[sonny]

Do you think they will eventually be outlawed in the USA?
Are we as gun owners doomed?
Will todays guns become obsolete in comparison to the weapons of the near future?......How far away are we from.."lazer guns" and Star Trek like weapons.
What I'm asking in a nutshell is for your opinion on where you think we are going as a country as far as firearm related issues go?
I realize that it is a very open ended question so feel free to rant.
As for my opinion?....Ill make it simple....It doesn't look good :(
but I'll do what I can to preserve gun ownership.

[Greg L]

The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle. You can't outlaw knowledge (although with the dumbing down of our public school system you would think that the .gov is trying to achieve it in a different way).

The knowledge is there to make a zip gun out of everyday items. Once created it can be used to "aquire" a manufactured weapon of good quality from whatever occupation troops managed to disarm the population. Because if it ever came down to that I'm sure that there would be a war here in the states.

Greg

[El Tejon]

What you can do: give money, get active and get others active!:cool:

[Standing Wolf]

I'm sure today's guns will be perfectly serviceable in 2050: we're still shooting firearms designed and manufactured well over a hundred years ago, aren't we?

Whether we'll still legally be able to own them is another matter.

[LawDog]

If we're lucky, we'll be in the same spot we are now - minus the Assault Weapon Ban.

If we're not, every gun out there will be either registered, or retrofitted with radio-frequency safety that will force anybody wanting to use their rifle/pistol/shotgun to call the .gov, state their intentions, and ask that the damn gun be turned on so it can be used. :fire:

LawDog

[Vladimir Berkov]

Smart money is betting there are many more gun laws than there are today.

[Pawcatch]

I don't think firearms will ever be totally banned here.They may just be almost impossible to get legally.
I mean even in Japan it's still possible to own a rifle or shotgun for hunting.Although,you have to notify the police anytime you move it a hair inch.

[Preacherman]

Sounds like a good idea to stock up now on weapons that we know:

1. Have worked well for many years (up to a century or more in some cases);

2. Are still freely available without electronic gizmos limiting their operation;

3. Will provide fun, defence and other goodies for us now, plus a hefty contribution to our retirement when we sell them in a future when they aren't available any more!

Oh - by the way - stock up on your life expectancy's worth of ammunition while you still can! A reloading bench might not be a bad idea, too...

[Chris Rhines]

I can take fifty bucks to Lowes, Radio Shack, and Johnson's Garden Supply and pick up all the tools and supplies I need to build an improvised firearm with some fairly impressive features.

- Multi-shot.
- As powerful as a large-bore revolver.
- Easy to conceal as a cellular phone.
- Effective range of thirty feet or so.
- If I wanted to be fancy, I could make a disposable two-shot version without a single metal component (save for a bit of copper wiring,) and hermetically sealed against chemical detection.

All this in a few hours work. It's not hard. Anyone with a modicum of experience with hand tools could do the same.

I will NEVER be unarmed. It's simply not possible, no matter how hard the safety-statists try.

"To ban guns, you first must ban knowledge of guns. To ban knowledge of guns, you must first ban knowledge itself." - L. Neil Smith

- Chris

[rick_reno]

There will be many more guns laws, but they'll all be "reasonable" and the NRA will continue to push for their enforcement.

[longeyes]

You won't want guns in 2050. Genetic engineering will have solved that social problem.

[Nightfall]

There's a small beacon of light that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things will reverse course. People will take an honest look at the reality of gun control, and the simple facts of it's effect on crime. They'll wise up to keeping the USA free and full of liberty. They'll learn why the Bill of Rights says what it says, and realize that it's intent will be valid and needed as long as humans are humans.

Then I stop dreaming, and realize that so long as there is just one instance of gun misuse, and even if through some miracle there isn't, irrational, unknowledgeable fear will be exploited to remove guns from the general law-abiding populace. Politicians will do whatever they can to instill that irrational fear of being shot up by criminals running rampant with an AK variant so they can create a solution to a non-existent problem and get more votes, money, power, etc. Those with a level head on their shoulders and red-white-and-blue in their hearts will get small victories here and there, but in the end it will only delay the long road to all but complete confiscation. Even if crime gets incredibly worse through this activity, people will still ‘feel' safer because they won't have to consider running into a firearm except in the hands of bad guys or the government (which completely baffles me). If they can ignore the facts now, I'm sure the sheep will have no troubles living in imaginary land even when crime skyrockets and everyone is defenseless against violence. At this point, after much trial at peaceful solutions, a revolution may well break out. I've not even a guess at how many people would join, but it would happen. Would it win? Dunno. Will it create a constant internal conflict with no end? Yes. Not a pretty picture to say the least, and I have few wishes more sincere than for this not to ever be needed.

But I still hold out hope for that beacon of light. America has often surprised me by an ability to find the right path even through a situation clouded with lies, misguidance, and ‘popular opinion'. :)

[Kharn]

The US Army will have the M16D7 and the M9A6 as the primary weapons. Marines will still have the M16A2 and will be wondering what all the fuss is about with regards to the M16D7. Civilians are still wishing the 1986 MG ban would go away so they could buy a Mac 10 for less than $100,000, but they will be happy they dont have to deal with pre/postban weapons like their parents did back in 1994-2004.

Kharn