As predictable as the sun rising, as soon as the recent tragedy in central Texas was announced where 26 parishioners were gunned down at church, a former co-worker of mine immediately pulled out the liberal playbook, and proudly announced “How many more times will this be relevant” aka, “when will we ever have common-sense gun control”. So being the person I am (I like poking bears), I answered back “Yeah! and while you’re at it we need more common sense truck control. Anyone can get their hands on a truck. Unlike guns they don’t even need a background check to get a truck. Just look at the recent ny and Europe tragedies. Nobody needs a truck. They should only be for professionals. There’s no constitutional protection for trucks, unlike guns. This should be easy. It’s time for some common sense truck control!”. Of course there is never any liberal outrage when a truck is used in commission of a violent crime. He of course couldn’t comprehend the comparison because that falls outside of the liberal playbook.
Surprisingly, another gentleman jumped on board pointed out the fact that we need more knife control, pointing to a knife attack in China that killed 28, followed by pointing out the pressure cooker bombs. So of course I had to say Yes! Sporks and crockpots are all anyone needs. Well you guessed it, he couldn’t accept the analogy, so I let up on him and followed up with, what laws he would propose that would make criminals magically start obeying laws.
I pointed out that murder is already against the law. Criminals already have guns and will continue to get their hands on guns. Then the news came out that the guy was courtmartialed and convicted of family violence, and initially reported that he was dishonorably discharged from the military. Any one of those 3 things would make him a prohibited possessor of firearms. So again I asked what the goal is, to make criminals more criminally or punish law-abiding citizens. Then I pointed to another inconvenient fact that they all hate, the Chicago crime statistics, because after all since guns aren’t permitted in Chicago, surely there is no gun violence. Wrong
Once he gave up on that line of thought, he and another liberal said, well all assault weapons should be banned. So I asked, how they define an assault rifle, an Armalite Rifle, or all black rifles? After continuing to push for a definition, one of them offered up, “any weapon designed specifically for a military use, with no other intended function than body count. High ROF and the heat characteristics to meet that demand, high capacity, bored for a round that is meant for high speed and penetration, with low ablation.”
So, I proceeded to break down his proudly plagiarized definition of assault weapon. “So basically any semi-automatic weapon then. “High Rate of Fire” is very subjective. I point to my previous link where an individual is shown to be able to shoot 16 rounds in 4 seconds using a revolver. .38 Caliber revolvers were designed for military and police use, and were common in the military and police use until the ’80s, so I guess all revolvers are out too. High capacity? Ok, let’s assume that’s a 10 round magazine since that’s what Californians love. Personally I can do a mag reload from my belt in under 3 seconds and I compete with people who are way faster than me, so I’m not really sure what that buys you other than a mental warm fuzzy, again look at the video of a guy shooting 16 rounds in a revolver in under 4 seconds. “bored for a round that is meant for high speed and penetration”, so basically any rifle round, so I guess all rifles are out. 1911’s shoot a big fat slow moving round, and have a standard capacity of 8 rounds, but they were originally designed for military use, so I guess they’re out too. So I guess to sum it up, using your definition, only musket rifles and pistols are ok. Thanks for clarifying.
Ouch, his response, “I only meant long guns”. So of course, I also had to include shotguns as being out because they can be configured to hold more than 5 rounds and shot with a “high rate of fire”.
Dang it, another one down. Next approach, why can’t you meet us half-way, why does it have to be a zero-sum game? Well the answer is we have tried to meet half-way, NFA class 3 is a prime example. I didn’t bother to point out that it was the NRA that pioneered the federal NICS background check system. I did point out that I and the NRA agree that bump stocks should be NFA class 3. I did however provide links on how to make one at home using plywood, and asked how do they propose to fix that.
As expected, all I got back was, well that’s more of a bare minimum. What about the gun show loophole, we need to fix that. I responded with you mean the ability for a family member to gift a gun to another family member or for an individual to sell a gun to another individual? I responded with, well my current rates are $20 for non LTC holders and $10, for LTC holders, I’m all for it, my rates will instantly quadruple because it gives us FFL dealers a monopoly. I’m all for it.
Dang it, that didn’t go as expected, let’s try the next approach. Wouldn’t it be great if there were no guns, like Australia and Japan, after all our founding fathers couldn’t have predicted guns would be what they are today? Not wanting to get bogged down in the statistics debate, I offered up, yeah great, let’s also restrict free speech to quill and paper, and eliminate freedom of religion. Yeah I do like baiting. The response I got back was “that’s not the same thing, free speech never hurt anyone and why would freedom of religion be an issue”. Really, have you never heard of cyber-bullying and the suicides it causes? Religion? Branch dividians, heavens gate, Jim Jones and Islamic terrorism, surely our founding fathers couldn’t have had those extreme examples in mind.
So back we go to we just need to make it harder to get your hands on guns. Again, I go back to what do they propose to make criminals magically start obeying the law. About this time, it comes out that the shooter was stopped by a good guy with a gun. An NRA instructor shot Kelly using his black rifle. So I ask what they think about that. Nothing, probably because it flies in the face of their playbook.
Taking pity on them, I throw them another bone to gnaw on. I point out that the only part of an armalite rifle that requires and FFL as part of the transfer is the receiver. At which point I point them to the blueprints for how to machine a receiver with basic machine shop skills and a block of anodized aluminum. Then to add napalm to the fire, I point out that if they feel that’s too time consuming, they can just order an 80% lower, and finish it themselves with a drill and router. Of course I had to go back to, “maybe freedom of speech should be limited too” because the information is publicly available. Again nothing.
It’s ok liberals, don’t cry too much, just learn to leave the thinking to the smart folks.