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?
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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.
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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.)
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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. 
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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.
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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!
Okay everyone throw out your John Lennon records. We cannot simply halt all wars tomorrow so don’t bother discussing or even thinking about world peace. The only way to “no war” is to have “less war” first. Peace, what an absurd, extreme position.
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You would think more firearms enthusiasts would read the tea leaves and be more actively involved in fixing the problem of firearm proliferation that they have actively participated in and benefitted from; realizing that if they don’t participate in finding a solution now, that they won’t be included in the discussion when (not if) the political winds swing all the way around.
But no, they defend their priviledge to have their deadly toys, blind to the carnnage that is a byproduct of their hobby. They will be excluded from the conversation when the time comes, since they haven’t helped clean up their own mess. If they expect to whine about it when a total ban comes, I hope they don’t expect a sympathetic ear from all the folks they condescended to for decades.
Good luck!
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And the answer can’t just be “well it’s a constitutional right, so you can’t pass ANY regulation”… that is clearly not working, and we have regulations on all sorts of constitutional amendments, including 1A… so yeah, we can regulate guns and we should. And it would be far better for all of us to be a part of that conversation.
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It’s a stupid gotcha from people who don’t care to see any change, no matter how many children get shot. The way so many people put what is at best a hobby over the lives of others is disgusting.
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I already live in a country with sane gun laws. You go on with yourself continuing to pretend that regulating guns is impossible because [insert ammosexual pedantry about accessory mounting systems or whatever].
You keep saying it can’t be done, but countries all over the world have already done it and continue to do it today.
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It’s also not true. We do have gun control regulations - prohibitions against guns in schools, in hospitals, in prisons; possession of guns by violent felons or toddlers; police violate individuals’ right to bear arms all the time when they take their guns away during arrest.
A literal interpretatation of the half of the 2A that gun enthusiasts pretend is the whole thing would mean absolutely everyone could bear arms at any time, and disarming anyone for any reason would violate it. Since we all agree it’s a bad idea to arm people like Charles Manson, then logically gun regulation is constitutional. At that point it’s just a discussion around how much regulation balances the public good of restrictions with the public need for access.
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I dunno - when I try to explain what sort of laws would be needed to limit some of these items, like bump stocks, it gets mis-characterized as saying that it’s “too hard to ban these things”, even though I give a rough back of the napkin outline of the language needed.
I’m sorry if you think I’m being pedantic about your language, but something vague and overly broad is not what you want to suggest when writing laws. Writing laws is hard. That is why we have lawyers. I am not qualified to do it, but even as a layman I can recognize what is a good law or not. I never said you can’t ban bump stocks - just that I wouldn’t use your suggested language.
When I explain how the AWB of 1994 didn’t actually ban AWB and if you want to try to do that you need to copy CA or NY., I’m told I cant possibly be right because of the statistics.
I have been open to other laws in the past as well. In other threads I have said that a licensing scheme would reduce some gun crime.
But people who want overly broad restrictions like in my examples above, there is no fixing the problem with them. It is a binary “guns = bad” and no amount of laws will be satisfactory until only cops and the military have them. Sure, right now they says, “Bolt actions only.” Until you have sniper attacks in the news, and then there is a push to ban those.
Canada has what many people would view as strict gun laws with required training, licensing, and registration. They banned most AR/AK type weapons. And gun crime by licensed individuals is extremely low in Canada. But they have illegal guns causing problems. So they are doing the next logical step, banning all hand guns. This will hinder criminals some, sure. Even though the gun owners of Canada did have a seat at the table, they are now out in the cold. They did all of the things asked of them, trained, got the license, waited the time period, bought from the approved list and registered it.
So you will pardon my skepticism that how willing I am to fix the problems with new laws will have any bearing on how far the political winds will blow.
(OH and I know how to fix the bulk of gun crime: Fix poverty. Fix environmental toxins. That would drastically reduce violent crime.)
Maybe I will just have to help it blow all the way to the left in that case, because when it comes to this issue, I have more in common with actual leftists (socialists, etc) and anarchists than progressives or liberals. (For the record I don’t consider myself a socialist or an anarchist, though I acknowledge capitalism is broken.)
I don’t think the pro 2nd Amendment people have a monopoly of condescension. There is a certain level of privilege one has to have to tell another person they don’t know, “You don’t need that.”
Can someone please quote me where I said something can’t be done? I probably have said something like that in the past, but not lately. And I haven’t said that in this thread. In fact my first post i this thread was:
That is the opposite of saying something can’t be done.I am saying it could be done! I give an example of how to write a definition of a bump stock which would ban similar designed items.
The reason the bump stock ban was over turned wasn’t because of a badly crafted law. No, actually the NFA was pretty well crafted as far as spelling out what was legal and what was not. The problem is the ATF interpreting the established description of a machine gun from the NFA and applying it to the bump stock. But by the letter of the law, a bump stock is not a machine gun. That is why when it first came out, the ATF declared “These are not machine guns.” Because they weren’t! That is why it is being overturned.
The ability to write a new law that covers bump stocks (and any other device that aids in mimicking full auto fire like forced reset triggers or binary triggers) could be done by someone familiar with firearms law and how these things operate.
So for the last time - not saying a law can’t be written that cover these specific items that perform the specific function of mimicking full auto fire.
Now, let’s step out of our academic exercise and acknowledge that it is unlikely enough Republicans in the House are going to pass any law like that. They are too busy weakening democracy. But maybe in 2 years.
For record, I don’t think I’ve ever said that. I have repeatedly said that clearly, with thousands of gun laws on the book across all levels of government, that regulations can be passed.
Observing this thread, I see this as the primary disconnect. Gun control advocates are willing to cast a wide net. False positive (banning some guns or gun accessories unintentionally) is better than a false negative (failing to ban an item that allows an unacceptable force multiplier for uncontrolled possession)
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Maybe we should all just stop beating around the bush and argue about this point directly, rather than the technicalities of what is and is not a machine gun. Because I think that a lot of people would very much like to see exactly what you describe come to pass. In fact, what you describe is the norm in many countries around the world. I think that it would be more productive to hear why that would be a bad thing and what kind of compromise situation you would prefer to see, rather than this back and forth on “but if you ban this, then it would have effect of also banning this unless you phrase the legislation like this.”
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I’m done engaging with you here, friend. You argue disingenuously in every gun thread and I think you know it.
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If the aim of the law was to ban assault rifles, splitting hairs on what is an assault rifle would be fair.
If the aim were to reduce gun-related deaths, looking at the death-by-cause stats is appropriate.
Again, coming from a country with very few firearms and very few gun-related deaths (per capita), and preferring to see health-related outcomes as an end of themselves, I prefer to focus on the latter.
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That’s not necessary. A law can be written without any knowledge about the technology and how it works. One that’s written based on what the gun does and not how it does it. It doesn’t matter how a gun achieves a high rate of fire. If it’s a bump, a spring, using recoil, gas, rubber band, magic, or whatever. It’s the behavior of the device that’s important.
That’s likely where lots of the confusion comes from. People not familiar with how guns work, and not caring how they work, hear about a “machine gun ban” and they interpret that to mean “ban on guns that fire lots of bullets really fast”. Then someone shows up and says “well actually, it’s this very technical difference that makes it completely different and it doesn’t apply”. To the first person, they’re all the same, to the second there’s some difference that makes them completely different.
In a completely different area, look at the E911 rules. The laws and interpretation say that a VOIP provider needs to meet all the E911 rules written for the old phone network. Even though the technology is completely different. Someone can plug a VOIP adapter into any Internet connection anywhere in the world, yet the E911 law and rules say that now needs to be treated exactly the same way as plugging a phone into a traditional phone line. The reasons goes along the lines of that it looks like phone line, acts like a phone line, and lets you call other traditional phone lines, even though it’s not a phone line. To the rule the VOIP and traditional phone line are the same, to the service provider they’re totally different. Along with more murky areas in the middle, like a telecom provider that sells it as a traditional phone line but technically implements as a VOIP service.
Same principal here. Nobody talking about restrictions here cares how it’s technically done. It’s the behavior of the device that matters. If there’s some niche use case that needs that behavior, carve out an exception and license it very restrictively. It’s niche after all, so by definition it wouldn’t impact most people. There lots of things that require a special license and can be used then.
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You have to admit, though, whether you intend it or not, that your first response every time the topic comes up is to say “it’s too complicated” or “this simple concept won’t work” or “that won’t work because you don’t know guns.” That has been pointed out many times is a tactic for seeming reasonable about gun control, without actually giving an inch on restrictions.
It’s entirely possible that the CA or NY bans would be more effective. But at the same time, you can’t assert that the 94 AWB was ineffective because [technical reasons] - it was measurably, proveably, significantly effective.
But adults get over being told what to do for the public good. I disagree with many fishing regulations. I don’t throw a tantrum (not accusing you of this, but rather the vast majority of 2A advocates) because I don’t get to do exactly what I want, where I want, whenever I feel like it. I guess that’s condescension, as in, “grow up.” But that doesn’t mean it isn’t justified.
ETA: I fundamentally disagree that firearm regulation needs to be technically specific. That’s how you get manufacturers changing technical details to weasel around the new regulation without meaningful changes in function. Instead, regulations should specify the function that is beaing regulated - rate of fire, accuracy/range, projectile caliber/velocity/kinetic energy, etc. In other words, regulate the physical, measureable effect of the firearm rather than the mechanism or appearance. From that perspective, the magazine round limit legislation is pretty spot on - and it should be noted, has inspired major meltdowns among the ammosexual population.
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If one thinks “guns = bad” and would rather only the police and military have them, then I really don’t see the point in trying to change that person’s mind. The chasm is too great where meeting in the middle would still leave me hovering over a chasm.
Can I come to an agreement or at least an understanding on limitations or checks and balances? Yes.
If you ask me “How would you ban or regulate this?” I can give you some suggestions or an overview of what it would take. But I’ll also point out if you start out wanting to ban or regulate XYZ, you will come to find out that often times there are only superficial differences that either a law is too broad and effects other things, or too narrow or focused on the wrong thing that you aren’t actually regulating things in any significant way.
I would contend when it comes to laws governing technology, you really should have a grasp on what is being regulated.
But yes, that is true. You could regulate the behavior. Like for cars, it doesn’t matter if your car is electric, diesel, or gas, the speed limit is 70mph.
But I am not sure how you would determine a speed limit for firearms.
Regardless of how a firearm operates, in certain scenarios you can cause one to fire super fast, at least for a short amount of time. Single action revolvers, cowboy guns, which require the hammer to be manually cocked between shots, can fan the hammer and you can fire three times in literally half a second.
A semiautomatic firearm is usually limited to how fast you can pull the trigger, and that will be slower than full auto. But like I said way up above, you can do the bump fire effect using your belt loop, and hands. You can also fan the trigger, bouncing your finger between the trigger and trigger guard to shoot rapidly. Not accurately by any means, but rapidly. These still aren’t usually quite at full auto speeds, but very close.
So, yes, in theory I agree with you. But at the same time you’re going to have to suggest exactly what metric you would use to draw said line. Is this metric typical use or possible use? Because while I can only legally drive my car 70mph, it is CAPABLE of going much faster than that (and it’s only a 4 cyl Corolla!)
Because it IS complicated, there are thousands of pages of gun laws on the books nationwide. Complicated doesn’t mean impossible, it just means it takes work and isn’t a simple fix. If gun crime - or any crime - was a simple fix, we would do it!
My above solutions to reduce gun crime is “simple” in concept - but extremely complicated in practice and would take giant paradigm shifts in society.
My personal approval on a restriction is irrelevant on whether I honestly think it will work or not.
Case in point: While I disagree with it, if you manged to outlaw all guns and round them up door to door, I concede it would reduce gun homicides.
Look at the catalog images I posted and tell me: Are those just “technically” AR-15s? Or do they possess all of the features that make them too dangerous and warrant further restrictions?
What was the cause of the measurably, significant drop in the gun homicide rate that started from the height in the 90s, and continued its downward trend even after the AWB was lifted? If the AWB had a direct effect on mass shootings, what then was the direct effect causing the reduction of gun homicides?
Fair point. There are many 2A advocates that are their own worst enemy. There are many who argue for it who frankly don’t know what they are talking about either and just parroting slogans.
