Retired educator David Taylor, who lives in Texas, has a novel idea for improving gun safety: classify guns.
Classify guns the way the government classifies drugs, with appropriate restrictions.
He begins:
In 1970, the government passed the Federal Controlled Substance Act. “The goal of the Controlled Substances Act is to improve the manufacturing, importation and exportation, distribution, and dispensing of controlled substances.” It has now been over 50 years since this act was passed. In recent years. there has been some refining of it processes and procedures. Schedule I and Schedule drugs are the most highly regulated. Pharmacy are required to keep a database of users and prescriptions issued.
I’m not sure why this is not possible with firearms. I know the answer is money, politics and the gun lobby.
The broad categories of guns are
- Revolvers
- Handguns
- Rifles
- Shotguns
- Machine Guns
- Assault Rifles
If there were scheduled like drugs then we would have a scale of I-V with I being the most dangerous and most highly regulated.
- Class I – The most highly regulated.
- Assault Rifles
- Machine Guns
- Class II – Slightly less regulated
- Hand Guns (does not include revolvers)
- Class III –
- Rifles
- Class IV-
- Shotguns
- Class V-
- Revolvers
- Antiques
Read on to see how this classification could be used to establish meaningful gun control.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Handguns are a bigger threat than assault rifles.
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What is an assault rifle?
And yes, people using handguns kill far more people per year than people using AR-15s.
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My understanding is “a scary looking semi-automatic rifle.” I’m no expert.
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Ask and ye shall receive.
Under the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, the definition of “assault weapon” included specific semi-automatic firearm models by name, and other semi-automatic firearms that possessed two or more from a set certain features:
A semi-automatic Yugoslavian M70AB2 rifle.
An Intratec TEC-DC9 with 32-round magazine; a semi-automatic pistol formerly classified as an assault weapon under federal law.
Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and has two or more of the following:
Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
Bayonet mount
Flash hider or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
Grenade launcher
Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:
Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
Barrel shroud safety feature that prevents burns to the operator
A manufactured weight of 50 ounces (1.41kg) or more when the pistol is unloaded
A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic firearm.
Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following:
Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
A fixed magazine capacity in excess of 5 rounds
Detachable magazine.
The law also categorically banned the following makes and models of semi-automatic firearms and any copies or duplicates of them, in any caliber:
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Thanks for your answers.
Well I guess I am the owner of assault weapons according to those definitions. Come pry my dead cold . . . . . . 😉
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And Duane, I’m sorry, but I would be just fine with police showing up and taking these weapons from anyone who refuses to surrender them.
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I suspect that before long, lab-grown meat will become cheaper and safer and of much higher quality that meat that comes from slaughtered animals and that it won’t take much time after that for most people to come to think of the slaughter of animals as an ancient barbarism.
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Thoroughly disagree. Humans (and our precursors) have been living off slaughtered animal flesh for millions of years. What you suggest will take thousands of years. We’ll both be long gone.
In the meantime I’ll continue to eat animal flesh, whether from the wild or from livestock.
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You evidently have not been following the science on this, Duane. Meat grown from stem cells, of far higher quality and much purer and cheaper than anything that can be gotten from slaughter is not far off at all. Sheer economics will drive this.
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Your right. No, I haven’t been following the “progress” of lab grown supposed meat as I have no need to being the omnivore that I am.
Please help us out and link a couple of valid studies. Thanks.
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https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/thenow/what-is-labgrown-meat/1/
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https://www.labiotech.eu/partner/stem-cell-technology-lab-grown-meat/#:~:text=One%20such%20interesting%20stem%20cell,animal%20in%20controlled%20laboratory%20settings.&text=%E2%80%9CCell%2Dbased%20biotechnology%20is%20being,meat%2C%20seafood%2C%20or%20leather.
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Thanks, appreciate the links!
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https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/
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I think I’ll stick with the old fashioned meat, chicken, turkey, deer, duck, fish, etc. . . .
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All of which will soon be mass produced by this means
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Soon? Get out your crystal ball. How soon is soon? From my reading of your links it won’t be commercially available for the common person until after I’m dead and gone.
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“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” –Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
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Or back in the late 1800s the head of the US Patent Office proclaimed that it will need to shut down due to everything already having been invented.
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I used to have a stock speech about these terrible predictions that I would give to Rotary Clubs or whoever would listen. I called it “The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be.” Yogi Berra
My favorite of these: Albert Michelson said at the opening of the Ryerson Physics Laboratory that the future of physics lay in calculating the consequences of principles already discovered out to the sixth decimal place. LOL
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This is not a template for rational argument, Duane. Consider: Human males (our precursors) have been dragging women around by the hair and telling them what they must do for two and a half hundred thousand years. It’s not going to take thousands of years to fix that.
And btw, humans, as that term is generally conceived, haven’t been around for millions of years, though certainly their ancestors Have. Oh, and btw, studies of modern hunter-gatherers have shown that they actually expend more calories hunting than the hunting provides, unless they are in places where game is abundant and easy to capture. Humans depended a lot more on grandma who knew the best berry and tuber foraging spots than on men running around in the bush pretending to be heroes.
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I’m very informed on human history. Note that I said “humans (and their precursors).
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You did! I stand corrected.
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I myself made an error in the timeframe there. correction: Consider: Human males (our precursors) have been dragging women around by the hair and telling them what they must do for at least six-to-seven thousand years now (at least since the emergence of the first hydraulic culture Mesopotamian city states with their centralization of patriarchal authority and gender-based division of labor), but it’s not going to take thousands of years to fix that.
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Popped up after I sent my last response.
I didn’t mean to imply because a social practice has a long standing (pre)historical aspect that said practice is okay. What I meant to point out was that eating flesh is not anything new, nor is it necessarily the supposedly best way to go about feeding humans.
You’re a herbivore and I’m an omnivore.
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Stem-cell-grown meat is meat, just like animal-grown meat. It will just be a lot purer, cleaner, less costly to the environment, less cruel, less filled with antibiotics, and a LOT cheaper.
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I wouldn’t be so sure that it is just like “animal grown meat”. I’ll need to see a lot more studies. The three articles did a good job of explaining how it can be done, although at the moment it is still cost prohibitive, it can and probably will eventually be available at a lower cost. I worry more about what micronutrients that will be left out of the process.
But I’d certainly give it a try, but not at the current cost. If I’m going to spend that kind of money I want lobster or Alaskan king crab.
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Specific arms prohibited by the assault weapons ban:
Norinco, Mitchell, and Poly Technologies Avtomat Kalashnikovs (AKs) (all models)
Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil
Beretta AR-70 (SC-70)
Colt AR-15
Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN-LAR, FNC
SWD (MAC type) M-10, M-11, M11/9, M12
Steyr AUG
INTRATEC TEC-9, TEC-DC9, TEC-22
Revolving cylinder shotguns such as (or similar to) the Street Sweeper and Striker 1
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So, the types of weapons described above, the specific weapons listened above, and copies or duplicates (knock-offs) of any of the types of weapons or specific weapons listed above.
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Duane is a perfect example of what is wrong with gun laws in this country. He rails against the MIC but cannot for the life of him understand the connection of his love of guns with gun violence in this nation. His “reasoning” is something like this: I’m a responsible gun owner and I’m fine with keeping things as they are with gun violence as long as I can keep doing what I’m doing. How about some regulation like requiring a minimum amount of firearm training? Or registering all guns; bona fide hunters have nothing to fear. But you do see the connection between the ease of your unrestricted love for guns and rampant gun violence throughout the nation, don’t you? If you don’t, you’re not as rational as you’d like to fool yourself in believing.
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Reasonable and responsible gun owners, as I assume Duane is, would have no objection to outlawing military weapons in civilian hands; to background checks; to red-flag laws; to registering his guns; to agreeing to keep them in a locked safe when not in use.
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You know what, Diane? That’s exactly what I would call a first step.
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Sorry, GregB but I ain’t no perfect example of anything. And no, I do not see that connection because it is made up in your head and has nothing to do with me. Unrestricted love??? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum. Hey I thought only the Sky-Daddy had unrestricted love. Hmmm, maybe the Sky-Daddy is the cause of all the violence in and caused by Amurika.
I have never implied or said that I am against gun laws. Why do you twist what I say? We already have many on the books and I have followed them in acquiring the few guns I own. All but one is registered and the one, .22 rifle iron sights, that isn’t registered to me was a gift from my ex’s grandfather to me. Which by the way has been considered a cherished legal way of passing on one’s guns when one is too old to use them. And I agree that the laws may need some tweaking as you suggest with the training. As it is almost all states have hunter safety requirement courses for hunters. I’d like to see gun show loopholes closed up. (Which, by the way in spite of my “love of guns” as you are so sure of, I’ve never been to one.)
I ethically use firearms but have no “love of guns”. It is a tool, one of many, that I use in my life. The vast majority of gun owners are no different from me. We know what a bullet can do to flesh. It ain’t pretty. But then again neither is filleting fish with a knife. The world abounds with death and one species feeding on the flesh and guts of other species. And the bacteria, worms and other organism that feed on your carcass will enjoy your flesh.
Why would you say that I love guns? To make an inane point? You’re way off base in the same way that I see tRump cultistas be way off base. . . making shit up and falsely accusing me of something you have no effin clue about.
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Correction: I ain’t no perfect example of nothing.
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Handguns in Australia have their own category (with sub-categories), and reasons to be granted a license to possess are far fewer than for most of the various types of rifles.
I’m thinking Taylor’s examples just show you how something like this might work– he’s a retired educator but perhaps no expert in law enforcement or weapons.
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If we were a sane nation, we would ban these semi-automatic rifles and handguns, period. But that will never happen, not even close. Possibly we could agree on something regarding background checks and waiting periods but the GOP is the bump in the road towards any kind of progress. A very big bump.
From bradyunited.org/keystatistics: Every day, 321 people are shot in the United States. Among those:
111 people are shot and killed
210 survive gunshot injuries end quote
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Is there a difference in ammunition?
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The Uvalde shooter used expanding, or hollow-point, bullets, which one can legally purchase. These expand when they strike the target. The result? An ERA doctor at the nearby hospital told reporters that it looked as though grenades had gone off inside those children.
Tell me why this stuff is legal?
Well, the NRA and serial murderers of wildlife (hunters) will tell you that they need those to shoot thick-skinned creatures like deer and feral pigs.
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“Serial murderers of wildlife (hunters)”? That’s pretty funny in a very sick sort of way.
Guess I’m a serial murderer, although these days I don’t hunt hardly at all and I only kill the fish that I catch to eat. But hey, makes me seem tough and evil!
D. SM. Swacker!!!
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I’d venture to say that anyone who needs an AR15 and hollow point bullets to hunt is probably not a very good shot.
My roommate in college could sneak up on a dear and kill it with a bow and arrow. Now that’s my idea of a good shot.
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It’s beyond my comprehension why anyone would think this enjoyable.
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My guess is that the AR15 and hollow point bullets probably make hunting accessible to a lot of people who lack the training and acquired skill that used to be required.
It’s more like à video game where if you get somewhere close to the target, you score.
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Incidentally, I respect real hunters, just not the Ramboneheads.
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Donald Trump, Jr., Dick Cheney
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My grandfather was a hunter and had a locked gun cabinet, but he wouldn’t allow a handgun in his house. “The only animals those are meant to shoot,” he used to say, “stands upright on two legs.”
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I used to own a 22 (which got lost somewhere in one of my moves), but the only thing I hunted with it was tin cans, bottles and 50’s vintage cars and trucks rusting out down near the now defunct uranium mines in southern Utah.
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lol
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“And empty pop bottles wuz all we would kill.”
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And I didn’t need no hollow point bullets to kill those cars and trucks dead — and usually on the very first shot.
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I also shot at those old cars and trucks from pretty close range with a 45 revolver that a friend had and the bullets would just bounce off the metal.
Those were the days when they knew how to make cars and trucks.
I actually owned a slightly more recent version (a 66 F100 pickup) until it finally died in 2000. The thing was built like a tank and drove like one too.
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I have a photo of myself and my little brother, ages 4 and 2, standing by our Christmas tree with the 22 rifles that my grandfather had gifted us. I moved off the farm, with my Mom, and off to the big city, and once, when I was about 10, I went back to visit and went out with my cousin, Steve, to “hunt.” I shot a quail and went walking up to it. And there the thing was, on its back, gasping. I can still see, today, all these years later, it’s little belly heaving up and down. And I knew that I had something to expiate. I never, ever did this again. The sight of a gun sickens me, makes me think, what TF is wrong with people?
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SDP– nearly 30 yrs ago I was in an awful head-on collision [caused by a police chase coming toward me]. In the hospital they were re-inflating my lung & I managed to gasp out [in my generalized panic] “But my husband will drive here, he could be in a crash.” The kind and wise young doctor asked the model of my husband’s car [it was an old BMW2002] & chuckled, “that car could survive being sideswiped by a semi truck.”
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!!!!
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Those old trucks are grand, aren’t they.
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My 66 F100 was indeed grand.
It was my grand father’s truck which I inherited when he died in 1989.
He was a dairy farmer in upstate NY and the truck was kept in a garage so the body was in decent shape (except for holes in the floorboards, which made it like a Fred Flintstone car) and only had 45k miles on it when I got it.
I drove it from NY to Arizona and back and on dirt roads all over southern Utah and Arizona. I also drove it over a 12,000 foot pass in Rocky Mountain National park.
It wasn’t very good on the highway, though, since it only had three gears so the engine made a very loud whining noise at about 60. Which was really not a problem, since i would have been terrified to drive it any faster than that, anyway. Also, heater had long since died, which made for a very cold drive across windswept Wyoming in Winter.
My grandfather had several guns (shotgun, 22 rifle and even a flintlock — but no AR curiously), which he used mainly for shooting varmints on his farm. He taught me how to shoot a 22 rifle, which. As I indicated before, I used to kill tin cans and bottles.
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..and trucks (but I never shot at mine. Too much respect for it)
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No a photo of my truck, but mine looked just like this. A real work of art and built to last.
https://journal.classiccars.com/2017/09/21/pick-of-the-day-1966-ford-f100/
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yes. see answer below
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sorry. strike that. answer is above.
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Yes. It should be regulated far more strenuously than guns. If everyone has an AR-15 and is not able to put bullets in it, I could live with that.
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But as mathematician Mate Weirdl has astutely pointed out, “Guns don’t kill people, door locks do”
Same goes for bullets.
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We should really be focussed on “door lock control” (including background checks to catch people with prior door lock violations)
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And certainly no hollowpoint door locks should be allowed.
That’s just a recipe for disaster.
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Here’s the thing: Given the filibuster in the Senate, it would take 60 votes in the Senate to pass significant gun legislation, like the assault rifle ban that used to be in place. And with a supermajority of Republicans on the Extreme Court, the Executive cannot take action via executive order that won’t immediately be stayed and then struck down. So, we aren’t going to have federal gun limitations. Period.
Yes, I entirely sympathize with those who are angered about the Republican call to “harden schools.” No, what we need is for it to be impossible for 18-year-olds to buy weapons and for anyone to buy a weapon with which he or she can kill dozens of people in a couple minutes’ time.
But that’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
We must do, then, what we actually can do. Make schools a LOT safer, and keep pressing the jerks and morons in the Republican Party to do something. But, don’t hold your breath.
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I’m reminded of what the wife of his old war buddy told Kurt Vonnegut when he told her that he was writing an anti-war book: “Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead.”
Sane federal gun legislation and regulation?
Write this on the whiteboard 100 times:
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Now, given that it’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, what can we ACTUALLY DO besides show how superior we are to the idiots and to the vile con artists owned by the gun companies.
Oh, yeah. Let’s talk about how upset we are until the next one. Wash and repeat.
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cx: Rinse and repeat
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I’m posting a piece Sunday morning that is the best one I’ve read about gun control. Stay tuned. Don’t give up.
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Thanks, Diane. And I completely agree with what you wrote. This hardening stuff is ridiculous. The idiot gun-loving politicians are forcing us to consider extraordinarily bad, even stupid, precautions. And arming teachers–that’s just crazy.
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I admit that I am grasping at desperate solutions with my advocacy of hardening schools. Why? Because the Republican Party is not going to allow sane and sensible ones. When I think of this stuff, I keep returning to something that Ginny wrote here, that we have a duty to take this to the streets, to make a great deal of noise about it, to press and press and press for sane solutions, for gun control. It is inconceivable to me that anyone sane would think that ordinary citizens need to be walking around 21st-century America wish guns, period, much less with battle armor and assault weapons and hollow-point ammunition. When people on the right say, “But, but, they want to take away our guns,” I say, “Yes. Yes. I do.”
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The problem with most politicians is, when they think (not very often), they single small and single solutions. It must be a multiprong approach. 1. Improve school safety. 2. Improve gun laws. 3. Provide more mental health support.
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I like this guys response.
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The massacre at the Tulsa hospital shows that it’s time to harden the hospitals. Limit the number of doors, preferably to one. Have two officers armed with AR15s at that door. Arm the doctors, the nurses, the receptionists. Arm the patients. Turn every hospital into an armed fortress. Have active shooter drills once a week.
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I AGREE that this is ridiculous. For hospitals and schools. I agree that what we need is actual gun control. But we’re not going to have that.
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No doors. No windows. 4 foot thick armor plated, concrete walls, floors and ceilings.
The only way in or out is with the Star Trek transporter (Beam me in, Scotty!) which has the added benefit that it can store all the necessary information and precisely recreate a hospital worker should they be killed outside the hospital.
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I’m sorry to say that not only all hospitals but all schools, houses of worship, shopping centers, etc must be built without windows and with only one door. Everything must be hardened.
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While I realize that it is very unlikely to happen. We must remember that we are dealing with a braindead group that is incapable of having an original idea….case and point Rafael Cruz.
With that in mind, those of us that still possess the ability be creative and think outside the box, we must provide some ideas for them. This will allow them to repackage them and call it their own….lol
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This is a superb proposal, Dr. Taylor. I wish that the entire U.S. Republican Party put together had half your brains.
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Thank you Sir
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I love David’s proposal, btw.
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The AR15 is the semi automatic civilian counterpart of the fully automatic assault rifle used by the American military.
It appears to be the weapon of choice of mass murderers and mass murder wannabes
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ar-15-mass-shootings-60-minutes-2022-05-29/#app
And while mass murderers buy these specifically for what they do (shred the insides of whatever they target, even without hollow point bullets), my guess is that lots of people who own these things have no clue.
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my guess is that lots of people who own these things have no clue
My guess is that you nailed it. This is fantastic:
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Every single gun owner that I know, and there are many (hundreds of them) know exactly what a bullet will do to animal, yeah including human, flesh, bones, and guts. I don’t know a single firearms owner that isn’t fully aware of what happens “when the bullet hits the bone”.
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Duane,
Serious questions. Do you and your friends who own guns oppose raising the age to buy assault weapons from 18 to 21? Do you and they oppose background checks? Do you oppose waiting periods before buying a gun? Do you endorse the sale of AR15s to civilians?
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No, not that I know of. Most understand the need to have mature adults, or at least legal of the age of 21, to be able to purchase all firearms not just semi-automatic AR type weapons. I’m also sure that some would be against that. You’d have to ask them all to really know. Be that as it may, yes the vast majority would not be against raising the age to 21 Same with background checks. As it is to acquire/buy all but one firearm (the .22 I mentioned as a gift) I had to undergo a background check by the dealer as have the rest of the folks I know, including my son. . . .
Who made his own AR 15 type rifle that he uses for target shooting and hunting deer, by buying the parts online. He had to undergo a background check to buy the “lower end”. Here is his explanation: “Yea. It’s the only gun that I have that’s actually in my name lol [the rest are in his dad’s name-me]. So the only part of it that’s actually registered is the lower. Which I think that goes for both stripped(meaning there’s nothing but the frame, no trigger or anything) and built lowers(meaning it has the trigger system. Everything else isn’t registered. The lower receiver is what considers it a gun. So I got a complete lower and went through the full background check like you would any other gun. But I didn’t have a “working” firearm when I did. It was literally just the lower receiver. No barrel or firing pin or bolt or any of that”. He wanted to see if he could build one.
And no, I don’t have any problem with “civilians” owning an AR15. Magazine size for them should be limited, no bump stocks or anything else that will make it fire like an automatic weapon.
I have no problem with a waiting period, perhaps a week. Give some people a chance to back away and rethink their plans, hopefully giving them up.
I still say that the elephant in the room called America is it’s love affair with everything military. We are a sick society to accept what the MIC says is needed.
“Bring the boys home!” That is close the over 750 military installations we have scattered across the globe outside of the US. That would be the first step to get our homegrown violent tendencies under control.
As I said something needs to be done about gun show loopholes.
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Have you read any Chalmers Johnson and his concept of “blowback” which he took from his time as an analyst in the CIA? It’s a trilogy of books that explains how “blowback” occurs. All the gun violence in America is an example of blowback. For a primer see: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/06/blowback-for-the-twenty-first-century-remembering-chalmers-johnson/
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I can’t think of this issue without wondering what is wrong with people. Can they not see those murdered children in Uvalde, those murdered grandmothers in Buffalo in their minds’ eyes? Why does this not cause them to cry out in sorrow and anger? Are this many people that lacking in imagination, or worse, in feeling for their fellow human beings? It’s just freaking awful. Horrifying. Troubling.
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There’s a technical name for not being able to have any feelings about the suffering of others. It’s called psychopathy.
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This is a good idea, but, of course, will not happen, because it involves common sense which the legislative majority does not have.
& , Some DAM, I’m eagerly awaiting your next poem, entitled, “Hardening.” The concept, itself, is ridiculous (I keep thinking, “Hardening of the arteries” which, of course, is good for no one. But please include that in your poem.)
Greg B., I’m surprised at your dressing-down of Senior Swacker: you’re reading him as if he were Senor Wacko, & we all know him better as an EXTREMELY smart and caring guy; he was being sarcastic about “prying from my dead, cold hands…”
In fact, if it came to ANY arming of teachers (&, NO, that idea is absolutely, positively out of the question: as wrong as wrong gets), Duane would probably be the teacher (being an experienced, trained & responsible gun owner) who could get a shooter down. & I have no doubt he would risk his life in doing so.
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Thanks rbmtk for explaining to GregB about sarcasm.
But I can’t agree that I would be a good candidate for being an armed teacher. I don’t have any training whatsoever to deal with that type of situation, which is a lot more complicated than supposedly being able to identify the “bad guy” and shoot him without harming others. I’m a wuss.
One thing that many non-hunters/fisherman don’t seem to understand is that the vast majority of us do not like the killing aspect. We know we are taking a life. That is not easy. Yes, there are some who only want to kill-see trophy hunters but they are in the minority. I apologize in my mind when I kill an animal-even when I hit one with the truck (more than I care to say unfortunately). If it is hunting/fishing, I give pause to recognize what has actually happened. At the same time that is the nature of life, and death, here on this planet. Life and death struggles never cease. One dies/is killed and the other lives and thrives until something takes it out. . . and something always does. . .nothing is immune from death.
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Great. In the world where I grew up, shotguns and rifles were both hunting weapons. I don’t see a need to make them separate classes.
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Then you obviously aren’t as sharp as you think you are. Ask the guy who Dick Cheney shot in the face if there is a difference. Oh, wait. Had he been shot with a rifle, he wouldn’t be around to ask.
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Sad, GregB, sad statement. It shows you have little idea what hunting is. (and Cheney was breaking many safety rules and ethical usage in that bullshit of a “hunt”. It was a kill session, not a hunt. Hunting has an aspect of “fair chase”. If you don’t know what that means let me know, I’ll explain.
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A shot gun will only kill up to approximately 200yds. A 30-06 close to a 1000 yds. That is the difference.
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Both will do the job in a classroom.
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True…I was replying to the gentlemen as why there is a distinction between the two since him didn’t seem to know.
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I wouldn’t shoot at anything over 30-40 yards with a shotgun as the chance of a clean kill greatly diminishes with distance. I’ve seen idiots sky busting ducks and geese that were out of the effective range of a shotgun (at most 50 yards with a 12 ga-3 1/2 mag). Sad. As far as a 30-06, I wouldn’t shoot much more than 150-200 yards, and neither should the vast majority of hunters who have not trained for those longer shots. Now I understand out West in Big Sky Country one has to train for and shoot longer distances. That’s specialized shooting.
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SomeDADpoet,
You should probably see what a hollow-point would do to a squirrel, rabbit, or quail before suggesting they be used for hunting.
I once saw my cousin mistakenly use a deer slug in his shotgun to shoot a rabbit. All that was left was fur. For people who hunted for food, not a good outcome.
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So the reason for allowing anyone to buy as many hollow points as they want is?????
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Hollow points don’t go through walls and hit unintended targets.
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That’s a great argument for someone shooting 🦌 on city streets or in apartment buildings.
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If one is actually concerned that one’s bullet is going to end up in some thing or some one other than the intended target, perhaps the problem is not the gray matter in the gun but that between the ears.
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Owning a weapon for self defense in the city is an illogical act of fear, not of deep thinking, but that’s why people buy hollow points.
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Forgive me for being blunt, but my guess is that most people buy hollow points because they have hollow heads and don’t even know what they are or what they do, just that some salesman at a gun shop told them that’s what they should get.
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Hollow Point
Hollow point
And hollow head
Lead to joint
Where someone’s dead
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In apartment buildings, houses and on the street, a stun gun (aka taser) is a good option for self defense and not simply because of the collateral damage issue.
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Which raises another issue: we should really ban salesmen at gun shops.
In fact, if one had to buy a gun at a state run gun store (like you do liquor in some states), it might solve part of the issue of idiots getting their information from morons.
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SDP,
The NRA ain’t gonna like your “state owned” gun dealerships.
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Using someone who doesn’t even know what kind of bullet they have in their gun as an example does not strike me as a particularly good argument for anything.
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And apparently your cousin had never heard of this thing called a shotgun, which people use to shoot rabbits, gophers, snapping turtles, ducks, geese and all manner of other small wildlife.
No insult is intended to you, of course, but your cousin doesn’t sound like the sharpest spoon in the drawer.
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And never heard of a 22 rifle either.
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But of course, you actually have to know how to shoot straight to kill a rabbit with a 22, which , not incidentally , was my argument against the need for hollow points for deer hunting.
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No excuse for not knowing exactly what is in the chamber of a firearm.
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Reblogged this on What's Gneiss for Education.
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I love this idea. I say so as one of few liberal thinkers who has mixed feelings about gun control. I want gun control, but there is one hangup I have about it and the idea of classifying guns. Drugs are highly regulated and a database of users is kept by medical professionals by law. Those records are kept by professionals and kept private. Your neighbors and marketing companies do not get to see what medicines you are taking. All hell would break loose if that weren’t the case.
If guns were highly regulated by law, guns would have to only be sold by licensed firearm professionals and gun ownership records would have to be kept private by law. All hell would break loose if that weren’t the case.
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So from my way of thinking, the first step toward gun control isn’t banning assault rifles; it’s banning unlicensed sellers.
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The proposal that CT Senator Chris Murphy has made is a good first step: raise the minimum age for purchasing ARs from 18 to 21.
Given that the vast majority of school shootings are carried out by those under 21, it makes good sense.
Of course, the law would have to mandate severe penalties for anyone who buys an AR for or even loans an AR to someone who is under 21. I’d say a mandatory minimum prison term might do the trick to nip that potential loophole in the bud. It might have done so in the Rittenhouse case if the fellow had known there was a mandatory prison sentence involved in buying the gun for Rittenhouse.
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Gun laws of Australia (google that + wiki & get Wkipedia’s summary/ history) do just this. There are very specific descriptions as to how each type gun within a classification operates, including maximum allowable number of rounds its magazine can hold. Brand names/ models are not called out. [There’s no, oh that’s OK because you bought it before the law, as in our onetime ban.] And it’s not about “waiting times,” it’s about what’s required to get a license to possess such a gun. Requirements include such things as legal reasons for use [self-defense is not a legal reason] as well as details like required hrs of shooting participation for licensed target shooters. [There’s also a section on required licensing of any person/ entity involved in buying, selling or trading firearms or ammunition (annual license renewal reqd)].
This means people have to get rid of guns they possess, if they don’t qualify for a license. There was a year-long buyback after first set of laws were passed, which rid the country of est 1/3 privately-owned guns. Laws get updated, & new restrictions passed, each time followed by a period of amnesty when owners can freely turn in guns they can no longer be licensed to carry.
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Forgot to add: after you acquire license, you still have to apply for a permit each time you buy a firearm, subject to 28-day waiting period. There’s a better summary of the laws here https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/1996-national-firearms-agreement.html which includes an analysis of the effects of the laws and references 12 different studies done between 2004 – 2020.
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Pls note our govt health agencies do not dare to conduct any research on gun violence because of Dickey amendment [soup nazi: no studies for you !] Also there’s another gem called the Tiahrt amendment which prohibits ATF from maintaining a searchable database of weapons… grrr
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The major thing that abets a bad guy with a gun is a guy who thinks he’s a good guy with a gun.
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You mean like the Uvalde police?
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