The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: twyacht on January 09, 2011, 09:06:51 PM
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We knew it was coming.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html
Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson | AP Photo Close
By SHIRA TOEPLITZ | 1/9/11 5:57 PM EST
One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday.
McCarthy ran for Congress after her husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train.
“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.
Gun control activists cried it was time to reform weapons laws in the United States, almost immediately after a gunman killed six and injured 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona on Saturday.
Many said that people with a history of mental instability, like the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, should not be able to buy a gun — and no one should be able to buy stockpiles of ammunition used by the 22-year-old assailant.
McCarthy said she plans to confer with House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to see “if we can work something through” in the coming week.
McCarthy’s bill will look to protect ordinary people, she said, but did not offer further details.
“Again, we need to look at how this is going to work, to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass,” she said. “I don’t want to give the NRA – excuse the pun – the ammunition to come at me either.”
Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.
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We'll see how far this goes. It's just the beginning.
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Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.
WTF does that mean? cant give a politician "the Bird", dont paint their face on a babboons ass?
Or are they angling for the crosshair thing done by Palin?
slippery slope...... and its all down hill.
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The aptly named McCarthy has had this bill written for years. She was just waiting for the right tragedy to bring it out. Opportunistic much? ::)
As for Brady? Making it a crime to use language that might SEEM to be threatening to federal officials? Couldn't we just dust off the Sedition Act of 1918? Alternatively, we could go Old School and bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts? AAARGH! What is it with Irish folks named Brady and McCarthy having serious issues with the Bill of Rights? Anyone? ;D
FQ13 who hopes Boehner proves to be semi-useful and round files both of these.
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TW,
I have an uneasy feeling about Boehner and the leadership there in the house.....I hope they aren't stupid and go for anything that resembles a gun control bill. I have already contacted my senator and congressman...I suggest all do the same....And how about the proposal from the guy from PA about banning symbols that can be construed as threatening to a federal official, including elected representatives?
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TW,
I have an uneasy feeling about Boehner and the leadership there in the house.....I hope they aren't stupid and go for anything that resembles a gun control bill. I have already contacted my senator and congressman...I suggest all do the same....And how about the proposal from the guy from PA about banning symbols that can be construed as threatening to a federal official, including elected representatives?
An ARB (assault rope ban)? ;D
FQ13 who says that tar, feathers and thin rails should be strictly regulated!!!!!! ::)
PS, Note to the feds, I'm joking. And BTW it was a loan nut job! Repeat after me, a loan nut job, not part of any oganized movement. Associating this guy with the Tea Party is like blaming Greenpeace for the Unabomber.
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Just what "stockpiles of ammunition" is Ms. McCarthy talking about? I haven't heard of any yet! ???
What exactly defines a "stockpile"? Most ALL of us on this board would probably have what "they" consider to be a "stockpile"! ::)
The windfall from this case could be fairly destructive to our 2A rights. The liberal media spins are overwhelmingly pushing him to be a "Tea-Party extremist" even though we know he's a LWD liberal extremist. :o
I'm not a HUGE supporter of Palin because I just don't think she's quite ready to lead this country yet, but I can't see the media dumping blame on her, Beck or Limbaugh for this, either.
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Oh I forgot to mention they will play the sympathy card by showing pictures of the 9 year old girl who was killed- "We have do this for the children..." ::)
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The only info on the weapon I can find says it was a Glock pistol purchased from Sportsmans Warehouse. No info on mag capacity or amount of ammo he "stockpiled". (hell, he probably went to walmart and bought a 100rd box of WWB!) Some "stockpile, eh?
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In the interests of "full disclosure I will make a couple of edits to this "story".
We knew it was coming.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html
Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson | AP Photo Close
By SHIRA TOEPLITZ | 1/9/11 5:57 PM EST
One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday.
McCarthy ran for Congress after her ABUSIVE, AND ESTRANGED husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train [FINANCING HER FIRST CAMPAIGN WITH MONEY FROM THE LARGE INSURANCE SETTLEMENT SHE WOULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN HAD THE DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS BEEN COMPLETE.
“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.
Gun control activists cried it was time to reform weapons laws in the United States, almost immediately after a gunman killed six and injured 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona on Saturday.
Many said that people with a history of mental instability, like the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, should not be able to buy a gun — and no one should be able to buy stockpiles of ammunition used by the 22-year-old assailant.
McCarthy said she plans to confer with House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to see “if we can work something through” in the coming week.
McCarthy’s bill will look to protect ordinary people, she said, but did not offer further details.
“Again, we need to look at how this is going to work, to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass,” she said. “I don’t want to give the NRA – excuse the pun – the ammunition to come at me either.”
Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.
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We'll see how far this goes. It's just the beginning.
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We saw your ironic take on it the first time, Tom. ;D
I just wanna know where she came up with the "stockpile" of ammunition! It hasn't been reported on as of yet! Why would the Brady Campaign be privy to info not available to the general public?
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Because they are liars who make stuff up.
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My point EXACTLY! >:(
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now where dose this look familar....
ahh that's right 1996
took them 2 weeks to change the laws here after PA
as I emailed earlyer today ( when I was at work )
here is what is being said over here :'( :'( :'(
Gun-control laws may be introduced to Congress after shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Congresswoman shot, six killed in shooting
Astronaut tells of shock as sister-in-law shot
Documents hint suspect planned an attack
A US politician plans to introduce gun control laws to Congress following the shooting in Arizona that killed six people and left one of her colleagues in a critical condition.
Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, from New York, told Politico she could introduce gun-control laws, possibly within the next 24 hours.
The bill could target the high-powered assault weapon allegedly used by Jared Loughner in the Tuscon shooting, in which he fired up to 20 rounds. The victims included a nine-year-old girl and a senior judge.
Mr Loughner has been charged over the shooting. Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is undergoing vital brain surgery after being shot point blank in the head.
America is reeling from the shooting which has sparked debate about whether Loughner may have been at least partly inspired by inflammatory political rhetoric from conservative leaders such as Sarah Palin. It has also kick-started a debate about gun control.
Rep McCarthy's is one of America's best-known advocates for gun control. Her husband was murdered by a gunman with a high-powered weapon on a train in 1993.
However she is unlikely to seek outright bans on certain types of weapons, which would draw strident opposition from America's vocal gun lobby. Instead, she is proposing limits on the type of high-capacity magazine that Loughner used in Tuscon.
"We need to look at those and say, 'Why should an average citizen be able to have that?'" she told Newsday.
"If you have a semiautomatic and can't take someone down with a standard clip, you shouldn't have one."
She told Politico she planned to speak with the newly-installed Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, about the legislation.
"We need to look at how this is going to work, to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass,” she told Politico.
Shock reaches space
The shooting has left NASA reeling. Ms Giffords' astronaut husband was due to rocket away in just three months as perhaps the last space shuttle commander - and his twin brother is currently on the International Space Station.
Shuttle commander Mark Kelly rushed to his wife's hospital bedside Saturday as his brother, Scott, did his best to keep updated on the Arizona shooting through Mission Control, the internet and the lone phone aboard the space station.
"I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers, words of condolences and encouragement for the victims and their families of this horrific event," Scott Kelly tweeted from space.
"My sister-in-law, Gabrielle Giffords is a kind, compassionate, brilliant woman, loved by friends and political adversaries alike - a true patriot. What is going on in our country that such a good person can be the subject of such senseless violence?"
The chief of the astronaut office broke the news to Scott Kelly that a gunman had shot his sister-in-law at a political gathering in Tucson soon after it happened on Saturday.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officials said yesterday it was premature to speculate on whether Mark Kelly would step down as commander of the April flight of the shuttle Endeavour.
"It is premature to speculate on any of this,'' NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said in an email on Sunday.
"For now, the focus is on supporting Mark and Scott, and things need to be taken day by day, and all thoughts are with the victims."
Documents suggest suspect lonely, troubled
Earlier, documents found at the home of the man charged over the Arizona mass shooting show the suspect was barely coherent but ruthlessly focused on his goal.
Evidence recovered from Mr Loughner's home - and posted on his YouTube channel - show a troubled and lonely man who may have suffered from mental problems.
In recent YouTube videos (view below) which hint at his plans to carry out some kind of attack, Loughner talks about believing he is a sleepwalker and a "conscience dreamer". The texts of the videos contain rambling arguments including concerns about the value of currency and mind control.
It has also been revealed today that Loughner was rejected by the US Army because of a history drug use.
Military officials confirmed to Fox News Channel that Mr Loughner had failed a urine test, disqualifying him for service.
Earlier, The Washington Post reported that Mr Loughner, 22, wrote in an online post that he had tried to sign up for the army in Phoenix. The Army confirmed yesterday that he had tried to enlist but been rejected.
A picture in the yearbook of his high school in Tucson, Arizona showed a shaggy-haired boy allowing just a small smile. Classmates recounted a steady downward spiral until last year he was kicked out of a community college.
"I think he slowly descended in a psychotic break. Something in him snapped. He wasn't always like this," Caitie Parker, who went to high school with Loughner, wrote on Twitter.
A Loughner profile posted on YouTube listed Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels'sThe Communist Manifesto and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf among his favourite books. Claims have also emerged that Loughner may have links to the anti-Semitic race hate group American Renaissance.
A spokesman for the group however, said he had never heard of Loughner and could find no evidence he has ever attended any of the organisation's events or subscribed to the group's publications.
Instead a series of excerpts from his web videos say:
* "I can't trust the current government because of fabrications. The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."
* “I know who’s listening: Government Officials, and the People. Nearly all the people, who don’t know this accurate information of a new currency, aren’t aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn’t have happen.
* “I’m a sleepwalker - who turns off the alarm clock. Jared Loughner is conscience dreaming at this moment.”
* “I’m able to control every belief and religion by being the mind controller!"
* A video titled "America: Your last memory in a terrorist country!," in which a figure in dark clothing and a smiley-face mask burns an American flag in the desert.
* A MySpace page, which was since been removed including a mysterious "Goodbye friends" message which exhorted his friends to "Please don't be mad at me."
The suspected Arizona gunman reportedly wrote "I planned ahead" and "My assassination" on an envelope along with the name of Ms Giffords.
http://www.news.com.au/world/gun-control-laws-may-be-introduced-to-congress-after-shooting-of-gabrielle-giffords/story-e6frfkyi-1225985124851#ixzz1Act81cE1
here is the newsday article
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/mccarthy-seeks-ban-on-weapon-used-in-arizona-1.2598137
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy said she will seek to ban the type of high-capacity semi-automatic-weapon magazines used by the shooter in Saturday's Arizona rampage that killed six people and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
McCarthy (D-Mineola) said she will introduce legislation this week to ban the larger magazines, or clips, illegal nationally for 10 years before the Clinton-era assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Such clips remain illegal in New York State under a similar law.
"Looking at the number of clips that he was able to fire, from 15 to 20 rounds, we need to look at those and say, 'Why should an average citizen be able to have that?' " McCarthy told Newsday. "If you have a semiautomatic and can't take someone down with a standard clip, you shouldn't have one."
PHOTOS: Arizona Rep. Giffords and the shooting scene
MORE: Complete coverage of the Tucson shooting
Standard Glock pistol clips hold up to 15 rounds of ammunition, according to the manufacturer's website. CBS News reported the high-capacity clip used in the Tucson shooting held up to 33 rounds, meaning a shooter can discharge more than twice as many bullets before having to reload.
Clips holding more than 10 bullets made after 1994 were illegal under the assault weapons ban signed that year by President Bill Clinton, but the ban was allowed to expire in 2004.
McCarthy is a leading gun control advocate whose political rise came after the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting in which Colin Ferguson used a high-capacity clip to kill her husband and wound her son.
She is planning a formal announcement on the legislation Monday and will introduce the bill when the House returns to session. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) suspended business after the Giffords shooting.
McCarthy, who has offered similar bills in recent years that stalled, said she has no illusions that restricting gun rights will be easy with the GOP controlling the House.
"I know that I will not be able to save every life in every situation, but that doesn't mean that we should not do anything," she said Sunday night.
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Time to ban semi-automatic pistols in NSW
The Greens NSW are renewing their call for a complete ban on
semi-automatic handguns, responding to the fatal shootings in Arizona
over the weekend.
"The shootings in Arizona are a cautionary tale for NSW – we need a
total ban on semi-automatic pistols," NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge
said.
"Semi-automatic pistols are deadly weapons which have no place in our
society. The events in Arizona are showing us the potential tragedy
involved in their continued circulation.
"Semi-automatic pistols are available and in circulation in NSW. The
only barriers to an Arizona-style tragedy in NSW are time and chance.
"In order to gain the support of the Shooters Party, the Labor
Government over the past eight years has continually eroded NSW's gun
control laws. Given their silence on the issues, we can expect the
Coalition to be little different," Mr Shoebridge said.
---
David Shoebridge
Greens MLC
and they are trying to use what Happened in AZ to hit us again
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and they are trying to use what Happened in AZ to hit us again
Man up Phil. Tell them to f..k off. Gun rights advocates in Oz will lose time and again if you defend gun ownership as a hobby or sport. Any rational person will say that public safety outweighs a pastime. Its only when people understand that using deadly force (by whatever means) to defend life, property and liberty is a fundamental human right, that you will gain traction. Unless and until you have a castle doctrine that says you can use deadly force, whether from a cricket bat or a Glock, and have that be accepted you lose. I had a prof who asked "Why do you need more thn a single shot rifle to kill a moose"? It was a fair question. My response was "I don't want to kill a moose. I might however, need to kill an intruder, or maybe even a cop or a soldier". That's the crux of the thing. Shooting as a sport loses. Being able to protect yourself and your family as a right, and a check on government will win. Good luck.
FQ13
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FQ13 who says that tar, feathers and thin rails should be strictly regulated!!!!!!
PS, Note to the feds, I'm joking. And BTW it was a lone nut job! Repeat after me, a lone nut job, not part of any oganized movement. Associating this guy with the Tea Party is like blaming Greenpeace for the Unabomber.
FIFY, Quaker.
A loan nut job would be a nut job borrowed for the occasion.
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I stated it on the other thread about the Brady's being at her bedside with a contract for her before she was even out of surgery, and here is the proof. They don't even know for sure everything that has happened or why, and they already have the basic new legislation and the strategy ready to go.
Anyone that thinks that the BHO administration, the Pelosi cronies, and the Clinton empire has not been working on this since the nomination was gained early in 2008 needs to get their heads out of the sand. Remember early 2009 when Pelosi and Clinton started talking gun bans, and Pres. BHO told them to back off because it "isn't time yet"? The BHO supporters all said look - he isn't after your guns. However, anyone with the attention span of a house fly was able to catch the second part, and we have all wondered when the time would come.
We can count our blessings that November 2010 went like it did. Now we will see the true medal of those that gained those seats.
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They can't get legislation through the house, If they could no real American would obey it.
That is after all how the first revolution began.
Of course back then Americans had "Ideals" and "Principles", instead of just "opinions.
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They can't get legislation through the house, If they could no real American would obey it.
That is after all how the first revolution began.
Of course back then Americans had "Ideals" and "Principles", instead of just "opinions.
This is where I have had my rear end reamed to a larger size right here on this forum, and I'll let you guess which member did it. But, I will say it again, because I believe it and live by it, and no one has given me a good reason to change:
Every American citizen needs to have their life structured in a way that they know their absolutes, and everything they do is weighed against that list. Just like any organization or business needs to have a mission statement that leads them, an individual and family must have the same. At any given time we will face decisions where we may want something, but it is tied to something that is an absolute no. Having principles means that you will not cross the line you have drawn in the solid rock - If you are using sand for your line it will be ever shifting and no one will ever know where you stand.
I pointed it out earlier that this is what happened with the Bush administration and the legislature when the Clinton Gun Ban came back up. The anti's tied a Bush want to it, but they stood strong and did not give in to the feel good and thus returned our Right to us.
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They can't get legislation through the house, If they could no real American would obey it.
+1
We saw much the same after Virginia Tech. 5 minutes after the last shot was fired, the left was screaming for gun control. It went nowhere then, just as it will go nowhere now. Even the libtard dems know gun control is a turd from a legislative standpoint. All risk with no reward. Americans, even those who could care less about guns, are getting sick of listening to it. Bill T.
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Ok, here's my idea for reasonable gun control. ANYONE that espposes ANYTHING that karl marx, lemin, stalin,or any other leftist has said should not be allowed to own firearms. It is clear that leftists are the ones that go on shooting sprees and can't handle the responsibility. This last monster, cho (V Tech), lee harvey oswald.
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"The bill could target the high-powered assault weapon allegedly used..."
I thought he used a pistol. ???
Now they want to ban assault weapons, whatever they are. ::)
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"The bill could target the high-powered assault weapon allegedly used..."
I thought he used a pistol. ???
Now they want to ban assault weapons, whatever they are. ::)
I'm safe! None of my guns have ever shown any ability to climb out of the rack and assault anyone.
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I would suppose that all the gun control lovers would be a great fan of Mahatma Gandhi, so this quote is for them, courtessy of Mahatma himself:
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446 (Beacon Press paperback edition)
Source:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi)
Ocin
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I'm not bothering to get the specific quote, but even the Dalia Lama said that if some one tried to shoot him he would try to shoot back.
But then , he isn't a liberal. ::)
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I'n not worried about them trying to ban guns, I belive thay are going after the "high capacity" magazines.
Link
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0111/Congress-readies-new-gun-control-bills-after-Gabrielle-Giffords-shooting (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0111/Congress-readies-new-gun-control-bills-after-Gabrielle-Giffords-shooting)
The bet is that they can get those Republicans who are "reaching accross the isle durring this sad moment" while giving them the cover of "We didn't take away your guns."
Plus this ban is outside the Heller decision; And those in the tea party are still too small in numbers and can easily be made to be "uncaring" and "unsympathetic" towards "the situation".
We need to call our reps and not only tell them not to support the magazine ban, but how large capacity magazines are helpful to home and self security.
Especially those in the border states.
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this was on the radio during my drive to work
::)
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3110990.htm
TONY EASTLEY: In the United States the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has prompted calls for tighter gun laws.
Advocates for gun control say assault weapons like the semi-automatic pistol used by the Arizona gunman have no place in civil society.
North America correspondent Jane Cowan reports.
JANE COWAN: The shooting at a suburban grocery store has inevitably reignited what's been a perennial debate in the United States.
UNKNOWN MAN: Really, I mean a Glock 19; is that really for hunting? What else do you hunt with that except people?
UNKNOWN MAN 2: You can talk about all the gun laws you want, that's not going to do it; a bad guy is going to get a gun.
JANE COWAN: The Arizona gunman used a semi-automatic Glock pistol with an extended ammunition clip that could hold 30 bullets. He was only overpowered when he stopped to reload.
The large capacity clips were illegal until 2004 when a ban on assault weapons expired.
Carolyn McCarthy is a Democrat whose own husband was killed in a shooting in the '90s. She says it's time for the law to be revisited.
CAROLYN MCCARTHY: I think when you talk about just common sense here, large capacity clips that can basically in my opinion be weapons of mass destruction, should not be available to the average citizen.
JANE COWAN: In New York too Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the existing gun laws are broken.
He's leading a bipartisan coalition of more than 500 mayors that's made 40 recommendations to the Obama administration about how to combat gun violence, including a five-year ban on gun ownership for drug takers.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: The reality is that every single day 34 Americans are murdered by someone firing a gun and most of those guns are purchased or possessed illegally.
JANE COWAN: Law Professor Gabrielle Chin studies gun policy at the University of Arizona and doesn't think the latest shooting will lead to tighter gun laws.
GABRIELLE CHIN: My guess is that it's not going to have a huge effect and the reason is that the National Rifle Association's lobbying arm is so strong and so well organised and they have so many members, that I don't think that it is realistic to think that even something like this is going to change the basic direction of American policy in this area, which for 25 years or so has been to increase the access of firearms to regular people.
JANE COWAN: Opinion polls, too, show Americans' desire for stricter gun laws has waned over the years, even as mass shootings continue to shatter daily life.
This is Jane Cowan in Washington, reporting for AM.
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I am so sick of the stupidity of the "average", so called "citizens" of this country, I simply despair of them ever showing any actual sense. I just wish the total collapse, or dictatorship they are so intent on bringing on themselves would hurry up and get here so I can see the damned fools die like flies asking "Why is this happening".
I would spit on the starving slaves and reply, "This is the way you wanted it, this is the way you got it".
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I am so sick of the stupidity of the "average", so called "citizens" of this country, I simply despair of them ever showing any actual sense.
How many of these idiot's ran out and bought a Toyota Prius so they could "be green". Like Lemmings swimming out to sea. Bill T.
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Have you seen the one about prohibiting firearms from being within 1,000' of a public official? All you GOP-fanboys note this comes from one of your teammates...
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/01/peter_king_gop_rep_from_ny_wan.php
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Never considered Peter King, aka brown-nosing RINO opportunistic egomaniac, (from NY), a Conservative.
I'm sure the BG's, and wacko's will abide by this leg. IF it passes. Which I don't see happening.
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The aptly named McCarthy has had this bill written for years. She was just waiting for the right tragedy to bring it out. Opportunistic much? ::)
As for Brady? Making it a crime to use language that might SEEM to be threatening to federal officials? Couldn't we just dust off the Sedition Act of 1918? Alternatively, we could go Old School and bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts? AAARGH! What is it with Irish folks named Brady and McCarthy having serious issues with the Bill of Rights? Anyone? ;D
FQ13 who hopes Boehner proves to be semi-useful and round files both of these.
The reason legislation like this is introduced in the aftermath of a tragedy such as this is simple. Even the anti's know that, unless there is highly-charged emotion connected to their agenda, they have nothing on which to push that agenda. In other words, when emotion is removed they have no points upon which to base an argument. But since they are sure they can bullshit the masses when they're emotionally charged, they go after it at times like these.
In short, they're vultures.
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The reason legislation like this is introduced in the aftermath of a tragedy such as this is simple. Even the anti's know that, unless there is highly-charged emotion connected to their agenda, they have nothing on which to push that agenda. In other words, when emotion is removed they have no points upon which to base an argument. But since they are sure they can bullshit the masses when they're emotionally charged, they go after it at times like these.
In short, they're vultures.
Very well said! Bill T.
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The 10 round mag limit is back on the table.
In 1881 in Tombstone AZ nine men armed with at least 10 guns fired at each other near the O.K. Corral. They fired about 30 shots at each other at distances of less than 30 feet. When the smoke cleared there were 3 dead and 3 wounded. In 2011 in Tucson AZ one man with one gun fired more rounds than all nine of those men put together, killing twice as many and wounding almost five times as many all by himself. He did that before the good guys carrying concealed could stop him.
This is progress?
On the other hand, Tombstone is much safer now that the people who live there are allowed to carry concealed weapons than it ever was when they were not allowed to carry any guns at all in town. Their are fewer gunfights in town now that the good folks there are carrying sixteen shooters than there was when nobody could carry six shooters.
In 1990 NYPD was armed mostly with six shot revolvers. Ten years later in 2000 they were armed mostly with sixteen shot semiauto pistols. Though officers were firing more than twice as many rounds with their semiautos during gunfights in 2000, they were hitting their targets half as often (9% v 19%) as they did with their revolvers in 1990 . More progress?
Then again, crime in NYC is at record lows now that sixteen shooters are the pistola du jour for both cops and robbers.
How safe do we want to be, and at what cost?
A 10 round mag limit bothers me more on priciple than it will in reality.
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I thought Mas Ayoob said it well in his blog
http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2011/01/11/the-tucson-atrocity-more-than-one-crackpot/
THE TUCSON ATROCITY: MORE THAN ONE CRACKPOT
As we wait to learn more about the mass murderer in Tucson – and as we extend thoughts and prayers to his victims and their families, and congratulations to the four courageous citizens, one of them armed, who stopped the massacre – we saw people with their own political agendas dancing in the blood of the victims before it had time to dry at the murder scene.
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Have you seen the one about prohibiting firearms from being within 1,000' of a public official? All you GOP-fanboys note this comes from one of your teammates...
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/01/peter_king_gop_rep_from_ny_wan.php
Actually, if we tweak this a little I think its a great idea. Since there are a lot more guns than public officials, it would be cheaper and easier (and safer) to reverse it. Make it a felony for a public official to come within 1000 ft of a gun. I see no problem with this. ;D
FQ13
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Actually, if we tweak this little I thik its a great idea. Since there are a lot more guns than public officials, it would be cheaper and easier (and safer) to reverse it. Make it a felony for a public official to come within 1000 ft of a gun. I see no problem with this. ;D
FQ13
Only if they ring DC with gun stores to keep the bastards from escaping. ;D
I really can not believe that Mike O has not been flamed to a crisp yet. "Shall not be infringed" leaves no room for compromise.
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I can take the heat.
"Shall not be infringed" still leaves room for reasonable restrictions. Somewhere between where DC and Chicago's present unreasonable restrictions are and Gerald Lee Loughner buying Ma Deuce at Wal-Mart no questions asked...
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I can take the heat.
"Shall not be infringed" still leaves room for reasonable restrictions. Somewhere between where DC and Chicago's present unreasonable restrictions are and Gerald Lee Loughner buying Ma Deuce at Wal-Mart no questions asked...
That settles it. I'm going to wal-mart. Anyone need anything while I'm there?
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I can take the heat.
"Shall not be infringed" still leaves room for reasonable restrictions. Somewhere between where DC and Chicago's present unreasonable restrictions are and Gerald Lee Loughner buying Ma Deuce at Wal-Mart no questions asked...
How do you come to that conclusion? Any restriction, whether YOU consider it reasonable or not, IS by it's very definition an infringement.
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I can take the heat.
"Shall not be infringed" still leaves room for reasonable restrictions. Somewhere between where DC and Chicago's present unreasonable restrictions are and Gerald Lee Loughner buying Ma Deuce at Wal-Mart no questions asked...
One problem with your reasoning Mike is that when you could buy guns any where, no questions asked, Back in the days when half the high school kids had a long gone in their vehicle for hunting before and after school, the crime rate was lower and we never had these mass shootings.
Another problem is that limited mag capacity has absolutely no effect on messed up people, nor would it lower the number of casualties.
The numerous mass stabbings in China prove that your idea is a waste of time and effort that only serves to erode further the rights of the citizen with out in any way addressing the actual problem of f*cked up people.
You have fallen into the same trap of uninformed shallow thinking, (forgetting about the stabbings in China, and gassing's in gun free Japan ) that the Brady bunch rely on.
Not a very hot flaming, I'll admit, but I couldn't figure a way to get any ad hominum attacks to fit in with the facts. I promise to try and do better next time but you don't make a hobby out of riling me like FQ and TAB. You have to do your part to you know ;D
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Another problem is that limited mag capacity has absolutely no effect on messed up people, nor would it lower the number of casualties.
The numerous mass stabbings in China
JLL was stopped while reloading after firing 30+ rounds. The number of casualties would have been lower if he had been stopped while reloading after firing 10 rounds. Or six. Or five. Or two. Or One. The more chances to stop the nuts the better.
C'mon! Some want us to have just 10 for the same reason we want more; it does make a difference. If you were going for the record in the IMSC (Intl Mass Shooting Confederation) World Championships, would you want a an edged weapon or a gun? A handgun or a rifle? A lowcap gun or a hicap gun?
The numerous mass stabbings in China are no comparison at all. Show me the mass stabbings in China where one nut stabbing killed and wounded as many as Austin, San Ysidro, Killeen, VT, Ft Hood, Tucson, etc. Guns are better, and hicap guns are best for that kind of serious anti social work.
Seems I can recall more incidents where hicap mags made it easier for a nut to raise the innocent body count than I can where the good guy saved the day w his/her 11th round. I'm sure Jean Assam would have done just fine w a ten shooter. Or even a six shooter. Jim Cirillo did.
If any semiauto and/or hicap ban can get through the current House/Senate is a different story; I doubt they do. If they did, passing constitutional muster after that is yet another story. Are they reasonable restrictions per Heller? Beats me; only Justice Kennedy knows for sure?
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Damn! And here I thought I liked to live dangerously. ;D Thanks for the post. I hope you get more arguments than flames.
Here's my take. Obviously a weapon with more rounds is more dangerous than the same weapon with fewer. That is why the military issues 30 rounders rather than 10 rounders. The question is, should civilians be limited? To me the answer is no, and oh yeah HELL NO. Once you start down that road, there is only one logical destination. No guns in civilian hands are safer than any guns. The point is, safer for whom? Safer for the state? You bet. Safer for the average civilian? I think not. The 2A isn't there to promote sport shooting. Its there to defend life, property and liberty. Once we allow the state to dictate what a "legitimate purpose" of a firearm is, we lose. We become phil in Oz. Yes there will be nut jobs, but they are far outnumbered by the number of folks who own weapons to defend themselves. I also firmly believe that you cannot trust a state that doesn't trust an armed populace. As far as I'm concerned the UK and Oz are free states only as long as the politicians allow it. I will not tolerate my freedoms being limited by a violent crackhead. We seem to have done it with the Patriot Act and the TSA. Damned if I'll put up with it because of some looney tunes in Arizona. Rant over.
FQ13
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A 10 round mag would not have made much diffrence. he still would have hit several people.
We were actually very lucky in this attack.
he very well could have had a bomb on him and used that instead of a gun.
For less then $100 one can produce a several of them.
He could have very easily killed/wounded every one there.
Other then say black powder, there is not a hardware store in the US that does not have every thing, including the tools needed for some one to build a pipe bomb. Any idiot with few mins and google can find out how to build one. Chances are very good one could even produce black powder from supplys found at the hardware store.
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MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: The reality is that every single day 34 Americans are murdered by someone firing a gun and most of those guns are purchased or possessed illegally.
Ok, Bloomie, explain to me again how more laws are gonna solve the problem?
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Obviously a weapon with more rounds is more dangerous than the same weapon with fewer. FQ13
BULLSHIT!!!!!! A gun, by itself, isn't dangerous, whether it holds one or one thousand rounds of ammo. Danger enters the conversation ONLY when some asshat picks up that gun. By agreeing that more rounds=more danger you play directly into the hands of the Brady Bunch, Ms. McCarthy, and all the other grabbers who have (as Ayoob so eloquently phrased it) been dancing in the blood of the Tucson victims.
Shame on you, FQ. You know better.
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Isn't it ironic that, as President Reagan phrased it, gun control enacted in the aftermath of a crime such as this serves only to punish millions of people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.
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BULLSHIT!!!!!! A gun, by itself, isn't dangerous, whether it holds one or one thousand rounds of ammo. Danger enters the conversation ONLY when some asshat picks up that gun. By agreeing that more rounds=more danger you play directly into the hands of the Brady Bunch, Ms. McCarthy, and all the other grabbers who have (as Ayoob so eloquently phrased it) been dancing in the blood of the Tucson victims.
Shame on you, FQ. You know better.
Chill TT. You know damn well what I was saying. Its why we like 17 rounds rather than 10 in our glocks. If the word dangerous bothers you, pick another. My point is that it isn't dangerous guns that are the problem its dangerous people. All the laws in the world won't stop them. Thus, I prefer more rather than less ammo if I have to deal with them.
FQ13
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Chill TT. You know damn well what I was saying. Its why we like 17 rounds rather than 10 in our glocks. If the word dangerous bothers you, pick another. My point is that it isn't dangerous guns that are the problem its dangerous people. All the laws in the world won't stop them. Thus, I prefer more rather than less ammo if I have to deal with them.
FQ13
The problem is that you seem to forget that what we say is SELDOM taken in it's totality. Do you think it's beneath the Brady's or McCarthy to use an argument like, "Even posters on a pro-gun website agree that a gun with a large capacity clip (I use that word on purpose, since I'm quoting what the anti's MIGHT argue) is more dangerous than a gun with a smaller clip."?
All I'M saying is, let's not do or say anything that might HELP them strip our rights.
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Sorry, but Devil's advocate is way too much fun w this one!
This one nut did more damage, and did it easier and faster, all by himself than all nine men did at the OK Corral, and most people know why even if they won't admit it.
Bringing up how fast JM can shoot his wheelguns, or how many TM killed w a bomb doesn't really do you any good. Might as well argue the jawbone of an ass is a deadlier weapon than a bomb or a Glock cuzz Samson killed a thousand w his.
If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns? So what!? London may have more shootings than before, but still waaaaay less than LA, DC, Chicago, or NYC.
The USA was safer before the NFA and GCA? So what! Get rid of them and most people know some parts of America will look more like Somalia than Switzerland.
With arguments like those, it's a wonder we aren't Canada already! When Giffords hears them again, I'm sure her NRA rating will go from a C to an A despite her recent discomfort. That's terrible, and that's what youse guys sound like to the millions of non gun owning voters...
The slope is slippery. If every tragedy is a reason for more gun control, then eventually there is nothing left to control.
Thank the deity of your choice for the SA and Heller! It's not perfect, but it's what we got so far. Reasonable restrictions are not infringements. Some restrictions are off the table, but not all of them. Time will tell?
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Sorry, but Devil's advocate is way too much fun w this one!
This one nut did more damage, and did it easier and faster, all by himself than all nine men did at the OK Corral, and most people know why even if they won't admit it.
Bringing up how fast JM can shoot his wheelguns, or how many TM killed w a bomb doesn't really do you any good. Might as well argue the jawbone of an ass is a deadlier weapon than a bomb or a Glock cuzz Samson killed a thousand w his.
If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns? So what!? London may have more shootings than before, but still waaaaay less than LA, DC, Chicago, or NYC.
The USA was safer before the NFA and GCA? So what! Get rid of them and most people know some parts of America will look more like Somalia than Switzerland.
With arguments like those, it's a wonder we aren't Canada already! When Giffords hears them again, I'm sure her NRA rating will go from a C to an A despite her recent discomfort. That's terrible, and that's what youse guys sound like to the millions of non gun owning voters...
The slope is slippery. If every tragedy is a reason for more gun control, then eventually there is nothing left to control.
Thank the deity of your choice for the SA and Heller! It's not perfect, but it's what we got so far. Reasonable restrictions are not infringements. Some restrictions are off the table, but not all of them. Time will tell?
You're just enjoying arguing the mindless sheep angle with BS that is not valid. For example, you recommend 10 round Mag limit ? He hit 8 people with his 30+ rounds. what would change with lower capacity but more skill ?
As TAB pointed out a bomb would have been more effective and much easier to obtain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hamas_suicide_attacks
When Aum gassed the Tokyo subways they injured 800.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway
as for the Knife attacks in China :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chinese_school_attacks
Incidents
[edit] March
Main article: Nanping school massacre
On March 23, 2010, Zheng Minsheng (郑民生)[3] 41, killed eight with a knife in an elementary school in Nanping,[1] Fujian province;[4] The attack was widely reported in Chinese media (called 南平实验小学重大凶杀案),[3] sparking fears of copycat crimes.[4] Following a quick trial, the Minsheng was executed about one month later, on April 28.[1]
[edit] April
Just a few hours after the execution of Zheng Minsheng in neighboring Fujian Province,[5] in Leizhou,[6] Guangdong another knife-wielding man named Chen Kangbing, 33 (陈康炳)[7] at Hongfu Primary School wounded 16 students and a teacher.[4] Chen Kangbing had been a teacher at a different primary school in Leizhou;[7] he was sentenced to death by a court in Zhanjiang in June.[8] On April 29 in Taixing,[1] Jiangsu, 47-year-old Xu Yuyuan went to a kindergarten and stabbed 28 students, two teachers and one security guard;[4] most of the Taixing students were 4 years old.[9] On April 30, Wang Yonglai used a hammer to cause head injury to preschool children in Weifang,[1] Shandong, then used gasoline to commit suicide by self-immolation.[4]
[edit] May
An attacker named Wu Huanming (吴环明), 48, killed seven children and two adults and injured 11 other persons with a cleaver at a kindergarten in Hanzhong, Shaanxi on May 12, 2010;[1] early reports were removed from the internet in China, for fear that mass coverage of such violence can provoke copycat attacks.[1][10] The attacker later committed suicide at his house; he was the landlord of the school,[11] Shengshui Temple private kindergarten, and had been involved in an ongoing dispute with the school administrator about when the school would move out of the building.[11]
On May 18, 2010 at Hainan Institute of Science and Technology (海南科技职业学院), a vocational college in Haikou, Hainan, more than 10 men[12] charged into a dormitory wielding knives around 2:30 am;[13] after attacking the security guard and disabling security cameras, 9 students were injured, 1 seriously.[13] The local men attacked the dorm in an act of revenge and retaliation against college students following conflict the previous day at an off-campus food stall in which 4 students were injured, for a total of 13.[14]
[edit] June and July
During this period there were no reported attacks as it was the summer holidays for many schools in China.
[edit] August
On 4 August 2010, 26-year-old Fang Jiantang (方建堂) slashed more than 20 children and staff with a 60cm knife, killing 3 children and 1 teacher, at a kindergarten in Zibo, Shandong province. Of the injured, 3 other children and 4 teachers were taken to the hospital. After being caught Fang confessed to the crime; his motive is not yet known.[15]
Your arguments are, obviously, crap.
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Not to change the debate, but to look at this from a different angle.
A law is passed that limits us to 10 round mags. A lawsuit is filed, winds its way through the courts and gets to SCOTUS. The government argues it has a legitimate public safety interest in regulating a product that is sold on the market. The plaintiff argues that limiting mags to 10 rounds is like limiting the amount of pages that can be published in a book, or how many churches can be built in a city, or how many newspapers can exist- all for the sake of the public good. The plaintiff asserts those actions would be considered an undue infringement upon our 1A rights, so what's the difference on the 2A here as it pertains to the magazine question?
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Here's another angle, Loghner, bought the gun in Dec. no reports of any actual range time, except some g-string photos, and perhaps some video games, for his miserable existence.
Point being, no training and/or range time. His method was spray and pray. Put a 10 round mag in the hands of someone who waited a year went to the range everyday/week, practiced, got training, hell, got crimson trace, and than went to Safeway with a pocket FULL of 10 rounders.
Not only would the kill ratio have been higher, he most likely would have reloaded in about a second. Tactical movements, would have increased his space between potential attackers/tacklers, and it would have taken that citizen with his CCW, or a LEO, to engage. Creating multiple shooters, and potentially MORE dead and wounded.
The MikeO position, as tom put it so eloquently, is crap. Here's some "standard" mags Mike....and practice, OBTW, don't blink, he's already reloaded twice.
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And now the other shoe, one we've been waiting for for some time now.
Obama Administration's New Proposed Gun Regulation for Border States Met With Bipartisan Dissent
"The Obama administration's plan to force new reporting requirements on thousands of gun dealers near the Mexico border is under fire from members of his own party.
At least three Democrats in the Senate and several more in the House are voicing opposition to a proposed regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that would require about 8,500 gun dealers in four states – California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas – to report gun sales of two or more high-powered rifles sold within five consecutive business days."
Read the rest at the article.
Seems some of the bho admin just cannot put the damn kool-aid down. The dumbos in kongress are terrified of any clamp-down on anything firearms related, knowing full well they will be the ones who will pay for it at the next election
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The bombings, stabbings, etc arguments are still lame for the reasons already given.
You keep saying mag capacity doesn't make a difference when you know it does; that's why you want them.
If you can kill and wound as many as fast w 10 rounders as a hicap, you can defend yourself yourself and others just as well w 10 rounders too. So they will take 'em away just to look like they are doing something about the problem, and not feel bad about it.
It isn't crap you guys keep tripping yourself up on, it's the common sense of the common voter, most of which don't own guns.
Gonna be interesting to see how this shakes out. I'm guessing more gun control goes nowhere, but not cuzz the arguments are so good (from either side).
I'm done; we are just goin' 'round in circles now anyway.
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Stop being a troll MikeO, doesn't work here. Your shot down, in flames, and still won't bail out.
Try it on Glock Talk, or another forum, perhaps the Daily Kos, or Code Pink would be more supportive.
Either way, the new head of BATFE, Travers, is a Chicago, BHO "buddy" we'll see how hard they proceed to "enforce" what they can.
Tempest in the Teapot.
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The bombings, stabbings, etc arguments are still lame for the reasons already given.
You keep saying mag capacity doesn't make a difference when you know it does; that's why you want them.
If you can kill and wound as many as fast w 10 rounders as a hicap, you can defend yourself yourself and others just as well w 10 rounders too. So they will take 'em away just to look like they are doing something about the problem, and not feel bad about it.
It isn't crap you guys keep tripping yourself up on, it's the common sense of the common voter, most of which don't own guns.
Gonna be interesting to see how this shakes out. I'm guessing more gun control goes nowhere, but not cuzz the arguments are so good (from either side).
I'm done; we are just goin' 'round in circles now anyway.
You continue to base your arguments on ignorance . As it happens the pistols I own and carry are a 1911 and a S&W .357 neither would b effected by the limit you think is such a bright idea.
Just for sh!t's and grin's how do you intend to get some one to obey your mag limit when they have already decided to ignore all those laws against murder . News flash for MikeO, criminals ignore laws, it's in their job description. ::)
What I do want, is to protect all our Constitutional rights from well intentioned dumb asses.
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I'll chime in here because I lived in a state that considered mags holding more than FIVE rounds to be considered HI-CAP and require a special license to possess.
A state that limits the CITIZENS ability to own firearms based on their own misguided political opinions.
A state, that REFUSED to enforce the laws on the books that required a minimum of one year in prison for possession of an unlicensed firearm because they felt sorry for the minority who broke the law.
A state that didn't convict a bastard 15 year old for having a Glock in his home that his little bastard brother used to accidentally shoot another bastard child because it was a societal issue and not the fault of the bastard gangbanger!
A state, whose Governor, would rather allow the immigrant, gangbanging, shitbags run amok in his state while law abiding citizens Constitutional RIGHTS are reduced or removed for his own political gains! I won't even mention "Mumbles Menino" who blames the gun every time someone used one illegally in Boston rather than the gangbanging shitbag!
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED is not open for discussion......
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I'll chime in here because I lived in a state that considered mags holding more than FIVE rounds to be considered HI-CAP and require a special license to possess.
A state that limits the CITIZENS ability to own firearms based on their own misguided political opinions.
A state, that REFUSED to enforce the laws on the books that required a minimum of one year in prison for possession of an unlicensed firearm because they felt sorry for the minority who broke the law.
A state that didn't convict a bastard 15 year old for having a Glock in his home that his little bastard brother used to accidentally shoot another bastard child because it was a societal issue and not the fault of the bastard gangbanger!
A state, whose Governor, would rather allow the immigrant, gangbanging, shitbags run amok in his state while law abiding citizens Constitutional RIGHTS are reduced or removed for his own political gains! I won't even mention "Mumbles Menino" who blames the gun every time someone used one illegally in Boston rather than the gangbanging shitbag!
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED is not open for discussion......
You wouldn't be referring to the guy who replaced that other sh!tbag , AWB Romney , would you ?
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You wouldn't be referring to the guy who replaced that other sh!tbag , AWB Romney , would you ?
That would be correct!
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The ironic part is that the colony of Mass. had a law REQUIRING the ownership of a fire arm and a specified amount of ammunition. And while it was taxation that lead to dissent, it was limiting ammunition and confiscating weapons that led them to open warfare.
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FYI I do not support any restrictions on magazine capacity, or semiautos. I do think there are better arguments to be made in opposition. The argument that counts isn't if it would make any difference, but is it constitutional? I don't think so.
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FYI I do not support any restrictions on magazine capacity, or semiautos. I do think there are better arguments to be made in opposition. The argument that counts isn't if it would make any difference, but is it constitutional? I don't think so.
Here's something to think about Mike, Logic, common sense, and laws like the Constitution are irrelevant.
That isn't how politicians work. Like my hero Rahm said "never let a good crisis go to waste". Get the sheep emotionally stired up and you can pass anything you want. As examples look how often the Gov has ignored the 10th Amendment (Obummercare )or abused the Commerce clause (Ca. weed, Montana guns ) If politics worked on logic, common sense, or Constitutional rules there never would have been a Civil War, (industrialization was making slavery impractical in the South while creating a huge demand for labor in the North. By the same token, freeing slaves with out compensation to their owners was illegally depriving them of property. )
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Also the 3/5 vote, that appeased the south, for the time being, while thinking big picture. Logic, common sense, are truly irrelevant.
It's personal agenda, in a collective form, whether left or right. However, it's at OUR expense, the Founders kinda knew this was coming, and even promoted it.
But left safeguards to its quest for collective tyranny.
Ergo,....the 2nd Amend.
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Everything is relevant in it's own way at the right time to a different degree.
Some arguments and lobbying might keep a law from being passed, but then it's just hanging over your head until the next go around. Better to put a constitutional nail in it's coffin if and when you can. And even then a change in the court can undo that.
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The argument that if he had stopped earlier to reload they could have stopped him sooner misses several key points:
#1. Nothing was stopping those around him from taking him down while he was shooting;
#2. A fair shooter can reload faster than most people realize;
#3. During the act of reloading a shooter is making movements that would make it harder to grasp his gun;
#4. The size of a 10 round magazine makes it harder to grasp and take away than a large and long 30 rounder.
I know I'm a gun nut and so are most of you, but don't my points make sense as we discuss limits on the size of magazines?
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The argument that if he had stopped earlier to reload they could have stopped him sooner misses several key points:
#1. Nothing was stopping those around him from taking him down while he was shooting;
#2. A fair shooter can reload faster than most people realize;
#3. During the act of reloading a shooter is making movements that would make it harder to grasp his gun;
#4. The size of a 10 round magazine makes it harder to grasp and take away than a large and long 30 rounder.
I know I'm a gun nut and so are most of you, but don't my points make sense as we discuss limits on the size of magazines?
Not really, because they conceed the essential point. "How do we make GUNS safer for those around us"? The question should be "How do we make OURSELVES safer from criminals and unbalanced individuals"? Hell, Whitman, Hinkley and Oswald did just fine with revolvers and bolt actions. If you start going down the blame the tools road, ten years from now we'll be debating whether or not wrist supported slingshots should be banned (as in OZ), and we'll still have the crazy bastards with us. Not at all a slam, its just that I'm tired of having the debate on their terms. :-\
FQ13
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Imagine the uproar if this clown had used high performance defense ammunition instead of FMJ Ball. That woman's head would have been all over that parking lot, and there would be half a dozen bills proposed trying to ban such "unnecessarily powerful ammunition". Bill T.
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Imagine the uproar if this clown had used high performance defense ammunition instead of FMJ Ball. That woman's head would have been all over that parking lot, and there would be half a dozen bills proposed trying to ban such "unnecessarily powerful ammunition". Bill T.
Yep.
Or to take another spin, (as I was telling a friend the other day), imagine if the guy used a car, instead of a gun, to mow down those folks (it has happened before). The MSM would have let it go in 48 hours as old news.
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Not really, because they conceed the essential point. "How do we make GUNS safer for those around us"? The question should be "How do we make OURSELVES safer from criminals and unbalanced individuals"? Hell, Whitman, Hinkley and Oswald did just fine with revolvers and bolt actions. If you start going down the blame the tools road, ten years from now we'll be debating whether or not wrist supported slingshots should be banned (as in OZ), and we'll still have the crazy bastards with us. Not at all a slam, its just that I'm tired of having the debate on their terms. :-\
FQ13
Totally agree!
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Hey FQ - I don't debate these details with the anti's. I just point to the Second Amendment, I point at all they have denied us over the years, and I point out that the guns the founding fathers were protecting for individual ownership and use were the state of the art cutting edge weapons of the day.
We should be able to own automatics, mortars, suppressors, magazines of all sizes, what ever caliber is out there, body armor, etc.! For those able to live in a state that allows more items, you should not be infringed with undo taxation called "stamps" to purchase items!
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Hey FQ - I don't debate these details with the anti's. I just point to the Second Amendment, I point at all they have denied us over the years, and I point out that the guns the founding fathers were protecting for individual ownership and use were the state of the art cutting edge weapons of the day.
We should be able to own automatics, mortars, suppressors, magazines of all sizes, what ever caliber is out there, body armor, etc.! For those able to live in a state that allows more items, you should not be infringed with undo taxation called "stamps" to purchase items!
doing stuff like that just makes the antis beleave even stronger that they are right and the other side has no arguments why they should not be banned.
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Explain your thought TAB. I'm pointing out that they have willy nilly taken away stuff for no good reason what so ever. How does that make them stronger?
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doing stuff like that just makes the antis beleave even stronger that they are right and the other side has no arguments why they should not be banned.
F*ck the anti's.
That's why the laws in your state suck TAB, because you worry about the opinion of a small minority who's opinion you will never change. My answer to the "Anti's", If you try to take my gun I will kill you.
I will attempt to educate the uninformed but those who ignore facts, history, and common sense get no respect from me, nor do I play their game.
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F*ck the anti's.
That's why the laws in your state suck TAB, because you worry about the opinion of a small minority who's opinion you will never change. My answer to the "Anti's", If you try to take my gun I will kill you.
I will attempt to educate the uninformed but those who ignore facts, history, and common sense get no respect from me, nor do I play their game.
You'd enjoy my replies to those that are either ignorant or trying to humor me and claim to accept guns for self defense and then go into the warning shot or shoot to wound thing. You just haven't lived until you have seen the size of their eyes when you look at them and say "if all other avenues are exhausted and I believe the only way to protect my life is with a gun, I shoot to kill, and I don't stop shooting until they are on the ground." "Once they are down and no longer a threat I kick their gun out of their reach." Next will come the quivering voice that asks to verify one, two or three shots. To which I reply "I don't prepare for any set number of shots. I shoot until the are no longer a threat." If they are still questioning I will discuss the facts of self defense and tools. I will educate how in the stress of self defense nobody knows for sure how many shots they take as proven by critical incident stress debriefing with officers involved in shootings (they will swear they shot two or three rounds right after investigators picked up two of the officers empty mags and counted 37 casings where the officer was standing).
Debating and educating is not a boiler plate activity. However, I have learned over the years that blunt honesty is the best mixed with a bit of less is more. And I never agree to disagree! Like Tom, if they push the ban I will leave them with the fact that if they come for my guns one person will have a gun and the other will be dead when it is over!
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With increasing gun ownership and decreasing violent crime rates there is no legitimate defense of increased regulation beyond the promotion of a political agenda that defies the founding principles of the nation.
With reasonable people who are uniformed, or misinformed, I will reason. I will point them toward the same sources of information that I have used.
To the dedicated Anti gunner I will simply point out that the majority of my active duty service was aimed at training to kill people like them.
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Explain your thought TAB. I'm pointing out that they have willy nilly taken away stuff for no good reason what so ever. How does that make them stronger?
Its kind of like saying, here look at this I don't want to talk to you.
both sides of gun control are ran on emotion, not facts, or logic. emotion.
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Gun control is just another plank in the liberal / socialist platform of government that has failed miserably over the years. Much like Hussein, it has run out of support because people know the concept is flawed and it doesn't work. The more they push it, the more it seems to fail. It was reported last night that only 7% of the people believe the Tuscon shooting would not have occurred if there were stricter gun control laws in place. I was surprised the percentage of idiot's in this country was that low. Perhaps there is still hope? Bill T.
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Gun control is just another plank in the liberal / socialist platform of government that has failed miserably over the years. Much like Hussein, it has run out of support because people know the concept is flawed and it doesn't work. The more they push it, the more it seems to fail. It was reported last night that only 7% of the people believe the Tuscon shooting would not have occurred if there were stricter gun control laws in place. I was surprised the percentage of idiot's in this country was that low. Perhaps there is still hope? Bill T.
It is all about control! People want a sense of comfort, safety and security, but every day our world changes more and gets more hectic. How often do people say their lives are out of control? Gun control is all about trying to build walls of security around their lives. They are scared and trying to feel secure.
What do young children do when they are frightened? They hide under their covers, under their bed, in the closet, or under the kitchen sink (Christmas Story). When mom and dad come in the room they express their fear and ask them to chase the "monsters" away. Now they are fifty years old, hiding under the covers and begging the "nanny" to take the evil guns away. All they want is to control their environment so they can feel safe and secure.
I know that it is pure fiction and it is the story of one man and one culture, but the parable as told in Demolition Man is an example of the falsehoods behind gun control and the dreams of utopia on this earth. How different is this movie than the "promises and dreams" as presented by rulers and dictators that have waged war on their own people through out history.
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Yep. The slope is slippery...
If a 10 round limit is OK, why not 5?
If you can ban full auto guns made after a certain date, why not semi auto guns?
Can you require all gun owners to have liability insurance?
Is a license/registration to own OK? How much $ is too much for it?
Heller left a lot to be decided about which policy choices are on/off the table. Until the SCOTUS takes them off the table, they will keep coming up again and again here and there.
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Yep. The slope is slippery...
If a 10 round limit is OK, why not 5?
If you can ban full auto guns made after a certain date, why not semi auto guns?
Can you require all gun owners to have liability insurance?
Is a license/registration to own OK? How much $ is too much for it?
Heller left a lot to be decided about which policy choices are on/off the table. Until the SCOTUS takes them off the table, they will keep coming up again and again here and there.
They can pass a law, they can attempt to enforce a law, they can not make every one obey the law.
They already have such laws in place for vehicles. Read your local Court and Police logs and see how many people are busted for Driving with out license, registration, or insurance.
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Yep. The slope is slippery...
If a 10 round limit is OK, why not 5?
If you can ban full auto guns made after a certain date, why not semi auto guns?
Can you require all gun owners to have liability insurance?
Is a license/registration to own OK? How much $ is too much for it?
Heller left a lot to be decided about which policy choices are on/off the table. Until the SCOTUS takes them off the table, they will keep coming up again and again here and there.
Don't get the insurance lobby going on this! Legislated insurance requirements benefit no one but the insurance company. If they could get a bill through that required a one million liability policy that covered every gun the money they would make would be unbelievable. Then you top it off with the fact that most guns that are used in crimes are not legally owned, there would be no insurance, and thus no pay out.
Based on other liability policies I have I can envision this costing $100 per year for the first gun and $25 - $50 for each additional. Then there will be all the requirements for storage and use.
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I can take the heat.
"Shall not be infringed" still leaves room for reasonable restrictions. Somewhere between where DC and Chicago's present unreasonable restrictions are and Gerald Lee Loughner buying Ma Deuce at Wal-Mart no questions asked...
Yep. The slope is slippery...
If a 10 round limit is OK, why not 5?
If you can ban full auto guns made after a certain date, why not semi auto guns?
Can you require all gun owners to have liability insurance?
Is a license/registration to own OK? How much $ is too much for it?
Heller left a lot to be decided about which policy choices are on/off the table. Until the SCOTUS takes them off the table, they will keep coming up again and again here and there.
I will refer back to my earlier statement / question.
Who is it that defines "reasonable restrictions"?
Also, this is a right granted to us by our creator, not the government. Isn't ANY restriction or regulation of our right considered infringement? Whether "reasonable" or not.
This is why I scratch my head at the BATFE. Why do we need a singular bureaucracy to regulate 4 items that are both legal, and already regulated by taxation? OH that's right, we had to make a job for all those prohibition pencil pushers!
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Who defines reasonable restrictions? Five justices on the Supreme Court.
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Who defines reasonable restrictions? Five justices on the Supreme Court.
Actually it comes down to the folks who are supposed to obey these edicts.
Nancy Reagan had the answer, "Just say NO". ;D
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When defining "reasonable restrictions" we need to remember that the United States Constitution is there to protect our Rights, not provide or give. When protecting it is best done from the side of less is more. In the case of the Second Amendment we have a word to weigh everything against, "infringed." Aren't restrict and infringe pretty close in meaning? Think about that anytime you say that "reasonable restrictions" should be implemented!
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When defining "reasonable restrictions" we need to remember that the United States Constitution is there to protect our Rights, not provide or give. When protecting it is best done from the side of less is more. In the case of the Second Amendment we have a word to way everything against, "infringed." Aren't restrict and infringe pretty close in meaning? Think about that anytime you say that "reasonable restrictions" should be implemented!
Now, let's lets not be absolutist here. If we aren't willing to compromise, we'll be marginalized. Personally I think that if it requires a trailer hitch, a self propelled round, or a fuse I'm open to discussion. ;)
FQ13
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There isn't ONE aspect of our lives that doesn't involve some compliance with local, state, or Federal Law.
When does it stop? Salt? Smoking? Gallons Per Flush?, Light Bulbs? 10rds? 15rds? 30rds? The Commerce clause, and other regulatory powers granted to the Feds has been usurped, abused, and violated time and time again.
We have let it happen, and we have been warned, and still it happens.
"The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to their own devices, they will try to regulate everything they can."
Steven den Beste
A people that values its privileges above its principles will soon lose both.
"More government equals less freedom. More freedom equals less government."
"Man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."
Ronald Reagan
"Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry."
Thomas Paine
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated."
Thomas Jefferson
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The only "Reasonable Restrictions" are those placed on government. Bill T.
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Now, let's lets not be absolutist here. If we aren't willing to compromise, we'll be marginalized. Personally I think that if it requires a trailer hitch, a self propelled round, or a fuse I'm open to discussion. ;)
FQ13
Once again we will have to agree that I WILL NOT AGREE TO DISAGREE WITH SOME PEOPLE AND SOME IDEAS !!!
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Once again we will have to agree that I WILL NOT AGREE TO DISAGREE WITH SOME PEOPLE AND SOME IDEAS !!!
Can we draw the line at forward observers? ;D
FQ13 who secretly lusts for an old halftrack with the quad mounted fifty. I think it would lend a little class to my planned "Captain Quaker's Everglades Python Safari" business. All I have to do is sell the Park Service on the idea. Hey, its for the environment after all. ;D
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"Captain Quaker's Everglades Python Safari"
See? Look at the Chia-Pet, or the Clapper,.....THAT title has potential.....
Go get em' FQ, I'll be glad to mate for you....
Once west of HWY 27,......your gonna need a bigger boat... ::)
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I'll go along with, "If it needs a trailer hitch, it needs a trailer plate".
Does that mean I favor registration ?
Registering a gun, is a technical term that refers to firing a few rounds to see where they hit, from there, knowing the charge, and elevation you can adjust fire accurately.
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Thought some of you might find this interesting. Especially Haz as the author uses clips and magazines in the same context in the same article.
How Glock Became America's Gun
If you have a Glock, you need to read this. If you don't have a Glock, you need to read this.
America's Gun
By Paul M. Barrett
How Austria's Glock became the weapon of choice for U.S. cops, Second
Amendment enthusiasts, and psychopaths
For all the anguish and outcry in the days after a community college dropout
named Jared Loughner allegedly sprayed a Tucson crowd with 33 bullets from a
semiautomatic pistol, one response was notably absent:
any sense that America's latest shooting spree, which killed six people and
wounded 14, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, would bring new
restrictions on the right to own or carry large-capacity, rapid-fire
weapons.
The gun control debate has vanished from American politics, but it wasn't
always so invisible. Twenty years ago, when another apparently deranged man
fired a semiautomatic pistol into a crowd, killing 23 people in Killeen,
Tex., politicians rushed the microphones to denounce the weapon itself as "a
death machine," as Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, put
it on the floor of the House. A so-called assault weapons ban became law
three years later.
That law has now expired. Since Loughner's attack, liberal pundits, gun
control advocates, and congressional backbenchers have been talking about
instituting new controls. The voices that count, however, including
President Barack Obama and the congressional leaders in both parties, have
had nothing to say on the subject.
Their silence is just one measure of how thoroughly Gaston Glock-a former
curtain-rod maker from Austria whose company manufactured the pistols used
in Tucson and Killeen -has managed to dominate not just the American handgun
market, but America's gun consciousness. Before Glock arrived on the scene
in the mid-1980s, the U.S. was a revolver culture, a place where most
handguns fired five or six shots at a measured pace, then needed to be
reloaded one bullet at a time. With its large ammunition capacity, quick
reloading, light trigger pull, and utter reliability, the Glock was hugely
innovative-and an instant hit with police and civilians alike. Headquartered
in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria, the company says it now commands 65 percent of
the American law enforcement market, including the FBI and Drug Enforcement
Administration. It also controls a healthy share of the overall $1 billion
U.S. handgun market, according to analysis of production and excise tax
data. (Precise figures aren't available because Glock and several large
rivals, including Beretta and Sig Sauer, are privately
held.)
With all those customers and that visibility, it's no surprise that the
Glock has also been the gun of choice for some prolific psychopaths. Byran
Uyesugi used a Glock 17 to kill seven people at a Xerox office in Honolulu
in 1999. Seung-Hui Cho, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in 2007 before
killing himself, used the same Glock 19 model that Loughner is accused of
firing in Tucson. Steven Kazmierczak packed a Glock 17 when he shot 21
people, killing five, at Northern Illinois University in 2008.
A Man and His Gun: The Story of Glock
The smooth-firing Glock did not cause these massacres any more than it holds
up convenience stores. But when outfitted with an extra-large magazine, it
can raise the body count. The shooters in Arizona, Illinois, Virginia,
Hawaii, and Texas could not have inflicted so many casualties so quickly had
they been armed with old-fashioned revolvers. In its 2010 catalog, the
manufacturer boasts that while the Glock 19 is "comparable in size and
weight to the small .38 revolvers it has replaced," the pistol "is
significantly more powerful with greater firepower and is much easier to
shoot fast and true."
The Tucson gunman demonstrated those qualities all too vividly.
Loughner is said to have emptied his 33-round clip in a minute or two, a
feat requiring no special skill. (Glock does not sell magazines of that size
to civilians, but some of its guns can accommodate them. The model 19 comes
with a standard 15-round clip.) Loughner was wrestled to the ground by
onlookers only when he paused to insert a fresh magazine. If he had been
forced to reload sooner, the odds are good there would be fewer victims.
Glock executives did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Loughner seems to have had no trouble acquiring his Glock and its oversized
magazines, and, for an array of reasons, it's unlikely the harrowing crime
will lead to any new curbs on Glock's efficient brand of firepower. For that
the company can thank a remarkable chain of unintended
consequences-including gun control opponents who fueled public interest in
Glock and gun control laws that boosted sales. The more gun foes tried to
ban or curb Glock's weapons because of their potency, the more the company
turned those attacks to its advantage.
Even the tragedy in Tucson has been a boon. Bloomberg News reported on Jan.
11 that $499 Glocks were selling briskly in Arizona. "We're doing double our
normal volume," said Greg Wolff, owner of a pair of stores in Phoenix and
Mesa called Glockmeister.
For decades until the early 1980s, Gaston Glock ran a radiator plant in
suburban Vienna. On the side, he manufactured window fittings and bayonets
in his garage, using a second-hand Russian metal press. Now
81 and living reclusively at a lakeside resort in southern Austria, Glock
got his start in guns by listening closely to the customer.
In 1980 the Austrian Army was looking for a new sidearm to replace the
antiquated Walther P-38. Steyr, Austria's premier arms maker since the
mid-1880s, offered a clunky update which tended to misfire. Glock, though he
had no firearm expertise, saw an opportunity. He studied the best pistols
available and consulted with leading European firearm experts. "We sit
together and made the plan and drawing," he recalled in a March 1998 legal
deposition in the U.S. "It was like a pistol in the future."
The Army colonel in charge of procurement wanted a pistol that was light,
durable, and capable of holding more than the eight rounds the Walther
accommodated. Glock solved the puzzle with plastic. He fabricated a frame
from an injection-molded polymer, a featherweight material that proved
remarkably strong and corrosion-resistant. In the evenings he tested crude
early versions in a basement firing range. He shot alone, using only his
left hand, so that if the gun blew up he would still have his right to do
mechanical drawings. In 1981, Glock filed for an Austrian patent-his 17th,
so he called the gun the Glock 17. Coincidentally, it could store 17 rounds
in its clip, with an 18th in the chamber. In competitive trials for accuracy
and durability in 1982, the Glock defeated models made by Steyr and four
other well-known European arms manufacturers. The Austrian military ordered
20,000, and Gaston Glock had cracked the gun business.
When Karl Walter, a firearm salesman based in the U.S., first picked up a
Glock during a visit to a Vienna gun shop in the spring of 1984, his
reaction was, "Jeez, that's ugly." The squared-off pistol lacked the
blued-steel frame and polished wooden grips of a classic American revolver.
Its black matte finish seemed homely. "But still, I was extremely curious
why the Austrian Army bought it," Walter says.
"There had to be more to it than what meets the eye initially."
A native Austrian, Walter sold imported rifles to American police
departments, traveling from town to town in a motor home custom-fitted as a
rolling gun showroom. For years he had nurtured an idea about
handguns: "Where there really is money to be made is to convert U.S.
police departments from revolvers to pistols."
Ever since the 19th century, when the Colt Peacemaker became known as "the
gun that won the West," Americans had preferred revolvers.
Continental Europeans favored pistols, also known as semiautomatics, with
spring-loaded magazines that snap into the handle, holding more rounds and
allowing faster reloading. "I was astonished," Walter says, "that this
modern country still hung around with revolvers." In 1984 he paid a call on
Gaston Glock and offered to sell his pistol in America.
They made a complementary pair: Glock, the reticent engineer, unfamiliar
with the U.S. and its taste in guns, had a breakthrough product. Walter, the
garrulous expat, had valuable connections in the world's richest gun market.
In 1985, Walter set up Glock's American subsidiary in a small
warehouse-and-office complex near the Atlanta airport in Smyrna, Ga. He
launched at the perfect time. A year later, America's police collectively
decided they needed a new handgun.
With violent, cocaine-driven crime on the rise-the U.S. gun homicide rate
increased 39 percent between 1983 and 1993-police saw themselves as
outgunned. There was little statistical support for this; the typical police
gunfight at the time involved the firing of two to three rounds by the
cops-well within the capacity of a Smith & Wesson revolver. The number of
officers killed in the line of duty had peaked in 1974 at 279 and declined
to 178 in 1986. But in several notorious incidents, including a shoot-out in
Miami in April 1986 that left two FBI agents dead, the bad guys deployed
more firepower than the law enforcers. "Although the revolver served the FBI
well for several decades, it became quite evident that major changes were
critical to the well-being of our agents and American citizens," FBI
Director William S. Sessions said after the Miami bloodshed.
Walter garaged his RV and began zooming around in a Porsche, pitching the
Glock to force after force. In late 1986 the Miami Police Dept.
ordered 1,100 pistols, followed closely by Dallas, San Francisco, and
others. "It's the wave of the future," said the chief in Minneapolis, who
authorized Glocks for his officers. In December 1986, Curtiss Spanos, a cop
in Howard County, Md., fired 16 rounds in a 30-minute pursuit of two armed
robbery suspects. The Glock saved his life and his partner's, he told the
Washington Post. "There would be two dead officers if I didn't have the 9
millimeter gun."
At that time, gun control advocates trying to thwart the Austrian invader
made their first strategic misstep. They claimed that because it was mostly
plastic, the pistol would be invisible to X-ray machines. "Only the barrel,
slide, and one spring are metal," the late Jack Anderson wrote in his
syndicated column in January 1986.
"Dismantled, it is frighteningly easy to smuggle past airport security."
Antigun groups mobilized, Congress held hearings, and the National Rifle
Assn. rallied its troops. "The amazing thing was that nobody had ever heard
of Glock before the Anderson column," says Richard Feldman, a lawyer then
working for the NRA. "'Glock? What's that? Oh, an Austrian gun, a plastic
gun? Interesting. I've got to see one of those.' "
The Clinton-era assault weapons ban seemed likely to hurt Glock. It had the
opposite effect
As the 17-round pistol became an object of curiosity and admiration among
Second Amendment enthusiasts, the anti-Glock campaign fizzled.
The Federal Aviation Administration concluded that if screening personnel
paid attention, they would be able to detect the pistol.
"That was a big 'oops' moment," says Richard M. Aborn, a former president of
Handgun Control Inc., now known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence. "We made the classic mistake of failing to do our homework."
Hollywood, never known for accuracy, gave Glock another boost. In Diehard 2:
Die Harder, released on July 4, 1990, mercenary terrorists swarmed the big
screen armed with Austrian pistols. The hero, played by Bruce Willis (who
carried a Beretta), at one point yelled at an airport police captain: "That
punk pulled a Glock 7 on me! You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun
made in Germany. It doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines, and it
costs more than you make here in a month." It didn't matter that everything
the Willis' character said was inaccurate, says Feldman, the industry
operative who later did consulting work for Glock. "You had Jack Anderson,
and Congress, and now Bruce Willis-everyone's making things up about Glock.
And gun owners, they want to defend the 'porcelain gun' or the 'plastic gun'
or the 'hijacker special,' or whatever the media are calling it. What
fabulous publicity."
In September 1994, after a string of grisly shootings-the 1989 Stockton
(Calif.) elementary school attack, the 1991 Killeen massacre, the 1993 Waco
siege-Congress passed the assault weapons ban, which President Bill Clinton
immediately signed. The law, which limited magazine capacity to 10 rounds,
seemed likely to hurt Glock. It had the opposite effect. Long before the
law's enactment, Glock was running its factory at full tilt. "We're getting
5,000 guns and 8,000 to 9,000 magazines a week from Austria," Dick Wiggins,
a Glock representative, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in May 1994.
"We're tens of thousands of orders behind," he added. "Our pistols are
scarcer than hen's teeth."
As a compromise to get the law passed, the Clinton Administration had agreed
to allow continued sale of gear manufactured before the ban.
Glock executives figured the new law would incite a buying frenzy, and they
were right. "People who own guns that use magazines holding more than 10
rounds-including the Glock 9mm popular with police-are buying extra
magazines as fast as they can," USA Today reported. "'We were cleaned out of
magazines in the space of a few hours,' says Mike Saporito of RSR Wholesale
Guns of Winter Park, Fla., which supplies thousands of retail shops. 'Sales
have gone through the roof.' "
Seventeen-round Glock clips that had sold for less than $20 quintupled in
price over the next few years. The unintended consequence of the law was
that more high-capacity weapons and magazines ended up in stores, at gun
shows, and on the street. Indeed, "the Clinton gun ban," as the NRA called
the legislation, created a fascination with large clips that hadn't existed
before in civilian gun circles.
The Austrian company found new ways to feed the demand the law had
unintentionally created. Having supplied scores of major police departments
with 9mm weapons in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Glock gave these
agencies the opportunity to trade in their modestly used pistols for
brand-new ones. The exchanges earned the company powerful customer loyalty
and gave Glock another large batch of pre-ban magazines that could be resold
on the burgeoning used market. In one exchange in late 1994, Glock received
16,000 used high-capacity clips and more than 5,000 older pistols from the
Metropolitan Police Dept.
of Washington, D.C.
Asked whether Glock was circumventing the magazine law, its in-house
counsel, Paul F. Jannuzzo, sounded indignant. "It's not a way around the
crime bill. It is well within the law," he told The Hartford Courant. "I'm
not sure what the spirit of the crime bill was. I think the whole thing was
an absolute piece of nonsense."
Glock also responded to the assault weapons ban by designing and marketing a
new generation of smaller handguns whose clips held 10 or fewer
rounds-"Pocket Rockets," as Glock called them. In 1995 the company
introduced the Glock 26 and Glock 27 in 9mm and .40 caliber, respectively.
(The Glock model-number system tells one nothing about the nature of the
weapons.) The barrel and grip of the new models were an inch shorter than
standard Glocks, but the ammunition packed just as much punch. The guns
could be conveniently tucked into a pocket or
purse: "a perfect choice for women," Glock said in a press release.
At the same time, the NRA-a powerful and, for the industry, inexpensive
lobbying arm that is funded mostly by gun-owner members -was stepping up a
nationwide campaign in support of state laws that gave civilians the right
to carry concealed handguns to shopping malls, Little League games, and
almost anywhere else. Pocket Rockets were ideal for suburban concealed
carry. Before 1987 only 10 states had right-to-carry laws. In 1994 and 1995
alone, 11 states enacted such statutes, bringing the total to 28. "The gun
industry should send me a basket of fruit," Tanya Metaksa, the NRA's chief
lobbyist at the time, told The Wall Street Journal. "Our efforts have
created a new market." Today, 48 states allow concealed carry; only 10 of
those require applicants to provide a reason. Arizona, Alaska, and Vermont
do not demand any kind of permit at all.
As Glock grew, reaching sales in the U.S. of roughly $100 million by the
late 1990s, according to two former company executives, the company had to
withstand new courtroom assaults from municipalities allied with plaintiff
s' lawyers who sued gunmakers the way states had gone after tobacco
companies. Jannuzzo, the company's corporate counsel, gained influence,
eventually taking the lead executive role in the U.S. once held by Walter,
who had left over a compensation dispute.
A former prosecutor in New Jersey, Jannuzzo displayed a boxer's talent for
jabbing and feinting while opponents tired themselves out. In 2000 he sent
signals publicly and privately that Glock might agree to settle the
municipal litigation then being orchestrated by the Clinton Administration.
In exchange for protection from future liability, Glock and other corporate
defendants would acquiesce to unprecedented marketing restrictions. At the
eleventh hour, however, Jannuzzo rejected the deal, leaving Glock rival
Smith & Wesson as the only industry participant. A retail boycott encouraged
by the NRA nearly drove S&W out of business, while Glock reveled in a
temporary sales surge.
The entire settlement collapsed in 2000 and became moot when a
GOP-controlled Congress passed a statute in 2005 to protect gunmakers from
such suits. Glock had played a risky game and won again. Lost in the process
was a rare opportunity for an industry that makes inherently dangerous
products to police their promotion and sale more vigorously.
The gun control movement was flagging long before 2005. In the closely
contested Presidential election of 2000, Al Gore had lost his home state of
Tennessee in part because of NRA opposition, and Democrats decided that gun
control was a cursed issue. President George W. Bush made noises about
extending the assault weapons ban and magazine limit, but when the NRA and
Republicans on Capitol Hill resisted, he allowed the law to expire in
September 2004.
Glock led the charge back into the large-capacity clip business. Other gun
and accessory makers also pushed ever-larger magazines. Today, Sportsman's
Warehouse in Tucson, where Loughner bought his Glock, advertises a 50-round
"Tactical Solutions Drum Magazine" for .22 caliber Ruger rifles priced at
$64.99. The store also sells Glock-factory magazines, designed for six to 17
rounds, at $29.99 apiece. The outlet's website notes, however, that "compact
and subcompact Glock pistol model magazines can be loaded with a convincing
number of rounds-i.e. ... up to 33 rounds." The online store CDNN Sports,
based in Abilene, Tex., advertises 33-and 31-round Glock-compatible mags
that it labels "Asian Military MFG." Only six states-California, Hawaii,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York-now have their own limits
on large magazines.
High-efficiency weapons make American criminals deadlier, and in extreme
cases, such as Tucson, large magazines make them deadlier still. Compared
with other industrialized Western democracies, the U.S. does not have an
especially high level of crime, or even violent crime. What it does have is
"a startlingly high level-about five times the Western
European/Canadian/Australian average-of homicide," UCLA public policy
professor Mark A.R. Kleiman writes in his 2009 book, When Brute Force Fails.
The U.S. "also has an astoundingly high level of private gun-especially
handgun-ownership," an estimated 100 million civilian handguns. Gun homicide
rates are higher in the U.S., Kleiman argues, because robberies, residential
burglaries, and aggravated assaults committed with guns are all more lethal.
Why, then, is all the movement on gun regulation toward more permissiveness?
One key reason is that after rising from roughly 1963 through 1993, crime
began to drop off. In 1993 there were 9.5 murders and non-negligent
manslaughters per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the FBI's annual Crime
in the United States. By 2009 that rate had fallen 47 percent, to 5 per
100,000. offenses committed with firearms also fell sharply. The reasons are
a matter of dispute. Possible factors include a sharp rise in the rate of
incarceration, improved policing methods, and the burning out of rivalries
among crack gangs.
Gun control advocates credit point-of-purchase background checks and the
assault weapons bill. More rigorous studies indicate that those laws
actually had negligible effects on crime, according to Kleiman.
When Glock rolled out the smaller "Pocket Rocket," it called the gun "a
perfect choice for women"
Polls show that even most people who support stricter gun control do not
believe that such laws reduce crime generally. "At some basic level," Dennis
Henigan, vice-president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence,
acknowledges in his 2009 book, Lethal Logic, "the public is convinced that
'when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.' This belief cannot
help but diminish the intensity of public support for further gun
restrictions."
The rise of the Glock and other semiautomatic handguns cannot be linked to
variations in overall crime rates. But that doesn't mean it would be
pointless to take small steps to reduce mayhem, such as restricting magazine
capacity. One lesson of Tucson is that there is a difference between a
33-round clip and an 8-or 10-round clip. The only way to make a limit work,
though, would be to ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of all clips
larger than the cap. Reviving a porous 1990s-style limit would backfire.
Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), among others, is working on a new
restriction. "We are optimistic it will plug the loopholes in the 1994 law,"
says Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun
control group that is consulting on the bill. Even if quite modest, however,
the provision seems unlikely to receive serious consideration in a
Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Glock's victory, and that of its industry, won't be reversed anytime soon.
-With Michael Riley
This article draws on Bloomberg Business-week Assistant Managing Editor Paul
M. Barrett's reporting for a forthcoming book on Glock and its influence in
America, to be published by Crown in 2012.
America's Heavily Armed Criminal Culture
The U.S. violent crime rate has fallen dramatically since 1993, but the
nation still has a far higher level of gun crime than comparable
industrialized countries
The Glockworks: Inside Gaston's Glock's utterly reliable invention
1. Design:
With only 34 parts in total, the Glock is far simpler than most comparable
guns and less likely to have mechanical problems
2. Finish:
Tenifer, as Glock calls the high-tech surface treatment of its steel barrel
and slide, has tremendous hardness and durability
3. Safety:
For simplicity of use, the Glock does not have a conventional external
safety; a tiny bar on the trigger activates the gun
4. Trigger:
The light, consistent pull weight (5.5 pounds) enhances accuracy
5. Capacity:
The design accommodates large clips in many models, giving the user more
firepower without having to reload
6. Polymer:
The frame is made of corrosion-resistant plastic that is 86 percent lighter
than steel
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Good read. This was pretty much the only error.
"Loughner is said to have emptied his 33-round clip in a minute or two, a
feat requiring no special skill. (Glock does not sell magazines of that size
to civilians, but some of its guns can accommodate them."
Anyone can buy them, except is you live in a liberal run state that prohibits it. Any 9 MM double stack Glock, (Model 17, 19, 26) will accept them. Bill T.
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There was steady movement from revolvers to auto pistols before anybody heard Glocks's name. Las Vegas NV PD and Illinois State Police were issuing S&W autos in the 70s, and the CT state police issued Berettas in 1982. If autos were not std issue, they were approved options. They were popular w Detroit and suburban cops in MI in the 70s (I was there), as well as other places. The Pima county sheriffs dept in AZ allowed autos in the 70s and pre Glock 80s. Cocked and locked 1911s were very popular as I recall (I was there too). Many feds were opting to carry the optional autos, not the std issue revolvers before the Miami firefight; several of the FBI agents on that scene were armed w S&W autos. The trend to high capacity autos got a big boost from the military contract w Beretta in January of 1985.
America was going auto w or w/o Glock. The American pistol market would still be dominated by autos today w/o Glock. Some other auto would be on top, and the market might be more diverse, but it would still be an auto market. Rugers were used in the Luby's Cafeteria and Long Island Railroad shootings for example.
Glock did not initiate the trend, he hijacked it out from under his competitors the old fashioned way; he earned it. He had a good product at a good price and he aggressivley marketed it. Glocks were cheaper, and he took stuff in trade the others would not touch.
The Big Thing not mentioned that Glock had no part in but took huge advantage of was the concurrent trend from SA/DA revolvers to DAO revolvers in the US (and Canadian) LE market. That DAO idea transferred to the auto market, and Glock was a DAO auto before anybody else even supected the US LE auto market was going to go that way too.
As for the gun control stuff... gun crime has gone down, not up, since the "assault weapon" and hicap mag ban expired in 2004. JLL fired his 32 rounds in about 15 seconds, not several minutes. Hicap mags did make a difference here, but not most of the others mentioned. The VT killer's rate of fire was nowhere near that fast, and nobody interfered w any of his reloads; he could have done the same w a revolver and a pocket full of speed loaders.
The psychos will improvise, adapt, and overcome. If they don't have access to autos and hicaps, we will see more mass shootings like the UT tower shooting (14 killed, 32 wounded), not fewer mass shootings.
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A good article. A bit biased, but on the whole mostly fair, well researced and accurate. It would be nice to see more in that vein rather just reprinting press releases from Brady or getting sound bites from the usual suspects. But then, that would require journalists to do actual work.
FQ13
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Good read. This was pretty much the only error.
"Loughner is said to have emptied his 33-round clip in a minute or two, a
feat requiring no special skill. (Glock does not sell magazines of that size
to civilians, but some of its guns can accommodate them."
Anyone can buy them, except is you live in a liberal run state that prohibits it. Any 9 MM double stack Glock, (Model 17, 19, 26) will accept them. Bill T.
Guess you missed these
"Before Glock arrived on the scene
in the mid-1980s, the U.S. was a revolver culture, a place where most
handguns fired five or six shots at a measured pace, then needed to be
reloaded one bullet "
2 mistakes, He neglects, or doesn't know about, the 1911 (used by the military, police, and civilians since 1911 ) or the Browning Hi Power, that has been around since before WWII (used by Officer Frank Serpico NYPD )
Second, he apparently never heard of speed loaders, or speed strips, (The James boys when riding with Quantrill's raiders routinely carried several pre-loaded cylinders for their cap and ball revolvers 150 years ago. )
"quick reloading, light trigger pull,
The Glock is no faster to reload than any other Semi Auto, and the DA trigger is heavier than many that came before such as the S&W, Colt, Browning, etc.
," the pistol "is significantly more powerful with greater firepower and is much easier to
shoot fast and true."
These are of course functions of caliber and training , the weapons design itself has no bearing on this. ::)
These are admittedly minor, the really interesting part is a couple of the things he got right, ;D
At that time, gun control advocates trying to thwart the Austrian invader
made their first strategic misstep. They claimed that because it was mostly
plastic, the pistol would be invisible to X-ray machines. "Only the barrel,
slide, and one spring are metal," the late Jack Anderson wrote in his
syndicated column in January 1986.
"Dismantled, it is frighteningly easy to smuggle past airport security."
Antigun groups mobilized, Congress held hearings, and the National Rifle
Assn. rallied its troops. "The amazing thing was that nobody had ever heard
of Glock before the Anderson column,"..... "That was a big 'oops' moment," says Richard M. Aborn, a former president of
Handgun Control Inc., now known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence. "We made the classic mistake of failing to do our homework."
The hero, played by Bruce Willis (who
carried a Beretta), at one point yelled at an airport police captain: "That
punk pulled a Glock 7 on me! You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun
made in Germany. It doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines, and it
costs more than you make here in a month." It didn't matter that everything
the Willis' character said was inaccurate,
I had to edit this to add that considering the source (Bloomberg ) it is amazing how accurate and unslanted it is. The mistakes we pointed out are the type made by a non shooter, not the usually Brady/VPC lies, a couple of which the writer actually discredits.
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A good article. A bit biased, but on the whole mostly fair, well researched and accurate. It would be nice to see more in that vein rather just reprinting press releases from Brady or getting sound bites from the usual suspects. But then, that would require journalists to do actual work. FQ13
A bit? Mostly? Guess you missed the Bloomberg Business Week cover: The Killing Machine. ;)
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A bit? Mostly? Guess you missed the Bloomberg Business Week cover: The Killing Machine. ;)
That I did. Still, for an anti-leaning piece, I've seen a lot worse. Hell, I kept reading it and leaned a bit. He had a POV, but it was upfront and didn't caricature gun folks.
FQ13
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Bloomberg Report is far more balanced the Bloomberg the Owner.
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If you like that, you'll love this:
Glocks's High Capacity Bullet Magazines
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212000855929.htm
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If you like that, you'll love this:
Glocks's High Capacity Bullet Magazines
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212000855929.htm
The writer of this story came to our club to shoot an IDPA match about 18 months ago. He used part of his experience to incorporate it into a story about Glock and how it is the dominant player in the law enforcement/civilian markets. In fact, I posted a link to the story somewhere.
I thought the article was balanced and presented the facts. At least he did not call the magazines "clips."..... ::)