America - The Official Thread

[Tornado]

So in essence you're proposing to have single shot bolt action rifles, muskets, and some of those weird single shot pistols no one uses.

I'll have you know Lance Henriksen chased van Damme all over New Orleans with one of those

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

View attachment 1154467

Guns used in mass shootings U.S. 2024 | Statista

Handguns are the most common weapons used in mass shootings in the United States. Other types of guns used in mass shootings include rifles and shotguns.

www.statista.com

It could be equally effective, yes. At least in my hands. Heavy AR's like an M16A2 are too big and heavy. Adding a drum mag makes it worse, and those are notriously unreliable. A regular Ruger American chambered in 223/5.56 could do as much damage. It's lighter and takes AR mags. They don't jam. Mag dumping and praying isn't effective as you think with people running around.

If you really want to complain about effectiveness, your PS90 would've been much worse than any AR. Half the weight, much shorter, much lighter recoil and a reliable 50 round magazine. The round is a necked down 5.56.

What do you propose? A blanket ban on semi-autos? Centerfire? Unless you do either of those, there will always be rifles and pistols that'll do a lot of damage quickly. You'll be left with nothing but Ruger IV and 10/22's.

The problem is that you aren't even attempted to argue in good faith. Instead, you choose bad faith.

Did you just say a bolt action rifle is as effective at killing multiple people as an AR15? Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the US military should revert to Springfield rifles - clearly they are wasting their money on assault rifles. Are you listening to yourself? Are you serious? You don't seem to be capable of thinking critically here. Did I say drum magazines?* A Ruger American chambered in .223 is precisely the kind of weapon that shouldn't be available to just anyone. This is why it's so frustrating to argue with gun nerds, they'll resort to technical details to try and muddy the waters and distract from the issue (when they aren't outright trying to deny that centerfire high capacity rifles somehow aren't actually effective at killing people...to which I would say, what is their point then?) - guns like AR pattern rifles are way too effective at killing groups of people for them to be totally unregulated. I would wholeheartedly support putting any centerfire semi-auto rifle under a blanket permit/EO similar to SBRs. I would also support any magazines (pistol or rifle) larger than 10 rounds to require the same sort of permitting. Not impossible to get, just harder.

*I really challenge you to say that an AR pattern rifle with a drum magazine isn't effective, as that exact combo was used to commit the worst mass shooting by an individual in American history. Say it. Say An AR15 with a 100rd drum is not good at killing people.

Can anyone give me an easier, more reliable method of killing a crowd of people that requires very limited technical knowledge?

You could try driving a big truck into the crowd, but that's only viable if you have a good run up and there are no barriers.
You could try to craft a bomb to do it, but the materials and knowledge required area pretty big hurdle. Also, without multiple explosives, the crowd itself will probably limit the damage.
Good luck with a knife.
Dispersing some cloud of toxic gas? Not exactly easy to pull off.

Like if somebody gave me a brief of kill as many people in a crowd or school as possible before being killed myself or subdued/stopped, the very first thing I would think would be a good position and an MG42. Those aren't available. But a .308 AR10 with a 100rd drum magazine, muzzle break, and a bipod is pretty damn close and, checks notes, literally almost anyone over 18 can acquire one within a day.

Here's the ruleset I would propose - categorize ammunition by the kinetic energy of the round and weapons by their instantaneous rate of fire (ie, ignoring reloading). I'll use 9x19 as the reference, as I think it represents a reasonable round for self defense purposes. Anything weapon chambered above that reference round cannot be normally obtained* if the weapon can fire more than x rounds per minute.

*as in, not just anyone with a pulse and a blank record can get one.

To summarize, I want to inconvenience the true gun enthusiasts with some tax stamps to prevent or at least provide a sizeable hurdle for 18 year old kids like this from being able to freely buy an object that is extremely efficient at killing 9 year olds.

 

[CodeRedR51]

If we could ditch backpacks so that kids weren't carrying paper back and forth between home and school, it would be feasible to do a visual inspection of music cases at the door (just like a water park or football game). I know that the questions about feminine products and school lunches going back and forth can be addressed. Bathrooms should probably stock tampons. Getting rid of backpacks isn't an overnight thing, but it's completely do-able.

No homework, no need for backpacks. 🤷‍♂️

 

[TexRex]

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that no number of officers are going to do what's necessary if they don't want to and maybe it was the wrong decision for officers outside to have tasers drawn to control parents...and of course this aggressively stupid mother****er is talking about video games.

 

[Tornado]

Wow. So just like in 1999, the secret to having cops standing around with their thumbs up their asses too afraid to actually do anything while the shooter meticulously goes from room to room inside shooting anything that moves was to have the perpetrator be a gamer.

 

[TexRex]

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that no number of officers are going to do what's necessary if they don't want to and maybe it was the wrong decision for officers outside to have tasers drawn to control parents...and of course this aggressively stupid mother****er is talking about video games.

In Uvalde, the Most Enraging Press Conference in American History

What might very well be the most enraging press conference in American history just ended in Uvalde, Texas. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw revealed that there were 19 officers in the school hallway for about an hour as small children used their deceased teacher’s phone...

www.thebulwark.com

Language warning for the article viewed on the website proper. It's subjected to the forum's profanity filter as transcribed below.

What may very well be the most enraging press conference in American history just ended in Uvalde, Texas.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw revealed that there were 19 officers in the school hallway for about an hour as small children used their deceased teacher’s phone to dial 911 and beg for their lives. He described local police officials preventing border patrol and other federal law enforcement who had arrived on the scene from entering the school and helping these terrorized kids, while their keening parents begged them to act. He acknowledged the school resource officer was not on the scene.

And after admitting this staggering level of incompetence in the face of unimaginable evil—a failure so immense that it will reverberate for generations—McCraw said dismissively, “If I thought it would help, I’d apologize.”

I want to throw my computer through a wall just transcribing these words.

McCraw followed that remark by making a rather revealing point. In defense of the officers on scene he said that there was “a barrage—hundreds of rounds were pumped in four minutes into those classrooms.”

Hundreds of rounds. Four minutes. When you cut away all the ********, and excuse making, and failure this is the crux of the matter.

In the coming days there will be a desire to obsess only over the unfathomable failures of those who were charged with keeping these kids safe. The poor teacher who left a door ajar. The MIA resource officer. The cops, excuse me—the SWAT Team—that posed on Facebook in tactical gear with weapons of war looking like they were prepared to head to the Donbas, but were apparently unequipped to take on a lone teenager who was slaughtering their town’s children.

But the main thing to take away from all of that is not that their failure can be reversed. It’s that in a nation with 130,000 schools there will always be some kind of human error when responding to an active shooter. God willing those errors won’t be as catastrophic as they were in Uvalde. But there will always be errors.

Parkland had an armed officer and the single point of entry that the “door control” crowd is now so obsessed with. Sandy Hook was breached by the killer firing through a window next to a locked security door. Santa Fe High School in Texas had put in place a school shooting plan with armed officers, before 10 were killed.

Can we develop better procedures for dealing with shooters in school? Probably. Schools have been wargaming these scenarios for years already, though. And yes, we can and should provide more funding for schools to help make them safer.

But when a child is able to access two assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of bullets—and are able to massacre a dozen innocents in the blink of an eye—then there is no level of door control or resource officer training that can reliably stop them.

There will always be a teacher or a kid who leaves a door open. There will always be a resource officer who is outmatched by the child Rambo with a military arsenal. There will always be a moment where kids are moving between classes, or to lunch, or to chapel, or to the football game, or to the bus and where all of the carefully designed safety precautions fall apart. And yes, there will always be fallible police officers scared for their own lives making split second—or in this case 3,600 seconds—calculations revealing that they are unfit for duty and should not be entrusted by their communities with all of that unused tactical gear.

So yes, absolutely, we should do anything in our power to make schools safer.

But the important takeaway from Uvalde shouldn’t be that next time we just need perfect cops, and unimpeachable protocols, and more competent “good guys with guns.” Time after time we’ve seen that this isn’t possible in the real world. The military understands that plans rarely survive first-contact with the enemy. The fetishists insisting that “guns don’t kill people, doors do,” do not.

The only way to actually protect these kids is to make it harder for their peers to get the deadly weapons that have allowed so many shooters to evade so many cops and so many safety procedures.

When you "back the blue" unconditionally, they learn that they don't actually need to do anything to earn your support.

 

[Danoff]

The problem is that you aren't even attempted to argue in good faith. Instead, you choose bad faith.

Did you just say a bolt action rifle is as effective at killing multiple people as an AR15? Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the US military should revert to Springfield rifles - clearly they are wasting their money on assault rifles. Are you listening to yourself? Are you serious? You don't seem to be capable of thinking critically here. Did I say drum magazines?* A Ruger American chambered in .223 is precisely the kind of weapon that shouldn't be available to just anyone. This is why it's so frustrating to argue with gun nerds, they'll resort to technical details to try and muddy the waters and distract from the issue (when they aren't outright trying to deny that centerfire high capacity rifles somehow aren't actually effective at killing people...to which I would say, what is their point then?) - guns like AR pattern rifles are way too effective at killing groups of people for them to be totally unregulated. I would wholeheartedly support putting any centerfire semi-auto rifle under a blanket permit/EO similar to SBRs. I would also support any magazines (pistol or rifle) larger than 10 rounds to require the same sort of permitting. Not impossible to get, just harder.

*I really challenge you to say that an AR pattern rifle with a drum magazine isn't effective, as that exact combo was used to commit the worst mass shooting by an individual in American history. Say it. Say An AR15 with a 100rd drum is not good at killing people.

Can anyone give me an easier, more reliable method of killing a crowd of people that requires very limited technical knowledge?

You could try driving a big truck into the crowd, but that's only viable if you have a good run up and there are no barriers.
You could try to craft a bomb to do it, but the materials and knowledge required area pretty big hurdle. Also, without multiple explosives, the crowd itself will probably limit the damage.
Good luck with a knife.
Dispersing some cloud of toxic gas? Not exactly easy to pull off.

Like if somebody gave me a brief of kill as many people in a crowd or school as possible before being killed myself or subdued/stopped, the very first thing I would think would be a good position and an MG42. Those aren't available. But a .308 AR10 with a 100rd drum magazine, muzzle break, and a bipod is pretty damn close and, checks notes, literally almost anyone over 18 can acquire one within a day.

Here's the ruleset I would propose - categorize ammunition by the kinetic energy of the round and weapons by their instantaneous rate of fire (ie, ignoring reloading). I'll use 9x19 as the reference, as I think it represents a reasonable round for self defense purposes. Anything weapon chambered above that reference round cannot be normally obtained* if the weapon can fire more than x rounds per minute.

*as in, not just anyone with a pulse and a blank record can get one.

To summarize, I want to inconvenience the true gun enthusiasts with some tax stamps to prevent or at least provide a sizeable hurdle for 18 year old kids like this from being able to freely buy an object that is extremely efficient at killing 9 year olds.

This is like, way behind the scenes stuff. The general public would not need to know about this. You simply have like... class 1, class 2, class 3 firearms or munitions or whatever you want to call them. And then your license is good for whatever class it's issued for.

The actual process needed for categorizing firearms into particular classes could take this sort of thing into account, but could also include more squishy rules.

 

[TexRex]

It's cacophonous, so blanket language warning.

 

[R3V]

The problem is that you aren't even attempted to argue in good faith. Instead, you choose bad faith.

Did you just say a bolt action rifle is as effective at killing multiple people as an AR15? Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the US military should revert to Springfield rifles - clearly they are wasting their money on assault rifles. Are you listening to yourself? Are you serious? You don't seem to be capable of thinking critically here. Did I say drum magazines?* A Ruger American chambered in .223 is precisely the kind of weapon that shouldn't be available to just anyone. This is why it's so frustrating to argue with gun nerds, they'll resort to technical details to try and muddy the waters and distract from the issue (when they aren't outright trying to deny that centerfire high capacity rifles somehow aren't actually effective at killing people...to which I would say, what is their point then?) - guns like AR pattern rifles are way too effective at killing groups of people for them to be totally unregulated. I would wholeheartedly support putting any centerfire semi-auto rifle under a blanket permit/EO similar to SBRs. I would also support any magazines (pistol or rifle) larger than 10 rounds to require the same sort of permitting. Not impossible to get, just harder.

*I really challenge you to say that an AR pattern rifle with a drum magazine isn't effective, as that exact combo was used to commit the worst mass shooting by an individual in American history. Say it. Say An AR15 with a 100rd drum is not good at killing people.

Can anyone give me an easier, more reliable method of killing a crowd of people that requires very limited technical knowledge?

You could try driving a big truck into the crowd, but that's only viable if you have a good run up and there are no barriers.
You could try to craft a bomb to do it, but the materials and knowledge required area pretty big hurdle. Also, without multiple explosives, the crowd itself will probably limit the damage.
Good luck with a knife.
Dispersing some cloud of toxic gas? Not exactly easy to pull off.

Like if somebody gave me a brief of kill as many people in a crowd or school as possible before being killed myself or subdued/stopped, the very first thing I would think would be a good position and an MG42. Those aren't available. But a .308 AR10 with a 100rd drum magazine, muzzle break, and a bipod is pretty damn close and, checks notes, literally almost anyone over 18 can acquire one within a day.

Here's the ruleset I would propose - categorize ammunition by the kinetic energy of the round and weapons by their instantaneous rate of fire (ie, ignoring reloading). I'll use 9x19 as the reference, as I think it represents a reasonable round for self defense purposes. Anything weapon chambered above that reference round cannot be normally obtained* if the weapon can fire more than x rounds per minute.

*as in, not just anyone with a pulse and a blank record can get one.

To summarize, I want to inconvenience the true gun enthusiasts with some tax stamps to prevent or at least provide a sizeable hurdle for 18 year old kids like this from being able to freely buy an object that is extremely efficient at killing 9 year olds.

That's a whole lot of strawmaning and according to your last two lines, we don't even disagree on the main point. I started my input about guns in the gun thread calling for a license system to own any gun. I mentioned it here as well.

I never said an AR15 isn't effective, I said that trying to surgically remove it won't do much. Neither will a blanket ban on center fire or "high capacity" magazines, really. Mass shooters will buy whatever gun is available. Even your suggestion about 9mm is taken, you'll just see a lot of Ruger Americans chambered in 9mm with +P ammo. Heck, even regular subsonic 9mm or a rimfire .22 mag will kill just as many people. There's nothing special about .223/5.56 other than its increased chance of killing someone without hiting a vital organ. Over a pistol round, anyway.

Oh, and the added 1 second to rechamber a round with a bolt in the hands of a new shoooter, what's that going to do? Reduce the deaths down from 20 to 15? 10? 5? Great! We've solved the problem right there..

Once again, the discussion should not be about the guns and about the people allowed to own them. Bringing up big bad rifles is a distraction and won't get you anywhere with "gun nerds".

Drunk drivers used to kill more kids than guns in America until like a year ago. That's not counting alcohol-related deaths overall. You're gonna go back to the prohibition?

I don't get how you guys can call yourselves progressives and be pro-drugs and prostitution, yet with guns you freak out. Where there's a demand, there's a market. The "assault weapon" ban didn't stop the columbine shooting, did it?

 

[UKMikey]

It's cacophonous, so blanket language warning.

Cancel culture. So much for the tolerant left. Seriously, though, he's lucky he only got his megaphone taken off him and not inserted internally.

 

[Hayden]

I’m sorry but this discussion just blows me away. I’ve read these last few pages trying to see it from a different perspective, and I really have tried, but it’s a serious problem you guys have over there.

I know Americans love guns. I know that they have a culture all their own, and that the 2nd amendment isn’t going to be repelled. I get it.

But to someone who grew up in Australia, the idea of using metal detectors, 4 security guards (either paid or rostered parents), armed teachers, two doors and no backpacks as a solution just seems… like it’s not going to actually fix the problem.

All of those solutions can be overcome by a determined enough gunman. They’re also riddled with flaws.

Rostering parents won’t work because people have jobs and won’t be able to commit. Not every parent carries, and it also raises a possibility that an armed father of a bullied child will be put in a position of authority, with a weapon, near their child’s tormentor.

Giving a teacher a gun, likewise, isn’t always a great idea. It’s not what they signed up to do, it’s not their profession and they are flawed human beings, who have been known to snap when pushed past the limit by a particularly rowdy classroom.

4x security guards at every school sounds great, but the sheer cost of that, across 130,000 schools, is immense. In a country that already has money issues, and related societal issues, this 31 Billion $+ annual cost seems unrealistic. And there’s also the problem that security gets complacent as the threat can take years to eventuate.

Banning backpacks raises the question of how does a kid transport textbooks for exam study, a laptop and a lunchbox, comfortably to school when they need to walk a couple miles to get there. And if you ban all but the lunchbox, I’m pretty sure you could still fit a 9mm in one of those.

The metal detector, I know is already in use in some American schools because I saw them when I was in California in 2019. It was pretty confronting, but was clearly standard practice for the kids who, as mentioned previously, grew up in a post 9-11 world.

Now even if all these measures work, and work perfectly, there is still the very real possibility that a gunman will just find the next easiest target. Little league games, librarys, children’s restaurants, etc, etc.

It honestly makes me sick to my stomach thinking of all this, when I have a 1 year old and another on the way. I sympathise with the parents and am grateful Australia’s gun laws are tight enough that this won’t be a realistic concern for my kids.

You guys have a serious issue with guns and as nice as it is seeing the discussion about realistic things that can be done, I’m just not believing any will have the desired impact. It’s unfortunate that prohibition will never make it through, because as demonstrated all around the world, it all but eliminates the problem.

The only thing I can see really making a difference would be a licensing scheme, with mental health tests and a progression based system where you need to earn the right to carry big boy guns. Making them effectively off limits to people who are 🤬 off about what happened to them in school. That I think could make a dent, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

That's a whole lot of strawmaning and according to your last two lines, we don't even disagree on the main point. I started my input about guns in the gun thread calling for a license system to own any gun. I mentioned it here as well.

A license system to own any gun is very likely a nonstarter. 2A is too clear (at least, per the late A.S.) for that to happen. But 2A is not absolute, and the courts have given latitude to lawmakers to use laws to reduce firearm carnage. Machine guns were banned almost entirely, for example. To say that it's just not possible to bring another category of weapons under stricter regulation I think is a cynical or simply bad faith position. It is possible and could have practical results.

I never said an AR15 isn't effective, I said that trying to surgically remove it won't do much. Neither will a blanket ban on center fire or "high capacity" magazines, really. Mass shooters will buy whatever gun is available. Even your suggestion about 9mm is taken, you'll just see a lot of Ruger Americans chambered in 9mm with +P ammo. Heck, even regular subsonic 9mm or a rimfire .22 mag will kill just as many people. There's nothing special about .223/5.56 other than its increased chance of killing someone without hiting a vital organ. Over a pistol round, anyway.

The idea that .223/5.56 is "nothing special" when it is the NATO round of choice for small arms is ludicrous! The round is purpose-designed to kill people in a battlefield setting. On balance, the .223 is one of the best light combat rounds you can hope for!

How can you simultaneously say that .22 mag will kill just as many people and immediately afterwards say that .223 has an increased chance of killing someone? Those two statements don't square. They do reinforce my point about centerfire rifle rounds in semi-automatic rifles being particularly good at killing people though, and that we should really think about restricting access to them.

It might be true that would-be shooters would buy whatever gun is available to them, but I'd rather a shooter be limited to 9mm baby rifles with limited magazine functionality than a full on .223 rifle with quick release 30 rd box magazines. Preventing all loss of life is a fools errand, but limiting the damage with well implemented regulation is an achievable goal.

You are really hung up on AR15s, I clearly did not indicate it should be surgically removed.

Oh, and the added 1 second to rechamber a round with a bolt in the hands of a new shoooter, what's that going to do? Reduce the deaths down from 20 to 15? 10? 5? Great! We've solved the problem right there..

Wait, are you honestly advocating that less death is not progress? Kind of begs the question, how many more kids lives is it worth to not do anything? 20 to 5 is a 75% reduction! If my imaginary bill reduced mass casualty firearm deaths by 75% I would think it worked better than I could have ever imagined. So, yeah, lets do it?

Once again, the discussion should not be about the guns and about the people allowed to own them. Bringing up big bad rifles is a distraction and won't get you anywhere with "gun nerds".

Are you not following anything I'm saying? I've very clearly that there should be a higher bar of entry to get rifle-caliber semi-auto rifles (regardless of what they look like or if they are "big and bad"), not that they should be outlawed outright. The truth is that gun nerds don't want to lose easy access to the guns they want and so they will hide behind self professed "expertise" to try to muddy the waters, in bad faith, on any regulations. I think it's nonsense.

Drunk drivers used to kill more kids than guns in America until like a year ago. That's not counting alcohol-related deaths overall. You're gonna go back to the prohibition?

I don't get how you guys can call yourselves progressives and be pro-drugs and prostitution, yet with guns you freak out. Where there's a demand, there's a market. The "assault weapon" ban didn't stop the columbine shooting, did it?

Lot of assumptions thrown in there. I'm not exactly progressive and it would be a little weird for me to freak out about guns considering I still own 4 of them. The assault weapon ban was poorly implemented and went after irrelevant design features of guns, though in the defense of that act, it was at a time when military-esque rifles had not yet exploded in popularity, particularly with younger demographics. The act should have gone after something like I described - can this gun put 30 or more (for example) high velocity rifle rounds (with kinetic energy y) down range in a minute or less with a reasonably experienced shooter. If the answer to that question is yes, it's "class z" and you need a tax stamp to buy it.

 

[R3V]

A license system to own any gun is very likely a nonstarter. 2A is too clear (at least, per the late A.S.) for that to happen. But 2A is not absolute, and the courts have given latitude to lawmakers to use laws to reduce firearm carnage. Machine guns were banned almost entirely, for example. To say that it's just not possible to bring another category of weapons under stricter regulation I think is a cynical or simply bad faith position. It is possible and could have practical results.

So you're arguing for less strict control than I am. Lol. Okay 🍻

The round is purpose-designed to kill people in a battlefield setting.

Yeah when someone's shooting back and you need to lay down suppressive fire. You can hold more in a magazine than a 7.62. That's why it was preferred. That's why Russians went with 5.45 instead of their 7.62x39.

Against masses of unarmed civilians, it makes little difference. It feels horrible to spell this out loud, but picking people off with any cartridge will do essentially the same amount of damage. Yes the .22 mag will likely keep someone alive for a bit longer to get help if their vital organ isn't hit, but they still got shot and will likely die.

Kind of begs the question, how many more kids lives is it worth to not do anything? 20 to 5 is a 75% reduction! If my imaginary bill reduced mass casualty firearm deaths by 75% I would think it worked better than I could have ever imagined. So, yeah, lets do it?

I would spend 95% of my effort on reducing the number of people who become mass shooters, rather than gimping the means to do them. 5% of my energy would go to something like a license system. Whatever result that comes with that, then "it is what it is".

I don't know you so I assumed you're a hardcore democrat (like many here, seemingly) who casually owned guns. MB on that part.

Western left: BANNING ALCOHOL WILL DO NOTHING
Western left: BANNING DRUGS WILL DO NOTHING
Western left: BANNING PROSTITUTION WILL DO NOTHING

Also Western left: BAN ALL THE GUNS THIS WILL TOTALLY WORK

 

[Danoff]

A license system to own any gun is very likely a nonstarter.

I'm not super up-to-date on my 2A case law, but from what I understand a license to buy some guns has been tested and found acceptable (not that you said otherwise). So licensing could very well encompass the vast majority, maybe all, or maybe as near to all as matters.

 

[TexRex]

Western left: BANNING ALCOHOL WILL DO NOTHING
Western left: BANNING DRUGS WILL DO NOTHING
Western left: BANNING PROSTITUTION WILL DO NOTHING

My favorite part of the bitchfit is when the user conjures up statements from thin air.

 

[UKMikey]

My favorite part of the bitchfit is when the user conjures up statements from thin air.

It's funny how calling for greater control and accountability is only a "ban" when it affects something he likes. Congrats on joining the poop club, btw.

 

[TexRex]

Congrats on joining the poop club, btw.

Badge of honor.

 

[R3V]

It's funny how calling for greater control and accountability is only a "ban" when it affects something he likes. Congrats on joining the poop club, btw.

It's so much easier than arguing with trolls. Thanks for the idea.

Just in case my comment was ambiguous, I'm against banning alcohol, drugs, prostiution, gambling, guns or any of those things. Safety and harm reduction regulation, good education and awareness are the way to go for me.

 

[UKMikey]

Blanket pooping's so much easier than defending one's position. Maybe that's just the Western left in me.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I'm not super up-to-date on my 2A case law, but from what I understand a license to buy some guns has been tested and found acceptable (not that you said otherwise). So licensing could very well encompass the vast majority, maybe all, or maybe as near to all as matters.

All as matters is a good place to end up, and it's really what I'm after. With SCOTUS set to, probably, find that New York's regulation of needing to demonstrate cause to carry a conceal handgun is unconstitutional, I'm not sure the SCOTUS majority has the appetite for allowing licensure for most types of guns. Like I said, I'm not sure the current majority would have let the machine gun ban stand.

 

[05XR8]

I think that poop thing is a fetish. Not judging though.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

So you're arguing for less strict control than I am. Lol. Okay 🍻

I'm arguing for something that can be practically accomplished with results. What are you arguing for?

Yeah when someone's shooting back and you need to lay down suppressive fire. You can hold more in a magazine than a 7.62. That's why it was preferred. That's why Russians went with 5.45 instead of their 7.62x39.

Like when the police show up? Yeah, I'd want a magazine with more bullets too if there were 19 cops in the hallway. This kid managed to keep them at bay for an hour. I bet he was glad he had those high capacity magazines with lots of little very effective rounds.

Against masses of unarmed civilians, it makes little difference. It feels horrible to spell this out loud, but picking people off with any cartridge will do essentially the same amount of damage. Yes the .22 mag will likely keep someone alive for a bit longer to get help if their vital organ isn't hit, but they still got shot and will likely die.

That's just objectively false. People survive gunshot wounds from handguns all the time. Rifle rounds do way, way more damage. Kinetic energy.

I would spend 95% of my effort on reducing the number of people who become mass shooters, rather than gimping the means to do them. 5% of my energy would go to something like a license system. Whatever result that comes with that, then "it is what it is".

Tell me how. Because teenagers are pretty damn unpredictable.

I don't know you so I assumed you're a hardcore democrat (like many here, seemingly) who casually owned guns. MB on that part.

Western left: BANNING ALCOHOL WILL DO NOTHING
Western left: BANNING DRUGS WILL DO NOTHING
Western left: BANNING PROSTITUTION WILL DO NOTHING

Also Western left: BAN ALL THE GUNS THIS WILL TOTALLY WORK

Uhh....

 

[Tornado]

I thought this forum was a libertarian echo chamber. Now it's a hardcore leftist cesspit?

 

[R3V]

I'm arguing for something that can be practically accomplished with results. What are you arguing for?

What you're arguing for is a good step, and a satisfactory result as far as "gun control" goes.

This kid managed to keep them at bay for an hour.

Did he, or were they too cowardly to follow and confront him?

That's just objectively false. People survive gunshot wounds from handguns all the time. Rifle rounds do way, way more damage. Kinetic energy.

"essentially the same damage" is not "the same damage". I did say it will buy them more time to get medical attention. I don't think it will be enough.

BTW his own grandma survived a 5.56 to the face. Or did he use a different gun on her?

Tell me how. Because teenagers are pretty damn unpredictable.

I posted a few pages back. Stronger labor rights will lead to more wealth for working families and more free hours of the week to spend with their children. It'll also reduce conflicts between couples which is mostly about money. Solve the money problem, most of the other problems will go away or become easier to solve.

Uhh....

Last part wasn't directed at you. Just at the folks in here calling for a blanket ban on all guns.

edit

I thought this forum was a libertarian echo chamber. Now it's a hardcore leftist cesspit?

We live in the upside down in 2022. Democrats are free market libertarians, Republicans are a mix of racist nutjobs, and people with what was once leftist ideas.

Remember when the left was against immigration because it dilutes the job market and drives down wages? At the same time, Republicans were pro free market and saying we shouldn't tell businesses who they hire? I remember. Same with censorship and vaccines.

 

[TexRex]

I thought this forum was a libertarian echo chamber. Now it's a hardcore leftist cesspit?

The only thing I can come up with is you need to slam your head good and hard against a door casing some 20-30 times before it makes any kind of sense.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

What you're arguing for is a good step, and a satisfactory result as far as "gun control" goes.

😵

Did he, or were they too cowardly to follow and confront him?

They didn't want to die, and confronting a subject with a rifle, and eighteen 30 round magazines when you only have a 9mm handgun and no body armor is not an ideal scenario. They still should have gone in, but that's human nature. To be properly prepared for this kind of event would mean that every cop (even small town cops like these were) is in full on SWAT gear all the time...which seems far less workable as a solution than just not selling AR15s to, again, literally anyone. They waited until they had equivalent equipment. This gets back to the inherent nature of guns like AR15s, they are really good at what they are designed to do. So easy and user friendly that an 18 year old kid with minimal firearms experience was able to hold off more than a dozen police officers and kill a bunch of kids. If he had a .22 rimfire sissy ruger, I bet the body count would be a lot lower.

"essentially the same damage" is not "the same damage". I did say it will buy them more time to get medical attention. I don't think it will be enough.

BTW his own grandma survived a 5.56 to the face. Or did he use a different gun on her?

Unknown, but that would be a genuine miracle if she survived a rifle shot to the face.

I posted a few pages back. Stronger labor rights will lead to more wealth for working families and more free hours of the week to spend with their children. It'll also reduce conflicts between couples which is mostly about money. Solve the money problem, most of the other problems will go away or become easier to solve.

I'm not saying you are wrong that this would help - I honestly can't say if it would help or not, there are too many variables and uncertainty with the economics, and teenagers are gonna be angsty and prone to outbursts/destruction if they have money or not. But best case scenario, the timeline on that suggestion is literally decades.

Last part wasn't directed at you. Just at the folks in here calling for a blanket ban on all guns.

edit


We live in the upside down in 2022. Democrats are free market libertarians, Republicans are a mix of racist nutjobs, and people with what was once leftist ideas.

Remember when the left was against immigration because it dilutes the job market and drives down wages? At the same time, Republicans were pro free market and saying we shouldn't tell businesses who they hire? I remember. Same with censorship and vaccines.

Edit: To reinforce my point, here is the link the 2022 New York City Subway mass shooting. Frank Robert James fired 33 shots shots and hit 10 people with a 9mm Glock Handgun. None of them died. Had he used a rifle, I think that result would have been quite different.

 

[R3V]

If he had a .22 rimfire sissy ruger, I bet the body count would be a lot lower.

In this particular shooting? No. He was in a classroom and had 40 mins to shoot everyone to death. It didn't matter what gun he had.

😵

Just to be clear, you're for a license system that then allows everyone to own whatever gun they like, right? That includes SBR's, suppressors and all that good stuff?

They still should have gone in, but that's human nature.

They're paid not to let "human nature" in the way of protecting others. That's literally their job. They shouldn't be cops. Even if he took a bunch of them out, they could've overwhelmed and killed him before he takes aim at the children. They ****ed up. Erasing the radio recording is enough of a legal component to assign criminal intent.

 

[Joey D]

Democrats are free market libertarians, Republicans are a mix of racist nutjobs, and people with what was once leftist ideas.

Democrats are right authoritarian, but considerably less so than Republicans. The only free-market libertarian party we have in the US is the Libertarian Party, but they've drifted more towards the authoritarian right as the Trumpkins took over so it's not really a blanket ideology at this point. The Constitution Party claims to be libertarian right, but really they're just advocating for a theocracy with a hardcore authoritarian right slant.

For as much as so many people harp on the free market in the US, our politicians are incredibly anti-free market, or rather only pro-free market when it benefits them.

 

[TexRex]

 

[Chris30]

Banning guns in America is 100% not an option. It is legitimately impossible to do so in an effective manner that doesn't create massive short- or long-term repercussions.

Active measures like proper security, metal detectors, etc., while I personally wouldn't be crazy about them, would be a more effective, more thorough, and much less costly option. I would definitely prefer to have measures like that implemented first.

As much as I love what The Onion is doing right now, you do know that it's primarily a satirical website, and isn't exactly the best thing to use to make a strong point, right?

Actually there should be a law stating that all guns/weapons should be handled properly meaning that you cannot harm anyone or anything with them and I didn't know the shooter was dead, see I usually skim stuff when I read headlines. So the shooter won't need to go to jail. Guns should also be banned at school/work too. I remember when I was 14 and I was at Riverside High school for 4 years, we had an incident where a man broke in the school and carried a rifle. We had to escape out a back window, just luckily no one was seriously hurt. That's why now I stay at home and lock my doors thoroughly and have a strong alarm system. ADT