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Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Senate Panel Votes for Ban on Assault Weapons [View all]Straw Man
(6,624 posts)80. Ginsberg and Bushmasters
My problem with the Bushmaster (and I'll stay specific so as not to get into the whole "what exactly is an assault rifle" conundrum) is precisely that it is so easy to use. Any idiot can do it, from the sound of the promotionals I've seen posted on DU and elsewhere. It just shouldn't be that easy for someone to mow down a group of people. There should be some level of skill involved in the use of lethal force. This fifteen year old probably could have got the same results firing a shotgun into the intruders' general direction. Just my opinion.
For starters, it's not true that "any idiot can do it" in re the AR-15. It is somewhat more complex and less intuitive than an AK-pattern rifle, for example. You cannot just pick it up and start using it. There isn't a huge learning curve, but there is a learning curve.
I'm also troubled by your repeated assertion that "there should be some level of skill involved in the use of lethal force." Should this theory of preventive difficulty be applied equally to justified defensive use and murderous offensive use? If you could make a weapon that is easy to use in the former scenario but impossible to use in the latter, I would be with you 100%, but ... I think you can see the problem here.
I hope we can soon dispense with the meme about firing a shotgun in someone's general direction. Biden was terribly irresponsible with that comment. At indoor distances, a shotgun pattern is going to be measured in inches, not feet, so aiming will still be important if one wants to hit the target. Furthermore, warning shots are dangerous if one is in mortal danger and illegal if one is not.
I talked to Allen Ginsberg once, and he was quite charming to me, especially considering how young and clueless I was. Afterwards I read much more of his work, pretty much all of it, actually. I recommend "Kaddish" as his best ever. It's rather long, but if you read it out loud, all the way through, I think you'll be quite moved.
BTW, Ginsberg once "disarmed" a cop by chanting "om."
BTW, Ginsberg once "disarmed" a cop by chanting "om."
I have a lot of admiration for Ginsberg as a poet, and I'm sure he could be charming in person, but any admiration I might have had for him as a person or a role model evaporated when he publicly embraced NAMBLA in the last years of his life. He claimed it was a free speech issue. Maybe it was dementia. Whatever it was, I have a problem with apologists for pedophilia.
Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, and many others prove that great artists are not necessarily great, or even good, people.
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I picture such technology coming from the European gun industry before the US
gejohnston
Mar 2013
#96
Of course you would require this safety device on LE weapons. They need to be safe with weapons also
oneshooter
Mar 2013
#97
An AR is exactly as difficult to shoot as any other small-caliber, light-recoiling civilian rifle.
benEzra
Mar 2013
#89
Why should anyone own a laptop or tablet computer when they can have a desktop? ...
spin
Mar 2013
#18
So am I responsible for the murder of the 20 children because I do not support banning ...
spin
Mar 2013
#67
Since you mentioned that you are through arguing about this on-line, I will not ...
spin
Mar 2013
#82
Now we can see where we stand, if it gets voted down and more than half of Americans polled wants
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#51
If you think pushing an AWB is going to play in favor of the Democratic party in 2014 ...
Pullo
Mar 2013
#54
Once again if more than half wants the ban and those who does not vote for the ban they are not
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#59
That' a good idea everyone who owns high capacity high caliber weapons let's cut off their feet and
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#76
I wondered why the suggestion in the first place but it might curtain mass killings.
Thinkingabout
Mar 2013
#79