Nailbender

Was Mel Gibson really worth mentioning?

Fine here ya go. I don't think anyone should own any kind of rifle, for any reason. In fact if you own one that your Great Grandpappy gave you when he died, you should destroy it or become a felon. Deer hunting is only allowed with shotguns and straight walled cartridges in my state anyway. Handguns and shotguns are all any American should be allowed to own. Now, please tell me how this will stop gun violence? Bernie is right about one thing, this is not a productive conversation. My only fault in that, is continuing it.

You're definitely going out on a limb with your position. It's literally the take of every single person who just wants "to do something" but doesn't really care what. The only requirement is that they don't have to actually do anything.

It's not me trying to define it. It's people in government and the citizens who support them who want to ban...…..something. I don't need a definition, I don't even want one. They need one to make a law. I want no part in that ridiculousness. Turns out an assault rifle is an assault rifle, I guess. According to the dictionary. I feel really foolish now. Maybe we should ban Army boots instead, easy to define and will do a lot to stop gun violence or at least as much as most of what I've seen in this intellectual oasis.

Maybe the fact that you think it's so simple is something to think about. The question has already been answered by our government. I'm fine with their answer (not really but I don't want to go any further) and see no reason to change it.

I had a few minutes between appointments. I haven't given it enough thought to have a line. Why would I waste my time coming up with one when I don't feel like they matter? I could own a tank or a jet fighter if I could afford to feed them. They wouldn't hurt a soul. People do in fact own them, as well as fully automatic weapons. Your line is insignificant. People can and do far more damage with a pistol or a even a bolt action rifle, yet you aren't asking for those "classes" to be banned? In fact, you ignore the fact every time I mention it. You draw your line in a place that statistically will do very little if any good. I don't understand that and you can't seem to explain it. You obviously care, I can at least see that.

You don't have any idea what rifles are made for. To you, that's what they are for. A car going 90 is not for transportation, it's a death machine that is endangering my life on the highway. People deal with that every day. It deals out more death than rifles by a significant margin but you don't care. Why not? I have to get some work done. Have a good day.

And cars have no need to go faster than 75. That additional speed is responsible for much more senseless death than rifles. I still don't understand. I don't know that some of your assertions are correct but in general, I don't have any problem with trying to change the culture. In fact, that's kinda what I've been saying. Apparently, that's too "in the box". I should be banning objects not even capable of harming others to really be an intellectual. (Body armor)

I'm not proposing anything. I'm suggesting that you don't know anything about guns or gun violence. Hand guns are responsible for the great majority of the latter. I'm having trouble following the last part. Might be a word missing? If it means what I think it means, how is removing certain objects that are statistically insignificant and impossible to define going to get us back to where we need to be?

The ATF could do what you want tomorrow with no need to even involve Congress. Why don't they?

You'd like to think you have wrapped up the definition of an assault rifle in a neat little bow. You haven't. I could go into all the examples of how you are wrong again but you don't care and that's fine. I don't really either. However, someone will have to, if you want laws to pass and be a permanent solution as you claim to, they're going to have to be a lot better at it than you, cause...lawyers. My suggestion would be to stop obsessing over an intimate object you can't even define and look elsewhere for a solution. Maybe even realize that the scary guns are statistically insignificant in gun violence. If you want to really stop gun violence you need to get rid of handguns (good luck with that) or find whatever this society lost because this didn't used to happen.

An offensive weapon as opposed to a defensive one? I didn't realize guns could tell the difference. I don't think that makes much sense. They don't use the gun Art posted in the military. Unfortunately, the answer is that there is no definition. Even with the last '94 AWB there were countless examples of guns far more lethal that didn't make the list. There isn't much to do with lethality that comes into play with the commonly used definitions. The best definition I have seen is "guns that look cool or scary". The only rhyme nor reason on what constitutes an assault rifle seems to be capacity and a semi-auto action. The first is less about guns and more about magazines, which is a whole separate issue. The second describes a great majority of the rifles used for, well pretty much everything. I get why people who are onboard with gun bans don't want to be bogged down in these details but if it is going to become law, someone has to define it. Then they have to explain what makes those guns worse than the others. They won't be able to. I don't know what this next part means? Are you saying that you might want guns banned before an uprising of some kind but you're not sure? Please, elaborate. Which "side" will be "extremely unhinged" and why this is important? I am surprised every time because it's that horrible. I hope I never get used to the idea. It is an absolutely foreign concept to me to take innocent life with no regard. I have spent a lot of my time trying to help kids become healthy adults. I've done that with coaching wrestling, I've done it with coaching shooting sports. I try to do it everyday with my own kids. We have 3,100 kids, all with firearms at my states state trap shoot. 750,000 rounds fired over a week, all by underage shooters and no shootings, what are we doing wrong or more importantly what did we do right? My parents generation took their guns to school so they could hunt before and after. They didn't have school shootings. The logic of blaming guns for this problem is flawed. There were guns long before Columbine.

I asked how we could prevent gun violence. Your answer was to track where criminals get their guns. I don't know how that prevents much gun violence but I indulged you. I told you most of them come from straw purchases according to the ATF. I then told you that the ATF could crack down on those avenues tomorrow with no further legislation needed. Both of which are true. I didn't dance around anything. I didn't like #1 but went with it. #2 you said something about body armor that was "half tongue in cheek" now you want credit for it? Fine, you gave one and a half "solutions". The truth is neither of them explains how to prevent much if any gun violence.

I can appreciate that. I didn't get much done today. I'm sure don't care or wish I wouldn't but I will absolutely address your other post later.

Straw purchases would be easier to go after than new laws! It's already on the books. If Joe Biden wanted to stop straw purchases tomorrow, he could try to do so all on his own. I think he would have a hard time making headway as it's a tough crime to stop but you could definitely make an example out of some people and I would commend him for it(okay maybe that's a stretch :)). Joe Biden isn't getting funding from the gun lobby. If he is, it isn't much or above board because his supporters would eat him alive for it. My answer is that politicians don't solve our problems. Lot's of times, they even create them and they definitely like having them around. As long as your first suggestion doesn't involve a gun registry. I'd be all for it. I can't get on board with outlawing body armor. I won't tell others how to spend their money. I don't want anyone telling me how to spend mine. The reasons to own it are few but they exist. It doesn't hurt anyone and it's none of my business.

There actually are some people at the ATF who do at least some of that. According to an article from PBS the ATF (or AFT if you're president Biden) says the #1 way criminals get guns is through straw purchases. That tactic is already against the law. It also has nothing to do with gun manufacturers. As far as body armor, I don't own it. It's not high on my list for future purchases either. I'm just not wired to tell other people what they "need" as you have already indicated. I also don't like solutions that put the burden of stopping gun violence on the law abiding. I don't know where these people belong but I don't believe they have any "talents", that might be part of their problem. The term "assault rifle" isn't important. It's just indicative of how much thought someone has put into the subject. It's also a red herring. The vast amount of gun deaths are caused by handguns.

Tracking how criminals get guns would be great information. I'm all for it. I believe there is some data out there already but I'm not sure. If the ultimate goal is to blame gun manufacturers for crimes committed with guns.......I don't agree. "People shoot a bunch of innocents because...guns" is not logic I'm following. Can you help me out? I don't know the statistics for the number of mass murders that wear body armor. I also fail to see how not selling it will stop someone from shooting people?

Thanks for the response. How would either of those two things help to stop gun violence?

At first I blamed myself for the unanswered questions. Thought maybe I was too cross with a couple other members here and I wasn't going to get a response because of it. I thought that was fair enough. Then I realized @Plasmodium answered my easy question. Just skipped the more difficult ones. @mspart I agree, that definition is pretty vague, then again maybe that's the intention. Nobody wants to get all tangled up in what government intervention would actually look like. "We just need to do something". Well....."we" don't, politicians do. That will surely solve this. We have a gun store owner who comes every year and gives the trap team a lecture on gun safety. He is a former LEO and has seen gun violence up close. His talk is far from what others might see as a gun safety lesson. He has a section where he addresses suicide by gun of adolescents (a MAJOR statistic in this conversation). Whether suicide or murder, he says one thing kids can do to help stop gun deaths is to talk to each other. When you see a classmate who's not themself, ask them what's wrong. Take interest in them. Be a friend or at least be friendly. A few more parents teaching that would go a lot farther than nonsensical laws that in the end only violate the rights of law abiding citizens.

Spend your time how you want but when the hammers come out, I suggest keeping both hands free....just in case.

You're in trouble now! Your friend in the Zoo is going to let you have it!

I want to know why Pelosi had a drink in one hand? I saw that correctly, right?

@Plasmodium Please help me to understand your point of view. I'd like to discuss this, I think we both think it's important. What makes a gun a weapon of war or an assault rifle? Do you think that's an important distinction? If we're going to ban them, I do. Do those weapons kill people more than other weapons? Do they somehow make it easier to kill people? Are they somehow more dangerous? Again, I think these answers matter. If these weapons are banned as you would like to see, what happens when school shooters use more pistols or shotguns? Ban them too or another solution? You really aren't shocked when someone kills 10 innocent children? I will always be shocked, I'll never understand that. In fact, I think I'm more shocked and disgusted each time. I have more questions but I really hope you or someone who feels the same way you do would answer these first few.

What would you like to see happen to prevent gun violence?

When wrestlers are in neutral, they are on both offense and defense. I give latitude. When a wrestler is on bottom, he is on defense and trying to get on top or back to neutral, I give latitude. When a wrestler is on top, they are on offense. They should act like it. The goal of wrestling to me, the ultimate victory, is to pin your opponent. This isn't to say you can't be stalling in all of the positions but this is my basic thought process. Stalling on top is ruining folkstyle wrestling for me. Which is crazy because I love watching a real hammer from the top position more than anything.