[stuffn]

It's the anti-gun lobby. Bloomberg's band of morons who believe a government monopoly on force is good.

These bans are almost exclusively in states with already extremely strict (high rated by the gifford's law people) gun laws.

So far, there is zero evidence in the last 30 years more strict gun laws have curbed crime. The states with the strictest laws conveniently have the highest proportion of gun crime. The same people writing these laws don't understand what "per capita " means. Nor are they willing to confront the reality of what the data shows. The calculus for these petty tyrants has changed from banning guns wholesale to lawfare. Make owning and purchasing firearms so burdensome the market dies, and with it, the rights. This is just another play in that strategem.

Fun fact: More people died last year putting foreign objects in their rears than by AR-15s. That is how insane the anti-gun lobby has become. They are literally barking at their own shadow these days.

[goostavos]

No amount of FBI stats about how often "assault" rifles are used will change people's minds. They don't like them and so want to take them away.

I don't know how to square the same people saying we're living under a tyrannical government also pushing legislation that makes sure said tyrannical government is the only one with guns.

[jajuuka]

I can't square people who think owning a gun will stop or prevent a tyrannical government. Especially when the tyrannical government just leverages its supporters as a vigilante force.

[rpdillon]

An armed populace creates a huge risk for a federal paramilitary force descending on a municipality with the intent to terrorize the citizens. They're not rolling in with tomahawks and tanks, they're coming in with assault rifles and window breakers.

[cucumber3732842]

It won't "stop" them but having to treat everyone like they might shoot back and show up with a 10:1 manpower advantage and armed to the teeth every time you wanna subject someone to state violence really puts a damper on your ability to do tyrannical government things.

[jajuuka]

The current time period is not proving that out. These are just ammosexual fantasies.

[rpdillon]

Not at all true. I haven't yet witnessed armed resistance to ICE, but it's in the cards, if the government wants to push. Given the number of veterans and folks that actually have skill with guns in the civilian populace, and the hiring standards of ICE, I think the civilian population, properly mobilized, would be incredibly effective at putting a damper on their illegal behavior.

[jajuuka]

Have yet to see that so I'm not putting stock in a hypothetical armed uprising.

[cucumber3732842]

It kind of is in that they're picking the easy targets. They're not being sloppy in places where wrong address has an unacceptably high (but still small) chance of having them confused for the DEA and shot back at by someone who isn't going to prison one way or another.

[throwway120385]

The problem with that thinking is that you have to have the will to act to stop tyranny, and no amount of armament will give you the will or the foresight to see it.

[lovich]

> So far, there is zero evidence in the last 30 years more strict gun laws have curbed crime. The states with the strictest laws conveniently have the highest proportion of gun crime. The same people writing these laws don't understand what "per capita " means. Nor are they willing to confront the reality of what the data shows.

I’ve seen this claim from a few people in this thread but everytime I look up gun deaths per capita Massachusetts and California are low on the list and both have strict gun laws compared to red states

[whyenot]

Do you have a reference or at least some hard numbers for your "fun fact"?

[15155]

Long gun homicides (justified and unjustified, "assault weapons" and grandpa's 30-06 combined) are typically sub-500 per year, see: FBI crime stats for the last N decades.

Pick whatever demise: falling off of ladders, roofs, etc. - it's not hard to exceed this number in any given year.

[dekhn]

Can you redo your "fun fact" but include all types of guns?

[rpdillon]

Pew does what they can:

> In 2023, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 53% of the 13,529 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 4% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (42%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”

Interesting findings:

Most gun deaths are suicides with handguns.

Assault weapons are used in less than 5% of deaths.

Handguns account for 53% of the deaths.

Shotguns are negligable.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...

[dekhn]

So basically the comparison to foreign body objects (of any type) to a single type of gun- which represents a tiny fraction of all gun deaths- is not a convincing comparison.

[rpdillon]

The point was that all the regulation on assault weapons doesn't have a meaningful effect. At best, you could reduce gun violence by 4%.

I wouldn't over-rotate on the comparison to foreign body objects: the point is, if you rely purely on the media to inform you about gun violence, you're going to get a funhouse mirror version of reality. It's way more exciting to write about the 40 school children killed in the last two years in mass shootings than the 16,000 depressed dads that blew their heads off in their garage with a handgun in the last 12 months (spitballing a bit, but 40,000 deaths, 50% of which are suicides, 80% of those are men).

[dekhn]

I disagree- this subthread was not about assault weapons, it was about gun-control laws. But yes, if you limit yourself to assault weapons (itself a somewhat nebulous term that just muddies the discussion IMHO), then yes, you're not going to have a huge impact.

No argument that the media produces inaccurate representations about guns. I spend a fair amount of time reading articles and also spend a lot of time reading into the facts that they report.

[rpdillon]

Upvoted; I think this is a case where we are genuinely focusing on different aspects, and I see your point. My concern is that laws are often too performative. There's probably a lot to discuss there, but I suspect we largely agree.

[Dylan16807]

Well there is a lot of weird focus on entirely the wrong things when criticizing guns.

[dekhn]

Your fun fact is misleading because it's specific to AR-15s. A better comparison would be all types of guns.