Pistol grips on long guns, and rifle crime in general.

[benEzra]

176. Sigh...

1. The assault weapons ban restricted sales from 1994-2005. Now that sales are booming, it's only logical that in time those guns will find their way into criminal hands, and then be put to criminal use.

The. AWB. Did. Not. Restrict. Sales.

I don't know how I can make this any clearer. The AWB easily *tripled* AR-15 and AK sales. It merely required that all those new AR's/AK's being manufacture and imported had to have smooth muzzles, pinned rather than screwed on brakes, and pinned stocks.

Do I need to post BATFE sales figures? AR and AK ads from the late '90s/early '00's? My AK receipt from 2003? Those were the boom years for those guns.

I also question using the rifle categorization as an assessor since it includes things like hunting rifles we aren't concerned about.

Rifles of any type aren't significantly represented in U.S. homicide stats. Period. All rifles combined don't even reach 3% of recorded homicides most years.

You are in serious denial if you think that rifle homicide at <3% means that nontraditional looking rifles are a Menace To Society...

Have you seriously asked yourself the simple question of what will happen to all these guns in time?

Yep. The thing about guns is that if they are taken proper care of and not shot too much (or have worn-out parts replaced as needed), they last for many decades, or even centuries. Some will wear out, and those that don't will be passed down to heirs or sold back to gun dealers to re-enter the lawful retail market, just like civilian guns have done for the past 300 years. You are acting as if this is new, or as if a rifle with "Rock River Arms" on the side is qualitatively different from one that says "Winchester".

I currently shoot a rifle that is 107 years old. There's no reason my grandchildren's children can't enjoy shooting it a century from now, either.

Furthermore, the logical extension of the arguments made by those who think we should be allowed to carry arms wherever, whenever, we want is to de-emphasize the ability to conceal and to re-emphasize firepower. I'll call this the Wild West scenario where a society has gone from a stage where it doesn't have to address the problem of the public carrying arms to the point where you have to check your gun in with the Sheriff in Tombstone. Where does this "madness" (Bill Clinton's words, not mine) end if we are to have whatever gun rights we believe we ought to have irrespective of any possible social consequence?

No, not happening. The "open carry" movement started as pushback against California's lack of equitable concealed carry licensure, and were it not for that would IMO not exist.

Clinton's harshness on gun ownership was an attempt to triangulate law-and-order conservatives by looking "tough on crime". That was a serious miscalculation, as Clinton pointed out in his autobiography, and Dems paid for it by losing the trifecta for a decade.

{much drivel about the Confederacy, Red Dawn, and whatnot omitted}

Please don't put your delusions about what "real" gun owners think in my mouth. I haven't tried to use you as a sockpuppet; please extend the same civility in return.

4. I think the pro-gun lobby needs to ask itself how legal possession of guns becomes illegal possession of guns; for some reason (understandable), the pro-gun lobby doesn't want to engage this question in any meaningful way.

Since the gun-control lobby is primarily focused on banning the lawful and responsible ownership of the most popular civilian guns and rolling back CCW licensure, rather than specifically addressing diversion to criminal hands, I don't think you can exactly blame gun owners for that.

You wish to radically change the status quo, and enact sweeping new restrictions on the Title 1 civilian guns we may lawfully own. The answer to that is no. If you wish to discuss methods to reduce diversion from the legal market to the illegal one, let's talk.

This of course is understandable considering it makes for a great case for the true meaning of the Constitution, that the Second Amendment exists to create "a well regulated Militia" that can be called up to put down domestic insurrection or foreign invasion; rather than carte blanche gun rights.

Revisionist history that was eventually reversed in academia and shot down in U.S. v. Heller, which is now the law of the land. The 2ndA is an individual right that protects guns "in common use for lawful purposes." Next case.

5. I've already said I want a better written law so the gun manufacturers can't slither around the intent of the law.

The intent of the 1994 law was look "tough on crime" to law-and-order conservatives without alarming gun owners too much (hence the sunset clause and the fact that the law didn't actually ban any guns). Even so, it was a vast overreach, and the backlash all but destroyed the U.S. gun control lobby, gave us 49-state CCW, and made "assault weapons" the top selling guns in America by September 2004.

If you want to lobby for a far more restrictive law, in what is now a vastly less favorable political climate than in '94, when the guns you wish to ban now define the mainstream of the shooting sports, then go right ahead. Gun owners will ultimately thank you for it, as your movement follows the WCTU and the Temperance Party into the political dustbin.

I don't care about the gun porn; that weapon has no purpose in independent hands, not connected with service in the Militia, other than to be, what I humorously call a "death spewer."

You are free not to own one. It's a free country. But if you wanted the gun control lobby to remain relevant, you might want to try to have your positions reflect reality in 2012, rather than a Field & Stream fantasy from 1951.

As a movement, though, taking the position that the dominant sporting rifles in the United States have no sporting purpose, or that the top selling civilian rifles in the USA are not civilian rifles, is sheer idiocy from a pragmatic standpoint. It was exactly that sort of blind groupthink that led the gun control lobby to fall on the AWB sword a decade ago. I suppose I should be relieved to see that you guys are determined to stay on that sword until your movement bleeds out.

Meh, whatever. I'll keep shooting matches, going to the range, and taking friends and my kids shooting with the guns I supposedly can't do those things with. No worries.

6. Killing other human beings; it has no legitimate sporting or self-defense purpose on its own merit.

I think you must have accidentally deleted some words here.

FWIW, re: Roosevelt, I notice that Eleanor Roosevelt was a competent handgun shooter, owned a revolver, and had a New York concealed carry license. I see that the Hanley-Fake bill was an attempt to repeal the Sullivan Act; I'll bet there is a deeper backstory there than your source is telling.

....Here's the crux of the matter: we're not talking about rifles; we're talking about assault weapons. I would never deny your right to ownership of weapons for hunting, self-defense, and sport. But when your choice of weapons present a clear and present danger to the safety of the public and their officials, despite the best efforts of law enforcement, I believe you have exceeded any Constitutional mandate to not have your rights "infringed."

Ah, notice the date: 2004. Back before Senator Kerry lost gun-owning Dems again, just like Gore had in 2000, just like the congressional leadership did in 1994, and before the DLC/DNC leadership began soul-searching to discover how they had managed to alienate gun-owning Dems so badly.

It wasn't until circa 2006 that the party began to get informed on the issue, discovered that (oops!!) "assault weapons" are civilian rifles (and the most popular ones, at that), and began to backpedal on the AWB, such that by 2008 the American Hunters and Shooters Association was confidently assuring gun owners that Obama had no interest in pushing for another AWB. They were right.

Legislating 19th century firearm aesthetics is dead. Handgrips that stick out are here to stay. Deal with it.