Why do the liberal Democrats want to take guns away from Americans? page 194

Flabby, there is a little more to it than just what I said. For instance, you can’t buy one that was made after 1968, which means there are not a lot of them to buy. Collectors have them pretty much bought up and they don’t shoot them, just display them in their mansions. :) This is fine with most shooters because they don’t really care to have one.

I suppose you could fire that many rounds if you can keep your finger moving fast enough. Yes, it is easily obtainable as it is a semi-auto action, just like shotguns and other rifles used for hunting. The only difference is in the way it looks. An M16 is the military version of this rifle and will shoot bursts. I’m not sure if the M16 will still go fully auto or not.That is the difference between an assault rifle and one the common shooter uses that only fires one shot with one pull of the trigger. The M16 will fire several hundred rounds a second (if it is still fully auto).

Personally, I think they are ugly and sadly it is one of the more popular firearms on the market today. As I am an older shooter, I like the older guns with good ol’ steel and wood. I’m not a big fan of plastic. I tried that link by copying it and putting in my search bar and it worked. You might try that.

Strange, the link just doesn’t work for me…it takes me to the AFT website, but it says “page not found”…
I am interested in seeing just what is required to be able to purchase a fully automatic rifle. (I do actually enjoy guns!)

Flabby, it didn’t work for me this time either so I am trying to find another. This link is for their sitemap. http://www.atf.gov/sitemap.html

Edit: Ok, I found a chapter that gives a little information, but it isn’t really thorough. http://www.atf.gov/publications/download/p/atf-p-5320-8/atf-p-5320-8-chapter-9.pdf

Assault weapons are covered under the NFA (National Firearms Act of 1934). This is the law that regulates things like sawed off shotguns and machine guns. An assault weapon would be considered a machine gun as it fires more than one cartridge with on pull of the trigger. I found something I didn’t know. Our military is up to the M16A4 now. I would imagine it is pretty much the same rifle as before with a few changes.

This link, http://www.military-sf.com/ROF.htm will give you some information on rates of fire for assault rifles. This link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle will give you a little history of the M16 and this link just gives some technical information on this style of rifle, http://world.guns.ru/assault/usa/m16-m16a1-m16a2-m16a3-e.html

And now let me explain how the semi-auto AR15 came about. When the designer (Stoner) of the AR15 (Automatic rifle) originally designed the rifle, it was an automatic rifle and not available to the general public. When a company expends a lot of money on R&D, they want to make their money back so they redesigned the trigger control system to be semi-auto to sell to the civilian market. Before the rifle was accepted by the military, it went through some design changes and was predesignated the M16. This is the rifle that was accepted and issued to our troops during the Vietnam war. The rifle was untested in combat and was unreliable. It failed enough to cause our troops to dislike it. The military redesigned certain failings of the rifle and predesignated it the M16A2. I will let the links go from here.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most of the people on any given bandwagon are uninformed followers who have blindly bought into grab bag politics. My personal and political views are all over the map. I refuse to be generalized, categorized, watered down, and labeled.

The problems with implementing gun control in the United States are it’s size, and the amount of guns that are already here. The far reaching governmental power that would be required would start most people scratching their heads, thinking twice about about the personal freedoms and privacy they have lost for the sake of living in a “safe” society.

Also we’re a still young militaristic country with deep Nationalistic and antiestablishmentist roots.

jhco I appreciate the links. Thanks.

Despite overwhelming evidence, liberals are under the impression that passing laws to relieve law abiding citizens of their defensive weapons will cause the citizens who do not abide by the law to not have guns.

Sometimes I wonder if people actually believe what they fight for, or if they just feel the need to fight for something, anything, even if it’s painfully obviously wrong.

overwhelming evidence

You should be a comedian.

Originally posted by MyTie:

Despite overwhelming evidence, liberals are under the impression that passing laws to relieve law abiding citizens of their defensive weapons will cause the citizens who do not abide by the law to not have guns.

Sometimes I wonder if people actually believe what they fight for, or if they just feel the need to fight for something, anything, even if it’s painfully obviously wrong.

I think you’re in a very good position to enlighten us all on the latter part.

It’s more the principle than example. Why would a civilian need a fully automatic military grade weaponry?

I was piddling around looking for a study on criminal opinions of armed homeowners and found this. Although this isn’t what I was looking for, I find it interesting. To read more you have to buy the book. :(

Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

by Clayton E. Cramer and David Burnett
February 2, 2012

Clayton E. Cramer teaches history at the College of Western Idaho and is the author of Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2007). David Burnett is the director of public relations for Students for Concealed Carry.

The ostensible purpose of gun control legislation is to reduce firearm deaths and injuries. The restriction of access to firearms will make criminals unable to use guns to shoot people. Gun control laws will also reduce the number of accidental shootings. Those are the desired effects, at least in theory. It is important, however, for conscientious policymakers to consider not only the stated goals of gun control regulations, but the actual results that they produce.

What would be the effect of depriving ordinary, law-abiding citizens from keeping arms for self-defense? One result seems certain: the law-abiding would be at a distinct disadvantage should criminals acquire guns from underground markets. After all, it is simply not possible for police officers to get to every scene where they are urgently needed.

Outside of criminology circles, relatively few people can reasonably estimate how often people use guns to fend off criminal attacks. If policymakers are truly interested in harm reduction, they should pause to consider how many crimes — murders, rapes, assaults, robberies — are thwarted each year by ordinary persons with guns. The estimates of defensive gun use range between the tens of thousands to as high as two million each year.

This paper uses a collection of news reports of self-defense with guns over an eight-year period to survey the circumstances and outcomes of defensive gun uses in America.

Federal and state lawmakers often oppose repealing or amending laws governing the ownership or carrying of guns. That opposition is typically based on assumptions that the average citizen is incapable of successfully employing a gun in self-defense or that possession of a gun in public will tempt people to violence in “road rage” or other contentious situations. Those assumptions are false. The vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent. That means tens of thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.
http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/tough-targets-when-criminals-face-armed-resistance-citizens

LOL! Check this out. “Granny Defeats Five Armed Robbers With Her Gun”
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/granny-defeats-five-armed-robbers-with-her-gun/question-2851787/

I did find this link on criminals and armed citizens.

Criminals fear armed citizens more then the police poll states

Today burglars fear the homeowner much more than the police. They know the police cannot shoot them for crimes against property and cannot chase them if they flee in a vehicle. When was the last time you heard of the Supreme Court handing down a ruling in favor of the victim and their property or more authority for the police to apprehend?

Burglars are familiar with how the criminal justice system works to their benefit from slap-on-wrist judges who hand out probation five or six times to sympathetic jurors who view a burglar’s drug addiction, abusive father or alcoholic mother as a valid excuse. They are also aware of jail overcrowding and budget cuts which lessens punishments for their crime.

Hardly a day goes by that a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, behaviorists, criminologists, etc. aren’t doing Q & A surveys in prisons and jails seeking answers to antisocial behavior.

The most profound and undisputed survey I reviewed was asked of convicted burglars by an FBI behaviorist:

1. Would you B&E (break and enter) a home if you thought it occupied?
A. No — 88 percent (the other 12 percent are hard-core burglars).

2. Would you B&E a home if you knew the owner was home and maybe had a gun?
A. No — 95 percent (the other 5 percent are called cat burglars)

3. Would you B&E a home if you knew the owner was home and did, in fact, have a gun?
A. No — 100 percent (I told you they fear the homeowner).

No other survey I studied in my 27 years of law enforcement in Miami Metro Dade County did I see a 100 percent, not even for a Mother’s Day holiday.

Edward F. Davis
Knoxville
http://www.gunsandammoenthusiastblog.com/criminals-fear-armed-citizens-more-then-the-police-poll-states/

I found the link I was looking for. This is a study done for the Justice Dept on criminals views of armed citizens.

http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/clics2012a/commsumm.nsf/b4a3962433b52fa787256e5f00670a71/5de089825c00843e872579b80079912d/$FILE/SenState0305AttachB.pdf

This last link give the 2.5 million figure we mentioned before and a lot of other facts on armed citizens.
http://gunowners.org/sk0802.htm

This article by the Denver post was kind of surprising as that paper has a reputation for being left leaning. Then I saw the writer, David Kopel, who is a conservative lawyer and professor of advanced Constitutional law. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21168162/no-state-gun-laws-do-job

The gunowner website does nothing but give us a list of “facts” then uses as sources 2 websites one of which doesn’t load on my computer and the other only gives a list of states and how dangerous they are (notice that texas is the most dangerous and california is the second most dangerous so it doesn’t really tells us much (then again california is big on concealed cary and texas is big on open cary.)).
You also give us the gunsandammoenthusiastblog source that again doesn’t cite their sources if you want us to take it seriously we need to find how their study was conducted. A single granny defeating 5 armed robbers doesn’t mean anything in the big numbers (if you want I can look up a story of a old lady talking a thief into submission). Basically al I want is a link towards the original research with data and question (if a survey was used) or otherwise what methode of data collection was used. Wikipedia has the nice links at the bottom of the page your sources lake these.
Also even if robbers would not break into a house if they knew the owner was at home and had a gun is not really interesting. What is interesting is if a large number of guns is going to bring down the number of break-ins(hint if you see 2 500 dollar bills next to each other you can have the one on the left if you beat a huge professional boxer and the one on the left might be protected by a professional boxer or it might not be which one do you take? And if you are need these 500 dollar bills to eat(you have no other job) wouldn’t you become a professional boxer yourself so you can win these fights and still get the money?).

The answer should be very obvious, WarMarchine.

Originally posted by thijser:

The gunowner website does nothing but give us a list of “facts” then uses as sources 2 websites one of which doesn’t load on my computer and the other only gives a list of states and how dangerous they are (notice that texas is the most dangerous and california is the second most dangerous so it doesn’t really tells us much (then again california is big on concealed cary and texas is big on open cary.)).
You also give us the gunsandammoenthusiastblog source that again doesn’t cite their sources if you want us to take it seriously we need to find how their study was conducted. A single granny defeating 5 armed robbers doesn’t mean anything in the big numbers (if you want I can look up a story of a old lady talking a thief into submission). Basically al I want is a link towards the original research with data and question (if a survey was used) or otherwise what methode of data collection was used. Wikipedia has the nice links at the bottom of the page your sources lake these.
Also even if robbers would not break into a house if they knew the owner was at home and had a gun is not really interesting. What is interesting is if a large number of guns is going to bring down the number of break-ins(hint if you see 2 500 dollar bills next to each other you can have the one on the left if you beat a huge professional boxer and the one on the left might be protected by a professional boxer or it might not be which one do you take? And if you are need these 500 dollar bills to eat(you have no other job) wouldn’t you become a professional boxer yourself so you can win these fights and still get the money?).

The gunowner sites page I linked to is called the Facts list, that is it’s sole purpose.

I’m not sure about concealed carry in California. I don’t think they do, but I could probably find out if you want me to. Texas does not have open carry, at least not yet. They are trying to get legislation passed but have not had any luck yet. Texas does have concealed carry.

The guns and ammo enthusiast blog is just that, a blog. He is referencing the link I found for the survey done with criminals in prison and giving his impressions of the poll.

The survey:
http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/clics2012a/commsumm.nsf/b4a3962433b52fa787256e5f00670a71/5de089825c00843e872579b80079912d/$FILE/SenState0305AttachB.pdf

I just put the granny link up for amusement and meant nothing by it as far as statistics. By all means give us a link to the old lady taking the thief to task.

Nice antidote. Well thought out, but keep in mind criminals are people too and they don’t want their profession to be anymore dangerous than necessary. Armed citizens are not there to arrest the bad guy like the police are. The armed citizens doesn’t care a bit for the bad guy and will shoot him. The criminals know this and this is why they try to avoid a confrontation with the armed citizen.

I’ve got a concealed carry permit for california………but it was a pain to get. In reality damn near no citizen has a handgun carry permit in CA

Hey Ninja, long time no see. Missed you on here. California is a strange place. I don’t think I will ever understand politicians out there. They do have hunting though. Are you a hunter?

I still don’t understand the purpose of concealed carry.

If the purpose is to deter crime wouldn’t open carry serve the purpose better? (The potential thief/attacker can see that you’re armed and would normally pick another target)

If the purpose is self defence wouldn’t open carry serve the purpose better? (Lot of factors, I know, but easier and faster for you to access if necessary, plus the deterrent factor)

Edit: For JHCO’s amusement: Granny foils armed robbery with handbag (Continuing the battling grannies theme… and to play devil’s advocate, why didn’t the armed robbers have firearms? Would of made their ‘job’ so much easier)

donseptico, your opinion (on the “thinking” of the ""potential thief/attacker"" picking a target other than the armed one) is erroneous because: If a person is to become a hostile, they MUST remove//greatly reduce the surrounding potential to stop them.

“’Picking another target”" is the wrong thing to do. At least in a group scenario.

All of the above is silly moot if ya’re talking about individual//separate scenarios….lol

BUT, by open-carrying, if the “bad guy” is yet highly determined//motivated to cause the person harm….his KNOWING that person is armed gives him a HUUUuuuube advantage in how to approach the situation so as to have control of it.

Your ""access factor"? I can “pull” extremely fast when “cause” necessitates.

Open vs Concealed carry is conversation of it’s own, even in the firearms community. Open carry is the method used since the time of Wyatt Earp and his genre. The laws of open carry states are based on the premise of open carry.

Concealed carry was popular among the gamblers and ladies of the night in the early days of our country, so this is not a new concept. I believe the idea of concealed carry was to allow gun owners to carry their firearms with the assumption that concealed carry would not alarm those who are afraid of firearms.

There are some states that allow concealed carry and not open carry. Some states allow both with a concealed permit and some states allow either or. A couple of states don’t issue permits and allow either carry method. I personally am for either method of carry as long as the ability of the carrier to be armed and prevent a crime is available. To be honest, I don’t feel this should be a political issue. It is one of our basic rights in this country, regardless of political ideals.

Donseptico, that was so funny. Old people are not to be messed with, especially old women, LOL! This happened in England so I’m guessing they were on a budget and couldn’t get guns imported in time for the smash and grab. :) I ride a scooter when the weather allows (all summer) and to read they made their getaway on scooters was hilarious.

I read the last couple of pages in this thread, and I probably won’t participate in the coming pages because this is a topic I am decidedly unwilling to argue. I will own a gun no matter what the statistics are. I live in a world of violence, danger, and power struggles. If any government, foreign invaders, or individuals want to harm me or anyone I love, I want to have claws and teeth with which I will gnash and bare before I am made to do anything against my will, regardless of the effectiveness of these measures. I would rather be dead than lose my will.

That said, many of you have a poor understanding of why people choose to carry. Unless I feel immediate danger, I’m more likely to hand over my wallet than reach for a gun when being mugged. The firearm is only drawn when I am willing to put my life against the life of someone else. If my life isn’t in danger, I’m far more likely to hand over my money than risk my life in a gun fight. However, people take advantage of people for more than their money. In a situation of sexual assault, I’m more likely to reach for a firearm after calling 911. The point is, having a gun doesn’t imply it’s functionality in all situations of duress. I’m more likely to get shot by my own gun if I take it out in a robbery.

That said, I find most conversations about the safety of owning a firearm to be moot. A bunch of people end up storing their firearms incorrectly and accidents happen because of it? Good to know, I’ll just store it properly then. Many firearms end up stolen and used in violent crimes also because they aren’t stored properly? Awesome, maybe people who store firearms incorrectly should get a giant fine when their weapon is stolen and used in a murder? I don’t believe prohibition works for anything, because all it does is make the object more coveted and worthwhile to own. People will own firearms, therefore I will own firearms.

Liberals want to take guns away from Americans because they believe it will make society and families safer as a whole; without the danger or worries that your local nut might have a gun liscense.

I see America has yet another mass shooting tragedy to deal with. When will they ever learn?

Not that one, CFP! Don’t you people ever read the news? You of all people should know about it, as it seems to be religion related.