Gun Laws

Awesome JJ!

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Senator Feinstein, one of the authors of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban passed under President Clinton, has a new bill that will be presented to congress on January 3rd. Among the many things outlined in the bill, it will ban "assault rifles", which seems to be the main point everyone wants to go after. Furthermore it will force everyone who currently owns an "assault rifle" to pay the government $200 (per firearm). They will also have to register the firearm, be fingerprinted, submit a photograph of themselves, submit an address of where the firearm will be kept, and will require permission from the BATFE if the owner wants to transport the firearm across state lines. When the owner dies, the firearm must be given to the government. The firearm cannot be transferred to anyone else.

The bill would ban any firearm that has one of the characteristics outlined in the 1994 ban (note that the previous ban required two characteristics, this one requires only one).

Semiautomatic pistols accepting detachable magazines:
1) ammunition magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
2) threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash hider, forward handgrip, or silencer
3) heat shroud attached to or encircling the barrel
4) weight of more than 50 ounces unloaded
5) semiautomatic version of a fully automatic weapon

Semiautomatic rifles accepting detachable magazines:
1) folding or telescoping stock
2) pistol grip that protrudes beneath the firing action
3) bayonet mount
4) flash hider or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
5) grenade launcher

Semiautomatic shotguns:
1) folding or telescoping stock
2) pistol grip that protrudes beneath the firing action
3) fixed magazine capacity over 5 rounds
4) ability to accept a detachable ammunition magazine

[source, page 6]

Here is a link to the public release on Feinstein's bill.

Personally, I hope Congress throws this bill out completely and makes someone else write up another. God forbid someone should have a rifle stock that can be adjusted to how long your arm is or has a hole for your thumb to go in.
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The only reason I'd re-write it would be to make it tougher. But that's me. Smile

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Where the waves grow sweet,
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Playing devil's advocate: @Reep: if there was a ban on swords, you'd be perfectly fine with the content of the law focusing on the particular degree of comfort the hilt provides?
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It would bug me, but if swords were being used for mass slaughter, I'd suck it up. Fortunately for me swords are nowhere near as effecient as assault rifles for mass slaughter.
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Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

That's quite true. On the same day as this latest event, twenty two kids were stabbed in China in a similar event. Not one, however, died. Getting rid of guns doesn't prevent or treat the underlying psychoses, but it sure as hell makes it a lot harder for people to kill others.
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Well the technical aspects of a telescoping stock versus a folding stock, the folding stock would have a shorter overall length than what you would achieve with a telescoping stock slid to its shortest allowable length. A telescoping stock will allow you to have a more concealable weapon to a degree, but any kind of rifle will be hard to conceal, even if you remove the stock completely. That's because a rifle has to have a minimum barrel length unless you register it as a NFA firearm.

I'm not sure concealability has ever been an issue in any mass shootings (at least concealability of a rifle). The only incidents that I can recall where a shooter concealed their weapon involved handguns.
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Master Joined: 09 Jun 2009 Posts: 1410

The only rifle mass shooting I can recall is the Texas Bell Tower and Charles Whitman. Since this was the first mass shooting in modern times, no one could've conceived of it happening. I don't remember when the next mass shooting happened but the Texas Tower one felt like an isolated occurrence.

Incidentally, Houston McCoy, the Austin policeman who stopped Charles Whitman, died just three days ago. McCoy and another officer, Martinez, both shot Whitman.
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Knight Joined: 10 Apr 2011 Posts: 434

Be interesting to see what the results of the hearings today are. Will people finally take some serious action or will they refuse to listen?

Since talk has turned from assault rifles to high capacity magazines, I thought this was worth posting (it's part of a letter written and signed by Army special forces)

Master Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Posts: 1796 Location: Carcosa

It doesn't seem any change in gun laws is going to be made on the federal level.

The polarization of the issue is problematic because the gun rights side does not want to give any ground, and consequently any legislation is written by people like Diane Feinstein, whose bills are written from ignorance.

I think the most sensible means to handle the situation is to have some form of gun registry and/or require training, but "federal gun registry" seems to equal "the government is preparing to take your guns away." In the United States, you have a right to vote, but you still have to register to vote. Is it asking too much to register a gun for your right to own one? I don't think so. But perhaps there's a compelling argument to be made against any sort of registry?

Also, I think it's lame that automatic weapons manufactured after 1986 are illegal. You can own automatic guns manufactured before 1986, there are simply hoops to jump through in order to do so. It's an arbitrary distinction. But I guess it's irrelevant to me since I'm in California, which is Diane Feinstein's state, and I can't own an AR-15 at all! And I don't really need an automatic rifle, but that's just an example of the weird gun control laws that get written by those in favor of them without a mediating force.

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