Firearms w.o. Face

Quote: JCW09

And bump stocks are kinda sorta illegal these days as well.
Trump Admin's ATF took care of that.

What happened to the argument that bans don't work? I hear it every time there's a discussion of gun bans. Either stick to bans don't work or don't.

Well if you think that just because the ATF banned bump stocks they all magically were turned in or destroyed, you'd be wrong.
I wouldn't want to be caught with one post 2018, besides they're really a novelty item that had no useful purpose.
Ed might say "yawn" to bump stocks if he knew what he was talking about.

Quote: JCW09

C'mon Gandler, to be fair, you're neighbor is never going to have paid the freight or got the license to own an automatic.
You know as well as I do, the truth here is Ed doesn't have a clue about firearms.
Unfortunately, neither do most pols that want more "common sense" gun laws.

Most of my neighbors (probably all) have non-automatic weapons. This does not scare me anymore or less than the thought of them having automatic weapons. I may be the exception (honestly I do not like the concept of owning guns on a personal level, at work I will do whatever is required of me within reason). I just don't understand the obsession of automatic weapons being more terrible (I would argue semi can be used far more effectively if you know what you are doing, there are some combat scenarios that are an extreme exception, but I am speaking of everyday use).

I don't like the idea of being surrounded by guns, but the reality is criminals will always have them, and the argument is valid that more "good" people with guns is somewhat of a buffer. Honestly, I am far more likely to be mugged by a thug with a handgun (that you can buy at any pawnshop in less than 5 mins) walking out of a bar than a crazy person shooting at me with an automatic weapon.

And, to be honest, I am far more fearful of being hit by an idiot driver than any of the above (statistically far more likely). Guns are not something I spend any significant amount of time worrying about (or even thinking about outside of when I have to).

Quote: JCW09

Hmmm, "automatic" weapons says the "wise" road wanderer.
Ed, can you give us an example of said "automatic" weapons that could be just feet away?
It all sounds very illegal, even in Texas, but please enlighten the group with your profound knowledge on the subject of firearms.

You take joking sarcasm seriously
It was an imaginative joke
Then
I came back with an actual real neighborhood situation that was no joke.

[Lots of edits]

Quote: missedhervee

I recall a guy who used his pistol to shoot himself in the head, but he failed to kill himself; he's disfigured and brain-damaged.

Now he's an embarrassment to himself and his long-suffering family who have to care for this loser.

Yeah, this kind of thing sucks.
Wait, I see what you're saying, let's take guns away from everybody! 

Quote: terapined

Not an imagination 
Just a neighbor that was in a dispute in Tampa ...

I'm glad you're out of that neighborhood, all kinds of sordid crap going on all the time, I have to think. 


Well, time for me to drop the tit for tat here, continue without me if you like. I'm trying to glean something from all this. What is this Texas law about that has our boys* all aflutter, worried about previously restrained neighbors now set free to raise havoc? Maybe with his new Uzi?

Quote: first link

Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1, after Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed the permitless carry bill into law.
 House Bill 1927 eliminates the requirement for Texas residents to obtain a license to carry handguns if they’re not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun.

 
Wow, I'm amazed Texas ever had a law that required a handgun permit. Virginia, where I live, has no such law requiring a permit to begin with. 

Automatics?

Quote: Gandler

To be fair you can buy/obtain automatic weapons in America, if they were made/sold pre-1985, but I don't think automatic weapons are the most dangerous aspects of gun violence (really an Auto M4 vs a semi-Auto M4 has not a huge difference in lethality in my view, I think semi is almost always more effective).  I have never understood the obsession with automatic weapons being more dangerous for regular street crime.

I remember going into a gun store in the 60's and there was a Thompson machine gun on the wall with a sign next to it saying something like "Is it legal to own this? Yes, but you have to get a Federal permit and it's not easy." I don't know what the Feds want to hear if you apply for this, but I take it that it's still quite difficult, otherwise it would be obvious people have them all over the place [and where would they find one? see below].

You may not have given this any thought, but someone firing an automatic weapon gets a lot of attention. It's a sound you hear and you would instantly know "wow, somebody is going to check that out if that's just Joe Blow ". I have hunted in or near military reservations and when you hear that sound, everybody looks at each other clearly thinking "yeah that had me going for a second". It's just not a sound you hear, except in special circumstances like that. And where I live I hear a lot of shooting, but not automatics. People do not have automatic weapons generally speaking. If you want to be an exception to that, it has to be a gun that has been previously registered, not a new one. This alone really keeps it under wraps. See second link. 

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/16/texas-constitutional-carry-greg-abbott/

https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/hardware-ammunition/machine-guns-50-caliber/


* It's OK now to refer to anyone that way regardless of race

I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]

Quote: terapined

Not that good??????

On a good day, I can project my retirement day to be a day or days earlier. On a average day it stays the same. On a not so good day or a bad day, it goes backwards.

**it is actually only a fun number in my head, I have no intention of retiring until I am at least 70 (if I am lucky enough to live that long and longer) because I have a very good job in the sense of the work, the location, the salary, etc. I am out of the rat race and the job allows me to take lots of trips and do fun stuff. Perhaps retirement will be something I decided to do later, but for now it is not in the cards. My wife? She will retire...her job is more stressful.

Quote: terapined

Not an imagination
Just a neighbor that was in a dispute in Tampa
Its sad, 2 families destroyed. One dead father and another in jail just because a simple neighborhood argument turned violent
Sheri's kids making a loud racket in the neighborhood
Neighbor home watching the Bucs on TV gets angry
Goes outside and somehow gets physical with the kids
Kids run home to complain to Sheri
She's livid and goes out to confront the neighbor
They get into a huge argument
Sheri calls her boyfriend Dentist who is actually at the Bucs game
He rushes home to confront the neighbor
He also has a handgun with him and brandishes it
The argument is heated
Neighbor tries to grab the gun
It goes off. Neighbor dead.
At the trial, one of the most devastating recordings that were allowed in were the neighbors wailing children immediately after the gun went off seeing their father die in front of them
This is like 20 years ago
The dentist is probably still in jail.

As far as how it would work under Texas law, I believe that this incident would be treated roughly the same today as it was then if it had happened in Texas. Sheri should called the police instead of the hot-headed dentist and had her kids wait inside. Going to someone else's house brandishing a gun is not a good idea.

Really, though, I believe in the police as the first option. The problem is that if someone is entering my home in the middle of the night and heads towards my room, I need to do something in the time between the call to the police and their arrival 15 minutes later. I would choose flight first--I don't have a great desire to kill another human--but, that option missing or too dangerous, the gun is there.

Quote: odiousgambit

[Lots of edits]

I remember going into a gun store in the 60's and there was a Thompson machine gun on the wall with a sign next to it saying something like "Is it legal to own this? Yes, but you have to get a Federal permit and it's not easy." I don't know what the Feds want to hear if you apply for this, but I take it that it's still quite difficult, otherwise it would be obvious people have them all over the place [and where would they find one? see below].

You may not have given this any thought, but someone firing an automatic weapon gets a lot of attention. It's a sound you hear and you would instantly know "wow, somebody is going to check that out if that's just Joe Blow ". I have hunted in or near military reservations and when you hear that sound, everybody looks at each other clearly thinking "yeah that had me going for a second". It's just not a sound you hear, except in special circumstances like that. And where I live I hear a lot of shooting, but not automatics. People do not have automatic weapons generally speaking. If you want to be an exception to that, it has to be a gun that has been previously registered, not a new one. This alone really keeps it under wraps. See second link. 

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/16/texas-constitutional-carry-greg-abbott/

https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/hardware-ammunition/machine-guns-50-caliber/


* It's OK now to refer to anyone that way regardless of race

My guess would be you often hear semi-auto fire near military bases, that is the vast majority of ranges.

It just sounds auto when 30-50 soldiers are in a line on one range firing semi-autos (it sounds continuous). Even in the military, automatics are rare (basically just crew served weapons, and even then they are often fired in short bursts in training because firing auto just chews through your ammo with most shots missing the targets).

Almost all qualification ranges for standard issue weapons (rifles and handguns) are designed for semi-auto (if you use more than one round per target you will probably fail or score poorly because you will run out of ammo). Even the new qualification is the same concept (as far as fire rate).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZQIUYq_-Q

In may not sound like it in the video with just one soldier demonstrating. But when there are a dozen ranges with 20-50 people per range shooting, it can sound continuous (and many people think auto).


Really the only time you'll be shooting auto with a rifle (even this probably not, probably just shooting semi at a faster rate) or at a fast rate is if your unit obtained way too much ammo for the day, everyone qualified early, and now you just need to burn through thousands of extra rounds of ammo so you can go home (you can't return ammo), so people are just mindlessly pumping rounds downrange to leave as quickly as possible. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I have fired a rifle (not counting crew served weapon) on automatic setting, and it was never for a formal use, just to waste rounds or test it out for a second.

Most modern rifles that you will actually use now either on deployment or training, do not even have the auto setting anymore since its never used (its just "safe", "semi", and "burst", which is also never used).

In any case my original point was, I don't understand the fear of automatic weapons, you can still legally obtain them (even if expensive and time consuming), and I just don't think they are as dangerous as people make them out to be (most professional forces use Semi rifles for a reason). I guess the argument that if a crazy mass shooter wants to do damage to a crowd they can fire a bit faster with auto rifles, but this is a small amount of gun violence, most street-level violence (which is the bulk of gun deaths, not counting suicides which are actually the majority of gun deaths, in which case the type of setting really does not matter at all) I would be far more afraid of somebody on the street after me with a semi-auto who knows what they are doing, than a crazy person mindlessly shooting.

And, that link appears to be what I thought for buying automatics (I guess it was 86 not 85 though). That link seems to also be against .50, which in my opinion is also misguided fear, but lets not get into that....

I am not as anti-gun as some on the left (though I don't own personal guns, and have no desire to, and I feel perfectly safe), but being around people carrying does not offend me either. I do think that more training should be required to get a carry license (I think the same think about driving though, I think its far too easy to get a DL in most states). However, I also realize that criminals will not bother getting a license (they already don't) so this will not solve street crime (biggest problem, not mass shooters), so there is no easy answer.

Really the only answer would be going "I am Spartacus" as a nation one way or the other (total ban or total allowance, meaning all guns would be illegal for private ownership and strictly enforced, or all guns would be legal and everyone could carry to balance it out). Neither of these can (or will) happen because of the 2nd Amendment and our State system, so instead America will have a hodgepodge of difference levels of regulation and we can see which States work better than others (though States that are not working well are slow to change if ever). So this is purely hypothetical, but I have a feeling either one would be an improvement (as far as street crime) over what we have now.

btw I didn't mean *you*, Gandler, when I wrote "you may not have given this any thought" ... I try to avoid the use of "you" like that but sometimes it slips in

I'd be happy to see a one year moratorium on all gun restrictions. If crime goes up, bans work. If not, they don't.

We're not doing that at the moment, because I can buy a gun and drive right into Chicago or Detroit with little to no chance I will be stopped. That's not gun ban, unless you're a fool.

That is, we're not doing a very good test of the whole principle argument.