It got them out of the morose election postmortem. Now, they're in their zone. Guns! — such invigorating shift from having to talk about Mitt Romney.
Righties should be sending thank you notes to Joe Biden.
ADDED: Biden actually said: "There is nothing that has pricked the consciousness of the American people (and) there is nothing that has gone to the heart of the matter more than the image people have of little 6-year-old kids riddled - not shot, but riddled, riddled - with bullet holes in their classroom."
Like it's all a matter of the capacity to visualize gore.
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?
११ जानेवारी, २०१३
याची सदस्यत्व घ्या:
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा (Atom)
पोस्ट्स
१९७ टिप्पण्या:
Sign in Milford, Ohio.
I'd rather not have to be defending my constitutional rights, to be honest.
Great sign.
Unfortunate apostrophe abuse.
I sent one. It went to the NRA with a check...
Just signed up my sister, brother, and two friends to join the NRA (one is a armored car guard.) And plan on pushing some of my other relatives this weekend to join. $25 yearly membership. I am a PATRON in the NRA... and I VOTE.
Yep we are gonna add FIVE MILLION new members. Then Biden and Obama can stick that in their pipe and smoke it.
With the mad dash to buy assault rifles and 30-round magazines, I think we're now safe from the Chinese coming in person to get their loan payments.
"...more than the image people have of little 6-year-old kids riddled - not shot, but riddled, riddled - with bullet holes in their classroom,"
That fucking asshole.
"It got them out of the morose election postmortem. Now, they're in their zone. Guns! — such invigorating shift from having to talk about Mitt Romney."
That's not quite the 'zone.' More like 'spare me you stupid regulations that are all theatre but do nothing useful.' And no one is talking about Romney.
Now if they can start linking take away rights and hey big spenders....
Guns and tits. You're on a roll today Professor.
The gun makers are the ones who should be thanking Biden & Co. And the makers of ammunition.
We must also consider how much in sales tax also flowed into coffers by this, & how much income tax will flow into Uncle Sam.
Please go to http://wh.gov/PLGi
it is a White House petition to change Obama;s title from that of "President" to "Caesar)
I can see where one would want better data on gun usage in crimes, but frankly I don't trust academia - which is about 95%+ leftist - from twisting or even outright fudging the data. I'm afraid their blatant bias has left them untrustworthy.
I agree with you, Professor, but I also accept the Veteran from Lauderdale's point.
It is interesting to see which side of the aisle is in the business of defending indvidual liberties, and which side dishonestly calls themselves liberal.
Erika, 10:26 -
Yeah, that surprised me. I expected the vice president to run this commission with his characteristic grace and tact.
Oh, wait. Never mind.
Nothing, not one single thing, the White House is talking about would have stopped the Aurora or Newton murders. Those nuts did not obtain their weapons by a private sale and nothing they are proposing would keep AR-15's "out of the hands of wacos"
Which is whey they are trying to ban AR-15's.
President Obama, Senator Diane Feinstein, and Mayor Corey Booker are all on record saying they want to ban handguns.
Three promient Democrats.
Oh, I'm not so sure.
1. This could still blow up in the Republicans faces,
2. Anything that diverts public attention from fiscal, monetary and economic growth issues is good for the Democrats. Even if they get nothing on gun control, it's a nice smokescreen.
Yes, more guns is exactly what this country needs...guns everywhere!
Arm the children! Arm the elderly! Arm the mentally ill!
The threat of "executive orders" has set my teeth on edge. Only the Congress has the right to create law. When Congress declines to change the law it is called "a lack of action" or "obstructionism" by a particular faction instead of being seen as a decision by the Congress that the law should not be changed. And these terms are then used to justify usurpation of the legislative function by the executive, which is otherwise known as "rule of man" instead of "rule of law".
I've been moved to do something that I've long resisted. Yesterday I went on their web site and signed up for a year's membership in the NRA. I never really thought it necessary until now, but the absolute contempt for the rule of law by the current Administration (headed by someone who supposedly actually taught Constitutional law) has crossed the line.
Biden said two of his task force's recommendations are likely to be universal background checks for gun purchasers and a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips like the ones used in the Connecticut massacre.
WTF is a "universal background check" anyway?
Does this clown think these ideas will pass Congress?
EMD said...
"Great sign. Unfortunate apostrophe abuse."
Mr. Gun disagrees.
"I'd rather not have to be defending my constitutional rights, to be honest."
When the alternative is talking about Romney? Think about it.
machine, more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens is EXACTLY what this country needs. Drop the emotional memes for a minute and check the facts. No city or State where the laws for possessing and carrying guns have been liberalized (I'm using the original meaning of the word, not the perversion that the left has given it) has seen an increase of violent crime - most have seen a decrease. No city or State where the laws for possessing and carrying guns have been made more restrictive has seen a decrease in violent crime - most have seen an increase.
Why do you make decisions based on emotion? Why don't you look at the facts, and use THOSE to make a decision?
About 350 people were killed in 2011 with rifles - and that's all rifles, not just "assault" rifles. About 500 people were killed with hammers. About 10,000 people were killed by drunk drivers. Shall we put a serial number on each whiskey bottle and make people register them when they buy them? Shall we run background checks on everyone who buys a car? We had an assault rifle ban in this country for about 10 years. It had absolutely ZERO effect on crime rates or shootings.
hine said...
Yes, more guns is exactly what this country needs...guns everywhere!
A. States with concealed carry have lower violent crime rates.
B. Guns are already "everywhere"
C. You obviously have nothing instructive or useful to say on this (and all) topic.
I'd like Biden to flip the trillion dollar coin into the air, so I could shoot it with my pistol.
Freed slaves after the Civil War, certain Jews, Germans & Cubans couldn't be reached for comment, Machine.
Although I did have a convo with 2 NY Liberal Jews, 1 who's mom was in the camps and lost family members.
Deer in the headlights, brain fried, doesn't compute with them.
Our guns are safer with Urkel and Crazy Uncle Joe leading the charge. The dems just lost the next house election and will now lose a couple senate seats.
Just think of the political capital Mittens, the squishy opportunist, would have gobbled up by strong-arming house republicans to actually passing gun restrictions.
"...more than the image people have of little 6-year-old kids riddled - not shot, but riddled, riddled - with bullet holes in their classroom"
Like it's all a matter of the capacity to visualize gore.
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?
Our guns are safer with Urkel and Crazy Uncle Joe leading the charge. The dems just lost the next house election and will now lose a couple senate seats.
Just think of the political capital Mittens, the squishy opportunist, would have gobbled up by strong-arming house republicans to actually passing gun restrictions.
machine said...
Yes, more guns is exactly what this country needs...guns everywhere!
Whether it is or not, this president, his admin, and other anti-gun enthusiasts have created an atomosphere where people are concerned they won't be able to buy in the future, and are therefore buying now. Every time I go to the range it is busier than the last.
Unless, Ron — the owner of the Old Milford Gun Shop on 218 Main Street in Milford — has the last name Gun, then I think the name has a misplaced apostrophe.
Google Maps streetview of the place doesn't feature the yellow sign. Maybe it fell down or wasn't up yet when they drove by.
Also Hitler.
There are 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people in the UK, the U.S. only has rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 resident.
The UK has a total gun ban, yet still has more than 7,000 gun crimes per year.
The US, with more than double the population of the UK, has 12,000 homicides by firearm per year.
Machine is a dummy.
Seeing Red, 10:52 -
I used to have a colleague whose elderly father (now deceased) was a (non-Jewish) German who had been active against the Nazis and barely escaped with his life.
I never met him, but she told me a good deal about him. As an American he was a staunch leftist, on everything but this: He was a Second Amendment absolutist. And the defense-against-tyranny argument, which at the time I found paranoid, was the whole of his reasoning.
I thought that ended with the $1T platinum half dollar.
machine said...
Yes, more guns is exactly what this country needs...guns everywhere!
Arm the children! Arm the elderly! Arm the mentally ill!
Someone check and verify the mindless automaton has his safety on.
The problem with the NRA is you will be DELUGED with their junk mail..I couldn't take it anymore and ran them off.
Obama and Biden should lead by example and give up their armed security. They are the hired help, we are the employers. Our lives are just as valuable if not more so than theirs.
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?
It's been tried. Didn't work.
However much pro-abortion advocates would like to think otherwise, the policy and legal arguments for gun rights and abortion rights are invariably intertwined.
cubanbob said...
Obama and Biden should lead by example and give up their armed security.
Right on cue:
Washington (CNN) – With the stroke of a pen Thursday, President Barack Obama gave himself and his wife Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives.
The new law, which passed the House and Senate in December, designates that all former U.S. presidents who served after January 1, 1997, along with their spouses, receive protection from the Secret Service for their entire lifetimes –
Isn't that nice?
Handguns and rifles in the hands of the citizens may be impractical in the modern world as a means of resistance to a tyrannical government, but it is also a question of attitude.
The other thing that is really puzzling. The citizens who register their guns, and even more those who go to the trouble of obtaining a concealed carry permit, are among the safest groups in the world as far as committing crimes with firearms is concerned.
One would think that people anxious to reduce gun violence would be all in favor of encouraging people to register their guns and lauding the CCW carriers rather than denigrating them.
The pictures of bloody fetuses didnt work but ultrasound certainly does and that is why the pro abortion crowd will do whatever it takes to diminish the use of ultrasound in early pregnancy.
Abortion rights? Well, now, that's completely DIFFERENT!
Meade, EMD, do we know what the name of the gun shop is? Could be Gun's Gun Shop.
"Assault rifle": Any rifle considered scary, usually because it is black...Oh, NOOOOOO, that's raaaaacist! A writer at OUTDOOR LIFE had an AR-15-style one built for his daughter a couple years ago--it was pink, or purple, I forget which.
Well, Obama has been the best thing to happen for the gun industry. Four years running and looking to continue strongly!
Handguns and rifles in the hands of the citizens may be impractical in the modern world as a means of resistance to a tyrannical government,
Like I've said before, tyranny needn't come at the hands of the Federal government.
Tanks and drones may not be rolling into your town anytime soon, but your local law enforcement might be capable of making mistakes and going overboard.
Also - ask any black man who has been harassed by the police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time if he's okay with only the government having guns.
@Michael
Interesting re: abortion imagery. I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
Meade, EMD, do we know what the name of the gun shop is? Could be Gun's Gun Shop.
It's not. I did some poking around. No big deal, still a nice sign.
I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
Just ask Joe Biden to paint you a lovely visual picture with his dulcet tones.
Carol. I thought of that before I joined an hour ago. I have never felt the need to join them and as a shotgun snob thought they would not represent me. Now I see that they do and very effectively. I have been impressed with how tough they have been.
Garage. I am cool with that. Give it a whirl. Call Joe.
One would think that people anxious to reduce gun violence
They care not one whit about reducing gun violence.
The idea that anyone calling for "common sense gun legislation" cares one bit about dead children is silly & obscene.
Hagar,
But, the goal is not safety, but rather elimination of guns.
Making citizens safe is just the trope they spout in order to achieve the agenda of a disarmed populace. Useful idiots who think that the lack of instruments of destruction eliminate destruction will fall in line, not realizing the goal is to consolidate the power of the state.
The greatest liberal (classic definition) stance is to affirm the natural right for a person to be able to defend themselves against all tyranny with the best possible means. Tyranny being everything from that practised by the average crimminal in a mugging, home invasion, rape, assault, or murder up to that practised an the organized state level. Examples from history abound, I need not cite the myriad instances of governments slaughtering their own people by the millions.
Ah yes, having Ted Nugent as the face of the GOP is a gift alright...
President Obama, Senator Diane Feinstein, and Mayor Corey Booker are all on record saying they want to ban handguns.
Obama, as a state senator, voted against allowing people to defend their own homes with a gun, which places him so far outside the mainstream of American opinion he couldn't see it with a telescope.
Machine. You, unhappily for them, are the face of progressives.
When the alternative is talking about Romney? Think about it.
In what parallel reality is that the alternative? Based on what I’ve been reading, the previous hot topic in the political realm was the discussion about the debt ceiling. I’d rather keep the focus on that.
A. States with concealed carry have lower violent crime rates.
Let me suggest however that there might be more correlation than causation there. The highest gun crime rates, including gun murder rates, tend to be with the states with big urban non-white (and esp. Black) populations. The key distinction I think is between a communitarian/collectivist and an individualist outlook. And, I would suggest that there is some self-selection there in where people live, based on whether they want a communitarian urban existence or a more individualistic suburban or esp. rural one.
Part of the problem is that the urban communitarian Utopian ideal has essentially broken down. You hear the adage that when you need police in seconds, they are minutes away, and the individualist takes that as justification for preparing himself for self-defense, while the leftist takes that as the necessary cost of a collectivist Utopia.
The problem for the Black community in these big cities, where the gun death tolls are so horrendous, is that they were bribed into being a major demographic in the Dem party through the provision of socialist largess, starting most precipitously with LBJ's War on Poverty. Unfortunately, one of the totally expected side effects was the accelerated breakup of the Black family (through several decades of bribing poor women to throw out the fathers of their children). And, this is one of the big causes of much of our gun violence - young uncivilized unfathered males - who tend to live in those urban collectivist Utopias.
The equation of the right to own and lawfully use guns and the right to an abortion is invalid.
A lawful gun owner harms no one, except in legitimate self defense. An abortion kills a child. (And the actual self-defense abortion is not controversial politically.)
machine said...
Ah yes, having Ted Nugent as the face of the GOP is a gift alright...
Nothing like conflating a political party with a single issue.
The issue has boiled down to the bragging rights of the Federal Agents among us.
They get to carry real assault rifles that go automatic or short bursts.
The civilian guys want to carry a semi-auto assault "weapon" that only looks like an assault rifle. It's a theft of honor issue for the real killer Feds.
Bruce Hayden. You are, sadly, correct.
In 2011 knives killed 4 times as many people as rifles in the US. Of course we need to ban scary looking rifles!
I've seen people with their brains blown out, garage. Have you ever seen an aborted fetus? I'll bet you haven't. Not pictures, mind you, but the real deal.
Bruce Hayden. You are, sadly, correct.
Legalize the urban narcotic drug trade and gun deaths in those areas will fall.
But we don't care about those kids — we only shed vanilla tears when our safe, upscale enclaves are shattered by violence.
By the way, in White Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, blacks are 20 times more likely to be a murder victim (74.6% of all murder victims; yet 38% of population) than a white Chicagoan. Where is the outrage?
Where is the NAACP?
Where is the Southern Poverty Law Center saying that Jew mayor is carrying out genocide on the black community?
Garage owns a gun dog so I assume he is a gun owner. If a duck hunter he likely owns one of those dangerous SEMI-AUTOMATIC shotguns with a plug that can be removed so that way more shells than he needs to kill a duck can be loaded into the weapon. And for what reason would someone own a shotgun with a five shot capacity. The question answers itself.
"
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights? "
^^^THIS^^^
"
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights? "
^^^THIS^^^
Not until we can visualize the "bloody mincemeat of fetuses" as a Barack, or Nancy, or Harry. Apparently, many people suffer from severe, ego-induced vision impairments.
As for gun control, not until people understand risk management, and that minority interests, including: cartels, criminals, and authoritarian excess, are not curtailed by legal pronouncements. On the last point, I believe Obama has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that "black letter" law is only suitable to constrain the activities of individuals capable of self-moderating behavior. For the rest, only competing interests are capable of preventing them from running amuck.
Carol said...
The problem with the NRA is you will be DELUGED with their junk mail..I couldn't take it anymore and ran them off.
This made me laugh, because it's true, except I'm still a member. I just toss it into the circular file/waste paper backet/trash whatever.
Funny part is half the time I don't know if I'm a member or not, because I chuck everything they send out without opening it.
"A nice contrast to Chicago for a natural experiment is Houston. Houston is very similar to Chicago in terms of socioeconomic factors such as population, density, and segregation. Houston, like Chicago, is a major center for illegal activities such as the drug trade and human trafficking. Despite all this, Houston has a murder rate two-thirds that of Chicago. This is because the people of Houston are well armed, while innocents in Chicago have been condemned to be sitting ducks."
Bruce Hayden may have a point, but Houston is a nice counterpoint to the assumption that CCP states do not have urban drug trade centers.
Be careful, they may legislate that all guns need to be painted pink or that each gun must have affixed to it a picture of a bullet-riddled, dead child.
Too bad those crazy NRA wingnuts come up with ideas that nobody likes!
Some Colorado Springs teachers responded eagerly Thursday to El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa’s offer to assist with firearms training and waive charges for concealed weapons permits to enhance school security.
“We’re getting calls from people who say they are a teacher and they want a concealed weapons permit,” said Lt. Jeff Kramer, El Paso County Sheriff’s spokesman. “We’re getting inquiries from teachers, administrators and representatives of local school districts.”
Maketa, who supports arming teachers and administrators in schools, told The Gazette about his ideas Wednesday. When the news hit the streets, the calls started.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper offered measured support to the idea during an interview Thursday with The Gazette’s editorial board.
So machine, why are you sneering at ideas endorsed by police chiefs?
There is such a thing as "common sense gun legislation," and I would trade that in a heartbeat in return for repealing all the current foolishness on the books.
However, as has been pointed out, "gun control" is not what these people have on their minds, but "gun removal, which is in no way the same thing. Rather the opposite since the universal experience has been that "gun control" takes guns away from the responsible citizens, but increases the number of "undocumented" guns floating around among the unwashed.
And yes, universal registration of guns would be a good thing, but we also know that for the "anti-gun" crowd, it is only a preliminary step toward their dream of "gun removal." So I am against it because these people just cannot be trusted. Their conviction of being in the right is so powerful that they consider any means to achieve it to be permissible, no matter how underhanded, and in fact laudable.
That in spite of our experience with "prohibition" and what we are now about to experience with "universal health care."
Oh look how super-duper stooopid those nutters at the NRA are!!!
After Newtown shootings, Pennsylvania county hires armed school guards
Dummies!
I just love my battery-powered, Uzi squirt gun with replaceable magazines of water. It looks like the real thing, even with an extendable stock.
I got it before they legislated that look alike squirt guns had to have that silly colored cap at the end of the barrel.
Universal background check? Sounds like something that will require a new bureaucracy and a significant budget.
The Dems will love that.
Hagar: Why would you think gun registration, universal or not, is a good thing? What is the point other than to easily identify the places to go to confiscate weapons? Or tax them. Or place you on a watch list. Or make you walk the slow line at immigration. Or sell the list. I cannot think of a single good reason.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper offered measured support to the idea during an interview Thursday with The Gazette’s editorial board.
Damn you Hickenlooper, you evil Repub-
Wait, what?
Interesting re: abortion imagery. I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
For them to be equal, we'd either see a brain intact and a fetus intact, or a brain blown out and a fetus chopped up.
The Federal Government did try to force cigarette manufacturers to put gruesome photos on cigarette packages. So it isn't like they haven't thought of this kind of thing before.
But I have a feeling we'd get a brains-blown-out requirement on guns before we ever got background checks and registration on abortions.
Piers Morgan: "How dare you...How dare you..."
Cripes! For a moment there I thought he was going to get the vapors.
When has a VP - or any public figure- spoken like that about children who are victims of a crime?
What if their parents were listening?
I'm sure the Universal Background Check and Gun Control Directorate will determine they need to create a bunch of mobile training centers that go to each high-school like those old drivers training simulators. Would we get to see equally silly movies?
Each one would be produced by a politically favored supplier that couldn't even get to the level of the first Call of Duty.
Mmmm. Time to fire up the XBox!
Cities with more than 250,000 population with highest murder rate:
1. New Orleans
2. Detroit
3. St. Louis
4. Newark
5. Baltimore
6. Oakland
7. Kansas City
8. Philadelphia
9. Atlanta
10. Cincinnati
@Michael
I don't own any semi autos. The trusty Franchi over/under is the about the only gun I shoot anymore. And that isn't too often anymore.
Garage: Good for you. I buy my sons automatics but urge them to move to doubles asap. I am eyeing a cheap 28 gauge turkish side by side, CZ. At present I have Browning Citori O/Us in 20 and 12 that I bought about 30 years ago. Don't shoot much anymore either though I did go duck hunting near the Outer Banks at New Years. Much different experience from the Mississippi flyway.
Ann wrote, "If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?"
If it will save one life.
With the mad dash to buy assault rifles and 30-round magazines
You can't buy assault rifles in the United States.
There is, however, a rush to buy semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. You can't find them -- or ammunition for them, or magazines for them -- *anywhere* these days.
The gun makers are the ones who should be thanking Biden & Co. And the makers of ammunition.
Indeed. The entire inventory of evil black rifles at the retail, distributor, and manufacturing levels has been ransacked. Lewis Machine Tool, a maker of AR-15 parts, is quoting delivery times that are two years out. AR-15 magazine manufacturers are backordered by over a million--I suspect they're into the multimillions. At that sort of lead time it's probably faster to buy your own machine tools and factory.
It's just amazing.
WTF is a "universal background check" anyway?
All gun sales, even those between private individuals, have to go through a federally licensed gun dealer. So if you want to sell your 30-30 deer gun to Joe Bob you have to take it down to the local gun shop, do some paperwork, and pay the dealer something like $50 to do the sale. This creates a paper trail for the feds to datamine. That's probably also why Walmart was invited. It's crony capitalism--Walmart is a firearms dealer and if Walmart supports it, they get revenue from all the Joe Bob transfers.
@Michael,
"Common sense gun legislation" presupposes a country where the citizens can trust their government to at least be truthful.
That has never been the case in the United States.
How about pictures of the splattered brains of tyrants shot by patriots?
The trusty Franchi over/under is the about the only gun I shoot anymore. And that isn't too often anymore.
The only gun I've ever owned is a Remington single shot 12 gauge. The only times I've picked it up in the past few years have been to clean it (stored at the cabin). Haven't hunted in awhile, but I'd like to get out pheasant hunting again.
Does anyone hunt Canada Goose anymore?
garage mahal said...
@Michael
Interesting re: abortion imagery. I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
1/11/13 11:20 AM
Good idea! Require that for both gun buyers and for woman seeking abortions. Along with rights comes responsibilities.
I'm amazed at the gullibility of the people in this country. Zero and the democrats both at the federal and state and local levels are creating this look! squirrel! distraction knowing full well the rubes are being distracted from their inability and incompetence in actually doing their jobs and focusing in on the economic disaster we are currently facing.
When it comes to guns, the only time to take the left seriously is when they are no longer willing to exempt themselves from the rules they want to impose on others. Indeed that is par for the course on everything they have proposed or are attempting to impose.They would shit themselves if after the pendulum swings they would find themselves being compelled to live by their own rules. In the meantime lets strip public officials from having armed guards. They are easily replaceable.
If guns = evil, then the President should turn in his security detail immediately.
Patrick: Don't know about Canada geese. There is a season on them in North Carolina I learned. On the actual migrating kind of Canada goose, not the kind that is resident everywhere.
Does anyone hunt Canada Goose anymore?
I've yet to see a way to prepare them to make them edible. They taste like shit. Oof.
Garage: Agreed. I shot one once and regretted everything from its partner flying away in sorrow to plucking the fucking thing to actually eating it.
Where is the Southern Poverty Law Center saying that Jew mayor is carrying out genocide on the black community?
Yeah, but as long as all those dead black Chicagoans still retain their voting rights, it's all good.
Mallards too for that matter. That's probably why they [and Canada geese] are everywhere. Nobody wants to eat them.
Best tasting duck [haha] I've ever had was wood duck, believe it or not. They are really neat birds though, I don't know if I would have the heart to hunt them.
My memory could be faulty, but it seems to me taht goose hunting was much more popular 30 or so years ago. Now, I know of no one who does it. It's either mammals, duck or pheasant. I've never been a huge hunter, but I like pheasant. I'll need a lot of practice with the single shot, though.
Most of the geese I see nowadays are in city parks, etc. Nasty creatures, and I cannot imagine eating them, even those who still live in the wild.
Wood Ducks are delicious but also pretty swift, teal like in their speediness. I don't shoot at them.
Patrick: I was in Fairfield NC shooting ducks and the locals there claimed that they were once the Canada Goose capital of the hunting world. In fact, they said that in the old days only low lifes hunted ducks, that the Goose was king. They said that impounds had been built in New York state that stopped the migration of the geese and they were then stuck with the ducks. And swans. Millions of fucking swans.
Once on the campaign trail, Biden was talking to a gun friendly group and mentioned that he had a Beretta shot gun, and no one was going to take it away from him. AFAIK, this comment drew no attention, not even a note that Beretta makes some of the most expensive guns in the world. They advertise in Forbes Life—like Maybach and Rolex. Biden is not a wealthy man. How did he come to have this gun?
It's clear that Obama didn't give a shit about the Democratic House members being cannon fodder for when he pushed through his unpopular policies leading up to the 2010 election, it is no different now.
It's all about Obama, all the time, the rest of the democrat party be damned. The constitution is already being disparaged as the arcane work of evil white men. When Obama breaks the American social contract so blatantly, it is expected that many citizens will no longer comply with the rest of it.
I hope 2014 is equally disasterous for any democratic politicians following Obama to electoral slaughter, but who knows with the media lockstep cheerleading and dumbed-down completely dependent electorate.
I think the only way positive change is possible is for the country to completely bottom out and then rebuild. Consider the Obama presidency the cultural and economic equivalent of hitting rock bottom for an (big government) addict.
Ken in SC: Probably a gift from a constituent.
Humor aside, Ann is right. On the state and local level, gun control is a nightmare issue for Democrats.
The reason the NRA is so powerful (only the AARP has more juice) has nothing to do with money, although that surely helps. It's because those 4.2M (and rising) members vote enthusiastically against anyone who stands in their way. There is not a more single-issue group out there.
Dianne Feinstein can make all the pro-gun-confiscation noises she wants without impunity, but I'd hate to be a red or purple state Dem Senator right about now, especially if I was up for re-election in 2014.
@Patrick
Aren't you south of town? There are some decent pheasant opportunities out that way, I was actually surprised. Not a lot of people hunt them around here, so all the dumb ones aren't gone after the first few weeks of the season. You can hunt them right up til Jan 1.
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?
Of course not, because Just Different!!! and because Women!!!
Reminds me of a quote I saw on the Book of Face last night; someone talking about how some notional person who "would fight the government if the government took their wicked assault rifles by democratic decision" (paraphrase) was obviously a traitor (because armed opposition to the State).
Made me wonder a few things (but not reply to it, because pointless), all aimed at the notional "you" supporting such a stance:
1) If the State actively violates the Constitution, quite directly and clearly, why is it owed a duty of obedience and deference? Remember, this nation was founded on and by treason to a State abusing its powers.
2) If a "democratic decision" banned abortion, would that make it right? (The poster in question is firmly in the "abortion is obviously a fundamental right" camp, I believe).
Would you respect such a State as legitimate, or tyrannically overstepping its bounds and oppressing beyond any legitimacy?
3) If not, what's the difference, and why should I think there's any meaningful consistency there beyond "stuff I like is a right and stuff I dislike isn't"?
(I myself try to be consistent, and acknowledge both that there's no Constitutional right to various things I like, and that many things I dislike are firmly protected by it.)
SeeingRed: True! The ATF collects 10-11% on each gun manufactured in or imported to the US.
That's a lot of income.
garage mahal said...
@Michael
Interesting re: abortion imagery. I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
No. But the pictures of dead Jews in cattle cars did it for me.
Michael, I agree, but in exchange for what?
Rusty: The "it can't happen here" concept is the one to keep in mind. I am reading the biography of a German Jewish financier who was originally supportive of the National Socialists and who could not conceive of the country turning the direction it did.
Does anyone hunt Canada Goose anymore?
Every year.
I usually wind up with about a dozen every year. We make landyeagers-slimjims- out of most of them.
Ken: Well, you know how those things go! Guy probably took old Joe hunting and "let him use" a brand new Italian shotgun and at the end of the hunt just told old Joe to "just keep it." Returning a favor in advance.
garage mahal said...
I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
An image idea ..
Abortion. Three pictures. 3D MRI of a unborn child. Aborted child. And a toddler. With the question: "Do you still want an abortion?"
Guns. Three pictures. Children being shot by crazy gunman. Person shooting crazy gunman. And a toddler. With the question: "Do you still want a gun?"
I've yet to see a way to prepare them to make them edible. They taste like shit. Oof.
If you're going to cook it like a roast, marinate it overnight in milk and then cook it medium rare.
We usually don't even pluck them. Just breast them out and take the drum sticks.
Michael said...
Rusty: The "it can't happen here" concept is the one to keep in mind. I am reading the biography of a German Jewish financier who was originally supportive of the National Socialists and who could not conceive of the country turning the direction it did.
It can happen anywhere.
Garage,
Actually, I'm up in MN. There's some good pheasant hunting, I'm told the further west you go. When my kids are old enough, I intend to take them out to SD, which has a great pheasant population. Lots of hunters too, though. I learned that the hard way when coming back from my sister in law's wedding, intending to stop in Chamberlain, SD. First week of pheasant hunting out there, few rooms to be had.
I grew up in WI, though, and went to school at UW. Left town and in a couple of years, I'll have spent more than half my life as a MN resident. Seems weird to me.
For some reason I thought you lived in Stoughton.
The most important 2 words in the NRA press release after their meeting with Biden's gun control group was "failed solutions" which is an accurate description of gun control proposals.
Gun control is "doing something" instead of "doing something that solves the problem."
"...the image people have of little 6-year-old kids riddled - not shot, but riddled, riddled - with bullet holes in their classroom."
Like it's all a matter of the capacity to visualize gore.
I was thinking of this yesterday related to fiction, that somehow people write horrible fictional things because they enjoy it.
My feeling about that is that the way some people approach non-fictional horror gets close to a gleeful enjoyment of it, as if they've given themselves permission because it's "real" to, in this case, use those little children and their "riddled" bodies (one get's a mind-image of hamburger and wonders if Biden and Tarantino should talk) to yank emotions around as cynically as an author making use of "child in peril".
I really don't think that someone writing fiction is on the moral downslope side of the equation compared to the vulture like voyeur of real life events. If nothing else, because "child in peril" is widely seen as an emotional cheat... when it's fiction.
The nice thing about the phrase "we need common-sense gun regulation" is the implicit admission by gun-control advocates that the thousands of regulations they've forced on us previously showed a complete lack of common sense. :)
I wonder if we should compel a gun buyer to see someone's brains blown out before we sell them one.
I have to wonder what the happy ending is that you foresee for that law.
Leftie A: "I have an idea: let's discourage people who DON'T like seeing someone's brains blown out from buying guns!"
Leftie B: "Good idea! Once all the guns in America are owned by people who relish the sight of chunky bits of cerebellum hitting the pavement we will TRULY be safe!"
Glenn Reynolds linked to this yesterday. As he likes to say, "Read the whole thing."
http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/blog/item/we-need-to-regulate-cars-the-way-we-regulate-guns
To a person who has had any sort of military training, or even an education in military history, an assault rifle is a firearm chambered in a military cartridge and capable of firing in full automatic mode. These have been banned since 1934. Owning one is possible, barely, but an assault rifle under this definition isn't what was used in Newtown.
To a liberal, an assault rifle is any firearm that is derived from a proper military assault rifle or merely looks sufficiently scary. There are millions of them around because they are effective tools for defending one's home or family against intruders. Liberals are strongly opposed to ordinary people having the right of self-defense so seek to ban, and eventually confiscate, such weapons.
Does that about summarize your position, garage?
Historical note. Democrat opposition to personal defense dates back to Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, because Blacks ("Negroes" back then) sometimes had an unfortunate habit of shooting back at the KKK. To a good first approximation, all of the members of the KKK back in the day were members in good standing of the Democrat party (c.f., the late Robert Byrd).
"Yes, more guns is exactly what this country needs...guns everywhere!
Arm the children! Arm the elderly! Arm the mentally ill!"
Other than the gratuitous inclusion of "mentally ill"... yes.
I took the gun safety class offered by the American Legion in the summer after 6th grade. "Children" should be taught the safe handling and operation of guns. Depending on "don't touch that" combined with television, movies and video games is irresponsible and dangerous. Children old enough to handle the "kick" should be given safety and marksmanship training... same as bike safety and stranger-danger training... if they're likely to ever be around a gun, which they are.
And the elderly? Really? Arming the elderly is equivalent to the scary notion of arming the mentally ill? Like being old makes you a danger to those around you?
I'm trying to imagine the world you live in, machine.
machine sounds like a mentally ill sort to me.
I hope the laws make sure mentally ill types like machine can't buy a gun.
http://ajbulava.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/original-intent-the-2nd-amendment/#comment-991
This isn't quite on topic but some of you may like the gathering of quite interesting quotes related to the 2nd Am.
Biden actually said: "There is nothing that has pricked the consciousness of the American people (and) there is nothing that has gone to the heart of the matter more than the image people have of little 6-year-old kids riddled - not shot, but riddled, riddled - with bullet holes in their classroom."
Only someone with the mind of a pornographer, someone like Biden, would dwell on that image, or even allow it admittance in the first place. Scumbag.
Does that about summarize your position, garage?
No. [naturally]
I don't actually know anyone that owns an AR-15, and don't want to really. I can tell you they would be laughed out of the truck if they brought one hunting with the guys I know.
For some reason I thought you lived in Stoughton.
There is another commenter on this blog (infrequent, haven't seen him around lately) who goes by the name Patrick. I think he said he's from Stoughton.
I've got the 1st MN avatar to distinguish my rantings from his.
As for Gun's gun shop... it's memorable. And it could be it was cheap, too.
(I say this as someone who's printed half an order of T-shirts with the screen upside down so the image and lettering would have to be viewed in a rearview mirror like AMBULANCE before I noticed something was wrong.)
"I don't actually know anyone that owns an AR-15, and don't want to really."
See now, I also mostly can't think of a good reason to own an AR-15 but I can at least imagine someone thinking that it would be fun to have and shoot without the owner becoming, in my mind, an icky person I wouldn't want to know.
I don't actually know anyone that owns an AR-15, and don't want to really.
As a pure matter of statistics and probability, you almost certainly know someone who owns an AR-15. The percentage of American households with an AR-15 is approximately to the percentage of Americans that is gay -- and, similarly, those in hostile cities/states tend to remain closeted. :)
Vermont has the second lowest murder rate in the nation - even lower than Great Britain's. Therefore, we should implement Vermont's gun laws nationwide IMMEDIATELY if we care about the safety of our children.
Arm the children! Arm the elderly!
I'm amused by the notion that the elderly have to be "armed" -- as if then third of Americans that own guns naturally lose them once they reach their 60s. :)
The "arm the children!" thing is also amusing to me simply because... most of the kids I grew up with WERE armed. They owned rifles and/or shotguns, and went hunting with their fathers regularly. This was normal for centuries.
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?
Apparently there's no limit to the truly stupid things Althouse will say to please her lemmings.
I don't actually know anyone that owns an AR-15, and don't want to really.
Last time I was at the local range I saw a man in his twenties buying an AR-15 look-alike and it was obvious why -- next to him was a lovely little girl and a baby in a carrier. I can understand the impulse to defend your family, and I can understand why someone would lean towards buying the guns Feinstein wants to ban for defending their family. You might choose a shotgun or handgun (or bolt action rifle for that matter) for home defense, or you might choose to leave yourself and family defenseless in the face of a home invasion attempt. Your choice. But if one were to read 50 articles on home defense I'm certain that a clear plurality would push for a semi-automatic rifle, like an AR-15, with the second place going to handguns and shotguns making up most of the rest. The overwhelming majority of the articles would take the position that "a handgun is what you use to fight your way to your long gun if it's not reaily at hand."
And I don't think the guys you hunt with would disagree.
Elderly people have been around so long that they've probably learned all sorts of kick-ass martial-arts moves by now. So what could they possibly want with guns?
But if one were to read 50 articles on home defense I'm certain that a clear plurality would push for a semi-automatic rifle, like an AR-15, with the second place going to handguns and shotguns making up most of the rest
Not so sure about that claim. I bet you would get 50 different answers. A pump shotgun or a revolver would be my two top choices.
Garage. You hear it said that the sound of a shell shucking in a pump will scare the wits out of a home invader. That was in the old days. I doubt up to date robbers know the sound at all. I think what scares them the most is the flash and bang of a 357.
"Apparently there's no limit to the truly stupid things Althouse will say to please her lemmings."
Althouse is pro-choice and frequently expresses that the pictures of dead fetuses that anti-abortion groups display are nasty and inappropriate. I thought the comparison was apt. Both cases are using horrible images of dead children to win a cause emotionally. If it is appropriate, it's appropriate for both, if it's not appropriate then it's not appropriate for both.
As comparisons go, it's holds better than most.
garage mahal said...
Does that about summarize your position, garage?
No. [naturally]
I don't actually know anyone that owns an AR-15, and don't want to really. I can tell you they would be laughed out of the truck if they brought one hunting with the guys I know.
The cartridge is only good onpeople and ground hogs. I don't know anyone who hunts with one either, but that's not why they have them.
"I saw a movie once about a place where only the police (and military) had guns. It was called Schindler's List."
(Poster making the rounds on FB.)
Garage. You hear it said that the sound of a shell shucking in a pump will scare the wits out of a home invader. That was in the old days
You would think the sound of the pump racking a hot round into the chamber would give any sane person pause.
As far as I can tell the AR-15 doesn't have any additional functionality to other choices for home defense or sport shooting, even with larger capacity magazines. It's a semi-automatic rifle. The only differences are cosmetic and emotional.
A person might want one because it looks like a military weapon because they were in the military, because they like and admire the military, they find it more visually appealing, or it's something they don't have one of yet.
The problem seems to be that some people dislike some of those reasons. Maybe it's distasteful to admire the military? If a rifle or shot gun with a wood stock will do as well, then the icky military-cooties aren't involved, even if the gun itself is functionally equivalent.
It would be like disallowing pearl handled revolvers because there is no use to the fancy handle but to glorify the weapon itself and bring to mind famous outlaws.
It's a thought crime.
And if you're going to buy one weapon for home defense, why NOT buy the one that is the coolest looking?
It really is prudery. Sure, you can have a gun, but only if it's a BORING gun. And while you're at it, women of character never actually enjoy sex.
Not so sure about that claim. I bet you would get 50 different answers.
I don't see how there could be 50 different answers when there are really only 3 categories. About the only firearms you won't find someone advocating for are low capacity semi-automatic handguns in .25, .32, or .380 caliber, and bolt action rifles.
You would think the sound of the pump racking a hot round into the chamber would give any sane person pause.
I used to think so too, but policemen I've talked to and instructors I've talked to agree that the sound of a shell being racked cannot be counted on to stop an attacker or make a burglar depart the premises.
@Synova,
The new thing about AR-15's is that they are built with interchangable modules, so that you can order one in whatever configuration
you want, and if you decide you do not really like that, just order a variant of the piece you want to change out and replace that.
This also holds for the caliber. There is nothing magic about the .223 caliber. You can order an AR-15 in whatever caliber you need for what you are going to use it for, and you can order it with alternate barrels and upper receivers and change them out to suit your purpose of the day while staying with basically the same gun.
You would think the sound of the pump racking a hot round into the chamber would give any sane person pause.
Absolutely it would. But then most sane people don't break into occupied houses. At least not unarmed.
As far as I can tell the AR-15 doesn't have any additional functionality to other choices for home defense or sport shooting, even with larger capacity magazines. It's a semi-automatic rifle. The only differences are cosmetic and emotional.
@Synova, if you compare an AR or AR clone to other semi-automatic rifles it has a number of major advantages. The "Picatinny rail" lets you mount laser sights and flashlights and even a front handgrip if you prefer, and the polymer frame is very lightweight when contrasted with a wooden framed Ruger Mini 14, an AK-47, or a Russian military surplus SKS.
I can read all of that and mentally process it, but as a Vietnam veteran from the late 1960s when the M-16 was having its teething problems I just cannot bring myself to get one. Purely an emotional thing.
So when I advocate for people being allowed to own a semi-automatic AR clone for home defense it's not special pleading on my part. It's because I truly believe that the the "unalienable right" to Life promised in the Declaration of Independence should permit people to make up their own minds about whether to acquire a home defense firearm at all, and what kind is most appropriate for their circumstances.
(PS: If you want to go for "cool" take a look at the Beretta CX4 carbine -- essentially a 9 mm semi-automatic hand with a futuristic stock and slightly longer barrel. Plus a Picatinny rail.)
Yes, Big Mike,
and it still is a semi-automatic rifle.
If you have the tools and the skills, you could also order the basic parts and make the rest yourself to make the final assembly look like an 18th century Jaeger rifle. It would not be as lightweight and functional as the usual form it is sold in, but it would still be an AR-15.
The point is that if someone is considering buying a gun for home defense, it doesn't really matter which one you get. Each type and model has different benefits and drawbacks but in the end they aren't actually significantly, functionally, different.
The gun grabbers want to say that since the AR-15 isn't obviously the most ideal choice that no one should be allowed to legally have one of them. As if we're only allowed the designated tool perfectly designed for the designated task. It's baloney for a lot of reasons.
I don't have any great desire to have an AR-51 (though I'm getting close to 'just because I can'). I would rather have a pistol. So what if someone tells me that for home defense I have to have a shot gun because that's the "best" home defense weapon?
The bottom line, really, isn't should I have to defend the precise functionality of a particular gun and my "need" for it. If I decide to buy a gun for home defense I shouldn't be subject to the thought police who get to decide if the one I like strikes my fancy for the wrong reasons.
@Synova, well said.
wow... dyslexia.
@Hagar, it would probably be cheaper just to buy a Jaeger rifle.
@Synova, no need to apologize. We knew you didn't mean to buy an AR-51 "because you can" since there's no such beast so you can't.
;-)
(At least I don't think there's any such firearm.)
@Synova
See now, I also mostly can't think of a good reason to own an AR-15
Well, I still own one, used to own 2, for Service Rifle competition. Still keep 1 cuz' it's doggone fun to shoot (if a bit expensive), and it looks so baaaaaad.
Originally, when we lived in the Scary Urban Area, I told my spouse that it was the best choice in the event of another civil unrest. (cough, cough, '92 LA riot, heap big fun).
See, while the 12-gauge is tactically a better man-killer, the scary looks of an AR15 are a better "crowd pleaser," (by which I mean a crowd will more likely ". . . please go away.")
So if facing an ornery group the AR is, paradoxically, a much better choice since I'd rather avoid bloodshed.
Were I looking to purchase a pure home-defense firearm, my wife's new .40 cal (complete with an eeeevil Large Capacity Magazine, take that Joe!) would be a better choice. Unlike either the AR or the shotgun, it's a far better choice in the close-quarters inside a home, it can be wielded one-handed (useful to call 911 with the other hand, or to hold an attacker at gunpoint), and it points far easier than a long-arm.
@Synova
See now, I also mostly can't think of a good reason to own an AR-15.
I want something that as close as I can get to what the government has.
An AR-51 is either a microphone or an army jeep. An M-51 appears to be a galaxy and a military style "fish tail" parka available on Amazon.
For anybody who wants to see CNN's Piers Morgan exposed as a bully and reduced to a pompous fool by an articulate defender of gun rights, check out Ben Shapiro's debate with him last Thursday evening.
It's a real eye opener to see Piers slam down a copy of the Constitution as he spits out "your little book."
"I've got the 1st MN avatar to distinguish my rantings from his."
Afternoon of July 2, 1863. Hell of a thing they did. IMO, one of the most dramatic moments of a war filled with them.
For anybody who wants to see CNN's Piers Morgan exposed as a bully and reduced to a pompous fool by an articulate defender of gun rights, check out Ben Shapiro's debate with him last Thursday evening.
It's a real eye opener to see Piers slam down a copy of the Constitution as he spits out "your little book."
@Big Mike,
The point is, they are flailing around trying to outlaw an idea rather than a weapon.
An "assault rifle" has military meaning, but a semi-auto that looks like an assault rifle is no more an assault rifle than a VW floorpan and drivetrain with a fiberglass body that "looks like" a Porsche 517K is a Can-Am racer.
Morgan really *really* didn't like being called a bully.
The best Morgan could get out of Shapiro was a clear statement that the purpose of the 2nd Am was to oppose government tyranny, ask Shapiro if he was afraid of his government, and then not let him repeat what he'd said earlier about the Historical frequency of democracy evolving into tyranny, Shapiro's relatives turned to dust by Nazis, or the time frame of Shapiro's concern.
And, Big Mike, "typical hunting rifles" that meet with Dianne Feinstein's approval look the way they do because they are slightly gussied up versions of late 19th-early 20 century military rifles which looked the way they did because they were a further development of 18th century miltary muskets which were cheap mass-produced versions of the old Jaeger rifles.
The Ar-15 is just a new way of designing and producing rifles similar to the way the WV design developed into the basic "platform" automotive designs we have today outfitted with various bodytypes, engines, and suspension settings.
@Hagar, you're right in both comments, of course.
Er, do they still run Can-Am after all these years?
No, and certainly not like back in the day.
I went to Elkhart in 1968, and it was something to hear and feel that mass of Holman & Moody monsters bunching up in Thunder Valley.
On topic: I read that the military no longer issues full auto M-16's to the reguar troops; only the special forces get full auto. The regulars get rifles with only the single shot and the 3-shot burst options, but I bet the Pentagon still calls them "assault rifles," so this is going to muddy the waters some more.
Here's a pic of a heavily camouflaged "assault rifle". See if you can spot it.
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/21363-Ben-vs.-Piers-on-guns.html
@Hagar, yeah, I had a chance to watch the Can-Am at Bridgehampton in '69 with another soldier I worked with. We checked out tents from the Rec Center and drove up -- I think in my Sunbeam Alpine instead of his ropey old TR3. I remember the noise, especially of the Ferrari 312P (trying to run with only 3 liters against the 7 liter McLarens). I especially remember the Ferrari because it was the only one with closed bodywork. It says Hulme won but of course it was always either he or Bruce year after year.
Ah, those were the days. I was young and broad-shouldered and physically strong and still had hair. Sigh.
The Ar-15 is just a new way of designing and producing rifles similar to the way the WV design developed into the basic "platform" automotive designs we have today outfitted with various bodytypes, engines, and suspension settings.
I think that is an important point. Semiautomatic rifles were adopted by our military in 1936, and they were similar in looks to rifles of most of a century earlier. The predecessors to the AR-15 (and M-16) were developed in the late 1950s, and adopted by our military in the mid-1960s, and have been the basic rifle utilized by our military for nearing 50 years. Of course, these rifles have continued to evolve since then, though they continue to look very similar, just as the semiautomatic M-1 Garand and the later select fire M-14 look similar to the single shot rifles of the latter 19th Century. In the last 50+ years the AR-type rifles, both civilian semiautomatic and military select fire, have evolved significantly, with new materials, new accessories. The weapons platform is now highly modular, light, relatively low recoil, and now fairly reliable. And, many of the accessories are interchangeable between civilian semiautomatic and military select fire versions, which means that some of the accessories being used by our troops in Afghanistan were first developed for the civilian market.
@ Erika 10:26 AM
Yes.
@ Jay 10:45 WTF is a "universal background check" anyway?
They want to make sure no Klingons get AR 15s or handguns or BB guns.
On topic: I read that the military no longer issues full auto M-16's to the reguar troops; only the special forces get full auto. The regulars get rifles with only the single shot and the 3-shot burst options, but I bet the Pentagon still calls them "assault rifles," so this is going to muddy the waters some more.
Not really - both the full auto and 3 round burst versions of the M-16 (and M-4 Carbine) are considered machine guns under U.S. law and as "assault rifles" under international treaty. The criteria is that they are capable of shooting more than one bullet per trigger pull. They are all considered "select fire" because they have a three way selector switch that also allows them to be shot in a semiautomatic mode.
Because they are considered machine guns under U.S. law, they are subject to the 1934 NFA, which requires that they be licensed, etc. They can be sold, after a background check, but no more can be added to the civilian inventory. The result of that is that legal select fire M-16s (and M-4s) are becoming extremely pricey. Oh, and the only example that I know of, of a registered machine gun being used in a crime in this country was by a police officer the weapon issued to him by his department.
The term "assault weapon" was coined to confuse the public about the reality that semiautomatic rifles that look like assault rifles were, in fact, no more dangerous than other semiautomatic rifles, such as the M-1 Garands and M-2 carbines produced in such large volumes during WWII (and, maybe even less dangerous, since these WWII era rifles shot a more powerful cartridge).
p.s. That brings up the absurdity of calling the AR-type rifles "high powered" rifles, and then claiming that they are inappropriate for hunting because their standard .223 round is too light for most game.
Since the Speilberg/Kushner film, it is now the vogue to compare the president to Lincoln. Given that Pres. Obama is primarily in the business of defending the indefensible -- the violent gore that dare not speak its name in the Oval Office -- perhaps he is better compared to the other 1860s president. This is the ugliest administration since the Confederacy.
@ Kirk Parker 3:41
"I saw a movie once about a place where only the police (and military) had guns. It was called Schindler's List."
(Poster making the rounds on FB.)
I saw Django tonight, they should ban dogs.
If we picture a bloody mincemeat of fetuses, then do we get to take away abortion rights?
It would be fair, and in fact logical, to run photographs of children butchered when people are saying it's a constitutional right to butcher them.
It's irrational, and stupid, to run photographs of children butchered when you're trying to outlaw knives.
Most of us understand the difference between tools and infanticide.
Bruce Hayden said...
On topic: I read that the military no longer issues full auto M-16's to the reguar troops; only the special forces get full auto. The regulars get rifles with only the single shot and the 3-shot burst options, but I bet the Pentagon still calls them "assault rifles," so this is going to muddy the waters some more.
Not really - both the full auto and 3 round burst versions of the M-16 (and M-4 Carbine) are considered machine guns under U.S. law and as "assault rifles" under international treaty. The criteria is that they are capable of shooting more than one bullet per trigger pull. They are all considered "select fire" because they have a three way selector switch that also allows them to be shot in a semiautomatic mode.
Because they are considered machine guns under U.S. law, they are subject to the 1934 NFA, which requires that they be licensed, etc. They can be sold, after a background check, but no more can be added to the civilian inventory. The result of that is that legal select fire M-16s (and M-4s) are becoming extremely pricey.
I seem to remember having read that there is only one copy of a legal .303 BREN gun in this country and the owner has been offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. For a gun that cost the British government a couple of hundred dollars.
Fetuses don't usually have the brain development of 6-year old kids, but since when was that a defining characteristic of humanity for you?
I believe that there are prominent philosophers who persuasively argue that the brain development that counts is around age 12 and that parents (mothers?) should be able to "abort" up to age 2. And there are other "brave" prominent and wealthy souls who promote euthanasia of disabled children.
So, no, the brain development of a fetus vs. a 6 year old does not, not in way, count as a defining characteristic of humanity for me. A fetus and a 6 year old are equally unable to live independently and neither are fully developed persons.
I imagine that the parents of those poor tots found solace in Biden's characterization of their demise. I read elsewhere that he had a couple of cracks about "shooting for Tuesday [I think]" and "no silver bullet".
And yet, the republicans are the dumb ones.
You realize, of course, that many liberals don't want new gun laws, they just love watching gun-rights activists get so riled up ("COME AND TAKE 'EM!!!!! Just TRY AND COME AND TAKE 'EM!!!!!")
The AR15 platform rifles are getting quite popular with Prairie Dog shooters. Back before I got so durned old I used to do a little varminting, mostly I used a highly accurate bolt action .223. Seems like right toward the end of my varmint hunting career the ARs were coming in. I don't think anyone would laugh them out of a prarie dog town. My custom bolt action would put five rounds into a half inch group on demand, as long as I could keep up with wind changes, on a perfect day I could punch out quarter inch groups. Along came the ARs, shoting three quarter inch groups, out of a twenty round mag.
And the AR 10 in .308 Win/7.62NATO can take anything up to and including Elk and Moose.
No disrespect to the recent dead, but this is just a distraction a la The Great Contraception Discussion of a few months ago.
Our government is really and truly broke, and that's a much bigger--and ironically, more solvable--problem than gun control.
"Remember, this nation was founded on and by treason to a State abusing its powers."
To follow up on that point, the first battle of the Revolution was precipitated by an attempt by the British to confiscate the colonists' weapons.
As I said earlier, all repubs have to do is sit back and let the dems hang themselves with their own rope.
No economy. Assault on relgious liberty, high taxes and more company. Trillion dollar coins. No budget for 4 years. Continuation of Bush era anti terror policies. And now assualt on gun owners.
And no third term for Obama. Who's in the wings? Hillary Blood clot Clinton?
Keep it comign dems. We're counting on you.
And furthermore, they say a rifle is no good against government tanks and drones. Well, I don't know much about drones but I do know than men and women armed with rifles can make it impossible for a force to get out of those tanks.
Look how long some very poorly armed Jews kept a whole Nazi SS Division out of the Warsaw Ghatto.
There's a petition on the White House website that both the Left & Right may agree on.
"Eliminate armed guards for the President, Vice-President, and their families, and establish Gun Free Zones around them"
Go here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-armed-guards-president-vice-president-and-their-families-and-establish-gun-free-zones/6RDGkxLK
If the GOP was sensible, they could turn the gun control effort back on the Dems and regain some of the momentum they wadded up and threw away after 2010. The trouble is that that GOP is _scared to death_ of the gun issue, as a party, just as they are of the other social/cultural issues. Not all of them, of course, and as their internal polling tells them it's safe more of them are speaking up, but at heart the GOP would rather talk about 'entitlement reform' and other money-based issues, partly because many (not all) of the GOP leadership are themselves social libs who don't really like an armed public, partly because they are heavily in the pocket of big business, but also because they have the benighted impression that economic conservatism is popular and social conservatism loses them votes.
The irony of that is that it's 180 degrees out of phase with reality, the electorate is either hostile to or ambivalent about to most of the GOP economic agenda, but sympathetic to most of the rest.
jr565 said...
"As I said earlier, all repubs have to do is sit back and let the dems hang themselves with their own rope.
No economy. Assault on relgious liberty, high taxes and more company. Trillion dollar coins. No budget for 4 years. Continuation of Bush era anti terror policies. And now assualt on gun owners."
Unfortunately that isn't true. All that you listed is true, but the GOP can not simply sit back and ride the benefit, that's the error they've made in elections with both McCain and Romney. The idea is that the Dems will make themselves intolerable and the GOP candidate can avoid controversial subjects and 'just talk about the economy'.
It doesn't work. The GOP can't readily take advantage of these errors and bad intentions on the part of the Dems unless they're prepared to engage on these issues.
That's partly because of the fact that most of our press and other institutions are on the Dems' side, but also because of human nature.
Your articles are purely enough for me.shootingtargets7
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