Goldy, when you take into consideration that "Assault Weapons" are used in a tiny percentage of overall firearms violence, and when you consider that approximately 30 million of them are owned by law abiding citizens, what exactly is your rational for supporting a ban on them?

Why not promote restrictions on handguns, which are far more likely to actually be used to kill/maim/injure a human?

@1, assault weapons are not dangerous? I thought they were for shooting a bunch of bullets really fast. I had no idea they were no more dangerous than a hoe in a P-patch.

@2, That is not what I said. I said they are used in a tiny percentage of overall firearms violence. Or are we simply banning stuff on the basis of potential danger?

(Also, a "assault weapon" in the sense of the ban is a semi-automatic firearm and will not, for practical purposes, shoot any faster than any other semi-automatic firearm.)

If assault weapon bans are useless because they only affect cosmetic details that are easy to circumvent, then why are the gun lovers' panties in such a twist? Dob't they just need to remove said cosmetic features (or buy assault weapons that don't have them)

Or are all the gun lovers just against taking any action, reasonable or not?

Where do I get one of those two-tone pocket squares?

@4 They're not just cosmetic. The Assault Weapons Ban (both the defunct law and the new federal proposal) ban large capacity magazines above 10 rounds. In Tucson, Jared Lee Loughner fired a pistol with a 33-round magazine, killing 6 and injuring 13 in a single volley. It was only when he paused to reload that he was tackled to the ground.

@4, If your ban only applies to new firearms and has no effect on current firearms, I'd have no problem with it - hell, it would probably triple the already inflated values of existing "assault weapons". However, most of the proposals that I have seen involve various restrictions on existing "assault weapons".

Regardless, my question was, what is the rational behind banning them when they're mostly irrelevant to firearm violence.

Done.

@4, the truth is that they are the profit center for gun sales, and replacing handguns and rifles doesn't make the profits for the manufacturers. The rest of the debate is pure bullshit to distract.

@6, The proposal Goldy refers to, and Obama's current proposal, have a "large cap magazine ban" and an "assault weapons ban" as two different items.

@9, So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that the rational behind the new "assault weapons" ban is to punish manufacturers?

@10 The NRA opposes a ban on large capacity magazines: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2… Do you?

@11, No, I do not (oppose a ban on high cap magazines). I don't think a ban on them will be effective, but I don't think it'll hurt either.

Methinks the Confederate flag-waving crowd doth protest too much.

Just like their al-Qaeda brethren.

Hey, on the off chance the magical thinking 'plan' here fails to take flight and just succeeds in costing some Team Blue senators their jobs, could we have as a backup plan:

1) pull $10B out of TSA and the Pentagon budget for suicide prevention,

2) pull another $10B out of the DEA budget that currently goes to shoot and incarcerate people who grow unapproved plants and use it for school safety (maybe, I don't know, some locks, safety glass and cameras?), and

3) enforce with malice a few of the dozens of existing laws on the books against violent criminals owning or attempting to purchase guns?

Stuff that might, you know, change the actual numbers of people getting killed and injured, starting tomorrow?

@4
"If assault weapon bans are useless because they only affect cosmetic details that are easy to circumvent, then why are the gun lovers' panties in such a twist?"

The best part of that "logic" is that you will be one of the first to post about how dumb the gun nuts are when they buy up all the soon-to-be-banned "assault weapons" should that become law.

Meanwhile, the "gun nuts" here keep telling you that banning cosmetic features will do NOTHING to change the functionality of the gun.
All that banning them will do is drive up the price of those guns.

So go ahead and support a ban on them.
But do not try to pretend that you are doing anything to reduce crime or shootings.

Your threats to circumvent the law are not going to stop the law from being passed. The old tactics and threats aren't working this time. People are fed up, and there are going to be new laws. You'll do better if you're part of the process, but no one with give a shit if you don't.

Cue the gun fetishists.

How do we add liability insurance to that plan?

Most of the shootings in this country do not involve death. They involve injury, and somebody has to pay for that. A large number of injuries are entirely unintentional, too. Seems like an area where insurance would be important.

@16, "You'll do better if you're part of the process, but no one with give a shit if you don't." Err, which part of that process is that in your mind? The one where all the people that disagree with you suddenly say, "Oh yes! Despite these things called facts, you are completely right!"

@18, Make some laws, that are actually enforced, that make people liable for accidental/unauthorized firearm use. Either gun owners will A) be more careful, B) be bankrupted, or C) there will suddenly be a whole new world of insurance to sell. Or some combination thereof.

The assault gun ban is a poison pill for passing anything meaningful.

It polls far worse than the things that stand a good chance of passing (limited magazines, universal background checks, crackdown on traffickers) and as @1 points out, it's a small part of the problem.

Limiting an assault weapon to 10 rounds is good enough for me. Without the advantage of larger capacity, who would opt for a rifle over a handgun in a close-quarters scenario like Sandy Hook or Aurora? With a rifle, it's far easier for someone to disarm you by charging you, since you can't shoot them once they are closer to you than the tip of the gun, and it's way harder to conceal.

Cede to the gun nuts scary-looking guns with limited capacity. Then all they've got left in this gun debate are dead-on-arrival positions. E.g., explaining why universal background checks or increased punishment for traffickers are bad ideas. Or, explaining how 30-round magazines are needed for self defense/hunting. (Or even better, how they're needed for shooting our boys in blue and the fine men and women of our military.)

@20
"Or, explaining how 30-round magazines are needed for self defense/hunting."

I think you've been skipping some of the comments here.
Banning 30 round magazines WITHOUT confiscation will only result in the price of 30 round magazines going up.
If you cannot pass a ban AND confiscation then the next best option is a ban AND a requirement that "post-ban" guns be designed to be incompatible with existing magazines.

The PROBLEM is that most of the shootings (someone wounded and/or someone killed) happen with hand guns with "lower capacity" magazines.
So a ban like that will have almost no impact on crime.

"Cede to the gun nuts scary-looking guns with limited capacity."

Those "gun nuts" are the ones explaining the facts to you.
Reducing CRIME is not the same as banning 30 round magazines.
BANNING 30 round magazines is not the same as reducing crime.

This conversation gets dumber by the minute. As of right now, even Obama has realized that nobody can get a ban on assault rifles or high-cap mags passed in the Senate, much less the House. At best, he might get some changes to the "gun show loophole" passed. Might. Even that's iffy.

@21 - "Banning 30 round magazines WITHOUT confiscation will only result in the price of 30 round magazines going up."

Make buying and selling them a federal crime, then. There aren't many people who would risk jail time to sell a magazine to some yahoo they don't even know, especially if they seem off. I'm certain one can buy a machine gun even today. But it takes more than a browser and a credit card, because it's illegal.

It's not about ending crime. It's about taking an advantage away from a shooter on a rampage. Reloading creates a moment of vulnerability, and better for that to occur every 10 rounds than every 30.

i hate to agree with @22, but obama knows this too.

the GOP didn't change a whit in 2012, and neither did the DINOs.

the Status Quo wins.

@23
"It's not about ending crime."

And that is the core problem with getting such a law passed.

"Make buying and selling them a federal crime, then."

So you want to add an additional category of crime for something which is 100% legal today and you admit that it will not prevent other crimes.

Seems like people re more concerned with adding new laws that criminalize otherwise law abiding citizens and overburden our already overtaxed criminal justice system while giving more power to the police state/prison industrial complex.

Makes one wonder why anyone would feel that they one day may need to fight tyranny?

How about we enforce current laws on those who are arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, or violent crimes rather than slapping those wrist and cutting them loose due to their "difficult upbringing."

@23, Actually the hardest part of buying a fully automatic firearm (assuming you're not a criminal) is coming up with the $10-30k one costs. If you are a criminal and can't wait 6 months/pass the background check, they're probably even more expensive.

@26, to be fair, just imprisoning people who are arrested for illegal possession doesn't dramatically reduce the amount of firearm violence. California has very strict laws for illegal possession but it hasn't reduce their firearm homicide rate much. Massachusetts saw little change in firearm violence after instituting mandatory prison terms for illegal possession.

Massachusetts was able to dramatically reduce homicides and violent crime through Operation Ceasefire and Operation Homefront, which are two anti-gang initiatives:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/police/about…

(Neither of which had a significant impact on millions, or even hundreds, of law-abiding citizens).

Also, even more important than prosecuting for illegal possession, in my opinion, is prosecuting people for illegal sales and straw purchases. If gang members had to pay a thousand dollars for a "Saturday Night Special" instead of $50-100, they'd probably knife people instead of shooting them, just like they do in the UK..

Currently making a straw purchase has the potential for a $250k fine and 10 years of prison. In reality, most straw purchasers aren't even prosecuted. As Operation Fast and Furious demonstrated, Federal Prosecutors aren't interested. The largest source of criminal firearms, other than friends/family, is corrupt, licensed dealers selling off book and illegal (non-licensed) dealers who purchase from pawn shops and so on.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/…

Also - gun-control-nuts, I'm still hoping for a real answer as to the rational for supporting an "assault weapons ban".

@27
"California has very strict laws for illegal possession but it hasn't reduce their firearm homicide rate much."

I think that is (as you have noted) because of the characteristics of the majority of the crimes committed with guns.
If the crime can be committed with a cheap hand gun and a 10 round magazine then banning 30 round magazines is not going to reduce that crime at all.
There MIGHT (but very unlikely) be fewer injuries/deaths AND the actual crime would still have been committed.

But that is just more reason for The Stranger to keep a running list of any and all gun-related incidents in Seattle.