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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I think the unauthorized sale concern is overblown, but do believe "assault weapons" are uniquely dangerous; this is a debate I've had on HN a number of times, and tends to start with a courtly dance of someone saying "that's because you don't know how firearms work" and the history of semi-automatic long guns, and end with ballistics reports and the machining simplicity of automatic sears.

I don't necessarily want to have that whole debate again, which I guess I could do by pressing the point, so much as to make space in this subthread for "maybe that one part of your strong comment is not as settled as you're making it out to be".

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"Assault weapon" doesn't mean anything outside of New York and New Jersey. For New York it's an arbitrary combination of "features". For instance, threaded barrel + removable magazine. The M1A I'm looking to buy, a modern garand, is considered an assault weapon under the SAFE act. I want it as a ranch rifle, but because threaded barrels are a no-no I'll have to store it in another state when and if I have to move to NY.

Statistically speaking, based on shootings and crime, pistols are much more "dangerous". For whatever reason we've made laws solely on long gun features though.

> For whatever reason we've made laws solely on long gun features though.

You must be well-aware that handguns are much more tightly controlled than long guns pretty much across the board, totally aside from the fuzziness of "assault weapon" designation.

Ah, let's be specific about what you're talking about: Handgun modifications are more tightly controlled. For instance if I try to turn a hand gun into a long gun. That was always true of federal law.

What I'm pointing out is that a stock long rifle is arbitrarily made a felony only in New York and New Jersey law, which logically leads to a more dangerous outcome: I have to store said gun somewhere else while I live there for work.

No, handguns are more tightly controlled than long guns.

Illinois law makes many stock rifles, some of them by name, a felony.

Worse, I think. Federal law says you can transport a firearm in a locked case in a vehicle, in every state. But Illinois interprets that to mean, you can pass through Illinois (say on the freeway) and they respect the law.

But if you go off the route, say a couple miles off the freeway to visit a cousin as long as you are in Illinois, then a highway patrol stop can mean arrest and imprisonment.

It’s not where you are traveling it’s how long. You have 24 hours to move your awb through Illinois.

No one has been arrested just for traveling through Illinois yet.

The courtly dance begins. We can talk about the Sturmgewehr 44 and Eugene Stoner's design goals for the AR, if you like, or we can just accept that reasonable people can call all semi-automatic or select-fire long guns with detachable magazines "assault weapons" regardless of whether the Ruger Mini-14 does or does not look like an AK-47.

If detachable magazines are your issue then New York still allows them with 10 rounds or less on both pistols and long rifles. Phrasing that as "reasonable people" is a bit of a trap. I'm a leftist, have been all my life, that likes gun control in the form of:

- finger printing

- background checks

- no sale registries

- psych evals

- closing private sale (non FFL) and gun convention loopholes

New Yorks style of gun control is not what I think is effective or reasonable. It's just making the process more arduous and arbitrary without effecting the illegal sale market, where most of these crimes statistically occur.

Edit:

Throwing a point in post edit: Detachable magazines are actually not the deciding factor in the SAFE act. You can have a detachable magazine, just not when combined with a muzzle device (eg: a muzzle break or compensator).

The question here isn't whether existing gun control measures are effective (they are not, for multiple reasons). If I was elected emperor, my first step would not be to "ban assault weapons".

The question here is whether there exists a meaningful category of weapons called "assault weapons" (yes: the semi-automatic and select-fire long guns with detachable magazines, which were designed as weapons of war) and whether they are more dangerous than other legal firearms (yes).

>The question here is whether there exists a meaningful category of weapons called "assault weapons" (yes: the semi-automatic and select-fire long guns with detachable magazines, which were designed as weapons of war) and whether they are more dangerous than other legal firearms (yes).

No. Both you and the people you're arguing against think that the category of "assault weapons" exist, but you're using your own definition whereas others are using the legal definition. Why are you clinging so hard to the phrase "assault weapons" specifically? People who are using the legal definition have a pretty strong claim to that definition, because it's literally enshrined in law. Why not say "guns with detachable magazines" or whatever and save everyone from pointless word lawyering?

If think you're following some revisionist history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_(firearms). Magazines predate the military's use of them.

The earliest form of a magazine was the repeating rifle and it predates the Civil War. Clips, the earlier form of what we colloquially call a magazine, evolved through the same way. Where it converges was with the development of the M1 Garand that took a clip during WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Garand

None of this, as I said, is effectual to solving the problem people want to solve so the discussion is kind of moot. "Assault Weapon" is a grouping that some politicians came up with based on arbitrary characteristics. I think it's useful for appealing to their voter base that doesn't want to think too much about solving the actual problem of people who want to cause violence using gun. Beyond that, the term loses value rapidly.

There's a thread here (I'm not going to search for it right now, you can) where I pasted the earlier version of the AWB I'm talking about, so, no, I'm not, but this is just part of the dance. We're not going to convince each other, and I'm not trying to. I'm just going to make the case --- I think I've got it locked down and it's probably not worth pushing back, but you do you --- that this is not as settled as the root comment made it sound.

That's a very narrow, parsimonious claim, which is part of what makes it easy to defend.

Gun control laws certainly aren't settled. I'm passionate about them, but I'm also passionate about people taking an attempt in one state and broadcast it as the standard. Especially when that standard term is also defined federally as something entirely else. Time will go on, these discussions will continue to happen, and we'll have different outcomes. It's fine, and thanks for taking the time to discuss it with me.

No, my claim is even narrower than that; I'm not asking you to argue against gun control laws. I concede that point. I'm saying the question of whether "assault weapons" are uniquely dangerous is unsettled. Lots of things are uniquely dangerous; backyard pools, for instance. In this case, all I'm saying is: it's not a settled matter that the weapons people commonly refer to as "assault weapons" (semi-automatic long guns) are more or less dangerous than handguns. I think they are quite a bit more dangerous, but all I'm saying here is the matter is unsettled.

Yeap that's fair and truthy.

I think this is the weakest part of your argument about assault weapons bans fwiw.

It’s pretty clear statistically that handguns are in fact much much more dangerous than assault weapons.

But you don’t need to prove that to be anti-assault weapon but it feels very weird to look at the stats around these things and conclude that’s where the focus should be.

I think the focus is on assault weapons because handguns are off limits. The populace wants them and the courts are pretty clear on them.

I think if you're aiming to prevent the most deaths, you focus on car accidents.

If you're aiming to prevent the most firearm-related deaths, you focus on handguns.

If you're aiming to prevent mass shootings, assault weapons are very relevant.

You can ask "why prevent mass shootings, when ordinary shootings kill more people", and of course someone else can say "why focus on shootings at all when cars kill more people".

Handguns are used in more mass shootings than assault weapons as well.

I think that's only true if you use a definition (the technical one, to be sure) that is counterintuitive to most people.

I’m curious what definition you’d choose that didn’t just add “with an assault rifle” to the end.

The Congressional Research Service definition works for me.

CRS defines 12 deferent types of mass shooting:

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R48276

I’d guess you mean the mass public shooting one.

It’s hard to find comprehensive data on all the dimensions but in this report for instance https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R44126.pdf

You’ll see 16 of 66 mass public shootings were performed by assault weapons that were illegal under the Brady ban but legal now (another one was an illegal conversion and a final one was performed by a police officer who could legally purchase under either regime).

So I don’t agree with you about where you’d focus if you wanted to stop mass shootings.

And worse than that I think focusing on assault rifles especially turns what is a pretty universally agreed upon problem (mass shootings are increasing and becoming more deadly) into a culture war issue.

The courts are nearly certain to affirm civilians rights to own assault rifles soon. We can keep chasing ever more caricatured laws around weapon definitions or we can focus on things that don’t require the culture war: - strong and universal enforcement of the laws on the books that don’t abridge the legal possession rights of citizens (felony straw purchase enforcement, background checks, felony bans, etc) - make domestic abuse disqualifying for firearm ownership (by making it a higher class of crime and enforcing it) - red flag laws and training on identification (including a process to surrender firearms when in crisis and to regain your rights when not) - repeal all the crazy laws preventing the gun industry from being researched and sued - safe storage laws - civil and criminal liability for providing firearms used in crimes

And while we’re at it let’s get gun owners mental health resources and build a culture where it’s normal to store guns outside of your house if you start having suicidal thoughts.

> finger printing

Why?

> background checks

These are being done, what else?

> psych evals

Ah, a subjective means to deny rights. Also, who is paying for this? Maybe you should have to have a psych eval to cast a vote.

> gun convention loopholes

Yesterday's compromise to pass the Brady bill is now being referred to as a "loophole." Do you see why that might make folks concerned about a restrictive agenda?

Most of what I'm following here is existing state based CHL checks. Those are reasonable, provide benefits (expedited sales), and are effective in that CHL holders are not typically the people that those people are trying to prevent sale to.

Brady I don't have much of an opinion on. I do know, as a value, that I buy all of my firearms through a licensed FFL. It's at most $50 + shipping. I don't think that's too restrictive.

Okay, can we expand these restrictions to voting? If not, why?

I updated my comment before you commented and added:

> Brady I don't have much of an opinion on. I do know, as a value, that I buy all of my firearms through a licensed FFL. It's at most $50 + shipping. I don't think that's too restrictive.

I think we, as gun owners, do need to acknowledge there are people who go to gun shows to illegally acquire weapons or perform strawman sales with relative ease. Maybe my solution isn't the best, but it does need addressing.

If you really want to tread into analoging ownership to voting I think you'll be very disappointed. We require a lot of hurdles to vote. You have to go to an authorized voting location (akin to going to an FFL), you have to present ID that is known to the state so they can correlate that you are, in fact, in the right place (all those checks I mentioned), and afterwards they determine whether everyone who voted was eligible to vote. If they weren't, they're charged with a serious crime.

> you have to present ID that is known to the state

Not in most states.

---

There are people that go to the polling booth and commit voter fraud with relative ease, therefore it needs addressed.

The Brady bill was allowed to proceed because of the guarantee that people wouldn't need to involve the government to conduct a private sale between two individuals or gift firearms between father and son, for instance.

Calling it a loophole that "does need addressing" is reneging on a compromise.

Also, have you ever been to a gun show? Recently? Do you know the actual, real percentage of FFLs present vs private individuals? Today, these shows are composed of 95% FFLs anyway, all of whom perform background checks - and the available deals are shitty.

>There are people that go to the polling booth and commit voter fraud with relative ease, therefore it needs addressed.

While I'm sure there's a non-zero amount of fraud going on, by all official accounts the actual rate is negligible.

Is it more or less negligible than the number of intentional rifle homicides occurring in this country?

Voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5147732/voter-fraud-exp... I understand it was used as a talking point by a certain person in this last election, but it was only a talking point - not truth.

> Today, these shows are composed of 95% FFLs anyway, all of whom perform background checks

I have been to a gun show recently. We can, and should, close that 5% gap. An FFL is an intermediary and the ATF doesn't retain records about transactions they do by law. FFLs will maintain their own records, but they're no some widely searchable database (which is what people fear in an Orwellian sense).

> We can, and should, close that 5% gap.

Good luck getting compliance without a formal registry.. oh wait.

There is no federal registry, that's why the FFL system exists. They track who they did transactions with and if the federal government needs to know about a transaction they can approach the FFL holders. The system works as designed to preserve privacy while also providing some amount of traceability.

All that needs to happen is the prohibition of private sale outside of an FFL. From there you can penalize gun shows that allow non-FFL holders to sell.

As I said earlier, there's not a good reason not to transact through an FFL. They're charged with maintaining your privacy as a purchaser while simultaneously preventing strawman purchases. They're a very basic extension of nearly every pawn broker.

Yeah, I'll just never comply and I won't be surprised when SCOTUS shuts this down entirely. The onus is on the state to prove unlawful transfer: I don't have to say anything whatsoever.

Thankfully, home manufacturing (a protected activity) of firearms is becoming cheap, simple and effective via 3D printing and machining - this is already a SCOTUS-affirmed, historically-legal activity.

What's next, regulating CNC machines and 3D printers?

I think you're imagining mental health evaluations as more subjective than they actually are. You're really just looking to sus out sociopaths, the extremity mentally unfit, obvious signs of suicidal ideation, and people with severe uncontrolled anger issues.

I don't really get why you're so defensive on this point? Like yeah, psych evals are probably a bit too onerous for every gun owner to go through just because of the time commitment alone but you seem to take issue with them on principle.

On principle I don't take issue with adding requirements to vote, you're more than welcome to push for them but additional restrictions do go counter the goal of increasing turnout which is already embarrassingly low.

Also I'm not taking a stance one way or another on the gun show thing, I personally don't care about them that much but by any definition they are a loophole. Even more so it's a near full escape hatch from the law. Instant background checks could be as easy as one of those Square payment terminals if we let it, the burden is really low.

Who is paying for these "psych evals?"

Where in the Constitution does a "psych eval" constitute due process?

Why can I not be required to pay to exercise my right to vote?

You do pay to exercise your right to vote. There's a certain party that loves the color red that requires an ID to vote. They also require you to have up to date residency information in order to vote. Changes like that require money at the DMV and enable your right to vote.

When I got my CHL in Texas I was required to get a psych eval because I'm a veteran. Here's the form: https://www.dshs.texas.gov/sites/default/files/medical-advis...

You pay for it, but any old doctor can affirm the things on that form.

The “reasonable people” phrase is so abused in this debate. “If you disagree with my logic, you’re not a reasonable person” is rhetoric that would not fly in any other debate setting but is standard in the discussion of firearm laws

I think if you read more carefully you'll see that is not in fact what I said.

You can’t declare one group reasonable without implying the other side is unreasonable. Your phrasing and framing was more nuanced than most I admit

Reasonable is both a legal term used in legislation and a term that appears in gun debates at a disproportionate ratio.

Once again: this observation is inapposite.

Yes, you've argued this with me before.

The issue of "assault weapon" bans boils down to the question of whether or not restricted features like pistol grips and adjustable stocks make magazine-fed semi-automatic firearms more dangerous than those without. People who shoot these kinds of weapons tend to be unconvinced. Gun control advocates generally believe this distinction makes sense.

There's also the issue of how restricted magazine-fed semiautomatic weapons should be, apart from the baggage of "assault weapon" features, which I feel could be a more productive debate.

No, my argument has literally nothing to do with pistol grips and adjustable stocks, as you know.

Yes, I recall you argued for an older proposal regulating "weapons of war" unmoored from any functional criteria as determined by cabinet appointees + a banned list from the legislature instead of the feature tests that have actually become law. I don't recall you arguing for any functional distinction between banned and not-banned magazine-fed semi-automatics.

I dispute that characterization but my bigger question is: stipulating what you say here, if you knew that to be my position, why did you write a comment about pistol grips and adjustable stocks?

I was summarizing the general debate. Your position is idiosyncratic.

My position is idiosyncratically well-informed. When you begin your comment with "we've argued this before" and go on to lay out the position you're opposing, you impute that position to me. Why?

Imputing a position to you was not my intent. Apologies.

Thanks! Sorry to be a stickler, these discussion always devolve into a morass of semantic misunderstandings.

I don’t actually think it’s that idiosyncratic a take. I think most people that want an assault weapons ban would be perfectly fine with “detachable fed, semiautomatic or select fire rifle (you can use the federal definition of rifle)”.

The cosmetic feature bans come from the mismash of court cases that define gun rights.

It's not really a courtly dance. It's a near impossible conversation to have because "assault weapon" doesn't have any kind of clear or helpful meaning. Even the expired AWB didn't do a decent job of defining. And arguably many "features" usually shoehorned in are just silly. Like there's nothing especially bad about pistol grips on rifles.

Sure it does: any semi-automatic or select-fire long gun with a detachable magazine.

If that's all it means, it's extra meaningless.

How many peacetime bayonet attacks have happened in the last 100 years to make a bayonet lug a restrictive criteria?

I do not care about bayonet lugs.

It absolutely is though. Guns are classified as "assault weapons" because of cosmetic features like barrel shrouds and bayonet lugs, and the fact that most people don't know this doesn't make it less true. The term "assault weapon" was deliberately chosen to confuse people into thinking it means the same as or something similar to "assault rifle", and that fact isn't really in dispute either.

And then I come back with 3 paragraphs about the legislative history of the assault weapons ban, which began by singling out a bunch of weapons by name but with a catchall of semi-automatic weapons with detachable clips, and got lobbied down to its cosmetic definition by the NRA.

You might believe I'm completely wrong about all of this, and that's OK. That's how message boards work. But do you think "you haven't read the assault weapons ban and don't know how silly it is" is going to work as a rhetorical strategy here?

Or we can just accept that reasonable, informed people might disagree on these points, and there's no winning this.

>And then I come back with 3 paragraphs about the legislative history of the assault weapons ban, which began by singling out a bunch of weapons by name but with a catchall of semi-automatic weapons with detachable clips, and got lobbied down to its cosmetic definition by the NRA.

Where is this?

There's an older thread where I pasted a link to it, but I'm not going to dig it up right now (you can; I promise you it's there). I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that people will take my word on stuff like this. I'm really not trying to convince people that I'm right about this, only that the question is unsettled.

I'm actually quite interested in your N paragraphs about why the category is written the way it is, and especially about the principles under which it is (or was meant to be) effective..

Frankly it's something I've always wondered about, but as mostly a spectator of these kinds of discussions I've never seen anyone explain. Like a lot of folks, from my surface-level knowledge it seems arbitrary and likely meaningless. But so much so that it feels like I must be missing something.

Or any chance of a link to your previous cpmments on the topic?

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