If there is a "gun violence" problem, and you remove the guns, you'll still be left with a violence problem. Violence and "gun violence" are symptoms. The sicknesses that cause them are poverty, lack of education, inequality (real or perceived), unemployment, etc. Treat the sicknesses that cause violence and the violence will go away.
Try as you might, your attempt to come across as a "gun person" fails miserably.
AR15s make wonderful hunting weapons. Many companies make AR15s with specific features chosen for hunting. Here are a couple:
http://rockriverarms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=552
http://www.dpmsinc.com/KINGS-DEAERT-SHADOW_ep_146-1.html
Typically they include a flattop upper receiver, a low profile gas block, skeletonized stocks, and a free-float hand guard.
The standard
http://www.hornady.com/store/223-Rem-75-gr-BTHP-Match/
Additionally, anyone with more than a passing knowledge of guns and AR15s would know that the platform does not only come in
But if you still believe that it's impossible to hunt with an AR15, please, whatever you do, don't tell the hundreds of people who posted pictures of their hunting ARs along with trophies in these two threads:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_23/605991_Show_us_your_AR15__and_other__deer_kills___and_60___retitled.html&page=1
http://www.ar15.com/mobile/topic.html?b=10&f=3&t=618206
They would be devastated to find out that what they were doing was impossible.
As far as target shooting goes, the annual National Matches, held at Camp Perry, Ohio every summer since 1907, and widely seen as the Olympics of the shooting sports world, uses.... you guessed it: AR15s. And it's not hard to understand why: they're light weight, ergonomic, light recoiling, and cheap to train with (compared to other competition rifles).
And your claim that an AR15 is worse at self defense than all other things you think it's bad at.... get real! Nearly every SWAT team in the US, and NATO-allied special forces group in the world has moved to the AR platform, and those guys have the money and latitude to choose anything they want. After a brief love affair with various pistol-caliber carbines and bullpups in the late 90's and early 00's, they have almost all gone to the AR15.
There are plenty of semi automatic rifles that are much better suited for civilians - and even military use too but they're too expensive for outfitting an army.
The US Army could replace all of its rifles for the cost of about a dozen F-35s. Cost is not an issue that would hold the army back if there were a better rifle available.
The only reason they are so expensive now is because of the demand from stupid people who think Obama is going to ban them.
AR15s are cheaper today than they have ever been. There are over 100 companies in the US producing them, and a nice mid-grade AR can be had for under $600 today.
The next time you want to appear to be an expert on guns, and then denounce the most popular, most capable, most flexible gun ever made, for reasons that don't stand up to even casual examination, stick to the comment sections at Mother Jones or DU, where at least people like me will be banned for dissenting instead of being able to set things straight. Never thought I'd see Mobys on
I'm getting beaten. *Press panic button* *Wait 10 -15 minutes for the police to arrive.*
The police are there to write reports and do light investigation. They are not, and never were, a rapid response force, ready at a moment's notice to alleviate your panic.
The suggestion of panic buttons on phones is not only not helpful, it sends the problem further in the wrong direction. Some people will reason that since their phone has a panic button, they can take risks they might otherwise not.
Some amount of those 1M jobs would have very quickly been picked back up by other car manufacturers buying GM's assets (from GM or its creditors) and hiring people to make cars that the economy would have still demanded. How many? Neither of us can say, but to say that 1M jobs would have been LOST, as in gone and never returning, is disingenuous.
Besides, 1M jobs (again, wrongfully assuming they would have all disappeared for good) would still just be a drop in the bucket next to the skyrocketing U6 numbers for the last 5 years. Put in that context especially, $70B was a steep price to pay.
The government previously forgave $15.4 billion in loans to GM: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/19/gm-bankruptcyplan-idUSN1943363120090519
In addition, the government would extend a credit line to the new company and forgive the bulk of the $15.4 billion in emergency loans that the U.S. has already provided to GM, the source said.
The government also made a "special ruling" for companies receiving bailout money... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704462704575590642149103202
It [GM] won't have to pay $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits.
Not only is the taxpayer out over $70 billion to bail out GM, but the original bond holders who were illegally robbed are still waiting for their money too.
The demonization has been going on for a while. Here's an article from almost a year ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/01/18/meet-steve-israel-the-congressman-who-wants-to-ban-3d-printable-guns-qa/
Steve Israel wants to ban your access to 3d printers, and he's using guns as a way to get the camel's nose under the tent. Here are some particularly telling quotes from the interview in the story linked above:
What we’re trying to do is make it clear that if you choose to construct a weapon or weapon component using a 3D printer, and it’s homemade, you’ll be subject to penalties.
Catch that? If you're a business, doing it for commercial gain, then he thinks it's okay. If you're the little guy, doing it as a hobby, then simply doing it even if no one ever gets hurt will get you sent to jail.
Steve Israel: But if you’re going to download a blueprint for a plastic weapon that can be brought onto an airplane, there’s a penalty to be paid.
Interviewer: Just for downloading it?
Steve Israel: No, no, for actually manufacturing it. And we’re not even going after manufacturers, either, but lone wolves, individuals.
Again there, if you're a business he's fine. If you're an individual, it's banned. He even slips and admits he want to criminalize the sharing of the information.
So we’re talking to stakeholders, and working to create a distinction between that lone wolf and legitimate manufacturers of plastic clips.
Make no mistake: the forces working to ban private ownership of 3d printers are already moving against you. The bogey man of undetectable guns is simply a convenient way to get people on board with the first step of restriction. Once that's in place another big-business congressman will come back and say, "Poor GM is losing money because it can't sell overpriced factory parts because people are just printing them. Ban all private 3d printer ownership!"
The only thing in question is how many people will be fooled and take up the torch and pitchfork against 3d printed guns, not realizing that they're working against their own desire to have privately owned 3d printing technology. As is commonly the case, the fight for gun rights is only a microcosm in the larger fight for natural and civil rights. You want 3d printers? You're going to have to fight to protect 3d printed guns. You want marijuana legalized? You're going to have to fight for private ownership of machine guns. You want to continue to be free from poll taxes? You're going to have to support repealing the NFA.
Issues of law and politics don't each exist in separate vacuums.
Bravo! You've hit the nail on the head with respect to the difference between "environmentalism" and "conservationism."
If people want to have rich enjoyable lives while protecting the planet, then they need to subscribe to conservationism. Use the planet's resources responsibly and leave as much or more for our kids as we had.
If people want to do everything possible to prevent any changes to the planet whatsoever, even at the expense of (other) people's quality of life, then by all means please carry on with the insane environmentalism of today's greenies and the EPA.
Imagine the money to be made between society's push to make being fat "normal," and the medical community's push to make obesity a "disease." Now they could cash in on treating an ever-increasing number of normal diseased people who are fat, but it's okay, that's normal, but it's a disease too, so go see the doctor!
If obesity was really a "chronic but treatable disease," where has it been the last 200,000 years? Why has it only existed on a large scale for the last 20 - 30 years? Changes in physiology don't move that fast, but changes in culture, attitude, economics, etc certainly do.
The sequester was the result of the budget supercommittee failing to reach a deal, which then would have gone to a straight up/down vote in the congress. The committee was 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans. The blame for not coming to an agreement rests equally on both sides. (And keep in mind that any argument you make that D's were saints and R's just wanted to sink it would would be just as arbitrary if you exchange 'D' and 'R'.)
Also, Obamacare isn't part of the sequester because its full funding is provided for in the PPACA.
On top of all of that, Obamacare doesn't even pretend address the entire lack of a responsible mental health system in this country; that's not what it's about. It would only address insurance coverage for it if we even had something approaching a mental health system.
So not only does Obamacare have nothing to do with the lack of mental health treatment in the US, but Obamacare wasn't even part of the sequester cuts, and the cuts themselves weren't some vast right wing conspiracy. You're 0/3.
So back to my original questions:
1. Can you sight a case of right-wingers cutting social services, causing mentally ill people to be loose on the streets?
2. And do you have any comment or refutation of the ACLU's decades of lawsuits against the mental health system we used to have being the prime reason it no longer exists?
Huh?
The ACLU has been at the forefront of gutting the mental health system in the US, attacking Assisted Outpatient Treatment laws. Their privacy concerns are valid, but all they've accomplished is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Can you sight a case of right-wingers cutting social services, causing mentally ill people to be loose on the streets?
Substitute "handgun" with "car," "bicycle," "power tools," "alcohol," "house pets," or anything else.
Also, you have to watch out for the CDC studies; they count rival drug dealers killing each other as homicide by acquaintance using a gun kept in the home. o.O
If all guns ceased to exist this instant, it would last only an instant. American manufacturers have been producing better than 15,000,000 guns/year for a while now. That's a new gun every 2.1 seconds.
Not to mention that myself and millions like me would just go out to our garages and in about 20 minutes fashion a simple 12ga. zip gun for basic home defense until we could get our hands on one of the new guns being produced every two seconds.
The fantasy of gun control doesn't just require fantasy. It requires fantasy on top of fantasy on top of fantasy....
"All guns disappear.... and you can't make new ones... and people don't substitute other weapons.... and people stop wanting to be violent... and flying unicorns start farting rainbows into our utopia.... !!!"
You have to realize that there is a difference between being an "environmentalist" and being a "conservationist."
The conservationist says, "Let's do things responsibly so we can live well, and so that our children will still have the same opportunities to live well with what we leave behind."
The environmentalist says, "If humans alter anything at all, we've failed."
The results is that the environmentalists push policies that actively hurt people in their attempts to prevent anyone from changing the environment at all. The EPA is currently the most destructive organization in all of America because of all the harm they do in the name of pseudo-environmental causes.
Conservationism is the reason we still have a logging industry that responsibly replants trees for the future and doesn't clear-cut and destroy the land. Environmentalists still protest having access to toilet paper.
Conservationists are the reason that game animal populations in North America are healthy and that people have the opportunity to enjoy hunting. Environmentalists still want wolves to be protected even while they're destroying the livelihoods of poor rural ranchers.
Like many leftist causes environmentalism has the lofty goals of making the world a better place and helping people, but the unintended consequences of trying to achieve those goals does immeasurable harm to people.
It was in their shotgun import study they did maybe 3 years ago. They were arguing that they should ban a whole bunch of models of shotguns from import because 3-gun (a sport with over 250,000 competitors, nationally sponsored "pros", and its own TV channel) and plinking were not sports by the ATF's headache inducing butchering of the English language. During said mental gymnastics, they made the claim that plinking was instead a "past-time, and not a sport." I'm sure Major League Baseball, as America's National Past-Time, would be saddened to hear that the ATF thinks it is not a sport.
; )
The problem for the ATF and the president is that they can't just ask that the current law be renewed in its previous form. They don't have the self control to just do that.
The replacement law they've proposed would not just ban "undetectable" firearms, but would also ban all of the most popular handguns (which contain LARGE amounts of metal), hugely popular magazines containing plastic and metal, and large swathes of the scary looking cosmetic features that Feinstein wets herself over (since they're made of plastic).
We literally have a government so infantile, underhanded, immature and naive, that they'll pass on renewing a law they like just because they instead want to try and cram a lot of other garbage through with it.
The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
