No guns in Chicago = War zone

[JohnRich 4]

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Machine gun - automatic weapon
Assault weapon - select fire (semi-auto or auto, some have a 'burst' mode).
What the press and the liberals CALL an assault weapon - isn't.

Well, those are the technically correct definitions.

(Mike, I know you already know the following stuff, but I'll add it for others.)

But the politicians have created their own definitions outside of the military specifications. To them an "assault weapon" is one that "looks scary". The law they created refers to things like a flash suppressor, folding stock, bayonet lug, or a pistol grip. Note that none of those things have anything to do with how fast it fires or how powerful it is - it's all about cosmetic appearance.

And then there's the news media. To them, any firearm used in a shooting is magically transformed into an "assault rifle", just by calling it so in the story. The more demonization of them, the better, according to them - the truth does not matter.

So, when you talk about "assault weapons", it helps to identify whose definition it is that you're using.

[JohnRich 4]

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So we're not including the two LA bank robbers with AK-47's?

Those were not legal machineguns. Those were acquired illegally, which just goes to show that criminals don't obey laws. The people who are law-abiding and obey laws to own machineguns legally, aren't a problem. That has nothing to do with the presence of the law making them law-abiding, it has to do with the nature of the person.

And passing laws does not turn criminals into the law-abiding. Even if there were no machinegun registration law, these two groups of people, the criminals and law-abiding, would be just the same - the criminals would continue acquiring guns illegally and committing crimes, and the law-abiding would continue to acquire guns legally and not cause any problems. So I think the point was, that passing gun laws doesn't change anything.

[normiss 622]

Fully agreed and understood. As Mike said, I think they weren't fully auto - or at least not legally so anyway.
I completely agree with your comments...but we still are unable to get that across to the Perfesser.

[birdlike 0]

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Properly implementing an existing law that currently is poorly implemented is NOT a new restriction.

No problem - show me where a doctor signs off on the ATF form, then.

Stop being obtuse. You do know the meaning of RESTRICTION.

I think I actually pulled a ban, once, for using almost exactly those words.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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Maybe I misunderstand your position, but are you advocating refraining from restriction on anything until it is used in a crime?

If you want to restrict things that haven't been used in a crime EVER, then where do you start? Barbie Dolls, Legos and chocolate chip cookies?

Or, you could apply your brain and look at the item's potential to be used in a crime.

People have gotten state bans on .50 cal. (I don't agree with them) even though they have not been used in crimes. (I am not aware of a single one, and if there's been one, there's probably been only one.) So clearly, that would be a case of not bothering to address chocolate chip cookies... MMmmmm... cookies... Wait, where was I? Oh, that would be a case of just what I was talking about -- and you appear to be disigenuously trying to duck your own position. You want no restriction on the model rocket engines because they haven't been used in crimes.

That "not yet used in crimes" seems to be your criterion. So when asked about not restricting items until they've been used in crimes, you pointed out that it would be a long list indeed if we went that route. But surely there are things that are currently restricted (like .50 cal.) that are restricted despite not being used in crimes -- just like is reasonable with regard to your toy rocket parts.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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Is putting cop with a radar gun on a street with a 30mph speed limit "adding a new restriction" to the speed at which you may drive? Or is it just enforcing the existing speed limit?

Does a cop with a radar gun negatively affect those who already obey the speed limit? Or just those who disregard the limit?

Having a cop with a radar gun does not require drivers by the thousands to stop and splay their personal medical history out to the cop before they are allowed to proceed on their way.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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So we're not including the two LA bank robbers with AK-47's?

Semi-auto, as I recall.

Besides, if they were full-auto (not sure, myself) they were NOT LEGAL.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[billvon 2,427]

>People have gotten state bans on .50 cal. (I don't agree with them) even though
>they have not been used in crimes. (I am not aware of a single one, and if
>there's been one, there's probably been only one.)

6/2004 - Marvin Heemeyer of Granby, Colorado, built an armored bulldozer, armed it by mounting several weapons on it (including a Barrett .50 cal) and crushed 13 buildings.

2/2004 - Donin Wright of Kansas City, Missouri, lured police officers, paramedics, and firefighters to his home where he shot at them with several guns including a Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle. Fortunately no one was killed.

4/1995 - Albert Petrosky killed Sgt. Timothy Mossbrucker of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department during a shooting rampage at a shopping center. Petrosky fired several weapons during his attacks, including his .50 caliber rifle.

2/1992 - Armored truck was attacked by several men using a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle. Both employees were wounded but survived.

[JohnRich 4]

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>People have gotten state bans on .50 cal. (I don't agree with them) even though
>they have not been used in crimes. (I am not aware of a single one, and if
>there's been one, there's probably been only one.)

6/2004 - Marvin Heemeyer of Granby, Colorado, built an armored bulldozer, armed it by mounting several weapons on it (including a Barrett .50 cal) and crushed 13 buildings.

2/2004 - Donin Wright of Kansas City, Missouri, lured police officers, paramedics, and firefighters to his home where he shot at them with several guns including a Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle. Fortunately no one was killed.

4/1995 - Albert Petrosky killed Sgt. Timothy Mossbrucker of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department during a shooting rampage at a shopping center. Petrosky fired several weapons during his attacks, including his .50 caliber rifle.

2/1992 - Armored truck was attacked by several men using a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle. Both employees were wounded but survived.

You ought to know better than to get biased info from the Violence Policy Center.

Heemeyer had one mounted on his bulldozer, but didn't shoot anyone with it. He also had numerous other firearms with him, and nobody's complaining about those - only the .50 which he never used. And I don't see anyone crying for bulldozer-control regulations, because of his use of a bulldozer in crime.

Wright also had 20 pipe bombs, using, you know, that explosive kind of stuff that kallend wants to acquire without government regulations. We're lucky he didn't use those, or he could've killed far more people.

Petrosky had a 50 caliber rifle, an SKS Chinese semiautomatic rifle, a .32 revolver, and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. He fired all of them in his attack. Yet you single out only the .50. I'm surprised he was even able to carry them all.

So you've listed four incidents, of which the .50 was fired in only three of them. And that's in the entire history of civilian ownership of .50 caliber rifles.

It's a crime wave! Ban .50's!

If you want to ban things because of their frequency of usage in crime, then you should be going after 9mm, .32, etc. - all calibers which are much more common. Oh, and while you're at it: cars.

But speaking of "common", common sense dictates that we shouldn't ban things just because they're popular, or just because a few people are scared of them. We should allow responsible people to own 9mm pistols, .50 caliber rifles, bulldozers and automobiles. And you've expressed that opinion yourself.

So your short list of .50 caliber crimes really means nothing.

Now, why don't you hunt down a list of crimes committed with the kinds of explosives used in rocket motors.

[billvon 2,427]

>Heemeyer had one mounted on his bulldozer, but didn't shoot anyone with it.

Correct. But arming a vehicle with a weapon and using that vehicle to destroy a town is indeed using a gun in a crime. Sort of like walking into a store with a gun and saying "give me all your money." You'd be laughed at if you later claimed it wasn't a gun crime because no one was actually killed.

>Wrght also had 20 pipe bombs . . .

I'm sure he also had some speeding tickets. Should we BAN CARS? (<- figured I'd get that in there so you wouldn't have to.)

>using, you know, explosive stuff that kallend wants to acquire without
>government regulations.

Yep. And if he had threatened to blow anyone up with rocket motors (which, as you know, do not use explosives) then you might have a point.

>So you've listed four incidents, of which the .50 was fired in only three of them.

Four, actually. I was replying to Jeffery who claimed that they are not used in crimes. In fact, they are.

Personally, I think that there's nothing wrong with owning .50cal rifles and handguns (limited though the selection is.) But pretending they are as safe as rocket motors (or that they are as useless to criminals) is absurd, and makes the pro-gun lobby look, well, pretty silly.

[JohnRich 4]

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>Wrght also had 20 pipe bombs . . .
>using, you know, explosive stuff that kallend wants to acquire without
>government regulations.

Yep. And if he had threatened to blow anyone up with rocket motors (which, as you know, do not use explosives) then you might have a point.

The BATF considers them explosives, that's why they require licensing for anything but small amounts. And it doesn't have to be rocket motors themselves - bad guys could buy them as rocket motors, and remove the explosive material to make other things out of it. It's the material in the rocket motors that counts, not just their intended purpose.

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>So you've listed four incidents, of which the .50 was fired in only three of them.

Four, actually. I was replying to Jeffery who claimed that they are not used in crimes. In fact, they are.

Note that I said "fired". The .50 in those cases was only fired in three of the four incidents.

And yes, you have shown that they have been used in 3 or 4 crimes. Like I said, that's statistically insignificant. It in no way proves that their public ownership is a problem, or that more regulation is essential. So your point really proves nothing.

[billvon 2,427]

>And it doesn't have to be rocket motors themselves - bad guys could
>buy them as rocket motors.

Of course they could, just as bad guys could use butter knives to kill thousands (to use one of your favorite example.)

But in reality they do not kill thousands with butter knives. (I am talking reality here - things that have actually happened - rather than the usual silly hypotheticals.) Most people put more importance on what happens in reality vs. in gun advocate's heads.

> Like I said, that's statistically insignificant. It in no way proves that
> their public ownership is a problem, or that more regulation is essential.

Correct. It merely proves that, unlike butter knives or rocket motors, criminals actually (not theoretically, actually) use them to commit crimes - and thus they are far more dangerous in the hands of criminals, both in reality AND in theory. The argument "they have not been used in crimes" is therefore a false one.

>So your point really proves nothing.

Actually reading the thread before replying may help you comprehend what we're talking about.

[JohnRich 4]

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Now, why don't you hunt down a list of crimes committed with the kinds of explosives used in rocket motors.

Oh, by the way, I noticed that you ignored the above question from me. I guess that's because you're only interested in making .50 caliber guns look bad, but not kallend's explosives.

Well, here's some of the results of a little digging I did about the danger involved with this substance:

1) Ten tons of APCP seized due to suspicious circumstances and destroyed:
http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/637/news1.html

2) The PEPCON disaster was an industrial disaster that occurred in Nevada in 1988. The chemical fire and subsequent explosions claimed two lives, injured about 372 people...
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/PEPCON_disaster

3) APCP contaminating drinking water:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/12/BAGEO5J3FE1.DTL

4) Homemade thermite bombs:
http://thenewfreedom.net/censored/unedited%20source%20+%20javascript.html

5) Iran using APCP to fuel its missiles:
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/Missile/1788_1804.html

And you don't think this stuff is dangerous and deserving of government regulation?

[Ron 7]

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So we're not including the two LA bank robbers with AK-47's?

They were not legal weapons. They were illegally converted.

You can't even own a removable magazine in CA...So the semi auto versions of those weapons were also illegal.

Yet the criminals were still able to get them.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Ron 7]

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Does machine gun = automatic weapon? Or are assault rifles also in the "machine gun" category?

I am asking because I honestly don't know.

And a great question.
Some have touched on it and were mostly correct.

Assault Rifle: The Army defines it as, "a short, compact, selective-fire weapon that fires a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges." The real key being "select fire".

Select fire: Means it can be either full auto (or burst) or semi auto. You can 'select' the fire mode.

Assault Weapon: Really it used to be the same thing...However, the definition has been taken over to mean a weapon that looks like an assault rifle, or is based on an assault rifle but is only semi automatic.

The Assault Weapons Ban in 94 was worthless in that it went after weapons that "looked" evil. Some of the features that would get a weapon on the list.

Had to have a detachable magazine AND two or more from the list below:

1. A folding stock. (Not a big deal)
2. Pistol grip. (But the same mechanics with a normal stock was fine)
3. Bayonet mount. (When was the last time you heard a gang banger yell, "Fix bayonet's homies!")
4. A flash suppressor. (Again...Not a big deal.)
5. Can't have a grenade launcher. (Could not have one anyway since it is an NFA item...Worthless.)

So the AWB really did nothing since all it did was outlaw weapons that "looked" dangerous. You could shoot the same caliber, same mechanics in a weapon that looked "traditional" and be fine.

Machine Gun: A weapon that fires more than one round with a single pull of the trigger. It can include full auto that will empty a magazine, or a burst fire that will fire more than one, but has an upper limit. Typically this is a 3 round burst, or three rounds per pull of the trigger.

It should be noted that even parts that can be used to convert a weapon into a machine gun can themselves be classified as a machine gun.

Machine guns are normally referred to as weapons that can fire more than one round AND fire a rifle cartridge like 7.62, or 5.56.

Sub Guns normally fire PISTOL sized rounds like 9mm.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[mnskydiver688 0]

This might have been said before, but the idea of a gun ban seems counterintuitive. If they are criminals doing the shooting do you think they care at all whether owning a gun is legal? A gun ban is for keeping guns out of law abiding citizens hands. I doubt a criminal would go down to the local pawn shop to get a gun, unless he was breaking in and stealing one.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters