Nightline on Obama, gun control

[unixronin]

Nightline broadcast a good and pretty balanced segment last night, discussing Barak Obama's gun control position and the massive gun buying rush that's going on across the US now by people concerned that if they don't buy them now, they won't be able to.

Particular points to note:

• The customer who keeps repeating to the reporter, "Never mind Obama's words, look at his actions."¹
• The gunshop owner reporting Obama supporters coming into his store wearing their Obama buttons, who just voted for him but are still afraid he'll ban guns.

[1]  You might have seen me say this once or twice.  Assuming you've been paying attention.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Before I answer that, let me ask you a question: What is your understanding of what "semi-automatic" means, and what if anything makes it special?

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Well, your question itself was highly educational.....as it caused me to do a bit of research. I, like many people, had an incorrect definition. So, let me rephrase my original question. Why would someone need a gun that will reload automatically after each shot? (Or am I still missing the definition?) It seems that it sort of negates the "sporting" aspect of hunting. (Thus says the person who has never hunted an animal, owned a gun, or fired one.) What would people use them for?

[lonewolf545.livejournal.com]

What if you need a quick second shot? Not to mention, hunting isn't the only sport using firearms, I shoot highpower rifle competition in the service rifle category, which means I'm restricted to an M1 Garand, M1A/M14, or AR15/M16 in "as issued" configuration. A total AW ban would completely destroy my sport (people shot with grandfathered firearms before, and they changed the rules to allow rifles without flash suppressors). Not to mention, not all hunting is "sport hunting". A farmer protecting his livestock from coyotes wants multiple shots quickly.

Plus there's self-defense. And you can bet people on the border with Mexico are wanting multiple shots quickly, did you see the firearms the Mexican police confiscated yesterday? There's an open war on our southwest border, whether people realize it or not, and it's NOT staying on the Mexican side.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

I could certainly see that having multiple rounds available when fending off coyotes or other predators would be very helpful. Certainly my father's family had to kill many rattle snakes on their ranch and I personally would not want to piss off a rattler by only grazing it with one shot...and then have to stop and reload.

Sorry, I don't keep up with events on the Mexican border. It didn't make the news up here in Toronto. However, and again, I'm not meaning to start any kind of flame war with this, I do think that dealing with the underlying issues of uneven prosperity in the world would go a long way toward easing tensions between, for example, the U.S. and Mexico.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The odds are it would, but there are other problems. In the case of the US-Mexico border, many Mexicans remain firmly and unshakably convinced that Nuevo Mexico, parts of Tejas, and most of Alta California belong rightfully to Mexico.

In any case, it's far from a simple problem to solve.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

Certainly my father's family had to kill many rattle snakes on their ranch and I personally would not want to piss off a rattler by only grazing it with one shot...and then have to stop and reload.

okay, this kinda has me giggling. a lot.

had to ??? :)

rattle snakes tend to be shy, and sliter away and hide. they do not come at you in packs, and don't leap out from cover or from trees, or FLY at you (yah, there are snakes that can glide long distance - spooky).

rattlers are just unloved by ranch folk. poor things. all but extinct in new england. oddly enough, some WERE found in MA recently.

"shoot to kill! it's coming right for us!"

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[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Point of order. I've kept my end of this conversation about gun control very open and civil. Please don't inflame things.

My father's family lived in west Texas. Ever hauled a rattle snake in with a load of firewood? That nice cold snake warms up fairly quickly by a wood stove, and then is a bit pissed off.

My father's dog saved my father's life at least once by jumping between him and a rattler and taking the bite.

My uncle had rattlers that liked to live under their front porch, which is kind of a scary place to have a rattler when one has children running in and out.

So yes, when encountered close to the house or where people walked regularly, like to the barn to care for the livestock, they had to be killed. It wasn't as infrequent as you might think.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

most of the things that make "evil black rifles" all kinds of scary, are simple modern innovations. some of the so called "assault rifles" are hardly "military grade", or "sniper rifles", or "omg evil".

semi-auto is just ... convenient. it's useful. it's reliable. it's probably in my mind, safer.

the alternative are gun designs that are fairly old, and for the most part, not made anymore, afaik. sure, you can get some, but a lot of the things made today are semi-automatic.

it's like trying to buy a vehicle that doesn't have an automatic transmission in it - you have to go out of your way, and MOST people WANT the convenience/etc.

putting a SCOPE on a BB gun, pretty much makes it an assault weapon, by some definitions. petty silly. most of the tactics the ban-gun folx go for is FUD based on exploiting what people think they know. a glock pistol, modern polymer framed device, is basically banned in MA (afaik) because it's evil. go figure - they're very simple, cheap, and good pistols - they're not assault items. yet...

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[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

I have a bolt action deer rifle with a nice scope on it. It was, according to the plate in the stock, given to my grandfather by a business men's club in Austin in recognition for something or other back in the 50s.

I'm constantly surprised that no one's thought to designate it as a sniper rifle.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

it's definitely a sniper rifle ;)

which last i checked, aren't necessarily illegal :)

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[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yet......

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

which is why everyone should buy a couple.

at the VERY least, the value should go UP. it'll then be a pre-ban weapon, and in 8 years, be worth a lot more ;)

it's better than gold! seriously!

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[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'd love to, if I had the cash to spare.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

OK. I started working on this, then realized I was going to have to split it for length because LiveJournal will only allow 4300 characters in a comment, then realized it was growing to the point where I was going to have to split it into a ridiculous number of parts. So I've made it a separate post.

A short answer to your question is that for many purposes, a semi-automatic pistol can be more compact than a revolver of equivalent firepower, and in general a semi-automatic pistol or rifle can be easier to learn to shoot well than other comparable repeating arms. In addition, it is very much easier to build a semi-automatic pistol or rifle with a large ammunition capacity than it is to do so with, for example, a revolver or a lever-action rifle. (It is perfectly feasible to build a bolt-action rifle having a large-capacity magazine, but in practice it has never to my knowledge been done because no-one has managed to come up with a good reason to do so.)

These factors make them extremely good police duty sidearms or personal protection weapons. Semi-automatics have also become popular for many types of target shooting, as there is less disturbance to the shooter between shots than with many other types of repeating action (again, this returns to "easier to learn to shoot well"), although the most exacting precision target shooters still use almost exclusively bolt-action or single-shot rifles.

(Also see lonewolf545's excellent short answer, above.)


The long answer involves a fairly involved discussion of the ways in which semi-automatic firearms differ from other repeating firearms, and the ways in which they are the same. You can find that post here. (http://unixronin.livejournal.com/609834.html)