Gun people help me understand...

Why do you want to have assault rifles and high capacity magazines? Should your desire to own these guns trounce safety concerns with all the nut jobs?

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.

Unlike a handgun you can't use it for defense, unless its in your home, but I'd think you'd do lots of damage to your house or risk hitting a family member should you unload a magazine when the adrenaline is pumping. I have some experience with guns and would think a pistol would be much better for protection and home defense. Its not a practical gun for hunting either; the only use I can see is for fun at the shooting range.

All assault weapons are good at is killing large amounts of people, plain and simple. Is it just fun to have that kind of power in your hands, are you preparing for a zombie apocalypse, or what?

Banning Assault weapons and high capacity magazines makes perfect sense. The nutties can still get guns but they won't be able to kill as many people.

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.

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

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.

So they're worried if Rambo guns get banned it will eventually lead to a ban on all firearms? Are these the same people that believe Obama is a Muslim anti-christ?

You're right, its impossible to argue with someone who's that far gone...

(I did not make this up) ...the head of the NRA said people need a 100 round magazines so they don't have to reload at the firing range.

something I have not seen here is mention of the armor piercing guns. I heard of them on the radio a couple of days ago. 5.7 i think they called it. The bullets are very small diameter and very high velocity and they pierce body armor.

They were developed for LEO I believe and the mfgr promised not to let them out on the streets for ordinary folks. Naturally thye did not honor their promise and they are now fairly common amongst the criminals. I believe they have been sold in quantity to Mexico so they also come back across the border too.

Regulation of personal choice is not the issue. Trying to ban or regulate a right is the issue. Regardless of the belief of a slippery slope or the insults directed at those that believe there is one, the weapons style or capacity had NO bearing on the school shooting. The weapon is not to blame or the access to the weapon.

It is dishonest to set that tone. Keep saying "its to save the children" when events like the school shooting are tiny in comparison to other events as car accidents, etc.

This is about gun control and that is all. Just using the recent event to force hands.

And this from those that say repubs are the fear mongers. " We are going to have an economic collapse! Pass the stimulus or else!" "They're trying to control your privates! Get them!"

Now its "Save the children! Ban guns now!"

Why do all of your laws and regulations need fear to push them through?


iPhone 4

If banning high-capacity magazines saves some children, wouldn't banning all magazines save all the children? Ditto for assault rifles/all rifles. All I ask for is some f***ing consistency. Otherwise you indirectly make the case that it's OK for some people to be killed as a compromise to whomever, usually a strawman. Unless, you can concede that it isn't about protecting anyone as best as possible, it's about "feeling safe".

Assault Rifle
http://www.tacord.com/images/pimped_mini14_1.jpg
Ranch rifle
http://www.modelguns.eu/images/mini14q.jpg
Same gun.

It is not possible to have gun and alcohol deaths reach zero, the goal it to reduce the numbers while maintaining reasonable levels of freedom. For me semi-auto and high capacity magazines should go. The drinking age of 21 seems reasonable, I would like longer sentences for DUI.

Define reasonable. It doesn't mean anything regarding legislation. Either something is or isn't. And that goes back to the same principle. If it saves lives, how can it be unreasonable? I mean, fine, it won't reach zero. Doy. But why only reduce the number a little instead of a lot? More fence sitting...

Once again, my question was why own such a gun? What possible reason other than showing off at the gun range? Is showing off at the gun range with a 100 round assault rifle worth having these available for the general public?

I am looking at a reason that's logical enough to justify these occasionally falling in the wrong hands. Handguns and hunting rifles make sense. I like both of them.

What I wasn't looking for was the standard NRA card carrying member talking points. I think I joined the NRA when I did an introduction to hand guns course years ago...

From what I understand, the police responded to Sandy Hook within minutes. If the nut job only had a few handguns with 15 round magazines, could he have produced the same carnage in the same amount of time? 20 dead most with multiple hits on all of them? Would he have been as confident in his scheme with handguns? Doubtful. Same story for the movie theater whacko.

....but once again, I'm not looking for an argument that can never find common ground. There is no changing your mind on the issue or mine. What I was looking for is why would you want to own such a gun and is it worth the side effects to you? Is the only reason because of the second amendment, and you're worried banning some guns will eventually lead to banning all guns?

Why is showing off not an acceptable reason to own something? The argument is fallacious outright. And you won't get any appeals to constitutions or afraid of bans from me. "High capacity" and "assault rifles" are already banned where I am. Murders still exist here, remarkably.

It takes like 5 seconds to change a mag, especially when they're taped anyway. Sandy Hook dude had 10 minutes from first call, so, a drop in the bucket. Sorry, I don't think anything would have been different.

He was carrying hand guns so obviously felt pretty comfortable with those as well, and probably even faster reload times.

But there it is again, multiple times! If he only had handguns a few people would have been killed, not so many. If only the magazines were smaller, fewer people would have died. And that's much more acceptable. Implicit acceptance of seemingly preventable death.

Fix those holes, and I'll think about providing an excuse for why owning something should be banned for purchase by me because of what someone else may do.

That deserves a separate response. I assume non-general public to mean government? The leading cause of unnatural death should have more deadly weapons at it's disposal? And then claim to be appealing to logic.

It is illegal to own an Assault Rifle. A real Assault Rifle has a selector Switch/Lever that changes it from Semi Automatic (one shot per Trigger Squeeze) to Fully Automatic (it will keep shooting as long as the Trigger is held down until the Magazine is Empty).
Normally not Legal. The exception to the Rule is there was/is a special Machine Gun registration.

No registed Machine Gun has ever been used to commit a Murder; ever.

The Semiautomatic Versions of the real Assault Rifles look the similar even though the do not function the same.

The term Assault Weapon was invented by the News Media because of the emotional strings it pulls by tagging on the "Assault"; yes they are yanking your emotional Chain.
When I was a kid in the 1950s and early 1960s there was no such term.

Part of the issue with Banning Assult Weapons it that it is a made up Term that allows someone to define the Term; meaning the Law might choose to define it any way they like to.

I don't have any person issues with how many Bullets are in a Magazine. The Killer in the latest Mass Murder just brought several Guns a long with Him; that is one way to compensate for a lower Magazine Capacity.

In the State I am in you can still own high capacity Magazines they just have to be Manufactured before a certain Date.

People have not only defended themselves with what you call an Assault Weapon they go Hunting with them. But, the peaceful use of something is not going to make the News.
(Hunting stuff. The 30 Cal Cartridges used in the older AK-47 type Guns is similar in ballistics to the venerable 30-30 Whinchester Cartridge; a well know hunding Cartridge for Deer.)

When they had the Riots out here in CA over the Rodney King Verdict you the News would occasionally flash pics of Korean Store owners Armed with what you Call Assult Weapons.

They protected their Stores until the National Guard (the Guard arrived with no Bullets or orders to stop Looters) came a long and forced them to leave; resulting in their businesses being pillaged.
See Pic Korean Store Owners defending there Homes and Businesses.
In the Pic I point to a Mini-14, in the back round is a Shot Gun with the evil high capacity Magazine.
Past the Shot Gun it looks like that a Guy with an UZI.

So in the above paragraph the Firearm owners are using their Guns to defend property and maybe their lives if they tried to defend property without Guns.

Most Mass Murders or even regular Murders have not been comitted with Assault Rifles or even Assault Weapons if that had been so it clearly would have been in the News.

People like to ignor the fact that in Switzerland the Soldiers have their real Assult Rifles with them at Home and they do a lot of compative shooting with them. Yet no one runs amuck with them.

The issue with Violince is a problem of our Society not with Guns.

My goodness, I wasn't trying to make an argument. You'll always think differently and nothing I say will change your mind. Same with me. There's no point in arguing about it.

I was really looking for a good reason to own one of these guns to make the side effects seem justifiable. You believe the type of gun makes no difference. The majority of the country seems to think otherwise. Bad argument, I know, since the majority of the country is.. well... you know...

You could not answer my question. You could only argue that my logic is flawed. I understand that very well, but sorry, you're not going to change my mind. I really don't think the carnage would been as bad with a pair of hand guns in both instances. I don't feel comfortable with the general public owning assault weapons. Most people feel the same. You disagree. That's fine.

Rather than making the standard gun rights argument you could have given me a little insight so maybe I could understand. Oh well.

Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for, a justifiable reason. I guess if I owned a car lot in Compton or Oakland instead of Wichita I might feel better about having some bigger firepower.

I wasn't trying to make you understand. I was trying to show you don't make sense at the onset.