I really hesitated to go into this, because the polarized feelings on all sides, in the US at least, have made guns a political and personal issue and feelings tend to run high. Also, I recognize that @MiniP and many others who favor these kinds of firearms are decent people whom I would enjoy having a beer (or a few ) with. This is not personal either.

Nevertheless....

1. I do not use the term "weapon" for anything with a purpose other than what we were taught in the Army -- to shoot people -- since a "weapon" is, by definition, used to kill people, not deer. That's why our targets looked like people, not deer. That's what war is about. It is not hunting, nor is it self-defense. I enjoyed the firing range and I like shooting, always have. But military weapons are for war, which is about killing people. (I know, most people who own an AR15 will never kill anyone. And I like it too, or I liked the M16 anyway. It's still a military style weapon, and that's still what it's best at.)

2. Is the AR15 a military style weapon? Pretty close. From Wikipedia:

"The M16 rifle, officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16, is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56mm automatic rifle with a 20-round magazine.

"In 1964, the M16 entered U.S. military service and the following year was deployed for jungle warfare operations during the Vietnam War.[1] In 1969, the M16A1 replaced the M14 rifle to become the U.S. military's standard service rifle.[17][18] The M16A1 improvements include a bolt-assist, chrome-plated bore and a 30-round magazine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle

I trained on the M16A1, lineal descendant of the AR15. (Yeah, it was 1968 and 69. That long ago.) It would do just fine as a killing weapon if fired only semi-auto (one shot per trigger-pull) instead of full auto. On semi-auto, it's not that far from an AR15. You can pull that trigger fast, and often.

2. Everyone has, and should have, a lot of freedom to do as they like. But your freedom to swing your fists around, for example, ends anytime it gets close to my nose. I think your right to own any kind of firearm you like ends when availability of that firearm allows unstable or bad people to shoot up a large number of other people.

3. No one needs a hunting rifle, for example, that holds more than three or so rounds at a time. But three rounds, or a bolt-action, isn't real suited to mass murder. Large magazines and semi-auto fire have been proven to work real well.

4. Everyone has a right self-defense. But as someone who trained with military weapons, I don't want every random civilian (nor, for that matter, some random veteran either) who thinks he's being threatened to have one. What could possibly go wrong? That thought should scare the shit out of everybody. Would I own a rifle or handgun at home for self-defense? I don't, but sure. Not high-fire, and not one I carried around. Also, probably it would never be used outside of target practice on a range. I've never needed one so far, and I've been around a long time now.

5. I think high-round, repeated-fire (I mean semi-auto, which is plenty fast) firearms are great fun (and I'd include semi-auto handguns too) and I have enjoyed them outside of the military. They might be fine in some places and times. Today, I think there is a clear danger that needs to be rationally addressed, and it may mean that someone's otherwise legitimate right to do as he pleases has to take a back seat to addressing a real danger. And yes, I know guns don't kill people. Nuts with guns do. The same nut with a bolt-action hunting rifle or a revolver or small-magazine handgun could still kill people, but fewer. And much less easily.

I expect to get some genuine hate for posting this. I don't care. Somehow in this country it became an emotional cultural and political issue whether you are "pro" or "anti" guns. Meanwhile, when American nuts slaughter people, there is meaningless talk about "thoughts and prayers" and people shake their heads about how you can't do anything about people who are insane. And all attempts to do something are stopped. (Is there money involved? Well, duh.)

But in New Zealand, which has a strong hunting culture, they didn't hesitate to just say they'll remove the weapons (and that's the right word) from circulation, and keep them out of the hands of the nuts. You can't kill as many people nearly as fast with a low-magazine deer rifle. Or a knife. Or really, with anything else.

I don't know if we should (or can, realistically) do the New Zealand solution in the US. But if there's no effort to have a solution, if everything is just about thoughts and prayers and "too bad some people are insane, nothing can be done," then nothing will be done and there will be no change.

I understand Wyatt Earp made people check their guns when they came into Dodge. They thought it was safer that way. So do I. For the record, I am not particularly "anti" or "pro" guns. I wouldn't normally think of guns as that big an issue, and I have enjoyed them at times in my life. But things have gotten pretty far from normal. This is not about likes or culture or politics, it's about public safety.

End of rant. Probably no one will think any differently than they did before reading this. That's a big problem too. If we can't talk about it, we can't solve it.

Bob.

I don't think you are wrong at all I think we all want the same thing just a different way.

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I think something does need to be done, i think its horrible what is happening to these innocent men women and children. To me it seems more like a mental issue and a cultural issue.

Im not nearly as old as many of you on here but it seems like in the past we didn't have these huge huge killings and maybe it was because we didn't have the types of communications we do today but something change. The AR/M16 platform has been around since vietnam. What has changed recently to make these types of things a common issue?

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Another issue is we can no longer have open conversations about ideas. If you believe one thing and say it to someone who believes something else instead of having a nice talk about it like this, everyone goes to the extremes and no one (either side) will listen to what the other says.

I use to do a ton of trade shows and we always used this one guy ( he was black) and we disagreed on almost everything BUT after hours and days of speaking with each other we both started to see the other side and would actually believe and understand what the other thinks and wants. THIS is what we need, more conversation and eventually everyone will find a common ground. We need more facts and more ideas.

If I’m not mistaken, there’s little correlation between mental health and violence. It’s too simple to say that if someone kills a bunch of people they’re crazy, so focus on the crazy people. Most if not all of our recent mass shooters functioned fairly normally in society, held jobs, and could pass a background check for guns.

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I do not see any decrease in the number of gun deaths per year in this country, including mass shootings, in my lifetime. Pandora has been let out of the box. There are too many guns in circulation, and the gun industry is very powerful.

What’s it going to take? I’ll tell you: a whole lot more people burying their kids. That’s what will get people’s attention. Until that happens, expect the numbers to stay the same, including several double digit fatality mass shootings a year.
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To buy a house, it can take weeks to get approval for the loan. The banks going to scrutinize the hell out of you, they’re not just going to hand over their money to anybody. Buying a gun takes like 20 minutes. I love guns and all, keep one on me or in arms reach nearly all day, but that’s just messed up.

I logged on to post a screenshot of my latest trade in my journal, then saw this discussion and decided to step in here instead.

If I’m not mistaken, there’s little correlation between mental health and violence. It’s too simple to say that if someone kills a bunch of people they’re crazy, so focus on the crazy people. Most if not all of our recent mass shooters functioned fairly normally in society, held jobs, and could pass a background check for guns.

I don’t think it is a mental health issue, I think it’s an ease of access to guns issue. There is an unequivocal correlation between the number of firearm death in the US and the number of firearms. Plain as day.

I’m on record in this forum as an avid gun owner, including numerous politically incorrect rifles, but I’ve also stated that I think it’s time we make harder to get these kinds of guns (and I’d probably include semi auto handguns as well).

However I do not think that will happen. I do not see any decrease in the number of gun deaths per year in this country, including mass shootings, in my lifetime. Pandora has been let out of the box. There are too many guns in circulation, and the gun industry is very powerful.

What’s it going to take? I’ll tell you: a whole lot more people burying their kids. That’s what will get people’s attention. Until that happens, expect the numbers to stay the same, including several double digit fatality mass shootings a year.

Some of the arguments put forth by the die-hard pro gun side are downright fallacious. There’s just no other way to put it. The best being that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. Yes it’s happened a few times but I think you can attribute that more to dumb luck. In some situations (the Atlanta courthouse shooting in 2005 and the Baltimore Navy shooting in 09 or 10) the good guy with a gun made things worse.

The record is clear that most mass shootings are stopped by unarmed citizens or the shooter himself.

As for the argument that they can make a homemade bomb or something like that, I’m not swayed. Not many of our disenfranchised, violence-prone men are going to go through the learning curve of that. They want to kill quickly and easily, and there’s no better way to do it than a semi-auto gun and some 15 to 30 round magazines. And they want to kill up close and relish in their victims terror (Las Vegas being an exception... I think that was more of the shooting fish in a barrel thrill). The bombers are all politically motivated. McVeigh, the Tsarnav brothers, the Unibomber. They killed from a distance.

To buy a house, it can take weeks to get approval for the loan. The banks going to scrutinize the hell out of you, they’re not just going to hand over their money to anybody. Buying a gun takes like 20 minutes. I love guns and all, keep one on me or in arms reach nearly all day, but that’s just messed up.

I agree they could have a better way to purchase guns. I'd be for getting rid of the gun show loop hole with the exception of transferring firearms to family members when someone passes away.

-P

However I do not think that will happen. I do not see any decrease in the number of gun deaths per year in this country, including mass shootings, in my lifetime. Pandora has been let out of the box. There are too many guns in circulation, and the gun industry is very powerful.

As for the argument that they can make a homemade bomb or something like that, I’m not swayed... They killed from a distance.

This would be a step. Plus just make it harder to buy a gun. For one of these guys, he would have failed his background check, but there was a delay in getting it back and so the dealer legally sold it to him anyway. Simple stuff like fixing this would help.

If we take more steps, there will be less shooting.

Bob.