A Right to Bear Glocks?

[TBF]

A Right to Bear Glocks?

By GAIL COLLINS
Published: January 9, 2011
The New York Times

In 2009, Gabrielle Giffords was holding a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting at a Safeway supermarket in her district when a protester, who was waving a sign that said “Don’t Tread on Me,” waved a little too strenuously. The pistol he was carrying under his armpit fell out of his holster.

“It bounced. That concerned me,” Rudy Ruiz, the father of one of Giffords’s college interns at the time, told me then. He had been at the event and had gotten a larger vision than he had anticipated of what a career in politics entailed. “I just thought, ‘What would happen if it had gone off? Could my daughter have gotten hurt?’ ”

Giffords brushed off the incident. “When you represent a district — the home of the O.K. Corral and Tombstone, the town too tough to die — nothing’s a surprise,” she said. At the time, it struck me as an interesting attempt to meld crisis control with a promotion of local tourist attractions.

Now, of course, the district has lost more people in a shooting in a shopping center parking lot than died at the gunfight of the O.K. Corral, and the story of the dropped pistol has a tragically different cast...

...If Loughner had gone to the Safeway carrying a regular pistol, the kind most Americans think of when they think of the right to bear arms, Giffords would probably still have been shot and we would still be having that conversation about whether it was a sane idea to put her Congressional district in the cross hairs of a rifle on the Internet.

But we might not have lost a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Giffords’s 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked...

Much more at the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10collins.html?hp

[Statistical]

1. "carrying a regular pistol"

A Glock IS a regular pistol. Where do these anti-gunner get this junk? It would be like saying "The drunk driver was driving a Ford Taurus, is only he had been driving a regular car".

Glock 17 (9mm)


Springfield XD 9mm


Smith & Wesson M&P9 (9mm)


Sig Sauer Pro 9mm


Notice the similarity? I could provide another two dozen examples of modern 9mm pistols. They are look and function pretty much the same. They fire the same round, have very similar muzzle velocity, have similar capacity, and roughly same rate of fire. Each has slightly differing levels of quality, finish, durability, recoil, and handling but essentially they all work the same. Every* modern pistol works the same way.



*Some exceptions apply like gas recoil Desert Eagle.

[TBF]

2. I'll have to defer to you gun owners on specifics of guns -

but her argument didn't go to the specifics of how the gun looked, it was based on how they shoot. Apparently with the Glock version it's faster and thus allows you to kill more people in a shorter amount of time. How would you refute that argument?

[Statistical]

3. No none of that is true.

I don't blame you. You admitted to not knowing much about firearms but the NYT should know better. There is no way they talk to any expert and reached the conclusions they did.

The Glock 17 fires the same round, with similar speed, accuracy, and muzzle velocity as the other firearms shown (and rather similar to every other full sized 9mm in the world). It has similar weight, capacity, and handling characteristics too.

Glock is a brand name. Glocks have some differing qualities but it is more like the difference between a Ford Taurus, a Chevy Malibu, and a Honda Accord. There are differences but they all operate basically the same, have similar features, weight, speeds, and efficiencies. Nobody would make the claim that one of those three is radically different. Like FORD is a death and other brands are "normal cars".

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

6. Could they have been referring to a larger clip?

If he had larger capacity clips, that would have let him continue to fire while a regular clip would have required him to reload thus 'being slower'.

[Statistical]

10. They "could have" but that isn't semething unique to the Glock.

Also we shouldn't have to guess at what the author intended because the article is so bad.

If you had 100 people read this article who had no experience with firearms the overwhelming majority would come away with a conclusion that somehow "Glocks" are these ultra killing machines far more powerful than "normal pistols".

It doesn't matter if it was intentional or just horribly bad writing the effect is the same.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

20. You're right about the writing

I only started to seriously read all the various posts this morning (Major headache got in the way all weekend). I actually figured it was an extended clip right away, but that was only because I have a decent history with firearms. I own a .40 cal Glock along with several other pistols (I prefer my father's Colt .45 Gold Cup - I have to make do with a regular .45 :cry:). To be honest, I never really cared for Glocks, the one I have was from a trade with a family friend.

[Deep13]

4. It's no "faster" than any other pistol.

In fact, being double-action-only may make it slower than some others.

[Mortos]

5. In fairness, the glock Loughner used was loaded with a 30 round clip

None of the pictures you showed represent that. Here is what that looks like and I think that is what the author of the story was probably talking about.



30 round clips are legal. The author might have been trying to state that it would have been much harder for the killer to kill so many people and wound so many others so quickly with a regular 10 round or 15 round clip.

[Statistical]

9. If so it still is a horribly written article.

The title is "right to bear a Glock". The author indicates the a Glock is special. That people would have been alive if a Glock hadn't been used. Other so called "normal pistols" have extended capacity magazines. A larger magazine doesn't make the weapon faster it simply allows more rounds to be fired.

So I doubt that was the intent of the author and if it was the article is full of fail it simply is incompetence not slanting the fact. For the NYT I am not sure which is worse?

[Hoyt]

14. Thanks for posting the photo. That is the kind of weapon so many gun advocates glamorize/covet.

I question the need of most to walk around in public with a six shooter, much less something like that.

[Statistical]

15. wrong spot. delete.

[TBF]

16. OK, so would the other guns be able to use a 30 round clip, or is that

something special about this particular model?

It's never as easy as "ban" or "not ban". I don't particularly like hunting, for example, but I would agree with arguments that hunting is often more humane than how they raise animals in factory farms.

So, I was looking at this article from the viewpoint of whether certain handguns should possibly be banned if they are particularly made for killing large groups of people. Maybe that sort of thing should be military-issue only? I appreciate the responses from both sides on this article, because I really do have little knowledge of guns. Growing up in the country my dad would have a shotgun or two that he kept around "for protection" as he put it. They were never used except target practice as far as I know. He didn't even hunt, but where I grew up folks liked their guns.

[X_Digger]

21. Nothing particular to this model, no.

There are extended magazines for almost every gun (handgun or not) that uses a detachable magazine.

Even shotguns like your dad's probably have after-market extension tubes and speed loaders (unless it was very old.)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. That is not true either

The extended magazines are a PITA to change. The standard ones are faster to change out and more reliable.

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. Take your gun porn somewhere else, please.

The pictures of the blood splattered victims are not so sleek...

There are around 30,000 deaths from guns every year in this country.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/09.28/firearms.html

[dmallind]

8. So you are two for two on pissing on the BOR. Who do you want to board soldiers for free next? nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

13. You're keeping track?!? Is this the best use of your time?

[Statistical]

11. There is an ignore button and hide thread button.

The photos illustrate the point. There is nothing uniquely special about a Glock. It is a brand name like Nike or Ford.

[doc03]

12. One thing I will bet on is this will set off another

handgun buying frenzy. The NRA probably already has the (Obama and Hillary are going after your Glock) mailers on the way this morning.

[Zoeisright]

17. Exactly. Gun lovers need to start facing reality.

Of course, that's really not in their mental bookcase.

[Statistical]

18. Does that include the victim? Was she not facing reality?

Congresswoman Gifford fought hard to keep gun rights in place even for expanded conceal carry. She signed amicus brief is support of Heller & McDonald in their respective supreme court cases (DC & Chicago handgun bans). She even owned a Glock 19.