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Comment by surge | Hacker News Reader

Probably because those shootings are probably in high gun control areas like Chicago, NJ, CA where laws are strictest, so it shows that gun control doesn't really work to stop those, and those deaths are usually the result overwhelmingly of handguns, not AR-15's or "assault style rifles" which are just semi-automatic rifles that look militaristic and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks. In this case, the numbers don't help their agenda.

The most effective forms of gun control should be focused on guns used in the majority of crime, which are handguns, but that's not the discussion that's being had because the gun debate is media driven, which is centered around mass shootings (greater shock factor, better ratings), which statistically are the rarest and of least concern by numbers (I think gun death/homicides by rifle < 300 even including mass shootings). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

AR-15s are also very popular because they're a platform you can take an AR-15 lower, and or buy a cheap one and build up slowly over time until you have a very nice and accurate rifle. They look militaristic because their metal exterior but when people say they're identical functionally to hunting rifles, they're not lying when it comes to the part that handles firing the bullet.

I'll also leave people with this: https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1138520780042465280

View on HN

I'm really tired of this argument that people are irrationally afraid of black rifles and simply don't understand the machines they're purporting to regulate. These are devices that were designed to be field stripped by 18 year olds in a jungle. They're not that complicated.

The Mini-14 (for example) has a wooden stock, and looks like something out of Little House On The Prairie, in part because it was brought to market at a time where the M-16, a descendant of the Stoner AR-15 design, had acquired a reputation for dreadful unreliability. In an urban environment, it's just as problematic as an AR-15; what's your point?

Another almost perfectly unhelpful argument is the irrationality of assault weapons bans. This is the Nelson Muntz of firearms regulations argument. The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine. It was the 2A crowd, and particularly the NRA, that fought off gun control advocates to the absurd position they occupy now. It's not some article of faith among gun control advocates that grips and barrel shrouds are actually important. The NRA is the reason we ended up here, and now they're telling us to stop hitting ourselves.

Also, another example of a firearm with a wood stock? The AK-47.

> I'm really tired of this argument that people are irrationally afraid of black rifles and simply don't understand the machines they're purporting to regulate.

Given that more people are killed with hands and feet than are killed with rifles of any kind, "assault" or otherwise, yes, it's an irrational fear.

Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

For 2018, the numbers are:

Rifles: 297 Hands and feet: 672.

Do you think people advocating gun control haven't considered these numbers? Heart disease kills more people than crime of all sorts. We still generally want police departments.

Is there some book or FAQ these arguments all get sourced from? They always seem to be the same ones. At this point, I'm not even annoyed that people disagree with me about firearms, but just that their arguments are so boring.

It seems a bit dubious to ban something that has legitimate uses and isn't even on the "leaderboard" in the murder category.

If you believe handguns should be banned, it is at least somewhat logically consistent of a position. But if you ban something that is a fringe edge-case in the statistics, we know a priori it will be minimally effective at best, and at worst those murders will be performed by other, more convenient means.

> Do you think people advocating gun control haven't considered these numbers?

I think the overwhelming majority of them are ignorant of them, yes. Do you have data that shows otherwise? If so, perhaps you should present it.

> but just that their arguments are so boring.

Calling a fact "boring" is not a refutation of it.

You can't feel the arguments from the gun-control crowd are any less boring than your arguments, right? It's been the same shit for ages.

The whole debate is boring, crazy that we keep delving into it.

Considering that even some firearm maximalists don't appear to understand the history of the weapon they're defending or that of the FAWB, I dispute how "boring" my argument is.

By the same argument police departments don't respond in the two minutes it takes for a violent incident to take place, even more so the further outside a city center you are. So even though fires don't happen often, you still keep a fire extinguisher, the same argument is used for home defense.

For those who are curious.

All firearms: 10,265

Ultimately, you are agruing for DRM. Note that the State Separtment is _still_ (after the court loss) trying to claim ITAR on firearm CAD's.

Our ability to print guns will only improve. Hand waving it away as something you dont think matters wont change it.

Our ability to print everything will only improve. If you're an an-cap, there's a coherent argument to be made here, but if not, your argument proves too much.

You are arguing for two classes of people; those with access to general purpose computing, and those without.

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

> The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine.

The last time I saw you in a discussion like this, I asked you for a source and all you could give me was a draft bill with a few guns banned by name. No general ban on semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines. I think you're wrong on this. You should stop repeating this unless you can back it up.

I appreciate the attempt at a mic-drop here, but I actually responded to your comment with a link to a bill that was not merely "a few guns banned by name". Maybe you missed it; my response came a day or two after you wrote your comment. I'll hold on to my argument, thanks.

This is what you linked to:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/386...

Were you thinking of something else? Because I really don't see how it supports your argument.

You've just linked to a bill that effectively allows the attorney general to designate any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine an "assault weapon". There's not a barrel shroud to be found in it.

It's an I-Know-It-When-I-See-It standard that would not have survived legal challenge with carveouts for Jimmy's squirrel rifle and grandpappy's hunting rifle. Sure, it's not feature tests, but it's not any more rational. If the intent was to ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, that law does not do that. If you believe that this law is "sane and straightforward," what rational basis is there for banning some semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines while leaving others available at the whim of the Attorney General?

I was going to type out a rebuttal to this, because I think you're mischaracterizing a straightforward and somewhat technical proposal. But I realize that's besides the point. You don't like this proposal, which is fine. But you had no footing to make the argument that it didn't exist at all, or that it didn't back up my argument. Concede that, and I'm happy to keep discussing.

I wouldn't like proposals that banned semiautomatic weapons with detachable or high capacity fixed magazines, either, but I'd concede that such proposals make a rational distinction in potentially dangerous functionality. My problem specifically with this proposal as well as subsequent ones that include feature tests and the like is that they fail to make any rational distinction.

You're entitled to your opinion that the bill in question is a "sane and straightforward" approach in contrast to subsequent proposals that aren't because of irrational feature tests. I just don't think that's a defensible one. Giving the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury wide latitude to say "this semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine is ok but this other one isn't" is just as arbitrary as later feature tests. And if anything, this proposal is worse public policy: one administration could add every eligible semi-automatic rifle to the list and the next one could make the list empty.

Either ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines or don't. Maybe exempt rimfire from any ban or don't. If there's a rational distinction beyond that to be made, make it.

You can use the word "sane" to mean anything you want it to. As you well know, since you're the one who brought that long, detailed previous thread into this one, the meaning I'm giving it "not based on cosmetic features like grips and barrel shrouds". The basis for my argument is factual, and you should concede that, because you yourself set the tone and expectation of rigor on this thread, and you aren't living up to that standard.

That I'm not even advocating for that particular proposal is besides the point. You accused me of arguing in bad faith, and I am now pointing out that it's in fact you that are doing that now. It's an easy problem to correct; you simply have to say "I was wrong about that, let's move on".

> The Mini-14 (for example) has a wooden stock, and looks like something out of Little House On The Prairie, in part because it was brought to market at a time where the M-16, a descendant of the Stoner AR-15 design, had acquired a reputation for dreadful unreliability. In an urban environment, it's just as problematic as an AR-15; what's your point?

That you don't see pictures of the Mini-14 on the evening news as an exemplar of something to be prohibited when they're trying to drum up support for new laws.

> The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine.

Which is to say the significant majority of all rifles. So straight forward but not sane, because it would be enormous overreach rather than anything that could actually pass or survive judicial review.

But then the compromise is inherently ridiculous because there is no meaningful distinction to be made between an ordinary hunting rifle and a "military" rifle, and instead of accepting that they proceeded to insist on meaningless distinctions.

> Which is to say the significant majority of all rifles. So straight forward but not sane, because it would be enormous overreach rather than anything that could actually pass or survive judicial review.

I'm amused that this is an actual argument. "We're not idiots who don't understand guns, if we had our way we would have had a ban for an overreaching category of firearms!"

It's easy to win arguments when you make them up yourself to knock down. That comment is responding to and inaccurately paraphrasing me. I'm right here. I suggest you rebut something I actually said.

Not inaccurate:

> The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine.

It's interesting to see you write as if the very words in your quotation aren't there to compare with how you paraphrased them. A bold choice!

Being truthful is not bold. Or maybe it is from your standpoint.

If you don't think that the category of semiautomatic longguns that have detachable magazines is not overreaching, then more power to you. Sorry, I mean bless your heart as they might say in the South.

An AK-47 is a fully automatic rifle.

People argue AR-15 are "fully semi-automatic rifles" which is an oxymoron or "assault style" or that AR stands for "assault rifle". This is the level of ignorance and misinformation in the debate I'm addressing.

An Assault or Automatic rifle can fire multiple round bursts and an AR-15 is no more dangerous than any other semi-automatic weapon (like a standard Glock pistol). You conflate it with an M-16, just like every other ignorant person. An M-16 fires multi round bursts, an AR-15 is single trigger pull, single bullet fire, just like any other rifle a citizen can legally purchase without a special license including the wood stock hunting rifle with a scope that hunters would use to drop a large buck, bear, or boar (which are often larger caliber in those cases). AR-15's are heavily modifiable, easy to repair, reliable, and use the same 5.56 NATO ammo so the ammo is cheap and can be bought surplus. If they were in anyway similar to an M-16 in anyway that mattered (meaning they can fire multiple bullets in a single trigger pull), you'd get a nice raid from the ATF. The AR-15, just like a semi-automatic pistol or hunting rifle requires you to pull the trigger again for each bullet you want to fire. The argument here singling out this gun because its popular with everyone, including crazy people doesn't make a bit of difference in making anyone safe if someone buys another semi-automatic rifle and does the same thing, or just carries two pistols (as was the case at VA Tech).

Again, these are laws nitpicking over a gun that is a rifle, when rifles account for < 4% of gun deaths in a country where gun violence isn't the major cause of death and stabbings/homicide and mass murders and bombings and shootings are still massive problems in other western countries with outright gun bans. It's not a rational application of our time and attention for the best effect and preventing unwanted death and homicide. Your argument is driven by media sensationalism, that is profit and ratings driven, real gun policy requires dealing with the boring every day pistol and criminal violence, and the underlying causes of violence and crime. The people saying no one needs guns have armed guards and security personnel and can afford to live in very safe upper crust neighborhoods or regions like Martha's Vineyard or in penthouses with door men, or gated communities. They live in San Francisco, not Oakland, they live in NYC or downtown Manhattan, not Camden, NJ. They can walk to a police station, they're not 30 minutes drive from the local county sheriff. It's the height of privileged people dictating policy for an environment they're isolated and protected themselves from. It's okay if they ban guns because it doesn't truly effect them in any meaningful way. Unless they're on the receiving end like the HK government, in which case its probably best for you you keep the average citizen disarmed.

Erm, the post your responding to distinguishes, correctly between an ar-15 and m-16. You're attempting to correct someone who, by all accounts, appears to know more about firearms than you do.

It's also simply false that the only differentiating factor of "danger" to a weapon is whether or not it is semi or fully automatic. If an ar-15 were no more dangerous than a Glock pistol, you wouldn't need an ar-15 to defend from the onslaught of wild hogs.

Or in other words: pick one, either at style rifles are superior for self defense, or they're non more dangerous than a pistol. You can't have it both ways.

He doesn't tho, he compares an AR-15 to an AK-47 and says an AR-15 is designed to broken down in the jungle (that's the M-16, which was what was used in Vietnam, they conflated the two, trying to disingenuously frame AR-15's as a war weapon used by the military).

Rifles are superior for self defense at a distance. So in the "wild hog" scenario, best to pick them off from a tree, or before they get close. In a more realistic case, shooting someone coming at you from across your yard (especially if you have a large yard or live close to wilderness). But if wild hogs aren't your concern, but assailants coming across your yard that are armed: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/homeowner-shoots-kills-men-...

Any closer than that you're probably better off with a shot gun for home defense, unless...you're defense needs are different or you're concerned about multiple assailants, which case a pistol might be better.

Pistols are more apt for shooting and more easily handled in a close quarter environment, where accuracy isn't difficult to achieve and you need to move the gun quickly, so an assailant that is close to you. They're also easier to conceal and carry with you. That's when you'd want a Glock, with hollow points which would do far more that 5.56 ammo since the caliber on even a 9mm much less a 45 is significantly larger. The tip of a 5.56 bullet isn't much larger than a .22 so to say its more dangerous, unless you count velocity, but unless you're wearing body armor, a 9mm or .45 pistol would be worse. It's why police generally carry pistols, and honestly, if you're worried about the "active shooter" in a building, pistols are just as much and have been as much of a threat, to say nothing of what most gun homicides are caused by.

> He doesn't tho, he compares an AR-15 to an AK-47

No, he points out that an AK-47 has a wooden stock.

> that's the M-16, which was what was used in Vietnam, they conflated the two, trying to disingenuously frame AR-15's as a war weapon used by the military

The M16 is an AR-15. Like, it's the same platform, it's just that the M16 variant is automatic and uses nato rounds. The AR-15 was designed to be broken down in the jungle in vietnam, which is why the US army adopted it under the designation M16. This isn't really controversial[0], "The M16 rifle is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military." But before it was designated the M16, the US Army procured standard, automatic, AR-15s. Early M16 and early AR-15s are practically identical, and early M16s were stamped as AR-15s, so yes, in the early 60s, the US military absolutely used AR-15s as a war weapon.

So yes, he's exactly right, and demonstrably better educated on firearm history than you are.

Its again worth noting that an AR-15 has a higher muzzle velocity, stopping power, and range than any handgun you'd be able to fire accurately. It's also easier to hit things with a rifle than with a handgun, not that it's particularly hard with a handgun, it's just much, much easier with a rifle. So I'll just reiterate, your argument that an AR-15 is no more dangerous than a Glock is nonsense. They absolutely are. They're meant to be, a Glock is a tool for self defense, an AR-15 is a marginally dumbed down military tool.

> unless you count velocity

Yes, the fact that you aren't counting velocity is strange. A single bullet from an AR-15 will knock you over. The same isn't true for your average 9mm.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle

Well the velocity argument is a factor of it being a rifle, thus can hold a larger charge and are designed to because the bullets need to go further without losing accuracy due to gravity and air resistance, etc. This is a something it has in common with any hunting rifle. Yes you can knock someone down, certain hollow points can do that too.

Yes, we all know the AR-15's are made by the same people and 90% similar, but the part that matters, the part the ATF cares about, the part that makes it ready for military use or an assault weapon is whether its automatic or not. Take that away and its no more capable for military use then any other hunting rifle. You say its designed to broken down and repaired in the wilderness, that doesn't make it inherently more deadly or more military/assault style. So is a Glock, having a simple, reliable mechanism that's easily repaired and doesn't break down is a good feature to have, it doesn't make it militaristic, its a design a hunter would want who will spend days or weeks at a time in the wilderness (watch Meat Eater), or a safety feature as gun failures lead to accidental discharges, which is a factor on the range. It's not the first thing to be designed based on a need in the military, that applicability to civilians (like GPS) being designed to be easy to repair. The thing that makes an M16 militaristic is automatic fire, which a soldier needs for suppressing fire or hitting an enemy with multiple shots. Everything else you described is a feature of any other rifle. It's like saying a Humvee shouldn't be driven by civilians because the military uses Humvees and some have turrets (which are removed in the civilian version), when every other feature of the Humvee can be found in other civilian SUVs (just as every other feature of the AR-15 exists in other civilian use rifles). The aspects of the gun you're complaining about exist in other rifles that are not military rifles.

I think if you take any serious time digging into this you'll find that people who actually use tactical rifles in military operations do not attach the same significance to fully automatic fire that you're alleging they do. There's a reason that military carbines are selective fire, that many selective fire weapons do 3-round burst instead of fully automatic, and that most combat operations are performed exclusively using semi-automatic fire.

The simple fact is that MSRs are tactical military weapons; that's what the AR-15 was designed to be as well. "MSR" is an Orwellian term. It's proponents believe that citizens should have unregulated access to military weapons, but lack the courage needed to make that argument forthrightly to the public.

I don't know what Humvees have to do with anything. I suppose you could be concerned that military vehicles might tear up the streets? Who knows: despite the fact that Scalia himself, in the text of Heller, affirmed the right of states to regulate military weapons, states have in reality almost total authority to regulate vehicles, and almost none to regulate firearms.

(I don't think semi-automatic rifles are going anywhere; they're too useful for hog and coyote hunting. I'm not an advocate for a national "ban" on really any firearm, or really any national firearm policy at all. Let Montana regulate how it wants to.)

They don't except for cover and move exercises. Then the automatic fire and burst mode features are great for suppression tactics.

But again, what are you going to make illegal about the AR-15 that doesn't also apply to hunting rifles, specifically much big game hunting rifles that are far deadlier (higher velocity rounds, higher caliber).

You're demonizing because of its history and it looks the same but its feature set is identical to that of any other legal civilian use rifle, other than maybe clip size (which clips are probably the easiest part to make yourself), there isn't much about it that you could write a law for that wouldn't apply to every other rifle society finds acceptable or give the "mass shooter" the same advantage. Hence the Humvee vs SUV argument. Its the same as arguing Humvees are made for the military, so the civilian models should be banned even though they removed every feature (like the armor and turrets) that don't exist in any other civilian model SUV that is legal. It's the same rational, if you wanted to ban Humvees cause someone did bad things with them under the argument its a military style vehicle, any thing you "banned" would also lump in the other civilian SUVs with the same features. If you banned the AR-15 someone would just make another rifle tomorrow, that was just different enough with a different model number, the danger would still be there, and as discussed that danger isn't even significant compared the gun violence done with hand guns so people's obsession with it irrational on all fronts because they're hung up on the "looks like a military gun" aspect of it.

We're talking about writing a law here, and setting policy. What's the policy you're going to write that takes away a killer's ability to do anything they couldn't do with another rifle?

If were me, and I don't think it matters, but lets say I had to write a law tomorrow "gun to my head", pun intended. I would make only bolt action rifles available to civilians for the purposes of hunting without any special license, it doesn't do much, but it does create a higher barrier without much practice and training to be effective at harming a high number of individuals in a short window. Then I would make semi-automatic weapons available to civilians who got a permit similar to CCW training, where you have to go through a day or two's worth of safety and legal use training, get a full background check, etc, but once you're licensed you can buy as many semi automatic rifles you desire, you'd be required to secure the weapons under lock when in storage, anyone can fire your rifle as long as they're in the presence of a licensed individual who owns the weapon (so if a friend wants to fire it at the range, that's fine) and the training needs to be affordable and accessible (similar to CCW) so that we're not creating a class of haves and have nots where only the very privileged can own one, simply the ones wanting to put in the time and training. And I don't try to single out an AR-15 as anything silly like a "military style assault weapons" that's not any different from any other semi-automatic rifle available on the market.

Infantry fire teams have designated team members with machine guns for this reason. It's not at all hard to find service members writing about why infantry squad members don't need fully automatic weapons at all: they waste ammo, they aren't more effective at neutralizing targets, they increase collateral damage, and they're harder to maintain.

My point, then, is that the argument that a weapon is or isn't "military" ("tactical" is the right term) based on fully-automatic fire capability simply fails. It's just not true. Not historically, and not in modern practice. Rather, it's something that civilian firearm advocates want to be true so they can avoid serious debates; it's one of a small collection of "mic drop" arguments like "Heller" or "3D printing" or "sporting rifles" that exist to cut off discussion rather than furthering it.

The "gun violence done with hand guns" argument is another of the same species. Clearly, hand guns kill more people in the US than tactical rifles. Cars kill more people than either, and opioids more than cars, and heart disease more than opioids. There are particularized reasons we care about each of these things, and public policy debates aren't serialized so that we must first dispense with the opioid epidemic before we deal with the problem of military weapons that enable people to barricade themselves in high-rise hotels to kill dozens of people attending an outdoor concert, and that allow mass shooters on foot to stand off beat officers and force them to wait for reinforcements before confronting someone killing schoolchildren at random.

If RPGs were regulated the way tactical rifles are now, you'd have the same argument; no doubt fewer people would die by portable artillery than by handguns as well! Your argument proves too much; that's a strong sign that it isn't valid.

Well if they have a guy available with a machine gun, sometimes you have to improvise, so its nice to have the option. There are cases where a machine gun isn't in position to provide suppressing fire, or the guy with it got taken out, etc. It's besides the point, but yes I concede that its not ideal to use for that purpose.

My arguments, just mean we agree more than we disagree. We just disagree how it should be handled. Again, I argue there's nothing about a M-16 set with the switch spot welded to single fire mode that is any different from a hunting rifle when it comes to features and capability, which is what an AR-15 kind of is. So you can't make just an AR-15 illegal without doing any significant progress towards removing the actual danger posed by them, or just converting mass shooters to using pistols (as a few mass shooters have done so anyway) or another semi-automatic hunting rifle. My point is when it comes to legal policy, what are you saying can't be sold to civilians exactly? Someone will just buy a different brand, or they'll modify the patent slightly so its no longer "an AR-15".

I updated my last post to include the law I would write more or less if I did have to say, take AR-15's off the table as an option for anyone to just buy whenever they wanted. But it includes all semi-automatic rifles, not just "military rifles".

I think we agree on the facts of an AR-15, but disagree fundamentally on what to do with those facts. I think banning AR-15's would be one of those laws that buy political points but don't actually address the problem in a way that doesn't punish or hamper law abiding citizens and more importantly actually make us safer in any practical sense, so its a purely negative tradeoff. And if you're going to go through the time and effort, find away to address the biggest problems first (gun violence in general which is hand guns, and addressing the underlying causes of violence) then hyper focusing on one gun. It's like banning plastic straws, when most of the plastic waste in the ocean is being dumped overseas and plastic straws are at least recyclable where as the case with McD's who recycled their plastic straw waste their recycler wasn't equipped to recycle the paper ones. Its a law that does more to make people feel/look good then address the very serious issue in any significant way.

Read hunter forums debating MSRs vs. bolt-action rifles. You'll have no trouble finding hunters certain that MSRs are overtaking traditional hunting rifles simply because they appeal to undisciplined, unserious weekend warriors who are drawn to their military look-and-feel, and that arms manufacturers feed into that because traditional hunting rifles also last forever and the industry needs people to get on a continuous upgrade cycle.

You haven't seen me anywhere advocate that we ban anything, let alone a particular semi-automatic weapon by name; in fact, the root of this long subthread is a comment from me saying the exact opposite thing, that wood-stock ranch rifles pose exactly the same problems as black rifles.

What I have a problem with is the faux superiority gun maximalists dress their arguments in, along with a culture that elevates a simple machine designed to be serviced by teenagers outdoors in the rain into a solemn, secret brotherhood, as if being able to remove the fire group from an AR-15 meant these putzes had the mechanical aptitude to swap out a car transmission or even replace a hot water heater. The technical details behind assault weapons are far more learnable than almost any other technical issue we regulate without issue.

I stated my policy preference elsewhere on the thread: give up on national firearms policy, back down on the maximalist Heller interpretation that says MSRs are off the table for state regulation, and allow states to license (on a presumption of must-issue basis) all semi-automatic long guns if that's what their citizens decide they want to do.

No I liken an AR-15 to a Honda Civic. It's just a car, but you can modify them into some kind of Fast and Furious drift racing machine. So you can buy an AR-15 for $500 and upgrade it to a very nice $3000 rifle. But that doesn't change that the Honda Civic is a solid vehicle, accessible for its cost, and is something you can start out with at minimal cost and customize to your liking if you get really into it. Or the Toyota Hilux even. But law/policy wise, there's nothing practical you can say this is bad and makes it more lethal than another gun. It's just more likely to be the kind of gun an idiot would buy, which is the kind of person whose going to get angry at the world and go kill innocents, it'd just be another gun if you took that one off the market, because its going to be which ever gun is more popular with the casual person.

If you're serious about hunting, you'd get a bolt action, for the reasons described, because you want your first shot to be your only shot.

I agree on the weekend warrior thing. But that's why I honestly think while guns are a right, because history teaches that eventually people need to defend themselves. But they're also a responsibility, and places like Switzerland or people who are trained in the responsibility aspect of gun ownership are what you want.

You've just read a whole thread of two people explaining to you why an AR-15 is more lethal than handguns.

On paper or in reality, because the deaths by rifles total is < 400 a year? My point is that any rifle, especially the larger caliber ones are more lethal than handguns, so the AR-15 isn't that special for a rifle in terms of lethality, all rifles are more lethal than handguns on paper.

When you access risk, likelihood is a factor, you mitigate for risks that have a higher likelihood. If I'm worried about protection from being killed I'm more worried about a drunk driver than a meteorite even tho the meteor has a higher lethality. Handguns are lethal enough you get shot by one, the survival rate isn't significantly higher than a rifle especially considering you're statistically more likely to be shot by one. Stabbings tend to be more lethal than either, but and there are more people stabbed then shot by rifle (~1500-3000 in US per year), certainly more the case overseas. Missing forest for the trees.

Are we just being pedantic here? What are you arguing or is the point of argument if you don't want to ban guns or ban the AR-15 or military style weapons specifically? If you're arguing it just to argue I honestly don't see how that's constructive. I'm discussing this in the context of gun violence, in the context of the media hyper focusing on military style rifles when they're not the major cause of deaths, even in mass shootings (which are just as often or more often pistols).

You're repeating yourself. I addressed that argument already as well. If you want to rebut what I said, that's fine, but you can't just repeat the same point as if there hadn't been a response to it. Be specific about what your issue with my argument is. Or rest your case; it's fine if we just disagree.

> You haven't seen me anywhere advocate that we ban anything, let alone a particular semi-automatic weapon by name; in fact, the root of this long subthread is a comment from me saying the exact opposite thing

> I stated my policy preference elsewhere on the thread: give up on national firearms policy, back down on the maximalist Heller interpretation that says MSRs are off the table for state regulation, and allow states to license (on a presumption of must-issue basis) all semi-automatic long guns if that's what their citizens decide they want to do.

From the perspective of many, that's "allow guns to be banned". It'd be sort of like saying "back down from the maximalist Roe v. Wade position" or "back down from the maximalist Brown v. Board of Education position", and then getting mad when people accuse you of being anti-abortion or pro-segregation.

I don't care about this argument. This isn't a courtroom or a legislative hearing; we're discussing ideas. You'll have to address the things I'm actually saying instead of demanding that I answer for everyone else on my side of this debate.

Instead of replying with a bunch of counter arguments to some random person on HN, why don't you make a proposal?

What is your idea? How should guns be regulated in America.

I'm fucking tired of this same "we need to do something" argument all the time, with nobody ever actually saying anything at all.

Like no shit, something should be done.

You got a idea? What is it?

I don't know why you think this would be difficult to respond to. Obviously, I think that states should be allowed to enact and administer laws that require licensure for possession of semi-automatic long guns.

> This is the Nelson Muntz of firearms regulations argument. The original AWB proposals were sane and straightforward: they intended to regulate any semi-automatic long gun with a detachable magazine. It was the 2A crowd, and particularly the NRA, that fought off gun control advocates to the absurd position they occupy now.

This is a fair point. I think people underestimate the degree to which 2A advocates are playing from a position of strength. People here in Maryland probably don’t know that semi-automatic rifles remain completely legal notwithstanding the 2013 “ban.”

That raises the question though: presumably, gun control advocates were maneuvered onto this hard-to-defend ground be for reasons. Presumably, nobody could gin up enough support to take away semi-automatic hunting rifles from Minnesota Democrats.

I think a federal ban on semi-automatic rifles is a ridiculous, overreaching, and counterproductive goal. Hunters in Minnesota already require licenses; should Minnesota choose, those licenses should suffice to ensure access to semi-automatic rifles. I don't care what color those rifles are, but Minnesota might care about their magazine sizes. Montana might opt out of firearms regulation entirely; that also seems like a perfectly cromulent experiment to run in the laboratories of democracy.

>and no one would freak out about if they had wooden stocks.

Yeah, this. It's sort of developed into a moral panic because so many in the media grow up in urban centers on the east coast and don't have much contact with firearms. The reporting becomes pretty tainted, and in some cases hilariously inaccurate.

The majority of people live in urban centers.

One of the biggest difficulties in modern America is bridging the urban/rural divide:

My father, living in a rural area, purchased a shotgun for home defense -- when 911 was accidentally dialed, the sheriff's response time was roughly 30 minutes. Their primary political concerns revolve around taxes and regulation. Sometimes a bear walks through the neighbor's yard.

At our house in the city, on the other hand, I can throw five burritos and hit five other residences. I can't imagine firing that same shotgun in our house, as our windows and our neighbor's windows are in direct opposition. Police response times are quick, but we have people camping in the bushes across the street, a car break-in thrice a decade, and the occasional heroin addict passed out in the park, needle still in his arm.

These are two entirely different modalities of living, and we are trying to apply federal law to both. The second amendment is essential to our democracy, but it is increasingly difficult to argue with the growing calls to address gun violence as a public health threat. Nobody wants to get shot, everyone wants to live free and out from under the thumb of a tyrannical government. We can find a way.

A shotgun is actually pretty reasonable Urban defense, particularly with lead shot that isn't too large.

Rifles are a big no no though. They can carry very far and overpenetrate.

I've been contemplating bear spray to fill that role. Deployed in the confines of our home, it would put both us and any assailant in a world of hurt, but nobody has to die (and, if turned against us, we might suffer far less).

Even bird shot, fired from within our house, could easily kill our nearest neighbors. They're less than 10m away, and separated only by plate glass. The buckshot that my father has selected for home defense could easily reach them through their interior walls. I've already dealt with enough death in life.

If the assailant is armed, they can still fire at you. It won't really work. If a criminal can shoot back or attack after getting shot, especially one that is high, mace isn't going to do it, just ask law enforcement. Criminals will always have access to guns despite the law.

Virginia had. Lot of success with limiting the number of purhases per month to cut back on strawman purchases. It made a statistical drop in gun violence. To truly combat that or mass shootings we need to address the why, not the how. And that isn't better psych car and red flag laws. Psychologists admit freely they can't distinguish between those who will harm people in mass shootings and the multitude of others with similar personalities. It has to be about asking what in our society prompts people to harm themselves or others and reducing those stressors. Again, why, not how or who.

Probably need some evidence to back up your claims about their motivation.

Gun control on the state level will not stop the flow of guns across state borders. It's dishonest of you to suggest otherwise. Speaking as a gun owner.

Here's the trouble with that argument:

> Gun control on the national level will not stop the flow of guns across national borders. It's dishonest of you to suggest otherwise.

People smuggle drugs into this country at scale. The same people who are among the most likely perpetrators of homicides. If prohibiting possession has no effect and prohibiting importation is similarly ineffective then it's hard to see how a national prohibition would do much more than a state one.

We have open borders between states and mostly controlled borders between countries. Regardless, the guns flow out of the US, not into it.

The "controlled borders" between the US and its neighbors are each more than a thousand miles across, and I'm led to believe that most of those in favor of gun control are sour on the effectiveness of securing them with a wall or other such measures.

Moreover, contraband flows toward the places where it's prohibited. If certain firearms went from not prohibited to prohibited then they would flow in rather than out.

And I'm not saying a national ban would have no effect, only that it would have a similar effect to a state-level ban -- regular people would follow the law, and then you might get e.g. fewer firearms suicides (but more non-firearms suicides). But if you expect gangs to stop arming themselves because of "borders" or national law, just look at Mexico.

The demand would drop and so would gun manufacturing. There would be less guns on the street and more effective securing/training of legal guns/owners.

Clearly there is a spectrum of choices that can be made, some more effective than others. As mentioned, state borders have effectively zero restriction in movement and should be taken in context with any criticism of local gun laws.

Why would there be less guns on the street? Aren't the vast majority of those illegally obtained anyways? IMO the more likely response would be that all the guns that were previously stolen/criminally obtained legal guns would become fully automatic since there's no reason not to at that point. (Manufacturing cost difference is basically nil, and if you're already smuggling an illegal rifle might as well make it automatic)

Guns aren't exactly rocket science to make, and the plans are available online. Good guns, reliable guns, safe guns? Not so much, but why would the criminals in question care?

You’ve forgotten the single most important factor. When it comes to intentional deaths by firearm, mass shootings target white children at a much higher per capita number. If white teenagers were getting killed by gun murders at even the rate of black kids killed by cops we’d have a national ban.

See the fact California started heavily restricting gun ownership once black people started exercising their Second Amendment rights (and that happened under a Republican government)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

  under a Republican government

Actually, Democrats controlled the Assembly, and the Mulford Act didn't move until it had a majority of Democrat cosponsors.

It passed the Assembly in a bipartisan manner, but the governor was a republican (Reagan). It was also introduced by a republican (Mulford).

I didn't mean to excuse the Democrats who supported it, they were racist opportunists, I merely wanted to point out the CA Republican party dropped its principled support for 2nd Amendment Rights as soon as the people they would be protecting didn't look White like them.

  It passed the Assembly in a bipartisan manner

It passed both houses with over 2/3rds majorities, and neither was Republican controlled... so your attempt to make it a partisan thing is confusing.

It’s fairly straight forward, Republicans have traditionally been anti gun control. But when push came to shove they abandoned that position when it meant allowing black men to be armed.

That said the GOP was much less strident in their gun worship back then generally.

Name one gun control measure opposed by CA Republican assembly members or senators that term. One.

CA Republicans of that era were not anti gun control.

> so your attempt to make it a partisan thing is confusing.

I said it bipartisan. Both Democrats and Republicans supported it. But it's more intesting to me and many others that Republicans supported gun control, because Democratic support is a given. I wasn't aiming to say either party acted better in this specific case.

Bill Gates' graphic isn't compelling except in the case of some cancer and traffic accidents. Most heart disease, almost all Alzheimer's, most cancer, etc. are just various ways that old people die. You're going to have to die in some manner, so reducing Stroke deaths is just going to mean more Heart Disease deaths a few years later on a person who got to live a full life.

Traffic accidents, earlier cancers, suicides, etc. take people who had much more quality life to be lived.

Even if you exclude "natural causes" the point is still there. Terrorism is ludicrously over-represented in the media, even compared to homicide. Homicide is half as likely as suicide but the media has it reversed. Drug overdose is preventable in ~100% of cases and kills three times more people than homicide but it's completely ignored.

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