Handguns are responsible for almost all gun homicides, and are also the main category of firearms used for self defense. And on that core issue, support for restricting access is more unpopular than its ever been.
You used to call out that flaw in that logic yourself. We're not generally motivated by routine gun homicides, but by mass shootings, because, as you say, "the activity threatens social stability vastly out of proportion with the probability of any given person being victim to it." It can be rational for policy to target tactical rifles, which can be used to stand off police forces (as they have in several mass shootings) and to rain death down onto a crowded street from a high-rise window, while not addressing the more-common handgun fatalities, just like gun policy doesn't need address the still-more-common traffic fatalities.
I initially thought that a ban on 'assault weapons' might make sense, but after learning more about firearms technology, I've come to the conclusion that 'assault weapons' just doesn't make sense as a legal classification. It's mostly about minor cosmetic and ergonomic features (such as having a pistol grip) that look scary to large segments of the population. A Mini-14 Ranch Rifle is nearly as capable as an AR-15, yet nobody is trying to ban it because it looks like a traditional hunting rifle. And there isn't really a clear-cut meaningful distinction between rifles and pistols; a so-called 'AR-15 pistol' is legally a pistol even though it can be easily converted to a rifle by replacing the arm brace with a stock (but to do so legally requires a $200 tax stamp if the barrel under 16 inches long).
The addition of a pistol grip does lend increased tactical maneuverability to a rifle. It doesn't just look scary. The tactical ability of a semi/fully-automatic rifle does not exclusively come from its ability to rapidly chamber rounds, it also comes from its tactical maneuverability, especially when firing multiple rounds in a short period of time.
This is why the military uses rifles that look like the M4 platform, and not rifles that look like the M14 platform anymore. This is why the AK-47 doesn't look like the SKS. The addition of a pistol grip to a semi or fully-automatic rifle represents an advance in military technology.
The 2015 San Bernardino Shooting, the Sandy Hook shooting, and the Orlando nightclub shooting all involved light, tactical rifles with pistol-grips. Stephen Paddock had 21 pistol-grip rifles, and not a single Mini-14.
There is a meaningful advantage in the ability to kill people in in-close, rapid-fire situations with a light, semi-automatic rifle featuring a pistol grip. This is why people whose job descriptions involve killing people at relatively close-ranges (military, SWAT) use this style of weapon, and not a weapon that looks like a Mini-14.
The stock Mini-14 looks like a traditional hunting rifle, because it is engineered for hunting. Its design is not optimized for controllability when rapidly firing multiple rounds in multiple directions in a tactical setting. A good hunter shouldn't need to discharge much more than two rounds, and they have one single target. They're not controlling for recoil over the course of an entire 30-round magazine, while pivoting in multiple directions.
In that context, the legal classification of an assault weapon does make pretty good sense.
>The 2015 San Bernardino Shooting, the Sandy Hook shooting, and the Orlando nightclub shooting all involved light, tactical rifles with pistol-grips. Stephen Paddock had 21 pistol-grip rifles, and not a single Mini-14.
>Its design is not optimized for controllability when rapidly firing multiple rounds
Yes, that is a real disadvantage of the Mini-14 compared to the AR-15. And for military use, when engaging targets over 50 yards away, it is important. My understanding, though, is that most mass shootings happen at fairly close range, where the AR-15's reduced muzzle rise isn't as much of an advantage.
>This is why people whose job descriptions involve killing people at relatively close-ranges (military, SWAT) use this style of weapon, and not a weapon that looks like a Mini-14.
The military didn't choose the AR-15 for its performance at close range (like under 25 yards). At that range, the AR-15's greater difference between bore axis and line-of-sight becomes a disadvantage compared to the Mini-14.
>The addition of a pistol grip does lend increased tactical maneuverability to a rifle.
Do you have a source for that? Personally, I haven't found a pistol grip to make much of a difference in maneuverability. The overall length of the rifle certainly makes a big difference, though.
Not in the United States since 1986 according to that list.
Tactical maneuverability when discharging rounds at a rapid rate can come from maintaining the stock in-line with the bore of the rifle as-with a pistol grip, which allows for better control of rapid fire. It is also easier to pull the rifle into the shoulder quickly, which allows you to re-sight more quickly when firing rapidly, and transitioning from running to a shooting position. If you look at a standard, factory wood or synthetic-stock Mini-14 (not a side-folder), the bore is elevated over the stock. The fractions of a second needed to re-sight the rifle would create a disadvantage when rapidly discharging a weapon in close quarters. This is especially important for someone who has not received extensive training in handling weapons in these situations, such as the people who go postal in schools and nightclubs and such.
> At that range, the AR-15's greater difference between bore axis and line-of-sight becomes a disadvantage compared to the Mini-14.
This seems like a weird example, since I don't believe any modern, well-funded urban combat operations team uses the factory Mini-14, or any similarly-configured rifle with a more horizontal-grip stock. The prototypical close-combat rifle, the MP5, most definitely uses a pistol-grip, and SWAT teams in the United States seem rather fond of the AR-15-style platform.
Although I do not have evidence to support this, I would also make the argument that a pistol-grip offers advantages in quickly swapping mags in a high-pressure situation, as the mag release button is nicely situated with the wrist in a neutral position, and the ability to bring the rifle back-up to shoulder using the pistol-grip as a lever following a mag swap would be easier, especially for someone who is inexperienced, moving quickly, and prone to fumbling.
Plus, people are tired of seeing mass shootings on TV, and just don't want to have to worry about lunatics running around with these types of weapons. The definition of 'these types of weapons' will evolve, and typically correlate with what people see being used in mass shootings on the news.
I don't know that people's negative reaction to these weapons is particularly unreasonable in this context.
The pistol grip really isn't the big advance it's pitched to be, and lets be honest; banning it does nothing in the case of someone who has cracked enough to decide a large number of people are going to die today. It happened to be a feature of a design that won a military contract, therefore the tooling to produce that design was developed, therefore that tooling was put to work to make more due to economies of scale therefore people take the opportunity to post-rationalize tge ubiquity of the pistol grip as being some artificial killing power multiplier rather than just " hey, we can already make these so why not lecerage tge feature to make cheaper guns?" It's more an economic efficiency than anything else.
Pistol grips do not inherently make a weapon system more maneuverable, as they do not change any of your leverage on the firarm, nor its centre of mass or mass distribution. Making a weapon more comfortable does not make it more deadly since you can always fire more rounds if you miss. Pistol grips are simply easier to manufacture than weird shapes of wood or plastic.
Why wouldn't a pistol-grip impact leverage? It's literally a lever attached to the bottom of the rifle.
> does not make it more deadly since you can always fire more rounds if you miss
More rounds on-target is the definition of more deadly.
> Pistol grips are simply easier to manufacture than weird shapes of wood or plastic.
I don't follow. A hollow pistol-grip is not only more plastic, it also requires a much more complicated mold.
There's a reason every modern, light, self-chambering rifle system uses a pistol grip. If it were simply a matter of ease of manufacture, or of comfort with zero tactical advantage, nobody would care if AR-15s were banned because they'd be perfectly happy with their Mini-14.
Look at rifles like the SV98 or AW series. They don't have pistol grips but have the same ergonomic layout as a pistol grip. In fact, you can evade pistol grip laws by making butt stocks with holes that provide the same effective hand positioning. Learning to shoot a classic rifle grip is only a matter of training - after all, everyone from precision sports shooters to special forces utilised them to their full extent.
>More rounds on-target
You only need one .223 centre mass or in the intestines to require immediate surgery.
>hollow pistol-grip
Attatch two stamped pieces of metal or molded plastic.
>they'd be perfectly happy
One major reason not to ban pistol grips is that there is no major reason to ban pistol grips. I haven't been a witness to any statistical analysis regarding its positive effects. If anything, you want to motivate people to like the guns they own, so they shoot more often and are more disciplined. The fact that some commit heinous crimes is mentall illness, not the fault of the gun or even more so the fault of legal gun ownership.
Plus, the AR-15 platform has versatile configurations like the short-stroke piston operation of an HK416 or picatinny rails for attachments. After all, mounting a good infrared scope on a hunting rifle helps hunters place humane one-shot-stops rather than blindly causing suffering.
The purpose of assault-weapons bans are to reduce the likelihood of a single, mentally-unstable person from killing large numbers of people with a semi-automatic rifle.
> you can evade pistol grip laws by making butt stocks with holes that provide the same effective hand positioning
Not in California. That grip is considered a 'feature' and is not allowed in conjunction with detachable magazines on a semi-automatic rifle.
> You only need one .223 centre mass or in the intestines to require immediate surgery.
Center-mass is on-target. For an inexperienced person working their way through a school or office-building, they are trying to increase the number of on-target shots, and reduce the number of magazine reloads.
> The fact that some commit heinous crimes is mentall illness, not the fault of the gun or even more so the fault of legal gun ownership.
We can't ban mental illness, so the purpose of the laws is to reduce the likelihood of certain weapons systems from falling into the hands of people with mental illness, or those with an ideological grudge and the motivation to carry out an attack. This has worked out pretty well in the state of California so-far.
> mounting a good infrared scope on a hunting rifle helps hunters place humane one-shot-stops rather than blindly causing suffering.
If a hunter needs an infrared scope to place a humane shot, then they need to go to the range and get better before they go outside and shoot an animal.
> If anything, you want to motivate people to like the guns they own, so they shoot more often and are more disciplined.
I understand this perspective, as I am a shooting enthusiast as well. However, this perspective is simply not in-line with the opinions of most voters, who don't really care how much anyone enjoys these weapons. They simply don't want to have to worry about themselves or their children getting shot by some lunatic with a gun. When they hear 'more disciplined,' they hear 'more skilled at killing my kids.' Since firearms for the vast majority of gun owners are little more than a hobby, it's really hard not to see the logic in their perspective.
The fact they're bolt-action is irrelevant to their grip. I'm still not convinced banning semi-automatic rifles will lead to (or has lead to) mentaly unstable people bieng unable to commit crimes. There's still a large selection of pistols (especially rifle-looking pistols) and lever-action rifles. You can still shoot them as quick as you can aim.
>inexperienced person
It's very inadequate to target a small minority of people with laws that are based on wishful thinking, sacrificing the vast majority. Do you not find it easier to simply take action with mental healthcare for the weeks, months, and years prior to the shooting?
>We can't ban mental illness.
Of course. Because it's an obviously failed concept. When you ban weapons you can always cherrypick statistics to show loose correlation (not sure by which criteria it's worked out well in California when Chicago's gun laws don't repeat the results). It seems like the banning attitude is the wrong approach, and the issues at hand are far greater than a single handwave of the senate or similar.
And let's not forget how easy it is to make DIY pipe bombs, flash bangs, stinger grenades, molotovs, poison gas grenades. I'm certain pipe bombs are more dangerous in close quarters than guns because of their spread. If you've barricaded the classroom door, all you need to do is stay outside the deadly funnel and there is no way the firearm will hurt you. But explosives have no such limitation if you can fit it in.
>go to the range and get better
This isn't about skill but visibility in low-light conditions, easier target acquisition, and actually having a guarantee of what you're looking at. Any benefit you gain from training will be increased with an infrared scope.
>They simply don't want to have to worry about themselves or their children getting shot by some lunatic with a gun.
Mental illness is a major cause of worry right now for America's youth. The easy and naive handwave solutions of banning mentall illness and guns are, at best, tangent to the goal of reducing violence, and at worst rob people of the right to defend themselves or use tools they are well trained in. It is the easy short-term way out to use non-combative and 'safe' gun owners as scape goats. It is the easy way out to tell someone what his use case, goal, and constraints are, and back it up with strongarm authority.
It is not the easy way out to admit a complete failure of the federal government to implement mental health care. It is not the easy way out to push changes that will span several presidents. It's not the easy way out to cooperate with all sides of the community. It's not easy - that's why we trust politicians with our taxes, so they work it out the best way, the most rational, informed, and difficult way. Isn't that the point of politics - to abstract away the angry mob seeking retribution?
By the way, I'm not American. I live in the EU but have had the privilege to spend hundreds of euros on trips to countries to shoot some guns. Thanks to EU gun laws, the best defense against getting robbed or home invaded is to know civilian-safe, ethical tai chi.
You raise some really good points, and I appreciate the thought behind your response.
I wanted to kind of try to maybe unpack the point you made as best as I can:
> Do you not find it easier to simply take action with mental healthcare for the weeks, months, and years prior to the shooting?
We have zero mental health infrastructure in the United States, and it would take decades to build a working system (there's not even the political will to try at the moment).
In the case of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting where 17 people died, the police were well aware that the suspect was a threat, they had received multiple tips that he was going to shoot up the school, and they knew he had guns. But there isn't framework in the United States to do anything about it because we have such strong free-speech and civil liberties protections. It's also perfectly legal for someone who hasn't been convicted of anything or put on an emergency mental health hold to own a semi-automatic rifle. As a result, the guy who told everyone exactly what he was about to do took his gun, walked into his high school, and murdered almost 20 people.
People are looking for pragmatic solutions to prevent these types of mass shootings.
1. We could enable the police to arrest or detain people who haven't committed a crime, but that would conflict with constitutional free-speech protections, and would set a stronger precedent for police arresting people for things they haven't actually done yet (slippery slope).
2. We could build an entire mental health system from scratch (decades of work assuming at some point in the next ten years this would be a priority for the president and congress).
3. We could increase restrictions on certain types of guns to prevent them from falling into the hands of a disturbed 19 year-old (incredibly easy to do, there's widespread popular support, and all Congress would have to do is pass a single bill). The only people negatively impacted would be a minority of people who would be slightly inconvenienced, but still be able to pursue their hobby. The majority of people would gain the ability to send their kids to school without wondering if they're going to get murdered.
Only one of these options (#3) seems to be within the realm of actually being achievable. We're just not going to build a mental health system from scratch anytime soon, and people aren't thrilled about giving the police more ability to arrest people who haven't actually committed a crime. We're left with more weapons restrictions as the only pragmatic solution (what Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico, etc. have done).
Only a minority of Americans own guns, and there's consistent support among the majority of voters for increased restrictions on firearms.
I enjoy shooting guns myself as a hobby, and I live in California which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. The laws really aren't such a big deal. It just means an assault rifle has a 10-round mag restriction, and it's a little slower to change mags since they require a few additional steps to swap out. I don't find that to be a particularly big deal, especially since it helps my friends, family, and neighbors not have to worry about the safety of their children. I still get to pursue my hobby, and there's no way I need more than 10 rounds for home defense. Even if they outright banned assault rifles, I could have fun for the rest of my life target shooting with bolt-action rifles.
I'd like to add it's not a hobby, one of the greatest concerns in buying a firearm is self defense from people who don't care about the laws and can indeed access weapons of different types. It also seems like the government isn't following #3 in what you would consider productive ways. I don't see how 10-round magazines, armbraces instead of stocks, and pistol grips are going to offer other than a minor inconvenience.
For me it's a hobby since I am not allowed to defend my home. My rights are already gone. As far as the EU is concerned, if you are afraid of getting hurt, get life insurance. If you are afraid of getting robbed, get house insurance. It would be sad for America to fall like that mostly due to corrupt and/or lazy politicians.
Pistol grips are a common interface, they don't have a significant tactical improvement on their own. It is massively beneficial to have all/most weapons a soldier might be called upon to use to have the same basic setup though.
1. The stock to remain in-line with the bore of the rifle.
2. Additional leverage to control recoil.
3. Quicker and more intuitive return of the weapon to-shoulder after running or changing magazines.
4. The wrist to remain in a neutral position when depressing the magazine release button.
The Sten, BAR, and the PPSH were pretty much the last generations of fully-automatic rifles to use a horizontal grip configuration, and in both cases, (Soviet and Western) weapons designers converged on the pistol-grip for subsequent designs of the autoloading light rifle, despite substantial differences in design between the M16 and the AK-47.
Why did they make the change? All three of those weapons (Sten, BAR, PPSH) were in widespread combat usage at the time, as were horizontal-grip semiautomatic rifles like the SKS, M14, and M1 Garand/Carbine (as well as a variety of horizontal-grip bolt-action rifles). Why not keep the same configuration for the next generation of rifles so that soldiers would be using the same basic setup that they had originally been trained on? Why did the StG 44, AK-47, Thompson, and later the M-16 all make the switch? Even the Swedes started adding pistol-grips to the BAR in the twenties.
Horizontal-grip rifles just don't seem to be as well-suited for controllability of fully-automatic, or rapid semi-automatic fire.
I don't want to recapitulate the whole very long argument here, but I believe this meme about "assault weapons" being incoherent and cosmetic is essentially propaganda. The original FAWB proposals targeted all semi-automatic rifles with detachable clips. Like you, I took the time to learn more about firearms technology and I came to the opposite conclusion you did. See this thread for my reasoning (somewhere in there, there's a back-and-forth about the Mini-14, which is a favorite Facebook meme subject).
And last time you brought this up, I pointed out you mischaracterized the proposal in question. I'd correct your statement to say "The original FAWB proposals targeted all semi-automatic rifles with detachable [magazines that a future Attorney General wanted to ban]."
As the thread shows, the intent of the original FAWB proposals was not to focus on scary-looking cosmetic features. I think my description in this thread is fair, you'd like to qualify it further, and that's fine, but I don't think we should pretend like we don't understand each other, or that there aren't sources that refute the idea that the original intention of assault weapons regulation was just stuff like barrel shrouds.
The problem is that neither the proposal you linked nor the 1994 FAWB make a rational distinction between banned semi-automatic rifles with a capacity to accept a detachable magazine ("assault weapons") and ones that shouldn't be banned, with the exception of a few specific carveouts. In the proposal you link, instead of feature tests, we get the attorney general judging which guns are ok and which ones aren't.
AWBs are incoherent and irrational. The feature tests are a manifestation of that. But the lack of them doesn't fix the irrationality of the whole idea.
I think the bill I cited is has a pretty clear and coherent definition of assault weapons: they're semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable clips of more than 10 rounds. You're fixated on the fact that the AG/SecT can designed some semi-automatic rifles with clips as "not" assault weapons, at their discretion. So what?
I don't think mandatory licensure of tactical rifles is an irrational idea at all.
The ban you linked works the other way around: Such rifles are legal until the AG/SecT specifically bans them. It's the functional definition + irrelevant stuff formula I object to as irrational. If the ban you linked worked as you describe, I'd object to it as bad public policy, but I'd be hard-pressed to call it irrational.
And I'm not sure how licensure comes into this. Neither the 1994 FAWB nor the proposal you linked license the possession of "tactical rifles." They ban them with grandfathering. And for what it's worth, I don't think licensure regimes necessarily are irrational.
The AG/SecT has the authority under this proposal to simply classify all of them as assault weapons. Not all firearms, period; there is a technical definition that carves out weapons that can't be, and, again, it's not based on cosmetic features.
I think in the 1980s an outright ban on tactical rifles could have worked. That's the context of the bill. Since then, the black rifle has become a de facto standard platform for hunting and sporting, the market has followed, also somehow a feral hog explosion, and so an outright ban would be very disruptive. My point is that bans aren't the only option, and, in 2020 (but not in the 1980s) the cost of a ban would outweigh the benefit.
I think reasonable people can have all sorts of opinions on what kind of regulations there should be around firearms, and my confidence in my own beliefs is not all that high. But I am fairly certain that thought-stopping appeals to the definitions in the FAWB (or, for that matter, to the Sturmgewehr) don't make good arguments, and can be quickly disposed of.
>The original FAWB proposals targeted all semi-automatic rifles with detachable clips.
OK, I agree with you that such a proposal makes sense conceptually. (But I would still oppose it on the grounds that it offends the Second Amendment.) My complaint about conceptual incoherence is limited to bans that focus on things like pistol grips.
>The original FAWB proposals targeted all semi-automatic rifles with detachable clips
Yet that was not the definition used in the law.
The original FAWB (for rifles) itself defined an assault weapon as a semi-auto rifle with 2 of
- folding or telescoping stock
- pistol grip
- bayonet mount
- flash hider
- grenade launcher.
This was such a ridiculous list, with about zero to do with lethality, that it was trivial to work around. No one was killing people with grenade launchers or bayonets, for example.
Targeting only detachable clips only leads to fast loaders like those used for 6-shooters, i.e., it's not much of a deterrent to quickly reloading weapons.
In practice and history, these bans seem more based on scary looking features than empirical lethality.
"The law" was the result of intensive lobbying by groups like the NRA and represents a capitulation from the original position of gun reformers. I don't accept that we're bound by the definitions in that law when we're discussing potential new policy. In fact, rejecting that definition of "assault weapon" is the point of my comment.
> I don't accept that we're bound by the definitions in that law when we're discussing potential new policy
Here's a recent Assault Weapons Ban by Diane Feinstein, 2020, not the result of political lobbying.
It takes your statement to heart. Do you see any holes in this one being effective? I do.
>the result of intensive lobbying by groups like the NRA and represents a capitulation from the original position of gun reformers
Every bill will be the result of lobbying and ideas from competing groups, and will result in compromise. That's not such a bad thing. Not every American wants either extreme that political parties can concoct.
I’m not denying there’s a rational reason for an assault weapons ban, apart from a ban on handguns. (I might even support it, for the reasons you mention, if I didn’t believe that assault weapons—arms you could use in a militia capacity if necessary—are actually more protected under the second amendment than self-defense weapons like handguns).
But insofar as gun control advocates cite “gun violence” as a problem to be solved, lumping together both homicides and suicides, well handguns are the thing driving that and support for banning those, like in the UK or some other countries, is at historic lows.
Well, you disagree with Scalia in Heller then, who drew a sharp distinction between military weapons and arms carried for self defense, over like 8 paragraphs, and concludes with a distinction between the kinds of weapons civilians carry and the kind soldiers carry, the latter not necessarily being protected.
I agree that we're not likely to get a handgun ban any time in the next 50 years.
Yes, I do. Second amendment scholarship has changed a lot over the past few decades. It was in the past much more hospitable to gun control than today. Scalia is a product of that. Scalia was also, presumably, trying to build the 5-4 part of the majority. And in any event, the case itself was directed to a self-defense context. But post-Heller scholarship has acknowledged that the case didn’t go as far as it could have.
> The premise that private arms would be used for self-defense accords with Blackstone's observation, which had influenced thinking in the American colonies, that the people's right to arms was auxiliary to the natural right of self-preservation. See WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, 1 COMMENTARIES 136, 139; see also Silveira, 328 F.3d at 583-85 (Kleinfeld, J.); Kasler v. Lockyer, 23 Cal. 4th 472, 97 Cal. Rptr. 2d 334, 2 P.3d 581, 602 (2000) (Brown, J., concurring). The right of self-preservation, in turn, was understood as the right to defend oneself against attacks by lawless individuals, or, if absolutely necessary, to resist and throw off a tyrannical government.
Scalia wrote certain things in dicta in Heller in order to get Justice Kennedy's vote, in a very narrow ruling in a case specifically about handguns.
I wouldn't read much into that on the constitutionality of "military weapon" bans -- keeping in mind of course that the things gun control advocates like to call "assault weapons" aren't actually military weapons at all, as manufacture of actual military weapons for civilian ownership has been heavily restricted since 1968 and absolutely banned since 1986.
I guess my counterargument would be that the modern sporting rifle was designed to be a military weapon. I'd be interested in learning more about the technicalities that designate something as an according-to-Hoyle military weapon, but I'm a little dubious that such a definition will cause me to forget the history of the AR-15.
Well, I suppose there really aren't any technicalities that designate a weapon as "military style" -- it's really a point that doesn't mean anything.
The military has used pump action shotguns similar to what you'd find in a duck blind, they've used Remington 700s (the most common hunting rifle and military sniper rifle), they've used air guns (all the way back to the revolutionary war -- the first semiautomatic rifles were air guns used in the Revolutionary War), they've used Ruger .22 handguns with suppressors on them...
The distinction that was made in 1986 was that anything fully automatic was banned. I think that's pretty silly, as I'm just as effective with a semi-automatic AR-15 as with a fully automatic M4A1. It makes no real difference, most military troops never flip the switch to automatic because the weapon isn't really even designed for it (machine guns need to have spare barrels, an assistant gunner, normally belt fed ammunition, etc -- they're ineffective otherwise). But that's the legal "definition" such as it is.
anyway, kind of all over the place, but the general point is this -- if you look the history of the time in which the 2nd amendment was written, civilians could -- and did -- own ships, cannon, artillery, etc at the time. Who cares about small arms if you can own a ship of the line with cannon? The concept of civilians being restricted in which types of weapons they could own based on whether or not the military could own them would have been considered ridiculous to the founding fathers. "military weapons" are the most effective weapons, if we have the right to own weapons, why would we be restricted to ineffective ones? Conversely, if you're going to ban weapons, why would banning the most effective weapons have any real impact, when a>there are still millions of them in circulation that are never going to come out of circulation, and b> even "ineffective" weapons can be just as effective as those "military style" weapons in a barely trained shooter's hands? I can literally teach someone in fifteen minutes how to be just as effective with a Glock 19 as with an M4A1 inside of a building. Even with 10 round magazines.
See, I strongly agree with you about the near equivalence of an AR-15 and an M4 carbine, and I'm glad to get further confirmation of the reading I've done suggesting that fully automatic rifle fire is highly overrated and rarely used professionally.
To me, that strongly suggests that the AR-15, even though it has become the "modern sporting rifle", is a weapon of war. It's clearly a military weapon (that's its origin and the intent behind its design). The thing that separates it from the weapon we all consider indisputably military, the selective fire M16, is a trivial amount of metal and additional machining --- and that tiny bit of extra stuff is rarely needed in the field anyways. My claim: the fact that Adolf Hitler chose to describe a rifle with a couple extra pieces of metal in the trigger assembly as a "bad-ass rifle" (my translation) has assumed an outsize role in our policy.
I think a rational target for our firearms policy should be all semi-automatic rifles with detachable (or high-capacity) magazines. Doesn't mean we should ban them or even seek to reduce the number of them in commerce today, just that those are the weapons I think we should be talking about.
All small arms are "weapons of war". Clubs and sticks are "weapons of war" in certain societies, and people kill other people with them all over the world. In some places they do so quite effectively.
That's really the fact of it.
The UK and Japan have banned pocket knives. I couldn't legally possess a Leatherman the entire six years I spent in Japan. We had metal detectors at the brow of the ships to ensure no one LEFT the ships with their every day tools they carried to do their jobs, because they would be arrested and thrown in a hole for carrying them off the ship (yes, this literally happened. 10+ days in a Japanese hole waiting on a charging decision for a junior LT on a ship there because he had a pocket knife in his backpack). The UK is now attempting to ban clubs. The logical extension of this "ban weapons of war" desire is to literally ban sticks. Everything has to be banned in order to have a perfectly "safe" society. But then people will kill each other with their fists. It's the human condition, unfortunately, and attempting to address a meatspace problem with technology bans has never proven to be effective in all of history.
Targeting semi automatic rifles with detachable or "high capacity" (another meaningless term) magazines, isn't a useful thing to do. It doesn't make any difference, won't make any difference, and can't make any difference. They were banned from 1994-2004, and that led to literally almost fifteen years of destruction of that political party and made those banned weapons the most popular weapon that has ever been designed. Again -- it's the human condition.
The reason gun rights advocates are so set against this is that every time there's a "discussion" it's designed to make something we own illegal. We can talk about it all day, but that at the end is always the goal of gun control advocates. They don't want to talk, they want to make us criminals.
I don't think the facts bear that timeline out, but I'm certain we're just talking about different things. From the top of the thread: my concern is about mass casualty shooting events, particularly the kind in which the shooter can stand off first-responder police forces (or, in the most horrible cases, get a clear line of fire on a crowd of people from a fortified position).
I don't think an assault weapons ban is going to do anything about routine gun crime. But it doesn't have to. (I also think "bans" are dumb).
Which timeline? 1994-2004? They banned a bunch of scary looking guns to save the children for ten years. It wasn't successful. That was my entire point with that -- if I got a detail wrong I'm happy to be corrected.
The mass casualty shooting events aren't going to be affected by the technology solution. In Japan just a couple of years ago a guy walked into a home for disabled people with a sword and killed ten or so of them as I recall. Swords are banned in Japan, along with knives and guns.
In the Tokyo subway not too long ago a death cult released a bunch of poison gas and killed a bunch of people. Again, guns, swords, knives are all banned. We're not talking only certain types of guns are banned, Japan doesn't fuck around -- they banned EVERYTHING. Even pocket knives. Didn't stop people who wanted to kill people from killing people.
Columbine -- they messed up their explosives (fortunately!), but that was the plan on how they were going to hold off first responders and kill a bunch more people. Same thing in the Atlanta bombing as I recall. Information is out there, it's not hard. You can buy the ingredients to make common explosives at Walmart. You can kill a lot of people with a Remington 700 if you want to.
Another AWB (or regulation, or talking about it) isn't going to affect crime in any way. If we want to fix the problem in the US, we ought to be looking at what happened to cause people to think that murdering people was ok. Pieces of metal didn't do that, something went wrong in our culture that did that.
BTW sorry this is like a day after the conversation, every time I type more than two replies in a thread I get rate limited and can't post anymore. This site drives me nuts.
I agree that the original FAWB was performative and ineffective.
But it happened that way because interest groups lobbied the original proposals, which were far more coherent, down to an ineffective, face-saving stump. I don't accept the FAWB as a serious reference point in gun policy; it isn't. The right discussion to have is about regulating all detachable-magazine semi-automatic long guns.
I'm not sure where Aum Shinrikyu gets you in a discussion like this, because I'm confident our polity agrees roundly that random people can't possess Sarin.
You can kill a lot of people with all sorts of weapons. But tactical rifles and Sarin gas are examples of weapons that allow ordinary people to kill outsized numbers of victims while standing off first responders that would otherwise be able to cut spree killings short, and those kinds of killings would be the target of a new assault weapon ban.
The point is that you can ban things all day long, and it doesn't actually have any effect on the people who are going to break the law. It affects me, because I strictly follow the laws even though I believe they both violate the Constitution and my natural rights, because a society where laws are ignored is a society that cannot function -- but I digress and that's another discussion.
Someone who is going to commit mass murder isn't going to sit down and think "well, they made my favorite weapon illegal, so I guess I just can't do it anymore". It simply doesn't work that way -- it's not difficult at all to find a way, just like the tokyo death cult and just like the dude who chopped up a nursing home with a samurai sword in a country where possession of both is illegal, and just like people regularly murder each other with knives and baseball bats in the UK.
BTW, I try never to say the names of any of these people who commit mass murder. I really think a HUGE part of why people do this is because they want the attention the media gives mass murderers, and I think their names should be shut out of the history books.
The crime bill was slightly reduced in impact from the overall ban the left wanted, but it banned possession and manufacture of any semiautomatic weapon that had a scary feature and limited magazine capacity to ten rounds as I recall.
There's no data that even suggests it had any effect nor would have the overall ban they wanted. The only people who follow the law are by definition law abiding people. I don't think it's likely that there's some subset of people out there who just accidentally pick up an AR-15 because it happens to be around and go commit mass murder. We're not talking about crimes of passion here, we're talking about sociopaths who are generally above average IQ, quite capable of getting their hands on anything they want to get their hands on, whether it's legal or not. A person willing to murder a school isn't going to be stopped by some minor difficulty in obtaining the exact brand of weapon they want.
Another point - manufacturing fully automatic weapons is a remarkably easy task. There are people who have made a functional AK-47 out of a shovel. The Sten gun plans have been publicly available for 50+ years, and that's one of the simplest weapons there is to build. Banning an AR-15 doesn't make hundreds of years of knowledge in machining vanish. You don't even need a mill to make a Sten, but if you have a mill that costs a couple of thousand dollars you can pretty much make any weapon you want in your garage. Spend a few more dollars and you can just plug a thumb drive into the CNC controller and push a button and have a computer make it for you, very little skill required.
A gun ban would likely be just as effective as the cannabis ban has been. It would put thousands of law abiding citizens in jail for a made up crime, and it would probably accomplish exactly nothing in terms of public safety. And it would be mostly ignored by the citizenry. There are 300+ million black rifles in the hands of the public, how do you propose to take them away?
There's another issue, most of this gun ban talk comes from people who live in cities, and really don't understand why semi automatic rifles exist. If you've never needed to hunt coyotes that were destroying livestock or kill varmints that are digging up your pasture and destroying livestock, or defend your life in a situation where the nearest county sheriff is a hundred miles away and you probably can't even reach him by radio until the end of the day if you're lucky (there are some really nasty people that live on the fringes of society where there's nobody to bother them too much), you can't really appreciate why it pisses us off to hear city folk talking about how they need to take our guns away because they're scary and because criminals exist. There will always be criminals. If you made all guns vanish today, they'd use bombs. If you made all bombs vanish today, they'll just use swords. When you're banning sticks like the UK one has to wonder where the ridiculousness ends. VA is literally trying to ban pieces of metal that look like they could be turned into a gun right now.
You can search "ranch rifle author:tptacek" if you want to get a sense of my patience level with these mic-drop appeals to wooden-stock coyote hunting rifles.
As I've said repeatedly, and you don't seem to be acknowledging: the original gun control proposals were far more ambitious than what they got whittled down to. The original proposal, as I've said, was semi-automatic rifles writ large. Appeals to the performative "crime bill" restrictions are not interesting.
I'm also losing patience with the arguments about "bans". I don't think bans are a good idea either, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop demanding that I defend them.
that search comes back with nothing. Anyway, if the desire is to ban semiautomatic detachable magazine rifles, that's what is being banned. And most people don't even understand that, the proponents of the last AWB didn't.
>and those kinds of killings would be the target of a new assault weapon ban.
Maybe you slipped there? You're right, the original desire, and the always desire, from the left, is to ban everything. Not even just semi-autos, they want to go to the UK/Japan model where everything is banned. That's the desire. If you want something else, it's going to be step 1 in the incremental ban of everything. That's always how it is. It's an article of faith with the left that guns are bad and only bad people want guns.
We need to ban guns (maybe "some" guns that are scary enough or you or somebody has determined I shouldn't be able to own) for the children because guns kill people. That's the argument you are making, even if you couch it in other terms. If you're not, what argument are you actually making?
It's pretty much banning firearms unless you're rich. The training requirement alone would cost thousands of dollars, the licensing requirement costs 800 bucks a year, and it has an outright ban on magazines.
So, if we apply the same standard to voting or publication...
Specifically, California requires any handgun sold new in California (with exceptions for law enforcement) to be on a "safe handgun roster" maintained by the state. A handgun must meet certain standards to be placed on this roster. That started out with safety testing, like the requirement that a handgun not fire when dropped, but was later expanded to require features like an indicator that there's a bullet in the chamber.
In 2008, the law was amended to require that semi-automatic handguns stamp identifying marks on shell casings in certain ways that researchers later determined to be more or less impossible. This provision of the law, however, was not to go into effect until the Attorney General of California certified that the technology was commercially available. In 2013, Kamala Harris falsely made that certification and no new model handguns have been added to the roster since. As manufacturers improve their designs, older versions have gone out of production. As a result, the roster has shrunk significantly since.
I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a handgun ban. I think Glock, for example, is perfectly happy to continue to manufacture their Gen3 models as long as the California market exists. But it does lead to a situation where the selection for enthusiasts is extremely limited and will become even more so over time.
All new commonly available handguns introduced since 2013 are completely banned from sale in California, including all of the safest and most popular handguns in the country.
A recent bill passed, requiring that for every new gun added to the roster, 3 must be removed.
You can carry an AR-15 for self defense in your truck. The question is do you require the ballistics of an AR-15's .223 round over a 9x19? In many cases yes, if your intent is to neutralise a threat, then the .223 is a vastly superior round to a 9x19. An ar-15 is more accurate than any pistol, so you will have no misses or at least not as many. And you need fewer bullets to achieve your goal.
There is only one major distinction between military weapons and civilian self-defense weapons. For self defense, you have a clear target and you take a few shots. In the military, you provide a base of fire and often don't see what you shoot at. Everything else is commentary.
You shoot where and how you are commanded to, it is not your job to think about the rules of engagement when you are given clear orders to, for instance, fire bursts ar a bunch of rocks someone's hiding behind. The average civilian involved in a shooting bears more responsiblity and is scrutinized much heavier than any policeman and certainly any military personnel.
I have no active military experience but I have been trained in small arms and tactics. There is sufficient video evidence of US troops shooting to suppress an enemy when given an order to do so. I'm not rejecting RoE but I am referencing such scenarios.
Ironic coming from someone who has never carried a weapon.
A Soldier is responsible for every round they fire. Yes, suppressive fire is a thing, and it has nothing to do with what you're talking about.
You don't randomly "suppressive fire" on things you can't identify.
You don't randomly shoot at things someone "orders" you to shoot.
You don't get to say "oh but LT dumbfuck told me to shoot that civilian" when you shoot a non combatant. In fact, by law you MUST refuse that order as it violates the LOAC. Go google that because I know you don't know what it means.
You are responsible for every round you fire. There are plenty of former Soldiers in prison for not believing that.
>you believe that Soldiers on the battlefield run around randomly shooting wherever and whatever they want.
That's ludicrous and exactly what I'm pointing out as strawman. I will not repeat myself. I especially did not mention soldiers are not responsible for their rounds.
No, it's exactly what you said. I didn't make up any straw man, you believe that Soldiers on the battlefield run around randomly shooting wherever and whatever they want.
It simply isn't true. As a Soldier, you are responsible for every round you fire.
The military is pretty good at managing context. Currently no one is really deployed in a traditional combat sense and rules of engagement are very strict and each shot would be evaluated. if The U.S. were to invade Canada or vice versa the rules would obviously change.
I think it's one of those "schrodinger's stats" where if you're using it to convince someone that america has an alarming number of mass shootings it is conveniently valid, but if you're using it to convince someone that rifles may not be the culprit it is conveniently invalid.
We should be able to agree here, at least, that commonly cited counts of Parkland-style mass shootings are overstated, and that the prevalence of tactical rifles in those kinds of mass shootings are not.
Of the 28 mass shootings of 10 or more victims in the last 50 years, 14 of them list the use of a semi automatic rifle or carbine, so while I agree that changes the numbers a bit, I don't think 50% is as conclusive as you're letting on.
This is from wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt if you'd like.
The percentage goes up if you select more recent shootings (say, since 2000, inconveniently leaving Columbine behind), which makes sense, because semi-automatic rifles have become more prevalent since then. And 20 years is still a plenty long time ago.
The guy posted some statistics on handguns and you asked him not to mislead people. The facts are very clear that shooting 4 dudes in your apartment is considered a mass shooting. Such is the law in this case. People who think mass shootings are sensational breaking-news events like a mad teenager shooting at innocent people, have been led to believe so. It is simply not the case, I'm afraid.
Starting in the 1980s anti-gun groups pivoted from trying to ban handguns to a top-down approach. Start with bans on big scary weapons AKA "assault weapons", which aren't as common, then move on to handgun bans. Ironically, their push to ban "assault weapons" has only made them more popular with the general public.
I’m actually convinced that most ‘anti-gun’ groups don’t care about banning guns so much as making political hay over the general issue. If they were serious, the “solution” to the “assault weapon problem” is a semi-automatic firearms ban. It’s not realistic, but it is the maximalist position (and only effective way to remove guns of that capability from common possession).
It's always a "fallacy" because the fallacy points out that the "next step" is not an inevitable consequence of the step it's arguing against. An assault weapons ban, to follow this example, will not magically manifest a handgun ban by its very existence, and it is entirely plausible that a handgun ban will still face tremendous resistance.
That the "next step" can be someone's eventual goal or desire is irrelevant to the "fallacy" part.
> Not only not every, but in fact “slippery slope” rarely is a fallacy.
Personally, I think a ratchet is a better analogy. While it's theoretically possible to stop at any point, realistically each click is just one partial step towards a complete goal, and it's harder to go back than go forward.
Not really. Texas is about to become a 2A sanctuary, Utah, Iowa, Texas, Tennessee, Florida are close to passing constitutional carry. Kansas wants to expand concealed carry to 18-20 year olds. Gun sales are at record highs, etc etc.
The numbers suggest that a minority of gun owners are buying more and more guns, not that we are seeing more and more gun owners as a percentage — just gun hoarding.
Not according to industry surveys such as data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) which reported that 40% of new guns sold in 2020 went to first time buyers, a total of 5 million new gun owners.
There's also reason to believe that in an increasingly anti-gun climate, gun owners are lying on traditional gun ownership surveys. On these studies, there's always a significant portion of respondents who refuse to answer the question. I think these are silent gun owners. When democrats like Beto are calling for gun confiscation, would you want to make yourself known as a gun owner?
I realize this is anecdata, but I can confirm that my wife has personally lied on a survey about gun ownership. I've never been part of a survey that asked, but would definitely lie if I was.
Um, that statistic you just quoted says that the majority of new guns sold were to existing gun owners, so it's perfectly consistent with the thesis you are using it to contradict (and that's even before considering how many of those first-time buyers aren't first-time owners, but people raised in gun-owning families making their first independent purchase.)
The long term trend in gun ownership (both individually and by households) has been down for a long time (different data sources have different exact numbers, but the trend is consistent across them.)
The increase over time in guns per capita is the smaller share of gun owning households getting more guns each: more women in those households getting guns, more guns per adult owner, and kids in gun families getting real firearms younger.
It doesn't matter if 40% of new sales went to new gun owners or 4%. If people who were not gun owners are buying guns, then the % of people who owns guns is increased.
>The long term trend in gun ownership (both individually and by households) has been down for a long time (different data sources have different exact numbers, but the trend is consistent across them.)
Or, the number of people willing to admit owning a gun has been on the decline in a gun-hostile climate.
> If people who were not gun owners are buying guns, then the % of people who owns guns is increased.
That's not true. Because people who own guns can stop being gun owners, too, both through giving up gun ownership—volintarily or not—and death. There's always some share of gun purchases that go to new gun owners, but the trend in gun ownership for at least 50 years has been:
1. Smaller number of households with guns.
2. Smaller number of individual adults with guns (though not by as much as #1, as the average number of adult gun owners per gun owning household has gone up.)
3. Larger number of guns per gun owning household.
4. Larger number of guns per gun owner (though not by as much as #3, for pretty similar reasons as the relationship between #2 and #1.)
Gun ownership is becoming a narrower subculture, and within families within that subculture gun ownership is becoming more universal, and to involve more guns per owner. Guns have become the “bling” of a shrinking subculture.
> Gun ownership is becoming a narrower subculture, and within families within that subculture gun ownership is becoming more universal.
Completely false:
‘There are 5 million new gun owners, and many are minorities, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The group said that its surveys of gun stores found that 58% of the firearm purchases were by black men and women, “the largest increase of any demographic group.”
What’s more, said the group, “women comprised 40% of first-time gun purchasers.”’
Even if there were 5 million net new gun owners (which your source doesn't even begin to indicate), that would be less than +2% of the adult population, which would be within the year-to-year noise in any of the data series on gun ownership. It wouldn't cast even the slightest bit of doubt on the long term trend, which is clear in every long term data series on the issue.
And, of course, 5 million first time gun buyers aren't the same as 5 million new gun owners, much less 5 million net new gun owners, (that is, after accounting for gun owners who died or—voluntarily or not—stopped owning guns; and the died part is more significant than you might think, as gun ownership is significantly lower in the sub-50 age cohorts than the 50-64 and 65+ cohorts; just by naive estimation considering only age, deaths in the 50+ cohort alone would reduce the count of gun owners by something like 1.3 million, and in all age categories by about 1.4 million)
Thar counting new buyers isn't the same as counting net change in gun owners is a serious critique. That people, including gun owners, do in fact die is a major part of that.
I'm quite up front that I wasn't proposing that the calculation was more than a very simplistic estimate of the number that assumes gun owners don't have substantially different mortality risk than other people of the same age, but the number wasn’t the important part of the critique, the fact that the argument about increase in gun owners completely ignores all sources of reduction—deaths, people voluntarily stopping being gun owners, people involuntarily stopping being gun owners was the critique.
Also the fact that even if the 5 million was net new gun owners, it wouldn't actually mean much in the overall trend.
1. The increase in new gun owners is a change of direction.
2. The fact that most of the new gun owners are in previously unrepresented groups shows this. I.e. it can’t be just noise.
3. If you are claiming it is an artifact caused by neglecting deaths or people becoming non-gun owners, you need a real analysis, otherwise you are just introducing unsubstantiated FUD about the methodology. Like I said, and you have essentially agreed - not a serious critique.
4. How do you know that if there are 5 million net new gun owners it is not part of a change in the trend? That is a naked assertion that evaluates to simply ignoring the data that would indicate a change.
I will share the anecdote that I know people who work at shooting ranges, and they say that they have been completely innudated with new shooters.
That simply wouldn’t be the case if it were just an artifact of the numbers.
It’s worth pointing out that if there is any correctness to the idea that the mass of gun owners trends older and so are dying and the trend is towards new gun owners trending younger, then the upward trend would be stronger than the numbers show and would be masked rather than negated.
No, because the data can’t address how many gun owners gave up their guns (willingly or not) in the time period. Or how many gun owners died for that matter.
If first-time buyers made up 40% of sales, a net increase in gun ownership is likely. If it’s much lower, maybe not.
Im just saying that they are automatically being included as pro gun whereas the measurement should be individual gun ownership. Not the household stat which is obviously used to make it look more impressive.
And remember it's not binary, a lot of people are indifferent and many want more gun restrictions and some want less
Back to my original point is the average american does not own a gun
Not really - if people own guns for home defense, then it’s reasonable not to buy one for each person in a household, and yet those people are still part of a gun owning group that happens not to need one each.
I presume each family member in such a household doesn’t each own their own vacuum cleaner or stove, either.
It’s not reasonable to count all these people as ‘gun owners’ in their own right, but it’s also not reasonable to pretend it’s binary.
That is true, less than a third. That is a pretty large minority as minorities go. And almost half 48% live in a house with a firearm. 72% have fired one. It isn't an unusual aspect of life in the US by any definition.
Like every other state, there is a stark divide in the culture and politics of the major metropolitan areas and everywhere else. San Francisco vs parts of rural Northern California are an even starker example of that than what you would see between Austin or San Antonio and rural Texas.
As a non-American, I feel that, from whatever I've read, the NRA is finding itself increasingly diminished due to poor leadership that was/is lining its pockets and being a poor steward of their core objectives.
> Restricting access to guns is popular in this country.
This is a very misleading statement.
The only thing that is popular is keeping guns out of the hands of criminals - which has support across the board.
That translates into general support for background checks.
Almost no specific proposals other than improving background checks have broad support, and support goes down as more detail is provided.
It is not true to say that there is some kind of general support for restricting gun ownership amongst anyone other than already convicted criminals (who don’t generally buy guns from stores anyway).
Restricting gun access is less and less popular, and gun ownership is rising rapidly across demographics that were traditionally opposed to gun ownership - e.g. women and black women in particular.
The NRA is simply a corrupt organization, and even within the pro-gun community has been under criticism for years.
It occurs to me that restricting access to guns is popular in a lot of countries. In a bigger perspective, I'm not sure that the US is unusual in this regard.
The advances in gun control have almost exclusively been through highly-funded ballot measures. Ballot measure outcomes can generally be predicted when one side has an outsized ad campaign. Look at the funding disparity where gun control measures have passed. And this doesn’t apply solely to gun control but really any target. Buying any legislative change through the ballot measure process works pretty well.
> Restricting access to guns is popular in this country.
I think this is a problem with or feature of our democracy. If eighty percent of the voters want gun control but only half of them show up (forty percent) and vote for one of four different candidates but twenty percent of the population makes it their single issue and votes reliably for the same candidate, the candidate wins in first past the post.
Be suspicious when you’re told 80% of the country agrees on any policy position. 80% of the people also probably want society to have less offensive speech, but does that translate to 80% of the people wanting to abridge freedom of speech (particularly theirs)? Probably not. Effective policy, especially when abridging rights, is a very nuanced discussion that most people don’t have the patience or interest to discuss, but everyone has sentiment. “If wishes were fishes, nobody would go hungry.”
Similarly, you'll see crazy high numbers in support of things like universal background checks, but as soon as you ask questions like "Do you believe a background check should be required to loan your roommate your gun to take to the range/loan your nextdoor neighbor a gun when her ex finds out where she lives/etc." the percentages plummet.
This is a common rhetorical technique in politics.
There are a lot of policies that sound good at first glance but are basically useless or harmful on closer inspection.
For example, there are two categories that dominate firearms deaths in the US. The first is gang violence; in this case background checks would have no real effect because gangs have the means to acquire firearms outside of legal channels. The second is suicides; in this case background checks do very little because the purchaser would generally pass the background check.
So you have a policy that sounds good, but doesn't make a real dent in the problem and costs a lot in fees and inconvenience on innocent people.
But it polls well so it's a rhetorically effective attack, because the opponents who have actually done the cost benefit analysis have to register their opposition to a "popular" proposal.
> "For example, the large majority of firearms deaths fall into one of two categories. The first is gang violence..."
that's incorrect. accidental shootings and suicide are major categories, while intentional homicides, of which "gang violence" is a subset, is pretty low on the list.
> that's incorrect. accidental shootings and suicide are major categories, while intentional homicides, of which "gang violence" is a subset, is pretty low on the list.
So you're saying that it is correct, because the combination of the two categories constitute the large majority of firearms deaths.
Suicides by themselves are the large majority of firearms deaths, granted. And accidental deaths would generally fall under the same "the purchaser would have passed the background check" issue.
The point was that people would expect the policy to make a difference in homicides. But the large category of homicides where background checks would be expected to be useful, i.e. career criminals, are the place where they don't happen, because career criminals are members of criminal organizations that can provide access outside of legal channels.
to clarify, yes, you're right that background checks are largely useless at reducing firearm deaths, but no, intentional homicides are not a major category of firearm death, and to worry about "career criminals" is a non-sequitur.
your (as in anyone's) chances of successfully defending your property and friends/family from a "career criminal" using a gun is basically zero, both because it's exceedingly rare to encounter such situations and because it's even rarer to have the necessary skill (i.e., intense training and practice) and the necessary presence of mind to mount such a successful defense, so that doesn't matter to the argument at all. it's generally a bugaboo brought up to generate irrational fear.
edit: i should add that while reducing homicides is often used as a justification for background checks, it's a poor policy because it doesn't achieve that aim, as you point out. to have much impact, we need to focus on accidental shootings and suicides principally.
I'm pretty sure that gun suicides outnumber gun homicides by ~2:1, and gun homicides outnumber accidents by ~30:1. Estimates for accidents are in the 500/year range, while homicides are closer to 15,000/year.
my apologies, i was confusing/misremembering mass shooting deaths, which are tiny, with gang/homicide gun deaths. indeed, refreshing myself on the stats indicates that homicides are about 1/3 of (american) gun deaths and suicides are ~2/3, while unintentional deaths are estimated at 1-7% (depending on year).
with that said, most people who own guns are still very unlikely to encounter gang violence (because most people with guns are not in a gang), and even less likely to defend themselves successfully with a gun when encountering gun violence of any sort. guns escalate injury and death rather than having a preventative effect. we really should stop glorifying guns as a culture (particularly for self-defense) and soberly understand them as the specialized and limited tools that they are.
Most people (gun owners or not) are unlikely to encounter gang-related violence, that’s true. Another side of that stat is that most criminal violence using guns is confined to a chronically small percentage of zip codes, many (most?) of which already fall under some of the strictest gun regulation in the country.
The fact is, 95-8% of this country is a really, really safe place to live statistically. You’re as likely to be in a mass shooting as you are to get struck by lightening. You are far, far more likely to die from a drunk driver. With that said, I can point to more than a few mass shooting incidents where a law abiding gun owner put a stop to it. You are unlikely to be in such an event, and you are even less likely to be the guy that stands up to it, but it happens and it has saved the day for many people.
So people are unlikely to defend themselves with a gun like people are unlikely to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher. Doesn’t negate their value. Given a choice, I’d rather have a means to protect myself against stronger and/or more numerous assailants, especially if at risk. Guns are a force leveler. Without them, it’s simply bigger person (often a man) wins. You might be surprised how frequent defensive gun use actually is. There is a bit of data emerging on this, but it’s damn difficult to tally the way dead bodies are counted (often there are no bodies, often nothing gets reported. DGU does not necessitate somebody getting shot).
Agree that we need to stop glorifying violence (not just guns). I’d be rich if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard some actor spout off about “gun violence” and then go make money on a film in which he heroically breaks all kinds of laws running around with guns blazing. We also need to stop sensationalizing it when it does happen. I saw some stat that over half of people surveyed in US were worried they’d be in a mass shooting. I chalk that up to a news industry focused on keeping us all afraid of something, all the time.
What constitutes gun safety in my book is education. It’s no different than the logic behind sex ed, and what I see the gun control groups advocating is abstinence. In a country whose origin story revolves around guns, whose resistance in the Jim Crow South frequently depended upon guns, it’s understandable that guns are part of our culture. If people are as likely to encounter guns as they are in this country, knowing how to use them safely seems a better approach than political groups preaching fear and movies being the only source of (bad) information.
yes, the risks here are tricky to think about, which is why conversations like this are more fruitful than partisan or ideologically-driven ones.
while guns are force levers, they're not really 'levelers', as differences of skill and perception still abound, to more serious consequence. what they definitely are, are risk multipliers. it's unclear that they are effective deterrents (that is, reduces the overall risk of a situation) in the various cases commonly believed, because those situations are rare (how rare is debatable), and, as you point out, the research is difficult (hard to prove a negative).
also, force escalation as represented by (offensive or defensive) gun proliferation is generally anti-social. hypocritical hollywood (and other media) certainly add fuel to that fire needlessly. whereas guns for hunting, farming, sport (which in many cases is basically advanced training), and even anti-oppression (from tyrannical government) are not generally anti-social. as such, i generally support the latter but not the former.
Gun stores cannot keep inventory on their shelves. In 2020 America gained five million new gun owners. Restrictions have done nothing to curb demand. History tells us gun demand is proportional to threats of new restrictions...so oddly enough if you wanted to reduce demand, you would be better off reducing restrictions
Over 4.3 million guns were sold in January 2021. We are on track for another record year. Hard to tell how many were from people exempt from background checks, likely a few hundred thousand more.
You look, for example, at ballot measures in Washington state that are about tougher gun laws and they pass by the majority of voters.
Restricting access to guns is popular in this country. I am not surprised that the NRA is finding itself increasingly diminished.