Tuesday, June 14, 2016

my gun solution

i originally wrote all this for a childhood friend after going back and forth with her and others online, where she kept asking for a solution to the problem of mass shootings in the United States. eventually i just sent her the email below, since i'm pretty sure most people don't care about the details. it was still a long explanation, but read it first, and if you want the details past that feel free to continue.

"the solution: there's not one. all guns are meant to hurt things, and the vast majority use a magazine to hold ammunition. the AR15 has a 30 round magazine and the Mini14 'ranch rifle' used by farmers uses the exact same magazine and ammunition (its a NATO standard). so if you ban one, the other is still readily available. this same problems applied across the board to all kinds of weapons... some politician 20 years ago just threw around 'assault weapon' to get re-elected, but the differences between most guns are small, and the number of people they can kill is not defined by anything more than their magazine capacity. the only true solutions are one of two - and the examples are Australia and Switzerland. Australia effectively did away with guns, moving money from other projects and buying all the guns from the citizens. after that, guns sales were severely restricted and you had to have a purpose or belong to a club that managed them for you. still, they have mass shootings when people go on a rampage and take club guns or whatever. their tragic numbers related to firearms are of course down significantly, tho some argue the methods simply changed. the problem with that plan and us: we don't have a spare $7b laying around to do the same thing here, and it would cause a revolution. the swiss went the opposite route - there's an assault rifle in almost every home, issued to them by the government. they have the least amount of firearms related issue.... but.... the people get their government issued assault weapon in the military, which men are required to do and women are encouraged to do. obviously this is being done for national defense and to keep an active reserve, but the benefit has been that people are more responsible with their weapons, and no one fucks with the swiss... including crazies. Americans would never tolerate a draft again, and we are so paranoid that our currently volunteer military isn't allowed to carry weapons on their bases much less at home. in 1994 we passed the 'Assault Weapons Ban', which was a 10 year law that defined an 'Assault Weapon' by any weapons that had more than 2 of 5 characteristics... the sad thing is, 4 of those 5 characteristics were COSMETIC, and our public is so uneducated on the topic that they had no idea assault weapons were still selling, in fact they sold MORE, just now they didn't have a flash suppressor or a pistol grip or a bayonet lug or a grenade launcher. the law was a failure and was allowed to expire when it was up for renewal in 2004. and with that, every time there's an event like this, or another law hits the news, assault weapon sales SKYROCKET. anyway, there's no viable solution for us any more than there's a solution to the healthcare mess. unless you can figure out a way to get rid of ALL of the guns, or figure out a way to train and equip everyone, there will always be someone in limbo. and realize, we now live in a society where if i see a woman getting raped, and i have a gun, i can do nothing more than use harsh language and call the police. if i touch the assailant, its assault and if i shoot him, it's murder. sure, it will all play out in court, and the odds are good i'd be set free.... after months in jail and hundreds of thousands in legal defense. we are a society of idealists in a realistic world. i know you wont like this answer, and i would guess you won't want it explained more than i have, but this is actually the short version."

more found below...


the weapon on the left is the AR15, the weapon on the right is the Mini14 'ranch rifle' without a magazine.

they both use the SAME ammunition, they both fire once for every time the trigger is squeezed.

but - any ban on 'assault weapons' would only ban the rifle on the left.

now - watch this:  the gun on the right becomes an assault weapon if you change it slightly...


what changed??

the stock, the added flash suppressor, and the MAGAZINE.

you can see the original magazine has been replaced with a large capacity magazine.  now this rifle will fire the same ammunition as the AR15, and can carry the same amount of ammunition in each magazine.

but - most people who don't understand guns won't take the time to understand all this.  they just want a ban!  they want action now!  and since they don't understand, they end up with a politician that has no idea what they're talking about proposing bans on firearms that will have NO impact on things.

and to make things worse, here is the same gun again:


now it has the magazine, but it's NOT an 'assault weapon' - because of the stock (the body of the rifle)!  yet it still holds the same bullets as the AR15 and the same amount of ammunition!

our anti-gun public is so uneducated on the topic that they allowed our government to define 'assault weapons' by COSMETIC FEATURES.

so... the real key to stopping suburban mass shootings is the magazine on all semi-automatic weapons.

but, there are just under 400 million guns in the United States... and some estimate there are 10 times as many magazines.  they are just a part, they are considered by many to be the nearly disposable extra, and subsequently they are bought and sold in bulk.

here's another example:

 

the pistol on the left holds 8 rounds of ammunition, but the one on the right is the SAME GUN, but it's magazine is designed to hold 100 rounds.

so... since most guns are semi-automatic, and high capacity magazines are what allows any gun to shoot at length.

LET ME HELP ANY LIBERALS WHO WANT TO ARGUE AGAINST GUNS:

- 'this gun has only one purpose, and thats killing people!' - if two guns are identical in function, but look different, you loose your argument when it has to be defined in a law.

- 'we need to get rid of all the assault weapons!' - again, if you base your ban on aesthetics, you not only don't solve the problem, but you lose the attention of anyone who understands that you're really not changing anything.

- 'i dont feel safe taking my kids to the movies knowing guns like this are out there!' - now you seem uninformed, and paranoid, and in the end you're not giving the legislators anything they can define.  PLUS now it looks like you only care about yourself since you're ignoring the bigger problem.

- 'how can we allow these assault weapons to be out there when they can kill 50 people in one terrible event!' - now you're only reacting because of a single terrible event, and worse, you're ignoring the many many many more who are killed daily by guns that don't have high capacity magazines.

- 'you don't need anything like that!!'  really?  you think you're going to win your argument by telling Americans what they need and what they don't need?  if that's the way things are going to go, be prepared for a lot more changes after guns.  you won't 'need' a car if there's public transit, and you won't 'need' alcohol, and you won't 'need' a lot.


so... to really fight gun violence you need to understand the details so legislators can make a defined law.  the problem is that most people don't understand the details....

but i'll explain them if you're actually willing to learn something.

firearms are designed to fire bullets.  most of them are 'semi-automatic', meaning they are fed by a magazine full of bullets and fire as fast as you can pull the trigger.  they are almost never 'automatic'.

and while armies of suburbanites want to rant on and on about the AR15, the vast majority of firearms death come from HANDGUNS.

so, rambling on and on about 'assault weapons' only tells those who are educated on the topic of firearms that you're more worried about the guns from the news, and not the guns that are actually killing the much larger group of people.

we have passed laws trying to regulate 'assault weapons', but there's always a way around the laws.

the worst part about the 'assault weapons' issue is that most people who argue against guns rant at length about 'assault weapons'.... and they don't realize that most guns called 'assault weapons' are called that because of COSMETIC features that don't impact the way it works.

the true threat is the magazine and how many rounds of ammunition it will fire.

---  this is important ---

an AR15 with a 5 round magazine is just as lethal as one with a 30 round magazine, you just have to change magazines more.  California recognized this years ago, and requires the AR15s in that state to have a magazine release that is difficult to use... but this only applies to the AR15.  the fools ignored everything else.

and worse - there are many rifles that shoot the exact same bullet as the AR15, and have high capacity magazines, but people ignore them because they don't have the COSMETIC features of the AR.

--- anyway ----

a lot of people want to point at Australia and claim their efforts to be a success... that's not completely true, a search on google will show you that mass shootings have happened in Australia since their major gun controls went in to place.  the most notorious since then was committed with legal handguns taken from a shooting club.

and worse for us - we would need at least $7billion to buy back all the guns in the United States like Australia did... if you think we just have that laying around somewhere after the $19 trillion in debt we can't pay off - ask a school teacher how fat their budget is... or ask someone who works in public health how much extra cash they have for projects.  we don't have the money to go the Australia route... and if we did, there would probably be a revolution.

and why a revolution?  when the Ferguson riots happened, liberals came out all over asking why the police had military weapons and vehicles.  well, now we know they have them - do you think the people are going to be ok with ONLY the police having them?

you may be ok with it, but when you get off your pulpit please realize that many (if not most) are not.  the news is full of stories about the police abusing their power... now you think you're going to sell the country on the idea that its OK for them to be overpowering?

pro-gun persons are tired of people blaming the guns and point at Canada or the Swiss who have tons of guns and rarely a gun related incident.  but... lets face it, the mentality of people in Canada is a lot more... relaxed than in the United States, and the Swiss require most of their men to receive military training, then after they have served they are sent home with their weapons.

i don't think even our most pro-gun enthusiasts will be pro-mandatory military service.

so... maybe we need more laws?

the United States has been increasing gun laws since the first big gun legislation in 1934.  that's right, we've been regulating guns since 1934.

1934's National Firearms Act was focused on 'automatic weapons' and sawed-off shotguns.

during the Regan administration, importing any 'automatic weapons' was banned, as was the sale of those made here.

let's define that so everyone understands:  an 'automatic weapon' requires only one action to fire the weapon repeatedly.  when the trigger is activated and held, the weapon continues to fire.

automatic weapons haven't been used in a mass killing, ever.  most people will only see them in a movie.  law enforcement doesn't use any automatic weapons, and the military actually limits their use to specific roles because they are difficult to keep aimed and rapidly run out of ammunition.

side fact:  the AR15 is the civilian version of the M16, which was originally designed to be an automatic weapon, but that was changed because soldiers couldn't control the weapon with all those bullets flying out.  now, the M16 will only shoots a 3 round 'burst' at most....  and the AR15 only shoots one bullet at a time.

so... if you think you know what you're talking about when it comes to gun control, and mention 'automatic weapons', you don't.

what you're thinking of is a SEMI-automatic weapon.

George W. Bush got legislation passed that banned the import of certain models of 'assault rifles' because they had no possible hunting value.  many believe this is why the AR15 is the most common rifle found in the United States today.

a semi-automatic weapon has some kind of magazine that holds more than one round of ammunition and fires one bullet for every time the trigger is squeezed.

a semi-automatic weapon should not be confused with a revolver, which has a cylinder that holds various amounts of ammunition and rotates a new round into firing position every time the trigger is pulled.

think 'Dirty Harry' - he carried a revolver.  a revolver is not considered a semi-automatic weapon, though it effectively does the same job.

so what's a semi-automatic weapon?

just about every rifle or handgun is a semi-automatic weapon.

this is important - very few firearms are made to be loaded once and fired once.  most, are designed to hold more than one round of ammunition and either automatically re-loads itself (this making it semi-automatic), or it brings a new round into firing position just before firing (a revolver).

so anyway - let's get to the important stuff everyone is worried about....

the evil 'assault rifle'

the AR15 is the most common American assault rifle, it fires a 5.56 caliber round.

the most common assault rifle in the world is the AK47, at last estimate, over 100million have been produced, and it fires a 7.62x39

here's the problem:  those two bullets are used commonly by other rifles that don't look mean, aren't usually carried in to war, and are actually used for people's jobs.

if you google 'ruger mini-14' or 'ruger mini-30', you will see the ruger 'ranch rifle' series of rifles that have been carried on farms and used by fathers to teach their sons to shoot for decades without being involved in an mass shootings.  they are plain, they come with a wood stock usually, and they aren't flashy at all.  a person could dress one up to look mean, but usually they show up looking pretty plain, like the kind of thing your grampa used to shoot at cans.

and here's the real suck - they are the shooting the same bullets as the AR15 and the AK47...  so banning the evil 'assault rifle' is just going to make psychos get the trusty wooden farm version.

so it becomes hard to regulate past the NFA when you have two rifles that shoot the same bullets and do the same damage, but one is an 'assault rifle'.

what makes an 'assault rifle'?

in 1994 the federal government passed a 10 year 'assault weapons ban', which defined an 'assault weapon' as any rifle that had 2 of 5 possible 'assault weapon' features.  these were:

- flash hider
- detachable magazine (of more than 10 rounds)
- pistol grip
- bayonet lug
- grenade launcher

here's the problem - - most of these things are COSMETIC.  none of these things actually impact how the weapon performs except the magazine.

after the 10 years, Congress realized the law was a failure and it was not renewed.

so, what did the gun makers do during the 10 year ban?  they started to make guns with big magazines and one other feature on the list - OR - they sold their rifles with a 10 round magazine and two features from the list... making people buy the magazine separately.

and really - let's get to the most important part of the gun debate:

THE VAST MAJORITY OF GUN RELATED INJURIES AND DEATHS GO UNNOTICED BY THOSE OF US WHO CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

The FBI and the CDC regularly publish data about homicides and causes of death for our country, and when you do the math, there are gun related killings every day... in poor urban areas that most of the paranoid suburbanites reading this don't care about.

How do I know this?  just yesterday i had some happy homemaker and nurse ramble at me about how i was a moron who was making it impossible for her to feel safe taking her kids to the movies.

WHAT??  there are parts of north St. Louis where it's not safe to wait for the bus because every day there's a random murder on the streets, and you're freaking out because of the two mass shootings that happened at movie theaters?   Here's some math for you my dear:  it's at best a random chance you'll be one of the few in American history to be killed in a movie theater by a psycho, but if you go for a walk down the street on the south side of Chicago, you'll be dead in no time at all.

you're more likely to win the lottery twice, on your birthday, than you are likely to be killed in a mass shooting.  but you're more likely to be shot in Chicago than you are in Iraq.

and in Chicago, they aren't using 'assault weapons'.

what's the solution?   well, the only real solution is to fix the causes of violence in this country.  fix the education system, fix poverty, promote acceptance, teach people respect.  do all that and all violence will stop.

but really...  we don't care unless there's a tiny chance it may impact us.  then we will get all excited and rant and rave for a while, and life will go on.




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