We have always had a mix of semis and bolt action guns. My first shotgun was a semiauto, as was my first rifle. And those were strictly hunting guns. Where I was taught to hunt quail, people normally used shotguns that held three shots, which was the legal limit allowed. Varmint hunting was usually done with a .22 semiauto, but large game was usually hunted with a bolt action.
Once again this is anecdotal experience. But it does relate to the discussion in that people tend to toss around terminology without having much understanding of it. It matters because we are talking about passing laws that can put people in jail over those sorts of minutiae. So people advocating for laws that address such details should probably acquaint themselves with what those details actually mean. I would think that would apply to issues well beyond guns.
I’ve noticed that gunsplainers no longer accuse us of mistakenly thinking “modern sporting rifles” are a concern simply because they are “scary looking”, now that we are being reminded over and over again that they are objectively scary. Baby steps, I suppose.
out of all the discussion, - no one pointed out the photo used has AK, not AR
just plopping it out there… 
The qualifier “civilian” could seem to suggest that there are perceived to be classes of person for whom mass murder and its implements are acceptable.
Indeed. There are.
Off topic, but is *splainer now something we just use to describe someone we don’t agree with?
I’ll give an example of what I mean. In Ontario after a few highly publicized killings by police there were a lot of people who were concerned that police oversight didn’t really work.
One of the big asks from activist groups was that the special investigations unit release the names of officers who were involved in deaths. That’s a bad idea. It doesn’t really increase oversight unless that oversight is going to come in the form of harassment, threats or violence from vigilantes. It probably would result in higher tensions between police and the public instead of lower.
The government started an independent review of police oversight headed by a court of appeals judge (think state supreme court). He took written submissions and traveled around the province to talk to various stakeholder groups. At the end of the year-long review period he made about 200 recommendations. He did not recommend that police names be released.
Somehow both the major right and left wing papers in Toronto praised the report. Black Lives Matter and the police associations weren’t coming out to talk about how great it was, but neither of them protested it or said it was bad. The province recently moved to implement all of its recommendations.
The report did not say that the SIU should release officer’s names. Like I said, that was a bad idea, but it was also a key demand of many people. But the thing is that people didn’t really need the names of police officers, they needed to believe that the system was going to represent their interests. The process and the final recommendations gave interested people confidence that there would be proper oversight when police hurt someone (plus the I happen to know that the judge was very active in making sure everyone was on board).
Explaining to people what is wrong with the idea of releasing police names would have made those people angry. Providing a real solution while explaining why you think it’s a better solution than releasing the names didn’t make people angry, it made them feel like something was getting done.
I don’t think it’s even a good idea to tell people they are wrong about what automatic weapons are. They care about as much as anti-vaxxers care that Wakefield was a crook. They care as much as coal miners care that coal is no longer economically viable even if the regulations were lifted. That has absolutely nothing to do with a real solution to the problem.
When politicians say, “Here’s our new gun regulations that implement many of the ideas that Americans broadly agree on like background checks and not allowing people with serious mental illnesses to purchase guns.”
And a reporter asks, “Does this ban assault rifles.”
That would be a fine time to say something like, “Yes. Now before you come back at me, I know the words ‘assault rifle’ don’t appear in the bill. There’s a lot of technical terminology around guns, so we had to describe what we were banning using the correct technical terms. We worked with [groups A, B, C] to ensure we were capturing the right set of weapons.”
If explaining the misunderstanding is necessary to help people understand how the solution works, explain away. Most people aren’t gun experts and don’t want to be. Telling them they should educate themselves about guns isn’t helping. They are concerned about mass shootings, not about technical terminology for guns.
It’s the destiny of every pejorative term.
Either he doesn’t understand that “insane” is in vogue with the current regime, or he understands all too well.
Are we talking about the AR-15 or the AR-15?
Like trucks?
Funny thing—turns out we DO carefully regulate the manufacture and operation of trucks, which serve many useful functions and are used as tools of mass murder relatively rarely.
OMG this is hilarious! 
Not really.
You see, a truck is designed and carefully built to move cargo places.
An AR-15 or an AK pattern rifle on the other hand, is designed to kill lots of people really fast. That’s the entire utility they have. That’s why the army gives at least one to every soldier. To kill people and break things. That’s the point.
I think literally every gun control advocate in the United States would Agree that guns should be treated more like vehicles, even if they feel regulation needs to go far beyond that. It’s part of why this particular whataboutism is so absurd to say.
It’s something we use to describe those who won’t listen to anyone THEY don’t agree with.
I think I understand what you are saying - and I agree with you. To productively deal with with this it is important to be precise and accurate about what you are saying. You know the NRA lawyers will do the same.
I think people were also looking for “…And let’s ban 'em all”.
I’ll trudge through to the bottom and PM you if the issue gets solved.
Don’t wait up.
Considering that sales of these weapons skyrocket every time one is used to commit an act of mass murder, that’s a really messed up idea of what criteria should be used to define “Constitutionally-protected.” In effect that notion means that the more people that get murdered by these weapons, the less recourse the government has to regulate them.
Up until recently bump stocks were considered a rare novelty, but the company that makes the leading model just started selling them again today (after briefly halting sales following Vegas) and all signs are that there will be a huge demand now that more gun enthusiasts are aware of them and want to make a purchase in case they get banned in the future. In your mind, if enough people rush out to buy them before they get banned, will that automatically confer constitutional protections on them?
I personally vote with a ballot. Using firearms as a means of protest tends to lead to these situations.
