this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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My favorite from them is "define assault weapon." My definition is "who the fuck cares? Let's regulate all guns."
I feel like whoever first started bringing the term "assault weapon" to gun debates really killed the argument.
Admittedly, the only useful argument I've ever heard on the idea of grouping them has been the thought that they are purchased for their popularity and "coolness", eg based on their appearance in some movie or video game, not specifically for their practical use of any civil kind. And, people who buy guns with no practical purpose in mind for them (as opposed to say, a person holding a restraining order expecting to defend themself) are more likely to end up letting them into an unsafe situation (by theft, jadedness, or pure accidents)
Still - not a strong argument, and I'd prefer it if we focused on how guns are used, not how black and tacticool they are.
That would be the pro gun control side. They wanted to conflate assault rifles as in the actual military rifles, and the downgraded civilian semi-auto rifles. The distinction is important, look up the process it takes to purchase a machine gun in the US sometimes. They deliberately want a culture of ignorance around guns, because the goal is total disarmament, not effective regulation.
You can see the result in this thread and others. People will claim that someone can just walk into a Walmart and buy a machine gun. Politicians talk about banning "fully semi auto assault weapons". The OP image and plenty of comments here mock the idea that someone should expect a base amount of knowledge in the subject before proposing new laws. Someone trying to define proposed regulation or correct a mistaken assumption about current laws is branded an "Ammosexual".
I’d kindly ask you not to put words in my mouth. I am pro gun control. I am not pro total disarmament - logically, such a thing isn’t even at all practical, especially because it isn’t achieved in any of the countries we use for comparisons about “what works”.
People are constantly misinformed about tons of issues across the world, including journalists. Take your blame to them. Don’t use it as an illogical thread to make a different point.
That's because legally speaking, it is not a machine gun.
Disbarring effectiveness from the conversation (although bumpfire is hilariously innacurate compared to true fully automatic fire), bumpfire also requires a degree of skill to actually pull off, even with a bump stock, as you have to manipulate the firearm in a way that it actually can continuously fire, something that would be very difficult to do in a stressful situation.
Bumpstocks also make semiautomatic fire much more difficult.
I should clarify that I'm not defending bumpstocks, I'm just saying that banning bumpstocks was a farce, especially since you can still bumpfire without them due to the existence of physics.
I would imagine bump stocks are actually less effective than regular aimed semiautomatic fire in just about every situation. That's why bans like this are pointless. People don't realize how fast a person can already shoot a semiautomatic rifle, while actually being able to properly aim at what they are trying to hit.
You can bump fire any gun without a bump stock or a trigger mechanism, on a lot of guns it's stupid easy and you can do it without experience. It doesn't turn it into a "fully automatic machine gun". Someone with barely any firearm experience can take any pistol or rifle and be shown how to bump fire within like a minute. It has nothing to do with accessories, although things like those can make it a little easier.
I'm a big advocate for better gun control, but what you're implying is just dishonest, even if unintentionally.
Posting that kind of stuff makes you sound like you have no idea what you're talking about (the way you worded it just sounds cringey) which makes people less inclined to be influenced by what you say, and hurts support of gun regulation by convincing witnesses that everybody who likes gun control is misinformed.
Then you'll have no issue with banning bumpstocks then eh? And other mechanisms that move this from skill based to technology based?
No. We just don't want people trying to ban things they don't have even a basic understanding of. When someone says "ban high capacity clipazines" it tells us they don't even know what they are talking about.
It's not semantics. When legislation is being written, it has to be very specific. If you can't even get the definition correct, how are you going to be expected to accurately write laws about it? It's even worse when the general population is pressuring their representatives to write laws on something they also know nothing about. There is a very clear distinction between semi-automatic and automatic. To say otherwise, you are absolutely clueless or intentionally being dishonest.