dagblog - Comments for "The Gun Hobby"

I saw this as a comment more

erica20 — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:34:34 +0000

I saw this as a comment more rueful and shared with all of us than as a snipe or threat. Hopefully now that DF has had a chance to roll it around mentally, he feels differently as well.

I was reacting to your

anna am — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 01:54:21 +0000

In reply to Watch my back. Nice. There

I was reacting to your comment that we're all waiting for the next one, and meant that in this terrifying situation, you should watch your back. I actually had more in mind that we all should watch our backs -- meaning you and me and all of us who are threatened by this growing danger and thinking of us all as together on the same side -- but since I was responding to you I directed it to you. It never even occurred to me that you'd take it as a threat, and I'm really quite saddened that you do. But believe me, I'm not a subtle person and if I'd wanted to be a creep to you, I would've been way broader than that. I don't snipe. I bray. And I really did mean you should carry a gun if you believe you must.

Watch my back. Nice. There

DF — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 22:11:23 +0000

In reply to See above. And in the

Watch my back. Nice. There was a time when didn't think I'd see this kind of comment on Dagblog.

Does anyone care to defend this comment as anything more than mere emotional sniping bereft of substance?

The point that I am trying to

DF — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 22:08:40 +0000

In reply to I mean that by implication.

The point that I am trying to drive home here is that I think most gun control advocates know what they're implying. The trouble is that, as a matter of law, implication is not enough.

I mean that by implication.

anna am — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:29:40 +0000

In reply to A successful ban would

I mean that by implication. Please pardon me if I'm getting deep enough into ballistics for you. I'm not a gun afficionado.

See above. And in the

anna am — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:26:59 +0000

In reply to This is an inadequate

See above. And in the meantime, watch your back. Or carry a gun if you're so disposed. It's going to take a long time.

A successful ban would

DF — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:26:19 +0000

In reply to Best idea to my mind would be

A successful ban would regulate firepower, not form. Gun control laws that fail to do this will fail to have impact.

Best idea to my mind would be

anna am — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:24:37 +0000

In reply to Thanks, aa. I saw these, and

Best idea to my mind would be to come from the opposite direction. Since it seems well nigh impossible to make a list of weapons and gun accessories that are unacceptable, much less to keep that list up to date as new products get released -- and this is what has historically bedevilled all weapons bans -- the more logical place to start is a list of guns and accessories that are legal, with ongoing requirements for manufacturers to submit new products for review in order to be listed. I suppose there'd be a hue and cry if manufacturer's weren't allowed to submit guns retroactively if they were originally excluded, so wiggle room for petitions would probably have to granted. But it's clear that starting from the other direction hasn't worked and probably will never work effectively enough. This would put the review board in the driver's seat, rather than leave them to constantly play defense.

This is an inadequate

DF — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:24:31 +0000

In reply to Thanks, aa. I saw these, and

This is an inadequate response to mass shootings. In the Columbine massacre, the killers did not use any weapon that was legally defined as an "assault weapon." Instead, they used the Hi-Point 995 carbine, a gun that was designed post-AWB to be legal according to the AWB. So, we've seen this movie before.

Gun control advocates might want to consider banning the phrase "assault weapon." It has no meaningful definition. All weapons are designed for assault. The .357 magnum revolver is not designed to make friends and influence people or even to hunt game. It's designed to drop bodies, full stop.

In military parlance, an assault rifle is a select-fire rifle, typically capable of semi-automatic, burst or fully automatic fire. Fully automatic weapons have been controlled since 1934. New sales have been completed banned since 1986.

This much touted Mother Jones piece illustrates the danger of obfuscating the difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Of the mass shootings they counted over a 30 year period, they counted 35 "assault weapons" used. I went through the worst mass shootings as collected here by the Washington Post. Not one fully automatic weapon was used. There's no way to know this from the Mother Jones piece since they don't bother to define "assault weapon" and use it interchangeably to mean any semi-automatic or automatic weapon that isn't a pistol, even though the AP Stylebook says they should know better.

Far and away, the weapon of choice in mass shootings, as in most homicides, is a semi-automatic pistol.

Banning a particular weapon by make, model and styling is tantamount to banning the Ford Mustang, but not the Camaro or Charger. Mass killers with simply substitute with comparable weapons that have not been banned. We know this because it's happened.

In addition to all this, passing inadequate gun control laws does not necessarily lay the groundwork for passing better laws in the future. This is certainly not in evidence in California, where we've banned "assault weapons" since 1998. These laws are now an abject failure, unable to constrain sales of even the specific makes that the law attempts to ban. CA DOJ had avoided comment on loopholes like the Bullet Button for years, but a court ruled earlier this year that it is legal.

Lawmakers in California are now starting to talk about passing a law to ban the Bullet Button, but AR and AK type rifles are still perfectly legal without it provided that you remove or "disable" the pistol grip - as are all semi-automatic rifles. Products like the Monster Man Grip are designed to make the standard grip legal under California law. People who think this makes the weapon sufficiently less lethal are fooling themselves.

The bottom line to me is that there is a mountain of evidence that "assault weapons" bans have not been in any way affective at curbing mass shootings or generally putting a halt to the proliferation of guns or gun violence. The NYT article linked above notes yet another study that finds no significant impact on overall gun violence by the AWB. The failure of similar bans in California and Connecticut are manifest. Gun control advocates need to wise up and learn from past failures if they actually want to pass a better law.

In the meantime, we're just waiting for the next one.

Thanks, aa. I saw these, and

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:20:25 +0000

In reply to The NYT has an article on

Thanks, aa. I saw these, and was very pleased by the "hobby" headline. Nice to be confirmed.

As for the problems with the early AWB: sure. It had too many loopholes. The next one will have too many loopholes. The best approach is not to wait for the perfect gun bill (which would likely never get passed all at once, anyway), but to pass an imperfect one and then come back to toughen it.