gunner369 Loc: NV

this is how it operates

(Download)

GeneB Loc: Chattanooga Tennessee

that should be illegal.

MichaelH Loc: NorCal via Lansing, MI

That would be in a sane world. The NRA will quickly point out that "guns don't kill people - people kill people". Guns just make it way more efficient and efficiency is out right.

I seem to remember the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia admitted that the "original intent" viewpoint of the Constitution only protected the "right to bear arms" of the type available at the time the Constitution was ratified and not automatic military style weapons of today, which could be fully regulated and banned.

3dees

when it was originally written in the constitution there were only muskets. our founding fathers couldn't have envisioned what weapons would become.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

You don't need the device. I was taught two ways to get the same effect in the Army. And we were taught using the 7.62(308) M-14. It is easier and less punishment to your body from recoil with just about any 5.56(223). I once absentmindedly did it with a Ruger Mini-14 at the range. 3 round burst with a group the size of a silver dollar and a lot of people looking around to see where the sound came from. A friend who tried it with his AR-15 told me it was actually harder to do then with the Mini-14 due to the pistol grip changing the way you grip the gun.

gunner369 Loc: NV

I agree, it works the same with a semi mac 10 and pencil eraser.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

As if that's relevant to anything (and it's a horrible argument to boot)

Let's use it for the 1st amendment:

when it was originally written in the constitution folks talk to others once a week. Our founding fathers never envisioned a world where folks could talk to each other around the world in real time.


Does that make any sense at all?

Of course not. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with a human slaughtering other humans. The tool has nothing to do with it.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Why?
Because a nut bag used it to kill others?

Let's outlaw cars and baseball bats too if that's your logic.


I know LOTS of folks who have LOTS of weapons including bump-fire stocks and guess what? They don't shoot each other!


Newsflash...making parts of guns illegal doesn't stop people from killing each other, it just limits the rights of law abiding folks to buy things that they want.


A bump fire stock isn't anything new or unique...big deal.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Then shame on Justice Scalia, he's dead wrong. He has no idea what they did or didn't envision; this is a horrible argument. They put that in place so that folks would be able to defend themselves against an oppressive government; they would have assumed that weapons would advance in the future, they weren't stupid.

Here is a good article refuting that nonsense...be enlightened.


http://danaloeschradio.com/refuting-the-progressive-argument-of-the-anachronistic-second-amendment/

digitalexplr Loc: Central Missouri

If one were to be intellectually honest, to apply the 2nd Amendment to "muskets" one would need to apply the 1st Amendment to quills and printing presses.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Which is what makes it such a stupid argument.

MichaelH Loc: NorCal via Lansing, MI

I, also, do not think "original intent" was envisioned by the US Constitution writers. That is the way of looking at the Constitution that "Right Wingers" use to suppress advances in citizens rights - like LGBT rights.

I also remember reading an interview with Justice Scalia where he was making the point that if we allow homosexual marriage what will happen next is that the citizens will soon be demanding plural marriages. Duh, of course! He did not go on to say what would be "wrong" with that. But it did seem to go against what he felt were cultural norms. (And it would bring up some interesting questions like does the husband get any say when the wife wants to take a second husband!)


Justice Scalia was quite intelligent but seemed to always approach an argument with whatever logic was required to get to his chosen point of view.

The Constitution in general says that ALL rights belong to the individual US citizen EXCEPT those expressly taken away by law. And those rights enumerated in the Bill Of Rights are provided increased protection.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Don't you just love it when newspapers / tv/ websites go out of their way to show other idiots how a moron managed to do something deadly.

That is not confined to just the US by the way - nor particularly about guns....

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Extreme bans would not even stop people from getting guns.
Two of the most famous cases:
1) the man who did the basic design work on the M-1 Carbine did it while in prison and took it to Winchester after he got out. One of his unofficial jobs in prison - prison gunsmith working on the guards' guns. According to some he designed and built 4 different semi-automatic guns while in prison.
2) Then there was the report of the prisoners who built a sub-machine gun one part at a time, as pieces of metal sculptures in the prison hobby shop, and chambered for the 38 special (caliber used by the guards handguns at the time). They got all their parts assembled. Used it to force a guard to surrender, it wasn't loaded, but the guard didn't know that. (if you were that guard what would you do if someone was pointing a sub-machine gun at you- think "They are prisoners-they can't get ammunition!" -- but they shouldn't have had the gun either) They loaded the home made gun from the guard's extra ammunition and now they had a loaded sub-machine gun and a loaded revolver.

A gunsmith/machinist I used to know claimed that if you gave him access to a fairly well equipped garage/machine shop and a '57 Chevy engine block for raw materials he could build you a machine gun in a couple of days. I am sure he said '57 Chevy engine block just for the shock value since pipe, bar steel and flat sheet steel would make it even easier.