Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by simon1ltd 1492 days ago
I don't want gun violence, but I 100% want the 1986 National Firearm Act repealed.

I believe fully automatic assault weapons and machine guns should be available for purchase, new, just like any other weapon. (Fully automatic weapons are legal to buy and own right now in the US, if you pay a $200 stamp tax and wait 9 months for the ATF to process the paperwork, but you can only buy "NFA" regulated machine guns that were registered in 1986 or before ... which means they're all collectors items now, and the cheapest machine guns are $15-20k and up).

Most people I know would like to see the existing laws enforced, and don't want anything new passed or put in place.

4 comments

I would like to be able to purchase a Boeing AH-64 Apache, along with its M230 machine gun and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.
I know you’re being facetious, but It’s fun to point out that you can purchase an Apache if you can find a government to tell you one.

The missiles are separately regulated, and likely not legal for private ownership. Missiles and high explosives are licensed and legislated for separately.

Any weapon that’s part of a standard infantry soldiers load out should be available, new from the manufacturer. I don’t have a problem with the background checks that are required for a class 3 weapon, like an m16 or a Thompson sub machine gun (https://dealernfa.com/product-category/machine-guns/all-tran...), but as it stands only wealthy people can still afford to purchase them.

> The missiles are separately regulated, and likely not legal for private ownership. Missiles and high explosives are licensed and legislated for separately.

So we -can- put limits on the ownership of weaponry, then?

Interesting.

Most people I know would like to see their children grow up.
I would also like to see my children grown up. I’m aware that insane/evil people will do awful things, but that you don’t suppress the rights of everyone to stop one or two bad apples.

In my local community groups I see people demanding metal detectors be installed in our schools.

This is in response to: An attempted murderer being chased by police, going into a school he doesn’t belong in, barricading himself inside and murdering children.

It’s feel good security theater. If you’re in the middle of a killing spree you’re not going to stop because of a metal detector. If you’re dealing with kids bringing weapons to school, that’s different — but the responses to this event from people local to me are about 90% make-believe security.

Children are about 300x more likely to die from leukemia than in a school shooting (2019 numbers).

"Regular" gun violence with handguns is another story.

Do you know much money and effort goes into eliminating leukemia?
So what you want is the ability to kill large numbers of people quickly and efficiently, correct?
That’s what high explosives are made for.

To use a real world example: Columbine was a failed school bombing because their detonators didn’t work because the product they used for the detonator’s changed between their testing and when they purchased the final “real” devices.

The guns were intended to keep everyone terrified and in place until the bombs could kill everyone.

A fluke manufacturing change to the product (I think a clock) between their detonator tests and their actual attack is the only thing that stopped nearly everyone in the school from being killed that day. They even set a bomb outside of the school to kill the first responders when they arrived — again, it was a horrible tragedy, but what happened was so much less than what was intended.

Why do you want this?