Don’t give them any ideas!!!.
But if you could still buy AR-15s during the ban - even ones with all the features if they were made “pre-ban” - then how, exactly, did the ban lower mass shootings? It didn’t reduce the number of guns on the market nor availability.
But it isn’t precise. “Enables rapid fire” is any semi-automatic firearm. Something that “enhances rate-of-fire " could mean anything from lighter spring to polishing surfaces. Anything that makes the trigger " nicer” will make it easier to fire and fire accurately. It doesn’t increase it to the level of a bump stock, binary trigger, or forced reset trigger - but they do enhance the rate-of-fire.
Precise would be describing how the item increases or enhances the rate of fire. My description above for banning bumpstocks may not be the most iron clad one for a law, but it would be something along that line.
Literally all timed action shooting sports use a high rate of fire. Even slow fire events like one handed bullseye shooting use triggers that are short and light, which one COULD shoot extremely quickly if you wanted.
We all know where I stand on it. I’m telling you, if you want an actual AWB, you don’t want a repeat of the 1994 one. If you want an half assed one where people can still buy AR-15s and AK-47s, then yes, please re-enact the 1994 one.
Who gives a fuck how? I don’t care if it magically made everyone sing The Flinstones theme when they thought about mass shootings. It just fucking worked:
During the 1994-2004 ban:
In the years after the assault weapons ban went into effect, the number of deaths from mass shootings fell, and the increase in the annual number of incidents slowed down. Even including 1999’s Columbine High School massacre – the deadliest mass shooting during the period of the ban – the 1994 to 2004 period saw lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception.
From 2004 onward:
The data shows an almost immediate – and steep – rise in mass shooting deaths in the years after the assault weapons ban expired in 2004.
No, because, if you had actually read what I wrote, you would have registered that it only affects an off-the-shelf part, not a complete firearm. You know, like a bump stock.
The Northwestern study on the 1994 AWB showed that it would have statistically prevented 20 mass shootings between 2004 and the study. If that’s half-assed, I’ll take it all day.
As always, with every gun wanker, there’s never a regulation that’s perfect enough, so therefore, there can never be any regulation.
My thoughts exactly.
It’s the classic ammosexual dodge. Pretend that guns are so complicated that no law can ever be perfect and thus none should be attempted. As though everything we regulate isn’t complicated; yet we manage. Anyone read your local building code, or the NHTSA regs on cars lately? They make gun regulation look like something a child could do. Because, oh wait… it is.
Who cares. I don’t care if competitive shooting is altered to save the lives of thousands of innocent people. Fuck that sport, if that’s what it takes.
Who cares. I don’t care if gun nuts can no longer polish their triggers if it saves thousands of lives.
Fun fact- bump stocks are illegal in Canada, yet somehow we still manage to have competitive shooting and such. Our law is worded pretty much exactly like @DukeTrout ’s suggestion.
Except that they are already illegal in Canada and probably most other western democracies already. This constant retort from some Americans that controlling guns can’t be done because reasons is exhausting to all the other countries that are already pretty good at it.
Not that our systems are perfect, but America could literally xerox Canada or Australia’s gun laws and nearly end mass shootings overnight. Stop acting like it’s impossible.
Quoting myself (note the topic title):
Combined with a bit of…
See that topic for more. They’re the same old de-bunked/pre-bunked arguments have been rolled out by ammosexuals on this and other Internet forums for decades. They could at least offer something creative and new to offset all the Americans who’ve been needlessly killed due to their obsession during that same period.
It’s also a silly assertion. I don’t know much about shooting sports, but I do know that if you are shooting at or close to the max rate of fire of a semi-auto firearm, you’re missing your target. There’s an exception for shotguns and competitive skeet/clays, but that’s not what we’re talking about.
Ok, but any replacement semi-automatic trigger kit would also “enable rapid fire” because any semi-automatic firearm is capable of it.
If you want to craft legislation that has any hopes of getting passed.it needs to apply to the thing you want to ban, and not to apply to a much larger benign category of products because of overly broad language.
Banning them is possible with the correct language that defines how they function, as I mentioned above.
But I haven’t said that. I am using the AWB as an example of what not to do. If you want to ban bump stocks, then you want a law that actually bans them. Not something that only bans certain kinds. If you want a new AWB you want something like CAs or NYs, which are pretty solid, while the 1994 was not. Sure, I guess you get a “victory” of a baby step of legislation, but it wouldn’t actually stop assault weapons from being sold.
I just found this 2004 Bushmaster catalog, from the last year of the ban. The first two images are the Post-Ban models, meaning new guns 100% legal to head down to an FFL and purchase. The third image is what cops can order with none of the restrictions. (I’ll post at the bottom of the post.)
This is my point: you need to craft good, careful and exact legislation that does what you want it to do. It isn’t to say that it’s too hard and can’t be done. It’s to say that that is IS hard but CAN be done.
OK fine - but my reply was to “Competition shooting doesn’t require a high rate of fire.” Which in many sports it does. SASS uses old west “cowboy” guns like single action revolvers and lever actions and they still do rapid fire shooting. The idea there aren’t rapid fire competitions is wrong.
OK. I never said you can’t ban bumpstocks and not still have competitive shooting. I said something overly broad could be interpreted by the ATF to include a lot things that isn’t intended to be banned.
I think I found the law relating to bump stocks in Canada:
1 Any electrical or mechanical device that is designed or adapted to operate the trigger mechanism of a semi-automatic firearm for the purpose of causing the firearm to discharge cartridges in rapid succession.
The way this is worded is - a device is banned if it operates the trigger to cause it to discharge rapidly.
This covers extra parts acting upon the trigger, not the actual trigger itself, which could be modified to be lighter, shorter, and smoother.
So yes, I agree this law seems to be specific enough to ban the items you want to ban, with out being overly broad.
Then maybe google it before making a statement?
I have a friend who competes in USPSA, is an instructor, and is a Grand Master rank in multiple division, which means his scores are in the 95th-100th percentile. He can shoot like a John Wick movie as far as rapid fire goes and he is scoring all Alpha hits (there are three scoring rings, Alpha, Charlie, Delta). Even people who aren’t in his class are making most of their hits on target, albeit a little slower, or a few less hits in the Alpha ring. It takes skill to manage recoil and some gear can help you shoot faster (triggers, compensators, sights/red dots, even loading your own ammo).
So, yahoo doing a mag dump into a berm is hitting nothing. Someone running a competition course is scoring mostly hits, even those who are “average” Class C shooters.
You’re right there is a lot of Nirvana Fallacy out there. But there also is the opposite of that where a lot of frankly dumb, impractical ideas, or ideas that will have a lot of unintended consequences being suggested and then when someone points out those negatives they just get slurs tossed at them.
I’m not engaging in Nirvana Fallacy. Above I said how to specifically ban bump stocks (albeit my language wouldn’t be the final draft, but it shows general idea), and I say if you want to ban AW you want to copy CA or NY, not Federal 1994.
If someone is telling you which laws WOULD work, while telling you which ones would not, then I would take notes and see if maybe the ones that would work make sense. I am sure many of you would like to see a CA or NY style AWB, not the 1994 one . YMMV.
(Scans mentioned above are below. Again the point here is that a 1994 AWB did not ban AW)
Post Ban legal
Post Ban legal
Post Ban Law Enforcement Only - after the ban expired, legal except for the last two are NFA SBR.
They could just ban guns with recoil. That would solve needing to define anything about how it’s used.
Why would you need to replace it with an out-of-spec trigger rather than stock OEM?
You’ve failed to prove that the items that would be “collateral damage” to a bump stock ban are at all essential. So banning them is possible. Period.
Blahblahblah whatever we do, don’t do anything that was effective. Instead let’s negotiate the details for the next 50 years while kids die.
No thanks.
So still not at the max rate of fire. Just pretty fast.
If we end up saving kids but lose an incredibly narrow subset of sports that a handful of people enjoy in the process, is it even worth saving them?
If a gun can fire more than 6 bullets, ban it.
If you can’t get the deer with 6 shots or less go back and practice some more, 6 shots at a time.
Clearly not! Life’s just not worth living if you can’t optimally practice killing.
I say ban anything that isn’t a bolt-action. You don’t need a clip to kill deer. Anything more than a bolt is made for, and only needed for, killing people. This includes all handguns which are, again, only useful for killing people.
Disingenuous challenges to this point from gun enthusiasts will be cheerfully ignored.
I think I have the solution. We just need to recruit one person from Webster’s dictionary define bump stocks as fully automatic, and then they automatically get banned?
Even then the UK has some of the strictest anti-gun laws I know of. We still manage to send folks to international-level shooting comps.
More sinister response - only gun technology available in 1776 is a gun. Anything after that is clearly new and confusing to a Framer, so it’s down to Congress to decide whether it gets 2A protection.
(I’m deliberately twisting the Originalist viewpoint beloved of Trump’s SCOTUS picks because F the Dobbs decision.)
Since I never get tired of the sound of my own voice, I will quote myself yet again.
The gunstrokers have repeatedly stated their position: no regulations about gun ownership or use. I doubt if many believe the parts about tanks and cruise missiles. It sounds like an attempt to shift the discussion rightwards in the hope that negotiation will start from there.
It’s never a good strategy to go into a negotiation starting from the other guy’s initial position, so here’s my counterproposal:
1. Handguns. Ban them. Semiautos, revolvers, single shot, ban them all. There is no reason for civilians to have handguns that is compelling enough to outweigh the harm they do.1(a). “Aha,” you say, “Gotcha already. Define a handgun.” Good point. I’ll rephrase. Ban all firearms that may be folded or telescoped to a length less than 24 inches (US customary units for obvious reasons).
2. Semiautomatics. (This term has been so frequently discussed in mainstream media that I won’t bother with a definition.) Ban them. Ban them all.
3. Removable magazines. Ban them. This will stop Mr. Clever Gun Tinkerer looking at Section 2 above and building a .30-30 lever action carbine with a 100-round drum magazine (“The gun that won the mall parking lot”).
4. Ban firearms that can hold more than two or three rounds, manually fed.
5. Require licensing of owners and registration and insuring of all firearms.
6. Second Amendment? Here we go.Throw it out. It didn’t come chiseled on stone tablets from God. It’s a document created by men for the conditions existing in the late 18th century, and misinterpreted by commercial interests in the latter half of the 20th century.
What are we left with? Conventional rifles and shotguns that have met the needs of hunters and farmers for generations. It’s hard to make the argument that a shotgun is inadequate for home defence. Defence on the street? Sorry, you don’t get to carry your guns on the street. We are all safer if that’s not allowed.
Issues of registration, background checks, red flags, exceptions for special requirements, etc to be worked out by the legislators.
A radical dream? No, I’ve just described laws not very different from those in most civilized countries. Will it fly in America? Of course not, silly, because Americans. I’m perfectly aware of that.
Strangely, despite having said the same thing multiple times, I’ve yet to get a reply telling me my ideas aren’t feasible (except for my own argument in the last paragraph).
On the present topic, I would like to point out that my proposal to ban semiautomatics also deals with the problem of bump stocks.
Going even farther than I did. I like it.
For your point 1: the last mass shooting in the UK involved handguns and we responded by banning handguns. We absolutely can, and have, succeeded in defining “handgun”.
For your 6: as I understand it 2A was an alternative to a federal military. The Framers wouldn’t see the point of the USA’s standing military & 2A still existing.
I said from the beginning these parts/mods weren’t as fast as a bump stock or full auto. Just that it “enhances rate-of-fire”.
The problem with that idea is that the NFA defines what a machine gun is - not Websters.
There are general definitions, and then there are legal definitions written in the law. That is what laws go by. (Also why lawyers have their own dictionaries.)
For some competitions, the British have to send people to practice in other countries, shooting borrowed guns, or having guns registered in other countries. But yes, I do think they banned bump stocks with out banning aftermarket triggers. More proof one can write a law that isn’t so broad to include “enhances rate-of-fire” as the banning criteria.
Since the handgun ban in Great Britain in 1997 this has posed a lot of problems for UKPSA members who want to participate in IPSC pistol competitions.
Some members keep pistols stored for them in European countries and travel to matches in these countries. Also, where legal, UKPSA members have been able to borrow the equipment needed to participate in graded practical pistol competitions in Northern Ireland and abroad. This has enabled the UKPSA to still be represented at international matches, sponsoring teams at the European and World Championships.
Source:
They also had cannons and mortars, which private citizens did own and lend out to the militia during war. Or had them on their own private ships for defense against pirates/the British. You can find local laws saying things like, “You can’t fire your cannon before noon on a Sunday.”
But yeah, the idea that a right only applies to what was available at the time of the written law is absurd. It would mean speech was only protected under spoken word and writing and printing. Or religions like Scientology or Mormonism aren’t protected. (Though maybe those two shouldn’t be…)
Bolt actions were originally made to kill people.
But fine, I actually don’t have a problem with someone wanting to create a drastic line, “Ban all guns, ban all hand guns, ban all semiautomatic guns, limit guns to 6 rounds, etc” It is at least an honest line in the sand for the most part. You’re forgoing trying to separate “acceptable” and “unacceptable” distinctions based on looks or functionality or features, and just starting with a baseline that is “ok” and chucking the rest.
Unlike a ban on bumsptocks, It is an absurd, extreme position that is more than likely not Constitutional and has no hopes of becoming a federal law any time soon.
But go on with your bad selves who want this. Write your congress people and see what they can cook up. There have been several broader ban bills in the house kicking around, but they rarely even make it out of committee.
Good luck!