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Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

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Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#351

Post by monochromatic »

tome wrote: post #165
monochromatic wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno what to say to that, other than "wow." That is just a shocking amount of honesty.

Are you serious? You really think that the UK, France, Canada, Australia, Sweden etc. etc. are at such a risk of tyranny from their governments that they should expose their children to more random shootings to reduce the risk?

Yes, I am serious. And "exposing their children to more random shootings" is not an acceptable rationale for disarming a populace.

Look at the odds of dying in a random shooting. Compare them to just about anything. Car accidents and swimming pools kill FAR more children.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#352

Post by suresk »

bmelton wrote: post #350
suresk wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is disconcerting to see guns like an AR-15 being targeted merely because they look scary or military-like, but they do have a number of attributes that make them ideal for mass-shootings, which tend to occur at short-to-medium ranges. They are smaller and lighter than many of the other guns you mentioned, they have minimal recoil, and while .223/5.56 rounds are small, they are still quite lethal at th…

I don't disagree in the slightest, if you consider the AR as it is traditionally packaged and sold. The AR though, like the Linux nerd-reference I made earlier, is more of a platform than a gun itself. I have seen ARs in 50 cal beowulf configurations, .300 whisper, etc. So, they can be used very effectively for hunting. A friend of mine has one that he uses for 'plinking' cans and targets, and by swapping the upper t…

Those are fair arguments. The main reasons I think ARs are poor for home defense:

1) Their size makes them unwieldy in the home. My AR15, with the stock fully collapsed, is still 32" long, which makes it less than ideal for navigating around in a home.

2) The muzzle velocity and the fact that you typically don't have hollow point rounds laying around makes it highly likely that you are going to hit a lot of things you don't mean to. Even if you hit your target, there is still a high probability of overpenetration when you are talking about something that is going ~3000 fps.

I somewhat disagree with the fact that the 30 round magazine matters much - a decent handgun can contain 10 or more rounds, and if you haven't knocked down your target by that many shots, running out of ammo is going to be the least of your problems.

If I were concerned about home defense, I'd prefer either a shotgun (like you say, the Saiga would be a decent choice) or a 9mm pistol.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#353

Post by alanctgardner2 »

notdrunkatall wrote: post #328
alanctgardner2 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, your story is the perfect, one-in-a-million anecdote. - Your house is broken into. Not really a routine occurrence. - The people breaking in don't have guns. If any of them had a gun, and you had a gun, now it's a proper disaster. So you're weighing all the risks of easy, legal gun-ownership ( lower barriers to shooting sprees, accidental discharges ) against being in this precise scenario, which happened to…

>Frankly, your story is the perfect, one-in-a-million anecdote. No, no it's not. Homeowners defend themselves against home intruders all the time with guns. Google is your friend.

I read that as "homeowners shoot people all the time". I meant that his scenario, where there was a real threat of violence, was rare. It's entirely possible for you to shoot a guy who would've run off. That doesn't mean it was necessary, or defending yourself.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#354

Post by notdrunkatall »

darkchasma wrote: post #332
notdrunkatall wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>give me an example America. ... You people are dense to the point of complete idiocy. My point is that the current period of prosperous peace (relatively speaking) will certainly not last forever. Wars are a fact of life, and when they happen, regimes fall and power vacuums arise. Sometimes, those vacuums are filled not by the most capable (and rarely by the most benevolent) but by the most ambitious. Given the hist…

America? The war where the tyrannical overreaching government wanted to take away people's right to own other people and enforce more control over the states than the southern states wanted? Because the government; it won. (I'm pretty happy it did too!) :) So, yea... Great example.

Yes, that America - where people were able to stand up for what they believed in and fight and die for that belief if they so chose. That is precisely the America that I am talking about.

And do you know why the South lost? Because the majority of America was not on board with slavery. It was an idea whose time had come to die, and die it did, though not without a fight.

Can you guess which side the majority would be on in a situation where the majority were being oppressed?

What a stupid fucking point you're trying to make.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#355

Post by notdrunkatall »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #353
notdrunkatall wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Frankly, your story is the perfect, one-in-a-million anecdote. No, no it's not. Homeowners defend themselves against home intruders all the time with guns. Google is your friend.

I read that as "homeowners shoot people all the time". I meant that his scenario, where there was a real threat of violence, was rare. It's entirely possible for you to shoot a guy who would've run off. That doesn't mean it was necessary, or defending yourself.

It's a rare scenario, and one that's not a problem until you're the one with an intruder in your house, the place where your family sleeps, and all you have is a bat (or whatever) because people who never thought they would be in that situation have seen to it that guns were outlawed.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#356

Post by bmelton »

suresk wrote: post #349
bmelton wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, regarding the fighter jet and nuclear warhead, it is not considered a man-portable arm, which the supreme court has narrowed the definition of firearm down to. There are arguments for and against whether or not it ought to be absolute, but clearly it is not, at least as presently governed. Thus far, the only known challenge on the National Firearms Act (which is what prohibits us from buying fully automatic machi…

IMO, gun policy is a fairly complicated and nuanced area - I am still not 100% sure how I feel about a lot of things. Thanks for taking the time to write up a thoughtful response.

I completely agree, and there are numbers that have been manipulated so much and so frequently by politicians that it is genuinely hard to get very relevant data to support anything either way in a concrete fashion.

I try to keep my arguments based on what I know has been proven thus far and the things that I know to be true, but the media isn't really helping in any way in that regard. I feel that irresponsible reporting on both sides is doing everybody in this nation a disservice.

Politicians that are trying to legislate that which they do not understand is equally laughable. Banning barrel shrouds, for example, that pretty much every rifle has had since 1880, or banning adjustable stocks that allow for my wife and I to share the same gun and just adjust it to our reach.

That said, we have problems, and the solutions are not necessarily apparent. So while I applaud our nation for wanting to "do something", I worry that the something we're aiming to do is just going to make guns more available to criminals than lawful citizens, and ultimately, a lot of it is gray area.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#357

Post by bmelton »

suresk wrote: post #352
bmelton wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree in the slightest, if you consider the AR as it is traditionally packaged and sold. The AR though, like the Linux nerd-reference I made earlier, is more of a platform than a gun itself. I have seen ARs in 50 cal beowulf configurations, .300 whisper, etc. So, they can be used very effectively for hunting. A friend of mine has one that he uses for 'plinking' cans and targets, and by swapping the upper t…

Those are fair arguments. The main reasons I think ARs are poor for home defense: 1) Their size makes them unwieldy in the home. My AR15, with the stock fully collapsed, is still 32" long, which makes it less than ideal for navigating around in a home. 2) The muzzle velocity and the fact that you typically don't have hollow point rounds laying around makes it highly likely that you are going to hit a lot of things yo…

I don't disagree that overpenetration should be a concern for a lot of people. It isn't for me, so I like the AR15 for home defense. I've got a cabin that is even more remote, and comes replete with occasional threats from various wildlife, and I like it there too -- but that is with the knowledge that the nearest human being should be no closer than 50 acres away.

Regarding the ammo, for a small caliber weapon, and the accuracy of the average person who shoots, your odds of stopping an assailant with 10 rounds is pretty good, at about 85.1%. If there are multiple assailants though, 10 rounds doesn't provide particularly great odds - at 35%. 12 rounds gets you 50% odds against 2 assailants.

The main reason I argue against ammunition capacity restrictions for citizens though, is that generally speaking, criminals have the advantage of preparation in their crime, and aren't going to respect magazine limitations -- especially those of the more ludicrous nature like found in New York, where there is a 7 round limit. You can have a larger than 7 round magazine, but may only fill it with 7 rounds. No criminal preparing to engage in criminal activities is going to observe that restriction, while there may well be law abiding folks naive enough to obey such a law and find themselves out of ammunition when they need it.

Further, according to the Supreme Court, bans on arms "in common use" are effectively unconstitutional, and banning down to a 7 round capacity limit is a violation of that decision. As you said, there are numerous handguns containing 10 or more rounds, with Glocks generally fairing on the higher side of capacity, and older weapons like the 1911 being 7 or 8+1, but standard capacities are usually somewhere between 12 and 18 rounds on the most common of firearms. For the AR15, 20 rounds is the norm, and as such, should be protected.

Per Alan Gura (the attorney of record for DC v Heller and Chicago v McDonald), you can't make what is "in common use" a result of a restriction either, so that they can't ban all but five found magazines, then rule that as a result of that ban, a five round magazine is what's protected as common use.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#358

Post by curiousdannii »

giardini wrote: post #314
curiousdannii wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got an example where guns which were allowed were then banned by a government which then turned tyrannical?

Germany under Hitler, Russia under Stalin, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Uganda under Idi Amin for starters.

I'm no expert, but compared to the Weimar Republic it looks like Nazi Germany relaxed gun control considerably, unless you were Jewish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Germany

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#359

Post by bmelton »

bmelton wrote: post #357
suresk wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are fair arguments. The main reasons I think ARs are poor for home defense: 1) Their size makes them unwieldy in the home. My AR15, with the stock fully collapsed, is still 32" long, which makes it less than ideal for navigating around in a home. 2) The muzzle velocity and the fact that you typically don't have hollow point rounds laying around makes it highly likely that you are going to hit a lot of things yo…

I don't disagree that overpenetration should be a concern for a lot of people. It isn't for me, so I like the AR15 for home defense. I've got a cabin that is even more remote, and comes replete with occasional threats from various wildlife, and I like it there too -- but that is with the knowledge that the nearest human being should be no closer than 50 acres away. Regarding the ammo, for a small caliber weapon, and…

I forgot to mention also that banning high capacity magazines is an extra-special futile endeavor since I can make them with a 3D printer.

Re: Person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT

#360

Post by curiousdannii »

bmelton wrote: post #341
curiousdannii wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a silly question: does the constitution protect the right to own ammunition as well as weapons?

The second amendment protects firearms, not bludgeoning instruments that are shaped like firearms -- so yes.

I don't doubt what you say, but would that mean that once you've used up its ammunition an empty gun is no longer considered a firearm in US law?
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