I have no strong feelings about the caliber of hunting rifles.
you said there is no need for "any firearm of large caliber and/or of great energy", that's what hunting rifles are.
That quote is from the exchange with Hyroglyphx that you originally responded to. I thought Hyroglyphx had just said hunting rifles are of much smaller caliber than assault rifles, but reading it again I think he meant the opposite.
Even more humane is not shooting animals at all.
so now you want to ban hunting.
How many times have I said I'm fine with hunting?
Where's the skill, the marksmanship?
Who says the hunters who use these rounds aren't trying to be accurate?
I never had to shoot at a squirrel more than twice with my pistol.
More absurd bragging. So what happens after that first shot misses? Does the squirrel just sit there instead of turning into a blur, waiting for the second shot?
If I missed him with the first shot it was because he was running or jumping from one tree to another.
Yes, we understand the fantasy. Your tale is that you've never had to fire more than twice at a squirrel with your pistol. If you missed a running or jumping squirrel on the first shot then you've never failed to get him on the second, even though (especially after the sound of the first shot) the squirrel is still running or jumping. We'll add this to your fantasy list.
Percy writes:
That's absurd, too. Why do you think people are going to believe your silly stories? it's impossible that an area within range of your hammock would sustain that many squirrels over a period of weeks.
You sure do know a lot especially since you don't have any facts.
But I do have facts. I looked up gray squirrels before I wrote that reply. In the woods there are about 1 to 5 squirrels per acre, they have a range of several acres, and they don't wander more than a couple hundred yards from home in any one season. After several weeks of you shooting squirrels from your hammock 4 or 5 days a week there aren't going to be any left near enough to shoot.
I don't expect you to come clean and tell the truth, that's just not your habit, but don't expect the rest of us to believe your tall tales.
So yes there was plenty of woods to produce all the squirrels we could eat.
I'm sure there were, but not from your hammock.
Percy writes:
So any crime is one crime too many, but if they pass a law you don't like you'll break it and commit a crime. Inconsistent much?
I did not say any law. I said if you passed a law that would take away my constitutional right to bear my arms I would probably break that law. That would go for any other law that that infringed upon my constitutional rights.
Yes, we understand. If you believe a law is unconstitutional, you feel you have the right to break it.
Percy writes:
Here's a link to the original paper which explains the methodology and inherent accuracy problems in great detail: Gun Ownership in the United States: Measurement Issues and Trends, see the sections on Data Sources and Measurement Issues. Getting into such detail would make this post far too long, but to mention just one issue they describe, you'll get different answers depending upon whether the question specifically excludes air rifles, pellet guns, starter pistols, and firearms that are antiques or no longer operable.
As I said they either use information received by asking questions over a phone or going door to door.
quote:Interviews are primarily in-person and are conducted in English and since 2006, also in Spanish. For full details on the GSS see Smith, Marsden, Hout, and Kim, 2013 and the website at Runtime Error.
The paper describes other data it also draws upon. In order for a sample to be valid it must be random, and this means it can't be cold phone calls or door-to-door.
And yes a lot of people would be willing to tell you they had an air gun that is used for killing rodents. But when asked about a shotgun or rifle they would not admit to owning one.
I can't wait to hear why you think a lot of people would be unwilling to admit they own a shotgun or rifle. How about handguns? Would they be unwilling to admit they own those, too? If so, is it for the same reasons?
But I don't know of any phone poll or door to door poll that covered every household in the US. A certain number of households are polled then an average reached then applied to all households. I did polls for Gallup when I was in college so I do know how they work.
Your ignorance about polling, despite your work for Gallup, is coming across clearly. If you really worked for Gallup and understood what you were doing then you would know that polls never "cover every household in the US." That's ridiculous.
Did you know a sample size of around 1700 provides a confidence factor of about 95%, no matter the population size, even millions and billions? The only requirement for this to hold true is that the sample selection process is random.
Why are you asking me? What do they teach you in firearm education classes?
That a weapon that is not accessible in less than a second can cost you your life.
No, ICANT, they do not teach that in firearm education class. They teach, "Store firearms and ammunition separately in locked compartments and beyond the reach of children." You're describing what paranoid firearm wingnuts teach.
If you have to open a safe to get your weapon then go in a different room and open another safe to get the bullets then load the gun what do you think an intruder would be doing all that time. You think he would be sitting in your recliner waiting for you to get prepared to defend yourself?
Under those circumstances I would agree with you that it would be more dangerous to have a gun in the house than not having a gun in the house.
It doesn't matter what addled conclusions your paranoid brain has reached, statistics say otherwise. Your gun is more likely to be used against you, friends or family than against a criminal. That's because, as I've explained before, being attacked by a criminal is a rare and brief event, while a gun in the house is there every minute of every day all year long.
Percy writes:
I think this'll be the third or fourth time I've said that I don't have strong feelings about what caliber rifle is used for hunting. Use whatever caliber rifle makes sense for what you're hunting. Just make sure it's a hunting rifle, not an assault rifle.
What do you classify as an assault rifle?
I'm no expert, but I did post a couple images recently that make clear the difference between a hunting rifle and an assault rifle:
Notice to be classified as an assault rifle it has to be capable of firing automatically. Meaning you pull the trigger and hold it in that position and the rifle will empty the magazine or if it is belt fed fire until you release the trigger loose.
An AR15 is not an assault weapon. It is against the law to manufacture and sell a fully automatic weapon for civilian use in the US.
If you want to be technical about it, sure, but in everyday speech people refer to semi-automatics as assault weapons or assault style weapons. But what does it matter what they're called? What matters is how dangerously inappropriate they are for people to own.
I haven't counted but some of your arguments seem to be saying the opposite, like "the ban large calibers and fast rounds" line.
You're not too far off from my general sentiments. I don't think people should own dangerous weapons, which includes handguns, semi-automatics and automatics. Legitimate hunting rifles should be about it, and that shouldn't include semi-automatic weapons.
You're kind of taking the position we see with creationists in that you don't know some basic facts about the subject, but you're against it anyways.
Is it necessary to know the detailed workings of all the various firearms to understand the statistics? I think I know more than enough of the basic facts of how dangerous firearms are. The real problem is that there's this mythology around firearms that training and practice render them safe in the hands of people. This is not true. Firearms are never safe in the hands of people.
Who says the hunters who use these rounds aren't trying to be accurate?
I'm sure they are. What matters is their skill.
And who says they aren't skillful?
Who says they *are* skillful? Obviously not all people are equally skilled, and what matters is skill. For the unskilled hunter a semi-automatic weapon is a godsend. It supposedly isn't deadly enough (more about that in a minute), but they can just fire off one shot after another in the direction of the target. And the more shots fired the more fun, right? (just being sarcastic)
I don't actually believe that the lower caliber of semi-automatics renders them inappropriate for hunting. When they're used in mass shootings they are incredibly capable of causing massive injury and death. The Las Vegas shooter killed 58, and many of the injuries of the 851 people he injured were very debilitating. The Parkland shooter killed an incredibly high percentage of the people he fired at, and the same for the Sandy Hook and Orlando nightclub shooters. A white tailed deer weighs about the same as a person. Given how easily semi-automatics kill and maim people, I think they should make fine hunting weapons.
Poking around on the Internet reveals that the hunting community in general views those who hunt with semi-automatics unfavorably.
But the point I'm making, and you seem to agree but only because of the lower caliber, is that semi-automatics are not appropriate hunting weapons. My reason is that these weapons are simply too dangerous to be possessed by people.
Is there a rash of hunters in your area with bad marksmanship skills? You seem to view every gun owner as a raving lunatic just ready to spray and pray at anything that crosses their path...
No, that isn't it, but if you're sensing that I have a low view of hunters then you are correct, and this is because I think killing animals for sport is horrible. Killing them because otherwise you wouldn't eat is okay.
I don't know how many hunters out there are yahoos, but in the US and Canada around a thousand people are injured and 75 killed by hunters each year. Guns are too dangerous to be available to people anywhere under ordinary circumstances.
(admittedly ICANT is not providing an opposing example).
But it isn't just ICANT. Jar is out there getting his jollies strapping a firearm to his hip and walking around in public. He doesn't care that open carry people are more often targeted than concealed carry. He doesn't care that guns make him a danger to himself and all around him. He just likes the way it makes him feel and isn't willing to give that up.
There has been a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh about a mile east of Carnegie Mellon University in the Squirrel Hill area of the city. At present the toll stands at 11 killed and 6 wounded. The perpetrator is currently thought to have been armed with an AR-15 style rifle and multiple handguns. Sources:
This reinforces the point I have been recently making. Weapons that can quickly fire many shots, such as handguns and semi-automatic rifles, are too dangerous to be in the hands of people.
The NRA is organizing a Saturday conference call to plan how to manage their message about this latest mass shooting (I made this last part up, but I bet it's true).
It supposedly isn't deadly enough (more about that in a minute), but they can just fire off one shot after another in the direction of the target.
Once you fire off your shot the animal starts running. They don't just stand around, waiting to be hit.
Yes, of course, but again, where's the skill? Those with the least skill are most likely to miss and cause the animal to bolt, introducing the need to squeeze off many shots quickly, meaning a semi-automatic.
I don't actually believe that the lower caliber of semi-automatics renders them inappropriate for hunting.
See here is an example of why i said you don't know basic facts, semi-autos aren't necessarily small caliber. Semi-automatic merely describes the action of the firearm, nothing more about it. You can get semi autos chambered in .22LR all the way up to .50BMG.
I do not write in a vacuum. Before I posted yesterday I read several articles about hunting with semi-automatics, and they all mentioned the issue of lower caliber, saying that they were appropriate for larger game than most people think. None happened to mention chambering to larger calibers, but looking it up now I found articles about it.
You already know I'm not a hunter and am not remotely interested in hunting. You'll have no trouble finding things I do not know about hunting. But this thread is not about hunting, and I've said a number of times that I'm not opposed to hunting as long as it's with weapons that can't be used for mass shootings. One of your images is of the Ruger 10/22 carbine, and I see that it is a semi-automatic that can, with the right magazine, fire 25 rounds in rapid succession, 3-4 rounds per second. This is an inappropriate hunting rifle because it can be used for mass murder (video is very short):
Your other image was of a Barrett Model 82A1 Black .50 BMG 29-inch 10Rds. This gun can be fired at about 2 rounds per second, and it, too, is inappropriate for hunting (video is very short):
Firearms are never safe in the hands of people
Guns aren't toys, but they're not dangerous vipers just itching to be set free either.
Guns aren't toys? Are you kidding me? Did you see the expressions on the faces of the men in those videos? They were happy, almost gleeful. To guys like these, which is most guys, these are their toys. They're not out there in the woods or the firing range all grim and determined as they handle these instruments of death. They're having fun.
That's what's wrong with the gun culture. There's all this lip service about training and safety, but in the end it's just a way for guys to have fun. If it weren't fun then what would be the point? If it weren't fun, thrilling even, then why would it attract so many people?
They're as dangerous as the person that uses them.
This is true, and in our gun culture too many people who use them are dangerous.
None of my guns have ever thrown off their shackles, broken out of my safes, broken into my ammo storage, loaded themselves and then run off into the night to cause mayhem.
I'm glad you keep your guns locked up, but you can't escape the statistics. That you have guns in your home increases the danger to you, family and friends.
My mind is conditioned that when I would see a weapon of any kind that is being positioned to bring harm to me or anyone around me reflexes would take over without even thinking as my actions would be automatic. I know you don't understand that but I can't help you there.
Also ICANT:
I doubt that as my memory is getting slow and weak, that is what happens when you get old.
Aussie just because I am a few hundredths of a second slower now than I was 20 years ago does not mean it don't work. It is just a few hundredths of a second slower. The end result is the same. My hand and my eye is just as good as they were 50 years ago.
You're just reinforcing Aussie's point out about cognitive decline - his message said nothing about reaction time. It only quoted two contradictory statements you've made, one extolling your reflexes and automatic responses, the other bemoaning the effects of aging on the brain.
Will you take a firearms safety course and do what they say, including locking up your firearms?
Why would I want to take a safety course in firearms?
Because you're violating basic firearm safety guidelines.
I have taken many defensive courses in firearms.
I don't doubt it.
As I have said before a gun for defensive reason is useless in a safe and unloaded. If you can't access it within one second you will probably die if someone wants to kill you.
All gun safety guidelines advise that firearms and ammunition be kept in separate lockboxes. A gun in the home is a constant danger which lockboxes mitigate, while attacks by criminals are extremely rare.
I have a shotgun that has only been unloaded when being cleaned since 1954. It has never been locked up in a safe. It stays in reach from the front door. Although you would not be able to see it and would not know it was there unless I showed you where it was.
Yet another loaded gun in your home places you, family and friends in even greater danger.
But it is accessible in one second if I am looking out the peep hole.
Peep hole? You have a peep hole? Why do you have a peep hole? Can't you just look out a window? Or do you stay away from windows because that would just make you a target? You're irrationally paranoid.
This gun has never killed anything that was not aided by a human.
I'm not sure what this means, but it sounds chilling.
So the gun is not what is dangerous. The person holding the gun is the problem.
That would be you.
A gun can be used as a tool or in the hands of a morally corrupt person filled with hate it can bring much devastation and carnage.
A gun in the hands of a paranoid person who sees threats on all sides can also bring much "devastation and carnage." All the mass shooters believed in their own minds that they were doing the right thing. The Charleston church shooter believed he was starting a necessary race war. The Orlando shooter was getting rid of LBGT's. The Pittsburgh shooter was getting rid of the Jews, who had persecuted his people. The one thing their reasons have in common is that they make as little sense as yours.
The gun is just the tool they choose.
Gee, I wonder why they choose guns instead of knives, clubs and rocks.
There are tools that would bring about greater devastation and carnage if used properly.
You mean like driving a large van down a crowded sidewalk? One shudders to think of the havoc a runaway large-crane operator could wreak in Manhattan.
You keep wanting to blame the gun...
I'm not blaming the gun. I've been pretty clear in blaming people like yourself, who I've repeatedly called a menace to themselves and all those around them.
...but without a human having that gun in their hand it will never hurt anyone whether it is loaded or empty locked up or not. As I said the gun is not the problem.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you. I think people like you who are just looking for excuses to feel threatened so they can use their firearms are the problem. This is why it's important to keep guns out of the hands of people.
I am sure my solution for the problem would be much different than yours. You want to make guns un-accessible to law abiding citizens.
Law abiding citizens are responsible for the majority of firearm deaths every year, so yes, I would like to take their guns away. It's for their own good.
Which would have no effect on crooks or people who wanted to kill a bunch of people.
Mass murders are very rare compared to homicides and suicides. If we eliminated mass murders it would save maybe 50 to 100 lives a year, which would be a good thing, but our highest priority should be placed on reducing overall gun deaths, around 38,000 in 2016. This would require putting strict controls on gun ownership. I believe that very, very few people should be allowed to own firearms, the exception being small-magazine hunting rifles.
I say the moral compass of mankind needs to be changed which would take a miracle.
Gee, somehow that miracle has already happened in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, among many others.
One that only God can perform. But He has to have the corporation of mankind to accomplish such a feat.
So God performed that miracle in a number of other countries, but not in the more deeply religious United States. Interesting.
If you want to be technical about it, sure, but in everyday speech people refer to semi-automatics as assault weapons or assault style weapons.
Have you ever been in a gun store and asked to buy an assault weapon?
I've never been in a gun store.
The shop owner would tell you he had single shot guns that break open, bolt action, pump action, and gas operated semi-automatic firearms. But he would tell you he had no fully automatic weapons.
He would know exactly what I meant. The Wikipedia page on assault rifles echos this, saying after it lists the criteria, "Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are technically not assault rifles, despite frequently being called such."
Percy writes:
But what does it matter what they're called?
You get the privilege of calling them a weapon of war which a semi-automatic rifle is not.
I'm not really interested in semantic games, but since American soldiers are trained to use their automatic weapons in semi-automatic mode because they're thought more accurate in that mode, a semi-automatic weapon is the equivalent of how American soldiers use their weapons in combat.
Percy writes:
What matters is how dangerously inappropriate they are for people to own.
Now you are making pronouncements on your own bias.
It is a fact, not bias, that firearms are extremely dangerous and deadly.
When are you going to get it through your thick skull that the gun by itself is not dangerous and has never harmed anything animal, or human, by itself.
You are responding to an argument I have never made. Because guns in the hands of people are so dangerous, I want to keep them out of the hands of people.
A car is a useful tool. Haul stuff like groceries, etc. Transport people to and from work or recreation. But put a drunk person behind the wheel and it becomes a tool of mass destruction. Put a terrorist behind the wheel and it can do a lot of damage.
So why are you not pushing for elimination of vehicles of all kinds, look what the 2 airplanes did in New York.
You've made this argument before. The answer hasn't changed. Transportation is essential to any economy. Guns are not.
There is no difference in guns and vehicles.
That's a silly thing to say.
It only takes a loose nut to wreak havoc with either.
This is true, but unlike a car a gun has no practical application for the average person, aside from hunting.
Neither will cause bodily harm to anyone by themselves.
True. Would that guns were regulated as tightly as motor vehicles.
Since you appear to be a city slicker and have no idea what a hammock is...etc. for many lines...
You argue about the definition of hammocks, and then you forget to make an actual point.
Moving on to your next point...
Percy writes:
No, neither phone (usually) or door to door.
quote:Three sources on trends in gun ownership are examined: 1) the GSS, 2) Gallup, and 3) the composite trend across all items in the IPOLL database.
GSS personal-interview survey (door to door)
Why do you keep insisting that the GSS survey is door-to-door? It is not. Respondents are randomly selected, and door-to-door is not random. From the Wikipedia article on the General Social Survey:
quote:The GSS sample is drawn using an area probability design that randomly selects respondents in households across the United States to take part in the survey.
Gallup has used phone since 1980's.
I never said they didn't. They also use algorithms to make sure they come as close as possible to a random sample. They must be having increasing difficulties maintaining random sampling as more and more people give up their landlines.
IPOLL is a joke as they claim to pay people (which most never receive) to do surveys. Answer by phone and finish on internet.
I said the information had to come from door to door interviews or phone calls. What has changed.
The GSS data, which is what I was referring to, did not come from door-to-door interviews or phone calls (mostly). Again, respondents are randomly selected, and door-to-door is not random.
Do you now understand that 67% (your figure) of households can't use guns to defend against criminals if only 42% (also your figure) of households own guns?
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Finish incomplete sentence about landlines.
Here's a great little video showing a girl firing a Ruger 10/22 at targets set up on the edge of the woods around their yard. The beginning shows her loading the magazine, so I've positioned the video just past that part to where she begins firing into the woods.
No discernible effort was made to insure no one was in the woods. A bullet travels around a mile after being fired, so given the inability to see deeply into any woods there is really no way to know if anyone is in range of your bullets. If you miss your target then you just hope the bullet hits a tree or branch before traveling too far.
A bullet fired at an elevated angle, such as at a squirrel in a tree, will travel in an arc and eventually come to earth still traveling at a lethal velocity.
It seems amazing that less than 1000 people are shot by hunters in North America each year.
A bullet fired at an elevated angle, such as at a squirrel in a tree, will travel in an arc and eventually come to earth still traveling at a lethal velocity.
That is the reason you have to hit the squirrel and use low powder shells.
But even your perfect self has admitted you don't always hit the squirrel on the first shot. How far will a "low powder shell" travel when fired at an elevated angle, say at a squirrel in a tree? A lot further than you can see I would bet.
These low powder shells, would that be something like this, which has a muzzle velocity of 710 feet/sec (I think LR might stand for Long Rifle, but bullets for pistols couldn't be much slower):
If you fire this bullet at an elevation of 45° and miss then it will travel a great distance, much further than a faster bullet fired horizontally, probably more than a mile (my calculations gave roughly 7500 feet, but that doesn't take into account air resistance).
Your squirrel hunting is a menace to everyone in the woods within a mile of your house.
Your squirrel hunting is a menace to everyone in the woods within a mile of your house.
Sorry to disappoint you but the closest neighbor is a mile and half away. But the direction I shoot there is no one in 10 miles or more.
People take walks and hikes and they hunt. How do you know there is no one in the woods within a mile of your house? Obviously you do not and can not. You are a menace.
People who get killed or injured by falling bullets is bullets that are fired in celebrations such as July 4 or other occasion. gravity controls the speed of these bullets as they have to stop going up before they come down and they will only fall so fast. Solution to problem use blanks they don't have lead, copper, or steel in them.
You're changing the subject. Bullets you fire at squirrels up in trees that miss will, if they don't happen to hit a tree or branch, probably travel at least a mile and will remain lethal when they return to earth. You are a menace.
The only reason hunting accidents average so little, somewhat less than a thousand each year in North America, is because of the tremendous expanse of woods compared to the number of hunters. Wearing red or orange makes hunters visible up to a distance of maybe a hundred yards. After that safety is dependent upon misses striking trees or branches, upon the huge size of the woods, and upon serendipity.
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