Rooty-tooty point and shootys

[Brantly B.]

More to the point, slinging your weapon around means that you are telling the world that you consider your personal rights to be more important than the safety or at least basic polite consideration of other people.

Shit like that is dangerous all across the board; it fosters resentment and an unfortunate but understandable opinion that personal rights aren't worth protecting if people are going to use them that way. Not that this leads anywhere we haven't already covered thoroughly: Nobody likes open carry assholes because a good percentage of them are, in fact, just plain assholes. With weapons. But I think the consequence here is that we can probably argue and prove that they are mostly (not literally) shooting themselves and everyone around them in the feet, and if we can package that message in a way that supercedes the fact that they probably want to fuck up everything, we can possibly avoid a lot of bullshit.

[Mongrel]

Normally I'd just post this in the random news thread, but it's just too topical to the recent talk of stupid armed assholes and rare, bizarre, one-off stories getting news attention: Two Michigan drivers shoot and kill each other in road rage incident

[Blossom]

More to the point, slinging your weapon around means that you are telling the world that you consider your personal rights to be more important than the safety or at least basic polite consideration of other people.

Shit like that is dangerous all across the board; it fosters resentment and an unfortunate but understandable opinion that personal rights aren't worth protecting if people are going to use them that way. Not that this leads anywhere we haven't already covered thoroughly: Nobody likes open carry assholes because a good percentage of them are, in fact, just plain assholes. With weapons. But I think the consequence here is that we can probably argue and prove that they are mostly (not literally) shooting themselves and everyone around them in the feet, and if we can package that message in a way that supercedes the fact that they probably want to fuck up everything, we can possibly avoid a lot of bullshit.

Someone who open carries is, basically, deciding that they should have the power at all times to decide whether those around them live or die, and they want everybody else to know it. Someone who concealed carries is deciding the same, but wanting to keep it a secret. They're both arrogant, aggressive, and deeply fucked, but in different ways.

Normally I'd just post this in the random news thread, but it's just too topical to the recent talk of stupid armed assholes and rare, bizarre, one-off stories getting news attention: Two Michigan drivers shoot and kill each other in road rage incident

Exactly this. In the eyes of people around them, people who bring guns to public spaces are basically those guys until proven otherwise.

[Brantly B.]

Eh. If we're drifting into the subject of concealed carry, I would argue that you need to take a much more nuanced approach to it, simply because we're all talking at a national level (being from different States) and the United States is a big, big, big, big, big damned place. It's hard to get a real sense of its goddam awful bigness until you start traveling through more of the areas where there is simply nothing but dirt, sand, or corn. Doing that, though, opens up two very important ideas:

1. It's really hard to categorically regulate an area with enough land mass, capital, population and cultural diversity to account for fifty distinct nations.
2. A lot of people in this country really do have an immediate need to be armed.

#2 is the big wrinkle in the regulation debate. Most people for stricter control live in areas where it's reasonable and proper to expect a trained and authorized armed force to take care of dangerous situations for you, instead of having to do it yourself. In fact people who live in such areas are strongly urged not to try and handle such things themselves, because they themselves admit that they do not have the same sort of training, which leads to a certain culture of thinking that someone who is trained but not exactly authorized to do so is still somewhat irresponsible.

For roughly every individual who enjoys the safety, and relative lack of liberty, of such a system however, there's one who is living too remotely from an organized law enforcement structure or whose local law enforcement structure is too damned weak to be expected to rely on it for safety. If something goes terribly wrong or somebody simply decides to take all your shit, you've only got your own power or the power of your neighbors to defend yourself with. If you cannot absolutely rely on the government to defend you, then the government removing your ability to defend yourself is actually an extremely valid concern.

And, as we all know and have discussed at length: Even if you do have what seems to be an upstanding law enforcement organization, relying on it absolutely to protect you is horrifyingly naive. Most people need something around to keep them out of day-to-day trouble, even if it just happens to be a particularly burly friend.

What's that you say? YES! Most of the fruitcakes we're discussing live in civilized, functional areas, don't need to and are in fact highly advised against taking any sort of violent action even in self defense, and are basically politicizing an issue of actual import to others who simply want to be (relative to completely fucked) safe. This is the crux of why I don't like open carry: It is, by nature, a threat to everyone in the vicinity, which people in general don't take very kindly to, and so it invites a disproportionate response that may end up being not at all nuanced and may hurt a lot more people than it rescues. I would argue that this is the sort of thing we can categorically regulate, because the only real argument for it is that our bulletproof Constitution apparently gives people the right to bully others (you can also try the Doomsday Argument, which is that a deterrent that isn't advertised doesn't work as a deterrent, but I think the known existence of concealed carry works out quite a bit better than telling everybody exactly what you're packing and where you're keeping it).

I've certainly got problems with concealed carry too, mainly boiling down to the theoretical argument that "Any person at any time can suffer a hallucinogenic episode due to brain cancer", but until we develop some kind of Mostly Perfect Union I don't think those sorts of concerns override the simple fact that a bullet is what separates a large amount of innocent people from the bottomless depths of human bullshit.

I should probably carefully proofread this post to make sure I didn't say anything particularly stupid or offensive, but I'm not going to. *click*

[Grath]

For roughly every individual who enjoys the safety, and relative lack of liberty, of such a system however, there's one who is living too remotely from an organized law enforcement structure or whose local law enforcement structure is too damned weak to be expected to rely on it for safety. If something goes terribly wrong or somebody simply decides to take all your shit, you've only got your own power or the power of your neighbors to defend yourself with. If you cannot absolutely rely on the government to defend you, then the government removing your ability to defend yourself is actually an extremely valid concern.

I used to live in a very rural area. I never had to call the police, but when I crashed my car we had to wait 15-20 minutes for a state trooper to show up. Of course, there was pretty much no real crime (other than a sick fuck who smothered an elderly woman who was living with him in order to get her social security checks, and the pretty rare idiot hunting with idiots who gets shot because "THERE WAS MOVEMENT IN THE BUSHES!") so I've never had an issue with that. Of course, if someone was going to cause trouble - my next door neighbor keeps a rifle by his front door (probably for Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons), I still have guns up there (because I haven't found a place to store them down here yet and the apartment bans guns), my next door neighbors on the other side gave me a ride back from the range one day and have "Repeal NY-SAFE" signs in their front yards so they definitely have guns. That bit in Hot Fuzz about everyone and their mothers having guns in rural areas isn't all that much of an exaggeration.

Anyways, other than that side bit about "rural places are full of guns": According to the Department of Justice, in 2007 it took the police over 10 minutes to respond in 43.4% of robberies, 44.8% of aggravated assaults, and 38% of simple assaults. If someone's trying to hurt you up or rob you, I'd be willing to bet on average they're done and gone within 10 minutes. This is supported by an average first-contact arrest rate of 9.9% for violent crimes. In only 25.4% of robberies, 27.0% of simple assaults, and 19.1% for aggravated assaults did police show up in 5 minutes or less. Whereas if you're armed (whether that be with a gun, or something simpler - I'd probably carry a cane if I knew I was going to be in a dangerous area, because I have martial arts training with a cane and they don't automatically escalate a situation like a gun will. It'd be a cane-sword except they're illegal in New York because New York hates fun.) you can right then and there practice the lowest form of self defense: Having to actually defend yourself. (Better form of self-defense: Talking your way out of the situation. Best form of self-defense: Recognizing the danger and removing yourself before it becomes a situation.)

[Thad]

More to the point, slinging your weapon around means that you are telling the world that you consider your personal rights to be more important than the safety or at least basic polite consideration of other people.

It also smacks of white privilege. Because if you try that shit and you're not white, getting the police called on you is the BEST likely outcome.

Daily Show dealt with this subject at some length, not least looking at the paradox inherent in supporting both open-carry AND stand your ground laws.

[Rico]

Open carry also clashes with the "good guy with a gun" stopping a tragic event, since, y'know, if the shooter knows before he starts shooting exactly who's armed I know where the first few bullets are heading.

[Blossom]

And whether concealed or open, it ensures that in the event of a shooting, lots of people with drawn guns see lots of people with drawn guns.

[Thad]

On the first day of the new Georgia Safe Carry Protection Act, a misunderstanding between two armed men in a convenience store Tuesday led to a drawn firearm and a man’s arrest.

[...]

A man carrying a holstered firearm entered the store to make a purchase. Another customer, also with a holstered firearm, approached him and demanded to see his identification and firearms license, according to the Valdosta Police Department report.

The customer making demands for ID pulled his firearm from its holster but never pointed it at the other customer, who said he was not obligated to show any permits or identification.

[...]

“This is an example of my concern with the new gun law that people will take the law into their own hands which we will not tolerate,” [Police Chief] Childress said.

Who could have ever seen THAT coming?

[nosimpleway]

“This is an example of my concern with the new gun law that people will take the law into their own hands which we will not tolerate,” [Police Chief] Childress said.

In my experience, being the smartest guy in the room in any given room in Georgia is not a difficult feat.

[Blossom]

Usually, the guns you see with these psychopaths are AR-15s. A gun technically sold only capable of semiautomatic fire but trivially converted to be full-auto capable is a goddamn assault rifle.

False. If it was truly trivial, they would be considered full-auto and banned by the ATF. See: The MAC-10, even if in semi-auto only configuration, is so easy to convert to full-auto that it is considered by the ATF to be full-auto unless the firing mechanism has been redesigned so that it fires from a closed-bolt. The AR-15 can be converted to full-auto, but it requires drilling an additional hole in the receiver and putting in a $5,000+ part (or committing a federal PMITA-prison felony).

Anyway. As I was saying. Trivially converted and entirely legal.

[Grath]

Usually, the guns you see with these psychopaths are AR-15s. A gun technically sold only capable of semiautomatic fire but trivially converted to be full-auto capable is a goddamn assault rifle.

False. If it was truly trivial, they would be considered full-auto and banned by the ATF. See: The MAC-10, even if in semi-auto only configuration, is so easy to convert to full-auto that it is considered by the ATF to be full-auto unless the firing mechanism has been redesigned so that it fires from a closed-bolt. The AR-15 can be converted to full-auto, but it requires drilling an additional hole in the receiver and putting in a $5,000+ part (or committing a federal PMITA-prison felony).

Anyway. As I was saying. Trivially converted and entirely legal.

They're gimmicky, not that reliable, and kill your accuracy even more than real full auto because the gun has to freely slide (independent from the stock and grip) with the recoil to reset the trigger. See ex-Google-employee-now-professional-marksman Chris Cheng struggling to get one to even work here:


Also: That isn't full auto. It's pulling the trigger really quickly, being assisted by the recoil of the gun. Also known as "more proof for my argument that gun control doesn't work" in a way: People come up with gun control laws, and human ingenuity comes up with a loophole. This being the US, you can't outright ban gun ownership: Like it or not, the supreme court has ruled that the second amendment does apply to self defense and you DO have the right to be able to carry a gun on your person. See the recent [last year] ruling that Chicago - which already has plenty of people carrying guns illegally - has to have a mechanism whereby you can legally carry a gun. Illinois had options of "make it possible to get a carry permit that's valid for Chicago or we're gonna invalidate your laws, and in their absence any US citizen or legally admitted alien can carry open or concealed as long as they legally own the gun"; they went with the former option.

Side note, this is technically the shoe string shown here a full-auto machinegun:

You pull the trigger once, and it fires through the rest of the magazine. Per the ATF rules, this means that the shoe string (which is what enables the full-auto firing) is a machine gun.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, my first thought when I saw that was "That must destroy accuracy". My second thought was "That must also break really easily".

[Grath]

Yeah, my first thought when I saw that was "That must destroy accuracy". My second thought was "That must also break really easily".

They're curiosities that people use on their range-toy guns. If it was actually effective, they'd be getting used in crimes and would've been banned by now.

Quick edit to add: They're also only barely more effective at shooting fast than just pulling the trigger really quickly (at least, if you're a world-record-holding speed shooter...)

[Mongrel]

"An armed society is a polite society."

[Büge]

[Brantly B.]

Police said none of those shot were believed to be the combatants.

Police said none of those shot were believed to be the combatants.

Police said none of those shot were believed to be the combatants.

[Friday]

why is everyone 23

[Mongrel]

Texas Open Carry advocates meet on grassy knoll (yes, that grassy knoll) to denounce Obama as an 'usurper foreigner'

[Thad]

Medical examiner rules James Brady's death a homicide as it was the result of being shot 30 years ago.

I...I just...what...
...something something Jodie Foster joke.

I'm just not sure how that works. Is it still murder if it takes 30 years to kill the victim?

Moot point, I guess; it's not like they were ever going to let Hinckley out anyway, and pursuing additional charges against him seems like it'd be a pretty big waste of tax dollars.