Colt is ending production of AR-15s
americanmilitarynews.com
americanmilitarynews.com
If labor relations interests you, it's a fascinating company. They had a long stand off with the union in the mid to late 80s. They replaced all Union staff who had striked. Four or five years later the union eventually won and all the existing staff, who were hired during the 5 year strike, were fired and the old union staff replaced them. Not only that but the union got given a significant chunk of the company.
The problem was that the old staff could not operate the updated machinery. The military unhappy with the quality canceled contracts. It was a disaster and ended up killing the company and they went into chapter 11 for the first time. That was the end of Colt.
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/01/nyregion/workers-rejoice-...
The AR design is a commodity these days. Colt is and has been an also-ran in that market that had all the advantages going in and their management blew it royally time and time again. I'm sure their .gov contracts don't do any better. America is plagued with bad management in every single industry and vertical market. Horrible minds run this country.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Colt has 'exited the civilian market' several times in the past only to 're-enter the civilian market' every time they ran out of military contracts. So don't imagine for a second that this is some great win for gun control or some kind of headwind when it is just Colt being Colt--utterly ineffective at their one job, which is to make money.
You want to know who the biggest risk is for getting guns into the wrong hands? It's not the American people, it is our own government!
People who own them don’t think of them as the crazy “military style” weapons you hear them described as. Most who own then just think of them as “the most standard and obvious rifle you can possibly buy”. Like you go into most gun store and it’s just the platform that is everywhere. It’s “gun” in the dictionaries in heads of gun wonders. It’s nothing “crazy” to them.
I also think you are wrong.
Most lethal misuse is for suicide, but it is only in the US that suicides take out an honor guard on their way down.
It might be more effective to ridicule shooters ("Dumbass peppers crowd before disposing of self") than to restrict weapons.
The average anti-gun person is hyped up by the news and by ableist rhetoric when suicides are reported as gun violence.
Only anti-violence work will lower the homicide rate, not bans.
* excepting a few that are deliberately manufactured to be subsonic, because they are niche products.
Then there's the urban legend of 5.56 being chosen because injured troops are more of a liability than dead troops
It's similar the the differences between horsepower and torque. To paraphrase a popular meme, Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how much of the wall you take with you.
Well the Browning Hi-Power was so named for it's large magazine capacity. But I agree with the substance of what you're saying. 5.56 is not a "high power" rifle if that term is meant to distinguish it from other sorts of rifles. For magazine capacity, you can find 22lr magazines with larger capacities than your typical AR mag, but calling one of those high powered would be a bit silly.
You know how it goes "First they came for the socialists..."
Also .308 is far overkill if you hunt the common small deers, people use it to hunt big game deer, for example moose.
For example this requirement looks like it was explicitly made to forbid 5.56mm cartridges, they are not even mentioning energy:
> The cartridge must fire a bullet with a minimum diameter of .243 inches (same as 6 mm).
http://www.eregulations.com/indiana/hunting/deer/
But for example in Sweden you are allowed to hunt the same size of deers using weapons with half the power of 5.56: 800 Joule.
Only things you need bigger bullets than 5.56 are brown bear, moose and red deer which requires 2000 Joule.
And if you think it is inhumane to kill 50kg deers using 1600 joule bullets, how many joules would you require that people use on a 700kg moose?
Even though Class 2 rifles are legal it's my impression that they have become less and less popular. Most people tend to use something like a 6.5x55, .308 or 30-06 since that gives you more margin of error.
Roe deer is the also largest animal you're allowed to hunt with a Class 2 rifle. The next size deer (Fallow deer) is Class 1, meaning >2000J. You can use shotguns with slugs on boar and fallow deers, but not on Roe deer. This shows that it's not always clear how the lawmaker reasons.
Hunting laws in different countries often reflect tradition and might not always have a sound base in science. In the US you are allowed to hunt with falcons, muzzleloaders and bows. That's criminal in Sweden.
It's quiet and works just fine to kill one. Hunter associations want to cut down on deer that aren't killed quickly so they require larger ammo
The Maryland State Police maintains a buyers guide for helping you find an assault rifle that’s legal within the state: https://mdsp.maryland.gov/Organization/Pages/CriminalInvesti...
There are numerous great choices!
The only thing I think we can conclude about the incoherence of firearms legislation is that they have staunch and effective opposition from firearms advocates. I do not think it is at all valid to look at them and say "legislators don't know what an assault rifle is".
Well, if we're calling AR-15s and centerfire semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines assault rifles, then we don't know what assault rifles are. The term has been in use since WW2 and refers to selective fire rifles with intermediate cartridges and detachable magazines.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the original 1980s proposals - afaik the only major 1980s attempts at legislation occurred after a school shooting in California, had limited opposition in California, and was enacted into law. It included classifying rifles as assault weapons if they had detachable magazines plus at least one of other relatively features, such as pistol grips, barrel shrouds, folding/telescoping stocks, etc. Most of those features have limited to no impact on the ability of the rifle to be a deadly weapon.
>(The AR-15 itself, of course, was designed by Eugene Stoner to be a standard-issue US military rifle.)
The ArmaLite AR-15 designed for the military was a select fire rifle that ultimately became the M16. The trademark was sold to Colt. Colt later used that trademark in producing the semi-automatic civilian version. An AR-15 or AR-15 clone a civilian can buy is not the same AR-15 that Eugene Stoner designed.
As best as I can tell, most legislators have no idea what assault weapons are, what assault rifles are, or much at all about guns in general. And this includes those on the conservative side. I'm pro gun control, if we can find a way to effectively do it, but if we're actually concerned about human life, assault weapons don't even make sense to be the focus. Over 60% of homicides committed with firearms are done with handguns. Rifles only make up about 4%. Mass shootings are scary, and make news, and are terrifying. But they're responsible for a tiny fraction of gun related homicides, and the focus on rifles (and particularly features that are more related to appearance than efficacy in being deadly weapons) screams to me that it is almost entirely a political play and less related to any real concern over the healthy and safety of those living in America.
Do I concede that the AR-15 is thus not an according-to-Hoyle assault rifle? Sure, but only Hoyle cares.
The reason this debate exists at all is because of "assault weapons bans". But the semantic argument is, of course, circular: it matters if a weapon is an "assault weapon" because we might ban assault weapons, and a weapon is an "assault weapon" if we might ban it. To reasonably discuss them as they pertain to public policy --- which is what this subthread is doing --- you have to engage on the merits. The appeal to definitions is a smokescreen.
† For the advanced Facebook version of this discussion, try making an argument about the legitimacy of binary triggers; is an AR-15 fitted with a binary trigger group an "assault rifle"? Well. Let me tell you something about fully automatic fire: it occurs only when you eject multiple rounds with a single depression of the trigger, and also, with a binary trigger, you have you depress the trigger a certain way to "select" rapid fire, which doesn't really count as "selection", so...
In case anybody isn't clear on what that means: one is a machine gun and the other is not.
"Selective fire" is the gun nerd way of saying "capable of fully automatic fire".
Automatic rifles are not generally machine guns.
These "Battle Rifles" were able to reach out to thousand plus yards and still be effective for a regular grunt. These rifles and their calibers were meant for killing, taking body parts off, creating gaping wound channels.
I don't remember exactly when, yet sometime after WW2, the US Forces surveyed and found that they weren't engaging targets 800-1,000 yards out. Instead, they were engaging targets in the 50-300 range.
The US military decided that they wanted to carry more ammunition and bring the engagement zone down from the 800-1k to the 250ish. This resulted in a smaller cartridge (.223/5.56). The strategy moved to taking the enemy combatant out of the fight by injuring them instead of killing them. This had a huge advantage in their eyes... rather than the main goal of killing, they wanted to injure. By injuring, it took them out of the fight, but it also took precious resources away from the enemy, which now has to care for their injured comrade.
Why don't we hear anything about the larger calibers, which are meant to be truly destructive?
I loved your write up, cthalupa and i find it a shame that people, when discussing topics such as this, don't even know about the items they're arguing about.
And, of course, injuries from rifle rounds are not the same as injuries from handguns, as this trauma doctor ably explains:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-...
Unfortunately, that's not the only narrative you can get on rifle injuries from civilian trauma doctors; there's also the famous (and amazing, excellent) narrative from the doctor that coordinated an ER receiving mass numbers of patients in Las Vegas after the Mandalay shooting.
The big things, as you mention, was that real life engagement ranges were considerably shorter, so you could sacrifice long-range performance and gain lighter weight (allowing the soldier to carry more rounds) and making the thing somewhat controllable on full auto for close-quarter fighting.
The Germans figured this out, and towards the end of WWII they fielded the "Sturmgewehr 44 (Stg 44)". This fired a shortened version of their standard rifle calibre round (7.92mm). The Soviets did the same with their Ak-47 family. The price of keeping the full rifle caliber but slow round (around 700 m/s muzzle velocity) was poor ballistics and armor penetration.
Later on the US went to the other extreme with a very small caliber firing at higher than usual rifle muzzle velocity (almost 1000 m/s).
Ironically there was research going back all the way to pre-WWII times suggesting the "optimal" infantry caliber would be somewhere in the 6-7mm range with muzzle velocity in the "standard" range for rifles (around 800-900 m/s).
Maybe they do know what an assault rifle is and just assume that their voters don’t.
Again: the notion that a weapon is an "assault weapon" due to grips, sights, and flash suppressors is an artifact of a political fight from the 1980s, one the firearms lobby won handily. The original proposals had none of that silliness. They targeted tactical rifles: short to be light, portable, and effective indoors and at close quarters, with detachable magazines to maximize sustained ability to engage targets. That is: rifles optimized for taking down multiple human targets, and for effectively engaging with humans armed with similar weapons.
I'm not even arguing that we should ban assault rifles (and that is not something I actually believe). I just find discussions about firearms policy incredibly aggravating, because they rathole in these manipulatively constructed semantic arguments; I hate to see such an Orwellian maneuver (from the 1980s, not from you!) succeed so completely.
You might want to check your facts: the federal assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 (with a 10-year sunset clause) and prohibited guns based on grips, sights, and flash suppressors.
The firearms lobby certainly didn't "win" this one; though you could consider it one of their victories that the ban wasn't renewed (which it has been in perpetuity in certain states).
>given a history of opposition from firearms advocates.
You are aware that it's the opposition to firearms advocates that continue to parrot these definitions, correct? You'd think that if they were wrong (and they are) that they'd've wisened up in 30 years, but since fundamentally this is about what voters themselves think that "assault weapons" are rather than what they actually are, they have not.
1) Gun control advocates appear to believe that assault weapons are banned here in Maryland, based on the ban on “scary looking guns.”
2) A large segment of gun control advocates—indeed, the mainstream of Democrats until last month—seek to distinguish between sporting and hunting rifles and assault weapons. That drives these bans on cosmetic features. I’d assume they genuinely believe in that dividing line, or at least believe they’ve got the votes to ban assault weapons but not hunting weapons. Do these centrists (1) not understand how guns work, or (2) assume their constituents don’t understand how guns work?
* Gun control advocates attempted in the mid-late 1980s to ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, wholesale.
* They failed and the proposal got whittled down the FAWB.
* Democratic politicians (by the time the FAWB passed, the ideological sort had completed and they were all Democrats) have ever since tried to save face by fighting a rear-guard action over cosmetic features, tacitly acknowledging that real policy changes would require political capital they were unwilling to spend.
All I'd add to that is, since Heller's overreach and (especially) Sandy Hook, the political capital equation has changed, and I don't think the FAWB capitulation is determinative going forward. Which is refreshing, however this stuff sorts itself out; aren't you exhausted by how stupid the last 15 years of gun debates have been?
If we agree that FAWB-ish regulation is stupid, and we're discussing policy futures, what do FAWB definitions matter?
This doesn't match up with my understanding of the history of assault weapon legislation. Roberti-Roos in California (1989) banned weapons by name, not by how light they were or how useful they'd be in close quarters combat. I can't find any early drafts of alternative proposals. By the time the Federal Assault Weapons ban came around in 1994, this approach was exposed as unworkable because manufacturers would make minor changes, change the model number, and get around the ban list. That's how you got the feature tests, which were added to Roberti-Roos in 1999.
If you know of any early assault weapon ban proposals that banned based on functionality, I'd really appreciate some citations. I've seen more recent proposals to ban all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, but nothing that dated to the 1980s.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/386...
This was Metzenbaum's reaction to the Stockton massacre; it was covered in the NYT (both at the time and in retrospectives about how we ended up with our batty FAWB). Note that in addition to definitionally regulating AR-15s, it also bans them outright by name.
(The definitional criteria here is --- this is from a skim and from memory, so correct me but don't jump on me if I have this wrong --- any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine that accepts more than 10 rounds).
They know what their voters think an assault rifle is.
And what their voters think assault rifles are is anything painted black and lacking a "traditional" appearance, which is why rifles identical in mechanical function to "assault rifles" tend not to be banned by the laws these politicians think their voters want.
Ignorance of this voting bloc about the way guns work (and the qualities that make one better suited to a particular task than another) acts in the favor of those who are against their prohibition. Being on national news and saying a barrel shroud is a "shoulder thing that goes up" does not help endear people who know that's false to your cause.
The subtext here is yet another Firearms Policy Canard, which is that anyone who thinks semi-automatic rifles should be regulated must solely be reacting to the color of the weapon, and clearly doesn't know that there are farmers that rely on them to clear out smallish animals or whatever. Sorry, I get that most people don't take any time to research these topics, but they're in fact not that complicated (these are devices that were designed to be broken down and reassembled in a jungle during monsoon rains by teenagers), and I'm not cowed.
I don't think it's possible to patch up those policy demands and make them sensible either. The whole case for why rifle regulation is more important than handgun regulation and should be stricter than it - one of the key pillars of the current US gun control movement - relies heavily on the imaginary distinction between good hunting rifles and evil human-hunting rifles. Without that distinction, it's hard to justify the position that those guns should be banned or tightly restricted but not the handguns used by the armed guards protecting all the Hollywood celebrities cheering on gun control as anything but urban-vs-rural cultural warfare. Handguns cause a huge amount of death and misery in the US right now compared to rifles. (Of course, there's also some constitutional issues with taking those away... but that's another problem entirely.)
But actually none of this matters on HN. The interesting question HN is what the policy should be, not what the dumbest people in America advocating for that policy are saying. We're not actually going to impact gun policy at all here, so we might as well free ourselves to discuss it rationally.
Announce a ban on pink magazines to take effect at the beginning of next year, and sales of pink magazines will rise; American Rifleman will run articles comparing the effectiveness of various color choices; Guns and Ammo will have a feature on 20 pink magazines you should buy before the ban; and sales of colored tape will rise in two different ways: pink tape will be applied to drab magazines -- "less than 35% coverage, so it's legal!" -- and black tape will be applied to pink magazines -- "More than 80% coverage when inserted, so it's legal, but when we finally defeat the irrational ban, you can take it right off!"
California has a notably terrible nitwit (Deleon) who has made hilarious public gaffes in his discriptions of firearm technology. Feinstein notably said -> “We have laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than 3 rounds, yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 30 round magazines”.
These are not informed people, they're partisan politicians trying to pit people against eachother.
https://www.alloutdoor.com/2019/02/26/becker-blow-forward-re...
I'd like to see these guns in more video games. Would be funny to have a game where "hard" mode is playing left handed, with shell being ejected into the FOV.
I have to say, that bit is pretty funny.
(The Armalite AR-15 is of course the gun that everyone seems to go crazy over, and the AR-10 is essentially an AR-15 in 7.62 instead of 5.56)
There's a lot of ~7.62mm cartridges out there, as a carryover from when people used imperial units. (It's basically .30 inches) [1]
0: https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/8/19/308-w...
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-fn-fal-was-almost-ameri...
Great deer rifle, although if you're walking around lugging it, you'll get a workout.
"Maybe so son, but if you catch one in the arse it won't half make you're eyes water".
Calling an AR-15 a "high power rifle" is simply wrong. As far as rifles are concerned, 5.56x45 NATO is on the weaker end of things. Such a term can only be reasonably applied to .50 BMG and the like, with rounds like .308 in between.
However in the context of strictly military weapons, sure it's at the low to medium end of the range. Infantry weapons are 'small arms' in military terms.
But if we're talking about civilian firearms, I think it's reasonable to put it, and anything else specifically designed to have the ability to reliably kill humans and bigger targets at long (rifle) range, up at the dangerous end of the spectrum.
So this would include all weapons intended for hunting anything bigger than a rabbit?
Fair enough, but this isn’t typically the argument - usually it’s presented as the AR-15 being a “weapon of war” and not needed for hunting, eliding the fact that many common hunting rifles are more powerful.
I think there's a fair argument that bolt action single shot is adequate for hunting.
Logically a rifle sized to kill a deer or larger animal will also be excellent at killing humans.
Most proposals for banning assault weapons exempt “hunting rifles”, but if your proposal is to ban all semi auto rifles larger than .22 caliber, it’s consistent although not what politicians are currently pushing on any side in the USA.
In fact the only hunting I can think of where a bolt action suffices is stand hunting large herbivores such as deer, elk or moose. Which is exactly what most people think of when they think hunting.
I certainly would not want to go into bear country with a single shot bolt action. Not that I would hunt bear, but I would certainly have a firearm for protection.
I am not going to link to it as it may be sensitive viewing to some people but if you are not bothered by it, take a look at the YouTube videos, where ranchers are doing hog eradication via helicopter, they almost all exclusively use either the Saiga-12 or the AR-12 to do such eradication. It will give you a good perspective on how rapid the pace of eradication is and why such high capacity firepower is needed.
Take a look at coyote and prairie dog eradication as well.
All of my firearms are semi-autos, all of them where purchased for a specific type of hunting that I do. I actually don't own or have a need for a bolt action single shot, as I do not hunt deer, elk any large herbivores. I would love to have a .338 Lapua bolt action, but the funny part is, it would be a vanity gun purchase, as I have absolutely no need for it other than plinking long range shots. the exact thing most people accuse AR owners of purchasing their AR for.
On a personal note, I do not like the AR platform and personally think it is inferior to both the FAL and AK platforms.
Don't get me wrong I am not against regulations, but I will say I am leary of them given the absolute ignorance of the people that want to implement them.
Here are some common sense regulations that I think would be effective.
Handguns should be the most restrictive class, they are the most deadly and kill far more people that the emotionally manipulative narrative of AR mass killings. I believe everyone with even a misdemeanor should have to prove some form of reform before they can gain ownership of a handgun.
I believe the age to purchase a gun should be raised to 25. You don't see many people over 25 committing mass shootings or participating in gang violence.
I believe felons caught with a firearm should get an mandatory minimum of 20 years. They know they are not supposed to have them, they are up to bad intent just given the fact that they have one and they are the most likely to use them.
I believe if you buy a gun and provide it to another person that is not eligible to have it, you should be charged with all crimes that person commits.
I believe the instant background check should be available via a web page, where you enter your serial number and once validated that it is a valid ATF gun, you enter the purchaser info and it give you a yes or no on transfer. I believe if this is available and you transfer a gun to a person that is not eligible, that you are liable for their crimes.
I believe that a medical professional or a consensus of family members should be able to suspend your right to bear arms for a set and predetermined amount of time. If they petition a court (not the local PD). I believe that the accused should have the right to a medical tribunal to challenge said suspension.
Finally I think we should repeal the ban on automatic weapons after instating the above mentioned regulations. It's a stupid law and short of nearly point blank shooting that the mob did in the 1930's a full auto weapon is sub par to a semi-auto. I thing a removal of this ban would show that the powers that be are not out to grab the guns. Which is a valid concern given Beto's recent comments on the subject.
No, I'm not. Various states with some sort of assault rifle ban allow the mini 14, including California.
They have passed laws that demonstrate that they don't understand these things. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, for example, only banned various cosmetic features and manufacturers simply adjusted their designs and were compliant overnight.
That legislation was put together by activists, lobbyists, researchers and politicians who were motivated to save lives. That entire effort failed to identify the functional aspects of the weapons systems they were trying to regulate.
There is a massive information asymmetry between pro-gun and anti-gun, and not just in technical matters, but the pro-gun people are also encyclopedic on the law; after all, they are looking at potential jail time if they screw up.
Is your point that the Mini-14 should be regulated the same way as a Colt AR-15? Of course, you're right. Obviously, Mini-14 regulation isn't that much of a problem today, since the AR-15 platform became the default sporting rifle platform.
Partially. It's allowed in some places where the AR-15 is banned. People tend to react to the tactical appearance. There's almost no functional difference.
Roughly 10 years later, most historically interesting tactical rifles were banned or heavily restricted.
The Mini-14 remains at the lowest level of restriction, and its appearance is very likely the reason why that is. (Also ignorance; the H&K G11 rifle doesn't exist outside of perhaps 5 or so remaining prototypes, but it's on the ban list all the same.)
I'm not saying that's good public policy (licensure --- in the US, probably presumptively issued licensure --- is the right answer here, not bans).
I mean, they banned semi-auto rifles in Oz after a mass shooting. Farmers can still use bolt action .303 rifles for really gnarly beasts like giant hogs.
Anti’s aren’t stupid. They banned the G11 to set precedent. Now any mass market firearm that uses caseless ammunition is immediately on the chopping block. A powerful move - cheap caseless ammo would be a huge boost to the community and industry.
Caseless ammo isn't a thing in any practical sense. It has serious technical short comings related to heat dispersion, transport, sourcing, and reloadability.
There are no mass market firearms, military or civilian, that use caseless ammo. There were never more than a 1000 G11s, and they were never for the community. Other casesless options simply aren't a thing -- has anyone ever heard of the Voere VEC-91? Or the Armtech C30R?
In Canada antis will use the existing G11 ban to ban caseless ammo. Bans beget more bans until complete disarmament is achieved. This is their playbook.
In other words, I need a special restricted PAL permit in Canada to own an AR, but to own a Tavor, M-14 knockoff, Kel-Tec RDB, a Chinese Type 97 assault rifle, etc. needs the lowest level of permit. Bass-ackwards, but there it is.
I think I'm just overlooking something , but I'm not quite sure what you mean by "note caps"?
Its marketed as a "Ranch Rifle". It doesn't even have normal scope rails...
The Ranch Rifle is, as I understand it, simply a civilian branding for what was designed to be --- and has seen wide use professionally as --- a tactical rifle.
The big confusticator here is that tactical rifles --- and I'll keep calling them that, because that's what both the Mini-14 and the AR-15 were designed to be! --- turn out to be pretty well suited to sporting and some kinds of hunting, and have pretty much taken over those markets. So in observing that there's no meaningful difference between a Mini-14 ranch and a military tactical rifle, I'm not saying that a Ranch Rifle isn't intended for shooting coyotes or range shooting, or even that that's not what they're mostly used for.
But public policy should focus on the weapon's capabilities, not what their packaging suggests they be used for. The people that play the Ranch Rifle card in firearms debates seem to believe the packaging is dispositive --- or not? I never really understand what it is they're trying to prove. But of course, to regulators, there's no distinction to be made here.
I saw the one they marketed as "tactical" and I'd def call it "tacti-cool" instead because it looks nonfunctional.
To compare the two, its Broccoli vs Potato.
I just think that in general, firearms advocates are "high on their own supply" from these arguments: that the FAWB, for instance, is terrible legislation, but also, that all our discussions about firearms policy should be rooted in the definitions hammered out in the FAWB. And: no, of course not.
All I'd like to establish is that the real underlying issues are not that complicated, even if they're uncomfortable for firearms advocates, and can be grappled with by laypersons. When firearms advocates gotcha with FAWB definitions or weird counterexamples or appeals to rifle color or the fact that a belt buckle is a machine gun or whatever, that's an evasion, not a real argument, and should be called out as such.
An AR Pattern rifle chambered in a rimfire cartridge such as 22 LR is legal under "Assault Weapon" ban laws. Rimfire rifles have been used in spree shootings.
What's the argument for why ergonomic features like an adjustable stocks should be banned?
(Again: I think another problem with firearms regulations is that they've been based on bans, when what's in fact needed is licensure --- in the US, for historical reasons, probably presumptively-issued licenses).
Exactly what problem would licensure solve?
Within Constitutional limits (and without wading into a protracted argument about what those limits might be; Heller was 5-4!), devolving this question back out to the states, so states that overwhelmingly support restrictions regain some knobs to accomplish that (through licensure requirements). Letting the Laboratories of Democracy do their thing.
I don't see a fundamental reason why we'd want to take most semi-automatic rifles away from most owners, because while I don't actually believe most owners derive any practical benefits from them (I think overwhelmingly they're a hobby, not a tool), I also don't see what the point of reclaiming a firearm from someone who simply isn't going to abuse it would be.
The "Laboratories of Democracy" idea is unrealistic for firearms, and most issues. States don't control their borders. Though, it's against federal law to buy a handgun from an FFL out of state and a long gun can only be purchased out of state if said long gun is legal in a buyer's home state.
In general, do you think that gun crimes (e.g. possession of a firearm by a felon) are adequately prosecuted?
I'm not interested in talking about the US Constitution. We both already know each other's arguments. I'm not even interested in changing your opinion. I'm a lurker, but I've read your comments for years and respect you.
The logistics of your ideal scenario interest me. Canada gave up on registering long guns because it was infeasible.
Would you support a law requiring background checks for all purchase of firearms under the condition that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is made available for all citizens to use (not just FFLs), free of charge, using a driver's license number of the potential purchaser?
Do you think that the progression of low-cost CNC machines, such as the Ghost Gunner, is a hurdle for the gun control measures that you want implemented?
The serialized lower receiver is what is considered a firearm in America. Do you want to regulate all firearm components, such as barrels, handguards, etc?
The idea that state-by-state (or, just as likely, county-by-county) gun regulations couldn't work flies against reality; they won't keep criminals from bringing guns in, of course, but no regulation will, and that's not the intent.
I'm less interested in the general crime argument. We're not having school shooting drills because of gang shootouts in Camden. Prosecution of gun crimes is unlikely to be the intervention that solves that problem.
I generally support all viable gun control proposals; background checks are fine, but won't really address the proliferation and mass casualty problems.
I absolutely do not believe, even a little bit, than amateur gunsmithing is a meaningful factor in gun policy.
I understand that the receiver is, legally, the important part of an assault rifle; I don't so much care about firearm components. As I've said elsewhere, I'm also not generally interested in confiscation of firearms; most people who own them should be able to keep them.
Ironically, with licensure, we could probably eliminate a lot of weird NFA regulation as well.
Why do you want mandatory shall-issue licensing in America? Federal or state? I’d like to know your reasoning.
The problem with this kind argument is always that, of course, people who want to do something that happens to be illegal, and are fine with doing illegal things, will just do it anyway. Well, yeah. If that weren't the case, all law enforcement officers could immediately retire.
Certainly you can't prevent people from bringing contraband of any kind into your state (especially when it's legal in the state next door), but you can set penalties high enough to deter most people, and aggressively enforce those penalties when someone is caught.
If we're talking about reducing the number of mass shootings, and we truly believe that keeping certain guns out of people's hands will do it (which is of course debatable), then outright bans will likely get us most of the way there. If your random potential mass shooter can't get hold of any useful-for-mass-shootings weapon legally in the state where they live, they probably just won't go that route. Or, they'll use much less effective weapons and cause much less harm.
If, on the other hand, we're talking about organized crime, gang violence, etc., then sure, those people will likely manage to get their hands on banned weapons. But (for better or worse), I don't think the US public is quite as worried about that right now.
Luty was arrested with the gun and ammunition and -quelle surprise - jailed for possession of an illegal gun.
It seems to me the mass shooting, and gun crime issue generally is the responsibility of the gun lobby to solve. If a constituency wants to have a certain set of rights, and those rights have negative consequences on the rest of the population, it's the responsibility of that constituency to come up with a workable way to regulate itself. If it abrogates that responsibility, it should be prepared to forfeit those rights.
So what is the US gun community's answer to shooting sprees and gun deaths in general? It's clearly a real problem, so what's the answer? I'm not interesting in hearing why this or that gun control legislation can't work or is unfair. It's up to you, it's your problem to fix. What's your solution?
It seems pretty clear that society as a whole is responsible for finding a way to maintain safety and stability in combination with upholding the rights the society has established. We don’t demand that the solution to radical religious extremists be proposed by churches or else we ban churches.
For what it’s worth, I think the gun lobby in the US does a disservice to the majority of lawful gun owners, as well as a disservice to victims of gun violence. Their primary goal as an organization seems to be remaining a large, powerful organization, and I find the majority of their policy positions and rhetoric to be fully detached from either lowering the rate of gun violence or protecting the rights of actual individual gun owners. See, for example, the waves of rhetoric leading up to each election cycle, warning that any liberal politician is going to “take our guns”. The impact here is a massive spike in gun sales and profit for gun manufacturers, despite the fact that liberal politicians haven’t had any substantial impact on individual gun ownership in a long time.
Plenty of religions have been banned and members arrested.
Nazis and such get arrested for hate speech from time to time.
Until laws were passed to prevent it, anyone had the 'right' to make and even sell alcohol.
Most sporting bodies have governance organisations that regulate themselves, in an effort to avoid regulations being imposed by law.
The same is true of many professional organisations. In the UK the Royal College of Nurses, a trade union, gets involved in regulation of the nursing profession and advises on legislation.
Every right comes with responsibilities. At a minimum one person't right is another person's responsibility to protect and uphold. They are impositions. If you have or want a right, and wish to retain it, that comes with a responsibility to the rest of society, or they will be entirely justified in taking it away.
It's entirely normal and common for a pressure group or representative body to have input into laws and regulations. The NRA does this. It's time IMHO that they took that seriously and, along with their supporters, accepted some actual responsibility like grown adults.
What job do the football associations have that is more important, in the broader context, than this? It could destroy the sport.
Ideally a sporting body should set things up so that they don't have to spend much time on this, but it's a serious responsibility.
The NRA spends an inordinate amount of it's time trying to avoid legal restrictions on their member's activities. They spend huge resources on it. To me, that's a sign that they are not doing their job very well at all, or taking their responsibilities seriously as members of society. It's their problem to solve.
This is not something people who don't want to own guns should have to worry about. The fact that they have to is a clear abrogation of responsibility on the part of those that do.
Regarding the football comparison: there isn’t generally speaking a right to play football, and I’d prefer if sports bodies were committed to ensuring the health of players of their sport, but no, I don’t think that sports bodies should be relied upon to enforce some arbitrary standard for safety in their sport, with the threat of banning football. The football example is interesting because smashing somebody in the head as part of a football game isn’t “really assault”. If you and I agree to play football, and during the course of the game we collide and I get injured, you didn’t assault me. The problem with sports bodies is that they have several incentives that don’t align with overall player long-term health, and the players typically (especially historically) don’t have a strong enough negotiating position to push for systematic change. So to your question: no, I don’t think we should expect sports industries to carry the weight of making their sports “safe”, I think society should agree on laws that restrict sports bodies behavior so that they’re forced to operate in ways that are safe. We don’t ask construction sites to please make worker conditions safe, we set up OSHA and equivalent orgs, with regulations to mandate safety.
Regarding the job that football associations have, that’s more important than long-term health, “profit” is the answer. The football organization isn’t a benevolent charity, they exist so as to ensure their own continued existence. They also don’t represent the players, nor the fans.
Switching gears to the NRA: the NRA has a similar job. They exist in order to perpetuate their lobbying influence and perpetuate their funding. They are not an accurate picture of the average American gun owner. They push for or against policies on the basis of continuing that power, more so than any intrinsic goal of “avoiding legal restrictions on their members”, except insofar as their members are “NRA large-scale donors”, which effectively amounts to “gun manufacturers”.
Regarding it being “their problem to solve”, you still haven’t addressed my critique of that premise. Gun ownership in America is a right, written into the foundation of US government. There’s a whole body of debate as to whether or not it should be a right, whether it should be written differently, etc, but at present, gun ownership in the US is written into the constitution at a similar level to freedom of speech or protest. We don’t tell free speech advocates to find ways to limit hate speech or we ban all free speech, why would we approach this any differently?
Gun ownership is only a right because a law says so, and laws are made by people. Things change. People change. Technology changes. The US constitution has been amended 27 times, and amendments have been revised or revoked by other amendments. Just look at what happened to the 18th. If you want to keep the 2nd, you'll need a better argument than because it's an amendment.
>We don’t tell free speech advocates to find ways to limit hate speech or we ban all free speech, why would we approach this any differently?
What forms of speech are allowable or not is up for debate. There are plenty of things it is illegal to say or print, and even most free speech advocates will agree with many restrictions. Free speech advocates have to fight cases all the time though, it's a constant struggle as to what can or cannot be said. Why should firearms, which weapons can or cannot be owned or carried in public, be any different?
Nobody is talking about banning all guns. That's a complete straw man. I'm not talking about banning anything. I think most people campaigning for gun restrictions aren't trying to ban all guns, or even most guns. What I'm saying though, is this is a question for you.
What is your answer, and that of your community, to this problem?
Do you think the current rate of mass shootings in America and gun deaths in general is acceptable, and if not how does it get under control?
Just curious, are you American? Because this comes across as a totally alien way of thinking - why would there be or why would you need a "right" to play football? Do I, generally speaking, have a right to stand on one leg? If I'm reading you correctly there's no right to perform any novel activity, because the right couldn't have been granted yet!
That doesn't immediately strike me as obviously true. Many states attempted to remove the unnamed right to an abortion (by which I mean, abortion is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution); but that was struck down on 14th Amendment grounds. It wouldn't surprise me if an enterprising lawyer could contest a statewide firearm ban (assuming no second amendment) via the commerce clause, for example.
Before it was known that AF seems to consistently lead to these injuries this wasn't a problem, but now the evidence is amassing that it does, if the game doesn't get reformed there is a risk it could get sued and legislated out of existence. With that background, clearly the game doesn't have a legal right to exist, to stop that happening.
I will put forth the argument that profit is not be the sole motive for any organization. That is a relatively new and immature [1] way of thinking about economic activity which ignores the context and environment in which economic activity takes place. Profit above all else should be considered the false narrative that it is [2]. Even if we did consider profit to be a primary motivation for an organization, that ignores that the organization is composed of people who should care about their fellow man and work to reduce the chances and effects of injuries in the people who labor for them. I will go further and propose that putting profit above the long term health of players is short-termism, a disease that affects far too many today. In fact, this disease of thinking is so bad that the executives of some of the largest corporations now need to explicitly tell people to stop thinking like that [3]. Ignoring the dangers of traumatic brain injury could have negative consequences for the long-term profit of the NFL - through lawsuits, negative publicity, and less productivity from the players.
1: See more here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250185983
2: https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_...
3: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/business/business-roundta...
Then there's the part of the gun industry that sees gun crime as a means to sell more guns to people concerned about gun crime. Rather like the international arms trade, there's lots of money in provoking conflict so you can sell to both sides.
Can you imagine how unreasonable this sounds for any other rights?
Try the right to protest: "It's the responsibility of the bandana industry to regulate all protests, and since they have abrogated that responsibility, protestors must forfeit those rights."
The deal metaphor breaks down pretty clearly. If advocates of democracy don’t do enough to curtail voter fraud, society cancels the right to vote? If the auto lobby doesn’t figure out a solution for vehicle deaths, we stop building paved roads? Society as a whole is responsible for finding a way to respect granted rights and balance the risks of exercise of those rights; it’s not incumbent on specific groups to own that, just because they exercise that right.
On free speech particularly, what constitutes free speech and what speech is controlled or banned is constantly under review. Free speech advocates exist precisely because of this. If there was no issue around free speech there would be no need for advocates.
Laws around voter fraud are constantly under review. Cancelling all voting is not the only way to address electoral problems. Similarly banning all guns doesn’t have to be the only way to prevent frequent mass shootings.
Or is it? I really don’t know. You tell me. Just as electoral reformers are constantly addressing issues of democracy. As free speech advocates are constantly fighting for open discourse, why shouldn’t gun owners have to argue for and justify their privileges?
So what solution to mass killings and gun deaths do you propose? Just like anyone else exercising a right, you can legitimately be expected to justify it. Please do so.
The current situation re: mass shootings and proliferation of guns is that the Supreme Court parsed the awkardly-phrased 2nd amendment as mandating that ownership and possession of weapons be completely unrestricted and unabridged.
Part of it is that the version of the 2A that was passed by the states differs from the one ratified by the first Congress.
The original text:
> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The ratified text:
> A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The ultimate solution is to amend the 2nd amendment, but that would require substantial effort and consent of all states.
It’s pretty clear that we should be evaluating ways to adjust gun law in the US to prevent the kinds of violence that are occurring under the current set of rules, but we should accurately portray the current state of the world while we’re having that evaluation.
You're probably right, we can't have any serious gun control in the US as long as the 2nd Amendment remains as is, post Heller. But any state supporting the amending or repeal of the 2nd Amendment, despite that being a perfectly legal and Constitutionally approved process, will find itself turned into another Northern Ireland and any Senator or Congress person approving such a measure, should it pass, will spend the rest of their life avoiding sniper fire.
Which is why no serious attempt to touch the 2nd Amendment will ever happen. The best we can do is what we've been doing - regulate around it as much as possible, even if such attempts are doomed to be ineffective.
We can do much better than that. We can take a deep look into our own society and address the underlying reasons why people are trying to hurt themselves and others in such large numbers.
For instance, we could try to figure out why over 20,000 people per year are killing themselves with firearms. Is some aspect of their lives making them despair? If so, let's take a serious look into the causes, and try to correct them.
There are parts of the country with extremely low rates of violence and near universal gun ownership. Let's figure out what's going on in those parts of the country, and try to make the rest of the country like that.
Are there any commonalities we can identify between people who attempt to commit mass atrocities? If so, let's figure out what they are, and see if there's anything we can do to reduce the incidence of those commonalities in the general population.
How does that sound?
Sounds fine, I support everything in your comment.
However, I believe keeping guns out of the hands of people who would harm themselves and others is also a legitimate part of the solution. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court and Constitution of my country disagree with me.
The issue with this is that there are no border or customs checks between US states (with some rare, ad-hoc exceptions). The result of this is you get states like Indiana and Virginia selling weapons with relatively few restrictions that travel up an "iron pipeline" to cities with more restrictions like Chicago and New York.
The federal government is supposed to regulate interstate trade, but has decided that they won't regulate interstate transfer of guns _in this way_, so the most lax state law will de facto become the baseline for an entire region.
All fire arms should require a licensed operator.
>Exactly what problem would licensure solve?
It would keep guns in the hands of responsible, law-abiding people.
We've collectively decided that to be fit to drive a car you need to take classes on how to drive it and you have to have a valid license. Why this doesn't apply to guns is beyond me. People shouldn't be able to buy guns without knowing how they work, how to maintain, and how to operate them.
If we would get something similar with firearms licenses, there would probably still be too many firearms to help stop the glut of firearms.
Just because gun license wouldn't solve every single edge case doesn't make it a bad idea.
>If we would get something similar with firearms licenses, there would probably still be too many firearms to help stop the glut of firearms.
A tax and mandatory insurance for gun ownership could also be imposed like with cars. This would mean that people with licenses wouldn't want to deal guns to unlicensed people because they would still have to pay for the insurance and tax on every firearm they own.
Even if current gun owners were grandfathered in this would at least slowdown new gun ownership and obviously inherited guns would follow the new scheme.
How to load, clear, hold a gun; familiarity with different types of gun and ammo; laws and regs. I still see people doing dumb shit at the range, but generally less than when I lived in the US.
By law you don't need a PAL to get ammo or parts, but most stores around here (I'm in AB) require it for any sort of gun-related purchase.
Because people aren't concerned that in a decade or three, politicians are going to use the registry of motor vehicle licenses to help them in confiscating motor vehicles from normal people who want to keep them around in order to protect their families.
The political psychology point is well taken, of course; the problem with all gun control proposals in the US is that they're perceived, with some validity, to be a slippery slope towards universal confiscation, the same way abortion regulation is perceived as a slippery slope to a universal ban.
But in the airless vacuum of a message board we should be able to discuss the proposals on their merits without being chained to partisan political analyses.
But my broader point is just common sense: people are far more dependent on cars than on firearms; regulating access to driving privileges offers governments more tools than access to firearms does.
And do you think they're going to poke their noses equally around homes belonging to known gun owners as they do those of non gun owners?
>people are far more dependent on cars than on firearms
Sure, but some people benefit a lot more from the proliferation of firearms than other people do, and the people who are harmed by the proliferation of firearms have a much stronger motivation to remove them than do people that are harmed by the proliferation of cars.
No one is really concerned that the government is going to stop people from being able to drive cars without a viable alternative that works for the vast majority. There is concern that the government is going to stop normal people from owning guns, eventually. They don't need to confiscate them to do that, they just need to institute mandatory background checks so it's illegal to hand your guns down to your kids without government permission, and gradually make it more difficult to get a license, and then legal gun owners die off and all there are left are the lawbreakers.
Unless you bought you gun and ammunition using cash there already is a paper trail leading straight to you.
That makes a registry of limited value. If they ban a gun you own, and they come looking for yours because it was in the registry, you can say "I don't have it any more", and that will not be a confession to a crime that is punishable by jail time and a lifetime ban on gun ownership.
On average handguns kill 19 times as many people than all other guns combined.
The number of people killed in mass shootings is a even significantly smaller percentage of that 1 in 19.
The Columbine shooter used a Hi Point rifle which at the time where much cheaper than the AR-15 platforms offered. The driving factor in most of these are that the guns used are the cheaper platforms.
I have always said one of the deadliest firearm platforms for mass killings would be a Saiga-12 with a bag full of 20 round drums loaded with 3 inch 00 buck. But you don't see them being used because a decent one that has has the ports drilled and has been converted is over 3K and the drums run close to $100 each.
If the AR is eliminated the shootings will not stop they will transfer over to the next cheap platform, or handguns and honestly in a corridor setting, such as a school and unarmed civilians with no body armor, a handgun is going to be just as effective as far as body count is concerned. They just don't fit the image that these shooters want to portray. there is a reason that most of them wear a bunch of tactical gear when they commit these criminal acts.
I see what you're saying but a better way of saying it would be: 'Armalite is the brand, but it's like IBM - there are many IBM-compatible models'
OK curious: examples of what these, "needs" are?
One of these days I'll go through the process of getting a threaded barrel and suppressor for my AR so I can shoot on my rural land without ear protection. You need subsonic ammo to truly make it ear safe, and 5.56 is kind of a bad sub sonic round (not enough mass, has a tendency to key hole on earth), so maybe I get a .300BLK upper receiver.That means a new bolt carrier group. Maybe I'll get one of those slick nitrile ones, or the bronze coated one so it looks cooler.. I already have a 1911, so I'll probably get a .45ACP upper instead of the .300BLK. Ammo is also cheaper.
Maybe I get rich and buy a drop in auto sear so I can turn ammo into noise. Maybe I'm a weirdo nerd so I buy one of those rail mounted chainsaws to help me trim the hedges. I like the color purple so I'm probably going to get one of those acrylic transparent lower receivers. Those are cool. Giselle triggers are nice.
There's different barrel lengths for different applications. A home defense rifle might have a shorter barrel, maybe a folding stock, tactical light and a red dot sight. Do I use a holographic sight like an eotech, or do I use an aim-point? Aimpoints can last like eons on a single battery, but eotechs are really easy to use.. I could leave an aim-point ON next to my bed for 5 years and it wouldn't run out of juice. That's one less button to press if I needed to use it in the night.
I like a bipod, longer barrel, and a 2x optic if I want to use it for plinking. What style of sling do I get, if any? Single point, double point? Probably depends on my barrel length and what I've practiced with.
Maybe I need special magazines because of preferences or local ordinances. We could debate direct impingement vs. piston gas systems like you might hear two people discussing intel vs. AMD.
I've got these small boulders that have really been bugging me. I've hit them with a sledgehammer for a few hours, but they're indestructible! I could buy a rock drill, or maybe masonry disks for my angle grinder.. I'm trying to use this "problem" to justify purchasing a .50BMG upper receiver. Wholly impractical, yeah.. but I could blow up my boulders from the comfort of my deck a mile away. Kaboom!
If you're left handed/left-eye dominant you might want the ejection port on the left side and an ambidextrous safety. Once cool thing about the AR is that the charging handle is ambi by design.
I could go on, but does this add any context to what someone's "needs" might be?
Now on the other hand you like to enter 3-gun competitions where you’re running to different positions within an obstacle course like setup. (This is essentially just video gaming without the video). In this scenario you’re going to want a very light gun, so no big heavy optics. Instead people opt for these neat little red-dot sites. You may think they’re lasers like you see in the movies but that’s not it. It’s a tube you look through and there is a virtual red dot superimposed on the scene. They’re really neat.
Then you might choose between gas operated feeding and piston driven. Cost, cleaning requirements, reliability all come into play with this choice.
The list goes on and on really. These may not sound like “needs” and you’re right they’re not. This is just a hobby where go out an most commonly shoot paper or steel targets. But it’s a need in the same way women “need” a particular new shoe, or a gamer “needs” a new video card.
Also I hope this explains why people own many guns. Because once you build one for in particular style, you then start wanting one for a different style. Again, think women and shoes. Why do women have many pairs? For precisely the same reason people have many guns.
It's true that women purchase many styles of shoes, car-heads collect different types of cars, computer nerds collect various laptops tablets desktops, etc. But no one buys three toasters or lawnmowers for different uses. What separates these? I'd suggest that there is an implicit status or power conveyed through these collectibles. In particular, gun owners often see guns as a proxy for protecting their own freedom, just like a watch collector may appreciate the status conveyed by a rare luxury. However, barring the zombie apocalypse, the connection between gun ownership and freedom is false.
> But no one buys three toasters or lawnmowers for different uses.
I don’t think that’s true at all, at least not for me.
A few years ago I took at interest in fountain pens. I have over 200 of them, and regularly rotate between a couple of dozen of my favorites.
Last year ukuleles piqued my interest. I have seven of them on the walls of my office.
>> But no one buys three toasters or lawnmowers for different uses.
> I don’t think that’s true at all, at least not for me. A few years ago I took at interest in fountain pens.
You've made my point perfectly. Fountain pens are another good example of collectibles that convey some social value. A person who collects fountain pens is often perceived as someone who values writing and literature. Someone who collects musical instruments is often perceived as being musically literate.
Similarly, owning guns signals self-reliance and power.
The problem is that all of these social signifiers are pretty much false and made up. You can own hundreds of pens and be illiterate, you can own many instruments and no know a thing about music, just as you can own many guns and still be completely controlled by your government, bank, or even employer.
These social signals may all be false, but only the guns are actually harmful to others.
I understand the point you are making, but I think you could make a much better and less sexist analogy.
(maybe he got fixed in last 3 hours?)
There are shootings only because shooting is currently most cost-effective. It is not that people want to shoot people, it's that they want to kill people. That is the problem, and banning one single way of killing can not solve this.
There are so many other ways. I sometimes wonder why all those shooters bother to walk and shoot instead of just blowing it all up or burning it all down.
That's what you'll get by banning guns - same idiots but using propane or anfo. Is that what you really want? An idiot with a gun can at least be stopped. You can't stop an explosion or a fire-induced panic.
Or maybe let's focus on why people start wanting to kill people?
I agree that there is a deeper problem that should be addressed, but there's no reason you can't soften the current burden.
The point being that no one tries to fix the problem. Okay, ban guns all the way to Tannhäuser Gate, you'll just see some alternative creativity.
The thing is, people in their right mind don't often make considered decisions to kill people, but people sure as hell flip out and in that moment want to kill someone. If it takes more than 10 seconds to obtain the means to kill someone, the would-be murderer probably has time to calm down and rethink their plans.
This misconception that mass shootings are in a big part something impulsive is a symptom of.. well.. ignorance.
Can someone at last investigate the actual problem? You can't control thoughts by administrative or legislative action, how hard can this be to grasp??
edit: tpyeos
https://www.popville.com/2019/09/confirmed-shooting-in-colum...
But still I think it wasn't an impulse. Or, more likely the impulse was a manifestation of some deeper problem. The one everyone either couldn't see or chose to neglect. But it was there for a long long time.
All in all I wish everyone still alive would get out of this fine. Meanwhile, I have to go fetch a beretta 92fs so if such shit decides to happen to me, I at least will have a chance to do something. And do it in style.
Propane is too hi-tech, my fault, sorry. It'll all burn and kill everyone quite nicely just with the air.
What the fuck is going on? Why no one ever tries to investigate the root causes?
b) Those have largely been stopped by cities putting up metal bollards.
https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from...
A gun+ammo costs hundreds.
A propane can costs idk what, because they cost more to get rid of than to buy one. Its refill is what, 30 bucks for a 13 gal one maybe? 13 gal is quite enough to demolish a building.
Countries that have less killings have that not because they have ridiculous restrictions on guns. It's because people there _FOR_SOME_OTHER_REASON_ do not wish to kill other people.
If nothing is done about that and instead guns are just banned, then it would be something else that people will keep dying to.
This is what I was talking about.
A beat up one for less than $1000 works just as well as a new one for this purpose.
So either something is fundamentally flawed with Americans as a people or maybe it's just that other countries make it hard to obtain automatic machine guns.
And no. Banning guns which we did in Australia does not result in people trying to kill you using propane.
We're not talking about automatic machine guns here. It's already pretty darn hard to get one here in the US. It takes about an 8-12 month federal background check and upwards of $10,000 to get one of those. The last time one was used in a major crime was in the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout (although those were illegally converted, and not legally obtained).
We're talking about semi-automatic "civilian" firearms. The truth of the matter is that the civilian AR-15 is no more deadly than any other semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. You need to heavily restrict all such firearms to have any effect at all. Banning just the AR-15 simply because it is used the most is like trying to stop soda usage by banning Coke simply because it is the most widely drunk soda. Everybody will just drink Pepsi and nothing is solved.
Take as an example the 2011 Norway mass shooting. The perpetrator tried to get an AK-47 to commit his murders, but was denied because of the strict laws against "assault weapons" in Europe. So instead he bought a Mini-14 "ranch rifle" and killed 69 people with it.
They are not fixing the root causes, just the symptoms.
If there is one single way of killing people that is far-and-away more effective than the others and also far-and-away cheaper and more accessible than the others, then maybe, just MAYBE, controlling that one way will help a little in controlling the rate at which people kill people.
You have to address the root of the problem. Why people decide to kill people, not what tools they use for that.
But one cannot kill as many with a knife as they can with a firearm. Decreasing the impact of the attack goes a long way to preventing casualties.
However, we may gain more as a society by allowing the CDC to research gun related deaths, connections to mental illness or other behaviors, and properly enforcing or expanding the reach of existing regulations and systems.
Of course I'm forgetting which shootings but several were conducted by individuals who should not have had access to a firearm (poorly secured, stolen, taken from family, etc) or would have failed a background check if required (in addition to a waiting period) or if information was passed on as required by law would have failed the background check that was run (military failing to log domestic abuse and other complaints in the system per regulation).
We have many tools in place, they are just under funded, under utilized, not used at all in many places, or maliciously circumvented like blocking funding to the CDC for necessary research to educate policy.
Is this part of a trend of lower sales? Some kind of non-business motivation (politics, pressure, etc.)? Or just a business with a product that doesn't compete?
I'm not sure there's a lot of intellectual content here either. The AR-15 itself isn't much different from other rifles except it looks scarier. Which is largely because it's made of modern, mass-producible materials rather than wood.
"Colt Firearms will be ending its production and sales of its AR-15 rifles due to lack of public demand amid excess market capacity."
It's the first thing on the page...
Thanks to Robert Francis O’Rourke AR-15 sales overall are having another record month.
Colt are a big name, but from the perspective of the home consumer they are no longer significant.
Colt makes a perfectly ok rifle, but the premium they charge is not justified, and buyers know it.
There are far too many AR-like specialty co's out there (DPMS Panther Arms, Rock River Arms etc). - and these have successfully filled both the consumer-grade AR, as well as govt. contracts to lesser agencies. [1,2]
E.g. I believe Rock River mfgr's the DEA's standard carbine, or did for a time.
A civilian (in most US states) can own one of these, but it does require a tax stamp as the barrel is below the standard length. There’s one for sale on gunbroker right now.
No, you're committed to make money
Many people, like myself, bought a cheaper mass-market AR-15 instead. I spent the money I saved on ammunition. :)
Interestingly enough, depending on if a government-enforced "buy-back" scheme takes place it may be a wise investment to be able to manufacture this basic part in bulk.