Church gives free assault weapons to teens

[Rocknrule]

I know this belongs in Latest Breaking News, but it's a couple days old.

http://www.koco.com/news/16860079/detail.html

Certainly the "WTF were they thinking" moment of my day

[Initech]

1. Praise the lord and pass the ammo... literally!

[mdmc]

2. cool

a church in upstate NY was giving away gas cards last week.

[Hydra]

3. Man, and I missed the handout???

I need a free assault weapon! I can pretend to be religious for 5 minutes :evilgrin:

[OneBlueSky]

4. words fail me . . . but flag this for next week's "Conservative Idiots" thread . . . n/t

.

[Kutjara]

5. I can't see a problem with this, as long...

...as the kid solemnly promises only to use the gun in church. :evilgrin:

[slackmaster]

6. Am I the first one to actually click the link in the OP?

:shrug:

[exothermic]

7. The grabbers only care about the horrific headlines.

What can I say?

[fascisthunter]

9. still worried about the "mythical" "grabber"?

[exothermic]

13. No, just the real ones.

:D

[Clovis Sangrail]

21. the mythical ones are more dangerous

they invade your mind!!!

[Dogtown]

44. And the gunnies

look for any chance to pick a fight...



:scared:


AND THEY'RE ARMED!!1!

:hide:

[hughee99]

8. You mean to find out that it's just one gun they're referring to...

and that they're not giving it to anyone?

[ellacott]

10. I clicked on the link and read it was cancelled

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

11. I know that when I feel myself in the presence of The Lord...

I want nothing more than to celebrate his presence with an AR-15, pack full of 30 round mags full of military hardball, an Aimpoint site and maybe a few grenades as the host.

It just makes me feel closer to Him.

[babylonsister]

12. I didn't know you were so religious, T_S...

:rofl:

[fascisthunter]

14. "Faith and Guns"...

use cigarettes and booze next, I hear that's a great way to win favor with the youth. :sarcasm:

Or maybe you can just tell them about your God... if that doesn't work, nothing else really will.

[Clovis Sangrail]

22. I hear buying kids prostitutes works really well too /nt

[fascisthunter]

37. now that may have worked for me....

:smoke:

[alfredo]

15. Here's the rifle they were giving away.

Perfect for stopping the taunting from your classmates.

[slackmaster]

16. The physical appearance of the weapon tells people almost nothing about it

How about a technical description?

Also please note that, based on the title of the graphic, that rifle was not affected by the expired federal "assault weapon" ban. It is a "post-ban" and therefore ban-compliant configuration.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

19. .223 Caliber.

Semi-automatic, although you can still empty a clip damned quick, or fudge full auto with something called "bump shooting", where you position your finger just so and the recoil makes the rifle do a fine impression of full-auto. Plenty of cheap ammo is available for this weapon on the markets. Buying 1000 rounds is not hard.

Also, there is no shortage of illegal, full-auto conversions out there that can, and have, been purchased and installed by people who really shouldn't be in possession of anything more dangerous than a Slurpee.

[slackmaster]

23. You must not have been shopping for ammunition lately

Semi-automatic, although you can still empty a clip damned quick, or fudge full auto with something called "bump shooting", where you position your finger just so and the recoil makes the rifle do a fine impression of full-auto....

The same can be said of any semiautomatic rifle.

...Also, there is no shortage of illegal, full-auto conversions out there that can, and have, been purchased and installed by people who really shouldn't be in possession of anything more dangerous than a Slurpee.

I am a federally licensed gun collector, amateur gunsmith, and an owner of AR-15 rifles. I have built an AR-15 from scratch and am very familiar with how it works, and the technical issues and legalities of making one fire full-auto. That is far from simple to do, and it is far from trivial to acquire the parts to do that even in a half-assed manner.

You can find a very few cases of AR-15s converted illegally to fully automatic. They are rare and usually involve criminal organizations.

[Dogtown]

45. Are you a machinist?

Any qualified machinist can manufacture the parts to convert a semi to full. A fully competent machinist can design the parts without the help of a mechanical engineer.

There are thousands of people out there that can turn the kit out in a weekend.



Your arguments carry no weight, and your assumptions only apply to the culture you know. The overwhelming majority of gun owners, and those you know, are law-abiding people who wouldn't attempt to circumvent the law.

"They are rare and usually involve criminal organizations."


They aren't *that* rare and are in the hands of RW "militia" groups that would certainly attempt to thwart our government if only enough fellow-nutjobs would climb on-board their various agendi...

[Xithras]

47. Umm...any qualified machinist can build his own rifle from scratch.

I should know. My dad is a machinist and got busted for building a fully working Sten gun back in the 1970's. He was curious, and used a set of plans that he found in the back of a magazine. Unfortunately for him, he took it out to the gun range two years after building it, and the guy a few seats down happened to be an off-duty police officer. Busted! Luckily for him, they were much more lenient in prosecuting those sorts of things back then.

My point here is simple. If you're going to use the "any competent machinist" agrument as a baseline for what should and shouldn't be permissible, then you need to ban scrap steel entirely. ANY firearm, including a SINGLE ACTION REVOLVER, can be converted to fully automatic if the machinist has the patience and creativity to automate the firing process.

Heck, you can find plans on the internet to build a .30 caliber weld-free fully automatic pipe gun! All you need to build it is the appropriate pipes and springs, a Dremel, and a decent drill. I won't vouch for their accuracy, but they'd do wonders against a crowd.

[Dogtown]

49. There you go

We agree gun bans and "grabbing" are a waste of effort, because restrictions are enforceable only on a piecemeal basis.

At the same time, guntoters arguments that "It's ok, cause it's too hard to convert..." is fallacious, also.



Actually, seeing every thread that mentions firearms become a flame-fest is very tedious. This thread, for instance, has the mandatory "define an assault weapon" posts, and the kneejerk responses of the few "grabbers". It's true the original article says the words, but the WTF factor here is a CHURCH giving kid's firearms.

If I tried to jack this into a "hate the xians" thread, it would be just as wrong. This is about one cynical church proselytizing-by-bribery. *NOT* about the 2nd Amendment. Nobody said they couldn't, but that doesn't mean they should.

[exothermic]

27. So the solution to this pandemic of lawbreakers is to pass more laws?

Not putting words in your mouth, just asking a question. :-)

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

40. Not necessarily.

So you know, I have not shot in a while, but I shoot and I have reloaded. For both handguns and rifles. I like to shoot. I can be pretty good at it too, when the stars align. I grew up in a home with guns. I even built a Navy Arms .44 cap and ball once.

That said, things seem to have gone beyond people owning guns and shooting for enjoyment to something else entirely. Guns are being treated as a gentleman's wardrobe accessory. They are being treated as fetishistic objects. They are treated as acceptable tools for conflict resolution, as opposed to what they were being treated as before.

I don't like it. I also don't think that new laws will amount to a bucket of warm piss. I don't have an answer, at all, except that there was something about this church promotion that I find incredibly disturbing.

I guess I am a traditionalist. I was taught to shoot by my dad and an NRA Master Instructor, both WWII vets. They had a different viewpoint on guns.

[tburnsten]

42. What conversions?

That's bullshit, there are not many conversions at all, and each one comes with a complementary vacation at Club Fed. And how is it any easier to buy 1000 rounds of .223 than to buy 1000 rounds of any other ammuntion? Plus, 1000 rounds is really not very many at all. And the ammunition is definitely not 'cheap'.

[alfredo]

26. here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15

[Dogtown]

46. Missing the point, slack

The church could have given away bibles. They could have given a scholarship. They could have given away berry cobblers. They could have had a (really dull) concert.

They could have given away $800 worth of condoms...

The chose to give a gun. "Church=Gun" is the dissonance, not "kid w/gun".


Not everything is a gun-grab. And not every discussion that mentions "gun" needs to be dissected over nomenclature.

There *is* a forum where you can be paranoid and express in mind-crushing detail your vast knowledge of weaponry. There's even some real grabbers down there you can draw a bead on.

Therefore this thread about inappropriate church behavior needn't be jacked by armed hooligans that only want to discuss definitions that actually skirt the issue.

Digressive definition-dicing that lends nothing to the discussion.

It doesn't matter if it was a ballista *or* a trebuchet, it isn't what a christian church should be giving to anyone.

[tburnsten]

48. Why shouldn't they?

It is a rural church in Oklahoma right? Where is the dissonance in a community organization that holds a yearly shooting match as part of its program giving away a target rifle in a raffle? And do you honestly think that the rifle is going to be handed straight to the young man or woman who wins it, or to their parents who will allow them use of it as they see fit?

And who made you the supreme commander of what is appropriate for any church anywhere to use in its raffles? I bet the rifle would bring in far more tickets than any other object of equal or lesser value they could have had.

[Dogtown]

50. Did Yeshua have a carry permit?

Silly taunts ("supreme commander"?) from a silly poster.

You have no substance and I'm not interested in discussing this with you.

Feel free to claim your coup as counted...

[exothermic]

28. Scary looking but only about 1/5 as powerful as this hunting rifle

[tburnsten]

43. That a model 70? N?T

[benEzra]

41. The most popular small-caliber centerfire target rifle in the United States...

and one of the least misused of all firearms.



One can certainly question the wisdom (and the theology) of churches holding sweepstakes and giving away $800+ prizes, but the "OMG it's black and the handgrip sticks out" aspect is a little silly.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

17. Sponsored by gosling-killer, former Republican Mississippi State Senator Mike Gunn?

[MercutioATC]

18. Nobody is allowed to use the term "assault weapon" unless they can define it.

So sayeth me.

[Kali]

20. thankyou

that was going to be my question

a freaking rock is one isn't it?

[thereismore]

25. There are only semi-automatic and fully automatic guns/rifles. nt

[MercutioATC]

29. Not true.

There are muzzleloaders which have to be loaded every time.

There are lever-action and bolt-action rifles that have to be manually cocked after each round is fired.

Then, there are semi-automatic and automatic rifles.


...but none of these distinctions define an "assault weapon".

[thereismore]

31. Sure, but the way "assault weapon" is used in press, I think it applies to

one or both of those two types of guns/rifles.

[MercutioATC]

36. True...but it's still not a definition...unless one believes that ALL semiautomatics

are "assault weapons".

[exothermic]

33. My first gun (christmas present at age 9) was a "2-shooter"

.22 rifle and .410 shotgun in the same gun! No magazine so obviously not a repeater but it was possible to
load both chambers and get off 2 shots without reloading. :D

[Wiley50]

32. This Video is a "must see" for anyone who wants to define an assault weapon

The Truth About Assault Weapons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9cDbA8O9-c

[exothermic]

34. Well, that policeman is obviously a crazed gun nut with a tiny penis.

:eyes:

[MercutioATC]

35. That is a fantastic, simple, informative vid.

:thumbsup:

[Wiley50]

39. Thanks! I stumbled across it last night

knew it would come in handy.

spread it around

[thereismore]

24. Could this be financed from our money as a faith-based initiative? nt

[Lorien]

30. Hey, if they really had any "faith" they would have no need for guns! n/t

[RamboLiberal]

38. I did post in LBN a couple of days ago when it was LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3392888