August 30, 2016

Except that the gun control lobby's top priority is to ban the *least* misused guns.

Murder, by State and Type of Weapon, 2014 (FBI)

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...................... 11,961
Handguns............................ 5,562 (46.5%)
Firearms (type unknown)............. 2,052 (17.2%)
Clubs, rope, fire, etc.............. 1,610 (13.5%)
Knives and other cutting weapons.... 1,567 (13.1%)
Hands, fists, feet.................... 660 (5.5%)
Shotguns.............................. 262 (2.2%)
Rifles................................ 248 (2.1%) [/font]

Consider that the next time someone demands a ban on the most popular rifles in U.S. homes.

August 30, 2016

These are guns that are civilian-legal in *Canada*, and are used in less than 1 murder/year in MA

despite being some of the most popular civilian target rifles in U.S. homes. This is not a moderate position.

August 30, 2016

Healey just turned a hell of a lot of Dems in Massachusetts into criminals.

She says she will use her "prosecutorial discretion" not to prosecute them...for now.

I don't see how this is going to hold up in court (the actual rules Healey's office has belatedly issued don't clarify anything, except to reinforce the fact that nobody in Healey's office knows beans about civilian guns), and it won't save any lives whatsoever. What it *does* do is give downticket Dems a black eye nationwide.

August 30, 2016

Boston Herald: Maura Healey shoots Dems in foot with gun grab

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/hillary_chabot/2016/08/chabot_maura_healey_shoots_dems_in_foot_with_gun_grab

Attorney General Maura Healey’s controversial assault weapons crackdown has become yet another political land mine threatening the Bay State’s already shaken Democratic Party as it seeks to mount a serious 2018 challenger against Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.

In deeply blue Massachusetts, the Democratic Party is turning into its own worst enemy.

“There are a lot of Democrats who aren’t happy with her decision, but they don’t want to come out against one of the party leaders,” said state Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), one of 58 lawmakers who signed onto a letter opposing Healey’s ban.

What I've been saying for a long time.

This move was based on fundamentalist idealogy, not public safety. Massachusetts had 1,301 total murders 2007-2014; only 7 of those (0.5 percent) involved *any* style of rifle. That's fewer than one per year, on average, in the entire state.

August 24, 2016

Because it's an "Evil Scary Gun Term", and "assault weapon" was already taken....

"Saturday Night Special" and "Riot Gun" didn't fit the context, "Sniper Rifle" didn't fit due to lack of optic, and "Bunker Buster" was too ridiculously hyperbolic to ever gain traction.

August 11, 2016

Around 75%-90% of murderers have prior arrest records,

depending on what data set you look at. The Chicago police department puts it at 87% of murderers had prior arrest records in Chicago, presumably not counting other jurisdictions.

http://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2011-Murder-Report.pdf

The Federal BJS puts the nationwide number at 74%.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mf.pdf

Keep in mind that "gang violence" typically refers to gang warfare, not to all criminal violence perpetrated by people affiliated with gangs.

Here are some more stats to keep in mind when discussing outlawing the most popular rifles in U.S. homes:

Murder, by State and Type of Weapon, 2014 (FBI)

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...................... 11,961
Handguns............................ 5,562 (46.5%)
Firearms (type unknown)............. 2,052 (17.2%)
Clubs, rope, fire, etc.............. 1,610 (13.5%)
Knives and other cutting weapons.... 1,567 (13.1%)
Hands, fists, feet.................... 660 (5.5%)
Shotguns.............................. 262 (2.2%)
Rifles................................ 248 (2.1%) [/font]

Rifles are consistently the least misused of all weapons, usually accounting for less than 300 of the nation's 12,000 murders annually.

August 10, 2016

How would you get the gun control lobby to sign up to that, or be constrained by it?

"* Ban accessories that serve no purpose other than to transform guns into weapons of mass slaughter, such as attachable drums that carry 100 rounds."

If you haven't noticed, the gun-control lobby is trying to ban common magazines between 11 and 30 rounds, not just 100-rounders or belt-feds. They are currently aiming for a 10-round limit, which is 2/3 of the capacity of mainstream rifles in the 1860's and 1870's.

"* Adopt rules that make it harder for criminals and the mentally ill to obtain firearms."

Gun controllers are primarily enamored of laws that make it harder for noncriminals and the mentally competent to own firearms, it seems to me. No one wants criminals and the small subset of the mentally ill who are dangerous to own firearms, so there's potential common ground there. But if the gun control lobby isn't interested in finding that common ground, why should gun owners?

"* Outlaw the public display of weapons."

Define "public display".

"* Allow the concealed carry of guns using the “shall issue” standard."

Restricting licensed concealed carry to elites or those granted special political favors is like priority #3 of the gun control lobby, behind "assault weapon"/magazine bans and transfer bans. When that changes, let me know.

"* Stop trying to ban scary-looking add-ons that primarily protect the shooter, but don’t make the gun more dangerous to others."

When the gun control lobby agrees to this, let me know. Right now, banning guns based on such features is consistently their top legislative priority.

"* Forget attacks on the “armor-piercing bullets.”"

Acknowledging that AP ammo is already banned in all calibers that matter would be a good starting point, but as the recent M855 debacle shows, the gun controllers aren't even remotely interested in acknowledging that fact.

"* Abandon efforts to outlaw “assault weapons”—a politically loaded phrase with a mishmash of meanings that pretty much amount to nothing. "

Such rationality would be nice, but as you can see from this and other threads, banning modern-looking rifles is pretty much Priority One of the U.S. gun control lobby. If they want to show good faith in this regard, maybe they can start advocating for the repeal of the recently passed rifle bans in NY, CT, CA, and MA. The Massachusetts ban is particularly egregious, as Massachusetts had only 7 rifle murders out of 1,301 total murders 2007-2014.

August 7, 2016

Then don't own any.

But mentally competent adults with clean records have the right to choose for themselves, not only here in the USA, but also in Canada, Europe, and even the UK.

Repeating firearms have been mainstream since the 1830s for handguns and 1860s for rifles. There are about a third of a billion of them in U.S. homes, and we'll keep them, thanks.

August 7, 2016

It's definitely a good sport for a 15yo (I started shooting younger than that)

but as to defending herself, she doesn't have access to the gun safe (and can't, legally). It's about building life skills and confidence so that if someday she chooses to own guns herself, whether for sport or for defensive purposes, she is competent to do so. It will be her choice, but if she chooses not to, it won't be for reasons of ignorance and incompetence.

And if she chooses never to go on to shoot a full-power rifle or pistol and just sticks with the smallbores, that's fine. I took her this weekend because she wanted to go.

August 7, 2016

Of course market saturation applies.

"The concept of market saturation does not appear to apply to weapons sales regardless of caliber, rate of fire, barrel length, portability, concealment factor, or prominence"

Of course market saturation applies. But you are looking at the wrong criteria. And long guns already have greater market saturation than handguns; the difference in misuse boils down to the fact that you can't stick a 26"+ rifle in your waistband under a T-shirt. Long-gun misuse has actually declined considerably today compared to the 1970s.

It's not mass murders that drive rifle sales, though. It's the fact that every time there is a mass murder, journalists and prohibitionists demand that future rifle sales to the lawful and nonviolent be constrained. So if you have just come of age to own guns or have just never gotten around to buying that rifle you wanted, the politicians/media push people to hedge against the possibility of bans. Josh Sugarmann and Michael Bloomberg have together sold more rifles than any other two people in U.S. history, IMO.

As to the criteria you list, caliber is already constrained by law and practicality; anything .51 caliber or higher is banned unless exempted for "sporting purposes" (that's how .729-caliber 12-gauge shotguns are legal), and anything less than about .20 caliber is small to be practical under Federal rifling rules, so civilian caliber has been stuck between .22 and .50 for a century and will probably stay there.

Civilian rate of fire has been limited to one shot per trigger pull for nearly a century and will likely stay there.

Civilian barrel length for rifles is 16"-24", constrained on the low end by Federal law and on the high end by practicality.

Portability/concealment are inherent to the type of weapon, not to technology. Most handguns are concealable; rifles are not. Rifles and shotguns are still required to be at least 26" long with 16" barrels minimum; you might be able to make a rifle lighter with future materials, but you can't make a rifle disappear into a waistband or pocket.

I'm not sure what you mean by "prominence". The AR platform is the most common civilian rifle in U.S. homes, but does that make it "prominent"? If so, does that mean it should be banned, or that it should become the national standard? Not following you here.