Should civilians be allowed to own machine guns?

[dead0man]

No. No Assault weapons, NO.

Two crime have been committed with legal machine guns since 1934 and I think both of those involved cops.  Restricting them further is just dumb.

[dead0man]

wait wait wait....you think it's laws that keep regular folk from buying ICBMs?  Why would you think you couldn't own an ICBM?   You don't even need to use a govt facility anymore!  This is why gun nuts always defeat gun control nuts.....because you guys are funking stupid.


excellent "gotcha" as always Harry.

[dead0man]

I'm pretty sure you can hunt wild boar in Texas with anything.

yep (some people are going to be triggered by this, so, if the idea of hunting intelligent mammals from a helicopter with a machine gun offends you....oh...I think I just did it...nevermind!)

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[dead0man]

Does a "semi-automatic AR-15" fall into the category of a "machine gun?"

no, it's a round every pull of the trigger.  The last bit talks about the machine guns.

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Sure, and it has been in 1934 and 1986 and it hasn't been a problem so far.

[dead0man]

Wild boar is a big problem in the south.  link - The Smithsonian

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It's a huge problem and hunting them with machine guns from helicopters isn't going to stop it.

[dead0man]

Okay, so Texas has a big hog problem. Still, do you really need something resembling a machine gun to kill boars? Wouldn't a hand gun suffice?

do you know how hard it would be to hit something with a hand gun from a helicopter?  sheesh



(yes I understand that's not what you were asking, it's just such a bad question that I had to try and make at least the response funny....most hand guns would only piss off a boar.  Large handguns can only be fired by giants and strong people.  A 8 year old could kill a boar with a proper rifle and he would eventually hit it if he was using a full automatic one.  Plus the point is to kill as many of those things as possible, and doing it humanely would be a plus.  Handguns are going to kill slower and more painfully.  Why hamstring the hunters doing this very valuable service for non-hunters?)

[dead0man]

none of this matters for two reasons.

1.It's VERY hard to be able to own a legal fully automatic weapon.  The hoops you have to jump through and the dollars you need to purchase are both enormous.  If you want to cause a lot of damage there are MUCH cheaper ways than legally buying a machine gun.  Because of that, the people that own them keep them very well protected so there is little chance of them getting into the hands of bad guys.  If a bad guy wants a gun it's much easier for him to just get one on the black market.

2.because of all that, they are almost never used in crime.  And not like "10/year" almost never, or "1/year" or even "1/decade"...we're talking twice in 80 years almost never.


trying to further restrict them isn't going to change anything other than harden pro gun people's position.  If you care about gun crime or mass shootings or school shootings or whatever goal posts you're focusing on this afternoon, it would be best to target something that might actually do something.

[dead0man]

If you know so much about firearms, explain bump stocks.

I don't know all that much about firearms, I've just been doing this exact same argument for the last 20 years.  I think bump stocks are stupid.  But since they've only been used in one crime ever (I've never looked that up, but I've said enough times and nobody has ever questioned it, feel free to prove me wrong), I think it's dumb to ban them.  But since they're dumb, I'm not going to argue against banning them (ya know, compromising.  The thing both sides have to do sometimes.).

it would be best to target something that might actually do something.

What do you suggest will work?

punishing people harder that use guns in a bad way.  Punishing people that are not supposed to have guns but get caught with guns much harder.  Punishing grandma more when she buys a gun for Tommy because Tommy can't buy a gun because Tommy has a habit of knocking over 7/11s (straw purchases).