What is an "assault rifle"?

[cchase]

Originally Posted By: PostalBound

Look at the facts. The highest violent crime rate areas also happen to have the strictest gun laws. It simply does not work. What does work is concealed carry rights for law abiding citizens.


Get those facts out of here.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: GMBoy
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
Originally Posted By: GMBoy
As for you comment on arming teachers? Heck yeah - one good guy or gal with a gun could have prevented or atleast minized the deaths at the school by eliminating the attacker. THAT is so easy to see.


Teachers in TX can (and do) pack heat while teaching.


I live in Texas and this, to the best of my knowledge, that is not true. Schools are gun free zones. I know there was talk of this but I have not heard anymore of it.


Saw it on the news, and they were interviewing the principle. He said it's legal and they do carry in school. I'm sure a Google search will show it's true.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=teachers+carry+guns+in+texas+schools#

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: FXjohn
.....

The Nazis walked over whole armies. I doubt if some armed jews would have mattered. stupid argument


The jews in the Warsaw ghetto proved to be a tough nut for the Nazi's to crack.

 

[Robenstein]

Might I add that the afghans held off the Soviet Army for a long long time with WW1 and earlier british weapons before we supported them and started pumping arms into the country.....that army they held off...beat the German in WW2....just sayin.


I recommend FXJOHN....you start doing some reading. I took a PhD field exam...and yes....passed in German as well as modern military history. The illusion the German army was almost invincible is a false one in WW2. Luck as well as a few handful of generals and a generally weakened enemies (France and USSR early on) made their shortcomings not factor(logistics for instance).

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: Robenstein
..... Or in the case of the Japanese...they did not invade the U.S. mainland in part because of our population being well armed. Something about "You cannot invade America. You will find a rifle barrel behind every blade of grass"


Isoroku Yamamoto, who studied at Harvard, is alleged to have said thts, although there is no evidence that he did, affaik.

Might have been true in Yamamoto's day, but a would be invader of 2012 California probably wouldn't have much to worry about.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: Donald
...

So your plan would be to ?? Do nothing? Arm the teachers and principals? ...



No one should be forced to be armed if they are morally opposed to it. Likewise, an adult, not otherwise a prohibited person, should be free to be armed if he or she so desires.

Federal ( and reciprocal state ) laws banning firearms at schools should be repealed. The people that enacted them have blood on their hands by making them free fire zones for nut jobs.

 

[Robenstein]

Originally Posted By: Win
Originally Posted By: Robenstein
..... Or in the case of the Japanese...they did not invade the U.S. mainland in part because of our population being well armed. Something about "You cannot invade America. You will find a rifle barrel behind every blade of grass"


Isoroku Yamamoto, who studied at Harvard, is alleged to have said thts, although there is no evidence that he did, affaik.

Might have been true in Yamamoto's day, but a would be invader of 2012 California probably wouldn't have much to worry about.



From what I understand of the situation following Pearl Harbor, there would have been little military to stand in their way in the west. One of my older prof's father who served before and during ww2 mentioned his dad talking about the lack of tanks and guns. Said his fathers journals mention "anti tank" training using not a tank but a fuel truck with TANK painted on the side.

And yeah I thought it was Yamamoto but was honestly too lazy to look it up.

 

[Trajan]

Originally Posted By: Robenstei





If the person needs a better example of an armed populace deterring invasion....look at a map of Nazi Germany at its height and then look at that lonely blank spot called Switzerland.


Ah, no. Citizens with guns had nothing to do with it. Swiss mobilization did not deter OKW from planning an invasion. Operation Tannenbaum was planned in the fall of 1940, with 12 divisions allocated. Why didn't it happen? Those divisions were needed for the Balkans invasions followed by Barbarossa. It was put on hold until the Soviet Union was defeated.

In 1943 came Fall Schweiz. But the fall of Italy, along with political concerns, cancelled that too.

By 1943, Swiss armed forces rose from 430,000 active following mobilization in 1939 to, through two more mobilizations, to 830,000 actrive.

The Swiss plan was to slowly cede the low lying areas and many of its cities to slow the Germans down then fight a gurellia war in the Alps. Their commander, Guisan, wanted total mobilization to deal with the Germans if they retreated through Switzerland. He didn't get it. They also suffered economic problems even with out firing a shot. (The daily bread ration, for example, fell to 200 calories.)

The Nazis had bigger fish to fry than Switzerland all through the war.

 

[Robenstein]

There are always plans in the military(I mean look at some of the U.S. Military Proposals over the years). Hitler was a man who planned lots of things just to plan them, with units and divisions that only existed on paper(his generals often commented on this). The fact they were never attempted was also because the Swiss were simply too stubborn of a target in Hitler's eyes. The way in which the swiss arm their troops, especially in the 20th century by having them take their weapons home often, allowed for extremely rapid response. You did not see any of those people taking their military arms at home, which effectively arming the a huge chunk of the population, and going haywire. Hence technology and access to it does not make mass shootings happen.

I could also throw out the drive to arm the British people in the event Operation Sealion was ever attempted by the Germans. Heck, the Brits begged American gun owners to donate their arms so they could create an armed civilian Home Guard with the hope of either deterring or helping to resist any invasion into England.

These are European examples and since America was obviously a unique experiment of the 18th century, comparisons are never exact. But there is a trend of arming the people of a nation for national security throughout history from Athens to the modern era.

 

[Robenstein]

And all of this is more arguing for the individual right and originalist interpretation of the second amendment...which was affirmed in the decision on Heller vs D.C.

For what it is worth to the original post....a assault weapon/rifle was a term coined from the german efforts at a select fire rifle that ultimately culminated in the StG44.

What bugs me is that politicians and gun control proponents are trying to rewrite the definition to include just about every semi auto with a detachable mag. Hearing people refer like one of my colleagues include the 1911 pistol as an assault weapon made me laugh. It holds one more round(traditionally) than a 6 shot wheel gun and a good shooter can shoot a wheelgun awful fast. I also told him about the highly trained brits in 1914 who were so fast with their SMLE rifles that the Germans thought they had more machine guns due to the volume of fire laid down.

 

[AMC]

Originally Posted By: Win

..... Or in the case of the Japanese...they did not invade the U.S. mainland in part because of our population being well armed. Something about "You cannot invade America. You will find a rifle barrel behind every blade of grass"


There is alot of truth behind that quote. I know people don't like it when I use this example but look what happned to the US Rangers in Somolia in the 90's. Have you ever seen that movie "blackhawk Down"? The worlds finest infantry, the Army Rangers, got their @$$es handed to them by a heavily armed town. The US government has not sent any troops back since then for anything.... Any one want to guess why?

 

[RamFan]

Originally Posted By: AMC
Originally Posted By: Win

..... Or in the case of the Japanese...they did not invade the U.S. mainland in part because of our population being well armed. Something about "You cannot invade America. You will find a rifle barrel behind every blade of grass"


There is alot of truth behind that quote. I know people don't like it when I use this example but look what happned to the US Rangers in Somolia in the 90's. Have you ever seen that movie "blackhawk Down"? The worlds finest infantry, the Army Rangers, got their @$$es handed to them by a heavily armed town. The US government has not sent any troops back since then for anything.... Any one want to guess why?


You forgot to mention the previous U.S. Embassy bombings, politically, the U.S. had suffered plenty abroad. Somalia was just the last nail in the coffin for a U.S. pull out in the region. The operation that Black Hawk Down takes place in was supposed to be a quick mission and dare I say "easy". It went horribly wrong, we were under armed for what we ended up facing. We were not expecting what we encountered. [censored] handed to us? I think not, one chopper was taken down, 18 Rangers lost their lives. How many Somalis died? Hundreds.

P.S. We have gone back. AFRICOM, Camp Lemonier, etc.

 

[ChrisJH]

I dont have a dog in this fight (not a gun owner...not really for or against it, Id own one just for hobby shooting if I didnt have small kids in my house), but I agree with a few posters around here that said the issue is more of gun SAFETY than control.

Im about 30 minutes away from where the shooting happened and have kids in elementary school so it makes me a little bit emotional, but I cant say the answer is to ban guns. Sure, extend the assault rifle ban that ended in '04. Just like cocaine, meth, etc....someone will find it if they look hard enough.

Heard in the news that the shooter attempted to buy a gun and was denied. Oddly enough it looks like that part worked. What DIDNT work was the mother who owned these guns teaching the shooter how to shoot. "Teaching him responsibility". Umm, yeah, OK, get him a dog. She knew he had "issues" but not only kept guns in her house but actually taught him how to use them?

The guns shouldnt have been accessible to him (maybe they werent, it hasnt been said if he forced his way into a gun safe, etc), but absolutely no way she should have been taking him to range(s) to learn on them. As a form of responsibility no less? Clearly she should have been taught some as well.

Ultimately it comes down to you just dont know when someone will snap. Arm teachers and staff? Not sure that is the answer either....all that does is put guns even closer to the kids. Who knows if a teacher or staff will snap one day, and then you are REALLY in trouble. What if a kid get a hold of one of the teachers guns? Potentially back to where we started last Friday morning.

Chris Rock had a joke: "we dont need gun control, we need ammo control. Make bullets 1000.00 each....aint no way someone is gonna come in and kill people they dont wanna waste 1000.00 on". It was meant as a joke, but lately makes you wonder....

 

[supton]

Sometimes I wonder...

Last I knew, more kids died each year from drowning in pools. Certainly more people die each year in automobile accidents than say 10 years of gun deaths. Even if you include suicides.

Now, pools are designed for relaxing, while automobiles are designed to protect you. And supposedly guns are designed to kill. Yet the thing designed to kill does just that far less often then things designed for relaxation or protection.

****

I'm still waiting for the official story to come out before making too many judgements. It does sound like mom took him to the range to shoot (to be fair I have not read that, going off a post above), but we don't know how he gained access on that day. For all I know he killed her in her sleep, and stole the keys. Odds are, she has more blame in this, but it's still (as of this time, w/o real info) possible that she wasn't negligent in this.

Not only that but I'm not exactly sure as to how mentally "defective" he was. Just how many warning signs were there? We still haven't heard what triggered this.

I am curious where he got a bullet resistant vest from. Last I knew those weren't sold in the corner shops.

 

[AMC]

Originally Posted By: RamFan
Originally Posted By: AMC
Originally Posted By: Win

..... Or in the case of the Japanese...they did not invade the U.S. mainland in part because of our population being well armed. Something about "You cannot invade America. You will find a rifle barrel behind every blade of grass"


There is alot of truth behind that quote. I know people don't like it when I use this example but look what happned to the US Rangers in Somolia in the 90's. Have you ever seen that movie "blackhawk Down"? The worlds finest infantry, the Army Rangers, got their @$$es handed to them by a heavily armed town. The US government has not sent any troops back since then for anything.... Any one want to guess why?


You forgot to mention the previous U.S. Embassy bombings, politically, the U.S. had suffered plenty abroad. Somalia was just the last nail in the coffin for a U.S. pull out in the region. The operation that Black Hawk Down takes place in was supposed to be a quick mission and dare I say "easy". It went horribly wrong, we were under armed for what we ended up facing. We were not expecting what we encountered. [censored] handed to us? I think not, one chopper was taken down, 18 Rangers lost their lives. How many Somalis died? Hundreds.

P.S. We have gone back. AFRICOM, Camp Lemonier, etc.


True we have gone "back", but never attempted anything like blackhawk down again. The part you said about "things going horribly wrong" and "what we ended up facing" is exactly what I am talking about. Armed civilians took out 18 Rangers and spoiled a military operation, forcing them to retreat. Now consider that these were rangers with advanced weapons, training and equipment, not some barely trained national guard unit with half functioning equipment.
Call it what you will but we learned a hard lesson that day. Armed communities are a forbidable opponent to any opposing force, including a high level military unit.

 

[Trajan]

Originally Posted By: Robenstein
There are always plans in the military(I mean look at some of the U.S. Military Proposals over the years). Hitler was a man who planned lots of things just to plan them, with units and divisions that only existed on paper(his generals often commented on this). The fact they were never attempted was also because the Swiss were simply too stubborn of a target in Hitler's eyes.


The reasons as to why it was never done have been explained. I am well aware about Hitler and his phantom divisions. I am also aware that it was in 1945. In 1940, the divisions that overarn the Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France were real.

Next you'll tell me that Spain and Sweden were not invaded for the same reason, this armed citizen myth.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: ChrisJH

Heard in the news that the shooter attempted to buy a gun and was denied. Oddly enough it looks like that part worked. What DIDNT work was the mother who owned these guns teaching the shooter how to shoot. "Teaching him responsibility". Umm, yeah, OK, get him a dog. She knew he had "issues" but not only kept guns in her house but actually taught him how to use them?


Agreed ... the mother was definitely not thinking things out very well. Maybe she had some mental issues herself. If you looked really hard at everyone that owned guns, probably half of them shouldn't even have them due to lack of knowledge on how to handle and be safe with them, and who they should allow access to said guns. Just like drivers on the road ... IMO, there are many people who just don't know how to drive safely and shouldn't even be allowed to drive a car.

Originally Posted By: ChrisJH

Ultimately it comes down to you just dont know when someone will snap. Arm teachers and staff? Not sure that is the answer either....all that does is put guns even closer to the kids. Who knows if a teacher or staff will snap one day, and then you are REALLY in trouble. What if a kid get a hold of one of the teachers guns? Potentially back to where we started last Friday morning.


If a teacher or anyone else who works at the school snapped, then they could easily bring a gun into the school any time they wanted because they are allowed to freely walk in every day. Only way you could guarantee no guns in any school is to have a total lock-down with armed guards, and have metal detector scans on every person entering, including staff. Maybe that's what will ultimately happen in the future if no real solution is found. Maybe it's time to start a security company for school protection services. Parents can be charged a monthly fee to keep their kids safe.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: supton

Not only that but I'm not exactly sure as to how mentally "defective" he was. Just how many warning signs were there? We still haven't heard what triggered this.


From the reports I've heard so far, he was pretty mentally ill. Both his mother and father knew his issues. Parents are divorced, and son lived with the mother in her 1.5 million dollar home in the basement with no windows. He stayed there hidden away from society most of the time (he was called "anti-social") and played violent shootem-up video games for hours. See a pattern here?

What this country needs is a way to home in and focus on people like this. These kind of people are the ones that snap and go berserk on society ... just like every mass shooter has. They all have similar profiles.

 

[ChrisJH]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
Originally Posted By: supton

Not only that but I'm not exactly sure as to how mentally "defective" he was. Just how many warning signs were there? We still haven't heard what triggered this.


From the reports I've heard so far, he was pretty mentally ill. Both his mother and father knew his issues. Parents are divorced, and son lived with the mother in her 1.5 million dollar home in the basement with no windows. He stayed there hidden away from society most of the time (he was called "anti-social") and played violent shootem-up video games for hours. See a pattern here?

What this country needs is a way to home in and focus on people like this. These kind of people are the ones that snap and go berserk on society ... just like every mass shooter has. They all have similar profiles.


This.

Horrible irony, there was a mental health hospital in Newtown that closed down. Not sure what the reason was, but for all we know it could have done him some good. But it comes down to the people around him A) recognizing it and B) being strong enough to actually do something about it.

In the case of this shooting, I think A) was already established. B) not so much. There were some articles with neighbors quoted as saying the mother planned on moving with the shooter once he got into college, to be there to help him. Instead of planning to do that she should have been getting him professional help.

 

[Shannow]

Heard the speech on this morning's news regarding the highly emotive "weapons of war"...

I guess that's going to be the definition of "assualt weapon", which is a truly specious description. And I guess that in defining it as a "weapon of war", then as long as they, and the media are honest, the impacts should be little to none.

Do the much maligned bushmasters allow full auto or three shot bursts, like the "weapons of war" ?

Or are they semi-automatic firearms, that share visual characteristics and components with "weapons of war" ?

It's times like these that I seriously consider buying a Remington 7615P...in a country where a 10-22 is banned under our "assault rifle" laws.