December 6, 2016

An inconvenient truth...

Rifle Homicides in the United States, 2005-2015

2005: 442
2006: 436
2007: 450
2008: 375
2009: 348
2010: 358
2011: 323
2012: 302
2013: 285
2014: 248
2015: 252

(Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2005-2015, Table 20, Collated)

December 5, 2016

"Vote for me, and I promise to put you in prison unless you conform to my beliefs"

comes across as "Don't vote for me", regardless of whether the issue is censorship, or infringement of reproductive rights, or anti-LGBTQ measures, or attempts to compel gun owners into giving up their guns. Whether that is expressed as people staying home on election day, or leaving that portion of the ballot blank, or voting third party, or whatever, the net result is lost votes.

John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt would be booed out of the tent today, whereas Michael "Stop and Frisk" Bloomberg is the hero of the Third Way/DLC. That is profoundly sad.

December 5, 2016

Rifle homicide is *decreasing*, not increasing, from 442/yr in 2005 to 250/yr now.

Rifle murders have steadily decreased over time, and are now hovering around 250 per year out of 13,500 murders annually.

Rifle Homicides, 2005-2015
2005: 442
2006: 436
2007: 450
2008: 375
2009: 348
2010: 358
2011: 323
2012: 302
2013: 285
2014: 248
2015: 252
(Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2005-2015, Table 20, Collated)

Most states report either zero or single-digit rifle murders in any given year. Modern-looking rifles likely account for about half of that, say 125 to 140 annually. To put that into perspective, 722 people were died in 2014 riding bicycles, 1500 were killed with knives, and 50,000 to 100,000 died due to alcohol. Which makes it doubly ludicrous that the gun control lobby's top legislative priority for a quarter-century has been rifle-ban legislation.

As to "mass shootings", that depends on how they are defined. A shootout between gang members that sends four people to the hospital is a "mass shooting" according to the "mass shooting tracker"; by that definition, the NYPD engages in "mass shootings" with some regularity, and they also occur regularly in Australia and around the world, both by LE and by criminals. The FBI's definition is a lot more realistic, but produces less sensational numbers.

I'm not convinced that the gun control lobby even cares about mass shootings except as a PR tool, because the measures they propose---legislating rifle handgrip shape, criminalizing ergonomic rifle/shotgun stocks, criminalizing post-1860s magazine capacities---do not address mass shootings in the slightest. Requiring all rifle stocks to look like this:



will save exactly zero lives, but will turn tens of millions of peaceable citizens into felons. The fact that we can barely have a civil discussion about *that* fact without people trying to derail the thread says a lot about the debate as it currently stands.

December 2, 2016

I think *that* is a perfect example of how the gun control movement has lost its way.

She isn't protesting the nearly 14,000 murders every year; she's protesting licensed, discreet carry by the peaceable and nonviolent, who are statistically far less likely to engage in aggression than the population without CHLs, or even police officers.

And in so doing, she reveals precisely how the gun control lobby feels about training, background checking, registration, and licensure; they hold it, and those who submit to it, in abject contempt. That hurts, not helps, her cause, by showing that the gun control lobby will not abide any middle ground or compromise. If you want to understand the push that is taking Vermont-style licenseless carry nationwide, there's one big reason for it.

And no, she wasn't protesting open carry; she was protesting licensed concealed by openly carrying a dildo and making derogatory insinuations, to provoke reactions. Doing so is her First Amendment right, and if she genuinely got the reactions she was trying to provoke (setting aside the cui bono question), then it would show that there are unfortunately childish personas on both sides of this discussion.

Ultimately, the gun control lobby does itself no favors by sinking her message to the level of childish culture-war playground taunts rather than rational debate. But namecalling, demonization, and penis jokes comprise pretty much the entire pro-restrictions argument these days.

She could always go compare the violence rate of CHL holders to the broader population without CHLs, or to police officers...but that would reinforce the pro-licensure side, not the CARRY LICENSURE IS JUST LIKE SEX TOYS side, so we can't have that...

December 2, 2016

Thoughts...

I don't own a gun in lieu of other security measures, but in addition to them. The gun just means that I have the option to threaten or use countervailing force in the unlikely event of a home invasion. A gun isn't a substitute for decent doors/locks, a dog if permitted, a pepper spray (Kimber Pepper Blaster is a good option that can safely be used indoors), lighting, situational awareness, security system, etc. It's not either-or.

Owning a gun is certainly a deeply personal choice, and certainly depends on one's own experience/competence with them, attention to detail, etc. I personally am a competitive shooter and have been an avid shooter for 30+ years (I'm 46 now). I'd certainly recommend training, but one of the nice things about shooting a martial art is that it is a lot of fun.

As to choice of firearm, a handgun can be kept holstered on one's person, especially if one jumps through the hoops to qualify for a carry license, and habitually carries. For sheltering in place while calling 911, a long gun (small-caliber carbine like an AR, or a shotgun) is superior in a lot of ways (more precise, more powerful), but a lot less portable.

December 2, 2016

I think you are under some misconceptions here...

Bolt-action hunting rifles were originally designed to kill human beings at extreme ranges. The Winchester Model 70 deer rifle is a refined Model 58, which is a lightly refined German Mauser infantry rifle.





Then there's the Remington 700 bolt-action deer rifle....also known as the M24/M40 Sniper Weapon System used by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.


If you can take a deer with a Glock, you are one of the best hunters to walk this earth. A deer rifle is six times as powerful as a Glock 9mm and has ten to twenty times the effective range.

Actual AK-47's are a 10-year Federal felony to possess in the United States, unless you are either a government employee/contractor or have special authorization to own one of the rare pre-1986 collectibles in private hands. If you want one, expect to wait about six months for your Federal paperwork to clear, and expect to pay between $15,000 and $20,000.

If you mean a non-automatic civilian AK-47 lookalike, then those are actually decent deer rifles, for smallish deer, and they'd require a bit more skill to get closer since an AK is only about half as powerful as a bolt-action. But since most gun owners are nonhunters, it's kind of a moot point. I used to compete with a Romanian SAR-1; it's basically a self-loading .30-30 Winchester with a detachable magazine. They don't fire any faster than a pistol or any other civilian self-loader.

I personally am a nonhunter and shoot competitively with an AR-15, which is just a centerfire .22 and not considered powerful enough to hunt with in many states.


What, exactly, does putting people in cages for having the wrong shaped handgrip on their rifle have to do with preventing bodies from piling up? Rifles are the least likely of *any* class of weapon to be used in a murder.

Murder, by State, Types of Weapons, 2015

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...................... 13,455
Handguns............................ 6,447 (47.9%)
Firearms (type unknown)............. 2,648 (19.7%)
Clubs, rope, fire, etc.............. 1,671 (12.4%)
Knives and other cutting weapons.... 1,544 (11.5%)
Hands, fists, feet.................... 624 (4.6%)
Shotguns.............................. 269 (2.0%)
Rifles................................ 252 (1.9%) [/font]

And banning handgrips that stick out doesn't change the lethality in the slightest.

December 2, 2016

It lost at least 6 senate seats in 2014, and it was a big factor in several swing states this year,

including my own. I live in North Carolina, where we just elected a pro-gun Dem governor, even as the *same* voters rejected a Dem presidential candidate.

Do you honestly think gun rights weren't a factor in PA, FL, or MI either?

You can ascribe it to whatever factors you want, but Clinton lost by 180,000 votes here, and there are ~2+ million people in this state who would have been directly affected by the Third Way's proposed gun/mag bans, out of ~4+ million gun owners overall. And her demonization of nonhunting gun owners in the primary did not go over well here, nor did the constant social-media bashing.

December 2, 2016

You realize "assault weapons" are common in Canada and legal across most of Europe, yes?

Canadians and many Europeans can own rifles that would get them hard prison time in California. That's what those of us out here in "flyover country" would like to avoid.

Keep your bans in CA if you must, but please stop trying to impose them on gun owners that don't live in CA.

December 2, 2016

See, after all that hate, you come up with one proposal there could actually be common ground on.

If they could be done sans registration and without hassle, rather than trying to force everything through BATFE 4473's, then there are probably was to do implement UBC that both sides could agree on. It could have been done in 1994, except the Third Way launched the Protruding Handgrip and Magazine Crusade instead.




You are aware that AR's and whatnot are legal in most of Europe and Canada, yes?

You might even could have gotten licensing, in an alternate universe where licensing wasn't used as a means to routinely deny ownership, and where you hadn't made things NFA and then closed the NFA registry. In the current universe, no. We see how you treat carry licensure, and the NY SAFE Act shows where Bloomberg et al want to go.




The murderer who committed the worst mass shooting *ever* (in Norway) used a straight-stocked hunting rifle:



Still not as bad as the recent attack in France with the moving truck, but it goes to show that handgrip shape is irrelevant, as are forward grips (I don't use a foregrip on my USPSA competition rifle, FWIW, though they might be handy shooting from prone). And you're talking 10-round magazines, not 5; the Virginia Tech shooter used two pistols and a backpack full of mostly 10-rounders, I think. And the Texas Tower shooter used a rifle with a 4-round magazine, did he not?

The thing is, unless you ban *all* repeating firearms, and all easily reloadable firearms, and actually make them vanish rather than driving them underground, it's irrelevant.

That also begs the question of why you are focusing on the *least* prevalent instances of gun homicide (mass shootings involving rifles), while failing to address the most prevalent: drug-prohibition-driven conflicts between criminal enterprises. Of the 500+ murders in Chicago this year, almost all involve illegally possessed handguns, not rifles of any type. And I suspect the most-misused handguns aren't the full-sized, full-capacity, hard-to-conceal ones targeted by mag bans, but the smaller, more concealable ones. Meanwhile, rifle homicide is now at historic lows.

If you are trying to fight gun violence, then attacking the peaceable and nonviolent is not a viable path forward, IMO.

December 2, 2016

Ha, you are psychic.

One post down from yours and 25 minutes later, the ZOMG GUN OWNERS ARE RACISTS!! card came out. We could take bets on how soon the penis card will be played.

Typical gun control conversation, as seen on Facebook/Twitter/forums:

Gun owner: I think mentally competent adults with clean records should be able to lawfully own and use non-automatic, non-sound-suppressed civilian firearms under .51 caliber, plus shotguns.

Gun control advocate: Racist penis-compensating rural hick fucktard NRA dupe.

Gun owner: The FBI says rifles are used in less than 270 murders out of nearly 14,000 each year.

Gun control advocate: NRA-talking-point-spewing ignorant racist ammosexual scum.

Gun owner: You know, telling 80-100 million people you hate them every election isn't a good election strategy.

Gun control advocate: That's what all you racist penis-compensating bloodthirsty gun humpers say. Oh BTW, please vote for my favored candidate, kthanxbai!