Reply #197: Look, you seem very well meaning

[pipoman]

and reasonable. Since you are taking this position of 'convertibility', please do just a little research into that. If you take the time you will find that modern semiautomatic rifles are not easily convertible at all, in fact it would require as much machine shop equipment and know-how to convert as it would to build an automatic weapon from scratch. The old semi autos were easier IIRC, but those guns are now classified by the BATFE as fully automatic or select fire and restricted in the same way. There are ways to simulate automatic fire including something called bump fire as well as a method using a shoestring. Neither of these methods allow for any amount of control of the gun and people have faced automatic weapons charges for having a shoestring.

The real test is to research crime committed with automatic weapons in the US. If these guns were easily convertible the parts to make them convertible are restricted exactly as automatic weapons are. IOW possession of these parts and transfer of them would be strictly between people who pass the Federal background check (which is much more in depth than for other guns), paid the $200 license fees on those parts, agreed to allow for BATFE inspection of those parts at any time, and has the blessing of local law enforcement. Anyone else possessing/selling these parts are in violation of Federal law and subject to 10 years in Federal prison for each part. The only people who may be willing to take a risk like that would possibly be criminals bent on commission of a crime(s) with those guns. Yet there hasn't been a single violent crime which I am aware of in at least 20 years with an illegally converted weapon. If these parts were readily available or the guns were easily convertible there would be something to demonstrate that they even exist outside of claims by gun control advocates.

So, with all this in mind, if you research this issue and find that 'easily convertible' is in fact a wives tale or myth, would you still support a new assault weapons ban?

I don't own a single rifle which would be considered by anyone to be an 'assault weapon' and never have. I do own a semiautomatic deer rifle purchased by my dad in the 1950's, I shot my first deer with it, and my son shot his first deer with it. It is a Remington Model 742, and it functions exactly the same way most of the so called assault weapons function. Further, my son, now 18 and in the marines would like to have his grandpas deer rifle. I will be giving it to him, then I will want a rifle to hunt deer with. I think I would like to have an AR15 with a .308 caliber upper. They are light weight and are easier to control than a traditional old style rifle. They shoot at the same rate of fire as the old Remington, the magazine capacity for hunting is the same, they are equally accurate, they function in the same way, and I can see no reason they should be any more restricted.

If you do nothing else, just take a couple of minutes (10 min) and watch this video. The people in the video are all police officers, police armorers, police commissioners, and the Director of the BATFE. These people are not shills for the NRA, nor do they have anything to gain and everything to loose by having people going around with automatic weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysf8x477c30

Here is a quote from the video: Los Angeles Detective Jimmy Trahin testifying before the California State Assembly,"in my 12 years within the unit, considering the enormous amount of firearms we have taken into custody, and that's over 50,000 I would say, and these include ones from the hardcore gangs and the drug dealers, our unit has never, ever had one ak47 converted, one Ruger Mini 14 converted, an H&K 8193...never converted, an AR180 never converted, so this media blitz of these military style assault weapons being converted to fully automatic is not true."