Guns? Bombs?

[Shemp Howard]

The Orlando massacre generated many gun-related comments here at DU. No surprise there, of course.

And it got me thinking. I personally would favor a ban of all semi-automatic weapons, period. I would keep revolvers, breech-loading long guns, and bolt-action rifles legal. I think a semi-auto ban would pass judicial muster, as the Second Amendment does contain the phrase "well-regulated".

Getting such a ban passed would be very difficult, I know.

But that's not the main topic of my post. Let's suppose for a moment that my proposal became law, and semi-autos became very difficult to obtain. What then would prevent a terrorist from just switching over to homemade bombs? As we saw from the Boston Marathon bombing, such devices can be quite lethal.

Maybe this post is just rambling, as I don't have a solution to the bomb problem.

[ileus]

1. Anything can be a weapon...but here we're willing to give up freedom for nothing.

Myself I'll always be a 2A progressive and I refuse to budge.

If semi-autos were outlawed and bombs picked up the slack, we'd probably decide to blame the gas vehicle the bomb was delivered in. Hell we may continue to blame Christians and try and get the Bible banned.

[Jerry442]

2. Guns are easy. Bombs are hard.

Not impossibly difficult, but not nearly as easy as just buying a gun and shooting into a crowd of people at close range.

[jonno99]

7. Tell that to the Tsarnaev brothers. Sure, it may be "easier" to insert a magizine

and start blasting away - so why didn't the Tsarnaev brother do that?

Answer: it doesn't matter why. The fact is that radicals WILL use whatever tool they can to create a desired affect.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. re: "Bombs are hard"

The Orlando massacre is now the most deadly shooting event in the US outside of actual wars.

Bombings are not uncommon in the US and, should semi-auto firearms become more difficult to obtain, they would likely become more so. Making it such that only those with determination and patience can kill dozens or hundreds is not an answer nor is alienating millions of law abiding citizens.

[Jerry442]

9. "But Hammurabi, what's the point of outlawing evil acts?"

"The bad guys will just keep doing them anyway, or some other bad things."

[Straw Man]

10. Two little Latin phrases.

Malum in se and malum prohibitum. The latter is only justifiable if it is effective.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. The purpose of the law is to be used as a criterion by the due process to determine...

...the guilt of the accused. Attempting to use the law for another purpose will create problems. Some of those problems are tolerable and some are not.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

19. Evil acts are already outlawed. You're trying to outlaw things that scare you.

[jmg257]

3. Semi-auto ban would not pass judicial muster, as the 2nd also contains that whole

bit about militias which identifies its main purpose, and which the USSC has said means that citizens' right to arms related to the efficiency of a well-regulated militia are guaranteed. They have since stretched that to mean "those arms in common use for lawful purposes." Which semi-autos surely are - an entire class of weapons in very common use.

I am actually surprised AW bans even sometime pass muster, as AWs are ideal for militia purposes (barring full-autos).

Anyway, we the people would REALLY want & have to change things concerning the laws of the land, or just about every regulation may/will be challenged; many are found at odds with the 2nd, but it depends what level of scrutiny is used to decide whether they are allowed to stand.



Bombs are definitely something to be concerned about. The US is on the front line just like every other country. Why these attacks are "unthinkable" I do not understand. People who hate will find a way.

[Jerry442]

11. Just in case you hadn't noticed...

... Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas pretty well established that the SCOTUS is a mini-legislature with nine members. Not that I think that's a good thing, but that's how things are. All it would take is one liberal appointee and Heller and McDonald could be reversed in a heartbeat.

[jmg257]

12. Yes - understood. Cheers! nt

[gejohnston]

4. full autos are banned for civilians in most if not all of Europe

yet you can buy them as easy as a bag of pot. That obviously hasn't stopped terrorists ranging from the Red Brigade in the 1970s to the assholes that shot up Charlie Hebdo and the concert in Paris.
Heroin is banned, yet it kills more people in the US than are murdered regardless of weapon.
Also, "well regulated" in that context means well functioning.

He simply would have gone to the black market for either a semi or full auto just like they do in Europe, where terrorist attacks are actually more common.
The solution is to deal with the core issue.

[JonathanRackham]

5. Boston? Try Oklahoma City & the first attack on the World Trade Center (1993).

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/04/16/the-10-worst-bombings-in-us-history-n1568828

I see a world living in denial and instead of confronting the problems it runs farther away.

Look at day to day life in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many of the world's problems are caused by one group of people telling another how to run their lives. In many ways modern society is still tribal/feudal in it's thinking.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. For that matter the second attack used...

...a hijacked aircraft as a bomb. During the Iraq war in 2003 more deaths were due to IEDs than by gunfire and it was permitted that each household was allowed a full-auto AK-47 type rifle. During 2003 (IIRC) there were more firearm deaths in DC than in Baghdad. Perhaps we should have stayed in Baghdad and pulled out of DC.

[JonathanRackham]

6. If not bombs, then arson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UpStairs_Lounge_arson_attack

My uncle and his partner of 40 years are also owners of a pair of matching Mossbergs. They're actually humored when people refer to them as penis extensions.

[DashOneBravo]

13. Boston was pretty weak bomb compared to Iraq

Not to diminish the horrible effects it did.

The US doesn't have massive amounts of high explosives like Iraq and Astan. They have tons of it over there. Like old artillery shells.

This is why it took a truckload at OKC.

[JonathanRackham]

16. Evil has this way of mutating and growing.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-than-500-pounds-of-explosives-stolen-from-train/

[DashOneBravo]

17. I agree it's evil

My point is it isn't readily available. We don't have warehouses full of old artillery shells and a robust black market.

That's why you saw IED usage go off the charts.

[JonathanRackham]

18. I hope our military has stepped up security at the ordinance storage facilities.

I believe our ordinance is also domestically produced, I'd like to think security is overboard there as well. But then again it's produced by corporate America which is profit driven.

I have read stories from WWII through Vietnam and Iraq how unexploded duds (UBX) gets salvaged and reused. Some gets smuggled out of the war zones and used otherwise. The IRA was able to obtain supplies from Vietnam and African countries in conflict, black market sources.

[DashOneBravo]

20. Never underestimate the military abilities

To screw something up.

I seem to recall some soldier leaving some C4 in a bag.

[Matrosov]

21. You don't need bombs

As someone who has been an advocate of banning semi-automatic rifles, I also realize the average shooter could do just as much damage with a handgun, e.g. Virginia Tech.

It really comes to this... guns for NOBODY or guns for EVERYBODY. Since I don't believe in the 'good guy with a gun' fantasy, I'll go with guns for NOBODY.