I had it pointed out to me

[Weird Harold]

Don't be naive. If you want to ban anything, you just craft the law and spend more money to get it passed than anyone else can muster to fight you.

I don't think it is particularly naive to recognize that the the pro-gun lobby will spend a great deal of money challenging the Constitutionality of any gun control measure. Or to recognize that the bigger the leap into "gun control" you make, the more rabid and well financed your opposition will be.

 

[TE999]

You're right, TE999. That expresses the selfish stupidity of the gunslingers quite faithfully. "To hell with the right of you and your children to live; me, I gotta have a gun--or five--that will fire off 60 rounds a minute. Let me tell you about the armor-piercing ammo I got with this baby . . ."

Thanks for making my point, hysteria wise.

 

[sr71plt]

Thanks for making my point, hysteria wise.

Yes, and for making mine. That you can't get worked up by 20 six and seven year olds being gunned down in their classroom by a nut with a fancy fast-killing machine.

As well as stupid, you are really, really disgusting, TE999.

 

[TE999]

Yes, and for making mine. That you can't get worked up by 20 six and seven year olds being gunned down in their classroom by a nut with a fancy fast-killing machine.

As well as stupid, you are really, really disgusting, TE999.

Oooh, such a crushing blow to my psyche, I may never post again ... but don't count on it.

 

[PennLady]

Oooh, such a crushing blow to my psyche, I may never post again ... but don't count on it.

But you still haven't answered my question.

 

[TimothyM]

A single-shot gun isn't sexy enough, PennLady--doesn't make them feel manly enough. Where's the fun in having one of those?

Sometimes I just want to hug you for putting your thumb right on the sore spot.

Ehhm hope you know what I mean

 

[Weird Harold]

But you still haven't given a reason why people need ...

Why should "need" enter into a discussion about whether a law-abiding citizen should be permitted to own whatever his or her heart desires?

I personally don't want an AK or AR derivative, but I'm only one of 100,000,000 (or more) gun-owners in the US and each and every one of those gun-owners has a unique reason for wanting to own whatever they choose to own.

My wants and needs as an urban dweller who occasionally hunts are vastly different from those of a rancher in Montana worried about protecting livestock or an inner-city apartment dweller worried about gang-bangers -- or not. I'm not qualified to evaluate their wants or needs and as long as they are law-abiding, the US presumes innocence until otherwise indicated.

Should access to functional high-capacity magazines be better regulated? Most assuredly so. Take away the high-capacity and/or rapid-change magazines and an AK or AR is no more dangerous than any other weapon with a limited magazine capacity -- even if they are scarier looking.

Make plugs mandatory in existing high capacity magazines (with string penalties for violation) and 90% of the "danger" from "Assault Weapons" goes away. That's an achievable goal that addresses the major portion of the problem without taking on the Constitution and stirring up a lot of pro-gun finances. Plugs and limits on how many rounds can be in a rifle at any time are already features of hunting regulations in most states; Extending those requirements to the general population should be easy.

On the other hand, trying to ban all semi-automatics -- without first overturning the Second Amendment and SCOTUS precedents -- is going to drive donations to the NRA and stir up grass-root pro-gun opposition that make passage a very tough row to hoe.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I don't think it is particularly naive to recognize that the the pro-gun lobby will spend a great deal of money challenging the Constitutionality of any gun control measure. Or to recognize that the bigger the leap into "gun control" you make, the more rabid and well financed your opposition will be.

Oh good, I'm glad you're not that naive. Because until this quote you were only talking about constitutionality.

Unless to you, "constitutionality" actually means "Bought and paid for?"

 

[sr71plt]

Why should "need" enter into a discussion about whether a law-abiding citizen should be permitted to own whatever his or her heart desires?

Because it folds into the constitutional rights everyone wants to talk about. "Need" is quite relevant to the determination of where one citizen's rights ends and another citizen's rights begins when they clash (here, where one's right to access to fast-action weapons rubs against the rights of others to live).

Sorry, Harold, the right to have access to a fast-shooting gun does not supersede the rights of others to live. Need very directly comes into play in this discussion. The ordering of society is based on the concept of comparative "need."

It's really a pity that you can't simply affirm that no private citizen has the need to own a gun that can fire off more rounds than a single one with delayed-trigger action.

It's more the pity that you feel compelled to fill your posts with gobblygook to avoid not affirming that.

Well, fuck you. We'll do what we can just to steam around people like you who don't respect the superseding rights of others.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Why should "need" enter into a discussion about whether a law-abiding citizen should be permitted to own whatever his or her heart desires?

I personally don't want an AK or AR derivative, but I'm only one of 100,000,000 (or more) gun-owners in the US and each and every one of those gun-owners has a unique reason for wanting to own whatever they choose to own.

My wants and needs as an urban dweller who occasionally hunts are vastly different from those of a rancher in Montana worried about protecting livestock or an inner-city apartment dweller worried about gang-bangers -- or not. I'm not qualified to evaluate their wants or needs and as long as they are law-abiding, the US presumes innocence until otherwise indicated.

Should access to functional high-capacity magazines be better regulated? Most assuredly so. Take away the high-capacity and/or rapid-change magazines and an AK or AR is no more dangerous than any other weapon with a limited magazine capacity -- even if they are scarier looking.

Make plugs mandatory in existing high capacity magazines (with string penalties for violation) and 90% of the "danger" from "Assault Weapons" goes away. That's an achievable goal that addresses the major portion of the problem without taking on the Constitution and stirring up a lot of pro-gun finances. Plugs and limits on how many rounds can be in a rifle at any time are already features of hunting regulations in most states; Extending those requirements to the general population should be easy.

On the other hand, trying to ban all semi-automatics -- without first overturning the Second Amendment and SCOTUS precedents -- is going to drive donations to the NRA and stir up grass-root pro-gun opposition that make passage a very tough row to hoe.

Here's why. District of Columbia v. Heller only struck DC's absolute ban on handgun ownership (and restrictions on storage). It did not extend that ruling to any other class of weapons (although the language of the opinion strongly hinted that hunting weapons are also constitutionally protected). The Court allowed for the restriction on ownership by certain classes of individuals, as well as weapons other than handguns not designed for self protection in the home. Semi-automatic assault rifles are not designed for in-home defense. Their use in a home endangers anyone in the home or in an adjacent building. Imagine opening fire with an AR-15 at a suspected intruder. Bullets would pass through sheetrock walls like tissue paper, endangering anyone in adjacent apartments. They are machines of war, not defense. Hence the name, "assault weapons."

 

[PennLady]

Why should "need" enter into a discussion about whether a law-abiding citizen should be permitted to own whatever his or her heart desires?

Because we are talking about the right to a weapon, weapons which are made to injure and kill. No other right does this -- even freedom of speech runs up against the fact that you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Freedom of peaceable assembly would end when the assembly turns into a riot, let's say.

And I think my right to life -- which again I'd like to emphasize is the first of three inalienable rights specified in the Constitution, a right that comes from a higher authority than the government -- trumps your right to own something that can mow down 27 people in ten minutes.

My wants and needs as an urban dweller who occasionally hunts are vastly different from those of a rancher in Montana worried about protecting livestock or an inner-city apartment dweller worried about gang-bangers -- or not. I'm not qualified to evaluate their wants or needs and as long as they are law-abiding, the US presumes innocence until otherwise indicated.

Let them prove their need for such a thing. What would a rancher need with a weapon made for war?

On the other hand, trying to ban all semi-automatics -- without first overturning the Second Amendment and SCOTUS precedents -- is going to drive donations to the NRA and stir up grass-root pro-gun opposition that make passage a very tough row to hoe.

So it's not enough to have a right to Glocks and shot-guns and other stuff? You need a right to weapons -- and I do mean weapons, b/c they are made to inflict injury and death -- that can fire a lot in a little time?

WHY?

 

[oggbashan]

The complexities of US politics are often difficult for foreigners to understand. It appears that the obvious solution to a problem is politically impossible because of untouchable live wires that exist.

Gun control is one. Universal health care is another. There are more that cause real difficulty to US legislators and would be simple in other democratic countries. Other countries have their own politically impossible subjects. One example is the Greek taxation system. It appears broken beyond saving. No one pays taxes on their real income.

Any legislation about gun control, even if such legislation becomes feasible in the US, which is doubtful, can have unintended consequences. In the UK our gun control laws mean that our Olympic rifle and pistol sportspeople either have to live and train outside the UK, or live in Kent and commute to France to practise. They can't keep their competition guns anywhere in the UK - except during the Olympics! That's mad.

Yet shotgun ownership is different. We have to keep the shotguns in a gun safe, are liable to inspection by the local police - if they ever have time to do it - but our shotgun licences are unlikely to be revoked unless we are so insane that we have to be confined to a secure institution.

Despite the legislation there are still many unlicensed and illegal guns lying around in people's houses. They may have been there for years as war souvenirs or granddad's unreturned Dad's Army relic. After the First World War the UK government sold off millions of army surplus weapons including crew-served machine guns and belts of ammunition. Some were handed back to the government after the British Army lost their equipment at Dunkirk, but many weren't.

When one of my relations bought a house, it was furnished. Over the large kitchen fireplace hung an old gun. It was greased and oiled but covered in dust. Only when the village policeman dropped in for a cup of coffee several years later did my relation discover that it was a fully-functioning Lee Enfield with a chambered cartridge and clip, cooking above the fire...

The policeman suggested that the Lee Enfield should be 'lost'. It was. I replaced it with another one, deactivated (and certified as deactivated).

I think that any US legislation is going to prove very difficult to draft, even more difficult to get passed into legislation, and very divisive. In the meantime, gun dealers will sell more and more guns that might be illegal in future.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I think that any US legislation is going to prove very difficult to draft, even more difficult to get passed into legislation, and very divisive. In the meantime, gun dealers will sell more and more guns that might be illegal in future.

With all due respect, Ogg-- we know that full well.

Anyone who skims this thread alone would know that. And they would have a glimpse into the reasons why.

I like your story about the Enfield, though. My son has one, it's dear to him. he's a history buff.

 

[PennLady]

This is a chat update from Gene Weingarten, mostly a humor writer at the Washington Post. He writes a weekly humor column in the Sunday Magazine, but writes occasional non-humorous feature articles. Past articles include "Pearls before Breakfast," about violinist Joshua Bell playing in the Metro system; an article on parents whose children died in cars; and his most recent one is about the Jeffrey McDonald murder case. He won a Pulitzer price for both "Pearls Before Breakfast," and "Fatal Distraction" (about the children). He is Jewish but an atheist and a pretty avowed liberal.

The chat update focuses on guns and gun control. I have a feeling it will do nothing but stir up those who are stirred up by such things, but I thought he had good points.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html

 

[oggbashan]

With all due respect, Ogg-- we know that full well.

Anyone who skims this thread alone would know that. And they would have a glimpse into the reasons why.

I like your story about the Enfield, though. My son has one, it's dear to him. he's a history buff.

I used one when at school in Australia. The cadet force was equipped with WW1 rifles for drill. We rarely loaded them or used them on the rifle range. Their butts made a satisfying crash on the tarmac.

We had more modern weapons for use including sub-machine guns, crew served machine guns, mortars and even a couple of 25 pounder field guns.

The cadet force doesn't have artillery now.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Why should "need" enter into a discussion about whether a law-abiding citizen should be permitted to own whatever his or her heart desires?

Really? Should a (so-far) law-abiding citizen be allowed to own a surface-to-air missile, or a hyperbaric bomb, just because his or her heart desires it?

Re. "presumed innocent", as a New Yorker columnist recently noted, try walking into a pharmacy and buying half a dozen packs of Sudafed and see how 'innocent' you're presumed to be.

Should access to functional high-capacity magazines be better regulated? Most assuredly so. Take away the high-capacity and/or rapid-change magazines and an AK or AR is no more dangerous than any other weapon with a limited magazine capacity -- even if they are scarier looking.

Not true. If you walk into a room with several people and start shooting with a five-round bolt-action rifle, they have a good chance of jumping you before your second shot; at worst, some will have time to flee. With a semi-auto, a five-round magazine gives your the ability to shoot several people dead before anybody can do much at all in the way of fight-or-flight.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I used one when at school in Australia. The cadet force was equipped with WW1 rifles for drill. We rarely loaded them or used them on the rifle range. Their butts made a satisfying crash on the tarmac.

We had more modern weapons for use including sub-machine guns, crew served machine guns, mortars and even a couple of 25 pounder field guns.

The cadet force doesn't have artillery now.

What a shame, she said politely.

This morning, some dude in Colorado killed three people and then himself. He didn't runb over them them with a car, he didn't bludgeon them to death with a frozen tuna (someone on facebook made the claim that could happen) and he didn't stab them with sharpened popsicle sticks. He shot them, and himself, with bullets fired from a gun.

 

[mikey2much]

You judge a workman by his tools

America is a war like country. even when we try to do the right thing, like when Johnson tried to help the poor, we had to call it 'a war on poverty'. We love our guns. We are a nation of killers. We thrive on violence and sex but our puritanical past makes us ashamed of sex but in return we can have all the violence we want.

Our heroes are violent, and the world they live in is violent. Our music is violent, our sports are violent. We all want the most dangerous looking guns because that is how we want to think of ourselves, that is who we want to be. Some of us more than others, but the ones who really need and want that gun to bolster their self image, ain't going to let it go. We all know they are nuts but they have a powerful lobby and a widespread base across the country.

These little groups of special interest groups have stopped so many of the changes that our country should have made years ago. That's why we are still fighting over abortion and gun control. And the war on drugs and terror come into our rooms every night on the news. It makes for a bit of realism to base our violent games on.

I really don't think this shooting is going to change much in the long run.

I can see about how this is going to go. We will pass an assault weapons ban again and it will include something limiting the size of the clips. But the law will have built in loop holes that will make it meaningless. Everybody will claim victory as the dust settles.

On the mental health side of things, they will open up records to help spot the troublemakers before they explode, but they will not fund it properly. and it will be used to be able to look back but not forward.

In the end everybody will get to yell and spit about how bad shit is and then go back to what we have become used to. I hope that I'm wrong and I will support any steps that they take to fix the system. I just don't see it happening, not what should happen.

 

[njlauren]

NJ Lauren,
Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the time it took to clarify your position. I think that you are right about Nancy Lanza’s lack of judgment concerning her son. Why she would have weapons around her troubled son is misguided at best and criminally negligent at the worst. My niece suffers from an autism spectrum disorder. Some people diagnosed with autism display oppositional behaviors along with suffering from depression too. Often autism spectrum disorders (sometimes known as Asperger’s syndrome on the high functioning end of the spectrum) renders a person incapable of the duplicity needed to plan and carry out a murder against a parent and building full of people. It’s a complex condition that does have to be carefully monitored all of the autistic’s life. Once again, thanks for your thoughtful reply. I am concerned about the media misrepresenting this disorder. Neko

Neko I agree totally, and the last thing I think we need is people assuming autistic people are all cold blooded killers ready to snap, which would be wrong and a disservice. I am not saying this to be trite, in the arts world (music) I have run into a lot of people I suspect might be in the Ausperger's end of things, and take it from me, the last thing they would be is violent.

 

[njlauren]

The problem isn't really with "guns that have magazines" it's with removable magazines. It doesn't really matter how many rounds a removable magazine holds; what matters is how easy it is to change magazines.



A pump action shotgun or lever-action rifle is capable of fire rates as fast as many auto-loaders -- almost any modern firearm is capable of firing once/second. An auto-loading or pump shotgun with a removable magazine is easily capable of the same rate of fire as an assault weapon. (in fact some shotgun models fell under the assault weapons ban until cosmetic changes were made.)



Limiting the cyclic rate of semi-automatics is doable, if a bit of a technical challenge. Limiting the cyclic rate of double-action revolvers, pump action rifles/shotguns, and lever-action rifles/shotguns is more problematic -- (ever watch The Rifleman on TV?)

Limiting the time it takes to reload is also probably doable, if an even more difficult technical challenge given the wide variety of magazine types.

There are "doable" alternatives to panic-stricken rants to ban anything more modern than flintlocks. With grass-roots support, some are even doable while holding one's breath -- figuratively at least.

You could also ban removable magazines, it is very possible. I could also argue that maybe the auto load shotguns and such you talk about should be banned if they have that kind of fire rates, it comes back again to what you need them for. A pump action 12 gauge shotgun is used for fowl hunting and having auto reload would be overkill, what it sounds like to me is the kind of guns you are describing are offensive weapons designed to kill a lot of people, so perhaps they should be banned, too. I am not an expert on weapons, and I can come up with ideas on how to clean things up a bit. The real answer with weapons is that to be legal, that there needs to be a)a reason why someone would own them legitimately and b)that there is not a public good being met by banning them. With shotguns and legitimate hunting rifles and handguns I can argue legitimate uses, with rapid load and fire weapons, I can argue a)they serve no purpose other then killing and b)that the danger outweighs any right to own them.

 

[njlauren]

Harold, ol' buddy, you're wasting your breath trying to talk sense to these gun grabber types. As it happens every other time there's an incident with guns like this most recent one, the howls go up for more regulations, laws, confiscations, etc. of firearms no matter what the type; not to mention distortions of the facts of the shooting to fit preconceived notions about gun ownership. Let's ignore the Constitution, disarm the law abiding populace and throw the baby out with the bathwater to give an illusion of safety.

These people remind me of a person who is scared of snakes. They'll beat anything to death that slithers without bothering to determine if it's beneficial or harmful.

For every nutjob who somehow gets ahold of a gun and shoots some innocent person, there are millions upon millions of people who own guns (me among them) and do no such thing. They hunt, target shoot, collect and generally enjoy working with guns. They treasure them, respect them and regularly practice gun safety.

This way of thinking is impossible for the gun grabbers to comprehend so they denigrate anyone who owns and respects firearms; usually implying that anyone who owns a gun is somehow a drooling, subhuman, inbred denizen of the Deep South who goes around barefoot, drives a rusty pickup truck and sleeps with his mother and sister.

The NRA (of which I am a proud member) along with advocating for Second Amendment rights, routinely stresses the need for and advocates gun safety. It also offers courses, programs and training nationwide in the proper usage and handling of all types of guns.

Many misconceptions about gun ownership and regulating of same have been promulgated by the anti-gun lobby which fit their template of guns being bad except in the hands of law enforcement or the government. The following study from the 2006 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy Vol. 30 No. 2 pp. 649-694 puts any number of these manufactured and/or distorted misconceptions to rest.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

I sincerely doubt that the reading this study will alter the mindsets of any gun grabbers, but I offer it up anyway in anticipation of the squalls of "Prove it, prove it." Besides, their minds are made up already so facts to the contrary will be (and are) mocked, insulted, denigrated and generally ignored.

Momentary hysteria over an unfortunate incident like this school shooting is not a valid reason to craft, much less implement, immediate public policy.

Of course, TE, we know how rational the NRA is, right? The NRA whose stand to crime is 'let's arm everyone' (more on that in a second), whose stand on guns is anyone should be able to buy them any time, any place they want, with no limits, they have fought background checks, registering guns, licensing, anything that doesn't make buying guns like buying cheese whiz..and you wonder why gun owners are categorized as trailer trash from down south? This is the same NRA that fought against banning teflon bullets (that can penetrate bullet proof vests, their only function) and talon bullets whose prime reason to exist is to rip the guts out of people.

It also flies in the face of facts, something the study you cite (which, btw, I would be willing to bet pretty good money was financed by gun groups, for a number of reasons). They cite open carry laws as 'cutting down the crime rate', but statistics don't bear that out. Florida and Texas have easy carry laws, as do several of the southern states, and all of them have violent crime stats in the top 10 of the FBI; Texas was top 5 I believe, was #2 some years, yet states like NY and NJ with serious gun restrictions are way down on the list..why?

Banning all guns won't do anything, and I don't advocate it, but having the laws we do today are idiotic, where down in the south you can buy guns by signing a piece of paper, no registration, no licensing, no insurance, we put a lot more of a burden on driving a car and owning one then we do guns.

Want a prime example your cute little study doesn't mention? 75% of the guns they take off the streets it tough gun control areas come from places where you can buy guns like candy, legally purchased..but because the NRA makes sure that there is no liability associated with owning guns, joe billy bob and johnny reb can buy guns, sell them into the black market and not worry about it.

Likewise, others are right, you haven't and cannot come up with an argument about why semi automatic weapons like the AR15 are allowed. Whining "Second amendment" is horseshit, since we already ban fully automatic weapons, and no right is ever without burdens, the NRA might think so but that isn't true, all rights have burdens, freedom of speech ends when someone incites violence, freedom of religion ends where someone else's rights begin. Talk to big city cops, and they will cure the idiots down south who allow unfettered gun purchases legally, because it floods the streets with cheap guns. The rednecks down south maintain the right to buy weapons as they wish, but they don't care about the rights of others not to have to face a legally bought weapon held by a criminal and have their kid killed by one; and the reality is if we tightened standards to buy weapons, had real background checks, required owners to register them and be accountable for them, the flow of weapons to the black market would be choked and prices would make it harder to get them illegally, which is the point.

Yes, there are those who want to ban all guns and they are off the deep end, and it won't work, but there is practical ground long before that. The problem is the NRA and a lot of gun owners live in this mythical land where they are gonna have their guns and fight the government, or if you have to register guns somehow it is an 'infringement' (for christ's sake, if you want to use a boat on navigable waters you have to register them, but registering guns is an infringement?). Having gun shows where you can buy a gun without any kind of background check is pure nuts, too.

If we had those kind of rational laws on the books we could do significant work towards making guns safer while maintaining the rights of people to own them. Anyone who claims they have a right to own rapid fire semi automatic weapons is not rational, they are a spoiled child, and anyone who is against reasonable checks on background and on gun ownership is quite frankly a sociopath for not recognizing that their rights have burdens on them, that they don't live alone, and others have rights, too.

Yes, when a tragedy like this happens the nuts come out of the woodwork, but wanna know something? The NRA is its own worst enemy, by representing an absolutist position, like people should be able to buy teflon bullets or be able to buy what are basically military weapons, they are setting the scene for their worst nightmare, when a tragedy even worse then colorado or connecticut happens, when people get sickened enough (and I would be willing to bet it is going to happen; in the last 30 years 62 incidents like this have happened, but get this, in the last year the number is 7), you are going to see those wanting to ban guns win the high ground, and the NRA is going to look like the tobacco industry, rather then people rationally trying to find common ground, the NRA are like the tea party, they have this my way or the highway, and they are going to pay for that if the shit hits the fan.

The NRA safety programs and such are first class, their shooting instructors are very, very careful to drill down on what should be done, the problem is the NRA is also led by loons like Wayne La Pierre who among other things is also a Christian dominionist who believe about bringing a Christian theocracy to power and also is a big supporter of the right wing militia movement as well......if you are worried, you should be, maybe you should be pushing for leaders who have common sense and know the difference between fantasy an reality.

 

[Weird Harold]

Because we are talking about the right to a weapon, weapons which are made to injure and kill. No other right does this -- even freedom of speech runs up against the fact that you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Freedom of peaceable assembly would end when the assembly turns into a riot, let's say.

Why does only the second amendment require a test of NEED?

If I meet all of the prerequisites under the Firearms Act of 1939, I can own any sort of fully automatic firearm ever made, and I can fire that weapon any time I like; without having to justify any sort of "need." Very few of the people who meet those stringent prerequisites "need" fully-automatic firearms, but none of those people have gone berserk and killed 20 or 30 people just because they could.

I don't have to prove a "need" to buy chlorine bleach and ammonia. Carelessness with those two common household presents more of a danger to you and the general public than a law-abiding gun owner with one of every semi-automatic rifle ever made.

Why are you so much more afraid of the fact I own guns than you are about my ability to buy a fast car and a keg of beer without any test of "need."

I understand that you're afraid of guns, but you have little to fear from law-abiding gun owners. You want to ban and buy back every possible firearm because YOU have no need for one. If you and others in this thread, two of the four guns I own would become illegal; the two that wouldn't become illegal are by far the more "dangerous" guns.

 

[Weird Harold]

You could also ban removable magazines, it is very possible. I could also argue that maybe the auto load shotguns and such you talk about should be banned if they have that kind of fire rates, it comes back again to what you need them for. A pump action 12 gauge shotgun is used for fowl hunting and having auto reload would be overkill, what it sounds like to me is the kind of guns you are describing are offensive weapons designed to kill a lot of people, so perhaps they should be banned, too.

Cyclic rate -- the minimum time between firings -- doesn't mean much without magazine capacity to feed it. It therefore doesn't matter a great deal what kind of action any given firearm might have. The difference between a pump and an auto-loader is negligible when both are limited to a plugged magazine and three rounds (plus one in the chamber.)

Eliminating removable magazines completely has the unintended consequence of making it more difficult to unload a weapon so that a weapon remains loaded more often. They can, of course, be done away with, although simply making it so that it takes two hands to change a magazine would probably be a better solution.

A bolt action hunting rifle is an "offensive weapon" if it is used offensively. One of the two hunting rifles I own is the same make and model the US Army and US marines issue to their sniper teams. One of the first -- or at least most notorius -- mass shootings in the US was a bolt action hunting rifle used as a sniper rifle from a Texas clock tower. I don't recall the final total, but "rate of fire" had nothing to do with that case.

The more recent "Washington DC Sniper" case involved the same .223 Bushmaster rifle, but again, rate of fire had nothing to do with the lethality of those attacks.

IMHO, Rate of Fire is a red herring or scare tactic. What killed 26 of 27 people in Newtown wasn't rate of fire, it was magazine capacity. Without multiple 30-round magazines and/or the ability to reload 30 rounds at a time, there may well have been fewer deaths. The shooter had the choice of several weapons that could have delivered similar rates of fire, but he chose the option with the highest capacity and/or fastest reload.

 

[njlauren]

Why should "need" enter into a discussion about whether a law-abiding citizen should be permitted to own whatever his or her heart desires?

/QUOTE]

It enters into the discussion because with any right, with anything we want to do in a 'free' society, that does come into play. When looking at the legality of owning something or doing something, the want or need for something is weighed into the equation when it comes to things that have potential harm.

For example, it is illegal for civilians to own current generation military gear like tanks (I believe civilians cannot own even older generations). Under US law they cannot sell military surplus jets to civilians (people do own military jets, but they were bought from other countries), for the reason that the owners desire to own them is outweighed by the dangers of people owning such things. Someone might get an exemption for owning a tank if they could prove it helped their stump pulling business, but other then that, it is important. I as a civilian cannot buy dynamite or c4, as much as I love explosives, I cannot get a permit because I cannot prove need to do so (they never met the squirrels in my yard).

You might want to go hunting deer any time of the year, but by law you can only do it in certain places at certain times, and the amount you can take is limited by law, as well as the kind of weapons you can use, depending on locale, or what kind of shot. The law says your need/desire to go hunting all year long is outweighed by conservation and for safety reasons.

One of the reasons handguns are legal is because in the context of the second amendment, the need to defend oneself is considered legitimate use, as is the use of guns in hunting, that has been long held, and it holds up. But when it comes to the second amendment, which in effect says you have the right to own guns, there is also a burden, about where your right ends and the rights of others begin. If rapid fire semi automatic weapons are shown to be a threat to public safety, then examining need is relevant. If someone wants an AK47 because he is a skinny assed tiny dicked specimen of an accountant and wants to feel macho, it is not likely the court will be very favored to overturn bars on such weapons, but if someone could show that they had to fight off a particularly vicious type of africanized gray squirrel, the need could outweigh the public need to ban them. In general, the law says you have the right to own what you wish, do what you wish, but when that desire comes into conflict with the public good, public safety, it becomes a matter of weighing which is greater. Pro gun people do this all the time, they justify private ownership of weapons on the grounds that people have the right to protect themselves, to sport shoot, to hunt (and to fight off the black helicopters of the new world order, of course0, and it has been a strong argument in favor of gun rights, when DC tried an outright ban on guns it was thrown out, in part, because lawyers for the pro gun side said people in DC had the right to defend themselves.

Law abiding citizens live in a society with a plethora of rights, and our needs and wants can have burdens placed on them when it conflicts with the rights of others. There are things we cannot legally own, you as a private citizen cannot buy cyanide unless you have a special permit, you cannot get a copy of 'the dupont blaster's handbook', and you cannot get your hands on plans for an atomic bomb or the design of centrifuges to enhance uranium, ton of things that as much as they may want them, private citizens are not allowed to own (including machine guns, for example).

 

[Weird Harold]

...Whining "Second amendment" is horseshit, since we already ban fully automatic weapons, ...

Point of order: The Federal Firearms Act of 1934 does NOT ban fully automatic weapons; it sets some fairly stringent prerequisites on who can own or operate fully automatic weapons -- roughly equivalent to getting a Secret security clearance as I understand it. Basically anyone with a clean police record and background check can get a Federal Firearms License that will allow them to own and operate fully automatic weapons. Fully Automatic weapons do incur some additional reporting requirements as well, but nothing onerous for someone who really wants a functional fully automatic weapon.