General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: People on here should not be allowed to advocate for health care reform [View all]AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)For reasons you are clearly not aware of, just in how you phrased that.
Please understand this.
EVERY rifle round will 'tear up' humans. The .223 from an AR-15 is FUCKING PISSWEAK. Please understand that. When people say 'oh, keep your hunting rifle', you're talking about the same .223 that isn't legal for deer hunting in most of America, because it is too WEAK to kill a deer. In my state, .240 is the legal minimum for anything bigger than a coyote. The military is constantly debating upgrading the current rifles they use to 6.5 or going all the way back to .308 NATO, because they are fighting ~250lb deer that sometimes wear armor, and shoot back, and .223 is just not what you described it as. (Caveat, civilians can use hollow-point and military are limited by treaty to FMJ Ball, and that DOES produce a wound characteristic difference, granted.)
When you say it can kill too many people too quickly, that's an arbitrary line in the sand, and ANY semi-auto can meet or exceed it. So what do we use? Cyclic rate? Anything that can pump through >500 rounds per minute? Nevermind that if you tried, the AR-15 would catch on FIRE. Do we ban all semi-autos? Do you have any idea at all how many firearms, how many gun owners, liberal and conservative that might be?
And on the effectiveness, It's like I'm stuck in the maddening position of trying to explain why a particular thing that is POPULAR, isn't the most EFFECTIVE, yet I have to keep in mind that I don't want to help people who actually want to inflict damage with these things, find the more effective weapons to do it with.
To put it another way, as the father of an 8 year old in the third grade, who attends a public school whose physical security is middling at best... It is important to me that people understand WHY the AR-15 is commonly used for this purpose, and how to target the behavior, because the last thing I want is some fuckwit nutbag unable to obtain an AR-15, and instead grabbing a SCAR-H or an AR-10 or any other number of functionally identical rifles in a bigger caliber, and shooting up some place with that instead.
.233 isn't a magic death ray. Contrary to popular commentary these days, it was not designed to shred humans. It is a compromise on power, and weight, because when troops have to slog through Vietnam and Korea, they have to have all the ammo they need in a firefight ON them. They had to CARRY it. More rounds means better odds in the fight. Shitbag walking from his car to a school doesn't have to worry so much about weight. You do NOT want one of these people selecting .308 instead, bad as .223 is, the reality could be a LOT worse.
To put another way, nobody who knew they were going into a gunfight in the next five minutes, would grab an AR-15 off the shelf, when there's an AR-10 sitting next to it. Nobody grabs a SCAR-L over a SCAR-H. Nobody grabs an AR-15 over a FN-FAL.
For a culture so steeped in guns, there's a vast culture of ignorance around firearms, and it has upsides and downsides. By all means, let's work on regulations, but please do some research so you can begin with the end in mind. Guns 'like AR's' aren't the problem, without indicting any semi-auto with a detachable magazine ever made, sold, or imported.