Shooting discussion devolves

[The Duchess of Zeon]

High capacity bans are some of the most easily evaded ideas and is precisely one of those things that's only hurt sensible gun control suggestions (which is people control).

Aye, it's absurdly easy to smuggle high caps into Canada. And and an hour with a file and pliers and my SKS would be back to ten rounds.

I'm not suggesting we limit fixed integral magazines, just the size of detachable magazines, so that someone with a semi-automatic pistol or rifle with a detachable magazine cannot easily continue shooting by pressing the trigger. It is a remedy which hurts regular gun owners not at all while doing serious work against the mentally deranged. Anyone who has the skill and time to turn off bigger magazines in their backyard machine shop is probably also stuffing a ryder truck full of amfo.

[Flagg]

High capacity bans are some of the most easily evaded ideas and is precisely one of those things that's only hurt sensible gun control suggestions (which is people control).

Aye, it's absurdly easy to smuggle high caps into Canada. And and an hour with a file and pliers and my SKS would be back to ten rounds.

I'm not suggesting we limit fixed integral magazines, just the size of detachable magazines, so that someone with a semi-automatic pistol or rifle with a detachable magazine cannot easily continue shooting by pressing the trigger. It is a remedy which hurts regular gun owners not at all while doing serious work against the mentally deranged. Anyone who has the skill and time to turn off bigger magazines in their backyard machine shop is probably also stuffing a ryder truck full of amfo.

Exactly. The only thing close to a serious argument I've heard in opposition was "well then you have to reload alot more". Which is 1) Tough titties, you baby, and 2) The point.

[His Divine Shadow]

High capacity bans are some of the most easily evaded ideas and is precisely one of those things that's only hurt sensible gun control suggestions (which is people control).

No, they're not. Yes, someone can manufacture new detachable magazines very easily--but spree killers, who are the target of such legislation, just usually don't do things like that.

Please, it takes me 10 minutes and a dremel at most to unlock a 5 or 10 round blocked mag, which is what's most commonly available on the market for places with limitations. Not to mention all the ludricrous amounts of already existing mags out there that will be grandfathered, you're running into the same problem as with banning guns except worse.

So no really, they are utterly useless and even in the instances where the shooters have used blocked mags the death counts haven't been statistically different from most other shootings so you don't even have that to show for it. The Virginia Tech guy had both types of mags on him. So you are just burning political capital away and not getting anything in return except (by now justly warranted) skepticism.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Exactly. The only thing close to a serious argument I've heard in opposition was "well then you have to reload alot more". Which is 1) Tough titties, you baby, and 2) The point.

Yes, we agree. Any self-defence scenario that isn't solved with five properly aimed rounds is probably happening somewhere you just shouldn't have fucking gone to in the first place, for that matter. If you want more, buy a seven or eight round revolver or carry a backup piece and pull a New York reload if you really do find yourself in the middle of a sustained gunbattle. Rifles with integral magazines are fine, because to reload them you have to stoke them multiple times with stripper clips (which would also be limited to five rounds, as would speedloaders), or for some even feed the bullets in by hand.

HDS: I am NOT proposing blocked magazines, integral magazines would not be affected. Only detachable magazines--and all the existing ones greater than 5 rounds capacity would become illegal and have to be turned in. You keep missing the point. The Virginia Tech shooter was if anything in an exceptional situation--he had much more time to work with and his victims were isolated in separate rooms so that nobody could respond while he was reloading, and the police at the university badly bungled their response so that the response time was much worse.

[Darwin]

because the other guy might be bigger, is probably armed, is probably way more experienced at hurting people, and I don't like pushing the odds. A gun gives me the ability to fight back no matter what the skill level, chemical state, and physicality of my attacker is. No other device can do the same.

And how much firearms training have you had, cupcake? How much time have you spent at the range firing at realistic human-shaped targets to overcome your hindbrain aversion to harming other human beings? How much training do you get under stressful circumstances that seek to exercise your skills under realistic scenarios? How much training do you put into drawing, presenting, and dry-firing your weapons at home? How much time do you spend reviewing the relevant laws, and non-lethal methods of de-escalation? How much time do you spend honing your situational awareness?

I work in the industry and I shoot on the order of 100-300 rounds every weekday as part of my job. I Can run my weapons with either hand alone and my eyes closed. I have read and own the critical books going over local and state self-defense law. I've been through realistic training courses and worked directly with sheriffs who have been in multiple gunfights, and experienced members of the special forces community. I routinely surprise my family with my awareness of the surroundings. So I'd say I've pretty much got things covered.

I also don't believe in using guns in "castle doctrine," or "home defense" situations. Yeah, you hear about home invasions in the news . . . but imagine what happens if both parties in a home invasion have guns? Instead of the nice masked men holding you at gunpoint while they take everything you own, you get a shootout where the nice masked men end up waxing your ass, because they enjoy a substantial advantage being the attacking party that came prepared to perpetrate violence upon you and yours.

So wait. You're trusting an armed intruder, someone brazen enough to bust into your house while you are present, to just not hurt you or your family out of professional fucking courtesy? You have far too much trust in the criminal element.

But, let's be honest . . . if you don't have the situational awareness necessary to identify potential threats to you and yours, then an attacker will surprise you; and you'll be reduced to fight-or-flight reflexes. You know what happens when you're in such a state? All your fine motor control goes right out the window. Unless you've trained enough with firearms to make their operation part of your "muscle memory" you're just as likely to freeze or fumble than you are to get the gun out and on target. And, since your fine motor control is shot, you're just as likely to spray bullets into your "backstop" as you are to hit your attacker. Worse, you could end up like the Cleveland cops who, after a high-speed chase, discharged a total of 137 rounds into two (unarmed) people.

I've addressed the surprise thing already, but I have to call you out on this. Using a gun is not fine motor control. it's gross motor control, and it works just fine under stress. It's down to training and putting the front sight on the target. Yes it's essential to get that muscle memory.

And yes, arming teachers would be a really stupid idea; not only for all the reasons I list above, but in the fact that it'd only guarantee that they'd get shot first (which is what happens anyway, since the teacher is the only on in a classroom likely to be much of a threat to a would-be shooter.) That, and more and more of these nuts are coming in body armor.

So you don't want to arm teachers because they'd get shot first, but you admit they're already getting shot first anyway.
Also the media doesn't know the fucking difference between an airsoft load bearing vest and body armor, just like they don't know the difference between a glock and an AKM.

[Aaron MkII]

I can hear the mob assembling for Marina now. Looks like...yup, the IPSC and SASS guys want to lynch you.

Seriously, even we give the pistol guys a bone and give them ten rounds.

[Darwin]

Exactly. The only thing close to a serious argument I've heard in opposition was "well then you have to reload alot more". Which is 1) Tough titties, you baby, and 2) The point.

Yes, we agree. Any self-defence scenario that isn't solved with five properly aimed rounds is probably happening somewhere you just shouldn't have fucking gone to in the first place, for that matter. If you want more, buy a seven or eight round revolver or carry a backup piece and pull a New York reload if you really do find yourself in the middle of a sustained gunbattle. Rifles with integral magazines are fine, because to reload them you have to stoke them multiple times with stripper clips (which would also be limited to five rounds, as would speedloaders), or for some even feed the bullets in by hand.

HDS: I am NOT proposing blocked magazines, integral magazines would not be affected. Only detachable magazines--and all the existing ones greater than 5 rounds capacity would become illegal and have to be turned in.

I will accept reduced-capacity magazines as soon as the rank-and-file police patrol officers are willing to do the same. If you think every situation can be solved in five rounds or less you are delusional. Gunfights do not work that way, especially if there is more than one attacker. (And there often is)
You know criminals prefer exactly the kind of guns you're encouraging, right? Small, concealable, low-capacity. All magazine size bans would conceptually is slightly slow down the statistical outlier of mass-shooters, and even then probably not at all, because they can just get illegal mags from the black market with shocking ease, or just carry more guns, like the most recent one did.

[His Divine Shadow]

HDS: I am NOT proposing blocked magazines, integral magazines would not be affected. Only detachable magazines--and all the existing ones greater than 5 rounds capacity would become illegal and have to be turned in. You keep missing the point.

I was talking about external magazines all the time, I have never once talked about internal magazines. And your suggestion just went to magic pixie fairieland anyway, you think you can just ban magazines and make people turn them in? No, existing mags would be grandfathered in, only the manufacture of new magazines could be prohibited, same reason as why banning guns isn't going to work in the US.

Do you realize what you have done here? You have come up with a scenario in which simply banning guns would be more likely to succeed. It would actually be easier to try and round up all the guns rather than all the high capacity magazines for the guns. Ofcourse you can't legally round up the guns anymore than you can the mags and even if you could it'd make the prohibition look winnable.

The Virginia Tech shooter was if anything in an exceptional situation--he had much more time to work with and his victims were isolated in separate rooms so that nobody could respond while he was reloading, and the police at the university badly bungled their response so that the response time was much worse.

Yeah thats kinda another big point as to why these things are useless for tackling spree shootings, these guys don't go after places with resistance, they could fucking well do it with revolvers and leverguns or bolt actions because they aren't facing off against other combatants, just defenseless victims.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I can hear the mob assembling for Marina now. Looks like...yup, the IPSC and SASS guys want to lynch you.

Seriously, even we give the pistol guys a bone and give them ten rounds.

*shrug* It's how far I'm willing to go in trying to work with people.

HDS: If it's not ruled unconstitutional we damned well could make possession a felony. The federal government does that all the time. There are no grandfathered sticks of dynamite.

[His Divine Shadow]

You can do anything theoretically, but if your scenario is not bound by the limits of the reality (political or otherwise) in which we live why bother coming up with it in the first place?

edit: The major flaw here as with most plans, is enforcement. The govt. can theoretically ban anything and require it to be handed in, it's another thing if the bill could even pass without a grandfather clause, because the state would be unable to enforce such a thing. and it would have less than the snowflakes chance in hell of passing even with a grandfather clause written in, nevermind without one.

[Grumman]

Rifles with integral magazines are fine, because to reload them you have to stoke them multiple times with stripper clips (which would also be limited to five rounds, as would speedloaders), or for some even feed the bullets in by hand.

That's even worse than your original suggestion. Trying to enforce a law against owning a small metal box with a spring in it is absurd, legislating five round speedloaders for a six-shooter is just loony.

[Lonestar]

Yes, we agree. Any self-defence scenario that isn't solved with five properly aimed rounds is probably happening somewhere you just shouldn't have fucking gone to in the first place, for that matter.

Yeah, I'd rather take Massad Ayoobs advice on that than yours. Sometimes you really do need more than 5 rounds, if it's a home invasion in the middle of the night, for instance. If I'm going to be camping in the backcountry for a weekend I'd much rather have 16rds instead of 10, and I'd definitely want 10 rounds instead of 5.



Personally, I think that some sensible gun control laws we need are:


(1)Letting the shrink who's on your case be able to block ownership, if he determines that the subject is a risk. This would include, say, servicemembers with PTSD. This means that mental healthcare will have to be funded much more than what it is now, in order to make it cheaper/freer accessible.


(2)If a minor in your custody gets ahold of a firearm that you own unsupervised, you should get ownership rights yanked. There would have to be some serious extenuating circumstances to get a pass on this, IMO. Maybe not forever, but definitely for years and years. This law has the benefit of being able to be immediately implemented, while the mental healthcare one relies on better funding to have a material affect on the crazies.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You can do anything theoretically, but if your scenario is not bound by the limits of the reality (political or otherwise) in which we live why bother coming up with it in the first place?

edit: The major flaw here as with most plans, is enforcement. The govt. can theoretically ban anything and require it to be handed in, it's another thing if the bill could even pass without a grandfather clause, because the state would be unable to enforce such a thing. and it would have less than the snowflakes chance in hell of passing even with a grandfather clause written in, nevermind without one.

Well, ANY gun control has a snowflake's chance in hell of passing in the US right now, so why are we even having this conversation by that standard?

I am pretty sure a sniper could get into the super bowl and kill 500 people before it's evacuated and we might see the Senate get far enough with renewing the AWB that it has to be filibustered by Coburn or Rand Paul, while the House buries it in committee and amends it to legalize concealed carry in schools.

[Aaron MkII]

I can hear the mob assembling for Marina now. Looks like...yup, the IPSC and SASS guys want to lynch you.

Seriously, even we give the pistol guys a bone and give them ten rounds.

*shrug* It's how far I'm willing to go in trying to work with people.

HDS: If it's not ruled unconstitutional we damned well could make possession a felony. The federal government does that all the time. There are no grandfathered sticks of dynamite.

I'm just yanking your chain. As long as your willing to accept that your plan is only affecting new mags then I'm not much bothered. There will be people who turn them in but there will also a large black market. I would suggest a buy back but that just means people go get new mags.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, I'd rather take Massad Ayoobs advice on that than yours. Sometimes you really do need more than 5 rounds, if it's a home invasion in the middle of the night, for instance. If I'm going to be camping in the backcountry for a weekend I'd much rather have 16rds instead of 10, and I'd definitely want 10 rounds instead of 5.

*shrug* Sometimes I have terrible ideas.

Personally, I think that some sensible gun control laws we need are:


(1)Letting the shrink who's on your case be able to block ownership, if he determines that the subject is a risk. This would include, say, servicemembers with PTSD. This means that mental healthcare will have to be funded much more than what it is now, in order to make it cheaper/freer accessible.


(2)If a minor in your custody gets ahold of a firearm that you own unsupervised, you should get ownership rights yanked. There would have to be some serious extenuating circumstances to get a pass on this, IMO. Maybe not forever, but definitely for years and years. This law has the benefit of being able to be immediately implemented, while the mental healthcare one relies on better funding to have a material affect on the crazies.

Well, requiring a mental evaluation that's current within 5 - 7 years for firearms purchasing could be relatively easy to manage if we set the price at, say, 60 dollars, and required anyone with a social work, counseling, or MHP license to offer them as a condition of having said license. Obviously the therapist would be absolved of all liability if a person with such a letter committed a firearms crime.

[His Divine Shadow]

Well, ANY gun control has a snowflake's chance in hell of passing in the US right now, so why are we even having this conversation by that standard?

Well since there are suggestions that could work if they where passed, and then there are those that wouldn't even if we use the magic handwaver to pass it.

[Lonestar]

A one stop "Mental evaluation" for everyone would be tough, since unless you are truly stark raving mad I can't imagine too many mental health professionals are going to ID a genuine problem case on the first go, or they might just blacklist anyone who walks through the door that's a little odd in order to cover one's ass. I can think of one or two people on this board who would run the risk of the second scenario pretty easily.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A one stop "Mental evaluation" for everyone would be tough, since unless you are truly stark raving mad I can't imagine too many mental health professionals are going to ID a genuine problem case on the first go, or they might just blacklist anyone who walks through the door that's a little odd in order to cover one's ass. I can think of one or two people on this board who would run the risk of the second scenario pretty easily.

Well, there is at least a diagnostic test for sociopathy/psychopathy, which has notionally objective results.

[Lonestar]

Well, there is at least a diagnostic test for sociopathy/psychopathy, which has notionally objective results.

Hmmm. I'm not familiar enough with that to comment on it.

[His Divine Shadow]

Any useful evaluation would require multiple visits to the same shrink. If it was spread out over say 6 months (along with safety courses and such) you'd have room there for a better evaluation. That sounds resource intensive but my trade off would have been it'd be for life, or until you do something to revoke those rights anyway.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The MMPI, for instance, which is frequently required for important positions in the DOD, CIA, and FAA. The problem is it takes about three hours to administer and another four to score, so a reasonable fee of sixty dollars or so means you're making the MHP performing it work for less than ten dollars an hour.

[Lonestar]

MMPI? Is that the one I took that asks you if you feel guilty masturbating and if you liked Alice in Wonderland?

EDIT: Holy shit, it was!

That said, the results of even the most scientific personality test are subject to interpretation, and who knows what the HR geeks at your local police department are looking for? Ain't saying I recommend this, but the cynical advice would be to put yourself in the mind-set of a small-town Minnesotan with an eighth-grade education circa 1942.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

MMPI? Is that the one I took that asks you if you feel guilty masturbating and if you liked Alice in Wonderland?

EDIT: Holy shit, it was!

That said, the results of even the most scientific personality test are subject to interpretation, and who knows what the HR geeks at your local police department are looking for? Ain't saying I recommend this, but the cynical advice would be to put yourself in the mind-set of a small-town Minnesotan with an eighth-grade education circa 1942.

There are others, and they've heavily updated it repeatedly in recent years. Some of the other ones are probably better since they were created explicitly to address problems with the MMPI, but I don't remember their names.

What else would we have to work with in terms of psych screening, though? At least is a metric which guarantees a coherent pass/fail reason, as opposed to "they looked shifty".

[Thanas]

Okay, let's do it this way - is there any reason related to necessity to own a gun? So far, people have raised - my questions in parenthesis:
- home defence (how high are the odds of a violent home invasion in the USA?)
- Hunting (how many gun owners actually use their weapons for hunting/own hunting rifles)?
- safety in case of being attacked by violent animal (How many people in the USA are killed by violent animals and does a 9mm even stop a charging grizzly?)
- protection from massacres (how high is the risk of being massacred and how many instances are there where gun owners actually stopped massacres?)
- Defence against the government (not gonna discuss this one because the premise is too laughable to take seriously. This isn't 1800 anymore where a few hunters could delay whole companies. If the 1st armored is coming to town, your AR-derivatives are not going to stop them).

[Lord Zentei]

Defense against government isn't as absurd as it seems. The militia are never going to stop an armoured division, but they can make an area ungovernable. See: Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hunting and defense against animals - the legitimacy of these arguments depends on where you live, I guess.
Home defense - I could sound off with an opinion, but doing so is bullshit. Empirical evidence on the efficacy of such measures would be the logical basis for how to decide on that angle.
Defense against massacres - no comment.