27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[Gallstones]

.

[Jason]

they are overwhelmingly the greatest killer of people.

Simply false.

[Jason]

Here's mozg's Mini 14 Rancher in tactical garb.

That rifle should be banned on account of being hideous anyhow.

[Gallstones]

The only kind of weapon I see being worth the political strife that comes from such a ban

So it's not worthwhile to ban the kind of weapons used in the Batman and Connecticut massacres? I see.

We've moved on since then. We're outraged and afraid of different weapons now.

[Svartalf]

Dammit, my country is fast going the way of a civil war, I'll need an autoshotgun before the century is out.

[JimC]

Handguns are effective for home defence and so have a defensible use. Assault weapons (gun nutters really hate it when you call them that ), however, do not. They are not suitable for home defence, they are not suitable for hunting (the .223 is not high powered enough for hunting anything bigger than coyotes), they have no defensible purpose in the hands of civilians.

Define 'assault weapon' without referring to any feature that is purely cosmetic or has no effect on caliber, rate of fire, or ballistics.

As for hunting, .223/5.56 makes an excellent varmint gun, and is suitable for hunting such animals as groundhog, prairie dog, coyote, wolf, and lots of other small game. Why would you assume that it needs to be suitable for game larger than coyotes in order to be a 'valid' hunting caliber?

This is considered to be a relatively popular prairie dog hunting rifle:



Has exactly the same functionality as the scary looking black rifle that you're calling an 'assault weapon'.

1. Semi-automatic
2. Large capacity magazine
3. Much more hitting power than a .22 rifle
4. And, exactly as you say, it has the same functionality as assault rifles, specifically designed to kill humans at close to medium range as efficiently as possible.

If I wanted to go into an office, a school or a mall, and kill as many people as possible, I'd use one of these...

The fact that it can also be used for hunting (although there wouldn't be much prairie dog left, I suspect), is not relevant...

So, BG, I disagree with you, and agree with Fuku... Banning these weapons could reduce the chances of large-scale mass killings.

[Jason]

Everyone here will be dead of natural causes before the century is out.

[JimC]

I don't know if you can read this if you are not a registered member, so I will quote the post.

Posted in the thread: WTF is going on???school shooting.
http://www.usacarry.com/forums/general- ... post388487

Post #63

If the teachers were armed, they would still be victims. The teachers unions and the brady campaign walk hand in hand. There would have been one gun, kept in the principals office, unloaded with a cable lock through the action, trigger lock through the trigger guard, wire tie through the barrel with the magazine kept under lock and key in the vice principals office, and one bullet with each teacher, kept in a capsule up their rear beneath a chastity belt. And even then, with an active shooter on campus, the vice principal would be required to see 3 forms of ID, your birth certificate, do a background check, file paperwork, review school security policies, consult the administrator, call 911, personally inform every parent via phone....

Well, as far as school bureaucracy goes, that is a very telling post, Gallstones... And I know it well...

However, there is also the issue that, when teachers are armed, students will feel the need to tool up, to preserve the balance of terror...

[laklak]

It does not fit the legal definition used in the 1994 assault weapons ban

Actually it does. It has a collapsible stock, a pistol grip that protrudes 'conspicuously' below the action, and a flash suppressor. That's three conditions, and it only needs to meet two.

I should have been more clear, I meant that the wooden stock Rancher didn't fit the criteria, the tactical model certainly did.

What do you base that on? Everyone of them is designed to improve lethality in an assault situation, except the collapsible stock (which I didn't include in my summing up, only pointed out it aids concealment), which is exactly what a killing spree is.

I'd say the major difference is the behavior of the targets. In a combat assault you've likely got people shooting back at you, I can certainly see the utility of the pistol grip and forestock grip in that situation. I'd imagine in a spree killing most of the victims are trying like hell to get away, or hiding in a corner. I could be talking out my ass, having never been in either situation, I'm making a lot of assumptions. I've run a 30 round magazine through my Rancher a couple of times, not often because .223 is a bit too pricey to waste like that, but it certainly sprays out as much lead as the tactical version in the same time frame.

[JimC]

The differences you mentioned, Faku, may be important in a combat situation but won't make a lot of difference in a spree killing.

What do you base that on? Everyone of them is designed to improve lethality in an assault situation, except the collapsible stock (which I didn't include in my summing up, only pointed out it aids concealment), which is exactly what a killing spree is.

Sure, with all the technical advantages to the true military style assault weapon, no doubt the average spree killer would be able to mow down another dozen or so little children...

But the mini-14 will do the job for them quite well enough. A bolt action hunting rifle (inherently better in most respects for single shot hunting) will be annoyingly slow for your average psycho...

[JimC]

Everyone here will be dead of natural causes before the century is out.

Some by unnatural causes, I suspect...

[Gallstones]

Dammit, my country is fast going the way of a civil war, I'll need an autoshotgun before the century is out.

I don't want to own one, but I sure would love to shoot one.

[JimC]

Dammit, my country is fast going the way of a civil war, I'll need an autoshotgun before the century is out.

I don't want to own one, but I sure would love to shoot one.

In the past, I sure enjoyed blasting away with a pump action 12 gauge Mossburg...

Got rid of it eventually - a .22 Ruger was all I needed for bunnies...

[Gallstones]

I don't know if you can read this if you are not a registered member, so I will quote the post.

Posted in the thread: WTF is going on???school shooting.
http://www.usacarry.com/forums/general- ... post388487

Post #63

If the teachers were armed, they would still be victims. The teachers unions and the brady campaign walk hand in hand. There would have been one gun, kept in the principals office, unloaded with a cable lock through the action, trigger lock through the trigger guard, wire tie through the barrel with the magazine kept under lock and key in the vice principals office, and one bullet with each teacher, kept in a capsule up their rear beneath a chastity belt. And even then, with an active shooter on campus, the vice principal would be required to see 3 forms of ID, your birth certificate, do a background check, file paperwork, review school security policies, consult the administrator, call 911, personally inform every parent via phone....

Well, as far as school bureaucracy goes, that is a very telling post, Gallstones... And I know it well...

However, there is also the issue that, when teachers are armed, students will feel the need to tool up, to preserve the balance of terror...

Students have been tooling up for four decades, it's why there were armed police patrols and metal detectors and a closed campus when I was last in high school.

[Blind groper]

Faku

I understand your point, and those massacres were terrible tragedies. However, the number murdered with military style weapons is tiny compared to the number murdered with hand guns. Banning the former would, no doubt, save a small number of lives in the future. Banning the latter would save thousands of lives.