said I wouldn't want to face someone wielding a machete anymore than . I was acknowledging that a malicious person can be plenty dangerous with weapons that basically can't be restricted (a machete can be improvised much more easily than a repeating firearm or ammunition for said firearm).
Pistol sights
211–220 of 331 posts
Re: Pistol sights
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I believe this pure split you refer to is the fault of the gun control advocates. In my experience it's been the other way around. I'm a gun owner and gun control advocate; a seemingly impossible combination in the eyes of most gun rights advocates. When I've said to other gun owners in the past that common sense regulations make sense, not only have I been told that opinion means I don't deserve the guns I legally…
> common sense regulations make sense See, and like that you've lost me. That's exactly the sort of politicized weasel-wording that has been used repeatedly to pick away at gun owners. State what precise regulations you mean, and then we can have a productive discussion.
Think for a second about why you chose those words instead of simply asking, "what do you consider to be 'common sense regulations'?" Are you subconsciously (or perhaps intentionally) trying to antagonize me by being pre-emptively dismissive of whatever I have to say next? That's usually the case in these discussions, in my experience, and if so, there's no point in continuing at all, because you've already made up your mind to disagree with whatever I have to say.
But in case I'm reading too far into that remark, I will share what I consider to be "common sense regulations":
I think a permitting process should be required for all gun ownership that involves a thorough background investigation. That's for all firearms -- long guns, pistols, all of them. You should need to present this permit when making all further firearm and ammunition transactions, including private party transfer and at gun shows.
Usually the immediate rebuttal to this is "well the Constitution says I have a right to guns!" Setting aside the semantics of the second amendment and our interpretation of what the authors meant by it, the end result of this proposed permitting process is not actually much different from the way things are setup today. Currently if you're a convicted felon you can't own a gun. The only difference is that for things like rifles and shotguns, law enforcement today doesn't know you own one since there is no permitting or registration process. The only difference is that instead of taking away the gun when you're a felon caught with one, you just aren't able to get it in the first place.
The next rebuttal is that now the government has a list of gun owners with this system that they'll use for whatever nefarious purposes you can imagine, but you're a fool if you think they don't already have this information. Your identity is sent to NICS currently when you buy a gun, and there's no way they aren't logging this information already. The only difference under my plan is that this registration would be more transparent, and you get an ID card proving you're fit to own a firearm.
And hell, we're all tech minded people here. There's no reason why this whole system can't anonymized in a blockchain or something like that.
Private party transfer and gun shows would be a bit trickier to regulate, but if the plan is universal among all states, then you can simply say that if you are the registered owner of a gun and it's used in a crime, even if you didn't fire the gun, unless you processed the transfer you're personally liable.
And really, that's all I mean by "common sense regulations". As I said, I'm a gun owner and I would be happy to live with this system. That is, knowing that everyone else is subject to it as well. The problem is that such a plan would need to be instituted nationwide, otherwise it's pointless since you can just drive to another state and bypass the whole thing. In the minds of most gun control advocates registration = loss of freedom, as opposed to the minor inconvenience it would be for law abiding citizens, so I doubt it would ever be possible.
Re: Pistol sights
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I was just highlighting them as staunch advocates for the 1st and 4th amendments. If one is looking for a staunch advocate of all those rights, I'd suggest the Libertarian Party but they haven't been able to gain that much traction in elections and consequently haven't been as effective as they could be, IMO. edit: as an aside, I'm big on the second amendment but stopped contributing to the NRA precisely because,…
Yep, agreed on all counts. I was mostly just curious about whether the NRA is worse than it needs to be, or whether 2nd Amendment issues are so warped and conflicted in the US that any group entering that space will become something ugly. The ACLU has a great record on 1 and 4, as do several of the groups they work with. "Restore the Fourth" is fantastic, and you can guess which amendment they care about. The NRA is…
Re: Pistol sights
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yeah 50 caliber sniper rifles, fully auto machine guns and AR-15s look and sound scary... The word you are looking for is "awesome"
I'm curious about how you think about your feelings here. What do you think makes these things seem 'awesome', to you? When I was a kid, I definitely thought that guns were 'cool', in some sense. I thought about them, I read about them, and I desired access to them. As I grew up and came to understand that (in the general case, and certainly for hand guns and the stuff mentioned above) guns are tools designed to end…
It's the same feeling you get when you watch explosions on MythBusters and such. Do explosions kill people? Yes. But they're pretty damn awesome when they don't.
Re: Pistol sights
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yeah 50 caliber sniper rifles, fully auto machine guns and AR-15s look and sound scary... The word you are looking for is "awesome"
I'm curious about how you think about your feelings here. What do you think makes these things seem 'awesome', to you? When I was a kid, I definitely thought that guns were 'cool', in some sense. I thought about them, I read about them, and I desired access to them. As I grew up and came to understand that (in the general case, and certainly for hand guns and the stuff mentioned above) guns are tools designed to end…
Re: Pistol sights
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I initiated my comments in this thread by proposing to change the basic laws (or at least, acknowledging that they are a big factor). And it isn't that I expect such a discussion to not be emotionally loaded, I'm just going to reject assertions that only one sort of emotional loading is warranted. I agree it will take a long time to impose effective restrictions on guns in the US, we should get started as soon as pos…
So allow me to get meta for a moment here. Do you want to be right, or do you want to change people's minds? Ignore the fact that we see this on two different levels and don't even agree on first principles for a moment. Let's just talk about the pure practicality and rhetoric involved. From a purely objective standpoint, a great many people in this country believe in the 2nd amendment as written. There is no legisla…
The way I see it, step one is getting to a place where emotional appeals about grandma needing a force equalizer are dismissed more quickly than points about statistics showing that guns overall enhance violence. So experimental comments that turn some people off? Meh.
Re: Pistol sights
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always shocked and amazed that progressives rail against "abstinence only" sex ed and then turn around and promote the same thing for firearms.
Why compare sex and firearms? Sex: - Fundamental to life - Something every human is capable of, and that (except for Slashdot users ;), most experience in their life. - If consensual, a source of pleasure and love. Firearms: - A tool which can be used for a varierty of purposes - Must be purchased, i.e. it is a choice. - I suppose one could compare firearms training/use to martial arts, in that it can have personal b…
Re: Pistol sights
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't agree more with this. As a liberal gun owner I've often thought that some sort of class for other progressives on gun safety, gun history and gun culture would lead to better and effective gun laws. Yeah 50 caliber sniper rifles, fully auto machine guns and AR-15s look and sound scary... but when it comes to gun crime in this country they're a drop in the bucket compared to hand guns.
I'm always shocked and amazed that progressives rail against "abstinence only" sex ed and then turn around and promote the same thing for firearms.
Re: Pistol sights
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I shot competitively (rifle in HS, almost 30 years ago) I was a big fan of the double peephole sights. All you had to do was center the target in the aperture and make sure the aperture was circular. Takes all the work out of sight alignment and then you can focus on breathing, heartbeat and trigger squeeze.
I did the same kind of competition, and the double-aperture sights were, indeed very effective and effortless to use. There's a catch though: they're only good for shooting circular targets of the correct apparent size. I actually did once use a rifle with such sights to take some small game. It was not easy to aim outside of the conditions for which it was designed.
The military style peep + blade is a good compromise I think, especially when have to worry about ranging.
Re: Pistol sights
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always shocked and amazed that progressives rail against "abstinence only" sex ed and then turn around and promote the same thing for firearms.
Um, no, anti-gun laws are closer to nuetering than abstinence only education. One attempts to prevent the thing from happening the other refuses to provide actual education about something that is going to happen. Abstinence only education is mandatory gun ownership and then refusing to provide any guidance beyond "don't shoot people".