Question. If the assault weapons ban is just "cosmetic", then why are NRAers so strongly opposed?

[DanTex]

I'd figure if it only banned "scary-looking" guns, then the gun crowd would just shrug it off. You get to keep all the guns you want, except they have to look less scary. You can argue that it's a pointless law, but the government does pointless things all the time, but none of them cause NRA heads to explode like the assault weapons ban.

Honestly, I agree that some of the "assault features" are clearly cosmetic, like the bayonet lug. Pistol grip and folding stock, not so sure. And high-capacity magazines are definitely not cosmetic.

But for argument's sake, let's assume the whole thing only requires gun manufacturers to make trivial modifications to the appearance of guns. In that case, why doesn't the NRA crowd simply let it get passed, in order to placate the gun control activists?

[gollygee]

1. Honestly

and I'm not a pro-gun person by a long shot.

But I think it's for the same reason that any legislation at all targeting abortion in any way scares me. It's all an effort to make abortion illegal, and I know that, even if it looks like it should on its own be "no big deal." I know what the big picture is.

Abortion is a touchstone issue for me, and for gun people, my guess is that they see the same big picture only about guns.

[aandegoons]

2. The inconsistencies in their arguments are truly stunning.

If the NRA are interested in gun safety why don't they propose some kind of legislation to keep weapons from the murderers?

[Atypical Liberal]

3. Because of incrementalism.

You let the camel put his nose in the tent, the next thing you know you have the whole camel in there.

But the Assault Weapons Ban was purely cosmetic.

It allowed you to choose any 2 of the following features: pistol grip, detachable magazine, threaded muzzle, or bayonet lug.

Most people did not have any use for the threaded muzzle or the bayonet lug, so manufacturers and importers just ground them off and quit putting them on new ones.

Some states, like California, outlawed pistol grips and made it so you had to have a tool to remove the magazines.

This has resulted in bizarre stocks for these weapons that do not change their functionality at all.

It has also resulted in items like the "bullet button" that allow you to remove the magazine using the nose of an unfired bullet as a "tool".

The reason for all this is simple: You cannot ban "assault rifles" without banning all semi-automatic rifles or at least banning detachable magazines, because the ban would affect just about every semi-automatic firearm made in the last 100 years.

Maybe it has come to that. I mean, let's face it, what enables people to do mass shootings like this is the fact that they can carry so many bullets in the gun and reload so quickly.

Maybe we outlaw all guns with detachable magazines and limit internal capacity to 10 rounds.

If the 8-shot, semi-automatic, no-magazine M1 Garand could win WWII, it should be good enough for the armed citizenry to function as a militia.

[Schema Thing]

4. If it's just cosmetic - I'm very opposed. Seems to me that's why it was overturned

in the first place.

and it makes our side look like idiots. In fact, IF it's just cosmetic, our side ARE idiots.


I got my ass handed to me in an argument by a gun-lover on this issue once, so it's personal. It IS silly to ban something over the way it looks. And it IS unreasonable.

Ban high-capacity magazines. Whether they go on a traditional hunting rifle (or even a shotgun) or they go on a military "looking" weapon. Especially ban them from pistols.

Cops get big mags. Civilians get considerably less capacity.


Institute rules on guns manufactured for civilians to slow down firing and (especially) reloading. Even fractions of seconds count and can save lives.

And most importantly - focus on regulating BULLETS. They are right, guns don't kill people. Bullets do.

Make ammo fairly cheap and plentifully available.... at licensed heavily monitored gun ranges where an exacting inventory is kept of each bullet sold- it has to be fired right there on that range. A shell casing for each bullet restocked.

But to all individual civilians, bullets are sold in very limited quantities per person/per year - And only to people who can show proof of civic responsibility.