I doubt you could put more than two holes in a beer can. If your machine gun is mounted, yep; it's gonna be a bit more accurate, but a hand-held rifle is gonna jump (vented or not).
Posted on 07/26/2006 4:47:07 PM PDT by bad company
Why would you want to indiscriminately throw 200+ rounds/minute around? I say 'indiscriminately' because if you have ever fired a fully automatic weapon; you would know that after the first 5-10 rounds leave the rifle, you have little control over where the rest of the clip goes.
Contrast this against your 9mm, .357, .45, .22 ect. One shot, and you have a really good idea where that bullet went. And with semi-automatics; we still have idiots spraying the neighborhood with bullets. Now, instead of maybe having 2-5 people getting sprayed in a crowd; the entire crowd can be cut in half.
Restricting purely offensive weaponry such as machine guns protects society as a whole, which is probably pretty close to the origonal intent of the founding fathers. I wonder how the founding fathers would felt about farmers with cannon?
"But machine guns and WMDs aren't easily classified as defensive weapons."
SO how are "machine guns" comparable to nukes or WMDs? Thats always been a silly comparison.
"There are no absolute rights in the Constitution because the rights conflict with others when taken to the extreme. Somewhere that line is drawn, and people will always argue where it should be."
Sure, but the key point is that the power rests with the people and not the government.
Imagine 100 years from now when I am alive due to miracles in medicine at age 134 and new nano-armor, EM guns, or laser guns supplant the 600 year old current firearm technology (small explosive propelling a round out of a chamber)....and new gear such as bullet tracking devices are implanted on cars, body armor, satellites, etc...where owning a 21st century firearm or older is absolutely obsolete and USELESS...what happens when the government THEN says that, "Oh,....you can have all the machine guns you want, but not the current weapons possessed by the BATFE".?
Makes you think.......
Well, who wouldn't like to see gangbangers unable to get weapons of any sort, because they're not the ones who will use them responsibly. That's not the issue.
Look at the homicides in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where the gangbangers have automatic weapons. Better have lots of life insurance if you're the chief of police there, because the odds are good you'll die in a fusilade of bullets from an automatic weapon while driving to work.
MS-13 is active in our cities. Would you feel safer if they had easy access to machine guns? There's really no pressing valid reason for any law-abiding citizen to have the capability to mow down 30 people in a minute, is there?
Oh my, for a mere $300 (I think) a federal firearms stamp could have been purchased for lawful possession.
That would be Waco.
or having our face blown off while holding a baby standing in a door...or.....oh nevermind..."
That would be Ruby Ridge.
Took me a bit but I finally got your reference. I didnt know they had automatic weapons at Ruby Ridge. Thought it was only the shotguns and hunting rifles.
I think you are correct.
You are showing your ignorance on a subject that I handle everyday. I have over 100 machine guns in my house, most are WWI and WW2 watercooled and beltfeds...you obviously don't know a thing about automatic weapons and get your information from TV and Hollywierd. I can draw my name in a target with certain machine guns. Some are VERY VERY accurate on every shot.
No one dies unless the wave function collapses, otherwise known as the Schroedinger select fire.
Wow...two ignorant statements in one post (Not trying to insult you, but you are severely lacking in facts). Pick up a history book. FARMERS WITH CANNONS WERE ON THE CONFISCATION LIST WHEN THE BRITS LEFT BOSTON.
1. Yes, you must jump through hoops to acquire a Class 3 FFP; this is for the 'collector' or 'enthusiast' who just has to have one. If a criminal is caught with a fully automatic weapon; the judge tends to throw the book at the perp. This is fine with me.
2. I would argue that an idiot with a machine gun is far more dangerous than with a semi-automatic weapon. Instead of emptying a 9 round clip; he can unload 40 rounds, reload and drop another 40 on his drive-by. I'd much rather try my luck at dodging 9 rounds than 80.
As for 'gun nuts'; I'm a gun nut. I have deer rifles, shotguns and a couple of pistols laying around the house. I have no problem 'dropping' a perp on an attempted break-in. To me, that's part of the risk a robber has to take.
By the same tone, I can afford my 9mm Taurus; it's an equalizer against the bad guys. I can not afford the fully automatic weapon, and wouldn't be crazy about having my neighbors owning one either. If my neighbor fires off a round, the odds are better than 99% he'll miss me. If he opens up with a machine gun; he may miss me, but he's gonna do a LOT of damage to everythign around him. Someone is going to get hurt/killed.
I don't know if you served in the military; but I believe very few soldiers who have used fully automatic weapons would want them freely available on the street.
From Wikipedia:
"A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on
misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, since the argument actually presented by the opponent has not been refuted.
Its name is derived from the use of straw men in combat training where a scare crow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it."
That is the argument you have used. No one here has ever suggested that people should be allowed to possess WMDs. But it makes a wonderful straw man to beat up on, since our real arguments are too strong to attack. All we're saying is that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to own any type of small arms. In Iraq, BTW, the line is drawn (by our military) so that people can have AK-47s, but not RPG launchers.
The last place I saw the "let's accuse pro-gunners of wanting people to have WMDs" argument used was on www.democraticunderground.com. You owe all the pro-gun people on this thread an apology. How would you like it if someone accused you of wanting to put all gun owners in concentration camps? It wouldn't feel so good, would it?
Only 12 rounds? My G19 has 16 in it right now. And a spare mag of 15 within an arm's length. I have fired a FA weapon and prefer semi autos or even a bolt action with a scope.:-)
I'm glad you're convincing yourself with your arguments, but they haven't convinced me. If you can come up with an argument why the Founders would oppose radio, for instance, make it.
I have been all over the world, and I can tell you, I have seen governments collapse right in front of you and the mass of confused, angry, (and the scariest...HUNGRY) HAVE NOT people start to attack the HAVES.....
I prefer to be somewhat independent and not to rely on ANY form of government for my survival/Well being.
And if you think im anti-feds...read my profile...im a reserve LEO, an MI Army officer, and have an FFL.
Okay, give me a plausible scenario where you need a machine gun. When do you need to gun down a dozen people at once? A bad day at the office?
In Iraq, our soldiers have no problem with Iraqi citizens owning AK-47s. But thank you for asking whether or not I've served instead of automatically assuming I haven't.
If you are a gun nut, then I hope you criticize gun-banners as enthusiastically as you criticize your fellow gun owners.
Theres two...I could go on. These people are DANGEROUS for America and want it to fail! They both have said that they WANT America to get taken down a few notches....ON TAPE!
Sorry, but when you actively persue damage/destruction of the United States, the current administration, or the federal government, you should lose your rights.
It's not a straw man argument, no matter how you want to think of it that way.
The question is whether there is any limitation on the 2nd Amendment. Since your attack on me explicitly admits that there is, I established the point. The 2nd doesn't protect the possession of WMDs.
Thank you.
Then, the question is where do you draw the line down from there.
Muskets. Obviously okay. That's what the Founders were familiar with.
So, it's obviously somewhere between muskets and WMDs, so shove your straw man criticism up your musket.
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