Aurora Colorado Violence

quote:

---

"Well, no. The military is supposed to be armed with what they need to carry out the mission."

---

- for which "overwhelming force" is a proven doctrine.... hence armed to the teeth.

quote:

---

Um, really? You might want to ask residents of Iraq or Afghanistan about that. The 21st century has seen no end to the invasion of nations.

---

This comment quite handily makes my point for me... The Iraqis were armed, lotta good it did them. If every American had 10 automatic weapons, you're still no match for your own government if they had the will to act against you (which is one of the reasons people blather on about the need for citizens to bear arms). My point was not that invasions don't happen, my point was that your handgun is not going to help prevent it.

quote:

---

And you've not answered my question. The AR-15 has the qualities that it does because it's meant to be a versatile, reliable, accurate firearm. Why should a civilian weapon be unreliable and inaccurate?

---

I wish people wouldn't do this. I DID answer your question, the above question is a rephrased version of your original question which leaves out the military comparison. So now I'll answer version 2.0 of your question...Because a civilian, almost by definition, has no need for a versatile, reliable, accurate firearm in a civilised 21st century society.Now, please don't do that to me anymore don't move the goalposts AFTER I've DIRECTLY answered your question.Edited by Briterican, : No reason given.Edited by Briterican, : No reason given.

Where does this end, though? I'm not OK with my fellow citizens owning a dozen cars, but what's the legal principle by which I can stop them? I'm not OK with my fellow citizens getting into my Mass Effect 3 squad and then being bad at it, but what's the legal principle by which I can stop them?If it's legal to own a gun - and the Second Amendment says that it is - then it's perfectly legal to own whatever unremarkable guns you want, and the AR-15 is certainly an unremarkable - if well-designed - weapon. I don't see how you've demonstrated that owning one means that one is "armed to the teeth."And you seem to misunderstand the concept of "freedom." It's only in extreme circumstances that we curtail the freedoms of everyone simply because a very small number of people use those freedoms to cause harm. A single mass shooting doesn't rise to that level of justification. Child pornographers use digital cameras - the same principle you articulate here would, based on that fact, justify the banning of digital cameras wholesale. "TO YOU SHUTTERBUGS", I might ask, "are vacation photos on Facebook so important to you that you are OKAY with all of your fellow citizens being able to take sexually explicit pictures of small children?" You haven't explained why owning a single AR-15 means that one has an "arsenal", or why its accuracy makes it an unusually dangerous weapon. For that matter, the AR-15 is not unusually accurate, and it's not clear why a hunter doesn't have a legitimate purpose and use for an accurate rifle. Indeed, hunting is unacceptably dangerous with unreliable, inaccurate weapons. That's how people get hurt.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

quote:

---

Where does this end, though? I'm not OK with my fellow citizens owning a dozen cars, but what's the legal principle by which I can stop them?

---

Cars have a legitimate use, but yes, they can be misused.Please explain to me the "legitimate use" of an arsenal of semi-automatic weapons.

Why do you need a semi-automatic rifle that can shoot dozens of rds a minute to kill a deer. You don't. That is a bullshit excuse. Why. Because a. it is bad sportsmanship to be able to shoot up your game with thousands of bullets and b. have you every tried removing that many bullets from a carcus.

quote:

---

And you seem to misunderstand the concept of "freedom." It's only in extreme circumstances that we curtail the freedoms of everyone simply because a very small number of people use those freedoms to cause harm.

---

Funny that America is the only nation that blathers on about guns in this manner. Citizens of the Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, these people feel a very strong sense of freedom in their societies without a doubt, and somehow they don't view the exclusion of deadly weaponry from their daily lives as some sort of denial of freedom. What about my daughter's freedom to go to school without worrying about getting slaughtered?

quote:

---

A single mass shooting doesn't rise to that level of justification.

---

A single one? perhaps not. Try this though...A Guide to Mass Shootings in America – Mother JonesSo... Crash... we're not going to agree. And I respect your view. Nonetheless, it is STILL beyond me why compact portable death machines are ubiquitous in America, and apparently that's just... OKAY lol.Edited by Briterican, : typo

It ends. When some deranged person LEGALLY purchases an AR-15 and a 100-rds magazine and kills innocent 12 men, women and children. That is where it ends.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

No, it doesn't. The AR-15 can sustain a fire rate of only 15 rounds per minute, and as a single-fire weapon its ROF is determined by how fast you pull the trigger. Because the AR-15's reciever bolt is more massive, any short-recoil semi-automatic pistol will be able to fire much faster than the rifle.The world-record holder for fast shooting shoots revolvers only. There never was a Federal ban on "semi-automatic weapons". The "assault weapons" ban only ever banned weapons that bore a cosmetic similarity to some military weapons. You haven't explained why a ban on having one kind of grip versus another, or one kind of stock versus another, saves even a single life. 12 people didn't die in Aurora because a nut was able to install a pistol-shaped grip on a rifle. The weapons ban you refer to never banned the AR-15 so how would it have prevented the tragedy in Aurora? No, that's exactly wrong. The AR-15 was designed for civilian use, and then modified for military use. The M-16 is the military version of the civilian AR-15. That's history. Because it was a useless ban. Because banning a rifle on the grounds that it looks like a gun the military uses is ludicrous. It does nothing but curtail legitimate civilian weapons, and people in the United States actually do have a right to keep and bear arms. Any law that would curtail that right has to be justified by the public safety concern, but a law against a rifle having a particular type of grip or being shaped in a certain way doesn't save even a single life.

So killing 12 people is the cut-off? When 12 or more people die, that's when we say that the rights of citizens can be infringed?

quote:

---

GOLIAD, Texas (AP) At least 11 people died Sunday and another 12 were injured after a pickup truck loaded with passengers left the highway and crashed into trees in rural South Texas, authorities said.

---

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-truck-crash_n_1693815.htmlSo, should trucks now be made illegal? After all, armies sometimes use trucks to move arms and armor. Why should civilians have access to this military hauling capability? Surely there's no legitimate civilian purpose to being able to move that much stuff at once. Come on, people! You have to make more trips when you move because 12 people are dead!

Please explain to me how the ownership of a single AR-15 constitutes an "arsenal."

An AR-15 can only shoot a dozen rounds in a minute if it can hold a dozen rounds. I propose a ban on magazines that can hold more than seven at a time.The reason you need a semi-automatic weapon is that they're more accurate than bolt-action rifles. Accuracy is a legitimate concern for a hunter. There's a legitimate need for the capacity of the AR-15 that has nothing to do with how many rounds it can fire in a minute, because an AR-15 fires only as many rounds as you choose to fire from it.

quote:

---

You haven't explained why owning a single AR-15 means that one has an "arsenal"..."

​

You haven't explained why owning a single AR-15 means that one has an "arsenal", or why its accuracy makes it an unusually dangerous weapon
  —crashfrog

---

No... and there's a good reason I didn't explain these things... because you didn't ask. Now that you have, I will. Dude lol... PLEASE stop doing that. Stop imagining what I said and actually read what I said, and stop expecting me to anticipate your next question.I never said owning a single AR15 constituted an arsenal. But there's nothing stopping you from owning 12, or 24, or 48, and at some point that's an arsenal. This CO shooter... HAD AN ARSENAL.I absolutely never said an AR15's accuracy made it an unusually dangerous weapon. Those words never escaped my keyboard. What I said was that I see no logical justification for the proliferation of such weapons in a civilised society.The amount of guns and ammo in America FAR exceeds any possible hunting you might use them for. Many of you that thump your chests on this topic don't even hunt lol, but you still own a gun... "because it's my god-given right". And it sits in a closet, and serves a purpose of "good" (self-defence) maybe 10% of the time. The rest of the time, it kills another human being, either by mistake, or on purpose.The more I get into these conversations, the more I see the alpha male attitude come through.You asked about legal principle... what is the legal principle that prevents you from erecting a missile battery in your garden, and why shouldn't that same principle apply to other similarly deadly weaponry? Yes... I know... the 2nd amendment. If the founding forefathers could see the weaponry you have over there now, in ubiquitous fashion, I have no doubt they'd wish they'd have thought that one through a little more.

No, I'm sure they don't. But they don't live in countries that originated in armed struggle. They don't have a tradition of private firearms ownership. And these countries don't have a legal constitution that enshrines, as important as voting and free speech, the right to bear arms.The Second Amendment exists, Brit. It's real and legally binding. And like it or not, it really does pose an obstacle to anyone who would like to disarm the American public. If you'd like to live in a country where firearms ownership is not so common, then move to one. But the point of different countries is that people can do things differently, and in the United States, we've decided to enshrine firearms possession into the US constitution. That happened. You have to deal with it. How does banning a weapon because of what it looks like make your daughter any safer? Given that the vast majority of deaths by firearms are due to handguns, how would your daughter be any safer whatsoever if every AR-15 rifle disappeared from the borders of the United States? Don't you think the US without the AR-15 is a world where crazy killers just use SKS's, instead? Or bombs? They're not ubiquitous. Hardly any Americans own guns. The question isn't why Americans are so uniquely prone to gun violence; the question is why Americans are so uniquely prone to all forms of violence. The US doesn't just have more shootings than other countries; it has more stabbings and beatings, too.

quote:

---

So, should trucks now be made illegal? After all, armies sometimes use trucks to move arms and armor. Why should civilians have access to this military hauling capability? Surely there's no legitimate civilian purpose to being able to move that much stuff at once. Come on, people! You have to make more trips when you move because 12 people are dead!
  —crashfrog

---

This is possibly the most inane argument/analogy I have seen in months. Thanks for the giggle crash Of course there are loads of civilian purposes for hauling cargo, it is in fact crucial to our modern societies to do so. This truck crashed, albeit probably through negligence. We all accept the risk we take when we get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.Unfortunately, something nearing half of Americans are not happy with having to accept the presence of firearms throughout their society. They take the risk driving, because they need to get from point A to point B. Most people aren't hunters, therefore they do not see the need for ubiquitous firearms (which apart from murder have one use, hunting).Now, how does this truck accident have anything to do with firearms again?

quote:

---

The Second Amendment exists, Brit. It's real and legally binding. And like it or not, it really does pose an obstacle to anyone who would like to disarm the American public. If you'd like to live in a country where firearms ownership is not so common, then move to one.
  —crashfrog

---

LOL... already did it Crash... I'm a Texan transplanted in the UK... and I join them in shaking my head in confusion at this all too common attitude you present. It beggars belief.

quote:

---

The question isn't why Americans are so uniquely prone to gun violence; the question is why Americans are so uniquely prone to all forms of violence. The US doesn't just have more shootings than other countries; it has more stabbings and beatings, too.
  —Crashfrog

---

... probably the only thing you've said yet that I agree with.