Some random thoughts, with UBC and other restrictions potentially on the horizon

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It goes without saying that these horrific crimes are tragic. However, so is the 30 deaths per day from drunk driving; and there is no national outrage over what could be compared to a horrific 30+ death mass shooting every day. (Link to DUI deaths below). And I don’t believe in an abolition of alcohol either, freedoms are not free; but after the misuse the penalties should be enforced

https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving

It’s an agenda, and freedoms are not free. The problem with this country is low critical thinking and a willing appetite for media driven thought.
 
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The 2nd Amendment is about:

1. Power in the People’s hands (militia) as it is supposed to be the People who give power to the government. This aspect of the 2A is a very important one, as the People need to retain a leave of efficiency to hold power when faced with tyranny, oppression, and/or invasion. Many feel tyranny will never happen here in the USA and that there is no need for guns in the hands of the private for this reason. These people are blind to what is occurring all around them, tyranny can move at different speeds; we are seeing a creep of tyranny in this country but it has begun to move faster even in my short lifetime can one see the acceleration.
The important point is that guns don't actually have to be used to fulfill this purpose. Their mere presence in the hands of the public is enough to act as a deterrent. And to act as a deterrent to would-be tyrants, the guns have to be modern ones on a par with what the authorities possess.
3. Hunting purposes to put food on the table, and defend ones livestock or livelihood.

4. Sporting purposes for enjoyment, pursuit of happiness.
These two have nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment. Bringing these things in actually weakens our argument, because the antis can then try to limit the RKBA to guns with "sporting purposes." "Sporting purposes" should be banished from our lexicon.
 
...But by having all this paperwork, such as Form 4473, it's easy to find out who has what, ban that which is desired, and confiscate that which is desired.

I think that the military should have assault weapons...
1. Private sales in most states make the 4473 all but useless for tracking who owns what guns. Even the 4473 itself does not list the exact firearm being transferred. But after it is in the hands of the legal individual, they may make a private sale at any point in the future to another legal person. Theycis not and has never been a requirement for either party to keep a record of who they sold to or bought from. There is also no way to ensure that either party accomplish this ("Oh that gun? It fell off my boat/burned up in a house fire", etc).

2. The military has no use for assault weapons. Within the realm of self-repeating firearms they are issued either assault rifles, machine guns, submachine guns or the less-seen battle rifles. These guns (with the exception of belt-fed machine guns) are different from an assault weapon in that they have a capability for either semi-automatic operation OR burst and/or fully automatic operation.

To further this point, the very word "weapon" implies that the device in question does NOT have to be a firearm. Thus the term assault weapon can mean whatever the author of the word desires, which as you can see from the quote above is intended to confuse the uneducated for the express purpose of garnering support for future confiscation.
 
I did a little bit of research. Merriam Webster states the term "assault weapon" dates from 1966, but I still am not sure who coined it and in what context.

The problem is that folks who know absolutely nothing about firearms at all, perhaps have never heard one, hear the term "assault weapon", and it sounds scary.

Each word, individually, is not exactly positive:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assault

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weapon

While we are at it, here's the definition of assault weapon:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assault weapon

At least the term machine, which is 50% of machine gun, is fairly innocuous, and even positive:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machine

Let's be clear here...assault weapon or assault rifle is a term coined by the media and used so much that it made its way into the dictionary.

I have a near 50 year old Ruger 10/22 carbine that I purchased new and have used for countless hunting and plinking episodes that is now, by their skewed standards, classified as an "assault rifle".... REALLY!?!

A rifle, a handgun or even a knife cannot be used to assault someone until the ONE in possession of it makes it so. And that statement right there should make it crystal clear to anyone, that it's the individual using it to cause harm against others is where the problem lies. A few years ago a young man plowed into a group of protesters with his car killing several. NEVER during the course of the trial was it ever brought up that the car was an "assault vehicle" . It was a vehicle that a demented individual happened to use for assault.

Why should I or anyone else be penalized because of the demented actions of others?
 
Let's be clear here...assault weapon or assault rifle is a term coined by the media and used so much that it made its way into the dictionary.

I have a near 50 year old Ruger 10/22 carbine that I purchased new and have used for countless hunting and plinking episodes that is now, by their skewed standards, classified as an "assault rifle".... REALLY!?!

A rifle, a handgun or even a knife cannot be used to assault someone until the ONE in possession of it makes it so. And that statement right there should make it crystal clear to anyone, that it's the individual using it to cause harm against others is where the problem lies. A few years ago a young man plowed into a group of protesters with his car killing several. NEVER during the course of the trial was it ever brought up that the car was an "assault vehicle" . It was a vehicle that a demented individual happened to use for assault.

Why should I or anyone else be penalized because of the demented actions of others?
Once again, this is incorrect. An assault rifle is a real, tangible item. It is roughly defined as a select-fire weapon firing an intermediate cartridge. Your Ruger may be classified as an assault weapon by your state/politicians arbitrarily, but it can't be an assault rifle (it doesn't have a rate-of-fire selector). True assault rifles I might add, are contained within the NFA framework and are legally no different than any other automatic weapon.

While they are different on paper, we can all see how people have now blurred the two definitions together which was INTENDED from the start.
 
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1Even the 4473 itself does not list the exact firearm being transferred.

Umm... yeah it does. Serial number?

As to no mass shootings before 1967. Does the St. Valentine's Day Massacre ring any bells? Ignorance of history doesn't mean it didn't happen.
 
While no responsible person wants to see firearms in the hands of an Adam Lanza, Jerrod Loughner, or similar deranged psychopath, neither do we wish to see our firearms listed in some Federal database, or be subject to prosecution for loaning a gun to a hunting buddy or giving one as a present to a family member. Perhaps an “outside-the-box” approach, using the carrot rather than the stick, would enable responsible gun owners to ensure they are transferring firearms only to those eligible to receive them. Here is my idea:

First of all, the ATF form 4473 will be eliminated. Firearms dealers will no longer be responsible for running background checks on you every time you purchase a gun. Instead, you may run a background check on yourself, at your leisure, from any Internet-connected computer or smart phone. You would have to enter your full ID data, plus read through a list of prohibitions like the questions that are on the 4473. If you passed the background check, you would be issued a unique alphanumeric ID# that would be valid for, say, 90 days. This number, and your ID data, would be on a PDF file, which you could print out in however many copies you wished. For convenience, it might also contain blanks for the make, model, caliber, serial number, and additional descriptive data for the firearm you wish to purchase. This would be for you to fill in at the time of purchase, and would not be furnished to the gov’t.

To purchase a firearm or firearms, you would present this form to the seller. The seller could then call a toll-free number and enter the ID number from your form. The seller would then be informed that your number was valid, and provide your ID data. You would then show your ID to the seller to confirm you are the one who received a clean background check, and the transaction(s) would proceed. The firearm’s ID data would be entered onto the form, and both you and seller would sign the form. The seller would then retain the form, with a copy going to you, if you wished to have one, and would act as a bill of sale for the firearm. A dealer would retain the form as a record of sale.

A dealer would be required to check your ID number, just as (s)he is now required to do a background check. A private seller would not. There would be no criminal penalty for a private seller not checking the ID#, or not asking to see one. However, firearms sellers who can prove that they checked the buyer’s eligibility by producing a copy of the bill of sale would be statutorily absolved of any criminal or civil liability for selling the firearm, or for any misuse of the firearm by the buyer.

The ID# would be valid for the purchase of any number of firearms during the validity period. Upon its expiration, within three working days, the ID data associated with that number would be required to be purged from gov’t records. The only data the gov’t would retain would be the ID# and the dates it was valid.

An individual could get an ID# as often as (s)he wished. While there would be no requirement for a seller to ask for and check the buyer’s ID#, the fact that the law provides legal protection to the seller would be a strong incentive, especially since plaintiffs’ attorneys would be quick to seize upon the fact that failure to check the buyer’s ID# could easily be construed as negligence, with consequential civil liability.

You wouldn’t have to swear to a bunch of statements like on the Form 4473, but if you are, say, an illegal alien, you can still be charged with unlawful possession; just not the “stacked” charge of perjury.

In short, gives anyone the ability to check a buyer's background, provides relief from liability for selling to a buyer who misuses the firearm, and the gov't has no permanent record of who purchased a firearm, and has no record at all of the number or types of firearms the buyer purchased.
 
Here is my idea:

That's pretty good. There are a bunch of other similar notions. I've suggested similar things.

Here's what I notice: It's trivially easy to come up with a pretty good, universal background check system that gun people are generally ok with- just as soon as you quit trying to make it also work as a de facto registry. So why do we so rarely hear these obvious approaches suggested? Uh, because the actual goal is the registry.
 
Red Flag and UBC laws are using the ruse of "common sense" gun control, but are a means of getting the camels nose under the tent. Once these types of laws are in place they will be amending them over time increasing the "categories" of persons prohibited from owning a firearm. ITS A TRAP!!!
 
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

People who think that mass slaying are more common today than in the pre-industrial past are hilariously ignorant. In fact, intra-society homicide rates were generally higher before the invention of repeating firearms, and higher than that before the invention of firearms at all, and higher than that before the widespread adoption of steel.

There's a very common, totally backwards assumption that, as individual weapon technology progresses, it tends to lead to more deaths. THAT IS FALSE. Stone-age societies with nothing more than clubs and spears kill themselves/each other at vastly higher rates than Americans. Orders of magnitude more.

And pre-1967 American history is full of mass slayings. Just because they weren't carried out with some particular instrumentality doesn't mean they didn't happen or were less terrible.

If you are interested in learning about this area, I recommend Steven Pinkers' Better Angels. Pinker is a Harvard academic who has done important work in a bunch of areas, but his Better Angels book covers this topic well at a layperson/survey level.

Thanks for the reference to BETTER ANGELS, it looks like a very interesting book. I just ordered a copy from AMAZON. In fact, the site brought up another by Steven Pinker I thought interesting, BLANK SLATE, so I ordered that too! :thumbup:
 
Once again, this is incorrect. An assault rifle is a real, tangible item. It is roughly defined as a select-fire weapon firing an intermediate cartridge. Your Ruger may be classified as an assault weapon by your state/politicians arbitrarily, but it can't be an assault rifle (it doesn't have a rate-of-fire selector). Teue assault rifles I might add, are contained within the NFA framework and are legally no different than any other automatic weapon.

While they are different on paper, we can all see how people have now blurred the two definitions together which was INTENDED from the start.
Yes, you're correct "coined" was a poor choice. I should have said "reinvented by the media". I guess I should have made clear that I was referring to sporting firearms not military.
 
Yes, but if you don't have to justify yourself to a government entity (second post) or if it's the people armed (first post), then how can anything be regulated, even sawed off shotguns or machine guns?

I shoot mostly vintage or antique firearms, often black powder. I'll admit I've never fired an assault weapon, nor do I care to. My experience is often, but not always, when at the range, the goal with assault weapons is to fire fairly rapidly and if most hit the target it's considered great shooting.

Again, any ideas as to the origin of the overused term "assault weapon", how it came to be, and who coined it? Sadly, the term "machine gun" even sounds much more benign.

I object to the paperwork involved in purchasing a post 1898 firearm, and, if it is even necessary, which is debatable, as mentioned in other posts, why is the make, model, and serial number of your purchase necessary, other than to create a database which, in time, could be used to regulate and then confiscate.

I don't know why a single shot .22 pistol shipped in 1913, for example, should have to be in a database as to make, model, and serial number, but such it is? If I was to use it with devious intent, I wouldn't get far.
 
Umm... yeah it does. Serial number?

As to no mass shootings before 1967. Does the St. Valentine's Day Massacre ring any bells? Ignorance of history doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Serial number relating to what make/model? Just the number by itself tells someone reading the form almost nothing.
 
Serial number relating to what make/model? Just the number by itself tells someone reading the form almost nothing.

Have you every actually looked at a 4473? Ever filled one out on the other side of the counter? I highly doubt it.

Download a 4473 and take a gander at page 3, Section D and get back to me.
 
Yes, you're correct "coined" was a poor choice. I should have said "reinvented by the media". I guess I should have made clear that I was referring to sporting firearms not military.
It doesn't matter who is using the guns. The definitons remain the same. Assault weapons only exist in the eyes of politicians and the uneducated. The reason they passed legislation for the AWB was because assault rifles were already defined and regulated. So they had to come up with a new name that covered the weapons that they didn't want. It's not a coincidence that the two terms are so similar.

The media hasn't reinvented anything. They merely parrot what they are told and what they see in print already.
 
Perhaps an “outside-the-box” approach, using the carrot rather than the stick, would enable responsible gun owners to ensure they are transferring firearms only to those eligible to receive them. Here is my idea:
I like it!
Here's what I notice: It's trivially easy to come up with a pretty good, universal background check system that gun people are generally ok with- just as soon as you quit trying to make it also work as a de facto registry. So why do we so rarely hear these obvious approaches suggested? Uh, because the actual goal is the registry.
The reason these alternative approaches don't make headway is that our side doesn't push them. We're stuck in an exclusively defensive mode, always responding and never taking the initiative. How about being proactive for a change, and setting the terms of the debate ourselves? But then, whoever did this would be accused of being a sellout by the absolutists....

Using a sports analogy, someone said that the only thing a "prevent defense" does is prevent you from winning.
 
I suspected all along that assault rifle or assault weapon was created by the media. Never mind that one rarely assaults with one.

I was under the impression that the incident at the University of Texas in 1967 was the first incident of simply picking off random individuals???

The idea of just having a unique identifier good for 90 days in order to purchase a firearm...how about instead having a CCW card serve that purpose. Just like some folks don't drive, but have a driver's license as an ID, one could have a CCW card, but not conceal carry. Present that, and can purchase a firearm, no further questions asked. Good for several years until renewed, like a driver's license. Just like a driver's license, abuse your privileges, your CCW card gets pulled.

Completely random thought, but if you get your license pulled, they don't confiscate your vehicle...
 
The real trouble with any ban or gun legislation is that it is inevitably drafted by someone who knows as much about guns as I do about nuclear physics.
Here is one definition of an “assault” rifle.
Military style rifle with detachable magazine capable of holding more than five rounds.
Similar language was used in an Indianapolis ordinance intended to ban assault weapons maybe twenty years ago. Guess what? By the language of the definition, had that ordinance passed, it would have been illegal to own a Civil War issue Spencer repeating rifle.
In the sixties when the craze was banning Saturday Night Specials, the definitions proposed often outlawed Colt match grade 1911s right along with the cheapest H&R nine shot .22.
And speaking of Colt match grade 1911s, they, along with every other semi-auto pistol with a detachable magazine - which as far as I know is all of them, will be the next on the ban list if ARs, AKs, SKSs, and so on get banned.
Also don’t assume that your grade III Browning .22 automatic or Ruger 10/22 with the beech stock will be exempt.
 
The real trouble with any ban or gun legislation is that it is inevitably drafted by someone who knows as much about guns as I do about nuclear physics.
Here is one definition of an “assault” rifle.
Military style rifle with detachable magazine capable of holding more than five rounds.
Similar language was used in an Indianapolis ordinance intended to ban assault weapons maybe twenty years ago. Guess what? By the language of the definition, had that ordinance passed, it would have been illegal to own a Civil War issue Spencer repeating rifle.
In the sixties when the craze was banning Saturday Night Specials, the definitions proposed often outlawed Colt match grade 1911s right along with the cheapest H&R nine shot .22.
And speaking of Colt match grade 1911s, they, along with every other semi-auto pistol with a detachable magazine - which as far as I know is all of them, will be the next on the ban list if ARs, AKs, SKSs, and so on get banned.
Also don’t assume that your grade III Browning .22 automatic or Ruger 10/22 with the beech stock will be exempt.

Just look to the "assault weapon" regulations in Washington state.
 
Before I begin, let's remember the following, the Second Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I guess, technically, the right to keep and bear arms, whatever they might be, "shall not be infringed". But that all ended in 1934 with the Gun Control Act of 1934. Machine guns, short barreled rifles & shotguns, etc, became regulated. Regulation, no matter how you define it, is infringement.

So, we have already gone down that road.

Such a big deal is made about Universal Background Checks. Aren't all handguns, post 1899, subject to this already? Longarms, if a private sale, are not. These are a small portion of overall sales, so really they are not regulating all that much more, although it is nice to have the option of going to a gun show, and purchasing a long arm, should I desire to do so, without a paper trail, as a paper trail can lead to registration and potential confiscation. Personally, when I complete Form 4473, I consider that to be infringement, and I am surprised that is allowed and required, but it is.

A 4473 doesn't infringe on my buying a firearm IMHO. I support background checks. As a professional seller (ffl) I abhor the idea of selling a gun to someone who shouldn't be allowed to own one. The FDLE website shows only the last couple of days of background checks in complete and then it deletes the name and DOB of the checked name, merely leaving dates of checks and the relevant approval number. It doesn't purge non-approval details. The picture below is a screenshot just taken of my last few checks. I deleted the information for two and then you can see that FDLE has purged any identifying personal details. They are mandated by law to do that purging.
screenshot.jpg

BUT, this leads up to the whole point of this thread. IF you already have Gun Control Acts, which already have infringed the rights of law abiding citizens, why is such a big deal made about banning assault weapons?

It comes down to who is defining the term "assault weapons"? By some definitions I have seen, it would take into account almost every semi automatic firearm. The clearest example of this idiocy is an AR-15 is an assault weapon/rifle and a Mini-14 is not. Shoots the same bullets. Capable of accepting the same number of rounds in a magazine. Same rate of fire. Yet one would be banned, the other not.

Just watch a few youtube videos when interviewers are asking lawmakers about gun control legislation and they clearly have no knowledge about guns in bills they themselves are proposing. Biden suggests just popping off a couple of "blasts" (his words, not mine) from a double barrel shotgun from your balcony. I know of no city where firing a gun in the city limits other than inside of a gun range is legal. And just what is he recommending we "blast" away at? The neighbor's house? The ground? Up in the air?



One lawmaker had "barrel shrouds" as one defining feature of an assault rifle but clearly has no idea what that is. Who wrote put that part in the law? All of the criteria are just so arbitrary, which is to say meaningless.



Remember, we're talking weapons, not just rifles. I can see, once we have an assault weapon ban that the definition gets "refined".

Many perfectly good laws, passed with the best of intentions, get stretched to cover things not intended or even envisioned by the original lawmakers.
For example, granted, not firearm related, but apropos. It is illegal in Florida to drive drunk. Great law! Probably helped to save dozens of lives. However, it's been stretched to it now being illegal to be in control of a vehicle while drunk, which can mean sleeping it off in the back seat of a non-running, parked vehicle because you have the keys in your drunk pocket.

Again, like I said, I don't agree with paperwork and banning and infringement, but if this needs to be done, I don't have a problem with that per se.

And here's why? What purpose do they serve other than to fire many shots in a short period of time?

So? There's not a world of a lot of difference between 3 thirty round magazines fully loaded and 9 ten round magazines fully loaded time-wise. A few seconds to drop and swap. But, is the problem with the number of bullets fired or is it the number of projectiles flying downrange in a short period of time? If it's the latter, consider a shotgun, pump or semi-auto, in 12 gauge firing 00 Buckshot. with 3" shells, that's 15 pellets with each trigger pull. Fired shells can be replaced in the feeding tube, without having to swap out a magazine, while the gun is still loaded. Warped individuals bent on killing are attracted to the look of an "assault rifle" so we should selectively ban guns based on looks? Isn't that rather silly?

Can anyone explain why they are necessary over other available firearms, other than they could be fun to shoot? No real sportsmanship there, no skill in improving target practice skills, no needed for hunting or even self defense.

Is a reason needed other than they are fun to shoot? The only difference between some guns classified as assault rifles and some that are similar in function but so classified is cosmetic. Pistol grip, bayonet lug, barrel shroud, etc. Besides that, no sportsmanship? They fire semi-automatic, so where's the difference is firing an AR-15 at a target and any other rifle? And if they're not good for self defense, why are we arming police departments with them?

I would still keep my nose out of this except for I think that the cause was really really damaged or hurt when the term "assault" was used to define many such weapons. How ever was that term used to describe such weapons and who coined it and why is it flagrantly abused? Like I said, it certainly does not help the cause, and using "assault" and "weapon" in the same sentence looks terrible to the general public, especially those with no firearms experience.

 
Interesting. I never heard of that incident in 1949. I thought I heard in TV the first type of such incident was at the University of Texas, as I was corrected as to time frame, in 1966.
 
I would agree that most politicians have little to no experience with firearms. That's why some of the things they say make no sense. I would even hazard to guess even most pro firearm politicians have no experience with firearms whatsoever. It's the consequence of being raised in a suburban or urban environment and attending Ivy League schools. They simply have decided that it is in their best interest to be pro firearm as it best suits their agenda (and gets them the most votes). Nothing unique about all of that. Politicians seek votes to gain re-election. Most folks today, as rural lifestyles become increasingly rare, have not fired or handled a rifle, shotgun, revolver, assault weapon, etc.
 
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