Bill to allow post-1986 Machine Guns on the Docket.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Honestly, I don't see why gun ban proponents even try,

Is a gun ban necessary? As Switzerland shows it is not necessary to ban firearms in order to get a lower crime rate.
Is it feasible to implement? Given that the the lowest estimation for the number of gun owners in America exceeds the total population of the nation of Mexico and are at a bare minimum greater than a third of the population, no. It would require a Coinstitutional Amendment to put one through. A lot of the police who think they can get away with outside of the major citiies will ignore it and regional bans never work. Even if they did enforce the law the US judicial system is already overburden and overcrowded dealing with the War on Drugs, now you have to deal with rather tha 4-5% of the population 30-40% of it.

There's already too many guns for an amnesty to work, look at Canada. They've had an amnesty period to turn in unregistered weapons for years and it doesn't appear that it's ever going to end, American easily has substantially more firearms than Canada.

I said it before, if you want to combat crime, look at the socioeconomic reasons for the crime. A feelgood measure does not help anyone.

[JCady]

They may be incompatible depending on how the individual interprets gun control. If it's a total ban on civilian possession, then owning one just furthers the cause of ban opponents who would argue that there are far too many weapons to feasibly seize (for example), because not everyone would be willing to turn in their guns (criminal or not). It also puts more money in the pockets of those who are interested (manufacturers of guns and ammunition) in having a civilian market to sell their products to, and some of that money would go to lobbying against a total ban.

O'Donnell has repeatedly advocated a total ban on civilian possession of any firearms, to the point of repeatedly declaring that anyone who has a gun should be imprisoned regardless of the Constitution.

[His Divine Shadow]

I'm in Switzerland.

I thought it'd be Switzerland, but I'm not familiar enough with the rest of Europe (the Eastern part at least) to have said for certain. I love Switzerland's policy on guns. I always thought that if shit went downhill over here I'd try to immigrate to there.

You can own most types of handguns and rifles in most european countries without too much trouble. France, Sweden, Norway and Finland are similar to switzerland WRT how difficult it is to get a permit. Germany isn't quite as easy as the above but hardly impossible. In essence you can get guns in most countries in europe, so almost anywhere would be more or less okay.
I know in Sweden there is practically nothing to stop you from getting handguns (and now ARs and similar rifles too as IPSC is taking off) as long as you can wait 6-12 months and shoot a paper target well enough and there is a solid shooting culture (built around clubs). There is ofcourse the swedish "wardrobe" that limits you to 10 sporting guns and 6 hunting guns. I don't think any other euro country has a wardrobe system, in Finland the more guns you own and the longer you've owned them, the easier new permits become to acquire. And France has a huge handgun shooting scene, they got more handguns in France alone than all of scandinavia has guns combined. So guns aren't a problem in continental europe or scandinavia.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I wasn't talking about handguns and sporting rifles.

[His Divine Shadow]

What where you talking about, then?

[Ritterin Sophia]

What where you talking about, then?

Duchess asked if this bill would allow her to buy a full-auto weapon. I respond and tell her that she has always had the option of purchasing a full-auto weapon and an abbreviated synopsis of the process she needs to go through to get one, but that even the cheapest full-auto weapon costs x amount of money. [R_H] responds to say that that is exorbitantly high for that model of full-auto weapon and gives prices for a number of models of full-auto weapons. I respond that in America full-auto weapons costs about ten times as much as in Switzerland and that I very much favor Switzerlands laws on weapons which includes full-auto weapons. You respond that a number of European nations allow not full-auto weapons. I trust you can figure out what kind of weapons I'm talking about?

[adam_grif]

What where you talking about, then?

He's possibly referring to the Sig 550 that is required to be kept in their homes during their military service (mandatory at age 20), which they can keep after their service ends (although it gets converted to semi-auto when this happens).

[Ritterin Sophia]

What where you talking about, then?

He's possibly referring to the Sig 550 that is required to be kept in their homes during their military service (mandatory at age 20), which they can keep after their service ends (although it gets converted to semi-auto when this happens).

No, I was talking about laws prior to the 1999 Gun Act which I literally just learned about. So it no longer applies.

[His Divine Shadow]

What where you talking about, then?

Duchess asked if this bill would allow her to buy a full-auto weapon. I respond and tell her that she has always had the option of purchasing a full-auto weapon and an abbreviated synopsis of the process she needs to go through to get one, but that even the cheapest full-auto weapon costs x amount of money. [R_H] responds to say that that is exorbitantly high for that model of full-auto weapon and gives prices for a number of models of full-auto weapons. I respond that in America full-auto weapons costs about ten times as much as in Switzerland and that I very much favor Switzerlands laws on weapons which includes full-auto weapons. You respond that a number of European nations allow not full-auto weapons. I trust you can figure out what kind of weapons I'm talking about?

Well it's not like you can own fully auto guns just like that, in Switzerland either. If you join the military (is that something you are likely to do, or even could if you wanted?) you get a SIG 550 to keep at home and it's illegal to shoot it in FA mode unless you get a special permit that is like 400 bucks (varies from canton to canton) and after your service is up and you opt to purchase your SIG 550 they will remove the FA function for you, turning it into a semi auto only rifle. The other way I believe would be to get a collectors license but I believe that is still pretty hard to acquire.

Incidentially you can acquire collectors licenses in Finland too and own FA guns (and hey suppressors aren't illegal in Finland, infact they are less regulated than a box of crackers), but it's also very difficult to get.

[Ritterin Sophia]

We really need to stop posting within minutes of each other and missing each other's replies...

[Temujin]

I said it before, if you want to combat crime, look at the socioeconomic reasons for the crime. A feelgood measure does not help anyone.

Unfortunately those issues are the elephants in the room that at best politicians don't want to notice because it's too much work (most Democrats), and at worst don't want to address because the libertarian law of the jungle reins supreme and the people in question are mostly just a bunch of icky minorities and undesirables anyway (most Republicans).