Have you ever shot the rifle in the latter video (Kel-Tec Sub 2000)? It's actually very lightweight, ergonomic, and favored in my experience by women and those of smaller stature as opposed to say, a handgun. Everyone I've ever trained to shoot that rifle have had a very easy time hitting what they are aiming at and more importantly not hitting what they are not aiming at. Why do you think it is completely impractica…
Because a rifle isn't practical for close targets. A handgun is much better suited for that.
I know from personal experience that an AR style rifle is completely practical for close range combat.
But... your points all come from the stance I was talking about. You don't seem interested in reasonable compromises, you seem interested in just getting everything you want and everyone else having to deal with it.
You seem to have missed the GP's point - go scan through the admittedly silly but illustrative cartoon linked. Gun rights have been repeatedly nibbled, sliced, and cut away over the past century, all in the name of "reasonable compromises". Said "reasonable" "compromises" have progressively eliminated a large swath of gun ownership rights and put the average owner in constant risk of felony. Example: an individual ma…
Gun owners have given up rights time and again, to zero gain of their own.
My question is simply: what is the thing they would like to gain? The NRA's modern reinterpretation of the Second Amendment (and make no mistake: they are pushing a modern invention, not a historical understanding) does not appear to allow the possibility that any compromise would be reasonable. Hence anything which is not a complete and utter victory is immediately spun as a complete and utter defeat.
Good article, glad to see some knowledgable firearms writing in the general press. This is how I've felt as a gun owner over the last two decades, translated into computing: Imagine that someone in California hacked into a power station and caused a blackout. Police responded and found the hacker and their equipment. Shortly thereafter an "anti-hacking" bill appeared in the state legislature to prevent a repeat of su…
So, is it the Stockton schoolyard or 101 California Street shooting that you liken to a blackout? I guess its a pretty dramatic blackout since at least 5 people dies...
You also neglect the detail that the police response was of little consequence as the hacker had committed suicide before they police was at the scene.
I'm unsure what the web panel remark can mean concretely, exactly what did the children at Sandy Hook Elementary do to cause a "blackout"?
Computers have uses beyond hacking. Guns are for killing. Killing in self-defense, honing your killing skills as a sport/recreation activity, deterring bad behavior by threat of killing, killing things that are socially acceptable to kill (i.e. game animals), sure, but the theme is killing. Lockpicks might be a better example. Many similar arguments apply: their use is to open doors without the correct keys, which on…
Target shooting isn't just practice for killing things. That's as absurd as claiming "racing is just practice for running people over". Target shooting is a sport all on its own, and is probably the single most prevalent application of firearms in the US.
Smart guns aren't going to hinder anyone but responsible people. We need a few things: 1) Funding alternatives to incarceration. People that go to jail tend to have a frequent flyer card. 2) Law enforcement sharing of critical data on offenders. 3) Funding treatment and therapy programs for drug abusers (ABUSERS, key word. I know this isn't a popular opinion on HN, but ABUSE and USE are two different things) 4) Final…
I've always thought that the arguments from the anti-gun crowd defied all logic. If access to guns was the root of the problem, then gun violence should be going down, rather than up. Far fewer people own guns now than did, say 150 or 200 years ago (when it was probably close to 100%). Solving the problem by focusing on guns is trying to treat the symptom rather than the disease.
I don't think you're right about how pervasive gun ownership was, due to changes in costs and wealth, and the ability to maintain guns in the days of corrosive black gunpowder and corrosive percussion caps and primers (the WWII M1 Carbine was the first US weapon system to use non-corrosive primers). And of course blacks were largely disarmed post-Reconstruction, next up were post-Civil War immigrants starting around the last turn of the century, etc. See also Chicago post-McDonald and the nationwide sweep of shall issue laws has radically increased the utility of owning a handgun, now 43 states and ~72-3% of the population.
The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. You have to be able to go back and prove whether a seller performed the proper background check before selling a gun to a particular person. A possible alternative I thought and have always wondered why it doesn't get used would be some sort of private public key cr…
The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. Bingo, and the imposition of a registry would inevitably spark our next hot civil war. Best to avoid that.... where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything Unfortunatel…
Really? Are you saying you'd start shooting people over a gun registry, or "other gun owners" would?
hunches and gut feeling How about decades of experience. Vermont never banned carry in any form, and now has been joined by 9 other states in "Constitutional Carry", many for some years. Washington state went shall issue in the early '60s. Florida started the modern wave in 1987. "Normal" states like Colorado have allowed concealed carry on the grounds of public colleges for years. Experience, especially in the "50 P…
Yes, Washington state went concealed carry in 1961. Its crime rate rose and fell in step with the other states over the years - concealed carry did not suppress that rate after it was introduced. If you want to argue that concealed carry directly reduces crime rate, Washington state is something you should remain quiet on. I've read a lot of stuff around concealed carry over the past decade for internet debates, and…
If you want to argue that concealed carry directly reduces crime rate
You're fighting someone else, I make no such claims, I'm pretty sure simple demographics, particularly the wave of young men in the Baby Boom, is the biggest factor, and swamps all others to the point it's hard to discern any other cause. Although perhaps if we'd locked up those criminals at the rate we'd locked up previous generations it would have gone differently.
All I claim is that at worst it's Mostly Harmless.
The argument I have heard is that a universal background checks system would require the government to keep a registry of gun owners to be at all useful. Bingo, and the imposition of a registry would inevitably spark our next hot civil war. Best to avoid that.... where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything Unfortunatel…
Really? Are you saying you'd start shooting people over a gun registry, or "other gun owners" would?
Yes, I will personally "start shooting people". Except I won't do anything so anodyne.
We gun owners know our 20th Century history.
Note we're talking about a nation wide gun registry, you're a criminal if all your guns are not listed on it.
If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?
I think we all know why. In fact. This author implies it: the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms. They may mask these interests as a public service, defending your rights and hobbies and whatnot but it is always the case that they oppose anything that would reduce firearm sales and support anything that makes it easier for you to get a gun.
> the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms
NRA member here.
I neither manufacture nor sell firearms, and the NRA represents my interests re: gun ownership.
Have you tried obtaining a CCW in Chicago? In order to get one you have to: -Take a 16 hour course. There are only a handful of companies that can offer the course and they're fully booked year-round -Pay $150, one of the highest CCW permit fees in the nation -Hope that you aren't one of the 800 applicants/year that are inexplicably denied ( http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-07-04/news/ct-concea... ) So yes, yo…
I haven't tried obtaining a CCW in Chicago because the idea of wandering around Chicago carrying a gun seems totally ridiculous to me.
What a strange response to his post. Did some portion of your post get deleted/omitted?