Everyone is entitled to defend yourselves and your family and I wholeheartedly support that. I am pro-background checks, more mental health assistance, and education on gun safety. This will not eliminate gun-related crime, and I know that people will still illegally get guns (and by extension with this article, ammunition), but if these things save one person (or 49), it has to be worth it.
That all said, not owning a gun, I know that my opinions are limited by lack of experience. This was a really interesting for me to read posted by a friend with opposing views on the political field, but, nonetheless, a friend I deeply respect. I thought this was worth a share on here to read what you thought on this matter, hubski - especially gun owners of hubski.
I am a former assault rifle owner and this article, shared around and around and around by "non-gun owners" that "don't understand guns", is purest tripe. Here's the thing - we did that. It was super ineffective. Here's what happened: 1) Liberals everywhere celebrated a victory over the evil gun lobby and triumph in the post-orgasmic glow of striking a blow for truth, justice, and the safety of our children 2) Manufacturers everywhere increased production of everything banned to eleven 3) Gun owners everywhere hoarded everything banned by the dozens 4) The ban went into effect and all the banned stuff sold out at the gun shops 5) Gun shows, completely immune from any law that anyone might want to pass, enjoyed a preposterously marked-up secondary market on all the things everyone was supposedly not capable of buying anymore 6) People still died by the score. That big fuckin' spike between '94 and '04? When high-capacity mags were ostensibly illegal? That's Columbine, Kip Kinkel and crew. Meanwhile, show me the assault weapons ban on this graph: You want mass gun deaths to go down? Get rid of the secondary market. I bought an SKS, two 30-round mags and 1400 rounds of armor-piercing ammo for $200 after the AWB. That armor-piercing ammo? Went from 7 cents a round to a buck as soon as Thomson made a Contender chambered for 7.62x39, thereby making it "pistol ammo" and a violation of the NFA. But it still wasn't illegal. Check it out. "Black talon" ammo. Half measures are ineffective. Empty gestures are ineffective. And assault weapons deaths are still a tiny portion of gun deaths in the United States. Banning the scary guns might curb the headlines, but people will still die by the score. Personally? I say levy a "mental health tax" of $2 per round on 7.62, .308, .223 and 9mm. The citizens will start hand loading, the crazies'll have to save up and maybe, just maybe, the Evil Black Guns will starve. Nobody has ever committed mass murder with 460 weatherby mag.
Thanks for the context. I guess that takes that off the table, along with the other fumbling ideas. I would have thought a journalist old enough to remember this may have stumbled upon it before. Clearly not. Doing a quick look around, it looks as if it's on news outlets' minds, but any attempts are just caught in the crossfire of the latest gridlock.I say levy a "mental health tax" of $2 per round on 7.62, .308, .223 and 9mm.
The shitty thing about the gun debate is any real change is going to involve real change. Real change is going to involve serious tragedy. Maybe a little racism besides. Should the Zetas cartel mow down a busload of white school kids, there will be gun reform. Barring that, though, we're gonna get window dressing. Statistically, guns are twice as likely to be used in suicides as murders or accidental shootings. On average, 30 people per day are murdered with a gun. That's 90 people dead, every single day, without a single national headline. If we want to change those statistics, we're going to need some serious restrictions on firearms. The top line mass shooting stuff grabs headlines but from a "total suffering" standpoint, the headline would have to be "mass shooting in Orlando raises daily death toll by 50%". THAT is the level of reform we need: the kind that recognizes that dozens of people die needlessly every single fucking day and makes it really hard to get a gun. You need a hunting permit every goddamn season. Have Fish'n'Game sell firearms permits, and let every sporting goods store stand as a buyback point for the the Feds to give you Kash for Killers. If they can get a 2002 Saturn off the streets surely they can throw some cash at a fuckin' AK-47. Behold. Now it's a stimulus program.
Driving in the car with my brother to visit for Father's Day this theme was brought up. My brother had read through some odd articles stating in the vaguest sense (or maybe it was the info filtered though his interpretation) that reform was Mateen's goal the whole time. As if to 'expose the flaw in the system'. My brother thought it was stupid. Cognitively invoking tragedy with the intent of gun reform? It's by nature the root of why the left wants gun reform, to prevent this exactly. Bare with me here, but the thing that came to mind for me was PsychoPass of all things - yes, anime. The intent of the villains to enact change through violent expositions of flaws... even though not too much changed afterward. I guess I'm 'squirreling' a bit here. But, yeah, I can see (unfortunately) how this is evident.The shitty thing about the gun debate is any real change is going to involve real change.
The older I get, the more Ockham's Razor becomes my philosophy. I think Mateen was a crazy fucker overfed on machismo and confrontational personal politics. I think he decided ISIS was the way to go because that took him out of the "crazy" column and tossed him in the "freedom fighter" column. Here we are, discussing terrorism over a guy whose allegiance to ISIS was watching some Youtube videos and spouting some talking points. By those standards, I'm a member of Coldplay. Nobody wants to die in vain, even people who desperately want to die. The Newtown shooter provoked a senseless tragedy. Mateen? He's got us all spun up over Syrian refugees and bullshit like that and all it took was a couple phone calls.
The media don't seem to understand the difference between terrorism and boilerplate mass murder. Politicians may understand but don't have an incentive to try to get the public to understand. Terrorism, as such, necessitates a political end. "Lone wolf terrorists" are by definition not terrorists. We've apparently redefined terrorism to be "murder committed by a Muslim." It's maddening, as is listening to Clinton and Trump have a dick measuring contest over who can combat "lone wolves" more effectively.
So long as you're distinguishing .223 and 5.56 NATO, I use none of those calibers. I am therefore fully on board :)on 7.62, .308, .223 and 9mm
I looked into it, but thanks to the last panic the costs had gone through the roof. Maybe they're better now, I dunno. 5.56/.223 has come way down from what I can tell, although I didn't own an AR until 2014. Wolf Gold (so brass, not steel cased) is still only about $300 per case. I also found a place that does large-scale reloading, and they're at about $0.30-$0.50 per round depending on the grain. That's for .223 specifically, but my AR is chambered in .223 Wylde, so does just fine with it.
We have this in Canada but it's a bit of a stupid law because we didn't do it right. Basically you can have larger capacity magazines as long as they have something to block having more than 5 rounds which isn't difficult at all to take out. I agree with the idea of this law but as the author was saying it's something those who don't own guns are trying to figure out while those who own them won't point out the obvious stuff.