Obama may re-instate the ban on assault weapons.

[jasoncyrus]

wow...impressed with how long this got in such a short space of time.

The main purpose of my post here is to ask the OP, who thinks assault weapons are unnecessary...Why do you own a modernized AK-47...? Hunting rifles and pistols i can understand...but why the hell do you have an AK-47?

Personally i think anyone who uses a gun to kill a person is a coward plain and simple. Even a monkey can shoot someone. I'd much prefer going back to the age old fun times of melee weapons. Maces, swords, fist weapons, clubs, spears, etc, etc. Muuuccchhhh more fun. I would definately be up for Bow&Arrow too (those things are friggen dangerous in the right hands).

Crossbow...not so much.

But anyway, as a quick comment on the gun controll thing. Simple(ish) solution, raid every single house in the country and sieze every single weapon, permit or not and incinerate them. Ifanyone is caught hiding a weapon, they get shot once with each weapon for every weapon they hold. So if you have 1 weapon, you get shot once with it. If ou hold 2 weapons you get shot twice with EACH weapon. 3, three times with EACH one, and so and so forth.

Would sure as hell put the fear of death into people, especially if the cops got a bit more trigger happy with offenders.

 

[hagaya]

The big reason about the right to bear arms is defense. The hole with a complete gun ban is killing somebody is illegal, no? Then if having a gun is illegal, are people who use it for illegal activity going to care? I think it's smart to have a complete ban except for certified hunters and cops because they use them for legal and justified purposes.

If its just assault weapons, okay. I'd keep a revolver in a safe just for sport and self-defense.

 

[lizards]

Of course Obama is talking about banning assault weapons. Next, he'll ban hunting firearms too. It's one of the steps needed for total control of a people by a socialist government. It's hard to rule the people when they can still fight back. This kind of thing is exactly why the writers of the Constitution put in the amendment to protect the citizens right to keep and bear arms. They'd lived in countries in Europe where the crowns didn't allow them to have weapons and didn't want to have to endure that in the New World. What they didn't forsee, was that in the future, the politicians and far too many of the citizens would choose to ignore the Constitution and give up their rights anyway. The U.S. is going to turn into the very sort of socialist state that it's founders escaped from in the first place. Sad really.

o shut up i only read the first few lines and dont care anymore for fucks sake socialism? are you serious? IM A FUCKING REPUBLICAN and i know that he isnt jesus christ

on topic: with special training yes

by some 25 year old looking for weapons no

give them a weapon if they get trained, for those people who dont stick with the hunting rifles and pistols

 

[jasoncyrus]

Of course Obama is talking about banning assault weapons. Next, he'll ban hunting firearms too. It's one of the steps needed for total control of a people by a socialist government. It's hard to rule the people when they can still fight back. This kind of thing is exactly why the writers of the Constitution put in the amendment to protect the citizens right to keep and bear arms. They'd lived in countries in Europe where the crowns didn't allow them to have weapons and didn't want to have to endure that in the New World. What they didn't forsee, was that in the future, the politicians and far too many of the citizens would choose to ignore the Constitution and give up their rights anyway. The U.S. is going to turn into the very sort of socialist state that it's founders escaped from in the first place. Sad really.

o shut up i only read the first few lines and dont care anymore for fucks sake socialism? are you serious? IM A FUCKING REPUBLICAN and i know that he isnt jesus christ

on topic: with special training yes

by some 25 year old looking for weapons no

give them a weapon if they get trained, for those people who dont stick with the hunting rifles and pistols

The guy you quote obviously doesn't have a clue about what hes tlaking abou. If obama wanted "total control" as in create a dictatorship...He'd have gotten the military on his side and then rolled into all the major cities with TANKS and Apaches and lots and lots of extremely heavily armed soldiers and promptly executed any resistance on-the-spot.

As for right to bear arms...look what its turned the US into? highly populated with murderers and kids killing each other with guns. If your "founders" had any sense they wouldve stuck with sticks etc. Far less chance of being killed by a melee weapon than by a gun. At least with melee they have to get close, you can easily see them coming (normally) and you have a chance to dodgy, parry and deflect it. No, before you say it it's not hard if you know basic self defense.

That ntire post he put up is just...well the results you get when people arn't educated properly.

 

[Oldmanwillow]

1) what he is calling assault is ANY FORM OF SEMI AUTOMATIC. FULLY AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ARE BANNED IN THE US.

2) the second amendment was put into the constitution to protect people from the government. The government should be afraid of its people not people being afraid of its government.
(Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. Gundhi)

This is a matter that should be left up to the states. If new york wants a weapon ban they can have a weapons ban but if you pass a federal weapons ban there will be violence in the united states. Try going to a Alaskan gun enthusiast and taking away his weapons. either way someone is getting shot.

I own an AR15. I own it because it is fun to target shoot with it. .308 rounds are expensive and have a much greater kick then a .223. I can should an AR15 for a long time without wearing out my shoulder. As long as people are still alive they will always find a way to kill each other.

 

[lizards]

Of course Obama is talking about banning assault weapons. Next, he'll ban hunting firearms too. It's one of the steps needed for total control of a people by a socialist government. It's hard to rule the people when they can still fight back. This kind of thing is exactly why the writers of the Constitution put in the amendment to protect the citizens right to keep and bear arms. They'd lived in countries in Europe where the crowns didn't allow them to have weapons and didn't want to have to endure that in the New World. What they didn't forsee, was that in the future, the politicians and far too many of the citizens would choose to ignore the Constitution and give up their rights anyway. The U.S. is going to turn into the very sort of socialist state that it's founders escaped from in the first place. Sad really.

o shut up i only read the first few lines and dont care anymore for fucks sake socialism? are you serious? IM A FUCKING REPUBLICAN and i know that he isnt jesus christ

on topic: with special training yes

by some 25 year old looking for weapons no

give them a weapon if they get trained, for those people who dont stick with the hunting rifles and pistols

The guy you quote obviously doesn't have a clue about what hes tlaking abou. If obama wanted "total control" as in create a dictatorship...He'd have gotten the military on his side and then rolled into all the major cities with TANKS and Apaches and lots and lots of extremely heavily armed soldiers and promptly executed any resistance on-the-spot.

As for right to bear arms...look what its turned the US into? highly populated with murderers and kids killing each other with guns. If your "founders" had any sense they wouldve stuck with sticks etc. Far less chance of being killed by a melee weapon than by a gun. At least with melee they have to get close, you can easily see them coming (normally) and you have a chance to dodgy, parry and deflect it. No, before you say it it's not hard if you know basic self defense.

That ntire post he put up is just...well the results you get when people arn't educated properly.

let me tell you something

(setting: in bed, night)

Firstly, i'm going to use correct grammar, something that I don't do online.
Secondly, my dad was one of the richest guys in town. Partly due to the town being poor as shit, and partly because he ran the hospital in it.

2 guys broke into my house. Tied up my mom and dad and threatened to kill them, I woke up and went to my parents room and got his gun. The one with the gun yelled "I WILL KILL HIM NOW UNLESS YOU DO IT", so I grabbed my parents gun and shot him. The other laid down due to him being the one with a knife, and didn't want to be shot.

self defense is real and thats why im for guns

 

[JRslinger]

I find it very ironic that the US is so pro guns, unless it is another country in possession of the guns.

The US went to war with Iraq to take away their military might.

The US decided Sadam should not have these type of arms (even though the US sold Sadam these arms, according to the US Senate's Riegle Report).

Yet Americans bleat each time someone tries to restrict their personal access to military grade hardware.

If we ban guns or impose strict laws the black market will grow to fill the illegal gun demand, just like it did with drugs. As long as there are violent criminals there will always be a need for tools of self defense. Gun control groups are insatiable and always want more gun control.

Gun control is a failure on the local level (Chicago, Washington DC) State level(Maryland, Illinois, California) and national level(England, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa)

And this is the tired old pro gun argument.
90% of gun crime victims are shot by someone that know. So 'defensive use' is a minor concern, compared to the massive social harm guns are doing.

I notice you did not use Australia. We banned guns, except in rare circumstances and Australia now has 30 times less gun crime than the US (per 100K pop).

It is about time American's understood that the majority of the world does not consider them responsible enough to have cap guns let alone assult rifles.

As a rebuttal to your Australia comment I provide this link

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gun-laws-fall-short-in-war-on-crime/2005/10/28/1130400366681.html
Also Australia doesn't have the inner city gang problems that we do.


How does that fact that crime victims know their attacker have any bearing on self defense? A shooting victim may know the gang banger who shot him. A woman may know her psycho ex boyfriend. Furthermore the national crime victimization survey estimates 100,000 defensive gun uses a year. It's halfway down the page.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/165476.txt

 

[Simalacrum]

in my opinion ALL guns should be banned, but them i'm from Britain where the things are practically unheard of, so, yeah

 

[x434343]

Does anyone know why we have the second amendment? It is so that, if ever needed, the people of America would have the means to overthrow and replace an opressive government.

By banning any sort of gun, a red flag should go up. If he bans all guns, all he's done is opressed America, preventing the right to own the means of revolution.

 

[jasoncyrus]

[Big Post

True thats self defense, however my point still stands. If your 'founders' had any common sense. They would've foreseen this problem, but they were too power hungry and as many civilisations do, didn't look before they leapt.

And as for breaking in...if you dad was 'Rich'...why didnt you have a decent security system and a couple rotviellers? Or at the very least a 200+ decible alarm rigged to the entry points. That'll put down pretty much any intruder.

 

[Music Mole]

Why on earth does a civilian need an assault rifle?

Don't say silly things like home defense because a pistol or an alarm system or a dog can do that. Don't say hunting because that is what rifles are for, assault weapons are for assaulting! I'm fairly sure deer don't have strongholds.

When the Deer invade and build the strongholds what then sir? what then?

 

[Oldmanwillow]

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

How does that apply to keeping assault rifles, or hell even a tactical shotgun for home defense?

I'm going to preface the following with a nice old disclaimer: I do not own a gun. I am a college student majoring in Int'l Studies. I am a libertarian, atheist, and I come from Chicago. I against the ban on assault rifles.

Now that that's over with, if you look at the motivation behind the 2nd amendment, they basically wrote it because they didn't want government to be able to get away with stuff. If the people are armed, then the government has to respect their rights in a more real and direct way (because revolution is easier). That said, weapon ownership could be considered a huge check on government abuse of powers. Obviously it has drawbacks, but given the choice between low crime in a totalitarian system, or high crime but I'm given individual liberties, I'll pick the second option any day. In the words of Benjamin Franklin: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I know some of the paraphrasings sound cooler, but I figured I wanted to get the quote right.

Yes, especially guns as dangerous as that. After all, witch is more important, a bullet point on some peice of paper, or the lives of civiliens?

Yes, it's why the government isn't totalitarian now. Rule of law works, but only when enforced.

I don't understand why assault weapons we're ever legal for the general population... I mean, the function of an Assault weapon is to kill another human being... No civilian should BE killing other people so why sell them weapons to facilitate that? I don't care about legalizing hunting weapons, because they actually serve a purpose other than causing the death of other human beings.

So that basically says revolutions against tyrannies are unjust and the Jews had no right to fight back against the Nazis, they just had to lay back and take it.

One more general point: A general trend here seems to be that few people against guns have specifically argued why assault rifles are worse than, say, hunting rifles, pistols, etc. Further, I would argue that there are tons of other things that can be used as weapons. light aircraft, SUVs, cars in general, private jets, knives, and a slew of other easily accessible potential weapons are usually overlooked in this debate, and are arguably hugely under-regulated to eliminate threats. Banning assault rifles because they are dangerous creates a ruse of solvency because people can still use pistols, knives, and cars as weapons (the latter two are EXTREMELY easy to access). If they ban assault rifles, then people should be forced to face rigorous background checks in order to qualify for knife and car ownership.

Another problem I see: the danger of legislating gun safety is that it puts the government in the role of "mommy and daddy", making sure we don't do anything stupid/dangerous. The problem is that once they assume this role, there's no point at which we can legitimately say "stop, you ominous monolithic entity!" since the government can always say a) people, we know what's best, you are wrong. b) take away our right to say we don't like all the padding and supervision.

Assault rifles are an issue in America because it's been a hot-button issue for a while, and because we arbitrarily decided that safety is about assault rifles rather than sa, something logical. The vast majority of firearms crimes are committed with pistols since fewer background checks are required, they are cheaper, and easier to conceal.

This is way we shouldn't have an assault weapons ban in the US. Read it carefully and then make argument against it. good post.

 

[Music Mole]

wow...impressed with how long this got in such a short space of time.

The main purpose of my post here is to ask the OP, who thinks assault weapons are unnecessary...Why do you own a modernized AK-47...? Hunting rifles and pistols i can understand...but why the hell do you have an AK-47?

Personally i think anyone who uses a gun to kill a person is a coward plain and simple. Even a monkey can shoot someone. I'd much prefer going back to the age old fun times of melee weapons. Maces, swords, fist weapons, clubs, spears, etc, etc. Muuuccchhhh more fun. I would definately be up for Bow&Arrow too (those things are friggen dangerous in the right hands).

Crossbow...not so much.

But anyway, as a quick comment on the gun controll thing. Simple(ish) solution, raid every single house in the country and sieze every single weapon, permit or not and incinerate them. Ifanyone is caught hiding a weapon, they get shot once with each weapon for every weapon they hold. So if you have 1 weapon, you get shot once with it. If ou hold 2 weapons you get shot twice with EACH weapon. 3, three times with EACH one, and so and so forth.

Would sure as hell put the fear of death into people, especially if the cops got a bit more trigger happy with offenders.

I bet your a dirty Cod 4 camper too aren't you!

 

[Music Mole]

About damn time, what the hell could you possibly be hunting that requires an assault rifle?

The deadliest prey of all... Humans.

 

[jasoncyrus]

The fact that your country suspects every-single-one of your governments elected BY THEIR OWN PEOPLE, will possible be evil tyrants is...mind boggling. Apparently the US fore fathers didn't think very much of their fellow countrymen...

@musicmole: Alas no I don't play call of duty....I am however a Happy UT3 sniper camper who takes great joy in watching running people suddenly collapse missing a head.

 

[Agayek]

The guy you quote obviously doesn't have a clue about what hes tlaking abou. If obama wanted "total control" as in create a dictatorship...He'd have gotten the military on his side and then rolled into all the major cities with TANKS and Apaches and lots and lots of extremely heavily armed soldiers and promptly executed any resistance on-the-spot.

As for right to bear arms...look what its turned the US into? highly populated with murderers and kids killing each other with guns. If your "founders" had any sense they wouldve stuck with sticks etc. Far less chance of being killed by a melee weapon than by a gun. At least with melee they have to get close, you can easily see them coming (normally) and you have a chance to dodgy, parry and deflect it. No, before you say it it's not hard if you know basic self defense.

That ntire post he put up is just...well the results you get when people arn't educated properly.

You really are clueless aren't you?

In this day and age, it is impossible to impose martial law on a country like America. The people, the rest of the world, and even the US military would not stand for it.

The only way to gain control would be for the people to willingly surrender it. That's what these type of laws do. Each one takes away some individual freedom, until you wake up one day in the future and it's illegal to disagree with the President.

I don't give a shit where you live or what you believe, it's a cold, hard fact that all totalitarian governments started "You can do X, Y and Z, except in cases of A, B, or C." and it snowballed into whatever it ended up as. No one knowingly gives away their entire freedom in one go, it has to be a subtle process.

I don't think really think Obama would be in on such a thing, but that's neither here nor there. Allowing government greater power is never, ever, ever, ever a good thing.

edit:

The fact that your country suspects every-single-one of your governments elected BY THEIR OWN PEOPLE, will possible be evil tyrants is...mind boggling. Apparently the US fore fathers didn't think very much of their fellow countrymen...

@musicmole: Alas no I don't play call of duty....I am however a Happy UT3 sniper camper who takes great joy in watching running people suddenly collapse missing a head.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "That government is best which governs least."

The forefathers, from all the texts I've read, wanted America to be based around individual freedom and enterprise. Anyone that believes in such a system will always distrust someone who tells them how to live their lives, regardless of supposed authority.

 

[brewbeard]

Alright, here's the thing. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow the American people to, if needed, form a militia. If the government gets so corrupt that it must be forcibly overthrown, we must have a snowball's chance in hell of actually pulling it off.

Therefore, banning assault weapons IS against the spirit of the Second Amendment. The Army would still have 'em, and the police would still have 'em - and if they have 'em, and we don't, then we're pretty much screwed.

Now, I'm not saying you should give everyone an M1A1 Abrams tank... (although that would be pretty cool...) but perhaps people should at least be allowed to keep their assault rifles.

Quoted for emphasis. This is the reason Americans have the right to bear arms as a Constitutional right. Not personal defense (on singular terms) nor hunting, but for the peoples' protection against state oppression. So that if the state becomes corrupt the people have the means by which to overthrow it.

As Americans, we like to think that the good times that happen to surround us (despite the economic trials, war, etc etc) will continue to surround us indefinitely. The unhappy truth is that governments, over time, tend toward corruption and if that corruption is not ended peacefully from within the government before it is allowed to become the government, a revolution is necessary to reboot the system.

It's nice to think that it's all sunshine and lollipops, that positive thinking and peaceful negotiations can solve all of our problems, but that's simply not always the case. The right to bear arms should be preserved as a last-ditch measure, a holdout option in case it all goes downhill. Like the poster quoted above, I'm not saying every citizen should be given access to every weapon imaginable. Far from it, arms options should be carefully controlled and removed from the hands of those who abuse them. Their individual histories should be catalogued from the moment of their manufacture, and we should continue to invent new ways to identify what specific weapon was used in the event of misuse.

But to say that a ban on guns is a good thing, that it's something that should be unquestioned and to say otherwise is an evil thing to do? That's a level of naivete I'm not prepared to accept.

 

[jasoncyrus]

The guy you quote obviously doesn't have a clue about what hes tlaking abou. If obama wanted "total control" as in create a dictatorship...He'd have gotten the military on his side and then rolled into all the major cities with TANKS and Apaches and lots and lots of extremely heavily armed soldiers and promptly executed any resistance on-the-spot.

As for right to bear arms...look what its turned the US into? highly populated with murderers and kids killing each other with guns. If your "founders" had any sense they wouldve stuck with sticks etc. Far less chance of being killed by a melee weapon than by a gun. At least with melee they have to get close, you can easily see them coming (normally) and you have a chance to dodgy, parry and deflect it. No, before you say it it's not hard if you know basic self defense.

That ntire post he put up is just...well the results you get when people arn't educated properly.

You really are clueless aren't you?

In this day and age, it is impossible to impose martial law on a country like America. The people, the rest of the world, and even the US military would not stand for it.

The only way to gain control would be for the people to willingly surrender it. That's what these type of laws do. Each one takes away some individual freedom, until you wake up one day in the future and it's illegal to disagree with the President.

I don't give a shit where you live or what you believe, it's a cold, hard fact that all totalitarian governments started "You can do X, Y and Z, except in cases of A, B, or C." and it snowballed into whatever it ended up as. No one knowingly gives away their entire freedom in one go, it has to be a subtle process.

I don't think really think Obama would be in on such a thing, but that's neither here nor there. Allowing government greater power is never, ever, ever, ever a good thing.

And the award for not reading posts properly goes to you. Second line of the bit you quoted, stated he'd have to get them (the military) on his side to achieve it. And it was a hypothetical situation in responce to the uninformed person *I* was quoting. GO back to sleep please you are hampering the discussion by not reading things properly before flaming people.

As for doing thing subtly, I'm pretty sure Cuba has the whole non-subtle aspect down to a T. Germany had it down too until they declared war on the rest of the world.

 

[Agayek]

And the award for not reading posts properly goes to you. Second line of the bit you quoted, stated he'd have to get them (the military) on his side to achieve it. And it was a hypothetical situation in responce to the uninformed person *I* was quoting. GO back to sleep please you are hampering the discussion by not reading things properly before flaming people.

I was responding to your hypothetical situation. I know several soldiers in the US military, they would not fire on American citizens unless said citizens were pointing guns at someone else. The military simply would not allow a hostile takeover of the US.

Simply put, martial law is all but impossible in the current climate.

That said, it is not infeasible, and I would say it's probable, that someone is working with/on the government to establish at least some form of oligarchy behind the scenes. That may just be distrust of authority on my end though.

edit:

As for doing thing subtly, I'm pretty sure Cuba has the whole non-subtle aspect down to a T. Germany had it down too until they declared war on the rest of the world.

Actually, the Third Reich is an amazing example of just what you can do if you're patient and subtle and know how to work public opinion. After WWI, Germany was in an amazingly low slump, especially after the Great Depression of the late '20s. Hitler used the people's fear, uncertainty and anger at their situation and gave them a convenient target. He gave people a scapegoat for their troubles, and they loved him for it. Soon enough, the Nazis were in power, and said scapegoats were being rounded up and put into prison camps. Shortly thereafter, the prisoner list began to expand to include basically anyone that was different. First it was the Jews, then it extended to gays, then gypsies, and by the time he'd established himself as the Fuhrer, anyone that spoke against him.

If you know how to manipulate public opinion, you can get them to do just about anything.

edit2:

Hence secret police, said soldiers would disappear for "Retraining" come back avid supporters of keeping people in line.

This is actually a valid point and something that didn't occur to me. Not really much to say there. I'd like to think someone would blow the whistle on it before it got too far, but such things have happened before so I doubt it.

 

[jasoncyrus]

And the award for not reading posts properly goes to you. Second line of the bit you quoted, stated he'd have to get them (the military) on his side to achieve it. And it was a hypothetical situation in responce to the uninformed person *I* was quoting. GO back to sleep please you are hampering the discussion by not reading things properly before flaming people.

I was responding to your hypothetical situation. I know several soldiers in the US military, they would not fire on American citizens unless said citizens were pointing guns at someone else. The military simply would not allow a hostile takeover of the US.

Simply put, martial law is all but impossible in the current climate.

That said, it is not infeasible, and I would say it's probable, that someone is working with/on the government to establish at least some form of oligarchy behind the scenes. That may just be distrust of authority on my end though.

Hence secret police, said soldiers would disappear for "Retraining" come back avid supporters of keeping people in line.