Feinstein: Assault Weapons Ban Bill

Pete Cortez

Not quite sure where The Atlantic got the idea that Ring of Freedom was a corporate giving vehicle.

Evo

You've confused two different polls, mine was "gun ownership", you're qouting "guns in households". If you scroll down in your link you'll find "gun ownership" to be at 34%. So it has increased, but it's still roughly only 1/3rd of the population that actually owns guns. Most of the gun ownership seems to be heavily in the southern states.

Guns in household would be like my friend that inherited his grandfather's shotgun, but he has never used it, it's buried in the back of a closet. I guess you could say technically he now owns it, but he would be more likely to say he just has a gun in his house. He's not even sure if it works.

Pythagorean

I have about five guns that there are no record of, which is typical in Alaska, where people trade/sell/buy guns to each other regularly.

I'm giving them to my father though, as I haven't used them since joining the circus (er, I mean academics). My father will probably have 10-15 guns, maybe 2 or 3 of them have records associated with them.

Pete Cortez

1. I don't think you can prove that most hunting rifles don't look like assault rifles; varmint hunting has a considerably lengthier season than big game.

2. AR-15 isn't a copy of an M16. M16, however, does derive from the AR-15.

Some are certainly semi-automatic.

1. M110
2. M82.


They wouldn't be classified as assault rifles even without the increasingly inconsequential select fire simply because they chamber cartridges lethal outside of the typical engagement range of modern infantry. In the old days, you'd call them battle rifles.

A point. For most of their history, civilian small firearms have been military type. Your stereotypical lever action breech loader is an evolved Henry rifle. Your standard bolt action finds its heritage in the Remington-Lee 1885 and the Krag-Jorgenson.

It's not, it has a five round magazine. You don't find much in the way of single-shots outside of the sporting and enthusiast community.

Most rifles throughout history have lacked such a handle, regardless of whether or not they were used by civilians.

Same as above.

Wood used to be cheaper than metal or plastic.

No, but they do affect reliability (and in the case of the flash guard, improve visibility after firing).

Pete Cortez

Not confusing the polls, simply providing more up to date information. And pointing out that 47 percent of Americans have access to said firearms, regardless of whether or not it is there name on the Form 4473. I'll also point out that this trend has been going up since the nadir in 1993, which is truly encouraging.

Possibly. Or it means a parent who bought his kids' first rifles. A fifth of the population is under 18, remember? And again, neither this survey or the similar GSS one answers the question of "what do non-respondents own/have access to?"

Evo

I find the trend (primarily in the southern states) of stockpiling weapons very disturbing. And the reasons they're buying, fearing doomsday scenarios, believing their guns will be taken away, so need to buy as many as possible. How anyone can consider this "encouraging" is beyond me.

Anyway, we seem to have exhausted this topic and as was pointed out earlier, the thread is going in circles, so time to put another gun thread to rest.