Gun ownership poll

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Carter08

That I said before seems like a non-starter. Too many good guys make dumb decisions. If there isn’t a desire to try to restrict high capacity guns from bad guys maybe there is no way to agree on something.

How are you proposing to do this? It is already illegal for known 'bad guys' to possess arms. You said earlier that gun-owners need to get over their idea that the other side is trying to take our guns away. How are you going to remove these guns from bad people without a record, without removing them from the tens of millions of good guys who own them too?

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by G1911

How are you proposing to do this? It is already illegal for known 'bad guys' to possess arms. You said earlier that gun-owners need to get over their idea that the other side is trying to take our guns away. How are you going to remove these guns from bad people without a record, without removing them from the tens of millions of good guys who own them too?

To be clear, not looking to take away your guns in that you get to keep a ton of them. But just like you’re not allowed to own surface to air missiles and such, maybe you’d agree you don’t need to own automatic assault rifles. Or agree that future purchases of them should be limited.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Carter08

To be clear, not looking to take away your guns in that you get to keep a ton of them. But just like you’re not allowed to own surface to air missiles and such, maybe you’d agree you don’t need to own automatic assault rifles. Or agree that future purchases of them should be limited.

I want to separate my personal opinions from facts. Just to be clear, automatic assault rifles are already heavily restricted and de facto banned. To own an automatic assault rifle, that gun had to be federally registered before 1986, a fee paid for every transaction, and approval from the BATFE secured to buy one that was registered. They cost tens of thousands of dollars as a result and these small number of legally-owned by civilian guns are never used for self-defense or in crimes (well I suppose they are occasionally used in a paperwork crime where someone fills out a form wrong). People are not going to the store and purchasing an automatic assault rifle, it is a serious federal felony to do so and has been since 1986. These firearms are already basically illegal for all but the elites in certain states.

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by G1911

I want to separate my personal opinions from facts. Just to be clear, automatic assault rifles are already heavily restricted and de facto banned. To own an automatic assault rifle, that gun had to be federally registered before 1986, a fee paid for every transaction, and approval from the BATFE secured to buy one that was registered. They cost tens of thousands of dollars as a result and these small number of legally-owned by civilian guns are never used for self-defense or in crimes (well I suppose they are occasionally used in a paperwork crime where someone fills out a form wrong). People are not going to the store and purchasing an automatic assault rifle, it is a serious federal felony to do so and has been since 1986. These firearms are already basically illegal for all but the elites in certain states.

Ok that’s a good start. There seems to be a gun of choice for these whackos - the AR. Can we get rid of that or restrict purchases? If it already is restricted let me know.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Carter08

Ok that’s a good start. There seems to be a gun of choice for these whackos - the AR. Can we get rid of that or restrict purchases? If it already is restricted let me know.

Some states heavily restrict or ban AR-15's and others do not. It is not federally prohibited because it is not really any different from any other semi-automatic rifle. The AR-15 that is sold to civilians have 16-20 inch barrels, and are magazine fed semi-automatic rifles like all other semi-automatic rifles. The standard chambering is for 5.56x45mm, a light cartridge with a shorter range and less penetration than most rounds fired from rifles. The AR-15 has been the standard American rifle since the late 1970's (for the military since the early 1960's, their version is an actual assault rifle though and is a little different from the civilian legal versions).

The AR-15 constitutes the majority of rifles sold in the United States. Because it has been a standard for so long, the design has been made by tons of manufacturers and perfected mechanically over the decades (there are designs I like better, but they work well), and parts and supplies for it are everywhere making it the general go-to for new buyers. It's like the Honda Civic of rifles.

Rifles though, of any type, are rarely used in murders. The vast majority of gun murders are committed with a pistol. Until recently and probably-still-today-but-I-have-not-seen-fresh-data-in-a-few-years, .22lr is used more than any other cartridge, because it is the cheapest and everywhere even though it is, ballistically, less lethal than pretty much every other commonly used round. According to the FBI, bludgeoning murders outpace rifle murders (and stabbing murders are far and away more common). Considering that there's an AR-15 in a huge percentage of households in the US, it is one of the least used murder tools relative to its abundance.