I wonder if someone will pick up on that.
The AR-15 is cruel to use on hogs. It’s not a quick kill at all. I use a .308win or .30-06 when hunting them in the past, but have a new tool for hogs: LR-308 semi-auto with an Armasight Predator .336 thermal scope. Just got the scope yesterday and have to get it sighted in.
When I was hunting them a few years ago, I was blind hunting, specifically for young hogs for meat, and was able to aim carefully. .223 is fine for that situation, but I agree that if you don’t have the chance to aim carefully a larger cartridge is needed for a quick, sure kill.
Here’s is a video of this guys reason for an AR15
TL;DW version: if the bad guys have them then so should you.
On a somewhat tangential note …
Due to work and other circumstances, I do not often find myself in a position where I can sit down and watch a video.
Compounding this issue is the inherent nature of video. It’s slow relative to text and pretty much has to be consumed in one continuous sitting. It’s annoying to scroll back and forth to catch another section. And there’s a strong tendency in video to skew towards style and emotional appeal over substance.
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Plus it’s a commercial for his business which is training people to shoot.
My guess though is that he believes in it. I doubt you or I will see any bad guys with AR15s or AK47s coming through our neighborhoods, but for some it could be a reality.
I think part of the debate around this weapon is the fantasy level for some of the users. I would not like to be around those who would open carry one or any gun really.
I believe anybody should have one, but the fantasy shit is a big red flag and that kid in Florida was all over social media prior to this situation. So the gun didn’t do it, the sick kid did and where were the authorities prior to this incident?
Solution: we need a ‘Minority Report”
We don’t need a Minority Report, but certainly better discrimination when police are called out as much as reported with this kid. If the reports are true, it’s not a leap in logic to conclude this boy was heading toward a crash of horrific proportions.
I’ll just point out, because I’m flabbergasted at the number of people I tell who claim not to have known until I imparted, Youtube, specifically, and many videos in general, can be sped up to at least 2x. It’s under the “gear wheel” on the bottom right side in Youtube. This makes it take 1/2 as long to get the info, unless they talk unusually fast…
Was vaguely aware of the feature. Still doesn’t overcome the issues with video being less accessible than text and basically requiring a set time and place.
You know this kid was all over social media brandishing weapons. There should have been a way for people to turn him in and been investigated. I just don’t think officials believe these things will happen until they do.
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You are buying into the anti-gun “feeling” without reasoning. What the gun looks like does not effect the function of any gun. Which one of theses is more dangerous?
Or this one:
Go after bad people, not inanimate objects.
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I own a gun, but am not a gun nut or part of the so called “gun culture”. I own a gun because in a place where gun ownership is common and criminals have them, it’'s stupid not to. If I lived somewhere where everybody had a knife and that was the deadliest weapon allowed or commonly available, I’d own and carry a knife. As big as Crocodile Dundee’s, unless a bunch of idiots decided that it was a ‘military style’ knife and made it illegal so only the criminals had them).
So, that said…
Gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right. I, or any American, don;t need to “justify” anything regarding why or for what need I want; a gun, anymore than I need to justify why I want to speak my opinion out loud or cast a vote. I get to do all of these things because here in the U.S., as a citizen with rights guaranteed by the constitution, I get to do all of these things. Period and end of story.
There are two simple truths/facts that have to be taken into account by anyone that want to talk rationally or suggest reasonable changes to existing laws:
1) I am not sure what the actual number is, but by most estimates there are at least 300 million firearms in the possession of (i.e. owned by) U.S. citizens;
2) The 2nd Amendment, as written, and with very few limitations, protects the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.
Neither of the truths/facts are going anywhere soon. So any rational conversation or thought process needs to take them into account in a serious and reasonable manner, instead of the usual political dog whistles and demagoguery.
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This is a false comparison/analogy, because there is nothing analogous to owning a gun in this country, because it is a constitutionally protected right. Comparisons to cars, knives, etc. are not constructive for that reason.
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Many reasonable, workable, thoughtful suggestions have been made, e.g. harden soft targets like schools and shopping malls; make the background check system reliable and accurate; tighten up mental health system; hold straw purchasers/sellers accountable; crack down on gun related gang activity; and enforce already existing gun laws.
I’d also make any felony gun violation a federal crime subject to mandatory federal jail time.
There is a lot of low hanging fruit here, most within the purview of the states themselves, i.e. the don’t need the federal nanny state to come in and save them…prohibiting bump stocks and barrel shrouds and rifle pistol grips will do literally nothing to solve this problem.
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In point of fact I am not on a team in this matter in any meaningful sense.
Also, don’t be obtuse…I was just responding individually to a few of various points you made in you meter long post. Said post being mostly composed of the very types of tropes, poor assumptions, and rationalizations that likely inspired OP to post in the first place. My responses were factual, well reasoned, and calmly presented so suggesting I “chill” is an odd way to reply.
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I do not think there will be an amenable discussion on the issue until people stop referring to civilian market rifles as assault weapons; Or recognize that the point of failure in the purchase of firearms lies not at the point of purchase but rather from many contributing factors upstream of the point of purchase.
As already repeated, everything it’s been compared to is a privilege whereas it’s a right to bear arms. Same way a hunting license is a privilege since (my understanding) you can only hunt on public & private land( that’s not your own) with permission.
My understanding of 2A is, it allows the citizenry of the nation to have a means of defense against the citizen elected leaders and gov’t should its leaders conspire to disregard the rights of the people.
It would also be in the best interest of any government to honor it, as it gives the nation the ability to quickly mobilize an armed force(however well or poorly trained compared to the professional soldier) on short notice; without the lead time involved to manufacture and distribute arms to the populace.
It’s a check and balance with benefits to both sides.
Of course, there’s more to this following story than what’s been reported but, it does makes one think.
In the ideal world there would be no need for firearms, the police, and military; but it is not, therefore there is.
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On a different note:
Do the majority of the NRA members really sign up for the non-firearm merchant discounts?
I wonder how big (or small) of a dent firearms owners can make should they minimize their patronage of the disassociating businesses?
Is this how it looks like when big businesses unfriends another? 
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To make it worse, where were the authorities during the shooting?
It seems that there was an armed deputy outside the school during the shooting that chose not to go inside the building at any point in the shooting. This deputy is now suspended and has resigned
@Andrew_Timmons, Safety is just not the point. Guns are safe, I believe the stat is around 1% of all gun related deaths are “Accidental”. I can’t see how you could make any where near that claim with Motor Vehicle Deaths. So to say that we need to make guns safer to operate is just wrong. The issues with guns are Suicide and Crime.
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in America and makes up about 2/3s of all gun deaths. This is a very sad statistic, but we can’t force people by law or regulation to not commit suicide. The members of our population that want to end their lives will find a way. All we can do is try to identify those that may commit suicide and get them help.
Crime makes up the other 1/3 of gun deaths. The problem with this stat is that guns are among the best tools to commit a lethal crime with as well as defend yourself from a lethal crime. This is why criminals, the police, and many legal gun owners use and own firearms. As the article at the beginning of my post shows, we can’t hold the police accountable to protect us from all crime. The incident in Florida is only one example of this. Also, around 80% of criminals using guns don’t legally own the firearm. So stricter gun regulation would probably have little effect on criminals getting firearms as they are in the vast majority not even following the laws of firearms purchase, let alone use.
It is just a more nuanced problem than gun regulation. Removing guns from America scares me. Firearms are one of the lasting signs of freedom we have, as well as one of the only ways we have to physically protect that freedom. I don’t like talking in these kinds of absolutes, but they happen to be true in this case. The only way to protect from a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Luckily, the good guys out number the bad guys by a ton. Lets keep it that way.
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No, there are now stories that there were 4 armed deputies outside while the shooter was still active.
And separately, there is a twitter thread accusing the school district and sherif’s department of collusion to obtain grants for reducing juvenile crime. To meet the required reductions in cri,e rate, they simply cut down the number of juvenile arrests each year. Once the quota for the year was met, a teen could allegedly steal a police car from the police station in plain sight and only fear being detained off the books for a few hours. Allegedly a very high percentage of juvenile crime was simply ignored.
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One article I saw recently suggested that the school systems now bear more resemblance to a prison than the high school I graduated from in '87. In part because while the student population has roughly tripled, the number of schools is less than half, implying schools are on average six times larger. This leads to the clique behavior being even stronger. The jocks, nerds, cool kids, and all the rest are that much larger groups, creating stronger echo chambers of group think, and stronger pressure for conformity. The result is that the loners and outcasts are that much more outside the group, and subject to so much more ostracism. Meanwhile the administration usually supports the existing clique/caste system because it makes the overall administration easier.
You want to cut down on student on student violence (which this is a barely removed case of in my mind) you need to figure out how to actively identify, reach out and engage the marginalized individuals, be sure they are ok, and give them guidance in life. The big problem is that by current social dogma, a white, middle class male is never a marginalized individual, no matter how far outside one of the acceptable social groups he may be.
To make this worse, too high a portion of the population of parents are simply checked out from actively caring/participating with how their kids are doing. A crossing guard I know that works a neighborhood of $300K homes says she was shocked how many kids (grade school!) walked to school dressed totally inappropriately for cool weather. She took to knowing the next morning’s weather forecast, so that on the walk home, she could tell them to dress warm in the morning, or to leave the heavy coat at home. If the parents aren’t helping their kids dress appropriate for the weather, what are the odds they are in tune with how the kids are doing socially at school?
I think that making progress in either area would help cut down on not just student on student violence, but also cut down issues by those individuals later in life.
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