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elchivito · #2 12-22-2012, 03:17 PM

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Originally Posted by TylerH860

Gun people help me understand...

Why do you want to have assault rifles and high capacity magazines?

I don't, but that's personal choice. I don't find military styled guns, for lack of a better description, attractive or useful. Expensive toys and nothing more.

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Should your desire to own these guns trounce safety concerns with all the nut jobs?

No. I'm not afraid of some imaginary slippery slope.

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I'm honestly having a hard time wrapping my head around this. I am not interested in second amendment arguments like, "because I can" or "because 'Merica", nor am I interested in the cars, drugs, people kill people argument or somesuch. Just wondering what is your motivation to own one of these killing machines, despite them being so easy to fall into the hands of crazies.

I'll let the fans of these arms answer. There are groups and websites set up to prove to the disbelieving anti-gun crowd that people actually hunt with these weapons, but the mods necessary to make them hunting friendly weapons are not what the guns were originally designed for. In my opinion anyone who needs more than a couple of rounds to kill a coyote probably shouldn't be allowed outside of a shooting range with a loaded weapon. My own take: I see these guns all the time. Many of the guys I routinely shoot with have them. Sometimes they bring them to our shoots for after-match show and tell. There is great storytelling and much oohing and aaahing and everybody gets to try out a round or two. It's a showoff deal from the get go if you ask me. Nobody who has a practical use for a firearm, whether it's for protection or hunting needs one and IMO they are not the first or best choice for either activity. It's sort of like seeing some numbnuts using a foot long serrated Rambo styled survival knife to gut an 8 inch hatchery trout. That there is machismo involved is beyond arguable.

The sticky wicket for me is how high capacity magazines are defined. There would have to be a line drawn somewhere. Only a set number of rounds or any legislation would be meaningless. I posted this conundrum early on somewhere in this discussion. Take two pistols that I own. One is a 1911 designed to hold 8 shots of 45ACP. The other is a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol designed to hold 16 rounds. If I am practiced and trained, I can arguably do more damage with my 1911 than I can with the Sig, as a 45 is a potentially much more damaging bullet. It makes a bigger hole. Where is the line? This is what perplexes me and however it's drawn, I'm afraid it won't be fair, and won't protect the innocent from the crazies. The extreme magazines; 100 round drum mags, 30 round extended mags for pistols like the one G. Giffords' shooter used. If they were banned tomorrow it wouldn't bother me. It is notable to me that THESE are the kinds of accessories the mass shooters are using.
Any time you get a slippery slope argument from somebody you are at that point on a fool's errand and might as well quit. There is no reasoning with those individuals. Their argument is based in fear.