You know what's NOT a good bath toy for a 5 year-old?

[krispos42]

83. I had an interesting conversation with my neighbor about this.

"assault weapons", rather.


She did not know what the definition was, what the legal definition was. When I told her, she was a bit slack-jawed.

The weapon used in Newtown was not an "assault weapon". It was bought in 2010, new, from a gun dealer. Connecticut has had an AWB in effect, either from Federal or State laws, since 1994. So, ergo, the rifle bought by Fuckwad's mother was not an "assault weapon".

Now, the new ban proposed by Feinstein would have made such a rifle an "assault weapon".

Incidently, the ease with which the definition of "assault weapon" changes and expands also concerns people. But besides that...


Semiautomatic rifles that feed from detachable magazines would still be legal to buy and sell, new and used, under Feinstein's proposed legislation. They would not have protruding pistol grips, or bayonet mounts, or folding/telescoping stocks, but I could legally purchase a Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic rifle that shoots the exact same .223 ammunition an AR-15 shoots. But because it doesn't have a protruding pistol grip, it's not an "assault weapon".


There are hard truths we have to face.

1) The sharp drop in crime in the '90s (it stared in about 1991, 3 years before the AWB, the magazine-capacity limit, the waiting periods, and the background checks took effect) was due to things that happened 20 years before, namely the removal of lead additives from gasoline, and the universal availability of birth control and abortion services.

2) Any gun that is optimized for self-defense is also optimized for offense as well. It is impossible to say "it's okay to have a gun designed for self defense but we don't want an gun that can be used to assaults"; they are effectively one and the same.

This is why countries such as Australia and Canada and England make you have a reason for purchasing a gun, and "self defense" is not considered a valid reason.




I don't know how to deal with the phenomena of mass shootings; the capability for them to occur has been with us for about a hundred fifty years, only growing with every passing year.

I do know that I did an analysis of mass shootings based on info from 1976 to 2005, and the trend line for 4-victim and 5+ victim homicides was trending downwards on a per-capita basis. I have a chart that I made.




So, what's the difference?

Maybe the incidents of really big mass shootings have gone up... Virginia Tech was over 30 people, Newtown was 26, Columbine was 13.

Or maybe due to the nature of the modern internet and news/blog/social networking/Twitter sites, it just seems like there are more.