Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:
1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).
Acting like "assault rifle" doesn't have a specific meaning is intellectually dishonest at best. If you want me to say "assault weapon" instead, fine, but you're just being pedantic. We can quibble about details like what rounds a particular weapon uses, but that's basically misdirection.
-Pistol grip or bullpup design
-Modular
-Usually derived from selective-fire rifles initially designed for the military
-Detachable box magazine
The vast majority of the weapons we're addressing here are in the M16/M4/AK47 realm. The overarching problem with this class of weapon is that they're designed to put a lot of bullets into targets in a short period of time, while moving. Honestly, I don't really have a problem with people wanting something like an M1 Garand. Yes, it's more destructive from a ballistics point of view, but overall rate of fire is basically limited by reloading speed and design.
I'm not delusional enough to think that gun control will stop violent people from doing violence. The kinds of changes we're talking about are harm reduction measures. The best data we have shows that, if you can't escape or effectively barricade, attacking a shooter is how you reduce casualties. When is the best time for an unarmed person to attack someone with a gun? When they're reloading.
2. I can't pin this down to any one post in particular, but there seems to be a general feeling on here from people opposing gun rights and from others I see in media. This feeling is that I have a right to not be afraid. Sometimes it's a little more tangible than that of I have a right to not get hurt. I dunno, I guess this is just foreign to me. I hear things like you can have your gun rights until they conflict with my rights to this or that which, again, tend to go back to not being afraid or not getting hurt. To me, again, this is just a very foreign thing. The fear thing especially seems odd and to be honest a little silly. Having a right to not be afraid...even writing it seems weird. I get it on one level. I don't want my kids to be afraid or live in fear. I wouldn't be too excited about my kids getting nervous because of active shooter drills. However, I wouldn't say that a "right" is being violated. People live in fear over the craziest things. I am no exception. I am afraid of ridiculous things that are very unlikely to happen many times. I don't really blame someone for my fear, though. I can choose to live in fear, or I can choose to not. If I'm living in the middle of a war zone, some healthy caution would be merited. However, at least the way I see it, these fears are not merited statistically compared to other risks, and I think it's silly to live in fear of these other even riskier things (auto accidents even if I drive a lot or whatever). If we live in that fear, it seems it's kind of on us, and I don't understand how the right to own a gun competes with the "right" to not be afraid. That doesn't seem to be a right. The other right mentioned of a right to not get hurt also seems a bit nebulous. I guess I've always just lived with the understanding that rights prevent limitations - they mean you are able to do something or you cannot be restricted from doing something. In some cases it's super clear - I can say the government stinks and they can't throw me in jail. In other cases, it's more, I guess, philosophical like, let's say discrimination. However, that can still be linked to ensuring someone is able to do something - find a job, find housing, etc. It makes sense as a right. This right to not have bad things happen to me as a theoretical or philosophical right...it just seems so, I don't know, all encompassing that I don't know how you would ever stop if you really believed that as a founding principle. I get it, I believe that there can be certain restrictions on things - we all drive on one side of the road to prevent accidents, so on and so forth. This is not to say there can't be gun control if you view things as I do. I can see the benefits of certain restrictions, compromise, and the like. However, I guess I just can't make that leap that I have this unalienable right to not have something bad happen to me. I don't have a right to not ever be punched in the face. Now, if someone does it, I would like for them to get punished for it, but to say that I truly have the right to not be punched in the face would mean that I would have to support some insane restrictions that would prevent anyone from being able to punch me in the face. It just doesn't seem like a right to me. Not that locking someone up for assault to keep them from assaulting someone else is a bad thing (the analogy breaks down here, but hopefully you get my drift). It's not a bad thing to have restrictions on things necessarily. I just don't understand how it's some right in the same line as a right to have free speech or to have the ability to defend yourself - and yes, defend yourself with a weapon. I realize this whole part is a little theoretical, but it seems at least somewhat important to me. Not sure if this part will/even should get any responses, but if someone believes these things are rights and has thoughts on it, please respond.
A. Right to life supersedes pretty much everything else
B. "Opposing gun rights" is a not-so-subtle dig at anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of gun rights
C. Just because something is foreign to you doesn't mean it's invalid or silly
D. Some of the most fearful people I know are gun owners, they've bought into the amped up rhetoric about how violent the world is, and they can't see things any other way
E. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't be able to own a gun. I just don't think any random slob off the street should be able to be any weapon imaginable. But sure, act like I'm a hysterical know-nothing.
Wow, ok, so let's address these one at a time. Your accusation that "acting like "assault rifle" doesn't have a specific meaning is intellectually dishonest at best" honestly made me laugh out loud. Intellectually dishonest....seriously? We're talking on a range of things from higher level philosophy to nuts and bolts of proposed changes on this board and yet I'm being intellectually dishonest for commenting that in 18 pages of this thread, I've seen virtually no one provide a definition of a word that has been called out for its vagueness many times....? Seriously? I have no qualms with it being assault rifle, assault weapon, or whatever the heck you want to call it, and I am certainly not being pedantic. Almost every person on this thread who supports gun control comes in with the line of reasoning, but "We're not trying to take your guns! Stop being ridiculous!" Well, you're talking about banning something. Banning. Full stop. And when I ask for a definition of what you're wanting to ban, you accuse me of obfuscating the point.... In any other debate on policy decisions if I said I want to ban something and can't be called on to give the details of what I'm wanting to ban, I'd be laughed out of the room, and rightly so. What does assault rifle/weapon mean? No one seems to be able to come to a consensus. The last time we banned them, even gun control advocates on here admit at least one or two of the items on the list were superfluous, so yes, defining what it means is kind of important. So, aside from your silly (used the word again on purpose, admittedly :-) ) questioning of my intents, let's look at your comments.
Pistol grip - ok, a detail we can discuss. Does it make a weapon easier to kill people than without it or than a handgun or whatnot? Again, something we can discuss now that you've spelled out something specific.
Modular - now this opens up a whole new can of worms, which is excellent. We need to figure out what people actually want and what makes sense. What's wrong with being modular? We need to know this to know what degree of modularity would actually be banned from a very modular AR-15 down to adding a scope on a bolt action single shot rifle. We can't have rational discourse without this stuff, IMO.
Usually derived from selective-fire rifles initially designed for the military - I won't belabor the point, but this is a great reason why this stuff needs to be detailed. Other than illegal modifications, anything that fires more than one shot per trigger pull is pretty much outlawed and yet, I would imagine when many people think about assault rifles or weapons, this is what they think of, and when they think of banning them, that's probably at least the thought that comes to mind.
Detachable box magazine - OK, so again, important details. I'm no gun expert, but I believe this would eliminate a significant portion of all semi-automatic rifles on the market. Is it worth it? Worth debating, but it's important to know the implications.
The comments after your initial statements show that you're clearly familiar with guns. I don't mean to condescend, but again, I don't see what the problem is with trying to figure out what we're actually wanting to ban before we make legislation.
As for your response to the second part, I believe you took it in a way that I was not intending. First of all, opposing gun rights, point conceded, not the best phrase.
For the "just because something is foreign to me doesn't mean it's invalid or silly," I never said it did. I said it
seemed silly...just trying to convey how I saw it. If I wasn't clear, I was
asking for input on people that saw it differently, not saying they were morons.
For the comment about fearful gun owners...sure, there are plenty of fearful gun owners. I'm just saying not being afraid is not a right in and of itself.
For the "right to life supersedes pretty much everything else," that's great! Please expound. That's the argument that I find completely alien, but it seems to be what people feel. If the right to life supersedes pretty much everything else, then we need to regulate everything intensely hard and do it yesterday. We apply right to life to guns because it's easy fodder so to speak, but if one really think right to life supersedes everything else, I don't see how it ends (and this is not a slippery slope argument, this is at the very base of the belief) in anything but, again, very intense restrictions. To allow any kind of standard social interactions with anything dangerous at all (cars, guns, knives, golf clubs, martial arts knowledge, what have you) would be to allow the risk of an end to this "right to life." Of course the risk is much less for tons of things compared to guns, no argument there. However, I feel like guns are an easy focal point (low hanging fruit gun control people would probably say), but this perspective isn't extended to it's logical conclusion if it's truly the most basic most important personal right....at least the way I see it.
To your final point, there's a huge gulf between someone not being able to own any gun whatsoever and "any random slob off the street" owning "any weapon imaginable." I'm trying to refine what people actually want and have intellectual conversations on fair level ground where we both know what we're debating. But sure, act like I'm asking the world and deriding you when I ask for a few details....