And then there’s the obligatory “the Second Amendment is outdated” editorial
And here’s a rebuttal.
This is a good opportunity for me to recommend that you read this law review article from 1994 about “assault weapons” and “semi-automatic” ones and how they do and/or do not differ from other firearms. I’m no gun expert—au contraire—so the technicalities (and any errors or outdated facts) elude me, but it seems to be making some excellent, and usually poorly understood, points.
I also recommend this piece by John Hinderaker on the MSM’s abysmally inaccurate coverage of the Newtown shootings.
[NOTE: I had never heard of the author of the law review article, David Kopel, before, but when I Googled him I found he’s got an interesting list of publications.]
The Second Amendment is intended to prevent a minority interest (e.g. government) from running amuck and committing involuntary exploitation of the people.
It acts in two ways: as an initial and continuing deterrent and as a means to address grievances when peaceable avenues are unavailable. In the extreme, the latter is realized in a revolution (e.g. French Revolution) to hold the minority interest accountable for their transgressions.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
With an important caveat:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
OIver at Ace he links tothe following article that discusses why guns are civilization:
http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization
A quote: “Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force . . . .”
It follows, then, that the left, which operates on the basis of feelings, not reason, wants to eliminate the prospect of force as 5the only other obstacle to total control. The way of all despots.
Furthermore, in the wat of the CT shootings the left is coming out of the woodwork disparaging proponents of the second amendment. This overwhelming outpouring of leftist angst and hate almost completely overhsadow the existing rebuttal arguments. I renew my call for conservative billionaires to begin looking to purchase and create networks with the specific purpoise of countering the overwhelming leftists meme.
Frankly, at this point in time, the only thing I believe keeping the Democrats in check from the imposition of total tyranny is the existence of an armed popuation. I really have a hard time believing they are interested in stopping mass killings. This is all too much in line with Alinsky tactics.
A ban on semiauto weapons is just plain ridculous, first due the practicality of trying to round up the millions of such guns. Second, there’s not a whole lot of difference between the fire rate of a semiauto and a regular action such as a revolver, or pump shotgun. They are a bit faster than a bolt action rifle, but Lee Harvey Oswald showed how fast a good marksman can pop off rounds even with a bolt action rifle.
I own two semi shotguns, and have owned a pump action in the past. The pump was almost as fast in firing, but I went with the semi’s due to our trap/skeet shooting where the pump action pulls the gun off the moving target more when I want to try a second shot. For home protection, many people have told me the pump is better just due to its intimidating distinctive sound as a round is chambered.
T-
That’s an oldy but a goodie. I’m happy to see Marko getting credit for it because a couple of other Internet personalities have claimed it or attributed it to others.
I recommend it often.
Progressives don’t believe in the Constitution, none of it. Any appeals to it are momentarily utilitarian to win an argument with people who don’t really understand the Constitution and founding.
In Europe journalists are registered like guns. I would suspect that progressives here would love that as well so they could exclude all conservatives from the journalistic ranks. And no doubt that would include bloggers as well.
question for physics guy how do these Mass assaults play into the alinsky plan?
never waste a crisis…
They don’t per se. No more so than Katrina, Sandy, BP oil spill, etc…… what it does is provide the progressives with an raison d’etre for pushing their anti-gun agenda. “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.
EXCLUSIVE: Fear of being committed may have caused Connecticut gunman to snap
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/18/fear-being-committed-may-have-caused-connecticut-madman-to-snap/
Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and (her) plans to have him committed
Yeah about the different kinds of rifles. Assault weapon was created as a propaganda phrase by the Germans for WWII. It’s just another translation of ‘storm’. ie; an “assault weapon” is the weapon carried by a “storm trooper”…. its a silly phrase… boring looking riffles are the same… and California, for instance, has banned particular 22 cal rifles as ‘assault weapons’ just due to looks (same as the others)…
The Dangers of Fatherlessness
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/02/16/the-dangers-of-fatherlessness/
Lanza is not the first to come from a single parent home where the connection between children and usually father, is absent or broken.
Serial Killers by Joel Norris
Of Men and Monsters by Richard Tithecott
The second amendment is outdated in both the left and many liberals views but for different reasons.
Committed leftist progressives want guns to be only in the hands of the government because it ultimately provides control of ‘the masses’ (those who are ruled by the elite are not people, they are the masses) where if necessary they can use armed government forces to retain control.
Liberals want to feel safe. And are quite willing to “give up a little liberty to gain a little security”, they are in willful denial that it will in time result in the loss of both.
Assault rifles were first introduced by the Germans in WW2 (based upon their data from WW1). Real assault rifles are select fire weapons (semiauto or full auto via a switch) that fire an intermediate powered round. The real key is the use of the intermediate powered round, one less powerful then a rifle round but more powerful then a pistol round.
When the Germans introduced the concept, they introduced it as a machine carbine (Mkb-42). Hitler object to it on logistics grounds since it introduced a new round (intermediate, the 7.92 Kurtz), so the German military relabled it as a machine pistol (MP-43) to get around Hitler. Late in the war Hitler accepted it and it became the assault (storm) rifle (Stg-44). The machine carbine designation was much more descriptive.
David Kopel has written many articles in gun magazines. I’ve read his work many times.
The problem is that one side has reason, logic, and facts on its side and the other side operates on pure emotion. It is impossible to reason with them because they are impervious to reason.
They also have the media on their side, which has become an active enemy of liberty. They spew lies and misinformation with the speed of a fully automatic rifle. They are whipping the public into a state of fear and panic, and they are doing it purposely. Needless to say, this does not create an atmosphere in which sensible, effective measures can be considered.
I’ve read it before (a long time ago), and looking through it now it is very solid.
I can nitpick some points. For example, the pistol grip stock is the result of designing the rifle so that it has an inline stock. The end result is to make it easier to control the weapon in rapid fire, as he states, but the real means is the in-line stock, which reduces muzzle climb, and not the pistol grip itself.
One point I’d make: rifles like the AR 15, particularly the carbine form, are great weapons for small people and women. Their 5.56 round has little recoil. The carbine stock can be adjusted to fit smaller people. The weapon is light, and easy to use. If you add on an advanced optical sight it works well in low light and for those with aging eyes. The carbine version is handy indoors. The 5.56 round tends to fragment and penetrate less building structure then larger calibers, making it safer to use for home defense.
Bob Kantor Says:
We hear from everyone these days that America is a violent society. Violent compared to what? To Europe, which is forever condemning us for our gun culture? More civilized Europeans slaughtered one another in one battle in WWI, the Battle of the Somme, than were killed by guns in the US over the last 20 years. And in the last century, tens of millions of Europeans were murdered by their own governments and by enemy armies, equivalent to about a thousand years of gun violence in this country.
DonS:
I have an AR-15 carbine (with eeevil 30-round magazines), and I agree with what you said. These are immensely popular weapons, and there are many good reasons for that. There’s a whole aftermarket for gewgaws, knickknacks and accessories to use with it. It’s infinitely customizable.
I also have an M-1 Garand, and that thing weighs a ton. I haven’t fired it much, but it’s a real piece of history and I’m glad I bought it. I have a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun which kicks like a mule. But the AR-15 is a joy to use. I’m a man, but I’m not physically strong. As you said, women can handle it easily.
The M-1 Garand was the first semiautomatic rifle to be issued to regular army troops. Some of the elite German stormtroopers in WWI had earlier types of semiautomatic rifles, but the overwhelming majority of infantry soldiers on all sides used manually-operated bolt action rifles in WWI.
I read a good article awhile ago about how the U.S. military transitioned from the M-1 to the M-16. Both the Germans and Russians developed fully automatic weapons during WWII. The U.S. developed a fully automatic version of the M-1 called the M-14, but it fired large .30-06 rounds and it was hard to control in full auto mode. They decided that they needed a full auto rifle that fired smaller cartridges, and to make a long story short, the M-16 was born. The civilian AR-15 is identical to the military M-16 with the exception that it is semiautomatic, rather than fully automatic.
Another factor in the adoption of the M-16 was that we were getting involved in Vietnam at the time (late 50s to early 60s) and we wanted to provide weapons which were easier for the physically smaller Vietnamese troops to handle.
The U.S. developed a fully automatic version of the M-1 called the M-14
A friend of mine who saw a lot of combat in Vietnam liked the M-14 better than the M-16. I’m not sure why he preferred the one to the other, but the M-14 did have a reputation for reliability.
chuck:
The M-16 got a bad reputation for jamming at first. They eventually worked out the bugs. Also, it was thought that it didn’t need as much cleaning and maintenance as earlier rifles, but that turned out not to be the case.
Went to the store today and bought another Bushmaster .223. The FBI background check phone lines were down for an hour while I waited. They have been doing that all day I understand. The ammo was cleaned off the shelves. The lines were quite long in Houston – sort of like on chick-filet appreciation day
I hope it does not disappoint anyone, but there will be no rampage. Something has obviously gone wrong with my gun, it isn’t making me shoot people. I’m thinking I should demand a refund.
thanks for the response art & guy, I was aware of that “never waste a crisis” & I am getting my mind around the strategy of constantly using that tactic. Sadly though it has really crippled & poisoned the functioning of America. So instead of a discussion about the lack of resources for the mentally ill (a huge factor in this sad event) we are relegated to a defense & a push back of
the constant harpy that is the Left. “our agenda, our agenda”
like the rabbit in Alice In Wonderland. At the behest of Carter, Kennedy & the other Lefties back in the 70’s the mentally ill were returned to the unsheltered environment of a city’s streets where they have morphed into all the barefoot, homeless, cardboard box dwellers we see around us.
The Left instead of better pay for mental health workers which would have attracted a higher caliber employee & better treatment for the patients they opted to put these needy souls on the mean streets. I am an RN, I do not call that compassion. A winter night on the streets in the Northern Tier
BBBBRRRRR !!!!!!
I’m bolt action guy. I’ll stick with my scoped Mauser 8MM and 192 grain projectiles. Wear several inches of kevlar encrusted steel in my neighborhood. 😉
Isn’t it interesting how progressives think pocket size guns can be controlled but illegal aliens can’t be? Hmmmmm
rickl Says:
“The problem is that one side has reason, logic, and facts on its side and the other side operates on pure emotion.”
Thats going easy on them. They can’t think in any other term than simple materialism (I’m somewhat a materialist myself… but not as base / far out there as them). The lump of metal / the weapon causes the problems in their minds. Not the person, the culture, or the lack of values the culture taught them.
rickl @ 7:13,
Well put, that is exactly correct.
And it is women, who are most susceptible, to appeals to emotion.
I am increasingly struck by the fact that in so many issues today, the solution offered by emotion is the path most guaranteed to lead to exactly the opposite of what is desired. And, in general it is women in the 18-40 yr range, who are voting to force us down that path.
Some years ago, I reached the conclusion that what was preventing the election of a woman President was the public’s subconscious perception that, in general, women still hadn’t accepted the ultimate responsibility of a nation’s leader.
Namely, knowing when ordering men and women into harm’s way was necessary and, a willingness to do so even though they knew that it was a death sentence for many of those so ordered.
In the affairs of nations, frequently the choices are bad and really bad. And that sometimes the question isn’t if some should die but whose death will best serve the nation. And that you can’t possibly answer that question successfully, if you base your decision solely on how may are likely to die.
There are many men who don’t meet that standard and thus are unfit for the job. And so is any leader’s indifference to the sacrifice a nation may ask, a disqualification.
Most women have not yet learned how to remain a woman, while making the hard decisions that a leader’s job requires.
Hillary Clinton, perhaps our next President, can make the hard decisions but long ago lost, if she ever had it, the compassion necessary to being a real woman.
Though I greatly admire Maggie Thatcher’s acumen and political philosophy, it is Golda Meir whom I believe is the best example of what I describe.
And that despite her, for the time, liberal leanings is the best example I know for the right combination of “toughness and compassion” in a woman leader.
Not for nothing did Egypt’s Anwar Sadat call her the ‘Tough Old Lady’…
Yet this same woman said, “What bothers me most is not that Arabs kill our children, but that they force us to kill theirs.”
Geoffrey Britain:
I still think Sarah Palin has what it takes. Out of all the figures on the political scene today, she’s still my first choice.
Whether she wants the job is another question. And I wouldn’t blame her a bit if she doesn’t.
Hey, let’s throw this into the mix, from commenter William on the Ann Althouse blog:
“I’m an old man and a living link with the past. In the olden days, when leftists wished to argue against gun owners, they claimed that guns were phallic symbols and that the excessive love of guns demonstrated latent homosexuality. Keep oiling and loading that pisstool, big boy. We know what you’re really doing….Can we not now claim that excessive fear of gun ownership indicates a streak of homophobia? They don’t want to ban guns. We know what they really want to ban.”
Abe Greenwald of COMMENTARY says it best today:
“Hysteria on the largest scale possible has become the default official response to all crises. A lay public furnished with near-instantaneous media coverage can be counted on to demand immediate and absolute measures so that the crisis can be scrubbed from consciousness, however crudely or illogically. And over-monitored leaders will be sure to comply. Today a politician can lose his job if he doesn’t swiftly change historical precedent to fit the frenzied misinterpretation of a still-breaking news story.”
Freud had hysteria as a big feature of the case studies that brought him to prominence (The Case of Anna O, inter alia). The word stems from the Greek, not Latin as most medical lingo does, and IIRC was said to involve an untethered, “wandering ” uterus.
I forgot to mention this last night, but the modern semiautomatic weapon with high-capacity, detachable magazine has come about in a process of technological evolution.
The earliest rifles and pistols were single-shot muzzleloaders. Loading them was a painstaking, time-consuming process which involved powder horns, lead balls, and ramrods.
In the mid-19th century the revolver was developed, along with the breech-loading rifle and metal cartridge. This greatly sped up reloading. The pressure of war dictated the need for ever greater speed and efficiency. See the 1964 movie Zulu for a demonstration of single-shot breech-loading rifles in action.
By the time of World War I most rifles used five-round clips, but the bolt still needed to be operated by hand after each shot. The M1911 semiautomatic pistol was introduced, featuring a seven-round detachable magazine, but many officers still carried revolvers.
The Garand semiautomatic rifle with an eight round clip was introduced in the late 1930s. After World War II, fully automatic weapons came into increasing use. They went through ammo in a hurry, which necessitated detachable magazines with higher capacity.
In the movie “Gangs of New York” there is a scene where a rioting mob armed with clubs and knives smashes their way into a house. The homeowner confronts them with a pair of single-shot pistols. Not very effective. In a scenario like that, a semiautomatic weapon with a high-capacity magazine is a minimum requirement, and full auto would be preferable.
the emotionalism manifesting itself in the electorate is definately young female driven, along with large portions of gay males & college educated metrosexuals, this coupled with an immature sense of entitlement is tainting the political dialogue
The first gas operated semi auto rifle was designed by a Mexican general and used by the Germans in WW1. The Russians had something close to a real assault rifle (select fire using a lower powered round) when they developed a select fir rifle using the smaller Japanese 6.5 mm rifle round in the WW1 timeframe.
There were a number of semi auto rifle developments during the 20s and 30s, by various nations. The Russians and Americans went the farthest, the fench tried too hard for perfection, the Brits were trying to coordinate with the Americans, and the German army ordered that no such rifle use gas tapped from a hole in the barrel (the solution which has proven the best).
M-14 fires 7.62 NATO, similar to the .30-06 but about 1/2″ shorter, but with almost identical ballistics.
The US pushed NATO to adopt the 7.62 NATO round. We also had some studies which showed that going to a 5.56 (.22) round would increase combat effectiveness, and private industry developed the advanced AR-10 (7.62 mm) and AR-15 (5.56 mm) rifles. The Kennedy administration pushed for the adoption of the AR-15, which became the M-16 in US service (note, AR-15 did not mean the semi auto only civilian version back then). There was a lot of opposition to the AR-15/M-16 rifle in the military.
First, the aluminum and plastic AR-15 looks like a toy. Second, the 5.56 mm round looked like something you take hunting groundhogs, and was viewed as too weak. Third, the early M-16s had some reliability problems related to several issues, including the powder the army mandated for use in Vietnam. These problems amplified each other because military leaders who thought the weapon was too much of a toy were vindicated by its reliabilty problems, never mind M-14s and M-1s had had their issues that had to be worked out.
Perhaps too much, but here is an outline of .30-06 history:
It started as the .30-03, then was modified into the .30-06 with advanced spitzer type bullet (copying the German advances in bullet design).
The .30-06 is actuall the .30 M1906, the date of adoption.
Based upon WW1 experience, to increase the max effective range for use in machine guns, they replaced the .30 M1906 with the .30 M1.
But the long maximum range of the .30 M1 caused problems at many army rifle ranges, where the longer range bullet could be a safety hazzard. so they developed the .30 M2, which is basically the same as the older M1906. Since the lighter bullet in the M2 had less recoil, it was preferrd by the troops and ended up being standard in WW2. The M1 went on to become the basis of M72 match ammo.
The 7.62 NATO is basically a shortened .30 M2 with very similar ballistics. Advances in gunpowder made that possible.
Now that I put neo to sleep, I’ll mention that there is an interesting political history surrounding the British .303 round, the Hauge Convention, and hollow point and soft point bullets. In fact, the term “Dum Dum” as applied to bullets comes from the place in India where soft nose bullets were made.
I read through your link to Hinderaker’s comments on the MSM’s corrections, and incredulously copied this paragraph which he cites among his collected corrections, for substantive criticism …
… before realizing Hinderaker had already done so himself just following:
He makes an extremely important point.
What, if anything do the idiots reporting the news actually “know” about anything at all?
Could they reasonably believe that the victims were slain by a man using guns firing .004″ and .036″ and inch caliber bullets? (Four thousandths of an inch and thirty-six thousandths of an inch diameters respectively.)
A dime, as even a reporter might be expected to know, is about fifty thousandths of an inch thick, as in top to bottom, whereas the Caucasian’s proverbial scalp hair is about .1 mm, or .004″ or a little less in diameter.
A heavy duty paperclip – I just happen to have one handy for straightening and measuring – is made of a wire having diameter of .037″; a slightly larger diameter than the reportedly larger caliber of .9 millimeter. [.9 x .0394″ = .035″]
The bigger caliber gun then, shot bullets the diameter of a paperclip wire. Or so we were informed.
Back in the real world, multiply that .9 mm “caliber” by 5 or so, and you are finally up to the size of the pellets found in BB type guns: 4.5 mm, or .177 inch prox.
The smallest commercially available and common caliber firearm that I even know of is a .17 hmr.
Yet neither the fact gatherers who are supposedly university graduates, nor their editors – ostensibly the same plus seasoned by experience and common sense – realized they were publishing not only nonsense, but spectacularly obvious nonsense.
And they wonder why they are held in contempt?
As the saying famously goes, the moment they open their mouths about anything you know anything about, they prove themselves either liars or fools.
DNW:
That reminds me of a news report that said a shooter used a “22 mm” pistol (he obviously meant .22 caliber), which prompted a blog commenter to say, “That guy must have had arms like Popeye.”
DonS:
Thanks for the detailed information. I’m neither a gun expert nor a history expert, and I hope I didn’t come across that way. I was just trying to give a general outline and was deliberately vague about specifics.
I knew the part about the M-14 firing .30-06 was wrong as soon as I posted it.
As the saying goes, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
rickl Says:
December 19th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Yeah, I doubt even Der Schwarzenegger would be depicted hoisting a piece discharging a round about the size of that used in the nose cannons of WWII fighter planes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20mm_cannon
(Now watch some troll show up and claim that a Brown Bess ball is virtually a “20mm projectile”)
I just noticed that I typed “and” where I should have typed “an”.
For,
“.036″ and inch caliber ”
Read,
“.036″ an inch caliber ”
Of course the error probably wouldn’t confuse anyone … other than those whom it was meant to help inform in the first place.
Guess some of the double prime inch symbols were redundant too, given that I wrote “inch”.
Think I’ll leave the blackboard to others. Or start some serious proofing.
rickl,
I can’t believe I forgot Sarah Palin. She’s absolutely at the top of the current list. Clearly, I had a ‘brain freeze’.
A little late to the discussion, but just wanted to add that I have a California legal AR-15.
For those that don’t know, we can own an AR-15 in California, but only use 10 round magazines and the magazine release is a bullet button (requiring a “tool” to release the magazine, or tip of a bullet, hence the name).
I have an LMT Defender Model 16, a carbine (M4 setup). Agreed with others – it’s very light and a joy to shoot. I’ve outfitted mine with an AimPoint red dot site.
Ryan,
There are other options for CA gun owners. You can use a real ugly stock that eliminates the pistol grip per CA law, and then you don’t need the bullet butten. But you still must use 10 round mags, and you also have to eliminate other features, like folding stocks and such. The bullet button approach is the preferred approach.
In the UK sems were banned, they still have ARs with the gas tube removed, making it a strait pull actions.
This last point is interesting: even if all semi autos are banned, you could still sell and own manually operated ARs, and you could also sell the steel tube needed to convert in to semi auto operation.
If all repeatable arms are banned, you could make a single shot AR that could be converted to repeater and semi auto capability.
Even if all firearms are banned, you could still sell and own 80% receivers, which could then be built into firearms.
To make a ban work, ALL gun parts would have to be banned.
Further, if such bans are in place, and if the penalty is high enought, it means you might as well go the full distance if you are going to violate the ban, and go for full auto. Or, hell, RPGs.