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Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2018 Thread

It also was meant to keep you from killing your spouse during a divorce, that used to be a question they asked, if you were in the middle of a divorce, custody case, etc.
 
So then I'll go back to what I asked before and just recently. What guns are OK and what aren't, and for what reason? The term you used that first prompted me to ask was military grade.

Though this does bring up something else I'm increasingly feeling compelled to ask more broadly. And what's what exactly is a hunting rifle? What makes a hunting rifle a hunting rifle vs a military rifle in technical terms.

Cause if it were to ever be law there will need to be a technical definition.

People keep talking about how it's designed as a criteria. But the design question tends to be more a matter of marketing than anything else. So open question, what makes a it a hunting rifle vs a military rifle, apart from advertising.

And what about the fact that some rifles used in both military and civilian applications are entirely identical? Or the fact that virtually none of the rifles commonly considered by the public to be assault weapons and that have been used in recent mass shootings actually are completely the same as the standard issue rifles used by most modern militaries?

What is the difference?

It's not a matter of marketing. Hunting rifles take a long time to reload. Animals or people have plenty of time to flee after the gun is brandished or fired. Hi capacity assault rifles have less than a second between shots and capacities of 30 I believe. A hunting rifle you fire a single shot and it takes a minute or two to load the next shot.
 
Oh forget it. I asked for specifics of your opinion. You gave a Wikipedia link that answers nothing. The point I'm leading up to is how there is almost no real difference between say, a semiautomatic hunting rifle that almost everyone would call a hunting rifle cause it looks like a hunting rifle. And a semiautomatic ak47.

But you're not gonna do it.

So forget it. It's different cause you say so. And what is and isn't a hunting rifle is up to you and subject to change retroactively at any time. There. You win.
 
That's not true, I can get 10 shots off with a bolt action rifle pretty quick, and loading doesn't really take too long, but it is far slower than an AR where i can fire over 100 rpm, as opposed to my 10 or 15.

Jess it's really just the capacity and effective rate of fire.
 
It's not a matter of marketing. Hunting rifles take a long time to reload. Animals or people have plenty of time to flee after the gun is brandished or fired. Hi capacity assault rifles have less than a second between shots and capacities of 30 I believe. A hunting rifle you fire a single shot and it takes a minute or two to load the next shot.

There has never been a mass school shooting involving an assault rifle in America.

A bolt action hunting rifle takes a second or so to cycle the action if that. And with many common designs the reloading time is comparable.

Then there are semiautomatic hunting rifles which you'd call hunting rifles cause they look like hunting rifles but in underlying operation and time taken are exactly the same.

So in actual fact the only real difference is magazine size if you're talking about a semiautomatic hunting rifle and a semiautomatic ak47. And reloading either takes a couple seconds so it makes little difference.

Which of course was what I was aiming for with tathra but he woulnt play.
Which is that there is no sensible, easy land rational point of difference apart from cosmetics.

If anyone wants to try and produce one, that has basis in reality though. I'm still welcome to hear it. But sorry that wasn't it.

Most people here haven't even been clear what a hunting rifle is.
 
It's absurd to suggest you define what you want to ban and why?

And yes i know what they mean. Which is why I don't consider there to be an obvious and legitimate point of difference between the vague terms of hunting rifle and military rifle.

Some rifles are both. Some are different in ways of no significant difference.

But apparently asking that perhaps you should define how you are using the words is quibbling. Right.
 
You said it yourself, the reload on an assault rifle vs a semi auto hunting rifle is comparable, but the capacity makes that a huge jump. Thirty rounds per mag as opposed to ten loaded in the same amount of time is a massive difference in effective firepower.
 
You said it yourself, the reload on an assault rifle vs a semi auto hunting rifle is comparable, but the capacity makes that a huge jump. Thirty rounds per mag as opposed to ten loaded in the same amount of time is a massive difference in effective firepower.

Say that's true. Say the 30 vs 10 is a huge difference.

Then why should ar15s or aks. The civilian versions that is. Be banned? Unless we are also banning semiautomatic hunting rifles too. Because either can take a 10 round magazine. At which point the only difference becomes cosmetic.

Personally though, I don't think the 10 vs 30 makes much difference when reloading takes a few seconds if that. I don't believe for a second that these mass shootings would have been stopped or the number dead substantially reduced on that basis. If it took say, a minute to reload that would be one thing. But a few seconds?

if you dont know the meanings of the words "anti-personel weapon" and "hunting weapon" you can try a dictionary or the wiki articles.

I know what they mean. And they aren't nearly detailed enough to rationally explain what you want to ban and why.

But apparently im quibbling by suggesting that someone who wants to ban things and limit people's freedoms should be remotely specific.

Is a semi auto ar15 a hunting rifle? If not, why? Is it a military rifle? Cause the military versions aren't generally semiautomatic only. Is a Remington 700 a military rifle or a hunting rifle? What exactly is it you want to see happen? Or is asking that asking for too much detail too?

To make yet another of my insane comparisons to drugs. It's like suggesting you want to ban narcotics as your solution to societies drug problems. But I suppose it would be quibbling to consider that vague and ill defined too. Yet I can post the narcotic wiki article too so I guess it's plenty specific.

The dictionary says a hunting rifle is a rifle used in hunting. So I suppose all rifles are hunting rifles since pretty much every rifle has been used for hunting at some point. So I guess we aren't banning anything.
 
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That means you can load 20 extra rounds in the same time frame, that's 20 extra shots then a reload, as opposed to 10 then reload,etc. Even a mag size restriction would work. Not like thats never happened, in some states extended mags on a handgun/rifle are illegal.
 
so because we cant do it perfectly we shouldnt even bother trying? thats called the "nirvana fallacy".

and yes, asking for far more precision than is necessary is quibbling. again, we're not writing law here (and your arguments there mostly seem to be of the "it wont be perfect" variety, the nirvana fallacy). there's no need to go to an absurd level of precision, like exactly which specific guns.
 
so because we cant do it perfectly we shouldnt even bother trying? thats called the "nirvana fallacy".

and yes, asking for far more precision than is necessary is quibbling. again, we're not writing law here (and your arguments there mostly seem to be of the "it wont be perfect" variety, the nirvana fallacy). there's no need to go to an absurd level of precision, like exactly which specific guns.

I haven't seen virtually anyone explain coherently and with evidence why almost any of this stuff would work at all.

What most people are suggesting is an assault weapons ban which was already tried and evidence suggests was ineffective.

I never said it had to be perfect. But it should have to have a net benefit for society in some tangible way. Where has anyone given evidence that their suggestion would have such an impact?

As for the absurd level of precision. I never asked for which specific guns. I asked for you to specify what attributes make a gun worth banning vs not. I asked you to actually explain in a level of detail more specific than keep the good ones ban the bad ones. But apparently that's excessive.

Is it quibbling or asking for excessive precision to want people to explain what they want to ban beyond a word with a recursive definition. Such as a hunting rifle is a rifle used for hunting. An anti personnel weapon is used against people. Those words have meanings that overlap. It's not even a coherent suggestion.

You may not be writing law, but you're making suggestions for new laws. And I'm saying suggestions that are so vague and unclear as to he meaningless are bad suggestions. And the terms you've used so far are far too vague to be valid suggestions.

And it's especially silly given that bptubbs is right now discussing with me exactly the kind of specifics I asked for.

That means you can load 20 extra rounds in the same time frame, that's 20 extra shots then a reload, as opposed to 10 then reload,etc. Even a mag size restriction would work. Not like thats never happened, in some states extended mags on a handgun/rifle are illegal.

Indeed. It has been done before. And I've never seen any evidence that its been effective.

You know what I'd like to know. I'd like to know how many rounds on average these mass shooters have been left with by the time their spree ended. Cause it sounds to me like unless the answer is pretty close to zero. Then most of the shooters don't stop cause they ran out of ammo anyway.

If they did though. Then there might be something to the suggestion. But only that suggestion. Not everything else they include in assault weapon bans.

But at least it's something. And at least you're arguing with me sensibly. And I appreciate it.

I'm not against all gun control all the time. I'm against ignorance, I'm against bullshit. And I'm against solutions that clearly don't work.
 
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If they didn't run out of ammo, perhaps it just means they had a shit load. Which is perhaps a different approach, restricting/tracking ammunition sales to flag large or frequent small purchases, etc. Home defence surely doesn't require too much ammo right?
 
No but the training and ongoing practice required to make it worth doing does.

Sorry. It won't work. People buy crazy amounts of ammo all the time. Even not counting the preppers and other extreme groups. Just shooting as an fairly modest hobby could easily go through thousands of rounds a month on average.

People can easily shoot more rounds on average in one trip to the range than even one of the largest mass shootings. The math just doesn't work to make that viable.


You did remind me of this though which I find hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZrFVtmRXrw
 
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It's never too early for these kids to learn that Congress will walk over every last one of thier dead bodies to get that lobbyist "donation"..when thier efforts fail miserably to come close to gun reform.

They think their 17 dead highschool class mates matter? If a mass shooting of 5 yr olds and one with hundreds of deaths did nothing ...these kids are better served staying home and smoking weed.

Sorry if this is cynical. But we are talking about dismantling the way that governments have worked since they existed. Not any easy feat.

In other words, no one should bother to try to change things because things are bad and it's hard? I find this sentiment even more depressing than the current state of things. If no one tries, it's 100% certain nothing will change. Trying and failing is far better than not trying at all.

How exactly is there a massive difference? I asked tathra this but got no reply. Guess I'll try again.

The massive difference between hunting rifles and assault rifles is that hunting rifles can't shoot as quickly, nor do they have as many shots before you have to reload. This is important because in mass shooting situations, the faster you can fire a greater number of bullets, the more death/damage you'll be able to cause before someone can react and stop you. I don't understand why someone needs to be able to have a gun that can cause far more rapid destruction than other classes of guns. I have no problem with gun ranges having them, for people who enjoy shooting guns. But why should some guy be able to buy one of them (without a background check at a gun show no less) for his personal use?

And in the case of the Vegas shooting, where around 500 people were slaughtered from a hotel room window... if dude had a pistol, that sure as hell wouldn't have been anywhere near as horrific.

Mentioned above: the "cooling off" period of x days is believed to help prevent suicides.

It also was meant to keep you from killing your spouse during a divorce, that used to be a question they asked, if you were in the middle of a divorce, custody case, etc.

Good points, and valid reasons to support a longer waiting period.

There has never been a mass school shooting involving an assault rifle in America.

Wasn't the one that sparked this conversation done with an AR-15? And the Vegas shooting was done with an assault rifle (or multiple assault rifles if my memory serves).

Question for you guys supporting access to assault rifles/guns: do you believe that being able to buy them unregulated at gun shows should be abolished? To me, that loophole is the single most absurd aspect of the gun control issue and should absolutely be done away with. You have to go through background checks and a waiting period when buying from an "official" gun dealer, but you can show up at a gun show and buy whatever you want, no matter who you are, and walk out with it right then? Why does this exist? It makes absolutely no sense.
 
Except your wrong. People keep throwing around words like assault rifle and assault weapon and hunting rifle. They don't really know what they mean, and if you're tathra perhaps you think to quibble about the meanings is just being pedantic.

It's an assault rifle, it's an assault weapon, they are weapons and rifles used in an assault right?

Wrong. That might be how you use them, but it's not how everyone uses them. Some of these words do have specific meanings. And the fact that they are continually misused paints a picture of reality which is untrue.

It is quibbling when you excessively make points about the use of words that don't in any way change what everyone knew the underlying message to be.

But when the message becomes corrupted because the words were used differently by different people. That's when the meanings become relevant. The point behind words, sentences, is to communicate. Some people are excessively interested that everyone use them exactly as their understanding of them tells them. And often it really is pedantic and just quibbling. Because everyone understood the communication. The meaning remained intact from one person to another.

It's my view that all that matters is that everyone in the discourse understood what was being said. Most of the time, that means getting head up about the meaning of words is wasting time.

In this case it's not. Because our different uses of words are distorting and corrupting communication. Our ability to understand what each other mean.

I said that an assault rifle has never been used in any school shooting. In using that term, I am defining it by the specific meaning used in technical and military contexts where specific meaning tends to be important. In which case, to be an assault rifle, it has to have either burst or automatic firing. Which none of the weapons used in any of these school shootings had. They were all semiautomatics.

Assault weapon and hunting rifle don't have meanings quite so specific, in any context that I know of. Hunting rifle least of all. It means a rifle used for hunting.

So, when you say you're OK with keeping hunting rifles, presumably you mean weapons that when you see you would identify as being hunting rifles. But these weapons have no inheirent functional difference from semiautomatic ar15s or ak47s.

As for assault weapon, the meaning people here and people generally have for it. It's like hunting rifle, only for military weapons. It's being used to mean weapons that appear to be military weapons. Again, it's a cosmetic definition with no underlying functional difference.

It's a fact, that in much of the US you really can get an assault rifle of the automatic variety. But in reality they're so expensive and result in so little difference that they've never been used in spree school shootings. In untrained hands a semiautomatic is probably more dangerous. Because real guns aren't as accurate as Hollywood guns. The assault weapons you see the 2nd amendment nuts carrying largely aren't the same as the ones used by military. They just look the same.

In functional terms, as in what the machine is capable of. There is no difference between a semiautomatic assault weapon and a hunting rifle apart from appearance. So banning one but not the other is an argument born of ignorance.

People are assuming there are differences on the basis of their appearance. But appearance is largely where the difference begins and ends. And I for one don't think we should ban shit based on appearance.

To ban something is to reduce the freedom of a society. However small. It shouldn't be done lightly and it shouldn't be done without thought and consideration and above all it shouldn't be done if it's clearly nonsense and won't do anything.

And, using the most common definitions of the words, the meaning everyone here is using. That's what banning assault weapons is. It's nonsense. Because the only difference between them and semiautomatic hunting rifles is cosmetic.

Ban both, that's potentially rational. Ban neither, that's potentially rational. But banning one but not the other when the difference is cosmetic is not. It's nonsense born from ignorance.

I don't care what words people use so long as the users clear what they mean. But I'm not blind. Most of the people here don't themselves know what they mean by their use. They don't know enough about firearms to really comprehend the differences. Understandable yes, but a terrible way to form law.

We may not be writing legislation here. But we are people and many of us are citizens of the United States. Our opinions as a collective do influence policy. And that's why we constantly wind up with stupid and bad policy. They reflect a people who want things for stupid reasons.

We already had an assault weapons ban. Since the difference is almost entirely cosmetic, that's what that law focused on. It banned firearms based on cosmetic traits. Just about the only functional thing it banned was magazine size. Now if you wanna talk about banning that, that might have the makings of a good policy. Might. I still kinda doubt it for reasons I explained in my last post. But at least that idea isn't patently nonsensical. At least that's a functional difference.

My point in all this. I think I speak for all of us when I say we'd all like these spree killings at schools to stop.

How is a ban, put together based on the publics perception, when the publics perception amounted to little other than cosmetic differences, supposed to accomplish that?

What people here are suggesting is that we ban a bunch of guns for looking like military guns. While leaving a bunch of others that can do just as much damage but don't look as menacing in tact.

You don't have to be particularly smart to see why that won't work.

And that's why defining what you want to ban is important.
If you don't know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion, that's fine. Go get an informed opinion. You have the internet. Or just don't have an opinion at all. Choose not to have a specific opinion.

But don't just assume you know all you need too. Then make suggestions when you don't know what you're talking about. Here on bluelight that might be harmless. But bluelight is just reflecting us as people. And it's not harmless when enough members or society say it that politicians make it into law.

It happens all the time with drug policy.

In short, don't be one of those idiots who wanna ban shit they know nothing about like with drugs. Cause that's what many of you are. You know about drugs. You can see all the insanity and the ways drug policy is clearly retarded. But on other subjects where you don't know any more than any average person. What's really sad is so many of us still do the same thing. Making suggestions and taking positions that result in stupid policy.

It's not JUST drugs. All the things you notice in drug policy, where you can see how average people's ignorance result in stupid policy cause they call out for things that will end up hurting people and are based on ignorant reaction with no understanding. That phenomenon applies in every complicated subject. Not just drugs.

Its the case with guns too. The reality is more complex than watching Hollywood movies and watching the shit they put on the news can provide enough knowledge of to come up with good opinions.

Bluelight is just people, and most of us have more in common than our prohibitionist peers than we might like. We just don't know it cause we don't know how little we know.

So you end up with this thread. Where people suggest we ban one lot of guns but not another lot despite being identical. And despite having already done exactly this before and the result was failure.

We have people suggesting nobody needs things like armor piercing hollow points despite those terms contradicting each other.

Well guess what. You think that banning guns that clearly look military is just common sense? The people who want to ban people from buying needles see it as just as much common sense.

You can't just give people needles and expect that to help the drug problem, it's common sense! So they say.

All you gotta do is open your mind enough to consider that you might be knowledgeable enough about drugs to see that immediate knee jerk "common sense" doesn't make for good policy. But also ignorant enough to do exactly the same kind of things with other political issues. Like this one.

EDIT: As for the above question about the gun show loophole. It's my opinion that I currently don't know what I need to know to have an opinion. I don't know what proportion of mass shootings, and what proportion of crime are committed with guns that otherwise might have been unattainable had the gun show loophole not existed. If the stats say that closing the gun show loophole might well have resulted in a notable reduction in the stats, I'd be in favor of it. Otherwise, I'm never gonna be OK with increasing restrictions on people and wasting legislative time that could be spent on better policies on a policy that clearly won't do anything.

Id rather see congress working on legislation that the evidence says might work. Even if that legislation might actually be even more restrictive.

That's all I want here. Gun control that will work.

I have seen so much evidence of seemingly common sense policies resulting in either no good for society despite the reduction in freedom. Or even outright causing harm.

Bicycle helmet laws that increased the harm to bicyclists. Red light camera legislation that caused more accidents. People are fucking dead cause of it and nobody cared because to them "its just obviously the right thing" mattered more to them than evidence.
 
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Yes thats absolutely ridiculous.

I would have thought after the Mandalay shooting there would be a push to clamp down on availabolity of modifications to guns to have practical machine guns legally available.


I think maybe something will eventually get done when someone who couldnt give 2 shits about the NRA or losing power or upsetting these 2nd anmendment blowhards gets in office, theres yet another mass shooting and theres the timing to just say fuck it. Lives are more important than guns. Walking around freely without fear of being shot is far more important than having them.

And someone who will just crack down and get these high powered weapons and ammo off the streets .


Nobody needs these weapons in a free peaceful country .


There were 13 mass murders in the 18 years prior Port Arthur. Im no John Howard fan but he did the right thing by doing what he did.


To the people who say gun control doesnt work try and think about the time it did. There was an uproar about people losing their guns but they were compensated and people were shocked into change after that massacre.

How many people died in Las Vegas ? Its just become so normal to not be more important than getting rid of guns?


Theres heaps of nutbags around and its way too easy to get a gun and kill 100 people because someone looks at you funny?


Yeesh.

Apoarently I dont talk to Americans correctly. Apparently Americans will never get rid of guns or establish gun control. I received a pm from an American about this. Ill respond soon mate but I prefer talking about topics in the thread at hand.

Well if thats the case- nothing will change unless theres a public push for it or people making the laws are directly affected by it.
 
And that's a lie too.

I've said a few times that these mass shootings statistically aren't particularly notable. There's a reason I've mentioned that.

I've looked in great depth at the statistics pre and post the Australian 1996 Howard gun policies. There was no change to the numbers of people who died in violent crimes. No evidence that it saved any lives lost in crimes of any sort for the freedoms it took away.

You tell me, if you care so much about saving lives, why is it you don't know this? Why haven't you ever cared to find out.

I think it's cause you don't like guns and are happy to have them banned no matter what the result was.

I think the stats could say that gun deaths dropped 200%, but the number of people killed in knife attacks resulted in double the number of actual overall people killed. And you wouldn't give a shit about that. Because those people's lives don't matter. The only lives that matter are the ones that help you get rid of guns. Cause it's about the guns, not the lives. The lives are a pretext.

Look for yourself. There is no evidence of a statistical change in the number of people killed overall annually as a result of the 96 gun control. Which means likely either the gun deaths were already too low to show up on the stats. Or killings by other weapons made up the difference.

If you care about lives why don't you care about that?

I'm sure you don't care about the principles of freedom, that perhaps it's wrong to reduce freedom, including freedoms you don't yourself use, for not benefit to society. I've never found an Australian who did.

I've argued this with Australians countless times. I don't anymore I've long since given up even trying to discuss this kind of thing with Australians. Which is why I generally ignore them regarding this kind of thing on bluelight. It's a waste of my time I could be using talking to people who give a shit about the principle of reducing freedoms for no benefit. I gave up years ago after I convinced someone through the stats, a hard line antigun person, that the 96 gun controls didn't work.

Only for him to immediately retort that he didn't care. It got rid of guns. That nobody was saved doesn't matter. That pretty much was when I realized. Australians as a whole actually don't care. I was actually kinda shocked at the time.

How could you not care about a loss of freedom in society that didn't benefit society? Say the stats hadn't said that it did nothing to the crime stats overall good or bad. Say it had actually made them worse. He still wouldn't have cared would he?

And so I don't debate with Australians anymore. It's time better spent arguing with someone for whom there's a snowballs chance on hell they might actually give a shit about freedoms for freedoms sake.
 
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