Assault Weapons Ban 386
An anonymous reader writes "With all the Constitutional arguments that appear on /., perhaps some readers might be interested in this BBC Article about the expiration of the Clinton assault weapons ban. Both presidential candidates have spoken in favor of it, but no one is willing to vote to keep it."
"assault" weapons (Score:5, Informative)
It's funny that the article mentions that this law bans "military-style" weapons, because "style" is mostly what this law is about.
From the Beeb article - "The move means that ordinary citizens will be allowed to keep heavy assault weapons in their homes."
Bzzt, wrong, thanks for playing.
Take a look at this page for some interesting info.
http://www.ont.com/users/kolya/ [ont.com]
--riney
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:3, Informative)
Remember debate class? Name calling is not allowed in Flight Club.
Anyways, two points I felt to make that a lot of people forget is that this ban only bans large gun clips, and certain models of guns. There are many guns with exactly the same features that are legal.
Second point is that its only been illigal to make new guns, not illigal to own or even sell an existing gun. Though these gun prices have gone way up and are generally bought by collectors, and people very serious about their guns
Wow, the BBC is really.... uninformed. (Score:3, Informative)
In the US, automatic weapons are covered by the National Firearms Act of 1935, and can be owned by any citizen who can pass the background checks, demonstrate the ability to store them securely and pay the licensing fees. And then pay the exorbinant prices a machinegun commands on today's market, and pay for a private range membership to fire it at, and pay for all that ammo you would use up.
In practical terms, the Clinton ban's main effect was to limit civilian handguns to 10-round magazines. And even then, preban magazines are still widely available for many models of handguns, and law enforcement officers can buy whatever they want.
Jon Acheson
Crucial point (Score:5, Informative)
Burst/Select Fire: One pull of the trigger fires 2-5 rounds, the MP5N and M16A2 IIRC uses a three round burst
Fully Automatic: One pull of the trigger fires the gun until the trigger is released or it runs out of ammo.
The article linked is incorrect that the AK-47 (and other fully automatic and select fire weapons ie M16, L85, M60, Uzi's, FNFAL, AK-74 and their chinese ripoffs , HK G36, G21, G11, and G53 series rifles, Glock 17 pistols) were banned as a result of the Assault Weapons Ban, it is actully banned under the 1934 National Firearms Act. To posses these weapons today, you must have a Class III Federal Firearms Licence, which includes a massive federal background check, and pay $150 tax per weapon.
The assualt weapons only covers weapons that look different than a traditional deer rifle, there is no functional difference between a AR-15 (semi auto version of the M16) and a Deer rifle you could buy at walmart, they fire the same ammo (.223 Remington Magnum), as fast as you can pull the trigger.
Right to keep and bear arms.... (Score:5, Informative)
Carrying this to its logical conclusion, citizens should be allowed to posses all the weapons the government is allowed to; if they cannot, there is no way a popular revolt could succeed. The government, with its tanks and other large weapons, could easily roll over any revolt by citizens.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Madison,
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of the government."
No, you do not need an assault weapon for hunting. But you do need it for personal defense against an oppressive government. That is the justification for allowing them to be possessed.
Aside from that, how am I going to kick the ass of a foreign army, marauding zombies, or invading aliens if I don't have a handy, insanely large supply of firepower?
Nothing to do with each other (Score:3, Informative)
Your post has NOTHING to do with the assault weapons ban. The guns banned as assault weapons are mostly LESS powerful than common hunting guns. In fact for many common hunting activities the guns banned are not powerful enough.
All this ban does is prohibit some cosmetic things. No bayonet mount on your gun for instance. How does a bayonet on a gun make it less acceptable in your eyes?
Dirty little police secret (Score:3, Informative)
The whole thing was about appearances, and giving people the warn fuzzies. Did you know the law banned bayonet lugs on the muzzle? Sure, I'm real concerned about being STABBED when someone's pointing a gun at me.
Ever felt threatened by a folding stock? Banned.
Anything that looks like a milspec gun? Banned.
The EXACT SAME barrel, ammo, receiver, trigger action, etc? Not banned.
Re:Crucial point (Score:5, Informative)
Your post is very informative for the relatively uninformed, but I have to point out that it is the Glock 18 pistol which is Full-Auto and thus illegal in the US due to the National Firearms Act (and still will be after the clinton gun ban expires). The Glock 17 is a the 18's semi-auto cousin, they look about the same and have interchangeable magazines, but the 17 is not full auto, and it a commonly owned pistol in the US. Glock specifically made slight changes in the dimensions of the parts in the 17 and 18 so that the parts aren't even interchangeable (for the most part).
For lots more info along the lines of the parent post, try the info you can link from www.awbansunset.com, which is a site dedicated to stopping all the mis-information the anti-gun crowd (and many of its unwitting supporters) spread.
The AWB is not about Assault Weapons. (Score:3, Informative)
The AWB does not ban these - they are covered under an earlier law which does not expire (they can still be owned under certain onerous conditions).
The AWB, despite its name, actually covers semi-automatic rifles which resemble to certain assault rifles. Semis fire only one bullet each time the trigger is pulled, in the same way that a policeman's pistol or a cowboy's revolver does. They are not assault weapons since they cannot be fired in automatic mode. The AWB lists guns resembling certain assault weapons, or which have more than a certain number of specific features, such as a bayonet lug, a pistol grip, a flash hider, or a telescoping stock.
The AWB bans semi-automatic rifles which look scary, ignoring the fact that the average deer rifle is far more powerful and has better range.
I own an AR15 [bushmaster.com] which I use in CMP [odcmp.org] target matches. While this rifle fires essentially the same round as our soldiers are using in Iraq, in many places I could not even use it to hunt deer legally, since its too feeble a round. Something like this [remington.com] packs a much bigger punch. Of course, there is no talk of banning this rifle, since it does not look scary.
A good analogy to the AWB would be if the legislature decided to attack dangerous driving by banning fuzzy dice and chrome exhausts. It might make some people feel better, but actually attacks the wrong target. (The right target is the criminal, not the gun.)
The (so-called) "Assault Weapons Ban" is a very silly law which did not ban Assault Weapons, or detectably reduce crime. I'm glad its dying. I'm not going out to buy any of the 'scary features' for my rifle - it's fine as it is. But I will like having the ability to do so if I wanted - that's what freedom is all about.
Re:The AWB is not about Assault Weapons. (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite - "Assault weapon" is actually a term made up in 1988 by Josh Sugarmann, a writer for the Violence Policy Center. Submachineguns fire handgun cartridges, compared to rifles which fire rifle cartridges. SMGs are most often used by SWAT/counter-terrorist teams who need more firepower than a handgun, yet for whom rifles are too powerful, with too much capacity for over-penetration.
Re:Crucial point (Score:3, Informative)
One thing I find particularly funny is when the Brady Bunch talks about "semi automatic imitations of military firearms," and they're think specifically of the AR-15 (semi) and M-16 (military). Funny thing is, the AR-15 was made first and the M-16 was a full-auto adaptation of this existing design. The civie came before the military. It kinda shoots holes in their argument.
-paul
Mr. Moderator, I'm ready to be modded down for having a pro-gun point of view. BTW, Fuck you.
Who needs 30+ round clips? We do! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.remington.com/firearms/centerfire/7400w d.htm [remington.com]
and this "AR Pattern" rifle available in one of the *weaker* calibers Remington supports on the 7400 (the 308 Nato):
http://armalite.com/sales/catalog/rifles/ar10b.htm [armalite.com]
The Remington is pictured with a 5rd magazine but 10rd that poke out of the bottom of the gun are available now and with the ban on 10+ magazines gone, they'll be available there soon.
Both guns are semi-auto, magazine fed. After midnight tonight, it will be possible to sell either with such accessories as bayonette lugs, flash dohickey on the end of the barrel, etc...none of which affect lethality.
Because the guns that "look scary" aren't technically different from those that look more "sporting" like that Remington (one of many examples I could show), back in '94 Congress banned certain "evil features" that were purely cosmetic, in an attempt to home in on the "evil looking guns" and leave the deer rifles alone.
Which made the law arbitrary and stupid, and is what's really causing it's death tonight.
Which leaves two questions:
1) Why would anybody want a "military pattern rifle" in the first place?
A: first, parts are widespread and cheap. They usually share at least some components and accessories with the full-auto military versions which are banned; as long as the parts in question don't add full-auto capability, they're legal.
Second, when rifles are engineered to be able to handle full-auto stresses and battlefield conditions via rigorous testing, they're tough as nails. Once the full-auto capability is stripped for the civilian market, they're even tougher as they don't need to cope with that. (Full-auto fire can wear out a barrel in just a few hundred shots in some cases, which is why real military machine gunners keep extra barrels with them for quick swaps.)
Why have a tough gun?
Because competitive shooters must practice a lot - practice levels beyond what hunting rifles can cope with. The vast majority of full-power rifle competition happens not with deer rifles or even high-accuracy target rifles, but with AR-pattern critters distantly related to the US military M16 family, hot-rodded for accuracy.
The Remington probably has a total lifespan of a couple thousand rounds. Less in the hotter calibers like 30-06 or 270Winchester.
AR-pattern rifle owners can sign up for a three-day class in riflework by nationally known instructors such as John Farnham, and shoot 1500 rounds in a three day weekend...and the gun will *probably* hold up. He has loaner spares just in case they don't, as that's one hell of a duty cycle...one that no "pure civilian origin" rifle could even hope to survive.
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Which leaves the other, more controversial issue: the full-capacity magazines of 20 to 30 rounds, or the truly high-cap mags like the Beta-C drums of 75 - 150.
Who needs that?
Slashdotters of all people should know a critical thing: the majority isn't always right. If you thought otherwise, why don't we format all our Linux partitions and run Windoze? I mean, the market has spoken, right?
Spoken in favor of rank idiocy. "The market" is made up of the same technoturnips that try and find the "any key" when the screen says "press any key to continue".
That particular kind of idiocy is harmless. But every once in a while, the sheeple masses get violently stupid all at once. They riot in LA because of a court decision, or a bunch of morons decide to loot after a hurricane or other natural disaster.
Those are recent examples; in both, homeowners and business owners often sto