Political rants

implying i get my political news from cnn instead of dramaalart on youtube edit: udon > ramen

On the topic of school shootings, this is more of a cultural issue than anything else. When Columbine High school happened it was an event that changed the culture completely. Before that point a school shooting was mostly personal vendetta and gang related shootings, there was a specific target. With Columbine the deranged and confused kids had a way to make their way into the history books. The problem is that events like Columbine and the other shootings have already happened and there is no way to undo them or their influence. Good news is that these events are fairly rare and isn't something that requires constant attention. @projectotakux People want racism to exist, so they search for it in places it doesn't exist. @momoichi It is extremely hard to get an automatic weapon legally. You need a federally approved Class III firearms permit and then an automatic firearm made before the 1986 since that is when the citizen ban happened. I actually had a Class III firearms permit since I was a flea market trader. Bad news is that automatic firearms that are in circulation are well over $5,000 at the cheapest, average is around $12,000. So that was a business I go out of since it was too damn expensive. So far there hasn't been a large shooting with a legal automatic weapon since the St. Valentines day massacre of 1929. Semi-automatics are one trigger pull, one shot. These are most commonly found in the target shooting market or for hunting. Allows for a quick follow up shot should you miss while hunting. They are not practical for enclosed areas due to a more lengthy setup for aiming and sight alignment as well as being large and cumbersome. Not ideal for the situation at hand, what we should be thankful for is that people were not using shotguns for these shootings. However one thing that has to be stated, an "assault weapon" is not a thing that exists and is a word coined by politicians trying to ban firearms that looked scary. For example. https://d3uwh8jpzww49g.cloudfront.net/legacy/media/13453234/ar15-beforeandafterban.jpg As far as the chart goes, this is for general statistics involving guns. Most of those deaths are still attributed to handguns and as it stands only 2% of homicides are done by semi-automatic rifles. Meaning people get beat to death with somebody's fist more often than dying by a rifle. Because you like articles so much here are the statistics. https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/

@dyadka_yar *groans* you always right so much, dya. you vastly overestimate my reading comprehension clearly is the permit hard to get? and i thought semi automatics were you pull the trigger and like three bullets come out in succession? i thank you for giving me this information btw, as i said before i know dick all about assault weapons and I'm totally open to being educated on any utility they may have, but isn't it just for aesthetic purposes? they don't give any greater utility besides 'i want to own this' right? in my eyes, and i don't mean this as an insult, chalk it up to ignorance on my part if you disagree with this outlook, but it seems like pure vanity. like when people want to own tigers and other dangerous animals. while I'm all for useless extravagance, that's one of the great things about being from a wealthy capitalist country, i draw the line at things that result in the deaths of others. i know the deaths are minimal, i feel like I'm repeating myself over and over by saying this, but if i way the pros and cons it seems worthy to trade assault rifle ownership to save a few lives because i don't see the utility in it minus some petty vanity. the only other argument iv heard that's pro assault weapons is that 'we need to be able to arm ourselves to fight against our government' which is insane when you look at the pure might of the American military

@momoichi The permit is relatively hard to get. You have to have a clean criminal record. Parking tickets and vehicle moving violations are allowed. Then it has to be sent to a federal bureau for review of the application where it can be denied for any reason. Once you have it you have to have a shop or some sort of recognized trading organization or else the permit can be revoked. It also expires one year from the time of issuing. Then we have expenses, it is $200 to apply for one and all firearms traded under the classification of Class III requires a further $200 transfer fee. On top of this you have the price of the firearms themselves which can reach insane levels. A lot of these are trophy weapons from WW2 or Vietnam war so they are old as well. The only other way to get it is if you are a federally approved firearms manufacturer or are under contract to design a new firearm. That is the much faster route, but it also locks you into a certain career path. So unless you like slaving away on a lathe, not recommended. Overall it is incredibly hard to get one of these for the average American since the federal government and sheer cost of things gets in the way. The second question, that is a 3 round burst which is this strange mix of semi-automatic and automatic. However for federal purposes it is labeled as "automatic". There is a lot of confusion in this area thanks to it being a combination of both, but it is technically "automatic". So somebody unfamiliar with guns and the like it would be easy to confuse these things. And yes these do fall under Class III firearms as well. Now there is a gun collector market out there. I set up shop at the flea market right next to one. It's a lot like somebody who collects baseball cards or videogames. Something that sort of sparks their interest and it is something interesting. These are devices that are engineering marvels. They have to take explosive pressures of 45,000psi+ and work more than once. I will say that most people who buy them for target shooting, but a good... I want to say 20% use them as hunting rifles, real statistic is unknown. Now the thing about fighting against the government is that it is possible, it's just going to be very costly for any sort of rebels, but it is possible. We had the same situation in Vietnam where government forces were forced to retreat by what was nothing more than a farmer who was given a rifle or an explosive. Same thing happened in Afghanistan only the Taliban was far smaller in number than that of Vietnam. What will happen is that any sort of force that is trying to fight off the US government is going to take massive losses over 4 or 5 to 1 in a perfect scenario. The argument itself I feel is more rooted in the idea of, "Will you just leave us alone to our hobbies?" rather than any sort of actual actual rebellion.

@dyadka_yar curious, do you support this strict measure to get a permit? i want to say that istrongly disagree that its akin to someone that collects baseball cards, but *sigh* if I'm being honest it feels a bit disingenuous of me to say this as I'm not a fan of guns, so it seems a bit presumptuous to be saying that it seems like owning a gun is akin to the thrill people get from owning a dangerous animal. i just don't understand the attraction so I'm having to assume why it is, which can be considered unfair but i would also say that if baseball cards and violent video games lead to the avoidable deaths of others i would be for banning them. i cant even really compare it to the danger of owning a wild animal because its the owners that are typically hurt in these cases, where as its other people that are mostly harmed by these kinds of weapons, which feels even worse (notice i said feels, i totally acknowledge this is an emotional argument) would you support an assault rifle ban (hope I'm using the right terminology) if it promised few deaths? it seems so strange to me that people are willing to allow the death of innocent people, no matter how insignificant, if it meant they could own an item that does nothing but gather dust (i think fire ranges owning them so people can fire them and have fun is fine, its the private ownership that I'm not a fan of, so even "i like firing it" isn't an excuse in this case)

lemme amend what i said previously, because i think it needs more context if baseball cards could kill a mass amount of people and all people wanted them for was collecting them, id be for banning them saying "lead to avoidable deaths" was a bit too ambiguous

@momoichi Well that's the million dollar question right there. I am unsure at this point right now. After firing an automatic firearm I can tell you it is a lot less accurate than semi-automatic. You have to fight with the firearm in automatic to keep it on target, even then it's going to still spray all over the place. You have to go back into the past and realize what the were designed for. The idea was primarily that you have an automatic weapon firing at an enemy to keep their heads down so they aren't firing at you while your squad advances on them. This is why in war statistics the people with the highest kill counts are snipers and not machine gunners and more often than not using bolt action rifles. Bolt action rifle being one that you fire one shot and have to pull on a handle to load in the next shot. So what we would looking at is a situation where the death toll could actually fall, but injuries and unintended targets being hit rise in shooting situations. We haven't had any sort of modern experience with this sort of thing since right after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre the automatic firearms were federally regulated with you needing a permit to own them. It was more relaxed before the 1986 ban/regulations. So as far as this question goes, it is tough and I'm going to have to sit on the fence with this one. While I personally like the idea, I have no idea where it could lead. As far as an assault rifle ban, well we have to go over a few things first. Assault rifles are rifles capable of automatic firing mode which falls under the Class III firearms permit. Sporting and hunting rifles are usually what politicians and newscasters call "assault weapons", but it's purely cosmetic. It looks like and may be based off of a military rifle design, but would never be accepted into service. They aren't capable of an automatic firing mode and are actually more fragile than a military rifle. For example, an average proper quality AK rifle fit for military service can survive being fired in automatic for around 7-800 rounds without stopping. My civilian WASR-10 is known to fail at around 400 rounds of continuous fire. So with that said, I don't think that the 300 homocides a year on average caused by a sporting/hunting rifle is reason for a ban. Namely due to the nature of humans. If a person wants to kill another person they are going to try to do it in any manner they can. You might see a drop in deaths to rifle, but those numbers would end up in another category like knives, blunt objects, bombs or whatnot. It is what happened in UK where they totally banned the few firearms that were there and instead they started stabbing and beating each other with blunt objects which is which is where you find most of the homicides in the UK now. The interesting thing is that Switzerland and Germany do have far more relaxed gun laws than many US states which may surprise you. Let us take California for example which has some of the strictest gun laws in the US and Germany who has a more relaxed gun law than California. Firearms killed 3,184 in California in 2016 (using 2016 because it was the first result) vs Germany 1,220 the same year. This was with Germany having over twice the population. I think the issue is less the guns and more people feeling the need to kill each other for some stupid reason. To sum it up it the person doing the homicide knows is told it's wrong, they know it's wrong yet they do it anyways. Ergo a ban is not going to get rid of that desire and no lives will be saved. The lives that would be not be taken by a rifle after such a ban would still be at the mercy of the madman who wants them dead. I don't mind that you disagree with me. These are the conversations that keep MO interesting.

I wouldn't trust anyone that wants to reduce your capability to project force for any excuse. I'm of the camp that looks at weapons as tools more than toys, but even if there exists people who view them as toys or collectibles, they still have value and purpose. If the USA respects the people's "unalienable rights" that consist of the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", I would say that firearms, blades, black powder weapons, and nonlethal tools should be considered part of these rights. If we have a right to life, then should we not also have a right to defend it ourselves? If we have a right to liberty, should we not also have a right to decide how we defend ourselves? Even if it is vain, is it also not a right to pursue the ownership of weapons for collection or amusement if we also have the right to pursue happiness? Americans should not be so happy to surrender the rights they have. As the saying goes, "it is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it". If anyone wishes to give up their own right to arms because they believe they are too dangerous to bear them, I respect that as a personal decision. For one to come against me and demand I give up my rights, how could I not interpret that as a statement that you see me as a threat and wish to weaken me for your own purpose? I do not believe people should be forced to give up their rights because of the foolish actions of others. The topic of defense and arms should be non-negotiable. Additionally, I don't understand the rational people have of saying "the founding fathers had black powdered weapons at the time they wrote the second amendment, so this means we should regulate our right to arms". The founding fathers also lived in a time where the ownership of personal warships existed under the practice of "privateering". Not to forget, the weapons the founding fathers used held relative strength to the weapons of the British military, one of the world powers of the time. If anything, such an argument only promotes the increased militarization of the citizenry. （；¬＿¬)