Arguments against an "Assault Weapon" ban

ATLDave said:

I think something overlooked and misunderstood by many people who are non-gun-people is the ratio between the number of semi-automatic rifles in civilian hands and the rarity of their use in crime.

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This would be a better base for op's argument except the latte sipping man bun types will bring up mass shootings. Even though mass shootings are like hitting the lotto we are dealing with people heavily swayed by emotion based fake news reporting on mass shootings, half of which are exercises spun as real events for disarmament goals of the elite. As unhelpful as some of the posts in here are, they are reality. There is very little talking, if any, left to be done. We, and they, all seem to have drawn lines in the sand. I think those on the left may just have to learn about being disarmed and what a safe gun free future really means, the hard way.

The OP is trying to find arguments that will be effective in opposing proposed legislation.

Arguments centered around opposing tyranny, although accurate, are not effective soundbites. In other words, yes, we cannot change the minds of hard core gun control advocates. The battle ground is with the moderates, and they need palatable reasons to vote against proposed bans.

With that in mind, I think the OP makes a very good argument for the use of carbines for self defense, based on the fact that law enforcement uses carbines for defense, and that criminals more often than not do not.

For gun owners in Hawaii, it is an annual event this time of the year to submit testimony opposing proposed anti gun legislation, and the OP's contribution is much appreciated.

So they want to save lives.
How about a nationwide 35 MPH speed limit for passenger cars?
That would save more lives in a week than are killed by "assault weapons" in a year... plus it would greatly reduce the country's carbon footprint!

Why, it would even make electric vehicles using current technology feasible!!

Compared to those changes, assault weapons and even semi-automatic pistols are a minor concern... .

Semi-automatic firearms have been around for over a century. The AR for over 55 years and we didn't have these problems until about 20 years ago. So it's not the firearms, it's the education or lack thereof and the policies excusing criminal behavior that are becoming more prevalent these days. I recommend people read https://www.amazon.com/Why-Meadow-Died-Policies-Parkland/dp/1642932191 Also with several of these past shootings the FBI and or other government personnel had knowledge of the murderers before and yet they did not stop the shootings/attacks and in the case of the Sunderland church and Parkland it could be said that they enabled it by failing to do their jobs.

It really boils down to a matter of good versus evil.

One is either for a free citizenry or they are for disarmed subjects.

I'm not clear on two things;

What's an Assault Weapon?

What's a Hate Crime?

All I know is that all weapons can be used for assaulting and all crimes come from lack of love.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089

fireside44 said:

"Because cops rely on them" is a bad angle. Take away the guns ala England and you can get away with fewer armed officers because the chances of gunplay are reduced.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089

Google this:

uk knife attacks against police officer

In a few cases, facts and reasoning may help. But mostly, not so much.

Our culture is steeped in cops n robbers entertainment, where some evil person with a gun does something evil, and some official good person comes to the rescue with a gun while the people stand defenseless. Unfortunately, many people learned all they know about guns by watching TV and going to the movies. I have reversed a few of those mindsets over the years by taking gun averse people to the range, and letting them discover how much fun it is. But I digress....

The following may be of some use:

1. There is no correlation between the strictness of state gun laws and state homicide rates. That means that you might as well adjust the air pressure in your tires or the prime interest rate to control homicide. Within the range of laws present in the US, the strictness of gun laws has no demonstrable effect. Well, unless you put Puerto Rico and Washington DC in the mix. Then, stricter gun laws are associated with higher homicide rates. Stricter gun laws simply don't work.

2. Gun ownership is a civil right, like voting. The NRA is probably the nation's oldest civil rights organization. Laws that improperly restrict gun ownership are curtailing civil rights.

3. Many of the current laws are unconstitutional, and will eventually be ruled as such. In order to NOT have 2A protection, a weapon must be 1) unusually dangerous, or 2) not commonly held for lawful purposes. The AR15, for instance, does not meet either test. Heller specifically ruled that handguns are protected by 2A, including semi-auto handguns. It's pretty hard to legally distinguish a semi-auto rifle from a semi-auto handgun for purposes of 2A protection.

4. For 2017, we had 17,250 homicides in the US, all causes. Criminologist Gary Kleck estimated that we had 2.2 million defensive gun uses per year, circa 1992. The US CDC similarly estimated 2.5 million, but declined to publish their results. So, with a little math, defensive gun uses are roughly 135 times more common than homicides. So, do all you want to reduce homicides, and I'll cheer you on. But don't mess with those 135 (or whatever proportion you pick, based on whatever source you believe) DGUs. If you move to restrict those, you have blood on your ignorant hands.

I doubt that it will do much good, but good luck.

,I was researching data to use in my arguments against an assault weapon (or magazine capacity) ban..

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Should be short work for anyone seeking the truth, just look at how safe the area’s in the US are that have the most stringent gun control laws vs other places that don’t have them.

We do have both inside the US right now.

Mass shootings are what, 2 or more shot, 3 or more shot? Does this statistic include domestic violence?
This country went ape s**t over stranger danger starting in the 70's when statistically a person was more apt to be hurt by someone they knew but the "stranger danger" hoax caused huge panic and multiple TV shows that just enforced the stupidity.

From Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2018, 161 AMBER Alerts were issued in the U.S. involving 203 children.
At the time the AMBER Alert cases were intaked at NCMEC, there were 97 FAs, 56 NFAs, six LIMs, and two ERUs. Eleven cases were later determined to be hoaxes, and 12 cases were later determined to be unfounded.
Of the 161 AMBER Alerts issued from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2018, 155 cases resulted in a recovery, 28 of which were successfully recovered as a direct result of an AMBER Alert being issued. As of Feb. 26, 2019, when statistics for this report were finalized, for the AMBER Alerts issued in 2018, 11 children remained actively missing and seven children were located deceased.

Basically, ⅓ of the Amber Alerts were Non-Family-Abductions, all the rest were Family Abductions, Runaways, Lost or Missing and 11 were hoaxes.

Statistics play a very important part and can be manipulated.
This doesn't mean that the Amber Alert system is bad but only a tool.

https://www.parents.com/kids/safety/stranger-safety/child-abduction-facts/

The numbers used here are astronomical.
Every 40 seconds in the United States, a child becomes missing or is abducted.

At the end of 2017, the Bureau’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Persons File contained more than 32,000 records of children under the age of 18.

So, which statistics do you think the anti-constitutional crowd are going to use regarding Firearms deaths?

DanMar757 said:

I am interested in your opinions (especially any current or former LEO's) on how I can best use this information in upcoming arguments with local and state government officials against an Assault Weapon ban.

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Amy Swearer address a committee on "Assault Rifles" she has some excellent points that may help your cause.

The ultimate goal is an absolute government monopoly on the means of armed force, enforced with unlimited violence and oppression.

Anything else is a lie.

Deanimator said:

The ultimate goal is an absolute government monopoly on the means of armed force, enforced with unlimited violence and oppression.

Anything else is a lie.

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Most gun control advocates are well-meaning, but misguided. People just don't see Susie Soccer Mom as a would-be tyrant. Going down the tin-foil rabbit hole will get us nowhere. In fact it's counterproductive.

You're certainly entitled to your delusions.

One more thought....

Blaming guns is a cop-out. We have some deep-seated social problems: drugs, internet addiction, rudderless young people, and so on. If we can affix blame to an inanimate object, and focus attention on that, then we can deflect the need to go after the real issues, and tell ourselves that we are blameless.

denton said:

Blaming guns is a cop-out. We have some deep-seated social problems: drugs, internet addiction, rudderless young people, and so on. If we can affix blame to an inanimate object, and focus attention on that, then we can deflect the need to go after the real issues, and tell ourselves that we are blameless.

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Yep.
Ban behaviors, not possessions.

AlexanderA said:

Most gun control advocates are well-meaning, but misguided. People just don't see Susie Soccer Mom as a would-be tyrant. Going down the tin-foil rabbit hole will get us nowhere. In fact it's counterproductive.

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Like most rank and file Holocaust deniers, most rank and file gun control advocates are ignorant, gullible, dopes.

Like all Holocaust denial honchos, all gun control honchos are sociopaths with eliminationist fantasies. For the vast majority of them, gun control is a means to an end. That end looks a lot like Iran and Venezuela.

Whitewashing any of this is being complicit with it.

denton said:

One more thought....

Blaming guns is a cop-out.

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No, it's a strategy.

The sort of gun control they REALLY want can ONLY be achieved by an infinitely violent totalitarian regime which destroys not just the 2nd, but the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th (and probably the 13th) Amendments.

Gun control is a means to an end.

Deanimator said:

Like most rank and file Holocaust deniers, most rank and file gun control advocates are ignorant, gullible, dopes.

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Bad analogy. "Denier" is lib newspeak. Also, since the largest gun owning segment is non college educated white rural males, it is they who are portrayed as ignorant, gullible, dopes. It's clear college educated people aren't stupid, they've just had their minds molded about weapons by the wrong people. Treating them like they are stupid won't get anyone anywhere anymore than them looking down their nose at you this way, expecting you to change.

fireside44 said:

Bad analogy. "Denier" is lib newspeak.

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No, it's a perfect analogy.

The gun control and Holocaust denial industries are organized in IDENTICAL fashion: slimy conmen at the top, ignorant dupes at the bottom.

I've dealt with both Holocaust deniers and anti-gun cultists and they operate in EXACTLY the same way, lie to the stupid over and over and over.

DanMar757 said:

So, as a Virginia resident, I was researching data to use in my arguments against an assault weapon (or magazine capacity) ban that have already been pre-filed in the Virginia state legislature when I came across some interesting and disproportionate numbers concerning the use of rifles in murders, private citizen justifiable homicides and law enforcement officer justifiable homicides. I have long felt that the left's insistence that no one should own an "assault weapon" or "weapon of war" was absurd, and highlighting that feeling was the frequent visual on the evening news of law enforcement officers showing up en masse for the latest criminal stand-off, each toting an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine inserted and several more on their tactical vest. I firmly believe that law enforcement officers understand the utility of these types of weapons and consider them indispensable tools in dangerous situations. As part of my research, I was perusing the FBI UCR for 2018 to determine the number of murders by rifle as compared to the total number of murders in Virginia (8 of 391 or 2%) and nationwide (297 of 14,123 or 2.1%) when I came across the nationwide data for justifiable homicide by private citizen using a rifle (3 of 353 or 0.8%) and justifiable homicide by law enforcement officer using a rifle (54 of 410 or 13%).

To me, this data supports that AR-15 like weapons (as a smaller sub-set of rifles) are rarely used in murders, but are heavily relied upon by law enforcement officers as an effective weapon to carry into a dangerous situation, thus supporting the argument that banning these types of weapons will do little to affect crime but will unfairly restrict law abiding citizens from choosing an effective self defense weapon.

I am interested in your opinions (especially any current or former LEO's) on how I can best use this information in upcoming arguments with local and state government officials against an Assault Weapon ban.

Mods, feel free to move this to another area if appropriate.

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Gun control is about a select group of eliteests who are bored with their money and crave power. Bloomberg saying that only Police should decide to shoot a mass shooter (referring to the Texas church shooting) is the proof in the pudding.

The way I see it as the truth, maniacs target people and places where the victims can't or won't fight back. While the AR-15 might be used many times in these murders it is because it is the most popular rifle in America. Take away the AR-15 and these maniacs will use a different gun with largely the same results because again the maniac is targeting people and places where the victims can't or won't fight back. That means a six shot revolver and a pump shotgun is just as lethal , that's 11 people down in under a minute and the maniac has time and time to reload while cops are minutes away. In fact it already happened in Texas.

Yes the capability to have a 20 or 30 or 40 shot magazine means less reloading time but firepower only really matters when someone is shooting back at you. Young kids in a class room , or a club full of people are sitting ducks. We are no longer dealing with a crook sticking you up saying " your money and you won't get hurt" we are dealing with maniacs with no respect for life both for others or their own who's single goal is to spread chaos, grief , shock and infamy. And that is social condition, and government can't install or legislate respect for life into people, that is a challenge for society.

The gun banner may know this, but for the sake of "doing something" they will target the guns instead.

In the meantime if we are going to have so many that hate life, hate you and me and want to spread misery the only thing to do is fight back, and there is no better weapon for fighting back with than with a gun also. Unless we are willing to eliminate not only the 2nd, but the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments as well. Many times these maniacs say and post their intent but because of the right to unreasonable search and seizure and a right to trial and due process they remain free to carry out murder. Are we willing to get rid of all our freedom and become a police state? Most say no. We are already skirting that with red flag laws and a mentality of " you hear something you say something" reminiscent of red communism with neighbor watching neighbor. After all we would all be safer if police could just arrests and lock someone up on a whim indefinitely right?, the maniacs would never get a change to get to a gun.

So suggestions for not banning the guns?, because the maniacs will just use a different gun, but then you know what happens after they ban the AR, they go after the other gun anyway. So again it boils down to there is no way you are gonna convince gun control people to back down, the way they see it, no guns, no mass shootings and they will start with the popular guns but not end there.

I wouldn't say that "most rank and file gun control advocates are ignorant, gullible, dopes." I'd say they're brainwashed, but not stupid.

Actually, intelligent people are more susceptible to brainwashing. Philip Zimbardo, Margaret Singer, Steven Hassan and others have done extensive research into mind control and have discovered this.

When I, and people like me, use the phrase "useful idiot," it is a rhetorical term of art referring not to someone's lack of intelligence but rather their support for a cause without understanding it's real intent. In our case, these are otherwise intelligent, rational people who are brainwashed into thinking that guns - or certain types of guns - are bad, unsafe and that gun control is about keeping people safe.

Trauma is one of the major tools of brainwashing.

Bloomberg's recent comments about the White Settlement shooting are telling. They perfectly illustrate the Progressive, Statist view of the use of force - especially deadly force. That it is the exclusive purview of the government and that the government should have a monopoly on it.

Most Progressive gun control leaders are more careful to maintain the lie about "safety." I don't know if Bloomberg slipped or just doesn't care and is willing to be honest.