1776 all over again? Keep your guns!

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/biden-guns-executive-actions-86187.html?hp=t1_3

They are coming for your GUNS! 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!!!!!!!!!! What are you going to do citizen patriots? Obama wants to take all of your guns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIZN1VLLLJo

Tl;dr the article, but awesome :D But I doubt they'll succeed, it's too sudden and commercial or political (it's simply because of recent media coverage of shootings).

That is why you don't point a camera at Alex Jones.

He has a lot to say about the Constitution. Is he talking about the US Constitution? The living document that is designed to be amended? The system of law that our founders hoped would be rewritten every generation or so?

THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING! Or maybe not.

neubejiita said:

1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!!!!!!!!!!

And here I was thinking you lived in Wagga, when did you emigrate? Apart from possibly reinstating the ban on military-style assault rifles, what sort of weapons are they proposing to remove from circulation?

It doesn't matter! Anyone should be allowed to buy a nuclear warhead if they can afford one. That's called freedom.

YOU HAD IT COMING YOU FUCKERS

:P

GreyGhost said:

THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING! Or maybe not.

And here I was thinking you lived in Wagga, when did you emigrate? Apart from possibly reinstating the ban on military-style assault rifles, what sort of weapons are they proposing to remove from circulation?

Here we had gun ownership until Martin Bryant/Black Ops SAS did the Port Arthur shooting. Now we have strict gun control. Only the bikers and criminals have guns now...

Why not let everyone purchase one of these bad boys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_cruise_missile.

Surprisingly enough, despite the firearms amnesty and buyback there's more guns in circulation than there was before the Port Arthur massacre.

Bucket said:

Anyone should be allowed to buy a nuclear warhead if they can afford one. That's called freedom.

The downside being the small tent city of anti-nuclear protestors camped outside your door. Freedom has its price.

GreyGhost said:

The downside being the small tent city of anti-nuclear protestors camped outside your door. Freedom has its price.

That's why silent, odorless and painless radiation sterilizers were invented.

Welp time to buy some guns.

Preparing myself for the Delta City Project as we speak!

neubejiita said:

They are coming for your GUNS! 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!!!!!!!!!! What are you going to do citizen patriots? Obama wants to take all of your guns.

If 'they' really do take ARE GUNS away, does that mean I should start taking Alex Jones and Tiger Beat on the Potomac seriously?

ha ha ha

Quasar said:

Welp time to buy some guns.

Yeah, to protect yourself from crazy fuckers like this. And there are millions of them.

Quast said:

Yeah, to protect yourself from crazy fuckers like this. And there are millions of them.

Isn't that circular reasoning? :-p

Quast: I must get BIG GUNS to protect myself from crazy fuckers like this!
Some other guy: No Quast, you are the crazy fuckers like this.
And then Quast was a crazy fucker like this.

Later this week, Obama will formally announce his proposals to reduce gun violence, which are expected to include renewal of the assault weapons ban, universal background checks and prohibition of high-capacity magazine clips

I don't know what else is on the agenda, but this seems reasonable to me. While I fully support gun ownership, I do think there's a limit to what kind of weapon non-military personnel should be allowed to possess (people have already made the missile ownership gag, so I won't bother). Illegal procurement of weapons notwithstanding. And I thought carrying out background checks on anyone purchasing any kind of gun would have been common sense by now.

Maes said:

Quast: I must get BIG GUNS to protect myself from crazy fuckers like this!
Some other guy: No Quast, you are the crazy fuckers like this.
And then Quast was a crazy fucker like this.

This meme is getting very tired around here now.


See, I can understand civilians being allowed to own pistols for target-shooting and possibly self-defence. I can definitely understand civilian applications for shotguns (farms have a range of uses for them; home defence; clay pigeon shooting are the main ones for me). However, the things DoomUK has highlighted as being reasonable to ban most definitely are. A high capacity magazine seems unnecessary in all of the examples I gave above (you can reload when target shooting and I can't imagine a defence scenario in the Western world where 30 or more bullets being fired is going to count as reasonable, short of an opposing army knocking down your door). Assault Rifles are very extreme for any defence or target shooting scenario - you'd be better off with a sub-machine gun in a home or close quarters and a scoped, single shot rifle would be much better for targets. Fact is, you can get through civilian life just fine without a gun, but if allowances for owning them are to be made, they should be reasonable. Being able to open up full-auto for 30 rounds or more over several hundred meters is most definitely not reasonable.

I'd be pretty keen on limiting calibres and types of ammunition available too, if I were passing this sort of legislation. I understand that a .22 round won't necessarily put the target down, but 9mm is meant to. You certainly don't need an armour-piercing .50 bullet unless you're having to defend yourself from a light mech, for example; and anybody trying to pass of incendiary shotgun shells as "for farming" should probably be arrested on the grounds that they're either going to be an arsonist or cause a very cruel death for whatever they're shooting at.

Phobus said:

I can't imagine a defence scenario in the Western world where 30 or more bullets being fired is going to count as reasonable, short of an opposing army knocking down your door

Compensating for poor aiming skills and/or insecurity? US cops have been known to empty entire magazines on unarmed suspects, they need MOAR DAKKA!!!

Plus, they don't all have this guy's mad sk1llz:

Phobus said:

Assault Rifles are very extreme for any defence or target shooting scenario - you'd be better off with a sub-machine gun in a home or close quarters and a scoped, single shot rifle would be much better for targets.

Fully agreeing here, though a hit from a hollowpoint .45 ACP or catching all the lead from an 00 buckshot will do much more serious damage at CQ than being hit by a 5.56 mm assault rifle bullet in a fleshy part (unless it strikes bone...then it's legs and arms missing).

Fact is, you can get through civilian life just fine without a gun, but if allowances for owning them are to be made, they should be reasonable.

Phobus said:

Being able to open up full-auto for 30 rounds or more over several hundred meters is most definitely not reasonable.

What about semi-auto or controlled bursts? ;-)

Phobus said:

I'd be pretty keen on limiting calibres and types of ammunition available too, if I were passing this sort of legislation. I understand that a .22 round won't necessarily put the target down, but 9mm is meant to.

Depends. A 9 x 19 mm or 9 x 21 mm pistol round will -usually- do much less damage than a .22 calibre assault rifle round unless they are expanding hollowpoints, which can easily have 4x the energy. Don't forget that the calibre alone may mean entirely different weights and types of bullets. .22 doesn't necessarily mean just the .22 LR used for backyard plinking, but it can also mean a .223 remington or 5.56 mm NATO cartridge...quite the difference ;-)

Maes said:

Compensating for poor aiming skills and/or insecurity? US cops have been known to empty entire magazines on unarmed suspects, they need MOAR DAKKA!!!

Plus, they don't all have this guy's mad sk1llz:

My line of reasoning is that, if you own a weapon, you should be able to use it with a reasonable degree of skill, otherwise it's more of a liability than a defence. Obviously extreme mad sk1llz aren't mandatory though :P

What about semi-auto or controlled bursts? ;-)

I'm talking more about capability than intention. Afterall, an LMG can be fired relatively accurately, in a controlled manner, but you still have a belt or drum of lead to spray about if you get a bit too excited or have a crowd you want to depopulate.

Depends. A 9 x 19 mm or 9 x 21 mm pistol round will -usually- do much less damage than a .22 calibre assault rifle round unless they are expanding hollowpoints, which can easily have 4x the energy. Don't forget that the calibre alone may mean entirely different weights and types of bullets. .22 doesn't necessarily mean just the .22 LR used for backyard plinking, but it can also mean a .223 remington or 5.56 mm NATO cartridge...quite the difference ;-)

Having already discounted assault rifles as too extreme, I was talking purely about pistols. Admittedly my "knowledge" of this is all from novels, books, games and just random stuff I've read so my understanding of pistol calibres might be off and I'll bow to your military experience and greater enthusiasm for guns if that is the case.

Bucket said:

It doesn't matter! Anyone should be allowed to buy a nuclear warhead if they can afford one. That's called freedom.

If it's a case of freedom, how about my damn freedom not to feel threatened by rabid lunatic with a gun?

Phobus said:

Having already discounted assault rifles as too extreme, I was talking purely about pistols.

In many situations, in fact, a pistol is a "cooler" weapon to have, even for the "gun nut": they are smaller, easier to handle and conceal etc. while rifles are really only good for medium to long-range engagements (aka a real battlefield). No wonder the "noble" officers in armies get issued personal handguns, while the "plebean" soldier gets a big, clumsy rifle.

Rifles make extremely poor self-defense weapons (too large, clumsy, too great a risk of overpenetration, require precise aim and specific training to shoot accurately "gangstah style" from e.g. the hip!), so of course you'll need more ammo to compensate for poor accuracy or just generate a lot of "cover fire". There are some "pocket monsters" like the Viper M16 (an attempt to squeeze the M16 into a SMG-sized package, though I've once seen an even more compact one, with just a pistol grip, ridiculously short barrel and tremendous recoil to match!) but those are just sensationalist experiments, IMO.

The only armed groups regularly using assault rifles without caring about those shortcomings are rebels, guerillas, and Albanian Kalashnikov robber bands in Greece: they are happy with "simply" overpowering the police with a hail of 7.92 mm bullets, and most of them use extended banana clips....

Anyway, my point being that an AR in the hands of a civilian can only be practically used for long-range shooting (without proper training, it's hard to even conduct a columbine-style massacre with it: most shots will just miss ;-)

j4rio said:

If it's a case of freedom, how about my damn freedom not to feel threatened by rabid lunatic with a gun?

That's why "freedom" should include allowing you to get your own gun AND give you the legal power to defend yourself, if the authorities cannot guarantee an equal status of disarmament for everyone, at all time. IMO, legally deferring some of the "freedom deterrence" power to ordinary citizens is a good crime-cutting measure, as the state cannot be everywhere, every time.

Unless of course you support the thesis that actual armed criminals are more trustworthy than rabid lunatics, so it's A-OK for them to be armed, because they won't go on random sprees...strictly professional use of illegally acquired firearms, ahoy! ;-)

Maes said:

That's why "freedom" should include allowing you to get your own gun AND give you the legal power to defend yourself, if the authorities cannot guarantee an equal status of disarmament for everyone, at all time. IMO, legally deferring some of the "freedom deterrence" power to ordinary citizens is a good crime-cutting measure, as the state cannot be everywhere, every time.

The unfortunate side effect of this kind of freedom is that I'd just end up having a higher chance of bumping into rabid lunatics with a gun (more like free doom than freedom).

j4rio said:

The unfortunate side effect of this kind of freedom is that I'd just end up having a higher chance of bumping into rabid lunatics with a gun (more like free doom than freedom).

Like most things in life, that's yet another compromise. Some people have faith in the Rule of Law theoretically prohibiting gun ownership (and enforcing it equally for everyone), others prefer non-interference by the State and instead letting a sort of deterrence balance naturally setting in.

Both sides have valid points, and both have their compromises. it's up to the individual deciding which one suits him best.

I personally am against bans simply because, so far, no government has ever enforced tham successfully and equally: criminals get guns, sufficiently determined individuals get guns etc. and in the end only the poor-ass "law abiding citizen" catches lead.

Alex Jones is a triple genius, or possibly the funneled output of a large think tank or something. Everything he does is memetically tactical, for example he had "obama phone lady" on, probably because that's a popular youtube search term now, so he's hijacking its seo (now when people search "obama phone lady" they'll find his information). He hijacks religion, taking advantage of a massive pre-organized group and "preaches" occasionally in a more einsteinian way (using god a a metaphor for the universe instead of literal) that even charges me, an atheist, up.. he basically uses satan as a metaphor for corruption. He's showing how truly powerful media can be; a weird enigmatic new breed of information general in an information war for the information age. He's financially tactical too, knowing those with money have power, so has been selling tons of stuff, gaining a war chest to constantly fund and supercharge/augment the operation. He's one of the few that makes politics interesting, again it might be tactical to occasionally throw in wacky wtf info, because entertainment value is one of the things that makes memes spread. And he's developed quite a network of individuals on his side. He can talk and think impromptu at a very fast pace with a large vocabulary. Basically I don't think he's a charlatan running a get rich quick scientology-like mega scheme (though I used to think so), and he knows all about propaganda so probably took some tactics out of the scientology playbook such as using famous actors to hijack their SEO and virally replicate. If he's controlled opposition who actually works for the elite, then... I don't know, this is an insanely elaborate organization of weirdos running stuff. I suppose he might have some sort of weird paranoid schizophrenia-like condition in his brain, but he forms lots of cohesive intelligent/insane ideas. There's a fine line separating intelligence and insanity. I am getting kind of scared that a civil war/secession or something might happen soon. I don't know if there's a puppeteer orchestrating all of this.

Maes said:

Both sides have valid points, and both have their compromises. it's up to the individual deciding which one suits him best.

I'd say both sides are horribly flawed, but since nobody is going to come up with a better solution during my existence anyway, I'd personally prefer a choice that at least tries to get something done about banning simply because of undeniably higher chance of not getting randomly shot. Sure, it's flawed and has loopholes you mentioned and is a wonderful source for endless amount of conspirations, but simply higher overall survivability is sufficient enough for me, because I can't fathom more important factor tied with my current existence. Living somewhere without such bans and restrictions just seems like a passive warzone to me.

If only this wasn't mere political blabber.

j4rio said:

I'd personally prefer a choice that at least tries to get something done about banning simply because of undeniably higher chance of not getting randomly shot

And I would prefer a choice that, if anything, gives me the power to be more proactive and not criminalizing me for merely fighting back. Of course, what I ask for trascends simple "gun ownership". It's more like "responsible gun ownership with full self-defense rights for every good citizen out there", but that's probably just as utopian as banning guns completely.

j4rio said:

If it's a case of freedom, how about my damn freedom not to feel threatened by rabid lunatic with a gun?

Um... property rights?

Um... right to life?

Hey, if you wanna tell the angry guy with a weapon you have a "right to life", go ahead. Tell me how he responds.