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A proposed compromise on "assault weapons"

Would this compromise be acceptable?

  • Yes. This isn’t perfect, but no compromise is.

    Votes: 11 14.7%

  • No. I don’t mind some compromise, but this still takes away too much.

    Votes: 10 13.3%

  • No. We should never compromise our gun rights.

    Votes: 49 65.3%

  • No. This still gives too many gun ownership privileges.

    Votes: 3 4.0%

  • I can hit a target 400 yards away with my eyes closed.

    Votes: 2 2.7%
  • Total voters
    75
TurtleDude said:
both of you didn't understand what I was saying. I was saying theoretically people of good intentions can argue whether certain military weapons are "ORDNANCE" or ARTILLERY rather than arms even though modern weapons allow an individual to deploy a device that has the equivalent power of a crew served artillery piece circa 1790 or 1917 HOWEVER, there is absolutely no legitimate argument that common CIVILIAN police weapons come anywhere close to whatever honest line one wants to draw concerning what military weapons are protected and what are not
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Arms are VERY clearly denoted back then as ANY sort of weapony, arms being short for the term Armements or implements of warfare. Cannons and fully armed and crewed ships of war were commonly owned by private individuals. Those were some of the most destructive implements known back then short of a wharehouse full of blackpowder which private individuals could also own. The 2nd makes NO distinction between any arms of any kind. The theory you and others use debases the amendment, making it functionaly toothless in increments. Thereby making the arguement with the gun grabbers moot as they will whitle away at what is and isnt allowed till eventually the amendment is pointless. The amendments were and are to any common man who can read quite clear. There is no wiggle room. If arms are to be limited it best be by amendment.

On a side note why anyone would support the gutless ******s of the NRA is beyond me because they are the twits that helped start this mess in the first place by caving in back in 34. They have been caving ever since. I will honestly be surprised if they actually hold the line here, let alone push back. I seriously doubt those twits will anything of the sort.
 
zstep18 said:
Collecting and killing (in some form or another). Those are really the only two functions that guns have.
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No, they really aren't the only two functions that guns have. Competition shooting, target shooting for pleasure, learning the disclipine and focus which shooting teaches, improving and increasing your skill and knowledge base, along with others. People who own guns aren't either collectors or killers. To be so narrow-minded, is to remain ignorant.
 
Federalist said:
Given the statement that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, it stands to reason that the government may not prohibit militarily effective firearms. To do so would render the population incapable of forming a militia, subverting the reason for the federal prohibition in the first place.
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1 - I thought it was the contention of the right that the entire militia thing no longer had anything to do with the right to bear arms?

2- Despite given ample opportunity, neither you nor anyone else has offered any evidence that the militia in the 21st century is anything other than a fiction on paper that does not exist in real life.

3- Despite being asked several times, neither you nor anyone else can produce a list of what weapons any such militia would be required to bring with them - if any - let alone that the items you are advocating for are or would be on such a list.

4- Our nation is not kept a free state by any fictional militia but rather by a professional armed forces for well over the past two centuries.
 
lizzie said:
No, they really aren't the only two functions that guns have. Competition shooting, target shooting for pleasure, learning the disclipine and focus which shooting teaches, improving and increasing your skill and knowledge base, along with others. People who own guns aren't either collectors or killers. To be so narrow-minded, is to remain ignorant.
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You're right. I forgot about sporting. I feel a little silly for that.
 
zstep18 said:
You're right. I forgot about sporting. I feel a little silly for that.
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I have no idea if you shoot or not, but I highly recommend it. It's good for your outlook, your focus, and your mind. It's not the boogeyman that some will make it out to be. It's sort of like scuba diving in that it helps you overcome your fears, and make you more cognizant and mindful of both yourself, and your surroundings. If I were queen, everyone would own a gun, learn how to shoot it like an expert marksman, and learn how to take care of it like a prized possession.
 
haymarket said:
1 - I thought it was the contention of the right that the entire militia thing no longer had anything to do with the right to bear arms?
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Did you? That seems strange. Since a militia is necessary to the security of a free state, it would stand to reason that, at the very least, the people must be adequately armed with militarily effective weapons so that they may form a militia if the American people feel the need.

2- Despite given ample opportunity, neither you nor anyone else has offered any evidence that the militia in the 21st century is anything other than a fiction on paper that does not exist in real life.
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It doesn't exist as of now because the American people have not seen fit to organize themselves into one. This probably indicates that the need has not yet arisen. It also doesn't mean that the need will never arise.

3- Despite being asked several times, neither you nor anyone else can produce a list of what weapons any such militia would be required to bring with them - if any - let alone that the items you are advocating for are or would be on such a list.
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I don't understand what you mean by "be required." Required by whom exactly? If the people decide to form an active militia, they will decide what weapons they need. Who am I to decide this?

4- Our nation is not kept a free state by any fictional militia but rather by a professional armed forces for well over the past two centuries.
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If you think that a militia is not necessary to the security of a free state that's your choice. Apparently the founders felt differently, which is why they took steps to ensure that the people would always be adequately armed with militarily effective weapons.
 
lizzie said:
I have no idea if you shoot or not, but I highly recommend it. It's good for your outlook, your focus, and your mind. It's not the boogeyman that some will make it out to be. It's sort of like scuba diving in that it helps you overcome your fears, and make you more cognizant and mindful of both yourself, and your surroundings. If I were queen, everyone would own a gun, learn how to shoot it like an expert marksman, and learn how to take care of it like a prized possession.
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I wouldn't mind owning a gun, if the other half would let me :)
 
Federalist............. With all due respect, why is it that all your arguments on this issue are based either in the very distant past of well over two centuries ago or in a future which is speculative at best and absurd at worst? The real world we live in today and have lived in for the last two centuries never enters into your reasoning, your examples or your motivations.
 
zstep18 said:
I wouldn't mind owning a gun, if the other half would let me :)
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If you are both an equal half, then why does one half have higher weight ;)? You might even be able to convince the other half to learn along with you. :)
 
zstep18 said:
Collecting and killing (in some form or another). Those are really the only two functions that guns have.
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How short sited and dishonest. Have you ever heard of targets? USA Shooting Team | USA Shooting USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in April 1995. The organization implements and manages development programs and sanctions events at the local, state, regional, and national levels; developing shooting athletes from grassroots to Olympic medals.
 
haymarket said:
Federalist............. With all due respect, why is it that all your arguments on this issue are based either in the very distant past of well over two centuries ago or in a future which is speculative at best and absurd at worst? The real world we live in today and have lived in for the last two centuries never enters into your reasoning, your examples or your motivations.
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Of course the real world of today enters into my reasoning. A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state. That was true at the founding, it is true today, and it will be true in the future.
 
FreedomFromAll said:
How short sited and dishonest. Have you ever heard of targets? USA Shooting Team | USA Shooting USA Shooting, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body for the sport of shooting in April 1995. The organization implements and manages development programs and sanctions events at the local, state, regional, and national levels; developing shooting athletes from grassroots to Olympic medals.
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Someone else already called me out on this and I said I felt silly forgetting about sport.
 
Federalist said:
Of course the real world of today enters into my reasoning. A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state. That was true at the founding, it is true today, and it will be true in the future.
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And it has not played a role in two and a quarter centuries.
 
haymarket said:
And it has not played a role in two and a quarter centuries.
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Agreed. The people have not had to form themselves into a militia in quite some time, which is fortunate.

But as they say, past performance is no guarantee of future results. The American people must always be armed with militarily effective firearms so that, if the need ever arises, they can organize themselves into an active militia.

Of course, we hope that day never comes, just as a homeowner who has lived safely in his home for twenty-five years hopes he will never need his fire extinguishers. But it would be imprudent of him throw away his fire extinguishers, saying, "Well I haven't had a fire in 25 years, so obviously I'll never have a fire..."
 
jamesrage said:
The tool is irrelevant because dead kids are still dead kids.And if it was about saving lives you would want restrictions on those things responsible for deaths just as you would guns.Its been pointed out more than once that guns have more than one function.
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So, you can't take a step towards something positive without taking it to extremes? Or are you just into logical fallacies? "Proponents of gun control can't want to save lives because they won't completely upend every part of life to pursue that goal. Unless you're willing to destroy every single car on the road, you can't actually care about preventing people from shooting each other." Sounds pretty stupid when it's spelled out, doesn't it?

Different things are treated differently under the law. Duh. Guns are not knives are not cars are not airplanes are not tigers are not fried food. They are all different.
 
Paschendale said:
So, you can't take a step towards something positive without taking it to extremes? Or are you just into logical fallacies? "Proponents of gun control can't want to save lives because they won't completely upend every part of life to pursue that goal. Unless you're willing to destroy every single car on the road, you can't actually care about preventing people from shooting each other." Sounds pretty stupid when it's spelled out, doesn't it?

Different things are treated differently under the law. Duh. Guns are not knives are not cars are not airplanes are not tigers are not fried food. They are all different.
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there is nothing positive about punishing honest people because someone violated capital murder laws
 
Paschendale said:
So, you can't take a step towards something positive without taking it to extremes? Or are you just into logical fallacies? "Proponents of gun control can't want to save lives because they won't completely upend every part of life to pursue that goal. Unless you're willing to destroy every single car on the road, you can't actually care about preventing people from shooting each other." Sounds pretty stupid when it's spelled out, doesn't it?
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The anti-2nd amendment side is making this about protecting and saving kids' lives. Not whether or not kids are shot.So when you people use that justification its about saving kids lives to **** on the 2nd amendment it only makes you people look like hypocrites when you ignore things that kill way more kids than any so called assault weapon has.
 
jamesrage said:
The anti-2nd amendment side is making this about protecting and saving kids' lives. Not whether or not kids are shot.So when you people use that justification its about saving kids lives to **** on the 2nd amendment it only makes you people look like hypocrites when you ignore things that kill way more kids than any so called assault weapon has.
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No one Ingres anything. There's just not a lot of people so silly as to overreact as gun folks are.
 
Boo Radley said:
No one Ingres anything. There's just not a lot of people so silly as to overreact as gun folks are.
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Just be happy that there are people who are willing to fight for what is yours by right, regardless of how much you value it.
 
Boo Radley said:
No one Ingres anything. There's just not a lot of people so silly as to overreact as gun folks are.
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Wait, silly as the gun folks are? Silly as the anti gun folks are. No one goes into a screaming hissy fit about Americans And Their Evil Car Culture every time a bus turns over or there is a 40 car pileup. Hit a car full of high school kids and no one blames the SUV - they blame the drunk driving it.

For every other way in which we kill each other, we blame the person and not the tool... until it becomes the one tool that we have to ensure that we the people remain citizens instead of subjects. :thinking THATs silly overreaction. What we are seeing now after Newtown? THAT's overreaction, in the drama and emotion of the moment. Waving around dead children in order to pass long-desired limitation of individual citizens' ability to defend themselves? That's silly at best.

There are some on the gun side overreacting - the idea that this is going to kickstart a "resistance" or an impeachment isn't really tenable. But the side overreacting in unison are the Takers.
 
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TurtleDude said:
true, the intent was that we have the same weapons individual infantry soldiers have. That is why having the same stuff cops have is a no brainer. we should have M16 and M4 rifles.
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haymarket said:
The Second Amendment says no such thing.
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That's where the mention of a “well regulated militia” comes in. Common civilian men, able to function as soldiers, when so needed. To do this, they need to be able to possess and bear weapons suitable for use by a soldier. In modern times, this would be a full-automatic assault rifle, such as an M-16—just like we issue to our regular soldiers.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
From my understanding an "assault weapon" are stronger weapons and have more power than a standard rifle or battle rifle, have selective fire, and a discharge magazine.
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Your understanding is incorrect on nearly every point.

You're confusing the fraudulent term “assault weapon” with the term “assault rifle” which does, in fact, have a fairly meaningful definition.

By definition, an assault rifle is a medium-powered rifle, while a battle rifle is a high-powered rifle. The 30-06 round, by by the M1 Garand battle rifle, for example, has almost twice the kinetic energy as the 5.56mm NATO round used in the M-16 assault rifle. Most of the weapons being fraudulently labeled as “assault weapons” use a medium-power round similar to what a true assault rifle would take, though the term is often broadly defined to cover weapons taking a wide range of rounds.

Select-fire is a feature of genuine assault rifles. It means that the rifle has both a semi-automatic mode, and either a fully-automatic mode or a burst fire mode. It is nearly impossible in America for a common citizen to “legally”* obtain or possess a firearm that is capable of fully-automatic or burst-fire operation. None of the weapons that have ever been targeted for banning or restriction under the fraudulent label of “assault weapons” have this feature.

And I have no idea what you mean by a “discharge magazine”. There is no such term that I have ever heard anywhere else.



* That is, unless you correctly recognize the laws which restrict the transfer and possession of such weapons as blatantly unconstitutional, in violation of the Second Amendment.
 
Federalist said:
Agreed. The people have not had to form themselves into a militia in quite some time, which is fortunate.

But as they say, past performance is no guarantee of future results. The American people must always be armed with militarily effective firearms so that, if the need ever arises, they can organize themselves into an active militia.

Of course, we hope that day never comes, just as a homeowner who has lived safely in his home for twenty-five years hopes he will never need his fire extinguishers. But it would be imprudent of him throw away his fire extinguishers, saying, "Well I haven't had a fire in 25 years, so obviously I'll never have a fire..."
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Again, you dwell in the past of pre Constitution America or want us to engage in wild speculation about some future scenario where our armies and police are rendered impotent and its up to us to put down the remote control and fight the invading hordes from Uranus.

Sorry. I do not make public policy based on realites from two and a quarter centuries ago or from George Lucas type imaginings. Lets concentrate on the reality before the USA in 2013 for once.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
That's where the mention of a “well regulated militia” comes in. Common civilian men, able to function as soldiers, when so needed. To do this, they need to be able to possess and bear weapons suitable for use by a soldier. In modern times, this would be a full-automatic assault rifle, such as an M-16—just like we issue to our regular soldiers.
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And that convenient fiction exists only on paper and not in reality.
 
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