FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year Than Rifles

[ReinMan]

I own an AR-15 that is semi auto but is one shoot per trigger pull. It seems to be considered an assault weapon even though it doesn't have multiple fire capabilities without significant modification.

It certainly meets the faux definition of an assault weapon that libs love to bandy about, but unless it can fire more than one round per trigger pull, it is not.

Wikipedia's list of characteristics is actually pretty accurate. An assault rifle is:

1. Shoulder fired, as opposed to crew-served
2. Capable of selective fire (fully auto or burst, and single shot)
3. Intermediate power (cartridge larger than a pistol, but smaller than battle or sniper rifle)
4. Detachable magazine-fed, as opposed to belt-fed, or internal magazine
5. Capable of effective fire to at least 300m (~330yds)

Most "black rifles" meet all the criteria except #2, which I would consider the most important defining characteristic with respect to lethality and firepower.
Ironically, selective fire is the characteristic that the gun-grabbers completely ignore when "defining" an assault rifle. They'll usually substitute some stupid s**t like a pistol grip or bayonet lug as defining features.

[ReinMan]

I own an AR-15 that is semi auto but is one shoot per trigger pull. It seems to be considered an assault weapon even though it doesn't have multiple fire capabilities without significant modification.

Heh. 'Significant modification.' It's ironic that the most gun-grabbers' most hated 'black rifle', the AR-15 and all it's variants, are damn near impossible to reverse engineer to fire fully auto again.

Material is removed by machining on the bolt carrier, disconnector, hammer, safety/selector cylinder, and trigger, and there's a component removed, and it's corresponding cross-drilled hole in the receiver that's not drilled. Attempting to re-add the material by welding and re-machining destroys the temper on the parts, making the weapon extremely prone to catastrophic component failure.

You'd pay a machinist more to do the mod, than you would to acquire a fully-auto submachinegun on the black market.

[Lanie]

Somebody call for evil judge pig?

Sorry. We're putting a ban on ban hammers and letting the trolls in.

[Lanie]

So, basically, you are the voice of reason in your family?

An assault weapon is a weapon that is capable of selective fire, which means that it can fire in single shot mode (semi-automatic, where one trigger squeeze equals one shot) or a burst/multi-shot mode (full-auto, where the weapon fires automatically as long as the trigger is depressed). Fully automatic weapons are already banned, so what your sister really wants to ban is any repeating weapon, i.e., any weapon that can hold more than one round and which can be fired without having to manually engage the action. There are currently over 80 million households in the United States with gun owners (officially, but I believe the real number to be substantially higher). An outright ban would transform roughly half the country into criminals, and a signficant percentage would not only resist confiscation through subterfuge (hiding weapons, fake sales, etc.,), but would actually fight back with those guns if someone showed up to take them. Even if nobody fired a shot, just the sheer volume of searches and warrants would become a civil liberties nightmare. If it turned violent, it would be on a scale not seen here since the Civil War (in fact, it pretty much would be a civil war). Most of the police and military would oppose the ban and if it came to open defiance, would side with the gun owners, which would severely impede confiscation attempts, and turn large swathes of the country into no-go zones for law enforcement. Think of the Prohibition era, when police fought bootleggers and home-brewers in every town in America, and you get a vague idea of the type of issues involved, but the scale would be an order of magnitude greater.

In order to carry out your sister's attack on the Second Amendment, we'd have to void the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, not to mention eliminating all manner of other legal protections. For someone who probably considers the Patriot Act unacceptably invasive, she's sure advocating a lot of civil liberties violations.

I can't help but think that if you're willing to shoot authority figures rather than give up your gun, then the anti-gun people have a point. Their point is that gun owners are obsessed with guns, only care about guns, etc. I think anybody who would shoot authority figures to keep their guns proves their point.

[ReinMan]

I can't help but think that if you're willing to shoot authority figures rather than give up your gun, then the anti-gun people have a point. Their point is that gun owners are obsessed with guns, only care about guns, etc. I think anybody who would shoot authority figures to keep their guns proves their point.

Then you have completely missed the point of the Second Amendment.

It was the intent of the Founders that egregious violations of citizen's natural rights be met with deadly force against the 'authorities'; and the Second Amendment was the vehicle by which they sought to ensure that this intent was supported by the capability and wherewithal to do so.

Any government that has abandoned the Constitution to the point where it's sending armed agents to confiscate weapons proves our point, that we need the guns to protect ourselves from a government-run-amok.

[FlaGator]

I can't help but think that if you're willing to shoot authority figures rather than give up your gun, then the anti-gun people have a point. Their point is that gun owners are obsessed with guns, only care about guns, etc. I think anybody who would shoot authority figures to keep their guns proves their point.

The founding fathers were willing to shoot those people who attempted to take what they believed to be their rights from them. I think that gun owners are in good company.

[Lanie]

Then you have completely missed the point of the Second Amendment.

It was the intent of the Founders that egregious violations of citizen's natural rights be met with deadly force against the 'authorities'; and the Second Amendment was the vehicle by which they sought to ensure that this intent was supported by the capability and wherewithal to do so.

Any government that has abandoned the Constitution to the point where it's sending armed agents to confiscate weapons proves our point, that we need the guns to protect ourselves from a government-run-amok.

Oddly enough, going after federal authorities with guns is considered treason. You can argue this is what the 2nd amendment is supposed to support, but the reality is anybody who uses their gun to shoot a federal authority figure will probably be executed. Period.

[FlaGator]

Oddly enough, going after federal authorities with guns is considered treason. You can argue this is what the 2nd amendment is supposed to support, but the reality is anybody who uses their gun to shoot a federal authority figure will probably be executed. Period.

Actually that would depend on who won the war.

[Odysseus]

I can't help but think that if you're willing to shoot authority figures rather than give up your gun, then the anti-gun people have a point. Their point is that gun owners are obsessed with guns, only care about guns, etc. I think anybody who would shoot authority figures to keep their guns proves their point.

And their point is wrong. Gun owners are concerned (not obsessed) with protecting themselves, their families and their property, while the gun grabbers are obsessed with guns, care only about taking them away from lawful users, etc. Second, an authority figure derives that authority from the consent of the governed. Using that authority to deny the rights of a group, based solely on the prejudices of political elites (i.e., other authority figures), is an abrogation of that consent, and diminishes their authority. The government does not grant us the right to defend ourselves, we delegate that right to those agencies which execute that function, and if they turn around and attempt to deny us that right, then they abrogate their authority.

[Retread]

I can't help but think that if you're willing to shoot authority figures rather than give up your gun, then the anti-gun people have a point. Their point is that gun owners are obsessed with guns, only care about guns, etc. I think anybody who would shoot authority figures to keep their guns proves their point.

It's been done before and can happen again.....

The Battle of Athens was an armed rebellion led by WWII veterans and citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the tyrannical local government in August 1946.