How many people would Gifford's shooter have shot if automatic weapons

[pnwmom]

weren't so easily available?

If he had only had access to a regular gun?

We shouldn't have let that federal law expire.

[makokun]

1. Just imagine if he had nukes

[Statistical]

2. He had no automatic weapons. No federal law expired which made it easier to get automatic weapons.

Please try to at least be slightly informed.

[beevul]

3. He used a "regular gun".

There were no automatic weapons involved.

And no federal law that expired allowing them.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Automatic weapons aren't easily available?

And haven't been since the National Firearms Act of 1934. Legally one can only purchase semi-automatic weapons subject to waiting period and background check laws. Fully-automatic weapons, shotguns of greater than 10-bore, suppressors, etc. are regulated under the National Firearms Act and all such weapons must be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and all transfers of such weapons require approval.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

[Dark]

5. It was a 9mm pistol supposedly and definitely a semiautomatic.

nt

[Pancho Sanza]

6. What is a "regular" gun?

:eyes:

[aikoaiko]

7. automatic weapons so easily available? what are you talking about?

:shrug:

[DissedByBush]

30. I want to know where! I want one. n/t

[Name removed]

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[PavePusher]

9. So, what kind of weapon was used....

and what was the O.P. implying?

Because there's a bit more difference there than mere "terminology".

Facts. They aren't yours.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[AtheistCrusader]

17. No, for using a point that fails unless you want to ban all repeating pistols made for 100 years.

'that federal law' made no damn difference in this incident at all.

[Name removed]

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[Callisto32]

45. This may come as a shock, but words have meanings.

This is hardly just a matter of semantics. There is a real, very large difference between an automatic weapon and an auto-LOADING (also known as a semi-automatic) weapon. These are specific terms applied to very different kinds of engineering. If you can't keep up with the topic, you have no business discussing it.

Did you know that semi-automatic weapons aren't even any faster to fire than double-action (another bit of "terminology, if that's okay) revolvers.


Ho ho, here it comes again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uisHfKj2JiI


Edit: screwed up link, fixed.

[benEzra]

12. Automatic weapons are as tightly controlled in the USA as bombs are.

He DID use a "regular gun." From news reports, it seems to have been an ordinary 9mm pistol.

I guess it was too much to hope that the Culture War BS could wait till tomorrow, though?

[X_Digger]

13. Please repost with some sense...

What is a 'regular' gun?

The shooter did not have an automatic weapon.

What federal law are you referring to? The 94-'04 'assault weapon ban'? If so, it would've had fuck all to do with this gun.

[Name removed]

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[friendly_iconoclast]

15. "Oh bother, my planned political assasination is in a 'gun-free' area. Guess I can't do it now!"

Is that the way you think it will work?

[Euromutt]

25. Tell that to Pim Fortuyn

Firearms are tightly regulated in the Netherlands. That didn't stop Folkert van der Graaf buying an illegal Spanish-made Star Firestar M43 9mm pistol off a guy in a bar in Ede (a provincial town of about 67,000 people) and, in 2002, using it assassinate populist politician Pim Fortuyn. This was incidentally the first assassination of a politician in over 500 years of Dutch history, and the second in its history as an independent country, even though the first gun control laws weren't adopted until 1919.

Dutch gun control laws also didn't prevent Mohammed Bouyeri from acquiring a Croatian-made HS2000 and using it to murder film maker Theo van Gogh in 2004.

Ultimately, when some whackjob decides to murder a public figure, there's no legislation you can pass that is going to stop him. Hell, he's already decided to break the law prohibiting murder, and there isn't a country in the world--not even China--where it's impossible to illegally acquire a firearm.

[Callisto32]

47. Life is a technicality.

Let's look at it this way.

A man is shot and killed. That is homicide, flat out.

Whether it is murder or not is a "technicality," and a very important one at that.

People who say "that's just a technicality" are usually doing so because they have lost an argument on the merits.

[oneshooter]

70. You sound like you have a paranoid fear of free citizens.....

being able to defend themselves. Nobody has ever suggested that you need or have to purchase or carry a firearm.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Imagine how many he could have killed with an Aludium Q-36 explosive space modulator

Your post has about as much to do with reality as Marvin the Martian's armory.

[Glassunion]

42. What?

No earth-shattering kaboom?

[oneshooter]

71. I WANT ONE!!!!! n/t

[Name removed]

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[MrModerate]

20. Self-delete (wrong place)

[Name removed]

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[MrModerate]

38. That was fast. I deleted the post no more than 10 seconds after I put it in the wrong place.

In any case, thanks for pointing out my misuse of nomenclature. That's certainly crucial to the question I asked. I admire your ability to focus on what's really important in cases of judicial assassination, mass murder, child murder, mass wounding, and -- oh yeah -- attempted assassination of an elected federal official. Kudos.

With regard to the "what use is it" test, I think the question should probably be asked. Many commercial vehicles have electromechanical governors in them to prevent travel above the speed limit, so the notion is not entirely unheard-of. And regardless of what North Carolina may have said about banning Everclear, control of the proof of spirits (for a whole host of reasons) has been practiced since shortly after human beings invented industrial fermentation.

And my question wasn't "why don't they ban above a certain number of rounds" it was "what use is it?" One poster says that people use them at firing ranges which makes some sense, I suppose. However it emphasizes that gun fanciers really do tend to think of these things as toys, which is a very disturbing frame of mind.

So I reframe my question: outside of mass murder and using a deadly weapon as a toy, what good is a 17-round magazine?

[PavePusher]

51. "it emphasizes that gun fanciers really do tend to think of these things as toys,"

No, you invented that out of whole cloth.

17-round magazines are excellent for self-defense, when your life may hang on even the few seconds it takes to reload with a full magazine. The tool is not the problem, but "I admire your ability to focus on what's really important in cases of judicial assassination, mass murder, child murder, mass wounding, and -- oh yeah -- attempted assassination of an elected federal official. Kudos."

You have completely missed that the issue is intent and how one plans to use a tool.

[MrModerate]

67. Do you go anticipate going into combat with heavily armed soldiers? Under what reasonable . . .

Civilian "self defense" scenario are you going to need 17 shots to protect yourself? Are you going to rush into a firefight with your gun blazing?

Sounds a lot like "playing war" to me. As in "guns are toys."

The issue is that which tool you put in someone's hand (in the case some apparently crazy guy's hand) really matters. Go ahead, try to tell me there would have been no difference if this guy's weapon had six rounds in it. Bullshit.

I'd also point out that gun fanciers just look like fools when they criticize people who think that even manufacturing a 17-round magazine is madness for saying "clip" rather than a "magazine." Nomenclature is just noise in cases like these, and such criticism is illustrative of the dangerous and immature mindset exhibited by gun fanciers.

[MrModerate]

21. A question for the better informed than I: Outside of mass murder . . .

Of what practical use is a 17-round clip? (Which is what they're currently reporting)

If you're talking personal defense or target shooting (two common threads of thought on this forum), I'd think something that was easier to handle would be preferable.

[X_Digger]

23. Magazine size has no impact on ease of handling (other than weight).

Most folks I know with extended magazines use them at the range. Less time stuffing rounds, more time actually shooting.

But they don't make a gun unwieldy or hard to handle, unless you normally use a 'teacup and saucer' grip (which really is a bad grip.) On the contrary, the added weight below the center of rotational momentum tends to make felt recoil decrease.

[PavePusher]

24. X_Digger did miss one point....

an extended magazine in a pistol can make it more difficult to carry when holstered, or to conceal if you want to do so.

Neither of these issues were of concern to a one-use, vile piece of filth like this shooter, however.

[Hoyt]

26. So, how do we keep folks like this from getting a gun and legally walking down the street with it?

I understand criminals would be doing it illegally. That's another discussion. But unless they find something on this guy, he wasn't a criminal until he legally walked down the street with a gun and pulled it on the Congresswoman. Yea, you could argue he was a criminal when he hatched the plan. But, I suspect the public toting laws there facilitated his plan.

[X_Digger]

27. Fund the Division of Pre-Crime?

How do we keep you from grabbing a steak knife from the kitchen drawer and stabbing your wife in the eye?

How do we keep you from tossing a mason jar full of gas with a lit rag in it into the local beer joint?

[Hoyt]

28. If I tote a Mason Jar full of petrol down the street, the police would likely shoot me. Rightly so.

Why not the same for a deadly weapon such as a pistol? Well, rather than shooting a toter, disarm em and drag em off to jail.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

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[Euromutt]

46. Well, they might stop you and ask you some awkward questions, IF you carried it openly

Of course, you could side-step that problem by, say, carrying the jar in a paper grocery bag so that it's not immediately visible, and you don't take it out of the bag at the location where you intend to commit the mayhem.

The problem is that a handgun is also quite concealable. Earlier in this thread I mentioned Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, two men who were murdered with handguns in a country where there is no legal way from a private citizen to carry a firearm in public. Thing is, nobody noticed they were carrying until they produced their respective firearms and started shooting. You can make it doubleplusillegal to carry a firearm in public, but unless and until you're willing to scrap constitutional prohibitions against arbitrary search and seizure, it's not going to stop a guy who is intent on committing a murder, or robbery, or arson.

[PavePusher]

33. I don't know.

Real life has always been risky. If you want to make everything perfectly safe, it's gonna be a boring life.

[Hoyt]

37. Yet, you guys feel the necessity to pack a gun in public when the risk is minuscule.

[Tejas]

43. Daily events of rape, robbery, and murder are "miniscule"?

[Hoyt]

53. The odds of it being you are so small, especially in a public place.

Yet, so many folks can't walk out of their house without that cold steel.

Again, if you are really afraid of the odds, you'd be better packing a defibrillator.

[PavePusher]

55. Really?

Millions of instances of violent crimes every year, how many heart-attacks in public places?

Anyway, a gun is smaller than a defib kit.

[X_Digger]

56. How does 1 in 50 sound? (1 in 37 if you're aa)

In the US there are 400,000 residential fires every year, and there are ~105,000,000 homes. Odds of a home fire? 1 in 263.

http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Fire-Prevention/fires-factsheet.html

According to the DOJ, the rate of being the victim of a violent crime is 20 / 1,000 overall (as high as 27 / 1,000 for some groups like african americans.) That comes out to 1 in 50.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1743

[Name removed]

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[X_Digger]

58. Actually, I specified violent crime.

Anywhere from 1 in 50 to 1 in 37 people will be the victim of a violent crime.

Regarding your assertion that a 'significant number occur in the home' - depends on the crime. A majority of armed robberies happen outside the home, about half of all aggravated assaults, a majority of forcible rapes happen outside the victims home, and just under 50% of all murders happen inside a residence (not necessarily your own.) See FBI's 2009 crime stats.

Then, a significant number of "crimes" were performed by criminals without guns -- yet, you feel compelled to carry into public places.

And? You think that one should meet a criminal on equal terms? By what moral precept do you wish to force a 125lb woman to face her 200lb potential rapist with fists and feet? I don't think you thought this one out.

[Hoyt]

59. Are you a 125 pound women?

Obviously, you did not read my last comment in post #65.

Point is, you really don't need to carry a gun into a nursery school -- but you can't see life without one.

[X_Digger]

60. The concept stands..

I did read your last comment, and it doesn't say that you condone it, merely understand it. Mighty nice of you- I suspect the logical extension of your concept is especially unpalatable to you, so you put a little asterisk by this one case as though the whole thing can withstand scrutiny with this one exception.

If five young men accost a person with hands and feet, would you limit the victim to hands and feet?

If a mugger approaches someone with a knife, would you limit the victim to a knife?

By what moral precept would you force any person to meet the threat of grevious bodily harm with the same implement as their attacker?

[Hoyt]

65. You ain't likely to meet one, so quit obsessing about it. Try living gun free in public.

[X_Digger]

66. So you don't have a justification, then? Thanks for conceding.

It's good to know that you have no moral precept for the impositions you'd like to make.

[PavePusher]

74. How about...

you answer a fucking question now and then.

[HALO141]

62. Fine! You've solved your own delima!

by your own reasoning, don't hang out with people who carry guns (or go into their homes) and you're bound to be perfectly safe, right?


So get off your high horse and stop trying to make the rest of the world conform to your narrow behavioral standard.

[Tejas]

63. Leave your doors unlocked at night too eh?

Do your unicorns have all their shots?

[beevul]

68. Miniscule? How do you define that exactly?

Miniscule that people shouldn't lawfully carry a firearm if they feel the need, but not so miniscule that bans are out of the question?

[SteveM]

76. Ah, "you guys" again. Who? How many?

How do you know when the risk is minimal? Is it as minimal as my house burning down?

[SteveM]

75. Well, come up with something that passes constitutional muster. nt

[GSLevel9]

39. actually it doesn't matter if there is a practical use.

Most gun owners protect the RIGHT to own a 10+ round magazine or a 30 round magazine... not even the utility of such.

I was frustrated in the 90's when mag's were running $100+ each

[MrModerate]

40. Does it impinge on one's rights (as second amendment zealots see them) . . .

. . . whether a magazine has 17 rounds or 100? Apparently not.

But it's very illuminating of the gun fancier mindset that such mechanisms even exist.

[benEzra]

50. Standard (flush-fit) magazine size for a full-size 9mm pistol is 15 to 20.

Standard magazine size for the most popular civilian rifles is 30, or 20 for the larger calibers. Not 100.

The gun-control lobby isn't trying to outlaw 100-round magazines; they are trying to outlaw 11-round magazines, and eventually 7-round magazines. No thanks.

[PavePusher]

52. Would you care to be a little more explicit about what you are trying to insinuate? n/t

[Callisto32]

48. Okay,

First, clips load magazines, magazines load weapons, sometimes the whole clip goes into the magazine (an en bloc clip) but usually the rounds are stripped off the clip (stripper or stripper clip are other words for clip) into the magazine, which then loads the weapon.

We clear? Good.

Why normal (not "high capacity", as these are the magazines the weapon was designed to take) cap mags? Simple, less time spent reloading. In both sport shooting and self defense, magazine capacity = ammo on hand and ammo on hand = time. If you are in a sport that calls for a 13 round string of fire, and you have a 12 round mag, you have to reload, that is time spent reloading you could have used shooting. Time is very important in most shooting sports played with a handgun. The implications of time spent reloading in self defense should be self evident.

As far as ease of handling, that is very individual. Some people find modern double stack magazine fed weapons to be generally too wide to be held comfortably. For an adult male of average or greater hand size, this is almost always not the case, and many with smaller hands also manage just fine. My wife hates shooting my CZ-75B (standard magazine capacity: 16 rounds), because she has very small hands and has difficulty reaching the controls because of the wide grip. I have no such issue. Should I lower the available capacity on my weapon because someone else has trouble? No.

But what if we just legally limit all magazine capacities? Tried that with the AWB. The result was the smaller, highly concealable weapons now so popular today. People figured, "if I am always limited to 10 rounds, I may as well have a smaller weapon." Now the gun controllers whine about the size of weapons. In the end we wind up with something like this.

The controllers say we can't have auto loading rifles because they fire too fast, and "spray bullets" and so are too dangerous because they are less accurate, apparently, and will kill lots more people because you can't control it. Precision rifles (semi-autos/autos can be precise too, I mean things like bolt-action rifles) can't be had because they are TOO accurate. Large calibers are too powerful and kill to easily, small calibers can't be had because they are too likely to maim. Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.

Magazine capacities are the same way. It is just a non-issue that generally uninformed (about guns) people bring up because when faced with the facts of the matter, gun control ideas fail on their merits.

[HALO141]

61. Is this a serious question?

I assume you are trying to infer that there is no legitimate reason for such magazines to exist. We must acknowledge that there are millions of such magazines owned by everyone from private citizens to police to military. This controversy is over the fact that only one of them was misused yesterday.

A significant number of violent encounters involve multiple assailants. Furthermore, multiple shots are usually required to neutralize a threat.

Many competitions require a shooter to engage multiple targets over a timed course of fire. The fewer reloads one has to preform, the quicker the time.

Ease of handling is not usually an issue at all.

[MichaelHarris]

31. I'm just glad that

all of those concealed weapon permit holders were able to stop this shooting before more people were killed. Um, err,aaa wait.. two old guys without guns stopped this. Rep. Giffords is concealed weapons permit holder and a supporter of the 2nd. Gungion members, would she have been able to defend herself from this shooter if she had her gun with her?

You know the answer, guns DON'T solve gun violence! When a shooter wants you dead his/her gun is out, you have no chance. Concealed carry doesn't stop shit!!

[X_Digger]

32. Found that police report for the AK totin man, yet?

By the way, your post is a straw man of your own making. Who here has said that concealed carriers are supposed to be law enforcement?

You know the answer, guns DON'T solve gun violence! When a shooter wants you dead his/her gun is out, you have no chance. Concealed carry doesn't stop shit!!

false:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/16/ap/national/main7157952.shtml

As they were trying to tie up the store owner, he took out a handgun from his waistband and fatally shot one of the suspects, Smith said.

http://charlotte.news14.com/content/top_stories/628167/man-at-atm-fires-back-at-would-be-armed-robber

According to police, the man was attempting to use a Cash Points ATM on Eastway Drive at North Tryon Street around 11 p.m. A suspect seemingly saw that as an opportunity and tried to rob the victim at gunpoint.

However, that victim was also armed. He shot the suspect twice in the leg.

http://www.wxix.com/Global/story.asp?S=12299813

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - Cincinnati Police are investigating a shooting where it appears a robber left the scene with the victim's cell-phone in his hand, and a slug from the victim's gun in his lower abdomen.

Police say the robber ran into someone with a concealed-carry permit, and at some point the would-be victim was able to get his gun out and shoot the suspect, who took off running from the shooting scene on Rosemont Avenue south of Glenway in West Price Hill.

[friendly_iconoclast]

36. (sticks fingers in ears, shouts LALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!)

Don't get me wrong, X_D., I'm glad you posted those examples.

However, those with an agenda have a remarkable capacity for ignoring inconvenient truths...

[jazzhound]

41. Sad that the contempt for firearms runs so deep in some

"progressive" circles that even acclaimed LIBERAL criminologists are ignored.

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/p/faculty-gary-kleck.php

Yeah..........let's keep that brilliant "assault weapons" ban in the party platform and piss away a few more elections!

:banghead:

[PavePusher]

34. Settin' 'em up and knockin' 'em down...

and all by yourself, too!

That's talent there, yes sir!

[Katya Mullethov]

35. This is why I never go anywhere without my purse

She knew better .

[Pancho Sanza]

64. If it doesn't accomplish anything, why are you so obsessed with it?

Very strange...

Should we stop allowing cops to have guns too, since they're useless?

[MichaelHarris]

69. actually

guns in the hands of private citizens, i.e. CWP holders, out of any kind of identifying uniform are useless. How many mass shooting have a CWP holder stopped? I can tell you about a whole bunch of crimes stopped by police officers. You should really think before you post.

[Pancho Sanza]

72. I worked my way through college as a police officer. I never stopped any crimes

other than simply being around might have done, and I'm aware of very few of my fellow cops having done it either.
Police have neither the ability nor obligation to protect citizens...as to how many shootings have been 'stopped', I have no idea. Neither you nor I can accurately speculate about things that did not happen. Challenging someone to prove a negative is a mark of substandard intellect that's most usually employed by knuckledragging anti-evolutionist types.

[benEzra]

73. The New Life Church shooting in Colorado a few years ago was one.

That one was stopped by a civilian CHL holder using her personally owned Beretta 9mm, who had volunteered to provide informal security for her church. The shooter killed two people in the parking lot but she prevented him from killing anyone inside the church.

Generally speaking, most mass shootings stop when someone or a group of someones initiate effective countervailing force, usually armed but not always. In "no guns allowed" zones, this usually occurs when the police finally bring guns to the scene (and correcting the failure to do that was the #1 lesson learned from Columbine).

The primary purpose of CHL's is personal defense, not stopping mass shootings (which are exceedingly rare), but if a CHL holder happens to be in the right place at the right time (as Ms. Assam was), they can indeed be a benefit.

[SteveM]

77. More errors on your part...

At least one of the persons stopping the shooter was a concealed-carry citizen, and he had his gun on him. He did not reveal it because by the time he got there (running from a store), the attacker was being subdued. Would Giffords been able to defend herself? Probably not. But if some of her entourage had been armed, they may have been able to reduce the carnage, don't you think?

"Guns DON'T solve gun violence!:" Sorry, but a citizen with a gun can and has solved many a crime in action, and you very well know that. Stop being disingenuous; it's irritating, even though when you post this stuff, it probably gains more support for 2A.
You are reduced to repeating -- over and over -- the same crap you cannot back up.

[Callisto32]

44. I am sure that I am very, very late on this, but...

just wow.

Warning, probably a non constructive comment to follow:

The ignorance, it burns.

[SteveM]

78. Arrived late? Consider yourself lucky! nt

[slackmaster]

49. I'm just getting up and had not heard about the AZ shooting until a few minutes ago

I gave the OP an automatic unrec for technical inaccuracy.

pnwmom, please define what you mean by "regular gun", and explain what federal law's expiration you are referring to.

[Atypical Liberal]

54. Answers to you questions

You're going to get a lot of flak on your terminology. I think I know what you meant, though, so I'm going to explain the terminology and then answer your questions.

Firstly, "automatic" weapons generally mean weapons that are fully automatic - machine guns. These weapons continue to fire bullets for as long as the trigger is pulled. While civilians can buy these weapons, there is a limited supply of them that can be legally transferred to new owners, and you have to pay a $200 tax and undergo a background check in order to own them.

Most civilian firearms are "semi-automatic". That is, they only fire one bullet for every pull of the trigger. This is the sort of weapon that the AZ shooter used - a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

It's important to note that semi-automatic firearm technology is over 125 years old, with the first semi-automatic design occurring in 1885. The Colt Automatic Pistol, invented in 1911, is often considered the grandfather of semi-automatic pistols. Many, if not most, modern semi-automatic pistols can trace their origin back to this design, which is 100 years old this year.

If semi-automatic weapons were not available, it would certainly make mass shootings more difficult. Instead of having 10-30 or more rounds available, they would probably be limited to about 8, which is the maximum number of rounds you are likely to find in most larger-caliber revolvers. Single-action revolvers, by the way, date to 1597, but were in mass production by the early 1800s. This makes this technology easily over 200 years old. My point for noting the age of these technologies is to point out that they are, literally, ancient, and thus, one could easily argue, quite "normal". There are tens of millions of semi-automatic firearms currently in circulation in the United States. So wishing that they didn't exist is really a waste of time. They make up probably over half-a-billion dollars in private property in this country and for that reason alone any thoughts of confiscating them or otherwise eliminating them are very unlikely.

Additionally, the technology is so old and so well known that such weapons can be made in your garage with simple tools like files and hammers and vices. There are cottage industries in Pakistan and India even today that crank out hand-made, but otherwise quite functional firearms with no trouble. I myself have downloaded plans off the internet to build the Sten sub-machine gun out of pipe and sheet metal. Further, the illegal drug trade will continue to insure that those people, who already operate outside of the law out of necessity, will continue to proliferate tools for the enforcement and protection of their trade, even if they have to resort to setting up their own manufacturing facilities. They currently manufacture submarines for trafficking; Manufacturing firearms would be small potatoes.

So the firearm genie is out of the bottle. Even if it were desirable to put it back in the bottle, which it isn't, it couldn't be done. But it isn't even desirable. We should not give up an essential liberty just to try and seek a little temporary safety.