About those who think the government is going to take their guns...

[cynatnite]

They go on about it so much that I think it's some paranoid fantasy that they secretly hope will happen.

I know the NRA keeps feeding it, but it still strikes me as a twisted hope just so that they can scream "I told ya' so".

Maybe it's another way of claiming they're the "victims".

[pipoman]

1. Pretty miniscule group to be bothered by, seems to me..

so small in fact I don't remember seeing anyone doing it...of coarse, I don't frequent militia boards or freeperville..

[LonePirate]

2. Some of us would like to repeal the 2nd Amendment and then have guns confiscated

Unfortunately my views are definitely in the minority.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Their "anti-government" weapons would be no match for this:

Yeah... that AR-15 will certainly take this aircraft down... from 30,000 ft.

[Duckhunter935]

5. not worried

Small arms and IEDs work good for the Afghans

[Cooley Hurd]

7. Are you hoping for such an event to test your IED skills?

[Duckhunter935]

33. nope

not worried as I said

[Cooley Hurd]

37. So... what do you mean? Are you "not worried" because you think the Gubmint is coming for you?

[Duckhunter935]

44. I think I might be unclear

I AM NOT WORRIED THE GOVERNMENT IS AFTER ME, is this clear enough for all of you????????????????????????????

[Cooley Hurd]

47. Apparently, there's paranoia somewhere...

...because "not worried" is indicative of a notion that there is something to fear. What is it that you fear?

[Duckhunter935]

49. OK I will play your game

I fear drunk or distracted drivers, , I fear heights, I fear unicorns, I fear thermonuclear weapons. I do not let that fear control my life. I however do not fear the government. I do not care for the fact that they have extended the PATRIOT act and can relentless wiretap. This really does not bother me too much as after 30 years in government service they have all of my information anyway.


Thank you very much for showing such concern for me, I hope you have a good day also.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Why am I not surprised?

[theKed]

22. That is

some DANGEROUSLY thin ice you're stepping out onto, there

[Duckhunter935]

34. Why

I said i am not worried, however I did point out that sometimes smaller weapons can be very effective against a powerful military.

I am very comfortable and AM NOT WORRIED about a tyrannical government except maybe the rights given up under the PATRIOT act.

[morningfog]

59. But your first comment was that you were not worried if the govt came with drones,

because of the success of IEDs and small arms in Afghanistan.

Your comment could only be read to suggest that should the govt come for the guns, you would not be worried because IEDs and small arms could stop that.

[Hoyt]

51. See, Duckhunter, that's why I think gun cultists are a problem. They are willing to kill innocent

people. Mos like that are right wingers, but as evidenced by your posts, even supposed liberal gunners are willing to put innocent people at risk.

[nick of time]

8. Or this.

or this.

[Cooley Hurd]

10. Spooky and the Drone. This is crying out for a sitcom...

[nick of time]

11. LOL.

Spooky and the Drone.
You owe me a new keyboard, I spit my coffee all over it laughing when I read your post.

I remember in Vietnam we had a saying, where Spooky goes, nothing grows.

[apocalypsehow]

58. "I remember in Vietnam we..." - Baloney. You're no more a Vietnam Vet than my kitty cat is.

[krispos42]

12. And what will that aircraft bomb?

In any sort of widespread guerrilla-style rebellion (their preferred fantasy, it seems), we would be facing the same problems we faced in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan... what to we bomb?


We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than the world did in WW2. And we lost that one. And we had uninterrupted manufacturing and transportation of war materiel. The Vietnamese were not able to do one damn thing to affect our production of bullets, bombs, rifles, jeeps, APCs, missiles, etc.


Are F-16s going to blow up American bridges and tunnels? Crater American highways and railways? Destroy American power plants and transformer farms? Disable American harbors and airports? Lay waste to entire blocks in American cities and towns? All to try to smoke out guerrillas?


The entire idea is far to complicated to predict what would happen. For example, if there was a general guerrilla rebellion against the federal government, the guerrillas would likely do so much damage to the economy that F-16s would not be able to fly for very long due to a disruption in critical parts to keep them flying. Or to keep their (foreign-made) electronics working.


Of course, the simple solution to your post is "use the AR-15s to kill the people running the surface-to-air missile site, THEN shoot down the F-16".

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Yes they will like during the civil war.

Whole cities burned and Sherman lay waste to the South.

[krispos42]

19. It depends on how it plays out.

With modern transportation and aircraft and such, the trends seems to be that a successful guerrilla force becomes strong in one part of the country and takes it over, while general disuse, political and social chaos, and economic problems force the abandonment of useless, high-tech weaponry.

Then the guerrillas become more organized and formal, more "conventional", while the loyalist side becomes increasingly more ragged and dispirited, or at least unable to exert battlefield dominance over the rebels.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. And you know this how?

Guerrilla wars tend to be long, at times decades long, they are nasty and brutish. If you think government forces (regardless of where) do not become brutalized and destroy infrastructure, and even whole towns, you have not studied them. Ditto for guerrillas.

I could tell you stories of those trapped in the middle of this, but will spare you the horror.

Regardless, I expect that war in the US to look more like The Troubles and far less to the FSLN, or the Contras. (The latter lasted in the field only with US support)

[krispos42]

25. That's my point

That in a successful guerrilla war, the high-tech stuff, the F-22s and F-16s and cruise missiles and guided weapons, fall by the wayside. The nukes and most of the Navy would fall into uselessness. And that when loyalist forces destroy infrastructure and kill innocents, it hurts both sides of the conflict.

In the case of The Troubles, again we have the situation where one side (the Brits) had their lines of supplies to men, arms, munitions, etc. secured and unaffected by the people they were fighting. And also, the high-tech stuff that the British had was useless for the conflict.

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. And my point is that both sides will destroy infrastructure

My point is that both sides will deny it to the other side.

My point is that the Feds have acquired 10K MRAPs... Not the army mind you, DHS.

They know what this looks like. You said they would not bomb...they will...and the nitty gritty, the part you are ignoring, the IRA had a friendly population. This might exist in some rural areas in the US...it is not the whole country by far.

[apocalypsehow]

60. The poster often lives in a "Red Dawn"-type fantasy world: this is not the first time we've seen

speculations from this source about a possible Civil War II in America, with him and his pro-NRA buddies taking on the big, bad government military a' la Patrick Swayze and his "Wolverines" in the movie Red Dawn.

Pretty far-out stuff.

[NickB79]

24. And related to that: who will fly those bombers?

I have friends and family who have served or are actively serving in the US military today. I cannot see many of them blindly following orders to carpet-bomb a suburb of Minneapolis or Chicago.

[krispos42]

26. They might well decide to join the rebels.

Give the plane to the rebels, or eject from the plane and go back to civilian life. The plane crashes and burns, and the military loses a crew.

[lumberjack_jeff]

41. This subthread is proving the opposite point.

It would be foolish for a government to try to confiscate weapons.

[krispos42]

4. Only idiots think that

The paranoid fantasy of the ATF and FBI launching daily SWAT raids on gun-owners houses to seize guns is just that... a paranoid fantasy.

The issue is what happens to guns that are for sale, and what happens to guns that are already owned?


For example, if "assault weapons" are banned for new sale, then this means that an irrational and arbitrary law is limiting guns that people will be able to get in the future.


Also for example, if "assault weapons" are, in the future, not allowed to be transferred (sold or given) to anybody except the police or a federally licensed dealer, this means that people will not be able to purchased any used ones anymore, and they will not be even be able to pass them onto other family members upon their deaths. And of course, they will not be compensated for the financial loss.


You can extrapolate the above for any class of firearms you wish.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Oh gee golly...like 1934. Oh the horror!

We survived not having Tommy's in the market. Gosh golly the NRA even supported that!!!!

[krispos42]

17. The 1934 Act was nothing like I described

So I don't know why you think it was.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Unstated, your AR will require a buyer to have

A class III license, but you knew that.

I will repeat this. AR and Ak type weapons do not belong in civilian hands, not because they are scary or black or whatever. The ROF of these weapons can approach or match the Tommy in trained hands... If we ban the tommy, except for class III holders, we can extend this to this class.

I know, you are against it, but hey, I am not shocked.

There are limits to the first, we can certainly have reasonable limits to the second. Background checks and taking this family of weapons off the street...is reasonable. No right is absolute.

[krispos42]

23. That is Feinstein's proposal, which is not what I was directly discussing.

And you cannot logically or reasonably separate AR and AK style guns and leave other semiautos fed from detachable magazines alone.


If the concern is rate of fire, then semi-autos fed from detachable magazines as a class have to be either banned or turned into Title 2 firearms, same as machine guns.

The fact that Feinstein's proposal bans only AK and AR type guns as a class but permits other semiautos fed from detachable magazines (as long as they don't have pistol grips!) is clear evidence of pandering.


And what happens when pump-action or lever-action rifles that use AR-15 and AK-47 magazines become popular? Bear in mind that lever-action and pump-action guns are not much slower than semiautos for aimed fire. What is the cut-off of rate of fire?

One aimed shot per second? Per 2 seconds? Would this arbitrary restriction lowered the body count at ANY mass shooting?

The "ban" is designed to fail. Why? I think it's because, despite the fact that the AR-15s and AK-47s of the US are only used to murder between 200 and 300 people a year, they are the preferred purchase of a small number of "anti-government" types... survivalists that have dog-eared and highlighted copies of "The Turner Diaries" and that stockpile ammo and MREs and army manuals on booby traps. People that listen to too much RW radio and read too much stormfront and such.

Now, such purchasing is actually reasonable, in that the rifles, accessories, and ammunition are quite common. It would make little sense for a person to stock up on uncommon guns with difficult-to-find ammunition, right? In the zombie apocalypse, a rifle in 7mm Mauser would not be as easy to find ammo for as a .308. And a pistol in 10mm Auto would be harder to keep supplied than a .40 S&W.

Of course, most AR and AK purchasers are not sitting in a bunker and reading "Soldier of Fortune", but that's not really important, I guess. Feinstein and Schumer and other people see themselves as somehow "taking them on". And the Newtown massacre is giving them a chance to divert attention from about a half-dozen issues that would really help America and Americans.

Of course the proposed AWB will have no effect on gun crime or gun violence. We all know that. But I can guarantee you that Feinstein and Schumer and others will be begging for your vote and your money and your time in 2014 because they "took on the gun lobby" and passed a law that irritated gun owners and the NRA!

It drives me up the wall that the same people that lacked the stones to take on the big banks, the big insurance companies, the health-care industry, the prison industry, the military-industrial complex, or the pharmaceutical industry (and by extension the War on Drugs), are now going full-bore for a useless law so they have an accomplishment in 2014 to drum up funding and support.

Of course, the fuckers ran like lemmings from the ACA in 2010, didn't they? One half-assed attempt to improve things, and they ran from it like a vampire from a pizza place.

[NickB79]

27. You mentioned a pump-action AK-47

Here is one in action if you've never seen it before: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=par-1+ak&view=detail&mid=F17F9592DAFA29DBAE06F17F9592DAFA29DBAE06&first=0&FORM=NVPFVR

Looks like a decent shooter can achieve firing rates of several aimed rounds per second. It is also using a 10-rd magazine. If ownership of semi-auto rifles were ever severely curtailed, these would fly off the shelves to replace them.

[krispos42]

30. I counted 12 rounds. Total clip length was 13 seconds

But I was referring more specifically to companies making pump-action rifles (say, a Remington 760) that merely use AR-15 or AK-47 magazines.

Or if Marlin decided to make a lever-action that took AK-47 or AR-15 magazines.

But yeah, that's the general idea. If Fuckstain from Newtown had had that rifle instead of the AR-15, the body count would be just as high.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Why I told my rep to forget looks and go for firing mechanism.

I am ok with the AK look alike if the effective ROF is one round a second.

It can be done, won't be done.

You want your fracking toys...face it. The rest of us are fed up with them, and Krispos I am a gun owner. I am not in awe of this unregulated crap though.

Have an excellent day. I promise you, in time this will happen, the question is how many people will die first. I guess you prefer the body count. And that is the impression you give.

[krispos42]

50. I appreciate that you're not dancing around the subject

Also for a civil conversation. Thank you.


This may in time happen; however I do not think it will save any lives. Not overall, not in a statistical sense. And I don't think we can lower the firing rate of guns low enough to prevent a madman from committing mass slaughter; our gun technology would have to be knocked back over a hundred and fifty years.

FWIW, I posted this in another thread about gun control. Somebody asked me where we should start; this was my answer.

[div class=excerpt style=background:#AFEEEE]1) Universal background checks. The ATF should create a special kind of license. This license, which I'll call "Firearms Transfer Agent License" or FTAL, would be issued by the ATF to people that would make money acting as a transfer agent from a private seller to a private buyer. An FTAL would not be a stocking firearms dealer, but would have access to the NICS system and would have all the appropriate forms to purchase a firearm. The fee the FTAL could charge would be no more than 3x the federal minimum wage (currently, $21.45) to transfer a gun.

I think that there would be a lot of people that would make some extra money on the side by doing these transfers. A nice little kitchen-table business. Currently, only federal firearm licensees (FFLs) can access NICS.

I guess we could call the permit "FaTAL", too...

2) A purchase limit of 12 guns a year. After your 12th gun is purchased in a calender year, the NICS system will not approve any more transfers until January 1st of the next year. If you want to buy more guns than that, get a permit.

I'll even go lower, down to 10. I based the "12" on the fact that some states have a one-gun-a-month policy, or 12 per year total.

This should cut down on trafficking.

3) A sale limit of 12 guns per year, unless the sales are to a federally licensed dealer. Again, after you sell your 12th gun, the NICS system refuses to approve any more transfers until January 1st, unless you're selling them to an FFL.

Again, if you're selling this many guns to private individuals, you're really a dealer and should be licensed as such.. This also should cut down on trafficking.

4) The ATF should keep records of what guns are sold by who. Not bought; that would be national registration, which I am not for. But if the ATF knew a gun's sale history, they could track down the last owner of a gun recovered in a crime by paying a visit to the last seller of the gun. This would keep the DoJ and the various police forces from trolling through databases (or the newspapers from printing lists of gun owners), yet still provide them with the ability to quickly find the owner of a gun. And if the last seller didn't know... then they've collared a guy feeding guns illegal to criminals.

5) Start denying transportation funds to states that are not in compliance with reporting mental-health and criminal records to NICS. If you don't want to spend the money to keep NICS current, you can maintain your own damn highways. Give the money as a bonus to states that ARE compliant!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2301318


The first half is a general rant about politicians and stuff; the part I posted is in the bottom half. I think I got the federal minimum wage wrong, though... I think it's $7.05, so the maximum fee would be $21.15.

[nadinbrzezinski]

53. Alas it can be done, dropping the ROF.

And yes, it will save lives, with a slew of other things, including...background checks. We agree on that, at least.

[cynatnite]

9. There is a huge difference between wanting guns gone and it becoming reality...

Wanting to take guns away is not the same as taking guns away.

[Phillip McCleod]

15. bans are perfectly reasonable

when there is no legitimate civilian use for the weapon. sensible bans are also on the horizon so it might be worthwhile adjusting to that impending reality.

[aikoaiko]

18. Actually, its looking like the AWB might not even get out of the Senate.

The only thing it would achieve, if it did become law, is a new market for AR15s with different grips (and handguards, maybe).

[Phillip McCleod]

35. i'm speaking more generally of a 'horizon'

if not this assault weapons ban, then some other version. the blue dogs and tea partiers will be punished in the polls for opposing sane, responsible gun legislation.

[nick of time]

28. If you're talking about Feinstein's AWB

It's DOA in the Senate, there are 6 red state Dems. who oppose or are highly skeptical of it, Reid and Leahy are refusing to endose it, Susan Collins, who voted for the last AWB, has come out against it, Angus King I-Maine, who usually caucases with Dems, has said he will oppose it and Feinstein pretty much scuttled her own AWB when she refused to vote for real filibuster reform.

Show me where I'm wrong.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-25/assault-weapons-ban-lacks-democratic-votes-to-pass-senate.html

The five Democratic senators from traditionally pro-gun states who have expressed skepticism about the bill are Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Independent Senator Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, also said he opposes a ban.

Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who supported similar legislation in 2004, has indicated she is unlikely to back the proposed ban in its current form.

[Duckhunter935]

38. target shooting

hunting and self defense are not legitimate uses?

[Phillip McCleod]

42. for an assault weapon? no they most certainly are not. hobbies do not outweigh the risks.

[Duckhunter935]

48. it is the exact

same as any semi-automatic rifle. I like using iron sights and the shorter carbine version because it makes it more challenging. Do not have long range target ranges withing driving distance to me. The AR platform also allows me to use the 22LR upper and fire the most low powered and cheap ammunition out there today.

[Phillip McCleod]

61. yeah semi-autos should definitely be banned as well.

without question.

[Jenoch]

29. I don't think the government is going to confiscate

any of my guns. I do think there is a distinct possibility that I will have to sell some of my magazines to a LEO and get low-capacity, under standard-capacity magazines for one of my handguns.

[nick of time]

31. Probably not.

It's looking less and less likely that even that will get out of the Senate and much less the repuke controlled House.

Off topic: Go 49ers.

[Jenoch]

54. There are several gun control bills

introduced in the Minnesota legislature. While it is unlikely that a magazine ban will be passed, there is a possiblity that it will. We (Democrats) finally took control of both houses and with Governor Dayton, we are firmly in control. Even though Minnesota is a solidly blue state, we are also pro-RKBA but the atmosphere is such that some gun control measures might get through.

[nick of time]

55. It's a possibility

but I was talking on the Federal level.

[Jenoch]

56. I too don't think there will be

a magazine limit/ban at the federal level. There might be some sort of 'assault weapon' law such as registration and licensing. I think some sort of 'universal' background check will pass as a compromise. I don't think it will do much to reduce gun crime however.

[treestar]

32. It might be more like the "buy back" they did in Australia

The nuts want to picture ATF agents coming to their house and violently seizing their guns and taking them away in an armored truck laughing evilly about how we control you now! Unrealistic picture.

[Hoyt]

52. We have to hand it to the Aussies, they bit the bullet and enacted real/effective gun restrictions.

Apparently, all but the most right wing and callous there are satisfied with the new laws and results.

[libtodeath]

36. I wish the government did but not happening in my lifetime

[Mariana]

39. Most of them don't really believe it.

They're saying it, and pretending to believe it, so they have another excuse to complain about the President and call him names, but that is all it is. We know this is true because so many of them have been running out and buying new guns. Guns are expensive. Who does that? No one goes and spends a bunch of money on something they honestly believe is about to get confiscated.

[lumberjack_jeff]

40. I think you're confusing two phenomena.

I think that those who believe that the government is going to take their guns are fools.

I also think that those who think the government might, can or should take everyone else's guns are also fools.

"Repeal the 2nd amendment!!!" rants are counterproductive, foolish and pointless. Gun controls and better tracking are both appropriate and achievable.

Don't confuse belief that the government is going to take guns with the opinion that it's stupid to try.

[quaker bill]

45. More importantly

It is a necessary part of the myth that owning a firearm is somehow "freedom". It is a necessary part of the rationale to have a mythic oppressor who will "take them away". It does not matter that such a thing does not exist, it must be defined into existence. If nothing is attempting to remove them, then owning one becomes little more relevant to the concept of "freedom" than owning a flush toilet.

Unfortunately, actually needing a firearm for self protection is exactly the opposite of real freedom. Real freedom is not needing one.

[AverageJoe90]

57. They're nuts. Plain and simple.(In fact, some are worse!)

Unfortunately, it does seem that a fair number of people here are calling for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment, which, sadly, I must say, actually helps feed into the hysteria of the gun-nuts and makes the 90% of us who want reasonable gun regulations look bad. Really not something we need right now.