After the eighth school shooting in seven weeks – some gun control proposals

Yes. That's it exactly.

That sounds good in theory, but the Obama Administration tried to put people on the list of prohibited purchasers if they get disability payments for a severe phobia or eating disorder.

I'd want to see strong protections against future abuses of the background check system before I agreed to strengthened background checks.

They may think that now. But surely they'll notice our power when we defeat them once again.

I can only speak for myself, but anytime I oppose a gun control measure, I will always be able to give you a reason why I oppose it.

It's not genetics. It's the poverty level in certain areas. High poverty levels beget high crime rates.

I'd like to add a third one. Lack of justification for some gun control proposals.

Constitutional rights can be restricted only if there is a good justification for those restrictions.

If a gun control proposal cannot be justified with a good reason, then it's unconstitutional.

 

That's not going to work. The gun control movement just recently pressured insurers to stop offering gun liability insurance.

Gun owners may find getting self-defense insurance tougher following Florida shooting

Broker Lockton Joins Chubb, MetLife in Withdrawing from NRA Insurance Programs

 

And what is that function?

 

That's not how the Constitution works. Rights can only be restricted if there is a good reason for those restrictions.

If there is no reason for banning something, people have the right to have it even if they don't have any reason for wanting it.

The M1 Garand, the classic lever-action 30-30, the S&W N-frame 357, and a shotgun with an extended magazine all carry eight rounds.

There is no justification for banning any of these weapons, so any such ban will run afoul of the Second Amendment.

At close range a Glock should be fine so long as the shooter isn't wearing armor.

But teachers should really be defending their classrooms with rifles. Better stopping power, better accuracy, plus the ability to punch through Kevlar.

Shotguns are useless against Kevlar. You need a rifle for that.

He demonstrated that you do have to aim.

He had his guns mounted on a tripod so that he could aim them while firing on full auto.

Had he not done so, he would have harmed far fewer people.

Rights can only be restricted if there is a good justification for those restrictions.

There is no justification for banning assault weapons, so any such ban is unconstitutional.

AK-47s are very easy to make using ordinary tools.

It doesn't have to be needed. Since there is no justification for banning it, people have the right to have it.

No they don't.

Civilians use guns with pistol grips too.

Pistol grips are probably not needed in a military gun either.

Nevertheless, it does not matter whether they are needed or not. Since there is no justification for banning pistol grips, people have the right to have them.

Nonsense. Shooting from the hip is used only by ignorant shooters who don't know how to use their weapon.

Any school shooter who tries to fire his gun without aiming will miss the people that he is shooting at 99% of the time.

Whether they are needed is irrelevant. There is no justification for banning them, therefore any such ban is unconstitutional.

That is incorrect. Rapid followup shots are used both in civilian hunting and civilian self defense.

People have to have enough rounds to be able to defend themselves effectively.

If you think your restrictions allow for adequate self defense, are you willing to apply the same restrictions to police weapons?

Any concerns over concealability can be addressed by requiring that the weapon be of a certain minimum length even with the stock fully retracted.

How about self defense?

That said, the most important factor here is the fact that there is no justification for banning them.

It seems pretty obvious that a ban on pistol grips and barrel shrouds isn't going to have any impact on the number of people shot.

Last I knew the classic lever-action 30-30 deer rifle carried eight rounds.

 

"Cruz went in with only 10-round magazines because larger clips would not fit in his duffel bag, Book said."

Florida school shooter’s AR-15 may have jammed, saving lives, report says

 

If taxing rights is constitutional, how about a tax on voting and abortions?

Letting the gun banners violate the Constitution would be a very bad thing. Plus they will just move on and demand some other Constitutional violation if we give in and allow this one.

Fighting over assault weapons is actually extremely valuable tactically. Every time the gun banners exhaust themselves fighting over assault weapons, no other gun control legislation gets passed either.

If we hold the line on assault weapons and let them try to ban them over and over forever, we prevent any other gun control from ever being passed.

They won't go away if we let them violate the Constitution. They will merely demand yet another violation of the Constitution. And then another. And another.

And, it doesn't matter if they don't go away so long as we defeat them every single time. And that is what we will do so long as the fight is always about assault weapons.

 

Yeah, that's not how it works at all. There is a mountain of case law that supports restrictions on federally protected rights. It is a well-documented undeniable precedent that the rights defined in the bill of rights are not limitless. I cannot own an automatic weapon with a nuclear warhead or possess weaponized smallpox. Preventing that is not a violation of my civil liberties. Congress absolutely can pass laws banning guns, and have many times in the past.

People that see this as a slippery slope are the same idiots that argued that allowing gay marriage will inevitably lead to people marrying their pets

 

So go ahead and give me your interpretation of the justification for condemning a pistol grip.

 

Australia effectively abolished their freedom. No thanks.

It wasn't too long ago that Switzerland allowed people to buy machine guns without background checks and didn't have any problems. They only imposed gun laws because the Europeans wouldn't allow them into the Schengen Area if they didn't. And even today you can get a semi-auto rifle or semi-auto shotgun in Switzerland just by passing a background check. A bolt action rifle or double-barrel shotgun doesn't even require a background check.

Not really. Most people are only going to buy guns from stores that sell assault weapons. Stores that refuse to sell them will soon be exiting the gun business altogether.

Having a pistol grip on a gun is no reason to limit it's circulation anyway.

Like this?

After Parkland, a surge in make-your-own AR-15 rifles

People have the right to have guns that are suitable for self defense (and guns that there are no justifications for banning). So no one is going to be limited to swords and axes here. However, since the vast majority of murders are single killings, swords and axes are more than lethal enough to continue our current homicide rate unabated.

But the main reason why your proposal would not do anything to reduce lethality is: "military style" really just means "a rifle with a pistol grip on it". Bans on pistol grips don't achieve anything useful.

 

Very unlikely that reducing rifle magazines below five rounds could be justified.

Also hard to see the justification for banning the seven round magazines in a classic M1911 handgun.

 

Did someone abolish the Constitution when I wasn't looking?

Not if the intruder is wearing Kevlar.

AR-15s are normal guns.

The reason they need to be available to the public is because no justification exists for banning them.

Restrictions on rights are allowed only if the restriction can be justified with a good reason.

 

"a shotgun is usless against intruders." I guess then an intruder wearing Kevlar would be unimpressed if I shot him in the chest with my double barrel that has 2 double Ot shells, which means said intruder would take 18 38 slugs. Think he'd keep coming?

 

Such is the case with all rights. However, restrictions on a right are allowed only if that restriction can be justified with a good reason.

That is incorrect. It has always been interpreted as an individual right. 2008 just marked a baby step towards enforcing that right.

AR-15s are used in hunting, self defense, and target shooting.

None of those have killing people as their purpose.

The purpose of self defense is rapid incapacitation of the attacker, not death.

Obama was trying to disarm people who were no danger at all. That is quite different from disarming someone who is a clear danger.

In hunting, sometimes an animal is not brought down by the first shot and there needs to be a quick second shot.

In self defense it is also a frequent occurrence that a single shot does not incapacitate an aggressor.

Safe assumption there. They won't admit it but the end goal of the gun control movement is a general ban on guns. They just try to do it bit by bit.

How is an AR-15 any more efficient at killing people than any other rifle that takes detachable magazines?

By my recollection both the armed robbery rate and the unarmed robbery rate in Australia were doubled for the next five years following their ban on self defense weapons.

Not that a reduction in crime could ever justify repealing a civil right.

ARs may be more efficient than knives and handguns, but it is hard to see how they are more efficient than any other rifle that accepts detachable magazines.

Restrictions on a right are allowed only if they can be justified with a good reason.

There isn't any justification for restricting AR-15s.

What features make them more dangerous than a different rifle that has a large capacity magazine?

 

Yes.

 

It is constitutional only if the regulations can be justified with a good reason.

That would be unconstitutional. We need it for self defense.

That is incorrect. Only the weapons that there is a good justification for banning can be banned.

 

I remember that on live TV. That was wild.