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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

You can't buy a belt-fed machine gun, so banning types of guns and ammunition are both constitutional. They are fairly simple to manufacture a single shot hand gun, and they are still plenty useful to hunt wildlife with just look at history.

The clip is a weapon of war, just look at the impact repeating rifles had on the civil war for example.

As to the reasoning, a single bullet is a threat, but far less useful for mass shootings. So banning them would save thousands of american lives over time and it's also constitutional.

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In U.S. you can buy belt fed machine gun. But you need a special licence.

If you remove the full auto functionality of such gun, you can buy belt fed anything as much as you want without any licence.

Single shot handgun is incredibly bad for hunting. Single shot rifle is useful and some people still use them for added challenge. But having a bolt action rifle with maybe three rounds in the magazine is much better for beginners, because if you miss and wound the animal, you can end the suffering with follow up shot.

Clip is just a bent piece of metal. It's mostly out of favor by now. They we're used because that's insanely cheap and easy to manufacture. And currently could be manufactured in a garage with very cheap tooling.

https://milsurpexchange.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/copy_...

Magazines are the modern option. It's practically a plastic box with spring inside. It has almost no strength requirements and magazines are some of the most easily 3D printed items around.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/09/21/welcome-to-the...

Most firearms with no detachable magazine can be converted to accept a magazine relatively easily. How are you going to stop criminals from making the conversion and 3D printing the magazine?

Altering a single shot gun to use any form of Magazine or Clip is vastly more challenging than manufacturing a Magazine or Clip.

As to 3 shots, a revolver that can't be rapidly reloaded is the kind of compromise that's worth talking about. Cutting the number of bullets you can fire in 10 seconds by say 1/3 is in and of it's self a useful compromise.

PS: Personally I don't think the full vs semi auto is generally a useful distinction because you quickly run out of ammunition in either case. However, limiting someone to say 6 shots per 30 seconds really world be a significant change.

>Altering a single shot gun to use any form of Magazine or Clip is vastly more challenging than manufacturing a Magazine or Clip.

Requirements: usage of hand drill and screwing on 3D printed adapter. Only parts of a firearm that cannot be easily manufactured or endlessly modified in some random garage are the barrel and the chamber.

>As to 3 shots, a revolver that can't be rapidly reloaded is the kind of compromise that's worth talking about.

There are currently no revolver rifles manufactured. So it would be very bad deal for hunters.

Then there are revolver speed loaders and half moon clips. Those things are bloody miraculous. The difference between those and magazines is so small that some cops still use revolvers.

Have you looked at the statistics of how many people die in mass shootings and how many people die in single shootings? Also do you know how many shots is fired in average gunfight in US?

>Personally I don't think the full vs semi auto is generally a useful distinction because you quickly run out of ammunition in either case

We agree on this. I have shot full auto AK-47 and I could probably take out 6 people with single magazine while firing full auto because you easily waste about 5 rounds with every burst. Switch to semi auto and I could probably take out 25 people with that same magazine. Switching between targets usually takes equal amount of time regardless are you firing semi or full auto.

> cannot be easily manufactured or endlessly modified in some random garage are the barrel and the chamber

To modify a front loading single shut gun you do have to modify the chamber.

Average shots in a gun fight is a very misleading statistic. Average shots in a gun fight resulting in death are vastly higher.

Edit: A lot more people die in US mass shootings than you might think. Once you start talking about saving 1,000+ lives per decade it's far from meaningless.

PS: "a revolver that can't be rapidly reloaded" clearly excludes speed loaders. Revolver chambers that open up are necessary before you can use a speed loader. I can only assume you are ignoring what I am actually saying.

>To modify a front loading single shut gun you do have to modify the chamber.

Muzzle loaders area actually dangerous to the shooter. And outdated inefficient for most modern shooting sports and hunting. You could just as well tell people to use bow and arrow. Actually modern bows and arrows would in that situation be technically superior.

Bit like you would decide that 60 ton trucks are dangerous. Now everybody has to only drive cars manufactured prior to 1920.

My point about the statistics is that if you make magazine change impossible for the hobbyist, you should know how much impact that even can have on crime.

Anyhow, I present you a video of a guy who is first using a firearm that is not automatic or even semiautomatic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYQBgi0TRGU

Then speed loading that weapon with a plastic tube and wooden rod:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9emvE1LIEWA

I'm actually for gun control and few other things that would bring gun violence down without controlling guns. I just think your approach to the matter is absurd and would be inefficient. If terrorists would simply switch to bombs, any advantage from strict gun law would just melt away overnight.

So you mean a revolver or a shotgun that can be loaded only one bullet at a time? And has a limited carrying capacity?

Relatively trivial to modify. Germans did exactly that to Mauser bolt action rifles during WW2 with very little hardware.

Actually, you can buy a machine gun. It just requires a fuckload of money, time, and the willingness to go under the microscope by the ATF in order to obtain the necessary licenses.

Not a new one. My next step is to change bullet diameters.

Did you know there are lots of hobbyists who cast their own bullets? Any diameter is doable to them.

98% effective is still very useful.

If hobbyist can do it, then its easy for mafia, street gangs and drug cartels.

Do you want those people to have more power and fresh markets?

Street gangs are vastly less organized than you might think. Countries that ban guns have vastly less gun crime because these are not highly competent people.

That isn’t true, many countries where guns are very hard to obtain legally have horrible gun violence Mexico is a prime example.

Some countries that banned guns and have very little gun violence also have something else in common and that is strict border / customs control e.g. The UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea all of which are islands or effectively an island since the N. Korea border isn’t exactly open.

Mainland Europe while having less gun violence than the US isn’t exactly gun violence free far from be it and it’s a pretty commmon occurrence to have gangs shoot it out and even throw grenades at each other even in Norway since guns are easily smuggled through land from former soviet block countries and even from as far as Afghanistan.

The only reason you can't buy a belt fed machine gun is because it's a machine gun. It has nothing to do with the magazine, and survived a legal challenge because all the pre-existing firearms that matched that definition were grandfathered in (which coincidentally, is why you can still purchase a fully automatic M4 for something like $30,000).

The next step is to require a new bullet diameter when manufacturered which over a few decades would make all existing firearms useless.

Net result vast reduction in gun violence, zero constitutional issues.

You do realize there are already tens of dozens, if not hundreds, of different bullet lengths, diameters, and pressures, right? I don't know why folks who want to ban guns outright need to live in this fairy tale world where all guns are evil, you only ever need one bullet, clips are magazines, and the Constitution is more of a gentle guideline than a law. If you want to ban guns I'll have that debate but at least pretend to care about rule of law and make the arguments from a point of law instead of "this gun is black and scary and I don't know anything about it so we should ban it based largely on cosmetic features."

You think we just throw away all of those brass casings we use at the range...?

Lol, big gun nuts are gonna have tens of thousands of shells around just waiting to be refilled.

And determined individuals can always just manufacture or rechamber a weapon to use the new caliber.

But you don't have to completely eliminate gun violence to claim a massive reduction...

You can buy a belt fed machine gun legally, btw. It will cost you a lot because there aren't a lot of NFA stamped automatic weapons left that were grandfathered in, but you can buy one pretty easy if you have the cash.

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