18 Aug 2009, 3:32 pm
18 Aug 2009, 4:21 pm
Perhaps a visual aid will help explain why people like myself who are informed about firearms roll our eyes when the term "assault weapon" is bandied about.
This is a Ruger Mini 14 rifle:
This is an AR 15 rifle:
Functionally they are nearly identical, despite very different inner workings, they both shoot the same bullets at the same rate and can be fed from similar sized magazines, they even share a military pedigree(Mini 14 is a scaled down M14 rifle), but no one ever waves a Mini 14 around while screaming for more gun control, despite arguably more criminal usage. The Mini is cheaper and more durable than an AR, and is just as easy to shoot, possibly even easier due to the increased weight from the wooden furniture, but because it's not "scary" enough looking it tends to be overlooked by the media and gun control organizations. Also, despite their near identical performance, the Mini 14 is not considered an "assault weapon" while the AR 15 is, why is that? From a legal standpoint, it's because the Mini 14 lacks a pistol grip, a folding stock, and several other borderline cosmetic features that would not make it any more or less dangerous, but are considered "non-sporting" by people who wouldn't know the difference anyway. Had this fellow at the rally been carrying a slung Mini 14 or other semiautomatic rifle with a more "sporting" appearance there would probably not have been such an uproar raised, despite the AR 15 being no more intrinsically dangerous than any of those other rifles. As said, even the SS is like "eh, whatever", it's only the media and people misinformed by them who are getting their collective panties in a twist.
As for being in poor taste, that's neither here nor there, and considering some of the tastelessness that occurs at political events of all stripes, I don't think anyone is really in any position to start throwing stones here. Nothing in any of the reports clarifies if the guns were even loaded, or for that matter if they were even real, I wouldn't put it past the news people not to know the difference between a realistic looking bb gun and the genuine article. No one was doing anything threatening, they were just making their presence known in a manner that was certain to not be overlooked, in other words, a publicity stunt, and judging from the amount of media coverage received it seems to have worked perfectly.
18 Aug 2009, 5:32 pm
I didn't realize that there were situations where a gun owner did not need a permit (maybe I should get out more 
). Seriously though, it's a very bad idea to bring a lethal weapon to a political event where the president be, whether you're pro- or anti-gun. Why in the world would you want to up the security threat. What good could possibly come from it? If you're trying to make a statement about your constitutional right to love your guns, you're only actually fueling an anti-gun movement by pissing off a lot of moms and school teachers. Let's not forget that there is a democrat in the white house - and even the dems don't want to see Joe Biden running the show! Additionally, I think we all can see that there are a lot of angry people at these events and the risks and the stakes are only made higher by bringing a gun. Common sense seems to be in order.
18 Aug 2009, 10:26 pm
kxmode
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19 Aug 2009, 12:17 pm
19 Aug 2009, 5:38 pm
19 Aug 2009, 7:47 pm
20 Aug 2009, 1:28 am
20 Aug 2009, 9:00 am
Good point you couldn't even dissagree with bush with out the hammer coming down on you. He was in a the habit of loading seats at anywere he spoke with a "favorable" crowd the bush people tried this when over seas by pulling people off bases to go to their events. Mother's Day 2004 or 2005 my family was stroungly invited to a bush event in a milltary cemetery in luxenberg when my husband was stationed over seas. They wanted al the cubscouts and boyscouts familys off the near by bases. We didn't go partly because it would have been hard on the kids to sit in a cemetery full of dead men that do what their father does for a living partly because I knew keeping my big fat mouth shut would have been hard on me. The families that did go were screened at the border for hours, sat in the rain while other invited guests were under cover, then were blown off by bush when the kids wanted a pitcure and he guy didn't so much as wave at the kids that drove hours and sat in the rain all day to see him. What a peach of a guy.
20 Aug 2009, 11:30 am
22 Aug 2009, 8:33 pm
kxmode wrote
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Awesome quotation!
I'd read or heard it somewhere before but forgot the source.
23 Aug 2009, 2:27 am
23 Aug 2009, 2:39 am
