Full auto isn't useful even to criminals. Full auto is a suppression method of combat. It is not designed to kill masses of people instantly as idiotic politicians would have you believe.
For reference, a well trained person can fire multiple shots per second and keep it sustained for awhile. One can go through a 30 round magazine in a good 5-10 seconds by squeezing the trigger as fast as possible. That is inaccurate as hell and the muzzle rise is going to cause more misses than hits even shooting at a target rich environment. A fully automatic weapon can do all 30 rounds in about a second though. Which would cause the muzzle rise to be even worse. The reason for full auto is a spray suppression to get enemies that may be firing at you to take cover. It is a tactic not really meant to hit anyone and rarely does. To make full use of the tactic though you need more than 30 bullets. Many automatic weapons can fire thousands of rounds per minute. Do you know how much thousands of rounds weighs????? Even in the smallest bullet in common production a few thousand rounds is quite heavy to carry. More so on bigger calibers of ammo. Nor does using fully automatic even with that much ammo to spend will even kill that many in a target rich environment. Nor is it needed to shoot people that are shooting back.
What most mass murderers do is methodically hunt down and shoot as many people as they can. They make as many bullets count per shot as they can. Mass murderers are for the body count and not for the wasting all their ammo in a 1 second press of a button that might kill 1 or 2 people.
As for other criminals using guns, those are almost all done with handguns as they are easy to conceal.
I am all for laws that make it harder to keep guns from falling into the wrong hands and penalize those that allow it. I am against trying to use a gun ban to prevent it when it deprives law abiding citizens the use of such weapons for defense. And make no mistake, the 2A is put there for defense of the common man against all enemies foreign and domestic.
So yes I do have a problem as well with the current gun ban on fully automatic weapons. Out of all 175,000 fully automatic weapons allowed to be privately owned, only 2 has ever been used in a crime. BOTH crimes were done by law enforcement officers. Go figure.
I'm not talking about mass murders here, you are correct that most of them hunt down their victims and methodically murder them. For those scenarios, yes banning of automatic weapons is useless.
But I'm talking about your common street criminal who knock off a 7-11 for a couple hundred bucks.
So take your point about easy to conceal handguns and replace that with easy to conceal, select fire, small SMG. You have now essentially doubled the firepower of your average street thug.
Not only can they fire a single shot if needed but use full auto as covering fire (as you pointed out) for attempting to get away.
Or how about a bunch of those same thugs armed with the same weapons doing a drive by. There isn't a need to be accurate just to put a ton of lead through whatever they're shooting at.
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Earth to marvdmartian, even if partially agree with you, you understand zero about law making. If Pelosi and her ilk can summon up a 50.1% majority in the House and Senate, and the Prez signs, it becomes the law of the land.
Nothing in the constitution gives you, marvdmartian, veto power.
And if the cops have to pry your guns out of your cold dead hands, that too can be arranged.
I'm not talking about mass murders here, you are correct that most of them hunt down their victims and methodically murder them. For those scenarios, yes banning of automatic weapons is useless.
But I'm talking about your common street criminal who knock off a 7-11 for a couple hundred bucks.
So take your point about easy to conceal handguns and replace that with easy to conceal, select fire, small SMG. You have now essentially doubled the firepower of your average street thug.
Not only can they fire a single shot if needed but use full auto as covering fire (as you pointed out) for attempting to get away.
Or how about a bunch of those same thugs armed with the same weapons doing a drive by. There isn't a need to be accurate just to put a ton of lead through whatever they're shooting at.
That isn't quite right. For the most part it takes 60% to get a bill through the Senate.
btw, I really admire Diane Feinstein, she's one of the greatest senators of our time.
But there's no way this bill as drafted will make it through the Senate. Nothing even close to it. It probably can't get a majority of Democrats let alone the entire Senate.
In the political world I think her strategy is to try to force Republicans to present an alternative.
It's trivial to convert something like a semi-auto AR-15 to a full auto M16. All you need is this:I'm not talking about mass murders here, you are correct that most of them hunt down their victims and methodically murder them. For those scenarios, yes banning of automatic weapons is useless.
But I'm talking about your common street criminal who knock off a 7-11 for a couple hundred bucks.
So take your point about easy to conceal handguns and replace that with easy to conceal, select fire, small SMG. You have now essentially doubled the firepower of your average street thug.
Not only can they fire a single shot if needed but use full auto as covering fire (as you pointed out) for attempting to get away.
Or how about a bunch of those same thugs armed with the same weapons doing a drive by. There isn't a need to be accurate just to put a ton of lead through whatever they're shooting at.
It's trivial to convert something like a semi-auto AR-15 to a full auto M16. All you need is this:
Law abiding citizens don't dare try it because of the harsh penalties. But surprisingly, most criminals don't bother converting either. Everyone agrees: full auto is largely useless for everything except wartime engagement/cover fire, and recreational "machine gun" shooting (it's fun for about 5 seconds before you realize you blew through $50 worth of ammo in a few blinks).
Bills like this are why the filibuster exists.
What do you like about her? The republicans are not presenting an alternative because restricting weapons won't work.
States need to keep violent crime offenders behind bars longer, cities need to figure out gang situations if that's even possible. Teachers should be allowed to arm themselves just as pilots were. Even if 5% of teachers were armed it'd cast a shadow of doubt. Improve citizens ability to concealed carry.
The Republican alternative wouldn't have to restrict weapons. They can propose whatever they want. They can propose the things you just said.
The idea is to pressure them to propose something in response. Just opposing her works for some of the Republican base, maybe not for the rest of the public.
I like her because she's a pragmatic moderate Democrat. She is tough, effective, and greatly respected by all of her colleagues.
Our country needs at least some people who know how to get things done, that make our unweildy system work. There's some of these people in both parties, the serious people who working together hold us on a trajectory that has made us great. She's one of those people.
Doubtful that someone is going to use a several thousand dollar angry to steal $100. Even when expensive rifles are stolen, they are traditionally sold.
Your average street thug is using a hi-point $100 handgun cause it's cheap. They usually use the gun for an intimidation factor to force people to do what they want. Many times they get scared and pull the trigger either on purpose or accidentally. That is where the majority of gun violence deaths come from. Very rarely did the person that shot another intended to originally pull the trigger. It's usually a case of a robbery gone bad.
Right, the guns are expensive right now due to the ban being in place. You don't think that the price would plummet if import was allowed and possession taxes were removed?
Good point, but this somewhat brings me back to the point I made to Tallbill, if the restrictions on import and possession are removed the price of an automatic weapon plummets. Maybe not to the $100 level but to a much more obtainable level.
Wow...usually things don't fail right from the get go, but, Feinstein managed to do that - in spectacular fashion no less - in the first sentence.
They let this crazy b1tch be part of running the country???
Short barrels and supressors are nfa and I can tell you that criminal elements are not using those nfa weapons.
Sorry to break it to you, she's been re-elected a few times, and got more votes for Senator than anyone in history. That's why she gets to make decisions.
I'm not really in favor of an assault weapons ban though, ineffective. Hardly anyone gets shot with an assault rifle. The vast majority of gun crime involves hand guns. I would be in favor of further restrictions on handguns as a matter of practicality.
Right, the guns are expensive right now due to the ban being in place. You don't think that the price would plummet if import was allowed and possession taxes were removed?
Good point, but this somewhat brings me back to the point I made to Tallbill, if the restrictions on import and possession are removed the price of an automatic weapon plummets. Maybe not to the $100 level but to a much more obtainable level.
That price drop is part of why you want it, I understand that. Shooting a weapon on full auto is fun every once in a while. I had the chance once to shoot a Thompson SMG on auto, it was quite exhilarating until the magazine was dry.
I have more thoughts on this... but my brain is just not working tonight. I'll continue this tomorrow.
In the mean time, firearms are flying off store hand trucks.
btw, I really admire Diane Feinstein, she's one of the greatest senators of our time.
It's trivial to convert something like a semi-auto AR-15 to a full auto M16. All you need is this:
Law abiding citizens don't dare try it because of the harsh penalties. But surprisingly, most criminals don't bother converting either. Everyone agrees: full auto is largely useless for everything except wartime engagement/cover fire, and recreational "machine gun" shooting (it's fun for about 5 seconds before you realize you blew through $50 worth of ammo in a few blinks).
Or if you want to do the ghetto conversion, buy a Lightning Link. Or a rubber band.
Seriously? The only thing Diane Frankenstein has done is repeatedly try and shove shit no one wants down the throats of the American people. She is also incredibly irresponsible and endangered the lives at everyone at her press conference by waving around an AK-47 with her finger on the trigger and the safety off. She is also a hypocrite, while working to disarm the american people she has the audacity to own and concealed carry a gun herself.
If you admire someone like that it says a lot about you, none of it particularly flattering.