Gun control

[crfriend]

[Here is a speedloader for a rifle with a fixed magazine:

That's a "clip"; if it encloses the ammunition it's a magazine.

[dillon]

I think you totally failed to grasp the point. The idea is to provide the opportunity for "fight or flight".

The device Judah showed would definitely NOT work on fixed magazines. The clip being loaded has been removed from the weapon. It had to be, since spring operated under-action magazines have to be loaded from the top. Also, please recall that the fixed magazines I proposed are 6 rounds max; that is derived from revolver capacities, normally six or seven rounds.

My clips on my carbine are standard GI 10 round clips, but there are 30 round clips available. I can change a clip, potentially 30 rounds, in under 5 seconds without taking the rifle from my shoulder. Not even a speedloader can do that. There are even clamps available that fasten 2 clips together in opposite directions so that all that is needed to change one is release - flip - insert, and draw the bolt to chamber the first round. 60 potential victims, perhaps schoolchildren, in a few seconds.

Plus, it seems obvious that defeating speedloading is no more than one additional step in fixed magazine technology, and not at all high-tech. It could be as simple as a loading bolt that requires a manual action between the insertion of each round. And who ever suggested this has to be yesteryear's technology, anyway?

Here is a speedloader for a rifle with a fixed magazine:

Since that's only a five round clip for what appears to be a bolt action rifle, it is well within the standards I proposed. What we are talking about is buying a few seconds for the response and escape of would-be victims. I ask once more the question you all keep ignoring: How many human lives saved are worth a bit of inconvenience to a law-abiding gun owner?

As for defeating speedloading defeating, a cast one piece housing with magazine and separate loading bolt (spring magazines are either tube type or top loading...loading bolt would not be the same mechanism as the firing bolt) would be rather more difficult to defeat than Tor suggests could be done with a screwdriver and pliers. If a loading clip was used, it wouldnt matter so much because the insertion of each round from the loading port into the weapon's limited capacity magazine would require a separate mechanical action. Again, you all continue to try to chain this to yesteryear's technology.

With the attitude here of "you can't do this, this will never work, this can be gotten around" I would think you are all Republicans. But I understand you're only pessimistic curmudgeons, like myself. But will we, in hang-dog defeat, choose to criticize rather than analyze? Doing so seems a text-book example of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

[Judah14]

Since that's only a five round clip for what appears to be a bolt action rifle, it is well within the standards I proposed. As for defeating speedloading defeating, a cast one piece housing with magazine and separate loading bolt (spring magazines are either tube type or top loading...loading bolt would not be the same mechanism as the firing bolt) would be rather more difficult to defeat than Tor suggests could be done with a screwdriver and pliers. Again, you all continue to try to chain this to yesteryear's technology. With the attitude here of "you can't do this, this will never work, this can be gotten around" I would think you are all Republicans.
But I understand you're only pessimistic curmudgeons, like myself. But will we, in hang-dog defeat, criticize ideas rather than analyze the problem? Doing so seems a text-book example of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

I am not Republican, I am PDP Laban (well it is complicated, as there are so many political parties here and my philosophy fits with several of them)
Even with only a single-shot (not magazine-fed) rifle or shotgun, a shooter might have fast reflexes and be able to have a decent rate of fire to shoot many people. Preventing such shootings from happening in the first place is better, with measures (aside from more stringent regulations on firearms) such as performing security inspections on people going to places such as malls, train stations, supermarkets, etc. and placing armed guards and/or police to respond to shootings. I am not saying regulations won't work, just that it should be part of a larger solution.

[dillon]

Since that's only a five round clip for what appears to be a bolt action rifle, it is well within the standards I proposed. As for defeating speedloading defeating, a cast one piece housing with magazine and separate loading bolt (spring magazines are either tube type or top loading...loading bolt would not be the same mechanism as the firing bolt) would be rather more difficult to defeat than Tor suggests could be done with a screwdriver and pliers. Again, you all continue to try to chain this to yesteryear's technology. With the attitude here of "you can't do this, this will never work, this can be gotten around" I would think you are all Republicans.
But I understand you're only pessimistic curmudgeons, like myself. But will we, in hang-dog defeat, criticize ideas rather than analyze the problem? Doing so seems a text-book example of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

I am not Republican, I am PDP Laban (well it is complicated, as there are so many political parties here and my philosophy fits with several of them)
Even with only a single-shot (not magazine-fed) rifle or shotgun, a shooter might have fast reflexes and be able to have a decent rate of fire to shoot many people. Preventing such shootings from happening in the first place is better, with measures (aside from more stringent regulations on firearms) such as performing security inspections on people going to places such as malls, train stations, supermarkets, etc. and placing armed guards and/or police to respond to shootings. I am not saying regulations won't work, just that it should be part of a larger solution.

I won't disagree with that assessment, except to suggest that anything that slows the rate of fire ultimately enables a chance to survive. Too, I will ask if we really want an even larger "police state" as our response to fear? To me, it seems no better than having the streets filled with gun-totin' rednecks and potential psycho-killers legally carrying concealed. And if you can defer someone from expressing their rage or hatred through violence for a few weeks, or even a few days, there is a good chance they may not follow through on their impulses. Despite the fear of planned terrorism, most violent deaths in the US are still via interpersonal violence, and most terrorist acts are inspired but not coordinated or directed. We have to reduce violence by multiple means, ultimately, but should we not act where we can act?

We made great progress against smoking deaths since we began regulating tobacco. Did we end it overnight? No. Do kids still take up the bad habit? Yes. But much progress was made on both fronts. Obviously it is not a TOTAL solution. But how many lives saved, how much death and disease and addiction averted does it take to justify the effort?

People keep tossing up the idiotic platitude that "since auto crashes kill more people than guns, why don't you advocate banning cars?" Those folks don't have particularly deep or broad logic. Here is the difference: The automobile, when used as it is designed and intended, does not kill people. A gun, when used as it is designed and intended, does; not unlike cigarettes, which, when used as intended, normally result in addiction, disease, and death. And over the past decades we have made cars safer and lessened the risk of death in a crash. We have also made substantial headway in reducing tobacco use and its resulting deaths. What have we done for guns? We've increased their accuracy, (laser sights) rates of fire, and capacity. And we have brainwashed two, three, maybe four generations of Americans into associating guns with glorified vigilante justice, guns with concocted images of masculinity. Something has to change here...this is insanity.

[Judah14]

Too, I will ask if we really want an even larger "police state" as our response to fear? To me, it seems no better than having the streets filled with gun-totin' rednecks and potential psycho-killers legally carrying concealed. And if you can defer someone from expressing their rage or hatred through violence for a few weeks, or even a few days, there is a good chance they may not follow through on their impulses. Despite the fear of planned terrorism, most violent deaths in the US are still via interpersonal violence, and most terrorist acts are inspired but not coordinated or directed. We have to reduce violence by multiple means, ultimately, but should we not act where we can act?

The security measures I mentioned are pretty much standard procedure throughout the Philippines, and are taken for granted by everyone. We have experienced Martial Law under Marcos so we have an idea what a police state is really like. And firearm regulations here are also more restrictive.

[Tor]

I ask once more the question you all keep ignoring: How many human lives saved are worth a bit of inconvenience to a law-abiding gun owner?

I'll ask again: How many rapes, murders, muggings, burglaries, and more are a few lives perhaps saved in the rare mass shootings? 15 rounds that hit a bad guy is recorded as being insufficient to stop them as evidenced by such bad guys walking under their own power to the ambulance. Not only that, one might 1) miss and 2) be facing more that one attacker.

When such magazines were banned in the 90s in the US (see the Larry Correia article), it stopped neither the good guys nor the bad guys from having plenty.

Despite the fear of planned terrorism, most violent deaths in the US are still via interpersonal violence...

Handguns are a great way to raise the risk of initiating interpersonal violence. See the second link in my earlier post.

As for defeating speedloading defeating, a cast one piece housing with magazine and separate loading bolt (spring magazines are either tube type or top loading...loading bolt would not be the same mechanism as the firing bolt) would be rather more difficult to defeat than Tor suggests could be done with a screwdriver and pliers.

Actually, I'd had a file or milling cutter in mind. By the way, I do own the tools required to not merely make such a modification, but to make guns outright - and yes, that would include a magazine fed piece that held plenty of rounds. The tools are not rare. I have read of third-world wartime gun manufacturing operations operating with little more than files.

Don't expect to make a dent in the black market guns, either, where most criminal's get their guns. I believe there is an undergound gun manufacturing enterprise shut down in Australia about once a year or more.

There are already a mountain of guns you would ban, and good luck confiscating them. Connecticut and New York tried mere registration with felony consequences - and achieved compliance rates in the range of 5-15%. Even eight years ago, Larry Correia suggested (I think reasonably) that the likely number of people prepared to shoot and kill in defence of keeping their guns exceeded the number of cops in the country. The Connecticut and New York numbers suggest he is if anything low.

My reading of history says the world that all to often comes sooner or later after guns are banned and confiscated (leaving only state actors with guns) is one where I would as soon be dead, and probably would be no matter what I do.

Again, you all continue to try to chain this to yesteryear's technology.

How do you propose to erase yesteryear's technology from the collective memory of the world?

How about considering again the unspoken message behind the call to limit guns to such low capacities?

[Tor]

Missed this before:

Here is the difference: The automobile, when used as it is designed and intended, does not kill people. A gun, when used as it is designed and intended, does;

Near as I can tell, for all the decent people out there the purposes of a gun are approximately as follows: To poke holes in targets, to hunt, because they like them, to give bad guys intending harm reasons to be elsewhere, and pray to God that the reasons are sufficient before it gets noisy, much less that the bad guy has six feet of earth as a reason to cease attempting harm. Even the most vehement gun control groups seem to acknowledge that guns give bad guys reason enough to cease attempting harm upwards of 10 times as often as guns are used to murder. Other estimates suggest it is up to 250 times more often.

[Jim]

Even the most vehement gun control groups seem to acknowledge that guns give bad guys reason enough to cease attempting harm upwards of 10 times as often as guns are used to murder. Other estimates suggest it is up to 250 times more often.

Can you find a reference to an actual study supporting this claim?

[Tor]

Jim, here is the link Larry Correia cited in his article.

RE homicides, he gave this link which now has more recent numbers than when he wrote the article, so the multipliers come out a little smaller.

[dillon]

Tor, I appreciate your civil response, but at no point in my remarks did I ever call for or imply gun confiscation. In fact I stated twice that IMO prohibition would quickly fail. Please don't put words in my mouth, and please avoid "reading between the lines" since so far in this debate no one has been very good at doing so. I'd appreciate my ideas being allowed to be my own and not linked to those of others. If you actually examine MY ideas, I don't mind scrutiny and criticism, but please don't presume that all gun regulation proponents can be tarred with the same NRA extreme-rhetoric brush.

Our gun problem is not one of weapons smuggled into the US; it is one of readily available weapons in any gun shop, pawn shop, or outfitter. And I am not talking about regulations that even come close to those in other more progressive countries. Regulation alone will not end the problem, I repeat. It is one component, and a modest one. We have to reel in the extreme rhetoric and change the gun-culture that pours gasoline on the coals of paranoia. Moreover, we must use social pressure to change the entertainment culture that glorifies gun violence. We need to regulate the computer gaming industry that desensitizes young males to the horror of mass violence. And we must demand responsible journalism instead of media headline sensationalism that makes "dark heroes" of mass killers.

Yes, there may be unscrupulous black-market gunsmiths willing to cash in by modifying post-restriction weapons and providing them to criminals. Doing so, of course, would also be a serious crime. You must admit, however, that the more difficult and expensive such modifications are, the less likely they are to be made. No one has yet explained why a law abiding gun owner would want to have his weapon illegally modified, particularly if it required a recast operational housing; single piece casting which incorporates the indirect loading ports and magazine would go a very long way toward reducing reload speed. As an apparently skilled machinist, I'm sure you can envision designs that would work just as certainly as you are envisioning ways manufacturing can be overcome. We are, after all, talking only about two goals: reducing magazine capacity and slowing reloading. Also, as a skilled machinist, do you feel strongly enough about gun rights to face a possible Federal felony for modifying a weapon illegally? You may, but I doubt many will be thus inclined. There will still be lots of work for gunsmiths repairing and maintaining existing weapons; they should not find criminal commission in their economic interest.

And, yes, there would remain a mountain of non-compliant firearms (those that exceed capacity limits or have exchangeable magazines) out there. No way is the government going to search for and confiscate these weapons, and regulation would "grandfather" them in, and permit their lawful transfer if registered. The way I see it is that the supply of non-compliant guns will begin to dwindle over decades and generations, and the threat from them will especially diminish as those weapons should fairly rapidly come into the hands of sport-shooting enthusiasts and collectors. So I am not so concerned about those weapons being held, presuming they will eventually end in the hands of law-abiding people.

The short term goals of gun regulation are to identify people who should probably not be getting their hands on guns and prevent them from doing so; to reduce the destructive capacity of new firepower available in the market and get non-compliant weapons banned; to get new weapons registered; to begin registering non-compliant existing weapons with registration enforcement kicking in when the weapon changes hands (transfer, sale, inheritance); to require meaningful waiting periods for all gun purchases, i.e "cool-down" periods beyond that required for thorough security checks; and to establish and develop a coordinated database for security assessment of gun buyers. The long term goals are to shift possession of existing non-compliant weapons, perhaps generationally, into the hands of honest, responsible sportsmen and collectors, and to get them registered so we can know the trail if one ends up part of a crime scene.

This is not an overnight campaign; nor has the campaign against tobacco been an overnight success. We started warning of the link between tobacco and cancer in the 1960s. The battle continues, but progress is happening, and lives are being saved. I never suggested the problem will be solved by regulation alone or be solved overnight. So please understand that fact when you make your rebuttals. I also asked the opponents of gun regulation twice how many lives should be exchanged for the convenience of unregulated firearm sales or the profitability of the gun industry. I am still awaiting an answer.

[Judah14]

As someone who plays first-person-shooter games myself, I think it is not a good idea to regulate the gaming industry. However, enforcing game ratings in the same way as movie ratings is a better solution, along with informing parents. I heard in Singapore they enforce game ratings by not allowing people younger than the games' specified rating age to buy them in stores.

[crfriend]

I, too, occasionally play first-person-shooters as well, and the US Army has found that they're a great way to reduce the average soldier's reticence to pull the trigger when the sights are aligned on another human-looking object. Interestingly, I've found an inverse relationship in the overall scheme of things; it turns out that the better I do at FPS games the worse I perform on the target range and vice-versa. Go figure.

But, definitely, the amount of gun-play on the telly needs to be calmed way down. The first course of action is never to draw a weapon in most sane scenarios; there are better ways to handle things.

[Tor]

OK, then we are going to have guns of the kind you are looking to phase out for a couple centuries at least. I don't imagine your law standing for more than a couple decades at best. It will make a lot of people very angry, though.

I did post about why six rounds is not enough for good people. Six rounds is small enough that one could, dealing with a single attacker, hit him with all six, and fail to stop him, needing more than a complete reload more to do so. From all I can discover, someone in a gunfight is likely to have a hard enough time changing a magazine mid-fight, let alone try to fumble with individual cartridges. We haven't even covered the possibility of multiple attackers. See the Larry Correia article.
How many of those law-abiding folk do you want killed each year because they run out of ammunition in their gun before they would have without your law?

Waiting periods do not just save lives. They kill people. There are documented cases (sorry, it's been so long I don't have a link ready - and it might have come from a paper book) of people who never felt the need for a gun (rightly, as nothing has happened), but something changes in their life, and suddenly they are facing a threat they never imagined. So they go to the gun store, and are told there is a waiting period before they can pick up the gun. Before that waiting period expires, the threat has become tangible, and the person is dead.
How many of these lives are the lives you would (hope to) save with waiting periods worth?

By the way, killers get the luxury of planning (including planning around a waiting period). Good people must react to the situation around them, and it can change rapidly. If you are lucky when trouble comes, your plans, preparations, and training are sufficient to meet it.

I don't have links ready, but best I understand it, the number of guns in America is higher than ever, carrying guns has been getting more common over the last quarter century, murder and crime in general is down, and accidental gun deaths are if not merely down, at a low since recording began. I find that hard to reconcile with calls for increased regulation to "save lives".

As for keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, the criminal class doesn't seem bothered much by it already being illegal for them to have guns. Almost all the mental cases only violently harm themselves, and from all I have gathered from various sources, psychologists have yet to reliably identify even those, much less those very rare few who harm others, at least in a way that gun laws even purport to affect. Those few, I would simply treat as any other criminal, which is what they become the moment they actually reach the point where they can be be criminally charged for their actions.

On paranoia: governments around the world murdered (not in war) on average over two and a half million people every year. A great many of those, quite possibly nearly all, had previously been disarmed by those same governments. On the whole, I think my risk of getting killed by common criminals when there is easy access to guns everywhere is far less than that of living in a society where only the government has guns. The latter has also too often been demonstrated to end up in a state where a decent person must take action that makes becoming a casualty of that government a near certainty because the alternative is morally unpalatable. I'm pretty sure the reason governments seem to want to get guns out of peoples hand is because they are scared of what those guns could do, which means that those guns are protecting liberty.

[dillon]

Tor, sorry I haven't replied, but rest assured I will. My eyes are just a little tired from all the squinting it took to re-read my own posts to see if I actually wrote all that stuff between the lines. Meanwhile:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/31 ... -st/209660

[crfriend]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/31 ... -st/209660

NOTE: This, despite the single following sentence, is not posted with the might and majesty of my formal position.

I am almost entirely willing to nuke this thread right now.

To any of the "white boys" in the audience here in the USA, you're one very, very, short step away from being legitimate "sport-hunting" targets for the police the way that black guys are now. Contemplate this for a moment.

And, yes, that was entirely intended to be as offensive as possible so as to get folks to actually think about what's going on. This is not a game. It's not television. It's the reality we've all been thrust into.