[avidphantasm]

Get rid of fucking assault rifles. Ban their sale. Mandatory buybacks. Jail time for violators. There are lots of other problems contributing to school shootings, e.g. alienated males due to retraction of empire, loss of manufacturing jobs due to financialization of the economy, erosion of mental health safety net due to privatization and disinvestment. All of these issues need to be addressed. But when the patient is bleeding out, you first STOP THE BLEEDING.

[rjbwork]

That won't be happening. The second amendment is a thing. Demographics and opinion polls show that we won't be getting rid of it any time soon. Assault Rifles are in common use, thus will not be banned any time soon. The current regime seems poised to expand, rather than restrict, the types of arms which we have the right to bear.

This is ultimately my point - we have a lot of other avenues to address the problem rather than this, IMO, fruitless attempt to deal with the guns.

[ineptech]

Of course it's hard to do, but that doesn't change the fact that getting rid of most guns is clearly and obviously the way to significantly reduce the amount of gun violence in the US. Contesting this is too silly to take seriously, like an alcoholic saying "I know I've been fired from my last three jobs for showing up drunk, but we have lots of other avenues to address this..."

And just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. If one side can stack the Supreme Court with people who suddenly realize there's no constitutional right to privacy, the other side can find some judges to suddenly notice the "well-regulated militia" part of the second amendment, and act accordingly.

[Maursault]

> The second amendment is a thing.

Gun-control opponents... generally choose to ignore the first clause altogether, hoping that no one notices that there was never an unabridged right to gun ownership.[1]

The solution to the gun-control issue and, perhaps, to some of the lawlessness in our communities is for the states to invoke the Second Amendment and require gun owners to join a militia.[1)

The 2nd Amendment says well-regulated militia shall not be infringed, it's the right of the people. Gun owners should be drafted into militia and whipped into shape. Whether regulation works or not is incidental because the 2nd requires it.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/08/22/t...

[avidphantasm]

Contemporary (mis)interpretation of 2A is relatively recent. Nothing is impossible in this realm.

[spacemanmatt]

Careless deference to the 2nd amendment (more generally, deference to "the constitution") is among the reddest flags you can throw.

[rjbwork]

Not really deference. Just a cold analysis of the state of things.

[spacemanmatt]

You can't just say "the 2nd amendment" and assume we all mean the same thing. Radical misinterpretation is way too common for that.

[raxxorraxor]

What do you think it would mean?

[spacemanmatt]

That's a good question, and an illustrative one. It means what supports my argument, considering I have only invoked the amendment by name rather than by any specific consequence or ruling. I hope this helps to illustrate the sham of simply calling out "the constitution" or "the 2nd amendment" as a reason.

[crypot]

I am pretty sure clear backpacks will solve the problem. I read about it on twitter.

[Ancapistani]

> Get rid of fucking assault rifles. Ban their sale. Mandatory buybacks. Jail time for violators.

I understand your perspective, and I believe I understand how you arrived at it. I even largely share your concern - but I don’t think you fully realize just how repugnant it is to many people.

Have you considered how many lives your proposal would cost, or how likely it would be to succeed in any measurable way?

This is not a rhetorical question. I would definitely consider myself part of “American gun culture.” I would resist disarmament with lethal force if necessary. That statement may be somewhat shocking in this context it wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow amongst gun owners.

… and this is about banning one kind of weapon. One kind. An ill-defined class of firearms that are used in a tiny fraction of crimes. How many deaths would be worthwhile to make that happen?

> But when the patient is bleeding out, you first STOP THE BLEEDING.

Attempting to disarm the US may or may not “stop the bleeding” - but I’m extremely confident that it would create many times more patients.

[kcplate]

> Get rid of fucking assault rifles

There hasn’t been an “assault rifle” used in a school shooting for decades. “Assault rifles” are highly regulated— it’s nearly impossible to own one. There have been a fair number of sporting semi-auto rifles used in mass shootings.

Can we please stop describing these weapons as something they are not? The “AR” in AR-15 means “ArmaLite Rifle”. ArmaLite being the company that originally developed the weapon.

[stevenjgarner]

> There hasn’t been an “assault rifle” used in a school shooting for decades. “Assault rifles” are highly regulated— it’s nearly impossible to own one.

Respectfully, aren't these definitions just semantics about firing capability?

My understanding is the mass-shooter weapon of choice, the AR-15 is semi-automatic-only (ie not an assault rifle [0]) as they do not have select-fire capability, meaning the capability of a weapon to be adjusted to fire in semi-automatic, multi-short burst, and/or automatic firing mode. Semi-automatic fire means that one shot is fired upon each depression of the trigger. [1]

Regardless of firing capability, there is "overwhelming evidence that the AR-15 could bring more firepower to bear than the M14" [2] battle rifle [3].

This evidence is borne out in our schools [4]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

[1] http://www.weaponslaw.org/glossary/selective-fire

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle#M16

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_rifle

[4] https://archive.ph/IJKT6

[a4a4a4a4]

> Respectfully, aren't these definitions just semantics about firing capability?

Statements like "ban all assault rifles" require semantics, and the entire discussion around "which weapons to ban" is entirely semantics. If this person genuinely means "assault rifle", then you already can't own these as a civilian (generally, unless it was made before 1986 and you pay a ton of money for it). If this person means "assault weapon", then we're talking about a poorly defined class of weapons, which are largely based on cosmetic features.

> My understanding is the mass-shooter weapon of choice, the AR-15

The AR-15 is the most common rifle in the country. It's a popular rifle because it can do everything. It's cheap, you can hunt with it if you want (larger magazines are popular for hunting feral hogs, which are infesting the south), you can shoot sporting competitions with it. If you want to shoot a different caliber, for example to change to .22 for cheap target shooting, you can pop two pins, swap to a second upper, and go ahead and plink away at your soda cans. With it being the most popular platform of rifle in the US, of course it pops up in mass shootings. Wanting to ban the AR-15 is like wanting to ban RAM 2500s because they're the "truck of choice for drunk drivers" [1].

> "overwhelming evidence that the AR-15 could bring more firepower to bear than the M14" [2]

A potential, but never materialized, military AR-15 that they're talking about here, would have been select-fire. Then that military AR-15 would be an assault rifle. This has no bearing on semi-automatic AR-15s not being an assault rifle.

This is the third uninformed comment from you that I've needed to respond to today, loaded with more sources but lacking comprehension.

[1] https://insurify.com/insights/car-models-most-duis-2020/

[avidphantasm]

Okay, ban all that stuff too. Why do people need more than pistols, shotguns, and basic rifles? I can’t own a nuclear weapon. So clearly there is a line.

[a4a4a4a4]

Do you know how many people are killed by rifles per year in the US?

...

Around _400_[1]. That's ALL rifles. Hunting rifles, bolt action, "assault weapons", whatever, in a country with ~300M-1B guns and a population of 330M. While we should look at why these deaths happening, banning the tool used to commit such an incredibly low number of crimes is just silly. I'd compare it to trying to ban swimming pools because 390 people drown in them per year [2]. "No one NEEDS a swimming pool, ban them all!"

People like you that want to go off and "ban everything" while being completely uninformed and refusing to do any kind of simple research are the worst kind of voters / citizens.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in...

[2] https://www.edgarsnyder.com/statistics/swimming-pool-statist...

[JasserInicide]

The problem with the pool argument is that a pool isn't designed to kill. Guns are. Hunting, self-defense...doesn't matter.

Not saying I agree with this line of thinking, but that is a common retort.

[a4a4a4a4]

Guns _are_ designed to kill, and yet they (rifles) still kill around the same number people as pools. I take this as further evidence that the "assault weapon problem" is blown completely out of proportion in the media.

[stevenjgarner]

The 2nd amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [0]

My understanding is that it is up to the courts (ultimately the US Supreme Court) to interpret the Constitution, and define things like "Arms", "security", etc..

> I can’t own a nuclear weapon

Careful what you wish for. If personal nuclear weapons ever become a thing, they too may be "Arms" "necessary to the security of a free State". It is hard to understand some rulings of the Supreme Court.

At the time of writing the 2nd Amendment (December 15, 1791), the accepted "Arm" was a musket, with a muzzle velocity between 1425 fps (434 m/s) and 1700 fps (518 m/s) with a ¾” (19.05 mm) diameter ball (. 640 caliber), and an approximate weight of .9 oz (25.5 g) [1]. Today the court accepts that an ArmaLite AR-15 is an "Arm", with a muzzle velocity of 3,300 ft/s (1,006 m/s) using a .223 Remington cartridge with a 55 g FMJ bullet [2].

The momentum of the AR-15 round is therefore approx 55,330 gm/s compared to 13,209 gm/s for the musket ball (ie more than 4 times greater). Too many American shooters make the mistake of thinking these modern "lightweight" weapons translate into less lethality, but it is the increased momentum from higher muzzle velocities that does the devastating damage to soft tissue and bone.

Take a look at the X-ray of a leg showing a bullet wound delivered by an assault rifle used in combat compared to an X-ray of a leg that sustained a bullet wound from a low-energy bullet, inflicted by a weapon like a handgun in Philadelphia. [3]. The trauma surgeons of the 19 children killed in the Robb Elementary massacre reported "They were so pulverized, he said, that they could be identified only by their clothing." [4]

[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15740773.2019.16...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.223_Remington

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/health/parkland-shooting-...

[4] https://khn.org/news/article/trauma-surgeons-uvalde-mass-sho...

[kcplate]

> At the time of writing the 2nd Amendment (December 15, 1791), the accepted "Arm" was a musket, with a muzzle velocity between 1425 fps (434 m/s) and 1700 fps (518 m/s) with a ¾” (19.05 mm) diameter ball (. 640 caliber), and an approximate weight of .9 oz (25.5 g) [1]. Today the court accepts that an ArmaLite AR-15 is an "Arm", with a muzzle velocity of 3,300 ft/s (1,006 m/s) using a .223 Remington cartridge with a 55 g FMJ bullet [2].

Why is it that political philosophy that hates constitutional originalism in every other case wants to try and selectively apply some weird quasi-originalist argument not to the amendment itself but to two individual words within it?

If the amendment was written before muskets were common would you argue in only applied to swords, bows, slings, and catapults? The amendment is about providing the populace with a mechanism to keep tyranny in check, its not about caliber and projectile ft/s.

[a4a4a4a4]

You're throwing a lot of numbers around in an attempt to look like you know what you're talking about. Ballistics and wound cavities are much, much more complicated than just "more momentum == more deadly".

Example: The US military just replaced the .223 with .277 Fury for exactly the reason that the .223 is _too fast_ and doesn't shed enough energy when hitting a target.

Furthermore, you're mixing grains (gr) and grams (g). A 55gr (grain) bullet is 3.56 grams. A 0.9oz musket ball is 25.5 grams. So your momentum calculations are (11'067-13'209) grams * m/s for a musket and 3'581 grams * m/s. So the musket actually has 3+ times more momentum than the .223 round.

Musket balls are absolutely huge, there are effectively zero modern rifles which shoot a .640 caliber round. The .223 is a very small rifle round.

https://www.quora.com/Would-it-be-worse-to-be-shot-with-a-mu...

[stevenjgarner]

I'm "throwing ... numbers around" and including citations precisely so that someone like yourself can illuminate where my understanding is incorrect. I appreciate your clarification between grains and grams.

[a4a4a4a4]

Good, then go edit your comment to reflect reality.

[stevenjgarner]

This does not even get into the expanding, or hollow-point, bullets used in the AR-15's to open upon impact and cause more damage to their targets. [0]

[0] https://archive.ph/kCfK4#selection-781.2-784.0

[a4a4a4a4]

The purpose of hollow points is to reduce over penetration, so the bullet doesn’t go through the target and injure someone else behind it.

Can you stop with the nonsense? You produce it faster than I can correct you.

[raxxorraxor]

You jail a father, kid gets mocked in school because the father is in jail and he kills some mates with a knife.

I don't believe any of the points you make are drivers of violence at all. You perhaps failed to analyze the typical issues.

I do agree that a society might want to ban guns. Policing is much safer and there are a lot of other advantages. Fewer deaths too of course. But I heavily doubt the presence of guns is reason for an increase in violence among younger people. On the contrary, I think some people are well underway to create self-fulfilling prophecies. Security at schools is part of that.

There is a recent increase in crime but certainly to none of the factors you mentioned. I live happily in a country without access to assault rifles. But we probably disagree on what constitutes drivers of violence.

[hobo_in_library]

It always surprises me to see people proposing a blanket ban on these kinds of guns despite the fact that all school shooters were young men under 25 years old.

You could just limit sales of these guns to folks over 25 and make everyone much safer.

In fact, every single school shooter was white...