Pistol sights
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People who don't shoot often don't know even the most basic things, like what differentiates a rifle from a shotgun, or what happens when a modern pistol runs out of bullets. They don't get the vast difference between a .22 and a 9mm on any level (size of projectile, powder load, etc.). And they certainly don't understand why pursuing something like a quote-unquote assault weapon ban is legislatively and logically difficult.
I'd like to see some compromise in the other direction too. Like "Ok, we'll relax CCP regulations or 'assault weapons' regulations so that normal citizens can have them, but in return we need to ramp up background checks in X and Y ways". That's how compromise should work, but instead with gun control it's very one-sided compromise.
It turns out the loudest (read: most visible) people on both sides of any given debate are the least likely to compromise.
A reasonable thing would be to almost totally restrict pistols, but the Constitution hasn't been amended on the matter since the days when a rifled barrel on a long gun was cutting edge technology, so we have people walking around with highly dangerous concealable weapons.
I mean, I wouldn't want to face someone wielding a machete anymore than I'd want to face someone wielding a bag of revolvers, but at least with the machete they are going to have to physically work quite a bit to kill each person they want to kill.
I'm also not real sure what your point is. I said I wouldn't want to face someone wielding a machete anymore than. I was acknowledging that a malicious person can be plenty dangerous with weapons that basically can't be restricted (a machete can be improvised much more easily than a repeating firearm or ammunition for said firearm).
We agree that both machetes and guns are dangerous. But I'm arguing that a machete can be more dangerous than a handgun, in the hands of a trained attacker.
I was quibbling with the "physically work quite a bit" aspect of your comment.
The gun has exactly one business end and you know how it is going to be used. An attacker wielding a knife can use multitude of moves, how to attack.
It seems to have taken to ~1850 for practical military repeating rifles.
edit: Your comment is still young, but I'll note for history that I replied with the wiki link before you had added it to your comment.
Without meaning to be glib, this is exactly the reason I would not recommend a machete to my grandmother for personal defense, but I would recommend her a Ruger LCR, or a Smith & Wesson M&P.
The fact that she is physically disadvantaged against almost anyone would do her harm is a use case that the firearm solves quite nicely.
Undermining your grandmother's ability to defend herself is worth it if the policy that does so statistically reduces violence (or even statistically reduces the consequences of violence).
I'm certainly not expecting any of my comments here to persuade someone who cherishes their gun rights.
But I don't believe that such people come anywhere near representing a majority, so I still see value in staking out a clear position.
But, if you were just blasting an opinion out there rather than attempting to have a discussion - why are you here again? - fine. Can't argue with an opinion, even if it comes off as completely insensitive and tone-deaf.
People project their gun attitudes onto their grandma's that have never been attacked anyway and demand that we live in a less safe society because of it.
My mom was pretty unnerved when her house got broken into (she was there, asleep, didn't wake up, wasn't attacked). She wouldn't be any better off with a gun because she isn't prepared to use it. Effective restrictions on guns would be a 100% win for her.
So do I lack perspective? Or have I maybe come to different, reasonable conclusions and am sick of people making absurd emotional arguments about how guns make people safer?
"Effective restrictions on guns" don't exist in the same way that "effective restrictions on drugs" don't exist.
So no, your conclusion is not "reasonable". It is completely unrealistic and runs contrary to the most basic laws, not to mention the culture of the country.
I'm much more interested in realistic solutions that don't involve trampling on basic rights and removing the ability of people to defend themselves from an assailant. If you expect such discussion to be not emotionally loaded, your conclusion is unrealistic twice over.
And it isn't that I expect such a discussion to not be emotionally loaded, I'm just going to reject assertions that only one sort of emotional loading is warranted.
I agree it will take a long time to impose effective restrictions on guns in the US, we should get started as soon as possible. I think looking at Britain and Australia make it clear enough that gun restrictions do make a difference (even if their more generous social welfare systems tend to lead to lower general levels of criminal violence to begin with).
Ignore the fact that we see this on two different levels and don't even agree on first principles for a moment. Let's just talk about the pure practicality and rhetoric involved.
From a purely objective standpoint, a great many people in this country believe in the 2nd amendment as written.
There is no legislative solution that doesn't involve their consent. As much as you'd like to drag them over kicking and screaming, you can't. Our legislative system has safeguards in mind to prevent minority opinions from being imposed on the rest of the country. You're talking a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress, or a constitutional convention involving 2/3 of states, to amend the constitution.
Please realize this. It's important. There's your goal which even I can agree is admirable, and then there's talk of realistic ways of achieving it, which is a much more interesting conversation, and one you sadly don't seem to want to have.
So that said - why the tone-deaf posturing? Do your comments here advance your goal of reducing gun violence in any way?
Or rather, do they confirm every stereotype of anti-gun people ever cooked up?
Do you realize your earlier conversation could be run verbatim by the freakin' NRA as an example of what they fight against, generating more support for the exact opposite of what you hope to accomplish?
The way I see it, step one is getting to a place where emotional appeals about grandma needing a force equalizer are dismissed more quickly than points about statistics showing that guns overall enhance violence. So experimental comments that turn some people off? Meh.
My grandfather, father, mother, and myself have all used a handgun in self defense before. I would posit that I am existing to type this because of personal firearm ownership. Whenever I see comments like yours I empathize and remind myself that you are good natured but that you lack the background and context to realize why someone might reasonably want or need to arm themselves. Most of my friends here in California are like that, and they have no idea how nice and safe their environment and upbringing was in the pricy coastal cities and university towns of the West Coast. Some of us are from rougher places. Having lived in many different environments with different threat levels I understand the genesis of both viewpoints, but I know which one I'd consider right.
Our criminal neighbor tried to bash my father's head in with a tire iron on the front lawn - before you counter that we wouldn't need firearms to defend ourselves with if there weren't firearms out there in the first place.
Somehow I haven't been in any situations where a gun seemed like it would have helped (and there aren't such stories flying around my extended family either).
My approaching-70 year old father will be retiring to the middle of nowhere, along with his wife. What's he going to do if someone breaks in - fight them? He's an old man with COPD. Call the police? They're an hour away. But with a good dog to alert him to intruders, and a good gun he can reach for? He can protect himself against anyone, no matter how much of a physical advantage they might have.
As for 'highly dangerous concealed weapons' - you were probably more likely to encounter this on a day-to-day basis at the time of the constitution being written than even in the most heavily gunned state with low-barrier carry laws.
If you are updating constructions, this also means that the context is important; in the constitutional times people were responsible for defending themselves primarily - if that assumption can/should/has been changed, where then is that change legally codified?
Given that this is exactly the strategy of the opposing actors, I can see why 2nd amendment advocates take this stance.
If you look at basically any other country where there's still a debate open on this topic, you'll note that it is indeed a slippery slope. Here in Canada, the RCMP (equiv. FBI) can arbitrarily reclassify any firearm and demand that it be confiscated and destroyed (not sold). For example, the other year they reclassified the Ruger 10/22 (IIRC the most popular target shooting rifle in Canada) as a "restricted weapon", requiring an RPAL instead of a PAL.
Funny thing about the Restricted Possession and Acquisition License is that if you have one, you forfeit your chartered protection against unwarranted search and seizure. The government can literally search your home and take your things at any time for any reason without providing justification to a court or record. In fact, they often do.
Let's say the nice lady down the way purchased a 10/22 to do target shooting, and didn't get the memo from the RCMP (10+ years later). Now, she either contravenes the law (most long guns still do not require registration, just license) and lives in fear that the authorities might find that she has a 10/22; or she finds an RFSC to get her RPAL, and the RCMP decides arbitrarily that she should be allowed to have an RPAL (because they have no obligation to issue one, even if they have no reason not to), and now she has no protection against search and seizure in her home.
I might also add that firearms laws in California are basically the same as they are in Canada in many practical senses, except the classification and search and seizure stuff (which would be even more obviously unconstitutional). Most of the firearms used in crimes here in Canada are smuggled or illegally manufactured. Nonetheless, Californians kill each other far more regularly. It's almost as though the argument for gun control is thin and questionable, and the only way to prop it up is through deliberate dishonesty or accidental ignorance.
If one has a desire to, I doubt it would take more than a few days for one to purchase a handgun illegally.
So now it's chicken-and-egg. Is the ACLU better than the NRA, but uninterested? Or are their different tactics and results a product of the different topics they deal with?
edit: as an aside, I'm big on the second amendment but stopped contributing to the NRA precisely because, among other things, they're clearly not big fans of other civil liberties. Their magazines contain (or used to, anyway) a lot of bias against anyone who didn't support a heavily militarized police force, or was against torture for suspected terrorists, etc. It also wasn't clear to me how all the money they solicited was being tracked for efficacy.
The ACLU has a great record on 1 and 4, as do several of the groups they work with. "Restore the Fourth" is fantastic, and you can guess which amendment they care about.
The NRA is strange and uncomfortable to a lot of people, I think. I share your complaint, but they have strong stances on so many different issues that I've met people who object to them for half a dozen different reasons.
When this country was founded, there were no police. Our adversarial justice system was you deciding you were wronged, going and swearing out a warrant in front of a magistrate, and then executing said warrant with the aid of whatever bruisers you could muster. Generally clubs would be preferable to pistols, and there was no chance of using a musket. Also, while there was not an explicit prohibition on maintaining a standing army, the time limit on military appropriations was intended to limit military spending to war-time.
To some degree this changed in 1812, when the far-more-numerous American militia failed to contest the burning of the nation's capital. To some degree it changed in 1847 when Samuel Colt became a successful revolver manufacturer. But to whatever degree this nation has changed its ideas about firearms, these have not been reflected in law, and we've been papering over the situation for the last century at least.
Where the NRA fits into this is to demand protection and expansion of the individual right to bear arms without any consideration whatsoever of the original context of the second amendment. I don't necessarily object to their viewpoint, but their myopia on the subject does make it rather difficult to discuss. Generally I think the way this goes is, ["Founder's intentions", "individual right to bear arms", "standing army"] : pick any two.
"In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia. The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. However, particular federal or state laws on licensing, registration, prohibition, or other regulation of the manufacture, shipment, sale, purchase or possession of guns may raise civil liberties questions."
In practice, they don't advocate for Second Amendment protection. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I think it would destroy their effectiveness elsewhere without achieving much, but their acknowledgement of the right hasn't involved them actually getting involved with legal cases so far.
I think the ACLU does a great job, but they aren't as effective as the NRA.
This in and of itself is not a sufficient reason not to pass a particular piece of regulation.
In my experience it's been the other way around. I'm a gun owner and gun control advocate; a seemingly impossible combination in the eyes of most gun rights advocates.
When I've said to other gun owners in the past that common sense regulations make sense, not only have I been told that opinion means I don't deserve the guns I legally own now, it also means that if I were in danger and a gun owner was around who could stop it they should let me die because I'm not on really on their side.
That's right -- gun owners should not help me in a life or death situation because I think there should be some limits to gun ownership, despite being an owner myself who would also be subject to those limitations.
See, and like that you've lost me. That's exactly the sort of politicized weasel-wording that has been used repeatedly to pick away at gun owners.
State what precise regulations you mean, and then we can have a productive discussion.
Think for a second about why you chose those words instead of simply asking, "what do you consider to be 'common sense regulations'?" Are you subconsciously (or perhaps intentionally) trying to antagonize me by being pre-emptively dismissive of whatever I have to say next? That's usually the case in these discussions, in my experience, and if so, there's no point in continuing at all, because you've already made up your mind to disagree with whatever I have to say.
But in case I'm reading too far into that remark, I will share what I consider to be "common sense regulations":
I think a permitting process should be required for all gun ownership that involves a thorough background investigation. That's for all firearms -- long guns, pistols, all of them. You should need to present this permit when making all further firearm and ammunition transactions, including private party transfer and at gun shows.
Usually the immediate rebuttal to this is "well the Constitution says I have a right to guns!" Setting aside the semantics of the second amendment and our interpretation of what the authors meant by it, the end result of this proposed permitting process is not actually much different from the way things are setup today. Currently if you're a convicted felon you can't own a gun. The only difference is that for things like rifles and shotguns, law enforcement today doesn't know you own one since there is no permitting or registration process. The only difference is that instead of taking away the gun when you're a felon caught with one, you just aren't able to get it in the first place.
The next rebuttal is that now the government has a list of gun owners with this system that they'll use for whatever nefarious purposes you can imagine, but you're a fool if you think they don't already have this information. Your identity is sent to NICS currently when you buy a gun, and there's no way they aren't logging this information already. The only difference under my plan is that this registration would be more transparent, and you get an ID card proving you're fit to own a firearm.
And hell, we're all tech minded people here. There's no reason why this whole system can't anonymized in a blockchain or something like that.
Private party transfer and gun shows would be a bit trickier to regulate, but if the plan is universal among all states, then you can simply say that if you are the registered owner of a gun and it's used in a crime, even if you didn't fire the gun, unless you processed the transfer you're personally liable.
And really, that's all I mean by "common sense regulations". As I said, I'm a gun owner and I would be happy to live with this system. That is, knowing that everyone else is subject to it as well. The problem is that such a plan would need to be instituted nationwide, otherwise it's pointless since you can just drive to another state and bypass the whole thing. In the minds of most gun control advocates registration = loss of freedom, as opposed to the minor inconvenience it would be for law abiding citizens, so I doubt it would ever be possible.
Now, to tackle them in reverse order:
> as opposed to the minor inconvenience it would be for law abiding citizens, so I doubt it would ever be possible.
There is no concrete benefit for law-abiding citizens above the system we already have in place here. Like, it's not immediately obvious that the proposed changes clearly make things better (unlike, say, requiring seatbelts in cars).
> you can simply say that if you are the registered owner of a gun and it's used in a crime, even if you didn't fire the gun, unless you processed the transfer you're personally liable.
This fails (badly) to account for firearms that have been stolen. See also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/27/new-e...
If you want to make the argument that "gun owners need to keep better track of their guns"...it's their property, so that should be their choice. We don't require people to know exactly where their car is, or to know where their bicycle is, or where their axes are (even though all of those could and are used to wound others).
> Private party transfer and gun shows would be a bit trickier to regulate
Again, it's unclear that there is good reason or precedent for regulating the transfer of property here.
> you're a fool if you think they don't already have this information.
One could make the same argument about requiring people to cc the NSA on every email they make to people outside the continental US: just because it's happening doesn't mean we should set legislative precedent.
> Currently if you're a convicted felon you can't own a gun.
There has been a lot of work in the last few years to try and restore that right, actually. This makes sense given the arbitrary enforcement of non-violent felonies.
It's hardly assumed that felons (given our current judicial system) have any moral obligation to be unarmed.
> You should need to present this permit when making all further firearm and ammunition transactions, including private party transfer and at gun shows.
Why, exactly? What is the purpose of this?
What benefit or supposed safety do we get from having this?
And if the benefits are so great, shouldn't we just make this near-mandatory training during schooling, as we do with driving?
Comeon that's a terrible false equivalence and I am sure you know it. I can possibly use just a blunt pencil to kill someone, but a gun makes it orders of magnitude easier (even if the intent was not to kill).
If false equivalence are acceptable, let me throw you another one. Why throw hissy fits about nations that have or are building nuclear arms capability. As a third party it is legit to feel unsafe unless you have skin in the game, unless you have demonstrated to some satisfaction that you can handle the capability responsibly. But NPTs are no way as nuanced as that, even hypothetical capability is enough to legitimize a hissy fit and worse: crippling sanctions.
I think its fair trade, if you are not willing to take liability of not being able to secure your gun, you don't get to keep it. If it gets stolen etc, its fine if you alert law enforcement within an actionable window. If something bad is done with your gun you have to convince a judge that you took all reasonable precautions.
I'm Czech ("the Texas of EU", with ~3% of population having a carry permit) and finally a gun owner after EU's decisively not common-sense latest round of gun control regulations (proving, by the way, the fear of ever-sliding next round "compromise", to be a very real one).
I have mixed feelings about such registries.
On one hand, that's what we have here, and it works reasonably well - and gun owners are mostly content with well-balanced legislation that is neither too permissive nor too restrictive.
On the other hand, the risk of such registries is not theoretical for Czechs. In 1939, when Germany invaded [what remained of] the country, one of the first things they did was to confiscate all legally owned weapons — which was only made possible by the registry, and significantly impaired armed resistance. Lesson learned, and practiced decades after the war ended: hidden illegal arms are better than legal ones.
By the way, on the subject of the rest of your comment: everybody needs a permit here and we're fine with the system. Unlike in most of the rest of the EU, you have a legal right for a conceal carry permit, provided that you meet the legal requirements that I think amount to a background check in US: no recent (or, if serious, ever) crime record, no recent relevant misdemeanor (basically DUI or getting into fights, i.e. just the kind of irresponsible person you don't want to have a gun), no relevant medical problems (basically impairing judgment or motor skills). And you have to pass an exam, akin to driver's license, that tests for your knowledge of the law and practical ability to safely handle firearms and hit a target.
You need a permit for every gun too, with paperwork involved in any sort of sale, but the permit is automatic, just bureaucracy (except for firearms with restricted sale in EU, most notably full-auto; the you need to demonstrate a need and may or may not be granted a permit).
By the way, this is the story of every regulated industry as it starts to fall under the specter of regulation. Everyone says "Who are you to tell me what I can do? Where will it end?" The answer is that laws will stop changing when public opinion stops changing.
I'm sure that those getting rich at the teat of Carnegie, Rockefeller, et al were none too pleased about increasing antitrust regulation in their era. It went against everything they had built their empires upon. That's too bad. It had to be done to address an urgent threat to American way of life. Gun control advocates see mass shootings in the news and see such a threat.
To many of us, that's akin to suggesting that freedom of speech should be curtailed if public sentiment is against it.
We really do see arms as a basic human right, right up there with speech and religion and assembly.
In the last 2-3 generations, the US has experienced a pretty huge shift from rural to urban. The difference in life experience between those two environments is pretty stark.
Someone whose family has always (let's say 2-3 generations) lived in, say, rural or suburban Mississippi is going to have exposure to and basic knowledge of firearms. Someone whose family has always lived in LA, or New York, or Chicago, probably won't.
As with many things, group A has little interest in the lives of group B, and vice versa, and so you get enormous gulfs of understanding. Firearms isn't the only one.
The Conservatives think that HRC was going to their house and take all their guns. That wasn't her position at all.
I agree that everyone should familiarize themselves with guns but for practical self defense purposes a shotgun and a rifle are not that different. A shotgun only spreads about 8inches at a self defense range ( 10m or so ).
If the range is longer than that it's more a skirmish that Self Defense.
.22LR is the most common caliber in homicides. I'd rather have a 9mm, but the best gun is the one you can access when you need it.
As background checks discourage the opportunity to exercise a civil right, I believe it should be viewed with the same degree of judicial scrutiny that voting should be.
An imposition of fees or taxes on the right disenfranchises the poor, just as a poll tax does. An imposition of mandatory registration or waiting periods is an imposition of delayed exercise of the right, and I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. had the right of it when he proclaimed that "A right delayed is a right denied". The imposition of any sort of vetting or background checking process seems to me to be a violation of the presumption of innocence, which in turn diminishes the effectiveness of the first and fourth amendments, and seems ripe for opening the door towards warrantless searches, stop and frisk, etc.
I personally could give two shits about guns, but because I'm a fan of the rights we're afforded as American citizens, I respect the second amendment. Failing to do so diminishes all of the other rights, as they're all subject to high-water mark interpretations of judicial scrutiny, and the lower the bar goes for bypassing scrutiny on one right, the bar is lowered for all our rights.
Note that if you try to do it in this order, you will fail with some firearms because the safety locks the slide.
And, point it at the ground, OK?
It's advice on par with telling someone to set aside money in their retirement for a nuclear bunker.
According to the ATF[1], there are more firearms in America than people. The idea that you might live your whole life and never see one is far from a given, though rurality vs. urbanality almost certainly affects this, as well as the carry laws in the area you live. The statement is almost certainly more true in somewhere like California than it is in Alaska, but in my experience, definitely doesn't hold true for "America" on the whole.
That said, the strength of my recommendation is not very strong, but if you're asking, "Why should I take a pistol class?", general safety is a good reason.
There's a search page to help you find a course near you (by zip code)[0]. If you scroll down to the bottom of the table, there's the "NRA Home Firearm Safety Course" which goes over basic handling procedures for various types of firearm. It also goes over some topics more specific to storing firearms in the home, but is mostly a general safety course as far as I understand.
I cannot recommend the NRA as many people (former members, including myself) feel they have gone from being an advocate for the 2nd Amendment in the United States to being a mouthpiece for the Republican Party and it tends to come up with their instructors, classes, and other students and would probably put most progressives off.
I would do research to see if your state offers any sort of Hunter Education programs instead as they tend to focus less on the politics (IMO) are more comprehensive multi-week classes. Plus some of these classes are available for no charge or help the state with preserving vs having to pay for the NRA courses.
https://www.hunter-ed.com/ might be a good place to start.
The word you are looking for is "awesome"
When I was a kid, I definitely thought that guns were 'cool', in some sense. I thought about them, I read about them, and I desired access to them. As I grew up and came to understand that (in the general case, and certainly for hand guns and the stuff mentioned above) guns are tools designed to end human lives, it became very hard for me to see them as anything more than a tragic symbol of human littleness.
What does 'awesome' mean, to you? Does it mean that they are symbols of power? Something else?
It's the same feeling you get when you watch explosions on MythBusters and such. Do explosions kill people? Yes. But they're pretty damn awesome when they don't.
...not to mention illegal
Here is a class I took on the MP5:
And not just any combat. The strong and numerous attackers don't really need better tools for hurting the small, lone, and weak; they can do that just fine already. Guns are for the weak to defend themselves against the strong. They let the little old lady stop multiple attackers. They let the lone rebel fight back against the oppressive government. The gun is civilization and democracy.
That's a far cry from ending human life. It's sustaining human life and culture. Speaking of culture, how dare you judge mine so harshly from yours?
Or is it more complicated than "abstinence"?
(I'd argue that it is. There is no biological drive to own a gun, just a socially constructed one. It's a different category of activity.)
I'm not going to argue that a gun is the only or even necessarily an appreciable way to advance this in most individuals, but for many people it likely does work into this biological need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#...
In some societies, such as the US, the biological need for security is met by the socially acceptable practice of gun ownership.
In other societies, it is not socially acceptable to meet that biological need with the practice of gun ownership.
Put differently, "natural predisposition to protecting self and family => self defense OK" is not the same proposition as "natural predisposition to protecting self and family => guns OK". There's an extra step in the latter, "self defense OK => guns OK" (which I was not making an explicit evaluation on). The analogy in the GP is a false equivalence.
Also, it's not like governments use those weapons responsibly, even though they have the "right" to own them...
This was accepted and understood at the time the Constitution was penned.
Yes! This is a great point, that hadn't occurred to me before.
The current proliferation of firearms in the US makes education the responsible choice. If nothing else, you should know how to render a firearm safe.
Abstinence only education is mandatory gun ownership and then refusing to provide any guidance beyond "don't shoot people".
Firearms: - A tool which can be used for a varierty of purposes - Must be purchased, i.e. it is a choice. - I suppose one could compare firearms training/use to martial arts, in that it can have personal benefits, but at the same time it's original purpose and base function is to defend oneself from, or (with guns) attack and kill another person.
So why are we comparing these two things again?
I am for anyone owning a firearm being educated. I don't own a gun and enjoy knowing a bit about them. I am also for a reasonable degree of gun control, and for acknowledging the fact that the U.S. appears to be unique in terms of the frequency of mass shootings, and of taking action (increasing the availability of mental health clinics, finding ways to restrict mentally ill people from owning firearms which does not violate the second amendment, etc) to do something about this.
[Edit]
And no firearms (unless carried by an officer) in schools, on campuses, or in places of worship.
"And no firearms (unless carried by an officer) in schools, on campuses, or in places of worship."
Why? It's legal in my state (KS) and there have been no shootings.
Goddard, Kansas
Armed with a rifle and a handgun, 14-year-old James Alan Kearbey, killed principal, James McGee, and wounded two teachers and a student at Goddard Junior High School.
Arbitrary rules. In that case, no guns allowed in grocery stores, zoos, museums, public places of gathering, anywhere where one might find humans.
I feel like you've abstracted one level too far. We're not comparing sex and firearms in a concrete sense; we're comparing one type of education as an appropriate way to mitigate the potentially damaging effects that being untrained causes, and another type of education as an appropriate way to mitigate the potential damages of being untrained.
As it stands, it's no worse or less than the nauseatingly constant comparison between firearms and automobiles, when the more apt comparison (in my opinion) is comparing firearms rights vs. voting rights.
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
You think you know someone's ultimate, real goal? Assuming that they didn't publicize that goal - how do you know it? Are you privy to their confidential discussions, was an internal whitepaper of theirs leaked?
Yes, I always get steamed when someone tries to impute motives to some other actor. But I'm not resorting to such here. I know it because the head of the organization (a while back, when it was named NCCH) said so:
The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal.
Support of this claim, and mention of other organizations that make an explicit goal of bans, here: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/07/24/david-kopel/one-mans...
I generally hear two perspectives from people:
1. the view that people should be allowed to buy guns after background checks and mandatory training.
2. the view that no checks or restrictions should be put on guns at all.
I haven't heard very many other proposals.
See my nearby citation of the guy who was heading the organization that later became the Brady Campaign:
"The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal."
"In November 2008, Brady president Helmke, a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, endorsed the American Hunters and Shooters Association saying, 'I see our issues as complementary to theirs.' He said, 'The Brady Campaign is not just East Coast liberal Democrats.'"
Most people who want to see more gun control are not out to ban all guns. Many of them own guns.
Guns definitely have their uses, for instance hunting. Target shooting is also quite fun, but these guns are rather different from the ones most gun enthusiasts like to own.
I think personal ownership of guns should be restricted, thought I will not make myself an expert as to how much. Certainly I think it's much more important to manage the access to ammunition. After all, a gun is only actually dangerous when it's loaded. Sure, a gun that isn't loaded can still be used to threaten people (because even then it demands attention and the utmost respect) or even pistol-whip them. But it is very unlikely to be used to kill anyone or anything.
Personally, I think guns belong on shooting ranges, and nowhere else, unless used for a practical purpose, such as hunting.
I live in Denmark. Firearm ownership is very restricted, you have to have a very good justification to own anything that isn't a hunting rifle, and there are very strict storage safety and handling laws in place. Maybe a lot of people think we are too restrictive, but as a counterpoint, we do have extremely low levels of gun violence.
Another example could be Switzerland. You can own guns and buy ammo, but there are much tighter background checks in place compared to the US. In addition to this, they have a much more developed culture for gun safety and respect for firearms, so their rates of gun violence are extremely low.
If you're not willing to go all the way restricted, as in most EU countries, I think the Swiss model is the best.
If guns are available, it is obvious that violent crime will more often involve them instead of knives, rope, and explosives (the other three big weapons in many places); but that alone is a neutral outcome. It is not a problem, in itself, that violent criminals use firearms to commit crimes.
The problem arises when firearms enhance criminals' violent outcomes when committing violent crimes. That outcome is harder to measure and build a political campaign on, but it is infinitely more honest and productive.
This isn't really workable. One of the primary ways criminal gangs acquire firearms here in the US is through "straw purchases", where they have someone with a clean record go purchase a gun for them.
This works fairly well for them, but has its limits: if guns you've purchased later turn up in crimes, you're likely to face pointed questions. You can't do this too often without putting yourself at serious risk.
But straw purchases of ammunition are almost impossible to track. If the buyer is asked to account for their ammunition, they can simply claim to have shot it all already.
Meanwhile, it adds great expense to ammunition (My local stores mark up their ammo nearly 100% already, and it will become worse next January once it's illegal for me to order ammunition online). And because criminals actually use very little ammunition, this cost falls almost entirely on legitimate target shooters and hunters, who are the ones shooting tens of thousands of rounds a year.
I take great issue with this. You say you came from 'country living' - but I find that hard to believe in light of your comment above.
Anyone who lives in the country, where it will take the cops 10-20 minutes to respond, knows damn well why we have the 2A and the right to keep firearms in our homes for self-defense.
Source: Repelled a home invasion robbery attempt at 16 - it took 15 minutes for sheriff's department to arrive after 911 call as they were coming into our home.
In the UK, the situation is a bit different:
Rural/Country living is still much closer to urban areas because the country is much smaller
The strict control over firearms means that it's very unlikely that a home invasion robbery is going to involve guns on their part.
Personally, if that happens - despite the fact that I own 3 shotguns, I'm not going to resist. Insurance will give me back all my stuff.
In my opinion I think comes down to a fundamental difference in attitudes. We're happy to let our government run things, we trust them with guns rather than anyone else. For (large segments of) the US population there isn't that trust. They don't like the idea of a government having all the power, there is a fundamental lack of trust there (please don't take that as criticism, I'm beginning to come round to that point of view!). It's the independent frontier mentality. Maybe due to difference in age of country? I don't know.
Short of that, it does also have a lot to do with visibility / response times: If i were able to see the sheriffs dept. cruising our backroads more frequently - I would feel much more assured of my safety, and probably be less concerned with keeping weapons for personal defense.
As far as the "age of the country"... I'm calling BS. Unless your country was formed within the last generation, the matter is irrelevant how long people have been living in a certain territory. And if you want to get technical, the US Constitution is the oldest, surviving charter of government in existence. I resent the fact that Europeans have the gall to suggest that we're the immature ones when it comes to government.
Ref: http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/sep/22/bo...
They'll never understand true freedom, and considering their land is under siege its not surprise the level of doublethink they have to do to still agree with their backwards way of life.
I detest every fearsome second a cop has to live in America, every time he walks up to a car or a flats door. To be honest, in such a country, i can very well understand somebody who wants to return home in the evening- and thus shoots first.
That's cute, as if you've ever had actual freedom in the US.
In fact the CDC report commissioned by Obama after Sandy Hook showed that there is in fact a protective effect (obviously) from firearms possession.
Sources:
[1] - http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-s...
[2] - https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18319/priorities-for-research-to...
It's a long report and sounds like an interesting finding.
Additional research is needed to weigh the competing risks and protective benefits that may accompany gun ownership in different communities. doesn't exactly sound conclusive.
"However, other studies conclude that gun ownership protects against serious injury when guns are used defensively (Kleck and Gertz, 1995; Tark and Kleck, 2004)."
I suppose the problem is that I read In fact the CDC report commissioned by Obama after Sandy Hook showed that there is in fact a protective effect (obviously) from firearms possession. and expected evidence showing that the benefits were greater than the risks, rather than a simple citation of research claiming there is a benefit.
The number of justifiable gun homicides (Self-defense) is closer to ~250/year. [2]
So, your gun is indeed twice as likely to kill someone in an accident, then a bad guy in self-defense. (Never mind that not all of those justifiable homicides prevented violence against your physical person. Killing a burglar who wanted your stereo is lumped in the same category as killing someone who wanted to murder you.)
I don't have much of a horse in the legislature of gun control, but for most people, planning on using their gun for self-defense is a bit like becoming an alcoholic to reduce your risk of heart disease.
This is a ridiculous conclusion. Sorry, you can't just take numbers from one study, and divide by another to approximate relative risk or odds ratio. That isn't how public health statistics and policy works.
You’re also arguing to the wrong side of the brain. In face of danger, I will never ever choose to remain helpless. It goes against every single instinct a man has.
Citation needed.
No, even if that was relevant, if you want to get technical that of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is older, whether you date from writing or adoption.
> I resent the fact that Europeans have the gall to suggest that we're the immature ones when it comes to government.
We are, and those of us who are quick to resent it being pointed out do nothing to diminish the truth of that. We're old enough that the (second, actually) system set up when we founded the country is dated, and young enough that we still imagine that our founders' innovations are somehow the end of history so we don't even consider dealing with it. The latter is immaturity and arrogance.
That particular precedent isn't just a one-time thing, it has been used in a variety of cases[1] since the ruling came down.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia [1] - http://www.barneslawllp.com/police-not-required-protect/
Police don't have personal teleporters and there isn't an infinite number of them. Want a 5 minute response in the country? Pay 90% tax that goes to the police departments. I'd still be amazed if you'd get it down to under 10 minutes consistently.
> The strict control over firearms means that it's very unlikely that a home invasion robbery is going to involve guns on their part.
Many Americans will argue that the 2A and personal weapons mean that home invasions are less likely to occur in the first place because of increased risk to the criminal (getting your head shot off).
Not necessarily saying they're right, but there is another side to gun control.
Another argument is that the wide availability of guns, combined with the harsh penalties faced by criminals, create an environment where criminals become needlessly aggressive and ruthless, because "well, I'm going away for 20 anyway, might as well go all the way".
That explains a lot about the current situation in your country, honestly.
I think this marks some confusion over exactly what constitutes 'rural'. The UK certainly has rural settings in terms of town size, small access roads, culture, etc. But having spent time in both, the UK just doesn't have anything like the US in terms of distance.
Salmon, Idaho is several hours from... anything, really. You could go from Inverness to Glasgow in about the time it takes to get to an actual city. It's down in a canyon, so there's no FM radio, much less cell phone service. The police force is eight people, with a guarantee that at least one will be on duty 24 hours a day.
If that one officer gets a call about an issue, he might well have a 20 minute drive - speeding, on empty roads - to the farm where there's a problem. And Salmon is the county seat. There are much smaller towns and farm communities out there. This isn't a problem you can realistically solve with better policing or more money, because things legitimately are that far apart.
---
Someone in my extended family spends winters snowed in - some years there's simply no access in or out of a 'town of 50 people for ~4 months straight. He keeps a rifle handy to shoot coyotes that come for his livestock. Are we really going to go with "he should wait for a police response, or insurance compensation"?
A friend of mine, with an exceedingly liberal family, grew up with a high-powered rifle at home, the sort of thing people regularly try to ban. For fear that in his town of six people, there was no other way to deal with a bear or moose that got aggressive.
A friend of a friend is disabled and chronically unemployed in the rural midwest. Hunted meat makes up a nontrivial percentage of his diet, because ammo is cheaper than food. This being America, saying "take away his gun but give him lifelong welfare" isn't going to work, and he'd hate you for it anyway - he's proud that he feeds himself just fine.
I'm not trying to be snarky here. In very rural America, this is the situation for a lot of people. These are people who don't live near any gun crime, but own and use guns for everyday purposes. It has more in common with northern Canada than any place in England or western Europe.
And there is a hell of a lot of difference between living in the (very) rural countryside, and living in a city.
I fully admit that my perspective is influenced by living in small country with relatively short distances between towns and cities (hell, it's even impossible to get more than 50km from the sea, anywhere in the entire country). But I honestly still think my reasoning stands up.
My objection, then, is that I have approximately zero faith in the people making these rules to recognize that. If a gun law is written, it will with near-perfect reliability be written by people who know little or nothing about guns, designed for comfortably suburban settings, and passed out of fear of urban violence.
So... I don't know that we disagree so much. I can support more gun regulation in theory, but almost always oppose it in practice because the things that get written are high-impact on practical use, yet totally ineffective at their goals.
You're not from country living. That statement you made up top seems like virtue signaling to make your seem friendly to everyone.
> Certainly I think it's much more important to manage the access to ammunition. After all, a gun is only actually dangerous when it's loaded. Sure, a gun that isn't loaded can still be used to threaten people (because even then it demands attention and the utmost respect) or even pistol-whip them. But it is very unlikely to be used to kill anyone or anything.
Gun control has historically not stopped violent crime. I'll give it to you, it restricts ACCIDENTAL shootings committed by guns. But the other side of that story is that criminals still have guns, and will still kill you with them. Baby, meet bathwater.
> Personally, I think guns belong on shooting ranges, and nowhere else, unless used for a practical purpose, such as hunting.
Again you're not a country kid. I'm from the west and my CCW is one of my most important possessions and a statement that I can and will defend the lives of my family and myself.
> I live in Denmark. Firearm ownership is very restricted, you have to have a very good justification to own anything that isn't a hunting rifle
How do you defend yourself during a robbery? Home invasion? These things aren't uniquely American. Wackos are everywhere.
> Another example could be Switzerland. You can own guns and buy ammo, but there are much tighter background checks in place compared to the US.
Background checks put unnecessary strain on honest citizens. Criminals don't need background checks - why do I?
> they have a much more developed culture for gun safety and respect for firearms, so their rates of gun violence are extremely low.
They have a culture around mandatory service in the armed forces. Their people are conditioned to see guns and aren't afraid of them - similar to pre-1970 America. It used to be that "only bad guys hid their guns" and now I have to own a CCW to defend myself because snowflakes might get offended.
> as in most EU countries
Yeah and things seem to be going SO WELL over there, right?
I live in New York state. I'm an honest citizen, and I've never been in any more trouble than a broken tail light. It took 11 months for my pistol permit to be approved, and yet there was no "strain". It was literally something I applied for and forgot about until the sheriff called to do my in-home interview, which is also required here to get your permit. Somehow it wasn't the end of the world, because I, like most people, don't actually have a "need" for guns. The only thing that bothered me about the wait is that it doesn't apply to every state.
And no, home defense isn't a need; it's an excuse. Guns are fun. Dangerous, but fun, and that's why people get them in 2017. Any other reason you or others give is a rationalization based on anecdotes of home invasions that will probably never occur in your lifetime.
Maybe it should take 11 months to register to vote?
> I, like most people, don't actually have a "need" for guns
That's awesome for you, truly! The government is notoriously bad at making subjective decisions for the population at large, however, which is why staunch regulation is met with such resistance.
> home defense isn't a need; it's an excuse
I need to defend my home: I am not physically capable, nor should I be required to take the risk of engaging a violent, felonious aggressor or his posse with my bare hands.
I can't afford to live in a great area, so burglaries are quite common. Do I have less of a right to defend myself because I am poor?
--
Simply put: the Second Amendment grants me the right to keep and bear a firearm, as affirmed and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I don't need any excuse or rationalization: jurists much smarter than I have done that for society at large.
Stats show that despite having the most amount of guns, the US does not have the most amount of homicides (by firearm) per capita. Most EU (and Canada!) are doing quite well by comparison against the US.
Actually, they are. According to Wikipedia[0] the US has over 10.54 gun related deaths/100K while the UK has 0.23. That's a 45x difference.
Of course I picked the UK, because it's the second best European country (the best is Romania). My own, the Netherlands is doing much worse at 0.58 deaths/100K.
But even the worst western Europe country, Finland, is doing 3 times better than the US at 3.25 deaths/100K.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
How is basic/safe operation, safe handling procedures (call an adult!) not effective teaching?
Look up the four main rules of firearm safety. Adherence to these rules will all but eliminate the risk of a dangerous malfunction (extremely rare) or fumble (less rare) during firearm operation and cleaning.
Nope, they happen. I'll leave it to you to search for them. For me, there are people who need guns, and people who must not have them. They're killing machines and serve no other purpose (unlike the knife which has utility).
As for the rest of your comment, that line of reasoning has been addressed thousands of times, so I won't bother being thousands plus one. My firearm usage doesn't involve killing anything, so this should be a big glaring hint that there's an error in your reasoning.
As a Scout we were taught to shoot various things (rifle's, bow and arrow etc). I dont see what it does anything to help introduce sane gun laws?
I don't know how this played out in the rest of the US, but I have a feeling that there aren't many (if any schools) that allow guns on their campuses, even if for the sake of education.
Same town, different era: My 12 year old nephew received a poor grade and "this is terrible!" written on his essay by his teacher because "What I did last weekend" recapped target shooting with his dad and grandpa at the range.
They have ex-military personnel teaching this as an optional component (you were expected to do CCF or Duke of Edinburgh Awards) - but it is kind of odd to have school kids dressing up in military camo outfits to go into school one day a week.
http://methowvalleynordic.com/biathlon-home/
edit: added link
It was pretty common in the 50s, and up to the civil rights era in the 60s, but after that, the answer is very much no. Currently, possession of a firearm on school grounds is a felony for almost everyone.
Depends on the state of course, but it isn't a federal GFZA violation if you are state-legal and have a state-issued permit to carry.
But there is a point you are leaving out that comes up if you talk to anyone who does treat firearms seriously: many people do not take those classes and/or do not treat guns safely. Go to a range on Sunday and that will be really clear. Or read the comment history by people who bring this up whenever guns come up in a general forum. Often they rightly end up complaining about safety of other gun owners in posts in more topic specific forums. But somehow, when it comes to a general audience, those issues get omitted.
Taking the class would give you a distinctly wrong impression about the responsibility of all gun owners. As does the suggestion to take the class.
Sorry, not to single you out specifically, it really is a good suggestion. But the net rhetorical effect of people making points like this is (and I think it's intentional) to skew the framing of the issue. Yes, you may be responsible, but with the exception of some people who would never heed your advice, people who want more regulation of firearms aren't worried about you. Guns don't kill people, some people with guns kill people.
If guns were meant to protect us from our government--well we already have an overtly anti-constitutional, criminal government with disproportionate powers residing in unelected individuals.
Oh but if we make guns illegal--well there already are too many unregistered that it would empower criminal interests, both economically from a black market, and from having relatively more firepower.
Ah but you just want to "save lives?" Well if you want to save people's lives isn't it easier to ignore all this bullshit and do something like go supply clean drinking water to an undeveloped part of the world?
You don't really believe that otherwise you would've left to one of the other hundreds of countries in the world, unless you believe all governments are criminal.
> Ah but you just want to "save lives?"
I'm interested in saving my own life if I'm ever in danger. I already have a brita filter.
And how are you not aware of any unconstitutionality or illegality?
>I already have a brita filter.
Oh of course, it's all about self interest.
Because that is how that particular constitution is worded.
So still doable, and would not impact the gun fans about owning guns, many of which would of already done lessons.
Just protects people from those, accidents with guns, as we do with cars by insisting they own pass a test.
Courts are built on the shoulders of reasonable individuals (judges).
The law, especially as it relates to something as complicated as the Constitution, isn't a computer system with blind "gotchas" and logical loopholes.
There is no reasonable person that would, after jurisprudence established in Heller and McDonald, argue that firearms and their ammunition are exclusive of one another for purposes of legislation (and rights infringement).
The men who wrote the bill of rights were not infallible.
Sure, it's entirely possible to argue that from a technical or legal standpoint, it wouldn't be possible to require a firearms handling test.
But as far as principle goes, I don't think that the constitution is a valid reasoning.
We only allow people to drive a car on public land after they get a license.
They can own a car and use it on private land as much as they want without a license.
That's how most gun owners agree it should be for guns. If you want to own and shoot your gun on private land, more power to you. If you want to carry a gun on public land, you get the appropriate license (hunting or carry permit). Same as with cars.
I have nowt against people owning a gun in America, more case of making sure they and others are safe when they use it and with that, protecting their lives. Which I'm sure is part of the constitution and if not, then it sure does add something needed perhaps. After all it can have amendments, just need to see the prohibition of alcohol to see how that can work.
[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/ [2] I'm not sure I agree with the interpretation that the "militia" in the second amendment consists of potentially all citizens, but IANAL and SCOTUS seems to disagree, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[0]: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title10/html/USCOD...
The rear peep sight on rifles take advantage of actual "optical effects", without any glass -- much like a pinhole camera can actually magnify images without any lenses or mirrors at all.
By simply providing an arbitrarily small "aperature" you're looking through in the rear, the front-rear sight alignment problem is not only capped at an upper bound of error (defined by the peephole size and sight radius), but the actual error from front-rear sight misalignment is visually magnified and centered through a fixed viewing point, making it vastly easier to keep the actual error near zero.
So generally, to achieve precision within the (small) upper bound of error with a peephole sight, all you need to do is place the front sight post on the target when looking through the rear peep sight. Even better precision is made much easier via a sort of "peephole camera" effect through the aperature of the rear sight.
The hard part is having a solid hold and body control, reading the wind, and having super consistent ammunition that you intimately know all the elevation adjustments for. The remainder is how much money you spent on your barrel and how many rounds it has down it. A tight shooting coat helps a great deal, too.
I got bored with the whole thing when it occurred to me that I was just throwing money at barrels and other gear. Not to say that the game isn't highly competitive, but like auto racing, it's a money thing. Similar to many such pursuits, to take it to the max you will pretty much end up divorced.
And if you want to throw some money into the bow, you can put together the same bow that Olympic shooters are using for about $2000. The compound bows you see on the World Cup circuit are a bit more, perhaps $3000. Keep in mind that's for very top-end gear. (See [1] for examples of what I'm talking about.)
Takes all the work out of sight alignment and then you can focus on breathing, heartbeat and trigger squeeze.
I actually did once use a rifle with such sights to take some small game. It was not easy to aim outside of the conditions for which it was designed.
The military style peep + blade is a good compromise I think, especially when have to worry about ranging.
I work from home and I live in the burbs so pistol or rifle shooting is not possible. However, I've gotten really hooked on shooting (of all things) my Red Ryder BB gun. It doesn't make a loud noise, it costs almost nothing to shoot, and it's surprisingly accurate for how inexpensive it is. These little BB guns have iron sights like the article discusses.
My favorite thing to shoot is little plastic bottles--particularly the ones that over-the-counter medication comes in. They're durable and make a nice popping noise when you hit them. I put them on little stakes in the back yard at about 10-15 yards and shoot at them from my deck. As I got better, I made up little games, like shooting them in a sequence and trying to get 100% accuracy. I find it easy to get back to writing code after doing this for five or ten minutes.
I've had the same effect from lifting and fly fishing.
Not only do you have to find the limits of control you have over your various muscle groups, but you must come to understand that which you have limited control over, such as your breathing, heartbeat, reflexes, and background muscle vibrations. All of these things conspire to push you off target, so you must find ways to suppress natural reflexes, manage your heartbeat, and gently work around the subtle background vibrations of your body.
Alas, BB guns are banned in my city, so I just go to the range. Airsoft in the living room too, but it's messy as the pellets tend to bounce out of the trap.
Even for that one (subsonic, small rounds, suppressed, nitro piston), it would probably have been irritating to fire indoors.
Edit: In hindsight, I suppose a suppressed, rimfire 22 would be pretty quiet.
The distinction is pretty important, because you certainly do not need a Class III SOT to own a Title II item.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/04/jeremy-s/guns-for-b...
Its worth noting though: back then cars were called 'horseless carriages'. Which is pretty much an obsolete term. So maybe we can let 'silencer' die too.
//edit// Sorry if that sounds too rude. Email in my profile if you want my Steam ID.
> strategy
You've outed yourself, I'm afraid.
I won't link to it here but I'm sure an interested person could find it pretty easily.
Does what you did in JSOC have anything to do with your current career? Are there any skills or lessons that you have found particularly useful in your civilian life?
Obviously disregard any of this if you don't feel comfortable talking about it.
Nothing is _literally_ on fire? Meh...
Some things which would be (more than) dangerous on a civilian level: helicopter dunk tank, boxing, climbing from a boat to a ship on a cargo net, working with a squad full of 19 year olds with live ammo, a lt with a map.
Going to the grenade range, pulling the pin and you're now holding a live grenade. The only safety at this point is an individual's ability to not freak out and remember what to do.
That's mostly infantry related dangers. The other branches and sections all have large machinery/vehicles ready to run people over or blast them off the flight deck. I know of a sailor who was flown out after a table slid across the mess deck and pinned him to the wall.
The list could just go on and on -- heat exhaustion, hunger, exposure, blisters, bites, infections in the field. All of this is the normal and doesn't even begin to touch on combat where someone is actively interested in doing you harm.
edit -- the point of the above is that first you have to calibrate from civ normal to mil normal before considering combat. Even military normal is so far removed from IT related stress it is laughable.
My time/training has helped greatly with attention to detail and focus. Being able to complete a mental task while completely exhausted is something which is definitely trained.
Looks like the Internet Archive have saved some of the photos:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050908070029/http://interdictor...
Might be of interest for those who haven't seen it before.
Wikipedia provides a little context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdictor_(blog) Unfortunately
I've shot a bit, but only rimfire long guns, air rifles, and air pistols. The pistols were harder to shoot by a _long_ margin, and I can imagine it'd get orders of magnitude harder w/ more recoil, noise to promote flinching, etc. etc.
So with your comments in mind, and my own limited experience, do you have any idea why every Police-critter here in Australia is armed with a pistol, rather than something easier to use? I mean, in my head it looks like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHEhMKQhGKE
"It feels like you're shooting a toy gun sometimes" (similar to my experience w/ a suppressed semi-auto .22LR)
vs. this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXeYAfMeaBY
The only things I can think of in favour of the pistol:
* Cheaper (maybe?)
* Less intrusive / easier to carry (for the 99.99% of the time when you _don't_ need it).
* Less intimidating (for those who don't know how hard it is to hit a moving target w/ a pistol ;) ).
Are you suggesting that submachine guns make you more likely to miss your mark? If so, this is spoken like someone with absolutely zero firearms experience, as submachine guns are much more accurate and controllable than handguns...
Yes, firing from the hip on full rock-n-roll is less accurate than controlled shots from a pistol, though I should think that was both obvious and beside the point.
Carefully controlled shots from an SMG are systematically better-placed than carefully-controlled shots from a pistol. Full stop. Moreover, SMGs are so damn easy to control (again, assuming they're used properly, i.e. with the extensible/foldable/fixed stock) that you can trivially put 3-to-5-round bursts in a human torso at 5 meters. Anybody who can't do that has no business carrying an SMG.
Surely you'll concede than in just about any professional situation, full-auto fire is not used. Full-auto fire is a suppressive technique, and as such it is largely relegated to military action (and not with SMGs, by the way).
It is absolutely absurd to suggest that pistols are more accurate and more controllable than a firearm with a longer barrel and stock.
Absolutely, astoundingly absurd.
Not really. Try moving a fire-selector from safe to semi under stress and see how quickly you stop. Then look at the number of shots fired from fully-automatic weapons during police shootings. Then tell me long-burst fire isn't a concern when deciding where they should be deployed.
Curious if you've ever fired a submachine-gun on full-auto? You'll either rise significantly within a few shots or you're applying enough downward pressure to make it very unstable during recoil.
edit: Your edits to the above post seem to be repeating themselves and adding italics. Maybe I'll just concede the argument so you can stop hyperventilating at your keyboard. Calm down, seriously, for your own health.
I'm perfectly calm. Please don't be condescending. I'm being insistant because you seem intent on missing the point, which is the following:
1) Single, controlled shots from pistols are less accurate than their equivalents fired from SMGs with stocks
2) Yes, automatic fire decreases accuracy. Don't use automatic fire where accuracy is a concern.
To claim otherwise is, again, absurd.
That's what I said. I haven't argued with #1 at all, in fact I've specifically agreed with it. #2 would be my biggest concern in deciding when to deploy fully-automatic weapons to routine law-enforcement. It's a common (and increasingly so) thing in the US to do is to issue semi-automatic only rifles to police officers for their patrol vehicles. In London you'll see a number of police officers at various high-risk locations carrying MP5s, slung while on guard. If I'm not mistaken, they are select-fire.
So in deciding which firearm I would issue for which deployment, what I'm saying is that my list of concerns about a submachine gun or similar firearm, whether or not the situation and the training level of the officers is appropriate for the potential of fully-automatic fire is far higher on my list of concerns than over-penetration. If you miss the target, everything is over-penetration.
I don't see how that's "absolutely absurd". I don't think data is available on how well officers manipulate safety switches under stress, but the rate at which even moderately trained personnel blow through all their rounds without hitting anything, military or SWAT, is astounding. So yes, don't use automatic fire if you don't need it. The reality is not so simple, IMO.
Hollow point handgun rounds drastically reduce the danger of over-penetration present with rifle rounds for likely police scenarios.
Most plausible scenarios where an officer would be forced to discharge a weapon wouldn't really benefit from a larger, more cumbersome weapon. Police usually have to shoot in close-range engagements that end in a few short seconds.
Cost is not really a factor. Look at the cost of weapons used by police departments. Handguns aren't drastically cheaper than decent rifles.
> Hollow point handgun rounds drastically reduce the danger of over-penetration present with rifle rounds for likely police scenarios.
Isn't really true anymore. There are modern cartridges for 5.56 that have great ballistics while in the air, and then very reliably dump all their energy into the first thing they hit, to the point where if you shoot drywall they will make a huge hole in it but not significantly harm a person standing a few meters behind it. If you are concerned about overpenetration, today it should guide your selection of ammo, not your weapon.
Of all the 5.56 vs drywall tests I've seen (and there are lots out there), they never make a hole in drywall larger than 5.56 unless it has yawed, and even then it is a keyhole no larger than the un-deformed round. To make "a huge hole" in drywall it would have to expand massively and immediately, and I've never seen a 5.56 round capable of expansion when hitting drywall. Even frangible rounds essentially turn into 3 or 4 projectiles after passing through drywall, but I'd never say 1/3 of 55 grains at 2000+ fps would "not significantly harm a person".
[0] http://www.olyarms.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie...
Relevant excerpts:
"Tests 1-6: Bare gelatin, heavy clothing, automobile sheet metal, wallboard, plywood, and vehicle windshield safety glass, were shot a distance of 10 feet from the muzzle."
"Tests 7-13: All involved shots through heavy clothing, safety glass and bare gelatin at 50 to 100 yards, concluding with internal walls, external walls and body armor at 10 feet."
"The Bureau’s research also suggests that common household barriers such as wallboard, plywood, internal and external walls are also better attacked with pistol rounds, or larger caliber battle rifles, if the objective is to "dig out" or neutralize people employing such object as cover or concealment."
"If an operator misses the intended target, the .223 will generally have less wounding potential than some pistol rounds after passing through a wall or similar structure."
Really unsure as to how you could possibly have come to that conclusion after reading the link....
Edit: now that I think about it, people unfamiliar with ballistic testing might not know that gelatin is almost always used to find out data about efficacy downrange regardless of what other things are being tested, so I can kinda see how you might take my comment at face value and feel that it was immediately contradicted if you didn't read the entire summary (which is a bit long).
I still say though, the original comment I replied to is mischaracterizing what happens when 5.56 hits drywall. It does not make a huge hole, and I don't know how you could say it "would not significantly harm" a person on the other side. See some tests here w/ photos regarding drywall and 5.56 penetration: https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-14-rifles-shotg...
Pistol calibers very well may penetrate further after passing through drywall (as the FBI tests indicate) but there is no evidence to claim that 5.56 is less than lethal after passing through a sheet of drywall.
"The hypothesis turned out to be correct: V-Max bullets started fragmenting within the first sheet of drywall and completely blew to pieces on their way out of the second sheet, leaving dramatic craters." http://how-i-did-it.org/drywall/results.html
" Q: Why carry a handgun? Are you expecting trouble?
A: If I were expecting trouble, I'd carry a rifle. "
i.e., the pistol is an everyday-carry weapon, to take with you if you think a situation might be resolved without use of force. If you know going in you're going to get in a gunfight, you go to the car and grab your shotgun or rifle.
Over here, it's actually much more common to see a police officer equipped with a sub-machinegun or a carbine rifle than a handgun. Firearms are used as a tactical resource to be deployed as needed, rather than an insurance policy for ordinary officers.
That might be because some UK police refuse to carry because the UK doesn't have laws to protect officers (those laws that the US has that are constantly protested). https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/15/police-chief...
Can't say I blame them. Why would someone take on the chance of being charged with murder for carrying out their job's duties? It's not an easy problem to solve, but I think the ease of access to firearms is only going to increase, and they're going to have to get the UK police sorted with carrying.
Perhaps the laws in the UK need fixing (they did in New Zealand last I checked) but it should be a level playing field.
I'm not asking for police to be protected if they're malicious, but if a police officer completes all his training correctly and tries his hardest to make the right decision in that pivotal moment, but makes a mistake and shoots when he shouldn't, then he's sentenced to life in prison if he is held to the same standard as a civilian.
And people wonder why their police officers aren't the best and the brightest: anyone making a rational decision under these terms wouldn't take the job.
But that's the problem! The civilian shouldn't be going to jail, either, should they?
That is, I don't think the standard for prosecution for killing someone should be different for civilians and police.
Some would fix the problem by giving the police special immunity; I'd fix it by changing self defence laws for everyone.
Or perhaps, to put it another way, under what situation could you imagine yourself as a juror convicting a civilian of murder, but acquitting a police officer who acted identically?
Thinking about that for a bit and it sounds reasonable. A cop should only be shooting someone if he believes his or someone else's life is in danger and that's the same standard as civs in most states.
Perhaps cops in the US have more protection with their unions and such. I assumed that there must be a difference between US and UK because UK officers are refusing to carry whereas US aren't, but that difference might be that US officers get fired if they refuse to carry.
I think with recent events in the UK it shows that rapid response is too slow; your cops need guns.
"Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I think you oughta get yourself an M-16.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, if the time comes I need one, there'll be plenty lying on the ground. "
Having spent a fair amount of time in my youth shooting with a BB pistol in my parents garage, I find the above statistic entirely believable. Shooting a pistol accurately is much more difficult than it looks, so I can certainly imagine that in a high stress situation where your own life may be on the line you'll make simple mistakes that cause you to miss..
Most hunters pass this test without much difficulty. Of course, on the range the distance is known (100m, IIRC), and the target moves at a constant and known speed, so one knows how much lead is needed. Still, AFAIU in the wild the results are decent.
90% of handgun shootings are < 3 feet
Takes 7-15 seconds to bleed out from a direct shot to the heart (i.e. drugged up people are still dangerous after multiple shots to chest). The only instant stop is a 2" band around the head.
15% of handgun shootings are fatal (mostly due to quick medical response these days).
In the one second you have to draw, the bad guy can cover 18 feet from a standstill; have done this drill.
If you're talking about a pistol, the right Trijicon optic might easily be the most reliable part of the weapon. The issue is that is really difficult to use a handgun with optics well. Intuitively, people might think it makes the gun easier to use, but it's a feature that can really magnify your mistakes.
Competitive pistol shooters actually use several different sight picture styles.
In the speed styles of competitive shooting, the goal is to hit targets as fast as possible, so you want to make each shot in the "worst" way that will give you about a 95% chance of a hit. So for a close, low risk target, a shooter may look only at the target and ignore the sights, for a tiniest fraction more speed.
For most targets, the looking at the front sight is correct. Shooters tend to lock their upper body into one shape, then pivot it from target to target while shooting a string. This locks the rear sight in just the right place behind the front one. When the front sight is put on target, the rear sight is automatically in the right place. It's true that the target does become blurred a little when you do this.
Then for really far targets, you do have to bring your focus back a little farther, and see and care about both sights.
The sight picture is not the only thing that changes from target to target. You usually budget the amount of time spent for each shot.
Surprisingly, many pros know where their round will hit before it reaches the target. The time penalty for missing a shot is so high that it's almost always better to take a second shot in case of a miss. However, it takes a while for a pistol shot to reach the target, and for your eyes to see where it landed (plus you'd have to change your focus to look for it, then back again to your sights). To get around that, with practice, you can know in the moment you pull the trigger where the round went, and follow it up in about a twentieth of a second with another round.
In most competitive pistol matches, the sequence of targets to be shot on a given stage is not rigidly defined. There are often plenty of constraints (this group must be shot before these) or timing related constraints in some sports (shooting this target will cause a pair of targets to pop up in 1.2 seconds). Given this, there's a surprising amount of planning that goes into discovering the optimum run. The details of each shot are then worked out and mentally rehearsed.
And knowing when a gun is being handled safely will prevent many of the accidents that occur when the naive start handling a gun like they've seen done on television and film.
I don't find this a very compelling argument and it comes off as a personal attack rather than composed intellectual rationale. Instead of saying why you think this is a poor idea, you essentially say this is a poor idea because no one else does it--which is the exact thought process that stifles innovation and new ideas.
Regardless of whether teaching gun safety at that age is a good idea, your argument against it leaves much to be desired.
For the use cases that really matter, you won't be taking well-aimed shots, you'll be trying to get rounds out of the weapon in the general direction of the threat as quickly as possible, in order to buy yourself some time and/or space.
The front sight rule is not just the best aiming mechanism for the reasons of geometry described in the article, it's also the quickest way to acquire a basic sight picture under stressful conditions.
Within the Fresnel approximation, the output field can either be formed in a frequency-domain approach with a spectrum of plane waves or as a spatial superposition of paraboloid waves (in which the transfer function is inverse-fourier transformed and then convolved with the input field). And the latter approach is simply a convolution of the input field (in position space) with an impulse-response function of the linear (and shift-invariant) optical system between. Shift invariance (i.e. the response function itself isn't position dependent) is an okay approximation for the central FOV of the human eye.
So what he's doing, the formalism, is kinda correct within the Fresnel regime, only he uses an approximation for the impulse-response function itself. This impulse-response function is called the PSF or Point-Spread Function in imaging optics design, defined as the image (including diffraction effects of course) of a point source. His approximation as a disk is okay-ish, qualitatively (google "PSF of human eye defocus") but I didn't check the numbers for the size.
Unlike camera lenses, our eyes can't easily focus on an arbitrary distance without an object being present there. Perhaps the front sight is working as an approximation of the hyperfocal distance.
"Perhaps the front sight is working as an approximation of the hyperfocal distance."
I haven't seen such gun yet. It would not be practical as distance of a target and illumination (two key factors for hyperfocus of human eye) varies greatly.
Fascinating analysis!
A constricted pupil (from daylight) has a much greater depth of field than a dilated one (from darkness). So everything will appear sharper in the light of day.
Do at least some practice in low light conditions.
> That last number might be twice as large in the dimmest of light or half as large in bright light; and the blurriness from being out of focus scales in direct proportion to it. So if you’re shooting in full daylight, you might have only half as much blurriness as shown in the following images. But your enemies may not do you the courtesy of attacking in full daylight.
1 http://cockedandlockedguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IM...
2 http://assets.suredone.com/1928/media-photos/truglo131gt1y-1...
I know this discussion is really about sites, but after all the off-tpoic-ness we've had so far, I don't really feel bad derailing a little to talk about how much better this handgun is than pretty much any other. For reasons including the sights.
Shooting accurately is much more than just physically holding the barrel steady; it's a whole "symphony" of coordination, involving physical, visual and mental components.
This is still true, but pistol red dot sights are becoming more prevalent.
So by all means mount a red dot sight for your 3-gun competition. Personally, after speaking to a few folks in the know in such places, my concealed carry / home defense gun is very conservative. I opted for the most popular handgun used by police with a very mainstream laser / flashlight combo instead. Hard to make me look like an extremist / survivalist gun nut if I ever had to use it. Something to think about, depending on where you live.
is the "two sights" here the rear sight which has two posts, or the two sites as in front sight + rear sight?
several pages of reading and then .. an ambiguously worded conclusion.
I literally only made an account to post about how absurd and out of place this article is. If I wanted some second amendment lovers blog (and I don't), I'd simply find one.
Strike one, "hacker news". Strike one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
These words have meaning, and your idea of a 'blog' is even worse than those people that don't know the difference between a blog post and a blog (a collection of posts).
That doesn't mean we can't and don't produce creative works involving it these days. Plenty of gunplay in prime time British drama.
2. this might still be because we're influence by the movies in the US