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This comment makes it seem like you think that people against high powered rifles are unaware of the technology and capabilities of weapon systems. I also thin

This comment makes it seem like you think that people against high powered rifles are unaware of the technology and capabilities of weapon systems. I also think you are wrong.

rayiner 7y ago
Based on the assault weapons bans in place in states like Maryland, that’s exactly what I think. The Maryland State Police maintains a buyers guide for helping you find an assault rifle that’s legal within the state: https://mdsp.maryland.gov/Organization/Pages/CriminalInvestigationBureau/LicensingDivision/Firearms/FirearmSearch.aspx https://mdsp.maryland.gov/Organization/Pages/CriminalInvesti... There are numerous great choices!
- tptacek 7y ago
  I'm not clear on what the argument here is. Are current assault rifle regulations bad? Yes, clearly. But they didn't start out that way; most centerfire semi-automatic rifles that accepted detachable magazines would have been (properly) considered assault rifles under the original 1980s proposals. (The AR-15 itself, of course, was designed by Eugene Stoner to be a standard-issue US military rifle.) The only thing I think we can conclude about the incoherence of firearms legislation is that they have staunch and effective opposition from firearms advocates. I do not think it is at all valid to look at them and say "legislators don't know what an assault rifle is".
  - cthalupa 7y ago
    >The only thing I think we can conclude about the incoherence of firearms legislation is that they have staunch and effective opposition from firearms advocates. I do not think it is at all valid to look at them and say "legislators don't know what an assault rifle is". Well, if we're calling AR-15s and centerfire semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines assault rifles, then we don't know what assault rifles are. The term has been in use since WW2 and refers to selective fire rifles with intermediate cartridges and detachable magazines. I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the original 1980s proposals - afaik the only major 1980s attempts at legislation occurred after a school shooting in California, had limited opposition in California, and was enacted into law. It included classifying rifles as assault weapons if they had detachable magazines plus at least one of other relatively features, such as pistol grips, barrel shrouds, folding/telescoping stocks, etc. Most of those features have limited to no impact on the ability of the rifle to be a deadly weapon. >(The AR-15 itself, of course, was designed by Eugene Stoner to be a standard-issue US military rifle.) The ArmaLite AR-15 designed for the military was a select fire rifle that ultimately became the M16. The trademark was sold to Colt. Colt later used that trademark in producing the semi-automatic civilian version. An AR-15 or AR-15 clone a civilian can buy is not the same AR-15 that Eugene Stoner designed. As best as I can tell, most legislators have no idea what assault weapons are, what assault rifles are, or much at all about guns in general. And this includes those on the conservative side. I'm pro gun control, if we can find a way to effectively do it, but if we're actually concerned about human life, assault weapons don't even make sense to be the focus. Over 60% of homicides committed with firearms are done with handguns. Rifles only make up about 4%. Mass shootings are scary, and make news, and are terrifying. But they're responsible for a tiny fraction of gun related homicides, and the focus on rifles (and particularly features that are more related to appearance than efficacy in being deadly weapons) screams to me that it is almost entirely a political play and less related to any real concern over the healthy and safety of those living in America.
    - partialrecall 7y ago
      Incidentally, the National Firearms Act (1934) was originally meant to ban handguns. The current regulation on short barrel rifles and short barrel shotguns are vestigial remnants of this intent (if you ban handguns, it only makes sense to also ban somebody chopping up their shotgun to make it handgun-sized.)
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Literally the one difference between the "official", Hitler-approved definition of "assault rifle" and an AR-15 is that the AR-15 doesn't support selective fire†. As, like, literally any time spent in gun and military nerd forums or "I was in combat ask me anything" AMAs will quickly inform you, the importance of more-than-semiautomatic fire in actual military operations is highly contested. Do I concede that the AR-15 is thus not an according-to-Hoyle assault rifle? Sure, but only Hoyle cares. The reason this debate exists at all is because of "assault weapons bans". But the semantic argument is, of course, circular: it matters if a weapon is an "assault weapon" because we might ban assault weapons, and a weapon is an "assault weapon" if we might ban it. To reasonably discuss them as they pertain to public policy --- which is what this subthread is doing --- you have to engage on the merits. The appeal to definitions is a smokescreen. † For the advanced Facebook version of this discussion, try making an argument about the legitimacy of binary triggers; is an AR-15 fitted with a binary trigger group an "assault rifle"? Well. Let me tell you something about fully automatic fire: it occurs only when you eject multiple rounds with a single depression of the trigger, and also, with a binary trigger, you have you depress the trigger a certain way to "select" rapid fire, which doesn't really count as "selection", so...
      - partialrecall 7y ago
        > Literally the one difference between the "official", Hitler-approved definition of "assault rifle" and an AR-15 is that the AR-15 doesn't support selective fire. In case anybody isn't clear on what that means: one is a machine gun and the other is not.
        tptacek 7y ago
  - rayiner 7y ago
    If you wanted to effectively ban assault rifles, you’d pattern a ban on the energy and firing rate of the gun. Instead, the bans are based on cosmetic characteristics such as the presence of a pistol grip. That’s true even of Feinstein’s new bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2095/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22kamala+harris+assault+weapon%22%5D%7D&r=2 https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/209... Maybe they do know what an assault rifle is and just assume that their voters don’t.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Anything Feinstein proposes is a reflection of perceived political reality given a history of opposition from firearms advocates. It doesn't tell you anything meaningful about public policy, but rather about the limits any one politician faces, both from the firearms lobby and from uncertainty about limitations --- which Scalia explicitly said exist! --- post-Heller. Or, to put it more directly: nobody should care what Feinstein says. Again: the notion that a weapon is an "assault weapon" due to grips, sights, and flash suppressors is an artifact of a political fight from the 1980s, one the firearms lobby won handily. The original proposals had none of that silliness. They targeted tactical rifles: short to be light, portable, and effective indoors and at close quarters, with detachable magazines to maximize sustained ability to engage targets. That is: rifles optimized for taking down multiple human targets, and for effectively engaging with humans armed with similar weapons. I'm not even arguing that we should ban assault rifles (and that is not something I actually believe). I just find discussions about firearms policy incredibly aggravating, because they rathole in these manipulatively constructed semantic arguments; I hate to see such an Orwellian maneuver (from the 1980s, not from you!) succeed so completely.
      - qball 7y ago
        >Again: the notion that a weapon is an "assault weapon" due to grips, sights, and flash suppressors is an artifact of a political fight from the 1980s, one the firearms lobby won handily. You might want to check your facts: the federal assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 (with a 10-year sunset clause) and prohibited guns based on grips, sights, and flash suppressors. The firearms lobby certainly didn't "win" this one; though you could consider it one of their victories that the ban wasn't renewed (which it has been in perpetuity in certain states). >given a history of opposition from firearms advocates. You are aware that it's the opposition to firearms advocates that continue to parrot these definitions, correct? You'd think that if they were wrong (and they are) that they'd've wisened up in 30 years, but since fundamentally this is about what voters themselves think that "assault weapons" are rather than what they actually are, they have not.
  - makomk 7y ago
    I don't think we can conclude that at all. Firearms advocates have loudly and coherently pointed out just how nonsensical this all is to anyone who'd listen. It's your country's gun control activists who think these rules make sense. They're the ones who grab pictures of scary-looking black .22LR bolt-action rifles and write tweets about how terrible it is that 18 year olds can buy them, then get their media pals to smear their opponents for mocking this. They're the ones who contrast those scary guns with the old-fashioned wooden rifles their relatives used to use for hunting. They're the ones who blame the repeal of that nonsensical assault weapon ban for mass shootings. They're the ones who outright take pride in their ignorance about guns, to the point that I'm not sure it's possible to be accepted as pro-gun-control if you actually care about whether what you're saying is accurate. American gun control laws are the way they are because of the American gun control movement.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      You're not really saying anything here. Is your point that we shouldn't regulate weapons based on their color or the material their stocks are made out of? I obviously agree with you. The subtext here is yet another Firearms Policy Canard, which is that anyone who thinks semi-automatic rifles should be regulated must solely be reacting to the color of the weapon, and clearly doesn't know that there are farmers that rely on them to clear out smallish animals or whatever. Sorry, I get that most people don't take any time to research these topics, but they're in fact not that complicated (these are devices that were designed to be broken down and reassembled in a jungle during monsoon rains by teenagers), and I'm not cowed.
      - makomk 7y ago
        My point is that we shouldn't regulate weapons based on anything the US gun control movement ever says. Not because guns are too hard for anyone but gun nuts to understand, but because the whole shebang is built on a foundation of willful, weaponised ignorance. I don't think it's possible to patch up those policy demands and make them sensible either. The whole case for why rifle regulation is more important than handgun regulation and should be stricter than it - one of the key pillars of the current US gun control movement - relies heavily on the imaginary distinction between good hunting rifles and evil human-hunting rifles. Without that distinction, it's hard to justify the position that those guns should be banned or tightly restricted but not the handguns used by the armed guards protecting all the Hollywood celebrities cheering on gun control as anything but urban-vs-rural cultural warfare. Handguns cause a huge amount of death and misery in the US right now compared to rifles. (Of course, there's also some constitutional issues with taking those away... but that's another problem entirely.)
  - bifrost 7y ago
    Legislators attempting to talk about banning "Assault Weapons" come across about as intelligent and informed as those who want to ban violent video games. Neanderthals to those who know whats going on, saints to those who are blindly stomaching hype and propaganda. California has a notably terrible nitwit (Deleon) who has made hilarious public gaffes in his discriptions of firearm technology. Feinstein notably said -> “We have laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than 3 rounds, yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 30 round magazines”. These are not informed people, they're partisan politicians trying to pit people against eachother.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Ooh, I didn't know that revolving shotguns were a thing. Cool engineering. https://www.alloutdoor.com/2019/02/26/becker-blow-forward-revolving-shotgun/ https://www.alloutdoor.com/2019/02/26/becker-blow-forward-re... I'd like to see these guns in more video games. Would be funny to have a game where "hard" mode is playing left handed, with shell being ejected into the FOV.
  - nickynickell 7y ago
    Many games already throw brass across the screen. To the extent that mirroring weapons or using lefty versions right handed is a thing. It "looks cool."
- dbingham 7y ago
  Those bans have been drastically watered down by the gun lobbies. Those advocating bans on assault style weapons want much, much more included in them.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > Armalite AR-10 Not Banned Not Regulated by Statute 10/1/2013 I have to say, that bit is pretty funny. (The Armalite AR-15 is of course the gun that everyone seems to go crazy over, and the AR-10 is essentially an AR-15 in 7.62 instead of 5.56)
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Are you sure AR-10 isn't .308 ? AK-47 and the SKS are 7.62x39
    - kls 7y ago
      As a note when most people say 7.62 it is generally short hand for saying 7.62 NATO. They usually specify if it is one of the other 7.62 rounds. As well the .308 is a similarly cartridge round and 7.62 NATO rounds can be shot from a .308 gun but 7.62 NATO guns should not be used to shoot .308 rounds as the .308 has a slightly higher chamber pressure.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      7.62x51mm NATO and .308 Winchester are essentially the same cartridge. [0] It's basically the same situation as 5.56×45mm NATO vs .223 Remington. There's a lot of ~7.62mm cartridges out there, as a carryover from when people used imperial units. (It's basically .30 inches) [1] 0: https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/8/19/308-win-vs-762-nato-whats-the-difference/ https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/8/19/308-w... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_mm_caliber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_mm_caliber
notadoc 7y ago
I think he's right, the average anti-gun person has no experience with rifles (or guns in general) and is mostly spooked by a tactical appearance, not by any particular cartridge or capability.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  The average "anti-gun person" relies on people who do know more about abuse potential to recommend policy. Most lethal misuse is for suicide, but it is only in the US that suicides take out an honor guard on their way down. It might be more effective to ridicule shooters ("Dumbass peppers crowd before disposing of self") than to restrict weapons.
  - bifrost 7y ago
    We've got 2700 firearms homicides per year in the US right now, its low; That includes lawful shootings by police and DGU. The average anti-gun person is hyped up by the news and by ableist rhetoric when suicides are reported as gun violence. Only anti-violence work will lower the homicide rate, not bans.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      Firearm homicides are not systematically reported--not even "lawful" ones by police--so 2700 is the absolute lower bound.
      - bifrost 7y ago
        They are to the FBI, which is where this stat is from. You might want to educate yourself to the actual problems that we have.
        ncmncm 7y ago
        Those reports are voluntary. Many states do not participate.
somebodynew 7y ago
The .308 cartridge commonly used to hunt deer carries substantially more energy than the .223 or 5.56 used in a Mini-14 or AR-15. If not energy, by what metric could the latter be described as "high powered"?
- neverartful 7y ago
  Velocity is a big part of the equation.
  - kls 7y ago
    Only when dealing with body armor. It's the reason the 45 ACP and the 12 gauge slug are still powerhouses even at relatively slow velocities, when compared to modern high velocity rounds. When body armor is taken out of the equation these rounds do as much of not more than their high velocity counterparts. You can compensate for some loss of mass with velocity but not all of it. It's similar the the differences between horsepower and torque. To paraphrase a popular meme, Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how much of the wall you take with you.
  - sigstoat 7y ago
    energy takes into account both mass and velocity. you can check the relative energies (and velocities) of common rounds on wikipedia. .308/7.62 has more energy, as the projectiles generally mass more than twice as much, and go only slightly slower.
  - partialrecall 7y ago
    All* full sized rifle rounds are supersonic and cause the cavitation the 5.56 has become infamous for (e.g. bruh it goes so fast it's basically explosive! - overheard in a cafe). The terminal effects of 5.56 on flesh are severe, but not moreso than other rifle rounds. A full sized rifle round will cause more damage and can do it from much further away. * excepting a few that are deliberately manufactured to be subsonic, because they are niche products.
    - jabl 7y ago
sneak 7y ago
I believe that it might be you who is incorrect if you mistakenly believe that something chambered in .223 is a “high powered rifle”.
wl 7y ago
If you consider an AR-15 rifle to be high powered, let me introduce you to the AR-10, FAL, and SCAR.
- hunter-gatherer 7y ago
  FN makes incredible weapons. I grew up shooting a FAL regularly and never had issues. And after four years in the Infantry I can attest to the quality of the 240B. Elegant engineering.
  - kls 7y ago
    An interesting foot note of history, the FAL was nearly the US battle rifle: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-fn-fal-was-almost-americas-battle-rifle-5186bdbda998 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-fn-fal-was-almost-ameri...
- thrower123 7y ago
  Find a Remington 742 with a couple of the extended 10-round magazines. It's not too far off from an M1918 BAR. Great deer rifle, although if you're walking around lugging it, you'll get a workout.
- simonh 7y ago
  As my instructor in the TA here in the UK said, when a recruit asked if the 5.56 was weaker than the 7.62: "Maybe so son, but if you catch one in the arse it won't half make you're eyes water".
  - wl 7y ago
    I wouldn't want to catch a .32 ACP or even a .22 LR in the ass. That doesn't make either round "high powered" though. Calling an AR-15 a "high power rifle" is simply wrong. As far as rifles are concerned, 5.56x45 NATO is on the weaker end of things. Such a term can only be reasonably applied to .50 BMG and the like, with rounds like .308 in between.
    - 7y ago
tyingq 7y ago
"I also think you are wrong" No, I'm not. Various states with some sort of assault rifle ban allow the mini 14, including California.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  If you attach the wrong knicknacks to the mini-14 it can be illegal in CA too (e.g. wrong muzzle device or the A-Team style stock)
novok 7y ago
That is their behavior although, including laws passed in california against 'assault rifles'. It's an equivalent to banning body kits and spoilers on cars because it makes them look more scary.
ben509 7y ago
> This comment makes it seem like you think that people against high powered rifles are unaware of the technology and capabilities of weapon systems. They have passed laws that demonstrate that they don't understand these things. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, for example, only banned various cosmetic features and manufacturers simply adjusted their designs and were compliant overnight. That legislation was put together by activists, lobbyists, researchers and politicians who were motivated to save lives. That entire effort failed to identify the functional aspects of the weapons systems they were trying to regulate. There is a massive information asymmetry between pro-gun and anti-gun, and not just in technical matters, but the pro-gun people are also encyclopedic on the law; after all, they are looking at potential jail time if they screw up.

This comment makes it seem like you think that people against high powered rifles are unaware of the technology and capabilities of weapon systems. I also think you are wrong.

rayiner 7y ago

Based on the assault weapons bans in place in states like Maryland, that’s exactly what I think. The Maryland State Police maintains a buyers guide for helping you find an assault rifle that’s legal within the state: https://mdsp.maryland.gov/Organization/Pages/CriminalInvestigationBureau/LicensingDivision/Firearms/FirearmSearch.aspx https://mdsp.maryland.gov/Organization/Pages/CriminalInvesti... There are numerous great choices!

tptacek 7y ago
I'm not clear on what the argument here is. Are current assault rifle regulations bad? Yes, clearly. But they didn't start out that way; most centerfire semi-automatic rifles that accepted detachable magazines would have been (properly) considered assault rifles under the original 1980s proposals. (The AR-15 itself, of course, was designed by Eugene Stoner to be a standard-issue US military rifle.) The only thing I think we can conclude about the incoherence of firearms legislation is that they have staunch and effective opposition from firearms advocates. I do not think it is at all valid to look at them and say "legislators don't know what an assault rifle is".
- cthalupa 7y ago
  >The only thing I think we can conclude about the incoherence of firearms legislation is that they have staunch and effective opposition from firearms advocates. I do not think it is at all valid to look at them and say "legislators don't know what an assault rifle is". Well, if we're calling AR-15s and centerfire semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines assault rifles, then we don't know what assault rifles are. The term has been in use since WW2 and refers to selective fire rifles with intermediate cartridges and detachable magazines. I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the original 1980s proposals - afaik the only major 1980s attempts at legislation occurred after a school shooting in California, had limited opposition in California, and was enacted into law. It included classifying rifles as assault weapons if they had detachable magazines plus at least one of other relatively features, such as pistol grips, barrel shrouds, folding/telescoping stocks, etc. Most of those features have limited to no impact on the ability of the rifle to be a deadly weapon. >(The AR-15 itself, of course, was designed by Eugene Stoner to be a standard-issue US military rifle.) The ArmaLite AR-15 designed for the military was a select fire rifle that ultimately became the M16. The trademark was sold to Colt. Colt later used that trademark in producing the semi-automatic civilian version. An AR-15 or AR-15 clone a civilian can buy is not the same AR-15 that Eugene Stoner designed. As best as I can tell, most legislators have no idea what assault weapons are, what assault rifles are, or much at all about guns in general. And this includes those on the conservative side. I'm pro gun control, if we can find a way to effectively do it, but if we're actually concerned about human life, assault weapons don't even make sense to be the focus. Over 60% of homicides committed with firearms are done with handguns. Rifles only make up about 4%. Mass shootings are scary, and make news, and are terrifying. But they're responsible for a tiny fraction of gun related homicides, and the focus on rifles (and particularly features that are more related to appearance than efficacy in being deadly weapons) screams to me that it is almost entirely a political play and less related to any real concern over the healthy and safety of those living in America.
  - partialrecall 7y ago
    Incidentally, the National Firearms Act (1934) was originally meant to ban handguns. The current regulation on short barrel rifles and short barrel shotguns are vestigial remnants of this intent (if you ban handguns, it only makes sense to also ban somebody chopping up their shotgun to make it handgun-sized.)
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Literally the one difference between the "official", Hitler-approved definition of "assault rifle" and an AR-15 is that the AR-15 doesn't support selective fire†. As, like, literally any time spent in gun and military nerd forums or "I was in combat ask me anything" AMAs will quickly inform you, the importance of more-than-semiautomatic fire in actual military operations is highly contested. Do I concede that the AR-15 is thus not an according-to-Hoyle assault rifle? Sure, but only Hoyle cares. The reason this debate exists at all is because of "assault weapons bans". But the semantic argument is, of course, circular: it matters if a weapon is an "assault weapon" because we might ban assault weapons, and a weapon is an "assault weapon" if we might ban it. To reasonably discuss them as they pertain to public policy --- which is what this subthread is doing --- you have to engage on the merits. The appeal to definitions is a smokescreen. † For the advanced Facebook version of this discussion, try making an argument about the legitimacy of binary triggers; is an AR-15 fitted with a binary trigger group an "assault rifle"? Well. Let me tell you something about fully automatic fire: it occurs only when you eject multiple rounds with a single depression of the trigger, and also, with a binary trigger, you have you depress the trigger a certain way to "select" rapid fire, which doesn't really count as "selection", so...
    - partialrecall 7y ago
      > Literally the one difference between the "official", Hitler-approved definition of "assault rifle" and an AR-15 is that the AR-15 doesn't support selective fire. In case anybody isn't clear on what that means: one is a machine gun and the other is not.
      - tptacek 7y ago
- rayiner 7y ago
  If you wanted to effectively ban assault rifles, you’d pattern a ban on the energy and firing rate of the gun. Instead, the bans are based on cosmetic characteristics such as the presence of a pistol grip. That’s true even of Feinstein’s new bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2095/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22kamala+harris+assault+weapon%22%5D%7D&r=2 https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/209... Maybe they do know what an assault rifle is and just assume that their voters don’t.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Anything Feinstein proposes is a reflection of perceived political reality given a history of opposition from firearms advocates. It doesn't tell you anything meaningful about public policy, but rather about the limits any one politician faces, both from the firearms lobby and from uncertainty about limitations --- which Scalia explicitly said exist! --- post-Heller. Or, to put it more directly: nobody should care what Feinstein says. Again: the notion that a weapon is an "assault weapon" due to grips, sights, and flash suppressors is an artifact of a political fight from the 1980s, one the firearms lobby won handily. The original proposals had none of that silliness. They targeted tactical rifles: short to be light, portable, and effective indoors and at close quarters, with detachable magazines to maximize sustained ability to engage targets. That is: rifles optimized for taking down multiple human targets, and for effectively engaging with humans armed with similar weapons. I'm not even arguing that we should ban assault rifles (and that is not something I actually believe). I just find discussions about firearms policy incredibly aggravating, because they rathole in these manipulatively constructed semantic arguments; I hate to see such an Orwellian maneuver (from the 1980s, not from you!) succeed so completely.
    - qball 7y ago
      >Again: the notion that a weapon is an "assault weapon" due to grips, sights, and flash suppressors is an artifact of a political fight from the 1980s, one the firearms lobby won handily. You might want to check your facts: the federal assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 (with a 10-year sunset clause) and prohibited guns based on grips, sights, and flash suppressors. The firearms lobby certainly didn't "win" this one; though you could consider it one of their victories that the ban wasn't renewed (which it has been in perpetuity in certain states). >given a history of opposition from firearms advocates. You are aware that it's the opposition to firearms advocates that continue to parrot these definitions, correct? You'd think that if they were wrong (and they are) that they'd've wisened up in 30 years, but since fundamentally this is about what voters themselves think that "assault weapons" are rather than what they actually are, they have not.
- makomk 7y ago
  I don't think we can conclude that at all. Firearms advocates have loudly and coherently pointed out just how nonsensical this all is to anyone who'd listen. It's your country's gun control activists who think these rules make sense. They're the ones who grab pictures of scary-looking black .22LR bolt-action rifles and write tweets about how terrible it is that 18 year olds can buy them, then get their media pals to smear their opponents for mocking this. They're the ones who contrast those scary guns with the old-fashioned wooden rifles their relatives used to use for hunting. They're the ones who blame the repeal of that nonsensical assault weapon ban for mass shootings. They're the ones who outright take pride in their ignorance about guns, to the point that I'm not sure it's possible to be accepted as pro-gun-control if you actually care about whether what you're saying is accurate. American gun control laws are the way they are because of the American gun control movement.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    You're not really saying anything here. Is your point that we shouldn't regulate weapons based on their color or the material their stocks are made out of? I obviously agree with you. The subtext here is yet another Firearms Policy Canard, which is that anyone who thinks semi-automatic rifles should be regulated must solely be reacting to the color of the weapon, and clearly doesn't know that there are farmers that rely on them to clear out smallish animals or whatever. Sorry, I get that most people don't take any time to research these topics, but they're in fact not that complicated (these are devices that were designed to be broken down and reassembled in a jungle during monsoon rains by teenagers), and I'm not cowed.
    - makomk 7y ago
      My point is that we shouldn't regulate weapons based on anything the US gun control movement ever says. Not because guns are too hard for anyone but gun nuts to understand, but because the whole shebang is built on a foundation of willful, weaponised ignorance. I don't think it's possible to patch up those policy demands and make them sensible either. The whole case for why rifle regulation is more important than handgun regulation and should be stricter than it - one of the key pillars of the current US gun control movement - relies heavily on the imaginary distinction between good hunting rifles and evil human-hunting rifles. Without that distinction, it's hard to justify the position that those guns should be banned or tightly restricted but not the handguns used by the armed guards protecting all the Hollywood celebrities cheering on gun control as anything but urban-vs-rural cultural warfare. Handguns cause a huge amount of death and misery in the US right now compared to rifles. (Of course, there's also some constitutional issues with taking those away... but that's another problem entirely.)
- bifrost 7y ago
  Legislators attempting to talk about banning "Assault Weapons" come across about as intelligent and informed as those who want to ban violent video games. Neanderthals to those who know whats going on, saints to those who are blindly stomaching hype and propaganda. California has a notably terrible nitwit (Deleon) who has made hilarious public gaffes in his discriptions of firearm technology. Feinstein notably said -> “We have laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than 3 rounds, yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 30 round magazines”. These are not informed people, they're partisan politicians trying to pit people against eachother.
cwkoss 7y ago
Ooh, I didn't know that revolving shotguns were a thing. Cool engineering. https://www.alloutdoor.com/2019/02/26/becker-blow-forward-revolving-shotgun/ https://www.alloutdoor.com/2019/02/26/becker-blow-forward-re... I'd like to see these guns in more video games. Would be funny to have a game where "hard" mode is playing left handed, with shell being ejected into the FOV.
- nickynickell 7y ago
  Many games already throw brass across the screen. To the extent that mirroring weapons or using lefty versions right handed is a thing. It "looks cool."
dbingham 7y ago
Those bans have been drastically watered down by the gun lobbies. Those advocating bans on assault style weapons want much, much more included in them.
DuskStar 7y ago
> Armalite AR-10 Not Banned Not Regulated by Statute 10/1/2013 I have to say, that bit is pretty funny. (The Armalite AR-15 is of course the gun that everyone seems to go crazy over, and the AR-10 is essentially an AR-15 in 7.62 instead of 5.56)
- BubRoss 7y ago
  Are you sure AR-10 isn't .308 ? AK-47 and the SKS are 7.62x39
  - kls 7y ago
    As a note when most people say 7.62 it is generally short hand for saying 7.62 NATO. They usually specify if it is one of the other 7.62 rounds. As well the .308 is a similarly cartridge round and 7.62 NATO rounds can be shot from a .308 gun but 7.62 NATO guns should not be used to shoot .308 rounds as the .308 has a slightly higher chamber pressure.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    7.62x51mm NATO and .308 Winchester are essentially the same cartridge. [0] It's basically the same situation as 5.56×45mm NATO vs .223 Remington. There's a lot of ~7.62mm cartridges out there, as a carryover from when people used imperial units. (It's basically .30 inches) [1] 0: https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/8/19/308-win-vs-762-nato-whats-the-difference/ https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/8/19/308-w... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_mm_caliber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62_mm_caliber

notadoc 7y ago

I think he's right, the average anti-gun person has no experience with rifles (or guns in general) and is mostly spooked by a tactical appearance, not by any particular cartridge or capability.

ncmncm 7y ago
The average "anti-gun person" relies on people who do know more about abuse potential to recommend policy. Most lethal misuse is for suicide, but it is only in the US that suicides take out an honor guard on their way down. It might be more effective to ridicule shooters ("Dumbass peppers crowd before disposing of self") than to restrict weapons.
- bifrost 7y ago
  We've got 2700 firearms homicides per year in the US right now, its low; That includes lawful shootings by police and DGU. The average anti-gun person is hyped up by the news and by ableist rhetoric when suicides are reported as gun violence. Only anti-violence work will lower the homicide rate, not bans.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Firearm homicides are not systematically reported--not even "lawful" ones by police--so 2700 is the absolute lower bound.
    - bifrost 7y ago
      They are to the FBI, which is where this stat is from. You might want to educate yourself to the actual problems that we have.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        Those reports are voluntary. Many states do not participate.

somebodynew 7y ago

The .308 cartridge commonly used to hunt deer carries substantially more energy than the .223 or 5.56 used in a Mini-14 or AR-15. If not energy, by what metric could the latter be described as "high powered"?

neverartful 7y ago
Velocity is a big part of the equation.
- kls 7y ago
  Only when dealing with body armor. It's the reason the 45 ACP and the 12 gauge slug are still powerhouses even at relatively slow velocities, when compared to modern high velocity rounds. When body armor is taken out of the equation these rounds do as much of not more than their high velocity counterparts. You can compensate for some loss of mass with velocity but not all of it. It's similar the the differences between horsepower and torque. To paraphrase a popular meme, Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how much of the wall you take with you.
- sigstoat 7y ago
  energy takes into account both mass and velocity. you can check the relative energies (and velocities) of common rounds on wikipedia. .308/7.62 has more energy, as the projectiles generally mass more than twice as much, and go only slightly slower.
- partialrecall 7y ago
  All* full sized rifle rounds are supersonic and cause the cavitation the 5.56 has become infamous for (e.g. bruh it goes so fast it's basically explosive! - overheard in a cafe). The terminal effects of 5.56 on flesh are severe, but not moreso than other rifle rounds. A full sized rifle round will cause more damage and can do it from much further away. * excepting a few that are deliberately manufactured to be subsonic, because they are niche products.
  - jabl 7y ago

sneak 7y ago

I believe that it might be you who is incorrect if you mistakenly believe that something chambered in .223 is a “high powered rifle”.

wl 7y ago

If you consider an AR-15 rifle to be high powered, let me introduce you to the AR-10, FAL, and SCAR.

hunter-gatherer 7y ago
FN makes incredible weapons. I grew up shooting a FAL regularly and never had issues. And after four years in the Infantry I can attest to the quality of the 240B. Elegant engineering.
- kls 7y ago
  An interesting foot note of history, the FAL was nearly the US battle rifle: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-fn-fal-was-almost-americas-battle-rifle-5186bdbda998 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-fn-fal-was-almost-ameri...
thrower123 7y ago
Find a Remington 742 with a couple of the extended 10-round magazines. It's not too far off from an M1918 BAR. Great deer rifle, although if you're walking around lugging it, you'll get a workout.
simonh 7y ago
As my instructor in the TA here in the UK said, when a recruit asked if the 5.56 was weaker than the 7.62: "Maybe so son, but if you catch one in the arse it won't half make you're eyes water".
- wl 7y ago
  I wouldn't want to catch a .32 ACP or even a .22 LR in the ass. That doesn't make either round "high powered" though. Calling an AR-15 a "high power rifle" is simply wrong. As far as rifles are concerned, 5.56x45 NATO is on the weaker end of things. Such a term can only be reasonably applied to .50 BMG and the like, with rounds like .308 in between.
  - 7y ago

tyingq 7y ago

"I also think you are wrong" No, I'm not. Various states with some sort of assault rifle ban allow the mini 14, including California.

Rebelgecko 7y ago
If you attach the wrong knicknacks to the mini-14 it can be illegal in CA too (e.g. wrong muzzle device or the A-Team style stock)

novok 7y ago

That is their behavior although, including laws passed in california against 'assault rifles'. It's an equivalent to banning body kits and spoilers on cars because it makes them look more scary.

ben509 7y ago

> This comment makes it seem like you think that people against high powered rifles are unaware of the technology and capabilities of weapon systems. They have passed laws that demonstrate that they don't understand these things. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, for example, only banned various cosmetic features and manufacturers simply adjusted their designs and were compliant overnight. That legislation was put together by activists, lobbyists, researchers and politicians who were motivated to save lives. That entire effort failed to identify the functional aspects of the weapons systems they were trying to regulate. There is a massive information asymmetry between pro-gun and anti-gun, and not just in technical matters, but the pro-gun people are also encyclopedic on the law; after all, they are looking at potential jail time if they screw up.