<p>Ah, no doubt - but the rate of fire for a full-auto AR-15 (legal to own) is higher than the SAW (around 800/min IIRC).</p>
<p>
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<p>See, I don’t see this. I have several guns. The public is no worse off for that fact, I can guarantee you, because I don’t use them to harm others. Whether they are semi- or full-auto makes no difference, nor does whether they fire a .22, .223 or .50 caliber cartridge. If what gives me pleasure is taking a Barrett .50 caliber rifle to the range and blowing up watermelons at 1000 yards, why should I be prevented from doing so? (I hate to do it, but I have to) If you want to buy a 200 MPH Ferrari for your 2 mile drive to work, no one is going to argue that you should be prevented from doing so just because the potential exists for you to run people down at 200 MPH. </p>
<p>Having the capacity to do something doesn’t mean that you will do it. While I agree that we should keep guns out of the hands of violent or mentally unstable people, the average law-abiding person should be able to own whatever they please.</p>
<p>The problem with your argument is that it ignores the commonality of deaths for guns vs. cars. Cars are much less often lethal than guns. I mean, I could probably take a hammer and go wreak some havoc if I wanted to, but I don’t think that there should be legislation against hammers anytime soon.</p>
<p>Well, maybe the really bad ones that give me blisters, but that’s a different issue.</p>
<p>Seriously though, I think that seeing an object and saying that it’s “just an object” is silly. Just like the state should have the right to regulate hazardous chemicals (I mean, they’re just a “thing,” right?), so should it be allowed to regulate firearms.</p>
<p>But I don’t believe, however, that guns are necessarily the causal factor in crime. Don’t get me wrong. I think, however, that it’s perfectly reasonable for a state to set up limitations on its citizens. Y’know, social contracts and all that Lockean stuff.</p>
<p>What if hammers became the preferred method of killing for criminals? :)</p>
<p>Now I can’t argue that everything should be completely unregulated - I certainly don’t think that guns should be. I agree that some things can certainly be regulated for public safety. Medicine for example - people shouldn’t be able to go to the drugstore and buy themselves some Adenosine - unless you’ve had the proper training (i.e. as a doctor), because such medicine has the potential for great harm even in the most well-meaning hands (adenosine, for example, stops your heart cold), and it takes a great deal of training to use it properly.</p>
<p>On the other hand, many “dangerous chemicals” have a great number of uses even in untrained hands, and the simple potential for harm is not enough to ban their sale. I mean, you can make chlorine gas from chlorine and ammonia and in the wrong hands, you could do great harm with it. Should those useful “hazardous chemicals” be banned? However, I don’t want to start getting into a list everything that can be regulated and not.</p>
<p>But the restrictions on guns should be minimal - you shouldn’t be able to walk in and buy a gun if you are a violent criminal or mentally unstable person or not an adult. But for general law-abiding people (and lets be honest, using a gun properly isn’t rocket science that requires much training), you should be able to buy any small arms you want for any lawful purpose (self-defense, target shooting, hunting, etc.).</p>
<p>Guns do not pose a public safety risk in the hands of law-abiding people. They post a problem in the hands of criminals, who will always be able to get them. This has become painfully obvious in many locales. In most of the US, where any normal citizen can get a license to carry a concealed handgun, blood is not running in the streets because of that fact. On the other hand, in Britain, where all handguns have been banned, handgun crime still exists and is on the rise, yet law-abiding people do not have the same means to fight back.</p>
<p>UCLAri, I think that if the second amendment provides for an individual right to own arms which is independent of any actual militia connection then that must be honored. The essence of a nation of laws is that you obey them while they exist; change them through the legally established procedures if they have ceased to do what we want them to do.</p>
<p>Germany and Switzerland may be significantly less free than the United States. Holocaust denial, as awful a thing as it is, is illegal in both nations. Germany seizes and destroys books, also. Google Germar Rudolph. I think his ideas are abhorrent but sending him to jail only gives him credibility. I can’t speak for Japan but saying that America is more free than Switzerland and Germany is hardly ridiculous.</p>
<p>UCLAri, the state has no interest in prohibiting private ownership of an F22, only the explosives and weapons that go on it. Owning an unarmed F22 instead of a Cessna 182 would be the practical equivalent of owning a Ferrari F40 instead of a Honda Civic. SpaceShipOne is civilian owned and operated, so it’s not an issue of speed or altitude capability, it’s whether the thing has bombs on it.</p>
<p>M16A2 (AR15) cyclic rate of fire - 800 rounds per minute, M249 SAW cyclic rate of fire - 750 rounds per minute. The primary difference between these two weapons is magazine size. 30 rounds vs. 200 rounds. I do not know whether 200 round magazines are expressly illegal but I know of several civilians who own M249s and use 30 round magazines.</p>
<p>P2N - I’m actually a firm law 'n order guy, and a strict constructionist (by my lights) to boot! While we’re holding hands and singing Kumbaya here, I also think that you (and Barrons, despite his clumsy means of expressing himself) are right in that varying rates of violent crime between the US, Japan, England, Switzerland and any other country you might come up with probably have more to do with cultural and demographic factors than with a single variable such as gun laws.</p>
<p>Widespread gun ownership (and you’re right again, the US is flooded with guns) does increase the body count, though, since guns make it easier for more people to inflict more damage with less effort.</p>
<p>What Kluge is saying is right. If you want validation, look at suicide rates. Although gun ownership makes it easier to kill yourself in the US, the per capita suicide rate in Japan is more than twice the US (24.1/100k for Japan, 10.4/100k for US, WHO 2000). Even though gun availability makes it easier for shooting sprees to happen (and to be stopped), there are bigger forces at play. Kumbaya.</p>
Guys like gadgets - it seems to be hardwired. Last night at my poker game the conversation veered from football (verdict: all noted SF Bay area QB’s are lame choke artists; coaches: overrated) to cars - stories of burning engines, comparison of muscle cars, to guns (rifles and shotguns; mostly antique or collectible.) But I am uneasy around guys who display a fascination - frequently bordering on obsession - with the destructive capabilities of various firearms. Particularly when they loudly proclaim that they would never misuse them, but need them for protection from bad guys. Among the guys I personally have known the ones who adopted that attitude the most belligerently were absolutely the last people I personally felt had the maturity, level headedness and good judgment to be trusted with anything more dangerous than a pair of kid’s scissors. Their personal self assessment seemed to be skewed in direct proportion to their fascination with deadly weapons.</p>
<p>For those of you (who I don’t know) who revel in possessing weapons capable of killing lots of people really quickly, how can you be sure that you’re self assurance regarding your own ability to use deadly weapons only at the right time and for the right reason is valid? How can you be sure you’re not just fooling yourself?</p>
<p>I don’t think refusing to be totally politically correct=clumsy. I’m not running for political office and I consider it telling it like it is. There is no need to pussyfoot around facts. Some people can’t handle the truth.</p>
<p>kluge, maybe this is why we disagree about the “adolescent fantasy” or “gun nut” phrasing. The very few people that I know who actually own guns treat them as tools, not toys. They typically own(ed) rifles for hunting, although I know one person who owned a handgun – I don’t know if he still does.</p>
<p>I do think that boys are fascinated by guns, which is the big reason H and I would never have any in our home. When they were very little, I wouldn’t even allow toy guns. But when they made weapons out of legos, I decided that was a lost cause. Instead, I had many conversations about what to do if a friend offered to “show you my dad’s gun” or whatever. I did quiz people about gun ownership for play dates.</p>
<p>Kluge, these children were given strict instructions to not touch the gun. That is why it was so memorable. How often have gun owners told their children to not touch the guns? How many children have we read about shooting themselves or a friend accidentally?</p>
<p>Barron, you followed one of my posts telling someone to buy a dictionary. Dont be offended
if you are called clumsy. If you expect perfection, dont be surprised if it is expected of you.</p>
<p>HOW ABOUT A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION?</p>
<p>1.You are parked in front of your apartment late at night coming home from work. You
dash to your door, realizing it might be dangerous to be out at night. Naturally, one of
those minority criminals steps in front of you, points a gun in your face and demands your
money. You have none. He doesn’t believe you and demands you turn it over. Do you
reach in your pocket, pull out your gun and shoot him? What might be another consequence
of attempting to shoot the criminal?</p>
<p>2.As a human with higher intelligence you attempt to converse and negotiate with the man,
never utilizing a weapon?</p>
<p>No in that situation, you reach into your pocket, open up your cellphone, and push four buttons, 9-1-1-SEND. In that order. THEN you bash them over the head with your briefcase. Or taser him.</p>
<p>Then step inside your apartment and wait for the police.</p>
<p>My son would cover better than you. He’d whip out his current device and Google. That is the skill you need more than dialing 911 when attacked.</p>
<p>It’s not just the ordinance that makes the F-22 something that state should regulate, it’s the avionics. The point is that nobody on this board scoffs at the idea that top secret technologies should be regulated for national security (well, at least I hope not), yet they scoff at the idea that guns should be regulated. There is a VERY legitimate reason for keeping some weapons out of the hands of civilians. For one, the potential for public disorder (think of it as the 2nd amendment equivalent of yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater). </p>
<p>Heck, Icarus openly admitted that certain drugs should be regulated. So why not guns?</p>
<p>My point is this: regulation is present in EVERYTHING. None of us seem to have any problems with 99% of the regulations out there, so why guns? It’s because guns are something that you have a personal interest in. Heck, I bet you that there are at least a few people who would say that we should create an entirely unregulated market for drugs, prescription or otherwise. I find it hard to believe that you’d accept that proposal, so why should firearms be entirely unregulated?</p>
<p>OMG , OMG the liberal tyrants. The same people who pushed through the Civil Rights that those hicks in the god-forsaken South tried to stop for 100 years. The same people who have protected our Const. liberties through the ACLU thousands of times and those same people that are tring protect the rights of minorities and other less empowered parts of society. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.</p>
<p>UCLAARI:
</p>
<pre><code>No, we have these “LIBERTARIANS” that believe the gov’t can regulate anything because than Stalin will rule all over us. At least they are still a deranged minority. It’s all that Friedman’s fault for trying to make libertariansm look “cool” again after it was debunked countless times.
</code></pre>
