Actually, you can't, at least not in the US, and that's been true for decades.
Thinking that you can is like thinking that you can buy a race car at the local dealer because you see similar looking cars with the same name on TV.
> Take 2009..let's list all the terrorist attacks in the United States:
The Fort Hood shooting, which killed 13 should be on that list. So much for "all".
His "mole" status doesn't change his cause or tactics.
What about by illegal means? I believe that is relatively easy. Theft? And, also, non-automatic weapons are pretty easy to come by.
Indeed a better way to put it would be that it is easy to obtain an automatic weapon with relatively little planning/effort.
Or, in a pinch, be good with a freaking paperclip.
Follow up WRT to the MAC-10, as that's the most prominent case where the ATF shut down production of open bolt versions for the "civilian" market (civilians can buy machine guns if made before 1986, there are about 100,000 of them in legal circulation).
Since it's fairly easy to make an automatic weapon given a barrel (the metal working isn't that difficult) ....
Yes, there are lots of "plans" circulating, but that doesn't prove that they work. Selling bogus plans is the perfect crime because the buyer can't complain.
FWIW, I've had a standing offer for years to anyone to demonstrate a conversion and have yet to have anyone even try. (I'll pay reasonable costs plus $5k AFTER the demo. Yes, you have to front your expenses - I'm not paying for failures or fraud.)
Since I'm not a LEO, it can't be entrapment.
> I've personally seen a few conversions (in a different country, but same principles) so I know they exist and can be done.
I've no doubt that readily convertible guns exist. My point is that they're (and the relevant parts) are regulated as machine guns in the US.
The "principle" is that the receiver doesn't accept the parts or the parts, and possibly the receiver, are regulated as machine guns. For example, M-16 parts don't fit the semi-auto AR-15 receiver.
I have no idea how such guns and parts are regulated in other countries, but wouldn't be surprised if the laws were different elsewhere.
After all, some other countries treat silencers as good manners they're strictly controlled in the US. (Yes, I know about the plastic bottle trick. It's hard to ban duct tape and a plastic bottle, but it is a single shot device.)
Sorry.
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them." -- Walter Mondale
If everyone isn't walking around with guns and a fight breaks out, you can run away. But you can't outrun bullets.
This is why I am concerned about open carry laws or even concealed gun laws.
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." — Charles A. Beard
My question is, how come nobody ever gets shot in Japan? Guns are banned, there are criminals, but most murders are stabbings (or arson, etc.) If you listen to Jefferson, Japan would be a haven for dangerous gun-toting criminals shooting up anything and everything just to get some pocket change. But that is apparently not the case.
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The US is bigger than Japan, but not 190x bigger. So if you are trying to disprove my argument, you did a bad job.
Japan has a completely different demographic and social makeup. Shame plays a huge part of their culture. Traditional family values were the norm until recently.
I would argue that your thinking that gun control is the cause of low crime in Japan as misguided.
"Shootings [in Japan] rose to 66 compared with a record low of 53 in 2006, the National Police Agency said in a report. The figure was up for the first time since 2001. [...] The number of those who died from shootings rose to 22 from 2 in 2006, the report said. Those wounded numbered 18.
Gun-related crime had been rare in a country with strict gun control laws, but last year's string of shootings shocked the public and prompted the government to further strengthen its firearms law." [1]
You say that Japan has less crime overall because of gun control; I say it’s a culture / demographic thing. Maybe we are both wrong. I think it is the traditional values of Japan, and I am not alone in supposing this.
“But [Ichita Yamamoto] also fears the increase in gun violence could be a symptom of something more worrying.
‘There are few people who do this kind of thing in Japanese society,’ he says.
‘There is no culture in Japan that we shoot other people.’
What concerns him though is that perhaps Japanese society is changing.
‘Japanese traditional values have changed, the concept of family is changing, relations between people are changing,’ he says.
‘A lot of people feel lonely or isolated, so this kind of incident could be something to do with changes of this kind.’
Shootings do, as the gun-owners complain, get blanket coverage in the media.
But while newspaper columnists and pundits are good at wringing their hands about the fact that gun crime is increasing, they are not so successful when it comes to agreeing what it reveals about the state of Japanese society.
And more importantly, perhaps, they cannot agree on what to do about it.” [2]
I was mainly saying that your argument that the great-grandparent of this was using noone incorrectly was wrong. 53 in a country that large is a rounding error, as is the rise from 53 to 66 which you just stated. Statistical noise.
You can't really compare it with prohibition or the ban on Marijuana, either. Culturally, that seems like a much more ridiculous law than gun bans do - drugs and alcohol affect ones self, and people generally feel that they have a right to choose what they do to themselves. Bans on things that are addictive? Of course those will be broken. It's not a very good comparison.
[1] 467 Homicides [2] * 81.8% involved firearms [3]
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago
[3] http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2...
It's also risky to bring guns illegally into the country; to take that kind of risky one would probably have to be into other illegal, profitable stuff like drug trade. But there isn't a lot of drug trade in Japan (compared to US).
Anyway, I think it's very hard to use Japan on one hand, or Switzerland and Israel on the other, to argue about gun laws in US.
There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism." -- An Authority [1]
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the fort hood incident isn't on the list of 2009 attacks. Here is the wiki discussion about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_terrorist_incident...