Assault weapons remain legal and easy to purchase in US

[sgtsabai]

First, for those that don't know I'm a far left radical militant, imprisoned by the Nixon regime for speaking truth to the power and damn proud of it. I owned guns, many guns, never enough, hunting, dual purpose hunting long range (fill in the blanks) custom built rifles, pistols, many. I still pretty damn good. I owned M-14's, M-1s, M-1 carbine, AK-47, SKS I brought back from Vietnam. Shotguns, .22s, reloading equipment, 1,000's of rounds of ammo. Please read correctly, not right wing, far left. All were semi-auto, NOT assault weapons. And damn right I carried. Come in my house unannounced, die. I raised kids around them, never an incident because I knew how to teach the danger so that they would understand. My son out did his USMC Sgt Vietnam Vet (VVAW) dad by joining the Navy SEALS. You pantie wastes scaredy cats will never understand guns, you are afraid of them. Be afraid of the people behind them. America has turned into a nut case, mental health has gone neglected since the Regan regime and the fumbling bureau of idiots spends all its time setting up fools that would have never posed a threat until the fbi informant came along...........................http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/obama_should_demand_fbi_director_james_comeys_resignation_20160613

[GeorgesAbitbol]

Yes...gun private gun ownership is legal in the United States...so what news is this hysterical AP reporter trying to report?

Well maybe they try to report that USA way of handle gun ownership has failed, brought pain and death and it may be time to change it...

[up2u2]

Yes...gun private gun ownership is legal in the United States...so what news is this hysterical AP reporter trying to report?

I think the point may be, and I could be wrong, is if a person wants to kill a whole lot of people real quick for whatever reason America's lack of gun laws make that act easy to execute with quick and simple access to semi automatic assault weapons.

[GeorgesAbitbol]

First, for those that don't know I'm a far left radical militant, imprisoned by the Nixon regime for speaking truth to the power and damn proud of it. I owned guns, many guns, never enough, hunting, dual purpose hunting long range (fill in the blanks) custom built rifles, pistols, many. I still pretty damn good. I owned M-14's, M-1s, M-1 carbine, AK-47, SKS I brought back from Vietnam. Shotguns, .22s, reloading equipment, 1,000's of rounds of ammo. Please read correctly, not right wing, far left. All were semi-auto, NOT assault weapons. And damn right I carried. Come in my house unannounced, die. I raised kids around them, never an incident because I knew how to teach the danger so that they would understand. My son out did his USMC Sgt Vietnam Vet (VVAW) dad by joining the Navy SEALS. You pantie wastes scaredy cats will never understand guns, you are afraid of them. Be afraid of the people behind them. America has turned into a nut case, mental health has gone neglected since the Regan regime and the fumbling bureau of idiots spends all its time setting up fools that would have never posed a threat until the fbi informant came along...........................http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/obama_should_demand_fbi_director_james_comeys_resignation_20160613

We are mostly afraid of people with OTC linked to guns ownership and who probably try to compensate for a short appendix.

You must live a hell in Thailand without your AK-47 to polish on daily basis

Edited June 15, 2016 by GeorgesAbitbol

[hawker9000]

I realize how unpopular and offensive my position is to the gun lovers of the world, but I consider the NRA to be an enemy of the state. They are single handedly responsible for thousands of civilian deaths each year. I realize the more simple among them will make arguments like "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Of course that is an inane motto dreamed up by one of the very highly paid PR firms this murder inc. organization hires, to justify it's blind allegiance to the anything goes motto, when it comes to the acquisition of weapons.

I am not against people being able to arm themselves. But, where does an AK-47, or other fully automatic, military style assault rifles come into this, such as the AR-15 style of rifle used in Orlando, Aurora, San Bernardino, and Newtown?

I just do not get it. It makes sense that if you make it easy for madmen to get guns, they will be used to kill people. So, why not control guns more tightly than current policy permits?

Despite California’s relatively tough gun laws, it is not difficult to legally buy semiautomatic rifles that critics call assault weapons but are marketed by gun makers as “modern sporting rifles.” C.D. Michel, a Long Beach lawyer who has brought numerous legal challenges against gun ownership restrictions, said that “none of these laws have proven to be effective.”

​The automatic weapons used in the San Bernardino massacre were legally obtained:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/weapons-in-san-bernardino-shootings-were-legally-obtained.html?_r=0

When Omar Mateen embarked on his deadly rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, he carried the same weapon used in some of the worst mass murders of recent times.

The AR-15, a popular military-style rifle, was used by Adam Lanza when he slaughtered 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, in 2012. AR-15s were also used in the killings at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater that same year, as well as last year's ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks at a San Bernardino, Calif., government building.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/13/481877159/the-rifle-used-in-orlando-is-lightweight-easy-to-use-and-oh-so-deadly

orlando and san bernadino weapon were automatic weapons??

I'm not sure most of the gun-control Nazis even know what an automatic weapon is, or the difference between an automatic and semi-automatic. 'Saw an Orlando club survivor being interviewed on tv today describe the shooter's weapon as a "machine gun". 'Doesn't matter though, since the ill-concealed gun control agenda is actually the confiscation of ALL firearms from the law-abiding public, so they will then be helpless against the non-law abiding criminals. This case in Orlando is a perfect example. Mateen worked for a security company, was licensed to carry, and was able to massacre unarmed innocents in a "gun-free zone", despite the warnings of his co-workers (and despite previous FBI scrutiny!) i.e., a nightclub as a result. Same story at Fort Hood. This is precisely the predicament EVERYBODY would find themselves in, even in (or perhaps more accurately especially in) their own homes, if the gun-control dimwits had their way, and why most gun-owners would probably simply refuse to ever turn in their guns. Certainly the criminals aren't going to. Estimates on the number of guns in the US are north of 300 million. Certainly millions more south of the border, which for decades now has been less than no barrier at all, thanks to the same back-biting left.. It would take several generations to even put a dent in that. And in that lengthy interim, again, it would be the law-abiding public without guns and at the mercy of the armed criminals. That's just nuts (along with all the non-"Yank" commenter twaddle about it hereabouts).

Edited June 15, 2016 by hawker9000

[copa8]

In countries where it is illegal to own a gun there are still gun deaths.There have also been mass stabbings, not to mention bombings. Where there is a will there is a way. Unfortunately this subject always makes for a good soapbox.

in modern western economies, not as many

In modern Eastern economies (e.g. Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, HK, etc), even less.

[Johpa]

Doesn't matter though, since the ill-concealed gun control agenda is actually the confiscation of ALL firearms from the law-abiding public, so they will then be helpless against the non-law abiding criminals.

Utter balderdash!! Nobody is demanding that all firearms be confiscated. But preventing firearms from ending up in the hands of the mentally ill, including perhaps the irrationally paranoid like yourself, is a noble goal of any society. Now how the US deals with its endemic mental illness problem is another conundrum entirely. But I was impressed with the data presented in the book "The Spirit Level" which correlated many of our social ills with income inequality. That is not an argument for some sort of socialist paradise where everyone gets the same income, only an argument for the reduction of inequality, the reduction of the Gini Index coefficient. But the gun control issue is used, as are many social issues, to distract from the primary issue of a national election which is the political economy.

[AYJAYDEE]

In countries where it is illegal to own a gun there are still gun deaths.There have also been mass stabbings, not to mention bombings. Where there is a will there is a way. Unfortunately this subject always makes for a good soapbox.

in modern western economies, not as many

In modern Eastern economies (e.g. Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, HK, etc), even less.

yes but I kinda class them in as western economic systemwise

[neverdie]

TH

Agreed.

The mental health of civilians that think they need to carry assault weapons around is the issue.

[neverdie]

First, for those that don't know I'm a far left radical militant, imprisoned by the Nixon regime for speaking truth to the power and damn proud of it. I owned guns, many guns, never enough, hunting, dual purpose hunting long range (fill in the blanks) custom built rifles, pistols, many. I still pretty damn good. I owned M-14's, M-1s, M-1 carbine, AK-47, SKS I brought back from Vietnam. Shotguns, .22s, reloading equipment, 1,000's of rounds of ammo. Please read correctly, not right wing, far left. All were semi-auto, NOT assault weapons. And damn right I carried. Come in my house unannounced, die. I raised kids around them, never an incident because I knew how to teach the danger so that they would understand. My son out did his USMC Sgt Vietnam Vet (VVAW) dad by joining the Navy SEALS. You pantie wastes scaredy cats will never understand guns, you are afraid of them. Be afraid of the people behind them. America has turned into a nut case, mental health has gone neglected since the Regan regime and the fumbling bureau of idiots spends all its time setting up fools that would have never posed a threat until the fbi informant came along...........................http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/obama_should_demand_fbi_director_james_comeys_resignation_20160613

That's it Ssrge, you tell them, guns are safe, people ARE NOT.

How bout we lock up all those safe weapons away from the unsafe people?

I would like to buy a fully armed FA18, I just want to drive it around the neighbourhood & stuff like that, I want all the missiles armed and ready to go, but I promise it's safe, I won't pull the triggers.......should be allowed, right?

It's well past the time to start managing the weapons that people just don't need in any civil society.

Edited June 15, 2016 by neverdie

[Chicog]

Misleading headline on this article. Semi-Automatic rifles cannot be labeled as "assault weapons".

And pray tell why is that? To state that an AR-15 is not a military style assault rife is simply wrong and wrong-headed. The difference between a semi-auto AR-15 and a full-auto M4 is negligible. Both can accept the larger 30-round mags. The only difference is the full-auto feature, a feature that, at lest when I was in the military carrying an old school M-16, was really only used to lay down suppressive fire. For the vast majority of my military days, apart from a very few tactical exercises involving suppressive fire, if the sergeant heard your weapon on full auto you could be assured of being assigned to fire watch for several nights in a row.

All this emphasis on semantics is a useless, puerile distraction. Many of us are so effin unimpressed by those who wish to display that they have more technical knowledge regarding firearms that others. The semantics do not change the conversation.

Semantics most certainly do change the conversation. If you are talking about banning something, that will require a law written and the words used are very important. Phrases like "assault weapons" are useless without clear definitions.

Fair Point.

Start with the previous 1996 legislation that expired:

Criteria of an assault weapon[edit]

Under the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 the definition of "semiautomatic assault weapon" included specific semi-automatic firearm models by name, and other semi-automatic firearms that possessed two or more from a set certain features:^[11]

Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

• Folding or telescoping stock
• Pistol grip
• Bayonet mount
• Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
• Grenade launcher mount

Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:

• Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
• Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
• Barrel shroud safety feature that prevents burns to the operator
• Unloaded weight of 50 oz (1.4 kg) or more
• A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic firearm.

Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following:

• Folding or telescoping stock
• Pistol grip
• Detachable magazine.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Chicog

[SABloke]

This shooter was licensed by the State of Florida and employed by a security company. Gun bans would have had absolutely no effect on this individual's access to weapons. None. What WOULD have had some effect are comments by his co-workers that he was unhinged and unstable, his Taliban-supporter dad's insistence that he was just a wonderful son notwithstanding, had the employer simply listened and reacted responsibly. But the co-worker comments were dismissed by the security company for fear of being found to be "anti-Muslim".

9/11, Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, the underwear bomber, Charlie Hebdo, "home-grown" radicals, ISIS recruits from throughout the west, etc., etc., etc., and now Orlando... How much of this has to keep happening before we get it?

youre never going to get it

The problem is the ''Pro'' brigade always spout on about the criminals are the ones committing violence and willndo so regardless. Law abiding responsible gun owners don't (they just accidentally kill family members a few times a year). The problem with this nutjob was that he got his gun LEGALLY and it's driving the ''Pro'' brigade nuts...watch for the manic twitch in their eyes

[Pinot]

No, I don't get the picture. Wow! That's so weird and illogical.

I can't even bring myself to further comment. Tch.

[SgtRock]

First, for those that don't know I'm a far left radical militant, imprisoned by the Nixon regime for speaking truth to the power and damn proud of it. I owned guns, many guns, never enough, hunting, dual purpose hunting long range (fill in the blanks) custom built rifles, pistols, many. I still pretty damn good. I owned M-14's, M-1s, M-1 carbine, AK-47, SKS I brought back from Vietnam. Shotguns, .22s, reloading equipment, 1,000's of rounds of ammo. Please read correctly, not right wing, far left. All were semi-auto, NOT assault weapons. And damn right I carried. Come in my house unannounced, die. I raised kids around them, never an incident because I knew how to teach the danger so that they would understand. My son out did his USMC Sgt Vietnam Vet (VVAW) dad by joining the Navy SEALS. You pantie wastes scaredy cats will never understand guns, you are afraid of them. Be afraid of the people behind them. America has turned into a nut case, mental health has gone neglected since the Regan regime and the fumbling bureau of idiots spends all its time setting up fools that would have never posed a threat until the fbi informant came along...........................http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/obama_should_demand_fbi_director_james_comeys_resignation_20160613

From a Brit.

Have a like.

[White Christmas13]

Yes...gun private gun ownership is legal in the United States...so what news is this hysterical AP reporter trying to report?

What hysteria? In the first 13 days of this month, there have been 17 Mass Shootings in the United States. 16 of them were not carried out by a Muslim. So far this year there have been 138 Mass Shootings. There have been 23,469 gun related incidents and 6,025 deaths this year, up until 13th June 2016.

Can you break that down by city and race?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_United_States_by_state

[spidermike007]

I realize how unpopular and offensive my position is to the gun lovers of the world, but I consider the NRA to be an enemy of the state. They are single handedly responsible for thousands of civilian deaths each year. I realize the more simple among them will make arguments like "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Of course that is an inane motto dreamed up by one of the very highly paid PR firms this murder inc. organization hires, to justify it's blind allegiance to the anything goes motto, when it comes to the acquisition of weapons.

I am not against people being able to arm themselves. But, where does an AK-47, or other fully automatic, military style assault rifles come into this, such as the AR-15 style of rifle used in Orlando, Aurora, San Bernardino, and Newtown?

I just do not get it. It makes sense that if you make it easy for madmen to get guns, they will be used to kill people. So, why not control guns more tightly than current policy permits?

Despite California’s relatively tough gun laws, it is not difficult to legally buy semiautomatic rifles that critics call assault weapons but are marketed by gun makers as “modern sporting rifles.” C.D. Michel, a Long Beach lawyer who has brought numerous legal challenges against gun ownership restrictions, said that “none of these laws have proven to be effective.”

​The automatic weapons used in the San Bernardino massacre were legally obtained:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/weapons-in-san-bernardino-shootings-were-legally-obtained.html?_r=0

When Omar Mateen embarked on his deadly rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, he carried the same weapon used in some of the worst mass murders of recent times.

The AR-15, a popular military-style rifle, was used by Adam Lanza when he slaughtered 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, in 2012. AR-15s were also used in the killings at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater that same year, as well as last year's ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks at a San Bernardino, Calif., government building.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/13/481877159/the-rifle-used-in-orlando-is-lightweight-easy-to-use-and-oh-so-deadly

orlando and san bernadino weapon were automatic weapons??

Yes. the AK-47 and AR-15 are semi-automatic weapons. Very little difference here, when it comes to the slaughter of civilians.

Technically, the AR-15 fires 800 rounds a minute (source: Wikipedia), which is 13.3 rounds per second. This is the “cycle rate” of the weapon, assuming it could be fired as fast as physically possible and had a bottomless magazine. We know that fanning your index finger is going to be much slower than that, so saying 180 rounds per minute is actually a very, very reasonable number. Except that you'd never get there, because you can only fire 30 (or 10 in Colorado, or 7 in New York) rounds from a standard magazine.

[Becker]

Even this guy:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-oreilly-takes-stunning-stance-154449244.html

[spidermike007]

Doesn't matter though, since the ill-concealed gun control agenda is actually the confiscation of ALL firearms from the law-abiding public, so they will then be helpless against the non-law abiding criminals.

Utter balderdash!! Nobody is demanding that all firearms be confiscated. But preventing firearms from ending up in the hands of the mentally ill, including perhaps the irrationally paranoid like yourself, is a noble goal of any society. Now how the US deals with its endemic mental illness problem is another conundrum entirely. But I was impressed with the data presented in the book "The Spirit Level" which correlated many of our social ills with income inequality. That is not an argument for some sort of socialist paradise where everyone gets the same income, only an argument for the reduction of inequality, the reduction of the Gini Index coefficient. But the gun control issue is used, as are many social issues, to distract from the primary issue of a national election which is the political economy.

Exactly, apologists, and gun freaks like hawker9000 will always defend the NRA (neanderthal retard anarchists) as an organization, when in reality they are public enemy number 1. They are single handedly responsible for thousands of deaths per year, through their inane support of any absolutely open gun market in the US. A reasonable policy that allows the average person to possess pistols, and a rifle for self protection or hunting is fine by me, and most people. But, the relatively easy availability of semi-automatic weapons, or weapons that can easily be converted or modified into far more powerful military grade weapons, is insanity, and in my opinion a recipe for anarchy, and the dissolution of society as we know it. It is beyond the pale. It is beyond unnecessary.

This whole argument is NOT about self defense, nor protection of the home and the family. It is about something far more sinister.

Edited June 16, 2016 by spidermike007