Aurora Colorado Violence

Not on any moral grounds, but only on the same practical grounds by which I oppose the death penalty in general.That said, the fact that he was a summa cum laude student in neurology is fascinating to me. Like the Unibomber, I think there's a possibility that he may have been exposed to some experiment, or compound, that may have precipitated these actions.

I think it's pretty well settled, at this point. He'd never sent anybody bombs before, you know. And everybody's account has his mental decline from genius mathematician to reclusive bomber begin almost immediately after he was subject to an incredibly harsh CIA experiment.It's not even a conspiracy theory, at this point; it's more or less settled history. People just prefer the "some guys are born bad" explanation.

My understanding is, that's correct. But the AR-15 is a popular rifle simply because of its versatility - it's light, accurate, and chambered for a variety of popular rounds. It's a highly modular weapon, allowing for a wide variety of customization of the receiver, forestock, buttstock, and accessory rail.Here's a picture of what is legally considered an individual AR-15:Everything else that you would need to construct a functional rifle around this is, legally, an aftermarket accessory. What do you think an "assault rifle" is? Weapons that can fire on any fully-automatic or multi-shot mode have never been legal for civilian purchase. What's the legal determination you would put forward to determine whether a rifle is an "assault" rifle or not?If a guy kills his wife and children by smashing their heads in with a Craftsman 12" framing hammer, does that make it an "assault hammer"?There's 100 reasonable justifications for which someone would own an AR-15, not the least of which is that, statistically, it's a lot less deadly than a handgun. But having said all that, I can't think of a single reason why anyone not in the service or the police should be allowed to purchase a magazine that holds more than seven rounds.

Such a what thing? A rifle?Rifles are legitimately used for target shooting and hunting. The .223 caliber that the AR-15 is chambered for is a perfectly legitimate hunting round; it's not a weird military round or something.

You're not making the case that there's anything wrong with it, though, except that militaries and SWAT use a similar weapon. And I don't see how that's supposed to justify a ban.Militaries and SWAT also use MagLites. Does that make them "assault flashlights", and therefore unsuitable for civilian use? Should a civilian be able to own a Swiss Army knife, given its military origin?There's no such thing as an "assault rifle", is the problem, at least not in a legal sense. You're talking about banning a weapon not for what it is - because a rifle that shoots .223 in semi-auto mode is not more dangerous than any legal handgun - but for what it looks like. I don't understand that reasoning. Can you explain?

Well, I think you're mistaken. Let's look at the text: Clearly, the framers had in mind weapons that would be suitable for use by militias in defense of the security of the nation. That speaks to military purpose, since the framers envisioned the right to bear arms as being a function of needing to potentially call up every able-bodied man to defend against an invading army.Now, I don't believe that justifies civilian ownership of military weapons. But just because the military use something, doesn't make it "military equipment". Soldiers use all manner of equipment for warmaking that we also use for completely legitimate civilian purpose. GPS isn't just a "military locating technology", although it would be perfectly accurate to describe it that way. But nobody thinks you're a solider when you pull out your GPS to find the nearest movie theater.And accuracy? How does it make anybody safer to ban accurate weapons? If anything, that would only serve to make it more dangerous to fire a gun for legitimate purpose. Accuracy contributes to the safety of a weapon, not to its danger. How is the AR-15 in any way an unusually lethal weapon? Handguns kill far, far more Americans than rifles.

The AR-15 fires no faster than any handgun. Why is the AR-15 a "military semi-automatic" just because the military uses something that looks like it? Again, you've not pointed to any legitimately, uniquely dangerous aspect of the AR-15 except that it was used in this shooting. And sure, we could ban the AR-15. What's to stop Colt from simply releasing a gun called the "Not an AR-15" that is completely identical to the AR-15 in every way? What exactly are you trying to ban, here, beyond a brand name?

Military weapons are made to be accurate, reliable, easy to carry, effective, and versatile. Can you explain why these are illegitimate design goals for a civilian weapon, as well?

"Tougher gun laws" isn't a coherent policy, though. You actually have to explain what laws we don't have now that you would want passed.I favor a ban on any magazine larger than seven rounds, and carrying more than that many rounds on your person at a time. I can't see any reason why a civilian should be able to fire more than seven rounds at a time. But you're not talking about any law that could actually be passed; "no AR-15's" is not a law that could possibly do anything, because "AR-15" is just a Colt brand name. They would simply release the rifle under a different name to evade the law, and in the meantime you've done nothing to stop AK-47 clones or any other military-style rifle. You've not actually defined any criteria by which the AR-15 is a particularly or uniquely dangerous weapon.

Also, I would add that you've made a radical mistake about the history of the AR-15. It's not the "civilian version of the M-16." It's exactly the reverse - the M-16 is the military version of the AR-15, which was developed by ArmaLite from the AR-10, which was designed as a light survival rifle. ArmaLite hand-built two "militarized" AR-10's as a late submission to the US Armory's replacement rifle research program.

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

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.

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:

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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.

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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."