[sophacles]

What a strange set of ideas presented in such a small sentence fragment.

* Very few people demonize gun ownership. They just want some laws preventing criminals from owning guns.

* Guns are very easy to obtain, the "arms race" is a trip to the local sporting goods store. Sure, the weapon may not be super tacti-cool with a bunch of skulls and shit, but I'm pretty sure that even without all the virtue signalling decals it does the primary job just fine.

[dylan604]

Do you think those that have been opposed to current gun laws would be nearly as proficient at the use of their newly acquired weapon as opposed to those that have been collecting them for years?

This just made up militia will be woefully untrained to handle anything. At least those that have their meeting in the woods practice to whatever extent they do, but that would be so much more than this recent trip to the sporting goods store.

Whether you want to quibble over the words demonize, there are a lot of people that do not interpret the constitution to mean that just any ol' body can own a gun to the extent we allow today. The well regulated militia is part of that amendment, and gets left out quite conveniently. The local police departments are closer to the idea of a well regulated militia. The national guard are even closer of a match to me. The guys that run around in the woods believe they are fulfilling that role, but nobody really thinks they are well regulated other than whatever rules they choose to operate.

Personally, I do not think that what we have today with the NRA and what not is what the framers had in mind. So you complain about demonizing being wrong and clearly on one end of the spectrum. I think that the NRA refusing any limits on guns is clearly the other end of that spectrum

[sophacles]

I've taught people who had never held a gun to shoot. It takes an hour or two to get them to the point where they can get a nice grouping at a reasonable distance.

I haven't owned a gun in 20 years (it's not my style). I go shooting every 3-4 years with some gun nut buddies who have big arsenals and go shooting often. I am a better shot than many of them.

Armies have won wars while being comprised mostly of conscripted people who hadn't held a gun prior to the conflict breaking out.

Point being - effective use of guns does not require deep proficiency nor long term regular training.

[dylan604]

Being able to shoot a gun at a paper target in the safety of a gun range is one thing. It's a different thing to do that when it's a person in front on you. It's also a totally different thing when that person in front of you is persons plural in the form of a trained opposing force and the bullets are coming at you. It takes training to quell that fear and be able to react in a manner that does not end with you full of lead.

When I've discussed training in this thread in other comments, this is what I was considering. Not target practice. Not being able reload a weapon. Specifically about mentally holding it together to not freeze, or even loose your ability to aim at something not a paper target in a gun range.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Being able to shoot a gun at a paper target in the safety of a gun range is one thing. It's a different thing to do that when it's a person in front on you

Sure. I’m saying that the physical condition of most “militia” members doesn’t make for a threatening force.

In any case, if America went low-burn civil war, you’d pay the drug gangs to do your dirty work. The reason that’s the 20th century playbook is it works.

[ben_w]

As drug gangs are discovering drone solutions, I wonder how far the USA is from functioning guns being as useful as prop guns in a civil war.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Do you think those that have been opposed to current gun laws would be nearly as proficient at the use of their newly acquired weapon

I don’t own a gun and I’m a better shot than half those militia types. The purpose of the guns isn’t to shoot them, it’s to deter. By the time it’s WACO, one side’s marksmanship isn’t really relevant.

[dylan604]

You can have 20 assault style weapons in your gun safe, but if that's where they are they do not act as a deterrent. They are only a deterrent when they are ready to be used. The purpose of a gun is to be shot. Confusing this is just some very excessive bending of logic. The intent of the shooter is an entirely different matter. They were not manufactured and then sold/purchased just to be in a display case. That's just what someone decided to with their purchase.

[kilna]

In fact, If you have 20 assault rifles in your safe you are a target for 20 or so revolutionaries. Oligarchs aside, most people of the hoarding political persuasion mistrust others and couldn't social engineer their way out of a paper bag.

[Duwensatzaj]

>* Very few people demonize gun ownership. They just want some laws preventing criminals from owning guns.

Don't gaslight us. Democrats have been pushing civilian disarmament HARD recently.

Restricted magazine sizes, requiring all transfers to go through a FFL, basic features bans, permits to purchase, restricting ammo purchases to FFLs raising prices, and now repeated attempts at semi-auto bans.

This isn't focused on criminals, it's trying to discourage firearm ownership in general. When states ban the federal government marksmanship program from shipping firearms to civilians AFTER they have already been background checked by a federal agency it's clear there is no attempt to stop criminals.

[Ancapistani]

> They just want some laws preventing criminals from owning guns.

Criminals - you mean like illegal immigrants and those who aid and abet them?

[ty6853]

The courts are a bit split on this. Recently in illinois a judge found an illegal immigrant is not a prohibited person if they meet some standard of community ties/integration, although I've totally forgotten what criteria the judge used.

[selimthegrim]

Remember that the McDonald case incorporated the second amendment to the states so the judges have to decide these sorts of questions for people who are out of status.

[sophacles]

I mean criminals: people convicted of a crime for which one of the punishments is revocation of gun ownership rights.

The important word here is convicted. As we were all taught in elementary school - there is a process required by the constitution in which a person goes to a special meeting (called a trial) where a whole bunch of people examine evidence and ask a lot of questions about that evidence to determine if a person is a criminal. If the decisions is they are a criminal, then they have been convicted. HTH!

[ty6853]

That's not true.

You do not need to be convicted, you do not even need to be charged.

Since this is a hot topic, look at Abrego Garcia. His wife filed a restraining order. The initial order was slightly different than the temporary order 3 days later, which added one thing -- surrendering any firearms (this is bog standard, they do this in Maryland even for citizens). No matter that she did not even bother to show up for the adversarial final order, so he had his gun rights taken totally ex-parte without even a criminal charge or a fully adjudicated civil order nor any chance to face his accuser wife. Even david lettermen had his gun rights temporarily revoked because a woman in another state claimed he was harassing through her TV via secret messages in his television program [].

But that's not all, you can totally have gun rights taken away without any civil or criminal process. If you use illegal drugs, you cannot own weapons either, that is established without any due process to decide if you use or not, simply putting down you use marijuana on a 4473 will block a sale as will simply owning a marijuana card whether you use marijuana or not.

[] http://www.ejfi.org/PDF/Nestler_Letterman_TRO.pdf

[Ancapistani]

This is exactly my point, and what I've been driving at in this thread.

This could not possibly be a concern based on abrogation of due process - because there have been many similar due process violations concerning firearms, and I've never seen a single article submitted here about those.

Frankly, I don't see how immigration is any more relevant to this site than civil rights.

[dylan604]

first knee jerk type answer is that there are a lot of people in the tech industry that are here on some sort of visa and are not citizens which means that they very much are subject to any changes to immigration enforcement.

[Ancapistani]

OK - so based on this, you're 100% opposed to "red-flag laws"/"extreme risk protection orders", right?