For those who don’t click into the Heavy.com link…
It goes without saying that the shooter’s motives haven’t been established or at least publicly disclosed. However, …
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Why? It’s a great deal easier to manufacture magazines than guns. It’s much easier to work around. Also, it’s much less effective. Replacing a 10 round detachable magazine is much faster than reloading one round at a time.
Sure, it’s unlikely to pass. All laws that we don’t currently have are unlikely to pass. I was responding to a post about “that even the strongest proponents support”, not about what is likely to pass.
Any limits on guns have to grandfather in existing weapons, it just isn’t practical to go out and collect every one. Too many people say “You’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands”. Fine, keep your gun until you die and take it to the grave if you like. I’d make it illegal to sell, lend, give, trade, or bequeath the non-complying guns. That means people born after ___ can’t possess one because they couldn’t have owned them when the law was passed. It gets harder and harder for a 22 year old to acquire one.
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Regarding why I think banning removable magazines isn’t a viable option:
First, keep in mind that my focus is on the viability and effectiveness of potential measures.
Many/most popular firearms in the US take magazines, and they do eventually wear out. An outright ban on magazines will translate to an outright ban on those models of firearms…and that’s not a realistic approach to take.
Also, writing from my own preferences as someone who enjoys going to the range every so often to go plinking or target shooting…reloading sucks, and part of the challenge in the sport is accounting for recoil on subsequent shots. The need to overcome that stance contributes to the non-viability of a ban on magazines.
Going for a limit on magazine capacity is, I think, a more viable option (ignoring the likelihood that existing limits on magazine capacities seem destined to be overturned by courts as unconstitutional), because you still preserve some of the interests of gun owners, but impose some limit on the harm that can be done by individuals who would misuse firearms, and potentially limit the need for grandfathering existing gear (c.f. Canadian limits on magazine capacity which, when adopted, required higher-capacity magazines to be pinned to limit their capacity).
A 10-round limit is realistic (again, ignoring court trends). Even a 6-round limit could be workable. Less than that, and resistance to such a measure will be too great, and you start running into the question of how to treat revolvers.
Yes, there is the problem of bad guys being able to swap magazines…but banning magazines approaches close enough to a ban on firearms as to be unrealistic in the US.
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When the 2nd amendment was written, reloading sucked more…
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Of course, that kind of thinking could be translated to other rights we take for granted.
Words have power. Abuse of words arguably cause problems as great, if not greater, than misuse of firearms. Yet attempting to limit the freedom of speech to just those modes of speech that moved as slowly / had as limited an audience as those modes that existed at the time the Constitution was written would similarly be doomed as unrealistic.
Also, if we revert to 18th century standards as the base…modern bullets didn’t exist back then. Working with lead balls and black powder is kinda fun on its own, but I’m not certain encouraging a proliferation of powder is such a good idea either.
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This sounds like some “origanilsim” pick & choose game.
Use “originalism” when it benefits your argument and then abandon it and claim times have changed when it becomes inconvenient.
This does sound just like how the current conservative Judiciary apply their made up version of “originalism,” so you are probably correct wrt what laws could actual be passed that the lobbyist would allow the courts to uphold.
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Agruing over the Framers’ intent and the applicability of such is, essentially, a form of mental and political masturbation.
Engaging in that masturbation may be fun (for some definitions of “fun” at least), but it’s not terribly productive.
I’m in the awkward position of enjoying target shooting as a recreational pastime, but also believing part of this particular problem is the availability of firearms. Even setting aside court trends, there isn’t much that can realistically be done on just how many guns there are out there.
That’s why, when I wade into discussions like this, I tend to focus on alternatives that are actually achievable, even if they wouldn’t be as effective as (for example) an Australian-style removal of firearms from circulation.
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If “viability” means political prospects, then your focus does not relate to the post that prompted my response.
That post wasn’t about “what we can pass”, but about something that the “strongest proponents” of gun laws would support. I’d say that the strongest proponents of gun limits are fine with banning guns entirely.
Banning interchangeable magazines is a much smaller step than that. Manufacturers could make guns with internal magazines that would fire and handle just like any guns available today. So, virtually all types of guns would still be available. People would just have fewer rounds before reloading. This isn’t an “outright ban on firearms”, just on a feature that supports mass murder.
But, “reloading sucks”. Yes, it sucks especially for the shooter who is trying to kill a lot of people in a short period of time. That’s why such a ban is “effective”.
I’m not promoting single shot guns. Six rounds allows for “accounting for recoil”. And, if someone said “We shouldn’t have speed limits because I enjoy the challenge of driving at high speeds on public roads”, I would say “Tough, that’s one challenge you don’t get to enjoy”.
Gay clubs were created to so that we can have a safe place from society. But they just come into the clubs and shoot us now.
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Also, (and I think Indy implied this), it’s screwy to me that going to the range doesn’t offer you more guns.
I would think a person should be able to rent a bunch of weapons at the range: Machine guns and flamethrowers and grenade-launchers. Basically the range should be where you get to pretend to be Rambo. But after you play that game, you go back to home to your civilian weapon, that isn’t so capable of causing carnage.
That said, I’ll admit here, that I’ve never been shooting, and therefore I have no fucking clue.
We have video games and now VR for this.
No guns necessary!
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You can. Machine guns are fun…although they were more fun before ammunition got expensive. But it IS an excessive form of fun. When my inner libertarian isn’t paying attention, I have no problems with privately-owned machine guns being extremely restricted.
VR isn’t yet advanced enough to provide the full sensory experience.
Some of the VR tech used by the military is getting close in that regard. If/when that advances a little bit further and becomes available to the general public…
(Although if/when that happens, I anticipate other issues to arise. See Ready Player One – preferably the book rather than the movie – for ideas why.)
[sneer] Eh, they’re Cafeteria Originalists. [/sneer]
Okay. Well, that’s what I think “sports shooting” should mean:
Weapons capable of unlimited death and destruction.
And civilian shooting should mean weapons capable of limited death and destruction.
And any gun-control should have a carveout for “sports shooting”.
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One day I wish to be able to detonate a nuclear bomb in person.
If you can do it without directly or indirectly harming others, more power to you.
A teenager at my former high school built a nuclear reactor as a science fair project. That was kind of cool. (Glad I didn’t face hm in competition when I was in school!)
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I’m all for it. You’d need to have the gun range in space somewhere, but that’s entirely plausible in your lifetime.
why in space? plenty of places on earth where you can detonate safely.
also, according to Neil degrasse tyson, modern hydrogen bombs don’t have nuclear fallout concerns. There’s very little radiation. A lot of shockwave though.
I could be wrong, but I think that if people detonated enough nukes something would add up.
I suppose we could have a rationing of fun-nukes, but let’s face it, we can’t even ration CO2 effectively.
Anyway, I think space would be a fine place to do anything. Like international waters, but better.
First you’ll have to shut your eyes, and have a mental flashback scene about your life.
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