From President Obama speaking to the National Urban League convention on 7/26/12 in New Orleans.
“I think a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals,” he said.
“I believe the majority of gun owners agree we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons,” the president said. “That we should check out a person’s criminal record before they can check out at a gun store. That a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to get his hands on a gun so easily.”
Actually, I think Barack may be wrong on this point – about how the majority of gun owners feel about AK47s belonging in the hands of soldiers. I’m not sure, but I think the majority of gun owners probably side with the NRA’s position that ANY law restricting gun rights is an infringement of liberty. This wouldn’t include ALL gun owners, of course, but I do believe it may well apply to the majority of them.
On the other side of the coin, the vast majority of gun owners don’t own assault rifles. Gun ownership in the US is probably (I’m guessing) focused around handguns for home defense, and hunting rifles for sport. There are also plenty of black-powder enthusiasts, and the ubiquitous small caliber varmint rifles used by farmers to eliminate pests. Those that do own assault rifles (the vast majority of which are completely legal) do so for two reasons. First, they’re fun to shoot, and a certain number of individuals who own them have them strictly because of this. Second, they’re excellent for defense in case the world falls into chaos – you know – the Mayan apocalypse, a nuclear war, an asteroid impact, something that would tear the world apart. These owners are the same people that have fallout shelters, emergency procedures, stockpiles of food and weapons – survivalists. And there’s nothing wrong with that! (So long as their weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands, or they don’t go insane).
Personally, I’d love to own an assault rifle. I carried a variety of them for years during my time in the USMC. I always enjoyed firing them. They are, in short, a lot of fun. For a gun owner, having an assault rifle is similar to a car enthusiast having a sports car. Sure, the Honda will get you there, but a Corvette will get you there in style. But I don’t own an assault rifle for the same reason I don’t own a sports car – they are simply too expensive, and I have other priorities to consider. (Like a mortgage, my children’s college fund, my retirement, etc). Now if an asteroid hits the earth, or I somehow manage to survive a nuclear war, I may regret that. But when you have limited resources, you have to plan for what you THINK is going to happen, and those other things are far more unlikely to me than my retirement or my kids going to college. (I hope)!
The main problem with assault rifles is the amount of damage they can do. They’re made to kill people, and they fire ammunition for that purpose. So what is an “assault rifle?”
In general, the AWB defined any firearm with a detachable magazine and at least two of certain other characteristics as an assault weapon.
For rifles, those characteristics included:
- Telescoping stock
- Pistol grip
- Bayonet mount
- Grenade launcher
- Flash suppressor
For shotguns:
- Telescoping stock
- Pistol grip
- A capacity to hold more than five rounds
For handguns:
- Threaded barrels made to attach a barrel extender, handgrip or flash suppressor
- A barrel shroud that can be used as a handhold
- Weight of at least 50 oz. when unloaded
Nineteen models of firearms were specifically named in the legislation as assault weapons, while other models were included under the umbrella of the law’s definition of assault weapons.
In short, you can easily see why banning assault weapons would be a problem for many gun enthusiasts. These are not automatic rifles (civilian ownership of automatic weapons has been heavily regulated in the U.S. since 1934) You can still own and obtain an automatic rifle, but by law you have to obtain a “gun dealer” license, and you and your weapon will be tracked by government records. Do we track owners of other weapons? Yes, but I suspect nowhere near as stringently. I believe it’s the state that handles this, and probably varies by state. It also depends on how you obtain one – buying it from a store is different than buying it from another individual (a fact that is often used to side-step registration).
Semi-automatic assault rifles fire only one round at a time (albeit as fast as you can pull the trigger). From my perspective, semi-automatics are preferable, simply because automatics waste a huge amount of ammunition and are hard to target due to recoil. But then I’ve had “one-shot one-kill” crammed down my throat in training. (I was an exceptional marksman during my time in the military, and the third best shot in my platoon). Now I don’t even own a handgun, let alone an assault rifle, but I digress.
Personally, I have no problem with legislation tightening gun laws. I don’t necessarily agree with making these weapons illegal. But I fully agree with making them difficult to obtain, and requiring both training and tests to get a license to own one. They should be tracked. People who own them should appear in government databases. We should KNOW who owns these weapons – that should be the cost of having the privilege of owning them. Gun ownership should be a right, but not one given to just everyone. It should be a right conditional to responsibility. Convicts and felons should not have the right to own them. Individuals with a history of mental issues should not have the right to own them. Anyone who does own them should have to submit to a background check. They should not be sold out of stores right off the rack to anyone who wants one. This should be true of all weapons. We make people take a driver’s test to obtain a driver’s license. We don’t do anything to those buying a gun. Both objects are just as lethal. Where is the logic in this?
Filed under: Bitching Tagged: | Assault Weapons, Gun law, gun ownership, Making Guns Illegal, What is an assault weapon
Interesting – the old adage the guns don’t kill people etc etc misses the point that any whacko with a grievance real or not can claim their place in history by getting their hands on this sort of kit and go on a shooting spree.
It happens everywhere but the enshrining in your constitution of the right to bear arms and the mythiclal weight attached to the constitution means that these occurrences are deemed an acceptable price to pay for the “American” way of life.
Sad for those who get blown away as a result.
But no doubt some stats are being put out now about more people killed by slipping on turtles than in mass shootings. Nonsense. All of it.
You may be right. In the end, you do what you can to institute change. For me, that’s very little except supporting more stringent gun laws. Guns won’t be made illegal in America – not in my lifetime. Not without a complete paradigm shift. Given that fact, the best thing to do is to make them more difficult to obtain – particularly by those who have the potential to misuse them.
I am well aware of how this appears to other civilized countries, and their standpoint on this issue is not one I would wish to debate. In their shoes, I would have the same view, and the same conclusion.
Cheers – you are right about change not happening – so really the debate is futile. Best wishes
Thanks for the details on what constitutes an assault weapon. I’d never seen much beyond “like an AK-47.” Rapid rife, high-capacity magazines, etc. I’d ban them all, though. Hunters don’t need automatic or even semi-automatic weapons; neither do those into self-defense.
I have a teeny, tiny minority view about the Constitution and guns: The founders mentioned “militia” in the Second Amendment for a reason. They related gun ownership to the existence of and need for a militia. If there wasn’t a connection, why would they have mentioned it at all? Seems to me without a militia, the indisputable right to own guns becomes questionable. I know, great legal minds and the Supreme Court (not necessarily the same thing) have repeatedly upheld the right to own guns. Still, “militia” is in there …
Er, that would be “Rapid fire,” not “rife.”
I agree with you. The second amendment (as passed by Congress) states:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The first part states the reason – that a well regulated Militia is necessary for the security of a free state. The second part says that because of this, the right of the people to keep and bear arms should remain legal.
Wikipedia defines militia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia
“The term militia or irregular army, is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with multiple distinct but related meanings.”
I think it’s obvious that the intention was to keep arms in the hands of citizens because at that time the country was in danger of invasion by a wide variety of other countries with other aims. You can easily see the advantage of having a country like this if they were under threat of invasion. In today’s world, that threat is greatly removed – although not entirely. The question I would ask is, how many gun owners actually belong to a militia? Probably not too many.
I sort of agree with PiedType about the “right to bear arms within a regulated militia” or whatever the exact wording is in the amendment. I believe they wanted to give the people a way
Oops let me finish… I believe they wanted to give the people a way to defend against a situation like they had just overcome. I don’t disagree with people’s rights to own guns although I do think there should be much tighter controls. Obviously the system we have now is not working. Great post… one of those discussions that will never be resolved.
Yes, and you know it’s going to be an issue that comes up whenever we have a massacre. The first thing we do is look at what weapons were used and think about how it could have been prevented. In some cases, the offender uses explosives. In some cases they use vehicles. And in some cases they opt to use solid projectile weaponry. I think it’s logical to look at these issues, and perfectly natural. We want to prevent massacres from occurring, and one way to do that is to look at the methods and think about how to restrict those methods.
Whenever solid projectile weapons are used, we ask ourselves questions about their legality. In regards to assault weapons, we know the issue revolves around the amount of damage they do and their capability to fire many rounds without reloading. Obviously, a bolt action hunting rifle would be a poor selection for the criminal. They’d have to pull the bolt back each time to reload.
If we’re going to keep such weapons legal, then realistically, they should be treated the same way we treat automatic weapons. Those are heavily restricted, so why shouldn’t we simply throw those weapons designated as assault weapons into the same category? This wouldn’t prevent people from obtaining them, but makes it far more expensive, takes several months (at minimum). There’s some info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
Other than banning them outright, as was done by the Clinton administration (which could still be reinstated if someone had the balls and Congress weren’t full of Republicans), lumping them under the automatic restrictions would be a quick and dirty way of restricting them quickly. Although I doubt our current administration would be capable of pushing either legislation right now.