Claim: Violent felons should not be allowed to buy or own firearms, but [sometimes implied] there’s nothing we can do about people who haven’t been convicted of such a crime.
This is an attempt to sound reasonable (sometimes while engaging in a “the real problem is” distraction) but excludes the government’s ability to bar people who make threats of violence or who have a history of un-prosecuted violence from owning or operating potentially dangerous tools (e.g. airplanes, cars) not protected by an archaic Constitutional amendment.
In the case of firearms, for example, a domestic restraining order should be enough to bar an individual from purchasing one.
This is an oral history told in three parts that follows the chronological order of a typical AR-15 mass shooting. It weaves together pictures, videos and the recollections of people who endured different tragedies but have similar stories to tell.
Claim: Bump stocks and similar devices are just a crappy novelty that don’t have the same effect as machine guns banned in the 1930s.
Reality: Bump stocks are not toys or novelties. They’re purpose-designed devices to increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic rifles, effectively converting them into machine guns otherwise federally banned.
A bump stock was used by the Las Vegas shooter in 2017, resulting in a body count so horrific that there was a general bipartisan consensus that they should be outlawed throughout the nation. An executive order under the administration of The Former Guy requested that the ATF reclassify weapons with bump stocks as effective machine guns, similar to those banned ones used by gangsters during the Great Depression. The ATF did so, and the Biden administration did not ask them to reverse the decision.
A Supreme Court ruling, 6-3 in favour of the conservative majority, lifted the federal ban in 2024 based on dodgy legal technicalities and effective technical gunwanking (see above) to “prove” that firearms with bump stocks do not meet the federal definition of a machine gun. The plaintiff was a Texas gun shop owner supposedly concerned about regulatory overreach by the ATF. They used some of the same bad-faith arguments listed in this topic.
Other spurious arguments related to this issue:
States can still outlaw the devices, so why worry? Because these dangerous devices purchased in a place where they’re legal can travel across state lines.
Bump firing can be done without the devices (e.g. by using a belt to get the same effect), so why ban this particular device? Because it’s purpose-designed to increase the rate of fire of a semi-automatic weapon. (see also above).
A federal ban on bump stocks should be done through legislation rather than regulation, so this decision is acceptable. The executive order approach was taken to give GOP Congresspeople who wouldn’t have voted for the law political cover. The devices are dangerous and need to be banned, and if Congress won’t do it then an ATF regulation from the executive is an acceptable alternative.
Forget the bump stock issue. As I ranted above, ban all semiautomatic firearms. Since they are the only type that can be converted to fully automatic, problem solved. The legal and political details I leave to the USians.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you are in need of other totally unworkable solutions.
That’s actually pretty reasonable. Semi-auto firearms didn’t exist at the time the 2A was written and thus aren’t covered. Revolvers are the highest tech available (as prototypes) at the time.
That sounds like asking for a new invention to skirt the obvious point of the law, which then disingenuous gun fans will claim would be government overreach to treat as covered by it.
The only thing saying a firearm more advanced than a musket is protected by 2a is about as much judicial history as held roe together. Less if we take the 2000 case that effectively dropped “as part of a well-regulated militia”.
Even for the optics, making them argue why gun wanking is settled law but roe wasn’t
Claim: Guns are not the number one cause of death for children in the U.S., as Democrats claim.
Reality: A 2022 study by the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University, often cited by Democrats, discusses guns being the number one cause of deaths of American “children and teens,” meaning it includes deaths of 18- and 19-year-olds.
Ammosexuals use the fact that it includes young people who are legally considered adults in most states as a way of discrediting or dismissing the discouraging statistic as a whole, as if firearms being the number one cause of death for children and also teenagers makes the situation any better, or as if firearms being the number two cause of death for children under 18 is a statistic American should be proud of.
