The "What is an Assault Rifle?" thread

[Que]

Sounds like Catch 22 -The shooter was insane because he committed the murders; if he wasn't insane he wouldn't have killed anyone.

How do you ban gun ownership for mental illness if someone is only sometimes insane?

They claim that but they are rarely exonerated on that basis. The McNaughton rule is a pretty high bar to reach in that essentially you have to not be aware of your actions and one can't really commit this sort of atrocity without being aware of your actions. It takes planning and preperation, things that someone who could be found not guilty by reason of insanity would be incapable of doing.

 

[RobDownSouth]

How quickly does a bomb kill? Arson? A car driven into a crowd?

Excellent deflection attempts, the lot of them. Que could learn a lot from you.
We're talking firearms, though, do try and stay on topic.

 

[richard_daily]

Excellent deflection attempts, the lot of them. Que could learn a lot from you.
We're talking firearms, though, do try and stay on topic.

Oh, I thought you cared about people being murdered.

My mistake.

 

[Amoebah]

They claim that but they are rarely exonerated on that basis. The McNaughton rule is a pretty high bar to reach in that essentially you have to not be aware of your actions and one can't really commit this sort of atrocity without being aware of your actions. It takes planning and preperation, things that someone who could be found not guilty by reason of insanity would be incapable of doing.

You sure about that?


https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1500x845/2016/04/gettyimages-84316778_0-h2016.jpg

 

[HisArpy]

Excellent deflection attempts, the lot of them. Que could learn a lot from you.
We're talking firearms, though, do try and stay on topic.

The problem is that you don't understand what is actually behind the shootings.

These people aren't really about killing anyone. They're using that as a vehicle to get what they want. Recognition through an act of terror. And then the Left jumps in and makes it worse because they focus on the gun instead of the individual.

Ask yourself; is the discussion about Cruz? Or about the gun he used?

If it's about Cruz, shouldn't we be talking what can we do to help the next guy suffering from the same emotional hurricane?

If it's about the gun, the next guy will probably use one too in his cry for help. A cry that will also be ignored like all the others have been.

The whole "OMG Gunz!" thing is an attempt to put a bandaid on a severed limb while the patient bleeds out because you're too ignorant to know what you're doing. And then you blame the bystanders as the reason it happened.

 

[Amoebah]

The problem is that you don't understand what is actually behind the shootings.

Anti-Semitism?

 

[HisArpy]

Anti-Semitism?

Lack of quality control in the Cafeteria. I mean, seriously, who wouldn't get upset when they run out of jello right after the guy in front of you gets his?

 

[Amoebah]

Lack of quality control in the Cafeteria. I mean, seriously, who wouldn't get upset when they run out of jello right after the guy in front of you gets his?

Jews, Jello.

Same first two letters.

Coincidence?

https://theroperreportsite.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/screen-shot-2018-02-17-at-1-34-06-am-618x361.png?w=618

 

[KimGordon67]

Conception. It's not going to turn into a kitten.

There's also a fairly high chance it's not going to turn into a human being.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Lack of quality control in the Cafeteria. I mean, seriously, who wouldn't get upset when they run out of jello right after the guy in front of you gets his?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9cFrYzTPwBZlN-ZYySvLnM8dQl7c9XM_WZr1UFclV91ipCADl

 

[Captainnumnuts]

"Falling Down" - not a bad movie. Poor schmuck on hard times I guess you'd say.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Look at allll the gun dummies tryin' their best to 'splain away the AR-15. That gun killed all those kids in 5 minutes, not 30 seconds, so it's not an "assault rifle", nossir.

...because reasons.

Actually not because reasons, there's been very through and detailed explanations made by folks who clearly understand the topic better than you, DESTROYING your pathetic appeals to emotion in the process.

Excellent deflection attempts, the lot of them. Que could learn a lot from you.
We're talking firearms, though, do try and stay on topic.

Said the guy who doesn't know enough about the topic to do anything but stand on the sidelines and shit talk.

Sadder than ever......#sadRob.

 

[WoundedKnee]

There's also a fairly high chance it's not going to turn into a human being.

Understood. As long as we deem it something else, we can be done with it. It is no different than saying we are outlawing the AR15 because it is an "assault rifle." Some people seem to have the same difficulty in defining what an assault rifle is as they do defining when "a mass of cells" becomes a human being. The quick and easy answers are, conception and there is no such fucking thing as an "assault rifle."

 

[BobaFetaCheese]

"Falling Down" - not a bad movie. Poor schmuck on hard times I guess you'd say.

He was having a bad day.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Understood. As long as we deem it something else, we can be done with it. It is no different than saying we are outlawing the AR15 because it is an "assault rifle." Some people seem to have the same difficulty in defining what an assault rifle is as they do defining when "a mass of cells" becomes a human being. The quick and easy answers are, conception and there is no such fucking thing as an "assault rifle."

Comparing mechanical engineering and biology is usually a bad idea.

Weapons design is a matter of fact, it only operates one way and that's what it is.

It's got a certain type of action and that's it....everything else is meaningless buuuu shit.



There is no such quick and easy answer for the biology question and the conception= "quick and easy answer" is the equivalent of a derpina saying "Well....it looks scary so it's an ASSAULT WEAPON that needs to be banned!!" with nothing else backing their argument.

 

[WoundedKnee]

I'm sorry, but getting pregnant is just as clear-cut of a process. We know exactly how to stop it in so many different ways.

 

[KimGordon67]

Understood. As long as we deem it something else, we can be done with it. It is no different than saying we are outlawing the AR15 because it is an "assault rifle." Some people seem to have the same difficulty in defining what an assault rifle is as they do defining when "a mass of cells" becomes a human being. The quick and easy answers are, conception and there is no such fucking thing as an "assault rifle."

That's sort of my point. The current discourse (at least in Lit) is really heavy on the 'you can't talk about gun control if you can't correctly identify all sort of types of guns and if you do you're a freaking idiot' ... from may of the same people who say 'people who support abortion are mass murderers' while having absolutely no idea when something is a 'human being' and therefore capable to being 'murdered'.

I take BotBoy's point though (although I'll deny EVER saying that), that the use of 'assault rifle' on the part of the gun control lobby is possibly erroneous (- I don't understand the ins and outs of gun mechanics enough to really understand why, and honestly can't be arsed learning, because I just think almost all gun ownership by the general public is dumb). However, the piece that's floating around by one of the doctors who treated the latest school shooting victims seems to present a pretty convincing argument that whatever was used this time has a markedly different, and far more devastating, outcome.

 

[WoundedKnee]

You didn't grow up in a society that was formed by frontiers.
If you did, you would understands better some our takes on both issues.
Life is too short and to precious not to protect in as many ways as possible.

 

[Amoebah]

A gift for Kim

http://www.countrywaygunshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Air-Arms-Silencer.jpg

 

[RobDownSouth]

The problem is that you don't understand what is actually behind the shootings.

These people aren't really about killing anyone. They're using that as a vehicle to get what they want. Recognition through an act of terror. And then the Left jumps in and makes it worse because they focus on the gun instead of the individual.

Ask yourself; is the discussion about Cruz? Or about the gun he used?

If it's about Cruz, shouldn't we be talking what can we do to help the next guy suffering from the same emotional hurricane?

If it's about the gun, the next guy will probably use one too in his cry for help. A cry that will also be ignored like all the others have been.

The whole "OMG Gunz!" thing is an attempt to put a bandaid on a severed limb while the patient bleeds out because you're too ignorant to know what you're doing. And then you blame the bystanders as the reason it happened.

I'm not denying there are two separate elements here: motivation and capability.

The guy seems mentally ill. There are a lot of mentally ill people in America. Many get treatment, some don't. The vast majority of them are at best, hazards to themselves.

Easy access to weaponry designed to kill large numbers of people is the other side of the equation. This allows mentally ill people the capability to inflict death and destruction upon large numbers of other people.

If you want to focus on mental illness as the root cause of this issue, that's your perogative. I choose to focus on the latter: the availability of semi-automatic weaponry that have no place in civilian hands.

This puts me at odds with folks who constantly yammer that the best solution is "anything other than gun restrictions". I view that as simplistic deflection, and anecdotally it would appear that more and more Americans are agreeing with my point of view.

The NRA has a playbook they have used and refined with each school shooting, it's become almost rote response by now, and a certain subset of posters here seem to relish in repeating these talking points ad nauseum to "drown out discussion". (check the post counts this month of Richard Daily, Moochie and Queery).

Their canned rhetoric doesn't seem to be garnering near as much traction this time around. They attempt to bog down discussion with semantic wordsmithing over what constitutes a "semi-automatic" or "assault rifle".

It's simply not working. People are fed up with their excuses.

 

[KimGordon67]

You didn't grow up in a society that was formed by frontiers.
If you did, you would understands better some our takes on both issues.
Life is too short and to precious not to protect in as many ways as possible.

Well, it seems a pity that a lot of the population doesn't seem to be able to comprehend that you're not living in the wild west any more, and alter their view of reality accordingly.

There's an alarming amount of mythology in the American view of the world, including this constant fall-back to the 'constitution' as though it's a holy book. Constitutions are only ever context dependent. They are only as good as the interpretation of their words, and should always be able to shift as things change.

Honestly, you spend a great deal of time 'protecting' life against threats that are entirely of your own making.

 

[Que]

That's sort of my point. The current discourse (at least in Lit) is really heavy on the 'you can't talk about gun control if you can't correctly identify all sort of types of guns and if you do you're a freaking idiot' ... from may of the same people who say 'people who support abortion are mass murderers' while having absolutely no idea when something is a 'human being' and therefore capable to being 'murdered'.

I take BotBoy's point though (although I'll deny EVER saying that), that the use of 'assault rifle' on the part of the gun control lobby is possibly erroneous (- I don't understand the ins and outs of gun mechanics enough to really understand why, and honestly can't be arsed learning, because I just think almost all gun ownership by the general public is dumb). However, the piece that's floating around by one of the doctors who treated the latest school shooting victims seems to present a pretty convincing argument that whatever was used this time has a markedly different, and far more devastating, outcome.

You can't participate in a discussion on guns if you don't understand that nearly all firearms are more than sufficiently lethal to commit such an atrocity. Until you get that very simple fact through your head you cannot understand that the debate is complete ban and confiscation or meaningless restrictions on guns with the sole goal of nibbling away at guns until you do acheive absolute ban which is never going to happen in America so talking about gun "control" is ignorant.

The fact that you can't be arsed learning proves that you cannot have this discussion.

 

[Que]

Well, it seems a pity that a lot of the population doesn't seem to be able to comprehend that you're not living in the wild west any more, and alter their view of reality accordingly.

There's an alarming amount of mythology in the American view of the world, including this constant fall-back to the 'constitution' as though it's a holy book. Constitutions are only ever context dependent. They are only as good as the interpretation of their words, and should always be able to shift as things change.

Honestly, you spend a great deal of time 'protecting' life against threats that are entirely of your own making.

The frontier was far safer. The need for a firearm for personal self protection for some people is far greater now than it was then.

Does everyone need one in their day-to-day lives? Absolutely not in fact most people don't need one. But it's not up to you, and according to the entire structure of our founding it's absolutely not up to the government to decide who does and who doesn't.

 

[WoundedKnee]

Well, it seems a pity that a lot of the population doesn't seem to be able to comprehend that you're not living in the wild west any more, and alter their view of reality accordingly.

There's an alarming amount of mythology in the American view of the world, including this constant fall-back to the 'constitution' as though it's a holy book. Constitutions are only ever context dependent. They are only as good as the interpretation of their words, and should always be able to shift as things change.

Honestly, you spend a great deal of time 'protecting' life against threats that are entirely of your own making.

I'm sorry that so many of your views are more collective than classic liberal. I don;t think that there is any way that we can ever find common ground, so I think I'm done talking to you for a while, again. I will end with, I did not create things like the war on drugs or mental illness.

 

[HisArpy]

I'm not denying there are two separate elements here: motivation and capability.

The guy seems mentally ill. There are a lot of mentally ill people in America. Many get treatment, some don't. The vast majority of them are at best, hazards to themselves.

Easy access to weaponry designed to kill large numbers of people is the other side of the equation. This allows mentally ill people the capability to inflict death and destruction upon large numbers of other people.

If you want to focus on mental illness as the root cause of this issue, that's your perogative. I choose to focus on the latter: the availability of semi-automatic weaponry that have no place in civilian hands.

This puts me at odds with folks who constantly yammer that the best solution is "anything other than gun restrictions". I view that as simplistic deflection, and anecdotally it would appear that more and more Americans are agreeing with my point of view.

The NRA has a playbook they have used and refined with each school shooting, it's become almost rote response by now, and a certain subset of posters here seem to relish in repeating these talking points ad nauseum to "drown out discussion". (check the post counts this month of Richard Daily, Moochie and Queery).

Their canned rhetoric doesn't seem to be garnering near as much traction this time around. They attempt to bog down discussion with semantic wordsmithing over what constitutes a "semi-automatic" or "assault rifle".

It's simply not working. People are fed up with their excuses.

So, you feel the best solution is also the simplistic approach but from the other side of the coin? Not much of a difference from where I sit.

There is a meme in another thread about kids with sticks. Something along the lines of:

If your kid hits another kid with a stick, do you give every kid a stick or do you take away the stick?

It's a simplistic approach to the complex problem. The TRUE answer is to take away the stick BEAT THE KID'S ASS with it, and then give it back and see what the kid does with it. If the kid hits another kid with the stick again, BEAT HIS ASS AGAIN and continue until he gets the message. Because the problem isn't the stick now is it?