a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by johnnyFive

Any of the weapons you mentioned as permissible are capable of that kind of damage. And you don't even need a gun -- just ask Timothy McVeigh how important gun laws are. Don't forget too that the worst attack on a school ever committed wasn't Sandy Hook, it was in Bath Township, Michigan, and was done with explosives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against any and all potential gun legislation. My complaint is that the people generally advocating for them don't actually understand how guns work (cf. the talk about "armor piercing bullets" after Sandy Hook). The result is restrictions that are incredibly arbitrary and don't actually change anything in practice (see: the "assault" weapons ban of the '90s).





tacocat  ·  2367 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The bomb thing is such a ridiculous distraction. Yes, people will always kill people and they will sometimes kill a lot of people in spectacular ways. No, there is no way to kill and maim 600 people in minutes with a handgun, shotgun or hunting rifle with no automatic action. A gun is only made to kill things and it's too easy in this country to obtain such a weapon that is made to kill only people such as an AR-15. Why does it matter if assault weapon is a vague term? Can't we just have common sense about what a person should be able to and for what purposes they can own it?

"Well, determined criminals will be able to get anything on the black market no matter what you legislate." Yeah, I guess if they can afford the resulting black market prices.

"Well, I need a gun to protect myself from a tyrannical government. That was the intent of the right to bear arms." No, you'd need a fucking Abrams tank and a shoulder mount anti aircraft missile launcher and you'd still get the shit killed out of yourself and your little militia. The time of rising up violently against the government is long passed.

Every argument for not regulating guns based on acceptable usage of them falls apart. That is a good starting point. You can hunt and you can protect yourself. You can't go to the range and fire a machine gun because it's fun because your fun comes with the risk that some maniac will go on a kill crazy murder spree.

You know what? Fuck it. You can have a musket and only a musket because that is what the founders intended when they wrote that stupid amendment. And you have to make your own black powder and ammo because why the fuck not.

johnnyFive  ·  2367 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Your post is exactly the problem. Rather than listening to what I actually said, you're filling in the gaps with the standard NRA rhetoric, and then going against that.

This is exactly why nothing will get done.