I think it probably makes sense to drop the term “assault rifle” and just ban guns that can accept high-capacity magazines (along with all high-capacity magazines). But I’d like to turn around this question:
What the Hell Is an ‘Assault Weapon’?
…The underlying problem is that there is no essential, objectively identifiable “assaultness” that makes these arbitrarily chosen weapons especially threatening.
My question is “What the Hell Is a ‘Hunting Rifle?'”
I’ve said it before, but the merit of outlawing assault weapons is not that they are functionally more dangerous than other semiautomatic rifles. The merit is cultural and hard to define. It’s basically an agreement that rifles designed solely to kill lots of people in a short period of time are obscene. Hunting rifles are not obscene. An AR-15 is obscene. The difference in not in their utility, but in their purpose.
An assault weapon is a civilian version of a military rifle. A hunting rifle is used, obviously, for hunting, or for competitive shooting. If a hunting rifle is semi-automatic, it is just as lethal as an assault weapon and just as suitable for home defense. Why ban the former and not the latter? Because we want to reinforce that there is no legitimate reason for people to play G.I. Joe, while there are some legitimate reasons to have a semi-automatic rifle, like varmint eradication.
The hope would be that the de-militarization of the culture would lead to fewer homicides. This could also be something for police forces to think about. Perhaps they shouldn’t be so militarized, either.
But I think it would far more reasonable to ban high-capacity magazines for all guns, and perhaps license out exceptions for people (ranchers, for example) who might have a legitimate reason to use a high-capacity magazine.
I’ve watched hunting in reality shows. Never once have I seen one of those hunters break out an assault rifle to hunt anything. I just haven’t. Folks need to stop insulting the intelligence. They know damn well what people mean when they say assault rifle.
IF you need a semi-automatic to hunt…your ass needs to go get more shooting lessons.
So, the mask comes off and it’s all there, right in BooMan’s own words: “the de-militarization of the culture.” What further need have we of witnesses?! J’accuse!
We here in the land of the High Church of Redemptive Violence only find meaning and structure in life through violence. Every aspect of our culture is so thoroughly marinated in violence, it’s barely noticed anymore, except by some beady-eyed scolds wondering if it’s such a good idea for six-year-olds to be playing Grand Theft Auto until their eyes bleed. And we all know the correct answer to that concern.
You start dialing back the militarization of our culture, and you might as well just dig up old Joe Stalin and put him in the White House, you commie. And have every man in these here United States Fedex his testicles to Fort Knox.
Admit it; that’s your real agenda, isn’t it? Isn’t it?? ISN’T IT?!
If you want to know, most states actually define what sort of weapon can be used for what game. They even define magazine capacity. It’s in their hunting regulations.
That’s why a lot of the “pro” arguments for various assault weapons lose their force. Here in NY, there is not a single thing you can hunt legally with an AR-15, AK-47/74, or any similar weapon. They simply do not meet the requirements under the game regulations. In looking through a lot of states regulations, I found the same thing. The few that do allow them, only allow them for certain “varmint hunting.”
The other thing, as someone who comes from a family of hunters, is that if you need to shoot that much to get anything, you’re doing it wrong. In fact, you shouldn’t be hunting at all.
This is again, insane and silly.
You do realize that say bolt action hunting rifles and non assault styled hunting rifles are far closer to military sniper rifles than the AR-15 is to the M4 carbine? So bolt action rifles should then be truly obscene.
Again, if you know a little about guns this isn’t a road you want to go down because you’ll end up showing you don’t know much about guns. Which is usually when people in the side lines go “well, the NRA is nuts but the people they are against don’t even know what the hell they are talking about and when I read Daily KOS I see people there who do want to ban all guns so… go NRA and take it to them!!!!”. I’ve gone from hating the NRA to rooting for them since Sandy Hook just based off various blogs I read where people are pro gun control. The support I had for gun control has evaporated as well.
And again, if you take high cap magazines people will just use larger and more lethal rounds. If I can only have six shots in a mag well…. looks like that wimpy .22 is pointless and might as well use some rounds with real stopping power, like .357!
I agree that the police are over militarized. As someone who was in the military I roll my eyes at the police here in tactical clothing with sun glasses on 24/7 rolling around and intimidating people. It’s not the sort of old school “policing” where the cop was a pillar of his community and people came to him for help. Instead people are terrified of them because they go around locking people up, bullying the populace, and every encounter with them ends badly. The entire “protect and serve” part of policing has gone out the window for “arrests to meet quotas and get funding for the city through court fees” which, IMHO, is truly obscene.
How many people are killed in this country by sniper rifles?
not many, but not zero….it’s been a while, though, since I’d last seen it in the news (The DC shooter?)
So twenty babies die horrifically, and you lose support for gun control because of things you read on blogs? That’s crazy.
This isn’t about who has the best technical understanding of weapons. It’s about saving lives. One side is playing semantics. The other is doing what is right. Choose your side wisely.
I’m not a hunter, but as a shooter who has read around the topic for the past few years, what I have gleaned is that there are three broad categories of hunting rifles: Small game rifles, varmint guns, and large game rifles.
Small game are animals like rabbit and squirrel. The usual ammunition used is the .22 LR, a round with a muzzle energy of about 140 foot-pounds. These kinds of game are usually shot under 100 yards, sometimes much less. Because these are game animals, usually hunters are not permitted to use semi-automatic rifles. Such rifles may be scoped but often aren’t. Magazine size is usually 10 or fewer rounds and can be detachable or internal.
Varmint rifles are used on animals which are often considered pests, especially to ranchers and farmers. For example, ground hogs, rats, skunks, and feral cats and dogs. This is the area some people use the AR-15 for hunting. The .22 LR cannot take such animals down reliably because they’re both too large and they’re often very cautious animals that the shooter must shoot from relatively long distances. This is the class of animal for which both scoped bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles with a more powerful round, such as the .223 or the .22 Hornet, is appropriate. (There is no restriction against semi-automatic because the animals are considered pests, rather than game, so over-hunting is not considered a problem.) The .22 Hornet has a muzzle energy of 700 ft.-lb. The .223’s muzzle energy is over 1000 ft.-lb., which makes it favored for larger varmints, especially wild boar, which can be dangerous if not killed with the first shot. Magazines for a varmint gun are commonly detachable and between 10 and 30 rounds.
Large game hunting rifles are what most people probably think of as “hunting rifles.” These are typically scoped bolt-action rifles in calibers like .308 WIN (over 2600 ft.-lb.) and 30-06 (over 2800 ft.-lb.) These are used to kill much larger animals, like deer, elk, and moose. These rifles usually use an internal magazine of 5 rounds or less.
There are lots of rifles that have exactly the same lethality as the AR-15, but don’t look as “mean” or “cool” or “obscene” (depending on your perspective and age), such as the Ruger Mini-14 ranch rifle. These don’t look like military weapons, because they often have fixed wood stocks, and no pistol grip or other military-style features. However, they shoot the same caliber ammo, use detachable magazines of the same size, and are semi-automatic. The only difference is visual style, but both can be used for hunting.
In my opinion, if you really wanted to create an effective gun-control system, you’d focus on ammo, not the weapons. If you banned the sale of ammo with muzzle energy over a certain level (say, 140 ft.-lb.), you’d probably go quite a way toward reducing gun deaths. It would be easier to implement because there are only a handful of ammo manufacturers (so it’s simple to stop their activities) and once you’re out of ammo, your gun is useless. Of course, such regulations would end the practice of hunting as we know it in this country.
The problem is different for different locations. The assault weapons ban and high capacity magazine bans are a good start for mass shootings but in most cities it’s handguns that are the problem. That’s going to be an even harder problem to fix given the Supreme Court decisions over the last couple of years.
I absolutely agree handguns are the big problem. But I guess I disagree with what a “good start” would be regarding mass shootings. Banning the sale of new “assault weapons” and magazines over 10 rounds wouldn’t do anything to take the millions of existing AR-15s and 20- and 30-round magazines out of circulation. They’re very durable goods.
Also, the “assault weapons” ban focuses on cosmetic features, so all the manufacturers have to do is change the way it looks, and voila! It’s legal to sell. For an example, look at what a “California-legal” AR looks like.
So, millions of “obscene” weapons will still be on the street, and millions more that comply exactly with the letter of the law will be sold. Not to mention that the last time a magazine size restriction was enacted, the manufacturers ramped up production before the ban went into effect, and sold all they could make. The end result was more large magazines on the street, not fewer.
Anyway, Booman’s point (I think) isn’t even that such bans would have a direct impact on such shootings being committed, but an indirect impact by starting to change the culture around guns. I don’t think that’s even within the realm of possibility. We’ve had such a ban in the past, and it didn’t have such an effect. Why is it different now?
I don’t want to oversell an assault weapon ban.
I think it can be justified. But it isn’t justified merely by their lethality. Gun rights supporters keep arguing that it’s just an arbitrary and capricious set of standards, and my argument is that it’s not arbitrary. It has a cultural meaning. Why make things that are meant to kill a whole bunch of people very quickly unless you expect that to happen on at least a periodic basis?
You know, depending on where I am living, I may or may not want a weapon for self-defense. I may want a weapon to go hunting. I may want to go to the range and get my jollies. I don’t think we need to interfere with those desires or “rights.”
But we sure as hell can regulate it. And we can say, as a society, that no one gets to play citizen soldier. You want that, go join the reserves. But, yeah, ammo is easier than gun-type. Chris Rock was right about that.
I agree we can regulate. Politically, the public supports regulation in general; legally, even Antonin Scalia has suggested any regulation short of a complete ban is constitutional. I’m making a practical objection about how “assault weapon” bans and large capacity magazine bans would work. First, manufacturers can design around the purely cosmetic “assault weapons” ban. Second, banning new large magazines doesn’t reduce, and may increase, the number in circulation.
Maybe by regulation you mean something like what New York has done, which is to ban the possession of magazines over 10 rounds. This works in that state because owners of larger magazines are required to sell them out of state, so there is no claim that there has been a taking of property requiring compensation under the Fifth Amendment. Obviously, there would be a taking if we instituted a nationwide prohibition on possession of large magazines, because there would be no way to sell them. So the government would effectively have to buy back all magazines over 10 rounds. Maybe we could just pay the manufacturers to swap them out with 10 round magazines, rather than have the government administer the buyback by having law enforcement collect the magazines and cut individual checks to owners. Whether such a ban would reduce the number of deaths and injuries is another question.
The ammo may be the simplest way of resolving this issue. Hunters here hunt for two reasons, for sport and to fill their freezers and to cull anything from a marmot who is a destructive pest to coyote packs that prey on the family’s pets. Ranchers may need to protect their livestock from coyotes or even wolves or bears when they get too aggresive. For ranchers, a special permit system could address their needs.
People who hunt for sport and food don’t want to overshoot the meat. A single shot isn’t just an indication of prowess it’s a better carcass for the freezer.
I’m inclined to think that most ranchers aren’t really interested in high capacity magazines, there’s just not that much money in ranching to buy toys.
ban guns that can accept high-capacity magazines
Is that even possible? I mean, wouldn’t just about any magazine-loaded weapon accept a high-capacity magazine?
hmmmm…
-Selectable fire (single-shot, semi, full auto)
-‘intermediate’ ammunition (more than pistol, less than rifle)
-primary design use for military applications
Mag size really doesn’t play into the definition, since the M14 can take a 30-round mag with 30-06 ammo (Rifle rounds)
There really just is not a valid reason for a civilian to own military hardware these days, unless they are planning armed insurrection
What should be outlawed is:
making a profit on selling guns.
The U.S. won World War II with the M1 Garand with its eight-round stripper clip. And Colt revolvers won the West with six shots.
So the assault rifle problem is simple: Take the “assault” out of the rifle by outlawing detachable magazines of more than eight rounds. Allowing fixed magazines of more than eight rounds shouldn’t be much of a problem. It takes lots longer to load them and you can’t keep a bunch in your pocket or tape them together for quick reloads. And if you can’t hit what you’re aiming at with eight shots, maybe firearms just aren’t your thing.
If eight rounds were good enough for George Patton to beat the Hun, they ought to be good enough for some suburban housewife to defend her turf. Or for some ‘militia’ enthusiast to play guns with his buddies.
Personally, no good will ever come out of a person having a gun, irregardless of the kind of ammo used. Of course if you leave in a jungle or in a war zone, you need one. For the general public who leave in cities, why do you need one?
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Never expect a loan to a friend to be paid back if you want to keep that friend.
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