Any chance for a reasonable discussion about guns?

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

7.62 dru mags that open from the back and wind up like a toy work very well. We put a few thousand rounds through one without a hitch. We even tried winding less than required to see how far it would go. Half the turns you could still get 40-50 rounds fed reliably out of the 75-rd drum

I will say, this gun could be a discussion point, but was not presented as such.  It's an example of a gun that I am sure causes great consternation to gun control advocates and why it presented well as trolling (especially considering this thread has been all about gun control, not guns, as the title might imply).  

It's a weapon that has almost zero practical use, other then burning through shotgun shells.  Of almost no use militarily.  Only useful on very soft targets, and what, a 150 ft effective range?  Very impractical (and heavy I am sure) for hunting or target shooting.

What it would be very effective for though, would be doing maximum damage in a mall or school.  Far more effective than an AR style rifle (I suspect they are no where near as available of course).

It's also an example of how silly the Assault Weapons Bans tend to be.  I suspect this would not qualify, because it's not even a rifle (assault rifle), it's a smoothbore shotgun.  Obviously the high capacity magazine is an issue, even without that, it's almost no different from a semi-auto shotgun, just a lot easier to reload.

In reply to aircooled :

I think the "high capacity" drum holds 11 or 12 rds? You can get a competition 1100 or 930 that holds that many. 

EDIT: This though is what shows the idiocy that is our legislators and their AWB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gje39I7pzuc

They have no idea what it is they are talking about and when their ignorance is pointed out they double down with their stupidity. These are the people making hte rules. You want to know why I don't trust our gov't? These people are the reason. They are wrong. They are shown that they were wrong and yet they continue anyway. That's not progress. 

aircooled said:

I will say, this gun could be a discussion point, but was not presented as such.  It's an example of a gun that I am sure causes great consternation to gun control advocates and why it presented well as trolling (especially considering this thread has been all about gun control, not guns, as the title might imply).  

It's a weapon that has almost zero practical use, other then burning through shotgun shells.  Of almost no use militarily.  Only useful on very soft targets, and what, a 150 ft effective range?  Very impractical (and heavy I am sure) for hunting or target shooting.

Very similar to a gun I had in one of the STALKER games for handling large mutant animals that took a ton of damage to kill. You'd invariably end up fighting them at close range even on the odd occasions when you could start firing on them at long range. I packed that, a heavily modified scoped assault rifle for medium mutants and human enemies, and a common pistol for small mutants like the roving packs of mutated dogs.

Hello lads, does anyone have experience with Kalashnikov-USA brand? Wanted to get an iconic AK-47 or AK-74 rifle for range shooting and maybe home defense. It's mostly K-USA, Century Arms and some foreign manufacturers out there, so wanted to ask if someone has some advice to guide me through how those perform overall. Thanks!

One topic that I haven't seen (although I've definitely missed a few pages) covered too much in here is crime prevention. If these 18-24-year-olds are the ones committing violent crimes, then perhaps it would benefit us as a society to steer them in a better direction instead of just punishing them. If we prevent 30% of them from ever committing crimes, and instead they go on to be productive members of society, I think that's the better path. What you'll find with a bit of reading around is that poverty is one of the largest drivers of crime. Lack of opportunity. Kids have no way out, so they turn to crime, which has been normalized in their communities. Having lived in both Baltimore and Cleveland, I've seen a lot of this up close. The poor areas of the cities get basically forgotten by the cities--in Baltimore, many of the schools in the bad parts of the city didn't even have heat or a/c, for example. Public transportation rarely goes there. There're no supermarkets, so the only place to get food is the corner convenience store. Obviously there are no banks there, so the only place to cash your paycheck (if you can even get a job in one of these neighborhoods) are those predatory paycheck cashing places that'll rip you off. Add in the drug trade, and you've got a recipe for west Baltimore or east Cleveland. Getting out of those neighborhoods is nearly impossible. 

I do believe data proves that strict gun control measures would lower gun-related crimes, however I feel that also ignores a problem pretty specific to America, and that's the issue of the recurring mass shooting. Yes, I know they're highly politicized and all, but we're the only country where every week or two another young man with no criminal history goes out, buys a gun, and shoots a place up. What is it about American society or culture or whatever that drives people to do this?

Timbr said:

Hello lads, does anyone have experience with Kalashnikov-USA brand? Wanted to get an iconic AK-47 or AK-74 rifle for range shooting and maybe home defense. It's mostly K-USA, Century Arms and some foreign manufacturers out there, so wanted to ask if someone has some advice to guide me through how those perform overall. Thanks!

May be better to ask here, to keep this thread on-topic:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/boom-stick-questions-point-me-in-the-right-directi/175356/page41/

infinitenexus said:

 

I do believe data proves that strict gun control measures would lower gun-related crimes, however I feel that also ignores a problem pretty specific to America, and that's the issue of the recurring mass shooting. Yes, I know they're highly politicized and all, but we're the only country where every week or two another young man with no criminal history goes out, buys a gun, and shoots a place up. What is it about American society or culture or whatever that drives people to do this?

Point A, there's been no confirmation nor condemnation that strict gun control in the US does anything other than inhibit legal gun owners. Point B, you have been misled. There are "mass shootings" all over the world, even in places with strict firearms regulations. 

bobzilla said:

infinitenexus said:

 

I do believe data proves that strict gun control measures would lower gun-related crimes, however I feel that also ignores a problem pretty specific to America, and that's the issue of the recurring mass shooting. Yes, I know they're highly politicized and all, but we're the only country where every week or two another young man with no criminal history goes out, buys a gun, and shoots a place up. What is it about American society or culture or whatever that drives people to do this?

Point A, there's been no confirmation nor condemnation that strict gun control in the US does anything other than inhibit legal gun owners. Point B, you have been misled. There are "mass shootings" all over the world, even in places with strict firearms regulations. 

Do you have sources for either of those claims?

bobzilla said:

infinitenexus said:

 

I do believe data proves that strict gun control measures would lower gun-related crimes, however I feel that also ignores a problem pretty specific to America, and that's the issue of the recurring mass shooting. Yes, I know they're highly politicized and all, but we're the only country where every week or two another young man with no criminal history goes out, buys a gun, and shoots a place up. What is it about American society or culture or whatever that drives people to do this?

Point A, there's been no confirmation nor condemnation that strict gun control in the US does anything other than inhibit legal gun owners. Point B, you have been misled. There are "mass shootings" all over the world, even in places with strict firearms regulations. 

On Point A, there actually is data showing that gun control has an effect in the US specifically:

From:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/15/its-time-to-bring-back-the-assault-weapons-ban-gun-violence-experts-say/

And unless we're going all-in on exceptionalist arguments, we can use data from other countries as well which show that gun control laws work.

On Point B, mass shootings do happen in other countries including those with strict firearms regulations, however it would be highly misleading to suggest the phenomenon is anywhere near as common or deadly elsewhere:

From:

https://www.humanosphere.org/science/2016/06/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-u-s-rest-world/

See also:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/05/does-us-lead-world-mass-shootings/

infinitenexus said:

One topic that I haven't seen (although I've definitely missed a few pages) covered too much in here is crime prevention. If these 18-24-year-olds are the ones committing violent crimes, then perhaps it would benefit us as a society to steer them in a better direction instead of just punishing them. If we prevent 30% of them from ever committing crimes, and instead they go on to be productive members of society, I think that's the better path. What you'll find with a bit of reading around is that poverty is one of the largest drivers of crime. Lack of opportunity. Kids have no way out, so they turn to crime, which has been normalized in their communities. Having lived in both Baltimore and Cleveland, I've seen a lot of this up close. The poor areas of the cities get basically forgotten by the cities--in Baltimore, many of the schools in the bad parts of the city didn't even have heat or a/c, for example. Public transportation rarely goes there. There're no supermarkets, so the only place to get food is the corner convenience store. Obviously there are no banks there, so the only place to cash your paycheck (if you can even get a job in one of these neighborhoods) are those predatory paycheck cashing places that'll rip you off. Add in the drug trade, and you've got a recipe for west Baltimore or east Cleveland. Getting out of those neighborhoods is nearly impossible. 

I do believe data proves that strict gun control measures would lower gun-related crimes, however I feel that also ignores a problem pretty specific to America, and that's the issue of the recurring mass shooting. Yes, I know they're highly politicized and all, but we're the only country where every week or two another young man with no criminal history goes out, buys a gun, and shoots a place up. What is it about American society or culture or whatever that drives people to do this?

I believe you are correct that poverty is closely correlated with crime. These two PhDs suggest a way to help massively reduce the poverty and crime rates without needing ANY new gun control policies. 

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_201975.pdf

ABSTRACT Donohue and Levitt (2001) presented evidence that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s played an important role in the crime drop of the 1990s. That paper concluded with a strong outof-sample prediction regarding the next two decades: “When a steady state is reached roughly twenty years from now, the impact of abortion will be roughly twice as great as the impact felt so far. Our results suggest that all else equal, legalized abortion will account for persistent declines of 1 percent a year in crime over the next two decades.” Estimating parallel specifications to the original paper, but using the seventeen years of data generated after that paper was written, we find strong support for the prediction. The estimated coefficient on legalized abortion is actually larger in the latter period than it was in the initial dataset in almost all specifications. We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, but shouldn't we wait and find out if they are criminals before we kill them? 

Steve_Jones said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Note your chart says 6+ deaths, yet now they define mass shooting as 4+ deaths. Maybe someone is manipulating the data to prove the point?

It's clearly stated on the graph. I don't see how that could be misleading, unless mass shootings of 4-5 deaths specifically spiked in the same period?

Let's consider the possible scenarios:

1: Mass shootings of 6+ deaths are reduced while shootings of 4~5 deaths are unaffected (plausible). Result: The AWB significantly reduced mass shootings with 6+ deaths but not those with 4~5 deaths. Would this graph be misleading? Perhaps very slightly, if you're really not paying attention.

2. Mass shootings of 6+ deaths are reduced AND mass shootings of 4~5 deaths are similarly reduced (less plausible considering the selection, maybe what the person who made the graph would like us to think if we don't look too closely). Result: The AWB significantly reduced all mass shootings. Would this graph be misleading? Only in the sense that it would actually be hiding the full extent of the decrease in the AWB period.

3: Mass shootings of 6+ deaths are reduced while shootings of 4~5 deaths increased (highly implausible). Would this graph be misleading? It certainly could be in this scenario, at worst it could be hiding an overall increase in mass shooting deaths if, theoretically, there were a huge increase 4~5 death shootings.

Now it's time to look at the answers:



Result: We can see mostly depressed numbers during the AWB, which rules out scenario 3.

Edit: Found another graph using the 4-killed metric instead of 6, but is slightly more selective on the conditions of the shooting, it shows a slightly smaller decrease from the pre-ban numbers:

Toyman! said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, but shouldn't we wait and find out if they are criminals before we kill them? 

 

I'm quite conflicted on the matter myself and I can empathize strongly with that argument, but I generally choose to let other people run their lives the way they see fit - which is a view I support on gun control and birth control and marijuana control and end-of-life euthanasia control and converting your streetcar efi to racecar efi control, etc. This is similar to how often times I support smaller local governments trying to solve problems rather than expecting one giant federal government to make sweeping decisions. 

I also, on occasion, masturbate (without feeling the guilt of preventing a possible life from coming into the world), and if we're gonna say one is ok and not the other then we need a line, I don't want to try to propose where that 'line' should be. 

Toyman! said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, but shouldn't we wait and find out if they are criminals before we kill them? 

 

An offshoot of this idea: If the police shoot you because they think you have a gun, you do not have the right to bear arms, despite whatever the constitution is interpreted to say or imply. 

GameboyRMH said:

Steve_Jones said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Note your chart says 6+ deaths, yet now they define mass shooting as 4+ deaths. Maybe someone is manipulating the data to prove the point?

It's clearly stated on the graph. I don't see how that could be misleading, unless mass shootings of 4-5 deaths specifically spiked in the same period?

It is misleading because it is saying "mass shootings went down during the ban" while changing the definition of what a mass shooting is.  Why did they do it? No idea, but you can't compare deaths of 6+ from a set period to deaths of 4+ in a different period, it's not the same comparison.

If I said less children were killed by guns in 2020 vs 2021, but in 2020 used ages 1-17, and 2021 used ages 1-20, does it show less children were killed?

Because mass shootings were less prevalent or at least less reported for a given time (the Clinton defensive gun ban)definitely is not proof that it reduced anything.  I'm sorry, that is statistically a coincidence 

A lot of people seems to be missing something with their stats.  Variables.  Economy is a variable, weather (crime goes up with heat) etc

Justjim75 said:

 weather (crime goes up with heat) etc

so, you would say the earth is warming, then? 

hahahaha I'm kidding I'm kidding

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I mean, the heat bothers me more every year.  But it could be age.    I guess I'd have to refer to geological and climate history to find out if the earth has a natural cycle of higher and lower temps but the data only goes back so far, plus we most likely haven't had as big of an impact on nature as we do now so I'd just be guessing.  Logically, if green is good, we are taking our planet the wrong direction 

What makes it even funnier when talking about how the AWB "dropped killings", the vast majority of murders are done with handguns. Same with "mass shootings" under he current definition. It's been a while since I looked up the physical numbers but the percentage if all "AW" were to disappear it would be ~1% of all murders.